An Integrated Life

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!)

Growing as Continuation

There is a counter movement that often comes just after I have pulled myself into that newer, more vital way of being, when I have succeeded in acting from that freer space to be who I am (but have never been before).  The joy and excitement of that movement is followed by a dullness, a flat, tired grief for the person I am no longer and the life I can never again lead.  And, of course, the guilt that I've left both that girl behind, and her mother, who couldn't follow me to this new place.

When my mother was dying, she asked me to wait for her.  I assumed, given the confusion her mind was in at the time, that she had it backwards.  She was the one doing the leaving, after all.  But now I understand that I had already left her to become someone she couldn't understand anymore.  I had already broken the old covenant that I would take care of her by letting her lead,  and I continue to break it every time I move ahead into my own life.  In that sense I must leave her behind, or break the greater law of all life.  Just as my own children must do the same.

But in that moving ahead is the continuation of all life, past, present and future.  For we are all linked together, regardless of intention or belief, and there is really no leaving behind and no being left.  I can't explain this, I didn't believe it before.  But now that the initial grief and guilt have worn off, along with the memory of a difficult transition with illness and dementia, the old force of her personality is coming back, almost as thought she had been away and has returned, to some degree, in every member of our family.  There is no one who knew her well who was not influenced by her.  She lives in me, and in all of us.

Part of an integrated life is understanding that no life stands alone.  Part of who I am includes everyone who has ever influenced me.  And my own life extends out into every person I have ever really touched and changed.  It is a continuum.

Integrating Outer With Inner

I’ve come to realize that, important as it is to integrate all the scattered pieces of oneself, it’s every bit as important to integrate that self into the larger reality of which we are all a part. I am currently in an online dialogue group, working to start such a dialogue group locally (as a face-to-face group), and I am helping to get a Buddhist meditation group going in my Unitarian Universalist church.

Wholeness

Leave anything out and you are not whole (as in healthy, complete, undivided). Of course I don't mean running around acting out your worst impulses. It's more like acknowledging that those impulses exist and are part of you. Humility, I have realized, is a very healthy trait - I don't mean thinking that I have bad thoughts so I'm not really a very good person, this is just an inverse kind of pride, but realizing I am human and I have thoughts I don't like having, but they are there, just as they are there for others, and I don't have to choose to act on them.

More lessons from life

A short hiatus. My mother went into the hospital last Friday & I've been there most of the time ever since. But learning lots. It has definitely been a roller coaster ride. Once I would have tried to stay level, stay in control. I'm learning that's just a lot of wasted energy and doesn't work, besides. It really is OK to ride the ups and downs, so long as I pay attention and know where I am in a given moment.

My mom was getting better, finally. I was sitting by her bed talking with her about getting her strength back, laughing with her over some of the wierd delusions she had while she was very sick, when she suddenly went into some kind of seizure & my own heart stopped. I ran for the nurse, my mother recovered & seemed a little scared, but otherwise normal. The nurse went to call the doctor & get the necessary tests ordered.

I was sitting there, agonizing over the possibility that I might lose her after all, just when she was getting better, when I realized what I was doing. I was off in some future realm of awful possibilities, which might never happen, and whether they did or not, my worrying was keeping me from being with my mother in that moment, while she was very much alive. I was able to set those fears to one side and just appreciate being there with her.

She did not die. And the fact that an underlying issue with her heart came to light when and where it did may turn out to be a very lucky thing. The future only reveals itself a moment at a time. Trying to second guess it is only pointless, wasteful, and the cause of no end of suffering. I am grateful for the lesson.

Some Examples

I've noticed I've been trying to define "an integrated life" in terms of ideas and abstract concepts. Not very lively! So now I'm looking back at the past week to see what I learned about integration from my own experience.

First, I realized there was a huge lesson in the value of integrating all my feelings, whether I approve of them or not. I found myself getting irritable and angry. When I looked closer, I realized it started when I went with my mother to her doctor's appointment. The doctor had told me my mother was "a massive stroke waiting to happen." Not a surprise, really, but somehow it has more impact when the doctor says it. Still, my beief was that "I can handle this," so I was ignoring the feelings of anger and sadness. But this is part of the grief process, as I finally realized, and I need to allow whatever feelings there are to come up and just pay attention to them. Otherwise I just get tense and can't sleep and don't function well.

Also (as if that hadn't been enough for one week), I was reminded how we need each other and how tricky the work of community can be at times. There was a sometimes heated email debate among members of a group, which resulted in tensions which might have been avoided had we all been sitting together with a few ground rules of respectful listening and sharing. (I believe strongly in this kind of dialogue - it takes time and patience, but a group can be stronger and smarter as a result, not to mention the individuals in that group.) Still, most were trying hard to be considerate, even in print. The issue has died, but some extraordinarily thoughtful emails continue to come. My respect and affection for the people in this group has grown and I am realizing how important a role they play in my life.

Being Awake

I'm reading a book called Awake in the Heartland (see the link in my sidebar if you're interested). The author does a really good job of expressing non-dual awareness. All concepts are really illusion, false by virtue of the abstraction. What is true, what is real is what is. It is right here, right now, and it is everything
that is here and now. As the Buddhist sutra on Perfect Understanding concludes, there is no attainment and no path. I know this, I experience this, much as I also forget.

So why am I writing this blog? Why am I coaching people to attain their goals? Am I not dealing in illusion? But then we are living in illusion, at least most of the time. And maybe my thoughts can be of use to somebody. The subtitle of Tollifson's book is The Ecstasy of What Is. Reality, itself, is mystery and miracle. There is no attaining it because it always is. Learning to drop the illusions enables us to see that, and therein lies the ecstasy. Thich Nhat Hanh advises us to practice being in the present, so as to not miss our lives. I've found that to be profound advice.