The Road to Enlightenment is Uphill All the Way
Over recent years, Buddhism has gained popularity, and meditation has become the fastest-growing health trend worldwide. People are looking to take advantage of the health benefits and hoping to promote their emotional health and well-being by relieving stress and anxiety.
Buddhism and meditation can provide insight, but they are not a good substitute for therapy and do not heal psychological wounds.
Buddhism and therapy do have something in common; they both address the problem of human suffering. Researchers agree that practicing mindful meditation has many therapeutic qualities. But it’s important to differentiate between using mindful meditation in the context of psychotherapy and the understanding of mental health vs. using mediation for enlightenment.
In the most simplistic terms, psychotherapy aims at alleviating symptoms by using a method of healing that places the self-as-agent at the focal point of attention. In contrast, the spiritual practice of Buddhism addresses suffering by dismantling the preoccupation with self and the self-centered experience.
The first of the four noble truths of Buddhism is the truth of suffering. It acknowledges that there is an inherent level of suffering (anxiety) woven into the very fabric of our thinking, feeling, and perceiving. If this is true, then no amount of concentration or mindful bliss will eradicate the human condition of the ceaseless mental turmoil that is ever-present in a “normal, healthy” person.
Buddhist teachings remind us we will never achieve absolute satisfaction by choosing a different way of thinking or acting. Searching for happiness in this way may bring relief from extreme forms of anxiety, but it can also feed an endless, repetitive fantasy driven by an unquenchable thirst. This searching perpetuates the ego’s compulsive activity and brings about suffering, the definition of bondage to karma.
The Supreme Way is not difficult, if only you do not pick and choose. Neither love nor hate, and you will clearly understand. Be off by a hair, and you are as far from it as heaven from earth. — Master Sheng Yen
Meditation and the Culture of Narcissism
Have you ever experienced a feeling of condescension from spiritually enlightened people? Maybe it’s not overtly obvious, but you begin to notice their words and actions seem to be in complete misalignment. I’ve been fooled more than once by people who teach yoga, conduct meditation seminars, or sell self-help books, only to find out they are greedy, vindictive, and deceitful, especially when it comes to money or power.
You would think that studying spiritual training would promote awareness, compassion, empathy, and non-judgment, but it may have the opposite effect.
A new study found that mindfulness meditation attracts people with narcissistic traits, feeding their sense of spiritual superiority. The attraction is in distancing themself from their ego, thereby losing the need for social approval. The study results show that the need to be self-serving is so powerful and deeply ingrained that instead of transcending the ego, the ego is hijacked and used for self-enhancement motives.
Decades ago, Jack Engler, a psychologist and teacher for Harvard Medical School, observed, “narcissistic personalities represent a sizable subgroup of those individuals with borderline levels of ego organization who are drawn to meditation.”
Finding freedom from the symptoms of the human condition can invoke a sort of superiority over everyone else. The idea that enlightenment can provide that sense of power attracts people with narcissistic strivings. The second attraction is mirroring or establishing a narcissistic transference with the admired spiritual teachers who appear more gifted or special than ordinary people.
Mindfulness is not a path to becoming a better, happier person. Mindfulness is about attaining wisdom that is rooted in self-surrender, renunciation, and insight.
Cravings and Selfish Desire
Emotions can influence our thoughts, actions, and words. We get irritated at our spouse or co-worker and lash out by saying something we regret later. Our emotions and how we handle them play a large part in our desire for pleasure. If we continually crave satisfaction, those moments of joy become even more fleeting and transient, but we keep trying. It’s an endless pursuit.
Buddhist believe some emotions lead to enduring joy and others do not. Our mental state is ultimately affected by what we focus on. The word ‘sukha’ means happiness, joy, and bliss. It’s a feeling of flourishing that arises from a balanced mental state and gives insight into the nature of reality.
Sukha is reached through sustained training in mindfulness (attention and emotional balance). As a result of training, one can learn to recognize distortions in their perceptions and projections and see things as they appear in a way closest to their true nature.
The pursuit of sukha encompasses not only the goal of achieving one’s happiness but understanding and recognizing the deep kinship we share with all beings and our yearning to be free of suffering. The opposite feeling of suffering is called ‘dukkha.’ In contrast, the pain of our grief comes from the misunderstanding of the true nature of reality. Buddhist believe that suffering is caused by toxic mental afflictions of the mind such as craving, hatred, and selfish desire.
Craving: is the attention given to acquiring or maintaining some object or situation. When we crave someone or something, we tend to obsess over the object’s desirable qualities and ignore the undesirable aspects or consequences of the action in obtaining the desired object. Craving is disruptive and leads to anxiety, misery, fear, and anger. It displaces the source of joy from one’s mind to that of the object.
Hatred: is the wish to harm or destroy anything that prevents a person from getting what they want. Hatred magnifies the negative and overlooks a person’s or thing’s positive aspects. When the mind becomes obsessed with resentment, you get trapped into believing that the source of your displeasure is outside of yourself. In fact, the source of your mental distress is in your mind. Buddhist believe hatred is harmful to those who experience it. This is why forgiveness is so powerful and healing.
The Delusion of the Self: The self is profoundly interdependent with other people and the environment, but our source of suffering comes from grasping onto one’s own created identity. When we believe the self is permanent, singular, and independent (autonomous), we crave the ‘me and mine, which causes repulsion towards others. This is where jealousy and arrogance are born.
“The insatiable yearning to analyze and discriminate, judge, and choose — and thereby to control or shape the self in the image of its constantly shifting desires — is the elemental force of Dukkha (suffering) in its most basic form. It is the inescapable plight of the self. — CW Huntington, Jr.
Do You Know What Will Make You Happy?
Researchers claim most people are poor predictors of what will make them happy. It’s possible that by engaging in Buddhist contemplative practices (achieving sukha), one may become more accurate at forecasting happiness and improving the quality of life since these practices help battle craving. The ultimate goal is to differentiate between mental activity that is beneficial to harmful ones.
Practicing awareness can help identify when toxic mental processes arise. And also help to recognize those ill thoughts, hurts, afflictions, stings, burns, and dis-ease, which may never go away, but you can learn to sit back and observe them so as not to become hooked or attached to their story.
This is what Zen means by being detached — not being without emotion or feeling, but being one in whom feeling is not sticky or blocked, and through whom the experiences of the world pass like the reflections of birds flying over water. — Alan Watts
