You'll Find What You're Looking For When You Stop Looking For it

One day, a baby fish asked his mother, “Mom, everyone is always talking about the sea...where is this ‘sea‘ I keep hearing about?”

“It’s all around you,” she replied, “you’re swimming in it!”

“Then why can’t I see it?” said the baby fish.

Many of us spend a lot of time and energy grasping at words, concepts, people or objects in the hopes that attaining that one elusive thing will bring about an “aha!” moment in which we can finally feel whole and complete.

If only we could understand that principle, follow that precept, nail that meditation technique, reach that blissful state, or recite that sutra verbatim, then and only then would we be able to settle comfortably into our lives and really move forward. 

This kind of approach is as misguided as the baby fish that’s constantly searching for water, yet we fall into the same trap. It’s like what happens when you’re searching around frantically for your house keys, and at the moment you quit looking for them and resign yourself to the possibility that they may be lost forever, you discover they were right in your front pocket all along. 

Buddhist practice is not about becoming a better version of yourself. It’s a science of mind that offers you tools that enable the best self already there within you to emerge more fully and accurately. And this happens by letting go of ideas and concepts, not by piling them on until more confusion and feelings of inadequacy become your overriding experience.

I spent a good deal of my life handing over power to others in the hopes that they would figure out my spirituality for me. I didn’t want to take any responsibility for it myself and much preferred to find some easy formula I could follow so that there’d never be any room for error or ambiguity. This always proved fruitless in the end, despite numerous efforts on my part, and I’m thrilled that I figured this out as soon as I did.

Interestingly, my clarity and confidence only seem to sharpen when I shrug. The more this life pulls the rug out from underneath me, the more alive and connected I feel. Having recently experienced a number of life-altering events that at one time I had considered completely unthinkable, I feel freer and more grateful than ever for this life of mine.

I encourage you all to drop everything you think you know and check out what’s left over. It’s pretty awesome.

When Your Heart Breaks Open, Fear Has Somewhere to Exit

I’ve always had a stock of “worst case scenarios” tucked away somewhere in my mind that would fill my heart with dread whenever I was brave enough to consider what life would be like should any of them ever come to pass. Some of these scenarios involved chronic and/or fatal health conditions while others were more situational: how would I feel if so-and-so died? How would I cope if I ever had a chronic health condition? What would it be like if I lost my home in a fire? How would I deal if I lost my sight one day? How would I go on with my life if my partner were to die?

For years, in order to ensure that my top two of these nightmare scenarios would never have a chance to rear their ugly heads into my waking life, I overcompensated with the mistaken view that doing so would shield me from any potential future pain. So I became overly cautious in terms of health, and I took on the role of Most Perfect Boyfriend Imaginable whose steadfast, non-confrontational manner would guarantee a lifelong marriage free of conflict and problems, despite all of the underlying shortcomings of the relationship (which in retrospect were quite blaring). 

Despite all of my efforts to try and control the universe so that it always unfolded in a way that was pleasing to me, over the past year, two of these went from the “worst case scenario” column to the “reality of my life” column. The first was a health scare I had to contend with last summer and fall, and the most recent was one I’d never entertained as being even remotely possible: my fiancee and partner of five years told me he was leaving me for someone else.

Fear is a powerful motivator that can keep us glued to circumstances and situations that are exceedingly inappropriate for who happen to be at any given time in our lives. But our constant resistance to change and our perpetual need for solidity can inspire us to endure, to deny, and to pretend. And I was doing all of those things and more without even being fully aware that it was happening. I was letting fear jerk me around by the neck.

In less than a year, two major aspects of my life and my identity exploded without warning and I’m still feeling some of the residual debris as it continues to fall down on my head and pierce my heart. This is without a doubt the most difficult time of my life, and the sense of sadness, despair, and aloneness I have to work with far surpasses anything I ever thought I’d be able to live with. 

And yet underneath all of the turmoil is a remarkable sense of OK-ness. This isn’t to say that waves of sadness don’t continue to come crashing in unexpectedly every day. And it doesn’t mean that I find these events and their aftermath to be pleasing or what I would have chosen, had I been given a choice. But the OK-ness I’m experiencing is a kind of authentic, exhilarating, and powerful sense that for the first time in my life I don’t have to be quite so afraid anymore. I did the fear thing for most of my life, and two things I feared deeply happened anyway. 

So now that some of my worst-case scenarios have become a reality, there’s not much point in being afraid anymore. The jig is up. And what’s left over is really cool.

It feels as if the daily ups and downs I’m experiencing are manageable and human and a means through which I can face life directly and bravely, possibly for the first time ever. These cracks in my heart are turning out to be what I needed the most, even though they’re the very things I was the most afraid of. 

The fear I always clung to in my heart now has some gaps through which it can gradually leave. The fear I always cited as an excuse not to express myself more fully and accurately is slowly but surely finding its way out of my mind and heart. The fear that used to inform a lot of my decisions is leaking out of the cracks and being replaced with courage and curiosity and an understanding that I can deal with whatever comes up in life. 

This sense of OK-ness I’m getting more in touch with lately isn’t some quality I’m acquiring for the first time, but something that’s always been right there, just waiting to be recognized. It’s the same quality we all have that’s always operating on some level, but fear blinds us to it’s presence. Our small sense of who and what we are and our limited view of what this life is obscures it, hides it, and disregards it.

Underneath the pain and turmoil of life resides a fundamental OK-ness. May we all develop the ability to see and touch this quality at all times and in all situations.

I Love You, No Matter What

When things are going well it’s easy for me to extend loving-kindness to friends and “enemies” alike. Simply defined, loving-kindness is a sincere wish for another person or group of people to be happy..recognizing that all beings share the same desire to be happy and the same desire to be free from suffering.

When I feel really together it’s no big deal for me to generate a sense of compassion for others, and in fact I like to think I’m pretty damned good at it.

Right now however I’m struggling to work these practices into my daily life. I’m finding it hard to extend any compassion or loving-kindness towards the one person I consistently claimed to have loved unconditionally for quite a few years.

The sense of hurt, anger, sadness and betrayal I’m left to deal with now is overwhelming at times. Had it not been for meditation and these compassion practices, I’d probably be a complete wreck.

It’s times like these where those of us who engage on this path are called upon to put these practices to actual use, in a real life kind of way. This is what I love about Buddhism as opposed to any other spiritual practice--we have these concrete tools to work with so we can transform our difficulties into something less selfish and more useful.

Loving-kindness from a Buddhist perspective is generated with the understanding that all human beings have the same two desires that I call the “great equalizers”-the desire to be happy and the desire not to suffer. Everything we do therefore springs from the hope that what we are doing will bring about more happiness and less suffering. Even when we behave egregiously, even when we handle things and people and situations badly, what’s fueling all of it is this desire to no longer suffer and to bring about a happy state of mind. This doesn’t excuse bad behavior nor should it be used as a reason to continue acting unskillfully, but it does at least leave me with some understanding as to what the underlying motivations were for my ex-fiancee and his behavior towards me.

Right now I’m feeling so much anger it’s hard to generate even the slightest bit of love or compassion towards the very person for whom it had always been so easy and natural to love unconditionally. Yet I’ve been looking closely and honestly into my heart lately, and in so doing I’ve discovered that my love for him was not as unconditional as I’d always thought it was. Without realizing it, I had a condition that I would love him unconditionally just so long as he’d never hurt me.

I’m doing a lot of picking and choosing right now when it comes to generating love and compassion towards my ex, and it’s only human for me to feel this way. But during those times when I muster up enough understanding in my heart and mind that what my partner did was based on his desire to be happy and not to suffer, the anger dissipates and the hurt has some context and no longer feels like it’s all about ME. Given who he is right now, I believe he did what he thought was the best and most appropriate course of action. This doesn’t mean that his actions didn’t cause harm to me and that they won't ultimately cause him harm as well, but this knowledge helps contain the fiery resentment I have to face day after day.

Despite my wavering wildly between states of fury and depression, I don’t believe he intended to hurt me. I think what fueled his choices was the mistaken view that happiness means taking the path that feels the easiest and most pleasurable in the short term. I still do that in all kinds of ways. We all do.

As I consider all of this, I find my heart opening rather than contracting. 

May this process continue in this direction of opening.

Grateful for this Broken Heart

Recently my partner and fiancee of five years told me that he’d met someone else and was therefore ending our relationship. This was a complete shock to me as there’d been no signs of discord or discontent as far as I could tell, and while I may not be the smartest man in the world, I’m certainly not a clueless one.

Our relationship had been a constant in my life for just over five years, and it was tightly woven into the way I identified myself. I even took pride in how stable, respectful, loving and drama-free it was--often citing it in dharmatalks and personal conversations as a model of true and unconditional love. It wasn’t the red-hot kind of love that never lasts for long-it was the warm, smoldering sort that could endure for years and years, or at least that’s how I viewed it.

As far as I was concerned, this relationship was the ground on which I could always fall back on, a form of solidity and constancy that would always serve as my sanctuary and foundation. But what I thought of as a stone fortress was in reality just a sandcastle that collapsed seconds after being hit by a sudden, unexpected wave.

The residual shock, anger, and sadness I’ve been left with for these past few weeks have opened my mind and heart to the deepest and most raw sense of love I’ve ever experienced. I can't adequately explain it just yet, but underneath all of the anguish is a very true sense of love that has nothing to do with romance or feelings or concepts. It isn't a feel-good kind of state, nor is it necessarily a painful one when I am able to be with it directly. But I do feel as if I get these amazing glimpses into the truest and most deepest sense of love imaginable, even though I'm sure this makes no logical sense at all. 

At some points during each day I’m grateful for this pain because it’s fast becoming one of the best teachers I’ve ever had. At other times I get to learn about the ways in which I normally resist uncomfortable feelings, and how quick I am to indulge my anger when I don’t have the courage to sit with my deep sadness and hurt. 

Anger is a normal human emotion which is often cited as one of the five stages of grief. And it isn’t all that unusual for friends or family members to stoke an angry mind state in those of us going through a difficult break up. But when anger is allowed to take over for too long, it only serves to delay a truer and deeper sense of healing that can only fully come about by riding the wave of sadness and impermanence that a broken heart can so poignantly demonstrate.

So I haven’t yet come to any profound conclusions about love, heartache, and the nature of impermanence. I very well may never make any sense of what’s happened here no matter how many times I repeat my story to others or replay it in my mind or blog about it or research the psychological condition that may or may not have played a role in this unexpected development in my life. 

All I can do is watch my mind moment after moment after moment and witness how changeable it all is. All I can do is notice how I’m feeling from one minute to the next, and find some way to work with the anger, the sadness, the peace, the shock, the relief, and the resentment that pops up so randomly. It’s oddly comforting that none of these feelings seem to linger for all that long, especially when I just feel them on their own terms and don’t get swept up in the storyline I so desperately want to connect them to.

When I approach things this way, I feel a deep sense of gratitude that enables me to bow to my broken heart.  

Five Things I Love About Meditation

1. Meditation demonstrates that all things are interdependent and constantly changing. Initially, the realization that we’re all in a life situation that is fundamentally groundless may be quite daunting and even depressing. But it’s not the reality of groundlessness that’s the problem-it’s our resistance to it that causes us to experience difficult mind states ranging from a mild sense of discomfort to paralyzing bouts of depression or anxiety. When we sit quietly or engage ourselves completely with whatever we happen to be doing, this fluid, dynamic process unfolds naturally before us  and we can see that it’s all not as terrifying as we originally thought-and in fact, it is actually the means through which we can learn to live our lives with appreciation and joy. 

2. Meditation helps us learn how to relate appropriately to our bodies, our feelings, our thoughts, and our perceptions.  We normally misrelate to these four aspects of our experience by having an all-or-nothing approach to them: either we excessively attach or we view them as “the enemy” and the source of our discomfort. Meditation enables us to relate directly and clearly to these things and see them clearly as they are, not as we fear them to be or how we wish they were. 


3. Meditation liberates us from having a narrow and damaging view of ourselves. The simple practice of quietly and fully paying attention to our moment-to-moment experience helps us understand that things are always changing and therefore don’t have to define who we are. When we realize this, we no longer have to be so beholden to the constantly fluctuating states of our bodies, minds, feelings and perceptions.


4. Meditation teaches us to stop making things. Zen Master Seung Sahn used to say, “if you make something, then you’ll have something. If you don’t make anything, you will have everything.”  Whatever happens within us and outside of us is rather innocuous, but our brains insist on judging, assessing, and trying to interpret our experience in ways that are usually very far removed from the simple reality of what’s happening. We pile on our opinions, ideas, concepts, fears and hopes onto whatever we perceive and end up with a facsimile of our experience rather than an accurate experience of our experience. Meditation trains us to have a direct and intimate relationship with each moment so that we can be fully immersed in our lives and live with more happiness, ease, and sanity. 


5. Meditation transforms our relationship to pain and suffering. While painful feelings, sensations, and thoughts are unavoidable and uncontrollable aspects of life, we do have a choice as to how we relate to them. Applying mindfulness to every aspect of our daily life experience transforms the way in which we relate to pain so that it doesn’t have to take over and lead to suffering. This doesn’t mean we can ever prevent painful experiences from happening, but we can change the way in which we view these experiences so that they don’t snowball into a suffering situation. After all-pain is mandatory, suffering is optional.

Really Right Livelihood

I saw a great movie a few days ago called The Sessions which is based on the true life story of a poet and journalist named Mark O'Brien who died in 1999 at the age of 49. Polio left him paralyzed since he was a very young boy, so he spent a good deal of his time in an iron lung that enabled him to breathe.

By the time he was in his late 30's, he had still never had sex or fallen in love, and was eventually inspired to learn about his sexuality with a sexual surrogate named Cheryl Cohen Greene. A practicing Catholic, he initially struggled with this decision but received a surprising amount of support and encouragement by his local parish priest who was able to see Mark's situation with clear and compassionate eyes.

This story is a wonderful example of how one aspect of the Eightfold Path, Right Livelihood, is determined not just by the job or work we do, but through the attitude and intention that we bring to it. Both the priest and the sexual surrogate in this man's life enabled Mark O'Brien to be a full and accurate expression of himself. Both of these people were able to see beyond tradition, habitual thinking, and their own biases and discomfort and offer him the unconditional acceptance and love that opened his heart and changed his life forever.

Awakening from Our Dream Will Help His Dream Come True

Martin Luther King Jr. changed this world by simply asserting his dream of a society where the boundaries of division and duality would be nonexistent. His was a vision that resonated with the true nature of reality and called into question the pervading idea that there exists a hierarchy of humanity, and a separateness that could be used to justify discrimination and discord. This incorrect view caused suffering for countless beings and created a society that encouraged privilege for the majority and second class status for the minority. Remnants of this distorted view of reality still persist today.

Dr. King effected change through peaceful methods that transformed the winds of hatred into a force for compassion and equality. He inspired millions then and now to recognize our shared humanity and to realize how unequivocal human rights, human dignity, and human worth are for every living person.

All of us share a nature that is essentially good. It’s not just reserved for some and witheld for others. It’s fundamental to all humans and it’s as clear and vast as the sky above, and Dr. King deeply recognized this.

This innately awakened nature of ours gets obscured through our tendency to misrelate to our ourselves and others. Our mistaken view of ourselves as solid and separate leads to an distorted experience of the world -- one that thinks in terms of black or white, right or wrong, good or evil, holy or unholy.

We’re all stuck in a self-created dream where this sense of “I” begins in the brain and ends at the outermost layer of skin. This mistaken idea of who and what we are creates an antagonistic environment where discrimination and acrimony inevitably arise.

Dr. King’s uplifting dream will only be fully realized when we wake up from the deluded dream that enslaves us. Love and compassion will prevail in this world when the imaginary boundaries we create between “self” and “other” dissolve once and for all.

May all of us realize how closely interdependent we truly are. May Dr. King’s vision of an interconnected world manifest in our lifetimes, and may we all recognize the responsibility we have in helping this come about.

I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

What is a Buddhist Teacher?

When I first started IDP’s Yearlong Immersion Training two years ago, I was intensely consumed with all kinds of doubts and questions about whether or not I would ever be well suited enough to be a dharmateacher. I also wondered if a year was a sufficient enough amount of time for such a process to unfold, since the vastness of Buddhist teachings and practices seemed so daunting and terribly important. 

When I first gave meditation instruction during that first weekend of training, I was more nervous than I’d ever been doing so, and I had already been facilitating a meditation and discussion group for nearly three years at that point. And I was not alone in this--many of my friends in the 2011 group were equally nervous, self-critical and insecure during several stages of this very unique and life-changing year long experience.

The same questions ran through my head repeatedly: How could I possibly remember all of the most critical tenets and sutras? What if someone asked ME a zinger of a question to which I could offer no clear and meaningful answer? What if MY understanding of the dharma wasn’t authentic enough, sophisticated enough, appealing enough...well rounded enough... 

Finally I said to myself, “Enough!”

One day, someone asked me why I was getting involved in a program that could potentially authorize me as a dharma teacher one day if it made me so anxious. My answer was instant and spontaneous: “I want to help other people in some way and I think that the dharma and mindfulness training offer dozens of options for doing so.” 

It was then that I realized what all of my insecurity and second-guessing was really about. While on the surface, my fears appeared to be based on a very deep concern with other people and whether or not little old me could ever be adequate enough to teach them anything useful. But in reality I was making the whole process about ME: my reputation, my knowledge or lack thereof, my speaking style, my years of practice, my credentials, my appearance, blah blah blah. 

Yet my underlying intention was to help others in some way by sharing some aspects of the dharma that might be useful in people’s everyday lives. 

Recognizing this discrepancy enabled me to get over my fears and doubts and to renew my aspiration to be of service to others whether it meant just teaching my friends some meditation and breathing techniques, or eventually being in a place where I can give a detailed lecture about dependent origination to a large group at an official dharma center.

The only pressure being put on me to be anything in particular was coming from my mind and my mind alone.

What makes one a Buddhist teacher or not isn’t so cut and dry.

Over the past few years I’ve been around teachers that draw large crowds to their events, and yet they just don’t resonate with me personally. I've been around Buddhist teachers who aren’t sanctioned or ordained as anything special, and yet I’ve been blown away from what they have taught me--not just through their words but through their example and kindness. And many of these teachers are lucky if more than five people show up to hear them speak.

To be completely honest, I find each moment I experience to be the absolute best and most reliable teacher, but I’ll address that in some future rant.

In his book “Still the Mind” , Alan Watts compared the spiritual teacher to a pick pocket trying to sell you your own watch. Unlike most other spiritual traditions, in Buddhism we understand and emphasize that all of us are already inherently awake and complete--we just need to allow that already clear nature to emerge somehow.

Whether someone is officially sanctioned as a teacher or not isn’t what’s most important--what counts the most is how effectively we can be our own best teachers and learn to understand our minds well enough in order to be of service to others. 

If our intention is clear and selfless, that’s all we ultimately need to be an effective teacher/friend/guide/or service provider. There are countless ways in which mindfulness training and dharmic lessons can be conveyed, and it is up to each of us to find out how we can best do that as individuals living in our respective historical/geographical/geo-political contexts.

No one needs to versed in every minute detail about the dharma to be helpful. There are things I would never attempt to teach either because I don’t yet understand the concepts intellectually nor do I have enough of an experiential basis on which to build an effective lesson. So when I know something, I share it. When I don’t know something, I’m ok with saying so or just not trying to pass myself off as someone who does.

I am very grateful for the opportunity to be part of IDP and it’s incredibly vibrant and diverse community. I love all of my friends from the 2011 Yearlong Immersion training and have been in awe of all of those people I now know from the 2012 Immersion group. And I’m excited to continue to learn and grow with all of you in 2013 in the Advanced Immersion Training.

To those of you beginning your training in February--please know that you each have something unique about yourselves that must be put to good use in some way, be it great or small. Time flies by rapidly and we haven’t a moment to waste. We also mustn't waste those aspects of who we are in this life that can be utilized somehow as tools for transformation.

May we all realize the unique manner in which we experience and understand the dharma so that we may use it to be of benefit to ourselves and all others.

(re-blogged from the IDP BLOG)