You Have to Laugh

“Someday you will look back at this and laugh”

I usually don’t enjoy hearing that. These words are usually said to me while I’m in a pit of despair, or frenzy, or am in a customs lineup with one child slumping along and the other running up the down escalator. My response: No I fucking won’t, and I’m absolutely not fucking laughing right fucking now!

But I will! And I do! After apologising to the kids for swearing at them, I can move on (it sometimes takes a year or so) to laughing at how completely shit a situation I was in.

So why can I laugh now but not then? For me, it absolutely comes down to fear. Fear that the situation will never end, or that we will not, in some meaningful way, survive it. Maybe I will be stuck in that customs line up forever. Or maybe my back will give out from carrying my flailing child and I will have permanent damage to my spine that I will need to live with for the rest of my natural life! Who knows what could happen? My need for escape becomes the greatest force in the world! I would mow down people to get out of there. And it’s certainly no laughing matter!

But then once none of those catastrophic things have happened, and I have, indeed, escaped the situation, then I can look back and laugh. After all the fear has dissipated, the need for escape has been satisfied, then I can laugh. Then I can look back and say “hahaha, that was SO SHITTY!”. Because the shitty situation can’t hurt me or contain me any more!

But could the shitty situation ever hurt me? And was I really as trapped as I felt? Was I really going to actually die in that customs line up? There are only a couple of people in the world who truly have been trapped in airports. And surely, with some rest and advil, my back would eventually get better. And even if it didn’t, at least I wasn’t going to be at the customs line up any more! Maybe I could convalesce at home! It is unlikely anyone has been arrested for having a misbehaving toddler going through immigration, so it’s more likely that I’d be home than in prison. Why was I afraid? What’s the point of adding fear and claustrophobic panic to an already shitty situation? I mean, yes, I can see that I was utterly fucking exhausted. But surely, stoking the flames of resentment, competition, and indignation, were only making me even more exhausted! By using my mind to constantly compare what was happening with what I wish were happening, I was using up my last little bits of energy for actually getting through the situation!

A goal might be to try to reduce the amount of time between “having the shitty experience” and “looking back at it and laughing” incrementally, until finally, maybe, you’re able to look back and laugh when you’re right in it!

A good training wheels experience for this might be trying to play with my 3 year old. And when I say “play” I mean “play his way”. His way is SOOOOOOOO boring! It involves very precise movements of cars, and repetitions of specific phrases. For as long as you can hold out. For me, this is usually 5 minutes. At the 3 minute mark I’m already looking for an out. Panic is setting in. My brain is melting. I NEED ESCAPE! Playing with him is way harder than meditating. I actually sometimes try to have an out of body experience while doing it. And that’s just to get me to minute 7. I think that if I can conquer that experience — of really staying in the moment for … I don’t know … 10 minutes? 20?? I can do anything. I can endure anything. And maybe the key to being in that moment is just looking back at it, while still in it, and laughing.

Just Grow Up

The more I read about Buddhism, and the words of the Buddha, and the concept of enlightenment, the more convinced I am:

Enlightenment is being a total grown up.

In his essay “What is Enlightenment”, Kant said:

Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! [dare to know] “Have courage to use your own understanding!”—that is the motto of enlightenment.
http://www2.idehist.uu.se/distans/ilmh/Ren/idehist-enlighten-kant02.htm

He’s saying that we need to stop being immature, and stop abdicating to a god, or to a religion, or to a parent, or to a king, or to another, to do our thinking for us. We need to use our own reason and perspective and assess the world and our actions in context. We need to stop believing in magic. We act like children, waiting for others to pick up our messes. This is because it’s tremendously convenient. But it’s a false economy. At some point that pyramid scheme runs out of levels. We have to clean up our own messes. We have to make our own decisions. We have to make heat and boil our own water — no amount of divine intervention will boil it for us. We have to be a real adult, without waiting for parental supervision or rescue; to accept responsibility: that is enlightenment.

The Buddhist view exactly harmonises with this. It’s about seeing reality as it is, without childish delusions and desires. It’s about getting over yourself, and not giving in to self-indulgence, or being a slave to self-consciousness. It’s about not having a myopic view of the effects of your actions (“someone will clean up the ocean — I’ll just throw this one bottle into it”). It’s about not behaving like an asshole just because you feel like it, and thereby ruining someone else’s day, and causing regressions in others.

The Law of Karma: Your actions have consequences. Nothing happens magically.

The 4 noble truths:

Life is difficult
You make it worse with childish craving and neuroticism
Grow up and stop your self-indulgent craving, then you will be able to handle life
Here’s what being a grown up looks like (8 Fold Path: Right view, Right intention, Right speech, Right action, Right livelihood, Right effort, Right mindfulness, Right concentration)

Non-attachment: This doesn’t mean non-attachment to everything. You have to attach to tasks to get them done. Be practical! Buddhist non-attachment means non-attachment to your own childish egotistical needs and expectations. “BUT I WANTED THE RED CAR!”: Childish! Throwing rubbish on the ground expecting someone else to clean it: Childish! Being jealous when you don’t accomplish something, and somebody else did, even though they tried harder: Childish! Not taking your work seriously: Childish!!! Stop being attached to your childish nature. (Note: childlike is different: that’s lovely and playful. Childlike wonder: absolutely. Childish tantrum: absolutely not.)

Meditation is practicing letting go of those expectations and self-conscious ramblings. Yes, they come, bla bla bla bla bla, but who cares. Just let them come and go. Don’t make them a thing. Be a grown up about it. Keep paying attention to the boring candle or your boring breath. Yes you’d rather be doing something else, so what. Stop whining. You’re doing this. For some number of minutes. Be a grown up about it. Sit up straight; don’t slouch. Act like a professional in your own life. Meditation is the equivalent of the bench press for concentration and letting go. It’s harder than what you’ll need to do in regular life, but it is done in a safe spot, and it strengthens you so you’ll be able to be a grown up in the messier rest of the time.

And the Buddha was right: We *all* have the capacity to do this. We can *all* whittle away at our childish drama and become grown ups. We can all look at a difficult situation and think “what are my options” instead of “WHY MEEEEE??????”. We can all do this. This is inside of us. The grown up is living in there, covered up by layers and layers of childish shit. Chogyam Trungpa called this the Cocoon. Get rid of the shit! Emerge from the cocoon! Reveal your inner grown up!

(PS: So true true true, some people have more severe mental illness, and have a totally non-trivial time releasing neuroticism (can they even, without medication!) I’m not talking about these people, because I’m not a psychiatrist, or a psychologist. I’m discussing the average case. That said, I’d hope that doing some kind of mindfulness practice (not necessarily concentration meditation – there are lots of meditative-style practices that help you get over yourself) would help. The internets suggests this is the situation.)

Brain Worms

Yesterday I ran into a woman who I hadn’t seen in a couple of weeks. I knew she was nearing the end of her pregnancy, so seeing her out and about I just assumed she hadn’t had the baby (after I had my kids, I didn’t leave bed for like a month). So I said “Still waiting! Hang in there!”, and she said ……

“I’ve had the baby!”

So that was good: I had clearly called a non-pregnant woman pregnant. She slightly rolled her eyes. It wasn’t a good moment.

I tried to cover it up with “well you look amazing, but I just assumed, because how is it you’re up and about” etc etc bla bla bla bla bla terrible terrible. To make matters worse, I did a whole look up and down thing (I think I was trying to gesture “you’re standing up though!”, but I don’t think it came out like that) and said “WHAT???”.

And now of course I just can’t stop cringing about it. I was driving and felt myself slightly lose control of the wheel as I thought “shit how on earth did I do that?”. This morning, I was slightly more annoyed with my kids faffing because the image of her disgusted expression keeps playing in front of my eyes. And my mind keeps trying to psychically rework the incident. “No you didn’t really say that, let’s try replaying that again, so that it comes out better”. But to no avail.

So now this brain worm is wiggling its way into everything. I find myself reaching for my phone so I can scroll the internet endlessly to try to wrench my mind off it.

From experience I know these brain worms can last from minutes to years. I have one from literally two decades ago that only just released because the person who was involved in that incident has recently died!

Part of me thinks that the rumination is a mechanism for learning from the experience, but in most of these cases, there’s almost nothing to learn other than “don’t be a social moron”. Everybody makes mistakes! You can’t go through life walking on egg shells! I would have to basically never speak again! And I could apologise, but would that actually help? Would it make things worse? Is there a way I can resolve to do better? If anything, I don’t think the brain worm itself is actually teaching me anything. If I really want to learn from the shitty experience, I should probably sit down with a piece of paper, make a mind map, figure out what the risk factors are, and what the options are in the moment. Hitting rewind-replay in a loop, and punishing myself with each iteration, is not the answer.

Brain worms strike me as the definition of insanity. A thought that has taken on a life of its own, and that is hell bent on pulling you away from the current moment. It won’t let you enjoy your coffee; it won’t let you think about brushing your teeth; it won’t let you just get on with your work. It screams in your head, and goes so far as to produce an actual physical response!

I guess the Buddhists would say to use the brain worm as a teacher. Say “hello cringey thought!” and just feel the panic and horror it induces, but not hold onto it. Let it go. Come back to the breath. Come back to the body. Don’t cultivate the brain worm. Just let it worm if it likes but don’t stroke it or stoke it.

I’ll try that.

Sadness is not Suffering

When I first started thinking about Buddhism, around 30 years ago, I was intrigued by the idea of a release from suffering. It sounded so incredible! Suffering is the worst! I imagined all the teenage feelings I was having (rejection, jealousy, self-consciousness) just vanishing, and tried to picture what it would be like not to have an emotional reaction to the loss of a pet, or even the loss of a parent. A life free of sadness!

This concerned me a bit: if you have a life free of sadness, surely happiness goes too. Can you really have one without the other? Does bliss have meaning without misery? This seeming contradiction made me doubt the whole buddhist enterprise a little. That wasn’t the only thing that made me doubt (reincarnation is unpalatable for an atheist) but it was a biggie. How could you build a belief construct around dispensing with emotion! Are we to become Vulcans? And lots of them weren’t particularly nice!

But after reading and reading and listening and listening, I think the suffering the Buddhists are talking about isn’t the emotional response to loss. I don’t think they’re talking about sadness or grief. I think they’re talking about neurosis:

Such a viewpoint does not quite mean “getting rid” of problems, but rather shifting one’s focus. Problems are seen in a much broader context of health: one begins to let go of clinging to one’s neuroses and to step beyond obsession and identification with them. The emphasis is no longer on the problems themselves but rather on the ground of experience through realizing the nature of mind itself. When problems are seen in this way, then there is less panic and everything seems more workable. When problems arise, instead of being seen as purely threats, they become learning situations, opportunities to find out more about one’s own mind, and to continue on one’s journey. (Chogyam Trungpa, The Sanity we are Born With)

Sadness is a natural part of the human condition. We can’t get rid of sadness. We shouldn’t try to become blissed out idiots. That’s as much of a delusion as anything else. The Buddhist promise is that by meditating, by being able to tame your own mind, you won’t have a neurotic reaction to that sadness. You won’t be so driven insane with grief that your cat died that you insult someone at the store. Likewise, we all need to feel joy in our lives, but we shouldn’t be so caught up in glee that we lord our achievements over others for a sneaky neurotic sense of superiority.

So sadness stays, even if suffering goes.

Voices in my Head

I’ve seen people walk down the street talking to themselves. Sometimes they look homeless, and sometimes they’re well dressed, but even if they’re well dressed I assume there is something pretty wrong with them if they’re muttering out loud to nobody. “Meth” I might think. I have no idea whether that’s a meth thing, but that doesn’t really stop me from theorising. Or “Schizophrenia — sad”. Equally uninformed observation.

But are they really so far from how I am? I talk to myself constantly! And most of the thoughts are pretty close to what I bet they’re saying! Things like “Damn it why didn’t I do that other thing?” or “STUPID! STUPID!”. Or “oh man I wonder if I should talk to that person, should I talk to that person? I want to! But should I? What will they think? How is my hair?” etc.

I can see that there’s a spectrum here. One one end, there’s the person standing on the sidewalk screaming at imaginary people. On the other end is the person who is just standing on the sidewalk, just seeing things exactly as they are. Total delusion to total sanity.

I have to accept that I’m closer to the “Total delusion” end of the spectrum than I’d like to be. Some days I’m closer than others! But there isn’t a single day when I’m fully sane. Maybe tiny individual moments. Maybe those are Nirvana moments, or Buddha moments. When I don’t hear voices, just for an instant. On better days, the voices at least sound like reasonable people, rather than hormone/panic-driven teenagers.

I wonder what total sanity is like! I hear my voice(s) in my head and it/they sound like me. I identify with them. They’re my friend(s). Would I be sad not to hear them? Does total sanity mean not having voices? Is that lonely, in a way? Or does it just mean the voices are sane too? Is there a self beneath the voices?

Perpetual Teen

I’ve started meditating daily. The podcast I listened to said that knowing your own mind was one of the keys to finding Nirvana, so I’ve been kind of watching my own thoughts as they drift by as I meditate.

I’ve noticed something kind of dismaying (if I still got dismayed, which I don’t, because I’m so enlightened). It’s that I’m basically still a teenager! I still have such teenage drives! Here is a light sampling of the thoughts that come up as I meditate:

Wow I’m so good at this
Oh shit I’m so bad at this
I’m maybe the best ever at this. Maybe there’s never been someone better!
I’m maybe the worst at this! Why am I even doing it? What’s even the point?
I’m so good at this that maybe I’ll become famous for being so good at this! I’ll need to go meditate on people’s yachts, and teach meditation classes in gorgeous remote locations. I’ll live in a beautiful house overhanging a cliff, with snowy mountains off to the side, and tigers prowling around (but not in a scary way)
I wonder what I should wear once I’m famous for meditating? Should it be gold?
I wonder what I look like right now? Do I look pretty? I bet I look really peaceful!
<quick look in the mirror that’s opposite me while meditating>
OH MY GOD I look like a horrifying hag! When did my hair get so grey? Are my eyes seriously that small? Why are they so close together? Why are the bags under my eyes so huge? Am I actually on the brink of death? Do I need to colour my hair? Do I need plastic surgery?
Breathe, Breathe, Breathe, yes yes yes YES!
Wow that Game of Thrones final season was terrible. I wonder what George RR Margin thinks. Did he come by that “RR” honestly? Or is that just a Tolkien reference? Maybe I’ll reread Lord of the Rings just to remember what a satisfying ending to a story looks like. Like there’s a difference between surprising the viewer and having an ending that makes no sense — surely they know the whole point is that on rewatch the whole thing should be clear and chartable right from the start…..
Breathe …. Breaaaaaathe……. COME ON……..
Jesus that’s a dog barking, is the baby going to wake up?
Maybe I will write to the neighbours if the dog wakes up the baby. Here’s how the letter will go <continue writing letter>
If the baby wakes up I will lose my mind! I need this rest! I need this time! I need to meditate!
Ooh look at me! I brought my mind back to my breath after all that fear and concern! I must be really good at this! Maybe if I just get a better outfit I can look a little better while meditating.
Maybe I need a bell or something to chime at the end of my meditation. Not that I want to be materialistic, but is a bell really materialistic? Isn’t it just something I need for the sake of centring my mind?
Maybe I’ll write all these thoughts down in my blog and someone will read them and I’ll become famous! I better do that now!

And here we are. Sigh.

Mundane Meditation

So what’s the point of meditation?

Well if the goal is to not freak out (either big freak outs, or even tiny internal silent freak outs which I find happen to me every single minute of every single day), then meditation is geared towards helping the mind not freak out. It’s like a mind work out. It’s weightlifting for your mind!

There are lots of forms of meditation but they all have something in common: you let thoughts go by without following them. You don’t judge the thoughts, you just let them go by. If you find you’ve followed the thought, or become caught up in a train of thought, you just do a gentle tug on your mind to bring it back. That tugging is the weightlifting! Sometimes there can be a lot of tugging! Like, every second, sometimes! Or more than every second! And sometimes you realise you were mind following for quite a while, so tugging back from that is a big effort.

My way of meditating right now is just watching, feeling, and hearing what’s around me. I tell myself that I’m basically at an art installation, and that it’s legitimate to be there, and that the installation deserves to be seen/heard/felt/smelled/etc. There’s no plot. It’s not a movie. It’s just a piece of art, and I’m watching it, feeling it, hearing it, smelling it. If there’s nothing to feel (like if I’m not in the rain, or I’m not in the wind) then I just feel my body breathing, sitting, being warm or cold. And when my mind wanders away from what I’m seeing/feeling/hearing/etc, I just pull it back.

Sometimes I do this while walking, and sometimes I do it while sitting. Both seem effective.

The point of meditation is becoming mentally strong enough that your mind doesn’t go crazy in crazy-making moments, and that you will be able to better control and calm low-level anxious ruminations. Basically, you’re trying to make the “tug back to sanity” mind muscles stronger!

This said: the first couple of times this can kind of temporarily backfire. I had just been doing some lovely meditation (really fucking meditating!) and maybe had been working a little too hard, or being a little too serious about it, and afterwards I was pretty blissed out, but in kind of a manic way. Then when my husband did something that irritated me, I tried responding with peace and calm. I *may* have spoken like a Jedi. Not sure. But that didn’t work — he was still irritating me! So I tried more Jedi voice. Still not working! And now my 3-year old was screaming! And I simply blew up! I think I said something like “I’m trying to be bloody well CALM HERE could you HELP ME OUT?”. So zen.

I think I was just so mentally tired from doing all that heavy lifting that I didn’t have any energy left for my usual petty squabbles.

But that didn’t keep happening past the first couple of times. A good idea, though, when starting out, is to maybe do meditation right before going to bed — less chance of downside!

Happy tugging!

Laughing Buddhas

What are they laughing at?

What’s so funny?

I think they are laughing at the unenlightened — the immature! Us!

They’re laughing at us the same way we laugh at a toddler who throws his yoghurt spoon because he couldn’t get the yoghurt into his mouth. It’s cute! It’s a tiny bit pathetic, but also kind of adorable. Certainly not a state we would want to revisit. But one that we can empathise with, and one that we’ve definitely been through!

I always thought that the laughing buddhas were laughing at the illusory nature of reality, or at the impermanence of life, or at something that was appearing to them out of a higher dimension.

But I think it’s more basic than that. The enlightened ones are more “grown up” than we are, and they look at us like we look at our teenager, trying to get up the courage to ask another kid out for lunch. With a tinge of sympathy, and a kind of “wanting to help” but without actually being able to intervene. It’s beautiful, and unfolding, and heartbreaking, and delightful to watch! They just have to laugh!

PS: A quick hunt for “what is the laughing buddha laughing at” brings up lots of results about buying a laughing buddha statue and rubbing its belly for the sake of good fortune. I guess everything can be merchandised. It brings me back to the concept of spiritual materialism which Trungpa wrote about: We get wrapped up in the trappings and role play of buddhism, without actually getting its benefits. Like dressing up for a bike race, and buying an expensive bike, and just kind of gazing at it feeling proud of ourselves. I mean, we’ve all been there. But spiritual materialism is another thing that enlightened ones would laugh at: us playing dress up. Buying a laughing buddha statue and rubbing its belly, rather than sitting down and doing the work of training your mind so you can get over your out of control, adolescent, divergent thoughts. So, right back atcha Laughing Buddha! You’re funny too! Haha!

UnCosmic Karma

So what’s the deal with Karma, if all of Buddhism is just “don’t freak out“? (Note: I don’t believe I really have the secret to this — this is the continuation of a thought exercise).

Karma seems like it’s pretty cosmic — the idea that you can do good things, and then good things come back to you. It sounds mystical.

But I think it’s more boring than that. I think really accepting Karma is just accepting — truly accepting — that there is actually no magic in the world. That each thing you do, has an effect. And everything that’s done, has a cause. There’s nothing magical that “just happens”. Nothing other worldly is managing anything. There is just doing, and having effects. Cause; Effect. That’s it.

That’s the boring realisation of Karma. It’s not exciting at all.

So why does it get associated with better things happening to you, if you do good things? I think perhaps, originally, this made sense if you consider the state of the world on aggregate. If everyone does better things (produce less waste, speak more kindly to one another, etc) then the world will, on balance be a more positive place, and you will experience a more positive life. And it makes sense that if people, say, in a neighbourhood, were more positive to one another, less wasteful, etc, then the feeling of life in that neighbourhood would feel more positive. And maybe it would feel like you doing good things made good things happen to you. But no: Nobody is keeping score about how much good you, specifically, did.

But the recognition that one thing leads to another, with no magic in between, is important for recognising the reality of the world. And just facing it, in its boring truth. It’s once again about basic sanity.

Non-attachment

One of the basic principles of Buddhism is non-attachment. It goes with the concept of impermanence.

Living with a toddler really helps me get a handle on attachment. My son got a sticker, and put it on his hand. Later he realised the sticker was gone. He wailed! Like he was being murdered! “MY SPIDERMAN STICKER!”. And then when I tried to hug him, he bit me!

I get that. I do that all the time. Maybe not the biting, part … at least not literally.

But I guess a more mature, non toddler approach, is noticing the sticker is gone, and realising that stickers don’t stick around (ha!) for that long. They’re impermanent. Let them go.

Going back to the basic rule (Don’t Freak Out), helps here. You lose your sticker: don’t freak out. You get to be sad. You might have really liked that sticker. Maybe you make a plan to get a similar sticker if you have the chance. But you don’t freak out about it.

Same goes with life and death. Definitely sad to be dying, or to have someone die. Losing your mind about it is likely a natural reaction to someone dying. I’m pretty far from being able to not lose my mind if someone near me dies. But maybe that’s what meditation practice is all about: getting you to a place where you can not freak out, lose your mind, shit all over people, cause an emotional train wreck, be emotionally (or physically!) violent in reaction, even when you’re faced with being detached from someone you really care about.