Transcription of Andrew Kull for the show Wholehearted Living #126
Dr. Lisa: I’ve had the good fortune to know many lawyers in my life and I was intrigued to learn about a lawyer who practices locally and who is also a Buddhist. A Buddhist lawyer is something I had never really thought about and definitely never met before. I thought we should bring this guy on the show because I’m intrigued by the Buddhism as well. Today, to talk about being Buddhist and also being a lawyer is Andrew Kull who is an attorney with MittelAsen right here in Portland. Thanks for coming in and being with us today.
Andrew: Thank you, Dr. Lisa. I’m happy to be here.
Dr. Lisa: This is our show that’s airing the week of Valentine’s Day. We think about connecting with each other. Valentine’s Day as being this time where we give our loved ones hearts, and candy hearts and flowers, and chocolates. The really the way that I think about love is first connecting with one’s self. I believe that this is part of what you were doing when you were exploring Buddhism.
Andrew: Yeah. Absolutely, I think the principle tenet of Buddhism as I understand it and I’m no great emissary of Buddhism but I can give you my perspective what I’ve come to understand a little bit. I’ve come to understand over the years of practicing. The difference that I see with Buddhism is that there’s this idea of a fundamental perfection that we have as human beings. The idea is that within ourselves, the very core of our being is what they called Buddha nature. We have this absolute perfection that’s inherently ours that can’t be ever changed or stained or messed up no matter what we’ve done.
So, the whole practice of Buddhism and the path of Buddhism is about letting everything else go, all of the confusion that we have on a day-to-day basis, and I know I have plenty of it but the idea is that if we can simply let that go and we can simply be then this love, compassion, kindness and joy that we have at the very core of our being can begin to shine through. It’s all about coming home to ourselves and bringing our mind home.
Dr. Lisa: You had a circuitous path to Buddhism, which you’ve been practicing for how many years now?
Andrew: I’ve been a student of Buddhism since 1999 so 14 years.
Dr. Lisa: So 14 years, prior to that it wasn’t inherently obvious that this was something that you would do. How did you come to that place?
Andrew: Well, I have Catholic roots going back on both sides of my family. I think my parents decided at a relatively early age, they didn’t want to inflict a Catholic upbringing on me. Nonetheless, I made a first communion and I have a foundation in Catholicism. Then in my early 20s, I began to explore spirituality and I had an experience where I saw that I just didn’t have any control whatsoever over my mind. I wanted to be able to sit still and just be, and my mind was all over the place. I was really surprised, I think. I think it’s probably something that I’d always had, this monkey mind.
We all have it. I still have it but I’d never seen it before. I had an experience where I was able to see just for a moment how absolutely nuts I was in so many ways. I decided that I wanted to learn to meditate and that’s how I came to Buddhism. I took meditation class and it really spoke to me. It really made sense. One of the strengths of the Buddhist lineages, there’s many different Buddhist lineages available to us, is one of the great strengths is the availability of these teachings. There are teachings about how to place our mind and how to connect with this fundamental nature, this Buddha nature that we have.
Dr. Lisa: As part of my acupuncture training, I studied five phases theory. There’s a very strong Taoist component in that and Xi Gong which I also have studied and practiced. I have simultaneously been very interested in Buddhism. I know that there’s been a rise in interests in both Taoism and Buddhism in the United States and really around the world. Have you seen this and why do you think this might be so?
Andrew: I have seen it. I know what you’re talking about. I think that the times we live in are so crazy. It’s not so much that they’re crazy. I think about it sometimes. In Buddhism, there’s this concept of past lives that we’ve lived many times and that this one life is just one of many. I don’t know. I can’t remember any past lives. I have no idea but sometimes when I think about it, I think it’s like this life right now. There’s so much experience, so much depth of experience that we have. It’s almost like I’ve lived, I don’t know how many dozens of lives. Just in this one life.
If you think about how it used to be in the old days, let’s say you were born in Portland, Maine for example 200 years ago. You might not go … you know, if you went to Boston, it might the trip of a lifetime. Maybe there were people that would travel around more but your experience was so much more limited. Now we have so much more experience and there’s so much more going. There’s so much input. We need something to make sense of it to help us come back and really “be”, and understand a little bit about what this life is about and how to be a good person and how to be happy.
I think fundamentally for myself, we all want to be happy and my parents are wonderful. They taught me the best they can and I think they did a great job but some of these fundamental tools about where the source of happiness is and how to find that and sort of mine that out of my own being I’ve had to look elsewhere and so looking into these teachings and looking to have a practice that I can do on a regular basis, a meditation practice, is really crucial for me.
I think it’s crucial for a lot of us in this time where there’s so much input and so much confusion. Our society teaches us to look for happiness outside. If you get this car, if you get this makeover, if you do these things, if you get this job then it’ll help bring happiness where it’s fundamentally … the Buddhist teachings say, “Well, granted that external circumstances do contribute to happiness and suffering to a certain degree. I mean we need to have food. We need to have shelter. We need to have clothing.”
Fundamentally, happiness depends upon the mind and how we perceive the world. That’s something we have control over which is a revolutionary insight. If we have, for me, that’s not something I was taught as a kid. That’s something that I’ve begun to learn since I’ve gone on this spiritual journey and spiritual path. It’s something I forget all the time so I need a practice. I need a way. To get back to your question which is why has there been this rise in spiritual practice and spiritual teachings in this interest in the modern age? We really need it. There’s just so much that’s demanding our attention externally to be able to have a way to turn our mind just a little bit inward and strengthen that turning of the mind. It’s really crucial.
Dr. Lisa: As you’ve been talking, I’ve been thinking about how this parallels with what I know of Catholicism. Also having been raised Catholic, in the aspects of Catholicism and the practice of Catholicism that I found the most powerful and they were the times of contemplation. They were the times of prayer maybe even repetitive prayer through rosary. For me, the power of song was always important and then the power of community which I know is also very important in Buddhism and the whole idea of Songa. This is something that you’ve experience yourself as you’ve learned more about Buddhism.
Andrew: Yes. I agree with you. I’m a student of Tibetan Buddhism. The Tibetan tradition has an incredible richness. Some people have joked that the Tibetan Buddhism is like the Catholicism of Buddhism because there is an in-depth ritual that’s involved. The sort of expanse of Buddhist practices is very broad. It fundamentally can be from incredibly simple to this incredible richness of ritual. Yes, I agree with you that the … I see the parallel too with the Catholic tradition.
Fundamentally, I don’t think there’s any difference whatsoever. The experience of God through prayer in the Buddhist tradition, I’ve heard it said that Buddhists don’t believe in God as some sort of external whatever ‘being’ that’s somehow different from us. Buddhist don’t deny the nature of God. Where the rubber hits the road in any contemplative tradition is in your own experience. That’s what Buddhism is about. It’s about where the rubber hits the road in our experience as human beings is in our mind. Life, death, everything all occurs within our mind. I mean we can look outside but nonetheless, it’s our experience. That’s what we have to work with.
When you’re practicing through a prayer, it’s your experience. If you have an experience of religious experience or whatever experience of God, it’s your experience. That connection is something that’s fundamentally yours. I don’t think that changes. I think that’s a universal experience that we have that’s available to us, that’s within us, within our experience.
Dr. Lisa: One of the things that I’ve had difficulty of myself with certain religions and I think maybe it’s possible that all religions there other as this is that there is an interpretation of whatever it is scripture that’s applied to everyday life. Then there’s a judgment that takes place. There is sort of a pushing out. There’s an us and a them. There’s a good and the bad. That I found bothersome because sometimes it marginalizes people who have gone through difficult times. I’m not talking about people who have murdered people. Obviously, that’s not a good thing.
I just think there’s so many shades of gray in life to say that somebody’s evil because they’ve been divorced or somebody’s evil because they’ve broken one of the commandments. Yet there might be extenuating circumstances. I just have difficulty with that. That sense that it’s okay for us to judge other people. I think ultimately, aren’t we all trying to just connect enough so that we are able to be compassionate no matter what we see with other people who walking in the world with us.
Andrew: Yes. There’s a couple of things in your question that …
Dr. Lisa: I know it’s a convoluted question. I think a lot about this so I think you and I could have lots of conversation about this for a very long time.
Andrew: There’s one thing that I thing that I think it’s important which is distinction with Buddhism and it has to do with good and bad. I think in the Judeo-Christian concept, there’s this idea that there is some good out there or some evil that they somehow exist. In Buddhism, we don’t have a separately existing concept of good and evil. What you have are our actions. Something is good if it tends to create happiness or alleviate suffering in the world. Something is negative if it creates suffering and then you have your sort of neutral actions like drinking a cup of coffee or whatever it is that don’t really create suffering or happiness although it may create happiness if it’s a really good coffee.
Dr. Lisa: Or it may create negativity if you can’t get it tomorrow and you’re addicted to coffee but …
Andrew: That’s right. This concept though of this idea that there is no fundamental good and evil but yet there is this idea of karma meaning cause and effect. That everything we do has an effect in the world. We either, creating happiness and alleviating suffering or we’re causing suffering both for ourselves and for others. How do we know whether an act is positive or negative? The teachings talk about our motivation and in Tibetan, they call it ‘kun long’ which means that which gives rise to everything. That’s your motivation.
What gives rise to everything? In the scriptures, it says we are what we think. All that we are rises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world … if we speak or act with pure mind then happiness follows. It’s this idea of knowing where we’re coming from. A lot of times, we really don’t know where we’re coming from. We don’t know why we’re doing things. We’re not clear about it and we get kind of muddled up in all these different motivations.
If we take a proactive approach and we try to look critically at why we’re doing something and what we’re doing, it can really help. The great thing about the Buddhist tradition is that we take into account the fact that we’re not perfect and we’re in a difficult spot as human beings. We have this suffering that we’re always experiencing because we’re fundamentally perfect. On a relative level, as we go through life, we’re pretty confused which is why we always have this difficulty, this suffering, this imperfection and so this idea of trying to look within ourselves and understand why we’re doing something and try to generate a bigger mind.
We’re always caught in this little mindset of wanting this or wanting that, wanting ourselves to be happy. It said when we can open up this mindset and look at others and see them as another you or another me that also suffers, that also has difficulty. To have this little bit of compassion and connection with that person and try to help … Dalai Lama says he’s one of the great masters of compassion in the world today. He’s an incredible inspiration to me because I think about somebody who’s seen his country just completely decimated and has seen just tremendous devastation and desolation. Yet is one of the most positive, happiest people on the planet.
He says the practice of compassion, this practice of wishing others to be free of suffering and caring, actually caring about other people like ourselves. He says I don’t know how much it actually helps them. It might but the 100% beneficiary of compassion is you because through giving rise to this compassion, this caring, this kindness, you’re actually connecting with your own Buddha nature, your own nature, this perfection that’s within you. We forget about our little mind for a second and you can actually experience happiness. It’s this tremendous gift that practicing compassion brings.
The whole point is integrating into our everyday life. We practice with our eyes open. There’s a reason why we call it spiritual practice because sitting on your cushion, yes you can practice and you can say mantras. You can say your rosary, you can make prayers, you can do all these things but the whole point is so that when you get up and you enter into your everyday life, you can have this sense of space and this sense of spiritual connection in a way that you can sow positivity in the world. You can do things like not react when difficult circumstances arise.
One of the practices of the Bodhisattva perfections, one of the practices is the practice of patience. There’s this incredible wealth of patience that is inherent within us. Yet we have this idea that patience means you have to be some sort of spiritual superman or whatever to have patience in this day and age. What’s really interesting is that sometimes patience and practice is just a split second, just giving a little bit of extra space to not react or to not jump to that conclusion.
To give a circumstance, whatever it is that you’re facing, you see somebody having a difficult time or when you encounter a situation that’s difficult in your life or in your professional career, to not jump to that conclusion. Just have this little instant, just take a breath and just look. Use your mind. Use your awareness to assess the situation. Then you can sometimes come from this a place of understanding, a place of kindness, a place of compassion and let that nature, this Buddha nature that we’ve been talking about. Just shine through just a little bit and it’s amazing how subtle that is.
That’s what having a regular practice and being able to learn and hear the spiritual teachings of whatever … we have the tremendous wealth of spiritual teachings available to us today. Whether it’s Buddhism or whether it’s in some other tradition, Taoist tradition or Hindu or any of the great living spiritual traditions, it’s fundamentally teaching us the same thing. The point of practicing any of them is to give us this … fortify us. Give us some tools to go out into the everyday world and be a good person. Be happy at the same time. Enjoy being alive.
This incredible gift that we have as life, which is life, and be a human being and be alive in this day and age is really a wonderful thing. It doesn’t always feel that way. Sometimes it can be quite a burden. How to make sense of that? How to mine that wellness out of this being that we’re born with, it’s not easy to do.
Dr. Lisa: Well, I appreciate the work that you’ve done on your own life, your own following the path that you followed and you’re sharing it with us today. I think it’s something that people will be very … I think it’ll be thought-provoking for people who are listening. We’ve been speaking with Andrew Kull who is practicing Buddhist and also an attorney with MittelAsen here in Portland. Thanks for coming in today, Andy and sharing your story.
Andrew: Thank you very much, Dr. Lisa. I wish you and all of your listeners a happy Valentine’s Day as well.