Suppression

Satori

Received this in an email and thought it was interesting:

In his book, The Eye Never Sleeps -- Striking to the Heart of Zen, Dennis Genpo Merzel talks about suppressing. As a Zen monk leading retreats, he is sometimes in a position of interviewing students. "Those who try hard to be saintly sometimes come in to interview and tell me, 'Oh, I am having such sexual fantasies!' Why? Because an intensive meditation retreat brings up whatever we are repressing. What we are disowning, the sinner in us, is going to come up with we open to ourselves. That is why Suzuki Roshi said, 'I'd rather tell my students to be a little bit naughty.' I never tell students, 'Don't do that! Be
this! Be That!' because the moment we try to be something really good, outwardly we may succeed, but inwardly we are in chaos, confusion. We are not really settled within ourselves, not really in harmony, not really at home, because we are suppressing so much.

"This has happened to me throughout my practice. I noticed that when I was suppressing my sexual urges or my anger or my jealousy, all my dreams and wishes were to be more sexual or angry or more jealous. In an even more suppressed and more subtle way I got angry inwardly but didn't recognize it. Then I hated the person who was able to get angry:
'How come that person is always so angry, so jealous?'

"For years, it used to bother me that my wife liked to criticize and judge other people. Not only my wife but also my previous girlfriends seemed very critical. I, of course, never judged or criticized like that! One day, while working on this issue, I realized I had been
suppressing the judge in me. As a spiritual person, a Zen monk, I thought one should not judge others, so I had completely disowned that part of myself. When that really became clear to me, all the energy bound up in my suppressed judgments was suddenly released. Several weeks later, my wife said to me, 'Have you noticed that I am judging less?' She was right. She no longer was needing to express what I had been disowning."

What are you suppressing? Or what are you expressing that your mate may be suppressing?

You may be suppressing something as simple as a trait to do things perfectly. You think it is better to be natural than to be anal about things. So you suppress perfectionism.

Anger is commonly suppressed rather that processed. If you process anger you will find that you only get upset when you are not getting your way or someone else is not the way you want them to be. Need I say more?

What about suppressing desire because you fear rejection?

There is value in knowing who you really are. As a result of this exploration, if you do not like who you find yourself to be, consider modifying a trait, or using mind-programming to become who you want to be.