Attachment and Surrender

  

There is an obvious connection between opening, surrendering, letting go, loosening and being humble. From the other side, there is a connection between closing, craving, resistance, getting tensed and attached. Relation between these two became a crux of my practice and, in result, a whole life. It's hard to elaborate those things, because I can feel immediately when I am losing the connection with my experience and go to intellectual sphere which makes all my words dry and abstract. 

When I will stay with my experience during a following words, maybe some of you will have some insights too. This is how it works; the same with koans and chan masters conversations. The physical contact is not necessary to feel inspired by other's words.  

Firstly, we need to know where to find these two groups (opening-surrendering-letting go-being humble AND closing-resistance-attachment and, well, suffering) in other to stay tuned to our experience. Then, we are able to study our experience and elaborate it, put it into words, and in result; share and get some feedback. In most cases I can  feel the quality of others feedback immediately; if it is intellectual, it's worthless. When somebody will respond from his/her own, visceral experience, the sharing and mutual enriching can emerge. 

Its about studying one's experience, studying one's life. You live your life and practice spiritual stuff for years, and you are transforming your experience/cognition. You need to stay in touch with the changes and consciously relate to your experience, renew the relation over and over again. It means to let go all the assumptions and opinions which are builded over the experience. They are helpful for some time but further development requires to perpetually "brush them up" and, finally, let them go. After some time we need to abandon all our opinions and assumptions taken from books and teachings to create an ability to relate to our experience in direct, visceral way. It is possible that this ability emerges from rapid, spiritual breakthrough. I think that there are a lot of people who had this breakthrough and they are still trying to operate their experience by intellectual opinions taken from books. It creates very bad situation and sabogates the further growth. I am sure that there are a dozens of people who practiced some spirituality, provoked some changes in their body-mind cognition and later got stuck, blocked and very miserable. One of the reasons is a compulsive need to align your life to intellectual opinions, yours or others (gurus, teachers etc). We hope that it can help, but after some changes it won't help anymore.


The situation of encountering your guru face to face is completely different; it's not about intellectual opinions, but about relation which stimulates your experience and reflectivity. 

My growth was blocked and looped since I found my own teacher. Basically, he is teaching one thing I need very much for now, and this is ACCEPTANCE. We can add acceptance to our group: letting go, to accept, surrender, opening, being humble - it's all the same but not the same at the same time! It's very hard to make a meaningful distinctions between those qualities; you need to find it yourself. Then you can realize yourself how it is hard to elaborate them. 

After encountering my teacher my growth have boosted up. But there was much more circumstances which forced me to transcend my current blocks and evasions. I have went throught quite traumatic time. The thing is that all these opportunities brought me to my current situation. For me, there is  one riddle to resolve: the nature of attachment. How are  we get bounded by attachments? How can  we free ourselves from them? How to shorten a way to free from a particular attachment? One need to comprehend that like one "comprehends" to operate with bare hands, breath or piss.

Attachments are  great saboteurs of my spiritual and mundane life (which is one and the same of course). As far as I can see, attachments are the main category of many spiritual teachings. This issue is very direct for me. I do not add some smart categories  to my bad and good moments; I am constantly trying to recognize when my experience gets blocked and when the flow is loosen, open and natural. Attachments disturb the flow of my psyche. I cannot live with them anymore, even if I am subconciously still repeating the same, old stuff. But it do not work anymore. My experience informes me about that by suffering. There is no other way than trying to let go a particular (usually invisible) attachment which get my bodymind shrunken. It goes by cycles. I am living my life in loosen and open way and then, suddenly, some plan, agenda or thought is creating a blockade. I feel that my cognition got transformed, and the strategy of establishing a smart agenda belongs to my former condition, which is gone.  

Well, I can understand that very clearly but I cannot avoid doing that; it goes automatic , especially when I am stressed or overwhelmed. Accually, attachments emerges independently in many situations. It is not always up to my conscious will. The challenges and suffering are inevitable; but every challenge can be a gate to break down the whole pattern. To do that, one need to have a direct realization of the nature of attachments. Sometimes I clearly feel that the pattern of getting attached (in nutshell, it is about creating objects in your bodymind and misleading them with reality which results in tremendous and painful disorder in the flow of psyche) is a pure absurd. The "attachment strategy" is about uniting two realities; our intellectual reality and phenomenal reality of Vajra-World. I can comprehend that, but I cannot transcend this pattern. If I could, I believe I  would be liberated.  

Let's try to elaborate it a little bit more. 

There is a cognitive action hidden in being humble, letting go, surrendering, in abdication (as F. Pessoa wrote), loosening and so on. It is always the same action and it is very subtle one. As an anthropologist I think that many cultures are performing this action by rituals, practices and habits, like bowing, acts of veneration. As a buddhist I made a thousands of bows in my life and I still find this practice best for me after all these years. What is happening in one's bodymind when one is doing bows, praising the God, making offerings, saying sorry to others, refraining from one's own opinions? I am sure that the visceral realization of the function of all these acts opens a gate to very rapid and quick development which results in a full liberation.  

Rudrananda (Rudi) is a spiritual guru I deeply respect. His book called "Spiritual Cannibalism" can be shortened to one, golden rule: making effort to surrender.    As We know, the act of surrender is considered rather bad in our civilisation. We should be dominators, warriors, kings of our lives. We won't bow to anyone nor obey any rules in the sake of our independence. Spiritual student can see all this cultural patterns as a terrible resistance. The crux is that we cannot avoid the consequences of these actions, because they are adressed to our bodymind, our psyche or our brain. I mean that we are doing something very harmful when we are trying to dominate, when we are pursuing ours opinions and so on. There is still one, single, cognitive pattern hidden in all of this. Rudi says that we need to see all of daily situations in terms of growth. When one have a direct connection with one's experience, the mundane world appears as a perceptual spectacle; it's not about people, job, career, relationships, great ideals, social struggle and so one. It's just about our own actions. We cannot get charmed by objects residing in the world because in result we loose the direct relation with our experience. All these objects are just a delusion, including "people". It does not mean that we should ignore other people, it means that we need to abandon all assumption about the others, and perceive them as "sentient beings", the Other(s), the incarnated Reality or the God himself. Treating people according to their personality is just an attachment; you are picking up some feature and stick to it. We need to be sensitive how what appears in and through people so we cannot seal the channel of interrelation by the assumptions. 

This approach creates an multiple opportunities for resolving the problem of attachment and eliminate the pattern forever. Before that It is necessary to learn the visceral technique to surrender every attachment as fast as possible. In the Dzogchen tradition this process gets automatic: the bounded phenomenas (karma) are naturally emerging from subconscious and liberating themselves without our action. Before that a lot of work needs to be done! 

There are a lot of practices and rituals which contains the surrender within. I encourage you to read some christian stuff, for example Silouhan the Athonite.  He's records present all I am talking about, embodied in his own painful life. The great weak point of christianity is sticking to the idea of God. It may inhibit a further development at some phase. But these logs are still full of insights. We can see how Silouhan is systematically shaping his life to avoid attachments (the Satan). In fact, he is in a constant struggle with the "pauses" of feeling the Grace, which means to be in attachment-less states, united with God. For example: 

“When bad thoughts are planted in you, then cry to God: ‘Lord, my Maker and Creator. You see that my soul is in agony from bad thoughts. Have mercy on me.’ Teach yourself to root out thoughts immediately. But when you forget and don’t root them out immediately, then offer repentance. Work on this, so that you get a habit.” 

We can see through the traditional terms and contemplate the raw cognitive struggle. He was "crying to God" what means the blind effort to get rid of attachment. People are grounded in different cultures and they have a specific rituals to to that. Crying to God, humble oneself is one of then. One needs to be completely serious and engaged into the process. Then, eventually, one will succeed. It is not the work of intellect, but about a total devotion. 

Devotion is another synonyme of surrender. Devotee is one who cultivates the surrender. Most of people need a cultural framework to believe; God, Buddha and so on. We need a cultural framework to get engaged. God or Buddha is perceived as a total, sacred reality which we are attending to. We could consider this process in terms of our cognition, but it do not create so much thrills! Of course, cognitive narration is the same narration as religious one. It's the same "substance". But, after some time one gets able to experience all this process in a raw way, and what is more, Reality (and the bodymind) forces his or her to go forward. As I said below, some changes occured and you cannot step back. You need to pursue to the grande finale!   

Let's move to the crux right now. One need to learn how to move and function in the state of surrender. As Rudi said, firstly you are afraid even to move your body. You are sitting in meditation and then, suddenly, surrender occurs.The genuine state of surrender means to be free from any attachment in a here-and-now moment. The state of surrender is called the Natural State or Enlightement.

The task of being in the world in this state is extremely difficult. Chan master is not a one who is enlightened, but one who can maintain the state of surrender all day/every day, even during sleep period. This is what makes him the master.  

The crucial thing here is connected to the will. Usually, when you are willing to do anything, even to maintain the surrender state, you immediately make an cognitive error which results in the loss of Natural State. This is how our bodymind/brain works. Cannot do anything with that. Most of religious narrations attach this situation with some supernatural entity or reality. For example, in Christianity, when you want to stay in touch with Grace you need to abandon your will or yourself. Daoists are talking about no-action, wu-wei. Wu-wei or grace is the environment of surrender state. 

The following sentences are very difficult to elaborate, so stay conscious.  

The surrender state has something to do with being passive. You remain passive in some sense, and you let the Reality to flow through you. By this I mean both: internal phenomenas and external ones; all the phenomenas which approach right now in your experience. All phenomenas need to be passed through. You do not interrupt and you remain completely spontaneous. This way of being is totally different than a "normal" one. You need to constantly let go/surrender everything, unless it will stick to you and create "you" indeed which means attachment.  

This way of being is like dancing. You need to remain highly conscious to keep up with the ongoing experience and stay passive at the same moment. The easier way is to maintain the state is to be completely good and avoid any evil or bad actions. The more difficult way is to do completely nothing and accept to be guided by Reality. 

Christianity created a very intelligent discourse about that. You are being guided by God, with full trust and exposure. Even in pain and darkness. Pain is inavitable, but notion of "pain" which connotes something bad should be abandon too. There is no pain, just a procession of phenomenas which are felt, not conceived. But I am not talking about lack of thinking; thoughts are here too, but as feelings, sensations. 

It's impossible to exhaust this issue, but I will finish right now and rest. I will explore this issue in further notes. Feel free to comment. 

0: The beginning

This blog is the fulfillment of my long-term dream. Its content will include  systematic and careful work directed to explore and describe human perception. The goal is extremely difficult since my "methodology" is literally my own experience enhanced by years of intensive meditation practice. During the last years I have experienced a series of insights which radically transformed my experience. According to Reginald Ray, I am understanding this process as the transformation of my nervous system. During my Anthropology studies I made qualitative research of several religious communities. This specific field triggered my engagement into various spiritual techniques and undergo  attempt to describe the nature of their mechanisms.  Because of my interests I read a lot of religious and spiritual literature devoted to the methods of spiritual work. Over the years of my studies I have tried to distinguish between the cultural layers and  purely technical methods wrapped in these layers. According to the term created by R. Sharf it is possible to study the  "spiritual technologies” according to their quality, processuality and efficiency. This kind of studies implies to practice these techniques myself. It’s very similar to learning horsemanship, archery, juggling but on a cognitive level. So, the challenge is very subtle and requires a lot of intelligent effort.

I think that cultural anthropology is the only discipline which allows someone to explore and study the spirituality without reductionist frames grounded in quantitative sciences. The knowledge generated by quantitative sciences is just a set of artifacts when it comes to spiritual technologies.

I believe that the approach I propose makes it possible to break through the impasse which inhibit the development of humanities. Humanities have reached the edge of their current range. If we want to go further, we need to transform our experience via spiritual techniques. This whole issue is overloaded with prejudices that arise from both positivist and postmodern paradigms. It all comes from the natural inability of the human mind which is entrapped in ego, desire, naturalized language borders and, in general, leftbrain processing. We have reached the edge of our cognitive condition and we need to transform it in order to move further on.

The ideas of "objectivity" established by quantitative procedures and "subjecticity" grounded in postmodern approach are both extremes. These two extreme categories are just inhibitory and useless if we cannot establish a genuine study of the human interior. They are like crutches. It is necessary to put them aside in order to move forward. The key is to accept the spiritual techniques as scientific methodology. In fact, bodymind and life itself need to become the tool of effective and progressive  studies. It is necessary to reshape your own life to make these study  possible. Here lies the main problem and challenge: one must continually let go of all the attachments and illusions to go beyond ego and the so called "dust of the world". Of course, this "going beyond" is very elusive and dynamic.

It's important to understand it not as the ultimate goal, but as a constant effort. Only then one is able to explore and study his or her own experience and perception. The initial condiction is to escape from the egoic perspective. Then, one becomes able to "see the things as they are", and it is neither difficult nor impossible as it may look like. After years of intelligent and fervent practice one is able to perceive raw sensory/cognitive data. This is the main clue of this bussines which opens the door to depth study. In other words one become able to experience his or her own thoughts and body sensations in a direct way. Moreover ,one become able to study the dialectic relation between bodymind and Reality, between bodyminds of interacting people and between bodymind and bodymind. Also, I would insolently say that one become able to read literally all the rules of the world from him/herself experience. I will try to show it in the following posts.

We need to break through all the linguistic  "white noise" which is generated by modern humanities. The postmodern approach has several advantages but it is also looped and trapped inside its own, negativistic discourse. On the other side, people believe that the only alternative lies in careful, and mostly descriptive, studies which include the complex ritual of quoting the prestigious scholars and so on. It is just another trap. I don't want to negate all modern humanities. My attempt is to create a new, even ever-new alternative and break through the impasse described above.  

On the following posts I will try to outline my approach from various perspectives. I believe that I can offer much to other practitioners and I would be extremely happy to create a healthy and deep dialogue between the practitioners from various religious and secular traditions. Each of my posts is open to discussion and cooperation. I humbly ask anyone who could enrich my work to send some opinions and/or critique.

After all it is not the great mission, but mostly passion and  the need to share and discuss. The most important assumption which lies behind all of my careful attempts is: my approach is strictly technical and phenomenological.

This is it.