It may be too early for me to find words for the sense of how internal opposites appear chaotically in awareness when something as tragic and lethal as terrorism and war galvanize our conscience. There is a restlessness in me when I pause and suspend my fairly well-educated bias in the midst of an argument or tense exchange around these topics. The anxiety grows, becomes more alive, and I usually slip off the edge, collapse my attention into an internal dialogue until I've banished the intrusive uncertainty with a familiar refrain of meaning.

There seems to be too areas equally valid, and not necessarily congruent with each other, at least in appearance. The domain of inner struggle seems to require a kind of open or unbiased attention that isn't equipped, or perhaps even meant, to resolve global affairs in the same form. This internal holding of opposites I've learned in Focusing from Ann Cornell, but the thread title is taken from the Jungian analyst Nathan Schwartz-Salant's book "The Mystery of Human Relationship: Alchemy and the Transformation of the Self."

Even though I'm fairly convinced of the need to do what the administration is doing in response to terrorism and Iraq, there is this ferment inside requiring more than just good ideas or carefully weighed explanations. I sense these tensions would be there regardless of which view or pole I allied myself to, or even in my current situation where there is some openness to liberal views, or at least not summarily dismissing that voice. And so while I consider myself rather pluralistic, there is much more to the stirring or restlessness I'm trying to describe than can be contained through simply acquiring more information about war, culture, terrorism, etc.

War, culture, terrorism . . . how can these not evoke and reflect our larger, unconscious psychological life? Schwartz-Salant has a column in a psychoanalytic journal that addresses this struggle and our tendency to split off from it without spending time engaging the fomenting inner contents of the interior life. He treats this at length in the book I cite above, published in 1998.

This emerging chaos and the tendency to split off doesn't mean that a position on the war, for instance, is untenable or ill-founded, but that treating its interior expression as we might the global one isn't an adequate response for what is trying to get our attention. And this makes sense, as there are many conflicting topics that embody this deeper existential set of polarities.

We live in a dualistic world and experience much of the internal life as a dynamic interplay of opposites. But there is little patience with how these tensions emerge. There may be a circuit of racing thoughts, or a tight stomach unleashing a sense of urgency to solve or explain the problem immediately, gather more information, all toward finding the comfort of a familiar pattern. Since I seldom really wait, hang out with the uncertainty itself, it gets split off and the familiar pattern is where I seek haven. But when I do sit with it, be with both poles as conflicting sensations, watch its intensity, listen to those divergent longings, it begins to impart its own life. There really is something there that is more than can be known through the normal means of explicating an issue.

Along with opposites often comes conflict. Dealing with conflict constructively or avoiding conflict without being destructive is much easier said than done, the latter often being severely underrated.

Brad:

I hope it's clear that I'm talking about interior conflicts and a way to deal with them as equal aspects of the mind, usually split off, with one projected as estranged. Actually, it is a meditation that also ends up helping me look more closely at the polarities of current geopolitical issues; yet this is only an after-effect of the process.

I hope it's clear that I'm talking about interior conflicts and a way to deal with them as equal aspects of the mind

Sorry. You know me: I give you whatever comes off the top of my head, even if that seemingly comes from the bottom of the barrel. But I will say that interior conflicts lead to exterior conflicts and I wonder how dealing with both might be similar or different. When I'm internally conflicted I think I do what many people do (it's a tried and true method): nothing, and just hopes the problem goes away. That is, I'm a liberal at heart. But do continue on and ask some specific questions and I might get a better handle on all this.

Brad:

When I speak of internal polarities it is simply what Buddhists refer to as craving and aversion, not something we completely resolve, since it is innate to the dualistic world we live in. But the emphasis here, for me, is to spend some time each day paying attention to how one pole always arises with another, and being with each such that awareness is known to be a bigger space. The polarities seem to want this kind of response, as though they are waiting for a certain recognition in conscious awareness for how both are related to each other. Their energies are able to do something creative rather than just oppose each other continually.

I'll get back with you on how this might or might not apply to external matters. But tolerating uncertainty, figuring in complexity, without paralyzing one's ability to act, is the general extrapolation.

But the emphasis here, for me, is to spend some time each day paying attention to how one pole always arises with another, and being with each such that awareness is known to be a bigger space. The polarities seem to want this kind of response, as though they are waiting for a certain recognition in conscious awareness for how both are related to each other.

I suppose we all have different ways of doing this. You might meditate while I might use more external means � apparently. But I think I know what you mean and I find that my subconscious, true self, higher self, bigger space, or whatever one wants to call it, needs to be feed information and then I just let it cook, simmer, ruminate, and ripen. But the way I feed the higher self this information is to try � really try � (and not always so successfully) to listen to an opposing viewpoint or idea and walk around with it a little as if in the other person's shoes. The resulting new thought might pop out today or tomorrow but something always pops out. I suppose one uses whatever tools one has. Since I have great difficulty being quiet and no difficulty at all using my imagination I use this method. My awareness consists of picking the fruits that come into consciousness, putting them in the basket, and presenting them on the dinner table. I'm not sure that I ever really do approach the opposites or polarities in any other way than this. I suppose I approach my brain and higher self as a black box. It sounds like others have found ways to be inside that box from time to time and watch the hidden processes.

"But I think I know what you mean and I find that my subconscious, true self, higher self, bigger space, or whatever one wants to call it, needs to be feed information and then I just let it cook, simmer, ruminate, and ripen. But the way I feed the higher self this information is to try � really try � (and not always so successfully) to listen to an opposing viewpoint or idea and walk around with it a little as if in the other person's shoes. The resulting new thought might pop out today or tomorrow but something always pops out."

Brad:

This is very much like my experience as well, and exchanges here on SP give many occasions for it, don't they? And especially to be with a point-of-view that stirs strong emotions of the aversive type and remain open to its possibility takes effort for me as well. The time spent meditating is when the conflicting forces are fairly strong. I often get swept away, but there are times when awareness is big enough just to observe and listen with curiosity, but it isn't usually clear - ambiguity tends to accompany the intensity, even though the issues that triggered the spasm in my head and/or stomach are obvious enough. But there is this emergence you describe of insight, a sense of the other point-of-view that is more than I could have acquired just by thinking it through piece by piece from the beginning.

But there is this emergence you describe of insight, a sense of the other point-of-view that is more than I could have acquired just by thinking it through piece by piece from the beginning.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. Unless it's a math problem I find that thinking about a problem � piece by piece � is pretty much worthless to me. By not thinking I do my best thinking. Shut up, JB.

this emergence you describe of insight, a sense of the other point-of-view that is more than I could have acquired just by thinking it through piece by piece from the beginning

Sounds like genuine dialogue, if not actually with another person or group then at least a wholistic engagement of their perspective

JB:

Sometimes your blending of semantics and ontology scare me more than the war . . .

This emerging chaos and the tendency to split off doesn't mean that a position on the war, for instance, is untenable or ill-founded, but that treating its interior expression as we might the global one isn't an adequate response for what is trying to get our attention. And this makes sense, as there are many conflicting topics that embody this deeper existential set of polarities.

I have this sense that the inner struggles produced through one's awareness of the war and the kind of reflection on this issue such as we've had here are significant unto both our future interior situation and the external situation in the world. Anyone who opens oneself to this situation is surely becoming vulnerable to incredible negativity, which is why I can only watch a bit of news each night.

My right ribs hurt! They burn with a scorching pain which exudes a sense of panic and dread--almost as though something of the war has come home to roost in my own being. The mind becomes agitated and its judgments darkened. And yet, behind it all, the True Self sees the situation and takes a stand to simply hold it all in loving awareness.

In my meditation, the ribs "detoxify" and sometimes there are tears or retching; the breath slowly deepens; the mind becomes clear--the deep, azure light communicating the immediacy of existence; joyful wisdom becomes established in the ribs.

I leave my cushion feeling whole and at peace, wondering if I should just forsake the madness and enjoy the exquisite smells of the fresh morning air (meditation opens my sense of smell in a big way). Without looking at the headlines, I leave the newspaper in its wrapper and make breakfast, dress, read a bit of Scripture. I then go to my computer. There the world greets me and I interact with it . . . digital packets communicating something of the morning meditation, I hope, are typed to this one and that one. In time, I read the news, I read the forums, etc. The ribs are burning again! Why did I do this? Why not just never-mind and let the leaders do their work, as they will?

But there is this sense that I am something of a "sin-eater." Deep down inside, all is well, but my poor ribs have become filled again with a vile, desperate insanity. It is impressed on me that for the evil that has taken hold in this race to be expelled, it must reside in someone who can absorb its twisted energies, hold it without acting it out, and allowing the energy to be released and diffused in a context of loving awareness. This is energy that will not be passed on to someone else . . . will trigger no bullets, no WMD, no abuse of a child . . . if only I will be faithful to living in the greater self even in the midst of pain.

There is the Christ who has walked this way and punctured the decisive hole through the web of darkness. I rely on him to hold me together and show me how to carry this pain. By evening, it is very bad--a twisting, churning tornado of fire. But no one would guess. I seem to be "normal," and so I am: eating, conversing, exercising--all goes on as usual. And the ribs scream! My doctor has found nothing; I wasn't surprised.

Evening meditation and a little relief. Sleep is light; always is. Dreams are vivid; lots of flying around, at times. It's easy: just "think" yourself in a direction, and off you go.

Morning again, the ribs relaxed, ready to let go of their burden. Do a few yoga stretches; coffee and a few Crackin' Oat Bran nuggets to help settle in. Blessed relief and joy: the blue light cometh; joyful wisdom!

Perhaps this morning I'll just smell the lucious breezes and let the world go on without me?

Maybe one day.

That was a generous and depthful sharing, Phil. There can be no doubt that, even in the merriment of Cana, Jesus was not out of touch with the enormity of sin and the immensity of human suffering. I think you described a dynamic within yourself that participates in His redemptive suffering, that knows, with Mary, the juxtaposition of joy and sorrow. As we consider, per Ignatius, the three degrees of humility, that we neither want to be in serious nor venial sin and, beyond that even, that we want to imitate Christ, even conforming ourselves to His Passion, all, to me, seems right with your world, even when your ribs are aching.

namaste, indeed
jb

Perhaps this morning I'll just smell the lucious breezes and let the world go on without me?

I don't know if you're like me, Phil, but I know I'm wound too tight at times. I think I must be the world's best Buddhist because I have so many breaths to count. I can be just sitting and I'll notice my shallow, quick breathing. One probes one's mind to try to find the unresolved issues that abound but they sometimes just never want to make themselves known. Sometimes I too have a real pain in the ribs and I think I know exactly what you mean. There are so many things we'd like to control but can't. There are so many things that need to be put right but that resist being put right.

My internal opposites are like the 3rd Armor Division meeting the Republican Guard with sandstorms blowing through oil-smoke air. Intellectually I know that there is peace above the storm but I have such trouble gaining altitude. But sometimes, even if just for small moments, I gain an awareness of a perspective that eases the tensions; then poof it is gone. Yes, my life's goal is now to put more time between my poofs. I'm sure that cutting down on the beef jerky will help with this too.

Beef Jerky . . . oh, so that's why . . . never mind.

Beef Jerky . . . oh, so that's why . . . never mind.

If Phil had an emoticon for that (or would that be an emiticon?) I could fill up my posts with them.

Gee...is there ANY discussion I can't drag down a couple levels? (That was not a wink.)