This weekend, he is doing a workshop, which began last evening and will continue with this, with the zazen that just preceded this and with this lecture and into the afternoon on meditation practice and nine defensive styles that are hindrances, how we can work with them in our meditation. So this talk is part of that, I believe. Thank you, and good morning. I'll recap a little bit since most of you weren't here last night and then bring up some material about the defense mechanisms that are sort of at the core of the workshop and this morning's talk as well. The focus of the exploration is how

[01:07]

what we could call what are from psychology we borrow the term defense mechanisms but in meditation what we might describe as movements or some might call them energies but they're sort of movements of our minds some quite subtle others more gross or active that move away from our meditation object or our path. In a sense, maybe it's all the path, but sometimes we, some stuff is more, seems to me at least, a distraction or an entanglement or a reaction. And in this workshop, we're using the defense mechanisms as one angle for exploring those those ways our minds distract themselves or go astray or space out and so on.

[02:16]

To recap briefly, the way I'll be using the word defense mechanism here is as the more subtle movement of our minds either away from our meditation objects such as the breathing, in whatever way we attend to the breathing in our practice, especially when the mind is quite calm and is becoming quiet and still, and sort of getting close to at least something very useful. And then the mind keeps, in most cases, slipping away, wandering, or reacting, which to me is a quite strange phenomena because that ability to focus our minds in a way that is quiet, no thinking, calm and still, peaceful, relaxed,

[03:27]

yet focused, very alert, very intimate. It's a wonderful thing. And yet, our minds will escape it over and over again. I think this is a rather fascinating aspect of our self-study or our practice. And I think the defense mechanisms as understood from the perspective of a neogram, offers something helpful. So that's that, you know, I like when our mind is sort of zooming in on our object, which for me will be at the tip of the nose, things are getting real quiet and calm, and then something something keeps getting in the way. And this is where I've personally been spending a lot of time practicing the last couple years trying to understand and sort of not quite counteract this reactivity but soften it and loosen it.

[04:48]

That's that's also what I'm trying to share with friends and other meditators who who share this interest. Last night the talk and discussion was more on some of the underlying stuff that I think the defense mechanisms arise out of. In saying this, I'm drawing more on Buddhist teachings than Enneagram or psychology. But to summarize, the way we live our lives, the habits of thought, the emotional patterns and reactions, that repeat themselves over and over again with a lot of variation, but also a lot of repetition, habit, obsession, fixation, over and over through a lifetime, these sort of build up what we might call karmic formations, which is a term used in some Buddhist contexts.

[06:08]

for what we could call ego patterns. These get sort of built up or stored up in the storehouse consciousness or the unconsciousness or who knows where. I don't think we have words for it. We don't really know where. But then we can see arising from this, and the initial arising out of these old patterns, these old habits of greed, hatred, and delusion, of fear, envy, pride, excitement, boredom, all these old habits and fairly complicated ego structures that support those habits, which Enneagram speaks of in terms of the nine personality types. They leave something behind, and out of that there's a movement, often quite subtle, which we notice when the mind is pretty quiet, pretty calm.

[07:20]

And that movement into consciousness, as far as I can tell, is the best place to notice and observe the defense mechanisms. Often, once they arise, they start reacting and then expand or explode into the patterns of thought and the emotional reactions. various ego states, identities, I'm this, I'm that. But originally there's just a movement which isn't quite thought or quite emotion, but it goes there pretty quick. I believe that if we can catch that opening movement, we get some real clarity about what our minds are doing a lot of the time.

[08:24]

And because I've gotten interested in the Enneagram, I use the perspective of the nine types to help myself and others identify the main flavor that that movement takes. From an Enneagram perspective, there are nine main movements, and each of us will have a favorite. that's the one that we've most established in our habit or karmic patterns. And I'll be explicating these nine flavors or styles of defensiveness in a few moments. Actually, the whole personality structure or type or what I like to call the ego structure, it's all defensive.

[09:29]

None of us like to suffer, and as little kids, we, like it or not, don't really know who's responsible. But somehow, we all got born into this world of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, and then the crazy world of human minds and once born into this world there was pain, there was tension, conflict in the family, hunger, loud noises and at some very early age the child, the little babies we all once were had to survive and I don't know of any proof of exactly what happened. There are, of course, theories. My own take is something in us led us to take one defensive kind of fall on one defensive strategy that was somehow what was most natural to each of us.

[10:45]

And having used that once, we use it again and again. And then starting very early in life, we build up this pattern. Now, whether that was influenced by past lives or genetics, I don't know. To me, that's all opinion, interesting opinion, but I can't verify any of it. But somehow this pattern got established. And out of that, it expands and builds up into a personality structure. Each of us have a unique personality but from the Enneagram perspective there's there's a structure that or there are nine basic structures and the theory is that everybody fits primarily into one of those structures though not all the time. There are some dynamic detail to that which

[11:47]

we won't be able to go into this morning. Now, in the whole larger defensive pattern of our habitual ways of thinking, our emotional reactions, our identities, our views about the world, which are all sort of limited. One of the most basic aspects that keeps that all going are the the nine defense mechanisms, which of course is a psychological term that has been applied to the Enneagram largely by American psychologists who are interested in this system. And that's what I'd like to go into now. I'm going to do this twice. I want to go through the nine defenses or defense mechanisms.

[12:50]

On one level will be the more gross reactive level. And what I'll say will fit, I think, hopefully fairly well with what psychologists are saying, and especially the better Enneagram teachers. But then I want to come back to them on a more subtle level, which, to my knowledge, is not in print. And it's a mix of my own experience, my own discussions with experienced meditators. For example, one of the best discussions I had on this was with Meili the last time I met her. This is what we talked about for, I don't know, two hours, something. It was quite fun, and that sort of helped jumpstart me into getting more serious about this way of looking at things.

[13:55]

And then I've been able to talk a lot about it with some others like Lori, Sanaki, and friends in other places. And so I'll try to come back to that more subtle level. And I hope that some of you can help enrich that or fill in the gaps, which will be more what we'll have more time for that in the afternoon. So first I'd like to go into the nine defenses as understood in the kind of standard Enneagram terms. You can see the roughly drawn Enneagram, the diagram of the Enneagram on the chart. And I've scribbled in the names of the corresponding defense mechanism for each type. The idea isn't that we have only one defense.

[14:59]

The neogram people believe that we've got all nine, but there's one that we use the most or overuse or fall back on the most. And that is the one that has a central role in our personality or ego structure. I'll start with the so-called gut types, which are at the top, partly because I fit in there and I have more familiarity, but also because the gut types are the more body-based and they have a very primitive, reactive style. It doesn't involve much thinking or much emotion. It's pretty crude. for those of us who live there. I suspect Mel does.

[16:06]

I won't speculate too much about the venerable abbot. Anyway, I'll start with the middle of the so-called gut types. which is number nine in the system, the mediator or the peacemaker. And the defense mechanism most strongly associated with nine is narcotization, which is a kind of going to sleep. So, of course we all do that in meditation, but gut types tend to do it more. Then in a bit we'll talk about the head types. They're often too busy thinking to go to sleep. But the gut types don't think so much, so we fall asleep more easily.

[17:08]

Narcotization. is, as a defense, it's kind of a self-numbing. It's an interior blurring. It goes with a whole personality style that disperses itself and has difficulty taking a stand. You can see all sides of an issue except one's own side of the issue. because of a tendency to merge and unite with others. It's a very lovable personality, except when you want it to take a stand. Like, honey, what would you like for dinner? Well, what do you want? Kind of thing. The defense is to to knock out because there's a Associated with each of the types is what is called the avoidance.

[18:14]

And what this type has the most trouble living with is conflict and disharmony. So it does whatever it can to avoid conflict and disharmony. And the strategy is to to numb out. So you don't feel the conflict. You don't feel the disharmony. And so you continually soften and blur. This can be done behaviorally with food, with TV, video games, and it'll come up to some extent in Dharma practice, where the practice, you just kind of get into a numbing sort of rhythm. with chanting or forms or even zazen. But again, the basic mechanism is to narcotize, to numb out on something, to avoid conflict and disharmony, whether within oneself, between oneself and others, or disharmony in the world around one.

[19:27]

Closely related to this are the defenses of, on either side, the eight, the so-called boss, the defense of which is denial. It kind of works similarly, that it's a way of not seeing what's going on. What denial will do is It comes with a personality that's all or nothing. When it's going to do something, it really summons up a lot of energy. This is a powerful type and it channels that energy into something and denial blocks out everything else. And this type of person literally runs into walls that they did not see. because they were aiming at something else and the wall doesn't matter until, you know, what hit me.

[20:32]

And that happens to them a lot in groups and so on. So it's a personality that summons up a lot of energy I'm not as clear how this works in meditation, but we'll try to look into that. But it'll try to really grab onto something, and then it just ignores or denies all kinds of little details that might be meaningful, but it considers it to be kind of stupid and a waste of time. That's mainly a way of denying vulnerability and weakness, which is what this type avoids. It has trouble accepting the frailty, the weakness, the vulnerability of human life. And so it doesn't want to notice that.

[21:36]

So it's very good at denying. On the other side is the type I inhabit much of the time, the one. And it's the defense's reaction formation, which is like the, like, well, it's not always obvious how narcotization is reactive, but the instinctual types tend to be reacting to things out there. In a way, we all do. and that operates as what we call self-forgetting. So in the V8, there's always something out there that stimulates and then your energy goes towards it and you're distracted from whatever you're doing. In my case, or the one case, the reactivity, this kind of reactivity is similar

[22:40]

Instead of denying or narcing out, it tightens up around. It's a more controlling approach. So it tends to get rigid and tighten up. In meditation, that'll show up in thought patterns of being judgmental and critical of, you know, being quite rigid in how one meditates, learning the technique and getting mechanical about the technique or rigid about the practice. So those are three forms that the defenses take. Next, I'll move up to the heart area. In a neogram, we see things as body or gut-based, heart-based, and head-based. the heart or emotional types or relational types.

[23:48]

These are types in which relationship is central. And the defenses of these types work a lot around relationship. So it's not quite as reactive in the same way that I just described with eights and ones. The central defense here is that of the threes, the sort of, blanking out, what are they usually called? The achievers, competitors, performers, thanks. The primary defense there is identification, which is primary, it's important in everyone. But in threes, it's very dominant. And the way it seems to work is that threes, and we all do this, but to identify with someone who gives love.

[24:59]

So you can guess who that was as when we were little kids. And then we expand on that pattern throughout our lives where there are people who have given us love or whose love we want, and our mind identifies with that person. And then the orientation, the inner orientation is to pleasing the one we're identified with, winning the love. of that person. I think this is fundamental to all human beings. But in this personality style, it's central, dominant, and somewhat obsessive. And then what they do with that identification, which makes them into the performer,

[26:01]

is they not only identify with the person that they want to achieve, the mind identifies with, it seeks out as it externalizes objects or things to accomplish, tasks. And so it becomes a life that's very much about performing. to achieve things that are believed or assumed, a lot of this is murky semi-conscious stuff, assumes that if I accomplish this, mom will love me, dad will love me, or my boss will love me, or whoever. But the underlying movement, which is more the defense part that I'm trying to focus on, it's a kind of movement outward to, in a tying, a kind of tying our mind, our heart to persons, and then things associated with those persons that we think will bring us love, the love we, especially as children, need.

[27:16]

but also that we get hungry for and can get a little weird about. The two types on either side of this have what could be seen as variations of identification. One version is the two, the helper style. The defense is repression. And the way it seems to work is, again, there's a kind of identification going on that creates a tie with others. And then the mind, the way that plays out is the mind is less focused on tasks, but a strong heart energy focused on what others want and need. And then to support that is the defense of repression, which primarily represses one's own needs and wants.

[28:27]

We all are familiar now with the term repression. I'm using it in a more limited sense than it's usually used, but primarily to repress. I can't keep focus on what you want and what you need unless I continually stop my own. And so that there's this habit of this deep habit of mine that keeps stuffing my own wants and needs. And then the whole personality mushrooms out of that where I get very good at flattering you. I get very good at giving you what you want. So you like me. and then there's a hope that you'll do the same for me but I repress what I need so I could never say to you what I need or that would be a big deal for me to trust you enough to actually say what I want from you.

[29:36]

The other variation on this is called introjection which is connected with the four style. Here the emotional tie and identification is more pulled inward. So it's like the reverse of identification going out. Once that happens, the identified objects are pulled in. So it's a personality that sort of identifies with special individuals that are a source of love and there's a connection of longing and that's kind of pulled in and nurtured in the heart. It's an emotional holding and nurturing. And so it's kind of like there are all these little people inside with introjection. and that has its consequences, one often, this style of personality often seems to be living in its own world.

[30:53]

It's a world, to some extent, peopled by special individuals that one loves or wants love from, but often the living with them is done in here. and not with the real person. It tends to be an idealized image of that loved one, because the real person's not nearly as wonderful as what you can idealize inside. And then some complicated stuff come from that, like If you have all these incredibly ideal, wonderful people living in your heart and then you compare yourself with them, you know, you don't quite feel good enough. So there's a whole shame issue that comes with this.

[31:55]

Lastly, there are the three head types. These are more mental, knowledge and information, thinking and planning types. The central defense or style in these is in the sixth corner. The defense is called projection, which is another term where we're all rather familiar with, with the popularization of psychology. In Neogram's specific terms, it's, I haven't been going through with the avoidances with all of these, but in, for the six, the avoidance is helplessness, powerlessness. And it's a personality that has a lot of fear and worry. So whenever there's something a kind of sense of helplessness or powerlessness begins to be felt.

[33:06]

Projection beams it out there and projects it onto something outside. And so that then can be an object of fear, which is not as troubling as feeling it directly in oneself. So projection will It creates a scary world. This type lives in a world that there's danger and risk and insecurity everywhere, which America is creating for itself nowadays. But that's somehow comforting. I don't quite get this personally. My mom and my brother and some of my best friends are like this. I'm still trying to figure them out. But somehow they find comfort in having it all out there.

[34:09]

I kind of understand because I do the same. My avoidance as a one is error. I don't want to make any mistakes. If I mess up, nobody will love me. That's really too much to find error in myself. So I project error out there. So you're wrong. Not not me. So projection is another defense that's important in all of us. We all do it in certain ways according to our kind of projection works with an identification that work with our home defense. But if you're a six, you've kind of got a double whammy of projection, just like threes have a heavy dose of identification, and nines have a heavy dose of distractibility and self-forgetting.

[35:14]

Two last types which are in a way spin-offs of projection or related to it are five and seven. The defense of sevens is called rationalization. And the more busy aspect of that involves thinking and planning. In order to avoid pain, limitation, and boredom, or anything unpleasant, this defense will kind of spin out into happy places. And it uses a very clever, upbeat mental energy to plan better things, happier times. Nicer places. This place is getting old. That's okay. Boom. Go off and daydream or fantasize of another one.

[36:18]

We all do that, of course, when we're, you know, with our breath and it gets boring. We can fantasize about something more interesting, but some of us are doing that maybe 80% of the time. in some form. Of course, there's never just one happy plan. There's usually a long list of them. You've got to keep the ideas to have your options open. But that has more subtle layers where it's a busy, kind of upbeat, although at times it'll drop into a depression. There'll kind of be a swing back to another extreme. But generally it's an upbeat, pleasure, positive, seeking mental energy. It can be a lot in plans and a lot of imagination.

[37:22]

whereas the six is also very active thought and imagination, but it tends to go to what's going to go wrong or what's dangerous, you know, how my wife is almost certainly planning to divorce me. And so I better get ready for when the whammy hits. Five is another mental stance and kind of like before the introjection. It's one that pulls inward or away from in meditation it it pulls away from its object in in various subtle to not so subtle ways and the defense is called detachment and where instead of allowing itself to get intimate or to fully experience something, there's a pulling back.

[38:26]

And this fits a personality style that's into observing, finding a place where you can watch what's going on, not really participate, but watch, take in information, sift it, analyze it, The belief, the often unrecognized belief that if I have enough information, I can deal with this bizarre world out there and it won't get me. And so there's a habitual pulling back from experience, which shows up in meditation. Okay, so that's a quick run through nine styles, and it looks like there's not enough time to visit all of these again in terms of meditation.

[39:30]

But since many of you won't be back in the afternoon, I'd like to give a couple examples of how this works in meditation, and hopefully you can... extrapolate from there. Maybe I'll follow through with fives because I have a good friend who's actually a few friends who I've been able to discuss this with quite a bit. And excuse me for using my hands, but that's kind of helps me to understand this in some weird body based way. But if you can imagine The kind of, well, I'll come to my own type in a bit. So that influences how I present this because I'm used to this kind of stiff rigidity. But I see that when things are going well, the mind is kind of softening, relaxing and getting intimate with whatever we're paying attention to, practicing mindfulness with or

[40:46]

or focusing on, including the breathing. But even after a lot of the thinking and the kind of emotional stuff subsides, and there's pretty good concentration or samadhi, the mind is fairly quiet, relaxed. And yet, instead of just going all the way, and being fully alive to intimate with, focused on whatever our meditation object is, this mind will keep holding back. I think that's just out of the years of habit of a way of living that habitually holds back. And then when one's in meditation, even even with something that's blissful, peaceful and which we have a lot of Buddhist teachings and theories to sort of say, this is good or this is even necessary.

[42:02]

The path involves developing the right kind of Samadhi and yet it's highly reluctant to go all the way. That will happen with all nine. The way the reluctance plays out varies. But this one, it just keeps pulling back. That's how detachment works. It's not pulling back to actively think. That's a much more cruder level, just a subtle movement back. If one finds this happening in one's meditation, what seems to be the way to work with it, one, you can't force it in there because we're dealing on a much more subtle level. You can't just use willpower. But as one becomes aware of the pulling back, there's

[43:12]

Well, and that's kind of related to underlying fear. I kind of want to let Lori talk about this because she knows it better than I do, but it's kind of my job, so I'll do it. But if you want to hear more, talk to her. I use the word softening because that fits my one experience. But there seems to be a kind of, well maybe love is a good word. Allowing sort of that resource within, the pulling back sort of cuts that off. Allowing a kind of love sort of energy, an intimate energy to allow the connection with the object and then allow the natural intimacy to take place.

[44:25]

What's interesting about that, it brings a little more life and juice and richness into the experience because this type, meditation tends to be pretty dry because There's a whole personality behind that that's into information. So allowing kind of the life to come into it, a kind of loving quality. Trust is in there too, but that's even more the case with six. So that's one example. In the afternoon, maybe we can go into this in more detail. My own, which I can probably speak about most clearly, is even when my mind stops thinking, even when there's no overt reaction, reactivity, mine will do two things.

[45:27]

It'll do the one thing, reaction formation, or it does the nine, it narcotizes. I'm good at both. But the primary one, the most strong habit is reaction formation. So even when things are calm, relaxed and I feel good, there's a tightness. There's just a habit of tight rigidity and And it's almost physical, I just kind of keep, every time I start relaxing, there's something like, it's a habit, it just kind of pulls it, unless I'm very mindful, it just pulls back into this tightness and rigidity, even when it's pretty relaxed. And so for me, what I work on is just relaxing, softening, loosening, and to some extent, enjoying.

[46:28]

Because the one style is one that denies itself pleasure. You know, pleasure is bad. It gets you into trouble, so you don't want to do that. So the softening, the relaxing, and even enjoying. So those are two examples, and I see signals from... I forget the proper term. The Doan. So I believe I should conclude here. And I hope those of you who are only here for the morning can get something out of that that makes sense.

[47:15]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ