The Zen of Trauma

a Master wielding a kyosaku or koan, a shout or a bow. In this state, we are vulnerable to several options. We can deny the event or its impact on us, we can minimize it, we can cope with it through drugs, alcohol, sex, eating, or any number of other compulsive, but destructive, behaviors, or we can enter into it, embrace it, work our way through it, and finally integrate it.

   In Zen practice, it is crucial to continue the practices. We do not just sit, get enlightenment, and move on. We sit some more. We sit with others. We engage a Teacher. We structure in supports for our practice through these tools and many others. As a result, if we are practicing the Way, when we do get our cosmic egg cracked, we are in a position to deal with the flow of life and death . In real life, though, it is often the experiencing of trauma, the crack itself, which drives us to Zen.
     
     
     
     

    PRACTICAL LIFE

   Here we are, opened up like cracked eggs running out all over the counter, what do we do? We are bleeding in a very special way. Seeking help is not an uncommon experience among people in such circumstances, although we seek it in diverse and disparate ways. Some of us visit a physician, a therapist, or a priest. Others visit the bookstore. Still others seek sources and types of help that are non-traditional and do not fit within the dominant paradigm. However, few of us seem open to such "alternative" services. And even fewer still will consult the patient himself, that is, look within ourselves for our “cure.”
     

    Searching.

   How does it happen that as part of our recovery we begin to dig into our souls or search for something larger than ourselves? It is not a sudden thing. I mean, we do not wake up one morning and say , "I think I'll go look for God today." It comes indirectly through the questions we ask ourselves about our everyday experience , especially if that experience includes trauma.

   The search begins as part of the experience itself. As we sit on the floor, having just been knocked silly by some traumatic experience or other, we ask ourselves "what happened?" We pursue questions that attempt an explanation of our fear, loss, near death experience. We ask questions about the world, society, family, and self. We look for cause, someone, or something to blame. We challenge God.

   Then over time, the questions yield some answers, but not the kind we thought we would want to hear. The nature of the questions begins to change. We begin looking into ourselves, at our own thoughts and behavior...not related to the trauma... but rather, related to the person we have become. We observe ourselves in interaction with our thoughts and perceptions, feelings and behaviors. We look at our fit and lack of fit. Again, we ask why we are so different in some ways, but not in others. We sometimes find simpler things are growing in wonder.

   Unfortunately, all of this can be thought of as a search for the sacred, the spiri tual, or the soulful. While these are aspects that give rise to meaningful existence, they are not special in the sense that they are divorced from the everyday.

   The usual places include churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, mountains, valleys, oceans, forests, and deserts. Indeed, these are places that can bring about the conditions necessary for the sacred to manifest itself. Such conditions typically include panorama, height, contrast, depth, and silence in the face of these elements . They are wonderful places, although not everyone feels the sacred in them.

   Unusual places include everything from refrigerators to America's Funniest Videos. Anywhere where there exists an honest opportunity to be spoken to by the real world is a place where the sacred can arise. Ordinarily, we think of sacred space as being set apart from profane space by something like a boundary. Rudolf Otto thought that the sacred should be marked and have a shared agreement by those visiting, that this is Sacred Space. T o indicate sacred ground , ancient peoples utilized markers such as stones, walls, fences, and other things that divide space. These, as Otto points out, exist throughout history.

It is a grave mistake to do so.

   From a Zen perspective, all space is sacred; all space is profane. Sacred and profane are two sides of the very same coin: dharma. To cleave toward one and eschew the other divides our heart/mind and imagines an illusory world. Using this imagined