Dear Reader, today’s blog is a direct continuation of last week’s, LP Nut’s Alana-fied Technique to Uncover Hidden Benefits and Beliefs Part 1, so please do read that one before continuing on here.

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In the last blog, we began an exploration of an Alana-fied version of a technique LP Nut taught at the 2017 retreat to uncover hidden benefits and beliefs. The premise behind the technique is a simple one — if we do stuff that we know hurts us, there must be a reason why we do it since no one likes being in pain. By bringing the ‘why’  — i.e. hidden benefits and beliefs — to light we can begin challenging their logic and alignment with correct view.

In last week’s example we used a series of ‘what-if’ questions to uncover some of the hidden beliefs that under gird my extreme anger at people who honk their horns. Here we will continue the exercise by taking a slightly broader concept — the benefit to my view that people should be considerate (not honking is just one form of consideration) — and digging into the pros and cons of holding that standard/view.

Exploring the Pros and Cons of  my Belief: Everyone Should be Considerate/Follow Social Standards* 

Pro 1: If people follow rules/standards then I feel the world is predictable and I am in control

Challenge 1: Am I really in control? I have a standard that people shouldn’t honk and the streets of NY are blaring anyway. Does my rule actually allow me  to be or prove my control? 

Con 1: I am miserable when people honk. I am angry and disappointed whenever I think rules/standards have been broken.

Pro 2: I can follow rules/standards and by doing so I can prove that I am a good person and that people will love and accept me for it

Challenge 2: What about all the times I can’t even follow my own rules? Eric is supposed to clean-up after himself, but don’t I sometimes leave dishes in the sink? And do people love me for upholding these standards? My stepmom used to complain all the time of how difficult I was as a vegetarian, she certainly didn’t love me more for the standards I upheld.

Con 2: This gives me a false sense of superiority and safety. 

Pro 3: I can define my vision for a ‘bubble world’ — my ideal setting that is harmonious and rule abiding. 

Challenge 3: My bubble world is a a fiction that does not exist in reality. In reality, people break rules and undermine my standards all the time. 

Con 3: I feel enraged when my imaginary bubble world is threatened, in New York I have fantasies of punching, or shooting or killing the honkers. In this life, the harm to others is in my head. But can’t I envision the risks of clinging to the idea of ‘bubble world’  in another life/circumstance?  It is possible I would kill for it or go to war for it? Then I would reap the karmic consequences on such actions, all because I am a person who holds so firmly to a belief the world should be according to my standards.

Pro 4: These standards, when they are followed, nurture my hope that with time or effort I can ultimately  find a perfect world that is worth living in.

Con 4: Over and over I am reborn because of the false hope that my perfect bubble world exists. Each time my standards are met, I save that example in my memory of prof that birth, this world is worth it. That I will ultimately be able to game the system and have a rule abiding/ standard following universe where I can abide in comfort. And until that time, because my standards are so rigid and high, my conditions so numerous, that I rarely find a place that I am comfortable being in.

* Something I really love about this technique is its round-about way of getting to hidden wrong views. Typically, I would ‘challenge’ the permanence of a view like’everyone should follow my standards’ upfront. But instead of doing that, the hidden benefit approach lets such wrong views stand for a little while so that we can get at the deeper wrong views that underlie this one and start exposing those to scrutiny.