Sometimes people think that Buddhism should somehow resolve all our problems. It's more that the path will bring those issues out. It's when we deny them or ignore them or cover them up with a veneer of spirituality—that's the problem. The more that we can really be authentic and true to where we are and what's going on, the more we can transform and go forward to encounter the next piece of the journey. |
CC: You use the term "spiritual pathology" in your book. What would be an example of that?
RP: One of the tendencies I see is to go toward "transcending"—that is, going into a spiritual process that tends to lead one away from living in relationship to our bodies and feelings because they're not comfortable. It's very tempting to find some means escaping from them.
CC: Many people with that disposition tend to be drawn to the spiritual life.
RP: That's the trouble. With that disposition, our pathology influences our spiritual path.
CC: I see in my own cohort of friends who have been meditating for 20 or 30 years that eventually we have realized we cannot leap-frog the issues of the psyche and the body.
RP: As you know from reading my book, I was in retreat for a long time in India. One of the things that experience showed me was how much I needed to address some of the psychological issues that I thought I had by-passed. What I've observed from my own journey and that of my clients is that the evolution and development on the Buddhist path is echoed on another level in terms of our personal psychological process. These two are parallel. If we can have some recognition of the processes of both of them, they can interlace with each other. Psychological work can enhance the way we do spiritual practices.
CC: Another pathology is holding an idealized image of what it means to be a spiritual person, and then beating ourselves up when we inevitably fail to live up to that image. It can be profoundly damaging.
RP: I've worked with this often in my Buddhist clients. There's something about our Western tendency to push toward personal growth and ideals that we feel we have to live up to. So often when we look deeper, it's based on a very deep-rooted lack of self-acceptance on some level, a personal wounding that's driving us to feel that we have to be different, better. It's most obvious in the materialistic culture, with its emphasis on "my body's got to look better." Unfortunately we carry this attitude into our spiritual life. That doesn't mean to say that we shouldn't have aspiration to change and develop, but if that's based in a very deep-rooted sense of love and acceptance then the work comes from a healthier place. Striving to be something other than what we are can be actually re-wounding—it exacerbates the feelings of "I'm not good enough, I'm not lovable". We can go on a journey of aspiration and change, but it needs to come from being present and accepting of who we are.
CC: What is that magic? Why is the act—a radical act, really—of self-acceptance so potent?
RP: As we know from very basic meditation principles, the more we can be present without judgment, without pushing stuff away, without grasping at our experiences, and the more we can stay present with the quality of acceptance of what is, then the more something can open up. As you say, there's something quite magical about being utterly present with what is. It's very profound.
CC: What are most common difficulties that arise in the teacher-student relationship?
RP: One of the things that gives the teacher-student relationship its vitality is that we project something onto the teacher. We may not be aware that we're doing it, but that teacher starts representing something that we need in ourselves. It may be an ideal or a model of what we want to become or an image of the Divine. It may also be a sense of authority and power. And because we invest so much in this person there's always the danger that our idealization and projection will blind us to the reality of the guru representing our own internal quality as well, so that we don't own it for ourselves—unless the teacher is able to remind us of that. Good teachers will give us some sense of that.
Also we leave ourselves very vulnerable if we don't see through some of the illusions we have created and don't see that the teacher may not be what we think she or he is. The Dalai Lama once said we can spoil our teachers by never challenging them.
CC: It's a tricky position for a student to hold because we're encouraged to see our teachers as perfect. How do you suggest that students resolve this?
RP: Notice that the teacher has within the human shell some very profound internal experiences. A lama, for example, could have developed quite extraordinary capacities that have opened up a connection to the Buddha quality, yet still be living within a relatively fallible human form.
For me it was important to see that my teachers had accessed some very profound insights but they still had their relative manifestation in the world that wasn't necessarily perfect and free of flaws. What that meant for me was that I wasn't going to be so concerned if they showed some of those flaws.
CC: I've come to think of my teachers as specialists with specific areas of expertise. I go to them like I might go to a surgeon or other professional who really knows what they're doing in their field. But it might be a mistake to expect your surgeon to give you perfect tax advice.
RP: (laughs) Quite so.
CC: In your experience as a teacher, running retreats and so forth, do you see people use meditation to avoid themselves rather than to transform themselves?
RP: In the process of teaching meditation it's been very apparent to me that people fall into two almost opposing camps, one group that gets lost in and drowns in their emotional life and another group that is cut off from it and doesn't want to be in touch with it. In both cases it can be very tempting to use meditation to escape from relationship to the emotional life, to go to a peaceful place. The key ingredient in guiding people in meditation is to help them to connect to the body and body-feelings in a way that enables them to witness the process of the emotions with a kind of proximity that is neither getting lost in them nor splitting off from them. It's not easy to do this, but it's a key element.
CC: Almost everyone on the path goes through a "Dark Night of the Soul"—a time when things seem very bleak. I found your discussion of this in your book very interesting. I wish I'd had The Wisdom of Imperfection in the early years of my path—it would have made such a difference!
RP: (laughs) I remember making prayers in Bodhgaya that I be transformed and awaken to my full Buddha potential. But I should have written a little sub-clause: "but please don't make it hurt." I think the times of being really tested in terms of our faith in the dharma are very profound. They are times where we may be caught in habits that are being taken to pieces. We're being changed and asked to go deeper; it can be quite difficult. We often need support—but not the kind of support that tells us to come on, snap out of it. For me, understanding how to pass through those descents into painful places has been part of my journey. Trusting that we re-emerge having learned something and grown from it is as much a part of the Buddhist path as any other part.
CC: It doesn't seem that there's any way to avoid these hard places. A version of the Dark Night of the Soul shows up in every spiritual tradition that I'm aware of. These dark, desolate times seem integral to the whole path.
RP: Yes, we're being tested to let go of some of the ego stuff that wants to hold on to a kind of identity. It's "break down in order to break through." It leads to transformation. There's a lot of wisdom that comes out of the struggle, because it's who we are as humans. For me, that's the basis or root of learning compassion for ourselves and others. This journey is not always comfortable—but it's so rich.
Interview by Christi Cox.
More about Rob Preece . . .
Read more about Rob Preece.
Rob Preece (BSc. Adv. Dip. Transpersonal Psychology UKCP reg.) is a contemplative psychotherapist in the United Kingdom. A practicing Buddhist, he taught at Sharpham Buddhist College in Devon and was a trainer at the Transpersonal Centre in London. His resume discussed his experience as a meditation teacher and Thangka painter (Buddhist icons) and is also the author of The Alchemical Buddha: Introducing the Psychology of Buddhist Tantra, that introduces the psychology of Buddhist Tantra.
