Life – Zen-Journal™ ~ It's More than a Mindful Planning System, It's an Entire Lifestyle

Why I Don’t Use Separate Zen-Journals for Personal and Professional Use & Why You Don’t Have to Either

11/22/2018 by Barry Leave a Comment

There is a common misconception among many in the analog planner user community that states “it’s not possible to use one notebook to manage both your personal and professional pursuits.”

I wrote about this once before in another post, but today I’ll explain how I use one notebook to manage both and why you don’t need to, except in some very isolated circumstances.

Why the Misconceptions Exist

On some of the online communities dedicated to other analog planning systems that I frequent, I’ve read statements that relay the concern of some users about mixing business and personal pursuits in one notebook. [Read more…]

When Things Fall Apart, Part 2

03/19/2017 by Barry Leave a Comment

Sometimes, things do fall apart. pc: unsplash.com

In a post from 2016, I wrote about how our lives can, do, and will continue to fall apart.

In that post I wrote the following:

In our lives, things fall apart: We lose jobs, we lose housing, we lose people we love. In those times, we feel lost as well. We feel tossed here and there and long for a soft place to land. We are but blades of grass blowing in the wind.

Almost two months ago my father died due to complications of pulmonary fibrosis (PF). PF is a disease of whereby the lungs, normally elastic and compliant, become increasingly fibrous and non-compliant making the gas exchange in the small air sacs (alveoli) minimal and results in excessive fatigue and shortness of breath..more like a continual panting.

For nearly six months my dad failed to meet the criteria for supplemental oxygen therapy and when he finally did, it was nearly too late. He lasted four additional months with his oxygen tanks following him around when we left the house and a long tube connected to a concentrator while at home.

As he faltered, I became angrier

[Read more…]

Long Time Gone: Thoughts on Falling Out of Love With Your Path

08/07/2016 by Barry

We can always come back to ourselves and our path.

“Me, I heard a different song… I hit the road… and boy, I been a long time gone.” ~The Dixie Chicks, Home

One of the first lessons I learned in walking this path of Practical Buddhism is that everything is in a continual state of change. Our bodies, our minds, our feeling, thoughts, and emotions are in continual flux. It’s part of our human experience. Nothing stays the same…ever.

One can’t escape this feeling of being in the vortex of change every now and then. It’s inevitable and it happens to us all at times. It’s like one day we’re fervent in our practice and the next we’re waning like an Autumn moon.

When this occurs in my life, I encounter periods of, what I call, falling out of love with my path. It’s insidious and at first, I stop meditating for any number of reasons. I start rationalizing the lack of practice and then I feel my sense of compassion fall away. When that happens I feel guilty, I’m harder toward others, and I return to less than best version of myself…and then…

Then I’m a long time gone.

It can happen to anyone

[Read more…]

When Things Fall Apart, Part 1

03/28/2016 by Barry Leave a Comment

Pema Chodron, one of my Buddhist heroes and author of When Things Fall Apart

I wrote this post back in August 2014. I reread it recently and thought it still had lessons to teach me, and perhaps you as well.

Things do fall apart

In our lives, things fall apart: We lose jobs, we lose housing, we lose people we love. In those times, we feel lost as well. We feel that we are tossed here and there and long for a soft place to land. We are but blades of grass blowing in the wind.

Life has a way of showing us who’s boss and, as if we needed to be reminded, it isn’t us.

Often our first response to this type of stress is to grip ever tighter and attempt to control our immediate surroundings. But this is rarely a strategy that results in an end to the free fall nor does it create the soft landing we seek.

Freefall gives way to uncertainty

When I lost my job in December of last year, I was shocked into the reality of uncertainty. I was uncertain of what to feel, who to blame, and where to go next.

It took several months to get used to the idea that I was no longer a member of the highly functioning team I’d created and built over the last eight years. It felt as if I’d stepped out of a plane and was plummeting rapidly toward the earth without a parachute.

Gradually, however, the initial sensation of impending doom gave way, not to comfort, but the realization that uncertainty wouldn’t kill me. It might be very uncomfortable for a while, but I would survive.

It’s been nine months since the day my position and that of my entire team was eliminated and I still feel the uncertainty, but with less intensity. I can’t say that I’m used to the idea of being unemployed, but I’ve been fortunate to transition to consulting, marketing the same skills to a wider audience.

Feeling alone and adrift

When our lives fall apart, we often feel isolated and alone. We tend to retreat from our usual social encounters causing friends to worry about us and nervously adopt a habit of checking in on us to see that we’re eating and not drinking too much.

We fool ourselves into thinking we are, indeed, alone and isolated. We may dip into the pool of self-pity on occasion, telling ourselves that being a bit miserable is part of the process.

Isolation is always a self-imposed reality. No one forces us to withdraw, to retreat from our circle of friends, or to become a hermit. We choose this. It might be a source of comfort for a while, but it doesn’t last.

Uncertainty gives way to being

For me, the feeling of uncertainty that followed the period of free fall immediately after my job fell apart, eventually led me to a place where I chose consciously being instead of cloistered isolation.

I opted to strengthen my meditation practice by purchasing a zafu and zabuton. I chose to create a period of the day that was always allocated to meditation and reflection. I chose to walk more and even get a new, and personally significant tattoo. Making these choices helped me take action and move forward.

When things fall apart in our lives, we slow down and lose our forward momentum. Making a conscious choice to move forward helps us grow out of the uncertainty into a state of mindfulness, consciously choosing to be fully present again.

Things will continue to fall apart

If I know anything it’s that nothing is permanent. Everything is in flux and is ever-changing. My current state of being mindful of my new reality could change tomorrow.

One of the lessons that I see my youngest son needs to learn is this very point. He views change as unwelcome and detrimental. He wishes things would stabilize and remain the same. But you and I know that this is folly. Things will continue to change, to evolve, and at times fall apart.

The key to surviving and growing from these inevitable and unpredictable changes is to live mindfully in the present and when a change occurs, approach it from the viewpoint that we have a new present moment and deal directly with what comes our way.

Why Labels are Meaningless

02/13/2016 by Barry

I used to be a lot of things, but no longer

The details below illustrate the larger story and provides the context that many thinking, spiritually-minded people have in common. While I live my life according to Practical Buddhist practices, I’m not really anything that you can label with permanence.

I used to be a lot of things that had labels: doctor, professor, husband, etc. But these days I’m not anything that you can label. Here’s why in more detail.

Good without a god

The American Humanist Society’s tagline is ‘Good Without a God.’ I like that because it meets head-on the popular assumption/dogma that:

Deity exists
One must believe in this deity, and
We are dependent on the rituals that Big Religion (think Big Pharma with leather-bound books and funny robes and hats) continues to hand down generation after generation, such as forgiveness from original sin, baptism, confession to a mortal to obtain divine absolution …(insert your favorite ritual here).

These are assumptions that Big Religion has forced upon believers for centuries. In the Middle Ages, millions of illiterate, uneducated, and gullible subjects were governed by the proclamation of such assumptions, often presented as absolutes that could not be questioned under penalty of death.

Today we live in a world filled with educated, literate, thinking individuals that understand that Big Religion’s dominance is over. Most of us opt for logic and reason as guideposts for their behavior and moral codes. We aren’t threatened by the absence of answers to the deepest existential questions; instead, we work out our own answers.

When you remove the need for deity, you are left with human beings living day-to-day that aren’t dependent on myths and stories created in order to satisfy the absence of answers to the big existential questions they face.

There’s enough guilt to go around

In my book, The Practical Buddhist, I write about the absence of deity-induced guilt in Buddhism. Because Buddhism isn’t a religion, but a way of relating to the present moment, it doesn’t depend on the existence of a deity. Nowhere in the Buddhist literature will you find the imperative to believe in something you cannot examine, question, or test.

The absence of investigation within Big Religion leaves a believer no choice but to feel the lack of worth that results from the knowledge they can never measure up to God’s ideal of living a blameless life. This guilt is shared across the spectrum by Jews, Christians (including Catholics and Mormons), and Muslims. It’s the karmic result of feeling unworthy and it’s used by every religion to bring a potential believer to his/her knees to beg for acceptance, forgiveness, and love. It is literally their only way out of the cycle of sin, so they are told.

When you remove the need for redemption and acknowledge that all human beings are born equally human, there is no guilt save for each individual’s moral behavior, a direct result of behavior and not a religious imperative. You are set free from needless guilt.

Ritual serves no real purpose

Rituals are repetitive; If they serve no purpose, why do we engage in them? I’ll be the first to admit that Buddhism, over its 2,600 of existence, has developed a ton of rituals and ceremonies. Most are associated with festivals that even the Dalai Lama has said mean little to the average Buddhist practitioner. Instead, like most of Big Religion’s ceremonies and rituals, they are vestiges of an age gone by when the uneducated and illiterate masses were subjugated by those individuals in minority control.

In the Francis Ford Coppola films, The Godfather and The Godfather Part III, The Feast of San Gennaro features prominently in the street life of New York City. It’s an example of the masses taking part in rituals and ceremonies that hold little meaning to most, but are forced to participate by family, societal expectations, and personal ignorance.

However, not all ceremony is needless; Singing Happy Birthday to small children we love fills both the children and us with happiness and contentment. Attending a bar mitzvah, wedding, or graduation can be inspirational and sources of family pride and happiness.

When you remove the need for ritual and religious ceremony from our lives, you largely remove the need for ritualistic behavior and heartless repetition of actions that add little to your daily life.

Discard your labels

You (and I occasionally) might call me a Practical Buddhist, but it’s only a label. I’m just a temporary being wearing a flesh suit. I’m an impermanent, flawed/perfect failure; an old punk, a successful writer, or a lousy, unsuccessful one, etc.

These might seem contradictory, and you’re right. But again, that’s because they are only labels. Labels are meaningless.

When you discard your need for labels, you discard the notion of a permanent self and you are free from the expectations that accompany permanence. You are fee to be happy.

3 Lessons I learned from Venturing Outside my Comfort Zone

01/31/2016 by Barry

With only one bag, I hit the road.

Since January 12th I’ve been on the road, traveling, visiting family, and living in ways that are outside my comfort zone. In brief, I’m taking three weeks to travel across the US and back and this post is about the three lessons I’ve learned thus far living outside my comfort zone.

As a bit of a catch up since I last posted, I’m currently living in San Jose, California and the southern end of the San Francisco Bay Area. I moved there from the coast in May 2015 to take care of my aging parents who are both in their mid-eighties and in failing health.

After eight months of full-time assisted living duty and part-time writing and consulting, I figured it was time for a bit of a break. I embarked on my journey two weeks ago and I started writing this post in Enid, Oklahoma where my son-in-law is stationed at Vance Air Force Base at the Flight Training Wing. There were turboprop planes and jets taking off and landing most of the time. It was pretty awesome. He’s training as a USAF pilot and it was very cool being so close to the aircraft.

The week prior to Oklahoma I was in South Carolina visiting one of my three sons and his family. We built a playground for his young children braving the light snow flurries in the process. Now I’m in Denver, Colorado visiting friends.

As the journey has progressed, I’ve become aware of three lessons about living outside of my comfort zone.

With only one bag, I hit the road.

Lesson 1 – I Can’t Meditate Anywhere

I decided to take the train for a change of pace. As a consultant, I fly a lot for business and for this three-week journey, the train seemed like a needed change of pace.

I booked a sleeper car, or a roomette as they’re called on Amtrak, for the five days and three trains that it would take to get from SF to Chicago to Charlottesville. VA and finally off at Clemson, SC.

But ‘sleeping car’ is a misnomer and they should be called ‘anything but’ sleeping cars. Sleep wasn’t possible for me and over the five days I was on the train, I had difficulty maintaining my meditation practice.

It improved at my son’s house but was impeded at my daughter’s home, largely because they were in temporary lodging facilities and we were pretty cramped.

I thought that I’d be able to meditate anywhere, but I was wrong. Instead of forcing it, I gently acknowledged the difficulty in the situation and moved on knowing that the next day might be better.

I’ve noticed for some time now that other Buddhist bloggers have expressed frustration and disappointment when their practice is disrupted. To me, this is falling victim to the snares of self-induced suffering. The Buddha taught his followers to remain unattached to preconceived outcomes, knowing that this very attachment was what invited suffering.

However, even in difficult situations like what I described over the past weeks when my practices have been altered, I’ve found that I suffer much less when I gently acknowledge the difficulty and move on – just as I do when thoughts arise during meditation.

Life is far too short and precious to invite needless suffering.

Lesson 2 – Service to Others Can Fill the Void

One of 17 goals for 2016 is to help someone every day. I learned that while my meditation practice was altered, remaining open to serving others eased the disappointment. Each day that I am open to serving others I am presented with multiple opportunities to help, to comfort those who are in pain, to hug someone grieving the loss of a loved one, to touch another in kindness, to carry groceries for a woman with four kids, to waltz with crying babies, etc.

Each of these opportunities to serve others arose over the last three weeks. I am grateful beyond words for them.

They allowed me to exercise compassionate-kindness, one of three simple practices that characterize Practical Buddhism. They form the triad of my lifestyle and when one is lacking, I find that I attract opportunities to practice the other two.

Lesson 3 – My Tattoos Opened Opportunities for Conversation

My right arm is a work of art in progress. I refer to it as ‘the dharma sleeve project.’ It’s kind of funny, I’m now 58 and I didn’t have any ink until I was 55. In the three years since my first one, I’ve added four additional tattoos, three of them as part of ‘the dharma sleeve project.’

Here are a few photos of it thus far. You can click on each photo to see a larger image.

While on the train, especially in the dining car where I took my meals, my tattoos invoked a common reaction in all but a few passengers. Most of the passengers were couples in their 50s, 60s, and 70s. Most didn’t have any visible ink. Since I wear nothing but short sleeve black merino wool t-shirts, my ink is always visible.

In each encounter, I noted an initial staring at the ink followed by visual eye contact with me. Knowing how I used to do the same thing, I safely assumed they were ‘sizing me up’ or judging me in the context of my ink. It doesn’t bother me at all, in fact, I enjoy watching the reactions.

On the train, you usually don’t pick your dining partners. All seating is at the discretion of the dining car attendant. That means I was usually seated with the same people who reacted to my ink from afar. But people are people and all of the folks with whom I shared a meal left the encounter knowing I was a genuine, caring, and compassionate person.

The tattoos were always the initiator of conversation. I shared what each meant to me, which led to me sharing about my profession as a writer and author in the process that led to other conversations and soon the ink was forgotten. In a matter of a few minutes I was no longer a stranger with tattoos, but a new friend with an interesting story.

The Value of Living Outside Your Comfort Zone

Forcing ourselves to live outside our comfort zone can teach us many lessons. When we live outside the environment that provides us with comfort and predictability we are forced to take life as we experience it. We don’t always have a warning about people we meet or the events that will occur.

Our comfort zones insulate us from the real world. It’s good to get out beyond our insular borders and see what life throws at us. The uncomfortable nature of living outside our comfort zone can be made less so by remaining flexible, unattached to anticipated outcomes, and extending kindness to all we meet.

9 Ways You Suffer Without Realizing It

06/12/2015 by Barry

Suffering: It’s the most self-destructive, self-created habit ever. It usually results from anything that takes us away from the present moment.

Everyone experiences pain in life. As part of the human experience, it’s unavoidable. However, suffering is self-created. As stated above, it results when we leave the here and now for some other place in our mind like the past or the future. Suffering may be optional, but we choose it over and over again.

I think we choose to suffer because it’s a familiar friend. Of course, it’s not really our friend but neither is the cigarette we smoked this weekend or the assumption we made about the unkept person on the street. Still, we choose the familiar because it feels safe and less threatening.

Choosing our familiar responses, while not always the best choice, is an all too frequent one. It’s kind of like the melancholy satisfaction one gets from sobbing. The catharsis is cleansing and leaves us feeling relieved. But not all forms of suffering are as cathartic as a good cry.

9 Ways You May Be SufferingWithout Realizing It

I’ve composed the following list of nine ways that we engage suffering, most of the time without even knowing it. See how many you may have experienced in your journey through life thus far:

1. Worry – Worrying is my mother’s superpower. If there were an Olympic medal for worrying, she’d have won it each time. The term is even a permanent part of her vocabulary. She says that ‘She’s worried that my dad has been gone too long on a walk; She’s worried whether or not my sister’s kids are warm enough in winter.’ I love her dearly, but she’s a worrywart of the highest order.

Worry takes her away from the present moment many times each day. At age 81, she’s been this way for as long as I can recall. That’s a lot of worrying and needless suffering. Worrying is an emotional currency and she spends daily. The result is an emotional shortage of funds; Worrying robs her of more positive emotions. Having said this, she’s gotten better about it over the years but when I think of all the time she spent suffering in this manner, I feel sad.

Do you waste time and emotional energy worrying about things you have little or no control over? How could you better spend your emotional currency?

2. Doubt – The Buddha said, “There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt. Doubt separates people. It is a poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up pleasant relations. It is a thorn that irritates and hurts, it is a sword that kills.”

Doubt can be a healthy tool that our mind uses to question reality. The problem is that we seldom use doubt for this purpose. Instead, it masquerades as skepticism and cynicism. We become used to being doubtful to the point that it separates us from others.

Doubt induces suffering when we are convinced that reality is something other than what it is. For example, we live in this world. But if we doubt that the world is as it seems and attach beliefs and myths to reality such as being sinful creatures in need of redemption, we are no longer in the real world; we’ve crossed over into a make-believe reality apart from the here and now.

How does doubt cause you to suffer needlessly?

3. Ignorance – Ignorance is not only not knowing, but also includes not wanting to know. This is played out in grand form in some of the states in the USA where state Departments of Education have insisted on having creationism presented as science curricula alongside evolution. It is a clear and pronounced example of ignorance. That which we have no observable knowledge (creationism) is equated with what we can observe and measure (evolution).

Not wanting to know is a sure-fire way to suffer as well and it leads to doubt and guilt. Many family members believe I am lost and doomed to hell because I no longer believe in God or place my faith in the story of Jesus Christ’s atonement for my sin. Additionally, they do not want to know my views or anything about my Buddhist path. Unwanted knowledge sometimes causes fear in those does who do not want to know.

Ignorance occurs in people across all strata of intelligence and education. Some of the most ignorant people on the planet possess multiple degrees and hold positions of public and/or private leadership. Some of wisest among us are also the poorest and uneducated.

What forms of ignorance are you holding to that causes you additional suffering? Do you fear knowing more or less? Do you feel threatened by knowledge you haven’t accessed?

4. Pride – Too much or too little leads to suffering. In his book, The Art of Happiness, The Dalai Lama has this to say about pride:

“For example, when you have a distorted view of yourself, such as through excessive pride or arrogance, because of these states of mind, you have an exaggerated sense of your qualities and personal abilities. Your view of your own abilities goes far beyond your actual abilities.

On the other hand, when you have low self-esteem, then you underestimate your actual qualities and abilities. You belittle yourself, you put yourself down. This leads to a complete loss of faith in yourself.

So excess–both in terms of exaggeration and devaluation–are equally destructive. lt is by addressing these obstacles and by constantly examining your personal character, qualities, and abilities, that you can learn to have greater self-understanding. This is the way to become more self-aware.”

~His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama

Is there an excessive amount of pride in your being that is cause for needless suffering? Is there not enough self-love that also causes you to suffer? Can you find the middle ground between the two extremes?

5. Guilt – Guilt is the first step in the downward spiral toward self-loathing. In my experience, there is always a guilt-inducing issue to help us take that first step. In my case, it was Big Religion (BR) (the term I use to combine all the issues associated with conservative Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc.). BR’s view of man is that he is depraved and for a long time I too bought into that perspective. It took me a long time to divorce myself from BR. It no longer holds any power over me, or to put it in a more proactive way, I no longer allow BR to affect me with its tendency to induce guilt.

Guilt is a subconscious choice we make when we need a melancholy fix. It’s a completely normal human response and none are immune to it. The issue arises when we allow these brief guilt trips to become guilt retirements. Some live with crippling guilt their entire lives. That’s a lot of self-induced suffering.

In my experience, guilt is significantly a less frequent trip when one adopts the perspective that there is nothing broken about oneself and we are not in need of fixing by some cosmic, unseen force. This view helped me finally break free of guilt altogether. BR and other guilt-inducing issues (outdated mental tapes from authority figures, relationship failures, etc.) thrive on our weakened self-image. If we buy into the position that we are depraved, lost, in need of fixing or redemption, then we allow ourselves to choose guilt and suffering.

What are the contributing factors to the guilt you experience? Who would you be without guilt?

6. Anger – Empirically, anger is nothing more than a response to a stimulus. Specific stimuli evoke specific responses most of the time. Although we have many arrows within our quiver of responses, for some reason, perhaps a lack of mindfulness, we most often draw the one tipped with anger.

Anger is like a weapon of mass destruction because its explosive and uncontrolled nature, and it results in pain and additional suffering for all in its vicinity. Anger wounds the shooter as well as those targeted. It may seem that anger is a perfectly natural response, and I wouldn’t disagree with that premise, but I also agree that it shouldn’t be our go-to response when our hot-buttons are pushed.

When was the last time you saw an angry Buddhist monk walking along the street shouting expletives and gesticulating like, well, an angry person? Most likely, you’ve never seen one…I know I haven’t. Monastics know that anger is only one possible response and one that causes too much suffering. Push a monk’s hot-buttons and most likely you will see nothing in response. Perhaps the only detectable response is a look of surprise. Why? Because most likely he is choosing compassion and forgiveness instead of anger. He’s learned that these two responses do not create additional suffering. He’s also learned to inhabit the space between stimulus and response.

Dr. Wayne Dyer wrote (quoting Victor Frankyl):

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. Within that space is the power to choose our response.” I’ve taught this lesson to each of my children and hundreds of students. It’s a lesson I’ve learned over and over. It is perhaps the most effective lesson for eliminating suffering.

Is anger your go-to response when someone pushes your hot-buttons? What alternative response could you choose instead? Could you take some time between stimulus and response and choose a more compassionate response?

7. Judgment – I’m of the position that if we never accessed anger, we’d never access judgment. By judgment, I’m specifically talking about negative judgments directed at either ourselves or others. The opposite of judgment, what I call assessment, is a necessary action to ensure our safety and those other others. Judgment, however, is always negative, even punitive in nature.

Religious tales of divine judgment are always preceded by divine anger, even what’s referred to as righteous anger. But if we never chose anger as a response option, would we ever judge ourselves or others ever again? I don’t think we would. Imagine what a nicer world that would be. 😎

Can you see the link between your anger and your self-judgement and/or judgement others? Imagine what life would be like if you chose compassion instead of anger and judgement.

8. Laziness – Procrastination, self-doubt surrounding our capabilities, and dedicating ourselves to non-virtuous activities are the three ways Buddhism has framed laziness. In laying out The Eight-fold Path, the Buddha provided a wisdom path to cultivate a life free of suffering. Appropriate action is the fourth element of the Eight-fold Path and is concerned with taking the action that is wisest, that does no harm, and is beneficial to all sentient beings. Taking this as our definition of action, laziness seems to fall in direct opposition.

Have you ever known someone that is always moving forward, and never seems to stagnate? I know several of these people and they are a joy to be around. They seem to know just the right action to take at the right time.

Because I tread this wisdom path I am always evaluating what my next course of action should be. I seem to have an easier time of it when I’m mindful and in the present moment. The wisest action is always the one that follows is fully aware of the here and now.

How does laziness cause you undue suffering? Is the thought of taking the next step overwhelming? Could it be that you feel overwhelm when you are not in the present moment?

9. Daydreaming – We all daydream; our mind wanders off -even during meditation- and we have to bring it back to the present. We do this when we’re in love or when we anticipate receiving a bonus or a raise in pay and fantasize about all the stuff we can buy or how our life will be better. A certain amount of daydreaming is healthy, but too much leads to suffering.

Daydreaming definitely takes us away from the present moment and it has the potential to actually strengthen the attachments we have to unreal outcomes. For example, I was in love with a woman a few years back and I daydreamed about marrying her. (If you know me, you know it had to be serious for me to even consider the M-word). Intellectually I knew it would never happen, but that didn’t stop my mind from running down the aisle every chance it got. The relationship eventually ended and I found it very hard to recover, not only because of the depth of my love for her but also because of the kevlar-like attachments I’d created in my heart and mind to such unreal outcomes.

Daydreaming, like the occasional guilt trip, can be fun, but too much of it can lead to unrealistic views of reality. If we wish to stop suffering, we need to look at how much of our world is defined by our daydreaming.

Do you spend time daydreaming in ways that brings about disappointment, emotional pain, or excessive guilt?

Free Bonus!

10: Belief – Belief, in anything, causes more suffering than can possibly be imagined. I define belief as the deliberate placing of faith in anything unseen or not experienced. Objects of belief are ubiquitous, with a deity being chief among them. The existence of a deity (Jehovah, Allah, Flying Spaghetti Monster, whatever) is an unproven concept and as such it only exists in terms of recorded myth. Much like the Greek mythological deities, God is a creation of mankind who, convinced of his own imperfection and need for redemption, felt the only answer was the creation of a supernatural being with superhuman powers and knowledge capable of redeeming the masses from their errant ways. In these mythic tales, redemption is only possible via a perfect deity.

I hold no beliefs. Many have argued that I only believe that I hold no beliefs. However, I can assure you that I hold none. I don’t believe in a deity, in man’s sinful nature, in doctrines of inequality or the universal need for man’s redemption, or an afterlife based on whether or not I believe one creed over another.

From my book, The Practical Buddhist:

“A belief is exclusionary. To adopt a belief is to exclude all other possibilities. Personally I don’t know enough to adopt a belief about anything. Not only are beliefs exclusionary, they are also not based on experience. You may say you believe in gravity, but I’d counter that you’ve experienced it instead. You may say that you believe in love or hunger but again, I’d say that you experienced them.

Over the years I’ve come to the following conclusion:

Belief distracts me from experiencing what’s real.

To fully accept one thing, you need to reject every other possibility. Alternatively, to experience something is to know it firsthand. If you blindly accept 2 + 2 = 4, you don’t really know it to be true. Without having two blocks set before you, adding two more, and them counting the resulting number you are accepting someone else’s version of this truth. It is only when small children perform this tactile experiment that they experience the truth of addition’s sum.

I’ve known love, gravity, poverty, hunger, illness, joy, sadness, guilt, etc. I don’t need to form any beliefs about these topics to make them real. When I find myself wanting to place faith in something I haven’t experienced, I have to pause and consider what I’m doing and ask myself whether this is an appropriate view and/or action.

Without exception, it is not.”

Is there a belief that causes undue suffering for you? Does your belief in that concept/creed increase your self-worth or decrease it? Does that belief take you out of the reality of the present moment?

Closing thoughts

In this 2,500 word post (if you’re still reading, congratulations! I applaud you.) we’ve looked at nine ways we choose suffering over the alternative. I hope you’ll consider each of the questions I’ve posed following each section. Your responses to these questions that reveal a lot about how your mind operates.

I want to end this post by asking you more question:

Who would you be if you didn’t choose suffering?

Only 3 Things Matter

04/30/2015 by Barry

For the past few days, I’ve been thinking about a dear friend who is dying. She is someone who means a great deal to me and I’m finding it difficult to reconcile her inevitable passing with my commitment to stay in the present.

I realize that she is living her reality and though, at times, I wish she didn’t have to leave in this way, I am faced with the same reality. We are all faced with the reality that we will, one unknown day, cease to breathe and our physical body will no longer be sustained.

The difference is that she knows her time is near. But she’s not the only one. I have another friend who works in the arena of providing support to family affected by cancer, and in most instances, a terminal diagnosis.

In truth, there are hundreds of thousands of people on the planet facing imminent death. It’s a depressing realization, but one that is nonetheless a fact.

Only 3 things matter

The Buddha is reported to have said that only three things matter:

How much you loved
How gently you lived
How gracefully you let go of things not meant for you

My friend is one who gives love freely to those around her. I am better for having received a small portion of her love. She is one who lives very gently and treads upon the earth, not with demonstrable purpose but, with gentle humility. She isn’t a Buddhist, but she’s learned to let go of many things in recent months.

Taking a self-inventory

If I am to honor my friend’s life in any way that comes close to the authenticity with which she has lived hers, I’m convinced I need to evaluate my commitment and progress in each of these areas.

How much do you love? I know that I am a loving person, but I also know that I can be more patient, open, and accepting of all I encounter.

How gently do you live? It’s been said that gentleness is a brick covered in velvet. The strength of their core being makes possible the gentleness of Thich Nhat Hanh, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and those who have come before us. It is this strength of core that I want to cultivate in order to continually exercise the degree of gentleness the world needs.

How gracefully do you let go things not meant for you? In my current situation, I’ve recently moved from a sleepy little beach town to Silicon Valley. There is a certain amount of bustle in the city that I wasn’t used to on the coast. However, in the process of moving, I discarded, recycled, and sold approximately 90 percent of my belongings. I feel this has opened the way for me to display more gentleness as I’m no longer distracted by so much psychic and physical baggage.

As for my friend

I love her
I want to live as gently as she
I will let her go when the times comes

How to Avoid Getting Caught Up in Your Own Inner Drama

10/09/2014 by Barry

At it’s most basic level, suffering is the inner drama we create

It’s the worry, fretting, commiserating, needless emoting, regret, fantasy, and fixation on things that aren’t real. It’s not that we’re in the habit of creating imaginary worlds but, …actually… that is exactly what we do.

Which imaginary world describes you?

Entrepreneurial uncertainty

If you’re self-employed or a freelancer like I used to be, then you’re usually working in a solitary environment from a home office or, on a warm sunny day, from a coffee shop near your home. You dream of traveling the country or the world doing what you do, but the financials haven’t worked out that way just yet. What’s worse is that you feel your enterprise is invisible.

If you could just get a handle on the stress, you feel you’d be fine. O yeah, a regular cash flow would be nice, too. Recently you’ve noticed that your writing is suffering and more often than not, you’re feeling depressed because the stresses of business are greater than you anticipated when you quit a job to find freedom. Freedom…if only.

Chaotic parenting

You didn’t plan on little Johnny getting a cold and missing school today. You have so many things to do before your in-laws arrive and Johnny being at home, while it’s obviously the best place for him, is getting in the way of you making the house perfect before your mother-in-law shows up.

Johnny just wants to be near you and needs your tenderness. But that’s hard to do when you need to clean two bathrooms, vacuum the carpets, do the laundry that been piling up, and dust all the places you-know-who’s going to be inspecting. Plus, your partner isn’t that helpful even when he/she is around. Yep, it’s all up to you…again.

Stressed-out student

Pulling an all-nighter for the Econ exam wasn’t the brightest idea you’ve had. Neither was the double espresso you had on your way to class. You’d like to be taking better care of yourself, managing your time more efficiently and relying less on these debilitating all-night cram sessions.

You feel a lot of pressure from your parents who are literally investing all their savings into your education. You feel like you won’t ever measure up to their expectations. And the kids in your classes…it all seems so easy for them. You’re sure that they didn’t stay up all night cramming for this exam while downing 5 Hour Energy drinks. You find yourself staring into the bathroom mirror wondering who you’ve become and is it who you want to be. You’re not even 25 but a midlife crisis seems inevitable.

Did one or two of these descriptions sound familiar? All of them felt familiar to me. I’ve been in each of these situations, feeling the same feelings, and experiencing the same level of stress and unrelenting pressure. I wish someone would invent a vaccine for that.

Immunizing yourself against inner drama

While a clinical vaccine or immunization against inner drama hasn’t been invented, a mental one is readily available. The treatment room is anywhere you can find a small space to sit, breathe, and watch your mind. Meditation, when applied on a regular basis, is the perfect antidote to the toxic effects of inner drama.

When I meditate on a daily basis, I see how my mind works through various circumstances. I see how its habitual modes of response are sometimes harmful to me and to others. I can see this because I’m getting used to watching my thoughts and my mind when I sit for 20 minutes each day on my meditation cushion.

Regular meditation is a private reality show featuring your mind in the starring role. Sitting quietly and watching this reality show is not only educational, but it can be a bit embarrassing at times as we peer into our own inner drama.

Equally dangerous are the inwardly dramatic responses to what we observe: “Did I really act that way?” “OMG, how could I have said that?” “I thought I was better than that.”

Compassion is the treatment for inner drama

Humans are just as interesting as any other creature that lives. We often think of our species as highly evolved. But it only takes a few instances like what I described above to realize that we’re not much higher on the evolutionary tree than our animal friends when it comes to inner drama. In fact, I’d postulate that most animals and mammals never engage in self-criticism. Ah, the benefits of a forebrain, eh?

The key to watching your mind without getting caught up in a further inner drama is compassion. Compassion is kindness in action. Being kind to yourself while watching your mind is a uniquely human ability. Try approaching each meditation session with compassion for yourself, for your humanity and see how that feels.

If you find that you begin to react with something like, “Barry, you really are an idiot” or, “I am such a weasel,” just observe that it happened, smile, and keep watching and breathing.

The more you meditate, the more compassion you will feel

I think that our most highly evolved human quality is compassion. The extension of compassion is a gift of kindness. Extending compassion to others is often easier than extending it toward ourselves.

But this supreme test of humanity, the ability to treat yourself with compassion, is the greatest gift you can give yourself and it will keep you from getting caught up in needless inner drama.

Robin Williams, Non-Suffering & Extending Our Compassion

08/12/2014 by Barry

Extending our compassion

With the recent passing of actor and comedian, Robin Williams, there will be a lot of media focused on the areas of life where he struggled. But the truth is that none of us can ever know what pain he suffered, what frailties he championed, or what psychic or physical infirmities he battled.

Instead of occupying a place of judgement, let us use this moment to extend our compassion to those in our collective lives that experience pain, frailty, depression, and ill health.

It doesn’t matter who they are, what they’ve accomplished, or how much money they make. Our fellow inhabitants on this planet are made from the same cosmic dust as you and me.

On this level, there is no difference between the CEO and the transient, between the doctor and the patient, between the performer and the audience.

All are worthy of our compassion and kindness.

Non-suffering and victimization

I’ve often written that life is full of pain, but that suffering is optional. Suffering, in the Buddhist sense, is always self-induced. It is not the psychic or physical pain we feel, the difficulties that challenge our health and mental well-being, but the victimization we adopt in the midst of these experiences.

Those of us afflicted with depression, physical pain, loneliness, discontent, sadness, and grief, are not victims until we call ourselves so. True non-suffering involves letting go of our need for the label. To reduce ourselves to a label reinforces our separateness and distances us from the path of non-suffering.

Victimization is a distinctly human phenomenon. Animals don’t engage in self-reflection and self-sympathy. They face their physical challenges with the healing-oriented behaviors at their disposal.

There is no inherent valor in being human. It is only when we take ourselves out of the present moment and into a reverie of victimization that we devolve into suffering.

Non-suffering in the midst of a crisis?

Is it possible to eliminate suffering when we’re clinically depressed or in pain after surgery? I don’t know. I have to think that it’s possible but highly improbable.

For me, I’d fail at this and I know it. This realization that I’d fall short, rather than grounds of self-judgment, provides an opportunity for cultivating and extending my compassion for those who bravely attempt it every day.

There is no dishonor of being depressed, battling addiction, or facing physical pain. There is only the experience at hand and how we choose to face it.