Doubts and Obstacles
© Yeshe Chodon
Commitment to a spiritual path is like a marriage. There are the periods of bliss and then there are the periods of sloth and doubt when I wonder what all the bliss was about. Then there are the periods like lately when it all feels neutral, like being wrapped in wool. So many obstacles, so little time.
To one who has lived so much of her life through a haze of strong emotion, it is strange and alien to feel neutral. Religious practice lately doesn't bring bliss, just balance. This isn't the flatness of depression; it is a new world of just being without much sentiment one way or the other. I take the garbage out.I do not have a discussion with myself about it beforehand--planning the moves, arguing with the laziness--I just do it. Before I know it, I float through the garage and out to the dumpster.
This is new for me. In the 12-Step programs, we called the mental conversations The Committee. If one examines one's Committee, one can hear perhaps the voice of parents, boss, lover, whoever. There have been times in my life it took weeks of Committee meetings to get me to vaccuum the living room. She's lazy, no she's just tired. Come on, you can do it. The hell I can! Now just take the vaccuum and plug it in...
So this neutrality is a new and alien state. I can remember being angry, and I can remember being blissful--resentful--nostalgic--envious--vain--euphoric--all the ceaseless emotions that defined my life in the past. But in the past, remembering an emotion would cause an echo of that emotion. Today the emotions are just memory.And this neutrality too is just another transient state.
A wonderful Vipassana teacher, Norman Feldman, was in our area yesterday; I was lucky enough to attend one day of meditation with him. He confirmed what I inferred about this emotional void; meditation practice isn't about seeking bliss or avoiding discomfort. It is about accepting and, in Vipassana terms, being with the state whatever it is. By just accepting whatever comes along, one gradually sinks deeper into pure experience without the attendant mental attitudes and internal chatter.
So the pursuit of bliss in practice can be an obstacle, as can the avoidance of discomfort. Ultimately, through the meditation process, one sinks below any of these surface disturbances into a deeper state of awareness. And that awareness is what they call in Kundalini Yoga The Neutral Mind, or in Vipassana practice Clear Seeing, what Tibetans call the View.
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