TRANSMUTING NEUROSIS: UNCOILING THE SNAKE

Caduceus

"...even the things inside us that seem most terrible or unworkable contain a deeper intent that needs to be unlocked and redirected in a life-affirming way. Hidden within every wound we always find a particular blessing. If we blame ourselves for our personality patterns, we cannot access the gift contained within them and thus only impoverish ourselves further. Whatever we are struggling with, whatever seems most neurotic, can become an important stepping-stone on our way. Whatever problem, question, or confusion we have, whatever seems impossible in our lives--if we go toward it, see it, feel it, make a relationship with it, use it--becomes our path.
Tantric Buddhism uses the metaphor of a snake uncoiling in midair to describe the process of awakening. The coils of our neurosis have raw, wild energy tangled up in them. To uncoil these tangles, so that we do not remain ensnared, we do not have to kill the snake, or even sublimate its energy into more socially approved forms. Instead, by simply allowing it to do what in naturally wants to do--to unwind--we can tap its power and aliveness. What allows the coiled snake of the mind to unwind is awareness and gentle compassion. Compassion does not try to suppress the snake's wildness, but rather draws on the energies tied up in our neuroses to propel us forward on our path. And this path--of liberating the qualities of our being, proclaiming and celebrating them, and using them to help ourselves and other people--is never ending."

Toward a Psychology of Awakening
John Welwood
pp. 33,34

AWAKENING SPACIOUSNESS

Narcissus

Several years ago I had a large copy of this print framed and hanging in my bedroom, primarily as another expression of the insight from my Pogo cartoon, "We have found the enemy and he us us". My experience has been that, in Ernest Becker's words, "normality is neurosis". And from the wisdom that comes from those in AA, we can be more specific as to the nature of this neurosis; "Selfishness-self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles." End of story?
Some time later my partner at the time, in referring to my practice of centering prayer, accused me of engaging in just the sort of selfish selfcentered behavior my artwork referred to. It was suggested that I should rather be spending my time helping others instead of prayer for myself all the time. John Welwood in Toward a Psychology of Awakening speaks directly to this issue. "Misconceptions of meditation are common in the West. Some view it as a self-improvement technique, others regard it as a passive withdrawal from the world. The approach developed here allows us to avoid both these pitfalls, for it is grounded in an understanding of the total interpenetration of organism and environment, self and world. In this light, the following description of meditation from a Tibetan text begins to make sense:

One should realize that one does not meditate in order to go deeply into oneself and withdraw from the world...There should be no feeling of striving to reach some exalted or higher state, since this simply produces something conditioned and artificial that will act as an obstruction to the free flow of the mind...The everyday practice is simply to develop a complete awareness and openness to all situations and emotions, and to all people, experiencing everything totally without mental reservations and blockages, so that one never withdraws or centralizes onto oneself...When performing the meditation practice, one should develop the feeling of opening oneself out completely to the whole universe with absolute simplicity and nakedness of mind". The way in is the way out.