“When it rains, it pours.” Isn’t that what they say when problems accumulate? Less than 24 hours after getting home from the hospital, I received a call from the disability insurance company that sends me a check every month. During my years as a surgeon I paid into this policy so that if the unthinkable occurred, and illness affected my income, financial protection would be assured.

For many years the company has paid me enough to sustain a middle class lifestyle. I don’t have the wealth that went with active surgical work, but my wife and I have been comfortable. However, for several months the company has been working to eject me from their rolls, and yesterday they announced me capable of earning enough money as a ‘physician consultant’ to no longer qualify for benefits.

Looking online, I see that most such consultant positions are filled by by board certified doctors practicing in their specialty. My board credentials lapsed a decade ago and cannot be renewed because I no longer see patients in that specialty. The insurance company claims I can make 80% of my former income (adjusted for inflation) by finding one of these unattainable jobs. According to them, they don’t have to prove that I could actually be hired for one, only that somewhere, someone has a position that pays in that range. I highly doubt anyone with my qualifications can make the requisite amount as a ‘consultant,’ but none of this seems to matter to those who hold the purse strings.

Luckily, I’ve been in contact with a very skilled attorney who works in this field, and who seems determined to help me. But I’m feeling tremendous fear around all this. As I try to recuperate from my major medical meltdown, I really don’t appreciate being hit with mounting stress and more scary problems.

The fact that I managed to wean myself off all the toxic psychiatric medications seems to work against me. Apparently one is required to ingest the ineffective neurotoxins sold by Big Pharma in order to qualify as having bona fide psychological instability and limitations.

Granted, I write here often about how the mental illness model seems wrong to me, and how I believe my mind capable of much more than the doctors used to offer me in way of expectation. But that doesn’t mean I could tolerate working full-time in a highly stressful job (rejecting insurance claims?) without suffering from depression and agitation that would sooner or later make the work impossible for me. And that’s not even taking into account how poorly my neck and back would tolerate 40 hours a week at a computer.

I’m not looking for handouts. I only want my benefits to continue, the same ones I paid into for many years to prevent just this sort of looming financial catastrophe.

Oh well. Right now there is nothing to do but wait. The insurance company can’t take action against me until I heal from the bleeding, aneurysm, and vascular abnormalities in my abdomen. There will be the option of a lawsuit if they try to cut me off. As in all legal maneuvering, one’s best weapon is patience.

In response to this new stress, I’m trying to meditate even more than usual. I bring my consciousness away from my head with all its worrisome thoughts and center it in my heart. From that vantage, the fears feel more distant. This practice also brings me closer to the disease process around my intestine and pancreas, which is where my healing energies need to be focused anyway. The financial issues will play out one way or the other. Maybe a big change in lifestyle looms, or maybe not. But for now I gravitate toward that gentle but potent cantor of love in my heart, and rest in its strong arms. From this safe, central, vantage I feel my body working to recover from its recent breakdown. And I enjoy distance from all my worries.

Now I understand better than before how to weather hardship with the right mental attitude and skillful strategies. There will be logistical battles to fight as time goes on, but when I can do nothing concrete to help my situation, I will keep meditating, keep loving, and keep learning. I will seek peace deep within, below the surface layers of storm and turmoil, where affection and grace reside.

At some point in every human life, pain threatens to unravel everything that matters. For some of us the day comes in childhood. We may suffer the death of a parent, unspeakable trauma, or simple grinding neglect. For others life feels fairly comfortable until adulthood, but sooner or later fate steers us off our desired road into threatening territory. Perhaps a child gets sick, or a marriage ends, or a career fails. Maybe illness strikes and the end of life comes into view. Grief, failure, and injury shatter our peace, so we begin to seek answers.

At first, we search in all the usual places. We ask our close friends and trusted relatives for advice. Some of us consult therapists or psychiatrists who guide us back into our past or write us prescriptions. Some of us enter houses of worship or meditation in hope of enlisting the help of profound mystical or mental forces. We pray and meditate, desperate for answers.

Even with all this exploration, solutions seldom come. All too often, life deals ever more hardship as we scramble to find a lifeline that will help us endure the escalating pain. We may begin to waver in our resolve to continue; we begin to question whether life offers enough enrichment to make its difficulties worthwhile. We wonder why, as we try so hard to solve our dilemma, we feel no better.

These despairing moments are fertile. They mark the ego’s looming defeat and the foundational collapse that allows deep wisdom to develop organically. Because the problem is exactly that we are trying so hard to find answers, but we do not need answers.

What we need is to break free from all seeking, all efforts to understand, and all analysis. What we need is to quell the mind’s ceaseless efforts to make sense of life, its endless construction of models, and its doomed dream of figuring out how to extinguish the inevitable pain of existence.

What we need is silence.

The first layer of silence is a respite from constant mental toil. We enjoy a break from churning our complicated facts, important memories, and worrisome predictions. We open to peace of mind. This is the introductory gift of learning to quiet the mind’s chatter: a chance to rest. In a spacious moment of stillness, we begin to appreciate how struggling to solve life never leads to solutions, only to confusion and exhaustion. A boundless relief comes with abandoning, even for a moment, all our strenuous, futile striving.

The second layer of silence is the recognition that verbal reasoning is only a shadow of life, not life itself. Before we get to this stage, we believe the stories we tell ourselves. For instance if we think, “I can’t continue in the face of such pain,” we believe our mind’s dire prediction and become paralyzed. As we wait for the sorrow to lift, or the fear to abate, the stasis that results simply worsens our mental anguish. But as we learn the value of quieting inner dialogue, we begin to see that these strings of words have no solidity. They are tokens of interpretations of models of our lives. Neither the tokens, nor the interpretations, nor the models are life itself. As we begin to quiet the inner verbiage, we recognize it to be arbitrary and unhelpful. Instead of thinking about what’s going on, we experience life as it is in this moment. Nearly always, life as it is entails far less pain than life as we think it is.

The third layer of silence is beyond description. It is simple and unalloyed bliss. This essay I’m now writing was inspired by a quote my aunt sent, taken from Listening to Your Life, by Frederick Buechner. The theologian provides a good description of this final gift of inner quiet:

I have been conscious but not conscious of anything, not even of myself. I have been surrounded by the whiteness of snow. I have heard a stillness that encloses all sounds stilled the way whiteness encloses all colors stilled, the way wordlessness encloses all words stilled. I have sensed the presence of a presence. I have felt a promise promised.

Buechner’s words come as close as words can to capturing the ultimate fruit of stilling the inner dialogue.

It is important to recognize that quieting the mind’s verbal stream yields benefits at every stage. Early on, we are granted rest. A little later, we gain insight into the emptiness of words. And finally, we discover what we were hoping for all along: an unshakeable foundation for peace of mind.

This entry is my twenty-fourth in November. With its publication, there will be precisely three hundred essays on the blog queue. With that many posts available, I feel comfortable planning a break in my blogging. For the month of December, if anything gets published at all, it will be poetry. My plan is to start penning essays again next year. I wish all my WillSpirit friends a Happy Holiday Season.

My final essay for 2011 offers concrete suggestions for quelling emotional distress. Many readers know more about mental healing than I do, so what follows may sound elementary. But some visitors are just starting out, and these suggestions can guide their initial steps. Besides, even advanced meditators don’t consider themselves experts, but strive to maintain the Beginner’s Mind. So one is never too experienced to practice the basics. What follows maps not just what I did when first embarking on recovery; it sketches how I continue to approach my life.

My most uplifted posts have sung the praises of meditation and right attitude. With the aid of such skills, my mental life has improved so dramatically that I now question the many diagnoses that were tossed my direction by doctors. Decisive recovery from longstanding problems shows the capacity of the mind to rework itself; resolution of symptoms also seriously challenges the “brain disease” hypothesis of mood disorders. There was plenty of cognitive detritus obstructing my path, but I doubt there was ever any organic problem in my synapses. By clearing out misconceptions and misperceptions, I found clarity and readiness to accept whatever happens in life. I am not immune to grief and disappointment, but I believe myself resistant to despair. Meditation succeeded where medication failed.

To see how dramatically I’ve improved, consider that my mother committed suicide when I was in the first grade. By late adolescence it seemed obvious to me that my own life would end the same way. It was merely a question of timing. How long would I put up with my awful heartache before deciding, in the words of Hamlet, “to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them?”

Despite years of thinking along those lines, my mind no longer attacks itself. By studying the errors in my perceptions and beliefs, by learning to not mistake feelings for reality or thoughts for truth, I have found freedom from such negativity. It now seems inconceivable that any emotion or circumstance could drive me to end my life.

This all sounds promising, I hope. It should offer reassurance to those who wonder if they could ever wake up from the nightmare of chronic severe depression. It can be done, I promise.

But how? If one is stuck in the depths of misery, the idea of meditating out of it probably sounds like an impossible dream. And early on observing the mind may actually increase awareness of emotional pain and cognitive obsession, which can seem like exactly the wrong result. The trick, in my opinion, is to start out with very small goals.

Don’t begin by signing up for a ten-day meditation retreat. Don’t even plan on sitting on a cushion for an hour. Rather, the next time you’re stuck in a waiting room or standing in line, pay attention to how you feel. Explore your sensations. Can you detect your heartbeat? Where do you find pain? Are you breathing or holding your breath? Get in the habit of checking in for a minute or two whenever there’s a lull in the action.

When you feel ready for more, adopt the same practice as you fall asleep. Take a brief break from reviewing and planning to feel your bodily sensations. Indulge in some slow, deep breaths. See how long you can focus on your body before your thoughts start churning again. Early on, you’ll be doing well if you can remain attentive for fifteen seconds. Be proud if you can achieve that.

Over time, you will extend your range. Maybe you will gaze inwardly a bit longer. Maybe you will catch an obsession and halt it. Every time you succeed, recognize your ability to steer your mental state, even if only briefly. The goal is to gain mastery over your mind, but this process takes years and is never completed, except by Buddhas. At first, consider yourself a champion if you can subdue a destructive thought long enough to choose a healthier one. As you gain skill, you’ll begin to desire more time for meditation. That’s when you should consider a retreat.

But don’t expect too much too soon. If at first you find it too painful to watch and feel, steer your mind toward pleasant memories or daydreams. This isn’t meditation as we usually define it, but it does involve guiding thoughts, so it can be very helpful. Such practice provides welcome breaks from inner misery. If you feel ambitious, you can use it to build up empowering visualizations. Paint a mental picture of yourself mastering a valued skill, or being generous to others, or feeling well and happy.

From just these brief suggestions, you can see there exist many ways to train the mind, and it can be fun experimenting with different methods. Check books out of the library, search for videos on the internet, or go to local gatherings (which often ask only for voluntary donations). If you have a religious faith, and if you feel comfortable in it, then it is a good idea to get more involved with whatever meditative or prayerful activities it offers.

I like to divide mental training into two explorations, though more knowledgeable students recognize many more categories. But for simplicity’s sake, just consider these two paths:

1. A person can meditate to explore the ocean of consciousness by being mindful of the body, by observing thoughts, by focusing on feelings, by quieting mental activity, and so on.
2. Alternatively, one can meditate to connect with cosmic love by centering on the warmth that emanates from the heart, by repeating sacred mantras, through visualizations, by attending spiritual rituals, etc.

I believe it is important for people who feel depressed to do both. Exploring the mind helps one learn to steer thoughts and not act on feelings. Nurturing love in the heart warms the inner child who feels lonely and unwanted. One does not need to believe in a Divine Being to find such comfort; just awakening to the affection that arises when holding beloved pets or watching children can accomplish the same end. But, of course, belief in a loving cosmic presence is a great way to find support if your philosophical prejudices will allow it.

Keep in mind as you work on meditating that other healthful activities remain vital. Exercise, good nutrition, socialization, creative arts, and compassionate acts all help improve mood and outlook. These days we can choose from a wide array of therapies and somatic practices that aid mental healing. Pursue as many avenues as you can to help yourself improve. Applaud yourself for every victory, but also treat yourself with tenderness. When you feel too depleted to do much of anything, accept your need for contraction and isolation. Compliment yourself for sitting up in bed, if that’s all you can manage. Eventually, when your energy improves, you can do more.

At all times, be aware that the aim is incremental improvement, not sudden sainthood. As they say in Alcoholics Anonymous, “seek progress, not perfection.”

Good luck on your journey. My prayers are with you.

Mental states become oddities once taken less seriously.

At the moment my heart feels heavy. Perhaps my dip in spirits amounts to post-holiday blues. Our Thanksgiving celebration turned out quite pleasantly, despite the anticipatory angst of recent posts. Today’s drop in mood temperature might be an automatic reaction to the heat of happiness, just as diminished energy follows a sugar rush. Sounds plausible, though with little effort I could ferret out more ominous explanations. But as I’ve stated before, elaborating reasons for depressed feelings often just amplifies the sorrow.

Instead, let’s return to the first sentence above. What happens if heartache is not judged as good or bad, or attributed to circumstance. What’s left? When verbal analysis is forgone, nothing remains but a vaguely unsettled mental state.

Imagine you had never lived through a summer storm, with its smoke-colored thunderheads and drenching curtains of rain. Imagine you had never smelled the ozone or felt the prickly static that precedes the arrival of such meteorologic turmoil. If you stood in open grassland and caught a scorched scent on the air, if you felt a rising charge, you would not know what it meant. The sensations might make you feel apprehensive, but they would not associate with any memory. You would not anticipate an approaching downpour. Rather than heading indoors or pulling out a raincoat, you might absorb these natural energies in a spacious and unprejudiced state. You would not predict anything, you would not act, you would simply experience.

This is how I feel today. Rather than letting my mind project catastrophe, or reconstruct grief, or explore my issues, I’m keeping quiet and feeling the sensations rise and fall like ripples on an infinite sea of awareness. Rather than giving them names and family trees, I let them roll past with neither history nor destiny.

With this attitude, mental states come and go, push and pull, build and shrink, but something (or someone) beneath the surface remains unshaken. The mind rests submerged in stillness: unstructured, boundless, timeless, and exquisite. This is not depression as I once knew it. This is Grace.

“Howsoever men try to worship Me, so do I welcome them. By whatever path they travel, it leads to Me at last.”

The Bhagavad Gita

The last pair of posts presents, as reader KC puts it, “two sides of the same coin.” In the first essay, I stated pretty strongly the case for not trying to explain depression. In the second, I discussed a reader’s differing viewpoint. Lynn had described how searching low moods for underlying causes can help dissipate them. Although I see problems with that tactic when unskillfully applied, there is no doubt it can sometimes help.

So which do I believe: that listing reasons for depression is harmful? Or that rooting out hidden conflicts can help elevate mood? Hopefully, everyone can see that the answer is: both.

This points to a larger truth. In fact, I think the discussion highlights one of the largest and most unacknowledged truths of human life: two contradictory viewpoints are often both correct. Would that more politicians, religious leaders, and family members could embrace this fact.

The rational mind automatically sets up yes/no dichotomies. Should I be a doctor, or not? Should I marry this girl, or not? Should I quit my job, or not? When applied to situations where we are forced to pursue or reject an option, the logic makes sense. It works when we talk about single and discrete actions.

But most actions are not single and discrete, but multiple and deeply embedded. If we consider thinking, we can see how every moment we are choosing new thoughts. We don’t just ponder once about an episode of depression; we mull it over many times for as long as it lasts. Further, our internal dialogue is entangled in a complicated web of personal beliefs and social contracts. We need to consider all factors when choosing a mental strategy.

So the choice isn’t between trying to explain mood states, or not. The mature person considers both possibilities, and selects the most promising path at every moment. There is no universally right answer. There is only the approach that offers the best chance for growth for a given person, in a given setting, at a given time.

The necessity to keep options open, and entertain seemingly conflicting truths, extends to most areas of life. We’ve seen an example of how it applies to coping with depression. But the principle applies in many real-life situations, and especially those concerning spirituality.

Experienced mystics often abandon efforts to explain transcendent truths in words. They resort to metaphors, parables, and silence. Ultimate reality only confuses us when we try to comprehend it in rational terms. Consider how the question of God’s existence seems, on the surface, to be a simple yes-no question that should have a single answer. And indeed, neither atheists nor fundamentalists have trouble settling the issue. But anyone who contemplates the matter deeply finds contradiction at every turn. The committed seeker must either choose among opposing beliefs, or work to stretch the mind around irreconcilable possibilities.

Does God exist? I honestly believe the best answer is the one presented in an earlier post: Yes and No. We habitually think in terms of yes or no, but the universe is not so simple. It defies gross reductions in every area of discourse and concern. To achieve peak maturity and lasting peace, we need to understand and accept all sides of conflicts, opposites, and mystery.

Yes and no. Yes and no. We should make up a new word to combine the opposing poles of Boolean logic. Only then will we be able to talk without disagreeing, whether about mental health or metaphysics.

There is such a thing as bliss.

One can feel it when life goes well. A new love, a new baby, the delicate colors of dawn, and quiet contemplation can all activate it. We know it well; we seek it. It feels warm, full, and embracing. When we are fortunate enough to be wrapped in bliss, we feel safe and stable. The feeling may last a moment or a month, but it is welcome the entire time. We miss it when it leaves us, as it inevitably must.

There is such a thing as depression.

We feel it when life fails us too many times. Too much hardship, too much death, too much negativity can all summon it to our door. Many of us know it too well. It ruins our enjoyment of life and makes us question our worth. When entangled in depression, we feel beleaguered and pessimistic. Nothing lifts our spirits, not even our loves, our offspring, or the loveliness all around. The world appears lifeless and gray. The feeling may last a day or a year, and we resist it the entire time. We feel relief when it leaves us, as it inevitably must.

At present insomnia dominates my experience. I get so little sleep, and feel so tired as a result, that depression hovers near from morning to dusk. I exercise vigilance to avoid the bleak thoughts that seem so appropriate when my mood dips. To keep from trashing my life with my thinking, it is sometimes safest to simply silence my inner voice. As I once said in a Tweet, “if you can’t think anything nice, don’t think anything at all.”

There happens to be an upside to sleeplessness: one finds many hours during the night for meditation. In fact, if I don’t exercise my meditative skills when laying awake in bed, I can get lost in regret, fear, and doubt. Better not to think than to face those demons.

So it’s good that I’ve gained enough skill from meditation practice to actively quell my thoughts. It is no longer difficult for me to stem the flow of discursive thinking to a mere trickle. So I avoid falling prey to anxiety and remorse. I can sit with the depressed feelings and simply observe them without letting them color my worldview.

And this is key. Because the worst thing about a depressed mood is how it taints one’s interpretation of life. Events and sensations that might normally be neutral, or even enjoyed, are viewed negatively. And experiences which are unfortunate seem catastrophic. Better not to interpret, better not to think.

On the other hand, if depression is experienced with neither thought nor interpretation, it reduces to strong feeling. Not pleasant, but bearable. The sting in low moods comes from what they make us believe more than how they make us feel.

In fact, if we allow the intense sensation of depression to flow through mind and body without words or valuation, eventually it acquires a surprising quality. Unresisted, it starts to feel a bit like bliss. Depression, after all, represents a high energy state that vibrates the entire system—just like pure pleasure.

There is a big difference between bliss and depression, however. Bliss embraces. It is like dwelling at the bottom of a valley. There is stability plus peace, and mental explorations feel safe.

In contrast, to reside in depression and feel it positively is to balance on a knife blade. It is like tiptoeing along a narrow, rocky ridge-line, where the slightest misstep can end in destruction.

To speak in thermodynamic terms, bliss is a stable equilibrium, but serene depression is an unstable one. Stability confers safety; instability demands care. To maintain the unstable equilibrium of wordless depression we must squelch every needless thought, and keep the mind as still as possible. We must resist interpreting anything. It takes a meditative approach and an steadfast refusal to avoid explanations of feeling.

Not long ago I finally learned firsthand that with practice and care it is possible to sit with depressed feelings, silence the mind, and feel nothing but powerful energy. No fear. No regrets. No doubt. Just waves of emotion and, ultimately, acceptance.

One walks the high wire and needs to step cautiously. Every word of discursive thought carries danger. But by maintaining a silent mind one can experience depressed energy without judgment, which alters its tenor. One must perfect one’s balance, but one can find within the darkest of moods a beacon of golden light.

Almost a dozen years ago, as neck problems caused the implosion of my surgical career, my moods spun out of control. From my earliest years I had been highly emotional, easily wounded and often upset. My temper would flare without warning, but I could also settle quickly into good cheer. My instability worsened under the stress of child abuse, and I suspect my stepmother enjoyed pushing me into emotional collapse–a sensitive child must be the perfect victim for a sadist. By reasons of genetics and trauma, I entered adulthood accustomed to rapid and dramatic shifts in feeling. But in 2000 my moodiness rose to new heights. My lows became lower and my highs higher.

I presented twice for hospitalization. The first time I sought confinement as I became frightened by my growing determination to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. In fact, frightened isn’t the right word, because I knew very little fear. The cold and collected way in which I was arranging my end dismayed me and led me to seek help. After two weeks the doctors discharged me from the first hospital, and I left feeling much happier. A bit too happy, in fact. The powerful new antidepressant worked quickly to elevate my mood, first into mild giddiness and then, five days after discharge, into full blown manic psychosis.

Psychosis was the technical term for the experience, and I suppose it describes well enough what the psychiatrists saw in me. But from my side, it felt like a series of the most profound and mind-expanding experiences imaginable. I heard angels, saw God, and met Jesus. A lifetime of habitual atheism evaporated. My entire perspective on the mystery and meaning of life was transformed.

But this post isn’t about that. It’s not about visionary experiences, the relationship between insanity and grace, or even the power of psychiatric medications. It’s about how quickly life’s value can seem to change. During that period of time, while all I’d worked for disintegrated, my attitude shifted so frequently that it must have been bewildering for my wife to watch. One day I’d be relieved to be free of the intense physical and emotional stress of being a surgeon. The next I’d despair at my bad luck in losing such a challenging and rewarding career.

I vacillated between feeling like the most worthless person on earth to believing myself blessed with knowledge known only to saints. I’d berate myself for myriad sins, then pride myself on my ability to see the heart of creation.

As all this went on, however, I wasn’t aware of my mind shifting very much at all. It was the world that seemed to change. It didn’t seem like my brain moved from its depressed state to its ecstatic one. Rather, the entire cosmos gyrated. One day it appeared to be hell and the next, heaven. One day the weather looked dismal, my future unfaceable, my past a disaster. The next everything glowed with preternatural radiance, my future looked limitless, and my past seemed like the perfect prelude to spiritual breakthrough.

Am I making this at all clear? Although I knew on some rational level that the problem resided in my nervous system, experientially the difficulty seemed to dwell in the outside world. It was as if the lenses through which I viewed the world changed from gray to rose when my mood flipped from low to high. I saw everything differently, but I felt like the same Will the whole time.

A similar process must explain why some people refuse to understand that they are in the throes of abnormal mentation. The person ranting at unseen tormenters believes himself in a hostile world; he doesn’t locate the problem in his own mind. When parents of young people suffering from schizophrenic conditions hear their children refuse to ‘admit’ their problems, they get frustrated and angry. But it isn’t stubbornness that makes this connection difficult. We simply cannot separate the world as it really is from the world as we experience it.

There is a deep point here about the human condition. Whatever it is that exists outside our brains, beyond our eyes, and past our skin, it is not the same thing we experience inside. We live in a reconstruction of the real world built from sensory input, memory, and conditioning. This is probably what the Hindus understood when they named the formed world Maya, or illusion. The cosmos may be real in material terms, but our experience of it is determined by far too many subjective and internal factors to be solid or reliable.

Consider this scene: two strangers sit on a wide, sandy beach on a warm day. They both feel the sunlight streaming onto their faces, and they both hear the surf’s watery heartbeat in equal measure. Imagine they both come from similar families and backgrounds. They don’t know each other, but they share like temperament and values. They are, in fact, nearly identical people. But just before sitting down, the person on the right learned that her beloved father died unexpectedly a few hours earlier. Do you think these two women are experiencing similar inner states? Everything surrounding them is the same, everything in their history is nearly so. But a potent bit of news has completely darkened the bereaved woman’s day. This time on the beach will ever live in her memory as a vertiginous epoch when her world felt upended, and a central pillar in her life gave way. The woman on the left may not think back on this beach scene at all.

This is the nature of human experience: wholly colored by interpretation and expectation; unfixed, unfixable, and and ever surprising. Catastrophe and delight waiting at every turn. Nothing reliable, everything mortal, and all beliefs vulnerable to contradiction. No wonder we go mad.

And no wonder the best path to sanity is to quit fighting. Only by letting the world have its way with us, by swimming with rather than against life’s currents, can we finally make progress toward stability. As an adolescent I spent much time bodysurfing off Southern California beaches. A lesson you learn early is to not fight a riptide, but let it take you where it will. Swim sideways to limit how far the current pulls you, but never confront the flow head-on. To do so is to invite exhaustion and possibly a watery death.

Life is exactly like those riptides, always tearing us away from what we thought was reliable ground. The gift of temporary insanity is that it teaches you that your mind determines the world, not the other way around. Sure, evolution, genetics, and upbringing may sculpt our inner processes, but after we are formed the internal shapes the external. This is why people get seduced by suicide. There is little thought given to the loved ones left behind. The mind is enthralled by the horrifying delusion that it can end a punishing world by ending itself; it thinks itself the Master of the Universe.

But no, the mind cannot destroy the cosmos, only the happiness of those nearby. But it can also, with proper motivation and instruction, reshape its own viewpoints so that life is finally understood to be magical, precious, and utterly mysterious, no matter what it brings. Our experience is an illusion, but it is one we create by our own thoughts and attitudes. Let us create a beautiful world. Let us be Masters of Mind.

The last two posts argued that hoping for one outcome over another dooms us to suffering. Then what about the desire to escape desire? If our appetites lead to downfall, is it safe to hunger after realization?

Those of us who seek spiritual growth sometimes want very much to make progress. The Bhagavad Gita, mentioned last time, gives us an out by making an exception in the case of inclination toward righteousness. We even hear Krishna (God) equate his own divine presence as the source of such desire.

Even so, seekers understand that spiritual hunger can trap us just as easily as material wants. We see many leaders of churches, sects, and cults who have obviously lost their way by allowing their egos to claim credit for Grace. These are the ones who sleep with their disciples, accumulate fortunes, or incite destructive acts.

We can desire spiritual growth, but it is best to focus on the good of the whole world rather than the salvation of our individual souls. The Bodhisattva vows illustrate the safest stance: the seeker commits to remain engaged with the drudgery of material life until all beings are freed from the bonds of ignorance. If we pursue higher levels of understanding with altruistic motives, the web of desire cannot trap us.

But the path requires vigilance. The ego is persistent and cunning. It will seduce us with visions of personal gain that may appear selfless. No doubt there are wandering Indian mendicants clothed in rags, owning nothing and thin as rails, who believe themselves superior to others precisely because they have renounced comfort. They remain nearly as entangled in egotism as the billionaire industrialist flying overhead in his personal Gulfstream.

The more desire aims to improve the condition of self, whether by material, social, or transcendent measures, the more base its motives and destructive its effects.

The true saint cares little for his or her own welfare, but weeps when confronted by the pain of others. The tears may flow even amidst the understanding that life is ever ebbing and flowing, misery and ecstasy alternating in an endless dance, in a cosmic field devoid of lasting impact on the eternal and incorruptible soul. The saint understands that grief and joy are both optional, but chooses to weep and laugh anyway, in sympathy with the swirling ocean of life.

The denial of desire that I mentioned in the last post might sound inhuman if looked at incorrectly. What about passion? What about beauty? What about love? Should we seek none of these and live instead in a bland state of emptiness?

More troubling still is social injustice. Should we not insist on equality and fairness? Should we not fight for the rights of the disadvantaged? Should we cease working toward peace?

Such concerns have caused many to see Eastern philosophies as overly detached and even heartless. How can we build a better world if we don’t desire wars to end, environmental destruction to be reversed, and inhuman conditions to be improved?

Part of the problem is semantic. To plan for a better world is different from wanting a newer car. The word desire can be used in ways that emphasize ethical standards rather than greed and materialism.

But this isn’t the whole answer. In fact, the spiritual path can lead to states of mind where happy and tragic times are seen as equal and necessary counterparts. Ease and hardship are recognized as two sides of the same coin. Going further, the entire drama of human life can appear empty of substance. It can look like an artifice to be observed without emotional distress.

These deeply resonant mind states are educational, and they calm the troubled spirit. But life should still be engaged. It seems wrong to refuse to participate simply because strife is built into the cosmos and material existence is empty. Yes, such understanding helps us release desire, but most people still feel the pain of life’s drama, and most of us need help. The sage who abandons the world to its own confusion may be wise, but he is not compassionate. True saintliness requires both understanding and concern.

So we return to the problem: how do we participate without desire? How do we engage the world when we know that sorrow and joy carry equal weight and are ultimately empty? How do we motivate our actions once we’ve learned to live without preference?

I can’t claim absolute clarity here, but I have a few ideas. First, it is poisonous to desire personal sensual gratification, but it can be edifying to help others feel better. Second, we can work toward a beneficial outcome but remain at peace whether we succeed or not. Third, we can recognize that preventing cruelty and injustice aids the disadvantaged but also helps the souls of those who would perpetrate harm; there may be a vast neutrality in the cosmos, but there are karmic consequences on the human scale. Finally, the universe may be inherently empty, but it is all we have; we should question whether abandoning it reflects ultimate wisdom or mere avoidance. We may not care about winning anymore, but we can still play the game.

This post grapples with deep questions that have been pondered by realized beings for ages. My amateurish thoughts won’t settle the debate, but I hope they show that one can reject desire without rejecting life.

The next step in this series is to start talking about my upbringing and why it led to problems with mood instability. This shifts the focus from viewing the general picture to looking at a particular case. And yet, what follows is not just my story, but every story. The details differ, but we all have suffered good and bad times, we’ve all been hurt, and we’ve all learned from experience. We’ve also all developed in a womb and we face the same end. In truth, the differences are far less impressive than the similarities. Keep that in mind while reading my unique personal history, and pay attention to how my particular trajectory reflects the human condition as we all live it.

At the outset of this writing project I said this story would start at the beginning. So let’s go right back to my first moment: that of conception. I don’t mean to raise the abortion debate here, so understand that my point isn’t necessarily that my soul manifested at the exact instant a minuscule, writhing spermatozoon from my dad penetrated the massive, nutrient packed ovum produced by my mom. But until then, the universe had never before seen that precise combination of genetic and epigenetic information gathered in a single cell. At that moment, a goodly portion of my fate was sealed.

The moodiness so common in my mother’s family (as well as her artistic sensibilities) and the alcoholism so common among my father’s relations (as well is his analytical prowess) were carried forward to me in that mix of DNA. But just how moody, artistic, alcoholic, or analytical I became remained to be shaped by time and circumstance.

As the fertilized egg divided, then divided again, as it grew into a solid ball of cells in those first few hours and days, it was affected by the chemical mix of my mother’s fluids. Her hormones and cellular messages affected my rapidly expanding mass of protoplasm. By the time I implanted in her uterine wall and the love affair of blood vessels known as a placenta formed, I’d already tapped many sources of information not present at conception. As I developed in her uterus, my little growing body continued to be affected by myriad substances, sounds, and motions. Her breathing and heart rate formed the universe of my mood at that time. If she felt worried and depressed, I shivered in my dark, watery world. If she laughed with ecstatic delight, I shimmied with pleasure.

And if she took a medication, which was commonly done by pregnant women in those days, I took it too. If pesticides entered her bloodstream, they entered mine. When she smoked or drank, I felt the rush of nicotine or the loosening of alcohol. If she walked near the exhaust of an automobile, the fumes from leaded gasoline entered her lungs and moments later a heavy metal circulated through my nervous system as it produced millions of vulnerable growing cells each hour.

At the same time, the thousands of genes on my DNA molecules were orchestrating my formation. My sex, coloration, facial features, and internal arrangements were laid down. I took the form of a European male baby because I carried European genes and a Y chromosome. It is likely that brain structures were genetically shaped in ways that determined many personality traits: my introversion, my sensitivity, maybe even my seriousness.

And yet all these genetic traits were modified at every moment by countless influences from outside. The genes were painting my portrait using pigments acquired from the environment.

Did a separate soul enter at some point? Did a consciousness already familiar with birth and death take residence in that little baby growing inside a moody woman in 1958? Do we play this game of life over and over as reincarnationists believe? It isn’t possible to be sure. I’ve read the evidence that supports the concept and find it intriguing but not quite decisive. The jury is out. But there is little doubt that the person who I became differs in important ways from everyone else in my family, even as we also share many traits. Whence the source of that uniqueness? Genes? Environment? Prior lives? The touch of God?

All I know for sure is that the day came when my mother’s womb decided my time had come, and uterine contractions pushed me into the waiting world. For better or worse, my qualities were already guiding me down my own unique path. Even at that early stage I was already the product of both my genes and the emotional and chemical milieu which formed me, which nurtured me as I grew from a single cell into a lively baby in just nine months.