Dear Readers,

We are very pleased to present to you over the next month the provocative and refreshing voice of Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel. An author and teacher (although she defines herself as more student than teacher), Ms Namgyel shares insightful examinations with Buddhist and spiritual communities around the world. Her work seems to delight in rooting out assumptions, clarifying vagaries and reinvigorating stale definitions that impair our paths of development.

Elizabeth’s approach to opening up perspectives through courageous and honest inquiry dovetails nicely with the Windhorse approach to care and recovery. New pathways of relationship are found when we have the right tools of examination. Encouraging strides of personal development can result from subtle shifts in an old attitude or definition. When we learn to incorporate an understanding of the interdependence of everything we naturally engage the world with ease.

In her most recent book, The Logic of Faith, Elizabeth takes on the challenging topic of “faith”, or “the F-word” as she began to think of it, after encountering so much resistance from others when ever attempting to discuss it. Holding all of us to task, she insists that we examine and clarify our relation to faith since, “you cannot remove faith from the equation of your earthbound relative condition.”

We have included in this Journal entry the Introduction to The Logic of Faith, and hope you find it a compelling primer to the work of Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel. Please look to our next Journal entry which will be a podcast discussion between Ms Namgyel and senior Windhorse clinicians.

Introduction

THE F-WORD

This entire book hinges on the word faith. You may assume that you know what that means. You may think that it has a single, clear definition. But words are not definitive structures: one word can have limitless even opposing meanings. Language morphs over time, and words take on different meanings depending on their contexts. You’ll likely find as many definitions of faith as there are people to define it. Try asking around.

Just to give you an idea of some of the possible usages for the word faith, look at a standard English dictionary, which will most likely include in the definition such terms as dogma, religion, fundamentalism, doctrine or indoctrination, confidence, trust, conviction, and spiritual insight, to name a few. People make strong statements about faith, such as, “Faith without doubt leads to moral arrogance” or “If you don’t have unwavering faith in God, you will goto hell.” Some people feel that those who claim to have faith are deceiving themselves. These people equate faith with the disempowerment that results from blindly handing over agency to an authority figure. For others, faith describes the highest expression of human consciousness that transports us beyond the petty concerns of mundane life. Upon reflection you may notice that you use the term faith in various ways. But notice too that these varied usages have one thing in common: they reflect the desire to find ease in a world you can’t secure.

Do you think it would even be possible to live in the world without faith? Because we rely on life around us, it seems to me we have no choice but to have faith. The late Buddhist teacher Thinley Norbu Rinpoche linked faith to the nature of existence when he said, “Cows have faith in grass.” This statement may seem simplistic at first glance, but it has deep implications. You cannot remove faith from the equation of your earthbound relative condition. That you depend on the world in which you live keeps you living in faith, and there is no way around it.

Given the multiplicity of definitions one finds around faith and given how crucial it is to our very existence, faith is worthy of deep consideration.

THE END OF FAITH?

At some point, after an extended period of exploring faith through personal practice and study, I decided to bring my investigation out into the world to see what others thought. I quickly learned that when I described my teaching topic using the word faith, no one was interested. In fact, once, when I was doing an online program on faith, someone wrote in on the chat, “This is just the mentality my grandmother had!” It was as though, by simply uttering the f-word, I had insulted his intelligence. For him faith was something that could only be outdated and backward. I have, by the way, noticed that the f-word does not generally go over well at Buddhist conferences either.

Subsequently, I started to call my inquiry “The F-Word” and after that everyone wanted to talk. People are drawn to things that have a rebellious flare. And so I did what I had to do in order to draw attention to a topic that I feel is in desperate need of examination. As spiritual practitioners, scholars, and human beings looking for a sense of ease, it behooves us to reflect on the things that incite discomfort in us or that we don’t understand, rather than simply buying into or rejecting them.

Many contemporary thinkers want to do away with the word faith altogether and replace it with the term spirituality. In his book The End of Faith, Sam Harrisc links faith to terrorism, and reasonably so. People do unconscionable things in the name of faith. And yet I wonder, can we afford to do away with the word faith altogether? Personally I think that would be way too easy. I’m not saying the word spirituality doesn’t have its use in the English language. But if you are not careful, spirituality can quite easily allow you to bypass the human dilemma, because spirituality can be anything you want it to be, whereas faith will challenge you. It’s not so comfortable. It carries with it the undeniable tension between your search for security and the limits of your ability to know. Faith keeps your spiritual quest relevant and connected to the heart of the human predicament.

My concern also is that by narrowing the definition of faith to blind acceptance or dogma, we risk losing genuine traditions of contemplative wisdom and practice that include faith. The initial function of spirituality emerged from questioning the human condition and also from deep experiences of wonder. The word religion itself, initially meaning to“reconnect,” seems to have come from direct experiences of something larger than just a set of fixed ideas. It marked a return to something essential that we just failed to recognize in the myopia of our everyday lives. How curious that we turn experiences of awe into dogmas and stagnant ideas. That we have come to associate faith with fundamentalism, blindness, and even terrorism gives us something important to look at.

PRATITYASAMUTPADA

So how does one look at faith both as an experience and a cultural narrative without closing down around dogmas and fixed ideas? I’m glad you asked. In this book I will introduce to you some methods of investigation that will address this very challenge. The basic approach we will take can be traced back to the very moment of the Buddha’s awakening.

When the Buddha attained enlightenment beneath the Bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya, India, he gained insight into the secret of the universe. It was from this insight that he revealed the powerful principle of pratityasamutpada, which is commonly known by its English translation, “dependent arising.” Pratityasamutpada describes how everything we experience both material and conscious arises, plays out, and falls away in reliance upon an infinite web of contingent relationships. In other words, it is because things depend that life moves and we can experience it.

For those who study and practice the Buddha’s path, his description of dependent arising has become a fresh and unimpeded way of perceiving mind and its world, and the primary understanding that makes liberation possible. It would be accurate to say that this very insight into the nature of dependent arising was the pivotal revelation of the Buddha, from which all of his subsequent teachings unfolded. It was also the wisdom that my teacher was pointing out to me through his simple gesture years ago.

It is important for me to say, and for you to understand, that although pratityasamutpada comes to us through a formal continuum of Buddhist practice and realization, it is not a dogma or a set of ideas to adhere to. Instead the wisdom of pratityasamutpada functions like a portal into a completely new way of understanding your mind and its world, based on direct experience. It is a powerful insight that you can use as a tool to free yourself from the confusions you have about your place in the world in which you live. I know that sounds like a big promise, but such insight is quite simple and natural, I assure you. In fact, once you step outside your habitual way of seeing things, you will marvel at its obvious truth.

OPEN QUESTIONING

In the second century, the teachings on pratityasamutpada were revived and energized by the extraordinary spiritual genius Nagarjuna. He designed a series of methodical investigations based upon the Buddha’s insight into the nature of dependent arising that provide away for whoever employs them to bring together discerning intelligence with a mind of complete openness. The sole purpose of these investigations is to guide us away from the abstract realm of ideas into a direct relationship with life.

There is something important to be said here about the quality of the mind while engaged in a process of inquiry. I have often used the example of “the mind of an open question” to describe it. An open question as opposed to a question intent on an answer is one that has not settled on a conclusion or shut down around beliefs or doubts. Rather, when you ask an open question, you remain receptive, humble, and connected to the living and dynamic nature of things. According to this tradition, such characteristics describe a mind poised for insight. In fact, where insight is concerned, it is only an open and attentive mind that is said to perceive its object without mistake.

The purpose for saying all this here is to let you know in advance that I wrote this book as an inquiry, and so it will require some participation and curiosity on your part. In addition to sharing my experience, I will pose many questions for you and introduce several guided investigations that have been passed down by realized Buddhist masters skilled in the ancient art of meditative inquiry. I will invite you to voyage into your own experience of faith because let’s face it there is no substitute for the certitude that results from seeing things directly for yourself.

To put it another way, what happens when we look at the world with fresh eyes and an open heart? Furthermore, what does it even mean to look here? How does one look? We will get into that in great depth. But for now, I just want to introduce the idea of dependent arising, pratityasamutpada, as your tool for exploring faith. And I want to make sure that you understand that although the methods used in this book come from the tradition of the Buddha, there is no assertion that insight itself is the possession of any one religion. We are all prone to moments of grace and clear seeing. And so, the term insight, as I use it here in this book, simply serves to describe an inherent potential in all of us.

Some of the methods presented in this book may challenge the assumptions you have about language, beliefs, doubts, spirituality, and the nature of knowing. They may bring to the foresome unexamined ideas you have about faith and even prompt you to rethink how you see yourself and the world in which you live. But then what’s an exploration without challenges?

To get a copy for yourself click here

Elizabeth has studied and practiced Mahayana Buddhism, as well as the Vajrayana tradition of the Longchen Nyingthik, for over 30 years under the guidance of her teacher and husband, Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche. She has been intimately involved with Rinpoche’s work in bringing Buddhist wisdom to the West, in particular the development of Mangala Shri Bhuti, an organization dedicated to the study and practice of the Longchen Nyingthik lineage. She is also a founding member and teacher of the Wilderness Dharma Movement and on the advisory boards of Prison Mindfulness Network and the Buddhist Arts and Film Festival.
Elizabeth has an academic background in anthropology and Buddhist studies. After many years of solitary retreat, Rinpoche appointed Elizabeth as Retreat Master at Longchen Jigme Samten Ling, Mangala Shri Bhuti’s retreat center in southern Colorado. Elizabeth is the author of The Power of an Open Question and The Logic of Faith. She has edited Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche’s two books, It’s Up to Youand Light Comes Through, and teaches the Buddhadharma throughout the United States and Europe. When she is not traveling, she enjoys riding her horse through the vast planes of the San Luis Valley in Crestone, Colorado.

Dear friends,

In our previous Journal entry (#018 – “The History of Sanity”), we introduced Dr. Edward Podvoll’s compelling notion that alongside anyone’s mental health challenge is a history of sanity. Rather than dwelling on diagnoses of disorders and dissecting the origin of disturbance, it is useful for both client and therapist to focus on signs of sanity, and turn allegiance toward it. Of the six markers of sanity enumerated by Dr. Podvoll, our last post emphasized in particular the Urge for Discipline. This is defined as a synchronizing of mind with body and environment.

In this Journal entry, we meet Scott, a Windhorse client and talented filmmaker who addresses the role of discipline in his own recovery. As he speaks to Stephanie Kindberg, Scott explains how discovering and honing his skill with a camera is a means of working with his mind, giving him purpose, stability, confidence, and joy. Since Scott’s primary challenge is autism, he speaks to how his Windhorse team has helped to bring him into the larger community and work on communication of his thoughts and feelings, previously internalized in ways that were detrimental.

Scott co-leads a photography class at Windhorse, which I attend, and he really shines as an example of finding one’s passion and applying discipline in its pursuit. As class participants present photos they’ve taken and open themselves up to gentle critique, Scott gets to share both his knowledge and his pleasure in how one might use a camera to engage with the world.  The rewards—therapeutic and otherwise—of finding such an outlet are obvious.

Scott’s backcountry skiing videos are dramatic and impressive. His current film project is even more daring:  a documentary and memoir that brings together the worlds of skiing and mental health. He hopes to especially emphasize the challenges of adult autism and illuminate what’s been hidden in his life for the benefit of others.

I think you will really appreciate hearing Scott’s perspective. Thank you for listening.

Lori S. Heintzelman

To View Scott’s Work Click Below: 

Dear Friends,

This Journal entry features a seminal paper by Edward Podvoll, MD, titled “The History of Sanity in Contemplative Psychotherapy.” It was first published in 1983 in the Naropa Journal of Psychology, and was republished in Recovering Sanity (2003) as Appendix II. Presented here is an edited portion of the full paper (also included here), which presents the key points with a special emphasis on a subsection, “The Urge For Discipline.” Dr. Podvoll was very proud, in his humble way, of developing the history of sanity perspective in the psychotherapy for persons in extreme states. He felt this was his most significant contribution to the world of healing, and to Windhorse theory and practice. Professor Manfred Bleuler, a dean of international psychiatry, wrote to Dr. Podvoll after reading this paper:

May I mention some particular points in regard to which I found your presentation particularly excellent: the importance of ‘the history of sanity’ is rarely mentioned in the psychotherapeutic literature. As far as I know you are the first who describes this in such a convincing way. It plays also a great role in my psychiatric work. The need to become free from the prejudice that a person who has become insane will always be so, is extremely urgent and you are formulating it very well. (Recovering Sanity, p. 5)

Having participated in therapy situations with Dr. Podvoll, I saw he had an extreme sensitivity to the personal disciplines embedded in the lives of persons in recovery. He was able to pick up the scent of those disciplines a mile away. He was skilled in inspiring the person to explore those often-obscured disciplines and how they could strengthen the process of recovery. “Discipline” here refers to a practice of joining mind with body and environment, with no connotation of harsh self-control.

Thank you for your interest in this revolutionary perspective, and I am certain you will appreciate Dr. Podvoll’s explication of this. May your instinct of sanity directly meet the author’s own finely-honed discipline and clarity.

Thank you,

Jeffrey Fortuna

[Read more…]

Dear Friends,  

In a previous post—Journal Entry 015, “Dazzling Insights”—we presented Part 1 of a dynamic interview of Dr. Edward Podvoll, conducted in 1990 by author, historian, and broadcaster Studs Terkel. Terkel’s radio program spanned more than 4 decades as he talked to some of the 20th century’s most interesting people. Podvoll’s book, The Seduction of Madness (later republished as Recovering Sanity, 2003), laid the foundation for Windhorse’s mindfulness-informed, home-based approach to mental health care, and the first Windhorse Community in Boulder. Terkel’s keen interest in the subject of extreme mental states, having read the book, evoked a rich dialogue with Podvoll.  In this second half of the interview, Podvoll continues to provide revolutionary insights into psychosis, while acknowledging that the fragility of mind is universal. He discusses four parables of madness, effectively case histories, that form the first part of the book. In these parables, he reveals that psychosis often has, at its core, a wise and altruistic impulse. An individual’s legitimate concern for the dissolution of the world, and a desire to heal it, can go awry and at the expense of oneself. The antidote for those experiencing such states, Podvoll insists, is not placement in an institution, where many are caught in the extremes of their own minds, but a healing community of stable “gentle people” who come into each client’s own home.   Also essential is that those who travel the Windhorse path as companions must know how to work with their own minds, and commit to doing so, to truly be of benefit. Finally, in this lively interview, Podvoll counters the charge that a healing community approach to mental health recovery is new, alternative, or radical.   

Those of us who have or continue to work in the Windhorse approach have seen the fruit of Podvoll’s wisdom, particularly the inseparability of mind from environment. We hope this exchange will help you to rethink the nature of madness and what is to be done about it.  

Happy Listening, 

Lori S. Heintzelman 

 

Louis “Studs” Terkel (May 16, 1912 – October 31, 2008)^[1] was an American author, historian, actor, and broadcaster. He received the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1985 for The Good War, and is best remembered for his oral histories of common Americans, and for hosting a long-running radio show in Chicago.

Dear friends,

This Journal entry features my first complete paper on the Windhorse clinical approach, written in 1992.  I had been asked by Richard Warner MD to contribute a chapter to his edited book on Alternatives to the Hospital for Acute Psychiatric Treatment (1995).  This paper was also published in the Journal of Contemplative Psychotherapy (1994) with new material on meditation practice.  This writing coincided with my family’s move from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada to Northampton, MA where a committed group of us had formed to establish a new Windhorse therapeutic community.  This community is still thriving in Northampton, MA.  This paper describes the first major evolution of the Windhorse approach in Halifax, from 1989 to 1992.  The founding Windhorse community in Boulder, CO (1981-1987) developed the initial paradigm of a full Windhorse clinical team embedded in a staffed therapeutic household.  Simultaneously in Boulder and Halifax, this paradigm evolved to providing treatment teams that were tailored to each client’s unique condition, home and family situation, and available financial resources.  This remains the primary way that Windhorse care is provided to people in extreme states.  This paper describes the pioneering work of the Windhorse Halifax group, grounded in clinical experience and guided by core principles.  During the writing, I received invaluable editorial feedback from Harold Searles, MD who was Dr. Podvoll’s primary mentor.  He always reminded me that staff and the clients were equally caring for and learning with each other

Thank you for your interest,

Jeffrey Fortuna

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