Introduction
Any form of psychological development – and its epitome in refined contemplative practice – requires two fundamental activities/skills/functions:
- Being with what is (both subjective and objective, internal and external, mind and matter)
- Working with what is
These are the two wings that enable the great bird to fly. But they are sometimes held as an either-or choice, or in conflict. For example, some therapists and some spiritual teachers seem to stress one wing in particular or criticize the other one. And in our own lives, sometimes our instinct is to be with a feeling, longing, etc., but the situation or person we’re with is pulling for us to work with it (and vice versa). Consequently, it’s really helpful to understand what each “wing” really is, the strengths and pitfalls of each, and how they can work best together.
Description of Each Wing
Being With
This involves:
- The initial orientation of attention (a fundamental neurological activity).
- Deepening attentiveness (a similarly fundamental action in the brain).
- Witnessing, knowing – For example, as the Buddha’s discourse (called a “sutta”) on mindfulness of breathing says, “Breathing in long, know that you are breathing in long; breathing in short, know that you are breathing in short.”
- Accepting – Surrendering to what is. Letting it be. (Of course, this does not mean approving . . . or disapproving.)
- Non-fabricating – Not adding anything yourself to what is. No effort whatsoever, no nudging of reality or experience in one direction or another.
- Mindfulness.
Initially when we “be with,” there is typically a dualistic observer/observed. But with continued practice – both in the short-term, as during a session of meditation, and over the months and years – there often comes a growing sense of unification
with experience and reality, a oneness that is not an ultimate enlightenment, but still palpably felt.
You can be with the flowing stream of experience rolling through – what is often meant by “mindfulness” – or you can be with a single object of attention, and become increasingly absorbed in it. This latter orientation is what’s known generally as “concentration” (“samatha” in Pali) in contemplative practice; intense and sustained states of concentration are called “jhanas” or “samadhis.” Note that both mindfulness and concentration require some – or great – steadiness of mind.
Working With
This is essentially a matter of tending to the garden of the mind and heart, planting wholesome seeds and restraining and pulling unwholesome weeds. We “work with” whenever we:
- Attempt to become more skillful, more capable, more patient, less angry, more confident, more resourceful – more of just about anything.
- Actively investigate the contents of our experience or the outer world.
- Let go of painful feelings, deliberately take in positive experiences, or use the will.
- Uncover or nurture our innate and wonderful qualities.
- Engage any progressive path of learning, self-development, or self-improvement.
The term for this in Buddhism is “bhavana,” which means mental cultivation or development; it also means meditation. This is one of the three “grounds for meritorious action;” the other two are virtue and generosity.
How to Be With and Work With?
Most of applied psychology, as well as most of the Buddhist dharma, is an extended answer to this question, so here is just a very summary response.
Being With
We be with when we:
- Observe
- Are mindful
- Accept, let be, let flow
- Have equanimity (both shallow and deep): do not pursue, do not resist, do not cloud over
- Relax selfing; do not fabricate; engage what is called “choiceless awareness”
Working With
We work with when we:
- Intend the good
- Let go of something, from relaxing to deep breathing to challenging troublesome thoughts
- Actively engage insight, whether conventionally psychological (e.g., making connections with softer and younger material, clarifying inner conflict) or contemplatively informed (e.g., looking for impermanence, or the suffering that comes from clinging)
- Model people we admire, from Uncle Charlie to the Buddha
- Take in the good; internalize positive experiences
- Engage any of the four right efforts (mentioned above)
- Restrain, abandon, uproot any of the hindrances: greed, aversion, sloth and torpor, restlessness and worry, and doubt
- Practice lovingkindness
- Intentionally strengthen any of our good qualities
Strengths of Each
Both of these wings have many strengths.
Being With
This aspect of practice helps us in many ways:
- Teaches that everything flows, that everything is impermanent.
- Shows us things clearly, without the interference of our efforts to influence them.
- Demonstrates that it all keeps going on, without a self being necessary.
- Teaches acceptance, surrender. Ajahn Chah: “If you let go a little, you will be a little happy. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of happiness. If you let go completely, you will be completely happy.”
- Emphasizes awareness itself. This draws us more into abiding as awareness, into the presence of mere presence.
- Shows the value of slowing down, not doing, relaxation, and peace.
- Draws you into the appreciation of simply what is, exactly as it is – including yourself.
Working With
The fruits of this include:
- Absolutely real changes in body, mind, and heart. In one way of putting it: you become a better person.
- These undeniable changes build conviction and faith in the path of awakening through experiencing the results of practice.
- The lessons of training the mind and heart in one sphere have “generic” features that can be applied to other areas (e.g., that perseverance furthers).
- An inherent moral view that helpful is better than unhelpful.
In light of these benefits, the occasionally intense criticism of “working with” is perplexing. For example, Care of the Soul, by Thomas Moore (mostly a wonderful book) takes great issue with directed, solution-oriented approaches such as
cognitive-behavioral therapy. In the Buddhist sphere, take this quotation from Jon Kabat-Zinn (whom I respect highly, and who has made an extraordinary contribution to mental health worldwide): “Don’t change yourself, experience yourself.
Don’t change your life, live your life.”
While there may be some useful guidance in that quote, consider its vehemence, and consider how the inverse phrasing might sound: “Don’t experience yourself, change yourself. Don’t live your life, change your life.”
When constructed in this either-or way, both phrasings are reductionistic, incomplete, and ultimately absurd. In Buddhism – as well as in most approaches to psychological resilience and happiness – there is absolutely a strong emphasis on:
- A progressive path in which one learns from experience, and over time becomes more skillful, virtuous, and refined
- Personal responsibility for self-improvement
- Clarity about how our actions lead to results (the law of karma), and thus the importance of enacting the causes of the good and restraining the causes of the bad
- Lists of wholesome qualities to increase, and lists of negative qualities (such as the “hindrances” and “defilements” mentioned in the Buddhist suttas) to diminish
- Virtue and generosity as the foundation of any genuine mental health and spiritual realization
- Removing the obscurations of one’s true, positive, benign nature
- In Buddhism, Right Effort is one of the elements of the Eightfold Path (the fourth of the Noble Truths), which consists of the “four right efforts”: to foster the arising and the continuance of what is wise, and the prevention and diminishment of what is unwise
Sometimes people consider Buddhism to be little more than a matter of being more aware, relaxed, and nice. That’s a great foundation, but there is much more to it than that. Taken as a whole, it is a vigorous, active, even muscular path. It asks everything of us.
And so does any genuine path of real healing and growth. It is easy to underestimate the fullness of the undertaking to be a happy, loving, productive, and wise person –just like it is easy to underestimate what’s involved in getting a college degree, or raising a child, or running a marathon. Life is the real deal, and thriving in it requires a wholehearted engagement in which we get better at things – including getting better . . . at getting better!
Pitfalls of Each
On the other hand, each wing carries certain risks, especially if taken to an extreme or not balanced by the other wing:
Being With
This mode of practice can be misunderstood to be little more than:
- A kind of spacey, pleasant vacuity. Almost like being stoned.
- Or a flabby indifference: “it’s all the same, whatever.”
Working With
The downside of this mode is more obvious when it’s taken to an extreme or when it is out of balance. That’s because working with your experience – or your circumstances (i.e., external, objective reality) – can be very powerful, but like a medicine that is strong enough to do good, working with things is strong enough also to do harm.
The possibilities include:
- The inherent stress of striving.
- The machinery of craving, desire for sense pleasures, etc. gets applied to psychological or spiritual pursuits
- What Chogyam Trungpa called spiritual materialism, which is the reification – the “thinging” – and freezing of fundamentally intangible processes of experience, reality, and realization.
- Spiritual pride.
This article is Part One of a series: Part Two – Psychological Growth and Contemplative Practice: Uniting the Two Wings.
Continued Discussion
© Rick Hanson, PhD
