JW: I’ve developed a process I call “unconditional presence,” which involves contacting, allowing, opening to, and even surrendering to whatever we’re experiencing. This process grew out of my practice in Vajrayana and Dzogchen, as well as my psychological training. It presupposes that everything we experience, even the worst samsaric things, has its own intelligence. If we meet our experience fully and directly, we can begin to uncover that intelligence and distinguish it from distorted ways in which it manifests.
For example, if we go deeply into the experience of ego inflation, we may find a more genuine impulse at its core—that it’s a wounded way of trying to proclaim our goodness, to remind ourselves and affirm that we are basically good. Similarly, at the heart of all the darkest human feelings and experiences there is a seed of intelligence which, when revealed, can point in the direction of freedom.
TF: Can you say more about your psychological method?
JW: I help people inquire deeply into their felt experience and let it gradually reveal itself and unfold, step by step. I call this “tracking and unpacking”: You track the process of present experiencing, following it closely and seeing where it leads. And you unpack the beliefs, identities, and feelings that are subconscious or implicit in what you’re experiencing. When we bring awareness to our experience in this way, it’s like unraveling a tangled ball of yarn: different knots are gradually revealed and untangled one by one.
As a result, we find that we’re able to be present in places where we’ve been absent or disconnected from our experience. Through reaching out to parts of ourselves that need our help, we develop an intimate, grounded kind of inner attunement with ourselves, which can help us more easily relate to others where they are stuck as well.