Default Setting

"Indra's Net" is a classic zen analogy for nonduality. In the computer age, the internet and world wide web confirm life's inter-existence: a single mouse click pervades space and time. Still, we don't get it. What keeps us asleep to the wonder of life, despite overwhelming evidence? The default setting. People and computers have them; the human version, to which we revert when the (micro)chips are down, is a combo-plate of habitual physical, mental & emotional characteristics, and the strategies they spawn. Default settings vary; one person might plummet into depression, another might become passive-aggressive, and yet another might take off for Las Vegas. When the default setting is at the wheel, we assume its attitudes and quirks are our true nature. Because it seems closer than our very skin, we don't see that we're caught in a compelling mirage of our own making. It scans like radar, reinforcing its skewed views. "A pickpocket looks at a crowd of people and only sees pockets," as an old saying goes. You know the default is running things when you hear someone (yourself?) say "That's just the way I am," or "I'm not that kind of person."

We're not talking about the basic characteristics that people mainfest as newborns — livewire, colicky, easy keeper, space cadet. Those are 'flavors' we bring to life. And then, there's a 'flip': the little girl who was vivacious and cozy at age one has become 'adorable,' manipulative and flirty by age 3. What happens? Early on, we make decisions — about how life is, about how we have to be. And from our conclusions, we cook up a casserole combining inherent qualities and artificies. As it congeals into a protective shield, flexibility gives way to predictability, options narrow, and we approach life reactively rather than responsively. The glue that holds it all together? The unshakeable belief that "This is the way I must be." The default setting.

Examples of familiar default settings are: grievance collector, anguish addict, confusion junkie, fault-finder, know-it-all, catastrophizer, stoic, cynic — what's yours? Listening to our stock phrases provides some clues: "My responsibilities are overwhelming;" "Nobody tells me what to do;" "I'm more sensitive than most;" "They say life is suffering — mine certainly is." Another indicator is our counterproductive coping strategies: withdrawal, procrastination, contempt, yes-butting, overindulging in substances and/or behaviors.

Classic zen calls the default setting conditioning, and our resulting viewpoints delusion. The Abhidharma, an early psychospiritual treatise, lists a compendium of obscuring factors, or emotion-thought defaults. Obviously there's nothing new here; yet a millenium later, we often view the default setting as the only intelligence response to life. For example, if our default is anger, do we ever think we're wrong? And when a default becomes our window on life, we feel increasingly alienated — a poignantly ironic Catch 22 for zen students: yearning to awaken to life's interconnectedness, while simultaneously fortifying barriers against it.

Our reactions are so ingrained that the phrase programming is used for both people and computers. It's not too hard to see how someone else's default settings block vitality and narrow the vista. However, our own defaults seem so indigenous that they're hidden in plain sight — at least, from us. This is doubly true if they're 'successful' or culturally acceptable. For example, about a week after Rosa Parks first came to San Diego, I was running around like crazy cooking up programs for kids in 17 schools and reservations — and getting lots of approval. The activities looked conventionally 'positive', but then, that's the longstanding Elizabethan Default Setting: given a free moment, get busy with some 'noble' project. What was going on underneath? Guess.

To continue the computer analogy, default settings function like viruses (or retroviruses), co-opting the cellular life force for their own survival. For computers, the solution is an antivirus program. However, if our intention is to awaken to life's unity, we're not trying to delete something; our enterprise is to see things for what they really are, through experiential awareness. (Note: this doesn't mean anything goes — let that default run rampant. No. That's where vows and Precepts come in). As Menzan Zenji pointed out centuries ago, trying to cut off delusion simply doesn't work; we must clarify the process whereby it melts, or it will keep springing up like crabgrass.

Another oldtimer, Ikkuyu, gave us the bottom line for clarifying how default settings melt: attention, attention, attention. First, attention to the physical: the default's stuckness and stance; Attention to the emotional: the characteristic mind states. Attention to the mental: the lyrics the default setting sings, usually a variation on Mick Jagger's anthem: "I can't get no satisfaction, and I try, and I try...' Dissatisfaction is symptomatic of the default's favorite pastime — seeking satisfaction in all the wrong places: the past, the future, other people.

Since we're so expert at misdirected attention, at first it's going to seem like a struggle to stay put in present reality. Think about it: what could make paying attention to hearing, breathing and simply sitting seems so arduous? It would be a piece of cake, if we weren't in the habit of paying attention to things that aren't happening. On the other hand, being on autopilot (the default) seems effortless. Another complicating factor is that even if the default makes us miserable, its familiar discomfort is perversely comforting.

Undoubtedly, we'll try to apply the default setting to practice itself, envisioning the "True Self" as an upgrade package — an improved version of our same old self (minus the suffering and messes). This magical thinking is a setup for a crash. Now, when computers crash, upgrades (or replacement) are the best option. When the ego-default crashes, it's a practice opportunity par excellence. After all, what crashes?

Uninspected, the default can undercut our genuine aspiration to awaken. It can obscure or distort the flickers of insight or illumination that punctuate practice. The default would like to claim everything (including vast emptiness) for the ego. And watch out when practice seems to be buzzing along, the default setting a thing of the past — that's a trapdoor into the default.

By cultivating experiential awareness, it becomes obvious that the default's qualities are enmeshed in the physical reality of the moment — insubstantial, not the 'hard reality' they had seemed. Going into default periodically is inevitable. Staying there for years is optional. The good news is that aspiration is always waiting in the wings, re-emerging like the phoenix, inviting us to what we already are.

From Zenquiry: A Practice Manual by Elizabeth Hamilton