worldliness

One of those nights where, in the spirit of comradery, too many drinks are drunk, too many cigarettes smoked.  Life stories and realizations emerge, cigarette after cigarette.  Its cold outside this bar in Oakland and I'm shivering.  I don't judge myself on nights like this: out of the poisons, buddha-nature shines forth.  On the bart ride home, despite having taxed my system, prana is flowing freely.  It's so obvious but I'll write it anyway: worldliness is often filled with insight and love.  

The Aesthetics of Sangha

During this past year, I've been watching a number of my friends grow in their spiritual practice.  And it strikes me that one of the blessings of sangha is that, when we bring our reflection and devotion to really witnessing it, sangha shows itself as beautiful in a number of ways.  For example, it is truly beautiful to watch the spiritual paths of those around you unfold.  It is a great blessing to be around other beings who are unfolding in this way, and a blessing to notice this specific type of beauty. 

Knowing that friends of mine are growing, especially spiritually, fills me with joy.  To see this occurring is a major source of happiness.  However, I don't always see it: to see it, I sometimes have to set the intention to look for it.  I have to develop a practice of watching how the beings around me are changing.  Without this intention and practice, I may catch a random glimpse of growth from time to time.  I may notice only months down the road.  But as a teacher, and in the past as a lover, I've learned that seeing growth is a skill, and that if you learn to see, you can be present with the growth of a person on a regular basis. Being present to the growth and changes in a person is, for me, one of the great experiences of being alive. 

When we visualize, we actively create ourselves.  If I visualize myself as being filled with love, I actually create the condition for being more loving.  Having created that energy in visualization, it more naturally flows out.  It also helps to visualize friends and other people as being filled with love, with calm, with strength, with clarity.  While I don't believe that this practice has any direct effect on whoever I'm visualizing, I do feel that this practice helps me see them, helps me to become sensitive to their energy and deepest needs.  It's important to look at all beings as having the capacity to be filled with great love, calm, and clarity.

As part of this visualization, I bring specific people to my attention, and practice just fully being with them and feeling their energy: who is this being?  Imagine anyone, and just be fully with them.  What do you witness?  How has their energy been?  What shifts have you noticed, perhaps unconsciously?  For me, this visualization is a deep practice.  I often begin to see their spiritual growth, even if (like most things) I can't verbalize it.  When I do this practice on a regular basis, I begin to see wonderful subtlties in all people.  I see their troubles, I see their growth, sometimes I see their growth arising from their troubles. 

I can certainly be a better friend if I nourish myself in this way.  But it is also a way to really see how beautiful the sangha is, and to not slip into disparaging the triple treasure by not seeing it so well. 

The other day I was talking with a friend about a vaguealy related topic.  She was actually talking not about visualization, but about the senses: if we pay attention to our sense of smell while out on a walk, even if only for ten minutes, our sense of smell increases in subtlety.  We notice smells we did not notice at all before, we notice many intermingling smells, even a symphony of smells.  And if we do this a few times a week, we become more inclined to smell, or to look at small details, or to look with that type of gaze that takes everything in all at once, or to notice colors more than we have been, or to really feel the air on our skin, the way it curves around us.  By bringing our focus to these things, even for only short periods of times, we grow a great deal, we may even gain a heightened awareness of the way our minds and emotions react to all the stimuli of the world.  We actually become more skilled at using our senses - not only at noticing things, but at processing them in a healthy way, in a nourishing way, in the way we may need particularly in a certain moment.

This evening, though feeling under the weather and skipping out on my Blake reading group, I feel calm and contented, at ease with the elements.  Scrolling through the dharma talk archives, I came across Mel Weitsman's talk, Air, Earth, Fire, Water.  The title seemed to potentially fit my mood, and it had been a long time since I've heard Mel's voice.  He was the first Zen teacher I ever came across - I have a very clear memory of hearing him talk five years ago at the Berkeley zendo.  The talk was an existential experience.  I remember feeling incredibly heavy: "Oh my God, this is a real teacher... now that I know this exists, what do I do?"

After the talk the sangha had tea outside, and I got up the courage to walk up to him.  I think I just said something like, "thank you, your talk meant a lot to me."  And I think he said something like, "Thank you."  He had a twinkle in his eye.  I felt embarrassed because I had a lot of desire to study Zen, and could tell he knew it.  I wanted to ask him for advice but decided I should develop a practice first, which I didn't do for a few years, and I haven't spoken to him since then.   

Mel's talk reminded me of the teachers sacred outlook on life.  The teacher sees the present reality of the student through the lens of helping the student channel their energies of the moment into their future potential.  So a teacher viewing stubbornness helps the student channel that into great dedication.  Similarly, the teachers experience of the student has to do not only with the student right in front of them but with this potential.  Many people would experience a stubborn person through becoming exasperated, but the teacher, like a bodhisattva, may have a very different, positive experience this negative quality as a positive potential.  The whole notion of "negative" gets thrown up in the air by this perspective.  

In a very poetic part of the talk, Mel talks about how desire should not be eradicated, but channeled and transformed.  Students with a fiery nature, like a burning sun, may use passion in destructive rather than creative ways, including undermining their practice.  However, learning to channel that passion, that burning, destructive sun can become a beautiful sunset - something warm, calm, inspiring and peaceful.  Listening to the talk, I experienced a powerful emotion as I considered that just as I see some of my fiery students as potential beautiful sunsets, perhaps there are also Zen teachers who are looking at my friends and I in this light.  I feel there ought to be some word for that feeling adults have when they know their elders are caring for them in this way.       

Blake

Rising early to sit the full Saturday zazen this morning, I thought of my friend David.  I thought of all the work he puts into creating communities of activism as well as of thoughtfulness and scholarship.  As I was getting dressed around 6AM to be at the zendo by 6:30, I just stood still and let myself be with my thoughts of him, let myself be with that place within myself from which those thoughts arose.  Why do I wake this morning and think, so strongly, of David?

This Sunday, a half dozen people will cook dinner in his Berkeley apartment and discuss Blake's Prophetic Books, the section on Milton.  I should support that.  I have a long experience with many people expressing the desire for such communities of study, but know that even given this sincere desire, follow through is hard to come by.  But I should follow through.  Following through produces faith, and faith produces many lovely things.  I had promised myself not to drink coffee this morning, but with a bit of a sigh, I brewed a cup, turned my heater back on, did not walk to the zendo, and immersed myself in The Prophetic Works.  And after reading for two hours, stood up for a break and wrote this entry.  Sometimes, its okay to break various promises to oneself, promises to sit zazen, to not drink coffee - everything seems to be as it should be this morning.  And I will attend the dharma talk ;)       

Thank you dishes :)

Tonight was a special night at the temple for me.  Although I have been practicing, I haven't felt in touch with the path for about a month.  Something has been off - I haven't really felt anything I could call the spirit of zen.  But washing dishes in semi-silence this evening, I had that feeling again of actually knowing and feeling something about what zen is.

It's funny that just a few minutes before that, I was sending text messages in the dining hall.  I'd become a bit too cavalier, not being mindful of what the space is for.  While feeling truly blessed to have the Zen Center in my life, I'd also begun taking the temple for granted.  And while thinking a great deal about building sangha, it's become a bit too much of a social space for me - I've often felt like I'm going there to hang out.  Not that there's anything innately wring with that!  That social space is wonderful and important, but so is washing dishes, so is slowing down, so is being silent and just being.  Come to think of it, all those elements are really very much what I want of the Zen Center as a social space.  Just being with people, in a quiet way, just sharing presence, is a deeply social activity.

So I hope I can keep myself focused, not just on being physically present there, not only in reading books for some upcoming study group, and not only making friends, but in really being there to feel and cultivate something called zen.  And I hope to start writing this blog once again, which, having been feeling rather inauthentic recently, I have not been able to write.  These phases are all part of the growing process I suppose...

Before that...

This evening I am a very tired but satisfied boy, with no desire to think much at all.  So this is me writing a blog devoid of any intellectual effort whatsoever.  Ah....

1) A long, good day, primarily spent writing a thesis proposal: What notions of “civilized” and “uncivilized” do sixth graders bring with them into the classroom, and how does learning about historical resistance to civilization affect those notions? 

In other words, basically an excuse for me to study and teach historical resistance to the forces of civilization :) 

Really though, I have a hypothesis I want to test.  Studying resistance to civilization is one of the clearest ways to portray the intelligence of historically marginalized peoples, people like peasants who are stereotyped as rather dimwitted.  So I want to see how teaching these intelligences effects the notions students have of civilized and uncivilized, i.e., of who is smart and who is stupid, who is worthy of respect (and study) and who is not.   

2) Before all that, a lovely morning coffee with a friend from Young Urban Zen.  We talked about the recent proposal to form study groups, which has many of us excited.  I hope we can bring a great deal of sincerity to it!  We discussed how our continuous collective effort to understand the dharma would be one of the best ways to strengthen our young sangha.  Morning coffee with zen friends = one fine way to start the day!  In other words, start sending zen friends early morning coffee invites :) 

3) Before that, a way-seeking mind talk, which I always enjoy... people have so many stories and so many different ways of describing how they came to the path.

 

4) Before that, a lovely morning zazen.  It was one of the few times that I've sat with my eyes closed for the entire period.   I was in some deep, calm place because...

5) I woke up at 4AM and practiced pranayama.  Unable to sleep I had practiced at intervals all throughout the night.  I could feel my prana become clearer and clearer after each round, and when I finally fell asleep I had powerful dreams, from which I awoke with a calm desire to immediately reengage the practice.  All of which has me thinking, once again, of re-embracing the part of myself that is so drawn to yoga.    

 

Loving God

I spent the day caring for my mother who is recovering from a knee replacement.  Walking into the room in my parents house where I store most of my books, I automatically moved to the shelf on Christian mysticism and pulled out the Cloud of Unknowing and Gregory of Nyssa's The Life of Moses.  I find myself, this week, drawn more to the language in these books than to Buddhist language. My practice has been shallow recently, existing more as dull cerebral activity than as something I feel in the body.  I think this is due to discussing Buddhism in an unskilled way -so perhaps I should turn my attention to precepts on right speech.  However, at this moment my mind is not with the language of Buddhism but the language of Cristian mysticism, which I very much feel in my body.  

Last week a dear friend expressed her love of God to me.  We were simply catching up, and then there was a short pause on the phone before she said, "and... I have been loving God very much."  As she said this, because of the way she said this, I felt her love of God, and I felt myself loving her for loving God.  After our conversation, I lit candles and incense and sat on the zafu, becoming more present to that feeling of loving God.  I began to love God myself and to recall that feeling, which I first experienced through bhakti yoga, of letting go of the self, opening the body and heart, and allowing Gods love and presence to enter.  There is that saying, "if you want to believe in God, pray."  But even if there is no belief in God, it is possible to profoundly open ones heart to God - belief is not a precondition.  Through contemplation and meditation on God, regardless of belief, a feeling of being present to something and being filled with something arises.  So belief in God, especially belief in a certain concept of God, has never seemed to me the most important thing - unworried about belief, just find a way to open the heart to God.   

Sitting like this I spontaneously imagined myself praying with this woman, and the feeling I had was that I was married to her in God.  She was my dharma sister in God.  Loving God is like marrying Being and loving God with others can have the depth of connection that a romantic marriage has.  Now, this woman is incredibly beautiful and I love her but there is no romantic attachment or desire coming from either of us.  However as I felt all this my mind shifted to romance and I felt/thought, "the woman I marry, the energy between us will be one of loving God together."  Sometimes it is difficult for me to distinguish between a thought and a feeling - although this appears to be a thought, it was more a feeling in my body, a wordless knowledge in my body that unless I die I will marry a woman and we will deeply pursue the dharma together, we will pursue the dharma together in a profoundly loving way, and this to me is essentially indistinguishable from loving God and being filled with His love.  Considering this, another feeling arose which I have not had for quite some time: I felt keenly this mixture of a romance mixed with the love of God was what made me want to have children with a woman.  I hope my children are born out of two people loving God together or lovingly walking the path together.  

Some people might be surprised to hear me using this language of God, so I feel I should say something about that.  The words "believer", "agnostic" and "atheist" appear shallow to me.  These words all reduce religion to a matter of belief, which is something I am essentially unconcerned with.  I cannot use these words to describe myself because so many other religious experiences are, for me, more important than belief. 

Likewise, I am unconcerned with having any particular notion of God.  I have no notion of God as a being, as a force, as some mysterious thing that is present in being.  However, I will say that when I live well, I feel present and close to something infinitely deep and beautiful, and at times God is the best word for that.  I don't try to pin down exactly what this is because there is a time and a place to be unconcerned with pinning things down, with defining things, with saying such obvious things as, "well, this is probably just a feeling inside of yourself".  I am concerned, not with defining, but with having the feeling, and with spiritual exercises that serve to cultivate that feeling, that experience of loving and being loved by God.  If we feel the impulse to continuously define, we should examine where that comes from and why we need that. 

All that said there have been times in my life where I believed in God more than I believed in the sky above me or in my own breath.  I don't know quite how to express what I mean by believing in this way. The word is obviously rather tricky. 

People tend to choose me when they want to express their belief in God to someone.  Sometimes it happens at school.  I have had a number of students come into class after school, wanting to discuss their spiritual feelings with an adult who is capable of truly hearing them.  Their spiritual feelings often involve God.  It even happens at parties, people who have never met me will sense my openness to this topic, which so many people have difficulty discussing.  What I notice over and over again is that people who tell me they believe in God tend to have feelings similar to my own - God as something more mysterious or abstract than a being or a force or a whatever, God as something to feel in the heart more than to know in the mind.  So God seems to me, most importantly, to be a powerful human experience.  God is some kind of beautiful human experience that evades naming.  We should care for that experience, and part of that caring may be letting go of the concern for naming.  

Bodhisattvas, to care for others often means to care for God, to care for that mysterious feeling so many human beings carry in their hearts.      

Happy Thanksgiving! A post on the precept regarding sexuality.

It’s oddly appropriate for me to posting, by chance, on the subject of sexuality on Thanksgiving.  In the past, this holiday, and Easter as well, has been a time for refection on the sexual nature of much of existence.  The connection likely isn't so clear, but I'll get to that...

All through this week, I’ve been reflecting on the vow to not misuse sexuality.  And that reflection has opened up an incredibly large feeling in me of returning to something sacred.  Until my mid-twenties, when I began to focus on finding and creating my place in society, I had a highly sexualized view of the universe, which is one of many of the aspects of myself I unconsciously left behind when I left Arizona, left my partner, and began to figure out who I was as a professional, a teacher, a researcher, etc.  It’s interesting to consider myself in this light: like so many other people, I'm a being who has left essential parts of himself behind in the quest for meaningful but normative participation in society.  With reflection and the aid of the dharma, perhaps this doesn’t need to be the case. 

Reflecting on this precept has been a reawakening to the fact that a true understanding of myself and of being involves a sexual understanding, and an understanding of sexuality that goes far beyond what this society typically has to offer.  The connection between that sexual understanding and Thanksgiving is that Thanksgiving is a celebration of abundance, which is a celebration of fertility, of the sexual nature of life.  Sometimes there is no abundance on the surface – no copious amounts of food – but Thanksgiving is about a deeper abundance: one aspect of this deeper abundance is the abundance that is created when people work together and give freely and selflessly even when, materially, they have little.  This is an abundance of the heart.

Another form of abundance is the abundance we come to understand when we recognize that being is sacred, when we feel in our core the infinite interconnectedness that brought us this food and this existence.  Sexuality is at the core of that interconnectedness, the food we eat only exists because of its sexual nature, and we only exist because of foods sexual nature and because of our own.  If we go deep into Thanksgiving, we could give thanks for what makes this all possible, give thanks for the sexual nature of life by finding a way to feel this in our bodies and hearts.  How can we feel how deeply sacred sexuality is?  How deeply sacred our sexuality is, and the sexuality of the beings around us?  How can we profoundly understand that?  Cultivate that?  See that in others?  Help others see that?  How can we care for each other like this, support each other in discovering this?  And if we have trouble viewing sexuality in this mystical but profoundly realistic and grounded light, where does that come from?  Can we develop spiritual practices and modes of friendship that help us move beyond various social impediments and develop ourselves profoundly?  To me the vow regarding sexuality is a practice in working with these questions.   

But how does this connect to the wording not to misuse sexuality?  I know what it’s like for myself to feel the depth of my sexuality, the feeling of having a creative force flowing through me that connects me to the creative power of being in general.  I know what it’s like to identify with that and what it’s like not to identify with that: the deepest love I have ever experienced arose from this identification.  Such a vision of sexuality made it impossible not to see everything as sacred and to care for everything.  Its very much like seeing God's presence in all being, or understanding all being is buddha-being.  Sexuality can help us get to that!  Dis-identified with that sacred sexuality, my body isn’t as naturally oriented towards such deep love: I experience a disconnect from which I then have to try to love.  From this disconnect, instead of actually loving, I sometimes just think about loving, or instead of actually loving, the emotion I have is of wanting to love.  For me this disconnect leads clearly away from the nature of the bodhisattva.  When I examine what sexuality looks like on the bodhisattva path, I find it as fully awakening to ones sexuality.  I feel that I am misusing sexuality whenever my sexual energy takes me away from the bodhisattva path rather than deeper into it, I feel I am misusing sexuality whenever my sexual energy takes me away from feeling a profound connection with and love for all being.     

It has been quite a long time - it almost feels like another life - since I have sat in any seriousness with all this.  There have been some big shifts that led me back to it recently, but also a number of everyday instances over the last week.  Each of these instances, in some small way, involve working with the precept.  They also show that the precept, while perhaps ultimately lofty, doesn't have to be so...                                         

1)      Earlier this week I wanted to – and should have – expressed desire to a woman, but could not find the right words or gestures at the right moment.  I walked home feeling cowardly, confused about my failure to express what I wanted to, and ashamed at leaving her hanging with whatever unaddressed feelings and questions she may have.  As I sat with these feelings, at first I felt out of my element, like my sexual light was dim.  After a few minutes of being present with my breath and body, I began to feel that possibility of awakening to myself, to my sexuality, to my sexual strength and clarity.  I promised myself I would focus on this once again. 

2)      Later, a dear and sad friend needed to be held, and I was aware that I was only able to offer to hold her, and then to hold her so well, with such warmth and safety and presence to her energy, because I had sat with, felt, and considered my sexual energy the day before. 

3)      That same process allowed me to have a wonderful, open, and caring conversation about desire with a woman I care for as a friend.  I feel like the same sort of conversation could deepen a few friendships that I have, in which there is a palpable mutual attraction even though all that is desired is friendship.  Finding a way to navigate those desires, together, can be a profound way of knowing and caring for each other and being strong together.    

4)      I also began to reflect on how, distant from my sexual energy, I have far less to offer men.  Strong in my sexual nature, I have more care to offer, more presence, more sturdiness in self.  I also find myself in situations from time to time where I have to challenge negative masculine sexualities, and in those situations, its essential to show men a masculinity that is not made effeminate through love but is strengthened.  When I teach, young men often gravitate towards me because I exist as a healthy example of masculinity for them.  This has everything to do with me being in touch with my sexual nature.  Men, regardless of their sexual persuasion, are often searching for other men who are caring but also strong.  It is important for us to be around other men with healthy sexualities and to support each other in developing in this way.   

5)      Finally, a funny story: I was hanging out with a certain merchant-mariner friend of mine, a union man covered in a sailors tattoos.  We were talking about the Albrecht Durer engraving I have in my room, “St. Jerome in His Study”.  Him asking about it is symbolic of what kind of man he is, because people rarely ask about this picture – he is a man who notices things that might be meaningful to you.  As we talked I played an Italian pianist I adore, Ludovico Einaudi, and my friend immediately recognized it.  We began talking about classical music, and to make a long story short, floated the idea of going to the symphony or opera together.  “Man, this is crazy,” he said.  “I can’t even talk about classical music at work, what would the guys think of me?  I can’t have that!  So this is awesome just talking about this with a man.  But going to the opera together?  I just don’t know!”  We both found it interesting that we enjoy doing such things not only with lovers, but with women we are friends with.  But not with men!  We desire that feminine presence when listening to a symphony.  What is that about?  The conversation caused me to consider my male body and its interactions with other male bodies as well as the magic of women and all the secret things their presence gives to me.  (And yes, we are going to push our boundaries and see what it’s like to dress up nice and go out together!)

The vow to not misuse sexuality could be read simply as vow not to use your sexuality in a way that harms yourself or others.  As such, it’s a specification of the general rule to refrain from doing harm.  In all the vows, I tend to think of “refraining from harm” in this way: despite all the teachings on karma becoming twisted through all our various actions, to truly refrain from harm does not entail solely non-action, but also self-development.  As I see it the two exist in a dialectic, which speaks to the notion that living according to the precepts facilitates zazen and zazen facilitates the precepts.  

To turn the idea of refraining on its head, if I refrain from understanding and cultivating myself as a sexual being, I end up doing more harm than if I develop myself.  So if I truly want to refrain from harm, I will engage in sophisticated forms of non-action, but I will also actively create the type of self that will do the least harm and the most good.  Along these lines, the vow not to lie becomes, for me, a vow to devote myself to facilitating clarity in this world; the vow not to misuse sexuality becomes a vow to deeply understand my sexuality and to create the healthiest, most wonderful sexuality that I can for myself.  I also vow to see clearly, honor, and support the sexualities of all who I encounter.  From my perspective this is a bodhisattva vow to care for the sexual energy of all others, at all stages of life, and to love and contemplate the sexual nature of life. 

Becoming Dharma Teachers Together

I haven't posted for a while, and it’s not so much due to being busy with MA and family stuff as it is to writing material and then not posting it.  I've written a few unpublished posts that seemed to explode in many different directions, to the extent that I created folders to manage various fragments of thought.  At times while writing I've felt a certain type of excitement arise, when I began to touch on something that I didn't yet know how to express but felt I could become fluent with in the future: drag that over to the "revisit this!" folder and keep writing something else, that I also most likely don't know how to express! 

So that's been happening, and also much of the opposite: rather than writing in a hurried inspiration, I've also been doing a lot of sludging, a lot of staring at a page I spent an hour writing, and thinking, "this is nothing”, "this is just a bunch of intellectual crap", “it really isn’t my place to write this”, or "did I really just write a bunch of stuff I don't actually feel or believe?"  About that last one, the writing process for me can really lead to a lot of dead-ends, but for some reason I have to travel all the way to the end of a thought before I realize it really has nothing to do with what I actually think... (anyone else relate to that one?  I’m especially curious about that process.) 

All this, accompanied by the feeling, sometimes, of "why am I writing this blog?  Is this really about my practice at all?"  At a glance, it may seem that of course this blog is about my practice, but there have been times where I really haven't felt that to be the case, and that has made it difficult to feel some of this writing is legit.  However, I continue to write even during those times when I feel it’s taking me away from zazen because I feel that ultimately, this writing is less about this moment  and more about a process and a practice: what I need to do is not stop writing because I can't express something, but continue to learn how to write, to learn how to write in a way that both better expresses practice and deeply facilitates it.  Eventually I feel that the writing can become as legit as zazen.       

So practice: I haven’t been writing about it because I get caught up in trying to express God knows what.  For example,  the last few days, each evening I’ve been trying to write out my feelings on the precept regarding sexuality, and while that’s important and those reflections are a part of my practice, trying to portray something so large, on a regular basis, is not what I’m setting out to do.  So what happened today?  That’s more like it.  My practice, it hasn't been as deep and sincere this week as in prior weeks.  I've been more in my head, and less in the body of zazen.  I haven’t been so grounded in the body, especially in the calm body.   Coming from the head space, there have been a number of less than fluid interactions with the world and with people.  In particular, there have been a couple of interactions and conversations that could have been quite beautiful if my head was not ruling, and if my body and heart were leading.  My intelligence absolutely arises from being grounded in my body, and I often fail miserably with words if I am stuck in a place of thinking.  Like speaking, all of my good writing actually arises from my body, which is perhaps another reason why I have not been posting…

Practice has been more difficult partly because I have not had a practice discussion for a few weeks.  I've been sitting bi-weekly docusan with Jordan, who's on vacation right now so we have a gap in our practice discussion schedule.  This is my first experience of feeling like I really need those regular practice discussions, and a teacher.  Of course, I have wanted these in the past, but now I am feeling more astutely how important they are as aids to practice.  The meetings that we've had so far have really helped me stay on track, have really helped me feel and stay focused on what my practice means in this moment.         

On another note,  I've noticed that a couple younger folks at YUZ (Young Urban Zen) have been consistently asking me questions or looking to me, and of course my natural response is to take them under wing.  Which led me, last night, back to the feeling that the Zen community has given me so very, very much, and one of the many reasons I would like to practice is so that I can give back, especially by helping others pursue the dharma and realize themselves to the greatest extent possible.  Related to this, one of my dearest friends, a woman who runs a farm up in Oregon and who is a true dharma sister, wrote to me for the first time in many months saying that she had been moved to tears by a few blog entries.  She wrote that she knows, deep in her heart, that I am a dharma teacher, and she expressed her desire to walk the dharma path together regardless of geographic distance.  Which in turn led me to tears, but also to a sense of... some kind of existential strangeness: the thought of me as a dharma teacher felt ridiculous, or perhaps less negatively, somewhat silly. 

But as soon as I had that initial reaction, a much bigger feeling arose: isn't this ultimately what I want from YUZ?  And from the sangha and from my life?  If I look at my deepest desires, what I truly want, and also believe in, is that my peers in the sangha will all grow together, deepen their dharma paths together, learn to love in the deepest ways possible together, and as a part of living a good life together become dharma teachers together. The world needs many of them.  So I hope that we can all support each other in embodying the dharma and in becoming people who offer the dharma to the world in various ways that suit each of us, perhaps through dharma talks or books that truly do embody the spirit of the dharma, perhaps through music and art, or through political actions, but especially through everyday actions grounded in love, in clarity, in calm. 

Reflecting on the Forms

So, a few days ago I arrived in Denver to help my brother move back to California.  And move we did!  In about eight hours we packed the U-Haul, him packing everything and me hauling boxes to the truck and cleaning in between.  The last items to throw in were our hiking packs.  We closed up the truck, spent a moment looking at the full moon and the moonlit snow, then looked at each other and decided that rest could wait.  Taking shifts we burned through 22 hours of driving and arrived home Saturday night, giving me time to rest up and ride to Green Gulch for my friend Naomi’s jukkai ceremony on Sunday. 

Naomi and I were guest students together close to two years ago at Green Gulch, and watching her take this step after working on the farm for over a year sincerely moved me.  In fact, I was so happy I think I was a bit goofy: I had a big boyish grin on my face and could barely speak, probably giving her family the impression I had a big crush on her which is in no way the case.  In fact, I don’t know Naomi that well, but the moment filled me with silly joy because, knowing her well or not, I believe in the depth of her path.    

A couple things jump out at me from that evening.  One has to do with attachment to the forms. 

Four women were taking the precepts that evening, which involves lots of bowing and prostrating.  At one point, a woman forgot to bow to Linda, and as she walked away, I heard someone whisper in a somewhat agitated tone of voice, “You’re supposed to bow.”  And I calmly thought to myself, “not bowing was not a mistake.  That is just fine.  But it was a mistake for whoever whispered that that to be agitated by it, and a deeper mistake to try and correct someone else, after the fact, and cause them agitation.”  Not being in the moment, in this case as in most, meant not fully being a bodhisattva, not fully accepting someone and causing them agitation. 

The forms we enact – the different forms of bowing, of prostrating, of ringing bells, etc. – can become attachments that restrain us from buddha-mind.  I notice people wanting perfection – not only for themselves to perfect the forms, but wanting others to have perfect form.  I remember when I first showed up at the Zen Center, clumsily copying whatever the person next to me was doing.  There were a few times when I felt agitated or embarrassed for “messing up”.  But each time those emotions crept in, I was usually able to use the next breath to be with the moment: there is no messing up, just whatever happens.  I recall thinking a few times: “This is a zen center!  People probably don’t think in terms of messing up or getting it right here.”  Oh, naivety!    

Perhaps if we are with whatever happens in the moment, we are with the true forms.  If this is the case, then the City Center is an excellent place to practice, because it is filled with people coming off the streets who have no idea how and when to bow and prostrate and chant.  I feel lucky because I personally love it when someone new sits next to me and has no idea how to brush off the zabuton or even how to sit.  I feel lucky because I have heard other people talk about how they get distracted by these “imperfections.”  But they are not imperfections.  There are plenty of crazy zen stories where the master does something like let a raging bull into the zendo because his students have become obsessed with or just complacent or used to the forms.  And there are stories about zen masters who, witnessing the whole-heartedness of a students “imperfect” form, bow deeply to them of even take on that form themselves. 

My practice is to have a calm mind as I brush the zabuton and fluff the zafu, to never be in rush while in the zendo, to notice if someone new is next to me and create the space for them to watch how things are done, which includes giving them good energy; to be appreciative as I take my seat, to wait for another so we can bow together, and to think of everything as absolutely perfect, especially if a raging bull one day wrecks havoc on our peaceful zendo.        

The happiness/suffering of healing and caring

A beautiful, crisp morning in Golden, Colorado, a small town just outside of Denver where my brother lives. Went for walk while the sunrise was just peaking over the horizon.  A gorgeous landscape of plateaus and peaks, sprinkled with snow from last week. 

People have been expressing concern about my brother’s well-being.  However, although this is a moment of struggle, this is also a very, very good moment.  He’s taken the first major step in healing himself, which is admitting and taking seriously that he has a very big problem to overcome, and that he needs help overcoming.  While I have many emotions, my predominant one is happiness.  Suffering certainly also exists in this moment, but I do not mind so much.  I tend to only mind forms of suffering that create feelings of distance; forms of suffering that involve being close – to people, to myself, to the world – are sufferings I am happy to embrace.

In fact, at times I even cultivate such suffering when I see that beauty will arise from that engagement.  For example, sometimes loving deeply means walking directly into the heart of suffering, noticing everything you can about that suffering, and tending to it with great care.  I hope I have the clarity and strength to make that choice to engage suffering when such moments arise, rather than walk away from love and closeness to get away from suffering.  I tend to prefer the suffering that involves closeness over the lack of suffering that involves distance.  So if you see me suffering, don't worry so much unless you see that it is a suffering of distance!  If it is a suffering of closeness, chances are I am happy to be there.

In other words I am very happy to be here :)

My brother knows that he is – at long last – doing what is right for himself, and I can see that he feels good about that even though the times ahead will continue to be painful.  At least it will be painful with a sense of moving forward, and there will be much love mixed in with it.  

Now that the healing progress has begun, let us hope that he heals to the greatest extent possible, and fully embraces and manifests the great beauty that is in his heart.      

Ah, he has just woken up, and looks ten times better than he did last night!  We’re off to take a twenty minute walk to the nearest coffee shop, which will be a great way to start the day together, and then we’ll start packing and taking care of business.

Love to all of you,

Lynn   

Full moon, caring, & doing what you must

I haven’t posted for awhile, but I’ve been writing a great deal.  I’ve actually been reflecting and writing on the precepts, in an effort to own them in some way: what do these vows mean to me?  In the morning I’ve been sitting with them, and as something arises, I write it.  From a state of contemplation, I gain awareness of what I cannot see just by thinking about the words on the page.  A warm feeling will arise… “Ah, this is what not lying means to me...”  Not lying may sound obvious, like a law, but as a law it is not very subtle, not rich, there is nothing to investigate within the self. Writing is a way to begin to make the precepts my own flesh.  But I found myself not wanting to post those reflections.  Perhaps I should despite the fact that they still sit in their cocoon.  After all, I originally started this blog for that purpose – to portray a practice in the making. 

Those posts will come later.  There were many things I wanted to write about this week, but I think I’ll let them go. 

This has been a beautiful and tough night.  The full moon ceremony, where we reaffirm our vows, was wonderful.  Prior to the ceremony, we broke up into small groups and discussed the precepts we’ve been working with.  I said, “I’m not sure if this relates to the precepts.  But a month ago I parted ways with a woman I had developed a deep care for.  Something clicked last week and I felt fine about that separation.  I felt like I could care for her, deeply, as a friend.  I had this feeling that as friends, we could sit with the desire and pain together – in other words, continue to care for each other, continue to be integral to one another’s lives.  I had this image of shifting from being lovers to dharma sisters and brothers.   But this is not possible for her.  And so I find myself struggling with letting go of that desire to care.  I don’t want to walk away from wanting to care for her.  I want to let myself continue to want to love her in this way.  At the same time, I feel I have to let go of that beautiful desire.  I don’t know if this desire relates to the precepts or not, but this is what I wanted to say.”  I truly appreciated the response: “Some say that all of the precepts are contained in zazen.  So in sitting with this you are living with the precepts.”  I bow to these words.       

From there we went to the Buddha Hall.  Because I was one of the last to enter, the tatami mats were full, so I had to kneel and prostrate on the hard tiled floor surrounding the tatami mats.  I wasn’t the only one, but everyone else on the tiles put cushions under their knees.  I decided not to.  As I made the first prostration on the hard ground, I considered that my knees would suffer from the many prostrations to come, and I simply thought, “today I will just feel the hard ground.”  My knees certainly started to hurt, but it felt right to me.    

Walking out of the Buddha Hall, I turned my phone on, and noticed I had a message.  It was my mother.  My brother was going through a major crisis in Denver and she was hoping I could get on a plane tomorrow morning and help him move back to California.  There really was no other option, so that’s what I’ll be doing tomorrow.  Fresh from hearing that, and various painful details I won’t share here, I went out to dinner with a friend from the Zen Center who I’ve been hoping to get to know better.  Numerous times during dinner I had to talk with my mother, and then my brother called me from the hospital where he was detoxing.  Somehow, we were able to have a lovely dinner together, and I was even happy that she was present with me in such a bare, revealing situation.  I cut the evening short and went home to talk more with my brother, who I’ll see tomorrow at 4PM in Denver.  After saying goodnight, I experienced that terribly masculine phenomenon of not being able to cry although my soul was screaming out for it.    

Wrote this post quickly and almost didn’t write it at all.  Very glad I did.  All the best to whoever reads it.  I hope everyone finds ways to care deeply for one another, even when it is difficult.   

Reflections on the Oakland Strike and Occupy Movement

Ok... after days of being too busy with my MA to write about Oakland's general strike, here it is!  Lots of analysis below so I thought I'd start with this video I found on youtube of the dance circle I was groovin' in on the ports.  Have to admit, I had a bit too much fun downloading it and watching in slow mo :)    

The Oakland strike and occupy movement have been taking a great deal of my attention recently, and so this post will, unabashedly, have nothing to do with Zen - unless Zen happens to have something to do with aiding a society in its pursuit of understanding and finding ways to challenge major economic inequities which lie at the root of manifold sufferings.  I don't mean to suggest that as practitioners we have an obligation to support OWS - Occupy Wall Street - but it's at least worthwhile to consider the connection between bodhisattva vows and meaningful political action..  

And because it's so very difficult to figure out how to be involved in a way that feels right - or even to think about politics in a way that feels right, that promotes clarity, calm, and loving-kindness - it's also worthwhile to consider what role the sangha, and individual dharma brothers and sisters, might play in helping us grow in our own political consciousness and political actions.  I know that I personally have not developed my political awareness to any heightened degree largely due to feeling the need for conversations and actions that are focused on speaking and acting mindfully - with calm, clarity and care.  I have have had difficulty finding and creating such a situation, and so all too often have not elevated myself politically even though I have a great desire to do so.  In Buddhism we talk about "right" or "skillful" speech and action, meaning speech and actions that facilitate the bodhisattva vows.  What does right or skillful political speech and action within a sangha trying to raise its political consciousness look like?

Back to OWS. As I see it, OWS is not so much about coming up with specific goals and demands or providing a leader, but about bringing the masses of people together to figure out problems that politicians, and perhaps the economic and political infrastructure itself, seems unable to solve.   Right now, many people don't support the movement because they don't see any leadership or any cogent demands.  Making demands is actually far too easy and may even undermine the movement, centralized leadership may have a negative impact as well.  I'll say more about that below.  

This moment is about igniting a national dialog that will, hopefully, if enough people put the work in, give birth to a better society through means yet to be discovered.  The ideal is that Americans, in general, take this moment to talk to each other and raise their political consciousness and level of involvement in whatever they come to decide is the best course of action.  Every factory, family, school and sangha can be doing exactly this.  (If this sounds Marxist - no, I'm not.) 

The General Strike 

To begin with the end, I arrived home from the general strike around midnight.  I wanted to put something good in my body, so went out to the local late night grocer to get some bananas to put in a smoothy (orange juice, yogurt, bananas, spirulina and whey powder.  MMM!) At the counter was a Latino man, and we began talking.  He was passionate: "The strike is bad!  Why strike?  People lose money!  Workers need money!  We need to save every penny.  It's terrible."  We walked out into the midnight parking lot talking politics. "Yes," he says.  "Something needs to be done.  But I just don't know.  You vote for a politician, but as soon as they're in, they forget all about you.  So we must pray."  When he said that I immediately put my hands in gassho (prayer position) and was surprised when he did the same.  We shook hands and bid each other the best of luck. 

During the night, I had watched a few trucks blocked from entering the port, and it was emotionally difficult for me to watch hard working men growing exasperated and desperate about not being able to get into work and get paid.  From the looks on the faces in the blockade, it was difficult for most of us.

So why strike if it hurts workers?  

The idea of a basic strike is for workers, working in a specific business, to shut that business down in order to gain better working conditions. In effect, workers during a strike show that they, ultimately, control the work (although capital, especially in a global economy, often finds numerous ways around this.) But a general strike is a different creature entirely, it’s not a grievance against any particular company. Rather, by stepping outside of work and school, it’s a way to show, viscerally, that the people are all in this together. In a general strike people who normally don’t ever talk or even see each get to see their commonalities, get a sense that they are all in something together.

At the port, blocking the trucks, the main point emphasized was disrupting the flow of capital - probably worth $4 million that night alone.  So trucks in the port could park, and their drivers go home, but a truck could not enter or leave any street that led to or from the shipping complex.  Why stop the flow of capital?  I provide a link below from CBS where protesters, including Angela Davis (who I marched with for awhile), attempt to answer this question - but I think unconvincingly.  They mention hurting corporations, but I don't consider that to have been the point, nor am I so interested in that.  I don't think this particular general strike (which, honestly, it wasn't by a long shot,) hurt big corporations.  That would take a prolonged amount of time.  

I realize this may not seem like a big deal to others, but for me the efficacy of the strike was in bringing the city together, dialoging about common grievances, realizing commonalities, discovering means for collaboration, and engaging in powerful symbolic actions.  For me, that was the point of walking out of work and school and shutting down banks and a port.  The point was to raise political consciousness and build community.  Showing strength by shutting down capital facilitated those goals by mobilizing an entire city to collectively reflect on the nature of capital.  I don't think stopping the flow of capital for a day is nearly as important as that collective reflection, alliance building, and inspiration - in terms of sheer capital, I suspect this may in fact hurt ordinary people more than the 1%. 

Media Coverage         

A clear mind and open heart certainly facilitates such an endeavor: so thanks to, first off, the thousands of good hearted people involved in this, to the various interfaith groups who hosted prayer meetings, discussion groups, and meditation sessions during the general strike, and to the Buddhist Peace Fellowship: 

 

I took this picture of the meditation group when the 5PM march to the ports was already swinging, and most people had left.  It provided a space of calm which hundreds of people used, many of them for just a quick five minute re-energizer, over the course of the day.   

Below, at the Oakland port with the city and crowd behind us.  The crowd stretched back a good mile, and further into the port another quarter mile. The crowd felt endless, and seeing the full stretch while crossing the overpass - both ends going off beyond eyesight - was the most ecstatic part of night for many people.  It felt like the entire city, in all its wonderful diversity, was there.  I've seen the numbers 3,000 to 7,000 floated by all the mass television news channels - there's no way it was so few.  Suspiciously, I have yet to see a helicopter shot that follows anything close to the full length of the crowd. 

As the sun set, people continued to stream in...

Here is one of the best clips I've found by the mass television media. 

 

It provides the best aerial shot of the crowd I’ve seen (at 19 seconds into the clip), but I'm estimating that it only captures a quarter of the length of the march - the entire shot is taken within the port, leaving out the 3/4-mile long overpass and entrance which were also jam-packed with people.  Not to mention, there were probably a thousand people deep inside the port engaged in blockade actions in multiple locations.  In the segment, CBS speaks with Angela Davis (at 2:35 in the clip), specifically asking how the strike helped.  A few others were asked, but I don’t think anyone voiced the message well, which is a major problem: all that came across was, "we're trying to hurt big business, and its important moment to get together".  I think having no centralized leadership is a good thing right now, but people in the movement need to prioritize everyone learning how to articulate positions in the best possible way.  And I don't think this is the job of the GA's (general assemblies,) because peoples views differ, but I think the GA's should emphasize that people should work on the articulation of whatever they believe.  

 4:45 in the clip exemplifies how the media reduces protestors perspectives to “venting frustrations over bailouts, and what they say is corporate greed.”  (Their emphasis.)  I applaud the way the anarchist Black Bloc was handled at 5:50 in the clip – CBS made a strong statement and provided good footage showing that the general movement strongly disagrees with their tactical destruction.  However, I'm worried that this treatment was rare - I found more footage akin to the clip below by ABC, with a sole focus on property destruction.  It's well-designed to make the movement look bad, briefly nodding to the fact that only a small amount of people engaged in destructive acts in order to keep up the mask of being unbiased.  Even John Stewart, reporting the next day, discussed solely the property destruction.

 

It's extremely problematic that people who haven’t been involved in the movement consider it to be widely reported.  The truth is that very little has been reported; in this case wide coverage means wide misinformation.  Even the best of the the mass media leaves out, much less analyzes, perspectives and messages that are essential to understanding the movement.  To get more than soundbites on the perspective of those involved, you either have to be there, or turn to the world of academic blogs which are doing the work that media sometimes seems designed not to do.  So here we go...

 

The Problematics of Demands, Leadership, and Participating in the Political Structure 

As Frank Pasquale writes in the blog Balkanization, “…it's pretty predictable what will happen once demands get issued officially. If they're too ambitious, the movement will be dismissed as socialism. If they're moderate, it will be dismissed as stealth Obamaism, and the protesters will be condescendingly asked "why can't you just participate in the political system as it is?

“The protesters realize that they, like much of the bottom 90% of society, are on an economic playing field that is tilted against them. They feel that normal channels of political change are blocked (especially given corporate influence over the Democratic party, the usual target of egalitarian reformist energy). Addressing these issues will take a lot of thought, reflection, and debate.”

I think these are essential points to consider, but that are difficult to consider.  The temptation to ask for demands is strong, and so is the temptation to create them.  I'm impressed that OWS hasn't given in to that temptation.  Demands are tempting because they provide structure and direction - but such structure may have a downside: what happens once OWS is no longer open ended but clearly defined? Can the political infrastructure possibly work with the type of demands that would be asked for?  It's pretty clear that most people in OWS don't think presenting demands to a political party would have much effect.  Even if if we disagree, it's an interesting thought experiment to consider: if you wanted to see political change of the sort that the political system simply could not supply, then what? 

The point is that demands would automatically pigeonhole OWS within some pre-xisting, ineffectual political category.  Using a standard political language would make OWS more legible, but I think wrestling with the illegibility of non-standard concepts is a good idea right now, even if that process is messy.  Right now things are fluid and ambiguous, and this might be a time to tolerate ambiguity and practice the deeply suppressed art of political imagination.  Imagining yet another third party to compete within the two party system is not the answer that's being sought.  What needs to be imagined is difference. 

If the immediate urge is to create familiar structures and use familiar language, it may be interesting to try and seriously consider the potential benefits of not creating or replicating structures and language that we are so used to.  It may be interesting to take note of what it feels like to consider unfamiliar political structures and use unfamiliar political dialect.  I know that for some, this brings a feeling of freedom, for others, tightening up and resistance.  What's behind all that?  Perhaps this is getting too esoteric, but I think that noticing the somatics of this shows how political concepts have entered our bodies in some way, and it is difficult to let go of what has shaped us.  In a way that's actually what I'm most interested in, which I think makes sense for someone devoted to zazen - the art of noticing and releasing what's being held onto.  But I'm staying afield. 

Regardless of where we stand, its a good idea to consider the benefits of political imagination.

As far as considering the strategy of no leadership, I found it useful to consider Bernard Harcourts article in the New York Times, in which he makes an interesting distinction between civil and political disobedience.  

“Civil disobedience accepted the legitimacy of political institutions, but resisted the moral authority of resulting laws. Political disobedience, by contrast, resists the very way in which we are governed: it resists the structure of partisan politics, the demand for policy reforms, the call for party identification, and the very ideologies that dominated the post-War period."

Clearly, successful political disobedience requires mass amounts of people doing some serious rethinking of the way things are.  OWS has succeeded in bringing masses of people together in acts of political imagination.  At this point I don't think the occupations themselves don't need to multiply - but the act of mass political re-imagining does.  

Harcourt continues:  "Occupy Wall Street, which identifies itself as a 'leaderless resistance movement with people of many political persuasions,' is politically disobedient precisely in refusing to articulate policy demands or to embrace old ideologies. Those who incessantly want to impose demands on the movement may show good will and generosity, but fail to understand that the resistance movement is precisely about disobeying that kind of political maneuver.”

 

Goals of OWS

The following excerpt is a discussion of goals from a sociologist of the occupy movement, Hannah Chadeayne Appel.  But these goals are not demands. 

"Some of the more specific goals of the movement are recognizably liberal and achievable within our current political economy: 

• more progressive taxation policies including a definitive end to the Bush tax cuts;
• new regulation, and renewed enforcement of existing regulation of large banks; 
• regulations on the mis-allocation of capital toward speculation and fictitious investment vehicles, steering it toward productive uses in infrastructure, the arts, and other paths that will create employment and the greatest good for the greatest number.
• banning of private campaign finance 

Some of the more specific goals require imaginative work:

• How can we end the false scarcity created in this moment of global financial panic? We CAN afford to build an inclusive society in which all citizens have affordable access to their basic needs. What would that require?
• What would popular control of the financial system look like? How can we democratize economic analysis?
• What would it look like for credit unions and cooperative businesses to play a larger role in our economy?"

Some of these later "imaginative" goals are already getting attention, thanks to the massive amount of energy that has recently been mobilized, which I think has been the Occupy Movements greatest feat.  Today is bank transfer day: Moveon has received a pledge from over 60,000 people to move their money today, but Credit Unions all over the country are reporting that membership rates have been quadrupling and even doubling in the last few weeks. Meanwhile, the treasury is about to be occupied, an action supported by many unions. 15,000 nurses have pledged to march, and they have specific demands: a tax on financial transactions.  And as occupations in some cities begin to take on particular identities, some are beginning to formulate specific demands, especially the occupation in Washington D.C.

No one knows exactly where all this energy is going. The actions that have taken place thus far are inspiring but small in comparison to really ending false scarcity and gaining popular control of the financial system.  The important thing is that energy is there and that we can do something with it. 

Enough with this "serious stuff"! 

Ah, such serious matters!  But it was joyful on the street... after spending time with many friends earlier in the day, I had been meditating and then marching by myself for a few hours.  And then a drum circle emerged, led by 15 or so mostly middle aged women with unending reserves of energy.  One person moved into the circle to dance, and then another, and I jumped in.  Soon, someone tapped me on the shoulder... my dancing friend Lara!  We both yelled in delight, "Of course I would find you here!"  And lo and behold, with thousands of people around, we found four friends in that dance circle.  You've already seen the video, right?  Here are some pics.

There are miles and miles of roads in the port, and people were gathered in various spots to block trucks from loading and unloading and thus block the international flow of capital.  I went walking off by myself to observe a truck blockage, and half a mile down the road, which was dark and barely sprinkled with people more dedicated to an all night blockage and potential teargassing, arrests, etc, I ran into this....

A TACO TRUCK!  

Yes, hungry protesters were overjoyed.  I didn't partake, but someone told me that the taco truck was there to serve the truckers, and probably made quite a bit more money serving us...

For those of you who have read this far, I hope you enjoyed my adventure and analysis!  Bon Voyage! 

There is always an internal light available, And so you will always be infinitely beautiful. I hope you practice whatever brings you to that light.

Last night I had a moment of harshly judging myself.  I didn’t have the right words to say in what felt like an essential situation.  I felt terrible about not having the right words – words that would portray something beautiful, and that would be healing.  In fact, I was couldn't find any words at all.  I said nothing and walked away with a heavy heart.

Thank goodness for the morning.   As I lit incense and prostrated to the path before me, I thought of my heavy judgment against myself the previous night and smiled.  Slowly breathing in… “Ah, the things I do to myself!”  I laughed out loud, and let go.  It’s ok to not have the right words. We all fumble from time to time, get awkward, and it can feel terrible, but we will always be infinitely beautiful.  It's essential to remember this about ourselves and others.  If I ever see another fumbling with their words, especially if I am hoping they have the perfect words for me, the perfect presence, may I see their infinite beauty instead... and the beauty of the moment we are sharing.

It's very rare for me to accomplish that unless I have a solid practice.  Of course, even with practice, I just touch the tip of the iceberg.

Lighting the incense, making the prostrations: these physical ritualistic actions allowed me to let go.  Lighting incense and touching my head to the floor fills me with the sense of the beauty of the path and the choice to follow it.  Feeling this automatically and swiftly negated any remaining judgment of myself and of anything else: in the posture of full commitment to Buddhism, they vanished. 

I have these wonderful resources: ritual, prayer, zazen, the breath, sensing into my body… more and more, the precepts, and just taking a moment to be still and notice whatever is happening.  These resources are always there for me to help me reorient my energy.  As I consider last night, I think to myself, “I practice alone in my room, and I practice with people in the zendo.  But for the most part I have not brought these powerful tools into my friendships and loves.”

Right now I am thinking of dharma brothers and sisters: those friends who love and support one another on the path, people to whom I can more easily say, “wait a second, I’m talking too quickly.  My speech is frayed and is fraying my mind.  I am not speaking with clarity and love.  Can we take a moment while I try to be more present with how I’m speaking?”  Only, if you are close, you don’t have to say that, you just give them a look, or they give you a look.      

It is becoming more important for me to let others see me as someone with true intentions to walk this path.  Zen is not just an interesting thing that I do, it’s who I am, it’s the way I shape myself.  I feel like I’m made for it.  And I need it.  So I also need to say more often to those people closest to me, “I feel like I need to sit right now.  I’m going to go do that.”  Or, “Would you like to sit with me?  Cook a silent meal together?  Pray over our wonderful food together?  Find ways to be more present with each other and loving of one another?”  Because this is how I want to live my life, yet even with those closest to me, I rarely make it my intention to live that way around them, or with them, and so that internal light, that clarity and love that is always inside me, plays a far lesser role in my relationships than I would hope.  One of my deepest desires is to live with others in such a way that we all develop clarity and love together.  So I hope I get up the guts and figure out how to ask a few people about being dharma brothers and sisters and supporting each other in this.  It's not just that I'm shy about it, it's a deep thing to place in front of another... 

Ritual feels like a tangent at this point, but just a few thoughts: ritual also helps me tap into internal light – I realize I almost never use the phrase, usually I talk about being calm and loving but it’s all the same – and I think it would help many others if they could play with it more and figure out how to feel, in their body, in their heart, what the true intention is.  What is the feeling, not only of the bow or the prostration, but of fluffing the zafu?  I know many people at the Zen center don’t like the ritual aspects so much, but I think there’s a universe to be discovered there.  Rituals seem strange to people in this modern world, and I think part of that has to do with rather shallow conceptions of religion, but also of the human body.  This body, this heart, this mind, are not separate things.  Ritual can be many things, one aspect is the art of using the body to tap into internal light and actualize the most worthy intentions.  Ritual is part of that bigger question, "How can we use our bodies to facilitate becoming more calm, clear sighted, and loving?" 

Breathing Love Deeply into my Being

I revisited the post ‘Stow Lake’ from the 18^th.  Eleven days ago, feeling a fresh heartache, I wrote that I was “breathing love deeply into my being, and I don’t think I’m going to stop soon.”  Love was an organic, healing reaction that arose from that moment of much sadness, almost seeming to creep out of my pores.    

But the moment shifts so quickly.  Business with other things – from MA to Occupy – meant that I did stop soon.  It has also meant that I have not been tending to my heart and heartache and the image of her in my heart.  It’s so easy to let the energy disperse, to make myself busy, to forget what the true work is, especially if such forgetfulness means to forget sadness and other forms of hurt.  Forgetting,covering things up, dispersing energy - is not so beautiful. I would like to stay in this place of loneliness a little longer, and to go a little deeper. 

And to continue to breath love deeply into my being. 

Breath is not the only avenue: may I practice in such a way that my every action facilitates love in my being, and in being-in-general. 

In the morning, may my first thoughts be of love and thankfulness for my first waking breaths.  May I realize how sacred and powerful they are.  Even before rising from bed, may I breath love deeply into my body and calmly pay homage to the miracle of a new day.  Standing, may I notice my feet on the ground, the air on my skin, the quality of energy throughout my body, behind my eyes, in my thoughts.   And may I let love flow into all that I notice.  Noticing the sounds of the world, may I love those sounds, and allow them to become gates of love.  Noticing my sight, may I allow the way I see and all that I see to fill my being with love.    

May I breath love deeply into my being.  May I think love deeply into my being.  May I feel love deeply into my being.  May I see love deeply into my being.  May I hear love deeply into my being.  All being is Buddha-being, all being is dharma-gate being.  Dharma gates are boundless gates of love; I vow to enter them.  Buddhas way is an unsurpassable love; I vow to become it.  Contemplating the precepts, may I focus on how each facilitates a calm and loving energy that supports all being.  And over time, through the progress of my path and the deepening of my love, may I learn to help others love as deeply as can be done. 

Buddhist Robert Thurman Speaking at Occupy Wall Street

At dinner a few days ago, a few of us were talking about this youtube clip of Robert Thurman, a famous Buddhist teacher, speaking at Occupy Wall Street

And here he gives a fun lecture on capitalism :)

If anyone hasn't seen how intense it got in Oakland on Tuesday - and wants to - here's a short clip.  So important to be able to stay calm and think clearly in such moments...

And, just for fun, a picture of me and a few friends just before the recent meditation in Union Square, where over a hundred people showed up, including many from City Center and Green Gulch.