Christmas as Cultural Oppression

Despite about our many hopes and fears about the current political situation, Christmas is barreling down on us all like a Mac truck driven by an insane maniac in red pajamas. We are all pedestrians in the crosswalk of the dream who can’t quite move fast enough to get out of the way. For many of us, Christmas easily becomes a time of enforced gaiety and compulsory consumption. I find myself skating on the thin ice of the pond of resentment and loneliness. The holidays are a perfect time to feel terminally different and fully left out.

Whatever we are planning or doing can never live up to the images many of us carry: an unblemished nuclear family sitting around a meticulously decorated Christmas tree (neither too big nor too small) opening truly thoughtful presents that bring great joy to all. Who can compete with the images of holiday perfection that tramp through our heads like malicious sugar plum fairies?

For me, it takes an intentional act of defiance to break through the oppression of these cultural expectation and stay human amidst the rush and flurry.

One friend told me she spent last Saturday making Christmas decorations—in itself not a very remarkable activity. But she said she did it with a Syrian refugee family that recently moved into her community. She made the trip to Michael’s and came prepared with all the supplies. The whole family gathered to spend the time trimming the tree while the mother sang Christmas carols in Arabic. Who knew that even in Syria, Christmas is celebrated as a secular holiday.

Another friend has decided to spend Christmas alone. Though he has several offers, he has decided to spend a quiet day at home with his friend. I was amazed to hear of his intention as I wasn’t aware that this is was an allowable option in polite society. Of course we are always alone wherever we go. Even in the midst of friends and family, we are still an island of consciousness in the midst of the large sea of life. But we are also always part of the family of human life—touched by the nourishings waters of aliveness at every point of our circumference. Whether separate or together, we are always held and supported by each other.

I like the original meanings of Advent better: a time of waiting in the dark—with hope. Not so much about the baby Jesus or about the presents, but about the deepening darkness. The days grow shorter and we truly don’t know what is coming. Our job is to wait in the darkness—to wait right where we are.

The cultural myth and the truth of human experience is that only through this dark waiting will the light blossom and our new life begin.

The Middle Way

“Personally, I’m still figuring out how to keep my anger simmering — letting it boil over won’t do any good, but it shouldn’t be allowed to cool. This election was an outrage, and we should never forget it.” This was the conclusion of Paul Krugman’s op-ed piece* ‘The Tainted Election” in the NY Times on December 12^th.

Since the election, I have been torn between acceptance and outrage. I want to go back to my normal life. If Clinton had won, I would take a passing interest in her cabinet appointments but already be fading back into a kind of benign and general approval. But now I read the NY Times every morning as a way of staying engaged. It’s a little like waking up and sticking my finger into a light socket.

Every morning, I get shocked. I try not to overdo it. Being lost in despair is not helpful. One of my coping strategies to balance my emotional state is to escape to the sports page. Fortunately, my New England Patriots (those paragons of virtue and steadfast excellence and trickery) are doing well. But then I suspect myself of being the Roman citizen who distracted himself from the excesses of the empire by following the gladiatorial games at the coliseum. It’s all tainted.

My other strategy is meditation. Stopping and breathing. In the stillness of formal meditation and throughout the day, I make a practice of consciously turning toward the immediacy of life. This sensation. This emotion. This person.

Times are dire. The forces of greed, anger and ignorance have been unleashed in terrifying channels. But this is not new to human experience. These are the times that call us to practice more deeply what we say we believe in.

Not all the news is bad. Ten members of the electoral college have asked for an intelligence briefing on Russian intervention in the election before they have to officially vote Trump in. And Republicans are defying Trump’s irrational dismissal of evidence of Russian hacking and calling for an independent investigation.

This buoys my spirits, but then I think of the turmoil that would ensue if the election results are overturned by the electoral college. And Trump would not sit idly by as Clinton has done.

How do we behave with integrity in a system that has been compromised? How can we support our underlying democratic system and resist the forces that have taken it over so successfully?

Of course, the system was taken over long before Trump arrived on the scene. The forces of greed, ignorance and fear have been driving our democracy (and human behavior) since its inception and have merely been magnified over the years. Trump’s current ascendancy is both reaction to and culmination of the economic oligarchy that pulls so many of the levers in our wonderful and flawed country.

Let us be vigilant and keep our anger at injustice simmering. Let us recommit to the preciousness of life and to using our power to relieve the suffering of so many around us.

Probably good advice, no matter who is president.

Full Krugman Article

The Four Foundations of Mindfulness: A Very Brief Presentation

The Buddhist teaching of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness was first set out in the Satipattana Sutra as part of the large collection of texts known as the Tripataka. These texts, that purport to be the words of the Buddha, were first written down in the first century BCE in northern India. The four foundations of mindfulness are one of the sources of the modern mindfulness movement that has become such a cultural force over the past decade.

Modern mindfulness is often confused with feeling better. Time magazine periodically runs a cover story on mindfulness that shows an attractive young woman serenely hovering above all worry. She is the same iconic image that is used to sell everything from diamonds to deodorant. Now the image of youth, ease and beauty is offered in the service of selling the latest way to be happy and calm.

It is true that we all like to feel good and that the practice of mindfulness can lead to an improvement in our appreciation of our life. But the original mindfulness teachings were offered as a way for helping us see into the true nature of human experience and thereby find our freedom.

The first three foundations of mindfulness are: 1) awareness of breath and body, 2) awareness of the rising of the gut reactions of like, dislike and neutral, and 3) awareness of mental states. The fourth foundation of mindfulness is experiencing the Buddhist teachings through our own experience. This points to one unique aspect of Buddhist teachings; they are not presented as doctrine that we are supposed to believe but rather they are pointers to help us move closer to our own experience.

All Buddhist teaching, as I suppose all spiritual teaching, is a path to help us see into the true nature of reality. The ultimate purpose of the study and practice of the four foundations is not about feeling more comfortable, but about being free. When we see clearly what is so, everything may remain the same, but we are free right where we are.

Practicing the four foundations, we can begin to see for ourselves that everything is continually arising and passing way—the weather, our feelings, the mountains, and even ourselves.   We can also notice that dissatisfaction is unavoidable—sometimes we like what is happening in and around us, and sometimes we don’t. We also can realize that even the person we think we are is constantly changing—we too are of the nature of appearing and disappearing.

We can also know for ourselves that human life is shot through with grace—that even in the midst of difficulty and dailyness there is the possibility of seeing through the veil of ordinariness. And maybe, just for a small moment, we forget ourselves and remember that we have never been separate from the mysterious source that sustains and holds us.

Alone Together

Yesterday, we spent the day here at the Temple studying and practicing. In the morning we explored the Fourth Foundation of Mindfulness, then we ate lunch together and did some caretaking work around the Temple. In the afternoon we practiced together in silence: sitting and walking meditation along with listening to a Dharma talk and meeting individually with a teacher.

We always remind ourselves at the beginning of every retreat that ‘Everything is practice.’ We might also say: ‘Everything is sacred.’ While this is always true, in our daily lives we’re often so caught up that we forget. So yesterday was a retreat day—a day of stepping away from the rush and flurry of our lives. A day of coming together to consciously turn toward something deeper. A day of remembering that every moment of our life is precious.

Now I must confess that a day like this sounds quite different than it actually is. The truth is that any retreat includes the whole range of human experience. You don’t get zapped by a magic wand and walk around feeling spiritually uplifted. (Though that does sometimes happen.) When we say ‘everything is sacred,’ the key word is ‘everything.’ This is not an invitation to try to be holy or deeply centered, but rather to meet our ‘ordinary’ experience in a new way. Everyday life is an utter miracle. The source of the breath is unknowable.

This conscious coming together to turn toward something deeper is, I believe, the essence of religion and a necessary element of any spiritual practice. Though there are individual practices—the hermits in the deep mountains and the desert fathers in the wilderness, even a daily solitary prayer or meditation; these all take place in the context of a larger tradition that gives meaning and support to the activity.

And even when we come together, we each must walk our path alone. We each must work out our lives ‘in fear and trembling.’ But we are alone together. This is the gift of community. When we find that our anxiety and self-doubt are shared by others, we are no longer alone in our aloneness.   This is the gift of joining together with other human beings to turn toward the unimaginable source of our lives.

So I would encourage us all to find ways to do these two things: 1) take time at regular intervals to step away from the dailyness of our lives to turn toward what is most important, and 2) come together with other human beings in ways that can help us remember we are not alone–we are alone together.

Appreciating Disturbance

Yesterday I wrote about Trump as the devious one who is disturbing so many of us – both in the world around us and in our own psyches. My friend and colleague James Ford even claims that Trump has somehow rented a room in his mind and is causing trouble there.

From the Process Work perspective (thank you Arny Mindell), anything that appears in the world and in our awareness is necessary in some way. Our true human work is not about trying to control what is happening, but rather to understand and support the deeper wisdom of what is arising.

So when something appears that is disturbing, rather than blaming the disturber or even trying to smooth out the disturbance, we are encouraged to ask “What is it in our world that needs to be disturbed?” “What is it in me that needs to be disturbed?” Buddhist teacher, writer and thinker David Loy asked these same questions in a wonderful and provoking talk he gave on November 22^nd in Boulder, CO:

So how much has the election of Donald Trump shaken us up, and maybe, in the process, is it waking us up in a way that the election of Hillary Clinton would not have done? I am struck by something that the philosopher-provocateur Slavoj !i”ek expressed very succinctly: “The real calamity is the status quo.” In which case, if people are responding, showing their dissatisfaction with the status quo, even if they are doing it for different reasons than I do, is that expression of dissatisfaction what’s needed? Loy Talk

Loy goes on to reflect on how difficult it is for those of us who are so comfortable to wake up to the urgency of our global environmental situation. Most of us agree we are in the middle of a catastrophic change in the capacity of our planet to sustain life as we know it. Ice caps are melting. Species are disappearing. Weather is destabilizing.

But, day-to-day, our lives are pretty comfortable. This morning, I sit in an old plush chair in my warm house. The sky is dark but a lamp lights the room. I drink a cup of fresh tea and tap away at my laptop, reflecting on the political situation of the moment from a comfortable distance. How can those of us who have such privilege understand the urgency of things? How do we overcome fierce power of our relatively comfortable status quo?

I don’t have any good answers to this question.

We human beings actually control so little of what happens in our lives. But we do control, to some degree, where we give our energy and attention. Perhaps we can begin (and continue) to turn our attention more directly to the very real suffering in our world and of our world. The vast majority of the world’s population does not live in the opulent circumstances that many of us do. Though clean water effortlessly comes out of the tap in my house, can I remember this is not so for everyone and may not always be so for me? How can I remember this vividly enough to be disturbed?

It might also serve us well to remember that all of us are in the rather desperate situation of a terminal medical diagnosis. All of us will die in the near future. The status quo will not continue. We will certainly lose everything we have. Whether in one week or one year or eighty years, I guarantee that when death comes to each one of us, it will be too soon.

So in our brief time here on this surprisingly fragile planet, let us allow ourselves to be disturbed enough to come together to take action that expresses both our courage and our compassion.

Master Tactician Disturbs the Field

The new landscape of my political/cultural life is much more dramatic than it’s been in quite a while. I’m finding it incredibly easy to be sucked in to the drama that seems to be a part of Trump’s operating style.

The other day, Trump lashed out at Chuck Jones, the president of United Steelworkers Local 1999, who had the audacity to publically challenge Trump’s claims of how many jobs he saved in Indianapolis. Trump lashed out on Twitter, accusing Jones of doing “a terrible job representing workers.” I found this enormously upsetting. Isn’t this just like Trump to use his power to bully someone who speaks up against him? Is this what will happen to all of us who speak up?

I am consistently disturbed by Trump’s use of Twitter to personally attack people who disagree and to make baseless accusations (voter fraud) that are presented as fact, but never backed up or even rationally discussed. But I am beginning to suspect that this is exactly the purpose of the tweets: to keep us disturbed and off balance.

His tweets attacking the cast of ‘Hamilton’, who had directed a restrained but pointed speech at VP Pence, just happened to coincide with the announcement of the $25 million settlement Trump University agreed to pay disgruntled students. The tweets received much more attention than the admission of fraud at his eponymous university. (BTY – I have always wanted to use eponymous in a real-life sentence. Mission accomplished.)

I notice that the arousal of my anger when Trump appears to act impulsively and vindictively comes with a deep sense of frustration and helplessness. This man is SO bad and SO narcissistic. What can be done? We’re all screwed.

The sense of urgency and personal threat arouses my primitive brain that then comes on-line and begins to choose between the three options at its disposal: fight, flight or freeze. Strategic, long-term thinking goes out the window. All I want to do is wring his neck. Or I am so disgusted with the whole mess, I just want to turn away. Or the overloaded circuits in my brain simply shut down and I move into a pleasant state of numbness. While all these responses are normal and predictable, they may not be helpful. Living in a state of constant arousal or full shut-down does not improve my capacity to act effectively nor the quality of my life.

I have to admit to a grudging admiration for Trump’s tactics. Getting your opponents so upset that they can’t think straight seems like a winning strategy. (If we ignore the terrible costs in the disruption of relationships and reason.) This is, of course, an ancient political strategy but Trump, whether consciously or not, seems to have taken it to a whole new level.

Trump is the primitive brain whisperer. He touches the deep angers and frustrations of the disempowered as well as the fears and insecurities of the elites who thought they knew were in charge.

We would do well to proceed with caution and awareness.

The Restless Realm Revisited

Last night, I found myself awake in the middle of the night. I often wake for short periods, but usually drift back to sleep without much trouble. But then there are the times, like last night, when I’m caught in a realm of restlessness and unease. I find this state of sleeplessness very unpleasant. I don’t have physical pain, but I’m unquiet in body and mind. I switch from side to back, then back to side, then side to side. Nothing feels quite right. Awake against my will in the middle of the night.

I can’t help looking at the clock. It’s a little before one a.m. and my mind is full of this unpleasant energy. Like an impatient animal in a cage, I pace back and forth in my mind. No place to rest. I just want to fall back into sleep, but I’m deeply unsettled. Someone has done something to me, I just can’t figure out who it is or what they have done. I feel very righteous and set upon by others.

I have been here often enough that I recognize this place. I am in the restless realm. One of the ‘tells’ is that I find myself repeatedly imagining conversations with others. In these conversations, I look to find the exact right words that will lead to my complete vindication. My imaginary opponents will realize the error their ways and finally see the truth of my position. Within this land of blame, the only way out is to locate the problem and then find the solution. My mind flits from problem to problem with no resolution.

I know this is often a difficult state to emerge from. It is very compelling and feeds on itself. Each thought leads to the next in a perfectly solipsistic world—a world that has impeccable internal logic that sustains its existence. I know the thoughts of escape themselves are part of the very problem they appear to be trying to solve.

I turn my attention to my body and breath. I know I am caught and if I can just turn my attention to something else, I can escape. I manage a few conscious breaths, then find myself back in the maze of thought and emotion. I try repeating the name of the Bodhisattva of compassion with little success. Sometimes these tools work. But now, though I do my best, after only a short time, I’m back to the worrying.

Nearly an hour has already gone by. I feel no closer to getting back to sleep than when I woke. The night is passing and I’m not sleeping. I’ll be tired tomorrow. I know I am in this realm, but I can’t find a way out.

Having run out of options, I finally turn toward the possibility of just being where I am. This always sounds logical and easy when I read it in a book, but given the strength of my dislike for this state, practicing it is quite a challenge. The question my Zen teacher gave me so many years ago floats into my awareness: “What is there here you have never noticed before?” So, in the middle of my dislike and discomfort, I try to notice the shape and texture of this place. What are the edges? What’s the worst part of being here?

I also remember another Zen teacher’s training phrase: “This is how people sometimes feel.” I’m slightly comforted to remember that this difficult place of sleeplessness is one of the places human beings go. It’s not just me. There are countless others who, at this very moment, may be in this same realm.

Nearly two thirty now. It’s still not pleasant, but since all attempts at escape have been thwarted, I use my great Zen powers to stay where I am. I have a slight memory of something easing and feeling a glimmer of hope.

I look at the clock again. It’s still dark, but it’s five o’clock. Where did the time go? I must have found my way out without knowing it. I say a quick prayer of thanks and head for the bathroom.

Reaching Across the Divide (just a little)

I had my first political discussion with someone who voted for Trump yesterday. I’m not proud that it’s taken me a month to even begin to make connection with ‘those people.’ It’s partly living in the liberal republic of Massachusetts, partly the wisdom of not wanting to increase the divide through anger and blame, and partly a symptom of the social isolation endemic in our country. Personal choices of media and friends that agree with us are supported by the unconscious social structures of privilege, race and wealth. We are spared and deprived of the disturbance of connecting with people who see the world differently.

I suppose it has always been like this. For many ancient peoples, the word for their tribe was also the word for ‘human being.’ In our early history, nearly all of our time was spent in our tribe. Our identification with our tribe was a key to our survival. The idea of having multiple truths or of needing to be in relationship with people who didn’t share our views was mainly irrelevant to the urgent task of getting by.

But back to my conversation. I didn’t know for sure that my friend had voted for Trump. She had said earlier in the election that though she was a long-time Republican, she couldn’t bring herself to vote for Trump. But, given the election results, I suspected her resolve might have shifted. Unconsciously, I also picked her because she is a member of many of my ‘tribes.’ She is highly educated, about my my age, a teacher, and (probably most importantly) she is an enneagram nine.

The enneagram is a personality typing system that says it can be helpful to group people into nine different categories that describe their basic relationship to the world. Of course we are all so much more, but it does seem true that we all have natural tendencies that appear in many of our interactions. All the nine types are equal and necessary. Though I am just an enneagram dabbler, I have sometimes found it helpful to remember that even within our tribe of the moment, all human beings see the world through radically different lenses.

Both my friend and I are enneagram nines. Nines are mediators and peacemakers. We just want people to get along. We don’t like conflict and are willing to do what we can to accommodate different perspectives in service of keeping the peace. In short, a perfect person to select for my first conversation with ‘the other side.’

Our conversation was rich and rewarding. We touched lightly on our different perspectives prior to the election, but focused more on current hopes and concerns. When I asked her to reassure me that this wasn’t an unmitigated disaster, she said: “Well, at least we’ll have some big change.” I had heard this before. Many who voted for Trump did not vote in favor of his bigotry and lying, but rather voted for the need for a radical change in the country.

My friend also spoke of her growing awareness of how many voices in our country are not heard, of the black minister of her church in the south who spoke of getting pulled over while driving on the highway for no other apparent reason than the color of her skin. She shared her concern for the small but visible radical fringe that has been emboldened by Trump and how reasonable people needed to stand up to violations of rights and respect.

We didn’t push deeply into the areas of difference. We reaffirmed our mutual respect and long-time relationship. But perhaps more importantly, I think we inspired each other to stand up to institutions and practices that are closed and disrespectful to ‘others.’

I know there are many more conversations required of me and not all of them will be so safe and accommodating. But for me, this was a good first step.  How about for you?

It’s Not Just Personal

The Buddha’s first teaching, which came to be known as the First Noble Truth, is that all human beings suffer. At first glance this may appear to be a pessimistic view of life, but looking closer we can see that it is simply a representation of how it is for human beings. No matter who we are or what we have, all of us encounter experiences and mind states that range from slightly uncomfortable to experiences that terrify us and cause us great pain.

We meet the darkness within ourselves and in the world. One form that this darkness sometimes takes is the feeling of personal brokenness. At the heart of it all, we begin to realize that we really don’t like or approve of who we are. We secretly know there is something inherently wrong or broken about us that makes us uniquely different and separates us from all the other human beings on the planet.

This particular state seems to arise from our propensity to compare our internal experiences with the external appearances of others. Our internal states are widely varied and, at times, confused and chaotic, whereas the external appearance of other human beings is much more composed and stable. We feel confusion and self-doubt, while others simply go about their business. What’s wrong with us that we feel like such a mess? Why do we feel lonely, sad, angry, ashamed, lost (etc) when everyone else seems to be doing fine?

From this place, the more intensely we feel our uncomfortable internal state, the more isolated we feel. One of the things I often remind people when I meet with them in these places is: It’s not just personal. While our feelings and internal states can be traced to specific causalities in the recent or primordial past, they are also simply part of the experience of being human.

From the personal perspective, my difficult feelings are a signal that something is wrong with me or with my environment. The course of action is to figure out what is wrong and to make it right. This is partially true and sometimes very helpful. Internal states can alert us to things that need to be addressed and give us the motivation to step out into the world and make changes.

On the other had, difficult mind-states are a guaranteed part of being human. Our sense of brokenness is a feeling that almost every human who has ever lived has experienced. Our loneliness and sense of isolation is what links us to all the other human beings on the planet.

When we are reminded that what we are encountering is what human beings sometimes encounter, it can sometimes allow us to ease up on ourselves a little. Whatever we are experiencing, is just what we are experiencing. This may help us avoid the extra layer of suffering which is the thought that not only am I suffering, but I shouldn’t be suffering.

Then we can begin to explore the whole range of human experience. We don’t have to avoid any part of being human and are free to be at home right where we are.

Back From Retreat

We’ve just finished a three-day meditation retreat here at Boundless Way Zen Temple. We host five Zen retreats a year; ranging from three days to three weeks. Each one is an opportunity to enter deeply into the experience of being human. As you may guess, these retreats are both wonderful and incredibly challenging.

Sitting still and walking in silence allows us to become more aware of the thoughts, emotions and sensations that are constantly arising and passing away in our experience. In the Zen tradition of Buddhism, we’re not trying to get rid of, or even control. what arises. We are simply practicing the discipline of not getting carried away by what is arising. Or more accurately, we are practicing getting carried away and then returning.

Zen is not a religion of beliefs or creeds. You do not have to believe anything to join in. The teachings of Zen Buddhism are all considered to be pointers to turn us to our own experience where we can see for ourselves what it is like to be human. The wisdom that guides us is not somewhere else, but arises in the immanence of the moment itself.

I always emerge from these retreats astonished, grateful, and slightly disoriented. I am astonished at the beauty of life itself—at the way life is always giving itself so generously to us all. Now in the form of the snow gently falling. Now in the form of the slight ache in my back as I slump in the chair with my computer on my lap. When I meet what is here without wishing it were otherwise, I see everything is indeed sacred.

And I am grateful to be part of the human intention to wake up. We are all called by life itself to wake up to something beyond our small self-interest—beyond our selfish complaints and wish for immediate comfort. The forces of self-interest are strong, both within and without. But on retreat we are so clearly working together in the silence to remember and open to the source of life that sustains and contains us all.

And I return to everyday life slightly disoriented. I often feel like I am putting my life on like a suit of slightly strange clothes. I see that I am NOT the things I do or the things I possess. All of this doing and having are temporary condition and not the essential thing. So I put on the clothes of my many roles with new appreciation of their ephemeral quality. And I vow to remember the essential as I move as kindly and truthfully as I can through this amazing and varied world of life.