Mind, Body, & Spirit
Maintaining A Balance of Health & Wellness
Change Your Mind Now and Zen
 Descartes said, “I think therefore I am.” This is where philosophy begins. But if you are not thinking, what? This is where Zen begins.
–Seung Sahn
According to the teachings of Buddhism we are constantly motivated by greed, hatred, and delusion. These “poisons of the mind” are responsible for the suffering all sentient beings experience. In contrast to animals, human beings are able to recognize the reasons for suffering and may free themselves. If we really want to go the way of dissolution of strife and suffering, then we have to change our ways in the mind. The fundamental practice of Zen is such a way of changing one’s mind.
Much of what Zen is about is extremely intangible. No hymns to sing. No weekly dress-up days. No basket to pass along the aisles and buy salvation with spare change. It’s much more than a ritual, but a way of thinking about the world … and not thinking.
The main goal of Zen for the past 2500 years has been to help people wake up from the obscuration and the daily whitewashing that our true natures receive. If we don’t have washboard abs, a car that can scale a sheer cliff, friends and lovers who look like runway models, and enough money to pay off everything, we are made to feel like less of a person; defective. Sadness and personal disappointment are imminent with these impossible standards held tantalizingly out of reach like psychic carrots. With so much conditioning spackled onto our psyches and inflating our insecurities, we might need to be taught to see again what once was there. Zen helps us reconnect with the true self of which we are all born.
Harrisburg psychotherapist J. Anthony Stultz is a large, soft-spoken man whose notable listening skills are inclined to make one feel much more important than accustomed. He looks rather like the starting linebacker at a college somewhere in the Mid-West than the Harvard graduate in Natural Scientific Thought and sensei of Contempletive Psychotherapy he is. He’s done his clinical residencies in Cambridge, MA, and at the Hershey Medical Center helping countless families regain purpose after severe trauma. In addition to one-on-one clientele sessions, he imparts ways to inner peace to troubled youth and prisoners. He mediates stressful meetings between imprisoned criminals and their victims. He even teaches Japanese students about Buddhism. Having been interested in Zen Buddhism and Asian studies since just before puberty, Stultz is an authority. While other 11-year-old kids were interested in the martial artistry of the cult series “Kung Fu,” Stultz was drawn to the whole lifestyle: serenity, the search for enlightenment, the composure of oneself in the face of adversity … and the martial arts were cool, too. To accurately describe the intense pursuit of his passion, Stultz drops the Dalai Lama’s name begrudgingly. His studies branch into the beat generation with renowned interpreter of Eastern philosophy Alan Watts.
“Buddhism is much more than religion,” says Stultz. “It is a way of life. It helps you to see reality clearly by offering mindfulness. It allows you to see with your eyes and not your brain or heart.” Zen can give you a new understanding of yourself, knowledge of what pushes your buttons, and allow things to arise around you and offer space for them without affecting your state of mind. “It’s popular because it’s very practical: it helps you live a full life here and now. Also, because it is non-dogmatic.” That is, it isn’t fixed and so strict that it allows just one path to enlightenment.
Using deep meditation, mental cul-de-sacs called koans like “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” to empty the mind, receiving guidance to help see situations for what they are instead of what they represent, and working to achieve enlightenment, a person can soon become equipped with anti-venom to the poisons of the mind that life offers.
The best wisdom you can give is how you live your life.— J. Anthony Stultz
Tony Stultz can be reached at 657-1968
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