One Final Regret

There are close to 40,000 individuals who take their life by suicide each year. It is estimated that there are close to a million others who attempt suicide but don't succeed.

The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco is the place where there are more suicides than any other place in America.

People are known to have boarded a plane and flown to San Francisco so they could end their lives jumping off this iconic structure. What is it that causes someone to engage in one of societies gravest taboos? Why do people kill themselves?

 Marissa Imrie was only 14 years old when she jumped to her death from "The Bridge." She left a one sentence suicide note:

 "Everyone is better off without this fat, disgusting, boring girl."

Marissa was experiencing what suicide experts call a sense of "thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness." She didn't think anyone cared about her, didn't fit in with others, or had anyone to support her. She felt her life was a burden to the entire world and the world would be a better off without her.

Suicidal behavior arises from an extreme perception of separateness: one of the darkest delusions of the human experience. A sense that one is completely alienated from the rest of the world. A belief that nothing can be done to relieve one's suffering. When this belief becomes strong enough, suicide becomes an attactive alternative to living. Why? Because throughout our lives we learn from our experience that one way to escape pain is to engage in any behavior that removes it. Some people eat too much, some drink to much, some become violent - there are so many ways that our ego-mind attempts to control our painful feelings and thoughts. And yet, paradoxically, it is this very mind that is the source of our pain. It is this mind that separates us from our truest self. A self that is the connection of all things. A sense of connection that is so complete, that once it is realized, any trace of seperateness evaporates in an instant revealing our very nature as connection itself. The result is the deepest experience of belonging we will ever realize. A realization that each and everyone one of us is perfect and complete just as we are and that our life is a beautiful gift and expression of the entire universe.

It is believed that 1,300 people have attempted suicide off of the Golden Gate Bridge. It is estimated that someone jumps off this bridge every other week. Almost no one survives the fall. But those that do survive often say that as they approached the moment of their death, they had an astonishing realization.

The following account was written by reporter Kevin Caruso in 2007.

"It was in September of 2000 when Kevin was in high school and he started to hallucinate and hear voices because of his disorder. After a while, he couldn’t cope any longer, and one day when the hallucinations and voices were particularly intense, he decided to kill himself.

So he took a bus to the Golden Gate Bridge. He cried the entire trip, knowing that his life would soon be over, but also believing that he had to kill himself to end his torment.

“I had heard that the Golden Gate Bridge was the easiest way to die. I heard that you hit the water and you're dead,” Kevin said. “And I remember picking the spot. This is the good spot. I'm not too close to the pillar. I won't hit the pillar. I'm not too close to the land. I won't hit the land. I'll hit the water and I'll die.”

Kevin was ready to kill himself.

But as he walked along, some indecisiveness crept in. He wanted someone to help him; he wanted someone to show him that he or she cared. So he began crying as he walked, silently reaching out for help. A female police officer rode by on a bicycle, but did not stop.Two bridge workers also passed him without stopping. The voices in Kevin’s head were now screaming at him in a cacophonic chorus: “You have to die! ”But something kept holding Kevin back. He thought,

“If someone just showed me that he or she cared,” he thought to himself, “I wouldn’t jump.”

And then an attractive young woman appeared, and Kevin knew that his prayers had been answered.

“She cares,” Kevin said to himself. And he knew that he didn’t have to jump. Everything was okay.

Kevin looked intently at the woman as she approached. But the woman aloofly handed Kevin a camera and said, “Take my picture.” Kevin couldn’t believe it. So he stood there crying, took the picture, and was completely convinced that no one cared about him – no one cared whether he lived or died. He gave the camera back to the woman, took three running steps, and jumped. But the second that he jumped, he knew that he had made a grave mistake.

“Oh, my God,” he thought to himself. “I don't want to die. What did I just do?”

Suddenly Kevin realized something. What was it?

Clearly the police officer that passed him without stopping to ask about his tears was not awake to his suffering. The two construction workers who passed him by were also not awake to his suffering. And the woman who saw Kevin as an instrument of her own vanity was lost in her delusion of separateness.

Everyone in this sad story drank deeply from the cup of delusion. A fundamental ignorance that gives us permission to not see others as ourselves or ourselves as others. Lacking this understanding, we believe that we are not responsible for anyone but ourselves and our closet loved ones ... we don't have to care about others who we don't know. Their problems are not our problems. That was the case in this tragic episode and someone almost lost their life ... like so many others that have died.

There is a Zen story I once heard about and incident where a young monk approached his Master who was standing on a bridge overlooking a raging river. The monk asked his Master about the meaning of life. The Master promptly picked him up and threw him into the river. While fighting to get to the shore, the monk awakened to his true nature. 

What did he realize?

What is this life? What does it take to wake up to the fact that we lack nothing? What keeps us from seeing our true nature?

Will it have to come down to one final regret before we finally see that our life, this life, is the Way?

Always and Forever

What does it mean to pledge our heart to another "always and forever?" What does it mean to love openly without shame or self consciousness?

There is an old story about a Zen nun named Eshun, who was training with a Master and twenty male monks.

Eshun was known to be very beautiful even with her shaved head and dressed in her plain black robes. A number of the male monks secretly fell in love with her.

One of them wrote her a private letter asking to meet with her in secret but Eshun did not reply. The next day, when the entire sangha was gathered to hear the Master deliver his teisho, Eshun stood up at the conclusion of his talk and addressing the monk who had written the private letter said, "If you really love me, come and embrace me now."

Eshun wasn't interested in some secret love affair behind close doors. She was looking for a public declaration of love without conditions. Although this story never specifies what happened next, one is left with the impression that Eshun's admirer froze when called upon by Eshun to freely demonstrate his love for her - right here, right now.

What caused the monk to freeze. Why was he unable to express his supposed love for Eshun in the moment? What held him back?

The other day the following lyric of a love song appeared on the radio:

"Always and forever
Each moment with you
Is just like a dream to me
That somehow came true

And I know tomorrow
Will still be the same
Cause we've got a life of love
That won't ever change ... "

The term "always and forever" implies an experience of time that stretches forward into the future. But how can love exist in a future that has not yet arrived?

Some say that true love is timeless. That is to say that love is not found in the past or future but only in this present moment. Love must live now if it lives at all.

Turn Into The Skid

By all accounts, the winter of 2011 is one of the roughest on record and navigating snow covered roads offers a real challenge to our safety. So how can we free ourselves from this hazard?

We could simply resolve to just stay home until the snow is gone but the number of storms that we have experienced this year renders this solution impractical.

The snow is just not going away anytime soon. We have to venture out onto treacherous roads to get food, run errands, go to work, etc. We really don’t have much choice. We must find a way to deal with the circumstances of this season of our lives regardless of the weather.

A monk said to Dongshan,
“Cold and heat descend upon us. How
can we avoid them?”

Dongshan said,
“Why don’t you go where there is no cold
or heat?”

The monk said,
“Where is the place where there is no
cold or heat? ”

Dongshan said,
“When cold, let it be so cold that it kills
you; when hot, let it be so hot that it kills
you.”

As long as we are alive, we will encounter situations and circumstances that we would prefer to avoid if possible. It’s only natural as our brains are hardwired to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Before our conceptual mind even registers our painful experience in conscious awareness, our bodies have taken steps to move away from our pain.

Not only is this the case when our bodies experience physical discomfort, it is evident when we take deliberate action to move away from our psychological and emotional pain. If guilt, shame, or regret show up, we can take a drink to move ourselves away from these painful internal experiences. If rejection, hurt, and disrespect arrive, we can explode into angry behavior to alleviate these unwanted feelings.

However, Master Dongshan seems to be pointing to another way of living our lives. What does he mean when he says,

“When cold, let it be so cold that it kills
you; when hot, let it be so hot that it kills
you.”

When driving on icy roads, we sometimes find ourselves skidding out of control. Our initial instinct is to hit the brakes and turn away from the direction we are skidding. If we continue to try to avoid the skid in this way we will often encounter disastrous results.

In order to stay safe in a skid we must do what seems at first glance to be counter intuitive. We must embrace what we fear the most in that situation. The feeling of being out of control. We must turn into the skid.

Break the Rules!

Modern contextual behavioral science has recently discovered that our verbal behavior can exert a powerful influence over our lives. It turns out that we verbally construct self rules abstracted from our direct experience of life and use these rules to guide our behaviors in specific contexts.

Initially, our behavior is shaped by the consequences of our experiences in a very direct way. For example, we learn to avoid people who are difficult to interact with in a given situation. After several contentious encounters, our behavior will be shaped by the interpersonal aversion we experience in these encounters. We will learn to avoid contact with this person. We will also re-construct these encounters in our minds via thinking and ruminating about them days, weeks, months, etc., later. Interestingly, we will also relive these contentious encounters each time we think of them.

In time we may construct a "self rule," to guide our behavior in relation to this person; e.g., "if you encounter Larry, try to avoid him, if possible, as he is so difficult to interact with!" Characteristically, these self constructed rules specify how we should act in a given context and the probable consequence we will experience by doing so. In this situation, the "Larry Rule," informs us that in situations where Larry is present, if we avoid him, we are less likely to have an unpleasant social encounter.

This all seems to make great sense except for one thing. There is a hidden negative side effect when we stick to following these types of rules. This effect is known as rule "insensitivity." Rule insensitivity describes a phenomena that occurs when we continue to follow a rule even when the original consequences that gave rise to the rule are no longer in effect.

For example, in the situation described above, Larry attends therapy and learns to become more socially skilled in his interactions with others. However, because we have internalized the "Larry Rule," mentioned above, we continue to avoid him even though the behavior that gave rise to the rule; i.e., his obnoxious social behavior, is no longer producing the social consequences that shaped it.

By clinging to the "Larry Rule," we never give Larry the opportunity to show us through his behavior that the "Larry Rule," no longer has any functional utility for us. We have lost contact with the direct experience of Larry. We have objectified Larry into an avoidance rule and relate to him accordingly.

Consider the following Zen Story known as the "Muddy Road."

Tanzan & Ekido were once traveling together down a muddy road. A heavy rain was still falling. Coming around a bend, they met a lovely girl in a silk kimono & sash, unable to cross the intersection.

"Come on, girl," said Tanzan at once. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her over the mud.

Ekido did not speak again until that night when they reached a lodging temple. Then he no longer could restrain himself. "We monks don't go near females," he told Tanzan, "especially not young & lovely ones. It is dangerous. Why did you do that?"

"I left the girl there," said Tanzan. "Are you still carrying her?"

Rules, as self constructed guiding thoughts, have great value in helping us to organize our responses to the myriad situations we encounter in life. However, its important to note that they can never specify all of the possible situations we will encounter. They also don't map on to the ever changing nature of life very well over time.

When it comes to verbally self constructed rules that we use to govern our behavior, its important to "know when to hold them, & know when to fold them."

It's important to hold these rules lightly for when we stay present to what is actually happening in this very moment, sometimes breaking them is the most compassionate action we can take.

Build Your Own Temple

We learn in Case 4 of the Shoyoroku (Book of Serenity) that one day when the World-Honored One was walking with his assembly of monks he pointed to the ground with his hand and said, "This place is good for building a temple."

Indra took a blade of grass and stuck it in the ground and said, "The temple has been built."

The World-Honored One smiled.

The etymology of the word temple yields a number of different definitions. The word temple comes from Latin templum, itself derived from the Indo-European root *tem-, "to cut, divide." Latin templum probably referred originally to the fact that temples were on sacred ground that was "divided" or separated from ordinary ground.

One definition of temple is an edifice devoted to special or exalted purposes. A special builidng for prayer and worship.

Another definition of temple is "something regarded as having within it a divine presence."

Given these definitions, why would Indra say, "The temple has been built," after placing a blade of grass on the spot the Buddha pointed to as the "place [that] is good for building a temple." What was it about Indra's action that caused the Buddha to smile.

How is it possible that sticking a blade of grass in the ground and building a temple is somehow equivalent? If one's dharma eye is clear, the answer to this question will be obvious to you.

Before we awaken and realize our True Self, we divide aspects of our experience of the world up into the sacred and the profane and then set these two opposing categories in conflict with each other. The sacred is not the profane ... the profane is not sacred.

Each of our minds has this amazing ability to compare and contrast, to evaluate and judge and to problem solve. These functions of mind are necessary for our day-to-day functioning and account for the many accomplishments that we as a species have achieved. But these are not the only or most important functions of our mind. In fact, when we view our minds as only made up of these functions we severely restrict our ability to function freely.

Why? Because when we take our evaluations and judgements as literal truth and choose our actions based on them, we close ourselves off from the reality of this moment as it continually unfolds. We stop noticing what is happening in our direct experience of the world because our judgements kill our awareness of them. We stop noticing any evidence that might disconfirm our opinions. Then we are not getting the complete story and our actions reflect this limited perspective.

Ever notice how hard it is to convince someone of an alternative point of view once their mind is made up?

In a famous verse from the Hsin-hsin Ming (Faith in Mind) written by the Third Zen Patriarch, Seng-ts'an, we learn of the problem of depending exclusively on the mind's powers of judgement and evaluation to determine reality:

"The Supreme Way is not difficult
If only you do not pick and choose.
Neither love nor hate,
And you will clearly understand.
Be off by a hair,
And you are as far from it as heaven from earth.
If you want the Way to appear,
Be neither for nor against.
For and against opposing each other
This is the mind's disease."

There is a saying in Zen, "You are perfect and complete just as you are." Many people reject this notion initially as it seems to be pointing to an evaluation of ourselves that our experience tells us is untrue. We might think to ourselves, "I am far from perfect, I do things all the time that are pretty messed up. This saying does not square with my experience of reality."

This is most likely due to our interpretation of the meaning of the word "perfect." Common everyday usage of this term is part of our vocabulary of judgement and evaluation. Things are perfect or imperfect.

However, the word "perfect" actually has a very different meaning when viewed from the perspective of etymology. The "per" in perfect literally means "thorough" and the "fect" in perfect literally means "made." So speaking etymologically, the word perfect means "thoroughly made."

Whatever our experience, good or bad, happy or sad, sacred or profane, we were present when we experienced it. All of our experience, regardless of how we judge it is our experience: the lived truth of our lives - moment-to-moment-to-moment. It is thoroughly made in each moment. It is in that sense that it is perfect and complete "just as it is."

When viewed from this perspective, everything we do is perfect and completely whole with nothing left out. If a temple can be defined as "something regarded as having within it a divine presence," then all of our acts are temple building behaviors - not just the ones done on "sacred ground." All ground is sacred.

The Dalai Lama said it this way, "This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness."

What's Your Story?

It is said that Huineng, the Sixth Zen Patriarch, experienced sudden enlightenment upon hearing a passage from the Diamond Sutra as it was recited by a monk chanting nearby on a city street. The actual passage from the Diamond Sutra which opened Huineng up to his True Self roughly translates as, "Abiding nowhere, raise the Bodhi Mind."

We also know that Huineng was unable to read or write and so would have never encountered this teaching if he had been dependent on reading it for himself.

Case three of the Book of Serenity describes an encounter between the ruler of a country in East India who during lunch with the 27th Ancestor, Hannyatara, asked him, "Why don't you read the sutras?" Hannyatara replied, "This poor follower of the Way, when breathing in does not dwell in the realm of the skandhas, and when breathing out is not caught up in the many externals. Always do I thus turn a hundred million billion rolls of sutras."

Tracy Chapman, a popular singer/songwriter wrote a lyric in one of her popular songs that goes something like this:

"There is fiction in the space between the lines on a page and reality. Write it down but it doesn't mean, you're not just telling stories."

It's easy to get hooked on words. Language is one of the most powerful tools known to humankind. And yet our words are always pointing to something beyond their reach.

Try to capture in words a beautiful sunset such that you convey the actual experience of that sunset to another person who is not seeing it. Our words may paint a picture of a sunset and quite possibly create an image of one in the mind of the listener ... but they will never convey the experience of the actual sunset being seen. It simply cannot be done ... such is the nature of words and language. And yet, we often take their meaning to be the literal truth of our lives and reality itself.

The term samskhara denotes one of the five skandhas. In Buddhist teaching, the skandhas are the five "aggregates" that make up the self. The other four being form, feeling, perception and consciousness. The five aggregates or "bundles" describe the intersection where various conditions come together in a unique configuration of effects that function to create our "sense of self." The fourth aggregate, samskhara, is an effect of this coming together of conditions that gives birth to the story lines we create in our minds. These stories are derived from our actual direct experience of life through the five senses.

Once we have "made sense" of our direct sensory experience of life via the samskhara function, we act out of these "stories." The more we act out of them, the deeper and more ingrained they become. Metaphorically speaking, we create deep psychological "ruts" for our incoming sensory experience to travel in. This is the process of knowing. It allows us to categorize our moment to moment experience in ways that are familiar, predictable, and reassuring. It is also a potential trap.

Why? Because it is all too easy to get stuck in these "mental grooves" and in the process ignore what is unfolding right in front of us in our direct experience. Our lives can really get off track when we become so committed to following these well worn paths of knowing that they become our only way of functioning. If I become terribly accustomed to traveling the internal path of "I am a worthless person," then I will begin to function out of that samskhara.

In his commentary on the third case of the Book of Serenity, Roshi Shishin Wick states, "Sutra usually refers to the teachings of the Buddha, but a sutra could be anything that is undeniable true. With each breath Hannyatara revolves the sutras. Breathing in, breathing out, the fundamental truth ... is revealed."

So, what's your story?

What Addicts Don't Know

I received a call from admissions regarding a potential patient for our program. The attending psychiatrist was reluctant to send him to our Partial Hospitalization Program. She knew his history of herion addiction and repeated hospitalizations and admissions to addiction treatment centers. He was deemed to be beyond help - a hardcore confirmed addict who manipulated his way in and out of treatment centers when things got too tough out there on the streets. They called me to see if I wanted to meet with him and assess my willingness to bring him into our program. I agreed to meet with him.

I meet with him on a locked co-occuring disorder unit. He was there to de-tox from heroin. During my conversation with him he disclosed some of his history. His father was a terribly abusive man who beat him and his brother on regular basis when they were kids. By the time he was 14 he had had enough and attempted to run away from home. He was picked up by a pedophile who brutally raped him at gunpiont.

He was largely adrift after that until he was old enough to enlist in the Army. He did a tour in Vietnam where he spent his time as a tunnel rat. That job involved crawling into tunnels with a flashlight and a .45 caliber pistol to look for the Vietcong. On one such excursion, he was nearly killed in a face-to-face encounter with the enemy. They were literally inches apart when a life and death struggle ensued. He carries that memory as if it just happened yesterday.

After his discharge from the Army, he wandered from place to place adrift in his pain. He held a number of different jobs, was married several times, had two children, was in an out of VA hosptials and spent time in prison.

After several days in our program his clinician, a recent Ph.D. who is big on clinical knowlege but short on empathy, informed me that he was not responding to her. She felt there was nothing more we could offer him.

During her day off I had a chance to see and ask him, "Who are you?" He answered, "I am an addict."

I tried a couple of techniques to try to pry him loose from this conception of himself. He quickly intuited what I was up to and successfully thwarted each of my attempts.

He was good at this type of therapist/client dance and seemed to enjoy it. So I just let go of my agenda and decided to just bear witness to his story. To suspend all of my ideas about him and see what would happen when I placed no clinical demands on his behavior.

He suddenly changed. He stopped being evasive and manipulative. And he told me a story. He said that he once read a play by Ingmar Bergman about a woman who was a famous actress. She had a daughter and she was being groomed to replace her on the stage. Finally, the fateful day arrived when the mother ceded her place on the stage to her daughter. She stepped off the stage never to return.

He was sharing this story as a metaphor for his own life. He said that all his life he had been living in fear. He turned to drugs and addiction as a way to cope with his fear and learned to lie, steal, manipulate and dance the dance of addiction which became his life.

One of things that he came to realize was that stepping down from the "life stage of addiction" brought him face-to-face with a painful realization. He didn't know who he was. Other people he had known in his life spent their lives building careers, becoming successful, cementing their identities and becoming known for their actions.

All he had ever known was the life of an addict. Without that he didn't know who he was.

I told him the following story:

Emperor Wu, of China asked the Great Teacher Bodhidharma, "What is the highest meaning of the holy truths?"

Bodhidharma said, "Vast emptiness - nothing holy."

The emporer said, "Then who is this facing me?"

Bodhidharma replied, "I don't know."

We looked at each other for a moment and then I said, "Not knowing is the highest truth."

Upon hearing this the patient broke into a broad smile.

We silently did a fist bump and ended our session together.

What Does Your Experience Tell You?

One day, over 2500 years ago, The Buddha sitting atop Vulture Peak in India, held up a single flower before a vast assembly of his followers. All were silent except for Mahakasyapa who broke into a smile.

The Buddha responded, "I have the all pervading True Dharma, Incomparable Nirvana, exquisite teaching of formless form. It does not rely on letters and is transmitted outside scriptures. I now hand it to Mahakasyapa."

It is written that this was the first face-to-face transmission of the Way from teacher to student. All subsequent transmissions of the Dharma from teacher to student have unfolded in a similar fashion - beyond words and letters; i.e., not depending on language or conceptual understanding.

If that which is being transmitted cannot be verbally expressed - what can it possibly be?

Ernie has suffered from anxiety as far back as he can remember. His stepfather is the only father he has ever known: a guy that he can never please. For the last 30 years all Ernie has ever heard is what a disappoint he is to this man. No matter what he does, it is never good enough - there is always some flaw his stepfather can find to keep Ernie anxious and on guard.

Ernie thought he would get away from the pain this relationship entailed by enlisting in the Marines and going off to fight in Iraq. He told me that at least there he was able to discharge years and years of pent up rage on the battlefield.

When I first met him he was residing on a locked unit of a psych ward for expressing suicidal ideation. He is only 35 years old.

We were working with Ernie to enable him to experience what it would mean to be present with all his anxiety and fear AND move in a valued life direction. It was a notion so foreign to him that each time we worked with him in this way he would shake his head in despair.

At one point, I asked him what he was feeling. He said he just felt miserable. I suggested that he completely become this miserable feeling. I suggested that we both just sit together in the room where we were and wholeheartedly become the misery that each of us could muster - completely without reserve. I asked him to embrace the prajna of this situation.

About one minute into this effort, he suddenly burst out laughing. When I asked him what he was noticing in the moment he replied, "This is ridiculous!" Of itself the fruit is born. He realized that his misery was totally of his own making - that it was his choice. When he clearly saw this with his own prajna eye - he woke up.

The Buddha held up a single flower and Mahakasyapa smiled.

What does your experience tell you?

The World Honored One

I was working with a veteran firefighter from South Boston who came into our PTSD treatment program at the behest of his superiors to obtain help from the ravages of alcoholism. He was told by his Chief that if he didn't straighten up, he would lose his job - one of the few things in life he still values.

He arrived at the program completely intoxicated and spent the next five days in our alcohol detoxification program.

It turned out that he had recently gone on quite a  binge after being laid up at home with a work related injury to his foot.

His usual daily routine is to work hard all day as a firefighter and then drink Jack Daniels all night until he passes out. He told us that when he is at work he doesn't think about any of his demons and once he is home with his buddy, Jack Daniels, Gentleman Jack keeps those pesky demons a way.

Because of the nature of the injury to his foot he was prescribed a form of medication that prohibited him from drinking. While he was healing his bum foot, he was home, out of work, alone, with nothing to do but hang out with his thoughts, feelings and emotions. He was also in constant pain from his injury.

Once the foot finally healed and he was taken off his prescribed medication, he headed straight for the nearest package store and picked up a gallon of Jack. He drained it by the time he went to bed that night - the first day of a multi-day alcoholic binge that ended with his arrival at our program.

We were talking one afternoon and I asked him what he found valuable about family. He confided that he had never been married but really admired his brother's family and wished he too would have married and started a family like his.

At that point he really began to open up and told us his story. It turned out that he met the love of his life as a young man - the women he intended to marry and spend the rest of his life with. During a two year stint in the Navy during the Vietnam War, he received a "Dear John" letter from her. She wrote to let him know she found someone new to take his place.

When he got back home from the war, he discovered she got married and had a child with this other guy. He was so heartbroken that he never married himself and spent his entire adult life living alone. He had many relationships over the years but never found anyone who could take her place in his heart.

Recently however, through a simple twist of fate, he encountered his true love - some 40 years later. It turned out she had only stayed married for two years after which time her husband left her. She raised her son on her own and never remarried. All these years they had been living separate but somewhat parallel lives only miles apart in South Boston.

The two youthful sweethearts had found their way back to each other after all these years. It was his hope that they might be married after all and have the family he had always dreamed about.

There was only one hitch in this plan: his alcoholism and binge drinking. He knew, that he really had no chance with her if that was all he could offer her this time around. He felt stuck like a hub of a wheel that can't turn. In sanskrit, the word for this is dukkha.

Knowing that drinking is often just a form of self medication, we began to explore the notion that the booze was just a way to anesthetize himself from his own internal mental experience. Booze was a way to avoid the internalized life experiences that haunted him: his painful thoughts, feelings and memories of the past.

We explored how well the "drinking cure" had worked for him over these many years. It was quite clear that the booze worked well as a short term fix, however, it never permanently removed those memories from his internal landscape. They always came back sooner or later - often with a vengeance.

Psychologist Steve Hayes is quoted as saying, "Life is a choice. [Difficult feelings, thoughts, memories, etc.,] is not a choice. Either way you go, you will have problems and pain. So your choice is not about whether or not to have [difficult feelings, thoughts, memories, etc.,] Your choice is about whether or not to live a meaningful life."

In the first case of the Shoyoroku (The Book of Serenity) compiled in the 12th century in China, we are presented with the following koan:

The World-Honored One Ascends the Platform

One day the World-Honored One ascended the platform and took his seat. Manjusri struck the gavel and said, "When you realize the Dharma-King's Dharma, the Dharma-King's Dharma is just as is." At that, the World-Honored One descended from the platform.

The term "World-Honored One" is another term for Buddha. Buddha means "The Awakened One." What did he wake up to? The nature of reality as it is.

We can be a drunk, a soldier or a saint. We are who we are in this moment. And we can choose to change who we are in this moment. Whatever we choose, that is reality as it is.

No matter what life we choose - we remain from the very beginning all the way through to the end, "The World-Honored One."

Coming or going, ascending the platform or stepping down from it - the truth is just like this.

Where would you like your life to take you now?

Put It All Down

Master Kyogen said, "Its like a man up a tree hanging from a branch by his mouth; his hands cannot grasp a branch, his feet won't reach one. A man under the tree  asks him, "What is the meaning of Bodhidharma's coming from the west?" If he does not respond, he goes against the wishes of the questioner who will take his life. If he answers, he will fall to his death. At such a time, how can you respond?"

I met a Vietnam Veteran who was enrolled in a PTSD program at a VA hosptial in Augusta, Maine. He was in his mid sixties at the time and seemed somewhat reluctant to fully participate in his treatment. He told me his story during intermittent breaks in the program schedule.

At one point he said to me that he could not stand being around civilians. He had spent his entire career in the military and apparently had no use for anyone other than soldiers, preferable combat soldiers. During his service in Vietnam he was on a Swift Boat. The Swift Boats were made famous by the presidential campaign of Senator John Kerry. Swift Boats were small Navy gun boats which patrolled the in-land waters of Vietnam. One of the most dangerous jobs of that conflict.

This old salt still carried several pictures of the Swift Boat he served on in Vietnam which he kept on his person at all times. He shared them with whomever he encountered - showing them off as if they were  pictures of his beloved grandchild. He told me that he was divorced and estranged from all his children whom he had not spoken to in years.

When I asked him what he did with his free time when not in the hospital he said straight up, "Most days I drive around in my pick-up with a case of beer and a loaded shotgun  deciding whether or not to kill myself."

Life can be an incredibly hard and unforgiving teacher. She can serve up experiences that are deeply traumatizing - terrifying beyond conception. So traumatizing that the memory of these events becomes permanently seared into the minds of those who experience them. It's as if these memories are fused so tightly with the mind that those who have them can no longer experience them just as memories. Rather, they become reified as permanent characteristics of their personal identity.

Rather than experiencing a traumatic memory by saying to themselves, "I am noticing that I am having the thought that I am a baby killer," they reframe the thought as, "I am a babykiller." Life can become a dark and deeply troubling endeavor when one is walking this earth condemned by the belief that "I am a babykiller."

Once this conceptual slight of hand has gained preeminence in one's thinking a continual lifelong struggle often ensues. This struggle takes the form of guilt, self-loathing, depression, anxiety, etc., etc., etc. The individual is now engaged in a psychological tug of war with their very own personhood.

In time, the struggle intensifies and a negative sense of self permeates one's consciousness. The person begins to feel as if they are living their life confined to a phone booth of their own making: shut down, closed in, isolated, and alone with no hope for relief or escape. They become the man hanging by their teeth in Master Kyogen's tree.

They find themselves in a psychological tug of war with themselves they can't win. It's as if they are on one side of the rope and their negative self evaluations, judgments, condemnations, etc., are on the other end of the rope trying to pull them into an unfathomable pit of despair. The more they pull on the rope to resist being dragged into the pit, the more their negative mind stuff pulls them toward the pit.

This struggle with internal negative experience can go on for years, decades, the rest of their lives. Those who live life stuck to their negative self stories can not see a way out of this trap; ergo the beer, the pickup and the shotgun.

Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn was known for his pithy Zen sayings. Often when a student of the Way would ask him a question about life he would respond by saying, "Put it all down."

There is a way to be free of this struggle with our own internal experience. Can you see it?

Hey - Is that a beard your growing?

Does this man look like he has a beard to you? Yes? If so, why did Wakuan say, "Why does the Western Barbarian have no beard?" What's going on here?

Most folks looking at this picture would be rather puzzled by Wakuan's question. They might think to themselves, "But he does have a beard ... what do you mean WHY?"

From the perspective of our usual way of understanding our world - of course the Western Barbarian has a beard. Its as plain as the hair on your chinny chin chin!

Viewed from another perspective, the Western Barbarian not only has no beard, he also has no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body and no mind ... in fact, there is no such thing as the Western Barbarian.

Huh?

That's right. Viewed from the perspective of the interconnectedness of life, also known as the Dharma, "beard", "Western Barbarian", "eye", "ear", "nose", "tongue", "body", "mind" or any other "thing" that you verbally describe is simply a verbal label. What it is describing cannot be captured in a word, ten words or by language itself.

Why? Because everything owes its very existence to, well actually, everything else. Yep, that's right. Nothing can exist on its own. There isn't anything we could point to or name that is not part of the interconnectedness of all life. The Western Barbarian's beard is the interconnectedness of all things. Call it a beard if you want to, you could just as easily call it a popsicle, if you get my drift.

The interconnectedness of life is another way of saying that we are empty - empty of any permanent, unchanging nature. We and all things in the universe are a manifestation of the interconnectedness of life which is always present and always changing (I knew there was something different about me today!). Yes!

It is in that sense that we can now understand why the Western Barbarian has no beard or anything else for that matter. We can also understand that whatever can be said about anything will unfortunately be only a verbal representation of something that in fact is no thing. Not nothing - no thing. There are no things, only processes - ever changing processes - alive processes. Words and language are just tools that help us relate all this relating - a kind of skillful  means like a finger pointing at the moon when someone asks, "where is the moon this evening?"

So if you think you are a "loser", "abuser", "alcoholic", "criminal", [insert your own self loathing descriptor here] because you or someone else has labeled you as such - your wrong. You are, in fact, a unique manifestation of the entire universe: past, present and future.

You are perfect and complete just as you are and, as Shinryu Suzuki Roshi used to like to say, "you have some things you could be working on."

The bad news is that as long as you stay ignorant of this truth; i.e. believe you are separate from all things,  you will continue to act in ways that cause you and others to suffer.

Ouch! Did you just cut yourself shaving?

By the way - love the beard!

Gimme the Finger

Zen Master Gutei Chikan was famous for his One Finger Zen. Whenever he was asked about the Way he would simply raise a single finger. His attendant, a young boy, often imitated Master Gutei by raising his own finger when visitors to the monastery asked about Master Gutei's teaching. Hearing of this, Master Gutei summoned the young attendant to his room where he took out a knife and cut off the boy's finger. As the boy ran screaming in pain from the room, Gutei called out to the boy just as he reached the door. When the boy turned to look back at Master Gutei, the old monk raised his finger. In this moment, the boy realized his True Self.

What did the boy realize? He had imitated Master Gutei's raised finger many times. Why was the sight of the old master's finger on this occasion the stimulus that broke open his mind revealing his own True Self? If you are looking for an answer in Gutei's finger, you have missed it.

Working with people who struggle with addiction, one often has the opportunity to see the many ways that denial becomes a barrier to recovery. Pain is a powerful motivator giving rise to myriad forms of avoidance. One form of denial is to assert early and often in treatment that one will never use again. For example, I often hear folks say on the second or third day of treatment things like, "This program is great, I know now that I will never take another drink."

Folks who have been in recovery for years immediately detect that a person who utters such a proclamation, so early in treatment, has not yet made recovery into something of their own. They are just mouthing what they think the treatment team, their families, employers, etc., want to hear.

One can go in an out of treatment programs for years carrying on like this. When the drinking gets too bad, just check into a program, take the pledge, say all the right things, get discharged and before too long, start using again. One can become really skilled at fooling others into believing that their recovery is genuine. They can fool everyone except those who have walked the difficult path of recovery.

The good news is there is a path out of addiction. The bad news is that it is painful - plain and simple. Paradoxically, it is often when one is in the deepest throws of that pain that the path to recovery finally opens up right in front of you. This is sometimes known in the business as "hitting bottom."

Gutei's attendant thought he demonstrated an understanding of Gutei's Zen by raising his own finger. When Gutei cut off the boy's finger all he knew in that moment was his pain. It was all encompassing. It was real, right here, right now.

When Gutei raised his finger in response to the boy's pain, the young lad suddenly understood his own Way. He had made Gutei's Zen and the Zen of all the Patriarch's his own.

Gutei's teacher, Master Koshu Tenryu, was once asked by a monk, "How does one escape from the three realms [of desire]?" Master Tenryu replied, "Where are you right this moment?"

Our True Belongings

Case # 2 of the Mumonkan (Gateless Gate) presents the case of Hakujo and the Fox. According to this koan, an old monk told Master Hakujo that he had once been an abbot of a Zen Monastery and was asked by a student if one who has experienced enlightenment is still subject to the law of cause and effect otherwise known as karma. It is said that the old man denied this truth and as a consequence was reborn for the next 500 lifetimes in the body of a fox.

In ancient China, being reborn as a fox was no small matter as the fox was thought of as a disreputable animal and evidence of a very low birth. To live the life of a fox was thought to be a very miserable experience - clearly one to be avoided if possible.

In effect, this koan raises the question of whether or not we can ever be free of the consequences of our actions. Is it always true that what goes around comes around? Do we always either directly or indirectly reap what we sow? In other words, are we really subject to the law of karma - the law of cause and effect?

Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) affects thousands of uniformed services professionals; i.e., firefighters, cops, emergency medical personnel, veterans, etc., each year. It is a very difficult disorder to live with and not an easy way to go.

PTSD is characterized by a number of pernicious symptoms experienced by those who carry it. They include recurring, distressing recollections of traumatic events including images, thoughts, or perceptions of the horrific events they have perpetrated our encountered. Their dreams are haunted by post traumatic memories and their bodies triggered by internal and external symbolic cues associated with remembrances of death, destruction, fear and pain. The unintended effect of all of this is intense psychological suffering.

In time, they have difficulty sleeping, concentrating and are prone to irritability and angry outbursts. They are easily startled and increasingly organize their daily lives around efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings, activities, places, people or conversations that might arouse the dreaded symptoms of this disorder. They become increasingly hypervigilant seeing threats to their well being at every turn. The loss of interest and participation in significant life activities is a common occurrence. They often sense a foreshortened future in regard to having a career, marriage, family, children or a normal life span. In severe cases, they drift into a sense of detachment from life and a restricted range of affect including an inability to experience loving feelings towards anything or anyone, least of all themselves. In other words, they become like the fox alluded to above.

When the old monk asked Hakujo whether or not someone who has experienced enlightenment is subject to the law of cause and effect, Hakujo answered by saying, "Such a person does not evade the law of cause and effect." Upon hearing this, the old monk was liberated from his fox body and was reborn as a monk once again.

But what is meant by the statement, "Such a person does not evade the law of cause and effect."? Ernst Mach, a 19th century physicist and philosopher, whose work helped Einstein develop his theory of relativity wrote the following regarding the notion of cause and effect, "There is no cause and effect in nature; nature has but an individual existence; nature simply is."

What happens to the notion of cause and effect when we are simply willing to be with the consequences of our actions just as they are without the desire to evade or avoid them? What happens when we are willing to "not wear a tearful face" and live out the truth of our lives no matter how difficult or heart rendering it is to do so?

I read that the Buddha said that the consequences of his actions were his truest belongings, the ground upon which he stood. The life of a fox is a full and complete life nonetheless.

Summing up his commentary on the koan of Hakujo and the Fox, Master Mumon writes a poem:

Not falling, not ignoring:
Odd and even are on one die.
Not ignoring, not falling:
Hundreds of thousands of regrets!

When we are willing to face our own music, even a hard life can produce the sweetest song.

Working without a net

Karl Wallenda of the famous Flying Wallendas spent his entire adult life defying death and gravity by walking the high wire without a net. Finally, at the age of 73, Karl fell to his death after decades as a high wire performer. Despite this tragedy, Karl lives on today as the most famous high wire artist of all time.

What drives someone to live their life without a net? Why is it that some folks, like Karl, abandon the security of a safety net and deliberately choose to risk it all each time they get up on the high wire? The answer may be found at the deepest depths of the human condition: the emptiness of self.

Philosophers, religous leaders, psychologists and other seekers of truth have been puzzling for centuries as to the ultimate nature of reality. More specifically, searching for the ultimate ground of being. The study of the ultimate nature of being is called ontology. Ontology is the study of "is-ness", "being-ness", "am-ness", etc., etc. Who and what are we anyway? And what is the true nature of reality?

(BTW, this might be a good time to go to the kitchen and fix yourself a sandwich if you are not into "heavy" dialogue and philosophy!)

Most of us would cop to the notion that we exist here and now, moment to moment. But who is this me or I that supposedly exists? The Buddhist teaching of sunyata asserts that ultimately we don't exist as a separate and distinct entity disconnected from and abiding in some "stand alone" juxtaposition to the rest of existence.

Huh? What did you say? I don't exist ... then who is that looking at me in the mirror then?

The answer according to Hwa Yen Buddhist Philosophy is ... well ... no one ... really. Apparently, that image in the mirror is nothing more or less than the coming together at this moment in time of a swirling, dancing, ever changing expression of all that is in this particular place somewhere along the space-time continuum. Once we begin to unpack ourselves we eventually arrive at emptiness. That is "no-thing-ness."

Hwa Yen philosophy informs us that our experience of "beingness" is an expression of our deep seated clinging and attachment to self. To my way of thinking, this is akin to something along the lines of fusion with a "sense of self" that arises out of the coming together of a myriad complex of conditions.

Having asserted this, Hwa Yen philosophy saddles itself with the burden of having to explain how it is that all things are devoid of self or beingness. Said another way, they need to explain how it is that things lack any definitive nature. In order to do this, Hwa Yen philosophy posits the notion of indeterminateness.

Here is how the argument goes: everything is indeterminate; things are such and such only in relation to so and so in a particular frame of reference. Their determinateness is found only in terms of certain conditions and within certain arbitrary realms. This fact of indeterminateness is also called relativity---x is x only in relation to y under certain conditions.

Pretty heady stuff - heh? Well not really. Think of the metaphor of a long corridor stretching away from you. Along the corridor are a series of standing lamps. When one lamp is turned on it emits x amount of light. When a second lamp is turned on, its light interpenetrates with the light emitted from the first lamp to illuminate even more of the corridor. With the turning on of each successive lamp, more and more light forms to illuminate the corridor. Each lamp in an of itself emits light which combines seamlessly with the light of the other lamps. Taken together, the interpenetrating light waves illuminate the entire corridor melding together without hindrance.

The illumination of the entire corridor comes into being as a result of the interpenetration of the light from each of the individual lamps. It is in essence a product of them all while at the same time not any one of them at all in particular. This metaphor points to the nature of our being as well. We don't actually exist independently except for the conditions that have come together like interpenetrating waves of light.

If you can buy that this is the actual state of affairs regarding our individual "sense of self" , then we come face-to-face with a most fundamental truth: we are just this moment without any ground of being that is "really there" supporting us.

We are all operating without a net. Isn't exhilarating up here on the high wire knowing that at any moment it could all change?

The Eternal Flame of Self

I was working with a group of uniformed service workers, two Irag war veterans, a former military cop, a correctional officer and a former police officer attempting to unravel their suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I direct a partial hospitalization program for fallen heroes like these men and women who suffer with anxiety, depression, substance abuse, rage, flashbacks, and other forms of traumatic reliving that makes their day-to-day existence a living hell. They come to us seeking refuge from their own minds which torment them on a daily basis.

We all know pain ... it visits us many times throughout our lives and is a constant companion as we get closer and closer to the end of our days. Pain has many faces. For example, sometimes it is physical in nature and sometimes it lives within our mental experience as sadness, loss, regret, self criticism, etc., etc.

Someone once said that pain is mandatory but suffering is not. So what is the distinction between pain and suffering that this statement is pointing to? One view of this distinction is the notion that pain comes from our direct experience of the world. Suffering, on the other hand, results from our mental representations of painful experiences (thoughts, emotions, sensations) that function as psychological "stand ins"; i.e., symbols (mostly verbal) of our actual painful experiences. We also want to be free of the psychological ghosts that continually haunt us. We don't want to have these memories, feelings and sensations causing us to relive our pain over and over in our minds.

So why does our psychological experience of pain stick in our minds and show up as mental suffering and anguish long after the actual painful event which produced it has long disappeared from the physical world? For example, why does the sight of a twelve year old boy crossing the street in downtown Boston cause a combat veteran to flashback to an event that happened years earlier in a war zone during which time he killed a twelve year old boy who was trying to blow up a convoy the soldier was riding in?

The answer to this question is rather complex but one factor that plays a definitive role in the epidemiology of trauma is the fusion of memories of painful events with an ongoing, post traumatic, sense of self. One possible answer may be embedded within our conditioning in regard to a deep seated and separate sense of self.

Buddhist teaching has often used the metaphor of a flame to expose the illusion of a distinct self that is separate from the rest of existence. When we look at a candle we see a flame. Isn't interesting that the word flame is a noun: a person, place or thing. However, we learn in elementary school science class that the flame is not actually a thing - it is a process. It would be more accurate to say that what we see on top of a candle is flaming - a verb.

Similar analogies can be made about other "things" such as a river. Remember the old adage that you can't dip your foot in the same river twice - I think it was Heraclitus who said that. The wind is another example. You can't raise your finger to touch the same wind at two different times either.

It is believed that all dharmas are like this including our own bodies and minds. Rather than being a noun we are a verb. There is no Jim - there is only Jimming. This analysis says that there is no permanent and unchanging self just like there is no permanent and unchanging flame. We, like the flame, are a self as process - constantly selfing, constantly changing yet appearing as if we are some substantial thing - like the flame on a candle.

What does this have to do with trauma? It has been said that our deepest and most fundamental fear is that we are not anything. That we are not permanent, solid and unchanging. Freud said that our most fundamental fear is the fear of our own death. Fear of the reality that one day we will not exist anymore. But what if we have always existed in a groundless state of moment to moment existence? What would our lives be like living each moment from that sense of self - a groundless self characterized by constant change, fluid and dynamic?

When we embrace the fact of our essential groundless nature we can truly let go of suffering. If there is no one home then the memories of former painful experiences are just momentary experiences happening to no one. They arise and fall away of themselves like the waves on the ocean.

Surf's up ... let's ride each wave as it arises - sometimes painful, sometimes pleasurable and everything in between - being nothing more or less than the truth of our lived experience - emitting the light of the flame of our Eternal Self.

Where the streets have no name

Over the weekend of July 17, 18, & 19 a poet, a zen priest, an industrial designer, a mental health professional and a manager of a soup kitchen took to the streets of Boston to bear witness to its homeless.

We only took the clothes on our back, no money, no bedding, no tooth brush, no jewelry, no credit cards, & no desire to do anything but aimlessly meander for three days throughout the city of Boston. What did we find there? Parts of ourselves that we did not know existed.

Like the tears that came to us when we overheard a little eight year old boy ask a homeless women if her cat was homeless too and she replied, "No, he is not homeless because he is with me."

Like the fear we experienced when we woke up at 3am to discover a crack addict and his "girlfriend" shooting up six feet from our sleeping spot at Trinity Church.

Like the frustration and sadness that came to us when we were unable to connect with a young Iraqi war veteran, just home from the war, who we found in Copley Square at 6am drinking freely from a quart of vodka and crying over a friend who has AIDS.

Like the feeling of belonging when a street woman in her late forties named Nancy, who has been on the streets since she was 13, welcomed us to the Harvard Square street scene and showed us where to sleep that night and where we could get free pizza at 11pm from a nearby pizza parlor. It is their practice to put their unsold pizza out on the streets for the homeless when they finally close for the night.

Like the indifference we felt from the majority of people who walked past us, not even willing to look at us, let alone give us the spare change we requested as part of our begging practice.

We ate in the soup kitchens, shelters and churches, we slept on the ground, walked for miles on end, pissed in the bushes and scrounged enough money to split a coffee between the five of us.

We didn't go down on the streets to see what it is like to be homeless. If we are lucky enough, we will never know that reality. We didn't go down on the streets as homeless wannabes - posers in an underworld of alcoholism, mental illness, drug addiction, and economic bad luck & hard times.

We went down on the streets to bear witness to our own lives in this experience - moment-to-moment. Nothing more/nothing less.

What we found in these most impoverished circumstances is an unexpected world of riches: pain, fear, joy, intimacy, boredom, frustration, inspiration, connection and compassion. Compassion for ourselves and all God's children who inhabit the streets with no names.

The Value of Weeds

Zen Master Dogen, who lived in 13th century Japan, encapsulated his entire teachings of Zen in a single written work entitled the Genjo koan.

It is said that the whole of his teaching is actually contained within the opening four stanzas of this work. They are as follows:

"When all dharmas are the Buddha-dharma, there are enlightenment & delusion, practice, life & death, buddhas & creatures. When the ten thousand dharmas are without self, there is no delusion, no enlightenment, no buddhas, no creatures, no life & no death. The Buddha way transcends being & non-being; therefore there are life & death, there are birth & death, delusion & enligtenment, creatures & buddhas."

Dogen concluded this passage of the Genjo koan with the following metaphor:

"Nevertheless, flowers fall with our attachment, & weeds spring up with our aversion."

Spring in New England has been uncommonly wet this year. At a time when many families are trying to minimize expenses due to the worst economy in decades, private vegetable gardens populate the landscape. And with all the rain thus far, the grass & fields are resplendent with the vernal glow of spring.

I have planted a vegetable garden in my back yard now for the last five years. It all started when I was recovering from surgery to eliminate a malignant tumor that would have ended my life. There was a three month period after the surgery during which time I was waiting to be tested to determine if all of the cancer had in fact been surgically removed from my body. It was during that recovery period, five springs ago, that I planted my first vegetable garden.

The practice of gardening yields many unexpected lessons. For example, while anxiously waiting to see if the plants I had put into the ground would take and bear fruit, weeds sprang up everywhere with no encouragement whatsoever. In fact, once planted, much of the ongoing process of tending a garden involves hours and hours of weeding.

For a long time my relationship to weeds could only be characterized as one of sheer hostility. Why, for heavens sake, do these weeds flourish so well in spite of my enmity and repeated efforts to control them?

At some point, I don't remember when, it dawned on me that the weeds in my garden share an affinity with the troubling thoughts & emotions I carry around in my head day to day. It was then that I first got a glimpse of what Dogen might have been pointing to when he wrote, "... and weeds spring up with our aversion."

The more unwilling I am to have weeds in my garden, the more troubling they are to me. By the same token, the more I try to control and push away difficult thoughts and emotions that surface in my mind, the more prevalent they seem to become ... the more they "spring up with ... [my] aversion."

Parenthetically, cursing & detesting the weeds in my garden does nothing at all to forestall their appearance or slow their growth. Nature doesn't care how I feel about her weeds ... she makes room for them even if I won't.

Incidentally, my mind functions in much the same way. Despite attempts to control and/or avoid aspects of my experience that reverberate as unwanted thoughts, images & emotions, they just spring up of themselves. It is just the nature of our minds. The appearance of these unwanted thoughts is not affected by our aversion to them. In fact, our aversion will only strengthen the likelihood that they will appear. If you don't think that is true, try to push an unwanted thought out of your mind and watch what happens. Funny, if you don't want it you've got it!?

When we find ourselves at this juncture, it is easy to get stuck, feel hopeless, become angry, etc., etc. Although it is at these times that a vegetable garden becomes a teacher.

Mother nature loves all of her creations equally well, without judgment. She is totally accepting of her infinite brood. Everyone and all things are welcome at her table. Within the unfathomable matrix of life, all things have their unique form, function & value. Everything is perfect & complete just as it is ... even those pesky weeds ... even those pesky thoughts ... even those difficult emotions.

So from this perspective a weed is no more or less valuable than a tomato plant. And in my garden I choose to have tomatoes. That means that there can not be a weed where a tomato is growing. So I remove the weed knowing that another one will grow in its place. The weed provides me with an opportunity to be in service to the other plants in the garden that I value. But I do not value them over the weed.

I also value the weed for the sacrifice of its life so the tomatoes can grow. I value the weed for its great bodhisattva action.

And what about those pesky mind weeds? I need them in my life as well. They present themselves to remind me of what I need to attend to in order to grow in the life directions that have deep importance for me.

You sure can learn a lot in a garden. It's all there. Life and death, decisions about important life choices, service to others and the value of weeds.

Buddha, Behavior and B.F. Skinner

As an undergraduate psychology student I was trained in operant conditioning developed by behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner of Harvard University. Skinner was interested in studying the effects that the environment played in shaping and maintaining behavior.

As it turned out, Skinner was also an amateur inventor and he developed an experimental chamber in the form of a small metal box with a glass panel on one side so he could observe what went on inside the box. He also placed a small mechanical lever inside the box that protruded into the chamber from the wall of the box opposite the front glass panel . He then trained rats to press the lever with their paw which closed an electrical circuit resulting in the automatic delivery of a food pellet to the rat through a small opening below the lever. Whenever the rat pressed the lever, he received a small pellet of food for his effort.

He soon discovered that this mechanical device which came to be known as the Skinner Box allowed him to study how the environmental effects of behaviorally produced consequences shaped and maintained behavior. That is, he was able to study how engaging in a behavior (lever pressing) produced an environmental effect (the delivery of food) which in turn increased the probability that the animal would repeat a similar behavior in the future under these experimentally arranged conditions.

Skinner also invented another piece of hardware called a cumulative recorder which automatically displayed on a continuous roll of paper each bar press the rat made on the lever as well as the delivery of each pellet of food over time.

Through the invention and employment of the Skinner Box and cumulative recorder, Skinner discovered that he could condition rats to engage in orderly sequences of lever pressing behavior depending on how he programmed the delivery of the food pellets. For example, if he programmed the Skinner Box to deliver a food pellet each time the rat pressed the lever this schedule of delivering food pellets produced a continuous high rate of lever pressing. When these responses were printed on the cumulative recorder, he was able to observe this orderly pattern of behavior. He then systematically manipulated the way the food pellets were scheduled to follow the rat's lever pressing and observed different rates of responding depending on how he scheduled the delivery of food pellets.

Next, he duplicated they ways in which he manipulated the delivery of food to discover that specific ways of programming the lever to produce food replicated specific patterns of behavior. In effect, he used the patterns of responding observed on the cumulative recorder as a type of software to program the Skinner Box to produce schedule specific conditioned responses.

As each rat learned to replicate these programmed patterns of responding, the rat was physically conditioned to respond in predetermined ways. He in effect, taught the rats to learn how each schedule of predetermined consequences affected their behavior.

In summary, Skinner invented specific mechanical devices; i.e., the Skinner Box and cumulative recorder, that produced distinctive recorded patterns of responding. These recorded patterns of responses functioned as software that he used to condition other rats to respond in the same identical way.

Once the rat had learned how to respond in ways characteristic of each schedule, Skinner in effect produced a permanent change in the rat's brains. These characteristic learned patterns of responding were now established as a form of "wetware" programming each animal's responses.

From these simple experiments and countless replications of them across numerous other species including humans, an entirely new way of understanding environmental effects on behavior emerged.

In effect, when a rat could reliably respond according to a predetermined set of conditions, the effects of the hardware, software and "wetware" all came together simultaneously to produce the rat's behavior. When the rat was placed on a particular programmed schedule of reinforcement, his/her responding WAS the relationship between hardware, software and "wetware."

It is this simple model of behavior/environment relationships that is the very basis of the Buddhist teaching of anatman or "no self." It demonstrates the Buddhist doctrine of dependent arising. There is no ghost in the machine causing it to behave ... there is only the mutually interpenetrating and co-dependent arising of conditions stretching as far back as the Big Bang all the way up to this present moment. Viewed from this perspective, our moment-to-moment behavior is the arising of all the interpenetrating conditions that exist everywhere at all time for all time. In fact, time itself is nothing more than a way of measuring change ... the constant ebb and flow of conditions.

After all, didn't the Buddha teach that the five skandas (bundles) that make up the "self" are nothing more than the coming together of conditions? Skinner, it turns out, proved in a very limited scientific way what the Buddha knew 2500 years earlier.

By the way, "I" didn't write this ... the universe did.

MAN OF NO RANK

The Sangha of the Montague Farm Zendo recently spent their winter practice period (Ango) studying the nature of "mind". What exactly is it? Where is it? Is there anything that is not it? A study of the mind invariably leads us to a study of the self. What exactly is this notion of self? Buddhism teaches that we have no abiding permanent self. The notion of a separate self is an illusion. Why then do we seem to carry this "sense of self" around with us all day ... this vague perception of a mind and/or self that resides within each of us ... often located somewhere in our heads just in back of our faces within our skulls.

Much of modern psychology is taken up with the matter of self. We hear psychologists speaking about such "things" as our "self image". We are sometimes thought to suffer from feelings of low "self esteem". It is great to have a lot of "self confidence" and to be "self assured". And lets not forget that homonculus called our "self identity" that is mysteriously ever present giving rise to the now famous quip, "wherever you go, there you are". And why then are we praised and revered when we act in a "selfless" way on behalf of others? If having a "self" is so important, why is acting in a way that that is without self so praiseworthy? Doesn't this all seem a bit confusing?

During a three year period between 1887 and 1890, Vincent Van Gogh, the famous Dutch artist, painted over 30 self portraits ... almost one per month for each of the last three years of his life which ended tragically in July of 1890 when he took his own life.

Who was this man, beloved by all in this modern era but lonely and dejected during his own lifetime? And who are each of us? ... really. We pass our days as if we will live forever, never thinking much about our own mortality, never questioning the meaning of our own existence. And then one day we're gone. As if we had never been here at all. It is pretty much a fact that 100 years from today, almost everyone who is alive on this day, including all the babies born today, will be dead and gone. That is over 6.5 billion people! All gone ... forever.

The great Zen Master Rinzai once addressed an assembly of monks saying, "There is a true person of no rank. He is always leaving and entering the gates of your face. You beginners who have not witnessed him. Look! Look!"

Take a look at this YouTube video of Vincent Van Gogh ... watch him leaving and entering the gates of his face ... then ask yourself this question: Is it possible that our so called "self" is nothing more than an optical delusion brought about by language and that the real self or True Self does not abide anywhere at all but simply manifests continually in the changing of each moment as our six sense organs; i.e., eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind interact with the six sense objects; i.e., sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touch and thoughts to produce the six functions of mind; i.e., seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching and thinking. And this grand, ever changing dance of the senses is nothing more than "the man of no rank" entering and leaving your face? Beyond that, there is no self to speak of ...

THUGS ON THE BUS

Have you ever noticed how much time we spend in our heads replaying bad memories and worrying about future "calamities" that haven't even happened yet?

And if this isn't enough stuff to be constantly wrestling with in our minds, we actually let all this stuff influence how we act in the present ... right here, right now.

For example, we begin to think about an upcoming meeting with our boss and start ruminating about previous meetings, especially the difficult moments of those meetings. This in turn gets us to project similar difficult moments onto the meeting we are about to have and relate to those moments as if they are actually happening right now.

Pretty soon we are cooking up a strategy to avoid similar difficult moments in our upcoming meeting with our boss based on these projections. It's as if our mind is some kind of crystal ball that sees into the future. And we rely on this magic crystal ball over and over. Maybe that's where the term "magical thinking" comes from? Who knows?

Have you ever stopped to wonder how accurate these projections actually turn out to be? Anyway ... hold that thought.

Here is another way of looking at this. It's as if your negative thoughts, emotions, memories, etc., are passengers on a bus. This is a very important bus. It's called OUR LIFE. We spend our time trying to drive the bus in the direction of those things we value in life; e.g., having a loving relationship with someone, being a good parent, enjoying time with our family, having a fulfilling career, feeling spiritually connected to life, etc., etc.

As we drive around, we pick up passengers in the form of memories, images, thoughts, feelings, etc. There is just one little hitch though ... these passengers we keep picking up ... they get on the bus, but they never get off ... they kind of remind me of that line from the Eagles' song Hotel California ... "you can check out, but you can never leave" ... we wish these passengers would check out AND leave but they never do ... you get the idea.

Ok, so we are driving through life in our bus, moving in the direction of those things we value and we have all these passengers with us. Now, everything would be cool except for one thing. Some of these passengers we pick up try to intimidate us into going where they tell us we need to go rather than where we want to go.

For example, let's say we want to ask our boss for a raise. Just as we begin to drive our bus in that direction our negative thoughts, I call them "thugs," run up from the back of the bus and say something like, "what are you crazy ... don't you remember how you screwed up last time you were in a meeting with your boss ... you can't ask for a raise you fool ... don't be such a putz!"

All too often, we actually listen to these "thug-thoughts" and avoid going where we want to go. We also start to become increasingly caught up in our struggle with them. The more we listen to them, the more they bully and cajole us. At some point, we may get so fed up with them that we even try to throw them off the bus. But that doesn't work either.

Why? Because the rule is that once they get on the bus, they never get off. Remember? And besides, stopping the bus to deal with them takes us away from the valued direction we were trying to go in the first place.

Over time, things start to get out of hand and the bus route becomes narrower and narrower. Before long we get to the point where we seem to just be driving around in circles. Why? Because the "thugs" don't want us to go anywhere other than where they tell us to go. They really don't have a desired direction of their own ... they just don't want us to go where we want to go. Why should they? ... they're just thoughts.

However, if we are lucky, we just might notice that in spite of all their threats, they never actually do anything to take direct control of the bus or where it is going. Why? Because they are just thoughts ... how can something as immaterial as a thought move matter; i.e. the bus. All they can do is scare us into driving the bus in the direction they think it should go.

In fact, we might notice that the only one who actually has control over the direction the bus is taking is the bus driver ... that would be US!

Once we get it that we are the only ones who can actually drive the bus regardless of what our thoughts tell us, we are free to go wherever we want to in life.

Will the thugs still try to influence us? Yes, of course ... that's their job. Do we have to listen to them? Nope ... not if we don't want to. Can they hurt us in some way? ... No not really although we will have to put up with their whining now and again.

So come on thugsters ... everyone on board ... we are going for a ride. Where to you ask? Oh don't worry about that ... unless of course you want to ... just sit back and relax ... if you behave yourselves, I'll stop and pick up some cake and we'll have a little snack together. Why not ... it's time to celebrate this journey called MY LIFE.