:: March/April 2004 Volume 3/Number 2

Sitting Down With
Catherine Ingram

By Julie Deife

Teacher, workshop leader, and writer Catherine Ingram is known for her gift of helping bring a simple awareness of reality to human situations. Author of Passionate Presence and leader of Dharma Dialogues, Ingram's transformation to her understanding of what is, shaped itself anew after 17 years as a practicing Buddhist, when she met her teacher Sri Poonja. Julie Deife interviewed her at her home in Brentwood.

Julie: Would you please explain the phrase passionate presence?

Catherine: The phrase passionate presence came to me as a way to describe not only being present but also being alive, engaged, and embodied in that presence. Passion is one of the elements that I had felt was missing, for instance, in my Buddhist training.

Julie: You say in your book that after years of studying, writing and being part of a spiritual movement, that instead of continuing to gain clarity, suddenly nothing made sense to you any longer.

Catherine: What happened after many years of meditation practice was that I felt a kind of dryness. I felt present, but I didn’t feel joy or passion in it. Rather, I felt detached, like an observer of life-and that was what I had been trained to do. After a certain point of becoming fairly proficient at observing, I started thinking, so what? It wasn't very alive for me, it wasn't juicy, and the practice and actually all connection to a tradition fell away, not through any desire of mine since that was about the last thing I would’ve wanted, but because I could maintain it no longer.

Julie: How did you feel about it?

Catherine: I went into a depression because suddenly I didn’t feel a connection to any sort of spiritual path or practice. I had also long since rejected the idea that the world was going to provide some sort of peace and happiness - that I had rejected 20 years before. So I suddenly felt really alone and alien.

Julie: Then what happened?

Catherine: There was about a two year gap between the falling away of all practice and interest in any tradition to meeting Poonjaji, which was a turning point and a kind of a re- immersion into a mystical perspective and an appreciation that we live in a mystery.

Julie: Were you seeking a guru when you met Poonjaji?

Catherine: No, the idea of having to find a guru seems antiquated to me, and it always did. I never had any interest in that. I was a practicing Buddhist for 17 years in a tradition where you only thought of your teachers as your spiritual friends and that seemed to me applicable even when meeting Poonjaji. My relationship with Poonjaji is more one of considering him my teacher. Even though a lot of people refer to him as a guru, he never referred to himself that way.

Julie: How are teachings transmitted?

Catherine: The best way is through the direct experience of the so-called teacher and the ability to know their own direct experience on the part of the so-called Students. Poonjaji used to say "a true teacher only ever gives you his or her experience; everyone else is a preacher." A teacher is just someone who is sharing his or her life journey, not presenting a body of some sort of tradition or so-called formal teachings.

Julie: You talk about the story we each have, which often defines who we are to ourselves. Can I have my story and also be aware?

Catherine: It is a coexisting awareness and our stories are useful as a way of connecting with someone, especially if one has an understanding of their usefulness rather than just being lost in the big soap opera of "the universe, starring me" that many people are playing in their heads. When we are telling our stories, it is really our way of connecting with, as Emerson put it, "that common heart of which all sincere conversation is the worship."

Julie: We often seek understanding about the meaning and purpose of our own lives. How does that play into this?

Catherine: I wouldn't even bother with the concept of purpose. I find those concepts overbearing and burdensome, to tell you the truth. As soon as you think of the notion, "my life's purpose" you start to feel nervous. You never feel like you are quite reaching your potential, or most of us don't anyway. It is another aspect of the 'me' story. Let me ask you a question. What if we agreed that I accept you as you are completely - just being to being? What if we agreed that that was how we were going to be together?

Julie: I don't know. What would happen?

Catherine: Well, I can tell you from my experience in retreats. The retreats are silent with exception of the discussions in Dharma Dialogues twice daily. People come who are basically strangers to each other. They are silent for a week together, and yet the most profound intimacy develops between them. They become as though best friends and they don’t know anything of each other's biographies.

Julie: No basis for judgment?

Catherine: Right, they don’t have any notion of purpose or meaning or anything about each other. They don't even know where the person lives or what they do. All they know about anyone is their pure essential being. Yet each has a very distinct flavor or fragrance of being that is unique.

Julie: Do common themes arise in your Dharma Dialogues?

Catherine: Yes. There are endless versions of the particular question: 'why can I not experience this all the time?'

Julie: Is there one answer?

Catherine: There is, which is that you can always experience an aspect of yourself that is a quiet witnessing awareness any time you choose to notice it. Whether you are in the middle of a rage or you've just heard terribly shocking news about a loss or you are in the middle of sex or whatever it is. It does not diminish any of these other experiences; it coexists with them.

Julie: You wrote that there are commonly three different views to explain reality, none of which you agree with: that of illusion (maya), or of it being 'all perfect'; or a karma theory. What is your interpretation of these three views, please?

Catherine: 'It's all perfect,' people say. I like a Zen master's comment on this instead: "Even though it is all perfect, there is still room for improvement." To say it is 'all perfect', ultimately ends up not meaning anything. Unfortunately, with this concept of “it’s all perfect,” people become apathetic and don’t bother to help out or to help change anything. So I like the perspective of having plenty of room for improvement in terms of helping to relieve suffering. We need to become more engaged, not less.

Julie: And maya?

Catherine: People say that life is an illusion, a dream. And based on what? This is the only reality we know. There may be some other realities but this is the one we know, and it is certainly real enough. To say it’s a dream is just silly.

Julie: And karma?

Catherine: Yet another belief system. There are of course subtle understandings of what karma might mean or imply, but frankly I don’t really have any belief in those either. The biggest misconception is the belief that whatever bad happens to you is somehow because you deserved it. Something you did in the past called this calamity upon you. On the other hand, if anything good happens based on your altruistic deeds, it is your reward. But again, I see no evidence for this belief system.

Julie: Then what is your suggestion for understanding reality?

Catherine: Stay in your direct experience and in the mystery of life. Then, if you are faced with injustice and you don’t have a story making it all okay, you are much more called upon to try to rectify that injustice. Now, there are many cases where you can't do anything about it. Then your heart just breaks. But you don’t have an escape clause in either case. You've either gotta do something about it or you have to let your heart break.

Julie: Heartbreak doesn't sound like an ideal option to me.

Catherine: Heartbreak puts you in direct empathy with everyone else. It is an affirmation of interbeing. When you feel someone suffer with you, then you are met. And in a way you amortize the suffering and you are reminded of the personal nature of suffering. You are reminded that we all love and we all lose.

Julie: Have you ever had a spiritual crisis?

Catherine: I have had every possible kind of crisis! I have had a tremendous amount of loss in my life and so yes, I feel that every broken heartedness, every story of loss, every moment of beauty, everything is sort of morphed into a spiritual perspective. Not in any fancy or transcended way but rather just all of the things that force one to be more open and have more empathy. That is what I would call a spiritual understanding. Nothing about another reality somewhere else or some sort of afterlife program - which I have no belief in - but rather the elements of life that force one's heart to stay open.

Julie: I am interested in what you think of terrorism.

Catherine: There is certainly a collective belief based on a media and government propagated blitz of information that we are going to be facing terrorism in one form or another on our soil.

Julie: Do you believe it?

Catherine: I don't know. The challenge in this is to truly suspend imagination and go about our lives in present awareness and deal with what happens when it happens, unless there is something that one can personally be doing to stop the threat of terrorism.

Julie: Do you perceive a lot of fear in our society?

Catherine: Oh yes, people are terrified; there is tremendous tension in our society. I was just in Europe for two months and in places where they are no strangers to terrorism, real terrorism, that has gone on for many years and they are looking at us and thinking, get a grip. You had one terrorist event and granted, it was a large event, but still, the whole country has been bonkers ever since.

Julie: Would you say that the work you do is an antidote to fear?

Catherine: Absolutely, and it is an affirmation of the calm that can stay steady in the midst of one's own personal holocaust. It is much more likely that people reading this article are going to be facing things like mom's got cancer, or I've got cancer, or brother has just been in a car accident. Those are the real things of life that we are all going to be dealing with.

Julie: What if any, are the differences between your approach to sitting in silence and other forms of meditation?
Catherine: The difference in my approach is we are sitting in beingness and we are not directing the mind at all. In fact, we are not noting it, we are not watching it, and we are not watching our breath unless the attention just goes there naturally. But there is no practice or direction to do so. Rather, we are sitting, in a sense, in vastness and letting the mind do whatever it wants but noticing the coexisting awareness that is just calmly hanging out. I sometimes describe it as sitting on a mountain seat of freedom enjoying space in all directions.

Julie: So I would be sitting in silence with no particular instruction given?

Catherine: I will point out the fact that nothing is sticking in your awareness but no directed practice or instructions are given. No focus on any particular objects of mind but rather a resting in an expanse of quiet and letting whatever rises, be. You know in Zen they say the best way to train a cow is to give it a large pasture and this is exactly the principle. If we just sit in the expanse, we find that the mind does not have as much power as it once did. All of the little thoughts, even though they continue endlessly until you die or become a vegetable, lose their power as your attention is more focused on this vast expanse of awareness. And then you only notice the thoughts that are truly functional and creative and useful. The rest of it, which is mostly dreg, you just let go.

Julie: What would you like to say in closing?

Catherine: Celebrate your precious life, and help out wherever you can.

Catherine Ingram holds Dharma Dialogues and retreats worldwide and can be reached through www.PassionatePresence.com.