by Chris Grosso
“It’s when the pain gets to be too much. The coping mechanisms for working with the pain are not enough. Instead of reaching out for help, the person hits a critical moment of self-pity. At this point we should distinguish between self-compassion—which is extremely helpful, useful, and important—and self-pity. Self-pity is when you can’t take the pain anymore; you need it to stop immediately, regardless of what it does to you or others. That’s the difference. If it was self-compassion, you would take an action that would be good for you, good for the future you, and good for others. It’s being nice to you as a person. In self-pity, the pain becomes too much and there’s a part of you that feels, like, ‘Fuck it.’ Self-pity is the moment where you sell yourself out and don’t care what happens to you. It’s that selling yourself out that is crucial to pay attention to, because there’s good stuff available in that moment when you’re fully acknowledging the pain, when you’re fully truthful and real about how much it hurts. That’s when you’re also understanding that you want to be nice to yourself.
“That’s the whole point—to be nice to yourself. For example, in a twelve-step program, you might call your sponsor; that’s a self-compassionate act, and you know your future self is going to be happy about that. Plus, you know that person will sit with you in that pain and not try to pretend it doesn’t hurt. That’s an act of self-compassion. The self-pity will say, ‘Fuck it, I don’t care,’ and what’s weird about self-pity is that it’s a form of self-hatred. The compound includes the word ‘pity,’ but it’s not giving a fuck about yourself and believing the story that you suck, that you don’t deserve to feel better, that everything that’s happened to you is your fault and responsibility, and that you’re an unlovable piece of shit. That’s what self-pity is—the opposite of compassion.
“You’ve got to get real when that’s happening. Notice that the minute it comes up, you start thinking about bad behaviors. You’re going to want to drink or go to a whorehouse or do something that’s probably not that good for your life, because you’re feeling bad right now and you’re a piece of shit anyway. When that comes up, even in its most background, ephemeral, barely there way, you want to look at that and start to deconstruct it in the mindfulness manner. What images is it made of? What mental talk is it made of? What emotions is it made of? How do those emotions feel in the body? Then get a little psychological with it. Is any of what you’re saying to yourself objectively true? How many of those things happened when you were a little kid that you had no control over? Stuff like that.”
As Michael was talking about becoming honest with yourself in these different ways, a quote from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous came to mind. It’s one that I’ve often feared was applicable to me:
Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average.4
That popped up because of what Michael said about how we need to be honest with ourselves. Did he believe that there are some people who are constitutionally incapable of doing that?
Michael pressed pause on the word “constitutionally.” “Does that mean it’s in their DNA? Does that mean it’s in their upbringing? Unfortunately, what they mean is something about your soul or your essence. We know that dealing with things as essences is the way you get into trouble. Dealing with people as having essences is the way you cause conflict. I would reject any statement that’s essentialist like that. More specifically, there are people who have a much, much harder time with that kind of honesty. Maybe because they’re traumatized and triggered. If they work hard enough, they will make progress, but remember, progress means one minute at a time. It doesn’t mean that they’re going to rack up an impressive number of years instantly. It’s that in this moment, they’re not trying to kill themselves, either quickly or slowly, but in fact are doing something positive.
“I should also say, regarding addiction and relapse, if you’re feeling like you’ve got to have a drink, that’s the thing to look at and work with and not resist. Because resisting blows it up. My deepest, closest friends are twelve-step people, and the program has saved their lives, but it is one of ‘You must resist at all costs,’ and the thing is, mindfulness is not about resistance. Real healing is not about resistance. The whole resistance piece is crucial at the stage of harm reduction. When people are most vulnerable, the best thing to do is to tell them never to do it again, especially drug addicts, because they might die the very next time they shoot up. I appreciate that and accept it, yet if all you’re doing is resisting, the urge is always going to be there. Always. I know people who were junkies thirty years ago and they’ve never shot up again, but the urge is there, and twelve-step programs tell them that’s normal. It is when you don’t go in and deal with the basis of the urge to begin with.”
The difference is sobriety versus recovery. Sobriety is remaining abstinent from the substances—white-knuckling it and so on—whereas recovery is a life lived thriving and healing. “I’m all about recovery,” Michael added. “The recovery part is going in and touching that urge. That might mean sitting with it in a very deep way, but only when you feel very solid.”
This brought us back to nondualism and relapse. Michael hopped right on this. “The most powerful thing that nondualism can offer is that no matter what’s going on with you, there’s always a part of you that’s completely sane, completely healed and healthy, completely uplifted and inspired. It might not be your whole experience. It might be only a teeny-tiny part of your experience. There’s a part of you that is in fact perfectly fine and never was anything but. From a nondual perspective, you have access to that at any moment. It’s right there, right now, completely open and radiant and accepting. Even though I say it’s inside you, it’s also outside you. The entire world right now, the beauty of nature, the depth and brilliance of the sky, the touch of the ground under your feet—all of it is a radical sanity and openness and wholeness and is present and available. If you can begin to relate to that at all, it will provide a resource unparalleled in its ability to help you stabilize, heal, and then grow.”
That sounded good to me. How would we implement that? Especially someone who’s not that familiar with nonduality? Is there some simple action we can take?
Michael brought us full circle back to mindfulness. “It’s as simple as finding something beautiful in nature and sitting with it. Even if it’s a rock or a flower or a beautiful sound, or maybe your dog. The thing that people run up against is that they’re filled with pain and negativity—and understandably so; there’s no judgment about that, it’s the way of the world we’re living in, and the way we’re built. I often hear people say, ‘Well, I can’t find any of that—there’s nothing beautiful.’ I want to challenge that and say, ‘Really? There’s not even one thing in the whole world right now that you find beautiful or simply peaceful or somehow sane? Not one thing?’ If you investigate your experience, you’ll find there is something. If there isn’t anything in the real world, then imagine something. I’ve done this with people who truly believed there was nothing in their entire environment or life, but they could feel beauty and love from a Pokémon character like Pikachu—and they were serious. That’s fine. There’s a way that this can come off sounding completely like bullshit or Pollyannaish, and I want to emphasize that it’s not like you’re somehow ignoring the difficulties of life. Instead, for the moment, you’re refocusing your attention on something that is true or beautiful or good or sane in some way. Then you can sit with it and observe it in whatever way makes sense to you and drink that in.
“It starts out as a simple contact with things and expands as you get
better at it into a mindful exploration, almost an aesthetic sensory openness that becomes artistic. The beauty of the color and the richness and depth of the sound. If you get absorbed enough in that mood, as more and more of your attention is poured upon this object and as you open to it more and more, eventually it’s not an object anymore, it’s you. That’s how we go from something that may sound Pollyannaish, like ‘look at a pretty cloud,’ to having a true nondual experience of cloudness that heals our spirit from the inside out . . . or from the outside in.”
The “Pollyannaish” struck a chord with me. It’s something I bring up a lot when I teach and write—you’ve got to try this shit! It may seem too good to be true, but give it a go with an open heart. If you do that and think it’s still bullshit afterward, that’s cool. I won’t argue that with you, and if anything, I’d respect you for giving it a fair shot. Thing is, more times than not, when people do give it a shot, they see that it does work.
Michael had a well-tuned bullshit detector of his own. “I come from a very punk-rock, fuck-you-asshole background, and nobody is quicker than me to think this all sounds like a bunch of trash. To mistrust it, and to criticize it and make fun of it. But what I found was that when somebody challenged me to feel good or positive about something, it wasn’t that I thought that this was stupid—I simply couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it. That to me was a real wake-up call. Like, what the fuck is wrong with me? It’s one thing to think it’s not cool or that it’s a scam, but it’s another to not even be able to contact something in that open, fresh, innocent, beautiful way. I began working with it and had some strong experiences that opened me up to it, but I also did some stuff that I previously would have found unimaginable. I tried going to kirtan, and if you don’t know what kirtan is, it’s Hindu chanting to God, and it’s about the most syrupy, sweet, relentlessly positive thing you can imagine. I found that the sweetness hurt. I was so cynical and ironic and mistrustful of that energy that it hurt. That place where that sweetness hurts, that’s the place that needs healing. I couldn’t take very much of it at first, but gradually I got into it more and more and noticed that a larger and larger part of me could take in something that was innocent and sweet. It didn’t have a dark side.”
It’s funny that Michael said that. The first time I heard a kirtan album, it was one from Krishna Das, and I’d been turned on to him by Ram Dass through either a dharma talk or a book. I’ll never forget sitting in my apartment and playing the CD I’d taken out of my local library. The reason I’ll never forget it is because I had almost the same exact experience then as I did the first time I was at a friend’s house and he put on a hardcore record—both punk rock and kirtan cut to the core of me. It hit me in the heart in a very deep and passionate way. Now, kirtan is different from punk, but depending on which punk or hardcore band you’re talking about, there’s often a lot of sincere heart stuff going on there, too. Much passion and raw truth. It was amazing to me that I had the same experience with both of those genres of music; I’ll never forget it. Then, lo and behold, who did I run into a few months ago during a Krishna Das kirtan in Maui but none other than Rick fucking Rubin, the legendary producer who’s worked with everyone from Slayer to Metallica to the Beastie Boys and Johnny Cash, and Krishna Das, too.
Michael had his punk-rock adventures to share as well. “I would go to shows in the eighties with, like, the Cro-Mags, and after the show they were chanting Hare Krishna at everyone, and they meant it. There’s always been a strong connection between punk and kirtan. One of the ways we got involved was going to get free food, because the Krishnas would feed you. If they fed you, they made you sing kirtan, so it was fascinating how many gutter punks went for some rice and dal and ended up loving Krishna core or Krishna music.”
Absolutely. I covered the first Warped Tour for an indie zine I was doing at the time called Speak Only When Spoken To (it was so bad), and one of my old favorite bands, Shelter, was on the tour, and I was backstage. Sure enough, there they were, cooking food and giving it away to everyone for free. Behind them was a basketball hoop, where Chino Moreno from Deftones was playing with Anthony Civarelli (CIV), Chaka Malik from Orange 9mm, and some of the guys from Quicksand and Sick of It All. It was a pretty surreal scene, especially since I was only fifteen at the time. It’s also fair to say that I’ll never forget the smell (and taste) of that delicious rice and dal.
We both agreed there were lots of different avenues to meditation. Another big one for Michael was drawing and painting. “There’s a way when you’re looking at something to draw it, it loses its ‘object-ness’ and instead becomes a collection of qualities—like shape, light, space, texture, things like that. This is what you’re doing with mindfulness, with everything. That way of seeing, for me, drawing things and getting into that way of seeing, allowed me to contact a beautiful truth of the thusness in everyday things. It’s possible to become absorbed in that if you work with it long enough, but even on the simplest level, where it’s almost a distraction from your pain, if you continue to work with it, you’ll notice that that beauty and that truth and even thusness and openness coming from that object you’re drawing will begin to work on you inside and begin to heal you.”
In my experience, it’s not just the making of art but the magnificence of life that can creep up on you at any moment—the beauty and truth and thusness that is all that there is and simply waits patiently for our gaze to fall upon it, whether we’re rocking the fuck out to 1980s hardcore classics or looking over the Grand Canyon in all its glory. It’s all real and beautiful and sometimes too much to bear (in the best possible way), so who can blame you for looking away for a while? Just don’t forget to allow your heart to be set ablaze from time to time. Everything in moderation, I suppose.
PRACTICE
Mindfulness 101
Michael took me through the basic steps of mindfulness practice, and by basic, I mean basic (in the best sense of the word). Of all the meditation practices, it’s the one I find myself returning to most frequently when I need a grounding and reorientation into the present moment. Give it a go and see for yourself. The beauty is that it can be done pretty much anytime and anywhere—for example, sitting at your desk at work, on a long-ass plane ride cross-country, or waiting for that friend who’s habitually late when you meet for dinner (you know, that friend). The instructions are super-simple, but the one caveat I’d add is that if it is possible to close your eyes, I find that helps you to eliminate unnecessary external distraction and go deeper into the practice. Let’s go.
• Assume the position. Get into a comfortable posture. It helps if you keep your back straight.
• Turn your attention to your feet, the sensation of first one foot and then the other. Think the word “body” or “body sensation.”
• Feel your left foot. Just that. Don’t think about it, don’t imagine it, and don’t visualize it. Feel it and then label the feeling (“body”) and let it go.
• Move on to the right foot and do the same thing. Connect, don’t reject.
• Keep doing this, moving up your body—your ankles, calves, knees, hips, belly, lower back, chest, spine, one arm and then the other, one hand and then the other, shoulders, neck, face, head. Contact the sensation there nonjudgmentally in the present moment, label it, and keep going.
• Pause and experience the sensation of your entire body.
• If you’re digging this and want to keep at it, begin with the top of your head and work your way back down to your feet.
7
THE LOVE THAT ROLLS UP ITS SLEEVES AND GETS MUDDY
CONVERSATION WITH SERA BEAK
I was first turned on to the work of Sera Beak by the editor we shared while I was working on my second book, Everything Mind. Within five minutes of our first Skype conversation I knew she was a soul sister. We connected at the level of raw vulnerability in sharing ourselves as well as our passion for our life’s calling, which could be summed up as showing up and helping others t
o heal in whatever way we can.
In Sera’s books and talks, she often refers to the soul or inner wisdom, especially in regard to recovering from any self-destructive behavior. The first thing I wanted to know was how we connect with our soul or inner wisdom. Sera reminded me that this paradox is almost a spiritual cliché. “It’s simple to connect to our soul, our inner wisdom, but so many of us throw a bunch of things in front of that—things that have happened to us or that we’ve done to others. Or life has made us doubt our inner wisdom and our ability to receive it and accurately translate it into our daily lives.” She went on to say that this understanding is always with us. We can reach it by closing our eyes, grounding into our body, and feeling our heart, and asking ourselves a simple question. Or allowing ourselves to feel something, thus creating an environment where the inner wisdom can show up. When we do that, “we begin to feel more or sense more. Some of us might even hear something or have a little bit of a vision of some kind.” There’s a huge range of ways we can allow our soul, our wise inner self, to show up, but the first step, which is easy, is also incredibly difficult: Shut up, be still, and listen.
There are as many ways to get to this place as there are spiritual traditions. Sera seeks it out every day, but it wasn’t always easy. “Each one of us has our own individual process for how we reconnect with our soul or inner wisdom and how we allow it more freedom in our life. Reaching the point of beginning to trust my own intuition, my own experience, my own inner knowing was a long process for me, because I’m a bit stubborn and thickheaded, too much of a mental case, perhaps because I was academically trained.”
I found it fascinating that education and training could be an obstacle to self-understanding instead of an asset. I’m not an academic, not Harvard-trained, as Sera is, but for so much of my life I favored intellect over feeling. I’m the kind of person who wants to understand: I need to figure things out, I need to know. Intellect impeded my spiritual work and kept me stuck in a place where I couldn’t grow beyond addictions. I had such a hard time breaking down the wall between head and heart and finding my way to be my true self—the self that didn’t want, need, or have to take drugs or overeat—rather than trying to rationally understand it. There’s something to be said for the intellect, but at the end of the day, the soul or inner wisdom or whatever you want to call it needs to be directly experienced in a way that has nothing to do with intellectualization.