The Causal Nature of Everything
The thought manifests as the word. The word manifests as the deed. The deed develops into habit. Habit hardens into character.
— ANONYMOUS
Joanna attended her first meditation retreat at a center in the forests of New England. Although excited about this inner adventure, she had trepidations. Her mind tended to fixate on the negative. The first day started off well. She enjoyed the peace and quiet of the center, the lovely grounds, and the generally mellow atmosphere. Her body felt healthy and her mind was open. Day two was a different experience. It was as if she woke up on the wrong side of the bed. In a particular walking meditation, she felt irritable and began to judge her fellow participants. All she could see were their faults.
Then Joanna started to question her decision to attend the retreat in the first place. What is all this mindfulness stuff, anyway? she thought. Who cares about being aware? In the next walking meditation, she felt even more restless, irritated, and doubtful. She questioned everything and judged the teachers for creating such a difficult retreat. Then, as people can do, instead of meditating, she began to scheme how to leave without being noticed!
The next practice was a standing meditation, and the instructors directed the students to pay close attention to their feet. As Joanna did, a light bulb went off. She realized that her painful plantar fasciitis had flared up in her left foot and was quite uncomfortable. She first contracted the condition while playing competitive tennis, and it resurfaced at random times. This was one of them. The longer she stood in meditation, the more the pain gnawed away at her. She saw how, unnoticed, that low-grade physical discomfort had triggered her negative and irritable state of mind.
Deciding to rest her foot, Joanna sat down and stayed off her feet for the rest of the day. She put orthotics in her shoes, which eased the soreness, and as the pain subsided, her irritability and plans to escape faded. She realized how physical discomfort had caused all kinds of reactive emotions and thoughts, and if left unchecked, they would have bounced her out of the retreat. Instead, she got a direct glimpse into how causal processes drive so much of our experience, usually outside the realm of awareness.
However, we don’t need to go on retreat to notice this. In any moment, we can observe how our moods, feelings, and thoughts are constantly being conditioned by inner and outer experience. For example, like many people, I frequently wake up in the morning tired and groggy. If I’m not aware of my state, it easily leads to feeling resistant about my day. However, as soon as I have a strong cup of tea and do a little stretching, my mind brightens, my mood lifts, and I’m much more ready to embrace the day.
This is the simple law of causality. Everything arises based on causes and conditions. Biology and physics point to this as a central principle in the universe. With mindful awareness, we can track this causal process internally and learn how to create conditions that allow us to thrive and work skillfully with the many things that cause us stress. This is the “good news” of practice, as it means we are not stuck with our lot in life nor with our conditioning or history. We have the potential to change and transform the raw material of our life and circumstances.
Without self-awareness, it is easy to feel that our thoughts, feelings, and impulses just happen by themselves. We can then feel victim to our inner life, tossed around by emotions, and assailed by reactions that come seemingly out of nowhere. However, when we pay closer attention to our inner process, we see that everything arises due to causes. This can seem obvious in the physical world: when the sun rises, heat follows; when the sun sets, heat wanes. Yet we often overlook this process internally. By paying careful attention, we have the opportunity to intervene in this casual chain reaction, so we are no longer victim to the causes and conditions that can negatively influence our life.
How does that look in actuality? Joanna’s retreat experience is one example of how the mind is influenced by our physical body, which includes injuries that cause not only pain but corresponding mental anguish. The same is true of the food we eat and the medicine we take. When hormones change or fluctuate, such as during adolescence or menopause, this causes radical shifts in energy, mood, and thinking. It is humbling to consider how easily we are affected by minute doses of chemicals in our bloodstream and brain. Understanding this causal nature helps attune us to the conditions that influence us. It also helps us take these circumstances less personally and respond to them more effectively.
Another example is our social conditioning, in which we internalize beliefs and ideas from others. Consider racism. If a child grows up in a household where another race or ethnicity is viewed with fear and suspicion and judged to be inherently lazy, violent, or “less-than-human,” then the seeds of that distorted perception and bias are planted in the child’s mind. If those views are reinforced by other people, society, and the wider culture, such beliefs will be further entrenched, even if the child’s direct experience contradicts those views. Conditioning sowed at an early age is hard to dislodge, and so, without awareness of such bias, the painful wheels of intergenerational prejudice keep turning.
We are all subject to conditioning, and mindfulness helps bring our own into plain sight. For example, I was raised in a “working-class” culture in northern England, and I grew up with the sense that refined or highbrow culture, like opera and fine art, was “beyond my station.” Wealth and privilege were for the upper classes, and someone in my place was supposed to get a manual or trade job upon leaving school and not be “too big for their boots.” That conditioning has been hard to overcome. I can still feel out of place when I go to an art opening at the Royal Academy of Art in London or to the opera. I still feel a quiet concern that, if I am discovered, someone will know I don’t belong. I don’t really believe that, but I can still feel the imprint of my social conditioning.
The inner critic is another example. Students routinely tell me stories about being told as children, “You are lazy and will never amount to anything,” or “You will never be as smart as your brother,” or “You are not pretty enough to marry.” Regardless of the origin, such harsh judgments and mean statements can be internalized as our “inner critic,” who repeats them endlessly from then on. These judgments can become enshrined as beliefs that we really are unworthy or unlovable. In turn, those ideas can cause us to act in unhealthy ways, such as seeking love or validation in all the wrong places. Conditioning can also influence us in positive ways; when parents bestow unconditional love on children, it lays the groundwork for feeling held and can support a beautiful sense of belonging. However, negative conditioning, left unchecked, can give rise to unworthiness, self-hatred, self-harm, and worse.
As self-awareness grows, we see how we are constantly influenced by causality. We begin to see how habits, behaviors, and relationship dynamics can be shaped from the past, from the conditioning of our family, particularly how we were parented. Our moods are affected by our self-talk and what people have said to us. We are influenced by the kinds of news media we watch. Our perception is affected by where we place our attention and what we focus on. Our well-being is affected by our friendships and the quality of our relationships. Given that we live in an interdependent web, connected to all life, not a moment goes by when innumerable conditions are not affecting us.
A more recent noteworthy phenomenon is the effect of technology on our brain, attention, and well-being. Researchers in Canada have found that, over the past twenty years, the average human attention span has reduced from twelve to eight seconds, a 33 percent drop. That is, while working on a computer, for instance, we only stay concentrated for eight short seconds before getting distracted. Goldfish, it is reported, have an attention span of nine seconds! I can’t help thinking that all our multitasking and hyper-distracted screen time is a significant cause for the decline.
Think of the attention that arises as we read a book — it is a calm, focused, centering attention. How different is that from looking at a computer screen, when there might be multiple windows open, music playing in the background, a sports game in one corner, and text conversations happening while you are trying to write a report. If one does that for a few years, the attention becomes conditioned to be scattered, restless, impatient, and distracted. No wonder it is hard for us to focus anymore!
Yet once we understand the nature of causality, we can work backward from the consequences of such behavior. For instance, when you notice attention withering due to multitasking on a computer, you can condition yourself in ways that foster sustained attention. While writing a document on your laptop, you might eliminate all distractions, such as closing other windows, turning off music, and hiding text and email notifications. You might put your phone into gray scale so its bright colors do not grab your attention. As you wisely create the conditions for focused attention, this restores a greater sense of calm, ease, and satisfaction.
Such rewards create a positive feedback loop supporting us to make healthier choices. Those wise choices reinforce how pleasurable it is to set up the causes for optimal and fruitful behavior in our lives, whether we are writing, working on our computers, relating with others, or attending a meditation retreat.
• PRACTICE •
We all desire certain experiences and aspire for specific outcomes regarding our finances, health, family, and work. To achieve those outcomes, we have to lay a foundation of supportive conditions in order for that aspiration to bear fruit. For example, to be more concentrated in meditation, we must understand and foster the causes that support our focus.
In this reflective practice, write down one aspiration or intention for your life. This can be anything that is important to you. Then reflect on and make a list of the causes and conditions necessary for that to arise.
Take the case of wishing to improve your concentration. Some of the causes and conditions that will support that are the following:
1. Sitting for longer periods of time in meditation
2. Receiving one-on-one guidance about your practice
3. Studying different techniques for focused attention
4. Finding environments that are quiet and conducive for meditation
5. Attending a concentration meditation course
6. Having a strong intention to release mental distractions, thoughts, plans, and concerns during meditation
The list may also include what needs to be released or stopped in order to support the particular aspiration. As with any goal, we must be clear about the obstacles that we need to work with. In this way, you come to be more cognizant of the causes and conditions that are necessary to support your aspirations.
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