CHAPTER 7

The Blind Spot—The Capture and Consume Cycle

Every phenomenon arises from a field of energies: every thought, every feeling, every movement of the body is the manifestation of a specific energy, and in the lopsided human being one energy is constantly swelling up to swamp the other. This endless pitching and tossing between mind, feeling, and body produces a fluctuating series of impulses, each of which deceptively asserts itself as “me”: as one desire replaces another, there can be no continuity of intention, no true wish, only the chaotic pattern of contradiction in which we all live, in which the ego has the illusion of will power and independence. Gurdjieff called this “the terror of the situation.”

(Peter Brook. “The Secret Dimension,” 30)

Everything eats and is eaten, this is the law. It works on every level, from galaxy to atomic particle, from God to creature, from earth to man. related to this law is another: what gets fed grows stronger; what doesn’t get fed dies. As above, so below, and what is true in physics is true in metaphysics as well. Our psyche is lawfully constructed around a key element or neurotic fixation, called variously in different traditions, “contamination” or “the cramp” or “chief feature” or “chief fault” or “chief flaw” or “petty tyrant” or “blind spot”*—different traditions of Work have different names for the ego’s* chief or salient or central core, its foundational neurosis or belief system. But it is this flaw around which my psychology is constructed, and it rules the inner world by remaining invisible. What is more, and here is the key: I am addicted to my flaw! I believe in it and give my life to it. It is this which controls the intellectual-emotional-complex. It is this which captures and consumes attention. It is this which must be continuously fed. I like “petty tyrant” because that is exactly what it is and how it behaves. This was the term used often in shamanistic traditions. But for our purposes I prefer to call it “the blind spot” because this so simply and accurately describes its action upon my consciousness: it feeds upon available energy within, but is constructed in such a way as to be all but invisible to me in ordinary life. In the Gospels, Jesus says, “Easier to see a mote [a speck of dust, rh] in your neighbor’s eye than a beam [a log which holds up the roof, rh] in your own.” This is a law. We are constructed in such a way that we cannot see our own flaw, but can easily see our neighbor’s. Earth is a school for flawed souls. Each of us has a flaw, which is meant to be food for the developing soul. Thus, each of us has a blind spot around which one’s psychology is constructed. It is this blind spot which drives our lives and controls our relationships. Others can see it, we cannot. And a wise man knows that if another tells me what my blind spot is, I will deny it and be angry that he could think such a thing of me. Only by the most patient and honest self observation without judgment, over a long period of time, will a person gain the clarity, honesty, and strength necessary to see one’s own blind spot.

The blind spot steals the energy of attention for its own food. It does not live in a single center within. It uses intellectual and emotional centers symbiotically and creates of them an interacting complex called the intellectual-emotional-complex (some traditions call this “the labyrinth”*). Sometimes it will manifest as a pattern of thought, sometimes as emotional pattern or habit, and often thought will trigger emotion. Thus, they form a complex. In me the blind spot is self-hatred, and it is well guarded and masked by lying, fear of rejection, panic, fear of relationship, fear of intimacy, paranoia, cheating, anger, and self destructive behavior. So for years it looked as if such habits as lying, then fear of rejection, then other habits were the blind spot. It remained concealed from me, but as I worked through layer after layer, always behind each thing was another. And at the core was self hatred. In others it may be greed, jealousy, lying, impatience, hysteria, happiness, lust, envy, gossip, guilt, blame, vanity, pride, or many other things. For me, “I’m no good” is the way my blind spot manifests in action.

The blind spot feeds and thus grows stronger. It acts in a feeding cycle, that is it has two halves which form a single, symbiotic unit; both halves always work together and one-half follows the other the way the shadow follows the body. Each half serves a very crucial function in the feeding cycle, so if self observation only catches one-half of the cycle, then this is an incomplete observation and the cycle has accomplished its aim. The cycle has only one aim: to capture and then to consume the attention. It feeds on attention (which is all that we are; we are attention = consciousness). Thus, the contamination eats me. Lawfully then, there are only two possibilities here: either the blind spot consumes the attention, feeds off of it, or the attention consumes the blind spot, feeds off of it: that is how soul develops. To paraphrase Newtonian physics’ first law of matter: Energy is neither created nor destroyed, only transferred. I have here substituted the word “transferred” for “transformed” and it is the word “transferred” which I want to emphasize here. Throughout the universe there is a constant transfer of energy, from Sun to Earth, Earth to human, and so on. This is true within as well. And there is a lawful transfer of energy which takes place with the blind spot; it can serve as a food source, was meant to serve as a food source for the development of the soul, thus has real value. Thus, handled in the right way, without judgment or interference of any kind, the blind spot feeds attention, its energy is transferred to attention. Handled the other way, through identification with the blind spot and judging what is observed, the energy of attention is transferred to it. One grows, the other is weakened. This is lawful.

Here is How the Feeding Cycle Works:

I. Capture: First there is the action—any action will do, so long as it is habitual, therefore well known and recognizable; it may be jealousy or envy, or lust, or greed, or an extra piece of pie, or hatred, or arguing, or interfering, or any habitual action, mechanical, automatic-pilot. The advantage which I have over the blind spot is that such actions are totally predictable, and once I have seen them 10,000 times (or more—I am a slow learner), I can recognize them by their first appearance and know exactly where they will lead me—every time. Therefore, I can be ready for it before it ever arises by keeping attention focused on the body, and remaining present in a relaxed body, no matter what I am doing or what is going on around me: find myself, manage the body.

Relaxed body = honest body. The attention can’t be captured if it is in the right place = focused on bodily sensation and relaxing the body, no matter the action which has taken place (jealousy, envy, greed, lust, sorrow, a second piece of pie, etc.).

But the ego, which is constructed around the blind spot, knows what will catch and capture the attention because it has seen what interests or fascinates it 10,000 times, it is mechanical, repetitious, habitual—it is the body of habits—and the sole function of the first half of the cycle is: to capture the attention.

II. Consume: The second half of the feeding cycle follows the first half automatically, habitually, thus predictably: it is judgment of the action (which is identification). I am jealous, envious, lustful, angry, hateful, eat too much, say negative things, gossip, etc. Following that immediately is judgment of the action = the second half of the cycle. First the action, then the reaction—this is the law (Newton’s third law of motion: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.) When I try to change the action I observe in myself, I have only made one-half an observation; I have not completely observed the process I am trying to change. I have only seen one-half of that process, and based on incomplete information or observation, I am making a decision which endangers me and places my Work in jeopardy, because I know too little about what is good for me, and I do not understand in what a delicate balance things are in my body. If I change one thing, everything changes and I may be left in a worse condition than when I started.

What I have not seen yet is that the thing which I wish to change, the behavior or more accurately the habit which I wish to change, exists not as a separate process, but as part of a larger and more complete cycle—that is, it exists in a cycle of behavior in which it is only a part. A cycle is a circle. To observe only the habitual behavior is to observe only half of the circle, 180 degrees, not the full 360 degrees. The reason I wish to change the habit is because I have judged the habit (identified with it) which I have observed. Simple, obvious. I don’t wish to change something unless I have judged it bad, wrong, nasty, like that. Here is the interesting thing: the judgment of the habit is the habit. The habit depends upon the judgment of it as bad, no good, in order to derive its power and strength. The judgment of the habit is the other half of the habit. The habit is not drinking, sugar, pornography, gossip—whatever I have observed—the habit is drinking (in this case) and judging myself for drinking = whole cycle, full circle, 360 degrees. This full cycle keeps the self in its place, in line: self-hatred in my case. This is the underlying force behind judging what I observe. The ego depends upon me not being OK, upon having problems, upon being broken and then fixing the problem, repairing the damage. The ego = problem-and-fixing-the-problem. If there were no problems, thus nothing to fix, there would be no ego. Simple.

The judgment (second half of the cycle) has only one function which is: to consume the attention. The contamination, the blind spot, feeds on attention and consumes it. Thus, according to law, it grows stronger: What gets fed grows stronger, this is the law.

On the other hand, attention lives and grows stronger by eating ego = feeding cycle: The first half (the action) need not capture the attention, if attention stays at home = attention does not move from sensing and relaxing the body no matter how attractive the image thrown up before it; the second half = the reaction (judgment) need not consume the attention if the attention remains stable, steady, focused on the body and keeping the body relaxed. It is not taken by the action or the reaction. Thus, the feeding cycle feeds attention and my inner attention (which is soul) grows stronger, able to focus for longer and longer periods of time without being caught.

Thus, the first principle of self observation is: without judgment. It does not mean judgment stops. It means that I stop identifying with it, and thus I eat it, instead of it eating me. Inner attention can only grow stronger if it is properly fed on a daily basis; thus the importance of the sitting practice—this gives me a half-hour uninterrupted, without distraction, to practice keeping the attention grounded and at home. Whenever it gets captured, and as soon as I “remember myself,” = become conscious, aware that I have been caught, I “begin again.” We are all beginners here. I am a beginner. Over and over during my day, I begin again. Slowly, slowly, I “remember myself” (= find the body, return attention to bodily sensation and relax the body) before I am captured and consumed by the intellectual-emotional-complex again.

Every unnecessary thought, inappropriate emotion, and unnecessary tension is acting in the service of my blind spot and will inevitably and predictably lead to that blind spot and it will devour the attention once it has captured it. Therefore: observe unnecessary thought, inappropriate emotion, and unnecessary tension in the body. Relax the body = honest body. Don’t judge, condemn, or criticize, just observe. Either I eat the bear, or the bear eats me.

The sole aim of the blind spot is to feed itself, and it does so by reenactment of those patterns which feed it best = habit (intellectual, emotional, and physical). And such patterns are always accompanied by unnecessary tension in the body. What would happen if, when such a pattern appeared for any reason, my response was to immediately place attention on the body, keep it there, breathe into the navel, and keep the body relaxed? Find out for yourself, not because some so-called expert has suggested it, even if the so-called expert has diplomas and certificates on the wall and titles after his name. Verify for yourself or continue to be a slave to borrowed knowledge, other people’s opinions and your own blind spot.

The effort to change what is observed is wasted energy—it never changes. It is habitual, mechanical, and responds to the effort to change it with redoubled efforts to capture and consume. Instead, what may be changed, slowly, slowly and patiently with accumulation of understanding via observation, is my relationship to what is observed—that is, I am not quite so easily identified with the dramas and images stored in the “labyrinth” therefore my relationship to them becomes 1) disinterested; 2) objective; 3) non-identified. The effort to change what is observed is the result of judgment. Period. Thus the second half of the “capture and consume” cycle has caught me by the judgment of what is observed. It is this judgment which gets me every time, and in my case, keeps my blind spot (self-hatred) intact and well fed.

Judgment is inevitably accompanied by inappropriate emo-tion—therefore inappropriate emotion is a dead give-away that the labyrinth is casting its net. It is an instantaneous feedback mechanism. Thus, the basic rule of self observation is to observe inappropriate emotion. Also, judgment is inevitably accompanied by unnecessary thinking. Therefore unnecessary thinking is a dead give-away that the labyrinth is casting its net. It is an instantaneous feedback mechanism. Thus, the basic rule of self observation is to observe unnecessary thinking. Finally, judgment is inevitably accompanied by unnecessary tension in the body. Thus, the basic rule of self observation is to observe unnecessary tension in the body and relax it. These are instantaneous feedback mechanisms to help the soul develop, grow and mature. They are not flaws, they are gifts to help me awaken. They are soul food.

No effort towards becoming more conscious, no matter how small, is ever wasted. This is a law of the Work. Every time I observe, something conscious (attention) in me is being fed, thus it grows, homeopathically, one grain of observation at a time. Nothing conscious is ever wasted. That is the law. I am not interested in “grand.” I am interested in steady, patient, careful, law-conformable efforts to “know myself.” This is our hope for freedom. Hope placed in the mind is madness. Hope placed in the emotions is sorrow and suffering. Hope placed in self observation is strength and wisdom It produces more consciousness because it feeds attention. Thus, I mature.

You Know What You Are Buddy

As I am pulling into the gas station

a woman roars out from behind a pump

and cuts right in front of me.

I slam on the brakes, lay on my horn

and she stops just long enough to

lean out her window and scream at me,

You know what you are, buddy!

Yeah. I do.

I am a sorry little loser who

doesn’t know his ass from a gas pump;

I am an arrogant educated screed who

will show you everything I know for a dollar;

I am a scared tense lonely humbug

willing to sell myself to the first woman

who shows me a grain of kindness;

I am a dazed and hopeless idiot

wondering how I got here and what

I am going to do next; I am a third-rate poet,

a broken and ruined lover of God,

a spiritual derelict hooked on Dharma,

a bum for truth, a pimp

for the teachings of Masters, but

what I want to know is,

how could she tell?

(Red Hawk. The Way of Power, 17)