SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Beat the Prosecution, presented by Northern Virginia Criminal Defense and DUI lawyer Jonathan Katz. We are here to regularly present you information and ideas for beating your prosecution as best as possible. Now for your host, John Katz.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Hello, everybody. This is John Katz at Beat the Prosecution. I am a criminal defense and DUI defense lawyer in Fairfax, Northern Virginia. I have been unable to contain my excitement with any of my guests, including this guest that we have today. Please correct me if I'm pronouncing your name wrong, Claude Anjin Thomas. He is a mendicant, Sotozen Buddhist monk. He didn't start out as a monk. His autobiography at Hell's Gate, which is a sense of reading for anybody, talks about how he was a Marine in Vietnam, responsible for killing many people. I have him on the show for much more than what I've just told you about. What does a person who's a Sotosan Buddhist monk who is in Vietnam have to do with beating the prosecution? Well, I'm going to tell you so many of my clients suffer, so many criminal defense lawyers suffer, so much, any everybody suffers, judges, police, witnesses, jurors. Claude has confirmed in his autobiography, the way I call it is he pickled himself in drugs, alcohol, and sex after the Vietnam War. I don't want to keep talking. You know how this works. I like my guests to tell their story. Brother Claude, please introduce yourself.

SPEAKER_02 1:39

Sure, thanks, John. People already now know my name. But I do need to make one uh correction. So I was not in the Marine Corps. I was a helicopter crew chief and door gunner. Um uh I was served in the United States Army. Um, and so uh that aside I joined the military in 1965. Um, I volunteered to go to Vietnam in 1966. I served in Vietnam 66 to 67. Um, I spent um a significant period of time in military hospital. Um they had to rebuild my left shoulder, injury from the war. And um when I was released from the hospital, um, they didn't detox me from the pain medications they were giving me. So I was uh released from the military with um a dependence on um narcotics and violence, and so uh those two things don't meld very well. Uh I returned back to um Pennsylvania where I'm originally from. Um I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. Um I I I didn't I didn't see a future after the war. I don't know if I saw one before the war or not, but certainly after the war, I did not see a future. Um if people will ask us sort of, you know, people ask this sort of question, how how do you what do you how do you see your life in 10 years? And I couldn't tell you. I can't tell you now. But um so my father said, well, you can go to college. Now I wasn't a very good student in high school because um because of the nature of the my family circumstances growing up. Um, what kept me in school were two things athletics, and my dad was a teacher there. Um, so I I did graduate from high school. Um I'm I'm not dumb, but my grades don't reflect that. Um now um I never considered going to college, but I thought, yeah, what I didn't even think. I said my dad said go to college. I said, okay. So he made a he went down to his alma mater, Slippery Rock. At that time it was Slippery Rock State College. Now it's Slippery Rock University. Um, he went there, talked to them at admissions, and they um enrolled me on a probationary period. Um, I did manage a degree there. Um it took me six years to to earn a four-year degree, and largely because I spent uh a couple of years homeless on the streets in Pittsburgh. Um drugs were I drugs were considered to I consider drugs to be what here's what I believe. I believe that drugs to include alcohol were my savior. That they were the only things that made any sense to me. Um I didn't realize at that time that drugs to include alcohol were a problem. Um the life that I was experiencing was just what I thought life was supposed to be: chaotic, uh full of drama, uh unpredictable, uh, and um violent. Um that's how I grew up, and that's what I experienced in the military, and that's what my life continued after. Now, that being said. I I I sort of wanted my life to be different, but I didn't have a vision of how that was supposed to be. I graduated from college in 1974 and I left the country. Um I spent time in the UK and then I traveled overland from the UK to Iran. I lived in Iran for four and a half years. And um I went there primarily because at that time the Shah was in power, uh it was all pretty much open. I mean, you could actually drive overland from um the Netherlands to India. That overland route was open. Um that's not the case today, but back then that was it it was open. Um so while I was in the UK, there were a number of um Iranians and others who were coming to the UK to learn English. And um I was at the time playing music and uh associated with a number of these people, and and they were talking to me about the kinds of drugs that were coming out of Iran, you know, and and and they also said, look, you go to you go, you could go to Iran, you can get a job, yeah. You can teach, you can teach English, make a lot of money. So I thought, well, okay, but what really drove me to make the decision to go to Iran is that I sort of was a pattern for me. I burned up all of my contacts in in the UK. Um, I wore out my welcome. And so, and this would happen about every six months, and so it was time to move. So I um hooked onto a bus and traveled to Iran. Um primarily because I heard good drugs cheap.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

And well, and I do want to mention to everybody at this point, if it's okay, Claude. Uh, first, I want you to all know I told you the name of this show. I want you to know that uh um Claude's website is zaltho.org. That is his organization, Z-A-L-T-H-O.org. Very worthwhile read right there. His autobiography is at Hell's Gate. He has two other books. What's the meditation book called, Claude?

SPEAKER_02 8:30

It's called Bringing Meditation to Life.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

And then your sleeping uh book is called?

SPEAKER_02 8:37

It's called On the Edges of Sleep.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

So my recollection is that your father is a veteran from World War II.

SPEAKER_02 8:46

This is correct.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

My father graduated West Point in 1958. He was too young for Korea, too old for Vietnam because he retired after the necessary three years in 1961 when my older brother was born. He loved West Point so much. He would bring us to the football games there all the time because we lived in southern Connecticut. It's very interesting that I was at the Garrison Institute in 2015 with a mindful lawyers gathering. And right, so there's the peaceful place there, right across the Hudson River is West Point. I learned about you in 2000, promised me 2004 or 5, I think it was 2005 from a friend. I hadn't met read your autobiography yet, but I thought the story that I knew about you so far at that time, which was brief, was fascinating. And you were talking over the Buddhist Viara, the uh the Sri Lankan Buddhist temple on 16th Street in DC. And I'm gonna tell you how quickly you won me over because I was ready to be to be resistant to you because I said to myself, for this person who admits to have been responsible for so many deaths, were there any atrocities involved? And I've gotten to the point where that's not even an important question to me. And I resisted laughing when uh someone was, I think, changing a light bulb and you were kind of joking around about them getting the light bulb right. But within five minutes, you had me eating out of the palm of your hand because there was just that commonality of dealing with the suffering, dealing with the working to transcend, and you just being so honest and genuine. And I remember, I think my first question to you was so you're a vegetarian and and you said, Well, I don't like labels. It's just that when I went to the McDonald's and asked if they had anything uh there that wasn't with meat, and they gave me hamburgers that uh it wasn't something for me to eat, someone else, something that uh someone else could could have. And then I found out that uh I think when you were on the Auschwitz to Hiroshima peace walk, which is around 1994 to 95, that uh on that same walk was my uh the Odomica was right behind me by Junias. Junius from Nipponzan Miohoji, I understand, was on the same walk. And that Bernie Glassman ordained you in Vietnam. Do I have that right?

SPEAKER_02 11:11

That was the plan. Um, unfortunately, his teacher had died, and so um I received novice ordination in Auschwitz, and he was going to give me uh tokodo, which is full monastic uh vows in Vietnam, but he wasn't able to come because his teacher had died. So I received Tokodot um at his temple in Yonkers, New York, on Hero Shaped.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

Wow. And so what also has drawn me to you, this is part of your genuineness, about how even the last time I was there with you in person was around 10 years ago at uh Marymount University over in Arlington, uh Virginia. And you said even then you positioned when you speak in public, I don't know, does this still happen? You position your seat in a way that you can do a quick withdrawal if you get attacked. So to this day, even though your mind knows that you're not going to get attacked there, you're still positioning yourself so you can escape.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

Well, I I don't know if it's true that my mind knows that I'm not gonna get attacked, because you never do know, especially these days. Um, however, it is true. I always position myself so I have a good view of the room, I know where the exits are, and uh and I am prepared to move at a heartbeat. Um, I don't take I don't take anything for granted. The the war took that away from me. Um, kind words, thank you so much. Um I will say that while I was going on and on about um my drug use and about the violence and things, I will say that um the 28th of May 1983, I entered into a drug and alcohol treatment center and I stopped using intoxicants. I stopped using alcohol and other drugs and haven't for the last 41 plus years. And once I stopped taking intoxicants, then my life had a chance to show itself to me. And it was um through that process that I I came that that I came to Buddhist practice, but it wasn't it there wasn't a sort of a conscious choice on my part. I was um in therapy with a social worker, and um because through this process of not using alcohol or other drugs, um suddenly all the the things that were hiding underneath that blanket of intoxication began at the surface. So clear away a lot of the wreckage of my childhood. Um and then what was left was the war. And as this I I thought I thought it wasn't a big deal, but suddenly it suddenly it was a big deal, and it was in working with the social worker, the social worker recommend said that um there was a Buddhist monk, and I I don't like to mention the people whom I studied with usually because um I like to stand on my own merits rather than on the backs of somebody else. Now I learned that through my study and through the monastics that have preceded me. Um it was most common, it was most common in say the 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th century. It was most common that that monastics would never mention who they studied with until they died. Um, so to not build their reputations off the backs of the people they studied with, so they'd stand on their own merits. And I thought, oh, that makes a lot of sense to me. So I just started adopting that, not originally, but more currently, like in the last 15 years. Um so the social worker recommended it. I she said, there's this Buddhist monk who's doing some meditation retreats with Vietnam veterans and having some success. Uh she said, it'd be good for you to go. They're gonna be at a retreat, they're gonna be at a holistic retreat center um near here. And um I said, well, that'd be great. I'd love to go, but I don't have any money because I was unemployable. And um she said she brought out a catalog from this place, she showed me the retreat, and then she turned a page, and on the page it was written, um, we give scholarships. I didn't really want to go to this retreat. This is the truth be told. Um, I thought, ah, this religion, more religious mumbo jumbo. This is like nonsense, I'm not going. However, because I I trusted her and valued her, and and it was a safe place for me, um, I uh I told her, yes, I'll go. I made it as difficult as possible for them to extend an invitation to me simply by telling them the truth of what my life looked like. Um, but the uh people who were traveling with this monk um said, we don't turn anybody away. And and so I went to this retreat, and it was in this retreat that I took the first baby steps to talk more truthfully about my service. See, I when people would ask me about my service, um, I lied a lot. I I downplayed everything, I minimized everything. Um I didn't really know how to talk about it, plus I was conditioned through my father and his generation. You just don't talk about this stuff. Um, so it was in this retreat that I started for the very first time to begin to talk about my war experience. I still was minimizing. I hadn't really um I hadn't really found the courage to talk about it authentically. But in at the conclusion of this retreat, I went up to apologize. I went up to this monk's assistant to apologize for all that harm I'd have been responsible for in Vietnam. And but I I couldn't get that out of my mouth. All I could say was, I was crying, snot running out of my nose. And all I could say was, I want to go back to Vietnam. And they said, ah, look, before you, if you go back to Vietnam right now, you'll the people there will exploit you, they'll exploit your guilt and your suffering. Said, once you come to our monastery, let us help you. We can help you. Um right words? Um, I'd never heard that. I I I I realized at that time I I always, no one in this country had ever said that to me. And and so uh, and and this monk and nun, they were not from this country. Um so I said, I'd love to come, but I don't have enough money. They said, Don't worry about the money, just make the commitment. Let's see what happens. So I said, Okay, I'll come. People started sending me money. This was back in '94. This was before Venmo and PayPal and all that stuff. But people were sending me cards with checks. Suddenly I had all this money, and then I had to make a decision. Now, do I really buy a ticket to go to this monastery? Or do I like to go to the Caribbean or something, you know? But you know, I by this time I'd been absent from alcohol and other drugs for quite some time, and so I was attempting to be a responsible, productive member of society. So I said, yeah, I got they sent it for I gotta go, you know. I went with the intention to stay for 30 days, I stayed for three years. My life, my life just kept unfolding. It just what was what was being presented to me fit, it just fit somehow with my in my way of experiencing the world. And and so I just stayed. And and at a certain point it didn't fit anymore, so I left. And it was in the leaving that I met the person whom I ordained by. Um, but I didn't meet him directly, I met one of his students because I was invited to go to um um what's now Neuropa University in Boulder, Colorado. At the time it was still Neuropa Institute, but there was a person who had heard me speak. I spoke for the first time publicly at this monastery in France. They had had a they had a um a retreat for helping professionals there. And um, and and I was told by I was not asked, I was told by the abbot that I needed that I would speak. So I did that. And um when I was back in a town where I was living, and I was living in Massachusetts at the time, I was in the health food store and I was shopping, and someone approached me. They said, Hey, are are you Claude? And then I went, I don't know whether to say yes or no, man. But I I said, Yes, that's me. And they said, Oh, what we heard you, I heard you speak at uh at at the monastery in France, and and would you be willing to come to Europa for two weeks and and we can organize and we you could lead meditation and and speak and do sort of things like that. And I said, sure, okay. I said, um I need a I need transportation and I need a place to stay and I need food to eat. And so they organized that. And there um I met a person who studied with the person I'm ordained by. He was telling me about the guy and what what they do, they were in Yonkers, and um I said, I like to meet this guy. And so he organized a meeting not there, but in Yonkers. And uh I went down. This guy showed me all the bells and whistles about what they were doing at the at the Zen Center in Yonkers, and and um I left and went back to where I was uh living at the time and uh called him up. I said, Okay, now you show me all the bells and whistles, like an hour want to talk to you. He said, Okay, come on down this day. And I I uh drove back down to Yonkers, and um back then when I was anxious, I would talk a lot. I'd talk too fast, and it was a way of sort of hiding my anxiety, I thought. But I was sort of rambling on, and he said, Oh, let's just stop. Let's let's just sit together. So we sat together for I don't know, 10, 15 minutes. Then when we stopped sitting, he looked at me and said, Oh To ordain you, yeah. And I said, and now I wasn't so polished that and I cursed, I don't curse anymore, but and I said, What the heck do you want with me, man? You know, what do you mean you want to ordain me? He said, No, I don't want anything from you, just practice meditation, keep doing what you're doing. It was the right thing to say, it wasn't completely true. But um, so I continue, I just embarked in a program of study there at the uh Zen Center of New York, the Zen Center in Yorkers, and um it just my life just kept unfolding in that way. I just let it.

SPEAKER_01 22:42

Okay, so uh some of the stages I think I see in your life uh include having um gotten yourself off drugs and alcohol, and uh getting in touch with these spiritual people, I'll try to avoid saying their names. Um and where you are now where you're helping other people, and uh including veterans. Yes, for my clients who so many of my clients, Claude, uh they misuse alcohol and drugs, whether it's DWI cases or selling or using drugs or just having drugs causing them to uh do things they wouldn't do if they weren't drugged. And there's two things that I'm asking to address now or sometime during this talk. One is how on earth did Herbie Hancock, who was already practicing uh Buddhism, uh, get it in his head that he could get away with trying to figure out what's this crack about? And once he took the first puff, he realized he had made the hugest mistake in his life or one of the hugest mistakes. How was it that the program or programs that you went through helped you get off drugs because you were struggling with so much? And how have you been able to stay off of drugs and alcohol?

SPEAKER_02 24:00

Well, um, in the in this treatment center that I went to, so I so I was living in Massachusetts. I was living in Concord, Massachusetts. I was renting a small hermitage there. It's like a 500 square foot house. And um and I was also in therapy with a psychiatrist, and and um I was complaining. See, he when I first visited with a psychiatrist, he said to me, Um, do you use alcohol and other or other drugs? I said, Yes, of course. He said, if you want this process to work, you have to stop. Can you stop? I said, sure. I I I lied to him. Um because I had no intention of stopping, because I didn't see alcohol and drugs as the problem, I saw them as the solution. Now, eventually, some 27 months later, I'm sitting in his office and he he uh I was complaining that I couldn't meet people like me who weren't using alcohol and drugs without going to bars and parties and things like that. And he said, Well, why don't you attend one of these meetings they have over here? And I said, Well, why would I want to go there? I don't have a problem with that stuff. And he said, Oh, you can meet people like you who don't use that stuff. I I didn't have an argument for that. And it was there I met some folks, and and the and one of the people that I met there said, Hey, um, you have to understand that all these problems you have in your life, that your problem is really that first fixed pillar drink. If you stop getting high, um all those problems that you perceive you have, they're gonna get different for you. I I didn't believe them and I had no intention of stopping. However, 13th of April 1983, I had what I hope is my last overdose. Um, I took uh I took um I took like a thousand milligrams of barbitules. Um it's not that I wanted to die, I just didn't know how to live. I survived that. And while I was in hospital, uh in so you have intensive care, and then you have sort of like a step-down intensive care. And three guys came in to visit me and they said, Hey, one guy said, 'Hey, you're gonna do this again?' I said, Of course. I said, anything's got to be better than this life. He said, How do you know it could be worse? When I heard that, it was just it was the right thing at the right time, it was just piercing. I said, Oh my gosh, I got to do something about this. Now, that being said, they released me from the hospital. I went right down and bought a six pack of beer, you know, because it was still my solution. I didn't understand, and I got this through the treatment center that I went to, that I have a chronic, progressive, and fatal illness. I have a disease called addiction. It tells me I don't have it. And that if I want my life to be different, I have to do things differently. And that starts with not picking up that first fixed pill or drink. Now, I didn't initially, I mean, the first couple of, I mean, I went to treatment not because I thought I had a problem with alcohol or other drugs. I went to get away from from society, all those people that are causing my problems. About halfway through that, um, I understood. I had a I had what they called it a breakdown. For me, it was a breakthrough. I realized, oh yeah, okay. But also I told them, because they told me in this treatment center that they said, you do what we if you do what we ask you to do, um, your life's gonna get different. And I said, look, I'll do everything you ask me to do, but but if it doesn't work, I'm gonna come up here and destroy your treatment center. And I was serious about that, totally serious. Now, because we're on the internet and things, I won't use the language that I told them. But uh, and and I have the skills and capacity, skills, capabilities, training, and experience in doing the things I told them I was gonna do. Um, but I followed their instructions, and I tell you the first seven years of not using alcohol or other drugs was disorienting because I really I just didn't know how to live life on life's terms. Um, I didn't I knew how to survive, but I didn't know how to live. And so I associated with other people like myself, like myself, who couldn't use alcohol and drugs in safety, and through my association with those people and people uh like us who had who already had some time away from alcohol and other drugs, um, and they showed me what they showed me what was possible. So I just I just kept I just kept following their lead. And then about the about somewhere around the seven-year mark, um, oh yeah, I also learned, I learned, this was really great. I learned and I echo this again and again and again. Spirituality. The thing is not practical, it's not spiritual. Because people have all these mystical ideas about spirituality. I mean, it's uh it's like meditation. I mean meditation and daily life aren't two things. People have all kinds of ideas about what meditation is. Meditation can't be taught, it's an experiential process, and and so uh when I learn, it's so it's about how I take care of my life, what's right in front of me to do. So when I when I um so to when I get up in the morning, make my bed like I never slept in it, then I spend some time in quiet reflection and I make a commitment to not get high today, not hurt myself and not hurt somebody else. Then I um uh I do some study and then I connect with a couple two, three people every morning who have a similar commitment to me. And um I just I you know if it's not broken, I'm not interested to try and fix it. It works, however, I I really had to want to live differently. If somebody doesn't want to live differently, nothing. You can lead a horse to water, you can't make it drink. Aha. But you can make it thirsty. So this is what I hope, this is what I hope to do. Um this is what my sort of commitment is. Um I'm I'm not about saving people, I'm not about rescuing people. Um, I am about um saying, look, if you want, if you want your life to be different, it can be. I won't say better, I won't say worse, but all that suffering that you have, or that you think you have, um, you got to learn to live at peace with that and peacefulness because it's never gonna go away. You know, the truth of the war never goes away for me. I do a lot of work with with um soldiers, combat veterans. And and that's the first, that's the first thing I say to them. Look, you can you can take all the drugs you want, it's not gonna change anything. You you can be numbed, you cannot feel anything, but the root core of your suffering is not gonna change, and it's gonna continue to influence your choices and what you do in life, um, as well as the medications you're taking to not feel that stuff. That's also gonna influence your life. And so if if you want your life to be different, I I got a map. It was given to me. I I I can I'll give you the map, right? But you have to navigate the route. I can point you in the right direction, I can give you the disciplines, but you have to do it.

SPEAKER_01 32:04

Claude, this is all riveting to me. I mean, even if the audience wasn't hearing, this is so riveting to me. And I think that a lot of people can learn all the better from you uh because I remember you sending there's still triggers for you. I mean, have you transcended the following? I think you told about even maybe when you were a monk already, you were drum living and there was another drum lover who was trespassing against you one way or the other. And I think you said you shot your finger at him and maybe then blew the proverbial smoke from that. Was that was that when you were already a monk?

SPEAKER_02 32:36

Um I I I don't remember. No, I I don't remember. I it's entirely possible.

SPEAKER_01 32:47

Okay, then I'll go to the next one.

SPEAKER_02 32:49

It doesn't happen today. Good, but it's entirely possible. Um it took me, I had to be willing to I had to be willing to understand that I'm that my problems are not external, nor is the solution to what I perceive as my problems external. I had to come to that understanding. And um to come to that understanding, I had to want to come to that understanding. I had to really want my life to be different. So that meant I had in the beginning, I had some all of these, I had a number of ideas about what that meant. So I had a number of ideas. What is what's it mean to be a monk? Um, what's it mean? I just had all these ideas of things, and and what I've discovered over time is that I uh bit by bit I had to understand that I had to let go of those ideas. Um that once I let go of those ideas, then my then life had an opportunity to really show me, it show itself to me. I could then see the worth and value in my own existence. Um I I'm presented with opportunities that um I could never have imagined. Um what I perceived in the past as liabilities, my greatest liabilities have become huge assets for me. And I have to also remember that it's it's got uh the work that I have the privilege to be able to do today, um, the service that I'm able that I have the privilege to be able to do today has little to do with me. Yes, I I'm the one doing it, but it has little to do with me. Um that uh I just need to be a uh a good steward of what's been passed on to me.

SPEAKER_01 34:50

Excellent. Now I do remember in one of your um in a YouTube video that I found, you were talking about the rain and how the rain, I think, was maybe reminding you about bullets being fired at you or something or something like that, and then you realized it is just the rain.

SPEAKER_02 35:11

It still happens to me. So in Vietnam, we had four seasons. Um too rainy and too wet, too rainy and too dry. So um whenever the rain would come, it just propelled me just instantly back to Vietnam. And um and and then all the feelings that would rise up around that, um it can still happen today, not so frequently, but it can still happen today. Um now when I first started to be aware that that's what I was experiencing, I didn't talk to anybody about it. I pretended, I pretended to myself that this really wasn't happening. I didn't understand what was going on. But as I became more and more willing to understand that that the feelings and the tension, anxiety, the all the things that I was feeling when it would rain, um they made sense based on the truth of my experiences in the war. Now, once I was able to go, yeah, but you know, like now you're not there. So, yes, now when it rains, it's just raining, and still sometimes, even though I know it's just raining, bam, the smell of the air, the shape of the clouds, um, the feel that the texture of the air. I mean, I live in the panhandle of Florida now, and so it can get quite, it gets hot and humid here in the summer. And there are times when I can walk outside, and just the texture of the air just reminds me. I I can be in the in in the backyard and I can of the center where where I'm posted and I can look out through the trees, live oak trees, and in an instant I'm I'm I'm back in Vietnam.

SPEAKER_01 37:16

Yes, and you are now a man of peace. And uh, since a lot of my clients come to me having really beat the crap out of other people, or worse, and still feel the anger, how does a person justify not using physical force to uh protect themselves against being assaulted? Um what is the alternative for the Ukrainians? And um, you know, of course, we know one thing, which is it's not necessarily romantic to be a radical uh peacenick. I remember that uh uh one of the friends of the plowshares activists I defended uh the plowshares for with Ramsey Clark in 2000, uh said to me, Well, there was one of the peacenics was put in the DC jail or somewhere and he was raped when he was there just uh for overnight.

SPEAKER_02 38:08

Well, you've laid a lot of the plate right there. So let me say peace is not the absence of conflict, it's the absence of violence within that conflict. Uh now I have walked somewhere around between somewhere around 45,000 miles. I've walked all over the world. I walk in robes without money. I have a female assistant. Um she's walked the majority of those, with the exceptions of Poland and Vietnam, she's walked all of those pilgrimages with me. I walk in robes without money, have to beg for everything. This is Europe, US, I've walked from Yonkers to San Francisco, I walked the US-Mexican border, and and uh, you know, I I don't find myself in the kind of places where uh that are hot beds of of violence. Now, that being said, I often go into war zones. Um but um I'm not out I'm not out looking for trouble. Look, if if I got no business, but what if I'm hanging out in a bar at two o'clock in the morning and I'm carrying a handgun, and I'm and I'm I'm halfway drunk, if there is such a thing as halfway drunk, and uh like I've just I've just created the whole circumstances for this this evening turning to chaos. And and I go, oh, but it's not me. But I I I am the source of all of that. So if I want my life to be different, I need to do things differently. Uh Ukraine. Um, I'll share a story with you. So I because of the book at Hell's Gate, The Soldier's Journey from War to Peace, I was contacted by a man from Gunnison, Colorado. His son was an emergency medical technician. He was a paramedic running uh working EMT in in, I want to say Denver. I don't know if that's true or not. Um the fighting in the Ukraine broke out. He volunteered for an NGO to go do overland medavax. Now he was there about six months, the the young man was, and he volunteered for the Ukrainian army. Now he can he served a time as a as a paramedic with the Ukrainian army, then he returned back to Colorado. Uh, one of the things that he so one there were several incidences that started to unfold for him. One of the incidences, um, he walked into a hospital in Denver with full body armor and a sidearm, approached the medical people there, and asked them if they would give him some cadavers so that he could teach the general population how to do combat medicine. Now, to them, this guy was crazy. To me, it makes absolute sense. See, I understand combat, I understand the consequences of it, I understand the real cost of war. They they they called the cops, uh, hospital called the cops. Uh, fortunately, they asked him if he was armed, he said yes. They asked him if he surrendered his weapon, he said yes. Um, they didn't put him in prison, they uh put him in a for psychiatric evaluation. Um, and when he was released from that, um he said, Hey, this doesn't work for me. I'm going back to Ukraine. Now, his dad, um, in the process, his dad was like beside himself. He didn't know what to do with his son. He was in he was in therapy with some somebody, I'm not well sure whether psychologist or so, but the guy uh recommended that he read at Hellscape. So my uh name and contact information are in the back. He wrote, he wrote to the um to the general um email address listed for the Zolto Foundation. I interacted with him. Um, he went to visit his son in the Ukraine, and he said um he gave him a copy of at Hell's Gate. And I told his dad, I said, look, if he wants to meet with me, I'm gonna be in Europe in the autumn. If he wants to meet with me, I'll travel to the Ukraine and meet him. Yeah, I need an invitation. I I can't just up and go places, I do need invitations, that's based on my vows. Um, but I would go, I would go and meet with him, talk with him. I'm not I'm not afraid to go into these places in places of deep and profound suffering because that's where I need to be. And I need to be there differently. I've been in any number of war zones. Um and um I can't pretend that I I know the solution. However, my role is to be present for the people because the fighting will stop at some point or to be present for the people who are currently fighting, uh um, to be present for them, to let them know that at a point the fighting is gonna stop and and your life is gonna and and the world's not gonna make any sense to you. Like it however please understand that I can s I can give you the tool tools that can help you to make sense out of your senselessness. So here's here's here's some info you can tuck this away someplace. Here's how you can get a hold of me. Yeah. And just meet them. I just want to meet people where they are. Too often we're unable or unwilling to meet people where they are. Or we see so many people that there's way too many do-gooders out there. I mean, some of the most egregious forms of violence are done in the name of good. And and uh like I will talk about so I live with a disturbed sleep pattern. That's what technically it's referred to. Um I don't I haven't slept more than two hours consecutively in any night since about 66, uh, maybe 67. Um, however, I had an awareness as I got more and more involved in in uh Zen practice. I had an awareness that, oh, you don't sleep. Well, now what? This is just how I sleep. It's not that I it's not that I don't sleep, but this is just how I sleep. This is my sleep pattern now. Once I accepted that, I was good. Instead of trying to get force myself to conform to some idea of how I was supposed to be. See, this is what I meant about those early years of not using alcohol and drugs, trying to get my life to conform to some ideas of how I was supposed to be, I was driving myself crazy. I needed to stop doing that. And and just um understand that if my only problem I really had in my life was that first six-pillar drink. If I didn't take that, just no matter what, just didn't take that, involve myself in a uh involve myself in the spiritual solution. And remember, if the thing's not practical, it's not spiritual, that uh my life could become different. I just had to give up the ideas of what that was supposed to look like.

SPEAKER_01 46:14

Okay, then so I asked you, Claude, uh, to what extent is spirituality, uh, no matter how someone defines it, necessary to get off addiction and avoid addiction, and to what extent is non-duality, non-attachment important to you? And if it is, to what extent are we really just interconnected? And if we are all interconnected, does that mean we shouldn't discriminate? I mean, you know, you had bodhisattva never despised or never disparaging in chapter 16. I think of the Lotus Sutra, he would bow to dangerous seeming people from a distance to make sure they couldn't punch them. And he'd say, Why am I bowing to you? Well, you have Buddha nature in you, uh, but I'm still keeping my distance because I don't want to be physically harmed by you.

SPEAKER_02 46:58

Well, that that could be good. Yeah, I wouldn't argue with that approach. Yeah. It's like um in Europe, uh, let's say in Germany, I don't know if it's still happening or not. There was a time that then in a particular town in Germany, they would have what they call chaos days for the anarchists that come in and they just disrupt everything, just disrupt all the order. And and so I happened to be there when when they were having this chaos day, and I said, I want to go down where these people are at. And they said, Oh no, you can't go down and you get hurt. I said, No, no, I'm going down, man. Where are they? So my assistant, my assistant and I went down, and we just I just walked in where this group is, and I'm in robes, and and we're just sort of hanging out and watching what's going on, and and um one of the somebody finally somebody approached and said, Yo, um, we know what tribe we are. What tribe do you belong to? And that was the opening to start a conversation. Now, the the problem wasn't the chaos days, people. The issue was when the police came, and the police started to then impose themselves. And I know the police got very aggressive with the guy. He was this guy was drunk, man. He just wanted to go pee. And they were getting that police were getting all up in his face and screaming and yelling at them because they just let some young woman go. And as they were, I just got up and put myself between the police officer and this young guy who was drunk. And I looked at the police officer and I go, dude, what are you doing? And he was shocked. Then that that sort of once once you break that, once you break that energy, then there's a chance for a conversation. It was the same. We walk when I walk the US-Mexican border, we get stopped by the border patrol. And and when they would approach us, they would approach us with one hand on their sidearm. And they they're all smiling and saying, Oh, geez, everything okay, is there anything we can do for we anything we can do to help you? And I'd say, Yeah, you take your hand off your sidearm. We're not we're not a problem here, and then see, and they were just some shocked that anyone would say that, but not aggressively, and and so it's it's I've had the yeah, I don't, I don't, I've been in Colombia, I've been invited into uh hardcore gang territories, but I will not go in there unless I'm invited. You see, so I'm not going in there with all kinds of ideas about what like saving these people. I'm just going in there to meet people. I I deal with the homeless communities all the time, but I don't have any preconceived idea about what they need. First, I walk in there to get to know them, let them let them know who I am, let's get to know each other. Um and meet them at the point of their humanity, and so often we don't do that.

SPEAKER_01 50:03

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 50:04

So um that addresses the topic of non-duality, yes, indeed. Yes, and in a very practical way, because remember, if not practical, it's not spiritual.

SPEAKER_01 50:16

That's right. So, you know, uh, you may be familiar with uh Fleet Mall, who did 14 or 15 years in prison, and he uses the word hell in his book, uh Darman in Hell. And then you have that person who wrote the book, um, We're All Doing Time, who tries to talk about that uh prison can be like uh like an ashram, but it's not an ashram because I have a client who said, well, at best, uh if you're just in jail for a few days with other inmates, you have the symphony of farts of your uh your fellow inmates farting, and that's at best because you sit on these toilets that won't even have a toilet seat unless you can pull the toilet seat off and use that to make a shank. And you have the people who are assaulted in prison, and then you have people like Jean Harris, who made the best of her time in uh in jail when after being convicted of manslaughter or first-degree murder or second-degree murder and teaching other inmates. And Bill Cosby amazingly, I don't know who advised him to do that other than himself, was helping out other inmates before he got released. So, what can you tell people, especially the ones who come across as these schlubs, these nerds, these targets, about how they're going to be able to survive in prison and not just kill themselves like this uh this convicted madam did before she was uh started her prison sentence. And she just she hung herself or killed herself some other way, saying, I have nothing to live for.

SPEAKER_02 51:48

Yeah, you know, I um I'm not in prison right now. And so it would be presumptuous of me to tell someone how they could survive in there. Now, I have um uh for a period of time I was going every year uh in, I was going a lot into prisons. I can't, I will not pretend to be able to tell someone how to survive in there. But what I can say is that um what I have discovered is people can survive in prison without succumbing, without being victimized and without succumbing to the temptations to use violence as a solution. They can. And I think the way that happens is through associating through associating with like-minded people. That's why it's important for people like myself to go into prisons to encourage this encourage the starting of of uh groups, uh Buddhist study groups or meditation groups, um to interact with the chaplains in these prisons. Um and and um but see the other thing is uh when I'm invited, for example, uh in the autumn, I'll be in I'll be um visiting two prisons and there in Europe. I'll be in one of the main prisons in Milan, Italy, and I'll also be in uh a prison in Venice. And um when I do a talk to the people who are in prison, to the I also when I also tell them, look at you you gotta bring the guards here too. Because this is not just about the just about the people who are under sentence there, it's the guards too. So I I it's like when I get invited to go into a school to address the students. I say, yeah, I'll be glad to do that, but first I want to address the teachers. Because as the teachers are, the students become. As the guards are, the the the people under sentence become. Now, that doesn't mean that they're not some there's not some not nice people in there. I'm not that I always tell people when they go into prison, I said, please don't make a mistake about this. You know, most of those people are in there for a reason, and the environment in there doesn't foster don't let these people fool you, you know. You gotta know where you're at, and and and and and be sensitive to that. So you're not there to fix anybody, you're not there to cure anybody, but you're there to give people some tools that um together with the group, they can they can their life can become different. It can.

SPEAKER_01 54:50

Okay. So with this show being called Beat the Prosecution, do you have any thoughts, recommendations, or ideas how we criminal defense lawyers can better serve our clients, can certainly win for them, depending on how you uh define winning. I I I expect that what I'm gonna hear from you will include, well, you know, you're gonna have to deal with the judges and everyone else and their own life experience. And but I'm I'm also I'm looking for the bigger, the bigger question of is uh should we just abolish the prison system and bring us closer to what we were like uh before any Europeans came over? You know, as my teacher Junio Suda said, there were no prisons uh before the Europeans came over to the uh to the Americas.

SPEAKER_02 55:32

Well, you know, so we live in a social structure um that has an adopted, an adapted, let's say, an adopted consensus reality. And we don't live in an anarchistic structure. Um I do think people I experience this a lot in interacting with people. People want to do whatever they want to do until there are consequences, and then they don't want to pan. They always want to say, Oh yeah, but you know, so um for uh defense attorneys, I I really applaud the work that you do. And uh as long as people who are working in that field give that um give their clients the best possible service they can give them. Now, I've also understood that the legal system here is combative, so it's about winning and losing. And and I think um I I I think that what is most what is what is most helpful is to be as humane as to bring as much humanity as possible into that dynamic. So for the prosecutor, the prosecutor, uh whether it's the prosecutor or the defense attorney, I think it's about them having a spiritual practice, it's about them understanding what is the nature of their suffering, and about them being willing to do things differently. And it's through the individuals that then the system begins to become affected. Because the system isn't anything other than a combat uh a compilation of individuals, consensus reality in Buddhist language, the collective conscious. So the collective conscious is comprised of um say the institutions of education, of religion, of politics, of information, of um capital. Um and but within each of those in each of those subsets, there are subsequent subsets, and each of those subsets have their own sort of consensus reality. Um one of the reasons why a monastic life works for me is I don't belong to those subsets. You know, I don't fit in there anywhere. Um, however, I do understand that there is this thing called consensus reality. And how do I learn, how do I learn to to to um how do I learn to work in right relation with these with these different subsets of consensus reality? I do that by waking up to the roots of war suffering in me and learning how to live in a different relationship with that.

SPEAKER_01 58:47

Well, Claude, there is a it's not necessarily uh well organized, but there's a there's a lawyer's uh mindfulness movement. Uh, I've been involved with them. Uh I was over in 2012 at a weekend retreat at Blue Cliff Monastery, which was great. And I do want to say that uh when I then went to the next level, the Garrison Institute, three years later, I didn't know how well I was going to do because I knew this was going to be in total silence, except for during question and answer period and um and during group discussion, which was only about 3% of it. And what I found was that I just loved it, and I found that I was able to actually keep my cell phone in the trunk of my car, only uh breaking the advice not to look at it for when I uh said goodnight to my wife and son each night. And that I wasn't even didn't have a big temptation to look at the backlog of emails even when it ended. Um what can you share with the audience about the power of uh silence, quieting our minds, and just sitting with people?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:02

Did you say quieting your mind?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:04

Quieting our minds and just sitting with people. I'm not gonna say who it is, but a very close relative of mine uh got an expected uncomfortable reaction from a vaccine shot, and it just happened to have been two days ago when the courts were closed because of Juneteenth. And I just sat with them and we joked around a little bit, but just sat with them, and it meant so much to them. So if you're willing to touch on any or all of that, I'd appreciate that.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:34

Well, first thing I want to say is that mindfulness can't be taught. Mindfulness is a byproduct of a disciplined spiritual practice rooted in self-reflection, it's like meditation can't be taught. I can pass on to you a form. However, if it is dependent upon the individual to engage in a uh committed, disciplined, sustained application of that form. Where at a certain point in time, once we begin to let go of our ideas about what we're supposed to be doing and what we're trying to accomplish, that meditation can show itself to us. And when that starts to happen, then we begin to experience mindfulness. Now, silence, people are terrified of silence. Um because it's in and and one of the reasons I think people are terrified of silence is that within that silence all things become known. I will also say that um one of the I think one of the I think one of the greatest fears in Western society is the fear of the unknown. Everyone is so busy trying to to make sense, make some sort of intellectual sense based on their can based on their conditioned reality of their experience, of their life experience. And what they don't understand, I think what people don't understand is that um that yes, within this within within the silence, letting ourselves fall right through ourselves, um uh really stepping wholeheartedly into the unknown. Um, we begin to see where our fears are, where our anxieties are, what is it that that's shaping and moving and driving our life? And then we have an opportunity right there with the proper guidance to learn how to live at peace with our unpeacefulness. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:44

Living at peace with our unpeacefulness.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:49

Brother Claude, I have learned so much from you over the years, and with you, you've helped me learn from myself. I want to thank you so much. Uh, you have heard, I I could just stay on here for hours if Brother Claude allowed me, but we're coming near the stopping point of where I said I would be with uh Claude. Uh you've lit heard from Claude Anshin Thomas. You can learn more about him at zalfo.org from his autobiography at Hell's Gate and the other two books. Uh, as I do with all my guests, I I wish for you to have a chance to uh say anything else that you haven't said that you would like everyone to hear about.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:32

Um no, I think it's it's really it's all been said. Um if people are interested, um they can um they can contact me through the Zalta Foundation website. Um we um we offer um we offer regular retreats here at the um Magnolia Zen Center in Bariester, Florida. Um also if people are interested to um to invite me to facilitate a retreat or to lead a retreat, or if they would like me to support them in some way or the foundation to support us, they can just they can reach out to us through the website and we see what's possible. I live a life committed to service. Oh yes, everything I do is free. Um I'm not permitted to earn money, I'm not permitted to um have the sort of regular social trappings like um retirement, um, healthcare, all of those sorts of things. Um so if people do want to invite me, and then uh they simply need to take care of my transportation, provide me a place to stay, food to eat for myself and an assistant. We travel very inexpensively. And then if people want to support the work that we do, they can donate. They can donate to the Zolto Foundation, the 501c3 nonprofit. And they've just recently celebrated its 30th year of existence.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:03

Wow. I do want anyone who's benefited from uh this podcast with Claude, his writings, his uh what he says, the I think the meditations they have include online. I do encourage you to donate because even though uh Claude is uh is a mendicant uh Buddhist monk, they do have an organization that uh does have expenses. Thank you so much again, Claude Anshin Thomas. Namu myohorengeo. This has been John Katz with Beat the Prosecution.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:39

Thank you for listening to this week's episode from Beat the Prosecution. This is a regular podcast giving people a like up against police investigations and prosecutions. We welcome you contacting us at info at beatheprosecution.com by calling 703-383-1100 or texting us at 571-406-7268.