“Wise Boundaries” with Jean This Sunday at Minneapolis Insight

Dear Community,

Last week Benjamin shared some of the teachings from Rodney Smith’s book Stepping Out of Self Deception, including the importance of wise view, as opposed to self improvement, as our guide on the path. “With wise view, we understand the interconnectedness of life and continually work to include all experience by eliminating the mental argument that the self imposes to maintain its separation.” With practice, we can begin to feel into how we create what Rodney calls  “mental boundaries” between ourselves and others (and even between aspects of ourselves), and we can learn to relax, observe, and allow what is already there. We can to move from separation to connection.

Sometimes, however, in my experience, the boundaries we erect within ourselves are such that we’re not able to relax, observe, and allow. Additional resources or approaches may be necessary. Jack Engler, a clinical psychologist, long-time meditator, and former Board member of the Insight Meditation Society, wrote:

The wish that spiritual practice could, by itself, prove a panacea for all mental suffering is widespread and certainly understandable.  But it unfortunately prevents teachers and students from making use of other resources.  And worse, students are sometimes led to believe by their teachers or their own superego that if they encounter difficulties, it’s because they haven’t practiced long enough or haven’t been practicing correctly or wholeheartedly. (Engler, J  “Being Somebody and Being Nobody” in Psychoanalysis and Buddhism)

Although the trend in Western Buddhism in the past two decades has been to acknowledge and honor the importance of working with difficult psychological material (“trauma informed mindfulness”), it’s worth reminding ourselves of this fact. Our inability or reluctance to be with parts of ourselves is not due to insufficient or inadequate practice or unwise view – it may actually be a sign of wisdom. It may be, as Ajahn Sucitto writes, evidence of “setting wise boundaries”:

Regulating and directing energy has to do with establishing boundaries.  We must consider what is unskilful, what leads to harmful results and should be left aside. And we must consider what is skilful, what channels our energy towards that which is supportive and nourishing...We can bear in mind the reflection: “Is this for my welfare, the welfare of others, and does it lead out of stress and towards peace?” Instead of setting up a boundary between self and others, this reflection aims for a boundary between intentions and action. Then we can check before we cross that boundary. (Sucitto, J.  Parami:  Ways to Cross Life’s Floods).

Please join us this Sunday for an exploration of working with wise boundaries. All are welcome. Zoom information available here. (We updated our website so it’s no longer necessary to register in advance.)

With mettā,
Minneapolis Insight