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I found myself telling my favorite blond joke yesterday:

Two blonds are on either side of a swiftly rushing river. One yells across, "How do you get to the other side?" and the other yells back, "You're already on the other side!"

How often do we do this, seek to find our way to the other side where things are somehow better, when all along we are already on the other side? Namaste.

What's that got to do with it?

I suspect that some of you may be asking, "Yes, OK, but so what? What does all of this philosophizing and Buddha-ing and dharma-ing have to do with losing weight? How does the concept of joy or grief or any of this stuff fit into my life, this very life in which I am overweight, unhappy about it, and can't seem to do anything about it? Most of my life I have struggled in vain with the impulses that cause me to eat more than my body needs and all of this blah, blah, blah about the Buddha just doesn't seem very relevant."

Well. Here's the thing. Our society is founded on the basic principle of more. If some is good, more is better. If this made me feel good today, more of it tomorrow will make me feel even better. If I have ever gotten comfort from an object of my desire, I can derive that same comfort from similar objects in the future. There is something, somewhere that will fill this hole I feel in the center of my being. We have convincing evidence for these assertions, for we can recall a time when a meal made everything OK, or the purchase of an object made the pain go away, or watching a television program filled the emptiness.

The problem is this: these are all transient. There is no permanence to any of them. There is also the tricky fact of what we might call "moreness". The problem with using any external object, emotion, or person as a way to fill the spiritual void we feel is that, once we have this object of desire, its efficacy will quickly fade and leave us wanting another such object. Once we possess the new object, we will want another. Because the hole can never truly be filled with these things but somehow in our delusion it feels as if they are, we will constantly seek something new to take the place of the object that is no longer doing the trick. We will always want more.

Now, much of our seeking is dangerous (for instance if adrenaline is the drug we crave) or harmful (drugs and alcohol) or distasteful (pornography, for instance), or becomes infeasible as we age (partying all night). Some simply does not work after a while, like compulsive television viewing or computer use. And all of these have one thing in common: we can give them up and not die. But food, ah, food. We must use it or starve. It is not particularly expensive unless we have exotic tastes. So, while we tend to lose many of these addictions (to call them by their right name) as we age, food stays with us, and is often the last bastion of our rebellion. It may have been many years since we asked ourselves against what, exactly, we are rebelling, but, dammit, it's my life, and I'll eat what I want. Haven't I given up enough?

But as so often happens, we are not getting good answers because we are asking the wrong questions. When I eat--or do anything else--in an attempt to fill the void, I am not only doomed to failure but have placed myself that much further away from what could actually fill it. This is the irony, that in the seeking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, I neglect the fact that the gold mine is under my feet; I need go nowhere at all. And in the traveling away from my home (which is to say, my inner being) to seek that fool's gold, I leave the true gold behind. That's what all of this has to do with eating.

By the way, if we seek to lose weight to fill the void, believing that it will make us feel better about ourselves and therefore make us more spiritually fit, we are doing the same thing. Addiction to the idea of losing weight is as real as any other addiction. We need to give that up as surely as we would heroin, for it can be as dangerous. We must begin from a place of total and complete acceptance of ourselves as perfect human beings before we can change anything with a grateful heart, which is the only way change can take place.

Joy and happiness

I realize that yesterday's post raised a rather thorny question: is it truly possible to remain joyful all the time? Is that really a choice we can make?

First of all, I make a distinction between happiness and joy. Happiness is a transient state, dependent on conditions. Joy, on the other hand, is an expansive state and more a tendency of mind that can be cultivated. Happiness is winning the race; joy is taking pleasure in the running of it.

The hard question arises: "Is it possible or even desirable to be joyful in the face of, for instance, the death of a parent, partner, or child?" or "Is it possible or even desirable when terminally ill or in pain?" What these questions assume is that there is a value to suffering, that to fail to suffer under these circumstances would somehow be disloyal or dysfunctional. How is it possible to feel joy in the presence of a cancer diagnosis or a child's death? How is it right?

There is no giddiness to joy. It is not the feeling of kicking up our heels or running in the tall grass. Joy is much more gentle than happiness but is more lasting. The opposite of joy is not unhappiness; I believe the opposite of joy is bitterness, the feeling that life has treated us unfairly. It's not that there isn't unfairness or injustice in the world, of course, but this feeling of bitterness is completely incapable of doing anything other than exacerbate our suffering around events that have already occurred. One wise person said, "Problems are just situations we decide never should have happened."

What, then, is the nature of joy, and how can it be cultivated? This goes to the core of the teachings. In opposition to the ingrained tendency to go straight to "flight, fight, or freeze", the classic triad of responses to states of high alert when confronted with stressors, Tara Brach proposes the paradigm of "tend, befriend, and expand." She says, "The habit is to think this life is a problem to be solved. The possibility is to live this mystery and to love without holding back." The outcome of practicing a different way of responding to the stress of everyday life is joy. It is an openness to all things and all beings "without holding back". We tend to think either that some person or thing must earn our love or that there is a limited amount of love to go around and if we begin to distribute it willy-nilly it will run out just when we need it for someone near and dear to us. Both are fallacies and have no basis in fact; quite the opposite is true. The more we can open our hearts to the whole world and all beings in it, the more space there is in which to love and the more love we have to give. This has been demonstrated by enlightened beings for centuries. When we think of those we most admire and would like to emulate, it is invariably those persons who have found a way to unstintingly love those around them. The mistake we make is in thinking that Ghandi or Mother Theresa or the Buddha or Jesus or Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela were or are exceptional human beings and that we cannot aspire to such benevolence. On the contrary, they were all quite ordinary human beings who transcended the ordinary way we deal with our lives. (Of course, this is my opinion; I do not intend any disrespect to those who believe that one or more of these persons was divine). Even in suffering and the face of death they remained joyful and open-hearted.

To return to Tara Brach's paradigm: she advocates what I have come to call "The Holy Pause". When we feel ourselves responding to stress with the desire to flee, can we pause to see if we can abide in the feelings that arise and stay in the situation without leaving it either physically or emotionally, what she called "tending". When we feel ourselves responding to stress with the desire to fight with words or fists or blaming, can we pause to see if we can befriend these feelings and impulses and possibly even the person or thing that arouses them? When we feel ourselves in these situations curling up into a little ball and retreating (freezing) like an animal playing dead, can we pause to see if we can expand, open our hearts to the fullest extent of which we are capable?

The road to joy is not in reaching some enlightened state in which we are always able to do these things all the time. The road to joy is practicing them over and over until our habitual responses are retrained to sometimes be the more peaceful, openhearted ones. Over time these can even  become more frequent than the less skillful, habitual outcomes. This is true joy and can be present no matter what the outer circumstances bring to our awareness. This is where I choose to live.

Freedom

When I got back home from California today, there was a part of my mind that was grousing and grumbling about getting back into the flow of things, of having to take on the day-to-day duties of your average householder ("householder" being what the Buddha called all those who were not monks).

"I should be able to do anything I want for the next two days and not have to worry about all of this crap there is to do," said Wanda Whiner. "I have been busy flying back and forth and doing things for others; it's about time I had some hedonistic time to just sit around and do whatever I  feel like."

Another member of the internal committee--we'll call him Responsible Rick--said, "But, Wanda, that's not how it works. It's not like you earn points for being a good boy or girl and that buys you the right to ignore obligations and what needs to be done. You were of service over the weekend because it was the right thing to do, not to store up brownie points. Having done that does not give you any special license."

"Says you. Why is there always more stuff to do, anyway? Why can't we ever be just done for once?"

"Well, as far as I can tell, that's just the way life works. I mean, you know about entropy..."

"Oh, boy, here we go," Wanda muttered under her breath.

"No, seriously. It's absurd to think that the floors will remain eternally clean or the groceries eternally fresh, even if you didn't eat any of them, which would be rather a self-defeating way to get out of going to the store, by the way."

"For heaven's sake, there's no need to be so fricking literal. I didn't mean FOREVER or anything like that. Jeez. Why can't we just take a break?"

"Well, of course we can. Most of tonight and most of tomorrow is wide open and we can spend it relaxing and taking our ease. But there are some things, like blogging and walking and unpacking and watering that need to be done. We can't simply abandon our responsibilities."

"See, that's just what I mean. Why not? Why can't we just have a day of complete rest?" Wanda began to snivel a bit.

"Well, the plants would die, for one thing. On Tuesday when I have to go to work, I wouldn't be able to find things I need from the backpack I took to California. And I have promised myself to exercise regularly and to blog every day."

"THERE! THERE! Perfect example, Mr. Perfectionist! Blog every day? Why? Who cares?"

"Well, I promised..."

"Promised whom?" Then, under her breath, "And nobody reads it anyway."

Rick refused to be bated. "Now, Wanda, you know that's not true. Besides, that's not the point. I want to be accountable, if only to myself. I want to put down how things are every day, not just when I'm having a good one or a bad one or have some flash of insight. It's important to do it every single day, even when it's inconvenient; especially when it's inconvenient."

Spiritual Spencer chimed in, "I think there's something you both are forgetting." Rick and Wanda rolled their eyes. "No, really. Listen, have you forgotten that you are always as free as you allow yourself to be? That in any moment you can be as thoroughly joyful as you ever will be, if you make that choice? And that in every single moment you have that choice?"

"Oh, sure," said Wanda, "I shall be joyful while washing the dishes. Fat chance."

"But that's a choice, surely you can see that. It's not about getting things done, as Rick asserts. It's not about doing nothing, as you assert. Oh, sure, if you didn't ever wash the dishes, then that would lead to consequences you would eventually have to face, specifically nothing to eat off of or with, and a smelly house. But that is a choice you could make joyfully. On the other hand, you could make the choice to wash them joyfully. The mistake we make is believing that what will bring us happiness is always in the next moment, or perhaps the one after that. This is the only moment in which you can be happy or joyful. This is also the only moment you can be miserable or resentful. These are your choices. Remember what Pema Chodron said? 'You are always standing in the middle of a sacred circle.'"

The rest of the committee murmured growing concurrence with Spencer's logic. "It's not that I disagree with either of you. Reid must do things and he has a right to take it easy, both. We of the committee are here to see to it that he finds a balance that will give him access to as much joy as possible, isn't that right?"

Wanda, refusing to give in, yet recognizing the overwhelming nature of Spencer's logic, sulked into a corner. Rick grinned and relaxed. Reid went for a walk, but got a couple of movies while he was out. He came home, put the dishes away, and sat down to write his blog post. While he wrote it, he ate a few things that made Wanda happier. All was quiet in the committee room. Will the last member to leave please turn out the lights?

A good last day in California

I spent the day today with family here in California and finished off with a lovely dinner at Latitudes in Auburn. If you are in that neighborhood, I highly recommend looking them up. It was my brother, my parents, my nephew, and me. A pleasant little group. We told family stories and were probably too loud because my mother is deaf but...oh, well!

Not much more to say. I fly out tomorrow morning. I am very tired. I spoke to my wife on the phone. I probably overate today. All is well in my universe.

Yes, we all age

The ultimate outcome of living the life of an aspiring buddha is to recognize that everything is illusory, that what we view as permanent and lasting is actually ephemeral. In fact, even we ourselves are never fixed entities that can reliably be pointed to as "me" or "mine" (this, by the way, is essentially what is meant by the Buddhist concept of "no-self" in case you run across it. I will no doubt post on that subject another time, but don't let the somewhat mysterious sound of that concern you; it's not really all that complicated or weird. In any case...). I bring that up mainly to tell the story of a Zen master whose son died. When he was found weeping, his students asked if he had not told them that all life is illusory, therefore its passing is merely a part of the flow of the universe and not to be mourned. To which the teacher replied, "Yes, yes, that is true. But my son was such a very real illusion."

So, I recognize that there is nothing more normal then my 83 year old parents being fragile, forgetful, weak, and subject to being knocked off-kilter by just about any illness or other crisis, no matter how minor. Ah, but how real is the illusion I have of them as strong, capable, and invincible. They are, after all, my parents. Just so, it is perfectly reasonable that my 87-year-old mother-in-law should be seriously ill for the first time in her life. Why wouldn't she be? She's lucky to have escaped it this long, I suppose. But how real the illusion that she's still the woman I met 32 years ago (not long ago I realized with a shock that she was the age I am now when Kathy and I first started dating). All three have been pillars of my life, people who were simply always there and always to be relied on. Now, Kathy and I must be the reliable ones (along with our siblings and their mates, of course, and to an even larger extent than us because they live where our parents live).

I think what I'm getting at is that it is not such a difficult proposition to understand intellectually that people become ill, age, and die, but when it comes to my Mommy, well, I mean, she's my MOMMY, for God's sake! That's different. My father was an athlete when he was young and even into middle age maintained an active life. But today he got out of the car and looked as if he was going to collapse. He just plain looked old and feeble. Oh, there were logical explanations and easy short-term solutions; it was nothing serious, really, nothing a little snack and some rest couldn't cure. But it brought home to me again with such vividness that both of them are growing old and will some day no longer be here. How do I reconcile this feeling of loss with the realization of impermanence as I have come to know it with my head if not yet my heart?

I am convinced the answer lies in meditation. Though I have spoken of meditation only as a mode of concentration leading to mindfulness, if used skillfully it can also help us to understand questions such as that I raise above. A warning, though: this is not intellectualizing, philosophizing or otherwise trying to find answers. The nature of paradox is that it has no answer, for one thing. But, even more importantly, as long as we are trying to use our minds to answer the mind's questions, we will end up going in circles. What I have in mind (pun fully intended, of course) is using some of our time in meditation to focus on the question, but to just lay it out as if on an examining table and step back. We must resist the temptation to dissect the specimen or examine it, focusing the power of our concentrated minds on the question itself. This is very helpful, though it will yield no specific answers, or at least none that can be put into words. That this provides an enormous amount of comfort goes without saying. But it also leads us to insight, one of the highest aspirations for any practitioner of the teachings of the Buddha.

Off I go!

I am home sick again from work today, but still plan to fly out tonight to visit my parents and other family members in California; it has been planned for too long to let a cold get in my way. I went for a walk today, thinking it would make me feel better. It did, but it also wore me out, which leads me to know I really am sick. I hope I'm not too tired when I get to California.

Something about flying makes me anxious, but it really isn't the flying itself. I rather like the sensation of this enormous metal box lifting off the ground. I have yet to get over my incredulity that something that large can actually get into the air. It feels like a miracle every time. Maybe it is!

But the sense of disconnectedness from my secure little world couldn't be more stark than when I fly. I must get the the airport on time. I must expose all of my possessions and my person to examination. I must take my shoes and belt off (wait a minute, isn't that what they make you do in jail? Hmmm). I must divest myself of the tchotchkes and bric-a-brac from my pockets that in some part make me uniquely me. I am all but stripped bare. Then on the other side of security I must reassemble myself like C-3PO in the junkyard and take a seat for a long wait until it is time to shoehorn myself into my narrow seat and sit fetally for an hour and a half, wait for a shuttle to take me to my rental car, drive 45 minutes to my brother's house (arriving about three hours after my usual bed time) and flop into bed. What's to disorient me in that?

I think the value in this recitation is the recognition that I have defined a certain set of parameters as my "home" and when these are disrupted, I am no longer at home in my body or my head. I recall one Buddhist teacher (I can't recall now whom) who said, when asked if it would be good to get back home that he was always at home. This is something to aspire to.

The point in this blog, of course, is that I tend to eat my way through my anxiety, and I usually eat something or other from the time I hit the airport until I arrive at my brother's. It may just be those evil snack mixes they sell in the newspaper stands, or it may be a meal from a vendor, but (now that I think about it) I am pretty much eating something the whole time. So, my plan today: I will eat something before I leave, then I will buy a sandwich to eat on the plane (usually half is plenty) then, other than water and my ubiquitous cup of decaf I will eat nothing until breakfast tomorrow. Let's see what happens!

As I have said before about other such events, the point of this exercise is not to keep from eating, but to recognize just how often my eating is a way of evading something else, in this case my anxiety about the displacement I feel. When I come face to face with my demons, they lose their power.

To refuse to face them is to, literally and figuratively, feed them. Today I will not.