Epstein's "Going to Pieces without Falling Apart"

“Do not look upon your body as your self. Do not think that the body is the self of that the self is the body or that the self is in the body or that the body is in the self. Do not look upon your feelings as your self, your thoughts as your self, even your consciousness as your self.  Your body can change and become otherwise, but grief, lamentation, pain, dejection and despair do not have to arise.”  

                                                                                                           (Sariputta qtd in Epstein 167)

Key points:

• Tantric teachings show that we can connect to our true, unfettered selves in orgasm and death, but even in sex we resist this and we are clearly afraid of death. They believe however, that with training, we can learn to embrace this elusive blissful self, and allow its joy to permeate daily life.
• The ‘emptiness’ that Buddhists teach is a positive emptiness “a luminous knowing that is sometimes called the clear light nature of mind”, and this holds the key to relief of bodily ailments.
• *Western society is all about progress – we do not have a fundamental teaching or understanding or appreciation of the degradation of the aging progress*
• Blind walking meditation as a metaphor for the way we live life.
• Anecdote re juggling – only possible if you quiet the mind and invest in the experience.  The investment in the experience allows all other cares and worries about the body and specifically ‘holding yourself together’ allowing one to experience this relief from worries.
• References DW Winnicot, child analyst, who suggests that mystics’ subjective perception of feeling more real is adequate compensation for their loss of connection with the shared view of what is real.  
•  “losing one’s self without feeling lost”.
• “The opposite of integration would seem to be disintegration. This is only partially true.  The opposite initially, requires a word like integration.” Relaxation, for an infant, means to not have to integrate, as fostered by the safe environment provided by the mother.
• Anecdote: be silent with a child so that you’re not projecting your needs for a ‘satisfying’ interaction with her, and then the child can be selfless and natural in her own state.  The child’s awareness and trust in your presence is enough.
• Anecdote: Epstein’s foray into psychotherapy, finding he was sitting on his seat, body language expressing his internal feelings that he was unaware of. “There was a connection between inhabiting my body and opening up a creative mental space from which I could use words to articulate myself”
• Both meditation and therapy require the gentle coaxing and cajoling of the mind from a contracted state to a momentarily open and playful one, otherwise we are in danger of using the mental training of Buddhism (or the self knowledge of therapy) to re-enforce defenses instead of cutting through them.
• Anecdote: forced himself to maintain eye contact with a friend, actually distances the relationship as the focus is on the physical self instead of the connection between people.  “We can cling to anything, even letting go."

Works Cited:
Epstein, Mark. "Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart", Psychology of Awakening. ed Gay Watson, Stephen Batchelor, Guy Claxton. Maine: Samuel Weiser. 2000. 167-176. Print.