At the 2017 retreat, Phra Nut taught a method of contemplation aimed at uncovering the hidden benefits and beliefs that lay at the foundation of our charged responses to situations we find upsetting. Now, I have to admit that from the get-go that I modified LP’s technique a bit to fit my understanding and thinking style, so, in the interest of transparency, what  you are going to get here is  an Alana-fied version/explanation of all this.

From my understanding, the technique relies on the premise that in a situation where we feel angry/frightened/upset we are already suffering  and yet, despite this suffering, we continue right on doing/feeling/believing the things that cause us pain. The only logical conclusion to why we endure pain: On some level we think there is benefit that outweighs this pain and we have deep core beliefs that justify it.

This technique uncovers hidden beliefs, and benefits, that our mind subconsciously thinks are true/ we will be rewarded with. Once those hidden beliefs and benefits are pulled out of the shadows we have a chance to question them in the full, illuminating light (i.e. challenge our wrong views).  The technique invites a series of ‘what-if’/ ‘so what’ questions that have really helped me dig deeper and learn about some of the unspoken, deep and subtle beliefs that underlie my problems and views. It further involves the listing out of the pros/cons of my beliefs/behaviors and gives me the chance to see the cons that come with the ‘hidden benefit’ pros, and to challenge the truthfulness of those pros.

Below, I will share one of my own personal examples in which I used an Alana-adapted rendition of this technique at the retreat; it will be outlined in a 2 part blog, the first one to trace the ‘what if questions’ and the next a dissection of my pro/con list.  Admittedly, I don’t often find myself using the full-blown, method all that often these days, but elements of it, and the idea that sometimes I need to dig deeper to find my hidden assumptions, has been a powerful supercharge to my practice. In fact, the exercise I am about to share really helped me begin to see some of the deep -seeded beliefs that underlie even ‘simple’ problems and views.  So, without further ado…

Event/Situation: People honk their horns, at all hours. They do it when there is a traffic jam and there is no possible place the person in front of them could go. People even honk at the police officer who stands in the road directing traffic​

My Emotion: Anger        The degree of my emotion from 1-10: 10++++++++ ​

Diagram of my belief:  Click the link below to see a diagram that traces my beliefs. Thoughts are connected by arrows that represent the question: “If that is true, what does it mean for me?”

Click Here For Link to Exercise Diagram

When I went through the series of  ‘if that is true what does it mean for me questions,’ I found a road map to my deepest beliefs about what honking meant. What something so simple (a particular arrangement of rupa) signaled to me about the world and the fears it stoked based on my beliefs of the doom it portended. Of course, with those beliefs,  my anger and indignation at the honkers was necessary — because no matter how painful that anger was, it was an emotion that had real benefits: It separated me from the lawless riffraff of NY. It was a safeguard against becoming a complacent rule breaker myself — someone unworthy of love, someone with no hope of living in a safe, predictable and therefore controllable world.

In the next blogs we will explore a part 2 of this exercise — the pro/con list of my attachment to the view people should be considerate (not honking being just one form of consideration).