1.10 : An Interview with Dr. Andy Hodges

Transcript

Karen A. Parker

How’s it going, everybody? Welcome back to the Immovable Wisdom Writing Podcast. I'm your host, Karen A. Parker, a black, queer, non-binary Buddhist layperson who's also neurodivergent.

And today on this special bonus episode, probably bonus episode, or just round off for season one, we have a very special guest by the name of Dr. Andy Hodges--

Andy Hodges

Hello!

Karen A. Parker

--who is a writer, book coach, freelance editor extraordinaire, and also a Buddhist layperson. Welcome to the podcast, Andy! Yay!

Andy Hodges

It's great to be here. Thank you for having me.

Karen A. Parker

Yeah, and just so y'all know, Andy has an academic consulting business called The Narrative Craft, and is also the host of The Freelancer Podcast, which you should definitely take a listen to. I recently listened to the episode where you were interviewing someone about Croatian translation and gender, which was super fascinating. Cool.

I don't remember the guest, but it was the most recent one that just dropped, so do take a listen to that.

Andy Hodges

That was Vesna Korolic, and you can check that out. Yeah, it was cool.

Karen A. Parker

Yeah, okay. Check that out, y'all. So just to get us situated here, how did you first learn about Buddhism, and what made you just decide to become a Buddhist?

Andy Hodges

So I was a teenager going around my local bookshop. It was in Stockport, the small town in England where I was born. And there was this cool looking book about—It was a dialogue between Western philosophy, like a Western philosopher, and a Tibetan Buddhist monk.

And I bought the book, and I was just like, this is cool. Yeah, I was like, I'm gonna read about this. This is interesting.

I think, also, there were a few things happening in Manchester at the time. There was a Buddhist cafe and a Buddhist center that was kind of happening, and it was an interesting place to hang out. I was always, kind of had the spiritual side to me, but I've said no to Christianity for various reasons that I won't go into now.

But being a queer person definitely played a role in my decision, and in the environment that I was in at the time. Whereas Buddhism's much more okay with all of that. I was just having a look, scoot around online, and I've noticed that there was a bit of a controversy with something the Dalai Lama said once.

But apart from that, in general, Buddhism is very open and okay with LGBTQ-ness, let's call it.

Karen A. Parker

Yeah, that radical acceptance. And I don't necessarily like that it's called radical. Like, why does it have to be radical?

Why can't we just accept things as they are? Why is it this controversial thing? But, you know, radical can be a good thing, or it's not a bad word.

It's just seen as a bad word. And the root of the word radical is root. Radishes are roots.

They're root produce, and that's where that comes from, and it's all about the roots. So thank you for sharing your roots, Andy. Thank you.

So I'm probably going to talk about this on a different episode, or not by the time this is recorded. Actually, no, I think I did talk about it. I recently took refuge on Zoom via the Dharma Drum Retreat Center in New York, and I received a Dharma name by the name of Kuan Yuen, which kind of translates into leniency, or wide margin, or acceptance, mercy, tolerance, kind of writing this acceptance wave here.

I wanted to know, Andy, if you had a Dharma name, and what is it, if you have it, and what does it mean?

Andy Hodges

I do have a Dharma name. So I took refuge last June in Scotland at this really cool Tibetan monastery, which is in the Scottish countryside.

Karen A. Parker

Nice.

Andy Hodges

Yeah. And my Dharma name is Karma Trinley Kunchap, which means all-pervasive activity. And I really like that.

Karen A. Parker

All-pervasive activity. Yeah.

Andy Hodges

Yeah. I love it because I've been involved in all sorts of activist initiatives.

Karen A. Parker

Yes.

Andy Hodges

Like LGBTQ+, Antifa, and all sorts of things over the past 10 or 15 years. And it just speaks to that. So I was really pleased when I got that name.

Karen A. Parker

Yeah. I was pleased when I got my Dharma name. It's funny, I had a dream about getting my Dharma name, and it wasn't my Dharma name at all.

I dreamt that my Dharma name was like Uniting Song or something. And I wouldn't even know the... But that's not my Dharma name.

That was just the dream name of my Dharma name. So maybe in a past life, it was Uniting Song. I don't know.

But I really like that. I like how my Dharma name has been a gift to me. And it has been a kind of anchor, both in my meditation practice and just everything, really.

Like, take it easy on things. Whereas I feel like your Dharma name is not necessarily take it easy. But as I've told you in my coaching program, go ham.

Andy Hodges

Yeah. Yeah.

Karen A. Parker

It's very much that energy. And can you tell me a little bit more about the school of Buddhism that you are in or what that's about? Because I don't hear about many Tibetan monasteries in Scotland.

Andy Hodges

Yeah, sure. No. This has actually been something I've given a lot of thought over the years, because I don't know what the situation is like in LA or the US in general.

But in the UK, there's quite a lot of Buddhist groups, and some of them are kind of a bit secty and culty, for want of a better word. So I did a lot of research, and I just wanted to make sure I was going with one that was mainstream. And also, the key test for me was that I felt comfortable with and comfortable in that environment.

And I joined, it's called the Karmakadju School of Tibetan Buddhism. So the Dalai Lama is kind of the main figure at the top of Tibetan Buddhism. How is it different from, is your school Zen Buddhism?

Karen A. Parker

So yeah, it's technically Chan Buddhism, which was like the grandfather of Zen Buddhism. And before Chan would be Mahayana or that branch. I'm actually in, I'm technically in a program that combines different lineages.

I like that. I'm kind of learning lessons from. I think it's called, it's called Ekayana.

And it's done by the, I always get these mixed up. It's not the, I think it's the Sacred Mountain Sangha. That was founded by two former Tibetan monks.

I'll share, I will put the link in the description personally. But that's, that's kind of completely different from what I'm studying. And I think that I came to Zen pretty naturally because of, because of meditation and just it being a, being an anxiety disorder aid for that.

Andy Hodges

Yeah. Like I came to Tibetan Buddhism, I think first of all, through that book and what happened after that is when I was 19, I like went on this special trip to the Tibetan cultural zone, part of China. So it's not full-on Tibet.

But they have loads of like monasteries and people practicing there. So I visited a bunch of like really interesting places. And that's, that kind of consolidated my interest at that time.

And I, from that time on, that's when I started meditating. So I was 19 years old. I used to go to meditation classes at uni.

And then it's something that I've kind of picked up and put in, put back down in a box throughout the whole of my adult life. But it's been, it's been, it's had such a massive impact on my, like the decisions I've made. Like when I was deciding to leave academia, I was going through all of that and I was meditating quite intensely for me, which would be maybe 40 minutes to up to an hour a day sometimes.

It wasn't for very long, like in terms of months or anything, but I was thinking through some really big decisions and I found it incredibly helpful. Like it's, I can't put my finger on everything that happened, but it was incredibly helpful.

Karen A. Parker

So yeah.

Andy Hodges

And I love that it has these tools baked into it as well. That's can really help. Yeah.

Yeah.

Karen A. Parker

And I like what you said about putting Buddhism in and out of a box throughout your life. Cause I feel like that's what happened with me. I feel like I brushed up against Buddhism in middle school, just learning about it as a concept and then met someone Buddhist around that same time, but didn't become Buddhist myself.

And then I got back into it through, through meditation. And it was just like a seed that was waiting to be watered and to sprout and to just to borrow from, from like Buddhist canon, like waiting for that Lotus to finally appear out of the mud. And that I think that probably many people who are listening to this podcast or just are Buddhists themselves have a similar, have a similar journey.

And speaking of journeys and practices, cause Buddhism is a practice. How would you have, how would you describe you have incorporated Buddhist practice in both your writing life and your daily life? And what are maybe some current struggles with your buddhic practice?

Oh no, I'm a bad Buddha. Some kind of thoughts kind of coming in.

Andy Hodges

So meditations are obvious one. I meditate not consistently all the time. I go through phases when I meditate and phases when I don't.

It links back to what I was saying about picking, picking it up and putting it in a box. I've also linked it to, so when I, so when I worked as an anthropologist, I lived in Serbia and there's a school of psychotherapy called transactional analysis, which is really popular over there. And when I was going through a rough patch, I experienced that kind of therapy, transactional analysis therapy.

And there's lots of points of common ground with Buddhism. It's about bringing more awareness into different aspects of your daily life and being able to reflect rather than just experiencing emotions and things happening to you. It's about linking those to different kind of, you can see them in the context of your personality, like how you react to things.

Karen A. Parker

Like, I'm sorry to interrupt, but can you give an example of like what that?

Andy Hodges

Yeah. So let's say you're standing in a queue for shopping and it's a really long queue. There's different ways in which people react to that.

Some will become visibly angry and agitated. Others will become really quite passive and just kind of just waiting and not engaging with the situation. And that's called a, that's got a name in transactional analysis.

It's called a racket. It's a kind of inauthentic emotion that's grounded in your early childhood experiences. I won't go into it in lots of detail, but when I started to incorporate that and link it to Buddhism, I would be able to notice these things like inauthentic emotions and how particular situations or events triggered things.

And that feeds into my writing as well, because first of all, when I started to write, I knew from this Buddhist slash transactional analysis perspective that I needed to bring awareness into, into my practice. And there's, there's a lot of messaging in the creative writing world that's heavily influenced by German romanticism, which is it's saying, basically, it's really bad. It's saying, this is like your, your subconscious on paper emerging and yeah, you have no control.

Like you're bringing kind of, I know, right. You're bringing these unconscious structures to life. And in some versions of that, you even have no control over it really.

It's just stuff that's emerging on the page. And the Buddhist and transactional analysis approach is really how I applied that to writing was writing doesn't work like that. Like you learn technique and you learn how to apply technique and anyone can do that as long as they're persistent and resilient enough with that.

Yeah. All pervasive action. I mean, I do think a lot of people having a creative writing career is all about just carrying on.

Karen A. Parker

Perseverance. Absolutely.

Andy Hodges

Yeah. So that really helped me because it gave me like a useful and positive framework. And when you're doing creative writing, and especially when you're starting out, you are dealing with kind of stuff inside.

It is about creative self-expression and you're, there is a hint of truth in the unconscious stuff that you are bringing up stuff from your mind and putting it on the page. And then if you're in the wrong environment, you can be being judged harshly on that. And it's so personal, etc.

And I think Buddhism gave me the ability to just kind of see it all from a distance.

Karen A. Parker

Yeah.

Andy Hodges

And yeah, just there was always this kind of, I knew that, that I could just take a step back from ego. And like, I can see and I can feel and I can hear my ego kicking in my writing. And when people comment on my writing as well.

But it's I could just let it happen and see, observe what was happening rather than get caught up in it and be like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Does that relate?

Karen A. Parker

No, yeah, I love that. I love how writing itself, just the act of writing can heal people, whether that be journaling or just getting emotions onto the page or exploring things you haven't explored before. And when you when you said like, I could feel my ego kicking, it's all I had the image of like, just being pregnant and feeling the baby.

Yeah, exactly. But the ego is I have no like sense of Freudian or Jungian psychology thinking, but like, I feel like framing it in that way in my mind, like the ego is tender, the ego is sensitive, like a baby. And does not, you know, does not have the worldly or the adult wisdom, but Buddhism can kind of help with that.

Also, like, just asking personally, Andy, like, would you be able to go back to, like, get another PhD in Buddhism and transactional analysis?

Andy Hodges

Why not? That would be cool. I mean, yeah.

Karen A. Parker

Personally, asking personally, maybe maybe the audience too, but that that sounds really cool. Like just Buddhist philosophy, West meets East, like, I'm totally about West meets East. So right up my alley.

I'd love that. I would love to read a book about that if you write it or someone else does. Just keep me posted.

Andy Hodges

Yeah, it's there on the 10 year plan.

Karen A. Parker

So now that we're kind of getting into the realm of like, just practice and how Buddhism sort of intersects with all of that, what advice would you have for writers who are interested in learning more about Buddhism or just advice for writers in general, if you want to give it through a Buddhist lens or not? On this podcast, I've been talking about like the intersection of Buddhism and social justice and how, you know, certain Buddhist principles can be applied to create a more sustainable, flexible writing practice. So that's that's kind of where my head is.

But I wanted to hear a bit about your perspective or what you think might be missing for writers who are struggling on the writing aspect side of things or writers who are kind of taking a more personal approach and want to incorporate Buddhism in their own lives or their own practice. Those are two kind of similar but not so similar. Yeah, they're very two different questions, but they have a little bit of overlap.

So you could take either of those as they as they come.

Andy Hodges

Yeah, yeah. So the first thing that comes to mind is, there is like the fusion for me of Buddhism and transactional analysis, and how that's affected my writing. I think that's kind of intensely personal, not in an egoistic way, just in terms of this is what happened.

And on my life journey, I came across these things. So I don't think I could advise on that because everybody's engagement with Buddhism is going to be experienced through a whole different kind of through that perspective, and through all of that influences and lineages and all of these cool things that surround us. So what I would say to writers interested in learning more about Buddhism is to start off with learning about things like precepts, the Four Noble Truths.

And then it's really for me, that kind of, it's kind of like mental hygiene in a way. That's what I really got out of Buddhism, especially when I was getting into it and learning about all of these things. And I think mental hygiene is super useful and important for writing practice as well.

Just for the things I've already mentioned, a lot of writing is about getting up and doing it again, getting some kind of routine going, being resilient, being persistent, being able to continue when an important gatekeeper tells you, you suck, that kind of thing, all of this. And I think that's really the big thing that Buddhism gave me. There's one memory that's coming to mind now.

This goes back to when I was working as an academic, but hey, that was also a kind of writing as well. And I presented a paper and somebody did a typical kind of grad student sort of discussion takedown. I hadn't mentioned a really important theorist in my paper because I was presenting on a new topic for me.

And they kind of did a ritual shaming like that, oh, you haven't mentioned this person, that kind of condescending and things like that. And again, it would be so easy for me to just have got caught up in that drama and that situation. But the Buddhist background and training allowed me to see what was going on, figure out that this person was not on my side, because they did a weird thing, they came and found me after the talk and said they really liked my work and things like that.

And I was like, wow, this would be emotional abuse if we were a family or something.

Karen A. Parker

Pretty much.

Andy Hodges

But this is one example where that Buddhist training and background and mental hygiene really helped me. And I'm saying it for creative writing as well, because there are MFA programs that can be very much like this as well.

Karen A. Parker

Not my MFA program. Don't you knock on my MFA program. But there are some out there or at least like some creative writing programs, for sure, that will absolutely make you feel the hierarchy and the shame of like, why are you writing genre fiction?

This is a literary fiction class or whatever. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Ritual shaming ingrained in the culture.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you were going.

Andy Hodges

No, no. Yeah. Yeah.

All of the insults that your writing's really soapy, that kind of thing. It's all these things they pull out. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it's that I think it links to academia and literary fiction is closely linked to that as well. But Buddhist practices has given me kind of it's made me more resilient for handling these kinds of high pressure, high stakes environments.

Karen A. Parker

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

It has been just it has been an absolute gift that keeps on giving for me. And it sounds like it's an absolute gift that keeps on giving for you. And I'm very, very grateful to have someone in Sangha, in community, because that's one of my pillars of the immovable wisdom writing framework in action.

But I can't I mean, I call the immovable wisdom writing framework, but I'm just that's just what I call the arrangement. These things are found in other cultures and other things. It's just my little my little tweaks on that.

But in the spirit of of giving and generosity, please let the audience know last but not least, about any projects or services of yours that maybe you'd like to plug anything you're working on that's got your got your fancy.

Andy Hodges

Well, I'm a fiction developmental editor. And I do a little bit of academic consulting for cultural anthropologists as well. He's really good.

I love combining them. I love working on books with intercultural themes, social justice topics, LGBTQ plus themes as well. That's what I like, whether it's anthropology or fiction.

And I love specfic. So if anyone has any novels or short stories, they want me to take a look at check out my website and get in touch.

Karen A. Parker

Yeah, yeah. And I'll mention again the the Freelancer podcast as well, because I was interviewed over there twice as well. So you can you can hear me in the interviewee chair instead of the interviewer chair.

Andy Hodges

Yeah.

Karen A. Parker

But thank you so, so much, Andy, for your time and your your insights and your just your wonderful Buddhist perspective. I deeply appreciate it. And maybe we'll have you on again soon.

Andy Hodges

That would be amazing. Yeah.

Karen A. Parker

Yeah, I think so, too. All right. Take care, everybody.

Thanks for listening again to the Immovable Wisdom Writing podcast. See you in the next one. Bye!

Andy Hodges

Bye!