Autism & Buddhism Together

This session is about how Zen Buddhism helped me navigate the world as an Autistic Adult. In this session, I speak of my difficulty, challenges and suffering as an Autistic person and how eventually I discovered Zen Buddhism. Zen Buddhism assisted me in understanding myself and how I interact with my environment and other people. Zen taught me a new outlook and philosophy of life that helped me adapt to situations, communicate, process emotions and take a new perspective on thought and thinking.

Transcript

Hello,

This session is largely about three things.

It's about me,

It's about my autism or being autistic and it's about Buddhism.

It's the story of how my autism met my Buddhism and how they've gotten along ever since.

Before I start I would like to tell you my purpose for this session and it's not to influence or convince you of anything.

I'm not trying to sell you anything,

I'm not trying to promote anything but I want to share my story of how as an autistic person Buddhism helped me navigate through my autism.

It may not help other people it may not help some of you but it helped me and I'm hopeful that by sharing my story it may help someone else as well.

Also,

Mental illness is a serious matter so before I even start if you're struggling with mental illness please consider seeing a professional,

A doctor or a therapist so you can talk about what your struggle is.

Seeing a professional or seeking professional help was also part of my journey and I'll talk about that later as well.

First of all,

Let me tell you a little bit more about my autism.

My autism causes me to be very logical.

Intellectually my world is governed by logic.

Never having fully understood emotions and feeling,

Logic was what made sense in every situation and that's still the case but I've learned to augment that with some of the Buddhist teachings.

My friends and family often found my insistence on logic and what made sense.

Infuriating,

Frustrating.

They just didn't understand my point of view.

They didn't understand why I wouldn't take into consideration other things that are typical for other people to consider in any situation.

The basic rule for me was that it had to make logical sense and if it didn't I had a very hard time accepting it.

Emotions and feelings for example did not make sense.

Feelings didn't make sense at all and so they were complicated and overwhelming.

I had emotions and feelings but I couldn't understand them.

I didn't know where they were coming from I didn't know how to express them and that was part of the frustration.

But if something made logical sense I could grasp it easily.

As a result any belief system that I needed to understand had to pass my logic test.

Any opinion,

Any philosophy,

Any system of beliefs,

Values or morals had to pass that logic test and if it didn't I just wouldn't accept it.

Being autistic also caused me to be very independent.

I learned very quickly that this world was not made for me and that I was separated from it somehow yet needing to be a part of it.

So from early on I was a very independent child,

An independent adolescent and subsequently an independent adult.

I have never been comfortable with authority,

I distressed authority figures and power structures.

Not to the same degree that I used to and not to any destructive end but there's still that feeling of discomfort around authority and power structures.

In addition to my independence I found it also very hard to accept no for an answer without an explanation.

If you were to tell me no I needed you to explain to me what the rationale for your no was and if I didn't get an explanation that passed my logic test I would become resistant and defiant.

The majority of my life was one of resistance,

Defiance and anger.

Anger was a significant issue for me growing up and as a young adult and not being able to control it was really problematic and it caused me a great deal of suffering and a great deal of pain.

One time my family doctor said to me many years ago you are the angriest patient that I have what's up with that and I was not able to give her an answer I was constantly on guard I had a broken ego as well I saw threats everywhere,

Manufactured threats exaggerated ones and I was constantly vigilant whatever I became involved in was very often outside the mainstream I had this rebellious streak and I still do I've always been a rebel there had to be something contrary,

Rebellious and challenging for me to be interested in it otherwise it didn't appeal to me and going along and getting along the mainstream were things that not only I did not understand but did not fit my world view therefore friends and family also asked very often why do you have to be so different I thought differently as well I have certain topics that I'm intensely interested in and I can talk about for hours but I was not able to realize that other people may not be interested in those topics and may not be interested in listening to me go on and on and on about something I find interesting but they do not I couldn't see that I also need to visualize concepts in order to sort them out in my mind if I can't see it in my head I can't understand it I need to see ideas and thoughts visually before I can assess them and in seeing the idea thought or concept I can analyze it and break it down into easier understandable components that's fundamentally how I think to truly comprehend something I need to compare it to something else that mirrors it that is parallel to it as nothing is original in my world and there's always another thing that operates or exists in the same way at one time you could ask me what is a zebra and I would think to myself well I need to compare that to something I already know I understand horses and a zebra therefore is a smaller horse with a shorter mane and has black and white stripes that are vertical it also has a shorter tail as well so if I could picture a horse like that I could understand a zebra feelings and emotions were also very problematic as I mentioned earlier I do not have a great degree of comfort with feelings and emotions but just because I am uncomfortable with feeling and emotion doesn't mean that I don't experience them autistic people have feelings like everyone else and can be quite sensitive but they don't know how to process that don't know how to manage it and so what comes out sometimes is either complete apathy which is no feeling and emotion or too much feeling and emotion the ability to regulate is a real challenge for many autistic people including myself so in certain situations it's not that I don't feel I just don't know how to express it I've learned a lot since then but it still presents a challenge every once in a while in my communication I tend to be very direct and blunt not because I intend to offend or harm or cause any suffering to anybody or to be unkind it's because the way my brain works there are some filters missing between my brain and my mouth and stuff just sometimes tends to come out I'm very vigilant around that however but it happens and on the negative side I have to backtrack sometimes for saying something that I should have thought about before I said it on the positive side I do have a reputation for being very honest and when someone asked me a question they know they're gonna get an honest response whether they're prepared for that honest response or not I'm not sure but on many occasions I have been asked Joe you're gonna tell me exactly what you think about this so I'm gonna tell you to tell me what you think about the scenario that I'm going to describe and I give an honest opinion it's my perspective of course doesn't mean it's right but I do state what I'm actually thinking in my head one time in therapy the therapist said to me Joe you are honest to a fault and I had never heard that statement before and I asked her what does that mean honest to a fault and she explained to me very simply that your honesty on some occasions is gonna get you into trouble and she was right but again I've learned since then and I've had other people help me so it doesn't have as much of an impact as it once did I also have a very difficult time tolerating what's referred to as small talk each conversation with me has to be meaningful has to have purpose there has to be a goal we have to be working together on something and as I have learned small talk is a way of starting a conversation and getting to know the other person before you can move on to something more relevant to discuss because I've learned that I have to tolerate it better and I have to be aware of it but fundamentally it's a waste of time and so I have to be careful that when I meet someone new and talk to them I am not ignoring the need for small talk in order to get a larger conversation started there are other aspects of my functioning and behavior as well based on my autism but I wanted to concentrate on the ones I just mentioned as a summary to those autistic characteristics that make up my life logic independence thinking differently feeling emotions and communication have caused a limited acceptance and much pain and suffering growing up and early in my life why is that because as I said earlier the world wasn't built for me it wasn't built for autistic people that's not a criticism that's not a complaint it's just a reality and if I have to live in a world that was not built for me and doesn't recognize my needs then I have to adapt somehow it was obvious in my life that I needed to navigate this world that I couldn't ignore it I couldn't oppose it I couldn't resist it I had to live in it I had to work in it I had to function in this world and I needed tools to navigate through it many people don't need those tools to navigate through the world neurotypicals have a natural ability to navigate through the world to navigate through interactions social interactions communication and sharing that someone like myself does not have so I have to learn those abilities and if I could not navigate through this world I knew that I would not be successful that I would not be able to move ahead and to meet the goals I had set for myself and so it took me a long time to find a philosophy a system a set of beliefs that would help me navigate through this world and eventually I found it for a very long time though I thought that such a system didn't exist but I was wrong because at one point in my life my autism discovered Zen Buddhism I will often be mentioning the word Buddhism as I continue this session but keep in mind that what I'm actually referring to is Zen Buddhism which is a branch or a school of Buddhism very much like Anglicans are part of a larger religion known as Christianity Zen Buddhism is a part of a larger religion known as Buddhism so why did Zen Buddhism or Buddhism become so appealing to an autistic person like myself well first of all it was a philosophy that insisted on things making sense it had a logical component to it it was a way of life deeply rooted on experience and evidence and even its most esoteric teachings had aspects of doubt in it required evidence for them to be taken fully and to be fully accepted for example many Buddhist believe in reincarnation but there's really no evidence that suggests that when I die I'm gonna come back to this earth in another form the reality is that many Buddhist themselves have been struggling with that idea for centuries and in Zen Buddhism there's a great story that answers that question the Emperor asked Zen Master Gudo what happens to a man after death how should I know replied Zen Master Gudo because you are a Zen Master answered the Emperor yes sir said Gudo but I am not a dead one and that story exemplifies the sense of logic inherent in Buddhism things have to make sense they have to be evident if not there's something in Buddhism called doubt very much like in our lives doubt causes us to pause and think about something before acting and in Buddhism doubt is very much respected it's the ability to pause and consider and analyze the proposition or the scenario or the event before moving forward I remember watching a documentary where leaders have many of the world's religions were being interviewed one of them being the Dalai Lama who represents Tibetan Buddhism and the question that was put was what would happen if science discovered evidence that one of your fundamental teachings was not true to the Dalai Lama they said for example if there was scientific evidence that reincarnation was not true that it was a false belief what would you do and the Dalai Lama replied I would tell my followers to no longer believe that to discard that belief because it's false I was really impressed by that I've never heard anyone to be so willing to drop a fundamental doctrine when there's no real evidence of it and that was very much in tune with my logical brain along the same line of being doubtful and insisting that things make sense I'll tell you a story about the Buddha who spoke to a large crowd about his teaching and was asked by a person in response to his teachings why should we believe you a very sensible question the kind of question I would ask if I was around at the time of the Buddha if the Buddha stood before me and my friends and said this is my philosophy this is my teaching the first question that would come out of my mouth would be why should I believe you and the Buddha's reply was when I read it for the first time was stunning he said you shouldn't you shouldn't believe what I say take up the practice try it if it works for you then pursue it and make your life happier if it doesn't then clearly I am wrong I have never heard a leader say that before and it connected so well with my logical mind that it surprised me that a set of spiritual beliefs could be so integrated into my autistic life and it was exactly what I was looking for in Buddhism of course many of you know there's the four noble truths the four noble truths for me are four facts they're not ideas or speculations or perspectives or opinions for me as a Buddhist the four noble truths are four facts why do I so emphatically state that the four noble truths are for me four facts is because I believe them to be true and I have found evidence in my own life that indicates that they are true at least for me a large part of my life was surrounded by a great deal of suffering for a long period of time it was very difficult and draining to be in conflict with the entire world today I suffer less my anger which is still there and it's still around and a need for control have been reduced significantly and I still have a rebellious nature but I'm more cautious about it than I ever was before just to be clear I was not an autistic person who found Buddhism and became cured I still have the same autistic issues as I had before they have never changed but the frequency and intensity of those issues has been lessened if you're listening to a radio at the dial setting 10 you're hearing a very loud radio broadcast but if you dial it down to the volume 6 it's not so loud it's easier to hear and easier to understand and that's where my life is right now it used to be at 10 very loud very aggressive very stressful and now it's been not so loud not so aggressive not so stressful and a reduction in all those things was better than I had hoped for as I learned and began to practice I found that the practice fit very nicely with who I am and this truly amazed me and it still does it alleviated a very large portion of my pain and suffering not all of it but a very large portion of it here's another Zen story the Emperor who was a devout Buddhist invited a great Zen master to the palace in order to ask him questions about Buddhism what is the highest truth of the holy Buddhist doctrine the Emperor asked vast emptiness and not a trace of holiness the master replied the Emperor scratched his head somewhat confused and said if there is no holiness then who or what are you I don't know the master replied and that aspect of Buddhism where you explore yourself and you become an expert on yourself and try to define who you really are not who the world tells you you are not who the ego tells you you are but who you really are who is this person staring back at me in the mirror do I know that person what do I know about them I know their name I know their habits I know some of their behaviors but what else do I know and if I take the name and the habits and behaviors away what is there left and so it is this questioning this seeking for certainty that also got me very interested in Buddhism it was clear from the beginning that Buddhism had a different approach to thought that any other system or philosophy I had encountered where I had come across other ideologies that spoke of the nature structure and semblance of thought Buddhism started at the beginning is thought even real for an autistic person who lives entirely in their mind to question the reality or veracity of thought was completely absurd I'm learning about a spiritual path that asks me whether what I'm thinking is real of course it's real I'm thinking it I'm thinking it now how could it not be real but the reality was that the only evidence for thought or thoughts were other thoughts the French philosopher Rene Descartes said I think therefore I am what he was saying is because I have thoughts I exist Buddhism took his statement and turned it upside down and backwards I exist therefore I think what about the reliability of thoughts research has demonstrated that the majority of our thoughts are repetitive they're defined by the ego and they're often inaccurate again for an autistic person who lives in their head to be challenged and to state that the stuff in your head Joe is largely not real or you've made it up or you're seeing it the way you want to see was a real challenge to the way I had lived my life up to that point if my thoughts defined reality and my thoughts were unreliable then what was real if what I think isn't real then what is and that really intrigued me Buddhism spoke about accepting thought as a mental formation so now I'm being told that my thoughts are created they're mental forms they've been created by me they don't necessarily represent reality in some cases they're very very accurate in a representation of reality but in other cases they're not thought was a consequence of existence not existence itself and so my world was challenged even further and as I had stated for someone who lives in their mind and in their head this was a very big challenge it was very difficult to understand but I was determined to understand it simply because it made no sense and because the independent and rebellious side of me wanted to know exactly what this religion this spiritual path that's been around for over 2,

000 years was trying to get at when I understood Buddhism more and more it was a radical departure from what I had believed and subsequently my behavior started to change as well in reference to emotions and feelings which was very difficult for me and still are what I learned from Buddhism is that emotion is a mental state just like thoughts and I can manage them more usefully if I understand them as mental states they're not something that become a reality and overwhelm me that I can no longer manage and see my way out of but they were a mental formation that fundamentally something I created of course I have challenges with emotion as I've said earlier as an autistic person but I have less challenges and the challenges I do have are more mitigated and subdued by my Buddhist practice the Buddhist doctrine of dependent origination teaches that everything has a cause that no thing can arise from nothing therefore my anger that fueled a lot of my life had to have a cause but I was never asked what is the root of your anger and I learned that the task was not to suppress or repress all these emotions that I had difficulty with because whenever emotion arose my immediate defense was to repress it hold it down and not to allow it to escape but Buddhism asked me not to do that but to feel the emotions more authentically to pause and understand what exactly is going on in your mind right now in meditation I sat with some emotions as well one time I was feeling very very sad because of an event that happened in my life and I decided to sit in meditation for a while and just feel the sadness and I learned that sadness for me felt very heavy and it felt slow and it felt pervasive but it wasn't overwhelming and my anger I learned to experience it more genuinely as well as ask myself significant questions my anger was always externalized I'm angry because of that I'm angry because of this I'm angry because of you but through practice I learned that the only thing that consistently made me angry was me so why was I doing this why was I living this kind of life well I'm autistic of course but there has to be more to that I can't just use that as a simple excuse to harm myself and others there had to be something I needed to learn and so I took the path to learn those very things in Buddhism in reference to communication I learned the four gates of speech which is a Buddhist guideline on how to communicate because I had great difficulty communicating with people emotion anger feelings all got wrapped up into the communication and muddled it and made it confusing and upset many people so I learned in Buddhism to follow the four gates which were the guidelines that I use today when speaking to others first I ask myself is what I am saying true is it what I think is true or is it only my perspective I tend to be direct and sometimes things just blurt out thoughts just blurt out but what happens if I'm wrong so I try to take a pause whenever I can and ask myself before I talk is what I'm going to say really represent accurately what I am thinking are these thoughts that I'm going to express true or accurate or as far as I know are they truthful or accurate which prevents me from exaggerating or trying to manipulate truth and reality in order to gain some advantage and that caused me to pay attention to what I want to say to make sure it reflects my experience not an emotion or a reaction I developed a saying for myself which has helped me a lot in managing my direct blunt communication style and the saying I've developed for myself is this Joe if you are in doubt keep your mouth shut I can't believe how that little Joe saying has helped me over the years so whenever I think I'm not sure whether I should say this or not I just keep quiet secondly usefulness is what I'm going to say or my contribution to a conversation is it useful is it going to benefit someone is it going to benefit the situation in my work I attend a lot of meetings and I started to notice that the majority of discussion surrounding a topic or issue is people fundamentally speaking about themselves which serves no purpose when you're trying to create a program or a plan I'm a lot more quiet in my communication now and I am a lot more quiet in meetings I've been told that I don't speak up in meetings as much as I used to and I tend to be silent more often than not but I have also been told that when I do choose to speak it tends to benefit the group I pay attention to gaps between my words and what I want to say I still tend to blurt out thoughts of course as I've mentioned many times before that will never change but there is a great improvement and awareness around how I communicate now which is much less harmful than it used to be I see no benefit in unkind speech unkind speech hurts me and it hurts the listener I don't want to feel regret having said something harmful and I don't want to be responsible for someone's pain I see no benefit in causing harm through speech being aware of the fact that speech can harm I take much more care in what I say and how I say it and on those times where something just happens to come out I take a step back I pause and try to explain what I was trying to say also the last aspect of the four gates of communication is time and that's something that benefited me too is the idea that there's a time to talk this one was a tremendous help there is such thing as a right time to speak and when I'm emotional and when I'm upset and when I'm frustrated and agitated that is not the right time for me to speak that's the time for me to remain silent because what's going to come out of my mouth when I'm upset frustrated and agitated is going to be harmful speech so I respect this notion of time there's no urgency in many many situations that causes me to say what I need to say right now so once again I pause and I say to myself I need to say this but not right now there's a better time to talk about this it may be later it may be tomorrow it may be a week from now but there is a better time to discuss this situation not now when I'm upset about it in conclusion to this session I want to say to you that Buddhism helped my autism a great deal but again I'm not here to sell you Buddhism I'm not here to influence you towards it or convince you that it'll work for you if you wish to try it and learn about it that's good if you don't that's good too for those of you who have a mental illness I only hope that you find some way to help you navigate life so you don't suffer as much and you can reduce the amount of pain my purpose here was to just share my experience with you and to emphasize that although Buddhism helped me it didn't cure me it didn't eliminate my reactions to the world but it did help someone also I want to say and this is very important that it wasn't Buddhism by itself that helped me navigate the world more effectively alongside with my Buddhist practice there were several professionals in the field of medicine and mental illness that helped me too don't feel that asking for help from a doctor or a mental health professional is a stigma it's not in my life I have had a psychiatrist I've actually had two because one left to go somewhere else so I had to get another one they were very helpful gentle and kind people that helped me a great deal I've had a therapist as well and I've had doctors to help me out and I'm grateful for all of them they are people who genuinely wanted to help me and they did so that's another very important facet of navigating and managing mental illness in addition to that piece I want to talk a little bit about medication for all of you who have a mental health issue please consider if the mental health issue is severe enough or impacts your functioning to a great degree and your doctor recommends it that you take medication if you had a headache you would take something for it if you had a cold you would also take something for it and no one would think any less of you if you have a mental health issue perhaps in your specific case as it was in mine you may need to take medication I take medication I still do I did today and I will tomorrow it helps it helps me understand the world it helps me integrate my Buddhist practice and it helps slow down a very rapid and unwieldy mind lastly if you are listening to this and you have a mental health issue or you don't you're certainly on a journey you certainly want to learn or find out something maybe it's a spiritual journey or a journey of recovery or a journey of self-awareness I'm not sure what path you're going to take or you are taking all I know is that you are a traveler and I say to you as a fellow traveler may you find peace wherever you go thank you very much for giving me the gift of your time and for listening I wish you all well and until the next session goodbye

Reviews

Very helpful to hear someone else's experience and path, it helps me move towards understanding my own. In gratitude

Very interesting for me who lately has thought that I could be autistic. I fit all that was said in at the beginning and will save this. I’m probably ADHD one of my daughters has said recently and that fits. Seems like there’s a lot of it about recently!

Interesting application of Buddhist principles. Food for thought! Thank you.

Thank you for your powerful, disarming words. I’m an adult coping without a diagnosis, and I believe that hearing this will be an integral piece of my path forward towards healing and treating myself and others better.

It's taken a lot of years and heartbreak to realise I'm not just a weirdo but probably autistic, this was very enlightening. The blessing to a "fellow traveller" made me cry...in a good way. Thank you 🙏🏻

Wonderful. Thank you for making time to share this.

As the mother of a non verbal, highly complex, autistic son it was very inciteful.
Thank you

Well said! I felt like I was listening to my own life story as an autistic who found Buddhism (and therapy). Thank you! :)

Thank you 🙏🏼, this was so helpful. I see a lot of myself in your earlier struggle. I don’t see autism or being on the spectrum though…

It did help that so much resonated with me, and also to listen to how Buddhism has helped you. Before I learnt I was on the spectrum too, I was already exposed to a lot of yoga philosophy (which shares essentials with Buddhism), and recently I also have been reading a lot of thich nhat hanh & Pema Chödrön, and Eastern Orthodox theology - they all do have a similar basis & have all helped to tamper down my anger, my rebelliousness etc.

Thank you again 😊

Thank you for sharing your insights. My child was recently diagnosed and I’m on the path there myself. I’ve long found the tenets of Buddhism helpful in daily life, so it’s wonderful to find content here on IT that connects these experiences. 🙏🏼

I have been working with autistic children and adults for a number of years and found Joe’s insights to be very clear and understandable. Loved how Joe connects autism with Buddhism and describes the rewards.

thank you for sharing your story. it resonates with me immensely.

This was excellent thank you.

I've been curious about Buddhism for a while & also thinking I have some autistic traits (never been diagnosed). Listening to this peaked both interests and resonated on multiple levels. Thanks, following and exploring in hope of finding more peace.

This was really helpful, I am a therapist and have been looking for ways to help adults who are finding out that they on the autism spectrum and need a way to manage thoughts, feelings and behaviors.

I learned so much from you

Very informative!

Thank yo so much..

I am also autistic and have been exploring Buddhism. I Loved this session + though my autism presents differently in some ways, I found the Buddhist stories + reflection very thought provoking. Thank you for sharing 💗💗💗

So insightful and helpful.
Thankyou for sharing your story