Speaking about God

In his novel on the life of Saint Francis, Nikos Kazantzakis recounts the story of Francis coming upon an almond tree in midwinter.  He says to the tree, "Sister, speak to me about God," and the almond tree bursts into blossom.  This blooming, the bringing forth of new life within a bleak and barren winter landscape, is a metaphor that illustrates what all right speech about God does.  First, it recognizes the relatedness of all creation.  Saint Francis addresses the almond tree as his sister.  Second, it calls forth life in those who hear it, even in the midst of bleak and difficult situations.  Francis' invitation to the tree causes it to bloom.  And the tree's answer to Francis is beautiful and inspiring.  Notice that the great saint does not preach to the tree, telling it what he thinks about God.  He invites the tree to share its understanding of God, and it does so in a way perfectly suited to its nature. 

As wonderful as this example is, speaking about God is dangerous business.  A lot is said about, and for, God by people of all political and religious persuasions, and much of what is said creates confusion and suffering.  It is easy to use language about God as a kind of bludgeon, a tool to dominate those who differ from us in their views.  This leads to two terrible outcomes.  First, both those who speak and those who are attacked with aggressive "God language" are spiritually damaged, and any possibility of relationship between them becomes extraordinarily challenging.  Second, we hamstring our ability to address profound challenges where spirituality could be helpful.  Once we make God into an object of domination (a form of idolatry), we can no longer speak about the Divine in times of extraordinary need without facing cognitive dissonance and the risk of tripping into hypocrisy. 

In Zen, we are told not to confuse the finger pointing at the moon with the moon.  Language and concepts are often barriers to the realization of enlightenment, which is a direct encounter with reality itself.  This encounter occurs not through study or discussion, but through practicing awareness of the present moment.  The Reality of God is encountered the same way, through the practice of deep contemplation where we find the love and compassion that then infuses the reality of our relationships.  At that point, we are blossoming with life for those with whom we are connected, and we invite the same from them.  

photo credit: pizzodisevo, slowly i will recover via photopin cc

Seeking Simplicity

Darren Lwyd through the window by ceridwen

In a New York Times opinion piece published just before the New Year, essayist Pico Iyer discusses the challenges of living in an "always on" culture, with the average American spending over 8 hours per day in front of the screen of some type of device (no, the irony isn't lost on me as I type this entry on my laptop.)  Digital devices are ubiquitous.  We have smart phones, e-readers, tablets, laptops, and desktops.  We email, share on Facebook, blog, text, "hangout" on Google+, tweet, and post to YouTube.

I find that keeping up with my myriad channels of communication can sometimes seem like a chore, and in certain moments, my interactions become fast, shallow, and unsatisfying.  I'm not alone in recognizing the challenges of living in highly connected, fast moving technological times.  The Wisdom 2.0 series of conferences brings Silicon Valley leaders together with major thinkers and leaders in the mindfulness  traditions to discuss how to live with awareness, wisdom, and compassion in a technological age.  

In a face-to-face conversation with a friend, I came to realize that one answer to starting to live with awareness, compassion, and some sanity was hidden in plain sight.  I was missing it because I had fallen  for our current cultural notion that "more is better."  I've been seeking to simplify my life by adding more things to it, which has the opposite effect.  When my friend stated bluntly that whenever he acquires something new (either an object or a commitment), he finds something else to let go of, it made perfect, shocking sense.  I've been packing my life with more stuff and I wasn't letting anything go. 

Wednesday, February 22 is Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of the Christian season of Lent.  I've already begun what will be my spiritual practice during this season, which is clearing my life.  I'm getting rid of physical objects that clutter my space by giving clothes and other items to charitable organizations.  I'm also seeking to identify the commitments I can give up or pare back, and I'm thinking very carefully before taking on any new discretionary commitments.  I'm hoping this will give me some space and time to engage my life more deeply.  I'll report back to my readers near the end of Lent and let you all know how it has been going.  

Nature and Not-Knowing

Photo by NASA Goddard.  Used under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 (Generic)

Not knowing is most intimate.  - Zen Master Dizang

I woke up this morning to good news.  The power is still on, the water is running, and the eye of Hurricane Irene is moving over NYC.  We will have high winds behind the eye, but the worst of the rain is nearly over.  Although the television news indicates that the city is dealing with some serious problems caused by the hurricane (with continued worries about the rising East River), it appears that the city has largely avoided the worst of what we feared could happen.  

One temptation when the worst case scenario doesn't materialize is to assume a critical or ironic stance.  We can take an almost accusatory tone, discussing the overreaction by the authorities, the inconvenience it caused us, and how we knew it wasn't going to be that big of a deal.  I think this type of reaction is actually an emotional release, born from relieved fears.  

The truth is that we didn't know what would happen.  There is very little data on a how the waters surrounding NYC behave during a direct hit by a hurricane (there is more now!), so the computer simulations were very uncertain.  Our leaders made the decision to look at the worst case models and prepare for what would happen should those scenarios materialize.  They are to be commended for this, and we can all be grateful that the impact of the storm on the city wasn't as bad as it could have been.  

Cycling Shamans

Today is Positive Pedalers (Pos Peds) Day. We are a group of men and women living with HIV/AIDS who are committed to eliminating stigma through our positive public example.  Today we recognize the courage and contributions that Pos Peds and our supporters have made to our communities.  A recent partial survey of Pos Peds nationwide demonstrated the amazing impact this group has had.  Eighty-nine people (out of several hundred Pos Peds) have responded to the survey at the time of this blog posting.  Collectively, these people had ridden in 451 AIDS cycling events and had raised $2,495,509 for AIDS-related prevention and treatment services in their communities.

For me, a potent (but partial) symbol for what Pos Peds do is the archetype of the wounded healer, which originated in Greek mythology and was brought into modern usage by Carl Jung and Henri Nouwen. Wounded healers take their own suffering and vulnerability and transform it into the power to heal others.  Through our own experience of HIV, we find the courage to ride to ensure that effective prevention and treatment are available to those in need.  What the wounded healer archetype doesn't describe is the transformation that the rider undergoes in this process, discovering new strength and vitality.

Happy Pos Peds day to all HIV-positive cyclists and their supporters.  You are all an inspiration.  Ride on!

Thoughts on a Sunday Morning

There is an indescribable depth to life. It can be felt, but not discussed. It is beyond words. For most of us, it remains hidden in plain sight. Awareness of the depth of life must be earned, but not the way we earn money or a reward. It is more like grace (maybe they are the same?), where the process of earning it is a process of acceptance.

We all have glimpses of this depth, but we spend most of our lives being pulled away from it. My glimpses have always been catalyzed by things that have nothing to do with the getting and spending of the world: reading a poem over a cup of tea, a walk through a pristine wilderness landscape, a heartfelt conversation with someone I love, swimming in the ocean.

The common thread that ties these things together is wholeheartedness. A swim in the ocean while thinking about a project won't cut it. Listening to a friend while texting someone else won't do. Walking through the wilderness with my iPod on shuts it down. Giving what I'm doing only a portion of my attention keeps me at the surface of life. Depth requires our full attention, and the risk of commitment.

World AIDS Day Haiku

rain against window

gray clouds roll across the sky

meditate on loss

Difficult Things

"If you ask me what I came into this world to do, I will tell you: I came to live out loud." -- Emile Zola

One of the challenges of life is deciding who to trust with information that is sensitive or personal. We all have a history, and our stories can be quite profound. The episodes in our life that point to mistakes or problems can make us feel incredibly vulnerable. Yet they also are a source of enormous power. Handling them wisely can provide deep healing for past wounds, and handling them unskillfully can lead to loneliness or painful exposure. I have given much thought to whether and when I should share the pivotal story in my own journey through life, and have decided that now is the time.

This decision has been brewing for a while, and it crystallized during my September 17 training ride for Braking the Cycle, the annual bike ride from Boston to NYC to raise money for HIV/AIDS prevention and services. The late afternoon was cool and autumnal. The sky was remarkably blue, but dappled with low hanging gray clouds. These weren't rain clouds, but something simpler and friendlier. There was a brisk wind from the northeast, and the Hudson River looked like mercury, rising and falling in gorgeous silver choppy waves. The bike path and West Side Highway were eerily quiet, in spite of people and some traffic. Somehow, riding a bike in the midst of Manhattan, I was experiencing solitude. Within me, something rose up, something at once joyful and sorrowful. Yet the joy did not feel giddy, nor the sorrow unpleasant. I was riding strong, ready for the challenge to occur in the next week, doing something difficult but finding it relatively easy. It was a collision, as I came face-to-face with myself as I am, and found that there was no shame or regret in the encounter, but something tender and loving.

In that moment, I knew that I was ready to disclose the fact that I am living with HIV. Not that I hadn't disclosed my status before. I have been disclosing this since my diagnosis in 1991, but those disclosures were private, controlled choices. Somehow and for some reason, I knew that it was time to take a bolder step.

The basic story is simple. I found out that I was HIV-positive in 1991, although I was probably infected in the early 1980s. The week I was diagnosed, Magic Johnson was also diagnosed, and the media frenzy that ensued, and the conversations that I overheard, amplified my own challenges. I began treatment almost right away, but unfortunately, we didn't understand the medications and viral resistance very well, and my virus became highly resistant to commonly used medications. I completed my graduate work and moved to New York City in 1994. I loved living in New York, but my health continued to deteriorate due to uncontrolled HIV replication. No matter what we tried, the virus eluded treatment. I watched as my immune function gradually deteriorated, hoping with each new medication that came on the market that this would be the one. Finally, in what was essentially an act of desperation, I enrolled in a clinical trial in 2004, coupling a novel new medicine with an already available, but difficult to manage, injectable medication. Within two weeks the virus was undetectable in blood samples, and my immune system began to rebuild. Today, I am on a simpler regimen (no injections) that continues to work extremely well. My immune levels are normal, and my virus remains undetectable.

Why disclose now? The answer is complex, but a major factor is the transformative power I've experienced in doing and training for the Braking the Cycle bike ride. In my first ride last year, I made the decision to ride publicly as a person with HIV. I took the Positive Pedalers flag and placed it on my bike, announcing to all who knew the meaning that I was one of the positive riders. For three days, I received nothing but love and support from my fellow riders and the crew. This experience planted a seed, a suspicion that being public about my HIV status could be liberating and healing. This seed sprouted over the past year, and blossomed into full bloom as I rode my recent training ride along the river.

What the riders and crew do on Braking the Cycle is a difficult, challenging, and remarkable thing. Yet we find great comfort and meaning in doing it. Not shying away from the challenge, heading directly into something serious, silly, and strange, and finding solace and healing in the experience is both instructive and transformational. The hurdles that we encounter in life are essential to the path. They are opportunities to grow stronger and wiser. Shying away from difficulties is diminishment; embracing them is the way. It is scary, and it takes courage, but I've come to the conclusion that it is worth the risk.

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A footnote: there are family members, friends, and colleagues who will learn of my status by reading this. I regret that I'm not disclosing this information to you personally in a more intimate face-to-face setting, but after wrestling with the challenge of how to do that with what is a large number of people, I realized that I needed to just jump in with both feet. Please know that I will be happy to talk about it. An easy opener to the conversation is simply to say, "I saw your blog post."

Liberty and Pride

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

-- Edmund Burke

On Saturday, June 28, 1969, police staged what was supposed to be a routine raid in the ongoing persecution of gay men and lesbians in New York City. The site was a bar in Greenwich Village known as the Stonewall Inn. On that summer night, rather than succumb again to shame and denigration, patrons in the bar began to fight back. The riots that ensued were the birth of the modern movement for gay rights. Each year the LGBT community marches on the last Sunday in June to commemorate and remember this historic event, now known simply as "Stonewall."

Much has happened in the forty-one years since Stonewall. We've moved beyond the era of repression and bar raids, suffered the ravages of the AIDS epidemic, witnessed the lifesaving miracle of HAART treatment for HIV, seen sodomy laws struck down by the Supreme Court, gained the right to marry in six states, and seen laws protecting us from discrimination pass in many states and municipalities.

Yet much remains to be done. The forces of hate and ignorance are alive and well as lesbians and gay men continue to be targets for violence and murder. Eighteen years after "Don't Ask Don't Tell" was adopted, over 13,000 men and women have been discharged from the military for being homosexual, and hundreds continue to be discharged every year. While we can marry in six jurisdictions (Connecticut, District of Columbia, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont), this right was taken from us in two states (California and Maine) after hard-fought and expensive battles.

What we've experienced over the past four decades has made it easy for the movement to lose momentum. Some of our boldest voices were lost to AIDS. Veterans who survived the epidemic suffer from post-traumatic stress and burnout. Many younger gay men and lesbians have grown up in a more accepting and tolerant culture, blunting the urgency and desire to become politically active. The repeal of marriage rights in California and Maine left one young gay man I know shocked and angry. Only after this major setback did he understand the need for ongoing vigilance and activism.

If all LGBT people and our straight allies took two simple actions, we could transform society.

1. Find an organization involved in LGBT issues that you believe in and sign up to make monthly contributions of money or time. The amount needn't be extravagant - continued support is more important than a one time heroic measure.
2. Speak up on behalf of equality whenever the opportunity arises.

Motivated by another Gay Pride celebration on a beautiful, hot, sticky NYC day, I am recommitting myself to these actions. I invite my readers to join me in working to gain full equality for the LGBT community.

Setting or Rising?

In my last post, I wrote about the role of government and regulation in preventing disasters such as the financial meltdown and the BP oil spill. In this post, I want to tackle a smaller (but I believe related) issue, which is how we care for and manage the local world that we inhabit and share with others.

I was at my local coffee joint the other day, and a man came in and ordered an iced coffee. Upon receiving it from the barista, he moved to the counter to add milk and sugar. He put the milk into the coffee with extreme carelessness, stirring and sloshing the dark brew all over the counter. He grabbed three packets of artificial sweetener, tearing them haphazardly over the cup, spilling crystals onto the coffee on the counter. He snapped the lid back onto the cup and stormed out of the store, leaving a sticky mess behind for the next customer who wanted to doctor his or her drink.

The next customer came along, saw the mess, and set his cup down some distance from the coffee spill. He took some napkins and cleaned up the mess, as well as the rest of the area. After he was satisfied with his work, he carefully prepared his drink and left. As he departed, he noticed me watching him and gave me a sly smile.

In his classic work Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior, Chogyam Trungpa describes two very important concepts. First is the concept of basic goodness, the idea that at the core of our existence is a fundamental openness, cheerfulness, and intuition as to what needs to be done. Basic goodness manifests itself in our ability to enjoy things like the color yellow or the taste of a peach in an unconstructed and direct way. Basic goodness also shows up in the way that almost any situation is workable. A messy house can be cleaned, a wrong turn can be righted, and we can mourn and recover from a loss. Our situations may not be what we want, but we can work with them.

Another concept presented by Trungpa is the notion of setting-sun world. This is a worldview that embodies a type of depressed pessimism. In part, it is a refusal to be open to the reality of basic goodness, to the workability of our lives. It manifests in many ways, one of which is an unwillingness to take responsibility for the situations we create or encounter.

The careless man who made and abandoned his mess was living in a setting-sun world. Not only did he leave a mess for those who came after him, but he denied the workability of his situation, sacrificing a bit of his own dignity and power by doing so. The man who tidied up after him showed patience and equanimity. He was living in what Trungpa calls the land of the Great Eastern Sun, which is perpetually rising.

The goal of the spiritual warrior is to help create an enlightened society. We do this by embracing our basic goodness and working with our situation. The smallest actions ripple far beyond what we imagine. Picking up a piece of litter someone dropped, cleaning up our own coffee spill, working through our problems with a sense of faith and trust in the workability of things - all of these are revolutionary acts.

As for the connection to our larger global problems, Mohandas Ghandi said it quite succinctly, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

The Source of Silence

My father passed away on Thursday, March 18. The outpouring of love from my hometown was overwhelming, healing, and potent. I returned to New York full of gratitude for family and friends.

I am an introvert. This means that I spend energy to be with people, and recharge when I'm alone. So even though I was grateful for the contact with family and friends, I was completely worn out. I was craving solitude and quiet in ways that I have never experienced before.

Yesterday, I went for a walk in Central Park to seek out some peace and quiet. None was to be found. Leafless trees provide very little buffer against the sounds of the city, and my walk was similar to a walk on the street.

Today, I went for a walk in the park along the Hudson River. The day was cool, very cloudy, with threats of rain, so the park was almost empty. The traffic sounds from the west side highway were quite audible, yet they receded as the lights turned red, and my pace began to slow. Still, I didn't feel like I was finding the solitude I was craving.

As I walked slowly out onto the pier at Christopher Street, I realized that a constant swarm of thoughts was running through my mind. The narratives were wild and frenzied, with recriminations and doubts about the past mixing with worries and fantasies about the future. I worried about what I had forgotten to do in the week I was away from the office, what I would eat upon returning home from my walk, what work would be like next week, and how my life would unfold when I am retired and old.

The chatter was a buffer, an attempt for a sad and lonely son to avoid encountering his feelings about the loss of his father. However, it was also toxic. I realized that my wild mind was causing me to miss the solitude and quiet that I desperately needed.

So I calmed down, felt my feet touching the ground, looked at the play of light upon the river. Again and again, I returned to myself, until I was in the moment and real.

I walked north along the river, tears in my eyes, the wind at my back, and saw the buds of spring life etched above me against the gray sky.

Dispersion, Attention, and Intention

"We will try not to lose ourselves in dispersion or be carried away by regrets about the past, worries about the future, or craving, anger, or jealousy in the present. "
-- from the 7th Mindfulness Training in the book Interbeing: Fourteen Guidelines for Engaged Buddhism by Thich Nhat Hanh

I've had twelve days off during the holidays. It was a wonderful chance to get some rest, reconnect with New York City, and spend some quality time with David (my partner) and my friends. It also helped me see how rushed and overbooked I have been. I don't think I would have become aware of being so spent had I traveled during the holidays, because I would have been rushed and overbooked!

As a result of this fresh awareness, I've thought about where and how I spend energy. In pondering my use of energy, the word "dissipated" kept coming up in my mind. I looked it up and found two of its definitions interesting. The first is "wasted or squandered." The second is "irreversibly lost; used of energy." I realized that dissipation is rooted in a dispersion of my attention in the present moment. As a result of this dispersion, I lose time and/or energy. I think there are two modes where this loss occurs. First, there is the "I'm so busy!" mode, where my energy is dispersed by bouncing like a pinball from one thing to the next. This reactive ricocheting happens when I don't have a clear and firm intention regarding what is really important. The second is an "I'm so tired!" mode, where I lose time in mindless, unfocused, and ultimately non-refreshing activity, like channel surfing. This mindless moping is also marked by a lack of intention, as well as a deficiency of attention. One of my aims in 2009 is to practice recognizing dispersed and dissipated states of mind, and trying to replace them with a clear intention and a sustained attention to what really matters in the present moment.

In thinking about dissipation and dispersion, I realized that there are a lot of elements of our culture that seek to hook our attention and dissipate our energy. Consumerism, tabloid entertainment, and the frantic pace of work all contribute to a dispersion of our collective energy. As we move forward into 2009, we face unprecedented environmental, financial, and ethical challenges. Meeting these challenges will require serious focus and energy at a societal level. We need to move from dissipating and dispersing modes of ricocheting and moping to energetic and focused action. Could a renewed collective commitment to paying attention and setting strong intentions be the antidote to what ails us?

Cultivating Gratitude

Today is Thanksgiving, and I'm realizing that holidays carry with them certain assumptions. We believe that somehow we should automatically feel gratitude on Thanksgiving, happiness on Christmas, repentence on Yom Kippur, and patriotism on Independence Day. All cultures have days set aside for specific purposes, and it is easy to believe that these days dictate a certain way we should be or feel. This is a lot to live up to, because our moment-to-moment thoughts and feelings are not under our direct control. This means that sadness on Christmas or worry on Thanksgiving can often be more painful than on a "regular" day.

Is there a different way to look at holidays? Rather than seeing them as days to feel or be a certain way, can we view them as days of cultivation toward a given feeling or way of being? The difference is subtle but pointed. We cannot decide to feel gratitude, but we can decide to sit down and reflect on the good things in our lives. The action of reflection can lead to the arising of gratitude. Or not. It really doesn't matter what comes up. We can trust that the act of cultivation will eventually bear fruit.