May 2013 – The Naked Monk

Is Buddhism an Escape?

I love Buddhism for what it has to say about habitual thinking and our yearning for security, about perceptions that narrow our experience of life. I see it not as a religion or a philosophy, but a process. It’s about mindfulness, but also about critical thinking, questioning our attitudes towards our most cherished beliefs, like Buddhism itself. To consider it beyond reproach is to undermine its essential message. It’s not something in itself but something to make our own. It evolves in us through constant reflection. When not taken for granted, Buddhism makes us more adaptable, less bound by language and habit. Wasn’t that the Buddha’s point? My goal is not to attack formal Buddhism but to confront it with common sense and to recall the Buddha’s own dissenting spirit.

Some people follow the Buddha religiously and others are pragmatic, but all serious Buddhists should remember that everything’s contingent — including his teachings. Why did he go to so much trouble to explain that? Because we behave as if exactly the reverse were true.

We just don’t get reality.

So what is reality — the real one, that is? Is it this changing, insufferable, contingent life, or is it permanent, blissful, unconditioned escape? The Buddha is said to have mastered the art of trance and found it wanting. He overcame his fear of death by facing it, not by transcending it. I don’t think he was an escape artist.

However, others clearly do. They hate to admit he was mortal, and would never dream of saying he actually ‘died.’ They use epithets instead. I don’t trust people like that. They give Buddhism a bad name.

I was once a Buddhist snob, thinking
I had a handle on the ineffable

Buddhists are just people like the rest of us, but they don’t always feel that way. Converts especially take pride in their new identity. They see themselves as more daring than God-fearing folk, more high-minded than the blind-faithful and more kind-hearted than atheists. I was once a Buddhist snob, thinking I had a handle on the ineffable. I wasn’t alone, either. Of course, there are discriminating minds in Buddhism too: subtle people with integrity. As in every other walk of life, they’re a minority.

Buddhism has its own idiom. It redefines everyday words like ‘suffering,’ ‘craving’ and ‘love’ into insider terminology with precise new meanings that intersect like a Chinese puzzle. This wordcraft lends itself to sleight of hand, casting an illusion of perspicacity and mastery. But take Buddhist magicians out of their staged surroundings and they have more difficulty than the rest of us dealing with everyday turmoil. The hardest thing I ever had to learn was to live in the muddle of family life. Drifting mindfully around the house like a wraith is no way to develop empathy.

Simplicity lies at the heart of life itself, not just Buddhism. No one has a monopoly on insight, even if they’ve copyrighted their words for it. It takes rare presence of mind to not confuse words with things, to not mistake ideas for the things they point to.

Buddhism just happens to be a great fit at this point in modernity. It resonates with the existential void and spiritual longings of exhausted consumers. It’s daring; it’s cool; it’s pragmatic. It provides a beguiling narrative and self-satisfying self-image — precisely the things the Buddha would have you let go of. If enlightenment is transcendent, a portal into a blissful new reality, then what’s so important about the here-and-now?

I thought Buddhism was different from other religions because it didn’t flinch, but it turns out that that was just my projection. It was I who wanted that grit. It can just as easily be a faith-and-prayer security blanket. Nichiren groups get together to chant for jobs, money and success. Whoever you are, there’s a version of Buddhism out there for you.

Buddhism is a revealing way of looking at things, but
the same things are known to non-Buddhists too

Here’s the thing: before you can become a Buddha, you have to let go of Buddhism, especially if your idea of enlightenment is permanent, blissful and perfect. You may know that all compounded things are transitory (not permanent), stressful (not blissful) and contingent (not perfect), but don’t be a sophist and rationalize that enlightenment is non-compounded or that enlightened behavior is unconditioned. Escape is escape, and that’s the old way, not the new way. It’s samsara, not nirvana. And forget about Nagarjuna’s samsara equals nirvana; that’s not what he meant. Buddhism uses ideas, but it’s about behavior. Beware of idle scholarship. It’ll prove anything you want it to if you don’t watch your motives.

This doesn’t mean it holds no meaning, or that everything’s relative. Buddhism’s philosophical machinery is sublime: capable of heavy, precise lifting. It’s also enchanting, sometimes quite beside the point. We need to think, but also to be still. There’s a time and a place for everything, as my mother used to say. She didn’t need Buddhism to figure that out. Buddhism is a revealing way of looking at things, but the same things are known to non-Buddhists too. We’re in the same boat.

Buddhism’s take on things is particularly accessible to us today, but in itself it’s neither good nor bad. It’s we who mess things up, who inject life with imaginary order and systems of thought with absolute meaning.

We’re born, dealt a hand and compelled to play the game. Periodically we wonder, “What’s the point?” If there is one it’s to let go of what binds us. What remains is not-stress. That’s all.

But, you reiterate, what is the point?

That question just takes you all the way back to square one. You don’t need to go there. Really. Reason is a great tool, but it’ll never make life reasonable. Our brief span is what it is. Get on with it. What concerned the Buddha (assuming he actually existed) was that we live without illusions. There’s nowhere to go but here. There’s no escape.

Deep down, we already know it. There lies our Buddha nature.

The Urge to Quit

I want to give up. I’ve had it. I’ve sacrificed decades of my life, spent thousands of hours writing, digging into the shell I call ‘me’ in search of something honest. I know there’s integrity in there. Perhaps I’m terrified of losing it.

I can’t quit that search. It’s not a choice. I’d never have written my books or started my blog if I’d been prone to carefully-considered, rational decisions.

Creativity is not a choice. I’m not the first person to be driven and I won’t be the last. Nor is it a guarantee. During the hundred of pre-dawn mornings in which I wrote my memoir I imagined that the blood, sweat and tears would purge me like the fires of purgatory, deliver me to a redeemed life.

Nothing like that happened, but I’m satisfied by writing in ways that nothing else satisfies, save caring for those I love. I grew up thinking that to expect financial reward for that is venal and cowardly. I hang on to my dignity as I live from month to month, supporting my writing habit and my family from hand to mouth. Everyday, like you, I hear stories of wealth and fame that defy my imagination, especially when they’re unaccompanied by talent.

What makes life easy for some and grinding for others? The question comes from such deep yearning that the truth — that we just don’t know — is unacceptable. Instead we invent theories of divine reward and karmic law. We rationalize this irrational life.

I am frustrated. I want to pull my hair out. I’m angry at my fate. And yet, I’m deeply happy. My thoughts and feelings teem with contradiction.

I’m human. I love and am loved. I have peace. I have never gone to war, never killed and had to justify it. I have lied and cheated and committed theft, but never unknowingly, never without the thought that it was for a higher cause. I know now that there is no such thing, but I learned along the way because I hung on to that vanity. My hard-earned crumbs of honesty have grown into daily bread.

I’ve preached that life makes no sense and doesn’t need to, but suffer like everyone else and can’t stop wanting that sense. I fancy myself strong, able to shoulder any burden, but losing our pet cat reduces me to tears.

My wife Caroline also wants to give up sometimes. She says so, emphatically and jarringly. She is losing her body to multiple sclerosis and for the life of me I can find no way to bring her to her senses. She already has them. She resents her suffering, and so do I. I take it as ‘ours,’ though that is vanity too.

She is the happiest person I know. It’s not just my perception, because I love her more than anyone, or because her love means more to me than anything. She feeds me with respect and faith, is delighted by my successes and shares in my every disappointment. Her courage inspires me.

She’s my most constant and ardent companion. We laugh until tears run down our cheeks, and sometimes hold each other like two kittens drowning. We are mortal, after all.

I was raised to believe in sweet Jesus, who loves us no matter what and reserves our seat in everlasting paradise. The images comforts millions, but not me. I was born to question, and have grown in doubt. I fill the emptiness with urgency, to live life to the full, to do my thing, to write.

So here it is. This is what I do, though it’s complete only when you read it. It’s my way of reaching out. When you reach back to brush my fingertips with yours, no matter how gently, I am restored. And if, as sometimes happens, I sense no reply or can’t believe your kindnesses, I’m driven even more deeply by my doubt of whether I’ve reached far enough, by the determination to dig deeper for truth.

I believe in truth always, though I never completely find it. I think that’s best.

Shadow of Hope

“It’s just an animal.”

So say some people when you lose a pet. They may try to sympathize, but they don’t really feel it. Not everyone understands. It’s not just about who’s gone, but who remains.

Our family cat Shadow died suddenly this past week from an unsuspected cancer. He was just ten. Only last week we were joking about his chances of making it to twenty. His departure was a shock. We still find ourselves watching for him at the door, listening for his cry.

It makes you think that life’s unfair. It reminds you that everything’s so fragile. And how.

Those same people who don’t understand might say that keeping a pet is selfish. Of course it’s about us too, but there’s more to it than that. Some pet owners would have kept him going for a few more painful months, but we reserve that particular torture for our fellow humans. We spare our pets the pain, and ourselves as well.

You can choose what to think, but not what to feel

Thinking about how we form relationships, I recall the character Data from Star Trek. He was an android who puzzled constantly about what feelings were like. When a fellow crew-member died he expressed his friendship with her as ‘a sort of familiarity,’ and her absence as something he would ‘notice.’ We certainly notice Shadow’s absence. He was our friend.

Some would reply that Shadow was there for us because we gave him food and lodging. You could also say that we were there for him because he was warm and squishy. That exchange was constant and simple, unlike any human relationship.

We feel a hole and know it will heal, but that knowledge changes nothing until time works its mystery. Hope returns. With his indelible memory Data wouldn’t understand the impotence of knowledge. You can choose what to think, but not what to feel.

Sadness will be overtaken again by hope; that’s survival

So in time the hole in our heart will pass. The feeling will shrink to a memory. Sadness will be overtaken again by hope. That’s survival.

Everything changes. Nothing is reliable. We all die, and yet our hearts return constantly to hope. We know it’s a set-up. We do it anyway, without even having a choice. Knowledge can’t free us from the pangs of life. I used to think it could. I used to think that that’s what Buddhism was all about, but it was just a dream.

The best we can do with life is to awaken from that dream. The jolt of loss delivers us to reality. Painful and acute it may be, but it brings immediacy, a mindfulness we could never invent, a freedom we could never imagine. Hope may be treacherous, but we keep going back.

Where else can we go?

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Never Mind

Driving past little Pine Lake in Hudson the other day, I was listening to the oboe’s baleful lament in Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez, and recalling my mother. Just a few years ago she’d stood on this shore staring at the red-tinged foliage and a nearby heron, still as a statue — both Mum and the bird, that is.

She was rapt, taking in the view for the last time — taking in viewing for the last time. We knew there wouldn’t be much more. Alzheimer’s had her brain, though not entirely; she knew what was coming.

In the space of twenty yards I was intersected by the music, the memory and the scene. My eyes welled up. Mum’s at rest now, but that moment is seared in my memory. It’s not just about her; in the death of our parents we see our own mortality — a mortality I flirted with too freely while she was still alive. I still feel guilty for almost inflicting my own death on her — too recklessly and too often.

It seemed to me on that day that she was trying with all her might to imbibe it all, to get enough and finally let go; but eventually, turning away with a little sigh, she smiled and said, “Oh well! Never mind.”

As I pass through the middle years and am faced ever more bluntly with my own transience, I also find more acceptance. It’s not always like this; some people grow more fearful. That’s a shame, for life is to be lived, and the less that remains, the sweeter it surely is. I thank Mum for that grace.

If you want to pass down some useful insight to your children, live life to the full, not necessarily without fear but without flinching, with your heart wide open. No need to say a thing. They’ll get it.

The Evolution of Mindfulness

Jeanne, an old student of mine, approached me the other day about my upcoming Mindful Reflection workshop. “When does it start?” she asked. “It’s about letting go, isn’t it? I’ve got lots to let go of. So much disappointment.”

I love that I teach something practical, that helps people change. Not so long ago skeptics would have said, “Ah, but does it?” Today, criticism is muted. Thousands of scientific studies point to the effectiveness of ‘meditation.’

Still, exactly what that means is far from scientific. The word covers a broad range of practices from transcendental meditation (TM) to tantra. At base, it’s about being quiet and not giving in to distraction, at least outwardly. Beyond that, there are so many variations that you can never be sure two people are talking about the same thing. There’s walking meditation and sitting, vipassana and mantrayana, and then there are things like tai-chi, yoga and Zen archery. Are these all real forms of meditation?

You don’t want to open that can of worms.

Mindfulness: It’s all about change

The meditation that Jeanne learned in my workshops is mindfulness. It’s all over the news these days for its effectiveness in fighting depression, managing pain, reducing blood pressure, treating psoriasis and a host of other conditions. Everyone’s heard of it by now. It’s not just for navel-gazers any more.

Like ‘meditation,’ the word ‘mindfulness’ too triggers a broad spectrum of thinking. Not everyone’s on the same page. At one extreme, it’s a religious practice, just one component of a disciplined, faith-based lifestyle. At the other it’s a non-pharmaceutical approach to stress.

I’ve travelled the gamut from religion to secularism, learning something at every step of the way and adjusting not just my conception of who I am but also how I feel about being me. I would once have described this process as mystical; today I’d call it practical, but I’d also shrug. Call it what you want; it’s a way of life, not a theory.

Mindfulness is not so much
about finding truth as being truthful

It’s all about change. Religious Buddhists want to change into enlightened beings. Secular practitioners want to change their emotional reactivity, or at least their blood pressure. The main complaint of religious types isn’t that secularists have it wrong, but that they’ve watered down a beautiful tradition so much that it’s lost all taste. In return, secularists point out that Buddhist beliefs in reincarnation and magical stories dilute the immensely practicality of mindfulness and turn off many who could otherwise benefit.

Does the truth lie somewhere in between? That’s an interesting question. Mindfulness is not so much about finding truth as being truthful. There’s a difference. The close examination of your own experience is highly subjective. The mind spins truth depending on what it wants from a particular situation. For example, when your ego feels threatened and really needs to win an argument, integrity might take a teeny-weeny back seat; only temporarily; with just a little white lie.

See what I mean? The first casualty of mindfulness is the notion that we’re lucid, consistent and in control. Take note of that as it happens, and you begin the process of rewiring of the brain that scientists get so excited about. Of course, repeatedly shooting ducks and painting sunflowers also rewires your brain, so that’s hardly the point.

Jeanne learned to watch her disappointment and anger: how the emotions came and went, what triggered them and the chain of mental events they set in motion. She also learned that noticing them in real time — as they actually occurred in her daily life — gave her an opportunity to step back, not in one giant leap but incrementally. With practice and encouragement, she’s cultivating a counter-habit.

The way you describe yourself to yourself is
the arbiter of your happiness and unhappiness

Firming up this habit begins with the sort of practice that usually begins in a meditation setting. There, you learn to focus and to let go of distraction in ways that often lead to misunderstanding. Sitting quietly triggers boredom, and the inner chatter we’re trying to relinquish suddenly looks very tempting. To keep your attention in the present moment, teachers use expressions like ‘empty your mind,’ and ‘let go of your thoughts.’ Beginners often conclude from this that discursive thinking is a bad thing, which it isn’t; it’s just an obstacle to that particular practice. In other circumstances we need it very much, to think and function, to manage our careers and lives — and to reflect on our mindfulness practice.

As the mindfulness habit takes root, you also accumulate data about your experience — stuff to think about. We naturally process that data, just as I’m doing here. The way you describe yourself to yourself changes, and you learn that that description is the arbiter of your happiness and unhappiness.

For this reason I teach not just mindfulness, but mindful reflection, the practice of mindfulness in the context of a challenging, thoughtful life. It’s my middle way between the religious idea of transcending our human limitations and the coldness of a mere technique to calm you down. It’s not about transforming or curtailing your life, it’s about facing it creatively. What changes is your approach.

Jeanne knows that this is a lifetime’s work. There’s no perfection, no end-point. She works continuously to keep her baggage to a minimum and to be fully awake to all experience. She wants to sit in on more workshops because mindful reflection is not just about acquiring information but about digging deeper and looking at things from continually evolving angles.

Every day brings new challenges. It’s good to see the practice through the eyes of an experienced teacher. It’s made easier in the company of like-minded people. It’s something that happens in the privacy of your own mind, and yet it transforms your relationships to yourself and to everyone else. Above all, connecting is what life is all about.