WillSpirit!

Where Will meets Spirit
∞ Love, Clarity, Balance, Peace, & Bliss ∞

A science, mental health and spirituality blog written by a physician.








  • Red_Exclamation_DotDisclaimer
    • Dear Visitors:
      Although I trained and practiced as a physician, my background does not include formal instruction in psychiatry beyond basic medical education. This journal presents ideas about treatment philosophy, but must not be considered therapeutic advice. Abrupt changes in one's psychiatric medications can trigger profound cognitive, emotional, and physical symptoms, including suicidal thoughts and actions. Consequently, pharmaceutical agents should not be increased or decreased without supervision by a mental health clinician.

    • ON THE OTHER HAND, your brain belongs to you, and your opinion counts. If you decide that changing your medication regimen will serve your best interest, then I believe your providers have an obligation to help you try to achieve your goals. I want everyone to be educated about their options, and do what will be most helpful for themselves. No one should feel pushed around by dogmatic and/or limited viewpoints, whether those of psychiatrists, anti-psychiatry advocates, or myself.


The Highly Sensitive Soul

There is much psychological literature on sensitivity, which is no doubt familiar to many readers (see this Wikipedia article for a good summary); what follows is my poetic and non-scientific take on the subject.

Some people seem to feel life more deeply than others. Culturally determined preferences may judge high sensitivity as better or worse than its alternative, but in my opinion the trait requires no such valuation. On the other hand, those of us with systems wide open to pain and pleasure must comprehend our true nature so we can learn to function comfortably in a world that seems designed to challenge the heart.

Did you spot the lie in the last paragraph? The truly sensitive soul will never find lasting comfort save by rejecting the very quality that defines it. To feel life in the abyss of the self is inherently agitating; moments of peace will ever alternate with moments of distress. This is why exquisite sensitivity is commonly viewed as a deficiency.

Imagine for the moment a sentient God who watches our lives from on high. My position on whether such a deity exists is nuanced, complex, and changeable, but right now I don’t want to get into that tangle. Instead, just try to picture how humans would appear through the sagacious eyes of an all-knowing God. From that vantage, does the sensitive person look like he or she is lacking? Doesn’t it rather look more like the sensitive soul is the one who is paying the most attention?

Let’s face facts. Death hurts. Even birth hurts. Romance is seldom forever sweet, as most married couples can attest. Children bring joy to families, but not infrequently they also bring grief. Illness strikes us all, sooner or later. And these are just the ordinary, inevitable trials of life.

Add in earthquakes, hurricanes, famine, wildfires, and tsunamis, and you begin to feel the true impact of our dilemma. Then include the human-generated miseries of war, torture, exploitation, environmental destruction, child-abuse, racism/sexism, and so on. By this point we have before us a panorama sufficient to demoralize anyone who opens to its import. No wonder a responsive heart is often considered an infirmity.

Fortunately, there is more to life than heartache. We can appreciate the intricacy of a spider’s web, the majesty of the moon on a cloudless night, the joyous warmth of a rising sun. We can feel the heart’s faithful beating, the innocence of a child’s smiling face, the palpable waves of love in a family. We enjoy the delicate aroma of a field of wildflowers as we take a morning stroll in springtime, and we feel invigorated by the blustery swirl of leaves as we walk through a park on a windy autumn afternoon. We can meditate among granitic monoliths in the high mountains or feel lulled by waves lapping along the shore of a broad, clear lake.

The trick to embracing this infinite universe of splendor and terror is to remain, yes, sensitive to its charms.

There are two basic strategies for surviving life’s ordeals. One is to harden the outer walls and live protected from fate’s sting. The other is to open the windows wide and let the full blast enter, keeping faith that bereavement and dismay will be more than balanced by blessings and delight.

Sealing the mental house tightly shut keeps out the cold, biting winds, but also the butterflies and sunshine. Opening wide invites life’s full complement of chaos, but also its magnanimous smile.

The sensitive soul faces this choice early in life. In my own case, my upbringing felt overwhelming, so in response my young adult years became a study in progressive cynicism. By my age of twenty-five anger was the only emotion that remained easily accessible. Training as a physician completed the tempering begun years earlier; through medical education I became skilled at participating in the most affecting dramas without feeling affected.

That transformation led me to many of my most disastrous decisions and lasting regrets. I became cut off from my ethical foundations and acted on the basis of superficial logic fueled by deep-seated angst.

How much better it would have been to leave my gentle heart on my sleeve, where it naturally wanted to perch. How much happier I’d have been following my quirky inner leadings rather than society’s call to ambition.

No matter. In the end I found my way back to my true nature. And indeed, as I mentioned in the last post it may be that this current epoch will be my ending turn on life’s wheel. Yes, I feel terribly pained by how much I may be losing before long. I feel even more sorrow about how much was lost through mistaken efforts to protect my heart from breaking. But better to return to feeling at last than never return at all.

Poets, artists, reformers, healers, and saints all rely on sensitivity. The majority probably were born into this world with giant, vulnerable hearts. Many may have lost their way for awhile. But in the end, the sensitive person can neither be happy nor effective except by allowing his or her insistent affection and exquisite tenderness free reign.

The best way to achieve this freedom is to keep the eyes open as wide as possible. Don’t close off to the pain you see, but don’t ignore the beauty of life’s spectacle either. Watch how the winds blow from all directions. Sometimes bitter Northers strafe us with ice, and sometimes balmy desert breezes blow in the darkest night. Sometimes death, sometimes birth. Sometimes cruelty, sometimes compassion. Sometimes illness, sometimes health.

Life is a circle. Live in the middle of the largest circumference you can imagine. From such an axis, no matter how much distress you feel, you will discover a greater measure of Bliss.

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The Highly Sensitive Soul was published on January 23rd, 2012 . 10 comments






The Body Didactic

Too many of us grew up in families wracked with pain. Emotional wounds accumulate in settings of neglect, abuse, bereavement, molestation, violence, and misery. As adults, these ancient injuries undermine our happiness. We often choose poorly in relationships, careers, and pastimes. Even if we don’t make gross mistakes, we lack the confidence to endorse our own choices. We feel uneasy in good times and overwhelmed in bad. This is the legacy of childhood trauma.

At times we shut down emotionally, closing ourselves off from the affection we crave. Other times we act out and hurt the ones we love or destroy our own reputations.

Still, healing can happen after even the worst of upbringings. It takes time, and backslides are unavoidable, but eventually we stabilize in greater maturity and emotional openness than we ever imagined.

In the last post we highlighted the body’s gentle wisdom and how often we ignore it. As I move further along the path to peace of mind, the importance of befriending physical nature becomes ever more obvious. The injuries of the past are stored in our biology, where they affect every aspect of our lives.

For instance, upon remembering painful events from our past, our minds recoil in shame, anger, or sorrow. In equal measure, our bodies respond with corresponding feelings of hollowness, tension, or exhaustion. Just as emotional surges reflect the state of mind that accompanied past trauma, somatic symptoms recreate the physical feelings recorded at the time of the original hardship. Often, such emotional and somatic reactions arise without any conscious memory of the childhood injury that caused them. For example, when a spouse criticizes us, we may feel ashamed and small, or furious and explosive, without overtly connecting these responses to the parental harshness that first established the pattern.

Before we learn healthier strategies, our habitual response to distressing sensations is avoidance. We turn our mental spotlight away from our body’s messages. We may lose ourselves in thought and analysis, ignoring the cramp in our gut, the ache in our shoulders, or the shallowness of our breath. We may evade direct, felt experience by focusing on the actions and misdeeds of others. We may use the distraction of intoxicants, food, sex, or television as shields against painful emotional and sensual turmoil. We become skilled escape artists.

The solution can be found in the body. In fact, we cannot fully transcend our pain until we face its somatic legacy. At first, this feels excruciating. When we begin to tune into our bodily responses, we become aware of a sensory universe populated by knots, soreness, burning, blockage, agitation, and numbness. These discomforts are the physical counterpart to the emotional uproar that also arises. We discover how underneath our superficial and obsessional thought, our core system buzzes with anxiety, grief, anger, and fear. It all seems so noisy and confusing that we may find ourselves pouring a bowl of cereal with little memory of rising from meditation and heading to the kitchen.

The good news is that as we reacquaint ourselves with our bodies, the sensations become less intense. We relax into nonjudgmental awareness, which lessens the stimulation of tension and pain. It can seem like our systems shout less loudly when they have our attention.

Furthermore, we can learn to enter even the most unpleasant symptoms with an attitude of openness, acceptance, and love. In my own case, I experience deep, burning pain in my neck and upper back that worsens during times of stress. It is easy to hate this discomfort and resist it, but doing so only increases the misery. A better strategy is to move toward the soreness with focused attention and gentle affection. I apologize to my neck for all the times my activities harmed it. I feel compassion for its burden of muscle spasm, arthritis, poor posture, and neglect. I honor the hard work it performs in service of supporting my head every day.

By treating my body with the same care I would treat any beloved animal, I send a message of acceptance and affection to my entire being. The self-compassion resonates on the somatic, psychological, and spiritual levels. It feels profoundly healing. Often, the pain seems to abate with this practice, but the goal isn’t to alter my experience in any way. I seek only to honor my body and whatever it communicates.

All painful experiences can be approached in similar fashion. Crushing sorrow, vertiginous loneliness, shattering fear, and even livid rage can all be embraced with this attitude of loving, wise embrace. One finds that life is full of pain, but that this does not mean it is going badly. For as we open to our discomfort and terror, as we accept uncertainty and loss, we automatically increase our ability to feel joy, love, and spacious bliss.

The body will teach us the inexhaustible majesty of life when we surrender to both its wounds and its strengths.

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The Body Didactic was published on January 10th, 2012 .






The Triple Powers of Silence

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.


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The Triple Powers of Silence was published on January 1st, 2012 . 9 comments






My Beginner’s 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.

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My Beginner’s Mind was published on November 28th, 2011 .






The Most Wonderful Time of the Year?

Does anyone else find this time of year challenging?

Naturally, that was a silly question, but it still comes to mind. The self resists recognizing that individual distress generalizes to large segments of the human population. Rather than acknowledging the universality of my angst, I assume it to be personal and unique. Why is that?

Partly, it’s because so many people have family and I don’t. Aside from an aunt who lives in a distant state, there is no one I consider family left. Sure, there are a few cousins I rarely see, but besides my aunt there is nobody I’m related to who expresses genuine concern for my welfare. So as I watch many of my friends (and seemingly the entire Western world) arrange to spend holidays with family, the painful fact of isolation hits home. The problem is worsened by my wife’s identical situation: her family has passed on, too.

Why this should so deeply trouble me isn’t clear. After all, there was never a time in my entire life when I enjoyed a supportive family. Right from the beginning my home felt chaotic, dangerous, and/or grief-stricken. Why should I feel as if something has been lost? I never had a true family in the first place.

Yesterday I took a class at a holistic healing center in Berkeley. The teacher taught me some interesting techniques, and she seemed like a skilled healer. But then she asked me about my Thanksgiving plans. When I told her my wife and I would be spending it at our Quaker Meeting and not with family, she pushed on to inquire about my relations. After I explained that none remain, she expressed shock and dismay that a person could exist in this world without family. Not exactly the kind of uplifting message I expected in a center devoted to positivity and health. Am I really the only person without living relations?

Luckily, I’m getting better at taking hurtful experiences and transforming them into lessons. Although I admit it was a weak comeback, I told the teacher that by not having blood relatives, I’m made more aware of the fact that the entire world forms my family. Why should we separate the population into two parts anyway? Why divide humanity into those who matter, and those who matter less?

In addition to reframing my situation, I can now escape to that wordless space of consciousness that has become so familiar through meditation. When ordinary life feels too painful, I quit thinking about it. I find stillness within, where conflict ceases and only unity remains. This time of year, with its forced emphasis on the importance of family, is a good time for me to distance myself from society’s myopic value structures. Meditation gives me the necessary breathing room.

If we lived in a truly healthy culture, everyone would feel like he or she belonged, regardless of the details of family tree. In the documentary film, The Human Experience, an African villager states that if a child is orphaned, new parents are found by the community. No one is ever without family because the group takes care of all members in this way. Would that we lived by such communal ethics.

But we don’t. So this time of year pushes me to continue to accept and to grow. By healthy contemplation and focused meditation, I can embrace my situation. After all, if I don’t love my life for what it does offer, if I only focus on my lacks, I will remain neurotic and unhappy. But if I rise above the details that trouble, and honor the universal truths that support, I find peace of mind and soul.

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The Most Wonderful Time of the Year? was published on November 22nd, 2011 . 6 comments






Masters of the Universe, Masters of Mind

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.

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Masters of the Universe, Masters of Mind was published on November 9th, 2011 .






Funerals for the Living

Sister Janice & me, Christmas morning, 1962.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could attend our own funerals?

Maybe the spirits of the departed do see us from the other side, dressed in mourning and voicing our lament and love. But imagine if we could honor each other with a celebration of our deepest feelings, in a living funeral, say every fifteen years or so.

During my sister‘s small memorial ceremony, I met two friends of hers for the first time. In fact, aside from her domestic partner and two or three family members, these seem to have been the only people who had any true relationship with Janice during her final years. She had not seen either of them in person for some time, but they both had good memories of her from healthier days, and they spoke with her by phone. They also both remarked how our little ritual in the funeral home would have deeply moved Janice. Her self esteem was so tragically low, they believed it would have surprised and delighted her to see us express so much admiration, care, and affection.

If only we could have given her that gift while she lived. If only Jan could have seen how we truly viewed her, once we got past our frustration and fear about her carelessness and alcoholism. I wish she could have heard me announce to all how important she was to me growing up, how endearing we all found her cheerfulness, and how much we wanted the best for her. Perhaps it would have counteracted the pain caused by our frequent disagreements and my regular insistence that she address her drinking problem. We might have healed the rift that separated us.

We might have rediscovered in full force the love that felt so rich and vital to us both when young. We lived through much hardship, terror, and loss together as children, but we always had the sanctuary of our bond during those years. I wish I could have proclaimed publicly, while Janice was still alive, how much difference it made to me to have a loving older sister in that cauldron of cruelty we knew as our family home.

Every one of us could use such a reminder of the better moments and awesome depth of our relationships. I truly believe we should give each other a ‘funeral’ periodically, in order to cut through all the meaningless neurosis of our ordinary interaction. To show us the network of love that holds us together. Imagine how it would help to be given such boosts at age fifteen (as we step tentatively toward adulthood), age thirty (as our adult lives take mature form), age forty-five (as we face the crisis of middle age), age sixty (as we anxiously await the approach of senescence), and ages seventy-five and ninety (as we assess the panorama of a nearly-completed life).

Imagine how our relationships would benefit if we took time out from our bickering and told our loved ones what we would feel if they departed this life. For I guarantee, we would not care about how they insulted us at the last family gathering. We would not care about the gift they never acknowledged. We would not resent the betrayals and disappointments anymore. We would remember who they were at their best, and how we failed to accept them when they were otherwise.

Maybe so many funerals would feel depressing. We might not be prepared to face death so often. So until we’re ready to ceremonially embrace the transience of our relationships, let’s do something smaller but more often. As we go through our days and find ourselves irritated about the behavior of others, let us pause before reacting. Let us remember that this fragile human animal will not always be with us. Our connection on this plane will inevitably end, and possibly sooner than we think.

Let us treat our loved ones tenderly, so when the day of death does come there will be more memory of shared joy, and less agony of remorse.

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Funerals for the Living was published on October 8th, 2011 . 2 comments






The End

Death is exhausting. I mean, my own demise might feel spectacular. The tunnel of light, the wise beings, my life flickering in review, not to mention the freedom of existence as pure spirit, could all add up to an exciting ride. But here on earth, when it comes to releasing those who expire, we walk a weary road.

Janice, my sister, laid in her open casket today as we conducted a small but touching ceremony. Having the body on display went against my own cultural conditioning but fit the needs of her longterm partner. Although I dreaded seeing her as a prepared corpse, the experience felt more healing than I expected. After the service, it helped to have her form before me as I poured out my regret and affection while everyone else chatted in the reception room. Not that I felt my sibling to actually be present in the shell that remained, but it still seemed a bit like speaking to her.

But as I started out saying, the ordeal has depleted me. I feel tired and aged. Most of my posts wind toward some sort of conclusion, or try to, but today there is nothing left to say but this: death hurts.

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The End was published on October 6th, 2011 . 4 comments






Working Hard or Hardly Working?

He didn’t work hardest at the university,
Or within the fluorescent library,
Or while fiddling with experiments,
Or studying at home after eight daily hours of medical lectures,
Or during eighty hour weeks on the wards,
Or on the overpopulated AIDS unit,
Or while immersed in terminal and faceless sorrow,
Or upon recognizing some dreadful mistake,
Or explaining disaster to still-trusting eyes,
Or with shoulders hunched over the operating table,
Or while rebuilding yet another ravaged eyelid.

His hardest work came after falling
Into sulfurous hollows where his self
Esteem lay shivering with fear,
And his heart
Huddled under the stairs like a wounded mouse
And hope’s ladder sank in a quicksand.

His hardest work didn’t look like labor at all.
It involved stilling panic while gasping with fear,
And keeping his heart beating while choking on regret,
And welcoming grief that struck his ribs like a bat,
And relaxing his fists despite cyclones of fury,
And rebuilding hope in the face of certain doom.

His hardest work was discovering
What makes life
Worth so much pain,
And worth so much more.

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Working Hard or Hardly Working? was published on July 15th, 2011 . 2 comments






The Necessary Pain of Love

Despite my warning to readers in the opening paragraph of the last post, that essay’s thesis wasn’t truly challenging. Desires can lead to trouble? I hear my readers thinking: “Tell us something we don’t already know.” Consider how many novels have been written about the mayhem that surrounds those who act without restraint. A major task of growing up is learning to steady behavior rather than pursue whims. Granted, the Buddha took that basic knowledge to the next level, and showed how even subtle craving can cause suffering, but the message still sounds like common sense: unbridled wants lead to angst.

In the millennia since the Buddha imparted his teachings, these concepts have been elaborated into sophisticated recommendations for achieving equanimity. During the past fifty years, many Westerners have adopted Buddhist practices and precepts. For instance, the doctrine of non-attachment has entered common parlance.

As I have done with a number of spiritual systems, I devoted myself to Buddhist study and practice for a time. I learned the deep peacefulness that comes with following the breath during meditation. I even managed to experience my egoic personality as a mirage, as a biological process within this body’s neural structure, suspended midway between the subatomic and galactic realms.

For all the insight I gleamed from Buddhist practice, however, the idea of non-attachment always remained a bit troubling. Sure, it works fine if applied to material or fleeting pleasures like cars, chocolate, or love affairs. The transient pleasures of life cannot be sustained, and chasing thrills is a doomed strategy for happiness. But what about genuine, deep-seated, love? How can non-attachment make sense when we speak of those closest to us?

For once, I don’t have an answer here. In theory, we could love with all our depth while a person is with us, then calmly let go when he or she departs to the next plane. But even Buddhists grieve, right? And isn’t grief the necessary and worthy price of love?

Denial is a powerful tool of the mind. Even when we know better, we block out awareness of the inevitable death of those we hold dear. To dwell on mortality seems to serve little purpose, so we avoid looking at it. My father was hospitalized with ominous medical problems a year before he died, but when I got the dreadful phone notification of his passing, it still came as a shock. I should have known better, but I didn’t want to. My bond to him, despite our many conflicts, was too important for me to permit thought of sunder. In his case I was strongly attached, and I don’t regret it. But I do regret not taking better advantage of my dad’s final year. My fear of loss fueled a denial that tricked me into squandering time with my father.

Keeping a loose grip is fine, and not that hard, when pleasures are only of the senses. But when they have deeper roots, and touch the heart and soul, holding lightly becomes far more challenging. And is it even desirable?

Do we really want to remain non-attached to those around us? Are not the joy and pain of love and loss vital experiences in life? Where do we draw the line between the pleasures we should release, and the ones that sustain our humanity?

Guess what? We’re back in the realm of hardship. We so quickly slip from joy into pain. The hardship of losing those we love is one of those ordeals that can expand and teach us. But getting to that enlarged and wise state requires that we embrace the pain of grief, and at the same time release our grip on the departed. Only then can we experience the timeless alchemy of tragedy and grace.

So how to sum up non-attachment in matters of the deeper heart? It comes down to cherishing every moment with those we love. We recognize the fleeting nature of all our relationships, and the inevitable breaking of all attachments. As painful as loss is to contemplate, we accept that we our bonds of affection will be disrupted at the end of every life. We guide our hearts by this truth of transience, while keeping our minds in the present, focused on those dear to us. Attachment to the ones alive, sweet letting go of those deceased.

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The Necessary Pain of Love was published on April 22nd, 2011 .






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