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[post_content] => Over the years, my therapeutic focus has shifted increasingly toward what I would call “expansion.” I continue to see patients for issues as apparently one-dimensional as a sore knee, but what I really want for them is so much more than the disappearance of their knee soreness. My highest intention is that they will have an experience of lasting peace, happiness, and freedom. (I want this also for anyone who reads an article or book I’ve written, or takes one of my courses – and also for everyone else, too!)
The tricky part is that we tend to have these virtuous qualities wrapped up in causes. For instance, we may think, I feel peaceful because my surroundings are safe and it’s my day off. Or, I feel happy because I have good food and friends. Or, I feel free because my country has laws that protect my rights and I just dumped my boyfriend.
Yet, in order to embody these states in a deep, lasting way, they must become uncaused. That is, we find our way to them regardless of what’s happening with our body, our mind, or our life circumstances. And I believe the most likely way to discover such uncaused happiness, peace, and freedom is through an expansion of consciousness.
Limited or narrowed states of consciousness get us into trouble. When we identify with only one facet of all that we are, this sets us up for suffering.
Let’s look at some states of “contracted” consciousness. One of the most detailed frameworks for such an examination comes from the Tantrik tradition, which defines a set of layers of the Being. Although as a human you are all of these layers simultaneously, in any moment you’re likely to be identifying primarily with a single layer.
The center of the being is called cit (“chit”), which means absolute, nondual, nonlocal consciousness. It is consciousness that is completely unbound from a body, a mind, a personality, or any other labels. It is undying and eternal. You experience cit at all times, but it’s very difficult for a human to identify with it because it’s so basic, and so beyond our humanness.
The first layer outward is called sunya, which means emptiness. It is stillness, like what we experience in the deepest, dreamless sleep. It can also be experienced in meditation. Sometimes it feels so right and restful to a meditator that they believe this is what they are. While this is true, if it is worn as an identity to the exclusion of their more human layers – as in, “The human part isn’t the real me,” – then it’s still a contraction of consciousness, and brings problems – such as neglect of the body and inability to relate to others.
The next layer outward, called prana, is our vital energy, like the Chinese concept of Qi. Prana is considered to be an interface between the body and mind. And even though we have an individual experience of prana, like the two deeper layers previously mentioned, it’s a communal layer – we share it with everyone.
The next layer outward is citta (“chitta”), meaning “heart-mind” – or the layer of thoughts and feelings. In Tantra Illuminated, author Christopher Wallis explains that thoughts and feelings are considered essentially one, with the difference that thoughts are vibrations with a greater linguistic or logical component while feelings are vibrations with a stronger affective or “felt” charge. Humans tend to be more identified with this layer than any other. If our consciousness is mainly narrowed to this level, our thoughts and feelings run the show. We might say things like, “I am sad,” or “I am stupid,” as an expression of our identification with this layer. Because the mind and feelings can change so rapidly, when we live in this layer, we attempt to create stability by building repetitive patterns and forging rules for how the world should behave – and this greatly squelches our freedom.
The next layer outward is deha, the body. When we believe “I am my body,” – and especially when we simultaneously forget all the rest that we are, we base our self-worth on it and we feel vulnerable because of it. We know, of course, that it’s bound to age and decay.
Finally, there is a layer so superficial that it’s not even really part of our being. It’s called vastu – our possessions or “stuff.” Our possessions have a way of going along with us through life, they reflect our self-image, and it’s quite common to identify ourselves with them. This causes us to invest a lot of time and energy into accumulating, tending to, and protecting this stuff. We may even feel personally assaulted if our stuff gets stolen or damaged.
It’s important to note that there’s nothing bad about identifying with any of these layers, even the “stuff” layer. As you enter and embody each of these layers, there’s rich opportunity to experience, explore, and play. Again, the trap is in identifying with some small portion of all that you are – to the exclusion of the rest.
So, the simplest instruction I could give is to remember. Remember that you’re more than whatever facet of yourself you’re currently immersed in. The more you are able to expand your consciousness to include a broader, all-inclusive sense of self, the greater your potential to access peace, freedom, and happiness.
Give it a try and let me know what happens.
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
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[post_content] => One of the most gratifying parts of my work is getting to watch people support each other using the concepts we teach in our books and courses (and, of course, their own gifts and experience). There are about 11,000 people in the online groups we established, and witnessing the ways they help each other achieve goals and work through challenges makes my heart swell. Often, someone will post about a dilemma, and the responses that other participants offer are at least as clear and healing as anything I could have come up with.
There are some common stumbling blocks, and one that comes up frequently is the topic of forgiveness. We often view forgiveness as equivalent to giving a gift to someone who wronged us – why would we ever want to do that? And when there’s no obvious offense in one’s history, it can be difficult to grasp what or why we might want to forgive.
As we see it, the need for forgiveness lies in our own freedom. All the hostages we hold in our minds – the unforgiven perpetrators of real or imagined crimes; ourselves, for our past and current mistakes, our imperfect body, our imperfect dietary habits, etc.; the world, for being ugly at times, or corrupt, or unfair, or threatening . . . all of this internal disapproval amounts to a major infringement on our own experience of life. We forgive in order to set ourselves free. And in setting ourselves free, we support others to do the same.
If you’d like some support with forgiveness, Briana is leading a (free) guided forgiveness meditation on the Dragontree Facebook page tomorrow (Wednesday, November 1st) at 4:30 Pacific Time, and I highly encourage you to check it out.
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
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[post_content] => Getting good at nearly anything requires a certain amount of discipline. At the very least, you need the discipline to practice it on a regular basis. You’d expect this for learning violin or karate, but you might not think you’d need it in order to have a peaceful and positive mind.
And perhaps you don’t. But if it’s a struggle for you to maintain a clear, lighthearted, optimistic outlook – if you find yourself often in bondage to a negative mind that has taken the driver’s seat – I would bet that your mind could use some discipline.
Around age 18, I discovered Carlos Castaneda’s books. In case you’re unfamiliar, Castaneda was a doctoral student at UCLA in the 1960s and 70s who studied the use of magical practices and psychedelic herbs by the Yaqui Indians of northern Mexico. After some detective work, and a few meetings with charlatans, he managed to track down the real deal: a secretive shaman named don Juan Matus. Castaneda was bumbling and boastful, and he tried to impress the shaman with his minimal knowledge of these practices.
Don Juan wasn’t fooled, but he kept Castaneda around because he saw in him the makings of a shaman or nagual. In a relationship similar to that of Daniel and Mr. Miyagi in the Karate Kid (but much stranger), don Juan put Carlos through rigorous trainings of body and mind, and fed him a variety of powerful hallucinogenic plants.
All of this was fascinating and mind-opening for me at the time, but there was one element of the training that, while less bizarre, was actually more poignant. Don Juan was intent on teaching Carlos to discipline his mind, and whenever Carlos became anxious or depressed, the shaman would admonish him to stop indulging in his mind’s melodrama. As my teenage self read the word indulge, it really cut through me. My late teens had been full of plenty of melodrama, and I couldn’t help wondering if don Juan would have considered it indulgence. It certainly hadn’t felt like I had any choice in the matter, but what if I did?
Thus began a lifetime’s journey to understand the difference between ME and my mind. To discover my power . . . and lose sight of it . . . and rediscover it . . . and lose sight of it . . . and rediscover it. And because I decided to go into medicine, I’ve had the opportunity to witness and assist many others through the same exploration. Central to the process is the recognition of choice. As it pertains to discipline, this means being disciplined to remember you have a choice and being disciplined to repeatedly exercise this power.
When you suggest to someone in the throes of anxiety or depression that there is an element of choice in their psychological experience, it’s not uncommon for them to feel guilty, offended, and defensive. Because the implication, of course, is that they’ve been making things bad for themselves – that it’s their fault.
But the notion of fault can only serve to degrade the process. While the recognition of choice – AKA free will – is empowering, fault is disempowering. It leads us to think things like, “Why would I do this to myself? Why can’t I stop it?” The answer to those questions is, respectively, confusion and habit. Responding to feelings of fault (blame) with forgiveness and compassion for oneself will neutralize it, and this, too, requires discipline.
Throughout, the overarching practice of discipline is to pay attention to where your mind is going, and to not let it get away with taking you to dark or fearful places. And Mr. Miyagi, don Juan, and any Zen monk would probably add, practice the discipline of being deliberate about everything you do.
The life of a Zen monk, if fact, can teach us a lot about discipline. Discipline is not necessarily army boot camp or the One-Grape-a-Day Diet. It doesn’t imply restriction or deprivation as much as a continuous application of attention. (Our attention is more scattered than ever, due to the many things with screens in our lives.) Zen monks are, by and large, carefree and light of heart. And this results from prioritizing what is here and now, what is real, what is precious, over the moody demands of a wayward mind. Such a practice actually works best when guided by love – when you simply care too much about yourself to let your consciousness be degraded by mental bondage.
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
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[post_content] => Over the years, my therapeutic focus has shifted increasingly toward what I would call “expansion.” I continue to see patients for issues as apparently one-dimensional as a sore knee, but what I really want for them is so much more than the disappearance of their knee soreness. My highest intention is that they will have an experience of lasting peace, happiness, and freedom. (I want this also for anyone who reads an article or book I’ve written, or takes one of my courses – and also for everyone else, too!)
The tricky part is that we tend to have these virtuous qualities wrapped up in causes. For instance, we may think, I feel peaceful because my surroundings are safe and it’s my day off. Or, I feel happy because I have good food and friends. Or, I feel free because my country has laws that protect my rights and I just dumped my boyfriend.
Yet, in order to embody these states in a deep, lasting way, they must become uncaused. That is, we find our way to them regardless of what’s happening with our body, our mind, or our life circumstances. And I believe the most likely way to discover such uncaused happiness, peace, and freedom is through an expansion of consciousness.
Limited or narrowed states of consciousness get us into trouble. When we identify with only one facet of all that we are, this sets us up for suffering.
Let’s look at some states of “contracted” consciousness. One of the most detailed frameworks for such an examination comes from the Tantrik tradition, which defines a set of layers of the Being. Although as a human you are all of these layers simultaneously, in any moment you’re likely to be identifying primarily with a single layer.
The center of the being is called cit (“chit”), which means absolute, nondual, nonlocal consciousness. It is consciousness that is completely unbound from a body, a mind, a personality, or any other labels. It is undying and eternal. You experience cit at all times, but it’s very difficult for a human to identify with it because it’s so basic, and so beyond our humanness.
The first layer outward is called sunya, which means emptiness. It is stillness, like what we experience in the deepest, dreamless sleep. It can also be experienced in meditation. Sometimes it feels so right and restful to a meditator that they believe this is what they are. While this is true, if it is worn as an identity to the exclusion of their more human layers – as in, “The human part isn’t the real me,” – then it’s still a contraction of consciousness, and brings problems – such as neglect of the body and inability to relate to others.
The next layer outward, called prana, is our vital energy, like the Chinese concept of Qi. Prana is considered to be an interface between the body and mind. And even though we have an individual experience of prana, like the two deeper layers previously mentioned, it’s a communal layer – we share it with everyone.
The next layer outward is citta (“chitta”), meaning “heart-mind” – or the layer of thoughts and feelings. In Tantra Illuminated, author Christopher Wallis explains that thoughts and feelings are considered essentially one, with the difference that thoughts are vibrations with a greater linguistic or logical component while feelings are vibrations with a stronger affective or “felt” charge. Humans tend to be more identified with this layer than any other. If our consciousness is mainly narrowed to this level, our thoughts and feelings run the show. We might say things like, “I am sad,” or “I am stupid,” as an expression of our identification with this layer. Because the mind and feelings can change so rapidly, when we live in this layer, we attempt to create stability by building repetitive patterns and forging rules for how the world should behave – and this greatly squelches our freedom.
The next layer outward is deha, the body. When we believe “I am my body,” – and especially when we simultaneously forget all the rest that we are, we base our self-worth on it and we feel vulnerable because of it. We know, of course, that it’s bound to age and decay.
Finally, there is a layer so superficial that it’s not even really part of our being. It’s called vastu – our possessions or “stuff.” Our possessions have a way of going along with us through life, they reflect our self-image, and it’s quite common to identify ourselves with them. This causes us to invest a lot of time and energy into accumulating, tending to, and protecting this stuff. We may even feel personally assaulted if our stuff gets stolen or damaged.
It’s important to note that there’s nothing bad about identifying with any of these layers, even the “stuff” layer. As you enter and embody each of these layers, there’s rich opportunity to experience, explore, and play. Again, the trap is in identifying with some small portion of all that you are – to the exclusion of the rest.
So, the simplest instruction I could give is to remember. Remember that you’re more than whatever facet of yourself you’re currently immersed in. The more you are able to expand your consciousness to include a broader, all-inclusive sense of self, the greater your potential to access peace, freedom, and happiness.
Give it a try and let me know what happens.
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
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You may also be interested in:
Do you Sir know of a book called 10 Reasons Too Take Care of Myself? I cannot remember whom the Author is. The Book was published in the 1990s.