When I needed a lot of help, this book was a lot of help.

When I needed a lot of help, this book was a lot of help.

Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Master Class Piano · Song · 2022

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Philip Martin has joined Uber as Chief Information Security Officer after serving as Chief Security Officer at Coinbase since 2016. His background includes leadership roles at Palantir and Amazon’s A9, as well as a decade of service as a U.S. Army counterintelligence agent and Arabic linguist. #Uber #PhilipMartin #Coinbase #PalantirTechnologies #AmazonA9...

Depression is the elephant in the meditation hall. Virtually all Zenners suffer from it; nobody becomes a monk because he's happy. But Zen has a macho tradition, and since depression is an illness without visible wounds, the old right-wing arithmetic applies: _machismo + (unauthorised suffering) = rejection._ Thus the institutional response to depressed Zenners ranges from supportive assistance, to conditional acceptance, to outright insult. Students are as likely to be told that they're "attached," that they have the "wrong perspective," or that they're just plain lazy, as to receive useful, scientifically-valid teaching. In short, depression is our evolution, and our response to it sometimes amounts to creationism: a crap alibi against having to admit that our founders didn't fully understand something. Fudo-esque confrontation of that heritage is just one strength of Philip Martin's _The Zen Path Through Depression_. In sensible, measured tones, he accompanies the reader, in the Franciscan sense of the word, through the myriad symptoms of depression: disabling lack of energy; paralysing panic; rumination; pointless rage; guilt and self-recrimination. Physical symptoms of a disease as physical as diabetes, albeit not yet as well-understood. I should say that I approached this book with trepidation, and wouldn't have approached it at all if I hadn't been desperate. I had beaten depression with Zen seven years before, and been a monk ever since – it was the first thing I found that could bully the bully. But two years ago I got nailed again, and this time my Zen practice wasn't up to it. Even admitting that took months. When I finally ordered Martin's book I was afraid I'd either get a pop-psy puff piece with some trendy Zen around the edges, or a traditional Zen treatise that flipped a few koans at me and said, "Stop being depressed." Happily, what I received a scholarly catalogue of the medical symptoms at one chapter each, along with what modern science knows about their origins. Just that helps a lot, to put things in context and demonstrate that you're neither crazy nor irresponsible. This is followed up by square, monastic-grade Zen analysis of the case. In essence, Martin says, "This is your mind. This is your mind on depression." And that was as effective as the medication in retuning my mind. Depression is a lonely hell; shame and embarrassment convince you it's all your fault. Martin proves that it's not. "In our depression," he writes, > …we can start to heal by accepting that a great part of our becoming depressed, as well as much of getting over it, may not be within our control. In doing so, we can let ourselves off the hook, and stop taking the blame. The next move is genius: once his orthodox Zen prescription to accept what is takes the pressure off, he scratches a few questions on the last page of each chapter. You don't have to consider them; only if you want to. Dig: > Examine your beliefs about suffering. Do you believe it is inevitable? Or that it builds character? Is suffering connected with struggle for you? Would there be no life without suffering? Seems pretty anodyne now, but at the time, with my brain freshly stabilised by a few pills and recharged by Martin's explanations, this stuff was Drano. Note again his classic Zen: no answers. There aren't any wrong thoughts, you just have to know what the thoughts are. Doesn't seem like it would work, but it does. The questions, as much as the teaching, flushed out my system. It would be hard to imagine a writer better qualified for the job. Martin is a long-time student of Zen; a certified and experienced therapist; and most important, a sufferer of hardcore depression. This guy doesn’t have a condescending bone in his body. He's a brother. In the end, _The Zen Path Through Depression_ felt so good that I started rationing it because I didn't want to run out. When I got low, I would ask myself, "OK, I feel bad, but is it _Path_ -worthy?" And that alone motivated me to endure, to find the strength in my backbone, to haul myself up by my sandal straps. And pop went the depression. In the end, with a supportive family, cooperative doctors, my monastic practice, and Martin's book, I got back on my feet. I was even able eventually to stop taking the meds. (But if the depression comes back, I'm back on. Like, now. Don't be afraid of meds, brothers and sisters. They're undramatic drugs, no scarier than aspirin, for a sickness no more imaginary than migraines.) And while you're up, get a copy of _The Zen Path Through Depression_. When I needed a lot of help, this book was a lot of help.

Depression is the elephant in the meditation hall. Virtually all Zenners suffer from it; nobody becomes a monk because he's happy. But Zen has a macho tradition, and since depression is an illness without visible wounds, the old right-wing arithmetic applies: _machismo + (unauthorised suffering) = rejection._ Thus the institutional response to depressed Zenners ranges from supportive assistance, to conditional acceptance, to outright insult. Students are as likely to be told that they're "attached," that they have the "wrong perspective," or that they're just plain lazy, as to receive useful, scientifically-valid teaching. In short, depression is our evolution, and our response to it sometimes amounts to creationism: a crap alibi against having to admit that our founders didn't fully understand something. Fudo-esque confrontation of that heritage is just one strength of Philip Martin's _The Zen Path Through Depression_. In sensible, measured tones, he accompanies the reader, in the Franciscan sense of the word, through the myriad symptoms of depression: disabling lack of energy; paralysing panic; rumination; pointless rage; guilt and self-recrimination. Physical symptoms of a disease as physical as diabetes, albeit not yet as well-understood. I should say that I approached this book with trepidation, and wouldn't have approached it at all if I hadn't been desperate. I had beaten depression with Zen seven years before, and been a monk ever since – it was the first thing I found that could bully the bully. But two years ago I got nailed again, and this time my Zen practice wasn't up to it. Even admitting that took months. When I finally ordered Martin's book I was afraid I'd either get a pop-psy puff piece with some trendy Zen around the edges, or a traditional Zen treatise that flipped a few koans at me and said, "Stop being depressed." Happily, what I received a scholarly catalogue of the medical symptoms at one chapter each, along with what modern science knows about their origins. Just that helps a lot, to put things in context and demonstrate that you're neither crazy nor irresponsible. This is followed up by square, monastic-grade Zen analysis of the case. In essence, Martin says, "This is your mind. This is your mind on depression." And that was as effective as the medication in retuning my mind. Depression is a lonely hell; shame and embarrassment convince you it's all your fault. Martin proves that it's not. "In our depression," he writes, > …we can start to heal by accepting that a great part of our becoming depressed, as well as much of getting over it, may not be within our control. In doing so, we can let ourselves off the hook, and stop taking the blame. The next move is genius: once his orthodox Zen prescription to accept what is takes the pressure off, he scratches a few questions on the last page of each chapter. You don't have to consider them; only if you want to. Dig: > Examine your beliefs about suffering. Do you believe it is inevitable? Or that it builds character? Is suffering connected with struggle for you? Would there be no life without suffering? Seems pretty anodyne now, but at the time, with my brain freshly stabilised by a few pills and recharged by Martin's explanations, this stuff was Drano. Note again his classic Zen: no answers. There aren't any wrong thoughts, you just have to know what the thoughts are. Doesn't seem like it would work, but it does. The questions, as much as the teaching, flushed out my system. It would be hard to imagine a writer better qualified for the job. Martin is a long-time student of Zen; a certified and experienced therapist; and most important, a sufferer of hardcore depression. This guy doesn’t have a condescending bone in his body. He's a brother. In the end, _The Zen Path Through Depression_ felt so good that I started rationing it because I didn't want to run out. When I got low, I would ask myself, "OK, I feel bad, but is it _Path_ -worthy?" And that alone motivated me to endure, to find the strength in my backbone, to haul myself up by my sandal straps. And pop went the depression. In the end, with a supportive family, cooperative doctors, my monastic practice, and Martin's book, I got back on my feet. I was even able eventually to stop taking the meds. (But if the depression comes back, I'm back on. Like, now. Don't be afraid of meds, brothers and sisters. They're undramatic drugs, no scarier than aspirin, for a sickness no more imaginary than migraines.) And while you're up, get a copy of _The Zen Path Through Depression_. When I needed a lot of help, this book was a lot of help.

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