#Psychotherapy

Akashadhateshvari – Luminous Space

This is Article No. 2 in the ‘Buddhism’ series.

Following on from my last article (here), there is much more that we need to explore in regard to the Dharmadhātu Wisdom. This is the Wisdom which is associated with the recognition of Consciousness, and with the centre of the mandala, and may be regarded as representing the source of the other four Wisdoms. Metaphorically, we can think of the relationship between the white centre of the Buddhist mandalas and its associated Dharmadhātu Wisdom, and the four colours of the quadrants – the other four Wisdoms – in a somewhat similar way to the way we might think of a source of pure white sunlight being split into the colours of the rainbow.

The Dharmadhātu Wisdom is the Wisdom that Buddhist tradition personifies in the figure of the archetypal Buddha Vairocana, the ‘Illuminator’, or more accurately in his female Buddha partner, the mysterious and powerful figure of Akashadhatvishvari (please see my note at the end of this article on the two different spellings of this name). Strictly speaking the male Buddha Vairocana represents the compassionate activities of wisdom teaching that arise from the experience or the Dharmadhātu Wisdom, whereas the female buddha Akashadhatvishvari personifies the Dharmadhātu Wisdom itself. The Sanskrit word ākāsha has a ring of profound mystery about it. It is akin to the quintessence, or ether, in western alchemical thought – the subtle, intelligent substance that pervades all space, and from which the other four elements are created. Perhaps the best modern equivalent would be something like ‘Quantum Space’ or ‘the Quantum Field’. Vibrant with energy and information, ākāsha is the primordial space of Consciousness that is the basis of everything. A reasonable English translation therefore, of Akashadhatvishvari, would be something like ‘Sovereign Lady of Infinite Space’.

Consciousness: Presence and Connection; Light and Space

I have previously talked of the Buddha couple in the centre of the mandala as personifications of Presence and Connection (here), which are the principles at the centre of my ‘NVC mandala’ (the four components in Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication model – more on that here), but these archetypal Buddhas are multidimensional figures, and are much more than this – indeed all conceptualisations in regard to them are only ways of drawing a little closer to an indefinable mystery. My first response personally, when I reflect on this central ‘divine marriage’ image and its traditional names and associations, is to think of them as representing the metaphorical union of Light and Space in the experience of Consciousness.

The experience of Consciousness, or awareness of being aware, is difficult to describe. The words and images that various spiritual traditions have used to approach that experience are often misleading – being religious projections rather than attempts at objective description. Buddhist tradition, especially that of the Indian Mahayana, whose libraries and culture were unfortunately destroyed by Moslem invasions, is clearly distinguishable from other religions by both its commitment to objectivity in its intellectual analysis, and by the subtlety of the myths, images and metaphors by which it points to the unconditioned reality of Consciousness. Central among these metaphorical pointers were Light and Space.

It is as if Consciousness is an ever-present light within – a bright inner luminosity that never fails us, but is rarely acknowledged or examined. It is the diamond in our pocket that we do not know about; the beautiful gift that has been delivered to us, never to be actually received and unwrapped. It is not surprising perhaps, that in general, humanity fails to recognise Consciousness. While Consciousness is an objective reality, it is not an object like any other, and neither is it the subjective personal self that we often take it to be. The Buddha described it as ’empty’ – empty of self. As the Buddhist tradition established itself over the centuries, it increasingly acknowledged that this impersonal emptiness was also luminous and spacious – still difficult metaphors, but they bring us closer to the experience. And the word shunyata, Sanskrit for Emptiness, came to have these extremely positive associations of luminosity and spaciousness – connoting an infinitely abundant collective source of all truth, goodness, healing and positive transformation.

June 15, 2019

The Yin and Yang of Love and Compassion

This is Post 33 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series. It continues the theme of the previous article, which you can read here.

In this article we are once again in the territory of the Northern Quadrant, if we use the traditional directions of the Buddhist mandalas, which Carl Jung adopted – so we are also addressing the function of Intuition. Intuition is probably the most difficult of the four perceptual functions to define, but as a starting point we can say that Intuition is that function of Consciousness by which we perceive dynamics, patterns, processes, and motivations – in the world; in the people in our lives; and in ourselves.

Intuition is the function by which we recognise volitional processes. These include our needs, desires, wishes and wants – and also our fears and the energies of aversion and and not-wanting that arise in connection with fear. Volitional, in this context, means pertaining to the the Will, and to the energies of desire and motivation – energies that can be unconscious or conscious; egoic or psycho-spiritual. The highest form of intuition is empathy – our responsive, unflinching, and compassionate recognition of the needs and desires of others, and ourselves. Empathy and Compassion can therefore be seen as two sides of the same experience. They are closely related and are in many ways interchangeable – indeed they are related in exactly the same way that Intuition and Volition are related.

To rest as Consciousness and to recognise, through Intuition, that an energetic reflection of the compassionate and creative energies of Consciousness are always present in the field of the body, has a profoundly transformative effect on our experience of volition – the fearful egoic will begins to undergo a healing process. This blissful self-surrender into effortless and fearless compassionate connection, is a key feature of all the genuine spiritual paths.

But while this will begin to arise naturally as we rest as Consciousness, it requires an expansion of our vision of what it is to be human being. We need to acknowledge the mysterious and benevolent energetic dimensions that are always present in our lives – always inherent in the everyday moment-to-moment experience of Consciousness.

Intuition and Volition – Empathy and Compassion

When we learn to rest as Consciousness, and become familiar with the somatic experience of the Volitional Body – the deepest of the four surface bodies, and the one associated with the Heart Chakra – we come to recognise, usually with some surprise, that our core motivations are always compassionate and life serving. Continue reading

June 15, 2018

Feminine and Masculine – Energy and Presence

This is Post 32 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series.

In this ‘Meditation Guidance’ series, I have frequently drawn on the wisdom that Carl Jung articulated in his mandala-form psychological model of the ‘Four Functions of Consciousness’, and on the corresponding mandala of the brahmavihāras – the ancient Indian ‘attitudes’ of Consciousness that were adopted so enthusiastically by the Buddha. Also, drawing on the Tibetan Buddhist form of the mandala, I have, in recent months been looking in detail at the polarities within each of the first three Quadrants of the mandala: first the opposition of the egoic Thinking function and Equanimity in the East; then the opposition of the egoic Sensation function and Appreciative Joy in the South; and most recently the opposition of the egoic Feeling function and Loving Kindness in the West.

In each of these polarities I have been highlighting the apparent spiritual choices that are always presented to us in life, between the ‘attitudes of Consciousness’ that we experience when we rest naturally as Consciousness, and the egoic expressions of the same archetypal principles, that we experience when we fall into identification with psychological parts. And by exploring the imagery of the Buddha’s Six Realms, we have seen that the extreme of egoic Thinking is expressed in the archetypal psychology of the Hell Realms, or Narakas (here); that the extreme of egoic Sensation is expressed in the archetypal psychology of the Human Realm (here); and that the extreme of egoic Feeling is expressed in the archetypal psychology of the Preta Realms (here).

The Northern Quadrant – Compassion versus the Egoic Will

I would like now to move on clockwise round this mandala, to the Northern Quadrant, where we shall be looking at the egoic function of Intuition / Volition and the corresponding Volitional aspect Consciousness, which expresses itself in the brahmavihāra of Compassion.

In the next few articles I will be addressing the core of the egoic will, that deep volitional aspect of the egoic mind, which the Buddha personified, in an extreme but very illuminating way, in the archetypal imagery of the Asura Realm – a realm of demonic, power-seeking anti-gods, or ‘Jealous Gods’. It is extremely valuable to have a familiarity with, and an acceptance of, these fear-based drives for control, so that we can learn to let them go, and thus reveal the universally present and universally benevolent spiritual energies that are hidden by them. Continue reading

May 26, 2018

Empathy and Self-Empathy – Communication and Self-Enquiry

This is Post 31 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series.

In interpersonal relationships, when we are reflecting silently about someone, especially someone we are concerned about, it is natural to engage empathetically using the the four perceptual components, or functions of Consciousness, in the following way: ‘How do they understand this situation?’ (Thinking); ‘How do they feel about this?’ (Feeling); ‘What is the need in them that is causing them to feel that way?’ (Intuition / Volition); ‘What solution would concretely fulfil that need in a practical way? (Sensation).

So, the mandala of the functions of Consciousness is not only an analysis of the process of perception – it is a framework to guide empathetic connection and communication. But we can also ask the same questions inside. In the intrapersonal relationship between Consciousness and our psychological parts that I have been exploring in the last two posts (here and here), we have been acknowledging the enormous value of connecting self-empathetically in this way. When we do this work of inner empathy, it is the same four perceptual components, or functions of Consciousness, that provide us with a guiding framework.

Self-Empathy with a Companion

In self-empathy the whole process place takes place inwardly and does not have to be externally verbalised. If we were however, to bear witness to our internal self-empathetic connection by describing our experience to a spiritual companion who is ‘holding space’ for us, there are several ways we might approach it – but usually it feels best to silently connect with the part and then speak for the part as we describe our internal dialogue to our friend. Continue reading

April 18, 2018

Mettā – Being Unconditionally Present with Feeling

This is Post 30 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series.

The ultimate source of the attitude that the Buddhist tradition calls mettā, or Loving Kindness, is unconditioned. Being unconditioned, it is inherent in Consciousness, and always available to us, but cannot be cultivated by an effort of the egoic will. This is a difficult but very important distinction to understand.

The Buddhist tradition came to an understanding of this distinction by distinguishing two levels of mettā: firstly, the universal, or archetypal source of mettā, which was called mahamettā, or ‘great’ mettā; and secondly, the embodied reflection of that in our relationships and communication, and in the energetic fields of the body. It is essential to be aware of these two levels, because mettā is ‘cultivated’ by a paradoxical process of acknowledging its already existing presence in our experience, as an aspect of Consciousness.

The Power of Consciousness to Heal the Emotional Body

Mettā, in essence, is the attitude, already inherent in Consciousness, of being unconditionally present with Feeling. It is therefore best understood as a process – a process by which our Emotional Body and our capacity for relationship is progressively healed by the power of Consciousness. Continue reading

March 23, 2018

Flowing with the Currents of Feeling – our Psychological Parts

This is Post 29 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series.

The psychological function of Feeling, is symbolised in the Western poetic imagination, and in the esoteric lore of Western tradition, by the element of Water. Whereas the Indian imagination generally uses the element of Fire to symbolise Feeling, as I have described previously (here), I would like to now draw on Western tradition to very briefly acknowledge something that the symbolism of the Water element can teach us about the nature of Feeling. As the parallel with Water might suggest, Feeling is a phenomena that is almost always in a state of flow and change: like tides, or waves, or the tributaries of a river, or the eddies in a sparkling stream, or like a stormy ocean.

Feeling, like Water can seem chaotic, but it carries energy and moves with purpose – a purpose that may sometimes be hard to discern, but is nevertheless always present. Just as the Fire element in the symbolic language of India, can be seen to be reaching consistently upwards towards the Divine, so the Water element in the West can be seen as relentless and purposeful in its downward course towards the universal ocean.

Psychological Parts – the Apparent Persons behind our Currents of Feeling

It is perhaps helpful, to see Feeling as analogous to currents or tributaries in a body of Water, because Feeling is certainly not single. Feeling is also much more like a surging wave that recedes and appears to disappear, only to surge again when we don’t expect it. When we examine our experience carefully we notice that it is inaccurate to say “I feel sad” or “I feel afraid” – and worse still to say “I am sad” or “I am afraid”.

Both sadness and the fear are actually only single currents among the many currents of feeling that surge in us from time to time – but more importantly, if we look carefully at our experience, we have to acknowledge that the ‘I’ in both those statements, is always separate from those currents of Feeling. It is never the ‘I’ that feels sad or afraid. The ‘I’ is the imperturbable field of Consciousness within which Feeling is experienced. The conventional verbal forms “I feel …….. “, “I am feeling …….. “, or “I am …….. ” followed by words identifying the category of our feeling state, are not only inaccurate, but very unhelpful psychologically – because they encourage identification with Feeling rather than self-empathetic connection with it. Continue reading

March 5, 2018

Mandala Innerwork and Inner Presence Coaching

I have practised various forms of self-empathetic innerwork over the years. In the past, my personal method has been a distillation of, and a combination of, the innerwork approaches of Eugene Gendlin, Ann Weiser-Cornell, James Hillman, Marshall Rosenberg, and Steve De Shazer. While I continue to draw on the specific methods of these innovators in the fields of psychology and psychotherapy practice, I have more recently found it helpful to set these learnings in the context of the non-dual mandala-wisdom that we find in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, and which Carl Jung made so much more available and accessible. Hence my own personal name for the form of self-empathic innerwork that I now practice, is Mandala Innerwork.

Jerry Donoghue’s ‘Inner Presence Inquiry’ method

To ground my existing skills and knowledge, I am now doing a formal coaching training, which focuses on the facilitation of self-empathy, and I am in the process of integrating this approach into the way I do innerwork. The course is run by Jerry Donoghue, who teaches NVC in Ashville, North Carolina, in the US (www.ashevilleccc.com). For many years Jerry Donoghue has been developing an approach that expands on the self-empathy or ‘inner empathy’ side of the NVC model and incorporates the Internal Family Systems model of Richard Schwartz (www.selfleadership.org). He is now presenting this as his Inner Presence Coaching program (www.innerpresencecoaching.com), which I am currently participating in.

There are two closely related foundational features of Jerry’s approach. Together these provide the structure of the sessions that I am currently offering. The first of these foundational features is learning to rest as Consciousness; and the second is learning to ‘work with psychological parts’. These are closely related, and probably inseparable, because self-empathy requires that we acknowledge an inner relationship between Consciousness and our psychological parts.

Working with Psychological Parts

Taking the second of these features of Jerry’s Inner Presence Inquiry model first, I would like to explain the idea of ‘working with psychological parts’. Working self-empathetically with psychological parts is integral to the idea of self-empathy in the NVC model, and this understanding was often explored in a wonderfully playful and entertaining way by Marshall Rosenberg using his ‘Jackal and Giraffe’ puppet work, where ‘Giraffe’ is used as a symbol of Consciousness, compassion, and connection; and ‘Jackal’ is used as a symbol of unconsciousness, fear and disconnection.

Rosenberg was incredibly skilled in the way he used puppets, in the context of his NVC training workshops, to enact dialogues between a ‘Jackal’ and a ‘Giraffe’ to illustrate both outer communication skills and internal self-empathetic processes. The principles of self-empathy are however, not usually explored in enough detail in either NVC foundation trainings, or more advanced trainings, and many long-time students of the NVC model are unfortunately not aware that Rosenberg was using the ‘Jackal’ and ‘Giraffe’ symbols to explain internal as well as external dimensions of the model.

‘Giraffe’ and ‘Jackals’ – Consciousness and Psychological Parts

On the external level, when NVC practitioners are focusing awareness on interpersonal communication, ‘Jackal’ describes unconscious thinking, and communication that creates disconnection, and ‘Giraffe’ describes thinking and communication that is conscious and creates connection. Implicitly however, there is a second, internal level which relates to self-empathy, in which the egoic parts, or psychological parts, that are unconscious and disconnected are called ‘Jackals’, and the figure of the ‘Giraffe’ represents Consciousness. Because of the way that NVC is usually taught, it is not always clear that the self-empathy dimension is not secondary to the model, but integral and foundational – that we cannot actually practice NVC effectively at all without a very high level of self-empathy.

Self-empathy however, requires the ability to dis-identify from psychological parts and to instead identify with (or ‘rest as’) Consciousness – an ability that many people are either not aware of, or find illusive – but which can be learned through meditative enquiry. When we do self-empathy, Consciousness, or Presence, is experiencing the thoughts, feelings, needs and strategies of a psychological part – a part of our psyche which becomes progressively more conscious and more integrated as we recognise each of these perceptual components. The more explicit we are in acknowledging these component parts of the psychological parts, and acknowledging the internal relationship between Consciousness and the parts, the more we are able to ‘be Present’ with ourselves, and the more likely we are to be able to stay out of identification with the parts and in the spaciousness of Consciousness.

A Language of Inner Relationship – of Presence and Psychological Parts

This explicit acknowledgement of psychological parts is a natural extension of the language of NVC, and while it is optional and very helpful in NVC self-expression to say ‘part of me is feeling ….. and needing ….. (and another part of me is feeling ….. and needing …..)’, it becomes essential to talk in this way if we want go really deeply into the practice of self-empathy and empathy. Acknowledging psychological parts is also an extremely powerful way of extending our self-empathy and empathy skills, and our capacity to ‘be Present’ in more difficult situations where we need to bring more consciousness, or more empathetic connection to the feelings and needs of ourselves and others.

It is important to understand that, although many will find the idea of psychological parts to be a little strange and contrary to our assumptions; our actual experience once we try it, is that working self-empathetically with psychological parts feels very natural indeed. When we develop an awareness of our psychological parts we naturally become more self aware and more conscious in our communication. And as we become less identified with our points of view, our feelings, our needs, and our requests, our communication naturally becomes more harmonious and effective as a result. It is a paradoxical, but very deep and essential psychological truth, that the less identified we are with our thoughts, feelings, needs and requests, the more connected we are – with ourselves and others.

Resting as Consciousness and Cultivating Presence

The second feature of the NVC model that Inner Presence Inquiry gives great importance to, is Presence, or the experience of embodied Consciousness – the spacious place from which we self-empathise or empathise with others. Deepening our recognition of Consciousness, and our embodiment of Consciousness, goes hand in hand with the work with psychological parts outlined above. The movement of our identification, which needs to take place in order for us to relate inwardly to our psychological parts, is always an inner ‘step back’ – out of identification with the part and into the spaciousness of embodied Consciousness, or Presence. Learning that we have the ability a step back into the relaxed and centred experience of Presence is deeply empowering and brings profound mental and emotional stability. From a place of Presence we are able to be warmly accepting of, and empathetically present with, whatever is arising in our experience.

Although they are in some ways equivalent, there is an important distinction that needs to made between the two words Consciousness and Presence. Essentially Consciousness, in this context refers to the universal and non-locatable field of Consciousness in which we rest, and which is the mysterious source of our experience of being a person; whereas Presence refers to way in which that field is embodied energetically or somatically in each one of us.

The Paradox – Nothing Needs to Be Healed

The most important distinction between Consciousness and Presence is that Consciousness is always unconditionally present and cannot be cultivated, whereas Presence – the embodiment of the qualities of Consciousness – can be cultivated but takes a little time. This distinction is not well understood in some approaches to non-dual wisdom, and this error of understanding leads to a tendency to devalue meditation practice and psychotherapeutic innerwork.

This of course means that there is a deep paradox in practising meditation, or doing inner work from a starting of resting as Consciousness, because when we truly rest as Consciousness, we recognise that there is nothing that needs doing; nothing that needs to change; nothing wrong. There is a sense in which the essence of the healing we desire is actually already present in Consciousness. Any energetic transformations that take place are only a realignment of our physical and energetic surface with our deep true nature that was never wounded and never needs to be healed. Learning to find this place of rest is an important part of the work.

Working with the Component Parts of the Psychological Parts

The development of the energetic alignment with Consciousness, which we call Presence, can happen relatively quickly through the practice of resting as Consciousness – once we have understood that the healing power of Consciousness is always present and available and does not have to be cultivated. The embodiment of Consciousness is also powerfully accelerated when we make it our conscious intention to achieve this through meditation and innerwork with psychological parts.

What distinguishes both my Mandala Innerwork model and Jerry Donoghue’s Inner Presence Inquiry model, from other ‘parts work’ models, like the Internal Family Systems model of Richard Schwartz, is the non-dual context, which provides the basis and context for the psychological work. By making the enquiry into the nature of Consciousness, foundational to the approach, the healing can go much deeper, more quickly, and with remarkable little effort or distress – and the starting point is always one of just resting as Consciousness and not needing to fix anything.

An important reason for this depth and ease is the fact that the phenomena of psychological parts is treated as an appearance only. The parts are not literalised, not taken as fixed in any way. Rather they are seen as an ephemeral psychological phenomena and seen to be ultimately empty of any self-nature in much the same way as the Buddha did when he used the ancient Indian formulation of the Five Skandhas as a framework for analysing the component parts of the perceptual process.

Whereas the Buddha used the Five Skandhas as his framework for self-enquiry; Jerry uses the four components of NVC; and I use a similar mandala framework that builds on NVC‘s ‘four components’ by drawing on Carl Jung’s insights and those of the Buddhist tradition (i.e. the mandala framework of the four brahmavihāras, the Six Realms, the Five Wisdoms, which I have been sharing in the Mandala of Love ‘Meditation Guidance’ series). I also draw on the Inner Relationship Focusing approach of Ann Weiser-Cornell. Ultimately all of these conceptualisations are manifestations of the same universal psychological structures that are symbolised by the mandala archetype. It is remarkable, but also perhaps not surprising, given of the objective and collective nature of the structure of Consciousness, that several of these almost identical mandala-form models have emerged independently of each other.

Setting an Intention to Connect – Inwardly

To ensure that Inner Presence Inquiry sessions are as focused and effective as possible right from the beginning, they usually start with an engagement with these two key features that I have described above: Presence, or embodied Consciousness; and the psychological parts. We do not have to be rigid about this, but I have for the time being, adopted Jerry’s approach to the structure of coaching sessions. This means that sessions will usually begin with a brief conversation about what psychological parts are ‘up’ for you; that you are aware of in your life; that are requiring your attention; that are needing you to experience them more fully and consciously; or that need you to be empathetically present with them. Later in the session, when we do the enquiry work, this ‘intention to connect’ is the guiding principle, so this initial conversation is not so much about setting a goal for the session, as setting an intention to connect deeply with particular parts of yourself through self-empathy.

Opening Meditation – Resting as Consciousness

The second thing that we do at the beginning of an Inner Presence Inquiry session, in order to establish this intention to connect inwardly and self-empathetically, is to have a short period of meditation – usually a meditation guided by the coach. Consciousness is always there for us, and the ability to make use of this fact for our own mental and emotional stability, by regularly resting as embodied Consciousness, is, in and of itself, extremely powerfully supportive of psychological healing. By familiarising ourselves with the experience of Consciousness, we make the work with psychological parts very much easier, because Consciousness gives us a benevolent and accepting place from which to objectively observe and reflect on our parts, and connect with their feelings and needs.

Meditation Teaching

There are a variety of ways of shifting into a state of Presence, or resting as Consciousness. The Inner Presence Inquiry model uses a very simple approach to this opening meditation, which brings attention into the internal space of the body. Although the emphasis and focus in Inner Presence Inquiry is less on meditation and more on the self-empathetic work with psychological parts, I am personally very happy to give time in individual sessions to ensuring that people are approaching meditation practice correctly.

Meditation practice that is focused on establishing a familiarity with Consciousness, and on deepening our ability to be present, is of enormous value and provides a strong foundation for self-empathetic innerwork with psychological parts, but it also powerfully transformative practice in itself, and I am in the process of developing a structured Mandala of Love meditation teaching program for those for whom this is their main focus.

January 16, 2018

Mettā – Living as Love and Contentment

This is Post 26 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series.

It has been the experience of the ancient meditation traditions of India and Tibet that the internal space of the human body is filled with not one but seven different energetic, or somatic, fields – the seven auras, or ‘subtle bodies’. Many readers will already be aware that each deeper layer in the succession of auric layers is slightly larger than the last, so that the layers that are closer to the surface are enclosed within the deeper ones.

An important feature of this spiritual anatomy that readers may not be aware of however, is the way the polarity of the layers alternates between receptive and expansive – yin and yang – and in way that is opposite in the two sexes. I have explored this phenomenon in previous posts (here and here) and will be returning to it – this understanding is essential, in my view, for the meditator, and provides wonderful insights into the very different emotional life of men and women.

An understanding of the ways in which these fields of our spiritual anatomy interpenetrate each other and interact, is very useful information for the meditator. Of the seven fields, by far the most important are the first four, which I have been calling the surface bodies – these are somatic fields by which our sense of ‘being a person’ is embodied. While these four key subtle bodies, and the relationships between them, are most comprehensively described by the meditation mandalas of Tibetan Buddhism, the earlier description that we find in the four brahmavihāras of early Buddhism (and in pre-Buddhist teachings) gives us a much simpler ‘way in’ to this mandala wisdom.

Each of the subtle bodies is felt most keenly at the points in the body that we call the chakras. So, as previously in connection with the Mental Body and the Subtle Physical Body (here and here), we will find it useful for our understanding of our experience of the Emotional Body when we are resting as Consciousness, if we look briefly at the traditional Indian description of the Solar Plexus Chakra.

The Manipūra Chakra – City of Jewels

The traditional Indian name of the third chakra is maṇipūra, which is a Sanskrit word made up of the word maṇi, which means ‘jewel’, and pūra, which means city or place. Maṇipūra gives us an image of a sort of paradise – a place of extraordinary wealth and beauty – sparkling and radiant. In this context, the image of a landscape glittering with jewels is being used to symbolise not only ultimate beauty and value, but also unlimited ease, grace, contentment and happiness – a world of pleasurable and joyful feelings. Continue reading

November 28, 2017

Feeling – The Discernment of Goodness, Value and Beauty

This is Post 25 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series.

While there is much more that could be said about the brahmavihāra of Sympathetic Joy and the Southern Quadrant of the Mandala of Love, we need now to move clockwise round the mandala to the Western Quadrant, to the function of Feeling, and to the brahmavihāra of Loving Kindness, or mettā (Pali), or maitrī (Sanskrit). Although in general I like to use Sanskrit, the classical language of Indian spiritual discourse, and of the magnificent but no longer existing tradition of Indian Mahayana Buddhism, I prefer, in this instance, to use the more familiar Pali word mettā, for Loving Kindness, rather than equivalent Sanskrit word maitrī.

Even those who are unfamiliar with the four brahmavihāras as a mandala-form map of Consciousness, such as I have been presenting, may well have heard of mettā, which is the most well-known of the four. And some will perhaps be familiar with a form of the popular Buddhist meditation practice called the mettā bhāvanā, or ‘Cultivation of the Loving Kindness’. Because of this, I have already written one post about mettā (here) in my introduction to the brahmavihāras at the beginning of this ‘Meditation Guidance’ series.

In that previous post, I explained that mettā is most frequently presented in a way that does not clearly distinguish it from karuṇā (Compassion), muditā (Sympathetic Joy), and fails to acknowledge the important connection between mettā and upekṣā (Equanimity). Because I believe so strongly that a deeper understanding the whole mandala of the brahmavihāras constitutes such a powerful framework for self-enquiry and meditation, I would like now to return to the themes of that previous post.

Distinguishing Feeling from Sensation

In order to fully understand and distinguish the nature of mettā, we need first to understand the psychological and perceptual function of Feeling, and in order to understand Feeling, it is extremely important for us to make a clear distinction between Feeling and Sensation – something that not all psychological models achieve. Indeed these two words are often used interchangeably in English and other languages – and this causes much confusion. The distinction I make between Sensation and Feeling follows Carl Jung and the Buddhist tradition. I also draw on Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication model and various others who have also recognised and described the universal four-fold pattern that I call the Mandala of Love. Continue reading

November 13, 2017

The Mirror of Consciousness and the Mirror of Narcissism

This is Post 16 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series

In the previous posts about the the Buddha’s Equanimity practice – a practice which aims to bring the Mental Body and the Thinking function into alignment with Consciousness, I have briefly touched on the symbol of the mirror. The mirror deserves more time however, because it is such a profound symbolic pointer to spiritual truth. It is a deeply paradoxical and indeed an ambivalent image – both extremely positive and extremely negative.

As a positive image, we find the mirror as a symbol of Consciousness, as in Zen or Tibetan Buddhism (which I have spoken of in a previous post – here); again in the Ancient Greek myth of the hero Perseus; and elsewhere. The mirror is also a symbol of narcissism – an extremely important psychological concept, and one that has profoundly negative personal and cultural implications.

Perseus and Medusa

The mythic hero Perseus encountered the Gorgon Medusa in a landscape littered with the crumbling remains of countless heroes who had been turned into stone by her gaze. So great was the force of her narcissistic objectification of those who meet her gaze – that they are immediately reduced to literal objects. Perseus manages however, to avoid her petrifying stare by only looking at her reflected image in the mirror shield that he has been given by the Goddess Athene. Only the heroes with divine help succeed – especially those with the capacity for reflection that Consciousness gives them. All the rest fail. Continue reading

July 24, 2017