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text:
Pinstriped Bllue Blazer - M
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Additional Details:

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Morning Minutes, May 14
Word of the Day
cavalcade \ kav-uhl-KAYD; KAV-uhl-kayd \ noun; A procession of riders or horse-drawn carriages; Any procession; A sequence; a series. — Dictionary.com
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JTS X12PT 12GA 18.56", Black
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text:
A discussion about Effortless Effort in Zazen. What Adyashanti calls "True Meditation" is essentially goalless sitting of shikantaza
Effortless Effort:
A discussion about Effortless Effort in Zazen. What Adyashanti calls "True Meditation" is essentially goalless sitting of shikantaza
Effortless Effort:
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
I am not a fan of Adyashanti, a well studied poser and double talker much of the time (including in lots of this particular talk). But not every word out of his mouth need be foolish.
Gassho, J
Last edited by Jundo; 08-17-2013 at 03:23 AM.
I know you don't have a high opinion of him Jundo. I respect your views even though I fail to see any faults in him. I hope there is something I'm missing that you can see better.
I feel it is impossible for someone to just study and speak so well and be so spontaneous unless it is experiential. His teachings are a bit of non-dual and zen mix and may be that's what makes you feel it to be a double talk.
Coincidentally the way he teaches shikantaza and the way you/brad/nishijima teach are strikingly similar. And whenever I quoted him without using his name you really liked my quotes
I feel he described shikantaza like no other teacher did. I understand it is better left un-described but his "True Meditation" book is the most wonderful description of shikantaza I ever found. Hope you have time to listen to the audio book format of it below and share your views on it. I think what I am sharing will benefit others. I think as practitioners/students it doesn't really harm. It is just like reading another book, use it or throw it.
I have been reading and listening to his talks for years, and find him a charismatic, smooth-talkin' showman purveying fiddle-faddle with all the right spiritual buzzwords and "seems to be saying something deep" non-sequitors to wow his audience. As P.T. Barnum (another good showman) said, there's a fool born every minute. A spiritual "caveat emptor".
I respect many Advaita folks for truly Teaching as they Teach. This Adya, however, is all hat no cattle.
I would prefer that his nonsense not be posted here.
Gassho, Jundo
PS - This is what I posted last time you introduced "Adya'going" here, and I stand by it ...
I wrote this some years ago, and my opinion is about the same. I do not criticize easily, but sometimes my "spider senses" vibrate about some folks ...
I will add this: I am not saying that everything he says is foolish (it isn't. There is some very nice sections and advice in what was posted above. Because he is repackaging standard advice picked up here and there, and common advice on "just sitting", there is some good stuff here and there). He is also better and smoother at the pitch over the years. I think he is a very charismatic individual (a kind of anti-charisma charisma).I first looked into Adyashanti's writings about 5 years ago, when he was heartily recommended by a friend. I read everything I could at the time, and listened or watched the recorded talks I could. What I thus say is based on my impression, my gut reaction and some of the claims he makes for himself. Since that time I have looked at or listened to other talks, and my opinion is about the same.
In a nutshell, I see someone who is trying a bit hard (and succeeding) to make a career as a California style Guru. My conclusion is based in part on the persona, but also on the content of his talks. I find someone who is very charismatic, and may have had an experience here and there ... but he seems extremely well studied, as if he memorized every Tolle and 100 other books and is just regurgitating/reformulating/repackaging the contents under a new label. He throws around the same old, tired old, buzzwords of Eastern Wisdom, casting himself as one who has crossed over to the other side. He speaks with a very smooth tongue, but all does not ring true to me. In talks he gives, I often have picked up on sections which sound like pure New Age, cosmic double talk too. Out there in California, there are 1000 guys trying to make a career out of a funky name and a like persona, and this one does not ring true (though he is very gifted as someone playing the part he is).
I once described him as marketing himself (yes, I will call it "marketing" by a very smooth talker like a good shoe salesman) as an "anti-guru" ... your guru who keeps telling you that he is "not a guru" (thus a great guru better than those who call themselves "guru") who offers enlightenment by saying it is "not enlightenment". That video is a good example. Some good, basic wisdom with much spiritual posing and double-talk.
Just to make clear ... I do not think the Adyashanti is a nefarious evildoer, and there are certainly a lot worse out there ... I even think he may be well meaning at heart (seems like a gentle fellow), plus he has a relaxing voice and a very pleasant manner. I think he is extremely smooth and practiced in his presentation, very well read in the literature of other like teachers, and it is all soothing to the ear of people looking for that kind of thing.
Spiritual Buyer Beware.
Deep-pockets Chopra is another fellow who gets my goat.
Gassho, Jundo (in his "kids, get off my lawn" mood )
Last edited by Jundo; 08-17-2013 at 07:42 AM.
Thank you teacher.
Happily, beings can 'wake-up' as they are ready.
"Recognize suffering, remove suffering." - Shakyamuni Buddha when asked, "Uhm . . .what?"
Yes, unfortunately, I share Jundo s point of view. I have great respect for guys like Ponjaji but that guy always sound like a charismatic manipulator. He is picking up Zen words and concepts and adviata directions and turn everything into a tasty fusion mash. Not as dangerous and cynical as Adi Da but as intellectual and twisted. Another popular teacher with women (actually like many Advaita teachers who tend to play a lot on the guru- loving side of things)) is Mooji ( more on the Teddy bear side of things)who comes every so often with insightful talks yet, something tells me that it is not the real deal.
Again. Avaita is Advaita and Zen is Zen. Mixing paths is a tasty but dangerous recipe for spiritual disaster and emotional çrash.
jundo and I are not that popular with women seekers, and this for a good reason, we don t play the game of spiritual seduction and presents Zen as a living and boring tradition.
And, shikantazen, as you are so interested to listen to this bloke, go ahead! Why don't you follow his teachings and meet him? After all, this would be a good experience to meet with an enlightened teacher who proclaims he is, self made man in enlightenment and business. As you know, it is going to cost you a lot, guru are not cheap, they are a bit of a luxury ( it is amazing to see how many expenses they have to run a simple and detached life...), the bigger cost will be emotional and very painful if you are not lucky.
After I might be wrong. Go and have a peep!
Here we simply don't charge for the teachings and I don't take from my students: I give. And work in the world to keep my feet grounded, food on my plate, a roof over my head and possibilities to be kind to others.
i recently bumped into a great definition, as a close up magician I did find it very true: what is the different between a card cheat and a magician? The first one takes things from you ( money, trust) the other one through astonishement and wonder, gives you again and again.
Up to you to see who is who.
I have noticed a modern trend in Buddhism to present teachings that go beyond tradition such as Big Mind, Unlearning Meditation, True Meditation etc. By claiming to have gone further than the established tradition these individuals (and it does always seem to be individuals) accomplish two things:
1. They cast doubt on the validity of the traditional teachings since their take has gone beyond that using wisdom that was unavailable to our ignorant forebears
2. They set themselves apart from tradition, therefore not serving tradition or subject to its rules but able to call the shots based on their own thoughts rather than that which has been tried and tested over millennia.
Of course, the Buddha himself was one such individual, as was Dogen, but those who have something new to offer seem few as opposed to those whose teachings dissolve when held up in the light into nothing more than the emperor's new clothes.
'jundo and I are not that popular with women seekers, and this for a good reason, we don t play the game of spiritual seduction and presents Zen as a living and boring tradition.'
It's maybe more complex than that Taigu. Thich Nhat Hahn has many female followers - but I think it's more to do with his deep aura of compassion than 'spiritual seduction'.
In the realm of spiritual seduction why would female seekers be more drawn in than male? I don't know the statistics but the numbers at these large followings seem to be pretty evenly split between male/female? The need to be spiritually seduced is not necessarily gender driven.
I recently came across a Mooji talk (had not heard of him before) and he does present as endearing in some way. Another safe port in the storm for troubled seekers - male and female alike?
We only ever really know by looking within ourselves whether we are being spiritually seduced. Even straight forward teaching can be received in a way that stems from a need within the receiver to be drawn in at a level that's askew in some way.
As a female student I can confirm that don't feel spiritually seduced by the message or the messengers here
Zen in all its simplicity, wonder and boredom is just simply presented at Tree Leaf - with nothing added and nothing taken away. I have a preference for this - even if, from time to time, I struggle with a directness of tone that might be misconstrued as a little harsh.
Last edited by Jinyo; 08-17-2013 at 06:00 PM.
I do not know if it is simply a matter of going "beyond tradition", because there are so many worthy attempts these days to adapt and re-express old Traditions to current times and culture. I include Taigu and me in that, and the great experiment here at Treeleaf. It is something that has been going on since the Buddha's time, as Hinayana birthed Mahayana, as Indian ways were adapted to China, Chinese ways to Japan ... and now to the 21st Century West.
There are some Traditions to keep, some to adapt ... some perhaps to leave behind. There are "new Traditions" to invent, and new ways to present the Dharma. On the other hand, some things may throw out the Baby Buddha with the Bathwater.
For me, it is not a matter of "new" or "old" ... but simply between "worthwhile" and not, between "healthy and good for you" and "fast food consumerist (even if tasty and attracting long lines) garbage", between "profound & authentic" and a "shallow rip-off".
Which is which? Maybe only time will tell.
Gassho, J
Last edited by Jundo; 08-17-2013 at 10:42 AM.
Hi Jundo
I tend to differentiate between those which adapt traditions to modern times and those which throw the Buddha out with the bath water. I guess it can be hard to tell the difference.
Like you say, it is not a case of new and old and tinkering with religious tradition as doubtless been going on as long as religion itself. As with making new recipes, only tasting the result can show whether it is successful or not, and not every taster will be of the same opinion.
Hi Taigu,
I did go to couple of his meetings/talks earlier and will be going to one in Los Angeles this coming saturday.
I'm sure you guys see much beyond than me on whats wrong with Adyashanti. I have learnt lot from his books though and I see the same things being said in other Zen books too (Pema Chodron, Suzuki etc..). His "true meditation" is essentially the below things and I don't see it any different from how shikantaza taught by brad/jundo/nishijima is
Sitting and allowing everything to be as it is
don't make "allowing everything to be as it is" also a goal. there is no goal. It is not about trying to perfect a technique
letting go of the control; letting go of the meditator or the one who is trying to do it right
a silent prayer, a wordless surrender
whatever you seek is already here (Similar to Zen: you are already awakened/buddha)
Sitting with effortless effort (yet non-manipulative) so that you are not going into a dreamy/hazy mindset
it is the best book i ever read about shikantaza.
yes i find him charismatic. i find taigu too charismatic. i think the wisdom that flows from such teachers makes them charismatic to students. i don't think it is due to some intentional manipulation by the teachers.
That said, I'll refrain from posting his links as you and Jundo think that can misguide other students. I'll be mindful not to mix teachings; for me Zen is doing the trick
thank you all
Well, I don't know what Taigu meant about popularity with the ladies, but he and I are not particularly attractive to men or anybody too. We are universally uncharismatic.
Sam (aka Shikantazen), I like a lot of Pema Chodron too, and we are all Buddhists, but I would not call her a writer of "Zen Books" either. As I have said to you before, Sam, one reason I feel you have been so constantly all over this Forum (and other Buddhist fora on the internet too where I see you) trying to "nail down" Shikantaza is because you are not being very discerning. Baseball is not cricket, although both are played with ball and bat and share much the same lingo.
What you say about Adyashanti's description of "true meditation" (No-manipulation, Sitting and allowing everything to be as it is, etc.) is very common advice, platitudes on meditation that many people will say. The above audio you posted is not the worst I have ever heard out of his mouth (believe me, I have heard and read much by him). But, Sam, since you seem to have such a good understanding of what Adya means, might I ask you to explain a couple of things to me in the audio you posted to help my understanding?
Sam, what does he mean at 10:25 that "... the most important thing is your intention. You can do everything wrong, but if your intention is really right on, that's going to do it"? It sounds very good, and a lovely positive phrase, but please put it in other words for me.
At 13:40 "to walk up to the microphone, you are using effortless effort ... if we get stuck on effort, we are striving too much. If we get attached to no effort, we are going way too unconscious." Can you help me understand better, especially "If we get attached to no effort, we are going way too unconscious."?
Sorry to put you on the spot.
Gassho, J
Last edited by Jundo; 08-17-2013 at 06:53 PM.
Now to your questions...
>> "... the most important thing is your intention. You can do everything wrong, but if your intention is really right on, that's going to do it"?
I think he is trying clarify the idea that shikantaza is not about perfecting a technique or getting it right. It is same thing that zen teachers say: "there is no right/wrong zazen". You only screw it up by worrying. Now by intention he means the seriousness/sincerity with which we approach zazen. By seriousness it is the same thing when you said "That does not mean that just sitting any old way, like a bump on a log, twiddling one's thumbs or taking a nap is "Shikantaza".".
>> At 13:40 "to walk up to the microphone, you are using effortless effort ... if we get stuck on effort, we are striving too much. If we get attached to no effort, we are going way too unconscious." Can you help me understand better, especially "If we get attached to no effort, we are going way too unconscious."?
As Zazen is often described as "Zazen does zazen and don't worry about it", people can mistake it to be as requiring no effort at all. He is clarifying not to put too much effort and at the same time to not be attached to putting no effort at all. It is the same thing that all zen teachers talk about. even you talk about zazen not being a lazy sitting. it is the same thing
Here is his description from the True Meditation book:
"Meditating in an effortless way is not the same thing as being lazy. One of the profound instructions my teacher used to give when I talk to her about my meditation is this. "Is it Vivid? Is it alive?. This is a very good instruction. If we are simply making no effort in a way that's lazy, then our meditation gets dreamy and foggy. Effortless doesn't mean being lazy or falling into sleep; effortless means just enough effort to be vivid, present, to be here, to be now. To be bright. Too much effort and we get too tight; too little effort and we get dreamy. We each need to find out for ourselves what this means."
Hi Sam,
Maybe so. He might be the greatest spiritual teacher of our time, or just the well practiced and polished spiritual performer I see (he has now had 20 years of performance to work on his lines, and he has gotten better in his delivery) who has cobbled together common bits of "sage advice" from a variety of wisdom traditions.
I would give the movie "Kumare" a good watch, except Adya's schtick is that he is an "I'm not a guru" guru, a guru without the hair and funny beads.
He doesn't seem particularly dangerous however, and much good and time-tested timeless wisdom in some of the cobbled together "sage advice", so not a total time waste I suppose.
Gassho, J
Last edited by Jundo; 08-18-2013 at 03:44 AM.
Is it possible for an insincere teacher to parrot wisdom in such a way that it is helpful nonetheless?
I took an art class once in high school. I just could NOT draw that damn bicycle. Teacher told me, "Stop looking at the page. Look at the damn bicycle."
and neither are they otherwise.
I'm new here, but with all do respect I would not throw Jason Siff's Unlearning Meditation into the lot of spiritual hucksters. Jason was monk in Sri Lanka and developed his approach based on the sutta's. It is certainly Buddist. Even Rev. Issho Fujita mentioned to me that he learned a lot from the book.
Having said that, it's not for me. Uchiyama's works are where my resonance resides and is why I think I'll have much to learn here at Treeleaf.
Ah, well, I can only speak for myself here. I"m an atheist, don't have any attachment to any kind of spiritual seduction so I guess that's why I feel comfortable here. I prefer living and boring, which is more in touch with reality and more practical to my practice.
Oops, my mistake, I was responding to this post
Originally Posted by Taigu
jundo and I are not that popular with women seekers, and this for a good reason, we don t play the game of spiritual seduction and presents Zen as a living and boring tradition.
Last edited by Joyo; 08-19-2013 at 08:26 PM.
I've had some interest in the book after reading the introduction, but I keep avoiding it; I'm not sure why, just out of intuition. But I read that opening again and some of his ideas seem kind of appropriate. For instance, he mentions being flexible, etc, in our practice; he also mentions things that I've been feeling a lot lately: for instance, my shikantaza is not the same as someone else's shikantaza; and even if it is the same, there's no way to know that it's the same; Dogen's way of expressing himself is not the same as Shunryu Suzuki; you and Taigu teach the same and differently, and isn't sitting like that, too?
I don't know, just rambling.
I am afraid that all I am is a one trick pony, going radically and profoundly into non-seeking. It is very different from any form of meditation in which one is looking to get some pay-off. (That does not mean that we don't have a Wondrous payoff-non-payoff in our Shikantaza way ... only that we "get it" by giving up the constant hunt because the "payoff" is to be free of lack and need and division). Since there is nothing to get in our Practice, there is no way anything can be lacking in it ... when it is done right! (Cause if you experience that there is something lacking in it, I am afraid your mind is still chasing things!) So very different from the rest of life ... even from so many Buddhist techniques ... where one is chasing, trying to achieve, trying to get, running after, analyzing.
So, it is hard for me to comment on his various methods of Vipassana meditation and such, because ... while a wonderful path ... it is a tool and technique to get something, work some technique, analyze something. So, it is like asking a football coach (non-football in our case, because there is no GOAL! and we are all winners! ) about how to play tennis.
All I can say is that any doubt, confusion, judging, comparing and such going on about Zazen (or any aspect of life) in someone's head is .... going on in the head. Don't fall into that trap. I do like what he says in the interview about letting the sitting be.
Gassho, Jundo ... One Trick Pony
Last edited by Jundo; 08-20-2013 at 02:38 AM.
No problem. It certainly is controversial amongst hardcore Theravada Buddhist, but his approach is interesting none the less.
For sure it is go seeking, which is why it isn't my cup of tea. Rev. Fujita commented that he liked the fact that he wanted the sitting to sitting to the sitting in much the same you pointed out. I could take or leave the rest of it. I do like the chapter about drifting off in meditation.
I just wanted to point out that he isn't a spiritual huckster, just radically reinterprets his tradition.
BTW- Everyone should check out the latest issue of Dharma Eye with Rev. Fujita' article.
OK, Oheso and Fugu :you will find out there a bunch of gurus interested in seduction, getting girls and boys in their beds. Here, we don t do that for three obvious reasons:
1) Through the nature of our interaction through forum and internet.
2) the fact that both teachers are here in a stable relationship.
3) The importance of the precepts.
Spiritual seduction exists, I have seen males attracted to female teachers, I have seen females attracted to male teachers. It does not make the seekers superficial, it is in the hands of the teacher, female or male, to help the student to change his attachment and go beyond, personnal love can indeed turn into universal compassion. it puts a lot of responsability n the hands of the teacher.
now, sometimes people fall in love, and that s life.
What do you want me to say?
I am baffled by how stiff some of us can be when gender related topics are discussed.
Last edited by Taigu; 08-21-2013 at 08:34 AM.
We have Ethics Guidelines and a system for reporting abuses, just in case. As far as I know, we have never ever had any such case around here.
Treeleaf Ethics Committee ( Complaint Box )
Gassho, Jundo
My intent was not to put them in any order.
The real reason is shikantaza anyway. The source of all ethics.
Hi there - we seem to have a bit of a scramble with words and their meaning in this thread which probably wouldn't happen in a face to face conversation.
In the original comment 'women seekers' could mean gurus who seek out vulnerable females - or it could mean women who are seekers who are vulnerable to seduction.
Well, either way I think it was worth raising the point 'why particularly women' and Taigu clarified this by saying males aswell.
But then we seem to be focused on spiritual seduction that becomes romantic/sexual seduction.
Can't speak for Ohesu or Fugu but my comment was focussed on spiritual seduction and I think that's a very important topic because the internet, with all its diversions/charismatic speakers of many persuasions, is probably the biggest spiritual seducer of all.
Tree Leaf is a compass in all of this with a magnetic pole fixed and true.
That's all really,
Last edited by Jinyo; 08-21-2013 at 09:06 AM.
(that's my best attempt at a Jundo; it kind of pleasantly warped my mind a little)
That was a big gulp to swallow, and having paid my admission fee by digesting all that I feel I need to spit something back up. Fortunately, I have already begun learning about nurturing seeds practice, and have learned to chop a few limbs down. That being said I hope something I have to say is taken in the right light of not attacking anyone, but in the spirit of encouragement and guidance.
I am not a Zen Master, but I have spent a good deal of time thinking about things spiritual, and I am all too familiar with the Self Appointed Guru scene. I spent 6 years living in what I used to call Sandy Ego, California. There is a HUGE market in the self promotion of all things spiritual there. To borrow a line from the rock band, Rush. "But glittering prizes and endless compromises shatter the illusion of integrity"
I THINK that part of what Taigu and Jundo are trying to say, is that people like Deepak Chopra, Adyashanti (how come these people are never named Bob?) is that it isn't so much WHAT these people are teaching, as much as the context in which they are teaching it that becomes a problem. They are basically throwing a hodge podge of spiritual information together and then having workshops and book deals. Do they have anything valuable to say? Yes The thing is, they aren't really saying anything that hasn't already been said, they just put themselves out there as this charasmatic personality and MARKET themselves as the next big thing. For example I know someone who used to know Deepak personally but became very disillusioned with him when he went from where he started to driving around in a convertable sportscar with his trophy wife.
To put this in another context, something from my own profession. There have been holistic health practitioners talking about the inter-relationship between the body mind spirit chakras for millenia, yet you take an MD who spends a little time learning about it, and next thing you know she has a whole industry based on her "discoveries". Well she's an MD, so now we know it's true right?
Maybe another hypothetical situation. How about if we took someone outside the Catholic church who has a "relevation" from God. Next thing you know this person has a book deal about the methods of prayer and steps to avoid purgatory. You can go join his weekend workshops and be saved for the low price of 179.00 for the entire weekend. Hurry while seats are still open. Because you know we are only here to help the quick and the rich.
The original posted video in this thread does have good information, BUT to me, the person asking the question is so typical of the more Westernized problem with Zen. "I am doing all the work properly, but what do I GET out of it. I am so desperate to loose ME, that I am willing to do any work and pay any price so that I can say with confidence that I have IT. Wheh another one off the bucket list, now I think I'll try Iron Man" Willow you talked about the sometimes "harsh" tenure of dialog in here. I am not sure if this is more of a Zen influence, a Japanese influence, or just Jundo tied of us messing up his lawn. I would rather have a million scoldings coming from compassion and integrity, than the kind of sanguine syrupy dialogue as exposed above. After all, we wouldn't want to scare away customers. I feel Treeleaf exhibits an exemplary level of integrity. Taigu doesn't even want me calling him teacher.
So that being said with deepest compassion and integrity and well wishing I am going to BONK you on the head shikantazen! You say you are going to see him talk again and my question to you is WHY? The question isn't really about people like Adyashanti. The question is what about you feels the need to go see him live? As Jundo hinted at, what is it that you want to have further nailed down about this practice? What is it you cannot get from the books you already have?? What does he got that no one else does other than a huge following?
Why not just find yourself involved with a good Zendo and sit! There are probably more seats open.
Last edited by Ishin; 08-21-2013 at 07:12 PM.
I agree with what you say Clark but would just like to point out that you haven't quite quoted me correctly. I wrote that the directness of tone might be sometimes misconstrued as a little harsh. I wasn't referring to the dialogue in this thread as I feel Jundo and Taigu have been very patient in this matter. It is clear what is being taught here and the tradition the teaching stems from and I agree there's nothing to be gained from adding more.
Understood Willow. I did sort of misquote you, my apologies.
Gassho C
Hi Clark,
There are different paths out there, and I don't want to say that any one is better than the others. However, for some people a Soto approach is more appropriate, for others a Rinzai approach and again for others Adyashanti's way.
AFAIK A. puts an emphasis on a big awakening, i.e. Satori. I remember an interview with him in which he kind of complained about a "low success rate in Zen".
On the other hand Soto practice puts not a single big Satori in focus - however, it is not belittled or rejected either.
Thus IMHO A.'s practice is actually closer to Rinzai than to Soto, but I might be wrong.
I think it would be helpful for many people who come to Treeleaf to read "Once born, twice born Zen" as first lecture, since it can make clear for many which path is more suited to them personally. Alas, it is out of print (Jundo has posted some excerpts of it though in the past).
Anyway, these are just assumptions, maybe Sam is commited to one path - I just wanted to mention this possibility.
Last edited by Daitetsu; 08-22-2013 at 08:58 AM. Reason: Correction of silly typo
no thing needs to be added
Greetings Timo
I understand what you mean, and I am certainly NOT saying that this/my/any path is the RIGHT way.
I guess I am more suggesting that perhaps a less "glittering" path might be a clearer one. Rather than becoming some kind of workshop or lecture junkie, sitting in a normal everyday Zendo ( of one's choice) and just going about the work of practicing might not be as entertaining, but would actually be more to the point.
Gassho C
Honestly I am not convinced that Adyashanti is fake. I take what Jundo said about Adyashanti to be just his opinion. I have read his books and listened to his talks and everything about him seems to me to be very honest and truthful. Honestly I don't know how many here have read his "True Meditation". Without reading that whatever you say against him is baseless in my view.
One thing I noticed though is this. I started a topic about Adyashanti few months back. I feel I care less about defending him now than before. Probably my sitting has made me less attached to my opinions.
That is why sitting is my main thing. Everything else (Adyashanti, zen books, other books or talks etc..) is for fun.
I often get this advice on this forum. Do they say in Zen not to attend to these kind of other teachings/talks? Does it affect one's practice? I'm kind of used to this kind of spiritual cross-browsing (I even read vipassana books occasionally) and I feel it won't affect my practice or dedication to zen in anyway. You or others here can help me understand this aspect.
Thanks again
Hi Sam - this is just my personal opinion but to clarify a little further. I don't think there is anything intrinsically detrimental in spiritual cross-browsing and I'm sure we all read a diversity of material. Buddhism is a very wide subject.
In 'Bendowa' Dogen writes,
'Remember, among Buddhists we do not argue about superiority and inferiority of philosophies, or choose between shallowness and profundity in the Dharma; we need only know whether the practice is genuine or artificial.'
I think we can only decide and sense within ourselves whether a teaching/teacher strikes one as authentic. 'Bendowa' does contain a kind of Socratic dialogue where the questioner broaches this subject.
One of the reasons I gravitate towards Soto Zen and the teachings here is because they are clearly referenced and rooted in a tradition. Jundo and Taigu may have their own personal styles of presentation but they never claim to have 'invented' something new.
I'm not saying Adyashanti does this - I haven't read anything he's written. I think it's more a case of our suggesting it's worth putting one's efforts whole heartedly into what is on offer here and giving it a chance to deepen and flower.
I can understand that it might seem narrow minded to advice to just concentrate on one teaching for a while - but I feel the distraction in my own mind when I start going off on a tangent. I think it dilutes and confuses - but that's just me.
I only mean this in relation to Zazen, which is deeply rooted in Dogen's teachings here. As the 'method' is so clearly set out it doesn't seem necessary to go outside of this - though it is inevitable that there will be parallels and resonances in other teachings elsewhere.
I use Buddhist philosophy a lot in my art work - creativity is another matter - for that I take freely from everywhere
Last edited by Jinyo; 08-23-2013 at 10:54 AM.
it's curious to me when people say they perceive the "eastern influence" in my works of the last couple of years. although I view zen and art-making as 2 aspects of an aspectless practice, they are often strange bed-fellows, as the saying goes.
there is a lot of communication between these 2 practices of mine and they're mostly mutually nourishing. still sometimes I view them each singly big enough to devour me in one gulp without batting a golden eye- I'm an Egyptian soldier in hot pursuit of Israel finding himself at once with 2 oceans coming together over his head, -I can see how I might perish.
gassho -Robert
Sam, I think you have a good questioning head on your shoulders
Last edited by Oheso; 08-24-2013 at 12:19 AM. Reason: sun spots
and neither are they otherwise.
I agree with all that Willow had to say
I am no expert by any means Sam at any of this. I am certainly not suggesting that this path, this place is THE place for you. What I am suggesting is there is a danger in following people with questionable motives. You will have to find that out for yourself. There is also a tendency for some people to do what I call spiritual puddle jumping. A little wisdom here and a little knowledge there, but what ends up happening is that you can accumulate all of this and never put any ONE of them into deep practice. Some people THINK they are getting somewhere by learning from a variety of sources when actually they are just skimming the surface without doing any real work.
I guess I am also saying it really doesn't have to be complicated, the whole essence of Zen is simplification. Why not keep it simple.
Last edited by Ishin; 08-25-2013 at 04:17 AM.
Gassho, JThis is a teaching on a Tibetan word: shenpa. The usual translation of the word shenpa is attachment. If you were to look it up in a Tibetan dictionary, you would find that the definition was attachment. But the word "attachment" absolutely doesn't get at what it is. Dzigar Kongtrul said not to use that translation because it's incomplete, and it doesn't touch the magnitude of shenpa and the effect that it has on us.
If I were translating shenpa it would be very hard to find a word, but I'm going to give you a few. One word might be hooked. How we get hooked.
Another synonym for shenpa might be that sticky feeling. In terms of last night's analogy about having scabies, that itch that goes along with that and scratching it, shenpa is the itch and it's the urge to scratch. So, urge is another word. The urge to smoke that cigarette, the urge to overeat, the urge to have one more drink, or whatever it is where your addiction is.
Here is an everyday example of shenpa. Somebody says a mean word to you and then something in you tightens— that's the shenpa. Then it starts to spiral into low self-esteem, or blaming them, or anger at them, denigrating yourself. And maybe if you have strong addictions, you just go right for your addiction to cover over the bad feeling that arose when that person said that mean word to you. This is a mean word that gets you, hooks you. Another mean word may not affect you but we're talking about where it touches that sore place— that's a shenpa. Someone criticizes you—they criticize your work, they criticize your appearance, they criticize your child— and, shenpa: almost co-arising.
Re: Shenpa
Thanks Jundo you saved me the trouble


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My friend and I went to the movies last night to watch "Nights in Rodanthe" and we both got out of the theater even more in love with Richard Gere then we already were. :)
Part of the movie takes place in a beautiful beach, with a house surrounded by balconies. I can easily picture myself there, with a cup of hot chocolate and these marshmallows. Talk about a great way of spending a cold afternoon.
Chocolate marshmallows
from Australian Gourmet Traveller
20g powdered gelatin
330g sugar
100ml corn syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
20g Dutch-process cocoa
60g pure icing sugar, sifted
35g corn starch
15g Dutch-process cocoa
Place gelatin in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, add 1/3 cup (80ml) cold water and let stand for 10 minutes.
Combine sugar, corn syrup and 1/3 cup (80ml) water in a saucepan and stir over medium-high heat until sugar dissolves, bring to the boil and cook without stirring until mixture reaches 121ºC/249ºF on a sugar thermometer. With the mixer on low speed, add this syrup in a thin steady stream and whisk until combined. Scrape down sides of bowl, add vanilla, increase speed to high and whisk for 8-10 minutes or until thick, white and fluffy – I used a Kitchen Aid and in 4 minutes it was done.
Sieve over the cocoa, whisk and transfer mixture to a baking paper-lined, lightly oiled 17cm-square cake pan*, smoothing top and stand overnight. Turn onto a lightly oiled cutting board and cut into squares – coating the knife with cooking spray or brushing it with oil helps a lot.
Sieve together icing sugar, corn starch and cocoa, then roll marshmallows in cocoa mixture to coat.
Marshmallows will keep for up to a week in an airtight container.
* I used a high 15cm square pan and a 20cm square pan would have been even better
Makes about 60


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A Young Reporter Chronicles Her 'Brain On Fire'
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies, in for Terry Gross, who's in New York to present the National Book Foundation's Literarian Award. How do you explain it when a healthy young person seemingly becomes someone else, speaking incomprehensible phrases in frightening, guttural tones, displaying signs of paranoia and hallucination and at times becoming catatonic?
For centuries, some ascribed the behavior to demonic possession, but scientists now believe at least some of those cases were due to a recently discovered autoimmune disorder that attacks the brain.
In 2009, our guest Susannah Cahalan, was a healthy, 24-year-old reporter for the New York Post when she began to experience a terrifying series of symptoms you'll soon hear about. They frightened her co-workers and family and baffled a series of doctors before the illness was finally diagnosed and treated.
Cahalan doesn't remember weeks of the ordeal but has used her journalistic skills to reconstruct what happened - interviewing physicians, nurses, friends and family members and consulting medical records, hospital videos and a detailed journal her father kept. Her book about her experience is called "Brain On Fire: My Month of Madness."
Well, Susannah Cahalan, welcome to FRESH AIR. I want to begin with a reading from the book that's in the middle of this torment that you went through with this illness. And this is a moment where you've had this for a bit, you're trying to figure it out, and you're in quite a mental state. And you're going with, I believe, your mom, your step-dad whose name is Alan(ph) and your boyfriend Steven(ph) for another test, right, an EEG.
SUSANNAH CAHALAN: Yes.
DAVIES: And you've been reluctant to even get in the car to go, but you finally get in, and then let's pick it up there from there if you will just give us this reading.
CAHALAN: (Reading) As we drove out of our driveway and onto the street, Alan began to speak. I could hear him distinctly, though he wasn't moving his lips. You're a slut. I think Steven should know. My whole body shook with anger, and I leaned threateningly towards the driver's seat. What did you say? Nothing, Alan said, sounding both surprised and exhausted.
(Reading) That was the last straw. Swiftly, I unbuckled my seatbelt, yanked open the car door and prepared to jump out of the car head-first. Steven grabbed the back of my shirt in mid-leap, saving me from launching myself out of the vehicle. Alan slammed on the brakes. Susannah, Steven said, in a level tone, a timbre I had never before heard from him, that is not OK.
(Reading) Obedient again, I closed the door and crossed my arms, but hearing the click of the child's lock sent me into panic mode again. I flung myself against the locked door and screamed: Let me out, let me out, over and over until I was too exhausted to yell anymore, then rested my head against Steven's shoulder and momentarily nodded off.
(Reading) When I opened my eyes again, we had exited the Holland Tunnel and were entering Chinatown with its sidewalk fish, swarms of tourists and fake designer-bag salesmen. The whole sordid scene disgusted me. I want coffee. Get me coffee now. I'm hungry. Feed me, I demanded insufferable. Can't you wait until we get uptown, my mom asked? No, now.
(Reading) It suddenly seemed like the most important thing in the world. Alan took a sharp turn, almost hitting a parked car, and took West Broadway to the Square Diner, one of the last authentic train diners in New York City. Alan couldn't figure out how to unlock the child's lock. So I climbed over Steven to get out of his door, hoping to disappear before any of them could catch up.
(Reading) Steven suspected as much and followed me. Since I couldn't get away, I sauntered into the diner in search of coffee and an egg sandwich. It was Sunday morning, so the line to eat was long, but I wouldn't wait. I barbarously nudged an elderly lady out of my way and, spotting an open booth, sat down. I shouted obnoxiously to no one in particular: I want coffee.
DAVIES: And that was Susannah Cahalan reading from her new book "Brain On Fire." There were parts of this illness that you literally don't remember, have no memory of. Do you actually recall this episode?
CAHALAN: I actually do, to some degree. I remember feeling very powerful and, I mean, obviously in a very negative way. This was a moment that this kind of horrible part of myself that I never really knew before had come out.
DAVIES: Let's take it back to the beginning. What was your first symptom of this problem?
CAHALAN: The first symptom was actually I thought I had bedbugs, which is not that surprising given the time and the place. It was 2009 it was in New York City. It was a time when pretty much everyone was worried about bedbugs. You know, they had been reportedly in, you know, movie theaters and park benches. So it wasn't really that scary for me.
And from there it progressed, and, you know, but it started very, very subtly.
DAVIES: Yeah, how did it progress? What else happened?
CAHALAN: So from there I started having a numbness in my left hand, which was disconcerting to me and my doctors. And then after that, I was very lethargic. I was tired. And at that point, I went to a doctor who believed that I had mono. But from there other things started happening. Behavioral problems started to emerge.
I became very jealous of my boyfriend's ex-girlfriend. I believed that he was cheating on me, and I was obsessed. You know, this is entirely outside my personality. But I actually snooped through his things, read his emails and, you know, just went through all of his old love notes in search of kind of evidence of his philandering. I mean, these kinds of behaviors were very foreign to me before this. So that was uneasy at that time.
DAVIES: And you were a reporter at the New York Post. I mean, were used to doing work competently, and that changed. I mean, you describe a moment when you had an opportunity to interview John Walsh, who's - is that right? He's the guy who - of the TV show "America's Most Wanted." Do you want to tell us about that episode?
CAHALAN: Yes, that was a time when I became even more erratic, and before that, I was moody. You know, so one moment I'd be laughing, and the next moment I'd cry hysterically. So that's the kind of context to where I interviewed John Walsh from "America's Most Wanted."
And I was interviewing him about submarines and drug-smuggling submarines. And I remember the interview vaguely. I know that I botched it. I was laughing inappropriately, behaving almost as if I was drunk during this interview to the point where his publicist stopped the interview short and basically said, we can't have this conversation anymore, because she knew something was wrong with me.
DAVIES: And then as you tried to walk him to the elevator, you were literally staggering, bumping into walls.
CAHALAN: Yes, I was. I would try to reach out to open the door for him and his publicist to walk through, and I couldn't. I missed it by nearly a foot.
DAVIES: You also describe a moment getting out of a subway I think at Times Square and the effect of the lights on you. What was that?
CAHALAN: Oh, that was an intense experience. I was walking from my apartment in Hell's Kitchen through Times Square to get to my office at the New York Post, and while walking through Times Square, the lights were so viciously bright. They were - they just - I felt nauseous because they just hurt my eyes so badly. And I didn't know it then, but it was actually a sign of photophobia, which is light sensitivity preceding a seizure.
DAVIES: So you've got migraines, you've got numbness, you at times behave really inappropriately. You're kind of paranoid and jealous of people, this sensitivity to lights. What did you think was going on?
CAHALAN: Well, at that time I was struggling for an answer, I mean, just grasping at anything that could make sense. I thought am I just bad at my job? Is the pressure of it getting to me? Is it a new relationship? Me and Steven, my boyfriend Steven, had just started dating six months before. I thought maybe it's combination of these pressures that's, you know, maybe I'm becoming unhinged, maybe I need to leave, you know, New York City. Maybe it's too much for me. Maybe living alone is too much.
So I tried to find an explanation, but nothing seemed to make sense. And then I was talking to a friend who suggested maybe you're suffering from a bipolar episode, and that just seemed to make so much sense to me. So I clung to that as an answer. It actually was very - I was filled with relief to have an answer.
DAVIES: Yeah, not many people would be happy to hear that they had bipolar disorder, but you were desperate to understand this.
CAHALAN: Exactly.
DAVIES: There's finally a moment in your apartment with your boyfriend Steven where you're watching a movie, and I gather you don't really know what happened, but you've pieced this together afterwards. Do you want to tell us what occurred that night?
CAHALAN: Yeah. I don't remember anything from this experience. This was all told to me after the fact. Steven heard guttural sounds coming from me. He thought maybe I was just angry because I hadn't slept for days, and he knew that it was really frustrating. So he thought maybe she's just venting her frustration.
But the grunts were very unnatural sounding. So he turned and looked at me, and he saw that my eyes were wide open but completely unseeing, and at that point, he tried to shake me and say, you know, are you OK, Susannah, what's going on. And at that point my arms whipped out, and I had a grand mal seizure, and I was convulsing.
And I bit my tongue so that blood and - a kind of combination of blood and foam was coming out of my mouth. And he had the presence of mind, and I think this is incredible, to know that this was a seizure because I had never had a seizure before. And so he turned me on my side, and he called 911. And that moment for me is the difference between sanity and insanity and that moment where kind of my memory goes dark.
DAVIES: So from there for, what, several weeks afterwards, you really don't know what - you don't...
CAHALAN: No, I mean, I have to piece it together from the information that I have. I don't have any real memories from that time besides hallucinations.
DAVIES: Right. So what were your sources when you decided to piece this back together? Because, you know, you had a loving family that were really invested in your care.
CAHALAN: Luckily I did, and, you know, they were extremely valuable to being able to re-create this time. You know, I started with the objective evidence, which was the medical records. And I had thousands of pages of medical records to work with. And then from there I also had video of myself in the hospital. I mean, video of myself having a hallucination.
I have about an hour of video during that time that the hospital itself kept, because I was on an EEG floor. So they wanted to monitor me if I was having a seizure. So I actually have physical evidence of my hallucinations. There's one example where I'm actually actively hallucinating that I'm on the television. I'm saying I'm on the news. I'm screaming: I'm on the news, I'm on the news, pointing accusatorily towards the camera.
And so I have those videos. I had these medical records. And then I have my parents' recollection of events, and I have my boyfriend's recollection of events. I have friends' recollection. I interviewed doctors and nurses, I mean, everyone I could possibly get my hands on to try to fill in the gap what really happened to me.
DAVIES: And your father kept a journal.
CAHALAN: And he kept a journal as well, yes.
DAVIES: You went to a very well-regarded neurologist who thought there was a simple explanation. Do you want to tell us about that?
CAHALAN: Yes. In the beginning, when my symptoms were increasing paranoia and the seizures, I went to a neurologist who insisted that it was alcohol withdrawal and that I was partying too hard and working too hard and basically just, you know, cut it out, and you'll get better.
Even when my mom gave me a note with all of my symptoms, he still insisted that it was alcohol withdrawal until she finally put her foot down, and he agreed to refer me to NYU Medical Center, which is where I was ultimately diagnosed.
DAVIES: And let's just go over some of the other symptoms that developed over the time you were there. I mean, things happened to your speech, for example.
CAHALAN: Yes, during that time I slurred my words. I drooled. I didn't have proper control over my swallowing. My arms, I kept my arms out in unnatural poses. You know, at one point I was like the bride of Frankenstein. I kept my arms out rigidly. I was slow. I could hardly walk, and when I did, I needed to be supported.
When I got to the hospital at first, I was in a four-room unit, which is three other people in a room, and I started very psychotic. I believed that I could age people with my mind. If I looked at them, wrinkles would form, and if I looked away, they would suddenly, magically get younger. And I believed that my father had murdered my step-mother.
You know, I believed all these incredible paranoid, you know, a huge, extreme example of persecution complex. And then, as the days went on, I stopped being as psychotic, and I started entering into a catatonic stage, which was characterized by, you know, by just complete lack of emotion, you know, inability to relate or to read or hardly to be able to speak.
DAVIES: And throughout all this time, lots and lots of tests, blood tests, MRIs, scans of all kinds, right?
CAHALAN: Yes. I mean, about a million dollars worth of tests throughout it all. You know, every single test you can probably think of, I've had.
DAVIES: You know, you mentioned that there were some hospital videos in your room that caught some of you, and I've seen just a little snatch of one of those, and there's a moment when you look up at the camera with this panic in your eyes. And I have to say that three seconds is just heart-wrenching to see. And I wondered, what was it like for you to see this version of yourself that you didn't recognize?
CAHALAN: It's so hard to see this self, this other person, reaching out to you begging for help. I mean, that's basically what I was doing at that point. And, you know, she is so divorced from who I am now, but she's there, you know, and I don't remember her. I can't even really relate to her. But she exists. I see her in this video. It's so, it's so surreal and discomfiting.
You know, it's just, it really - it unsettles your identity and your sense of self and everything you think - I would never be capable of doing something like that, but there's electronic evidence that I did all these things, yeah.
DAVIES: Is it hard still to tell the story? Does it take something out of you?
CAHALAN: It is emotionally draining. You know, to write this book I needed to get a distance, a journalistic distance from that other self. That was really necessary because, you know, that whole passage at the diner is just - it's mortifying that I did that and I was capable of doing that. But to accurately report this, I needed to treat myself as a subject instead of relating to that person. I needed to keep that distance to really write about it. Because if I started thinking about really thinking about myself in that role, it would - it's so difficult to hear all these horrible things that I did.
DAVIES: We're speaking with Susannah Cahalan. Her account of her illness is called "Brain On Fire: My Month of Madness." We'll talk more after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.
DAVIES: If you're just joining us, my guest is Susannah Cahalan. She is a journalist for the New York Post who fought a rare and difficult neurological illness and tells the story in a book called "Brain On Fire: My Month of Madness."
So you're at the hospital at NYU for weeks and weeks, and your parents, who are separated, are caring for you - your boyfriend - and you're getting no better. Your symptoms change, but they're horrifying, and tests don't get you anywhere. And then there's a breakthrough that came with this doctor Souhel Nijjar. Do I have the name right?
CAHALAN: Yes, you do.
DAVIES: What was his specialty? What was his take on this?
CAHALAN: Well, you know, he's such a special doctor, and he had a reputation prior to this as being kind of the man to go to when nothing made sense. So he was called in to my case because, you know, no one had an answer still for my behaviors. You know, a psychiatric cause to my behavior was still something that was a possibility. In fact, at one point the diagnosis offered was schizoaffective disorder, which is a combination of mood and thought disorder.
You know, so people really didn't know what was going on. You know, there were a lot of theories but very few answers. And he came on the scene, and he was really the first doctor - and again, I don't remember this scene at all, this was entirely re-create for me. But he was one of the first doctors, my parents tell me, that actually sat down and asked me questions in a way that really captured that kind of full story.
You know, he was able to kind of incorporate the bedbugs and the numbness, and I also had, you know, increased heart rate, and all these various clues he was able to bring together. And he was able to do this with one very simple test, using only a piece of paper and a pencil.
DAVIES: Right. And it's interesting that him having the time and the patience to carefully listen to what you had gone through was so critical because he had to put various pieces together. And then there was this test, giving you a piece of paper and asking you to draw a clock and fill in the numbers one through 12 around the face of the clock. Tell us what happened.
CAHALAN: So when he gave me that paper, I drew a circle, and I drew the numbers one through 12 all on the right-hand side of the clock. So the left-hand side was blank, completely blank, which showed him that I was experiencing left-side spatial neglect, and likely the right side of my brain, responsible for the left field of vision, was inflamed.
He actually - after this moment, he took my parents out of the room and he told them: Her brain is on fire. He used those words. He said: Her brain is on fire. And my parents, instead of being horrified by this statement, because it's a pretty horrific statement, they were actually relieved to hear there was some kind of explanation for what was happening to me.
DAVIES: This was an inflammation of the brain tissue, right? But he had he to figure out what was causing it.
CAHALAN: Exactly. It was still not a full answer. It was just - he just offered one step towards an answer.
DAVIES: And he got in touch with some other scientists at the University of Pennsylvania, right, who had seen something similar, and what was it? I mean, what was causing your problem?
CAHALAN: Dr. Josep Dalmau at the University of Pennsylvania actually discovered this disease in 2007. It is called anti-NMDA receptor autoimmune encephalitis. And in short, it's when the body's immune system attacks the NMDA receptor in the brain.
DAVIES: And that was causing what to happen?
CAHALAN: So the NMDA receptor is located all over the brain, but it's in high concentrations in the frontal lobes and the hippocampus, and the frontal lobes are responsible for personality, a lot of higher functions, and the hippocampus is responsible for memory. So the NMDA receptor is a key building block of the brain, but it's also really important with memory and learning and certain types of behavior, as well.
So it makes sense when you mess with these NMDA receptors, you get these kind of - first you get these kind of psychotic behaviors, which I exhibited earlier on in the illness. And then as the disease progresses, you start to get that catatonic side of the illness, which is a lack of emotion, a lack of activity.
DAVIES: And to be sure about the diagnosis, they actually had to take a biopsy of your brain, right, I mean, get a little piece of brain tissue.
CAHALAN: Well actually, you know, in the end of the day it wasn't necessary to do a brain biopsy. What happened was they still didn't know the answer. So they wanted to make sure that his assumption from that clock drawing was true, that my brain was actually inflamed. So to prove that, they needed to get a piece of my brain, but to ultimately diagnose me, they used a spinal tap.
And they sent that spinal serum to the University of Pennsylvania, where I was ultimately diagnosed.
DAVIES: Susannah Cahalan's book is called "Brain On Fire." She'll be back in the second half of the show. I'm Dave Davies, and this is FRESH AIR.
DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies in for Terry Gross. We're speaking with Susannah Cahalan, a journalist who spent weeks exhibiting bizarre behavior in 2009 - the result of a rare autoimmune disorder that attacks the brain. Scientists believe the illness may account for many cases believed to be demonic possession over the centuries. Cahalan's book about her experience is called "Brain on Fire."
So where does this illness come from? Do you know why it afflicted you?
CAHALAN: That's still a question that doesn't have an answer. Doctors believe that you first have to have a genetic inclination to make certain - these certain antibodies that will attack the brain. And then secondly there needs to be an external trigger. A person coughing on you, you know, giving you the common cold or a flu which would, you know, for a person without this genetic inclination, that would make them sick, they would have the flu. But for me it could send my immune system kind of into overdrive and start this antibody production that ultimately attacked my brain.
DAVIES: Does this illness affect women more than men?
CAHALAN: Yes. About 75 percent of people affected are women. And a good - a good half are - maybe a little bit it less than half are children, and the average age is around 20 years old. So the average, you know, the most common patient is a woman in her 20s.
DAVIES: Do we know why? Why women?
CAHALAN: You know, that is another great question that has no answer. I mean I think it's a question for all autoimmune diseases in general. I mean there are 50 million people in the United States with autoimmune diseases, and about 75 percent of that total are women as well. And there are theories as to why women are so disproportionately affected, and you know, some of that comes down to hormonally or the fact that our immune systems might be just more complex because we have children, we have babies inside of us and, you know, our immune system has to know not to attack a fetus. You know, there are theories but there's no real answer as to why women are so affected by autoimmune diseases in general.
DAVIES: So you knew what you had. How was it treated?
CAHALAN: You know, it's fairly simple. It's a combination of steroids and immune therapy. So in short, basically what they want to do is suppress the immune system so it doesn't create these harmful antibodies that attack the NMDA receptor, and they also want to flush these antibodies out of the system and they use - to do this they use what's called IVIg treatment and Plasmapheresis.
DAVIES: And what does that mean? They are essentially kind of replacing your plasma with these cells that were attacking your brain...
CAHALAN: Yes.
DAVIES: ...with plasma that wasn't doing that?
CAHALAN: Yes. It's new and improved plasma, you know, in your system. It's actually - IVIg treatment is made of the plasma of a thousand donors. So it's healthy, new healthy antibodies that they flush into your system as they're also and meanwhile taking out those bad antibodies as well.
DAVIES: Right. So what this meant was a series of oral medications and IV medications taken over a period of many weeks, right? This wasn't something that you got an immediate shot and you got better, right?
CAHALAN: Oh, yes. This was many months. I would say about a good eight months.
DAVIES: And tell us about recovery. Do you recall the first thing you remember; I mean coming out of this blackout?
CAHALAN: It's so amorphous, but I do have a very early memory from that time. After I got out of the hospital - very soon after I was released from the hospital - I recall visiting Stephen's sister's family in New Jersey and I had brought all the stuffed animals that I had collected in the hospital to bring to the nieces and nephews. And I remember very little from that time, but I do remember horrified looks on people's faces. And later when I'm interviewing them, I mean they were pretty shocked by my state. I was slow and I could hardly move. I didn't even speak. I had, you know, my brain biopsy scar was still out, it was still, you know, I still had staples in my brain biopsy scar and, you know, I had sleep in my eye and my hair with stringy and dirty, and so that was my first real memory after the hospital. But it took a long time after that before I really felt myself and my body again.
DAVIES: And what was your memory like? Was your thinking disorganized? What were your abilities to speak like?
CAHALAN: It was - that was probably the most frustrating part of everything is that, you know, so many times I would repeat: I can't get my thoughts out. And I've heard that from a lot of other people suffering from any type of brain injury. It's like you have these thoughts, you're in there. You're there but you just can't communicate. So instead of trying, for a period of time I would just smile. I just sat there with a frozen grin on my face - meanwhile, I was suffering internally, trying to figure out something to say. But that was the - I would say the recovery part was just the hardest part on me personally.
DAVIES: When this happened, you were an independent person, you know, you had your own apartment, you were working. You ended up living with your parents because you had to give up the apartment, and you spent months just sort of becoming whole again. How long did it take before you were back at work and living on your own again?
CAHALAN: It took six months until I was back at work, and then another I'd say four months till I had moved out of my parent's house, they felt comfortable enough for me to move out of my mother's house and in with Stephen. That time I - even during that time, you know, six, nine months later, I still wasn't 100 percent myself again.
DAVIES: We're speaking with Susannah Cahalan. Her book is called "Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness." We'll talk more after a short break.
This is FRESH AIR.
DAVIES: If you're just joining us, our guest is Susannah Cahalan. She is a journalist for the New York Post, and tells the story of her battle with an unusual brain illness in her book "Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness."
You had quite a look at the American health care system, which has, you know, been a subject of major policy debate these days. You said your treatment cost $1 million?
CAHALAN: Yes.
DAVIES: Has it made you think about kind of how the system works and why it worked for you?
CAHALAN: Oh, very much so. I mean currently I actually pay for my own health insurance because I'm a freelancer. And just a few weeks ago, I had a bit of a scare. I had numbness in my left hand again, which was terrifying. And, you know, since I have to pay for my health insurance - and it's a very basic kind of health insurance, it's not the Cadillac that I had before - I went in for several tests. You know, when I go for tests now, it's like immediately I have to go in for an MRI, blood tests - you know, I had two MRI's, a blood test, another type of test. You know, I was just basically just one day filled with tests. And I recently got a check for $6,000 and I realized then how lucky I was to be covered then because I mean it would have bankrupted me.
DAVIES: Now, when you had the illness, you had health insurance through your employer, the New York Post, I assume, right?
CAHALAN: Yes.
DAVIES: Right.
CAHALAN: Yes.
DAVIES: But now you're a freelancer. Does that mean you have to get insurance on your own? Because this would certainly qualify as a pre-existing condition, I assume.
CAHALAN: Oh yes.
DAVIES: When you left your employer and got your own insurance, was it hard? I mean do people look at your previous medical problems and was that an issue?
CAHALAN: Luckily, it wasn't an issue for me. You know, somehow I got lucky and was able to secure this health insurance, but it's a very basic kind. I mean it's the kind with a $10,000 deductible. It is worse case scenario health insurance.
DAVIES: Now, does - are there relapses in your condition - I mean with others who have it?
CAHALAN: Unfortunately there are. You know, when I first - when I wrote the book, it was about 25 chance percent chance. Now, you know, as new studies are emerging, it's about 19 percent chance, so we shaved about six percent off, which does very little to ease my mind.
DAVIES: When you went back to work, you wrote about your experience for the Post and you looked into this illness. Do we know how long it has been around?
CAHALAN: You know, basically doctors believe it's been around as long as man. And you know, with that they actually believe that it is a possible cause of demonic possession throughout history, which if you think about - I mean it just blows the mind when you think about that.
DAVIES: Meaning people who are believed to be possessed of demons might have had the illness that afflicted you.
CAHALAN: Exactly.
DAVIES: What are some of the...
CAHALAN: And when you think about...
DAVIES: Yeah...
CAHALAN: When you think about the symptoms, I mean in my case alone, I mean this kind of - this grandiosity, this violence. In a lot of children you see hypersexuality. You know, there is, I mean, you know, even my grunts and these guttural sounds that came from me sounded superhuman to someone who might, you know, be inclined to think that way. And, you know, I've talked to many people who've had this disease and one woman I spoke to actually asked for a priest because she said the devil is inside of me, I need it out. A little girl was grunting. They, you know, they had a monitor in her room and she was grunting so unnaturally that their parents - her parents - looked at each other and said, is she possessed? I mean they actually said that about a little girl.
DAVIES: And you knew some of these stories in part because when you wrote about it for the Post, people who had experienced these things got in contact with you, right?
CAHALAN: Yes. So many people have reached out and they just, they wanted to share their story. They wanted to talk to someone who has gone through this illness. When I was first diagnosed, I was the 217th person to be, to have this illness, and it was so lonely. You know, you felt that there was no one out there who could relate and after I wrote that story, it just opened me wide open. I mean I just - so many people reached out and they had horrible stories. I mean their stories were horrible and, you know, they, but then we also had so much in common. You know, there was one woman I spoke to, her father kept a journal and my father kept a journal. There were so many strange similarities. A 13-year-old girl tried to jump out of a moving car just like I did. It's just amazing. I don't know what to make of all the similarities, but it's amazing to have that support system of other people who've gone through something that you have as well.
DAVIES: Do you feel like cognitively you're fully back - I mean you can speak and think as clearly as you did before?
CAHALAN: You know, that's another thing it's hard for me to answer because throughout this whole process, when I was definitely not back, I was insisting that I was 100 percent. You know, at points where my speech was very slow and methodical and, you know, I was not myself, I was telling everyone I'm back, I'm fine. So I have proven to be a terrible judge - a terrible objective judge of my own self. So you know, I'm 27 now. I was 24 then. There are so many different life changing events that have happened, but you know, this central life changing event, you know, this disease, was profound, and it changed me. It definitely changed me. I want to say - and I really want to say yes, I'm back. I feel great, you know, I feel like myself. You know, it's a different self than it was before the illness. It's not that same person, but it's a new person.
DAVIES: Now, you said that there is like about a 19 percent chance - roughly 19 percent of people who have had this may get a relapse. Are you particularly careful in any way about your health, what you eat? Are there things that you can do to try and make sure you don't have a relapse?
CAHALAN: I don't know if you can control that. But I do know that if you do relapse, you have the same percentage chance of recovery if you do happen to get it again.
DAVIES: So you can be treated just as you were before?
CAHALAN: Yes. With a relapse you have the same percentage chance of recovery as you did before, and actually probably higher because you'll catch it earlier this time.
DAVIES: Now, this - you got this illness in 2009, right?
CAHALAN: Mm-hmm.
DAVIES: And it was relatively recently discovered. If you had gotten it in 2004, would things have gone very badly for you?
CAHALAN: I constantly think about that. I constantly think about the fact that two years really is a line between, you know, me sitting here now and me who knows where. You know, you know, I think about the people who, you know, had this illness before it was discovered and what happened to them. You know, did they end up in a psychiatric ward? Are they in a nursing home? Are they dead? You know, did they recover somewhat? Did they recover fully? You know, these are questions, you know, I don't know the answer to but those are questions that do haunt me.
DAVIES: Well, Susannah Cahalan, I wish you good health and success in your career, and I want to thank you so much for sharing your story with us.
CAHALAN: Thank you so much for having me.
DAVIES: Susannah Cahalan's book is called "Brain on Fire."
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How Al Roker Lost 135 Pounds and Gained Faith in Himself
Get Al's weight-loss tips and recipes >>
Listen to Al reading an excerpt from Never Goin' Back >>
Read Al's take on changes at the Today show >>
In a new book, Roker opens up about his lifetime struggle with weight and how he finally broke the yo-yo cycle—for good. Watch behind-the-scenes video from Roker's cover photo shoot and read his full interview with PARADE below.
It's 9:45 a.m. and Al Roker bounds up the stairs from the Today show studio at Rockefeller Center to his second-floor office. His energy is striking, considering that the short climb once left him winded. Over the past decade, viewers have watched the 5-foot-8, 58-year-old Roker transform himself: After tipping the scales at 340 pounds, he underwent bariatric surgery in 2002 and within eight months had dropped 100 pounds. Then, five years ago, a family crisis plunged him back into his old eating habits, and he regained much of the weight. But, as Roker describes in his new memoir, Never Goin' Back: Winning the Weight-Loss Battle for Good (out tomorrow), he has ended the yo-yo cycle at last by revamping his entire way of life and has trimmed down to 205 pounds.
"My kids don't know me as the fat guy," says Roker, photographed with his tailor, Tullio Giannitti, at Richards department store in Greenwich, Conn., on Nov. 30.
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Winning that battle has not been easy. Roker, an avowed foodie, has wrestled with his weight since childhood. Still, he was laid-back about his size until age 15, when Bill Cosby's "Fat Albert" character appeared on TV. "It was the embodiment of me: a fat black guy who is the center of attention and the butt of jokes." The mortification launched him into a "vicious cycle" of emotional binge eating, followed by bouts of self-loathing. "[I'd eat, then] I'd get into a funk, so I'd eat more," he says.
No longer. Four years after embracing a healthy lifestyle, Roker is confident he has found a sustainable routine, which he shares in his new book, along with funny, brutally honest stories of his sometimes difficult journey. PARADE spoke to Roker about how he's finally transformed his body—and his state of mind.
PARADE: Your mother cooked for a growing family on your father's salary as a bus driver. What were your meals like when you were a kid?
ROKER: All middle-income families use carbs to stretch meals, across any ethnic group—whether it's kugel or rice and beans or macaroni and cheese. I remember having pancakes for dinner. But as kids, we thought, "Breakfast for dinner? This is great."
In the book, you talk about your love of food, especially the comfort foods your mother made for you—grilled cheese sandwiches, vanilla layer cakes. Do you still eat those things?
On occasion I will. My old modus operandi was, if you're going to have a grilled cheese and bacon sandwich, don't have one, have two. If you're going to have vanilla wafers, you have the whole box. Now it's two or three. You learn the secret of most normal-weight people, which is I'm full.
From the outside looking in, what people see is a successful guy with a wonderful family. So why the need to binge?
I've thought about that a lot. Despite having a loving wife [ABC News correspondent Deborah Roberts], three terrific children, and a great career, there were times when I perhaps didn't feel that I was good enough. If I was having a bad day, eating was like self-medicating. But if you abuse food, you still have to use that substance that you abuse every day. You have to learn to use it responsibly.
Chris Christie has talked about that.
Chris Christie did an amazing job during Hurricane Sandy, and everybody talks about him as presidential material. But in the same sentence, they say, "But he's going to have to lose weight," because the general feeling is that if you're overweight, you're out of control. Although during Hurricane Sandy, you couldn't have seen anybody who was more in control than Chris Christie.
Why do you think being overweight still carries such a stigma?
Fat people, overweight people, the morbidly obese—it's the last acceptable group to make fun of. Throughout media, the heavy guy is the funny guy, the easy laugh ... [and] when you're overweight, you see that as your role.
You write in the book that "food became the third person" in your marriage to Deborah. How so?
It was this cloud hanging over us. Deborah is very healthy, exercises, eats well. For all the right reasons, she wants her significant other to be in terrific shape, too, and I was thwarting her at every move. She was frustrated. [For her part, Roberts says the big challenge was "keeping my mouth shut. … You don't know what to do. You love this person. I felt it was a reflection on me that I couldn't help."]
So you got into secret eating?
Because you're fat, you feel that everybody's watching every bite you take. So, you closet-eat, and you think because nobody sees you eating, then you're not eating. You know, if you're eating a Big Mac in a closed car, can anybody hear you nosh? If I ate only what people saw me eat, I would've probably been about 170 pounds.
Roker in 2000, two years before his bariatric surgery (left), and with his wife Deborah Roberts in 2012 (right).
In 2002, you went through bariatric surgery. Why did you decide to have that procedure?
After my father was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2001, he was at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, and I would go in every day. We'd talk and joke, and then one day he got serious and said, "Look, we both know I'm not going to be here to help you with my grandkids, so you gotta promise you're going to lose weight." Seven days later he was gone. A few weeks afterward, [Deborah and I] found out we were pregnant with our son Nicky. I said, "Okay, I'm going to have to do something."
After the surgery, you lost 100 pounds. Then five years ago, some of the weight came back on. What happened?
My mom got really sick, and unlike my dad, who was gone before we knew it, her illness dragged on for months. I was out of my routine, commuting [to Long Island] to see her, and feeling guilty—either that I wasn't spending enough time with the kids and Deborah, or that I wasn't being there enough with my mom. It was this perfect storm, and I consoled myself with food. I got blindsided and, I think, to a certain extent, I got cocky. It's like an alcoholic who's been sober for 10 years and has a drink and says, "Ah, but I can handle it. Just one or two, I'll be okay." But no, you won't. [He had regained 40 pounds by the time his mother died.]
After the psychological up, down, up, down, how did you make this latest push to lose the weight again?
About four years ago, I ran into an old friend, and he said, "Hey, dude, I just lost 40 pounds." I decided to meet with his nutritionist, and I think it was fate that she crossed my path at the exact moment that I was ready to hear what she had to say. For the first time, I realized that I had to change not only the quantity but the quality of food that I was eating. Even more importantly, exercise has finally become a big part of my life.
How do you fight off those old temptations?
As I write in the book, I've learned to identify those triggers that caused me to binge-eat in the past; for instance, I used to use travel as an excuse to eat poorly. Now I don't go anywhere without my scale; I literally pack it with me. … It gives me permission to have a bad day, or even just a bad moment. In the old days it was "Well, I've blown it; I may as well just go hog wild." Now it's "Okay, I made a mistake, let's get back on the wagon."
So it's not about being liberated from the scale?
In Never Goin' Back, I revealed that before my bypass, I had stopped getting on the scale or even watching myself on television. It was too difficult to face, so I hid my head in the sand. But now, I look at the number every morning, and it tells me what I've achieved. I know I'm more than that number, but I like what the number represents.
Get Al Roker's Weight Loss Tips and Recipes
Listen to Al Roker Reading an Excerpt from 'Never Goin' Back'
Al Roker on Food, Family, and What Ticks Him Off