A sincere, earnest book that teaches three master skills for navigating modernity: the practice of compassion, attention and gratitude.
The book has an intellectual foundation based on cognitive-behavioral therapy, but it's not a therapy book per se. Rather, it's an articulation of the author's techniques, practices and general philosophy for living a more mindful life, a more fulfilled life, in which we behave decently and practice living wisely.
This of course is in stark contrast from modern behavioral norms, which include chasing stuff and status--and making doubly sure to show off that stuff and status to everyone else. And when you aggregate this "stuff and status" behavior that across a society, you get modernity: where everyone is increasingly envious, competitive, heartless, vicious.
Those familiar with cognitive-behavioral therapy modalities will recognize the mechanisms underlying all the extremely useful tactics and strategies the author offers. They are simple and anyone can do them, but they are not simplistic and certainly not easy.
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From time to time the author gets a little bit lost in his own threads and wanders a bit from topic to topic, but the reader doesn't object. You're also going to get lectured a little bit on 1990s-era environmental issues. Again, the reader doesn't object. I think if everyone were to read this book and put its ideas into practice, the world would be a much, much better place. I can only start with myself.
"My methods for wanting what you have are easily summarized. I recommend the deliberate, constant practice of Compassion, Attention, and Gratitude. Each of these principles is easily understood in cognitive terms. Each is facilitated by cognitive methods. Each method is intended to systematically alter certain key beliefs and habits of thought."
Pair with [links will take you my reviews and notes]:
William Irvine: A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy [see in particular the concepts of negative visualization and voluntary discomfort]
Albert Ellis: Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy
Thomas M. Sterner: The Practicing Mind
Martin Buber: I and Thou
Sri Sarada Devi: Teachings and Conversations
[Readers, what follows are merely my notes, comments and reactions to the text. This is something I do to help order my thinking and better remember what I read. It might be worth skimming the bold sections.]
Notes:
Preface:
xiiiff The author discusses coming into contact with the concept of "being contented with your lot" or the cessation of desire basically, the simple concept of wanting what you have; On various domains you can find this concept: from the Buddha, Marcus Aurelius, the Talmud, Thoreau; the author then wonders: does this mean you're just supposed to settle? Does it mean that you have to be passive and helpless? He then realizes how difficult it is to be satisfied with his situation; now after 25 years, he understands that the concept is only useful if you understand why it is so difficult to do it--and then you need a method to practice it.
Part I: Getting Ready
Chapter 1: This Is the Precious Present
5 "There may be people among us who know that this is the precious present but who don't write poetry, preach sermons, or boast about how happy they are. If so, they live quietly, enjoying the world rightly, loving other people, loving nature, behaving decently, wisely, and generously. They possess no unusual powers or knowledge, nor do they need any. They may not be particularly admired, nor do they want much admiration. Some religious traditions teach that such people make it possible for civilized life to continue."
6ff Cute conceit here as the author mentions a short story called "Strange Wine" by Harlan Ellison where a character committed suicide on Earth, was reincarnated on a crab planet, and was told that he had been given the opportunity to spend a lifetime on Earth because Earth is the pleasure planet, "the most lovely and pleasant world in the universe." The author uses the idea as a "useful fiction," using it to reinterpret what would otherwise be banal or tedious experiences on Earth. "Yellow mustard in full bloom in a vacant lot. How beautiful! Back on Zartan, they would give a month's salary for a glimpse of this." "...imagining that this is the pleasure planet--and further imagining that you are one of the few lucky people who know it--temporarily tricks your restless mind into wanting what you have."
9 "Wanting what you have has two elements. One is cheerfully enjoying the good things in your life, including the sensual pleasures. That sounds pleasant and not too difficult. The other is renouncing your desires for all the things you want but don't have. That's the tough part... To most people this seems impossible, you get the renunciation is as necessary as the cheerful enjoyment. People who dedicate their lives to the pursuit of sensual pleasure find that the more pleasure they get, the more they want. Small, ordinary pleasures soon lose their power to please and must be replaced with more intense or exotic ones. Heedless sensualists usually meet a bad end. They learn the hard way that their desires are relentless and insatiable."
10 "It is human nature always to want just a little More. People spend their lives honestly believing that they have almost enough of whatever they want. Just a little More will put them over the top; then they will be contented forever. The trouble is, wanting just a little More is the opposite of wanting what you have."
12ff Useful point here about making sure you have awareness of your desires, which ends up giving you far more volition/agency: "If you learn to want what you have, will you still work hard to have a better life? Yes, but the emphasis will change. Once you really understand that your own desires are insatiable, you become more able to take control of your own life. You will no longer allow your instinctive desire for More to lead you by the nose through your own life. Your primary motive will change from having a better life to having a good life. Working hard to have a better life will become something you might do as you deeply appreciate ordinary existence. When you learn to want you have, you will start to live in accordance with the old saying that happiness is a way of traveling rather than a destination. When you really understand that, you might still strive for a better life, but you will not do it fanatically, obsessively..."
13 "It seems that the more people are ensnared by their own desires, the less they realize it."
14 "Reading a few pages of an inspiring book doesn't change anything. Try thinking of it this way: estimate how many times in a typical day you wish for better circumstances one time or another. Now estimate how many times in a typical day you say to yourself, 'My life is fine just the way it is.' ... If you are like the vast majority of people, the amount of wishing for better circumstances and improved personal qualities greatly exceeds the amount of contentment with your life and your self as they are. Now be honest with yourself: How long will it take and how hard will it be to change these lifelong, instinct-driven habits? If you want to want what you have, you've got your work cut out for you."
15-16 Short, useful tangent here on cognitive psychotherapy: "Cognitive psychotherapy holds that emotions and behaviors originate from thoughts, which in turn originate from beliefs. Thoughts are often repetitive and illogical, and beliefs are often incorrect. In short, the thoughts and beliefs that produce unhappy feelings and unwanted behaviors are essentially bad habits... Part 2 of this book (chapters 5 through 7) employs cognitive principles to teach you how to want what you have."
16ff Discussion of cognitive methods the author uses, and how they revolve around three primary principles of compassion, attention, and gratitude. Each is an intention, and must be practiced.
* "Compassion is the intention to see each human being as no better or worse than yourself, neither more or less important, and as fundamentally similar to yourself.
* Attention is the intention to avoid unnecessary value judgments about your own experience--both internal and external experience. In other words, Attention is the intention to live without reservation in the here-and-now.
* Gratitude is the intention to count your blessings every day, every minute, while avoiding, whenever possible, the belief that you need or deserve different circumstances."
17 "In part 3 of this book, I describe in detail how the methods presented in part 2 can be integrated into an ordinary life." On the idea that compassion, attention, and gratitude are not "constructive thoughts substituted for harmful thoughts" (like typical cognitive psychotherapy) rather that they are practices that you will perform over the course of your life.
19 Interesting quote here where the author talks about something his psychotherapy patients often say to him about wondering "When am I going to become happy?" or What's it going to take for my day to finally come?" etc. And how standard psychotherapeutic answers don't really address this question.
Chapter 2: Desire, Suffering, and Joy
21 Note the quote at the head of this chapter: "Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness." --George Orwell [obviously similar to what Viktor Frankl says: happiness ensues; it cannot be pursued.]
21ff Discussion of the "original sin"-type messages in all the world's predominant religions; even Hinduism and Buddhism have related original sin concepts surrounding how we chase our desires instead of renouncing them; also on how all the major religions recommend the practice of compassion, attention, and gratitude: Christianity calls compassion "Christian love" or charity; in the Buddhist tradition it is loving-kindness; on the irony of spiritual seeker-type people having their own greed and desire for More; the author restates original sin in a way that makes it what he believes to be a more useful guide for modern people who tend to reject this doctrine: instead he frames it that we all have desires and strivings, and all of our desirings and strivings produce unanticipated painful consequences.
22ff Another interesting discussion here as he offers a response to a friend (actually a composite person), questioning why should she believe in original sin, saying basically, "I don't see why I need to beg God for forgiveness, I don't beat my kids, I'm a good person." The author answers with a couple of intriguing comments: first he likens her desire for your children to be happy, healthy, attractive, etc., as heedless and insatiable desires no different from the desire for, say, cocaine. Eventually, you're going to realize you won't possess many of the things you desire, and of course you'll ultimately lose everything as you age and die. And then he says: "The second problem is that your existence is lukewarm. The world is a mirror of infinite beauty, yet you do not see it. The present moment is the most precious of all things, but you don't get it. Every person, perhaps every living thing, where's God's face, but you don't suspect it." [It isn't entirely clear to me what he is trying to say here but perhaps he's trying to say you are making demands on reality, when reality offers you plenty of amazing opportunities already if you'd just look and see them. And here you are, trying to scrabble for "More" in the author's terminology.]
26ff He uses a metaphor of a carrot and stick of thinking about wanting what you have: "Wanting what you have is a way of finding a deeper and more lasting kind of pleasure. That's the carrot. Wanting what you have is also a way of avoiding suffering that is otherwise inevitable. That's the stick."
27ff On the distinction between pain and suffering: the author gives two stories here involving identical hand injuries, but the circumstances of one involved suffering (the person was helping a relative he didn't like on a project he didn't want to do) and the other (which took place at a company softball game where the person injures his hand scoring the winning run) involved bearing pain but with good cheer, even happiness. [Obviously also in both of these situations you can either give your power away to the situation or you can create your own reaction to the situation.]
30-1 "There are at least four reasons that the desire for More cause of suffering: 1) no one avoids sorrow, humiliation, or pain, and no one avoids death; 2) striving for More is not fun; 3) the desire for More often does harm; and 4) the desire for More ignores spiritual longing."
32ff On the idea that when things go wrong in life--which they are guaranteed to do-we naturally will feel pain and grief. The author argues here that if your life is dedicated to fulfillment of your desire for More, then when things go wrong you will not just feel pain, you will suffer. If your routine thoughts revolve around satisfying your desires you will inevitably come to believe that you must have these things, you must stay healthy and vigorous, your loved ones must not die etc. "You inevitably come to believe that a violation of these hopes constitutes a catastrophe. If the main focus of your life is increasing love, status, prosperity, comfort, or sensual pleasure, then death will inevitably seem like a catastrophe, because death ends all of that." Note also a reference here to Albert Ellis and his Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy; the author cites some of the subtle differences in his and Ellis's views, mainly that he thinks the desire for More is a much more central and fundamental cause of needless suffering than Ellis believes.
34-5 Striving for More is not fun: the author talks about playing racquetball and knowing that he would spoil the game completely if he ever felt that he must win; then on extending this idea more broadly to life: "Playing the game of life is more interesting and more fun than playing the game of racquetball. Playing as if you must win spoils the game of racquetball and also spoils the game of life. Consider courtship, education, investment, home improvement, child rearing, employment, socializing, and other routine activities. They can be approached as an interesting, stimulating, companionable game. If they are approached as must-win activities, the fun and good fellowship are damaged, if not destroyed altogether. But that's one of the problems with the desire for More. It constantly whispers In your ear, 'This is not a game. This is for keeps. This really matters. You must not fail.' It's just a whisper, but it is persistent, and it is hard not to fall under its spell." [Note the difference between playing racquetball (or anything, for that matter!) "to win" and playing "as if you must win." Not playing as if you must win does not in any way mean you play half-assed, that you don't try, etc. That's an extreme reach fallacy. You do your best, you seek to grow and improve and get the best out of yourself, but you also know that defeat happens too, and you can learn and grow from it as well.]
35 Interesting discussion follows here about finding a balance between the various poles of "playing to win" and "playing as if you must win" "playing not to lose" or "assuming you will lose"; he talks about clients who assume that they will lose at love or friendship or their careers, "They don't play to win... Typically, they have suffered disappointment or frustration that has made them afraid to compete effectively. Sometimes they feel they do not deserve to succeed."
36ff A few pages here of lecturing on how greed and the desire for More is the ultimate source of poverty, environmental destruction, etc., The author lists all the various things going wrong with planet--the depleting ozone layer [we haven't been getting much propaganda about the ozone layer lately, I guess that 1990s-era propaganda fell out of fashion?], Africa's Lake Victoria is dying [it appears the health of Lake Victoria is far better today than when this author wrote this book], CO2 levels rising, "perhaps thousands" of species becoming extinct every day... [This has nothing to do with the book and I don't fault the author much for reciting the standard catechisms that you would see in any mid-90s commentary about environmental issues. That was the stuff that everybody defaulted to back then. But it is interesting to look back on this rhetoric decades later. Say for example if we really were losing the (hilariously implausible) "perhaps thousands" of species every day the entire earth would have long run out of species by now! Look, I love the planet just as much as anybody else, but I simply can't stand these painfully unrigorous "catechism recitals" that all look innumerate, foolish and incompetent. This actually harms the environmental movement because it gives its opponents easy targets to shoot down!]
39ff On spiritual longing, which the author calls "one of the most prominent desires that does not fall under the heading of the desire for More." On "spiritual starvation": the author describes the work/spend cycle and your children's work/spend cycle, these "cycles" can only be escaped by dying; "Monks and mystics from many religious traditions have considered spiritual starvation so painful that they have gladly renounced every pleasure and comfort in order to remedy it." "Spiritual longing is better understood as the wish for certainty that we are living the right way." [For additional reading on this subject, see William Irvine's comments in his The Guide to the Good Life on the concern that we may "mislive"; also see the early Christian monastic leaders and their discussions throughout The Sayings of the Holy Desert Fathers. as well as Sri Sarada Devi's Teachings and Conversations. Finally, see the work The Dark Night of the Soul by Saint John of the Cross. A patient and open-minded reader will mine incredibly useful insights from any and all of these works.]
43ff On the idea of renunciation: the author doesn't quite phrase it this way, but essentially losing your attachment to things, outcomes, even losing your attachment to avoiding pain and death [note: this does not mean you should seek out pain or death!], all of which makes us more inclined to stop and smell the roses, to appreciate the life we are given. The author offers two scenarios: one of a man who gratefully takes in all that happens, the other where the man is "attending to the things he desires but does not possess." The discussion centers around whether you can summon gratitude or whether you default to summoning ingratitude [or put more bluntly: whether you have a crappy attitude or a good attitude]. "Enjoyment of life's pleasures--small or great--does not necessarily arise from the satisfaction of desire. Just as often, desire hinders or destroys enjoyment. The man in the second scenario seems to invite the pain of wanting what he cannot have." [One of the phrases we use in our home is "I need to fix my crappy attitude" as a trigger to remember that most unhappiness in life comes from inappropriate expectations.]
48ff Discussion here of Aldous Huxley's 1945 book The Perennial Philosophy, "highly regarded by religious scholars and philosophers." The author describes Huxley's description of the three essential elements of The Perennial Philosophy:
1) ordinary things, ordinary lives, and ordinary minds are made of divine stuff
2) a chunk of the Divine reality lies at the core of every living thing.
3) a person's single most important task is to discover the Divinity of ordinary things, ordinary lives, and ordinary minds, and to discover her identity with a divine reality. Also comments on how Divine reality does not actually do anything, it is just there; also on whether we will ever be fully alive before death. On the distinction between the modern Christians belief of God and this concept; how we think about God protecting us, or granting us our wishes; in Huxley's description Divine reality doesn't gratify us in any manner like this. The author asks what is the "value" of a meteor shower, or a symphony, or a poem, or child's smile: they're valuable because they give life meaning, quietly. "People who are capable of appreciating these things are blessed. Those who are not capable of appreciating such experiences would be better off if they could learn how."
52 The author then quotes Alan Watts in from his book This Is It, that the experience of the Divine reality appears as an overwhelming certainty that the universe "is so completely right as to need no explanation or justification beyond what it simply is. Existence not only ceases to be a problem; the mind is so wonder-struck at the self-evident and self-sufficient fitness of things as they are, including what would ordinarily be thought the very worst, that it cannot find any word strong enough to express the perfection and beauty of the experience."
53 "We are approaching the chapters that give detailed instructions for the systematic practice of Compassion, Attention, and Gratitude. But these instructions will make better sense after we explore the nature of instinctive desire more thoroughly. I have described the harm that it does, but I have not yet explained its origin and natural purpose; these are the topics of the next chapter."
Chapter 3: Human Nature
54ff Two dialogues here, where one participant asks the other why they care about the things they purchase. The author frames it this way: "If you don't mind annoying your friends and family, try asking them why they care about new cars, golf scores, job promotions, nice clothes, computer upgrades, fancy restaurants, and so on. ...they will consider such questions weird. ...if you ask people questions like these, they rarely have any good answers. Even very smart, well-educated people may be clueless, unless they have studied recent developments in evolutionary psychology." [The unfortunate truth here is that nobody cares about caring about these things! They just want them, and that's it. If you were to (foolishly) ask them to think about the underlying need, or to think about the underlying dynamics at play in these expressions of their "needs," you surely will annoy the crap out of them. Better to follow the sage advice of the Bowtied Bull and smile, nod and agree. Finally, the entire consumer marketplace wants you to be as clueless as possible about your underlying psychology, about concepts like the hedonic treadmill, etc.]
58ff The author goes over various unfortunate and politically incorrect realities about human nature and instinct to demonstrate that it is human nature to want what you don't have. He wants the reader to understand "what you are up against" so that you'll be "more resourceful when the going gets rough."
61ff Extended sidebar discussion here on evolution and our misconceptions about it; on reproductive success; more discussion here on animal territoriality as well as dominance hierarchies/status hierarchies among animals; on altruism, both kin altruism as well as reciprocal altruism (which occurs in animals that have a conception of past dealings with each other, like advanced primates); comments on the role these things play in reproductive success.
68 On the idea that animals and people strive for the prerequisites to reproductive success (wealth, status, resources, etc.), but with little concern for reproduction per se. And contrariwise "if people are unable to achieve the prerequisites to reproductive success, they are usually very unhappy." [This section could have been compressed down to a few pages rather than the extended twenty-plus pages that it is; the central point here is how we're genetically driven to desire and compete for status and wealth, it's part of our intrinsic nature.]
75 "The distance between the richest and poorest people, the highest-status and lowest-status people, the most-loved and least-loved people in traditional societies is not great. In our society, these distances have become grotesquely vast. This in turn causes grief, greed, disappointment, depression, crime, hatred, warfare, and environmental destruction and a scale undreamed of among our ancestors. Once again, because our instincts do not prepare us for these problems, we either solve them with our wills and our intellects or we don't solve them at all. So far, we aren't solving them at all. I hope this book will help with this, at least a little."
75 Discussion here of "enough": there isn't any instinct that tells us we've accumulated enough status or wealth or love, all this stuff is always relative and comparative. The author give an example of a grizzly bear that developed the instinct to stop when it had enough food and territory and enough bear cubs: on how that bear would be outcompeted by other grizzly bears who had more because their instincts told them not to stop at enough. Basically we all want limitless wealth, love and status, and we are unaware that we want it; we always want just a little more from that whatever we have, with the unstated assumption "that satisfaction is just around the corner." [One of the ironies of "enough" is how if you can simply presume that what you have is already "enough" often you get more than you ever expected. I don't know why it works this way but it sure seems to.]
79 "Your best hope is to spit in instinct's eye. Your best hope is to renew your intention to want what you have every day for the rest of your life." [The author's point here is that our instincts are so ingrained and so irresistible that even if you try things like spirituality or religion you're still likely to be unwittingly fulfilling some sort of status-seeking behavior (whether you mean to or realize it or not); you'll still be engaging in some sort of competition for status or resources, and thus you cannot escape your underlying instincts. He is setting the stage here to show how difficult this is and why you can't just "get rid of your instincts."]
Chapter 4: How People Change
80ff On the phrase "think in different patterns" which the author uses to describe aspects of cognitive psychotherapy to use to get clients to think differently; the "thinking in different patterns" comes first because most thoughts are voluntary, and thus can be voluntarily modified; actions will often arise automatically from thoughts and beliefs, and they can be difficult to modify unless you change the underlying pattern of thinking. Finally feelings are completely involuntary, but they also arise primarily from habitual patterns of thinking. [This is a good, tight summary of CBT]
81ff The author talks about examples of patients who want to quit smoking, and he asks them, "Tell me honestly, how badly do you want to quit?" He wants to understand their intrinsic desire: not that they feel guilty smoking in front of their kids, or what their doctors say, etc. He knows that roughly half of his patients will actually not have a sincere and intense desire to quit, and thus they won't be able to quit, no matter what he does to help them. Interesting to see here that he actually turns these patients away and tells them to call him back if they ever get to the point where they actually have that strong intrinsic desire. [In the language of Milton Erickson, "they do not have therapeutic potential." I find the very same thing to be true with investing: what I try to do is when someone comes to me wanting investment advice, I'll assign them a book or two to read first before we sit down. Most of the time I never hear anything back. It's a huge tell that the person isn't willing to do the work needed.]
83ff Interesting discussion here of voluntary and involuntary functions of the body and mind, and how we can influence or direct certain involuntary functions indirectly, using our mind's voluntary image-forming ability; the author gives an example of making yourself salivate through a certain images that you choose in your mind.
86ff Discussion of certain key precepts of cognitive therapy: including that we have considerable conscious control over what we think; then the four fundamental ideas that are the foundation of cognitive therapy, these will also be the foundation of the author's methods for wanting what you have.
1) Many conscious thoughts and beliefs are simply habits; they are not necessarily accurate, logical, or constructive.
2) Conscious thoughts and beliefs have powerful and inevitable emotional consequences. The author gives an example here of a client who believed she was stupid.
3) Conscious beliefs can become submerged and difficult to identify; he returns to the example of the client who believes she was stupid--who actually did not know that she believed that she was stupid. She was just overwhelmed by second-order fears from that initial belief.
4) The most powerful method of changing involuntary reactions or breaking bad habits is to discard old habits of thinking and develop new ones.
89 [Good money quote here] "My methods for wanting what you have are easily summarized. I recommend the deliberate, constant practice of Compassion, Attention, and Gratitude. Each of these principles is easily understood in cognitive terms. Each is facilitated by cognitive methods. Each method is intended to systematically alter certain key beliefs and habits of thought. Beyond recommending new beliefs and new habits of thought, I will suggest various experiments in living and thinking. Each of the three principles approaches the problem of relentless, instinctive striving from a different perspective. Each complements the other two; each makes the other two necessary. I will briefly discuss them in turn. I'll begin the next chapter with Compassion." [Cute double meaning in that last sentence]
Part II: Learning How
Chapter 5: Compassion
93ff The author starts this chapter off with discussing a poem from Sir Walter Raleigh, "I wish I loved the human race," which seems to be a simple verse of misanthropy at first, but then on a second reading it seems a little wistful, and on a third reading the readers wants to ask "how hard did he actually try to love his fellow man?" Another story here about a rabbi being shown heaven and hell. In both scenes there are people sitting around a large table with long spoons: in hell they're unable to feed themselves, but in heaven under the same conditions the people feed each other and are happy. "The Lord said, 'It is simple, but it requires a certain skill. They have learned to feed each other.'" In the example of the people in heaven they are not only generous with each other but have no desire to compete with, envy or dominate their neighbors; as the author puts it: "they have mastered Compassion." [I think we could also say that--to borrow Alfred Adler's very useful term--they have mastered conviviality.]
95ff On the difference between the feeling of compassion and the practice of compassion: the feeling is really a feeling of sympathy, or warm and friendly feelings to another person. Compassion as a practice "is an intention, a deliberate interactivity that requires effort." [Here I think we can see certain ideas from Martin Buber of the "I-Thou" relationship instead of an "I-it" relationship with your fellow man; also the Zen idea of treating all people and all things as if they have a soul, rather than treating them like they are "equipment."]
96ff The author goes over various examples of pseudo-compassion where it's really ill will or sanctimoniousness masquerading as compassion. [People can ape the behavior of a compassionate person; the actions, words and facial expressions can be performative, etc.]
98ff The author's working definition of Compassion: "the intention to think and act as if you are no more entitled to get what you want than anyone else is." "If you maintain this understanding, arbitrary value judgments about inconvenient people start to fall away, like overripe fruit falling from a tree. The assertion that another person is bad, wrong, weak, lazy, ugly, or stupid is just a disguised assertion that you are more entitled to get what you want and he is." The author gives an example of a difficult neighbor, saying that practicing compassion with him will make you less angry, more able to deal with him, better able to communicate him, you will feel less desire to escalate any dispute unnecessarily, you might consider a wide range of options to solve the problem, etc. [I think one insight here the state of Compassion causes you to default to a non-reactive mental state or a non-combative mental state that is peaceful, and then you can more rationally reflect on the situation, rather than react to the situation autonomically, and so compassion in this instance is a stable loving mental state that allows you to better use your prefrontal cortex in solving problems.]
100 A cognitive approach to compassion: "As I explained in the last chapter, it is not possible to force yourself to feel something you do not feel. However, it is possible to change certain habits of thinking. When your thinking habits change, your feelings change too, without effort, and so does your behavior. The rest of this chapter focuses on how to change your habits of thinking so that they become more compassionate."
100ff Four steps in the process of changing your thinking habits:
1) Identify habitual thoughts that need to change,
2) Formulate new thoughts to take the place of the old ones,
3) Continually substitute the new, desired thoughts for the old, undesired ones as you continue to live your life normally,
4) Make the effort to behave in ways consistent with the new thoughts
"I add a fifth step for the practice of Compassion: signify Compassion with a smile, when you can do it honestly and comfortably." "How long it will take depends partly on your character, partly on your circumstances, and partly on how badly you want to be compassionate... Assume you will be working on it for the rest of your life."
101ff Step 1: identify non-compassionate thinking: the author gives several examples like "He has no right to ____!" and "She ought to know better than to _____!" and "I deserve ____ more than he does" and "He's the lowest form of life there is." etc. "Most blanket condemnations of a person's character, ethics, intelligence, intentions, or social value are non-compassionate." The author goes on to say this does not prevent you from honestly considering and assessing a person's character traits, it just causes you to choose your words carefully and your thoughts carefully when thinking about those traits or discussing them with others; also "...you usually have the option of keeping non-compassionate thoughts to yourself." Also interesting comments here on stating political opinions with or without compassion.
103ff comments here on the relationship between compassion and anger: anger arises from non-compassionate thinking but this does not mean that successful practicing of compassion will eliminate anger; in some cases it may actually produce it: see Jesus driving the money changers out of the temple. Don't be too concerned if you are sometimes angry if you practice compassion consistently; there is also no need to behave non-compassionately just because you have the experience of anger. "Hatred is what you need to watch out for. Hatred is what happens when you deliberately nurse your own anger, deliberately intensifying it and prolonging it with non-compassionate thinking... The successful practice of Compassion will minimize hatred."
104 Interesting thoughts here on people who suffer from the "nice" disease, who frequently allow themselves to be exploited, who don't set proper boundaries, etc. The author says these people are not excessively compassionate, instead they depend too heavily on an ineffective strategy for winning More love; compassionate behavior "does not contradict normal, healthy assertiveness."
105ff Here the author offers various examples of annoying or frustrating situations along with examples of non-compassionate thoughts; a truck tailgating you; ill-mannered people ruining your family's visit to a park; etc.
110ff Step 2: formulate compassionate thoughts: "When trying to formulate compassionate thoughts in reaction to challenging situations, you must return again and again to the same simple but powerful principle: This person ultimately wants about the same things that I want, for about the same reasons. We differ only in the strategies we choose and the opportunities and talents available to us." See also the author's range of corollaries to this principle:
* No one ever gets all that he wants.
* No one deserves pain. No one deserves to avoid pain.
* No one can ever be absolutely sure that he is right and his adversary is wrong.
* All people fear losing what they have and just the same way that I fear losing what I have.
* No one wants to be powerless; few people willingly surrender their power.
* When someone else feels sad, or scared, or angry, it feels about the same way to him or her as it does to me.
* Other people justify their methods for getting what they want in just the same way I justify my methods for getting what I want.
111ff Next, the author returns to the prior section's examples of annoying or frustrating situations, this time offering examples of compassionate thoughts. In the case of the truck tailgating you: "this is his way of being powerful"; in the example of the unruly people in the park: "these people wish the park was all theirs just like I do"; other statements of compassion: "relentless desire takes many forms but its essence is always the same and no one avoids it"; "no one is immune to incompetence or impairment or greed"; "no one is immune to foolishness or passion or restlessness."
115ff The author anticipates reader objections: "How can we just remain calm and cheerful when a truck driver endangers our life?" for example. He cautions the reader "to be careful about winning the battles and losing the war." He argues that it is possible to challenge an affront, assert your rights or punish another person "without hatred or contempt for your adversary. Compassion does not necessarily contradict assertiveness." "In general, people who practice Compassion will assert themselves selectively, perhaps in a more patient or less combative manner than others, but they will still assert themselves."
177 Interesting point here on how practicing compassion challenges the legitimacy of the various status hierarchies you encounter, no one is more important than anyone else.
118 Step 3: substitute compassionate thoughts for non-compassionate thoughts: "All day, every day, for the rest of your life, monitor yourself for non-compassionate thinking, non-compassionate speech, and non-compassionate acts." Non-compassion speech usually represents a non-compassionate thought. Non-compassionate actions are always provoked by non-compassionate thoughts. If you are aware that you have behaved non-compassionately, try to reconstruct the non-compassionate thought that motivated the action."
118 When you detect non-compassionate thoughts "replace them with compassionate thoughts appropriate to the situation," The author also talks here about situations that occur repeatedly or predictably and how he memorizes compassionate thoughts that he repeats: see for example when he's sitting in traffic among aggressive drivers. [In a way this reminds me of the brilliant concept of "insult collecting" from William Irvine's book A Guide to the Good Life. Whenever you've been insulted, basically agree and even amplify the insult! It takes all the sting away, makes it fun, and after a while the practice becomes automatic--although it's difficult to adopt at first. And likewise in insult collecting you can memorize certain stock phrases: if someone calls you a moron, or some similar insult, you can say back, "If you really knew me, you'd know I am wayyyy dumber than you even realize!" and so on. Irvine's book has an entire chapter dedicated to handling insults, and I think this author would approve heartily with his methods.]
121ff Step 4: act compassionately: on the circularity that when behavior and emotions change, thoughts change, and when thoughts change behavior and emotion change too; also on the difficulty of achieving real lasting change, "the best route to success is to change both thoughts and behaviors in a consistent and carefully thought out way.
122ff The author goes over two different categories of deliberately compassionate acts: one he calls "empathy education": make a list of people toward whom it would be difficult to be compassionate, rank them in order of difficulty, start with the easiest person and work your way up to the most difficult, and make an effort to develop empathy for each, thinking about their upbringing, their temperament, what competitive strategies they may have learned or failed to learn, what moral standards they might have been taught as children, what their talents are, and what good or misfortune they may have experienced that have altered their character... and then imagine yourself living each person's life. Note also the short blurb here on Phil Ochs, a talented songwriter who wrote "There But For Fortune" among many, many others, who lost his singing voice after a brutal mugging [it happened while he was traveling in Tanzania] leading to his suicide in 1976.
123ff The second and more demanding form of compassionate action is to invest time energy and concern and assisting or comforting some person who will never be able to reciprocate. The author suggests not using monetary charity, it's too arms' length. [Genuine virtue is always practiced invisibly, in secret; virtue-signaling is not the practice of virtue-signaled!]
125ff Step 5: smile (if you can): the author comments here on how this actually associates physical smiling with actual happy feelings.
126ff The remaining three pages of this chapter are sample excerpts from the author's "compassion journal" with examples including: a friend who is deliberately avoiding him; somebody who runs a red light; the author's thoughts on the Rodney King trial as he tries to show compassion to the police; thoughts about an otherwise intelligent guy who refuses to control his blood sugar. Note here that the final example is an interesting one where the author catches himself comparing and evaluating people in a store and he realizes he's doing it to make himself look better by comparison. [I find if you can catch yourself in unconscious moments like this, you can go a huge portion of the distance to change how you think and how you behave.]
Chapter 6: Attention
129ff The chapter starts with a Zen koan: "When cold, be perfectly cold; when hot, be perfectly hot." The author then compares two different people experiencing a hot day; one who has already made up his mind about what he likes and doesn't like and who expects the world to conform to what he wants and then complains if not; the second person does not impose his preferences on the world. "When he withholds his value judgments, the need to complain, disapprove, or wish for other circumstances never arises in the first place." The second man pays attention to his sensations, whatever they are; the first man is interfering in his capacity for contentment because he's focused on his lack of comfort and his unhappiness about the heat.
131ff "Hot and cold is a convenient metaphor for all the aspects of existence that might be unnecessarily labeled as unpleasant." The author notes that Christians have similar recommendations to avoid unnecessary value judgments, see the quote "This too is God's work." Comments here also on the list of things people might unnecessarily label as unpleasant--this list is literally infinite.
133 What is the difference between necessary and unnecessary value judgments? "Value judgments are necessary when two conditions are met: First, there is something you can do about the situation. Second, the remedy does more good than harm to you and the people around you."
133ff On the seven harms that come from unnecessary value judgments:
1) They conceal beauty (the author here quotes Walt Whitman's Song of Myself on how Whitman refuses to let a blade of grass or a mouse be "ordinary" and this allowed him to find exceptional beauty everywhere)
2) They suppress curiosity and conceal useful information (here, the author returns to a previous example of a neighbor's house painted brightly orange, also to the example of the weirdly bad smell of California buckeye flowers, showing how just dismissing them causes him to not learn interesting things)
3) They stifle creativity and flexibility (here an example of brainstorming and how you never want to evaluate or criticize the idea during the brainstorming process, otherwise it kills the idea; the author also notes that intelligent people have a hard time brainstorming because they can't resist criticizing and evaluating the ideas ahead of time)
4) They impoverish inner life (much of life happens in our minds, you don't want to value judge it either)
5) They perpetuate insidious desire (many of these value judgments take the form of "I wish...")
6) They interfere with compassion (mini-value judgments about in-laws, people's personal qualities, people's behavior, etc.; the author refers back to the previous chapter on compassion)
7) They exacerbate suffering (examples: "this should not have happened to me" or "I should be compensated for the harm done to me"; note the very intriguing remark here on the phrase "It was God's will" and how the author at first could not understand this phrase nor how it could help with consoling people, but he now sees that it is basically the opposite of saying "this should not have happened." [Also it's worth thinking about how unnecessary value judgments seem to come from our brain's need to instantly decide and resolve things: that a thing is good or bad, that it's desirable or not, that it's either what we expected or not, etc. Things usually are not as they seem! It's better to withhold "resolving" things and instead just sit with them: upon further study they might be good after all, they might be want you actually wanted, etc. Finally the universe doesn't know or care what you "expect," therefore it is an act of supreme solipsism to expect the universe to both know and give you what you "expect."]
137ff Now the author switches to explaining the actual practice of Attention: If you see something, see it completely without reservation; if you do something, do it completely without reservation; if you are cold, be completely cold without reservation ["when cold, be perfectly cold"], etc. He further defines it as not making unnecessary value judgments; doing one thing at a time; performing every action as if that action is important; treating every sensation as if that sensation is precious; talking with every person as if that person were truly important, etc.
139ff Three other benefits of practicing attention:
1) It relieves anxiety, depression and anger (example here of a fearful patient that the author counseled to feel as scared as he could possibly feel, he councils him to "go into the fear"; likewise he counsels another woman experiencing grief to go into the grief; a sort of a mental aversion therapy. "I encourage them to feel their feelings completely, without reservation. When they did, their feelings became less painful, contrary to their expectations.")
2) It helps you learn from your mistakes (example here of a woman who experiences brief feelings of remorse for her behavior at parties or in other situations, but she quickly forgets them instead of accepting the remorseful feelings and feeling them without reservation to learn from them; instead, she just pushes them out of her mind. Also a mention here of Carl Rogers saying when your awareness of experience is fully operating, your behavior is to be trusted; this is a type of meta-attention: observing your own level of attentiveness)
3) It helps you independently discover the essential human condition (here the author suggests that the reader practice meditation, practice observing your own thoughts; he gives a simple example of zazen meditation: sitting upright in a straight-backed chair, with your knees about 12 inches from a wall, gaze at the wall at a level about where your knees are; avoid deliberate mental activity and simply observe your thoughts.)
144ff A cognitive approach to Attention: once again the author explains the CBT approach.
Step one: identify non-attentive thinking: the author gives some examples of basic non-attentive thought patterns:
146ff Step Two: formulate alternative thoughts in support of Attention: this should sound familiar to anyone who studied Albert Ellis or Martin Seligman [who likely plagiarized many of Albert Ellis's ideas!]; also on the idea of forming, rehearsing and memorizing a number of these Attention-supporting thoughts in advance to be prepared. Also note these examples of Attention-supporting replacement thoughts: "It isn't really possible to ignore unwanted sensations or surroundings, but the effort will make me tense and unhappy." "Feelings are just a kind of sensation, they come and go and seldom do lasting harm." "Present experience is always as valuable or is worthless as I want it to be."
147ff Step Three: substitute attentive thoughts in the place of non-attentive thoughts: this is a lifelong process, the practice also lets you discover previously unnoticed unnecessary value judgments; the author also counters the objection that this will cause you to surrender ambition somehow--in reality you will waste less time on unnecessary thinking and actually solve your problem. Wishing you were not in a situation isn't helpful anyway!
148ff Step Four: act attentively: doing one thing at a time, behaving as every action is important, avoiding multitasking, the author even gives an example of washing the dishes "as though that task were as important as disarming a bomb." On the idea that it's a bit of a theoretical ideal to do this with every action, but the idea is to challenge yourself to maintain this mentality when you perform tasks [note also all the synergies here with The Practicing Mind].
151ff On practicing Attention by paying attention to your sensations, of your body, of your breathing, etc; also comments here on your aperture of awareness; keeping it wide open, or focusing it on, say, something specific; using your concentration to solve a problem, to plan something or in a less-optimal example "perhaps worrying." The author makes the point here that "we have quite a lot of conscious control over the aperture of awareness" with certain limits, but also we rarely make use of this ability. Note that in the past, instinct probably drove our aperture of awareness, but in modernity we often permit circumstances and external things to drive it; the author talks about how "the instinct for More" drives it: "Successful competition typically requires studying, planning, and problem solving, which often degenerate into worrying. These mental activities require a narrow, tightly focused aperture of awareness, and that is the typical condition of the typical modern, middle class person."
154ff On finding the right level of planning and problem solving; comments here on your state of presence; see also the book The Power of Now for discussions about this from many different angles; on the idea that you don't want your planning and problem solving to be excessive, such that they interfere with Compassion, Attention and Gratitude.
155 Great comment here on the strategy of avoiding unnecessary value judgments about internal and external experiences. This helps you keep your aperture of awareness more open.
155ff On the employment of breath awareness as a simple practical technique for opening your aperture of awareness; the author also calls it "self remembering"; he walks through the exercise of paying attention to every sensation of your breathing; also breath counting; thinking the word "rising" and "falling" as you inhale and exhale; just counting three breaths if you're very busy, and then continuing with your day, etc. "It seems so simple that it is hard to conceive of its value and to understand why it can be difficult." Also comments on the infinite number of places and situations where you can use breath awareness: doing the dishes, falling asleep, waking up, walking etc. "Breath-awareness usually produces some degree of physical and mental relaxation, which immediately makes the here-and-now seem like a more desirable place to be... Breath-awareness will help you practice Attention more comfortably."
158 Comments on specific techniques here for belly breathing: breathing with the diaphragm, not just the upper chest.
158-9 "In order to live fully in the present, you must stop dividing your experience into categories such as good and bad, desirable and undesirable, important and unimportant. The tendency to do so is natural and human, but our task is to move beyond the usual constraints of human nature. We are mortal, vulnerable, and fallible; our days are numbered, often filled with sorrow, pain, and humiliation. Some people think that this is a good reason to avoid the here-and-now. I think it is a good reason to drink deep of the here-and-now." Note also the Buddhist story the author quotes here about a man caught between two tigers, who is hanging off a precipice by a vine which is being gnawed at by two mice, and he sees a luscious strawberry within arm's reach. "Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!"
159ff A series of attention journal excerpts here: examples here of catching yourself not paying attention, catching yourself wanting more; also examples where the author describes his internal mental state, where he notes his half-hearted stabs at practicing Attention; he catches himself being restless at an opera, he confronts his restlessness using breath awareness, etc.
Chapter 7: Gratitude
163ff On the paradox that it's both a wonderful world and a terrible world. "Some people see beautiful things; some people see ugly, horrifying things. Most often, people see ordinary, tedious things."
165 "When you practice Gratitude, you recall as often as possible that the world is an endless succession of ambiguous stimuli--an endless succession of inkblots. You will always have the option of taking another look. Sometimes when you take another look, you will find something to be grateful for that you might otherwise have overlooked. This will happen more often if you make room for Gratitude in your heart and welcome it."
165 "Gratitude is always a could, never a should."
166ff Comments here on what gratitude feels like under different circumstances; the author warns us here to be careful that your gratitude doesn't devolve into expectations; comments here on the problem of entitlement, on people who stubbornly insist they deserve better, even though their circumstances are objectively good.
169ff Comments on the practice of gratitude: "The practice of Gratitude is the intention to think and behave in such a way that welcomes the experience of Gratitude, regardless of your circumstances or previous experiences." On how it can't be chased or forced, it must come to you; the author phrases it that you have to build a home for it in your heart; that is practiced primarily in the here and now, although you can also review your memories to look for gratitude.
171ff On the "things could be worse" maneuver that some people may use to evoke feelings of gratitude, ("I'm grateful I'm not on fire!") including the idea of memorizing a list of terrible things that are not happening to you. "This maneuver just doesn't work. Avoid it." Also on the incorrect notion that you have to wait for special occasions to be grateful--the author calls it "one of the cruelest and silliest lies that instinct tells you." This implies that regular life is boring and tedious, unless something special comes your way. This causes you to dismiss familiar features of your life as unimportant and unworthy of gratitude, and it focuses you instead on More.
172ff The author encourages the reader to play a game of picking something unremarkable in your immediate surroundings and figure out a way that it might evoke gratitude.
173 A cognitive approach to gratitude, four basic steps:
1) identify non-grateful thoughts
2) formulate gratitude-supporting thoughts
3) continually substitute the new gratitude-supporting thoughts in place of the non-grateful thoughts
4) wait for the internal response of [the] grateful feeling.
174ff Step 1: Identify non-grateful thinking: examples are everywhere; on the infinite variations on "thinking you deserve better circumstances": considering your surroundings ordinary or tedious, feeling disappointed because things aren't the way you wanted, obsessively desiring things that you may never have. Ungrateful thoughts "revolve around a simple unwillingness to be grateful." The author shares the metaphor of a toilet tank with a float valve that shuts off the water, using it to explain how the instinctive striving for more has no float valve. This is why there's no instinctive basis for us to say "I have enough" or "I am contented and I don't care if someone else has more than me."
176ff [An interesting section here of questions and answers where the author deals with sort of a series of "yes, but" type objections to gratitude: What if someone's starving to death? What if someone's in a foul dungeon? What about people who are genuinely poor? etc. Most of these are excuse making by proxy type excuses; also note that anyone bothering to carefully read this book is unlikely to default to excuses like this. In each case the author makes a strong general argument in response: that regardless of your circumstances, practicing gratitude makes your circumstances less objectionable. For example people without money or under financial pressure probably will see the quality of their lives improve if they practice gratitude irrespective of their financial situation.
Step 2: Formulate gratitude-supporting thoughts: on gratitude requiring a receptive attitude, so the author phrases certain statements in the form of questions; they then form metaquestions to get you to think more deeply:
* Is my heart open to the possibility of gratitude right now?
* Would it hurt me or help me to practice gratitude right now?
* Am I allowing myself to believe that I am entitled to something better or different than what I have?
* Am I using all of my creativity to find things to be grateful about?
The author also gives a good example of what we might call "negative visualization" from William Irvine's book on stoicism: "What would this experience be like right now if I had been deprived of it for a long time?" He completes the example talking about eating strawberry yogurt and imagining if it were after a long backpacking trip. [It's a great technique! I often find plain brown rice to taste amazing after a long say 24-hour fast.]
179 Step 3: Substitute grateful thoughts for ungrateful thoughts: this procedure is the same as with the compassion and the attention chapters, each time you detect an ungrateful thought, pause, rewind and substitute a grateful thought. "The whole process can take up to as little as one second." He describes the grateful thoughts as simple and obvious and "all variations on one idea: 'If I wanted to, I could find something to be grateful for, right here, right now. I don't have to, but I can if I want to. It might make me feel better, and it wouldn't do me any harm.'"
180ff Step 4: Wait for the internal response and smile, if you can: "Step 3 will often, but not always, produce the feeling of Gratitude... When the feeling of Gratitude comes, attend to it, savor it as completely as possible." [The author mentions here that this is the practice of Attention] "When the internal response of Gratitude does come, you will often find yourself wanting to say 'Thank you' to someone or something. It is an excellent idea to say it, either silently or out loud according to your preference." Also useful comments here on how saying "thank you" helps displace or eliminate any feelings of entitlement that our instincts press upon us. The author actually goes so far as to say "...your first thank you may turn out to be your first real conversation with God." Finally, encouraging the reader to smile along with stating "thank you" in response to a feeling of Gratitude; people naturally smile when they express thanks to someone else and "Your smile endorses and perhaps prolongs the feeling of Gratitude." And further it may encourage the practice of gratitude to the people around you.
181ff The author offers a 14-day gratitude practice: focusing on gratitude for the food you eat on day one, gratitude for the house and or shelter you have on day two, gratitude for the people who like you or love you on day three etc; other days are dedicated to practicing gratitude for your partner, your good memories, whatever your life situation is, for small momentary sensory pleasures, etc. The author says there's nothing special about this list, the elements are arbitrary except that they exemplify the types of ordinary pleasures that evoke gratitude and allow us to practice it.
183ff Excerpts from a gratitude journal, including some cute ones: the author talks about driving by various homes with little shrubs and trees and he thinks about how each one was planted by someone who wanted to beautify the world just a bit with no expectation of reward or recognition, and he imagines all these people lined up as he thanks them personally. Also gratitude for all the musical choices that are open and available to us at any time for hardly any cost, when before the modern era only the richest people on earth could experience musical entertainment, and they had to pay large amounts of money for it; also the "tree game" where he studies and pays attention to all different kinds of trees and looks at them as works of art; likewise with birds.
Part III: Living It
Chapter 8: Synergy
189ff On the intrinsic synergy of the three principles of Compassion, Attention and Gratitude: no one is more important than the others; "Each of the three principles makes the other two necessary, and each of the three makes the other two possible." The author goes through examples of a hypothetical person practicing Attention and Gratitude but not Compassion, and how it might lead to smugness or complacency or entitlement; Also if he diligently practices Attention and Gratitude he's likely to discover the principle of Compassion as well: he'll have Gratitude for his family and friends and then he'll become concerned about their well-being; another example of someone practicing only Gratitude and Compassion risks becoming trapped in naive sentimentality, running away from all that is sad or boring or evil in the world and ultimately becoming resentful of the way reality intrudes; but by practicing Compassion and Gratitude this person likely will discover Attention as well, and will develop a compassionate or a gratitude-based response to even ugly things in the world, or she begin to understand that sadness helps us see the value of joy. Finally an example of a person practicing Compassion and Attention but not Gratitude could become kind of a saint- or martyr-like person, but will not believe that they have a right to joy or pleasure until the world's evils are corrected; but by practicing Compassion and Attention she will become increasingly attentive towards Gratitude. "In the end, Compassion, Attention, and Gratitude are inseparable. They are different paths to the same ultimate goal... What can we say about this ultimate goal? It cannot be described; it must be experienced... That's why I settle for the simple expression 'wanting what you have.' To comprehend all the implications of truly wanting what you have, you must stretch your imagination and intellect to their most extreme limits, and even that is not quite far enough."
194ff Discussion here of affirmations and Emil Coué and his method [if you are curious about this resource, I highly recommend C. Harry Brooks' book The Practice of Autosuggestion]. The author offers affirmations for students of Compassion, Attention and Gratitude; he writes specific examples of self-talk to be repeated many times in internal dialogue, also it might be helpful to weave them into ordinary conversation; the author notes that the examples are fragmentary, they have each their own shortcomings, etc., so you may want to use many of them, or use the ones that seem most suitable or useful to you.
God is here and now.
We are here and it is now. This is it!
Everybody has a hungry heart. [This phrase is meant to produce compassion for normal human behavior that everyone manifests.]
There is always beauty nearby.
Status is a temporary accident.
Wealth is a temporary accident.
Personal beauty is a temporary accident. [Note that the three previous phrases remind us that we're not entitled to what we have: fate gave it to us and fate will take it away.]
Happiness is a way of traveling, not a destination.
Love is a verb. [The author makes some interesting comments here on how the paradox of becoming unlovable happens when you try too hard to be loved; also a discussion of the general loneliness so common among people, but how it can be alleviated if people will treat love as a verb and give it rather than expect it.]
This is the pleasure planet. [Recall the Harlan Ellison Story summarized in Chapter 1]
Experience; don't evaluate.
Want what you have.
I am one of the richest people who ever lived. [Intended for middle class Americans or Western Europeans who are objectively wealthy but caught up with a civilization that compares and competes relentlessly.]
When hot, be perfectly hot; when cold, be perfectly cold. [Recall the Zen story from Chapter 6]
No snowflake falls in an inappropriate place.
Act; don't compete.
198ff Does the practice of Compassion, Attention and Gratitude forbid striving? Also does it interfere in personal empowerment? The author offers an admittedly circular definition here, but he considers striving to be excessive if it interferes with the practice of Compassion, Attention or Gratitude; the author gives an example from his own life of working long hours for a variety of reasons, including wanting to send his children to college, wanting to retire at some point, and he looks back over each week and month and tries to identify whether his actions remained consistent with principles of Compassion, Attention and Gratitude; next, he asks himself if he had enough time and energy to actually practice these principles effectively. If he finds the answer to be no, then he dials back his work hours and rethinks his priorities "because I have probably become too ambitious."
200ff On the paradox of self-improvement and non-attachment: on knowing that certain types of self-improvement bring certain benefits and advantages, but also on losing the attachment that you might have to those benefits before you can actually truly achieve the enlightenment you seek. "If at some point your goal interferes with the practice of C, A & G, then you will have a decision to make; do you prefer to want what you have, or would you rather mortgage the precious present in favor of a hypothetical future?" Likewise there can be practical benefits to wanting what you have, and there's nothing wrong with anticipating these benefits, but you have to recognize that "they are incidental and not the primary objective of your practice."
201 "The richest and most powerful people in the world are the people who want what they have."
201ff On meditation practice: the author defers here and says he doesn't consider himself qualified to call himself a meditation teacher, but he has practiced it extensively and believes it is "an important tool for self-realization." His own practice is Soto Zen-style meditation: meditating with the eyes open facing a blank wall; he discusses in the pages to follow how it's beneficial to challenge that part of your mind that insists that what I want is important, that insists on getting its needs met, etc. It helps you realize that these things aren't important; the author also does a good job here explaining the monkey mind's comments, observations and pushback during meditation: he describes it aptly here by saying, "If you meditate regularly, the cycle of desire and renunciation is repeated thousands of times." [He's right! You do get to see it over and over again and it makes you humble, and it also gives you practice at controlling your mind over time.] "Meditation implicitly promotes the practice of C, A & G."
205 "One of the exciting implications about the practice of C, A & G is that you can practice it every waking moment of your life, regardless of what else you are doing, regardless of your circumstances."
Chapter 9: Living Well
207ff [This is probably the weakest chapter of the book, it's unfocused and takes a while to get to its point--which is to structure a moral system based on the principles of Compassion, Attention and Gratitude; there is a lot to like also about his "10 rules" which he gets into midway through the chapter.] This chapter starts out with a discussion of the modernity's moral decay, and then walks through various criticisms of the moral relativism that we tend to see in modernity; eventually the author arrives at the chapter's thesis, which is the act of practicing Compassion, Attention and Gratitude actually gives us a moral framework; that concrete moral standards can be derived from C, A & G.
215ff The author offers ten moral "suggestions" derived from the practice of Compassion, Attention and Gratitude:
1) Do not hate. Do not speak ill of others unless compassion for others requires it. Do not disparage or harass others merely because they fail to live according to the principles of Compassion, Attention and Gratitude.
2) Do not behave violently without proper justification, discourage others from doing so, and try to avoid benefiting indirectly from the violent behavior of others. Violence is morally acceptable only under certain limited conditions: to protect yourself or other people from violence or to defend or restore fundamental human rights for yourself or others. Neither vengeance, punishment, or economic oppression justify violence.
3) Do not steal from others, economically exploit them, or politically oppress them; and discourage others from doing so. Try to avoid benefiting indirectly from the economic exploitation or political oppression of others.
4) Conceive and bear children responsibly. Consider your ability to provide for their practical and emotional needs. Consider the effect there existence will have on the planet and the lives of other people.
5) As well as you are able, live without doing harm to the world and its people, its other life-forms and habitats, and its beauties. Avoid depleting or damaging the world's limited resources; avoid using or selfishly keeping for yourself an extravagantly disproportionate share of them.
6) Do not behave cruelly toward animals; discourage others from doing so.
7) Do not lie or conceal the truth. 'White lies' are acceptable only when they benefit the recipient more than the teller.
8) Obey the laws of your society as long as you do not violate the principles of Compassion, Attention, or Gratitude. If it is necessary to violate immoral laws or oppose unfair or foolish laws, do so in such a way as to promote correction of the wrong, without personal benefit. Honor the people who honestly attempt to make and administer fair and reasonable laws, even if you disagree with them.
9) Do not engage in sexual behavior that will cause yourself or others needless harm or suffering.
10) Do not use intoxicating or addicting substances in such a way that you damage your health or impair your capacity keep these Ten Suggestions or to live according to the principles of Compassion, Attention, and Gratitude.
Chapter 10: C, A & G and Psychotherapy
226ff The purpose of this chapter is to assist therapists in integrating C, A and G into a psychotherapeutic approach. The author goes through a couple of examples of hypothetical psychotherapy clients to illustrate a continuum between a normal desire for More and a psychologically unhealthy desire for More.
230 On three ways to integrate C, A and G into therapy:
1) Simply avoid methods that contradict C, A and G.
2) Question immoderate or misguided striving in clients who want M too much.
3) Teach Compassion, Attention and Gratitude specifically, either as problem-solving techniques or to help support acceptance of loss or suffering
231ff The author warns that some clients won't want to learn to want what they have; some won't even comprehend the idea. The author actually says here "I don't think that psychotherapy ought to be the primary setting for instruction in Compassion, Attention, and Gratitude. If it comes up in the course of necessary treatment that's fine."
235ff On therapy clients who strive excessively; on the idea that there aren't that many accepted guidelines for therapists on how to work with such a person striving for more, wealth, power, status, etc. It also isn't always clear what the distinction is between normal and exaggerated desires.
239ff Compassion: ideas on applying compassion to interpersonal antagonisms; the author gives various examples of likely circumstances with clients who can be taught to understand and practice compassion, to disrupt patterns of antagonism with others in their lives, particularly in cases where (if they understood the other person's motivations better) they would see that the conflict they thought there wasn't actually there; examples here also include helping patients avoid anger and bad feelings in circumstances when they are truly wronged.
241ff Attention: "The principle of Attention has the most in common with traditional psychotherapy methods." Citing Carl Rogers and his client-centered therapy; Eugene Gendlin's focusing, and Fritz Perls' gestalt therapy, as well as anxiety management techniques all share "the common denominator of Attention." Also it is essential to recognize maladaptive thinking habits; the author himself says that when he teaches Attention habits to his clients they manage their feelings and emotions more effectively.
242ff Gratitude: the author says the practice of Gratitude is similar to the cognitive methods suggested by Aaron Beck and his colleagues for treatment of depression; a patient already in treatment can be taught to practice Gratitude at the same time; Gratitude, especially when practiced with Compassion, offers opportunities to resolve bitter interpersonal disputes; the author gives an example of three separate men all of whom are disappointed in some element or characteristic of their wives; he suggests the practice of Gratitude would be a solution for all of them; likewise the stale marriage is a common situation that benefits from the practice of Compassion and Gratitude; finally on Gratitude as useful for treating anxiety and grief, anxiety presents when a person has something valuable that he is afraid he will lose; anxious energy can be redirected with feelings of Gratitude.
245ff On using C, A and G to promote acceptance in psychotherapy: here the author quotes Reinhold Niebuhr's serenity prayer ("there is much wisdom in this prayer"); the author makes an interesting comment here about therapists being in the business of changing people, and thus they don't admire acceptance but rather often view it with suspicion [the author actually give a therapeutic example of a woman learning to accept her husband despite his bad temper and inconsiderateness, but where her "acceptance" actually appears to the therapist like it might be clinical defensiveness or denial]. "...words such as 'I guess you will just have to accept this' often signify to both the client and the therapist that the treatment has failed." "Patients don't necessarily want acceptance, and won't necessarily welcome it if it is offered." The author proposes here that psychotherapy be reconceptualized so that two fundamentally different types of treatment could be considered separately: one which is "get what you want" therapy the other "want what you have" therapy which is more geared towards acceptance rather than change. [Pretty interesting idea!]
248ff A brief summary here of how a therapist might introduce elements of the "want what you have" approach into routine therapy; he limits it to cognitive therapy. "Cognitive therapists often work with the patient to develop a problem list" which "forms a benchmark against which both client and therapist can gauge treatment progress." The author suggests dividing this problem list into two parts: problems that require change and problems that require acceptance. The therapist here is planting a seed. The author also offers a list of common problems that crop up in therapy, again dividing them into these two groups: examples like "I have many bad memories from my childhood," or "ever since my mother died, I have missed her constantly," or "my career turned out to be a disappointment and I am too old to start a new one," all of these are examples of problems where acceptance is needed. In contrast, problems where change is needed include "I do not assert myself when others try to take advantage of me," or "I assume that I won't be liked, without good reason," or "I lose my temper with my spouse," etc. [I'd say any individual who has a list of things that he'd like to change about himself could apply this "dual-list method" personally, even without the help of a therapist: it's quite a helpful first cut at looking at your life situation if you first figure out which things you can change... and which you cannot.]
251ff On the intrinsically optimistic philosophy underlying Compassion, Attention and Gratitude; note however that "acceptance" can be either optimistic or pessimistic. Discussion here using Martin Seligman's work on clarifying what optimism and pessimism actually mean, "According to Seligman, pessimists believe that they will probably never solve their problems, and they assume their problems are the result of their own personal failures and flaws, which they believe are unchangeable. Optimists believe that their problems are temporary and came about because of bad luck or uncontrollable circumstances. Optimists believe their problems will resolve with the passage of time, or they will solve the problems themselves. When optimists notice deficiencies or flaws within themselves, they assume that they can improve themselves." [Worth thinking here about the circularity of these two belief sets: you can see that the results of one are way, way better than the other, thus you might simply choose the optimistic belief set simply because it works. Whenever you are presented with a choice of beliefs, recognize if and when those beliefs are self-fulfilling! It literally tells you which belief you should choose.]
252ff The author takes a moment here to handle various extreme caricatures of these perspectives: the optimist doesn't assume he's going to grow a new leg if he had it amputated, instead he assumes he will figure out a way to live a life that's just as interesting and as pleasant as it was before, he will solve whatever problems will come up, and he won't blame himself unreasonably for whatever caused the amputation; also a witty example here for someone falling into a septic tank, the pessimist would say "I'm unbelievably jinxed, something like this always happens to me, I'll never hear the end of it from my friends and family," whereas the optimist will say "Wow, I was lucky somebody heard me yelling! I'll never make a mistake like that again. God it's great to be alive!"
254ff Finally, some brief comments here on difficulties that arise with acceptance if the client or the therapist is essentially pessimistic; the risk is that acceptance might be sought inappropriately when problem-solving would be more appropriate.
Chapter 11: The Rest of Your Life
256ff The author talks about ways to apply Compassion, Attention and Gratitude to your daily life, starting with a sincere attempt to understand the three principles and their foundations; First he recommends carefully evaluating these principles for logic and value; then to begin living according to the principles in small ways: practicing it for a full day at first and seeing how it feels. Also on the idea of applying these practices to religion: for example, instead of asking God for protection or for things you want, instead ask God for greater capacity for Compassion, Attention and Gratitude. "However you decide to practice Compassion, Attention, and Gratitude, I wish you well. May your present be precious."
For Further Reading
261ff The author includes here a list of books on human nature, cognitive therapy, religion and spirituality, and on compassion attention and gratitude. I've noted the most interesting of the books just below in the "To Read" section.
To Read:
***Aldous Huxley: The Perennial Philosophy
Harlan Ellison: Amazing Stories [see in particular "Strange Wine"]
Tsangnyon Heruka: The Life of Milarepa
Lin Yutang: The Wisdom of China and India
Alan Watts: This Is It
Paul Reps: The Gateless Gate
Martin Seligman: Learned Optimism
David Buss: The Evolution of Desire
Frans de Waal: Chimpanzee Politics
Jared Diamond: The Third Chimpanzee
Robert Trivers: Social Evolution
Aaron Beck, et al: Cognitive Therapy of Depression
David D. Burns: Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy [this is a more accessible presentation of Aaron Beck's works.]
Thomas Kempis: The Imitation of Christ
Thich Nhat Hanh: Peace Is Every Step
Ram Das and Paul Gorman: How Can I Help?
Harold Kushner: When Bad Things Happen to Good People
Jon Kabat-Zinn: Wherever You Go, There You Are
Thomas Moore: Care of the Soul
Henry David Thoreau: Walden