Tag Archives: depression

Nowhere Where it Isn’t Crying in You

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Reflections on an Inspiring Quote

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“It is not first this, then this, then that – the whole person comes into motion.
There is nowhere where it stays as is, when I begin to allow movement.  
There’s nowhere, when you have to laugh, where you don’t laugh.  
Or you are only partly involved with laughing.  
Nowhere, when you are crying, where it isn’t crying in you.  
Does that make sense?  
In other words, to give myself to something means not to go point by point.”
Charlotte Selver

Before you read on I suggest you pause, read the quote again, and let it sink in.

What is your response?

Here’s what happened with me: “Yes! What a powerful, awesome statement. This is how we ought to live. Fully alive. “Nowhere, when we laugh, where we don’t laugh.”

And then: Oh, no. I don’t live up to this at all. After all these years of practice, I am still not fully involved. Rarely is my experience even close to this. I need to work very hard to get there.

And then: Wait! Just because Charlotte said this, is this really what is supposed to happen? This may have been Charlotte’s experience but is it mine?

Nowhere, when you are crying, where it isn’t crying in you: The fact that this has ultimately not been my experience, has probably saved my life. There have been times when I was so depressed that it seemed like there was nowhere in me, where I wasn’t experiencing depression. Life became unbearable. But then I discovered (thanks to Charlotte’s practice of Sensory Awareness, nonetheless) that there were places in me that weren’t at all depressed. I noticed that my feet felt usually very good, even when I thought I was ‘completely’ down. Not a shred of sadness in my left foot, no tears but only sensations, pleasant ones to boot: tingling, subtle adjustments towards the floor and – as I continued feeling – triggering a sigh and a deep breath which gave me much-needed space in my chest. No depression in my lower belly either but warmth and softness.*

What’s more, when I continued to feel what was going on in and around me, I noticed that what felt so unbearable was only taking up relatively little space in a bigger context, while the rest of me and my surroundings felt quite different. It just ‘shouted’ so loud, I couldn’t feel anything else. This recognition didn’t mean that all was well. There was still tremendous pain. But by having a larger context and places to ‘go to’ that were not infected by mental illness, I was able to hang on and find my bearings again. This is no recipe for all and for any circumstance, to be sure. But it has been – and continues to be – tremendously helpful in my life.

I have no desire to fault Charlotte. What she said in this Sensory Awareness Leaders Study Group in 1987 is something to deeply explore. This inquiry can be of tremendous value and will lead to important discoveries. But it is not something to blindly believe or to attach our hopes to, maybe not even something to aspire to. That’s for each of us to find out.

“Trust your nature more than a teacher. Teachers are dangerous.”
Charlotte Selver

In my work on a biography of Charlotte Selver, I have become very interested in finding out ‘what actually happened’, when I hear or read something. In my research I have noticed that surprisingly often what people say or write about someone is stated as though it  happened just that way, when indeed it was a story that had been passed down ‘the line’ much like in that beloved telephone game. That is not to say that it, or something like it, didn’t happen. It may well have but then again, the original ‘experiencer’ might not recognize our account of it.  I have also learned that writing about someone (even myself) is at best an approximation. Even when we quote them verbatim, we might still miss their point, and can probably only make our own. And that is okay, too, as long as we aware of it.

So, in the interest of full disclosure: The first quote is verbatim, from a transcript of an audio recording. In that sense, the quote is ‘accurate’. But it is also taken out of the context of a two-hour session and the particular chemistry of the time, place and the group of Sensory Awareness teachers with whom Charlotte worked. And – I was not at that workshop to witness how it happened. All that said, I intend to use the quote unquestioned in a chapter titled How Does a Movement Begin? It fits perfectly and it seems to belong in the particular context.

The second quote is from my on class notes, taken during a workshop with Charlotte in 1991 in Austria. I took the notes in German: “Vertraut eurer Natur mehr, als einem Lehrer. Lehrer sind gefährlich.” I wrote this down right after class, so chances are this is what Charlotte actually said – or approximately. But I cannot reconstruct the context and can’t really recall that particular class. I wonder what other participants might have jutted down or remember.

* See “Beauty and the Beast”

** Photos are like quotes: They can inspire and move us. They can also be deceptive. I took this picture in Charlotte’s living room, probably during a break or at the end of a workshop she gave (aged 100!) I don’t quite remember, though I do remember taking pictures while we had tea with friends, fellow Sensory Awareness leaders. It was not a photo session and Charlotte didn’t like to be photographed. I don’t remember why she held up the gong striker but probably to threaten me because I took pictures. Then again, maybe she was posing. In any case, I am sure we laughed. Charlotte could be very funny and silly. Were we ‘all laughter’?

Anxiety, Trees and Clouds

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With lots of resistance to feeling it, I wonder why I would resist the presence of anxiety but not the tree’s presence across the field. Granted, the anxiety is very unpleasant* but it is it really unbearable? Don’t I perceive it just as I perceive the tree? Is it essentially different? It is here and it won’t go away, not now or anytime soon anyway. Can I turn to anxiety just as I would look at a tree? I quickly realize that by focusing in on the pain my resistance grows. I just can’t be with it in this way. It is too much, it is too painful. Forcing to meet it head-on does not help.

This is when I actively begin to notice things I am seeing through the window. They are there too. What if I spread my attention, noticing non-threatening things, going from tree to tree, occasionally weaving in the sensations of pain and anxiety?

Just like this tree is here, this cloud, this chair, anxiety is here. It is just one of the things present. Would I want for the tree to go away? Would I want this cloud to change? That pain is here just like everything else is.

Letting my gaze wander I keep saying out loud: Here is a tree, here is a house, there is a goat, here is anxiety, here is a treetop, there is a cloud, there is a wall, here is this pain, here is a tree, here is a fence, here is resistance, here is the vibration of my voice. The wind blows through the leaved branches of the maple tree. Breath blows through the tightness in my chest.

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Autumn over Norway Pond

By and by, anxiety becomes part of the landscape. It is simply what it is, no need to resist it, no need to take it personally. No need to zoom in on it in a vain attempt to blow it out. The ground under me holds it just as it holds me. A sigh of relief, when I feel that support. I don’t have to hold that pain, the earth does.

The pain doesn’t disappear by this recognition but I feel supported and ready for the day.

* Is this accurate use of language? Can anything be inherently unpleasant? The sense of unpleasantness is not in that thing but a response in the perceiver. That’s not inherently bad either and can be very good for survival. However….

Life Has No Meaning: What a Relief!

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or

Landscapes of Sensations

The humming of a compressor by the library three houses over keeps penetrating the outer layers of my consciousness, traveling straight to a raw spot all too close to center. It is more than a humming – overtones and undertones and felt vibration, in my head mostly. I am working at my desk and periodically I notice the discomfort this hum causes. It hurts. I complain: when is this going to stop. It’s too much! Immediately followed by my own unsolicited “spiritual” advice: I shouldn’t have a reaction to this. This is aversion. A liberated being is not bound by craving but welcomes things as they are.

I have become keenly aware lately how I constantly push myself to do things differently and better. No wonder I get tired and depressed. Not only does the world not do my bidding – I don’t do my bidding either and I fall far short of my own expectations! I constantly demand of myself to be different, to be present, to be kind, to be efficient – rarely do I let myself just be. I can apparently not be trusted and need constant supervision. I live in a correctional facility – skillfully camouflaged as it may be to look like a sophisticated Buddhist temple. I carry it with me like a snail does her house. But a snail’s house is not built of concrete walls, surrounded by hidden barbed wire and staffed with obnoxious guards!

And though I have become somewhat of an escape artist – no wonder! – I keep getting thrown back into the hole. One thing that keeps me locked up in this penitentiary is the idea that life is about me and about doing good and growing and becoming a better person. But have I become the spiritual master I think I need to be – or have I merely mastered the art of policing myself?

I’m always looking for meaning in everything. Just like the people I hear saying: we are here to learn.

Nothing against learning but – really!?

Life is more than a classroom. I feel increasingly bored with that notion – though I am apparently in the business of helping people who also want to learn and become better persons.

Could we stop this? For moments at least?

I love to move, I love to play and interact with the earth’s pull on this chair
and I really enjoy seeing you touching the floor under your naked feet.
I love to feel this breath gently moving through me.
I love to carry that bucket of milk for Sarah.
And mucking I enjoy. That goat pee is pungent.


Movement Studies. Workshop with Amoz Hetz in Zurich.
Photo by Cornelia Sachs.

The other day I walked through the woods, pestering myself with endless questions about the meaning of life and why I haven’t figured it all out yet, and when I would – and when I would finally manage to be one with everything, at which point everything would be perfect.

What a relief, when I suddenly heard myself say: Life has no meaning!

Finally I could just be, along with everything else, in this mysterious, beautiful and dreadful world.

Moments of sheer freedom – until I heard that voice saying: But!

But this time, I was awake for it and saw: this ‘but’ is but another miracle among the many colorful leaves gently tumbling through the autumn air, sailing towards the welcoming forest pool.

Together we practice Sensory Awareness, we meditate, we move, we are mindful. All in a relatively futile attempt to finally be good enough and please – our parents, the universe, god, who knows – most of all we fail to please ourselves, to measure up to our own image of who and how we should be. How did we get in this mess? This is not your fault, I hear Wes Nisker say and I smile. I love Wes.

Sensory Awareness, moving, mindfulness, spiritual practice, to use another trendy term,  is much more than achieving something and I have less and less interest in helping you – or myself, for that matter, to become a better person. I am forever puzzled by our sheer existence, by the raindrops plopping into the puddle outside my window. Why is there anything rather than nothing? There are these moments when I can ask such questions not because I need an answer but as an expression of wonder and affection.

I love “working” with you in this way. Being.

Landscapes of sensations through what we call shoulders. What is this? Someone writing this blog says: my shoulders are aching. Maybe – but what a miracle: sensation, consciousness.

The humming of the compressor has stopped.

A breath. Where did it come from? Now it’s gone.

 

Addendum: In response to this post, my dear friend and clowning mentor, Ann Willcutt, sent me part 7 of Mary Oliver’s amazing poem Rain. Oliver’s choice of the word ‘purpose’ may be a more accurate expression for what I mean with ‘meaning’.

Titled The Forest, Mary Oliver’s poem ends like this:

Where life has no purpose,
and is neither civil nor intelligent,
it begins
to rain,
it begins
to smell like the bodies
of flowers. 
At the back of the neck
the old skin splits.
The snake shivers
but does not hesitate.
He inches forward.
He begins to bleed through
like satin.

Thank you, Ann – and thank you, Mary.

When You Go To the Woods, Bring Along the Right Companion

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On my walk today I decided to take it easy and not try to be particularly present or connected. If I’d get lost in thought so be it. And so I wandered up Bald Mountain, enjoying the outdoors and happily pondering away.

Unsurprisingly, there came that moment when I thought it was a waste of time to walk through the woods with presence spotty and my thoughts scattered all over. So I came to standing wanting to be present in the forest, with the life surrounding me. Seeing became predominant for a moment but then immediately the “wanting to see” became stronger than the actual experience. And with this came frustration and that familiar sense of failure. Not being able to be fully present I was overcome with feelings of separation and longing for oneness.

Okay, not Bald Mountain in New Hampshire but above Schwarzsee in Switzerland.

I was intrigued. How does this happen? I decide to come into the present moment and be with what is around me, and immediately I’m not good enough and get caught in that spiral of failure.

This was when I became aware of breathing, breathing with no self involved. Simply the knowing of it. Soon I realized that with breathing instead of thinking as the companion of seeing the trees, there was no conflict.

I played with that a bit and this is what I noticed: when I let thinking lead the way or closely accompany seeing, then the discursive mind will habitually want to take the experience apart. It will see some of the beauty and admire it, but it will likely be preoccupied with imperfections such as a lack of complete presence, followed by longing and thoughts of separation.

But when breathing is the companion of seeing, then there is no space for pondering the experience. There is simply “knowing”: bodily sensation, breathing, seeing trees and, yes, thinking is there too but not running the show.

Exploring some more, it became clear that it didn’t need to be breathing, it could be any other sensory experience, but that having such a “companion”, a simple stream of sensations as a guard of sorts, I was protected from falling into the trap of judging the experience and comparing it with some presently unattainable ideal.

And more than that: once grounded such – in what in Buddhist terms is called the first foundation of mindfulness, abiding in sensory awareness – I can become aware of thinking, emotions, distress, without being consumed by them. They may not go away but they can be equals among the many colors and shapes on the ever-changing canvas of moment to moment experience, rather than foreign objects which need to be removed.

The Never Ending Story(s) of the Confused Mind

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Strong, agonizing pain, emotional distress in my chest this morning when I wake up. No words to it – but thinking is very active trying to figure it out, trying to untie the knot. The unpleasantness of the pain sparks aversion. Not all the time – for moments it is just pain, just sensation. The next moment again it seems unbearable and I want it to end.

The internal battle begins:
“This has to go away, it is too painful, it is frightening.”
“No! I have to do something about it, accept it, feel it, be with it. I shouldn’t have an averse reaction. I should only be patiently feeling what is happening. I should not have the wish for the pain to go away.”
“No! It’s okay to have these thoughts and feelings of aversion. Don’t try to get rid of them.”
“No! This is unbearable. It has to stop.”
“No! I should completely accept the pain.”
Anger rising, frustration, agony.
This is the perpetual battle of the confused mind. No solution will be found here.

It appears to be almost impossible to simply stay with sensation that is unpleasant. Especially when it is emotionally charged. There always seems to be an expectation that it go away or that at least it could be understood.

Here it comes again into the foreground: burning pain. But now it is not as much emotion as it is sensation. I can be more easily with that.

I take refuge in a place that is at peace, somewhere between bellybutton and sacrum, an open space, vast and dark: From here all is fine.
From my chest nothing is fine: Burning, fear, doubt. Here is the realm of judgment, the battlefield of right and wrong, where nothing will ever be solved. It is the kingdom of never-ending uncertainty. Its only match is breath.

Breath: Somewhere between the peace of the belly and the terror of the chest, preferring neither. Breathing is the neutral force, where what is, is just what it is. It is as though breathing keeps the two sides from one another, from getting at one another, creating space, as it were, between good and evil, between pleasant and unpleasant. Equanimity.

It is very important to distinguish between perception and thinking. This burning sensation in my chest right now is simply sensation. There are absolutely no words attached to it. There is not even like or dislike attached to it. It is just sensation. I can describe it with words: burning, for example. I can have an internal dialogue about it, analyze it. But there is no trace of that in the sensation itself. Is there any inherent aversion? No, but that response is very close, like the moon circling the Earth.

Please note, especially if you have not read my last post on exploring:
These writings are not theory but practice. They are not a map but reports from the territory, from the immediacy of experiencing. Maps are available @ Sensory Awareness, Buddhism, Psychotherapy and many other locations. I recommend that you study them and that you follow the advice of an experienced guide when you need it – and I hope that you’ll know when you do. I sometimes think I know my way and get terribly lost. I have also used maps showing trails going nowhere. That’s even worse than not having one. At times, however, it is good to have the map snatched out of your hand and get lost in the pathless land so you can find your own way – or simply sit down by a brook and enjoy where you are.
Then, there is also the W.C. Fields attitude in International House, when someone suggested that maybe he is lost, he responds: “Kansas City is lost! I am here!”

Mindfully Into Misery

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or The Blessings of Skillful Thinking

On my way up Bald Mountain I sit down on a rock to better connect with where I am. My gaze sweeps over the hilly landscape but my attention is absorbed by emotional pain and – just as much – by the aversion to that experience. What to do? What I want is to be connected with my surroundings and not distracted by internal turmoil. What I experience is how attention does not stay with what I want, agony, and resistance. Together they constitute a toxic brew.

I finally give in and allow for the sensations, emotions, and thoughts of distress to take center stage: The power of depression, of the “desire for nonexistence”, of the aversion to my experience – even to seeing budding leaves on nearby maple trees – is remarkable. All life seems to point back at my pain, magnifying it.

Paying attention to difficult emotions in this way, I seem to give them even more power. They take over and flavor all experience with a strong, bitter taste. Mindfully, I spiral down into more negativity.

It is then that the thinking mind interferes with a wholesome suggestion: How about if I bring my attention to neutral sensations rather than either trying to stay with what I deem positive and relevant around me or unpleasant but important – because it is strong – within me?

I immediately notice a plethora of neutral bodily sensations: stillness in my lower belly, the subtle warmth in my left thigh, tingling in my fingers. As attention begins to willingly settle there, these neutral sensation become a refuge where I can drop confusion and recuperate. How calm it is here and how quickly joy regains strength! The pain does not go away, but the bedrock of neutral bodily sensations holds it with warmth and care. Anguish so becomes but one of an array of things happening this moment: wind blowing through the still bare branches of deciduous trees, the song of a nearby finch, cold stone, the glistening surface of Willow Pond, sadness, the beauty of the wooded hills, joy of being.

Invigorated I get up and walk on. I am intrigued by this experience. By intentionally directing my attention away from the screaming foreground to the subtle background “hum” of neutral bodily sensations I was able to contain what would have otherwise pulled me down into an abyss of negativity. I usually tend to let attention go to what is strongest, believing that this is how to properly be mindful. But when I am not grounded by what may not shout but offer its unwavering stability quietly, I can mindfully drown in misery.

This willful choosing of a certain segment of my experience over another stands in contrast to the notion that I have to focus on what calls for attention most urgently, especially when it is unpleasant and painful. It goes against the belief that I cannot choose my experience but that I have to take what is given, i.e. what screams loudest. However, by choosing subtle bodily sensations I did not reject the painful experience. In the end the opposite was true: Opening to the whole spectrum of what was there and then intentionally taking refuge in neutral ground, I was able to gain perspective and open up to the pain rather than being overwhelmed by it. The uplifting effect of this experience on the whole day was remarkable.

Of Split Rocks, Stone Walls and Clothes with No Emperor

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The many responses to my last blog entry, online and off, have been received with much gratitude. Thank you! I trust that you are now not expecting a blog on depression. That is not what I have in mind. But the drought hardened ground upon which it thrives – the persistent illusion of separation – will be a recurring theme. I get terribly caught in that thorny hedge, grown from drought resistant seeds of long forgotten trauma.

Nor am I in the business of debunking Buddhism or any or any other religion or practice. I deeply respect traditions even when I wrestle with them or disagree. I am part of the Buddhist Sangha and as such I deem it of great importance to participate as an active collaborator rather than a passive follower of premeditated “truths”. This is my understanding of what the Buddha meant when he admonished his followers to be an island onto themselves. It is also what I cherish so much about the practice of Sensory Awareness, which has its roots in the work of Elsa Gindler. As Charlotte Selver often suggested, encouraging her students to find out for themselves and in collaboration – rather than blindly following a teaching (or the Führer for that matter) – was Gindler’s foremost gift to the world.

To be sure: this is not an easy path and treacherous for students and teachers alike. Charlotte had to painfully learn that. When she followed Gindler’s advice and went off on her own, learning as she made mistakes, her independence was not appreciated by her teachers. But she knew she had to follow her own sense of the real, even though it meant painful separation. One important teaching I received from Charlotte was at her breakfast table one morning, when she suddenly turned to me and said: “Forget about Sensory Awareness. Do what burns in you.” This blog is such a following-what-burns-in-me forum: partly poetic outlet, partly laboratory, partly screening room for findings from my practice.

On recent walks in the woods I have been curiously attracted by things that are split or torn apart, by snags too. And by manmade divisions such as the ubiquitous stonewalls of New England, marking boundaries between individual sections of the same land. Incidental borders often – serving as much as linear rock dumps as they were intended for keeping anything securely in or out – these walls have long since become an integral part of the landscape and home to an array of small creatures, legged ones and rooted ones, foraging out on either side of what they do not know as wall but call home and shelter and playground.

Maybe most of our beliefs are such incidental linear dumps for thoughts, carelessly tossed away and suddenly perceived as deliberate boundaries, inherently empty of meaning but vehemently defending a perceived permanent self: thought fabrications, clothes with no emperor. Maybe these captivating features of the landscape could help me understand something about what is torn in me and about the walls I have built within and around me. I always think splits have to be mended and walls need to be torn down, but maybe they can be permeable parts of a whole, hatching ground for new life and landmarks for other lost wanderers. Just as the eye recognizes the beauty in a split stone embedded in the soft forest floor, maybe the heart can recognize the beauty in its brokenness, sheltered tenderly in the woven basket of what the English language calls rib cage, more accurately and breathably named Brustkorb in German.

The most impermeable borders are probably those in our minds, limiting our participation with the larger here and now more than any old stone wall could. Or skin and bone for that matter. Our skin is not just form and boundary, it is just as much like that old stone wall, permeable and infused with sensitivity: a place to make contact. Nor is our skeleton a coat-hanger for our flesh but rather an articulated participant in this adventurous life: responsive and gregarious.

Perception and thought may at times seem like an odd couple but they belong together and make us human. However, thought tends to puts itself in charge, even though  it is completely dependent on and emerging from experience. It tends to get lost in the exciting mirror hall of its own reflections, using the sensuous world preferably as “food for thought”.

My practice is dedicated to felt exploration and the realization that we are participants in a world from which we are not essentially separate but rather active ingredient. This requires that thinking becomes a collaborator rather than an out of control tyrant.

Let it inhabit that stone wall, humbly and boldly, reaching out for nurture and play, let it take a walk on the wild side – as I enjoy doing in this blog entry – but always let it come back to the felt ground of experience.

Every moment of feeling, hearing, tasting, seeing, smelling, is an act of participation. So is thinking, but when thinking thinks it is separate and superior rather than youngest sibling and equal to the other senses, we get deluded quickly. (Maybe it tends to go overboard because it is such a latecomer among the senses in evolutionary time, much like a teenager in need to push boundaries to find her own?)

Being this breathing creature, entirely part and participant of a place, of an intimate world of air and bark, chatting humans and asphalt roads: right here, in a felt exchange with this fragrant air I’m breathing, with this chair I sit on, and this floor under me, I write down these bubbling thoughts.

However, that we are part of a place is often not our experience. Confused as we are, we tend to perceive ourselves as solicitors, barely embodied, peering into this world as if from some place that we might imagine to be somewhere in our skull or – worse – “spiritual beings having a physical experience”, as I once read on a bumper sticker.

To break through that persistent illusion I’ve made it part of my practice to roll around on the floor, rub against boulders, lean against trees and otherwise to give myself a chance to experience being in a less mind-mediated fashion, running and jumping for joy when that is what my muscles ache for. Skin and bones and tissue know more about the realities of this world, of belonging, than thinking may ever understand, unless, that is, it joins ranks with the other senses. It is through this bodily intimacy that we can connect with what is also here and wake up to who we really are.

It is often easier for the thinking mind to be integrated and find its place when I move and physically connect with things rather than sitting still in meditation posture, where I often find myself struggling to achieve something: concentration, a quiet mind, not to mention enlightenment.

All senses, including the often disregarded and intimate tactile sense, are crucial for awakening. The senses may be suspect for some Buddhists, tolerated as necessary tools for survival maybe, but essentially perceived as ghastly sirens, leading into the murky swamp of craving and from there straight to suffering. That this happens all the time is sadly true but not inevitable if we are wakeful: the same senses are also the doors to liberation according to the Mahasatipatthana Sutta, the Buddha’s teaching on the Foundations of Mindfulness.

Sitting quietly on a cushion is for me not currently the primary tool of awakening – in fact, it is often literally a good way of going to sleep – though sitting is also part of my daily practice. It has its importance, its beauty and its place. But if I am not very careful when “sitting”, I tend to get into, what Charlotte Selver called, watchtower mentality: I observe rather than experience, “looking” for insight and liberation. Curiously, in Buddhist teachings we are often asked to watch our breath: something that is entirely impossible, as it is not visible, unless, of course you find yourself meditating outside on a frosty morning or if you look at the expanding and contracting chest of your meditating neighbor. Not commonly recommended as a mindfulness tool. Such “watching” may easily foster the sense of self.

The breath can only be felt. What an intimate communion with air and all other breathing beings.

I consider, thus, rolling on the floor to be a valid Buddhist practice alongside many others. The intimacy of visceral experiencing guides us to a felt, to an incorporated sense of what in Buddhism is called Emptiness, namely that we are part but not apart, that our human individuality is but a rather extravagant way of being a cherry blossom: beautiful and fragrant for a moment before tumbling back into the fertile earth of Impermanence, giving way to another juicy fruit.

Cherry Blossoms

Recommended further readings:

If you read my adventurous friend David Abram’s new book Becoming Animal you will recognize him soon as my favorite wilder brother. Visit his web site at http://www.wildethics.com.

Then there is the beautiful work of Charlotte Selver’s husband, Charles Brooks. His book Sensory Awareness – The Rediscovery of Experiencing can be ordered in its recently revised and expanded version, Reclaiming Vitality and Presence, through the web store of the Sensory Awareness Foundation.

For a fascinating history of New England’s stone walls, read Robert Thorson’s Stone by Stone. http://www.stonewall.uconn.edu.

An insightful piece on Agendas – that ambitious offspring of thoughts and beliefs – can be found here: On Having Agendas.

Beauty and the Beast, Part 2

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Part II: Fluoxetine

And suddenly nothing I have learned seems of any use.

Actually, this is what I’m telling myself: “I have learned nothing in all these years. What a failure I am!” Decades of practice vanish in a black hole of a very different nature. I wake up in the morning and the first thought is: Oh no, I do not want to be conscious! I cannot stand being awake. Pressure and burning in my chest, fatigue, despair.

Can I be present with it? For a moment – but that only increases the agony.

I have to get up, it is time to make breakfast for the family. I go downstairs, put a kettle of water on the stove. I do not know how to make breakfast. I open the fridge, peer into it, hoping that something in there well give me a hint. I stand and stare, pressure is building up in my chest and tears start rolling down my cheeks. I wish I could die.

Footsteps in the bedroom above me and then noisy little feet running down the stairs. My son enters the kitchen, excited about the new day, happy to see me and ready to do something together. I quickly dry my tears, turn around and smile at him. “I need to make breakfast. Can you play on your own?” No, he cannot. He wants me.

I cannot either! I can’t be with anybody right now. I can’t make breakfast. I am bursting – and I push it all down. I have to function now. How to make breakfast? Okay, I need to ground myself, feel the floor under my feet, feel the cool milk container in my hand, follow breathing. I know how to do this.

Fuck! I can’t, I can’t stand being present. It hurts too much. I’m about to explode.

My wife has since arrived in the kitchen. She notices my state immediately, asks: “You’re having a hard time, don’t you?” I can’t stand that question. I do not trust that it comes from a place of care. I hear it like a complaint. I mutter: “I’m okay”, and continue with the impossible task of preparing breakfast.

Somehow, I manage to, I even get lunch together for Julian, but when it takes him forever to brush his teeth and hair, the buildup of pressure gets to a point where I start loosing it. My voice gets louder and more impatient and I finally break out in tears. “Just do what I ask you to do, please! I can’t deal with this any longer!” The result is as immediate as it was predictable: now Julian is upset too and won’t brush his teeth at all. My wife is upset because my state is affecting everyone.

Driving to school goes well. Julian has regained his good mood, we chat and have a nice time together. I drop him off and head back home. The person in the car in front of me is driving very slowly. Pressure building up again. “I need to get to work!” I shout. I can’t stand this anymore. Suddenly I have a very strong urge to drive off the road, crash into something and kill myself. What a relief it would be to put an end to this misery. I cannot see another way out. This has been going on for too long. Then I think of my son, I think of my wife, and I know that is not an option. I drive home, devastated, full of shame.

Such a predicament, like anything, arises through causes and conditions. When a lifelong predisposition finds fertile ground the beast can mature. I’d been there before. I will not expound on the causes for the current bout of depression; they shall remain private.

The buildup was slow and steady. It did not go unnoticed but I am a meditator with lots of practice, I’m a Sensory Awareness leader, I should be able to help myself. That is, in part, an honorable attitude. I really want to find out how I can heal by applying all that I have learned. But there is also this kind of thinking: This shouldn’t be happening to me considering all that I have done!

But life is not a rewards program and here it is: suicidal depression. Nothing seems to help. Shame certainly doesn’t and neither do guilt and pride. Alas, here they are, mixed into the poisonous brew. I try all kinds of natural remedies and supplements but nothing does the trick. Therapy doesn’t seem to help either, nor does talking with friends, or running or hiking, though these attempts at least give me some relief. It is good to have friends.

When these friends suggest that I take medication for depression I do not want to hear, though. That is not a solution for a person of my stature. My practices must work. How could they not? And if I can’t help myself how can I help others? What “helps” the teaching role: As a long-time meditator I have the “advantage” of being able to keep a good posture even when my limbs are in danger of withering away.* Actually, I have always been good at that: looking calm while screaming on the inside. I received compliments for my composure even as despairing teenager.

For how many months can I make myself believe that I can get through this with my skills? Three, six? How about a year? It only gets worse and finally I come to a point where I have to admit to myself that I can’t go on like this. I may be a failure but I need medication now. The shame! But I had come to this point once before in my life and was helped by antidepressants in a short time. Could I let myself be helped again in this way? Oh, the humiliation!

I finally give in. Within three weeks I feel much better and able to cope with life again.

This was last summer. In the fall I stopped taking fluoxetine and for a while I seemed fine. But then came our move from the Southwest to New England. All I’ll say is this: moving, selling and buying a house – very stressful! I had to resort to the pill again, even take something for anxiety and sleep for a short while. Don’t tell anybody. It will ruin my reputation of always being calm and dispassionate, even funny – and an accomplished teacher too.

The medication made all the difference. As we are settling in now I can begin to consider going off fluoxetine again. But tricky is the mind and ambition is not a good advisor. I’ll consider the decision carefully and I will allow myself to get outside help to support me in the transition.

Addendum for Buddhists
About 15 years ago, when I found myself in a similarly severe depression, I decided to go on a ten-day silent Vipassana retreat with a well-known monk and teacher from Sri Lanka. I was hoping that would help me but after only one day it became clear that I was spiraling down even more. I often sat on the cushion in tears. It did not help that the teacher had decided not to give any individual interviews at all. After the second day I went to the retreat manager and urged her to talk to the teacher. I really needed help. To make a rather long story short: after another day or two I got to talk to the teacher. His first words were that I surely must already feel better because thanks to me everybody was getting interviews now. Furthermore, he suggested that I stay with the breath and also memorize the Metta Sutta, the Buddha’s teaching on loving kindness. That would open my heart. With this advice I went back to my cushion. After ten days I was in such deep misery, I was barely able to travel home. This is when I knew I needed to see a psychiatrist. He prescribed Prozac and Charlie Chaplin movies. That helped.

(I should add that I memorized the Loving Kindness Sutra and recited it daily for some years. It’s good practice and I enjoyed it. It did not help with depression.)

(I should also add that when I decided to go off Prozac after only three months, the psychiatrist told me that was pretty stupid. I’d only feel that I was fine because of the medication. If I stopped now I would go down again quickly. He was wrong.)

In a recent conversation with Stephen and Martine Batchelor, two Western Buddhist teachers I cherish deeply, I mentioned my predicament. Their response was very clear: going on retreat is not how you treat depression. Stephen recalled an incident in a Tibetan monastery where he saw that a monk with what appeared to be a psychotic breakdown was taken to a hospital to be treated. Stephen said that he learned (and I’m paraphrasing here) that mental illness, such as depression, was considered by the Tibetans a “physical illness”. It was not seen as a “mental object” caused by craving and healed by letting go of desire, aversion or delusion but that it called for medical treatment.

Postscript: Practice? Practice!
Even though I wonder at times if all this meditating and sensing have had any profound effect on my life (or, frankly, that of many practitioners I meet) I know not to kid myself: if not for the teachings of the Buddha, the Sensory Awareness work of Charlotte Selver, and other modalities I have practiced over the years, I would probably not be here to tell the tale. The willingness to be present has been crucial even when it seemed useless. To meet and truly, deeply connect with what is, – to awaken – has a great healing capacity, and what is more, it brings about the deepest joy. It has also enabled me to recognize the beauty in the beast.

* Occasionally, I would let my guard down in my teaching when it seemed appropriate, and I do it more so now. That’s also the purpose of this blog. It turns out that people like to work with the real Stefan just as much as with the unwavering Buddha statue look-a-like.

Beauty and the Beast, Part 1

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Part I: Beauty

Water running from the faucet.
It is met by stillness and joy.
Nothing missing, no question left to ask.
One sole desire remains: To be of help.

In the darkness of the depths of my belly, low down somewhere in front of the sacrum, is a place of complete peace as vast as the universe. I am not sure that is is the correct term, nor can I say that I feel it, though I notice it very clearly. It is the absence of sensation that makes it so palpable, strange as this may sound. And although I can clearly locate it in a relatively small place, it does not have boundaries but permeates throughout.

It is always there and easily accessible. I discovered this “place” last summer during a healing session that set me off to an inner journey in which I re-experienced a recurring childhood nightmare. It was one of two nightmares I would have when ill and lying in bed with a high fever. In this dream I always saw a field of upside down plastic cones, very brightly colored, similar to the figures of a board game we used to play in our family. In the dream they were upside down and their rims were incredibly sharp to the eye. It hurt to just look at them and I was always terrified by their sight. Without ever touching them I could feel how dangerously sharp they were and I always tried to escape, which I did by waking up, frightened to the core.

Now, in this session last summer, I suddenly saw and felt one of these cones very clearly as I had not since childhood. My first response was to break the spell by opening my eyes, but then curiosity got the better of me. Instead of turning away I approached the huge and brightly yellow cone. I peeked over the rim and saw that its narrowing bottom opened to an immense darkness. Horrified, I wanted to turn away. It seemed that this darkness was pure evil and needed to be avoided by any means possible.

But, again, curiosity got the better of me and I decided to dive if into that terrifying black to see what I would find. I tumbled into a vast universe of darkness and nothingness and immediately knew that there was nothing to fear, no trace of evil. Instead, I found myself floating in a  realm of complete beauty, safety, and love, with no trace of fear left. Words cannot do justice to the peace I experienced.

Winter tree in early morning frost

The inner journey went on in interesting ways but I won’t go into that now. What I was given then has never left me and is always there in the depths of my belly, though it really does not have a place. I can hear it right now in the tolling of the nearby church bell, I can see it in the slight movements of the branches of the Sugar Maple in front of my office window. And when I am really ready I can sometimes feel it in the pain in my left shoulder. It is then that I know that peace is already there, that all I have longed for has always been present.

The experience inspired me to explore with students in my classes if we could find places in ourselves that are already at peace. This turned out to be surprisingly easy for everybody, considering that it is noticed so rarely. Beauty does not shout and is easily overlooked. So often when we practice, we notice and focus on what is in need of improvement, what hurts, what needs to be achieved. And so we do not notice the peace that is already there.

Don’t just let this be an inspiring read. It is not to think about either but to be experienced. Try it out for yourself. How is your pinky? Feel it, or rather notice the sensations already there. Chances are your pinky is just fine. It has no need, it does not lack anything, it is perfectly happy. Not a single thought resides in your little finger, no doubts or unanswered questions. But it clearly lives and though you may not at first notice it as such, the experience in your finger might well be one of deep peace and even joy, very subtle at first but becoming clearer as you are being concentrated by this exploration. Of course, the pinky might not be where it is at for you in this moment, and maybe not the belly either. But it is there and you might discover it in the most unexpected of places.

Don’t believe me. Find out for yourself. Exploring in this way you may, as I have, discover that there is much more peace in and around you right now than you might ever have thought possible. By that I do not mean there is no pain, that all suffering magically disappears forever. In this moment what we experience may indeed be the much heard about “traceless fading away” of suffering, and it may even be for good – but only in this moment. Nor does the suffering in the world vanish. But it appears that even within the most painful situation peace awaits to be unlocked. If we only dare turn to it.

Beautiful when we are able to.

Part 2: Fluoxetine

Come back soon to read about the beast rearing its head.