Sometimes conditioning’s games can almost be funny. Like when Lucy convinces Charlie Brown over and over again that this time she’ll hold the football in place and allow him to kick it, only to move it away each and every time, always at the worst possible moment, leaving Charlie once again, literally and metaphorically, flat on his back.
Other times there is nothing funny about it whatsoever. The beatings administered by conditioning can be intense. At least mine can be. Like a surgeon or an archer or professional boxer- conditioning knows precisely those places where I am most vulnerable and strikes with ruthless efficiency.
Conditioning is also a master thespian and a salesman par excellence. Its voice, by turns trustworthy, seductive or punitive, seems above reproach and never raises suspicion. Why would it? After all, it’s my very own, right?
Conditioning’s conditioning is also something at which to marvel. Resourceful and patient, conditioning’s stamina makes Ironman competitors look like pushovers. Conditioning never rests, never tires and is never satisfied. It has one job- to inflict suffering and it executes this mission with the relentlessness of a Terminator.
But the real genius of conditioning is the way it crafts its double-binded, damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t scenarios. One must stand in awe of conditioning in this regard. The way it can strong-arm, frighten or sweet-talk me into making a decision and then pounce on me instantly for making it is simply astonishing.
Conditioning, the quintessential silver tongued devil, knows every trick in the book. It knows me better than I even know myself. It is privy to every nook and cranny of my mind and every nuance of my thoughts. Like it was given my playbook the night before the big game, conditioning sees my defensive maneuvers the instant they are deployed and side steps them with the deftness of ninja.
For as long as I play the game, resistance truly is futile.
I tangled with conditioning today and it was another rout. A slaughter house really. “Man, look what you did. AGAIN! This time you've really done it. Man, you are screwed. Screwed! You’re going to end up living in a box and dying all alone, but only after first suffering for many years, of course. You will never learn will you man? NEVER! How many times are you going to make these same stupid choices? I’ll tell you how long- forever. Got that? FOR-EVER! ALONE, SUFFERING AND IN A BOX! GOT IT?!”
That’s pretty rough huh?
But you know, I had an interesting thought this evening. I asked myself, “What if none of this stuff were true?” I mean, what if, on the deepest, most fundamental level, all of conditioning’s clamoring was really just nonsense? What if, despite its self-proclaimed wisdom and credibility and its strident insistence that it is only "looking out for my/our best interest", conditioning were really nothing more than a strand of aberrant neuronal code, like some sort of virus, that had learned to replicate itself and then became stuck in the “on” position. I mean, viruses cause all sorts of suffering of course, but no one could really call them ‘evil’ could they? They are just playing their part, doing what they do. What if my conditioning is like that? What if all of conditioning’s output was just rubbish, not evil but also utterly useless? What if for all of these years I had been making decisions based on “information” (and I use that term loosely) that was completely and thoroughly lacking in any truthfulness or utility? And what if I just decided to categorically ignore its output? What if I learned to send its advice, warnings, opinions, predictions, preferences and prejudices straight to the Recycle Bin? What if, to borrow from Joshua the supercomputer from “Wargames”, “the only winning move is not to play”?
And so as I type this, a thought comes up- “Well then how would you get by? Who would tell you when you need to brush your teeth? How will you make decisions? How will you work, communicate, eat, sleep, shit, shower or shave? You need me buddy boy!”
Really? Is this true? I don’t know, it seems to make sense and yet it sounds awfully familiar. It sounds like just what someone who was profiting from keeping me in the dark would say- “Hey, I’m just looking out for YOU.” My reply to this is “No, actually you are looking out YOU, trying to keep yourself in the driver’s seat.”
So how will I make decisions? I don’t know for sure. But I am thinking that it is time to just dwell in the heart and let it have a chance for awhile. Conditioning has been in charge for long enough and frankly, it’s time for a new administration. It may turn out that the heart doesn’t know what it’s doing either but that is a chance I’m willing to take.
I’m not naïve enough to think that conditioning is going to go quietly into the night. I expect that it will sound the alarms and pull out all of the stops. But there really is no other choice to make is there? Letting go of the attachment to my own conditioning (which of course is not “mine” at all but the shared conditioning of not just my family but of humanity in general) is the work of a lifetime. It’s why I’m here. So I will just keeping going and get my head up above water for longer and longer periods of time until the glimpses of the territory above the water, the Land of the Truth, become more and more familiar.
And one day, as I find myself once again running up to kick the ball, I’ll see the process for what it is. I’ll draw my leg back to take a mighty swing before, at the last second, bringing my foot back down to rest upon the Earth. And then I’ll lean over and kiss my teacher Lucy gently on the forehead, pick up my ball and go home.
Gassho
