Now Just Wait a Minute...

In the Sunday New York Times today, there was an article called, “Why Waiting in Line is Torture.” The article was about the psychology of waiting in line and the various attempts to use that psychology to make the queue experience less frustrating (think of the zig-zagging, serpentine lines at the Disney parks as a perfect example). If you think about the different lines you have to stand in at any given time and the way you feel when you do, you probably have a sense of what I’m talking about. Now, think of the behavior you have seen exhibited by those around you (and perhaps yourself) in those lines. People fidget, complain, sigh loudly, check their watches every 30 seconds or so, and get more anxious and irritable as their wait continues. People sometimes take out their frustrations on the often poorly- paid cashiers or ticket takers because they need somewhere to focus their anger at the effrontery of their having been delayed in getting to whatever it is they need or want to do next. There have even been examples of “line rage.” Last week in Maryland, a man stabbed another man at a post office because he thought (it turns out incorrectly) that the man had cut ahead of him in line. Much of this derives from filtering these situations through our egos and sense of entitlement and self-importance. ”Why should I have to wait so long? What’s wrong with these people? I have important things to do!” So much stress…and in reality, so unnecessary.

If we stop to look at the reality of these occurrences, it becomes obvious that the stress and anxiety we are feeling are of our own making, arising directly from the way we are interpreting the situation. We are upset because this is somehow not the way we desire things to be (for a closer look at this, see my last blog posting on desire as the root of suffering). The good news, however, is that because it is of our own making, it is also in our power to change it.

While I was reading the afore-mentioned article, I was reminded of one of my very favorite books, Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. When I was teaching, this book was, every year, the source of the most important life lessons I could have imparted, and to this this day, a book to which my former students still refer. The book is essentially a retelling of the journey taken by the Buddha on his way to enlightenment. Like our lives, it is a quest in which he learns from each experience he has and each person he meets, with each lesson learned helping him with the challenge next to come. One of the most very significant things he learns comes at the beginning of the story. He wishes to leave home to begin his own life’s journey, and his father forbids him to do so. What Siddhartha does in the face of that refusal is to stand in his father’s chamber and wait, with no sense whatsoever of how long he will need to do so. He simply waits…and waits… and waits… until his father acknowledges his resolve and relents. He doesn’t argue or allow himself to get upset or angry…he just waits, letting it take whatever time it is going to take. And that is the secret.

This proved to be one of the most important life lessons I ever learned, and has had an enormous influence on the way I have chosen to live. Impatience was something I often struggled with, and it was a great source of frustration for me. Learning to recognize and accept that things will simply take the time they take… whether in a check-out line at the grocery store, leaving the parking lot after a concert, sitting in the doctor’s office, waiting for my number to be called at the deli or the motor vehicle department, waiting at the airport to go through security, or waiting to get off the airplane after a long flight…has since shielded me from unnecessary stress in one situation after another. What I learned from Siddhartha was, to quote the great John Lennon, “Let it be.” If we just allow ourselves to let go of the idea that whatever we are experiencing is somehow taking too long, no anxiety or stress arises, because we have released ourselves from the desire that the situation be any different than it is. Saying to ourselves, “what is taking place is going to take whatever time it takes,” and being willing to accept the reality of that simple truth, is like escaping the confines of a stifling room and taking a breath of cool fresh air.

Ultimately, it is about letting go of the idea that we can control everything around us, and allowing ourselves to live in the moment, and letting that moment and the next, and the next, be just what they are. What we can control in our lives are our own reactions to whatever happens or is going on, by controlling how we choose to look at them. Truly, one of the very best gifts each of us can give to ourselves is the sense of tranquility that immediately occurs if we can just…wait a minute.

I Want Happiness!!

Yesterday, a former student and dear friend who knows well of my Buddhist approach to life sent me a cartoon on Facebook. In the first frame a man is yelling at a Buddhist monk, “I want happiness!!” In the second frame, the monk reaches up and takes down the speech balloon above the man’s head. In the third frame, he places it on the ground, kneels over it and begins erasing words with the sleeve of his robe. As he does so, he says, “First remove “I”, that’s ego. Then remove “want, that’s desire.” In the fourth frame, he stands, turns to the man and says, “Now all you’re left with is…”  and the man says, with a great smile (in big letters in his speech bubble), “HAPPINESS!!!”. This was not the first time I had heard this little story, and perhaps it was the visual attached to it, but it really struck me very hard that these truly are the core of the teachings of the Buddha reduced to their bare essence.

First, let’s look at the part where the monk says, “First remove “I”, that’s ego.” As we all discover, actually accomplishing that can be quite difficult. In Buddhist philosophy, one of the important goals is to recognize that there is indeed no true “self”, no duality; that in fact we are not separate at all, but are one with all that exists. This concept is very difficult to understand, and harder still to assimilate. I do not have a sufficient grasp of it to discuss it here, and in fact I am beginning study of this concept with a Buddhist teacher in September. That said, when we honestly examine the things that cause us stress and unhappiness, it soon becomes obvious that they all have to do with our sense of self and a preoccupation with how everything and everyone in the world in which we live affect us. Our egos have a habit of rearing their heads in every situation and conversation, often blinding us to what is actually happening or being said. I know this because for years my ego got in the way of my ability to find contentment.

 As difficult as it seems, it is quite possible to reframe our point of view so that everything is not filtered through our ego. For example, we are driving and are at a stoplight; the light changes and the driver behind us honks his (or her) horn. Our first reaction is likely to be a desire to “flash the bird” in our rearview mirror and utter a heartfelt “asshole!”  because we have somehow been insulted. That is our ego acting out in all its glory. If we are able to take a step back, remove our ego from the equation, and take another look at the situation, we realize that the bump of the horn is truly of no consequence, and simply a result of whatever the other person is feeling at the moment. Their impatience bears no connection whatsoever to us, and really has no power to make us angry or embarrassed unless we allow it to do so. Seeing it this way enables us to immediately stifle the momentary feeling of anger and say to ourselves, “He (she) must be in a bigger hurry than I am,” and calmly pull away from the light. The result is that we have eliminated our stress reaction and warded off a challenge to our contentment. Many years ago, a student in one of my classes who wanted to get me going said, “You know what…you’re fat and bald!” I could have reacted with indignation to this verbal assault on my position as teacher, thus escalating the confrontation and playing right into his hands. Instead (the observation being true), I chose to remove my ego and replied, “Now we know your eyes work…is there anything else?” He didn’t know what to say since he was aiming at my ego and I had taken his target away. The confrontation simply dissipated and we returned to “Of Mice and Men”.  This kind of reframing takes practice, but the benefits are more than worth it.

In the cartoon, the monk also said, “…then take away want, that’s desire”.  Buddha taught that when we look honestly at the nature of our suffering, it is inevitably tied to frustrated desire. At a talk I recently attended, a Buddhist monk said that when we are born, the moment “I” comes into being, it is immediately accompanied by “my” and “mine”, leading to a life of discontent. This is directly related to the concepts of “self” and “ego” mentioned earlier. When we are feeling discontent or sad, or angry, if we take a step back to look at the reason, we overwhelmingly find that the feeling is tied to our not having something we want. We look at things as they are and decide that they are not to our liking. We hate our job; we want a better one. We don’t like our car any more; we want another one. We are not getting what we think we deserve in a relationship; we want a different one (or a diversion from this one). We don’t like our hair or our bodies; these are too small, that’s too big. We don’t like our clothes any more. People disagree with our religion, our politics, our point of view; we want them to change to our way of thinking. We are having an argument with our spouse or partner and we want to win, to be proven “right”. We see many material things that we believe will make us happy, and we want to acquire them but don’t have enough money; we want more money so we can have more things. Ironically, if do have enough money and we acquire all the things or people we desire, we discover that we’re still not happy and want something else…we want to be happy and we’re not. There is untold suffering in the world; we want it to diminish and disappear. The list is endless, but they all point to the same truth – our lives are filled with desires of many varieties, and any frustration of those desires causes us to suffer in one form or another.  The simple truth is that if we recognize that our desires are the source of our discontent and try to control or eliminate them, our suffering decreases. Before you say, “WTF?”, this does not mean that we should not try to improve ourselves, or change jobs, or change life partners, or escape a situation in which we are abused. It means recognizing the simple truth that regardless of the nature of what we want, our desire to have things be different than they are is the cause of our suffering. Like most other things, desires are neither good nor bad in themselves. Many of the things we desire are good, and compassionate, and necessary for our well-being and the well-being of others. Our desire for them can  motivate our actions to change or improve our lives or the world at large.

When we understand that we are not individuals, but are a piece of the universe integrally connected to every other piece, it allows our focus to shift away from ourselves and what we want and onto the needs of those other parts of the universe, be they people, animals, or the earth itself. Thus is compassion and happiness born.

Walking the Center Line

Amidst all of the divisiveness we see everywhere, every day, I cannot help but be struck with a disturbing awareness of the constant creation of an us-versus-them mentality. We seem terribly focused on our differences, as though our similarities have ceased to matter, or are at the very least, irritating factors somehow to be discounted in the face of the “truth”. In almost every case this divisiveness both derives from and helps to create extreme polarization. It appears that the extremes of every disagreement are the only places anyone inhabits anymore. As a result, few of us are happy, and all of us are stressed.

Years ago, I when I was studying to get my Master’s Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy, part of the course-work involved being trained in Gestalt Therapy. Studying the tenets of this philosophy opened my eyes to many things and really helped me to interpret my experiences and beliefs in a way that made much more sense and helped me to see the world around me more clearly and truthfully. One of the most cogent of all the things I learned at this time was that in people, and in situations, truth almost always lies near the center between the poles.

This was brought to me to me in a very personal way. I have always striven to be a good, kind person and realize that I do make the choice to act compassionately in almost every instance. However, at the time I was in Gestalt Training, part of the work involved being in group therapy every week. Since everyone in the group was a therapist, it meant that no one ever got away with anything and made for some very difficult, but necessary, self-revelations for all of us. At this time in my life, I had convinced myself that I had no capacity whatsoever for hatred… after all, I didn’t and couldn’t hate anyone, right? I had proved that over and over. During group however, that notion was challenged as an excellent example of denial, and more importantly, something that stood in the way of my being a fully integrated person. Of course I fought against this, fearing that if I accepted it, my whole sense of self would disintegrate. In fact, just the opposite took place. What I was made to understand was that my capacity for love was balanced by my capacity for hatred. Accepting that reality suddenly made my consistent choices to act in a loving way much more significant because they were, in fact, choices.

I realized that I did indeed have a strong capacity for hatred, but that the hatred was never directed at people, but rather at situations and beliefs that resulted in people’s being endangered, harmed or disenfranchised. By accepting that I had both poles within me, it gave me the power to access both, and in doing so helped me to realize that I could heal people individually through my love, while helping to heal people in general through my hatred for injustice and bigotry. In other words, I could bring the totality of who I am to bear.

As I have progressed on my spiritual journey, and embraced the Buddhist philosophy of loving-kindness, I have come to realize that the concept of non-judgment meshes very well with what I discovered about myself. At the outset, let me say that in my opinion true non-judgmentalism is largely an illusion, in the sense that we can keep from making distinctions throughout our day. We constantly make choices and base decisions on those choices. However, it is quite possible to learn to keep from judging our fellow humans when we accept that simply by being human, all of us have the capacity for tremendous good and tremendous harm. When we accept that reality, we are able to focus compassion for other people based in our shared human imperfections, while feeling real antipathy for words, behaviors, and beliefs that we find reprehensible. In other words, we are able to have love and compassion for people, while recognizing that there are times when we simply cannot support their choices or where they lead, and in some cases may have to work actively to oppose the ramifications of those choices.

So it is that truth lies in the center, for us and for others. By embracing all parts of who we are, we are able to accept others compassionately for who they are and where they are in their lives, while recognizing that like the yin-yang, no one is all good or bad, male or female, light or darkness, but are indeed comprised of elements of both. It is the curving line of the yin-yang, dividing the two halves at the center that is its most beautiful aspect. The same can be said of us. That’s what it means, I think, to try to remain centered. 

Lessons From Olympus

I haven’t posted for a couple of weeks because I was entertaining family and had a ball doing so. Also, I am an unrepentant Olympics junkie and have spent a great deal of time in front of the television, watching athletes of all countries compete. It was while watching gymnastics and swimming the other night that I realized how much of a connection there is between a Zen approach to living and the Olympics.

The first awareness I had was that of the true significance of “the moment”.  In Buddhism we often speak of the need to live in the moment, recognizing both the past and the future as stories we tell ourselves, largely based in illusion. In situations in which the moments can be sub-divided into hundredths of a second, the true significance of a single moment is magnified and easily seen. Lives and fortunes are changed, joy and suffering are experienced, all in these bits of time that are shorter than the blink of an eye or a bolt of lightening.  Jordyn Weiber, recognizably one of the finest gymnasts in the world, failed to qualify for the individual all-around competition. It was watching her intense suffering begin at the moment she realized that her dream of individual gold was simply not to be that struck me so vividly.  In the moment before her score was broadcast her dream lived… a moment later it was revealed to her and the world as an illusion. She has worked terribly hard and given much of herself, every minute of that training aimed at the goal of achieving that gold medal; and in a moment it was gone. Two things can be learned here: first, that the future is an illusion and that to live there robs us of living in the present; second, that fame, fortune and awards are not part of us in any way. She was the same woman in the moment after realizing her dream was gone that she was at the moment before, when she thought the goal might still be in her grasp, but now she was suffering.

The second awareness I had was a familiar one…the absolutely transitory nature of everything. The Olympics pound home over and over the same message…nothing ever remains as it was. The past cannot be recaptured no matter how hard one works, or how talented one may be. This has been true for many of the athletes and Michael Phelps is the perfect example. When he came in fourth in an event in which he was thought to be unbeatable, people the world over were shocked…”How could this be?”  In a very real way, and by his own later admission, this Michael Phelps was not the former Michael Phelps. How could he be? We all change from moment to moment; no past occurrence can ever be recaptured or repeated because the same set of circumstances that came together in that unique moment can never be replicated. It is for this reason that in our own lives, attempts to repeat an experience that was really pleasurable, be it a really good party or a love-making session or a great concert most often do not live up to the original because change has been taking place in every aspect of the first experience. Michael Phelps knows this, and as a result has been able to embrace the reality of each race for its own experience. He certainly still gives it his all, but knows that ultimately, what is, is.

Finally, the affects of attachment and ego have been thrown onto the sports pages by another American swimmer, Ryan Lochte. For weeks before the Olympics began, Lochte had been showing off his diamond-studded “grille” and telling the world, “Bejing was Michael Phelps’s time, but London is mine.” Ryan is a truly gifted swimmer, and a holder of world records, but when he become wrapped up in his ego and succumbed to the illusion that he was invincible and could take everything because of who he is, reality set in, as it always does. Although he has won a couple of races, he has lost a larger number, including a couple to Phelps as well as the last leg of a relay in which his teammates had given him the lead when he entered the pool. Unfortunately, there has been much schadenfreude surrounding those losses, as the world seems to enjoy watching him not live up to his own hype. “Pride goeth before a fall” seems a frighteningly appropriate statement in this case. I think that his mistake came when he traded his love for the competition of his sport and replaced it with love of self.  Interestingly, a seventeen-year-old female swimmer from Colorado named Missy Franklin has put Lochte’s behavior in bas-relief by being his opposite. She has won one race after another, beating world champions, and is thrilled and a little surprised each time. She speaks only of how grateful she is to be an Olympian and how much she loves to swim. It’s never about her and always about the experience she is having, and the world has embraced her for it. This study in opposites is a stark reminder that embracing the self is like grabbing a wet bar of soap…the harder you squeeze, the more quickly it will elude your grasp.