pp.56-59
The desire for pleasure has as its handmaiden the fear of pain, the hunger for being seen is shadowed by the fear of invisibility, and the hunger for escape brings with it the fear of engagement and intimacy. At the root of all these fears is a terror of emptiness, the concern that this self - personal or social - will die in a cold nothingness. This terror is usuaslly kept beneath the surface of consciousness, recognized only by its surface manifestations: an avoidance of being alone, the fear of being criticized,a pulling back from close relationships.
GK p.57
Do you find yourself avoiding being alone? Fearing criticism? Pulling back from close relationships?
Can you recognize one of these as a personal pattern? Can you choose which hunger is predominant in your experience and investigate it more closely?
This segment of the text will support such an investigation as it addresses the fading of each of the three hungers in turn.
GK p. 57 continued
...the hunger and the fear are two facets of the same thing...when the meditative mind sees the root fear and meets it with acceptance, [the fear] begins to diminish - and all the hungers dissolve with it. With such fading, relationships cease to be powered by longing and desperation.
Showing posts with label three hungers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label three hungers. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Feel inadequate?
Greg Kramer's description of how feelings of inadequacy are constructed:
First there is sensory contact with the world: we seek hear, touch, or remember another person. The subject-object split happens instantaneously; we experience me and them. Then the deeply conditioned view of separateness and difference arises. We feel fearful, unsafe. Entering this view, we compare ourselves to others; inevitably we either come up on top--and are tense because we seek to be recognized for our superiority, fearful to lose that recognition--or we come out on the bottom and are tense because we fear the social death of rejection. These feelings are being constructed anew in every moment. They are not permanent, but continually reconstructed. This is key. Once the thoughts "I am inferior," "I am inadequate," "I am unworthy," are constructed as mental images and as a felt bodily sense, we cling to them and believe in them as if they were stable and permanent. We don't notice that we re-create them all the time.
GK p47
If you are reading the newsletter or Insight and Meditation blog, you may recognize the experience being described as the flow of aggregates arising out of current experience and the resulting dispositions built up over a lifetime. By recognizing the arising formations, the arising process, we have an opportunity to modify our behavior, influencing dispositions toward future experiences.
Notice any ways you make comparisons - and build on them. Be aware also of any negative effects such comparisons have on your sense of well-being, or your quality of mind. (see Gregory's exercises on page 48)
First there is sensory contact with the world: we seek hear, touch, or remember another person. The subject-object split happens instantaneously; we experience me and them. Then the deeply conditioned view of separateness and difference arises. We feel fearful, unsafe. Entering this view, we compare ourselves to others; inevitably we either come up on top--and are tense because we seek to be recognized for our superiority, fearful to lose that recognition--or we come out on the bottom and are tense because we fear the social death of rejection. These feelings are being constructed anew in every moment. They are not permanent, but continually reconstructed. This is key. Once the thoughts "I am inferior," "I am inadequate," "I am unworthy," are constructed as mental images and as a felt bodily sense, we cling to them and believe in them as if they were stable and permanent. We don't notice that we re-create them all the time.
GK p47
If you are reading the newsletter or Insight and Meditation blog, you may recognize the experience being described as the flow of aggregates arising out of current experience and the resulting dispositions built up over a lifetime. By recognizing the arising formations, the arising process, we have an opportunity to modify our behavior, influencing dispositions toward future experiences.
Notice any ways you make comparisons - and build on them. Be aware also of any negative effects such comparisons have on your sense of well-being, or your quality of mind. (see Gregory's exercises on page 48)
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Third Hunger (cont'd)
When we speak ill of ourselves internally, we are both perpetrator and victim. Each self-criticism is a dart that contracts the heart in pain.
Greg Kramer p.46
Greg Kramer p.46
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Third Hunger
The Hunger to Avoid Being, and the Fear of Being Seen (pp.45-48)
The hunger for what the Buddha called nonbeing is the urge to escape....It is a fundamental recoiling from the hurt of life...
And just as the interpersonal hunger for being is the urge to be seen, the interpersonal hunger for non-being is the urge not to be seen, to be invisible, to escape, to shrink from interpersonal contact and its possible hurt.
The hunger for escape also takes the form of fear of losing current safety.
Gregory Kramer, p.45
The hunger for what the Buddha called nonbeing is the urge to escape....It is a fundamental recoiling from the hurt of life...
And just as the interpersonal hunger for being is the urge to be seen, the interpersonal hunger for non-being is the urge not to be seen, to be invisible, to escape, to shrink from interpersonal contact and its possible hurt.
The hunger for escape also takes the form of fear of losing current safety.
Gregory Kramer, p.45
Friday, March 7, 2008
Second Hunger
The Hunger to Be and the Fear of Nonbeing (pp.41-45)
This passage warrants careful attention. Gregory makes some very interesting and challenging connections. The second noble truth opens deep insights by inviting us to look into interpersonal suffering.
Read the entire passage, then consider reading again and stopping after every paragraph. Ask yourself what the passage means in your personal experience. Make a few notes, creating a paragraph that is significant for you.
Do the three exercises at the end of this passage. Which one was most powerful for you? What have you learned from being with this passage?
This passage warrants careful attention. Gregory makes some very interesting and challenging connections. The second noble truth opens deep insights by inviting us to look into interpersonal suffering.
Read the entire passage, then consider reading again and stopping after every paragraph. Ask yourself what the passage means in your personal experience. Make a few notes, creating a paragraph that is significant for you.
Do the three exercises at the end of this passage. Which one was most powerful for you? What have you learned from being with this passage?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
