Dr Asa Heshoff

Healing the Full Spectrum of You

The Light Body Template

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Science & the Rainbow Body — Part 2


The human body-mind complex has some deeply hidden secrets. Yet some are literally in plain view. While we are all subject to internal chatter and verbal “thinking,” about two-thirds of us experience images along with thoughts. And for about half of these folks, this is a dominant part of their thought process. When you say apple, they see an apple in that famous “mind’s eye.” Inner pictures can appear when we sleep, recall someone, feel love or fear or hope for a better future. Externally, we are bombarded with images and symbols that carry complex layers of meaning, values, and information. Images are typically central to cultural ideologies, norms, and belief systems. And there is no more powerful medium than visual symbols to influence or manipulate others, as modern advertisers and politicians are acutely aware. Beyond the imaginal pictures that hold people together and inspire them, they can also be a portal to greater vision and evolution. But what if this powerful picture-making ability could be harnessed toward one’s personal growth and spiritual transformation? Surprisingly, how or where we see things in our mind is not at all clear to neuroscientists, though the modern science of biophysics and biophotons begins to give new insights into both this process and our personal evolution.

Guided imagery and creative visualization

Those images that just pop up in our head, or are evoked in us, are appropriately called involuntary visualizations. On the other hand, we have voluntary visualizations, typically part of any creative or inventive process. Since time immemorial, healers, shamans, and mystics have made use of intentional images as part of coping, healing, and inner development. Modern practitioners of mind and body have also not missed the opportunity to use these readily available resources. Within the realm of psychology, visualization has been with us since Freud. Today guided imagery is a common therapeutic tool for health professionals or coaches who integrate mindfulness-based practices in their work. But it is also an important part of cognitive therapy—the backbone of modern psychological practice. Of course, it did not take long for these methods to break out of the therapy box and enter the vast marketplace of self-help books. Here it has taken on the user-friendly name of creative visualization. And so today you will find hundreds of imagery methods applied to every conceivable condition, including weight loss, depression, addiction, or getting rich quickly. Visualization is respected as a valuable tool in everything from cancer therapy to sports, the creative arts, optimizing performance, and improving relationships. However, the material world is notorious for not bending to our will. The belief that mere wishes can change everything outside ourselves is pure folly—as in the Law of Attraction or that perennial self-help bestseller, Think and Grow Rich.

The Yidam Paradigm

Turning to spiritual traditions, both East and West, we find that the gods, the higher powers, the objects of veneration and supplication, are often seen in the mind’s eye, but outside of oneself. The great masters of Vajrayana, arising out of the cosmic mist of northern India from 400–1200 CE, brought with them the promise of a vertical but strenuous path to enlightenment. Many of these great adepts and wandering ascetics, including the famed 84 mahasiddhas, are still revered as the pioneers of current lineages of Vajrayana Buddhism. At the core of their profound methods is a way of turning reality on its head, not just by seeing the world differently, but by perceiving oneself in a wholly new way. Suddenly the visualization includes oneself, not some outer paradise or ideal. In this method, one’s body, speech, mind, one’s very nature, is seen as an already enlightened, radiant being of light, along with a corresponding level of consciousness. This is Creation Phase practice, a dramatic approach in which one leaves behind ordinary appearances. That mundane personal reality that we escape is considered a hodgepodge of heredity, karma, happenstance, and the accumulated borrowings and leavings of thousands of years of cultural and historical values, beliefs, and mistaken views. Now, in a careful series of meditative steps, one is reborn anew, in a form, in a frequency, and in an identity that is perfected, is fully enlightened. Yet the student is continually reminded that this being is not solid, but a holographic being of translucent and radiant light.

Many deities can be used for our new “self,” each with their own very specific form, characteristics, dress, and “personality.” Collectively called yidam (literally a mind-bond), today there are many available books, both ancient and modern, that detail these meditation methods and the philosophy behind the process. On one hand we are just establishing a new habit, a habitual form and identity that can supersede our normal, ultimately false “me.” If practiced long enough, instead of myself playing at being the deity, I may become the deity who plays at being my old self. But we are also working on a physical transformation and the development of the Light or Rainbow Body, which transcends the physical form, both in life and after death. Can contemporary biophysics brings new understandings to this mysterious transformative approach?

The Light Body that Jack built

The Raw Materials of Transformation

Building a Light Body through the Creation Phase is analogous to any other form of growth. Think about building a house. We need raw materials, we need workers, but we also need a blueprint. And wait, we need one more thing: we need financing! As far as building materials, it is clear that our normal level of energy is inadequate for such a monumental undertaking. We normally manufacture enough biochemical, hormonal, electrical, photonic, and magnetic energies for our daily grind—but that’s about all. To begin to build a storehouse, we are advised to halt the tremendous dissipation of energy spent in excess body tension, restlessness, worry, unnecessary speech, sensory overload, and distractions of all kinds. Traditionally, a retreat situation is seen as a solution to some of these energy leaks. But just simplifying our debilitating lifestyles can go a long way toward inner “energy efficiency.” On an active level, mental focus and relaxation (they are not opposites) are powerful allies. The whole field of specialized breathing exercises (pranayama), physical yogas, and just sitting still on a cushion, also help accumulate the excess energy we need for inner transformation. Traditionally, this is packed into the abdomen, not only in Buddhism, but in Shaivite and Daoist spiritual training. Interestingly, the latter, in the form of qi gong and nei dan, has far more sophisticated methods of energy conservation than Buddhism, and would benefit any modern practitioner.

Workers

We also need workers to build our new Light Body structure. Here, Creation Stage methods specialize in three areas: creating images within our mind (photonic methods), mantra recitation (phonic methods), and working with channels and energies (tsa lung). While a fair bit of Western research has been done into the effects of meditation and mantras, this has focused on brain chemistry, plasticity, and other neurological shifts. Surprisingly little has been directed into seeing what happens to biophotons, bioelectricity, and biomagnetism, or within the subtle channels of the body, the primary vascular system (PVS). What we do know is that every time we visualize light, we create photons in the brain. Meditating on areas of the body further stimulates this kind of production, with higher levels of photon activity in the DNA of cells. Also, our microchannels (the PVS) are like fiber-optics, delivering packets of light (photons) to the brain, where it accumulates in the ventricles, filled with energized and micro-illuminated cerebrospinal fluid. The more we visualize our entire body as a luminous being, the more intense we can surmise that this light field becomes. Added to this is the tremendous impact of sacred sound and the intonation of mantra.

In the Generation Phase, mantras are visualized as spinning in a circle within the heart (clockwise for male deities and counterclockwise for female deities). This spiral dance of sound and light always rotates around a special symbol at the hub of this wheel. This seed syllable is a form which expresses a single sound, one that resonates in the very core of consciousness. As opposed to what we might have learned in school, sound does not travel as wiggly waves, but as spherical, conical, three-dimensional forms, or, as described by John Reid, in the form of holographic bubbles. These bubbles spread from the human voice at 700 miles per hour, causing molecules to rub against each other and exciting them to generate infrared light radiation. In this way, sound creates light. Sound or phonons also imprint cell membranes, transmitting information and qualia (the smallest bytes of consciousness). Of course, science is far behind in understanding the effects and meanings of different sounds, colors, forms, and the messages they carry. So that is where ancient tantric sciences takes over, since each deity, mantra, chakra, and associated elements, have tried and true impacts on body and mind. Gradually biophysics may come closer to differentiating these forces and adding new explanations of what is known to be effective.

The Blueprint

Having light photons whizzing through our cells, and sound vibrations and biomagnetic fields encompassing the space of our form does not comprise a Light Body. We normally generate what is called coherent (in phase) light, but it is amorphous light without any real structure. What is missing is organization, a true anatomy. Higher levels of integration, structure, and hierarchies go along with a more intelligent creation, like the difference between a pile of chemicals and a cell made of those same substances. To produce an organism of light, we need a blueprint, a framework. Again the yidam principles come to our rescue, acting as a veritable template for the weaving of a Rainbow Body. We are told that if we rehearse these meditations again and again, and for many years, we can expect to arise in the after-death state in precisely that form. Our meditation practice has also enabled us to step into the pure consciousness that a body of photons can support. Our created form, made of shimmering light, can engage in benevolent activity toward the pieces of consciousness still caught in the mesmerizing web of materiality. But wait, we did say something about “financing” our Light Body. Space and time dictate that we leave that essential discussion for another day.

References

Archterberg, J. 2002. Imagery in Healing: Shamanism and Modern Medicine. Boston: Shambala Publishing.

Amihai, I., & Kozhevnikov, M. 2014. “Arousal vs. Relaxation: A Comparison of the Neurophysiological and Cognitive Correlates of Vajrayāna and Theravāda Meditative Practices.” PLOS ONE, 9(7): https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0102990

Ashley-Farrand, T. 1999. Healing Mantras: Using Sound Affirmations for Personal Power, Creativity, and Healing. New York: Ballantine Books.

Castro-Sánchez, P. M. 2011. “The Indian Buddhist Dhāranī: An Introduction to its History, Meanings, and Functions.” (MA dissertation). Sunderland, England: University of Sunderland.

Coward, H., & Goa, D. 2004. Mantra: Hearing the Divine in India and America. New Delhi, India: Motilal Banarsidass.

Dilgo Khyentse. 1992. Pure Appearance: Development and Completion Stages in Vajrayāna Practice. A. J. Palmo, Trans. Boulder: Shambhala Publications.

Gawain, S. 1978. Creative Visualization: Use the Power of Your Imagination to Create What You Want in Your Life. Berkeley: Whatever Publishing.

Guided Imagery. 28 November 2017. Wikipedia. Retrieved 13 March 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guided_imagery

Highstein, M. 2016. The Healing Waterfall: 100 Guided Imagery Scripts for Counselors, Healers & Clergy. Santa Fe: Desert Heart Multimedia.

Hill, N. 1937. Think and Grow Rich. Shippensburg, PA: Sound Wisdom.

Jamgon Kongtrul. 2014. Creation and Completion: Essential Points of Tantric Meditation. Second ed. S. Harding, Trans.. Somerville MA: Wisdom Publications.

Kozhevnikov, M., Louchakova, O., Josipovic, Z., & Motes, M. A. 2009. The Enhancement of Visuospatial Processing Efficiency Through Buddhist Deity Meditation. Psychological Science. 20(5), 645–653.

Jigmé Lingpa, Patrul Rinpoche, & Getse Mahapandita. 2007. Deity Mantra and Wisdom: Development Stage Meditation in Vajrayāna and Healing Tibetan Buddhist Tantra. Ithica, NY: Snow Lion Publications.

Linton, R. 2008. “Sound Vision: Patterns of Vibration in Sound, Symbols, and the Body.” (Unpublished master’s thesis). Wellington, New Zealand: Massey University, Institute of Communication Design.

Reid, J. S. 19 February 2017. “Rediscovering the Art and Science of Sound Therapy”. Retrieved from: http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/rediscovering-artand-science-sound-therapy/

Reid, J. S. 8 February 2018. “The Therapeutic Power of Vocal Sound”. Retrieved from http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/therapeuticpower-vocal-sound

Singer, J. 2006. Imagery in Psychotherapy. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Science: Meet the Rainbow Body

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When Science meets spirit

When Fritz-Albert Popp first discovered that all living cells emit light—biophotons—he could not have anticipated the revolution this would create in the fields of both biology and physics. Since then, there has been a tidal wave of research and the emergence of the pioneering fields of biophotonic diagnosis,  biophysics, biofields and biomagnetism. Yet one of the greatest implications of this body of knowledge is a convergence of science and spirituality that was previously not possible. This directly impacts our understanding and practice of Vajrayana, and especially the enigmatic phenomena of the Light or Rainbow Body (Tibetan: ö-lu and ja-lu). Indeed, the  entire corpus of these ancient teachings moves towards LB creation, which we  define here as a separate, non-physical bioenergetic or photonic form. It is a light structure that can survive beyond the material organism, acting as a vehicle for a transformed consciousness—a luminous sphere of existence.

Light Body Gets Real

Recently this ultimate goal of the human state, long the “holy grail” for Western Vajrayanists, has received more attention in the public arena. A number of books have appeared validating the fact that the Rainbow Body is a real possibility, historically, and even into the modern era.  But it should be understood that this is a human potential, not restricted to any single culture or time period. Clearly it is a panglobal, transcultural reality, seen in Christian, Alchemical,  Japanese Shingon, Greek, Egyptian, Gnostic, Manichean, Kaballistic and Zoroastrian art and writings, that would fill many books to catalogue and compare. Some of these traditions are no longer extant, some have lost the key to their own meaning, while others have kept their secrets almost too well hidden. At this point, the most accessible and available LB teachings are held within the various schools of Buddhist Vajrayana. These living lineages, hermetically sealed in Tibet, Bhutan and the Himalayas for a millennia, have now been disseminated across the globe. Less well studied but equally effective are the Shaivite (Hindu) and Daoist systems that also provide unique missing pieces of the grand mosaic of LB creation.

Why Science?

Having these well-worn traditional practices, designed to lead  us towards ja-lu or ö-lu, why bring in science or physics? The fact is that in spite of some fifty years of concentrated activity in the West, including multi-year retreats and high level trainings, we have not seen exclusive clubs of Light Body adepts proliferating in the West. This absence could be blamed on the still infant state of Buddhadharma in the West, on a lack of monastic facilities, on our busy lifestyles, or any number of social, psychological or cultural factors. But as I realized when I emerged from my own three-year retreat, stuffing 11th century concepts into a 20th century mind is liking putting square pegs in round holes. Even my few years sheltered from the outside world demonstrated that it is not just the content of mind that changes over time, but its very architecture (relative mind of course, not unchanging Ultimate Mind).

It is possible that what is needed is a new paradigm. It has been shown time and again that when we understand why we are performing a task, we do it better on all levels. The introduction of hard science into our way of thinking and practicing visualization, mantric sound and internal energy manipulations may be the needed game-changer. It provides a rational framework for inner training, and promotes confidence in the reality of the mythological and symbolic instructions that we have learned to follow. Not to be confused with an intellectual, distanced approach, this knowledge can  help a practitioner make the all-important intuitive, living connection with their  meditation. The secrets that biophysics has made available to us are, in fact, messages of awakening.

In this and future articles we will touch on some of the incredible recent discoveries and how they might change and deepen our view and practice. A new paradigm may help resolve unanswered questions and ultimately aid in the creation of future Rainbows.

The Light of Life

Photons, the wave-particle nature of light, include all seven sections of the electromagnetic spectrum, including X-ray, gamma rays, radio waves and so on. In the body though, so called biophotons emitted by every cell are in the visible spectrum of light, though a thousand times too faint for our naked eye. For a photon, there is no time, and no distance, already making them enticing candidates for the properties of a Rainbow Body. Stored in the cell’s DNA, these messengers are the main communication network of body, connecting the cell parts, tissues and organs. Already they have been shown to regulate growth, differentiation and regeneration  of cells. Coherent biophoton fields could prove to be the basis of memory and even consciousness, as suggested many years ago by Karl Pribram, David Bohm and others.

The Light of the Brain

Biophotons are important carriers of information in the brain, along with well-known electrochemical signals—neurotransmitters and nerve impulses (waves of ionic depolarization). These biophotons cover the whole range of light, from near infrared to near ultraviolet, though we don’t yet know what different frequencies or colors of light mean for brain neurons. Remarkably though, the majority are towards the red end of the spectrum. In cross-species comparisons, we see that the more red-shift in biophoton emissions, the smarter the species. From rats to monkeys to humans, the more advanced animals produce more near infrared biophotons. The implications for meditation are profound, since major methods of light body formation in Tibetan, Daoist and Yogic traditions involves the Fire Element, solar energy and visualizing inner fire that arises from the gut and travel upwards and through the body’s energy channels.

It is also thought that quantum (atomic sized) information travels as coherent light along the fatty coatings of the nerves (the myelin sheath). This would make for a truly fiber-optic-like system of wiring within the brain. Photons also travel in the cerebrospinal fluid (CFS), that magic elixir that bathes the brain, and accumulates in its fluid-filled hollows, the ventricles. Here the fluid and photons connect to the pineal (third eye) and other nearby structures, where they interface with secretions like melatonin and DMT (the spirit molecule). This whole set-up is the perfect milieu for light-based consciousness, and a number of exciting models have evolved form this. The quantum hologram theory  is particularly enticing because is depicts as merely a local connection point linked to vast network of awareness that exists, simultaneous with light, outside the physical body. Naturally practitioners will reflect on the familiar human skull cup filled with nectar, so prominent in Vajrayana ritual.

Contagious Photons

A striking fact is that living things communicate with each other through photon emission. Plants can make other plants grow. Animals can induce sickness in others nearby, not through physical touch or contagion, but simply through photon radiation. Healers impact others through this same energy and information transfer.

Even more profound, it has been known for decades that there is something called “quantum entanglement” that applies to atomic particles, including photons. Once two or more photons are in resonance with each other, or “entangled,” they stay that way regardless of space or time. It is now shown that this applies to living beings as well. Imagine what this means in terms of the spiritual teacher-disciple relationship. One would also expect this phenomena to be implicit in empowerments and spiritual transmissions. It is also a biophysics explanation of why samaya—keeping these spiritual connections intact—is so important. A student who acts badly impacts the teacher in certain ways, as does the bad acting teacher. And both influence the entire intricate structure of the spiritual construct, for good or ill. Instead of the old “watch your P’s and Q’s” we need to mind our photons! This very much relates to the important Tibetan concept of “tendrel” or interdependent relationship in general.

An equally remarkable development is the re-discovery of the Primo Vascular System (PVS),  after being overlooked for 30 years. This system of microscopic channels, different than the lymph, blood and nervous tissues, qualifies as the actual tsa, nadi, or psychic channels utilized  within Vajrayana,  yogic and Daoist traditions of meditation. The microscopic PVS is everywhere, even following the course of nerves and the brain itself.

The Future of Photons

While we are endowed with a “free” physical form, a Light Body is not a given. It is only a potential, for those dedicated enough, and astute enough to realize its worth. Then it may truly become the “precious human birth” of Buddhist lore. Fortunately, we are equipped for this eventuality. Biophotonic research proves that if we simply visualize light, we create bursts of  photon emissions in the brain. We now have ways to measure the biophoton activity inside the body, but no studies have been done on someone in the very process of illumination and dissolution of their material body into ephemeral light. I invite you to be the first volunteer! For now, we can look at  the brilliant paths towards Rainbow that the great masters of the past have developed, and in what way biophysics can help us on this unique journey.

Coming Next….

In future articles we will talk about methods of Rainbow Body building and what biophysics can do to deepen our understanding. This will include:

  • Creation Stage: How yidam or deity meditation provides the structured template or framework for Light Body formation.
  • The extraordinary Completion Stage methods, especially Tummo, as a photonic implosion of the upper and lower poles of the body and subsequent cellular dissolution.
  • How biophotons may help unravel the mystery of consciousness—and awakening.
  • What pure realms mean as stellar realities and abodes of the Light Body beings
  • The crucial role of the five elements and their transition to the pure five wisdoms.

The Missing Self in Spirituality and Psychology

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The Big Investment

A few years ago, a friend of mine was ready, along with his wife, to retire. They had invested their life savings, the work of 20 years, to fund their golden years. Unfortunately, it was with a man named Madoff. In a single moment they lost it all to this con artist and it was never recovered. What has this to do with the Dharma, mantra recitation, deity visualization, mahamudra, Dzogchen, or glimpsing the luminosity of ultimate mind? Just like that retirement fund, the Dharma requires a tremendous investment, not only of money but of precious time, effort, thought, dedication, and even sacrifice. So the question becomes, where are we really putting all this energy? Because it is not guaranteed that it will go where it actually belongs, where it can really do us some good.

Flashback to 1982, when I was first contemplating entry into a three-year Vajrayana retreat, I had wrangled the position of a driver for my teacher, the Venerable Kalu Rinpoche. Touring New York, Boston, and points between, it helped that I had purchased a black Citroen that Rinpoche would have been familiar with from his extended time in France. One day, while giving a French student a ride, I asked when he planned on undertaking a retreat, since at that time this was the logical path for Kalu Rinpoche’s students. In broken English, he spoke words that still ring in my ear: “Well, I’m not very impress with the result.”

Indeed, I have known individuals who have done six-year retreats, and Eastern lamas who have done a cumulative 20 years in caves and isolated huts, and who were variously arrogant, self-important, self-centered, vindictive, or manipulative. There are cases of people who have abandoned the Dharma altogether after a three-year retreat, while others have committed suicide. As is public knowledge—and my unfortunate personal experience—a rare few seasoned Tibetan meditators have been sexual predators or out and out thieves, even black magicians.

Yet the same teachings and practices have clearly helped transform Western Dharma students and Eastern teachers into their best selves, beacons of compassion, integrity, inner strength, and impartiality. Meditation and mindfulness can save minds, save lives, and eradicate negativity and suffering. But there are also modern mindfulness masters who are self-satisfied, arrogant, and engage in “virtue signaling” rather than actual virtue. So what gives? How can the very same Dharma produce such different results in different hands or minds? We can just shrug it off as individual differences, or karma, or pre-existing mental pathology. But there may be a more precise issue that we can put our finger on and perhaps do something about.

Unraveling a Mystery

It comes back to where we invest, or “who” we are investing in; what part of us is receiving the Dharma, what part of us is penetrated by the ideas, practices, and experiences that encompass the path of Buddhism. To answer that question requires a dip into psychology, that vast repository of thinking on the nature of our relative self—not just our ultimate nature. This opens up to a much bigger issue, one central to psychology and spirituality alike, and why, in a sense, our entire culture has made a “bad investment” and continues to do so. It simply invests in the wrong self. But so can Buddhists, because both have overlooked the “missing self.” In many ways, the whole problem of humanity is a case of mistaken identity!

Back in 1982, John Welwood, a psychologist and student of Chogam Trungpa noticed a phenomenon he termed spiritual bypassing, which he defined as “using spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks.” This could take the form of self-inflation or deflation, specialness or self-blame. He noted, rightly, that there are two lines of human development: becoming a genuine human person versus going beyond the person altogether. Theoretically, these parallel lines of development may come to a single point on some event horizon. But staying a dysfunctional person for untold lifetimes does not seem to accelerate that theoretical convergence.

Centuries before Welwood used this term, the old Zen masters of Japan used the term “the stink of Zen” to describe those who developed a persona of specialness while taking on the external trappings and activities of a monk, but without any internal shift. Seon Roshi and others used this term freely with their Western students as clearly this problem is endemic to spiritual training. Welwood even goes so far as to call it an “occupational hazard” of meditation.

But we are still left with an unanswered question about what it means to fix oneself on a psychological level so that we can progress on a spiritual level. The growing field of Buddhist psychology may offer some solutions. But there may be an even more direct and elegant answer from an unexpected source.

The Mssing self in Psychology

I was always intrigued by the idea of the 25 cent gasket that disrupted the launch of a billion-dollar spaceship. The devil is in the details, and when foundational details are wrong—as anyone who has done any accounting knows—the errors carry through to all the future calculations. A few foundation blocks out of place at the bottom of our building, and that edifice can become a leaning tower of Pisa. 

That was my impression of modern psychology after I came across a startling book, back in my pre-Buddhist days of the late 1970s. Within the pages of In Search of the Miraculous, G. I. Gurdjieff was quoted as saying: “Essence is the real in man, Personality is the false.” He described in detail how we have a basic nature, with its constitutional predispositions and tendencies, with our real potential, purpose, and destiny. What Trungpa called Basic Sanity or Basic Goodness is basically Essence, or is at least a core characteristic of this underlying stratum of our identity. Secondly, we develop, from an early age, a programmed, socialized, culturally molded self in order to interface with the world. 

Gurdjieff termed this Personality, but to avoid confusion with modern definitions, I use the word Persona, i.e. a mask or artificial facade. Having a common interface with other human beings (including language) is essential, but it should be a vehicle or a tool of our authentic Essence. In most cases that artificial construct, with no real existence of its own, is dominant while Essence is left to wallow and wither, without nourishment. Unfortunately the whole of our modern consumer society is Persona-based, where image and impressions far, far outweigh the force of presence and being. Essence is neither promoted or supported in most cases. It is style over substance, sizzle over steak.

The Conflicted Selves

The Persona cannot grow and mature; it can only upgrade. A new way of speaking, a tweaked set of beliefs, different facial expressions, different emotional tones, and a new “sense of identity” can all be adopted or manufactured. Persona can have the guise of an activist, a doctor, an expert, a Buddhist. The forms are creatively infinite. Essence is that part that can grow, mature, develop, even transform. It is automatically connected to the spiritual self. And as Essence matures, it can form a True Persona, one that is fully congruent and accurately reflects who we really are, reflecting our life’s purpose and unique gifts. But it is also true that the cobbled together Persona has little or nothing in common with Essence. False Persona, once in ascendancy, is not happy to give up its artificial status. How and why we move from Essence to a Persona-based life is well beyond this short essay, but is a question that should stay prominent in one’s mind. It is the key that unlocks an understanding of the human condition.

Although the idea of a True Self has not gone unnoticed by psychologists such as Rollo May, Irvin Yalom, Karen Horney, and C. G,. Jung, or some in the fields of positive psychology, social psychology, personality theory and the study of authenticity, mainstream psychology stubbornly takes the self to be one solid block. That fundamental miscalculation means that all research, reportage, surveys, statistics, and working models of traits, self-schema, self-view, developmental theory, and so on, are based on the assumption of this monolithic “personality.” This is the 25-cent part that dooms the planned interplanetary reaches of psychology. The same goes for the thriving field of self-help. But how does this impact our Dharma practice?

The Missing self in Spirituality

Spiritual systems in general, including Buddhism, portray a duality of mind. There is ultimate being, a non-dual, non-local luminous consciousness that underlies our limited, subject-object experience of relative reality. And then there is our familiar mundane self. Often this is identified as the “ego,” a term oddly borrowed from Freud, who defined it quite differently. As such we have a two-self system in Buddhism (or you can call it a self and non-self system). Ego is the tyrant who usurps our spiritual self, the “narrow cell of your false identity.” It obscures our Buddha-nature, the spacious consciousness that transcends this localized identity. Yet we know our state can vary from mechanical, unaware sleepwalking through life, to an awakening, highly attuned awareness of ones own being and the vibrant world around us. Something big is lost when we lump everything about our normal state together and pathologize it. And something bad happens when we think we have to transcend, eliminate, or leap over that self. Because there are two very different creatures living in that egoic self: Essence and Persona. Essence is the bridge to the spirit. 

Diagrammatically, it looks like this:

Image courtesy of the author

The Next Stage

Spiritual bypassing, and the stink of Zen, are both instances in which the Dharma enters Persona, but does not penetrate Essence. There is a third self, neither “ego” nor pure luminous consciousness, which if ignored, hobbles both modern psychology and Buddhism from fulfilling their grand promises. Indeed, it appears that becoming Essence-centered is the only healthy way toward spiritual development. Trungpa, Welwood, and thousands of other teachers have ways of helping drop down into Essence temporarily. If this mechanism was better understood, we would have a much better chance of living there. So does your Dharma practice enter Persona . . . or Essence?

References

Farias, M., and Wikholm, C. 2015. The Buddha Pill: Can meditation change you? London, England: Watkins.

Horney, K. 1950. Neurosis and human growth. New York: W. W. Norton.

Kalupahana, D. J. 1987. Principles of Buddhist psychology. New York: State Univesity of New York Press.

May, R. 1983. The discovery of being. New York: W. W. Norton

Lerner, Melvin J. and J. J. Clarke. 1994. Jung and Eastern thought: A dialogue with the Orient. New York: Routledge. 

Millon, T. and M. J. Lerner. 2003. Handbook of psychology. vol 5: Personality and social psychology.Hoboken, N.J: John Wiley & Sons.

Ouspensky, P. D. 1949. In search of the miraculous. New York: arvest Books.  

Peterson, C. and M. Seligman. 2004. Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

Trungpa, C. 2010. The sanity we are born with: a buddhist approach to psychology. Boston, MA: Shambala.

Wood, A. et al. 2008. The Authentic Personality: A Theoretical and Empirical Conceptualization and the Development of the Authenticity Scale. Journal of Counseling Psychology American Psychological Association.(55) 3, 385–99

Walter, P. F. 2015.The Ego Matter: About The Importance Of Autonomy For Realizing Your True Self.Newark, Delaware: Sirius-C Media Galaxy.

Yalom, I. 1980. Existential Psychotherapy. New York: Basic Books.

The 4th Principle of Healing: Regeneration

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RejuvinationRegeneration

Life springs eternal. In every turn of the season, and in every moment of life, there is repair, rejuvenation, regeneration. From the minutest cell to the grand ecosystems that span continents, there is always renewal in the cycle of life. In terms of our healing process, considerable resources are needed to accomplish the repair of damaged cells, or regeneration of parts of our liver, kidneys, or heart tissue.
[Read more…] about The 4th Principle of Healing: Regeneration

Why Do We Get Sick?

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SickKid-1000

ANY CHARACTER HERE

The art of the healer has always been to discover the hidden factors that affect our health, and then use healing methods that can help us eliminate or mitigate those causes. [Read more…] about Why Do We Get Sick?

SickKid-1000

ANY CHARACTER HERE

The art of the healer has always been to discover the hidden factors that affect our health, and then use healing methods that can help us eliminate or mitigate those causes. [Read more…] about Why Do We Get Sick?

What Does Homeopathy Cure?

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Happy1-1000

What Does Homeopathy Cure?

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[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he list of conditions treated and cured by homeopathy is extensive. In fact it covers the whole of medicine as we know it, and many “conditions” that have no specific name or label. [Read more…] about What Does Homeopathy Cure?