When Spirituality Becomes Self-Deception

I remember it like it was yesterday: I was sitting in this small reception room while my dad was in the back talking to someone from the intake staff.

As I sat waiting, I made it a point to let anyone that so much as made eye contact with me know I was not happy about being there. My chest was poked out and I was talking like a tough guy—but inside I was scared sh*tless.

Eventually, my dad emerged from the back. He was accompanied by this tall, older man named Larry. Larry had long, straight, white hair. His keys were clipped to the loop of his Rustler blue jeans. He made his way over to me and said, “You can run 12 miles in any direction and you won’t find a thing. So don’t try to escape.”

Then he grabbed my suitcase, threw it up onto a chair, and began to rummage through it. Nestled in the center, hidden amongst my clothes, he found a roll of Copenhagen. He looked at me and asked, “How old are you?” I said, “Seventeen.” He turned and threw the roll of chewing tobacco into a nearby trash can saying, “I guess you won’t be needing this then.”

I jumped up. He said, “Sit down.” Then looked at my dad and told him, “It is time for you to go.” He tried to hug me and say goodbye, but I was having none of it. My dad got in his car and made his way down the long driveway until he was no longer in view. For the next three months, Sundown Ranch Treatment Center was my home.

I was a good kid. I loved school and church; I had a kind heart and cared for others. But all of that ended when my parents got divorced in the second grade. I’m not blaming them for my problems. I think they did the best they could. It is just one of those unfortunate things that happen, but the fact is I didn’t know how to deal with it. I became angry and afraid. I went from being a model student to a problem student.

My problem was that I didn’t know how to deal with life. When I arrived at Sundown Ranch I was a petulant, immature brat. One day, the tech on duty—Joe, I think—pulled me to the side and handed me a book. He said, “It is time to grow up. Maybe this will help.” It was a book about Buddhist meditation.

I read that book, but didn’t understand much of it. However, there was something about Buddhism that attracted me. I didn’t know why, but I felt drawn to Buddhism. I read several other books, but just like the one Joe gave me, they all went over my head. I do remember this one book, though. It was called the Art of Happiness. On the back cover was a picture of this serene Tibetan man, Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama.

In the Dalai Lama, I saw what I wanted. I saw peace, inner-peace. I didn’t know how to get it though and no matter how many of his books I read, they all still went over my head. I was pretty thick as a teenager. But one day, while at the library, I saw a series of lectures by the Dalai Lama on VHS tape. His lectures were no more comprehensible than his books, but I liked to watch him. His laugh was infectious. I must have watched that tape a thousand times.

I wanted what he had more than anything, but just didn’t know how to get there. I tried to meditate, but couldn’t sit for more than three or four minutes at a time. I stuck with it, but didn’t believe that three to four minutes of meditation was going to do the trick. Since every word out of his mouth went in one ear and out the other, I just started to mimic him. I didn’t know how else to get what he had, so just tried to look and act like him.

When I left Sundown Ranch my dad sent me to a sober living home in South Florida. Here I am—this 6’8’’ Buddhist redneck from Louisiana—walking down the streets of Boca Raton with a freshly shaved head, wearing flip flops, counting the beads on my mala while I dramatically step over ants on the sidewalk and mindlessly recite Om Mani Padme Hung. I had no idea what I was saying or doing. It didn’t matter. I didn’t know the difference between inner reality and outer appearances. I thought the appearance of transformation and actual transformation were one and the same. This is spiritual materialism.

Spiritual materialism is a term first coined by the great pioneer of Western Buddhism, Chogyam Trungpa. It is a strange concept when you think about it. In common speech, materialism refers to a preference for material objects over spiritual principles and values. Simply put, it is the belief that happiness is an outside job rather than an inside job. So how can one be spiritually materialistic?

Spirituality is materialistic when spiritual principles and practices are used to remodel our self-image, rather than transcend it. All the world’s great contemplative traditions are in agreement on one point: selfishness and self-centeredness are the root cause of suffering. The theistic traditions seek to make God bigger, whereas non-theistic traditions like Buddhism seek to make the ego smaller. Either way, our spirituality is authentic only when it works to reveal that the ego is not the center of the universe.

Walking the streets of Boca Raton with my monkishly shaved head and mala in tote, my “spirituality” was ruled by what Chogyam Trungpa referred to as “The Lord of Form.” The nucleus of spiritual materialism is ego. When I say ego I mean an assortment of discontinuous thoughts, feelings, and behaviors bundled together to create a false sense of self. Since the ego is a false-self, deception is a core component of the ego structure.

The Lords of Materialism are manifestations of this deception. The Lord of Form blurs the line between inner reality and external appearances, generating the facade of transformation in order to bypass the path of actual transformation, thereby preserving the basic ego structure. However, spiritual materialism does not stop with The Lord of Form.

Fast forward five years: I’m back home in Louisiana. As I recounted in my book, Finding God in the Body:

“My girlfriend and I were at a Mardi Gras parade. I had been practicing meditation for a while and had read a number of books about spirituality. As a result, I thought the mysteries of the universe had exposed themselves to me. This inflated self-image came crumbling down when my girlfriend uttered two simple words: “He’s cute.” Those two words triggered an explosive reaction in me. In front of God and everyone, I turned and spat in her face.”

Then, I met The Lord of Speech.

Relationships were difficult for me. I was incredibly insecure. I was certain she was going to leave me, and the guy she was calling cute looked an awful lot like the guy I thought she would leave me for—her ex-boyfriend. But instead of using spiritual practice to address my insecurity, I used faux-spirituality to mask my insecurity. I hid my insecurity by dropping the occasional Sanskrit word, quoting spiritual books, pretending to be emotionally detached, and advertising my advanced placement on the spiritual path—all standard fare for The Lord of Speech.

The Lord of Speech rules over the realm of psychological materialism, which is a subtler style of deception than the realm of form. When the intellect is turned inward and study and practice are used to transcend the ego (jnana yoga), we are engaged in authentic spiritual practice. When, however, spiritual practice is co-opted by The Lord of Speech and used to prop up ego, we are engaged in a psychological form of materialism.

Our practice, the books we’ve read, and the teachers we have studied with are used to project an enlightened persona. This projection may appear to be detached and intellectual or it might manifest as an unnaturally peaceful persona adorned with empty smiles and cliché spiritual rhetoric, but behind the mask is fear and insecurity, not serenity and wisdom. When the curtain is pulled back we find The Lord of Speech pretending to be The Buddha. Hence the old Zen saying, “If you meet the Buddha on the road (or at Mardi Gras), kill him!”

The Lord of Speech is not the ego’s last line of defense against the onslaught of spirituality. The ego continues to struggle to adapt and evolve in the face of mounting pressure from our spiritual practice. As our practice deepens, so does our insight into the truth of selflessness. The ego seeks to incorporate these experiences into its structure of identity. This effort is referred to as The Lord of Mind.

As the mind settles into the basic awareness of the body, the truth of selflessness (shunyata) emerges. Suddenly the false sense of self slips away and the individuated experience of mind and body is uncovered. The experience of emptiness can be a fatal blow to the ego. The only recourse the ego has is to sew the experience of egolessness into the fabric of its personality. The Lord of Mind seeks to accomplish this in two very cunning ways.

First, The Lord of Mind turns it into an experience with a definite beginning, middle, and end. It does this by pretending that thought is exempt from the truth of emptiness. It ignores the fact that emptiness is beyond analysis and conceptualization, because in the realization of emptiness the medium of analysis and conceptualization—thought—is itself revealed to be empty. This is the subtlest form of ignorance. It preserves the basic division between mind and body and therefore the foundation of ego—the dualistic point of observation between our ears.

Second, The Lord of Mind begins to think about the experience. Thinking about selflessness re-inserts the subtle sense of self behind the experience. Suddenly it starts to feel like “I” had the experience. This transmutes the living experience of emptiness into a memory that can be possessed. Now the realization of egolessness belongs to the ego. It has exclusive rights to the truth of selflessness, which enables it to play the memory of awakening over and over again. This inflates the ego to god-like proportions.

The closer we get to enlightenment the more dangerous the path becomes. If we fail to see through the ego’s claim to awakening, we will fall into the trap of full-blown egohood. This is the most dangerous of all possible forms of deception. It leads to the belief that we are gods. All claims to enlightenment must be seen as nothing more than a thought emerging out of and returning to the ocean of awareness.

There is no claim to enlightenment. Enlightenment is the death of ego, and as Chogyam Trungpa said, “You cannot attend your own funeral.” In enlightenment there is no one left to make the claim. There is no inner and outer, self and other, or mind and body. As I wrote in Finding God in the Body, “The world is the mind and mind is the world; they are not two or even one, but Only.” This Only-ness cannot be claimed. It is the eternally begotten, unborn Mind that claims us.

Spiritual materialism is a defense mechanism employed by the ego at every stage of the spiritual path. The ego will always be there whispering in our ear. Silence is the only reliable countermeasure to self-deception. We must move beyond the ego’s whispers into the silence of basic awareness. There we will find the sword of indestructible wisdom (prajna) that cuts through spiritual materialism.

What is Spiritual Materialism & How Do We Combat It?

I remember it like it was yesterday: 

I was sitting in this small reception room while my dad was in the back talking to someone from the intake staff.

As I sat waiting, I made it a point to let anyone that so much as made eye contact with me know I was not happy about being there. My chest was poked out and I was talking like a tough guy—but inside I was scared sh*tless.

Eventually, my dad emerged from the back. He was accompanied by this tall, older man named Larry. Larry had long, straight, white hair. His keys were clipped to the loop of his Rustler blue jeans. He made his way over to me and said, “You can run 12 miles in any direction and you won’t find a thing. So don’t try to escape.”

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The Practical Implications of Compassion in 150 Words

What is Compassion? 

If you are capable of relaxing into your body and touching your own humanity, then you're capable of identifying with the whole human race—not just your own petty concerns, ambitions, and fears, but the needs and the passion of all humanity.

When you breathe the whole human race breathes. When one person is suffocated you are suffocated. Injustice is no longer limited to your own personal sphere. When the rights, dignity, and freedom of another is suppressed or ignored, you can feel it being suppressed and ignored within you. It feels like a fire burning in your bones. 

Likewise, when you see someone celebrating the fullness and the glory of human life, you can feel that celebration erupting in your heart.There is a flame in your heart that is dancing you into being. This flame is compassion and compassion alone brings realization into fruition. Without compassion spirituality is merely idealism.

Lack the Motivation for Spiritual Practice?

You can still practice, you know that, right?

As the famed monk and author, Thomas Merton, once said "we invite useless trouble upon ourselves" when we expect ourselves to always be moved toward spiritual practice. The fact is that many days we will not want to sit. This is where discipline comes in.

Discipline make practice very ordinary, very boring. So our spiritual path becomes a sort of internal struggle, but the meat is in the struggle.

It is precisely because we don't want to practice that practice is a practice. Engaging in a discipline is becoming a disciple. We are you learning to worship something other than our own finicky self-interest. We are learning how to step beyond the limitations imposed on our lives by our self centered framework. We are practicing and cultivating our capacity to do what we do not want to do and not do you want to do.

We are exercising our inherent freedom.

Modern Spirituality Part 1: Buddhist Meditation & Stress.

Buddhist Spirituality and the Practice of Meditation.

Meditation is a pragmatic approach toward being human.

Rather than discarding anything, the path of meditation invites us to look at whatever arises free of our personal spin. It is a process of befriending yourself by allowing yourself to be as you are in that moment. We do not act out or suppress anything. On the meditation cushion there is nowhere to run.

In meditation, we hold the space as both sides of our internal conflict pour into one another. In this moment, who we are ceases to be a problem. We discover a thread of continuity. It is this uninterrupted and indestructible thread of experience that unites wisdom and ignorance, heaven and hell, or nirvana and samsara. It is the ground from which we emerge.

This radical non-duality has profound implications. First of all, rather than insanity being some solid condition, it is revealed to be the product of an evolutionary chain of events.

In other words, every situation—even the dark and desperate—is workable. Stuck is an illusion.

Second, sanity or wisdom is not some commodity that we have to create or produce—it is self-existing. Awakening is effortless; it is a process of consenting to who or what we are, rather than the indefinite task of becoming me. Finally, we do not have to work our way back through our narrative into the past in order to reconnect with sanity. It is available in every moment of every day. It is the ground from which every moment of every day arises.  Confusion is not an obstacle to insight; it is the path to awakening. Wisdom is just the observation of confusion.

What is Stress?

We tend to associate stress with personality. It was the research of Stanford biologist, Robert Sapolsky that revolutionized the way we think about stress. He discovered that stress was an innate feature key to the survival of our species.  He uncovered the thread of continuity that connects stress with basic intelligence.

Stress is not a personality trait. It is a natural mechanism found in most sentient organisms, which is triggered during life and death situations.

Sapolsky defines stress as follows, “a stressor is a challenge to homeostatic balance—a real physical challenge in the world—and the stress-response is the adaptation your body mobilizes to re-establish homeostasis.” A stressor is a challenge to the biological balance that supports life, while stress is the body’s response to that challenge. In short, stress is the fight or flight mechanism triggered in life or death situations. But, at least in theory, once stability is restored the stress response should dissipate.

For example, there is an antelope peacefully grazing in an African meadow. Then, suddenly a lion appears from behind the brush. It is the stress response that shuts down all of the antelope’s auxiliary functions, such as healing and ovulation, and redistributes that energy to more visceral features relevant to the antelope’s immediate survival. It is stress that dilates the pupils, increases the heart rate and the energy reserve by secreting stress hormones (adrenaline and cortisol), in order to power the muscles instrumental in running and fighting. Once the lion is out of sight, the antelope replenishes its calorie reserve, and reinstates its auxiliary functions. It returns to a state of rest. For obvious reasons, stress is not only helpful, it is key to our survival.

Ummmm, why do I react to a talkative cash register attendant like an antelope reacts to a lion?

Well, just like the antelope, we get startled or panicked. There is a sudden shock or trauma—a burst of energy we are incapable of consciously relating to. This much is obvious. Only, in our case, seldom is there a lion or any tangible threat to our life. With humans, stress is triggered by a psychological event. Your expectation of a speedy check out is not met, and suddenly you are knocked off balance by your re-entry into reality. Then comes the stress inducing realization that you are going to be late for your meeting. To make matters worse, the cyclical nature of human psychology and the inability of our conscious brain to control more primal regions of our anatomy transforms stress into a chronic or habitual tendency with catastrophic effects.

Robert Sapolsky.

If stress is natural, why is it unhealthy?

The stress response shuts down all secondary features, including healing, while your body is busy trying to defend itself against the psychological attack you’ve launched against yourself. As a result, it is not clearing plaque from your arteries, fighting off infection, or repairing the effects of metabolism. Therefore, not only the quality of your life deteriorates, but your actual life span shrinks. Neurotic stress dramatically increases the risk of heart disease, heart attack, gastro-intestinal complications, depression, anxiety, obesity, and a host of other health problems. Plus, it increases the likelihood that we will develop secondary health problems—complications resulting from unhealthy coping mechanisms—such as, alcohol and drug addiction, diabetes, and sleep disorders.

Why do we experience neurotic stress but antelopes don’t? 

First of all, the conditions have to be operable. Essentially, we are talking about the development of confusion within the confines of stress: If basic sanity is the foundation, where did insanity or confusion come from? Or, if stress is fundamentally intelligent why do we experience it as a form of neurosis?

Insanity is a point of view disconnected from the revelation of direct experience. The development of insanity begins with a subtle but profound shift of awareness: We mistake the direct experience of Self with the tendency to think about our selves. This is triggered by the installation of the word ‘I.’ The word ‘I’ has no symbolic value; it is incapable of pointing past itself. It is only capable of referring to that which made the reference. Therefore, we get stuck in a self-oriented or self-centered cycle of thought. But ‘I’ did not just fall out of the sky. It was installed when we uploaded language. So, the conditions are made operable with the acquisition of language. Antelopes do not have words. Therefore, they do not have neurotic stress.

Now the stage is set for development of neurotic stress…

“There is a sudden shock or trauma—a burst of energy we are incapable of consciously relating to.”

We become obsessed with ‘that’ eruption of energy. It is our tunnel vision that transforms the spacious or fluid quality of energy or life situations into ‘that.’ This fixation appears to solidify space, but, in truth, it just creates a blind-spot. Like watching a shiny new car drive down the street, we ignore the space surrounding the object—the undefined, unformed quality of Being that constitutes our basic nature. This ignor-ance—the refusal to look at the blind-spot—is the basis of confusion.

The fixation with ‘that’ implies ‘this.’ The implied ‘this’ is nothing more than a self-conscious recognition of the blind-spot; while ‘that’ represents the quality of life. So, ‘this’ is cut-off or disconnected from life. It is empty. Furthermore, this blind-spot is associated with ‘I.’ So, I am empty or discontented—without content or meaning. I feel lifeless. This transforms my life into the search for meaning, content, and vitality.

How is this a life and death situation?

It is important to remember that this entire situation, apart from the basic eruption of energy, is played out on a psychological level. So, we’re talking about a psychological death. The material used to construct this psycho-scenario is thought. Following the acquisition of language, thought is largely in part governed by the rules of grammar. These rules require that a subject and object be verbing with one another in order to form a complete sentence. So, self-completion or the attainment of meaning, purpose, or content is contingent upon the co-dependent relationship between “that and this”, or self and other.

Just as left and right depend upon one another for definition, “self” requires the reference point of “other” in order to establish personality. ‘I’ acquires form, identity, or a role to play through relationship with objects in its environment. By labeling someone an enemy, ‘I’ obtains direction or a role to play. When ‘I’ names other “wife,” it spontaneously attains the title of “husband.” In a mind governed by language, ‘this’ is defined by its relationship with ‘that’, and vice versa.

When the relationship with ‘other’ is threatened, the identity of ‘self’ is also called into question. “I am the husband.” This one simple statement has far reaching implications. It is impregnated with a series of expectations: “I am the bread winner. I am the head of the house hold.” So, when the husband gets laid off, and it is his wife’s pay check that puts food on the table, his identity is called into question. ‘I’ no longer adds up, because it cannot fulfill the self-imposed expectations of a husband. From an established ego’s point of view, its life is being threatened.

How does neurotic stress become chronic stress?

The sophistication of confusion or the birth and development of ego is how the life and death situation is dealt with.  Interestingly enough, it is also how it was created.

The ego is a pattern of consciousness. It is the conscious brain’s attempt to manage the stress response or eliminate threats to its stability. Unfortunately, the thinking brain is incapable of accessing the unconscious mind for the same reason a baby cannot give birth to its mother. The stress response originates in the amygdala, which is located in the oldest part of the mind, the limbic system. The un-conscious is pre-conscious—the primal mind happens before the ego. So, the ego is incapable of turning off the stress response.

To make matters worse, ‘this’ is defined by ‘that.’ The ego was installed to manage traumas. So, the fact that the alarm is still sounding is, from the ego’s point of view, a traumatic event. It calls into question the legitimacy and therefore the identity of the ego. We are stuck in a vicious cycle. “There is a sudden shock or trauma—a burst of energy we are incapable of consciously relating to…”

Revolving around the notion of ‘I’ as it does, ego-centric consciousness cannot consent to its own death. It is incapable of acknowledging its own impotence, because it cannot entertain any other possibility apart from itself. This is why ignore-ance is the basis of ego. ‘I’ is a sign that can only reference itself. Therefore, it will always nominate itself for the job when the alarm sounds…even if it was the one that pulled the chord!

Neurotic stress is chronic because the criminal is in charge of the crime scene.

Is there any way to obtain freedom from self?

While the ego might be intrinsically ignore-ant, it is not stupid. In fact, the ego is brilliant. When the cycle is re-triggered, rather than giving up or trying the exact same thing again, it comes at the threat from a different angle. All egos are essentially the same. On the basis of ignore-ance, they establish separation, and define their position in relationship to other. Once they have their footing they begin to develop their own unique properties. In an effort to more successfully manage their environment, egos develop personality programs or defense mechanisms.

These personalities are like costume changes. They still seek to control or manage the situation, but with their own style. Fundamentally, they emerge from basic intelligence, but they are tainted by self-consciousness. It is insecurity—the self-conscious wake of the trauma—that characterizes these personalities. It is a lingering thought in the back of our mind that remembers when we got hurt. It knows that we are defenseless, completely vulnerable. It is this simple fear that drives the ego, and each of these personalities is a sort of echo of that fear.

“There is a thread of continuity. It is this uninterrupted and indestructible thread of experience that unites wisdom and ignorance, heaven and hell, or nirvana and samsara. It is the ground from which we emerge.” These various styles of neurosis have their origins in our physiological inheritance or instincts. In other words, each of these personalities is grounded in the voice of basic sanity. In order to move beyond the debilitating cycle these personalities mask, we will have to reconnect with this voice of basic intelligence. This is the voice of the body.

The Biggest Misconception about Meditation Practice.

Just as the heart beats the brain thinks...

"As it is explained in many of the meditation teachings, first of all you cannot stop thoughts. It is impossible. And stopping thoughts is not our agenda. It is not doable. Even if were do-able it is not necessary, it is useless. Meditation actually is to generate the awareness of the thought. If you are supposed to develop the awareness of the thought, then you have to have the thought to be aware of! So you can’t really get rid of the thought and then try to look at something." ~ Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

Working With Your Karma (In User-Friendly Terms).

“We need to appreciate our mistakes and the ways in which we seem to mess ourselves up. In the life of a practitioner, those seemingly false steps represent the ripening of karma and the exhaustion of evil deeds…

Meditation Tip: Let Your Cheese Slip off Your Cracker!

Experience the haunting silence of your radiant mind!

Do not try to stop your thinking—the only mechanism you have to accomplish such an end is thinking. Therefore, you will find your self thinking about not thinking—a frustrating and self-perpetuating cycle of thought.

We have to allow our thinking to be free flowing, non-regulated. This is very difficult. It feels like you are going crazy, and you are, from certain point of view. When we allow our thoughts to arise and pass away in their own time, the ego is forced to relate to the groundlessness of it's own existence. Our cheese has to slip of our cracker, so to speak.

Meditation is letting go of your solid ground, your frozen point of view. We are letting go of all our fears and expectations, which requires fearlessness. We have to sit there and simply "feel" as our fears and expectations come and go. From the ego's point of view, fearlessness is insane. We are moving beyond all of our attempts to organize our experience around some limited idea of who we are. We have to completely let go, of both positive and negative thinking, if we hope to dive into the immediacy and open-ness of our experience.

Flippin' Comic Flapjacks With the Buddha.

“Something living, something real, is taking place in everything.” ~Chogyam Trungpa

“Our ordinary approach to reality and truth is so poverty stricken that we don’t realize that the truth is not one truth, but all truth. It could be everywhere, like raindrops, as opposed to water coming out of a faucet that only one person can drink from at a time. Our limited approach is a problem…

Buddhism: Religion or Philosophy?

“Truth is a Pathless Land.” ~Jiddu Krishnamurti

‎"Buddhism appears to be a religion, as a concession to human mentality. But Buddhism is not a religion. Buddhism is the dismantling of all religions. Buddhism is not a philosophy; it’s the dismantling of all philosophies. It’s not a psychology, it’s not a system of ethics, it’s not a way to relax. It’s the dismantling of all human agendas and ambitions and attitudes. And when we dismantle everything, when we remove the husk, then we find something inside that is incredibly living, bursting with life, and burgeoning with love, and blooming with beauty. And that’s us, it’s our life.” ~ by Reggie Ray of the Dharma Ocean Foundation.