Success as Trap?

  There is a danger that too much "doing" can lead to a kind of enervating process of being swallowed up into a routine or  schedule. Even the most creative endeavors in life can lead to an unreflective reproduction or rehashing of routines, as when an artist ends up falling into a style or genre that they've shaped and created for many years. Many people, I would imagine, may become jaded through overwork, being sucked into the karma of their own success. Although they might continue in the same way, their success actually becomes a trap for them.

    I find that people are, in retrospect, often at their most creative when they are either in a transition period (sometimes known as a "liminal space") or are somehow unlatched from a reputation they might have previously cultivated yet became a social addiction for them. I think that success can have a way of consuming a person or fixating them into an identity that "works" but does not allow for any further exploration. There is also a tendency to equate success with completion--and one becomes a victim of it because they no longer are able to see anything outside of it. As people get older, they have difficulties imagining how to repeat their previous "successes" or peaks, and might even begin to feel that the remainder of their life is either meant to preserve their previous glory or to just sustain the status quo.

     I wonder if there are certain points where the replication of a past success, or the resurrection of a successful identity, might end up becoming a millstone around one's neck. Particularly for musicians who are reviving a career, this can actually become a matter of trying to replicate an old style. Could this sometimes be an impediment that blocks further exploration or growth? This, I think, is where it might be important to step back a bit and cultivate a beginner's mind.

The Unconditioned

 Recently, I had the insight that language moves me a lot. Being a reader, I put great store on language and its power to sway or influence the mind, particularly on a rhetorical level. But I want to propose that each time a word arises in the mind, there is a subtle opposition that arises. For instance, if I am told to do something or encouraged to behave in a certain way, I follow the line of that thought, or conversely, resist that line of thought. An opposition or a kind of duality is created within the mind around this; I tell myself that I should go one way or the other. Conversely, I tell myself how inadequate I am to live up to the expectations of the statement itself. In this way, I create a sense of frustration within myself.

  Now what if it were the case that there is something within the mind that is not conditioned by thoughts at all? If this were the case, language would in no way cause the unconditioned to happen, or even reveal the unconditioned, since language relies on a duality of "this" or "that", "not this" or "not that". Such an unconditioned mind could not be found by adding more words or exhortations, or even censoring certain thoughts or behaviors. Instead, the unconditioned is the already existing, already "thus". The only problem is that we are using language to obscure that unconditioned state.

   But the trick is that, because language is merely conditioned, no amount of words can obstruct the unconditioned. To say that words obstruct the unconditioned is like saying that clouds block the sky. The sky itself is the very condition upon which clouds can even be said to exist. 

   The way to reveal the unconditioned is not through seeking something. Whatever we seek is likely going to be something that is conditioned, like a thought or an object in the mind. So how do we find the unconditioned? Not even 'letting go' will reveal it, since the exhortation to "let go" is also something that adds a condition to a mental experience. So what I am aiming at is that we may only have the confidence that whatever arises in the mind is not obstructing the unconditioned and does not even, in any way, relate to the unconditioned. If one thinks this way, their tranquil mind will naturally surface, and all the thoughts will be seen as harmonious. One is no longer using thoughts to get to something that has no conditions to it. One can then really and truly see thoughts as simply the clouds in an empty dream, and can use language skillfully without getting trapped in it. One, under this approach, already can relax. 

   But this is not an easy feat, because the habit of thinking in terms of conditions is so deeply engrained that we will probably end up making the same mistake again and again until we become fed up with it and drop attaching to words altogether.