FINDING SANITY IN THE CYCLE OF LIFE

Watching a documentary about the ascent of life on Earth, I was struck by how beautiful—and at the same time, horrifically brutal—evolution has been. The dulcet tones of Morgan Freeman’ narration aside, the ferocity of creatures devouring each other, bodies trembling in panic, survival taking center stage was palpable. Yet, the lush beauty of the rainforests, the blossoming of flowers and the ageless beauty of  mothers and their offspring offered a glimpse of the love and inspiration that is the continual rebirth of life on our planet.

However, the chases and the kill scenes kept me engrossed. I felt a kind of invisible brake in my gut squeezing, not wanting to watch but unable to look away.

The power of our vicious nature is compelling.

This poses an existential question: how do we reconcile this raw, bloody legacy – and our attraction to it –  with aspirations of peace, compassion, and awakening?

Buddhist teachings often point to the Middle Way as a  means to resolve extremes and polarities in life. In this case, it would be naïve to deny that violence and cruelty played a role in our evolutionary history. But it would be equally wrong to ignore the yearning for all life to express itself in beauty and love.  In fact, both things are true and remain interwoven in the ascendency of life on the planet. It would be simplistic to reduce our journey to a straight line from single-celled organisms to sentience. The documentary made clear that life evolved not through linear progress but through cycles of collapse and rebirth—five mass extinction events where most of life was wiped out, leaving only fragments to carry on the story.

The documentary ended with the point that we are currently on the cusp of the sixth mass extinction event. The hope it offered was though this seems an eventuality, each extinction event leaves the seeds of the future iteration buried in the darken folds of fearful survival. And that the ensuing emergence of life has heretofore been forms of lesser size and dominance. On the other hand, with each iteration of destruction, it is the dominant species that become sacrificed. Perhaps this explains the Buddhist concept of reincarnation that our culture finds so hard to accept. It may be that the dominant aspect of our life stream – the idea of “Me” – is what is sacrificed. Our culture has difficulty seeing beyond its self-centric understanding. We find it hard to conceive of a life without ourselves at the center. Yet our bodies, accumulations, status, and personalities – everything we see as “Me” are dependent upon other temporary circumstances, all of which will give way in the great change of existence. Yet, something remains to give birth possible, then, to fiercely survive in our bodies and still awaken to our spiritual nature?

Buddhism holds that samsara and nirvana are inseparable. Unlike theistic traditions that define good and evil as opposing absolutes, the awareness of Buddhism sees and values nuance. Samsara is not just suffering—it is the endless cycle of birth, fear, confusion, and desire. Nirvana is not a utopia but rather the cessation of struggle, the clarity beyond reactivity. In every moment of cruelty there lie the seeds of rebirth. And even in the darkest circumstances, love and care are still possible.

Viciousness does not cancel beauty. Cruelty does not erase the possibility of liberation. The end doesn’t justify the means. The means are what shape us.

The path forward isn’t denial or withdrawal—it’s learning how to open wisely to our current experience so we can make conscious choices that benefit ourselves and the life around us. Compassion and kindness aren’t just moral virtues; they are intelligent strategies. They allow us to learn, to feel, to listen. If we cling—whether to pleasure, aversion, or fear—we freeze. The mind locks down, and no learning can occur.

Sometimes, we cling even in love. We try to preserve those we care about in a fixed form, as if freezing them in place could protect them. But clinging to love, to resistance, or to fear all create an unnatural stillness—a holding pattern that prevents real connection and growth.

Still, the Middle Way also acknowledges that constant openness is not always safe. Sometimes we need to close—for protection, for healing. But we should recognize that closing is a temporary measure, not a destination and shutting down can be a choice. The aim is always to reopen when it’s wise to do so. Just as nature combines violence and creativity, so too does our psyche hold pain and promise in equal measure.

Is it to the next iteration of our stream of life.

This echoes Buddhist ideas of residual karma—the seeds of action embedded deep in our seventh consciousness. Even when the slate appears wiped clean, tendencies remain. Just as life on Earth rebooted from its remnants, so too do we carry unconscious imprints across lifetimes. Whether or not we recall them, these imprints shape how we evolve. It’s not just nature or nurture—it’s both, dynamically interwoven.

What we think changes repeatedly each moment. But what we do shapes the path our life will take. Every moment is surviving and thriving. Every moment we are awake, we become part of the process of life.

FINDING RESILIENCE IN OUR EVERYDAY LIFE

Bowie’s song Changes was something of a clarion call to meeting our next moment. Not the idea we have of a dismal or tremendous future, but simply whatever happens. Can we meet whatever eventuality we meet with humble strength and, maybe a smile.  We’re meeting what is. And what is is rarely what we want it to be. Facing the strain – or facing the strange and meeting life as it is, requires us to stand tall and accept what comes next.   

Acceptance is neither acquiescence not surrender. It is the ground we stand upon for meeting life. From that ground we can relax our inner struggle and face the strain with poise and humor. Life is relentless. It doesn’t ask our permission to change, to rupture, to ache. Every one of us—if we’re honest—carries wounds we didn’t anticipate. We grow up believing strength means powering through, but eventually, life teaches us that armor is heavy. It cuts off our circulation. It separates us from others.

Resilience is often misunderstood as toughness, as stoicism, as the ability to take a punch and keep standing. But in Dharma practice, we learn that true resilience is not a hardening—it is a softening. It’s the capacity to remain present with our life as it is, without shutting down. It’s the willingness to feel, to care, to remain available in the midst of adversity.

We all have nervous systems designed to keep us safe. The fight-flight-freeze response is wired into us for survival. But in modern life, especially in emotional and interpersonal terrain, this wiring can misfire. We interpret everyday stress as threat. Our amygdala hijacks the clarity of our awareness. And suddenly, we are reacting to the world as if we are under attack.

So the question arises: can we stay connected without getting swallowed? Can we care deeply without falling apart?

Well, to quote a great statesman, “yes we can,” But, this acute severing of triggers from reactions takes practice and patience.  A classic mindfulness tool is to pause and name what is happening. “This is fear.” “This is grief.” “This is activation.” When we do this, we begin to disentangle from the reactivity and step into the space of awareness. The energy is still there, but we’re no longer riding the rollercoaster blindfolded.

Resilience without armor also requires community. Our neurosis breeds in isolation. But recovery happens with connection. Many of our most painful reactions come from a belief that we are alone. Meditation practice—and compassionate presence with others—reminds us that we’re not. We don’t need to have the answers. We don’t even need to be calm. But we do need to, as Pema Chodron teaches, learn to stay. Stay with ourselves. Stay with one another. Stay with the moment.

The urgency that the triggering elicits makes us feel we need to ACT NOW. But, in fact as a rule there is always more time than we realize. Its okay to pump the breaks. Its okay to pause. Its okay to feel what we are feeling. 

Another tool: mindfulness of body. When we’re triggered, the body tightens. The jaw clenches. The breath goes shallow. By simply bringing awareness to the physical response, we open up the possibility of choice. Try it: notice your shoulders. Feel your feet. Take a longer exhale. This is not a trick to bypass reality; it’s a way to anchor within it. Freeing ourselves from the constraints of the armor of body tension means we are creating the somatic space for the mind to find the space for a creative response. A creative response is not an habitual reaction, but is based in mindfulness of our body and our feelings. A mindful pause gives us the space to actually feel what we are feeling.  

Here’s the paradox—when we stop resisting what we feel, when we stop trying to be strong in the old way, a different kind of strength appears. A strength that doesn’t need to posture or defend. A strength that doesn’t retreat into numbness. It is open. It is rooted. And it can be quite tender.

When we practice resilience without armor, we begin to trust life again—not because it’s safe, but because we realize we can meet it. We don’t have to disappear when things get hard. We don’t have to put on the mask of invulnerability. Instead, we show up. With our hearts exposed, yes. With our breath shaking, sometimes. But we stay. We respond. We listen. We cry when it’s time to cry, and we laugh when we can.

Finally there is the tool of humble constancy, or as Dylan said, “keep on keeping on”. We don’t need to change everything. In fact, we may not need to change anything. We can lay aside the narcissistic belief that it is on us. We can breathe out and humbly take our place in our community. All we have to do is show up. And what a relief that is! We don’t have to do anything more than cheer up and keep face the strain with courage, humor and dignity. This is a kind of humble bravery doesn’t get much press. It’s not dramatic. It’s quiet, slow, and deeply human.

And from this ground of openness, we discover a new kind of power. The power to be moved by life—not manipulated. The power to care without collapsing. The power to be resilient not because we’re armored, but because we are utterly, and fully, here.

And the Key to the Kingdom

Let’s begin with something radical: what if we’re not fundamentally broken? What if, beneath the static, striving, and self-doubt, we’re already good—innately, luminously, primordially good?

This morning, as I was writing, my mind drifted into discursive worry and began rifling through all the ways I was failing—at the moment, in my life, and forever. A litany of self-doubt. My posture slumped, forehead heavy, like Rodin’s Thinker caught in a constipated loop of rumination. Thinking, judging, trying to fix something that might not be broken.

Then I caught it. The absurdity of acting out this scripted defeat. I literally sat up and something shifted. Not just in posture, but in perspective. I felt a flicker of clarity, confidence, and strength. I connected with my basic goodness. And this, as I have learned, is the birth of the warrior within. I relaxed into basic confidence. Nothing was amazing. It was just as it was. But I was here to face it—and play along.

April 4th was the anniversary of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s passing. His life was a meteor of wakefulness—abrupt, provocative, alarming, but always and completely authentic. He encouraged our humanity and taught that warriorship begins not with a sword or a fight, but with gentleness and bravery. The ground is basic goodness. It is not a moral judgment, not about being a “good person.” It is the inherent brilliance of our being. Not something we can buy, but something we can recognize as having always been there. We are basically good—and we don’t have to do anything but stay present for our world.

It’s easy to forget this. Especially in a culture obsessed with self-improvement, complaint, and performance. But if we can take a moment, feel our feet on the earth, lift our gaze beyond the horizon of habitual thought, and simply be—without pretense, artifice, or struggle—we reconnect to ourselves, our moment, and to the greater energy all around us. Trungpa called this the “rising sun view”: a world suffused with goodness and possibility. He contrasted it with the “setting sun” view of cynicism, doubt, and complaint. The setting sun leads to darkness and stagnation. The rising sun view—based on recognition of our own and the world’s fundamental goodness—opens us to the Kingdom of Shambhala.

This is the Shambhala vision. The kingdom—or rather the quality—of an awakened society begins with the individual who can stand up in the present moment and say: I’m already good. I’m already enough. I’m here.

So what happens when we contact that basic goodness? In a sense, something is born: the inner warrior. Not a fighter, not a hero, but a human being willing to stay present when everything in them wants to bolt. A person who greets discomfort as a teacher, not a mistake.

My own journey began just after Trungpa’s passing. I moved into a handmade shack at Rocky Mountain Dharma Center. The place was rustic, even wild. It had been settled decades earlier by a ragtag crew of hippies, artists, exiles, and mystics known as the Pygmies, who built shambolic houses and cabins. Their first shrine was a tablecloth thrown over a console TV. Over time, more students came, and slowly—through Trungpa’s legacy—they transformed into clearer and more uplifted versions of themselves. They built proper buildings, bought better clothes and began to carry themselves with confidence. Trungpa didn’t ask his students to become spiritual clichés. He asked them to become human.

The act of simply being oneself—without pretense, apology, or aggression—was called in Tibetan Wangpo, which translates to “authentic presence.” Trungpa Rinpoche called this being a warrior. His teachings offered a new path—not one of transcendence, but of vast vision grounded in the kindness, clarity, and strength to live freely in our world. As Trungpa said, “It’s not about escaping the world, but falling in love with it.”

Warriorship is not a solo act. The path doesn’t end in some personal enlightenment trophy room. It culminates in an enlightened society—a world woven not by ideology, but by kindness, honesty, and presence. That enlightened society has its inspiration in mythic traditions such as Camelot, Atlantis, Shangri-la and the Kingdom of Shambhala. The image of an enlightened society is important to the spiritual and inspirational development of cultures. Trungpa took inspiration from Shambhala which was a society where people were in touch with their basic goodness and lifted up to their highest potential, like flowers to the sun.

In the Shambhala teachings, this begins with the simple things: how you speak to the barista, how you care for your space, how you show up for your own life. Small acts of elegance. Dignity. Care. Approaching all situations with a joyful mind, as the slogan says. Even traffic. Even grief. Even your own neurotic mind. Awakening the warrior means touching in to our basic goodness and seeing the basic goodness of our world.  This is not to imply that the world is devoid of cruelty and injustice. It just means there is more than that. And the world needs us. It is worth working for.

We don’t have to be without fear. We just have to be willing to come back again and again—to our seat, our breath, our inherent dignity. The Tibetans call the awakened warrior Pawo—not someone who fights, but someone who has transcended the paralysis of fear and discovered bravery in their very bones.

The warrior masters themselves each time they return to the present—to their seat, to their posture, to the moment as it is. You can be frightened, nervous, angry, horny, or depressed—as long as you sit with good posture and an open heart, accepting who and how you are. That’s how fear becomes fearlessness. That’s how we open our hearts to ourselves and our world. That is the warrior’s vow of bravery.

Whether you view Shambhala as a mythical kingdom, a metaphor, or a method—it always points to the same truth: within chaos, dignity is possible. Within confusion, wisdom is present. The awakened world begins not in a fairytale, but in the very seat you’re sitting in now.

So today, whether your posture is slumped or strong, whether your mind is buzzing or clear—pause. Feel your feet. Lift your gaze. And give birth to the warrior in your heart which is the key to the kingdom.

This aspiration is dedicated to the lineage, to Trungpa Rinpoche, and to every human being who’s ever stood up against their own despair and said, “I’m still here.”

Welcome to the Kingdom.

The Way In is the Way Out

Remember those finger traps? The woven tube that tightens when we pull? The harder we struggle, the more stuck we become. The only way out is to stop resisting and accept where we are.

Tibetan yogis compare the wisdom path to a snake moving through a tube—it cannot turn around. Zookeepers use restraining tubes to calm snakes, and unlike us, the snake doesn’t waste energy resisting. It may not be happy, but it surrenders to the reality of the moment.

A Wisdom Path is a journey toward clarity. Over time, we see ourselves and the world more clearly. Lakthong—“clear seeing”—is the ability to move beyond ego and perceive reality as it is. But obscurations—blockages in the body, shadows in the mind, blind spots in life—distort our view. These obstacles, frustrating as they are, require patience, care, and awareness. The only way forward is to relax, release the struggle, and begin to understand our imprisonment.

Once we enter the spiritual path, like the snake in its tube, we cannot turn back. We cannot unsee what we’ve seen. Fear, doubt, and worry attempt to enclose us in protective bubbles. We rationalize our imprisonment, repeating ideas that justify suffering: The world is dangerous. These people are that way. I am this way. This self-definition comforts but confines us. The idea of “me” is a refuge, but it comes with limitations. Connecting with clarity beyond “me” is unsettling because we can’t control it. Yet this is how we grow. Even trying a new flavor of ice cream expands the brain’s experience. The brain thrives on novelty—reiterating the familiar only reinforces limitation.

Turning outward is both threatening and necessary. We must be brave enough to err, to be embarrassed, to have our sense of self challenged—because this is how we learn. The brain loves experiential learning more than accumulating knowledge. Moving beyond negativity bias, we open to new experiences that build fresh neural pathways. But growth isn’t always outward; it is also inward. When we feel stuck or trapped in patterns, we can investigate the present moment. Awareness loosens the grip of constriction. Moving toward wisdom means shedding what keeps us from clear-seeing. It’s like peeling an onion—there is no ultimate center, only the process of discovery.

When fear or doubt overwhelm us, we can love ourselves—not through distraction, but by turning inward and asking: What is happening? Conceptual knowledge often blocks deeper learning. True understanding happens in the depths of experience. Growth isn’t always triumphant—our first steps into a new paradigm are often fragile. As Sakya Pandita noted, the shaft of an arrow runs true into the future—brave and steady—while the arrowhead panics: Oh no, oh no!

When we stop struggling and instead relax into our constraints, we begin to see them. We feel the fear holding us in place. This transforms obstacles from obstructions into transparent aspects of experience. What if our struggles lost their oppressive weight and became part of our wisdom? I lock myself in my room and refuse to move. But when I turn inward and map the experience, I loosen its hold. Negative actions create negative consequences, reinforcing themselves. The same is true of positive actions. We become obligated to these loops, whether good or bad.

In the highest view of Tibetan Buddhism, samsara and nirvana—heaven and hell—are inseparable. Even good karma, if it perpetuates itself, can obscure reality. The point is to see our actions with clarity. It is said that when we fully see our activity, there is no karmic consequence. This radical statement suggests the power of awareness. Even when our actions harm ourselves or others, seeing them fully is the first step toward liberation.

We move through the tube of fear not by ignoring it or lashing out, but by looking inward. The way out is in. Instead of struggling and becoming more entangled, we observe ourselves. Gently and persistently, we realize our obscurations are the path. There is nowhere to go but here. There is nothing to see but our own experience. Instead of chasing an imagined destination, we can rest in who we are and learn from what is here, now. Letting go doesn’t mean pushing away; it means releasing our grip. Struggle is holding. Accept what is happening and relax into the tube.

Padmasambhava, known as Pema Jungné—“Lotus Born”—was said to have been born fully awakened atop a lotus. The lotus grows from the muck, yet blooms into open awareness. The story illustrates that awakening is not something we become, but something we uncover. The path is long, requiring full acceptance of our imprisonment, yet awakening is instantaneous because it has always been there—like a lotus opening to the sun. We will never become enlightened someday; we can only become enlightened now.

It takes humility to accept ourselves and patience to stay present. Whether sitting atop the lotus or in the muck, turning toward our experience leads us out—not because we are going anywhere, but because life itself is change. Meditation is surrendering to now. The universe is in movement; by being here, we surrender to that. During a talk, Chögyam Trungpa said something chilling: “It’s happening right now.” The room fell silent.

Maybe that was the point.

I lay in bed this morning, unable to get motivated, pondering the deep existential question why bother? And when I get like this the only answer to why bother is … eh, fuck it.

In meditation training, we learn that every experience is worthy of investigation. Yet this sense of “why bother” is one I reject outright. Its insidious banality suggests “keep moving,  there’s nothing to see here.”  So I lay there, scratching about the corners of my brain, scrolling through the internet, seeking distraction, or maybe even a little self-reinforcing negativity. One positive about our world these days is there’s no lack of material to support a depressive state. Despite my worst intentions, I stumbled upon a You Tube short of Jim Carrey’s. I assumed it would be a laugh. Instead, I caught him talking about depression. He quoted his teacher Jeff Foster’s notion that “depressed” could translate to “deep rest”. Carrey said depression was the body’s way of telling the brain “Fuck you, I don’t want to be this avatar you’ve created anymore.” My ideas about myself are so much to live up to.

Then I began to see my morning malaise as a strike, of sorts. A part of me had grown tired of being ignored and unseen.  My social self—what Martha Beck calls the “pretend self”—is built around teaching, coaching, being available to others. I love this work, I feel at home in it. And yet, this is only a part of myself. It’s clear there are parts I’m not comfortable seeing or sharing. When this happens, maybe the mask I’ve created has become too heavy for the rest of me to wear.

Sometimes depression is angry and volatile. This angry depression is sexy enough to keep me interested. But these wet blanket moments when the world is dull and uninspiring are truly maddening- or would be if I cared enough to get mad. Perhaps this dull depression is designed to keep me from looking beneath the surface, from uncovering what may be really happening. Maybe before I could decide what’s really happening beneath, before I analyze anything further, I could apply Ockham’s Razor and reduce it down to what is actually happening right here. Right now, I’m stuck.

Stuck.

In my meditation training they would call this resistance. And they would say that resistance is the path. When I first heard this, it seemed to absolve me of my natural reluctance, it made me feel like it was OK and part of the process. However, many years later, I’m becoming impatient with these delays in the progress of my life and it feels galling. But that’s not looking from where I am, it’s looking from the point of view of the avatar, my imaginary-supposed-wanna-being. Being stuck in my resistance is what is happening now, all that is happening now. I’ve experienced this often in my life, so maybe it’s time I decided to look at it. Instead of thinking “dammit, not you again” I might invite the experience in, let it have a seat and get to know it. When we meet our resistance, we are touching the path itself.

Resistance is where the rubber meets the road or, as the Tibetans say, “when rock hits bone.”  This initially may shock us into numbness. All we feel is that erie Lackawanna, like a 2 year old’s mantra of “NO NO NO!”  But maybe I can just look at this. Maybe it’s not a grand existential crisis, not a dramatic psychological wound, maybe it’s—just I don’t want to.  Instead of assuming I should be different, I could explore what it actually feels like to be here not wanting to be here. Resistance is not an obstacle to the path; resistance is the path. It’s the moment we are forced to sit down, to feel the discomfort fully, and to learn from it. The more uncomfortable it is, the more there is to see. Instead of searching for complex explanations, maybe the truth is simple: my body and mind are saying, Pause. Feel this. I sometimes look out my window at people working, doing jobs I have no interest in, and yet I feel guilty. They’re working hard, supporting their families, and I’m lying here chewing on my own thoughts. But maybe this is my work—to investigate my own experience, to make sense of it, to translate it. Maybe these periods of shutdown are moments of resynchronization.

I think a lot of depression hides behind this deep exhaustion that makes even the smallest movement seem impossible. I thrive on offering myself to others, in being present for them, but there’s a disconnect when it comes to directing that same care toward myself. It’s not that I’m incapable of engagement—I’m deeply engaged when it comes to others. But when I turn inward, that engagement becomes resistance, inertia, even paralysis. It makes sense that this might be an invitation, a signal to pause and investigate: Where am I not living truthfully? When I’m with others, my next steps are clear—I listen, I hold space, I respond. But alone, lying in bed in the morning, wondering why I should bother, I feel lost. Depression, I suspect, creates a loop where each time it returns, it feels like it has always been there. And since I spend so much time in this inert state, maybe it’s time to stop resisting it, to really experience it instead. Not to judge it, not to push it away, but to let it unfold and see what’s there. We often want change without fully acknowledging what is. But how can we move forward if we don’t first accept where we are?

Depression, when experienced as deep rest, may be a forced resynchronization, a way to reset the system. The Japanese philosophy of Kaizen suggests that when we’re stuck, it’s not because we’re failing but because we haven’t yet learned how to succeed. It teaches that small, incremental steps can help us move forward. If my room is a mess, my desk is piled high, and my taxes loom over me, tackling it all at once feels impossible. But if I decide that today, I will write this, meditate for a few minutes, and make a good cup of tea, those are small, doable actions. I don’t need to force myself into massive leaps—I need to align with what is possible right now. It’s strange how we expect ourselves to emerge from depression with force, to suddenly regain clarity and momentum. But what if the way forward is softer, more patient? What if, instead of pushing myself to break through, I let myself dissolve into the experience fully? Depression doesn’t mean I am broken. It means something inside me is asking to be heard, asking to rest, asking to be real. And maybe the more I resist that, the more it holds on.

Maybe the real work isn’t about changing myself to fit a mold. Maybe it’s about becoming synchronized with who I actually am. Not who I think I should be, not who I wish I were, but this person, in this moment, as I am right now. And maybe that’s all we need right now. Then we can ask the big questions. Where am I not living truthfully?  Are there things I want to feel, but can’t?  Am I frightened?

Maybe today I can forget where I’m going and discover who I am beneath the heavy mask. The method here is holding space and asking questions, just as I would do for clients or friends. Discovering implies learning something new. We are not obligated to do anything with the information, except listen. Sometimes our inner voices want the wrong things. Sometimes they may be yelling from the rooftops. But, all they really want is their voice.

Sometimes they just need to be heard.