Chapter 4: Dismantling Attachment
Wake Up to Your Life - Kickoff Essay
by Damian Moskovitz (moskovitz -at- post.harvard.edu)
Chapter 4: Dismantling Attachment to Conventional Success
The main point of Chapter 4 is this: Everything changes, everyone dies. Moreover, you can die or lose everything at any time. Because we are afraid of death and loss, we tend to live in the illusion of permanence. The problem is that this illusion prevents us from living in the present moment because we are perpetually worrying about the future. The attachment to conventional success (e.g., fame and fortune) derives from our desire to feign stability in a fundamentally unstable world. This attachment creates unnecessary suffering. To give up this attachment and consequent suffering and live in the present without fear of death or loss, one must fully accept and understand death and impermanence on an emotional level. To achieve this acceptance and understanding, one must devote extensive time and energy to meditating on this subject.
SUMMARY
When we refuse accept death as a natural part of life, we seek external rewards--money, fame, power, relationships--to give us the illusion of permanence. When, on the other hand, we recognize that we will all die one day and that that day could be any day, we stop trying to hold on to that which is transitory--which is everything--and start to devote attention to the experience of life itself. Though McLeod is not suggesting that you stop planning for the future altogether, he is suggesting that you "imagine how different your life would be if you never took tomorrow or next week or next year for granted" (95). For example, "Living in the knowledge that every relationship we have is going to end, we take nothing for granted and savor every moment with our spouse, parents, or children" (92).
"Basic meditation training is a prerequisite for the meditations on death and impermanence" (93). Why? Because such meditation brings up powerful reactive emotions, and if we can't rest in attention while being distracted by them, we will get wrapped up in these emotions, which will only make them stronger.
McLeod explains that the five essential meditations on change and death proceed in three steps: First, learn the guidelines of the meditation by studying them and concretizing them in your mind. Second, reflect on the theme of the meditation by constructing a sequence of images or ideas that embody the theme. Notice busyness and dullness as distractions from something you are having difficulty accepting. Third, cultivate your understanding of the theme by accepting it and applying it to each element in the sequence you just constructed. You will find that your understanding shifts from the intellectual to the emotional. You will not only be able to calm yourself by, for example, reminding yourself that everything is impermanent when you experience loss; your experience of loss will no longer be so upsetting once you have cultivated your understanding of impermanence.
Logistically, here is how such a meditation proceeds: Spend 15-20 minutes meditating on the breath, spend 20-30 minutes meditating on the current meditation's subject, and spend the last 10-15 minutes meditating again on the breath. Discomfort with the meditation is normal and healthy. This discomfort is actually the breaking down of resistance to death and impermanence. Eventually, the discomfort will fall away, you will fully accept the reality of death and impermanence, and your view of and approach to life will be transformed. Don't try to force your way through this resistance, for then it will only resist more; if you are patient and diligent, it will fall away naturally. However, you will likely be confronted with anxiety--felt both emotionally and physically--both during and after the meditation. Normally, we react to such anxiety with busyness or dullness. However, if you want to work through this anxiety, you need simply notice it and realize that the meditations are not going to kill you.
Here are the five meditations on death and impermanence:
1. Everything changes. The purpose of this meditation is, "To know that everything we experience is impermanent" (99). The key phrase is, "Consider how everything changes; nothing stays the same" (99). In the words of McLeod's teacher, "The end of accumulation is dispersion. The end of building is ruin. The end of meeting is parting. The end of birth is death" (104). Meditate 3-4 weeks on each of the following: changes in the world, changes in the body, changes in personality and belief systems. As for changes in the world, consider everything in the natural and man-made world. Alternatively, you could sit with the question, "Is there anything that doesn't change?" (102). As for changes in the body, consider that there is nothing we can do to stop the body from aging and changing. As for changes in personality and belief systems, consider that your personality is constantly in flux, even if the changes are quite gradual, and ask the question, "What about me [i.e., my personality] doesn't change?" (103).
2. Death is inevitable. The purpose of this meditation is, "To know that we are going to die" (105). The key phrase is, "Reflect on the many who have died" (105). Meditate 2 weeks on each of the following: everyone in human history has died or will die, every person with exceptional abilities (including Ayn Rand and Buddha Shakyamuni) has died or will die, every member of your family (including yourself) will die or has died, and your death is certain. As for everyone in history dying, consider that every member of every society and culture has come and gone, and consider that we will meet the same fate. As for people with exceptional abilities, consider that no amount of "political power and influence, physical strength, beauty, charm, intellectual brilliance, creativity, resourcefulness, courage, bravery, understanding, [or] insightŠwill prevent you from dying" (107). As for your family and you, consider that even the most special people in the world--you and your family--are not exempt from the dictum of death. As for the certainty of death, sit with the question, "I'm going to die; how do I feel about that?" (108).
3. Death can come at any time. The purpose of this meditation is, "To know that we could die at any time" (109). The key phrase is, "Again and again, reflect on the many causes of death." Meditate 2-4 weeks on the fact that death can come in many ways, at any time, and cannot be prevented. Notice how many ways you could die in a typical day, from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep. Then meditate for 2 weeks on the fragility of life. Consider that, "Rights, rewards, and deserving have nothing to do with life and death. Life is fragile. Good people die unexpectedly, just as bad people do" (110). Sit with the question, "I could die at any time; how do I feel about that?" (112). Notice all of the ways in which your life is incomplete. What would you need to do to feel prepared for death? McLeod asks, "[S]ince you can't count on the future but chances are you won't die this instant, how do you live?" (113). He answers, "Be present in the moment, and you will know what to do" (113).
4. Dying. The purpose of this meditation is, "To know what happens at death" (113). The key phrase is, "What happens when I die?" (113). Meditate on each of the following: approaching death, the dying process, and the fact that life is what you experience. As for approaching death, spend 1-2 weeks imagining and considering each of the following: death that is the natural end of life (e.g., dying of old age), untimely death (e.g., dying from terminal illness), and sudden or unexpected death (e.g., dying in a car accident). As for the dying process, spend 1-2 weeks imagining that you are dying, with all of the elements of your body and mind (solidity, fluidity, warmth, movement, consciousness, explicit sense of self / anger, implicit sense of self / desire, base ignorance) dissolving; at the end of the dissolution, imagine yourself waking up to "total and utter emptiness indivisible from brilliant clarity" (121). As for the fact that life is what you experience, spend 1-2 weeks imagining that you are living in a waking dream. "[G]o about your day as if you are dead and everything you experience is simply an arising in your mind. Remind yourself over and over, 'I am dead; everything I experience arises out of nothing and subsides back into nothing. It is just an experience'" (122). From this, "We learn that we can function effectively in the world without depending on the framework of 'I' and 'other'" (122).
5. After Death. The purpose of this meditation is, "To know what is important in life" (122) and, "[T]o understand that ultimately we are not the content of our life" (123). The key phrase is, "What happens after I die?" (122). In the meditation, imagine that your body, possessions, wealth, family, job, and work all are forgotten, disintegrate, are burned, or are taken away or replaced. "When you consider deeply what happens after death, you realized more clearly that all we have is our immediate experience. That is life. Everything else--gain, fame, respect, loss, obscurity, disdain, even happiness and unhappiness--is a construction, if not an abstraction. Taking these constructions to be real, we spend our lives pursuing or avoiding them. In the process, we miss the actual experience of life itself. What a waste!" (125).
In the final section of this chapter, McLeod explains that to be fully present in life, we must give up the illusion of control. We must accept that we don't know and can't control everything, including our own deaths. Only when we have come to terms with this can we stop living in fear or compensating for it and start to wake up. "Direct awareness is practiced by letting all expectations drop away so that we rest in total awareness. To let all expectations drop is to die in the moment. Therefore, meditation on death and impermanence plays a crucial role in preparing and sustaining awareness practice" (126).
COMMENTARY
One of the first things that struck me when reading this chapter is that, though it deals with philosophical issues, it is not a philosophical treatise. Rather, it is a how-to guide. It is easy enough to read this chapter and think to oneself, "Now I understand death and impermanence," or to think, "If I read this chapter a couple times more, I will understand death and impermanence." However, the purpose of the chapter is not to produce mere intellectual understanding. Rather, its purpose is to produce "emotional understanding." Is this not a contradiction in terms? Isn't understanding, by definition, conceptual in nature?
After reading, for example, Leonard Peikoff's _Objectivism: the Philosophy of Ayn Rand_ (OPAR), one might think that this is the case. Most Objectivist philosophical writings seem to imply that the path to the good life consists in learning/creating and applying rational principles throughout one's life. Andrew points out, for example, that Peikoff implies that the choice to focus is a conscious choice that one can and should make at every moment, while McLeod implies that focus is something that can be cultivated through meditation and that can consequently become relatively automatic and effortless.
The same applies to emotional understanding. If one understands on a purely intellectual level, for example, that everything changes, that death is inevitable, and that death can come at any time, this will have limited effect on how one feels and how one lives one's life. Why is this case? "In the midst of action, intellectual understanding is much slower and less powerful than emotional understanding. To access intellectual understanding, we have to remember to bring what we know intellectually to bear on the situation. With emotional understanding, the understanding is part of our experience of the situation. We don't have to remember. For this reason, emotional understanding leads to deeper and more extensive changes in our lives" (95).
One may agree with the importance of emotional understanding but still wonder, "Why must I meditate on these topics? Why can't I write about them or discuss them instead?". Certainly, writing about or discussing such issues is effective in producing emotional understanding. However, meditation allows an intensity of focus that writing and discussing do not. While writing, we must think, at least to some extent, about matters like the paper and pen or keyboard and monitor, grammar, structure, and style. While discussing, we must think, at least to some extent, about matters like the people to whom we are speaking, how we are being perceived, and whether we are speaking comprehensibly.
Of course, this is why writing a stream of consciousness in a diary and free associating with a therapist who is sitting outside of a patient's field of vision are particularly effective in promoting emotional understanding--they minimize distractions. Meditation minimizes these distractions even more, assuming that one is skilled enough at meditation that he is able to keep his focus without getting caught up in the distractions that naturally occur during meditation.
This approach to dealing with personally meaningful philosophical issues could certainly be seen as complementary to Objectivism. In fact, meditation could be seen as a tool that can be applied to Objectivist ideas as well as Buddhist ideas. For example, one might create similar meditations for oneself on the core Objectivist virtues. It is one thing to understand independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness, pride, and benevolence as philosophical abstractions. However, to make them part of one's emotional and everyday life, one might visualize oneself acting in accordance with each of these virtues, one by one, and notice all of the resistance and emotions that come up when one does so. I am not suggesting that you do this; I am merely illustrating how the tools of Buddhism can be applied to Objectivist principles.
I'd now like to consider some ideas presented in this chapter that may be seen, at least at first glance, to conflict with Objectivist principles. Objectivism holds that entities have identities. Buddhism holds that everything changes. In John Galt's speech, Rand writes, "[The mystics of muscle] proclaim that there is no law of identity, that nothing exists but change, and blank out the fact that *change* presupposes the concepts of what changes, from what and to what, that without the law of identity no such concept as 'change' is possible" (_For the New Intellectual_, 154).
At first glance, it seems as though Objectivism and Buddhism contradict each other on the issue of change. However, upon closer inspection, I see no denial by Objectivism that everything changes and no denial by Buddhism that entities have identity. I suspect that Rand wouldn't attribute much importance to the idea that everything changes, and I suspect that McLeod wouldn't attribute much importance to the idea that entities have identity. Why? Because Rand and McLeod are approaching ontology from different perspectives, with different purposes. Rand is creating a philosophical system from the bottom up, to be applied consciously and intellectually. That things change is not an essential piece of the foundation of Objectivism, as it is not a metaphysical absolute.
McLeod is introducing a principle that can have a direct, unconscious effect on our emotions and our actions if we internalize it on an emotional level. That is, only psychotics (and perhaps a few wayward philosophers) act directly as though entities have no identity. However, many people have abstract philosophical beliefs (e.g., it's impossible to know anything since nothing is definite) informed by this false premise. That is, people are more likely to believe that entities have identity on an implicit than an explicit level. The reverse is true with the idea that everything changes. People can usually recognize this, intellectually, but act as though it is false. In this case, correction is needed more on an emotional level than an intellectual level. Thus, Rand and McLeod are dealing with different issues on different levels.
On a more concrete level, what about the idea that we could die at any moment? Should we really act as though this is true? Aren't the odds in our favor that we will live for the next minute, the next day, the next year? It is easy to misinterpret McLeod on this point. He does not say, as the cliché goes, "Live each moment like it's the last." He does, in fact, say that "chances are you won't die this instant," but he also says, in the same sentence, that "you can't count on the future," and asks the question, given that both of these things are true, "how do you live?" (113). His point is not that we should live entirely in the present, ignoring the future because the future is an illusion, but that we tend to live in accordance with the subconscious illusion of immortality and that, in order to appreciate each present moment as much as possible, we must give up this illusion.
We're still left with the question, though, of how to live. McLeod answers rather cryptically, "Be present in the moment, and you will know what to do" (113). I spent a while scratching my head over this answer and concluded that McLeod is overstating his case, perhaps for the sake of simplicity. Being present in the moment will not necessarily lead us to the right answers, nor will it necessarily lead us to any answers at all. However, it will, ceteris paribus, tend to lead us in the right direction. To take an admittedly simplistic example, consider arithmetic. The more present we are, the less distracted we are by thoughts of the past and the future or reactive emotions, the more likely we are to solve a mathematical problem without careless mistake. The same is true, I would argue, with all kinds of other decisions.
Of course, when making decisions about how to spend one's time and plan for the future, another factor is introduced, which is the illusion of permanence (or lack thereof). Consider Achilles, for example, who sacrifices a long, peaceful life in this world for the illusion of being immortalized by achieving kleos (glory) through martyrdom and having his story live on in perpetuity (encapsulated in Homer's _Iliad_, of course). If Achilles hadn't believed that he could attain a sort of permanence by attaining kleos, he probably would have made much more rational decisions and thereby experienced much less suffering. Of course, he would have had to use his reasoning mind to make such decisions--just as you and I do--and would have been capable of error just as you and I are. If McLeod means to imply that when we are perfectly present we have infallible intuition--and in the spirit of generosity, I don't think he does--then he is surely mistaken, but if he is instead implying that increased presence breeds better decisions, then his conclusion is right on.
What about the suggestion that you should "go about your day as if you are dead and everything you experience is like a dream" (121)? This certainly seems to contradict the Objectivist conception of reality. First, however, it is important to note that he is suggesting a psychological practice, not an ontological principle--note the use of the phrases "as if" and "is like." Second, note that the point here is not that our minds create reality, but that our minds create the *experience* of reality. From this perspective, consider again what McLeod has to say about this issue: "The practice of going about our day as if we were dead is very powerful. We learn that we can function effectively in the world without depending on the framework of 'I' and 'other.' The power of reactive emotions and social conditioning is greatly reduced. We realize that life consists purely of what we experience in each moment, nothing more and nothing less. We realize that because we are caught up in emotional reaction about what happened in the past or might happen in the future, we habitually pay little attention to what we actually experience" (122).
DISCUSSION
What do you think McLeod means by, "Be present in the moment, and you will know what to do" (113). Do you think it's true?
Is it true that everything changes? Does this principle contradict Objectivist principles? Is this a metaphysical absolute or a psychologically useful perspective on existence?
Should we really live as though we could die in the next instant? How is it possible to be fully present in this moment while still planning for the future?
Should we really live as though we are dead or dreaming? Does the idea that all we have is our own experience conflict with the Objectivist metaphysics?
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