Religion as Practice: No pain, no gain?

[wynn]

You mean for them to make a similar gain they would have to suffer or does that mean that if they experienced exactly what I experienced they would have labeled it gain via pain?

Both.


I find, for example, Christianity, a school of Hinduism, CBT, DBT and also ACT to cause me great suffering, and the gains do not even remotely outweigh the pains.

 

[Yazata]

Some Western Buddhist teachers point out that many Westerners take up Eastern beliefs and practices in this spirit: to reinforce their negative self-image.

Of course it's true that abusing one's self can be just as bad as being its servant. It's just another form of bondage to what may very well be an illusion. Both self-love and self-hatred seem to be manifestations of a similar problem -- an unhealthy fascination with one's own self.

These people perceive those Eastern beliefs and practices as proof that what they believed about themselves all along, is true. But they couldn't be further from the truth!

Self-love and self-hatred are flip sides of the same coin, it seems to me. One is subjectively more pleasurable than the other, but both are ultimately disfunctional.

Some Western Buddhist teachers even maintain that spiritual practice cannot begin until the self-hatred stops.

Isn't the spiritual practice supposed to address that kind of stuff?

In Buddhism, it doesn't make much sense to make the cessation of dukkha a precondition to beginning the path leading to the cessation of dukkha.

 

[Yazata]

Signal posted this very good little summary:

One of the basic Buddhist teachings is that that which is inconstant, is not the self and is stressful.
Identifying with things that are inconstant (thoughts, emotions, body, possessions) leads to suffering. Buddhists aspire to make an end to suffering.

Pineal says:

yes, though if it is not right for you, and you correctly, for yourself, identify with one of these, then Buddhist practice can become self-hate. Not one specific to you as an individual. I, Steve, am bad. But rather in the act of disidentifying, one is attacking that portion of the self.

The Buddhists would question your "and you correctly, for yourself, identify with one of these".

If somebody experiences no suffering and is already totally satisfied and blissful, then he or she has no need for Buddhism. At least right now, at this moment. The inevitable cessation of the conditions that cause the bliss might turn out to be very stressful when they finally appear.

But most people aren't already totally satisfied and blissful. They do suffer, even suffering subtly when they think that they are happiest. And many people dream of some heaven, some promised paradise, where everything will finally be... right.

If that's the case, then a person might feel the need to find some path to salvation, I guess.

The Buddhists locate the ultimate source of our dissatisfaction in our basic sense of self. It's the deepest thing, the thing that we feel the most need to feed, the thing we are most determined to protect and most reluctant to surrender. All of our attachments to everything else in the transitory world of flux all trace back to our attachment to that.

And the Buddhists believe that kind of solid inner core is an illusion...

So yes, there probably is something in Buddhism that might look to some observers like self-hatred. But it isn't "hatred" exactly, since hating the self is really no different than loving it. Both loving it and hating it are still just forms of dependency on it.

Trying to violently slay one's imagined but nevertheless fascinating inner self isn't the right way to approach this. If that was all that there was to it, then suicide would be the perfect shortcut to nibbana.

What a Buddhist needs to learn is how to be dispassionate about, and no longer dependent, whether positively or negatively, on what's happening to their own supposed self. That's what mindfulness is all about. The goal isn't to forcibly suppress one's self, it isn't to squash a fantasy into non-existence. The object is simply to be non-judgementally aware of what's actually happening, of how perceptions and thoughts are linked and cause one another in the inner process.

 

[wynn]

Of course it's true that abusing one's self can be just as bad as being its servant. It's just another form of bondage to what may very well be an illusion. Both self-love and self-hatred seem to be manifestations of a similar problem -- an unhealthy fascination with one's own self.

I like Thanissaro Bhikkhu's approach to this:

No-self or Not-self?

The Not-self Strategy

Selves & Not-self

Self-love and self-hatred are flip sides of the same coin, it seems to me. One is subjectively more pleasurable than the other, but both are ultimately disfunctional.

Some Western Buddhist teachers even maintain that spiritual practice cannot begin until the self-hatred stops.

Isn't the spiritual practice supposed to address that kind of stuff?

In Buddhism, it doesn't make much sense to make the cessation of dukkha a precondition to beginning the path leading to the cessation of dukkha.

See, for example, Cheri Huber's work and Tara Brach's Radical Acceptance.

What seemed to have catalyzed an awareness and acknowledging of self-hatred among Western Buddhists was that incident where the Dalai Lama was asked to speak about self-hatred - and he didn't know what it was.
Accounts vary as to what his exact reaction was; some even say that he cried after it was explained to him what self-hatred was; he felt sorry and couldn't understand how anyone could feel that way about themselves.

Some Western Buddhists (such as Robert Augustus Masters) maintain that a self-hating Westerner ought to first go to psychotherapy, to deal with the psychological issues first.

Cheri Huber worked out a kind of introductory level program that although Buddhist in nature, doesn't look much like it, and allows a self-hater to approach Buddhism from a perspective doable to them.



From Thanissaro Bhikkhu:

/.../
Don't let thoughts of frustration or discouragement take charge of the mind. The Dalai Lama once said the thing he found most surprising about Westerners was their self-hatred. In Tibet, he said, only the village idiots feel self-hatred. Of course, he said that smiling, but it's a pretty harsh judgment. And it's also true, I noticed, in Thailand. Perhaps not so much any more: As modern culture moves in, it really does teach people to hate themselves, to feel bad about themselves. It holds up all sorts of images of physical and financial perfection that nobody can live up to. But in traditional culture, one of the basic skills of being a human being was, essentially, how to feel good about yourself, how to love yourself, how to wish yourself well, and how to act intelligently on that wish. Only really stupid people would hate themselves, and yet that kind of stupidity is rampant now in the modern world. Be careful not to pick it up.
/.../

Source



/.../
This is not only the view of trained Western psychologists. Buddhist communities in the West have also begun to recognize this problem and have coined the term “spiritual bypassing” to describe it: the way people try to avoid dealing with the problems of an unintegrated personality by spending all their time in meditation retreats, using the mantra of egolessness to short-circuit the hard work of mastering healthy ego functioning in the daily give and take of their lives.

Then there’s the problem of self-hatred. The Dalai Lama isn’t the only Asian Buddhist teacher surprised at the amount of self-hatred found in the West. Unfortunately, a lot of people with toxic super-egos have embraced the teaching on egolessness as the Buddha’s stamp of approval on the hatred they feel toward themselves. These problems have inspired many Western psychologists to assume a major gap in the Buddha’s teachings: that in promoting egolessness, the Buddha overlooked the importance of healthy ego functioning in finding true happiness.

This assumption has led to a corollary: that Buddhism needs the insights of Western psychotherapy to fill the gap; that to be truly effective, a healthy spiritual path needs to give equal weight to both traditions. Otherwise you come out lopsided and warped, an idiot savant who can thrive in the seclusion of a threeyear, three-month, three-day retreat, but can’t handle three hours caught in heavy traffic with three whining children.
/.../


Source

 

[wynn]

And the Buddhists believe that kind of solid inner core is an illusion...

Not all Buddhists.
There is quite a bit of discpute among Buddhists on what exactly the Buddha said about whether there is a self or not and how.


May I ask what your particular Theravada affiliation is?

 

[wellwisher]

If you look at the layers of the human personality, starting from the surface to the core, on the very surface is the persona or mask of the ego. This is the mask you show strangers. This may involve makeup, fashion, bling, and conscious attitude like learned swagger. It is all learned and superficial to who you are.

Below the mask is the ego proper, which not only contains the mask but also contains things of a personal nature, which often close friends and relatives will know. The tough jock may be afraid of flies. This may not show up in the mask, but friends will know. Below the ego is the personal unconscious which contains personal memories and repressions, etc. For the most part, this is all most people seem to think there is.

Below the personal unconscious is the collective unconscious. This aspect of the unconscious mind is not personal, but rather define natural human propensity or that which characterizes being human; human nature. The closest layer of the collective unconscious, just below the personal unconscious, is called the shadow. This is connected to personality firmware connected human instincts. The sex drive, which we all have, comes from the shadow layer.

Below this shadow is the layer of the personality firmware called the anima in males and the animus in females. These define collective human propensities more connected to emotions instead of instincts, such a love and empathy, which are human. One can have a sex drive, but once it becomes love the layer has shifted.

The next deeper layer are the firmware of meaning which give humans that natural ability to learn and understand the environment so they can shape it. We depend in education, but if that was not there we would learn naturally based on observation and trial and error.

At the very center or bottom of the collective unconscious is the inner self, which is center of the collective unconscious. Just as the ego has its mask, the inner self uses the personality firmware as its many masks. The inner self may compel with desire and then change to love.

When one sacrifices the ego, the goal is to work your way toward the core. The sacrifice is about not staying on the surface. As along as the ego is staying shallow at the mask, the lower levels, including the personal unconscious are unconscious and subject to social, personal and collective repressions. In Nazi Germany the repression was the level of the firmware, allowing powerful dynamics.

The punishing of the body, such as ascetic cults is actually based on repression of the collective unconscious or the shadow appetites of the body, in favor of the ego.

The Buddha was about repression of the ego, but to descend toward the core. The ego and culture will add obstructions within the lowest layers and the goal was to remove these obstructions, like layers of the onion, so the inner self is broadcasting cleanly to the ego; enlightenment.

If you considered why prophets like Buddha leave the herd is because they needed to separate external from internal input. Isolation only allows internal input. The data stream comes from the core instead of the mask.

 

[Pineal]

The Buddhists would question your "and you correctly, for yourself, identify with one of these".

I agree. They tend to think their path is necessary for all ___________(souls, sort of) sooner or later, in some incarnation, eventually. I think they are incorrect.

If somebody experiences no suffering and is already totally satisfied and blissful, then he or she has no need for Buddhism. At least right now, at this moment. The inevitable cessation of the conditions that cause the bliss might turn out to be very stressful when they finally appear.

But most people aren't already totally satisfied and blissful. They do suffer, even suffering subtly when they think that they are happiest. And many people dream of some heaven, some promised paradise, where everything will finally be... right.

If that's the case, then a person might feel the need to find some path to salvation, I guess.

Sure. And if someone wants that path, fine. I am not countering the Buddhist generalization with one that says their path is wrong.

The Buddhists locate the ultimate source of our dissatisfaction in our basic sense of self. It's the deepest thing, the thing that we feel the most need to feed, the thing we are most determined to protect and most reluctant to surrender. All of our attachments to everything else in the transitory world of flux all trace back to our attachment to that.

yes, they do.

And the Buddhists believe that kind of solid inner core is an illusion...

Semi-agreed. The whole atma anatma seems a mixed and overall confused set of suppositions to me in Buddhism. I mean, take the idea of reincarnation - how does that make sense without a self? If it is merely an illusion of self that comes back, I mean, why even mention it?

So yes, there probably is something in Buddhism that might look to some observers like self-hatred. But it isn't "hatred" exactly, since hating the self is really no different than loving it. Both loving it and hating it are still just forms of dependency on it.

Though if I disengage with a part of what is, in fact, me, this is not treating myself lovingly, even if the goal is loving. Note, again. I am not saying Buddhism is wrong. I cannot know what the real selves of other people are. For others to understand my choice I am saying that Buddhism is for me, and others I know, a practice of severing and disconnection, and that would be repeated acts of self-hate, for us, and likely at least some others, whereas it might be fine and right for others.

I am not saying Buddhist want us to feel hatred toward ourselves, but I do think they do not understand at least some of us, or what their suggestions are for us.

Trying to violently slay one's imagined but nevertheless fascinating inner self isn't the right way to approach this. If that was all that there was to it, then suicide would be the perfect shortcut to nibbana.

No, I have no illusion this is what Buddhism is suggesting, in general.

What a Buddhist needs to learn is how to be dispassionate about, and no longer dependent, whether positively or negatively, on what's happening to their own supposed self. That's what mindfulness is all about. The goal isn't to forcibly suppress one's self, it isn't to squash a fantasy into non-existence. The object is simply to be non-judgementally aware of what's actually happening, of how perceptions and thoughts are linked and cause one another in the inner process.

Though there are additional, often indirect rules about how one is. Enter any temple, East or West or any Buddhist community and you will rapidly find out how dimly they view (the expression of at least some) emotions and desires and a lack of cool. Which again, is likely the perfect choice for some people.

 

[Pineal]

Both.


I find, for example, Christianity, a school of Hinduism, CBT, DBT and also ACT to cause me great suffering, and the gains do not even remotely outweigh the pains.

That is very important to know and be so clear about. Just to check terms

CBT I get.
DBT - dialectical behavior therapy?
ACT - acceptance and committment therapy?

If it had any appeal, and you haven't already done it, it might be a positive thing to actually make a kind of diagram of what worked and didn't work in each approach.

What caused pain, how?
What was missing? if this seemed to be a factor and you have some idea what it was that was missing.
What was present, but seemed negatively superfluous?
What worked for you?
What seemed like it might work for you...if?

That feels rather disorganized, but it is a first sketch I have. From some kind of grid set up, looking comparatively between these religious/psychological processes, perhaps a clearer image of what would work well would arise, or a set of criteria.

Or perhaps Buddhism already is that.

 

[wynn]

CBT I get.
DBT - dialectical behavior therapy?
ACT - acceptance and committment therapy?

Yes.

If it had any appeal, and you haven't already done it, it might be a positive thing to actually make a kind of diagram of what worked and didn't work in each approach.

What caused pain, how?
What was missing? if this seemed to be a factor and you have some idea what it was that was missing.
What was present, but seemed negatively superfluous?
What worked for you?
What seemed like it might work for you...if?

In short, they all strike me as implicitly nihilistic, CBT and DBT the most and overtly, and ACT in the most subtle way.

The second problem is that their proponents are not people I would normally trust or consider moral.

On the whole, I have gotten the impression that in order to just begin those supposedly therapeutic processes, I would first have to become someone else, with completely different beliefs and values.

That feels rather disorganized, but it is a first sketch I have. From some kind of grid set up, looking comparatively between these religious/psychological processes, perhaps a clearer image of what would work well would arise, or a set of criteria.

Interesting approach!
I haven't thought of these things in this way - to look at what hasn't worked and what doesn't look promising, and then based on that try to find out what could and does.

Or perhaps Buddhism already is that.

Granted, there are Buddhist directions about which I don't experience the pain-gain dynamics, but rather view it simply in terms of having to invest effort - which feels neutral enough.

 

[Pineal]

On the whole, I have gotten the impression that in order to just begin those supposedly therapeutic processes, I would first have to become someone else, with completely different beliefs and values.

This is my experience with both religions and various psychotherapies. I would like to add something like personality/temperment to what would need to be different in me - though knowing how sinful or 'mired in samsara' etc. this will be (so easily) interpreted by at least some religious practitioners, I won't add it.

Interesting approach!
I haven't thought of these things in this way - to look at what hasn't worked and what doesn't look promising, and then based on that try to find out what could and does.

Though I never made a grid, I have done something like this in relation to relationships, friendships.