Life after disappointment

[Stephanie]

I assume I'm not the only one here who's come to this place... So I'm asking you all, in perplexity, how you dealt with finding yourselves here, if you ever did.

It's a place you get to on a "spiritual path"... perhaps a sort of crossroads. When you started out on this path, you had a lot of hopes, and dreams, of what might lie ahead. All the mysticism and magic in the universe. Transcendence, revelation, ecstasy. Life-affirming knowledge of why we're here.

But along the way, you've discovered that for all the magic and ecstasy there can be, much of what you hoped to find just doesn't seem to be there. You've desperately tried to cling on to anything promising you that you've just missed it, that you just haven't gotten there yet. But it becomes increasingly harder to believe, as you see the writing on the wall. How we create these visions out of our own needs. There's really nothing there. If God exists, he doesn't have a special message for you, or any meaning to give you. There's no cosmic plan. He's as in the dark as you about how we ended up in this mess.

You've spent years of your life chasing after this spiritual vision. Years you could have spent in Dionysian revels, you spent instead buried in the mystic. And the mystic's there, all right--Mind is an endless mystery--but is there really a point to seeking it out? Maybe your "spirituality" was just a cover for your psychological afflictions. A way to dress them up to yourself. And now that you can see yourself naked in the mirror, with no more spiritual costumes to put on, and you see all the scars, all the ugliness--where do you go with that? You're not Jesus, battered for the sake of some cosmic narrative, you're just a mess. A mess without a reason. Just another sad story of unrelenting cosmic loneliness.

You find yourself at this crossroads. Either you can continue on with a spiritual path, knowing that it is not likely to bring you to any of the places you hoped to reach, or you can abandon it. Sure, your spiritual practice has brought you a measure of calm, of balance, of clarity--but if there is nothing really to see or discover, why bother with balance and clarity? Maybe life is more fun, and bearable, without it. Without seeing and knowing so much. Maybe it's nicer to forget. And just find whatever ways you can enjoy yourself until this pointless ride called life grinds to a halt.

Maybe it's better to distract yourself than to look into the abyss all of the time, to see into the suffering all around you, the lies, the emptiness. God isn't going to descend from the clouds and reach out to you anyway. God is just your own consciousness playing games with itself. Why play the straight game, why discipline yourself and sacrifice when you know it all amounts to a giant fucking zero in the end? When there's no one beyond us self-deluded apes that gives a damn what goes on in our tiny corner of the galaxy?

Some people here still seem to be in the honeymoon phase of spiritual life, but some of you had to have gotten here at some point in your spiritual careers. What did you do? What did you learn? How did you choose to live, and how do you feel about that choice now? I know that no one can give me the "answers," but at least knowing what some other people did might help. For all the bazillion Dharma books there are out there, I haven't found a one that really speaks to this.

And I'm not talking about psych issues, or depression, here. That's another, though related, issue. Questions of meaning are what have brought me joy and inspiration for years now, regardless of my mood or state of mind from month to month or year to year. Now I'm coming up dry. I just can't make stuff up any more. This is about confronting the purpose of a spiritual life in a world, and universe, in which there very well seems to be no purpose.

[disastermouse]

Re: Life after disappointment

Christian mystics might call what you're going through 'The Dark Night of the Senses'.

Life doesn't add up to a big zero at the END. It adds up to a big zero now. I don't really think you've seen the big 'zero' yet though, because it doesn't leave you with a feeling of despair. Thinking about an imaginary big 'zero' brings despair. What you really need to investigate is why you think it should have come up with some other number. Your dissatisfaction seems to be coming from the fact that you want 'it' to be some other way than what it is.

You describe life as empty, but you're not empty. You're full of ideas about the way the world should be. The world is going to win every single time. The world will be the way it is every single time. I don't think you've really seen that there's no way to win yet. If you were 100% hopeless, you'd drop your need for the world to be some other way - and then maybe you'd be able to enjoy the world as it is. You could act in ways to try to make it better without despairing that it's meaningless. What causes your suffering isn't that the world thwarts your attempts to make it or see it as better - you're going to war against the world with your judgements about how it should be, and since you are at war, your world is at war.

Many of us see human greed, stupidity, carelessness, and life's meaninglessness without despairing.

In your posts, I see a very intelligent woman - and sometimes the world seems cruel to the intelligent or the imaginative - because it doesn't live up to their imaginations about how it should be. The thing is, you have to realize that the source of this war is not the world - it is you. If you want the suffering to stop, you have to stop insisting that the world be different than it is.

Your disappointment is a very good sign! If you can look into yourself and see the real source of your disappointment, you'll have broken through a very difficult barrier. Pain usually forces me back to this realization in my own life, as I often go astray on this issue. For me, my expectations eventually crushed me. After that happens, there's hope. Some people can put down their expectations without being crushed, but I am very stubborn - and I suspect you are stubborn too.

You present your argument as though you have a choice - but I think you and I both know you don't have a choice. You haven't skipped the Dionysian because you made a choice. You know that the Dionysian will leave you feeling empty. EVERYTHING has left you empty. You hoped the dharma would not leave you feeling as empty, but it has. Why has it?

Ask yourself what it is you want from Buddhism. Therein lies the problem. Everyone's trying to fill that hole - and you hoped Buddhism would fill it, and it hasn't. You should look very closely at that hole, at that feeling of lack. Where does it come from? What causes it? On what basic assumptions is it predicated?

As for books - I'd recommend something outside the realm of Dharma books. Specifically, I'd recommend Byron Katie's 'Loving What Is'. More specifically, I'd recommend the audio version. As a matter of fact, if there's any advice I've given you, this is one piece of advice I'd most hope you take.

You are a very smart, beautiful woman (I saw your blog photo - your avatar here doesn't do you justice :wink: ) - but you'll never find what you're looking for because it's based on very inaccurate assumptions about reality.

[Martin]

Re: Life after disappointment

Hi Stephanie

What a beautifully written post, you write very well. That's not what you want to hear, of course; you want an answer, now. And Disastermouse, I thought your reply was spot on too.

Have I been in the "place" where you are, Stephanie? I can't know, but I think somewhere similar. And how did / do I cope? I suppose I didn't. I gave up, in the end. Not on living - that kind of carried on without me agreeing to it. But on the search for "meaning". On the "spiritual path", if you like. I gave in to the nagging voice that I'd tried to push away, and that you express so eloquently, saying that there was nothing there. And the odd thing was / is that now life doesn't seem "meaningless" (or "unspiritual") to me. It doesn't seem to have "meaning" either, mind. It's just life. But, for me, at least, "What's the meaning?" was, or became, the wrong question. Life isn't an answer to that question, which was only ever in my head, it's an answer, if anything, to the question "What is life?" Nothing, is there.

But I think you know all that, and you've read that, only put better, before, in your dharma books. As to how I live, having given up on meaning? I'm afraid I don't know, and maybe others will be able to give better answers. It sort of takes care of itself. I think the dharma books say "Chop wood, carry water". I don't have a lot of wood to chop, or water to carry, actually, but I do the best I can with what comes next; it's not as if there's an alternative.

Gassho

Martin

[roky]

Re: Life after disappointment

martin - good to see you back, i post sporadically, and wasn't sure if you were back from your operation

steph -- well, i know this can't still be a "honeymoon", since my formal path started about 40 yrs ago -- hate to sound boring, but nothing has changed -- i took a bunch of lsd, read the "lazy man's guide to enlightenment" -- all the lazy man's guide was lacking, for me, was a method, and i found that in buddhist meditation -- i can't say anything significant has happened in the "whats it all about?" department since then -- for me, life is "same day, different shit", at least on one channel(re:jundo's 2 channels) -- time is an illusion, every event the same, every place the same -- no place to go, nothing to do, not really -- again, thats what i found on acid at 18, and if i see anything differently, i will certainly readjust my view -- i indulge a bit, plan a sailing cruise("won't that be fun"), anticipated my retirement by crossing the days off for 3 years -- guess what, nothing changed -- i can do anything i want now, only problem, nothing to do!! -- its all the same! -- whats left? -- "chop wood, carry water" -- just like people have done for ages, long before they had our luxury of introspection -- or, as i saw in my last long retreat, when the teacher asked me how i was doing, i admitted that i could now see there really wasn't anything to "do" in life, other than awareness, and metta -- beyond that, its all relatively inconsequential: go/stay, happy/sad, blah, blah, blah

had depressed clients who shared this same view(it certainly sounds depressing) -- only thing is, i'm not depressed! -- at least, not about this -- i think, for some reason, i've been able to keep my heart open, if not for me, for others(all the same anyway)

so i'm just fine with this path i'm on -- and its not like i have any choice -- i couldn't lie to myself, thank god, not on something as basic as the structure of reality -- i am wierd in that i think we all know exactly what's going on, on a very deep, sometimes hidden, level, and do not need any one, or book, to see it -- just a desire for the "truth"

the true test, and the beauty of practice, is that this is not what i "think", this is what i am confronted with whenever i go to that place, whether its while i'm running down the road, sitting zazen, dropping acid -- little(running), or big(acid) gaps in the illusion -- and i don't think i'm alone in that, since many have written, or attempted to write, of similar
experiences -- so even when i don't think this, or think anything, its what is

at about 7 or 8 i began to freak out, cause there were little cracks already appearing in the illusion of "everyday" life -- i tried to push that out of mind, as we're programmed to do -- the panic attacks soon followed, for years -- at first it seemed easier to try and go back to sleep, and some folks do -- but if you can't, you can't

when i first retired, i was going everywhere, doing everything -- grand canyon, zion, paria -- like stuffing myself at a banquet -- the old farts at the trailer park would ask me why i was driving 200 miles to see pretty stuff, when i could just walk outside the back fence

now i just jump over the fence, look at the beauty of what is, and try to be good to people -- not because this is what i've read, but because this i what i've seen

gassho, bob

[Dojin]

Re: Life after disappointment

Hey Steph.
boy have you struck a chord with me. it took me some time to read and some time to answer but i know exactly what you mean.
frankly i have never considered myself a spiritual person, but i guess i fit the bill.

for a long time i felt the world to be wrong and searched for something to give it meaning and peace for myself. i never wanted felt anything mystical about it but i did find the world frustrating,i felt lost. when i stared practicing zen and meditation i wanted to reach enlightenment, to become perfect, to find the meaning, the answer. the big secret to make it all understandable and bearable.
at first my practice brought me peace of mind and happiness, it was great i couldn't believe how good it felt. but with time i started to want more. and i never seemed to get any further. i felt i was stuck in one point and i have reached the peak of what my practice could offer me. so i started skipping sitting sometimes when i didn't feel like it or just wasn't in the mood.

and the more i studied i felt i couldn't get anymore of this practice, i knew i could never find those answers i seek, it made me a bit sad... how could it be? with time i understood there are no answers anywhere. needless to say it made me feel a bit depressed, i will never find you those things i wanted to find answers too because there are none.... FUCK THIS SHIT was definitely one of my reactions to this realization.

i can't say it ever went away, i still sometimes sit and look at the world and notice how amazingly beautiful and magical it is and i am so close to knowing and tapping in to that great secret answer and i know there isn't one and i will never find it, it makes me feel melancholy, bitter sweet is a better way to put it.

i cant tell you what happened exactly that i don't feel that way anymore but what i can tell you is this...
i think that the only thing that changed within me is my perspective, my point of view.
those things became less important to me and i understood i don't need them in order to live my life to the fullest extent.

so i don't really have any good advice but it will pass and it is a part of life and just accept it and let go...

Just let go i hope it helped

p.s.

Remember you are not alone

Gassho
Daniel who knows the real answer to life the universe and everything is 42 :wink:

[Jundo]

Re: Life after disappointment

Hi Steph,

When you started out on this path, you had a lot of hopes, and dreams, of what might lie ahead. All the mysticism and magic in the universe. Transcendence, revelation, ecstasy. Life-affirming knowledge of why we're here.

But I found all that in my Practice! Yessery Bob. I ain't trying to sell you the Brooklyn bridge. It is what keeps me doing this, day in day out. All the mysticism and magic in the universe. Transcendence, revelation, ecstasy. Life-affirming knowledge of why we're here. Your colorful description doesn't even cover a corner of it all.

What, you think I do this Practice cause it is some kind of valium or band-aid on the "Big Questions"? Just a bit of "calm" in my hectic day? Heck no!

I keep telling you, Steph, time and again when you raise this ... that you are looking in the wrong places and asking the wrong questions.

There's really nothing there. If God exists, he doesn't have a special message for you, or any meaning to give you. There's no cosmic plan. He's as in the dark as you about how we ended up in this mess.

... A mess without a reason. Just another sad story of unrelenting cosmic loneliness. ... the suffering all around you, the lies, the emptiness.

Ah, the stories you write for yourself. You are really as wonderful a story teller as those Tibetans on the other thread, with the 1000 armed Chenrezig in a beam of Golden Light.

Now ask yourself: which is the real story, and which is the unreal story? What makes you "lonely", a "mess"? What is this "suffering" "lies" and "emptiness" (I think you mean the bad kind of emptiness that is just empty). So, what makes "beams of Golden Light"?

You describe life as empty, but you're not empty. You're full of ideas about the way the world should be. The world is going to win every single time. The world will be the way it is every single time. I don't think you've really seen that there's no way to win yet. If you were 100% hopeless, you'd drop your need for the world to be some other way - and then maybe you'd be able to enjoy the world as it is. You could act in ways to try to make it better without despairing that it's meaningless. What causes your suffering isn't that the world thwarts your attempts to make it or see it as better - you're going to war against the world with your judgements about how it should be, and since you are at war, your world is at war.

Many of us see human greed, stupidity, carelessness, and life's meaninglessness without despairing.

In your posts, I see a very intelligent woman - and sometimes the world seems cruel to the intelligent or the imaginative - because it doesn't live up to their imaginations about how it should be. The thing is, you have to realize that the source of this war is not the world - it is you. If you want the suffering to stop, you have to stop insisting that the world be different than it is.

This is very well said, Chet. The only thing I would add (as I always add): Embracing the world "as it is", and bonding with it, need not mean some resignation, discouraged acceptance or disappointment. Quite the contrary.

It is also seeing the Beauty where, before, one only saw beauty and ugliness, tasting the Endless Treasure, Wisdom, Care and Meaning in what (to some) is a world of greed, stupidity, carelessness and meaninglessness.

I gave up, in the end. Not on living ... But on the search for "meaning". On the "spiritual path", if you like. I gave in to the nagging voice that I'd tried to push away, and that you express so eloquently, saying that there was nothing there. And the odd thing was / is that now life doesn't seem "meaningless" (or "unspiritual") to me. It doesn't seem to have "meaning" either, mind. It's just life. But, for me, at least, "What's the meaning?" was, or became, the wrong question. Life isn't an answer to that question, which was only ever in my head, it's an answer, if anything, to the question "What is life?" Nothing, is there.

Or Everything is There. And all the meaning in the universe.

Glass is half full, glass is half empty, or glass is crystal clear pure emptiness which drinks the whole of time and space!

Gee, all depends how you look at it! :shock:

What the hell is with all the "there are no answers" folks around here? Geez louise! I don't care if you have been walking this path 40 years or 4 days or a moment.

DON'T YOU EVER EVER THINK THAT, JUST BECAUSE OL' JUNDO KEEPS SAYING "THERE IS NOTHING TO LOOK FOR" ... THAT THERE IS NOTHING TO FIND!

Good night.

Gassho, Jundo (really, makes me want to put a padlock on the door to the place, and burst into 1000 pieces like Chenrezig. Really). :evil:

[disastermouse]

Re: Life after disappointment

DON'T YOU EVER EVER THINK THAT, JUST BECAUSE OL' JUNDO KEEPS SAYING "THERE IS NOTHING TO LOOK FOR" ... THAT THERE IS NOTHING TO FIND!

Good night.

Gassho, Jundo (really, makes me want to put a padlock on the door to the place, and burst into 1000 pieces like Chenrezig. Really). :evil:

Don't get discouraged. I for one have not decided to make resignation my practice.

[Stephanie]

Re: Life after disappointment

I appreciate everyone's feedback.

Maybe I've just had a streak of bad luck, but my life experiences have ripped out my capacity to believe there's a point to all this, much less one that is worth all of this. I never thought I'd be saying this, but in a way, I now wish I'd never set out on this path. Every way that my engagement with the Dharma has affected my life choices has led me further and further away from any sort of safety, solace, or comfort. And I used to think that was a good thing, but now that I confront the fact that there's no pot of gold at the end of this long, exhausting rainbow, at least not for me, I see no point in all the loss that staying on this path required of me. My neurochemistry may be responsible for the emotional tone of my life, but I have the Dharma, and Zen practice, to thank for taking away my ability to hope for redemption and believe in anything transcendent. I think I could have been happier if I'd left well enough alone. Too fucking late now, though.

Life. What a piece of shit. At least I can laugh about it.



You know, I think if I'm being honest, at the end of the day, as much as I sincerely wanted truth, what I wanted as much as anything was for people to love me. And I thought maybe if I was good enough, or enlightened enough, I'd finally discover the secret to being loved. And it was all wrong, because even if you do become a better person, people don't love you for it. I thought by looking for love in Buddhist circles I would at least be guaranteed some measure of compassion and understanding. But if anything, it's been the opposite.

The greatest love and kindness I've been shown has come from anywhere but Buddhists (though you folks here are a noticeable exception--at the very least, you've been kind and patient and supportive), whereas for all they could pontificate about compassion, the Buddhists I've known have had a shocking capacity to treat other people like they're nothing. The "compassion" and "goodness" is a show to prove some point to others about themselves, but when it came down to it, those people had no problem turning their backs. Which is why you find me so skeptical of all of the same platitudes you all sit there typing to me about how wonderful the universe is, and love and light blah blah blah, because I've heard the same crap before from people who would then turn around and do the most cold, horrible things to me or other people.

And I look at the world out there, all the people in so much pain and trouble who've got no one, who don't have family and friends who are there for them, and who even us social workers usually ultimately abandon because that's the way the system goes... Yeah, you could gloss over all of this with some sort of cosmic justification for how it's all really beautiful and meaningful on some level, but the simple human truth is that it isn't. People suffer and die alone, they look other people in the face and other peopl look away -- I often find myself one of the people who looks away, because if you responded to every call for help on the streets of New York you'd go bankrupt and lose your job and everything else... It is this way for so many people, the people in our institutions, our homeless shelters, our jails, even our schools, workplaces, homes... and even if it is possible for a person to attain some sort of enlightenment that takes the sting out of our existential situation, what then of all the people who suffer and die without that?

This is where I stick on all this... what good is Heaven or enlightenment when so many people are in Hell? But what you learn when you go out and try to reach the people who are in Hell, is that there is just so much suffering out there, it's impossible. And if there's no God, no transcendence, no cosmic order underlying all of this, it means that all of these people suffer and die alone for no reason. No one will ever hold them and tell them that it's okay. I think you can make all of this okay on the level of intellect, but you can't feel it in your heart and bones, how much people suffer, how they struggle with no one to lift them up, and know that not everyone will know love and happiness, and be okay with that. You have to have faith that there's something that makes it all okay in the end. And if you lose that faith, it's fucking impossible to go on in the trenches without succumbing to a sense of utter defeat. And then what?

I haven't seen a damn shred of anything in the Soto worldview that addresses this need. Saying that a person can experience wonder in the world is great and all, but what about all the people out there who don't get to that point? If you don't believe in some sort of soul that continues beyond death, it means that you have to accept that a lot of people out there just lead sad lives and die. How the hell do you live with that? I feel sorry for myself sometimes, but it's really the thought that so many people out there who have suffered just like me, all the people out there who have suffered far worse than me, and who won't be lifted up in some way, that is the real killer. I could suffer any number of horrible things and find strength if I believed there was some purpose in it, some way that this could help others. But just knowing that there's one person out there who might not be "saved" makes the whole thing fall apart like a house of cards. I mean, at this point, it's looking like even I can't be saved--what about all the thousands and millions out there, even, who have it far worse than me? It makes a person want to drink!

[Jundo]

Re: Life after disappointment

Hi Steph,

As I always tell you, and always will tell you:

You choose to see life this way. You don't need to do so. It is your choice.

Sometimes, we find the suffering strangely cozy and familiar, and we are afraid to leave it.

Gassho, Jundo

[disastermouse]

Re: Life after disappointment

I appreciate everyone's feedback.

Maybe I've just had a streak of bad luck, but my life experiences have ripped out my capacity to believe there's a point to all this, much less one that is worth all of this. I never thought I'd be saying this, but in a way, I now wish I'd never set out on this path. Every way that my engagement with the Dharma has affected my life choices has led me further and further away from any sort of safety, solace, or comfort. And I used to think that was a good thing, but now that I confront the fact that there's no pot of gold at the end of this long, exhausting rainbow, at least not for me, I see no point in all the loss that staying on this path required of me. My neurochemistry may be responsible for the emotional tone of my life, but I have the Dharma, and Zen practice, to thank for taking away my ability to hope for redemption and believe in anything transcendent. I think I could have been happier if I'd left well enough alone. Too fucking late now, though.

Life. What a piece of shit. At least I can laugh about it.

Gotta love despair.com!

You know, I think if I'm being honest, at the end of the day, as much as I sincerely wanted truth, what I wanted as much as anything was for people to love me. And I thought maybe if I was good enough, or enlightened enough, I'd finally discover the secret to being loved. And it was all wrong, because even if you do become a better person, people don't love you for it. I thought by looking for love in Buddhist circles I would at least be guaranteed some measure of compassion and understanding. But if anything, it's been the opposite.

Well at least you're honest about what you want. I can totally relate - I just spent two years chained to a bad relationship desperately hoping to be loved. I rode that suffering out, and now that it's over, I feel like I ground down most of that need.

Maybe you need a season in hell to wear out your delusions? Of course, you don't have to let your load crush you, you can put it down at any moment...but when you're stuck in a pattern, you have to keep putting it down again and again, or prevent yourself from picking it back up. Pointedly, I want to ask you why you think you're not worthy of love now? If you try to play this game with people, they will just echo back your own beliefs back at you. I had two dreams the night before that pointed at my two biggest problems. In the first one, I got into a new thing with a girl and she left (I never get the girl in my dreams, LOL). In the second, I screamed over the phone over a $12,000 phone bill for a cell phone I bought for my mom (totally fictitious situation). If you think your life will reflect anything back at you that's too radically different than your dreams, you're wrong. You HAVE to extend some love to your own bad self...the world can take care of itself. Or, you can burn through it in a season of hell.

The greatest love and kindness I've been shown has come from anywhere but Buddhists (though you folks here are a noticeable exception--at the very least, you've been kind and patient and supportive), whereas for all they could pontificate about compassion, the Buddhists I've known have had a shocking capacity to treat other people like they're nothing. The "compassion" and "goodness" is a show to prove some point to others about themselves, but when it came down to it, those people had no problem turning their backs. Which is why you find me so skeptical of all of the same platitudes you all sit there typing to me about how wonderful the universe is, and love and light blah blah blah, because I've heard the same crap before from people who would then turn around and do the most cold, horrible things to me or other people.

The universe isn't wonderful and it isn't terrible, it just is. You apply your own paint-job. When you argue with people about the 'love and light' shit, you're really just arguing that you have a better or more accurate paint-job on your universe. Buddhism, IMHO, looks beneath the paint.

And I look at the world out there, all the people in so much pain and trouble who've got no one, who don't have family and friends who are there for them, and who even us social workers usually ultimately abandon because that's the way the system goes... Yeah, you could gloss over all of this with some sort of cosmic justification for how it's all really beautiful and meaningful on some level, but the simple human truth is that it isn't. People suffer and die alone, they look other people in the face and other peopl look away -- I often find myself one of the people who looks away, because if you responded to every call for help on the streets of New York you'd go bankrupt and lose your job and everything else... It is this way for so many people, the people in our institutions, our homeless shelters, our jails, even our schools, workplaces, homes... and even if it is possible for a person to attain some sort of enlightenment that takes the sting out of our existential situation, what then of all the people who suffer and die without that?

They're in their season of hell. You can't lift them out if they believe they should be there. It just doesn't work. They will find a way back because, at heart, they believe they should be there.

Look at yourself - you're well fed, you could easily get a hug, you've got a place to eat. Your suffering is mostly mental. We've all been trying to pull you out of it, but we can't. Why are you making us suffer, dammit??? (I kid)

This is where I stick on all this... what good is Heaven or enlightenment when so many people are in Hell? But what you learn when you go out and try to reach the people who are in Hell, is that there is just so much suffering out there, it's impossible. And if there's no God, no transcendence, no cosmic order underlying all of this, it means that all of these people suffer and die alone for no reason. No one will ever hold them and tell them that it's okay. I think you can make all of this okay on the level of intellect, but you can't feel it in your heart and bones, how much people suffer, how they struggle with no one to lift them up, and know that not everyone will know love and happiness, and be okay with that. You have to have faith that there's something that makes it all okay in the end. And if you lose that faith, it's fucking impossible to go on in the trenches without succumbing to a sense of utter defeat. And then what?

I haven't seen a damn shred of anything in the Soto worldview that addresses this need. Saying that a person can experience wonder in the world is great and all, but what about all the people out there who don't get to that point? If you don't believe in some sort of soul that continues beyond death, it means that you have to accept that a lot of people out there just lead sad lives and die. How the hell do you live with that?

You offer them the Dharma. If it's not their time, there's nothing you can do about it.

I feel sorry for myself sometimes, but it's really the thought that so many people out there who have suffered just like me, all the people out there who have suffered far worse than me, and who won't be lifted up in some way, that is the real killer. I could suffer any number of horrible things and find strength if I believed there was some purpose in it, some way that this could help others. But just knowing that there's one person out there who might not be "saved" makes the whole thing fall apart like a house of cards. I mean, at this point, it's looking like even I can't be saved--what about all the thousands and millions out there, even, who have it far worse than me? It makes a person want to drink!

Then have a drink! Hell, get wasted! But then get up and take a fresh look at the world. I'm not going to tell you it's wonderful, but I don't believe it's terrible either. It is what it is.

How do you get free from hell?

Chet

[Charles]

Re: Life after disappointment

And if there's no God, no transcendence, no cosmic order underlying all of this, it means that all of these people suffer and die alone for no reason.

No. It means that all of these people suffer and die alone for no reason that you find acceptable, in your position of 'Supreme Judge of The Universe.' (I don't mean that in a dismissive or derogatory way; we all play that role much of the time, don't we? Let's just not pretend it's about 'Truth' or 'Reality' or 'Meaning' or somesuch.)

I think you can make all of this okay on the level of intellect, but you can't feel it in your heart and bones, how much people suffer, how they struggle with no one to lift them up, and know that not everyone will know love and happiness, and be okay with that. You have to have faith that there's something that makes it all okay in the end. And if you lose that faith, it's fucking impossible to go on in the trenches without succumbing to a sense of utter defeat.

In all of this you should say 'me' where you say 'you'. You're not talking about universal principles, or the limits of human consciousness. You're talking about your own suffering, your own inability to resist a sense of utter defeat after losing faith. And it isn't universal. It's your issue, your stuff. Not God's stuff, the Universe's stuff, Reality's stuff, or anything else other than your stuff.

Or, to put it another way: the world isn't failing to be an acceptable place because of other people's suffering; the world is failing to be an acceptable place to you because of your suffering. People who've gotten a handle on their own suffering are in a much better position to be strong in the face of others' suffering; they don't succumb to despair, lose hope, etc. In my experience, these issues start at home. They aren't about the suffering of others, they're about what's going on with oneself.

--Charles

[roky]

Re: Life after disappointment

steph -- i was taking a break from posting, but had to see how you were doing, and i'm gonna stick my nose in one last time --

i don't know how to help, but i think a few things -- first, you're obviously so stuck in your head, i can't imagine how a practice like zazen couldn't help -- remember the old suzuki thing? -- trying to figure it all out with your little mind is like trying to scratch your foot with your shoe on! -- you need to take the shoe off -- how much are you sitting? i have trouble imagining all those tenacious thoughts going on if you're sitting a few hours each day -- and how about a retreat? -- go up to ims as a work retreatant, no charge, they always need workers -- if i felt as bad as you describe, i'd definitely make working on me #1 -- where did you ever get the idea that you needed answers to this stuff in order to feel well?

and the other thing that comes through loud and clear, is if you think you're doing metta, you ain't -- i read all this "conditional" love in your post -- there's a place for conditions, like that "tough love" stuff, but metta ain't that -- you have these heavy conditions, the world has to be a certain way before you can love it -- well, that means you've got to be a certain way before you'll love you -- anyway, very clear, heart closed, bad -- heart open, good -- how open heart? -- metta practice -- get rid of those conditions-- if the heart is open even briefly, it can undo a whole lot of crap -- groove on it, indulge in it

and i'm gonna sit -- and when i do metta, you're in there

gassho, bob

[Keishin]

Re: Life after disappointment

Hello to Stephanie and to all others posting here!:

Dai E Zenji's Vow for Awakening:
Our only prayer is to be firm in our determination to give ourselves completely to the Buddha's Way, so that no doubts arise however long the road seems to be; to be light and easy in the four parts of the body; to be strong and undismayed in body and in mind; to be free from illness and drive out both depressed feelings and distractions; to be free from calamity, misfortune, harmful influences and obstructions; not to seek the Truth outside of ourselves, so we may instantly enter the right way; to be unattached to all thoughts that we may reach the perfectly clear bright mind of prajna and have immediate enlightenment on the Great Matter. Thereby we receive the transmission of the deep wisdom of the Buddhas to save all sentient beings who suffer in the round of birth and death. In this way we offer our gratitude for the compassion of the Buddhas and the Patriarchs. Our further prayer is not to e extremely ill or to be suffering at the time of departure, to know its coming seven days ahead so that we can quiet the mind to abandon the body and be unattached to all things at the last moment wherein we return to the Original Mind in the realm of no birth and no death and merge infinitely into the whole universe to manifest as all things in their True Nature and with the great wisdom of the Buddhas to awaken all beings to the Buddha Mind. We offer this to all Buddhas and Bodhisattva-Mahasattvas of the past, present and future in the ten quarters and to the Maha Prajna Paramitra.

and also:

Hakuin Zenji's Song of Zazen
All sentient beings are essentially Buddhas. As with water and ice, there is no ice without water; apart from sentient beings, there are no Buddhas. Not knowing how close the truth is, we see it far away--what a pity! We are like the son of a rich man who wandered away among the poor. The reason we transmigrate through the Six Realms is because we are lost in the darkness of ignorance. Going further and further astray in the darkness, how can we ever be free from birth-and-death? As for the Mahayana practice of zazen, there are no words to praise it fully. The Six Paramitas, such as giving, maintaining the precepts and various other good deeds like invoking the Buddha's name, repentance, and spiritual training, all finally return to the practice of zazen. Even those who have sat zazen only once will see all karma erased. Nowhere will they find evil paths and the Pure Land will not be far away. If we listen even once with open heart to this truth, then praise it and gladly embrace it, how much more so then, if on reflecting within ourselves we directly realize Self-nature, giving proof to the truth that Self-nature is no nature. We will have gone far beyond idle speculation. The gate of the oneness of cause and effect is thereby opened, and not-two, not-three, straight ahead runs the Way. Realizing the form of no-form as form, wether going or returning we cannot be any place else. Realizing the thought of no-thought as thought, whether singing or dancing, we are the voice of the Dharma. How vast and wide the unobstructed sky of samadhi! How bright and clear the perfect moonlight of the Fourfold Wisdom! At this moment what more need we seek? As the eternal tranquility of Truth reveals itself to us, this very place is the Land o Lotuses and this very body is the body of the Buddha.


Stephanie, I chanted these weekly at the One Drop Zendo LA (Rinzai), and for a time repeated them daily.
I would find certain phrases would float up during the day and, like a splash of water on my face, would refresh me. I am very grateful to Dai E Zenji and to Hakuin: their words were like a lifeboat to sit in when the ship-of-myself-as-I'v'e-always-thought-of-myself-to-be was going down.
Of course nothing was going down, but my experience was as real as the hypnotized woman on stage drinking water and told it was pickle juice.
All of us have mesmerized ourselves. There is mind and there is reality itself. Perceptions: straight forward, or already colored by thought?

It reminds me of a joke: a man comes into a tailor's to buy a suit. There is a light grey suit in the window, just his size, but he wants a blue suit.
The tailor calls out to his assistant--Max! Turn on the blue light!

While all of us here, there, and everywhere can offer you many many many words, and you, yourself, with many many eloquent, wise, witty and poignant words can respond back it is the wordless place in which to go. These chants I've typed--it isn't words of these great, now long dead practitioners--it is between and beyond their words.

You are in pain, you are suffering. How else would you be able to understand 'pain,' 'sufferiing.' You have no hope. You despair. How else can you possibly ever be of benefit to anyone who is in the midst of no hope and despair?
If you want to work in a nursery school: be prepared to have a constant cold for the first several years!
I do not mean to or intend to make light of or diminish any of your anguish.
Do not attach to your anguish. Do not push it away. Do not dwell in it. Anguish comes. ANGUISH! Something else comes and then something else after that followed by a myriad of something else's. Like colors in a crayon box--not one is more important or more significant than all the others.
They are just all colors. We attach to which ones are 'pretty' or which ones are our favorite combinations, which one's uplift and which one's bring us down...

Again, I very much apologize for the wordiness here.

You mention the coldness you've experienced from other zen practitioners. Interestingly enough I talk a little about the cool/warmth I experienced from zen teachers and senior practitioners in a post on Chet's thread Borderline and Buddhism--for which I used a metaphor of 'inert, noble gas' (as in periodic table of elements); which may or may not be helpful as a description of a friendliness which does not foster dependency.

Truly no one can do this thing (zazen, walking the middle path), for us. In spite of any trail marks others such as Hakuin and Dai E Zenji may have left we have to get to that part of the path--or close enough to that part of the path--to see the trail marks--and all that does is to confirm to us that we are, indeed, on the path (as if we didn't know that already).

Your sense of humor is an invaluable asset, among all the other invaluable assets you possess.
A cake half-baked says 'when oh when am I going to be done?'
Well.....it depends: on everything else! the temperature of the oven, the type of batter, the type of cake tin or cupcake tins being used.....
I always found it quite frustrating reading Fanny Farmer's cookbook with the final instruction 'bake until done.'
But you know, it truly is the most accurate directive to give!

May we all realize the Buddha-way together!

[Marina S]

Re: Life after disappointment

Hi Stephanie,

I read your posts on this topic and felt some of your suffering. I'm taking a guess here, but I think that what you are tapping into that leaves you feeling so sad and despairing is our shared humanity. To my mind there is nothing wrong with that, if anything it could be a gift. The Buddha said that suffering is a reality. The point is to connect with the nobility within you to live with life, even in its darkest moments. I, too, can have times of despair when I witness the suffering. Some of the kind that we experience and are disillusioned by is our compulsion to seek self-improvement (coming from a place of seeing ourselves as less than). Our culture and advertising industry thrive on it. We embark on a spiritual path as we would a self-improvement program. Perhaps our approach should be different. What if we were to stop obsessing over our faults and always measuring our progress along the spiritual path, and start to slowly accept our humanity. Compassion towards ourselves (the antithesis to self-improvement). I love what Zorba said about embracing the "full catastrophe" that is life.

Metta and gassho

[Stephanie]

Re: Life after disappointment

I really appreciate all the heartfelt thoughts, empathy, and advice you all offer here. And Chet, in your kidding comment, you hit on something--I feel guilty about finding myself doing this to you all repeatedly. I come and post the same sort of stuff over and over again, and you all try to help, and sometimes I feel a little better, but usually all your efforts seem wasted on me as I languish in the same emotional state. I can only imagine how frustrating and annoying this can be. It was mentioned in one of my classes that you know you're dealing with a depressed person when you want to reach out, grab them by the shoulders, and shake them!

All I can offer in return for your efforts is to assure you all it does help, even when it doesn't seem to--or I wouldn't keep coming back. It's helped me just to find an outlet here, for one thing--I don't tend to talk about this with my loved ones, because even when I try, it's generally met with confusion or resistance or changing the subject. My parents especially don't respond well. I even told them how depressed I was getting last winter and both changed the subject.

I don't want to talk about this with my best friend because the psychic space I share with her is one of the few where this crap doesn't intrude, and I want to keep it that way. The couple of tentative friendships I have locally I don't want to derail by suddenly getting too intimate too quick with all the details of my dark psychological state. So having a supportive group of people I can come to right now, even if it's only on the Internet, means a lot. You all offer a reality check and keep me questioning my thoughts. It helps.

Bob, you busted me--my zazen practice has very much gone downhill in the last several weeks. I went from sitting every day (with the occasional missed day) for three or four years to missing more and more until I've gotten to where, in the past month, I'm sitting only once a week. I'm struggling to get back on track. But I just don't have the strength to face myself on the cushion sometimes these days. I need to start dragging myself to the cushion, crawling if I have to. My ability to express metta, especially toward myself, has also dried up.

I'm sick, and I know it, but the annoying thing about it is that I'm not "with it" enough to harness the discipline and organization I need to do what I need to do to help me get better. I'm trying, though, and once the dust settles with the moving in and starting the semester business, my first priority is going to be to find a counselor and start seeing him/her. Even if that is the total focus of my non-work energies for a while.

My "season in hell" really started in about January or February of this year. I experienced a number of setbacks in my efforts to build a supportive social network here--two friendships I thought were going somewhere fell apart, for different reasons; I became disillusioned with my efforts to make a connection with a local sangha I was attending, and stopped going... And then the winter depression hit me hard. I became even more socially disconnected. And that's when I really knew how chemically afflicted I was, because I started having some of the more classic severe symptoms of depression--insomnia being the biggest one.

Honestly, the last four years or so of my life have been difficult and disappointing and it's been a slow downward trajectory throughout that time, despite minor successes here and there. But it's only gotten really bad since this past winter. Something has to give at some point and I don't think I'll be in this hell forever, but it's definitely a hard climb, given that personal setbacks and challenges, revelations and disappointments in relationships, the most challenging professional / academic engagement I've ever had, adjusting to life in New York City, etc., have taxed a mind/system already drained from an endogenous depression.

I think it's difficult for me to express myself here because I recognize the depression as "its own thing" and am trying to deal with that. The spiritual questions coming up around all this are related, but independent of the depression. In the past, when things got bad, I had faith, hope, and beliefs that helped inspire me and keep me out of the worst of that. I've lost so much of that and it's that I'm coming to you all with, the struggle to find a source of strength and meaning without a basis of belief or hope in some sort of transcendence or redemption. These are hard questions for me and I appreciate you all engaging me in this.

I want to respond to you all more individually at some point but I've got to run--just wanted to take the time to put this out there first.

Gassho--