On emotional trauma and spiritual practice

Tilly Campbell-Allen, Buddhistdoor Global (buddhistdoor.net, 1/4/22), COMMENTARY; Jen Bradford, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Wisdom Quarterly

Do you know why I'm shouting, you little monster?! - Because Grandma shouted at you?

Who is it that is practicing spirituality and reaching for enlightenment?

French author Tilly Campbell-Allen

All the world's a stage, so are we merely play pretending on it? Who is striving for egoless liberation? Is it me, you, us, or just a result of our clever social-survival mirror neurons mimicking spiritual practice?

I can tell you that for most of us — with all the best and most earnest intentions in the world — it is most likely the mirror neurons [unless Asperger's or an autism spectrum disorder has taken those neurons offline].

Therefore, as all the masters, gurus, and New Age teachers tell us, the ego is still running the show.

As if it is all theater, we dress up for the role. Arguably, this isn’t a big problem. Shakespeare did say, All the world’s a stage:

The Stages of Human Life, Yehen eygenschaft des altters der menschen (BM 1872m cropped)

“All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players.

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages.

At first, the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.

Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school.

And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad...

And so he plays his part.

The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;

His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound.

Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”

[You're on now. How will you play your part?] 

Get in here, you! Get the hell out of here!

But the brain needs to learn how to function from the moment we begin using it, so it copies from its environment — any baby can prove this fact.

We have mirror neurons because our brain knows that we stand a better chance of survival if we are accepted by our social group, rather than rejected and left to die all alone in the cold wilderness or the dark and scary woods.

The more an act or practice is copied and performed, the more hardwired it becomes in our brain’s biology.

We're reliving our youth. Cougar party!

The follow up question is then, Who [or what, ask in the Five Aggregates clung to as self] are we beyond merely a simple composite of hardwiring learned from our environment?

While this is the case for many phenomena, it can’t explain some characteristics that appear to be inherited from our parents and that may have previously been absent from the offspring’s life.

Tiny, very personal character traits show through when babies can express reactions beyond those to which they have been exposed.

Beyond this, there are young children, often between 2.5–5 years old, who are able to talk about past lives in great and sometimes verifiable detail.

I'm a man. Gotta get back to work. I love it

Clearly, there is something more than mere biology going on. Workshops and intensive meditation retreats are both beneficial and popular practices for helping to peel away layers of accrued hardwiring and ego-driven delusions.

However, being away from our young children while we choose to undertake long retreats can damage a child emotionally. This is an example of when a spiritual practice becomes selfish and led by ego desire, considering our own welfare before that of another.

[Of course, we're doing the child and the world a favor by working our ourselves, but they don't know it, so we may feel guilty and excessively question our own motives. It really can be a win-win endeavor, but we're shamed by our society not to automatically see it that way.]

Learn an engaged practice instead and make Buddhist mindful parenting an integral part of meditation.

Emotional damage is a significant contributor to how we function in the world — within ourselves and at a spiritual community level.

If you need to clear rust or bust a stuck nut, there's nothing better than this (Scotty Kilmer).

.

It is imperative, therefore, that we heal these traumas before moving forward, lest any attainments that we may accrue be built on shifting and unstable sands.

Scientists tell us that we live in a universe where more than 95 percent over everything around us is unknown and invisible and that our five-per-cent reality isn’t solid and isn’t even really real or here at all. Thanks, science.

It is a subject that fascinates me, that I research deeply, and about which I have written extensively. It feels profoundly important to understand and is of particular significance in meditation. I'm a French philosopher, what can I say?

And here is where my thoughts on reality become quite a challenge to comprehend as they are contrary to all that seems "real."

Based on a growing mountain of scientific evidence, I now imagine this five-per-cent reality to be the inverse of what we perceive it to be.

The implications of this would radically change the way we understand our relationship with the whole. However, we cannot bypass the emotional body in preference to escaping into a metaverse [or into another part of this multiverse]; that would be an ignorant foray into the spiritual realm. More