The Hurricane in Your Brain: Why Panic is the Perfect Teacher

Instead of fixating on the news about Hurricane Irene all weekend, I decided instead to check out the natural disaster going on inside of my brain: the feelings, sensations and thoughts that go along with panic and fear, and what they could possibly teach us.

Just three days ago it seemed certain that a category 2hurricane would make it’s way up the Eastern Seaboard and unleash it’s wrath upon New York City by Sunday at high noon. The public was being bombarded  with news about evacuation and possible flooding. The mayor was advising New Yorkers to have a “go bag” ready in the event of an emergency and to fill our bathtubs with water since normal plumbing might not be possible (Eew). The subway system was shut down on Saturday, major retailers closed their doors, and there were no flashlights or D batteries to be found anywhere in Manhattan.

By late afternoon on Friday, the local highbrow grocery store was overrun with people stocking up on water and other emergency essentials (which in my neighborhood means $30/lb hand sliced Nova Salmon, organic pitted Kalamata olives with red pepper flakes, American artisan cheeses, and French truffles sprinkled with cocoa powder).

Initially the photographer in me intended to approach this whole public panic thing like a roving reporter--carefully noticing and recording the eccentricities of some foreign culture so that I might learn a few things about how “other people” dealt with such primal, mortal emotions. In fact I was quite impressed with myself and how calm and collected I was about the whole hurricane situation.

But by Friday evening I was getting swept up in the flurry of dire media reportage that repeatedly reminded everyone that Hurricane Irene could very well leave us without water, transportation, and electricity.

This hurricane business was serious.

During my second trip to the fancy grocery store, while filling my shopping cart with staple foods like bread, canned beans, and peanut butter, along with some not-so-staple foods like cookies, ice cream, tortilla chips, and beer, I once again attempted to use this unusual opportunity to carefully observe everyone around me in the hopes that I could learn a little something about fear.

 As I looked around with great curiosity at the stressed out shoppers grasping for bottled water, toilet paper, bread, peanut butter, and thinly sliced Imported Serrano Ham, I realized that all of the tension and worry and impatience I saw in their faces was nothing more than a reasonably accurate reflection of what was going on in my own mind.

 When I got real with myself I noticed that I was more nervous than I was allowing myself to feel. Once I allowed myself to experience my fear instead of pretending I was somehow immune to it, I was able to relate to it differently and relax. 

When I eased into my panic and let it be for a while, it began to dissipate and then I discovered what a great teacher fear really is.

The first thing I learned from these displays of panic and fear is how much we all truly want to stick around. The desire to live is quite strong within most of us. Even when things seem awful, even when we bitch and moan about money or our living situations or our careers, we seem to intuitively know that our lives have some inherent value and meaning. There is something downright precious about these remarkable breathing bodies of ours, and the idea that something could potentially harm them is deeply unsettling to us.  

The second thing I learned is that caring for ourselves and others comes rather naturally. While we don’t always do it easily or willingly, there is this fundamentally helpful part of ourselves that can operate quite easily when we move out of the way and let it do it’s thing. Sometimes it takes an emergency to help this side of us kick in. Over the weekend at the crowded grocery store I saw several examples of people trying to help each other in all kinds of ways. And I realized that everyone there was either loading up on supplies so they could provide for themselves or for the people they care about. Everyone at that store had at least one person that really mattered to them or they wouldn’t have been there.

The third thing panic taught me is how changeable this world is. It’s easy to be complacent, to fall into a routine, and to take every aspect of our lives for granted. But with very little or no notice at all, the conditions of our lives can change drastically. And this is good news when it comes to depression and anxiety because they, too have a life span. Everything is in a constant state of flux and nothing demonstrates this better than the weather.

The fourth thing I learned from fear and panic is how unsubstantial all of our thoughts and feelings are in the first place. A whole lot goes on in our minds between the time we initially perceive something and the thoughts and emotions we experience as a result.  While these thoughts and feelings seem so real and solid, they’re just conditioned responses created by association, habit, and reinforcement. That’s why it’s so important to learn how to work with our minds: so we don’t end up working for them.

* * * * * * 

 Every now and then, try to get your hurricane brain on by remembering the lessons that panic and fear can teach us: that your life is precious, you and other people deserve care and consideration, all things are changeable, and thoughts and feelings are fleeting and unsubstantial so there’s point in being controlled by them. Remembering these four points can help you to cultivate a genuine sense of gratitude and appreciation for your life, and then it gets easier and easier to live with sanity, happiness, and compassion.

Parting suggestion: if you have lots of extra water, food or supplies that you won’t be consuming in the next week or so, please consider donating to a local shelter or food distribution program. If you’re in New York City it won’t take a lot of effort to find someone without a home who could use some of what many of us now have too much of.

Rev. Lawrence on Marriage Equality

With thanks to Kitama Cahill-Jackson for the interview and video footage:

Five Symptoms that Show Your Meditation Practice is Working

If you are experiencing just 1 of these symptoms, you can be sure that your meditation practice is off to a good start:

1. You are getting overwhelmed with heavy thoughts and emotions.

Excellent news! It means your practice is working and you are becoming more and more aware of how your mind works. This often happens when a person is just beginning a meditation practice and they mistake it for a sign that it doesn’t really work. Au contraire,grasshopper...Remember, meditation isn’t about eradicating your thoughts, it’s about learning to be aware of how your thought process works so you no longer have to be so beholden to it. You’re not supposed to have an empty head all the time so let go of that idea and realize that whatever thoughts you are having are simply an incredible expression of your mind and it’s vast capabilities (even though it sometimes resembles a horror film).

2. When you are angry, you don’t always react right away.

If even once in a while you find yourself pausing before reacting by acting out the way you normally do, you’re on the road to changing your relationship to this poisonous state. Anger has a way of convincing us that we have to do something immediately because it is such a compelling emotion. In reality by letting anger take us over, it’s as if we are holding onto hot coals that we want to throw at someone--and we’re the one who gets burned (thanks, Siddharta!). Letting anger control our actions does nothing but reinforce that feeling within us which brings about unhappiness for ourselves and other people.

3. You have a little more perspective.

When we take the time to sit quietly with some degree of regularity (even 10 minutes a day for 5 days a week) it’s as if we move from a small 350 square foot studio apartment to a 3,000 square foot loft space. Meditation gradually reveals the vastness of our minds so that the things that once used to bug the hell out of us no longer take up quite the same amount of room in our minds, or the same time and energy that they used to. Consider what it’s like to have 10 guests in a small studio and how loud and crowded they would seem there. If you put those same guests in a huge loft space they wouldn’t bother you as much. The same goes for difficult emotions, experiences, and circumstances--when they come up we have a larger container of awareness within our minds with which to handle them. The bigger the container, the less daunting they all seem.

4. You can hang out with things as they are instead of trying to change or “fix” them right away.

An uncomfortable situation arises and while you would normally want to flee or talk nervously or do whatever it is you used to do, you can now just be there and notice the awkwardness of things with the understanding that it’s only temporary.  Or let’s say you’rebored but instead of texting or eating or shopping or smoking or turning on the TV you can just coexist with your boredom for a while. Meditation practice teaches us to sit with things as they are and to realize that things are quite fine just as they are, even though it doesn’t always appear that way.

 5. You can be a little kinder to yourself and others.

You’re not as screwed up/awful/stupid/lazy/untalented/ugly/poor/worthless/foolish/immature/unlovable as you think you are. The Buddha often compared our true nature to that of a nugget of gold that’s been buried in the dirt for a long time. Even though your naturally spacious mind may be obscured by years of conditioning, experiences and limiting beliefs, it’s still there underneath all the grime. Over time as you practice, it’s like you are cleaning that chunk of gold off and every now and then a small part of it’s brilliance gets exposed so you get a glimpse of your inherent goodness. By understanding that you and all other people possess the same goodness, kindness naturally ensues. Just give it some time.

The Importance of Following a Noble Path over a Narrow One

Right now in in 21st century Nepal, it is actually considered debatable as to whether or not a Buddhist nun raped by five men on a bus should be allowed to return to her monastic life or not. 

"The religious dictum requires a nun to be virgin. So, it will be difficult to take her back," the president of Nepal, Tamang Ghedung Kumar Yonjan, said in an article in the Nepal Republic Media. "But we will lobby for her reinstatement as it is a unique incident."

That’s mighty nice of them to consider, don’t you think? Pardon me while I take a moment to wipe from my face all of that compassion oozing out of them. 

However, Norbu Sherpa, an official of Nepal Buddhist Federation, told the Times of India, "Such a thing never happened in the Buddha's lifetime. … So he did not leave instructions about how to deal with the situation. Buddhists all over the world adhere to what he had laid down: that a person can no longer be considered ordained in case of having a physical relationship. It's applicable to both men and women."

I wonder if Norbu Sherpa knows how to wipe his ass since I don’t think the Buddha ever left specific instructions on how to do that?

When pressed by the Times of India, Sherpa expressed regret about the attack, but said, "A vessel that is damaged once can no longer be used to keep water. … Buddhism all over the world says this. Even the Dalai Lama says you can't be a monk or nun after marriage."

While this particular situation seems limited to a faraway culture, it really does reveal a larger dilemma that many of us struggle with when it comes to how we can live our lives in a way that is consistent with Buddhist principles.

It’s understandable that many of us crave simple, black and white answers to our life situation which is in reality is one big gray area. There’s never always one “right” way to respond to a given situation, and any attempts at approaching this world in such a narrow way can only lead to more suffering for ourselves and other people.

The Buddha left some ethical guidelines, a prescription for happiness for us in the form of the Eightfold Path. Like the ingredients for a cake, there is room for substitution and variance so long as the spirit of the path remains intact.

There are also many, many rules he came up with for his monastics based on situations that would arise and needed to be remedied. Many years later these rules were written down in the Vinaya Pitaka (at least as well as people could remember them) and now there are some who try to rigidly apply them to people today.

For example, the Overseas Bishop of the Taego Order here in the West tells gay people, straight females, and handicapped people that they cannot be monks as per Vinaya rules which is a lie and distortion of those rules. Interestingly, this order is already in violation of the Vinaya by allowing their straight male monks to live non-celibate lives and be married. It is very clearly written in the Vinaya that a monk must be celibate.

Early in my Buddhist studies I thought that this kind of cherry-picking with regard to rules of moral conduct was limited to certain Christian traditions but unfortunately, it goes on in Buddhist circles as well, even here in this country.

Buddhism is unique in that it encourages us to engage this world and our minds with a personal, experiential approach. Following a rigid set of rules written in a very different cultural context some 2,500 years ago and blindly following what some alleged authorities say is in direct conflict with what the Buddha taught.

May all beings learn to exercise true wisdom and compassion so that people like this young nun no longer have to suffer due to a narrow view of the Buddhist path.

True Blood Insights into Non-Self

There is a character from the HBO series True Blood named Eric Northman, a particularly vicious vampire who in recent episodes is struck with amnesia by a witch’s spell that not only erases his memory but also inspires him to seek out his heart’s desire.

Since he no longer has any recollection of the events from his past or his previous identity formed by centuries of compulsive blood-sucking behavior, he’s suddenly a new man (albeit a half-dead one, but with some endearing qualities for a change). With his newly acquired motivation to pursue what resonates with him on a heart level, as opposed to his previous tendency to simply act on all of his vampiric impulses and desires, he is suddenly capable of unconditionally loving Sookie Stackhouse, the telepathic human/fairy heroine of the series that was once completely repulsed by the mere mention of Eric.

Perhaps not surprisingly, he relishes in his newfound cluelessness, and cringes when he’s reminded of how savagely he used to behave before the spell was cast. He seems relieved to no longer have any recollection of who he was before--and this memory lapse enables him to love someone freely, unselfishly, and completely, perhaps for the first time in his 1,000 years on this earth.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if I were to suddenly forget all aspects of my past experiences and the ways in which I’ve interpreted them all these years. At this moment, am I nothing more than the product of four decades of conditioning and resulting behaviors and reinforcement of those behaviors, and what would it mean if I could let go of all of that and give myself and the world a fresh start? 

And without having this alleged history to act as a reliable safety net for to fall back on, how would I then excuse and justify all of my less than skillful actions?

Is it possible to get out of our own way by discarding our precious narratives, and instead allow our true, perfect, and loving natures to come forth? 

According to the Buddha there is no solid, unchanging self for us to cling to.

Yet we do everything we possibly can to concoct the most elaborate of stories and scenarios to explain away who we like to think we are right now. And the more we cling to this arbitrarily created identity, the more limited our range of perception becomes. The ways in which we respond to our lives becomes formulaic and predictable.

With death starting him in the face in the form of a silver spike aimed at his heart, Eric’s only wish is that his soon-to-be-executor swoop in after his death and unite once again with Sookie. When asked why, he simply stated that he wanted her to be happy.

If a blood-thirsty vampire can eventually reach a place of not being completely consumed by “I”, “me” and “mine”, could we perhaps aspire to do the same?

Instead of constantly trying to shield ourselves from every potentially harmful experience that might put a chink in our self-created armour, might we consider an alternative to our tendency to see ourselves as nothing more than the victims of a series of selectively accumulated experiences and memories?

We don’t have to wait for a witch to put us under a spell. We can train ourselves to return to right here and now through mindfulness, lovingkindess, and through the practice that simply asks us to be still and breathe just long enough so that we can begin the process of learning to coexist with our thoughts rather than being at war with them.