Why Deer Park?

Let’s turn this ship around

As the story goes, when the Buddha became enlightened, he did what all of us would do. He put it on Facebook. In his time (somewhere between the 4th and 6th century BCE), he took the low-tech approach and just started telling everyone what he had learned after sitting in meditation for 49 days straight.  

The Buddha’s message was simple:  

1) You WILL experience some level of “dissatisfactoriness” in your life
2) Wishing that you didn’t is why you suffer
3) You CAN lessen your own suffering, and
4) Practicing self-compassion, nonjudgment, detachment to an outcome (among other skills) WILL help you cope with the suffering.  

Therein lies the path to enlightenment. 

So, the Buddha put all of this out there and, as you might suspect, the Comments section was harsh. His former gurus challenged him and criticized his dismissal of hundreds of years of ritual and tradition.  

Fair enough, he thought. Maybe what I’ll do is sit this park, commune with the deer that hang out there, and give a few lectures. It was here, at Sarnath in India, that the Buddha gave his first lectures on the Dharma. If people wanted to listen, awesome. If they were moved to give him some lunch, even better.  

Now, let me be clear: I am nowhere near being an expert on Buddhism. I’m not even sure I’m Buddhist-adjacent. What I do know is that I was in school for forever, and that I’ve been practicing being a therapist and human being for a while now. My hope is that Deer Park will be a place where we can sit together, I can teach you what I know for sure, you can decide what you want to take with you.