Interview with Wayne C. Allen - Author of Half Asleep in the Buddha Hall

Recently I was able to interview psychotherapist Wayne C. Allen. Wayne was extremely generous with his time and information, especially in terms of how it could help child abuse survivors, and so you're in for a treat if you read the interview below. Half Asleep in the Buddha Hall is available from Amazon.

Adam: I'm extremely fortunate today to be interviewing Wayne C. Allen, psychotherapist and author of Half Asleep in the Budda Hall.

1. Hi Wayne, thank you for joining us today. Please tell us a little bit about yourself and your book, Half Asleep in the Buddha Hall. What is your background and how does this book differ from your previous book, This Endless Moment?

Hi, Adam. As to background, I'm a psychotherapist in Private practice in Ontario Canada. It's been a lot of years - I started in 1982 - and I amaze myself sometimes to think I'm closing in on 30 years doing something I still really enjoy! My focus, to use some psychobabble, is behavioural and cognitive, with a decided Zen focus. What this means in "real world language" is that I'm interested in helping others to shift both their thinking patterns and their behaviours, as opposed to wasting time assigning blame, looking for "why" ("why" questions lead no-where - they're simply invitations to string together stories) and other delaying tactics. This is very "Zen," as a Zen focus is relentlessly dedicated to living only in the here and now.

As to the books, This Endless Moment came out in 2005, as the result of clients wanting to "take me home with them." In fact, the best comment I hear (and I hear it a lot) is, "When I was reading your book, it was just like talking with you!" This Endless Moment is what I call my "Western" book - it's mostly focused on the "cognitive/behavioural" side of things. It's all about how to focus in, become self-responsible, and let go of the dramas contained in our story-telling.

Half Asleep in the Buddha Hall came out last year, and is my "Eastern" book - lots of old Zen stories reinterpreted for the 21st century, some modern Zen masters (like Yogi Berra) discussed, and meditative and "mere presence" techniques explored. I wanted to be sure readers could experience both sides of the same coin, so to speak.

2. You're also a therapist and founder of the Phoenix Group, which provides counseling to individuals. Can you tell us about your experience with child abuse survivors? What is the top problem(s) or challenge(s) that the individuals you have counseled must overcome?

My work is heavily slanted to working with individuals. Most end up here because more traditional therapy styles aren't cutting it for them. For example, I use Bodywork techniques to help clients release old, pent up emotions from their bodies. I'm also pretty emphatic about letting go of the ways we create suffering for ourselves, typically by clinging to stories that no longer serve us, but which have somehow become our "identities."

I don't suppose I see more or less persons who have had some or multiple episodes of abuse as children. It is an unfortunate circumstance that this is very prevalent in the West. My attempt with all of my clients is to help them to place events in the past firmly in the past, and to disengage from them. By this I mean, letting go of attachment or clinging to the events of the past as determinative of anything in the present.

As to "top" challenge, I think that "an almost exclusively external focus" is common to almost all of my clients - and similar to what I just said. We have been conditioned to look outside of ourselves for the "cause" of our suffering, and also look outside to identify ourselves (someone's daughter, wife, husband, etc. or "I'm a doctor," as opposed to "I'm someone who chooses to practice medicine.") My goal is to bring clients into intimate contact with the here and now, and to encourage them to let go of stories and "looking about" for who they are. In other words, to focus on the here and now experience of being here and now!

Adam: Now let's talk a little about some of the wisdom you impart in your book.

3. In Half Asleep in the Buddha Hall (p. 14), you tell the story of a client who felt she was stupid and inept. She believed this because she dropped out of high school, had several failed relationships, and was now a single mother with a three-year-old and a one-year-old. As her therapist, you then asked her what she would choose to do differently with her life. She answered, and four years later, you attended her graduation from a nursing program. In your experience, how long (on average) does it take an abuse survivor or someone with a background like your client to really make a significant change like this?

This is one of those questions that has an obvious, yet non-intuitive answer: change takes as long as you choose to take. In the case of the client you mentioned, she enrolled in High School one day after our first session, and took about 4 years to do High School and College - to earn her RN degree. More important, for me, she learned to let go of identifying herself as a failure by creating (and actually noticing!) an environment of successes. In other words, she did it "here and now, step by step."

She also started and ended a relationship during this time. She realized rapidly that the man she had chosen could be abusive. In the past, she'd stuck around with such men. Because of her shift in self-identification, she left the relationship, again, one day after realizing what was going on.

She moved to the US of A decades ago (the US is always poaching our nurses) and stays in contact. She's a grandmother now, and still nursing, on a little farm in the US, and seems content and centered. So, to repeat, it took her only one moment - to choose to actually do something - and that one moment extends to now.

4. In your book, you also talk about learning to let go and stop clinging to the past. This is a struggle for a lot of us making changes, especially for those recovering from child abuse. How does one move past the past? To me, it seems like it helps to be able grieve over the past so you can move on from it. Is that part of the letting go process?

The hard to get piece is that the only place we "are" is right here/right now. There's no fixing the past, no "do-overs," no "getting justice for the past." There's just now, and how I choose to live. The hardest part is to "get" that when I go into my head and re-live a past experience, I am doing that "right here/right now." I am creating the story in my head, and playing all of the characters (most people are amazed to learn that what goes on in their heads is solely them, playing all the roles - there's no one else in there!) So letting go is really letting yourself let go of non-useful stories.

This process is the same for all of us, as every person on the planet has a "trauma story." Sitting around debating whose trauma story is worse is silly. Better to learn to breathe into the story, feel it, and then let go and come back into the present moment, where nothing much is going on.
As to grief, again, I can't grieve something in the past. As I remember (and it's just my story, not necessarily true) I actually "re-member" - I create a feeling, present-ly, in my body. In Bodywork, I might push on my client's sternum, and if s/he is willing s/he might sob, scream, pound, kick, or even laugh. This is the actual grieving process - letting out the emotion residing "right now," in the body. Grief, fully expressed, actually vanishes. Unless, of course, you are stuck on claiming that "I'll never get past this!," - in which case, you won't, until your desire to be liberated from yourself is greater than your willingness to keep yourself stuck.

5. The other concept you talk about in your book is zazen. I've heard a spiritual teacher once say that meditation is the path to spiritual growth. You describe zazen as the practice of 'just sitting' (p. 51). Is zazen the same as meditation, and if not, what are the differences and how can it help you grow?

Westerners really like the idea of paths, destinations, hierarchies - Westerners live on ladders. Zazen simply means, "Sitting still, like a mountain." Meditation is the Western name for the same thing, so yes, zazen and meditation are equal. However, I do not think meditation leads somewhere, some day. It's not a goal - it's how I choose to be, right now. It's not "pie in the sky, by and by." It's here and now, complete presence. With that comes the lessening of storytelling, clinging, and living in the past.

I also think that "growth" is a misnomer. We are just perfect, just as we are, if only we let go of clinging to past and future, and simply "be" right now. Growth talk implies that we lack something that either some guru is going to give you, or that you'll get to eventually (although never quite getting there) or will be bestowed on you by some "saviour" or other. My supervisor has a little sign on her wall, which reads, "No one is coming." I believe that this is so, and that the only rescue is self-rescue - best "done" by living, moment to moment, in the here and now. It's zazen, whether sitting on your cushion or washing the dishes.

6. You also tell a story about your wife Darbella getting angry about a parent who had tried to change her mind in her role as a teacher. You do some Bodywork and Darbella utters some epithets, like "Get those fu**king fu**kers out of my room", in order to express her anger. Can you elaborate on the concept of Bodywork and how Zen principles help you in dealing with emotions such as anger?

Sure! Many people mistakenly think that Zen masters or meditators are calm and unruffled all the time. This is very far from how it is. The true Master is a master of self. By this, I mean, as I just said, "When washing dishes, wash dishes. When angry, be angry." Now, the mastery part is this: I might be angry and express anger, but I am never violent. In the example from the book, I pressed on Darbella's sternum (breast bone) - a place we "hold" anger. Dar yelled and screamed, and kicked and hit the bed - she directed her energy into the inanimate object - the mattress. She aimed none of the physical stuff at me. Thus, anger is anger, and I simply witnessed it, while "helping."

For more of this, your readers could buy the book, Anger, Boundaries, and Safety, by Joann Peterson. I'm sure it's still available on Amazon.

And just to reiterate, in Zen, our goal is to be clear and present, and part of that is expressing what we are feeling, moment by moment. As an example, Darbella and I just led a zazen retreat. I was talking about communicating, and said, "I choose to speak to Dar with courtesy and clarity, because she's my best friend, and I do not want to see her hurting." As I said it, tears filled my eyes, and I let them fall, and then continued with my thought. No, "I can't be feeling this, I'm the leader!" crap. Feeling, expression, moving on, staying present.

7. In the section entitled Enacting Zen Being in your book, you talk about two principles, "No Duality" and "Non-Attachment." You explain non-duality as the practice of resisting adding on a list of judgements and non-attachment as "being with, without judgement." And yet, doesn't forgiveness require a judgement of some kind? In other words, if you want to forgive someone, that implies a past transgression (i.e., something the other person did was "wrong"), which in itself is a judgement. How can you apply these two principles to the concept of forgiveness?

Forgiveness is misunderstood. Forgiveness is letting go of blaming others. Now, Zen and the legal system are two different things. In the legal system, blame, guilt, "right and wrong" underpin our society. Abuse of any stripe is "wrong." From a personal place, from a centered place, creating "good/bad", "right/wrong" lists is non-helpful. This is so because list creators seldom do anything other than to create the list, and then spend eternity in their heads, adding stories to support it.

Forgiveness is this: "I now let you go. I am no longer willing to cling to my stories about what you appear you have done to me, and am unwilling to formulate my identity as being always and only about you and what happened in the past. I let you go from my mind, and free you from my clinging to you." This does not need to be said to an actual person, as the actual person is irrelevant to who you are, right now. (This is obvious - if this stuff had to be done with a living person, who then was required to actually do something, it would be impossible to "forgive" someone who has died. In actuality, forgiving dead folk and living folk actually happens in exactly the same place - between the ears, and in the heart, of the 'forgiver.")

8. You also talk about what it means for someone to truly grow up. For instance, you say "Moving out of childhood means one has successfully learned the tribal rules." Can you please elaborate on that further, especially in the context of recovering from abuse?

Moving out of childhood and being an adult are 2 different things. Virtually all people who are not institutionalized have moved out of childhood. They have learned how to feed and clothe themselves, and how to get along (play well) with others. In some countries, such growing up means women in head-to-toe coverings, subservient to men. (This is why I call it tribal conditioning). In the West, it's typically some form of "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" structure.

True adults play the game without taking it seriously. Sort of what "in the world while not of the world" means. The key difference is that adults take total responsibility for who they are, how they are, and what they do - there is no blaming, no victims, and no entitlement. According to this definition, there are few adults in the West.

So, in the context of your question, an adult would say, "There were great difficulties as I grew up, and I have let all of them go. I live my life as I choose to, with no reference to the past. I am not recovering, as I am presently living my life as myself, and have dropped clinging to the past." Most chose not to do this, as it requires letting go of having someone to blame for whatever is not working in their lives, and self-responsibility is scary.

 

 

9. Let's talk a little about Zen principles and the western concept of "goals." In your book, you say "the alternative, attachment to a specific outcome, is dangerous." It seems like this puts you at odds with Think and Grow Rich author Napoleon Hill's concept of having a "definite chief aim" and striving until you hit it.

Well, I might have a goal as "Having enough money to comfortably retire." Not a very useful goal, actually. So, let's be specific: What's comfortable, in dollars? OK, how many years away? Divide. Put x dollars in retirement account, and do not touch. That's useful.

HOWEVER!!! Many did this, and tucked their savings into the stock market, and last year, their retirement fund was 50% or less of what it was just before the "crash." Planning can only take us so far, as "You just never know."

So, sure, have your goals and plans, but keep a sense of humour, and learn some flexibility. Because nothing much turns out as we expect. Being present allows us to go with the flow and to deal with what is happening, as opposed to expecting that stuff will happen as I expect it to, just because I expect it to. Or, as the Sufis say, "Trust in god, but tie your camel."

10. Do you have any parting words of wisdom on how abuse survivors can implement Zen practices into their lives to augment their healing and growth?

Sure! Actually start one! Or, as Brad Warner titled one of his Zen books, "Sit down and shut up!" No whining, no excuses, no finger-pointing - find a Zen centre or buy one of my books ;-) and get started "just sitting."

Look for a therapist who is into Zen and who will call you on blaming or game playing, and help you to become self-responsible. It all starts with a commitment to relentless and 100% self-responsibility. And living precisely in the here-and-now. The world is right here, right now, and complete as it is. Live here, now.

11. What other books or services do you and The Phoenix Centre offer that you think would be helpful to abuse survivors? Any other upcoming books you would like readers to know about?

For more info, visit http://www.phoenixcentre.com/pain. This is a dvd/ cd / book set we created as a resource for injured workers (a group we teach zazen and Qi gong to- the story's on the page.)
By mid-2010, we ought to have another site up, with a membership plan. You'd find resources for everything I've talked about - 56 videos minimum on zazen, lifestyle, Bodywork, and more.

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I would like to extend a sincere thank you to Wayne for sharing his practical wisdom with ZenTactics. I've read Half Asleep in the Buddha Hall myself and I really enjoyed the messages of personal responsibility and living in the present moment that the book articulates. The Zen concepts may be difficult to grasp at first if you haven't been exposed to Zen concepts before, but you can pick up on them easily enough. I found myself re-reading several passages and feel like there are some good lessons in there for child abuse survivors.

Visit The Phoenix Centre to learn more about Wayne and his work and check out Half Asleep in the Buddha Hall available at Amazon.

~Adam Appleson

 

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