Stronger Than Death

Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. . . As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. (Luke 24:13-16; 28-31)

Relationships change us. From the beginning of our lives, key aspects of our personality—the way we experience ourselves and the world around us—are shaped by our primary relationships. If, as infants, we experience secure and stable attachments with our caregivers, we will develop a sense that the world is trustworthy and safe. If, on the other hand, our first relationships are unstable or otherwise traumatic, our ability to navigate the vicissitudes of life will be greatly impaired. Recent studies have shown that early healthy attachments lead to such things as greater self-esteem, greater life satisfaction, and a more robust immune system.

In the most fundamental of ways, relationships change us.

Later, as our worlds expand beyond the circle of family, our connections with others invite us to discover and develop wider dimensions to our personality. But this process of development is not something that is strictly an internal and individual affair. C.G. Jung states, “The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.” This is the basic premise of psychotherapy, that change is effected by relationship.

Religion, too, teaches that relationships can be transformative, particularly one’s relationship with God. All religions place central importance on the development of compassion, but it is Christianity, with its doctrine of the Trinity, that seems unique in asserting that relationship is not just something enjoined by God, it is the very nature of God. Referring to the idea of the Trinity, Huston Smith tells us, “If love is not just one of God’s attributes but his very essence—and it may be Christianity’s distinctive mission in history to claim just that—at no point could God have been truly God without being involved in relationship.” Looking closely at the story, quoted above, of Jesus talking with two disciples on the road to Emmaus, there is a hint that relationship is also an important factor in the mystery of resurrection.

I can’t really speak to the theological understanding of resurrection as it is beyond the scope of my knowledge. And as for the spiritual reality of a life beyond this one, well, that is something that surpasses human knowing. It has always seemed likely to me that there is an existence that continues past this life, and I share Mary Oliver’s attitude in her poem, When Death Comes, when she says:

“I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?”

My personal belief is that death and resurrection are synonyms. Our death is an end on this plane of existence, but it is also an opening to a new and unknowable existence on some other level. A short while back, Carla woke and discovered that she had a sheet wrapped around her and could not move. ALS had left her too weak to free herself and too weak call for help. In order to avoid panic she imagined her body as a sandbag that she dropped off the side of a hot-air balloon. This allowed her to shift out of being identified with her trapped body and to find refuge in her free and soaring imagination. I believe our resurrection is like this, we let go of the body and become all soaring imagination. Or, maybe, it is like an actor walking off stage. We take off the costume and makeup of this character we’ve been playing and remember the wider, more complete personality that we’ve always been.

One of the stories told in the Christian tradition during the Easter season is the appearance of Jesus to two disciples on the road to Emmaus. The two disciples are walking in a state of grief, discussing Jesus’ execution, when they are joined by a stranger. They invite the stranger to join them for dinner and when he blesses and breaks the bread, they suddenly recognize that it is Jesus. As soon as they recognize him, Jesus disappears.

The word ‘companion’ is made from the words com- ‘with’ and panis ‘bread.’ To break bread with someone is to be in relationship with them. In this story, as I noted above, resurrection and relationship are joined together. In fact, in many of the post-resurrection stories, Jesus visits his disciples—his companions—and eats with them. This pairing of resurrection and relationship suggests one way to understand the mystery of life beyond this life. That is, we are most alive in this world and the next where we generate the most love, both given and received.

This, to me, speaks to the psychological dimension of resurrection. Relationships change us. More than this. Who we are is to a large part determined by our interactions with others, good and bad. We are shaped by the successes and failures of love. Relationships not only change us, they create us. It is not too much, I believe, to say that the primary place of relationships in our lives means that we are not confined to our personal, separate selves. We are not merely our egos. We are what happens in the space between two (or more) people.

Certainly, we continue to live on in the memories of those we have loved and those who have loved us. But I am suggesting that we live on in more than just memories. If we are made up of our relationships, then in every person we have met and loved some part of our being has been planted . We live not only in the memories of another, but in his or her very being. Maybe those who are left behind are like pieces in a great puzzle of love. When two or more of the people who have loved us in this life meet again after we are gone, the pieces come together and, in that moment, we are resurrected, we are alive again. We are, in a sense, put back together in those meetings. We are re-membered.

And this to me is where the psychological dimension of resurrection opens out into the spiritual dimension. Maybe our spiritual existence is built up of the love we have generated in the world. The more love we have known, the more our spirit takes on a substantial existence able to become a living presence long after we have released the ballast that is our mortal body. Life ends. Things decay. Even memories fade. Love never dies.

“Love,” teaches Paul Tillich, — and I believe him with all my heart — “is stronger than death.”

A Fool Such As I

For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength. (1 Cor. 1:25)

I have not been able to publish a post for the past several weeks because I have been studying to take the Propaedeuticum, otherwise known as the Stage 1 exams, at the Jung Institute. This set of exams is major rite of passage at the Institute, as it marks the transition from the theoretical and academic phase of the program to the practice-oriented phase. To be in this second stage of training is roughly equivalent to beginning a residency in medicine. With the guidance of experienced analysts, the Stage 2 diploma candidate now becomes immersed in learning to become a practicing Jungian Analyst.

As my exam date drew nearer, I had this dream: I am getting ready to be tested. I introduce myself and say, “I am a fool. I don’t care what you think.”

Now, being a good Jungian, I tend to take my dreams very seriously. That this one refers to my exams seems quite clear. However, it’s that last phrase that I take to be the key to the dream. On the one hand, you could read the last part of the dream to mean, “I would be a fool to not care what others (the examiners) think.” After all, the point of an exam is to submit yourself to another’s judgment. It matters what others think because they have the power to pass you or fail you.

Being concerned about what others think, though, is not my problem. Or, rather, it is my problem, because I tend to worry too much about what others think about me. I spend far too much mental and emotional energy trying to accommodate myself to what I perceive to be the needs of others, trying to make myself into an “acceptable” version of myself. And though this can appear humble or self-effacing, it has a strong narcissistic quality to it. I want people to like me, so I present a likable self. In the end, I lose myself. In Jungian terms, I defend my persona, but am cut off from my Self—the wholeness of my being.

Given my tendency to care too much about what others think, perhaps the way to read the dream, then, is as an unambiguous statement regarding the attitude I needed as I approached my exams. That is, I needed to be able to say, “I am a fool. I don’t care what you think.” Jung’s attitude to dreams is very different from Freud’s. Where Freud sees the dream as a disguised fulfillment of an unconscious wish, Jung believes that the dream is a self-portrait of the individual’s psychic situation. In other words, the dream doesn’t disguise anything. It says what it means.

So, what does it mean to be a fool?

The classic image of the Fool is found on the card numbered ‘0’ in a deck of Tarot cards. It is the prototype of our modern day Joker in a regular deck of cards. The Joker has taken on sinister implications, being associated at times with the devil and, more recently, in the identification of this figure with the ultimate arch-enemy of Batman. We think of the Joker as creepy, frightening, dangerous and cruel.

The figure of the Fool, however, does not originally have those connotations. It is a symbol of freedom and wisdom. As Joseph Campbell describes this image, it signifies a condition of human consciousness in which the individual is “careless of the bites of the world … a wandering sage.” It represents a state of being where the individual has attained a certain detachment from the cares of the world, in particular, from those cares that keep us limited in our narrow ego perspectives—wealth, possessions, achievements, social pressures. It is, to be sure, a subversive figure, but not a malevolent one. This subversive quality of the Fool is most clearly seen in those characters that populate Shakespeare’s plays. The Fool, like the one in King Lear, satirizes the dominant attitudes of the court. He speaks truths to the King that no one else has license to speak.

Now, I am nowhere near being a realized sage, but in light of all these considerations, I took this image from my dream as pointing to the danger of taking myself too seriously. If I went into my exams trying to prove to my examiners how good I was, I would be in danger of going off track. On the other hand, if I could say, “I don’t care what you think,” then I would be freed to confidently express what I thought and not try to present myself in some imagined “suitable” way. It was important that I owned and trusted my particular understanding of the material. (Just to be clear: This was not a kind of multiple choice test. The exams included both essay questions and an oral examination. It was not so much a test of discreet bits of knowledge, but of how that knowledge was integrated and presented.)

I determined that instead of continuing to be anxious about learning the material, I needed to focus more on getting myself in the right frame of mind. To do this, I decided watched the greatest motivational speech ever committed to celluloid. Win one for the Gipper? Too obvious. Kenneth Branagh’s St. Crispin’s Day speech from HenryV? Wonderful, but too bloody. Besides, I needed some Fool energy, not Kingly power. No, this masterpiece was the cure for what was ailing me:

The figure of the Fool is a surprisingly common one in the various religious traditions. St. Paul says, “If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a ‘fool’ so that he may become wise.” In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the figure of the “Fool in Christ” was a venerated figure who was understood to have given his life completely over to God. In the Tao Te Ching, Lao-Tzu says:

I am a fool. Oh, yes! I am confused.
Other men are clear and bright,
But I alone am dim and weak.
Other men are sharp and clever,
But I alone am dull and stupid.

The Sufis describe themselves as drunkards and madmen. The image of the Fool can be glimpsed in this quatrain by Rumi. Here he is called the lover:

Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy,
absent-minded. Someone sober
will worry about events going badly.
Let the lover be.

What is the lesson of the Fool? I think it would be a mistake to understand the message of the Fool as “Don’t worry, be happy.” It’s not that if we stop worrying about life, only good things will happen, or we will finally get all that we want. Besides, as Bill Murray wisely reminds us, winning is no guarantee of happiness. The other team may still get all the girls.

Is the Fool’s message that we should have trust in the universe, or, if we are religious, trust in God? Well, yes, up to a point. As long as that trust doesn’t cause us to abdicate any responsibility for our own lives. An illustration of this pitfall is a recent story about Minnesota’s Governor, Tim Pawlenty, who has been talking up the idea of “God’s in charge” as a key principle of conservative politics. For this he has earned the rebuke of a group of Lutheran ministers, who issued this statement:

Governor please, stop talking to us about God. The governor is going around saying 'God is in control.' We elected you. We elected you to be making decisions for this state that will help everyone in this state. Things that will lift up the poorest in this state. Don't pass this on to God. That's no God we've ever heard of. And please stop lecturing us about God. It's offensive.

Trust in God without personal engagement in life is sterile. The formula that makes the most sense to me in this regard comes again from Joseph Campbell who says, “Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.” The point is essentially this: Bad things can and will happen. Some of those bad things will be the result of getting things you thought you wanted. And some of the best things in your life will look like failures or losses at first. Beyond this, expect to encounter great suffering in the world. Do what you can to alleviate it, but don’t get caught in the delusion that you can eliminate it. And to the best of your ability, have a good time while you’re here.

This is one of the main teachings of the Bhagavad Gita: “You have a right to your actions, but never to your actions’ fruits. Act for the actions sake. And do not be attached to inaction. Self-possessed, resolute, act without any thought of results, open to success or failure.”

In our bottom-line, results-oriented, winning-is-everything world, this ancient wisdom sounds foolish. But every now and then it helps to remind ourselves: “It just doesn’t matter.”

The Thing You Fight The Most

“The Holy One directed his steps to that blessed Bodhitree beneath whose shade he was to accomplish his search. As he walked, the earth shook and a brilliant light transfigured the world. When he sat down the heavens resounded with joy and all living beings were filled with good cheer. Mara alone, lord of the five desires, bringer of death and enemy of truth, was grieved and rejoiced not. … Mara uttered fear-inspiring threats and raised a whirlwind so that the skies were darkened and the ocean roared and trembled. …

The three daughters of Mara tempted the Bodhisattva, but he paid no attention to them, and when Mara saw that he could kindle no desire in the heart of the victorious samana, he ordered all the evil spirits at his command to attack him and overawe the great muni. But the Blessed One watched them as one would watch the harmless games of children.”

~ from Buddha, The Gospel by Paul Carus

Jungians love parallels. We love myths and stories that seem to have strong parallels in the stories of a different, or several different, traditions. When there are clear similarities between different stories, we think, “Here is something true.” For Jungians, such a parallel is a validation of the psychological truth of a story. This way of thinking is similar (though, not identical) to the search for replication in the scientific method. The results of a scientific experiment are considered valid if they can be replicated in further experiments. In the study of myths and stories, when distinct traditions show a strong correspondence of image and theme, it suggests that these stories describe an important universal truth about the human experience.

It’s not that individual differences between religious and mythological traditions and the stories they tell are not important. Far from it. It’s just that when there is a striking similarity between stories, it’s a signal to pay attention, a signal that says here is a truth about human experience that has such an intensity to it that very different peoples of very different backgrounds and beliefs have felt it necessary to make a record of it. As Jungians we think, “Wow. Human beings all seem to tell stories of a god or gods (for instance). God is clearly a central concern of human existence.”

The story quoted above is an account of the moment of the Buddha’s enlightenment and his subsequent temptation by Mara, “lord of the five desires.” There is a parallel to this Buddhist story in the Christian tradition. Jesus, having just been baptized by John, having just seen the heavens opened and the Spirit of God descending upon him like a dove, and having just heard the voice of God declaring, “This is my beloved Son,” is driven by the spirit out into the wilderness where he is subjected to a series of temptations by Satan.

In both of these stories there is an event in which the transcendent or divine order breaks through into the ordinary realm. “A brilliant light transfigured the world” or “the heavens opened and the Spirit of God descended.” Both stories tell that the divine realm responds approvingly. In the Buddhist tale we read, “the heavens resounded with joy.” In the Christian tale, God himself declares that he is “well pleased.” And in both of these stories, this transformative and transcendent event is followed by a kind of negative movement. The devil—Mara or Satan—tries to undo what has just happened.

These stories describe the defining, transcendent moments in the lives of Buddha and Jesus, but they also present an image, albeit on a cosmic scale, of both the gifts and the perils of the spiritual path. It is hard to imagine that these accounts with their heaven-rending imagery could have anything to do with the lives of ordinary human beings. Let’s face it, very few of us will ever attain the status of a World Redeemer. Ordinary, everyday enlightenment is tough enough and will probably elude most of us on this go around. Jesus and Buddha both seem to brush off the devil without much effort, but if even these transcendent figures must face temptation, how much more will this be the case for those of us struggling on The Way.

Years ago, I was the supervisor of an after-school daycare program. Anyone who has spent any time with large groups of children knows how hard it is to maintain order and, even more, to maintain one’s cool. I would often get disturbed at how often I would lose my temper and act in ways that continue to embarrass me almost twenty years later. Many times I would promise myself that today I would be “totally zen.” I was not going to let little things bother me and I would remain calm and collected. Without fail, it was on those days that the kids would be particularly bad—screaming, hitting, fighting. It was as if they knew I was trying to stay cool and decided to put me to the test. It was a test I rarely passed. Usually, before the day was out, I’d be shouting, too, yelling crazy things like, “If you don’t pick up that Lego you’ll never be allowed to play with any of the toys ever again!”

Today, I am very conscious that there is, too often, a discrepancy between who I imagine I am during times of prayer and meditation and who I am at other times. The phone rings, but I refuse to answer it because I don’t want anyone disturbing the “spiritual” state that I have just achieved in my meditation. Or, I am sitting in prayer, asking to be a force of love in the world and my daughter calls me, demanding a drink of milk, and I growl at her, “I’ll be there in a minute!” Hardly the voice of love. Or, I will be tempted away from meditation and prayer altogether by the TV, the internet, or some compelling new app on my so-called smartphone, eventually crawling into bed with a vague feeling of emptiness and disappointment. These things are relatively minor, it’s true, and there are other, more serious things I do that I am not proud of, but I’ll spare you a lengthy confession.

Alan Watts once said that a person must be very careful about making New Year’s resolutions because the devil would be sure to find out about it and put a stop to it. It seems that our best impulses are always in danger of being cancelled out by our worst impulses. The early Desert Fathers of Christianity used the image of a war with one's own heart. Some schools of Buddhism have pictured a whole universe of demons that must be overcome on the spiritual path.

In Jungian psychology, it has been observed that the first “layer” of the psyche that must be worked through is usually the personal unconscious, that aspect of the psyche that Jung termed “the shadow.” The shadow includes all those aspects of someone’s personality that are not compatible with the image that they have of themselves. For those whose interests tend toward the spiritual, this is often some form of aggression or anger that does not fit in with the conscious idea a person might have of being a peaceful or loving person. Jung once famously said that enlightenment is not achieved by imagining figures of light, but of making the darkness conscious.

And maybe this is the important point in the stories of the temptations of Buddha and Jesus. They tell us that temptation is a constant presence on the path to enlightenment and the greater the light we may attain, the greater the shadow will be. Even the great World Redeemers are not free from temptation. If we do not stay conscious of our darkness, we may never experience our light. How many times must we see a “family values” advocate, like Mark Sanford, admit to an extra-marital affair, or a corruption crusader, like Eliot Spitzer, become corrupted, before it becomes clear that the things we fight against in others might best be addressed in the privacy of our own hearts?

“You always become the thing you fight the most,” says Jung.

It’s not that I believe that we should all feel ashamed about our human failings, but simply that we should admit and accept that we have them. I believe it is important to try to be good, but dangerous to believe too much in our own goodness. Acceptance of our own darkness makes us more compassionate to the darkness in others. And in my own life, I know that when I let go of my airy self-righteousness and get back down to the solid ground of compassion, I feel I am getting closer to the light.

I figure it was not for nothing that when Jesus taught his disciples how to pray, he made sure that they included the phrase, “lead us not into temptation.”

To Sleep Perchance To . . .

Who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?
Who says words with my mouth?
Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?
I cannot stop asking.
If I could taste one sip of an answer,
I could break out of this prison for drunks.
~ Rumi

Last night I was watching an episode of Nova ScienceNow about sleep. One of the studies that they reported on showed a strong link between learning and sleep. The study showed that the learning we do during the day is consolidated and strengthened during sleep. So, when people learn a simple action, like typing a particular sequence on a keyboard over and over again, and are asked to perform that sequence as quickly as possible, they eventually hit a natural plateau at which point they can’t type any faster. After a night’s sleep, when they are asked to perform the sequence again, they begin the task typing at a faster pace than the one at which they had stopped the night before. Somehow, during sleep, the ability to perform an action just learned is improved. Some kind of practice, some kind of learning, is taking place while we sleep.

That, in itself, is pretty amazing, but I found myself wondering, “Who is doing the learning? Who is doing the practicing?” It’s not the person. At least, not the part that we would recognize as the person—the conscious, willing, striving, reflective, rational part of the person. In fact, the person doesn’t even know it’s happening. You could say it’s the brain, but that doesn’t really explain anything. How does the brain know to do that? Is the brain conscious of what it’s doing or is it just an automatic process? But if it’s just an automatic process, how could it have such a clear and meaningful effect on our conscious existence? Is there another consciousness beyond our daytime consciousness?

As a Jungian, I shouldn’t find this idea very surprising. Jung was very clear that our consciousness was just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. The rest of the iceberg is the vast realm of the unconscious. Even though I am a Jungian by training and by temperament, sometimes these ideas reassert themselves with their original force and impact. The sleep study explored on Nova does not, necessarily, prove that there is an unconscious, but it gives pretty compelling evidence in its favor.

So much of what happens in the mind and the body happens without the participation of consciousness, of the ego. “I” don’t heal my own cuts and scrapes. “I” don’t digest my food. “I” don’t make my dreams or consolidate my own memories during sleep. At times, it seems like the ego is, at best, capable of assisting natural processes that are occurring on their own, or, too often, interfering somehow with those processes. Much of the time the ego is simply an observer of what is happening in body, mind and soul. (The role of observer is probably an extremely important one, related to assisting the natural processes, but it is too humble and passive for us in this day and age of grandiosity).

I don’t have any earth-shattering conclusions to make about all of this, except to say that if the brain, or the unconscious, or the soul, or whatever you want to call it, is so powerful, then maybe learning to get out of the way is the most important thing that we can do for our own physical, emotional, and spiritual health. This is hard to do, since the ego tends to prefer to harbor grandiose fantasies about itself. We like to believe that we are the masters of our own fates. But as the Tao Te Ching teaches:

The reason you have trouble is that
you are self-conscious.
No trouble can befall a self-free person.

Whole-hearted acceptance -- variations on a theme

I've been reflecting some more on the quote from Jean Pierre de Caussade that I referred to in a previous post. Here it is again:

"The Treasure is everywhere. It is offered to us at every moment and wherever we find ourselves. All creatures, friends or enemies, pour it out abundantly, and it courses through every fiber of our body and soul until it reaches the very core of our being. If we open our mouths they will be filled. God's activity runs through the entire universe. . . . We could not choose to become good in a better, more miraculous, and yet easier way than by the simple use of the means offered us by God; the whole-hearted acceptance of everything that comes to us at every moment of our lives." ~ Jean Pierre de Caussade

I am conscious of the fact that truly understanding the writings of the mystics is not possible, as they are writing from the core of their experiences -- experiences that I have not shared. It is not just theory with them. They are trying to reflect in their words something of their actual lived experiences. Therefore, a merely intellectual approach to their writings will always fall short. So I try to listen to these writings as I would listen to a psychotherapy client. That is, I try to get an empathic understanding of the other's experience. Empathy is the process of trying to understand another by imagining yourself into their experience, by feeling yourself into their story.

I said in the previous post that I do not know what the Treasure is that Caussade talks about. That's true. After writing that, I thought some more about this. I tried to put myself in the position of someone who could accept "everything that comes to us at every moment of our lives" whole-heartedly. It was then that I got that rush that feels like insight. I had the thought, "I know what the Treasure is!" It occurred to me that the key is when Caussade says "God's activity runs through the entire universe." Perhaps the Treasure that is offered to the one who can open his or her heart to every moment is the awareness and the experience of the presence of God in each moment. The felt sense that God is active in each and every moment of our lives, waiting, as it were, for us to take notice. I don't know if that's true, but I have to admit that when I consider that thought, I feel something like resonance or excitement that has for me a convincing power.

Here are some others who say something similar to Caussade:

"When one does the next and most necessary thing without fuss and with conviction, one always does what is meaningful and intended by fate." ~ C.G. Jung

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

~ Rumi


"My formula for greatness in man is amor fati: that a man should wish to have nothing altered, either in the future, the past, or for all eternity. Not only must he endure necessity, and on no account conceal it--all idealism is falsehood in the face of necessity--but he must love it. . . . " ~ Nietzsche


"Don't demand or expect that events happen as you would wish them to. Accept events as they actually happen. That way peace is possible." ~ Epictetus


"[The] Christian worldview compressed . . . into a sentence: the world is perfect, and the human opportunity is to see that and conform to that fact."
~ Huston Smith