Jan. 2025: Mindful and mad
Grad school, realistic fears, and meditation
Dear friends,
Firstly, happy new year to those who celebrate! I am wearing a Wildfang jumpsuit with a bunch of snakes printed on it, as it is the year of the snake, and I am a snake — or rather, I belong to the snake, as that is how you say it in Mandarin. You don’t want to literally be a snake. Or perhaps you would, as snakes are considered the smaller relative of dragons. But anyway, here’s me in my jumpsuit:
The big news is that my first semester in grad school has started. Although I’ve only had class for two out of my three courses so far. Meditations in Buddhist and Daoist Traditions meets twice a week. Spiritual Ecologies meets about once every two weeks. Arts in Context is mostly asynchronous, but there is a required Zoom intensive this weekend and class presentations at the end of the semester, with two optional class meetings in between. There is a lot of reading, which feels kind of overwhelming, but it’s also really interesting, so I think I will adjust well.
But it’s a really hard time to be starting grad school. I usually do not keep up with the news so closely, but I’ve been anxiously reading about Trump’s avalanche of executive orders, feeling that I have to know how all this chaos might impact me and those I know. Most of what’s happening is unfortunately not surprising.
However, I was surprised by the phrasing of the executive order that tried to end birthright citizenship. My psychiatrist had previously asked me if I was worried about a birthright citizenship ban, but at the time it had not occurred to me that such a ban might apply to me, as political debates on the topic usually focus on undocumented and/or Latinx immigrants. But it turns out that if the executive order were in place when I was born, I would not have been born a citizen, since both my parents did not yet have permanent resident status in the U.S., even though they were in the country lawfully. The executive order was not retroactive, and it ended up being blocked by a judge, but still, it rattled me to find out that yet another aspect of me is up for debate.
I tried to explain to my mother why I was particularly upset about that executive order, but she just responded that she and my father weren’t “illegal,” so we wouldn’t have had to worry. Perhaps not, but they actually almost were unable to obtain greencards because 9/11 delayed the process and caused their materials to be temporarily lost. And when my family went to get visas to travel to China when I was a teen, I couldn’t get one because the Chinese Embassy dubiously claimed that since my parents weren’t permanent U.S. residents when I was born, I could choose whether to be a U.S. or a Chinese citizen once I became an adult. So I had to get a different, inferior travel document instead. If China could insist on such logic, then the U.S. might have done the same.
The attacks on trans people also particularly concern me. I feel for the community — and for my friends — even when things don’t directly impact me. I currently have cis-passing privilege, but later I — might not? I don’t even know in this political climate. It feels so much easier to just retreat into a small piece of myself that could fit into social expectations. I don’t experience consistent gender dysphoria as some do — it’s more variable for me — but the threat of constriction of my imagination for myself still pains me. My gender itself has also seemed to vacillate in distress, swinging me from one pole to the other multiple times in a day.
I’ve been so anxious that I started feeling intensely shaky and nauseated. I struggled to pay attention to my Spiritual Ecologies class on Monday because I periodically had to turn off the camera in order to attempt to vomit to relieve the nausea. Apparently my body has a very hard time vomiting, which meant that I remained nauseated. Later in the week I felt somewhat better, but still at times would suddenly become shaky and nauseated, while having no other symptoms that might have suggested physical illness. I don’t typically feel a need to throw up when anxious, so this just shows how deeply terrified I am.
I spoke with my therapist about my distress. They noted that perhaps I was not necessarily feeling anxiety, which is worry about something that may be a fiction of the mind, but rather fear, which is an emotional response to an actual threat. It makes sense to be afraid for my future, and for the futures of the people I know. Not being afraid would perhaps be denial.
Still, it’s not really helpful for me to feel so nervous that I struggle to complete tasks. So it is quite opportune that I am taking a course in Buddhist and Daoist meditation, for which I have to meditate daily. Right now, we’re mostly focusing on letting your mind rest upon your breath, which is quite a difficult task for restless folks like me. We are encouraged to not be disheartened by our “monkey minds,” but rather just to observe what is happening in our minds and let the thoughts and feelings naturally pass.
Sometimes when I meditate, I end up crying. Although in the moment it would feel “wrong” to cry when meditating, I think that it was actually a sign that meditation was working. Because I would start the meditation session feeling anxious, and then once the anxiety settled, the sorrow would flow out from underneath. The TA for the course, who is a Buddhist nun, shared that people in her monastic community cried a lot because of a recent death of an elder. It is human to cry, she said. Suffering comes from clinging onto a desire to always feel joy.
It has felt so refreshing to be in class with people who are willing to be vulnerable with one another in the process of growth. In the meditation course in particular, we are all learning about one another’s unique experiences and struggles. Some people have been regularly meditating for years. Some, like me, have tried meditating before but struggle to maintain a regular practice. And several of us have shared in more detail the nature of our minds. Apparently there are a bunch of people with ADHD in the class.
One of the required texts for the course is The Joy of Living by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. In this book, Mingyur Rinpoche writes about what science tells us about Buddhist meditation. Early in the narrative, he recounts being prone to frequent panic attacks as a child. But instead of being diagnosed with something, he committed to meditative practice, eventually attending a three-year Buddhist retreat at only thirteen years old. After one year at the retreat, he took some time alone in his room to meditate about his persistent episodes of panic, and finally realized that all of the anxiety and fear originated from his mind. From then on, he had no more panic attacks.
When I read this part of the book, I cried. The thing is, I’ve had an interest in both psychology and Buddhism since I was eleven years old. As a middle schooler who was known to be moody and anxious, I knew that I would benefit from psychotherapy, but only had two 2-month stints of therapy in high school because of two separate situations where my parents were basically forced by outside authorities to send me to therapy for a little while. And I had a sense that Buddhism would both improve my mental health and satiate some of my spiritual yearnings that had nowhere to go, but my parents would not let me visit a sangha because they worried that I would get so into it that I’d want to become a nun. So I ended up with more of an intellectual familiarity with Buddhist concepts than a true understanding of Buddhist practice.
If I had these tools in hand earlier in my adolescence, might I have been more stable as a young adult? It impressed me that Mingyur Rinpoche was able to cure himself of what would have been called panic disorder in the West just through meditation. Of course, it was not just the couple days in his room, but also the years of practice before then, that likely readied his mind to make that transformation, but still. Conventional clinical psychology tends to assume the necessity of medication and the permanence of severe mental illness (even when symptoms go away completely, one is considered “in remission”). Cognitive tools, usually taught in therapy, are supposed to help, but not necessarily so dramatically.
I shared my emotional reaction to the book in class. The TA then told me that one of her friends was diagnosed with bipolar but was able to achieve stability after years of meditation practice. She reminded me that there is still time for me to use meditation to reshape my mind. I know that the road will be difficult, as the unruliness of my mind does make meditation quite difficult at times, but that also makes Buddhist meditation exactly what my mind needs. And the inner peace that I can cultivate for myself will help me to more effectively make positive change for other living beings.
Post Round-up
I especially recommend the second essay, which is sad but also philosophical.
A Contemplative Offering
Various people in history have said something to the effect of “In a mad world, only the mad are sane.” How are you staying mad in a mad world? This can mean allowing yourself to cry, yell into a pillow, or otherwise feel your emotions rather than shoving them down.
But also, is there a part of you that can stay grounded and mindful amidst the madness? How can you nourish it? If you’re curious about Buddhist meditation, here is a guided meditation focusing on the breath.