There’s nothing wrong with me (or you)

Last Sunday a friend loaned me a copy of "There Is Nothing Wrong With You" by Cheri Huber. The title appealed to me instantly, since it's so obviously right.

I mean, most of the time it's crystal clear to me that I'm absolutely fine. It's other people who are all screwed up, the way they don't behave like I want them to.

Problem is, they feel the same. So the conventional wisdom is that the world is made up of six billion humans chanting a mantra of "I'm right and you're wrong."

This certainly seems to be the foundation of religion (and politics). But Huber, a Zen practitioner who melds Buddhist and self-help philosophy, has a different slant on rightness and wrongness.

Her book's subtitle, in the new edition, is "going beyond self-hate." She sees self-hate as the root of the sense of wrongness that permeates most people's everyday lives.

Trying to STOP, FIX, or CHANGE is part of the self-hating process. Just stay with the experience and REALLY GET IT. That this is sad, it's not wrong, it's just hard, it's hard to be a being. How can we not feel compassion?

Of course, ego will jump right in there and say, "Enough of this sadness. Let's DO something about it." That DO-ality will flip us right back into the bottom of the pot. I imagine a big stew pot of self-hate, and you just about crawl up to the top of the pot when you run into something that flips you right back in.

Usually this "something" is: trying to change what you are experiencing. Criticizing yourself, judging somebody else, thinking you need to change something, fix something, DO something—

And you are right back in the bottom of the pot of self hate. Again…

(My edition of "There Is Nothing Wrong With You" is typeset in a handwritten fashion, with an informal style. Usually I'm not a big fan of CAPS and cutesy layouts, but it works in this book – though the format looks a bit strange when quoted as I did above.)

There's a lot of simple wisdom in the easy-to-read pages that I whipped through in a couple of morning pre-meditation reading sessions. Such as:

I am not here to become an acceptable person. I am here to accept the person I am.

It may be true that you make sacrifices, but that doesn't make you good; it just means that you make sacrifices.

It may be true that you are accepting, but that doesn't make you good; it just means you are accepting.

It may be true that you are responsible, but that doesn't make you good; it just means you are responsible.

It may be true that you meditate, but that doesn't make you good; it just means that you meditate.

We label these behaviors good and then continue to do them in order to support self-hate. Perhaps doing in order to be good is what keeps you from realizing that you are already good.

Insightful.

Those last two lines made me think about my motivations during a long period of true-believing religiosity. I really enjoyed feeling that I was on the right spiritual path, because left to my own devices obviously I'd wander off and get lost, screw-up that I am.

So, yes, self-hate (or at least self-mistrust) kept me reading the books, attending the services, sticking to the straight and narrow, fearing to question. Oh my god, what would happen if I followed my own instincts? Well, Huber says:

All of life's conflicts are between letting go or holding on. Opening into the present or clinging to the past. Expansion or contraction.

…Life is very short. We do not have time to be frightened. We do not have the luxury of allowing fear and hate to run our lives. THIS IS IT!

…We cling to our belief that there is something wrong because that's how we maintain our position at the center of the universe.

Suffering provides our identity. Identity is maintained in struggle, in dissatisfaction, in trying to fix what's wrong. So we are constantly looking for what is wrong, constantly creating new crises so we can rise to the occasion.

To ego, that's survival. It is very important that something be wrong so we can continue to survive it.

I'd think: Oh no! There was a smidgen of meat in the food that I ate! I've broken my vegetarian vow! I should have checked more carefully – interrogated the cook, inspected every bite before I swallowed it, something!

As the familiar Zen story goes, I was the monk who watched his colleague carry a beautiful woman across a stream (a no-no for these monastic guys) and stewed about it for miles afterward. Until he said, "Why did you pick her up? You know we're not supposed to touch women."

The response: "I left the woman back on the stream bank. You're still carrying her. Who is the biggest vow-breaker?"

My wife and I have been taking dance lessons for a couple of years. They've attuned me to the difference between moving to patterns, versus moving freely.

Not that the two are separate and distinct. They're related. Because I can be leading a series of moves, a pattern, that is clear in my own mind. I know what is supposed to happen.

But Laurel doesn't, either because I haven't led the move correctly (usually the case) or because she doesn't know how to follow the lead.

Either way, when I have the Oops sensation that things aren't going as planned, I've got choices.

I can either try to force my partner to do what she darn well should be doing because I intended it, which can lead to stopping the dance and having a discussion (or argument) on the ballroom floor, or I can adjust myself to her movement.

Change my plan in accord with reality – which almost always is the preferred option.

It isn't that I'm right and she's wrong, or the reverse. Something simply is going on, and we both need to flow with it. I like what Huber says here:

What would maintain egocentricity? How would you know who you are?

It is only the illusion of a separate self who could believe that it is possible to make mistakes. Because, in fact, there isn't anything going on other that what is.

It is only in some imaginary parallel universe where this could happen, or this could happen, that we get that kind of alternative: what happened – what should have happened

As far as I know, it is only when we hold the notion that something happened this way, but it should have happened that way that we can say, "Well, I had this experience, but that is the one I was supposed to have.

I don't think so.

…We have a choice.

We can live our lives trying to conform to some nebulous standard or we can live our lives seeing how everything works.

When we step back and look at it that way, it is obvious that the attitude of fascination is the only intelligent one to bring to anything.

Comments

[RAKESH BHASIN]

There is something wrong with time and situation. What I feel of something today right and good for me becomes wrong and bad for me after sometime. At least of me, I am always carried away by the opinion of my near and dears.

I think that "There’s nothing wrong with me (or you)".

I THINK THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU OR
ME BUT TIME AND SITUATION...................

[Sita]

Rakesh,that is life as I see it.
We can be caried away,but after lots of times being carried away,one can come more and more with 'oneselves',to ones own idea's ones own center,without stopping to learn from and 'see' others also.
With love,

[Doctor Doom]

It's a World Gone Wrong.

The Axe is Falling.

The Curtain is Dropping.

Day Becomes Night.

Death is the Face Behind the Mask of Life.

Its A Done Deal.

No One Here Gets Out Alive.

Godmen one and all, are Liars and Frauds.

And Fools Rush In Where Angels Fear To Tread.

[Deepak Kamat]

Nobody dies a virgin. Life fucks each and everyone.

[komposer]

Deepak,
But doesn't the sun come out a little once you accept that? The more I accept that, the more I get annoyed with "do-gooders" who always think they can change the world for the better (this includes a former version of myself who I am trying to update). Why not accept that we are all fucked, and just breathe a sigh of relief that at least there's nothing we can do about it...

[Lucky]

I watched a movie last night called "The Secret". It's amazing. All the successful, happy people throughout history have known this "Secret" while all the other poor slobs who don't know the Secret continue to wallow in misery.

It seems that all you have to do to manifest what you want in life is to visualize it...imagine that this thing or circumstance you want is already happening and, by George, sooner or later it does!! The trick is to focus only on what you want and not think about what you don't want.

A kid wants a shiney new red bike and he keeps thinking about it, drawing pictures of it, and then one day there it is sitting in the garage!

Somebody else wants a million dollars, so they paste a check for one million dollars on the wall and look at it every day. Soon all these opportunities come their way and after a while they have a million dollars!

A lady has breast cancer. She doesn't think about the breast cancer, she visualizes herself healthy and free of the disease and, by golly, it goes away!!

That's all there is to it. All problems and difficulties are solved by this. All ambitions are fullfilled. Visualize world peace and it will happen. Visualize your anus free of hemmorroids and they're gone. Visualize a wonderful romance in your life and it will happen. Imagine a world without flies and there will be none buzzing around your head.

This Secret is so simple and it is being hidden by bad people like George Bush so he can keep bad things happening in the world so he and his boss Cheney can be really, really rich. He knows the Secret and is always visualizing all this crap going on in the world, so the money keeps pouring in for the Haliburton stockholders. Simple.

But we can beat him at his own game. All we have to do is viualize a White House without George Bush and occupied by someone wonderful like Barak Obama (and not a bad, religious guy like Huckabee) and there will be peace and abundance for all because Obama knows the Secret and wants really good stuff to happen and he knows how to make it that way.

I just hope the terrorists aren't visualizing atomic bombs going off in New York, Chicago, and L.A.

[Deepak Kamat]

Lucky, that concept is called mentalism. That you visualise what you want to manifest. But it does not work all the time. If it works, you are lucky. If not you are fucked. That is how I see it. Though many in India (where I live) call it karma.

ANd Komposer, I agree with you, the moment you let go, there is a breath of fresh air. When you acknowledge there is no way out, then the way opens. Seeking is just like a seduction game. Go after her and she runs away from you. Turn away and she follows you.