Dualism and the game of feelings- overcoming loneliness and letting go.

by Jo Nash PhD

In 2005 Zoketsu Norman Fischer, a teacher in the Soto Zen tradition, gave a series of 3 talks on Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche's 'Glimpses of Abhidhamma', a book of transcribed talks delivered from a Tibetan Buddhist Mahayanist perspective with Trungpa's characteristically humorous flourish. When listening to Zoketsu's commentary again, I was struck by some ideas expressed about the problem of loneliness, now a psychosocial plague in the modern West. In the clinical and social work I did over many years in the UK, chronic loneliness often seemed to be at the root of depression, substance abuse, anxiety disorders, and self-harm- and the fear of chronic loneliness the reason people often used to justify staying in clearly abusive relationships. My work in South Asia revealed a different context in which the fear of not belonging to a primary group (community, family, religious organisation) may result in the overriding of values related to individual fulfilment. The consequence of this fear of loneliness being allowed to drive our life choices may either be the 'loneliness in the crowd' feeling, caused by not being 'seen' by those we spend time with, or a compartmentalised life, where some of our values may only be expressed away from those who may object, including our families, neighbours and religious communities. Chronic loneliness seems to be less of a problem in South Asian communities where acceptance of duties and responsibilities towards others is high. However the fear of loneliness seems to drive people to make unhealthy compromises that can crush their values in both Eastern and Western cultural contexts.

Much of my work is involved with helping people to clarify their values, and develop strategies for integrating their healthy expression in all areas of their lives. To do this successfully people need to acquire the life skills necessary to deal with the temporarily uncomfortable consequences of making such life changes. I use a mindfulness based approach that also teaches acceptance and commitment strategies, and set homework along those lines for my clients. The aim is to support them choosing to live a life in line with their own values rather than somebody else's. Research evidence shows that this clinical approach, called ACT, increases vitality, productivity and fulfilment, and undermines lethargy, loneliness and anxiety. Trungpa's book and Fischer's commentary led me a step further towards connecting this work with my Buddhist spiritual practice. Trungpa connects the five Skandhas or aggregates of Buddhist Abhidhamma with progression down the spiritual path at what he calls a 'kitchen sink level'. In other words, he is instructing his students on how an application of Buddhist psychological principles to our everyday problems can help make mundane life more fulfilling. I wish to begin with his reflections upon the skandha of 'feeling'- meaning that part of our mind that processes emotions and our thoughts about our emotions. He writes,

 'Feeling involves the pretence that you are involved with somebody… (but) there is no answer to feeling's search… this is why buddhadharma is an atheistic teaching. We have to accept that ours' is a lonely journey... '

Here Trungpa is saying something very radical- that when we feel for someone or about something, there is nothing there really, at an emotional level, except the products of our own minds. We find ourselves desiring, craving, frustrated, resentful in relation to others and situations, and so we move on to other targets to satisfy our feelings, in the hope they will be more pleasing. Then the same old story sets in. As familiarity and intimacy increases so do our issues with what is happening and our usual reactiveness arises. In reality however, what we are doing is relating emotionally to our own projections of what we want, and inability to accept the other person as they are and make choices accordingly. We take their behaviour too personally. We make our difficulties all about 'me' or 'us' and 'them', and move on to yet another person or situation in the mistaken belief that we can better satisfy our feelings there. Buddha Dharma says we cannot ever satisfy our basic craving this way. This grasping at targets in the hope they will relieve our desire never satisfies us for long. However, if we can see this and we can accept this -that we are alone with others who are also alone, then we have another problem often. We begin to feel lonely. Zoketsu Norman Fischer responds to this development by reminding us of  anatta, or  'not self' teaching of Abhidhamma saying: 

'I am alone, but the whole point is that the 'I' that thinks she's alone is a complete fiction. The trouble is 'I' am looking for something outside of myself when the reality is that 'I' am completely joined (interdependent) with everything, all the time, so how could I possibly be lonely? We are not paying attention to that, not noticing that…'

Here, Zoketsu is pointing to our 'default' lack of awareness, our ignorance of our interconnectedness due to our clinging to self or ego, which causes a false sense of separation to arise. This dualism is a creation of the mind, rooted in a clinging to a sense of 'I'. This 'I' is a mistaken identity manifested in a sense of myself as separate from what is other or outside. This sense of separateness causes the suffering of loneliness, that when it becomes chronic, is at the root of so many mental health problems. Fischer describes this loneliness as a sense '…we are bereft because we are not getting what we think we need.'

Mindfulness is the key to overcoming this sense of being bereft, by establishing an awareness of our connectedness with what is. We do this by paying attention fully, in the present moment, without dividing our experience- without judgement. We can train our minds to do this through meditation and everyday mindfulness practices. Then we begin to watch the sense of frozen separateness thaw out. With this melting away of 'me' and 'mine' versus 'you' and 'yours',  the delusion of loneliness also dissolves. With the dissolution of dualistic experience a new openness arises, and a sense of inner confidence develops that comes from being connected to what is here, right now. This describes the turning point, the 'path forging' activity of the awakening mind. Trungpa writes: 

'The awakened attitude arises when we see there is no point in playing the game of feelings - we are not concerned with 'this or that' anymore(…)We go along very boldly, in a stubborn way. We just sail along. We have our own plough, our own tank and we are going to drive right along. No matter what happens we go on through. The whole point seems to be whether we have that bold attitude of being what we are, and are willing to disregard the duality of 'this and that'. We accept our negative side and the fact that we are a fool(...) We use it as part of the meditational process nevertheless. We are going on and on, being ashamed or being proud of it, we are just going on and on with it…'

We heal and we 'wake up' by driving on through life in line with our values, using the tried and tested tools of acceptance and mindfulness. We just keep on going. We welcome the whole gamut of our negative and positive experiences. They all contribute to the texture and taste of living fully. Everyday life becomes an adventure, rather than a chore. We accept all of it and keep going anyway, remaining connected to life as it is. Then after a while, we find we have reframed our experience of being alone with others, who are also fundamentally alone. We see this as a shared experience we all have, and that we are all connected to each other through this shared experience. Then, in time, we might find we are no longer 'lonely' in the sense of suffering a sense of separateness from others. We might find we are free to enjoy our solitude and our relatedness spontaneously, as they arise.

Download or stream Zoketsu Norman Fischer's talks on Buddhist psychology here