Does meditation exile part of us?
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Ruth writes, "One question was around the connections between Focusing and Buddhism, and meditation in particular. My dharma friend has gotten very interested in Focusing, and we talked about whether meditation is strengthening one part/exiling another, or whether it strengthens our capacity to be in Presence. We mostly decided on the latter, and would be interested to know what you think."
Dear Ruth,
Let me repeat the question, and I hope I’ve understood it correctly. You’re asking whether the process of meditation, for example Buddhist meditation, is a process of coming more into Presence–accepting and allowing all that is to be there–or if it’s a strengthening of one part but an exiling of another part–pushing some aspect(s) of ourselves out of awareness.
I think it depends on the teacher… and on the practitioner. There are some meditation teachers, spiritual teachers, who speak in a dualistic way. The part they speak against is usually referred to as "the mind" or "the ego." This becomes the bad guy in the inner world.
I even heard one person say, "Fear is the ego’s way of keeping us small."
I find this way of speaking quite problematic. To me it seems a very separating way of speaking, resulting in the student finding enemies within him or herself. I acknowledge I am not a student of Buddhism, and there may be a lot I don’t understand… but I know this: there are no "bad guys" in the inner world, and when we start treating aspects of ourselves as if they were the enemy, we are tragically missing an opportunity for real freedom and life forward movement.
But I don’t at all believe that this separation is really part of Buddhism! And there are certainly Buddhist teachers–Pema Chodron and Thich Nhat Hahn are two examples–in whose words my sensitive ear finds nothing to bother me.
Here is a quote from Pema Chodron: "And then there was a recognition that I needed to relax into the pain. Until then, I had avoided going to this place where I felt bad or unacceptable or unloved. No language could express how awful that place felt. But I just started breathing into it. I realized that this was a pivotal moment."
As for the practitioner… I would say that meditation could be used to exile or deny a part of ourselves. The parts of us that feel the need to exile other parts can be driven by a strong desperation, and they will use anything… even Focusing itself… to push away what they don’t want us to feel or know.
But the fact that meditation could be used for that doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with meditation. It simply means that bringing Presence to ourselves is a process that is ongoing… something on which meditation teachers and Focusing teachers agree.
