Struggling to harbor morality, love and kindness in a defiled world.
Dr. Lawrence Jacoby: Bobby, were you very sad when Laura died?
Bobby Briggs: Laura wanted to die.
Dr. Lawrence Jacoby: How do you know that?
Bobby Briggs: Because she told me.
Dr. Lawrence Jacoby: What else did she tell you? Did she tell you that there was no goodness in the world?
Bobby Briggs: She said that people tried to be good. But they were really sick and rotten on the inside. Her, most of all. And every time she tried to make the world a better place, something terrible came up inside her and pulled her back down into hell, took her deeper and deeper into the blackest nightmare. Each time it got harder to go back up to the light.
Dr. Lawrence Jacoby: Did you sometimes get the feeling that Laura was harboring some awful and terrible secret?
Bobby Briggs: Yeah.
Dr. Lawrence Jacoby: A secret bad enough that she wanted to die because of it? Bad enough that it drove her to consciously find people's weaknesses and prey on them, tempt them, break them down? Make them do terrible, degrading things? Laura wanted to corrupt people because that's how she felt about herself.
-- Twin Peaks, Season 1, Episode 6: Cooper's Dreams
Let's talk about how people are, according to the Buddha:
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Virtually all people are profoundly, thoroughly defiled by desire, aversion, and ignorance.
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Due to said ignorance, the vast majority aren't even aware of their defilements.
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Virtually everything defiled people do is a direct result of their defilements.
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Most people fabricate a tapestry of lies and self-deceit to convince themselves that their actions are driven by noble motives rather than their base defilements.
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That tapestry of deceit is in fact a direct product of the defilements, an advanced defense framework that they employ.
This is all completely consistent with Buddhist teachings. The "tapestry of deceit" is the core of the self. Robert Wright in his latest book presents compelling evidence that the self is primarily a machine to justify our defilement-driven existence to others in order to secure and improve our status among them. Of course, the best deceit is the one you believe yourself, so we evolved to believe in this fabrication, this self that we generated.
Thus by design, most people cannot see through their own self-fabrication. Specifically, they believe the excuses their self defense framework concocts to justify their greedy and hateful actions, i.e. believe their behavior is skillful when it seldom is.
David Lynch, the creator of Twin Peaks, is an adept meditator and a fairly wise man. You can see it in his work, much of which is a study of delusion.
This character he created, Laura Palmer, represents a specific type of person who has gained enough Insight to see the facts listed above.
Laura can no longer deceive herself. She can clearly see her own, as well as others' defilements. In fact, she is most keenly aware of her own defilements:
She said [people are] really sick and rotten on the inside. Her, most of all.
In fact, by digging deep into her psyche and uncovering the demons of her defilements, she has also freed them. In Freudian terms, she had to break through her own "tapestry of deceit" (the "self" aka "ego" - a framework of unconscious defense mechanisms) to come into direct contact with, gain direct knowledge of her own defilements. But those defense mechanisms she blasted through - they were the seals that kept the demons largely contained (repressed). Thereafter, she had unparalleled access to, and was likewise reciprocally influenced by, her deepest, darkest depths:
And every time she tried to make the world a better place, something terrible came up inside her and pulled her back down into hell, took her deeper and deeper into the blackest nightmare. Each time it got harder to go back up to the light.
You can see this behavior in people whose high level of mindfulness makes them prey to greed, addiction, aversion etc even more than less mindful. For example, this explains how Chögyam Trungpa literally drunk himself to death. It's especially bad because this mindful drilling at the root of the self-construct dissolves and unravels the self, so self-preservation is no longer a compelling deterrent to self-destructive behavior.
This is an instance of Dark Night of the Soul (Dukkha Ñana).
That's why Laura wants to die, doesn't really care to live, and loses all sense of caution or self preservation.
Compare in Nietzsche:
Zarathustra’s eye had perceived that a certain youth avoided him. And as he walked alone one evening over the hills surrounding the town called “The Pied Cow,” behold, there found he the youth sitting leaning against a tree, and gazing with wearied look into the valley. Zarathustra thereupon laid hold of the tree beside which the youth sat, and spake thus:
“If I wished to shake this tree with my hands, I should not be able to do so.
But the wind, which we see not, troubleth and bendeth it as it listeth. We are sorest bent and troubled by invisible hands.”
Thereupon the youth arose disconcerted, and said: “I hear Zarathustra, and just now was I thinking of him!” Zarathustra answered:
“Why art thou frightened on that account?—But it is the same with man as with the tree.
The more he seeketh to rise into the height and light, the more vigorously do his roots struggle earthward, downward, into the dark and deep—into the evil.”
“Yea, into the evil!” cried the youth. “How is it possible that thou hast discovered my soul?”
Nietzsche was also wise enough to perceive the risk that lies waiting for a person like Laura, which became her ultimate fate:
But it is not the danger of the noble man to turn a good man, but lest he should become a blusterer, a scoffer, or a destroyer.
Nietzsche explains that the noble (ariya) person who weakened the fetter of the delusion of self cannot go back to being a deluded excuse-making machine ("a good man"), but his danger is to "become a blusterer, a scoffer, or a destroyer":
it drove her to consciously find people's weaknesses and prey on them, tempt them, break them down... Make them do terrible, degrading things... Laura wanted to corrupt people because that's how she felt about herself.
Laura is fact stuck at a particular phase of spiritual development. Her insight exposed to her, in painful clarity, all the defilements afflicting herself and others. However, this is the extent of her wisdom in the phase she is stuck at.
The result is enormous suffering, Dukkha Ñana. Her unsealed defilements are bubbling up from the depths, but she has no defense against them. She can see much of the disease, but none of the cure. She tries to escape to sensual oblivion - drink, drugs, sex - but she is far past the point of delusion that they are satisfactory, so they offer no relief.
In her distress, she projects her suffering onto others, using her beauty and wisdom to inflame and expose the defilements of those around her. She takes pleasure in demonstrating how those around her are slaves of their lust. This provides a sliver of relief - it assures her that she is not alone in her defilement, and others are just as bad if not worse than her. She also perceives - correctly - that making others painfully aware of their defilements will force them to make some spiritual progress. In fact she acts as a teacher, forcing those around her to confront the vast, submerged extent of their defilement. On the grander scheme, she is tearing the mask of hypocrisy off the face of Twin Peaks society as a whole.
However, she is also painfully aware that her actions are not for the most part motivated by a sincere wish to benefit anyone, but by her own defiled, unskillful state - specifically, her resentment for her own suffering, aka her aversion.
This ultimately manifests in annihilationism - her belief that her death will bring a final end to suffering, which is why she knowingly flings herself to it. Ironically, Lynch will show us that death is not the end for her.
To leave poor Laura alone for a bit - there are people like her, throughout history and also here and now.
People who enjoy tearing the mask of hypocrisy of others' faces, perhaps a bit too much.
I experienced some of this personally.
You tend to see the worst in people, and the world generally. You tend to see the world as an immoral place. Which, objectively, it generally is. However, seeing it as such without any wish or attempt to improve it is a form of aversion.
You have no compassion for people because you are keenly aware that they are defiled. Clearly seeing how everyone is defiled, makes you feel worse because the blissful veil of ignorance is pulled back. It's much nicer to live in a fairyland where everyone is a good and nice person, and goodness always prevails. This is a illusion our society works hard to instill.
In theory as a mindful person you should also be in touch with your Buddha Nature, which could inspire you to be loving and kind. However, that doesn't happen to people in Laura's state. Generally, the influence of loving-kindess is diminished. Sometimes it seems entirely absent. Other times, it tends to flicker with intense pulses that often manifest as a flood of guilt. I've seen that with people I encountered. They are cynical and mocking but then once in a long while they awake to a flood of condensed, defiled (poisoned) compassion - it is heavily oriented towards remorse and making them feel terrible for all the suffering they've caused.
More than anything, that's the catalyst that made Laura walk to her death - negatively-charged, unskillful compassion, aka guilt.
That's why "she tried to make the world a better place", but ultimately failed since her defilements were ever too strong.
To sum up this long and rambling post:
The fully deluded believe they are good people and the world is a good place.
The semi-deluded see that they are bad people and the world is a bad place.
The fully enlightened project goodness, love, and kindness even in the darkest of nights.
They see clearly through the predominant defilements of people to the faint flicker of good in them, and skillfully kindle these tiny flames.
The enlightened person is good not because the world is good, but because he is a source of goodness.
He projects love and kindness not because they were first given to him, but because he becomes a clear, unobstructed channel for them to flow through him.
I can see all that in theory but personally I'm still stuck in the semi-deluded state.
Laura is inextricably involved in Twin Peaks and all its defilements. She is that one person everyone in Twin Peaks knows. Her deep immersion in everyone, and everyone's immersion in her, is symbolized by the large number of people she shared herself with sexually. Visually, her portrait is often presented as emblematic of all of Twin Peaks, sometimes superimposed over a view of the town or its surroundings.
In fact, she is presented as a Christ-like figure. A martyred scapegoat for all of Twin Peaks' sins, a point of convergence (cathexis) of all the town's defiled energy.
To avoid similar fate, I detached myself from people completely, and strove towards dispassion. This generally worked in the sense that I largely managed to avoid hurting people at all.
Still, I am very good at seeing the worst in people and pretty bad at loving them.
I had enough insight to see the world is immoral, unloving, and unkind. In response, my attitude towards the world reflected these qualities: immoral, unloving, and unkind.
To use the terms from a past post: I was being reactive. An enlightened person would act in a generative manner.
Or to rotate back to more familiar Buddhist terms: I was acting conditionally, while an enlightened person would act unconditionally.
This is frankly where I am right now. Some bits of insight, understanding of where the path is supposed to lead. Not a clear sense of how to get there.
One exercise I've been trying recently is to pull back my vantage point on people. Instead of focusing laser-like on their evident defilement, I try to zoom out, see them as a whole. See how often they are trapped, somewhat helpless, suffering. They willingly pursue their defilements, which is a terrible indictment against them, yet they are also their defilements' victims. In a sense, they are first and foremost victims, and only as a result of that - aggressors.
Used this way, insight occasionally makes me feel compassion for people rather than condemn them.
Another interesting side note of this post: consider how high the bar for full enlightenment is, and how rarely it is fulfilled, at least nowadays. A fully enlightened person would be a channel of unwavering, overflowing love, kindness, and compassion. Nothing you can do to that person would affect this flow in the least.
How many of our Buddhist teachers and leaders are remotely like that?
It seems the best we can hope for is someone like Chögyam Trungpa, a person of some insight and wisdom but still deeply - some would add, hopelessly - mired in defilements.
And if you have time, watch the first two seasons of Twin Peaks. It's a good show.
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