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Temperament and the path
Not sure how coherent this will come out. Its a first attempt to put down something I've been contemplating for a while.
In personality literature there are several models people use to contextualize and model people's varied personalities. From things less scientifically validated like horoscopes or enneagram to more researched like Myers-Briggs or the Big 5 that psychology uses.
The Big 5 measures personality along 5 spectrums, Introversion/Extroversion, Agreeable/Disagreeable, Conscientiousness/Carelessness, Neuroticism/Emotional Stability, and Openness/Closedness to experience. Some of the labels are kind of derogatory and more favorable terms are sometimes used, like care free instead of careless or challenging opposed to disagreeable. Also each of them contain lots of further categories that people may be high on some and low on others, like conscientiousness contains both industriousness and orderliness, one can be high on one and low on the other.
As a long time introvert growing up introversion was commonly seen as a negative and the kindly extroverts would feel bad for me and want to "get me out of my shell". Today there is a greater sense that introverts have important strengths that extroverts lack and that its good to try to appreciate human diversity and the strength it can bring to relationships and institutions.
To me all of these measures seem to offer a similar dichotomy that offer strengths and weaknesses. In addition to introversion I also score pretty strongly towards the emotional stability side of that spectrum. Because of that I feel I'm generally able to meet life's ups and downs with a positive, constructive attitude. But I also tend to overlook or sweep aside certain negative things that should be addressed, and the more neurotic people notice those things.
That brings me to my point. I was listening to Dan Harris' podcast and he had on one guest Gabor Mate, a pretty well known psychologist and author. His style was informed and seemed correct, but from my point of view at least, very neurotic. For example he talked in a sort of regretful way about the trauma and rejection he experienced as a child and how it led to him feeling like he needed to earn an impressive degree to win approval, how that was a trauma he needed to heal. Or when Dan shared his perspective on some of his own experiences but framed it in a more positive, growth light, Gabor challenged him to look at it as trauma. My point being, it does seem true that the feeling of not being enough would be good to heal, but framing his life as a negative instead of appreciating how his experiences taught and shaped him to where he is today, seems like a painful and backwards way of contextualizing your life. Getting a degree that has led to his current day success is a positive in his life. At any rate, his next guest was Gretchen Rubin and was almost the exact opposite in terms of temperament. She was upbeat and positive, very forward looking and constructive. Much more in line with my own temperament.
So I'm just thinking right now, that some people will find Gabor much more helpful and some will find Gretchen suits them better. They both present their way as the good way for people to follow though, rather than a path for certain types of people. If I'm being honest though it felt as though Gabor was doing more of it, maybe it was just a function of Dan's temperament being closer to Gretchen.
In addition to that there is ample research on separated twins and adopted siblings that seems to show that much of our personality is genetic and that it is relatively consistent over a life. So the question that occurs to me is how much of the path is changing who we are and how much is a self selection bias where those most suited to a particular spiritual path are the ones that continue with it? Is there a way that a neurotic introvert achieves enlightenment that is different from an extroverted stable person? Are tulkus generally more suited to Buddhism or do those identified as tulkus who are more suited reach the heights of the path and are noticed, while those poorly suited simply drop away? How much does the path shape us and how much does the collective dispositions of the sangha create the path?
Asking the question feels too subversive to me, I worry it diminishes the potential of Buddhism. But I've also been to enough different sanghas and heard enough teachers to see that there are often very different approaches and emphases to ask do we follow a path that changes us or do we choose a path that suits our temperament?
person
Past lives and memories
I think I have discovered a memory from a past life…
From my teenage years on when I first encountered mention of this place, I’ve had both a dislike for and a kind of fascination for Gallipoli. This is the peninsula along the Turkish coast south of Istanbul. Now a couple of months ago when waking up I found this in my thoughts and I asked myself “why do I feel this?” And to my great surprise I got the answer “because I died there.” So I did a little research and I found out about the Allied campaign to take the peninsula during the First World War, which led to some bloody battles with the Turks, and I seemed to recognise a few things.
What’s been interesting is that just witnessing the memory coming to the surface, from the point of view of a man who has not led a violent life but who has achieved a measure of inner peace, seemed to calm the urgency and pain associated with that memory. It no longer feels the same as it did.
Now in one of his books Osho talks about how the mind is built up out of layers of impressions from past lives, and it seems to me that this experience could well be something like that. I wonder what other likes and dislikes of my early life have their roots in past lives, there are a few things that I recall that are difficult to explain.
Jeroen
A religion of warmth
In one of Osho’s books I came across the phrase ‘I teach you a religion of warmth, love, singing, dancing, music’ and in my experience of neo-sannyas that was actually true, the ashram was very much a place where these things came about. It was an interesting piece of the book ‘The Transmission of the Lamp’, where Osho also talks about how the repetition of a mantra tends to dull the intelligence, and how various traditional methods of religious practice make one cold and inactive.
My experience of Buddhism on the other hand was one of a gradual finding of silence and inner peace. I found it quite cleansing, because you drop so many things that all the bad things go. But in a way, perhaps the good things also go. I certainly found that there was a lessening of energy, like the moving from a more energetic space where one is pulled by desires and pushed by fears to a more quiet place where things moved more slowly.
It happened very gradually, and it is part of getting to know all the different aspects of yourself. In the end, I found I did not agree with the Buddha that life is suffering. Yes, there is illness and death, but how much time do you spend on those things, compared to all the mornings where you enjoy a blissful cup of coffee, the song of the birds and the rising sun? Why should one insist that rather than the mixture of things existence has gifted to you, there should be only bliss?
Buddhism has much to offer, an approach to virtue, a letting go, but in the end for me there was a way beyond just Buddhism. I still come back to it occasionally, to test things against eachother, to compare my Buddhism with a bit of Taoism and a bit of Osho.
Jeroen
Re: Letting go of games
@Jeffrey
In my experience, despite being a Zen guy, intense meditation is more often than not, just another expression of asceticism.
Or put another way, when concentration is appropriate it can aid in the ego's deconstruction, whereas when a concentration is inappropriate it simply aids in an ego's attachment to that concentration.
The latter is well represented on the Tibetan wheel of life as the Asuras who continually try to storm "heaven". Those who are unable to simply accept where they actually are.
Here, the importance of the concentration described in the 8 FP is not just in the bare development of concentration but is found in the "right or appropriate" manifestation of it.
Where the artifice of a deep push into a meditation practice can definitely unearth personal and disturbing challenges that the practitioner might not yet be ready to address, a softer, steady & consistent meditation of the moment is the safer route to follow (especially beyond a teacher's guidance) for how it tends to only bring up that which the meditator is actually capable of presently facing.
Most games offer the underlying chaos of life to be assuaged by the illusion that they are actually under our control. They are the sandboxes of play defined as much by the artificial walls containing them as they are by the opiated denial of suffering's causes and their true resolutions.
I think....
to assess how much of a junkie to a game one actually might be, the best evidence comes from not only seeing how long one could put aside the game but is in seeing how long one can do that without substituting that game for anything else.
cheers H.
how
Re: Letting go of games
I wonder from experience if an (at home) retreat life triggers my mental illness which can last for months of hearing and believing delusive stuff. So I'm hesitant to do more intense meditation, periods and focus, to avoid triggering that mental stuff.
So my life is going to revolve around something other than meditation to stay mentally healthy. I like to read books fiction and non-fiction. I like to play games that uncover a story and explore along with creative and imaginative (self) narrative and strategy. I don't get obsessive with either games or books and it's just a part of my life.
I think a life without intense meditation can still be a compassionate life and include games and fun activities in moderation.
Jeffrey
Re: Letting go of games
My comment may or may not be helpful or in the direction you wish to go.
However, my recently adopted view is that we like games because they offer the possibility of progress and reward, without the risk of failure.
If you fail at a game (get "killed", your village getting "destroyed", your resources "plundered"), there is no real consequence. But if you "win" you feel the same feelings as if you'd "won" at something in real life.
Many real-life activities are very similar to playing games and use the same skills. However, here we are faced with the prospects of both real wins and real failures.
That's my view at the moment at least.
marcitko
Re: Letting go of games
@FleaMarket said:
why Buddha pointed to even Chess as a distraction
I’ve asked myself that question, and I came up with these points:
- It is a waste of time, activity unconnected to the search for enlightenment
- It is a focus on the mind’s activity, not no-mind (or is that too Zen?)
- It is concerned with doing, and not with Being
- It creates a habit of goal-oriented thinking, which is not an open, meditative state of mind
Cinematic games I think are worse, because they are much more convincing simulations of illusory worlds, with which you still interact as if they are chess-like games, but they are built to trigger your survival instincts and can also act on your emotions. If Mara is the lord of illusions, what exactly is his relationship to games?
I had this discussion with my cousin as well, he is quite into spirituality and has a coach with whom he discusses these things. His view was that even films, books and such take time away from the spiritual search and are unnecessary. Although, he still games and reads and watches films. No relaxation at all seems quite extreme to me, I have to say.
As with alcohol, I think one should just spend some time contemplating whether it is beneficial. Can you find what attracts you to these activities? In the end if it turns out to clearly not be beneficial, then you will drop it in the moment of realisation.
Jeroen
Re: Getting better "blog"
@FleaMarket said:
@marcitko said:
Today I am trying an experiment: just to be productive all day. Even "active rest" counts (not mindless scrolling). Kind of a "hurry slowly" attitude and see what happens.How does it work in practice? What's active rest like for you?
"Active rest". I'm not quite sure what I mean either but I'd say it's doing something relaxing that's deliberate and wholesome? I can watch a movie that I actually want to watch or I can just watch any movie just to make some noise and "run away". I can open Facebook and contact someone I'd enjoy talking to or I can mindlessly scroll my feed. I can go to Youtube and deliberately look for videos on topics I am trying to learn or that interest me or I can watch the first video that grabs my attention just to pass the time. I can go for a walk without a destination, just for fun, I can read a good book (as I did today), I can watch the clouds go by, I can make a good meal, I can call someone just to talk without a reason..."Active rest" - I'm still exploring - but it makes sense today.
marcitko
Re: Letting go of games
Thats certainly one aspect of what makes games attractive, @marcitko. And of course because I feel these negative things doesn’t necessarily mean that others will feel the same thing. If you only play puzzle games on your iPhone you likely won’t feel the same.
But for me I think some of it is related to my period of intense World of Warcraft playing. I know that engaged my passion, my enthusiasm, and it left traces deep inside. When I dream, I sometimes still dream of playing that game. So spiritually it also had certain consequences.
So when I feel tempted to re-engage with those activities, I end up asking myself, is it beneficial? Does it help me on my chosen path, which is the spiritual journey?
Jeroen
Re: Letting go of games
While it becomes clear at an early point in spiritual growth that shooting other animated things in the face with guns doesn't bring anyone closer to the goal, reaching the understanding behind why Buddha pointed to even Chess as a distraction doesn't always come right away.
Lately I've been viewing sila and precepts less like rules and more like dance moves. If you want to dance well, you have to hit the moves at the right rhythm and with the right effort and stuff. It's not done because the dance is forced on you, it's done because the dance is beautiful and enjoyable and entices you to dance it well; a dance of laying down the burden. There are still moments in the song when I like to dance my own moves rather than the choreographed ones. Games are of those moments.
I used to spend lots of time on Counterstrike and WoW and many others. Similar to you @jeroen, I played WoW on launch and playing it every free moment quickly became my goal in life. It filled very quickly many pockets of emptiness which took much more time and effort to fill before it came along. A marketplace of interactions and challenges and colors and surprises and rewards all right on screen for as long as I wanted, it felt. What I was missing from here or there in my daily life it made up for and was incredibly easy to access.
But naturally as anyone who's done anything for a while knows what happens, it grew stale. The add-ons and expansions were just rinse-and-repeat, the community changed, the mystery became known, mastered, there was nothing new and it stopped working. But I soldiered on. I pressed on because maybe that would change and return to those happier days. I desired those old days back badly and clung to the memory. I struggled frustratingly, selfishly, day after day on that game. The joy from those treasured memories were all I liked about it any more. And it became almost like a job that I didn't even really want to go to...which I'd play after my job...which I didn't really want to go to...as a reward to myself for doing that job. Yeah I don't know how that worked for so long either. Addiction to the memory of what it used to be, ignoring what really was being experienced.
Oddly enough I don't see how my behavior with gaming is fundamentally different from infatuation with other hobbies like sports or cooking or tech or music or chess; maybe even the spiritual journey. It's our human-being life-cycle. We're born, we learn to like and dislike things, we try to do the things we like more than the things we dislike until we die. Without other direction, that just sounds pretty natural and standard-world human-being behavior.
In fact I'd argue there's value in having experienced deep infatuation or addiction to something prior to beginning the spiritual journey. Typically those with an addiction have had insight into the nature of total absorption into their activity. Even if that activity was unhealthy, the methods of associating to it required tools of mindfulness and concentration. There were times playing WoW when there were no distractions where I was essentially "zoned-in" to the screen. The game was all that existed in that moment and every detail was sensitive to. It could have been a chef in a kitchen, a footballer on the field, an engineer in the shop.. but that might be a discussion for another topic. This one's about letting go of games, not for the sake of games. Though interestingly enough using that memory of being absorbed into a computer screen, into the activity, examining it for the useful parts like the methods of associating, and applying some of those methods to the spiritual journey are having some interesting results.
