Being at Peace with Not Feeling Peaceful
(The Most Important Dialectic in MBSR)
Most of us begin meditation practice in the hopes that life will get “better” in certain specific ways. For instance, we may hope that we'll have more peace and calm in our lives, be less anxious, be more effective. This is the “carrot”. It’s what motivates us to practice, and while it is, in fact, true that things are likely to get better, this is not actually the deepest benefit meditation practice can provide. At some point we may discover, with patience and continued practice, something truly profound and transformative: It's possible to be at peace with not feeling peaceful.
This sounds paradoxical, and it is. Linguistically, it’s a dialectic (holding two seemingly contradictory points of view simultaneously). It may be the most important dialectic in all of MBSR. The saying at the beginning of The Samurai and the Fly says this beautifully:
Peace.
It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work.
It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.
Marsha Linehan’s Dialectic Behavior Therapy (DBT) was the first mainstream therapy to explicitly include mindfulness as part of the therapeutic method. The dialectic in Linehan’s Dialectic Behavior Therapy is:
You are okay just as you are, you don’t need to change to be loved.
and
You need to change.
Originally, Linehan created DBT to help clients who were suicidal, something she understood from her own experience with being suicidal earlier in her life (see her memoir below: Building a Life Worth Living). She knew these clients needed to know they deserved love, just as they are, and, at the same time, to be strongly encouraged to make behavioral changes through a rigorous set of group meetings and practices.
The magic is between those two paradoxical positions. As a therapist, Linehan, through DBT, was literally able to hold both of those positions simultaneously. Too much a focus on the 1st, that you are okay just as you are, then you do nothing and there is no growth or movement, too much focus on the 2nd can result in self-improvement projects which are based on self-hatred and not ultimately successful at bringing peace.
There is a similar dialectic at work in some spiritual disciplines:
Everything, including you, is perfect and beautiful just as it is. There is nowhere to go and nothing to do.
and
Spiritual growth is the result of dedicated practice.
Again, too much focus on the 1st leads to no growth and/or delusion, too much focus on the 2nd leads to unrelenting self-denial and efforting (pushing oneself, practicing harder), which is frustrating and is ultimately counter-productive.
As Jack Kornfield says in the video:
Remember that you have Buddhanature (everything, you included, is perfect just the way it is).
and
Don’t forget your zip code (there is work to do, here and now).
The art is in holding both at the same time. This is the dialectic of spiritual practice.
Videos and Readings for this module
- Buddhanature and Zip Code - Jack Kornfield [5-min video embedded in the Introduction]
- The Samurai and the Fly - Hanjin Song [3 min]
Supplementary Resources
- Sanctuary - Jack Kornfield video that "Buddhanature and Zip Code" was excerpted from [19 min]
- Building a Life Worth Living - Marsha Linehan's Memoir
Excerpts related to this topic
The Indian guru with whom I studied, Sri Nisargadatta used to say, “You identify with everything so easily, with your body, your thoughts, your opinions, your roles and so you suffer. I have released all identification.” He would explain by holding up his hand. “Look how my thumb and forefinger touch. When I identify with my forefinger I am the feeler and the thumb the object that I experience. Reverse the identification and I am the thumb, feeling this forefinger as an object. I find that somehow by shifting the focus of attention I become the very thing I look at . . . I call this capacity of entering other focal points of consciousness love. You may give it any name you like. Love says ‘I am everything.’ Wisdom says ‘I am nothing’. Between these two my life flows.”
- from Love Says We Are Everything by Jack Kornfield[This] story is about a little wave, bobbing along in the ocean, having a grand old time. He’s enjoying the wind and the fresh air — until he notices the other waves in front of him, crashing against the shore.
“My God, this is terrible," the wave says "Look what’s going to happen to me!”
Then along comes another wave. It sees the first wave, looking grim, and it says to him, "Why do you look so sad?"
The first wave says, "You don’t understand! We’re all going to crash! All of us waves are going to be nothing! Isn’t it terrible?"
The second wave says, "No, you don’t understand. You’re not a wave, you’re part of the ocean."
- from Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom
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