SHORTY: Mr Almost Right

I'm not so worried about meeting difficult people. There aren't too many traps with them. The ones I am afraid of are those who appear good, but have hidden problems. I don't want to be the fish that falls for the shiny bait, only to find a hook in my throat.

The Mr Wrongs are Easy.
Beware of Mr Almost Right.

SHORTY+SHOUTOUT: Enlivening is not inner thriving.

"Enlivening is not inner thriving. If you don't have enough inner thriving and depend too much on enlivening, then it's a shallow world."

A commentary of trolls on the internet, but also the practice in general of praising your own views and denigrating others. For them, it is enlivening and can make them feel powerful. But it's not very fulfilling.

I would extend the "enlivening" label to the clinging to sensual pleasures.

https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/audio_player/10715.html

-Gil Fronsdal

SHORTY: Not my monkeys, not my circus.

These holidays, it's been easy to get entangled in old habits. Like getting sucked in to arguments on the right way to wash dishes.

It's been helpful to remember:
Not my monkeys, not my circus.

Love not based on your looks

Spend some time in any populated place in the world, and you'll see it: people are trying to look better. What do they hope to gain from looking better?

Well, duh, love! (sarcasm). If you look better, you have a higher chance of attracting a partner. And friends. And success at work. And of keeping your partner. I don't want to lose my partner because I've let my looks slide. And ever little bit counts. So, why give them a reason to leave you because your tushy is mushy. Firm it up!

That phrase, "Every little bit counts", can be helpful and can be dangerous. If it's something worthwhile, every little bit does help build the practice to get there. If it's a dead end or fantasy, like attaching to looks, then every little bit is a waste of time.

I'd love to tell you that looks don't matter in how you are perceived, but it definitely, totally does. I remember a Tyra Banks episode where she wore a fat suit for a few days. She lamented, "Why are people so mean!?!" I have a fat friend (who is fit, just big) and she calls it "fat invisibility". In my own situation of living out of a van for many months of the year, I don't always look very clean. And, when I don't look so clean, people treat me different and leave me alone. Since I like being in the shadows, observing, I call this using the "ugly stick" to hide myself. A shirt with some paint stains or a couple of rips (not the strategic rips of the luxe, faded look) instantly signals, "not someone with money".

But, this is not to lament how the world treats people based on their looks.  Instead, I've thought about this puzzle: is there a love that isn't based on your looks? Certainly, don't look for it in the mainstream dating market. Even the alternative dating market has its visual signifiers of attractiveness. Well, maybe family provides unconditioned love? I'm not so sure. How many parents have the mindset, "I don't care how you look, I just want you to be happy"? Much more common seems to be parents caring and helping and further enforcing beauty standards or conventional success standards (looking rich). Either through modeling behavior (mom with make-up, dad with macho physical strength) or nagging (you should look X) or even a pragmatic sense ("I don't care how you look, but society and your friends will care. Maybe just a little, to fit in."). There are so many cues that your looks do matter.

So not dating, and not family. Maybe family gives unconditioned love? Friends are a minefield too, some mix of family and dating dynamics. There are loyal friends, and they don't base it on looks. But it may be conditioned on you holding certain beliefs and opinions.

So, what about at the workplace? Nope. Workplaces are run by people, and people have all sorts of hidden biases. Similarly, if you get pulled over by a cop, it absolutely matters if you are driving a 20 year old Honda minivan (me) or a new Lexus (also me, different time period).

I really want places of religion to be a place where love is not based on your looks. But I'm not sure. Religion, especially popular religion, is a mix of standards of conduct and the cultural values. Just look at Joel Osteen and Kanye West. I think they argue by their actions that God loves richness. They might never say this directly (lookup: do they say it directly) because it's not culturally acceptable to point out that God loves rich people more. But, just look at the conformity in the audience. Do they go looking to save the souls of the homeless and those who have fallen through the cracks? I have a saying, that the number one reason people do things is to feel good about themselves. And if helping homeless doesn't fit in that self-focused agenda (and sometimes self-focused doesn't look like "selfish"), no matter what a religious tradition stands for, the religion in practice isn't going to actually help the homeless. Similarly, if helping homeless does fit, you bet it often will be done with a sense of making us feel good about ourselves.

So, it seems to me that there is a great need for this: a love that is not based on looks. With a tiny corner of the world that offers this, people won't be held hostage to a culture that is focusing on the scarcity of love and attention by playing at an arms race for more. The reason for this goes from pragmatic to revolutionary. In the pragmatic side, what would it be like if women (and men) weren't saddled with the 1-2 hours a day making themselves pretty and presentable. Programmers have figured this out... let people dress how they want to (within reason). And treat people based on what they do, not how they look. (But, that is changing, and even programmers have their "codes".)

On the revolutionary side, creating a love that is not based on your looks is deeply healing and gives people an alternative way to structure their lives. It is a major safety square in a world where it seems feeling unsafe is pandemic.

Some people do want the world to be remade in their image or according to their views (liberal and conservative). They will never be satisfied. But a great deal of people don't want their asses worshiped or wiped... they would be greatly helped just by having someone see them, listen, and care about them. Someone to cheer them on and give them high 5s, to hold their hand (physically or virtually, holding space) when things are going all wrong.

There is something much better than people trying to chase love and acceptance by getting pretty and getting the attention of being pretty (which we're all supposed to want), and hence chasing something which will never be stable. There are some who are able to have consistent love from a specific partner. But, more likely, that love will morph and not be what we bargained for, or we will change in what we need. Love from a specific person is far from guaranteed or guarantee-able (people die, after all). But love from someone (that someone changes, let it change), and especially love and self-esteem from oneself, is something that persists over time.

Amygdala not firing

I had two helpful (for now) realizations during my meditation this morning.

First: Amygdala not firing. It seems like the amygdala (or my current conception of it) is at the center of fear, and the 4F's. Accordingly, these strong emotions are a big part of our personality. A motto might be, "It is what triggers us that defines us". I think this is actually a very apt phrase to describe how I've seen myself and others. "Trigger" needs to be defined broadly. Trigger here is about the amygdala firing. So it includes things that set us off to be passionate, or fearful, or indignant, or soft-hearted. So, the pleasures of meditation (in Jhana, for example) is actually not being triggered, or not being triggered much by the usual things. That is, we don't become super passionate about the breath, super fearful that we won't have it, super indignant, or super soft-hearted*. We go for calm. And the calm is the negation of clinging and triggered. Even as I write this, I am excited and trying to grasp at my understanding of the thoughts. But this is definitely NOT a state of Jhana. There is clinging, albeit beneficial, to write out a description of these thoughts. I'm trying to put down a marker and breadcrumbs. But, when I find my way back, the experience itself is about the negation of triggers and the negation of most activation (except activation on the breath, and then, only enough to keep the hungry-mind occupied, kinda like giving a kid an ipad with wifi turned off, or giving a dog a chew toy so they are occupied). I felt a strong identification with the notion: the amygdala is not firing.

*soft-heartedness is related to Metta. So, when doing metta, yes, aim for that kind of amygdala firing. No ill will. And actively goodwill. In Jhana1 on breath, we don't do soft-heartedness. We do aim for no ill-will. But we also aim for no goodwill(!). We aim for simpleness and attention. The amygdala not firing (at least not much?).

Second: There was a shell around me, and I let all sensations enter "me", but bounce off that shell. Thoughts would enter my mental "airspace", register on my radar, and then bounce off. I recognized my habitual mind considering that everything that hit my shell was me and important and had to be invested in. But, this time, I just kept the shell sealed and the sensations, feelings, perceptions, thoughts, and consciousness stayed outside the shell. Inside the shell, I filled it with breath sensations and breath feelings. I took the advice that thoughts helpful to the breath are 100% allowed. And, I used as my test of helpful breath thoughts as those that actually connect me to the pattern of my breath, i.e., the in and out and further noticing of even subtler parts of the breath. An un-useful thought would be anything that was related to the thought but didn't follow the pattern and rhythm. An example would be thinking about how thoughts are such awesome things and having that thought spiral past 5 or 6 inhalations. But, if I thought awesome, in line with the breathing rhtyhm, that was fine. In general, thoughts about the actual rhythm of breath are good, helpful. There is a way-finding element of staying with the breath. That is, if I am in the forest and hiking, it is good to be able to notice the terrain as it is around me. To make notes that I am stepping here. Weight is here. Not stepping there. Weight is there.  Not helpful would be too much thought about how steps are so much easier in houses or whatnot... things disconnected from this breath.

Inside the shell, I focus and stay on the breath. I'm aiming for Jhana1. And, importantly, I'm almost entirely protecting myself against me-making and mine-making.  So, I recite the 3 phrases: This is not me. I am not this. This is not mine. And then I repeat with more specificity. This itch is not me. This is just an itch. (Relating to a khandha, perhaps.) This is not mine. This thought is just a thought. This is not me. In this way, the sensations "enter me", but they don't become me. This was an exciting thing to notice. (I guess it relates to equanimity, and before I had more indifference (not letting it enter my airspace), and today I was able to feel but not get sucked into the feeling, think but not get sucked into the thought.)

There is one big exception. With knowledge that it is just a fabrication, I "go to the movies and suspend my disbelief" and allow a specific form of me/my-making. That specific form: I make myself one with the breath. I allow my feeding mind to feed on the breath. I might say, "For training purposes, I am this breath. I make myself one with this breath. This breath is mine. This breath is me." And, my starved identification self starts feeding on the breath. Today, it fed strongly. Other days, not strongly at all. But, the breath is there to be fed on if needed (so as not to feed on other things), as a harmless thing (for now) to feed on. And this is the directed thought and evaluation and total absorption of Jhana1.

NOTES:
For Jhana1 description, see, amongst many, https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/WithEachAndEveryBreath/Section0007.html#sigil_toc_id_53; the Jhana section of With Each and Every Breath by Thanissaro Bhikkhu (now Ajaan Geoff). free download.

For breath meditation, consider the Anapanasati of Buddhadasa, free download, http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/anapanasati.pdf

For a very sweet story about me/my-making, try Gil Fronsdal's audio recording about A Fairy Tale. https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/audio_player/9424.html (free)

For the amygdala, I recommend Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers by Robert Sapolsky and also The Trauma of Everyday Things by Joseph Goldstein.