An Integrated Life

Perfect! Who, me?

Hi, my name is Lynne and I am a perfectionist.  Is this an addiction?  I don’t know, but it’s awfully persistent!  Can it be deadly?  Absolutely!  (So I say, I will overcome this.  This is so not perfect!  I’ll just stop.)  Ha!  Here’s just one more (ineffective) attempt to be perfect.

I just read an article about finding that we’ve been setting limits to what we can achieve, whether it’s success or happiness.  If we just stop limiting ourselves, we can have what we want.  But then I thought of the other end of this, setting the bar too high to even get in the game.  Perfectionists are so good at this one.  I know.

So it looks like we really need to raise the limits while lowering the bar.  That creates much more room to move around.  But wait, aren't these both standards, wherever we manage to place them!  Is this the solution?

That’s when it occurred to me that when I’m really happiest, and when I’m really doing my best work, there are no standards.  (Nor do I even know what “best” means!)  There is only absorption in the task at hand (or, as in meditation, the non-task).  This may be that situation some have called being in the “flow.”

Perfectionism requires a constant self-consciousness, always checking in to see how I am doing.  The essential point, here, is that in this “flow” state my focus is on the doing – what, where, with whom.  My focus is not on me!

What has this to do with an integrated life?  Everything, since what I've just accomplished is an integration of my self and that self's living/doing.  Worries about performance can only take place on the fractured, non-integrated plane.

Integrating "Spiritual Intelligence"

I just came across a piece about “spiritual intelligence” and was reminded how essential it is NOT to relegate an awareness of the spiritual dimension into a separate box and put it on the shelf.

Thich Nhat Hanh has pointed out that reality consists of two dimensions, which he calls the ultimate and the historical.  These are very different, requiring different languaging, even.  But they are, nevertheless, the same reality! 

We approach them differently.  We open our minds to the awe of unanswerable questions.  We apply our skill and intelligence to worldly problem that must be solved.  But in truth, the transcendent mystery of life, itself, and the mundane task of changing a baby’s diaper both deal with the same reality.

These very different approaches with their different skills may develop at different rates.  There can be a high-tech wizard who never questions the meaning or value of what he or she is doing.  Or, for that matter, a highly developed spiritual seeker who is not too good at getting along in the world.   (I once saw a therapist who told me my spiritual and mental abilities were very high, I just needed work on the emotional piece.  Sigh.  Fortunately, I’ve been doing that and strengthening those muscles too!)

Living an integrated life means bringing these various parts of consciousness into sync as much as possible.  What aspect of your reality calls to you?  Would you benefit from taking some time to sit with questions of ultimate meaning?  Maybe go to a retreat?  Or is it time to look at your own emotional reactions, exploring the assumptions and beliefs that trigger them?  What about stretching your mind around some new and difficult concepts?

I find these areas, while different, can support one another.  Experiencing an expanded awareness helps loosen my tendency to judge so I can better explore the thoughts behind my emotions.  Learning new concepts and ideas both supports my spiritual practice and the process of self-understanding.  (It is all one, after all!)

Enlightenment

Enlightenment has become a buzz word.  I’m not sure what it means.  To some, it seems to refer to a state in which one has arrived, with all the answers, to live on in a state of bliss.  If this is possible, and if you have attained this, how wonderful! 

But such is not my path.  I seek to awaken—followed by moment-to-moment re-awakening.  It doesn’t take work, so much as constant attention.  (And attention, once you get the hang of it, is joy, not work.)  But, of course, habit pulls me back continually.  Compassion then saves me from myself!

The Buddha was not one for metaphysics.  He refused to speculate.  When asked what he had attained, he simply said, “I am awake.”  What happens when one is awake and paying attention does seem to be an ever-growing sense of understanding.  (I use the word, sense, here because understanding grows far beyond the conceptual.)

But, since I can never know what lies ahead, I can never know what I have yet to understand.  So how can I possibly ever know that I have reached any “ultimate” understanding?  I’m quite happy to just watch and see.

Reality as Process

The thing about change is that it is not about your being in a certain state, then change puts you into another state. This is a habit of thought. Thought puts reality into categories as "things" in order to understand and gain some power over these "things."

Reality IS change IS actually a process of ongoing potential, which we may or may not pursue in any given moment. And even the concept of a "given moment" is misleading, like pulling a note from a song - useful perhaps, but doesn't give you a sense of the song, itelf.

We tend to think we are born, grow into a "person" who has experiences which may cause some transformation, intentional or not, to the original, and then die. This is our most common myth of who we are. But it doesn't tell the real story, any more than separating those notes out from a song can tell us about the song.

So what is this "real" story? Can we know? Our very thinking is so structured according to the fragmentation/pieces model. But there have been insights which can begin to bring us a little closer to something different.

First, there is nothing about us that is separate. Even the body, easiest to objectify, is in constant motion, changing as cells die and new ones are born, from conception to death.

Second, as the cells come into being, grow, decay and die, the whole process is affected by and dependent on elements which are "separate" from the body (such as oxygen molecules, nutrients, micro-organisms, etc.) Can we really say where we begin and leave off, even just physically?

And once we move into the interior, intangible aspects of who we consider this "self" to be, boundaries become even fuzzier. Sure, I can't know what you are thinking, or experience what you are feeling. But so many "others" have influenced what it is I am thinking and feeling, never mind creating the very possibility of my existence! Thich Nhat Hanh created a word to express this concept: he says we "inter-are."

Why bother to understand and express this concept? My experience of my life gets easier and less stressful to the extent I can rest in a perspective that not only gives meaning to the whole, but also relieves the stress of feeling isolated, vulnerable and supposed to "fix" things.

(This is not to deny responsibility! Responsibility, after all, is really about the ability to respond to whatever is required in a situation - something I am far better able to do when I'm not stressed by focusing on too narrow a sense of self.)