Health & Happiness - Philosophy

learned optimism & buddhism

nospam@example.com (admin) — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 21:42:10 -0600

This is the story of a book, a philosophy, and how the two are inextricably intertwined in my mind. The book is Learned Optimism by Martin E.P. Seligman, Ph.D. The philosophy is Buddhism. Both were initially first recommended to me by the first shrink I ever saw twice.

She recommended both book and philosophy highly. I didn't listen. For starters, optimists give me the willies. I consider myself to be a realist. There's an old saying that the pessimist sees only the overwhelming darkness of the tunnel; the optimist sees only the light at the end of the tunnel; but the realist is the one who recognizes that light as the headlamp of the oncoming train.

Buddhism was even less personally appealing. For some reason, its proponents seemed to consider the cessation of desire to be a good thing! Now, anyone who knows me at all will understand just how unappetizing that particular idea was to my sensibilities. I love my desires. I live for my desires. Hell, I am my desires. Desire didn't cause suffering, desire caused pleasure. The basic premise didn't make sense.

I was resistant to pretty much everything she told me and never bothered to follow either lead, even though other sources were to second her advice and recommendations in the years to come.

Finally, a copy of Learned Optimism found its way into my hands when I was right at the end of a junket of self-help book reading and right before I discovered The Secret. The timing was exactly right; I was ready to listen. Immediately I kicked myself for not reading it years before as I quickly realized what I held in my hands. It was a formula! This book contained a systematic process for making practical, immediate life changes.

Difficulties in life are discussed in terms of personal explanatory styles, or "habitual way(s) of explaining bad events", which stem directly from your view of your place in the world whether you think you are valuable and deserving or worthless and hopeless it is the hallmark of whether you are an optimist or a pessimist." (Seligman 44) People with pessimistic explanatory styles tend to "give up easily and become depressed." (Seligman 98) People with optimistic explanatory styles tend to bounce back and pick up again where they started. The difference is not in how we appear to others, but rather is a way "to talk to yourself when you suffer a personal defeat." (Seligman 207)

Explanatory styles involve choices centering around three areas of perception: permanence, pervasiveness, and personalization. When events happen, whether we perceive them as either negative or positive, we habitually filter them through these three dimensions, each which presents a distinct choice of its own; permanent versus temporary, specific versus universal, and internal versus external.

For example, when something bad happens to me, I can choose to believe its existence to be either permanent or temporary; i.e. "I never get things done on time!" versus "I let myself get distracted, this time." Thinking of bad things in permanent terms of never' or always' indicates a pessimistic explanatory style, whereas using qualifiers like sometimes' and lately' and blaming bad events on temporary or "transient conditions" marks one as an optimist. (Seligman 44)

Conversely, when something good happens to me, I also choose to believe its existence to be either permanent or temporary. "It's my lucky day" versus "I'm always lucky." (Seligman 45) Here, thinking of good things in terms of permanent causes indicates an optimistic explanatory style, whereas a tendency to view good things as temporary in nature is certainly pessimistic.

"Permanence is about time. Pervasiveness is about space." (Seligman 46) Pervasiveness, the second area of perception, pertains to how much we let our reactions to events bleed over into other areas of our lives.

For example, when something bad happens to me, I can choose to believe its existence to be either universal and widespread throughout my life or specific and confined merely to a particular instance; i.e. "My life sucks." Versus "I don't like my job very much."

Thinking of bad things in universal terms, making broad generalizations about such and applying them to life across the board is the mark of a pessimist, whereas isolating specific feelings of failure to the pertinent events themselves and not letting them spill over into other areas of life indicates a more optimistic explanatory style.

Conversely, when something good occurs, I choose to believe its existence to be either pervasive or situationally dependent; i.e. "I'm smart." Versus "I'm smart at math." (Seligman 48) Here, thinking of good things in universal terms indicates an optimistic explanatory style, whereas the tendency to view good things as isolated by circumstance is sad and certainly pessimistic.

The third dimension of perception, Personalization, involves blame and credit. For example, when something bad happens to me, I choose to believe its existence to be from either internal or external sources; i.e. "I'm insecure." Versus "I grew up in poverty." (Seligman 50) Thinking of bad things as internally caused not only indicates pessimism but also low self esteem, whereas placing fault externally is actually more optimistic and self validating.

Conversely, when good things happen, our tendency to credit either ourselves or others indicates healthy optimism or pessimism, respectively, as "people who believe they cause good things tend to like themselves better than people who believe good things come from other people or circumstances." (Seligman 50)

In summary, a person with an optimistic explanatory style would tend to interpret good events as permanent, pervasive, and personal and to interpret bad events as temporary, specific, and externally caused.

By contrast, a person with a pessimistic explanatory style would tend to interpret good events as temporary, specific, and externally caused and to interpret bad events as permanent, pervasive and personally wrought.

But what does all this have to do with Buddhism, you may ask? Good question. Where Seligman's book provided a simple formula for immediate application, Buddhism, as explained by Thich Nhat Hanh in The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching, provides a deeper explanation, an almost meta understanding of the same concepts. When discussing the Three Dharma Seals, the Buddha "offered us impermanence, nonself, interbeing, and emptiness to discover the true nature of reality." (Hanh 137)

In some senses, we can draw direct connections between the three areas of perception (permanence, pervasiveness, and personalization) and the Three Dharma Seals of impermanence (anitya), nonself (anatman), and nirvana. Indeed, Thich Nhat Hanh even uses near identical language to describe the nature of the first two seals, "From the point of view of time, we say impermanence', and from the point of view of space, we say nonself'." (Hanh 132) The comparisons stop matching up so neatly after that, but I believe the topics encompassed within The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching more than envelop those in Learned Optimism, taking us from mere practice and following of formula to a living understanding, to wisdom.

For when one applies the understanding gained from Buddhist teaching to the layer of action based upon optimist formulas, we then "stop discussing things and begin to realize the teachings in our own life, a moment comes when we realize that our life is the path, and we no longer rely merely on the forms of practice." (Hanh 122)

I must have had more Buddhist teachers these last few years than I ever imagined. By the time I discovered the path, I found I was already walking it. Most startling was to find a personal understanding of the truth in statements like this, that "when we feel happy and peaceful, our happiness and peace radiate around us, and others can enjoy it as well." (Hanh 159)

I came to my own understanding of impermanence, interbeing, nonself, and emptiness through contemplation of the night sky combined with simultaneous study in astronomy, chemistry and human biology. It was easy to see the interconnected yet fleeting nature of all things when viewed from either the macro or microcosmic level, or both.

But there was still something missing. I still didn't understand all this nonsense about desire and suffering. Sure, I get that all life is suffering. I can accept that as a point of argument, even if it does seem somewhat, um, pessimistic. The problem was not with the philosophy as such, but rather, the oversimplification of the philosophy into what is, admittedly, a hot button term for me personally. Better, for me, than desire is to think in terms of non-attachment.

In a way, Buddhism can be considered to be that realism I was so fond of. Buddhism realizes and recognizes that everything pretty much sucks. In fact, the Five Remembrances spell it out quite clearly:

I am of the nature to grow old, have ill-health, and die. Everyone I love will change and die and "my actions are my only true belongings." (Hanh 124)

Rather than being depressing, these remembrances are liberating as they remind us to be mindful of the joys of the here and now.

In fact, that is the key to non-attachment, is mindfulness. Attachment is to things not of the here and now; past lost or future dreamed or dreaded, the inability to live in the present moment is what keeps us imprisoned and causes us anxiety, "the illness of our time." Yet, "letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything anger, anxiety, or possessions we cannot be free." (Hanh 78) In fact, Thich Nhat Hanh goes on to say, "If we look deeply into our craving, we will see that we already have what we crave, because everything is already a part of everything else." (Hanh 79)

In The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching, Thich Nhat Hanh talks about habit energies, our mindless ways of being that sweep and push us along. He says that we must learn to simply stop. The three dimensions of perception in Learned Optimism may be thought of as habit energies that we must learn to stop, examine, and rearrange. Left unchecked, these habitual energies carry us along like a runaway horse. When asked where we are going, we may only refer the question to the horse.

Only by stopping will we be able to "touch the truth of suffering with our mindfulnessto recognize and identify our specific suffering, its specific causes, and the way to remove these causes and end our suffering." (Hanh 22) We must face our suffering. That therapist, the one who first introduced me to these ideas, she also told me to meditate. I told her I couldn't stop thinking long enough. She said that if I had a thought, to simply recognize it as such.

Her words could have come straight from The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching:

"To observe our feelings, we sit on the bank of the river and identify each feeling as it flows by. It may be pleasant, unpleasant, or neutralRecognize it, smile to it, look deeply into it, and embrace it with all our heart. If we continue to look deeply, we discover the true nature of that feeling, and we are no longer afraid." (Hanh 178)

This brings me back to my current position on the path, that of a writer constantly trying to overcome fear and live truly and deeply, because "non-fear is the basis of true happiness. The greatest gift we can offer others is our non-fear." (Hanh 212) I sure hope that's true, because that is the path I intend to take straight into the fear. I will love my fear and embrace it, and in it, find peace. And fear itself? I choose to view fear as temporary, situationally specific, and externally caused; whereas happiness will be considered as permanent, pervasive and intrinsic to my basic existence. And I will drink deeply of both as I watch them flow by.

tragedy and the tao

nospam@example.com (admin) — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 21:49:30 -0600

Walking in two worlds: Logos vs. Mythos

In his first book, The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche defines the greatest philosophical schism in history in terms of Apollo versus Dionysus, two Greek Gods who represented Order and Chaos, loosely. To me, this can also be seen as the struggle for supremacy of the conscious versus the unconscious, the rational versus the irrational, and reason versus emotion. As someone with equally strong right brain and left brain tendencies, I have been obsessed with this dichotomy all semester.

Since the time of the Greeks, the Western world has had its gaze firmly affixed upon the Apollonian path of logic, science and reason, insisting that everything must be proven and ordered in order to be valid. Nietzsche, however, insists that there is more to reality than reason alone and maintains that achieving a Dionysian ecstatic state brings one into line with the collective, with the communal, the universal, which takes one out of oneself and connects one to the greater principle, or the hidden, truer reality - "his own condition complete oneness with the essence of the universe."[1]

Reading the Tao, however, added to my suspicions that there was more to this dualism than I had seen even with Nietzsche. Specifically, the concept of yin and yang brought an even deeper level of understanding to the concepts of duality and balance, almost a meta level. I could now tie in the Apollonian with hot male yang controlling energy, anxious to put structure and meaning onto reality, whereas the cool Dionysian feminine principle instead seems to coexist effortlessly with the spirit of existence. From the Tao:

"The universe is sacred.
You cannot improve it.
If you try to change it, you will ruin it.
If you try to hold it, you will lose it.
So sometimes things are ahead and sometimes they are behind;
Sometimes breathing is hard, sometimes it comes easily;
Sometimes there is strength and sometimes weakness;
Sometimes one is up and sometimes down.
Therefore the sage avoids extremes, excesses, and complacency."[2]

The Tao also shed more light on what I suspect may be another way to tap into the Dionysian state of existence, aside from Nietzsche's single track focus on music. Each philosophical path seems to have a slightly different version of the same theme, an ecstatic, shamanic offshoot that rejects the path of reason and embraces instead the oft shunned path of intuition and faith. In Hinduism, it is bhakti yoga. In Buddhism, it is mindfulness. In Taoism, it is letting go. For Nietzsche, the Dionysian satyr "was man's true prototype, an expression of his highest and strongest aspirations. For the Greek the satyr expressed nature in a rude, uncultivated state:"[3] Lao Tsu also emphasizes nature and emotion, as "the sage is guided by what he feels and not by what he sees."[4]

Being back in college and living the life I do has put dualism in my face in a big way. Not only do I have the typical angst over choosing a major but I have had the misfortune of having my past rear its not so ugly head up at me, tempting me back into paths long forgotten. For years, I was a corporate whore; a depressed, technology addicted, fat, angry, anal retentive, pill popping, controlling, micro managing, bitter yuppie bitch. I had money. I had challenging work. But I hated everything about my life. I hated myself. There was this guy. He was the smartest man I'd ever met. I was the smartest woman he'd ever met. But we weren't necessarily compatible in a one-one relationship. It turned out he was happier without me. He decided to leave the country, to follow his dreams and go to South Korea for a year to teach English. I had no one. Nothing. I'd moved to Boulder with him because he'd gotten a great tech job there. It felt like he'd yanked the world out from under my feet. I tried to kill myself.

That was the turning point of my life; the division between the me' that was and the me' who is. In a very real way, I did kill that unhappy bitch that day. We have very little in common. I spent the last five years actively running away from my left brain and trying to cultivate my right brain instead. With great success, I have since managed to switch hemisphere dominance to become such a different person that I normally forget how much I've changed or how far I've come until events remind me of that distant past. I'm a happy, dreamy, giddy, free thinking, creative free spirit. I have friends now. I have a great life. I look ten years younger. I'm getting in touch with my body and my spirituality. No one who knows me now would ever guess that I once was so anal retentive that I literally didn't fart for five years.

So, again, I meet a guy. He's one of the smartest men in the world, a math genius. He's the god of the geeks, a legend among those in the know, the virtual king of Logos, and the very prince of Apollonian reason. I've got a touch of that myself. I've never met anyone who could understand my formulas before. He inspires me to want to develop that side of my brain because I want so deeply to be able to have those kinds of conversations. His lifestyle, his home, his work; everything about him, however; reminds me of the life I left behind. And I'm afraid.

I'm afraid of money, too. He didn't understand how I could think that money was poison and that I could meet a better class of people when poor. I told him that, while not necessarily being a "better class"; poor people, in my experience, tend to have more heart; they have less to give but give more, proportionately. I find that I am truer, more honest, more connected when I have to depend on others than when I am totally comfortable and self reliant. Sometimes I want to quote Nietzsche at him:

For Nietzsche, suffering is the real truth of reality. The problem with tragedy to the logically minded, within a framework of absolutes is that it "calls into question the boundaries of ethical judgment that every moralist must define or assume."[5] The process of striving to clearly define and fit everything into perfect abstract forms leaves little room for flexible judgments or moral relativism, sophistry, as it were. In his introduction to The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche queries whether the Western resolve to be so overly scientific about everything indicates fear, an avoidance of ugly reality, a certain inability to face the truth.

Nietzsche goes on to propose a society which he calls a tragic culture, where "wisdom takes the place of science as the highest end wisdom that, uninfluenced by the seductive distractions of the sciences, turns with unmoved eyes to a comprehensive view of the world, and seeks to grasp, with sympathetic feelings of love, the eternal suffering as its own."[6] I can almost hear him, and all those other logically minded types I love so much, laughing at the very idea.

But now I also want to quote the Tao:

"Give up learning and put and end to your troubles."[7] "In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired. In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped. Less and less is done until non-action is achieved. When nothing is done, nothing is left undone. The world is ruled by letting things take their course."[8] I've learned to slow myself down and blow things off. This is good for me. I actually get much more done this way. But how do I explain this? Lao Tsu would say that "Teaching without words and work without doing are understood by very few."[9] So perhaps I stop trying to explain. I either just do or I don't. Time will show whether it is effective or not.

Even suffering has its proper and needful place as "everyone else is busy, but I alone am aimless and depressed. I am different. I am nourished by the great mother."[10] Empty, I am filled. Sorrowing, I am comforted. I touch my pain deeply and am flooded with healing in return. "Be really whole, and all things will come to you."[11]

My writing provides me justification and direction. Even if I know not what I intend to do with it, as Nietzsche would say, "Poetry does not lie outside the world as a fantastic impossibility begotten of the poet's brain; it seeks to be the exact opposite, an unvarnished expression of truth"[12]. It is my therapy, as is most of my lifestyle. My writing, like my body work, is another devotion or yoga, another part of the path;

"The pathological discharge, the catharsis of Aristotle, of which philologists are not sure whether it should be included among medical or moral phenomena, recalls a remarkable notion of Goethe's. Without a lively pathological interest," he says, "I, too, have never yet succeeded in elaborating a tragic situation of any kind, and hence I have rather avoided than sought it. Can it perhaps have been yet another merit of the ancients that the deepest pathos was with them merely aesthetic play, while with us the truth of nature must cooperate in order to produce such a work? "[13]

True art can not be created from a formula; it must instead come from the deepest of suffering, a communal sharing of pain, "... the artistic development of the individual..., through an ecstatic reality which once again takes no account of the individual and may even destroy him, or else redeem him through a mystical experience of the collective. In relation to these immediate creative conditions of nature every artist must appear as "imitator," either as the Apollinian dream artist or the Dionysian ecstatic artist, or, finally... as dream and ecstatic artist in one. We might picture to ourselves how the last of these, in a state of Dionysian intoxication and mystical self-abrogation, wandering apart from the reveling throng, sinks upon the ground, and how there is then revealed to him his own conditioncomplete oneness with the essence of the universe"[14]

Here Nietzsche begins to emphasize balance, as does the Tao. I need to retain or reincorporate a certain amount of Apollonian principles to maintain right living, if I may playfully sneak a Buddhist term into the mix. I need to master my procrastination and not use these philosophies to slack my committed duties. Action is still required, and has the added benefit of removing fear and anxiety because since the sage "always confronts difficulties, he never experiences them."[15] The sage knows to "Deal with it before it happens. Set things in order before there is confusion."[16] A personally humorous reminder is that "Good binding requires no knots, yet no one can loosen it."[17] Taking care to do things correctly the first time, in a slow and measured manner, is another form of mindfulness and living in the moment. Letting go is not to be mistaken for carelessness or sloppiness as the sage "takes care of all things and abandons nothing."[18]

Further, I am reminded that we are all on different paths, or merely different parts of the same one, and that it is good to have patience with those whose views may be different. "Knowing others is wisdom; knowing the self is enlightenment. Mastering others requires force; mastering the self needs strength. He who knows he has enough is rich."[19]

I periodically hitchhike to restore my faith in humanity because I think that, ultimately, the divine can best be found in the random kindness of strangers. It's a need I have. To take myself down to nothing, strip away everything, in essence, to submit myself to the universe. I put myself on the line, and therefore, everything becomes more meaningful. It's all perception. This misery restores my faith in humanity by contrast. Nietzsche ascked "How can the ugly and the disharmonic, the content of the tragic myth, stimulate aesthetic pleasure? ...Even the ugly and disharmonic are part of an artistic game that the will in the eternal amplitude of its pleasure plays with itself."[20] Without the disharmonic, the harmonic would sound less melodic and without the ugly, the beautiful would be without form.

Sometimes life has to get pretty bad before it can be beautiful. But then that beauty outshines all the pain it resides in. Life is more immediate, more real when you're broke. Choices are more meaningful. People's power over you is increased, whether positive or negative. Fight or flight means something other than an obsolete survival reflex. I suppose life just seems more precious when it's the only commodity you've got. Perhaps that is why "the sage seeks freedom from desire. He does not collect precious things. He learns not to hold on to ideas. He does not grasp and therefore does not lose."[21] After the initial shock, I felt much freer after tossing the bulk of my possessions because, "he who knows that enough is enough will always have enough"[22] and I really do feel much lighter without so many things to drag me down. Less possessions means less things to worry about, as it turns out.

Perhaps it is all a matter of vulnerability, just like in sex. True growth and love can only be found by making ourselves vulnerable, open, and needy. "Yield and overcome; bend and be straight; empty and be full; wear out and be new; have little and gain; have much and be confused."[23] I admit to my state of less than perfection and offer up my raw wounds for inspection and display. We can't be helped, or touched, when we have everything we need. To be filled, there must be a hole. "But I alone am drifting, not knowing where I am. Others have more than they need, but I alone have nothing. Oh, I drift like the waves of the sea, without direction, like the restless wind."[24] To throw oneself upon the mercy of the universe requires either an act of supreme faith or supreme desperation. But the universe provides, and always has. That's the lesson at the end of this. There is no end. There is no wrong way. There is no money. There is only the path. And I walk it with grace and faith because I know, somehow, that this is the way I'm supposed to go, and so I do.

Quotes

[1] Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, 2
[2] Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching, 29
[3] Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, 8
[4] Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching, 12
[5] John D. Barbour, Tragedy and Ethical Reflection, The Journal of Religion (1983), 3
[6] Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, 18
[7] Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching, 20
[8] Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching, 48
[9] Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching, 43
[10] Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching, 20
[11] Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching, 22
[12] Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, 8
[13] Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, 22
[14] Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, 2
[15] Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching, 63
[16] Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching, 64
[17] Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching, 27
[18] Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching, 27
[19] Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching, 33
[20] Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, 24
[21] Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching, 64
[22] Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching, 46
[23] Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching, 22
[24] Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching, 20

Sources

Barbour, John D., Tragedy and Ethical Reflection. The Journal of Religion 1983. The University of Chicago Press http://mantis.csuchico.edu:2053/journals/ucpress.htm l

Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching. Translated by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English. Vintage books edition, March 1997.

Nietzsche, Friedrich, The Birth of Tragedy. First publication, 1872: The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music. Second Edition, 1878: few textual changes. Third edition, 1886: "Attempt at a Self-Criticism," and new title, The Birth of Tragedy Or: Hellenism and Pessimism. Compiled from translations by Francis Golffing and Walter Kaufmann. Text amended in part by The Nietzsche Channel. http://www.geocities.com/thenietzschechannel/bt.htm

to be

nospam@example.com (admin) — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 21:54:40 -0500

The first verb we learn in Spanish is "ser" = "to be". Conjugated, it becomes: I am = yo soy, you are = tu eres. These words are the fundamentals of language structure and the basis for identity - our metaphysical grounding in the here and now.

I am
Yo soy
You are
Tu eres
We are
Nosotros somos

For without these basic statements of existence, what else is there? How can we build and interact past ourselves without acknowledging our ultimate uniqueness and connectedness? I imagine Descartes would translate equally well into any language: To be or not to be, Ser o no ser, that is the question. Wait, that was was Hamlet, wasn't it? What was it Descartes had to say on the subject? Oh yes: I think, therefore I am. There is that pesky "I am" again.

Consider for a moment the following experiment. Stand up, take a deep breath, and declare "I AM". How validating is it to simply say "I am"? Not "Here I am" or even "I am powerful" or "I am strong", but simply "I am"? Because, if you say "I am", and you open yourself up to believing it, that simple statement includes Everything.

I am, You are, We are...Everything.
Yo soy, Tu eres, Nosotros somos...Todos.

Gracias.