Developmental Trauma Disorder (DTD)

[Encephalon]

Beginning a thread on Developmental Trauma Disorder (DTD) has been a goal of mine for some time.  It wasn’t my original plan to start it here in TDB, but it seems pertinent enough.  The human journey is from ignorance to enlightenment, and bringing our hidden wounds into the light of consciousness is an essential first step.

 

Because of a sequence of cathartic events between 2012 and 2017, events that aren’t necessary to detail here, I was finally compelled to seek out professional counseling at the end of 2017.  It was a humorous beginning, which I took as a good omen.  I instantly recognized my counselor as the “crazy lady” who used to live in the apartment next to us.  We shared a laugh over the synchronicity of the event and plowed right in.

 

I told her that I had long suspected the presence of deep and pernicious unconscious, negative conditioning that was holding me back from fully exploiting my personal potential.  I described my tumultuous upbringing and the patterns of my adult life with candor and concision.  At the end of the first session, she told me, in no uncertain terms, “You are deeply, deeply, deeply conditioned!”  A triple deeply. I was pumped.

 

It took no more than one or two sessions before she referred me to “The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel Van Der Kolk, the flagship work of this subject, and “…the most important series of breakthroughs in mental health in the last thirty years.”

I devoured the book and quickly realized the relief that comes from finally being understood.  I’ve lived most of my adult life as a self-help junkie with a self-destruction complex, an absurdly bewildering path that meanders back and forth between the passion for learning and the terror of being alive.

 

I would have likely remained just a run-of-the-mill, dipshit underachiever had I not been born under conditions that many Dao Bums are probably familiar with.  According to Chinese astrology, I’m a Metal Rat, an armored little fucker, first one off the ship and out the gate, along with not one but two Water elements in my chart (and no Earth element, a different sort of problem).  Bruce Lee was fond of saying, “Be water, my friend,” but what he didn’t mention was that the emotion for Water is fear, and I got a double dose.  I was terrified and helpless by the end of my first decade, hopelessly disempowered by the end of my second one.  I remained in a state of learned pessimism and underachievement until the age of 57.

 

While taking an online course in Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory a while back, I consulted the Enneagram for character typing and found myself a solid 5, the Investigator.  I’ve always had an unquenchable curiosity but I learned that this comes from a desperate desire to make the world more comprehensible, and therefore less frightening.  It was a sobering discovery, and although I’ve learned that curiosity, creativity, and spirituality are often the same process, the insight still stung a bit.

 

What can I say?  The human nervous system is profoundly vulnerable to conditioning, bad as well as good.  My own dose of childhood trauma was greater than some, less than others – being stripped naked and whipped by an alcoholic was my own story – but the results were the same as detailed by van Deer Kolk; a bewildering assortment of dysfunctions, addictions, phobias, underachievement, an obscenely wilted identity crippled by self-hatred, the conviction of unworthiness and irreparability, and the daily, chronic stress of keeping other people from finding out.  The psychological effort required to maintain an imposter identity is unsustainable and ultimately terminal by one means or another.

 

The Water element goes EVERYWHERE.  It leaves nothing uninvestigated, remains tireless in the pursuit of information, knowledge, wisdom.  A consequence of this was that I found myself wandering from one adventure to the other, investigating as much as I could.  My dysfunctional programming would inevitably see to it that I burned down just about every bridge I crossed.  

 

The trick for Water element types is to build up Waves of courage and strength, not just tiny brooks and streams.   The goal of the Enneagram Investigator is competency, the acquisition of knowledge refined into skill.  This has been my experience evaluating my own struggle with childhood trauma.  Obviously, Bums of different character types will investigate their own history of trauma in their own way, but the symptoms of DTD are well established.

 

Toward the healing of DTD, Bums are in for some good news; as the title of the book suggests, the Body Keeps the Score, and the body is the instrument of healing, which should come as no surprise to those of us who have pursued physical fitness and body-mind fusion with the passions of madmen.  Yoga, chi kung, tai chi and martial arts are indicated in the healing response of a traumatized body and mind.  The damage exists down deep; our burden is to reach down to the marrow and positively recondition our nervous system.  But you all knew that already, right?

 

I am personally happy to report that on some level, call it a higher self or just a deep but silenced intuition, I’ve stayed extremely healthy for the past forty years.  I remained fucked up in the head but somehow managed, in spite of my worst instincts, to keep the carcass ready for the day that true healing could seize hold.  My nei kung practice starting in 2009 was extraordinary, but once my child was born, it collapsed.  I’m still in athletic shape for an old fucker (59) but I can’t wait to begin nei kung again soon.

 

I also managed to get a decent education, not unusual for Enneagram Investigators or Water elements. I have absolutely no Earth element in my astrological chart, but I ended up with a graduate degree in geography, so I must have somehow plugged a hole or tended an imbalance without realizing it.  I’ve just about fucked up everything I’ve ever done in my life but I just might be able to grow up before I grow old.

 

I hope this inspires others to explore the role of DTD in their own lives and form meaningful bridges between their childhood wounds and their internal alchemy practices today.  Chapter 10 in Van Der Kolks book is “Developmental Trauma: the Hidden Epidemic” is aptly titled.

 

Many thanks to Taomeow for an astrological reading that has proven remarkably insightful over the last decade.

 

[escott]

Have you ever done 'Trauma Release Exercises'? I've recently started doing them a few times per week and am hoping they offer some relief.

Edited August 12, 2019 by escott

[escott]

Does anyone here have any experience with Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)?

 

I watched this awesome talk by Bessel Van Der Kolk where he talks about its effectiveness.

https://youtu.be/53RX2ESIqsM

 

I read up a little more on EMDR and the principle behind it reminds me of the cross-body exercises that I would have my son (who has Level 1 Autism) do when he was having a meltdown. First, I would have him high step touching opposite elbow to knees. Then, I would have him cross his hands at the wrist and interlace his fingers then draw his hands in and up to his chest and stand with one leg over the other crossed at the ankles. Then, I would have him sit on the floor cross legged and put opposite hands on knees. He would be calm within about 5 minutes and we could then have a rational discussion about why he was so agitated.

 

I learned about these 'crossing the midline' exercises from a book called 'Smart Moves: Why Learning Is Not All In Your Head' by Carla Hannaford.  These exercises come from something called 'Brain Gym'.

 

Edited August 14, 2019 by escott

[Taomeow]

On 8/12/2019 at 1:02 PM, Encephalon said:

 

Many thanks to Taomeow for an astrological reading that has proven remarkably insightful over the last decade.

 

 

  Glad to have been useful with my humble contribution to your success.  I remember your chart!  It was very challenging (one of those I've rarely encountered that are more challenging than my own..)   Kudos for getting on top of a very demanding destiny.

 

41 minutes ago, escott said:

 

I read up a little more on EMDR and the principle behind it reminds me of the cross-body exercises that I would have my son (who has Level 1 Autism) do when he was having a meltdown. First, I would have him high step touching opposite elbow to knees. Then, I would have him cross his hands at the wrist and interlace his fingers then draw his hands in and up to his chest and stand with one leg over the other crossed at the ankles. Then, I would have him sit on the floor cross legged and put opposite hands on knees. He would be calm within about 5 minutes and we could then have a rational discussion about why he was so agitated.

 

I learned about these 'crossing the midline' exercises from a book called 'Smart Moves: Why Learning Is Not All In Your Head' by Carla Hannaford.  These exercises come from something called 'Brain Gym'.

 

  

This makes sense.  I'm wondering if you ever thought of trying to expose your son to taiji.  I've no idea if it might help with autism, but it sure helps with a lot of body-mind coordination difficulties in many cases, including difficulties in people who never even suspected they had them until they tried.  

[liminal_luke]

On 12/8/2019 at 2:24 PM, escott said:

Have you ever done 'Trauma Release Exercises'? I've recently started doing them a few times per week and am hoping they offer some relief.

 

I´ve done them.  Getting into trembling mode isn´t difficult for me so I usually just do the final exercise lying down and let my body go.  It does work for me, though it often takes more than a few minutes before I feel a noticeable shift -- sometimes closer to an hour.  I haven´t done it consistently enough to report any particular life changes.

 

If you do a site search for TRE you´ll find more experiences and opinions.

[escott]

10 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

 

I´ve done them.  Getting into trembling mode isn´t difficult for me so I usually just do the final exercise lying down and let my body go.  It does work for me, though it often takes more than a few minutes before I feel a noticeable shift -- sometimes closer to an hour.  I haven´t done it consistently enough to report any particular life changes.

 

If you do a site search for TRE you´ll find more experiences and opinions.

 

I follow this sequence:

https://theassmovement.wordpress.com/2015/10/11/shake-shake-shake-out-the-trauma/

 

And I watched some YouTube videos to see the exercises done. I get the most trembling doing the back bends and on the next-to-last movement when I'm arched. In the very last position I find that I have to raise and lower my legs several times to get them to shake. I hold the wall sit for 5 minutes, it makes me want to puke. I do this 2 or 3 times per week before bed. It takes me a while because I try to experience some trembling for a significant period of time, then I just lay flat on the floor and zone out. I've been watching 'One Strange Rock' on Netflix while I do it...

[escott]

31 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

 

  Glad to have been useful with my humble contribution to your success.  I remember your chart!  It was very challenging (one of those I've rarely encountered that are more challenging than my own..)   Kudos for getting on top of a very demanding destiny.

 

  

This makes sense.  I'm wondering if you ever thought of trying to expose your son to taiji.  I've no idea if it might help with autism, but it sure helps with a lot of body-mind coordination difficulties in many cases, including difficulties in people who never even suspected they had them until they tried.  

 

He did Karate when he was 5-6 years old. He learned his katas pretty well then he got to where he didn't want to do it anymore - wouldn't put on his uniform, wouldn't go out on the floor at the studio. I've done some Qigong with him, basic arm circling stuff and imagining moving chi with his hands. He liked it. He's also had several years of occupational therapy.

[Walker]

Hi Encephalon,

 

I think that was a great post and I'm glad you decided to bring it here. Thank you for reminding me about The Body Keeps the Score--I think I might have heard John Barnes mention it before at an MFR training. At any rate, it's something that's been way on my forgotten backburner of books to read, and I'm going to go get it from the library this evening. 

 

What you raise here is something that I think is pertinent to everybody who wishes to cultivate. There's not a human on earth who couldn't benefit from having this knowledge and learning how to let the echoes of trauma stored in the body unwind, but this is especially relevant for those "on the path," whichever path that may be, because it seems to be that a lot of the people who end up as seekers and cultivators choose such lifestyles in part because they have larger or smaller bits of what you just described ("I had long suspected the presence of deep and pernicious unconscious, negative conditioning that was holding me back"). Yet, in spite of their discipline and dedication many if not most seekers may never be so fortunate as to meet teachers who really understand this stuff. What I mean to say is that while qigong, neigong, yoga, meditation and many other practices can all help with these burdens, if we don't really know what we're working with and our teachers don't either, then it becomes easy to end up in dead-end alleys without even knowing why. That is especially true if we are taught or mistakenly decide to use our practices as a way to try and cover up, eliminate, or blast through the trauma stored inside of our body. "White knuckling it," to use a term from AA, is never a real solution, even if one tries to softly and flowingly white knuckle it with qigong or taiji!

 

I have noticed the above type of mistake is extremely prevalent in China, which has a mainstream culture where even acknowledging trauma is generally pretty taboo. I think this is in large part because so often trauma is inflicted upon the victim by people who have the official upper hand in Confucian hierarchy: parents over children, husbands over wives, brothers over sisters, elder siblings over younger siblings, bosses and teachers over students and subordinates, and, of course, the government over just about everybody. Naturally, this pecking order crap is not uniquely Chinese or Confucian (it's basically just the patriarchal pattern, codified with "Chinese characteristics"), but it's magnified by the politics there--not just communist politics, but the classical imperial politics as well, which the CCP has in many ways embraced. I bring this up not to try and cause a digression into the problematic features of abusive power dynamics Chinese society, but because these dynamics seem to directly affect a lot of the culture that surrounds neigong, qigong, meditation, martial arts, and other forms of self-cultivation coming out of China. Not only is it my experience that it is as rare as a unicorn's horn to hear Chinese teachers bring up the trauma stored in the body, but on those occasions when students invariably have experiences where these bodily memories begin to surface due to the natural healing activity of shen and qi, far more often than not the students are more or less told to shut up, stop being dramatic, stop thinking too much, forget the past, try harder to only focus the paternal virtues of their violent father or what have you ("it is not easy to be a parent, all children should always be grateful of all parents, try hard to understand how much pressure he was under" is what I've heard victims of child abuse be told plenty of times, and usually they don't ask again after shut-downs like that), and so forth. In other words, one of the major lacuna haunting the Chinese cultivation systems in this day and age is precisely what you have brought to our attention here. 

 

To be honest, in my not scanty interactions with Daoism, Chinese martial arts, Chinese Buddhism, and qigong, I can only think of one teacher who a deep appreciation for these things and a willingness to address them head on and guide his students through the associated processes that may need to unfold. Perhaps not incidentally, although both of his parents are Chinese immigrants and he grew up deep in old NYC Chinatown speaking dialects from the old country and interacting mostly with Chinese immigrants, the fact is he was born in the west and received and American education. Both of his Daoist masters (one an immigrant to the US, one who he followed when he spent years in China) were Chinese, but his students are all Americans and Europeans. The cultural interactions at work (I don't know about Europe, but the glory days of stoic Americans who live in denial of their emotions are certainly on the wane, so this teacher is more or less stuck with a few dozen Americans who definitely wouldn't accept being asked to be good little Confucians and stifle their emotional shit!) may have conspired to make this particular teacher uncharacteristically open to facing trauma head on. Oh, and for his part, he strongly dislikes Confucianism haha!

 

Anyway, that teacher does not take new students and has no public profile or writings whatsoever, so there's not much more I can add about him to this discussion. What I will add is that the Tibetan Buddhist Tsoknyi Rinpoche is keenly aware of the importance of the body's relationship to traumatic memory and all emotional afflictions in general. What I am most grateful for having being taught by him is a way of observing/experiencing what he calls "the subtle body" with a mindset that does not treat this observation/experience as an "antidote" or even a "cultivation method." I think this is an extraordinarily important point to keep in mind as one works with the subtle body and what is held within it. Using Daoist terms, one must use wuwei to really let the subtle body change and evolve as it will, according to its own laws and functioning, which are not under the thinking mind's control or even really something that the thinking mind is capable of cognizing. I lack the experience and insight necessary to really do justice to Tsoknyi Rinpoche's teachings, but you can find videos of him addressing this subject on YouTube and he has a book by the title The Subtle Body that I understand covers and expands upon the material I learned from him in-person.

 

The only thing I will add about Tsoknyi Rinpoche is this: as I understand (having spoken about this issue with two of his students, including one who is a disciple who is fluent in Tibetan and has lived at his monastery in Nepal), Tsoknyi Rinpoche views the subtle body work as so important that he has made it the sole prerequisite to receiving Dzogchen teachings in this life. In other words, while some teachers in Dzogchen (including his own previous incarnations) may require enormous quantities of prostrations, mantras, and mandala offering rituals to be completed by students before they can receive Dzogchen teachings, Tsoknyi's feeling about modern people is that it is so crucial for people alive today to work with the trauma and other emotions in our subtle bodies (not just at the level of intellectual understanding or emotional sensation) that he has placed these teachings front and center in his role as a lama. I think that those who have extensive personal experience with the issues the OP brought up will all probably resonate with Tsoknyi's choice. Life before and after the process of release begins is really night and day. Of course, those who would like to prostrate 100,000 times are welcome to as well, and there will probably be commensurate benefits. But there are also plenty of people out there diligently doing their 100,000+ prostrations who, let's face it, are white knuckling it through life because they've temporarily decided that taking a workaholic's approach to religion seems to keep the skeletons in the closet locked away.

 

The other teacher I have met with a masterful comprehension of trauma's way of being stored in the body is the myofascial release teacher John Barnes. For what it's worth, the first time I took classes with Barnes I was shocked by how much it sounded like this guy was an old Daoist sage. He uses little to no vocabulary directly related to Asian traditions, but his meaning clearly comes from the same source of inspiration ("channel 3"=wuwei, "channel 5"=youwei). He's now in his mid 80s but amazingly is still teaching. There are some courses in what he calls "myofascial unwinding" which are open to the public (i.e., they're meant for people to learn to unwind on their own, not to teach manual therapists how to help patients do so) and I can say on the basis of extensive personal experience that a class with Barnes is worth every penny, both for the wisdom that he shares and going through the experience of unwinding under his and his students' guidance. 

 

As trauma works its way out of the mind and body the process can be truly chaotic and appear, for all intents and purposes, absolutely fucking batshit crazy haha! Anybody here who's attended a John Barnes MFR training course or gone through some serious zifagong knows what I'm talking about. I think that is another part of the reason there's no much of this work being done in Chinese traditions these days (though there is some, especially with teachers of "spontaneous qigong," as you simply cannot keep this can of worms shut forever if you start putting students into the spontaneous movement state!). Confucian "don't bring up the parent or political party that systematically abused you" mores aside, there is also an enormous pressure in China right now not to look too weird and crazy, especially if you're doing anything that could be labelled as Falun Gong-like or religious cult-like, simply to avoid getting in trouble or getting ostracized. Lord knows how many demerits you'd get in the social credit system for having a full-blown trauma unwinding in your local park!! 

 

That said, everything I have seen of the truly illuminated teachers in the Chinese traditions leads me to believe that the aversion to addressing this facet of the human experience was not always pervasive as it is now, and that there was a time when Daoists on the whole would have understood and each personally worked through these challenges, as at the end of the day receiving trauma is simply par for the course in human life, so we've all got to let it unwind at some point if we choose to seek the Dao in earnest. In short, may all of those who need this work find a way into it and, having emerged refreshed and renewed at the other end, be capable of guiding a few other fellow humans (and, as John Barnes would quickly remind, animals, too!). I would not be surprised if this is one area in which Daoism's flow beyond the borders of China adds new energy to the tradition--energy which will hopefully flow back into China, a land with noooooo shortage of people walking around with massive, life-stifling burdens in their subtle bodies. 

[C T]

One actually has to do the work, post digestion of youtube vids and other materials, to effect subtle body purification. The accumulations of prostrations happen to be one such work, and one that Im quite certain even Tsoknyi Rinpoche will agree is the least complex while yielding unmistakably exceptional results towards that aim. It may seem like a white knuckle approach at first, but after the first round of 100k, upon palpably noticing the transformative changes, that perception will disperse and eventually evaporate. Vajrayana practices all offer either the long approach to cultivation entailing complicated mudras, mantras, visualizations and so on, and then there's always the option of more compacted essential practices for those who for whatever personal reasons may find difficulty keeping to strict samaya protocols - these condensed sadhanas are all classified under the umbrella term "preliminaries", but the fruition is no less assured. If anyone has the good fortune of meeting an adept with a million or so prostrations accumulated, one will not find an individual who brashly announces his or her 'juice/power', but in all likelihood find an unassuming character who tends towards easeful, gentle self-deprecation, full of glowing energy, and in complete harmony with all aspects of outer, inner and secret bodywork. 

[Walker]

54 minutes ago, C T said:

The accumulations of prostrations happen to be one such work, and one that Im quite certain even Tsoknyi Rinpoche will agree is the least complex while yielding unmistakably exceptional results towards that aim. It may seem like a white knuckle approach at first, but after the first round of 100k, upon palpably noticing the transformative changes, that perception will disperse and eventually evaporate. 

 

I cannot speak for Tsoknyi Rinpoche, but it was the close friend of mine I mentioned who clarified this issue and made the point about "white knuckling" (I borrowed that term from friends of mine who are in AA to try and convey her point; it didn't come from her). Her thoughts were echoed to me while I was attending the course in June by a long-term student of Tsoknyi Rinpoche, although that fellow is unlikely to have had much one-on-one or small group time with him, whereas the aforementioned friend has, in Nepal.

 

In any case, as I recall while I was in the Cutting Through 1 class he brought this issue up directly and referred to lamas who require the prostrations, mantras, and mandala offerings as "antiques," albeit with a cheeky smile on his face and a quick caveat: this is certainly a legitimate and worthy way of doing things, but it is not the one he is asking of his students--specifically because we can "use" mantra chanting and so forth to cover up, avoid, and run from the pain/discomfort we are feeling in the subtle body, whereas there's no way to run from that if you simply work with the subtle body itself, directly and in the raw.

 

While I believe what you say about the transformative changes that prostrations and/or offerings will yield, I have also met a very substantial number of Tibetan Buddhism practitioners and Pure Land Buddhists with hundreds of thousands of prostrations, mantras, and more (you can add releasing life and just about anything else one can count numerically to the list) under their belt who do not display an inspiring level of equanimity and ease. I don't even think we need to get into a long discussion about whether or not approaching practices like prostrations with the wrong mindset can lead to problems--such risks seem to have been discussed widely at least since Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, so I think we can safely conclude that while Buddhist "preliminary practices" are in a certain way magic, they're not guaranteed to yield their wondrous results in this lifetime.

 

In the courses I attended Tsoknyi Rinpoche made the "in this lifetime" point repeatedly. He said he's met a lot of Buddhists who, thanks to their diligent preliminary practices, can pretty much rest assured that they'll get very nice rebirths. But, they may still be totally neurotic, tightly-wound messes of human beings in this life, in very large part because their subtle bodies are a mess of, well, I don't know that there's a word for it but I certainly know what it feels like!

 

Again paraphrasing Tsoknyi Rinpoche, he made points about the ways you can do preliminaries and adjutant practices like mantra recital or prostration that are imbued with rigpa, but my understanding was that he was trying to say that one is much more likely to be able to move in the direction of doing these practices with wisdom if one has done serious subtle body work--work that might not get done if one just gets out one's little electronic counting device and powers through prostrations like no tomorrow to get to 110,000 asap. Will there be subtle, marvelous results from doing 110,000 prostrations with a clouded mind? I am sure there will, but it seems to be that Tsoknyi Rinpoche is taking a different approach. Once again, when I think about all of the neurotic, long-time, hard-working Buddhists (and Daoists and Christians and Muslims and Hindus btw haha--yall ain't getting no pass!) I know, I think he's got a very good point.

 

One example in particular comes to mind: I know a Taiwanese Chan Buddhist nun in her 50s who is pretty hardcore. Up each day at 4 or 5 in the morning for full lotus meditation, has done probably a million Namo Amituofos, Shakyamuni-only-knows how many prostrations, has helped countless poor monks and nuns and lamas in China and Tibet, has helped countless laypeople in countless ways (me included), has printed countless sutras, attends huge Dharma assembly rituals and funerals... etc, etc, etc. So much merit! Yet! She is quite often depressed and cantankerous, manages to ruin most of her friendships and even relationships with family members thanks to her poor temper and excessively sharp tongue, and generally fails to inspire people into thinking, "wow, Buddhism sure made her radiate joy and happiness." Well, many years after I first got to know her (and believe me, it can be very difficult knowing her sometimes), I visited her in her hometown in Taiwan and she opened up about her childhood. She faced severe abuse from her father, who for whatever reason decided he hated her. While her other siblings were allowed to eat at the dinner table with normal tableware, every meal for her whole childhood was spent sitting alone on the stairs, eating out of a metal bowl with metal chopsticks because "you're the stupid, ugly girl, you're a pig, and you'll just break good bowls and chopsticks, so you have to use this metal bowl that even you can't break." She was also beaten and yelled at constantly (beaten until she fainted, at which point pails of cold water would be sloshed on her to wake back up and receive the rest of the beating). She had a truly tragic and traumatic upbringing--it pains me even to think about a child going through that for one day, to say nothing of years and years--and while she has made huge efforts to find happiness in life by generating merit using many traditional Buddhist "tools," the fact is that she doesn't strike anybody as a person who's walked out from under her cloud, and sadly enough she has managed to bring pain and sadness into others' lives plenty of times in spite of her truly herculean efforts. This sort of story (and I know too many!) is exactly why I think Tsoknyi Rinpoche's approach deserves very serious consideration.

 

My friend who's spent time in Nepal with Tsoknyi Rinpoche does do the preliminaries under his direction, but it was something she asked to do as her relationship with her lama deepened and she felt a natural calling towards furthering and strengthening her relationship with his lineage, which she gradually came to realize she has a deep affinity for. In telling me this, however, she emphasized two things. One, mantras and prostrations and offerings aside, she always feels that the most important thing is to return to the subtle body. Two, in her opinion and in her understanding of what Tsoknyi Rinpoche teaches, for those who do not have a terribly strong affinity for Tibetan Buddhism (at this time, at least) then it is advisable not to add things to the subtle body practices. 

 

I think there is a lot of wisdom in Tsoknyi Rinpoche's approach, because it is an unorthodox one that opens the door to teachings much needed in this world of full of people walking around half-deranged thanks to the undigested traumatic scars inside of them, and who may not have the sort of affinity for Tibetan Buddhism that will allow them to sign up to do hundreds of thousands of preliminaries. To reiterate what I said above, I also think his point that "practices" may fail to yield results if the subtle body is not engaged with clearly and directly is worthy of serious contemplation. 

Edited August 15, 2019 by Walker

[C T]

Aah, thank you so much, Walker. Your life experiences are fascinating.  I like that observation you made about having affinity or otherwise with Vajrayana practices. This is a key point, poignantly highlighted by your account of the Taiwanese Buddhist nun. 

 

Not wanting to let this important thread be divested of its intended purpose, I shall follow up with posting a link entitled Meditators' Wind Imbalance (on that Buddhist textual studies thread i have up). Its an interview between a student and Tsoknyi Rinpoche covering with greater authoritative insight on what we have lightly touched upon here. In said interview, Rinpoche offered many considerations on how to properly approach the Vajrayana practices for those (especially Westerners) who may want to explore the path further. 

 

 

[Walker]

Thanks, CT, I'll check that post out later.

 

I want to share a video John Barnes uses to illustrate the way trauma gets trapped in the body--and then, potentially, released. It probably won't surprise anybody that animals seem not to need to be taught about this.

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lHVNUDPMeSY

[gendao]

On 8/15/2019 at 4:11 AM, Walker said:

I have noticed the above type of mistake is extremely prevalent in China, which has a mainstream culture where even acknowledging trauma is generally pretty taboo. I think this is in large part because so often trauma is inflicted upon the victim by people who have the official upper hand in Confucian hierarchy: parents over children, husbands over wives, brothers over sisters, elder siblings over younger siblings, bosses and teachers over students and subordinates, and, of course, the government over just about everybody. Naturally, this pecking order crap is not uniquely Chinese or Confucian (it's basically just the patriarchal pattern, codified with "Chinese characteristics"), but it's magnified by the politics there--not just communist politics, but the classical imperial politics as well, which the CCP has in many ways embraced. I bring this up not to try and cause a digression into the problematic features of abusive power dynamics Chinese society, but because these dynamics seem to directly affect a lot of the culture that surrounds neigong, qigong, meditation, martial arts, and other forms of self-cultivation coming out of China. Not only is it my experience that it is as rare as a unicorn's horn to hear Chinese teachers bring up the trauma stored in the body, but on those occasions when students invariably have experiences where these bodily memories begin to surface due to the natural healing activity of shen and qi, far more often than not the students are more or less told to shut up, stop being dramatic, stop thinking too much, forget the past, try harder to only focus the paternal virtues of their violent father or what have you ("it is not easy to be a parent, all children should always be grateful of all parents, try hard to understand how much pressure he was under" is what I've heard victims of child abuse be told plenty of times, and usually they don't ask again after shut-downs like that), and so forth. In other words, one of the major lacuna haunting the Chinese cultivation systems in this day and age is precisely what you have brought to our attention here. 

 

To be honest, in my not scanty interactions with Daoism, Chinese martial arts, Chinese Buddhism, and qigong, I can only think of one teacher who a deep appreciation for these things and a willingness to address them head on and guide his students through the associated processes that may need to unfold. Perhaps not incidentally, although both of his parents are Chinese immigrants and he grew up deep in old NYC Chinatown speaking dialects from the old country and interacting mostly with Chinese immigrants, the fact is he was born in the west and received and American education. Both of his Daoist masters (one an immigrant to the US, one who he followed when he spent years in China) were Chinese, but his students are all Americans and Europeans. The cultural interactions at work (I don't know about Europe, but the glory days of stoic Americans who live in denial of their emotions are certainly on the wane, so this teacher is more or less stuck with a few dozen Americans who definitely wouldn't accept being asked to be good little Confucians and stifle their emotional shit!) may have conspired to make this particular teacher uncharacteristically open to facing trauma head on. Oh, and for his part, he strongly dislikes Confucianism haha!

 

The other teacher I have met with a masterful comprehension of trauma's way of being stored in the body is the myofascial release teacher John Barnes. For what it's worth, the first time I took classes with Barnes I was shocked by how much it sounded like this guy was an old Daoist sage. He uses little to no vocabulary directly related to Asian traditions, but his meaning clearly comes from the same source of inspiration ("channel 3"=wuwei, "channel 5"=youwei). He's now in his mid 80s but amazingly is still teaching. There are some courses in what he calls "myofascial unwinding" which are open to the public (i.e., they're meant for people to learn to unwind on their own, not to teach manual therapists how to help patients do so) and I can say on the basis of extensive personal experience that a class with Barnes is worth every penny, both for the wisdom that he shares and going through the experience of unwinding under his and his students' guidance. 

 

As trauma works its way out of the mind and body the process can be truly chaotic and appear, for all intents and purposes, absolutely fucking batshit crazy haha! Anybody here who's attended a John Barnes MFR training course or gone through some serious zifagong knows what I'm talking about. I think that is another part of the reason there's no much of this work being done in Chinese traditions these days (though there is some, especially with teachers of "spontaneous qigong," as you simply cannot keep this can of worms shut forever if you start putting students into the spontaneous movement state!). Confucian "don't bring up the parent or political party that systematically abused you" mores aside, there is also an enormous pressure in China right now not to look too weird and crazy, especially if you're doing anything that could be labelled as Falun Gong-like or religious cult-like, simply to avoid getting in trouble or getting ostracized. Lord knows how many demerits you'd get in the social credit system for having a full-blown trauma unwinding in your local park!! 

 

That said, everything I have seen of the truly illuminated teachers in the Chinese traditions leads me to believe that the aversion to addressing this facet of the human experience was not always pervasive as it is now, and that there was a time when Daoists on the whole would have understood and each personally worked through these challenges, as at the end of the day receiving trauma is simply par for the course in human life, so we've all got to let it unwind at some point if we choose to seek the Dao in earnest. In short, may all of those who need this work find a way into it and, having emerged refreshed and renewed at the other end, be capable of guiding a few other fellow humans (and, as John Barnes would quickly remind, animals, too!). I would not be surprised if this is one area in which Daoism's flow beyond the borders of China adds new energy to the tradition--energy which will hopefully flow back into China, a land with noooooo shortage of people walking around with massive, life-stifling burdens in their subtle bodies. 

Well I think there's some other reasons for cultural differences you may perceive...

 

Like firstly, I would say that Chinese don't have as much interpersonal trauma from intentional mistreatment, compared to Americans...on AVERAGE.  I mean, seriously, once you start asking about the family or personal lives of Americans...holy sh*t the batshit INSANE DRAMA!!!  We're talking about dads who have never even met their own kid, a father raping his daughter, other incestuous molestation, moms who just suddenly ran off and abandoned theirs for life, moms who hit their own toddlers while laughing about it, a druggy, narcissistic mom pushing their pregnant daughter down stairs, a single mom with a child from roofied rape, etc, etc.  I mean, the amount of just totally inconsiderate, egocentric abuse on average here is just staggering...leading to a population chugging psych meds just to try to cope with all their resulting personality disorders and traumatic baggage.

Secondly, Chinese are not big on talk therapy.  But they do go in far deeper and more aggressively with their somatic mindbodywork.  Hence, Asian bodywork is renowned for its lack of modesty and very painful, cathartic releases...vs the softer, Western spa treatment style.  And that colonialist therapists (Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, John Barnes, etc) are also now finding to be more efficient/effective than just talking/pills (although still not a total cure-all).

 

Thirdly, I've found that what actually seems to work IRL tends to differ slightly from most watered-down, public traditions.  Like the motions and concept are basically the same...but there is usually still a slight difference/missing piece in principle or application that makes it vastly more effective.  And this is what separates the paint-by-numbers sheeple from the truly creative artists keeping such degenerating legacies alive.

Edited August 16, 2019 by gendao

[Walker]

Gendao, I cannot respond to your post without knowing the answers to the following questions:

 

How much time have you spent in China?

 

Do you speak Chinese?

 

How many Chinese families (in China) have you lived with?

[gendao]

55 minutes ago, Walker said:

Gendao, I cannot respond to your post without knowing...

Ok, fair enough then...

Encephalon - I vaguely recall that you had opened your MCO with your neigong?  So, did you maintain that after stopping your training after your child was born?

[Encephalon]

 

"Encephalon - I vaguely recall that you had opened your MCO with your neigong?  So, did you maintain that after stopping your training after your child was born?"

 

Well, time to atone for another delusion.  

Yes, I was making some great progress back then, but in all honesty, I couldn't complete the cycle from my upper spine to base of the skull without being quite stoned.  So I must concede that, no, I likely didn't achieve a genuine MCO.  But meridians in torso, upper and lower limbs were opening up nicely.

 

On another note, I still read 365 Tao everyday, and yesterday seemed mighty pertinent to this post and to Water types in general -

 

Depth 

Morning light illuminates the meditating 

wrestler.

In his mind, even a wooden temple is 

washed away.

Who can challenge an ocean's depth?
 

  There once was a wrestler who, in spite of his great physical stature, lost most of his matches. He consulted coach after coach, but no one could show him how to win.  Although he lacked neither might nor skill, he did lack concentration and confidence.

 

  Finally, he went to consult a meditation master who agreed to help.  "Your name means 'vast Ocean,'" observed the master.

"Therefore, I will give you this meditation to practice."

 

  That night, the wrestler sat alone in the shrine and first visualized himself as waves.  Gradually, the waves increased in size.  Soon, he became a flood.  then the flood became a deluge, and finally a tidal wave.  In his mind, everything was swept before him:  Even the gods on the alter and the timbers of the temple were consumed in his surge

. 

  Near dawn, the water settled into a vast and endless sea.  That morning the master came to check on the wrestler's progress and was delighted.  He knew that the wrestler would not lose again.

 

  For each of us, it is only depth of character that determines the profundity with which we face life.  We can either add to our character each day, or we can fritter away our energies in distractions.  Those who learn how to accumulate charcter each day achieve a depth that cannot be successfully opposed.

 

(underlines added)

 

 

[C T]

relevant

 

 

[Encephalon]

Thanks to CT for the video post.  I found that very relevant and I love the speaking style of Dr. Neale.  The  sooner we get this knowledge out there the healthier our world will become.  I loved the point he made about the many folks who have followed the dharma successfully, who've gone on to have families and careers and successful accomplishments, and yet still feel like there is something stuck inside of them that won't budge, that won't allow a fuller blooming of potential. 

I'm glad to hear him reference Dr. Mark Epstein's "trauma of everyday life."  His books are wonderful psychological journeys.  Great stuff.

Edited August 30, 2019 by Encephalon
additions.

[doc benway]

Any thoughts on how to present these ideas to a loved one who may need help? Someone who may find it difficult to acknowledge, or want to share with me personally, there is a problem?

[liminal_luke]

1 hour ago, steve said:

Any thoughts on how to present these ideas to a loved one who may need help? Someone who may find it difficult to acknowledge, or want to share with me personally, there is a problem?

 

Lots of people don´t like to acknowledge any problems and I think one of the big advantages of many of these somatic modalities is that they don´t have to.  Veterans with PTSD, for instance, can practice TRE (trauma release exercises) without sharing any war stories.  Most Zapchen exercises (humming, jiggling, rocking, yawning, sighing, laughing) don´t require any talking and yet they work great.  There are also expressive therapies (art, dance, play) that can work at a level below (or above?) words.  

 

I´m a very verbal person and love to talk things out.  My partner does not and that used to be a source of conflict between us.  He paints and at one point our living room walls were covered with his work.  He told me he was going to boycott the "how are you feeling?" question and instead answer by pointing to the painting that best expressed his present mood.  

 

Culturally it´s hard to acknowledge problems because we pick up the idea that we´re not supposed to have any, that having problems is shameful.  Ironically, it can be hardest to share with those we love most because we have so much on the line with them.  Maybe this is why there are so many stories of people sharing their life history with strangers they sit next to on planes.  It´s easy to be vulnerable with someone we´ll never see again.

 

I mention all this because I personally often feel judgmental of people, like my less verbal partner, who I think should be willing to talk with me about their issues but don´t.  For me, this judgment gets in the way of my being able to be helpful.  I´ve needed to first clear any interpersonal resentment that the relationship isn´t happening in the wordy way I prefer.  There´s also my longing to feel close and frustration that the other person doesn´t feel safe enough to be vulnerable.  Am I OK with letting the other person be as distant as they want or need to be?  This is also something I´ve needed to look at in myself before being able to offer help.  Of course none of this may be at all relevent to your situation.  In any case, there is often preliminary acceptance work to be done by would-be helpers, especially when the helpee is a loved one.

 

It´s very difficult to help someone who won´t acknowledge their problem, but most people have something going on in their life that they´d like to change.  This something that the other person wants to change is the door in.  It´s often easy for someone on the outside to see what needs changing in someone else´s life but saying so rarely leads anywhere.  My motivation to change can only come from the thing that bothers me.  If that thing that bothers me can get better by doing some sort of practice with my body (shaking, yawning, jogging, dancing) then I just might do it.  Especially if I don´t have to talk about it afterwards.

 

Not sure if any of this is helpful or relevent but wanted to share my thoughts.

 

 

Edited August 30, 2019 by liminal_luke

[doc benway]

Great post, thank you Luke