Recently I was watching UK hypnotist and illusionist Derren Brown* and I must say I found it rather disconcerting how easily programmable we are! I was reminded of a teaching some years ago given by buddhist nun Robina Courtin. A student asked her about ‘free will’ and her reply was ‘what makes you think you have free will?’ Wow! Until then, I'd never questioned the assumption that we do.
It prompted some deep contemplation on the nature of our mind, and conditioning. If we really watch how our mind works as we go through our day, we can see that we continuously hypnotize ourselves! We create the same kind of conditioning by constantly making associations, which become attachments. For example I like honey in tea. Now, in my mind, tea has become associated with honey. I don’t actually put it in each time because I can see myself getting attached to it, but every time I make tea, just for an instant, I notice that I think of honey.
Remember Pavlov’s dogs? In his classic experiment Pavlov rang a bell every time the dogs were fed. After some time the dogs would salivate each time they heard the bell, even if food was not present. This way Pavlov demonstrated that behavior is conditioned by association: the dogs associated the bell with food and began to salivate. Hypnotists like Derren Brown use similar techniques to condition people.
Yet this isn’t the full picture. Are we really just like Pavlov’s dogs? Apparently on some level we are! But there is a danger of taking this information too far down the road of 'nihilism', by reducing the meaning and value of our lives to mechanical programming. Nihilism is the belief that nothing exists beyond what we can tangibly see or feel. For example, if I am programmed like a machine, and someone erases the program, what is left? We could easily think that nothing else exists other than our conditioning.
Yet countless spiritual masters down the centuries have told us that there is a higher consciousness beyond our conditioning. That this consciousness is not nothing, but something beautiful, awesome, intelligent and alive, and that our lives do have deeper meaning, and value.
“You live in illusion and the appearance of things. There is a reality, but you do not know this. When you understand this, you will see that you are nothing, and being nothing you are everything. That is all.”
- Kalu Rinpoche
It is our everyday state that is like a trance. We are conditioned by all the attachments we have created and we go through our lives asleep**. The purpose of any spiritual path or practice is to wake us up to our true nature. True liberation of the mind is possible when we are totally free of associations and attachments. Then we are said to be beyond conditioning.
“Knowledge of Dzogchen is like being on the highest mountain peak;
no level of the mountain remains mysterious or hidden,
and whoever finds themselves on this highest peak
cannot be conditioned by anyone or anything.”
In one episode of Derren Brown’s show he claims to create a ‘religious experience’ (his words) in a woman by creating an association between feeling ‘loved and cherished’, and an expanded state of ‘awe’. Once he created the association and the two feelings came together, she did indeed have a deeply moving experience.
However what was created was the result of conditioning through association. While her feelings were real, and may lead her to explore spirituality in more depth at some point, it is still a long way to go before being totally free from conditioning. While his experiment was a success, on one level, it was still dependent upon conditioning. The ultimate purpose of true spiritual practice is freedom from conditioning.
"I hope that you understand what the word “spiritual” really means. It means to search for, to investigate, the true nature of the mind. There’s nothing spiritual outside. My rosary isn’t spiritual; my robes aren’t spiritual. Spiritual means the mind, and spiritual people are those who seek its nature."
- Lama Thubten Yeshe
Derren Brown's subject was not truly liberated because she is still in a conditioned state, and so her mind is not free. My concern with his approach is the implication that a religious or spiritual path is pointless, or unnecessary because we can 'create' such experiences with our own mind.
The truth is that higher consciousness, or enlightenment, isn't created by our conditioned mind, but is ever present and obscured by our conditioning. When we become free of conditioning it becomes self-evident. As long as we have our pre-existing conditioning we can't realize this fact and so we need some kind of practice to set ourselves free. As Robina Courtin suggested, while we are driven by conditioning we don't have 'free will' any more than Pavlov's dogs did!
The whole point and purpose of a spiritual path, and spiritual practice, is to lead us precisely to liberate our own mind and realize the ultimate state where we are no longer able to be conditioned. Only then are we truly free. Many spiritual practices are designed to break our attachments and release us from conditioning.
One very simple practice for freeing ourselves from conditioning are the 4 Chozhag ('let be's') that I mentioned in an earlier newsletter. In this practice we simply observe and let go, observe and let go, continuously. We observe our attachments as they arise, then simply let them go without acting on them. So for example, when I'm making tea, I simply observe when a thought of honey arises, without acting on it.
If we practice this diligently throughout our day, eventually our conditioned thoughts become less and less, and we realize that we are not those thoughts, but who we really are, is the observing awareness itself! At that point we become free of our conditioning.
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