When All Is Lost

About two weeks ago I had a nightmare. I'm not quite sure why, I think I had a cold at the time and wasn't sleeping well. In the nightmare I was being chased by a gang who were desperately trying to kill me. Right before I woke up I was surrounded by men holding knives and seemingly in the last few seconds of my life. It was terrifying.

Even though I was dreaming I was in a state of absolute panic and fear. It wasn't the kind of fear that would afford me the time to be mindful. It wasn't a matter of looking deeply into my fears, because I was overwhelmed by a primal need to protect my life, to fight for survival.

Suddenly all the sutras, all the books I've read, all concepts, dharma debates and practices all became meaningless. What I needed was to see my family one last time. My wife and adorable daughter. I needed a warm hand to pull me up and out of my terror. I had no energy to think, the fear was so overwhelming it paralyzed me.

Zen is quite a practical religion, and my practice would tell me to just act and not let the fear itself become an obstacle to a necessary action. There are many instances when that is very sound advice. Yet when death seems inevitable, that strategy hardly seems useful if even possible.

When Jesus was on the cross he exclaimed "My Father, Why have you forsaken me?". As our lives are being taken from us, our reaction is to feel alone, abandoned and helpless.

When all else is lost, where do you turn? It struck me at this point that perhaps Zen practice isn't enough. Maybe my practice isn't strong enough, or perhaps I am just honest to realize that I am not strong enough. No matter how able we are to tame our minds, sometimes in a state of desperation what you need the most is comfort. You need to regress to a child, and submit your worries to your mother's capable hands.

Pure Land Buddhists, and many other Buddhists also, chant the name of Amitabha Buddha when death is imminent. Supposedly to be reborn in the Pure Land, but I think there is more to it than that. It is not an egotistic practice, it is an act of devotion.

As a baby we are helpless, yet somehow more content than we are the rest of our lives. Our lives are entrusted to our mother, who feeds and nurtures us. This type of submission is the deepest form of devotion, the deepest faith we will ever experience. Yet when a baby is distressed she cries 'mama'. To say that this is purely a survival tactic is superficial, I think, because reaching out gives us hope, and where there is hope there can be peace.

For all the instruction we receive on following the eightfold path, we should never see it as a skill to attain. When fear is overwhelming you are in no state to look to practice a skill. If anything, Zen is about letting go of skills, letting go of notions. This is very important. There is an excellent book by Shunryu Suzuki called 'Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind' that emphasizes that very point.

Letting go is exactly what we do as a baby: we let go of our need to survive, we surrender it to our mother, and then we are as peaceful as a sleeping baby.

Many of the most devout Christians, Muslims, the most faithful of theistic religious followers, have learnt how to let go. They submit their worries, their fears, to God, to Jesus, to Mary, or to Allah. By letting go they are able to live in the present moment in peace. This isn't something to be dismissed, even if you have never followed a theistic religion.

As Zen practitioners we shouldn't deny our human state. We are loving creatures. We need companionship, not just books, empty words or ability to sit alone in meditation. In our deepest moment of need, we need someone to carry us away. We don't need practice, we need someone. This is why we have Amida Buddha, God, Jesus, Mary... that is why we need a personification, a person to submit our troubles to and to carry us away when we most need someone to be there for us. It is a most fundamental aspect of our humanity and should be embraced, not transcended. It should be transformed into love for a greater being, into energy that can lift you up into their arms.

Devotion itself can be Dharma. It was said in a Zen proverb that anything that is not of the self is Dharma. Submitting yourself to another is thus Dharma. Submitting your fears actually enables you to be mindful. It is a deep practice that should be embraced.

As Carl Jung pointed out, we should never deny our own roots. If we grew up in a Christian environment, then we should embrace the figure of Jesus or Mary. If we feel more comfortable embracing Buddha then we should embrace them. But we should always have someone that, in our weakest moment, we can submit our fears to. Perhaps you won't realize this until you are faced with overwhelming fear, but I can bet it will happen one day.

Zen tells us that words and concepts are not sufficient to allow us to experience reality. In our weakest state we realize just how true that is.

It took this nightmare for me to understand how important it is to not see Zen as something to be mastered or even attained. You're not studying for a degree in psychology. Just as how you arrived, on your deathbed you have nothing. As we are reading we should always pause to remind ourselves that there is nothing to learn there, but everything to let go.

But in a state of fear, even the thought of letting go is not enough. Letting go doesn't help you from feeling lonely.

Mindfulness is often described as the practice of observing our thoughts as if they were flowing down a river and we were sitting on the riverbed watching. And this works. Devotion doesn't change that. It just means that at the end of the river is God, or Buddha, or Mary, with a glowing, happy face and wide open arms. When you have no strength, they are your strength. We let go of our thoughts, but we know who will receive them. They will watch your thoughts flow down the river with you.

And when all is lost, in your final moments, you simply fall into that river, and flow into their arms.

Even in moments in daily life this can be useful, because the burden of looking deeply is shared - now you have someone watching your thoughts also, so you will want to only have pure thoughts, you will strive to become better.

Devotion can be a wonderful thing, and (contrary to some of my previous posts) I am beginning to think that having a person to look to, and to devote yourself to, can give you more strength to practice, not less, and someone to fall back onto when all else is lost.

Slowing Down

When we're driving down the freeway, going perhaps 70 or 80mph, our eyes lock onto objects further and further away the faster we go. The world around us disappears, and all that we see is our destination. While we are traveling where are we? We are neither at our destination, nor are we on the way because we do not see what is on the way. We are nowhere. Tuning out reality, neglecting the world that is here now, all we do is set ourselves up for accidents and tragedy.

If we live our life at 80mph we are not alive in reality. We live instead in a world of delusional goals. If we spend today worrying about tomorrow, or dwelling on yesterday, then with that mentality a true day is never experienced. Where we set our sights is the difference between living and not living.

If your mind is the car, and your body is the surroundings, the question becomes whether your mind is truly in your body. A phrase people often use is "you are a million miles away". How accurate this is. When you are not alive in the present moment, your mind leaves your body. You live in a true out of body experience. The mind escapes from the body and tries to live in its own world, in samsara, maya, an illusory world. The goal of mindfulness, the goal of Zen Buddhism, is to bring together your mind and your body. We do this by slowing down, and looking deeply.

When the car is going so fast the driver no longer sees what is around him, what happens to the car? Likewise when your mind is preoccupied with tomorrow, what happens to today? What would we do if the orange tree didn't bear any fruit because it was too busy worrying about whether next year's summer will be warm enough? What would we do if the sun stopped burning because it was worrying about whether it will exist billions of years from now?

The mind is a powerful instrument, but like everything it is an interdependent component. It depends on your body as much as your body depends on your mind. When your mind thinks it is a separate, individual object and it tries to leave the body, then neither can exist. A speeding car certainly doesn't stay on the freeway for long.

Having angry thoughts is natural. One shouldn't suppress angry thoughts. But mindfulness can transform how your mind responds to anger. If you let anger consume you, your mind will be a million miles away. All that would be left is a run-away car with no driver that can cause so much damage. Being mindful when you are angry lets you acknowledge the anger objectively, without affecting what drives your actions. The car moves on slowly and gracefully and the anger, because it is now seen as empty and impermanent, dissipates and passes by. This is an example of how mindfulness transforms suffering.

To live is to touch reality. The mind must be in contact with the body, the body must be in contact with its environment. Everything interconnects in harmony. When we try to separate, when we view things as separate, we are delusional and we ignore the harmony, thinking we can create something better ourselves in our mind. Erroneously we accept our thoughts as though they are reality when they are nothing but a fictitious, fake reality. The true reality is out there, not in your mind.

As a illusory separate thing the mind is vulnerable, the separateness must eventually end, it possesses and loses, it lives in a world of pain and sorrow. But when the mind joins with the body, when the body joins with the environment, then there can be no vulnerability. There is no loss because all is one. Living mindfully is living in peace, living in nirvana, in the pure land.

Putting this in perspective shows me just how important it is to live mindfully. I may walk a little slower. I may drive a little slower. I may move a little more gracefully. I may speak fewer words. I may stop more often to soak up the beauty in which I am immersed. But each step I take is a step I take in heaven, on this beautiful path for all of eternity.

Zen Parenting

Some people have told me that having children is the end of your life as you know it. I have often written about my experience of having children and how it relates to my work life elsewhere, but I'd like to also share my experience of having children from a spiritual perspective.

One may think that even in Buddhism having children can be a distraction from your path to enlightenment, but I don't think that's the case at all. In fact the opposite is true.

I have set myself a goal of becoming more mindful each day. I find new techniques to transcend my existence such that I do not exist day by day in a cloud of samsara, but instead I live in reality, touching the here and now as each moment passes, becoming a part of the harmony of reality.

Since having a child I have discovered what it is like to live. Every time I am playing with, being with my daughter I feel alive. I'm sure many parents have also had this wonderful experience. But why is this?

My daughter doesn't let me sit down for long. She pulls me up by my hand, and drags me over to her toys or outside. She wants to play. Playing is participating for the enjoyment of participating, of being a part of something, of being able to win or lose without it really affecting you. Is there much of a difference between playing and being mindful? Is this not kensho in Zen Buddhism? Is not the bliss of playing a sharing in the sambhogakaya of the Buddha?

My daughter always bring me back to reality, she always helps me touch the here and now. In her I see a being who transcends the worrying, endless decisions and debate that seem to consume us as adults.

This is just one way that being with children can be a form of meditation. Children are also a good reminder of sunyata, emptiness. In them we see ourselves, our wife, parents, ancestors, cultures. In them we see all of humaity, we see the dharmakaya. Every sentence they utter can be seen as a koan, not just because it it is seemingly nonsensical, but because it is a glimpse of true reality.

There is perhaps not greater manifestation of the law of karma than your child. Every action, every intention you have, will bear fruit in your child. If you curse, it won't take long before you hear a complaint from the school principal about your child's foul mouth. If you lose your temper and smack your child in a moment of weakness, then this is how your child will learn how to react in difficult social situations. Children are like mirrors, and in them not only do you see your ancestory but you also see every action you take. They are your walking karma.

Having children is a gift that can transform our lives in many ways, but more than anything they can be zen masters, teachers that can educate us not just about parenting, but also about ourselves, reality and enlightenment.

If only we stayed that way.