HUM A N N A TURE, BUDDHA N A TURE

On Spiritual Bypassing, Relationship, and the Dharma

A n interview with John W elwood by Tina Fossella

TF: Y ou introduced the term “spiritual bypassing” 30 years ago now. For those who are unfamiliar
with the concept, could you define and explain what it is?

JW: Spiritual bypassing is a term I coined to d escribe a process I saw happening

in the Bud d hist com m unity I w as in, and also in m yself. Although m ost of us
w ere sincerely trying to w ork on ourselves, I noticed a w id espread tend ency to
use spiritual id eas and practices to sid estep or avoid facing unresolved em otional
issues, psychological w ound s, and unfinished d evelopm ental tasks.

When w e are spiritually bypassing, w e often use the goal of aw akening or

liberation to rationalize w hat I call premature transcendence: trying to rise above
the raw and m essy sid e of our hum anness before w e have fully faced and m ad e
peace w ith it. And then w e tend to use absolute truth to d isparage or d ism iss
relative hum an need s, feelings, psychological problem s, relational difficulties,
and d evelopm ental d eficits. I see this as an “occupational hazard ” of the spiritual
path, in that spirituality d oes involve a vision of going beyond our current
karm ic situation.

TE: W hat kind of hazard does this present?

JW: Trying to m ove beyond our psychological and em otional issues by

sid estepping them is d angerous. It sets up a d ebilitating split betw een the
bud d ha and the hum an w ithin u s. And it lead s to a conceptual, one-sid ed kind of
spirituality w here one pole of life is elevated at the expense of its opposite:
Absolute truth is favored over relative truth, the im personal over the personal,
 2

em ptiness over form , transcend ence over em bod im ent, and d etachm ent over
feeling. One m ight, for exam ple, try to practice nonattachm ent by d ism issing
one’s need for love, but this only d rives the need und erground , so that it often
becom es unconsciou sly acted out in covert and possibly harm ful w ays instead .

TF: M ight this account for some of the messiness in our sangha communities?

JW: Definitely. It is easy to use the truth of em ptiness in this one-sid ed w ay: “Thoughts
and feelings are em pty, a m ere play of sam saric appearances, so pay them no heed . See
their nature as em ptiness, and sim ply cut through them on the sp ot.” In the realm of
practice, this could be helpful ad vice. But in life situations these sam e w ord s could also
be used to suppress or d eny feelings or concerns that need our attention. I’ve seen this
happen on a num ber of occasions.

TF: W hat interests you most about spiritual bypassing these days?

JW: I’m interested in how it plays out in relationships, w here spiritual bypassing often
w reaks its w orst havoc. If you w ere a yogi in a cave d oing years of solo retreat, your
psychological w ound ing m ight not show up so m uch becau se your focus w ould be
entirely on your practice, in an environm ent that m ay not aggravate your relational
w ound s. It’s in relationships that our unresolved psychological issues tend to show up
m ost intensely. That’s because p sychological w ound s are alw ays relational — they form in
and through our relationships w ith our early caretakers.

The basic hum an w ou nd , w hich is prevalent in the m od ern w orld , form s around not
feeling loved or intrinsically lovable as w e are. Inad equate love or attunem ent is shocking
and traum atic for a child ’s d eveloping and highly sensitive nervous system . And as w e
internalize how w e w ere parented , our capacity to value ourselves, w hich is also the basis
 3

for valuing others, becom es d am aged . I call this a “relational w ound “ or the “w ound of
the heart.”

TF: Y es, something we are all familiar with.

JW: There is a w hole bod y of stud y and research in Western psychology show ing how
close bond ing and loving attunem ent— w hat is know n as “secure attachm ent” — have
p ow erful im pacts on every aspect of hum an d evelopm ent. Secure attachm ent has a
trem end ous effect on m any d im ensions of our health, w ell-being, and capacity to
function effectively in the w orld : how our brains form , how w ell our end ocrine and
im m une system s fu nction, how w e hand le em otions, how subject w e are to d epression,
how our nervous system functions and hand les stress, and how w e relate to others.

In contrast to the ind igenous cultures of trad itional Asia, m od ern child -rearing leaves
m ost people suffering from sym ptom s of insecure attachm ent: self-hatred ,
d isem bod im ent, lack of ground ing, chronic insecurity and anxiety, overactive m ind s,
lack of basic trust, and a d eep sense of inner d eficiency. So m ost of us su ffer from an
extrem e d egree of alienation and d isconnection that w as unknow n in earlier tim es—
from society, com m unity, fam ily, old er generations, nature, religion, trad ition, our
bod y, our feelings, and our hum anity itself.

TF: A nd how is this relevant for how we practice the dharma?

JW: Many of us— and I includ e m yself here— originally turn to the d harm a, at least in
part, as a w ay of trying to overcom e the pain of our psychological and relational
w ound ing. Yet w e are often in d enial or unconscious about the nature or extent of this
w ound ing. We only know that som ething isn’t right and w e w ant to be free from
suffering.

TF: W e may turn towards the dharma from a wounded place that we' re not even aware of?
 4

JW: Yes. We turn to the d harm a to feel better, but then m ay unw ittingly w ind up using
spiritual practice as a substitute for facing our psychological issues.

TF: So how does our psychological wounding affect our spiritual practice?

JW: Being a good spiritual practitioner can becom e w hat I call a compensatory identity
that covers up and d efend s against an und erlying deficient identity, w here w e feel bad ly
about ourselves, not good enough, or basically lacking. Then, although w e m ay be
practicing d iligently, our spiritual practice can be used in the service of d enial and
d efense. And w hen spiritual practice is used to bypass our real-life hum an issues, it
becom es com partm entalized in a separate zone of our life, and rem ains unintegrated
w ith our overall functioning.

TF: Can you give some more examples of how this shows up in W estern practitioners?

JW: In m y psychotherapy practice I often w ork w ith d harm a stud ents w ho have
engaged in spiritual practice for d ecad es. I respect how their practice has been
beneficial for them . Yet d espite the sincerity as practitioners, their practice is not fully
penetrating their life. They seek out psychological w ork because they rem ain w ound ed
and not fully d eveloped on the em otional/ relational/ personal level, and they m ay be
acting out their w ounding in harm ful w ays.

It’s not uncom m on to speak beautifully about the basic good ness or innate perfection of
our true nature, but then have d ifficulty trusting it w hen one’s psychological w ound s
are triggered . Often d harm a stud ents w ho have d eveloped som e kind ness and
com passion for others are hard on them selves for falling short of their spiritual id eals,
and , as a result, their spiritual practice becom es d ry and solem n. Or being of benefit to
others turns into a d uty, or a w ay of trying to feel good about them selves. Others m ay
 5

unconsciously use their sp iritual brilliance to feed their narcissistic inflation and
d evalue others or treat them in m anipulative w ays.

People w ith d epressive tend encies w ho m ay have grow n up w ith a lack of loving
attunem ent in child hood and therefore have a hard tim e valuing them selves,
m ay use teachings on non -self to reinforce their sense of d eflation. N ot only d o
they feel bad about them selves, but they regard their insecurity about this as a
further fault—a form of me-fixation, the very antithesis of the d harm a— w hich
further fuels their sham e or guilt. Thus they becom e caught in a painful struggle
w ith the very self they are trying to d econstruct.

The sangha often becom es an arena w here people play out their unresolved fam ily
issues. It’s easy to project onto teachers or gurus, seeing them as parental figures, and
then trying to w in their love or else rebelling against them . Sibling rivalry and
com petition w ith other sangha m em bers over w ho is the teacher’s favorite is also
com m on.

Med itation is also frequently used to avoid uncom fortable feelings and unresolved life
situations. For those in d enial about their personal feelings or w ound s, m ed itation
practice can reinforce a tend ency tow ard coldness, d isengagem ent, or interpersonal
d istance. They are at a loss w hen it com es to relating d irectly to their feelings or to
expressing them selves personally in a transparent w ay. It can be quite threatening
w hen those of us on a spiritual path have to face our w ound ed ness, or em otional
d epend ency, or prim al need for love.

I’ve often seen how attem pts to be nonattached are used in the service of sealing people
off from their hum an and em otional vulnerabilities. In effect, id entifying oneself as a
spiritual practitioner becom es used as a w ay of avoid ing a d epth of personal
engagem ent w ith others that m ight stir up old w ound s and longings for love. It’s
 6

painful to see som eone m aintaining a stance of d etachm ent w hen und erneath they are
starving for positive experiences of bond ing and connection.

TF: So, how do we reconcile the ideal of nonattachment with the need for human attachment?

JW: That’s a good question. If Bud d hism is to fully take root in the Western psyche, in
m y view , it need s to becom e m ore savvy about the d ynam ics of the Western psyche,
w hich is rather d ifferent from the Asian psyche. We need a larger perspective that can
recognize and includ e tw o d ifferent tracks of hum an d evelopm ent — w hich w e m ight
call grow ing up and w aking up, healing and aw akening, or becom ing a genuine hum an
person and going beyond the person altogether. We are not just hum ans learning to
becom e bud d has, but also bud d has w aking up in hu m an form , learning to becom e fully
hum an. And these tw o tracks of d evelopm ent can m utually enrich each other.

While the fruition of d harm a practice is aw akening, th e fruition of becom ing a fully
d eveloped person is the capacity to engage in I-Thou related ness w ith others. This
m eans risking being fu lly open and transparent w ith others, w hile appreciating and
taking an interest in what they are experiencing and how th ey are different from
oneself. This capacity for open expressiveness and d eep attunem ent is very rare in this
w orld . It’s especially d ifficult if you are relationally w ound ed .

In short, d harm a is all too often used as a w ay to d eny our hum an sid e. As one Western
Zen teacher profiled in The N ew Y ork Times told of being ad vised by one of his teachers:
“What you need to do is put asid e all hum an feelings.” When entering psychotherapy
d ecad es later, he recognized this had not been helpful ad vice, and it had t aken him
d ecad es to realize this.

But if w e hold a persp ective that includ es the tw o d evelopm ental tracks, then w e w ill
not use absolute truth to belittle relative truth. Instead of the either/ or logic of, “Your
 7

feelings are em pty, so just let them go,” w e could take a both/ and approach: “Feelings
are em pty, and som etim es w e need to pay close attention to them .” In light of absolute
truth, personal need s are insubstantial like a m irage, and fixating on them causes
suffering. Yes, and at the sam e tim e, if a relative need arises, just shu nting it asid e can
cause further problems. In term s of relative truth, being clear about w here you stand
and w hat you need is one of the m ost im portant principles of healthy com m unication in
relationships.

The great paradox of being both hum an and bud d ha is that w e are both d epend ent and
not d epend ent. Part of us is com pletely d epend ent on people for everything —from
food and clothing to love, connected ness, and inspiration and help w ith our
d evelopm ent. Though our bud d ha nature is not d epend ent— that's absolute truth — our
hum an em bod im ent is — that's relative truth.

Of course, in the largest sense, absolute and relative are com pletely interw oven and
cannot be kept apart: The m ore w e realize the absolute openness of w hat w e are, the
m ore d eeply w e com e to recognize our relative interconnected ness w ith all beings.

TF: So we can be both attached and nonattached?

JW: Yes. N onattachm ent is a teaching about our ultim ate nature. Our bud d ha
nature is totally, intrinsically non attached . Attachm ent in the Bud d hist sense has
the negative m eaning of clinging. Being free and open, our bud d ha nature has no
need to cling.

Yet to grow into a healthy hum an being, w e need a base of secure attachm ent in the
positive, psychological sense, m eaning: close em otional ties to other people that
prom ote connected ness, ground ed em bod im ent, and w ell-being. As John Muir the
naturalist w rote: “When w e try to pick out anything by itself, w e find that it is bound
 8

fast by a thousand invisible cord s that cannot be broken, to everything in the universe.”
Sim ilarly, the hand cannot function unless it is attached to the arm —that’s attachm ent
in the positive sense. We’re interconnected , interw oven, and interdepend ent w ith
everything in the universe. On the hum an level w e can’t help feeling som ew hat
attached to people w e are close to.

Thus it’s natural to grieve d eeply w hen w e lose som eone w e’re close to. When
Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche attend ed the m em orial service for his d ear friend and
colleague Suzuki Roshi, he let out a piercing cry and w ept openly. H e w as
acknow led ging his close ties to Suzuki Roshi, and it w as beautiful that he could let his
feeling show like that.

Since w e cannot avoid som e kind of attachm ent to others, the question becom es, “Are
w e engaging in healthy or unhealthy attachm ent?” What is unhealthy in psychological
term s is insecure attachm ent, for it lead s either to fear of close personal contact or else to
obsession w ith it. Interestingly, people grow ing up w ith secure attachm ent are m o re
trusting, w hich m akes them m uch less likely to cling to others. Maybe w e could call that
“nonattached attachm ent.”

I’m afraid that w hat m any Western Bud d hists are practicing in the relational area is not
nonattachm ent, but avoid ance of attachm ent. Avoid ance of attachm ent, how ever, is not
freed om from attachment. It’s still a form of clinging — clinging to the d enial of your
hum an attachm ent need s, out of d istrust that love can be reliable.

TF: So avoidance of attachment needs is another form of attachment.

JW: Yes. In the field of d evelopm ental psychology know n as “attachm ent
theory,” one form of insecure attachm ent is called “avoid ant attachment.” The
avoid ant attachm ent style d evelops in child ren w hose parents are consistently
 9

unavailable em otionally. So these child ren learn to take care of them selves and
not need anything from others. That’s their ad aptive strategy, and it’s an
intelligent and useful one. Obviously if your need s aren’t going to be m et, it’s too
painful to keep feeling them . It’s better to turn aw ay from them and d evelop a
d o-it-yourself, d etached com pensatory id entity.

TF: So there’s a tendency to use Buddhist ideas to justify dismissing the natural
inclination to want bonding and attachment?

JW: Yes. Many of us w ho are d raw n to Bud dhism are avoid ant attachm ent types
in the first place. When w e hear teachings on nonattachm ent it’s like: “Oh that
sound s fam iliar. I feel really at hom e here.” In this w ay a valid d harm a teaching
becom es u sed to supp ort our d efenses.

But I w ant to be clear that I’m not trying to pathologize anyone. All of this is ju st
som ething to und erstand w ith kind ness and com passion. It’s one of the w ays w e
try to cope w ith the wound of the heart. N ot need ing anyone allow s one to
survive and m anage in an em otional d esert. But later on, in ad ulthood , the
avoid ant attachm ent type has a hard tim e d eveloping d eep ties w ith others, and
this can lead to a d eep feeling of isolation and alienation, w hich is a very painful
state.

TF: W hat happens in a sangha community if the majority of people have an avoidant
attachment style of relating?

JW: Avoid ant types tend to be d ism issive of other people’s need s because, guess
w hat, they’re d ism issive of their ow n need s.

TF: Then what happens?

 10

JW: What happens is that people feel ju stified in not respecting each other’s
feelings and need s. N ot surprisingly, “need ” becom es a d irty w ord in m any
spiritual com m unities.

TF: A nd people don’t feel free to say what they want.

JW: Right. You d on't say w hat you w ant because you d on’t w an t to be seen as
need y. You’re trying to be nonattached . But that is like an unripe fruit trying to
d etach itself prem aturely from the branch and hurl itself to the ground instead of
grad ually ripening to the point w here it’s naturally read y to let go.

The question for d harm a practitioners is how to ripen so that w e becom e

naturally read y to let go of clinging to self, just as a ripe fruit naturally lets go of
the branch and falls to the ground . Our d harm a practices of w isd om and
com passion d efinitely help w ith this ripening. But if w e’re using our practice to
avoid our feeling life, this w ill d efinitely stunt the ripening process, rather than
support it.

TF: Becoming a full human being. Is that what you mean by “becoming ripe”?

JW: Yes, becom ing a genu ine hum an being through w orking honestly w ith
em otional, psychological, and relational issues that prevent us from being fully
present in our hum anness. To be a genuine person is to relate to ourselves and
others in an open and transparent w ay.

If there’s a large gap betw een our practice and our hum an sid e, w e rem ain
unripe. Our practice m ay ripen, but our life d oesn’t. And there’s a certain point
w hen that gap becom es very painful.
 11

TF: So you’re saying that spiritual bypassing not only corrupts our dharma practice, it
also blocks our personal ripening?

JW: Yes. One w ay it blocks ripening is through m aking spiritual teachings into
prescriptions about w hat you should d o, how you should think, how you should
speak, how you should feel. Then our spiritual practice becom es taken over by
w hat I call “the spiritual superego”— the voice that w hispers “shou ld s” in our
ear. This is a big obstacle to ripening, because it feed s our sense of d eficiency.

One Ind ian teacher, Sw am i Prajnanpad , w hose w ork I ad m ire, said that
“id ealism is an act of violence.” Trying to live up to an id eal instead of being
authentically w here you are can becom e a form of inner violence if it splits you in
tw o and pits one sid e against the other. When w e use sp iritual practice to “b e
good ” and to w ard off an und erlying sense of d eficiency or unw orthiness, then it
turns into a sort of crusad e.

TF: So dismissing how you feel can have dangerous consequences.

JW: Yes. And if the ethos of a spiritual organization lead s to d ism issing your
feelings or relational need s, this can lead to big com m unication problem s, to say
the very least. It’s also not a great setup for a m arriage if one or both partners is
d ism issive of em otional need s. So not surprisingly, Bud d hist organizations and
m arriages often turn out to be just as d ysfunctional interpersonally as
nonbud d hist ones. Marshall Rosenberg teaches that honestly and openly
expressing and listening to feelings and need s form s the basis for a nonviolent
resolution of interpersonal conflicts, an d I w ould agree w ith him .

From m y perspective as an existential psychologist, feeling is a form of

intelligence. It’s the bod y’s d irect, holistic, intuitive w ay of know ing and
 12

respond ing. It is highly attuned and intelligent. And it takes account of many
factors all at once, unlike our conceptual m ind , w hich can only process one thing
at a tim e. Unlike em otionality, w hich is a reactivity that is d irected outw ard ,
feeling often helps you contact d eep inner truths. Unfortunately, trad itional
Bud d hism d oesn’t m ake a clear d istinction betw een feeling and em otion, so they
tend to be lum ped together as som ething sam saric to overcom e.

TF: There’s a de-emphasis on taking feeling seriously on some level, Like not exploring
what goes on inside us when we become triggered by our partners, for example.

JW: Yes. The truth is, m ost of us d on't get as triggered anyw here in our lives as
m uch as in intim ate relationships. So if w e use spiritual bypassing to avoid
facing our relational w ound s, w e’re m issing out on a trem en d ous area of
practice. Relational practice helps u s d evelop com passion “in the trenches,”
w here our w ound s are m ost activated .

And beyond com passion w e also need to d evelop attunem ent: the ability to see
and feel w hat another person is going through — w hat w e could call “accurate
em pathy.” Attunem ent is essential for I-Thou connected ness, but it’s only
possible if w e can first of all be attuned to ourselves and track w hat w e are going
through.

TF: W hat kinds of tools or methods have you found effective for working with difficult
feelings and relational issues?

JW: I’ve d eveloped a process I call “uncond itional presence,” w hich involves
contacting, allow ing, opening to, and even surrend ering to w hatever w e’re
experiencing. This process grew out of my practice in Vajrayana and Dzogchen,
as w ell as m y psychological training. It presupposes that everything w e
 13

experience, even the worst sam saric things, has its ow n intelligence. If w e m eet
our experience fully and d irectly, w e can begin to uncover that intelligence and
d istinguish it from d istorted w ays in w hich it m anifests.

For exam ple, if w e go d eeply into the experience of ego inflation, w e m ay find a
m ore genuine im pulse at its core—that it’s a w ound ed w ay of trying to proclaim
our good ness, to rem ind ourselves and affirm that w e are basically good .
Sim ilarly, at the heart of all the d arkest hum an feelings and experiences there is a
seed of intelligence w hich, w hen revealed , can point in the d irection of freed om .

TF: Can you say more about your psychological method?

JW: I help people inqu ire d eeply into their felt experience and let it grad ually
reveal itself and unfold , step by step. I call this “tracking and unpacking”: You
track the process of present experiencing, follow ing it closely and seeing w here it
lead s. And you unpack the beliefs, id entities, and feelings that are subconscious
or im plicit in w hat you’re experiencing. When w e bring aw areness to our
experience in this w ay, it’s like unraveling a tangled ball of yarn: d ifferent knots
are grad ually revealed and untangled one by one.

As a result, w e find that w e’re able to be present in places w here w e’ve been
absent or d isconnected from our experience. Through reaching out to parts of
ourselves that need our help, w e d evelop an intim ate, ground ed kind of inner
attunem ent w ith ourselves, w hich can help u s m ore easily relate to others w here
they are stuck as w ell.

I’ve found that w hen people engage in both psychological and m ed itative
practice, the tw o can com plem ent each other in m utually beneficial, syn ergistic
w ays. Together they provid e a journey that includ es both healing and
 14

aw akening. Som etim es one w ay of w orking is m ore appropriate for d ealing w ith
a given situation in our lives, som etim es the other is.

I take som e encouragem ent in this approach from the w ord s of the 17th Gyalw ang
Karm apa, w ho has m ad e a point of saying that w e need to d raw on any teaching
or m ethod that can be of help to sentient beings, be it secular or religious,
bud d hist or nonbud d hist. H e even goes so far as to suggest that if you fail to
engage in m ethod s that are appropriate just because they d o not conform to
Bud d hist philosophy, you are actually being d erelict in your bod hisattva d uty.

TF So all of this is about compassion.

JW: Yes. The w ord “com -passion” literally m eans “feeling w ith.” You can’t have
com passion u nless you’re first w illing to feel w hat you feel. This op ens up a
certain raw ness and tend erness— w hat Trungpa Rinpoche spoke of as the “soft
spot,” w hich is the seed of bod hicitta.

TF: It’s vulnerable.

JW: Yes. That’s the sign that you’re getting close to bod hicitta. That raw ness is
also quite hum bling. Even if w e’ve been d oing spiritual practice for d ecad es, w e
still find these big, raw , m essy feelings com ing up --- m aybe a d eep reservoir of
sorrow or helplessness. But if w e can acknow led ge these feelings, and open
ourselves naked ly to them , w e’re m oving tow ard greater openness, in a w ay that
is ground ed in our hum anness. We ripen into a genuine person through learning
to m ake room for the full range of experiences w e go through.

TF: How do you know when you’re indulging or wallowing in feelings?

 15

JW: That question alw ays com es up. Wallow ing in feelings is being stuck in
fixation fed by going over and over stories in your m ind . Uncond itional
presence, on the other hand , is about opening naked ly to a feeling instead of
becom ing caught up in stories about the feeling .

TF: N ot creating a story around a feeling.

JW: For exam ple, if the feeling is sad ness, w allow ing m ight involve fixating on a
story like “poor m e,” rather than d irectly relating to the actual sad ness itself,
w hich m ay allow it to loosen up.

So d elving into feelings m ight sound like ind ulgence, but I w ould say that the
w illingness to m eet your experience naked ly is a form of fearlessness. Trungpa
Rinpoche taught that fearlessness is the w illingness to m eet and feel your fear.
We could expand that to say fearlessness is the w illingness to m eet, face, inclu d e,
m ake room for, w elcom e, allow , open to, surrend er to w hatever w e’re
experiencing. It’s actually quite brave to acknow led ge, feel, and open to your
need for healthy attachm ent and connected ness, for exam ple, especially if you’re
relationally w ound ed . Ind ulgence, on the other hand , m eans fixating on the need
and being run by it.

TF: That brings a certain freedom.

JW: Yes, the relative freed om of, “ I’m w illing to feel w hatever I’m feeling. I’m
w illing to experience w hatever I’m experiencing.” I som etim es call this “applied
presence”— applying the presence w e’ve d iscovered through m ed itat ion to our
felt experience.

TF: In our post-meditation practice.

 16

JW: Right. This helps to integrate the realization of em ptiness— as com plete
openness— into our life. With spiritual bypassing, em ptiness d oesn’t becom e
integrated w ith our feeling life. It can turn into a personal d ryness w here w e
can’t actually feel ourselves.

TF: W hat would help our sangha communities develop in more emotionally honest
ways?

JW: We need to w ork on relationships. Otherw ise our relational w ound s are all
going to be played out in the sangha unconsciously. We need to recognize that
everything w e react to in others is a m irror of som ething w e’re not facing or
acknow led ging in ourselves. These unconscious projections and reactions alw ays
becom e played out externally in groups.

For instance, if I’m not able to ow n m y ow n need s, then I w ill tend to d ism iss
others’ need s and see them as a threat because their need iness subconsciously
rem ind s m e of my ow n d enied need s. And I w ill ju d ge others and use som e kind
of “d harm a logic” to make them w rong or m ake m yself superior.

TF: So people need to be doing their personal work?

JW: In conjunction w ith their spiritual practice. Unfortunately, it’s not easy to
find psychotherapists w ho w ork w ith present experiencing in a body -based w ay,
rather than conceptually. Maybe w e need to d evelop som e sim ple w ays in
Western d harm a com m unities to help people w ork w ith their personal m aterial.

TF: How can we become more conscious in our sanghas?

 17

JW: We could start by recognizing the fact that spiritual com m unities are subject
to the sam e group d ynam ics that every group is. The hard truth is that spiritual
practice often d oes not heal d eep w ound ing in the area of love, or translate into
skilful com m unication or interpersonal attunem ent.

I see relationship as the lead ing ed ge of hum an evolution at this tim e in history.
Although hum anity d iscovered enlightenm ent thousand s of years ago, w e still
haven’t brought that illu m ination very fully into the area of interpersonal
relationships. Group d ynam ics are especially d ifficult becau se they inevitably
trigger people’s relational w ound s and reactivity. H onestly recognizing this
m ight help us w ork m ore skillfully w ith com m unication d ifficu lties in the
sangha.

TF: How can we work with that?

JW: Being aw are that w e inevitably project our unconsciou s m aterial on other
group m em bers w ould be a good start. We also need to learn how to speak w ith
each other personally and honestly, from our present experience instead of
parroting teachings about w hat w e think w e should be experiencing. And there
need s to be w hat Thich N hat H anh calls “d eep listening,” based on learning to
listen to our ow n experience. Listening is a sacred activity— a form of
surrend ering, receiving, letting in. We need to recognize this as part of our
spiritual w ork.

TF: Thich N hat Hahn said that to love is to listen.

JW: Yes. We also need to d evelop a trem end ous tolerance and appreciation for
d ifferent personal styles of em bod ying the d harm a. Otherw ise, if w e settle for a
 18

one-size-fits-all d harm a, w e are d oom ed to end less holier -than-thou com petition
and one-upm anship.

While w e all venerate the d harm a, w e w ill all have d ifferent w ays of em bod ying
and expressing it. As Sw am i Prajnanpad said , “Everything is d ifferent, nothing
is separate.” So vive la difference, it’s a beautiful thing. H onoring ind ivid ual
d ifferences w ould go a long w ay tow ard red ucing sangha in -fighting.

TF: One last question about attachment in relationships: A re you saying that to be truly
nonattached, one has to be attached first?

JW: In term s of hum an evolution, nonattachm ent is an ad vanced teaching. I’m

suggesting that w e need to be able to form satisfying hum an attachm ents before
genuine nonattachm ent is possible. Otherw ise, som eone suffering from insecure
attachm ent is likely to confuse nonattachm ent w ith avoid ant attachm ent
behavior. For avoid ant types, attachm ent is actually threatening and scary. So
healing for avoid ant types w ould involve becom ing w illing and able to feel their
need for hum an connected ness, instead of spiritually bypassing it. Once that
happens, then nonattachm ent starts to m ake m ore sense.

The late Dzogchen m aster Chagd ud Tulku m ad e a pow erful statem ent about the
relationship betw een attachm ent and nonattachm ent. H e said , “People often ask
m e d o Lam as have attachm ents? I d on’t know how other Lam as m ight answ er
this, but I m ust say yes. I recognize that m y stud ents, m y fam ily, m y country
have no inherent reality... [H ere he’s speaking absolute truth.} Yet, I rem ain
d eeply attached to them . [H ere he’s speaking relative truth.] I recognize that m y
attachm ent has no inherent reality. [absolute truth]. Yet I cannot d eny the
experience of it” [relative truth]. And he end s by saying, “Still, know ing the
 19

em pty nature of attachm ent, I know m y m otivation to benefit sentient beings

m ust supersed e it.”

I find this a beautiful articulation of nonattached attachm ent and the both/ and
approach. It joins absolute and relative truth w hile situating it all in the largest
possible context. Everything’s includ ed .

This is w hat is often m issing in d harm a com m unities: acknow led ging and
em bracing our hum anness alongsid e our asp iration to go beyond ourselves.
Bringing these tw o together can be trem end ously pow erful.