Mandala
of Being, based on a sketch © Richard Moss
Well,
I've now finished reading Richard Moss' The Mandala of Being,
the
book I was raving about last
week. My reading of it was
prompted by a recommendation and comment by my friend Paul Heft:
But
let's also wonder why we are constantly anxious; why our minds are so
often caught up in past wrongs and future disasters that we are unable
to be in and handle the present; why we so often claim ideals yet fail
to live in ways that feel right.
As mentioned in my earlier article, the thesis of the book is as
follows:
When
we are not living in the Now, our minds take us to one of four
'places': the past (where we recall stories of what happened, that we
may feel guilt, nostalgia or regret about); the future (where we dream
of an idyllic future, or worry about a catastrophic one); to judgements
about ourselves (who we think we 'are' and should be, perhaps
grandiosely or depressingly); or to judgements about others and the
external environment (who/what we think they 'are' or should be,
perhaps jealously, angrily or bitterly). When we are in these
fictitious 'places' we are not ourselves. What we must do is learn to
be aware of our lack of presence when we are in these other 'places',
and how to bring ourselves back to the Now, so that we are continually
'starting over', beginning again and afresh, with none of the 'gunk'
that is not us, being present Here and Now.
The graphic above is my adaptation of the illustration of this mandala.
The good news about the book is that I do like Moss' model -- it's
plausible and thoughtful and useful. I like the fact that this is not
about 'self-improvement' but rather about self-knowledge. I do "buy"
the fact that, thanks to our modern human brains' compunction for
abstraction and story-creation as a means of 'explaining' the world, we
have lost the capacity (which most creatures on the planet have) to
live in Now Time, in the moment. Instead, we live, mostly, in our
heads, telling stories that 'represent' what we think has happened, is
happening, and will happen to us and to the world. And as we come to
believe these stories, they evoke, again and again, the emotions shown
on the perimeter of the mandala on the chart above. Our thoughts about
these stories and the corresponding emotions reinforce each other.
Ultimately we spend almost every moment of our lives (except those when
we are caught up in the intoxication of love, music, nature, drugs, or
other 'escapes' from the machine in our heads) reacting to everything
by defensively relating it to the corresponding stories, and feeling
the corresponding emotions. Ultimately we come to think we, and the
reality around us, are
these stories and these emotions.
The bad news, for me anyway, is that (1) the exercises that Moss
suggests to bring us back to the Now just don't work for me, and (2)
the stories that Moss uses to illustrate how one could transcend these
stories and emotions are very simple stories that I simply can't relate
to -- they're just not my stories.
So thanks to Richard Moss for introducing a third useful model to
explain who 'we' are (I'll get back to the other two in a moment). I'd
recommend the book to anyone interested in such explorations. But now
I'm left trying to figure out how to devise alternative exercises and
'higher-self functioning' processes to deal with my own stories and
emotions. If you're not interested in any more of Pollard's
navel-gazing, you can stop reading this article now -- the rest is
mostly all about me (or at least who I frequently think and feel I am).
This second chart shows (in yellow) the four personal stories I came up
with as I worked through Moss' book, and the emotions (purple) these
stories engender in me. I think they're very different from most
people's stories, in part because I have been extremely fortunate in my
life so far (so none of the stories that nag my psyche are about the
past -- I've reached closure
on the very few that once might have qualified). And also, I've been
blessed with the capacity and the time for a great deal of
self-reflection, so I know myself pretty well (so none of my stories
lends itself to the rather simplistic approach that Moss' examples
take).
Here are the four stories that most keep me, these days, from living in
the Now:
- Gaia is dying.
I've written a lot about this belief, and the feelings of grief
and anger it invokes in me. This grief and anger is about every living
creature that is suffering and will suffer as the Sixth Great
Extinction of our planet progresses.
- Civilization is a prison.
I've written a lot about this, too, and the anger
and helplessness it invokes in
me.
- Others expect things of
me I cannot or will not live up to.
I am aware of and have written about the things
I am not, but still some people
expect me to be some of these things. My response is a mixture of
self-loathing (when I think their expectations are reasonable) and
self-righteousness (when I think they're not).
- I lack the courage to
actually act on my convictions.
I wrote about starting
over, describing exactly what I
know I have to do, but so far my starting over has, well, hardly
started. This fills me with anger at myself, and sometimes despair.
So there's my c.2009 version of self-analysis in a nutshell. This is
just about all I'm unhappy about these days. Moss' prescription for not
getting trapped by these stories is a combination of trust and
unattachment to the future, continued self-inquiry and empathy for
others. The objective seems to be to deconstruct and cast doubt on the
veracity of these stories. I find this all very new-agey in a Byron
Katie kind of way (sorry if you're a fan of hers). As much as I'm sure
Lomborg and the rest of the climate change deniers probably lap up this
"are you sure this is a true story -- you can never be sure any story
is really true" hokum, I just don't believe that denial is any way out.
Sorry, but the four stories above are true stories.
There is mountains of evidence to support them. Unattachment, denial,
continued self-inquiry and empathy are not going to make them less true.
But there might be some other ways of coping with the veracity of these
stories that could allow me (and others who also tell themselves these
stories) to get past the emotions and live more fully in Now Time.
My guess, thanks to reading John Gray's Straw Dogs,
is that a more appropriate, honest and graceful means of coming to
grips with my first story is acceptance.
Moss alludes to the fact that in some cases we need to learn to 'hold
space' for our stories, to acknowledge them, without letting them
devour us. Learning to accept the death of our planet may not be that
different from learning to accept the death of any individual creature
we love.
My thought is that a more appropriate response to dealing with my
second story is pragmatism.
I am increasingly viewing idealism
as not only my worst enemy but one of the greatest causes of violence
and misery on the planet. We can't control or cure all the tragic
unintended consequences of civilization culture, so there is no point
in stressing or ranting about it. What we can do, that's useful, is to
help the small circles of people we love, in community,
collaboratively, to cope with it, and to share with them the
astonishing joy in living that is still possible.
My candidate for a more appropriate response to the third story is appreciation.
Through the practice of listening and paying attention and conversation
I think it's possible for me to understand why others expect things of
me that I'm unwilling or unable to give, and to help them understand as
well. Maybe the resultant improved communication will yield more
reasonable expectations, those that can be achieved and exceeded
without anxiety.
And for dealing with story four, perhaps I should be less hard on
myself and practice patience.
I've learned to trust my instincts. It's possible that what I and
others see as procrastination or laziness is just giving myself the
time to be ready for what I need to do next, fully and effectively.
Moss might argue that acceptance, pragmatism,
appreciation, and patience are
just additional stories I could learn to tell myself about myself, more
fictions that, like all stories, are not-me. I'd like to
believe that they could be a useful part or aspect of me, something to
work on. I think they're perhaps a prescription for grace.
Perhaps all that's required now is a lifetime's practice. I still need
to find a meditation practice that works for me, but I'm sure I'll find
it. The capacity to live most of my life in Now Time instead of Anxious
Time is so close I can smell it. Everything tells me that when I
achieve that, I will indeed become
just
the space through which stuff passes, a part of the unfathomably
complex dance of all-life-on-Earth, learning to improvise which of that
passing-through stuff to touch, and which to just let go. "Ah, I know
how I can make this better, or clearer, or more interesting, or more
useful, or more innovative, or more fun -- there!" Just being the
space, and touching the right stuff in just the right way as it passes
through.
So getting back the the three models of who we are, I can see how Moss'
model of us as just "a space of no-thing-ness...a potential for
awareness" is not inconsistent with Cohen and Stewart's model of us as
a "complicity of the separately-evolved creatures in our bodies
organized for their mutual benefit". Both tell us we are not our minds,
or our minds' contents or conjurings.
As for whether "stories are all we are", Thomas King's model seems to
be the odd one out here. Though when I browsed The Truth About Stories
again today it occurred to me that King is warning that most of our
stories are lies, which we tell ourselves to be comfortable, and that
even the best stories are only guides. Perhaps King's assertion that
"stories are all we are" was meant as a challenge to see whether anyone
would reply that we are and must be more than the stories we tell
ourselves and others, more even than
the stories that are 'true'.
The above thoughts mostly emerged during a wonderful two-hour walk in
the forest yesterday, followed by an evening listening to favourite
music by scented candlelight. Time to read David Abram's Spell
of the Sensuous again.
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