A new understanding of how humans work, part 3

Eating humble pie, and then some.

“What a preposterous claim! It can’t be that simple!”

That was my reaction when I first read about the Three Principles that Sydney uncovered and how impactful they were. Surely, the facts can’t be that simple let alone be so impactful. I threw the book away.

It wasn’t just that it could be so simple, it was also that it came from a most unlikely person. What could a man, a welder by trade, with only a basic high school education and no interest in philosophy, spirituality and the natural sciences know anything about the nature of the mind and the way things are? 

Even Sydney, by his own admission, could not work out why such a spontaneous and transformative epiphany happened to him. And yet, his clear articulation of what he realised about the principles of how human psychology worked were, for me, profoundly practical. It turned my notions of how humans function and the nature of psychology and spirituality on its head.

Surely the greatest teachers and the finest institutions I’d studied and worked with were more qualified to make such claims about the nature of who we are and how our experiences are created, than someone like Syd!

How wrong I was.

I am now gladly and gratefully eating big portions of humble pie along with the crumbs every day. My life, health, relationships and work have transformed immensely due to this simple and profoundly practical understanding that Sydney uncovered and generously shared.

I shall now share my personal life and internal struggles to put this into context. I hope that makes it more relatable and inspires you to see what I have found helpful about health, healing and transformation.

Tossed around in a sea of confusion and suffering

This was the type of boat and the conditions me, my family other Vietnamese people faced, circa 1979.

During the ensuing years since first reading about the Principles, I was in the midst of a health and identity crisis. I have written about that elsewhere in my blogs. Here, I shall briefly share my background.

I was born in Vietnam and contracted polio as a baby. My parents escaped with my 4 year old brother and 6 year old self and many other refugees crammed like sardines onto a small fishing boat. I witnessed deaths of babies and adults. I experienced starvation, dehydration and immense storms. We were held at gunpoint by sea pirates. After 100 days we landed and ended up in a refugee camp in Thailand. Eventually, we were granted asylum in the UK.

My father had suffered life long depression and frequent bouts of violent anger that he took out on my mum, brothers and me. My mother left him several times and took us with her. Along with my brothers and mother, I spent most of my early years in one women’s shelter or another.

Later in my life, I developed recurrent bouts of intractably painful arthritis in my knees and ankles for over a decade. I had a wealth of knowledge and access to the best healers and medicines, remedies and spiritual practices and had tried everything but to little avail. The attacks kept recurring every few months, taking me off my feet for several weeks at a time.

My mother is a lifelong Buddhist and when I was 11 years old, due to a nice experience, I was drawn to Buddhism. In my mid-20’s I was appointed a teacher of Buddhism and meditation and later a resident teacher. I studied Buddha’s teachings about the mind, how to become peaceful and the path of wisdom and compassion and completed many short and longer meditation retreats.

And yet, I was struggling to overcome lifelong bouts of depression. I was overeating and was overweight. I was, in my estimation, in poor health, full of anxiety and crippling discouragement that often lasted for months. And when they abated, there remained a pervasive underlying low mood. My family,  teachers, friends and spiritual community gave me tremendous support. However, aside from a few moments of reprieve, it all seemed to have little long term impact on my underlying mental and physical health. I intuited the problem was in me, but didn’t have clarity about what exactly that was.

Many years ago, due to ongoing health issues, and a very painful relationship break up, I resigned as a meditation teacher so that I could get my house in order. At one point, I was on the verge of quitting my career as a physician/healer because I felt like an impostor. Since I could not heal myself, I had become increasingly insecure about my ability to really help anyone truly heal. I was tough on myself and had kept this sense of deep shame locked away until now.

Unknowingly, I had held a belief that I was beyond help. That, due to my abnormal start in life and extreme extenuating circumstances, I was somehow broken and damaged. I believed that there was somewhere a mould for being whole and well and that I didn’t fit. I worked hard, did my best to be a good person and to be of service. Yet, all that effort over several decades trying to keep the wolves from the door was wearing me down. I began to entertain the fact that lasting peace, let alone enlightenment, was not for me in this lifetime until now.

A new possibility

“No Mud, No Lotus” - Thich Nhat Hanh

A year before the pandemic, I was engaged in a 3 month annual Winter retreat at a Buddhist temple in upstate New York. One night, early into that retreat, whilst I was not meditating and about to fall asleep, I had a memorable experience. It began as a ball of light in my heart and feeling of peace which quickly expanded accompanied by an overwhelming feeling of expanse which shook me out of my slumber. The whole event lasted probably less than 10 seconds. Now, I don’t know exactly what happened, but for the rest of that retreat I felt the most at ease I’d ever experienced in my entire life. I didn’t do much, just felt at ease.

It was not an experience of enlightenment by any stretch of the imagination but it was definitely an insight into a new possibility. How do I know? I still get angry, stressed, experience moments of anxiety, can’t hold my concentration for more than a few minutes whilst meditating - sometimes falling asleep during sessions. What is different is that these moments don’t last long, I’m easier on and myself, more caring and in better health in body and mind.

Later, I learned that experience was actually more commonplace than I knew. Many people have similar experiences from all kinds of backgrounds and in all kinds of conditions. There was renewed hope of the possibility of moving with ease through life. Along with that was a burning curiosity to discover to what extent that could be a reality. I wanted to understand the underlying mechanism and significance of such experiences so that I could repeat it. I also wanted to find a way that was simple, relatable to share with my family, friends, clients and students who had no interest or deep understanding of Buddhism or a meditation practice.

Deepening of love and understanding

Shortly after, I rediscovered the Three Principles and became immersed in the understanding that Sydney Banks saw and shared. I enlisted the help of coaches and mentors who embodied that understanding to facilitate and share with me.  This was initially to be found in the field of success, productivity and life coaching which didn’t fully resonate with me. There was little mention of the applications of that understanding in the field of health and healing which was more my thing. I now realise that being internally whole and well does not contradict being outwardly successful and productive in the conventional sense.

Eventually, via an online coaching programme by Jamie Smart, I heard about a friend and colleague of his, Ian Watson. Ian was a homeopath who had been deeply touched by the Principles understanding and was now sharing them to great impact with health care practitioners. Through Ian I came to hear about his friend and colleague, Rachel Singleton, and their applications of that understanding in the field of health and in supporting practitioners and healers. This resonated a lot with me. This immersion along with the support of mentors and educators has helped me to have a better appreciation and deepening in this understanding.

One insight that had the biggest impact was that I was not inherently broken and didn’t need fixing. Through my studies of Buddhism, I had an intellectual understanding but that had little impact on my day to day lived experience. I knew that I needed to realise the teachings, but the normal practices did not seem to help much. I didn’t ‘get it’ enough to dislodge the misunderstanding that I was inherently broken until now.

Since then my overall mental state, physical health and spiritual outlook have improved considerably. It’s been over a year since I had my last arthritic attack - the longest period of time that I have been pain free in over a decade. My approach to meditation and spirituality has shifted from the intellect to the heart. I now have a more healthy and helpful relationship with the teachings of Buddha, connecting to their essence, beyond my own ideas, projections and opinions about them. I am also a better facilitator to my patients, clients and those whom I mentor and teach.

I now see with greater clarity that this basic and innocent misunderstanding of who we are and where our experiences come from applies to everyone I have come across. When we wake up from that misunderstanding, through our own insights, everything changes. Words alone do not heal or transform, only what we see and feel for ourselves has that power. And that can happen at any time, anywhere, for anyone. In practice, there are certain conditions that are more conducive to those transformative insights. 

So now my focus is not on teaching, treating or fixing anyone. It is primarily on creating the conditions that catalyse my clients’ insights and supporting them through the alchemical process of becoming whole and well.

The main condition for restoration of your own health, healing and thriving, as well as facilitating that in others, is a thorough grounding in a new understanding of how humans work. 

In future articles I shall share what I have seen to be most helpful, practical and effective for leveraging transformative insights in yourself and others.