Am I Responsible for my Thoughts?

You have heard it said … “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”  But I say to you that anyone who so much as looks with lust at a woman has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Matt 5:27-28

At first glance it would seem that what Jesus is saying in this famous passage is that a man is responsible for the thought of lust that passes through his head at the sight of a beautiful woman.  Presumably this man is responsible for all his other thoughts as well and with this responsibility comes shame and guilt if the thoughts are wrong.  That is certainly the way I understood the passage growing up.  This is a very shame-based way of viewing the mind and places a heavy and unnecessary burden on impressionable minds.

This is true because the mind is constantly churning forth thoughts.  Anyone who has meditated quickly figures this out.  This is especially true for someone who is new to meditation.  Sitting still with closed eyes, trying to concentrate on a mantra or trying to clear the mind is a very difficult task.  Seemingly random thoughts will sneak in here and there and you will follow them until you remember that you were supposed to be meditating.  This will happen over and over again.  Performing this exercise will reveal how difficult and how much effort it takes not to identify with these thoughts.

Meditation will also reveal the several layers or parts to the mind.  There are at least three.  The first is the part that churns forth ideas without morals.  This is sometimes called the id or the ego or monkey-mind.  Sometimes this is associated with the limbic system or the primitive, reptile brain that seeks pleasure and tries to avoid pain.  This part of the mind lives in the moment and does not think ahead.  The second,  is the part of the mind that chastises the self for the lust, envy, anger that the first part thinks about.  This part is sometimes called the super-ego or conscience.  This is probably associated with the prefrontal cortex or modern brain that can think ahead and moralizes and judges.  Finally, there is the part of the mind that observes the other two parts.  This is sometimes called the true-self, the atman or perhaps the soul.  Most of the time the observer is asleep or identifies itself with one of the other two parts.  Meditation, is a way to keep the observer awake but that is a topic for another blog post.

In the shame-based universe, a person is responsible for their thoughts.  But how can a person bear the responsibility for something he has no control over?  Would it not make more sense to say that a man is not responsible for the initial thought but is responsible for how he reacts to that thought.  After all, it is possible to reject a thought or not act on a thought.  When this happens, this is the observer part of the mind not identifying with the thought churning part of the mind.  Adopting this way of looking at one’s thoughts takes practice in order to believe the truth of it but it does alleviate a great deal of unnecessary guilt and shame.

 

Meditations on Mercy

Be merciful, therefore, even as your Father is merciful.  Do not judge, and you shall not be judged; do not condemn, and you shall not be condemned.  Forgive and you shall be forgiven; give and it shall be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, shall they pour into your lap.  For with what measure you measure, it shall be measured to you.

Luke 6:36-38

At the beginning of time the entire universe was compressed into a singularity.  Everything was intimately unified.  This was the garden of Eden where God and man lived together without shame and God and man (and the garden) were one.  But within this singularity there was an impulse to separate, to experience individuality.  Call this impulse the serpent.  In order for the serpent to affect its desire it had to convince more of the singularity to join in with it.  So it tricked Eve to eat of the Tree of Life.  She did and convinced Adam to eat of it also.  Their eyes were opened, they became ashamed and covered their genitals with fig leaves and they hid from God.  The singularity exploded.  This was the Big Bang.  The universe expanded at an accelerating rate.  There was separation but it was no longer perfect.

And so we now find ourselves on this Earth at this unique point in time.  We are all a piece of God from that original singularity.  Some of us are more aware of this than others.  We all possess a nostalgic yearning to return in some fashion.  Again, some more than others.  And even ourselves are divided.  There is the part of the mind that wants pleasure, and safety and wealth and power.  There is the part of the mind that tells us not to give into those desires.  There is the part of the mind that observes these other two parts and is aware of itself when it does not sleep.   Perhaps it is this last part of the mind where the nostalgic yearning resides.

I have found that judgment goes both ways.  If I judge other people it was because I was judged by others and I judge myself with constant criticism.  But if I learn to be merciful to myself I can begin to be merciful to others.  This does not happen all at once.  But with effort and mercy from others it slowly begins to happen.  And the acceleration of the universal expansion begins to slow.  And mercy and forgiveness beget more mercy and forgiveness measure for measure.

Because even in this state, within this seemingly infinite expansion of the universe the totality of all that comprised that initial singularity exists.  That is God.  We are each a cell of organism called God.  From the perspective of one cell, the entire organism is a mystery.  And yet each cell contains a strand of DNA which in turn contains the blueprint for the entire organism.  How much more vast is the seemingly infinite universe than a seemingly finite organism?  How much vaster and incomprehensible is the mystery?

If God is love then it is God that binds us together both with others and ourselves.  Love, the binding agent, is the recognition of the self in others.  It is the flashing memory of the singularity before the separation.  This is why you must forgive the other and forgive yourself.  This is also why when you forgive yourself and you forgive others, the others forgive you and themselves.

Feeling Like an Outsider

For a few years my wife and I had thought about moving to Connecticut where my parents still lived in the house I grew up.  I was not all that happy with Philadelphia.  I did not like my job and I did not have that many friends.  My wife liked it there but she was willing to make a move.  So for a few years while I worked for Dechert I had been conducting a job search in Connecticut.  I waived into the Connecticut bar (a process which took more than a year of amassing records and dealing with the court system).  I was even approached by The Hartford (an insurance company in Hartford, CT) and interviewed for a position that seemed like it would solve all my problems. I ended up not getting the position.  After that my wife and I decided to stop looking to move to Connecticut and decided to buy a nicer house in Philadelphia in an effort to commit to the area and establish roots.

This issue about establishing roots has its origin in the fact that ever since I graduated from college I never felt like I belonged anywhere. When I was young I felt like I belonged in Connecticut even though I was bullied, picked on and humiliated.  When I went to college in Boston I felt like I belonged there.  I was on the same level with all of my peers who were from various places around the country.  But once I graduated from college and could not find a job I fell off the life track that I was supposed to be on and that I felt all my peers were on and had left me behind.  As such, I was so humiliated and felt like I had to hide from the world because I no longer legitimately held a place there.

This feeling stayed with me.  When I moved to Burlington, VT I felt like an outsider there because I was not hippy enough.  When I moved to Washington, DC I felt like an outsider because I did not have a good enough (i.e., well paying and connected job).  When I moved to New Orleans for law school I felt like I belonged on one level because I was on the same level as all my fellow students.  But deep in my heart I felt like I did not belong because I was not a native to New Orleans.  After New Orleans, I was an outsider in Scranton because I was not born and raised there.  And when we moved to Philadelphia I was an outsider there first because I was not a native to the area but also because the firm I worked for treated me as a second-class citizen.

This feeling like an outsider is a bit of a “chicken and the egg” phenomenon.  On the one hand, did I feel like an outsider because I carried that feeling with me?  In other words would I have felt that way no matter where I went?  Did I attract situations where I would feel like an outsider?  The job a Dechert would seem to support this theory.

So my wife and I decided to buy a bigger house during the height of the housing bubble.  We made some money selling our starter house but in order to buy our larger dream house I borrowed some money from my father.  He seemed happy to give me the money at the time but later I felt ashamed for having done that.  Especially after the housing market crashed and I lost my job and we were no longer able to pay the mortgage.  At first we tried to sell our house but there were no takers after the crash.  During this time I burned through my 401K that I accumulated over eight years at Dechert.  Just as that money was about to run out we were able to rent the house.  By this time we were living in Connecticut living with my parents.

Sin and Shame

I have heard it said that the actual definition of sin is not “committing a morally bad act” but rather “missing the mark”.  In other words, sin is not an act that makes you a bad person necessarily.  Rather, sin is a mistaken act or an act that takes you where you actually do not want to go.  Another way of saying this is that sin is coming short of the glory of God.  These two definitions of sin are vastly different.

The morally bad sin implies shame.  The act is morally bad and therefore the person who commits the act is morally bad.  Accordingly, the sinner really wants to commit the sinful act (through the urging of the ego and the limbic system).  The sinner knows that it is bad and proceeds to commit the act anyway.  After the act is committed the sinner feels guilty and seeks forgiveness.  Psychologically, the Super Ego (which is the Prefrontal Cortex overlaid with shame) tells the sinner he is morally wrong for sinning.  This is a cycle of shame.  This is also a cycle of addiction because shame does not feel good and cannot be sustained forever.  If bad feelings continue over an extended period of time the ego and the limbic system kick in again and attempt to relieve the consciousness  of the bad feeling.  It then seeks out the short-term fix which is the sinful behavior.

According to the “sin as missing the mark” way of thinking, the sinner thinks that committing the sinful act will bring about some kind of desired result.  This desired result is typically a short-term benefit (as in the case of addiction).  Again, the sinner is encouraged to act by the ego or limbic system which hijacks consciousness and thinks in terms of short-term gains.  After the act is committed the ego and limbic system are satiated and relinquish control of consciousness.  At this point the prefrontal cortex assumes control again and recognizes that the short-term benefit is not worth the long-term ramifications.  If shame is removed from the process, the sinner realizes the mistake and seeks to rectify it.  Sin becomes a learning experience and if properly educated the prefrontal cortex is strengthened and the true self becomes more awake.  This is the path to enlightenment.

What I am attempting to describe is how shame corrupts morality.  In order for an act to be moral it cannot be motivated by shame.  Nor can it be rectified by shame after the fact.  Morality has to come from the heart.  It has to be an actual desire and goal.  It cannot be something one does to avoid humiliation.  This is inauthentic and devoid of joy.  In order to enter into the fullness of God’s glory one must truly enter into the fullness of the true-self.  This can never be done through shame because shame sets the self against the self.  Whereas, the lines of demarkation are blurred between the true-self and God.  Their interests and motivations are ultimately aligned and perhaps cannot truly be described as separate entities.

Ash Wednesday – Motivation by Shame or Heart

There are two forms of motivation; shame and heart.  Shame motivates through the fear of humiliation.  Heart motivates through the true love and desire to do something.  It is a Catholic tradition to give up something for Lent.  Giving up something motivated by shame is a burden and difficult because it is not truly what is desired.  When a person is motivated by shame they seek to avoid humiliation.  Their actions are not directed towards their true desires.  On the other hand, giving up something motivated by heart is not the same kind of burden because it is an act of devotion and the act itself is desired.

The readings for Ash Wednesday describe this.  Joel 2:12 reads:

Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning; Rend your hearts, not you garments and return to the Lord, your God.

God does not want praise that is motivated by shame.  God wants authentic, whole-hearted praise.  Likewise, the true self is never motivation by shame because the true self can only act authentically.  It is the ego that is motivated by shame and acts inauthentically.  In truth, both God and the true self desire motivation by heart because they are the one and the same and they are the heart.

Matthew 6:6 reads:

When you pray, go into your room and close the door and pray to your father in secret; and your father who sees in secret, will reward you.

Who is this “father who sees in secret”?  I would say, of course, it is God but it is also the true self.  It is the true self that knows truth and knows your true desires and therefore acts authentically.  The true self does not act motivated by shame.

When I was young I felt compelled to give something up because I thought I would be a bad person if I did not.  My motivation was shame.  I did not understand the readings.  I don’t think the people instructing me in my religion understood the readings either because they were all motivated by shame.  People motivated by shame seek to pass their shame on to others.  They believe this is morality.  They believe shame binds and upholds civilization.  But if participation in religion is to have any meaning or saving power it cannot be by shame.  It cannot be done half heartedly and inauthentically.  It has to be whole-hearted and authentically.  Organizations can be held together through shame but shame can never be as powerful a binding agent as heart.  Furthermore, shame takes all the joy out of life.  On the other hand, acting with heart creates joy and is its own reward.

And so I enter Lent whole heartedly.  I give up my vices because I truly want to live free of them.  I want to glorify God, my true self, my father who sees in secret.  It has taken me 43 years to get to this point.  I cannot regret that fact because regret is another form of shame and any form of shame is not aligned with the true self.