Was Buddha a Nihilist?

Why is non-attachment a good thing?

Why write a memoir? Unless you are a famous or historical figure that has captured the interest of thousands, why go to the effort to share your story with others? In my case, since I am not famous nor a historical figure, I truly believe that my story may help ease the suffering of others and possibly provide a few helpful insights into pragmatic ways people can find a little more joy and gratitude in their lives.

In my life, Buddhism, and it philosophical underpinnings, have played a central role in shaping the way I have approached my relationship to self, others, and the world around me. But I haven’t always understood the often paradoxical tenets espoused by Buddhism. More recently, after 35 years, I have finally started to gain a deeper wisdom into what Buddha taught and the intellectual paradoxes seem to be unraveling into experiential insights that are making a meaningful difference in my daily quality of life.

I generally eschew organized religions, and hold an simplistic belief that absent stellar leadership as soon as you get too many people involved in organizing anything, it generally tends to devolve in more base human drives like ego, greed, and desire (politics, societies, religion, etc). What I love about Buddha’s teachings is that he preached “Don’t take my word for it, follow a few simple practices and come to your own conclusions through your own experiences. I encourage you to question me and all teachers.” (That is me heavily paraphrasing what he said ...) How do you have these experiences by which to formulate your own understanding on the nature of self and reality? Primarily through meditation.

I have meditated on and off throughout most of my adult life, across different traditions and at varying levels of consistency. A little over four years ago I committed to make meditation a daily practice in my life, and since that day I have meditated for 1556 days in a row as of this writing on January 26th, 2024. Well, there was ONE day on 12/10 that I may have slipped. A good reminder that none of us are perfect :)

My meditation journal, the device I use to hold myself accountable to daily practice.

I spend about 20 minutes a day meditating, nothing super intense. Each time I sit down I am primarily overwhelmed with what is referred to as “Monkey Mind”. This is when you have thoughts constantly bouncing around, vying for your attention and distracting you from the focus of your meditation which could be your breath, visual field, sounds, body, or myriad of other specific focal points. Often times I am only successful in maintaining my focus for a few seconds, or occasionally a minute or two. This is the nature of meditation, at least for me.

While meditating there is no rapturous peace or contentment that washes over me. On most days I am just reminded of the fact that I have very little control over my own thinking. But over time, I started to notice changes. Situations that I would typically have strong reactions to no longer triggered me. I would be more aware of my internal state, often observing when I was annoyed or irritated, and being more mindful in my responses to others. I found myself reacting less and responding more.

Very recently I had an experience that helped bring clarity to one of the central principles of Buddhism that has always perplexed me: the idea of non-attachment as a means to realize a joy and peace.

I was first introduced to Buddhism back when I was twenty years old and locked up in a psychiatric ward for an LSD induced psychosis. A girl whom I had briefly dated a few weeks prior had come to visit me and was kind enough to bring me a copy of Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha - she thought I would resonate with the story.

The copy of Siddhartha, I received 35 years ago, while locked up in a psych ward.

Siddhartha is a poetic novel taking place in the time of Guatuma Buddha and narrates the life of young man’s spiritual journey of self transformation and enlightenment. It emphasizes many of the themes of Buddhism in a beautiful and completely engaging way. When I read it, I found myself transfixed. What was being described by Hesse echoed many of the insights I had experienced while high on LSD. Unbeknownst to me, the book foreshadowed the path my life itself would take over the next 35 years.

What are some of these Buddhist principles about which one can use to guide a spiritual journey? It starts with the Four Noble Truths. And to those of you reading for whom this is old hat and know what I am talking about, don’t worry, I am getting to something more specific here about attachment.

These Four Noble Truths were originally passed down via oral tradition, and weren’t written down until about 2000 years ago, about 400-500 years after the death of Buddha himself. So while we can be confident of the primary meaning Buddha expressed, the very specific words Buddha used may never be known.

Below is my paraphrasing of the Four Noble Truths. Buddhist scholars may argue my translation here, but bear with me, I am getting to a point. This is my memoir, right?

Life is Suffering

Suffering is caused by Attachment

Freedom of Suffering is achieved by Non-Attachment

To achieve Non-Attachment Meditate, Live in the Moment, and Live with Integrity

I remember when I first read these “truths” I thought it was a bit of dour perspective on this whole affair of being human. Life is suffering? That sounds pretty grim. But it is hard to argue it from a philosophical perspective, and if you accept that truth and the one that follows - that suffering is caused by grasping or desire to attach to experience, things, people, feelings, etc, it does start to make a bit of sense. But not a very joyous prospect. So we are all suffering, our suffering is caused because we want things, and to stop suffering we must stop wanting things? What about this euphoric “Nirvana” everyone talks about? Some magical state of enlightenment. Do I need to become a monk that meditates all day long, living by some strict code of conduct with zero desires? Where is the fun in that? That certainly doesn’t sound very enlightened to me.

Despite these doubts, there was something about all of this that rung true at a deep level. And the more time I spent contemplating these values and studying Buddhism these principles begin to resonate with me, at least at an intellectual level if not in practice. But I would always get stuck on the non-attachment part. It just seemed so.. blah.. Like eating air. Where is the satisfaction in that?

There is a premise in the this whole non-attachment piece that to me was very non-obvious. To find joy in equanimity, presumes you are not in a constant state of suffering. Now that might sound obvious, but when one has lived in some type of low grade suffering for almost an entire life, that isn’t so clear. If your base state or set point is always being in some level of pain or suffering, it is pretty hard to stop grasping for relief in the world around you.

Over the past year, I started a new meditation practice, using Sam Harris’s Waking Up App. I also stopped consuming any form of cannabis (which for the past ten years has been a daily ritual) and now I rarely, if ever, drink alcohol. I am not sure if it is Waking Up, cutting out the mind altering substances or a combination of both, but my meditation practice has deepened by an order of magnitude.

Most days, but not all, I will feel moments of profound connection to the moment and my physical surroundings, especially when I am outdoors. Certain time of the day the light will just mesmerize me and I will stop to marvel at the beauty and wonder in the world - the expanse of the sky, the fragrance of a citrus blossom, the beauty of a flower or just the fact that this whole world exists as it does, like from the eyes of a child. It isn’t like some euphoric rapture that I am walking around in. It happens for brief moments, in little flashes, in between the annoyance of being stuck in traffic, dealing with a contractor who won’t return my calls to finish the work he started, being stuck behind a slow driver, or any of life’s little daily challenges. But it is enough to ground me to a feeling of peace and joy.

So this gets me back to the whole non-attachment piece. Last week, my wife had located a piece of property less than 4 miles from our current home. It seemed like it would be the property of our dreams. It was a stunning 40 acre plot of land, with creeks, mature oaks, vistas of undeveloped rolling green hills, a large barn. It was aptly named “Eden Ranch” and we were in love. It appeared the land could be subdivided into 8 parcels, so it also had the potential to be a very lucrative investment. This was heady stuff. 40 acres of undeveloped land, less than 10 miles from the coast was unheard of and it could be ours. But, the property was well beyond the price range we could afford without selling our current home, and there were no habitable structures on it. Pamela, my wife, and I were so enamored with this piece of land we decided we would sell our home, take on a new mortgage, buy an RV, and live on the property with our four dogs in the RV while we built our dream home. We had the cashflow, just not the capital to buy the land outright.

As we were going through this process, and making multiple trips during the week to survey the land, I was struck with how difficult it was to appreciate the beauty of the moment, the joy and wonder I had been experiencing almost daily. All of my thoughts and focus were diverted to this utopic future that only existed in my mind. Some part of me missed the grounded peace I was experiencing the week prior, before I even knew this property purchase was a possibility. My ability to find joy in the blueness of the sky, or the way the light filtered down through the trees as I walked one of my dogs in the morning, to see the mist rise atop the grassy hills had been hijacked. I was consumed with the property of our dreams. Being wrapped up in this slightly manic desire to purchase this land and the fantasy of what it portended for my future felt addictive and, if I was honest with myself, not completely enjoyable. Some part of me missed the equanimity I seemed so solidly grounded in just a week prior.

Alas, after talking directly with the seller we realized the deal could not go through. He was taking the land off the market and was no longer interested in selling it. Visions of gazing out upon the sun dappled hills and hearing the rustling of wind through the fragrant large eucalyptus grove along the creek as we looked out upon our 40 acres of land quickly vanished. It was very disappointing, after a week of planning our new modern homesteading adventure and the next phase of our lives, our dreams came crashing down.

The day it became clear the deal would not happen, I was meeting my oldest Son, Dayne, before he headed back off to college after winter break. I showed up to meet my son, still processing the disappointment. But part of me was also observing this disappointment, with a detached curiosity. “Isn’t this interesting, just a week before I knew this property even existed I felt so at peace and happy, and now, a week later I am profoundly disappointed.” I didn’t push the negative feelings away, but just sat with them while a part of me observed, with curiosity.

Dayne and I met for coffee. When we sat down and I met my Son’s gaze, our eyes locked for a moment. Dayne exclaimed “Dad, you seem so Happy!” with a big smile on his face. It was such an odd thing for him to say, because right at that moment I was being intensely curious about my own feelings of disappointment. I responded: “That is so odd Dayne, because I am actually really disappointed about our land deal not working out.”

Dayne and I then proceeded to have one of the most connected and fulfilling conversations I had ever had with him. We talked about life, relationships, his college and career plans, Pam’s and my plans for the future. I was fully present in the moment, and soaking in the experience of appreciating what an amazing young man my son had transformed into. The hardships he has overcome, his kind and thoughtful nature, his commitment to excellence and hard work, and his sincere desire to help others. And while from time to time feelings of disappointed floated to the surface, they were nothing more than a transitory thought, floating away. I left the conversation feeling incredibly fulfilled, and slightly perplexed. What just happened?

As I sat down in my car, I paused for a moment, contemplating the deeper meaning of non-attachment. And I had a profound insight. When you can find fulfillment and joy by being in the moment, it is infinitely easier to not be attached to a specific outcome. The moment is always here, and if you have a knowingness that you can connect to the moment and find joy EVEN WHILE you are experiencing something negative that opens up a world of possibilities to you. I think Buddhists call this approach to life the “middle way.” Being so attached to the outcome of being able to purchase this land both separated me from the joy of the moment while I was grasping for it, and again later when I could not obtain it.

This is the way I have found meditation to work for me. I commit to the practice and while doing the practice itself, nothing seems any different. Then a circumstance will occur and I end up having an entirely different response to the circumstance than I would have in the past. I have seen this repeated many times again and again over the last several years and I feel blessed to be able to have these experiences. Experiences that never seemed possible 35 years ago, sitting in a psychiatric facility, and reading the words of Herman Hesse.

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In the comments below please let me know, was this helpful in any way? Did this give you any insights you may not have had before reading this? Was this engaging, or did it sound more like an academic treatise?

Don’t be shy, comment away :)