dharmapunx NYC

A busy life can be experienced as an addictive video game, comprising the twisty route from a morning coffee to the time we return home and close the door on the world and its demands. The circuit is strewn with pleasant opportunities—frien dly conversations—which we navigate toward, and unpleasant roadblocks—impossible characters with impractical deadlines—which we try to avoid. Caught up in the game, our frustrations and disappointments are stifled so we can keep moving. We lose track of how these blocked emotions translate into stress carried in the body; our external fixation and continual thoughts relegate the body to the corners of awareness; the tension that lies beneath our attention spans often remains unnoticed. Yet these physically stored emotions play a greater role in the course of our days than we expect: they create the pressure that lies beneath a sudden verbal outburst; the urgency behind the rash decision; the constriction that leads to sudden backaches; the tightnes...

It’s easy to become transfixed by the events, memories, fears and hopes that make up the plot of our autobiographical movies ("The story my life" starring Me). Caught up in our dramas, its easy to envision ourselves as heroic, while others—work colleagues for example—can be viewed superficially, as either helping hands or villains (ie. useful or in the way). The more we live in such a fantasy, the easier it is to believe that those we experience as inconvenient or annoying are motivated by emotions and aspirations that are dissimilar and lesser than our own. Perhaps someone cuts us off in traffic, blocks a subway door, elbows past us on the street: How quickly they can be perceived as reprehensible, born with indelibly evil qualities; the possibility they were having a singularly bad day, or simply unaware of our presence, is rarely considered. Our self-centered stories lend our experiences the weight and importance of something profound, unique  and special. Unfortunately...

Its easy to mistake the experience of boredom as a state in which the mind is not properly stimulated by a present situation; in ‘what's going on isn't interesting.’ But when we examine it closely, we find that boredom is actually felt stirrings of worry and anxiety that arise when the mind is not entranced by the world. So what are we anxious of, worried about? None other than the unattended, unexplored emotions that inevitably arise after abandonments, break ups, rejections, traumatic fears, times of confusion and on that we've pushed out of awareness. Its important to understand that, after disappointing events, the mind tends to run off in search of distractions, rather than discern the full articulation of feelings and moods in the body and mind. These impressions don't go away, they lie in the shadows, announcing their presence when the mind isn't distracted by the world. So boredom can be viewed as an invitation to turn inwards and become aware of ...

The passage to radical change in life can be stumbled upon via many routes, but they all have a common theme: it presents that which doesn’t fit into our standard modes of apprehension and understanding. Perhaps its a sudden realization of  how vulnerable and subject to change are all our plans and expectations, thrust on us by a sudden, unexpected separation, career setback, a shocking loss. Or a recognition that we’ve become addicted to unsuitable habits and behaviors. Or it may be the dismay of recognizing how inadequate are the stories we’ve been reciting about our “self;” how they fail to capture our character, capabilities or weaknesses. Whatever adventure presents the “unfathomable,” we may find ourselves enacting some of Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’ well known “FIve Stages of Grief,” seeking the illusory comforts of denial, or an anger that masks deeper feelings of disappointment, or a bargaining for more time, before we finally turn towards deeply touching the experience and ac...

Paying close attention to another is one of the most profound skills available to us on a spiritual path. For example, in memorable teachings The Buddha proclaimed how few reliable sources of wisdom there are in this life:  “There are two causes that allow right view to develop: the voice of the wise and the practice of appropriate attention. These are the two sources of wisdom.” (Mahavedalla Sutta)  And yet paying close attention is a state that’s continually sabotaged by habitually ingrained conversational practices: while others speak we might find our minds occupied in planning our responses; we have tight busy schedules, and so we sit through dialogues with building impatience; we fixate on facts and details, overlooking an array of subtle information that’s being imparted to us; we may armor our empathetic faculties, guarding ourselves from connecting and opening to the feelings being articulated us via verbal and nonverbal communication (see exampl...

It’s tempting to believe in the social identity: the roles we perform, the personas we embody, at work, with friends, amongst family gatherings. Over the years we become so caught up perfecting these roles that we forget they’re fabrications, based on exaggerating our “winning” traits—our knowledge, sophistication, skills, achievements, etc—while concealing what believe be our weaknesses—inexperience, confusion, disappointments, loneliness and so on. We establish our roles to win visibility to others, so they can provide us with approval, pleasure and comfort. Unfortunately, the hunger is unquenchable: we’re filling an emptiness, experienced as internal discomfort, that’s produced by our own feelings, attitudes, perceptions. The lack was established by all that we’ve abandoned to gain attention, and each subsequent abandonment creates even greater appetites. As our identities are forged by insatiable thirst, we cling to them and protect them fiercely. We worry about b...

One of the most efficient spiritual practices available to us during times of busyness and agitation is learning how to greet our experience without resistance. This means allowing the mind to put on its dazzling parade of emotions and thoughts, watching the procession as it marches through awareness. We do this without arguing, commenting, blocking or avoiding the experience through our habitual external diversions, even though the inner spectacle might be comprised of scary characters (dark fears of what might happen in the future) or exciting attractions (sensual cravings and memories). This doesn't mean we applaud what's passing through. It takes great patience, for example, to learn how to witness anger or feel fear without acting out on the impulses. A safe seat to view the parade is from the ebb and flow of breath sensations in the body below. The skill of observing entails knowing where to focus our attention. It's tempting to attend to the lo...

Unconditional freedom can be found amidst a river of intense emotions and the hectic current of life, when we make a conscious decision to stop all forms of activity, dropping our habitual tendencies to push on through the ceaseless waves of dramas.  It asks that we stay put in the fray, knowing that even more challenges may arise spontaneously from underlying depths. Unconditional freedom   arrives when the momentum unwinds and we investigate the fears and craving that push us around, rather than act on their behest. We begin to understand how the view that there is something missing from this moment is what creates our discomfort. There is nothing missing. Unconditional freedom   runs against the flow of human activity, the activities promoted by what is taught, advertised, marketed, and often agreed upon by the horde. It provides us leeway despite the demands placed on us by work, family, friends and our own, incessantly judgmental minds and physical s...

Very little in life falls under our control. The approval we seek from others is unstable, as is the fame that many pursue. Economic structures change without our permission, leaving us vulnerable to all forms of financial instability. Even the sensual pleasures we’re accustomed to are fickle: A gadget that’s shiny and promising this week will soon enough be just another item in the junk drawer. Yet we can control our awareness—how we focus our attention—which in and of itself determines so much of our happiness and suffering. • An awareness that’s caught up by external routines and fails to notice our internal experience results in thoughts and actions that are motivated by concealed physical stresses and moods. For example, we may believe we steer clear of certain activities because they’re tedious, when in fact the avoidance is motivated by a hidden fear of failure and social embarrassment. Or we may fly off the handle with a loved one, failing to notice feelings of f...

Each of us begins life completely dependent on others for nurture and protection, a reliance that last for years. Given this initial helplessness, an infant looks for reassurance via the watchful, attention of the parent or caretaker. Being seen conveys so much: the infant is loved, treasured, protected; assured of care while exploring the world, interacting with others.  If the caretaker is caught up in other dramas or a narcissistic self-regard, insecure connection results; the child feels vulnerable and exhibits a lack of confidence, displaying little desire to explore. The toddler, disconnected, becomes increasingly anxious of securing and maintaining the caretaker's attention. And if the disruption of this primary relationship continues, a wounding occurs; the child doesn’t feel loved for its innate, authentic, spontaneous self. Children will do anything to secure attention and regard, abandoning their authentic behaviors, amplifying or suppressing needs, see...

In every moment of life, there's an underlying physical reaction to everything we experience, a subtle opinion that's expressed in the body: What has just occurred is "agreeable" "disagreeable" or "neither." For example, the subway door slides shut in front of us; before we manage a thought about the event, a physical editorial has already arisen in our autonomic nervous system and muscle groups: our breathing becomes shallow, the abdomen clenches, the shoulders constrict and lift, the jaws lock; missing the train is now "disagreeable." (This somatic reaction sequence, referred to as "vedana" by The Buddha, is virtually automatic, and has been confirmed by neurologists as a function of the brain's subregion responsible for survival, the amygdala.)  These physical commentaries are sculpted by a lifetime of previous reactions to various experiences: we've come to associate missing the subway with other uncomf...

Cognitive scientists, like Professor Dan Simons of Illinois University, have documented what's called "inattentional blindness:" we spend much of our existence in a kind of daydream, failing to notice the subtle changes occurring in our perceptual field. Show someone a photograph of a building, have them look away for a moment: when they return to what seems to be the same photograph, most won't notice that a large tree has been removed via photoshop. We believe we're aware of change, but much of the time it has to be inescapable before we notice; we are overloaded with stimuli. Now consider this: For a very long time people believed that each individual owned a unique soul, a lasting "me," an identity or persistent observer of life that lurked at the core of the mind. This belief was based on appearances rather than close observation, similar to how the Sun appeared to revolve around the Earth (it required close observation by Gal...

Everything is in flux. One of the most fundamental insights of spiritual practice is that despite all the safeguards civilization provides, the feelings of security we achieve through work, relationships and family, etc, we remain inherently vulnerable to abrupt loss and change. Everything is in flux: the world, people in our lives, moods and thoughts arising and passing in our minds. This fundamental change includes the way we relate to people, places and things: each new iGadget feels exciting and promising out of the box; months later it brings little more than a momentary diversion to the day. So, what can we can count on in our march through time?  With age we'll lose control of our bodies, eventually we'll be separated from everyone and everything we love. Given this lack of control, for long stretches, if not entire lifetimes, we'll grasp at fleeting solutions that provide false shelter. We'll acquire countless commodities to avoid feelin...

We support each other in the most lasting and meaningful way by listening and providing a stable, safe connection to each other's underlying emotions and feelings, rather than following the impulse to get caught up in details or judgments, to fix mistakes, to immediately agree or disagree with actions, etc.  So, what does empathetic connection look like? 1) We direct our attention to someone, and sustain it, putting aside all our inner commentaries and distractions 2) We read the core emotional state that lies beneath their words. This requires focused attention: reading facial expressions, body language, listening to vocal inflections, etc. 3) When a true connection occurs, we begin to somatically feel a sympathetic articulation of the emotion they're expressing and manifesting We're choosing to focus on what lies beneath their stories; details separate and isolate us, while feelings unite and connect , for they are universally experienced. So, even if there's conf...

There's an old beautiful spiritual, Wade in the Water which referred to liberation from enslavement; while many assumed it was a reference to the exodus from Egypt, it was moreover an instruction to fugitive slaves to leave dry land which, while easy to run on, lead one to be quickly captured. Instead, the fugitive was instructed to head into the water as a means of escape.  The spiritual is not an instruction to bide one's time in hopes of passive salvation or divine intervention, it's an encouragement to move towards freedom by giving up what's familiar and pushing onto the difficult path of freedom. Wading can also serve as an analogy for working with emotions, feelings and moods: Rather than staying up in our heads, where the thoughts created by our moods can so easily entrap us, we seek release by lowering our awareness into the body, 'wading' into often turbulent physical expression of our emotions. How does it work? "Witness:...

Many of us are born into, and grow up in, environments that provide insecure support at best. While rewarded for behaviors that meet arbitrary social standards, we are ignored or punished for the times our authentic self-expression doesn't 'fit in' with normative expectations. For example, boys are rewarded for acting 'like boys,' and 'girls like girls,' but transgressing gender expectations often leads to shaming, exclusion and worse.  And so we develop performative behaviors to attain support and acceptance from an ungenerous, withholding world: we do as others do to receive acceptance. We drive ourselves to fit in with relentless self-criticism and perfectionism.  Such techniques transform the mind into place where thoughts of grandiosity and punishment are the rewards for normal successes and mistakes. Unfortunately, many have to hit bottom, reaching periods of despair, addiction, panic, insomnia and other unwholesome states, before s...

The self-related ideas and images we replay in our minds tend to derive from the challenging experiences of life: times we were vulnerable, abandoned, rejected. Rather than opening to the inevitable fear, we sought the false shelter of our thoughts; they provided us with what seemed to be a safe refuge from our felt lack of control during perilous and scary circumstances.  If we grow dependent on daydreams, then we begin to identify with the roles we play in them: this fantasy is who I really am; not the person responsible for all those actions out there in the world. The stories can become sticky and difficult to detach from at this stage. For awhile imagination, revenge fantasies and rewritten memories can provide the illusion of power and immunity to discomfort. Meanwhile taking time to check in with the body is largely abandoned, and difficult interpersonal relationships are shunned. Then, of course the results of avoidance strategies start to poke sharp h...

I woke up sweating, gulping for air. I was in the grips of a panic attack, my stomach cement hard yet churning. In my mind, movie screens played horror films in a loop; the images in this multiplex were darker than Dostoevsky. I’d been sober for six years, but it didn’t matter. My new marriage was surely destined to fail, the small house we’d purchased in Brooklyn destined to crumble. My skills were worthless and would, without doubt, leave me unemployable. Everything about me, an inner verdict announced, was phony and shallow. Friends and family would turn away once my true nature was exposed. I had the feeling that countless eyes were piercing through me and locating something pitiable. I’d awoken into what was eventually diagnosed as “a major depressive episode.” What was the root of it? A childhood spent in a household where rage was routine, violence not unknown. I recall the terror of being awakened from a deep sleep at 4 a.m. and dragged by my ankles into a b...

The mind has a tendency to search for a meaning, an underlying message, in every murky or complex experience. It can feel like we've only processed and come to closure with a traumatic experience when we've come away with a simple interpretation for the traumatic event, a "moral to the story." In practice, we want to be able to report to those around us that we understand what a period of depression or confusion "was all about" and have come away "a new understanding." After a painful and dramatic conclusion to a relationship, we might report "it was for the best, we were heading in different directions." When someone dies, many feel the obligation to console their loved ones with "well, he lived a full life, got to a very old age, he travelled and got to see the world, etc." We see this default wiring at work when we stand before an abstract painting, a challenging film or theater piece: What is it trying to say? What...

talk 1, the nature of addiction: the root of addiction is a craving to get rid of all forms of stress and discomfort —some stresses stem from underlying feelings of loneliness, uniqueness, isolation —some from obsessive thinking —the inevitable, unavoidable discomforts of life; abandonment, rejection, criticism, blame, etc —these are inner states that the addict is largely unfocused on and towards which develops little tolerance addictions primarily relieve our awareness of our inner stress —the solutions are short term, with long term consequences that in no way develop tolerance or lasting solutions —the addict largely blames his suffering on external conditions, and fails to see how his lack of tolerance plays a central role in the addictive spiral karma & coping strategies: neurons that fire together wire together habitual reactions to stress become increasingly ingrained, the mind develops ruts finding any additional stress unbearable, further keeping our addictions in pla...