The Buddha Wasn't A Fat Guy

This blog began as a meditation on being overweight and what it means (if anything) in relation to my belief in the Dharma, which is the collected teachings of the Buddha and his followers.

And then, last week, I reached my goal weight. My path to that point both was and was not the one I anticipated, but I have, somehow, arrived there. Even I am a bit surprised by this, especially that in the end it seemed to happen almost without my accord, as a desirable side effect to a completely different effort regarding food.

Let me explain: the proximal reason I have been able to lose the weight I have been seeking for years to lose is The Abascal Way (which I wrote about here and also here). Rather than a dietary plan, this really is a philosophical rethinking of one's relationship to food. This accords well with what I have been writing about here for years. But Kathy Abascal has coalesced a way of regarding our issues around food into a practical, down-to-earth guide.

But here's the thing: it is one thing to know that one ought to eat a certain way in order to feel better and quite another to pull it off. I hasten to say that this is not a way of bragging that I have succeeded where others have failed or that I am stronger or more disciplined than anyone else (you only have to read any randomly chosen half dozen of my entries here to see that I clearly am not). So, what made the difference and continues to make the difference for me?

Upfront, I want to say that a primary driver is the fact that I simply feel much better: fewer aches and pains. Abascal's primary focus is not weight or even food, per se—rather, her emphasis is on bringing the inflammation in our bodies under control, which leads to more comfort (less joint pain and the internal results of inflammation). Because part of this is regulating your body's insulin and other hormonal cycles more effectively, weight loss is a (nearly) inevitable consequence.

But why else have I been able to resist the urge to stray from this dietary plan when so many plans and hopes and schemes before have failed me? I am convinced that a large part of my willingness to stick to it stems from my study of the Dharma and from other spiritual disciplines that, in the end, are only tangentially about food or body weight. I find that one of the most potent forms of spiritual guidance I have are the Five Precepts (which I wrote about more extensively here). For the purposes of this post, let me just say that each of the Precepts—to avoid killing, stealing, sexual harm, harmful speech, and intoxication—is a training in the morality of purpose that points not just to being a Good Person, a status to which most of us aspire, but which can infiltrate our lives in ways that are unexpected and unexpectedly rich. This occurs because each opens us up to a broader understanding of our place in the world and our ability to influence that world for the better. In particular, the Precepts each correspond to a quality we can actively cultivate—in order, those of compassion, generosity, responsibility, kindness, and clarity. These are not simple things, and an aspiration is entirely inadequate to their cultivation. Rather, what is required is a long and sustained devotion coupled with a willingness to repeatedly fail and begin again.

In particular, I find the Precept to avoid intoxicants a cogent one. To begin with, I am an alcoholic, so this has a deeper meaning than it may for others. (On the other hand, it's also a great deal simpler for me, since I am obligated to refrain from all intoxicants—that little glass of wine or puff of marijuana are not for me, whereas for others these might not lead to true intoxication).

But this Precept has (as they all do) layers upon layers of meaning. I like to reflect on the fact that the Latin root of the word intoxication simply means "poison" (in Spanish, one of the word for poisoning is intoxicado). Of course, most of us have the wisdom not to knowingly swallow strychnine, but we take into our bodies many things that we know to be harmful to us, that we believe will give us pleasure, peace, and an surcease of pain.

I think I have gone on long enough for today, though. I will expand upon this a bit further the next time I write.

Happy Bird

When Things Fall Apart....

Number One: We contracted with someone to replace our front stairs (from the street to the upper walk). They have been disintegrating and in need of repair for some time. The Concrete Guy came yesterday and...did a disastrous job. I mean, truly dreadful. We're talking unsafe. Not to code. Visibly crooked. Disappointing doesn't even begin to describe it.

Our new front steps...briefly

Number Two: When we came home from our long weekend over Memorial Day, our freezer wasn't freezing properly, which means that our refrigerator wasn't refrigerating, either, which meant spoiled food. (Good thing we're vegetarians!)

Number Three: I work in an environment in which my boss doesn't have my best interest at heart, at least that's the way it seems to me. Not that I am in any way objective; I could be entirely wrong here. I freely admit the possibility—the likelihood even—that she is a saint and I am an asshole. Though there is precious little evidence of the former assertion, there is plenty to support the latter. Still, this blog is about my world, n'est-ce pas? In any case, all I'm saying is that it makes for a moderately tougher work week. I'm not trying to make a case here for summary execution or (yet more radical) a job change. I just wish it didn't have to be so hard.

So, what the heck am I trying to say?

While growing up, my brothers and I loved listening to Little Orley stories. My son liked them too, once I found them on CD. (Every once in a while we play them for our partners and they think we're nuts. Guess you had to be there). Anyway, one of the stories in there is about the Happy Bird, who prescribes singing a happy little song, when every little thing goes wrong. Be as happy as can be and fill yourself with glee. Just sing a happy little song. Eventually the Happy Bird falls in a mud puddle and Orley challenges him to sing his own little happy song, which he does, if grudgingly. Today I feel like the Happy Bird covered with mud. But I ain't singin' no song.

The Buddha wants us to understand that considering anything as lasting is to court suffering. Everything is ephemeral. In fact, the most concise description of the teachings of the Buddha is this simple phrase: "All that has the nature to arise has the nature to pass away." Nothing lasts. To say that things fall apart is like saying one must breathe. Things fall apart not because of anything I did or because the world is out to get me. Things fall apart because things fall apart. Things fall apart because they cannot do otherwise.

So, I know that crooked stairs are a temporary phenomenon. One of these days I will have forgotten all about them (which will begin next week when they are torn out and replaced). I also know that my freezer that isn't freezing can be repaired (and will be, I hope, tomorrow). And aren't we lucky to have the money to pay for these things? I further know that my feelings of stress, my insomnia, and my dissatisfaction with my work life will pass, will pass, will pass.

But sometimes the directive to consider all phenomena as ephemeral feels like the Happy Bird singing. Like it or not, I'm the one living in the world with these crooked steps and this unsupportive boss in it, living with what Pema Chödrön calls "a lot of ephemeral—but at the same time vivid and convincing—stuff....When the bottom falls out and we can't find anything to grasp, it hurts a lot". What to do? I can't sing a happy little song, dammit, I just can't. Yes, this too shall pass. But right now it sucks.

Pema again:

The path...is not about going to heaven or a place that's really comfortable. Wanting to find a place where everything's okay is just what keeps us miserable. Always looking for a way to have pleasure and avoid pain is how we keep ourselves in [suffering]. As long as we believe that there is something that will permanently satisfy our hunger for security, suffering is inevitable.

Her solution:

Instead of always blaming the other, own the feeling of blame, own the anger, own the loneliness, and make friends with it....See how you can place the anger or the fear or the loneliness in a cradle of loving-kindness...learn how to be gentle to all that stuff. In order to be gentle and create an atmosphere of compassion for yourself, it's necessary to stop talking to yourself about how wrong everything is—or how right everything is, for that matter....I challenge you to experiment this way: drop the object of your emotion and see if the fact the intensity of the emotion lessens.

This isn't the Happy Bird's advice. Pema (and the Buddha) are telling us something we already know but have trouble believing—the source of our suffering lies within us and therefore the end of it lies there, too. Perhaps this is not what we want to hear. It is much easier to blame the Concrete Guy for my unhappiness. Yet when I practiced kindness toward him while remaining firm, I did not have to add to either his suffering or mine. Or to the suffering of the world. There is enough of that. There is enough.

Anatomy of anger

I had the opportunity last week to observe closely the workings of anger in me. It is very like what I imagine would be the movement of poison in my body. I mean this not as an analogy, but quite literally. Prior to the anger I was feeling clear and peaceful, so the change was that much more evident. When the anger descended on me it changed (as it seemed) my whole world.

The what and who and why of this anger doesn't much matter, nor does its justification or lack thereof. Have you noticed this? Anger is an indiscriminate toxin and has the same effect no matter how holy or unholy the triggering event.

Someone did something, then, and I reacted. I felt the surge of my righteous indignation first, and this always feels so reassuring, so powerful. I spend much of my life feeling either neutral or powerless (might as well admit it), that this adrenalin rush feels like a revelation. But it doesn't last.

Then comes that sickening feeling of the aftermath of the rush, the anger hangover which, like an actual hangover, lasts far longer than the pleasure. It is a physical as well as a psychic phenomenon, a nausea, an exhaustion, a sensation something akin to the bodily response to grief. And I know, after all, what the grief is for: I wish to be a better person than this, and have wished so for as long as I can remember. I grieve that I'm not.

And I craved. I craved sugar and warm milk and comfort and reassurance. I craved certainty and power and love and appreciation. I craved escape and clarity and unchallenged correctness. I craved fat and salt and gooeyness. I craved a solution that would make it all right.

A powerful drug, this anger.

Then it passed as if it had never been. It left a bit of destruction in its wake, though thankfully nothing like the wreckage my anger used to create. What had seemed so real and important now appeared to be a mere mirage.

I am reminded that anger is fear. I suspect there are instances where this is not so, but I have yet to come up with any. And this anger was most certainly fear. And what is the antidote to fear? Not courage, I think, though that certainly helps. I think the antidote to fear must be compassion. When I am living in my fear, my heart is closed, in a defensive crouch. If I can open my heart to the source of my fear--if only a little--the feelings dissipate and I can begin to see what I feared as the chimera it is. It is enough.

Eightfold path: Wise Action (Part II)

A reminder: this is the second part of Wise Action, which is the second of eight parts of the path the Buddha described as the way to freedom from suffering. I first wrote an introduction to the Eightfold Path, which you can find here, then a post on Wise Speech. My last post was the first part of Wise Action. In this discussion Wise Action is synonymous with the Five Precepts, which are to refrain from killing, stealing, sexual harm, harsh speech and intoxicants. In my first post on Wise Action I described the first two of these precepts. This post describes the other three.

The third precept is to refrain from sexual harm. As with the others, there is a very basic level of this precept, which is that adultery causes suffering. Whereas this is normally a true statement, the very term adultery does not necessarily have meaning for many relationships in the modern world. Even a suggestion that one ought not have any sexual relations outside of a committed relationship does not take into account the many varieties of sexual experience that might or might not cause harm, not to mention that sex has the power to do great harm even within a committed relationship.

Therefore the crux of this precept must be avoiding the creation of harm, of suffering in oneself or in another. Sexual energy is a powerful force and can be used to reinforce intimacy and to have great fun but can also cause great and often permanent harm if misused. As with the previous precept, we must also be cautious that none of our actions are manipulative, creating a situation of seeming consent where at a deeper level there is none. If we use pornography we must ask ourselves a similar question about our assumptions of consent on the part of those who participate in its creation. Is this also a form of sexual harm?

The aspiration form of the precept concerning sexuality is the vow to cultivate responsibility. If we behave responsibly toward all beings, it is unlikely that we will knowingly create sexual harm.

If you study the dharma (the teachings of the Buddha) for a while, it will become evident that many of the terms repeat in different forms and places. Thus it is that Wise Speech is the first part of the Eightfold Path and is also one of the precepts. Specifically, the precept asks us to refrain from harmful speech. I refer you to the post on Wise Speech for a lengthy discussion of this concept.

The aspiration form of this precept is the vow to cultivate loving speech and deep listening. I did not write much about listening as a form of skillful speech, but it is an important part of this. To listen deeply is to have no agenda but to listen, to be entirely open to what is being said without judgment and without any impulse to interrupt or begin formulating our response before the other person has stopped speaking. It is a very difficult practice and one to which we are not accustomed. Amazing what you can hear if you are actually listening! It can be quite different from what we thought was being said.

The fifth precept is to refrain from intoxicants. This one is tricky, too. Of course, it would be simple to say that we should avoid all alcohol or other drugs, but this is not necessarily true. For those who can safely do so, a glass of wine or other alcoholic beverage might lead to a greater ability to be present. Many wise people have sworn by hallucinogenics as an aid to realization. Caffeine can an intoxicant if used unwisely. Food can be addictive. Too much sugar can lead to unwholesome mind states.

On the other hand, we need not get into splitting hairs to understand the intent of this precept. We are being asked to refrain from anything that keeps us from a clear awareness. We also avoid use of any substance that has the potential to create harm or in any situation where harm might result (driving after drinking being the classic example). As with all of the precepts, if we align ourselves with the desire to avoid harm and move on a path toward enlightenment, we cannot go far wrong.

The aspiration form of this precept is a vow to ingest only that which preserves peace, well-being, and joy. It is worthwhile reminding ourselves that this means not only our own peace, well-being, and joy, but that of all beings. If our consumption of any substance creates harm for another or has the potential to do so, it should be avoided.

The next step on the path is here.

Eightfold path: Wise Speech

Whereas Wise Speech obviously has to do with what one says, it is perhaps more importantly a way of viewing the world and those in it. One of the most vital teachings of the Buddha is that we are all so thoroughly interconnected and interdependent that to do harm to one is to do harm to all, including ourselves. To lie, to speak ill of another, to gossip, all of these are ways of driving a wedge between others and ourselves. This division is entirely artificial and therefore cannot be otherwise than harmful, a source of suffering.

In all parts of the path we can begin at a very basic level but when the goal is to create the greatest harmony between ourselves and the world, the layers begin to fall away and our actions become ever more subtle and attuned to the true meaning of what it is to be wise within the Eightfold Path. In terms of speech, the most basic level of Wise Speech is truthfulness. This accords with what we were told as children, that to lie is wrong. But it doesn't take much thought to realize that absolute truthfulness is not only a very difficult assignment but is often neither kind nor judicious. One famous example is this: if you know that a man intends to kill your brother and your brother is hiding in your house, if the potential killer comes to your door and asks, "Is your brother inside?", what should you answer? It is clear that there are gradations to the morality of truthfulness.

However, in most instances it is best to frame our answers so they are both truthful and skillful. It is sometimes necessary, I have found, to simply say, "I choose not to answer that question." Not that such an answer would help defend my poor brother from the murderer; in that case a lie is the moral choice. But in everyday commerce, when I am faced with the opportunity to lie or tell the truth, I always choose to tell the truth or warn the questioner that the answer may not be to their liking and then give them the choice to hear the answer. Sometimes I don't even provide that choice if I feel it would create a situation of unhappiness that would have no usefulness.

The truth can also be used as a weapon and must be skillfully applied. When speaking of someone not present, what is our motive, even if we are speaking the truth? If we speak the truth maliciously with the intent of spreading bad news in order to denigrate the person being spoken of, we are not being skillful in our speech. Gossip often falls into this category of speech even when truthful, which often it is not. Rare is the occasion where we have enough information to be certain that the gossip we are repeating is entirely true. Even more rare (and almost nonexistent) are the times when we both have access to the truth and that such speech is entirely necessary and helpful. By these standards, we can see that gossip is never skillful speech, for if it is both entirely truthful and entirely useful, it is no longer gossip but some other form of speech altogether.

Sayadaw U Pandita lists four kinds of "crooked" speech (he draws a contrast between the straightness of the Eightfold Path and the crookedness or actions that are in opposition to the Path): lying; speech which causes disharmony; crude, profane, or coarse speech; and frivolous speech.

It seems to me that this last one, frivolity in speech, is particularly relevant in today's world of nearly nonstop chatter. Facebook posts, tweets, You Tube videos, text messages, emails; all of these are forms of speech and quite often entirely trivial. It is easy to conclude that these are also entirely harmless, but Wise Speech would disagree. When we are distracted by such frivolous speech, we cannot dwell on what is wholesome and beneficial. It is quite clear that often such speech is a blatant attempt to escape the need to focus on what is important because doing so can be frightening. Just as some people in a dark forest cannot help chattering on and on to escape their fear so, on a more subtle level, we often chatter to hide the fear in our day-to-day lives.

Where speech has the potential to do harm, there is another layer of subtlety wherein the harm to be avoided is greater than the harm done. This is a very difficult judgment to make and requires great wisdom. It is better to avoid such speech than to be wrong in speaking in such a way. But it is not acceptable or wise to avoid speech when a greater harm can be averted by speaking honestly, even if the honest speech might cause a lesser harm. A simple example is when you become aware of abuse; to report the abuser (which will undoubtedly cause that person harm) is not evil when the greater evil of abuse can be averted. This level of moral speech has been much in the news lately with the scandal in the Ohio State athletic department. The protective silence of the Catholic church around the sexual abuses of a small minority of priests has served to irreparably harm not only the children who were abused but the credibility of the church itself.

At work, I find myself often in the position of speaking truth to power. I feel this is essential because one of the most subtle forms of unwise speech is to allow false assumptions to take hold which then create the conditions for further falsehood or unwise actions. At the same time, though, I have a reputation for being something of a malcontent, which means that many of my challenges are dismissed as the ravings of the same old lunatic. It is clear that Wise Speech in this context would be to limit my opposition to those things which truly have the potential to cause harm rather than every cockamamie scheme, many of which are clearly smoke and mirrors with absolutely no potential to have any effect, good or bad, on the operation of my clinic. These I could as easily just leave alone and I am learning, quite slowly, to do so.

One mnemonic I was taught that is sometime helpful is T.H.I.N.K. In this paradigm, all speech should be thoughtful, honest, intelligent, necessary, and kind. If it cannot satisfy all five of these criteria, the words are better left unspoken. Of course, we must be wise in applying these standards or we will allow some potentially injurious actions to go unchallenged. (Would it be kind to unmask an abuser? Perhaps not in a very narrow sense, but the greater kindness is to harm the abuser). Nonetheless, when I truly apply the THINK principle, I find that I am silent much of the time. How much of what is say is truly necessary? Is my sarcastic wit kind? Do I think intelligently before I speak? Is my honesty truly thoughtful and necessary, or am I hiding behind a mask of honesty in order to seek revenge or a feeling of superiority?

It is clear that Wise Speech is extraordinarily subtle. Silence is an important form of Wise Speech and is better resorted to than error. But, as described above, silence can also be unskillful speech. There is no one right answer to questions of Wise Speech, but the heart most often knows what is right to do. Even if it requires courage, to speak wisely when the heart says it is right is an important step on the straight path of real wisdom.

The next part of this discussion is here.

A poem seeks me out

So much depends
upon

A red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

It is rare for me that a poem comes to mind and will not be denied my attention. I must assume there is some meaning in the fact that the poem has sought me out.

This poem is by William Carlos Williams and is one of the most famous of the Imagist poem, the school of poetic thought which holds that the object itself is the subject of poetry and not an allegory or metaphor for another object (or feeling or event) altogether. Which is not to say there is not deep meaning to the poem, but that the objects themselves—wheelbarrow, chickens, rain—carry all the meaning there is to be found there.

There are those who claim to have deciphered the code of this poem, but I think they are suffering from a basic misunderstanding. There is no code. The images are evocative in and of themselves and the fact that the poem evokes so much for so many is the measure of its "success". Here is what it means to me:

The first four words make the whole poem work. We are not merely being given an image to look at (though that can be very effective, as in the best haiku), but told that so much depends on this object, which causes us to look more closely than we might otherwise.

The object in question is a red wheelbarrow. Notice that the word "wheelbarrow" is broken into its two constituent parts, which breaks up our assumptions about the object and causes us to look at it more closely. And a wheelbarrow truly is a rather remarkable thing, an inclined plane with a wheel. The fact of the inclined plane makes it possible for us to lift much heavier loads than we would otherwise be able to (think of a flat cart with the same load and having to lift it over an obstruction, for instance, and how much more possible the lifting is with a wheelbarrow). Then, the presence of an angled front panel combined with the incline plane makes it possible for us to dump those loads rather than have to transport them with a shovel or other tool from the cart to the ground. The fact that we have taken all this for granted does not make it any the less remarkable; Williams is asking us to notice this fact. He may not have had inclined planes and such in mind when he wrote the poem, but he had noticed the enormous utility of the tool and how much depends on it.

But what is such a trusty tool doing abandoned out in the rain rather than safely stored in a shed? It seems a rather sad oversight, but we have all done similar things through our carelessness or distraction, forgotten to put the tool away or to tell someone we love them or to notice our life passing until it is too late and the damage has been done: the wheelbarrow is rusted and worn, the relationship is dead, our lives are over. Not that we are to believe that this wheelbarrow is beyond repair—it is much more resilient than that. Nonetheless, for something upon which so much depends, it is rather cavalier treatment for us to leave it sitting in the rain.

But since we have left it sitting in the rain, let's notice how it looks with the rain streaked on it. It provides the barrow with a glaze that makes it more beautiful than it would have been otherwise. This is not a brand new, shiny wheelbarrow, after all, but a well-used, worn, trusty companion that benefits from the glaze the rain gives it.

Then, as if the beauty of the object were not sufficient unto itself, this shiny, red, beloved tool is set off against the stark whiteness of the chickens, its loveliness thereby accentuated to an even greater degree. This brings it that much more into the foreground of the image and of our thoughts.

This, then, is the gift Williams gave us, but what it means is entirely individual. For me, it brings to mind the idea, first of all, that poems are often quite adept at doing what dharma teachers try so hard to do: it asks me to pay attention and notice that the miraculous is happening in every moment, that objects have meaning to the degree that I pay attention. How many red wheelbarrows have I entirely ignored, or ran to put away before they were ruined, without truly seeing them? How many people have I entirely dismissed as beneath my notice without reflecting that they are or were someone's son or daughter, perhaps beloved, perhaps not, but miraculously borne in someone's womb and birthed from them to be loved, despised, scorned, and esteemed by many people throughout their personal history? How often have I reflected on what is mundane to me but is truly astonishing? (One example: every now and then I just have to stop and marvel at the amazing ingenuity which lead to water, gas, electricity and telephone signals showing up at my house regularly, without my having to do much of anything but pay the bills for them. Truly flabbergasting when I come to think of it). How does food get on my table? Why does anyone ever do something so inherently painful as love another? How can so much information get onto something as small as a microchip? How does that tiny sunflower seed know to grow such a gargantuan, majestic creature? What ever gave this species the idea to build buildings as high as 2700 feet in the air and how in the world is such a thing possible?

For these things are worthy of notice; above all this is what this poem says to me. So much depends on my paying attention to them. The Buddha would not be confused by this. He understood how much depends on giving our whole and undivided attention to everything that comes within our perception; a wheelbarrow, a fear, a meanness, a cockroach, a joy, a puppy, a viper. Nothing, absolutely nothing is more important than this. Why should this be? Because the Buddha taught the end of suffering and understood, perhaps more clearly than anyone before or since, that to project ourselves into a place or time other than this place and time is to create suffering. Period. Such a causal relationship cannot be subverted. Yes, of course we must think of the future in order to plan, must think of the past in order to avoid the errors we may have made there that exacerbate our current suffering, but these are the activities of a moment. Most of the time we spend in these times-that-are-not-this-time is entirely fruitless discursive thought that is our ego's attempt to take control over the uncontrollable. This is suffering. It is not possible to have such control, yet we quite nonetheless often expend all our energy trying to make it happen. How could this be other than suffering?

The past is, plain and simple, past. Lily Tomlin said that "forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past." The future is a complex welter of possibilities, the strings of which are too tangled with chance, the behavior of others, the actions of nations, the movement of planets and who knows what mysteries, that to think we can plan for all of its eventualities is like the mouse trying to run the cheese factory; he may eventually get the output he desires, but it was never his doing.

Look! What do you see?

Obsession

Something happened at work on Thursday. What happened made me angry. I responded in a fairly measured way, which is progress, but I find myself obsessing nonetheless about what the fallout of my response will be. Mind you, I don't regret my response. I didn't go off half-cocked, as I was prone to do in the past. I also didn't send my email out to everyone I could think of, only to those directly involved.

But I don't particularly care for confrontation. If I were the perfect little boy (or the perfect little Buddhist) I would never feel anger. I would always be even-tempered and respond with concern to situations which used to anger me. No one would ever think ill of me, nor would I ever think ill of others. We would never speak badly of each other, either.

What a crock.

I don't know how the Buddha would respond to something threatening or clearly wrong or potentially harmful. I would like to think that he, too, was capable of anger if the situation called for it (we know from the Bible that Jesus certainly was, and Gandhi was well-known for his infrequent but volcanic bursts of anger, for instance), but there are no recorded instances of his being angry after his enlightenment. It is sometimes easy to misinterpret the Buddha's demeanor as being disengaged, though, and he certainly wasn't that. The whole point of his teaching was that one could be entirely engaged in everything without letting any of it run the show, that one could be in the midst of the chaos and yet not of it.

I don't want to make excuses for my behavior, but I know that being angry does not feel entirely safe because of the way I was raised. Anger is dangerous, that's what my upbringing taught me. It's also not very acceptable unless it is coming from an authority figure. It is clear to me that part of the violence that sometimes comes out in the way I express myself when angry is mostly fear; I fear the anger and that causes me to lash out with more violence than I might have otherwise. Actually, I have concluded that nearly all instances of anger are actually based in fear.

So I continue to mull it over, think about it to the point of distraction. Where does that impulse come from? Does the mind really believe that if I think about something enough that something will change? That insight will emerge? (Yes, I think the mind really does believe that, despite all the evidence being against such a conclusion). In fact, the only time I have ever had any insights worth the name is when I have been in meditation or calmly contemplating something, not obsessively mulling it.

I don't have any brilliant solution to all this; it just helps to write it out. I know that only acceptance and love for my wounded soul will help much. That and sitting in meditation. The mind likes to tell me that food would help and the more I ate the better I would feel. I think I know better.

Jacob's Children, Chapter One

Long, long ago, in a place not so far from here lived a man named Jacob. Jacob was enormously fat. Now, when I say he was gargantuan, I do not mean to say he was merely overweight or obese or rather round or pleasingly plump or rotund. No, Jacob was a man of huge girth, so much so that for many years before his death, he was unable to leave his house; indeed, he could not even leave his bed. He required round-the-clock nursing to do for him what he could no longer do for himself, which was just about everything.

Jacob was dearly loved in his village, though, and the nursing of him was taken in turns by the village women (for this was a time long before men would have considered doing such a thing, though many of them secretly longed to). It might even be said that the women were eager to do this service for Jacob and could be heard humming about their homes all the day before going to his house for their place in the rotation. To someone from outside the village this might have seemed a great mystery, for what they would have seen is an enormity of a man who could do very little, who was incapable of so much as playing a hand of cards or taking the opposing side in a chess match. He was a sweet-natured man and this would no doubt account, in a stranger's mind, for much of the attraction, but not for such devotion over such a long period of time. In the end, such a person would have to simply walk away, shaking his head in consternation.

But, in fact, there were no such strangers in Jacob's village, for it was well off the beaten path and very few other than its inhabitants ever cast a shadow in its streets. So, there really wasn't anyone to call this queer arrangement into question and no one in the village could recall a time when it was otherwise. Thus it went on for many years.

One of the odd facts reported by the women was that, though they lovingly prepared meals for Jacob, he never ate much at all. As the years wore on, it became more and more mysterious not only how he maintained his bulk, but how he sustained life at all. Before he became bedridden this had been a subject of some gossip, for when he shopped in the village market or harvested items from his garden or hunted the woods for rabbits or squirrels, he was always seen to have only a small amount of food, too small for a man of his increasing size. Of course, the gossip said that he must have stashes of food about his house, that somehow or another he smuggled things in when no one was watching or had them delivered from the city by post. Never mind that he never received any packages (or indeed, much of anything at all) at the village post office; gossip never has been one to rely upon facts for its fuel.

In any case, after he became confined to his bed, it became clear there was no secret stash of food to which he could have had access, for he could not have gotten to it even if it had existed. Some of the more cruel tongues wagged that he could have hidden entire banquets in all those folds of flesh, but it required only one withering glance from a village woman to quell this kind of talk, for of course they had each washed, lovingly and with great care, each of those folds, mounds, hillocks, valleys, moraines of flesh and knew better. So the mystery remained.

Chapter Two is here.

The finger and the moon

I realize I have been speaking of many different ways in which I expect myself to behave in order to be a dharmic human being. But it is very important for me to emphasize that none of these is the real point of the work I am doing.

There is an ancient way of expressing this truth. If on a dark night I point the moon out to you and tell you that the moon is what you are seeing, if you misunderstand me you might believe that the finger was the moon.

What the Buddha offered was the end of suffering, nothing else. The end of suffering--Nirvana--is the moon. Everything else, the lovingkindness, the wise speech, the precepts, meditation, the eightfold path, all of these are just fingers pointing at the moon. As long as you don't lose sight of the moon, the nature of the finger is pretty much irrelevant.

I write this because the burden of the dharma can begin to feel heavy. It need not be. This is a path we are walking and as long as we are headed in the right direction, keeping our eyes on the moon, we cannot go far wrong. And none of us are perfect at any of this. It is also not a useful witness to be self-critical if you feel you can't master one of these. On the other hand, it is quite easy to slip into a mindset that says that because we cannot be perfect we need not try. This is looking away from the moon and taking another path entirely. There is a Buddhist principle which is translated as "reproach", though that may be a rather loaded word for Westerners like us. I like to think of it as a constant witness or perhaps a conscience. We know when what we do causes harm and we can feel that creating this harm can't be a part of the path that leads to peace. It's really not much more complicated than that.

Play nice.

Wise Speech

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words shall never hurt me" is about the silliest homily of all time. My own version goes something like this: "Sticks and stones shall only break my bones, but words can surely hurt me."

We can do great harm with our speech. There can be little doubt of this. Our hurful words can resonate for years or decades and affect lives through generations. Of course, most of our speech is not that powerful and is forgotten as soon as it is spoken. Yet don't all of us harbor in our psyches something said that hurt us many years ago? Don't we all recall something unskillful we said long ago and which can still make us wince in the recollection?

So it is one of the most worthwhile practices of the dharma to practice Wise Speech. (And those who may have closely read the Precepts and the Noble Eightfold Path will observe that Wise Speech is a component of both). So what is Wise Speech? While the grosser levels of hateful, bigoted, violent, and denigrating speech may quite obviously be unskillful, there are subtler levels of speech worth investigating. Joseph Goldstein has said that working with mindful speech may well be sufficient dharma work all by itself because it is so very challenging when we drill down further into it. My own observation is that when I focus on wise speech I am silent much of the time.

When we practice wise speech we must avoid speech that is harsh or abusive, this is clear. Lying is frowned upon and the truth highly prized. Whenever we speak of others, we must bear in mind that criticizing or speaking ill of them is unskillful. This becomes a bit more subtle when we speak of others in a way that seems to be expressing our concern but is actually a way to slyly criticize. Generally speaking, gossip of any sort is unskillful speech. Whenever we speak of a person who is not present we should always ask ourselves what motives we have in doing so and generally refrain. Sarcasm and humorous abuse is also quite often hostile in intent. We may be "just kidding" or "just giving you a bad time" and still be doing great harm. Truth-telling can also be abusive if the intent is not kind or the timing is wrong.

Another more subtle form of unskillful speech the Buddha warns against is frivolous speech, the tendency to chatter on about nothing. Most of us are made nervous by silence when we are with others, but it is good practice to try silence unless you have something to say. Frivolous speech fills in the gaps in conversation when we could be focusing on what is going on in our hearts and in our minds. It keeps everything on the surface rather than allowing the silence to encourage us to deepen our understanding.

My rule of thumb for speech is the acronym T.H.I.N.K. Before I speak, I try to ask myself if what I am about to say is thoughtful, honest, intelligent, necessary, and kind.


One of the most important forms of skillful speech is skillful listening. When another is speaking, we should do our best to give them our undivided attention. We should avoid assuming what the rest of their thought will be. We should never interrupt them before they are through. We should try not forming our response while they are still speaking. We should avoid telling a story of our own to counter or top theirs (unless that is the point of the conversation). Skillful listening is very hard and requires practice.

In brief, we do our best to avoid abusive, harsh, loud, hateful, denigrating, sarcastic, critical, gossipy, frivolous, and unnecessary speech. We tell the truth, but only with tact. We try to be thoughtful, intelligent, and kind. We do our best to listen skillfully and completely. You can no doubt appreciate why I am so silent when I am practicing wise speech most vigorously. You can also see why the Buddha emphasized this skill so often and prized it highly. While most of us cannot be perfect in the practice of Wise Speech, we must not use this as an excuse to speak unskillfully. Wise Speech is an important key to our ongoing understanding of the dharma.