What Was It Like?

In view of the ten month (ahem) "vacation," there is a backlog of email waiting to be answered (4,798, to be exact), and, since we returned from the (ahem) "vacation," there is also a steady peal of joyous outcry to consider. Then, there are of course letters from our regular readers, who want the "insider's lowdown."

In the latter category, perhaps the most consistently asked question is, "What was it like?" Since this seems of interest to so many people, I propose to deal with it once -- and once only -- before I depart from the entire subject, and take up joyous pealing instead.

Well, it wasn't the worst situation, and it wasn't the best situation. 

It was just a situation.

Shortly after seven o'clock in the morning, whilst writing an item for Digital Tibetan Buddhist Altar, I observed what appeared to be a large contingent of variously attired individuals armed with light automatic weapons surrounding the ranch house. I reckoned it was the cartels moving north. 


I went to my attendant's room and roused her. She had just driven in from San Francisco the night before, so she was exhausted, and when she is exhausted she is short-tempered. Accordingly, she jumped up, put on her robe, and before I could advise otherwise, burst right out the door. This is a dangerous thing to do, but she is originally from Detroit.

At least a squad's worth of submachine guns were pointed at her, shotgun slides were heard, and a large fellow with a steady carbine threw down on her, commanding her not to move. She kept walking toward them, saying, "Go ahead and shoot a woman in a bathrobe. Be a hero." They grabbed her, cuffed her, and led her to a waiting car.

I walked out at this point and asked, "Is this a training exercise, or did you boys misplace Bin Laden?"

They called me by my full name, inclusive of middle names -- by which I immediately deduced they were federal officers -- and stated they had a warrant for my arrest. 


I was relieved to find it was the FBI: the locals are trigger happy, and the cartels are worse. Turns out they also had a search warrant, which they began executing immediately, showing what I thought at the time to be remarkable courtesy, restraint, and respect.

I asked them what the arrest warrant was about, and they said, "Somebody in Baltimore has it in for you. Don't really know too much else about it. We're just serving it."

My attendant was uncuffed, allowed to dress, and sat at the dining room table, talking to one of the officers. I was chained hand and foot, and led to a waiting car by two F.B.I. agents.  I was transported to Riverside, California, to a federal courthouse, and booked by the U.S. Marshal. I have worked quite a bit with the Marshals -- out of custody and otherwise -- so I am always glad to see them. 

The U.S. Magistrate thought it best that the matter of detention be argued back East, and I agreed.

I was taken then to the federal block of the San Bernardino County Jail. This is an over-stretched facility much like what one sees in the cinema: thirteen, tiny, single man cells with open bars, facing a wall. You are let out for thirty minutes each day to use the telephone. Your food is served through a slot in the door.

So, there I was, sitting in the cell, trying to stay positive, when somebody on the block flushed a toilet, and every toilet in every cell exploded like a fountain, with water rising about three feet into the air. The fountains subsided, and the entire block was flooded about a foot deep. Yes, there were "floaters." I began laughing, thinking to myself, "School is most definitely in session."

After a few days in San Bernardino, I was chained up, taken to a bus, and driven to Southern California Logistics Airport, "Home of the Drones," in Victorville, California. An unmarked, white, passenger jet was there, together with over a dozen buses. After a considerable wait, the passengers deplaned, were searched, chained anew, and sent to their respective buses, which were bound for prisons and lockups around California.

So, this was "Con Air," or properly, JPATS: the Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System. It is nothing like the motion picture. It is just a dowdy, old commercial airliner, with no cages inside.

Restraints are the ubiquitous "black boxes," or three-point restraints. One wears them all the time when in movement. If you go to Court, you wear them. If you go to a hospital appointment, you wear them. They consist of leg irons, handcuffs, and a "black box" made of metal that separates the hands, holding them rigid, through which a chain is threaded. The chain is cinched around your waist, and locked with a padlock. The handcuffs and leg irons are both double-locked. So, you waddle along, your left hand over your right hand, palms facing each other, chained roughly waist high.

The plane took off from Victorville in the late morning, and after a time, it flew over the stupa. I could clearly see the stupa's mandala from the air.

We flew to Arizona, to pick up and drop off inmates in Arizona prisons. From Arizona, we flew to Oklahoma City -- straight to the heart of the American Gulag -- to a place I will not soon forget. When the plane arrives, you walk down the jetway straight into the prison itself. The "airport" is a prison! You stand in two long lines down a hall, and step up on a platform where your leg irons and chains are removed. You have a quick visit with a Public Health Officer, get an issue of clothes, and fill out a few forms. All of your clothes, shoes, and so forth are taken and mailed to your last known residential address.

The next time you are bumped from a flight and have to camp out in the airport, stop and think it could be worse: you could be in Oklahoma City, chained up next to a cannibal.

Very similar to this

Detainees are then shepherded into a large quad, very clean, very quiet, with two man cells. The cells have regular doors. You are locked in for "count," and at night, but the rest of the time you can open or close them as you wish. You can enjoy a constant supply of books, several television rooms, and a basketball court. You can send and receive emails (for a fee), and make telephone calls home.  The place is run quite efficiently, and if you have particular concerns, they are dealt with almost immediately.

The day after Losar, I again boarded the ancient airliner and flew to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. From Harrisburg, I was driven to downtown Baltimore -- to the Maryland Correctional Adjustment Center, MCAC or "Supermax" (Super Maximum Security) as it is known -- the old Maryland Death Row; but, since the month prior to my arrival, operating as a Federal Metropolitan Detention Center, under contract with the U.S. Marshal's Service. 

At first encounter, Supermax seems like something out of a Dickens novel: one hesitates, for example, to ask for more gruel. It is a relatively small facility (around 500 inmates or less), built to house the worst of the worst. Its size contributes to its overall efficiency. A few hours after my arrival, I was amazed to find the entire staff seemed to know my name. The unspoken rule seemed to be, "If you're cordial with us, we're cordial with you," but troublemakers were firmly removed just as quickly as they were identified. 


Like most prisons in America, it was built with juiced contractors, so some systems barely function and are in constant need of repair. At Supermax, the malfunctioning system is climate control: you are either freezing cold or blazing hot, with no in-betweens. There is a consequently brisk demand for personal fans (USD $23.00, from a catalog), watch caps, and long underwear (various prices, also from a catalog). The fiscal year 2012 appropriation for this facility is $24 million, so I hope they fix the air conditioning.

Well, it wasn't the best place I've ever been, nor was it the worst. 


Not by a long shot.

Similar to this, except retrofitted for two man use;

has a shelf and a desk-like arrangement

Each pod consists of twelve cells, six up, six down. The upper tier is fenced in, so nobody can get thrown over the railing. There is but a single shower, so people must take turns. There is a microwave, four telephones, and a television. There is a caged-in "outdoor" recreation yard, and if you have the proper shoes and so forth, you can go out and shoot baskets.

The day begins around 5:00 a.m., when some sorry excuse for a breakfast is served. This is also when you mail your letters, and put in any sick call slips you may have. The electric doors slide open just long enough to pick up a breakfast tray, and then they slide shut behind you. Around 8:00 a.m., there is security shakedown and morning recreation. Corrections Officers search your cells, and frisk you for weapons. 


"Recreation" consists of demanding, whining, screaming, shouting, and cursing, and the common area television being turned on, full blast, to non-stop episodes of Jerry Springer, Maury Povich, and Judge This-Or-That: a blaring revel of negativity, interrupted only by sporting events in the afternoons and evenings. Morning medications are administered anywhere from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. -- never, in my experience, the same time two days in a row. 

Around eleven or twelve, you are served an awful "lunch," which is either baloney and cheese, or cheese and baloney. Afternoon "recreation" consists of listening to more Jerry, playing Dominos, or Spades, screaming, shouting, whining, and cursing -- and occasionally threatening -- until lock-down for the count at 2:00 p.m.. Afternoon medications are given between 2:00 and 2:30.

Near 4:00 p.m., the doors open again. Mail is distributed. Critiques are held concerning Jerry, Maury, Judge So-and-So, and whatever sporting contest seems uppermost in everyone's attention at the time. Whining, screaming, shouting, cursing, and threatening are supplemented by howling, rule-breaking for the hell of it, jostling, and smoking. 


Around 6:00 p.m., a horrible "dinner" is served on trays -- better it should be served in skulls: cuisine is nouvelle Calcutta sewage -- and I can promise you, this is absolutely the worst maggot-infested mess I have ever encountered anywhere. There are only so many things you can do with maggot. You can boil them, fry them, and simmer them in soups. If you're a vegetarian like me, you'll have to make do without maggot and opt for the rotten vegetables, served as "coleslaw," but known as "cold-slain."


This is probably one of the safest prisons in America, and the staff are truly professional. I never saw any violence of any kind while I was there, no did I encounter any of the horrors one is led to expect from movies and television. I did have some serious health problems when I first got there, and the officers and staff went above and beyond to help me out.

I was rather ill when I was arrested, having been hospitalized not long before. I discharged, against medical advice, only to determine an astrologically opportune day for surgery. My conditioned worsened with the stress of travel, incarceration, and trouble at home. On March 8th, upon returning to MCAC from Court, I collapsed while in chains. Fortunately, the prison doctor was on duty. He examined me and called 911.


Baltimore Fire Department Paramedics arrived and ran an EKG, which demonstrated an infarction. I was taken straightaway to Mercy Hospital in Baltimore, and admitted. Two days later I had surgery, and after a brief convalescence (a few hours I recall), I was taken to the prison hospital at the Metropolitan Transition Center (MTC).

Now, this is a very special place, seeing as it is the oldest continuously operating penal institution in the Western world. It was authorized in 1804 and opened in 1811. It houses Maryland's execution chamber -- first a gallows, then a gas chamber, and now a lethal injection chamber. In 1956, a portion of the original 1811 building was retrofitted as a sixty bed general hospital, so that is where I wound up.


This was not a nice place. I was in terrible pain, and confused by all the unfamiliar drugs. I was also bleeding quite a bit. I remember lying in the bed at night, watching rats make their way around a ledge on the wall. They would stop and look at me, decide I wasn't ripe enough, and keep moving. I stayed there for around ten days, and then I went back to Mercy Hospital for a second surgery.


At Mercy, I was always chained hand and foot to the bed, and attended by two armed guards. I was even chained in the operating room, where one of the guards was also present. It does not matter who you are. That is just the way they do things.


After the second visit to Mercy, I went back to MTC for a brief stay, and then, thankfully, I returned to MCAC.  


Upon arrival, I almost immediately went into withdrawals from a month's worth of narcotic pain relievers. The officers helped me every way they could, and I have a lasting sense of gratitude for the way I was treated. 


Somewhere in mid-April, I went back to Court, where the U.S. Magistrate ruled that I could be released. My release was contingent on staying in Maryland. Friends of mine offered to fly in, rent an apartment for me, and help with necessities, but this seemed like a waste. I decided to stay where I was. You can get detrimentally attached to the idea of "freedom," to the point where it just destroys you. You can get unreasonably attached to this place or that place. Fortunately, at my age, one place is more or less like any other place. Of course I have preferences, but it is likewise a good idea not to become attached to those preferences.


Better learn how to be comfortable wherever you are.


They served us Dole fruit cups, and these made nice offering bowls. I saved them up. I was able to get some uncooked rice for the bowls, and the rest of the offerings I drew with colored pencils on paper. I made a serkyem out of a fruit cup and a medicine cup, and managed to keep it filled with daily tea. After considerable negotiation, I managed to get a mala delivered, and from then out it was smooth sailing. I just stayed in the cell and practiced all day. In the evenings, I would write letters and do some sketching, and then to sleep at around ten o'clock.


At one point, I had some sort of a stroke, or transient ischemic event (TIE), and was taken out to Bon Secours Hospital. I stayed for a couple of days, and was brought back via MTC. This was nothing particularly remarkable. As time went on, I had a few more surgical procedures, but these were also unremarkable.


If you know a Buddhist who is locked up, the most useful things are a mala, some postcard-sized images, practice texts, and if required, books and commentaries. Unless you have the sadhanas memorized, the main thing is the practice texts. If you don't have a mala you can count on your fingers, and if you don't have images, you can work on visualization with special vigor. All things considered, I think the best book for prisoners is Dzongsar Khyentse's What Makes You Not A Buddhist. As to which practice might be best, that is an individual matter, and I would not care to speculate.


Every door that closes behind you will one day open before you. Either you will walk out or they will carry you out. 


Sure enough, one day the door opened, and I walked out.


So, that is what it was like...


...sort of.




.

Rolling With the Crocodiles: Original Medicine and Mental Illness

A delightful print by artist Stephen Burt does not exaggerate.

Ten years ago -- and it seems like only a moment ago --  I wrote and published two or three small editions of an even smaller work entitled Original Medicine: The Vajrayana Buddhist Way of Healing (Tianjin: Expatriate Cloud Press, 2002, and others) This circulated all the places I wanted to see it circulate, and for a time -- circa 2004 -- was available as a free download on the Web.

A portion of Chapter Seven, "Original Medicine and Mental Illness," was excerpted and published on the Web five years ago. This became a popular post, and indirectly, became the reason why I happened to encounter certain noisy people who snap and bite to this very day. Still, it was only an excerpt, and to a certain extent out of context. I thought today we would publish the original chapter, as follows (previously published excerpt omitted):

In Tibetan medicine, mental illness is attributed to five causes: karma, excessive emotion, imbalance in the three nyes-pa, toxins, and demons or evil spirits. Mental illness can, in fact, be constructed and defined many ways, not all of which are entirely compatible with Tibetan paradigms. 

Unfortunately, many of the current Western definitions are in terms of social interaction and group acceptance. Current science has a detailed manual which carries all of the definitions our society is prepared to accept. To this number, I want to propose a revision that society may not be prepared to accept. I propose that all of the current definitions can be driven into one definition. This single definition is simply that mental illness is another, labeled manifestation of the three poisons. To the extent that we are still subject to the three poisons, I suppose we are all mentally ill.

Mental illness wreaks a toll on the body just as physical illness wreaks a toll on the mind. You cannot separate the two. You will find that certain manifestations of mental illness reveal biochemical abnormalities. I do not believe the latter precede or cause the former; rather, I believe such physical abnormalities are a symptomatic result.

While it may be possible to intervene in the physical process with powerful drugs -- seratonin uptake inhibitors are an example -- we may be running the same risks illustrated by our earlier example of antibiotics. Perhaps, in the future, we may find that such drugs will morph mental illness in unexpected ways, and we will regret that we did not look for another approach.

Just as an aside: some thirty years ago, I worked with the late Dr. Maximilian Fabrykant, M.D., a Swiss physician in the grand tradition. Dr. Fabrykant treated numerous survivors of the London Blitz, and those of German concentration camps. In result of his clinical experience, he came to the conclusion that all manifestations of mental illness could be managed nutritionally.

Original medicine can cure mental illness, but this cure is not particularly well suited to our age. When applied to physical illness, original medicine has a peaceful, almost contemplative character. When applied to mental illness, original medicine can appear rough, cruel, immoral, and in some cases, illegal. Note, for example, the Ayurvedic approach, which includes: 

"...persuading a person with good conduct to change to bad conduct, beating, isolation, terrorizing [the patient], consolation, exhilaration, and fear, occurrence of surprising events, and making the patient forget past events." [Vaidya Bhagwan Dash and Vaidya Laitesh Kashyap, Diagnosis and Treatment of Diseases in Ayurveda, Based on Ayurveda Saukhyam of Todaranahda. Part Three (New Delhi: Concept Publishing Co., 1980), p. 144] 

Note also the general Ayurvedic advice, "for the treatment of psychic ailments, mutually contradictory psychic dispositions should be created." [Ibid.]

When applied yo physical illness, original medicine can be individually managed. When applied to mental illness, original medicine usually requires the intervention of others. How such intervention is conducted becomes a stylistic issue.

A Hinayana practitioner may consider mental illness with great gentleness and forbearance, but do little else besides counsel the patient. A Mahayana practitioner may add somatic treatment to the counseling, or even engage in exorcism. A Vajrayana practitioner may, and in most cases will, actively inflame the poisons that cause the illness, and let them rage.

From the Vajrayana perspective, working with the three poisons inevitably involves a period when individual manifestation are permitted to flower so that they can be transformed or eradicated. In such cases, original medicine is anything but gentle, and may involve otherwise prohibited acts. According to one famous commentary, Bhavyakirti's Prakasika:

" 'Prohibited' means action in violation of the world. For example, to harm those who do injury to the Three Jewels; to steal the goods of the miser; to deprive the lustful person of a family; to cut the pride of the proud; to speak harshly to the envious. When one does such acts as those in violation of the world, and under the control of 'skill in the means,' he is not defiled, for by doing it under control of great compassion, there is no obscuration." [Quoted in Alex Wayman, Yoga of the Guhyasamajatantra (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1977) p 303. This is actually a commentary on a commentary.]

This statement gives us a clue to the methods involved in original medicine's approach to mental illness. Even in the sutras, we have an indication that there is an extreme methodology at work, as in this passage from the Vimalakirtinirdesha Sutra: 

"The Bodhisattva made his appearance at the fields of sports and in the casinos, but his aim was always to mature those people who were attached to games and gambling. To train living beings, he would appear at crossroads and on streetcorners. To demonstrate the evils of desire, he even entered the brothels. To establish drunkards in correct mindfulness, he entered all the taverns." [from memory]

Treating mental illness with original medicine requires an absolutely firm intention to relieve suffering, no matter the cost, followed by correct appraisal of the dominant poison, or combination of poisons, that is causing the palpable distress. This poison, or correctly, its manifestation, is then fed, much in the fashion that one feeds a fire with wood or gasoline. The treatment also involves extreme creativity of an almost deceitful character, much like the actor's skill.

In assessing mental illness, the condition of the body will indicate the condition of the mind. A person dominated by desire will display a rLung somatype. A person dominated by anger will display a mKhris-pa somatype. A person dominated by ignorance will display a bad-kan somatype. Beyond this, the specific manifestations of the illness may be revealed much as the bodily manifestations are revealed, involving certain hours, seasons, foods, and so forth, but they will be grossly overstated.

This is because, through the force of karma -- indeed, through the very powerful, composite forces of both cumulative and completing karma -- the patient has a close connection with the poison or poisons. The patient may embody the poison, and seem demonic.

The afflicted person has reached a crucial juncture in his or her own status as a human being. He has reached a crossroads, and stands at the brink of hell. If he adheres to the illness, he will be irretrievably blown into the consequences. For example: a mental patient dominated by anger may begin killing. Alternatively, he may regress into extreme anger's inward manifestation, severe depression, and commit suicide.  In either case, he will face the inevitable results of his actions. If, on the other hand, the illness is arrested, the patient will be relieved of such consequences. This obviously calls for healing of the highest order.

The purpose for feeding manifestations, for pouring gasoline on the fire, is threefold. First, in the external dimension, to demonstrate the futility of continuing along a particular path. Second, in the internal dimension, to exhaust the patient's resource for continuing along that path. Third, in the secret dimension, to provide an opportunity for recognition of the fundamental purity of mind.

The emotions spawned by the poisons are powerful. You can use this power for your purposes or against your purposes. For example: if you try to tightly control or even deny strong sexual desire, you could, perhaps, refrain from committing sexual acts but you would constantly be thinking about sex. If you try to bottle anger, it could blow, or turn inward. If you try to practice contrary acts without first eliminating the negative tendency you would find yourself in a tug of war. An example would be replacing greed with generosity before greed was eliminated.

Therefore, Vajrayana Buddhists believe the best way to deal with the issue is to accept the three poisons and what they produce for what they are not. As long as they are not pure, we are defiled. When they become pure, we are no longer defiled. This is a very subtle practice: simple to say but difficult to comprehend.

Dancing With Passions

People wrongly believe that the mentally ill are incapable of insight. This is not true in the sense that they are unable; rather, this is true only in the sense that they do not exercise insight that brings relief. I have found, and I firmly believe, that there are moments in every full-blown catharsis where profound insight is possible. For example: a person in the midst of extreme rage may suddenly cackle with laughter. We have the tendency to fear such moments, and to characterize the laughter as evil, or plain evidence of gross insanity. Nevertheless, there is a mechanism at work that has given us a window of opportunity. Emotions are rapidly changing and shifting, and we can use those shifting patterns to benefit by dancing with them.

Dancing with passion is inherently dangerous. You allow the psyche of the deranged person to become your reality, without check. You simply open yourself to the person, without defenses. The goal is to get inside a very uncomfortable and dirty place with a broom and dust mop. The broom sweeps with exaggerated mimicry of the illness. The dust mop gently polishes what is obscured. You are cleaning the tarnish from mirrors. You are polishing what is already stainless, but unrecognized. You are there to show the person the best of himself. You are imitating him so well, that he imitates you in response. This is a most difficult thing to do, because it involves absorbing his madness into your madness and extinguishing them both at the same time.

This is an old solution that exhibits its power in extraordinary undertakings. In his magnificent translation of the I Ching, Richard Wilhelm wrote:

"In dealing with persons as intractable and as difficult to influence as a pig or a fish, the whole secret of success depends on finding the right way of approach. One must first rid oneself of all prejudice and, so to speak, let the psyche of the other person act on one without restraint. Then one will establish contact with him, understand and gain power over him. When a door has thus been opened, the force of one's personality will influence him." [The commentary on "Inner Truth."]

Let us take a real world example and see how this might work. Suppose you are married to someone who seems mentally unstable. She constantly criticizes you, berates you, even beats you, and then shifts into episodes of extreme tenderness and affection. You never know where you stand. You never know what to expect. These shifting moods have nothing to do with you. They are the manifestations of her illness.

You love this person and resolve to help her. You want to use original medicine, so you begin by producing the conditions that provoke the manifestations. When you accomplish this stage, you hold up a mirror.

When the person is angry, you are angry with her, not at her. You join her anger in an exaggerated way. If, for example, she comes home angry from a real or imagined insult, you adopt her view and take it to the extreme. She may be angry with a co-worker, so you become angry too. You throw a tantrum and direct all sorts of venom toward the co-worker. You hatch elaborate plots. You literally engorge yourself with the anger.

To take this subtly, suppose the person comes home and is angry with you. Again, you join her anger and display an even greater anger toward yourself. You strike yourself. You attempt to harm yourself. You scream at the top of your lungs that you hate yourself, and you tell her that her feelings toward you are justified. You are worthless. You are guilty of unimaginable crimes. You cannot be forgiven and you should not be forgiven.

Now, let us take the opposite. The person is very tender and loving, and even remorseful. Again, you join these emotions. You then exaggerate the emotions until they become transparent.

When you accomplish this stage, you hold up a mirror, and you become the person. You duplicate her illness and let her watch. For example: in the midst of your anger -- at the very pinnacle -- you suddenly stop and say, "What am I doing this for? This does not work! There must be something wrong! This must be mental illness! I have to change something!" You then work through "your" distress with her, and allow her to suggest ways to help you.

This is an extremely dangerous game, and you must play it well. Writing of a similar game, the great Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche offered:

"The physician becomes wild, which is terrifying. We do not want to trust a wild doctor or surgeon. But we must." [Chogyam Trungpa, The Myth of Freedom (Boston: Shambhala, 1976)]

Once you start, you cannot just arbitrarily stop if the relationship becomes unpleasant. This is something that must be continued until a successful conclusion is reached. If you try to stop before the illness is resolved, both you and your patient will suffer irreparable harm. This is Vajrayana in action, and the implicit difficulty with Vajrayana is that it leaves no margin for error.

By making the patient's overt emotions your own, you are creating an opportunity for healing that her illness has otherwise prevented. You are letting her watch, in an uncomfortable and frequently challenging fashion, a magic show where she is the star. Her overwhelming self-absorption prevents her from breaking away. You are showing your thus captured audience of one what she looks like, and you are guiding her to understand where her actions will lead.

This approach demands total fearlessness, total acceptance, unconditional love, and absolute strength. To complicate the matter even further, these are qualities that you cannot cultivate, or adopt. You have to let them arise naturally. This approach demands that you must change along with your patient. The anger that she feels cannot be permitted to resonate with any anger that you may feel. The desire that she experiences cannot be allowed to find a resting-place in any desire you may experience. Her delusions cannot join your delusions. One of you must be sane, and that sanity must extend into the insanity you are joining.

The power of original medicine is more than sufficient to sustain you. Indeed, the power of original medicine is such that it can rescue a person from lower realms of existence. Even grave offenses, such as breaking ordination, or transgressing vows, can be mitigated through this power. The key is truthfulness. You must proceed from a clear intention to help others, and you cannot deceive yourself on this point.

Above I use the example of a husband and wife. I do this because treating mental illness with original medicine is not unlike entering a marriage. You marry a bundle of karma. Certain attractions and connections are present. Certain expectations may be present. Issues of trust and confidence are present. There are vows made, tested, and occasionally broken. There is an exchange of power present. There is, or should be, a deep and abiding love that is nonetheless subject to changing means of expression. The shared experiences are intimate. The analogies are endless.

There is a common way to enter a marriage and a useful way. Chogyam Trungpa explained the latter on the occasion of officiating at my own wedding [Barnet, Vermont, 1971.] "Regardless of whether you are extending or renewing or creating a bond between you, a bond is going to exist," he said. "But to be useful, that bond has to be in the context of something that liberates, rather than confines. I am therefore suggesting that you take refuge together." The treatment of mental illness with original medicine should be approached exactly this way.

The transactional methods of intervention I have described can be applied in tandem with physical therapies. A person with extreme anger can, for example, be successfully treated with mKhris-pa therapies and gain a measure of relief. Nevertheless, you will find that the force of habitual tendencies will undermine physical therapies and thus the relief will be superficial. Physical treatment may also have unintended effect.

One example is provided by my close friend. I do not, as of this writing, know if she is a wisdom dakini here to help me, or a manifestation of the yakshas, here to test me. I do not know if I am holding a mirror for her, or she is holding a mirror for me. Our exchanges have been characterized by random violence and voluble emotion. Her symptoms change like a chameleon on a mirror. She is the greatest medical professor I ever had. During one extremely chaotic phase of her mental discomfort -- diagnosed, among other things, as bipolar disorder arising from a disturbance of the menses that involves the lymphatic system -- she proved so distraught that I immediately drove her from Las Vegas to Los Angeles and worked in tandem with with a gifted Chinese doctor. We both understood that her physical discomfort manifests in a liver, kidney, spleen nexus: she is fundamentally a compound rLung mKhris-pa somatype. He employed very aggressive needle therapy to this effect, and within the hour, the patient discharged a clot of old blood and necrotic tissue the size of a quarter dollar in diameter. Her demeanor immediately changed, and she was docile as a lamb for a day and a half. The next evening witness her usual rages and paranoia; these with special vigor, because she was feeling energetic due to the treatment.

Therapeutic Setting

Treating mental illness with original medicine involves a full time commitment. That is one reason why I say it is not well suited to this age. I do not see how it can be accomplished in a traditional doctor-patient setting. The only setting in which it has traditionally been accomplished is that of Vajrayana master and student. As one author proposes, here we have an immediate challenge because, "...many of the particular qualities of common western neuroses such as depression, dependency, and eternal adolescence, present obstacles to forming a healthy relationship to the vajra master." [Rigdzin Dorje, Dangerous Friend: The Teacher-Student Relationship in Vajrayana Buddhism (Boston: Shambhala, 2001) p. 56. Therefore, while to do this inter culturally is difficult enough, to do this cross-culturally requires another layer of real effort.

Another possibility exists in the relationship between a tantric practitioner and his or her consort. An illustration comes from the story of the great master Naropa, who, after a period of bliss, fell into a circumstance of discord with his consort. The traditional version is humorously gentle when it tells us, "he no longer listened to her and she no longer listened to him."

Actually, it would seem that they brawled shamelessly, and frequently. On one occasion, he asked her for a bowl of radishes and cream, and when she was recalcitrant, he went into a meditative state for several years. Upon quitting this state, he asked, "So, where are my radishes?" She replied, "Some yogi you are! All these years and you could not give up the idea of radishes!" Anyone who hears this story would have to agree that Naropa's consort was a practitioner of original medicine.

The fundamental setting for treating mental illness with original medicine is that of indestructible friendship. Such friendship is pricelessly rare, and frequently demands extreme hardship and personal sacrifice. One does not enter this sort of situation easily. Still, it is possible to develop such friendships. In my experience, you do not go looking for them, you just find them. A certain karmic imperative feeds the process.

This indestructible friendship is not necessarily bilateral at all times. Sometimes you have a unilateral friendship with yourself. In the beginning it should be the friendship you have with yourself. In this context, you are initially your own patient, and once you have that relationship enabled you can incorporate other beings. You can take the extreme of having yourself as your patient to the extreme of having every living being as your patient.

In this instance the meditation on the Healing Buddha might take a different form, with an extended preliminary meditation on the cultivation of loving kindness, and the candid acceptance of our own mental illness. We are willing to share this condition with others because we want to help them. We can then contemplate our mental constructs as being fundamentally pure, and relate these to the appearance of everything else. We can merge our minds with the mind of the Healing Buddha and let this now-uncontrived healing spaciousness be as it is. We can dissolve the very idea of the Healing Buddha and relax into the pure, blue sky. We can even stop that and believe we have no position at all. We are in a condition where everything we require is always available.

We can invent this condition or it can be invented for us. On one illustrative occasion, I was intoxicated and sobbing on the telephone with someone I barely knew -- nothing is served by concealing or minimizing one's humanity. As it happened, this was a young girl of no obvious distinction. I had spoken with her maybe two or three times previously, and barely knew her. There was no particular relationship between us, as she was merely interpreting a family argument (language difficulties!).

Reaching the height of useless emotion, I appealed to her for help, and she replied, "Just put down the phone, walk outside, look up at the center of the sky, then come back and talk to me. I will wait for you." With these words, I remembered the continuity of my teacher's mind, and I did as she asked. 

That was original medicine, and she was a master practitioner.

If you set out to engage someone's mental illness, using the methods I have described, you cannot afford to make assumptions about your own sanity and you cannot make assumptions about theirs. You have to erase any notions of a distinction between you. More accurately, you have to trust original medicine enough to let distinctions dissolve of their own accord.

While I have fluently empathized with people occupying high social positions -- powerful political figures, and wealthy cultural celebrities --- most of the people I see could be labeled as gangsters, prostitutes, policemen, soldiers, priests, habitual drunkards, drug addicts, dissatisfied wives, murderers, cast-off husbands, cult practitioners, and individuals living a socially marginal existence. This could be a fertile field for cultivating distinctions, but that field would be a minefield. Sometimes I hear terrible things, even frightening things, but I enter each worldview as it presents itself. I am always reminded of the marvelous admission by Kyabje Kunzang Dorje Rinpoche: "Among my greatest Lamas I include a butcher, a prostitute, and a bandit."

Sometimes the experience is extraordinarily painful. While this presents a opportunity to recreationally interact with all the things we may have been in the past, or might be in the future, it does not lessen the shock of uselessness arising from that interaction. There is seemingly a karmic connection between us, and sometimes that forces us to question ourselves very deeply. We wonder what, in the past, gives rise to a connection with so many widely different personalities from so many walks of life.

There can be only one answer. All that we have been follows us.

The thing is to stay focused on this business. If you go about speculating on the nuances, you will lose the thread of what you are trying to accomplish. If you find yourself repeatedly drawn into such speculation, a useful counteragent is to cultivate the belief that you are meeting people for the first time. You therefore strive to engender a connection that is wholesome and beneficial.

An important precaution is in order at this point. While you dance with passions, and embrace passions, you cannot permit yourself to work out your own problems at someone else's expense. Nothing I have written thus far should be construed to permit or condone this event.

You can use the practice of original medicine to instruct yourself, but in the case of treating someone else's mental illness, you cannot use the interaction to treat yourself as well.

This is a fine point. By joining your wife's anger, you certainly learn something about your own anger. To an even finer point, it may be that the patient you treat is actually treating you. However, you cannot join her anger with the intention to resolve your anger. This would be like pouring water into an already overflowing container. The mere presence of anger is going to take up all the available space.

If you want to resolve your own anger, it would be better to get unreasonably angry with a perfect stranger. You would quickly see the futility and the result, you would be exhausted, and you would want to abandon anger as rapidly as possible.

In any event, joining anger for selfish purposes is a non-meritorious action and you will face the compound result of your anger and your failure of compassionate intention.

The successful treatment of mental illness with original medicine ultimately depends on the patient, not the skill of the practitioner. The only "skill" is patience. You can use three corners to describe a square, and wait for the patient to discover the fourth corner.

To be candid, some people are so obscured and deluded that you can only pray for them. You should therefore select candidates for transactional methods with extreme care. This is, of course, unless you are utterly fearless, in which case you can take on all comers. In either event, you are establishing a bond and where that leads depends on your perception. The people you treat will leave you, perhaps in conditions of great bitterness and recrimination, attended by all sorts of controversy. Yet, if your intentions are pure, the havoc that treatment produced in both your lives will ultimately have a beneficial result. If your intentions were otherwise, tacitly or implicitly, the results will be problematic.

-o-o-o-o-o-

I wrote the above in the summer of 2002. May it be auspicious.

                                                                                                                                                            

The Courage of Kalu Rinpoche

Astrology for Tibetan New Year 2012 (Extended)

The lunar year 2012 into 2013 is the Year of the Male Water Dragon (chu-pho 'brug-lo), and is generally considered to be an eventful, "mixed blessing" year: Gawa, or "Happiness." Chinese and Tibetan lunar calendars often differ in the first day of the first month. Accordingly, in Chinese and Vietnamese practice, this lunar year commences on January 23, 2012, corresponding to the 30th day of the 11th Kalachakra month. The first day of the Tibetan New Year is February 22, 2012, or Losar 2139.

The chief value of the following post lies in the calculations. Ordinarily, these calculations are the result of a laborious process, but here you have them at your fingertips, already done for you. Is it better or worse if you don't have to work for it?

I gave what I regard as a suitable explanation and introduction to the detailed nuances of yearly astrology, and the relative meanings, in our remarks for 2009. Rather than repeat myself, I would suggest that you click back to 2009, read the post, and then click back here to discover what has changed. I imagine that 2010 will already be too familiar for many of you. Nevertheless, if there are terms or concepts in the following that are strange to you, consult my comments for 2009.

Be all that as it may, let us begin with the geomantic indicators. This year, the opportune passageway is  observed at South and West, and here are the positions occupied by our sa-bdag friends, from rje-blon nyer-drug ma-bu 'khor:

1) King The-se - Southeast (also hidden spirit Ba-dan)

2) Queen Hang-ne - Southeast

3) Queen Mother The-khyem - East

4) Crown Prince Te-so - East

5) Royal Minister Tsang-kun - North

6) Royal Astrologer Se-ba bla-mkhyen - Northwest (also inner at North, secretly at Northeast)

7) Royal Dog Walker Hang-phan ser-po bya-ra-ba - South

8) Royal Treasurer Se-byi - Northwest

9) Royal Bodyguard-Assassin Se-shar - Southwest

10) Royal Horse Se-ba rang-rta - North

11) Royal Groom Se'u rta-khrid - North

12) Royal Timekeeper Se-bya - East

13) Royal Upholsterer Sa-bdag se-bu gdan-'ding - Southeast

14) Royal Policeman Se-lo sa-'chag kungs-myul - Northeast

15) Royal Sweeper Se-lo sa-'phyag - Southwest

16) Royal Dog Hal-khyi nag-po - South

17) Princess dKar-sham - South

18) Prince sBal-te (her husband - the royal son-in-law) - South

19) General Vang-ging dmarpo - Northwest

20) General Tsang-kun - Southeast

21) Adjutant Tsang-kun 'phye'o - Northeast

22) Dog-headed Assistant Tsang-kun khyi-mgo - Northeast

23) Advisor Bla-mkhyen phe'u - Northwest

24) Scorpion-head Zin 'phung - West

25) Venomous Pi-ling - West

26) Chief of the Eleven Ministers of the King (symbolizing them) - North

The containing note for 2012 is running water (alternatively, "silver river"). The body element (lus: water -- basically the same thing) originates from the turtle's urine. The other basics of the year are its srog, or vitality (earth); the dbang-thang, or destiny (water); the rlung-ta, or luck (wood), and the khyams-nyid, or actual luck (wood). To get a bit more technical, the zla-klung-gi gza'gnyis are Mars and Wood Horse, and the destiny/vitality relationship is Kha-val.

Our magic numbers this year are skye-me, or natal, as Red 9 (upper metreng); srog-sme, or vitality, as Blue 3 (middle metreng); dbang-sme, or destiny, as White 6 (lower metreng). 

If Dragon women wish to get married this year, they should do so in the Snake month. 

Because I favor elemental astrology, it is difficult for me to make general predictions about how the various "animals" will fare in this Year of the Water Dragon. Anyone who tells you they can is deceiving you. For example: there is a traditional notion that the Ox and Dog may experience challenges this year. You will see statements like this everywhere, but you cannot always accept them as valid.

Why is this? 

There are twelve animals and five elements, for a total of sixty possibilities. Each of these sixty possibilities must be evaluated in terms of five elements, for a total of 300 possibilities. Each of these 300 possibilities has five possibilities, for a total of 1,500 possibilities. Therefore, anybody who says, "Oh, the Mouse will be lucky this year," is engaging in crass generalization. What they should be saying is "Oh, the Fire Mouse exhibits the following five relationships in this, the year of the Water Dragon."


Some astrologers do not care for Water Dragon years. They reason that Earth is the essential element of the Dragon, and the enemy of Water is Earth, so a Water Dragon is fraught with internal conflict. Since other interpretations are certainly possible, I would counsel you to take your clue from the energies of 2012 as set forth herein. Please take note that as a general rule, astrological indications are rendered highly flexible by Dharma practice.

What shall I say about Dragons? Born "opera singers?" Histrionic? Explosive? Extroverted? Here are some examples, so you be the judge: John Lennon, Al Pacino, Nicholas Cage, Russell Crowe, Shirley Temple, Joan of Arc, Salvador Dali, Sigmund Freud, Bruce Lee, Keanu Reeves, Florence Nightingale, Susan B. Anthony, Mae West, and Sandra Bullock were all born in the Year of the Dragon.

Many Chinese believe this is the most auspicious year in which to have children, although problem pregnancies may be seen. The folk astrology of both China and Tibet indicates that Dragons in general are charismatic, magically powerful, and occasionally what we might call "wonderful hot heads." On the negative side, they can be arrogant, insensitive, and ruthless. Their ideal careers are found in trial law, advertising, invention, military and politics, religion, or in the arts as actors or singers. In business, they are suited to public relations. The ideal companions are those born in the year of the Mouse, Monkey, or Pig. They will wish to avoid significant relationships with the  Ox, Horse, Dog, Sheep, or Tiger. 

In particular, Water Dragons are considered egotistical spendthrifts, with more than a share of pride and family problems. Notable characteristics are a necessity to change residence many times, to be plagued by foolish relatives, and harsh language. They often have a clear birthmark or mole, and have deaf or mute ancestors somewhere in the family line.

Water Dragons can be successful in sports, particularly archery. They will have one or five children. Their average lifespan is sixty-two years. They will face six major obstacles. Dragon dharma practitioners can be dramatically successful.  Among practitioners, H.H. Dudjom Rinpoche was a Dragon.

For 2012, I would recommend that Dragons pay attention to travel arrangements, relocation issues, and finances.


Year before last I wrote:

The last Iron Tiger year, 1950, saw the beginning of the end of Tibetan Buddhism as it had been known for centuries prior. To a certain extent, this became possible because of degeneration and fighting in the Tibetan Buddhist institutions themselves. The year 2010 will witness extreme tension between unorthodox expressions of Tibetan Buddhism -- those which are against the grain,  permissive or culturally diluted -- and the ancient energies that have been offended by such extreme views. Again, please remember what I have told you: that which provokes you to anger in 2010 aims to bring about your destruction. As difficult as it may be, you must withdraw from such provocations. 

And, last year I wrote:

In many, many ways, 2011 is an entire year of coping with that which came into being during 2010. 

My thought is that 2012 will be an entire year of coping with that which came into being in 2010 and 2011, with emphasis on the latter. The key to this year is spiritual growth: a shifting away from insular values to global values. I feel there will be at least one extremely dramatic "world-altering" event that will influence us for many years to come. Travel and international relations will be in the forefront, whether conventionally, or as symbolized by increased use of the Internet to foster growth and change. Indeed, there will most definitely be "change," but not everyone will be happy. Conflicts of the "flare-up," or "brush fire" type are strongly indicated. Change will be rapid and unpredictable.

I can foresee issues with North Korea and Iran. I do not see how conflict in Uddiyana can be avoided. There will be violence associated with terrorism, and violence associated with repression. A military "show of force" is highly likely, and may extend to the nuclear realm.

Finance will be a constant theme throughout the year. There will likely be wide fluctuation, and high-profile bankruptcy. Markets will become volatile. You can expect China to make bold moves this year, as they begin to experience some of the challenges of their overheated economy. There will be incredible competition for natural resources and raw materials. Firms that recycle will see windfall profits, as they benefit from legislation. The environment will also make headlines several times during the year, particularly in the area of floods, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions.

There will be incredible advances and inventions in science and technology, and the possibility of a medical breakthrough.

On the downside, this year can see challenges in the entertainment industry, and a sudden jump in the divorce rate.

I feel this is a year characterized by spiritual evolution, perhaps precipitated by events that lead us to discard materialism or the status quo -- and these may be dramatic events indeed -- so, in balance, call this a challenging year of growth, when values change.

As a personal aside, thank you for continued support of Digital Tibetan Buddhist Altar through our own challenges during 2011.

Keywords: Tibetan New Year, Year of the Dragon, Chinese New Year, Tibetan Astrology 2012, Losar, Water Dragon, Asian Astrology, Chinese Astrology 2012, Astrology, Dragon, 2012, Lunar New Year, Dragon Year.

Dudjom Rinpoche's Anniversary

Today, 12 January 2012, we are celebrating the Anniversary of Dudjom Rinpoche (1904 - 1987), although I believe, subject to correction, that he passed away on 17 January.

Before, the Vidyadhara Nuden Dorje

In the future, the Sugata Mopa Thaye

Now, the representative of Pema Jungne, Drogben himself,

Jigdral Yeshe Dorje, to you I pray!

.

Feed the Rabbit

Author Lucille Moore has given us a wonderful new book entitled Rabbit Nutrition and Nutritional Healing (USD $15.95 from Amazon). What to feed the little stinkers is actually a complicated subject, raising more questions than one might suppose. This book has a comfortable margin of useful answers, and clarifying advice, all written in non-technical language. An excellent one volume survey of an important aspect of rabbit care (the rabbits think it is the most important aspect).

By the way -- the bunny nose, above, is from Julie Behm of Quirky Bunny.

Light the Darkness

A former monk named Kirk Grissom, from Oakland, California, has succeeded where others have failed. He has begun production of superb quality electric butter lamps, now available for immediate purchase.

Oh, happy day.

As we have observed elsewhere, butter lamps have destroyed more Buddhist institutions than the Red Guard. They are the bane of the novice's existence, and a trap for the accident prone. While there is a deeply symbolic content to the traditional offering -- and rather an important teaching -- the fact is, butter lamps can be dangerous.

I have 108 of them that I use on various occasions, set up in a room where the rabbits like to sleep. After a few days, I noticed that all the white rabbits suddenly had black mustaches -- from breathing the air in the room with smoking butter lamps. This was a horror to me.

Kirk's innovation spares the rabbit noses. His lamps have flickering LED lights that burn forever, and consume only a minuscule amount of electricity. They are extraordinarily well made, one at a time, with obvious care and love.

Please support the idea. Kirk Grissom has the DTBA Seal of Approval on this one.

In Praise of Western Medicine

For most of my life, I have expressed disdain for Western medicine. I went out of my way to avoid contact -- with Western pharmaceuticals in particular -- and embraced Asian medical traditions, such as those of Tibet, China, and India. The practice actually served me rather well, so I saw no reason to admit any worth to Big Medicine.

Until, one day, I was forced into the clutches of Big Medicine in all its glory. A classic, All-American "widow maker" heart attack was narrowly defeated by heroic measures in a Southern California hospital. 

This was the same heart attack that killed my father, so as I recovered, I thought of how he would have been saved if he had access to the same treatment that saved me. I thought of the tens of millions of dollars invested in the cardiac cath labs of today, and of the research that made them possible. Perhaps, somewhere, my father's death had served a purpose in that research, if only as a statistic. 

During my heart attack, an interventional cardiologist placed a drug eluting stent in my left anterior descending artery. The heart was quite damaged -- the whole front wall died -- but the stent proved an effective aide.

Last March, I suffered what appeared to the EKG to be a mild anterolateral infarction. As the stent keeps LAD wide open, it was reasoned that LAD's lateral branches were at fault. Because the conditions of care were less than optimal, I was stabilized, and no intervention was made.

This past Friday, I was admitted to hospital with chest pains. Cardiac catheterization revealed a 90% blockage of OM circumflex. Another drug eluting stent was inserted, after which I quickly recovered. A second heart attack was thus narrowly averted.

So, now I have my two stents, and a lifelong prescription for Plavix -- a wonder drug with an iron-clad patent -- which costs $220.00 per month (that is the discount price), and there are no generics on any horizon. Together with low-dose aspirin, this protocol keeps my ticker ticking for the benefit of all other ticking tickers.

In the first instance, my life was saved by a Taiwanese doctor; in the second, I was treated by a doctor from Mumbai. They both express disdain for Asian medical traditions and embrace Western medicine wholeheartedly.

My "whole heart" is done with disdain. When you pull out of those steep dives, you level off loving everybody.

Especially the readers of DTBA. I have missed you very much.

[Endnote: The doctor wants me to stay calm for a month, after which we may or may not be doing another surgical procedure. So, I apologize in advance for being a little slow with the 2012 Water Dragon astrology. For those of you who cannot wait: "Water" and "Dragon." Get the picture?]

[Update: A friend in Canada reports that generic Plavix is available for $39.47 for a month's supply! That is incredible, seeing as how I just spent $55.00 for a week's supply. How is health care in America being served by denying us the ability to purchase pharmaceuticals on world markets?]

(Not Quite) Back In the Saddle

Anybody can ride the tame ones.

"Begin each day by telling yourself: 'Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will and selfishness. All of them due to the offenders' ignorance of what is good and evil.'" --Marcus Aurelius, 165 AD

Has anybody ever figured out why we use the verb "yakking" to describe idle speech? Think it has anything to do with our friend Bos grunniens? Since the gyag (yak) is of the family Bovidae, perhaps this is a way to politely evoke what some people might call "bullshit."

I doubt this can be defended. In the host culture, bovine excrement is highly regarded for numerous beneficial properties, and put in wide industry. In our culture, bullshit does not enjoy the same value, hence our use of the term is derogatory.

I was thinking about the Ajanta caves the other day: recalling a painting of a monkey riding on a buffalo's back -- it might as well be a yak -- sporting with the buffalo by covering his eyes. You know, we do this in jocular, peekaboo fashion; coming up behind a friend, covering their eyes with our hands, to see if they can guess who it is.

In Ajanta, the naughty monkey is depicted taunting a buffalo who is actually Buddha -- in one of his former lifetimes -- so the Buddha-buffalo bodhisattva indulges monkeyshines with good nature. As we are all seen to be relaxing long enough to become one of Maitreya's protons, the Buddha-buffalo exercises infinite patience with the monkey's business.

Of course, the monkey was to an extent enabled by this. He kept coming up with even more devilish annoyances.

A nearby tree spirit disliked the monkey's antics, and advised Buddha-buffalo bodhisattva to do for the monkey right and proper. The Buddha-buffalo bodhisattva declined, saying:

"Inflicting grief on others to overcome one's own discomfort is no virtue, as the result of such acts shall not bear the fruits of true happiness."

Some days passed by, and the Buddha-buffalo bodhisattva wandered away, to be replaced by a buffalo of savage temperament. Thinking, "a buffalo is a buffalo: they're all alike," the monkey started up as usual, only to be gored and trampled to death. The story puts it straight:

"The monkey was thus killed in no time."

Indeed, he was. Thinking of the Jataka tale thus illustrated on the wall at Ajanta, it came to me that there has been way too much yakking on Internet about a seeming controversy between a Nameless Person and myself.

Heretofore, only one version of the story has been heard, much of it penned -- with considerable vitriol -- by one of Nameless Person's henchmen: a deeply deluded "ordained Buddhist monk" from Nameless Person's Temple of Cognitive Dissonance. Many things that seem intended to bedevil were written and widely promulgated by this busy fellow -- one of Nameless Person's top lieutenants, and trusted ghostwriter -- who was of course trying to keep monkey paws over your eyes.

Thubten Rinchen Palzang of KPC

(John Buhmeyer)

So here lies the moral dilemma: friends and family (and many of our readers) are dismayed that I rarely respond with what could be called, "my side of the story." Pointedly, they ask if I could please, from time to time, explain why I do certain things in a certain way that might appear unusual.

Thubten Rinchen Palzang of KPC

(John Buhmeyer as he appears in booking photograph)

I think responding with "my side of the story" is unnecessary. However, after considering the matter quite deeply -- whether deep enough I leave to you -- I have come to believe that explaining "why" is not altogether out of bounds, even when that explanation might seem inappropriate.

The issue of what is or is not "appropriate" is of course being defined and delimited anew with every tick of the clock. In this context, we see the case U.S.A. vs Cassidy, which asks the question, "Is it permissible to instruct a naughty monkey by holding up mirrors that reflect the monkey's own behavior toward others?" The answer, of course, being supplied by the now famous decision by Judge Titus, that yes, indeed, it is not only permissible, it is protected. In addition to protecting free speech on the Internet -- whether yakking or not -- the decision also clarifies aspects of the sometimes antinomian character of Buddhist instruction.

In that celebrated case, words appearing on the Internet -- some mine, some attributed to me -- caused "emotional distress" to the author of the following words:

"The Buddha taught each person the nature of their own mind by showing them their poison, by ripening in their mind their potential for enlightenment, by shoving down their throat their own garbage, by giving them teaching that touched them in their language."

One questions how the author of that questionable interpretation explains the hypocrisy of squealing when she is touched in her own language. We might note she is also the author of this statement, of which I have been openly critical (albeit, and to be fair, more than likely ghostwritten):

"It is typical of the activity of the dakini to hit where it hurts, to get you where you live, to create for you a method by which you can try to run, but the road in front of you is turned around so that you can only run in a circle right back and it is as tricky and convoluted and sneaky as your own mind.  It will rub your face in your shit.  It will make you eat your own poison. But eventually, with faith and devotion, you will come out of it enlightened."

So, yes... it is permissible, but is it wise?

Enough yakking. At her invitation, I once had occasion to investigate certain aspects of Nameless Person's life and "tweaching" ("teaching" on Twitter), together with the conduct of her organization and partisans. My investigation unearthed some deeply troubling elements of information, which I brought to her attention.

Rather than respond well to criticism, Nameless Person and her crew set to work "dirtying up the witness." They had things they wished to keep hidden, and when I failed to respond to their gibes, I imagine that I empowered them to bury their secrets all the more.

But, buffalos are not alike.

This is the other horn of the moral dilemma. If I had handled this differently, might I have prevented a minor from being molested by Nameless Person's henchman? Might I have prevented the henchman from being gored and trampled? On November 3, 2011, he began serving a 20 year minimum mandatory sentence. He will be 86 years old before he is eligible for parole.

Nameless Person knew about her henchman's problems, but she failed to do anything about it. I personally warned her, but she failed to respond. I did everything I could to warn others, but to no avail. Meanwhile, Nameless Person and her apologists did everything in their power to spin control a cover-up. They even went so far as to trick a young and relatively inexperienced FBI special agent, who specializes in investigation of crimes against children, to support squid tactics aimed to protect this man. That is not ironic. That is pitiable.

On the Court Docket in July 2011, 

but he knew he was guilty back in October 2010

Human tragedies like this are dismantling Catholic institutions at an alarming rate. Are Buddhists next in line? I wonder what the Palyul lineage will do when they find their entire institution hauled into a federal courtroom, and -- because they knew the danger and failed to act -- handed a multi-million dollar judgment for damages? Not only in this case, but in a related case, where -- with Nameless Person's explicit advice and consent (see below) -- an otherwise innocuous man on the Internet was attacked and vilified by the henchman, and victimized by a cynical frame-up. That frame-up culminated in a dubious FBI raid on the poor fellow's premises, and irreparable injury. Here again, punitives are likely to run into the millions, and high-powered personal injury firms are standing in line for a piece of the action.

While people were busy "protecting Nyingma," who was protecting the rest of us? Please think carefully, and knock off the bullshit.

DTBA, August 2009

Emotional Distress

“The behavior of ghosts and harmers is weird.”

—Jigme Lingpa

We heard quite a bit about "emotional distress" in 2011, so it seems a fit topic for this moment’s notice as we begin 2012. Most of the groundwork has already been done for us by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. With few exceptions, Rinpoche understood more about Westerners and their neuroses (as well as their psychoses) than any lama before or since. 

Trungpa Rinpoche took many slices, but the one we want to acknowledge now is differentiation of emotional distress as possession by dons (there should be an umlaut over the “o” but I can’t find it on this keyboard):

“The word don means a sense or experience of something around us that suddenly makes us unreasonably fearful, unreasonably angry and aggressive, unreasonably horny and passionate, or unreasonably mean.”

Seems like an elegantly direct definition of what we call “emotional distress,” doesn’t it? 

So, when confronting these dons — and we sometimes see that translated as “spirits,” or more often, “ghosts” — we have deceived ourselves into believing our unreasonable fear, anger, aggression, horniness, and meanness are due to something external. 

Just as we grasp at the deity, believing the deity to be separate and apart from us, so, too, do we grasp at ghosts. 

We come to believe that our fear, anger, aggression, horniness, and meanness are discrete, justifiable, mental events that occur in response to something individual and distinct from our somehow “unique” being.

This is a common affliction among those who have yet to experience emptiness, and have yet to honestly exercise the compassion that naturally arises from that experience. Compassion need not be contrived; moreover, compassion must not be contrived. 

We see this all the time, and it is of course upsetting to everyone involved. Someone can be standing on a roof, howling, “I am so compassionate,” and then in the next moment, jump down off the roof and hide under the bed, whining, “I am so afraid.”

Thus do we quickly see their dishonesty. 

Fortunately, there is a complete cure, and that is to stop hiding from naturally occurring realization of the nature of one’s mind — stop fighting it off with all sorts of mumbo-jumbo, or scaring it off by grabbing and clawing.

In fact, many of us are hiding. Maybe we come out only long enough to see the psychiatrist, get some more back-brain depressant — or visit the liquor store or drug dealer for more back-brain depressant — and thus fortified, we scuttle back under any convenient metaphor like fat crabs under a rock. Oh! That would be a metaphor hiding beneath another metaphor, wouldn’t it? 

If we were to instead give the teachings our full attention, maybe this whole don business would cease to be adversarial. Maybe, instead of running away, we could learn to offer them tormas. While we are making those tormas, we might begin to think about our hidden and not-so-hidden neuroses. We might make a decision to cultivate them. We might issue them an invitation. If we are truly compassionate, we might collect them and take them along whilst we seek refuge.

“And we should invite them back, the ups and downs of those sudden attacks of neurosis. It is quite dangerous: wives might be afraid of getting black eyes again and again, and husbands might have fears of being unable to enter their home and have a good dinner. But it is still important to invite them again and again, to realize their possibilities. We are not going to get rid of them.”

Trungpa Rinpoche also wrote something else that seems particularly useful these days:

“Having offered your neurosis or taken refuge, you begin to commit yourself as a traveler on the path rather than as any big deal or moneymaker on the path. All these processes somehow connect together. And finally, there is no hope and no fear: ‘If there is hope, let our hope subside; if there is any fear, may our fear subside as well.’”

This is very good news for people who announce their fears to themselves, or the world at large, no matter it is legitimate or just another publicity stunt. This is good news indeed for depressed fat crabs who feel they are a “big deal or moneymaker” in the context of Buddhism as it was practiced in Tibet. Don’t you think it is better to be fearless? When you become truly fearless you can feed ghosts with no problem. You can invite them over for tea and sympathy. If you tell them to bring the gyalpos along, you will need more folding chairs than a Beverly Hills bar mitzvah.

The book we’ve been quoting from is Training the Mind and Cultivating Loving Kindness. This was published in 1993, based upon Trungpa Rinpoche’s earlier work with the so-called Kadampa slogans, in which he engaged from 1981 until a year before his death in 1987.

This is a great little book for beginners, and even better for those who feel they don’t need beginner’s  books.