Loneliness is a modern plague. Sociologist Philip Slater wrote a book called 'The Pursuit of Loneliness' that suggests that our society is designed to produce loneliness. Loneliness is at the core of addictive behavior along with shame, and often the tragic reality of many a marriage and family, caretaker and child. I think of loneliness as the root of people 'living quiet lives of desperation'.
People need people. Our intimacies and relationships define us. From a Zen perspective we are the matrix and interplay of all forms of life, never separate or alone. The sangha is treasured because it represents the body of Buddha, and as such, is a refuge of warmth, love, growth, meaning, safety, harmony, and peace. It is a community within which we can establish and delight in our roots. One of the vows of a Zen student is not to cause disruption within the sangha. There is an intention to be a steward of that which is central to human wholeness and well being: community and friendship.
How do we heal our loneliness, the abandonments we have felt, the loss of friendships, marriages, families, work, roots, countries we have emigrated from? I think of insight as a means of ferreting out the roots of loneliness. How have we been harmed in our fundamental sense of belonging? And what patterns do we have that keep us stuck there, this is a significant question of responsibility, we reinforce what we have learned through self defeating behaviors and patterns. I think of community as the healing. When we are lonely we need to reach out and ask for friendship, as well as follow the grandmotherly advice that 'the best way to make a friend is to be a friend'. Sometimes pride or our 'stuck in the mud' attitudes can keep us from doing what we need to do to join in community.
Awakening in its deepest sense means transforming a sense of separateness to a sense of profound intimacy with life. Meditation itself is an expression of this connection, the silent world of intimacy can be a well of comfort and shared common ground.
Lonliness Plague
Phenomenological Depression
Depression is a curse and a gift, although when we are down in the dumps the gift often seems elusive. Organic depressions that are caused by brain chemistry and inheritance may require medical treatment, and counseling often helps with issues of identity, behavior, relationship, and healing.
From Zen and phenomenological viewpoints, the experience of depression must be reconciled with our sense of spirituality and relationship with life. There is a saying, 'if you haven't danced with the devil you haven't practiced Zen!'. Depression is definitely a devil, for it can send us into the morass of doubt, self-pity, isolation, inaction, loss of meaning, hopelessness, despair, even suicide.
There is no panacea for depression, it requires insight, action, and a long term view of transformation. However, healing can be assisted by the teachings of Zen. First off must come acknowledgement of the depth and impact of depression on ourselves and others. We must become responsible for our condition. Secondly, by taking the path of insight we must delve into the roots of depression and take it as an invitation to discover what ails us. Thirdly, regardless of the depths of depression, we must become involved in community, an effort to help others be happy, and the continued effort to take refuge in Buddha, or surrender our lives in faith to the dharma. And finally, we must contemplate and meditate on and within peace, we can learn how to be peaceful in the middle of a rip tide and raging storm that lashes out at our body, emotions, mind, and spirit. We can learn to settle as Mara raises her head and attempts to slay us.
Many would suggest hope as an antidote to depression. I would paradoxically suggest hopelessness, a complete and thorough giving up so that you can decisively confront the present reality without any concern whatsoever for how the future turns out. This is cutting with Manjusri wisdom sword and courageously killing the notion of future time and then squarely centering your life in not only today, but in each moment of experience. This is where healing and transformation take place, in the here and now.
A friend of mine once said to me that it takes a lot of help to stand alone. If you are depressed, please resist the temptation to hide under the covers and instead, get out of the house to join groups, communities, and healing circles to get the love and kindness you need and deserve.
Blessings and prayers for all those with depression.
Anxiety Paradox
Anxiety is a displacement in time, regardless of the cause. Whether it is truama, childhood wounds, brain chemistry, relationship, work, or any other situation, anxiety is a departure from the present moment. The farther we displace ourselves from the present, the greater the anxiety. You can check this out by letting your worries drift into the future or the past and registering your body response.
Anxiety is also bodily tension and a restriction of breathing. When we are anxious we minimize our breathing, which minimizes feelings and sensation, and we tense our muscles, which keeps us anxious, often fearful, and on edge about our experience. In the connected world of sensations-emotions-mental states-spirit, when we have anxiety it registers in each of these areas. Hence the axiom when feeling anxious.....breathe!
From a Zen perspective, healing is paradoxical, you must first become aware of your anxiety and then completely embrace it and welcome it without resistance, judgment, problem solving, drowning in it, running from it, or denying it. The activity of completely embracing your experience in itself is a whole making activity, something that honors and validates the reality of experience. Becoming aware of anxiety requires attention to experience in the present moment and a commitment to honesty with yourself.
Many of the 'issues' of anxiety begin to resolve themselves through acceptance. Then there is the ongoing work of inner growth that is the daily effort of Zen practice. When the pot is stirred we are challenged to dig deep without our minds and heart and character to fathom what we are about, what ails us, and what dwells within. When you stop trying to fix your anxiety by becoming willing to encounter it as it arises in your life, you are being your athentic self. You are letting yourself be you.
Guilt and Truth
Guilt is a form of not accepting things as they are. It is adding something extra to circumstances while at the same time taking something away. What we aren't accepting is our own feelings, usually of discomfort with somebody's behavior. We deny (take away) our resentful feelings then project them onto the other person, then feel guilty about not meeting their expectations. Guilt is a movie and fast two-step we torment ourselves with.
Healing guilt can be as simple as accepting your true experiences of discomfort and resentment without judgment. In Zen we embrace and work with all of ourselves, the light and the dark sides of our nature. During Zen meditation you can embrace your real feelings and treasure all of yourself. When we stay in guilt we distance ourselves from the loving kindness we have towards another, we actual hang on to our ill will. Taking personal responsibility for guilt first requires insight and then forgiveness.
If you do something wrong, remorse is an appropriate feeling, much deeper and richer than guilt. Remorse is sorrow for your actions and a willingness to transform your behavior. Healthy remorse is a sign of growth rather than the depression and anxiety of guilt. Turning guilt into acceptance keeps your heart open and your mind free.
Shame and Love
Shame is a pandemic. Most people do not whole heatedly embrace themselves with loving kindness and a sense of their own worth and wonderfulness. Many people don't even know they suffer from shame and the fundamental sense of not being O.K. Healing shame is a critical step on the path to spiritual wholeness. Whether we avail ourselves of psychotherapy, twelve step recovery, self-help, journal writing, meditation or spiritual insight,- healing the inner voices and feelings of unworthiness is necessary.
In Zen we say to 'treasure yourself', which means to honor yourself as Buddha and to extend loving kindness towards your own being. Sometimes this can be done specifically by loving the parts of you that need healing, the wounded inner child or the lonely adult or the stressed out worker, whomever it is within you that is in distress. We need to gently and warmly embrace those parts of ourselves that suffer. This is a spiritual act, not simply a psychological healing. In the Buddha field and matrix of inter-being, healing others is healing ourselves, and healing ourselves is healing others. Everything is Buddha and wherever you turn the light of kindness it will radiate outwards and touch all corners of the universe.
Look into the mirror, connect with your own eyes, and say 'I love you'. Not as easy as it sounds for many people. Put your name on an altar and bow to it. Light a candle and pray for yourself. Hold a vision of the unloved inner child within you and allow your warm compassionate heart to embrace it. Allow others to love you and remember each day who they are. When you feel whole and worthy, your body and mind can soften and you can rest in the warm river of intimacy with all things. If you think loving yourself is 'selfish', that is the voice of shame. Of course, if you love only yourself, that is egoism.
One of my favorite quotes from Hillel is 'If I am not for myself, then who is for me? If I am only for myself, then who am I'?
Flowing Slowly
I'm somebody who tends towards slow morning rhythms. I like to take my tea and sit and stretch outside, smell the air, get a sense of the sky, listen to the morning sounds, and enjoy the gentle rhythms of the day waking up. Then there are days when I don't have this luxury because I'm getting kids ready for school or leaving for work or answering the phone. But as a general rule of thumb, I like to enter the day slowly. I also sit Zazen every day, which is slowing down and tasting each moment; somehow I get my daily quota.
What happens when you stop? How do you keep yourself from slowing down? How are you caught in the maze of busyness, anxiety, fear, stress, performance, demands? What have you been taught about 'non-doing'? We could all spend a lifetime exploring how our societies, upbringings, and challenges work against our spending peaceful time in silent contemplation.
If you want to slow down and discover the joy of just being, you need to make a commitment to stopping, otherwise your life will run away with you. We all know it makes sense to slow down to connect with ourselves, ratchet down the stress levels, and enjoy the miracle and beauty of life. But do we do it?! Zen teachers won't sell water by the river, they won't tell you to do something because it is good for you. Meditation and spiritual inquiry have to come from you. Nothing sticks unless you are deeply motivated. My deep wish is that you spend some time each day flowing slowly. Perhaps we will be enjoying the dawn together.
Clear Focus
Zazen is focus. Part of the art of meditation is learning to hone the mind so that it becomes single minded in the present moment. There are innumerable benefits to this including the development of clarity about your experience, listening deeply and attentively to others, sustaining focus through difficult times, centering your life in the middle of whatever you are doing, and relaxing in the context of a stressed out culture.
I like to think that every moment I miss in my life is a mini-death, a lost opportunity to be completely alive and intimate with the world. The look in someones eye, the requests of my child, the beauty of a tree or flower or rock; the whole of the world is a continual flowing and lyrical melody. There is a calm delight I have when I sit Zazen and am at peace with the world of the moment regardless of what might be tugging at my life.
To develop more focus requires a clear intention: you must want too! Then it requires practice and discipline, which can often be felt as a double bind: 'I don't have enough time already so now I'm supposed to take time to sit and just focus?'!. Yes, absolutely. Paradoxically, somehow slowing down is speeding up, and limiting your focus to the present moment increases the quality of life. At some point in practice meditation isn't an activity separate from what you are doing;- what you are doing each moment is meditation and the entire focus of your whole being.
Intuitive Wisdom
Wisdom and Compassion are the two main pillars of Zen, each part of the mix of being a whole person and living a wholesome life of caring for the world. Wisdom is intuitive and not intellectual. It is cultivated through meditation and practice.
Two favorite sayings of mine help me tune into Wisdom. Suzuki Roshi said that 'Wisdom is seeking Wisdom'. This wonderful nuance means it is never actually found completely, but that the activity of seeking a wise way to think, speak, and act is itself wisdom. When confronted with difficult circumstances I often ask myself 'What is a wise thing to do?. In the Metta Sutta of Loving Kindness there is a line that says 'Do nothing that the wise would reprove'. This keeps me in check! When my reactive habits arise or when I start to let anger, greed, or self importance run me, just being aware that there are wise beings from the past, present, and future looking over my shoulder helps me find my inner wisdom.
Living wisely means living without a prescription for action. We develop wisdom by opening to each circumstance, person, and moment with a curious and fresh mind that want to awaken kindness, friendship, and understanding.
Patient Living
By nature I am impatient and it has caused trouble for myself and those in my life. I am far more patient now however than I used to be, so much so that people are commenting that they see me as a patient person, which is a big surprise to me.
Zen meditation and practice helps us find patience. Sitting meditation itself is an expression of patience and balance in the face of whatever experience we have, and this attitude can translate into our daily life. Patience is allowing things to organically unfold without being attached to an outcome. It is an acceptance of what is happening now without feeling you have to meddle with it, change, or control it. It is finding great tolerance for things just the way they are. It also means staying centered in the present moment and staying close to your own breathing as things develop.
Living patiently is living with a calm, accepting, and benevolent attitude. I have found that when I am calm in the face of demanding kids, upsetting news, or traumatic events, I have a more focused, objective, mature, and appropriate response to events than if I have a frightened, anxious, or overwhelmed response. Learning not to be thrown by things and pushed around by life is an ongoing lesson in the importance and joy of equilibrium.
Kind Mind
Kindness is available at all times and in all circumstances. The easiest way to be kind is to drop everything else. In other words...just do it, ...have a kind attitude and kind actions and kind words as often as possible. None of us are saints, so at times our fear, temper, judgment, anger, stubbornness, or attachment to a point of view keep us from kindness. Zen practice humbles us as we discover how mixed up our point of views can be. Zen is an inclusive practice that also increases our appreciation for all points of view.
Keeping an open mind is kindness. I had a business mentor who operated from the notion that all points of views were correct, even if they were wild and crazy. They were correct not because of their substance, but because they were the point of view that somebody held. This may seem like circular reasoning, but in fact it is reasoning based on dignity and truth. Each of us sees through our own lenses, and for us that is the correct point of view. Kindness is listening with a sense of curiosity and appreciation to points of view that differ from our own and not being invested in controlling or changing somebody's view point. Being right and imposing our views on others is actually harmful.
And what about when people have different points of view and need to come to some agreement? Without listening first to different viewpoints their can be no understanding or movement towards common ground. Sometimes problems can be solved, sometimes not, but kindness can always be present in the effort. When kindness become the standard of action, our life quickly reveals where we fall short, which gives us good grist for learning about ourselves.
Just Now
Taking the path of Zen is an encounter with the immediate world: the world as it is right now. Prajna means wisdom, specifically transcendent wisdom. However, this notion itself can create quite a few delusions if we idealize it, think it is separate from our ordinary life, or attempt to achieve it as a goal. This can make Zen perplexing at times. What is it, this transcendent immediacy.
The wonderful words of Hui-Neng ring clear: " If you open to understanding of the teaching of immediacy,you do not cultivate practice grasping externals; you simply activate accurate perception at all times in your own mind, so afflictions and passions can never influence you. This is perception of essential nature". He is asking us to awakening our wide mind that includes everything and that is always manifesting in the present moment.
But this business of passions and afflictions? It seems perfectionistic and unrealistic to think we will never be influenced by them, and this is why we sit and practice endlessly. We are human, and a path of Zen refinement helps us examine our knee jerk reactions to life, the passions and habits and addictions that drive us, and hopefully helps us discover the calm and essential nature that can be a bedrock of spirituality, a refuge form the ups and downs, and a joyful experience of repose as we celebrate the immediate moments of intimacy that themselves are the blossoms of our essential nature.
Four Abodes
The four abodes are manifestations of practice that reveal the heart of loving kindness. They are manifestations of our universal nature, and serve as lights on the path to peace.There is no right way to be, and no one particular way to be in life, so they are not idealized ways of acting. They seem to show up as our meditation practice matures and as we become whole hearted in our life.
Metta is unconditional love, or love with no object. We each already have the ability to love everything unconditionally without expectations or prejudice. This beacon can be turned on ourselves and others. How to practice this with family, friends, neighbors, and the world at large is a lifetime effort.
Karuna is compassion. It is a kind of ultimate empathy that arises from sympathetic identification, the ability to be at-one with others and circumstances. When we connect with the tapestry of life and experience the unity of life then we can breathe the suffering of the world into our heart and act from love.
Mudita is joy at the good fortune of others. Envy is a form of spiritual poverty, our jealousy a mark of our separation from goodness and people. Wishing for the good fortune of others and celebrating it when they have it makes for a warm heart and a light spirit. May all beings be happy!
Upekka is equanimity, an evenness of temperament and activity. Zen meditation posture is a manifestation of equanimity and teaches the body and mind to settle in balance. To live this way is difficult. Much spiritual insight can be fathomed from examining how we are out of balance in our lives.
Repenting for Harmony
Everybody knows wrongdoing. But how do we forgive our own wrongdoing in the past, present, and future? Repentance isn't a medieval hair whip, it is a wonderful purification of the heart and a sincere effort to know our own misdeeds and to practice restraint in the face of habit.
We often don't want to acknowledge our own wrongdoing. Sometimes we send ourselves straight to the dungeon of shame when we see it. It can be painful to say to ourselves 'wow, did I mess up and hurt somebody'. Once we have insight, how do we heal from the past harms we have caused, and how do we stop the future ones?
Zen practice has a repentance ceremony, often at the time of the full moon. Sometimes people ask everyday to be released from 'their ancient twisted karma' and acts of harming. Once I asked a wise person how to heal some painfully bad habits. He said 'Just don't make trouble'. This was sage advice which none can follow perfectly, yet the effort to scan our heart and behavior for self revealing harmful activity keeps us honest. The effort to catch ourselves out when we go on automatic pilot can quickly return us to kindness. Hui-Neng speaks of 'formless repentance', an act that covers not only the past, but the present and the future. Formless repentance acknowledges our interdependent hearts and lives and offers up the wish to act in accord with peaceful and loving intentions.
Finding Calm Mind
A calm mind is wonderful. I have found that with practice my calm mind is readily available, something akin to the blue sky above the clouds or calm waters beneath the ripples on a lake. Suzuki Roshi said he could sit peacefully forever, but that getting up was part of practice. A calm mind also means a calm body. In Zen the body-mind aren't separate. When the body becomes still in meditation the mind usually follows.
If a calm mind becomes your goal in meditation you can become easily frustrated, because any goal is a detour and trap in Zen. However, if you stay close to your breathing and allow thoughts to come and go, eventually they quiet down and a sense of spaciousness can arise. In zen we say to neither think or not-think, which is another way of saying just allow your mind to settle naturally. I also think of calm as not meddling with things, and the less I meddle the more still I become. Sometimes meditation is 'just saying no' to anything mental, emotional, or physical, and not allowing yourself to be distracted.
Do you value calm? Even if you do, are you willing to make time for it? This may seem like simplistic questions, but many have lost their appreciation of inner peace. Others have never been taught how to cultivate stillness. When I get caught up in things I am surprise at how easily I can forget to meditate or exercise or maintain the discipline and commitment it usually takes to keep calm at the center of your life.
Addiction Karma
Addictions such as ‘alcohol’ or ‘drugs’ or ‘relationship’ or ‘sex’ from a zen viewpoint are an old story of human suffering based on habitual responses to pain. The center of the Buddhist Wheel of Life depicts greed, hate, and illusory self-perception, three interconnected compulsions. The human tendency for dealing with suffering seems to be denial and intoxicating ourselves as a means of avoidance. We run and hide.
As meditation and dharma teachings awaken our deep connection with all life we can begin to transform compulsive behavior into beneficial activity. Zen is not the ‘hit the nail on the head’ approach of addiction recovery, nor a specific treatment of addiction, but there are interesting parallels. Addiction recovery is a spiritual approach to compulsive behavior and one that offers sound teachings about ethical conduct, spiritual mentoring through sponsorship, the values of simple and honest living, the support of a group, prayer and meditation, a place to go when angst out, and a ‘path’ ,or steps for recovery. Zen has some similar approaches.
Zen is facing reality, specifically how we each suffer because of our attitudes and habits. The zen community sangha provides a place of insight through meditation, teachings, personal guidance, ritual, and ethical conduct. Zen is unhooking from binds to compulsive living and moving into the freedom of grounded accountability and the freshness of now/today. As we free ourselves from greed, hate, and delusion we can embrace the totality of our wholeness and our essential being.
Quiet Disappointment
Meeting the disappointments in our lives with gentleness is a way of deepening our experience while being kind to ourselves and others. Disappointment is the root of most anger as well as frustration. I know that when I find myself reacting with either anger or frustration I am usually out of touch with deeper emotion and experience. The truth of quiet disappointment can at times be harder to bear than the bluster of anger or explosion of tears or of knee jerk reaction frustration.
Our karmic history plays a big role in disappointment...how were we taught to deal with frustration and loss as children, and what habit patterns and beliefs did we form about things going our way and the reality of disappointment? Inner awareness and problem solving in these areas is helpful of course. The Zen approach of 'just seeing it clearly' is quite powerful in and of itself. So much of our difficulty is in stepping back from habit, from reactivity, and from pouring gasoline on the fires that are already burning within our hearts and in our relationships.
Even though I don't like disappointment, I think of it now as a gift. I notice that when I breathe out when I feel it, my chest softens and I begin to touch places in my body and emotions that I didn't know were there, or that are old friends that have returned. The most important aspect of this gentle approach for me is that I soften inside and become aware of the choices I have: nurture myself, think clearly about what is going on, speak with the intention of kind problem solving instead of jumping down somebodies throat.
Then there is picking up a rock and throwing it at a cliff or into the ocean. The point about disappointment is.....how do we want to meet it?
Lay My Burdens Down
There's a great blues song that goes 'lay my burdens down, Lord, lay my burdens down'. What do we do with our daily burdens? How do we live with what troubles us, with a faltering earth, war ravaged nations, global aids, impoverished and dislocated people, or just the stress of keeping up in our economy? Does the famous Paul Reps poem 'Drinking a cup of tea I stopped the war' bring us comfort? Does Suzuki Roshi's profound comment 'Welcome your troubles' give us a path to inner peace?
Zen practice has taught me that there is a balance between stillness and movement, between a wide and calm acceptance and a disturbing yet compassionate engagement. I was terrified of a nuclear holocaust when I was a child, a reality that Hiroshima and Nagasaki residents experienced. As a consultant I once helped a company better it's nuclear waste disposal system. As a Zen student I spoke out at a rally for nuclear disarmament.
Tuning in to what ails us is a first step. We have learned to not recognize or accept what burdens us sometimes. Other times we drown in it or glorify it. We can stubbornly refuse to change it. We can cling to it, deny it, push it away, fix part of it, blame somebody for it....there is a long list of unwholesome postures we can take with our burdens. Learning to accept a burden, rest in the larger miracle of being alive, putting it into perspective, slowly planning resolution, walking into the light, holding hands with friends....
When do we lay our burdens down, when do we pick them up, and what lies in between? A Zen dilemma if there every was one. This is a place where holding the question seems more important than seeking the answer.
Ripe Mistakes
Mistakes are ripe with possibility for cultivating wisdom and humility. They keep us from an inflated sense of ourselves. They are humbling. They also can trigger shame, guilt, and doubt, which are grist for development. A famous Zen saying is that practice itself is going from mistake to mistake, an endless tripping over yourself. Welcome to the school of human failure.
We like to believe our own press release, the story we tell ourselves about who we are. Our identity backpacks are filled with formulas for the ‘right way to be me’. Zazen lets us examine where our real face and our imagined face meet. Who are we if we aren't are story? Our mistakes are great teachers.
I am sometimes surprised as I go through the day how I trip over myself. Of course I have made some progress through the years, but trip I do. I find that the more alert I am to each moment, the more aware I am of the nuances of being with people. When I am with my kids and my voice rises in pitch and speeds up, my impatience raises their anxiety. When I talk too much without listening, a friend may feel unrecognized or unheard. This type of awareness is rooted in two things, the cultivated sense of the moment that comes with Zen practice, and the values of practice established in the paramitas, or virtuous actions such as patience, kindness, wisdom, vigor, and discipline.
I have found two effective things I can do with my mistakes. Foremost is not repeating them! This is the finest of apologies, for each corrected mistake becomes a benefit to all. The second is to apologize to whomever I have harmed, if appropriate and possible. ‘I’m sorry’ are important words and on equal footing with ‘Thank you”.
Five Hindrances
I think we naturally long for inner peace. My own list of habits that keep me from a settled sense of well being has at times been rather long. I'm happy just to have a shorter list. For several millennium, Buddhist have had a short list of five hindrances that keep most people from enjoying serenity and stillness. Zen practice isn't about putting on handcuffs or making them going away, but recognizing them, watching them, exploring them, and then discovering how they perhaps lesson their hold on your mind and life as you become friends with them. This is the beginning of learning to make friends with 'enemies', which the world needs if ever there is to be peace.
Sensual desire is hard wired into our brain and cells. It is natural to have longings and desires. To make them all go away would make us less than human. The questions are do they run us, can we exercise restraint when appropriate, and are we healthy in our relationship to desire?
Anger and ill will mask our disappointments and keep us from loving kindness. In Zen we learn to see everyone as Buddha, to respect their dignity and realize their lives are intertwined with ours. Sometimes meditation means being on fire with your own anger, and pondering how to acknowledge it and transform it into beneficial action.
Sloth and Torpor mean more than just being lazy of body and mind, they also mean being lazy about seeking the truth, spirituality, and ethical conduct. How curious are we about the nature of mind, loving kindness, compassionate action, our inner development, healing the troubles of the world?
Restlessness and Worry can be an inner plague, insidiously inhabiting the nooks and crannies of our being. We can worry about the past, present, and future obsessively. I have found that much of worry is about wanting to be in control of things, or having shame and anxiety. The extent of the worry seems proportional to how far distant I am from the present moment. Restlessness of body and mind can be a lifestyle. Sitting still clarifies how it happens and can cultivate deep abiding calm.
Skeptical Doubt is the naysayer within, the guardian of self centeredness that keeps trust, faith, surrender, spirit at bay. Perhaps it symbolic of the war between mind and heart, body and mind, and all the neurotic anxiety and depression that keeps us from committing to a life of wholeness, intimacy, and love.