Category Archives: Personal Growth

What the Bleep do We Know?

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What the Bleep Do We Know!? is a fun movie that is part story and part documentary.  It features two of my favorite scientists, Candace Pert – the person that discovered the opioid receptor, and William Tiller – a Standford physicist that presented an obscure proof at a conference I once attended.

The movie is colorful and presents good information about addictive processes, especially how our body reacts to outside triggers.  It demonstrates how habitual patterns of feeling sorry for ourselves or craving the rush of sexual energy can set us up to create situations in our lives to supply the chemicals our body produces, much like a drug addict getting a fix.  No need to inject, we make our own chemicals.

This is powerful example of how habitual patterns create our reality in a subtle way.  The underlying message is a common spiritual theme.  To be free of conditioned responses we need to break free of the limiting beliefs or programs that our system continues to run in the background.  Breaking free allows for true choice in our actions.

Along with the great discussion of physiology the movie does a nice job of talking about how quantum physics explains our reality.  Yes, we are really not touching the ground when we stand on it.  The things we think are solid are not really solid.  We, and the things are mostly space.  We can consciously create our reality (and we already unconsciously create it).


Kumare

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Kumare is a documentary about a fellow from the East Coast that comes to Phoenix and pretends to be an Indian Guru.  Once he has collected together a group of followers and indoctrinates them in his spiritual path, he does an unveiling where he reveals his true identity.  Kumare’s message is that we all have the answers wtihin us and don’t need external teachers to tell us what to do.

In this interesting and complex film, Vikram Gandhi, the filmmaker and star, asks the question, “What does it take to be a spiritual teacher?”   He finds out that the “phony” methods he uses seem to create true change in the people he works with.  While some may claim that he was an “unrecognized” spiritual teacher to begin with, it may also be true that change is dependent on the person and their intention, not the teacher and not the methods. 

This is much like the conclusions of the counseling curriculum I just completed.  No psychological method has been shown to be more effective than others, however, counselors that are empathic and demonstrate unconditional positive regard are.

 


Unable to reach shamata

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I have been noticing thoughts arising recently that are telling me that it is impossible for me to reach shamata.  The thoughts were also pointing out without mental stability I would not be able to progress to enlightenment.   I knew it was time to talk back to my mind and I needed ammunition.  I went directly to my teacher (aka Google) and put in the search terms:  “unable to reach shamata”.

One of my favorite sites, The Benzin Archives,  popped up on the first page with a catchy page title of “Achieving Shamatha“.  Now, much of the information was review for me, but I enjoyed the comparisons between the objects used in the different Tibetan schools of Buddhism.  This was useful since my primary background is Gelug, but I have been recently studying Dzogchen.

My favorite part of the presentation was advice from Master Shantideva:

Steadfastness (brtan) or self-confidence (nga-rgyal) comes from examining if we are capable of achieving the goal and, being convinced that we are, applying ourselves steadily, even though progress goes up and down.

The part I like about Shantideva’s advice is that he thinks that self-examination could only lead to the conclusion that one is capable of the goal, while I’ve concluded that I am incapable of achieving the goal.  The very absence of advice to people that are hopeless suggests that I am capable, regardless of past experience.

So if I am capable, where do I need to work?  I am currently at stage four and shamata is stage 10.  Perfect advice for me is:

Mental flightiness (rgod-pa, agitation), a subcategory of mental wandering (rnam-g.yeng) or distraction (‘phro-ba), is a fault of the mental placement on the object due to desire or attachment.

Yes, that is just the issue I talked about yesterday.  I have an increase in desire arising from the expansive energy of spring. This is leading to a “fault in mental placement” since my mind is dancing with the energy.  Yet, the antidote for this is just what I am doing – reaffirming how sexy and attractive shamata and enlightenment are.