Bow & Roar
Andrew Palmer, Sensei – Dharma Teacher in The Open Source Zen Tradition
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Yeah, About That... : Buddha (1st of a series)

2/26/2016

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 One of the opportunities I have on a regular basis is talking to groups of people who aren't practicing Zen or may not even be familiar with it, which allows me to share my experience of the practice as well as promote understanding among people of differing backgrounds (something which the world will always be in need of, I think). I really love these opportunities, as they invite me to be curious about my own practice, to really look into it and share what I'm finding at the time, and in the process allowing others to get a bit of a grasp of it themselves. Over the past several years that I've been doing this, I've noticed some common misunderstandings and misconceptions about Zen and Buddhism, so I thought I'd begin a series in which I will take up some of these and share my views on them, with the overall intent of contributing to that wider and worthwhile project of understanding one another.

​There are several different Zen/Chan traditions, and many different Buddhisms, and I'm certainly not speaking for all of them (I don't even consider Zen to be Buddhism, so there's that...) - I'm simply speaking from my own experience practicing in the Zen Koan tradition. Nevertheless, you may find that the topics and themes I address apply across these varying traditions, as would be expected. But instead of coming to this is how it is, I'd encourage you to remain curious and ask questions of anyone you meet who is practicing one of the Zens or Buddhisms and find out how it is for them, note the similarities and/or differences, yet still not land on this is how it is, regardless of what you find. (And while we're in the realm of curiosity and questions, if there is something you've been wondering about or something that comes up for you as this series rolls along, please send a note my way and I'll address it as I am able, either directly with you or in a future post.)

​To move more specifically into the topic of this particular post, I'd like to highlight two of the main factors I see as contributing to misunderstandings about Zen and Buddhism. The first has to do with translation, in that the languages of the cultures in which these traditions originated and developed typically had one word or symbol that contained multiple meanings, all of which were implied to an extent when using that word/symbol. In English, though, we tend to like getting down to that one word that can capture and encapsulate the essence of the whole, and in trying to do so a great disservice is done to the ancient traditions of our world and we miss out on a richness that is being offered. These days we are presented with single words and brief phrases concerning the practices and ideas related to Buddhism and Zen (and other traditions, of course), and people either think these words capture the essence and then establish an understanding based on this thinking, or they are put off by them and turn away (i.e. hearing that life is suffering is a central teaching of Buddhism could be discouraging and one says "no thanks," never looking further to find there's much more to this term suffering, as well as noble and truth and even life). So whether a person establishes an understanding or turns away, he is stopping short, missing out on a vast and intricate territory that lies beneath, not realizing that the simple words and brief phrases are not meant to be summaries but rather invitations, serving as gateways for entering that territory and discovering so much more.

​The other main factor that contributes to the misunderstanding of Zen and Buddhism has to do with the template we develop based on our experience and understanding of other major religions (I'm thinking mostly of the Abrahamic traditions, though the sphere could certainly be expanded to include more). When we slide that template from one of these religions to another, it can help us get a general grasp of those other traditions due to the similarities of their basic structure, primarily because they are theistic. There are also many parallels that can be found among their belief systems, since they developed out of this basic structure, as well as parallels in regard to how these beliefs are upheld and put into practice. However, when we slide this template over to Buddhism things begin falling apart right away, mainly because Buddhism is non-theistic and therefore the template just doesn't apply. However, we may understand that Buddhism is non-theistic and still attempt to draw parallels between its teachings and practices and those of other religions since they seem similar in some respects, but those similarities are merely on a surface level. What we find when we go beneath the surface and look at things more thoroughly is that, in addition to being non-theistic, Buddhism in general and Zen in particular are largely agnostic in spirit. Therefore, though the teachings and practices may seem similar to those of other faiths, the relationship to them is quite different. All in all what we are presented with here is another invitation: release the template, don't attempt to make the unfamiliar fit into what we already know but instead set what we know aside, look more directly and freshly at what we are encountering and allow it to speak for itself in its own way.

​Now that the stage is somewhat set and the field has been cleared a bit, I'll focus on the main topic of this post by proposing a question that may naturally arise: If Zen and Buddhism are non-theistic, what is Buddha?

​The word buddha is a title and it means "one who is awake." It has come to refer to the Historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, whose story of awakening is widely known of and out of whose experience the many traditions of Buddhism arose. But he wasn't the first buddha, nor was he the last and, by extension, the awakening he experienced wasn't exclusively his - it is an inherent aspect of existence itself and accessible to us all. As such, not only is there the potential for each us to realize our essential nature and become a buddha, we are essentially buddhas from the beginning, through and through. So it is not a matter of taking up the practice of Zen or Buddhism to become something else but instead doing so as a means of returning to and remembering what we fundamentally are, which gets covered up and clouded over as we develop habits of thought and action, being conditioned by experiences and circumstances as we are living a life and trying to make sense of it all. Yet, even though this essential nature gets covered up and can feel so very far away or nowhere at all, it never really goes anywhere, just as behind the clouds and rain and snow storms the sun and moon and stars continue to shine.

​Okay. So there's that, and it makes sense enough (hopefully). But what about the statue of Buddha and other figures on an altar, before which people sit in meditation, and to which they bow and offer incense. What's going on there?

​Those statues are simply symbols, reminders, if you will, of our inherent nature. Old Sid has come to symbolize awakening because, you know, that was his big thing. What I appreciate about him as a central figure on the altar is, as we know by his story, he was a human through and through just as we are, and we can (and do) awaken just as he did. So the reminder and encouragement is: awakening is possible, and it's possible for you to realize. Other figures that adorn altars symbolize wisdom, compassion, action, intention and more. When I have difficulty connecting with these things within myself, sometimes it's good to have a symbol as a reminder that these qualities are still present, regardless. (Personally, I most often relate to these statues and figurines as pieces of art, and have long felt an affinity toward and appreciation of their aesthetic.) Bowing, offering incense and meditation are ways to connect with and honor these inherent qualities of being as well as an expression of gratitude for there being a path to walk and a practice to embody, and gratitude for those who came before us, showing that awakening is possible. And while I hope it is clear already, I want to emphasize that there is no worship happening here, no asking of or relying upon something or someone outside of us to change us or help us or save us. Which understandably leads to another point of confusion.

​If Zen and Buddhism are non-theistic and worship isn't an aspect of practice, what is the focus of one's practice? This quote from writer Heather King wonderfully expresses the assumption that comes out of this confusion: "Without belief in a power beyond ourselves, we have no reference point but ourselves." I'm really grateful to have come across her words because this statement includes the two central elements that are the source of the confusion, and because encountering her words helped me clarify my own experience. I cannot disagree with the logic and rationality of her statement, but it absolutely misses the mark when put to use as a critique of Buddhism. Of course, there are other people I've come across who have made similar statements, but this one really sums up the gist of them all. Okay, so now to unpack it a bit.

​One of the central teachings of Buddhism is that there is no self - a good example of one of those simple statements beneath which there is a vast territory. This does not mean I do not exist. It means I do not exist as a separate entity; I am not disconnected from reality and life around me; it is part of me, I am part of it, inexorably. Thinking I am a solid, separate entity is a delusion (a common one for us humans), and when living and acting from the place of this delusion, Ms. King's statement is entirely valid and accurate. But as I nourish this delusion and walk it around, I notice that my actions, thoughts, and beings affect others, and vice-versa. Making my way along, noticing and experiencing and exploring this dynamic further, that solid, separate sense of self crumbles and dissolves more and more, and I can come to realize that the essence of all that is is me, and I am the essence of all that is. The Zen teacher Bernie Glassman suggests (and I've been borrowing this notion of his for a while now, so I concur) the goal that Zen practice has for us, what it is offering and encouraging, is for us to have a direct experience of this essence and know it for ourselves (or our non-selves). Once this happens it can't unhappen, and it fundamentally changes the way we live and experience life.

​From this place of being and knowing (not with the intellect, but deeply), I'd like to return to Ms. King's statement and the part about not believing in a power greater than myself (which is what her words helped clarify). There is in fact ​something greater than myself with which I connect and which serves as my reference point: reality, life itself. And it's not a matter of belief - I see it, feel it, know it everyday, through the people and places in my immediate environment; in the expansive and expanding world around me and within me; and off into the cosmos, among the distance stars and planets, through the galaxies upon galaxies unfurling endlessly, beyond me and within me. All of it is that which is greater than me, yet at the same time it is not outside of myself; it is powerful, and I can rely upon it and receive help from it; it is this reality I wish to serve and to which I wish to remain faithful; it is my reference point, nourishing and guiding me along while I offer nourishment and guidance to it in return. So my focus is not on this limited and localized self through which I experience the world but rather the larger body of reality of which I am a part, which I can essentially and equally call myself. And from this understanding of Buddhist practice, King's statement is completely valid: because there is no self apart from existence and reality, it's impossible to have a reference point outside of ourselves.

To wrap things up, I'll bring in a few stories from the Zen tradition that speak to the territory I've been wandering through here. What I truly appreciate about these (and many others) is that they're really good at countering the human tendencies we have to define things, to exalt certain things and lower others, to separate things out and to separate ourselves from them, to discount ourselves and our experience, making something small and confining out of an existence that is vast and boundless. These stories tend to be short and sweet, yet they are very rich and offer much, inviting us into that expansive territory that lies beneath our thinkings and doings and beings.
​
​First, a common question people have asked throughout the centuries in the Zen/Chan tradition is, "What is Buddha?", meaning what is the essence, what is awakening? Here are a few responses that have been offered:

​  -This very mind is Buddha.
​  -Not mind, not Buddha.
  -Three pounds of flax.
​  And a personal favorite - A dry piece of shit.

​Another someone asked, "What is the Dao?" (same general meaning as What is Buddha?) and someone replied, "Ordinary mind is the Dao."

​  A student asked a teacher: "What are the words that save the buddhas and go beyond the ancestors?"
  The teacher replied, "Cake."

​  A person who was grief-stricken sought out a teacher for help and asked: "What is Zen?"
  "The heart of the one who asks is Zen; you can't get it from someone else's words."

​Some words from Linji:

​  "Buddha is not the object of our search; do not make Buddha your ideal aim. Do not make Buddha a reality outside yourself. The image we have inside our head of the Buddha is not the Buddha. Such a Buddha is a shadow, a ghost, called Ghost Buddha, who can suck up your soul. That's why when we meet Ghost Buddha, we should cut off Ghost Buddha's head."

​(The final two selections are excerpts from Acequias & Gates by Joan Sutherland; the other selections can be found in various koan collections.)

​And to close, a selection from the Daoist classic Zhuangzi:

  Dongguo asked Zhuangzi: "This thing called the Dao - where does it exist?"
  Zhuangzi replied, "There is no place it does not exist."
​  "C'mon," said Dongguo, "You can be more specific!"
​  "It is in the ant."
  "Whoa...that is a low and humble thing."
​  "It is in the weeds."
​  "That is even lower!"
​  "It is in the tiles and broken shards."
​  "How can it be so small and insignificant?"
​  "It's in the piss and shit."
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Bodhi Day - A Brief Reflection

12/8/2015

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Today is the day we honor and celebrate the enlightenment experience of Siddhartha Gautama, the historical Buddha. A day when, after many years spent in arduous spiritual practice, and many years before then of living a privileged and sheltered life, a person sat gently beneath a tree throughout the night paying attention to his experience, and awakened in the dawn when his gaze rose to meet the morning star. I’ve been musing on this story for a little while, finding myself curious about that meeting of Siddhartha’s eye and the morning star and what happened when they saw one another. Was there something in the morning star at that particular moment and only that moment, never to be shown again? Or was there something particular in Siddhartha's gaze that allowed him to see what no one else could see? In a nutshell, was there something special or miraculous that happened at that moment? I really don't think so. Not at all. In fact, I'd say what happened at that moment was very ordinary, about as ordinary as things can get. And that's why awakening and enlightenment have always been and remain accessible and available to everyone.

By ordinary I'm not referring to things being plain and simple, though those qualities are certainly present. Instead I'm referring to the root sense of the word, which is to be in order. But this is not an order that you have to maintain or protect or keep from being disturbed or disrupted, but rather everything naturally finding, falling into, resting deeply in its own place. And this is not a stopping place but instead a continuous active happening, an endless unfolding. Perhaps a familiar expression that conveys the sense of it is "being in the Tao". Or, even more, "cultivating the Tao,” which speaks to the active quality of the experience. And perhaps what conveys the opposite of it is "feeling out of sorts" or "being off kilter." Regardless of the expression, I think we can all relate to the feelings and experiences themselves, just as Siddhartha did. This emphasizes the notion that his experiences before, during and after his enlightenment are simply happenings that come along with having a life, accessible and available to all, no miracle required.

Seeing the Buddha's enlightenment experience as ordinary, I found myself holding that up to what his life was like before that moment, and that's where I find the extraordinary, coming across in few different ways. In one sense "extra" refers to things being more ordered and orderly than they need be. This is Siddhartha's life growing up in the palace, being protected and sheltered, his father manipulating and orchestrating the environment and events in hopes of guiding Siddhartha down the path of becoming the next king. It was extraordinary, beyond the usual, an order disconnected from the natural flow of things. I always find it ironic that everything his father did in hopes of keeping Siddhartha from pursuing the path of a sage is in fact exactly what led him to pursue that path, stemming from his experience of seeing life beyond the palace and the shock of encountering, for the first time in his life, sickness, old age and death. Through this encounter he realized that his own life, how ever wonderful it was, was very much off kilter. And because of that he leaves the palace and sets off to get to the heart of the matter, which is where I see Siddhartha entering the next extraordinary phase of his life.

The extra in this case refers to thinking that following a certain order of things is going to lead to some ultimate thing. It's not necessarily that one is disconnected from the natural flow and order of things but that one sees them as a means to getting somewhere else, and as a result the connection with the natural flow of things is not as deep and intimate as it could be. So we find Siddhartha pursuing and even mastering various spiritual and ascetic practices of his day, and some accounts say he was invited to be the next leading guru or yogi of each of those practices. Yet each time he declined, feeling that regardless of what he had accomplished he still wasn't there yet, he still felt out of sorts and hadn't settled the matter. So he kept pursing other paths and going to extremes far removed from the luxury and comfort of palace life, eventually coming to the brink of death. At this time some very ordinary things happen. He hears someone giving instructions for tuning a sitar, "If the string is too slack it will not play; if it is too tight it will break." A young maiden offers him milk and he accepts it, though his ascetic companions abandon him because of it. He becomes nourished and strengthened, begins to fall back into the natural order of things, finds himself a tree to sit beneath and simply pays attention to the unfolding – the unfolding that is awakening itself. Abiding deeply with this continual and endless unfolding, it seems he could truly begin living his life fully – the very life he had been living all along, yet no longer trying to get anywhere other than where he was.

How ordinary. How simple. How profound.
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Welcoming, Offering, Altar-ing

11/25/2015

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     Baizhang asked, "What is the crucial thing about this practice?"
     Great Ancestor Ma replied, "It's just the place where you let go of your body and your life."

A few hours ago I gathered up the dedications that had been placed on the altar of the Vast Refuge Sangha at the cadet chapel over the past month, as I do each month at the time of the full moon. The dedications come from members of the community as well as visitors who are just passing through. It's always interesting and touching to read the wide array of what is offered, people sharing what is most in their hearts and on their minds: my grandpa; Marcus; Misty & Britt; Paris; for Mom; Karim Ahmed, Motaz Ahmed; all my loved ones & family; peace in Syria; my hopes & dreams, fulfill my potential; my dad; Beirut; for Ribs, my dead cat; Nadia Thompson :-( ; my whole family. There are also dedications in handwriting I can't read and languages I don't know, and it doesn't matter. The altar welcomes whatever comes, not requiring it to be anything other that what it is, not needing to know its story or where it is hoped things will go from here - simply receiving, holding, present, abiding. Welcoming, welcoming, welcoming...

My life feels like it is always such an altar, open to receive and welcome whatever the world places upon it, meeting, holding and abiding with these things, wondering what it may be able to offer and how it can help. In these particularly tumultuous and challenging times of late, though, the poignancy and importance of this altar-life comes to bear, mostly through noticing the desire to close it off due to the pain and sorrow brought by the things that are landing on it these days. Yet deep down I know this is not the route to take, I know before I can offer what is needed and help with the transformation of it I must welcome, receive, and attend to what is coming to meet me. I am curious about the stories that come along with these things and wonder about what each of them is wanting and hoping for, yet ultimately I'm not too interested in these specifics or trying to figure out or satisfy each of them. I'm more interested in being like that altar which provides a space for all of these things to exist side-by-side, none of them more or less important than the other, gathering them all together and moving into what is next without rejecting any.

This is what I find myself grateful for on this Thanksgiving Eve: this complex, complicated, astounding, devastating, wondrous, beautiful, impossible life, and for the living of it. My heart is heavy and my mind is weary, and at the same time they are imbued with the brightness of joy and love, and in this there is no conflict but rather a sense of completeness, for this is what it means to be alive. I find that I can trust this, and a sense of gratitude arises, not contingent upon or connected to anything in particular. It just is. Being in this gratitude, things remain just as complicated and impossible as before. I still don't know where things are going and how they'll end up, and I don't have any strong ideas of how to navigate my way through it all. But I'm showing up for it, and I'm taking part in it, and I'm giving myself to the transformation of what is now into what is next and beyond, endlessly.

As I do with the dedications that come along each month, I'll soon head out to offer them up in flames under the full moon, shining brightly. The now-empty altar will become full again, and the cycle of welcoming and receiving and offering continues along, just as the moon continues along in its own way, from full to dark to full again - letting go of all it has become to be the living of all that it is.

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Unselfing & Being Unsettled: The Path of Compassion

11/19/2015

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​​Earlier today I walked out to a path near our home and sat on a bench for a little while. Though it was a sunny day with a clear blue sky, swift winds were blowing through steadily, making things chilly and crisp. I purposefully set out with little protection – no hat, no gloves, a modest button-up shirt – so I could be in and feel the day more fully. Thanks to the sun, most of the snow from yesterday’s storm was gone, although a bit of it remained in areas the sun had yet to or simply couldn’t reach ( I was also aware that this just is how it was in my small corner of the world, knowing [and later seeing for myself] that not too far away the snow still dominates the landscape, much deeper, being melted ever so slowly but steadily). When the winds were calm I enjoyed the warmth and comfort it offered. Even when the gusts picked up the warmth could still be felt, but it was certainly diminished by the bitter, biting cold. And even when I couldn’t feel it, I could see it shining in the dry grasses whipping around and in the glow of golden leaves tumbling by. I got chilled and at times a shiver or two came over me, and my hands and ears, being exposed, became particularly icy. As I was sitting there, abiding and observing, a homeless couple came by, asking for help. From what I had on hand, I kept just what I needed for myself and gave the rest away. During those brief moments there was no awareness of the sun and the wind and my cold hands, just the activity of meeting and talking and offering.
 
This is very much how I have been feeling these past days in the wake of the storms that are the attacks on Paris, Beirut, Bagdad and other places yet to be (if ever) known. Being with what remains in their aftermath, I’m choosing to insulate myself as little as possible with my opinions or explanations or judgments, my heart-mind as open and vulnerable as I can allow. In this, I am buffeted and battered from many directions by gusts and gales fueled by ignorance, hatred, fear, anger, stinginess, prejudice, confusion, certainty, leaving me cold, chilled and weary. There are also times of calm and warmth, people offering words and stories of encouragement, understanding, reason, clarity, insight, infused with humanity and love. Throughout it all the sun still shines, providing warmth and comfort when those gusts subside; being noticed, albeit momentarily, when catching a glimpse of a golden leaf tumbling by in those fierce winds that quickly obscure it; remaining intact despite the storms that roll through. And throughout it all I’m giving what I can, which is mostly listening, presence, attention, a conversation here and there, wondering, looking, not turning away, waiting to see what is needed, ready to offer what I am able.
 
Now the sun is setting, the cold is growing, the day is turning to night and different light will shine in that same clear sky, some of it reflected, some of it sparkling and clear. And tomorrow the sun will come again, making its long, slow arc from horizon to horizon. There may be less wind, there may be more; additional storms will certainly come, and there will be days without a single cloud in the sky. Regardless, behind, throughout and beyond it all, that same sun will be shining and offering its warmth, generously and impartially. I wish to be in it, I wish to nourish and share it, I wish to shine and to receive the shining all around, so that all may know this warmth, comfort and peace.
 
As happens quite often, today my "Little Zen Calendar" offers words that seem so strikingly apropos:
 
“You take it all in. You let the pain of the world touch your heart and you turn it into compassion.” Gyalwa Karmapa
 
Reflecting on this quote, a question seems to naturally arise: “How do I turn it into compassion?” And a response I find arising just as naturally is: “Taking it all in is how you turn it into compassion.” There is more to this than just circular reasoning, and it is not at all advocating a passive stance of acceptance as a way of dealing with things. At the heart of it is the activity of unselfing, and I see this happening in two ways.
 
The first way is in the realm of how we try to protect our hearts. For some people or in certain situations, the choice is not to let anything in, regardless of whether it is beneficial or harmful, knowing that doing so leaves us vulnerable and open to risk, a choice likely rooted in past experiences of pain and heartache. A more typical and widely-practiced approach is to only open our hearts to the positive, those things that bring us joy and happiness and nourishment, avoiding the negative, darker, heavier things that could disrupt our sense of peace and calm. It’s a perfectly reasonable and natural approach to take and certainly seems healthy overall, but when you look more closely, it’s fundamentally about excluding a significant portion of life and the world as a whole. All in all, no matter how we endeavor to protect our hearts, doing so is essentially a self-focused project that develops and maintains a limited territory, out of which can only come limited compassion. “Taking it all in” moves us beyond this territory, relinquishing its boundaries and constraints, widening the focus and reach of our hearts, and furthers the unselfing that leads to compassionate action.
 
Relinquishing the limited territory of our individual hearts transforms the central question of a compassionate response from “What can I do?” to “What is needed and how can I help?” The difference may seem slight, yet it is also quite profound. The former question focuses too much on me and places the responsibility more squarely on my shoulders, whereas the latter puts the focus outside of myself and shifts me into a relationship of partnering with as opposed to trying to fix something. From there I begin to realize it’s not up to me alone to figure out what to do, and I can release the anxiety, pressure and self-concern of trying to get it right with the appropriate measure of compassion. This partnering has a call-and-response quality to it, asking me to simply show up and be available, making it possible for compassionate action to emerge of itself from this place of being receptive and listening and responding; letting go of self-concern frees up my energy and broadens my view, enabling me to be more intimately connected with and responsive to the whole of life. By not restricting or being selective about what I allow to touch my heart, not only do I discover I have an infinite capacity to hold in it whatever I meet, I also find that I have limitless resources to depend upon and access, and I can let compassion itself lead me along without trying to harness and control it.
 
“Taking it all in” also addresses those poisonous winds I mentioned above. It doesn’t matter what side I take, what my politics are, where I align myself spiritually – wherever I find myself along these and other spectrums, adhering strongly to my beliefs and ideas and opinions limits my scope of and connection to reality. I may say: “I listen to the other side of things, I take it all in, I’m open to other people's views and ways of life,” when in actuality everything is passing through pre-established filters for the most part, sorted and judged, then accepted or rejected. To truly take it all in, one must become aware of the filters, the biases, the tendencies that he or she has developed and fortified over the course of time and experience, then be willing to hold them loosely, set them aside and step forward to meet the world as it is, face-to-face. To do so is to have a willingness to be vulnerable and uncertain, to encounter the unknown and the unknowable, and to keep making your way along, eyes and heart open. Yes, it can be frightening and unsettling and discomforting, and yet it seems so very essential. It calls to mind one of my favorite quotes:
 
“People wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson
 
In one of those conversations I had, a friend asked: “How are you keeping your peace in all of this?” I considered it for a few moments and found myself replying: “I’m not. All of this is my peace.” It was one of those wonderful moments of saying something before knowing what I meant, then getting to be curious about it. First off, I realized I didn’t have any thought of “my peace” before the question was asked, and that even now there is no such thought. Considering it further, I see that I am not creating and upholding a peace that is separate or disconnected from what is, nor am I insisting on it feeling, looking or behaving a certain way, nor am I trying to hold it still or keep it unstained. It is a peace made of a willingness to be buffeted and battered by the winds, to be cold, chilled and weary; a willingness to receive the generous warmth of the shining sun, to feel comforted, encouraged and enlivened; a willingness to show up again and again, exposed and vulnerable, stepping into life; a willingness to trust the unknown and being uncertain, to reach out a hand and collaborate with the whole of life, co-creating what is to come.
 
To bring this post to a close so I can step more fully into the life of this day, I offer this:
 
May we be unsettled. May we be uncertain. May we hold loosely what has been and what should be, leaning more fully into and moving forward with what is. May we not try so much to be compassionate as to be compassion. May we be less and less ourselves, and ever increasingly who we are as we journey along together.
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Mindfulness, A Gentle Rant & Fiery Poem On

11/12/2015

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As you may have noticed, a lot is being said about mindfulness these days. Actually, a lot has been said about it for some time as mindfulness has become increasingly popular in our modern culture, in part due to it being co-opted to serve individual needs and specific purposes. Related to that, what I’ve been hearing more of in recent months concerns businesses and corporations who have encouraged mindfulness practices among their employees in order to increase productivity and thus bolster their bottom line, only to find it backfiring in some cases. Accounts of these backfirings likely come as no surprise to those who have had a steady meditation practice for a while. Though on the surface meditation may seem fairly innocuous, making time and creating space to observe and know yourself is quite a wild, subversive and even risky endeavor; it can be unsettling and sobering to connect with the reality of who you are, and without proper support things can get wonky and go awry, which some employers are coming to realize. While I feel for the people who are experiencing difficulties as a result of what their employers encouraged, I’m also glad to hear about things backfiring. It serves as evidence of the power of such practices and their ability to withstand the various ways people across many cultures and times have tried to co-opt and control them to serve their individual needs, whether it be for self-improvement or as part of a business model to increase profits.

Even the popularity of mindfulness in spiritual/religious circles these days is the result of co-opting it to an extent, as it is often presented as the singular practice one needs – kind of a one-stop shopping, fix-it-all approach. There are certainly benefits and value to mindfulness – indeed, it has endured as a practice for millennia because of its usefulness – but to have it as one’s only practice is to limit and water down the possibilities of what can be realized and embodied. Presenting it as a singular practice is also just plain weird, considering the traditions from which mindfulness comes, namely Chan/Zen and Buddhism. In these traditions, mindfulness is just one in a wide array of practices to engage in as part of a more whole, complete practice, and it’s essential to engage in these various practices without trying to whittle them down to the most effective or best one. What’s more, the purpose of such a practice overall is to enable a person to more fully engage in and contribute to the wider world of which he or she is a part, which comes with a felt sense of broadening things vs. narrowing them. In contrast, to remove mindfulness from that array of practices and focus on it solely is to take a narrower route and employ a limited view. Additionally, the ways it is practiced these days it tend to be centered on one’s own life – how to manage responsibilities and stress and effectiveness on an individual level – and more about surviving the wider world than serving it.

As to why mindfulness was plucked from among the wider array of practices and singled out, I think one can look to the basic economic principle of supply and demand: with modernization and advancements made in recent decades, people’s lives have become busier, faster-paced, and more fractured as people are being pulled in multiple directions, so it helps to hear and learn about ways to slow down, connect with the present moment, and feel whole again. Interestingly, though, the popularity of mindfulness has been increasing over these decades, suggesting that it isn’t addressing the fundamental issues of people’s lives as much as abating them, keeping the demand for mindfulness at healthy, profitable levels. It’s good, solid business sense, and many are capitalizing on it.

All in all, though, what I’ve described above is simply what we humans do as part of our makeup, so while I certainly find it lamentable and worth looking into and transforming, I don’t find it overly concerning. What I find more concerning is a side effect I’ve noticed related to mindfulness being presented as a singular practice: people thinking it encapsulates the essence of the broader traditions from which it comes, then making inferences and judgments about these traditions, not realizing they are working from limited, specialized information. As I see it, trying to gain a reasonable understanding of Chan/Zen or Buddhism by only looking at the teachings and practices of mindfulness is like trying to gain a reasonable understanding of modern music by only listening to Taylor Swift records – it confines one to a narrow, limited view, and ignores a vast, rich and varied landscape that has much more to offer. Regardless of whether you are for or against mindfulness, to think it accurately and completely represents Buddhist traditions as a whole and make your mind up about them is to do a grave disservice to yourself and those traditions. It can lead a person to embrace or dismiss these traditions too readily, without ever taking time to see them for what they are, resulting in the furthering of misunderstanding – something we seem to have an abundance of in our world at present.

I happened across a blog that illustrates this pattern of establishing and conveying misunderstanding, which you can check out here. The thing is, I am completely on board with the author’s general message and applaud her for pointing out the oxymoronic nature of creating a mindfulness app. But at times in her post she presents bits and pieces of information about Buddhism as a whole, working off of what she knows about mindfulness and relying on second- and third-hand knowledge to form and support her ideas, and what she presents about Buddhism is woefully inaccurate and mistaken or simply wrong (especially that Chesterton quote). Nevertheless, those who read her post, not knowing any better, will carry this misinformation and misunderstanding inward and onward, not making a distinction between mindfulness and Buddhism. What’s perhaps even more regrettable here is that the author creates then highlights differences between two traditions when in reality they have a lot of similarities. In fact, as I was reading what she wrote about the spirit of her tradition as she knows it, I felt she was speaking directly to the heart and spirit of my practice as I know it, just using different terms. (For what it’s worth, I did send along some feedback about this to the author and have yet to receive a reply.) By simply taking a little time to go beyond surface appearances and preformed ideas, people could realize we have much more in common with one another than we are led to believe. Sadly, it seems not a lot of people take that little bit of time and instead end up building misunderstanding on top of misunderstanding without even realizing it.

(A quick aside: I regularly encounter people who misunderstand Zen/Chan and some of its basic concepts, and we are able to have a conversation to explore and clarify things together. Knowing how useful these conversations are, in the near future I am going to begin a series of posts addressing and hopefully clarifying some of the more prevalent misconceptions of which I am aware…so stay tuned.)

Returning to mindfulness – not as a whole but when solely focused on and promoted as a singular practice – I sometimes feel frustration at how prevalent it has become in our culture, in many instances being more like a product aimed at meeting consumer-driven needs and wants. I also have a deep passion for Chan/Zen, and I see how the current mindfulness trends have led people to misunderstand my tradition, making assumptions about or dismissing it, not ever being informed of or realizing where the practice they’re taking up has its roots. So a little while back, as I was allowing this frustration and passion to mix and mingle and play together, a poem started to develop and come forth. The process was a little therapeutic and cathartic…and a lot of fun! Woven through it to a degree is the spirit of one of my favorite ancestors, Hakuin, who was known at times to rail and rage against the practices of his day when he felt people were being duped and deceived by them. He also had great humor, taking things and himself lightly and playfully, often with much joy and abandon. So with a bit of a nod to Hakuin while very much speaking my own heart-mind, and with a dose of venom in my tongue, I offer my poem for you to take as you will:


Present Moment My Ass!

Present Moment?
There is no such thing
yet you make such a thing of it
talking of it as if it is a place one can be
or not be…
WTF?!?

A chair is a thing – you sit in it
A pen is a thing – you write with it
A car is a thing – you drive it
Things are meant to be used
to serve and support your various endeavors
to serve and support you
and this is what you’ve done to the so-called present moment
making it into a thing that serves and supports
a thing that is used
What a shame
What a sham

I know someone who has been stuck in the present moment for years
building up and fortifying walls around it
to protect it and keep it safe from outside influence
The walls are thick, solid
deflecting anything that challenges or threatens
the ideas and concepts housed inside
and over which he freely lobs these ideas and concepts
that have been manufactured, replicated, reinforced -
Nothing new coming in
Nothing new coming out
Round and round the interior of the factory he goes
not realizing how he’s imprisoned
in a fortress of his own making
living off of stale Present Moment fodder
recycled, regurgitated, ridiculous

I’ve known others who live in perpetual shame
at not being able to find or abide in
The Present Moment
Heads hung low, eyes downcast, speaking timidly
In self-made exile
full of self-doubt, self-pity
Yet still they find encouragement in your words
quoting them and using them as guidelines
giving them hope amid this bleakness
not realizing such words are the barriers
upon which they bump their low-hung heads
over and over and over
Downcast eyes unable to see beyond this limited territory
not able to see there’s no inside, no outside
to the inside and outside they’ve created,
built up, been bred on, believed in

And as to this mindfulness you teach and encourage…
What an infestation!
In your tethers it has lost its natural, spontaneous nature
like a wild animal in captivity
that has lost connection with its true home
and any memory of that vast, open space
It has mutated and spread like a disease
seeping into the world
injected into popular culture
becoming a commodity
packaged for the masses so it can be used
To achieve spiritual ambition
To enhance relationships
To reduce harmful emotions
To secure the bottom line
To improve your tennis game
To bring out the full flavor of food
To eliminate the drudgery of all mundane tasks
And even – yes, that’s right –
even help you find the elusive, illustrious Present Moment!

Step right up, folks! Come one, come all!
The cure-all of all cure-alls: Mindfulness!
Not feeling satisfied with your vocation?
Mindfulness!
The daily commute wearing on your nerves?
Mindfulness!
Worries and concerns persistently intruding on your carrot cutting?
Chop, chop, chop them away with Mindfulness!
Not fulfilled in your marriage?
Has your partner tried Mindfulness?
Life still coming at you relentlessly despite your meditation practice?
Divert it with Mindfulness!
Mindfulness not meeting your expectations consistently or at all?
It’s not Mindfulness, it’s you. Try increasing Mindfulness!
Mindfulness! Mindfulness!
Mindful Mess!
Mind Fullness!
Mindfoolness!
Foolishness!

All Mindfulness, All The Time
is nothing but selling snake oil and blowing smoke
But we like the easy fix, the short cut, the simple recipe
You’ve tapped directly into that need
with great efficiency and success
The best marketing campaigns are those that appeal
to our base human nature and desires
leading us to pursue and consume them
with hardly even a second (or first) thought

Not very mindful of us, eh?
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The Perpetual Threshold of Being

10/8/2015

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​I often hear or come across the practice of Zen summed up as “being fully present, here and now.” I don’t disagree with this and myself say things along similar lines from time to time, emphasizing that the reason one practices Zen is not to get away from the world but to be more fully in it, to engage and be helpful and become more skillful as one takes part in the co-creation of existence. And when I hear messages with a summary of Zen akin to that above, I notice it resonates with my own experience and understanding. But I also notice that sometimes (maybe even regularly) there is a solid thud that comes along with that resonance, or even just the thud with no resonance at all. So I’ve been curious about this thud and why it shows up.

What I’ve come to is, such statements are a partial presentation coming from a partial understanding – which has the propensity to lead to a partial practice of Zen. Taking such statements at face value feels like putting blinders on, narrowing one’s view and focus while simultaneously keeping things beyond that view and focus at bay or shutting them out. There is a very limiting feel to this, when people aspire to “just live in the present moment” or “just be here now.” Not that those aren’t worthy aspirations for which to strive – there is indeed virtue in such endeavors. It’s the "just" that precedes these with which I have an issue, as it can tend to bring about a closing statement of “because here and now is all there is.” Another valid statement, able to be known through direct experience, yet it is also an incomplete one. Not only is the present moment all there is, it likewise contains all there is, the whole of existence emerging and transforming, rising and falling, rising and falling, here and now.

Yeah, this is where things can get weird, especially if someone has previously been stopped short by potentially limiting statements and understandings like those above. There is an esoteric, ephemeral, shamanic aspect to Zen practice that largely remains unknown, especially because of how the practice is portrayed by and spread throughout popular culture. But this aspect is not something that is kept hidden or only introduced after you’ve gone through many years of meditation or reached some “special” level of understanding; it’s woven through the practice from the very beginning, the common and the strange, the practical and the outrageous mingling intimately together. And why not? Isn’t life itself comprised of such a mixing and mingling of the practical and the outrageous?

Here are a few examples of how the Koan Zen tradition invites the common and the strange to hang out together:

In one of the popular and well-known koan collections, The Gateless Gate (the title already providing an example of its own), there is a story about a new arrival to a monastery who asks the teacher for instruction and the teacher replies: “Have you eaten?” “Yes.” “Go wash your bowls.” Very practical. Yet, in this same book, before this story is even encountered, there is another about the ghost of a teacher who was reborn as a fox paying a visit to his old monastery. Elsewhere in the tradition there are tales of a person talking to a rock, a well that sees a donkey, and people traveling to heavenly realms, hungry ghost realms, hell realms. And mixed in with these are stories that state “ordinary mind is the Way” or “the heart of the one who asks is Zen.” There are also stories in which the practical and the outrageous live side by side, such as two friends talking about what it is like to mend clothing: “One stitch is like the next,” says one, and the other: “As if the whole earth is spewing flames.” And there are stories in which the practical and the outrageous are fairly indistinguishable:

     One day, Layman Pang and his daughter Lingzhao were out selling bamboo baskets. Coming down off a bridge, he stumbled and fell. When Lingzhao saw this, she ran to her father’s side and threw herself to the ground.
     “What are you doing?” cried the Layman.
     “I saw you fall, so I’m helping,” replied Lingzhao.
     “Fortunately no one was looking,” remarked the Layman.


Reading about all this strangeness, a very reasonable question may arise: How does this help, and what’s the point? In part, I can say it’s helpful because the world itself is practically outrageous, outrageously practical, unpredictable and wild, far beyond and beneath anything we can and will ever know, and inviting such stories into our usual, knowable lives helps loosen up and expand the territory of our living, connecting us to a greater wholeness. And in part I can’t say, because…well…if it was completely sayable it wouldn’t be worth saying.

Still, I can offer words from someone else speaking to the value of this, which I came across recently and is what gave this post of mine its impetus:

"There are all the subtle realms that for some extraordinary reason we as a culture have dismissed, forgotten, rejected. And yet they belong to all the spiritual traditions—whether [for example] it's the Shaman who works with the spirit realm, or the Tibetan Buddhist who works with the devas and deities in the land, or the Christian monk who works with the Angelic world - who prays for the angels and has icons of the saints - or the Zen monk immersed in the void, in the inner realm – they all need to be included and we all need to get along together because that’s how the world is made. And we are all part of this sacred, living oneness.”

-Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee (posted on the Spiritual Ecology Facebook page)

One thing I appreciate is the through-line with which Vaughan-Lee connects these various realms, not saying they’re the same thing but that there is a commonality among them. Then he takes another step and weaves that thread into the mundane, practical realm we know all too well, which is a crucial step to take because “that’s how the world is made” – all of those realms are this one. What I most appreciate is the shift in emphasis from the different realms to the thread that connects them, so we are no longer moving from one to another or separated from any of them, but instead in a place where they all intersect. I see this place of intersection as a perpetual threshold of being, a space comprised of many things but not restricted by or belonging to any of them, dynamic and alive and flowing. To use the Zen terminology introduced above, abiding in this threshold of the void, one realizes it is not a place where nothing exists but rather a vast expanse of reality, devoid of the divisions and separations often placed upon it (inwardly and outwardly), and the concepts and constructs one has developed loosen, become porous and permeable, or dissolve altogether. Experiencing this directly, intimately and knowing it for oneself deeply and irreversibly changes the way one experiences life and the living of it.

Inviting the practical and the outrageous in and letting them spend time together helps to remove the divisions erected between them, and thus we realize one is no more practical or outrageous than the other, realize that there really is no separation at all. Continuing along from here, we discover that the world is quite strange, wondrous, wild, unpredictable, and unbelievable, and that it’s this way all the time and can be encountered anywhere: resting on a mountainside mid-hike then all at once experiencing the strong sensation of being a small rock on the mountain and being the mountain and being the person on the mountain; momentarily losing all sense of language while attempting to say a simple, well-known blessing before a meal, not able to understand the words or speak them; being struck by the deep beauty and poignancy of life through the simple happening of a golden leaf falling upon your windshield; unexpectedly saying "thank you" to the elevator as the door opens to the selected floor...and really meaning it; walking through a forest at night and suddenly seeing the pattern of reality pulsating and flowing from the trees, as the trees, like Neo seeing the Matrix; walking across the room and feeling an unwarranted wave of happiness surge forth for no reason at all, simply because things are the way they are, with all their joys and sorrows and difficulties and ease. All those worlds and realms, all those ways of being, boundless and limitless, here and now.

This threshold of being is an artful place and place of transformation, marked by spontaneity, imagination and creativity, where multiple sources of inspiration come together to be moved from intangible to material; it is the heart-mind of us all, where infinite worlds gather and wait to become manifest through us, coming forth as poetry and painting, singing and dancing; coming forth in the way we care for a sick child, support and encourage a loved one, or nourish and sustain ourselves; coming forth in how we respond to crises locally and globally, how we engage in social justice and work to bring about change in the world; coming forth in our daily living, in how we meet and connect to life and the things that comprise it, from the mundane to extraordinary.

This continual confluence of all things, this intersection of worlds that includes the realms mentioned above as well as the intricate web of connection between all beings, is how things are and what is happening right where we stand. We can’t not be in it. But we can cut ourselves off from it through the concepts and constructs we establish about reality, which in turn influence our relationship to it, and the degree to which we perceive and experience things to be divided and fractured at any given moment influences the degree to which our responding to them will be divided and fractured.

A major way we uphold a sense of division, as Vaughan-Lee points out, is by dismissing the things that don’t align with what we believe to be important and true. It might be that we choose the practical and reasonable over the fantastic, and if we fall too fully into this practical, mundane world, we can become burdened by and buried beneath it. Instead we might lean heavily toward the ephemeral as a way of escaping and transcending the everyday world, but wandering too deeply into that territory can lead us to disconnect and disengage, to become aloof and complacent. Along similar lines, choosing to work only for others can deplete our energy and resources, leading to that same sense of being burdened and buried, whereas choosing to work only for ourselves can lead to disconnection and disengagement from the world within and around us. In short, solely and completely moving in any one direction limits us and our ability to be effective. But choosing no direction in particular, abiding and resting in that perpetual threshold of being, grounded in the groundless, we can find our place among the endless transformation of all things; rooted in and issuing forth from this place, we can benefit all beings as we discover limitless resources are available and accessible to us, if we but reach out a hand.

As a final homage to the practical and the outrageous and to the value of bringing differing worlds together, allowing them to mix and mingle and influence one another as they dance in this boundless here and now, I’d like to bring in a chant from the liturgy of the Open Source Koan Zen tradition. It isn’t offered at the end of a dharma talk or at the close of a long day of meditation or as part of some event with high ceremony and ritual; it is offered at the end of a meal, after doing something as ordinary and common as sharing food together and filling our bellies:

Out of the mysterious source
we and the things that sustain us come.
Waking and eating, embracing and sleeping,
we walk on the empty sky.

May it fill your belly in kind.
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A Mind of Pilgrimage

9/23/2015

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I found myself having a strong sense of pilgrimage today, in part because I was on a return journey from Santa Fe where I visited my teacher, helped a little with an event and spent time with friends. But more so because of the arrival of autumn, which seems to carry the sense of pilgrimage in its being: after the emerging and bursting forth of spring followed by the expanding fullness of summer, there's a simplicity and power in the return to the ground as leaves fall, grass dries and hunches lower and lower, cool air holds things a little closer to themselves. In addition to it being a return, there's a freshness marked by humility and intimacy in it all as the energy starts slowing down and releasing, following a circular path that moves closer and closer to the middle, a place of rest and stillness. In addition my traveling and the arrival of autumn, I happened to encounter several things today that seemed to have the flavor of pilgrimage - some may have indeed been pilgrimages, but it could have just been the story my mind was telling from the place it was in.

For instance, as I was making my way out of Taos, I noticed a line of about 20 people outside of a Catholic church, waiting patiently and sincerely to meet what they would meet inside. The truck in front of me helped bring this to my attention, the driver seeming to notice the line of people unexpectedly then determinedly and somewhat abruptly pulling to the side of the road so the travelers within could go take their place in line. In that action and in the faces of those waiting, there was a feeling of something important and powerful taking place.

Not long after this, as I was heading toward Questa, people in scattered groups of two or three over a distance of a couple of miles were walking southward along the roadside. It was raining and they were wearing colorful and not-so-colorful plastic ponchos, faces somewhat grim yet determined, that same sense of importance and power evident in their walking as they endured the journey. Amidst their solemnity and sincerity there was one man walking alone who waved and smiled as each vehicle passed by, sharing the joy he was finding in his walking. The whole thing was quite striking and had me wondering where they had come from, where they were going, just what was going on. It felt like something significant and I wished I was part of it - in a way I was.

Several miles after crossing the New Mexico-Colorado line, there was a group of wild horses grazing near the highway. The car in front of me had been ambling along slowly and I was getting ready to pass it, but then two horses stepped up close to the road, making as if to cross, so we both slowed down to a near stop, gently rolling by. Looking in the rearview mirror I noticed the horses returning to graze where they had been before, not having stepped onto the road at all. Perhaps all their actions were saying was: "Hello. Slow down. Notice."

There were also a few actual pilgrimage sites along my route: a Tibetan Buddhist stupa a few miles north of Questa, to which I pointed as I was driving by, it pointing back via sunlight shining off its golden spire; the Stations of the Cross Shrine in San Luis, standing out against the orange and yellow of autumn in the background; a roadside shrine in a set of rocks near La Veta that I hadn't seen before, noticing it this time due to several cars pulled over nearby and people out walking among it.

I had also been looking forward to a personal pilgrimage sight - the southern mountains of the Sangre de Cristo range looming captivatingly in my gaze as I rolled from San Luis to Fort Garland. Today, however, they were shrouded in clouds that scattered and spread from horizon to horizon, marbleizing the landscape with light and shadow. There was something perfect and poignant about that, and just as captivating.

As I journeyed along throughout all of this, I was recalling a talk I gave some time ago about having a mind of pilgrimage. It occurred to me then and still seems the case now that sites of pilgrimage need to be seen as much as pilgrims need to see them. In that meeting there is a mutual seeing that happens, an exchange that takes place between the one who leaves things behind and journeys and the one who is stationary, waiting and welcoming all who come. The qualities and actions of both are needed to make the pilgrimage possible, and through both run the same currents of humility and simplicity, determination and sincerity. In the end, it's in the relationship between the journeyer and the journeyed to that the actual pilgrimage takes place: the relationship made up of the journeying and the waiting, of the meeting, of the seeing and being seen.

There's something to this mind of pilgrimage, I find, and it needn't be limited to a certain time or place or season. It can be a way of meeting life itself, a continual offering of seeing and being seen. It loosens and shifts the locus of attention from a single point (whether it be inner or outer), spreading it evenly across the terrain. The dichotomies of this vs. that, me vs. you, here vs. there and the like fade and transform, the mutuality of being and experience emerging more fully and saying wholly, completely: just this, just this, just this - pointing to the lively territory throughout which the ten thousand things are endlessly meeting and mixing and mingling.

In this there is a simplicity, a humility, an intimacy that need not be reserved for or relegated to special occasions or deserving people or worthy endeavors; it can be allowed to unfold and flow forth naturally, effortlessly, moment by moment, regardless of circumstance. Then that mind of pilgrimage is free to appear and abide anywhere, everywhere, nowhere: driving in appropriately cool weather while heading homeward, finding itself in the midst of an unnecessarily hot first day of autumn back on the front range, returning home to find a dishwasher full of clean dishes waiting to be unloaded, having a child ready to be picked up from school, reading emails that await responses, sitting down to update a highly-neglected blog...

Meeting things in such a way, I notice the stories I have about myself or others or the situation - This is happening to me; This is happening for me; What should have happened is...; What needs to happen is...; This is getting in the way and keeping me from...; This isn't as important as that, therefore... - all those stories get quieter, drop away, or don't even arise, allowing me to be more directly with what is happening, with what is. And it is a starting point to contributing to and/or doing something about what is happening, with fewer obstacles and barriers in the way, less energy tied up in those should have, would have, could have beens.

I also notice coming to mind Bodhidharma's response to Emperor Wu when asked about holy teachings: "Vast emptiness, nothing holy." It levels the field, pointing to the arbitrary distinctions we make about and value we place on certain things over others; it's not necessarily saying not to do this (though that is advice to consider), but to realize the provisional and subjective nature of these distinctions we make and values we assign. One could just as easily say "Vast emptiness, everything holy" or "Vast holiness, everything empty" and the message remains intact: nothing more or less holy than any other thing. This dismantles the definition of "holy", releases it from the bounds of the container in which it has been placed, freeing it to show up as it is, without constrain - another invitation to set aside our stories and ideas and meet things just as they are, connecting with their individual, inherent qualities and value.

A koan relating to this mind of pilgrimage comes up as well:

Dizang asked Fayan, "Where are you going from here?"
Fayan said, "I'm on pilgrimage."
"What sort of thing is pilgrimage?"
"I don't know."
"Not knowing is most intimate."

I love this "I don't know" and how it relates to my experience of pilgrimage. For one, it's to say I don't have a story about what it is or should be, I'm not expecting or hoping for anything in particular; I'm finding out as I go, discovering what it is as it happens; and I'm not making a story about what it is based on these experiences but just continuing along, intimate with the journey and curious, curious. Another thing about this "I don't know" is that it speaks to the question of how to have a mind of pilgrimage. To say "this is how to do it" would be to have a story about it, which would simply get in the way. There is something more organic about the experience, that mind of pilgrimage arising naturally, of its own accord, when the usual ways of being with and relating to things don't interfere with or impede it. At most I can notice what gets in the way, notice what leads me to feel out of sorts, disconnected, distant. Or perhaps I can best be a pilgrim through the landscape of life by simply showing up again and again, without agenda, not tied to my stories, loosely holding my ideas about people and things, meeting them directly, intimately, with  deep curiosity amidst the rising, falling and unfolding of it all.

I don't know, and it is intimate indeed.
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Marriage Equality: Believing the Bird

6/26/2015

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There is a Zen saying: “Every day is a good day.” But today is an exceptionally good day. I find myself experiencing joy, satisfaction and excitement beyond measure and expectation, and it is exceedingly wonderful. A lot of that has to do with the specifics of the Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage equality today, but a significant amount of what is fueling me is also the fact that this decision simply, directly and profoundly accords with reality.

What comes to mind is a quote from James Audubon, giving advice to those using his book to identify birds. After all the field work, research and study that went into compiling the book - with its precise details in regard to their appearance, songs and calls, behaviors, etc. - to help people accurately identify the birds they are seeing, he offers, “When the bird and the book disagree, always believe the bird.” Translation: when reality and your ideas of how it is or should be are in conflict, go with reality. Despite how much effort you put into creating and establishing your ideas, regardless of how many people agree with you, no matter how long those ideas have been in place, when they do not accurately reflect and connect with reality, set them down and go with reality.

So, a dose of reality in today‘s light: there are people in the world who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer and more. This is nothing new; it has been so for ages. Thanks to the gradual progress made over time the world is more aware of this fact, but the fact itself is an enduring one and will continue to be. Among individuals and communities in this spectrum you find people in long-standing committed relationships; people raising families; people contributing to society and working to better it; people struggling with their own challenges, in hopes of overcoming them and finding some lasting happiness. In short, you find people. Before labels and categories and judgments, you find people, no different from anyone else you encounter. And the love you find woven among and throughout and extended beyond them is no different than the love you find anywhere else in the world. That’s reality.

As to the books, they are the stories and opinions and beliefs each one of us carries around, established through our experiences and continually added to over time. Some of the stories we inherit; others we create and elaborate upon and justify; and others we receive through actual books, many coming from religious traditions. There’s nothing wrong with any of these books. Stories will be told and accumulated, ideas about how and why things are the way they are will be formulated, and it’s natural to form opinions about what is right and what is wrong. The question is, how much of ourselves do we want to invest in and believe them when they disagree with reality? How much time do we want to spend using them as shields or wielding them against others to protect us from reality? How much energy do we want to put into bolstering and manipulating these books to serve our own purposes, to justify our own views and condemn the reality that contradicts their stories?

As to our personal books, we ourselves create the stories, formulate the opinions, establish the beliefs - and it’s an active, ongoing process. As such, we can let them be undone, stop creating and feeding them, question them, live without them, and instead lean into reality and listen to the stories as they unfold, be part of the unfolding. As to the actual books, we can read others alongside the ones we cherish, not to determine which one(s) is correct but to widen the field, take in other views, unlimit ourselves, allowing us to more clearly see the living bird before our eyes. Or we can discard the old books that hinder and obstruct our view and find one that more directly connects us to the breath and the heartbeat of the bird. Or we can simply stop reading those books and unite with the reality of the bird, flying and soaring and singing along with it - so alive, so free.

While this bird-vs-book analogy can be applied to many (if not all) areas of life, I want to bring it back to what inspired me to write this and what’s at the heart of it: marriage equality. Again, as I see it, today’s decision is in intimate accord with reality, affording us all an opportunity to know it for ourselves and flow along with it. Many have been taking advantage of that opportunity today, throughout and beyond our country, uniting and celebrating. At the same time (as expected) there are the grumblings about and questioning of and reasons-it’s-wronging and the-direction-this-country-is-headings. It reminds me of Gilligan (yes, from the island) and the times when the group came up with a plan that involved him doing something he didn’t want to do, such as dressing up like a girl (those of you old enough remember). There would be a close up of Gilligan shaking his head and saying “You won’t make me look like a girl, you won’t make me look like a girl…” and a few time-lapse frames later, there he is, dressed like a girl. So folks, you’re gonna get dressed up like a girl - accept it and the going will be easier. And in the spirit of the bird wandering about this post, a nod to Monty Python: that parrot you had in the old days that squawked and spoke after its wings were clipped and it was caged - well, it’s an ex-parrot now. No need to keep nailing it to the perch.

As for today’s bird, it’s a vibrant, rainbow-colored beauty, singing and squawking and flying free in all its dignified glory and splendor! Believe it.

Yes. An exceptionally good day indeed.




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Look to the Moon

2/19/2015

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Today we bid farewell to the Wood Horse and welcome the Wood Goat, celebrating the Lunar New Year. I love the moon and find that it always brings delight whenever I see it in any of its forms, day or night - a sliver, a crescent, a brightly shining orb and all states in between. I love to pay attention to its waxing and waning month-to-month and it's minute changes day-to-day. I feel a kinship with it, a recognition of sorts, something of it that I feel in me and perhaps something that it feels of me in it. At the heart of it there is simply a deep connection and love we share.

The translator/author Red Pine/Bill Porter, in his version of the Tao Te Ching, proposes in the introduction that moon is a constant companion to the test and is reffered to throughout, citing various examples. He also suggests that the yin-yang symbol of Taoism is a representation of the moon and its cycle of changes, a static symbol of a dynamic and continuous flow of darkness and light. In the symbol we can see balance, but not a balance of holding things in stillness and trying not to topple over, but one of equilibrium established through motion which supports and sustains. And in that balance there is wholeness, wherever one finds oneself amidst the continual flow of change that is existence itself.

It's interesting to think about what we consider wholeness to be, and spending time with the moon has been helpful in this endeavor. A few years ago it occurred to me that what we call a full moon isn't actually the full moon, that bright sphere floating through the sky being only half of the moon itself, the other side remaining in darkness. From that came the realization that the moon is actually full when it is a new moon, darkness all around, abiding in its inherent state of no light. There is wholeness in that complete darkness, characterized by the consistency and uniformity throughout the terrain. But it is not the only type of wholeness we know, for there is also the wholeness that is characterized by being well rounded; a state of being that holds a variety of qualities all at once, some congruent and some opposing, in a larger landscape that welcomes them all. In this respect, what we call a full moon is an expression of its wholeness, the darkness and light existing together equally. And there is also the wholeness of light that is the sun, similar to that of the moon by definition but quite different in its nature. These two celestial bodies don't have much in common, yet each abiding in its particular wholeness while in relationship with the other invoke and display a wholeness that is the dance of the dark and the light, ever-changing, ever-present.

This wholeness abides deeply within each of us, in the constancy of our suns and our moons, in the ebb and flow of our darkness and light. And though we may not always feel balance and harmony as we define them, we can trust that they are always there, regardless of where we find ourselves.  Present in the changes of life that we move thorough and that move through us;  present in the dismantling and crumbling, present in the rebuilding and growing; present in the events of a busy day that slips away from us, present in the long, slow arc of our lifetime. Trusting in the balance and harmony of what is, we find an offer of continual support being extended, and along with it an invitation to keep meeting and moving along with things as you and they arise together, to engage and contribute as you can to the world around and within you, to fully join in and be the continual flow of change and transformation that is existence itself.

On some level we know this already and maybe find that it resonates deeply, yet it is also good to doubt it and not simply believe it. Belief can be a film over our eyes that keeps us from seeing and connecting with what is real. Likewise, doubt can be a perpetual stance we take with the world that prevents things from entering as fully as they could. However, beneath the activity of belief there is unspoken trust, and before doubt becomes a hardened stance it is has the flavor of curiosity and questioning. This trust and curiosity are nourished by meeting the world with wonder and looking with fresh eyes, again and again and again. So allow your ideas and conclusions and beliefs and doubts to drift to the periphery, see what you find when you meet intimately and directly the existence flowing all around and throughout you. After that, whatever you discover, keep looking.

It only seems right to close with something from Red Pine's Tao Te Ching, a person whose books have supported my path and practice regularly, and the book that connected me with the path beneath my feet, encouraging me to walk it deeply and fully. Without the both of them what is above would not be. With gratitude flowing, here is Chapter 14:

We look but don't see it
and call it indistinct
we listen but don't hear it
and call it faint
we reach but don't grasp it
and call it ethereal
three failed means to knowledge
I weave into one
with no light above
and no shadow below
too fine to be named
returning to nothing
this is the formless form
the immaterial image
the one that waxes and wanes
we meet without seeing its face
we follow without seeing its back
whoever upholds this very Way
can rule this very realm
and discover the ancient maiden
that is the thread of the Way

Blessings to you, and Happy New Year!
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Ba-buhm, Bah-buhm, Ba-buhm

12/1/2014

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As I was driving to our meditation service this evening, I found on my mind what I often find on my mind these days: Ferguson. There wasn't any particular aspect of it arising, just a general heaviness, thickness and weariness that tends to accompany thoughts about it, even when the thought is a single word: Ferguson. And, as tends to happen more and more when one takes up the Koan Way, I found one of our ancestral stories showing up in that field of contemplation, to join the conversation and perhaps shed a little light. It's good to be curious when that happens, to be interested in what shows up and see what the koan would like to offer.

Koans are curious things themselves and there can be some question as to how these stories from different cultures and times (10th Century China in this case) have any relevance to our modern world and one's particular life. Honestly, when this one showed up I found myself thinking, "That's a weird one. What is it doing here?" But I stayed with it and invite you to stay with it by reading on; perhaps you'll see for yourself how there is indeed a significance and relevance to it, at least today in my particular life. What I tell people about koans is that there is no specific kernel of wisdom or moral to the story locked inside them. They only come alive when you meet them with your life, and what one finds is unique to that particular relationship. Certainly when comparing notes people will find a general trend with any given koan, but what each individual heart-mind discovers is beyond words and description, non transmittable, yet intimately apparent. I'm including the koan itself at the end of this writing, as for now I'd rather give you the gist of it then share what resulted from our having met this evening.

The koan begins with a teacher, Hoshan, giving a brief statement, a summary of a recent teaching, perhaps. Then a student steps forward and asks a few questions. Four questions to be exact, and each time Hoshan's response is, "Knowing how to beat the drum", which doesn't seem to have much to do with the questions being asked or what Hoshan said at the beginning.

One thing that came to mind was although Hoshan is the teacher in this case, the beginning of his practice probably looked fairly similar to that of everyone who takes up this or any practice, in that one learns the basics. Perhaps he was invited to keep time, or lead chanting, or work in the kitchen. There are bells and drums one learns how to ring and beat in a specific way to call others, to indicate what is next, to keep rhythm, and more. After being in one role for a while you learn another, and another, and things build from there. For me this brought up the idea of basic, somewhat universal experiences that take place early on, out of which things grow and find themselves. And not just in the Zen world but just as a matter of being human, of having a life, and the fundamental things each of us experience, regardless. Things that we might move away from and cover up over time but that we never really unlearn, that always remain with us in some way.

I also found myself wondering if Hoshan would have said those words if he had had a drum handy, or if he would have simply beat the drum: buhm, buhm, buhm. Or maybe both - "Knowing how to beat the drum, buhm, buhm, buhm." I found the power and directness of the drum appealing. Then I just felt the drum, in my ears, in my body - buhm, buhm, buhm. Fairly soon the rhythm changed to ba-buhm, ba-buhm, ba-buhm, and I instantly recognized it as a heartbeat, my heartbeat. What could be more basic to life than that?

So I hung out with the heartbeat for a while. I noticed how I have to get really quiet and still to notice my own, and that I don't have to do that to I still know it's there. I also remembered times when I felt anxious and overwhelmed, not knowing how I would make it through something, wondering how I was going to deal with everything I must, etc., and those thoughts and feelings were abated by simply grounding myself in my body: "I'm still breathing, my heart's still beating...things can't be that bad." There was a spacious calm I got in touch with through that, and over time I had to do it less and less, the basic, primal what-isness of that experience permeating things more and more, increasing a sense of being grounded and connected. The primal quality of the heartbeat, a place that grounds me and connects me, echoing in the beat of a drum - that's where the koan and I landed this evening. And this is how it informed an illumined what I'm experiencing in regard to Ferguson:

I want to stay connected to what happened in Ferguson on August 9 and I want to keep it alive, not let it fade away. Michael Brown was killed by Darren Wilson; another young black man was killed by another white police officer. Those words are like Hoshan's opening statement in the koan, beneath and throughout them is the bare fact of what is: ba-buhm, ba-buhm, ba-buhm. Just as Hoshan offered the same reply to each question, that beat meets and permeates all that arises around it. The media carry their various stories, people offer their various opinions, and yet ba-buhm, ba-buhm, ba-buhm; Michael Brown and Darren Wilson are both vilified, and the actions they each took are justified, and still ba-buhm, ba-buhm, ba-buhm; the grand jury does not indict Wilson, but the drum continues to sound: ba-buhm, ba-buhm, ba-buhm; people get distracted by focusing on the looters, or debating whether or not race is still an issue, or scrutinizing whether there is such a thing as white privilege, all the while the beat remains steady and unchanged: ba-buhm, ba-buhm, ba-buhm.

I don't want to stop that drum beating or let it die out. I want to stay close to it, to feel it within me, to have it guide me forward. Writing this is one way to carry it along. Another is to notice my own reactions and opinions, and become aware of habits of thoughts and behavior that I engage in knowingly or unknowingly, paying attention to how they ripple out into the world. I can carry on conversations and explore matters with family and friends; there are groups to which I already belong that engage in matters of justice and I can do more with them; I can seek out other organizations and opportunities that help to keep the conversation alive and vital. And when things feel overwhelming, and hopeless, and endless, I can take up "ba-buhm, ba-buhm, ba-buhm" as a mantra, like I did on the way home tonight, allowing it to become a part of everything I encounter. Doing so I remain close to it, so that I do not forget, so that it permeates and carries me into and through the changes to come.

The Koan: Hoshan Understands How to Beat the Drum

     Hoshan taught, "Studying - we call that 'hearing'; completing study is called 'getting nearer'. Going beyond both of these is what we mean by 'truly going beyond'."
     A student stepped out of the assembly and asked, "What is truly going beyond?"
     Hoshan replied, "Knowing how to beat the drum."
     The student asked again, "What is true inquiry?"
     Hoshan said, "Knowing how to beat the drum."
     The student asked, "I'm not asking about 'just mind, just buddha'. What is 'not mind, not buddha'?"
     Hoshan said, "Knowing how to beat the drum."
     The student asked again, "When it comes from the ancients, how do we welcome it?"
     Hoshan said, "Knowing how to beat the drum."
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