How May I Help?

Sometimes we want to help others. When we give assistance to others it comes in different ways. It may be quiet, relying upon the attentiveness of the other, or it may be directly spoken. Sometimes they appreciate our assistance; sometimes others just want to struggle on their own without assistance. The help of others isn't always wanted.
How then may we help? Zen teacher Joko Beck has written about compassion, "[so compassion ] if we're truly listening with compassion to another person, we may not feel much of anything; we simply listen and act appropriately... compassion is not itself an emotion."

 And there is a Zen story to illustrate another way of help to others:

A Zen master enters the prayer hall with a bowl, ready for the meal being served; he comes much too early. So the cook stops him in the kitchen and says they have not rung the bell yet. The Zen master returns to his room and waits. Meanwhile the cook can't resist! He approaches the abbot, tells him of the master's folly, with glee. The abbot listens, then shrugs replying that the master can become befuddled sometimes!
Soon the Zen master returns to the hall to eat. He hears of the abbot's remarks and is displeased.  Later he speaks to the abbot in private. He inquires of  him if he be disapproving.  At that, the abbot leans forward to the Zen master and whispers into his ear. Immediately the Zen master is relieved of his concern.
Later the Zen master gives a dharma talk. It is thought very good. The abbot profusely compliments the Zen master afterward.


Yet for those listening, the question remained: what was whispered into the Zen master's ear by the abbot? Or from another perspective: what was the role of the abbot in the situation? Did he help the Zen master?

Blunted Emotions and Spirituality

"When we refuse to accept things the way that they are, we make ourselves   (and often others) unhappy." --Ronald Pies, M.D.

Author and Psychiatrist Ron Pies writes in his newest book, The Three-Petalled Rose: How the Synthesis of Judaism, Buddhism, and Stoicism Can Create a Healthy, Fulfilled and Flourishing Life,  that the mind-heart connection in spiritual matters is very real and vital.
And while Dr. Pies has been a sometimes flash-point, many who read his book will take the positive from his discussion on stoicism.

Stoicism can be attributed within Western civilization all the way back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, perhaps further back even than they. Its philosophy espouses an essential aim of traveling lifes' paths via the 'middle way' or as the bible reminds its reader, 'this too shall come to pass.'
While not limited to the West or to Christian thought, stoics may be seen in a more universal, spiritual light.
Those who can learn to see the world in just this moment, life as it really is; just now, the way that things are, can be well on his or her way to a centered and equitable life, a stoic.
 Many people believe that stoicism involves little or no feelings at all. However a study of the ancient thinker Marcus Aurelius, for example, proves otherwise. And he just may be the original cognitive therapist.

In the west, especially, and over the world generally, modern medicine has wrought great power into the realm of nature; we have, through scientific discovery, overcome many biological forces that previously were the bane of humanity. Diseases, such as polio, have been mostly eliminated. Small Pox is today a footnote in history books, and the dread of AIDS and Malaria brought under its scientific scope.
In the realm of the mind, there has been much improvement in treatment and human lives; there is however a reliance and increasing use of anti-depressant drugs, pharmacological medications given to more and more persons world-wide, now often from an early age, that may result in the  blunting" of the emotions or affect, as science refers to it.

 Developed as a wonder treatment against the scourges of mental illnesses, these very drugs intended to aid sufferers may now be the very same substances which prompt their feelings of indifference and coolness towards others.

There is concern. Are we to raise up the first generation known to mankind enveloped by these drugs? Many are pondering how a mother may then make an attachment to her infant, how a parent may properly care for their children; how any person will have the experience of attachment or simple affection for others, how the bonds of marriage will endure in an environment of an increasingly drug induced apathy? For some, it seems to be a matter of trade-offs, deals 'with the devil.' Are we blowing it and not looking towards the greatest causes?

 In the spiritual life, there is a need or desire to perceive what is not immediately, easily or clearly seen, the clouds which obscure the clear blue sky, if you will. The poets, musicians, the writers and the artists among us clamber to express their hearts, and very often speak for our own.
What is to become of them, what is to become of the most basic foundation in human life, to love and be loved without fully intact affection with which to perceive and appreciate? How will modern, stressed mankind survive now?

American researcher, medical doctor and critic Dr. Helen Fisher charges, "these drugs blunt emotions and reduce obsessive-compulsive thinking, but those are also two main characteristics of romantic love. 
Relationships may be torpedoed not because of the factors between individuals, but because-- it just may be the drug.
So many nowadays are taking anti-depressants when young; they wish to avoid stress or sadness, but by the same token they may be robbed of life's joys in equal measure.
"The writer May Sarton noted, "Pain is the great teacher...joy [and] happiness, are what we take and do not question...but pain forces us to think, and to make connections, to sort out what is what, to discover what has been happening to cause it.." And this is at the heart of the spiritual life, making sense of the world around us, and our place within it.

  For Pies, the answer of sorts, may lie in a form of Stoicism: We recognize that there exists in the world a way, a being that existed before our entrance into the world, and will  likely continue  long after our exit from this world.  Addressing the focus of his lifes' work, mental illness, Pies notes, "when we refuse to accept things the way that they are, we make ourselves (and often others) unhappy." And when we do accept things, we may find a certain peace, free to pursue other, more productive tasks.
This presents an eternal spiritual challenge of acceptance for the things that we cannot change and the wiseness to know that one from any other.

The Chaplaincy Institute, a California based inter-faith organization writer notes, "If we can learn to respect and value the spiritual wisdom of people diagnosed with mental health conditions, we will be respecting their very essence. Then perhaps all of us, as a society, will become more capable of loving this part of ourselves: the part that gets disoriented, that is prone to despair, that loses sight of hope, that falls prey to fear, that cannot feel love, that is constantly in motion, and that keeps us from experiencing that beautiful inner stillness where we rest peacefully in the arms of the Divine Presence.

"

Uniquely You

Emotions, and the openness to the inter-twining of them  to discern a sense of deep spirit, a personal sense of the uniquely form  you, is a central task in the spiritual life.
As many religious thinkers have written, it is in the opening of the self, the stillness of the mind that what is essential arises, that enlightenment becomes possible; yet it is not as a striving or as a goal, but as the natural result of a lived life.
By experiences we learn the meaning of ourselves in the world; the oneness of all in our place is what Moore in his books seeks to examine.

He writes that it is not intellect ultimately, but living knowledge that makes a self. Yet, he does at times, fall into philosophical banter. That is his background and his training.
As a Roman Catholic,Moore came of age in the time before the "great transformation" of the Church, before Vatican II, before the rise of Pope John Paul II. His experiences may be unlike other's. Despite this, he offers valuable wisdom about the simplest and yet most complex of life, the human mind.
Writing in his book, The Care of the Soul Moore addresses the deep soul as found in the "emotions, relationships and culture... a way to be spiritual that is honest, close to physical life and emotion... [not]the opposite of spirituality [which] is escape... [Life] is to be made sense of in the depths of experience, in the never ending efforts to make sense of life, and in the ordeals that can be seen as spiritual initiations rather than failures to achieve a self."

In his book, Thomas Moore allows, he searches out within the great tangle of human emotion, of perceptions and feelings, the great  impossible, the paradoxical, and the apparent failures that seem to comprise one's life.
He recommends in response to human emotional suffering "a shift from cure to caring." Trying to be cured might be another type of perfectionism. In the human life, when seen as a sort of comedy, we all fail, we all fall on our faces. Taking ourselves so seriously, we forget that it is human to fail, it is human not to be perfect. 
And it is human to love, even that what we don't fully understand, even that we see as lacking, like a child; still we love, in full knowledge of imperfection. In doing so, we may ultimately learn of a holy foolishness which broadens and deepens our spirituality, making the self more resilient, more durable in the process.

One of the ways through this life process is by emptiness, Sunyata. Moore describes the empty self as not a loss, but a liberation, an opening for the possible. "Spiritual emptiness doesn't lead to resignation, or depression... it gives hope, frees us from anxiety...free from having to be in control."
Yet emptiness doesn't work if it becomes a project, to be controlled and directed. Emptiness is an active stillness, an allowance of what is, or may be.
 It is the perception that an angry bull is charging to you in an arena and stepping aside rather than confronting as it passes by. "Emptiness itself has to be empty." As a way, it is both an art and a practice.

What Part of Me Believes That?

"Sometimes we are startled. Where did that come from? I didn't know I felt so strongly." -- Robert Johnson, writer, Jungian psychologist

As a student and one associated with the late Carl Jung, Robert Johnson carries on Jung's work. Jung, unlike many of his generation, was one who believed that the base root of most all personal problems is not functional, some described such as "toxic", "games," "setting fences and boundaries," but rather spiritual challenges or crises that are not limited solutions or positions; instead they are potentially limitless and as unique as the persons who pose them. These other terms have no place in the spiritual world; they are 'pop psychology' and not terribly helpful. Sometimes they are denigrating; often they indicate power seeking by the one who utters them. The Simple mind avoids thoughts like these because people are greater than the sum of their mistakenness and sometimes confusion.

We can learn by examining our issues closely. What is it about me that feels this way? Why do I think that? What part of it sets off this (intense) reaction in me? Robert Johnson takes up a small part of this issue writing, "We remember getting worked up in a conversation and blurting out some strong opinion that we didn't know consciously we held." And we are startled by this sudden revelation not only to those listening but in our self equally! There is this sudden surge of emotional energy and maybe we suddenly find we are being our self, because what constitutes our self is the totality which necessarily includes our unconscious pronouncements. These "hidden parts of our self have strong feelings and want to express themselves."

Sometimes the hidden or unconscious part of our self is zany, sometimes its out of sync with social norms; sometimes it's embarrassing, violent, or humiliating when these facets of the self, parts of our personality, abruptly emerge. Other times, points of talent or strength arise, suddenly surprising us with their skill and clarity. As we grow, we may conclude that we are a different kind of person than we previously thought. Complicating matters, our qualities both positive and negative, emotional and intellectual may or may not arrive at precisely the most appropriate moments. This can leave us feeling strongly for or against someone or something and having the intellectual thought, Why? We may not yet understand.

Into the mix, our self definition is called into play; we are challenged by it. The unconscious is a huge energy system. Like others have famously observed the heart has its reasons, and the reception of its images and messages can be deeply informative to our spiritual and growing selves.

Visionary Experiences

Our twenty-first century has a tremendous collective prejudice against the imagination
--Robert Johnson

No one in fact, "makes up" anything in the imagination. The material that appears in the imagination has to originate from somewhere; that is the unconscious, asserts Robert Johnson.
Writing, "the prejudice against imagination... is reflected in things people say like, "You're only imagining it," or "that's a fantasy, not reality," yet imagination more properly understood, is a channel through which unconscious material flows to the conscious mind. Johnson writes, "to be even more accurate, imagination is a transformer that converts the original material into images the conscious mind can perceive."

The prejudice against imagination is so strong in modern society that experiences understood almost intuitively by our ancestors have become swamped in a sea of rational, scientific thought. Modern thinkers have need to rediscover what the ancients knew: the mind is conceived with a power to convert the "invisible" realm to conscious, visible, forms that can be detected and contemplated. As the Catholic Christian creed records, "we believe in the seen, and the unseen..." The ancients thought of it too, as the place of the gods, the region of pure spirit. It was, and is, a place of power to make images, enabling us to see.

In ancient Greece, the place of fantasy, or place of producing poetic, abstract and religious imagery, was nearly unquestioned. This inner world was thought of as a place of ideal forms, of the expression of the gods; they gained meaning from imagination and dreams, both in the spiritual and aesthetic realms. "These meanings could then be held in memory and made the basis of thought and reasoning."

"In religion, the imaginative faculty was the legitimate path of religious inspiration, revelation, and experience." The simple fact that information comes to one through the unconscious mind, or imagination, in no way discredits it as a form or a reality. Experiences of poetic imagining are not mere whimsy; rather they express in symbols the real happenings of a human life experience.
"Humans depend on the imagination's image-making power, and its image-symbols for creative endeavors such as poetry, visual arts, literature, sculpture, and essentially all philosophical and religious functioning." Without imagination, Albert Einstein, for one, would not have deduced the intricacies of the natural world; indeed he states that many of his most important ideas came to him through imaginative intuition. This imagination, then can serve as a great contribution to both individuals and society.

In Carl Jung's positing, he came to the thought that humans are endowed from the eons with archetypes, powerful symbols that spring from deep within the universal, collective, human nature. In all "cultures and religions since the beginning of history, the idea of a soul has sprung up spontaneously... human kind has always intuited the existence... that was invisible, yet active." The soul has often been referred to as feminine, present in poetic, and religious symbolism. Sometimes the soul is seen as an inner woman, regardless of one's exterior gender. Muses have often inspired great thoughts of religion or arts. And not only does the soul function as an inner reality, but it generates a set of symbols, universal to all.

These symbols are, in part, what makes us human-- universal, yet unique individuals. Carl Jung deduced that the psyche manifests itself as androgyny, neither male nor female, but both, one and the same. Within our collective conscious there exists the seed of both the male and female, the anima and the animus.

Thus the inner self is a plurality, like the Chinese idea of pairs, such as yin and yang. While they may appear to us as opposites, the great challenge in the spiritual life is the reconciliation of this paradox. Because in fact, the two are one; they are two parts of one stream of energy.

The end product of this evolution, writes Johnson, "is something that we can sense, feel and describe intuitively--even though we have not obtained it, a sense of wholeness, of completeness. This wholeness is the totality of our being," our Oneness. Totality can be expressed symbolically in ways such as mandala or divine geometry.
Failing this, "the self may well lapse into a place of mental disorder, of compulsions and neurosis."

Often we refuse the awakenings of conscious, repressing the best parts of ourselves, both the light and the dark; we come to view large swaths as negative. In viewing the offerings of unconsciousness negatively, as good and bad rather than in degrees of integration, in oneness, our richest parts bear no good fruit for us in our lives. We reject them, relegating their energies to some dark place where we just will not look.

"Even the voice of God, can be and is rejected." The soul is then left to "stealing or appropriating" what it needs-- our time, our energies, falling into dark corners "where incomprehensible and odd behaviors arise, in unprotected places the ego lets down, and the part of us that would otherwise accept, and believe this is gold, is left without a place to turn.

"Curiously people usually resist their own good qualities even more emphatically than they resist facing their negatives." Yet to achieve a balance, both must be regarded evenly. A practice of writing out your imaginings, dreams and musings will help to balance oneself, bringing clarity and peace to a life. Most importantly, actions make initial imaginings concrete, into a form that can be seen clearly. The use of rituals, both in symbol and in religion, are also quite valuable and lend a concrete avenue for modern man to attend to his own unique, spirits and longings.

What part of it do you believe?
~Robert Johnson, Inner work