Just Sit Still, For a Moment

You need not leave your room.

Remain seated at your table

and listen. You need not even listen;

simply wait. You need not even wait;

just be quiet, still, and solitary.

The world will freely offer

itself to you to be unmasked.

It has no choice; it will roll

in ecstasy at your feet.

(Franz Kafka, “The Great Wall of China and Other Stories”)

For now she need not think about

anybody. She could be by herself, by herself.

And that was what now she often felt

the need of---to think; well not even to

think. To be silent; to be alone. All the

being and the doing, expansive,

glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one

shrunk, with a sense of solemnity,

to being oneself; a wedge-shaped core

of darkness, something invisible to

others---Not as oneself did one find

rest ever, in her experience, but as a

wedge of darkness. Losing personality,

losing the fret, the hurry, the stir; and

there rose to her lips always some

exclamation of triumph over life when

things came together in this peace,

this rest, this eternity.

(Virginia Wolf, To The Lighthouse)

These quotes come from a lovely little book edited by Roger Housden, Risking Everything: 110 Poems of Love and Revelation.

Change and movement have always been upon us, but perhaps never more dramatically than today. Everything seems to be running at top speed. Responding, we jump from one thing to another, ceaselessly. Stressed and caught up in the whirlwind of continual movement and change, we can lose touch with ourselves. Distracted, rushed and scattered, we are not in control of our own mental and emotional processes. We suffer, and export our suffering to others.

Paradoxically, even though agitated by the movement barrage, we anxiously seek yet more action, motion, distraction. In our swirling minds, if we are not continuously stimulated or distracted by something, horrible things will happen. We might have to think about things we would rather leave buried. No wonder some of us have no idea who or what we are, living in an illusory world of constant motion. The quotes allude to stopping the merry-go-round, reconnecting with ourselves. “Just be quiet, still, and solitary,” suggests Kafka. And Wolf, “…not even to think. To be silent; to be alone.” Nothing is happening. Nothing needs to happen.

Nothing to force, nothing to expect. Yet, both authors imply that something can happen in this space of quiet and mental rest. Kafka says that “…the world will freely offer itself to you….” Wolf says: “…when things come together in this peace, this rest, this eternity.” What is this something that can happen? A realization that we must separate our wellbeing from the turmoil of life, by not doing (Wu-wei again). Sit quietly. Think nothing. One minute. Multiple times a day.

Slow down. Everything. Movements, thoughts, speaking. The Talmud says, “Life is so short we must move very slowly.” Or we never know where it went. Slowing helps us stay in the present, unlikely to be undermined by our own personal turmoil, or that around us. From cell phones and social media to meetings and exercising. Above all, teach the young, who are in the most danger from the addiction to movement and distraction.

“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” (Blaise Pascal, Pensees)

Wu-wei

By now you know that I value Asian wisdom, believing from personal experience that it helps us live as good a life as possible. Wu-wei is a fundamental Taoist principle, and is translated variously as “non-doing” or “non-action,” or my favorite, “effortless effort.” Wu-wei is a simple concept, but very difficult to explain. I will make the effort, with my own interpretation.

The first two definitions seem to the Westerner to imply doing nothing, but not so in Taoist thought. That is why I like “effortless effort,” which is more direct. Even this is problematic for some because it seems contradictory or paradoxical, and thus cannot be true or real. But like much in Eastern thought, appearances can be deceiving, and paradoxes are often quite real.

Wu-wei is action in accord with the order and flow of things, and is thus effortless (not necessarily easy) because it is not bucking reality. Although the concept sounds esoteric, most people understand flow and the best path of action. Suppose your chain saw is jammed in a tree trunk. Going with the flow entails careful movements to gradually free the device. Angrily pulling or pushing it, forcing it, does not work, and could lead to a dangerous outcome. Or, when you are hurried and find yourself in traffic, you may become angry or frustrated. This can lead at best to agitating yourself about the world’s unfairness, and at the worst to unwise and dangerous driving choices, trying to force an outcome.

These two examples demonstrate the potential for off-balance actions arising from being attached to something, to insisting the world be different than it is. Attachments are large emotional commitments to MUST HAVE results, and Wu-wei cannot be achieved even in small measure with them.

There are two ways we can look at Wu-wei, one internal and one external. Imagine a woman who wants to be a world-class skater. She puts in huge amounts of time and energy to achieve her goal. How does that accord with effortless effort? Effort is certainly expended, often substantial and over a long period. And while she has goals for progress in pace, quality, and endurance, she is without the emotional commitments to those, which can obstruct progress. She is not attached, understanding that progress cannot be forced, coming as it does and when it will.

If set-backs occur, such as a pulled muscle, she has no resentment or frustration, recognizing bumps as part of the flow of development. Allowing frustration to intrude means she wants the world to be different than it is, not a Wu-wei condition. For her it is wasted energy.

Once the skater reaches world-class status (and part of Wu-wei is that she may not), observers   see an ease and grace in her movements, each of which is defined, clear, purposeful, and appropriate, even when spontaneous. Her movements appear effortless. She is all focus. She is one with her skating program. In those moments she epitomizes Wu-wei.

It is not only athletes who can achieve a state of Wu-wei. Anyone can. A plumber, software programmer, gardener, lawyer, nurse, etc. Usually Wu-wei is achieved in areas of work or avocation. But it is a desirable state for any aspect of our lives. Like many things in life, we may achieve effortless effort in some areas, and to some degree, while not much in others.

Activity is not required for Wu-wei. It could mean “quieting the mind.” I have struggled in meditation as my “monkey mind” (jumping from one thought to another) intrudes into the inner silence I want. If I allow that mental movement to affect me, my meditation is disrupted and Wu-wei is not achieved. Forcing the mind to behave produces nothing but more agitation. But if I accept that mental agitation is part of the human condition, whether it involves meditation or not, I can move toward Wu-wei.

Whether we accept that there is a Taoist natural flow to the world is irrelevant to achieving balance, calm, and flow in all things. We arrive at effortless effort not by having the right belief system, but by having the right understanding and attitude toward how the world really works---not how we must have it work. When insisting on things going as we wish, we expend physical and emotional energy trying to force an outcome that will not be achieved, or if it is, will be at tremendous cost.

A common Wu-wei depiction in Taoism is water, which gets where it needs to go effortlessly. Nothing can stop it, yet it expends no energy getting there. It takes the “best” path without planning. It does not fuss about there being a “better” path, or about the current path being too difficult.

How shall we become like water?

Humility and The Tao Te Ching

A humble person has a realistic view of herself and her abilities, and has developed healthy self-esteem through taking knocks and getting back up again. She is not a doormat and not lacking in confidence or in competence, often erroneously ascribed to humble people. Even knowing her abilities, she is unwilling to push herself forward, to brag, or to take credit not due her, as those less grounded might do. Her quiet confidence and sensitivity permit her to see to the wellbeing of others, often by creating emotional safety for them, even in the midst of conflict. Whatever is happening around her, she is essentially unfazed, being grounded by a realistic sense of self. Unfortunately, her kind are rare today, and becoming rarer.

Society today can hardly be characterized as emphasizing humility, the mere idea of which is distasteful to many. If anything, it is the opposite, with narcissistic tendencies and behavior on the rise. Lacking humility, we exaggerate our own importance, separating ourselves from others. We take ourselves far too seriously, leading to an excessive focus on ourselves. Civility and respect are casualties.

What might account for this paucity of humility? Part seems due to people being told from childhood that they are totally special, part to the decades-old enthusiasm for encouraging people to act out their feelings no matter the impact on others, and part to the fact that American (and Western) society is in disarray generally, with traditional support mechanisms in decline or absent. These factors conspire insidiously to undermine faith in the personal and societal benefits of humility, founded on a true sense of self-worth and respect for others.

As uncertainty increases, people are pushed on an endless search for emotional safety. But lacking as it does appropriate limits, reasonable expectations of personal behavior and responsibility, and proper interpersonal boundaries, people are emotionally adrift, insecure and fearful. Desperate for something that will give them a touchstone, a solid foundation in today’s continuous fluidity, many “look for love in all the wrong places.” They may find a temporary, if unsuccessful, refuge in things like social media/internet escapism, narcissistic self-centeredness, or in being absolutely certain of something, almost anything, from a political ideology to their own specialness, false gods all.

How can the ancient wisdom of the Tao Te Ching instruct us?

He who stands on tiptoe

doesn’t stand firm.

He who rushes ahead

doesn’t go far.

He who tries to shine

dims his own light.

He who defines himself

can’t know who he really is.

He who has power over others

can’t empower himself.

He who clings to his work

will create nothing that endures.

If you want to accord with the Tao,

just do your job, then let go.

From Tao Te Ching, #24

Stephen Mitchell

The first long stanza emphasizes the futility of clutching and grasping at things we imagine will get us what we want, not realizing that our efforts are likely to produce the opposite. The last two lines express a related theme common in Buddhism generally, as well as in Zen and Taoism---letting go, avoiding or dismantling attachments to ideas, outcomes, oneself. Attachments are the fusing of anything with a large emotional force, keeping us from making helpful judgments or taking beneficial actions, particularly towards others. Attachments can express great personal neediness, increasing today as stresses multiply and stability mechanisms fall into disrepair or disappear entirely. The more uncertain everyday life becomes, the more people unconsciously resort to clutching and grasping, hoping for support in the midst of personal turmoil. As these efforts are bound to fail, many redouble their efforts, creating a vicious downward cycle.

Loss of humility, and its correlate loss of concern for others, are simultaneously an outcome of societal uncertainty and the lack of healthy support mechanisms, and a cause of further disorientation. There is no stopping this trend unless those of us professing a moral grounding for our lives and for our interactions with others, even those we do not like or strenuously disagree with, model humility every day. That naturally requires a highly evolved and fearless knowledge of ourselves producing a solid emotional grounding, an issue I dealt with a bit in the last post on “knowing yourself.”

Knowing Yourself

Can we know ourselves? seems like a foolish question. Would not most of us say yes, of course? Certainly we “know” what our conscious mind experiences. I am sitting in this chair typing this note. My back is bothering me. I am thinking about life. I am having a great dinner. I am watching a poor TV show. I am an impatient person. I am a sensitive person. I disagree with…. And so forth. I am aware of these sensations and thoughts. But is that knowing? Do those types of things express who I really am?

Those experiences are knowing about myself, how I think about myself, what I am feeling. They are only partially about knowing myself. How can I say this? Because what we consciously feel or think is hugely incomplete. It does not include what is in the unconscious, which is not directly accessible by us. Researchers tell us that perhaps 80% of what we think, feel, or do arises from the unconscious. Thus, who we really are, particularly as seen by others, is highly conditioned by the unconscious. I told myself for years that I was a sensitive person. I was not, at least not much. I was not consciously lying. I did not say to myself, “Oh, you really aren’t sensitive, but you are going to pretend that you are.” I really believed that I had that trait. I was being dishonest and hadn’t a clue. The poet David Whyte says that we cannot be honest with others if we are not honest with ourselves. And we cannot be honest with ourselves so long as the unconscious remains opaque to us.

An example, one entailing mixed motives. Let’s say my wife is overweight (she definitely isn’t!), and I admonish her to eat better and get exercise. “That’s for her own good,” I say to myself, and let’s say that my concern is really honest. My unconscious, however, has another agenda. I am embarrassed and angered by my wife’s weight, and hide that from myself. If even a glimmer of the thought arises, I say to myself that it isn’t true and re-assert that my only concern is her health.

But my wife experiences problems with me. The two different motives produce two different, mainly non-verbal (and contradictory) behaviors from me. One, the sincere desire to encourage her to a healthier life-style, is visible by my caring attention and attitude. Two, my embarrassment and anger are also visible by my obvious frustration at not seeing immediate progress and for her adding excessive weight in the first place. She senses the difference immediately. It may not be clear to her what the dynamics are, but she knows there is more to my “concern” than I am admitting.

As with all of us, faced with one positive non-verbal message and one negative, the latter will receive all our attention since it is perceived as both accurate and a threat. Acting on her accurate perception of my disapproval, she accuses me of not caring. I, a paragon of virtue in my own mind, am outraged. Not seeing my negative unconscious motive, I feel diminished in the face of an assault on what I perceive to be nothing but honest caring.

You know where this “conversation” is going. Yup, downhill all the way. Lest you think I am speaking only about myself, and not about you, kindly stand disabused. I am no different from anyone else. All of us live a partial illusory existence. We accept at face value what our conscious mind says about who and what we are, and what we do. These views are nearly always laudatory and filled with certainty. Ignorant of the role of unconscious, we attempt to impose this illusory state of affairs onto others, leading only to personal unhappiness and interpersonal conflict of the worst sort.

Can we know ourselves? Sure, if we’ve got the guts. We must first accept that the unconscious is a huge force in our lives, one that can produce unfortunate behaviors. Second, and this is where having real spine comes in, we must access that unconscious and look at aspects of ourselves which are unpleasant. Resistance is high at this point because we likely spent a life-time constructing our illusions, and we sure as hell don’t want to let loose of those fictions now.

Third, once we have uncovered what we really do not want to see, we must exercise the discipline and persistence to change untoward outcomes.

But if accessing the unconscious is critical, and we cannot access it directly, how are we supposed to get at it? The mirror of others---staring us right in the face with every interaction, if we possess the openness and perceptiveness to take advantage of what they can tell us verbally and non-verbally.

But am I begging the question? How then do we get that openness and perceptiveness?

The Buddha winks.

Slack Emotional Resources

To a person in any business, the concept of slack resources or reserves is very familiar. Take airlines, as one example, for which time is a key resource. It determines the scheduling of flight and airport times, of particular interest to the flying traveler. If an airline schedules flights too tightly, even a small delay at one stop could throw off the timing of the remaining arrivals and departures for any particular route. Too loose, and money is lost and customers may complain about delays.

But it’s not just businesses that are concerned with slack resources. We regular folks are as well. If you make $1000 per month and have normal expenditures of $950, all is well so long as the former does not go down much or the latter up much. If your bank account is at $25, and expenditures come in at $1050, you are short. Inadequate slack financial resources.

OK, enough of that stuff. I think you get the point. Slack resources, no matter how used, refers to reserves of some kind, buffers against the unexpected or undesirable. My particular interest is in inadequate slack emotional resources.  

We’ve all known folks who are “wired,” tightly coiled and living in more or less permanent agitation. Or, folks who have their “insult” detectors on overdrive. Often low in self esteem, they are on constant alert for what they see as insults, detecting them constantly, usually where none exists. Or, folks who simply see their views as sacrosanct, and hate being disagreed with. The “offender” has to be set straight. Or, the narcissist who sees everything in terms of himself, and dislikes others having the center stage which he believes is his alone to occupy. Or, the person who has powerful expectations that the world will do exactly as he wants. Since the world is not so accommodating, he experiences emotional turmoil that he “generously” exports to others. Or, the person who sees himself as a victim, finding victimizers everywhere. Or, the perennial, garden-variety counter puncher. He appears to have no control over his need to criticize whatever he does not like, evidencing little interest in reflective thought and conversation. And the list goes on.

These folks have low or no slack emotional reserves, and are emotionally unbalanced, at least in the moment. They need the world to do their bidding. When it does not, they act out. And like it or not, we all are, at least occasionally, members of this less-than-illustrious group. From time to time, all of us may be wired or sensitive or irritated or depressed to some degree, times when we lose emotional balance. Never suffering in silence, our acting out disturbs and often harms others. But it could be worse for us and others---our condition may be chronic.

Having low emotional resources is seldom an either/or thing. They may be adequate in some situations, but not in others. I know a woman who has great slack emotional resources at work, even with considerable pressure on her. But at home she has no patience with her spouse, being constantly prickly, easily offended and just as easily angered.

Social fragmentation and uncertainty are on the rise, increasing stress levels and encouraging incivility. Low emotional reserves show up most in stressful conditions, whether personal or societal. The greater the stress level, the lower anyone’s threshold of negative reactivity.

Low or absent emotional slack resources means trouble for everyone. But people with high levels have greater equanimity, and export that to others. They handle life’s challenges with as little upset as possible, both to themselves and to others. So, how do we improve? As with nearly everything dealing with emotional issues, the key is unflinchingly increasing our self-awareness. Only then can we uncover our sensitivities, emotional triggers, and defensive reactions, our unique conditions of weak emotional reserves. While necessary, self-awareness alone is insufficient to produce the health outcome of increased emotional resources. There must also be a courageous commitment to change, which recognizes that our patterns of mis-behavior have arisen over many years, are solidly entrenched, and not eradicated in any short time.

The need to increase our emotional reserves is greater than ever. Damaging personal, familial, and societal forces and stresses (including our own unhealthy needs) are pushing us into reactive states where we cause ourselves and others to suffer needlessly. If we wish to see greater community and civility, must start with ourselves, or we are hypocrites.