Fuck Sisyphus. Really. Fuck that guy. Rolling his boulder up the hill all the time only to have it fall back once it was nearly over the top. That was his punishment for cheating death. So fuck Sisyphus for cheating death too. Really. Fuck him, the rock rolling death cheating god provoking troublemaking bastard. And fuck him also for being in every one of us.
The legend of Sisyphus is supposed to teach us to not avoid our mortality. Not to try and cheat the Gods out of what is their's to claim. It shows that if we have the audacity, the, um, life to try and do that we will be punished for all eternity by struggling fruitlessly day after day.
Sisyphus’ miserable story teaches us we cannot cheat death. It wags its bony finger and tells us that death will happen to all of us, that it is pointless to try and prevent our own demise as Sisyphus tried to do. So what is left? Living each second as if it is our last? Carpe diem? Yeah. Nah. That just reminds us of our mortality.
It is better to supress the thought of it. This allows us to carry on as if death is not an inevitability, to live our lives at less than full volume. It allows us to waste (what a loaded word!) the time we have, that unknown length of time between now, this moment, and when life leaves us, or we leave it, I’m never sure which way it goes. It allows us to not revel in the beauty and freshness of every moment because there is always the next moment, the next day, the next year. Until there’s not. So fuck Sisyphus for teaching us to be afraid of death.
The trade-off for accepting life’s limited duration is supposed to be that we are not punished by the Gods afterwards. Big deal. Whoopee. Thanks for nothing Gods. Really, you shouldn’t have bothered.
Who needs the Gods to punish us in the realm of Hades, the appropriately named (for New Zealanders) Erebus, when we are already perfectly capable of punishing ourselves here in the realm of Gaia? That’s what we do isn’t it? Punish ourselves. We keep striving and pushing, sweating and struggling, trying to get somewhere in our lives. Somewhere physically, emotionally, psychically, financially, socially, in relationships, at work. Somewhere.
If you have been following along with my rantings and ravings you will know that this is really how the whole project of There is no Problem. Everything is Perfect began. One year ago. Not so much a mic drop as a boulder drop. Let it go Sisyphus man, let it go.
And so what if the big rock rolls back down to the bottom of the hill? Who cares? We don’t have to get it to the top. There is no goal or end point to reach. No task to complete. Let the boulder go. Climb the hill without it. Better still, just sit on the boulder at the bottom of the hill and admire the view. Sit there long enough, forget any possibility of climbing the hill let alone pushing a rock up it (who does that?), and the hill will begin to dissolve of itself. It will disappear because it was actually never really there. Perhaps it was our attempt to reach the top and peer into the promised land on the other side that caused the hill to exist in the first place. The effect is the cause. Deep. But true. And fuck that guy for ever suggesting otherwise.
I know life has struggles. I know it has difficulties. I know there is emotional and physical suffering. It really hurts sometimes. The joy of gain turns so easily to the pain of loss. Every closeness leaves us vulnerable to the angst of separation. To love someone brings with it the possibility, the likelihood, of heartache. To live without love leaves us alone and isolated. There are mean and nasty, harmful and even murderous people out there. We hurt others without trying. Others hurt us in the same way.
Then comes the deception. Somehow we have accepted that if we try hard enough, if we are smart and tricky enough, disciplined enough, we will be able to cheat suffering and we will be happy. Just like that guy, that fucking guy, Sisyphus. That any unhappiness or pain we feel is because we haven’t put the effort in, haven't dealt with our issues, our shit, that we’re not in the moment, we’re not looking at the higher good. Well, stop it. Stop it right now. You are happy. You are loved. You are loving. You are most certainly enough and you are perfectly, yes, absolutely perfectly alright just as you are. If you feel otherwise, I understand completely, I feel otherwise a lot of the time too but we are mistaken. Life is perfect. There is no problem. And fuck Sisyphus.
Did I mention that I am taking cold showers? Well, I must have. Cold shower takers like me are the vegans of the bathroom – we just have to tell everyone about our virtue.
Cold shower taking is something that I had been noticing for a while, and it was, oddly, an inspirational YouTube interview with Hugh Jackman that propelled me to try. Oh, and the start of the warm weather. That was pretty important too. And in case you didn’t know, cold water is a thing now. Wim ‘The Iceman’ Hof has done for low temperatures what Eckhart Tolle did for the present moment. He has made them a thing.
Like all good scientific experiments, the most interesting result gained from this practice was not part of my hypothesis. I had vague ideas that cold showers might be better for my health in some way, and Hugh added the idea that a bit of deliberate discomfort to start the day would be a good thing. What I did not see coming was that, after a relatively short period of time, the cold sensation that I had feared, and that had kept the shower mixer turned well into the red, would be replaced by a sensation of warmth. Cold became warm.
After the initial shock of the cold water subsides, which is a matter of seconds, a strange phenomenon takes place. My body begins to interpret the temperature of the water according to my previous habit of feeling warm and comfortable in the shower. Now that winter is here, I am colder when I enter the shower and the water itself is noticeably cooler, but the effect remains. On entering the shower I tell myself that the water is warm and will feel good and despite the apparently objective truth of the matter, it is so.
This then got me thinking. If cold could be the new hot, what else could change through the simple tool of me changing my attitude? Next on the list was food.
Recent health issues have required that I downsize and make a significant number of my previously happily employed fat cells redundant. I have done this through a change in what I eat, not necessarily how much, but this has not always been easy to sustain. Our bodies are masters of status quo maintenance, and my metabolism is always desperate to return to its previous porcininity.
The mental change this time was to do to the discomfort of hunger what I had done to the discomfort of cold water. So, I welcomed hunger. I revelled in a growling tummy. I mourned the feeling of fullness after a good meal. Like the shower, there were ups and downs as first, but now there is a real change – hunger is satiety. My previous Bacchanalian enjoyment of a good feed has ceded ground, and girth, to my new ghrelin induced highs. And the change in what I ate? Where I removed sugars from my diet? Well, of course, bitter became the new sweet.
Very recently I am extending this study, which has a cohort of one, to my propensity to seek rest. The formula here, like cold = hot and hunger = satiety, is action = rest. Early days, but there are signs that the habits I have firmly ingrained in my psyche with years of indolence (sorry Mum, I wasn’t trying to be late for school, I just didn’t want to get up) are shifting.
Today I have started some new mental alchemy, adopting the formula: the world around me = my phone. When I feel the urge to go on Twitter I will look at the real birds instead; at actual other people instead of Facebook; instead of looking for emails I will look around to see if anyone wants to talk to me.
The beauty of this experiment is that it does not require any discipline, which is fortunate because I have little to none of that. It does not require a determination to not look at my phone or get out of bed early. It simply requires the old switcheroo, where I change, in my mind, the reward for the impulse that would drive me to otherwise soak under a steamy shower or hungry caterpillar my way through a bag of potato chips. Same impulse, different reward, but same satisfaction. Same dopamine hit, and don’t we all love dopamine! Different trigger.
Looking back I can see that of course this could not have been otherwise. In a world where There is no Problem, Everything is Perfect, how could the imposition of deprivation or suffering be good for anyone? How could forcing myself to go without the pleasure of warmth or food, the joy of distraction or laziness, be a necessary component of an already perfect life? It couldn’t, but perfection is not stagnation. Things are always changing and that is the perfection of the world. How they change, well, that can be up to us.
It is getting close to a year for this project, and I have to say I have as much conviction now as ever that There is no problem. Everything is perfect. This remains the case even though in recent times I have been experiencing very fully that in this perfection there is still pain. So, being the inquisitive kind of guy that I am, this has led me to wonder – how is it that I can know the perfection of this moment, know it in my head and my heart, in my very being, but at the same time experience pain? Emotional pain.
Perhaps the place to start is to look at what happens with physical pain. There is no problem. Everything is perfect remains true but it does not anaesthetise the body against its aches and soreness, against cuts and bruises. These continue to be experienced as they were experienced before, but they have never given me cause to consider how I can be in physical pain and everything still be perfect. There does not seem to be any contradiction here.
To the contrary, my body’s ability to signal its discomfort or concern with pain must be one of the perfections of this world. Without it we could not survive. Pain makes me stop and tend to my body when going on might ultimately be fatal. Physical pain is not a limitation, it is a signal. A signal that we are conditioned to respond to and, on occasion, a signal we can ignore even if it is at its height. The stories of adrenalin rush rescues with cars being lifted off toddlers by their mums shows that in a certain frame of mind we can override our pain signals and reach new heights.
Recently I have been feeling deep emotional pain. This is, in part, in response to the death of a dearly loved friend of mine. I can understand this pain of grief in the same terms as bodily pain. It is pain of loss, of separation, of the extinction of possibility. This too, like the pains in my body, is perhaps a signal. A signal that these things I hold on to must now be let go.
People talk of moving on, but I do not want to do this. I do not want to leave her behind. I want to keep her with me, but I can still do this while I let go of the imagined ‘what might have been’. Like a child in the summer, I assumed our friendship would go on forever but my pain tells me to correct my course now that the season has changed.
But what of other emotional pain? The pain of new love for example? We have probably all felt this pain, this ridiculous pain where a day of separation seems an age – ‘No! You hang up first!’.
Once again, I can see the usefulness of this. This fundamental urge to have close loving connection seems to be a Darwinian backup plan, added to our basic sexual desires. At its most objective, continuation of the species does not require close connection in other than a short-term physical sense, but with loving closeness comes the gravitational pull of relationship, even when the juices of desire have ebbed. A much more reliable vehicle for survival of the species than sporadic moments of passion.
So, the pain of new love is also a signal, like bodily pain, slowing my step so that I might walk with another. But what of unrequited or unfulfilled love? Impossible love? Romantic love where deep connection cannot flourish into physical and emotional proximity when the heart desires it?
An evolutionist might say that pain without the ability to heal is just the price we pay for an otherwise useful mechanism. Like an itch on a phantom limb that can never be scratched, falling in love when the sensory closeness it screams for cannot be satiated is just a necessary flaw in the system that in other respects keeps us going on. But a flaw is an imperfection, and this cannot be so – because, as we know, everything is and always has been perfect.
Should I experience such a deep and intimate love for another, more urgent and specific than love I can hold for all, but one that cannot be fulfilled, then, just as for the loss of my friend, I surely must read the signal within the pain. I must turn away from how I might wish things to be, and see what is, not what might be, as perfect. Perfect in being able to feel that close to another, knowing, even, that they feel that same closeness to me, knowing that such love is possible. As with my friend, it could teach me to see that although summer has come to an end, I can still hold its warmth within me and know that it will come again.
This project of There is no problem. Everything is perfect continues, even if it doesn't feel like it. And it doesn't feel like it quite often as this approach to life has become so embedded in how I do things that I need the mantra of repeating this truth less and less. It has become confirmation bias on steroids - so much part of my world view that if I was to find myself considering that there might be a problem and that all was not perfect a deeper understanding within me would be going "Yeah. Thinking like that is not a problem. It's perfect".
The latest boost I have received to fortify this vaccination against unhappiness came in the form of a book called The Surrender Experiment by Michael (Mickey) Singer. Singer is known particularly for his book The Untethered Soul. Given my own project, The Surrender Experiment has obvious appeal to me but rather than buy it I have been waiting some months to get a copy from the library and it finally arrived. It is an autobiography with a repeating and dominant theme of allowing life to unfold by itself by striving to avoid the influence of our personal likes and dislikes and accepting what is presented to us.
Singer's life ends up being so extraordinary - !spoiler alert! founding of a secular Temple in Florida; establishing a construction company; establishing a software company worth gazillions that became WebMD; being prosecuted for massive securities fraud (charges dropped); while continuing with daily meditation practice and not compromising his lifestyle and beliefs - that it made me wonder what the other side of the story was. However so far as I can tell it largely checks out.
His philosophy of accepting what life presents, whatever it is, resonated very deeply within me and caused me to look back and see how often I had and had not done this. From my current perspective of There is no problem. Everything is perfect this way of living fits very well.
I have long had an acceptance that the way we live our lives is completely dictated by Karma. This world view is all very good for making sense of how things work but alone it is of no immediate use in making decision about what to do or not do. To know that the arrival at this fork in my life's path is a karmic event is one thing, but it does not tell me which direction I should go.
The same is true for There is no problem. Everything is perfect. Knowing this gives me peace of mind and even lets me know that, regardless of which turn I take, it will be perfect and not a problem. But it still doesn't help me make my mind up and take the next step.
I deal with this largely by avoiding decisions. When someone asks me if I want this or that I genuinely struggle to answer. My daily dedication is to not be driven by wants and desires (like Mickey Singer) and it would be pompous (and incorrect) to answer "I don't have wants" and callous to answer "I don't care", although this is closer to the truth.
Until now this path of desire reduction has seemed to be one of inaction, of less and I have embraced this as a lifestyle. My preference has largely been to just sit and let the world come to me and if it does not come then I am happy just sitting by myself. Win win. I have made concessions around my work where I have put effort into, albeit very low level, promotion of what I do with the intention of building interest and I am content with this even if it has borne little fruit.
Against this backdrop, reading Singer's book has shifted my perspective slightly but importantly. I am reminded of the parable of the man with great faith trapped in a river pleading for God to intervene to save him. A rope is thrown and he refuses saying 'God will save me!'. A boat comes by and he sends it away, 'God will save me', and so forth til the waters rise and he drowns. Then in heaven he meets God and says 'Why didn't you save me?' only to be told 'What's wrong with you? I sent a rope, a boat and more and all you did was ignore me!'.
I feel I have been doing this. I have been sending away events and connections that did not seem to me to be on my path - that I felt were not my karmic destiny. Until now this has been a wise strategy because I have been so prone to making decisions and choices based on egoic considerations, not necessarily egotistical reasons but egoic nevertheless. These decisions and choices have come from my desires and dislikes that, in turn, have been formed by my experiences in life. However, by strengthening my awareness through meditation and other practices I feel more confident in knowing what is coming from what Singer would call the voice inside my head, and what is not. It is that voice that is driven by likes and dislikes, both gross and subtle.
So more recently I have been saying Yes to what arises, regardless of what it is except if I have a strong knowing (knowing, not feeling) that I should say No. This isn't to achieve anything or to gain anything. I am not applying the Singer formula hoping for my own Fortune 500 company or fame. Quite the contrary. Seeking to live in life's flow like this is a reward in itself. A relief as well. Perhaps this is what true faith is and, regardless, it is good to know that whatever happens it will not be a problem and will be perfect.
A phrase came to me this morning as I recalled my meditation of some minutes earlier. It was
Everything is completely and utterly real. It's just not what you think it is
This simple statement expresses what underlies the truth that There is no Problem. Everything is Perfect and it is in response to the mental and semantic gymnastics that occur when looking at the question of reality, a question that has been very much in front of me in recent weeks as I have explored the modern non-duality and neo-advaita movements.
To understand how this statement relates to the perfection of the world it is helpful to realise that "It's just not what you think it is" is not just another way of saying reality is something other than what you think it is. It is not. There is no alternative version of reality that is more accurate or more real than the one you are thinking or perceiving or think you are perceiving as you perceive your thinking (sorry, couldn't help myself). It is just that reality is not what you think it is.
If our thoughts about reality bore the slightest resemblance to what reality is then I most definitely could not say There is no problem. Everything is Perfect as there would always be the possibility of imperfection. This is because no matter how we perceive a particular situation, we are always able to imagine a better or worse reality than our current one. Even when we find ourselves in a situation that has so much of what we want, that is so close to our idea of perfection then, depending on our mood and disposition, we are always able to find some fault with it or some way in which it could be improved. The possible mental dialogues are endless, such as
This is perfect, if only someone was here to share it with me;
This is perfect, if only I was here alone;
and the best one of all
This is perfect. I wouldn't change a thing. If only it could last!
When I espouse my truth that There is no problem. Everything is perfect I am often met with arguments seeking to prove the contrary. These arguments invariably are backed up with anecdotary showing how things could indeed be better so that there is, without a doubt, a problem. The fatal flaw in all of these arguments is that they have an underlying premise that someone's idea about what is happening now is real, when the obvious truth is that their idea about what is happening now is not real. Instead, it is only what is happening now that is real.
An idea of what is happening will always be, at best, one step removed from that happening because the act of conceptualisation is an abstraction that takes place in apparent response to what is happening, rather than being a direct perception of that happening. In addition to this, because our brain works on electrical and chemical impulses that take time to do their business, our perception of what is happening will always occur or be perceived some time, albeit a very short time, after the happening has already happened. As we have seen, my perception of what I think is reality in this moment is not, in fact, reality and this is so in the same way that my memory of an earlier happening is also not an experience of reality. For example, there is really no qualitative difference between my apparent experience of looking at my laptop screen 'now' and my memory of watching TV as a ten year old. Looking at my laptop seems fresh and current and now and unfolding but it is still temporally removed from the reality it represents, just as my childhood memory is.
Neurologically there may be a significant difference between the brain real estate and services that support my apparently immediate perception of reality and a memory that seems to be clearly in the past, but both are, by their qualities, best categorised as memories even though one seems to be in the present and the other in the past. This is just as the RAM and hard drive of a computer may be physically separate and supported by different processes, but they are both memory.
So what use is this? What use is it to know that everything that is happening is real but it is not what I think it is? How can it be of use when there seems to be some sort of non-duality uncertainty principle where I can perceive the world as it appears to be or there can be an experience of the world as it really is, but there cannot be both?
The answer is perhaps the same as for Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle in physics. Heisenberg's principle states broadly that you can know the position of a particle or you can know its momentum, but the more you know of one the less you will know of the other.
How is this useful? Well, for a start knowing this principle can bring to an end a frustrating and ultimately futile search. Just as a physicist no longer needs to spend time devising equations and experiments to locate particles and simultaneously determine their momentum, there is no need for us to seek an understanding of reality. The more we seek it, the more it is obscured. Let's call this the meditation paradox — without meditation you cannot get close to experiencing reality but the more you meditate the more the experience of reality moves away. The beauty of this is that whether we are experiencing our idea of reality or whether there is an experience of reality there is another universal principle that we can rely on and that will always be true. That is, of course, that There is no problem. Everything is Perfect
A couple of posts ago (Stirred not Shaken) I referred to a recent change of perspective that has made a significant difference to how I live my life. This has come to mind again as it came up during a recent online group session. Put simply, this new perspective comes from self love.
It is strange that, in our culture, many people struggle with self-acceptance and self-love and that while self-esteem is seen as a fundamental building block to a healthy life it is so often missing and seen as something that is difficult to achieve. As a result, many of us go through our lives with a low opinion of our own self-worth.
In my case this has manifested in the presence of a voice that, if this mental character had to be given a name in the drama of my thoughts, would be called 'Should'. I am sure you are familiar with the script and probably have your own version of this cerebral teleplay that, like mine, is unlikely to be particularly original or clever but nevertheless feels deeply personal.
In my introduction to this project I talked of the Greek myth of Sisyphus and if there was ever something that epitomised this legend, then it is the voice of Should in my head. Inherent in Should is that when one should is crossed off the list with the pen of achievement then the boulder rolls down to the base of the mountain again and another should takes its place. Should is also very sneaky in that it disguises itself in the specific - 'I should work harder, longer; I should get up earlier; I should be more considerate; I should eat more healthily and exercise more' - when all the time these are just different facets of the same persistent lump of coal that, in its black wholeness, is a general notion that I could and should be better than I am, because at present I am not particularly worth while and, here's the kicker, therefore not worthy of love. This is what Should represents in its essence and any particular should can be traced back to this belief that I am not able to receive the love that I so desperately want.
Not only is this belief about my inability to deserve love always present but if I care to examine it there will be ample incontrovertible and reliable evidence from the play of my life that this is not just a belief but a stone cold hard fact. This overwhelming body of evidence, based on the my actual lived experience, seems sufficient to convict and condemn me to a life of self-doubt and poor self-image. But there is a flaw in the prosecution's case as, despite the evidence, my belief that I am not worthy is, fundamentally and without exception or contradiction, wrong. Just wrong.
How could this be otherwise given that There is no problem and everything is perfect? Everything is already perfect and so there is nothing I should be doing and no way I should be, as perfection requires no improvement. This is the message of There is no problem. Everything is perfect and the natural consequence of the message is that I am loved and infinitely loveable in my perfection.
I can understand this on an intellectual level, but it is another thing to embody it in a way that will cancel Should's run in the theatre of my consciousness. So how to go about bringing into my day to day life this more truthful state of being loved unconditionally ? Fortunately, I had a precedent to work from.
Some time ago I wrote about my realisation that I just needed to love everybody (Love Actually). To banish Should from the drama of me I have applied a similar formula and as a result I have found myself going around saying in my head (mostly) "You love me" to everyone I see or encounter. This does not have the feel of being egotistical or arrogant or, strangely, even self-centred. Rather it feels like statement of a fact, one that because of some skewed belief in our own value, we choose to ignore. So when I am with you, no matter what you are doing or saying, or how you look or behave, I know that just as I love you, you love me. You love me and I love me too.
The consequence has been a new acceptance of who I am, who I actually am and not who I could or should be. Not an exaltation or proclamation of "I am great" or anything close to that. Instead it has been a thorough acceptance of my nature - I am the one who does this and behaves like that - without judgement or any assessment of the need for improvement. This has been very freeing and from this new perspective I feel great contentment and even relief. There is no problem. Everything is perfect and I, like you, am perfect and loved, unconditionally.
I have always been wary of vows or, for that matter, solemn promises of any kind. I take them very seriously and being one who has difficulty predicting how I will act this afternoon let the alone the rest of my life I usually find them impossible to make or take. This is even true for the most basic of the Buddhist vows, the vow to take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. I had an opportunity to formally take this vow once with a monk in a Meditation Centre, at a time when the reality was that I was taking actual physical and mental refuge in each of those three things, but I still managed to rationalise my way out of it.
My reticence is part genuine desire to take the vow seriously and a reluctance to place myself in a situation where I might break the vow but it is also part fear of commitment. Also, I think there is still a bit of the lawyer running in me that sees a public promise as something enforceable whereas, really, if I take the Buddhist refuge vow and later stop taking refuge in, say, the Sangha, what are the monks and nuns going to do? Sue me?
Recently though I have reformed my relationship with vow taking. As the linear and logical imprint of my legal training fades I have come to realise that vows do not need to be taken as intractable promises but instead can be seen more as strong and genuine intentions. By verbalising an intention and by experiencing the regret and even shame (I am still getting to grips with the possibility that shame might in any shape or form be a positive and useful emotion) of breaking the vow there is simply a greater possibility that it will be honoured.
This transition has led me to construct and take my own vows. It all started one morning when I was lying abed contemplating the thoughts of past and future that were cycling in my head. Recalling my mantra of There is no problem. Everything is perfect I suddenly had the sense of the vow I needed to take and take it I did. Immediately my mood lifted and I could see a very simple way forward.
Strangely I cannot now remember the actual words that made up my vow even though I can recall where on my bedroom wall I saw them written in my mind's eye and I certainly can recall their meaning, a meaning that I have continued to draw on from time to time as I recall and honour the vow I made.
More recently I decided to formalise this practice and was inspired to give form to this vow and actually write it on the wall (well, on a whiteboard on the wall). I wrote
I vow
to see what I have, not what I am missing
to see what I am doing, not what I could do or could have done
to see where I am and not where I could be or could have been
Obviously I could wrap this up more efficiently in a simple "I vow to be present" but that is too abstract. These vows address the specific paths my mind might go down and prescribe the antidote. I find them very useful and when I remind myself that I have taken these vows my mind-state shifts. And because I have vowed, I have solemnly promised, to do these things I take out the possibility of choosing not to do them. I don't have to decide again and again that this is the correct path.
So now I think I see why vows are valuable for spiritual, emotional and psychological development. They are a kind of developmental waypoint and I feel a strong sense of moral duty to honour these vows, even though no one else would know if I broke them. Feeling this, and this is something I did not see coming when I started writing, I might as well go all in. So, here goes.
I vow that I take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha.
As I write these words, and say them sincerely to myself, my heart pounds and I become quite scared for reasons that are not apparent to me at all. This form of public commitment to a path that is not of my own construction and that is greater than me is quietly terrifying. But what can they do right? Sue me?
If I believed in some sort of sentient, intelligent Universe which I (sort of) don't or a Big Fella in the sky who calls the shots which I (definitely) don't I would be thinking around now that my declaration that There is no Problem. Everything is Perfect was received as some sort of challenge (which it definitely was not meant to be) and that the Universe and / or aforementioned Big Fella responded with a thoughtful "Oh yeah? Is it now...?" and then proceeded to orchestrate the potentially troubling thoughts and events that anyone who has read the last few entries in this Journal will be aware of, events that might (wrongly) be seen to undermine my belief that There is no Problem. Everything is Perfect.
When I look deeply into this, into myself, I see that these events (like a reverse Bond martini) have stirred me but they have not shaken my core belief in the perfection of All. This remains the case even after more unwanted and troubling medical news and a long few weeks of a flu like malaise that was mainly characterised by a complete lack of physical and mental energy.
The shaken part was that with my lethargy came old thought patterns of regret and loss, patterns that were reminiscent of the state of depression that I intermittently suffered from for many years. Combined with wilting physical will I even wondered if somehow this old affliction had made its way home again, following the breadcrumbs of my medical misfortunes after being banished to the woods of my deep subconscious.
This was confusing as the other signs were not there. I felt the urge to isolate, so common with my depressed self, but found myself actively and fruitfully connecting with others despite it. I continued to experience times of unheralded, unexplained and unmitigated joy while carrying out the simplest of activities. I cared for myself, looking after what I ate, meditating and even exercising when I felt physically able. If this was my old depression then I had got very much out of practice.
The more likely explanation was that due to my own reckless intention of allowing myself to be exactly as I really was, by encouraging my subconscious to cough up as many feelings and emotions as it dared, knowing that they could not be a problem and were perfect and only needed to be felt, I opened myself to exactly that and out they poured, not so much a cough but a vomited stream of anxiety laden thoughts, feelings and conditions. It is almost as if my psyche was saying "You want to be fully yourself? Challenge accepted and here you are. All of you: the happy; the calm; the frustrated; the regretful; the failure; the damaged; the unwell; the limited; the boundless; the loving; the loved; the healed and the hopeful. All of you."
There have even been times in these last weeks when I have lost touch with the essence of my mantra. I have looked but not been able to connect with There is no problem. Everything is Perfect. The more troubling disconnection was from what had become an easily accessible feeling of love for all others (written about here). These connections were obscured but not completely lost as over the time since starting this project I have embedded the truth of There is no problem. Everything is Perfect sufficiently in my knowing that I knew it was there, somewhere, but at these times I simply could not make it out.
Then one recent evening after a day of lethargy I felt within me the stirrings of activity and I knew my listlessness was over. I knew that when I awoke the next morning I would have the energy to do something and so it turned out to be. This return to form is not completely linear and there have been setbacks but overall I feel again the vitality of life as evidenced by this return to my Journal keyboard.
Don't get me wrong. Things have not returned to how the used to be. Exactly how life will be different now I am not sure but it certainly feels different to some degree so far. I seem to have slowed down (those who know me will be surprised this is possible) and possibly (it's early days yet) the impetuous and youthfully exuberant lurches that have for a long time characterised my laughable attempts to act like someone who has a real job have been replaced by a deeper understanding of the commitment and sustained activity that is required to bring vocational and financial stability to my life.
Amongst all this there has been one more remarkable development. A change in my perspective that I had not clearly recognised I needed but which now it has occurred is fundamentally shaping how I am. Although its arrival has been gentle and a case of slow recognition, I feel it may be seismic in the way it will shape my world. As it is clearly more than the afterthought that this paragraph consigns it to I will leave it for now and, should the will to do so arise, address it separately in its rightful place. For now I am content to be back in touch with the reality that There is no problem. Everything is Perfect and with the understanding, to paraphrase the Zen Buddhist monk Shunryu Suzuki:
Each of us is perfect the way we are ... and we can use a little improvement
I'm really uncomfortable. I'm physically uncomfortable as I have pain in my leg and discomfort in some other parts of my body. More than that I am mentally and emotionally uncomfortable. There is no Problem. Everything is Perfect seems to have reduced my level of comfort rather than increased it . Nothing fits any more as the routines and practices of my life feel like clothes that are a size too big or small.
I cannot read fiction and this is a significant change. I have been an avid reader since I was very young and have spent a good, and I mean good, part of my life lost in the made up worlds that I can freely enter by simply deciphering words on a page. It is such a lovely past-time that there must be a German word for that feeling you have when you can't wait to get back to the story you have been reading, that mixture of regret at having to stop and the thrill of the anticipated resumption when you place the bookmark and close the book. Yet I am presently being denied this comfort as my attention refuses to allow itself to settle on the fictional printed word.
I am not doing much better with the book's poor cousins movies and series, at least fictional ones. Having been someone who loves to get absorbed in whatever I am watching I find that I can make it only part way in and then interest and attention wanes. I'll reach for my phone and start scanning social media but, as you might guess by now, this also does not capture my attention or divert me as it used to. I have already said that distraction is an addiction for me and so is this my tolerance increasing? Do I need a harder and bigger fix to get that same dopamine hit, the same rush?
What I have resorted to, what I reach for as soon as a gap in my satisfaction opens, are talks on the mind; on spirituality; on how we are wounded and how we can heal. Even then I can only really attend to these when my body and some more mechanical aspect of my brain is on another task. Occasionally I can just sit and listen, but only occasionally.
Then there is my emotional discomfort. I have opined earlier that there are no negative feelings and that all we have to do is feel the feelings that arise. Well bugger me, I seem to have taken my own advice (it should have come with a warning!) which means that while my attention has not been diverted elsewhere I have been experiencing these negative feelings and they are not comfortable at all. To make matters worse I cannot indulge in self-pity and the like as I know that these experiences are not and can not be a problem and are perfect.
Lurking behind all this is a fantasy, a hope, that what is occurring is that I am moving closer to being more in the present moment and experiencing the perfection of the world in a more sustained way and that my present (pun intended) discomfort is me going through a rough transition phase. Even as these words fall onto the page I fear that this thought is just another distraction, a blanket to keep me warm and away from the cold truth of the pain of life.
I have even had moments of lucidly thinking that perhaps this is all a complete waste of time, that all this meditation; seeking out spiritual teachers; learning the stages of the paths to awakening; trying to understand and experience my mind more; believing that there is no problem and everything is perfect is just a symptom of having drunk the Kool-Aid and is itself a complete diversion from reality. Why don't I just seek material comfort and leave it at that? Maybe I am right about life being like Sisyphus' task but instead of thinking I can release the rock I should instead stop struggling with it and just get on with rolling this stone up the hill day after day and taking what comfort I can while doing this.
I know. I know. This is doubt coming in and that is also uncomfortable as I have drunk so much of the Kool-Aid that I believe deep within me that to doubt is unhealthy and a backward step. What greater sign of a cult is there than that! But I can't help but believe that there is no problem, everything is perfect even if I am creating my own private Jonestown. Because of my conviction and my abhorrence of doubt there is no comfortable grey area I can stand in, no fence to sit on. I have to jump one way or the other, go all in or leave the game and as I write this I see that I am scared. Both options feel like jumping blindfolded off a cliff in the dark but the idea of not jumping makes my body contract in discomfort. I didn't sign up for this, yet I know I did. I'm really uncomfortable.
This is perhaps the acid test for There is no problem. Everything is Perfect. I am very tired at the moment, so tired that although it is only morning my eyes are drooping as I write this. I have had some difficult and challenging times with my work in the past few days that have taken me to a place of doubt. I am noticing anxieties about the smallest things, such as a recent invitation to a friend's birthday party. A birthday party. Causing anxiety. My body seems to be collapsing piece by piece with my latest ailment a painful knee that will not heal. I do not have the energy for the things that are important to me and I have no plan for the future. I am occasionally troubled by the constant financial uncertainty that has been with me for years. Things I buy or do are not working and must be fixed or returned. I got angry at the intractability of a call centre person and a customer service (hah!) person in a shop. Angry and upset. I cannot sit for meditation as I used to because of my sore knee and when I do sit I cannot sustain it for more than 20 or 30 minutes, not because of my body but because of my mind. I know better than to judge the quality of my meditation, which is good otherwise I would say it is not progressing and possibly taking a backward step. Being tired also means that I am more prone to see what I don't have in my life, including in terms of my children and relationship, rather than what I do have. At times I feel unloved.
So, can I honestly say that there is still no problem and everything is perfect? No I cannot. At least I can't say that in the context of the previous paragraph of complaints as There is no Problem. Everything is Perfect is not an evaluation of circumstances. It is not a conclusion after considering all the evidence and the available facts. It is a truth and therefore its veracity holds regardless of my objective or subjective experience of it.
I cannot look at my life and say there is no problem, everything is perfect. Instead I must do the reverse and understand that there is no problem, everything is perfect and then, if I still see any reason to, look at my life. There is simply no point in looking at my current experience of life and trying to rationalise that those experiences are fine as there is no problem and everything is perfect. Doing that is like the saying "shit happens", an aphorism that does nothing other than reinforce the falsehood that life is shit sometimes. What is valuable, what works, is to first experience my knowing of the real truth of life as perfection. This is always the place to begin. This is what I have been doing.
When I have been feeling the negativity in my thoughts I have literally been saying to myself "there is no problem. Everything is perfect" over and over. I have felt it and then felt the unpleasant friction between my innate knowing of this truth and my mind's desire to focus on what appears to be problematic and imperfect.
The result is that by hanging on to this affirmation of reality with whatever intensity I can muster I become drawn, like the iron filings to a magnet that so intrigued me as a boy, to a state of contentment and happiness with occasional bouts of an intense euphoria of the wonderfulness of life. It happened this morning as I made breakfast. I just felt good for no apparent reason and then even better for experiencing irrational joy. The despair returned but with a knowing that it was summoned by a false perception of life and with this knowing it passed.
In a similar vein earlier, when I experienced the frustration of not getting what I thought was fair, I reminded myself to feel my anger as it coursed through my body and noticed all the vengeful and righteous thoughts that came with it and then watched it pass as well. I reminded myself that I only need to love everyone and then looked at the apparent objects of my anger, two people that were doing their jobs and bringing to their work whatever mindset they had, with love. All I feel now is regret that because of my anger I missed the opportunity to feel love for them during our interactions. I also know even this was perfect.
Is it all lightness and roses now? No, it is not. Am I full of energy and the vitality of a contented life? No, I think I might go for a lie down. Am I in touch with a sense of meaning in my life? Are you kidding!? I feel like I don't have a clue. But through all this I can still sense an underlying calm like an opiate that soothes my body and mind with the knowledge that I can let it all go, I can do nothing, say "fuck it all" or "I don't care", and things will still be perfect. There still won't be any problems. Feeling this calm I know I am loved, profoundly, and when I look at feeling otherwise it seems ludicrous. This is the acid test and I can confidently say that, whatever this substance of life appears to be made of, it is really just pure gold.
If There is no problem. Everything is perfect then why am I still distracting myself from experiencing the present moment in life? I do this all the time in so many ways. There is the usual thinking about things that are going on in my life; then there is the thinking about things that appear to be in my life (but really aren't) because I read or watch the news or listen to others; then there is just your common garden daydreaming; there is my use of technology and social media - Twitter and Facebook, the news sites - where the only frustration is that the material does not refresh itself fast enough; then there is the recreational distractions of Netflix, YouTube and TV. All different but all distractions from the present moment.
I have already mentioned the power of habits and habit is the only real answer I can come up with as to why I continue to distract myself. Previously I had the excuse of using distractions to avoid the pain of life but now that there is no problem, everything is perfect why would I distract myself from life's perfection, even if it is manifesting in the experience of pain? Perfection is always perfection after all. That only leaves me with habit.
If I was to expand this idea then I can see that during the early stages of our lives we pick up the habits of how we are going to live and to be. We call these habits personality as, what is personality other than a habitual way of presenting ourselves to the world and to ourselves? Like all habits, our personality is reinforced as we continue to act it out. All habits are like this, the more you repeat them the more they are repeated, and when they become embedded in our physiology we call them addictions. So, in some way, we are addicted to being our personality and that explains why it is so hard to change "who we are". Addictions are hard to break. So I guess there is really only one thing for it. Here goes:
Hi. My name is Geoff and I am a distractaholic. I'm addicted to focussing my attention on things that are not my present experience. I've managed my habit for much of my life but recently I have noticed how out of control it is. It's really expensive as I find that I am constantly paying attention to my laptop or phone until I have no attention left for the basics in life, like the present moment. It is interfering with my relationships and my work to the point where I end up with ideas about both of these things that don't reflect the present moment and this causes me pain. I find it really hard to quit. Every time I try home rehab (meditation) or go to a rehab centre (meditation retreat) I do a bit better but I'm always looking for that next hit of some thoughts about the past or future. Then, when I finish, I always seem to go back to the hard stuff like social media and the news. Where I live it's really easy to feed my habit with this stuff as there are dealers all around me with their screens just begging to be looked at. But now I'm going to try and quit. One day at a time. One moment at a time. I really want to get clean.
I want a chair. I have recently been looking at new furniture and there was a chair that I really liked. It is a rocking chair and I found it immediately relaxing, comfortable and soothing and now I want it. This has caused me to consider how wanting fits in with There is no problem. Everything is perfect.
If there is no problem and everything is perfect how can I want something? Surely want must come from a desire to solve a problem or right an imperfection or, if this is not the case, surely at least my very act of wanting the chair creates a problem or an imperfect situation because my want is now not satisfied.
One option would be to go all spiritual and say that I really do not have any wants and that I am happy with the chairs I have as they serve me just as well, that I am indifferent to the furniture beneath my bum as long as it keeps me off the floor. But this is not true. I want a chair, a chair that I don't have. It is true that a few days ago I was content with what I sat on but that was before I met this beautifully crafted combination of wood and fabric. I sat on it in the store and now I want to sit on it in my home and the only real way to make this happen is to buy it. This is what wanting a chair means and so the super spiritual path is not open to me.
Wanting can take so many forms in our lives. There are the big picture items that we want such as significant relationship; a home; meaningful work. Then there are the inner wants like happiness; peacefulness; satisfaction; comfort; good self esteem. Then the more immediate items like a want for fast food; a good movie; a shoulder rub; a glass of wine. Hovering over all this is the want that kicked off this whole project, the want to improve myself. The more I look the more wants I see. My desire for this chair seems to have made things get out of hand and now I, well, want to resolve this apparent inconsistency with my idea of a problem free and perfect state of being.
This is not, of course, difficult to do. I only need to apply the mantra that is There is no problem. Everything is perfect and the resolution presents itself. My wanting the chair is not a problem. It is perfect. Wanting is how I feel and aren't all our feelings perfect? Where I could fall into delusion is if I allow my wanting to trigger worry. This would be creating a (fictional) problem or obscuring perfection. I could worry that I will not get the thing I want; that it will be the last one in stock and someone else will get it; or that I can't afford it; that my partner won't agree to having it in the house; that there is really nowhere for it to go; or in some other way create a perceived gap between what I want and what I can have. However I will not let this happen as I know there is no problem and everything is perfect and so whether I buy the chair or not has no relevance - either way can only ever be perfectly fine.
There is no requirement that my wanting something and not having it should create discomfort within me as both things, the wanting and the not having, are perfect. To see it otherwise would be silly as these two things need each other - how could I want something if I already had it and if I had it why would I want it? So how could two such intrinsically sympathetic states of mind - wanting something and knowing I don't have it - cause disharmony in my thoughts and feelings and why would I let them do that?
No. There is no disharmony. I will continue to want this chair for as long as I want it. I may stop wanting it because I don't want it any more or I may stop wanting it because I have it but, either way, I will continue to want it until I don't. These are the facts and they are enough. There is no need to enter the drama that we usually associate with desire where we shift our focus from the experience of the desire to the possible satisfaction of the desire; from something we feel here and now to something we might feel in the future. Better to stay with what's real, with what's present and actually happening. At least that's what I want to do.
This morning I wondered whether I am becoming callous, selfish even. Practicing my mantra of There is no Problem. Everything is Perfect has the effect that I experience happiness more consistently and I find that some of thoughts and worries that used to trouble me cannot persist in the light of my conviction that all is completely well. As such I feel that I suffer less in my life although, as a follower of Buddhism, I appreciate there are almost infinite gradations of suffering. For now though, I feel my level of what could be called gross suffering is diminished.
At the same time I am aware that there is great suffering in the world. There are people in pain, physical pain as well as all kinds of emotional and psychic pain. There are so many suffering from stress of one sort or another in relation to their wellbeing and the wellbeing of those they love. People who have genuine and realistic concerns about their health, their finances, their safety and security, their future. There are those who are subjected to all forms of abuse by those with greater power, from the horrors of physical and sexual abuse to the degradations and soul destruction of emotional abuse and beyond to the wider picture of abuse that is racism, sexism and other intolerances of difference.
Then there is the natural world and its continued destruction and diminishment by the greed of human kind. Animals, birds, fish, insects and creatures of all kinds whose harmony with their environment is disrupted and their very existence threatened. So much suffering by so many and yet here I am chugging along in my little bubble of There is no Problem. Everything is Perfect feeling content, with the greatest threat to my happiness being a blight of smugness or an overdose of schadenfreude. So, is this new way of being, my adopted manner of perceiving the world, just a manifestation of individualistic selfishness cloaked in spiritual achievement? Possibly, but here is why it may not be.
There is no problem. Everything is perfect is all about finding the truth. It is about working from the most realistic perception of reality as possible, regardless of the consequences. One of those realities in my life is that I am not often directly confronted by the great suffering of others. Sure I can read about it and watch it online and on TV but this is a very indirect experience mediated through several filters of those describing or showing this suffering and the technology I access it through. I can end my experience of the greatest suffering in the world by literally flicking a switch. Does this make me callous and selfish? I hope not.
The test is when I confront suffering directly. When this occurs I continue to feel empathy and compassion. Seeing others hurt, not indirectly through my screen but directly in my life, I also feel that hurt. I lament for their pain and wish with all my heart that they be relieved of it. My selfishness surfaces in the limitations I place on what I will do to help alleviate their difficulty, but this was the case before and, if anything, these limitations are less now than they have been in the past. Knowing that There is no problem. Everything is perfect I am freed to act in any way I want, knowing that the only consequence can be perfection.
I have also noticed that I respond in a similar way to some instances of mediated suffering of others. Seeing on my screen the image of another being in pain I will feel the same hurt that I might if they were physically there with me and tears have come to my eyes and my heart ached in response to scenes of this kind.
All this tells me that I have not created a world where, if suffering does not directly affect me, then it does not exist. To the contrary. Like the taste of cake to one who has forsaken sugar, the experience is intensified and not numbed by familiarity and There is no problem. Everything is perfect is no anaesthetic. To the contrary, it polishes my lens of perception so that I can more clearly distinguish between the real and the imagined and there is, of course, no doubt. Suffering is real.
There is one thing in the way to an unrelenting and undiminished experience of the truth that There is no Problem. Everything is Perfect. Well, maybe there is more than one thing but there is definitely at least one thing and that one thing is habit. Seeing life other than through the lens of There is no Problem. Everything is Perfect is a habit that has formed and it is a habit that is hard to break.
I have noticed the effect - or is it affect in this case? - of this habit in several areas of my life. Primarily this occurs around situations that involve frustration or annoyance. An appliance may not work; a car might be driving to slowly in front of me; someone may say something I disagree with. All of these things can lead me to respond with the behaviour of someone who is annoyed or frustrated. I might swear, shake my head, pull a disapproving face; change my tone or indulge in one of the other micro aggressions I have in my arsenal. Looking at me you would think I was genuinely annoyed or frustrated, I might think that, but it is not true.
When I check my body to see how I actually feel I notice that I am not experiencing frustration or annoyance. I feel calm and content. So why am I acting differently than I feel? Habit. The habit of responding in a negative manner to what is perceived to be imperfect or what seems like it is a problem seems to be persisting even after my perception of apparent imperfection has diminished or disappeared.
Previously part of this habitual response would also include having negative feelings to go along with my expression of dismay or disgust, an unvirtuous loop of dissatisfaction where the thought feeds the feeling and the feeling feeds the thought. Now that the story has changed, now that I believe and know that there is no problem and everything is perfect, my feelings have been the first to catch up. That surprises me as I would have expected my speech and actions to come first but it is they who remain in the old habitual way of reactivity. My body, where the feelings occur, got the memo but my thinking reactive ego mind did not, or at least has not understood what it means.
As I am noticing this incongruence between how I actually feel and how I am acting in certain situations I expect that my actions will change. Awareness is always the light we can shine on anything to cleanse it of apparent imperfection and as awareness occurs in the mind it is the mind that it affects. I anticipate that this awareness will be enough to reduce my habit of behaving as if there was a problem or everything was not perfect and that before too long my actions and reactions will catch up with my feelings. Then my experience of myself, and possibly the perception of me by others, will be more authentic. We will see.
We have had what you might call some serious weather in the last few days. High winds, driving rain, cold. You might almost think it is winter. The days have just started getting longer but there is still little sunshine most of the time, and I like sunshine.
Today my gutters were overflowing and I found myself up a ladder, in the rain, on a slippery deck, buffeted by the wind, my hands full of gutter goo which was also dripping down my my front, avoiding the small torrent of overflowing water and I realised I was inexplicably and unrelentingly happy. Pure contentment that was incongruent with how I have felt in the past in the same circumstances.
It was not being outdoors or doing something useful or anything like that causing my happiness. I had been happy immediately before and I now remain happy back inside warm and dry. It was just that I noticed it then, perhaps because of the juxtaposition of the circumstances and the feeling which have not commonly gone together in the past. Now they do and this must be, at least in some part, because There is no Problem. Everything is perfect.
Seeking to source the cause of my happiness is, of course, self defeating as happiness does not need a cause. It is how we are all the time naturally as it is the only rational response to there being no problems and everything being perfect. Unhappiness comes about by not realising this, by allowing the apparent, but deceitful, evidence of problems and imperfection to invade our thoughts. Then, as a cloud moves over the sun, the light of our happiness is obscured but only obscured, not obliterated, although it can sometimes seem like it has gone not to return. This is much the same as these winter days - the sun still shines but it is possible to, literally, lose sight of this truth due to the clouds and grey skies and the other misleading evidence such as feelings of cold that our minds find in our bodies.
Today's events have raised a question for me that has been lurking for some time. Will this experience of happiness and the world existing without problems and imperfections begin to become, dare I say it, boring? Will it flatten out? Will I long for discomfort so I can feel the relief from it? Will the absence of problems become a problem? Will the continuing perfection be a flaw?
In theory I know it should not as the truth must always be that there are no problems and everything is perfect, but the question remains. Perhaps it is the coccyx of my project - a residual tail of the need for discomfort and imperfection - harking back to an older way of being that is no longer needed or of use but which still remains albeit significantly diminished. Perhaps. For now I will sit with it or, if you like, on it and see if this question answers itself.
I got out of bed at around 10 this morning. That wasn't the plan and in fact I had set my alarm for 7am and then had woken at 6am and stayed awake enough to turn the alarm off before it sounded. Yet I stayed in bed. I wasn't depressed. Quite the contrary, as I actually felt very happy and content, but you wouldn't have known that from my behaviour. You see There was no problem. Everything was perfect, but had I finally found the first flaw in my new project? Was I not getting up because, well, why would I if there was no problem and everything was perfect? Yet there was much that I wanted to do and here it was, not getting done, because I stayed in bed til 10am.
As I lay there, from time to time reciting my mantra of there is no problem everything is perfect, I also thought about the things that I should be doing such as my meditation which is always how I start my day. Then, as it was going to be a day free of fixed obligations, there were all those other things I had thought of doing, things I wanted to catch up on. Things, that like my meditation, I was thinking I should do. But of course, that was the problem. Should.
My plan had been to get up earlier, a better time to meditate, and leaving more time free for those other things. That was my perfect mistake - I had made a plan and then tied the acts of my waking and getting up to it - but like all things that are tied to something else there was no freedom and they couldn't go anywhere.
It seems to be an effect of this project that my tolerance for goals and plans has diminished. I can't really handle them that well any more and, between you and me, I was pretty shit at handling them before anyway. So, what got me out of bed this time was not the will to execute my plan; not shame of having missed another dawn; not guilt at starting the day off behind schedule. What got me out of bed was my attitude changing to genuinely reflect the fact that there is no problem and everything is perfect. The consequence of this change was that, instead of what I should be doing, I now saw in front of me just the next thing to do, to have my morning sit (meditation cushion, not toilet) and that is all. I had unknotted the plan from its tether and now my actions were free to flow. Almost as if watching someone else, I then saw the bed covers, those lovely warm covers that had incentivised me to stay put, flying off and my legs swinging over the side of the bed.
From there the day unfolded and so far, as the day is far from over, I have achieved many of the things in my plan, and some I had not even thought of. So, next time I make the resolve to set an early alarm and get on with my day as the sun rises, I may still do it but I will stop at the first part of this sentence. I will set the alarm. If any thoughts of what might happen after that arise I will let them go, ignore them or replace them with There is no problem. Everything is perfect. By not planning to do anything I am sure I will get more done. Or not. Either way, it won't be a problem and it will be perfect.
What I really like about There is no problem. Everything is perfect is that it makes everything so simple. So far it seems that by applying this mantra to any situation it is usually the case that any complexities fall away and things become easier and more simplified.
This has never been more so than with the latest development in this project which arose this morning as I was driving. It was early morning and the sun was rising, not yet above the horizon to clear the mist in the valleys. As I drove along I suddenly realised that all that is required is that I love everybody. That's it. Simple. I mention the time of day and the weather as the beauty that surrounded my drive may have contributed to the arrival of this insight. Regardless, the insight remains the same. Just love everybody.
What I mean by this can be illustrated with another encounter on the same drive. As I came into town I saw a couple on the side of the road kissing. Perhaps saying goodbye for the day but it was more than a perfunctory embrace. Just love everybody - but what I was witnessing was not a simple example of this statement. It was more complicated.
When there is romantic love the personality comes into play. We feel love for another and with it we are in love with so many things about them. The way they look; talk; how they move; do their hair; or whatever it may be. Our feelings even assist us to overlook disagreeable things ... for a time. This kind of love, although it can feel eternal and unbreakable, is really conditional as it is linked to our ideas about another, our perception of who they seem to be. This is why we are often able to answer the question: what do you love about them? This question might be cute but with it comes the inevitable shadow - what is it about them that you do not love? Perhaps, even, that you hate?
This other love, this more simple love, is not conditional and it is not dependent in any way on appearance or personality. The closest I can come at the moment to describing this kind of love is to say that it is a recognition that this person, any person, is perfect. Not that they have perfect hair or look perfect or even that they are perfectly suited to me or fit in my lifestyle perfectly. Just that they are perfect. It is, perhaps, that love is the only sense we can use to perceive perfection because that is what naturally arises when we see the perfection in another.
I am now practising this in the same way I practice There is no problem. Everything is perfect. Whenever I see another person, whether I know them or not, I remind myself to feel my love for them if this is not already my first response. You might say I connect with my - our - innate ability to feel love for others.
To love others in this way is such a simple thing to do and it has simple consequences. When I do this I do not have to judge or not judge them because as soon as I feel judgement or criticism arising I realise this is taking me away from that feeling of love and I can then stop myself from being distracted like this. Then, without judgement, assessment or criticism, all that other stuff that usually arises when we relate to others, even strangers, falls away. The thought patterns about like and dislike; envy or resentment; superiority and inferiority have nowhere to form and so do not arise, leaving so much more space. You see, love is simple and loving others keeps life simple.
There is another equally as perfect consequence. By loving those around me I am naturally then always surrounded by the people I love. And what could be better than that? Nothing, of course. Because it's perfect.
The latest development in this project of There is no problem. Everything is perfect would appear to be intolerance. I could insert here my usual expression of surprise and say I did not see that coming but on reflection I can see that of course I didn't as I did not actually look ahead to see what would happen. Why on earth would I if there is no problem and everything is perfect? But here I am, sitting with intolerance.
My intolerance is not specific to any person or even to a particular situation. It is more general than that. I am finding myself intolerant of how much of what written or spoken in the media, on social media and, to some degree, in my social circles, is hell bent on establishing that there is in fact a problem and everything is indeed not perfect. It would seem that so many of us are convinced of this erroneous assessment of reality that there is some sort of perverse comfort to be found in looking for (and therefore finding) evidence of problems and imperfection. How irritating! (Did I mention that I am feeling irritated as well as intolerant?)
Before I go on I need to clear up one thing. I am not for a moment saying that any of these others - in the media, social media or my friends and family - should for one second change what they are doing. I am not falling into that trap where I take my intolerance and irritation, genuine emotions truly felt, and then identify with them and try and use them to change the world around me so I feel more comfortable. That's no longer my style now that I appreciate that there is no problem and everything is perfect. Quite the contrary. If others want to view the world like that and live in that way then good on them and that is not a problem and is perfect.
I am also not going to let the intolerance and irritation go to waste. I'm using it for my own ends. This isn't taking advantage of others as it is my intolerance and irritation not theirs and, in reality, it has nothing to do with these others I have vaguely implicated in my emotional state. I am using these feelings to motivate me to locate, sweep up and dispose of even more of the residual thought patterns and beliefs that can stop me appreciating in a particular moment or situation that there is no problem and everything is perfect.
There really are not any, or at least very few, negative emotions aren't there? Even these two feelings of intolerance and irritation are positive when responded to from my new paradigm. These are emotions that can get such a bad rap a lot of the time but really they are very useful. They are very positive and I am grateful for them.
As I continue to use and review the efficacy of There is no problem. Everything is perfect I keep coming back to one insight - this statement and its application is fundamentally one of perspective. This has never been clearer than when I have been looking at how to respond to the question:
Are you saying racism is perfect and is not a problem?
The difficulty with answering this question is that the question and the answer live in different universes. They come from completely different paradigms and cannot meaningfully speak to each other. Let's investigate.
From the paradigm of the question, "Are you saying racism is perfect" we can see that the question really means:
Are you saying that racism is a good and acceptable thing?
Or that it doesn't exist?
Or that there is no need to stop people being oppressed because of the colour of their skin or their cultural heritage?
Inherent in this question is a judgement about whether racism is a good or bad thing. Then because a judgement is at the heart of this question there is the unspoken consequence that if you think racism is a good thing, there is no need to do anything about it and you might even want to encourage it, or if you consider it a bad thing then it is inherently a problem and needs to change. This approach is a working forward approach - it seeks to take the circumstances and evaluate them to see whether a problem or perfection is present.
There is no problem. Everything is perfect is a working backward approach. Remember, with this as our mantra we are no longer on a path. We have arrived (although, in truth, we were always here so 'arrived' is a little misleading). We are not evaluating to see if everything is perfect. We know it is. We know there are not any problems. This is our truth.
With this foundation we can then productively look at the question of racism. We only have to take one look and the rest falls into place. That first look shows us that not only is there no problem and everything is perfect but naturally also everyone is perfect. Voila. Any and every possible basis for racism is instantly defeated as with perfection there cannot be any judgement. What would be the point of it? So any notion that someone or some group is inferior or superior; lesser or more; good or bad; better or worse; for whatever reason, is not supportable.
So now that we have established through application of our mantra that thinking, speaking or acting in a racist way is nonsense and clearly wrong we can begin the real work.
The real work is to ask the question "As racism is wrong and to think otherwise is to be ignorant, how much am I subject to this ignorance? How much are those around me? How much is my society? My country?" and so on.
Through this investigation I can seek awareness of my own racist attitudes and tendencies. I can now understand my cultural history more accurately. For example I can see more clearly and trace the racism inherent in colonialism and have a better chance of spotting its ongoing reverberations and effects. With this insight I can make less ignorant choices so that I can reduce racist thoughts, words and action at all levels. I can take action to align myself more with the truth that there is no problem and everything is perfect as racism is inherently unaligned with that truth.
To be mistaken like this, to allow any fear or anger or guilt I might associate with my idea of racism to obscure the reality that all is perfect is to deny me the chance to bring my experience of the world closer to the truth. It also denies me the chance to experience a world where racism is seen as a fallacy and where its chances of survival are greatly diminished. For me, that is a most satisfactory answer to the question of whether racism is perfect and not a problem.
There is no problem. Everything is perfect is, in some ways, the Marie Kondo for the mind.
I don't know whether you are familiar with her, the Japanese tidying alchemist who has turned other people's mess into her gold and who was so popular for her 15 minutes of fame that op shops throughout the developed world were suddenly flooded with empirical evidence that we live in a culture of excessive consumption.
Marie has a process. She arrives at a house and first acknowledges it as if it is a being. Then in her methodical way she asks people to go through all their stuff and ask the one question - does having this thing spark joy for me? If yes, keep it. If no, out it goes.
The Kondo method has, I think, often been misunderstood. It has been seen as requiring that we chuck pretty much everything out. This is not the Kondo way, however, as her test affects quality not quantity. There is no rule, for example, that you can keep only 30 books. The method is that by bringing your beloved library to the brink of being discarded you will know which volumes you care about and which you don't.
The There is No Problem. Everything is Perfect ™ method is the same. Once we realise this truth - the our sparking joy metric of the mind - we can then measure everything in our mind against it. If the thought or belief does not align with TINPEIP then we can throw it out. By doing this we can get our house in order - Minimalism for the Mind ™ the Kondo way.
I am only a few weeks into this year long experiment with There is no problem. Everything is perfect and I have just realised that there is no going back. How could I now accept that this is not true?
This is not a matter of vanity or saving face as at the moment I know I could not even say to myself that my mantra is not true, and surely I am not so unaware that I have to save face to myself? The belief that there is no problem and everything is perfect is so deep inside me, so permeates every part of my perception of the world, that to think or believe otherwise seems impossible.
To believe otherwise would result in an understanding and acceptance that I need to do more, that there is more work to do, before reaching perfection and eliminating all problems and that perhaps this is unachievable in this lifetime. To be honest, such an idea seems ridiculous to me now. It seems so ponderous and mistaken compared to what is now my truth.
I am not afraid of the hard work that this alternative truth might require and I fully accept that when we strive to achieve there are many benefits along the way, even before we reach our goal, and so such striving is not futile. This was my experience, being content to be on the path even though the destination seemed a long way off.
Now this view seems so pointless. Why struggle along an imagined path when the truth is that you are, and always have been, at what you perceived to be the end of that path? That you have always been here.
Going back to my old view seems impossible. All the potential logic, the possible arguments, as to why the idea that there is no problem and everything is perfect is wrong, seem so fundamentally flawed I cannot imagine one that would alter my belief. But a year is a long time...
A surprising development has occurred that is obvious with hindsight but I did not see it coming. It is my relationship with doubt.
Looking back (and it is not that far) I see that I felt bound by limitations. These were not immediately obvious to me but made themselves known when it came time to take action or try something new. Doubt would manifest as some apparently reasonable or genuine concern; as a good reason why I couldn't proceed; as someone else getting in my way; or the weather; or the need to do X before I began to do Y and I haven't done X yet. That kind of thing.
There is no problem. Everything is Perfect has changed that. Recently I began planning a new event for my work. My old friend doubt (actually, not really a friend. We go way back but I don't want to be friends anymore) popped in. Because doubt has the same general feel as other limiting or negative beliefs - a feel of a problem and a lack of perfection - I noticed it and applied what the Buddhists might call the antidote - there is no problem and everything is perfect.
Instantly the idea of obstacles and limitations disappeared. A confidence took hold. A confidence not borne out of knowledge that I would succeed and I knew what I was doing, but a confidence that how could this arising be wrong as, after all, everything is perfect and there can not be any problems.
There was still time to check in and see where this impulse to act came from. What was my motivation? Simply put, was it from my head (ego mind) or heart (heart mind)? It was not from the ego mind and so that was that.
Coming from the ego mind would not have been a problem (of course) but if that had been the case a further step would have been desirable before committing to action. Checking to see it was aligned with the heart mind would have helped as such impulses are effortless, where implementing the activity of the ego mind is work, hard work sometimes, and who needs that when there is already no problem and everything is already perfect.
There is no such thing as a bad mood. What a statement! Surely this is the most Polyanna version so far of There is no Problem Everything is Perfect. It is so much in contradiction to our daily experience that only if we are prepared to completely suspend disbelief could we consider such a thing. This may be so, but there is still no such thing as a bad mood.
What we characterise as a bad mood is just yet another misunderstanding of what is going on and this misunderstanding takes us down the wrong track. Let's look at how this happens.
When we feel those emotions we associate with a bad mood our mind can do a couple of things. First it can create a story supporting the situation. "I am in a bad mood because my team lost yesterday" or "my partner talked to me in that way that triggers me" or even "because I get depressed and this is just how I am now".
Second our mind can look for, and usually find, a cause for the feelings we have which it then incorporates into the story. This is apparent from these statements above which each attribute the bad mood to a cause. This cause is then necessarily a problem because it is a situation that has produced a negative outcome, the very definition of a problem. However, as we well know by now, there is no problem, and so this cannot be correct. Not only is this story we tell ourselves - about the origins and justification for our feelings - not true but because it creates the spectre of a problem it can make us feel even worse by reinforcing the notion that our negative feelings were inevitable and our feeling bad out of our control.
Contrary to this common narrative the truth is that the negative effect of what we call a bad mood is not caused by anything in our story; and it is not caused by the unpleasant feelings themselves. It is instead created by the discordance between how we would like to feel and how we actually feel. In other words:
How I want to feel ≠ How I feel
The traditional remedy for this is to do something that will make us feel better - more food, alcohol, drugs, be angry at someone, blame someone, blame ourselves. This is simply adding to the equation to try and make it balance and is not the way to go.
Instead we need to address the other side of the equation. We need to remove the left side - How I want to feel - and the equation collapses. We are simply left with how we feel.
How do we do that? Well, since we know that there is no problem and everything is perfect there is no need for us to have any expectation of how we might feel. How could we? It would be futile as at any point in the future any feeling we have will not be a problem; will not be caused by a problem; and will be perfect.
So what do we do when these negative feelings arise? If we can get behind or beyond the story and the fake attribution to a cause, get rid of the left side of the equation, then we can feel those feelings. That's it. Just feel them. If it is sadness, feel sad. If it is fear, feel afraid. If it is grief, grieve. If it is loss, know that something is lost. Then, as long as we don't fix them in place with our usual story or causal scaffold, they will pass. They weren't a problem - they were feelings - and feelings are always perfect.
I recently had an excellent chance to extend my practice of There is no problem. Everything is perfect. Was heading off to work with a well timed plan to do some errands first and arrive in time for my client. Got in the car and ... nothing. Flat battery. At first that sinking feeling I have had before when completely unexpectedly my car has 'let me down' - a reliable car something that I take for granted. Noticing this feeling I was able to immediately apply my mantra of the reality that there was no problem and everything was perfect and, long story short, I arrived at work on time.
This situation gave me a chance to consider how I respond to events like these. One might say, if there is no problem and everything is perfect, then my car failing to start was meant to be and I should heed the sign, cancel the client and stay home. Who cares, right? Everything is perfect. But this misses the point, the real truth.
This situation was not meant to be. It was not part of some cosmic plan that the universe was communicating to me through the medium of my battery. How could it be? There is no need for a cosmic plan as everything is already perfect. Action or inaction does not need to be communicated to me as there is no problem I need to solve. My car would not start and that was perfect and it was not a problem. I might have been late and that too would have been perfect and not a problem but I also had means to get my car started and to reorganise myself and this is what I chose to do. Why would I change that in some attempt to interpret the meaning of a flat battery?
I had, without thought, assumed that I would get going without the need to jump start my car but that was just part of my constructed idea of my future. Knowing, when things did not go that way, that there was no problem and everything was perfect enabled me to adjust to the actual, as opposed to assumed or thought, unfolding of my plan. This is not seeking to avoid attachment to outcome. It is, instead, knowing that the outcome will not be a problem and it will be perfect.
It has now become habitual that when I wake up in the morning one of the first things to happen is that I say to myself that There is no problem. Everything is Perfect. This is not habitual in the rote kind of going through the motions way but habitual in that I don't have to remind myself to do it. The saying of it, and more importantly the feeling of it, is still very much alive and I still get that feeling of ease knowing this to be the case.
The knowing of this has an interesting effect on what I once would have characterised as a problem: things in life that I feel need to change or that I want. This perception of there being a gap between what I would like to feel like, how I would like my life to be, and how it is remains but it is much fainter. The understanding that my current situation is perfect, and it is not a problem and that to make it so would be to not understand it, gives me real confidence that I will overcome this dissonance between my current experience and some pictured ideal experience. Change might still occur but it feels it will happen in a more gentle, more sustainable way.
The image that comes to mind is that rather than looking around searching for which path to take and how to get to it I am, instead, standing here, knowing that I am here, in the right place, but doing some cleaning, some housekeeping as it presents itself to be done.
This project has been going for over a week now and I have certainly noticed that it has changed things.
I have been applying it, There is no problem and Everything is perfect every time I notice a negative thought arising. As a result, the negative thoughts are stopped in their tracks. Sometimes I immediately connect with the feeling of There is no problem and Everything is perfect, and at other times it takes effort and repetition of the mantra, but so far I have always got there. The situation that caused the worry to arise remains, but the worry disappears, and it is a very comforting and warm feeling to know that there is, in fact, no problem and everything is perfect.
The result of this is that I have noticed more and more the perfection in the world, and in the people around me. I know well this idea of "we see what we are looking for", and I also know some of the brain science around how the brain focuses on what it has been trained (by itself!) to focus on, but this is still surprising to encounter in practice. Now, not only do I fundamentally believe that There is no problem and Everything is perfect but it is increasingly becoming my experience of the world.
I was just reminded of a recent experience that I put down to my focus on the fact that There is no problem. Everything is perfect. I was sitting in a chair reading and looked up to see on a chair a pile of sheets just off the washing line. Instead of a mess, or the next chore to do, I saw perfection in way they folded and curved, like a perfect shell on the beach. It may be that by realising that everything is perfect, I will now see more perfection and my life will be more joyous for it.
It is Day 2 of this project and I have noticed that it is already having an effect.
In this instance I was driving and a negative thought, a worry, began to form. It was at that stage where I perceived it forming without yet knowing what the subject matter would be. There is a certain feeling that arises along with worrying thoughts. Aware of this, I then immediately applied my new mantra of There is no problem. Everything is perfect and was surprised by the result.
The effect did not change my understanding of the present moment. I remained aware that, as I drove along, there was no problem and everything was perfect. I was comfortable and warm and there was no immediate cause for worry but that is not the nature of worry. Worry is about the future and here I suddenly understood that in the future, at the time the events relating to my worry came to pass, at that time there would still be no problem and everything would still be perfect and that any worrying now was completely pointless as, who can sensibly worry about perfection?
As soon as I had this realisation spurred on by my mantra, the worry dissipated and I was at ease knowing that whatever was going to happen, whatever could happen, it would not be a problem and everything would be perfect.
Most of us have heard of the Greek legend of Sisyphus, who was consigned for eternity to roll a boulder up a hill only to have it elude his control at the last moment and roll back down, causing Sisyphus to once again begin his futile task.
Reflecting this legend, many of us might have encountered times in our lives that seemed to involve Sisyphean tasks that are frustrating and seemingly pointless as every time we begin to get close to our goal something goes awry and we have to start again, or at least go back a few paces before setting off once more. Or the goal is not as close as we thought. Our lives themselves may at times seem like this, with always one more mountain to climb before we get to our destination.
Those of us who have engaged in what can be broadly termed self-improvement may be very familiar with this way of things. We spend so much time striving to improve ourselves, not materially but emotionally and psychologically. We spend our money doing this. If we are lucky we come across the right therapy, practice, religion, school of thought or any combination of these that helps us ease our personal discomfort, helps us heal. We resolve childhood and teen trauma; we resolve issues with our parents and family; we find and face our own limitations and seek to overcome them. All with the goal of being healthier, happier and wiser.
Perhaps we achieve this goal to increasing degrees but there is always the next thing. The next layer of the onion to peel away. Our lives may change. We may find ourselves, find out who we really are. Our relationships may improve, or end, with new and more fulfilling ones replacing them, but as each of these milestones are passed our eyes look ahead to the remaining challenges to be overcome. Continuous improvement is not just a workplace strategy, it’s a lifestyle.
Well, if it is not your lifestyle then it certainly is mine. Ever since my thirties when I started to ‘work on myself’, as the expression goes, this part of my life has increased in intensity and importance. It has become central to who I am and what I do. Happily, I can report real progress and I am not any more troubled by some of the thoughts and behaviours that did not serve me well. I am genuinely happier and have better relationships with friends and family. Particularly in recent years I have felt closer to that Elysian Plain of complete unrelenting happiness and contentment than I could even have imagined in those earlier years. Yet now I realise that this whole time I have been like Sisyphus.
I have been like Sisyphus as no matter how hard I pushed, no matter how hard I struggled and what sacrifices I made, it was always inevitable that not only would I never reach the top of the mountain but my striving, struggling and sacrifice would need to continue without end. The view might improve, the rock might even feel lighter at times and in other moments I might not feel alone in my struggle uphill, but I had still blinded myself to the truth that I was, I am, never going to get there. Encoded within my efforts was the inevitable failure to achieve my goal. Until now.
Project Journal
8 July 2021 - 398 days in
Only One Sun
There's only one sun
Our bodies warmed by its light
Everything else moon
5 June 2021 - 365 days in
Fuck Sisyphus
Fuck Sisyphus. Really. Fuck that guy. Rolling his boulder up the hill all the time only to have it fall back once it was nearly over the top. That was his punishment for cheating death. So fuck Sisyphus for cheating death too. Really. Fuck him, the rock rolling death cheating god provoking troublemaking bastard. And fuck him also for being in every one of us.
The legend of Sisyphus is supposed to teach us to not avoid our mortality. Not to try and cheat the Gods out of what is their's to claim. It shows that if we have the audacity, the, um, life to try and do that we will be punished for all eternity by struggling fruitlessly day after day.
Sisyphus’ miserable story teaches us we cannot cheat death. It wags its bony finger and tells us that death will happen to all of us, that it is pointless to try and prevent our own demise as Sisyphus tried to do. So what is left? Living each second as if it is our last? Carpe diem? Yeah. Nah. That just reminds us of our mortality.
It is better to supress the thought of it. This allows us to carry on as if death is not an inevitability, to live our lives at less than full volume. It allows us to waste (what a loaded word!) the time we have, that unknown length of time between now, this moment, and when life leaves us, or we leave it, I’m never sure which way it goes. It allows us to not revel in the beauty and freshness of every moment because there is always the next moment, the next day, the next year. Until there’s not. So fuck Sisyphus for teaching us to be afraid of death.
The trade-off for accepting life’s limited duration is supposed to be that we are not punished by the Gods afterwards. Big deal. Whoopee. Thanks for nothing Gods. Really, you shouldn’t have bothered.
Who needs the Gods to punish us in the realm of Hades, the appropriately named (for New Zealanders) Erebus, when we are already perfectly capable of punishing ourselves here in the realm of Gaia? That’s what we do isn’t it? Punish ourselves. We keep striving and pushing, sweating and struggling, trying to get somewhere in our lives. Somewhere physically, emotionally, psychically, financially, socially, in relationships, at work. Somewhere.
If you have been following along with my rantings and ravings you will know that this is really how the whole project of There is no Problem. Everything is Perfect began. One year ago. Not so much a mic drop as a boulder drop. Let it go Sisyphus man, let it go.
And so what if the big rock rolls back down to the bottom of the hill? Who cares? We don’t have to get it to the top. There is no goal or end point to reach. No task to complete. Let the boulder go. Climb the hill without it. Better still, just sit on the boulder at the bottom of the hill and admire the view. Sit there long enough, forget any possibility of climbing the hill let alone pushing a rock up it (who does that?), and the hill will begin to dissolve of itself. It will disappear because it was actually never really there. Perhaps it was our attempt to reach the top and peer into the promised land on the other side that caused the hill to exist in the first place. The effect is the cause. Deep. But true. And fuck that guy for ever suggesting otherwise.
I know life has struggles. I know it has difficulties. I know there is emotional and physical suffering. It really hurts sometimes. The joy of gain turns so easily to the pain of loss. Every closeness leaves us vulnerable to the angst of separation. To love someone brings with it the possibility, the likelihood, of heartache. To live without love leaves us alone and isolated. There are mean and nasty, harmful and even murderous people out there. We hurt others without trying. Others hurt us in the same way.
Then comes the deception. Somehow we have accepted that if we try hard enough, if we are smart and tricky enough, disciplined enough, we will be able to cheat suffering and we will be happy. Just like that guy, that fucking guy, Sisyphus. That any unhappiness or pain we feel is because we haven’t put the effort in, haven't dealt with our issues, our shit, that we’re not in the moment, we’re not looking at the higher good. Well, stop it. Stop it right now. You are happy. You are loved. You are loving. You are most certainly enough and you are perfectly, yes, absolutely perfectly alright just as you are. If you feel otherwise, I understand completely, I feel otherwise a lot of the time too but we are mistaken. Life is perfect. There is no problem. And fuck Sisyphus.
28 May 2021 - 357 days in
Undisciplined
Did I mention that I am taking cold showers? Well, I must have. Cold shower takers like me are the vegans of the bathroom – we just have to tell everyone about our virtue.
Cold shower taking is something that I had been noticing for a while, and it was, oddly, an inspirational YouTube interview with Hugh Jackman that propelled me to try. Oh, and the start of the warm weather. That was pretty important too. And in case you didn’t know, cold water is a thing now. Wim ‘The Iceman’ Hof has done for low temperatures what Eckhart Tolle did for the present moment. He has made them a thing.
Like all good scientific experiments, the most interesting result gained from this practice was not part of my hypothesis. I had vague ideas that cold showers might be better for my health in some way, and Hugh added the idea that a bit of deliberate discomfort to start the day would be a good thing. What I did not see coming was that, after a relatively short period of time, the cold sensation that I had feared, and that had kept the shower mixer turned well into the red, would be replaced by a sensation of warmth. Cold became warm.
After the initial shock of the cold water subsides, which is a matter of seconds, a strange phenomenon takes place. My body begins to interpret the temperature of the water according to my previous habit of feeling warm and comfortable in the shower. Now that winter is here, I am colder when I enter the shower and the water itself is noticeably cooler, but the effect remains. On entering the shower I tell myself that the water is warm and will feel good and despite the apparently objective truth of the matter, it is so.
This then got me thinking. If cold could be the new hot, what else could change through the simple tool of me changing my attitude? Next on the list was food.
Recent health issues have required that I downsize and make a significant number of my previously happily employed fat cells redundant. I have done this through a change in what I eat, not necessarily how much, but this has not always been easy to sustain. Our bodies are masters of status quo maintenance, and my metabolism is always desperate to return to its previous porcininity.
The mental change this time was to do to the discomfort of hunger what I had done to the discomfort of cold water. So, I welcomed hunger. I revelled in a growling tummy. I mourned the feeling of fullness after a good meal. Like the shower, there were ups and downs as first, but now there is a real change – hunger is satiety. My previous Bacchanalian enjoyment of a good feed has ceded ground, and girth, to my new ghrelin induced highs. And the change in what I ate? Where I removed sugars from my diet? Well, of course, bitter became the new sweet.
Very recently I am extending this study, which has a cohort of one, to my propensity to seek rest. The formula here, like cold = hot and hunger = satiety, is action = rest. Early days, but there are signs that the habits I have firmly ingrained in my psyche with years of indolence (sorry Mum, I wasn’t trying to be late for school, I just didn’t want to get up) are shifting.
Today I have started some new mental alchemy, adopting the formula: the world around me = my phone. When I feel the urge to go on Twitter I will look at the real birds instead; at actual other people instead of Facebook; instead of looking for emails I will look around to see if anyone wants to talk to me.
The beauty of this experiment is that it does not require any discipline, which is fortunate because I have little to none of that. It does not require a determination to not look at my phone or get out of bed early. It simply requires the old switcheroo, where I change, in my mind, the reward for the impulse that would drive me to otherwise soak under a steamy shower or hungry caterpillar my way through a bag of potato chips. Same impulse, different reward, but same satisfaction. Same dopamine hit, and don’t we all love dopamine! Different trigger.
Looking back I can see that of course this could not have been otherwise. In a world where There is no Problem, Everything is Perfect, how could the imposition of deprivation or suffering be good for anyone? How could forcing myself to go without the pleasure of warmth or food, the joy of distraction or laziness, be a necessary component of an already perfect life? It couldn’t, but perfection is not stagnation. Things are always changing and that is the perfection of the world. How they change, well, that can be up to us.
19 May 2021 - 348 days in
Love for All Seasons
It is getting close to a year for this project, and I have to say I have as much conviction now as ever that There is no problem. Everything is perfect. This remains the case even though in recent times I have been experiencing very fully that in this perfection there is still pain. So, being the inquisitive kind of guy that I am, this has led me to wonder – how is it that I can know the perfection of this moment, know it in my head and my heart, in my very being, but at the same time experience pain? Emotional pain.
Perhaps the place to start is to look at what happens with physical pain. There is no problem. Everything is perfect remains true but it does not anaesthetise the body against its aches and soreness, against cuts and bruises. These continue to be experienced as they were experienced before, but they have never given me cause to consider how I can be in physical pain and everything still be perfect. There does not seem to be any contradiction here.
To the contrary, my body’s ability to signal its discomfort or concern with pain must be one of the perfections of this world. Without it we could not survive. Pain makes me stop and tend to my body when going on might ultimately be fatal. Physical pain is not a limitation, it is a signal. A signal that we are conditioned to respond to and, on occasion, a signal we can ignore even if it is at its height. The stories of adrenalin rush rescues with cars being lifted off toddlers by their mums shows that in a certain frame of mind we can override our pain signals and reach new heights.
Recently I have been feeling deep emotional pain. This is, in part, in response to the death of a dearly loved friend of mine. I can understand this pain of grief in the same terms as bodily pain. It is pain of loss, of separation, of the extinction of possibility. This too, like the pains in my body, is perhaps a signal. A signal that these things I hold on to must now be let go.
People talk of moving on, but I do not want to do this. I do not want to leave her behind. I want to keep her with me, but I can still do this while I let go of the imagined ‘what might have been’. Like a child in the summer, I assumed our friendship would go on forever but my pain tells me to correct my course now that the season has changed.
But what of other emotional pain? The pain of new love for example? We have probably all felt this pain, this ridiculous pain where a day of separation seems an age – ‘No! You hang up first!’.
Once again, I can see the usefulness of this. This fundamental urge to have close loving connection seems to be a Darwinian backup plan, added to our basic sexual desires. At its most objective, continuation of the species does not require close connection in other than a short-term physical sense, but with loving closeness comes the gravitational pull of relationship, even when the juices of desire have ebbed. A much more reliable vehicle for survival of the species than sporadic moments of passion.
So, the pain of new love is also a signal, like bodily pain, slowing my step so that I might walk with another. But what of unrequited or unfulfilled love? Impossible love? Romantic love where deep connection cannot flourish into physical and emotional proximity when the heart desires it?
An evolutionist might say that pain without the ability to heal is just the price we pay for an otherwise useful mechanism. Like an itch on a phantom limb that can never be scratched, falling in love when the sensory closeness it screams for cannot be satiated is just a necessary flaw in the system that in other respects keeps us going on. But a flaw is an imperfection, and this cannot be so – because, as we know, everything is and always has been perfect.
Should I experience such a deep and intimate love for another, more urgent and specific than love I can hold for all, but one that cannot be fulfilled, then, just as for the loss of my friend, I surely must read the signal within the pain. I must turn away from how I might wish things to be, and see what is, not what might be, as perfect. Perfect in being able to feel that close to another, knowing, even, that they feel that same closeness to me, knowing that such love is possible. As with my friend, it could teach me to see that although summer has come to an end, I can still hold its warmth within me and know that it will come again.
15 February 2021 - 255 days in
Hook, Line and Singer
This project of There is no problem. Everything is perfect continues, even if it doesn't feel like it. And it doesn't feel like it quite often as this approach to life has become so embedded in how I do things that I need the mantra of repeating this truth less and less. It has become confirmation bias on steroids - so much part of my world view that if I was to find myself considering that there might be a problem and that all was not perfect a deeper understanding within me would be going "Yeah. Thinking like that is not a problem. It's perfect".
The latest boost I have received to fortify this vaccination against unhappiness came in the form of a book called The Surrender Experiment by Michael (Mickey) Singer. Singer is known particularly for his book The Untethered Soul. Given my own project, The Surrender Experiment has obvious appeal to me but rather than buy it I have been waiting some months to get a copy from the library and it finally arrived. It is an autobiography with a repeating and dominant theme of allowing life to unfold by itself by striving to avoid the influence of our personal likes and dislikes and accepting what is presented to us.
Singer's life ends up being so extraordinary - !spoiler alert! founding of a secular Temple in Florida; establishing a construction company; establishing a software company worth gazillions that became WebMD; being prosecuted for massive securities fraud (charges dropped); while continuing with daily meditation practice and not compromising his lifestyle and beliefs - that it made me wonder what the other side of the story was. However so far as I can tell it largely checks out.
His philosophy of accepting what life presents, whatever it is, resonated very deeply within me and caused me to look back and see how often I had and had not done this. From my current perspective of There is no problem. Everything is perfect this way of living fits very well.
I have long had an acceptance that the way we live our lives is completely dictated by Karma. This world view is all very good for making sense of how things work but alone it is of no immediate use in making decision about what to do or not do. To know that the arrival at this fork in my life's path is a karmic event is one thing, but it does not tell me which direction I should go.
The same is true for There is no problem. Everything is perfect. Knowing this gives me peace of mind and even lets me know that, regardless of which turn I take, it will be perfect and not a problem. But it still doesn't help me make my mind up and take the next step.
I deal with this largely by avoiding decisions. When someone asks me if I want this or that I genuinely struggle to answer. My daily dedication is to not be driven by wants and desires (like Mickey Singer) and it would be pompous (and incorrect) to answer "I don't have wants" and callous to answer "I don't care", although this is closer to the truth.
Until now this path of desire reduction has seemed to be one of inaction, of less and I have embraced this as a lifestyle. My preference has largely been to just sit and let the world come to me and if it does not come then I am happy just sitting by myself. Win win. I have made concessions around my work where I have put effort into, albeit very low level, promotion of what I do with the intention of building interest and I am content with this even if it has borne little fruit.
Against this backdrop, reading Singer's book has shifted my perspective slightly but importantly. I am reminded of the parable of the man with great faith trapped in a river pleading for God to intervene to save him. A rope is thrown and he refuses saying 'God will save me!'. A boat comes by and he sends it away, 'God will save me', and so forth til the waters rise and he drowns. Then in heaven he meets God and says 'Why didn't you save me?' only to be told 'What's wrong with you? I sent a rope, a boat and more and all you did was ignore me!'.
I feel I have been doing this. I have been sending away events and connections that did not seem to me to be on my path - that I felt were not my karmic destiny. Until now this has been a wise strategy because I have been so prone to making decisions and choices based on egoic considerations, not necessarily egotistical reasons but egoic nevertheless. These decisions and choices have come from my desires and dislikes that, in turn, have been formed by my experiences in life. However, by strengthening my awareness through meditation and other practices I feel more confident in knowing what is coming from what Singer would call the voice inside my head, and what is not. It is that voice that is driven by likes and dislikes, both gross and subtle.
So more recently I have been saying Yes to what arises, regardless of what it is except if I have a strong knowing (knowing, not feeling) that I should say No. This isn't to achieve anything or to gain anything. I am not applying the Singer formula hoping for my own Fortune 500 company or fame. Quite the contrary. Seeking to live in life's flow like this is a reward in itself. A relief as well. Perhaps this is what true faith is and, regardless, it is good to know that whatever happens it will not be a problem and will be perfect.
6 February 2021 - 246 days in
Minor Haiku
Hear the Mynah's call
The bird goes, its call remains
Was it always mine?
14 December 2020 - 192 days in
Real Uncertainty
A phrase came to me this morning as I recalled my meditation of some minutes earlier. It was
This simple statement expresses what underlies the truth that There is no Problem. Everything is Perfect and it is in response to the mental and semantic gymnastics that occur when looking at the question of reality, a question that has been very much in front of me in recent weeks as I have explored the modern non-duality and neo-advaita movements.
To understand how this statement relates to the perfection of the world it is helpful to realise that "It's just not what you think it is" is not just another way of saying reality is something other than what you think it is. It is not. There is no alternative version of reality that is more accurate or more real than the one you are thinking or perceiving or think you are perceiving as you perceive your thinking (sorry, couldn't help myself). It is just that reality is not what you think it is.
If our thoughts about reality bore the slightest resemblance to what reality is then I most definitely could not say There is no problem. Everything is Perfect as there would always be the possibility of imperfection. This is because no matter how we perceive a particular situation, we are always able to imagine a better or worse reality than our current one. Even when we find ourselves in a situation that has so much of what we want, that is so close to our idea of perfection then, depending on our mood and disposition, we are always able to find some fault with it or some way in which it could be improved. The possible mental dialogues are endless, such as
This is perfect, if only someone was here to share it with me;
This is perfect, if only I was here alone;
and the best one of all
This is perfect. I wouldn't change a thing. If only it could last!
When I espouse my truth that There is no problem. Everything is perfect I am often met with arguments seeking to prove the contrary. These arguments invariably are backed up with anecdotary showing how things could indeed be better so that there is, without a doubt, a problem. The fatal flaw in all of these arguments is that they have an underlying premise that someone's idea about what is happening now is real, when the obvious truth is that their idea about what is happening now is not real. Instead, it is only what is happening now that is real.
An idea of what is happening will always be, at best, one step removed from that happening because the act of conceptualisation is an abstraction that takes place in apparent response to what is happening, rather than being a direct perception of that happening. In addition to this, because our brain works on electrical and chemical impulses that take time to do their business, our perception of what is happening will always occur or be perceived some time, albeit a very short time, after the happening has already happened. As we have seen, my perception of what I think is reality in this moment is not, in fact, reality and this is so in the same way that my memory of an earlier happening is also not an experience of reality. For example, there is really no qualitative difference between my apparent experience of looking at my laptop screen 'now' and my memory of watching TV as a ten year old. Looking at my laptop seems fresh and current and now and unfolding but it is still temporally removed from the reality it represents, just as my childhood memory is.
Neurologically there may be a significant difference between the brain real estate and services that support my apparently immediate perception of reality and a memory that seems to be clearly in the past, but both are, by their qualities, best categorised as memories even though one seems to be in the present and the other in the past. This is just as the RAM and hard drive of a computer may be physically separate and supported by different processes, but they are both memory.
So what use is this? What use is it to know that everything that is happening is real but it is not what I think it is? How can it be of use when there seems to be some sort of non-duality uncertainty principle where I can perceive the world as it appears to be or there can be an experience of the world as it really is, but there cannot be both?
The answer is perhaps the same as for Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle in physics. Heisenberg's principle states broadly that you can know the position of a particle or you can know its momentum, but the more you know of one the less you will know of the other.
How is this useful? Well, for a start knowing this principle can bring to an end a frustrating and ultimately futile search. Just as a physicist no longer needs to spend time devising equations and experiments to locate particles and simultaneously determine their momentum, there is no need for us to seek an understanding of reality. The more we seek it, the more it is obscured. Let's call this the meditation paradox — without meditation you cannot get close to experiencing reality but the more you meditate the more the experience of reality moves away. The beauty of this is that whether we are experiencing our idea of reality or whether there is an experience of reality there is another universal principle that we can rely on and that will always be true. That is, of course, that There is no problem. Everything is Perfect
6 December 2020 - 184 days in
A New Love
A couple of posts ago (Stirred not Shaken) I referred to a recent change of perspective that has made a significant difference to how I live my life. This has come to mind again as it came up during a recent online group session. Put simply, this new perspective comes from self love.
It is strange that, in our culture, many people struggle with self-acceptance and self-love and that while self-esteem is seen as a fundamental building block to a healthy life it is so often missing and seen as something that is difficult to achieve. As a result, many of us go through our lives with a low opinion of our own self-worth.
In my case this has manifested in the presence of a voice that, if this mental character had to be given a name in the drama of my thoughts, would be called 'Should'. I am sure you are familiar with the script and probably have your own version of this cerebral teleplay that, like mine, is unlikely to be particularly original or clever but nevertheless feels deeply personal.
In my introduction to this project I talked of the Greek myth of Sisyphus and if there was ever something that epitomised this legend, then it is the voice of Should in my head. Inherent in Should is that when one should is crossed off the list with the pen of achievement then the boulder rolls down to the base of the mountain again and another should takes its place. Should is also very sneaky in that it disguises itself in the specific - 'I should work harder, longer; I should get up earlier; I should be more considerate; I should eat more healthily and exercise more' - when all the time these are just different facets of the same persistent lump of coal that, in its black wholeness, is a general notion that I could and should be better than I am, because at present I am not particularly worth while and, here's the kicker, therefore not worthy of love. This is what Should represents in its essence and any particular should can be traced back to this belief that I am not able to receive the love that I so desperately want.
Not only is this belief about my inability to deserve love always present but if I care to examine it there will be ample incontrovertible and reliable evidence from the play of my life that this is not just a belief but a stone cold hard fact. This overwhelming body of evidence, based on the my actual lived experience, seems sufficient to convict and condemn me to a life of self-doubt and poor self-image. But there is a flaw in the prosecution's case as, despite the evidence, my belief that I am not worthy is, fundamentally and without exception or contradiction, wrong. Just wrong.
How could this be otherwise given that There is no problem and everything is perfect? Everything is already perfect and so there is nothing I should be doing and no way I should be, as perfection requires no improvement. This is the message of There is no problem. Everything is perfect and the natural consequence of the message is that I am loved and infinitely loveable in my perfection.
I can understand this on an intellectual level, but it is another thing to embody it in a way that will cancel Should's run in the theatre of my consciousness. So how to go about bringing into my day to day life this more truthful state of being loved unconditionally ? Fortunately, I had a precedent to work from.
Some time ago I wrote about my realisation that I just needed to love everybody (Love Actually). To banish Should from the drama of me I have applied a similar formula and as a result I have found myself going around saying in my head (mostly) "You love me" to everyone I see or encounter. This does not have the feel of being egotistical or arrogant or, strangely, even self-centred. Rather it feels like statement of a fact, one that because of some skewed belief in our own value, we choose to ignore. So when I am with you, no matter what you are doing or saying, or how you look or behave, I know that just as I love you, you love me. You love me and I love me too.
The consequence has been a new acceptance of who I am, who I actually am and not who I could or should be. Not an exaltation or proclamation of "I am great" or anything close to that. Instead it has been a thorough acceptance of my nature - I am the one who does this and behaves like that - without judgement or any assessment of the need for improvement. This has been very freeing and from this new perspective I feel great contentment and even relief. There is no problem. Everything is perfect and I, like you, am perfect and loved, unconditionally.
3 November 2020 - 151 days in
Promissory Notes
I have always been wary of vows or, for that matter, solemn promises of any kind. I take them very seriously and being one who has difficulty predicting how I will act this afternoon let the alone the rest of my life I usually find them impossible to make or take. This is even true for the most basic of the Buddhist vows, the vow to take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. I had an opportunity to formally take this vow once with a monk in a Meditation Centre, at a time when the reality was that I was taking actual physical and mental refuge in each of those three things, but I still managed to rationalise my way out of it.
My reticence is part genuine desire to take the vow seriously and a reluctance to place myself in a situation where I might break the vow but it is also part fear of commitment. Also, I think there is still a bit of the lawyer running in me that sees a public promise as something enforceable whereas, really, if I take the Buddhist refuge vow and later stop taking refuge in, say, the Sangha, what are the monks and nuns going to do? Sue me?
Recently though I have reformed my relationship with vow taking. As the linear and logical imprint of my legal training fades I have come to realise that vows do not need to be taken as intractable promises but instead can be seen more as strong and genuine intentions. By verbalising an intention and by experiencing the regret and even shame (I am still getting to grips with the possibility that shame might in any shape or form be a positive and useful emotion) of breaking the vow there is simply a greater possibility that it will be honoured.
This transition has led me to construct and take my own vows. It all started one morning when I was lying abed contemplating the thoughts of past and future that were cycling in my head. Recalling my mantra of There is no problem. Everything is perfect I suddenly had the sense of the vow I needed to take and take it I did. Immediately my mood lifted and I could see a very simple way forward.
Strangely I cannot now remember the actual words that made up my vow even though I can recall where on my bedroom wall I saw them written in my mind's eye and I certainly can recall their meaning, a meaning that I have continued to draw on from time to time as I recall and honour the vow I made.
More recently I decided to formalise this practice and was inspired to give form to this vow and actually write it on the wall (well, on a whiteboard on the wall). I wrote
I vow
to see what I have, not what I am missing
to see what I am doing, not what I could do or could have done
to see where I am and not where I could be or could have been
Obviously I could wrap this up more efficiently in a simple "I vow to be present" but that is too abstract. These vows address the specific paths my mind might go down and prescribe the antidote. I find them very useful and when I remind myself that I have taken these vows my mind-state shifts. And because I have vowed, I have solemnly promised, to do these things I take out the possibility of choosing not to do them. I don't have to decide again and again that this is the correct path.
So now I think I see why vows are valuable for spiritual, emotional and psychological development. They are a kind of developmental waypoint and I feel a strong sense of moral duty to honour these vows, even though no one else would know if I broke them. Feeling this, and this is something I did not see coming when I started writing, I might as well go all in. So, here goes.
I vow that I take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha.
As I write these words, and say them sincerely to myself, my heart pounds and I become quite scared for reasons that are not apparent to me at all. This form of public commitment to a path that is not of my own construction and that is greater than me is quietly terrifying. But what can they do right? Sue me?
6 September 2020 - 93 days in
Stirred Not Shaken
If I believed in some sort of sentient, intelligent Universe which I (sort of) don't or a Big Fella in the sky who calls the shots which I (definitely) don't I would be thinking around now that my declaration that There is no Problem. Everything is Perfect was received as some sort of challenge (which it definitely was not meant to be) and that the Universe and / or aforementioned Big Fella responded with a thoughtful "Oh yeah? Is it now...?" and then proceeded to orchestrate the potentially troubling thoughts and events that anyone who has read the last few entries in this Journal will be aware of, events that might (wrongly) be seen to undermine my belief that There is no Problem. Everything is Perfect.
When I look deeply into this, into myself, I see that these events (like a reverse Bond martini) have stirred me but they have not shaken my core belief in the perfection of All. This remains the case even after more unwanted and troubling medical news and a long few weeks of a flu like malaise that was mainly characterised by a complete lack of physical and mental energy.
The shaken part was that with my lethargy came old thought patterns of regret and loss, patterns that were reminiscent of the state of depression that I intermittently suffered from for many years. Combined with wilting physical will I even wondered if somehow this old affliction had made its way home again, following the breadcrumbs of my medical misfortunes after being banished to the woods of my deep subconscious.
This was confusing as the other signs were not there. I felt the urge to isolate, so common with my depressed self, but found myself actively and fruitfully connecting with others despite it. I continued to experience times of unheralded, unexplained and unmitigated joy while carrying out the simplest of activities. I cared for myself, looking after what I ate, meditating and even exercising when I felt physically able. If this was my old depression then I had got very much out of practice.
The more likely explanation was that due to my own reckless intention of allowing myself to be exactly as I really was, by encouraging my subconscious to cough up as many feelings and emotions as it dared, knowing that they could not be a problem and were perfect and only needed to be felt, I opened myself to exactly that and out they poured, not so much a cough but a vomited stream of anxiety laden thoughts, feelings and conditions. It is almost as if my psyche was saying "You want to be fully yourself? Challenge accepted and here you are. All of you: the happy; the calm; the frustrated; the regretful; the failure; the damaged; the unwell; the limited; the boundless; the loving; the loved; the healed and the hopeful. All of you."
There have even been times in these last weeks when I have lost touch with the essence of my mantra. I have looked but not been able to connect with There is no problem. Everything is Perfect. The more troubling disconnection was from what had become an easily accessible feeling of love for all others (written about here). These connections were obscured but not completely lost as over the time since starting this project I have embedded the truth of There is no problem. Everything is Perfect sufficiently in my knowing that I knew it was there, somewhere, but at these times I simply could not make it out.
Then one recent evening after a day of lethargy I felt within me the stirrings of activity and I knew my listlessness was over. I knew that when I awoke the next morning I would have the energy to do something and so it turned out to be. This return to form is not completely linear and there have been setbacks but overall I feel again the vitality of life as evidenced by this return to my Journal keyboard.
Don't get me wrong. Things have not returned to how the used to be. Exactly how life will be different now I am not sure but it certainly feels different to some degree so far. I seem to have slowed down (those who know me will be surprised this is possible) and possibly (it's early days yet) the impetuous and youthfully exuberant lurches that have for a long time characterised my laughable attempts to act like someone who has a real job have been replaced by a deeper understanding of the commitment and sustained activity that is required to bring vocational and financial stability to my life.
Amongst all this there has been one more remarkable development. A change in my perspective that I had not clearly recognised I needed but which now it has occurred is fundamentally shaping how I am. Although its arrival has been gentle and a case of slow recognition, I feel it may be seismic in the way it will shape my world. As it is clearly more than the afterthought that this paragraph consigns it to I will leave it for now and, should the will to do so arise, address it separately in its rightful place. For now I am content to be back in touch with the reality that There is no problem. Everything is Perfect and with the understanding, to paraphrase the Zen Buddhist monk Shunryu Suzuki:
5 August 2020 - 61 days in
Kool-Aid
I'm really uncomfortable. I'm physically uncomfortable as I have pain in my leg and discomfort in some other parts of my body. More than that I am mentally and emotionally uncomfortable. There is no Problem. Everything is Perfect seems to have reduced my level of comfort rather than increased it . Nothing fits any more as the routines and practices of my life feel like clothes that are a size too big or small.
I cannot read fiction and this is a significant change. I have been an avid reader since I was very young and have spent a good, and I mean good, part of my life lost in the made up worlds that I can freely enter by simply deciphering words on a page. It is such a lovely past-time that there must be a German word for that feeling you have when you can't wait to get back to the story you have been reading, that mixture of regret at having to stop and the thrill of the anticipated resumption when you place the bookmark and close the book. Yet I am presently being denied this comfort as my attention refuses to allow itself to settle on the fictional printed word.
I am not doing much better with the book's poor cousins movies and series, at least fictional ones. Having been someone who loves to get absorbed in whatever I am watching I find that I can make it only part way in and then interest and attention wanes. I'll reach for my phone and start scanning social media but, as you might guess by now, this also does not capture my attention or divert me as it used to. I have already said that distraction is an addiction for me and so is this my tolerance increasing? Do I need a harder and bigger fix to get that same dopamine hit, the same rush?
What I have resorted to, what I reach for as soon as a gap in my satisfaction opens, are talks on the mind; on spirituality; on how we are wounded and how we can heal. Even then I can only really attend to these when my body and some more mechanical aspect of my brain is on another task. Occasionally I can just sit and listen, but only occasionally.
Then there is my emotional discomfort. I have opined earlier that there are no negative feelings and that all we have to do is feel the feelings that arise. Well bugger me, I seem to have taken my own advice (it should have come with a warning!) which means that while my attention has not been diverted elsewhere I have been experiencing these negative feelings and they are not comfortable at all. To make matters worse I cannot indulge in self-pity and the like as I know that these experiences are not and can not be a problem and are perfect.
Lurking behind all this is a fantasy, a hope, that what is occurring is that I am moving closer to being more in the present moment and experiencing the perfection of the world in a more sustained way and that my present (pun intended) discomfort is me going through a rough transition phase. Even as these words fall onto the page I fear that this thought is just another distraction, a blanket to keep me warm and away from the cold truth of the pain of life.
I have even had moments of lucidly thinking that perhaps this is all a complete waste of time, that all this meditation; seeking out spiritual teachers; learning the stages of the paths to awakening; trying to understand and experience my mind more; believing that there is no problem and everything is perfect is just a symptom of having drunk the Kool-Aid and is itself a complete diversion from reality. Why don't I just seek material comfort and leave it at that? Maybe I am right about life being like Sisyphus' task but instead of thinking I can release the rock I should instead stop struggling with it and just get on with rolling this stone up the hill day after day and taking what comfort I can while doing this.
I know. I know. This is doubt coming in and that is also uncomfortable as I have drunk so much of the Kool-Aid that I believe deep within me that to doubt is unhealthy and a backward step. What greater sign of a cult is there than that! But I can't help but believe that there is no problem, everything is perfect even if I am creating my own private Jonestown. Because of my conviction and my abhorrence of doubt there is no comfortable grey area I can stand in, no fence to sit on. I have to jump one way or the other, go all in or leave the game and as I write this I see that I am scared. Both options feel like jumping blindfolded off a cliff in the dark but the idea of not jumping makes my body contract in discomfort. I didn't sign up for this, yet I know I did. I'm really uncomfortable.
29 July 2020 - 54 days in
Shit Happening
This is perhaps the acid test for There is no problem. Everything is Perfect. I am very tired at the moment, so tired that although it is only morning my eyes are drooping as I write this. I have had some difficult and challenging times with my work in the past few days that have taken me to a place of doubt. I am noticing anxieties about the smallest things, such as a recent invitation to a friend's birthday party. A birthday party. Causing anxiety. My body seems to be collapsing piece by piece with my latest ailment a painful knee that will not heal. I do not have the energy for the things that are important to me and I have no plan for the future. I am occasionally troubled by the constant financial uncertainty that has been with me for years. Things I buy or do are not working and must be fixed or returned. I got angry at the intractability of a call centre person and a customer service (hah!) person in a shop. Angry and upset. I cannot sit for meditation as I used to because of my sore knee and when I do sit I cannot sustain it for more than 20 or 30 minutes, not because of my body but because of my mind. I know better than to judge the quality of my meditation, which is good otherwise I would say it is not progressing and possibly taking a backward step. Being tired also means that I am more prone to see what I don't have in my life, including in terms of my children and relationship, rather than what I do have. At times I feel unloved.
So, can I honestly say that there is still no problem and everything is perfect? No I cannot. At least I can't say that in the context of the previous paragraph of complaints as There is no Problem. Everything is Perfect is not an evaluation of circumstances. It is not a conclusion after considering all the evidence and the available facts. It is a truth and therefore its veracity holds regardless of my objective or subjective experience of it.
I cannot look at my life and say there is no problem, everything is perfect. Instead I must do the reverse and understand that there is no problem, everything is perfect and then, if I still see any reason to, look at my life. There is simply no point in looking at my current experience of life and trying to rationalise that those experiences are fine as there is no problem and everything is perfect. Doing that is like the saying "shit happens", an aphorism that does nothing other than reinforce the falsehood that life is shit sometimes. What is valuable, what works, is to first experience my knowing of the real truth of life as perfection. This is always the place to begin. This is what I have been doing.
When I have been feeling the negativity in my thoughts I have literally been saying to myself "there is no problem. Everything is perfect" over and over. I have felt it and then felt the unpleasant friction between my innate knowing of this truth and my mind's desire to focus on what appears to be problematic and imperfect.
The result is that by hanging on to this affirmation of reality with whatever intensity I can muster I become drawn, like the iron filings to a magnet that so intrigued me as a boy, to a state of contentment and happiness with occasional bouts of an intense euphoria of the wonderfulness of life. It happened this morning as I made breakfast. I just felt good for no apparent reason and then even better for experiencing irrational joy. The despair returned but with a knowing that it was summoned by a false perception of life and with this knowing it passed.
In a similar vein earlier, when I experienced the frustration of not getting what I thought was fair, I reminded myself to feel my anger as it coursed through my body and noticed all the vengeful and righteous thoughts that came with it and then watched it pass as well. I reminded myself that I only need to love everyone and then looked at the apparent objects of my anger, two people that were doing their jobs and bringing to their work whatever mindset they had, with love. All I feel now is regret that because of my anger I missed the opportunity to feel love for them during our interactions. I also know even this was perfect.
Is it all lightness and roses now? No, it is not. Am I full of energy and the vitality of a contented life? No, I think I might go for a lie down. Am I in touch with a sense of meaning in my life? Are you kidding!? I feel like I don't have a clue. But through all this I can still sense an underlying calm like an opiate that soothes my body and mind with the knowledge that I can let it all go, I can do nothing, say "fuck it all" or "I don't care", and things will still be perfect. There still won't be any problems. Feeling this calm I know I am loved, profoundly, and when I look at feeling otherwise it seems ludicrous. This is the acid test and I can confidently say that, whatever this substance of life appears to be made of, it is really just pure gold.
23 July 2020 - 48 days in
Getting Clean
If There is no problem. Everything is perfect then why am I still distracting myself from experiencing the present moment in life? I do this all the time in so many ways. There is the usual thinking about things that are going on in my life; then there is the thinking about things that appear to be in my life (but really aren't) because I read or watch the news or listen to others; then there is just your common garden daydreaming; there is my use of technology and social media - Twitter and Facebook, the news sites - where the only frustration is that the material does not refresh itself fast enough; then there is the recreational distractions of Netflix, YouTube and TV. All different but all distractions from the present moment.
I have already mentioned the power of habits and habit is the only real answer I can come up with as to why I continue to distract myself. Previously I had the excuse of using distractions to avoid the pain of life but now that there is no problem, everything is perfect why would I distract myself from life's perfection, even if it is manifesting in the experience of pain? Perfection is always perfection after all. That only leaves me with habit.
If I was to expand this idea then I can see that during the early stages of our lives we pick up the habits of how we are going to live and to be. We call these habits personality as, what is personality other than a habitual way of presenting ourselves to the world and to ourselves? Like all habits, our personality is reinforced as we continue to act it out. All habits are like this, the more you repeat them the more they are repeated, and when they become embedded in our physiology we call them addictions. So, in some way, we are addicted to being our personality and that explains why it is so hard to change "who we are". Addictions are hard to break. So I guess there is really only one thing for it. Here goes:
Hi. My name is Geoff and I am a distractaholic. I'm addicted to focussing my attention on things that are not my present experience. I've managed my habit for much of my life but recently I have noticed how out of control it is. It's really expensive as I find that I am constantly paying attention to my laptop or phone until I have no attention left for the basics in life, like the present moment. It is interfering with my relationships and my work to the point where I end up with ideas about both of these things that don't reflect the present moment and this causes me pain. I find it really hard to quit. Every time I try home rehab (meditation) or go to a rehab centre (meditation retreat) I do a bit better but I'm always looking for that next hit of some thoughts about the past or future. Then, when I finish, I always seem to go back to the hard stuff like social media and the news. Where I live it's really easy to feed my habit with this stuff as there are dealers all around me with their screens just begging to be looked at. But now I'm going to try and quit. One day at a time. One moment at a time. I really want to get clean.
16 July 2020 - 41 days in
Found Wanting
I want a chair. I have recently been looking at new furniture and there was a chair that I really liked. It is a rocking chair and I found it immediately relaxing, comfortable and soothing and now I want it. This has caused me to consider how wanting fits in with There is no problem. Everything is perfect.
If there is no problem and everything is perfect how can I want something? Surely want must come from a desire to solve a problem or right an imperfection or, if this is not the case, surely at least my very act of wanting the chair creates a problem or an imperfect situation because my want is now not satisfied.
One option would be to go all spiritual and say that I really do not have any wants and that I am happy with the chairs I have as they serve me just as well, that I am indifferent to the furniture beneath my bum as long as it keeps me off the floor. But this is not true. I want a chair, a chair that I don't have. It is true that a few days ago I was content with what I sat on but that was before I met this beautifully crafted combination of wood and fabric. I sat on it in the store and now I want to sit on it in my home and the only real way to make this happen is to buy it. This is what wanting a chair means and so the super spiritual path is not open to me.
Wanting can take so many forms in our lives. There are the big picture items that we want such as significant relationship; a home; meaningful work. Then there are the inner wants like happiness; peacefulness; satisfaction; comfort; good self esteem. Then the more immediate items like a want for fast food; a good movie; a shoulder rub; a glass of wine. Hovering over all this is the want that kicked off this whole project, the want to improve myself. The more I look the more wants I see. My desire for this chair seems to have made things get out of hand and now I, well, want to resolve this apparent inconsistency with my idea of a problem free and perfect state of being.
This is not, of course, difficult to do. I only need to apply the mantra that is There is no problem. Everything is perfect and the resolution presents itself. My wanting the chair is not a problem. It is perfect. Wanting is how I feel and aren't all our feelings perfect? Where I could fall into delusion is if I allow my wanting to trigger worry. This would be creating a (fictional) problem or obscuring perfection. I could worry that I will not get the thing I want; that it will be the last one in stock and someone else will get it; or that I can't afford it; that my partner won't agree to having it in the house; that there is really nowhere for it to go; or in some other way create a perceived gap between what I want and what I can have. However I will not let this happen as I know there is no problem and everything is perfect and so whether I buy the chair or not has no relevance - either way can only ever be perfectly fine.
There is no requirement that my wanting something and not having it should create discomfort within me as both things, the wanting and the not having, are perfect. To see it otherwise would be silly as these two things need each other - how could I want something if I already had it and if I had it why would I want it? So how could two such intrinsically sympathetic states of mind - wanting something and knowing I don't have it - cause disharmony in my thoughts and feelings and why would I let them do that?
No. There is no disharmony. I will continue to want this chair for as long as I want it. I may stop wanting it because I don't want it any more or I may stop wanting it because I have it but, either way, I will continue to want it until I don't. These are the facts and they are enough. There is no need to enter the drama that we usually associate with desire where we shift our focus from the experience of the desire to the possible satisfaction of the desire; from something we feel here and now to something we might feel in the future. Better to stay with what's real, with what's present and actually happening. At least that's what I want to do.
13 July 2020 - 38 days in
Suffering
This morning I wondered whether I am becoming callous, selfish even. Practicing my mantra of There is no Problem. Everything is Perfect has the effect that I experience happiness more consistently and I find that some of thoughts and worries that used to trouble me cannot persist in the light of my conviction that all is completely well. As such I feel that I suffer less in my life although, as a follower of Buddhism, I appreciate there are almost infinite gradations of suffering. For now though, I feel my level of what could be called gross suffering is diminished.
At the same time I am aware that there is great suffering in the world. There are people in pain, physical pain as well as all kinds of emotional and psychic pain. There are so many suffering from stress of one sort or another in relation to their wellbeing and the wellbeing of those they love. People who have genuine and realistic concerns about their health, their finances, their safety and security, their future. There are those who are subjected to all forms of abuse by those with greater power, from the horrors of physical and sexual abuse to the degradations and soul destruction of emotional abuse and beyond to the wider picture of abuse that is racism, sexism and other intolerances of difference.
Then there is the natural world and its continued destruction and diminishment by the greed of human kind. Animals, birds, fish, insects and creatures of all kinds whose harmony with their environment is disrupted and their very existence threatened. So much suffering by so many and yet here I am chugging along in my little bubble of There is no Problem. Everything is Perfect feeling content, with the greatest threat to my happiness being a blight of smugness or an overdose of schadenfreude. So, is this new way of being, my adopted manner of perceiving the world, just a manifestation of individualistic selfishness cloaked in spiritual achievement? Possibly, but here is why it may not be.
There is no problem. Everything is perfect is all about finding the truth. It is about working from the most realistic perception of reality as possible, regardless of the consequences. One of those realities in my life is that I am not often directly confronted by the great suffering of others. Sure I can read about it and watch it online and on TV but this is a very indirect experience mediated through several filters of those describing or showing this suffering and the technology I access it through. I can end my experience of the greatest suffering in the world by literally flicking a switch. Does this make me callous and selfish? I hope not.
The test is when I confront suffering directly. When this occurs I continue to feel empathy and compassion. Seeing others hurt, not indirectly through my screen but directly in my life, I also feel that hurt. I lament for their pain and wish with all my heart that they be relieved of it. My selfishness surfaces in the limitations I place on what I will do to help alleviate their difficulty, but this was the case before and, if anything, these limitations are less now than they have been in the past. Knowing that There is no problem. Everything is perfect I am freed to act in any way I want, knowing that the only consequence can be perfection.
I have also noticed that I respond in a similar way to some instances of mediated suffering of others. Seeing on my screen the image of another being in pain I will feel the same hurt that I might if they were physically there with me and tears have come to my eyes and my heart ached in response to scenes of this kind.
All this tells me that I have not created a world where, if suffering does not directly affect me, then it does not exist. To the contrary. Like the taste of cake to one who has forsaken sugar, the experience is intensified and not numbed by familiarity and There is no problem. Everything is perfect is no anaesthetic. To the contrary, it polishes my lens of perception so that I can more clearly distinguish between the real and the imagined and there is, of course, no doubt. Suffering is real.
9 July 2020 - 34 days in
Unreal Habits
There is one thing in the way to an unrelenting and undiminished experience of the truth that There is no Problem. Everything is Perfect. Well, maybe there is more than one thing but there is definitely at least one thing and that one thing is habit. Seeing life other than through the lens of There is no Problem. Everything is Perfect is a habit that has formed and it is a habit that is hard to break.
I have noticed the effect - or is it affect in this case? - of this habit in several areas of my life. Primarily this occurs around situations that involve frustration or annoyance. An appliance may not work; a car might be driving to slowly in front of me; someone may say something I disagree with. All of these things can lead me to respond with the behaviour of someone who is annoyed or frustrated. I might swear, shake my head, pull a disapproving face; change my tone or indulge in one of the other micro aggressions I have in my arsenal. Looking at me you would think I was genuinely annoyed or frustrated, I might think that, but it is not true.
When I check my body to see how I actually feel I notice that I am not experiencing frustration or annoyance. I feel calm and content. So why am I acting differently than I feel? Habit. The habit of responding in a negative manner to what is perceived to be imperfect or what seems like it is a problem seems to be persisting even after my perception of apparent imperfection has diminished or disappeared.
Previously part of this habitual response would also include having negative feelings to go along with my expression of dismay or disgust, an unvirtuous loop of dissatisfaction where the thought feeds the feeling and the feeling feeds the thought. Now that the story has changed, now that I believe and know that there is no problem and everything is perfect, my feelings have been the first to catch up. That surprises me as I would have expected my speech and actions to come first but it is they who remain in the old habitual way of reactivity. My body, where the feelings occur, got the memo but my thinking reactive ego mind did not, or at least has not understood what it means.
As I am noticing this incongruence between how I actually feel and how I am acting in certain situations I expect that my actions will change. Awareness is always the light we can shine on anything to cleanse it of apparent imperfection and as awareness occurs in the mind it is the mind that it affects. I anticipate that this awareness will be enough to reduce my habit of behaving as if there was a problem or everything was not perfect and that before too long my actions and reactions will catch up with my feelings. Then my experience of myself, and possibly the perception of me by others, will be more authentic. We will see.
7 July 2020 - 32 days in
Winter's Bone
We have had what you might call some serious weather in the last few days. High winds, driving rain, cold. You might almost think it is winter. The days have just started getting longer but there is still little sunshine most of the time, and I like sunshine.
Today my gutters were overflowing and I found myself up a ladder, in the rain, on a slippery deck, buffeted by the wind, my hands full of gutter goo which was also dripping down my my front, avoiding the small torrent of overflowing water and I realised I was inexplicably and unrelentingly happy. Pure contentment that was incongruent with how I have felt in the past in the same circumstances.
It was not being outdoors or doing something useful or anything like that causing my happiness. I had been happy immediately before and I now remain happy back inside warm and dry. It was just that I noticed it then, perhaps because of the juxtaposition of the circumstances and the feeling which have not commonly gone together in the past. Now they do and this must be, at least in some part, because There is no Problem. Everything is perfect.
Seeking to source the cause of my happiness is, of course, self defeating as happiness does not need a cause. It is how we are all the time naturally as it is the only rational response to there being no problems and everything being perfect. Unhappiness comes about by not realising this, by allowing the apparent, but deceitful, evidence of problems and imperfection to invade our thoughts. Then, as a cloud moves over the sun, the light of our happiness is obscured but only obscured, not obliterated, although it can sometimes seem like it has gone not to return. This is much the same as these winter days - the sun still shines but it is possible to, literally, lose sight of this truth due to the clouds and grey skies and the other misleading evidence such as feelings of cold that our minds find in our bodies.
Today's events have raised a question for me that has been lurking for some time. Will this experience of happiness and the world existing without problems and imperfections begin to become, dare I say it, boring? Will it flatten out? Will I long for discomfort so I can feel the relief from it? Will the absence of problems become a problem? Will the continuing perfection be a flaw?
In theory I know it should not as the truth must always be that there are no problems and everything is perfect, but the question remains. Perhaps it is the coccyx of my project - a residual tail of the need for discomfort and imperfection - harking back to an older way of being that is no longer needed or of use but which still remains albeit significantly diminished. Perhaps. For now I will sit with it or, if you like, on it and see if this question answers itself.
3 July 2020 - 28 days in
Bedridden
I got out of bed at around 10 this morning. That wasn't the plan and in fact I had set my alarm for 7am and then had woken at 6am and stayed awake enough to turn the alarm off before it sounded. Yet I stayed in bed. I wasn't depressed. Quite the contrary, as I actually felt very happy and content, but you wouldn't have known that from my behaviour. You see There was no problem. Everything was perfect, but had I finally found the first flaw in my new project? Was I not getting up because, well, why would I if there was no problem and everything was perfect? Yet there was much that I wanted to do and here it was, not getting done, because I stayed in bed til 10am.
As I lay there, from time to time reciting my mantra of there is no problem everything is perfect, I also thought about the things that I should be doing such as my meditation which is always how I start my day. Then, as it was going to be a day free of fixed obligations, there were all those other things I had thought of doing, things I wanted to catch up on. Things, that like my meditation, I was thinking I should do. But of course, that was the problem. Should.
My plan had been to get up earlier, a better time to meditate, and leaving more time free for those other things. That was my perfect mistake - I had made a plan and then tied the acts of my waking and getting up to it - but like all things that are tied to something else there was no freedom and they couldn't go anywhere.
It seems to be an effect of this project that my tolerance for goals and plans has diminished. I can't really handle them that well any more and, between you and me, I was pretty shit at handling them before anyway. So, what got me out of bed this time was not the will to execute my plan; not shame of having missed another dawn; not guilt at starting the day off behind schedule. What got me out of bed was my attitude changing to genuinely reflect the fact that there is no problem and everything is perfect. The consequence of this change was that, instead of what I should be doing, I now saw in front of me just the next thing to do, to have my morning sit (meditation cushion, not toilet) and that is all. I had unknotted the plan from its tether and now my actions were free to flow. Almost as if watching someone else, I then saw the bed covers, those lovely warm covers that had incentivised me to stay put, flying off and my legs swinging over the side of the bed.
From there the day unfolded and so far, as the day is far from over, I have achieved many of the things in my plan, and some I had not even thought of. So, next time I make the resolve to set an early alarm and get on with my day as the sun rises, I may still do it but I will stop at the first part of this sentence. I will set the alarm. If any thoughts of what might happen after that arise I will let them go, ignore them or replace them with There is no problem. Everything is perfect. By not planning to do anything I am sure I will get more done. Or not. Either way, it won't be a problem and it will be perfect.
2 July 2020 - 27 days in
Love actually
What I really like about There is no problem. Everything is perfect is that it makes everything so simple. So far it seems that by applying this mantra to any situation it is usually the case that any complexities fall away and things become easier and more simplified.
This has never been more so than with the latest development in this project which arose this morning as I was driving. It was early morning and the sun was rising, not yet above the horizon to clear the mist in the valleys. As I drove along I suddenly realised that all that is required is that I love everybody. That's it. Simple. I mention the time of day and the weather as the beauty that surrounded my drive may have contributed to the arrival of this insight. Regardless, the insight remains the same. Just love everybody.
What I mean by this can be illustrated with another encounter on the same drive. As I came into town I saw a couple on the side of the road kissing. Perhaps saying goodbye for the day but it was more than a perfunctory embrace. Just love everybody - but what I was witnessing was not a simple example of this statement. It was more complicated.
When there is romantic love the personality comes into play. We feel love for another and with it we are in love with so many things about them. The way they look; talk; how they move; do their hair; or whatever it may be. Our feelings even assist us to overlook disagreeable things ... for a time. This kind of love, although it can feel eternal and unbreakable, is really conditional as it is linked to our ideas about another, our perception of who they seem to be. This is why we are often able to answer the question: what do you love about them? This question might be cute but with it comes the inevitable shadow - what is it about them that you do not love? Perhaps, even, that you hate?
This other love, this more simple love, is not conditional and it is not dependent in any way on appearance or personality. The closest I can come at the moment to describing this kind of love is to say that it is a recognition that this person, any person, is perfect. Not that they have perfect hair or look perfect or even that they are perfectly suited to me or fit in my lifestyle perfectly. Just that they are perfect. It is, perhaps, that love is the only sense we can use to perceive perfection because that is what naturally arises when we see the perfection in another.
I am now practising this in the same way I practice There is no problem. Everything is perfect. Whenever I see another person, whether I know them or not, I remind myself to feel my love for them if this is not already my first response. You might say I connect with my - our - innate ability to feel love for others.
To love others in this way is such a simple thing to do and it has simple consequences. When I do this I do not have to judge or not judge them because as soon as I feel judgement or criticism arising I realise this is taking me away from that feeling of love and I can then stop myself from being distracted like this. Then, without judgement, assessment or criticism, all that other stuff that usually arises when we relate to others, even strangers, falls away. The thought patterns about like and dislike; envy or resentment; superiority and inferiority have nowhere to form and so do not arise, leaving so much more space. You see, love is simple and loving others keeps life simple.
There is another equally as perfect consequence. By loving those around me I am naturally then always surrounded by the people I love. And what could be better than that? Nothing, of course. Because it's perfect.
1 July 2020 - 26 days in
Intolerant
The latest development in this project of There is no problem. Everything is perfect would appear to be intolerance. I could insert here my usual expression of surprise and say I did not see that coming but on reflection I can see that of course I didn't as I did not actually look ahead to see what would happen. Why on earth would I if there is no problem and everything is perfect? But here I am, sitting with intolerance.
My intolerance is not specific to any person or even to a particular situation. It is more general than that. I am finding myself intolerant of how much of what written or spoken in the media, on social media and, to some degree, in my social circles, is hell bent on establishing that there is in fact a problem and everything is indeed not perfect. It would seem that so many of us are convinced of this erroneous assessment of reality that there is some sort of perverse comfort to be found in looking for (and therefore finding) evidence of problems and imperfection. How irritating! (Did I mention that I am feeling irritated as well as intolerant?)
Before I go on I need to clear up one thing. I am not for a moment saying that any of these others - in the media, social media or my friends and family - should for one second change what they are doing. I am not falling into that trap where I take my intolerance and irritation, genuine emotions truly felt, and then identify with them and try and use them to change the world around me so I feel more comfortable. That's no longer my style now that I appreciate that there is no problem and everything is perfect. Quite the contrary. If others want to view the world like that and live in that way then good on them and that is not a problem and is perfect.
I am also not going to let the intolerance and irritation go to waste. I'm using it for my own ends. This isn't taking advantage of others as it is my intolerance and irritation not theirs and, in reality, it has nothing to do with these others I have vaguely implicated in my emotional state. I am using these feelings to motivate me to locate, sweep up and dispose of even more of the residual thought patterns and beliefs that can stop me appreciating in a particular moment or situation that there is no problem and everything is perfect.
There really are not any, or at least very few, negative emotions aren't there? Even these two feelings of intolerance and irritation are positive when responded to from my new paradigm. These are emotions that can get such a bad rap a lot of the time but really they are very useful. They are very positive and I am grateful for them.
29 June 2020 - 24 days in
Perspective
As I continue to use and review the efficacy of There is no problem. Everything is perfect I keep coming back to one insight - this statement and its application is fundamentally one of perspective. This has never been clearer than when I have been looking at how to respond to the question:
Are you saying racism is perfect and is not a problem?
The difficulty with answering this question is that the question and the answer live in different universes. They come from completely different paradigms and cannot meaningfully speak to each other. Let's investigate.
From the paradigm of the question, "Are you saying racism is perfect" we can see that the question really means:
Inherent in this question is a judgement about whether racism is a good or bad thing. Then because a judgement is at the heart of this question there is the unspoken consequence that if you think racism is a good thing, there is no need to do anything about it and you might even want to encourage it, or if you consider it a bad thing then it is inherently a problem and needs to change. This approach is a working forward approach - it seeks to take the circumstances and evaluate them to see whether a problem or perfection is present.
There is no problem. Everything is perfect is a working backward approach. Remember, with this as our mantra we are no longer on a path. We have arrived (although, in truth, we were always here so 'arrived' is a little misleading). We are not evaluating to see if everything is perfect. We know it is. We know there are not any problems. This is our truth.
With this foundation we can then productively look at the question of racism. We only have to take one look and the rest falls into place. That first look shows us that not only is there no problem and everything is perfect but naturally also everyone is perfect. Voila. Any and every possible basis for racism is instantly defeated as with perfection there cannot be any judgement. What would be the point of it? So any notion that someone or some group is inferior or superior; lesser or more; good or bad; better or worse; for whatever reason, is not supportable.
So now that we have established through application of our mantra that thinking, speaking or acting in a racist way is nonsense and clearly wrong we can begin the real work.
The real work is to ask the question "As racism is wrong and to think otherwise is to be ignorant, how much am I subject to this ignorance? How much are those around me? How much is my society? My country?" and so on.
Through this investigation I can seek awareness of my own racist attitudes and tendencies. I can now understand my cultural history more accurately. For example I can see more clearly and trace the racism inherent in colonialism and have a better chance of spotting its ongoing reverberations and effects. With this insight I can make less ignorant choices so that I can reduce racist thoughts, words and action at all levels. I can take action to align myself more with the truth that there is no problem and everything is perfect as racism is inherently unaligned with that truth.
To be mistaken like this, to allow any fear or anger or guilt I might associate with my idea of racism to obscure the reality that all is perfect is to deny me the chance to bring my experience of the world closer to the truth. It also denies me the chance to experience a world where racism is seen as a fallacy and where its chances of survival are greatly diminished. For me, that is a most satisfactory answer to the question of whether racism is perfect and not a problem.
26 June 2020 - 21 days in
Sparking Joy
There is no problem. Everything is perfect is, in some ways, the Marie Kondo for the mind.
I don't know whether you are familiar with her, the Japanese tidying alchemist who has turned other people's mess into her gold and who was so popular for her 15 minutes of fame that op shops throughout the developed world were suddenly flooded with empirical evidence that we live in a culture of excessive consumption.
Marie has a process. She arrives at a house and first acknowledges it as if it is a being. Then in her methodical way she asks people to go through all their stuff and ask the one question - does having this thing spark joy for me? If yes, keep it. If no, out it goes.
The Kondo method has, I think, often been misunderstood. It has been seen as requiring that we chuck pretty much everything out. This is not the Kondo way, however, as her test affects quality not quantity. There is no rule, for example, that you can keep only 30 books. The method is that by bringing your beloved library to the brink of being discarded you will know which volumes you care about and which you don't.
The There is No Problem. Everything is Perfect ™ method is the same. Once we realise this truth - the our sparking joy metric of the mind - we can then measure everything in our mind against it. If the thought or belief does not align with TINPEIP then we can throw it out. By doing this we can get our house in order - Minimalism for the Mind ™ the Kondo way.
(™ = "Tidy Mind")
25 June 2020 - 20 days in
No Going Back
I am only a few weeks into this year long experiment with There is no problem. Everything is perfect and I have just realised that there is no going back. How could I now accept that this is not true?
This is not a matter of vanity or saving face as at the moment I know I could not even say to myself that my mantra is not true, and surely I am not so unaware that I have to save face to myself? The belief that there is no problem and everything is perfect is so deep inside me, so permeates every part of my perception of the world, that to think or believe otherwise seems impossible.
To believe otherwise would result in an understanding and acceptance that I need to do more, that there is more work to do, before reaching perfection and eliminating all problems and that perhaps this is unachievable in this lifetime. To be honest, such an idea seems ridiculous to me now. It seems so ponderous and mistaken compared to what is now my truth.
I am not afraid of the hard work that this alternative truth might require and I fully accept that when we strive to achieve there are many benefits along the way, even before we reach our goal, and so such striving is not futile. This was my experience, being content to be on the path even though the destination seemed a long way off.
Now this view seems so pointless. Why struggle along an imagined path when the truth is that you are, and always have been, at what you perceived to be the end of that path? That you have always been here.
Going back to my old view seems impossible. All the potential logic, the possible arguments, as to why the idea that there is no problem and everything is perfect is wrong, seem so fundamentally flawed I cannot imagine one that would alter my belief. But a year is a long time...
22 June 2020 - 17 days in
Doubt
A surprising development has occurred that is obvious with hindsight but I did not see it coming. It is my relationship with doubt.
Looking back (and it is not that far) I see that I felt bound by limitations. These were not immediately obvious to me but made themselves known when it came time to take action or try something new. Doubt would manifest as some apparently reasonable or genuine concern; as a good reason why I couldn't proceed; as someone else getting in my way; or the weather; or the need to do X before I began to do Y and I haven't done X yet. That kind of thing.
There is no problem. Everything is Perfect has changed that. Recently I began planning a new event for my work. My old friend doubt (actually, not really a friend. We go way back but I don't want to be friends anymore) popped in. Because doubt has the same general feel as other limiting or negative beliefs - a feel of a problem and a lack of perfection - I noticed it and applied what the Buddhists might call the antidote - there is no problem and everything is perfect.
Instantly the idea of obstacles and limitations disappeared. A confidence took hold. A confidence not borne out of knowledge that I would succeed and I knew what I was doing, but a confidence that how could this arising be wrong as, after all, everything is perfect and there can not be any problems.
There was still time to check in and see where this impulse to act came from. What was my motivation? Simply put, was it from my head (ego mind) or heart (heart mind)? It was not from the ego mind and so that was that.
Coming from the ego mind would not have been a problem (of course) but if that had been the case a further step would have been desirable before committing to action. Checking to see it was aligned with the heart mind would have helped as such impulses are effortless, where implementing the activity of the ego mind is work, hard work sometimes, and who needs that when there is already no problem and everything is already perfect.
19 June 2020 - 14 days in
Bad moods
There is no such thing as a bad mood. What a statement! Surely this is the most Polyanna version so far of There is no Problem Everything is Perfect. It is so much in contradiction to our daily experience that only if we are prepared to completely suspend disbelief could we consider such a thing. This may be so, but there is still no such thing as a bad mood.
What we characterise as a bad mood is just yet another misunderstanding of what is going on and this misunderstanding takes us down the wrong track. Let's look at how this happens.
When we feel those emotions we associate with a bad mood our mind can do a couple of things. First it can create a story supporting the situation. "I am in a bad mood because my team lost yesterday" or "my partner talked to me in that way that triggers me" or even "because I get depressed and this is just how I am now".
Second our mind can look for, and usually find, a cause for the feelings we have which it then incorporates into the story. This is apparent from these statements above which each attribute the bad mood to a cause. This cause is then necessarily a problem because it is a situation that has produced a negative outcome, the very definition of a problem. However, as we well know by now, there is no problem, and so this cannot be correct. Not only is this story we tell ourselves - about the origins and justification for our feelings - not true but because it creates the spectre of a problem it can make us feel even worse by reinforcing the notion that our negative feelings were inevitable and our feeling bad out of our control.
Contrary to this common narrative the truth is that the negative effect of what we call a bad mood is not caused by anything in our story; and it is not caused by the unpleasant feelings themselves. It is instead created by the discordance between how we would like to feel and how we actually feel. In other words:
How I want to feel ≠ How I feel
The traditional remedy for this is to do something that will make us feel better - more food, alcohol, drugs, be angry at someone, blame someone, blame ourselves. This is simply adding to the equation to try and make it balance and is not the way to go.
Instead we need to address the other side of the equation. We need to remove the left side - How I want to feel - and the equation collapses. We are simply left with how we feel.
How do we do that? Well, since we know that there is no problem and everything is perfect there is no need for us to have any expectation of how we might feel. How could we? It would be futile as at any point in the future any feeling we have will not be a problem; will not be caused by a problem; and will be perfect.
So what do we do when these negative feelings arise? If we can get behind or beyond the story and the fake attribution to a cause, get rid of the left side of the equation, then we can feel those feelings. That's it. Just feel them. If it is sadness, feel sad. If it is fear, feel afraid. If it is grief, grieve. If it is loss, know that something is lost. Then, as long as we don't fix them in place with our usual story or causal scaffold, they will pass. They weren't a problem - they were feelings - and feelings are always perfect.
17 June 2020 - 12 days in
Flat battery - no problem
I recently had an excellent chance to extend my practice of There is no problem. Everything is perfect. Was heading off to work with a well timed plan to do some errands first and arrive in time for my client. Got in the car and ... nothing. Flat battery. At first that sinking feeling I have had before when completely unexpectedly my car has 'let me down' - a reliable car something that I take for granted. Noticing this feeling I was able to immediately apply my mantra of the reality that there was no problem and everything was perfect and, long story short, I arrived at work on time.
This situation gave me a chance to consider how I respond to events like these. One might say, if there is no problem and everything is perfect, then my car failing to start was meant to be and I should heed the sign, cancel the client and stay home. Who cares, right? Everything is perfect. But this misses the point, the real truth.
This situation was not meant to be. It was not part of some cosmic plan that the universe was communicating to me through the medium of my battery. How could it be? There is no need for a cosmic plan as everything is already perfect. Action or inaction does not need to be communicated to me as there is no problem I need to solve. My car would not start and that was perfect and it was not a problem. I might have been late and that too would have been perfect and not a problem but I also had means to get my car started and to reorganise myself and this is what I chose to do. Why would I change that in some attempt to interpret the meaning of a flat battery?
I had, without thought, assumed that I would get going without the need to jump start my car but that was just part of my constructed idea of my future. Knowing, when things did not go that way, that there was no problem and everything was perfect enabled me to adjust to the actual, as opposed to assumed or thought, unfolding of my plan. This is not seeking to avoid attachment to outcome. It is, instead, knowing that the outcome will not be a problem and it will be perfect.
16 June 2020 - 11 days in
The habit of perfection
It has now become habitual that when I wake up in the morning one of the first things to happen is that I say to myself that There is no problem. Everything is Perfect. This is not habitual in the rote kind of going through the motions way but habitual in that I don't have to remind myself to do it. The saying of it, and more importantly the feeling of it, is still very much alive and I still get that feeling of ease knowing this to be the case.
The knowing of this has an interesting effect on what I once would have characterised as a problem: things in life that I feel need to change or that I want. This perception of there being a gap between what I would like to feel like, how I would like my life to be, and how it is remains but it is much fainter. The understanding that my current situation is perfect, and it is not a problem and that to make it so would be to not understand it, gives me real confidence that I will overcome this dissonance between my current experience and some pictured ideal experience. Change might still occur but it feels it will happen in a more gentle, more sustainable way.
The image that comes to mind is that rather than looking around searching for which path to take and how to get to it I am, instead, standing here, knowing that I am here, in the right place, but doing some cleaning, some housekeeping as it presents itself to be done.
15 June 2020 - 10 days in
Negative thoughts
This project has been going for over a week now and I have certainly noticed that it has changed things.
I have been applying it, There is no problem and Everything is perfect every time I notice a negative thought arising. As a result, the negative thoughts are stopped in their tracks. Sometimes I immediately connect with the feeling of There is no problem and Everything is perfect, and at other times it takes effort and repetition of the mantra, but so far I have always got there. The situation that caused the worry to arise remains, but the worry disappears, and it is a very comforting and warm feeling to know that there is, in fact, no problem and everything is perfect.
The result of this is that I have noticed more and more the perfection in the world, and in the people around me. I know well this idea of "we see what we are looking for", and I also know some of the brain science around how the brain focuses on what it has been trained (by itself!) to focus on, but this is still surprising to encounter in practice. Now, not only do I fundamentally believe that There is no problem and Everything is perfect but it is increasingly becoming my experience of the world.
14 June 2020 - 9 days in
Seeing perfection
I was just reminded of a recent experience that I put down to my focus on the fact that There is no problem. Everything is perfect. I was sitting in a chair reading and looked up to see on a chair a pile of sheets just off the washing line. Instead of a mess, or the next chore to do, I saw perfection in way they folded and curved, like a perfect shell on the beach. It may be that by realising that everything is perfect, I will now see more perfection and my life will be more joyous for it.
6 June 2020 - 1 days in
Day 2
It is Day 2 of this project and I have noticed that it is already having an effect.
In this instance I was driving and a negative thought, a worry, began to form. It was at that stage where I perceived it forming without yet knowing what the subject matter would be. There is a certain feeling that arises along with worrying thoughts. Aware of this, I then immediately applied my new mantra of There is no problem. Everything is perfect and was surprised by the result.
The effect did not change my understanding of the present moment. I remained aware that, as I drove along, there was no problem and everything was perfect. I was comfortable and warm and there was no immediate cause for worry but that is not the nature of worry. Worry is about the future and here I suddenly understood that in the future, at the time the events relating to my worry came to pass, at that time there would still be no problem and everything would still be perfect and that any worrying now was completely pointless as, who can sensibly worry about perfection?
As soon as I had this realisation spurred on by my mantra, the worry dissipated and I was at ease knowing that whatever was going to happen, whatever could happen, it would not be a problem and everything would be perfect.
5 June 2020 - 0 days in
Sisyphus
Most of us have heard of the Greek legend of Sisyphus, who was consigned for eternity to roll a boulder up a hill only to have it elude his control at the last moment and roll back down, causing Sisyphus to once again begin his futile task.
Reflecting this legend, many of us might have encountered times in our lives that seemed to involve Sisyphean tasks that are frustrating and seemingly pointless as every time we begin to get close to our goal something goes awry and we have to start again, or at least go back a few paces before setting off once more. Or the goal is not as close as we thought. Our lives themselves may at times seem like this, with always one more mountain to climb before we get to our destination.
Those of us who have engaged in what can be broadly termed self-improvement may be very familiar with this way of things. We spend so much time striving to improve ourselves, not materially but emotionally and psychologically. We spend our money doing this. If we are lucky we come across the right therapy, practice, religion, school of thought or any combination of these that helps us ease our personal discomfort, helps us heal. We resolve childhood and teen trauma; we resolve issues with our parents and family; we find and face our own limitations and seek to overcome them. All with the goal of being healthier, happier and wiser.
Perhaps we achieve this goal to increasing degrees but there is always the next thing. The next layer of the onion to peel away. Our lives may change. We may find ourselves, find out who we really are. Our relationships may improve, or end, with new and more fulfilling ones replacing them, but as each of these milestones are passed our eyes look ahead to the remaining challenges to be overcome. Continuous improvement is not just a workplace strategy, it’s a lifestyle.
Well, if it is not your lifestyle then it certainly is mine. Ever since my thirties when I started to ‘work on myself’, as the expression goes, this part of my life has increased in intensity and importance. It has become central to who I am and what I do. Happily, I can report real progress and I am not any more troubled by some of the thoughts and behaviours that did not serve me well. I am genuinely happier and have better relationships with friends and family. Particularly in recent years I have felt closer to that Elysian Plain of complete unrelenting happiness and contentment than I could even have imagined in those earlier years. Yet now I realise that this whole time I have been like Sisyphus.
I have been like Sisyphus as no matter how hard I pushed, no matter how hard I struggled and what sacrifices I made, it was always inevitable that not only would I never reach the top of the mountain but my striving, struggling and sacrifice would need to continue without end. The view might improve, the rock might even feel lighter at times and in other moments I might not feel alone in my struggle uphill, but I had still blinded myself to the truth that I was, I am, never going to get there. Encoded within my efforts was the inevitable failure to achieve my goal. Until now.
Now there is no problem. Everything is perfect.