Whatever Arises, Arises

A Conversation Between Robert Saltzman and Don Boivin

Hello, and thank you for reading Shy Guy Meets the Buddha. I recently posted a Substack Note in which I shared my experience with meditation and mindfulness. In that note, I quoted Dr. Robert Saltzman, psychotherapist, artist, and the author of a number of books, including The Ten Thousand Things and The 21^st-Century Self. Robert, who has a Substack of his own, responded to my note, and an engaging conversation ensued, which I copy here without edits or changes (save correcting a few minor typos of my own). Thank you for reading! 🙏💚

Don (this first entry is my original Substack Note)—When you’re in the world as a “me,” things are harder. There’s more anxiety, more confusion, more emotional desperation. There’s this bottomless need that can never be filled. What is my purpose, what is my fate, how can I be better, happier, more content? Why is my world so violent, chaotic, unpredictable, unstable? Why are people so cruel, so power-hungry, so evil? Where is God? Where is redemption?

I was reading some of the responses to Robert Saltzman’s latest post, and I could feel this need oozing from the reader comments and questions, no matter how intelligent, articulate and/or abstract they were. The questions were asked from the point of view of an entity that needs answers.

When I recognize that my “I” is not a fundamental or foundational, organic or physical entity but rather an ethereal, temporary movement of the mind, a thought process, a belief, an expectation, an opinion; then I find myself in a different state of mind, where I realize how silly all this self-absorption is.

Of course, I’m still in a “state of mind,” I’m still thinking from an “I” point of view, but I seem to have accessed a temporary, not full but partial, relief from that POV’s delusions, its gravity, its black-hole-like sucking power.

This is why I practice meditation and mindful awareness. To find some relief from the desperate need for fulfillment, validation, the empty yearning of me, me, me.

“The release from personal authorship—that is the only genuine freedom I see.” Robert Saltzman

Robert—Thank you, Don.

What you’re describing can feel like clarity, but it’s important to see that this isn’t something a person does or accesses. Clarity isn’t chosen. It isn’t earned. It isn’t the result of meditation or mindful effort. Like every other configuration of the system, it appears when the conditions tilt that way and disappears when they don’t.

The sense of “me” intensifies when the system is under strain, and it softens when the strain subsides. That is the whole movement. No agent is tightening or loosening anything. What you are calling “relief” is only the moment when the background tension drops on its own. No someone produces it, and it isn’t something a someone can preserve.

Meditation may correlate with those moments, but correlation isn’t causation. And ironically, many so-called practices—mindfulness included—can strengthen the illusion of a doer. The very idea of “I am practicing” or “I am cultivating clarity” tightens the loop around a fictional agent trying to manage its own disappearance. The method promises relief while reinforcing the structure that feels the need for relief.

The mind quiets for a while, and the self-model becomes less convincing. Then it coheres again. That’s the rhythm.

You mentioned sensing desperation or a sense of threat in how some readers respond to my essays. That reaction is part of the same structure. When the coherence of the “me” feels endangered, defensive questions arise. The system scrambles to reassert the one who supposedly thinks, chooses, improves, and understands. It’s not their fault. It’s not even them. It’s the loop protecting its own outline.

So yes, the self-absorption can look silly when the contraction relaxes, but the seeing of that silliness is just as conditioned as the contraction that preceded it. Neither reflects a standpoint outside the loop.

Clarity is not an accomplishment. It’s a passing condition, like weather. Trying to hold onto it is simply the loop tightening around a new objective—another version of the same contraction.

Don—Okay, I’ll try to respond as briefly as I can. While I understand that if you were to tell a hundred people about mindfulness, maybe two would show some curiosity, and that is only because they may be “ripe” for it; they’ve heard of it before, they were looking for some peaceful solutions to their angst anyway, and they’re willing to try it. One of them will probably not embrace it for long and the other may or may not. This seems to agree with your comment that “clarity isn’t chosen.”

And maybe there is only a correlation between my last six years of meditating, and my newish understanding about the nature of self, my “clarity.” They arose together, but I accept that the conditions were such for this mind to look in that direction, and the two seem to accompany each other there.

But I have also seen that when I recognize what you call the loop, the system and its behavior patterns, with no decider, no author, I find that “I” feel more empathy toward others because of this understanding; I feel more understanding, compassion, and tolerance. Also a correlation but not a cause? Perhaps. Does it matter? I still like it! I like empathizing instead of judging, slowing down to think about where someone is coming from.

I read a book once—doesn’t matter which one, maybe in was a Saltzman book—and I found the book helpful. This author took the time to write about the way they saw things, and I experienced their view as an aha! moment because I was primed or conditioned to see things similarly, but just hadn’t seen them yet.

That is the way I look at meditation and/or mindfulness as well as books. It puts me (this mind that thinks of itself as me) in a position to gain more clarity about things, even if the clarity is that the self is an illusion and authors no actual choices.

Robert—From here, what you’re calling “liking it” is just another configuration of the system. Empathy, tolerance, and slowing down—those, too, arise when the background contraction eases. They feel good, and why wouldn’t they? But they are not achievements, nor are they the results of practice. They appear the same way irritation, impatience, and judgment appear: as shifts in the internal weather. No one is steering it.

It’s tempting to say that meditation “puts you in a position” to gain clarity. That phrase sneaks a chooser back into the frame. Nothing puts anything anywhere. Certain conditions coincide, and clarity shows up. Other conditions coincide, and it doesn’t. Meditation may appear near some of those conditions, just as reading a book may appear near them, but the proximity doesn’t make them causal. And if meditation—just sitting—occurs at all, it won’t be because someone decided to meditate so as to gain clarity. It occurs for the same reason everything else occurs: the conditions tilt that way. Whatever arises, arises.

Belief, too, simply arises. And one of the more persistent beliefs is that meditation has special power. But belief isn’t evidence. It’s just another appearance in the system, no more authoritative than any other thought. The same is true of the apparent “choice” to sit and meditate. That, too, is only a thought arising—or not—without a thinker.

You speak of seeing the loop and feeling more empathy. That can happen. But the seeing and the empathy are both emergent events, not steps taken by a someone to become a different kind of person. Sometimes understanding softens. Sometimes understanding hardens. Neither direction is governed.

The belief in a “me” who chooses, evaluates, and improves carries its own built-in tension. Once that belief is active, the system must also generate the drama that comes with it—effort, self-assessment, disappointment, and the sense of falling short. None of that is a personal failure. It’s just the cost of maintaining a fictional chooser. When the belief loosens, the drama loosens. When it returns, the drama returns. No one is doing any of it.

As for aha moments—yes, they occur. But they occur in the same way every other perceptual shift occurs: when the system is primed, open, and structurally ready for a new configuration. The book is the spark, not the cause.

The spark ignites only because the tinder was already dry. Another reader sees the same words and feels nothing, or dismisses them as nonsense. The difference isn’t in the words, and it isn’t in a “me” who chooses to understand. It’s just differing conditions giving rise to differing responses.

There is no such me, except in imagination.

Don—Please allow me to try to understand what you’re saying, Robert, thank you.

I don’t believe that meditation has special powers any more than I think eating well or keeping your eyes on the road while driving have special powers. I don’t “believe” anything supernatural, illogical, or simply unknowable. (I understand that some beliefs are so deeply conditioned that I may not be recognizing them as beliefs.)

And I understand that ultimately, there is no “chooser,” no self. When I say “I like” something, I understand the concoction of mental acrobatics that lead to a “me” who likes.

What I’m confused about is whether you are saying there is no such thing as cause and effect.

I think the “self” question is a separate issue. It doesn’t require a self for one thing to lead to another. It doesn’t require a self to find oneself meditating. (I am as surprised as the next guy that I’m still meditating after six years. And it’s not because I’m hoping upon hope for a result I haven’t achieved yet. It’s just what I do now, just as you walk with donkeys. I may not do it in the future.)

In my experience, just as eating healthy foods leads to a different body than eating junk food, meditating leads to feeling calmer and more peaceful. That seems quite simple to me. It doesn’t mean that another person will experience meditation the same way; it may agitate them. But truthfully, I know some quite agitated and anxious people who, IF conditions led to them meditating, may very possibly find some peace. I’m not saying I can affect their behavior. I understand when you say that your books may be bullshit to one person and just the clarity another is looking for.

So, to get to my question; are you saying there is no cause and effect, or are you commenting specifically and only on meditation when you say that correlation is not causation?

Robert—I appreciate the question, Don.

I’m not denying cause and effect at all. What I’m pointing to is that if you were able to trace any causal chain back far enough, there would be no place for a chooser or decider to insert itself. What shows up as a cause is already the effect of what preceded it. Events unfold in sequence, but the sequence doesn’t present itself as being guided by a “me.” What appears as a choice is simply the next movement of the system, not the act of an independent agent.

It’s the same with diet. Some foods affect the body one way, and others affect it differently. Nothing in that is being denied. What falls away is the idea of a self selecting its desires. A preference for healthier food appears as the next event in the chain. The desire—to be healthier in this case—comes first. The story of choosing it comes later. The causality isn’t the issue. The imagined author of it is. Seeing that desires arise unchosen but determine behavior, is the release from personal authorship I mentioned.

I’m not speaking about meditation in particular, but about all the practices people adopt under the impression that they’ve chosen them. What shows up is that there is no such chooser. “Choice” is the outcome of the whole system meeting its conditions. No self stands outside that process to influence it.

As for meditation, if it works for you, why not? But there’s a structural risk worth naming in general. Practices aimed at self-improvement, however subtly, can reinforce the very sense of “myself the agent” that I’m pointing to as illusory. The practice may relax the body and even feel spacious mentally, yet simultaneously tighten the identity of the one who is supposedly practicing.

That isn’t an argument against meditating, nor a judgment on your approach to it. It’s simply how these things appear from this side of the glass.

Don—Thank you for clarifying, Robert. It was very helpful. In fact, I can attest to this “tightening” and “loosening” of which you speak; I’ve experienced it during the course of this conversation. That itself was enlightening.

And even that tightening—which is the decider-illusion feeling threatened—is, as you say, part of the whole system of conditions and not something I can now decide to conquer.

This has been a great conversation, Robert, and I’m grateful you took the time. I wonder if you would mind if I shared it with my readers?

Robert—Thank you, Don. An open mind is a good thing to find.

Of course. Feel free to share anything I post publicly, including this.

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Here is a link to Dr. Robert Saltzman’s website:

https://www.dr-robert.com

And here is a picture of me saying hello to a donkey (not one of Robert’s donkeys, which I assume live with him on his farm in Mexico 😊)

Don Boivin is a carpenter and writer living in Hyannis, Massachusetts.

My essays and stories are freely available to all, and if you are able, your generous financial support can help keep them that way. Thank you! 🙏💚