Spiritual Bypassing

[rex]

Here's something to beware of: 'spiritual bypassing':

 

Aspects of spiritual bypassing include exaggerated
 detachment, emotional numbing and repression, overemphasis on the positive, 
anger-phobia, blind or overly tolerant compassion, weak or too porous 
boundaries, lopsided development (cognitive intelligence often being far ahead
 of emotional and moral intelligence), debilitating judgment about one’s
 negativity or shadow side, devaluation of the personal relative to the
 spiritual, and delusions of having arrived at a higher level of being.
[taken from http://highexistence.com/spiritual-bypassing-how-spirituality-sabotaged-my-growth/]

 
It's often said that spiritual practice requires virtues like grounding, courage, persistence, wisdom and compassion and there's why.
 
I don't think the concept of spiritual bypassing is anything new, it's old wine in new bottles, but it is a good modern restatement of something that's always warned against but can get missed easily.
 
As well as being  symptomatic of misapplied practice these aspects can also be causes and spurs to spiritual practice too.

[Silent Answers]

That's a good summary for 90% of YouTube spiritual channels.

[C T]

I recall this matter was significantly addressed in the book Cutting through Spiritual Materialism by Trungpa Rinpoche. 

correct me if mistaken. 

 

 

 

btw, that book is really good. 

an excerpt below:

 

Q.	What is faith?  Is it useful?A.	Faith could be simple-minded, trusting, blind faith, or it could be definite confidence which cannot be destroyed.  Blind faith has no inspiration.  It is very naive.  It is not creative, though not exactly destructive.  It is not creative because your faith and yourself have never made any connection, any  communication.  You just blindly accepted the whole belief, very naively.	In the case of faith as confidence, there is a living reason to be confident.  You do not expect that there will be a prefabricated solution mysteriously presented to you.  You work with existing situations without fear, without any doubt about involving yourself.  This approach is extremely creative and positive.  If you have definite confidence, you are so sure of yourself that you do not have to check yourself.  *It is absolute confidence, real understanding of what is going on now, therefore you do not hesitate to follow other paths or deal in whatever way is necessary with each new situation. 

 

* So it seems that Rinpoche had pointed out that faith built on measured confidence is one way to end the onset of spiritual bypassing.

[doc benway]

I would agree this is a real phenomenon and CT's quote seems to hit the mark.

Spiritual practices intentionally undermine the integrity of the ego to allow a deeper connection to what my teacher would call the inner refuge.

If the connection to that inner source of support and confidence does not occur, the effects of the practices are hollow.

[WisteriaWinds]

In college I had a prof who is well known in the New Age community. He was like this. He seemed to think Buddhism just magically makes you enlightened even if you spend all your time taking LSD and writing pseudointellectual garbage. He was my intro to what can be expected from most teachers along the path.

[doc benway]

Very important to choose our teachers with care!

[WisteriaWinds]

Very important to choose our teachers with care!

I had another well known teacher who taught me to let the energy teach me and showed me I could learn more from play.

[C T]

I had another well known teacher who taught me to let the energy teach me and showed me I could learn more from play.

hence WisteriaWinds? 

[Geof Nanto]

Here's something to beware of: 'spiritual bypassing':

 

 

It's often said that spiritual practice requires virtues like grounding, courage, persistence, wisdom and compassion and there's why.

 

I don't think the concept of spiritual bypassing is anything new, it's old wine in new bottles, but it is a good modern restatement of something that's always warned against but can get missed easily.

 

As well as being  symptomatic of misapplied practice these aspects can also be causes and spurs to spiritual practice too.

 

This touches on a favourite theme of mine, namely role of doubt and certainty in personal practice. I see them as a yin / yang pair. Hence I need to embrace both. Yet us humans have a great fear of doubt.

 

Am I certain of my doubts? Do I doubt my certainties?

 

I read somewhere that most people come to religion looking for certainty; only a few come seeking truth. And what is truth? Indeed what does ‘spiritual’ mean?

 

I like these thoughts from Carl Jung, expressed very near the end of his life……

 

I cannot form any final judgment because the phenomenon of life and the phenomenon of man are too vast. The older I have become, the less I have understood or had insight into or known about myself. I am astonished, disappointed, pleased with myself. I am distressed, depressed, rapturous. I am all these things at once, and cannot add up the sum. I am incapable of determining ultimate worth or worthlessness; I have no judgment about myself and my life. There is nothing I am quite sure about. I have no definite convictions — not about anything, really. I know only that I was born and exist, and it seems to me that I have been carried along. I exist on the foundation of something I do not know. In spite of all uncertainties, I feel a solidity underlying all existence and a continuity in my mode of being.

 

The world into which we are born is brutal and cruel, and at the same time of divine beauty. Which element we think outweighs the other, whether meaninglessness or meaning, is a matter of temperament. If meaninglessness were absolutely preponderant, the meaningfulness of life would vanish to an increasing degree with each step in our development. But that is — or seems to me — not the case. Probably, as in all metaphysical questions, both are true: Life is — or has —meaning and meaninglessness. I cherish the anxious hope that meaning will preponderate and win the battle.

 

When Lao-tzu says: "All are clear, I alone am clouded," he is expressing what I now feel in advanced old age. Lao-tzu is the example of a man with superior insight who has seen and experienced worth and worthlessness, and who at the end of his life desires to return into his own being, into the eternal unknowable meaning. The archetype of the old man who has seen enough is eternally true. At every level of intelligence this type appears, and its lineaments are always the same, whether it be an old peasant or a great philosopher like Laotzu. This is old age, and a limitation. Yet there is so much that fills me: plants, animals, clouds, day and night, and the eternal in man. The more uncertain I have felt about myself, the more there has grown up in me a feeling of kinship with all things. In fact it seems to me as if that alienation which so long separated me from the world has become transferred into my own inner world, and has revealed to me an unexpected unfamiliarity with myself.

[C T]

Very important to note also is that we need not have to hold on to the idea that we are in some way transfixed by past folly. Then some might proclaim, "but its so difficult to let go".... Therein lies the solution, in that very difficulty itself. Of course the solution will only clearly present itself only if one is fully immersed in the difficulty, that the difficulty is allowed to penetrate deep into the very heart of being, and not simply saying it out of habit. 

[Old River]

This touches on a favourite theme of mine, namely role of doubt and certainty in personal practice. I see them as a yin / yang pair. Hence I need to embrace both. Yet us humans have a great fear of doubt.

 

Am I certain of my doubts? Do I doubt my certainties?

 

I read somewhere that most people come to religion looking for certainty; only a few come seeking truth. And what is truth? Indeed what does ‘spiritual’ mean?

 

This past Saturday evening I visited with two old friends of mine, a married couple I've known since 1997, when I lived in New Orleans at one point.  They are now in their early 50s.  We've talked from time to time over the years after I left New Orleans, and I've visited them, sometimes staying at their place in New Orleans. 

 

They lived through Hurricane Katrina and lost everything they had-- got stuck in a hotel building full the smell of rotting meat, having to relieve themselves in closets, cops shot at them as they tried to cross over to the West Bank.  They went through hell and were (unsurprisingly) traumatized by the experience.  They moved to Nashville of all places, where I was living in 2005-2006 and we managed to find each other again.  I ended up moving to New Zealand in 2007, and ended up in Arkansas when I returned to the states.  In 2014 I moved back to Nashville, and this weekend we caught up with each other again. 

 

Now this was a couple that was never particularly "religious" at all -- at most, they might've believed in God in that vague unspecific way that is not uncommon, but religion was not a topic they ever mentioned much even in passing.  But I quickly found out this weekend that they now believe the "Rapture" is coming, Obama is evil, the US is "a Christian nation," etc. etc.  They don't even go to any church because they think all establishment churches are "false churches."  I am familiar with all this because in my early 20s I got sucked into this same cult-like atmosphere, but I got out after a couple years, thank goodness.

 

Mark in particular was vigorous in his obsession with these religious and political certainties.  It made me sad to see these good people have their minds distorted with fear.  I got the impression that all their other friends no longer have anything to do with them now (Mark was in a jazz band-- they all came up from New Orleans after Katrina-- he's no longer in the band.  He's a courier and spends his time in the van listening to talk radio, further brainwashing himself).  I've been in this place before.  I could see in Mark's body language that he was clinging desperately to this certainty because it was the only certainty he (and his wife, Laura) could conceive of.

 

I first knew them both through a previous job -- Laura was a co-worker and I discovered she had literary interests -- we both liked Annie Dillard's work, among other things.  She told me that for the past year the only book she has been reading is the Bible -- apparently with an interest in "prophecy."

 

While I managed to NOT get in an argumentative frame of mind, Mark's voice kept getting louder and louder and he was even shaking.  My voice got quieter and quieter, saying less and less-- there was really nothing to say.  I was just so shocked and sad.  Behind all these bold pronouncements of certainty was fear and trauma-- living through Katrina damaged them terribly, and their way of coping is only isolating themselves further in this unhealthy mental feedback loop. 

 

After saying (repeatedly) that I'd rather not talk about religion or politics, the conversation would change course, and return to a more familiar conversation pleasantness, catching up on old times -- but four times that night, Mark just couldn't help himself, circling back to the same obsession with Bible prophecy and the evils of socialism, etc. (and I do mean "evil" -- they saw my Bernie Sanders bumper sticker on my car -- I never said a word about my own interests in Buddhism or Daoism-- this would have opened a whole other can of worms!). 

 

And I know this mindset, having been there myself so long ago.  Mark wasn't trying to convert me-- it was just being in the presence of someone who thought differently was just inconceivable to him.  He was trying to convince himself, not me.  I just kept waiting for normality to return so that I could exit on a good note. 

 

Though I kept surprisingly calm that night, I cried about it Sunday morning -- this I have lost too many good friends to extreme fundamentalism like this (unfortunately much of my life has been in the southern US where this sort of thing runs rampant).  It just breaks my heart.

 

Sorry... this is really more a personal tangent, and I'm venting a bit.  This has been on my mind and both the OP and Yueya's comment fits all too well with what I experienced this weekend. 

[doc benway]

I'm sorry to hear that Old River, I've lost a friend or two to fundamentalism.

It's sad.

It's also infuriating for me because, at risk of sounding paranoid, I see very powerful forces in the media and government promoting such inflammation and obfuscation of reality.

[dawei]

Sorry... this is really more a personal tangent, and I'm venting a bit.  

 

When you look at the flowers and weeds arise side by side... do you vent?

 

When you see the animals loving get along and others are simply predator vs prey, do you vent?

 

When the sun rises and then falls... or the sun vs rain vs snow comes... do you vent?

 

It is all just ten thousand arising...  now it is time to apply that to humans

 

Each person's destiny is what they playing out... unfolding along some path.   When you get to the point of recognizing it is neither flower nor weed... it is recognizing the Great Arising of the manifest world.   

 

[Karl]

I recall this matter was significantly addressed in the book Cutting through Spiritual Materialism by Trungpa Rinpoche. 

correct me if mistaken. 

 

 

 

btw, that book is really good. 

an excerpt below:

 

Q. What is faith? Is it useful?

 

A. Faith could be simple-minded, trusting, blind faith, or it

could be definite confidence which cannot be destroyed. Blind faith

has no inspiration. It is very naive. It is not creative, though

not exactly destructive. It is not creative because your faith and

yourself have never made any connection, any communication. You

just blindly accepted the whole belief, very naively.

 

In the case of faith as confidence, there is a living reason

to be confident. You do not expect that there will be a

prefabricated solution mysteriously presented to you. You work with

existing situations without fear, without any doubt about involving

yourself. This approach is extremely creative and positive. If you

have definite confidence, you are so sure of yourself that you do

not have to check yourself. *It is absolute confidence, real

understanding of what is going on now, therefore you do not hesitate

to follow other paths or deal in whatever way is necessary with each

new situation.

 

* So it seems that Rinpoche had pointed out that faith built on measured confidence is one way to end the onset of spiritual bypassing.

 

That's a good example of a self destructing statement:

 

The second paragraph directly places faith with reason. In other words there is an equivocation on the word 'faith'. In the first paragraph faith is blind, in the second it is a faith built on reason-in the authors words it is confidence.

 

You cannot have two definitions in one argument or it is void. It's the equivalent of giving evidence in court that you saw a blue car, then saying that you really meant a pedal cycle, but as long as it was blue then the jury should ignore the importance of that difference.

 

If you have a logical, reasoned argument with all definitions clearly in your mind and are refusing to evade, or avoid reality. If the concepts held clearly accord with reality and your perceptions of it, then this isn't faith at all. When there is no room for error, there is no room for doubt. A is A and you can depend on it to remain so.

 

[Karl]

This past Saturday evening I visited with two old friends of mine, a married couple I've known since 1997, when I lived in New Orleans at one point.  They are now in their early 50s.  We've talked from time to time over the years after I left New Orleans, and I've visited them, sometimes staying at their place in New Orleans. 

 

They lived through Hurricane Katrina and lost everything they had-- got stuck in a hotel building full the smell of rotting meat, having to relieve themselves in closets, cops shot at them as they tried to cross over to the West Bank.  They went through hell and were (unsurprisingly) traumatized by the experience.  They moved to Nashville of all places, where I was living in 2005-2006 and we managed to find each other again.  I ended up moving to New Zealand in 2007, and ended up in Arkansas when I returned to the states.  In 2014 I moved back to Nashville, and this weekend we caught up with each other again. 

 

Now this was a couple that was never particularly "religious" at all -- at most, they might've believed in God in that vague unspecific way that is not uncommon, but religion was not a topic they ever mentioned much even in passing.  But I quickly found out this weekend that they now believe the "Rapture" is coming, Obama is evil, the US is "a Christian nation," etc. etc.  They don't even go to any church because they think all establishment churches are "false churches."  I am familiar with all this because in my early 20s I got sucked into this same cult-like atmosphere, but I got out after a couple years, thank goodness.

 

Mark in particular was vigorous in his obsession with these religious and political certainties.  It made me sad to see these good people have their minds distorted with fear.  I got the impression that all their other friends no longer have anything to do with them now (Mark was in a jazz band-- they all came up from New Orleans after Katrina-- he's no longer in the band.  He's a courier and spends his time in the van listening to talk radio, further brainwashing himself).  I've been in this place before.  I could see in Mark's body language that he was clinging desperately to this certainty because it was the only certainty he (and his wife, Laura) could conceive of.

 

I first knew them both through a previous job -- Laura was a co-worker and I discovered she had literary interests -- we both liked Annie Dillard's work, among other things.  She told me that for the past year the only book she has been reading is the Bible -- apparently with an interest in "prophecy."

 

While I managed to NOT get in an argumentative frame of mind, Mark's voice kept getting louder and louder and he was even shaking.  My voice got quieter and quieter, saying less and less-- there was really nothing to say.  I was just so shocked and sad.  Behind all these bold pronouncements of certainty was fear and trauma-- living through Katrina damaged them terribly, and their way of coping is only isolating themselves further in this unhealthy mental feedback loop. 

 

After saying (repeatedly) that I'd rather not talk about religion or politics, the conversation would change course, and return to a more familiar conversation pleasantness, catching up on old times -- but four times that night, Mark just couldn't help himself, circling back to the same obsession with Bible prophecy and the evils of socialism, etc. (and I do mean "evil" -- they saw my Bernie Sanders bumper sticker on my car -- I never said a word about my own interests in Buddhism or Daoism-- this would have opened a whole other can of worms!). 

 

And I know this mindset, having been there myself so long ago.  Mark wasn't trying to convert me-- it was just being in the presence of someone who thought differently was just inconceivable to him.  He was trying to convince himself, not me.  I just kept waiting for normality to return so that I could exit on a good note. 

 

Though I kept surprisingly calm that night, I cried about it Sunday morning -- this I have lost too many good friends to extreme fundamentalism like this (unfortunately much of my life has been in the southern US where this sort of thing runs rampant).  It just breaks my heart.

 

Sorry... this is really more a personal tangent, and I'm venting a bit.  This has been on my mind and both the OP and Yueya's comment fits all too well with what I experienced this weekend. 

 

Intrincisist vs the collectivist subjectivist who would have thunk it :-/

 

Socialism is evil, they got that dead right, but the problem is that the Unstable stone the religious fundamentalist stands on, he shares with the subjectivist fundamentalist.

 

It's like communists and fascists. Same collectivism with a minor twist. Yet each views each other as extremists in a highly polarised dichotomy.

 

Religious fundamentalists are no more wrong the collectivist subjectivists. You clambered out of the exact same philosophical egg, but at slightly different times. One believes in a God of the collective, the other in a collective consciousness. One a deity, the other statism. One theist, the other atheist. One wishes to control the mind, the other the body. Both refuse that consciousness has identity and believe in the mind body dichotomy.

 

You should clamber out of this mysticism because it is the mote in the eye of your friend and the plank in your own.

[Old River]

Karl, unsurprisingly you have entirely missed my whole point.  And you have no idea who I am, what I've been through in life, or what my various motivations in life are.  Your ready-made one-size-fits-all Randian sociopathic ideology renders you incapable of even listening to others who are less enlightened than you.  I used to be a Randbot myself when I was much younger, so you aren't telling me anything I haven't already heard.  Take your "Dear Ayn Rand" advice elsewhere.

[Karl]

Karl, unsurprisingly you have entirely missed my whole point.  And you have no idea who I am, what I've been through in life, or what my various motivations in life are.  Your ready-made one-size-fits-all Randian sociopathic ideology renders you incapable of even listening to others who are less enlightened than you.  I used to be a Randbot myself when I was much younger, so you aren't telling me anything I haven't already heard.  Take your "Dear Ayn Rand" advice elsewhere.

 

More ad-Homs but no attempt to provide any evidence. Come on OR you can do better than 'Randian sociopathic' 'randbot' for the kids. 'Ayn Rand advice' it's all a bit formulaic and perjorative.

 

You have no idea who I am either, but we both write here on this forum and express our ideas. It makes little difference to me if you are a pauper or a King, a professor or a fool. I take what you write and reply to it. If I have a thing wrong, if I have misunderstood then please clarify your point- I cannot be expected to automatically understand your communication, it's not a mathematical expression. All I see is anger in your writing and that makes no sense to me if what you are doing here is to communicate a concept. Just as we discussed music, can't we also be equally civilised here-you note I didn't go pushing 'Randian music' up your sphincter. We had a good crack and I learned some stuff about a band I had never heard of and maybe we both got an idea of each other's musical tastes. Why you should, within a couple of hours, turn hostile is beyond me. :-(

[Spotless]

I recall this matter was significantly addressed in the book Cutting through Spiritual Materialism by Trungpa Rinpoche. 

correct me if mistaken. 

 

 

 

btw, that book is really good. 

an excerpt below:

 

Q. What is faith? Is it useful?

 

A. Faith could be simple-minded, trusting, blind faith, or it

could be definite confidence which cannot be destroyed. Blind faith

has no inspiration. It is very naive. It is not creative, though

not exactly destructive. It is not creative because your faith and

yourself have never made any connection, any communication. You

just blindly accepted the whole belief, very naively.

 

In the case of faith as confidence, there is a living reason

to be confident. You do not expect that there will be a

prefabricated solution mysteriously presented to you. You work with

existing situations without fear, without any doubt about involving

yourself. This approach is extremely creative and positive. If you

have definite confidence, you are so sure of yourself that you do

not have to check yourself. *It is absolute confidence, real

understanding of what is going on now, therefore you do not hesitate

to follow other paths or deal in whatever way is necessary with each

new situation.

 

* So it seems that Rinpoche had pointed out that faith built on measured confidence is one way to end the onset of spiritual bypassing.

 

An odd use of the word "faith" and not I think a Western one - a rather mangled piece.

[Karl]

An odd use of the word "faith" and not I think a Western one - a rather mangled piece.

 

We rarely, if ever, agree on anything and yet you have also spotted the obvious mangled argument (equivocation)

[C T]

An odd use of the word "faith" and not I think a Western one - a rather mangled piece.

Why odd? Its not a term limited to the Western mind and psyche only. 

[Apech]

I recall this matter was significantly addressed in the book Cutting through Spiritual Materialism by Trungpa Rinpoche. 

correct me if mistaken. 

 

 

 

btw, that book is really good. 

an excerpt below:

 

Q.	What is faith?  Is it useful?A.	Faith could be simple-minded, trusting, blind faith, or it could be definite confidence which cannot be destroyed.  Blind faith has no inspiration.  It is very naive.  It is not creative, though not exactly destructive.  It is not creative because your faith and yourself have never made any connection, any  communication.  You just blindly accepted the whole belief, very naively.	In the case of faith as confidence, there is a living reason to be confident.  You do not expect that there will be a prefabricated solution mysteriously presented to you.  You work with existing situations without fear, without any doubt about involving yourself.  This approach is extremely creative and positive.  If you have definite confidence, you are so sure of yourself that you do not have to check yourself.  *It is absolute confidence, real understanding of what is going on now, therefore you do not hesitate to follow other paths or deal in whatever way is necessary with each new situation. 

 

* So it seems that Rinpoche had pointed out that faith built on measured confidence is one way to end the onset of spiritual bypassing.

 

Rinpoche here is comparing blind faith or perhaps the kind of imperative to place belief before reason and experience which is prevalent in Christianity (for example) with something he calls 'confidence'.  He is using the word confidence in a specific way - because of course as a word it simply means 'with faith? - 'com/n + fidere' - so the two words mean more or less the same thing.  However he is making a distinction in order to address the common faults in spiritual practitioners.

 

Faith here means placing your reliance in an external person or god for your liberation.  This is obstructive and non-creative since it merely switches off your natural discriminating mental processes.

 

Confidence on the other hand is something you build through practice.  In other words it is based on a kind extrapolation of experience.  You might for instance receive some kind of guidance - or work out for yourself a possible strategy for dealing with situations you find yourself in and in trying it out you find some benefit.  This builds confidence.  Even in the most empirical pragmatism this kind of confidence is of service, for instance most scientists in looking at the natural world, a distant galaxy or a biological process make the assumption that it is something they can understand.  This is confidence.  Confidence that the human mind can understand and also that the natural laws of physics apply.  In terms of spiritual practice, cultivation or whatever, this works similarly in that you are given praxes which you try.  Meditation for instance.  You try them and then note the effect.  If the effect is positive then confidence grows - this is completely without the need to place one's belief in any spiritual agency.

Edited May 10, 2016 by Apech

[Spotless]

There are basically three types of "faith".

 

1. Blind Faith - needs no further rehash.

 

2. The rather fuzzy kind of Faith based on the very same thing that is so enthralling with slot machines - intermittent positive reinforcement - typically a faith in things / gods / events that are more or less inherited and while not blind, tend to be pretty well taken for granted.

 

3. "Faith" based on investigation, clarity of reason and past results or the results of others that are for good reason deemed to be of reasonably sound mind and opinion. As an example one might say "Steve is an excellent carpenter and I have full faith that he will do a good job for you" - where as it would be odd to say "Steve is an excellent carpenter yet I have no reason to believe that on his next job he will exhibit good skill as a carpenter".

 

In the quotation from the Rinpoche - the writing was simply poorly orchestrated - I would agree with the general drift of Apech's assessment as to what he/she was so poorly attempting to get at and it is basically how I took it. What was particularly problematic is simply that in the Western Mind - and very specifically the American Mind - it appeared to have a patina of a somewhat manipulative sellout to the Christian heritage we suffer from. The usage of the word faith was in a certain sense taken advatage of in its vagary and expounded seemingly as solid ground without a clear context of platform. (I believe it was just sloppy writing - I hope it was - but Wow! - it was childishly sloppy)

Edited May 11, 2016 by Spotless

[C T]

- . -

Edited May 10, 2016 by C T

[liminal_luke]

Old River,

 

I enjoyed reading your story, especially for how it showed your fundamentalist friends in such a human light.  So often, when I meet people like that, I forget how we all have our own personal Katrina.  

[rex]

From a rational materialist viewpoint faith is belief in something you know not to exist or maybe even a statement of hope about possible outcomes that you have no control over.

 

From a spiritual viewpoint it could indicate a dim conscious inkling or awareness of a reality that another part of the psyche is already fully aware - spiritual practice aims to sharpen the clarity of the picture.

 

As Trungpa Rinpoche's quote on faith kicked off a side debate on types of faith, here's an explanation of the different types of faith used to orientate practice in his tradition:

 

Vivid Faith, Eager Faith & Confident Faith