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Trauma - Healing It Is Critical

4/30/2020

I have written posts about trauma and how to heal our trauma. As with many things pertaining to the ego-mind, it is not easy and the deeper the trauma the harder it is.

But I have not addressed why heal our trauma. Probably because that’s a “duh!” question. We suffer because of our trauma; so if we want to end our suffering, which is why most of us are Buddhists, then we need to heal our trauma.

But the other morning when I was meditating, I realized a deeper, more fundamental reason why it’s critical to heal our trauma. At one point in my meditation, I turn my will and my life over to the care of my true Buddha nature and “so see myself and the world around me through the eyes of my true Buddha self, my unwounded, pre-trauma heart.”

If we do not heal our trauma, we will not be able to see things through the eyes of our true Buddha self, through our heart, because we will still be consumed by the emotions and cravings that are the trauma. Thus regardless whether we do The Heart’s Embrace or know what we need to be happy, regardless whether we say “not me!” to all feelings and perceptions, if we don’t face and heal our trauma specifically, both physically and mentally, when its button is pushed we will react with uncontrollable emotion and for the moment destroy ourselves, losing all connection with our spirituality. (See my posts, “Trauma,” and “Trauma Denied No Longer.”)

Why is this so? As I’ve often written, when we heal or disassociate from our emotions, it generally doesn’t work to do it globally. The specific emotion or perception must be named so that it can be focused on in meditation during our healing mantra. Likewise when we are doing physical exercises to heal our trauma, we must have in mind specific incidents that brought on the ego-mind’s traumatic reaction. (Note: I use the word “brought on” rather than “caused” because as explained in other posts, the incident is not the cause of our suffering, it is our ego-mind’s reaction to the incident that causes our suffering. Thus the emotional reactions are the trauma, and the underlying experience the traumatic incident.)

Our trauma, be it from our childhood or as an adult, are the controlling psychic forces in our lives. If we do not identify and heal our trauma, we will go through life like soldiers suffering from PTSD. Like them, we will be a bomb waiting to go off.

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What To Do When You Lose Faith?

4/24/2020

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We are raised in a culture that either expects hard work to be rewarded or help from spiritual sources to guide us through a hostile environment. When something we’ve put huge effort into does not succeed, not even get some minimal acknowledgment, we feel devastated. When it’s something that we’ve put our whole being into, something we felt we were meant to do, we feel not just devastated but betrayed.

If we have been following a spiritual path, be it Buddhism or some other, we will often say something like, “Where is Buddha now?” “Where is God now?” “Where are my angels now?” Because we feel we have been let down, but also because in our current devastation, we don’t hear any spiritual voice speaking to us, advising us, consoling us. As a result, we lose faith in our spiritual practice.

If you’ve experienced what I have just written, then there are several things for you to examine.

First, ask yourself whether the expectation you had for your project was a realistic one? Regardless of its value and the quality you put into the project (whether business, artistic, or relationship), did you understand that it was going to be a long, hard, slog or did you think that people were just going to love it and “fame and fortune” were just around the corner? If the latter, or anything close to it, you are in for a fall and suffering.

Expectations are tricky things, because on the one hand they are often an important component of the energy we have that goes into a project, but on the other hand, they can lead to our suffering if our expectation was not based on clear thinking.

Ideally, it is best to enter into these things with no expectation. To have the energy come just from the joy of doing it. And from faith … not in something specific happening but just faith in yourself. But if you have to have an expectation it is best if it is on the conservative side; not negative so as to stop you, but realistic as to the reception it may receive.

Second, we need to remember that whatever spiritual help we have tried to access, it’s not the purpose or task of the spiritual entity to get us what we want. Whether it’s God, angels, or certainly Buddha, these spiritual entities are there to guide us, to support us, to help us access our inner wisdom, but not to accomplish things for us.

While we were typically raised in a religion where one prayed to God to accomplish something, that is not part of our new spirituality. But it’s very easy to fall back into the mindset and when things don’t go right to say the equivalent of the Biblical, “God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”

Instead, our new spirituality is centered on strengthening ourselves so that we can weather any storm, take whatever the hostile environment that is the world we live in throws at us. And when we feel we are safe in this sense, then we have abundant energy to address the project that is before us, even when things don’t go as we hoped or planned.

Which brings me to the third and critical step: feeling safe, regardless. This project that you’ve undertaken … ask yourself if it is an exercise of your ego or does it come from your heart? Or regardless whether it initiated in your heart, has your ego commandeered it so that it now has become a matter of your self-confidence, your self-esteem? Do you feel driven?

This is a hard one. We often start projects from the purest of motives, but because we are expending a lot of energy, the ego-mind tends to attach itself to things and the project becomes invested with another type of energy, a not healthy one. Generally we call it attachment.

One easy test it to ask yourself whether you can say, “If it happens, great. If it doesn’t, that’s ok too.” If you can’t say that then you are attached and headed down the road to suffering even just waiting for it to happen, let alone if it doesn’t happen. Indeed, the waiting process may be so devastating (people not responding to you, etc.) that you just want to give it up.

It doesn’t matter how central this project is to the self-image you have created for yourself, you cannot become attached to the project or the process. And contrary to the way we’ve been raised, it is not mutually inconsistent to hold something very dear or important and still be unattached.

How to become unattached to something or someone, no matter how dear it or the person is to you? The key is to feel that you will be ok, safe, regardless what happens.

There are two practices that I have embraced that take me to that place. The first is The Heart’s Embrace. When you open your heart to embrace all aspects of your being and experience … past, present, and future … then nothing offends, all internal and external struggle cease to be, you know you have everything inside yourself to be at peace and happy, and you will allow nothing to disturb that peace and happiness. Read my post, “The Heart’s Embrace,” for a full description of the process.

When you are in that state, you are free of all mental obstructions, and so you are able to see all things directly, with dispassion, free of labels, free of the intervention of the mind, knowing that things are the way they are because it’s just the way it is and that’s all ok. And so the mind rests undisturbed. And when the mind rests undisturbed, true faith pervades the mind, you know you have everything you need inside yourself to be at peace and happy, all self-revealing and clear without exerting power of mind.

The other practice is knowing what you need to be happy (see my post, “Happiness - What You Need to Be Happy” for a full description of the steps). When you know that all you need to be happy is to offer yourself and others joy, to be in the company of loved ones and friends, to respect your mind, to respect your body, to be in touch with nature, and live within you means, you know that indeed you have everything inside yourself to be at peace and happy. It isn’t a matter of how much money you have and the “freedom” that provides, it’s a question of inner peace and self-respect. That you are never alone; your true Buddha nature is always there to protect and guide you.

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Happiness - What You Need to Be Happy

4/18/2020

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I have referred often to the meditation when it was revealed to me what I need to be happy, but I have not written on that subject in detail (although there is a Dear Buddha comment concerning that). This posts fills that void.

In our culture, happiness is usually defined by what one has acquired, how one fits the model of a happy person presented in countless ads, TV sitcoms, and movies. As Buddhists, we learn, however, that instead happiness must come from within, not from external sources. One can have everything in the world a person could want … family, fame, wealth … and still be desperately unhappy. Indeed, that is often the case.

Once when meditating, it was revealed what I needed to be happy, what it means to be happy from within: to offer myself and others joy, to be in the company of loved ones and friends, to respect my mind, to respect my body, to be in touch with nature, and to live within my means.

1. Offer myself joy: As I related in my post, “Offer Myself Joy!” this seemingly un-Buddhist thought is actually at the core of the Buddha dharma. When the Buddha started turning the wheel of the dharma and taught the Four Noble Truths, it was about how to end our suffering. Everything we are taught, while it may redound to other’s benefit, is necessary to end our suffering. This is not ego-centrism. But it is thinking about and caring for oneself. Indeed, if we do not care for ourselves, if we do not love ourselves, we cannot truly offer joy to anyone else.

So how do I offer myself joy? By cherishing every passing moment, regardless what else is going on; yes, you can manifest this feeling even in the darkest of moments by cherishing just being alive and focusing on the things that nourish you, whether it's a relationship, nature, music, whatever. By being in touch with the positive energy in my heart. By releasing all desire that my life be different in any way from the way it is right now at this moment. By being aware of all I am grateful for. By having compassion for myself and loving myself unconditionally.

2. Offer others joy: Throughout the day, we have an opportunity to make a difference in other people’s lives, even if just in a small way, and thus make a difference in our own lives. Within our family, rather than the constant bickering that is so often the norm in family life, offering others joy brings joy to ourselves. In our work, interacting with others in a way that offers them joy brings joy to ourselves. In our daily activities, whether it’s going grocery shopping or anything else, we have the opportunity again to either offer joy or be an anonymous cipher. This is the Five Precepts in action.

The basic principle joining all these actions is that you treat others with respect; that is what most of us long for. Don’t fall into the trap of offering someone advice unless asked, something you think they need, because most likely the person doesn’t want advice. See my post, “Letting Others Go Their Way.”

One caveat: if you are dealing with someone who is evil, a dark force, this advice to offer joy does not apply. If you offer someone like that joy or loving-kindness, they will gain power over you. Keep your distance. See my post, "Evil - How Should a Buddhist Respond?"

3. Be in the company of loved ones and friends: Being in a nurturing environment is one of our Four Basic Needs (see my book, The Self in No Self). It’s an elemental need not just for humans, but indeed for most animals. Regardless of what is happening in the larger world, being able to feel safe and to laugh and love within ones personal circle is critically important.

But what happens when your loved ones and friends have died? What happens if you are sent to prison and are separated from them for years? The answer is that even if your are physically apart, your loved ones and friends can be very alive in your heart and in your mind. One can talk to your loved ones or write them a letter, whether dead or alive. Our memory is so often the source of pain; make it a source of joy by keeping these relationships alive within you.

4. Respect my body: To have respect for oneself is to have respect for all aspects of oneself, including one’s body. Staying physically fit is being respectful of one’s body, as well as taking care of one’s health. This is not to be confused with the current cultural obsession with physical fitness. That is a craving which stems often if not mostly from a lack of equanimity, from a need to be admired and acknowledged; it stems from insecurity. That is an example of a Right desire being turned into an unskillful desire and a craving if the origination of the desire is not equanimity.

5. Respect my mind: The motto of the United Negro College Fund is, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” Our brain, our ability to think and analyze, is what differentiates humans from their animal ancestors. To have respect for oneself is to use it, to stay mentally fit. But it’s not just keeping our mind engaged that’s important, it’s what it’s engaged in. To engage my mind in something that’s not in keeping with the Five Precepts would not meet this need and indeed would add to my samsara. One has but to read the papers every day to see examples of people whose minds are very engaged, but who are engaged in efforts that are harmful to their fellow man and thus unwittingly increase their samsara.

6. Be in touch with nature - As I explained in my first blog post years ago, “If This Is Practical Buddhism, Why the Pastoral Setting?” in nature we see reflected the essential truths of the Buddha dharma ... that all things are impermanent and changeable, that all things rise and fall, and the oneness of all things. It is in nature that we can find elemental beauty, which is a profound source of peace and joy. This is not restricted to what culturally is considered a beautiful day. It can be grey and rainy, but there still is beauty to behold if one’s senses are open to it.

This doesn’t mean that one must live in nature or surrounded by nature. Indeed, many who do are not in touch with nature. It means connecting with nature. It could be a simple garden oasis in an urban backyard or it could be a nearby nature preserve. It could even be a patch of sky that you see through a prison cell window. Or it could be your memory of nature when it is totally removed from you.

7. Live within my means and thus be financially secure: For most people, being financially secure means capitulating to our culture’s craving for always more money and more things. What I’m talking about here ... living within one’s means ... is a decidedly counter-cultural, almost subversive, perspective. One of the Four Basic Needs is security, and certainly a key aspect of that is financial security.

But here I’m not talking about how much money one has, I’m talking about one’s attitude towards money and how one lives one’s life. There are many poor people around the world whose lives are far happier and content than many in our culture with great wealth because they do not crave what they don’t have; they have not yet been infected with the virus of Western capitalism and consumerism. (Granted, the numbers of such people are growing smaller with each year as our culture spreads into further and further corners of the world.)

“OK,” the reader may say, “but what if one doesn’t have any friends or loved ones, what if one has a physical disability, what if one is retarded, etc.” Regardless of one’s state, one can pursue these goals with acceptance and equanimity.

For example, if one truly has no friends or loved ones, one always has oneself; one is never alone. Being in the company of yourself should be a wonderful, nurturing activity. Also, if you feel that you have no loved ones, undertake to unseal the wellspring of loving kindness within you, as suggested by Sogyal Rinpoche is his The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. You will uncover that you have been loved once by someone.

If we are physically disabled, we can treat ourselves with respect and keep that part of our body that is not disabled physically fit. Likewise if we are mentally challenged, there is much we can do that maximizes the use of our mind; the relatively recent transformation in the lives of people with Downs Syndrome is a perfect case in point.

ALL ELSE IS EGO. Any desire for more than these goals is ego. All the things that we are used to thinking we need in order to be happy are ego; they are a function of our culture, of our learned experience. These desires to not come from our heart.

Moreover, I am aware that even though I have spent most of my professional life trying with honest intent in some way to make this world a better place and help relieve the suffering of others, all of my efforts have been tainted by my ego-mind, by my thinking mind. Everything I have done, regardless of its good intent and its often good results, has been driven equally strongly by my craving to be accepted, to be admired, to be loved. And so regardless of the venue in which I worked, my desires were unskillful desires because of their at least partially unskillful origination in a lack of equanimity.

This statement neither denigrates what I have done nor myself. It is just an honest aware statement that my samsara was a major factor in what I did and therefore I was not at peace or happy, regardless what I accomplished. When I first wrote this my ego-mind said, “Aha, see, if it wasn’t for my influence you wouldn’t have done these good things.” But I know that that is not the case. If I had been able to ignore my ego-mind, to observe without the intervention of thought, I am quite sure that I would still have undertaken these tasks because they were the Right thing to do.

And so it is with all things. It is the attitude of us towards ourselves, which usually reflects the attitude others have had towards us which we have absorbed and internalized, that keeps us down. Regardless of our status in life, we must free ourselves of that learned experience in order to be free, at peace and happy. It is only when we observe how our ego-mind works in all things and causes us suffering that we see the door that open us to finding a different way of pursuing life ... one that will bring us peace, contentment, and happiness.

So meditate and find the answer for yourself to the question: what do you need to do to find peace, contentment, and happiness. Even if you cannot totally be free of your thinking mind, your ego, be aware of its impact as much as you can and try and listen to your true Buddha nature.

NOTE: There is another practice that is a valuable and perhaps necessary complement to the goals I’ve stated in this post … The Heart’s Embrace (see my post of that title). Because a key element of finding happiness is offering myself joy, and a key component of that is releasing all desire that my life be different in any way from the way it is right now at this moment. To be able to do that, it is very helpful to know as a result of practicing The Heart’s Embrace that you will be ok, safe, regardless what life throws your way because you have returned home and will always return home to your true Buddha nature. When you can truly say, que sera sera, then you have the freedom to be fully present in the moment. This practice also helps being ok with living within one’s means.

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We Have Lost Our Sense of Place

4/5/2020

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Recently, I was told the story of a famous Nigerian writer who after a lifetime in exile was returning home to his native land, his native village. We have this saying, “You can’t go home anymore,” and so I pondered what he was doing. Then an Irish acquaintance of mine told me that after living in the U.S. for 40 years, he was going home to Ireland, again to the village where he grew up.

For both these people, the connection with their ancestral home remained very strong even after many years away. This went beyond feeling comfortable in a place or wanting to be around relatives or to hear his native tongue. It was a deep sense of home, of belonging.

What’s that about? I have never felt like that about anywhere I’ve lived, including the town where I grew up. I have some fond memories of it, and occasionally I stop by when I’m in the area, but I don’t feel like it’s home to me. I certainly have no reverence or strong emotional bond with it.

My first thought is that you only have a deep connection with the place you’ve lived if you are connected with the land. If you farm. It’s not enough to be surrounded by nature. Lots of people live in rural areas yet do not have a strong bond with their home. And even farmers, they may have a strong bond with the land they own, but that’s because it’s theirs, not because of the spiritual nature of the land.

I have a strong feeling for nature. I love it, including the nature that was close at hand while growing up. There is beauty in nature. But I don’t have a bond with it; I don’t have a reverence for it. My partner, on the other hand, connects with nature at a very deep level. He truly has a reverence for it. Why?

I don’t know, and neither does he. It certainly wasn’t because of the way he was raised or his life experiences. He is a true artist, and as such connects with things and people in a way that I cannot begin to imagine. It connects with his soul. And yet he also does not think of any of the nature spots we’ve lived in, and we’ve lived on the land, as home.

It was not always so. Millennia ago, certainly among aboriginal groups such as Native Americans, people had a reverence for the land and nature, the place where they and their ancestors lived. Every Native American (I’m sure there were exceptions to the contrary) had this reverence. Because it was the basis of their religion, their culture. It was the air they breathed, the substance of their life.

What happened that destroyed that reverence, that connection? I realized that at the same time as these ancient communal societies were giving way to societies where one fended for oneself, their ancient animist religions — which attributed a soul to animals, plants, inanimate objects, and natural phenomena, part of a supernatural power that organizes the material universe — gave way first to polytheism and then monotheism … the Abrahamic faiths, all of which saw gods as having human form.

I am far from being a religious scholar, but I believe that this shift is the reason why most of us do not have a strong sense of place, a reverence for the home of our childhood. When you stop believing in the spiritual power of the natural world around you and instead believe in the spiritual power of a god, your connection with the natural world becomes very different.

And when that god gives you power over all other forms of life, that connection becomes one of control, not reverence. Look at Genesis 1:28. “And God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish in the sea, and over the foul in the air, and over every living thing that moveth on the earth.” [emphasis added] There in a nutshell is the spiritual basis for what has become man’s relationship with Earth. Man is the controlling force on Earth. Everything else that God placed on Earth is there for man’s benefit and use. This is a far cry from animist religion in which man is subject to the power of the universe and so respects it and has reverence for it.

And so, modern man (with exceptions such as the two men I spoke of at the beginning of this post) has no sense of place, has no sense of home in the deep spiritual sense. He is adrift. A man without roots. Why is this important? If a man does not know who he is, if he does not know where he belongs, if he does not understand his place in the universe, he will suffer.

But as a Buddhist, what is my excuse for not having a sense of place. a reverence for nature? Buddhism has no God. Buddhism is not animist, but it teaches a great reverence and interconnectedness with all elements of nature, animate and inanimate.

But I came to Buddhism a man already formed by the culture and the religion I grew up in. I am a JuBu. Even after 25 years of disciplined practice and much spiritual growth, I cannot say that my connection with the natural world has changed. Perhaps this reverence, this connection, is something one has to grow up with, become part of one's DNA, so to speak.

I am aware of the absence of this spirit. And that my life is less rich because of its absence,

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