Choosing freedom

I am reading the book "Work" by Thich Nhat Hanh. Sometimes I am disturbed by his writing because it seems to me rather unsophisticated—simplistic, even. But I think this is fully intentional on his part. What I am looking for, what I think of as sophistication, is a form of intellectual engagement which makes me feel as if I understand what is going on in the world, that I have a grasp of it that is somewhat superior to the average human. I know this sounds arrogant, but my point is that we do this very thing all the time, seek to be engaged on an intellectual level, at a level of sophistication that has nothing to do with true understanding. We try to live in a sort of academic model of the Buddha's teachings in which we begin with Enlightenment 101 and progress through the syllabus to Final Realization, the PhD of Buddhism.

But the Buddha himself rejected even the idea of "Buddhism" as being antithetical to his teachings. The problem with identifying oneself as a Buddhist is two-fold: it assumes that there is something which is not of the Dharma and it assumes that there is a class of people who are non-Buddhists. Both of these are fallacious concepts and do nothing but feed into the very egoism that is the core of suffering. So I think that the simplicity of Hanh's teachings is purposeful. This is the whole answer, he seems to be saying. Sometimes I can sense the Buddha smiling indulgently when I try to overcomplicate this thing.

Here is one realization that has become more real for me lately: the end of suffering is a choice, and not a particularly difficult one. Now, I have understood this intellectually for a long time. This is, after all, the core of the Buddha's teachings. But recently I have begun to incorporate this idea more viscerally. I have a choice, in each moment, for suffering or for freedom. Let me be even more clear about this. Nirvana is the end of suffering; that's all it is. And since we have it within our power to choose freedom, Nirvana, too, is within our grasp, right now, today, in this very life. No, but really. There is no further sophistication required and the seeking of such complexity creates suffering.

The question that immediately arises, then, is why can't we consistently choose freedom? What's stopping us? I sometimes feel I would like to march up to Dharma teachers and take them by the collar of their saffron robes and demand that they tell me the secret. Yes, yes, it's a simple thing to choose freedom. It also seems to be damn near impossible.

Of course, the answer is complicated. But it's only complicated by our twisty minds. We have been conditioned to certain ways of thinking and being in the world that are antithetical to freedom. And we completely and utterly believe in our conditioning, so even if we come to an understanding of the nature of freedom we still seek comfort from those things that cannot supply it. Recall that in my last post I quoted the Buddha as saying "Everything the world considers a source of suffering I consider a source of freedom. Everything the world considers a source of freedom, I consider a source of suffering." This is worth musing on. He said, "everything", not most things or a few. Renunciation, for instance, which simply means giving up everything that does not and cannot give us happiness, a pizza, for instance, feels like deprivation in the practice. On the other hand, the attempt to derive lasting pleasure from a pizza would be considered by the Buddha a source of suffering. But life is too short, we think, to give up such pleasures as these. Life is hard enough, isn't it? The Buddha would reply, I think, that life is too short to ask pleasures like these to give us true happiness and divert us from the path that can lead to the real thing. These create suffering, not relieve it, because using them to supply happiness requires that they be constantly renewed. No sooner have we had the pleasurable experience than it must be re-experienced to sustain the pleasure. The deep joy that comes from true freedom, on the other hand, is perpetual, indestructible, and ever-present.

Last week, I listened to a fascinating talk on this subject by Robina Courtin. She makes the case that what the Buddha called "attachment" (the grasping onto something that gives us pleasure, the rejection of that which is perceived as unpleasant) we might more accurately call "addiction". Of course, this is not a new idea, but she gave it new life for me. It is instructive to look at the destructive cycle of a true addict, say one hooked on crystal meth, where the craving is constant and implacable, to the exclusion of everything wholesome and useful. It is easy to consider ourselves entirely above this kind of behavior, yet Courtin emphasizes that "we are all addicts; it's only a matter of degree." This is hard to hear, but is precisely what I was speaking of above. Because we have freedom within our grasp and take actions that stand between us and that freedom, we must be addicted to experiences that move counter to freedom, otherwise, why would we do them? We are just like the meth addict in this, but we use donuts and Starbucks and cars, television and shopping and wine, sex and vacations and food.

Now, you'll have to excuse me. I am going down the street to buy some gelato. I'm then going to come home and watch the World Series. I'm sure these will bring me lasting happiness. Just see if they don't.

(After I wrote this, I really did go down the street to buy some gelato. They didn't have any of my flavors, so I had to settle for sorbet, which I like, but not nearly as much. Then on the way home, a bird shit on my head. I kid you not.

Well played, Mr. Buddha, sir, well played).

Suffering

The other day, I read an article in the New York Times by an author (Pico Iyer, who should know better) who said that the Buddha was of the opinion that suffering is an inextricable part of being alive as a human. This is not true. In fact, what the Buddha taught is precisely the opposite. The first Noble Truth is, indeed, that there is suffering. But rather than a prescriptive statement, it is merely a descriptive one. It's a fact. There is suffering. But the Buddha also said, "I have come to teach only two things: suffering and the end of suffering." All of his teachings point toward how we can end suffering. Nowhere in them is the idea floated that we must simply put up with it.

Which is not to say that that painful will not come. We all know it will. As one famous formula has it, suffering is pain times resistance. It is not that the pain or grief or difficulty is avoidable. But what we do with what comes our way, how personally we take it, how vigorously we push it away is what creates our suffering.

This is worth dwelling on for a moment, because it is so entirely opposite what we usually think. Our suffering, so the usual thought goes, is caused by the source of our pain. For instance, I have recently been suffering around a conflict at work and it took me several weeks and a great deal of concentrated meditation to realize that the other person was not the source of my suffering. She was the source of my pain, perhaps, though a great deal of that was my stuff, too. But the suffering was 100% my doing because I was living in resistance to the painful experience.

Which is not to say that others can't be entirely and sometimes egregiously wrong. This is not a method for letting others off the hook (though it's worth considering whether or not their presence on or off the hook is any of our business, really). What the Buddha was telling us is that precisely what we believe to be a solution to our suffering (blaming, criticizing, being right) is what is, in fact, causing us to suffer.

One of the Buddha's most radical teachings was when he said, "Everything the world considers a source of suffering I consider a source of freedom. Everything the world considers a source of freedom, I consider a source of suffering." We reach for substances, experiences, people and other sources of distraction, believing they will bring us lasting happiness and they only bring us the most fleeting pleasure. We look with horror at the prospect of renunciation, of no longer relying on shopping, drinking, eating, sex, travel, television, and other distractions as a source of happiness. (Don't get me wrong—unless you are addicted to these, I am not advocating giving them up entirely, just the idea that they can bring us true happiness).
In other words, the Buddha's teachings can be summed up in three vital points:

1. There is suffering.
2. We believe we know what will end suffering.
3. We are wrong.

One of the most compelling images in all of Buddhism is that of the Hungry Ghost, a being who is eternally ravenous, who eats and eats and eats but has a stomach so capacious it can never be satisfied. He is always hungry and never thinks that perhaps not giving in to the hunger might bring him more happiness than trying to feed it. This is a perfect image of us as we go through nearly every day. It is not an easy matter to give this up, this delusion. But, look at those around you and at your own life. How often do we go through days, weeks, months, lifetimes seeking for joy outside ourselves without realizing that the treasure we seek is here where we are, how we are, right now, today, this moment. We can live here in perfect peace if that is what we choose.

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P.S. I doubt any of you were waiting with trepidation and anxiety to hear the outcome of my job search, about which I wrote a few weeks ago. I withdrew my application for the job I applied for and have not yet decided whether or not to look for another job after the first of the year, but I won't do anything until then. The reasons for my withdrawal are both complex and fairly boring, so just let me say that it is a decision about which I feel good. 

She, Dancing

My dear friend Deborah Bell Dancer died yesterday. She was (I believe) 59 years old.

I posted She, Dying about Debbi several months ago. Please click on the link if you wish to know more about who she was. She was a unique, delightful, gifted, loving, amazing person.

And now she is dancing again. May angels and devas and gods and demons join her. She will be missed. But her suffering has ended and that is all to the good. My love and everlasting devotion go with her.

Incomplete: Completed

Something I quoted in last week's post (from the Third Zen Patriarch) has stuck with me and grown ever more significant:

The Great Way is not hard
For those who have no preferences.

No preferences? How could that possibly work? But I have an inkling, a nagging feeling, that this is one of the most important statements I have ever heard. I have been there, have at times had no preferences. This happens almost exclusively at meditation retreats and is most noticeable when doing mundane chores we call "yogi tasks".

Let me explain breifly about yogi tasks. No retreat center is set up to provide for every need of those who come there to meditate (we call ourselves yogis). Rather, part of the practice is to take on a chore to keep the place running. Some yogis clean bathrooms, others chop vegetables or wash dishes (I have done all these). When I am truly invested in the retreat, everything I do is enveloped in what has been called "choiceless awareness". Whether sitting on a cushion watching my breath or using an old toothbrush to scrub grout in a shower stall, I am equally at peace. I have no preference.

But real life is, alas, not a meditation retreat.

I am having a great deal of trouble at work. I am in conflict with someone and it seems to be getting worse. I don't want to get into all of the details or who is right or wrong (for one thing, how should I know?). What interests me here is meditating on how I can apply the Patriarch's prescription to this situation. How can I have no preferences here? I wish this person thought well of me. I wish our personalities did not clash. I wish I could come to work and be at peace. I wish I didn't feel as if my every action was under scrutiny. These are my preferences. And this much is certainly true: my preferences are causing suffering for me. If I could not prefer these things, I would not suffer from their lack.

But how is this "no preferences" dissimilar to indifference? No matter how far down the road to freedom I travel, I always run up against this question. How can I not prefer harmony to disharmony or pleasure to pain? The Buddha listed eight paired states (usually called vicissitudes) that can cause us disquiet:

Pleasure and Pain

Gain and Loss

Praise and Blame

Fame and Disrepute

his point being that preferring either of the pair will cause us to suffer.

But how can I have no preference when it comes to my own emotional pain? For example, how do I feel in this situation at work? Well, let's see...hurt, offended, angry, misunderstood, disrespected, threatened, afraid. All this week I have been using this situation as a meditation on the question of preference. Would it be possible for me to have no preference here? This is not an invitation to suppress these feelings; if I were able to have no preference, I wouldn't feel them to begin with.

Now, I am not asking whether or not this is possible—it clearly is. This lack of preference is, as the Patriarch said, The Great Way. I believe with all my heart that the Buddha had reached this plateau of choiceless awareness and that many people before and since have also achieved this state. So, a person can do this; the question is, can I? And how does one achieve this without becoming indifferent?

There is a classic Zen story of an abbot who heard a knock at his door and upon opening it was confronted with two angry grandparents. "You are a terrible man!" they said, holding an infant out to him. "Our daughter tells us it was you who fathered this child. We had so much respect for you and now that is all gone. Well, you take this child, he is yours!" And the abbot replied, "Ah, is that so?" and took the child.

A few weeks later the couple came to his door abashed and ashamed, saying, "Oh, great abbot, please accept our most abject apologies. The father of this child is a village boy. Our daughter was afraid to tell us so and blamed it on the first man she thought of. He is not your child, and we have come to take him home." To which the abbot replied, "Ah, is that so?" and gave them the child.

I have thought about this story a lot over the past few weeks. The central question facing the abbot, it seems to me is, who will be best served by whatever action he chooses to take? If he denies the accusation of paternity, will the child benefit? The young woman? Her parents? Clearly, none of them would. He cannot lie and admit to fathering the child, but he can minimize the harm he might do by simply accepting the fact of what they have to say and taking the child into his house and into his heart.

There is a limit to this tolerance, however. If his ability to carry out his duties or to remain a Zen priest were threatened by this accusation, he might have to consider differently. Not because this would be bad for him, but because it was his role to serve not just his monastery but the entire community. Under these circumstances, he might have to make clear that, although he was willing to accept the child into his care, he denied fathering him. But the most vital point here is that this choice would not be made on the basis of selfishness or self-interest, that in this regard he had reached the place where he truly had no preference.

We can also see from this story that having no preferences is clearly not indifference. The abbot could not be indifferent to the needs of others—the child, the grandparents, the mother, the monks at his abbey, the people of his community. He was able to be blind to his own preferences and in that way was far from indifferent, was, in fact, quite the opposite of indifferent—compassionate.

This is a question without easy answers. There are also many stories of those who purport to have achieved this freedom who, when tested, demonstrate that they have merely made themselves indifferent and, when pushed far enough, the true selfishness of their motives came to the fore. I don't pretend to have come close to having no preferences, but I see the outlines of freedom in the far distance. I intend to walk in that direction.

Incomplete, Part II

(This is a continuation of last week's subject. This post will probably make more sense if you read that one first, if you haven't already).

What this really speaks to is the failure of egocentric thought. The word "egocentric" here is taken not as a judgment but literally, simply the self being the center of the universe. From this perspective, there is no denigration of this literally self-centered view as wrong or bad. But in the way of thinking and being I am proposing here, there is an essential recognition of this mode of thought as a failure, at least if one is seeking happiness, well-being, peace, joy, wholeness, or freedom.

This is all fine and well in theory, intellectually I thoroughly understand it, but when life comes up, when push comes to shove, I return to the same selfish attitudes I have fostered all my 57 years.

"If not me, whom?"
 "No one else has my interests at heart."
"If I don't protect myself, I will be taken advantage of."
"If I don't speak up, they will get away with it."
"They have no right to judge me, exclude me, not acknowledge my goodness, find fault, or seek inferior ways of doing things. If I don't say my piece, I have allowed them to persist in error."
"I only have enough time and energy to take care of my own needs. If I had extra, then I would certainly devote it to the well-being of others."

And on and on and on. The question is not whether these are failed strategies for living a joyful life—they are, both from the teachings of every spiritual tradition I know of and from personal experience—but how do I break the chain of these obsessive, self-centered thoughts and truly enter on a more fruitful path?

The Third Zen Patriarch said this:

The Great Way is not difficult

For those who have no preferences.

When like and dislike are both absent,

Everything becomes clear and undisguised.

Make the smallest distinction, however,

And Heaven and Earth are set infinitely apart.

To set up what you like

Against what you dislike

Is the disease of the mind.

But I keep wanting to say to all these great teachers, "Yes, but, how? Release myself from all preferences? What, are you nuts? I know this sounds like a good idea, but how does one get there? And what is the difference between having no preferences and being indifferent? Look (I want to say), when I hurt my shoulder, the physical therapist said, 'Do this, and eventually you will feel better,' and I did. Then she said, 'Oh, and do these exercises for the rest of your life and you will continue to feel better', and that's what I intend to do. Where is the pith spiritual instruction that will break through the delusions that rule my life?"

Now, don't get me wrong; I have done a great deal of work in this direction and it would be dishonest and self-defeating to say I am nothing but a selfish bastard—I'm not and know it. But Selfish Bastard can and does rear his head on a fairly regular basis, particularly in times of stress (and most especially when I am afraid). This is the default I would most like to change, to find the magic word that would unravel the tightly wound skein of my self-concern and remind me that the path of joy, as well as the path of goodness, lies elsewhere. Because I know it does, but knowledge alone will not guide me to that place.

Next week I will address what I have learned (and what I have still to learn) about the answer to these questions.  

Incomplete

I have recognized but not entirely integrated into my thinking that accomplishing anything, any completion will not (cannot) provide gratification or catharsis. Like Sisyphus pushing his boulder up the same hill over and over again, we complete nothing and operate only on the delusion we do. After all, in order to go on, each morning Sisyphus must have awakened to a sense of duty, not just futility. There is a forgetfulness in our Sisyphean natures that allows us to carry on.

This, then, is the profound error: to believe even in the possibility of completion. Which is not to be confused with completeness, or wholeness. It could be argued (and has been) that everything is already complete in its current state and requires no improvement. But completion is an entirely different matter, assuming as it does a beginning in a state of disorder and a restoration to a permanent state of order. But the nature of all things in change, and the idea of that which has been completed as immutable is in defiance of the nature of things to change, therefore antithetical. We may reach the end of something, but never its completion.

Why does this matter? Because in my life the form suffering takes is this delusion that Getting Things Done is the point. Since I cannot truly complete a damn thing, I am perpetually frustrated (I suffer). The fact is, I will never have enough time or energy to do the things I wish to do or even those I feel I must do.Yes, I know, anyone can point to counterexamples to contradict this philosophy: I graduated from college, completed my daily walk, cooked an entire meal and was done with it, but it is at a more profound level that completion never happens. As we have learned, so we forget and must relearn; to have any benefit, the walk must be taken again tomorrow; we will eat again, today's meal will be forgotten. So it goes. Yet I continue to seek this form of control, an attempt to build my our Valhalla (and anyone who knows the operas knows how well that turned out!)

The abandonment of the striving for completion (the perpetual to-do list in my head) is motivated in me, though, not by futility but through an awareness that there is something more worthwhile pursuing. Now that I am sensitized to it, I see it all the time, both in myself and others, this desire to control, to eke out territory and the abject misery the inevitable failure to do so engenders. It seems to me that I see on most of the faces around me a perplexed bafflement, genuine surprise that the failed strategies of yesterday didn't work today, either. I spent the weekend around fellow spiritual seekers and my perception was that even there, at every turn this was true, except in the teacher, who has clearly abandoned striving.

This feels like unsafe territory. It calls into question the underpinnings of how I have lived my life up to now. How does the old pop song go? "The things you think are precious I can't understand." It calls into question, in fact, the underpinnings of our very social fabric. We want The Answer or, worse yet, believe we know it and strive to impose it on others. But it seems we have not been asking the right question, so the answer must be false. And if the question is, how can I be infinite? Or, what is the nature of love without limit? it becomes clear how meaningless an Answer can be.

But things are not hopeless; quite the opposite. The abandonment of the urge for completion could be the ultimate freedom. More next week.

Anxiety, too

Yesterday in meditation, a crystal clear image came to me of anxiety having at its core a wounded child surrounded by snarling dogs. The feeling of anxiety is the dogs growling and biting and tearing at anything that comes close. They do not and cannot understand that the love and concern being brought is precisely what would heal the child. All the dogs know is that their sole aim, their assignment, is to protect the child, no matter the cost. They are all the more vicious because the child is injured.

I have been lacerated by these dogs over the past few days. In my last post I mentioned how dissatisfied I have become with my current work. I had no intention of doing anything about it quite yet. Remember the scene in the film Roxanne where Steve Martin's character is trying on new noses at the plastic surgeon's, even though he can't have one? To make myself feel better about my work (licking my wounds after another staff meeting), I was trolling the website that lists available internal jobs. I do this in part because I was once told by a wise person that "depression is a lack of options", and it's always good to know there are options out there. But, much to my surprise, one of these jobs stood out to me, all but got up and sang to me. After a few days of not-very-seriously considering it, then going through an agonizing but brief process of internal exploration and vetting with my wife, I applied. Bring on the dogs!

Now, in order to really understand the irrationality of this anxiety, you have to grok a few things: I probably won't get this job (I am both under- and overqualified); though I think it would be a good job to have, I am not so excited about it that I will be devastated if I am not hired; I will continue to have my current job if I don't get it; if this job is offered to me, I can say no to it without any negative consequences; this would be a parallel shift within the same organization and I would see no interruption in pay, benefits, or pretty much anything else. In other words, there really is nothing to worry about.

Tell that to the dogs.

When I spoke with my spiritual teacher, Heather Martin, the other day, one of the things she encouraged me to do is recognize how quickly things change, that what I call "anxiety" is a rapidly shifting kaleidoscope of feelings, images, fears, concerns, vulnerabilities, and reactivity. It is neither constant nor any one thing. She also encouraged me to see that it is not personal, no matter how personal it feels. The image of the dogs helps here, too—they see me as a threat, impersonally. I could be a bear, a wolf, a dinosaur, or a fly, and they would respond the same way. It is also helpful for me to see how the sharp uptick in awareness that comes with the heightened state of anxiety is often ecstatic. My senses are honed and on high alert (a side-effect of the awareness-of-predators system installed by my ancient forebears, no doubt) and I am feeling, seeing, hearing, tasting, and smelling more acutely and it is glorious, in its own unnerving way. One more thing: meditation is very, very helpful because it helps me realize that there is absolutely nothing I can or should do about these feelings. The only thing to do is to allow them to be, to arise and pass away, which all things do, given the chance. 

But I have made myself vulnerable, naked before the dogs, as it were. After 13 years in the same job, I have exposed myself to the scrutiny of strangers. I had to inform my current bosses I was considering a new job, with all the silent recrimination and head-shaking encouragement that comes with that. I'm also worried that they will be relieved I am going, and to a certain extent they probably will be. I can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but more to the point, there is a new regime at the clinic and I am the only old-guard nurse there. I really do think I am standing in the way of the new nurse manager making the clinic over in her own image. Just because I think this will be a mistake is pretty much irrelevant, just an opinion. She is in that position and has a right to do whatever she wishes; I keep resisting her from the stance of someone who has been there longer than just about anyone else (including her). This is not constructive. So leaving might just be the best thing for everyone.

Yeah, well, the dogs didn't get the memo.

I'll keep you posted.

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Went to the farmers market yesterday:

What the hell are these? I forgot to look.

(By the way, I titled this post as I did because I have written on this topic before [here it is, if you want to see]).