Triggers

by David Richo

  As a spiritual practice we can stay on the lookout for basic goodness in every person we encounter. One way of doing this is to notice when we are judging someone. We take that as a cue that we need to “look for the good and praise it,” as the saying goes. This does not mean trying to find an example of niceness in others. It is more challenging than that. It might mean, for instance, that we look for a tender vulnerability behind a hostile frown. We do this not only for others but also for ourselves. Our sense of goodness can widen and deepen so that we recognize it as the mysterious inner life of us and of all that lives. That is so much bigger—and more intriguing—than the definition of goodness based on our insistent calculations of right and wrong. We access our own and others’ inner goodness when all judgments end.

  Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right-doing

  there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

  When the soul lies down in that grass

  the world is too full to talk about.

  —Rumi, “A Great Wagon”

  Tonglen Practice

  The Tibetan Buddhist practice called tonglen is an imaginative spiritual resource for dealing with suffering. It is also useful in working with triggers. Tonglen can take three directions: (1) It can be a way of dealing with our own negative experiences, (2) it can be a compassion exercise for the pain and distress of those around us, or (3) it can be a caring response to suffering the world over.

  In Tibetan, the word tonglen means “send out and let in.” In this practice we are willing to take in what we would usually run away from. We pass it through our evolved consciousness, our hearts of loving-kindness, and it is transformed into healing power.

  The first thing we notice is that tonglen is counterintuitive: We hold, rather than flee, the unpleasant experience that has triggered us. We are breathing it in with our conscious in-breath. Yet, as a next step, we are breathing out a healing energy with our out-breath. This is indeed a brave act, so tonglen is always also an antidote to fear!

  When we see suffering in others, or feel for how they are triggered, we use the same practice: we breathe in the pain and send out well-being. We can also extend our concern to all beings who are suffering or in crisis. Now we are going beyond our own trigger-reactiveness into universal caring and compassionate love.

  To the degree that we can stay present with our own pain, we can hang in with someone who’s provoking us. We come to see pain as something that can transform us, not as something to escape at any cost…. We’ll find ourselves increasingly more able to be there for others, even in what used to seem like impossible situations.

  —Pema Chödrön, Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change

  Moving from Superstition to Reality

  We can mature into the adult style of understanding reality rather than engaging in wishful thinking and fantasy. We can find new meanings in these common superstitions of the New Age movement:

  Everything will work out for the best.

  We change that to:

  Everything will work out as it does and we will have the opportunity to look for the best in it or make the best of it.

  Everything happens for a reason.

  We change that to:

  Anything can happen and we have the inner resources to find in it a reason for hope.

  What goes around comes around.

  We change that to:

  May what goes around come around in a way that helps us all grow.

  God never gives us more than we can bear.

  We change that to:

  Some traumatic events can crush us but now we have state-of-the-art ways of finding the help we need.

  There are no coincidences.

  We can change that to:

  There are ordinary coincidences based on randomness and there are meaningful coincidences in which the spiritual world breaks into our daily experience.

  It all depends on me.

  We can change that to:

  Grace is everywhere.

  Teaching and Practice

  We can recognize every moment, every trigger, every experience as both a teaching and an opportunity for our practice of mindfulness and loving-kindness. That awareness is, all by itself, an empowering and liberating spiritual practice. It is also the basis for optimism. We come to see everything that happens to us from people and events as providing a path to awakening. I begin each day with the following daily affirmation that expresses this theme and inputs it as a spiritual resource to rely on:

  I say Yes to everything that happens to me today

  as an opportunity

  to give and receive love without fear or reserve.

  I am thankful for the enduring capacity to love

  that has come to me from the Sacred Heart of the universe.

  May everything that happens to me today

  open my heart more and more.

  May all that I think, say, feel, do, and am express loving-kindness

  toward myself, those close to me, and all beings.

  May love be my life purpose, my bliss, my destiny, my calling,

  the richest grace I can receive or give.

  And may I always be especially compassionate

  toward people who are considered least or last

  or who feel alone or lost.

  A Retreat

  Going on a live-in retreat, especially a silent one, is an effective way of replenishing our inner resources. The fact that this happens in a spiritual setting is what makes it particularly valuable. We remove ourselves from our daily routine and reside in a place that respects our privacy and activates our discernment. We grow in self-trust when we sit with our deep questions, not forcing a reply but opening to any that might arise: Who are we now? Where do we go from here? How is the past a prologue? What does life ask of us now? What is ready to happen? What is ready to go? How can I be ready?

  Evolutionary Consciousness

  If my desire to awaken is, from a non-dual perspective, the urge of the universe itself to become self-aware, can we also say that it is the cosmic creative process that is rewiring its own brain?

  —David R. Loy, A New Buddhist Path

  We are evolution become intention. In evolution everything is arched toward transcending itself so it can become more than it is yet. In that sense it is spiritual. Since all is evolving, there is no endpoint. For instance, the oak tree I see outside my window is not in its final version of itself—nor will it ever be. It will continue to adjust itself to the changing conditions in the environment. It will continue to do what oaks have done for a thousand years, be more than they were a thousand years before. The same is true of us humans. We too are becoming more than we were in years past and even more than each of us was at birth. We are how the universe is rewiring itself. We are a future. So is what we call the higher power, as William Wordsworth says in “Outline”: “universal earth / Dreaming on things to come.”

  “Entelechy” is a term from Aristotle. It refers to the inner drive, the lifelong principle that makes a living system be and act in accord with what it really is. A beaver builds a dam; a robin builds a nest; a human builds a house, family, society. Evolution is about how the entelechy of all beings and the universe itself continually activates itself so that we all keep moving toward our goal and purpose: oneness in commitment to building a world of justice, peace, and love. We can’t help but open in this direction unless we put up a barrier against it. We can, however, stop or stunt our growth through addiction, greed, hate, division, ignorance, violence, revenge. Our only chance is the Dharma, the teachings about letting go of hate and practicing universal loving-kindness.

  Our inner resources grow when we remain aware of our evolutionary nature and destiny. Then we understand the Buddhist teaching on impermanence: “I am not what I was in the past, I will not be what
I am now for long. My goal is to embrace my rightful place in that ever-changing spectacle. My destiny is to become more than I ever dared imagine I could be. Then I will be a team member in the collective project of co-creating a society of justice, peace, and love.” This is what is meant by an evolutionary spirituality. It is a powerful inner resource because we are ordaining ourselves as priests who are ever consecrating the world into the real presence of the divine. Likewise, when we devote ourselves to a larger destiny than our personal goals, we are animated by that bigness. Our hearts then become justice, peace, and love.

  Finally, we sometimes wonder why we have the experience of impermanence—for example, by having continually altering moods, thoughts, feelings. Actually, impermanence is an evolutionary phenomenon; it is how change and progress happen: Everything is ever-changing in the universe, in science, in our brain in its neural plasticity. Relationships certainly change as conflicts intrude on romance. In fact, flowers given at romantic times are a subtle comment on impermanence. Yet, impermanence in nature also happens in reliable cycles of renewal, so impermanence does not have to mean a total ending after all. Seasons are hope’s reply to impermanence.

  Learning from the Symbolic Meaning of a Trigger

  This book has shown us that as we take ownership of the triggers in our lives, they become resources. The triggering by others is now in our own hands. An actual trigger is part of a weapon. In the heroic journey story, the hero carries a weapon with which to fight the dragon or the enemy. The weapon takes on a symbolic meaning, just as the laser sword used by Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars saga is a symbol of his access to—and need for—spiritual resources. Often in myth we see the hero given a special weapon or talisman from a god or goddess, one designed specifically for the kind of enemy he will encounter.

  Likewise, in Christian belief we are graced with special weapons to fight the forces of evil: “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, be still standing. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place (Ephesians 6:13–14). Thus, both in mythology and theology the weapon is a grace, a gift from a transcendent source, the unexpected inner resource, to help the hero fulfill his destiny. We can lose sight of a trigger as gift. We then become caught in combative energy, which moves us away from Source and inner resource. We lose touch with what William Wordsworth felt in “Tintern Abbey”:

  Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold

  Is full of blessings.

  The “monster,” “dragon,” or “enemy” is in reality an internal force, something primitive in us that opposes our higher rational, intelligent, and loving potentials. We might call this base element the part of the limbic system that is full of fear and reactiveness. Our inner resource comes from the other influence, the prefrontal cortex. As it manages our limbic responses, the whole system actually works as a resource.

  Psychologically, triggers reveal our inner conflicts. Triggers show us exactly what is still awaiting resolution. Our inner resources help us toward the resolution. Thus, Luke holding the lightsaber, like Hercules holding his club, is not presenting two images, only one. The weapon reflects and portrays the direction of his life, the force of his purpose. If we can somehow find a way to interpret our triggers as revelations of our life purpose, we might appreciate them as resources in themselves. For instance, to be triggered by unfairness can become a calling to right wrongs not only for ourselves but for humanity as well.

  When there is a similar theme in stories of all cultures, and one that endures through the centuries, we are seeing what people have taken to be a truth about their own story and calling. The characters, objects, and events of the “hero’s journey” story, for instance, all reside in our collective psyche as energies awaiting activation.

  We are not the superpower because we have the largest military on earth or because we have the strongest economy in the world. We should be a superpower because we espouse things that are important to everyone on earth.

  —Jimmy Carter, Liberty University commencement speech,

  Lynchburg, Virginia, 2018

  The Power of Nature

  Recognizing our oneness with nature is one form of freedom from dualism. Buddha’s awakening happened when the morning star appeared. His first thought might have been “That star is not out there. It is I.” We can even think of our meditative practices as joined to nature. From that oneness a path opens. The Zen master Shunryu Suzuki reminds us of this in Not Always So: “Although we practice with people, our goal is to practice with mountains and rivers, with trees and stones, with everything in the world, everything in the universe, and to find ourselves in this big cosmos…. [Then] we know intuitively which way to go.” We move from practice to journey.

  Spending time in nature, especially alone, creates and replenishes our spiritual resources. This happens because nature reflects our inner resources: We watch a sunrise and feel equipped to face what the day will bring, however daunting. We see a sunset and know we can let go of what is ending, however unwillingly. We experience the seasons and appreciate the phases of our lives, trusting that an irrepressible spring will follow the most defiantly prolonged winter. Daily time alone in the natural world—be it in a forest or by the ocean or simply under a tree—enlivens our resources. This is because we are part of nature, and acknowledging our connection arouses its power in us.

  In his poem “Notes toward A Supreme Fiction,” Wallace Stevens wrote, “Perhaps the truth depends upon a walk around the lake.” These words mirror Psalm 85:11: “Truth shall spring out of the earth.” Yes, we can find the truth, our truth, in the arms of Mother Nature. As our spiritual teacher she shows us the truth about the evolutionary impulse in us and in all things. Nature is transcendent because it yields a truth that transcends what our rational minds can conjure. Here is my poem:

  It was when I beheld

  The first cactus blossom

  That all my questions

  Went missing.

  Gazing intently

  Into the petals I

  Found Dharma paradise, nothing

  Left out.

  EPILOGUE

  THE FIRES THAT SHOW AND TELL

  Scriptures [and teachings] are of little use to the enlightened person who sees the divine everywhere.

  —Bhagavad Gita

  Over the years I have meditated often on the following story from the Lotus Sutra, which expands on the preceding quotation, and I keep finding new realizations in it:

  A father had gone to the market to buy, all he could afford, food for that night’s supper. He returned from the market to find his house in fast-consuming flames. He was horrified to see his children in the windows laughing. Neighbors were calling to them, but they were refusing to come out. They were so fascinated by the colors and shapes of the flames that they wanted to stay in the blazing house, unaware of the peril. Realizing that they would soon perish, the father called to his children: “The toys you have been wanting, I brought them. So come out to get them!” At once the children ran out to safety though their father had no toys at all. They then thought they had been “taken for a ride,” but it was only on the fastest chariot to enlightenment, disappointment in promises—which offers freedom from illusion, escape from the seductions that kill. What they did find were the genuine arms of loving-kindness, human connection, a life together—what really matters. We read in the poem by Francis Thompson, “The Hound of Heaven”:

  All which thy child’s mistake

  Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:

  …clasp my hand and come!”

  In the story from the Lotus Sutra, the father was triggered by the sight of the children in the burning house and reacted with panic. His action was to call them to safety. The chi
ldren were triggered by his promise and reacted by running out of the house.

  This story is an allegory that can refer to our spirituality. We are the children. The house is our life and our story with all its absorbing, often illusory, yet seductively colorful dramas. The father is the Buddha, our great teacher. The father can also represent all the teachers and self-help writers we have learned from. The flames are the dramas themselves that we are caught up in, though they are dangerous. The toys are the teachings and practices that we imagine will give us all that we want, that will be a panacea for all our ills, that will make us feel good always. But nothing can do that. The “visions of sugar plums” that have “danced in our heads” do not find a match in reality.

  All teachers and teachings are at their best when they lure us to the kind of safety we really need—though it is not as flashy as the colors and shapes of the dramas that attract us, so brimful of adrenaline. We find not a cure-all but only grounded reality that woos us from our habitual, housebound illusions. The be-all, endall toys we might have hoped for are not really toys at all, only decoys. Yet, we need to fall for the decoys if we are ever to be liberated. This is the charming paradox about how we find the true teaching: which turns out to be nothing but yes to bare-bones reality shorn of every consoling and sheltering hideout.