Strange Indeed

I'm currently reading Cannery Row, a novel by one of California's greatest writers, John Steinbeck. I'm finding it to be quite philosophical at times, chock full of interesting commentary on society. I was particularly struck by the following dialogue today.

"It has always seemed strange to me," said Doc. "The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while mean admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second."

"Who wants to be good if he has to be hungry too?" said Richard Frost.

"Oh, it isn't a matter of hunger. It's something quite different. The sale of souls to gain the whole world is completely voluntary and almost unanimous--but not quite."

I must agree with Steinbeck that it is sadly true that we seem to say we value certain kinds of virtues in men and then define "success" in society by opposing traits. I wonder if it's always been this way. Should we change our definition of success, society must needs not always be this way. Though this passage paints a rather pessimistic picture, there's also a ray of optimism at the end.

Virtues Twice Blest

Nikhil responded to one of my recent posts on prayer with a beautiful bit of Shakespeare from The Merchant of Venice. In this play, Shakespeare writes of mercy as being "twice blest: It blesseth him that gives and him that takes."
That got me to pondering, do all of the divine virtues produce this effect of blessing the doer and the receiver of the virtue? Certainly love does: it blesses the person who gives the love and the person who receives it. The same is true for patience, forgiveness, service, kindness...

When we think about virtues like justice and truthfulness, the equation on the surface seems to get trickier. For example, if a child breaks a plate and tells his mommy truthfully, he may get punished. Yet, in the long run, both the mother and the child benefit from the trust that is built by the child in that act of truthfulness, and in this way they are both blest by the truthfulness. My sense is that the same is true of justice, though I find it harder to unravel. Any takers?

Brain vs. Heart Speed

Over the last couple days I've been envisaging, in talking to N and N, how our brains can get ahead of our hearts. Things may sink in rationally before they do emotionally.

Intellectually, we may understand trust, detachment, acceptance, etc. We may even think that we've learned these lessons and managed to acquire these virtues in particular relationships. But fully learning--in the sense of internalizing--these lessons (i.e., letting go of jealousy, covetousness, distrust, attachment, other insecurities) may take longer, emotionally. I have personally experienced the self-judgment and frustration that results from this lag time. And, as far as I can tell, I'm not the only one. When I think I've gleaned a particular lesson, I become frustrated when I find myself still having emotional reactions that stem from the lower self (see examples in previous parentheses). I've blogged about this before -- I tend to judge myself harshly and get angry with myself for even having these very human reactions, particularly when I think I "should have" already moved beyond having them. How to find peace in this situation? I propose that it must start with removing the self-judgment that arises in such a situation; let's replace the judgment with love, patience, understanding, compassion, and forgiveness. Perhaps this emotional learning requires a lifetime of effort. Perhaps we learn it in phases (I'm envisioning those glass jars with different colors of sand, one layer on top of another, that I used to create as a child). I suspect that as we make progress in learning one virtue it will likely help reinforce others (e.g., learning trust may help us to more freely love, and vice versa). And, quite likely, our growth trajectories may be imperfect. We may learn in bits and spurts, and sporadically take dips and turns and have moments in which we find ourselves in valleys of doubt.

I am uncertain how often emotional and spiritual learnings start at the intellectual level -- most of the time? sometimes? all of the time? What's your opinion, dear reader? But beginning with the assumption that our brains and hearts move at different speeds requires that we be patient with, loving and forgiving of ourselves, and I trust that exhibiting these qualities to ourselves will help us to grow spiritually.

Are Negative Emotions Always Bad?

In response to my last post, a very thoughtful question was posed: how do we distinguish virtues from vices? Are these so-called “vices” always bad?

Let’s start with another excerpt from Thich Nhat Hanh’s book True Love (which I’m loving and highly recommend):

"for Buddhists, we are joy, but we are also pain; we are understanding, but we are also ignorance. Meditating is not transforming oneself into a battlefield where one side is fighting another, where good fights evil.... Buddhist meditation is based on the principle of nonduality. This means that if we are mindfulness, if we are love, we are also ignorance, we are also suffering, and there is no reason to suppress anything at all" (p. 50).

Then, and here's the important part, TNH goes on to say: "When the seed of anger manifests on the level of our conscious mind, our immediate awareness, it is because the seed of anger is in the depths of our consciousness, and then we begin to suffer.... The task of the meditator is not to chase away or to suppress the energy of anger that is there but rather to invite another energy that will be able to care for the anger." (pp. 50-51).

You could take what he says here about anger and replace it with any other baser/negative emotion/vice, which I’ve also referred to as qualities of the "lower self' -- i.e. jealousy, worry, defensiveness, selfishness, etc. So the trick, as TNH tells us, seems to be to gradually replace baser emotions with stronger positive emotions/qualities of the higher self. That makes me think of a quote I love from the Baha’i writings: “when a thought of war comes, oppose it by a stronger thought of peace. A thought of hatred must be destroyed by a more powerful thought of love. Thoughts of war bring destruction to all harmony, well-being, restfulness and content. Thoughts of love are constructive of brotherhood, peace, friendship, and happiness.” –Abdu’l-Baha, Paris Talks

Now back to the original question. Is it not true that even these lower emotions serve their purpose too, e.g., that the purpose of jealousy may be self-preservation? Sure, I certainly agree with that. There is a reason behind all of our reactions. I think this is precisely why we shouldn’t judge ourselves too harshly for having such feelings… not to mention that judging ourselves ends up producing more negative emotions, thus making it harder to move forward into a more positive state of existence. So is that it? Or is there more to it?

1) The first step seems to be to recognize the root of these lower emotions and discover how they’re serving us. We often build them up as defenses and they can work to serve us for years; e.g., I may become defensive, angry and not easily accept people if a number of people have proven un-trustworthy and un-just over the years, say if I’ve been judged for the color of my skin, been abused by a parent or sexually violated by a partner. This defensiveness and anger can serve to keep me safe.

2) The next step is to recognize that, while serving their purpose, these negative emotions, ultimately, do not serve the highest good for our own personal/spiritual growth, nor for that of humanity on the whole. Defensiveness/distrust/anger would keep me from fully expressing my capacity to love, and it is certainly not constructive of peace, harmony, trust and unity.

3) Finally, I believe that at any moment we can choose to trust our own ability to construct a new reality for ourselves. At any moment we can choose to recognize and affirm “I am a loving person”, “I am a trusting person” and imbibe those realities for ourselves. This does require some faith, but I can tell you from my own experience that such affirmations really work. We may need to say them a hundred times before our hearts finally open to their truth, but when we see this genuine deeper truth and recognize that each one of us has these qualities of the higher self in some potential form within us (at least, that's what I believe), we are able to move into using these qualities and to discard our past less constructive patterns.

The Problem with Aspiring to Be Virtuous

The problem with aspiring to be increasingly virtuous is that, at times, you are bound to fail. We're all human, a.k.a. we all fail. But when we fail, we may--as we seek to deepen our moral character--end up judging ourselves for having reactions that are not-so-virtuous.

Example #1: Attachment to Blogging
In my very first post on Constant Curiosity I discussed how for years I resisted blogging. This was, in part, because I felt that blogging would lead to too much self-indulgence, not to mention increased computer time (which, given that I already sit behind a computer all day at work and generally uses the computer far-too-often, did not sound very appealing). I didn't want to get caught up in blogging, didn't want to form an attachment to needing to blog nor self-judgment about whether I'd say anything of interest. And now that I do blog another concern has arisen: that of forming attachments to whether other people comment on what I say. I may feel hurt if people don't comment on my blog. Yet, I don't want to care about these things. These are not my motivations for blogging. I blog for myself, to educate myself spiritually, to arrive at a greater understanding of truth through discourse with you all, and to, through God's grace, to be of service and potentially share something that might be illuminating to the passerby. But alas, as much as I try, at times I feel these negative attachments. And then the self-judgment may come. When it does, I wonder whether I should even blog at all? One means of lessening attachments is disposing of the source of potential attachment. Perhaps I should stop blogging if I recognize that I'm developing such attachments? But that sort of seems like a cop-out.

So how does this example relate to virtuosity? Well, as I strive to be more virtuous I recognize that it would be better for me and all concerned if I did not have such attachments. What's interesting is that because I aspire to move beyond these attachments or qualities of my lower self, I may end up suppressing and/or hiding feelings of hurt, guilt, self-doubt, distrust because I see them as not being virtuous/qualities of my higher self.

Thus, I think it can be problematic to strive to be virtuous. This self-judgment that crops up when failure arises in our path to be more virtuous is not ideal. Surely such self-doubt, and the pain and suffering we inflict upon ourselves for having these very human yet not virtuous feelings would also be undesirable. We humans are bound to fail at times.

Example #2: Jealousy
Here's another example: let's say I'm feeling jealous. Jealousy is a quality of my lower self, one that hinders unity and trust. Jealousy is not a virtue. I tend to judge myself rather harshly when I notice that I am having any feelings of jealousy. I aspire to grow beyond having any jealousy.

For you to ponder...
I wonder whether we should always communicate with those we care about when we are feeling hurt because of a reaction that comes from our lower self? Should I tell my lover if I'm feeling jealous? Or would it be better to recognize this feeling/reaction silently and focus on moving beyond it without discussing it with him? Or, going back to the 1st example, if I recognize that I'm feeling hurt that a particular person has not posted a comment on my blog in a long time and I recognize that I'm aspiring to move beyond such attachments, is it better to not say anything (potentially continuing to let it bother me in the process) or to bring it up in order to deal with the feeling and move on? Does saying something merely fan the flame that reinforces the lower self? This is something I wonder about in a great number of circumstances when my thoughts/actions/choices are less than virtuous.

Here’s my answer. I generally tend to error on the side of communication. But this communication, while open, should be also be thoughtful, not reactionary -- we should take ownership for our hurt feelings, be honest about our vulnerabilities and fears.

Ideally, I don't think that the answer is to ignore or judge ourselves for our less than virtuous moments, precisely because we should also strive to forgive ourselves, be gentle and loving with ourselves. If we get stuck in the self-judgment, it becomes much harder to grow in a positive direction. Of course, all this is easier said than done. To restore peace within yourself, you must follow the Buddha’s advice to first love yourself. Thich Nhat Hanh writes in True Love: A Practice for Awakening the Heart:

“If you are not able to take care of yourself, if you are not able to accept yourself, how could you accept another person and how could you love him or her? So it is necessary to come back to yourself in order to be able to achieve the transformation.” (p. 44)