More on some of the ways OCD manifested over the years and how I came to recognize the spiritual dimension. 

There is a comparable phase in the Buddhist tradition namely; the Path of Accumulation. This is the accumulation of wisdom similar to the accumulation of clues slowly revealing the spiritual dimension of OCD to me.
At the time of reading the Zen interview of Seung Sahn I was going to University. I majored in Mathematics since that was the best way to abstract my mind so as to understand death. This is how I thought about mathematics since my high school days when I was reading books on cryogenics among other subjects. I also started dabbling with writing poetry and fiction. A friend of mine mentioned to me that my writing seems like Zen Koans he was reading about. Since this was about the time I "discovered" the Zen book and read the interview that felt so right this excited me. I wanted to meet a Zen master and at the time had no idea how to go about this. So I started reading books on Zen.
These readings became a source of comfort in my otherwise chaotic mental life. Depression and the associated restriction of social contact that that caused as well as the many protection obsessions and compulsions left me dazed and confused, but for some reason this zen stuff spoke to me deeply.
Many people in the sciences or any field where one loves the subject one ponders, muses, thinks often about it. But for me for example in Chemistry I would get bogged down with the tiniest details and I could not stop thinking about it until I asked my professor. I would write pages and pages of questions to ask. Since I was too shy to talk in front of the class I waited for the professor after class or would go by their office. One such professor of Chemistry actually told a fellow student to keep me away from him with all my questions. I never knew if he was serious or not but it stood out. Of course I often came up with a question that most people would never think of and it helped me deeply undestand the subject BUT most of the time my obsessional questions caused me great mental pain. This is the difference between healthy passion and my obsessional questions. It was like my mind was a cauldron with both sharp intelligence and obsessional loops of questions and doubts all mixed together.

SACRED VISION---3/28

This is a term that comes up a few years later and its profundity continues to amaze me. During the time of College the same friend (we started an underground paper The Ikonoclast) told me about The Myth of Freedom by the Tibetan Buddhist Chogyam Trungpa. Neither title nor the cover caught my interest. Zen buddhism was it. He then told me about this new College called Naropa, started by Trungpa and the poet Alan Ginsberg and it intrigued me. I needed to meet these people. I also learned that Zen masters also taught there at times. So I decided to drive out there during the summer of 1982.

The notion of emptiness appealed to me so I signed up for a course on Shunyata (the sanskrit term usually translated as emptiness) at Naropa with Zazep Tulku. I was not very good socially and always getting smacked down with my verbal mistatements. At other times I was as smooth as can be. Before I actually arrived at Naropa that summer I called Allen Ginsberg and joked that I want to study with him because I want some help. I really was joking but it came out wrong. Of course I was confused and wanted help but I was being overall light and jokey about Buddhism and what I've been writiing. Basically I was excited. He said kind of rudely he's not a therapist. This embarrased me and these type of events throughout my earlier days made the tacitern wall thicker. But he was a great teacher, even though I never really spoke to him. I never spoke to Trungpa either but took an Art and Buddism class with him. And it was Trungpa talking about the Tantric path where he spoke of Sacred Vision. I never could be sure I understood what he meant and was not sure I did not understand because I did not get it or because of OCD doubt. Pretty twisted? But this is how my mind would think. But it started to mean to me that whatever I perceived, whatever internal experiences I had, no matter what I was doing, whether awake or asleep, talking, reading or eating I was doing something in a sacred dimension, in a sacred dance, superimposed on everyday reality , both internal and external. The key here was not the words "sacred dimension" "sacred dance" but rather a palpable sense that I, my ego I, was in a larger storyline. I felt it. I still feel it.

And this is why I am finally writing these words. It is time! For what I do not know. How can I? I have OCD. Of course this is said in half jest but the underlying sensation of uncertainty is always there.

I found that there are many comparable descriptions of mind in the abidharma (buddhist psychology) and in Trungpa's books. I found them in Tarthang Tulku's books as well. The interesting thing is he was the first Buddhist teacher I ever read. In 1976 I read his Time, Space and Knowledge and how way back then it spoke to me but not in the Buddhist sense. I do not think I realized what a Tibetan Lama was or even the Buddhist aspect. This is when during my early college days I was being turned on to philosophy by a friend who majored in that area. I used to argue there was no such thing as time but having only a Mathematics background and spoke with a thick New York accent with attitude my verbal arguments were often colored by  many curses.

Therefore even this Book in progress is a manifestation of this Sacred Vision and all who happen to come to it. This is a seeming very mystical statement and way too early for me to have uttered it. But it has been uttered and will be let go of now in meditative space to continue with the clues and continual doubt filled insights.

In 1986, I was going through a severe OCD episode and major depression. I moved to another state without any resources because I was compelled to. This was not the first time I just got up and split. This was the third time in 4 years beginning the summer right after my first visit to Naropa Institute. Twice during my first year of graduate school I left, left my apartment and my car...following my obsessions compulsively. A very painful time but also exciting in a way. Anyway, during this episode in the Midwest I went to a psychiatrist connected with the welfare services. I only got 15 minutes with him. A farce! But he did say one sentence that stayed with me all these years and was a major clue to the spiritual dimension of OCD. I told him about many of my OCD manifestations and that for example I add numbers on license plates and I read them like signs, omens, if you will. They scared me or relieved me depending on what they added up to. He casually remarked that since I was Jewish (he was Jewish as well) my background has Gematria, a Kabbalistic practice ...That's all he said about that and that's all I remember about the brief encounter. But this remark opened my eyes to a possible mystical viewpoint of some of the rituals and compulsions I did. Don't know mind, Sacred Vision and Kabalistic tendencies perhaps, mixed with pure pathological OCD symptoms. Strange! Irritating! Infinitely frustrating! What was this crazy, confusing and tortuous path I was on? Where was I heading? Don't know mind...

During this time I remember when first arriving in the new state I told someone that everytime I split like this I end up meeting a new spiritual teacher and this is part of the path. I started to recognize "mysticals" patterns in my life. I was slowly putting the pieces together. Feeling myself the wounded healer among other labels. Wanting to teach something "spiritual", something "mystical" but simultaneously completely fucked up, depressed, lost, poor and OCD'ed...The cliché slight glimmer of light, some glimpses of the spiritual dimension in my bones, in my marrow as my next spiritual teacher would say. It was true as I predicted on my arrival that I would connect with a new teacher. This was the Zen Master Katagiri Roshi. He was beautiful. He glided...

The recognition of patterns was perhaps aided my meditative practice that started to develop a few years after attending Naropa. Meditation, which will be discussed later in more detail, is a vital part of the opening of the awareness eye to see in the midst of an OCD attack and in the midst of deathly depression.

Being involved with Katagiri for a few years added more to the accumulation of clues...I meditated at the Zen Center, did a few retreats and became known as the "guy who stole the Zen centers truck." What happened was that during a 2 week retreat out of the city I flipped out with my obsession and had to immediately go back to town, so I "borrowed" the truck to get there. A three-hour drive. I would have walked all the way because I could not not go. No way! Same sensation as when I had to ask my professor questions, or say my rituals or had unpleasant vivid images that would intrude. Where was the wisdom in that action?

The spiritual wisdom does not necessarily show itself in the action but what other events spin out from that action that revealed some further patterns that seemed to fit...and when I tried to think what it actually meant, these patterns, I would go nuts and get more despairing since these were often unponderable (a term I later heard from a hypnotist who said I pondered the unponderable) questions. So I recognized patterns that felt like a path, that seemed to fit with what I have learnt and felt. I struggled with this trying to make a form, a clearer storyline, a mystical mythology but I also doubted it as my imagination, my "magical thinking" ala Salzmann. Then "don't know mind" would come up in my mind stream and I just let it go and kept moving. This would not happen often but at seemingly strategic times after months of tremendous mental pain. Obviously thoughts of suicide would arise as well. But that was not new. That went back to my Pink Floyd days laying in the closet during High School. When Katagiri talked of his own thoughts of suicide it showed the stark choice in reality. "To live or to die, that's it" he would say.