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  I've written a few unpublished posts that seemed to explode in many different directions, to the extent that I created folders to manage various fragments of thought.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.