Open Sky Zen

A Good Situation is a Bad Situation...A Bad Situation is a Good Situation.

2012-03-05T11:59:00.003-05:00

A few weeks ago I was walking down Broadway with a friend of mine and we were discussing an extremely wealthy mutual acquaintance of ours. My friend turned to me and said “He has very good karma!” I told him that I didn’t necessarily agree.

As Seung Sahn used to say, a good situation is a bad situation...and a bad situation is a good situation...

The Buddha was born into a privileged and comfortable environment where all of his physical needs were met. But still, he didn’t have a clue--there was something inside of him that wanted to better understand who he really was and why people experienced so much distress in their lives. So he left his good situation for about six years and out that period where he experienced extreme discomfort, frustration, and separation from his family, he was finally able to wake up to his true nature and why people experienced as much anguish as they did.

When a piece of fruit is just starting to rot and falls off of a tree, its seeds are at their ripest. The seeds then get spread around and help grow other trees from which more fruit can blossom. So a lot of good comes from what appears to be an ugly, mushy mess. The same goes for us humans.

Most people come to practice because something feels really off. Initially meditation usually appeals to us as a way to remedy our sadness, our anxiety, our discursive minds. As we practice year after year, our motivation shifts and evolves. Meditation is certainly very useful for all of those things but we also discover that it doesn’t ever manage to turn us into dharmabots who never feel any kind of emotional pain. It does, however, change our relationship to our thoughts and emotions so we can respond to life more appropriately.

But none of this can take place if everything feels warm and fuzzy and comfortable all the time. Out of extreme distress comes the the motivation to ask the deeper question of “What am I?” and this serves as a springboard from which we no longer have be fooled by appearances and the comings of goings of everyday life.

We are at our ripest when things seem to be at their worst.

Imprisoned by Freedom: Why it Helps to Have Structure in Your Practice

2012-02-20T19:34:00.002-05:00

When I was in art school I was surrounded by some extremely creative and talented individuals who possessed good vision, good intentions, and good esthetic sensibilities. However, many of us resented having to learn any kind of technique or to apply any sort of discipline to our painting, drawing, writing, photography, music or sculpture. To us it seemed antithetical to the creative process--after all, art in our view was meant to be FREE; untamed, wild, spontaneous, open, and unencumbered.

As a result of our ideas of what it meant to be an artist, many of us often struggled tremendously when it came time to produce a piece of work for an assignment or group event. Some complained of feeling too restricted by the assignment, the deadline, the venue, the other students, etc. There was always some reason why we couldn’t or shouldn’t be expected to produce our Art under such narrow and restrictive parameters.

In the end many of us would be late producing the project, some of us just wouldn’t do it at all and a few of us ended up with a mediocre version of what we were truly capable of. But those of us who could be systematic, consistent and precise with our creativity really flourished, both as students and as artists.

Many people come to meditation practice because they want to be released from the habitual thought patterns that bring about a lot of unhappiness in their lives. They understand that in a very real sense, we live as if we’re prisoners of our narrow perceptions of who and what we are. So eventually (and usually after a great deal of frustration) we’re inspired to connect to something deeper, more expansive, and more enduring than what we’ve been taught defines who we are.

Ironically, what often causes people to get in their own way is our cultural tendency as Americans to grasp at our concepts of what it means to be free or independent--that is, to do it our way, to steer clear of any kind of spiritual structure or tradition, to pick and choose what we like from various spiritual practices in the hopes that the hodgepodge of ingredients we accumulate along the way just might be potent enough to help us reconnect to our inherently complete and perfect state.

Freedom can be the worst kind of prison if we attach to our ideas about what its supposed to mean. Our small, limited concepts of freedom can end up being the very shackles that hold us back from freedom in its widest, truest sense; the freedom from suffering and the thought patterns that contribute to our suffering.

To be truly free means to let go of our ideas of what it means to be free. The best kind of freedom can be found within a structure that whittles things down, limits the choices a bit, and enables us to walk straight ahead with crispness and clarity.

A practice without any kind of regularity or specificity is just laziness masquerading as openness. An approach to practice that eschews any kind of structure, consistency, and discipline is not going to be as effective as a practice that embraces some kind of structure, consistency, and discipline.

I’n not calling for rigidity or dogma, just accountability and a willingness to commit to something in particular for some length of time.

Just as all of us in art school had to eventually buckle down and learn the technical side of our crafts in order to produce works that transcended those techniques, all of us on a spiritual path need to apply some discipline and direction in order for our practice to be more whollistically integrated into the rest of our lives. When we do this, we can more clearly see what is going on around us, what our role in the situation is, and how to respond in the most appropriate and compassionate way.

Buddhist Prayer for Peace

2012-02-08T10:29:00.001-05:00

I was asked to read a "Buddhist Prayer" for the third year in a row for the Annual Interreligious Prayer Service for Justice and Peace. Last year I read the Metta Sutta and the year before I read another short prayer that was given to me at the last minute.

This time around I decided to take a stab at writing my own Buddhist Prayer for Peace since Buddhists aren't exactly stocked with a whole lot of prayers to choose from as are Christians, Jews, Muslims, and others.

As I see it, when we pray as Buddhists we aren't petitioning some separate entity to intervene in human affairs. Rather, we're clarifying and verbalizing an intention with the understanding that the law of interdependence is always at work, so our words and intentions and actions will reverberate in ways both strong and subtle.

This is the prayer I wrote:

Buddhist Prayer for Peace.

May all beings everywhere

Awaken to the inherent goodness

That dwells within themselves and all others.

May we all attain a peaceful, even nature

Unencumbered by untamed thoughts and endless desires

Unswayed by conditions, concepts, and appearances.

May all beings dispel greed, anger, hatred, and jealousy

And cultivate a wise and open heart

Witnessing the goodness in everyone and every thing

Seeing that all beings are one and share the same true nature.

May these words reach every realm

All the ends of this Earth

From the darkest caverns to the highest plains

Through the muck of human suffering

And the chaos of endless wanting.

May all those who suffer find comfort and calm

And attain true and lasting peace

Finding clarity in the midst of confusion

And grace within groundlessness.

May everyone who hears these words be able

to live safely, to see clearly, to speak wisely

and to practice kindness and compassion

towards themselves and all others.

As the waters fill the rivers that connect all the oceans

May everyone flow with each other and all living beings

with ease and with safety

with sanity and well being.

May no obstacles befall you

and may harm never reach you.

- by Rev. Lawrence Dō’an Grecco

Ordained, at Last

2012-02-07T11:40:00.002-05:00

For several years now I've wanted to ordain as a priest or monk for reasons which initially weren't all that clear to me. All I knew is that something was clearly pulling me to do this so it felt like it was just a matter of when and not if it would happen. At my age the idea of being a resident in some Zen monastery for an extended length of time just wasn't realistic. And while New York City has several teachers whom I admire very much, none of them resonated deeply enough with me to want to follow them exclusively, nor was there any clear ordination track for someone like me who wishes to serve in a formal role without having to wait ten years or more to get there.

Time’s a wastin’ and there are many people to help in this world.

Buddhists in the West don’t have the same ordination options that Christians have, so many people who have the “calling” to be a clergy person in this country find themselves at a loss about what to do.

In 2009 I became acquainted with Paul Yuanzhi Lynch, the founder and guiding teacher of the Five Mountain Zen Order. He lives on the other side of the country (California) so in my mind the distance between us ruled him out as a potential teacher. Having corresponded with him via email and on the phone many times, I found him to be an incredibly knowledgeable, generous, down to earth, funny, compassionate and loving man who clearly and sincerely just wants to help people. That’s it. He often vocalized and demonstrated his desire to cut through the bullshit found in many large Zen organizations and I admired him greatly for that.

In 2010 when I was checking out the Taego Order and decided to sign up for their seminary program and eventually ordain with them, I checked with Paul first. Sure enough he knew a great deal about the Taego people and was happy to share with me what he knew at that point, which was mostly positive. And instead of trying to talk me into joining his College of Zen Buddhist Studies, he simply supported me and what I was choosing to do without even a semblance of envy or manipulation. He’s a real a mensch.

After almost a year of training and study I discovered some disturbing things about the Taego order and after a lot of careful consideration I decided to pull out of their program. Once again Paul was there as a friend to listen and empathize.

At this point I decided to do koan interviews with him via skype once a week and it’s been the most enriching experiences of my dharma life. He spends heaps more time with me than any local teacher would ever offer me as he does with several other students from all over the world. He never asks for anything in return and always emphasizes how Zen practice and koan study must make sense in our modern day living situation which is right on as far as I’m concerned.

There's a lot of talk about how having a Zen teacher at a distance is somehow less than legitimate or "not really Zen" but based on my direct experience I can say with 100% absolute certainty that having a teacher that resonates with your heart and teaches you well is all that matters, regardless of how geographically close you live to him or her.

During a retreat almost two weeks ago I met the other ordained Five Mountain clergy and was extremely impressed with their sincerity, openness, kindness, and intelligence. I couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to call my extended sangha.

On January 28, 2012 I had the good fortune to be ordained as a Zen priest with the Five Mountain Zen Order at the Zen Center of Las Vegas along with my new dharma brothers Do Myong Sunim and Doshim Sunim (check out his blog here), both of who live relatively close to me here in Manhattan. I look forward to knowing them both better and finding a way to eventually work together and help people however we can. I was given the dharma name Dō'an which means "clear eyes."

You can see more photos from ordination day here.

How to Have Compassion for Anyone (Even Newt Gingrich)

2012-01-24T00:43:00.000-05:00

I find it very difficult to relate to Newt Gingrich. In fact I just don’t like him very much at all. So the idea of having compassion for him is extremely challenging since it’s easiest to have compassion for those people or groups of people with whom I can easily relate to in some way.

When I consider Newt’s personality, his appearance, his rants against the media, the hypocrisy of his actions, his misguided policy ideas, the sometimes thinly veiled and other times blatantly racist or homophobic remarks he makes, I just find it nearly impossible to empathize with him at all. So why should I even bother trying to muster up any sense of compassion for such a man?

It’s easiest to feel for those people in our lives that we care a lot about; our family, friends, political allies, our “inner circle.” But this kind of compassion doesn’t take any special effort, it doesn’t help us cultivate more generosity of heart and it doesn’t personally demand too much of us since it arises so easily.

The other day as I watched Mr. Gingrich excoriating the media once again during a CNN debate, I suddenly had a momentary flash of empathy for him. I wondered what it must be like to be Newt. I wondered what fueled his ambition, his passion, his outrage, his anger, his very strong desire to make tons of money, his need to be recognized, respected, and to rise to power once again. I wondered what it felt like when he divorced his two first wives while they were dealing with serious illnesses. On the outside that all seems rather appalling, but what, I wondered, is going on in the inside?

Does Newt Gingrich ever suffer? Surely he must. And if so why should I bother cultivating any sense of compassion for a person that appears to be so different from myself and so indifferent to the suffering of other people?

When we learn to allow ourselves to extend compassion to our alleged “enemies”, we’re also letting ourselves off the hook even though we may not realize it at first. Having some empathy for someone else along with a sincere desire that they no longer have to endure so much pain also brings with it a deeper sense of acceptance and patience for those parts of ourselves that we find so unacceptable. By witnessing the pain that others endure, we learn to deal better with our own. By holding our own anguish without judging it or trying to make it instantly disappear, we increase our capacity for extending compassion and love towards all other beings.

When I struggle with my erroneous perceptions of “me vs them”, I can apply some awareness and calm the hell down for a minute, reminding myself that while I can’t necessarily relate to the packaging of some people, I can relate to that part of them that suffers and wishes to be happy. Those are two things that bind us all together as human being regardless of our external appearances and internal experiences.

I can choose to relate to the basically good, whole, and complete nature of all people, recognizing fully that we all share the same nature.

Operating from this correct viewpoint will fuel a very different quality of behavior than acting from the mistaken view that we are somehow separate from those people with whom we deeply disagree.

May we all awaken our innate capacity for unconditional love and compassion.

The Trouble with Looking Outside of Ourselves

2012-01-16T10:10:00.003-05:00

Trying to find a Buddha or enlightenment is like trying to grab space. Space has a name but no form. It’s not something you can pick up or put down. And you certainly can’t grab if. Beyond mind you’ll never see a Buddha. The Buddha is a product of the mind. Why look for a Buddha beyond this mind?

-Bloodstream Sermon

We are socialized to believe that in order to feel whole and complete, we need to look outside of ourselves. If we just read this book, take that class or find a spouse, somehow the persistent void that permeates much of our daily experience will be filled and we can finally be Happy. All of our problems will be solved and finally we can magically morph into the perfect version of ourselves.

Most people spend a good deal of their lives operating like this and few if any ever step off of the hamster wheel long enough to realize how futile it is to view life in this way.

It’s as if a change in material wealth, relationship status, weight, or physical attractiveness is that one thing standing between us and our Happiness. However the only thing standing between ourselves and our happiness is our mind and what it creates.

It’s the awareness of the process that ultimately frees us from it. Simply recognizing the particular stories, emotions, and thought patterns we engage in allows for some space in which all of this can be transformed. So instead of reacting in our usual, habitual way the next time we’re confronted with those familiar thoughts, we have more options. We can respond appropriately rather than impulsively. We don’t have to get carried away with anger, fear, jealousy, anxiety, or rage. When we experience those emotions we can just hang out with them and watch how they eventually subside without being their slave.

May all beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. May all beings be happy and know the true causes of happiness.

Cluelessness as the Gateway to Change

2012-01-02T09:16:00.004-05:00

There’s this amazing and pure potentiality that lies In the midst of our confusion and turmoil. Not knowing is not our enemy but our salvation. Having all of the answers all of the time leaves us with very little. Being clueless and aware of how clueless we really are is a very good place to be. Once we are open to our cluelessness, anything is possible.

There’s something about a new year which reminds us that change is not only possible but inevitable.

You never step into the same river twice. You are not the same person you were when you first started reading these words, and moments from now you will have changed in even the subtlest of ways. And on and on it goes like this.

The fact that everything is in a constant state of evolution serves as a catalyst both for relief and dismay.

The relief part says Yay! What is painful to me now can and will eventually end!

The dismay part cries Yikes! The things that I am attached to and things that cause me pleasure will eventually be taken away!

Finding that place that isn’t beholden to the comings and goings of your outer experience is one of the most important things you can do with your life.

Rather than getting caught up in trying to fix ourselves one more time, we can use this new year as a reminder that we are never as stuck as we think we are. We must never give up on ourselves or each other or this world. We can work with the energy of change to bring about happiness and fairness to everyone, everywhere.

By keeping our intention sincere and by remembering that we live in a dynamic, ever evolving universe we can transform ourselves and this world we live in.

Happy New Year.

Nine Dharmalicious New Year's Resolutions

2011-12-27T10:57:00.001-05:00

Many of us tend to view New Year’s resolutions as self-improvement projects. But this approach tends to set us up for failure and contributes to a sense we have that something is wrong with us. We can look at resolutions as something we can work with throughout each day, as best as we can. It's not a set of rules we need to nail down perfectly. Seeing them this way allows ourselves some sanity and the opportunity to put our practice into real-life use.

Here are nine resolutions I’ve come up with that are dharmically based, but can be beneficial to anyone, Buddhist or not:

1. Set aside at least a few minutes a day to be still and silent. Give the mental mud a chance to settle so you can have some clarity and peace of mind. It’s more important to do a minimum amount of practice regularly than a maximum amount of practice sporadically. Translation: five or ten minutes of meditation a day every day is better than one hour once or twice a week.

2. Practice generosity even when you're not in the most generous of moods. It’s especially helpful to give when you are feeling needy or sorry for yourself. Generosity entails offering more than just money or things--you can offer your time, encouragement, knowledge, a smile, a compliment, or a seat on the train to someone who might have difficulty standing.

3. Don’t indulge the inner voices and thoughts that criticize yourself and others.These voices do nothing but keep you mired in the past and worrying about the future. There is no need to repress them or pretend they aren't there, but try not to give any weight to them anymore.

4. Recognize the power of speech and use words wisely. This isn’t about being a fake or trying to act like a “spiritual person”, but it does imply that you don’t have to say anything that comes to mind simply because you can under the guise of “telling it like it is.” The words we use have a very real impact on ourselves and others.

5. Look people in the eye and smile at them even if you think there's absolutely no chance you'll ever see them or need them again. Try this with the bank teller, the grocery store check out clerk, a homeless person, your next door neighbor, just about anyone you encounter on any given day. And do it without the expectation that they ought to smile back or respond. Smiling smooths out the rough edges, but often it happens as gradually as water smoothing over a rock.

6. Pay attention. Take care not to get lost or zone out throughout the day, or to rush through the things you consider a chore or a nuisance. Wash the dishes carefully and mindfully. Shovel the shit off the sidewalk with the same attention you’d give to arranging a vase of flowers. Keep an open and curious attitude toward the physical experience of each moment. Don’t miss out on your life in search of the next momentary distraction.

7. Remember that you are not separate from anyone else. Recognize the worth and inherent goodness in every living thing, even if you don’t care for the particular form that it’s currently taking. Just as it would be foolish for a wave to see itself any different from the foam at its tip, we make a mistake when we think in terms of “self” and “other.” Everything and everyone we perceive is another unique reflection of our mind at any given moment.

8. Don’t make anything. My teacher’s teacher used to say “Don’t make anything. If you make something, you have something. If you don’t make anything, you have everything.” This means that we ought to experience life directly as it is without adding on all of the “extras” we tend to bring to things in the form of concepts, ideas, and past associations. If you keep your mind closed, you box yourself into a corner with few options. If you keep your mind clear and open, the possibilities are endless.

9. Appreciate your life. It’s fine to have aspirations, to want to attain, to achieve something, and to hold onto what you have. However nothing will ever feel like it’s enough until you appreciate what you have in your life right now. The more you can appreciate your life, the happier you can be, and the more likely you are to attract circumstances and situations that help foster more happiness for yourself and all other beings.

-Lawrence Grecco

Giving 'til it Doesn't Hurt

2011-12-19T10:48:00.002-05:00

The best remedy for poverty is generosity.

Whenever I’m feeling closed, stingy or possessive, the easiest way for me to change that is to do the opposite of what I feel like doing: giving to someone else.

From our usual perspective we tend to think that giving implies getting something back. When we expect something back after giving of ourselves, our time, our love, or material wealth, we aren’t practicing generosity, we’re engaging in a form of currency: If I do this for you, you had better do something just as nice for me one day.

It’s possible to transform our idea of giving from something that feels like an act of extreme sacrifice to a process as natural as the rain. The sky never fears that it will run out of clouds if it rains too much: it realizes that there is a cycle going on that doesn’t require any worry or expectation. When the time is right, it rains. When the time is right, there’s enough moisture in the atmosphere gathering to form clouds once again. No big deal.

If you’re giving until it “hurts”, you’re doing it wrong.

If you’re doing it right, what follows generosity is a sense of lightness and relief. Giving offers us a reprieve from our usual state of self-absorption and reminds us that our happiness is intimately interconnected with all other people, whether we know them or not, whether they look like us or not.

Giving offers us the opportunity to realize that the lines we draw between ourselves and others are imaginary and never lead to happiness for anyone.

True generosity helps us understand that we don’t have to worry about undocumented immigrants “stealing” our jobs or our resources. An open heart precludes any notions of taking care of “our own” first because our definition of who falls under that category expands.

The openness we develop when we cultivate a generous heart gives us a broader perspective which helps us see through such misguided ideas.

When you encounter an individual or a group of people that makes you cringe, notice the sense of physical and emotional contraction going on. It’s both an opportunity to learn something about yourself and to understand where in your life you can benefit from opening up.

Easing Up on Yourself and Your Practice

2011-12-13T00:16:00.002-05:00

A clay Buddha cannot pass through water.

A wooden Buddha cannot pass through fire.

A metal Buddha cannot pass through a furnace.

- Case 96: Joshu’s Three Turning Words

When we have too fixed an idea of what our practice should look like, we set ourselves up for disappointment.

Every moment we sit is different from the previous one and different from each one that follows. Just like this, the way we relate to ourselves, each other, and our lives is going to vary from day to day. We never reach that perfect, completely “together” version of ourselves. We make an effort, we live consciously, we screw up some times, and we try again.

When we have fixed goals about what practice should do for us, we set ourselves up for frustration. Meditation isn’t an instant fix or a fast cure-all but rather a subtle process, the results of which can’t always be measured or quantified easily. It’s like what happens when walking outside on a misty day--gradually we end up getting soaking wet without realizing it while it was happening.

When we are too hard on ourselves and think we aren’t “doing it right”, we keep ourselves cut off from our true nature which is basically good, decent, whole, and awake. Well-being and happiness isn’t something out there we have to struggle towards-- it’s an inherent aspect of who and what we already are. When we make friends with ourselves and learn that our minds and our thoughts are not the enemy, this clarity shines through the way the sun does after a storm.

Smart Brain, Foolish Heart

2011-11-21T11:39:00.001-05:00

A smart brain is useless if your heart is foolish.

We spend a lot of time thinking things through and trying to apply logic to this very illogical world of ours. In our society, intellect is valued over insight. Many people think that wisdom means having a lot of facts, figures, and concepts in their heads. What seems like a good idea one day can turn out to be the worst thing ever when all is said and done. Thinking with one’s head while ignoring one’s heart is what brings about wars, inequality and economic collapse.

Sometimes I am asked what “Buddhist philosophy” really is. The best answer I can offer takes on the form of a very simple question:

“Who are you?”

“Who am I?” is the most important thing a person could ask themselves. The answer to this question cannot be arrived at solely through psychotherapy or religion, and I wouldn’t hold my breath for some philosophy or course in magical thinking to do the trick either.

When we sincerely ask ourselves this question, the logical part of our brains short-circuits and something else has to kick in to help us realize what our true nature really is. Thinking just doesn’t cut it, and no amount of intellectualization in the world will help you see it.

Asking this question and beginning the process of experiencing who and what you really are is the most important thing you do in this life. It’s what determines the way in which you go about the business of living and loving. The more clear you are on your truest, deepest nature, the less caught up you will be in all of the ups and downs of life. You’ll be able to ride the highs and lows of your daily situation the way a seasoned surfer rides the ocean waves.

If this sounds perplexing to you, I’ll give you a little hint:

What is it right now that is reading these words? Is it your eyes alone? Your brain? Your intellect? What’s coming before all of that and making this process of reading possible?

If you start to smile when you consider this question, it means you're on the right track.

Enjoy!

Breaking the Shackles of Karma

2011-11-14T10:13:00.001-05:00

"Just as a prisoner screaming as he’s dragged, twisting behind a horse, the chains of karma drag us down the road of suffering. Repeatedly, we follow the cycles of life, sickness, old age and death. Only your wisdom sword can cut these chains."

-Zen Master Gong

The Teachings of Zen Master Gong, Chapter 1:7

We get shackled by our karma when we live without awareness. Karma isn’t isn’t a form of punishment or reward from some outer entity with a score to settle--it’s simply the ongoing system of our actions bearing fruit.

What determines your actions from one moment to the next is the way in which you are keeping your mind. This doesn’t mean having to feel great 99% of the time, but rather to be clear as to what’s going on and not getting attached to things being one way or the other.

When you are off center, it’s easy to get pulled in this direction or that direction based on whichever way the wind happens to be blowing. Outer circumstances will control you, your karma will control you.

By simply bringing awareness to your mind in each moment, you can take control of your life and determine what results you get in the next moment. Living mindfully rather than blindly enables us to understand the true nature of things, and when we do this we can respond to life appropriately rather than reflexively. It doesn’t mean that things happen just the way we want them to all the time, but it does mean we are better equipped to live our lives fully without getting swept away by the ups and downs of our daily experience.

Chronic Emptiness: Emotional Malady or Spiritual Remedy?

2011-10-31T13:22:00.001-04:00

Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to better understand depression, it’s causes, and how it can best be alleviated. It’s not that I’m depressed--in fact I’m happy to report that I’m rarely blue since I started a regular meditation practice some years ago. But due to current circumstances I’m in a position where it makes sense to take a deeper look at this incredibly powerful mind state because it has an incredibly strong hold over several important people in my life.

While googling “Recurrent Major Depression” (a diagnosis that a close friend of mine recently received) I stumbled upon the DSM IV criteria for this condition as well as another that often goes along with it: “Borderline Personality Disorder.” One of the symptoms listed under the “Cognitive” category caught my eye immediately: CHRONIC EMPTINESS.

It’s fitting that a word like “emptiness” is devoid of any one inherent meaning. Of course the emptiness being described in the DSM IV is the “I feel like nothing matters...life has no meaning...I don’t want to do anything...everything is too hard...” sort of emptiness. Then there’s the Buddhist version of emptiness, which isn’t quite as easy and straightforward to define.

Emptiness as described in Buddhism is often mistaken for nihilism which couldn’t be further from the truth. Usually it’s best to refer to it in it’s original sanskrit form: “sunyata” but for the purposes of this article I’m going to use the standard “emptiness.”

From a Buddhist perspective, having an experiential and intellectual understanding of emptiness is key to relieving our constant dissatisfaction with the way things are, and the distorted way we go about experiencing ourselves, other people, and the world around us.

I wish psychiatrists and psychologists would start to promote chronic emptiness as a remedy for emotional distress rather than just a symptom. And we could all benefit from cultivating a borderline personality instead of our customary solid one.

If we all truly experienced chronic emptiness we wouldn’t feel the need to crap all over our daily experience with the habitual narrowness that results from our fixed thinking. There would be no solid “I” that would have to be at odds with “you” and “them” and “the world outside” of Myself. By experiencing chronic emptiness we could gain more insight into the nature of our minds and realize that all of our emotional states are temporary and fluid and based on a constantly evolving set of circumstances and conditions.

By stressing the inherent interconnectedness of all things we can gain an insight into our emotional maladies and eventually have more openness and space in which they can run there course without having to take us over and paralyze us with fear and anxiety.

There are some severe forms of depression that absolutely need medication in order to be dealt with appropriately: meditation and understanding emtpiness aren’t a one-size-fits all answer to every issue in every instance. But we can meditate on emptiness and eventually realize how amazingly liberating it is once we get a glimpse of what it truly means.

-Lawrence Grecco

The Benefits of Mind-Blowing Suffering

2011-10-24T12:41:00.002-04:00

Two weeks ago I almost lost someone whom I love very much. The phone rang as I was writing at my desk and it was a doctor I didn’t know telling me what had just happened. As I listened to the doctor’s somber words, I suddenly became hyper-aware of everything around me;

the sensation of my breathing as it went from slow and relaxed to quick and shallow, the pronounced thumping of my heartbeat, the texture of the phone as I gripped it hard in disbelief, and the glow of my computer monitor as it splashed against my trembling left hand on that dark and rainy day. Although I thought I had been concentrating so intently just a few minutes earlier, there was no escaping the fact that now I was truly alive.

There’s something about life-changing events that chain you to the moment. Running away is impossible and all you can do is be there one hundred percent, whether you like it or not.

There’s no way out when something ridiculously out of the ordinary occurs because the situation and circumstances are so urgent that there’s just no avoiding them. It’s like seeing a baby falling from a window--relying on your thinking “I, my, me” mind will result in a dead baby. It makes no sense to stand there scratching your head wondering what to do, or googling “what to do when a baby is falling out of a window?” on your iPhone.

Being completely present compels a person to put their arms out and (hopefully) catch the infant safely before it hits the pavement. No thinking required, just responding to life spontaneously and appropriately.

Experiences like these have a way of cracking our hearts open. We don’t have the luxury of deciding what does or doesn’t happen in life, but our choice and our practice comes in when we decide what we do with whatever is going on around us.

From this point forward I could either grow more fearful of losing someone, or I could deeply appreciate that this person is still around and be grateful for how incredibly lucky I am and how lucky they are, even if that isn’t abundantly clear to them just yet.

We mustn’t waste any aspect of our lives, not even our suffering. To resist our suffering and see it as a distraction from our path is a mistake. To view all of the hurting that's happening right under our noses as an opportunity to give meaning to suffering and to develop a deeper sense of compassion for others is the right way to go.

We don’t have wait around for urgent situations to come up before we begin to access thepart of ourselves that’s always present and capable of doing what life truly calls for. By practicing consistently we train ourselves to override our thinking minds and allow a sense of wisdom to emerge so that we can help other people in the best way possible.

Suffering is Not a Life Sentence! Buddhism = Happiness.

2011-10-17T15:30:00.001-04:00

Let’s face it--Buddhism has a rather gloomy reputation. Sure, the words “kindness” and “compassion” sometimes come to mind when someone hears the “B” word, but all too often, what most people think of when they hear “Buddhism” is:

"LIFE SUCKS, THEN YOU DIE!"

Who can blame them when the first thing folks usually hear about when exploring this Buddhist stuff is the First Noble Truth which says that “Life is suffering” (well, dukkha actually...but don’t get me started on that).

The point of this teaching was not to suggest that humanity is doomed to suffer indefinitely. The Buddha was simply acknowledging our universal condition of dissatisfaction with the way things are, and he provided us with a means to end that persistent, underlying dissatisfaction so that we can be happy. A doctor does the same thing when she recognizes the symptoms of a medical condition. By doing so, she can appropriately diagnose and then treat the problem in order to restore her patient back to place of well-being.

I propose that we come up with a revolutionary new public relations strategy for promoting Buddhism in the West. Let’s change the narrative and infiltrate every social networking site, blog, and media channel we can with a more accurate message that clarifies what this practice is really about:

BUDDHISM IS ABOUT HAPPINESS!

Honestly now, if you heard about a spiritual practice that appears to emphasize pain and suffering as opposed to one that provides REMEDIES to that pain and suffering so you can be HAPPY, which one would you be more inclined to check out?

Buddhism is kind of radical when you think about it. Many people will settle for not being quite so anxious or worried or depressed anymore. Attaining a degree of happiness isn’t even on the menu for most people these days. It’s as if realizing true happiness in this life feels so beyond the realm of possibility that many of us don’t even dare to dream of such a thing, even though the desire to be happy is the one thing we all have in common.

But this Buddhism business is all about how to END suffering, not about how to be a good masochist.

So the revolution begins right here and right now. Spread the word far and wide. I can’t think of a better slogan than this one:

BUDDHISM IS ABOUT HAPPINESS!

(Directions: Copy, paste, repeat)

Art is Wherever You Look

2011-10-07T00:46:00.001-04:00

Three Surprising Qualities of Compassion

2011-10-03T12:16:00.000-04:00

Compassion isn’t just a feeling. In fact, true compassion need not involve any particular emotions at all. Sincere compassionate action can take place when there is no sense of “Me” and “You”, “Us” or “Them”. If my left arm is itchy, my right hand reaches over to scratch it without first having to feel really, really sorry for the left arm. My right hand doesn’t need to spend a lot of time thinking of the best way to solve the problem of itching. It recognizes a degree of suffering experienced by the left arm and responds appropriately in a way that alleviates that suffering. Compassionate action is spontaneous and happens as naturally as reaching for a pillow when it’s time to go to bed at night. No thought, no great effort, no patting one’s self on the back--just doing whatever the situation calls for. Getting caught up in a warm and fuzzy feeling and calling it compassion can be yet another form of self-aggrandizement and separation.
Compassion isn’t currency. Acting with compassion simply involves responding to the suffering of others because we recognize that we are not separate from them. The phrase “You scratch my back and I’ll I scratch yours” is terribly misguided. If I hold the door for someone and they rush through without saying “thank you”, I need not get in a huff because I think they’re being rude to me or that they are ungrateful. The second I start looking for a “thank you” or some other form of acknowledgment, I’m engaging in pumping myself up rather than simply doing for others. What I’m trying to pass off as being nice or compassionate is in fact a form of currency. I’m doing something with an expectation of gaining something in return--even if it’s just a little “thank you.” It’s not a really big deal, but let’s not call that compassion.
Compassion is our natural state. There are many, many practices meant to rouse a sense of compassion within us and they are all very wonderful. However, it’s important to remember that compassion is our natural state. It isn’t something we need to get or acquire, it’s something we just need to recognize and cultivate within ourselves. It’s already there but it gets covered over by the weeds of our thinking, our habits, and our fundamental misunderstanding about the true nature of things. It’s like seeds that can’t grow because there are so many weeds and brush that needs to be cleaned up all around them--and once all of that stuff gets cleared away, we can notice how naturally compassion arises.

Grabbing Happiness

2011-09-26T13:52:00.001-04:00

The way we usually go about being happy reminds me of someone in a cash-grabbing machine: we approach the whole matter as if there’s only a finite amount of happiness out there that we’d better grab as quickly as possible before someone else gets it first.

Attempting to be happy in this way is as futile as trying to make an ice sculpture out of boiling water.

There’s something within all of us that intuitively knows we have a fundamental right to be happy. But the problem begins with the way we define happiness in the first place, and the behaviors that spring out of this misunderstanding that ultimately lead to more suffering.

We might experience what feels like a happy state of mind when something works out in a way that matches our ideas and expectations of how things ought to be. But this kind of contentment is short-lived because it’s based on something outside of ourselves, something that has built within it the seeds of impermanence and therefore, suffering.

It’s easy to confuse pleasurable feelings for true happiness. It’s very tempting to base our happiness on the fleeting events and circumstances that arise and fall all around us. But eventually we need to realize that being happy isn’t the same as experiencing pleasurable feelings. There’s a more steady, constant, and unconditional version of happiness we might wish to explore once all of our tired old ways have finally left us frustrated and exhausted.

For starters we can redefine what our reference point for happiness is.

Instead of seeing happiness as a series of temporary, pleasurable thoughts and physical sensations, what would it mean to redifine it as the ability to always learn about ourselves, other people, and this world we live in? Life is frequently offering us opportunities to do just this. So no matter what happens, we always have the chance to view all of our constantly changing experiences as a way to better know ourselves and others. We can notice our feelings and reactions instead of getting caught up in the comings and goings of our outer experience. We can transform the way in which we relate to the circumstances of our lives so that every moment is nothing more than a mirror that teaches us something interesting about who and what we are.

We can consider the possibility that happiness is already our natural state. It will never be brought about by something “out there” that we need to strive for the way someone in a cash-grabbing booth strives so desperately grab at the hundred dollar bills swirling all around. We’re already complete and good and perfect, even though it may not appear that way all the time. Imagine how absurd it would be if someone were doing this and managed to score a few hundred bucks but then later found out that s/he had a hidden bank account with 10 million dollars in it?

Our condition is just like that.

Instead of seeing happiness as something removed from where you are right now, try settling into things as they are and seeing each moment as another opportunity for growth and understanding.

Life will never fail to make us happy if this becomes our new reference point.

Four Ways to Work the Four Immeasurables into Your Daily Life

2011-09-19T22:40:00.000-04:00

Ironically, what fuels all of our misery-inducing behaviors is an underlying desire for happiness. All of us wish to be safe, to be happy, to be healthy, and to have an easeful life experience. Even those people that seem bent on making themselves and others miserable through unhealthy choices and actions are doing so because they think what they’re doing might bring about happiness.

No matter how many times our usual methods fail to make us happy, we keep on trying over and over again, hoping for a different result, hoping that maybe this time it will work. Incidentally, this is the very definition of insanity. Talk about samsara!

What fuels our behaviors are underlying thoughts like these: Maybe this new pair of shoes will make me happy...maybe this next drag on my cigarette will do the trick...maybe if I yell at her/him loud enough this time I’ll feel better...maybe this next beer will give me some piece of mind...maybe if I get laid tonight I won’t feel so lonely...maybe one more joint will calm me down...maybe a new boyfriend or girlfriend will make me feel loved and secure...or maybe this new spiritual teacher will help me be enlightened and therefore HAPPY.

At some point (hopefully) we get fed up and realize it’s time for a new approach to this happiness thing.

The Buddha taught his followers to rouse within themselves four “perfect virtues” or “immeasurables” that can help cultivate internal qualities that can lead to happiness (for real this time). It’s helpful to approach these qualities as something already inherent within you rather than something “out there” you need to cram into your heart. Think of these virtues as hidden talents that just need some consistent practice so they can flow more naturally and spontaneously. You might be a natural piano player but you can’t headline a concert until you practice stroking the ivories a little bit each day.

The Four Immeasurables are Loving-kindness, Compassion, Sympathetic Joy, and Equanimity.

Here are four ways you can cultivate these qualities in your daily life:

1. LOVING-KINDNESS is a sincere desire for everyone, without exception, to be happy. At different points during the day, keep it simple and silently say “May you be happy” to random people you see on the street, at work, on the subway. If you can’t muster up an intention for happiness towards people you don’t know, try it with first with yourself (“May I be happy”) or just repeatedly send a wish for happiness towards someone in your life you find it easy to do this for.

2. COMPASSION is a wish that other people be free from suffering. Some times this one requires an ability and willingness to read between the lines a bit. Often it is easy to notice who is in some kind of pain but usually we overlook those people who might be suffering just as much--like an irate boss or coworker or the person in the subway who's being so bloody aggressive. So throughout the day, instead of trying to judge and fix and fight back, recognize that most people are experiencing some degree of pain or discomfort in their lives, just as you are. Focus on one or more people each day that you come across and offer them an intention like “May you be free from suffering and whatever is causing it.”

3. SYMPATHETIC JOY refers to the ability to have a genuine sense of appreciation for someone else’s happiness or good fortune. It's helpful to consider that there isn’t a finite amount of happiness in this world that some people hoard and other people miss out on. Happiness is something attainable by all of us. So practice cultivating a sense of sympathetic joy when you see someone who you normally might inspire a feeling of envy. You won’t necessarily make the envy disappear completely or all that quickly, but you can transform it into an understanding that someone else’s experience of great fortune or contentment demonstrates that you can experience those positive things as well. Don’t get caught up in the circumstances and stuff around that person’s happiness (like their money or a job or status) but instead focus on the happiness itself. It isn't stuff that we want, it's the good feeling that the stuff brings about within us.

4. EQUANIMITY is an ability to recognize and experience all things and all beings as equal. Throughout the day consider people with whom you have strong disagreements with and think of how they might have been at the moment of their birth and how they might be at the moment when they will die one day. The time in between goes by in a flash. Birth and death are the great equalizers that we are all subject to. Also, observe each emotion you experience throughout the day and practice with noticing it’s qualities in a neutral kind of way rather than judging it as good or bad. Don’t get caught up in trying to attain more pleasure or in pushing away more pain, just let the day unfold as it does and notice how things are always changing, changing, changing. The sky doesn’t bitch and moan with every passing cloud or storm--it simply hangs out and takes pleasure in being the sky.

Be like the sky.

How to Turn Confusion into Curiosity

2011-09-12T13:37:00.004-04:00

We often find ourselves thoroughly confused as to what’s going on.

You think you know someone but they say something that seems grossly out of character or they do something that doesn’t match our expectations of who we think they are or ought to be.Work is awesome but then someone gets hired or fired or you have a new boss or your responsibilities change or your benefits get cut and it doesn’t seem so great anymore.

You’re totally in love with your boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse but then something goes awry and suddenly, a relationship that once seemed like the greatest thing since sliced bread is now a source of great pain.

Perhaps you’ve experienced a loss of some kind and don’t know how to make heads or tails of the ensuing emotional roller coaster ride.

What the hell is going on? What are we supposed to do when we’re confused?

Confusion is a highly unsettling mind state that practically BEGS for resolution. We all want to know things; we all like certainty. It’s comforting to have a clear sense of what’s happening in our lives and we all more or less want to know what we can expect to happen in the future. Having some certainty gives us a sense of control in what otherwise feels like a chaotic world filled with arbitrary experiences that might harm us in some way.

The trouble with our usual approach to confusion is that we so desperately want it to go away that we’ll hastily arrive at a resolution whether it’s an appropriate one or not, simply for the sake of allaying the great discomfort that goes hand in hand with confusion. We might impulsively say something hurtful that we later regret, or break off a relationship rather than sitting with the possibility that the other person might do it first.

But this kind of approach never really works in the long term. While confusion might seem very daunting, in fact it can be one of the best things that ever happens to us. When we don’t know what’s going on, a whole lot of possibilities open up that may lead to something better than we ever imagined.

In Zen there’s something called a “don’t know mind.” Keeping a don’t know mind requires that we simply be fully present with whatever we might be doing at any given time without entertaining ideas about the past or the future. We simply show up for life as it is right here or now without struggling against it. When we make a practice out of this, we can better see things as they are without having to fix or alter our moment to moment experience. And when we see things as they are we realize they’re very workable and...dare I say?...quite wonderful.

We can realize that confusion isn’t somehow a barrier to whatever it is we consider to be “enlightenment.” In fact, our confusion is an essential aspect of our already inherently awakened minds. Confusion is just another interesting example of the unlimited potential of your mind and all the cool stuff it can come up with. So instead of being put off by a confused state of mind, try spending some time with it and notice all of it’s interesting physical qualities and the myriad of thoughts that arise. Don’t get caught up in those thoughts and don’t slam the door on them either: doing so is as futile as trying to squeeze a cloud into a glass jar.

From the second it started, I had no idea what the movie Inception was about but once I remembered it was just a movie, I stopped trying so hard to figure it all out and once I did so I was able to settle down and appreciate the words and images before me without getting so stuck on what it all meant and how it all might turn out.

Our lives deserve the same attention and regard we can apply to a mind-f__k of a movie so give this approach a chance and see what happens.

A 9/11 Lesson: Transforming Terror into Lovingkindness

2011-09-05T23:48:00.003-04:00

The Twin Towers once exemplified freedom and American capitalism. On September 11, 2001, they were abruptly transformed into symbols of terror and tragedy. Our hearts collapsed along with those buildings that morning, as did all of our misguided notions about security, prosperity, and permanence.

On that day the things that terrify us were realized in the most dramatic and poignant way imaginable. We fear that we may lose the things and people we care most about. We worry that life won’t go the way we want it to. We are afraid of poverty, of not having enough. We are fearful that we might be harmed, and we are very, very afraid to die.

On this otherwise beautiful late summer morning, our once optimistic society devolved into a culture of fear and suspicion. Politicians capitalized on this in many ways and attempted to counter hatred with more hatred and violence. Air travel went from being an affordable adventure to a pricy and inconvenient undertaking. People eventually grew more wary of Muslims to such a ridiculous degree that it’s actually considered debatable as to whether or not a mosque should be allowed to be built near the World Trade Center site.

In some ways our hearts opened from this experience but in way too many other ways they contracted. Shortly after the towers fell I went to St. Vincent’s Hospital to see what help was needed shortly but they were so flooded with volunteers they were turning people away.

People who never before owned an American flag were suddenly placing them on their windows and walls and storefronts. In some ways it felt like an expression of solidarity, yet often it felt like an excuse to indulge in some knee jerk version of tribalism and duality.

We suddenly had a new enemy to fear--and unbeknownst to many, that enemy was fear itself.

It’s not as if fear wasn’t already a deeply ingrained aspect of our day to day lives, it’s just that after this national tragedy we were forced to confront the power of terror and decide what ought to do about it.

* * *

So we’re left with this uneasiness, this fear of what may or may not transpire one day. We’re terrified at the prospect of not getting what we want or losing what we have, or of getting what we want and realizing it isn’t as great as we had hoped so we better find something else to try to allay that persistent, nagging, underlying unease.

Legend has it that a group of monks were practicing in the forest one day and witnessed all kinds of frightening sights and sounds coming from the tree spirits hovering around them. The monks left the forest and returned to the Buddha, asking if he would send them somewhere less daunting but instead he told them to go back to very same the forest where they had just gotten so shaken up. In reaction to this they developed an aversion to the forest and began watering the seeds of hatred within themselves.

He said that he would equip them with all of the protection they would need, and then proceeded to teach them about metta or lovingkindness. They learned about the importance of forgiveness, kindness, and how to cultivate an intention not to harm anyone. They learned phrases like:

May you be safe.

May you be happy.

May you healthy.

May you live with ease.

They went back to the forest and did the metta practice prescribed by the Buddha as a remedy for their fear. As the monks cultivated lovingkindness through both their words and actions, the monks gradually developed a different perception of the forest and the spirits and they felt safe. Nothing seemed so scary any more. The tree spirits were so moved by the loving energy being put forth that they vowed to care for and protect the monks from that day forward. And they did.

* * *

September 11 demonstrated that our attempts at keeping things together ultimately fail. Everything is in a constant state of change and evolution, and sometimes our experience is really terrifying because we don't know for sure what comes next. While we try our best to control our world and create some semblance of solid ground under our feet, life has a way of doing what it wants to do without any regard for our preferences, opinions, and yes, our fears.

The one and only thing we can count on is that life will always unfold as it does.

During this time leading up to the ten year anniversary of 9/11, many of us are recalling what we were doing and how we felt upon hearing the news that airplanes had slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and another missed it’s target when passengers decided to rush into the cockpit and disrupt what would presumably have resulted in the destruction a third iconic building. The fear and sorrow was palpable for people all around the world on that beautiful sunny day, and we realized that we could no longer entertain the illusion that no harm could ever set its foot on our doorstep.

What are we to do with those aspects of ourselves or our lives that terrify us?

Instead of being depleted or paralyzed by fear, and instead of allowing it to take us over and dictate our actions, we can use it as a path to awakening.

We can use fear to remind us never to take anything for granted because our time here is precious and short.

The potency of fear can serve as a means to alert us to the reality that our lives really matter and we are called upon to spend our time wisely.

Rather than looking at “the enemy” that did something “to us” we can remember that all things are interdependent. No action occurs in a vacuum--and whether it takes seconds or weeks or decades, all of our actions have an eventual result.

Instead of viewing others with suspicion and bigotry, we can consider the fact that basic goodness is unequivocal.

When we counter fear with lovingkindness both through our intentions and our actions, we end up on a very different playing field in which we recognize that all people have the same inherent value and dignity. We start by learning to have compassion and love for ourselves so that extending this to others becomes spontaneous and natural.Operating from this presumption can lead to happiness for ourselves and other people. When we develop a sincere desire that all beings everywhere be happy, our perception shifts and what once terrified us no longer has to be so troubling. In fact we realize that we were suffering from a mistaken view of things. Viewing others through the prism of moral outrage does nothing but cultivate more terror in a world that needs more love.

May all beings everywhere conquer terror with lovingkindness.

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

2011-08-29T12:21:00.000-04:00

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

2011-08-23T17:07:00.000-04:00

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

Five Symptoms that Show Your Meditation Practice is Working

2011-08-22T15:56:00.000-04:00

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

2011-08-15T13:00:00.000-04:00

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

2011-08-01T11:32:00.000-04:00

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.

Free LGBT Weddings this Saturday July 30

2011-07-25T19:17:00.004-04:00

I'll be officiating over LGBT weddings this coming Saturday July 30. If anyone is interested in being married, I'm offering free, civil ceremonies. Any interested couples can email me or call 212-989-3456.

See the FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE HERE

I'll let the press release do the work for me:

FIRST GAY MINISTER IN NYC TO WED SAME-SEX COUPLES FOR FREE ON 7/30/11

Buddhist Minister Rev. Lawrence Grecco (www.RevGrecco.com) will be the first gay minister in New York City to wed same-sex couples for free on Saturday, July 30, 2011 from 12:30 - 3:30 at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community in the heart of Manhattan’s West Village at 208 West 13th Street.

Joining him will be professional wedding photographer Jennifer Shea (www.JenniferSheaPhoto.com) who is generously offering each couple free wedding photography to commemorate their special day.

Both of these services are completely free to any same-sex couple with a Marriage License.

* * * * * *

To celebrate the first week that the Marriage Equality Law takes effect, Rev. Lawrence is offering same-sex couples a complimentary, civil wedding ceremony AND free wedding photography by professional wedding photographer Jennifer Shea.

You do not have to be a New York resident to be married, but you will need to have a Marriage License at least 24 hours before your ceremony. Same-sex couples may start applying for their license immediately online at https://www.nyc.gov/portal/site/cityclerkformsonline but will need to pick up their Marriage License in person at the County Clerk’s office at 141 Worth Street.

The ceremonies will take place in a large, sunny and newly renovated room in the LGBT Center in Greenwich Village, the home of the modern Gay & Lesbian Rights movement.

To reserve your time for a 15 minute time block for a free, civil wedding service and complimentary photography on Saturday July 30, please call 212-989-3456 or email revgrecco@gmail.com

Please visit www.RevGrecco.com or call 212-989-3456 for more information

Diamond Sutra Sanity: Working with Whatever Comes our Way

2011-07-25T13:17:00.003-04:00

When life hands me a sucky situation that I would really, really rather not deal with, I’m reminded of the first part of the Diamond Sutra, which basically sums up the meaning of the entire 32 chapters:

One day before dawn, the Buddha clothed himself, and along with his disciples took up his alms bowl and entered the city to beg for food door to door, as was his custom.

After he had returned and eaten, he put away his bowl and cloak, bathed his feet, and then sat with his legs crossed and body upright upon the seat arranged for him.

He began mindfully fixing his attention in front of himself, while many monks approached the Buddha, and showing great reverence, seated themselves around him.

The Buddha is shown here engaged in a very simple, mindful action. No fuss, no muss. He was just doing what he did every day without any extra embellishments, drama, or stories to complicate things.

Every morning, he and his monks went around from home to home begging for alms. He specifically instructed everyone to knock on the door of each and every home, one after the next, regardless of how shabby or nice the dwelling appeared from the outside. After a while, the monks knew which homes gave the best food offerings and which gave the worst. At the time poor people and wealthy people co-existed more and lived in close proximity to each other, so one home might offer really good quality meat and nicely cooked rice, while the family next door might only be able to spare a tiny portion of rancid vegetables.

The purpose of instructing the monks to beg at each home regardless of what they migtht or might not get was to learn how to work with whatever was offered, without discrimination, without picking and choosing. It was about learning how not to discriminate between “good” and “bad”, “pleasant” and “unpleasant.” There was an opportunity to tame the like/dislike mind and to instead cultivate a quality of awareness of one’s experience rather than a continuous judgment of it.

Whenever I’m faced with a person or circumstance that I find distasteful, I imagine myself as a monk with an alms bowl extended in front of me, telling life to “bring it.”

I’ll accept and eat the rancid meat, the half-cooked rice, the shitty vegetables.

This doesn’t mean that it’s ok to be a martyr or a glutton for punishment. If someone is being abusive towards us the appropriate thing to do is address the situation and if the behavior continues, to walk away or respond as skillfully as possible. If a food server puts an undercooked piece of chicken breast under your nose, by all means send it back and have it heated up some more since there’s nothing particularly glamorous or spiritual about salmonella.

But we can learn a lot about ourselves and this world we’re in by paying attention to our moment to moment experience without all of the usual judgments and extras we attach to it.

Once something happens, that’s what we have to work with at that moment. That’s our path, plain and simple.

We can experiment with this in smalls ways at first, working with things that come up in a way that’s neutral rather than reactive.

Here are a few real-life opportunities to put this into practice:

Try experiencing the ear-piercing sound of screeching subway brakes without resistance. (I know, ouch.) Notice the quality of the sound and what it feels like physically, right there in your body, right there as it’s happening.

Notice what comes up when someone acts all kinds of crazy and you feel compelled to react or fix or change or run from or take part in the craziness. Try something different next time--don’t respond right away to the hostile email or the verbal jab or the perceived slight. Give it a minute.

Practice with loneliness by sitting with it rather than trying to make it go away by all of the usual tricks and methods. Notice the quality of what it feels like to be lonely, instead of trying to instantly fill the empty sensation with all of the usual short-term remedies.

We can learn to experience all things on their own terms without constantly trying to assign labels or remedies, and notice what it feels like as we do this.

Destroying the Raft: Why the Dharma Matters More than Form and Tradition

2011-07-18T13:27:00.000-04:00

A few months ago while on a Taego Order retreat I was having a conversation with an ordained American Taego monk about the ordination requirements since I was training to be a monk myself. We were talking about the rigorous physical requirements for the eventual ordination ceremony in Korea, which entails performing 1,000 full-on standing-to-kneeling-to-forehead-on-the-ground prostrations while trekking uphill in the hot, muddy mountains leading up the big event at the monastery. You can see what I’m talking about here.

While I had some minor reservations about going through this process, I felt confident enough in my ability to handle the rigors since I’m very physically active and not at all unused to going ape-shit with my body. However, I do know of two guys (both of them young, physically fit and practicing martial artists) who confessed to finding the ordination process extremely difficult despite their high fitness levels. One of them said he almost thought he wouldn’t be able to complete the ceremony as it is so taxing on the body.

(All of this was just before I was made aware of the discriminatory ordination policies and double standards that exists for LGBT people, straight women, and the physically challenged within the Taego Order, and their continued lack of transparency about these policies.)

So as I was talking to this monk about this order’s prostration requirement, I said something about my assumption that they must make allowances for people with physical issues or older ordainees who might not be able to do a full prostration, let alone 1,000.

“If someone can’t do prostrations, they shouldn’t ordain!”he replied indignantly.

Surprised, I asked him “Do you think someone can’t be a good monk unless they can do prostrations?”

He rolled his eyes, looked away, and remained silent.

It was at that moment that I began to more deeply consider what the dharma was really about and what it often gets mistaken for. It also highlighted for me the dilemma we face at this point in time about how to assimilate very old Buddhist traditions from the East with our culture here and now in a way that makes sense and works for the people it claims to want to help. All too often Buddhist temples and dharma centers get so caught up in form, appearances and traditions that they end up alienating the very people that need them the most.

Taking a 1,200 year tradition like bowing prostrations and trying to force Westerners to do them is a foolish and pointless as asking a Christian convert to walk down Fifth Avenue with a cross on her back.

I’m not saying that this lineage or any other lineage requires it’s lay students to engage in such extreme forms of practice, but it does highlight a greater issue in Western Buddhism today.

There are many, many tools that can help in training our minds; sitting and walking meditation, chanting, prostrations, art practice, etc. But getting attached to any of them is a mistake. I bet the Buddha himself never did a bloody prostration in his 80 plus years, so why the hell should anyone today be expected to if they just can’t handle it physically?

It’s ridiculous to create more obstacles to a person’s practice in this day and age. We already have more than our fair share of distractions. The Buddha taught about the importance of not getting attached to the raft once you cross the river. While he was talking about the importance of not clinging even to his own teachings, this parable also applies very well to the different forms and traditions that have sprung up since his death, that too many people still desperately cling to today.

A lineage isn’t more valid simply because it’s few centuries old or because it was originated in a foreign culture. Personally, I no longer recognize the Taego Order as valid given the discriminatory policies it enforces and it’s refusal to be clear about those policies from the start.

It’s counterproductive and harmful to get too caught up in the rituals attached to the dharma. When people do this, the true spirit of the teachings risks being lost or subjugated, and all one is left with is a hollow, shadow of a practice.

There’s no need to be so hardcore and geeky about this stuff, we’re already hard enough on ourselves as it is. We have to find a way to make the dharma work for people here and now, and not cling to how it used to work for people in days past.

Meditation Boat Blessing for Seaworthy Art Exhibition

2011-07-11T22:48:00.011-04:00

Sea Worthy:
Exhibition, Workshops & Excursions

Presented by
EFA Project Space, Flux Factory and The Gowanus Studio Space

- Marina 59 - Queens, New York -

July 9, 2011

I was asked to do a boat christening for a very unusual outdoor art event called Sea Worthy.

Allison Ward, an artist who practices Vipassana meditation created a meditation themed boat-pictured in this video above. Garish on the outside, but quite simple and serene on the inside.

Anyway, it was an interesting gig I couldn't say no to and I got to come up with my first (and I assume last?) Buddhist boat blessing:

May this boat serve as a reminder of our inherent goodness

May all who enter it be able to live safely

to see clearly

to speak wisely

And to practice kindness and compassion towards themselves and all others

as the waters fill the rivers that connect all the oceans

May everyone flow with each other and all living beings

with ease and with safety

with sanity and well being

May no obstacles befall you

and may harm never reach you.

The Power and Potency of Silence

2011-07-11T14:36:00.001-04:00

Near the end of his life, the Buddha gathered his disciples around and stood silently before them for quite some time. At one point he reached down, plucked a flower from the grass, and held it up for everyone to see. Still, he didn’t speak at all.

Most of the crowd just looked and didn’t understand. They were used to him giving them words they could hear and understand. This time he was giving them silence.

Mahakashyapa looked closely at the flower being held up by the Buddha, and he smiled softly. He understood, and the Buddha named him as his successor.

-The Flower Sermon

For most of us, there is something inherently unsettling about silence. While we complain about living in a noisy city, we seem driven to create as much background noise as we possibly can throughout most of the day; we have earphones plugged into our heads, there's the sound of television or music going on as we work or interact with other people, and we’re constantly checking email and text messages instead of sitting quietly with things as they are.

Something unbearable comes up when we are sitting across from someone and there’s a sudden lull in the conversation, even if just for a few seconds. Have you ever had this happen and felt so awkward about the brief gap in conversation that you’ve glanced at your watch, feigning a look of surprise and declaring “I guess I’d better get going now”?

The silence I'm describing isn't just the "peace and quiet" variety, but a state in which we don't have to move one way or the other out of discomfort. It's about just being with whatever is happening without struggling to embellish or push the experience away through unnecessary words or actions.

We tend to think that intimacy is only possible through speech. I once dated someone who every few weeks would say “I really don’t know you very well.” This made sense for the first month or so, but after a while I realized it meant he just wasn’t really listening to me. Not just to my words and my lame, limited declarations about myself (I’m a Buddhist, a liberal Democrat, a meat eater, a beer lover, this makes me happy, that makes me sad, etc.) but to my actions, my gestures, my expressions.

If you want to get to know someone, listen to what they do, not just to what they say.

Perhaps one of the reasons we find silence so threatening is because it requires that we pay attention to the constant chatter going on within our minds. When I’m sitting quietly without any distractions around me I have to pay attention to what my mind is doing, and it ain’t always pretty. It’s like when I first tried Campari—initially I hated it’s boring flavor and I wanted to switch to something sweeter and more instantly pleasurable. However after a while I acquired a taste for it. There is something very interesting about it’s bitterness and simplicity.

We all try very hard to avoid silence at all costs because when we do so, the real noise of our minds can be deafening. But paradoxically, settling into silence is the only effective means we have of overcoming the constant discursiveness going on in our brains.

Words have their place in our world—we can’t simply hold up a flower if our boss comes over and asks us where the latest numbers report is, or if our partner wants to have a conversation about where the relationship is heading.

But we can be more aware of when we’re using words wisely and when we’re just trying to fill up space that otherwise might give room for something more productive to take place.

Right Speech is one aspect of the Eightfold Path that the Buddha prescribed as a way to manage our chronic discomfort. However, one aspect of Right Speech is knowing when to say anything at all and knowing when to shut the hell up. It’s important that we learn to discern when it’s appropriate to say something and when it makes more sense not to say anything at all.

One way to judge whether or not our words might be useful in any particular situation is to consider an old Buddhist saying:

Do not speak unless it improves upon silence.

You can begin right now learning how to make peace with silence and how to make more room for it in your life. Even if you can only do this in small doses and gradually work your way up, creating more gaps that aren’t filled with noise and chatter can become the soil from which more clarity and peace of mind can arise.

Real life exercise: At least once this week, consider having a meal alone without reading or listening to music or talking to someone else as you eat. Try existing without your earphones on in situations when you normally would—even if you can only manage this for ten minutes. At work, instead of dividing your attention between the task at hand and Facebook, or your email, or the last text message, concentrate entirely on what you are doing and notice what comes up when you work this way.

Silence can become a good friend if we just learn to acquire a taste for it.

Declaring Interdependence: Throwing Away Your National Identity

2011-07-04T01:45:00.007-04:00

In our ongoing attempt to construct some kind of solid identity, we cling to all kinds of labels that we hope can clearly define us: our race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, political affiliation, or national citizenship. Some of us favor one classification to the exclusion of all the others, or we come up with some intricate combination of tags we think will effectively convey the image of ourselves we want to project:

“I’m a radical queer feminist vegan left-wing Karl Marx socialist and Unitarian Universalist secular Buddhist.”

Many of us prefer to identify with an idea of who we once were or who we wish to be one day, even if we spend almost no time at all engaging in any of the necessary activities that might make that particular label even remotely accurate:

“Although I work full time for the IRS doing audits and haven’t performed in over 15 years, I really consider myself an actor.”

Americans are very susceptible to getting swept up in a strong sense of national pride, or more accurately a sense of national superiority.

There are many things that are really, really wonderful about the United States--our naturally rebellious and pioneering spirit, and the immense volume of creativity and ingenuity that exists in the arts and technology, to name a few. Compared to some countries we’re light years ahead when it comes to fair and equal treatment, yet in other ways we lag far, far behind.

A proper understanding of the three qualities of existence can create the space necessary for living a life that’s sane and manageable. Realizing non-self challenges us to drop all of our familiar labels and to consider more deeply who and what we are, how dependent we are on all other people, communities and countries, and how fleeting, temporary, and ever changing this human condition of ours is.

This myth of separation we take for reality screws with our heads and causes us to feel like we’ve got to grab our share of HAPPY lest someone else get it first. So dark skinned people are seen as threats to our jobs and security, and freedom fries are invented when other countries aren’t as gung ho about going to war as we are.

It’s great to take pride in one’s country, one’s city, one’s family, one’s sangha. (I take pride in all of these things). But for today spend just a few moments considering what it would mean to drop all of the usual labels you use to identify yourself with, and instead declare your complete interdependence with every other nation and all other people in this world.

Taming my Wild Horse Mind

2011-06-27T12:21:00.003-04:00

A classic Zen story:

A man is riding on top of a horse that is galloping by frantically, as if he has to be somewhere important, as soon as possible. A bystander sees this and asks the man, “Where are you going?”

“I don’t know,” the rider replies, “ask the horse!”

Sometimes I feel like such a slave to my brain and the thoughts it perpetually secretes. It’s as if someone inside my head is randomly changing radio stations and I’m left to deal with whatever noisy static, music, or cheesy talk radio bantor is blaring on in the background at any given moment.

For most of my life, I’d mistake this background noise for reality—that is, I’d believe that whatever I was thinking at the time was terribly important, real, and urgent. I’d be certain that the way some stranger looked at me on the street was a clear sign of disapproval or defiance, or that comment a friend made at dinner two days ago was nothing more than a thinly veiled sign of disrespect, hostility, or jealousy.

Very often, my mind still tosses and turns and flails about like an untamed horse or an unruly child. It would be ridiculous of me to just sit on a mustang and let it gallop around wildly without pulling the reins in, or to allow a child to run around and cause whatever chaos s/he wants to. Yet for many years I allowed my brain to dictate how I should feel and behave, pretty much all the time. And that got really tired for me a few years ago so I turned to practice.

One of the most striking byproducts of meditating regularly has been my newfound ability to discern that what’s happening internally is not necessarily in sync with what is happening externally. That is, the way in which I perceive and experience circumstances, people, and events usually gets filtered through a variety of elements within me that are constantly in flux. None of them are set in stone yet I frequently allow them to color the way in which I take in whatever is happening around me.

It’s sort of like looking at one’s self in a mirror covered by layers and layers of dust and dirt—you just don’t get a clear view of whatever happens to be in front of it. Everything gets distorted based on the many years of grime and gook that’s accumulated on the glass. Meditation means gradually cleaning the mirror so that we can see things more clearly and accurately.

By sitting regularly, and by learning to pause whenever strong thoughts and emotions come up, I’m better equipped to deal with the day-to-day stuff of my life. I can notice what’s happening and what the quality of that experience is like instead of getting carried away with my thoughts and opinions about that experience. I’m much more likely to catch myself whenever my thoughts are going off in some tangent that has nothing to do with what needs to be done at that particular time. So if I’m walking down the street, I can simply walk without using that in-between time to replay old conversations, or to plot and plan how to become some better version of myself.

I understand that just because I feel angry or elated or annoyed or ignored, it doesn’t mean it’s entirely the fault of the person or circumstances before me. I can take some responsibility and use the experience as an opportunity to get better acquainted with how my mind works and to learn about people and this very interesting world I live in.

What my Father Taught Me

2011-06-19T00:12:00.002-04:00

For Father's Day I'm reposting this (originally added here in November 2010)

Three and a half years ago my father was in a hospital undergoing a grueling cycle blood tests, poking and prodding, infections, antibiotic treatments, recovery, more poking and prodding, reinfection, and more tests. He weaved in and out of consciousness and once even called out for his brother who had died some twenty years earlier. His personality would quickly disappear and then suddenly return again. He had fragmented into pieces, some of which I recognized, most of which I did not.

In just three weeks he dropped to ninety pounds, just half his regular body weight. The man I used to blame for the bulk of my personality flaws was rapidly regressing to a vulnerable, childlike state. I was suddenly caring for him in ways I never thought I would--feeding him, helping a nurse give him a sponge bath, holding him up when he cried and could no longer stand on his own, and eventually giving him regular doses of liquid morphine during his last few days to help alleviate what I imagine was excruciating pain.

Very late that last night, his breathing pattern had changed significantly, which we knew from the hospice literature meant that he was about to leave us. He’d been completely unconscious for the previous two days, and while his body had functioned in a mechanical sense, there was little to no sign of life underneath it all. He was there but he wasn’t there. For the previous two days his breathing had the perfunctory quality of a respirator machine. He was still my father yet it felt as if my “real” father had already left and his body just had to catch up, like he and his body were slightly out of sync.

Being there by his side as he took his last few breaths was one of the most important things I’ve ever done. He co-created me and was there just after I was born, and I got to be there with him just as he was ready to die. He raised me and taught me how to ride a bike and wash a car and how to make my work environment as comfortable as possible so I could work more efficiently. He taught me things he hadn’t intended to teach me, like how to be patient (as he often was not) and the importance of not jumping to conclusions too quickly (as he often did).

The process of caring for my father transformed my selfish, habitual anger towards him into a desire to alleviate his suffering and make him as comfortable as possible. In just a few days I’d managed to accomplish what many years of therapy could not--I was able to forgive him for all of those things I’d spent years blaming him for and resenting and whining about. All of the blame and anger I’d attributed to his inadequate parenting quickly unraveled when I revisited it from this very different perspective.

I used to blame my father for my inability to be fully intimate with other people and through his death I learned how to cut through that. Whenever I sense some sort of block between me and someone else, whenever I feel anger or hostility or insecurity in relation to other people, I bring to mind an image of that person as an infant and an image of them at the moment of their death. All of the stuff that happens in between shouldn’t be confused with the underlying reality that binds us all together.

Most of us have very complicated relationships with our parents and I’m not claiming that their influence and behavior towards us during our formative years doesn’t have any sort of impact. Of course it does. I am saying that what we do with the circumstances and conditions of our lives is our choice, regardless of who or what contributed to their creation. All we can do is to work with whatever we’re given and wherever we are at any given moment. We can choose not to let those things fester and turn into sources of self-pity and blame, or we can use those same things as an excuse to engage in destructive behavior and to build walls around our hearts.

It’s up to us.

To use our wounds as some sort of protective armor is to be fearful and weak. It’s when we recognize the transformative ability of our pain and those feelings of loss that we’re being courageous enough to step outside of ourselves and our inner psycho-dramas long enough to be of service to someone else.

In the end my father left me with a huge gift: the realization that this life of ours is temporary, tenuous, and precious. There is something there before we are born and something there after we die, and we’d be wise to spend at least a portion of our lives getting acquainted with what that is.

Thanks, Dad.

Something Special-Thank you, Charlotte Joko Beck

2011-06-16T11:00:00.001-04:00

Charlotte Joko Beck died yesterday. She was 94 years old.

She wrote two of the first books I ever read about Zen: Nothing Special: Living Zen and Everyday Zen: Love and Work.

Hers was a no-frills, bare bones approach to practice and her voice will be missed.

The Lie of Certainty

2011-06-13T13:33:00.001-04:00

The phrase “You can achieve anything you want if you just want it badly enough” is a dangerous lie. Politicians and pop stars often love to recite sayings like this to the jazzed up, adoring throngs of people before them because it gives people a false sense of hope that life can be just the way they want it to be. According to some, if you work hard enough you can be president of the United States, earn millions of dollars, or at least have your album go platinum.

The truth is, we never know what’s just around the corner, or what twists and turns our life will take, and how our priorities might shift from one year to the next. And if we’re being too rigid and clinging to what we think we need in life, it’s like we’re trapped in a wooden barrel at the highest edge of a waterfall.

Our fixed ideas and narrow requirements for happiness keep us stuck.

It’s wonderful to have aspirations and to nurture them with consistency, focus, and hard work. But it’s very dangerous to think that we can control and manipulate life so that it can turn us into the precise version of ourselves that we think we ought to be, or offer us the very specific lifestyle we thing we need to be happy. This kind of thinking keeps our attention constantly out there, like a horse chasing after the carrot dangling right in front of his head.

All of the wishing and creative visualizing in the world can’t ever guarantee us a specific outcome. Our condition is one of constant change. Things arise and fall away, and then other things pop up and then turn into something else. No form of mind mastery or magical thinking is going to reverse the very nature of things.

I’ve spent most of my life trying to force things to happen a certain way and I’m now just learning to appreciate the value of watching all of my plans fall apart before my eyes. I’m learning how to just settle into the space created by that sudden void instead of trying to fill it with something new and “better.”

What opens up when our plans fail is very potent and something we can really work with. Having exactly what we want all the time doesn’t offer us much room for growth at all.

Recently someone who heard about my recent and very public withdrawal from the Taego Order seminary asked me if I was “ok.” When I considered her question carefully I was surprised to discover that I actually feel more liberated than devastated, more excited than angry. Had things worked out just the way I planned for them to, that might have been just fine. But what I’m experiencing right now is so unique and unexpected and I’m getting to learn all kinds of cool stuff about people, myself, and the world in general.

What I’ve wanted throughout my life has changed and evolved many, many times. If I were the kind of person today that I dreamt of being ten years ago, I’d most likely be surrounded by people and circumstances that have nothing to do with where my heart is right now.

The more I think I know what’s going on, the more I eventually realize I have no idea what’s going on. That used to scare the bejeezus out of me, but now I just find it comforting.

The only ground we can actually depend on in life is that there really is no ground at all.

And this is very, very good news.

Sweeping Zen Podcast about Discrimination in Zen and Buddhism

2011-06-10T08:56:00.012-04:00

Last night I participated in a round table discussion about discrimination in the Zen and Buddhist Community.

Adam Tebbe of Sweeping Zen arranged this after reading my blog posts about my public withdrawal from the Taego Order's seminary program once I learned about their discriminatory policies towards gay and lesbian ordainees, women, people over 55, and the physically challenged.

You can listen to the podcast HERE.

Gardening the Mind

2011-06-06T11:32:00.001-04:00

Meditation is a lot like weeding; we’re just clearing stuff away so that what’s really underneath it all has a chance to show itself.

Each time we practice we’re starting the process of working with our fertile minds, just as a gardener works with the soil. We plant seeds of intention to develop clarity, cultivate more kindness and compassion, or simply to learn to be aware enough of what’s going on in our thought process so that we no longer have to be so bound by it.

This process of investigating our minds requires that we get dirty in order to eventually reap the benefits. When pulling weeds a gardener occasionally encounters a worm crawling around or a mouse scurrying by, just as we have to face some mind rodents during our practice that we might just as soon ignore.

While these aspects of our experience might seem daunting, if we just look at them objectively we can realize they aren’t all that terrible. In fact, it’s all pretty manageable.

So by sitting on a regular basis we’re gradually creating an environment and set of conditions that allows for our inherent sanity and dignity to eventually emerge. The seeds are already there, our environment is always rich enough, and there’s always plenty of rain that will help feed those seeds as they gradually develop.

It would be ludicrous to stand over a flower and wait for it grow, but sometimes we get impatient and want to see results from all of our efforts right now. We see signs of progress and that’s encouraging, but we realize we must keep doing the work to foster this growth. It’s not something we can ever say is finished.

We just have to do our part and not obsess over a result. We don’t have to be so intense about it, and we can have faith that our underlying goodness will be more apparent if we’re diligent and patient and persistent.

What is the Meaning of Doing Practice?

2011-06-03T22:47:00.002-04:00

Seung Sahn gives a good answer:

Caught in the Net of Ideas & Opinions

2011-05-30T00:30:00.002-04:00

When you throw a net into the sea, fish will be caught, but the water is never caught. Do not become a person who is like a fish. Instead, become a person who is like water.

-Zen Master Daehaeng

My concept of “I”, “me” and “mine” give me a false sense of comfort and security.

The degree to which I suffer is proportionate to how solid a sense of “me” I’m working with at any given time.

The more rigid my ideas about other people are, the more likely I am to feel separate from them.

When I ease up on my concepts and ideas about things, I allow for stuff to happen that otherwise might not have happened.

When I catch myself trying to form and solidify some kind of notion about a person or thing, I try to take notice and remind myself that I’m only seeing one small part of that person or thing.

Instead of being led around by my thoughts, I try to work with them and view them as a means of gauging where my mind is at rather than mistaking them for reality.

We don’t have to be caught in the trap of our mental constructs, our limiting ideas, our opinions, our feelings. When we let go of all that we think we know and keep a mind that’s pliable and vast like the ocean, we’re less likely to get stuck in the shadow cast by our projections and fears and concepts.

Rather than feeling beaten over the head by our moment-to-moment experience, we can pass through it the way water passes through a net.

Pema Chodron on Friendship with One's Self

2011-05-27T11:47:00.004-04:00

When One Door Closes...

2011-05-23T13:51:00.010-04:00

...another one opens.

In the midst of my recent seminary turmoil, I was invited to be ordained as a Buddhist Minister by the Los Angeles Buddhist Union/International Order of Buddhist Ministers.

This came about quite unexpectedly (I had applied for ordination about a year and a half ago before I even heard of the Taego order and had assumed it just wouldn't happen.)

I was notified about this within days of my decision to withdraw from the Taego Order seminary program. This took me and my fellow ordainees by surprise, but somehow we all got it together and traveled from different parts of the country to make this happen.

The timing was oddly auspicious. Had I been invited just a month earlier I would've passed on the opportunity since I hadn't yet decided to leave the Taego Order seminary program.

I was ordained this past Saturday and I am very grateful for the opportunity to serve in this capacity. I still aspire to be a lay priest or monk one day and am currently considering what opportunities I may have to do so at some point in the future.

(Pictured above are Rev. Danny Fisher and me).

The Rocky Transition of Asian Buddhist Traditions into Western Culture

2011-05-23T13:16:00.005-04:00

I recently blogged about my recent withdrawal from a Zen seminary program with the Korean Zen Taego Order due to their recently revealed discriminatory policies and double standards with regard to women, gay & lesbian people, people over 55 and the physically challenged.

Being gay has always been really weird for me. The gay part in and of itself isn’t the weird part, but the reactions it elicits from people are kind of mind-blowing and something I’ve never quite gotten used to since I came out at the age of 15.

Until recently I was led to believe that openly gay people were welcome for ordination within the Taego Order, as were women. However, it was recently revealed that this wasn’t the case after all. During a seminary retreat in April, the issue of “no openly gay” clergy was brought up out of the blue after I thought this was a non-issue for the past 9 months of my training.

When I pressed for clarification I was told that I could ordain as a monk but that the Korean headquarters hierarchy would not recognize the ordination if they were to find out about me. So the compromise created by the overseas Bishop was that I could definitely ordain as a monk, but when in my gray robes I must never “engage in behavior that suggests I am either practicing or promoting gay/lesbian relationships” (whatever that means). If I did so I could be immediately expelled by the Overseas Disciplinary Board.

This “compromise” was described to me as a “middle path” chosen by the Overseas Bishop and I was told that I should (quoting an email here): be happy, be thrilled that you are now part of an authentic 1600 year old tradition...

Straight male monks are free to express affection to their partners or spouses however, and I assume they can promote heterosexual relationships. (Whatever that means).

Oh, and everyone was recently informed that female monks in this order have to commit to a life of celibacy. Not male monks, just the female ones. Yes, I’m serious.

I just found this out last week as did several females who were already in the seminary program.

I also recently discovered that no one over the age of 55 may ordain, and physically challenged people need not even apply in the first place.

The responses I’ve received to my recent blog post from people involved with this order have been overwhelmingly supportive, but most have refrained from making their opinions known to the powers that be due to fear of reprisal.

Those that don’t agree with my withdrawing from the Taego seminary have presented me with the following arguments:

Given the current culture and years of tradition with regard to these issues in Korea, I should consider this “progress.”

Pissing on certain groups of people instead of crapping on them is not a sign of progress. Human rights and Buddha Nature are unequivocal. Discrimination under the guise of religion or tradition is still discrimination. They can gussy it up all they want but it’s still wrong and has nothing to do with the dharma.

-I should work for change from within. After all, if I have a problem with the unequal treatment of women and gay people, why don’t I leave America and live in a country where gay marriage is legal?

Do I really have to respond to this one?

* * * * * * * *

A lot of Zen people get caught up in the idea of “authenticity” and love to geek out about lineages and Zen Masters and Inka and who’s recognized and who’s not.

Frankly, I don’t recognize any order (Buddhist or otherwise) that not only enforces discriminatory policies but also fails to make them clear from the beginning of one’s involvement.

I don’t care how old any particular lineage is. I do care about what that order or lineage teaches and what kind of ethics it promotes. Just because something originates in a foreign culture and has been around for a long time doesn’t make it superior to newer lineages, organizations or dharma centers.

As Western Buddhists we’re at a very interesting crossroads where we need to find a way to present the dharma in a way that makes sense to who and where we are right now. Trying to assimilate certain Eastern Buddhist traditions along with their accompanying cultural biases will only serve to further alienate people from any kind of spiritual practice.

We need a form of Buddhism that is inclusive and appeals to people’s best instincts rather than their worst.

IDP is a model for how Buddhism has to be presented and practiced in this country if there is any hope of it surviving and even eventually thriving. I feel very grateful to be part of a community that offers a secular, non-religious, non-moralistic and diverse opportunity for study and practice.

I don’t think that the Buddha had a religion in mind when he traveled around teaching for all of those years.

While I’m being accused by some within the Taego Order of trying to smear their reputation by speaking out, my intention here is to highlight the issues raised by my personal experience so that fewer people have to go through what I just did. There is a larger issue here that needs to be discussed and resolved.

Some people are now suggesting that I’m “too attached to my gayness” which is a complete cop out. What I’m attached to is fair and equal treatment for all beings. That’s one form of attachment that can potentially end suffering and not cause it.

* * * * * *

Fortunately when one door closes, another one opens

Why I Would Never Ordain as a Taego Monk

2011-05-18T20:28:00.005-04:00

Below is a copy of a Facebook note and email I recently sent out to the entire Taego Order Overseas email list:

I am deeply concerned about the role of women, gay and lesbian clergy, those over the age of 55, and physically challenged people within the Taego Order and IBS.

When I first inquired last year about entering the IBS seminary program, I was told that openly gay people are welcome to be ordained as monks in this lineage. However, during the protocol retreat at Muddy Water Zen Center in Michigan last April, Bishop Jongmae Park made some statements about this issue that left me confused. When I asked Hae Doh Sunim for clarification via email, I was informed of the following points (some of them extracted and copied below):

The Taego Order hierarchy will not recognize the ordination of gay & lesbian monks, and, in fact, if they discover practicing gay/lesbian full monks, they'll most certainly expel said monk(s) immediately.

In order to protect the growth and development of our parish it is mandated that when in public and wearing grays (informal or formal grays) there will be no behavior suggesting that said monk (samanera, samaneri, bhikkhu or bhikkhuni) is either practicing or promoting gay/lesbian relationships.

If it becomes known in whatever way that a monk is engaging openly in sexual identity behavior while in 'uniform', it then becomes necessary that the Overseas Parish Disciplinary Board will admonish and, possibly, expel said monk, even before headquarters hears of such things.

Bishop Jongmae has chosen a middle path that allows complete participation of practicing gays and lesbians as full monks in the clergy sangha while at the same time necessitating they maintain a cautious boundary in order to protect this allowance

Reading this was extremely upsetting, especially in light of the fact that these same rules do not apply to male heterosexual monks. The parallels between this issue and the U.S. military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy are very clear.

Recently I’ve also been made aware that while men may ordain as monks and lead a non-celibate life, women who wish to ordain as monks must be celibate. In addition to this, no one over the age of 55 is eligible for ordination, as well as people who are physically challenged.

To his credit, Bishop Park is trying his best to change most if not all of these rules, but progress often happens all too slowly and with much resistance due to cultural and religious biases.

Imagine how devastating it is to know that at any time your dharma family, your temple, your career, your relationships with other parish members, your status as a monk, and all of the time and money you invested in training, practicing, learning, and being ordained in Korea could be instantly stripped away from you simply for being who you are.

In a state of partial denial, I initially brushed off what I learned about the policy with regard to gay and lesbian people. I really tried to forget about it since my calling to serve others as a monk has been very strong for quite some time, and I viewed the Taego Order as a unique and rare opportunity in which I could honor this calling.

So I tried to continue with my seminary studies despite my reservations. However I’ve come to the conclusion that I cannot condone such policies by being part of an institution that enforces them. Therefore I have decided to end my seminary training with the Taego Order at this time.

As the founding Director of Open Sky Sangha in New York City (which has a predominantly gay membership), it’s my responsibility to model behavior to sangha members that encourages dignity, equality, fairness, and self-worth.

Most of you reading this have taken the precepts and have vowed not to lie or cause harm to any living beings, yourselves included. Living under the oppressive weight of such policies is harmful to people emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually. Anyone in a less than wholesome state cannot be a positive force in the lives of others, which is the underlying motivation that informs our Zen training and Buddhist studies.

Buddha nature is unequivocal, as are human rights. There is no “middle path” when it comes to such matters. Just over 50 years ago, African Americans and women in this country were treated egregiously until we collectively realized as a society just how incredibly wrong that was.

Things have changed significantly since then but none of this came about easily--it happened only through dissent, disobedience, protest, and political action. Progress is never made by accepting and condoning discriminatory rules in the hopes that equality will eventually be attained because the people in power feel it’s time to be fair. Injustice is only vanquished when it is recognized, labeled, and resisted.

While I appreciate the fact that some allowances have been made thanks to the efforts of Bishop Park, one can hardly consider it “progress” to allow a woman to ordain as monk but require that she be celibate while a male need not be. It is not “progress” to allow a gay or lesbian person to ordain but to make sure they don’t express affection to their partner while their straight counterparts are free to do so. There is nothing progressive about restricting ordination to those under the age of 55, nor is it ok to tell a physically challenged person that they need not even apply in the first place.

Discrimination, even when cloaked within the trappings of tradition, is still discrimination.

I believe that Bishop Park wishes to include gay and lesbian people into this order because he knows it’s the right thing to do, and in our culture it’s becoming less and less acceptable to do otherwise. However, the compromises he has agreed to with regard to the restrictions on gay and lesbian clergy encourages llying, hiding, and paranoia. I am no way accusing Bishop Park of any kind of malice or ill will--in fact, I think his efforts here have been quite commendable. However, these policies need to be explained clearly to any prospective student from the start to avoid any kind of misunderstanding such as this one.

The Overseas Parish needs to decide whether it ordains openly gay and lesbian people or not. The current position is very murky and rife with inconsistencies. It also needs to consider the consequences of its discriminatory rules with regard to the celibacy requirement for women, it’s exclusion of physically challenged people, and the cut off age of 55. One’s gender, marital status, age, sexual orientation, or physical ability has no bearing on how effective she or he could serve as a monk.

If prospective students are not made clear about these policies from the outset, the parish runs the risk of spending a lot of their time, energy and resources training people who may eventually demand a refund of their tuition. These unfair rules will eventually lead to a negative reputation for the Taego Order within the Western Buddhist community at large. All of the eligibility requirements and behavioral regulations with regard to ordained gay and lesbian clergy, the age limit, the celibacy requirement for women, and the restriction on physically challenged people ought to be stated very clearly up front. A prospective student deserves to know this before they commit their time, enthusiasm, and money to this training. It’s only reasonable and fair to do so.

If there is any hesitation to put these eligibility requirements and behavioral restrictions in writing for all to see on the Overseas Taego Order web site, then that speaks volumes about the very nature of those rules.

A person has the right to be very clear about what they are getting into before they're already in it.

It is our responsibility to move Buddhism full steam ahead into this new century by making the dharma accessible, inclusive, accurate, and relevant to the world we now live in. This is being done brilliantly by the likes of the Interdependence Project here in New York City, the Five Mountain Buddhist Seminary, the Maitreya Buddhist Seminary and many other inclusive, modern dharma centers and schools around the United States. Hopefully the Taego Order will eventually be able to follow their lead.

Many people these days are resistant to any form of spiritual practice because institutional religion has left such a bad taste in our collective mouths. So when things like this crop up, it only serves to reinforce people’s negative views about religion and/or spirituality in general. We need to find a way to move past this and offer people a system of spiritual and ethical practice that makes sense for today’s world; one that is inclusive rather than discriminatory.

As Buddhists, we can and must do better.

I will continue to pursue a path leading to my eventual ordination as a monk or priest so that I may help others in the capacity that resonates so strongly in my heart. I will also continue to speak out against any form of injustice when I see it arise since I truly believe that all beings are deserving of love, compassion, mutual joy, and equanimity. I encourage everyone reading this to do the same.

Lawrence Grecco

De-Bitching Karma: Cause and Effect vs Reward and Punishment

2011-05-16T12:26:00.004-04:00

It took me quite some time to discard the concept that everything I do is being rated and tallied up somewhere up there, and once I die I’ll either go to Heaven, Hell or that in-between Limbo place where I’ll have to endure some vague form of suffering until I burn off my sins the way someone on a diet burns calories.

The word karma gets thrown around a lot by people who hold the narrow view that it’s nothing more than the ultimate form of payback or punishment.

“Karma’s a bitch!” is an often used phrase that seems to offer an odd sense of solace to those who feel wronged or slightly in some way.

It’s often seen as the Buddhist version of Hell, the fickle finger of fate, or one’s cross to bear. It gets reduced to a static result rather than a dynamic action from which present and future results manifest.

It’s a mistake to limit our view of karma as a much-deserved result rather than a dynamic and empowering sequence of intentions, emotions, actions, and fruition. As I see it, the former view breeds complacency and indifference, the latter view inspires mindfulness and responsibility.

I’m no karmologist but in trying to sum up what karma means to me, I came up with a few things I thought I’d share here:

Viewing Karma without compassion is foolish and harmful

Simply labeling someone’s difficult circumstances as “ their karma” doesn’t let us off the hook and give us the green light to be indifferent, cold, or judgmental. When we see someone in an unfortunate situation and shrug our shoulders, thinking, “that must be her karma” we give ourselves and others permission to ignore their suffering. We rationalize it as their punishment for doing something wrong at some point or another, thinking they must deserve it on some level, so why the hell bother helping them out? Perhaps that person begging for change on the street was Hitler in a past life, we speculate, so it serves them right. Instead of trying to assess what may or may not have brought about someone else’s current situation, we’d be wise to consider the consequences of how we choose to respond to their current situation.

Viewing Karma as an excuse to indulge in harmful behavior is lazy

Karma is not just an unchangeable and negative result but rather a complex and interdependent series of intentions, actions and results. Each moment offers us the opportunity to apply some awareness and intentionality to our thoughts and behaviors that have an impact on our current circumstances as well as what we will experience later. We aren’t simply “stuck” with our situation, we can actually work with it. We can’t always choose for things to be different than they are right now, but we can make the best possible use of whatever we have right now in a way that is productive rather than self-defeating.

Viewing Karma as “good” or “bad” is a dicey undertaking

We can look at a wealthy person and label their fortunate circumstances as “good karma.” We can see a paraplegic as suffering from “bad karma.” However, millionaires can be miserable and physically challenged people can be happy. Someone with heaps of money can be stingy both emotionally and materially, while a wheelchair-bound person can have a highly developed sense of compassion and caring for others based on their alleged disability. So who is suffering from “bad” karma and who is reaping the “good?”

In the end, ideas of good and bad originate in our minds alone, and getting fixated on words like these have a way of encouraging narrow judgments instead of compassionate action.

Ten Ways to Extend Lovingkindness to a...Difficult Person

2011-05-09T11:44:00.003-04:00

After an intensive day of Metta practice, I’ve become increasingly intrigued by the idea of what it means to extend lovingkindess to everyone, even if I think they’re a bastard. Doing this is an essential part of Lovingkindness meditation and what I consider to be the most challenging. So I came up with this list of ways that might make this more manageable, both on and off the cushion:

1. Start with the basics: remember that all beings possess the same fundamentally good and complete nature. No matter how egregiously some people behave or how rotten they may appear to be, they have the same Buddha nature/basic goodness that you have.

2. Remind yourself that just like you, they too want to be happy. Seriously. Even when the object of your disdain is acting assholey, they’re doing it because on some level they really believe that their behavior will bring about happiness, or at least some temporary relief.

3. Brainstorm and arrive at 2 plausible reasons that could possibly explain their negative behavior, no matter how far-fetched they may seem. At the very least, doing so serves as a reminder that there are always reasons why people act the way they do, even if they’re hard to see or understand.

4. Consider that the basis for what constitutes happiness in your life could be something other than a string of pleasurable sensations. Rather, reinterpret happiness as a state where you are always learning about yourself and other people. It’s much harder to be disappointed when this is our reference point.

5. Come up with just one positive quality about the “difficult person” that you can appreciate on some level. Even if it’s something really minor and shallow. (“He’s a mean son of a bitch, but check out those shoes!”) Try to keep in mind that we’re all more than just our behavior at any given moment.

6. Sometimes we learn about what happiness is by observing what it is not. If someone is acting like a miserable %$&#^*@#!, have some gratitude that you don’t feel the same way they do at that moment and extend a silent wish that they find some peace of mind. And offer that not just for them but to all of the other people they will eventually come into contact with and have an impact on.

7. Ask yourself if everyone else in the world would share your negative opinion of them or not. Someone, somewhere might find them tolerable or even lovable, even if it’s just their mother.

8. Pay attention to the thoughts and feelings you experience every time you have contact with this difficult person and be grateful to them for offering you the opportunity to practice with challenging emotions.

9. When appropriate, pay deep attention to this person, listening and observing closely enough so that you can at least get a glimpse of what’s going on beneath the surface. More often than not, what someone is carrying on about is not the thing that they’re truly struggling with.

10. Imagine what that person might have been like just after they were born and what they might be like at the moment just before their death. The reality of birth and death has a way of shifting our perspective and reprioritizing things. These two events are the great equalizers: we’ve all been born and we’ll all eventually die and it’s up to us to try and make the most of what happens in between.

The Parable of the Saw (an excerpt):

"Monks, even if bandits were to savagely sever you, limb by limb, with a double-handled saw, even then, whoever of you harbors ill will at heart would not be upholding my Teaching. Monks, even in such a situation you should train yourselves thus: 'Neither shall our minds be affected by this, nor for this matter shall we give vent to evil words, but we shall remain full of concern and pity, with a mind of love, and we shall not give in to hatred. On the contrary, we shall live projecting thoughts of universal love to those very persons, making them as well as the whole world the object of our thoughts of universal love — thoughts that have grown great, exalted and measureless. We shall dwell radiating these thoughts which are void of hostility and ill will.' It is in this way, monks, that you should train yourselves.

"Monks, if you should keep this instruction on the Parable of the Saw constantly in mind, do you see any mode of speech, subtle or gross, that you could not endure?"

"No, Lord."

"Therefore, monks, you should keep this instruction on the Parable of the Saw constantly in mind. That will conduce to your well-being and happiness for long indeed."

Osama bin Laden is Dead. Now What?

2011-05-02T11:21:00.003-04:00

When I learned late last night that Osama bin Laden had been murdered by a United States special forces operation, I really wasn’t sure how I felt. I wasn’t inspired to go downtown and join the throngs of people celebrating the death of a man who caused so much death and suffering for others. I didn’t feel much like celebrating anything at the same site where so many people had the worst of possible choices during the final moments of their lives: should I die by jumping out of this window in front of me or just stand here and be burned to death by the approaching fire?

Yet somehow I understood the sense of joy and relief felt by so many people everywhere around the world, and when I was able to locate and touch just a trace of that feeling within myself I had to cringe. Yep, still human.

As practitioners we’re called upon to look more closely at things and consider things not just as isolated and unrelated events, but rather like links on a very long and twisted chain. It’s easy to be fooled by the appearance of things and it’s very tempting and even understandable to want to take some pleasure from what would otherwise be considered a pretty gruesome event. It would be wonderful to consider this the “end of the war or terror” as one political pundit put it on CNN last night. But nothing is simply an “end”; all things are both a result and a cause that lead to other results.

I could view the murder of Osama Bin Laden as the ultimate form of justice. After all, he was responsible for the death of so many people, and his actions contributed to a chain of events that we are all still paying for dearly today: several wars, billions of dollars, increased security at the risk of privacy and freedom, more fear, a sagging economy, record high unemployment and a damaged national spirit.

At the same, our country has contributed to the circumstances and conditions from which Osama bin Laden was able to thrive enough so that he could recruit people who felt so angry at us that they were willing to die in order to harm us.

If we were able to peer into a time machine and look forward several years, would we be rejoicing if we realized that the killing of bin Laden resulted in the reenergizing of Al Quaeda? That his death reignited their mission and fueled their determination more so than ever before?

It’s not “wrong” to take pleasure in bin Laden’s death. I can’t say I’m not happy he’s gone, and I realize there is a chance that this could at least disrupt and possibly even cripple Al Quaeda both organizationally and otherwise, but I can’t be sure. Time will tell as it always does.

Before waving our flags in victory however, it’s useful to consider a few questions:

Do the teachings of interdependence no longer apply when it comes to a person who commits heinous acts?

Are we really separate from Osama bin Laden and the causes and conditions that enabled him to do the things he did?

Does karma have a “beginning” and “ending” point?

What are the possible ramifications of his death?

Do wars and murder really ever lead to peace?

From the Dhammapada:

For hatred can never put an end to hatred;
Love alone can. This is an unalterable law.

Immaculate Preconceptions: Spiritual Practice Minus the Miracles

2011-04-25T11:40:00.001-04:00

It was recently reported that the members of the Committee on Bible Translation have produced a revised version of the King James Bible that refers to Mary as a “young woman” rather than a “virgin”.

From an MSNBC article:

Most controversial is its revision of Isaiah 7:14 to predict that the messiah will be born to a "young woman," not to a "virgin," a characterization that some critics say casts doubt on the miraculous nature of Jesus' birth.

I wonder what would happen if someone stumbled upon some irrefutable evidence that the conception of Jesus Christ was the product of a good old fashioned sexual intercourse and not some divine intervention. Would it render his teachings any less important?

There is similar folklore around the birth of the Buddha, yet no practicing Buddhist (at least I don’t think so?) takes the stories around his conception and birth literally.

Mary (Jesus’ mother) was said to have been visited by an angel that told her she was to give birth to a savior, and legend has it she did so without having to have to do that nasty, mundane sex thing. A few hundred years earlier, Maya (Siddharta’s mother) had a dream in which she was pierced by the tusks of a white elephant, and told that she was to give birth to a savior. And she did so, presumably without any help from her husband.

There are probably just as many miraculous acts attributed to the Buddha as there are attributed to Jesus, and it’s pointless to try and prove or disprove any of them.

I do think these stories demonstrate our tendency to idealize spiritual practice and try to make it somehow “special” and “out there”.

I first starting meditating during the peak of the New Age movement of the 1980’s because I was hell bent on developing extrasensory perception. And there are some who follow certain spiritual paths in the hopes of a euphoric (or at least slightly more pleasant) afterlife that can somehow compensate for all of their earthly trials and tribulations.

I think Buddhism would catch on much more quickly if it promised an eternal and luxurious afterlife. Or if it taught that praying to someone out there would help make a change over here. But that’s not what this is about, and the sense of personal responsibility required for this practice can be very daunting.

It often doesn’t feel good to practice meditation—in fact, more often than not it’s downright uncomfortable. Some days I sit and I’m lucky if I notice two cycles of breath amidst the discursiveness. Then there’s the occasional physical discomfort which I don’t need to go into.

Ultimately, not having to wait around for miracles and knowing there is something we can do anywhere and anytime is more liberating than daunting. There are no promises of otherworldly experiences and no check list of sins to memorize and follow to the letter. There is however a need to somehow conjoin what we experience when we sit with the rest of our lives and to let that better inform our behavior and improve our state of mind.

Nothing magical, just an ongoing process that does seem to yield some nice results, although subtle at times.

I’ll take that over a virgin birth any day.

Arnold Schwarzenegger on Impermanence

2011-04-19T16:00:00.001-04:00

Recently Arnold Schwarzenegger was interviewed and revealed that while he generally feels good about where he is in his life at the moment, the one thing he is having a hard time dealing with at the age of 63 is the fact that he is aging:

"I feel terrific about where I am in my life, when I look back at what I've accomplished," the former governor tells Lloyd Grove. "But I feel so sh*tty when I look at myself in the mirror."

Read the whole article HERE

Aging is inevitable and one of the best teachers we can heed when it comes to impermanence.

Don't Forget to Breathe (Thank you, Thich Nhat Hanh)

2011-04-18T13:42:00.000-04:00

My default position is feeling overextended and like I just don’t have enough time. It’s a state that I easily gravitate to despite many years of practicing and supposedly “knowing better.”

Many people operate this way, and I’m really good at pointing it out in others when I see it happening. But until very recently I hadn’t been fully able to acknowledge this tendency within myself.

Secretly I had this idea that slowing down, pausing, and leaving some gaps open instead of filling every minute of the day with some kind of activity is for those other practitioners, not this one. I’m the exception; I’m just too busy after all. Seminary studies and practice, work, socializing, television. Blame it on the rain, or even the dharma for that matter. Gaps are for saps.

I’ve always been a huge admirer and fan of Thich Nhat Hanh but I secretly found his emphasis on mindful breathing to be redundant:

“Breathing in, I am aware that I am breathing in; breathing out, I am aware that I am breathing out…”

After all, I know that I’m breathing in and breathing out for crying out loud. Isn’t it obvious?

He didn’t just pull this out of nowhere. It’s based on some solid, sensible teachings found in the Anapanasati Sutra.

Off the cushion I’m slowly developing the habit of coming back to my breath in the midst of different activities instead of just plowing through my day. Like any new habit, it takes some getting used to but when I bring my awareness to my breath, even for just a few seconds here and there, it makes a huge difference in how I approach the rest of my day.

Thanks for the reminder, Thich.

Learning Equanimity from Birthers

2011-04-11T16:00:00.006-04:00

Sometimes I learn how to cultivate a positive quality by witnessing how it’s polar opposite gets played out either by myself or people around me.

Lately I’ve had the opportunity to work with cultivating equanimity, specifically with regard to birthers who continue to spread the lie that President Obama may not have been born in this country. On the surface they present this as an issue of legitimacy (since only a natural born U.S. citizen can be president), but even more disturbing are the not-so-subtle undertones of racism implicit within this kind of talk.

Equanimity isn’t just some mellow state where I can be completely chill and detached from whatever is going on around me, but a state of mind that doesn’t discriminate between “me” and “them.” It asks that we recognize that all beings are essentially interconnected and the lines we draw between ourselves are illusory and only serve to cause more suffering for ourselves and others.

It’s easy to practice this in a genuine way when it comes to people who share my political beliefs but I really struggle when it comes to extreme right wing and tea party folks who are on a mission to discredit Barack Obama’s very legitimacy as president, while reminding everyone that perhaps he’s “foreign” (which is really a code word for “black.”)

I easily lapse into discriminating against those that discriminate against others. On a good day I catch myself and instead of just indulging my reactions, I contemplate the fourth Immeasurable quality of equanimity no matter what kinds of crazy might be coming out of the mouths of tea party people.

There’s a fine line between apathy and non-attachment. I used to think that if I didn’t react violently to anyone who opposed my political ideology that it meant I wasn’t really committed to my cause or position. Our culture puts a lot of emphasis on “passion” (a word whose roots mean “to suffer” by the way) but there’s a lot to be said about being dispassionate. I don’t mean apathetic or indifferent, but rather taking a clear and focused approach to righting an injustice rather than getting crazed and divisive about it, which only causes more of the divisiveness and craziness we hope to eliminate.

In pain? Try meditation

2011-04-06T09:20:00.000-04:00

You don't have to be a Buddhist monk to experience the health benefits of meditation. According to a new study, even a brief crash course in meditative techniques can sharply reduce a person's sensitivity to pain.

In the study, researchers mildly burned 15 men and women in a lab on two separate occasions, before and after the volunteers attended four 20-minute meditation training sessions over the course of four days. During the second go-round, when the participants were instructed to meditate, they rated the exact same pain stimulus -- a 120-degree heat on their calves -- as being 57 percent less unpleasant and 40 percent less intense, on average.

Read the entire article HERE

How Drinking Blood from a Skull Can Wake Your Ass Up

2011-04-04T11:31:00.005-04:00

In Korea during the Silla dynasty circa 660 CE, there was this monk named Wonhyo who decided to travel to China with his pal Uisang so they could further their Buddhist studies.

During their long walk one night, they got caught in a torrential downpour and took shelter in a nearby cave where they would sleep until dawn and continue their journey once the storm was over.

Wonhyo woke up in the middle of the night, completely parched, and after groping around in the dark for something to drink he finally came upon a large mug filled with water. He took a few sips and his thirst was instantly quenched. Grateful and relieved, he was then able to sleep peacefully until morning.

As daylight entered the cave he slowly woke up, thirsty once again. With his eyes still closed, Wyonhyo reached for the mug where he’d left it beside his makeshift bed and began drinking from it once more. As he gulped it down he opened his eyes and discovered that he was drinking from a human skull filled with bloody water. There were even some remnants of human flesh still stuck to the bone and more than a few dead flies floating around.

Repulsed, he threw the skull down and as looked around he realized that he’d spent the night in a tomb, not a cave. Decaying bodies were all around him, many of them crawling with maggots and covered with dried blood.

Completely grossed out, he was astonished to discover how powerful his mind was. He quickly awakened to the fact that the difference between a refuge or a nightmare was determined solely by his mind.

Having learned more than enough, he scrapped his plans to go to China, left the priesthood and went back home to teach the dharma as a layman.

Does FAITH Play a Role in Buddhism?

2011-03-28T11:36:00.000-04:00

Big Love was one of my favorite series not only because of the incredible writing and acting, but because of the underlying element of faith that seemed to hold all four members of this polygamist marriage together despite incredible adversity and a constant onslaught of obstacles.

As practitioners of the original, hardcore version of Mormonism, these four people sincerely believed that their unconventional marriage was not only one of love and companionship, but something that spoke to a higher principle that was rooted in their religion. Even though most of those beliefs seem kind of whacked to me, I find people with tremendous faith like this to be somehow very inspiring.

What I love about Buddhism is that we aren’t required to believe anything. In fact, the Buddha encouraged us to test things out for ourselves rather than blindly accept whatever he said. There was no “dude, just take my word for it” that would have prompted lifetimes of doubt and internal struggle. We were given a set of guidelines, observations, and a path to follow and if we do it diligently, there’s not much room for any doubt to occur.

As many have said before, Buddhism isn’t something we believe-- it’s something that we do. This practice stands is sharp contrast to all of the other faith-based spiritual systems (most of which are considered religions), since it’s an action-based and doesn’t revolve around a set of doctrines or commandments.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m not just a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of guy—in fact, I have some major mystical tendencies. However, anything I engage in is based on personal, direct experience rather than belief alone. I don’t partake in anything that doesn’t offer at least the slightest hint or suggestion that it might work, that there might be something to it.

Having said all of that, it recently dawned on me that faith factors into my practice more than I ever realized.

“Faith” is a dirty word in most Buddhist circles since it conjures up images of oceans parting, an external creator God, promises of an afterlife (replete with your physical body), and people flailing about speaking in tongues.

But faith needn’t be so extreme that it requires us to discard reason.

I would have never sat through my first dharma talk at the Shambhala Center in 2006 if I didn’t have at least a little faith that this “basic goodness” thing I was hearing about might in fact really be there. I wouldn’t bother meditating every day if I didn’t know that something good and decent really does seem to come from it: some sanity, clarity, and dignity that wasn’t always there before I started practicing. And I would never do 108 bows if I didn’t know that once I’m done with those, my mind is clearer than crystal. Well, almost.

So interestingly I’m in this place of faith again. It’s not like the faith I tried to muster up when I was a Catholic, when I was encouraged to have a sense of faith rooted in belief rather than reason. Back then I was asked to have faith that Jesus Christ was the human version of God and that he had to be crucified to save us all from our inherently tarnished nature. Kind of hard to swallow but lord knows I tried.

My faith as a Buddhist now is more subtle but much more powerful.

I have faith that my very foundation is one of original goodness rather than original sin. I have faith that love and compassion are always good policy thanks to some very tangible examples I see of it around me all the time. I have faith that meditating and working with the mind are two of the most important things a person can do in life; not just because someone told me this once but because I experience glimpses of this goodness and sanity when I am practicing, and I feel kind of crazy when I’m not.

Faith can and does play a role in our practice. Without it, why would any of us even bother?

Elizabeth Taylor = Big Compassion

2011-03-24T00:02:00.001-04:00

Elizabeth Taylor died yesterday.

During the 1980s, she was one of the first people to speak out publicly about the growing threat of AIDS and the need to treat AIDS patients with compassion and love.

It wasn't cool or trendy to do this just yet, and many people at the time believed it to be an airborne virus or one that could be spread through casual contact. It took President Ronald Reagan many years to even mention the word "AIDS" let alone do anything about it.

May we all learn from her example, and may we all extend compassion and kindness to all people everywhere, no matter how challenging or unpopular it might be.

What Would Buddha Bomb? The New War on Libya.

2011-03-21T11:06:00.004-04:00

I don’t know how to reconcile Buddhist teachings with the realities of international politics and war. Given the current state of world affairs, I wonder if it’s truly possible to practice the precepts or the four immeasurables if you’re a world leader dealing with one foreign crisis after another.

I have no idea why certain situations warrant United States intervention while others don’t seem to matter enough for us to get involved in. For some reason it’s ok that government supporters in Yemen and Bahrain have opened fire on protestors but it’s not ok that Qaddafi was doing the same thing in Libya.

So we’re bombing the #%$@! out of them and ignoring the rest.

Pro-war types argue that military action is appropriate whenever “United States” interests are at stake. So much for interdependence.

Wars are always entered into under the guise of righteousness, noble causes, and necessity, that’s just the way they’re spun. (Remember Operation Iraqi Freedom?)

Perhaps we’ll eventually learn that the act of war is always sewing the seeds that eventually lead to future conditions that create other conflicts and more wars. Not to mention more shooting, more bombing, more death, more destruction, more suffering.

Most people in this world want peace just as they want happiness. But ultimately, peace can never be brought about by war. We’ve had wars that do seem to bring about a desired result, at least initially, but all we’ve done is kicked the can further down the road and eventually someone else ends up tripping over it.

It’s cause and effect, plain and simple.

Maybe one day some world leader will launch an Operation Freedom campaign, sort of a war on war that emphasizes non-violence and encourages everyone to practice, realize the true nature of things, and stop creating the conditions that lead to more discord and suffering.

Meditation as Weeding

2011-03-17T13:32:00.007-04:00

Sitting on a regular basis is sort of like weeding a garden. It takes time and a high degree of patience and persistence.

As you're weeding, a rodent or worm might pop up and scare the bejeezus out of you but you just keep doing it anyway.

As you're meditating, a difficult, repulsive or appealing thought or emotion might spring up out of nowhere but you just sit through it all and keep doing it anyway.

Over time, once the weeds start to get cleared away, you begin to see what you're left with, which is pretty cool.

And you notice what can grow from there.

On iPads and Earthquakes, Desire and Impermanence

2011-03-14T13:42:00.003-04:00

I confess to being somewhat swept up in the recent media frenzy over the new iPad 2. Sure, I already have the original version (which incidentally has more computing power than the Apollo 11 and does everything I want it to) but now there’s something better available, and I even have the choice to get it in white. If I want to.

On Friday, while many of us here in the United States were swept away by the promise of a new, shinier and more powerful iPad, in Japan hundreds of people were being swept away by waves that resulted from a powerful tsunami that was caused by a devastating earthquake.

You wouldn’t know that anything was awry anywhere in the world if you were at 10th Avenue and 18th Street where a huge line of people wrapped around 9 blocks-- and one full hour before the new tablet even went on sale.

Sometimes our view of life is so narrow that we really can’t see past the person right in front of us on the insanely long Apple store line. Sometimes the only way we can relate to our lives is to cram them with gadgets or people or distractions that we think will somehow alleviate the underlying sense of off-ness and unease that permeates a lot of our day to day experience. And sometimes we think that if we stick our heads in the sand and just accumulate lots of good stuff and good feelings, we’ll have some solid ground to stand on and everything will be just fine.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting nice things or having pleasant experiences. I’m still getting an iPad once the hysteria dies down and I won’t be expected to stand in line for more than a few minutes. But the events of this past weekend are a good reminder that all things have built within them the seeds of their own demise.

The instant that a new gadget is rolled off the assembly line, the process of deterioration is already at work. The moment we’re born, our bodies are already beginning the process of aging and death. This goes for houses and buildings and towns and cities and this whole planet. Realizing this doesn’t have to be discouraging or depressing--rather it can help us appreciate what we have when we have it and to see how precious and tenuous our lives are.

This world we live in is constantly offering us the opportunity to understand and witness the reality of impermanence, but somehow our natural inclination is to deny this and distract ourselves until we’re completely disengaged from our own lives and the true nature of things.

While many people in this country are waiting on long lines to get an iPad, thousands in Japan are waiting on line for the bare essentials like food and water. Let’s be mindful of that and not squander our lives.

Please continue to offer tonglen practice to everyone affected by this tragedy.

Releasing the Cows (as told by Thich Nhat Hanh)

2011-03-09T17:42:00.000-05:00

One day the Buddha was sitting in the wood with thirty or forty monks. They had an excellent lunch and they were enjoying the company of each other. There was a farmer passing by and the farmer was very unhappy. He asked the Buddha and the monks whether they had seen his cows passing by. The Buddha said they had not seen any cows passing by.

The farmer said, "Monks, I'm so unhappy. I have twelve cows and I don't know why they all ran away. I have also a few acres of a sesame seed plantation and the insects have eaten up everything. I suffer so much I think I am going to kill myself.

The Buddha said, "My friend, we have not seen any cows passing by here. You might like to look for them in the other direction."

So the farmer thanked him and ran away, and the Buddha turned to his monks and said, "My dear friends, you are the happiest people in the world. You don't have any cows to lose. If you have too many cows to take care of, you will be very busy.

"That is why, in order to be happy, you have to learn the art of cow releasing (laughter). You release the cows one by one. In the beginning you thought that those cows were essential to your happiness, and you tried to get more and more cows. But now you realize that cows are not really conditions for your happiness; they constitute an obstacle for your happiness. That is why you are determined to release your cows."

The Fashion of Compassion: Why it's a Mistake to Rate Human Suffering

2011-03-07T12:09:00.001-05:00

I often wonder if it’s possible that a wealthy housewife on the Upper East Side might be suffering just as much as the homeless man sleeping on the corner of her condo building. She may not be starving or forced to sleep in the cold, but if there was such a thing as a richter scale for human anguish, perhaps she’d rank pretty high even though outwardly it appears that she has everything she wants and needs. Someone like her could easily be overlooked because our pity buttons don’t get pushed easily enough when we look at her due to our own assumptions and biases. After all, how hard can her life be if she can afford that Chanel suit?

A huge part of our practice as Buddhists (I hope) is offering service to others in order to help alleviate their pain. So it’s very tempting to get caught up in what appears to be the most severe forms of suffering while the more subtle ones go by unnoticed and therefore ignored.

Some situations are clearly more pressing than others. People lacking the bare essentials like food, water, clothing and shelter trump all others in my book. But it’s a mistake to be fooled by external appearances and to limit ourselves to those causes or populations that everyone else seems to be flocking to at the moment, or to those forms of service that appeal to our glamorized version of what a good modern day Buddhist ought to be doing.

Compassion shouldn’t devolve into a fashion statement or trend.

It’s important to be candid with ourselves and to explore if we do what we do because we truly want to help others, or is it that we’re engaging in a form of self aggrandizement that masquerades as compassion?

I speak from experience. I’ve dabbled in what is now a very popular form of service in current Western Buddhist culture, and on more than one occasion I caught myself feeling very proud and pleased with myself when discussing the work with others. I’d even get off on the amazed and impressed look on people’s faces after they heard about what I was doing. It really pumped me up. But when I was honest with myself, I realized I wasn’t so great at that particular form of service, and knowing that had an impact on the quality of care I was able to provide. So I switched to something that was a lot less glamorous but much more appropriate for me and what I had to offer based on where I was at in my life at the time.

I’m not proposing that people engaged in the more popular forms of service are doing so for the wrong reasons, because in the end it all comes down to our own individual intentions. And no one else can accurately judge what motivates another person but that person alone. But I think it’s useful to consider how we can best serve others and do whatever it is that we’re uniquely equipped to do best without feeling pressured to be involved in a form of service that might be more popular or showy. There are many ways to be of service, no matter how great or small they might seem.

There are countless opportunities to help people whether we’re in a hospice or a subway, on a street retreat or at Saks Fifth Avenue. We can always help others regardless of how mild or dire their situation appears.

Four Splendors

2011-03-01T23:35:00.002-05:00

There are, O monks, these four splendors. What four? The splendor of the moon, the splendor of the sun, the splendor of fire and the splendor of wisdom. Of these four splendors, this is the best: the splendor of wisdom.

There are, O monks, these four radiances...these four lights...these four lustres...these four sources of illumination. Of these four sources of illumination, this is the best: illumination by wisdom.

(IV, 141-145)

From the Anguttara Nikaya

Do Bigots Deserve Compassion?

2011-02-28T11:09:00.003-05:00

I get that we’re called upon to extend lovingkindness to all beings without discrimination. This looks great on paper and I agree (at least theoretically), but there are some people that make this pretty damned challenging to put into practice.

I really don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about people who spend heaps of time, energy, and millions of dollars working to ensure that a segment of the population doesn’t have the same basic civil rights as everyone else. Or major religious figures that say gay marriage is insidious and dangerous.

The only “in” I can manage to muster up is that those people looking to impede or take away my civil liberties are doing so with the same desire to be happy that I have. What’s behind their actions may be fear, bigotry, an intense reaction against change, and misinterpreted religious dogma, but beneath all of that is the underlying desire for happiness that those of us on the other side want as well.

Strange, isn’t it?

It’s hard to fully realize this when the hatred seems so arbitrary and personal. And really, really mean.

I often get incensed by all the ways that homophobia rears it’s ugly head, especially now as attitudes towards lgbt rights seem to be gradually shifting in this country. But it doesn’t make sense to let myself get consumed by resentment, anger and aversion and allow that to guide my actions.

A lot of political activists of all stripes feel differently, and anger is often their driving force. To be truly effective for any cause, there needs to be something operating besides outrage. Anger can absolutely be a great motivator, but historically the people that are revered the most today and had the greatest impact on social change acted peacefully. Think Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks.

It’s important to be mindful of what’s fueling our actions, not matter what we’re doing or how noble a cause we appear to be fighting for. I see a lot of displaced rage and hostility that gets acted out under the guise of “passion” or “activism” when it’s really just as poisonous as the venom being spewed by bigots. As hard as it sounds, we can be more effective when we stop viewing the world in terms of "us" against "them."

I guess I don’t have to feel guilty if I don’t have compassion for everyone, everywhere, all the time. I struggle with this often but I just try to work with it the best way I can.

So just for the record, I absolutely believe that everyone without exception deserves compassion, even those that act despicably.

What I was trying to convey is that it isn't always easy for me to remember this, and that I don't always feel so compassionately towards people like Fred Phelps and his ilk.

When I consider that people working against the civil rights of others are doing so out of a sincere desire to be happy, just like the rest of us, it helps make this a little less personal and reminds me that all people need to be understood from a wider perspective.

In the Crosshairs: Right Speech and Cyberrhea

2011-02-20T00:45:00.007-05:00

This is cross-posted at the Interdependence Project Blog: The Buddha had no idea how increasingly important Right Speech was going to be some 2,500 years after he first prescribed the Noble Eightfold Path.

There are lots of great things to be said about Facebook, Twitter, and the relatively new ability we have to share our words with the entire world just seconds after they come to mind. Thanks to social networking sites, revolutions can be ignited and carried through successfully, friendships can be made, injustices can be highlighted and hopefully alleviated, and an 88 year old actress can be drafted by her fans to host SNL.

However, sometimes what masquerades as socially concerned speech is merely the online equivalent of a binge and purge session, or worse yet, a means of emptying one’s emotional bowels (aka cyberrhea).

Just because we can put our thoughts and ideas out there immediately doesn’t mean that they aren’t contributing to conditions that eventually help bring about a certain result.

Let’s say that I throw a banana peel onto the sidewalk just a few feet in front of someone as they’re walking towards it. They slip and fall and break their leg. Is it their fault for not being more alert to what’s going on around them or do I share some responsibility for putting something dangerous in their path and creating the conditions that made an accident more likely?

As I see it, deciding on what’s an example of Right Speech can be gauged by considering questions like: does what I’m communicating help cultivate happiness or fear? Is it ultimately helpful or harmful? Are my words truthful or misleading? Am I using imagery or symbolism that inspires Right Action or does the symbology I’m using plant a seed that could lead to something harmful, even indirectly? Am I spouting my political beliefs because I really care about the issue at hand or am I using it as an opportunity to throw the hot-potato-that-is-my-unresolved-rage at others because misery loves company?

Sarah Palin’s use of a crosshairs map is a prime example. Very few people seem willing to go on record as saying that she bears some responsibility for the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords last month. And Palin herself actually used the ensuing brouhaha as an excuse to claim herself the victim and to take absolutely no responsibility whatsoever for her choices.

A less extreme but equally important example is the person who gets heaps of pleasure out of posting the most outrageous, heinous, and morbid news items and/or photos they can find, as often as possible. It’s as if they just want to throw mud at everyone around them rather than having to acknowledge and deal with their muddy insides. If you want some insight into the state of someone’s mind, just read their Facebook status updates over a period of time.

What we say matters. What we expose others to with our status updates and tweets matters. The art we create, the words we write, the symbols we appropriate all matter.

I’m not proposing that we obsess over every little thing that we communicate verbally or otherwise. But I do think it’s important to understand that nothing exists in a vacuum, and we can’t just pay lip service to Right Speech without considering all of its implications in our day to day lives.

Don't Get Caught

2011-02-19T23:13:00.002-05:00

When you throw a net into the sea, fish will be caught, but the water is never caught. Do not become a person who is like a fish. Instead, become a person who is like water.

-Zen Master Dae Haeng Sunim

from No River to Cross: Trusting the Enlightenment that is Always Right Here

2011-02-17T00:11:00.003-05:00

Just maintaining the original, true mind is the supreme practice.

-from The Mirror of Zen

UBER-LOVE: Metta Practice and the Art of True Love

2011-02-14T10:01:00.003-05:00

I was a pretty lonely and unhappy man until I finally understood that the point of a relationship is not to get my needs met all of the time.

I used to have a checklist of what I wanted in a person, what I didn’t want, a good idea of which of those requirements were “non-negotiables,” and a very clear sense of what constitutes a “deal breaker.”

There’s nothing wrong with having preferences, but I ran into big problems when my preferences morphed into requirements that made me rigid and inflexible. My ideas about what kind of relationship would make me happy were so narrow that I was inadvertently pushing away the very intimacy I claimed to want so badly. Instead I was settling for a bootleg version of love over and over again because what looked good on paper didn’t really exist, and whatever came close didn’t pass the test of reality and time.

I used to make some glaringly inappropriate dating decisions because fear and loneliness were fueling my choices. Underneath my strict personality requirements was a desire to establish some kind of solidity in my life to help soothe the underlying sense of off-ness and perpetual dissatisfaction I felt with things as they were.

I was terrified of my loneliness and tried all kinds of ways to numb it out. I really couldn’t bare it very well until I finally came around to simply practicing with it. Just hanging out with my fear and loneliness instead of trying to mask it over with another bad relationship helped make it more manageable and to see it for what it really was. I no longer feel like I have to react from a reference point of incompleteness or loneliness, and for the first time in my life I’m in a relationship that works.

Metta practice in particular teaches me that love isn’t just something that always feels nice and fluffy, but something I can actually do. By offering love unconditionally to myself, I’m gradually learning how to offer it to others without conditions, guarantees, and without the expectation of receiving something in return.

Considering a romantic relationship as a vehicle through which most of my needs could be met always left me frustrated, resentful, and unhappy. Shifting my view of relationships as being constant opportunities to learn about myself and other people never leaves me disappointed.

The Buddha taught metta practice, or lovingkindness mediation to his monks as a way to deal with the fear they felt after witnessing some ghostly visions and noises in the forest. When they returned to the forest after receiving this instruction, the practice of extending the energy of unconditional love so charmed the spirits that they did a complete 180 and ended up serving and protecting the very monks that once tried to scare away.

Practicing metta helps us develop a truer sense of what love is. It already exists within us and everyone else but ironically we spend a lot of time and energy looking for it outside somewhere instead of aspiring to share it. We don’t need a shopping checklist if the fridge is already full. When we practice this way we can see the limitations of what often tries to pass off as love--neediness, passion, and the desire to posses and control.

May all beings be free from fear, the causes of fear, and the results of fear.

This is also cross-posted at the Interdependence Project Blog

Subway Dharma: How the Third Rail Inspires my Meditation Practice

2011-02-07T10:48:00.005-05:00

I'll be a regular contributor to the Interdependence Project blog every Monday, beginning today.

This is also posted on there today.

Recently I was revisited by some difficult emotions I assumed no longer had a hold on me, feelings I thought I’d long since conquered through maturity, a regular meditation practice, and 87 dharma books.

But they had returned with a vengeance, just as strong as ever, testing my alleged progress. It was a reminder for me that life gets manageable at best, and not all sorted out just the way I’d like it be in my neat little compartments and convenient time frames.

It was a good wake up call since I’d been getting too comfortable in what I thought was this ultra-Zen unflappable state of mind. While I often tell people that meditation doesn’t make us immune to painful emotions, I secretly thought I was one of the few exceptions--that I was somehow above them, like I’d been doing it all so “right” for so long that I could take a pass on experiencing some extremely unpleasant feelings and mind states while the rest of humanity was doomed to suffer like mere mortals. (The poor sods).

So in my state of distress I spent a lot of time last week looking to the sights and sounds of this urban environment for some insight, some explanation, or better yet some answers.

My biggest source of inspiration materialized in the unlikely form of a shiny new L train at the 8th Avenue subway stop. As I was waiting for the train to arrive I read a small pamphlet that was touting the efforts at energy conservation on the part of the MTA (Manhattan Transit Authority).

Apparently these newish subway cars have a regenerative braking system--which means that when a train brakes to a stop, it throws energy into the third rail that helps it move forward again.

Hearing about this revolutionary piece of green technology greatly satisfied my inner spiritual geek. I instantly saw a correlation between how these new trains operate and how I can make the crappy parts of my life work to my advantage. I could choose not to use them as an excuse to feel sorry for myself and to engage in avoidance behaviors that only served to inflame the situation I really wanted to alleviate. Feeling stuck doesn’t have to be an end point; it can be a springboard.

I don’t have to be so easily deflated every time something appears to knock me off course or shows me that I’m not as perfect as I thought I was. Those things that trip me up the most can be turned into something useful, something that adds fuel to my practice and motivates me to stay with it no matter what.

So instead of repeatedly replaying the story in my head about what was wrong with my life, I concentrated on the underlying emotions and physical sensations that were causing me to feel anxious, isolated, and depressed. I turned my focus towards my internal emotional and physical experience instead of rehashing the drama in my head about why I thought I felt the way I did. Avoiding those feelings through my inner storytelling and usual methods of distraction had just been making them worse. Giving them my full attention actually helped them to gradually subside.

With a slight shift of perspective I could see that the sour mood I’d been in all week was really grist for the mill of my practice--not a hinderance to it. Rough patches like these aren’t obstacles to practice but rather something to be practiced with.

Carnegie Hall Meditation Practice

2011-01-21T11:09:00.001-05:00

On Monday night once I got on stage at Carnegie Hall and took my seat next to the three other readers, my heart began pounding so hard and fast I thought it would pop out of my chest and splatter all over the harp player just a few feet in front of me.

I'd been very calm all day up until then but once I was out there and the orchestra started playing GLORIA I was a hot mess.

In seconds I went from being this calm, Zen alpha guy to a complete wreck, totally self absorbed and worried about how I’d sound, how I’d look, how I’d manage to get the four lines of Sanskrit out of my heaving chest. I can’t remember the last time I felt so anxious about something.

Unexpectedly, one of the best real-life opportunities to put my practice into action fell right onto my lap. I realized the only sane thing to do at that point was to breathe and immerse myself in the sensations of those terrifying thirteen minutes before it was my time to go up to the podium and read. I did so even though it was counterintuitive--my mind and body wanted to get carried away with the experience that my small self was having.

There was this mini-drama going on in my head with regard to how potentially embarrassing this situation could be, how anxious I used to get as a young boy, etc. All of this crap trying to pull me out of what was essentially an incredible once in a lifetime experience that was passing me by because I was too busy being wrapped up in my scary little story.

I allowed my self to breathe deeply, I concentrated on the physical sensations and everything going on around me, I heard the beautiful music coming from the choir and musicians. Once I stood up and walked to the podium something kicked in: my breathing returned to normal, I felt sane, and I managed to pronounce the lines of Sanskrit without sounding like a complete dork.

Mission accomplished.

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Here is some video footage of the first part of the piece (from the world premier in London last summer, not the one I was at on Monday):