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.
Sure I thought the release was happening as I turned 40. I don't care what people think, said I, boldly striding into the decade. So I unleashed my creativity upon the world. And then, after making the autobiographical Martyred Moms, I proceeded to suck up praise and criticism like a baby starving for milk. Don't care? my ass! Narcissism roared its head and I, helplessly it seemed, inflated and deflated according to the circumstances. It wore me out. Like a stone on a beach being polished by smashing up against the rocks. Smash! ahhh… Smash! ahhh… 
see?
50 is Smash. 40 was playing around. At 50, my life shows on my face. At the movies, they ask me: Senior or regular? I can laugh but I tell you it feels like a punch. I'm in another category.
Not that I was ever beautiful, but I certainly knew how to be eye-catching. Now They don't look at me that way. If They look at me or talk to me at all, it's often because They need something from Mother--or even Granny. geez!
Updated on Tuesday, June 12, 2012 at 10:16AM by
Elena TaJo
Let go…..Cleopatra.. said my dance teacher in response to my failure to connect a phrase. Say what?! said I, stalling for time. It's a Donkey Bridge, he clarified, let go of the arms, then Cleopatra to make a shape. A memory device, a connector, so called because donkeys are supposedly too stupid to make it across the river any other way. In Zen it is said: Every Ass can Pass. Every one of us can get to the other side but we need the right bridge.
Words can be a bridge to dance. Dance can be a bridge to freedom. Yoga to meditation or meditation to yoga. The specter of death is a nifty bridge to a satisfying life.
I'm calling It the Working Zone, because of the clarity of its counterpoint--not working. As in: this is not working! Because you know when it's not working, don't you? You're burned out, or enraged, or stuck, or depressed, or freaking out with anxiety. In that condition, nothing is more important than finding a way to lower the decibel level of the stress until we can work with it. Go ahead and sweep that problem under the rug for now.