Paul Johanson writes about the secular and contemplative practices that can release us from our habitual drive towards suffering. These practices form the basis of the Opening the Heart retreat offered in the new year.
There’s an old Tibetan story where a man is standing by the roadside when he sees another man riding past at full speed on a horse. The first man shouts:
Where are you going in such a hurry?”
The rider yells back: “I don’t know! Ask the horse!”
Strong habits powered by deep programming
This is how our minds often are (certainly my mind anyway): racing at full tilt, powered by habitual thought and behaviour, and we seem to have no control at all. And, although this may not be in the spirit of the analogy, I may often be spurring the horse on a bit towards a desired destination, or outcome – even if I know at some level that this could cause me and others to suffer.
Our habits are strong due to constant practice, and they are almost always powered by deep programming – through genetics, epigenetics, from your mum and dad (who, as Larkin contends, f— you up).
So, while of course we don’t want to suffer – in common with every sentient being – we often find ourselves racing towards suffering, and it is very difficult to change this. Indeed, much of the suffering we experience in the developed world is the result of culturally approved practices; materialism, inequality, wilful ignorance of cruelty, state-sanctioned violence, institutionalised oppression.
Tackling the fundamental problem of selfishness
Here I would like to introduce a bold and bald statement: all of these begin with and are underpinned by selfishness. As Shantideva, the 8th century Buddhist master says:
All the misery the world contains
Has come through wanting pleasure for oneself”
So, if we want to change our minds it’s not only about trying to rein in the galloping horse of our habitual thinking and behaviours and swimming against the current of mass culture, it’s also essential to tackle the fundamental problem of selfishness.
This is not easy. We human beings have been trying to work with our habitual tendencies for a long time. Paul Gilbert talks (perhaps rather euphemistically) of our ‘tricky brains’ and how they are responsible for much of our psychological difficulty, echoing Aristotle’s writings on how acquiring the ability to control our ‘base passions’ requires a lifetime of practice and experience.
Rewiring the brain towards love
Paul Gilbert also says, helpfully, that the way we are wired is not our fault, enabling a self-compassionate engagement with the very difficult task of psychological change. Pema Chödrön, the modern Buddhist teacher, says that trying to change our habits can feel like trying to change our DNA.
So, where to begin with this seemingly impossible quest? Immediately before the lines quoted above, Shantideva says:
All the joy the world contains
Has come through wishing happiness for others”
Kindness. Love. Warm-heartedness. Compassion. This is where we can start.
If I know that, just like me, all sentient beings want to be happy and not suffer. If I can hold my own suffering with kindness and compassion, if I can begin to accept myself just as I am, then as Carl Rogers famously observed, I can change.
If I ask you right now to think of someone (or a being – it could be a special pet!) you love….bringing them fully to mind…. staying with this image of them…or maybe you and them together…..
Maybe you can begin to notice how your heart warms and opens….feel this for a short while, enriching these warm-hearted feelings….
Maybe thinking how if this person was suffering in some way, you might even wish that you could take on their suffering and give them all your current happiness…
This is possibly quite easy to do, and it connects you to the end of a golden thread of teaching and practice. If you follow this thread, it can lead you to developing these qualities of warmheartedness, loving kindness and compassion so that you can begin to include others in your warm circle of love and compassion. Ultimately, it could include all sentient beings who just like you and your loved one want to be happy and not suffer.
Giving and receiving compassion
In Tibetan Buddhism this sort of practice is known as Lojong or ‘mind training’ as Robert introduced in an earlier blog post.
I’ve been trying to practice the Lojong teachings for many years, including the practice of Tonglen (literally ‘giving and taking’), which is a key meditative practice of exchanging one’s own happiness for anothers’ suffering. When I first did this I found myself becoming very angry for apparently no reason. This was a cause of quite a lot of shame and embarrassment. What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I be compassionate? I now understand through my own journey with these wonderful, precious teachings that this response is what is termed ‘backdraft’ in the secular Mindful Self-Compassion programme – an overwhelming emotional response that can occur when we begin opening the heart.
Discoveries like this led me to begin to wonder whether it could be possible to offer mind training in a ‘secularised’ format that incorporates much of the modern practice wisdom from psychology and contemplative practices.
These discoveries inspired Robert and I to create our weekend retreat Opening the Heart. And we would like to invite you to join us for a weekend of mind training – of beginning to tame the wild horse of habitual inclination through opening the heart more widely, catching and following the golden thread of these precious practices of love and compassion.
Paul Johanson teaches Mindful Self-Compassion courses for the Sussex Mindfulness Centre. Apart from being a Mindful Self-Compassion teacher, he is a social worker and a cognitive analytic therapist working in private practice, and he is a long-time Buddhist practitioner. You can find out more about him and the retreat here.