Clinging to unskillfulness

I've been trying to apply a lot of concentration and awareness to my thoughts and behaviors for the last few weeks, and I keep coming up against this same quality, which I have seen addressed only obliquely in most of the literature I'm reading. The principles of karma with respect to the mind are pretty unequivocal and easy to see: it is as plain as can be, that what resentment, what annoyance, what passive-aggression I feel myself undergoing is harmful to myself and others. It's the very essence of bad karma. Not only does it do nothing for my relationships with others, but every time I am reactive and start carrying around some feeling of resentment or personal irritation, I create suffering and stress for myself, now and in the future. I mean, this is dukkha; it goes without saying most of the time that such mental states are undesirable, and much of practice consists of myriad techniques to dissolve them.

And yet. Over and over again, as I investigate the circumstances and causes, the narratives and delusions and short-sighted aims that contribute to everyday unskillful behavior, I am able to peel back the layers of self-serving thinking and reaction, to relax the body when I tense it, only to run up against this little core at the center. Over and over again I'm able to bring myself awareness of the mental behaviors and their unskillfulness, only to run up against some very primal element of me that says, 'I don't care if it's unskillful—let it be unskillful—it's still me.' It's the strangest thing.

It seems potentially a not-self issue, in a funny way. But even when I am able to establish some reactive act as wholly unskillful, some recalcitrant part of myself insists, 'I want to be unskillful!' It might be perhaps that, because this behavior originates in my mind and body, that I feel so strongly that, even if it's the least skillful behavior in the world, it's still mine. And that to deny it would be—denying the will, perhaps. In some ways it feels like my ego, under attack from anatta, engaging its self-defense mechanisms and trying to evade obliteration (not that I'm in any danger of achieving no-self realization any time soon!).

But in any case, after clinging to pleasure, clinging to desire, clinging to the world, I find myself clinging to dukkha itself. Which is a very strange state to be in.

As I mentioned, I think anatta is a useful principle to bear in mind here, because it seems to be—if not directly—a corrective against the notion that our behavior, skillful or indeed unskillful, is us, is the self; but this particular mechanism still does feel a bit strange, and doesn't seem to perfectly fit in with the models that we generally work from. Has anybody else felt themselves clinging to their unskillfulness and suffering?

To your last point first: I am willing to live with dukkha, but I have a lot of banging my head against the wall before I settle for living with unskillfulness. We can, indeed must, come to a place of equanimity in the face of suffering and impermanence; but you'd have to work on me a long time before you could convince me that I should accept my own petty behavior, let's say, as another facet of dharma. Not, at least, when there are so many tools at my disposal aimed at the extinguishing of unskillful behavior—the divine abodes and all the rest.

I guess that also gets to your first question, too. Maybe I've been listening to too much Ajahn Geoff but as of right now I see an awful lot of work to do, and I see the many facets of dharma practice as tools to do that work. I do indeed feel very strongly that peace and contentment will only come if I've improved my karma, and that sila and sitting are the two ways to do so. In other words, that the emotions that I feel and the moods that I enter are solely the result of the kind of thoughts that I think and the kind of behaviors that I enact, and the full array of meditation practices, interpersonal strategies, rituals, etc etc etc that comprise dharma practice exist primarily to basically wisen and reshape the mind. I know all this talk of reshaping doesn't sound very Zen at all .

As for your second: 'core' was chosen more for the feeling that I had in experiencing it, rather than any beliefs I might have about where that particular pattern lies in the makeup of my mind. I experienced it as a knot in my own rational process, one much more resistant to analysis and mindfulness than the more obvious strains that had come before it (again, before it in my mindfulness practice, not before it in any essential sense).

You might be right; I certainly didn't want to sound more despondent than I am. And I don't think I'm aiming for perfection. I guess I was more interested in just exploring this impulse that I tried to describe, and seeing if others had experienced a similar quality, rather than obtaining a remedy for it. I don't think I'm too down on myself when I act unskillfully; it's just a matter of returning to the body and the breath, usually. But I do think it's worthwhile to examine the reactive patterns that underlie unskillful behavior. Even if we're not aiming to be faultless robots, part of mindfulness and awareness is understanding the thoughts and feelings that we observe arising and passing away, no?

I'll second Chris on everything he said. Wise words.

And another thought, from my own experience - consider how you might be able to have compassion (or loving-kindness) towards another person who is struggling with their practice, making mistakes, saying unskillful things, or otherwise struggling and suffering in an obvious way.

You may or may not have that feeling towards them, but in my own experience I found I was often able to feel that towards others, and then realize I was not feeling it towards myself. And when I did feel it towards myself, in dribs and drabs over time, it was quite a shock. Somehow it seemed easier to think "so and so can only be what he is, can only do what he is doing, because that is what he is working through right now" but to think that about myself was much more difficult and happened more slowly.

I just find it interesting because it seems to verge into this sort of dark, Nietschean/Schopenhauerean territory where we are confronted with a will that doesn't necessarily buy into the rest of the self's consensus view on what is pleasant and what is suffering, what is desirable and what isn't. In a way that's a perfect extension of the general human tendency to mistake what is immediately pleasurable for what will create long-term peace and contentment. But it's so deep (again, perception wise, not self wise)—past the point where you'd think we had already established that bodily tension, clouded mind, anger are undesirable.

EDIT: Cross-post; written before I saw ona's response.

"Not a bad result although it wasn't what I had believed going in."

Indeed.

I am also reminded of the common esoteric Buddhist practice done at some centers I've attended where you visualize someone you like, and send them loving kindness (easy!), then someone you feel neutral towards (not so hard), then someone you loathe ("have difficulties with") (ooh, not so easy!). That is equanimity, right? Equanimity is not getting rid of all the icky stuff so you only feel good because everything is pleasant and pretty, but seeing that the "ugly" is as perfect as the "beautiful." Somehow it happens sometimes.

This is quite an enjoyable exchange to read. Thanks, guys.

First things first... Yes, you can listen to Than. Geoff too much. I like him a lot, but the more fundamentalist views of Buddha-dharma cause me to get WAY too idealistic with regard to how I live my life. Ironically, I suffer more when I have such lofty views of what is or isn't possible through practice. My advice, which I offer from my own experience, is to keep present experiencing close, and only focus on incremental improvement. In other words, reduce suffering little by little. Don't beat yourself up for not being skillful enough. That pangs of Protestant guilt, and I've had enough of that in my life to know it's best to put it aside.

It sounds like you (Zach) are approaching practice in a way that results in some kind of power struggle with yourself. It's almost like yelling at your reflection in the mirror, trying to scare him off.

Try steering into the skid, you know? Rather than think, "Not this way, that way," try, "This too."

If we can't accept who we are, where we are, when we are, no transformation will occur. Struggle and control are counter-productive, as you well know by now.

Recognize and, by all means, accept. Only then will investigation lead to the fruit of the path.

Just my opinion, of course.

When the pressure to become the Buddhist I imagine I'm supposed to be appears and I begin to feel the resultant suffering, I often meditate on this:

1. There was a time when there was no Buddha, no Buddhism, no Christ, no Christianity, no Islam, no Hinduism, no yoga and on and on and on.

2. There will be a time when there will be no Buddha, etc. In fact, there will come a time when all parts of our present culture will have long faded away and there will be not one entity left alive who has ever heard of Buddha, Buddhism, Jesus, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Yoga, non dualism -- even Adyashanti.

3. All there really is is this stuff right here. And, addressing right here and now with any concepts and learnings and images from the point of view of all my fantasies about myself and dharma and spirituality and various religions -- is entirely optional. Insidious and Irresistibly tempting, yes, but moment to moment still a choice.

My fantasies about myself and how I am can meet other people's fantasies about what makes a good dharma practitioner can work together to really f me up.

What I mean is, a good ideal would be to always come to dharma practice from a place of freedom, from a place of "take it or leave it" always ready to abandon all concepts when clear seeing from a free empty place leads to at least a temporary cessation of suffering.

"Don't beat yourself up for not being skillful enough. That pangs of
Protestant guilt, and I've had enough of that in my life to know it's
best to put it aside." - hipster

You know, that's a good point. For whatever reason a lot of Buddhists I know were raised in fairly hardcore religious families - Catholic, Protestant or Jewish often - and seem to have been attracted to Buddhism because it provides a spiritual life with a "less judgmental attitude" (this was expressed to me by many people in a particular sangha when I asked them about it during a weekend retreat). But clearly, we can easily bring along our own inner nun-with-a-ruler to punish us if we are not practicing well enough!

Hi Zach!
Your initial description rings some bells for me, yes. I want to focus on the phenomenon of "clinging to suffering". I think you're pointing to something pretty interesting there and I feel like I can relate to it.

From my own perspective right now, the sense of "me" (and thus mine) is basically identical with a sense of resistance to what is. Resistance to what is is identical to clinging to what is. Whether it's liking something and wanting to keep it, or disliking something and pushing it away, there is resistance and in the complete relaxation of resistance (in any given moment) I find relief from suffering.

Curiously in the complete relaxation of resistance (whether aversive or attached) I find, in addition to relief from suffering, a simple lack of that "me"-ness. There is something very simple and vivid (call it Universe, reality, whatever) which requires no owner to function, and it's always available if I relax that tension (of trying to control experience).

So based on this I conjecture that "me" is suffering. This is hard to see at first because it seems like "I" want good things and avoid bad things. It becomes easier to see when it becomes clearer that aversion to "bad" things and attachment to "good" things is the phenomenal definition of 'suffering" (as distinct from discomfort or physical pain), and in relaxation of that resistance there also seems to be a lack of separate identity-- as a structure of expectation which is holding up the criteria for what is "good" and what is "bad" in experience.

That standard of evaluation IS the resistance and clinging. Every moment of ignorance seems constituted by aversion and or attachment, IM current O. There is no "pure ignorance" at the core of the process-- just fleeting moments of pushing away or pulling toward which assume a nonexistent separation and are thus doomed to failure.

Ignorance is always enacted as resistance, in other words. So being attached to suffering is in a sense all 'I" am ever doing, as suffering/resistance is the substance of "me". In the absence of a desire to control experience, the "me" is redundant cuz everything takes care of itself. In the presence of a desire to control, close mindfulness of these dynamics seems to reveal again and again this causal matrix of suffering. Notice how trying to get rid of the "me", cuz it's "bad", creates a dharma-ego then? and trying to cling to True Nature does the same thing? This is really what I've been noticing with myself lately anyway.

That's just my take on it right now and certainly isn't meant to be binding on anyone else. I'm just describing my experience lately.