Fighting for Freedom and Opening to Flexibility
There can be no freedom for a rigid mind. Flexibility is then, a virtue of Freedom. Openness may imply vulnerability and there are times when vulnerability is not useful. Flexibility, however, implies tremendous strength. As the singer Ani Difranco once sang, “What doesn’t bend breaks”.
We have been increasingly conditioned into a lived reality that is based on fear and defensiveness. We are taught to follow the rules without question, find out “who” we “are” within the accepted social structure and then become fixed within that structural role. This stubborn sort of identification is held up as a kind of social heroism, where the ideal is to become an unyielding force, a formidable personality, regardless of whether or not your character is authentic or inauthentic, full of angst or blazing with glory.
This inflexibility of identification is the culprit on the scene of suffering. Unconscious survival fear lurks behind the mask of our solid sense of self. Life is not solid, it is organic and every structure must yield to the forces of nature because they are, in fact, the constructs nature itself. There is no place for nature to hide from itself. But from the perception of a human mind nature has fooled itself into believing that it is separate, that it can hide itself away and protect itself from itself. That it can achieve a sort of invincibility and permanence. Naturally, the truth of impermanence is always revealed as form dissolves and is reabsorbed by nature itself, by what we call death.
How then, do we find flexibility in a world bent on unrelenting control and impenetrable structure? Everywhere we turn we are reminded of our vulnerability and yet strength is demanded of us. We must at once obey some forces and defy others. We are reminded of our weakness and then told to reject it. According to this system, a “good” human is a strong (but not too strong), wealthy (but not too wealthy), supportive (but not docile), intelligent (but not too intelligent) creative (but not too creative), honest (but not too honest) well-rounded (but not too unique) individual. Aren’t you tired just reading that?
Confusion is inevitable when so many conflicting messages are received. As the world of media comes closing in on the world’s youth, the ideal of the Renaissance Man/Woman is a archetypal identity to be reckoned with. Nuance is out and power is in. The more this drive ramps up within the world culture, the more insane our global community becomes. Why? Because when the play gets rough the children get tough. And children is what we are, every single one of us. The world of global marketing pushes us to a success measured in possessions, in iPhones and Automobiles. In such a world, what we have is equated to what we are and our value is measured by our possessions, which then possess us. We don’t only sell our souls we attempt to buy new ones!
We’ve known the terror of this materialism for centuries but we’ve hardly moved beyond this behavior. We continue to bow down in service to the commercial machine, creating commercial identities to sell to others and then we wonder why love is rare and family is a thing we only observe on television between the commercial breaks that remind us to keep on going with whatever we’re doing so that we can get the stuff we really don’t need to live a life we think we want because we’ve been told that it will fulfill our sense of lack and loneliness with love and satisfaction. It work on TV, see?
We will work ourselves to the bone to eat pizza and take holidays in exotic places, but we barely have a moment to look deeply into the eyes of a lover and find out what lies beneath their words, let alone their flesh. We rarely pause to simply be with another and discover the being that breathes through their lungs and pulsates in their heart and realize that the very same being is breathing through our own lungs and pulsating in our own heart. Life. Meet Life.
Pointing this out may seem like a pessimistic thing to do and is often dismissed as depressive thinking. Avoidance is, however, not freedom. In order to recognize the truth one must, again and again, see through the lie. The lie is that you are not good enough as you naturally are, good enough to enjoy your innate beauty and goodness. You need not endlessly add to yourself in order to be worthy of joy, love, respect and acceptance. But, it is likely that you have been seeking these experiences believing that by acquiring more you are becoming more. More is not necessarily better. Quantity does not equal quality. Again, we “know” this, but do we live it?
Again, the question… How do we find the flexibility of mind that will release the hold that this struggle for control and permanence has over us? Where in the world is there experiential freedom? Not just conceptual freedom or temporary relief, the real thing! Is it simply another ideal state to attain, acquire and maintain? If freedom is found can’t it then be lost again, since anything that comes will eventually go?
These are challenging questions, worthy of exploring. I say exploring because therein lies the discovery of flexibility. In our goal oriented society we are always seeks fast and convenient answers that give immediate gratification. We have been trained to find the most solid and indisputable answers as quickly as possible and we do so with incredible tenacity and a competitive drive toward supreme correctness(as if righteous behavior is in anyway synonymous with righteousness). If we encounter a difficult question, we simply call up the answer from some reliable resource and memorize it or apply it conceptually. But the answers that transform us are the answers we discover deeply through our own research and inquiry, through our longing to know the truth. As a teacher of mine once said, “A great answer is no answer for one who has not asked the question”. So I am posing the question here: “How can flexibility of mind be discovered, fostered, nurtured and grow?”
If you are curious, inquire.
Now, I will share some of what I have discovered through this inquiry.
Questioning one’s Self opens into greater flexibility of mind. Questioning and contemplating deeply are challenging. While overwhelming difficulty can instigate breakdown, skillful challenge develops awareness of flexibility. In order to question our unconscious beliefs, assumptions and mental and emotional reactions, strength of heart is needed.
The heart is pure intelligence. It is without question and without need of validating answers. To dive into the heart is to find that which is the source of strength and flex-ability: universal intelligence.
How to dive into the heart? Here we have another wonderful and vital question. Again, we can move in slowly on this territory, which is our homeland. Anxious grasping for an immediate answer already moves us away from the heart. So let us look together now, slowly but surely.
The space of Grace exists within your own body. Right here and now you have access to this grace. It beckons you to enter the doorway of your heart, though the portal of your breath and rest in the pulsation of life that is your source, that enfolds you and animates every experience with conscious awareness and dynamic sensation. You are, fundamentally, this life; this consciousness; this awareness. Follow yourself now, back to your source. Drop inward and then release effort, as experience merges with the breath of the Youniversal. Clearly feel this thing you call “self” and then ask, “From where is this self arising?” Do not answer the question; follow the question back behind your mind, deep into your body and beyond.
Opening to Flexibility
Biologically we are wired for flexibility; neuroscientists call it neuroplasticity. And it means, that we are capable of learning new behaviors and information throughout our lives. Encountering new information and engaging new behavior arises with new experiences, they are mutually arising phenomenon. Experiencing new information means new stimulation, which brings with it the opportunity for new behavior, which means a different experience of life and self.
New information is encountered constantly, since every moment appears as fresh and new. Whether or not we perceive new information, however, is a matter of how receptive we are, how open we are to new stimulation. New stimulation challenges us to grow. When new information is perceived to be threatening, tried and true patterns of defense are our default reaction and our primal survival structures are reinforced. Unless our defense strategies are overwhelmed and therefore found to be futile, threatening situations generally do not lead to new behavior. This issue is of course that we unconsciously live in a reactive state that is hyper-vigilantly managing its survival and often cannot perceive when no defense is necessary. The greater the perceived pressure, the more our defense strategies ride at the forefront of consciousness.
We need not go to extremes in order to expand our capacity for flexibility. When we consciously engage in any new activity we discover within, the capacity to learn, to be challenged, to grow. This means that even with small steps out of our comfort zone and into unknown territory, we expand our awareness of ourselves. Within the performance-based value system of our current society, there is constant pressure to develop, quickly and profoundly. To move slowly and deliberately is seen to be uninteresting, even dull. I am not advising being overly cautious and therefore never taking risks. Risk is always an aspect of exploration and change is inevitable whenever discovery occurs. Still, the underlying assumption that our lives “should be” exciting and full of new stimulation everyday can lead to a very superficial experience of life and self and also the inability to sense nuance and thereby encounter the deeper aspects of one’s being.
So, on the one hand, new information and stimulation is required to develop flexibility. And on the other hand, constant stimulation can keep us distracted on the surface of experience, without the ability to focus our attention in order to drop into resonance and intimacy with the depths of our self and our experience.
Intimacy means deep contact, close contact, tremendous availability of consciousness. Intimacy is what is not immediately available on the surface of experiencing. Intimacy is a matter of the heart and the way into the heart is no way at all. What?
What I mean to say is that you cannot earn your way into the heart: money, talent, good performance, education, possessions, friends, jewelry; you cannot purchase or barter for love. Love has no reason and the love that is attracted by the presence of something you have will disappear when you no longer have the attractive item or quality. Since change is inevitable, anything that comes will go and conditional love will change with the conditions surrounding it.
This is another one of those inconvenient truths that we know to be true but sweep under the rug in denial because there is nothing we can “do” about it. Then why bring it up again? Why dwell on such existential puzzles that make one so uncomfortable? Well, I would suggest that we examine these issues in order to go deeper than the problem that they present: to ask essential questions that dive beneath the problem rather than trying to solve it. Understanding had more to do with empathy than it does with conceptualizing.
My question is this: What is unconditional love? Is there, in fact, a love that never goes? Is there consistent love? Can it be known directly? And if so, how?
Again, we come back to the heart. How to enter the heart and fall deeply, intimately into that space? Is that where unconditional love can be discovered?
It is only logical that unconditional love can only reside in an unconditioned environment. It is our conditioning, our limiting structures that limit and condition the experience and expression of love. Obviously I am speaking about a very mysterious kind of love, a love that has no reason, no excuses, and no need of validation or acceptance. This is a radical love, a love that loves even the most unworthy of moments, the most undesirable of qualities, the most challenging of experiences.
Believe it or not, this love is not a myth. But, nor is it a syrupy panacea that magically takes away all discomfort and lights up every moment so that you are no longer faced with the consistent challenges of life, such as change and loss. No. This love is the bare presence that bears it all. This love is relentless and free. You cannot contain it because it contains you. You cannot own it because it owns you. You cannot find it because it has you already. You cannot run from it but you can ignore it. Still, you are destined to discover it. It is, finally, unavoidable.