The “Do Me” Culture
America is the leader of materialism and consumerism in the world. This materialism has brought forth the “do me” culture. I pay you and you “do me”. If I pay a spiritual teacher, a retreat center, a therapist, I expect they will fix my problems. I can buy joy, happiness and maybe even enlightenment. It’s just like hiring a plumber or contractor to fix your house. I pay, and I expect they will do what we agreed upon. It’s the reason I sought out certain teachers. There was some personal dharma in their philosophies I could relate to and would take me into “higher” realms of consciousness. Where I could be released from the negativities and traumas of my past, and finally be happy. Just like what is on TV, in social media and demonstrated by people who are all about joy and happiness. I was hungry for something more, another way to look and deal with the situations in my life.
Was I wrong in that thinking. Even though I would find some amazing opening, a spiritual teaching, a meditation practice technique, or another way to look at life. I would make my way back into real life and be faced, once again, with my own crazy thoughts and issues that never went away. It didn’t matter that I paid good money to go to a retreat center or study with a spiritual teacher. I was still faced with “what is” and didn’t wasn’t sure how to contend with my feelings and emotions that came along with a particular situation.
I realized I was deceiving myself. Believing these excursions of mine would bring an end all be all cure from suffering, to enter a permanent state of illumination and be given a full-time peaceful existence for the rest of my life. (HA, it’s even funny for me reading that.) The knowledge obtained from these teachers I’ve studied with, the dharma from some of the great traditions I studied is important but, not the entire game. We cannot truly be peaceful until we have the peace inside of us. This only comes with practice and meditation is the foundation.
After a 10-year consistent meditation and yoga practice, I stopped. I didn’t pick it back up until recently. There was a 3+ year gap. I didn’t see it helping anymore and gave it up. It turns out, when I thought it wasn’t helping, that was the time for me to deepen into the practice. Now that I am back practicing and sitting again, I can see more of the reason why it’s truly important. It’s up to me to be the practice and I cannot expect any spiritual friend, guru, dogmatic or dharmic teaching to bring me the peace I am looking for. Using my everyday problems and creating the feelings of openness, as I felt during some of these experiences of my searching. To go from feelings of claustrophobia to spaciousness in dealing with everyday life.
The Illusion of Bliss & Living the Dream
There were many openings within myself I have experienced from participating in a workshop/retreat, studying with a spiritual teacher, and even in meditation. The perceived problem I had was that these openings never really lasted all that long when I expected they should. The bliss, happiness and as some people say, “Living the Dream” didn’t last all that long. As I made my way back into my life from my adventures, retreats, etc., my problems were still there waiting for me to return. In time, I entered a familiar mindset of contending with emotions and having judgement about the past and projecting into my future. It was as if I didn’t learn anything at all and was stuck on a merry go round repeating the same things once again.
What was my seeking? Was I searching for joy and bliss? Striving for my own personal desires and happiness? I was somehow living in the dream world by picking and choosing the situations I wanted to deal with. I wasn’t actually “living the dream” I thought I was but, I certainly was living in my own self-deception. Failure, suffering, and depression was waiting for me right around the corner after all these temporary feelings of openness wore off and I was faced with the regular situations and struggles in my life.
For a while, I was buying into the concepts of “living your bliss”, “choosing happiness”, “the power of positive thinking”, and others. There is nothing bad about those philosophies. However, in most cases, these are spiritual bypasses, by not having to deal with what would be deemed as “negative” emotions and the normal life situations that are right in front of us. Suffering and pain is considered bad and rejected and pleasure is considered good and associated with bliss. The concept of bliss is open space and we cannot access that open space until we are present in the now and facing current life’s situations. Both pleasure and pain.
The Unmasking
Over the course of life, we put on many false conceptual layers or shells of self-identity. “I am” a teacher, restauranteur, farmer, musician, real estate mogul, spiritual seeker, somatic sexologician, the caste/class system we are born into, how much (or little) money and materialistic items we have accumulated, and so many more terms to be used for how to identify who I am. But, really, I just am. I am just like everyone else is and do what everyone else does, experiencing life’s trials and tribulations.
The choice lies in the realization of these false shells and our willingness to remove them. To remove all these ways we identify ourselves, to be as vulnerable as we possibly can be. As if we are standing naked in front of the world without all those protection mechanisms that feed the ego’s self-aggrandizement. This is the necessary unmasking. To stand alone. Not having a philosophical or intellectual understanding of some situation. Not intentionally creating a painful situation for ourselves but, to feel the heart of situations properly, to experience them ourselves.
I recall being at a retreat in front of 20+ people shortly after my wife walked out and professing my brokenness. I wanted to become more aware of the neurosis in my mind and the negative aspects of myself. I knew this was the only way to find the open space I was searching for. Scared to death, I stood in front of the room, shaking from fear as I talked about all my problems and my life’s journey that led me to this point. I also recall being in complete fear when I decided I needed to do a strip tease act and get naked in front of 50 people at a different retreat. To be completely exposed, vulnerable. I spent 18 years in men’s support circles, with a spiritual leader, trying to be as vulnerable with my truth and my feelings as I possibly could be. This is the unmasking I am talking about. To be who we are. I had great guidance from spiritual teachers.
Today, as I write this, I am living in the middle some of the most troubling and tumultuous time in my entire life. My broken family, the soon completion of a 25-year college teaching career, my social life, and my outlook towards this country I live. I am thankful I have been in the “do me” part of my spiritual exploration, have experienced the temporary bliss from opening with a spiritual teacher, and have some practice in being open and vulnerable in my unmasking. I have dropped my known self-soothing mechanisms. I’m on the cushion and into nature everyday. Because I know that is the path to my peace and bliss… to be living with what is, being with the feelings I have for situations, and facing into the situations of everyday life. Patient and with eyes wide open.
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