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.   

Not Sitting, I am Reminded to Sit

Prior to the post... a high light of last night was meeting Rebecca Solnit.  I simply walked up to her and said, "Your work has meant a lot to me."  And it truly, truly has... in many ways.  She writes of a spirituality and politics grounded in a love of the earth and everything flesh and blood.  She simply replied,  "what's your name?"  "Lynn."  We exchanged a warm handshake and smile. "Lynn, it's nice to be occupying with you." 

During the last two days, focused on the Occupation, I have broken a vow to myself to sit daily zazen.  I’m not upset with myself in any way about that.  Life happens, and I’m happy to embrace it.  But not sitting these last days, I’m reminded that zazen is really about embracing life, because in the act of not sitting, I was keenly aware that I was quickly becoming less present – and less of everything that accompanies presence, such as intelligence and love. 

If my life involves the occupation, then zazen is about being present with the occupation.  Zazen would involve being intelligent about the occupation, including being able to make the best decisions in the moment, witness many emotions without taking them on myself or feel overwhelmed by them, hear many conflicting ideas without getting trapped in confusion or attachment to any one of them, and to consider future actions I may want to take.  It would involve seeing the people I interact with clearly, listening to them well, being present to their being, and existing for them in the way that is most helpful.  It involves being present with myself when I have judgments, fears, or any other feelings, being ok with them, and calmly letting them go if that is what’s best. 

Last night around 1AM, someone yelled out a false warning that police buses were approaching, and as I poured vinegar onto my handkerchief to pacify the potential teargas, I felt my jaw clench.  And then, when I heard it was a false alarm, a beautiful woman standing next to me, who I had never met before, let out a big exhale and let her arm drop onto my shoulder.  I said, “tense, huh?” and she looked right into my eyes and nodded.  I was completely sucked into the charge between us – which is a lovely thing – but right now, I’m trying to step back from the fire of sexuality so that I can gain some insights into who I am and want to be as a sexual being.  (It’s less the recent heartbreak that has made me want to consider this, and more the increase in practice – yoga as well as zazen.  These practices have deeply informed my sexuality in the past, while living deep in the Arizona desert years ago, and I am feeling that it is time to let them inform my sexuality once more.  A tangent that will hopefully turn into future entries!) 

In that moment, there was no presence, just an animal urge that at this time in my life would be emotionally unhealthy to indulge in.  So it felt good to smile at her and then step back.  Still, I judged myself for my anxiety and desire for sex – well, not for the desire, but for the feeling of being sucked into it, trapped in it - by which I mean, the impulse to present myself as a sexual being to her, to direct sexual energy in a certain way, dominated the actions of my mind, my body language, etc.  It was a reactive state.  What I've been trying to do is certainly not to have no desire, but to attend to it in the moment: to be less driven by it, in order to know that desire, and myself, more intimately.  To top it off I judged myself for not sitting zazen: “Ah, if only I had been sitting zazen these last two days, I would be dealing with this anxiety and desire in a much richer way...”       

It’s really pretty funny, because it’s true, but I also wouldn’t judge myself so readily if I had been sitting those two days!

Fact is, I absolutely love that feeling of being highly present to fear and desire.  I have no interest in reaching some sublime space of no fear and I certainly don’t want to abolish desire!  But I do very much want to make my experiences of the two more beautiful via being present and attending to them fully in the moment. So zazen, I have missed you these last two days, but we will meet again soon.  In fact - right after I stop typing :)

     

Shouldn't we support the 99%?

Occupy SF: Around midnight, this double line surrounded the Occupy site.  Everyone in the double line was ready to get arrested.  There was a third line around this one of people willing to stay until dispersal orders were given.

Quick post before hitting the hay.  Had a very emotional response to the news coming out of Occupy Oakland last night.  I hadn't invested any energy in it myself, but I had stopped by a handful of times, and a few good friends had put their all into turning it into a consciousness raising opportunity.  Saw one tonight with six welts on her back from six rubber bullets.  I hadn't felt much solidarity with the occupation before, but last night it really seemed to turn into a state vs. people situation, and suddenly my emotions got involved and I found it impossible not to go down to Occupy SF tonight and show solidarity.  It seems that many San Franciscans felt the same - tonight there were people from all walks of life at the occupy site, many labor activists and union members - some with their families - but mostly, just ordinary SF folks.  It no longer felt like a squat.  Tonight, it felt like San Francisco wanted to protect its people from the violence that occurred in Oakland last night.

Of course, cops are strategic.  They weren't going to pounce when the public energy was at such a high level.  I was tired and cold by 2AM as were plenty of others.  I'm writing this from my arm home at 2:30 AM, and Twitter hasn't blown up with any news of a raid yet.  They waited til four in Oakland.  When I left, the crowd had considerably thinned, and it will thin more.  But at midnight, there was a ring of people, two thick, around the park, all ready to link arms. All ready to get arrested!  And many of those were union people.  There was a third line of people farther back who were not willing to get arrested, such as myself, who had an understanding that when the order was given to disperse or be arrested, they would disperse but stick around to observe.  There were public officials present, and even a senator, who were dedicated to trying to negotiate with the cops. I wonder if they'll stay until four...

Ultimately, I found myself thinking about how I could contribute in a meaningful way to activism in the future.  I feel like this is a moment where class consciousness has the potential to be raised significantly, but I haven't contributed to that.  I care a lot about getting diverse people involved in dialog and finding commonalities and agreeing on modes of action.  But that's to consider later...

I'm prone to fantasy, and I kept fantasizing, how great would it be if there were fifty zen folks out here, in robes, meditating or interlaced with the human blockade?  It would have been a beautiful sight.  In what circumstances would they come out?  What would it take?  In my fantasy land we would have all been out there tonight, steadfastly sitting in zazen until forcibly moved.  It would have been a stunning symbolic action.  There are a lot of dilemmas of course, but at this time of night, I'm happy to let pragmatics slip away....

I Love my Brother!

I just spoke with my brother, Bjorn, who lives in Denver.  I told him about the blog, and knowing that he’ll probably check it out tomorrow… well, this is for him. 

To put it in a nutshell: I don’t love my brother just because he’s my brother, but because he is, without exaggeration, one of the most kind-hearted men I know.  

I also love him because we’ve grown so much together: there was a time when he was embarrassed to be in public with me – a crazy kid in his early twenties, doing back flips down the street with a purple Mohawk and shredded fluorescent green pants.  In my crazy getups, I would talk ostentatiously about philosophy and spirituality, while he glared at me with eyes that said very clearly, “you’re so full of it!  Just shut the fuck up!”  And I thought of him as a pothead who wasn’t doing anything with his life.  It’s been a wonderful process to grow together, to come to admire each other for the occupations we have chosen or seek to pursue, for our spiritual feelings, and for having admirable hearts. Today, when we think of those past times, we both can't help but laugh.

I feel close to him because, as men, we’ve walked very different paths but have experienced similar hard times: we both followed a woman we hoped to one day have kids with to another state, and we both experienced having our hearts torn out while being far away from friends and family.  Far away from support, we both fought the devil of heartbroken alcohol abuse.  Both of us have battled various forms of self-hatred.  We’re both intimate with that feeling of wanting nothing more than to never wake up again.  I’m so happy for my toughest experiences, as they helped me understand his. 

Of utmost importance: we both suffered so much because we both loved so much.  When we hated ourselves, it was because we hadn’t succeeded in caring for someone as profoundly as we had hoped.  And when we didn’t want to wake up, it was only because we didn’t like being in a world where we couldn’t love and give deeply. 

For these two brothers, their own beauty has been the source of their pain.  And it will be the source of a wonderful life to come. 

While that may be a good line to end on, one more thing: I wrote this wanting to tie it into the notion of sangha.  I told Bjorn that I have been contemplating the precepts recently, and explained briefly what that meant.  He was happy to hear it, partly because he’s witnessed the maturation of my spiritual path, but I think also because he experiences the desire to be nurtured by a spiritual community.  I can see him wanting to walk a path, but he has yet to discover what that path is.  Not that it has to be clearly defined!  But if spiritual intentions are to be cultivated, it’s incredibly important to be supported, to have people who help us consider how to deepen and stick with our intentions. This has nothing to do with any tradition or particular path.  Its pure, dumb luck that I happen to have found an institution, lineage, and sangha that suits me so well.  For many people, a place that suits them so well simply may not exist.

We should support all people.  And perhaps this means supporting all people in considering the precepts.  Like most of the warm hearted people I know, Bjorn will most likely not take up a meditation practice, much less become a Zen Buddhist.  But like many people, I think he may want to take the precepts in spirit, and live a life according to what they signify.  In ways that he may not be aware of, he will be supporting me in the precepts.  And even though he has never even heard of precepts before, in a way I will be supporting him in his efforts to live according to the precepts, inasmuch as I support him in living a thoughtful and compassionate life.

Perhaps we help people consider the precepts best by allowing the precepts to shape us.  Then people can be present with the precepts when they are present with us.  Perhaps discussing them explicitly is only important inasmuch as those discussions help us embody the dharma.      

If you gotta do it, it happens

Last night a few bands played at my house, and so I slipped away and crashed at my friend Polina’s place in order to wake up at 4:30.  She lives on Valencia st, and it was quiet aside from the fact that every half hour a group of friends would stroll down the street drunk and howling with laughter, yelling, etc.  I kept drifting off, and then… I think I fell asleep sometime after two, and then at four a garbage truck pulled up right in front of the window, and I thought, “ah, well.”  So at 4:15 I was biking over to a Starbucks that will always have a special place in my heart, for the combination of being open at 4AM and being two blocks from my home. 

Last year, having landed a semester long teaching gig in US history at the last minute, with no curriculum in place, I would wake up at 3:45, splash cold water on my face, and walk over to that special place.   Sure, I could have made coffee for myself at my home, but getting outside quickly and then being around all the taxi drivers and truckers and exchanging “hello, how are you doing’s” with all the other 4AM regulars was a great way to wake up.  I would write curricula for a couple hours before going to class, and for a few hours after class, and… well, it never stopped. 

The exhaustion tore me up, but it was great, and I managed to do it continuously for a couple months.  I had to, and it was exhilarating to do what you had to do.  This morning, it felt a bit like those times.  I was really stumbling to the zendo today, feeling like I was going to fall asleep while walking despite the warm coffee in hand.  But, like that time of endlessly writing curricula, the feeling was, “well, if you gotta do it, you gotta do it.”  No problem, because no alternative!  Thinking back just a few weeks ago – although I sincerely wanted to wake up and practice in the morning, I never did, and I think it was because there were so many alternatives.  It was so easy to choose alternative I didn’t really believe in, and then feel bad about it!  I feel very peaceful and grounded right now having no alternatives: like writing that curricula, if something just absolutely has to get done, it tends to get done.  I didn’t treat zazen that way until I suddenly had to face myself more honestly in recent weeks. 

Exhausted, I’m surprised I was able to write this.  Originally started with the intention to write about caring for our energy, and how sometimes this caring gets done in those moments that seem to tear you up the most.  Stumbling to the zendo, I really felt like I was nurturing my energy, breathing into being tired, happy with myself within the exhaustion.  For another post…

Teaching Prejudice and Resistance

I’m excited about a project I just started, building the theme of “prejudice and resistance” into 6^th grade world history curricula.  I’m collaborating with a teacher on curricula that we’ll test during the spring semester.  I’ll be doing the bulk of the research, part of which will involve examining how various forms of prejudices existed in ancient India, China, and Greece.  I mention it here because I’m curious to discover how ancient Buddhism functioned both to support hierarchical structures and prejudices supported by them, and to subvert prejudices.  I’ll let you all know what I come up with :)  And it may be an interesting way to introduce the Upanishads (those works that gave philosophical depth to notions of samsara, karma, and reincarnation beginning in the 9^th century BCE) as a spiritual, philosophical and reflective movement serving to de-hierarchize spiritual practice.

 I’m excited to discover ways to introduce such material to twelve year olds!  And I’m excited to see what they do with it.  One of the points behind teaching thematically is that historical themes can always be compared to the present – it will be interesting to look at diverse modes of prejudice and resistance, and see if students see those functioning in their world.  The idea is not so much that this subject is historically interesting, but that students will learn how to perceive prejudice where they might not have seen it before, analyze how it functions, and conceive of methods of resistance.  (I’m still not sure about the word “resistance”, it feels a bit ideologically loaded, bringing to mind the boorish image of the raised fist.  Resistance also feels more militant that many modes of fostering change tend to be.)   

So, my working thesis question as it stands is “does teaching the theme of prejudice and resistance in world civilizations help students better understand prejudice and resistance in their own world?”

And, yes, I’m probably also excited because ever since wanting to be a ninja as a little boy, I have also wanted to investigate historical guerrilla mechanisms of avoiding the state or strategically assimilating into it.  (An excuse to read authors I’ve long been interested in, such as James C. Scott.)  An academic extension of boyhood fantasies?  It makes me happy to consider how childhood imaginations continue to blossom in invisible ways all throughout life :)

Aside from that… I’ve been considering the precepts.  The main feeling that has arisen is that taking them feels natural and affirming of myself and the life I want to live.  Not taking them would feel like turning my back on my most lovely desires.  I feel like my back has been turned the wrong  way for a few years – not completely the wrong way, but let’s say not exactly angled in the direction that will make me happy! – and that its time to embrace all those things I truly love and respect about myself.  The precepts, to me, symbolize that embrace.  I’ll be sitting docusan with Jordan Thorn on Tuesday morning to begin the process of reflecting on this matter.

Dying With Each Exhale

I wrote this post yesterday, but felt it was off and didn't publish it.  The topic is one I feel close to and I hoped to say something about it, but in the moment, found this quite difficult.  Perhaps the reader will think I have said something about it, but I have not been able to express anything close to what I feel.  Nonetheless, here it is :)

Last Monday at young urban Zen, a discussion of “living and dying continuously with all being” (my interpretation of the subject) gave rise to the topic of living completely with each inhale, and dying with each exhale.  This expresses a feeling that my body has great intimacy with, and that, like so much of my bodies knowledge, I have never attempted or known how to express.  In my life, there are times of exploring the knowledge of my body regardless of whether I can talk about it or express it: these are times when my faith in and love of myself gives me a powerful self-sufficiency.  But there are also times of less faith and strength, when not having words, and not having people to discuss my experiences with, has led to me letting go of the spiritual path of listening to my body altogether.  Considering this, it strikes me that one of the functions of the sangha is to help people learn to express, or find peace in not expressing, experiences which words do not so easily convey. And of course it s also the purpose of the sangha to help people love themselves and gain faith in themselves, and to help us all learn how to do that for each other. 

To feel this continuous living and dying with is deeply important to my heart, especially right now.  The recent realization that my heart was closed in various ways has been a fresh wind, bringing with it the sincere desire to once again have an open heart.  Preoccupied with self-presentation and appearance – sexual, professional, needing to appear to myself in various ways to cover old wounds – my heart, while a beautiful one, was not involved in living and dying continuously with all being.  I have not been striving to live intimately with the moment.  Although beautiful, there was a lot of beauty missing – the beauty of living a life geared towards trying to see clearly and thus see beauty everywhere.  The beauty of my path was missing, and ultimately I want to be loved by a woman for my beautiful path and heart.  I realize now that, concerned with lesser things, I have not been presenting this side of myself to the world.  To be the man I truly want to be, and to beloved for being that man, I need a period of time to refocus and reorient my energies.  In this way my recent heartache feels like a blessing in disguise. 

Every moment in this world is like a flower that is secretly blooming as it dies.  This morning in the zendo, I exhaled fully over and over again, practicing letting go of that desire to inhale once more.  My body felt like a calm dark night, and then the sun rose, again, and again, and again.  But both the dark night and the sun rising were the full blossoming of being. 

It's a pretty clear metaphor for my life right now :)  

5 minutes

I freely admit that although busy with y MA in socials studies education, I’ve spent up to an hour writing a few of these blogs.  This one is five minutes.

Going to go sit in on some high school philosophy classes, and talk to the teacher about what it’s like and how to teach philosophy to teenagers.  Skipped out on zazen at the CC this morning in order to compose my thoughts regarding questions I want to ask her and my own notions of teaching. 

Woke at five, and for the first time in a while, immediately lit a candle and sat on my zafu.  It felt so good to do this with the first breaths of the morning.  Spent five minutes on the pillow slowly stretching out and feeling the breath, then a ten minute zazen (I’m guessing.)  Paid homage to the three jewels, then chanted the Loving Kindness meditation and the Heart Sutra.  Felt some of the lines tugging at me, a few very emotionally but in a grounded way, some of the lines serving to stir up the desire for the path.  I would like to write about what it feels like when lines pull at you; I guess that depends on the line and your own state…

Ran for fifteen minutes as the light was growing in the city, walked into a Starbucks in a ritzy hotel and too a few sips under a giant chandelier – whenever under a giant chandelier I imagine Trotsky and Lenin after the revolution lying on the floor of the palace together gazing up at the chandeliers! – I realize nine minutes have quickly passed and I have to go!

Stow Lake

Running Stow Lake

Cool mist on my skin,

Like deeply breathing in,

This Heartache. 

Running, like zazen, can be an elevated mode of self-processing.  At this moment, working with a broken heart, zazen and running have been my dearest friends.  It was only because of them that I was able to say all the right things to her when she left.  It was only because of them that I was able to see my heart clearly and express it, to see her clearly and love her even for wanting to leave, and to offer care to her despite wounds that could easily blind me and strip me of my presence and my love.  Sitting, letting go of my thoughts, what emerges are two beautiful beings, myself and her, always beautiful forever.

There are now a few women I have been with who I will love deeply and forever.  They are sacred, wonderful, miracles.  This broken heart is so small compared to seeing their beauty.  I would never let pain get in the way of that.  This broken heart too is beauty.  My choice to deal with this in the most beautiful way I know how is a profound experience which has drawn me closer to practice.   These last few days have essentially forced me to see myself clearer than I have in the past, including noticing how much I chose not to see.  I feel superficialities and myriad shallow desires slipping away.  In order to do the right thing, I’ve developed more of a focus on breathing love deeply into my being, and I don’t think I’m going to stop any time soon.  

I feel that it will be difficult to meet another woman.  I’m ok with that.  A friend of mine at Green Gulch once told me the phrase, “marry the Buddha.”  When she moved to Green Gulch, she set her sexual and romantic pursuits aside for a certain time and married the Buddha.  There are times in life that call for this, to give the Way the devotion you would give the person most dear to you.  Waking up for morning zazen has never been easier than it was this morning, and on the zafu, the phrase “marrying the Buddha” permeated my being.  Afterwards, while running, the phrase and feeling stayed with me.  I hope I succeed in setting my intentions in this direction. 

At Stow Lake, a burning sorrow turns into a love of life, of myself, of her, of the path.  The air is crisp.  The mist on my skin is the deep calm of my heart.   

Note to Self #1

11pm.  Posted a couple facebook pics of roommates.  In current, heartbroken, reflective state of mind, spend more time looking at faces and body language, and thereby see these people I know well... more deeply.  Such a story - universe! - behind each posture and facial expression!  I often do not actually look at them.  

This is what I believe Paul Haller, the current abbot of City Center, to mean by attending to the moment.  In the moment, you really look at whats in front of you.  What does "really looking" mean...?  Ask Dogen!  (You'll likely get something like, "The true nature of thinking and non-thinking is emptiness.")  . At any rate, that's what zazen, and Buddhism, is ultimately about for me - seeing and loving what's in front of me: seeing and loving existing as a unity for me. Really seeing, feeling, soaking up, loving... but not necessarily understanding... the face in front of me, the posture, the being. 

Although a good man - I have been reflecting on this after hurting someone, and it is true - I spend a great deal of time not seeing.  Having recently let a woman down, and having reflected on it, I feel this quite acutely in the moment.  Paul often talks about Buddhism as attending to the moment... I would just emphasize more than he does that this is how to love.  (Of course I emphasize this, because for me, absolutely nothing matters more than love, and zazen is ultimately a practice in the service of love.)  Check out his podcasts:



http://feeds.feedburner.com/SanFranciscoZenCenterPublicLectures

Occupy SF, Judgment, and Zazen

Today at noon, there was public meditation at Occupy SF.  I couldn’t make it until 1, and so ended up missing it – but in the hopes of catching the tail end, or meeting some people who might want to meditate a little bit more, I donned a business suit, stuffed my zafu into my bike bag, and biked over. 

I donned the suit because this is about business, and changing the way the country does business.  People who do business could clearly be key players in altering business and banking practices.    If business people got involved in the Occupy movement – movement perhaps being too large a word for this - I think that would make a very big difference.  A collaboration between blue and white collar workers could potentially turn this into a movement.  The biggest goal to shoot for, in my opinion, would be to legitimize the movement as much as possible in order to get to the democratic party and pressurize them, and having business become more of a face in the movement would go a long way in the legitimization game.  

I’ve been sitting on the sidelines of this… hardly following it actually.  However, my political and ethical perspective is that the inequality in wealth in this country, and across the world, is simply one of the ugliest, most detrimental things confronting happiness and prosperity.  With that deeply held perspective, I may seem like someone who would join this struggle, or contribute my energies towards making this a movement.  But when it comes to activism, I feel jaded – I would like to discover a way to facilitate change, but the activism route, at this point in my life, feels off to me.  But that’s a tangent… 

I park my bike and walk into the crowd.  I don’t see anyone meditating anymore.  What I do see are a hundred anarcho-punks and rainbow kids.  As I walk into the crowd, wearing my business suit, many of them look at me and then avert their eyes.  The suit makes me a bad guy instead of someone to collaborate with.

Before arriving, I thought to myself, “even if everyone has dispersed, I’m here, so I’ll meditate for a while on my own.”  But now my judgment kicked in pretty hard: I felt gross in that crowd.  I would have sat down and meditated if I were surrounded by blue collar workers, fellow suits, young adults dabbling in socialism, and practically anyone else…. But this, not only did I have absolutely no interest in, but I had a visceral reaction against.  Not only would it be pointless to sit here, I would feel foolish, even gross… even if a dozen others joined me. 

Sitting zazen, my belief that no one will take a bunch of anarcho-punks and rainbow kids seriously will not change.  My understanding that they don’t have the slightest clue as to how to address this most serious of problems will not change, nor will my feeling that although their political beliefs are sincere, that this is largely a social gathering for them.  I would love to see this group open up and learn how to collaborate with other segments of society, but I also don’t see that happening.  Talking with a few of them, I asked what they considered the demographics of this occupation to be – the response in all three cases was that it was a pretty diverse crowd.  Zazen would not change my perspective that this group has a judgment problem and a hard time looking outside of themselves.  Zazen does help me think better – sometimes far better – and so it contributes to my intellectual understandings.  But it typically doesn’t alter my intellectual grasp of the way the world works, and of how this subculture works.        

But zazen would melt away my judgments against them: that visceral sensation of feeling gross, or foolish, would vanish.  I would feel more openness to sit with them, to spend time with them, to discuss the issues with them.  I may choose not to do this out a belief that my efforts would be better spent elsewhere, but I would have no aversion.  I would still see them as largely naïve, among other negative qualities, but I would not have any negative emotions tied to that.  Rather than feeling pushed away by negative emotions, I would enjoy them as human beings.  This is what I seek: to see things clearly, to love what is, and to offer support to any human being.  I would like to sit zazen more often to develop these qualities.

I think it's important to distance oneself from the scene, in order to make a presence of a different variety felt:  I like this - a meditation on business ethics in Union Square next Tuesday :)

http://www.occupysfmeditation.com/#326/twitter

Hurting

Just a quick post.  Tonight, I hurt someone I care a great deal for.  I lied about something of great importance.  And it may change the special connection we have.  Perhaps trust can be mended, but perhaps not.

My stomach in knots, pacing up and down my room, my impulse is towards zazen.  My God, I want to sit right now.  Please, Lord, let me reorient myself!  Please let me begin to eat more healthily, to develop more healthy habits and desires.  I want so badly to practice right now.  Writing this, I am almost crying, and would be crying if I didn’t harbor emotional blockages I’ve developed to deal with emotional pain.  Certainly crying in my heart, out of shame, and heartache, but also because living a life of strong practice just feels like a fantasy. 

Slowly pacing.  I think of myself as the type of person who would not lie to another, or hurt another.  But this self-concept is not in accordance with reality. 

I do not see myself as clearly as I would like to believe.  I have so many attachments I am not aware of.  I have self-concepts that delude me.  Perhaps I am not even as good a man as I would like to believe.  Zazen and friendship is the best way to revaluate myself.  The first physical tear has finally fallen.  I hope anyone reading this may be filled with a calm love for all that is.      

Not Practicing, Part One

Part one, because not practicing describes my practice more than practice does.  Not practicing is a continuous source of reflection as well as frustration for me.  It’s important to talk about because so many people experience either not-practicing or desiring-practicing.  It seems a particularly pertinent subject for a bodhisattva – not in the sense of a deity, but of a person wanting to support all people in their enlightenment – to consider.

This blog arose partly because I wanted to put a story out there about what it’s like to be young, living in an urban setting, and wanting to practice.  My individual experience is not important, but if it in any way is representative of the experiences of many others, it gains importance.  I’m thirty.  There are many people roughly my age who succeed in practicing.  I know there are far more people such as myself, who very much want to practice, but who have trouble doing so even when every opportunity is given them, as it has been given to me.  And I also know there are even more people who desire to practice, but have never figured out how to do so at all.  I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that over the years, I have had hundreds of conversations, where at some point, the desire to practice, to have a spiritual path, is raised – by a person who has never been able to figure out even the beginning steps of how to do this.  It is not enough to tell these people, “just go to the Zen Center, they’ll help you.”  It’s truly important to consider how to support this often subterranean, invisible impulse that exists in so many people.  A certain energy needs to be given.  One of the reasons why I feel it’s so important for me to practice is because through my own practice, I can see far more clearly this desire in others, and see how to support them.  It is also fascinating that when my practice is strong, people naturally awaken to and express to me their own desire to practice – even if they have never met me before, and even if I have said nothing.  So our duty to these people is to practice. 

I sincerely believe that, for the sake of all being, I should practice.  (Supporting all being feels stronger to me than supporting all beings.)  I should practice so that others can practice.  As I write this, I realize that many people may consider practice a rather dry word – but it’s deeper than love.  We might seek to cultivate love, and know that our love facilitates the love of others.   But we practice, in part, so that we can deepen our love, and seek to help others practice so that they can deepen theirs.   

Tonight, like most nights, I imagine that I’ll wake up at 4:30, get a cup of coffee, and walk over to the Zen Center.  A few nights a week, I set my alarm.  Midnight rolls around, and I turn it off.  I’m writing this entry at 1am because I have trouble getting to sleep.  My social life is at night, and in addition, night is when I experience the highest degree of lucidity, and get my best work done.   (Early morning – 3-5 AM – also seems to be the time when I naturally experience the highest degree of lucidity in zazen.  I’m not sure why it’s such a special time for my body.)

Two weeks ago, knowing that a friend of mine would be at morning zazen, and having promised her I would come, I was sure I would finally make it – I woke up after sleeping for three hours and decided against it.  The last time I made it was because I had scheduled docusan – a student teacher meeting to discuss practice – which I had scheduled in the morning knowing that it would force me out of bed.  The whole experience was beautiful, but that same night, I was staying up late again.  I an try hard to go to bed early, but it just doesn’t work.  (My mother knows this better than anyone: I’ve never gone right to sleep.)   In the past year, aside from guest student stays, I have only made it to morning zazen a dozen times, and a few of those were when I had simply stayed up all night.  However, zazen in the morning is so special because it’s a great way to start the day – I experience as starting the day on path.  Sitting zazen late into the night is wonderful, but sitting in the morning after having worked all night has always felt a bit off – like I’m bringing the wrong energy to the practice.

Over the summer, I even inquired at the office about staying the night.  As a guest student it felt completely natural to wake up with the community, and I knew that if I slept there, I would flow right into morning zazen.   I sent an email asking if I could come over one night and throw a sleeping bag down on the floor, so no one would have to deal with getting me blankets or washing sheets for me.  I doubted it was a possibility and felt somewhat foolish asking, but I really wanted to sit morning zazen and so I somewhat embarrassedly sent the email, which was replied to in the negative.  I fantasized about trying to secretly camp out on the roof but never seriously entertained that clearly bad, trust-breaking idea.     

In this way, I actually feel closer to Green Gulch.  Last spring I hiked to Green Gulch from the Marin Headlands four times.  The first two times, I arrived for dinner, had lovely conversations with friends, and then surreptitiously hid myself away on the farm and camped out.  Even though I couldn’t hear the wake up bell in the morning, I had no problem waking up.  Folks in the community laughed when I told the story and said that there was no need to be secretive.  "What's the difference between driving in early in the morning and camping out?" And so the following two times, I simply slept out on the deck as I did when I was a guest student there, and woke up with the wake up bell.  On a few occasions since then, when I was aching to sit morning zazen, I’ve ridden my bike up to Green Gulch in the evening knowing that once there I would have no problem waking up and flowing into morning zazen with the rest of the community.  In this way Green Gulch feels more like a spiritual home for me than City Center, and reminds me a bit more of the many Buddhist stories of monks bringing travelers in from the rain or expressing their joy in supporting guests.  And unfortunately, at the same time, part of me doubts whether making this public is even a good idea, as if I still need to act clandestinely in some way, and that feeling makes me feel distant from the sangha.       

Calm, Loving, With Clear Insight

I woke up this morning wanting to write.  I realize that part of writing this blog is developing my identity as a Buddhist – which means to develop my identity in general, really.  So the desire to write is really the desire to develop. 

I have a way of summarizing my spiritual identity.  It used to be, “Seek to be calm and loving,” but it’s evolved to “calm and loving, with clear insight.”  I’m curious to know if other people have ways of encapsulating their paths like this? 

Calm, loving, with clear insight: really, each term encapsulates the others.  In zazen, I become calm: but why is being calm important?  For me, love arises when I am calm, and so I sit zazen to be loving.  When I am calm, or when I am loving, I also see and love what really is – so being calm is important because it facilitates clear insight.  When I have clear insight I love what presents itself.  So there is a strong link between detachment and love – when I don’t desire something to be a certain way, but rather see it for what it is, that opens up the space for love.  This is why that scary word detachment makes sense to me, and why I would seek to cultivate detachment. 

In zazen, when I am involved in the act of noticing, I am often noticing something about one of these three: my attention very naturally moves to noticing outside phenomena and my internal reactions that lead to varieties of calm/not calm, loving/not so loving, and clarity/delusion.  I didn’t realize my zazen was at all ‘focused’ like this until writing.  Perhaps these three features constitute major portions of my internal movement, hence, they would simply constitute what was there to notice.   

Love is something I would hope to talk more about in the sangha.  Do other people also feel love arising from zazen?  Do others also draw these personal connections, from their direct experience, between being calm, loving, and having clear insight?  What does it look like to develop ourselves as loving beings?   To develop love within the sangha?  I suppose that is my real dream, to work together in such a way that we come to love each other. 

As someone whose Buddhism is unconcerned with nirvana, reincarnations, or notions of afterlife and soul, it may seem that bodhisattvahood would hold no meaning for me.  However, I hold it as the ultimate symbol of detached love, of loving with clear insight.  The bodhisattva is the image I hold in my mind when I bring my focus to the matter of loving all being.  Saving all beings drops by the wayside for me.  But loving all beings – and all being – is within our power.  What could be more wonderful than spending a life discovering how to do this, within oneself, but especially with a community?