I've been thinking about this talk for a while and I've been waiting. About six months ago I published an article in Inquiring Mind which was titled, as I often steal titles from Bob Dylan, Tangled Up in Blue and it's about practicing, doing Zen practice and reckoning with depression. And I have been having a difficult time of late for reasons some of which I think are known to me, some of which are definitely not known to me, and some of which I may be mistaken about. I might be mistaken about the reasons that I think I know.

[01:01]

But as long as I can remember, I've had to experience this kind of difficulty or this kind of suffering. And I want to talk a little bit about my experience in my practice. I realized when I was I became aware of having to deal with depression when I was about 13 and this was a time when my parents were divorcing and when I was going through, I was having a bar mitzvah which meant very little to me except I had to show up for it and I had to go to Hebrew school a lot and one of the things about about that. I went to a private school and so in order to go to Hebrew school I had to get out early on Fridays and take a bus and go to Hebrew school and then I would go home.

[02:10]

But after I was bar mitzvahed I kept doing that. I didn't tell my parents, and I didn't tell the school, and I just kept getting out early on Fridays, and I would go into the town, the suburban town that I grew up in, and I would go to the movies, which was, I think that's actually That was probably a good thing, although I often got funny looks by the cashier, you know, like, well, why aren't you in school? So I go to private school, you know. So finally, I confessed because it wasn't feeling good. And I had one of those, for me, rare mother-son conversations where I told my mother what I had done and how I was feeling and she said, oh, I think you're depressed.

[03:19]

She knew about this from her own experience and also she was aware of the stresses of having to be a child of divorce in 1959, 1960 and she spoke to me very gently and really conveyed a sense that she had a feeling of what I was going through and now I had a name for this feeling even though I had no idea what to do about it. So, to skip to the present. I began to think about writing this piece when I was talking with one of my Dharma brothers who was also struggling with depression and he said this, he had this phrase that he used that

[04:30]

really resonated with me. He said, it starts with dread. And that was like, just nailed me. And so I started thinking about that. And realized, you know, my experience, often I travel, as some of you know. And every time I travel, I have to endure some passage, you know, and it involves, it often involves anywhere from, you know, three or four days to a week or more of real displacement of, you know, sort of lying in a kind of on top of the covers in a distant city and just watching the and humming, or just walking down a street alone, and feeling this dread as a kind of empty feeling inside, and has a real physical quality, a kind of

[06:00]

very heavy weight on my chest and shoulders and sometimes a gnawing feeling in my stomach or nausea and sort of a wish to jump out of my skin or jump out of my life so that you know the character of these feelings are It's a very intense loneliness and a feeling of very, very deep separation. Separation from others, separation from myself. And if I'm not careful, a kind of sense that my life is actually always going to be like this from now on. and often when I'm traveling I feel you know I could be in someplace beautiful you know in Thailand or someplace in Asia where you know it's pretty nice and just the overpowering feeling is a wish to get on a plane right away and go home

[07:28]

and be lying in bed watching television. Which I'm rational enough to know that actually wouldn't be fun. And if I were home I would not be likely to do that. But that's, you know, somehow that's what I imagine. So sometimes I actually really carefully, when it's really rough, which sometimes it is, I will think through all of the necessary steps actually to get on an airplane, to get a reservation and get to the airport and fly back and realize it's within my power to do that. And this can happen even when there's nothing objectively wrong. Things can even be going well. I feel like a certain curtain has been pulled back on kind of the clockwork of my own mind and body and it's very painful to see, it's very painful to endure.

[08:44]

So I think millions of people suffer this way. What we yearn for is a feeling of wholeness an accomplishment and we may yearn for that even when in fact that may be the circumstances of their life, there's nothing incomplete about my life, there's nothing really unsatisfactory about it, a happy marriage, wonderful children, community to relate to, various creative projects. And still, this notion, this really very deep notion of something's missing. And despite the fact that we're often warned about gaining idea,

[09:51]

in our practice, in Suzuki Roshi's teaching, in Sogen Roshi's teaching, along with the rise of this feeling of depression, there's also the rise of a very formless dream of self-fulfillment, that something would complete me. also the knowledge that the terms, those terms of thinking about things are not useful and they're not likely to resolve that way. So, you know, I don't often talk publicly about my proclivities towards depression.

[10:53]

I don't deny it either, but I think people in general don't talk about it and Buddhist practitioners are less likely to talk about it in many ways because either we get the message or we secretly think that all these hours and weeks and years of meditation inevitably lead to happiness, right? You all are in a state of bliss right now. So in a way to speak about depression or even to admit it to oneself, it feels like a kind of embarrassment or a sense of failure perhaps. To admit it is to suggest that

[11:55]

Oh, Buddhist practice doesn't always work, whatever work is. And somehow, I don't know if it's bad or good, but somehow, you know, we also keep it quiet within ourselves. I was talking to someone at a meeting in this community and they said, oh, you're the last person I would think of as depressed. And I said, whoa, OK. I don't think everybody who knows me thinks that. But I guess I have some ability to keep it hidden. OK. Consider this story. You have a bright young man in his late 20s. He's very well educated. physically healthy, has all the advantages of a privileged background.

[13:06]

His mother dies when he's young and he spends his whole life in his family's house. He has good food, servants, ultimately he gets married to a beautiful young woman from a similar background and becomes a father. But all of this doesn't work for him. He has no deep joy or happiness, although it seems that other people are having happiness around him. So he leaves home, he leaves his wife and child behind and he has no particular goal except to relieve himself of this kind of fatalistic gloom that has settled over him.

[14:17]

And for years he tries every trendy diet or fast he subscribes to every meditation method that he can find he goes to all the famous teachers and none of this really works so he goes finds himself a tree by a stream and sits down and ultimately just sitting there day after day, he lets go and everything, somehow he sees that everything is just fine the way it is. So obviously this is the story of the Buddha's life.

[15:23]

But one might hear that as a narrative of somebody suffering from chronic depression. And I say, aside from the fact that I'm not a prince, there are some parallels with my own life. Growing up in privilege, education, having all the material things that one would think one would want and not knowing what to do because there's something eating at me. So by all accounts the Buddha's suffering fell away when he was awakened under the Bodhi tree and maybe he really did arrive at some place where he was always happy and never anxious.

[16:31]

That's what we're asked to believe, but actually I kind of wonder. I just leave that as an open question that might be blasphemous, but I kind of wonder. I will also admit that after 30 years of meditation, at least in the course of meditation, I've never seen any cosmic light shows or had psychedelic visions of reality, but things have changed. the depression that I have, I still have to work with. But if I look at the shape of my life, my life is fine.

[17:35]

I appreciate it for what it is. I don't expect it to stay. I don't expect myself to stay in any one state of mind. And I've also come to really enjoy just sitting down. It's a great blessing. It was something that I was not able to do earlier in my life. And I will say that even as I had faith in Zazen, because I had faith in the people peers, elders. I can't say it was so blissful for like the first 10 years of doing it.

[18:38]

But I guess I've come to wonder If given a propensity, whether it's biological or hereditary or karmic, a propensity in the direction of depression, this settleness of zazen, the very deep ease and relief of just sitting down, sometimes I think, that may be as good as it gets for me. That may be what liberation looks like for me. There's a phrase that I love from Zen Master Dogen. He says, when Dharma fills your body and mind, you realize that something is missing.

[19:47]

That is the very incompleteness of our being, of our actions, of our aspirations, is a manifestation of Buddha nature itself. That everything is incomplete, that everything is broken, to be able to come to terms with that is actually a great relief rather than striving for completeness, striving to keep things from never breaking. So still over the years I've tried to deal with, deal with means get rid of,

[20:51]

depression in various ways. I've done a lot of psychotherapy, which was very helpful, up to a point. I've done acupuncture. I've taken St. John's wort, SAM-e, vitamin D, homeopathy. I've been on and off a small dose of Prozac and the relief from any of these things seems only to be temporary. So I return to what I trust. I trust two things. I trust Zazen. because I've found it to be reliable and something that I can do in any moment and I trust friendship and I don't think that the two are unrelated.

[22:08]

Meditation is not a cure but if I can sit down in a quiet space and follow my breath that weight of darkness or that cloud generally lifts, at least for the time I'm sitting. And if sitting was not possible, I'll take a long walk. Either way, this is actually by intention bridging the sort of perceived internal disconnect, if you know what I mean. It means these kinds of activities allow me to be friendly towards myself. So this power of friendship multiplies when it's extended beyond oneself, beyond myself.

[23:15]

I try to keep in mind the famous epigraph to E.M. Forster's novel, Howard's End, where he says, only connect, only connect. So, in the really difficult moments, when I feel least able to do this, I know that it's necessary and true. I've done this, you know, I can be lying in that proverbial or actual hotel room far away and I know that what I've got to do is go out and find a friend. And this friendship, for a while I was reading about

[24:22]

alchemy, which is also a quest for happiness. The pivotal substance is sometimes called an alkahest, which is the alchemist's universal solvent. uh it's you bring this to bear on any substance and it brings forth light and energy and i think for me friendship is that and i think there's a gift you know the gift of of depression is actually an ability to identify with see and connect with the pain that people feel.

[25:29]

That suffering is something that I can understand. I often hear from people about their feelings of isolation or loneliness and I feel, in a sense, I mean, it's curious. I haven't been lonely for a long time in terms of the broad framework. I have this wonderful relationship with Laurie and friends, but when people talk about this isolation, I know exactly what they're talking about. I can go to that place inside myself and know that there's part of me that is like them.

[26:32]

So I've continued to live with this set of circumstances. I have to live with it as a condition of my particular being. I was reading as I was researching this, there's current medical research that suggests that depression is hardwired into our brains and that it actually serves an evolutionary function, that I think if you lived in a jungle, sleepiness and hypervigilance have some survival benefit. So maybe depression is a good thing if you live in a jungle. We live in a kind of jungle. But, you know, Buddhist practice is just about being awake.

[27:48]

It's not directed towards a particular goal, even the goal of If I'm not able to avoid these difficult circumstances, that may be as it is, but the question is, can I turn these circumstances, can I turn the depression, or will I allow it to turn me? Again and again, the Buddha in his own life showed us how to do this. Each event of his wakened life, which included illness and injury, temptation, betrayal, loss, each of those events was an occasion for him to learn and to actually share his understanding.

[28:53]

He didn't try necessarily to change or avoid external conditions. But he wasn't pushed around by his circumstances either. He lived in community with his friends. And he turned towards suffering. So the things of our life are always rolling. A change is always happening. I see this in the good times, I see this in the hard times. My choice is can I connect with them or do I want to push them away? With that kind of understanding life seems to be a fortunate accident, even when it seems like it's not going so good.

[30:05]

I'm alive, you're alive, so however unlikely it seems, change is on its way. heart of Zazen, this heart of Buddhist practice, it may be simultaneously a matter of faith and a matter of activity, even in a dark night when faith seems in short supply. My friends people I'm close to, the people I know, the people I love, really help me through the night.

[31:09]

They help me through night and day. Whether it's depression or whether it's joy, there's really only one whole life that we're living. And however it feels, that's where I want to live. So I think that's where I will end for today and we have a little time for question and answer or comment and I think I'll do a Q&A during tea as well if people want to come back here and talk but if you have anything now to ask or share. Yes. I experienced dread and I just wonder what you think the connection between dread and future thinking is.

[32:18]

Pretty, pretty close. But I think that, you know, for me, that one of the elements of future thinking is a kind of supposition that I'm always going to be like this and that the reality I'm experiencing is going to persist. So it may not be the future in a kind of specific details about what's going to happen, but just that how I feel is so powerful and negative that one can't imagine it Thank you very much. I really appreciate this talk. I've done all that, including with Sam E. And several things came to my mind. I got this irrepressible image of a Buddha figure saying, I'll be your baby tonight.

[33:26]

That's another Gillen song. And something you said reminded me of a thing I've got in a little frame next to the piano on the wall. And it's a Beethoven quote. And it says, to play a wrong note is insignificant. To play without passion is inexcusable, which I felt was worth remembering. But my question is, the value of friendship, I think, is unquestionable. What do you do if you're not sure that people want to spend time with you? I think I would investigate why I feel that way, including the possibility that they may actually have a reason.

[34:29]

and there might be something that you could do about it. It's conceivable. There's all kinds of causes and conditions. But this is, I think, very much about a sermon by Martin Luther King, Jr., called Loving Your Enemies, where he talks, he says, the first thing you should do is investigate yourself. You know when he talks about enemies and that's not what we're talking about here, but you should investigate yourself to see if there's something you might have responsibility for that has caused that. So that's a place to start and then to also understand the whole circumstance of your relationship, of the other person's life, you know, but there's no easy fix to that. Some people don't have friends, which is tragic, but this is what we're doing here.

[35:35]

We don't come here because, you know, people generally don't come to the Zen Center drawn by friendship. Friendships develop. They come because they're drawn by their relationship to suffering, and that the Buddha said, I teach suffering and the end of suffering. Well, that sounds pretty good, and here we are in a room full of people who are motivated by that, and we can often find we have a lot in common. Thank you very much for sharing When I hear you respond to the question about feeling friendless, which I think does feed into a lot of people's depression, or I sometimes call it the fear of the conviction that I am unacceptable.

[36:46]

Right. And I always value the process you name first, which is, check it out. What are you doing that you could change? But I know that for me, that path, which was suggested very often in my childhood, which is shape up, people could stand to have you around. But that path, in itself, to even go there, for me, defeats what I actually If I start with trying to fix myself and make myself acceptable to other people, I'm lost. I'm dead. Because I'm starting from the premise that I'm not OK. And that's what I learned when I was small. So to unlearn that, I need to find my anchor and my refuge in some part of myself which I really believe is really and truly OK.

[37:47]

And that's Buddha nature. And that's what being here in this community, understand myself and to accept myself and to accept what is, I mean, that whole journey is what makes it possible for me to imagine that other people might be on the same path and ready to be on it too. And that changes everything. Yeah, I think you're pointing to something that I left out in the comment to Kate, that at the core is the cultivation of unconditional love. But the tricky thing is the word cultivation. It's not a given. Cultivation in a sense means to uncover what's already there, to allow that

[38:52]

to allow that seed and that quality which is there to create the conditions for it to grow and flower. Often in the Buddhist terms, the poisons of greed, hatred and delusion, in some contexts they're seen as coverings. So the cultivation of that is to create the ground within which that can arise. And that's got to be the, even if one does self-investigation, it needs to have a root in that. Maybe one more and then we'll end. Yeah. Thank you so much. I wonder, what do you think it is about Judaism? bring so many wonderful people to Buddhism.

[39:55]

Oh, that's actually not so hard for me, too. I have, you know, I've thought about this a lot. I've also thought about why there's so many really good Jewish bluegrass musicians, not unrelated to me, which is I don't know to what extent it's genetic, but I do know to what extent the message of suffering, of historical suffering, was taught to me very, very clearly. And I don't think that's so unusual for Jews. I think there are other groups that also experience that. know, to encounter a path or a teacher that says, well I teach about suffering, suffering, oh good, I know about that, right, that's a big problem for me, and the end of suffering, well that sounds really good.

[41:10]

So it's a very direct route and for me it's a lot more direct route and it's a lot more clear than what I found in Jewish tradition. At the same time I would say if I had had as fine teachers in the Jewish tradition as I very quickly encountered here in the Buddhist tradition, not just here, That may have been a path, but I didn't. So anyway, that's a quick answer.

[41:58]

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