Well, having read over what I wrote yesterday, it's interesting to see how it compares to the experience of having written it. Putting it down in print like that was a highly emotional experience, with at least a high level of elapsed perceived time. However, reading it now, it comes across as fairly mundane. Also there were a few typos, stemming from the fact that I didn't have the fortitude to reread and relive what I had just written in order to edit it. I will leave it the way it is as a snapshot of my state of mind when I wrote it. One of the things that was interesting to me was the strong emotion and spontaneous crying that occurred when I wrote about loving my grandmother. Her memory often brings up strong emotions with me. I was very upset when she died, and I often sadden when I think about her. We apparently formed a very strong bond when I was quite young. (I can still fondly remember when she bought me a nice Schwinn bicycle.) Yet it was still a surprise when this spontaneous upwelling of strong emotion occurred. It is like I need to use inference to understand my own interior workings. I can't actually say what's going on deep inside me and motivating me directly. Apparently I need to observe the way I react to the world to infer what's going on internally.
An example of this sort of inner inference is the incident I mentioned in a previous blog post where I saw myself stabbing outward toward the one who hurt me. It was really just in observing that process that I realized the sort of deep hurt that was driving my behavior, although I actually hesitate to write "my" because the experience was somewhat dissociative. I actually did not identify with the hurt individual. Rather I saw myself as caring for that individual whose motives I could see but had no direct access to! Other revelatory experiences of this nature have occasionally occurred with me over the years. Many years ago I was watching the movie "Monster's Ball" with my wife. The main character, played by Billy Bob Thornton has a bad relationship with his son, and in one scene, Thornton's character arrives to see his son in a room with a gun. After the son gets the father to admit that he had always hated him, I expected the son to strike back with harsh words or fire the gun which seemed thematically right and I suppose what I identified with. Instead the son points the gun at himself, and defiantly says "Well, I have always loved you," at which point he pulls the trigger and kills himself. Immediately I broke out in uncontrollable sobs (which upset my wife, because she had no idea what to do to help me). I'm still not exactly sure what the scene triggered within my psyche, but it was certainly a revelation to me at how deeply my relationship with my dad had affected me.
There's not a lot in Buddhist psychology that is similar to the Freudian or Jungian unconscious, but it seems clear that the Freudian school is onto something real and that it is a useful and valid mode of probing one's own interior. Obviously there are dangers. Because of the inherent subjectivity of this mode of analysis, it seems like it would be easy to confabulate all sorts of specious explanations. Freud himself seems to have done this. I suppose with the stability of meditative experience, it becomes easier to see which experiences are "true" and which may trap you in a web of ideas and further problems.
In any event, I think continued meditation and openness to inner experience are the key. Now that I am grappling with my issues openly, it's actually possible for me to meditate well. I've also noticed that my compassion and empathy for others is increasing. Pema Chodron talks about how bodhicitta is a tender spot which is your gateway to compassion for others. I can see the truth of this. The rawness and tenderness of my own wound are indeed a gateway for me to become directly concerned with the feelings and happiness of others. Seeing and acknowledging my own allows me to also see and acknowledge others. Wanting to heal my own, openly and consciously, allows me to spontaneously think the same of others. When I started the blog back up, one of the things that deeply bothered me was that I seemed to have lost touch with my compassion. Thankfully, I seem to be regaining contact.
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