Meditation Secrets Revealed

Interview with Claude AnShin Thomas conducted by Vlad Moskovski

I first met Claude AnShin Thomas at a talk that he gave, and the first thing that struck me about him was his straightforward honesty. There was something very sharp and clear about his talk, his attitude, and his vision. I am honored to have the chance to interview Claude AnShin, who has experienced so much in his life. He has been many things. A combat soldier in Vietnam, martial arts teacher, musician, political activist, peace advocate, and ascetic wondering monk.

Vlad: You have walked many miles on foot, what is the longest continuous journey you have done on foot and what inspired this journey? 

The longest continuous journey I would have to say was from the Auschwitz concentration camp inPolandtoVietnam. I was ordained in Auschwitz, a decision made by my teacher. In preparation for that ordination, I sat in the selection site between two railroad tracks in Auschwitz/Birkenau. I fasted there for four days, no food or water, and I chanted from sunup to sundown.

I then walked to Vietnam, through something like 25 or 27 countries. Most of the places I walked through were places of current or past fighting.  The experience of being a combat soldier has shaped the way my Zen Buddhist practice has developed.  It has helped me come into a more conscious relationship with the sources of conflict that are within me. It has also given me a greater insight into the reality of separation that exists amongst those who call themselves peace advocates. A lot of these people see the soldiers as the enemy. I realized through my own experience that people seldom pay attention to the suffering of the perpetrator.  However, if we observe carefully, we can see that within each victim there is a perpetrator and within each perpetrator there is a victim.

Vlad: What was it like to be walking through these countries on foot?

That was a long time ago. I can only say now in hindsight that it was incredibly important, and intensely powerful in the sense that it got me into a more intimate connection with how I was affected by my military service. It brought into a sharper focus the full spectrum of the experience of war: the war before the war, the war itself, and the war after the war. It refined my understanding that War is not a finite experience.

The pilgrimage helped me understand the experience in a more certain and clear way.  It made me realize clearly that I don’t have any enemies. The whole notion of enemy is a fabrication. The demonization of the other helped to absolve the roots of war in me. If I want to be an advocate of active non-violence, I have to be awake to the sense of war in me, to the soldier in me. I have to be able to embrace the reality of my duality, understanding that I don’t know the specific experience of anIraqor Iranian soldier, or a Chilean soldier. I don’t know their exact experience, but I do know that I am not different from them. I try not to focus on precise experience, which can create a sense of separation, but rather to see where am I connected, where it is that our experiences intersect.

Vlad: If I understand correctly, you don’t have a permanent home, is this part of your spiritual practice? How did that come about?

Somehow, from the very beginning, it just made sense to me and I did not know why. I feel the critical importance of living a very direct life. Everything that I have read and studied talks about the importance of renunciation through the maturation of spiritual practice, of not being rooted in fame or gain. I want nothing more than to wake up. I want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. My life is committed to that, because of all the consequences to living in forgetfulness.

My vows – no home, no resources, no saving, no insurance, none of the trappings of security bring more sharply into focus the reality that these sorts of this do not provide security. I am often invited to teach meditation or to work with cultures of violence in support of a desired transformation out of this cycle. The invitations come from all over the world. I do not charge for my services. I do everything for free, but if people want me there, they have to get me there and I don’t fly business class or first class. You chuckle at that, but I can’t tell you how many Buddhist teachers I know who won’t travel any other way than business class or first class.

Vlad: Would you recommend this wandering lifestyle to others who may want to follow in your footsteps?

I think this way of living is the best way in the world. Now, would I recommend this to others? Not my job. People need to find their own way. People have the sense somehow that it is a glamorous life and it is not.

Let’s say somebody embarks on this path. They need to be fully committed to it, because they have no real sense of the its’ demands. I had ideas of what this might be like, but in truth there is no way that I could ever know what this lifestyle is like. That is the wonder of it. It just keeps revealing itself day by day, year by year. I suppose I will live like this until I don’t live. I hear monks and priests talking about retirement, and I go, “are you kidding me?” To be a monk is not a job, this is a life commitment. You don’t retire from this.

Vlad: For many years you have, and still do, live with post traumatic stress, how has meditation and Zen practice affected that?

Living the life of spiritual development has taught me to live in a more conscious relation with myself. That being said, the 4th noble truth tells us that the cure for suffering does not entail the elimination of suffering. It does not mean that suffering goes away. Not in my experience. In my experience it means that I learn to live in a different relationship with my suffering. As a result my suffering does not haunt me in the ways that it did when I was attempting to eliminate this suffering.

I have not slept for more than 2 hours consecutively since 1967. I still don’t. When I was wrapped up in the notion that I had to get my life to conform to certain standards, I was in a place of non-acceptance. Through spiritual practice I was catapulted into a place of awareness and acceptance of my life as it was. I am then encouraged to take responsibility, not pretend that I am someone I’m not, or that there is some fixed way to be in the world.

I think there is a false impression marketed in regards to the issue of feelings and transformation on the spiritual path. Ideas are sold that healing is the absence of suffering, that it means everything goes away and becomes like it always was or is supposed to be. When in reality, there is no supposed to be. There is no fixed place where we can stand firm except in the reality of not knowing, in the reality of impermanence.

Spiritual practice is not an intellectual matter. I can’t think myself into a new way of living. I have to live myself into a new way of thinking.

Vlad: What advice, if any, do you have for vets?

First let me say that I am not in the advice giving business. What I pass along to Veterans is what I have learned and experienced through my own life. That healing is not the

absence of suffering, it is learning to live in a more conscious  relationship with how we have been affected. How we react and respond to the world makes absolute sense based on the nature of our experiences. We can’t ever go back to who we were before our military service, and the very nature of our experiences in war can’t be changed. I pass along the message that healing is possible, if one is willing to give up ideas of what that means. The very heart of healing rests with the acceptance that this is like this because that was like that. I think acceptance grows  out of the desire to accept.  But it must be supported by disciplined spiritual practice.

What I talk about often is the roots of war that are within us. I think the majority of people never consider this reality. It is something foreign to them. I think it is incredibly important to understand that the non-veteran is more responsible for war than the veteran. Because they think they are not responsible. People look to the violence that is external to them, and never reflect on the roots of that violence within them. We must pick up the roots of war within us and commit our lives to the transformation of this violence.

The world is constantly communicating to me, but if I am so set on the answer that I want to hear or what I think I should be hearing, then I loose my capacity to hear. Understanding is not the accumulation of information, but rather how that information manifests itself in real life terms in my life. It is a two-fold process, of asking the question, and being able to listen to the answer.

“Know yourself as the ocean of being, the womb of all existence. You can know it only by being it. Without it all is trouble. If you want to live sanely, creatively and happily and have infinite riches to share, search for what you are!” ~Sri Nasargadatta Maharaj from the book I AM That

“Sow love, reap peace. Sow meditation, reap wisdom.”
Swami Sivananda

An inspiring story and a good lesson on thinking outside the box. A passage from The Element by Ken Robinson

“One of the results of seeing our lives as leaner and unidirectional is that it leads to a culture of segregating people by age. We send the very young to nursery schools and kindergartens as a group. We educate teenagers in batches. We move the elderly into retirement homes. There are some good reasons for all of this. After all, As Gail Sheehy noted decades ago, there are predictable passages in our lives, and it makes some sense to create environments where people can experience those passages in an optimal way.

However, there are also good reasons to challenge the routines of what really amounts to age discrimination. An inspiring example is a unique education program in the Jenks school district of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The state of Oklahoma has a nationally acclaimed early-years reading program, providing reading classes for three-to five-year olds throughout the state. The Jenks district offers a unique version of the program. This came about when the owner of another institution in Jenks – one across the street from one of the elementary schools – approached the superintendent of schools. He’d heard about the reading program and wondered if his institution could offer some help.

The other institution is the Grace Living Center, a retirement home.

Over the next few months, the district established a preschool and kindergarten classroom in the very heart of Grace Living Center. Surrounded by clear glass walls(with a gap at the top to allow the sounds of children to filter out), the classroom sits in the foyer of the main building. The children and their teachers go to school there every day as thought it were any other classroom. Because it’s in the foyer, the residents walk past it at least three times a day to get to their meals.

As soon as the class opened, many of the residents stopped to look through the glass walls at what was going on. The teachers told them that the children were learning to read. One by one, several residents asked if they could help. The teachers were glad to have the assistance, and they quickly set up a program called Book Buddies. The program pairs a member of the retirement home with one of the children. The adults listen to the children read, and they read to them.

The program has had some remarkable results. One is that the majority of the children at the Grace Living Center are outperforming other children in the district on the state’s standardized reading tests. More than 70 percent are leaving the program at age five reading at third-grade level or higher. But the children are learning much more than how to read. As they sit with their book buddies, the kids have rich conversations with the adults about a wide variety of subjects, and especially about the elders’ memories of their childhoods growing up in Oklahoma. The children ask things about how big iPods were when the adults were growing up, and the adults explain that their lives really weren’t like the lives that kids have now. This leads to stories about how they lived and played seventy, eighty, or even ninety years ago. The children are getting a wonderfully textured social history of their hometowns from people who have seen the town evolve over the decades. Parents are so pleased with this extracurricular benefit that a lottery is now required because the demand for sixty available desks is so strong.

Something else has been going on at the Grace Living Center though: medication levels are plummeting. Many of the residents on the program have stopped or cut back on their drugs.

Why is this happening? Because the adult participants in the program have come back to life. Instead of whiling away their days waiting for the inevitable, they have a reason to get up in the morning and a renewed excitement about what the day might bring. Because they are reconnecting with their creative energies, they are literally living longer.

There’s something else the children learn. Every now and then, the teachers have to tell them that one of their book buddies won’t be coming any more’ that this person has passed. So the children come to appreciate at a tender age that life has its rhythms and cycles, and that even the people they become close to are part of that cycle.

In a way, the Grace Living Center has restored an ancient, traditional relationship between the generations. The Book Buddies program shows in a simple yet profound way the enrichment possible when generations come together. It shows too that elderly can revive long-lost energies if the circumstances are right and the inspiration is there.”

Some see a cup and say it is half full, others say it is half empty yet both are based on mood, perception, and memory. The Taoist master is in a state that is removed from such judgments. Staying removed he/she is able to be completely present and give 100 percent, untouched by the dualities of life.

When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly.

When people see some things as good, other things become bad.

Being and non-being create each other.

Difficult and easy support each other.

Long and short define each other.

High and low depend on each other.

Before and after follow each other.

Therefore the Master acts without doing anything and teaches without saying anything.

Things arise and she lets them come; things disappear and she lets them go.

She has but doesn’t possess, acts but doesn’t expect.

When her work is done, she forgets it.

This is why it lasts forever.

From the Tao Te Ching Translated by Stephen Mitchel

Habits are a reflection of our thoughts, manifested through repetition of actions. Right habits can be our greatest aid on the path to freedom from desires and fears, but bad habits can become obstacles. They can bind us, constricting our mobility, limiting our choices and our thinking. The challenge in being awake, aware, and present is to watch our own actions and analyze them. Ask yourself the question, “What in my life do I do by habit, and how are these habits serving me?”

Awareness is the essence of of our being, our birthright. But sometimes we forget, get distracted with life and the many responsibilities that take up our time. Here are a few ways that we can change bad habits by brining awareness onto the present moment.

1. Memory triggers

A memory object is a place, person, or thing which we designate as a trigger for the immediate assessment of our internal state. For example, lets say there is a painting hanging over your desk, whenever you look at that painting that is the trigger to stop and bring awareness to thoughts, emotions, and the surrounding environment. Awareness is objective, it is without blame or judgment – a simple observation of the facts. Paradoxically, we are building a habit to become aware of our own habits.

Doorways are a good memory objects because we go through hundreds of them every day. Upon walking through the doorway, immediately come into the present moment and bring awareness to the five senses to soak in the new surroundings. Remember to notice!

2. Breath

We must breath to live, it is something real, concrete and ever present within ourselves. Breath awareness is one ofthe fundamental steps to raising awareness, learning meditation, or any other internal study. Take a moment right now to focus on the breath. Notice the subtle qualities of depth, speed, location in the body, and even the texture. As often as possible throughout the day, remember to bring attention to the breath. Become curious to discover what is the quality of the breath when there is anger, sadness, joy, excitement, or calm?

Explore, have fun, be playful in figuring out what works best for your life and circumstances. Keep in mind that for these techniques to be effective one must be vigilant to remember to practice consistently, frequently, and for a long time util awareness becomes a natural state of being. Many negativities can be compared to shadows, they are a the darkness outside that stem from within. Awareness and mindfulness is the sunlight that has the power to drive away this darkness. Simply remember and let the sun shine.