Did I Mention That The Buddha Wasn't A Fat Guy?

This is the last post in a three-part series about the food choices I am making and how that all fits in with everything else in my life (big topic!). The first part is here and the second here. You might want to read those to make more sense of what I am writing about in this post.

I am not suffering, I hope that is evident. I remember before I gave up other of my addictions (alcohol and tobacco in particular), one of the primary reasons I gave myself for not wanting to stop was that I would no longer have any fun, that these things were what gave me pleasure and without them my life would be dull and featureless. I felt much the same way about my food indulgences.

I was just speaking with someone yesterday who was curious about what I ate and I began to list off the things which I no longer consume: alcohol, drugs, tobacco, caffeine, sugar and all sweeteners, almost any processed food, nearly all fried food, meat, gluten, and most oils other than olive oil. I eat dairy sparingly. What a  bore my eating life must be!

But it isn't. Just as with alcohol and tobacco, I was kidding myself that these foods gave me pleasure. I should also point out that I did not give these things up all at once. I have been a vegetarian for nearly 20 years. I quit smoking 25 years ago, drinking 16. I haven't indulged in any drugs for even longer. And every choice I made regarding these things was made from a desire to avoid suffering. I have no impulse to be a purist, I really don't. But each of these had in some way or another caused me pain or difficulty.

As mentioned in an earlier post, one of the magical moments in following the elimination part of this dietary plan is the discovery, when foods are added back, how much they have been causing difficulties. My sister-in-law, who is also following this plan, went through a particularly stressful event not long ago and decided to treat herself to some ice cream. A lot of ice cream. Though previously she would not have attributed the consequences to the sugar therein, she had given it up entirely prior to this and knew that the body aches and pains and other bodily struggles had to be because of it. It was for her a revelatory moment.

But here is the most important thing: I am enjoying eating more than I ever have. In the absence of sweeteners, fresh fruits and vegetables taste more flavorful than ever. Grain salads (gluten-free, of course) are delicious to me. A dish full of (sugar-free) yogurt is a treat. A slice of good cheese is a delight. I made an eggplant Parmesan the other day that was to die for. I don't miss chips or ice cream (well, not much, anyway), chai tea lattes, donuts, cakes, pies, or cookies. I don't miss the digestive issues, the body aches, the tiredness, the malaise, the hangovers of indulgence. I feel better than I have in years. And I am no longer a fat guy.

And isn't this the very nature of what the Buddha meant when he talked about the end of suffering? At one point he said (I am paraphrasing) that what we believe gives us pleasure is precisely what causes suffering and what we believe causes suffering is what leads to freedom, which is the ultimate pleasure. While we pursue the short-term satisfaction of desire, we remove from our lives all possibility of Nirvana, which is not a place but a state of being that can only be found through concerted effort. But this effort is not that of conforming to a certain ideal. Rather, it is an internal investigation to find what is true for each of us. What Dharma means, after all, is Truth. And the only way we can find this Truth is to look closely at what causes us to suffer and what causes those around us to suffer.

I know this all doesn't sound like much fun. I wish I could convey to you more clearly that it is, in fact, the ultimate joy. It is as if we are surrounded by beauty and looking down at the dirt wishing for beauty. All we need to do is look up. Look up.

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.

Abascal

Those of you with long memories may recall that the original intent of this blog was to explore my relationship to food and what it meant to be a person who embraces the Dharma and is also overweight. I hasten to add that this was not a personal judgment, but an exploration. The question was not (and is not) whether or not it was somehow wrong to be overweight and a practitioner of the Dharma, but what the connection is between the two.

I suppose the first question really must be whether or not is in unskillful to be heavy. Does that seem like an odd question? To put it in context, one might ask a similar question: is it unskillful to be angry? At first blush, one might say that it is clearly unskillful to be angry, since it disquiets us so badly and often does damage to ourselves and others and the relationships between us. But what underlies the anger? Why is it there? What does it feel like in our bodies? What is the real meaning of the anger? In other words, what precisely about anger makes it an unskillful emotion in this particular instance?

What I was trying to do, way back then, was explore similar questions in my relationship to food. So, rather than asking whether or not it is unskillful to be a fat guy (it clearly is not), what I was asking is, does the fact of being overweight speak to a larger reality? Am I dodging something that I would rather not face and using food to do it? That, of course, would be unskillful, because it is resistance that leads to suffering and this kind of suffering leads us away from the path to ultimate freedom.

It's a complicated thing. As I have written many times here, food is packed with emotion and memory and history and comfort. Food is the first comforter, straight out of the womb, and it doesn't really change much for the rest of our lives, as far as I can tell. Though we begin with breast milk, we soon branch out to creamed peas and French fries, a trajectory that has the potential to end in the booze aisle. We continue to seek comfort and if we can't find it where we are, we will go on seeking it until we do. And because most if not all of these things cannot provide the comfort we crave, we are setting ourselves up for failure and further suffering.

Which all comes back to the question of Renunciation. This is also tricky to talk about because it can feel very Catholic, as if we are giving things up in order to be good (an appropriate thought for this time of year). But that is not what the Buddha was talking about. When we renounce things in this context, we are letting them go so they don't stand in the way of our happiness. Or, put another way, the very things we think will give us comfort actually have precisely the opposite effect. By distracting us from squarely facing what stands in our way, they exacerbate our suffering, somewhat like pretending a rapidly spreading cancer is just a few aches and pain, which leads inevitably to yet greater suffering.

And so, the Abascal Plan. Kathy started doing this a few weeks ago and had such good results that I decided to give it a try. Here's the basic deal: first of all, all crap goes, which really just means sugar, chemicals and overly-processed foods. Then, for the first three weeks, the elimination phase, you also delete dairy, wheat, dried corn, and peanuts. After the three weeks you add these back one by one to determine if you have a problem with any of them. If you do, they should stay out of your diet forever. And throughout (which is to say, for the rest of your life) you eat proportionally, two thirds fruit and vegetables to one third protein and/or grain.

The basic idea behind the Abascal Plan is that inflammation causes many of the health issues we experience and that quieting this inflammation by eating the right foods for our bodies will help us have more energy, less pain, and will lead to natural weight loss. Though I remain skeptical, I am hopeful.

So, I have begun (I am on my sixth day of the elimination phase). This post has already gone on long enough, so I will close here. But next time I will go into more detail about how this relates to my relationship to the Dharma, because that connection is very cogent for me, and I hope to make it so for you.

MIA

I am acutely aware of how long it has been since I posted to my blog. Life got amazingly busy in the interim and I have been scrabbling just to get the day-to-day things done. I know there isn't anyone out there who hangs on my every word and goes into deep depression if I do not post, but I feel a certain obligation—if only an internally sourced obligation—to post here often, if not weekly, and of late I have not been able to do that. I've been feeling the lack.

What does this blog thing do for me, anyway? I understand the contempt sometimes expressed in popular culture toward the fact that everybody and his hamster has a blog these days. A quick Google search tells me there are over 60 million blogs in the world. We must be finding something worth writing about and, one would hope, worth reading about. But the question is, why do I do it?

This began as a blog about weight loss from a Buddhist perspective or, more accurately, how my relationship to food is warped and addictive and the Dharma helps me come to terms with that without guilt or remorse, but with understanding and love. Which, I hoped, would also lead to weight loss. Which it has. But the blog has transformed over the years into something much more generic but at the same time truer to my heart. Yes, I needed (and need) to lose weight, but that is only a meager slice of who I am, and it began to feel as if I was shortchanging both you and (I flatter myself) those who read this blog to give only that small part of me. And, truthfully, there is only so much one can say about the subject, right? "The Buddha says to accept myself as I am but to recognize where I am stuck and work, gently, to move beyond my stuckness. Part of that is my relationship to food. I am working on it." That's pretty much the gist of it.

So I moved on to being more general and writing more generally about me, who I am, what drives me, my joys and dreams and goals and sadnesses and challenges and terrors. But why should you care? Am I only being egotistical to think that I am important enough (or articulate or clever enough) to make it worthwhile?

Truthfully, I don't think that's the point at all. I believe with all my heart that we crave connection to one another. In our modern era we find less and less opportunity for connection. Though I distrust the kneejerk reaction to modern technology that decries every new gadget as inherently bad for interpersonal relations, I do recognize that most of us spend an inordinate amount of time inwardly focused, which includes whatever device we might be peering into during most of our waking hours. I laugh every time I go to the lunch room at work and, though a crowd is gathered, each of us is in the world of an iPhone or a tablet, ignoring everyone else in the room. Of course, part of this is that our employer does not allow us to use our devices during the work day, so lunch is the only time we have to check our texts and emails. Still, it wasn't that many years ago that our friends and family would just have to wait until evening or even a day or two to hear from us. Instead, the opportunity for connection with our co-workers is lost. Even when we do engage in conversation, if the Android calls, we feel we must check to see what it wants.

So this blog is, for me, a way of reaching out and being in touch with others. I realize this is somewhat antithetical, since it is almost entirely a one-way communication and comes to you electronically. Still, I hope it is clear that what I write here comes from my heart, that my soul is in it, that I am sharing with you as deeply as I can, always. I promise to do better about writing weekly, or nearly so. If not for you, then for me. Thank you for continuing to read.

P.S. Part of what has been keeping me so busy is a photography class. This won't become a photog blog, I swear, but I did want to point out that all of the pics in this post are mine (just so you know I haven't been out there wasting my time!). I feel more confident with my camera now and also intimidated by what I do not know and that of which I am not yet capable. I will continue to post photos from time to time but will try not to be obnoxious about it.

Skin

Complacency in the resting state of the human mind.

We would rather not be bothered by the thousands of events of cruelty, suffering, bigotry, despair, violence and casual dismissal of our fellow humans. In part this is certainly protective; too much goes on, we cannot absorb it all without ourselves falling into despair, which is perhaps the most destructive of all emotions, as it freezes us, makes us incapable of movement in any direction.

The other day I got in the mail a whole sheaf of photographs of myself. Naked. Yep, that's right, a pile of pics of yours truly in the buff! You won't be seeing them on the internet. Because I derive from Northern European stock (or, with less grandiosity, because I am a pasty-faced white boy),
my dermatologist (it feels odd to think I have my very own dermatologist) asked that I have high-resolution, full-body photographs taken of my naked body. She wanted to have something against which she could compare any new moles or blemishes, to make sure they were new and not just the same old, same old eruptions of dermis. The photography session itself was not particularly traumatic; I have no hang-up about my naked body and no delusion that the sight of it will be titillating. It is the body of a man of late middle age with lots of moles and lots of hair, pretty much average in pretty much every way. So, posing for a photographer, while it felt oddly like a fashion shoot (including the white umbrella-reflectors and striking poses as directed by the picture-snapper) was not in itself disturbing. But when my copy of the photos came in the mail, I felt a visceral reaction I had not expected, combined of dread and curiosity. Until this morning I had avoided looking at them.

Not from my portfolio

The Buddha taught that we should consider our bodies carefully: "In this fathom-long body, equipped with sense organs and faculties, I declare to you is the world, the origin of the world, the cessation of the world and the path leading to the cessation thereof." The entire philosophy of suffering and the end of suffering can be found in the body. Many have insisted that the Buddha intended to denigrate the body, asking us to see it as foul and the source of our cravings and distractions from the path of purification which could lead to the end of suffering. I find no such sentiment in the teachings, or at least not wholly so. I have read and heard the teachings on revulsion toward the body, but have also absorbed the teachings of the glory of the body. This may sound inconsistent, but it is more truly the evocation of the body as the teacher of all things, both "the origin of the world" and "the cessation of the world". To cling to the idea that the body is only to be reviled is to miss the point. Reviling the body is an exercise, just as celebrating it is. To cling to either image is to invite suffering into our lives.

She clearly disapproves

I went to see an exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum yesterday called "Elles", a tribute to women artists from the Pompidou museum in Paris. I expected to see the usual canvases of Kahlo, Cassatt  O'Keefe, Morisot and their ilk; there was very little so predictable as this. What I had not expected at all was the video installations, one of which was a naked woman (the artist) holding a live chicken by the legs until the chicken became calm, then having the head of the chicken chopped off and the same woman holding the chicken as it died, spewing blood over her and the floor. Just one example. The reason I evoke this disturbing image and the exhibit is to emphasize how clearly the show was designed to show our overwhelming disaffection and objectification toward our bodies and, in particular, the bodies of women (and to recommend to all Seattleites that they go see it).

Looking at the photos of my skin, there were few surprises. I thought my posture was better than that. Yep, there's that little inner tube around my middle that has been the subject of my most fervent hopes for weight loss. My, I have begun to sag! (Come now, Reid, you are well beyond mere beginning). What it did cause, though, was a crack in the skin of my routine image of myself and the world. We all carry with a certain version of our bodies that is notoriously inaccurate. Some of the paintings I admire the most are self-portraits that are honest and straightforward; the artist must have had to study his own body closely and in great detail (sometimes disheartening detail, we must believe) to paint such a portrait.

Both of these, as well as some other events in my recent life (A book by David Foster Wallace, a talk by Amy Goodman) have done is shake up my complacency, a necessary disturbance of the surface normality of my day-to-day life, a wake-up call of what the world is, both inside and outside my head.

I work with wounds, disturbances of skin integrity and its healing. One of the enemies of wound healing is what is called "biofilm", a glaze of bacterial matter on the surface of the wound that is fairly benign but prevents the wound from moving forward on the trajectory toward intact skin. It seems to me that our complacency serves the same purpose, this benign glaze that covers our eyes as we watch our televisions and stare into our omnipresent technoboxes. The best of art, of commentary, of actions by the outrageous, puncture our safe surround and bring us face to face with the reality—often ugly, as often gorgeous, sometimes both in a swirling admixture—of our daily lives.

This is precisely what the Buddha advocated. He did not wish for me to recoil with revulsion or swoon with delight at the sight of my own skin or the contemplation of my guts or my death. He had no desire for me to find the naked chicken woman disgusting or titillating (though of course she was a bit of both). He would have me give up neither my delight in escape nor my deeper seeking. What the Buddha asked of me is that I look at them and see what they are, truly are, in this moment, in my perception, right now. Really, the Buddha didn't advocate much of anything beyond WAKING UP.

Complacency may have been the Buddha's only enemy.

Weight loss reflections

I started this blog with the intention of tracking my efforts to lose weight. A couple of posts back, when I was talking about what I eat and why, I said that I would revisit this topic, if only briefly. As those of you who have been following this blog for awhile are aware, I have shifted my focus more to the Dharma side of things and have de-emphasized the weight loss angle. Why?

Well, it's not because I no longer think that losing some of this excess weight would be wonderful. I am aware of the health consequences of carrying even a relatively small amount of extra poundage. But here's the thing: I am simply not willing to live my life under some sort of cloud, constantly concerned about every extra pound or calorie. Put another way, I would rather die a fat, diabetic, hypertensive mess than spend the precious hours of my life worrying about my weight. Whenever I hear myself, internally or aloud, speaking in martial terms (fighting weight, struggling with it, wrestling it), I recoil. I don't want to live my life in any more struggle than is called for. Just day-to-day living is hard enough.

On the other hand, I treasure discipline and commitment. And by saying I treasure them, I mean that I find great pleasure in them, a greater pleasure than I do in eating junk, for instance. Because of this, in a normal, average week I follow the strictures of my 1800 calorie regimen six days, giving myself Sundays off. When I do this, I steadily lose weight. But many of my weeks are not "normal". When I go on vacation or to visit my parents I find it very difficult to measure and parcel out everything I eat, especially since much of the time is taken up in social eating. Not that I am one of those who, when I feel released from obligation, go buy a box of Twinkies and eat the whole thing; I have never been that kind of binge eater. But a few chips here, a latte instead of drip coffee, a cookie or cinnamon roll or two and pretty soon I have put on an extra pound or five. And since I am now visiting my family once a month, when I factor in my vacations and other time off, my "abnormal" days begin to outnumber the "normal" ones. With the decreased metabolism of a 56-year-old, I have found that, even with moderate eating, if I am not ever-vigilant, I can gain up to 10 pounds in a week.

My friends Barbara and Jim say that when they decided to take off some extra weight they always took their own food wherever they went, even out to dinner with friends or on vacation, if they thought they would not be able to calculate accurately the "cost" of the food they would otherwise be eating. That would be very difficult for me, but I get the point. When I eat with my parents, for instance, we tend to eat at places that specialize in meat and potatoes types of meals. Nothing wrong with that, and they like pretty decent places, but for a vegetarian, lean meals are hard to come by in these restaurant. I'm not complaining, but it does make me wonder how to deal effectively with such times.

Kathy and I just came back from a mini-vacation to Doe Bay on Orcas Island in Washington state.

Doe Bay

It was beautiful and restful and damn near perfect, at least for us. We didn't do much, really, though we went on a couple of hikes in two different state parks on the island. I did not pork out while we were there. We had a couple of meals in the restaurant attached to the resort, but mostly cooked and ate moderately in our own little cabin. Still, I would not be at all surprised to find I gained between five and ten pounds over those five days.

Our sweet little cabin, Chakra

Don't get me wrong. This is not a "problem" for me. I refuse to let it be. But it is a curious conundrum and one with which my thoughts are often taken up. I wonder what kind of alternative strategy I could use for those times when I am out of town or relaxing that would not make these times less interesting or fun but would still allow me to remain on the path to good health? I guess I will find out.

What I Eat and Why II

So, last week I started detailing what I eat on a daily basis and why I make the choices I do. One of the most important things I discovered in this process is how much is involved in the choices we make about food, and we make these choices every day. These are political, economic, spiritual, physiological, psychological and emotional in nature. There is nothing simple about eating.

I was visiting my extended family in California over the weekend and was reminded how much of the social there is in eating, how we gather around food to celebrate anything and everything, from birth to death and everything inbetween. When we don't know what else to do for someone in grief or pain, we know we can cook for them, drop off some cookies or a casserole. There is something consoling, joyful, reassuring about food. Yet this can also contain the seed of addiction with which so many of us struggle.

My mother's mother was addicted to food in an entirely different way: her self-worth was caught up in how successful she was in feeding others and took it as a personal affront if you were not willing to be plied by her with food. This became more problematic the older (and more mentally feeble) she became. Food, it goes without saying, is complicated.

I left off with breakfast. Lunch, then: when I work I eat homemade lentil soup. I make a large batch every two weeks and refrigerate it. I find it unnecessary to freeze or otherwise preserve my soup—it lasts just fine for two weeks. This is one of the pleasures of being a vegetarian; without meat in my soup, I can worry less about what might make me sick in the things I keep in the refrigerator. I also eat a piece of fruit for lunch. Midmorning, I have half a granola bar each work day. I have another piece of fruit about 2:30 each day. This is why I eat this way: first of all, as stated in last week's post, I need a diet that is predictable in both calories and protein. My lentil soup is rich in protein. I have also discovered that my blood sugar drops between meals unless I eat something, thus the granola bar and fruit. This is especially true when I am working, because my work is physically and emotionally taxing.

When I am not working, I have a bit more leeway. I still track my calorie and protein intake, but can make choices within those requirements. I usually make fairly healthy choices because these have fewer calories and therefore I can eat more of them! I like cheese quite a bit. I usually eat some cottage cheese, as this contains more protein per calorie than nearly any other food. I always have a glass of V-8 to give me more vegetables in my diet (on work days, I treat lentil soup as my vegetable, since it has a healthy amount of spinach, squash, and potatoes in it).

In the evening I don't have a full meal. I tend to concentrate my calories and protein in the morning and afternoon hours; I really don't require all that much energy in the evening. But if I have not yet used up my 1800 calories for the day, I usually eat right up to that allowance. I don't think it is healthy for me to drop too far below that number of calories. I always include plain yogurt as part of my evening, both for protein content and for the probiotics contained therein, which at a minimum help with digestion and may also aid in immune function. Otherwise, I favor chips (Sun Chips, pretzels, that sort of thing), licorice (the real, black kind, none of that namby-pamby red stuff—ick) and a small amount of white chocolate, if I have the calories to afford it.

I take some more supplements in the evening: more vitamin C, a multivitamin, more garlic.

That's about it for My Day in Food. Next time, I will write a bit more about how this all fits into my original intent to have this be a blog about my attempt to lose weight and how this whole thing fits into the principles of Buddhism.

What I Eat and Why

This blog began as a discussion of food and our attitude toward it, with particular emphasis on how the teachings of the Buddha (the Dharma) gives us insight into our eating (and vice versa, as far as that goes). I thought it might be interesting (to me, at least) to tell you a little bit about how I eat and why I eat what I do. If this holds no interest for you, please feel free to skip this one!

A few notes first:

• I am a vegetarian. Why: the first precept taught by the Buddha (I have written on the precepts here) is not to kill. You will recall that the precepts are not commandments and we must each make our own determination as to what these mean to us, if anything. To me, this precept means that no creature should die for my convenience or to satisfy a mere desire. You will note that this prohibition would exclude any circumstance where the death of another creature was essential for my survival (which is to say, I would not refuse meat if that was the only food available, nor would I eschew insulin or exogenous skin products derived from pigs or other animals). I admit to being conflicted about the use of animals for essential medical research, but in general I am not opposed to this use if it leads to the saving of human lives. I am aware that this is a moral quagmire, as I am thus placing the value of human life above that of other creatures, but the fact is that I do place more value on human life; that's just the way it is for me. I am not a vegan, as I have no problem with taking milk and other products from animals. As noted below, it would also be very, very difficult for me to get adequate protein intake without dairy. I also love it (especially good cheese—yum!) and have no intention of giving it up.

• I monitor and supplement my protein intake. Why: I was experiencing very low energy states a few years ago (more about that later) and one of the discoveries I made at that time was that I (like many people the world over) do not digest soy well. Not that it causes particular digestive issues, I just don't get the protein benefit others do from it. This is pretty common, actually. In combination with my vegetarianism, this makes it more of a challenge to get enough protein into my diet. I found I had to monitor my protein intake closely and every day.

• I believe in the use of supplements. Why: I am a scientific guy at heart and like evidence-based practices, but I think there is something to be said for the use of products with a long history of efficacy that nonetheless cannot be conclusively proven to be effective (I am thinking of such things as vitamins and certain herbs). This is an age-old debate—must we have proof of something before we can declare that it might have some usefulness? Are we simply wasting our money on these products or are they truly an adjunct to our better health?

So, here's what I eat:

For breakfast I eat some kind of cold cereal, usually. I eat something that is not too sugary, but still has some taste without adding any sugar or other sweetener. Now, I should say at this point that what I have done is figured out how many calories and how much protein I am consuming when I start the day with a particular cereal, since all the cereals vary somewhat on both metrics. This is easy to do in my case because (as you will see below) I eat essentially the same thing each day, with some variation built in. The reason I bring this up is because a lot of people think it is just too much hassle to track calories and protein. But, by having a chart of what a typical, basic day's measures of these two are, it is much less of a hassle for me.

I put about a quarter cup of bran cereal on my cereal, for the purposes of colonic health. There is pretty strong evidence that increased consumption of fiber helps prevent colon cancer. I also put a handful of blueberries on my cereal each day. The anecdotal evidence of many centuries suggests that berries in this family can boost immune function. 

I eat nonfat milk on my cereal. I also mix a scoop of whey-based protein powder with some more milk. As noted above, I cannot use soy-based protein powder, and a boost to my total protein is essential. My goal is to consume one gram of protein for every kilogram of ideal body weight. I have done quite a bit of study around this figure and, although studies and experts vary widely in their recommendations for protein intake, for me, 80g per day seems about right. This is also tied into the fatigue I was feeling a few years back—the measured protein intake is one of my responses to this.

I also eat a piece of fruit with breakfast. I am not so compulsive that I get all hung up on the calorie difference between different pieces of fruit. This is counted into my daily tally at a particular level and doesn't vary. Fruit is actually not all that nutritious, by the way, but does provide a complex carbohydrate to keep my blood sugar up. It also provides an extra amount of fiber (see above). The superiority of fruit over juices or even other sources of sugar has been exaggerated, though. Over-consumption of fruit can be a source of empty calories if one is not judicious.

With breakfast I take many supplements. I take 1000 mg of vitamin C. I know, I know, this has come in and out of fashion and recent science suggests that there is very little efficacy to vitamin C either as prophylaxis of common viral infections such as colds or as a scavenger of free radicals (purported to prevent cancers). Still, there was a time not long ago that I was getting sick at the rate of five or six times each winter, sick enough to take a day or two off work each time. When I complained to my doctor, she suggested that I try vitamin C and garlic. So, after doing some study on the subject, I started taking a total of 4500 mg of vitamin C per day as well as four tablets of garlic. I spread the vitamin C out throughout the day (it is water-soluble and taking too much at any one time means you are just urinating out the excess; it can also cause diarrhea at high doses). I also take two of the garlic tabs in the morning and two in the evening, hoping to spread the effects from that intake. And I have gotten sick much, much less since I started doing that. Granted, there are many other factors that could have caused this change to come about, but the temporal relationship between these measures being taken and the improvement in my health is suggestive to me of some causal relationship.

I also take vitamin D, 5000 IU every other day in the winter (less sun exposure) and three times a week in the summer. This was suggested by my naturopath after I went to him with my complaints of fatigue (my regular physician was at the end of what she could do for me). One very important proviso to supplementing with vitamin D, though: you must have your vitamin D levels checked at least yearly and more often when starting supplementation or substantially increasing your dose. Vitamin D can accumulate in your body (it is fat- and not water-soluble) if you take too much and cause much worse problems than the ones you are solving with it. You will also need to do your homework to determine the ideal blood level for you; traditional medicine tends to set the acceptable levels quite low. Recent studies have suggested that nearly everyone could benefit from some degree of vitamin D supplementation.

I also take a vitamin B50 tablet, which provides about 50 mg of most B vitamins, and a selenium tablet. These two were suggested by the LEVITY study conducted at the University of Washington about ten years ago as being efficacious for improved mood (along with exercise and exposure to as much natural light as possible).

These days I am also taking 1000 mg of organic American ginseng daily. I know, that's pretty specific, but here's why: an Australian study demonstrated that this type of ginseng was efficacious in providing feelings of more energy and improved stamina in a particular group of patients. So, I am running an experiment on myself, taking 1000 mg every day for a month, then 2000 mg (the dose recommended on the bottle) for two months, to see if I detect any improvement. Though my fatigue has improved a great deal, it is an issue that is far from entirely solved. I doubt this type of ginseng is better than any other kind, but am trying to replicate the study conditions to the best of my ability. I am nearly through the first month (1000 mg) and have seen no change.

Well, I got pretty wordy describing all that, and I'm only up through breakfast! I will tackle lunch, dinner, and my other food in my next post. I will also talk about my weight loss (the original purpose of this site) and where I stand in relation to that.

What does that have to do with it?

Now, wait a minute, you may well be asking, what does all of this have to do with losing weight? Isn't that the premise upon which this whole enterprise is predicated?

Well...yes and no. If you were to ask if losing weight was my goal when I started this blog, my answer would have to be no, that really wasn't what I was trying to achieve. Why? Because it is this very kind of striving that is the creation of suffering as defined by the Buddha in the Four Noble Truths. But if you were to ask if losing weight was one of the outcomes I was hoping might come to pass from writing this blog, then I would have to answer yes, of course. Am I being inconsistent here?

I don't think so. And here's why: I consider the excess weight I carry around as a symptom of suffering. It is not suffering itself unless I make it so by opposing the idea of being overweight by telling myself I am a fat slob or a weakling because I am incapable of losing it. I have given up these forms of suffering. (It is possible, by the way, to make such a choice. It may not happen overnight—it didn't for me—but you can, believe me. There is no reason to create this kind of suffering for yourself. And you may also have noticed it doesn't help you lose weight, either).

No, the extra weight I carry around is a direct result of trying to bring an end to suffering through the expedient of extra calories. It doesn't work, it can't work, but that's why it's there. Which is why I have chosen to confront this challenge as a meditation (or series of meditations) on what the Buddha was trying to say. What I have found is that the more I incorporate these principles into my life, the less I suffer. The less I suffer, the less likely I am to overeat. It works the other way, too: when I feel the urge to eat to excess, I have the opportunity to confront that urge with the understanding that I am trying to bring an end to suffering through unskillful means. Both of these lead directly to liberation if I have the wisdom to use them skillfully. Here, for me, is the most important factor, though: I do not use the fact of losing or gaining weight as a measure of my self-worth or my success or failure. Everything we confront is an opportunity to become free and this is no exception.

That sounds all fine and well in principle, of course, but what does it mean in actual fact? How do I go about this? Well, as I have described before, I restrict calories. This serves the practical purpose of aiding my desire to lose weight but the more important function of allowing me to see clearly what it feels like to have a desire to eat when I do not need any food for sustenance. Why do I want it, then? What hunger am I feeding if I eat when I am not physically hungry? What do I feel I am lacking that I am trying to fill with food?

I want to be clear that I believe with all my heart that this is a path to total and complete liberation from the fetters of this world. It is far from the only path, but it certainly is one. Anything upon which we can meditate and come to a profound understanding of the nature of suffering and the end of suffering can lead to liberation. That is why I have taken this on. It is also why most of this blog is about the dharma and much less of it is about actually losing weight. I've lost some, I've regained some, I've lost it again (I keep an Excel file with my weights in it and over the past few months the graph looks like gently rolling hills). But in the process I have come to a deeper understanding of the dharma. Am I entirely free? Well, of course not, far from it. But the Buddha made clear that such a release is entirely possible in this very life and for each of us. It is not an esoteric or mysterious path, not the purview of mystic yogis or ascetic recluses. The grist of the mill of liberation is present in every moment of every day of every human life.

Shaking up the snowglobe

There is a metaphor I use for the inside of my head. I compare it to a snowglobe. My (delusional, illusionist) goal is to always have the snow sitting passively on the bottom of the globe, placidly coating the little bench, the plastic tree, the picturesque streetscape. But the mind is not prone to passivity and the snowglobe will be shaken from time to time, sometimes more violently than others.

Lately I have been in a bit of a swirl and the snow has been a-flying. I am a creature of habit (always a losing proposition in a world that doesn't much care what my tendencies are) and I have deviated from my habits the past few weeks. Mostly, though, it is this damn book, Trauma Stewardship, which I have mentioned here before but still have not quite finished, that is shaking up the snow in my globey little head. I call it "this damn book" with only the greatest affection, of course. In the grand scheme, in my larger mind, when my ego is put aside, I want my snow to be agitated. But it can be pretty disconcerting.

What Trauma Stewardship has done is cause me to challenge, oh, pretty much everything I value and the way I spend my energy and time. A very valuable service, the sort of deep cleaning. You would pay a pretty penny to have done to your house, but it feels a bit like (to quote Mel Ash) shaving the inside of my skull. I don't mind, really I don't, but it's a little uncomfortable.

As always, I refer back to the Buddha, who tells me that this is, in fact, what life is all about, this discomfort, this comfort with uncertainty, this insubstantiality. He would tell me, no doubt, that my feelings of security and certainty were mere phantasms with no basis in what is really going on. Just look, he would say: where do you find something that stays the same from day to day? If you find something, be assured that this solidity is a delusion, for every building, every mountain, every person, every day, every thought, every feeling, every relationship, every belief, every creed, every teaching is constantly in the process of decay and reformation. It is, he would remind me (again, again) that the nature of suffering is not this transience but my intransigence toward it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks a bunch, Bud. I am feeling bad (confused, tired, uncertain, insecure) right now. Spare me your platitudes. To which he would, no doubt, just chuckle wisely. Bastard.

But I know he is right. What I am experiencing, for umpteen-millionth time, is change. Just change. Merely change. The usual change. I admit it, though, I am 55 and kinda tired and would just as soon just sit still, thank you very much, with the snow in my globe all on the ground and not stirred up. Of course, of course, the Buddha would no doubt say, that is also an option. Watch a bunch of TV ("reality" shows are good for this). Read stupid books. Dumb down, numb out, plumb no depths. But beware! No real happiness, no lasting joy can be found in this way. Only by embracing the reality of constant change, of being open to the flow of the void, by not only accepting the shaking of my snowglobe but actively seeking it and letting it fall where it may, only then can I find anything like real joy. Sigh.

It's not that I'm not willing; I am, really I am. I just get tired sometimes. I feel as if I have climbed this mountain before and always found that it has no peak, no point at which I can say, "I have arrived at the top of the world. I am now certain of being on the right path." So be it. I will carry on. Truly, I have joy in my heart for the journey. I am not sad or depressed or discouraged. But it is scary, isn't it, to open your heart to being constantly challenged? Bring it on. I'm ready.

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 Action (part 1)

Wise Action is perhaps the most difficult topic to address without giving the impression that the Buddha was being essentially moralistic. One can read the precepts of Wise Action to mean "thou shalt not" but, as I mentioned in the post introducing the Eightfold Path, the Buddha never gave such dictates. He only told us of those actions and attitudes that tend toward suffering and those that tend away.

In most descriptions (including this one), Wise Action consists of the Five Precepts. Following the Precepts, like all of these teachings, is a matter of comprehending the grosser levels of the precept and then peeling away layers to get at the deeper meaning and then doing our best to practice at this deeper level. As I go along, I will try to describe these layers as I understand them, although I hope it is goes without saying that I am still on the path of seeking these deeper understandings and my wisdom concerning them will be necessarily limited.

The first precept is to refrain from killing. Well, that seems easy. Most of us are not called upon to kill other humans in our day to day lives. But it does not take much peeling away to find the depths of complexity to this precept.

• What if one is a soldier? At what point would it be one's moral duty to kill? At what point would it be one's moral duty to refuse to kill and face the consequences of that refusal? Even if one is not a soldier, at what point does inaction give tacit permission to a government or individual to kill in our name, even if without our explicit permission?
• Most of us have asked ourselves this question: at what point would it be more entirely moral to kill than to allow violence to another? Would the threatened one have to be our child? A loved one? Any defenseless being? This is a very controversial area and there are those who would claim that preventing harm to animals or unborn children fall into the realm of acceptable reasons for killing.
• Then there is the issue of assisted death, helping someone who is terminally ill to die comfortably. Is this killing? Or is it the more compassionate path to take this action? We feel no compunction in putting our dogs out of their misery at the end of their lives; why do we allow our humans to suffer? Is there a higher moral precept for keeping them alive to the very end?
• If we eat meat, we live from killing every day. Where is our obligation here? Where does the precept begin and end? Not even all Buddhist monks are vegetarian; the Dalai Lama himself comes from the Tibetan lineage and (to the best of my knowledge) eats meat.
• When we look to smaller or less clearly useful (or downright obnoxious) forms of life, where does our obligation lie? Is killing rats, mice, cockroaches, mosquitoes, or ants in opposition to this precept? I live in an area of the country where the only persistent pest is small sugar ants, which Kathy and I just sweep to the floor without killing, so it would be easy for me to be smug about this question. But what if I lived where pests infested my house? Would I be so sanguine about them?
• We can go even further down the chain and ask if it is right to kill bacteria and viruses, but this is clearly a place at which the precept cannot apply, since much of the killing is a natural part of our body's defenses. I don't know of any Buddhist sect that would take this precept so far as to prohibit the use of antibiotics; even the most devoted Buddhist would, I believe, see the human form as claiming some primacy over the life of the bacteria that are trying to kill it.

Rather than tying ourselves in ethical knots over all these questions, we can aspire to do the best we can to be the kind of human being the precepts are asking of us. Rodney Smith has come up with an aspiration specific to each precept and for Wise Action he recommends that we aspire to develop compassion toward all beings to the best of our ability. Rather than becoming paralyzed with trying to figure out which way to jump, if we increase our practice of compassion, we cannot go far wrong in practicing this precept.

The second precept is to refrain from taking that which is not freely given. The most basic part of this precept (and where many people stop when considering it) is to refrain from stealing. Once again, most of us can readily claim to abide by this precept in such a basic form; we do not need to steal and know it is wrong to do so. To take another's possessions without their permission is clearly a violation of the social contract; you want to know that your things are relatively safe around others, so you make sure that theirs are safe around you.

But this precept goes much deeper than simply not stealing. How often do we pick up a pen or a paperclip, take a souvenir from a park or perform some other casual act without thinking or assuming that the object is being offered? More subtle yet is when something is offered out of a sense of obligation but without the giver's heart being truly in the gift. How easy it may be for us to manipulate a situation so an offer is made that is not truly the giver's wish; this, too, is something not freely given. It is not enough for us to think that each person must watch out for him- or herself. We must look into our hearts to ensure that what is being offered is being offered freely.

A more subtle form of this precept is allowing others to give to us without overweening pride that prevents them from being generous to us. Giving others the chance to be generous is a form of generosity. Generosity is indeed the aspiration form of this precept. We must look for every chance we can to be generous, though this, as with all the aspirations, must be tempered by wisdom. It is not wise to give away all your possessions if that makes you a beggar dependent on the common purse, though in its purest form to give away all one's possessions and live on the generosity of others can be a noble calling, as many a Buddhist monk in Asia can attest.

I will complete the discussion of Wise Action in the next post.

The week that was

There is a clerk at my favorite grocery store who, when I see her each Friday, asks me, "So, how was the week that was?" I like this question for some reason, perhaps because I like her, and I usually give her an answer that is both honest and not excessively revealing.

Today, in thinking about "the week that was" I am amazed that it has been so tumultuous. What amazes me even more is the fact that I seemed to have fallen into that old complacency of believing I have figured something out about the world and therefore should somehow be free of confusion or chaos. What I know to be true is precisely the opposite, that confusion and chaos, the unexpected and the unpleasant, the challenges to my assumptions and the evidence of my failures are an integral part of being alive as a human being. What is of value (and what the Buddha taught) is to accept all of these and their positive counterparts as the eddies of a stream, of no more real consequence than a passing cloud.

I am convinced, though, that the Buddha never meant for us to be indifferent or above it all. Quite the contrary, it was his intent that we be right in the middle of it all, that we feel the joy, the disappointment, the love, the hate, the confusion, the certainty as fully as we can while not attaching our expectations or revulsion to any of them.

So, what the heck happened to me this week, anyway?

• I think my friend Debbi is probably sicker than she was. I don't want to say much more because it's not my story to tell, but it makes me very sad. I had to miss seeing her in January when I was prevented from going to California by the snowstorm here, which bugs me.
• I think my car is sicker, too. I know I more or less wrote an epitaph for our dear Polly here some months ago, but she seemed to have a revival of sorts. Over the last few days, though, she has been much worse and is probably not safe to drive anywhere we do not want to get stuck for a few hours. This also necessitates renting cars and using Zipcars, which while pretty convenient, still is not as simple as walking out the door and taking off.
• I lectured to a health class on Wednesday which, while enjoyable, was also stressful, time-consuming and exhausting for me.
• I lecture again today in a more familiar setting, but it's still time-consuming and moderately stressful.
• My every minute the past few weeks has felt claimed by some necessity.
• Several days over the past week I have not gotten as much sleep as I probably need, due to several different causes.
• I am not eating as well or in as disciplined a fashion as I would like.
• I am experiencing some symptoms that are probably benign but could be otherwise. Nothing to alarm me but enough to keep me on low-level alert.
• I am reading a book that is rocking my world a bit, changing the way I think about my work and my relationship to it. The book is Trauma Stewardship by Lipsky and Burk and is about the fact that those of us who care for the broken of the world (or the broken world) internalize some of the trauma felt by those we care for and that, without proper self-care, serious consequences can result. I will no doubt write more about this book once I finish it.
• I find my work to be more stressful and less rewarding by the day. Much of this is a result of economic strictures that, while they have not decreased the funding for my clinic, have asked us to serve more clients with no increase in resources. I find administrators there to be more clueless and less sympathetic than ever before.
• The world is a mess. At least it sometimes seems that way to me. What are we doing? What are we thinking? As I have said before, if I intend to write on political themes I will start a different blog; I will not do that here. But sometimes I do despair. Where have all the true leaders gone? Where is our Martin? Our Gandhi? (Of course, both of those were shot to death, so that may be one answer to my question).
• Someone I love is depressed and that causes me to feel sad by proxy. I want her to be happy and contented, but what I want does not come to pass because I wish it; more's the pity.
• In a parking lot I backed right up to someone's bumper when I parked. I did not do any damage, but he or she was perturbed enough to leave a note on my car threatening me with the insurance company. Whereas I know myself to be blameless, it is still stressful to anticipate that I may get an unpleasant phone call one of these days.
• Not least of all, though I mention it last, seasonal allergies have kicked in for the year and that always makes me cranky and a little foggy, especially at first. I adapt to it later on, but this early I am still pretty disconcerted.

I hope it's understood that I am not complaining, just explaining, as the saying goes. I am trying to make it clear to myself, too, just why I am feeling a bit down and tense. After reading that list (and reflecting on the ongoing stressors like my parents' needs and other such daily thoughts) I guess it's not so surprising.

I am determined to step into the stream of all this and go where it takes me. I sometimes am afraid that I will not like the destination, but I know that my resistance is what creates the suffering I feel. I will survive and thrive.

The Eightfold Path, Introduction

I have a tendency to overcomplicate things (sound familiar?). I think I have said in this blog before that this excessive complication is a way of making myself feel important: since I am such a deep, complex, multifaceted being, the explanations of my behaviors and instructions for the way to happiness in my life must be correspondingly complex, n'est-ce pas?

But when I go back to the Buddha's teachings, what I find again and again is the fact that the Buddha was very clear about the fact that he was teaching only two things: suffering and the end of suffering. Furthermore, all of the complicated ritual, commentary and intricacy (not to mention the divisions, schools, and disagreements) of what has become modern Buddhism is entirely the invention of us complicated humans believing that we must make of a simple message something far more intellectually rigorous and meritorious than was even intended by the man who taught it.

Because what the Buddha said was this and nothing else (all the rest is only further explanation, elucidation or, often, obfuscation): suffering is an outgrowth of our experience as filtered through expectations and suppositions. It is possible to end suffering. The way to end suffering is to follow a simple path. This path is known as the Noble Eightfold Path, though I tend to the opinion that the Noble part is another complication, a way of making us feel self-important as we follow it. So let's just call it the Eightfold Path.

Just as with the rest of the teachings, the Eightfold Path is unambiguous. Which is not to say it is not open to interpretation, but it does not allow for deviations; it says what it says. One may choose not to follow the path, but to circumvent it and claim to still be on it is a form of dishonesty with oneself. At the risk of being redundant, I will say again (if only because I need to hear it) that this is the path to the end of suffering and there is no other.

It's important to remember that the Buddha was not prescriptive ("thou shalt") in his teachings but descriptive ("thus have I seen"). He did not think one ought to follow the Eightfold Path. He merely said that it was possible to reach the end of suffering and that this was the way he had found. He believed (or so it seems to me) that all beings who have reached the end of suffering have in some way or another found this same path, not because they all thought about it really hard and came to the same conclusions (this won't work, so you might as well give up now), but because it is as natural as the opening of a flower and, given the correct conditions, just as inevitable.

So I want to go back to basics and take another look at the Eightfold Path to see where exactly it directs me. For the moment I want to drop all the ornamentation of the lotus and see the lotus itself for what it is, to the best of my ability.

By the way, I will be using as my reference for this exploration the wonderful book In This Very Life, by Sayadaw U Pandita. Well worth a read if you are curious about the basis of Buddhist teaching and thought.

The next part of this discussion is here.

Expectations

I had such a wonderful, relaxing time last weekend that when I went into work I felt as if I had run headlong into a brick wall. It was such a shock to come from a world of (as it seemed to me) deep rationality and peacefulness and be faced with the verbal violence of my clients, the petty territoriality of some of my co-workers, the artificial emotional boundaries placed around any suggestion of improvement in how things ought to be working there that I felt I could not cope with continuing to work there. The contrast was so stark and shocking that it felt literally impossible to continue.

At the same time, I was confronted in a friend's blog with some political realities that I would rather not have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. Though I understand that the world is a certain way and to deny this is to live in a fantasy land, I have come to the conclusion that to focus on all of that negativity is to bring myself down and make me incapable of functioning in any useful way. I just become depressed, dark and cynical.

All in all, this led to something of a minor crisis of confidence, a feeling of the need to reassess my values and my aspirations. It all felt quite serious and threatening until I realized what these two things had in common: I want things to be other than as they are. That's really all this is. This is one of the tricks the ego plays to claim hegemony over my heart, to make such a fuss that I will pay no attention to the man behind the curtain and only look at the smoke and mirrors.

After my nice, relaxing weekend, I had expectations. Expectations that the peace I felt was a permanent state, for one thing. Not that I consciously thought this, but emotionally I was unprepared to go back into the rough and tumble of daily life, not because I had reached a higher state of consciousness (don't I wish) but because I was viewing things through a group of assumptions that could not be and never have been true: that I could achieve serenity by willing it to be so, that kindness on my part would yield unwavering kindness in others, that somehow the people with whom I work, both clients and co-workers, would somehow be magically transformed into peaceful, unselfish, reasonable beings without any of the emotional burdens we all carry around. What hope was there that the real world could live up to these outlandish expectations?

So, the "crisis" passed. My mind had to go grumbling back into its corner to hatch another plot for mastery of my thoughts, emotions and actions. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't wish with all my heart that things could be different for the world. I think we are headed in a direction that spells disaster on so many fronts it is hard to keep track of them all. I have vowed to keep this blog apolitical and will not contradict that now, so will say no more about specifics. But I do send lovingkindness to all those who do battle in the name of "justice" and "freedom". And, yes, I do wish things could be different at work, I will cop to that. But to set up a series of expectations based on my fantasy of The Way Things Ought To Be is to (here it comes again) create suffering.

This is, of course, precisely what the Buddha taught. He did not for a moment believe that the end of suffering meant the end of pain or a rising above problems. He spoke only of going into the midst of life without any preconceived notions whatsoever about what it all ought to be, no judgments about good and bad (though he did believe in right and wrong, a subtle distinction, I know). What I did last week was to set up a bunch of expectations and state subconsciously that life was untenable without the fulfillment of them. But my understanding of the dharma came along and said quite clearly, "Sez who?" and I did not have an answer to that.

Freedom is in accepting things as they are, as they truly are, and not as I wish they were. This is not the same as pretending that things that are unacceptable are to be ignored, but the very difficult idea that it is only through accepting them as they are first, without judgment or rancor, that we can ever hope of having a positive affect on changing their reality to something more in accord with our concept of what is helpful and will lead the greatest number of us who suffer to a greater freedom.