March 11, 2007

Here is one I had typed up awhile ago and somehow neglected to post. Shame on me!

March 11
. . . I haven't gotten out a deck. Need to make sure I take a break and listen to the meditation CD. I forgot to, yesterday. I probably should report that I had terrible, panting pain again last night, and it is still hanging around. Skin burning across the whole dermatone – even near my spine.

46
When a country is in harmony with the Tao
The factories make trucks and tractors.
When a country goes counter to the Tao,
Warheads are stockpiled outside the cities.
There is no greater illusion than fear,
No greater wrong than preparing to defend yourself,
No greater misfortune than having an enemy.
Whoever can see through all fear
Will always be safe.

Well, our country is obviously out of harmony with the Tao, and always has been. It began in war and has been steeped in blood ever since. Politicians have always played on and stoked people's fears. We are now involved in probably the worse mistake we've ever made, and all because we acted out of fear. Made a "pre-emptive" strike at a lesser, assumed enemy. And this administration still hasn't learned. Bush still believes warheads will be the answer to all of our problems. We just need more of them.

Our domestic politics are all based on fear, too. The rabid conservatives are spewing their hatred for gays, Hispanics, and yes, still, feminists. All succesfull because they stimulate and encourage people's fear of the Other, fear of change. And the liberals (with more justification, I believe, since I'm on their side), are playing on people's fear, of global warming, of fossil fuels running out, of being committed to an endless war, of losing our civil rights and liberties, of state and church becoming one, of the crazy, irrational, fearful neo-cons winning the battle for hearts and minds and taking us in directions that will hurt more and more of us.

I obviously believe these fears are justified in that there are real possibilities that these things will happen if we don't stop them. But Lao-tzu is telling me not to be afraid, even if they are happening, right? Fear is an illusion. P and I talked about how I manufacture whole scenarios in my head, and then don't do something because of the fear generated by my imagination. So fear is an illusion in that way.

Is it also an illusion in that it gives you the idea of control? Like, I'm afraid that allergist doctor will disappoint me, so I just won't call him. Then he can't disappoint me. Fear gives us the idea that if we do something or we don't do something, we'll be able to protect our Selves. We'll control the damage we take. And maybe the Master is saying "Hey! Remember, you can't control what happens! The Tao is a might river, and one way or the other will do what it does. The best thing is to let go of your idea of what ought to be, what ought to happen to your heart, your Self, and let the river roll. Keep your eyes open and learn from what occurs. Keep acting out of your center - not from fear, and you'll find you were able to roll with the river and that you were able to bear the stretching of your Self."

Maybe the ocean is a better metaphor: When you are wading in the ocean, and a big wave is coming at you, the worst thing you can do is panic and brace yourself against it. If you do that, you find the sand under your feet shifts and gives way, you sink deeper, and the wave comes and knocks you down, or goes over your head in a violent churning that puts sand and water in your eyes, nose and ears, and it is very frightening. You might get tumbled with it and be underwater for too long. Instead you should turn and face the beach. When you feel the wave lifting you, you jump into it, and give yourself to it, and it carries you at the top, with your head above water, and you ride it in to the beach. Very smooth, no violence, no panic, no sand in orifices.

So when I'm afraid I'll have this pain the rest of my life, and that it will be too much to bear, I need to stop tensing all my muscles against it. Need to let go, and jump into the pain. Ride it.
Okay. I just did that. Made all my muscles relax. They keep tightening as soon as I remove my attention. What happens is that I feel that the pain is NOT actually constant. It rises and falls. And it is bearable. It is like riding a roller coaster – just let the pain go up and down. But it takes all of my attention to keep from fighting it, to just let it be. And it takes all of my energy to bear the up and down. As soon as I begin writing, the pain starts feeling like a horrible intrusion, a nagging presence. Can I learn to do this and still get work done? To train my body and brain not to fight, even when I'm not paying conscious attention?

Because I guess it is true. The fear of its being unbearable is what is bad. The actual bearing of it isn't pleasant, really, but it is possible, for at least a moment, to just let it be an experience, not label it good or bad.

It is like the work I did with Jane [a cognitive-behavioral therapist I saw for molestation/rape stuff]. As soon as I felt fear, I had to take it out and examine it, and ask myself what would be the worst thing that could happen should that fear be realized. And then she'd have me write out a plan for how I would deal with each of those possibilities. And it worked. The fear was an illusion. The worst case scenario almost never happened, but even if it did, I knew it wouldn't be the end of me. Even death might not be the end of me.

The next line is about preparing to defend yourself, how there is no greater wrong than that. MAD, our policy during the Cold War, was stupid and destructive and a waste of resources. Today we have Homeland Security, busily invading our privacy and violating our civil rights. Just this week it came out that the FBI illegally gathered information on thousands of American citizens. All of this in the name of "defending our country, our security." We've committed atrocities in the name of defense all over the planet.

It's pretty easy to see this principle at work on the big stage. What about in my personal life? Planning a course of action for what to do if one's fears are realized is not the same as preparing to defend oneself. In the former, you are assuming defenselessness and just figuring out what the next step is. I suppose you might call that a defense, but it's a different meaning than I think Lao-tzu means. He means defense as in bracing for the wave, or trying to beat the wave into submission. I was talking about making a plan for what happens after the wave has tumbled you.
My muscles bracing against the pain is an unhealthy defense. Silly too, because like our national foreign policy, it doesn't stop the pain, it just adds more pain in the form of soreness in many muscles. What else? Being defensive in a fight with Jim. Never a good idea. It is better to remain open, listen carefully – including to what he is not saying, accept criticism, calmly state my real position, not one that hops out of defensiveness, and try to see it as us, working out an issue, not "me against you." Yes, this is best. But do I do it? Not with any regularity.

I get defensive very easily with my husband. I always have – more than with anyone but my Dad. Some things about the way he is, and how he argues, have always inspired fear in me, and I've responded by being super defenseive. And now, add all my guilt for not being a good wife (pain, job and laziness) and it's even more tempting to be defensive. Which means not being calm, not being able to really listen, responding to surface meaning, saying the first thing that comes into my head instead of sifting for the Truth of how I feel. And sometimes it means going on the offensive and saying mean things that I don't actually mean.

I've gotten better about all of this since I stopped drinking. I don't say many mean things anymore, though I may speak a truth in an ungentle, suboptimal way. But I still need a lot of work. I think Jim does, too, but that isn't my business! Just stop right there! Girl, you need only worry about yourself!

Are there other ways I prepare defenses against fear? Oh yeah, a whole bunch just flooded my mind. My fear that people won't like me gets me behaving in all kinds of ugly, stupid ways. My fear that I won't succeed likewise gets me building defenses, when I ought to be putting that energy into doing the things that will help me succeed. I have been preparing a defense against my Dad which has hurt both of us.

I really dislike the defensive behavior I adopt with students and with my colleagues. I'm so afraid people won't like me sometimes that I become not-myself, and increase the chances that they won't. I'm not quite sure what I do. I cover my face, I don't make as much eye-contact, I get more focused on myself and forget to attend to the other person. So I appear less caring and interested than I really am. I make derogatory jokes about myself – too self-depracating. And I close up my body, make it less inviting. All of this and more, in an attempt to defend myself against being hurt when people don't like me. So the best thing to do is really examine that fear, like I did with Jane. What is the worst that can happen?

With students, the worst that can happen is that I'll get terrible evaluations and be miserable in class every day. Okay. So being miserable in class. If they really all disliked me, then the answer would be to a) make the material so interesting and be so focused on that material [not me and not them]that the class would still be interesting for both of us. Also, if I was completely myself and they all disliked me, I could try to find out why, and consider changing.

But the truth is that both my students and my colleagues mostly do like the real me. And they are patiently waiting for me to be the real me all the time. So this is an almost totally ungrounded fear. I need to let it go. How? Just to remember that's what I'm doing, take a breath, and remind myself that what I'm interested in is the person who's talking to me. Or the subject, and whether the students are getting it. Be empty, and yet fully present.

Worst, worst thing is that I wouldn't get tenure. But for the reasons above, that is super unlikely. What if it happened? I'd go on. Look for another job. Re-think my life. I have no idea what all the other conditins would be. But I know me, and I know I'd find a way to keep going.

So, that was an amazingly productive piece of the Tao te Ching! It's 10:30 and I've been writing for 3 hours when I expected I'd have nothing to say.