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.
But I wanted more. I lusted after dharma transmission. This I never received. A part of me felt, though, that something deep and profound WAS transmitted to me. It was like I swallowed something that both filled me with bliss and when I tried to talk about "this" my tongue would vanish.
