Advice Not Given: A Guide to Getting Over Yourself

by Mark Epstein

Impulsive reactions, in the form of likes and dislikes, are given the same kind of attention as everything else, so that people learn to dwell more consistently in their observing awareness, just as one does in classic modes of therapy. This observing awareness is an impersonal part of the ego, unconditioned by one’s usual needs and expectations. Mindfulness pulls one away from the immature ego’s insistent self-concern, and in the process it enhances one’s equilibrium in the face of incessant change. This turns out to be enormously helpful in dealing with the many indignities life throws at us.

bell is ringing. I hear it and on top of that I know that “I” am hearing it and, when mindful, I might even know that I know that I am hearing it. But once in a while in deep meditation, this whole thing collapses and all that is left is one’s mirrorlike knowing.

We all have a life, but we are not always aware of how precious it is. And we all have an ego, but we do not always take enough responsibility for it.

The point of meditation was to bring its lessons to everyday life: to be able to live more fully in the moment, to stop undermining myself, to be less afraid of myself and others, to be less at the mercy of my impulses, and to give more generously in the midst of a busy and demanding day.

am aware of how alienating it can be to come across as any kind of an “expert.” A patient of mine, sober now for twenty years, told me something recently that confirmed my cautious approach. When he’d first come to see me, he said, back when he was still drinking and using drugs, I’d suggested only once that he go to AA. It was very meaningful for him that I said it only once.

being right is not the point in this profession. Being useful is.

Past and future preoccupy us because we are trying to control things, while being in the present necessitates openness to the unexpected.

Right View asks us to focus on the incontrovertible truth of impermanence rather than trying to shore up a flawed and insecure self.

When we are lost in thought, we are protected from this knowledge, but when we dislodge ourselves from our usual mental preoccupations we cannot help but see. Second, it becomes clear how easily we are driven out of the present moment by our own likes and dislikes. When something uncomfortable happens, we move away. When something pleasurable comes, we try to enhance it. We do not let the moments pass easily; we are subconsciously engaged in an endless tug-of-war with the way things are.

Right View states that the fundamental purpose of Buddhist meditation is not to create a comfortable hiding place for oneself; it is to acquaint the mind, on a moment-to-moment basis, with impermanence.

The story was taking over, as stories tend to do, but she did not have to be its vehicle.

His description of the parental state of mind is true for the meditative one as well. It does not need to be a blank slate or an empty void. There can be tenderness but also humor, self-pity mixed with self-deprecation, anger swaddled in love, a teasing quality that is nevertheless subservient to the rocking, singing, and cradling of the lullaby. And behind it all, there is the echo of the inevitability of separation and change as described by Right View: Down will come baby, cradle and all.

that instead of “cornering” her with my understanding, I “welcomed” her in our sessions.

“You know what your problem is, Charlie Brown? The problem with you is that you’re you.” When Charlie Brown plaintively asks what he could do about that, Lucy comes back with her own version of advice not given. “I don’t pretend to be able to give advice,” she replies. “I merely point out the problem.”

Therapy works when the discussion one has with one’s therapist changes the conversation one has with oneself.

Amid the howling wind and churning water, he suddenly realized that the “dark he had struggled to keep under” in his life—and in his writing, which had until then failed to find an audience or meet his own aspirations—should, in fact, be the source of his creative inspiration. “I shall always be depressed,” Beckett concluded, “but what comforts me is the realization that I can now accept this dark side as the commanding side of my personality. In accepting it, I will make it work for me.”

“Learn the backward step that turns your light inward to illuminate your self,”

“body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will be manifest.”

If anything drops away, it does so by itself. You cannot make it happen directly.

Indulging them keeps us in their grip and traps us in a never-ending cycle of brief satisfactions followed by the relentless pursuit of more.

Gain and loss, pleasure and pain, praise and blame, and fame and disgrace are the ones he specified.

“How do you use meditation in your relationship?” I asked an old friend in Boston, a longtime Zen student named Richard Barsky, many years ago, before his untimely early death from myeloma, when he was one of the only married people I knew. “By letting go even when you know you are right,” he responded.

In Buddhism, there are said to be four “divine” states of mind: kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity.

Contrary to many people’s preconceptions, being mindful is not the be-all and end-all of meditation. The Buddha, in a famous parable, compared it to a raft made of grass, sticks, and leaves that helps someone cross a great water. “What should be done with the raft once you have gotten across?” he asked rhetorically. “Should you carry it with you for the rest of your life or put it down by the side of the riverbank?” In making this comparison, he was trying to stop people from becoming overly attached to his method. While his warning was powerful, it has not prevented many over the years from fetishizing their technique.

original word in the language of the Buddha’s time was sati. Sati means remembering.

clearer description of what is meant by sati might be presence of mind.

“The unconscious is the repository of mystery,”

The wish to lose oneself, however well intentioned, masks a mind-set dominated by self-judgment and self-deprecation.

Right Concentration steers in a different direction. It offers stillness, not just as respite, but as a way of entertaining uncertainty. In a world where impermanence and change are basic facts of life, the willingness to be surprised gives one a big advantage.

Empty-handed I entered the world Barefoot I leave it. My coming, my going— Two simple happenings That got entangled.

you are trying to find the peace of the ocean by eliminating the waves, you will never succeed. But if you learn to see the waves as part of the whole, to not be bothered by the ego’s endless fluctuations, your sense of yourself as cut off, separate, less than, or unworthy will shift.