*update: My auto-biographical blog became the introduction to my book, Finding God in the Body. Below is the excerpted introduction. Click the book cover to the right to purchase the book.
Introduction
“Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek
what they sought.” ~ Basho
This
book is an attempt to flesh out a functional spirituality for the modern West.
By this I mean a transformative system of practice supplemented by an
inner-mythos that speaks to the sensibilities of modern man. This is not an
academic endeavor for me—it is my path, for I am a modern Western man and as
such, my worldview is heavily influenced by the often divergent forces of
Christianity, Eastern philosophy, and modern science.
I was born in Louisiana. In the Bible
Belt, religion and science share a contentious border. The brand of
Christianity I saw growing up did not interest me. So I looked to the wisdom
and practices of the East, which in the age of the internet is closer than the
church around the corner. I became interested in Tibetan Buddhism but there was
something missing. In Tibetan Buddhism there is a heavy emphasis on meditation
practice and a rich philosophical tradition, both of which were deeply
rewarding. But the belief in reincarnation and the pantheon of exotic deities
did not resonate with me. My heart just wasn’t in it. I never parted ways with
Buddhist practice, but my path did eventually bring me back to the teachings of
Christianity. I say my path brought me back, but in truth it introduced me to
Christianity for the first time. My Buddhist background enabled me to cut
through the fundamentalist veneer to the contemplative core of Christianity
where I found an inner-mythos that resonated with me.
When I was four or five my family moved
to a small town in East Texas. I was a typical kid: I loved airplanes,
dinosaurs, and spaceships. I was also quite fond of church. On Sunday mornings
these interests overlapped as I sat in the pews of the local Baptist Church
drawing dinosaurs, rockets, and airplanes on the back of offering envelopes.
My family was not religious, so I often
went to church alone. This wasn’t a problem for me because I got to ride
the church bus. The highlight of my week was sitting on the bus next to a young
man with Down Syndrome who liked to sing the Bob Seger song, “Old Time Rock-and-Roll.”
In my early years, I loved church and everything about it.
My love for church proved to be
conditional. When I was in the first grade my parents divorced, and my church-going
days came to a screeching halt. I blamed God for the failure of my family. I
expected him to look after me and my interests in exchange for devotion and
church attendance. Every Sunday I heard that God watches over his flock, that
he takes care of his own. Since I believed and my butt was in the pew, I
counted myself as a member of the flock. When my parents separated, I felt
overlooked, which either meant God was a liar or he did not exist. Either way,
I had no use for him.
Following the divorce, I was no longer
the fun loving, good-hearted kid who liked to draw dinosaurs and spaceships. I
became angry and did not know how to express my anger. My family split up and
there was nothing I could do about it. My sister went to live with my mother
and I moved back to Louisiana with my dad.
One night, while my father and I were
watching America’s Funniest Home Videos,
he caught me staring out the window at a group of kids playing football. He
insisted I go out and make some new friends. I didn’t want to, but he made me.
So I walked down the stairs from our apartment building to the courtyard where
they were playing. I picked the biggest kid in the bunch, walked up to him, and
spit in his face. Then, I realized what I had done and took off running! He
tracked me down and beat me within an inch of my life.
The next ten to twelve years of my life
were dark. At an early age, I learned I was alone. No one was looking out
for me. There was no God and no family, nothing to fall back on. I had to look
after myself. That’s not to say I wasn’t well cared for. I had everything I
needed and got more than most, but I still struggled. I did not know how to
cope with life. This mounting frustration made my first encounters with alcohol
welcomed occasions.
Alcohol medicated my fear and anger.
Drinking was how I coped—and I coped a lot. Alcohol wasn’t my problem; it was
my solution. It was the antidote to fear, the countermeasure for anger, and the
lubricant that enabled me to overcome social anxiety. And it seemed to work. I
felt like I was back on course, but this course turned out to be a slippery
slope.
At the ripe old age of seventeen, my dad
sent me to Canton, Texas for substance abuse treatment. When the counselors
confronted me about my drinking and drug use I said, “This is how all teenage
boys from Louisiana act. The only problem I have is that my parents won’t get
off my back.” I was not the least bit interested in what treatment had to offer
because I didn’t think I had a problem.
Technically, I still wasn’t sober. Not
long after my parent’s divorce a psychiatrist diagnosed me with ADD/ADHD.
Adderall is an addictive stimulant used to treat behavioral problems in hyperactive
children. I was a hyper active kid with a sleuth of behavioral problems, so
they prescribed me Adderall. I took it most of my childhood, excluding a stint
that followed a run in with the law. When I was twelve years old, I got caught
selling my Adderall at school. The prescription was revoked for a time but
eventually refilled, and I was taking it when I arrived in Canton—although, I
was not taking it as prescribed. The treatment staff caught me hiding it
in my cheek and bringing it back to my room where I would snort it. As a
result, the staff doctor took me off of Adderall. For the first time since I
was twelve, I could not get my hands on either drugs or alcohol. I couldn’t
check out. I couldn’t cope.
Treatment forced me to relate to life
with no anesthetic. It felt like I was losing my mind. Out of desperation I
stole some coffee packets from the cafeteria. In a room search the staff found
the packets in my desk drawer. They questioned my roommates and learned that I
was snorting coffee in the bathroom. When they took me off of Adderall, I
started to reach. I did not know how to live sober. I was willing to do
anything to flee the rawness and immediacy of life. When they confronted me
about the coffee, my game was up. I could no longer deny I had a problem. I
couldn’t continue to say, “This is how all teenage boys from Louisiana
act,” because I did not know another teenage boy from Louisiana—or
anywhere else, for that matter—snorting coffee. Now that I was bent over a
barrel, they began talking to me about God.
When it came to God, I did not parse my
words. I thought God was something stupid people used to explain their problems
away. I made it clear that I had no use for God. Sure, I caused plenty of
problems for myself, but God was just as useless in my eyes. The treatment
center staff arranged for me to meet a man named Billy Jack. I was pretty
apprehensive, but equally excited. I despised the idea of God. My hatred for
God made debating his existence enjoyable. I wanted the person I was debating
to feel the same hatred and disappointment I felt. I thought I could
transfer my pain to the other person by defeating them in debate. However,
Billy Jack took another angle with me, perhaps the only angle that would have
worked at the time.
Billy Jack did not try to prove anything
to me. He spoke to me about possibilities, not certainties. We never talked
philosophy, dogma, or theology. In fact, we hardly talked. The conversation
only lasted about six or seven minutes. It began with me going on your typical
resentment-filled rant against God and religion. That lasted about five
minutes. Then, conquered by boredom, he interrupted to ask me two simple
questions.
First Billy Jack asked, “Is it possible
that God exists?” He did not push his beliefs onto me. He simply asked if God was
a possibility in my mind. To this point, I conceded. I could not disprove
the existence of God any more than he could prove it. So, I said, “It is highly
unlikely, but possible.” Then Billy Jack asked, “At this point in your life is
there anything more important than exploring that possibility?” Again, I had to
concede, but not for the reasons you might imagine.
This was my second stint in treatment.
Spirituality is a central component of most recovery programs and both of the
centers I visited emphasized God. My patience with God was wearing thin. I
wanted to try something else, but in treatment you are branded “closed-minded”
if you reject something without first trying it. I figured that if I tried it
and it didn’t work, they might offer me something else. So I said, “I will say
your prayers and read your books, because when nothing changes—and nothing is
going to change—this will prove that God is a joke.” He replied, “That’s good
enough for me,” and walked away. I never saw him again.
At the time, I had no idea how impactful
that conversation would be on me. The course of my life was forever changed by
that brief exchange. If I start with who I am right now and trace it back, the
encounter with Billy Jack would be the greatest aberration along my life’s
trajectory. He did not convert me or even convince me that God is real. I was
not impressed by his argument. He opened my mind. Billy Jack got me to step out
of what I thought and see the world from another point of view. He introduced
another vantage point.
Initially, my intense disdain for all
things Christian did not enable me to approach a church, the Bible, or even the
concept of God. My search began in the East. I had to figure out how to live
sober and manage my hyperactivity without Adderall. One of the staff members
thought meditation might be helpful and gave me a book about Buddhism. I
understood little of what I read but the little I understood, I held onto for
dear life. Before long, I was a card-carrying Buddhist.
At first, Buddhism was just a costume.
The Dalai Lama was the only Buddhist I had ever seen—I’d read a couple of his
books and saw him on television a time or two. As far as I was concerned, he
was the official face of Buddhism. So, I did everything in my power to look and
act like him.
Upon leaving treatment, I moved to a
sober-living home in South Florida. There I was in Boca Raton—a seventeen year
old, 6’ 8’’ Buddhist redneck from Shreveport, Louisiana. I was walking down the
street with a freshly shaved head and flip flops trying my best to be Buddhist
as hell—dramatically stepping over ants, eating veggie lo-mein, and counting
the beads on my mala while mindlessly reciting the mantra Om Mani Padme Hung and chewing tobacco. I always believed that
happiness was something I had to cook up, and at this point in my life that
belief had not changed. I just had a new cookbook.
I started to read everything I could get
my hands on about Buddhism. I observed certain codes of conduct—I abstained
from alcohol and drugs, didn’t eat meat, and practiced meditation. During my
stay in Boca Raton I learned how to meditate from the Roshi at a
local Zen temple. Meditation enabled my mind to settle, but I still didn’t see
the link between spirituality and my daily life. I intellectually understood
the connection, but I did not practice it. Spirituality was a private affair. I
read my books and practiced meditation and then
I went about my day. I wouldn’t make the connection between practice and daily
life for several more years.
Fast forward five years: I’m back home
in Louisiana, and my girlfriend and I are at a Mardi Gras parade. I’ve been
practicing meditation for a while and have read a number of books about
spirituality. As a result, I thought the mysteries of the universe had exposed
themselves to me. This inflated self-image came crumbling down when my
girlfriend uttered two simple words: “He’s cute.” Those two words triggered an
explosive reaction within me. In front of God and everyone, I turned and spat
in her face.
Relationships were difficult for me. I
was terrified of rejection and extremely clingy. I always thought my partner
was looking for a way out. When she said, “He’s cute,” I turned to see who she
was talking about. “He looks an awful lot like her ex-boyfriend,” I thought.
Long ago I identified him as the man she would leave me for. This incident
sparked fear within me, which quickly turned to rage. Then, I spat. For a
moment, I was stripped naked. It embarrassed the hell out of me. She stared at
me in disbelief before walking away.
Spitting in her face proved to be one of
the greatest revelations of my short life. In that moment, it became
unequivocally clear to me and the people around me that I was full of crap. All
the books I read, my vegetarian diet, and Buddhist tattoos—none of it mattered.
When confronted by fear, anger, and jealousy my spirituality fell like a house
of cards. The self-image I bought into
and sold to others was a façade. I was the same angry child who stormed out of
church and spat in the face of that kid in the courtyard. I still had no idea
how to cope with life.
This insight was not some glorious
moment that placed me on a pink cloud of bliss. It was devastating. I was
humiliated and did not know what to do. I knew drinking and drugs were of no
help. Once again, I was suspicious of all things “spiritual” but did not know
where else to look. So I cracked open one of my books about Tibetan Buddhism.
There I read about the practice of Tonglen.
This wasn’t the first I heard of Tonglen,
but it was the first time I ever practiced it. Before I thought I was too
advanced for Tonglen. I thought I was
beyond fear and resentment. Now, I knew better.
In the practice of Tonglen you visualize
someone you are resentful at and imagine yourself breathing in their suffering,
symbolized by a black smoke. With the exhalation you breathe out a white smoke
that represents the causes of happiness, which they inhale. So I did this
practice with the two people I resented most, my girlfriend and her
ex-boyfriend. And the resentment began to subside. After a few weeks of daily
Tonglen practice the fear and anger fell away. This was the first time my
spirituality and daily life came together.
I knew what I was looking for was within
me and that daily practice was the only way to find it, but subconsciously I
believed there was a shortcut. Daily practice is hard work and takes a long
time. I wanted something more magical. I wanted to leave the rigors of practice
and daily life behind and escape to a spiritual Shangri-La where enlightenment
is obtained through osmosis. This sounded like a monastery to me. The strict
structure, intense practice, and long hours of study did not figure into my
idea of monastic life. I imagined a monastery as a kind of Buddha factory—you
went in one side all messed up and came out the other side enlightened! The
only problem my monastic escape plan presented was location. All the Buddhist
enlightenment factories seemed to be in Asia.
About this time, I was introduced to the
great Catholic mystic Thomas Merton. Through his writings I discovered a side
of Christianity not often seen in the Bible Belt. He introduced me to the
contemplative dimension of Christianity, which has depth and is more concerned
with daily life than the hereafter. At times his Christian language rubbed me
the wrong way, but his powerful writing style, profound insight, and masterful
use of symbolism resonated with me on a deeper level than did Buddhist lingo.
So, I began studying contemplative Christianity.
I befriended a local priest who was
familiar with Merton and was himself a Franciscan friar. He helped me to better
understand the contemplative side of Christianity, and how to apply spiritual
principles to my life. When I told him about my plans to enter a monastery, he
suggested a trial run. He made arrangements for me to stay at a Franciscan
Friary in Ava, Missouri, which shared a property with a Trappist monastery, the
order to which Merton belonged. This gave me the chance to test the waters of
monastic life without having to commit to Asia just yet.
I cannot stress enough the value of my
trip to Assumption Abbey. There I met the most whole and complete men I had
ever known. For me, spirituality was a superficial endeavor. It had more to do
with changing my self-image than true transformation. But these men were
transformed. They were living it. Standing before me was a group of men who
embodied exactly what I was looking for. So naturally, I hopped on a plane and
flew clear across the world in search of what I had just found!
Any illusions of a Shangri-La were
promptly shattered upon arriving in India. The overwhelming frustration I
experienced after being involved in what amounted to a kidnapping and credit
card fraud, plus the sheer culture shock, popped my fantastical bubble. Don’t
get me wrong, India is an amazing place—I would go back in a heartbeat—but it
was not what I expected. Obviously, this was not India’s fault. I was looking
to escape, and I brought with me the one thing I wanted to leave behind:
myself.
Fortunately, I picked a less populated
part of India and went during the offseason. I had no one to talk to, no TV to
watch. I was without distraction for the first time in my life. It was a
beautiful accident. I was forced upon myself. Most of my time was spent reading
and meditating. I would also go to the monastery and listen to lectures about
Buddhist philosophy and meditation. And I was fortunate enough to meet someone who
had devoted their life to contemplative spirituality and was willing to work
with me.
One morning I was walking down the
winding mountain road that connected Dharamkot and McLeod Ganj. I regularly
went up into the mountain caves and spent a couple of days in retreat. One day,
on the way down the mountain, I saw a monk standing on the side of the road. In
broken English he asked, “Do you want learn meditate?” That was my first
meeting with Jetsun Thubpten.
Jetsun was a Buddhist hermit who had spent
the last twelve years living in the mountains. After two decades in one of the
largest Tibetan monastic colleges, he concluded that study was insufficient. He
wanted to live a life of practice. So he left Sera Mey monastery and took to a
life of solitude and meditation.
Jetsun and I sat together for two hours
every other day. We would meditate, eat, and talk. Jetsun taught me that
meditation was not limited to the cushion, but was alive in everything we
do. He used to say, “If you can’t meditate while you cook, eat, and shit, you
can’t meditate!” Mostly Jetsun taught by way of example—not fancy lectures or
philosophical discourse. In Jetsun, spirituality and daily life were one and
the same.
The physical and spiritual are not
opposed to each other. They are not two competing worlds. There is not
something apart from our life called the “spiritual journey.” The journey is
our life. When we sleepwalk through life, we are just along for the ride. When
we mindfully participate in the journey, we are walking the spiritual path.
Like the men at Assumption Abbey, Jetsun was awake.
I wanted to stay in India. Jetsun asked,
“For what?” I hemmed and hawed around for a minute before replying, “To learn
more about meditation and Buddhist spirituality and maybe,” I awkwardly added,
“teach Western tourists passing through India about meditation.” Jetsun smiled
through my confusion and jokingly said, “We don’t need any more Gurus!” Then he
told me, “If you want to teach Westerners meditation, you should go back to the
West where Westerners live.” So here I am, eleven years later, sharing my
experience as a Westerner walking the spiritual path.
Jiddu Krishnamurti once said, “We are
all the story of humanity.” This story is written in our body. We must sit down
and read the pages of our heart. In this book, I share not only what I have
learned from studying myself, but—and more importantly—the path of practice
that has enabled me to study myself.
Spirituality is at a crossroads in the
West. We are looking for a practical path that resonates with our modern,
Western mind. This is difficult to find because it is not readily available. Therefore, the main
objective of this book is to introduce the reader to a seamless path structure.
Such a structure must speak directly to our suffering and its causes, as well
as the transcendent potential embedded in the human condition (Chapters
1-6). It must also incorporate an
inner-mythos that appeals to our heart without offending the modern sensibilities
of the Western mind (Chapters 7-8). And no path structure would be complete
without a system of practice that enables the individual to move beyond the
false-self and reconnect with the richness of their True Life as it is revealed
in the body (Chapters 9-13).
The
great Zen master D.T. Suzuki wrote, “So long as the masters are indulging in
negations, denials, contradictions, or paradoxes, the stain of speculation is
not quite washed off them.”[1]
I do not pretend to be a master, nor do I believe this book is free of such
indulgences. However, I hope that with every word I write, someone finds the
inspiration to dig deeper. There is an inner voice calling us out of the
claustrophobic world of the false-self, inviting us to reunite with the life of
the body. This book outlines the path of practice and the inner-mythos that has
enabled me to answer that call and I hope it empowers the reader to do the
same. It is to this end that I dedicate Finding
God in the Body: A Spiritual Path for the Modern West.
