The loneliness of Adam Lanza (and each of us)

I've been thinking about Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old man who shot his mother in her bed, killed 20 children and six adults at an elementary school, then shot himself as police arrived at the scene.

Some people would prefer that you and I don't think about Adam Lanza. There was a move over social networking to urge people not to mention the Newtown, Conn., shooter by name, to let him fall into obscurity, even as we turn his victims into angelic superheroes whose only flaw was that they died. The theory is that part of the reason for his killing spree was to become famous, to gain notoriety.

There's been nothing offered yet in support of that assertion, though. Lanza destroyed the hard drive on his computer and seems to have left no notes or mission statements. He not only gave no indication that he was planning this, he left nothing to claim credit or explain it.

I can understand the desire to deny him any glory from his action, to negate his existence. But society already had negated Adam Lanza's existence -- and that's why we have to say his name now.

In "A Civic Perspective on the Newtown tragedy," Peter Alexander Meyers writes:

Our most widespread and tragic mistake has been to imagine the suicidal mass murderer as someone who lives outside of society, the ultimate and perverted individualist. For, no matter how isolated we make him out to be, even the loneliest loner is a social type. Adam Lanza was not an alien, not a monster, nor a machine. He was one of us. We share with him a social reality that is the common spring of both good and evil.

We develop as humans through relationship to other humans. We define ourselves by how we react to others. As Meyers writes, " If we ignore the fact that Adam Lanza and his action remained woven into the everyday fabric of social relationship, his violence appears, and will always appear, 'meaningless.'"

Lanza was described by virtually everyone who knew him who spoke to the media as a socially awkward loner who appeared to have no personal relationships --other than his mother, his first victim, with whom he lived. It seemed that no one reported ever having an on-going relationship with him. Classmates recalled occasional conversations. He was quiet in class and hugged the walls when he walked through the school hallways.

But humans long for connection -- heck, even animals and insects live in societies. Babies who don't get attention fail to thrive. We all feel lonely at times, disconnected from whatever group or social situation we're in. Most of us know ways -- skillful or not -- to work with that feeling. Apparently Adam did not.

Brother Pháp Lưu, a monk in Vietnamese Zen tradition of Thich Nhat Hahn, who grew up in Newtown, Conn., as Douglas Bachman, wrote a touching and insightful letter to Adam Lanza.

I used to play soccer on the school field outside the room where you died, when I was the age of the children you killed. Our team was the Eagles, and we won our division that year. My mom still keeps the trophy stashed in a box. To be honest, I was and am not much of a soccer player. I've known winning, but I've also known losing, and being picked last for a spot on the team. I think you've known this too—the pain of rejection, isolation and loneliness. Loneliness too strong to bear. ...

I don't think you hated those children, or that you even hated your mother. I think you hated your loneliness.

Loneliness is a tricky thing. In Buddhism, it's seen as a sign of progress, a recognition that we are responsible for ourselves, our own actions and their effects, our own reactions.  There's no one to blame but ourselves; no one whose approval is more genuine or informed than our own.

It's also the gateway to emptiness, the idea that we're all connected, that we all share the same innate potential to see how we are sickened by the poisons and to get well. Brother Pháp Lưu writes:

The way out of being a victim is not to become the destroyer. No matter how great your loneliness, how heavy your despair, you, like each one of us, still have the capacity to be awake, to be free, to be happy, without being the cause of anyone's sorrow. You didn't know that, or couldn't see that, and so you chose to destroy. We were not skillful enough to help you see a way out.

The Buddha says that kindness is a cycle, just like samsara. To be kind to others, you must know kindness yourself. To see others' loneliness, we first have to see it and accept it in ourselves, to know that we can tolerate our own fear of being alone so that we can connect to another and let them know that they are not alone in their loneliness. We are all alone. We are in this together.

Pema Chodron describes it as a transition from hot loneliness to cool loneliness.

Buddhist practice holds lots of paradoxes. You don't exist as a singular, permanent, independent self, but you are alone. You share the same buddhanature, the same inherent richness, of all beings, but you must experience that for yourself, not just believe others' assertions of it.

Brother Pháp Lưu gives us a hint of how the bodhisattva goes about reconciling all that:

Now we know you are there. You are not random, or an aberration. Let your action move us to find a path out of the loneliness within each one of us. I have learned to use awareness of my breath to recognize and transform these overwhelming emotions, but I hope that every man, woman or child does not need to go halfway across the world to become a monk to learn how to do this. As a community we need to sit down and learn how to cherish life, not with gun-checks and security, but by being fully present for one another, by being truly there for one another. For me, this is the way to restore harmony to our communion.

Let your action move us to find a way out of loneliness

This is a letter written by Douglas Bachman, a Buddhist monk and student of the Vietnamese Zen Master and monk Thich Nhat Hanh, to Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old man who shot his mother, then killed 20 children and six more adults before killing himself at an elementary school in Newtown Conn. Bachman, now known as Br. Phap Luu, grew up at 22 Lake Rd. in Newtown. (Boldface is my addition)

Saturday, 15th of December, 2012
Dharma Cloud Temple
Plum Village

Dear Adam,

Let me start by saying that I wish for you to find peace. It would be easy just to call you a monster and condemn you for evermore, but I don't think that would help either of us. Given what you have done, I realize that peace may not be easy to find. In a fit of rage, delusion and fear—yes, above all else, I think, fear—you thought that killing was a way out. It was clearly a powerful emotion that drove you from your mother's dead body to massacre children and staff of Sandy Hook School and to turn the gun in the end on yourself. You decided that the game was over.

But the game is not over, though you are dead. You didn't find a way out of your anger and loneliness. You live on in other forms, in the torn families and their despair, in the violation of their trust, in the gaping wound in a community, and in the countless articles and news reports spilling across the country and the world—yes, you live on even in me. I was also a young boy who grew up in Newtown. Now I am a Zen Buddhist monk. I see you quite clearly in me now, continued in the legacy of your actions, and I see that in death you have not become free.

You know, I used to play soccer on the school field outside the room where you died, when I was the age of the children you killed. Our team was the Eagles, and we won our division that year. My mom still keeps the trophy stashed in a box. To be honest, I was and am not much of a soccer player. I've known winning, but I've also known losing, and being picked last for a spot on the team. I think you've known this too—the pain of rejection, isolation and loneliness. Loneliness too strong to bear.

You are not alone in feeling this. When loneliness comes up it is so easy to seek refuge in a virtual world of computers and films, but do these really help or only increase our isolation? In our drive to be more connected, have we lost our true connection?

I want to know what you did with your loneliness. Did you ever, like me, cope by walking in the forests that cover our town? I know well the slope that cuts from that school to the stream, shrouded by beech and white pine. It makes up the landscape of my mind. I remember well the thrill of heading out alone on a path winding its way—to Treadwell Park! At that time it felt like a magical path, one of many secrets I discovered throughout those forests, some still hidden. Did you ever lean your face on the rough furrows of an oak's bark, feeling its solid heartwood and tranquil vibrancy? Did you ever play in the course of a stream, making pools with the stones as if of this stretch you were king? Did you ever experience the healing, connection and peace that comes with such moments, like I often did?

Or did your loneliness know only screens, with dancing figures of light at the bid of your will? How many false lives have you lived, how many shots fired, bombs exploded and lives lost in video games and movies?

By killing yourself at the age of 20, you never gave yourself the chance to grow up and experience a sense of how life's wonders can bring happiness. I know at your age I hadn't yet seen how to do this.

I am 37 now, about the age my teacher, the Buddha, realized there was a way out of suffering. I am not enlightened. This morning, when I heard the news, and read the words of my shocked classmates, within minutes a wave of sorrow arose, and I wept. Then I walked a bit further, into the woods skirting our monastery, and in the wet, winter cold of France, beside the laurel, I cried again. I cried for the children, for the teachers, for their families. But I also cried for you, Adam, because I think that I know you, though I know we have never met. I think that I know the landscape of your mind, because it is the landscape of my mind.

I don't think you hated those children, or that you even hated your mother. I think you hated your loneliness.

I cried because I have failed you. I have failed to show you how to cry. I have failed to sit and listen to you without judging or reacting. Like many of my peers, I left Newtown at seventeen, brimming with confidence and purpose, with the congratulations of friends and the approbation of my elders. I was one of the many young people who left, and in leaving we left others, including you, just born, behind. In that sense I am a part of the culture that failed you. I didn't know yet what a community was, or that I was a part of one, until I no longer had it, and so desperately needed it.

I have failed to be one of the ones who could have been there to sit and listen to you. I was not there to help you to breathe and become aware of your strong emotions, to help you to see that you are more than just an emotion.

But I am also certain that others in the community cared for you, loved you. Did you know it?

In eighth grade I lived in terror of a classmate and his anger. It was the first time I knew aggression. No computer screen or television gave a way out, but my imagination and books. I dreamt myself a great wizard, blasting fireballs down the school corridor, so he would fear and respect me. Did you dream like this too?

The way out of being a victim is not to become the destroyer. No matter how great your loneliness, how heavy your despair, you, like each one of us, still have the capacity to be awake, to be free, to be happy, without being the cause of anyone's sorrow. You didn't know that, or couldn't see that, and so you chose to destroy. We were not skillful enough to help you see a way out.

With this terrible act you have let us know. Now I am listening, we are all listening, to you crying out from the hell of your misunderstanding. You are not alone, and you are not gone. And you may not be at peace until we can stop all our busyness, our quest for power, money or sex, our lives of fear and worry, and really listen to you, Adam, to be a friend, a brother, to you. With a good friend like that your loneliness might not have overwhelmed you.

But we needed your help too, Adam. You needed to let us know that you were suffering, and that is not easy to do. It means overcoming pride, and that takes courage and humility. Because you were unable to do this, you have left a heavy legacy for generations to come. If we cannot learn how to connect with you and understand the loneliness, rage and despair you felt—which also lie deep and sometimes hidden within each one of us—not by connecting through Facebook or Twitter or email or telephone, but by really sitting with you and opening our hearts to you, your rage will manifest again in yet unforeseen forms.

Now we know you are there. You are not random, or an aberration. Let your action move us to find a path out of the loneliness within each one of us. I have learned to use awareness of my breath to recognize and transform these overwhelming emotions, but I hope that every man, woman or child does not need to go halfway across the world to become a monk to learn how to do this. As a community we need to sit down and learn how to cherish life, not with gun-checks and security, but by being fully present for one another, by being truly there for one another. For me, this is the way to restore harmony to our communion.

Douglas Bachman (Br. Phap Luu), who grew up at 22 Lake Road in Newtown, Conn., is a Buddhist monk and student of the Vietnamese Zen Master and monk Thich Nhat Hanh. As part of an international community, he teaches Applied Ethics and the art of mindful living to students and school teachers. He lives in Plum Village Monastery, in Thenac, France.

A new era, based on love

If you're reading this, then you're aware that the world did not end -- despite what many have said the Mayan calendar predicted.

It was said, widely and loudly, that the Mayan calendar predicted the world would end Dec. 21, 2012. There was a movie. There was the popular imagination.

We really can't deal very well with mystery. We want clues, so we can figure it out at the same time as the detective. We hunt down where our presents are hidden so we can open them ahead of time; we can't wait for the day. We want -- we think we need -- to know what happens after death. We want SPOILER ALERTS for life so that we don't have to live with uncertainty, with groundless. It's too scary, not knowing.

But that's what life is: Not knowing.

We can never know with absolute certainty what will happen. We can never know even what is happening because it's colored by our experience and hope. And everyone who is present in the present has a different perspective, a slightly different story. Was the man tall? Only in relation to the observer's height.

What the Mayan calendar predicted was not the end of the world but the end of an era. And honestly, I'm ready for a new era.

We can't know what will happen, but we can influence it, through our actions, speech, and thoughts, through our intention, through our view of what is possible. We can let the world continue on its fear-based descent into a Mad Max-like hell of aggression and defensiveness. Or we can move it in a new direction.

 bell hooks, in her book "all about love: New Visions," breaks down the ways in which our culture is hostile to love, how we can overcome that, and what it would look like. If we think of "love" as a verb, an action, rather than an emotion, it becomes a source of responsibility and accountability, she writes.

Awaking to love can happen only as we let go of our obsession with power and domination. Culturally, all spheres of American life -- politics, religion, the workplace, domestic households, intimate relationships -- should and could have as their foundation a love ethic ... a love ethic presupposes that everyone has the right to be free, to live fully and well. To bring a love ethic to every dimension of our lives, our society would need to embrace change.

The last era was built on a foundation of fear and defensiveness: Is there enough? Will it run out? How can I get more? How can I keep others from taking what I have?

The ancients say this is a new era. Things will change -- in the direction we choose.

What would a world built on love look like? How would it feel to live there? How would people act in that world -- in mundane moments, in conflict, in friendship, in celebration? What's stopping you from acting that way now?

A bear hug teddy

One Christmas, when he was very young, my son wanted nothing more than a bear-hug teddy that would hug you right back. This was not something he had seen advertised on television. It came from a book about the Bearenstain Bears Christmas. Given the source, I'm sure the book had a positive message. I don't remember it. Neither did my son -- all he heard was the Christmas list of one of the young bears, which included a bear-hug teddy that will love you right back.

It might as well have been world peace. It simply did not exist in any toy store. (This was before Internet shopping.) The potential for a bear hug teddy that would hug right back was there, as is the potential for world peace, but neither was manifesting.

Of course I bought him the best teddy bear I could find, big and soft with long arms. Of course it did not hug him right back. And of course he was disappointed -- and so was I.

Maybe it gave him (and me) the inevitable life lesson that our desires can't be met exactly in the way we want them, but we can be happy anyway. Maybe it showed him (and me) that we could sit with the pain of disappointment -- in Santa and ourselves -- even amid the general joy of the morning. That the human spirit toggles between happiness and sadness, and both are impermanent.

My memory stops at the cry, "But it doesn't hug me right back!" and that the tears that choked my response. (I'm working on remembering the joy, not just the disappointments.)

I'm sure that I hugged him. He may not have hugged me right back in that moment. He's grown now and has survived greater disappointments. And he's a good hugger, so I guess the lesson that you can only control the hugs you give, not the ones you receive -- which is all the more reason you should give them freely -- stuck with him.

A new way

I work at a newspaper in Connecticut. It's not close to Newtown, where nearly 30 people -- many children -- were shot in an elementary school today, but Connecticut's a small state, and the story broke on our deadline. For three hours straight pretty much all I did was look and listen to what news outlets with people on the scene were reporting, assess the sources and the contradictions, listen to pundits filling time while waiting for a much-delayed news conference, and write and rewrite.

The truest thing I heard in that time was from an expert on some news show, talking when all that was known was that a gunman had gone into an elementary school and there were dead people, who said, "We have to find a different way" to handle anger or frustration or whatever emotion makes this seem right.

We have to find a different way.

And that starts with a different way of communicating with those who disagree with us. I support gun control. I see no reason why people need to have guns -- and no logical reason whatsoever why ANYONE needs automatic or semi-automatic weapons. But if people who support gun control harden and face off with people who oppose it, all we do is increase aggression. And this world already is swimming in a sea of aggression.

Oddly enough, this morning -- before hell broke loose -- I was reading an article on how to deal with difficult people at work, "What's the Secret to Communicating with Irritational, Angry, or Just Plain Crazy People?" by Eric Barker. He did research; I'm just going to quote him.

We all have to deal with our share of hotheads and crazies. What does research say works with them?
First off, you can’t get angry too. Because then there are two crazy people arguing. While very entertaining to onlookers, this doesn’t accomplish much.
Tell yourself they are having a bad day and that it’s not about you:

Telling yourself that an angry person is just having a bad day and that it’s not about you can help take the sting out of their ire, a new study suggests… the researchers monitored participants’ brain activity and found that reappraising another person’s anger eliminated the electrical signals associated with negative emotions when seeing angry faces.

They’re being crazy. You’ll want to shut them up or talk over them. Don’t. It’s a natural reaction but it doesn’t work.
They don’t think they’re wrong. They’ll just interpret it as a status game where you’re trying to win. Stop being so sure you’re right and listen.
But here’s the important part: just shutting up is not enough.
Listening isn’t just listening. It’s letting the other person know you’re listening.
This is “active listening.”

Active listening is a lot like what we do in meditation. It's about putting your practice into practice. You listen without judgment. You inquire -- a sort of active contemplation to find out what's under the surface, which is what really needs to be addressed. And you acknowledge it. Both participants can see that the enemy isn't what it appears to be and can find ground to move forward instead of getting stuck.

Active listening, Barker says, is the first thing FBI hostage negotiators use to de-escalate incidents and save lives. It is how behaviors can change.

The Dalai Lama has said that the last century was a century of bloodshed. This century, he says, can be the century of dialog.

May it be so.

May all beings everywhere be safe.

12.12.12

Today is 12.12.12. It's notable because it's the last time this repetitive digital pattern will happen for a calendar date in this century. The next time the month, day, and year will be represented by the same digits will be Jan. 1, 2101 -- 01.01.01.

There are lots of things you can read into the date. But for Buddhists, it serves as a reminder that every
day -- every moment -- happens and is gone, replaced by a new moment. We are always starting fresh.

As it says in the Heart Sutra:

Therefore, the great mantra of prajnaparamita, the mantra of great insight, the unsurpassed mantra, the unequaled mantra, the mantra that calms all suffering, should be known as truth, since there is no deception. The prajnaparamita mantra is said in this way:

OM GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SVAHA

That translates to "gone gone all the way gone crossing over yes!"

Or "arriving arriving always arriving arriving again Awake!"

Each moment is here, then gone -- as is this day, this year, this life. Live in it fully because you don't get a second chance.

Use 12.12.12 as a reminder to appreciate this precious human birth -- and all the days that come with it.

Bodhi Day

Dec. 8 is Bodhi Day, the day of the Buddha's enlightenment.

The story -- and it is a story, an unverifiable tale used to educate his followers -- is that while meditating under the Bodhi tree, the Buddha was harassed and tempted by the god Mara (literally, "Destroyer" in Sanskrit), demon of illusion.  In an attempt to dissuade the Buddha from his path of awakening, it is said that Mara presented him with many temptations to muddy his thinking: Dancing girls, intoxicants, memories of his past lives, a hail of arrows. Each time, the Buddha realized what was happening, and said, "I see you, Mara." Resting in his clear mind, the Buddha discovered the law of karma, the cycle of rebirth, the Eightfold Path, and the Four Noble Truths. He would go on to teach those.

It is said that that the last of Mara's weapons was doubt. When Mara said, essentially, who do you think you are, thinking you can become enlightened? The Buddha simply touched the ground with one hand, an indication that he was someone who was in touch with the undiluted, non-illusory present moment.

As the morning star rose in the sky in the early morning, he experienced nirvana and became enlightened.


Then he went on to teach for many years.

The two crucial aspects of the Buddha's Awakening are the what and the how: what he awakened to and how he did it. His awakening is special in that the two aspects come together. He awakened to the fact that there is an undying happiness, and that it can be attained through human effort. The human effort involved in this process ultimately focuses on the question of understanding the nature of human effort itself — in terms of skillful kamma and dependent co-arising — what its powers and limitations are, and what kind of right effort (i.e., the Noble Path) can take one beyond its limitations and bring one to the threshold of the Deathless. Thanissaru Bikkhu

Bodhi Day isn't a big celebration day. The Japanese Zen tradition seems to observe it the most widely with Rohatsu sesshin, an intense period of meditation that starts the week before, on Dec. 1, and ends when the morning star comes up Dec. 8. Often participants will stay up all night on the last night, meditating.

From within this state of mind the Buddha said: How wondrous, how wondrous! All beings are endowed with this pure nature! What a wondrous, astonishing thing has been realized! All the ten thousand things, all the flowers, all the trees, all the rocks, all things everywhere are shining brilliantly!

You've probably  missed this morning's star. But the beautiful thing about the story is that every day is a good day to wake up. The stars are always there -- you don't see them in the daylight, but they're there -- and something in your sight always is shining brightly. You can always look at a star and see the brilliance of our pure nature. 

Or you can celebrate western-style at IDP's annual party. Get your groove on!