Psychology + Zen = Philosophy and methods to relieve suffering and reveal happiness.
Psychology: We project onto others what we reject in ourselves. Some call it a Shadow. Healing comes from making the unconscious conscious, taking responsibility for our projections, integrating what is split off as our own thing.
Zen: There is no separate self. When we can be at one with every aspect, then we belong everywhere and we reject no one.
We heal the world by becoming intimate with our whole selves.
A montage to honor the courage it took to face death for a year. The workshop "A Year to Live," based on Stephen Levine's book, was held at the NYC Village Zendo, guided by Roshi Enkyo O'Hara and Robert Chodo Campbell.
It goes like this: You have a feeling, say anxiety, and a thought comes with it, say: I gotta get outa here! It's more like a command, isn't it? So you obey, right? You try to get out. But maybe you can't, so you get more anxious; as you get more anxious, your mind develops the thought, embellishing the fantasy of disaster if you fail to escape. More anxiety. Shall I go on? Have you been there? 
Not so fast! If you feel like murdering someone, kicking your dog, running from challenge, eating til you can't breathe....do you do it? 
No. right? you don't, right?
Feelings are not facts, but they make our beliefs seem like facts.
The problem with anger is that not only are we really not allowed to murder people, but we've been told since day 1 (ok, maybe 121, but still, pretty early) that if we are angry, we are bad and wrong and...crazy...also ugly....and...well, maybe it's just me but it's a rare duck that really surfs with anger. With all those nasty descriptions, it would certainly seem like a better idea to not get angry. But we do anyway, right? So we try to hold it in.
So, then when we were 20something maybe we got the idea that we should let it all out. We went around telling people the truth about the way I feel.
We may not want to believe it but happiness is entirely available, no matter what. Attention itself makes us happy, not its object. Says Spinoza, "When the mind regards itself and its own power of activity, it feels pleasure." Allow me to emphasize: Pleasure! Not just boring old serenity. And it's not just regarding the mind that is so much fun. Attending even to something awful is surprisingly interesting.
Ogre is paying attentionAgain and again, my clients describe the agony of anticipating and imagining a disastrous event. A huge amount of preparation and tension goes into preventing the dreaded thing, and yet the ACTUAL event is, without fail, a better experience than its imagining.
Inspired by Cho's gestures, energy, and mission, a group of dancers celebrate human diversity in all its splendid manifestations.
Conceived and Choreographed by Irene Ruiz-Riveros
Video Directed and Edited by Elena TaJo
Music by Steve Elson
I am I: A Tribute to Margaret Cho screened in June of 2010 at Anthology Film Archives as part of an excellent series curated by New York Women in Film and Television. Running time 5:37 minutes
Wahat al-Salam Neve ShalomWahat al-Salam in Arabic. Neve Shalom in Hebrew. Oasis of Peace. The name evokes both longing and sadness. Just an oasis? In a human desert of outright wars and subtle destructions of the spirit, there is a place where people from opposing sides of what is arguably the most difficult conflict on earth choose to live in peace.
I wanted to visit this place because I am a very jaded psychologist--an optimist disappointed with the failure of ideals
Along with so many others, I cheered for New York State last weekend--for our Governor who showed courage and resolve, for all the beautiful people who could now marry their beloved. At the Gay Pride Parade on Sunday, we were all bubbling in a soup of triumph and ecstasy. Most of you know that several years ago I decided to divorce my heterosexual spouse because the unfairness of the whole thing, especially the "Defense of Marriage Act," was unbearable.
Updated on Friday, June 8, 2012 at 4:33PM by
Elena Taurke
My hips were already hurting as I was standing on the platform. I could almost feel the relief of the seat as I waited for the train…and waited…and… the desire intensified with the growing awareness of the delay, the imagined relief intensifying the pain. 
By the time the train pulled in, a crowd had gathered and I was terrified of the competition for seats. Naturally, there was exactly one seat in the car and the woman who pushed her way past me got it. In agony, I pondered: Was she disabled? My hips don't have a big sign on them and I'm not carrying any supports like crutches. Do I say something? What if she is mentally disabled and doesn't understand the subway protocol? If she gets angry and accuses me, do I understand her as limited or mean? What's the difference? Who deserves what?
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Have you ever had an electric toe? It's quite an experience, unlike any other pain. You step on it funny and suddenly a shocking, excruciating pain shoots through the toe into the whole body and the brain contracts in the instant. It goes away and you think, ok, that was that, and then it happens again. After several repetitions you become like one of those freaked-out lab mice terrified of the next shock, seeming to have no control. Except that then you notice that getting tense makes it happen more!
Like other life koans, this was impossible to grasp. How could I possibly relax into something that made my body involuntarily seize up?
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