Agreement

[Guest guest]

Looks like we have found agreement. (Whew!) You just want

to do valued action spontaneously, not plan to do it? But you keep showing up at that

hospice somehow? I

hope it is because it is what you want and value, and not for some other

reason.

Peace

Greg R

(see notes )

My point was that it’s up to you what you choose. The idea is to choose

valued directions for yourself. No

conflict. We each get to choose our

own. They may be similar to

societies values, they may not. Your value is about you and for you. I agree completelhy there is no static

“good stuff”. Your good

stuff, my good stuff, Muslim good stuff, etc etc. Fortunately there is a bit of

overlap now and again.

Right.

agree with much of what you say about buddhism. Think of committing to a valued

action as “Right Action”. If you prefer “quality of

action” to “values” I don’t see a problem with using

your own wording.

see prev.

post.

I

still think you should try a gerund.

Attentioning. Awarenessing. Tends to promote

compassionating. You certainly do like to keep me busy. : )

Qualities

like compassion, honesty, etc. are great, but that is not what we are talking about.

Who is " we " ? (Those of us who want to choose specific committed

actions)

Thich

Nhat Hanh was sitting in meditation when the bombs and guns of the American war

in Vietnam

started happening.

He got up from his seat and spontaneously chose “Helping to

alleviate human suffering by transporting food, medicine and supplies to people

who need it” as his direction of valued action.

Right.

That's the kind of spontaneity I'm talking about.

(Commitment to valued action by

another name is still commitment to valued action – we quibble about the

words)

They call

his type of Buddhism “Engaged Buddhism.” I think it is a model that is a

bit closer to what we are talking about in ACT.

That's what I was trying to say to persons who are making big

problems around " values " .

You’re right, being

a monk isn’t so easy, but not for the reasons you might think.

When I was at

Thay’s monastery in France,

I learned that he gets to work on valued directions, and the rest of us were a

big brown backdrop for his talks.

Laughing... well, I have read the entire new Vinaya for Plum village. You have to be nobody before you can be

Nobody... : )

All

the greats you mentioned got up off the cushion, most left their monasteries and founded new movements, new temples and new

directions. You don’t want to think of their committed action as arising

from values? OK. That works. Choose some committed

actions.

You one bossy ex-Buddhist. Or what you are, hah? : )

First you tink i anarchy-sociopath, now you tink what, i

flop round on zafu all day like useless aware cow-plop? hey, i busy

compassionating at hospice where i work and do deep meaningfulness,

parentalizing wit hormone-cuckoo nice girl-child, intimating wit my

fellow, making adventures, making nice neurosi also somtime...

how i make time to choose around committed actions, huh? :

) I be your friend anyway, ok boss?

Maybe

they didn’t call it committing to a valued

direction. But they got up and did it, even if they were afraid to fail. Actually, I think that Thich Nhat

Hanh’s “valued direction” may be named “Sister Chan

Khong” as she is the power behind that movement.

Ya, but if we start in on buddhist gossip they are going to need

to reprimand us.

I

wasn’t so good at “intending to be

compassionate” either.

no one

is. that was my point. it's big trouble,

usually.

(we agree again)

I needed more concrete

goals. The

first one was “not using drugs” but as would say, that

is something a dead person can do.

So it became “going to graduate school” but along the way I

left some good friends behind, so “staying in touch with people who are

important to me” became a valued direction as well, as well as

“carrying the message.”

Well that is very good no matter what we call it. We really have

got me laughing now. (glad to hear it)

Sounds

to me like you are committed to “figuring out how ACT works or

doesn’t work”

Don't count on it. But it is very interesting.

(it comes down to what we do with our time)

Peace to you too,

Becca

From: ACT_for_the_Public

[mailto:ACT_for_the_Public ]

On Behalf Of bekka

Sent:

Friday, June 02, 2006 10:33 PM

To: ACT_for_the_Public

Subject:

Re: Re: values AGAIN

I am a buddhist, and have been practicing

for about 30 years. I've expressed myself unclearly -- all that training

wasted! : )

I think that you are absolutely right that

many practitioners suffer from phobias and depression and etc., including me of

course. Everyone is " neurotic " , actually; everyone is suffering some.

Katagiri Roshi was often suicidal; Chogyam Trungpa drank; really there was

always something going on with most of the very realized Buddhist masters, and

you know, right near me there is a whole monastery full of reputedly very

depressed monks. All of the these persons practice meditation and have taken

vows congruent with the eight-fold path and chosen them as a preferred

" ongoing quality of action " . I've known Buddhist students who became " Zen

zombies " incapable of relating fluidly and authentically with the world,

and students who became self-righteous virtue-mongers incapable of relating

directly to their own mind or compassionately with others. There are highly

regarded Buddhist masters who are lechers, and explosive-ragers, and

judgemental prudes, and liars, and all sorts of things. Just like some

therapists (also including me) and persons who have undergone years of

psychotherapy. Often tangled up, just like me and you. When Steve says that

values are not achievable as static objects he's not kidding. But Katigiri and

Chogyam and other masters, and some of those monks do seem to possess some

" quality of action " that I think does not arise from their

" values " . Just as you can " feel fusion " when you enter a

room, you can feel it's absence. Being around really advanced practitioners is

often described as " spacious " ; it's something that is also very hard

to describe. As I understand ACT, it is very pointedly NOT promising a way to

get rid of all those problems; it's promising a way to live fully WITH them.

Perhaps more " spaciously " . But I don't pretend to be an ACT master,

either.

You have heard the phrase " If you see

the Buddha in the road, kill him " ? The Buddha here is a static, objective,

reified idea about " goodness " or " enlightenment " in the

Buddhist context; the admonishment points to the difference between fixed (or

perhaps " fused " ) ideas about " goodness " , which should be

" killed " (or relegated to aunt Ida status, maybe), and the " way

to be " that arises from one's own direct, open awareness. If we are open,

we are vulnerable; if we are willing to be vulnerable then I think an authentic

compassion arises naturally. Try it. Maybe I am wrong and this isn't

universally true, but I think that if I have received an insult, or someone who

I love has broken with me, or I am with a very angry person, and i am able to

be aware of what's going on in the same way that I'm aware of my thoughts in

meditation, without judgments or suppressing or avoiding or fusing with

anything, then I will be paying attention to the other person in a

compassionate way without adding or relying on a " value " called

" compassion. I think that if we are willing to be fully aware like that,

then we are challenged by situations; if we are willing to be challenged by

situations, helpful action arises. This is my experience, anyway. If I go into

a situation with a big intention to be compassionate, I'm more likely to be

focused on my idea of compassion than on the other person, and likely to be

disappointed and even hurtful in my actions. If I feel afraid of something that

I need or want to do, and I'm willing to be open and vulnerable with my fear, I

think I'm more likely to pay attention to the actual situation and respond

effectively. So compassion, (for instance) I think, isn't best understood as as

a " value " like that.

The core values in Buddhism are wisdom

(also called insight or right view), and (from Mahayana on, more vehemently)

compassion (or mercy, or right action). Neither of these are to be understood

as " fused " values. They are not " rules " in that sense. To

cultivate the one without cultivating the other is, as they say, like flying

with one wing. What I was responding to in here was expressed suffering around

increasingly complicated and sticky thoughts that frequently seem to arise

around the idea of values as understood by persons

encountering it in the ACT workbook -- as

when said she was stuck between honesty and promoting family harmony,

which got all mixed in with thoughts about whether or not she deserved

happiness, and so on. " Chattery, hard to figure out, heavy,

conflicted " , as Steve said. When Greg says " what's wrong with the

'good' stuff'? and talks about " the values of the civilized world " ,

what i see is occasion for a good hearty argument between, say, a Muslim and an

American Christian, and all around " fused values " . There is no static

" good stuff " . If you study philosophy of ethics (another one of my

formidable mistakes), what you discover is an irresolvable bunch of quarrels, a

can of very confused worms.

As I understand it, " values " has

a pragmatic rather than an absolute function in ACT; the problem arises when

consensual or absolute " goodness " is confused with " the goodness

that gets me from here to there in this situation. " (Zen Buddhism, and

actually all practice schools, would ultimately take it a step further by

encouraging a fully open and aware participation " here " as the

unfolding springboard into... " here " .) Although I think that ACT is

the best psychotherapy model to come down the pike in a long time, I think that

the workbook is somewhat muddled on this, the " value " thing, and I

think that's why people get bogged down, rather than on account of an

unwillingness on their part.

Buddhist vows are worthless if they don't

flow from awareness and insight, just as awareness and insight is useless if it

doesn't give rise to right action. Frequently the Buddhist path begins with

awareness practice, as does the ACT workbook. A Zen student isn't even allowed

to take vows until a certain level of awareness has been reached, often many

years. Otherwise they will just be transmogrified into dead injunctions like

" be compassionate " , " be honest " , etc., (stuff you beat

yourself up over and argue about). Practiced with awareness and real open

attention, in the end they are all koans -- challenges to be fully present in

the moment without a lot of preconceptions.

It seems to me that Steve is aiming at

something like this when he talks about a value as a " quality of

action " rather than as an ideal or a goal, but it sounds like it starts

getting heavy, mindy and etc for people when they try to put this into practice.

On Jun 2, 2006, at 6:45 PM, usable_thought

wrote:

> If I grab onto that insight and make

it a value, even

> a well-deconstructed ACT sort of value, mind

wants to get het up

> about how well I'm doing, and off we go. Naw.

> So that's enough value and enough work for a

lifetime, it seems to

> me. Just to pay attention.

You suggest that mindfulness alone will lead us to

do what is right

for ourselves, but in my experience this isn't so.

Certainly not for

me and most mindfulness practitioners I know.

Certainly not for

Buddhists - although they pioneered many of the

mindfulness techniques

we use, the Eightfold Path has a lot more to it

than just mindfulness.

I have things I want to DO and my avoidance gets

in the way of those

things. Just telling myself that " mindfulness

is enough " would be a

great way for me to hide. It would be my mind

talking. Where there are

words there is mind - you can't get away from it.

Why not put mind to

good use when it's appropriate?

And there are so many stories of Americans taking

up Zen or Vipassana

or some other form of mindfulness-based training,

sticking with it for

years, and still suffering phobias and depression

and not coming to

grips with their history, despite their hard-won

skills.

Personally I hope that ACT acquires a wider array

of tools and

techniques in the area of unearthing values, as

this seems to be such

a difficult crossroads in the therapy; but I don't

doubt that the

general principle is sound, and despite my

kvetching I believe that

even the existing tools have much to offer if I am

willing.

As long as we are still embodied beings, caught

between our history

and right now, life is about doing, about risking.

Hey, even monks and

hermits do: they do being monks and hermits. And

from what I've heard

it's not easy.