This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Hiding Behind the Cushion ~ Diana Clark. It likely contains inaccuracies.
The following talk was given by Diana Clark at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.
Good evening. Welcome.
So, I’d like to start us off tonight with a poem that is not so uncommon to be read by Dharma teachers. And then I’d like to take a theme from the poem and build on it. So perhaps you’ve heard this before. The poem is called “Autobiography in Five Short Chapters” by Portia Nelson.
Chapter one.
I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in. I’m lost. I’m helpless. It isn’t my fault. It takes me forever to find a way out.
Chapter Two.
I walk down the same street. There’s a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don’t see it. I fall in again. I can’t believe I’m in the same place, but it isn’t my fault. It still takes a long time to get out.
Chapter Three.
I walk down the same street. There’s a deep hole on the sidewalk. I see it is there. I still fall in. It’s a habit. My eyes are open. I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately.
Chapter Four.
I walk down the same street. There’s a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it.
Chapter Five.
I walk down another street.
This is a way of pointing to this deep hole in the sidewalk and our different relationships to it. And we could say this autobiography is just this learning, this recognition that we have to learn. We have to go through chapters one, two, three, four, and five before we can finally realize, “Oh, actually I don’t even have to go down that street.”
So, tonight I’d like to talk a little bit about chapter two. Chapter two goes like this: “I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don’t see it. I fall in again. I can’t believe I am in the same place, but it isn’t my fault. It still takes a long time to get out.”
I just want to talk about this a little bit. There’s this way in which we want to avoid or distract or pretend that we don’t see it. Whatever the hole in the sidewalk is for us, whether it’s finally doing that big job in the yard that we’ve been putting off, maybe it’s having that difficult conversation with a coworker, or maybe it’s finally getting around to getting our finances in order. Or maybe there’s some emotional element that brings you to spiritual practice. This sense of things not being quite right. That can show up in so many different ways: a lot of grief or existential dread or confusion. There are so many different ways in which there can be a hole in the sidewalk, probably as many different ways as there are people here, certainly.
There’s this word that sometimes gets used for this: spiritual bypassing. Maybe you’ve heard of this word. I’m not sure, though, that Chögyam Trungpa1 coined this word. That’s what comes to mind. But it’s this way in which we use the practices that are supposed to help us, support us with our problems, but we use them to avoid the problems or some of the issues.
And I’ve done my share of this. I remember being on a long retreat, and on longer retreats, the mind and the body just settle and settle and settle. So a certain amount of concentration can arise. And I remember getting concentrated and then thinking, “Oh, look at me, look how concentrated I am.” And then at the end of the meditation, just feeling all these emotions and a little bit of confusion, a little bit off balance, thinking, “Oh, okay, I got to go meditate more.” Then just going back in the hall, thinking, “Oh, look at me, I’m sitting more,” and getting more and more concentrated, not realizing that I was just using the concentration, the settledness, to just avoid whatever emotions were coming up. And you know, that works for a while, but it doesn’t work forever. And I didn’t even realize I was doing that. It wasn’t until later I could see, “Oh, yeah, I was kind of using this as a way to avoid what was happening.”
So we could say that spiritual bypassing is a way that kind of disconnects us from our feelings. You could say the uncomfortable feelings, or I could even say uncomfortable experiences. Sometimes it ends up not allowing us to see the big picture; it shields us from the truth in some kind of way of what’s really happening. In psychological settings, they would use something like, it’s like a defense mechanism that’s preventing us from seeing what’s actually happening.
To be sure, there are lots of things that we could do to avoid or distract that could be more harmful than spiritual practices. But spiritual bypassing is not about the practices we’re doing. It’s not about the practice itself; it’s about our relationship with the practices or how we’re using them. It’s the way in which we’re using them as a strategy to avoid discomfort. But what’s so tricky is that it’s a sophisticated strategy because not only does it allow us to avoid discomfort, it legitimizes the avoidance. It’s like, “Oh, I should be doing this. I’m supposed to meditate a lot, and getting concentrated is a good thing.” And so you just feel like you’re doing a moral thing, and maybe you even get praise for it. Or maybe even yourself, you just think, “Oh, look at me, who cares about all that emotional stuff? I can sit for so long,” or whatever it is. It’s quite something, the things that we can come up with. And I would say this is very common.
So if you find yourself later thinking, “Oh yeah, I could see in the past that I was doing some things that maybe were my way of avoiding,” it’s perfectly fine. It can take time for us to create the conditions in which we feel safe or in which we feel we have the resources to touch into some of these maybe deeper or more difficult emotions or experiences.
So I’ll say, just in general, as a gross generalization, there are two ways in which this spiritual bypassing can show up. One is to just disconnect from experience. We could have this aloofness, this kind of, “Oh yeah, I’m chill.” And we might call it, “Oh yeah, I’m equanimous,” but really it’s just being disconnected from experience. And maybe we don’t know the difference between real equanimity2 and disconnection. This is pretty common, where we feel like, “Oh yeah, I’m balanced and I’m not upset about this.” But then we realize that maybe there’s just one little trigger, and off we go. We’re really out of bounds, really angry, or all of a sudden really sad or something like this. But we might be thinking that we’re equanimous. Whereas equanimity, which is a beautiful state, is really about connection and it’s really about warmth. It’s not about disconnection or coldness.
Here’s a second way: holding on to views, spiritual views. Holding on to these ideas, or maybe we study a lot, you know, about the suttas3 in this tradition, for example. And there’s this way that it turns out to just be more clinging. I’ve heard stories of kalyana mitta4 groups—these are groups of Buddhist practitioners that form social groups—and they’ll spend time together and some of them say, “Well, let’s read the suttas together,” which is a beautiful thing to do. But then they have a huge fallout because they’re reading passages and arguing about what it really means. “You can’t be a real practitioner if you think that, because it really means this.” You know, this happens, this kind of blowing up and holding on really tight. And all of a sudden there’s an “I’m right and you’re wrong,” and it turns into some kerfuffle or maybe even something bigger than that.
Clinging to views, even religious views, leads to suffering. It doesn’t lead to freedom; it doesn’t lead to ease. Instead, clinging to these types of views leads to dogmatism and fundamentalism. And this is not the way to greater peace and freedom.
So, how can we notice this and not be doing spiritual bypassing? Or maybe we can’t stop doing it, but maybe there’s a way we can just notice, “Oh yeah, I’m not ready. I just don’t feel ready to walk up this mountain or do some of these things.” And that’s perfectly fine. We all start where we are, and we all work with what’s happening. There’s absolutely no requirement for things to be done at a certain pace or in a certain order or anything like that. I don’t want to send the message that you should jump into the most difficult thing, the thing that you absolutely want to avoid. That’s not what I’m saying.
What I’m saying is, can you bring mindfulness to all areas of your life, including your spiritual life? Because mindfulness is about being with what is. And if we find ourselves avoiding uncomfortable feelings, that’s not being with what actually is. Can we sometimes just acknowledge the loneliness, the fear, the anger, the sadness, the confusion? I’m not saying we have to jump right in, but maybe it’s helpful to just recognize that they’re there. “Sometimes I feel sad.” “I’m really [censored] angry,” or something like this.
Is there a way that you can recognize what’s happening and, as best you can, allow it to be there? Like, “Yeah, anger feels like this. It feels like heat in the face. It feels like tightness in my hand. It feels like there’s a fire in the belly,” or whatever it is for you. Allow it as best you can, feel it in the body. This turns out to be such a tremendous support. We want to think and think and think and figure things out and solve the problems and “work on myself,” which really means, “I’m just going to think more about this.” It works a little bit, but the way to really metabolize and shift and have things be different is to, as best we can, be embodied with them and let the thinking take care of itself.
So to work with spiritual bypassing is to bring some mindfulness to our life and notice when some of these uncomfortable feelings arise. And as best we can, we recognize them, allow them, feel them, and trust that you don’t have to fix it that moment.
There’s also a way in which we can apply some of our spiritual practice to recognize that some of the difficult emotions might also have as part of them, or integrated with them, or born out of a wish for yourself or for others to be happy. Maybe there’s some compassion there. Maybe that’s what’s underneath the difficulty: your wish for other people to be happy, your wish for yourself to be happy. And can you recognize this compassion there? This wish for others to be happy has warm-heartedness in it. It has care in it. It has respect in it. Can you honor that as well?
So often we collapse into the difficulty and want to fix it and solve it with our minds. I’m not saying those are terrible, bad things to do. I’m just saying part of it could maybe be to just recognize the warm-heartedness. Or maybe there’s a wish for the world to be a better place, to be safe for you and for others. Can you also honor the beauty of the care for that as part of your experience? Maybe you can sit with that warm-heartedness, that compassionate wish, as a way to be with your experience and use mindfulness and compassion to be with what’s uncomfortable.
And then I’ll end with reading this poem again. I love this poem. I just think it’s so clever and playful and evocative. With just not so many words, it tells a lot.
Autobiography in Five Short Chapters by Portia Nelson.
Chapter One.
I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in. I am lost. I am helpless. It isn’t my fault. It takes me forever to find a way out.
Chapter Two.
I walk down the same street. There’s a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don’t see it. I fall in again. I can’t believe I’m in the same place, but it isn’t my fault. It still takes a long time to get out.
Chapter Three.
I walk down the same street. There’s a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there, but I still fall in. It’s a habit. My eyes are open. I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately.
Chapter Four.
I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it.
Chapter Five.
I walk down another street.
So, I’ll close there and I’ll open it up to see if there are some questions or comments. Thank you.
Questioner 1: Would it be helpful to hold on to certain things really tightly? Like for example, I say to myself, “Okay, no matter what happens, I’m going to stick with my morning meditation practice,” or “I’m going to stick with the dharma. I’m going to stick with IMC.” Like sometimes, could holding on to something be helpful?
Diana Clark: Yes. Absolutely. And that’s more a commitment, I would say, rather than clinging. When I’m talking about clinging, I’m always doing this with my hand [makes a fist]. And maybe there is a sense of holding on, but maybe there’s also a sense of, “This is support.” And there might be a time in which it feels like, “Oh, I don’t need to go to IMC every week,” or something like that. But yes, absolutely. Thank you.
Questioner 2: I have a question and a comment. The question is if you could sort of operationalize a little bit more “warm-heartedness.” And then the comment is on the word “relaxing” and how differently people can approach relaxing. I think there’s the relaxing like, I think of Tara Brach’s5 Radical Acceptance, you know, just relaxing into your experience whatever it is, without resistance. And then there’s the relaxing like, “Oh, come on, relax, don’t make it such a big deal, take a deep breath,” which to me can facilitate some of the avoidance, like trying to get away from some experience. I’m almost wishing there was a different word for relaxing because I feel like it can be used in very helpful ways, but also ways that are promoting the avoidance.
Diana Clark: Oh, I see. So the Tara Brach relaxing is to put down the resistance to the experience, which is what I’m trying to point to. But there’s also “relax” like kind of like, “just chill out,” with a little bit of an edge to it. So you’d like to operationalize this idea of warm-heartedness. Yeah. I just finished teaching a warm-hearted retreat. It’s a metta6 practice. Are you familiar with this word metta?
Questioner 2: A little bit. Yeah.
Diana Clark: Yeah. So, I’ll just say briefly, there’s a number of ways you can do this. Where I recommend that people always start, it doesn’t matter if you’ve been doing it for decades, is with bringing to mind a lovable being, an uncomplicated relationship. So for most people, it’s often imaginary kittens, puppies, babies, or maybe it’s grandkids or a coach you had when you were a kid. The emphasis is on “uncomplicated.”
So bringing to mind a being, it can be imaginary or real, that in which there’s just naturally a sense of “aww.” For me, it’s kittens. I’m literally just imagining kittens, and I can’t help it. I just have this soft spot for that. And then I connect with them. I kind of allow this softening that’s happening in my chest. And then to support the connection, we say phrases. The words are not so important; the phrases are just a way in which we just come back again and again to the warm-heartedness. So we say—these are classical phrases, but an invitation for people to change them if they want—”May you be safe, may you be happy, may you be healthy, may you live with ease.” And so just like with mindfulness, we just keep on coming back to the breath. We use the phrase to just keep on coming back to the heart.
Questioner 3: So, I had a sort of mini experience with a small hole in the sidewalk driving here tonight. All it was was that I started to feel uneasy, and there was some slight anxiety, and I had no idea why, but it was very clear in my body. So I asked myself a question, “Okay, what is the right way to deal with this? What’s the right effort?” My first thought was to turn on the radio, but I rejected that one. The next one was that maybe I should dig into my day or the last week or the people I know and see what it is. But then I thought, “I’ll come up with a good intellectual explanation, and I’m going to fool myself.” So then I thought, “All right, the other thing is just don’t do anything but just sit with it and feel it.” And I did actually choose that one. But then the problem was I told myself, “I’m lazy. It would have been so much more difficult to figure out what’s going on. I took the easy way out.” And even at this moment, I don’t know what would have been the right effort.
Diana Clark: And here’s the beautiful thing: you don’t need to know. Because do you have that anxiety feeling right now?
Questioner 3: Actually, I agree. That’s another thing I came up with, that since neither one is superior to the other, at least not in this moment.
Diana Clark: When you say neither one, what are the two options?
Questioner 3: In a sense that, what is the right effort which will help to understand and avoid that particular hole in the sidewalk.
Diana Clark: Yeah. It turns out, right, we think that we understand something, and then, you know, maybe a year later, a day later, 10 minutes later, like, “Oh, no, it was really this.” And then we can say, “Oh, no, it actually was that.” These ideas that we have about our anxiety, I mean, do we really know in the way that we think we do? So, the invitation here is we don’t need to know. In meditation, and I just find in my life, just to honor and respect the experience. The experience comes up and ends, and if there’s something to know, it gets known. It just pops up like, “Oh yeah, right, I shouldn’t have sent that email earlier,” or you know, whatever it is. It turns out that we don’t have to do as much intellectualization as we often like to do.
Chögyam Trungpa: (1939-1987) A Tibetan Buddhist meditation master, scholar, and teacher who was a key figure in bringing Tibetan Buddhism to the West. He is often credited with coining the term “spiritual bypassing.” ↩
Equanimity: (Upekkhā in Pali) A balanced and calm state of mind, characterized by not being reactive to pleasant or unpleasant experiences. It is one of the Four Sublime States in Buddhism. ↩
Suttas: Discourses or sermons of the Buddha. They are a central part of the Pali Canon, the sacred texts of Theravada Buddhism. ↩
Kalyana Mitta: A Pali term meaning “spiritual friend” or “virtuous friend.” In Buddhism, it refers to a companion who supports one’s practice of the Dharma. ↩
Tara Brach: A prominent American psychologist, author, and teacher of Buddhist meditation. She is known for her work on integrating Western psychology with Eastern spiritual practices, particularly mindfulness and compassion. ↩
Metta: A Pali word often translated as “loving-kindness,” “friendliness,” or “goodwill.” It is a form of meditation aimed at cultivating a boundless, unconditional love for all beings. ↩