Free The Zen of Trauma by Harvey Daiho Hilbert-roshi Page B

differences in how human beings relate to the natural world. In Native American cultures, for example, the entire world is alive and possesses spirit. Human beings are considered only a part of a vast interactivity and interconnectivity of life. Non-dualistic cultures aim to respect everything in the natural world. This cannot be overstated. The entire world is understood as a living, interrelated and interactive system. Thus, if a tree outside of the zendo is damaged, I am also damaged. Just so, if I am damaged, so to o , the Universe.
 
    With this in mind, we can see how obligations to care for each other and the entire world may become a core belief system of Native peoples in specific, and non-dualistic cultures in general. We can also see how a dualistic religion makes very little sense to traditional Native Americans. In Native culture, everything and every act possesses some "religious" connotation.
 
     

    The Spirit in Ordinary Experience.
 
    Typically, we do not consider the spirit or soul as part of our ordinary daily experience. While many of us go to houses of worship and many of us pray, there is still a felt absence of the sacred in our daily lives. It is as if the Sacred has become a puzzle to us. The keys to this puzzle are lost and we have to find them. From a Zen point of view, most of us are commonly asleep to the real world, i.e., the world that is alive around us and includes the spirit or essential nature of things. In non-dual cultures, the spirit of the universe is with us in everything, as we discussed above, the world is alive. This is in stark contrast to dualistic Western belief systems where there is often a separation between God and Man, the animate and the inanimate, the alive and the dead.
 
    Unless we have had an experience where God actually speaks to us, we do not usually consider God in our daily lives, yet many of us profess a belief in His existence. Are we asleep to the Spirit? I do not think so. Rather, I think we are too busy and our lives too cluttered with imaginings to think much about it. Quite literally, and with no judgment intended, we are uncomfortable, at best, and indignant, at worst, when spiritual matters come to our attention.
 
    This is interesting. Why should we be either? The spiritual hunger in America is well documented. Could it be that generations of baby-boomers are coming to a point where death, impairment, and other losses are looming quite large on the ever-closing horizon? Could it be that we are disenchanted with the power of technology and science? Could it be that many feel alienated from our more traditional religious institutions, yet search on our own for the water that would quench our thirst? Could it be that many of us have now had a few brushes with death and are wiser for it? I do not know, nor does it matter much. The reality is that we are searching for something to add depth and meaning to our otherwise busy, but unfulfilled lives .
 
    Even our language has become like milk toast, as we are not- so- subtly nudged toward the “politically correct” as opposed to what we would prefer to say in order not to offend anyone. We often "talk the talk," and avoid "walking the walk." Worse, for some of us, "spin doctoring" words and images has become a deceitful, yet acceptable way of life.
     
    As language becomes more a tool for positioning, flattering, and winning, we are becoming the poorer for it. For since we cannot speak our minds, our heart felt responses  cease, and our souls suffer from a lack of honest truth. Trauma, when faced, allows the truth to come directly into our lives.
     
     

    TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCE
   I like to think of traumatic experience as the sword of Manjushri, a blade that cuts through the curtain we have woven in order to make sense of our world. Traumatic experience is sudden and unpredictable. Although the diagnostic text revisions excluded the notion that it stands outside of our usual and customary