Mindsight Topics and Programs for wisdom, peace, and equanimity.

As usual, this year’s program will introduce new topics not emphasized or explored before. We will expand our tools beyond mindsight to include mindful action from a deeper understanding of the power of the present moment. This program will be heavily experiential, immersing students into the direct and in-depth exploration of direct, intimate experience through mindsight, both internally with themselves and externally with others. Our goal is wisdom, peace, and equanimity NOW, not tomorrow.

Three inescapable existential questions we face daily are why there is evil in the world, what do we do with events and experiences we don’t understand and can’t make sense of, and why there is pain and suffering. None of these are questions that can be answered. Instead, they are calls for engagement in figuring out how to best live with the inescapable. I used to say that Buddha taught the inevitability of pain and the optionality of suffering. I have become more nuanced in my old age – both are inevitable, but with dedication and training over time, we can improve our capacity to bear suffering with greater ease. In this course, these three existential questions will echo from the background of our presence, and in meeting the challenge they pose, I see passion for showing up, curiosity for details of our subjective experience, and commitment to adventure and creativity in taking on our minds, as probably the most important principles we can learn to cultivate.

Topics addressed in the course will include the following:

1. A review, deepening and consolidation of the transformation algorithm technique of mindfulness meditation introduced last year, including a closer examination of its creative potential for non-dual awareness. The mystery of transcendence at the core of Being can only be accessed through the exploration and knowledge of the soma that we are, as opposed to the body that we have (check out this blog for a short explanation). The exploration of that kind of depth of energy flow through the body is generally unknown in our culture, despite the fact that mindfulness is embodied and ubiquitously taught. The transformation algorithm practice honors this truth as it opens the door to vast possibilities of healing beyond the rational, scientifically known body that we have, thus giving us access to the nameless, timeless, and transcendental essence of Being.
2. Touching upon research in near-death and dying experiences, we will explore their implication for life and mindsight practice. In this context, unusual phenomena occurring during that time and the universally observed shift into non-dual consciousness upon dying are explored. Synchronicity as it often occurs during the dying process, and its value in conferring meaning to our lives, will be included in our work on harnessing the power of now.
3. An in-depth exploration of the present moment, including the close examination of intention and its power for transformation. We will learn to use intention to implement positive action, align oneself with the energy flow of the present moment, disidentify from thought content, and use negative emotions as transformative energy for healing.
4. Learning to harness the quantum dimension of mind to work with beliefs and faith as forces of wisdom, serenity, and peace.
5. Learning to understand the meaning of mystery and surrender to its 1000-year journey. This includes the appreciation of mystery as the portal to emptiness, the guiding principle on the path to transcendence.
6. Expanding the power of mindfulness through imagery to emphasize positive healing energy.
7. The spiritual dimension of mindsight, including non-dual awareness.
8. Appreciating and learning to use the art of scripture as a linguistic and ritualistic force for transformation as opposed to a dogmatic precept for behavioral control.

It is the dimension of Being and transcendence we will learn to reclaim and I will focus on in this program – not only because it involves teachings that are being lost, but also because lack of access to this dimension can cause seemingly intractable symptoms and suffering. These can be mitigated and much better managed when we know how to access what lies beyond the rational, problem-solving mind, and tap into the vast, open plane of infinite possibilities of energy flow. We have to learn to align ourselves with the river of life in the present moment. This includes relating to nothingness and emptiness as the vast context of existence, as we endeavor to increase our permeability and transparency to the non-conscious source of all experience. We can then cultivate a sense of groundedness in the nameless source of the open plane of infinite energy transformation possibilities while living with equanimity peacefully and wisely NOW.

This program will be heavily experiential, immersing students into the direct and in-depth exploration of direct experience through mindsight. I will also endeavor to foster a sense of intimacy through student participation.

Copyright © 2020 by Dr. Stéphane Treyvaud. All rights reserved.

Group Psychotherapy provides exactly the kind of safe, but intense transformative environment some of us need to heal deeply.

On June 14, 2020, Dr. John Salvendy, co-founder and first president of the Canadian Group Psychotherapy Association sadly passed away. In 1984 he became my group psychotherapy supervisor during my psychiatric residency at the University of Toronto. Within 3 years he taught me everything I needed to know to begin my own 35 years of group psychotherapy practice. We quickly became friends as we both shared our common European roots. For years we presented group psychotherapy workshops at the annual meeting of the Canadian Group Psychotherapy Association and used to go for our bi-weekly Sunday walks sharing our imagination on all kinds of subjects. Sadly, his passing coincides with a message that recently appeared on the Canadian Group Psychotherapy website saying: ‘We regret to inform you that we are not able to respond to requests at this time. Please check back later’. It is my understanding that the association had to suspend its activities for lack of interest in group psychotherapy in Canada. What a shame, given that it is such a rich, powerful, and effective^[22] modality in the field of psychotherapy.

Long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy, or ‘long-term intensive interactional group psychotherapy^[21] assumes diverse and diagnostically heterogeneous group membership and an open-ended time scale’ (Wikipedia). I have been running 4 open-ended groups of 12 members each over the past 30 years. The sessions take place weekly and everyone is committed to attend every session. When after several years a group member has accomplished the work of personal transformation they set out to complete, they leave the group and someone new joins. Not only is a group like that a fertile cauldron of transformative energy, but it is also very cost-effective. For psychiatrists here in Ontario the cost per group member is about ⅙ of an individual session of the same length. To run a group like that effectively requires special training within the field of psychotherapy, the way a plastic surgeon requires specialized training within the field of surgery.

There are many therapeutic groups being offered by mental health professionals, most of them short-term. The one we are addressing here is a fundamentally different kettle of fish. Members of my groups have three things in common: (1) They are all productive members of society with professions, jobs, hobbies, and families; (2) they have significant psychological symptoms that interfere with or sometimes even impede their capacity to fulfill their social, familial and personal obligations and aspirations; and (3) they have the capacity to introspect, examine their own mind and meaningfully explore who they are within the context of the intimate relationships that develop in the group. Their symptoms may have traumatic or other origins and may include relationship issues, PTSD, depression, anxiety, OCD, stress, and other manifestations of psychological suffering. Patients with active substance dependence issues or psychosis, and those who are either not able or willing to examine themselves, are not accepted in these groups.

The group process is unstructured, in order to allow the unconscious to speak. Whatever emerges during sessions is the manifestation of how everyone shows up in life. This affords group members the opportunity for self-examination, understanding, transformation, and application of new and more adaptive mental, behavior, and relationship patterns within the group at first, and eventually in their daily lives. What makes such a group so rich and effective is that group members learn through 4 levels of engagement: (1) By observing and listening to other people’s stories and interactions; (2) by getting actively involved in helping other group members explore themselves; (3) by having the group actively involved in helping them explore themselves; and (4) by addressing here and now interpersonal dynamics that arise in the course of each session. The group leader helps members develop a direct, respectful, and supportive style of communication that allows everyone to experience the safety of the intimate group process, as the often hard and painful exploration of truth unfolds towards new levels of integration, personal satisfaction, life success, harmonious relationships, and inner peace. On this basis, members learn to make better life choices, and over time many symptoms they originally came for disappear or reach manageable levels that do not interfere anymore with everyday life.

The principle of universality allows group members to lose their sense of embarrassment and isolation, learn to validate their experiences, and develop strong self-esteem as they recognize shared experiences and feelings among group members as widespread, universal human concerns. Because the group is mixed with members at various stages of development and recovery, everyone can be inspired and encouraged by other group members, which instills hope. Those who have overcome a problem can consolidate their self-esteem by realizing that they have developed the wisdom to help others with what they have learned to apply for themselves, and those who still struggle can benefit from that wisdom of others. The group provides a safe and supportive environment, where altruism can flourish, thereby consolidating our human nature as deeply relational. Members feel safe to take risks and extend their repertoire of socializing techniques for the purpose of improving their social skills, including interpersonal behaviors and the way they listen and talk to each other. Imitative behavior can be an important part of social learning through a modeling process, as members learn to observe and imitate the therapist and other group members in the way they share personal feelings, show concern, and support others.

Members learn to help each other and give their insights to others, which lifts their self-esteem and thereby helps develop more adaptive coping styles and interpersonal skills. In doing so, members often unconsciously experience their relationships with the group therapist and other group members quite similar to those with their own parents and siblings, creating a form of group transference specific to this type of group psychotherapy. With the help of the therapist’s interpretations, this allows participants to engage in a corrective recapitulation, reworking, and transformation of their primary childhood family experiences. By gaining an understanding of the impact of childhood experiences on their psyche and personality, participants may learn to avoid unconsciously repeating unhelpful past interactive patterns in present-day relationships. Through the development of attuned communication, as this process can be summarized by, all members feel a sense of belonging, acceptance, and validation. which gives the group a sense of cohesiveness. In such a cohesive environment, it is safe to experience relief from emotional distress through catharsis, a free and uninhibited expression of emotion. In telling their story to a supportive audience, members obtain relief from chronic feelings of isolation, shame, and guilt. Through this process of interacting with others in the group, who give feedback on one’s behavior and impact on others, group members achieve a greater level of self-awareness and self-understanding with the achievement of deeper insight into the way their problems developed and their behaviors were unconsciously motivated. Last but not least, and technically not a direct aspect of psychotherapy, useful factual information can occasionally get imparted from the therapist or other members in the group, which is often reported as very helpful.

In our increasingly fast-paced, narcissistic society (although COVID-19 may seriously challenge this trend), in which self-interest trumps all sense of community and responsibility for others, people often misinterpret group therapy as less valuable than individual therapy, even though the above explanations make it abundantly clear how rich and fruitful a process it really is. As I explained elsewhere here and here, people also look for quick fixes even when none is to be had. Not long ago I assessed a new patient with a significant history of childhood abuse. When I gave her feedback and my recommendation for this kind of therapy, she said she did not want to be so involved and asked me for a ‘quick fix’ so that she ‘can get on with life’, despite the fact that she had had years of short-term ‘quick fix’ interventions in the past, with no measurable result. Insurance companies are notorious for pushing quick fixes, apparently not realizing that they create revolving door situations that I assume must cost way more than a well-run longterm psychotherapy that addresses issues more permanently. The human mind in general looks for quick fixes, uncomfortable with the reality of much human healing that unfolds at the pace of watching your grass grow. There is no way around it, and this kind of group provides exactly the kind of safe, but intense transformative environment some of us need to heal deeply to the point of being able to thrive in our own skin without constant relapses, or worse, progressive deterioration.

Of course, not everyone is suitable for these kinds of groups, not the least because it is challenging to participate in such a rich and multifaceted process. Those who do, however, are usually rewarded by what they often call ‘an experience of a lifetime’, having had the privilege of participating in a group with like-minded and like-hearted people capable of a degree of intimacy, insight, and empathy not found anywhere else in life.

Copyright © 2022 by Dr. Stéphane Treyvaud. All rights reserved.

Navigating our mindfulness and therapy programs in COVID times.

Our government is following a general world-wide trend of beginning to loosen our social isolation so that society can get back to more ‘normal’ interaction patterns, work, and economic prosperity. Within this context, our team had to decide when we can start meeting with our patients, students, and participants in person again.

This decision can be motivated by science and safety on one hand, and socioeconomic considerations on the other. In the end, what counts for government is the balance between unknown, but “evidence-informed” risks of coronavirus transmission and the known negative economic impact of businesses remaining closed. For us, the potential benefits of meeting in person have to significantly outweigh the risks of infection.

We have to be able to maintain the sanitation standards suggested by Public Health. On a practical level, this means considering that our group rooms are carpeted, and chairs and cushions are fabric, and we don’t have the capacity or set up to be adequately cleaning the furniture and props on a nightly basis. The recommendation remains that we stay 6 feet apart, which would be a challenge in our group room spaces. Personal protective equipment for both staff and patients is recommended, which includes face masks. As psychotherapists, we need to be able to see the entire face, and not have to stare at masked people. This applies even more so to the many groups we run, in which the idea of staring at a sea of masked people is therapeutically counterproductive and affects group dynamics. Imagine also people crying with masks, which is of course a frequent occurrence in our line of work. Do they simply cry in their mask? Remove their mask and blow their nose? Where do the tissues go? The air is then contaminated, so what does that do to the safety of others? In short, the therapeutic value of seeing people’s faces online far outweighs the reality of physically sitting together in person with faces hidden behind masks, and all the complexities that come with it. If these considerations were not enough, we also have to clarify and deal with legal and insurance matters that affect our decisions.

In summary, as it stands right now, the potential benefits of meeting in person do not significantly outweigh the risks of infection. We will be navigating in the murky waters of a big grey zone for a very long time because pandemics do not just suddenly disappear (see this interesting article from the New York Times). What will guide our decision is not impulse and economics, but science and safety. Until we see a clear recovery pattern, which Canada is not yet experiencing (see this link: https://www.endcoronavirus.org/countries), and other health, safety, and therapeutic considerations are adequately addressed, we will continue our work with everyone online.

Dr. Stephane Treyvaud and team

When we train our minds to expand consciousness

In my two blogs ‘Initiation Renaissance In Our Pandemic Times‘ and ‘Wu Wei‘, I wrote about a subjective, yet universally accessible dimension of reality that opens up like wakefulness emerging from a dream, when we train our minds to expand consciousness through successive stages of depth and integration, all the way to the realization of the transcendental emptiness of Being. We take this journey because it allows us to unleash our full human potential for wisdom as defined by peace and equanimity independent of circumstance, including respect and love for all human beings, all living creatures, the universe as we know it and oneself. The question I want to address here, is why transcendence and emptiness of Being are experienced and manifest in our actions as love? Why is the universe fundamentally benevolent, when science tells us that it is just energy meaninglessly and randomly flowing according to certain physical laws without rhyme, reason or purpose, clumping, exploding and vanishing haphazardly here, there, and everywhere? To address this question I first want to explore truth.

1. TRUTH

Definition

Let’s begin with the question of what truth is. Philosophy has whole libraries filled with tomes written about this topic. I am not going to review that, but instead, propose a few poignant definitions that serve our purpose. One definition I like comes from my teacher Northrop Frye: It is what keeps coming back and hits you over the head the more you try to ignore it. Psychoanalytically that would be the return of the repressed. Another way would be to say that it is what still stands and continues to define people’s view of reality after it has been repeatedly refuted. Or, truth has something to do with the primary human concerns that satiety is better than hunger, pleasure better than pain, love better than hate, wealth better than poverty, and freedom better than bondage. Finally, and quite simply, truth is agreement with fact or reality as more narrowly defined in terms of what exists without lies.

Truth and reality

Truth and reality overlap, but are not exactly the same. Lying, deception, and delusion, all opposites of truth, are sad aspects of human reality. The truth is that humans can lie, while the content of their lies is an aspect of reality, but not of truth. Practically though, we cannot build our lives on lies, deception, and delusion without toxic consequences. To simplify, we can, therefore, discard the aspect of reality that is a distorted human construction from our understanding of reality, except for the purpose of recognizing it when it appears. Reality and truth then become for all intents and purposes synonymous. If so, can we humans share a universally accepted reality that has a common ring of truth for all? I will try to show that this is indeed possible, but only if we train ourselves to mobilize higher human faculties we often keep dormant, thus missing out on discovering the awe-inspiring vastness of life in a mysterious universe.

The universality of truth

Are you familiar with the famous elephant of reality and the blind men trying to describe it? One man touches the tusks and says reality is like a battering ram, another touches his ears and insists reality is like a cabbage leaf. One touches his legs and argues it is like a tree trunk; another the end of his tail and believes it is like a brush, and yet another man touches his trunk convinced reality is like a snake, and so on. Everyone has a clear sensory experience of a part of the elephant and for each individual, the elephant is clearly what the senses tell him it is. The problem is that each individual has blinders on and does not check what his colleagues experience. The result is a tower of Bable situation, in which we not only disagree on what the truth is, but hold on tightly to our opinions and cannot communicate nor hear each other. The truth becomes ‘what I see as truth’, from which follows that ‘whatever you think is the truth must be false and misguided’. It would appear that discovering a universally valid truth is a hopeless endeavor and that truth is locked in the tiny bubble of human subjectivity.

The Tower Of Babel, Peter Brueghel the Elder, 1563

Limitations of the senses and scientific objectivity

Let’s establish a few facts first, in order to better understand what follows. Like all animals, we take in reality through our senses, which register reality through the restricted dimension of their unique architecture. For example, the eye is able to register electromagnetic waves in the range of 400-700nm. What’s beyond, ultraviolet or infrared is invisible. In other words, we are naturally limited to seeing the world in a very particular human way that is very different from a bat’s, for example. However, given our unique conceptual brainpower with its ability to imagine what does not exist, we developed mind mechanisms, including mathematics, with which we can measure and experiment, invent and create in such a way as to develop extensive knowledge of the physical world beyond what our senses can pick up. So we know all about subatomic particles, molecules, black holes, the probable origin of the universe, cells, and X-rays without being able to have a direct experience of them. In short, our inherently biased and limited view of reality is expanded by our reasoning faculties beyond what the senses are able to register to include vast swaths of the collectively verifiable physical reality around us that is not accessible through the senses.

Geographical and ecological environments

Now, how about different ways reality shows up in our consciousness depending on ecological and geographical factors? With the same senses, we experience reality very differently depending on the environment we live in and by implication, the stories, myths, and cultural envelopes we create are very different from one place to another. A tribe in the middle of the Amazon jungle has very different views on life than the farmers high up in the Swiss Alps. Could they conceivably share the same circle of truth and a common view of reality?

Mindsight and the development of inner clarity

And how about the world of individual subjective experience, the mind and the imagination that gives rise to other cultural phenomena, such as personal views, artistic expression, philosophical and religious beliefs? Some societies do not recognize subjective experience. Each individual is a function of the collective and ‘naturally’ behaves and sees the world as its expression by subsuming the subjective under the collective. In our culture, we must begin with the notion of our organism as an open complex system. When through trauma or other influences this organism is intrapsychically divided into competing parts that do not communicate well with each other, we display physical and psychological symptoms of all kinds, because the organism struggles with entrenched states of chaos and rigidity it has no way of processing towards integration without external help. Non-integrated organismic states make it impossible for the person to see reality clearly, the way looking through a fractured windshield makes it impossible to see the road clearly or a disorganized orchestra with non-communicative players is unable to play a symphony one would want to listen to.

Developing a clear mind through mindsight (remembering that the mind is embodied and includes the heart, the guts, and the whole body) is, therefore, a crucial precondition to seeing the truth. At the level of this step, we already have love emerging: Mindsight can only develop through the combination of focused attention, open awareness, and kind disposition on the basis of strong intention. Daniel Siegel‘s COAL (Curiosity, Openness, Acceptance, and Love as the emerging property of the first three) is a precondition for deep insight and wisdom. In collective societies, in which subjective experience is completely subsumed into the collective mind, it is the medicine man or wise elder of the tribe who is responsible for guiding the individuals between the Scylla of chaos and the Charybdis of rigidity towards an integrated societal functioning. The way he or she does it is no less imbued by the principles of COAL we apply to our own individuality. If it isn’t, the tribe fractures and does not thrive. To summarize then, the development of mindsight through COAL, whether individually or collectively, results in a far less distorted view of reality we can, therefore, all share, because defensive mind mechanisms that lead to distortions of view, experience, reality, and truth by throwing the individual or collective organism into chaos or rigidity, can be relinquished in favor of more integrated, and both intra- and interpersonally attuned connections to reality.

As an example, someone suffering from complex childhood trauma may get triggered by a comment you make, even though your comment is not ill-intentioned, nor aggressive. The person’s reaction is to immediately fall into the childhood survival situation, disconnect from the socially-engaged middle prefrontal cortex (MPC) and experience a brainstem activation in the form of a fight/flight situation. The moment that happens, the person is incapable of attuning, hearing what you really say, repair if necessary, and process the situation from the present perspective where there may be no danger at all, and instead unconsciously projects the childhood trauma onto the present moment. The result is that this person cannot see the truth, nor reality as it is. She can only see a long-gone reality that does not exist anymore, thus distorting what is going on in the present moment.

Mindful learning

Mindsight and getting better at reaching integrated states for oneself is not enough to discover the universality of truth. A second ingredient is mindful learning, which Ellen Langer has explored in detail. The essence of mindful learning is to offer learning material in a conditional format rather than as a series of absolute truths. Universal and absolute truth are not the same. Absolute truth is in fact not truth at all, but simply a stubbornly-held rigid opinion about how things are. Mindful learning requires us to keep an open mind about the contexts to which new information can be applied. To foster this openness in a practical way, we use spacious terms such as ‘might’, ‘can be’, ‘could be’, ‘might entail’, ‘may on occasion’, ‘could involve’, ‘may have’, and ‘could have been’, rather than foreclosing ones such as ‘is’, ‘are’, or ‘were’. Mindful learning lets us know what quantum physicists already know from their experiments, that the outcome of our experiences is shaped in part by our own attitude, which shapes the direction of our learning. Mindful learning consists of openness to novelty, alertness to distinctions from which we create categories, sensitivity to different contexts, implicit if not explicit awareness of multiple perspectives, and orientation to the present. This encourages the mind to disentangle itself from premature conclusions, categorizations, and routinized ways of perceiving and thinking.

Certainty eliminates the need to pay attention, and without precise attention, we miss the details that reveal reality. Given that the world around us is always in flux, our certainty is an illusion. Mindful learning involves concepts such as intelligent ignorance, flexible thinking, avoidance of premature cognitive commitments, and creative uncertainty. It is neither top-down conceptually averaged and conditioned learning (I miss the uniqueness of this flower I see right now because long ago I created the category ‘flower’ from many different flowers I saw, making it more expedient for me to just project the category on this unique flower I see now), nor bottom-up formlessly creative learning; neither left-brain (linguistics, linearity, logic, literal thinking) nor right-brain (non-verbal, holistic, visuospatial, embodied) learning; it is rather a sideways stance of learning, an orthogonal shift in awareness, where left- and right-brain styles, top-down and bottom-up processing are intertwined, where learners are conditional in how they take in information and uncertainty is a friend. Creative uncertainty strengthens learning and makes the learning experience more enjoyable and accessible to Being beyond doing. With this kind of learning, we are clear about what we know, what we don’t know, and how different perspectives illuminate aspects of reality we may not be able to see ourselves. Again, as previously seen in our discussion of mindsight, this kind of learning comes with an attitude of openness and kindness towards what seems foreign, unintelligible, unknown, or even absurd.

Consilience

Mindful learning sets the stage for people with mindsight to meaningfully dialogue and hear each other without exclusion or dogmatism, at which point a third ingredient will close the loop that makes it possible for us to rethink the tower of Babel. There is a way of developing a common vocabulary across the different ways and modes of knowing to be able to transcend our limited views and converse about our common reality. It is an approach to knowing about what it means to be human that allows us to draw on all the different disciplines of science and other ways of knowing (art, philosophy, mindsight, jurisprudence, carpentry, etc.); E. O. Wilson calls that consilience. The consilience approach honors subjectivity as much as science. Consilience takes many different ways of pursuing knowledge through science and other means and finds the universal principles that emerge when you see these independent disciplines as a whole. Consilience means finding universal principles across separate ways of knowing.

The combination of mindsight, mindful learning, and consilience integrates not only one’s organism but also one’s relationships with others, thereby making it possible to humbly respect and accept other people’s views as facets of the elephant of reality we are trying to see. Views that are difficult to assimilate do not get rejected but are seen within a larger context. By combining principles from different ways of knowing we are afforded the opportunity to see a larger picture, the whole, or at least as much as possible of the elephant of truth. To rephrase, the deeper our knowledge and understanding of, and our attunement with the human condition is, the more of the elephant of truth can we see and share.

Lies

I wish I had Trump as my patient – I would feel more knowledgeable about the psychology of lying. He symbolizes everything that can be wrong in a society, and we should not forget that he can only occupy the post he does when a majority of citizens collude with what is emerging now as a collective psychological madness, which includes ‘pathological lying, habitual and institutionalized corruption, dishonesty, serial groping, casual racism, the glorification of violence, winking to Nazis, laziness, impulsiveness, childish tantrums, bottomless ignorance, vanity, insecurity, vulnerability to flattery, bullying, crudity, indifference to suffering, incompetence, rabid narcissism, chaos in the White House, attacks on America’s allies and support for its foes, contempt for experts and for expertise, for truth and the press, for norms and conventions, for checks and balances, for limited government, for the very rule of law’ (adapted from Andrew Coyne: The virus of Trumpism and his infectious moral failings – Globe and Mail, Saturday, February 8, 2020).

Lies are part of reality, as are deception and delusion, but they are not part of truth. With mindsight, mindful learning, and consilience, developed through learning the technique of kind attentiveness, we learn to discern the difference between distortion and clarity, falsity and veracity, manipulation and guidance, domination and leadership, rhetoric and reason, demagogy and unification. This complex process of reality exploration makes us generally less vulnerable to succumb to lies. The kindly attentive mind has the patience of learning about context through complex analyses from established and trustworthy sources, and not just react emotionally to meaningless social media clips and news flashes. No information, no news, no opinion is unbiased, but there is a difference between bias and lie. The bias prefers certain parts of the elephant of truth, openly admits it, and remains open to other biases. The lie tells a story, either consciously or unconsciously, that distorts or hides the elephant of truth, and is incompatible with it. Most lies are toxic, although some can be skillful and life-affirming, such as a lie that gets you out of a concentration camp.

The healing power of truth and now

Having laid the foundations for seeing truth from a more multifaceted and holistic perspective, we now have to ask ourselves why truth is so important. It is said that the truth shall set you free, but why?

We have already seen that access to truth requires certain attributes that hinge on being consistent with reality and fact: Focused attention, open awareness, kind disposition, strong intention, humility, honesty, and integrity. As the etymology of the word ‘integrity’ reveals, integration is at the core of truth. Integration is the process by which the parts of a system link together without losing their differentiated uniqueness, and like in a dance of two connected individuals, give rise to a whole that is larger than the sum of its parts. Where there is integration, integrity, and an easy relationship to truth, in other words, a resonance with facts, whether we like them or not, our organism does not need to tense up, create reality-distorting defenses and fight against itself. Little energy gets wasted in defensiveness and having to then deal with the toxic consequences of it on the organism and its environment. Once we see what is true and real, however painful it may be, we gain the freedom of choice for potential corrective actions. This is also what it means to access the present moment, the now. We only assume to have such freedom but really don’t when we are caught in deception and the distortions of mind constructions outside the now. Deception is like having a termite-infested basement with a locked basement door. While the foundations are slowly eroding and eventually leading to collapse, we blissfully pretend that everything is fine and are terribly surprised the day the roof collapses on us. When we challenge ourselves to see the truth and open the basement door, we sure do not feel good about discovering the termite mess. However, this pain corresponds to the clarity of seeing the truth and gives us the opportunity to address the termite problem. It is the essence of what it means to be here now. Action based on truth keeps us grounded in what’s real, which is what’s now, and a clear vision of reality sets us free by giving us the freedom to act skilfully in accordance with context and circumstance. We don’t end up meeting surprises coming from truth distortions, such as when castles built in the air collapse. Bad neighborhoods are only in the mind’s constructions, and the present is a much more benevolent place. As Hamlet said: “Nothing is either good or bad, only thinking makes it so.”

2. LOVE

So truth reveals itself through integration, and integration happens now, leading to a sense of peace and well-being, which in turn engenders trust by calming our reptilian fight/flight/freeze systems and connecting us to ourselves and each other through attunement. That open connectivity between most or all parts of who we are means that nothing real gets excluded from consciousness. Confidence arises that no locked basement doors impede access to hidden catastrophes, and the trust that grows on this basis allows the elements of COAL we trained all along to grow, including the emerging property of love, however difficult reality might be. Through truth, we thus discover love and vice versa. The simple act of facing truth and reality, which inevitably requires attention and COAL, is an act of love. The simple surrender to the universe ‘as it is’ is an act of love. All acts of love bring peace and equanimity in a very deep way. This is why transcendence and emptiness, the result of reality and truth having been revealed at their deepest level, are pure love, and this is why in vernacular parlance or New Age rhapsody people keep proclaiming the benefits of discovering the universe’s benevolence. It is not the universe that is benevolent, for it is first and foremost awe-inspiring, frighteningly gigantic with brute power and endlessly fascinating. What’s benevolent is the present moment in comparison to the mind’s constructions; our new, mindful way of meeting our human experience unencumbered by resistance as the unfolding universe becoming conscious of itself. Our sheer existence becomes love in action in the form of transcendental Being.

3. A LETTER FROM PAUL TO THE CORINTHIANS

It is fascinating to find in the Bible of all places, a passage that could have been written with Interpersonal Neurobiology in mind. I insert my comments in red throughout the text:
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. Non-attachment, no rope burn.
5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Non-attachment, no rope burn.
6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Truth at the root of love.
7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Fosters the processes of integration.
8 Love never fails. Because it is beyond the problem-solving mind. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; love tethers us to the present moment away from future preoccupations; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; love is beyond what’s conceptually graspable and words; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. Love is the highest form of knowledge beyond left-brain rationalizations.
9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. The conceptual mind parses reality and cannot see context and wholeness.
11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.
12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. When caught in left-brain reasoning we are caught in virtual conceptual reality and only see the menu, never the meal. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. Left and right brain balance is essential to see the whole elephant of truth, and thereby fully know oneself.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. This means that when we clearly see the ways and laws of the unfolding universe, which we are a manifestation of, hopes for the future become tangible knowledge in the present and we appreciate reality’s hidden complexities as the most obvious foundations of wisdom. But the greatest of these is love, because it is the emerging property of such clarity of view allowing us to roam freely and easily in life’s marketplace as manifestations of the transcendental emptiness of Being.

Copyright © 2020 by Dr. Stéphane Treyvaud. All rights reserved.

Life unfolds between moments of doing something and moments of doing nothing.

One is the opposite of the other in the same dimension of external appearances. Life seems to pendulate between the polarities of activity and rest. But that is just the surface.

There is a third doing belonging to another dimension: Non-doing at the core of both doing something and doing nothing. This non-doing is the secret bridge to life’s dimension that in its becoming and disappearing, arising and fading, is independent of whether we do something or do nothing. From the depths of this other dimension of life, or of Life (with capital L) if you so want, the law of Being manifests as one of the most essentially human characteristics – presence. Whether we do something or do nothing, presence is the way Being manifests beyond just automatic and mindless existence, and it remains unshakably linked to its lawful principles of non-doing. That path, that way of Being as presence is the essential non-doing within both doing something and doing nothing. In Chinese culture, this is called Wu Wei.

Doing something and doing nothing become wholesome and sacred acts only then, when they don’t impede the manifestation of Being coming from the depths Life. Whether we act selfishly or selflessly, being too wrapped up in our busyness runs the risk of impeding Being from becoming manifest as presence in our lives. It seems obvious how busyness impedes the radiant blossoming of presence; it is trickier to realize how doing nothing may impede presence just as much, when it is filled with inner unrest.

Non-doing is the expression of presence emerging from the stillness of Being. This stillness is not the absence of movement, but our learned capacity to get out of nature’s dynamically unfolding ways. Stillness is therefore always there to be tapped into when we know-how, right in the midst of life’s bustling catastrophe. Conversely, in life’s quiet moments of doing nothing, non-doing is also the expression of a profound connection to the irrepressible, creative, and dynamic source of life. In other words, non-doing is both a vast space of stillness amid chaos and an intimate connection to the ever-creative and dynamic source of life.

Being is beyond doing something and doing nothing, and therefore often seen as the transcendent dimension of existence. Our collective calling to becoming fully human during our existence, beyond the animalistic fulfillment of needs for survival, is precisely about making sure that nothing gets in the way of the subtle, quiet, but the powerful human impulse to reveal the presence of Being. To this end, it behooves us to develop and practice non-doing within all our many active and receptive doing activities, and consistently orient ourselves towards its powerful energy that serves as a beacon, measure, direction, and meaning for our lives. When rooted in non-doing, the lively and life-affirming dynamic of our human essence is protected from the suffocating busyness of our goal-oriented doing.

We typically practice non-doing in our formal meditation sittings. Through meditation, we remain open to the initiatory core of all doing and behaving. In Wu Wei, we maintain an accepting openness towards life’s mystery, which yearns for expression and human testimony.
When Wu Wei directs action, there is ease and relaxation, because our ego steps aside to allow our true self to be in charge. This true self is not a unified entity in us, but rather our moment-by-moment attitude when we can get out of life’s spontaneous, dynamically unfolding ways. This free and easy non-doing amid the busy market place we call Wu Wei, also carries the living word of our communications. Speaking in accordance with the presence of Being means speaking from the depth of stillness as the resonance board for our words’ deeper meanings. Words with power come from silence. Right speech that is attuned to whom we speak with, sounds loudly with the silence that is so characteristic of presence in Being. Conversely, the word of Being falls silent amidst the yapping and chatter of mindless gossip.

If all this sounds theoretical or philosophical to you, let me give a recent example from an email I just received from one of my students. She writes: “Regarding the four steps of our transformation algorithm meditation practice, letting oneself go and surrender to the flow of the breath, how do I surrender and trust the flow to carry me, if (based on my life experience) I no longer believe in the ‘benevolence of the Universe’?” This a question that typically arises when as I described above one is stuck in ‘the suffocating business of goal-oriented doing’, which severs our connection to ‘non-doing as the lively and life-affirming dynamic of our human essence’. To the extent this student is alienated from Being, what she fails to realize is that this state of alienation is a huge opportunity and one of the royal roads to accessing the mystery of Being.

The first step is to understand that when she says she no longer believes in the benevolence of the universe, what she is really saying is that her problem-solving, goal-oriented mind no longer believes. In other words, she is saying something of crucial importance without knowing that she is saying it – and that is that she has reached the limit of what the problem-solving mind can handle, understand, and process. To put it differently, she has reached the limits of the ‘doing-something-and-doing-nothing’ dimension. This is good news she can rejoice in – on one hand, that is. On the other hand, the scary leap starts now: It is the leap that entails a relinquishing of this limited sense of meaning the problem-solving mind creates, and surrender to what from the problem-solving mind’s point of view appears as the universe’s utter malevolence, destructiveness, meaninglessness, forsakenness, and absurdity. It is a leap into the void with the seemingly real expectation of falling to one’s demise. This is why wise men and women say that when you die before you die, you will not die when you die. It is a leap of faith without a shred of trust, or maybe if lucky, a shred of trust that comes from the encouraging words of the many teachers who have taken this journey before you. This infinite void without reassurances appears to be so dark, destructive and absurd, because the problem-solving mind, which we allowed to dominate our sense of reality over a whole lifetime, has no reference points for it. No words, no concepts, no narratives, not even any sensory experiences apply to what this apparent void is all about.

Only once we have dared to take the leap, which is, in fact, another way of saying that we dared to show up, live fully and manifest presence in Being, only then do we discover a most astonishing reality – what we thought was the universe’s benevolence was nothing more than our little ego’s rationalization that when we thrive and have no pain, no illness, and no death, we think the universe is benevolent. When calamities occur, we think it is bad. What meager nonsense! We discover something of untold beauty, namely that whatever happens, whether we are young or old, fresh or decrepit, smooth or wrinkled, healthy or sick, alive or about to die, an incredible, nameless sense of peace and love awaits us to be discovered, and that we are not just part of the universe, but we are, have always been, and will always be this universe unfolding, filled with love and awe-inspiring beauty. It is impossible to properly describe this awakening when we open ourselves up to this new dimension – as they say in Zen, we can only talk about the finger pointing to the moon, not the moon itself. For those inclined to read sacred texts, read the story of Job in the Bible, or the story of Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, just to name two among many, and you’ll know what I am trying to write about.

Back to my student: How do you take that leap? You have to embrace the stark and painful darkness of absurdity and meaninglessness with curiosity, openness, acceptance, and love while making sure you consistently use your meditation tools and psychotherapy, if necessary, the proper way. Most people shy away from that precipice, often because they simply don’t have the tools to meet their mind’s depth, they don’t have the patience and dedication to walk that path, or they don’t have a teacher experienced enough to guide them through. Having a teacher with experience is essential because without him or her one can easily shatter under the barrage of dangerous weapons of our mind’s bad neighborhoods. Not surprisingly Jesus said: “Many are called, but few are chosen!” Who does not want that kind of liberation independent from circumstance? Yet who is prepared to put in the necessary training to make that more probable?

Just a short aside, resist the idea that liberation from suffering is absolute, perfect, and a painless paradise. Instead, it is about a journey without end, a journey that in its endless unfolding is the goal, an abiding equanimity and peace in the middle of the busy marketplace with all its pleasures and pains. It is Wu Wei.

The practice of non-doing is a practice in taking oneself back, in undoing and unlearning. It is a retreat from identification with the external appearances of reality, which threaten to overstretch, or even break the golden thread that binds us to our transcendental essence. This retreat from the world of appearances is at the same time a turning towards and tuning into the depths of Being and presence, and therefore by no means a withdrawal from life, but a deepening of our access to life’s full context and splendor.

Living that way is an art, which requires the intentional effort of dedicated practice we commit ourselves to when we decide to walk the path of freedom. When we become experienced in the art of non-doing, everything we encounter in life radiates with the power of Life and its transcendental dimension that is awaiting to be discovered. We then recognize how the multitude of life forms and things in the universe are each individual and unique space- and time-bound manifestations of timeless and nameless Being. To live a life of initiation means to dedicate ourselves to recognize life as endless transformation, in which we lovingly manifest through presence and deeds the timeless principles of sacred Being.

Copyright © 2020 by Dr. Stéphane Treyvaud. All rights reserved.

Mindsight in Our Pandemic Times

COVID is one of those unpredictable natural phenomena that throws the whole of humanity into multi-level turmoil, challenging much of how we thought we can live our lives. We are forced to reflect, review and rethink how we live on this planet, making it improbable to hold on to the old consciousness horizons we were used to. This can be seen as a form of initiation we are willy-nilly subjected to.

Initiation is a rite of passage. The person undergoing initiation, the initiate, enters either by tradition, design or chance into a psychologically embodied process of transformation that opens her consciousness to further dimensions of human existence not previously aware of. Initiation is a transformation, in which the initiate is ‘reborn’ into a new role. Examples of initiation ceremonies might include Christian baptism or confirmation, Jewish bar or bat mitzvah, acceptance into a fraternal organization, secret society or religious order, or graduation from school or recruit training. A spiritual initiation rite normally implies a shepherding process, where those who are at a higher, more experienced level of consciousness, guide the initiate through a process of greater exposure to a fuller breadth of knowledge. One famous historical example is the Eleusinian Mysteries of ancient Greece. Puberty rites were historically very important as a way of channeling the adolescent’s unruly states of mind towards a contextually more encompassing and knowledgeable view of reality. The adolescent has to learn to see beyond the consciousness of his own tribe into the vastness of world reality. In short, the importance of initiation lies in its consciousness-expanding effect, so that we do not remain stuck in the false, and frankly often painful belief that the state of consciousness we spontaneously slide into during the transition from childhood to adulthood is all there is.

With the dawn of quantitative science a few centuries ago and the temporary amnesia with regards to the fact that humans have minds, the notion of initiation became obsolete, because initiation is a mind process. With the recent (a few decades) recognition of consciousness and mind as possible objects of scientific inquiry, and the central importance of subjective experience as an aspect of mind so necessary for living the good life, I think it is time to revive the notion of initiation, which can teach us so much about our human existence and how to make it more bearable.

Initiation entails a fundamental structure seen across cultures, which we can use as a psychological guide on our exploration of mind and consciousness and our development of mindsight. This is why in this year’s Mindsight Intensive I have been focusing attention on initiation therapy and the transcendental aspect of human existence.

Every initiation rite teaches five negative and positive truths that need to be absorbed. These are:

1. Life is hard and full of suffering, but there is a way of easing this burden.
2. You are not that important, yet there is a way of realizing that you are everything.
3. Your life is not about you, but you can discover that you are about life.
4. You are not in control, yet you can learn to become an active participant in the inevitable flow of life.
5. You are going to die, but you can discover that you are much more than what dies.

The transformation algorithm meditation we practice in the Mindsight Intensive, essentially a practice focused on the phases of the breathing cycle, allows us to access these five dimensions of initiation in a most direct and efficient way. Each initiation dimension, when deeply incorporated and assimilated, contributes to decreasing our suffering.

1. Through mindsight we discover that the inevitability of suffering cannot be met successfully through avoidance of pain. We learn to let go of the fight against the inevitable. Instead, we embrace as best we can the full complexity of reality and the full force of truth with a kind and welcoming intention that helps bring clarity to our awareness of what is really going on. With that awareness, we gain more freedom of choice when it comes to possible actions that contribute to decreasing our suffering. Embracing our breath the way it is without manipulation teaches us that.

2. Science tells us that so far in the evolution of the universe we are an infinitesimal afterthought the universe can do without. From a cosmic perspective our solar system will soon be burnt up and transformed into cold nothingness. So when it comes to you and me in the individual physical form we came into existence, we have precious little importance. However, our mindsight reveals the possibility of a great fascination we can cultivate with how energy and chance conspire over huge periods of time to give rise to something as marvelous as our human consciousness; and we can do that without having to resort to any extraneous notion of a creator. Not only that, but the expansion of consciousness through mindsight allows us to touch the direct experience of actually being the unfolding universe. Each one of us is the universe and life in its unfolding, beyond the temporary and mortal carcass we presently find ourselves imprisoned in. In fact, once we see our bodies more deeply within the large context of universal reality, and realize that we not only have, but also are a body, the body ceases to be a prison, but becomes the vehicle of liberation. The breath teaches us to see beyond the physical concreteness of our body into the limitlessness of our Being.

3. Life is not about you, because this separate ‘you’ or ‘I’ we always refer to is but a construction of the mind, just a thought, a notion, and not anything real, the same way a wave thinking of itself as a separate entity is but a movement of the ocean. Our mental capacity to construct a ‘me’, or more accurately many different ‘mes’ from moment to moment, which we are usually unable to differentiate, is a gift of human consciousness that allows us the freedom to realize how our existence is about life. The universe lives in part through us as marvelous conduits of its awe-inspiring enormity. In the outbreath we learn to relinquish this constructed notion of a separate self.

4. Science tells us that we are biological algorithms as I have written elsewhere, and as such control far less than we believe. Having little control does not mean we are at the mercy of the slings and arrows of circumstance. We can actively participate in the universe’s creation! We need to relinquish our sense of omnipotence by learning to get out of our own way and not resist the inevitable flow of reality, which causes so much suffering. I love swimming down the Rhine in Basel. The current is strong, and there is no way to swim upstream against it. But carried by the current, you can swim closer or farther from the shore, and decide when you want to get out of the water. After the long pause at the end of the out-breath, the in-breath will arise whether you like it or not – you might as well not waste your energy taking the in-breath – instead, just let it happen.

5. Although you are going to die, the question is who ‘you’ is. As in the above paragraph 3., our mindsight examination of this question reveals that we are not defined by the boundaries of physical birth and death. The pause at the end of the out-breath is an opportunity to enter the nameless, timeless essence of your Being and realize how constructed your sense of time-bound separateness is. This is your chance to learn to die before you die and lose your fear of death, so that you won’t die when you die.

This whole initiation process causes a basic change in one’s existential condition, liberating us from the profane of time and history, so that we can fly like a butterfly into the sacred dimension of timeless life. The mundane becomes sacred, and this sense of sacredness alleviates our suffering. As Mircea Eliade would say: “Initiation recapitulates the sacred history of the world. And through this recapitulation, the whole world is sanctified anew. The initiate can perceive the world as a sacred work, a creation of the Gods.” This is a way of saying that we don’t have to be tyrannized by an autopilot mode of consciousness that leads to living and destroying like animals, but that we have the capacity to meaningfully participate in the awe-inspiring mystery of our universe’s unfolding in a constructive and beneficial way. Eliade again: “Initiation’s function is to reveal the deep meaning of existence to the new generations coming after us, and to help them assume the responsibility of being truly human and hence participating in culture.” This human world in the deepest and most evolved sense of the word, reveals a world open to the limitless capacity of human consciousness we call transcendence, because it transcends the limited view of an untrained human mind.

To this end, we cannot stay stagnant in our endeavors to improve our lives, as if we were trying to improve the script of a dream, even though we all want to use any means available to us to make ‘the dream’ of our physical and social reality as palatable as possible. Beyond that, initiation towards transcendence is about waking up from the dream and touch a dimension of consciousness that allows us to feel the mystery of life in a direct and compelling way beyond all suffering and time-bound existence. This awakening also called an orthogonal shift in consciousness, is not some kind of remote prize for the chosen few, even though so many people look for it their whole lives without success. It is quite simply speaking an inherent capacity of most human beings, for which we are all wired. What’s difficult is the methodical training process necessary to activate this dormant faculty, which requires dedicated work on challenging every assumption we are used to living by within the boundaries of every day, untrained consciousness. Once seriously launched on this journey, its beauty lies in the fact that there is no return, no place to reach, and no achievement to pursue. There is only the walking on the path to nowhere and everywhere, knowing that we never ‘get there’, but can simply notice an improvement in our ability to lovingly get out of our own way and surrender to what is, whether we like it or not, moment by moment. Our conscious walking is Being.

Copyright © 2020 by Dr. Stéphane Treyvaud. All rights reserved.