Bleeding out our Reflections

Hi everyone, I’ve been having too much trouble with facebook, so I’ll just update you with how I’m doing through my blog, and if you want to contact me directly, please use my email. See you later!

i haven’t written on this blog in awhile. I figure that facebook is really the future of blogging, but you can’t really write a full “status update” on facebook, really. it’s really just pictures and snippets. Content is merely a symptom of facebook, rather than a goal or a result. So, at last, a new blog post makes its daring appearance.

I’ve been in Long Xuyen city, Vietnam country for about 2 years and 4 months now, and the story gets worse, I want to be here longer. I can’t put my finger on what made me fall in love with this place. Was it the innocent lazy nature of my students? The ongoing problem-solving related to all things termed improvement and development? The food that I get bored with every few weeks? The general hideaway from everything Californian and family? The escape from elections and the general doldrums of American politics? The all-night binge-drinking followed by incoherent singing followed by incoherent mornings followed by incoherent bureaucracy followed by a bombardment of incoherent Asian (with-a-Vietnamese-twist) hysteria? The appeal of a birth of cool in this country as opposed to the rebirth of post-post-modern hip in this American generation (which can only lead to the path of further boredom, or so i thought)? or maybe most of all…bragging rights?

What keeps me here is rather ineffable other than that it somehow will make a coherent appearance in my resume and shepherd me somehow to the next place. I’m sure everyone wonders what they would say to the self they were two years ago. I’d probably cuss myself out. “You fucking idiot, don’t fuck up! And fix your haircut! Why are you wearing a t-shirt? Are those flip-flops? Why haven’t you grown your mustache yet?” In two years from now, I’d probably say to the me that is now…”Why the fuck are you monologueing again? Don’t you have better things to do? You’re wearing a shirt with no tie? And why do you still have a mustache?”…Who knows?…Most of the time I’m not looking for much upward mobility or anything. Let alone peace of mind (which can be rather worrisome).

When it really comes down to it, I’d just as well clone myself, and have the guy do all the work. Make him get the Masters in Interaction Design for me, make him go out and meditate in the Nepali mountains for me, make him tell all the jokes at my stand-up comedy routine, and make him get all the praise for anything and everything that he might do. It’d be a load off my mind. I’d use the money that he embezzled to buy an island and watch his life from a satellite, and just feel oh-so-gleeful that I cooked up such a great scheme. . .  But maybe that’s actually how I feel sometimes, except when I have to put in the effort.

Most of the time, I think that’s what I’m training myself most in, here in Vietnam. Effort. California had this real easy comfortable life that I just couldn’t stand after awhile. I mean, really, if I got that free pass to an unmarked island off the coast of Indonesia with no tsunamis in sight, I’d probably end up immolating myself out of some kind of gripping realization with the grating nature of life without causality. I may be the laziest person I know, but god forbid me to be a mere stapler.

No, I actually have nothing against Californians, per se. It’s the gold that is in California that I’ve got some issue with. California’s gold is America’s hipster dream gone liberally righteous, and I think for me, back three years ago, that meant that the entity or philosophy that is California itself missed a projected humility that I needed to learn about humanity’s role in the god-forsaken Universe. I think now, I’m rather okay with thinking that the state of California is merely another means to an end. So it’s not cynicism I subscribe to as much as a practicality that it’s in detention.

Ironically…quarantined pragmatism is what both Buddhism and Vietnam have taught me about life thus far. Making efforts and trying to get results out of some kind of samsaric bureaucratic catch-22. And on top of that, freedom is rather elusive and mysterious, which is actually just fine with me.

10 Dream jobs: 1) information media analyst expert consultant. 2) cyber cosmic priest. 3) strategic management specialist. 4) philosophical design therapist. 5) dimensional researcher. 6) astral astrology manipulator. 7) mental-space cartographer. evolutionary liquidation officer. 9) political movement structuralist. 10) human-birthing systems technician.

Options are open.

Fucking a, alright i understand. Let’s do this. Fuckin a dude. I love the raps man.

Oh, okay. It’s just wow, alright, okay. Whistles. Well… I’m a failed artist, oh my god. I don’t kno about this man. This sounds cool. I’m finally back. after a long upheaval of many spheres and many rungs to climb and hop and jump yeah i wouldn’t say that the spirit is treating me so badly and a man can let it just be for all, because life isn’t just as serious as you take it. and ultimately there is no such thing as true desire. and i’m only hear to speak the simple word and say good bye because i don’t want to drag thin(k/g)s along because in the end why can’t we stand on the good deeds because ultimately the clouds come and go and so when it comes down to this, so whatever man, you can go outside of nothing to get something in the end, to be ultimately forever.

It’s good to have friends here every once in awhile. They become portals with which we can see the outside world. through conversation, information, news, etc.

Jokes. Are Funny.

So are you, bitch.

Don’t twitch, because i’m gonna bust in your face.

Some straight hard none-but-tomfoolery like mace,

and in the right place, it’ll stain you forever.

Severe Diarrhea…

Episodes upon episodes.

Fucking each other.

Cherry-picking hot babes in the morning

For a hot grill in the evening

What does that mean?

I don’ t know, i’m just playing with thoughts dude.

For what?

Satisfaction of something.

You don’t know what it’s for?

‘Course not,

I’m just following it til it goes in a direction that irks to satisfy or quench an unknown thirst iso excruciatingly have.

Do you find yourself to be particularly perplexing?

I find a few things particularly perplexing, quagmires, per se, 3. exactly.

1. why do i want what i want?

2. What ought we want?

3. what happens at the moment of no wanting?

Maybe these are questions that I peruse that make me seem Buddhist (among others). And honestly, the genericness of being associated with a buddhist is laughable, because i wouldn’t really say that i’m a Buddhist unless I could actually truly understand Buddha’s “ish”.

Oh God, that’s such a Buddhist post.

Dude, that’s an epitaph.

all posts are epitaphs.

The Internet Dwarves have arrived from Universe #29!

3 screens coming soon to a room near you.

i’m getting a new latop.

therefore, ubuntu, television and MBP.

Exciting.

My data exudes from facebook biatch!

(and wordpress, word up)

We’re just full of great thoughts

in Vietnam.

but with usually no execution.

I’m constantly wondering if tully is getting the better end of the bargain.

tully! help me! i’m trapped inside of this facebook account and i can’t communicate with the outside world, and my physical body is now a silicon chip. i’m fucked!

{3 months later}

Dude! i got installed into an awesome light bubble body.

Of course, I hope I get the better end.

What if you met a guy who was dematerializing slowly?

What would you say to that man?

These are jokes:

Worldly people laugh at jokes because they’re funny. Spiritual people laugh at jokes because there’s something wrong with them.

Worldly people are cleanly because they don’t want to be dirty. Spiritual people are cleanly because they don’t want to be dirty, at their own expense.

Worldly people eat because they enjoy food. Spiritual people eat because they prayed beforehand.

Worldly people look into clouds and see teddy bears. Spiritual people look into clouds and talk too much.

Worldly people want to be happy about life. Spiritual people want to be loyal to life.

Worldly people are curious because they are innocent. Spiritual people are curious because they desperately want to be innocent.

Spirituality represents emotions for worldly people. Whereas to spiritual, spirituality represents the inner significances of their own bullshit.

Well, it’s been a long time since I updated this website, along with Tully. Since Tully has arrived here we’ve tweaked our project a bit, and well….I’ve realized a bunch of other projects and have maybe neglected, in some ways, to focus on writing that represents an inward bent. That’s alright, I think it’s important to find a balance around these things in a certain way. Nonetheless, I’m focusing my efforts on a relatively professional blog…namely, agutaskforce.wordpress.com which I hope will be a forum and place for me to share projects that I’m working on here in An Giang University. Please check it out.

This post comes from a place of angst and anger. Basically, Viet Kieu’s (the general populace and not individuals) piss me off. I don’t like the art we produce as a community, I don’t like the way we work or don’t work together as a community, I don’t care for the so-called accomplishments we’ve made as a community, I don’t like the way we view our own culture, and I don’t appreciate the way we view our so-called homeland.

Granted, I grew up in white suburbia and feel that such an experience gave me enough space to never really feel Vietnamese-American as much as I felt like a fan of Pink Floyd and hacky-sack among other things. I’ve also never really had Viet Kieu friends. More than anything I remember crying in my mom’s arms at fifteen whilst mulling over the nostalgia that I live in the country that bombed my blood’s country. Furthermore since I came to Vietnam over 18 times now I never had any feelings that Vietnam was a communist place. My parents have also been doing humanitarian work in Vietnam since I was a child, ever since I can remember, and despite my allergy and distance from the Viet Kieu community I think that I’ve seen enough to say what I’ll say here. (But I hope these words aren’t only seen as admonishment but also as a motivation to look back)

Concerning Vietnamese-overseas, nothing pisses me off more than anti-communism. I mean, McCarthy’s Red Scare, US-Cuban embargo, Stalinism, North Korea,etc. aside, I think it’s deeply plagued the Vietnamese-overseas community in so many ways. It’s basically made Vietnamese-Americans blind and stupid. I think it’s ridiculous that people who work to help Vietnam could be called, by the anti-communist community, communists. And I know, many people were hurt by the Vietnamese communists after the war came to an end, and that essentially democracy and capitalism appears to give people more freedom.These factors though, rather than causing people to want to get involved in a useful way has caused people to be petty, vengeful and hateful. It has also caused people to feel a sense of entitlement, unwarranted privilege, pretention, and for them to look down on Vietnamese people as if they’re less educated, politically stagnant, and basically unmodern. Is this a mature way of acting?

The irony is that Viet Kieu’s (even those that have lived, worked, and traveled here) don’t understand Vietnam’s current state of affairs. As the Vietnamese community continues to whine over a fucking red-yellow flag, they’re missing the full spectrum of colors that are currently and have been manifesting in Vietnam since independence. Viet Kieu’s are stuck in 1975 while Vietnam has moved along at its own pace until 2008. Consequently, they are the one’s that are less educated, politically stagnant, and basically unmodern.

(One side note about the alleged beauty of American capitalism versus the frowned-upon Vietnamese communism. Our capitalist system, although fueling competitiveness and professionalism, has of course resulted in a country with too many lawyers and insurance companies. And although a country hailed as individually-driven, it’s pretty hard to own things such as your own cellphone, your own car, your own house, your own bank account, etc. etc. Not to mention the economic crisis)

The above indeed fuels the rest of my issues with my own ailing ethnic community. That’s that for now…more later…

This is a picture of my current comic book collection as I’ve accumulated it since being here in Vietnam. Half-Vietnamese, half-American/foreign (the black one with the red letters: Epileptic is French). Since childhood I’ve developed a love for comics. The first comic book I ever read is:

Not only was this an introduction into the artistic medium of comics but also my first introduction to Buddhism. Basically, an innocent beginning. Although I’ve gained some maturity in both subjects, I still feel quite innocent. It’s a healthy innocence though, that’s coated with a sense of wonder and curiosity. But I’d rather only allude to my own spirituality and speak directly about my love for comics, I think that’s most fitting.

Lately, in Hollywood Hellboy has become a big blockbuster movie production with Guillermo Del Toro as director. I appreciate Hellboy the comic though for so many reasons. I think Mike Mignola is a bit of a genius. I daresay, it’s comic LITERATURE, not just a book. I think the character Hellboy, more than anything else, is based on demeanor. Hellboy’s character itself carries the comic to its end. It’s not so much about his powers, and his cosmology but about his moral dilemma, it’s about his resistance against imposed destiny and fate. I love to relate to this aspect of Hellboy.

Hellboy is not only in constant realization of his own essential free will but he also carries himself in relation to circumstances with a certain perceptive nonchalance. He is sensitive to what’s going on whilst also himself amidst it. He is human as well as sarcastic. Generally, he doesn’t give a fuck.

I’m not, by any means, opposed to Japanese comics as well. When I think about Osamu Tezuka and how he pioneered comics. He viewed comics as a medium that could evoke moral feeling. I view him as the basis for manga today and his moral-social sentiment permeates contemporary manga. My favourite currently, of course, is Kekkaishi. I guess Kekkaishi translates as “Barrier Master”. What fascinates me most about Kekkaishi is the creativity of the writer (I’m always more impressed by well-written comics than by art, although there’s an allure to good art). Various characters have different powers that are mind-boggling…from people who can contain time and space in clear boxes, to people who have to cultivate three years of blood to create a bird to fly on, to people who can create mental birds that can kill or control people, etc. etc. But I’ve never really been into supernatural heroes because they’re supernatural. I’m not a Marvel or DC fan at first glance. I appreciate supernatural worlds that result from moral dilemmas or vice versa. I look for Kurt Vonnegut and Isaac Isamov and Philip K. Dick in my comics. Not Harry Potter nor Hollywood. Kekkaishi is quite quintessentially asian in its treatment of family, responsibility, inheritance, effort, community and power. I appreciate most the way the characters grow together as people. The subtle differences in their personality play out in the way they use their powers. It’s an interesting matchup.

At least 50 years ago my grandfather was the Vice Minister of Education of Southern Vietnam. He passed away more than 4 years ago now, and I can still remember one of my most vivid moments as I stood over his open coffin making silent vows to myself and maybe to him about education in Vietnam. My grandmother asked me what I said to “Ong Noi” after I had been standing there for ten minutes or so. I guess I kinda shrugged and left it to be my dirty little secret number fifty-six. Now I find myself in Vietnam, an English teacher, and walking that uphill battle to fulfill one of the promises I’ve made in life. I’ve still got a lot of big promises to keep so it’s a reason to keep on living I suppose.

I haven’t lived up to my promise to my grandfather yet. But I am getting a glimpse of what kind of work needs to be done. about 8-9 years ago he went back to Vietnam and kinda got a glimpse of the country that he tried to build up and the, he argued, ruins that had been left behind by the war, and the impoverished government (in more ways than one). He compared Saigon to Singapore, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and lamented the wide gap between the industrial, technological and economic progress of the cities. Vietnam has been playing catch up for the last ten years for a number of reasons that I won’t mention here. Nevertheless, you could tell that in his heart he still wanted Vietnamese education to develop. Although he had a Masters in Physics he foregoed it to get a Ph.D. in Education because he felt that it would help more people. I mean, I idolize him now that he has passed, but one thing that I do admire about him is that his mind was flexible, and he knew how he could be of use to others, and he had the energy and intelligence to go in the direction he thought was most fruitful. This is something for me to live up to. After all, despite my half-assed but honest journey into Buddhism, I feel that if I can’t even beat my grandfather, how can I beat Buddha?

There’s this saying in Buddhism…”If you want to compete against someone, compete against the Buddha.” The sentiment being that you should set your goals beyond yourself to the point of extremity (taking into account the Middle Way, of course).

So, where am I shooting in education? Ever since I was a child performance has been the center of my life, this doesn’t help my self-involvement since I’m an only child, and it doesn’t help that blogs are the most self-indulgent thing the internet has come up with, nevertheless…I digress. Ever since I picked up my violin at 5 years of age I’ve been on stage at least 20 times every year. From stand-up comedy to jazz band to theater to teacher. It all culminates in the last. There’s nothing more satisfying than leaving a classroom with everyone smiling and excited to learn more, where people look forward to the next class. I want to end a class the way a great stand-up comedian ends their act. Teaching, to me, is really an act. “All the classrooms are a stage.” – Minhspeare. An act that must benefit the audience in their lives. Over and over again Lillian and I have talked about how English teaching is not just English teaching, that we are social workers that are building humanitarian-oriented community.

I want to walk into a classroom and inspire in others the need to improve together as people with English as a mere medium to instill learning. Doing so to me means making a creative space for people to interact in a new way with each other. It also means pushing people to think in new ways. I want to challenge others. All of these goals, of course, need practical applications. I do most of my activity experimentation with my university students whom are, more often than not, more forgiving than students out in the community. It’s all about finding the right pedagogical formula for the group before you and adding to and elaborating on it. I like this formula for my students…a warm-up activity/game that gets them talking about mundane things…move into a short lecture about whatever our topic is for the day, eliciting their main ideas about the topic and writing those on the board, then splitting into small groups to discuss the deeper details of the subject, then maybe moving into presentations/skits or deeper discussion as a whole class. Of course, reviewing the significant platitudes. This formula seems to work well with me. Sometimes I end with a song just for fun. But that’s just a nice formula for a fun easy speaking class, if I’m lazy. If I really feel inspired I’ll spend over ten hours lesson planning for just one hour of class, because I want that one hour to be supercharged with life significance. Students here are already interested in the progress of their country, but they need to be given the tools to bring that goal into fruition. They need content. I think choosing the right subject for the right class is an art that cannot be achieved through one’s own thinking. And not found in answers to questions like “what do you want to learn?” People don’t always say what they truly want, and maybe what they truly want is not what they need or what you can offer in light of that. In light of this, it’s certainly one of the reasons why I want to improve myself for my students, so that I can be a more informed guide than just an older person with a few more years of maturity. It took me 6 months to realize that English is not worth teaching and 6 more months to realize what English should be used for.

The Depression Self Help E-Book

By Tully Walker

Introduction:

This document is written for everybody really, but especially those who have experienced what it’s like to go through depression, or any type of mood disorder. I am now recovering from a crippling depression that has taken up the last year of my life. The depression managed to completely absorb, stifle, and paralyze me to the point where I was seriously considering whether I would ever have a life again.

Well times have changed and I am recovering myself and am learning to trust that life can be fulfilling and fun again. The most powerful part of recovery for me has been investigating and debunking those stories and thoughts patterns that have kept me in a powerful funk for the past year.

Beliefs you hold and stories you tell yourself about your self and the world are particularly powerful and can form a tangling net that can leave your life paralyzed.

The good news is that these stories are relatively easy to diffuse if you take the initiative to investigate them. Especially if you are depressed, it can be easy to hold the belief that spiritual change will be this long, grueling thing, and of course when you picture it like that, it becomes very hard to take that first step.

While change certainly isn’t overnight and at times it can be challenging, it can also be satisfying and even fun. In this article I am encouraging a person to work smarter, not harder. A task that can seem incredibly daunting to one mindset can seem workable to another.

I write this article knowing from personal experience how a depressed mind likes to

find every last reason why change will be so hard for him or for her. We could read a thousand self help books and write them all off thinking why they won’t work for us or why they seem impossible for us.

What I espouse is that our problems are really solved when we change our thinking. And the good news is that our thinking is probably the easiest to change, much easier than say our weight or physical appearance. With our thinking we create these massive limitations for ourselves. Then with our will we try to go beyond these limitations. But in this paradigm, we are bound to fail. So why not change your thinking, and not create the limitations in the first place?

A depressed person might read this and say “it’s the same old bullshit, it’s never worked for me and it never will”. Well I would encourage this person to keep reading, because if we want to change our thinking, we really need to find the process fun and interesting. There’s no magic pill you can take to help yourself out of a depression. You need to do it yourself. But there is massive hope in the idea that you do not have to be super human to apply these techniques. As above average as you are, there are many humans much less above average than you are that have found these techniques useful.

The hardest part of this whole process I think, for the depressed person, is a willingness to give this kind of inquiry a try. But if you have made it this far then you already have all the willingness you are going to need. If you are in the least bit open to having fun and finding something as interesting, then you have created a huge wedge into your depression already!

So here are some key words and phrases that have helped me along my recovery:

Self Affirmations and reminders:

There is no doing it wrong.

Don’t try to figure it out.

Let it be.

Let go and let God.

Surrender.

Trust.

Have faith, have hope.

Stay out of trouble, and you’ll be fine.

Don’t worry about it.

Be kind to yourself. Problems are not solved from the same paradigm that created them.

It’s easier to let go than to hold on. Remember that.

Trust yourself.

Who I really am is already enlightened, already strong.

My mind is perfect as it is.

Even though I am depressed or _________, I love and accept myself.

There is nothing I can do to fight my pain and uncomfortability. I can, however, ask God to take it away, and in that I can find peace within my pain without resisting it or hating it.

Old time wisdom:

Give up! If you feel broken, if your mind feels ill, trust that there’s nothing you can do to fight it. Accept your pain completely. In accepting pain, you aren’t saying you want it to be around forever. But you are allowing it in that moment, and only then it can begin to change.

If you have thoughts you don’t like, scary or depressing thoughts, accept that they are going to be there and that you have to do your best with them intact. Invite them in, even. There’s nothing you can do to stop them, or block them, or make them go away. I understand that you are scared and your thoughts are scary. I understand that you don’t want to live like this. If they are taking over your mind and you begin to get scared, remind yourself that there is nothing you can do against them. You have to accept that this is going to be your mind right now and that there’s nothing you can do about it. If the thoughts seem like they are going to drive you insane, then you have to accept your fate. Remind yourself that these thoughts are part of your disorder, and at the moment it is out of your control, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Try your best to stay where you are with what you are doing.

Eventually you will find out that while things may seem like absolute shit right now, accepting what is going on at that moment is the only way to allow it to change. If you do not accept what is going on, you will continue to battle and only make it worse.

Eventually you will realize that all your worst thoughts and fears are not a problem, because they are not you. Let them run, spin, and do their thing. It may be scary at first to allow these thoughts within your mind, but you have no choice, they are already in your mind. You must discover for yourself that they will change.

I know you would prefer to be happy, healthy, with a clear mind. But you are hopelessly addicted to your thoughts, and that addiction is out of your control. Accept that you are helpless and that your life has become out of your own control. Accept that you are going to think thoughts you don’t want to think, accept that your mind is getting in the way of your life right now and you won’t always be able to perform to your previous standards. Feeling bad sometimes is inevitable. Realize that you aren’t operating at your full capacity, but don’t worry, when you work on changing your thoughts, you will soon be at full capacity again.

Despite this, I know that you are wanting a solution. But again I remind you:

Don’t try to change yourself, don’t try to fix yourself, stop your striving to conquer your problems. Give up, stop trying, because there is nothing you can do to fix your problems.

You may feel impatient, you may feel messed up, you may feel worthless. Realize there is nothing you can do to change these thoughts about yourself. You could go make a million dollars, you could climb the tallest mountain in the world, but if you don’t trust that it’s OK to have these thoughts and feelings and that these thoughts and feelings say nothing about how perfect you really are, then all your efforts will be in vain.

You are afraid of your mind. It has tormented you. You feel as though you can barely make a move without being afraid it is going to bite you. You are afraid that you are broken and inadequate, and that you are fatally imperfect and will mess up again and again. Since you are fatally imperfect, you have set unrealistic standards of perfection for yourself in order to compensate. Understand that you need some time to rest and recover, don’t try to push yourself to do things you could normally do. Ask yourself what is more important: to have peace and joy for yourself, or to be completely perfect. Peace and joy are easily available to you, right here, and right now if you allow yourself to be imperfect.

No matter how imperfect you are, no matter how much fear you have, no matter how much you don’t trust yourself or think you are incapable of being a good person, or no matter how much you think you are a downright evil person, peace and joy are easily available to you, right now. You think that since you have some fear and have some sadness, that you are incomplete. You think that as long as you have these emotions in your body, that you cannot be whole, that you cannot be in the moment. So you are waiting to be perfect before you can finally accept yourself and accept the moment. This of course is never going to happen, because you are continually sabotaging yourself for not being perfect. Stop trying to work on your fear and sadness, let them be, and accept that you are already perfect, in the moment. It is only then that the fear and sadness will disapate.

You have been thinking that you have fear. You have concluded that since sometimes your mind says you don’t want to do certain things or is afraid of doing certain things, that means that you really don’t want to do them or afraid of them. You know you would like to go on a hike or do something you enjoy. But so many times in the past your mind has stopped you with a thought. You have gotten so used to this happening that you feel like it would take some impossible feat to stop your mind from getting in the way of your life. So you continue to think the thoughts, feeling you are hopeless. You have convinced that you have fear and that your mind and your fear is getting in the way of your life. You are afraid of doing things because you are afraid that this fear will come up, and you are afraid it will take some huge effort to conquer the fear before you can begin to enjoy your life.

Fear is not something to be pushed past, conquered, or proven wrong.

The fact is, you are already perfect, and you are more than capable of being in the present moment, all day. What keeps you from doing this, however, is your belief that being in the present moment is something apart from what you already are. Stop waiting for that moment when you finally have figured it out, when you have finally mustered the courage and therefore can be perfectly in the present moment!

You are searching for a way to end your problems and you believe the present moment might be a way of solving them, but if you believe the present moment is not what you already are, then even if you attained it, a person like you would always fear losing it, so what fun would that be?

But the present moment is not something to attain, it already is, here, available to you right now, perfectly. The worst thoughts in the world can’t keep you from resting and relaxing into the present moment. They do not tarnish your moment. You could be deathly fearful of a robber coming into your home and murdering you, but that fear doesn’t keep you from being in the present moment. So why do you continue to make to a big deal out of just being yourself, something that is actually so easy and natural for you to do?

Your mind is perfect as it is, it is perfectly God, there is nothing about it that needs to be changed, no matter whether you have saintly thoughts running through it, or thoughts that you want to kill your mother. They are all just thoughts, they can do no lasting harm to you. .

Your mind may seem out of your control, and scary. “Why won’t it stop?” You will never stop your thoughts. Eventually, I will teach you how to not give them any power to harm you. They can only harm you when you think that the fact that you have this thought running through your head is of any importance and says anything about who you are. If a stranger called you stupid, would you believe him? If not then why give any more credibility to what your mind calls you?

I know you though- you think you are an ESPECIALLY evil person. You think that no matter how much good there is in you, you are that special case that can still fuck your goodness up.

You could really try to convince yourself how hard it is to be in the present moment by saying “haha, well no matter what, I hate God, and I am still a despicable and worthless person and there’s nothing that can stop me from believing it”. Part of you is deathly afraid of this voice and believing it and wishes there were some freedom from it, but part of you feels like a perfect person wouldn’t have this voice in their head, so if you’re thinking it, it must be true. After all, you have built it up to be such an enemy for so long that you can barely believe that it is actually relatively benign.

After all, it seems like your mind has caused you so much trouble in the past, and you’ve made so many mistakes. So you’ve built up so much evidence that you are in fact a worthless worm, that why could now be any different?

You think that since your mind is producing angry or disparaging thoughts against you and others, that there is something wrong with you, that you have a problem you need to fix. You think that “normal” people don’t have these thoughts? Since you think these thoughts, you are convinced that there is something bad inside of you that actually has some power over you. Well there will never be a deciding moment when you finally climb to the top of the mountain and attain that state of perfect thoughtlessness. There will never be a time when you get rid of these thoughts. Accept that they may be here for the rest of your life, make friends with them. If a thought is telling you are worthless, you could still calmly disagree.

Therefore, I know that no matter how much I tell you that there’s nothing you can do to fuck up, that you are ALREADY FORGIVEN, I know your type. You think, “Well, since I’ve been miserable and I’m trying to be happy, there must be some work I have to do. And since I am such a miserable and lazy person, there is no way I could accomplish this. Therefore, I can never be forgiven.”

Well, you are a miserable and lazy person. But if you actually slowed down enough to think about it, being miserable and lazy isn’t as bad as you think it is. Allow yourself to be miserable and lazy for awhile. You’ll eventually get bored of it and when you find that it’s not THAT bad to be miserable and lazy, it be even more fun to go on a walk or talk with a friend!

And if you are feeling like an enraged, angry person, be with that angry enraged feeling. Don’t go killing anybody, but just know that “right now I am angry and enraged”. If you are feeling impatient, just be with that impatient feeling. Just know “hmm, right now I am feeling impatient”. Maybe that impatient feeling is taking you away from your conversation. It might a little bit, but so what, don’t worry about it. Just continue feeling “impatience”.

Because what I’m telling you that your connection to truth is a fact that is actually out of your control, not in your hands. It’s already been established. God already loves you, your inner self already loves you. You can think the dirtiest thought in the world, but God has already seen that thought and forgives you for it. In fact, there is nothing you can do to fuck up your relationship with God! So stop making yourself to be bad. There’s nothing you have to do, no one you have to be, no where you have to go.

But I know you. This is hardly believable to you because you still think that you are a person who is doomed to make him self miserable. Again, you think: Jeez, giving my life to God will take so much work, and a miserable and lazy person like me is not cut out for it. “There is always some way I can make myself miserable,” you will tell yourself, “and it seems like I’m always able to find a way”.

Well, let me tell you. Because so many times you have eaten junk food instead of health food, you convince yourself that obviously you don’t want the best for yourself, and that no one will want to hang around you. But I’m telling you, even when you ate that junk food, you were still a striving idealist. The motivation behind your worst moments and your worst habits is still the motivation to get to what the truth is for you, to get to what freedom is for you, in some way. Even the most evil person in the world is trying to fulfill a truth in someway. He may be the most spiteful person in the world and kill someone as a way to say “fuck you” to everything that is good.

Think of those kids at Columbine High School in Colorado who killed 12 of their peers and then themselves. They would have not done this if there wasn’t something about it that didn’t appeal to them in someway. They would not have done this if they didn’t feel that it would provide them some relief in some way from the suffering and humiliation they felt while being in school. Yes, it was planned in advance and was not just an impulsive thing. This shows that there was indeed a strong buildup of hatred and rage. Certainly there was probably something in these boys’ conscience that felt that this was not the proper way to get happiness.

Those boys did an amazing, though terrible thing. But just remember, if you are entirely good at making yourself miserable, remember that you are at least good at something. Even if you decide to lie in bed all day to make the statement that there is no truth whatsoever, you are still putting out energy towards some truth statement.

“So what,” you say, “I now understand that I am such an evil and insane person that perhaps I willingly cause myself pain! I am such a worm that I know that it’s somewhere in me! I’m that special case who WANTS to be unhappy! I want to be unhappy, I want to kill myself! So I guess I’m just doomed to be unhappy.”

If you believe yourself to be “evil”, then you might do “evil” things, because after all, that’s what an “evil” person does. If you believe yourself to be “good”, then you might do “good” things, because that’s what “good” people do.

But why not shed belief that you are “good” and must do “good” things, and get rid of the belief that you are “evil” and must do “evil” things. Why not instead take the belief that you are free? You might find then that you naturally find yourself doing things that are satisfying, without a big effort or moral judgment.

In sum, since everything you do in this world, positive or negative, is an attempt towards freedom, there is no need to worry about your capability towards achieving joy and peace. You have put all your energy and willpower already towards making yourself miserable, because you believe that is the easiest option towards freedom and truth. And Achieving happiness seems like something only a saint could do, and if there’s one thing you know, it’s that you aren’t a saint.

Well, what if I told you that being happy is actually EASIER and takes LESS effort than being miserable? What if I told you that it’s actually HARDER to be miserable, that it takes MORE effort and MORE discipline and more SKILL to make yourself miserable?

What if I told you that it won’t take doing ANYTHING to be happy? I know you have read a thousand spiritual books that have said you must to practice mindfulness, and “be in the moment”. What about the fact that merely just by existing you are already IN the moment? Your existence is already in the moment, and there’s nothing you can do to screw that up.

So even though you have been depressed, it is really because you are such an overachiever. Well what if I gave you the permission to stop trying to achieve so much? What if you gave yourself permission to just be happy?

I know you are afraid that if you stop trying to be happy, then who you really are as a miserable person will come out and you will just be miserable.

But what is actually making you miserable is the guilt and pressure you have been putting on yourself to try to be happy when there’s really nothing to do.

But I know you. When you read “nothing to do” you interpret that as relaxing and you know how hard it is for you to relax. What I’m saying is that you don’t need to relax, if you are a paranoid person, keep being paranoid. If you are addicted to your thoughts and can’t stop thinking, then don’t stop thinking.

So if it took no effort, no trying to be happy, would you finally be ready to let go of the idea that you are a miserable person incapable of being happy? Would you finally believe that you are actually fully capable of being a happy, healthy person?

Because really, if you believe that you can be happy, if you even CONSIDER for a MOMENT the possibility that you can be happy, then that’s all it takes, nothing more.

If you even CONSIDER for a MOMENT that you could actually live a rich fulfilling life, then that’s all it will take, nothing more. Because in this mere moment of consideration lies all the power you will ever need to live a full, fulfilling life.

Because the moment you have that simple image of your happiness in your head, God and the universe and everything will be set in to motion to realize that for you, because God and the universe and everything wants you to be happy.

Now, I am not saying that it will happen all at once. After all, you are such a brave, courageous truth-seeker who has been programmed to always work HARDER, not SMARTER. So it might take some time for you to realize how EASY it is to be happy.

Deep down your soul aches for freedom, joy, comfort, and security. But your recent past has been taken up by the memory of this veil of depression that never seems to lift. You have bought into this idea that you are depressed and created it to be this huge, plaguing thing that seems like it would be so hard to shed. For so long, it has seemed like your moments of happiness and freedom have been so fleeting.

Your happiness has felt so fragile that you have learned to distrust it almost. Happiness seems nice when it comes around, but you feel betrayed by it and your depression seems more solid. So depression has been your bedrock instead, it has always felt like a reliable fallback to you, even if the truth is depression is not reliable at all, but just as fleeting as anything else.

It might take some time to discover that happiness and joy can be counted on more readily than your depression. You have always felt like you must search for your happiness, that happiness is SUCH an effort to MAINTAIN, while depression has always seemed so readily accessible.

What if I told you it was the other way around? What if I told you that you are spending so much time searching for and maintaining your depression, and that happiness is so easy, right here, so readily accessible. What if I told you that there’s nothing you can possibly do to push happiness away? You can try your best to get depressed, and it might work for awhile, but happiness will still always be right here. So what if I told you that there’s nothing you can do that will make freedom turn its back towards you and abandon you? What if I told you that freedom has already gotten ahold of you, and there’s no turning back?

So relax, you have plenty of time to mess up, to go off and search for happiness when in fact it’s already here, waiting for you. Depression is not the monster you have thought it to be. It does not want to stick around, it is more than happy to leave if you just give it a moment’s notice. It is tired because it has had to play the role of this huge scary beast that you have chosen to keep fighting. You have been running from it, trying to lock it in the corner, to not look at it and in that you have given it lots of power.

But Happiness does not need you to run after it, it asks you for no rush, it does not put any pressure on you to find it, there is no moment when you finally “get it”. You can’t get it wrong, and even if you do feel pain again in the future, and you might, just remember that achieving happiness requires you to stop searching.

Don’t worry about the pain, you really have to go out of your way to find it. And if you do find yourself going out of your way, and you can’t quite remember what it feels like to stop searching, just know that it’s the easiest thing in the world you can do, that everything you need is already in you, and you would kick yourself for not remembering that.

Oh joy!

The happiness of the world! Happiness and joy, how GAY is the world!

Random acts of kindness, moments of beauty and human compassion, sweet like sugar-coated fun!

To dance and to laugh, what a great game it all is! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

Love… ahhhh yes, love…

When I hold your hands and look into your eyes, I feel a deep upwelling sensation coming from my stomach and out my mouth. Yes! A great big smile, that’s it!

Ahh yes, life is so GOOD. Look at all these people playing together, working together, how absolutely SILLY it all is! because even those who LOSE, well they are still winners right? Right?

I have been so fucking troubled in this world for the past year.

So weary and unrested, all the time. Tortured and haggled constantly. A man of constant sorrow. A hungry ghost. A constant battle has waged within me. A war, Good vs Evil. I have tried every argument against God as to why human life is miserable, loveless, and worthless. Every spiritual book tells that love is the force in the universe, but I had to find out myself. My worst fear was that my argument would win, that I would be proven right, but I had to pose the question anyway. I have tested every limb of goodness, I have tried to break every limb of goodness, hoping to validate and justify my despair, hoping to prove that in some way prove that I WASN’T a fool for existing in despair afterall. In this way, there is some vain satisfaction in causing yourself pain.

I have not let myself have peace. There has been something in myself that has damned me to hell, that has laid a sentence over myself and has given me no pardon. I have been my own judge, jury, and executioner.

Who is to blame for what has happened to me? I have looked for someone to blame.. I have blamed myself, I have blamed God, but none of this blame has given me any relief. I have no idea why what happened to me happened in the way it did. It’s just my karma. Who is to fault for my ignorance?

I have been on the stand and cried and cried, begged for mercy before my self… but I could not grant myself pardon, could not forgive myself for what I had done. Could not accept… could not settle down… there has been a splinter in me that has nagged me constantly.

Am I worthy? Can I forgive myself for my failures?

It is the worst burden.

I have been Satan. I have been the angel fallen from god because he tried to be God. Shamed and guilty I could not forgive myself and ask mysef or the other angels for forgiveness.

God is always there, always loving. It wasn’t God who doomed me to my hell, it was myself. He was never far away if I was willing to surrender my self hatred to him.

But I clung to my self hatred out of a sense of vengeance, that perhaps I could gain that power back that I have longed for, the power that I once had. That somehow by damning myself, by destroying myself I could make God feel as guilty as I have felt.

God is not a damning God. He never damns his creatures. But we can damn ourselves so much that we can separate ourselves from him forever. I could never make God love me by pretending to not care.

Don’t pretend you don’t care, Tully. That’s what the ego does, these stories you make up to pretend you don’t want God. Be careful what you pretend. Pretend to lie long enough and you will start to believe the lie, that you are really separate from God. And the fiction might grab you, like it did me.

I want God. When I pretend I don’t want Him, it is only out of shame, out of a feeling that I am not worthy to be his subject. I go off and try to play by myself, but what a lonely, lonely place that is. It is a place I cannot stand to be in for long.

God does not judge us. We condemn ourselves to unworthiness. In the eyes of God I am worthy as I am right now. God didn’t cast us out of eden, the creator gave us the free will to choose whether we want to stay in Eden or not.

I have nothing to prove, to myself or to God. I am worthy as I am, deeply humbled and fucking humiliated in my journey away from Him.

I never chose to leave him, consciously at least. I never made a choice against Him, but still I found myself away from him. You can imagine my surprise at having strayed so far. You can imagine my surprise when I started to end up with those who had actively forsook God. For a time I became one of those who actively had forsaken God…

Because if I had never actively forsaken Him, then why did I find myself so astray from him? If I had tried my best, how could he had failed me?

Well, my faith has now been redeemed and I am one of the lucky ones who hung in there long enough to feel his forgiveness to kick in. My own forgivenss.

I do not need to prove myself to him anymore, I do not need to beg for mercy anymore, I am not a sinner begging for mercy because I know his love for me.

Amen

I need to sit down and have a conversation with Life.

The first question I would ask is:

Why me, why everybody? What is the need for all the suffering in the world?

I’m totally angry with you Life, and I fucking hate you for all that you’ve made me feel! But I know I can be angry as I want with you and you will still forgive me because I am your child, and I really know that deep down too and I forgive you too.

Life fucked me, life brought me back. I guess I can’t be too mad, huh?

I don’t need anything from life..because I AM life!

Change- it’s just the way things are

The biggest fucking release is to realize that you can let go without some huge release. The most culminating moment is realizing there is no culminating moment.

Because enlightenment would be way too fucking stressful if it all came in one moment. There would be the huge fear of fucking it up at the last minute. Or the fear of losing it.

My spirit has been chained by my ego and it has known it. It has been lost and it has known it. How do I know this? Because I talk to it.When I cry, it isn’t my ego that pities myself. When my spirit cries, it mourns its imprisonment. But this sad song cannot be contained by prison walls… and in this way, I know why the caged bird sings.

I think I will always have some sadness towards my life. I think I will mature into an acceptance of this.

I’m such a fucking idealist!

I got fucked hard because I was so single minded towards my goal of perfect love. Fuck idealism!

I was on a quest for perfect love… I got it and then I lost it. When I lost that perfect love, I could not settle for anything less, so I cast myself into doom and rejected all the simple happiness of life.

Since then I have tortured myself with the thoughts of failure and inadequacy. I have not wanted to settle with starting back at the beginning, and being one of the “unenlightened folk”. But I have been reduced to such a wither that I would be an absolute fool not to take the scraps of food given to me. Now I am on a quest to surrender to life’s simpler pleasures and joys and once again am preparing to climb the mountain of true love, this time armed with a new humility that should protect me from any large falls from grace.

-

This past year I have lived my life as a failed idealist. It has come as quite a rude awakening for me to realize that there is nothing worse than hanging around a failed idealist and that’s why all my friends have been avoiding me for the past year.

-

Idealism has by far been my worst addiction. It manifests in despair which really is the vain hope that somehow by causing myself pain and separation I will die like Jesus on the Cross and ascend to God-like power, which is really a huge ego fantasy more than anything else. I think I’ll really stop being in pain when I get rid of the possibility of this fantasy.

-

I am a failed philosopher and contemplative who has been knocked off his pedestal like a corrupt spiritual guru. If only all my friends could experience me as brilliantly as I experience myself! Too bad it’s a fucking impossible goal because of my underlying belief that they can NEVER UNDERSTAND ME !! hahah

-

Actually though the strongest archetype I’ve identified myself with is that of the fool. Only fools fall in love right? No wonder the second strongest archetype i’ve identified myself with is that of the lover. I’ve definitely played the wise fool many times. I’ve also been the fool who didn’t want to follow along with anyone else and therefore didn’t look both ways getting across the street and got himself hit by a mack truck.

Well there you get to the root of my despair and the anger. FUCK YOU WORLD! I don’t WANT TO look both ways across the street, you dickless assholes!. And i fucking want to get hit by a truck and DIE, And I hope you will all come to my funeral and realize how much better I am than all of you worthless pieces of shit. I HOPE YOU DIE, FUCKERS!

HAHAHAHAHAHAH!

Preface:

This document was written for friends and family as a way letting them know about my experience in the last year. Without the support of my friends and family, full healing would seem almost impossible. Their presence reminds me to not give up myself even when I feel like doing so. There are many folks who have known me through the past several years that I have not kept in touch with and who might have had no idea what I have been up to or my experience has been like. This document is written to rekindle that connection and remind them how important they are to me in my happiness, and how much I want their happiness as well. Remembering the love I have shared with friends and family has been without exception the most important healer, perhaps only a close second to remembering my connection with myself and the god within. And my biggest motivation to heal is to be able to fully show up for my friends and family, to have my presence enrich their lives as much as possible.

And finally, perhaps this document can be of some benefit to those who have or are undergoing similar experiences. I would die to give even an ounce of pain for anyone who is experiencing any pain, loss, or heartbreak.

And lastly, feel free to laugh as much as you want at this story. I certainly laugh at it all the time. Humor is really the last saving grace. HAHAHAHHAHA !!

Introduction:

So it feels like I made it through hell and have come out the other side, gasping at the fresh air. The war is over and the amount of joy and relief is overwhelming. Is the nightmare finally over? Will I go back to sleep and go into another nightmare, or is this finally it… I can see the horizon, the setting sun… I have charted my course, and weary from my long journey, I’m ready to sail home.

It’s hard to believe the war is over. I almost want to crawl back into the violence because it’s what I’ve known.. because this beauty I’m confronted with.. the colors of the world, the green trees and children is the unknown.. I don’t know how to react, it doesn’t seem real to me after being in a haze of believing that the only real thing in this world is pain.

I have believed that if I’m not feeling pain I’m not feeling alive.  What’s worse than actually feeling the pain is the paranoia that the pain is right around the corner. So I might as well do what I can to stay in the pain because it’s staying in the known… believing in the reality of  love… now that’s quite a leap of faith. Are you telling me the war is really over? Are you telling me I don’t have to fight anymore?

But I’m always wincing, ready for more pain.. War doesn’t make you tough, because you never really get used to pain although you being in pain can become all that you really know. War makes you a scared wounded animal.

Yeah I’m tough. I can handle all the darkness in the world. But when a beautiful blond haired child comes up and hands me a flower I break down sobbing because I can’t believe the fucking beauty of the flower and the child. It tears down my facade, rips me open to that place of heaven and beauty inside of me. I’ve avoided seeing beauty for so long because beauty reminds me of me of my ugliness.

During my depression I lived in my imagination. I would imagine myself throwing my arms around those I love whom I haven’t seen a long time and crying tears of joy… and my friends and family are carrying me away on their shoulders…to feel safe again, the war is over… lay me down in bed I want to rest and dream pleasant dreams for the next month. I lived in my imagination; those memories of myself back with my loved ones were my only solace. I would imagine my friends and family coming to rescue me, taking me away to a better place.. The look of love in their eyes, mirrors, reminding me of who I was.. my facade, the armor I put around my heart would crumble under their gaze. They would come, calling me back to join them and the web of life again.

I have faith that  daily life will resume, and I can begin to piece together my life again one day at a time. Now I’m looking at old photos. Seeing my old self give me the sense that I have been somebody in this world, that I have history, and that time passes on… this phase of my life will be only one phase out of many phases that I will experience in my life. Looking at these old pictures, I literally hear the voice of my old self unmasking me, reminding me of who I am: “What happened to you, dude? Chill out, you’re worrying too much, you’ll be fine…” Thanks old self!

Along with pictures, I listen to music that I used to like, art that I used to enjoy…Old memories come forth, of the time before the war began.. of my old self… with old lovers.. it makes me sob to think about who I was, how unprepared I was for this… this restructuring.. this revisioning,  reassembling a shattered self, a mishmash of pieces from my past and pieces from this present.

I’m home again…… yet the demons aren’t all gone. There’s this deep well of disbelief and rage over all the loss I have felt this last year.

I curse at the people I love inside my head for not saving me from all of this. FUCK YOU DAD, I imagine myself clawing at him, raging at him for not saving me, like parents should.. but I know really that no friends or family can save you from journeys you may need to go on. Oh Well…

Really who I’m mad at most is myself. I’m mad at myself for accepting anything less than what is really true. What the FUCK Tully? How could you possibly even for a second pretend like things are OK when they’re not?

At this point, I cry and cry and cry so much I become a baby, infantile..life is tough! I’m not ready to grow up! I still have a lot of child hood to live…

This infantile state I go into is a return to innocence. At some point we are innocent. Inevitably we learn and really experience everything that is bad about the world. But you can’t get stuck in that either, you have to  return back to the innocence again.

At some point the pain can seem unbearable. I think we all need to go through this. I remember being in really deep pain one night where it was literally painful to be alive. I was sitting with myself.. resisting all life, wanting to die…I then felt this painful sob break through my body… I felt as if the last bone in my body was broken. I felt utterly defeated by life… , and I went to my mom and I felt this instinctual longing for her to take me back, to unbirth me. Thinking about this experience is really intense actually, I feel this wave of nausea and feeling radiating from my solar plexus. It’s deep pain in motion. 

This kind of trauma comes back every so often, it washes over me, makes me shudder, makes me feel this incredible sense of vulnerability and sensitivity.. at moments like this the world seems so intense for me, kind of scary… I almost jump at every car that drives by. (How can the driver drive so FAST like that? are people insane?) every noise.. how can people become accustomed to this world, I ask myself? so much pain and death everywhere, I can almost feel the bugs dying under the sidewalk, the families losing their homes. tohe terrorists coming in and murdering all their children in Sudan… fuck.. at the same time, I can feel all the pleasure going on everywhere.. all those bursting orgasms of people fucking, this very second. What a circus…

I calm down soon… sometime I feel like that that my mind could just collapse again at the blink of a hat and all the pain could come rushing back and I’d have to be put in a mental hospital.. I am slowly rooting out that part in me that still wants to die. Once it’s on the ground I will crush and smear it on the pavement, and never looking back.

It’s like I’m always on acid and everything is amazing and beautiful… but at the same time one worried thought and it could turn into a night mare again. bad trip… well I know I don’t want to go back into that nightmare.. I will do anything that’s needed to not go back there. I will stand in the fire… and get burned and laugh at every second of it if that’s what I need to do.

Coming back to life is beautiful.. The small things… the texture of a friends face..beautiful people.. how beautiful her smile… feeling the warmth of another body, touching each other rubbing each other where it makes us feel good, feeling the hot breath of another man, another woman. We all came from the same womb, birthed from the same plasma, the same ocean. Comparing hand sizes, comparing dick sizes, pushing each other, wrestling each other.They way my breath moves in and out of my belly, the blood flowing through my veins.  I love looking at the people at the grocery store, the kids, the adults, I love how they look out for each other, I love seeing them smile and be happy.

Animals seem to know me, they give me compassionate looks… animals seem to recognize the conflict I have been carrying in my soul, while other people have no clue..

I’ve been away from this place for awhile. I see that life has gone nicely on without me.

————————————————————-

What I’ve learned from the experience: pt 1

I’ve been clinically depressed. It lasted from the months of October 2007 to June of 2008. I am now attempting to move away from this phase of my life. I believe I am stronger now after having encountered some of the pitfalls of the spiritual path, mistakes that I trust I won’t have to repeat again.

A diagnosis sounds cheesy to some, but I felt ill for months without any real context as to what I was feeling. Getting a diagnosis, even a western medical one, is helpful in understanding in seeing that what I’m going through is a disease and not some fundamental weakness in myself that I’m completely alone with. Also, it is a convenient way of communicating my experience to others.

Mental illness is not a disease as freely understood or as talked about as something like cancer is. People who have survived cancer are seen more as innocent victims of a disease, whereas people with a mental illness might be looked at with some suspicion, as if they might be making up their condition, or perhaps even over-dramatizing.

I could see my depression as “growing pains, something that I could have or should have snapped out of easily”. I could say well “everyone goes through hard times”. I could tell myself to “just get over it” and “see the sunny side of life”. I could push it all under the rug and develop a false happy face. I could not admit weakness and I could also say “I wouldn’t have gone through this if I had just been stronger”.

Depression is a disease that affects millions of people. It’s more than just a string of bad days. Often it’s a string of bad months or years. People with depression should take the opportunity to tell their story as often as possible, not only for their own healing but other’s awareness.

Depression is rampant in the U.S. because our society creates senses of disconnection, isolation, and confusion. People need to know what signs to look for in depression. I was an emotionally intelligent person who still failed to recognize the signs. People need to watch their loved ones for signs of depression and act quickly to get them the help they need.

I’m not trying to just move on and forget that it all happened. And instead of a bad thing that happened to me because of some flaw in myself, I now see it as something that can happen to anyone with the right circumstances. Instead of a miserable thing that has slowed me down and stopped my development, I see it as giving me a chance to help others not go down the same path I did, and to help bring awareness to this rapidly growing state of spiritual emergency we are in on planet earth.

As a teenager, I loved the wilderness. I thought joining environmental groups might be a way I could really serve, but it wasn’t how I wanted to create. I came out of college with this vague sense of wanting to make a difference, of wanting to help people. The problems were out there but I knew that until I felt personally involved and affected by them I’d never feel that potent urgency to act. So many issues to choose from. Yes, I could go to a third world country and help them build compost toilets, or I could go help mothers who have had abortions.

But I could never quite decide on an issue.  Looking back all I really want in life is to be at my maximum potential, so whatever brings me there. Having gone through a spiritual crises or emergency, I want to serve others who are going through such an emergency. Many feel very alone in their illness. I hope to get the message across that such an illness is not a permanent identity that will always separate a person from society. Such an illness can actually be a sign that a larger transformation is under process, personally and globally. It is all those uncomfortable feelings we experience when our old illusions can no longer persist and our true self emerges as the key to our survival.

What led me to the experience: pt1 Summer 2007

This summer I thought of myself as an artist. I have always thought of an artist as anyone who looks into his own soul and inspires others to do the same. I came home to Nevada City to focus on developing my music, my writing, and my meditation. This was a plan I had several months before leaving school.

I played guitar and meditated with discipline everyday.Looking back, a certain sense crept in: the need to be making myself better, to always be making the world “better”. If I wasn’t improving upon myself, then I was wasting my time. I lived on the satisfaction of self improvement, of expecting new and profound results in my art.

That satisfaction didn’t last long. In my effort to improve upon my art, I forgot a sense of balance. I played guitar all day but after awhile I felt my music wasn’t going anywhere. I didn’t have a portfolio of pieces I knew and could play. My music wasn’t reaching an audience. I wasn’t meeting other musicians. Many times I would be playing and get discouraged with the question: “where is this leading?”

Even if I ignored that critical voice and kept playing, another one would arise that would tell me that I was wasting my time, merely spinning my wheels around in my own head. Not listening to that voice was difficult. After all I didn’t want to keep following some path of music that wouldn’t take me anywhere. At this point I lost trust in the sense that my intuition would guide me as to whether I was wasting my time or not. I worried that if I kept playing and just stayed alone in my room, I was afraid I’d become disconnected. I became afraid that if I were to stay in the room I wouldn’t be “developing myself”.

I began to question my art… I had the idea I wanted to write a novella, there was fear there that spending so much time alone and with my thoughts would disconnect me from other affairs. I started questioning the sense of my own productivity. Maybe the satisfaction in coming to some answer or some new conclusion about something, maybe that feeling like I was “going somewhere with my art” was illusory?

The idea that the world was one big philosophical problem to solve was a fascinating idea that motivated me. I wanted to create that piece of art that would sum up the entire universe and the entire human experience. For awhile I felt a great about my ambitious goal. But as I narrowed my life towards this “one noble pursuit”, I became more convinced I was missing out on other life experiences… adventure, new relationships, and the simple enjoyments found in this world. I began to feel isolated. I began to feel like there was a whole world out there that I had no idea about. I began to feel uncomfortable with a sense that I was naive, not competent, not becoming a part of the social world What if I was just fooling myself making shit that nobody was going to see or like anyways? Maybe I was wasting my time? What were other 21 year olds doing?

I had started the summer with the mission to explore the frontiers of the inner world, but these intense doubts began to come up. Maybe I was going the wrong direction?

So then what should i do? Should I go travel? Go find a job? I had friends that had meditated in a monastery for a year and seemed to gain so much power in it. But I began to feel like I was losing energy. In my quest to go inside, it seemed that I no longer had things in my life to look forward to. In certain social situations I began to feel self conscious about how quiet I had become, how uninvolved I seemed. Oftentimes I noticed my mind would often just completely empty out and I would became uncomfortable with the feeling that I had nothing say.  At times there was this sense that whenever I was with people I was really only with myself, that that was the only “true” reality and everything else was an illusion. Maybe a narcissism, it was as if I was always noticing myself in the mirror. “Who is that?” Maybe we are all alone, but if that’s the case then at least we are all together in that aloneness

I began to question my childishness. My naiivete now keeps me fresh. But I kept expecting myself at some point to become established in the world, to know the world and to lose this “childish” feeling of always questioning my own existence. I thought I needed some kind of training so I could feel competent and secure in myself. There was the belief that there were just some things that I should just “know” and be able to talk about. But it seemed that no matter how many books I read, I never ended up feeling knowledgeable about any subject. It seemed like the more time I spent reading books the more I experienced a sense of “spacy-ness” of “not-knowing”, of doubt, of always asking questions.

In retrospect:

It wasn’t really until I tried to change who I was and miserably failed that I started to really appreciate who I was in the first place. “If I only knew how much I had” I would often lament.

Upon reflection, the journey into the soul is a dangerous one, and almost impossible without guidance. Perhaps ultimately I would have saved myself a lot if suffering if I were able to get past that feeling that I wasn’t going anywhere or improving myself. But it was like journeying into a scary and unknown place without telling anybody where you were going. I had no community that I connected to. I remember joking with my friend Minh that if I died he would be the only one in the world who knew of my life and only he could really cry for me because only he really knew me. His memory of me would be the only marker of my existence. I remember always joking about what wanting to disappear, wanting to go sit on some bench for several years and do nothing but sit in quietude. Yet, as the old saying goes, be careful what you wish for. Now I was faced with the opportunity to disappear, and the decisive question: What if I didn’t make it back?

And a lot of stuff came up I wasn’t prepared for: loneliness, sadness, disillusionment, fears that I was losing my mind, fears that I was losing my grip on the world. I had no one to counsel with about these feelings, no one to guide me through them and help me make sense out of them. No one to urge me to keep going, or no one to suggest to back off and incorporate more balance into my activities.

Inundated with these feelings, I began to run… and run… and run…..but I could never escape them and the more I ran the stronger they got, until my reality turned into one of those nightmares where something is chasing you, where every room you enter there is something horrifying waiting for you, where there is absolutely no rest, where you scream and yell and beat your hands against the wall hoping there must be some way to wake up out of this. But the relief that you get after waking up and realizing it’s all a dream never comes.

Yet I became at a loss for new avenues to grow into. I felt stuck in what I perceived as a small town with few opportunities. I saw no open doors I could step into. A worry that I was not moving forward creatively and emotionally crept up upon me, leading me to feel like I was constantly “searching” but never quite finding what I wanted. I needed new outlets in which to express myself, new situations to take charge in and grow into. I wondered if it could be a job. Yet the opportunities seemed limited without already having set a specific direction, and my degree in art history made me feel more unprepared.

I worked hard at the outlets I had: meditation, music, farming. The sense that some needed new direction was not coming compelled me to work at these outlets even harder, to the point where I felt as though I could never relax, that I always had to be working at finding that thing that would make me feel like my life was moving toward what I saw as a “success”. I never allowed myself let go and relax. I always felt that with what I was doing I had to be going somewhere with it, whether it was cooking, farming, meditation, or music. A kind of existential urgency motivated me… I felt there was no time to waste.

This is a valid sense that can be taken too far. Along with it came a fear of stillness, because stillness seemed to only contain more of the stagnancy that I already felt. I doubled my efforts to avoid this stillness, this “stagnancy”. But of course what we run away from always follows us, and I felt like I was constantly followed and haunted by a lonely stillness. I feared death, I feared letting go into this stillness…I wanted to have all these varied experiences: traveling, working, having intellectual conversations. Yet wherever I turned there loomed a sense of vast space over me.

A few times I was cornered by this stillness, where I could no longer run. One such opportunity was working by myself at the farm. This day I showed up… Tim and Leonard the farmers were gone. There seemed to be no one around for miles. I questioned whether my work was valuable without guidance. But again there was no one around to relate to- only the serenity of nature and my own thoughts. Here I was up against that which I had been trying to ignore. I was face to face with stillness, with the vast space, with uncertainty and not knowing, with the prospect of the purposelessness and absurdity of my existence. Chaos seemed to penetrate every attempt I could to maintain structure and order.

I could not let my world fall apart. Though I knew it might afford peace, surrendering to this chaos seemed to be giving up. This conflict swirled in my head and zapped my energy, compelling me to lay down in confusion. There was a sense I could give in and find peace….

But i I resolved to keep working, to keep being useful. I pulled weeds in a desperate attempt to assure myself I was purposeful, useful, worthwhile in the world. By the time Tim and Leonard came back, I was recovering from a slight sense of panic that ballooned into an obsessive searching outside myself that continued for the next winter.

This experience at the farm marked my first depressive episode. It planted a seed of unrest in my being that over the months grew into a suffocating vine that kept me feeling stuck and powerless.

Depression marked a vast alteration of my everyday reality:

Standing in my room I am doing yoga postures. At this point exercise is very uncomfortable… my body feels extremely heavy and there’s a deepset nausea in my body that makes me wince at every exertion. My body feels chemically imbalanced, my mind feels sick and on tilt. Those positive sensations, those “endorphins”, are nowhere to be found. I feel ungrounded, unbalanced energies acting in my body. My mind feels scattered, confused, unable to focus or concentration. I feel scared as I am alone with this feeling, no one to check in with about it. Yet I continue the exercise because I know will be the only thing that will bring temporary relief. And it does. I meditate afterwards but there is still the feeling that my head is spinning and that I have not found any concentration. I feel betrayed by my spiritual practice. Perhaps meditation is not always the proper solution to life’s problems. It empties me out, but will it take afford me new inspiration?

Sometimes I would spend all night sitting. But it always came with the nagging feeling of being out of balance. Though I would spend nights cultivating what seemed like power and peacefulness, my days would be chaotic and weary. While I could still my mind to great lengths these nights, it seemed to only work within the confines of my own house and my own mental world. I started to distrust that it was real spiritual development seeing that I was having trouble applying it to my experiences among the outside world.

I started noticing that while I felt anxious and chaotic in the outside world, when I entered back into the safety of my house these feelings would temporarily be pacified. This duality was created, with the scary and oppressive world “out there” and my safe zone in my house. I distrusted the comfort brought by the bare walls of my house, and a conflict still raged within me, and I told myself I shouldn’t be so attached to home. Sure I was safe now, I thought, but if any challenges came I would be done for.

This led to a fear that I was developing a “spiritual ego”, that I could feel OK within a constructed illusory realm but I was powerless outside. Therefore I feared I would be stuck forever in my house as a kind of disconnected spiritual ghost wandering in the fragments of his own inner world, forever astray from connection with earth, the world of action, and other beings.

Though these worries came up, I cherished my nights because they were my periods of peacefulness. It seemed that bedtime was the only time I could lay down and feel apart from the world and its worries, like a child again. I felt aware that I was in a cocoon. But I was content to feel safe in my alone world.

I desperately needed help and perspective from someone who knew about such things. I wasn’t aware of the darker places in which I was heading. If I had known, I could perhaps have steered the ship into another direction. But I suppose I was not prepared to know and I had to reach bottom before I could begin my ascent again back towards the light. It was an unfortunate journey into the “heart of darkness”, into the “dark night of the soul”. Traveling in a dark tunnel with only a small flame as a guide, any attempts to find my way out only led me deeper into the maze.

Some of the physical symptoms of depression:

Depression comes with a deep nausea and fear in the pit of your stomach that makes the mere experience of being alive incredibly uncomfortable. With this feeling in the body, movement itself is uncomfortable. With this feeling in the body, your limbs feel like lead weights, and exhaustion is quick to come.

Depression makes one feel as stiff and as immobile as an old man. When I would use muscle force, a sick feeling would course through my nerves a long with a sensation of wanting to cry but not quite being able to. From this experience I figured there must have been layers of trapped emotions in my body. But at this point I was clueless as to how to access and heal them.

Depression is incapacitating. Sometimes I wouldn’t be able to do much more than just stand, peer out, and breathe. It’s cliche, but each day seems like a week when it is spent in a constant state of discomfort. I remember one time going on a walk where I ended up merely being able to lean onto a car and stare at the sun, the sunlight giving me a slight boost of energy.

Some energy came from exercise. I would have to go running a few times a day just to get energy boost from the endorphin buzz. Times like this led me to question whether I could go on at all. Many days were a teeter totter of feeling hopeless about life and then finding some inspiration that gave me a surge of hope again for a better day tommorrow. It was exhausting. At one point I seemed on the brink of collapse, but the one time I contemplated suicide I freaked myself out- it just seemed too extreme of an act.

My depression overwhelmed my life: barely a minute passed where I wasn’t thinking about it. I felt helplessly ill. Being sick in Santa Cruz, I had few friends, no family, no job, and was uncomfortable in my living situation. Yet every morning I would continue to get up and do yoga postures and my chanting meditation, two things that would help me feel better for a few hours. I was stuck in a hole, with no light shining in, no one or no thing to help me out of my situation. Scared to death and trying to get some grip on my situation, it seemed necessary to establish a sense of normalcy and daily routine. At the same time, life seemed to be slipping out of my hands.

I became scared that I was losing my mind. My short term memory started becoming completely absent. I would misplace something and spend 15 minutes looking for it only to find it was in my pocket. My verbal skills began to diminish and it became hard to hold and follow conversations. Interacting with others became awkward, with long silences and frequent forgetfulness. I felt bound by a stifling fear of expressing myself. A sense that I was not right in myself haunted me. There was a heightened self consciousness of my own oddness and insecurity. The stillness that I had been trying to run away from now consumed me and a strange vacancy and absence took over my personality and covered up my spirit.

One time, in a doctor’s office, I was waiting for the doctor to come in and it dawned on me after a few minutes of sitting there that I hadn’t felt or thought anything in the last few minutes. But it wasn’t a kind of peaceful stillness. It was an empty, dull mood, the feeling of being empty shell, with an empty body devoid of spirit or life force. With this empty mood, feeling anything involved an effort of concentration. Many emotions were lost to me… from those things that would usually evoke emotion in me, I felt no response. There were many moments I could recognize “this is where I might feel love”.. but no feeling would arise. There was a flatness, a dullness, a gloominess, my world visually lost its vibrancy. Buddhism talks about emptiness, but when they mean it they refer to that vibrant open energetic dance of reality. When someone is depressed reality seems truly empty. It felt it as if it had been ages since I had really laughed. It was only during bouts of crying that I could perceive that subtle dance of energy that defines awakened consciousness.

Much of my personality, my normal idiosyncracies and facial expressions seemed taken over by a dull vacancy. Instead my body became rife with small aches and pains everywhere, in my joints and in my head.  With this, a strong fatigue ensued. In There were many times I could literally feel the energy draining out of my body. With this, doubt about all action in the world seemed to take over my mind. I felt a nagging sense that anything I would say or do would be futile, for no purpose or reason anyways. If this reality was illusory, was there any reason to act at all?

Questioning the meaning of action marked a major spiritual crises within me. I no longer wanted to be a part of the world. Was there any way to escape, to run away? In my pain, I wanted to be rid of taking any responsibility toward this world and my own life. There seemed kind of a perverse satisfaction in the idea that I could escape and be taken care of, to be an infant again.

This sense came to a head vividly one point in winter. It was January and there was a beautiful snowfall in the sky and on the ground was a blanket of white. At this point, it was painful to get out of bed. The only painless state, the only peace I could afford was to sit in bed and absently watch the snow falling. At this point my only goal was to numb the pain. I felt completely absent from the world, not quite dead but certainly not alive. I knew I couldn’t stay in this state for an eternity… eventually I would have to get up and create some movement in life. In that disconnection was kind of a strange peace, and it felt for awhile I was able to achieve what I wanted to achieve: freedom from the responsibility of life. Again, it was an absence, an absence from life, perhaps even an absence from God. But in that state of stillness there was a kind of mute sacredness and my mind seemed to rest in an ancient stillness. I remember my mind carrying a few symbols: they seemed alien, and other worldly, deeply sacred symbols older and more ancient than human consciousness, whose meaning somehow pointed back to lost histories about the origins of time itself. (I may just be waxing poetic here

Day to day I was aware that I existed in this cocoon, stuck. Though I tried to hold onto some semblance or normality, whether it was through attempting to study spanish or continue playing music, I could barely concentrate. My mind was constantly overwhelmed by the worry over my situation.

I felt alienated from my true joy and potential, completely alone, as if in some foreign country where no one knew my name, my history, or my identity. At times I would find peace in my aloneness, a night or two spent with the stars, though often it was tinged with a kind of lonely bittersweetness.

Still, it was comforting to know that there was a place I could go to in my mind that was beyond this worldly reality, a place where my soul could always rest and belong, even when the story of my life on earth was chaotic and sad. The peace I found in these times was a solitary peace, and the only way to break through the sadness seemed to require complete acceptance that I was a lonely soul, meant to die an early death to God.

My life became simply sticking to places and routines that provided some level of basic safety. Sitting in my car, putting on warm clothes to face the cold at night, or eating a meal gave me a next task to work on. Before I had dreamed about being homeless, I had dreamed about surviving in strange and unfamiliar places, and living on the fringes of society, being “free”. I had dreamed about facing and going through the “heart of darkness”. Yet now living like this I did not feel free, and I did not feel like I was being guided or that I was learning from the experience. I felt scared and sick, baffled at how I could have fallen into a pit like this after feeling joyful and happy in life. I felt lost without my sense of spiritual focus and discipline. My entire life felt uncertain, and the continuity of my existence was brought into question. My most valuable resources, my mental and physical health, seemed robbed from me. My bright future seemed to be waning, in danger of being entirely dashed. My life felt completely derailed: What would become of me?

The transition to Nevada City:

The fall passed like this, and at the start of the new year I was back in Nevada City. Now I was in a place that at least felt safe, like home. In Nevada City I began to focus on working with my pain and finding paths towards healing. But healing as still a ways off.

There was one particularly bad night in January. I was exercising that night in my room attempting to do my yoga postures, a difficult set. I tried to stretch my will as far as it would go, yet at some point it stretched no farther and I felt like I had no strength or motivation left. It felt as though I had failed at my last opportunity to battle my depression. I collapsed on my bed, and thoughts of failure swirled like a tornado in my head I could not stop.

In the darkness of my room, a kind of nightmarish drama unfolded in my head:

My life began to flash before my eyes. As Tully on planet Earth, my 22 years of life were over. I felt blessed that I had so far lived a good life, but it seemed that my story on Earth was to end here. I mourned all the things that I would miss out in life, my marriage, a career, my children, traveling, art… The world was going on without me- I thought of my friends who were all beginning new phases of their lives. I thought of the collective hope of the human race for a better world. Yet I seemed apart from it all. I rationalized that there were many on this planet who don’t make it, in whose lives only a few chapters are written and then are forgotten. I reasoned I was one of the weak, with a faulty will, who didn’t manage to survive the great struggle of evolution, where only the strong and fit survive.

Before, life seemed like something that was going to be a given. Since I was born to nice and healthy parents and I was young and middle class, it seemed that I would always be healthy and happy and provided for. All of this seemed to come crashing down on me, seemingly a lie and illusion. My situation seemed to scream that life was undependable and MY plan for MY life didn’t seem to matter. Life seemed to be going by its plan for me. At this point, a real sense of hopelessness and despair set in. This night my entire will to live and belief in my self seemed to crack. I laid in bed, unable to muster any energy to stop my mind from spinning thought after thought. I remembered my spiritual quest, the first joy and bliss I had discovered through meditation. I remembered my first Buddhist teacher, Raoul Birnbaum. His teachings resounded throughout my mind. To be free in this life, one had to have will, concentration, determination… yet my mind told me I was a person that had lost all of these completely.

It seemed resoundingly clear that I had failed on the Buddhist path. I felt that I had failed my teacher, Raoul Birnbaum. It seemed profoundly clear to me that the Buddhist path was a dangerous and difficult path, with many opportunities for failure and insanity. At this point I deeply doubted that I would be able to recover from this major loss of self and will. As I laid in bed this night, my breath almost came to a standstill. I barely had the will to breathe or to lift a finger. I was a defeated samurai, who had failed in battle and whose honor had been broken. I now could comprehend a samurai’s heartbreak, and could understand why the honorable option was to commit suicide altogether.

Most depressive episodes usually end with succumbing to intense feelings of failure and grief. Even though that night was a strong feeling of personal and spiritual death, my body of course did not die. Of course, I woke up the next morning. It was hard to recover from nights like this. The next day I would be with even less motivation, less energy, and I would feel a nervous tension in my body and an inability to focus on anything. I would spend the next days trying to meditate in order to gain some relief from the pain. Again, I would feel that meditation would be ineffective and I would end the sitting feeling like my wheels were just spinning. In a way I was hoping that meditation could be a tactic to escape and not feel anything at all. I was hoping that instead of grounding me more in this realm, meditation could take me to another place.

A similar episode repeated a few weeks later… only this time my wish for death also came with a letting go. It was a dreary day and I came home to an empty house. I barely had the energy to do my exercises and I ended up lying in bed. It seemed like the challenge I was up against was immense and I resolved that I was going to give up on life. My mom came in during this and sat with me and I told her my wish of wanting to die and that I felt like I couldn’t go on. But I also told her that I felt that God was with me and that I felt peaceful about letting go of my life. I came to an understanding of what the Buddhists say when they say “die at every moment”… I was ready to give everything up at that moment and though it was sad, it was also peaceful. At this point we both cried together, it really broke my heart to see my mom cry like that… my life ending would be a big loss for her as well… and I thought about that. She told me that the reason to live was to experience more of the divine connection… Well, the pain was bad but suicide still didn’t seem an option so sooner or later I had to get back up and start making slow steps back towards life…

January and February were the worst months of this. It was very disappointing to me to be losing a sense of my integrity as a person. But there was a sense that the miserable person I was was not the real me. Still, I was dealing with a shattered self image. I remember closing my eyes and looking inward and seeing my own face staring back at me, an image of a broken and shattered person. It was my face, but with an empty grimace, a sad expression. I tried to talk to this shattered person, to give love to him but it was as though he didn’t hear me. He was in the grip of a strange absence, a despondency. He was traumatized from that experience in Santa Cruz where his breakup with his girlfriend was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Feeling like his world had been torn apart, he let himself slip away as well. Disillusioned, disenchanted, wounded. I called inside to myself “What happened to you buddy? Where did you go, did you get lost? Are you in there”?. Sometimes I would cry at this questioning, other times it was just an sleepy echo.

There was a few images I would work with to try to bring myself out. While exercising, I would picture myself in a cage, shoulders slumped over, hopeless. Then I would imagine this person getting up from his seat, going over to the bars and with all his might bending them so he could step out. I pleaded with this person to try with all his might… sometimes he would be close to success.

I had a lot of fear to work with. Day to day I felt an undercurrent of fear. When I would look at something black, it would remind me of fear and I would get afraid. When I would look in the corners of the room it seemed that there was something sinister about them and I would try to look away. One particular night the fear was so intense that everywhere I looked there were literally shadows crawling along the walls. The room seemed frightening, sinister, and shadowy and I only became more afraid from the thought that my mind was in such a dark place. Do you remember the phrase “there’s nothing to fear but fear itself”? The fear that we are losing our minds makes us lose it even more.

As I began the journey towards healing, I began to put together the pieces of my past. I needed to remember and understand who I was, and why I had gotten lost in order to find my way back onto my path and move on with my life.

Looking back, I feel that all the decisions I made throughout the summer and the fall were made with the best intention I could have had with the information at hand. I believe I made no decision knowingly sacrificing my integrity or knowingly in order to serve myself. This is not to say that I don’t take responsibility for my decisions. I recognize that many came out of ignorance, about not discerning accurately my needs. I have no regrets really, since there’s this feeling, especially concerning last fall, that in each decision I always tried my best. In that sense perhaps failure was inevitable, but since failures can be such valuable learning experiences, maybe I have been given a great opportunity? I have asked the Universe several times about its plan for me. I never quite received an answer, but there was a great kind of power in asking the question itself.

I suppose I had to learn the hard way. Sure it would have been nice if I had more help and perspective in a few areas, but I suppose this was not my karma. On the other hand, if I had to learn these lessons the hard way I would rather learn them earlier than later. I have and am currently aware that I have been given quite a challenge to face at this period in my life. Looking back, I would have wished in the last year I could have had a more even gradient of personal growth and challenges. But I’ve never been a real organized or always rational person anyhow.

I forgive myself for my mistakes, ignorance, and any harm or chaos I have caused. My compassion for myself understands that even in decisions made out of ignorance and frustration I was always seeking a sense of well being (even when I knew the decision would probably cause me unhappiness, even if I knew the decision might destroy myself!- these are still decisions made in vain towards producing happiness). Even the ego is deserving of compassion because it is really just concerned for its survival.

This compassion and self-love naturally transfers for others. I have shed more tears than I thought were possible in the last months. Many times during fits of sorrow I was able to connect profoundly with all the sorrow present in the world today. There came tremendous feelings of empathy for others after experiencing first hand the dark side of my life. Mankind’s search for the light has always been undertaken in the prospect of the dark. Without pain and suffering, man would not be motivated to search for the light.

Without pain and suffering, we would not recognize how precious our joy actually is when we have it. I strived to be grateful for those simple moments when the pain would clear away and some of the vibrancy and joy of life would come back into me. It made me appreciate how much of the joy of being alive is founded on the small sensations and thoughts we get to experience: the pleasure of seeing an especially vibrant color, the sense of a cool breeze on your back, the soothing brightness of a well lit room, the pleasure we get in walking. For awhile I lost these basic sensitivities: the sights, smells, and pleasant memories. When one would make it in I would be grateful, and I found that my mind constantly wanted to reach back into my best and dwell in those happy moments and sensations. Now I realize more that our basic sense of being satisfied in life comes from the chance to experience what really is a simple sense of well being.

I think every human being, no matter how privileged, will face some painful loss or experience in their lives. Challenges if used rightly can impel us to embrace life more fully. There was one night where I shed tears of grief over every painful situation in my life… I felt the pain my parents must have felt from their divorce, I felt the pain my sister and I felt from the divorce. I felt the pain of feeling separateness from my peers as a child. Too, I not only felt grief for the sorrowful times in my life, but I felt grief for the happy times in my life too. Happy times are precious moments of love, but I realized that even in joyful times there is kind of an undercurrent of bittersweetness, because they too must eventually end and change. So enjoy the happy times while they last, and endure the sad times while they last. In this way, all human experiences are prone to this cycle…so as it is foolish to expect happiness to last forever, sorrow doesn’t last forever either.

During this experience, I happened to be out in nature at night… and in this I felt some fear. I then grieved for all the humans who can’t walk out in nature at night, who don’t feel that they are at home on their planet and just as much as a part of nature as the trees and birds are. At this moment, I felt some of my victim role shed. “If I’m a part of nature, I thought, then what is there to be afraid of? I AM nature!” My step quickened as I started to reassert my part and role in nature. I had a great time screaming, grunting, and thrusting my pelvis as I reasserted my role as a powerful and primal force to be reckoned with! I was fiercely potent, ready to fight to protect the sanctity of my home and ensure the continuation of my species

After this expression, I began to feel at home on the earth. No longer was I so opposed and resistant to being alive. The world no longer seemed so strange to me. And even if it were strange, I knew that I was equally strange along with it, that I belonged in its strangeness. Hell, I could walk a funny walk and it wouldn’t be much stranger than the next thing.

We humans are blessed with the awareness of how incredibly ridiculous and amazing we are, giving us the incredible ability to see that on one hand life is a very serious thing, with laws and will and intent and energy, and another hand life is an incredibly absurd, humorous thing that makes almost no sense but is amazing! Within certain guiding rules, we have incredible opportunity for creativity and innovation, a blank slate. This sense of the cosmic joke has saved me many times.. sometimes my emotions well up and seem so serious, and when my life seems to come to these seemingly life or death choices, I can take a step back and start to laugh. Afterall, my emotions are as weird as any other creation in the universe. Hahaha, oh there goes my mind again wanting to kill somebody, hahaha, oh there goes my mind again wanting an ice cream bar.

Even now I look at my five fingered hand: how strange and miraculous this hand is, how strange and miraculous that the Earth could start out as nothing but a molten rock and out of that could come this living breathing functioning hand! Certainly I seem of a different breed than these rocks and trees, but perhaps the differences are mostly cosmetic anyways! (But oh how the human mind loves to dwell on differences in form). So I not only forgave God for creating me, I thanked him for creating me. My attitude began to shift from considering life to be a hassle to life being a gift.

During that experience, I was ready to shed this identity as some “crazy fucked up human mistake of evolution”. It was time for humans to realize that we aren’t just bugs crawling around in the dirt of planet Earth, but that we have the gift of consciousness, the ability to acknowledge and appreciate the miracle of creation both in ourselves and the universe around us. Since we can be aware of the gift of life, since we have a more developed consciousness than plants and animals, this comes with the responsibility to serve and protect them. And we must protect ourselves too (ironically, from ourselves!)

As humans, we don’t always need some explicit usefulness. I think what we really need is just to be acknowledged and recognized for our inherent worth. So we love ourselves, we open ourselves to other people’s love. Then we can exist without being confused as to why we are here. When an individual is in a loving family, he doesn’t question why he is there. He just feels the love, a natural sense of belonging.

I have since learned that oftentimes human life happens in these cycles, as life circumstances change, as loved ones die and loved ones are born. This has allowed me to adopt the perspective that my period of sadness doesn’t indicate some inherent fault in me that can never be remedied, but that instead it is part of a natural cycle. Hopefully in the future I won’t have to dip this low.

Before this period of my life, I had this sense that I wasn’t connected to the world, that I was shielded and protected through where I was living and the people I hung around with… and I didn’t think what I was looking for would come from reading the newspapers. I thought it might come from traveling to another country, I thought it might come from getting involved in social work. I haven’t done either of these- yet.

But after feeling mentally ill, I know what it is like to feel so helpless, so crazy, so out of sorts. At times I would feel so confused, so crazy with my thoughts that I wanted to implode. During these moment I would try to gain control over my mind, but it just seemed impossible, so I just let the chaos ensue. Times like these actually were times when the layers started peeling off… these moments of desperation leads one to shed any falsities and sincerely cry out to God, Jesus, Buddha or whatever for help. These times again connected me to all those other people in the world who feel tormented by their mind and out of control.

The gulf between me and all those “crazy” people disappeared. I was now one of them, and I realized how their confusion and madness also contained a deep humanity inside of it, that same deep longing for happiness that all humans share. There are so many in the world who feel alienated from the socially accepted norms… this can create painful and separate identities. I know that there are many in society who if they knew about me, might not accept parts of me or my experiences, but this has made me feel closer to those others who also have not been accepted by society. I am less willing to take advantage of those parts of me which society does accept: my whiteness or my maleness for example. I no longer see people with weird behaviors as somehow different from myself…they are people that have just not been able to come to terms with their pain.

In the Months between March and June I stayed at a Yoga Retreat center called Ananda Village. During my stay, I did a lot of dishes, often two shifts of it per day. One day while I was cleaning the pans my mind was producing negative thought after negative thought. For awhile I resisted these thoughts, trying any method, a mantra, my breath, to clear my mind. After while I just gave up and started following the thoughts to their natural conclusions. “I am worthless”, the thought said. “Ok I’m worthless you’re right, thought”, I would say back and then say “I guess that means I should kill myself then!”. What I found is that taking these thoughts to their natural conclusions would often end in quite absurd statements which then made me laugh and feel a sense of joy.

After while I decided to experiment with something spontaneous, so I went to the bathroom and started to stare in the mirror. For awhile, my thoughts continued spinning. Soon, however, the stories started to melt away. At that moment, however, without the stories, it wasn’t some divine being or some magical christ-god looking back at me. Instead the person in the mirror seemed to be the most regular person ever, an ordinary doofus, a dishwasher, nobody special. Just a person, just me! This was a decidedly non-exceptional person who wasn’t going anywhere in particular.

Yet in this moment this alienated worker, this “average joe” discovered his power. It was a chameleon -like power- “in the system, but not of the system” I looked out the window and felt that sense that I was surrounded by the mystery… those in touch with the mystery are “free spirits”, and can skate along it, wherever it takes them.

I think we feel free when we feel that where we are and what we are doing is a conscious choice and that if we could change it if we felt the need to. As for me, I believe I am a soul as old as this Earth, completely at home to wander the universe and bring good will to all… I believe as humans we are both masters and servants of the universe. Masters in the sense that we are channels of God, and when God sees through us he looks upon his own creation with love and pride. Servants in the sense that we ourselves are also creation, and must treat the world, ourselves and each other with the same love we would give to our children. I would like to see myself as a spirit who doesn’t see himself as separate from the larger spirit. Therefore, the whole world is my home and all people are my people… Perhaps my rightful place is to be wandering under the stars, skipping along the rocks of the rushing river… Perhaps it is right here writing this sentence.

Without this view point, the world is so bewildering for most people, especially those without any spiritual knowledge or guidance. Even if you are really messed up, if you have any idea of spiritual direction you are better off than many. I have tried to not let the turmoil soil my belief in my inherent potential, my buddha-nature. Though it is a great source of sorrow to be creating actions you know are not right. It can be a challenge to have a sense of confidence, esteem, and worth even when it seems like you have had a lot of personal failures. But it has taught me even more to rely on the inherent value and potential that does not rely on conditions and circumstances. We don’t have to rely on big accomplishments to find happiness and self worth.

I recognize that I not always shown courage and many times have tried to run away… yet really there’s no where to run to- you’ll always find yourself back to God. The fact that a fresh glimmer of hope always appeared even after the lowest spots gives me some faith. Truly all is never lost, and although many times I angrily mourned my separation from God, it seems that separation is always a temporary state. I don’t believe in eternal damnation.

I believe consciousness has a natural tendency towards waking up to God, even despite our tendencies to latch onto our misery. I believe all the courage I need is inside of me, and I do acknowledge that I have made considerable progress in the last months, thanks to intention, time, and grace. And in the process of healing, we mostly owe thanks to that higher power which nourishes us and feeds us… it’s really only up to us to be willing to receive it.

At this point in my journey, I feel as if I am reentering the world after having been absent from it for a long time. I remember one experience in the midst of depression when I was playing music with a few friends and felt elevated in higher consciousness. It was as if I had gone to heaven and was watching my life story play out down below. I saw, from the viewpoint of love, all that I had been through until that point. I had that image of me at the farm, collapsed in the bench, mired in sorrow…

From the viewpoint of love I felt so much compassion, sadness and heartbreak for this person… in this higher reality I knew that life is amazing, vast and beautiful, that consciousness is as wide as the universe. Yet here was this person, me, trapped in the drama of his own heartbreak… such a juxtaposition… such is the tragedy of delusion, of suffering, for human beings to miss out on how amazing life is…in this way it was an illustration of the principle that we can be both involved in and fully experience the drama of our lives… in this moment I really connected with a sense of profound despair in my life… but we can also take one step back and watch our lives as if it were a movie that we watched, felt, and enjoyed, but at the same time weren’t quite involved in.

Creative expression is so important because when we are able to tell our stories, we take a step back from them and we don’t get caught in them. During that moment, I began to tell my story musically, and I could work with it and see how poignant it was, but I didn’t have to personally get wrapped up in it. So if you are feeling unwell, describe how you feel through doing a dance about it. You will get more in touch with how you feel. If you feel like a lost and scared child inside, act it out, become that lost and scared child and you will be honoring that emotion without becoming a victim to it.

Summer 2008: Carving out a path towards healing

It’s kind of ironic. I’ve spent so much time in my mind’s eye climbing mountains, achieving my purpose, being with friends. Now it’s hard to believe I’m actually doing these things. I don’t have to imagine myself climbing the mountain top that is my life anymore, I’m climbing the mountain top as write this sentence.

We often read stories or watch moves like “Lord of the Rings” and the Matrix, and while we get lost in the story for awhile, we think the movie ends. Well these stories of expanding consciousness we call science fiction aren’t just escapes from daily life. There is no separate “daily life” from the world of fantasy and fiction. We are so involved in our human world and our human concepts, but we don’t know a lot about the greater cosmic forces at work that we are involved in. Who knows, a few years down the line we might be heralding the arrival of a new race, we might experience a massive global awakening, we might get a message from the center of the universe that changes the way we will conceive of ourselves and the planet.

Last summer I determined that creating a piece of art that would open the minds and hearts of people was the most noble mission I would have on this earth. So I began to write a science fiction story. After awhile I felt as though I wasn’t writing fiction. At certain points I felt as if I were channeling real facts about the nature of the universe. I would feel waves of energy bubble throughout my body during these moments.

That summer, however, I stopped reading and I stopped writing because I felt that reading and writing meant indulging in the “realm of fantasy”. I became paranoid that books and writing were just entertainment… but now I believe that when an artist creates a piece of work, through his mind he is literally opening a channel from the cosmic center to Earth. When each person does any spiritual practice, he or she is contributing to the movement of this Earth to become a paradise fully connected with the divine source of the entire universe.

My previous viewpoint of life was some mishmash between Buddhism, and Existentialism, and Humanism. I believed that spiritual practice was a psychological thing that someone did to make themselves feel good and be happy. I believe this is partly true, but now I do believe in “God” in the sense that I believe there is a great loving, aware energy that created everything and that sustains everything. I used to read the big bang theory and think that the universe was an accident, created for no particular reason or created without any specific intention in mind. Now I believe that the entire universe was created out of love, that there is a loving creation energy/entity who created everything with a loving intention. I have reason to believe that this might become more apparent to us in the coming years.

I knew that Buddhism talked about not meditating too much on questions of the origin of the universe. But I think we are reaching a point where these questions are beginning to be answered anyways. And in a sense my belief how the universe originated is directly related to my daily experience. I believe that I am an emanation of this central loving energy and my only job in life is to remember that, period. When I remain in remembrance of that, I will always feel loved and provided for because that really is the truth. God is always loving us. Before I might have told you that this belief is just a psychological belief that we tell ourselves to keep us happy. Perhaps I was a materialist, but now I believe that this is really what is going on the universe. I don’t know. I used to think that when you thanked God, you were thanking something inside of you. Now I kind of believe that when I thank God, I’m thanking something outside of me, though it’s in me as well. Though I’m certainly open to my beliefs changing

But every story needs a happy ending, right? I’m ready for that happy ending, I’m ready to reestablish my sense that what I truly want is to be one with God. I’m ready to believe that for those who truly want God, a way through challenges will always be found for them and that blessings will serve them along their way.

Signed,

Tully Walker

HAHAHAHHAH!

A few trials…

lately, some things have struck some chords in me. To start, internet has, once again, been deleted from the international guest house. My computer therefore now becomes a stereo/typewriter, and loses its role as an international hub. Nevertheless, some things have struck chords in me and I feel it right to express them here.

I'm obsessed with comics as a medium, I find the potential in them beyond both film, writing and painting. My mother recently brought back a few books of comics for me, most significantly, Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan and a compilation by of “America's Best Comics '07” (I have '06 here already). In addition, I recently downloaded Mike Mignola's Hellboy. I spent Monday thru Thursday inhaling the entirety of the Mike Mignola collection. If you appreciate comics, you will find Hellboy godly, and holy (in more ways than one). I mean, his style of art, is literature.
Of course, as a former poet and a current comic connoisseur, I'm captivated by artists who turn comics into poetry. Where a poet can make 20 words into heart or heat, I think comic book artists can do the same with one page. Their play on time such as, when one phrase begins in the top left and ends in the bottom right of the page, is obvious and hard to ignore. It is this bluntness that one can weave subtlety into. Whereas in poetry, one must develop that sense of time within the language itself, which is no less beautiful, but it has a different potential.
Things here in Vietnam haven't quite reached that level of depth. Or at least, ideas of that playful and intense nature have not reached the mainstream. Taste, essentially, is different here. And to me, superficial. (More on how design is really fascinating in this country because of this in the future)
Superficiality in taste, I think, is pretty common here (in music, in comics, in movies, in architecture, in writing, etc.). This superficiality can also be found in an appreciation or understanding of other culture's. This idea can be brought home with, “So, all you Americans just want to fuck and go and fuck and go, that's all?”…followed by a close-mindedness (or refusal to listen to explanation) I've only found in American Christian fundamentalists. That statement was said by one of my colleagues who studied in Virginia for two years. If everything were as cut and dry as most Vietnamese people think the world is, I'd never have become interested in art.
Of course, I'm probably missing something here, but as a thinker, I'm inclined to think, and at least generate something from my impressions and wait them out for verification or refutation. My friend Emily said something in passing that I've remembered til now: “most Vietnamese people think that us Westerners are all sluts.” Ha. I think that I'd love to teach a class here titled: “American version of Freedom, the '60s and contemplating modern Vietnam” I'd talk about how the meaning of American freedom has changed over the years, and how our generation is taking a new twist on it. I'd talk about racial, sexual (male-female, and intercourse) liberation in the '60s. And then the last two weeks of class would just be me giving them various questions that Americans contemplated, overcame, solved and are still grappling with into a Vietnamese context.