Coming Soon:

"Aging as a Spiritual Practice" Blog

October 26, 2008: This blog has been remade witha new focus: the spiritual aspects of aging from a Buddhist perspective.  Suzuki Roshi, when asked to say something succinct about Buddhism, said "Everything changes."  He could have said "Everything ages," but it is only when we ourselves begin to age that that truth comes home to us: in our body, in our emotions, and in our relationships. 

(New Lecture on "Aging as a Spiritual Practice" will be posted soon!

 

 

Feb 12. We left off last blog with the notion of “ultimate refuge”, which we can identify with zazen or sitting practice itself. We can say it is ultimate because resting in pure being or open, spacious awareness is not anything in particular, but it includes everything in general. This is simultaneously a simple and also vexing idea, partly because it is not an idea at all. We can't really grasp what sitting is with our thinking mind, nor should we.

 

Sitting practice puts the thinking mind to rest, since it is not at all necessary. We may have thoughts while we sit, since thoughts are a natural and normal artifact of waking consciousness. It is a common misunderstanding that in sitting practice we suppress all thought. The historical Buddha investigated this practice—a common yogic practice in his time—and rejected it as a mere temporary respite from the human condition, and not a true transformation of suffering.

 

Nevertheless, the thinking mind does not really need to be involved in sitting. Suzukii Roshi described the mind of sitting practice as “ready mind”. This means that all the equipment of waking consciousness is fully mobilized and available, but it is not involved in anything. He likened this state to that of a frog, sitting fully alert on a lily pad. It appears that the frog is not doing anything, but should a fly come by then zap! We see that all along the frog was fully awake.

 

To take refuge in this “ready mind” means to abide in a state of alert receptivity, taking in everything, not excluding anything. Actually, this state of mind is not really a “state”—as though it is something we enter and exit—it is reality itself. It is always accessible to us; in fact, it is us.

 

Even though throughout the centuries Buddhism has produced a truly massive amount of scripture, commentary, and teaching—and the more than 10,000 books in English on the subject continue this process—it is probably not an exaggeration to say that one period of sitting practice is move valuable than any of that verbiage. Our busy minds need verbiage; otherwise, we may feel disoriented and confused. Words are a kind of refuge; I called them “teaching refuge” in the last blog. But sitting practice—ultimate refuge—includes all the words and goes beyond and beneath them. Sitting practice itself is impossible to describe in words—not because it is too complicated, but because it is too simple.

 

It is the ultimate human activity. --LEW

Jan 25. In our last few meditation sessions, I have been speaking about refuge. The most basic prayer or affirmation in Buddhism, one followed by all schools throughout history, is:

 

I take refuge in Buddha

I take refuge in Dharma

I take refuge in Sangha

 

Buddha, Dharma and Sangha—in ordinary parlance, the teacher, the teachings, and the community—is known as the Triple Treasure. Refuge can be understood in three ways, which I like to call teaching refuge, heart refuge, and ultimate refuge.

 

First of all, we should say a few words about refuge. Refuge is something like “shelter from the storm”; it is a place or state of safety and protectedness. We take refuge in many things—family, money, a belief system. In Judeo-Christian religion, belief in God is the essential refuge.

 

“Teaching refuge” means to take refuge in the teachings and doctrines of Buddhism—the four noble truths, the eight-fold path, and so on. For Westerners who came to Buddhism as adults, through reading books or hearing teaching, this is the initial refuge. To the extent Buddhism's teachings resonate with our own intuition about how things are, this kind of refuge is excellent. All Buddhists understand and accept this kind of refuge.

 

“Heart refuge” is the inner, emotional component of teaching refuge. It is the warm feeling we have when we come to sit in meditation with others, the sense of reverence and familiarity we sense standing before a statue or picture of Buddha. Heart refuge comes naturally to anyone born as a Buddhist in a Buddhist society, and may take a while to cultivate as an adult convert. Meditation practice opens our heart to this level of refuge, and makes us trust the practice and teachings at a deeper level.

 

“Ultimate refuge,” for us as meditation Buddhists, is meditation practice itself. It is the vivid experience of simply being present, of existing in this time and place. As Suzuki Roshi often said, “That you are here is the ultimate fact.” Ultimate refuge is a particular quality of contemplative Buddhist traditions such as our Zen tradition. It is hard to say much about it, but it the deepest level of trust we have in the practice.

 

More on refuge next blog---LEW

 

 

Jan. 8, 2008. On New Year's Day evening, by popular demand, we had our regular Tuesday night sitting. The turnout was quite good. It seemed that many Sangha members wanted to start the new year on their cushions! During the sitting, I did a guided meditation on breathing in compassionate awareness.

 

Many people are now familiar with the Tibetan Buddhist practice of Tonglun, which literally means “sending and receiving.” This is a practice in which the practitioner visualizes breathing in the suffering of a person or group of people, and breathing out the compassionate healing light and energy of Avalokitesvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion.

 

The kind of detailed visualization taught in traditional Tonglun is not characteristic of the Zen tradition, but Suzuki Roshi spoke often about sitting with a warm and compassionate feeling in the chest, or heart, and my own experience is that the breath is a universal vehicle of compassionate connection. I discussed this with a Tibetan Buddhist teacher whom I know well, and under whom I have studied the traditional TongLun practice. I told her that sometimes I find that I am spontaneously feeling my breath connected to the breath of another person I am thinking about. What, I asked, is the connection to TongLun? Is this a form of TongLun? Her response was that TongLun is based on a quite natural and simple connection between our breath and others' breaths, and that my experience was indeed an intuitive version of the TongLun spirit.

 

Next Blog I will describe in more detail the “Zen-style” sending and receiving that we practiced on New Year's Day, and I will encourage you to take it up as an extension and heart expression of our Zen sitting way. --- LEW

 

Dec. 12. Recently I was at a conference with teachers from all three meditation traditions--Vipassana, Zen, and Tibetan Vajrayana. Naturally, participants in the conference wanted to understand the similarities and differences in doctrine and methods of the three teaching vehicles.

 

Setting aside Vajrayana for the moment, let us take a look at Vipassana--the teaching tradition of such centers as Spirit Rock--and Zen. Doctrinally, Vipassana comes from the Theravada, or Southeast Asian, stream of Buddhist teaching, while Zen, which arose in China , is one of the many schools of Mahayana, or Bodhisattva Vow, Buddhism. There are many differences based on the cultural package ( Japan vs. Thailand , for example) and underlying doctrine (Heart Sutra vs. the Mindfulness Sutra). But what about the meditation practice itself?

 

The reality is that all schools of Buddhist meditation have the same purpose--to help practitioners liberate themselves from ego-clinging and open the heart of compassion through the realization of the impermance and non-substantiality of all beings and things. In other words, a Buddhist mature in practice is an open-hearted, loving, generous person in all situations. This is true regardless of what meditation tradition the person is from.

 

That being said, Zen teaching, as compared with Vipassana, is probably less conceptual, more aesthetic, intuitive, or even artistic. Since I am a musician, trained in that art since a young age, I can resonate with this--it is probably why I was attracted to Zen in the first place. You can read many books about music; in fact, I majored in music in college, and studied music theory, great music from different eras, compositional and orchestration technique. I also mastered the technical aspects of piano--scales, arpeggios, fingering, and so on. But music itself--the essence of making music as music--is not really something that can be taught. You have to be around musicians, do music a lot, and more or less pick it up. The technique itself is not music. In the same way, the technique of Buddhist meditation is not exactly Buddhism; in the end, Buddhism is you.

 

This is probably true as much for Vipassana as it is for Zen, but the Zen style of teaching meditation is to keep the teaching, the "technique" if you will--to a minimum, and let the practitioner pick it up in the doing of it. Guidance is less systematic, less scripture based, more "body to body," as one of my Zen teacher friends likes to say.

 

In the end, it is more a matter of style and affinity than of content. I am quite comfortable at Spirit Rock, and feel the teachers there are teaching the same methods that I teach. But I carry a distinctive "Zen" flavor, or style, which I picked up from my own teachers, and which the Spirit Rock teachers can feel. In the end, it is not the style or tradition or practice that counts the most, but whether a person actually does the practice, and brings everything to the practice. As Suzuki once said in answer to a person who asked him, "What is Nirvana?" He replied, "Seeing one thing through to the end." -- LEW

 

Nov. 24. I have been talking for the last few weeks about feeling-tone, that primal quality of experience that is pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. This is different, or more fundamental, than an emotion per se. For example, there are various negative emotions—anger, fear, jealousy—which each have their individual flavor, but all have an unpleasant feeling-tone.

 

Feeling-tone is fundamental to all life; every creature and living thing has some version of it. In human beings, feeling-tone is far down the neurological ladder. Except for those with meditation experience, the ability to focus on pure feeling-tone is rare. Usually what we focus on is the actions or thoughts that follow from it. The life-story that we identify as self or ego includes a long history of feeling tone, of wounds and rewards, pains and pleasures that deeply condition our responses to things in the present.

 

Buddhist teaching identifies our response to feeling-tone as a basic cause of unnecessary human suffering. This is the second noble truth—the cause of suffering is tanha. This term tanha is usually translated as “thirst,” or "craving," but it could equally be translated as “hunger.” Our literal hunger for food is a good example of how tanha causes suffering. The actual sensation of hunger is not so bad, actually. It is not nearly as strong as cutting your finger or a migraine headache. But hunger has “hooks” into our deep emotional life. Even a mild sensation of hunger drives us to the refrigerator. We may not even consciously be aware of any hunger pang sensation at all, but we find ourselves opening the ice cream carton.

 

Hunger by itself is all right, just as food itself is all right. There is nothing wrong with basic hunger; it helps us survive, and takes care of our need for nourishment. But our hunger does not stop there; we also crave all sorts of intangible nourishments. Recognition, companionship, wealth, power, safety, popularity, fame, are all ego foods that we crave. And our craving never seems to stop. Our ego needs can become insatiable.

 

This kind of thirst/hunger leads directly to suffering to the extent it is unconscious. When thirst/hunger is conscious, when the spaciousness of meditation allows us to see it as it is, it ceases to be an affliction. As the classic Zen saying goes, “When hungry, I eat; when tired, I sleep.” Unpacked, this statement means, “I know how to distinguish legitimate needs from ego needs. If my body needs food, I eat food, but I do not eat food because I am lonely or unhappy. My hunger is conscious.”

 

Conscious--a good translation for the word Buddha— awake. -- LEW

Nov. 1. This Tuesday I gave a talk about Halloween from a Buddhist point of view. I started by noting that we live in a land of no festivals, or very few, in the religious or sacred sense of the word. Certainly each religion in America has its own celebrations, but as a whole society we have almost no festivals that allow us to be “other” than we ordinarily are, to join us together in sacred enactment. I read that in the middle ages in Europe , there were 100 holidays a year, many of them lasting for several days. What a time that must have been! The daily grind and suffering of human life shared and revealed in community.

 

Halloween was of course originally a “pagan” holiday, co-opted by the Church as “All Hallow's Eve”. “Pagan” just means country, or rural. It was a time when the dark forces that each of us carry inside us could be unmasked by wearing a costume, enacting what we hide. There is release in this, and renewal. Buddhism grew up in 5 th century B.C. in the polytheistic surround of Brahmanic Hinduism. There were many gods, each representing a psychic force or energy, some benevolent, some mischievous, some patently evil. Buddhism understood each of these gods as just another kind of deluded or unawakened being; the Buddha himself was supposed to have taught the gods, who gathered around him in the 4 th watch of the night. That's what these gods really wanted, after all; teaching about liberation.

 

When we sit in meditation, we enact this same drama. The container of zazen posture, the stability of breathing and concentration, allow what we think of as “ordinary consciousness” to broaden and widen. We penetrate the unconscious energies of our psyche with our own awakeness, and immediately liberate them. There is a story about Milarepa, the 12 th century Tibetan Buddhist yogin. Once when he was meditating in his cave, he was attacked by demons. Today we would say perhaps he was threatened with psychosis. Instead of meeting these demons with fear, he invited them in, and fed them. They were satisfied, and dissolved. And the sixth ancestor of Zen, Hui Neng, famously said, “Liberate all the sentient beings of your own mind.”

 

That, we might say, is the inner meaning of Halloween, and the way the Halloween represents how zazen liberates us from afflictions, from our own inner demons. The demons come to our door in our sitting, like masked, costumed, fearsome beings, and we feed them. We give them what they really want, which is awareness, or awakeness. We dissolve them by seeing them as they are.

 

Halloween, of course, has become trivialized and commercialized beyond all recognition. It seems to be just another profit opportunity for Walmart. But there is something else beyond kids and costumes and candy. There is a yearning to bring forth that which imprisons us—our fears, angers, revenge fantasies, disappoints, and tragedies—and to celebrate them.

 

That is why, in zazen, we do not push away our dark thoughts. We let them arise, see them as they are, and watch them subside and disappear. In the sacred container of zazen, they are harmless. They are fed, and are satisfied. And then when we return to real life, they are less sinister, less powerful.

 

We need more festivals, inner and outer. We need more Halloweens. More Halloweens, less bombs. -- LEW

Oct. 10. The word “karma” has almost become an English word. We hear phrases like “good karma,” “it's my karma,” and so on. Literally, the word karma in Sanskrit means “action.” In Hindu philosophy and teaching, it came to be synonymous with the good or bad results of our actions, and is often associated with a fatalistic view of life; our station in life is due to our karma from previous actions or lives.

 

In Buddhism, which is a liberative teaching, karma came to have a somewhat different meaning. It still means “action,” but it specifically means action in the present moment, that produces a result in the future. The result of past action is, in Buddhism, termed “fruit” or “result” of previous karma. The importance of this distinction is that karma is something we are creating now; specifically, it means to perpetuate or rekindle habitual or unconscious tendencies, such as greed, confusion, and so on. The purpose of Buddhist practice is to liberate ourselves from this ceaseless habitual tendency, and to instead act from a spontaneous awareness of the present situation, unhindered by past habits.

 

In our meditation practice, this is particularly important. The container of the zazen posture, and the concentrated awareness on our body and breath, create some space around our habitual tendencies. What's more, in that space of calm, we can see our habitual patterns arise, persist, and fall away. In other words, we have awareness of the whole cycle. This awareness means everything for our liberative teaching. In that awareness, our habitual tendencies lose their power. It is only when they operate unconsciously, outside of our mindful awareness, that they produce suffering, for ourselves and others. So it is not just that the regular practice of zazen attenuate and reduce our reliance on habitual tendencies. In each moment of aware zazen practice, these tendencies are liberated.

 

We may think, Oh, I am overwhelmed with my distracted thoughts and ideas in zazen; I am not at all liberated. Yes, but that very “being overwhelmed” means that awareness is there. Outside of zazen, in the rough and tumble of daily life, we are not nearly as aware of our internal process. As our sitting matures, particularly if we sit all day or several days, that overwhelmed quality dies away, and we are able to rest in the calm space of awareness itself, which holds everything, good and bad.

 

In this way we can think of zazen as non-karmic activity, or an activity outside the ordinary process of karma. Karma, in Buddhism, can be defined as “habitual actions in the present.” Zazen is awareness of karma, acceptance of karma, liberation from karma. -- LEW

Sept.19 Recently I have been working with some other teachers in our Suzuki-Roshi Zen lineage on the subject of "to study Buddhism is to study the self." This is the famous dictum of Dogen, the founder of our Soto Zen lineage. Suzuki Roshi had his own way of expressing this dictum; he said, "To study Buddhism is to study yourself," and "When you are you, then Zen is Zen."

 

In our teacher group, we came up with our own paraphrase of "When you are you, then Zen is Zen: "Study the self by being yourself." "To study the self" sounds good; it is remarkably similar to Socrates' core teaching, "Know thyself." But in practice, what does it mean? What does the cryptic phrase "When you are you, then Zen is Zen" really signify?

 

The Zen tradition, among the various contemplative traditions of Buddhism, is particularly intuition-based, and lack a specific meditation curriculum or a specific set of guided meditation exercises (the koan system, which are essentially oral teachings of the classic Zen masters, is not exactly a curriculum, but that is for another day). Zen is particularly suited for people who want their meditation practice to be more self-guiding. Nevertheless, we do have instructions, one of them being, "To study Buddhism is to study the self." But what self? What does Dogen, or Suzuki-Roshi, means by "the self" or "yourself?"

 

Used in this sense, "self" does not mean a specific entity that we need to figure out. It means something like "the terrain of inner experience" or "subjectivity" or "awareness." We inquire into self as a question mark, not an answer. Who is it that we are? What is the nature or quality of our sense of selfness, of being here? Who or what is the experiencer of our sensory and mental world?

 

Most of us come to Buddhism as adult converts; to us Buddhism is something exotic, something from another culture or land. So we do not have the gut feel for it that a person does who grows up in a Buddhist culture from childhood. Our picture or sense of what it might be comes from books, from what we have heard on meditation retreats, teachers, friends who practice meditation, and so on. It can be a confusing picture, particularly since there are many different schools and approaches.

 

Our Zen way is to cut through all of this with recourse to direct and practical simplicity. We sit down, we settle our body, we tune into the breath, and commence our direct experience of who we are. For that is what the word "study" means in practice: to directly experience who we are without intermeditation or concept. Just to be here, present for each breath, breath after breath, thought after thought--it's too simple! How can that be all it is?

 

Of course, the coursing in it isn't simple. The self that we experience and study is an amalgam of many things : history, memory, projection, imagination, emotion, a melange of thoughts and ideas. How confusing! And yet to sit down and simply swim in it, day after day, is a kind of learning or study that is hard to grasp conceptually. In the Zen approach, it is as though we are dropped into deep water and somehow, without quite knowing how, we begin to move our arms and legs and learn to swim, to stay afloat.

 

And the practice proceeds from there. More next week... LEW

August 26. Last week one of the Sangha members mentioned a saying she had had tacked to her refrigerator for many years: “Things are not what they seem, nor are they otherwise.” This may seem at first glance like one of those quasi-mystical plays on words we see around and about, but an astute Buddhist might recognize it as a version of the Heart Sutra's central teaching, “Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form.” One part of Buddhist meditation is the first part, to recognize that things are not what they seem, to experience the familiar world of the senses as a kind of illusion or virtual reality—form is emptiness. The other part of meditation is to understand that, while this is so, nevertheless there is not some separate, better world called “emptiness” that we need to get to. This world is IT, or in the words of one 17 th century Japanese Zen teacher, “This very world is the Pure Land .”

 

To see both sides as a single, multi-faceted jewel is the Buddhist teaching of liberation. Many religions have taught that there is some other, wonderful world, perhaps a heaven, which we can attain later by living good lives now in this difficult, suffering human realm. Even popular Buddhism has this kind of idea in its teaching of the Western Paradise, or Pure Land . The actual teaching of Gautama Buddha and his generations of successors is that liberation is not to be found in some other place, but right here. This very world is the Pure Land .

 

But how can this be so? This world is full of suffering and woe, and our modern industrial society with all its technological wonders has, in the end, not made it less so, especially when we see through the propaganda and seductiveness of media, advertising, and celebrity culture. We may in fact be destroying the very planet we live on in the service of chasing this “other world” of material success. So it would seem imperative that we all understand, as soon as possible, that “things are not what they seem.” This “waking up” from our self-created reality has been the theme of several recent movies and books, such as The Matrix.

 

But “Emptiness is Form” means that this same suffering world also has all the raw material in it for liberation, for deep happiness and contentment. We don't need to invent anything else. We don't need to be different than we are. We simply need to sit still and see ourselves and others truly, as we are, and to love what we see, unconditionally.

 

Buddhist teaching is not the world of either/or, but of both/and. This is difficult for people brought up with a Western idea of logic—up and down, good and bad, right and wrong—to understand. Both/and means that we accept the contradictoriness of what we see and hear just as it is. Suffering and liberation arise out of the same ground of consciousness. Good and evil are two halves of the same morality. Nirvana and Samsara—liberation and suffering—co-exist in the same terrain.

 

Both/And is not accessible or comprehensible by our logical, rational minds. But the heart of compassion embraces both/and instinctively. This is the inner meaning of the Buddhist teaching of equanimity—we come to see everything and everyone as having the heart essence of a Buddha, an awakened being.

 

“Things are not what they seem, nor are they otherwise” is like loving someone fully. You see all the way through them, all their faults and weaknesses, but that does not diminish your love, it increases it. Only to love someone because of their good looks, their money, or their charm is not really love in its widest sense. The refrigerator slogan is only mysterious to the mind of words and phrases. Some other part of us hears the slogan and gets it. We think, Yes, it is so, but how? More next week… Lew

August 11. Ma Tsu was a 7 th century Chinese Zen teacher, one of the founders of the Zen tradition. When he was ill, a colleague came to visit him and they had this dialogue:

 

Colleague:   How are you?

Ma Tsu:   Sun Face Buddha, Moon Face Buddha

 

This is a very famous Zen koan, case #3 in the Blue Cliff Record, one of the main koan compilations.

 

The dialogue on its face is very cryptic—that is, until you know that Sun Face Buddha and Moon Face Buddha are characters in a scripture, and that Sun Face Buddha lives 1000 years and Moon Face Buddha lives one day. So now we understand a little more; the dialogue is about illness, and about the relationship of Zen practice to illness, and Ma Tsu's answer is something like “living 1000 years, living one day…”

 

Suzuki Roshi gave a talk on this story in 1969, after a serious bout with flu that left him with a lingering cough. He started about by making light of his condition—“I wonder if my vocal cords will work today”—and then telling this story about Ma Tsu. Among his comments were the following:

 

Ma Tsu was saying that whatever happened to him, he can accept it as it is. Ordinary people cannot do this, cannot except everything as it happens. Something which is good we may accept. But something which we do not like we don't accept. And we compare one to the other.

 

This is how it is with illness, and with life and a whole. We would prefer never to be ill; in our fantasies, we would like to live 1000 years, just like Sun Face Buddha. If we were told we had one day to live, like Moon-Face Buddha, we would be crushed and distraught. Ma Tsu is referring to this very human state of affairs in his statement, and revealing his own state of mind after a lifetime of Zen practice. “Sun Face Buddha, Moon Face Buddha—yes, I am a human being too, I know the parameters of like and dislike, of wishing and wanting, and I accept what happens. Maybe I will get well. Or maybe I will die. Nobody knows. I accept it, Sun Face Buddha, Moon Face Buddha.”

 

As adult converts to Buddhism, we tend to idealize and aggrandize its teachings. Oh yes, I will be greatly enlightened and everything will just fine from then on, we think. “Sun Face Buddha, Moon Face Buddha” is not like that. Sun Face Buddha is very good. It is like any situation that is going well for us—wealth, fame, falling in love. Moon Face Buddha is very bad, like a death sentence. How many people have we ever met who have the ability, like Ma Tsu, to face each thing as it comes, with composure and grace? Not many. It is indeed the highest aspiration of a human being, to be so at one with our fate that all our energy can be devote to serving and helping others.--LEW

June 24. My good friend and dharma brother Gil Fronsdal, who leads the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City and also holds a Ph.D. in Buddhist studies, reminded me recently that on the Buddhist stupas and monuments of ancient India there are numerous depictions of dancing, singing, musical instruments and drums. These ancient structures were built to honor the memory of the historical Buddha, and often housed a relic—a fragment of bone, perhaps—that was believed to be from the physical body of the Buddha.

 

Not too much is known of the festivals and celebrations that were held at these sites, but clearly they were events full of “joyful noise,” to quote from our own Bible. Perhaps they were designed for the laity, or perhaps the monks joined in. Both monks and laypeople were considered part of the ancient Buddhist Sangha, so I suspect the latter.

 

Anyway, because it is the meditation aspect of Buddhism that has appealed to the West, the Dharma has somehow taken on a rather solemn, even tight-lipped quality, in many Western Buddhist centers. I think ancient peoples, and even modern Asian ones, had a more flexible or mutable sense of identity and appropriate behavior. In Japanese Zen temples, for example, the meditation hall is indeed a solemn, strict environment, where monks carefully observe silence and exact formality. But those same monks in other circumstances can be relaxed and friendly, and might even be found at the local karaoke bar, singing Frank Sinatra songs. One of these monks once told a group of us who were visiting his monastery that his favorite English word was “flexible,” which he pronounced “flekshible.” A flexible identity—not a bad term for the result of lengthy Buddhist meditation practice.

 

Gil also told me that when he was traveling in Nepal , he came upon a festival with a crowd of people dancing to the music of a rather wild band of drummers, flautists and vina (Indian lute) players. When he got closer he realized that what the band was singing was Buddham Saranam Gocchami— “I take refuge in Buddha.” This chant is typically chanted in solemn monotone in Western Buddhist centers, which is certainly all right. But the example from Nepal tells us there are many ways to expressed Buddhist devotion and understanding.

 

I am a musician and composer, and some of you have heard me in concert playing my new musical style, “Mantra Music.” I recently performed some of these pieces for the first time at Gil's Redwood City center, and they were very well received. It is a special contribution of Western religious traditions to incorporate music as a sacred offering. I think we need a joyful liturgy for our Buddhist chants. I am going to keep working on this, remembering the friezes of dancing celebrants on the ancient Buddhist stupas of India . -- Lew

June 10. In Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, Suzuki Roshi says this about the breath:

 

In this limitless world, our throat is like a swinging door. The air comes in and goes out like someone passing through a swinging door. If you think ‘I breathe,' the ‘I' is extra. What we call ‘I' is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and exhale.

 

It is interesting to reflect on this passage as it relates to commonly held Western notions of “self” or “ego.” We tend to think of ego more as a distinct territory, with an inside and outside. Suzuki Roshi characterizes the real territory as limitless. Instead of an inside and an outside, he says, “the inner world is limitless, and the outer world is also limitless.”

 

He does not deny that there is an inside or an outside, however, only that there is any separation between them. It is a common misunderstanding to say that the Buddha taught ‘no-self,' or the non-existence of a self. What the Buddha did teach is more nuanced than that. Scripturally speaking (in the Middle Length Sayings of the Pali Canon, which purport to be the sermons of the Buddha) the Buddha taught neither the existence or non-existence of a self. When pressed on the matter, he remained silent. The actual reality of our experience is beyond categories. It is too intimate and direct for that.

 

This is the “swinging door” image. The door (our breath) swings back and forth, but we don't identify with the outside, the inside, the door itself, or anything else. We just rest in the limitless terrain of awareness itself.

 

Digression: I can't help, when I think of this swinging door, of the old TV Westerns from the ‘50s and ‘60s, and the swinging doors of the saloon. I don't know why those TV saloons didn't have regular doors, but those swinging doors were an important prop for the sheriff (or the bad guy) coming through the door into the saloon. You could see the outside through the doors, and the door kept swinging after the sheriff came through. There was some kind of authority or power in those swinging doors. End digression.

 

So Suzuki Roshi is encouraging us to understand the actual teaching of the Buddha regarding the nature of the self, through our experience of the breath. The breath is not something we own, it is just something that happens in our field of awareness. And that field has no boundary, it is limitless. This is not an intellectual idea, or a philosophical teaching. It is an actual immediate experience that each of us can have. This is the approach of Zen. Before we even study Buddhism, we sit and experience ourselves as we are. And we notice where our attention is.

 

At first, our attention is centered in our thinking, and we think that our stream of thinking and memory is who we are. Then we learn, through developing focus and concentration, to follow our breathing, and we think that is who we are. But eventually, or even immediately, or at any time, we can drop any focus of our attention and just rest in our limitless awareness.

 

As Suzuki says in conclusion: “When your mind is pure and calm enough to follow this movement [of the breath], there is nothing: no ‘I', no world, no mind nor body; just a swinging door.” -- LEW

May 28. Memorial Day. Let us pause to remember the grief, the suffering, and the pain that is being experienced by every family whose son or daughter has been killed or injured in a war, past and present. This is a very large number of people. May their anguish be eased.

 

I have been talking recently about concentration and its relationship to our practice. Suzuki Roshi, in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, had this to say about concentration:

 

Suppose you are sitting under some extraordinary circumstances. If you try to calm your mind, you will be unable to sit, and if you try not to be disturbed, your effort will not be the right effort. The only effort that will help you is to count your breathing, or concentrate on your inhaling and exhaling. However, to concentrate your mind on something is not the true purpose of Zen. The true purpose is to see things as they are. . . and to let everything go as it goes.

 

There is a lot of teaching packed into this paragraph. By “extraordinary circumstance” he means some unusually severe suffering, such as that being experienced by the families of our fallen military today. You may have such suffering in your own life. He says, “If you try to calm your mind you will be unable to sit.” In other words, when our suffering is that strong, we really can't calm our mind. There is too much pain, too much power to our thoughts and feelings. He goes on, “if you try not to be disturbed, your effort will not be the right effort.” Trying to “muscle” our way into calmness will just make things worse and make us feel like a meditation failure. Besides, that will be an attitude of self-criticism and non-acceptance. We really are suffering, and it is real. We should not try to escape it through some temporary concentration technique.

 

Suzuki Roshi recommends counting or following our breath as a way to work with our suffering. He does not mean that this practice will make our suffering go away, or even lessen it if it is strong enough. But such a practice will give us the strength to face, or accept, our suffering, one breath at a time. So, “to concentrate your mind on something is not the true purpose of Zen.” We are not becoming concentration athletes, but we need the power of concentration to give us the stability to face our life.

 

This is a very subtle and often misunderstood point. Concentration by itself can give us temporary relief, sometimes. But to rely on concentration, or any special meditative state, actually makes us less able to accept our terrible situation or state of mind. Zazen gives us the courage to face things “as they are.”

 

I remember once reading an interview with a commando, perhaps a Green Beret or Navy Seal. He told the interviewer, “people think we are some kind of supermen who don't feel fear. We aren't. Most people can't imagine the kinds of things we are assigned to do. We are as human as anyone; we feel fear, terror. But our training allows us to do our job in the midst of our fear. We don't let it stop us.”

 

This is a little like our approach to zazen. The training of zazen, the effort to follow our breath in the midst of our confused state of mind, gives us the strength to do our job as human beings, which is to work toward the easing of suffering for ourselves and others. Whether we can concentrate perfectly is beside the point. --- LEW

May 6. As I said last week, Zen practice, even enlightenment, doesn't make us impervious. Wanting to be impervious is, to use a psychological term, just another “ego position.” The ego would like nothing better than to be unbothered by things. I think this is still a fairly prevalent notion of spiritual awakening—thinking that the awakened person is utterly serene, unaffected by the slings and arrows that bedevil us poor mortals. How nice that would be! Or so we think. Actually, that could describe a person who is very depressed. Indeed, they are not affected by anything; but are they happy? Assuredly not.

 

Actually Buddhist meditation makes us more and more “pervious,” to coin a term. That is, we wake up to things more and more. This begins with our body in zazen. We think we know all about our body, are completely familiar with it. But actually, large parts of our body have gone to sleep, have become impervious—usually because of some trauma or deep pain. That pain becomes stored in that body place—perhaps it is in the shoulders or stomach—and muscles and tissues coalesce around that place to keep it from feeling that pain again. The wisdom of rolfing, which was a popular deep massage technique a while back, was to press into these impervious places and get them feeling again.

 

The problem with rolfing, as with so many other such techniques, is that the awakening is temporary. Until the underlying cause of the problem is unraveled, the imperviousness returns. Zazen is in one sense like an extremely slow, alchemical, self-rolfing that isn't temporary. What is made awake stays awake and this process goes on forever.

 

And yes, there are times when the process of awakening unleashes itself in an instant, suddenly, dramatically. Sometimes slow, sometimes fast. Actually they are two halves of the same process.

 

The body, of course, is not the primary terrain of Buddhist practice; it functions as a metaphor and gateway for the actual terrain, which is awareness itself. The physical body is one of many loci of awareness; the breath is another, memory is another, sense perceptions are another. Everything is simultaneously the cause of our imprisonment, and the gateway to its liberation. That's why we don't want to become impervious; that would rob us of the best chance we have to be awakened in this life. We go with “pervious.” (I'd like to collect all those words in English that only exist today in their negative—such as inept, ruthless, and so on. Or maybe it's been done. Must google…)--LEW

April 29. Suzuki Roshi once said, “When we sit, we don't think.” And then a little later, he added, “When thoughts come, we don't pursue them.” The average person might think, Oh, he's contradicting himself. But actually, this is a very precise meditation instruction that has embedded within it much wisdom about the nature of awareness and the effort we make in sitting.

 

Clearly, he is making a distinction between “thinking” and “thoughts that come.” Thinking as an intentional, purposeful activity has a particular quality that we become quite familiar with in zazen. There is a sense of momentum, of energy, even of uncontrollability or obsessiveness, to this kind of thinking. Sometimes the word “worry” covers this kind of thinking, but it is wider than worry. It is a thought stream that we consciously and intentionally create out of our historical patterns of ego clinging. Technically, we would say that such mental activity is karma, which literally means “action.” I like to translate it as “intentional action in the present moment.”

 

Contrast to this the quality of “thoughts come.” As our mind and body calm down in sitting, thoughts do come. The idea that the ideal zazen state is one where there are no thoughts is mistaken, and in the Zen tradition the Sixth Ancestor, Hui Neng, made this very clear. To sit in a kind of vacant, thoughtless emptiness, or to strive for such a state, is strictly speaking heretical from the Buddhist point of view. Gautama himself, after having studied and experienced such states, strongly rejected them.

 

Thoughts do come, because thought is the natural activity of an awake mental state. But these thoughts that rather passively arise are different than the “thinking” thoughts that we string together with karmic energy to mask some fear, or attraction, or confusion. Thoughts which just “come” are not a problem, as long as we don't hitch a ride with them and turn them into “thinking.” Or as Suzuki Roshi said, with his wry sense of humor, we “don't invite them [thoughts] to dinner.” In one door, out the other. They come and they go.

 

Then the essence of awareness is unaffected, and undisturbed. Awareness functions like a mirror—reflecting accurately what comes and goes, without itself being soiled. “Great mirror mind”—this is one of the many epithets in Zen to describe this kind of mind. “The moon in water”—this was one of Dogen's favorite expressions too. Sitting in the midst of thoughts arising and falling gives us great power to accept things that happen to us; it doesn't make us impervious to them. As Bodhisattvas we vow to sit in the midst of the suffering of the world, and to experience it ourselves. But we can hold it, like a crying baby, with love, even though it may break our heart. -- LEW

April 20. The blogger has been busy. I should turn this work over to “the one who is not busy “ (phrase from a famous Zen koan). But I'm afraid I can't afford his rates in today's global economy.

 

During our one-day sitting last Sunday, Suzuki Roshi said, at the end of a lecture-commentary on Dogen's Genjo Koan: “You should become like a rock. A rock doesn't know who he is.” He said this to describe the life of Zen training—sitting, eating, working, day after day, same thing, not much change. This is an interesting statement, “to become like a rock.” We can take this two ways. In one ordinary sense, a rock is lifeless, unfeeling, utterly immovable. In another sense, a rock is completely reliable, and doesn't need any thinking or planning to be what it is.

 

We have to understand this comment in the context of the Buddhist world-view, which sees a rock in the latter sense. For us, rocks are alive; therefore they can be an apt metaphor for the compassionate, awakened state. I think he means rock in the sense of what follows: ‘A rock doesn't know who he is.” In other words, a rock is so completely a rock that there is no need to rely on ego, no need to protect some fragile, soft, terrified structure. A rock is just completely there, ready for anything.

 

Living in a Zen monastery such as Tassajara, day after (seeming) boring day, is interesting. There is nothing much going on except the dulling whining, like a mosquito, of one's impatient, doubting mind, whispering “There is no point to this. Nothing is happening here. I'm wasting my time. I could be having a V-8” (or whatever). The voice that is saying this is not a rock. It is not ready to really help someone. It is still, like a child, absorbed in its own predilections, its own needs.

 

So leave it to a Zen teacher to tell us to be like a rock, who doesn't know who he is. This comment is easy to misunderstand unless you knew Suzuki Roshi personally, who was warm, completely relaxed, and radically present. Yet he was unbelievably solid is that mode; he was set in it. It is perhaps not surprising that his hobby was rock gardens, and he loved nothing more than to spend an afternoon with a rock bigger than himself, nudging it and levering it with a pry bar, to move it to where he wanted. We used to watch him doing that, sweating in the hot summer sun in his light work robe. He was not just one with his work, and with the rock. He was a rock. If you approached him, he would greet you; but otherwise, he had no need to know who he was. -- LEW

April 8. Today is the day traditionally celebrated as Buddha's birthday in Japan , and perhaps some other countries (different countries use different dates). In Zen, Buddha's enlightenment day (traditionally December 8) is more important; the winter sesshin or zazen retreat typically ends on that day. But Buddha's birthday is important too; Suzuki Roshi, in an early lecture, said that since the Buddha was a real person who lived in India , his birthday recognizes his humanness.

 

The ceremony to celebrate Buddha's birthday is family and child centered. A special statue of the baby Buddha is set up. The posture of this statue has one finger pointing at the sky, and one pointing at the earth. This commemorates the moment in the scriptures when the baby Buddha emerged from the womb and supposedly said, “Above the heavens and below the earth, I am the world-honored one.” Just as in Christianity, the baby Buddha was not conceived or born the usual way. He was supposedly conceived by a white six-tusked elephant that descended magically into his mother's womb; and he was born by emerging magically from his mother's side.

 

Religiosity aside, Gautama was indeed a human being, and his enlightenment on seeing the morning star indicates that this liberation is accessible to everyone. Over time, Buddhism expanded to include a whole pantheon of celestial Buddhas, each representing some psychic force or power; The Zen movement, which was a back-to-basics reform movement that emerged in 7 th century A.D. China , wanted to return to the simplicity and basic quality of Gautama as an ordinary human being.

 

So when we celebrate Buddha's birthday, we celebrate our own birthday. It is said in scripture that to be born as a human being is as rare as a turtle swimming in the ocean with one eye in its belly finding a floating log, swinging his belly up, and seeing the sun. In other words, quite rare. -- LEW

March 28. The blog rather fell off the map during a very busy few weeks, my apologies. I have been battling a very mild stomach bug, which nevertheless has been hanging on. Haven't been able to get to everything. I talked last night about the quality of feeling “almost well,” and the expectation behind it that “I am well, I should be well.” I notice that I am impatient with my insignificant malaise, which prevents me from accomplishing everything I want to each day. What a waste of energy to think that way! I need to be more accepting. When we are really sick, we think, ‘Well, I am sick, I don't expect to be well. I'll just go to bed and wait until I am better.” But when we are almost well, we become impatient.

 

In other words, we suffer largely because of our mental categories and expectations, more than from what is really happening. Gautama the Buddha distinguished in his own teaching between mental suffering, which is curable through Dharma and practice, and physical suffering, which is not. He is supposed to have died in great pain, from having eaten spoiled food, but his mind remained calm; he spent his last minutes calming his grieving disciples, and offering them his last teaching. “Don't worry about me,” he said. “Be a light unto yourselves.” He lived to the ripe age of 79. The decay and dissolution of the body through old age is simply a fact. To lament this fact is, at root, a mental obscuration.

 

So to translate dukkha as “suffering,” as most Buddhist writers tend to do, is not really accurate. I like “unnecessary, or manmade, suffering.” The fundamental reason why we become ill, or experience physical pain, is because we have a body. How wonderful that the body works as well as it does, for as long as it does! What a miracle! We should mostly be grateful. When illness comes, when old age comes, as those things inevitably will, we need to be mentally prepared through our practice. As for the injustice and exploitation that people foist on each other: that is also manmade, created through our ever-present delusions of power and illusions of safety or possession. We must all work to clarify these obscurations, in our own lives and in the larger social sphere.

 

And as for hurricanes, earthquakes, and so on—well, just as we have a body, we live on a planet! Sometimes it shivers and shakes. How fortunate it is not still covered with volcanoes, as it has been in the past. We should be grateful. Natural disasters are not always dukkha ; we need to remain calm, plan carefully, don't build mansions on the seashore, and be ready when the warning comes . However, when it comes to global warming—manmade! Dukkha! Our consciousness has not grown to include planet-wide implications of our careless and often self-centered uses of energy. We will be paying the price for this lack of wider consciousness for so many generations. I'm hoping that the Dharma teaching that has come to us in this generation will be helpful in transforming the inner, mental causes of global warming.

 

Of course the most fundamental way to discern the nature and quality of manmade suffering through sitting practice, when we can see the actual arising and falling of the mental formations that create it. See it, and see through it.--LEW

 

Feb. 1. My friend Surya Das sent me the following quote of a twentieth century Korean Zen teacher:

 

To practice the Tao

Is to have a tender heart.

 

If you say your Tao does not have a tender heart

What petty larceny is this?

 

We have been discussing the koan “Every day mind is Tao,” which is one of the important teaching stories in our Zen tradition, one that Suzuki Roshi talked about a good bit. Even though the story is profound, there is nothing with an explicit emotional tone in it. Nansen and Joshu are discussing Tao as “ultimate reality,” or “path of wisdom.” But how does the Tao feel? Good, bad? Loving, detached?

 

There is a lot of misunderstanding about Buddhist ideas of “detachment,” or “non-attachment.” These terms are difficult to fully grasp outside the full Buddhist culture in which they abide. In particular, “detachment” might, in a Western psychological context, be a marker or clue for depression. “I'm detached from everything, nothing gets to me, nothing excites me.” We would say such a person has a “flat affect.”

 

If instead of concepts we turn to people, and look at such realized teachers as Suzuki Roshi, or Thich Nhat Han, or the Dalai Lama, or Kalu Rinpoche—just to name a few—flat affect is the farthest thing from their emotional tone. They are tremendously emotional people. Their presenting emotion is one of contentment, or happiness, or kindness (The Dalai Lama has famously said that his religion is kindness) but, for anyone who knows them well, the range of their emotional life is wide—probably wide than that of an ordinary person.

 

So when the Korean teacher says “to practice Tao with a tender heart” this is basic Buddhism to anyone steeped in Buddhist culture. Any other artificial or intellectual ideas that knowledge about ultimate reality makes one emotionally flat or “detached” is just some overlay or projection out of our own cultural misunderstanding.

 

Certainly, equanimity as an attitude and virtue is central to Buddhist meditative cultivation, but this equanimity is worlds apart from not caring about things, or having a flat affect. How so? Tune in next week, same time, same station… LEW

Jan. 21. More on “Everyday Mind is Tao.”

 

I often mention that there are two aspects to Buddhist meditation—concentration and insight. We might more accurately say concentration and openness, or focus and relaxation. One without the other is not quite right, not quite liberative. Concentration by itself is just a skill. Some people are quite interested in it. There are many concentrative techniques. In Zen we like to use following the breath or counting the breath. Counting the breath is good for people who really want to know whether they are concentrated or not. Counting 1 to 10 may be “boring,” but if you get to 25 you'll know you've gotten distracted. Try counting to 2 instead. The mind is so distractable!

 

Openness / relaxation is another matter. In most ways, concentration is actually easier, because it requires conventional effort. Relaxation is by definition the opposite of effort, but how do you cultivate it? “Everyday mind is Tao” is an expression of the ultimate relaxation. Actually, there is no need to relax anything. You are in the midst of ultimate relaxation all the time—Being itself, awareness itself, needs no adjustment, no release of tension. But how do we attain such a state? That is what Joshu asked in the story: “How do I accord with Tao?”

 

His teacher answered, “The more you try to accord with it, the farther you are from it.”

 

In the end, a fully concentrated state of mind and a relaxed state of mind come to the same thing. But there are many paths, many byways on the way to that point. You notice that Nansen doesn't say, “DON'T make any effort to accord with it.” Efforts are necessary. Knowing ourselves does not come easily. If it did, the world wouldn't be crazy. We are all Buddhas; so it is said. But at the moment, almost all of us “Buddhas” are blind as bats.

 

Is that why we sit with our eyes open? -- LEW

Jan. 16. An old Zen story goes as follows:

 

Joshu asked Nansen, “What is Tao?” (What is the Path?)

Nansen replied, “Everyday Mind is Tao.”

Joshu said, “How do I accord with Tao?”

Nansen answered, “The more you try to follow Tao, the more you lose Tao.”

 

The story goes on, but this is the essence of it. This was one of Suzuki-Roshi's favorite Zen koans; he taught from it a good bit. As written, the story has a real Taoist flavor; it could have come from the Tao Te Ching of LaoTzu. In fact, Chinese Zen is about 40% Taoist, as befits the Chinese spiritual culture of the time.

 

But the story is also a wonderful teaching story about Buddhist practice, the practice of sitting meditation, and right effort. The first point of the story is the phrase “everyday mind is Tao.” This is widely misunderstood, as is often the case when we accept someone's English translation as the story, without looking further. “Everyday” in this case does not mean “whatever distracted state of mind I happen to be in, everyday,” or, more succinctly, it does not mean “whatever mind.” “Everyday” means the mind that is with you all the time, whatever you do, everyday, any time. In other words, it means the essence of mind, awareness itself.

 

So when Joshu presses further, “How do I accord with Tao?” we see from Nansen's response that Tao is not something out there to “accord” with. It is not a “thing,” not an “it,” not an object, not a something. So what is it then? Already language is losing us. “What is it?” is a construction, a concept, that has to do with subject and object. “I see it,” whatever it is—a dog, a cat, a pillowcase. We might be able to accord with a pillowcase (maybe by sleeping on it!) but we can't accord with Being itself, awareness itself, because “accord” is not an idea that has any meaning in that realm. The harder we try to accord, furrowing our brow and making great efforts, the more we wrap ourselves up in knots.

 

Yet it takes a lot of effort to sit! We can barely find time for it when we come on Tuesday night to Vimala Sangha, much less on our own in the course of a busy day. If our effort to “accord with Tao” is wasted, then why do it at all?

 

Well, once again, the sitting that we do does not exist in the realm of “doing it” or “now I am sitting, trying hard to follow my breath.” More next week… LEW

Jan. 7. Well! The New Year. My mind's a blank. (Isn't it supposed to be? You might ask? Not when you have to write something, it isn't.) Or as an old cartoon character used to say, I'm trying to think and nothing happens!

 

Ok, thinking: that reminds me. Once someone came to my teacher and said, “My zazen is terrible. I'm thinking all the time.” He replied, “What's wrong with thinking?”

 

We have this notion—rather deeply embedded, I think—that meditation is about attaining a state of mind where there is no thinking. That is not completely wrong; indeed, there is such a state and it is most blissful. But there is no liberation in it. In fact, it is rather disconnected from everything that matters—specifically, the suffering of all beings and things. Gautama himself—and I daresay practitioners of every generation thereafter—came to this place in their meditation and imagined for a while that “This is it!”

 

Well, it's not it. In fact, there is no “it.” Not the way we usually think, anyway. To think there is an “it”—a moment or epiphany that changes everything, that makes everything all right forever after—is strictly speaking a heretical view in Buddhism. Why? Simply put, because everything changes, including any “it” you might come to.

 

Certainly there are moments and periods of great transformation or release; if you think there aren't any, that is also a heretical view. Buddhism is first and foremost a path of awakening, of enlightenment, and the life stories of every great Buddhist teacher include such moments as part of their path.

 

One such teacher was Te Shan, a master in the Chinese Zen tradition. In his youth he was a master of the Diamond Sutra scripture; in fact he carried the scripture, with all its commentaries, in a pack on his back. Once he stopped for tea at a wayside mountain hut. He set down his pack and waited for the woman in charge of the way station to serve him tea.

 

The woman held out the cup of tea, but before she handed it to him, she said, “Oh, you are Te Shan, the famous scholar of the Diamond Sutra. In that sutra it says, “Past mind is not got at; present mind is not got at; future mind is not got at. Tell me, sir; with what mind do you plan to drink this cup of tea?” (In those days, tea ladies seemed to also be Buddhist masters. Such a time is again at hand).

 

Te Shan was dumbfounded and could not answer. Later he burned all his commentaries and went to a Zen temple to begin his real study of the Path.

 

Where is the “it?” Past, present or future? -- LEW

Dec. 28.  I am feeling lazy today, so I am just going to post my year-end Sangha Newsletter, for those who may not have received it by email.  May all beings be happy!

 

Dear Sangha Members and Friends,

 

I hope everyone is having a happy holiday season. And for those who are dealing with illness or other difficulty, either with yourself or someone you love, may the compassion-mind of all beings and Buddhas ease your pain.

 

This is the last newsletter of 2006. The turn of the year is typically a time when Buddhists reflect on the change and impermanence that affects all of us. In the early days, Suzuki Roshi used to give his students a calendar marked with Buddhist sayings for each month.

 

Worthy as that sentiment may be, somehow I don't feel inclined to dwell on it today. What comes to mind instead is how much our Sangha has grown and developed in the past year. Given that we don't conventionally advertise our presence much, our number is slowly growing; what is more significant to me is how much the spirit and commitment of our Sangha has deepened during the year. This is due, I think, to the innate power of our core practice of sitting—together and alone. Even those who only sit once a week, or come occasionally, have benefited from this. How wonderful! Doing nothing really is doing something after all!

 

Beginning February 11, we will be resuming our Sunday half-day sittings, 9-1 in the Ohanlon gallery. We will do these approximately every other month, schedules permitting. So mark your calendars; you will be receiving numerous reminders before then, and as always the website-- www.VimalaSangha.Org -- is the best place to find the latest scheduling news, as well as this weekly ZenBlog, on topics as various as the cosmos.

 

Another event I would like to mention is my own concert / lecture /happening on Sunday March 18, at 2 p.m. in the O'Hanlon gallery. I will be playing some of Bach's Goldberg Variations, teaching about the Heart Sutra (and how it relates to Bach) and performing some of my own keyboard compositions, many of which are on my upcoming CD, Songs of Lazarus. All my other CDs will be on sale too. I hope to see many of you there!

 

Oh, and Happy New Year! Regardless of what is happening, either to you, your loved ones or our beloved world, somewhere there is happiness in it. That is our faith and conviction as Buddhists. May you and all your loved ones be well and free from suffering. -- LEW

 

Dec. 17. Last week I talked about the importance and issue of daily sitting. This week I want to widen the scope of the discussion to discuss why we sit, or what sitting really is.

 

The word “Buddha” means “awake”, and it describes who we really are. It means awareness itself, consciousness itself, and there is no moment of our existence in which this awareness is not manifest, is not present. In fact, it is presence itself, being itself. When we sit, regardless of our superficial state of mind, whether we are in good concentration or not, whether we are following our breath or not, we resume our nature as Buddhas, awake aware beings. Even when we are not sitting, whatever we do Buddha is there.

 

When people hear this sort of talk, they generally respond by saying (or thinking), “Yeah, I guess. But the word ‘Buddha' doesn't describe me, or my sitting.” Maybe so, as my teacher liked to say. But that only means we do not rest in Buddha, we do not trust Buddha enough, we do not manifest or use Buddha.

 

There are various approaches in contemplative Buddhism, and they are all here now in the West—the way of Vipassana, then the various schools of Tibetan Buddhism and Zen. All point to the same truth, but there is a different emphasis, or teaching style. We shouldn't make too much of the differences. The style of practice in Vimala Sangha is based on the “original Zen” brought to us by Shunryu Suzuki, with his lineage in the Soto school of Zen and the teaching of Dogen. In this approach, faith or confidence is uppermost. We do not wait for some transformative experience to happen, or focus on that. At the same time, it trivializes Suzuki-Roshi's Zen tradition to say that there is no transformative experience, or that it isn't important. It is just not the point that needs to be emphasized, as Suzuki Roshi said.

 

Why not? Why shouldn't enlightenment experience be the most important thing? Because described that way, it is just another thing to want. If it's the highest thing in Buddhism, why not get it? Right now?

 

One time, in front of 50,000 people, someone asked the Dalai Lama, “What's the fastest way to get enlightened?” The Dalai Lama started to cry.

 

Once, Suzuki Roshi began a talk by saying, “Oh, you think it is hard to get up in the morning and come to zazen. You don't understand. Practice is not some particular time and place. It is 24 hours a day.”

 

Set aside daily sitting for a moment. What about this moment, right now? What are you doing? Is practice something you will find time for later? This is another, more traditional, aspect of the “daily sitting” debate. If you can sit every day, by all means do it. It is the transmitted practice of all Buddhas. If you can't, practice the way of awakening whenever you can. That is also the transmitted practice of all Buddhas.—LEW

Dec. 10. To sit or not to sit? As in, daily sitting? There are various points of view about this, and I thought as the new year dawns, it might be a good time to discuss them.

 

My teacher, Shunryu Suzuki, was a big fan of daily sitting. It was his practice style. However, that was his American innovation. Laypeople in Japan —“laypeople” meaning someone who was not ordained as a priest / professional living in a Zen monastery – do have a daily sitting practice. They are far too busy. (Sound familiar?) In fact, throughout Buddhist history, non-monks rarely had time for daily practice. Suzuki-Roshi arrived in America at a time when his young students seemed to have plenty of time, and so he instituted daily zazen at his temple. He himself sat every day there, whether or not people came—and in the early days, some mornings no one came. However, it is worth noting that he admitted that in his temple in Japan , he was so busy taking care of temple business and doing ceremonies he often did not have time to sit. Such is the lot of the religious professional.

 

In the other two lineage traditions—Vipassana and Vajrayana (Tibetan Buddhism)—as well as in other styles of Zen, it is intense retreat practice that is emphasized. Some Vajrayana teachers, adjusting to the busy lives of their students, have instituted a style of practice in which the intense retreat regimen is spread over many months, or even years, a couple hours a day.

 

There is no question that if you have the time, some period of sitting every day is most beneficial, and there are members of Vimala Sangha who are able to maintain that. Others—particularly those with small children—find that difficult or impractical. I have been reluctant to recommend or mandate daily sitting as our preferred style, because I know that for many of us in Vimala Sangha it is just not workable.

 

I hope that with the re-institution of our Sunday half-day sittings (every other month) that people will available themselves of that mini-retreat format to deepend their practice. I am also interested in forming a class or work group to explore individual, personal retreats.

 

In short, we do what we can. To quote the Dalai Lama, “in America , Buddhist students should try to live their lives as sincere human beings. And then, when they can, enter retreat practice for a day, week, month, or longer.” His Holiness understands the reality of modern life, and is willing to be flexible.

 

Flexible -- the favorite word of one Japanese monk I had the priviliege to travel with many years ago. It was one of the few English words he knew, but he loved saying it. For him, it encompassed the best of what Buddhist really is. -- LEW

 

Dec. 3. The serious Holiday season is approaching, along with Solstice, the low point of light in the year. At these times, I always reflect how much Buddhism grew out of a polytheistic, nature-centric, even animistic background. One of the interesting innovations of Buddhist scriptures, as they developed from the Buddha's own spoken word, is the way the “gods” are treated, and how they are compared with human beings.

 

The world in which Gautama lived was filled with deities of all kinds—big, small, powerful, local—as was the case all over the world at that time. The general thinking among people at that time was that the events of the world were managed and caused to happen by the caprice of the gods. We are quite familiar with this in our own Western culture through the Greek and Roman myths. It was the Buddha's quite radical view that the gods—if they existed at all—were quite irrelevant to the reasons why things happened. He was one of the first great teachers and philosophers to understand that nature follows its own laws, and that everything happens for a reason—result following from cause.

 

What's more, the Gods in Buddhist scriptures are portrayed as rather dull beings. The Buddha attempted to teach them—so it is said, in the “4 th watch of the night”—but they were very slow. The basis of Dharma, that conditioned existence is marked with suffering—eluded them, because in their exalted divine status they were protected from suffering. They were like the super-rich of today, able to eat anything, live anywhere, buy whatever they want. Buddha taught that only in the human realm is liberation possible; human birth is the best of all possible births—not in spite of suffering, but because of it.

 

In that sense, the tragedy of human existence is at the same time the mother of human wisdom. It is the crucible in which we awaken. -- LEW

Nov. 26. Thanksgiving. I had said a few blogs ago that Halloween was one of our only “real” holidays, in the sense of evoking something primal in our human community. Thankgiving is another. Commercialized beyond belief in America , as are all our holidays. But it is the biggest travel holiday of the year, as people fly, drive, and take the train to re-unite with their families. This week's New Yorker cover shows two Thanksgiving scenes: first, a Norman Rockwell one with everyone sitting around the table, young and old, communing with each other over a meal; the second, everyone glued to the football game on the flatscreen TV while a teenage girl chats on her cellphone.

 

Gratitude is of the essence of Buddhist practice, and for us as Zen contemplatives, it is not an idea, it is an energetic sensation. Sitting is emotional; Zen is emotional. To the extent it is about thinking, it is only in the sense that thinking is there, something that we notice. But the real transformation, the real inner development, is from emotion and the sensation of emotion. Many of you are familiar with the “chakras” of Hindu and Buddhist Yoga. There are five main ones: the “root” chakra at the base of the spine, the “gut” chakra two inches below the navel, the heart chakra, the throat, and final the crown of the head. This is not theory; common language expresses the reality of these places as emotional energy centers in our body. “Butterflies in the stomach,” “He's got guts”; “broken-hearted”; “lump in the throat”—and so on. The halo that is seen in religious art around saints in every tradition is actually a rendition of the spacious energy that opens in the crown of the head when inner wisdom dawns.

 

In Zen we don't have a systematic Indian-style chakra yoga teaching as they do in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, but Zen knows about them; the powerful emotional sensations that rise up in these centers are the sign that our sitting is becoming less thinking oriented, more emotional. It is more than all right to feel emotions when we sit. It is, as they say in Doonesbury, sort of the point—one point, anyway.

 

Thanksgiving—oh, yes, I started there. Feel the gratitude in your heart, for everything, for being alive, for the universe, and the inner meaning of the holiday is there— America 's most genuine Buddhist holiday.--LEW

Nov. 19 Yesterday we had our semi-annual one-day retreat at Green Gulch, attended by 16 people. The retreat focus was on the fundamentals of Zen meditation. Ed Sattizahn gave a morning talk on “Stability”—otherwise known as posture. We don't like calling it posture because that implies some form to be imposed. Suzuki-Roshi liked to talk about “resuming” our posture, meaning that the transmitted form of Buddhist sitting meditation is something the body naturally does when it is completely relaxed.

 

Just before lunch Karen Geiger—lifelong professional dancer, yoga teacher, and senior Sangha member—led us through a wonderful series of movement/ awareness exercises.

 

The retreat featured two new innovations: small group practice discussion, and gender-specific group discussion. The former, which is being tried by Dharma teachers in various traditions, means that I met privately with retreatants three at a time, to answer questions about meditation and engage in dharma discussion. I had heard from other teachers who have tried this that they really liked it; some prefer it so much they rarely meet privately with practitioners anymore, unless specifically requested.

 

After doing it yesterday, I have to agree. There was a relaxed, informal sense that put all of us at ease, but also a real focus and penetration to people's questions and comments. Perhaps this will become our preferred mode in Vimala Sangha; we'll see.

 

In the afternoon, the women and men met separately for about 40 minutes of discussion about their meditation experiences, and then came together for a brief wrap-up. I decided to try this for two reasons. First, there is more and more research validating that women and men have fundamentally different communication styles, based on neuro-physiological differences. The most recent book to discuss this research is the best-selling The Female Brain, by local author Dr. Louann Brizendine. Secondly, a woman Dharma teacher in our lineage has convinced me that women and men have rather different somatic and energetic experiences of meditation. I missed these discussions myself, as I was doing a practice instruction during that time, but the reports back were that it was most fruitful and interesting.

 

Thanks to all who participated for making the retreat a successful and deepening experience for all. Our next one-day retreat will probably be April, 2007. Stay tuned!--LEW

Nov. 12. This Tuesday, at our evening meditation, Lin Gensha Maslow will give our first “way-seeking mind” talk. This is a tradition that has become popular at various Zen Centers; a way-seeking mind talk is essentially a talk about the person's spiritual journey, life history, life story, etc. a kind of spiritual autobiography. Since Lin was recently ordained as a priest, I thought it would be good to model this kind of talk—especially since he gave one when he was in residence at Tassajara last year.

 

I hope that as time goes on many of our Sangha members will be willing to come forward and give their own way-seeking mind talks. In addition to being an excellent way for us to get to know one another better, these talks demonstrate the reality that in Buddhism, we learn from everything and everyone—not just the identified “teacher.” Each of us has something to learn, and something to teach—always.

 

The term “way-seeking mind” comes from the Buddhist term bodhicitta via the Chinese/Japanese DoShin, or Tao-Mind. It is interesting how much our knowledge of Mahayana Buddhism, and especially Zen, is mediated so much by Chinese and Japanese culture. What we call “Taoism” was the indigenous spirituality of China long before Buddhism arrived there in the 1 st century A.D. College textbooks will tell you that Taoism was founded by Lao-Tze, who wrote the great classic Tao Te Ching. Chinese society was so imbued by the teachings of Lao-Tze and his Tao that one legend had it that once Lao-Tze was finished with his teaching in China , he went to India and became—The Buddha! Yes, at first the Chinese had a hard time imagining that the Buddha was not Chinese.

 

As I have often mentioned, there is no such word “Buddhism” in the teaching of the Buddha. The Buddha himself used the word marga, which means path or way, as in the “eight-fold path.” The Buddha literally meant a path that one could walk, as from village to village. In China , marga became translated as tao, which immediately had vast implications of connection to the teaching of Lao Tze and the well-established tradition of the Tao.

 

Some people like to say that Zen is 40% Taoism, 40% Buddhism, and 20% Confucianism (another well-established spiritual tradition of China ). So be it. Way-seeking mind means the heart-mind that seeks the truth, whatever label or tradition may contain it.

 

We all look forward to lin's talk! -- LEW

Nov. 5. Our upcoming one-day retreat at Green Gulch on Nov. 18 will have as its theme “Fundamentals of Zen Meditation.” We will teach the basics, and also some advanced points, about posture, concentration, and “just-awareness,” our transmitted Zen meditation practice. The day will have about six or seven short periods, a dharma talk, small and large group discussion, and small group practice discussion with me.

 

For the small and large group discussion, which will have as its theme “What are you experiencing in meditation today?” we are going to split by gender—two small groups of women, two small groups of men. Several woman dharma teachers who are colleagues of mine have been telling me that a woman's inner and energetic experience of meditation is different than a man's. They have also been reading “The Female Brain” by Dr. Louanne Brizendine, which supports this difference with neuro-physiological research and other scientific data. It's hard to say what all this means viz a viz Zen meditation, but we want to try this and see how it works. Dr. Brizendine also talks quite a lot about the different communication styles of men and women, and the neurological basis for that, so that's another reason to split our discussion by gender.

 

As for “small group practice discussion,” I have been wanting for some time to try this. Several Buddhist teachers, within and without the Zen tradition, have found that meeting with people two or three at a time, rather than one on one, has many advantages; some teachers have come to prefer it over the traditional Zen method of dokusan. It will be a relaxed environment. We'll sit in chairs (although we might be a little crowded. The practice discussion room will probably be a converted kitchen storage closet). Given the size of the retreat, there will only be 15 minutes per group, or 5 minutes per person, so this will help develop our skill for concise, focused communication. That use of language is traditional in the oral teaching of Zen, so it will be interesting to see what happens.

 

For those of you who are coming, I'll see you all there! For those of you who are not, watch this space for a report after it happens. -- LEW

Oct. 30. Last Tuesday, as an early Halloween evening, we performed our first American Segaki ceremony while we had our second children's meditation meeting in the Loft building.

 

I have always thought that among all American holidays, Halloween is the most “real” or deep, or spiritual. Like many of our holidays, Halloween comes from a pagan ritual that is probably very old. One Sangha member with knowledge of such things mentioned the possibility that it goes back to the Paleolithic, when shamans donned animal masks after the Fall hunt. Anyway, to get us into the spirit, I came with a not-too-scary half-mask called “The Dockworker” by the manufacturer, and began the lecture wearing it.

 

The word “personality” comes from the Latin “persona,” which means mask. Our personality is a kind of psycho-physical mask that we construct and wear; it is not our deep nature. The standard textbook rendering of the Buddhist teaching of “no abiding self or personality” could also, in this sense, be translated “you are not the mask.” When we don a mask, others immediately see us in the deeper, more primal dream-space of archetype and animal; the transformation is immediate and vivid. People laughed the minute I put on the dockworker mask; our response is like that.

 

After the talk we recited the Ten Line Sutra of Boundless Life, a prayer to Avalokitesvara, Bodhisttva of infinite Compassion, and then as I rang the “spirit bell,” the Sangha was invited to invoke the spirit of those departed or those ill or suffering by calling out their names. It was magical, powerful, and deep—real Halloween (a contraction of “all hallow's evening,” hallow being ghost or spirit).

 

In Japan , there is a more elaborate Buddhist ceremony called Segaki, which invokes a similar purpose. Segaki is really pre-Buddhist—even pre-civilization. We carry the afflictions of our loved and remembered ones in our memories and our longings. By speaking them, by stating them, we bring compassion, we bring peace. -- LEW

Oct. 23. This Sunday, I performed and completed Lin Maslow's ordination as a Zen priest, giving him the Buddhist name Gensha Myo-En, Profound Fabric Bright Circle . Here are some excerpts of explanatory remarks I made during the ceremony:

 

Preceptor: In its original form in ancient India , the Buddhist community had four types of people: monks, nuns, laymen and laywomen. Over time, as Buddhism moved from country to country, there came to be also a hybrid category which we call priest: not a monk entirely removed from the world, but a religious professional living in the world as ordinary people do, dedicating his life to the welfare and spiritual awakening of others, and helping other people to learn meditation and the practice of Buddhism. Lin is being ordained today in keeping with his already well established vocation to minister to the sick and dying, and with his developing role in our Vimala Sangha, where he assists Ed Sattizahn and myself in the leadership of our spiritual community.

 

During the ceremony, you will be hearing the word “Bodhisattva” a great deal. A Bodhisattva is a Buddhist term for someone who devotes him or herself to the welfare of others over and above his own. The vows that Lin will be taking we call the sixteen Bodhisattva vows. These vows, together with the ritual head shaving symbolizing his renunciation of self-centered desires, define the kind of life that Lin is formally taking on. Let us join with him as he commences this ceremonial affirmation of his initiation into the life of a dedicated Bodhisattva.

 

* * * *

Preceptor: As part of a priest ordination ceremony, the ordinee receives a special Buddhist name, composed of four Chinese characters. In choosing these four characters, I have tried to convey some unique quality of Lin as a person, as well as his potential to continue growing and developing as a person of wisdom.

 

Lin, I now give you the Buddhist name GENSHA MYOEN, Profound Fabric Bright Circle .

 

The character GEN literally means dark, but in a Buddhist context it means profound, subtle, or mysterious.

 

The character SHA can be translated as “fabric.” Specifically, it means a very fine, gossamer silk.

 

Taken together, GENSHA, Profound Fabric, means the subtle interconnection that joins all living things, indeed all Being itself. Difficult to see, all but invisible to ordinary vision, GENSHA Profound Fabric symbolizes the deep truth and interwoveness of all beings and things. By realizing this truth, and taking up this profound fabric, we can operate freely in this suffering world with limitless compassion and joy.

 

MYOEN means “ Bright Circle .” This represents the Full Moon-- a common symbol for Enlightenment in the Zen tradition.

 

GENSHA MYOEN, Profound Fabric Bright Circle, receive this name as your new inner identity as priest and Bodhisattva. People may still call you Lin, but inside you are Gensha, cultivating the bright circle of your wisdom life.

 

* * *

 

Preceptor: Now as we conclude the ceremony, I would like to say a few words of congratulation. I think Lin has wanted to take this step his whole life, and look! Today he has done it. How Wonderful! Lin is a person of many talents, so it is a great thing that he has chosen to offer those talents to the benefit of all beings. I feel privileged to have come to know him well these last few years, and honored that he has asked me to be his Kalyanamitra, his good spiritual friend. I look forward to accompanying him as he walks the great Path of wisdom.

 

Lin, I congratulate you on having taken this momentous step. Now you have joined with all of the wisdom ancestors of our Zen tradition, have taken your place among them, and are one with them.

 

Gensha Myoen, Suzuki Roshi would be proud of you. I am proud of you. We are all proud of you. Now go forth, do great work, and know that we are all with you and are helping you, from this moment forward.

--LEW

 

Oct 14. On Oct. 22, I will be ordaining Lin Maslow as a priest according to our Zen tradition. As this is a topic of some confusion, I wanted to say a few words to clarify how I see it. Originally, the Buddhist community was composed of four types of people: monks, nuns, laymen and laywomen. The monks and nuns were real renunciates; they took the 256 (or more) vows to abstain from sexuality, family, money, livelihood, household, and a number of other things. So Buddhism began as a monastic-centered tradition, and has to some extent remained that way.

 

Through the centuries, however, there have been a number of efforts to modify this original classification to allow more direct participation and leadership by people who were not full renunciates. In Japan for example, since the 11 th and 12 th centuries there have been many large reform movements, such as the Faith schools, who allowed married clergy and less distinction and separation between monks and laypeople.

 

Our tradition, which was brought here by Suzuki Roshi, is based on his identity as a priest of Japanese Soto Zen. Suzuki Roshi did not want to transplant the institutional traditions of the Soto school to America per se. If anything, he wanted to get away from them.

 

In his lifetime, Suzuki Roshi ordained 16 priests, but these people did not practice differently than the rest of the community. Many had partners, families, outside jobs and careers.  

 

So the simplest way to understand what a priest is in our American Zen tradition is to think of them as religious professionals, devoted to teaching Dharma and helping others come to Dharma.  I like to say that a Zen priest in the world has three jobs--first, to help others practice; second, to bring joy into any situation; and third, to be responsive to any request.  There are many other aspects too, but these are the essential tasks.  This is the inner work of the Zen priest; the outer appearance may vary widely.   We are still in the first couple of generations of this lineage tradition in the West.  In the future there may be established Zen temples for priests to lead and work in.  For now, we are roving compassion warriors, doing what we can, going where we are invited, doing what we are asked.

I am such a priest, and Lin will be joining me in that vocation. His work as a hospice nurse will continue—indeed, his ministry to the sick and dying is a natural expression of his priestly vocation.

 

Those of you who can attend the ceremony (3 p.m. Sunday Oct. 22 nd at Green Gulch Zen Temple ) will hear more about the qualities and understanding of Zen priest. I hope to see many of you there!- -- LEW

Oct. 6 One of the difficulties in receiving our Zen lineage from the Japanese Zen tradition is that it has been filtered through the lens of Japanese, and especially Japanese male training culture. There is a quality of regimentation, of toughness, of everyone doing exactly the same thing, whose only analogue in our culture is military boot camp.

 

The notion that Buddhism has anything to do with something military is actually extremely odd, as non-harm, or loving kindness, is at the core of our practice. And women practitioners in Zen find the traditional Japanese Zen ethos particularly foreign.

 

That is why, in Vimala Sangha, I have gone to such lengths to stress the qualities of kindness and gentleness in our practice. This is not some invention of mine; Suzuki Roshi, my teacher, was actually like that. He could be strict on occasion, but one could always sense the care and compassion behind it.

 

I have also borrowed a teaching emphasis from the Tibetan Mahamudra-Dzogchen traditions in stressing relaxing as the fundamental feeling tone of meditation. This is especially true in our sitting posture. There has been much misunderstanding about “posture” as it relates to Zen practice. “Sit up straight”—an unpleasant command from our childhoods—makes us think of rigidity, of stiffness, of muscular effort. This is the opposite of Zen posture. Even the word “posture” implies some armoring of the musculature to adopt a position.

 

I learned recently from a practitioner of the Alexander body-work technique that the spinal column has around it extremely strong muscles that are inaccessible to conscious thought. These muscles hold us up. When they work properly there is no need for any other muscles—particularly those of the neck, face, or torso—to do any extra work.

 

A contemporary Zen teacher likes to use the analogy of the coathanger. The coathanger is strong; when we hang clothes on it, the clothes can just hang on its strength, and be completely relaxed. The clothes don't need any “starch” to hang on the coathanger.

 

So when we sit—whether on the floor or on a chair—the feeling is to let the muscles in the spine do their work, and to let all the other muscles in our body (which are a physiological analogue of self or ego) just let go, relax, resume their natural state. This is “posture,” which is really a non-posture, an abandonment of any need for “posturing,” as we say. Suzuki Roshi liked the word “resume.” “Resume your original nature,” he would say. It is always there. Just toss away the unnecessary armor that occludes it.—LEW

Sept. 23 I have been speaking about what I consider to be the seven universal practices common to all schools of contemplative Buddhism. By “contemplative Buddhism” I mean specifically the three lineage streams that have taken root in this country—Vipassana, Vajrayana, and Zen.

 

As I mentioned in last weeks blog, these seven are:

 

Sitting Meditation

Walking Meditation

Chanting

Bowing

Precepts

Robe

Transformation

 

There certainly may be more than seven; these are just the ones that over the years I have seen as clear and obvious. Part of the reason I came up with these is to sift through our own Japanese Zen tradition to determine which parts of the tradition are Japanese culture, and which part Buddhism itself. Just as one small example: while all schools of Buddhism make food offerings to the Buddha, our Japanese way is to use red lacquer stands framed in rice paper folded a particular way. This is not seen in the Tibetan or Vipassana systems, because (I believe) it is related to the way offerings are made in Japanese Shinto ceremonies (Shinto being the “native” spiritual tradition of Japan ).

 

Last Tuesday I talked about Bowing as a universal practice. All Buddhists bow, in some form. In fact bowing is a universal practice in many, if not most, spiritual traditions. The unique quality of Buddhist bowing is that, in essence, we are not bowing to an “other,” but to our own (and everyone's) innate Awakened Buddha nature. At least this is the feeling in contemplative practice. Very few Buddhists in today's world are meditators, or contemplatives, and many pray directly to Amida Buddha, or some emanation of Buddha, in much the way Christians or Jews pray. Still, we bow, as Suzuki Roshi would say, just to bow. In Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, he came up with a curious phrase: we bow to “horizontalize the mast of the ego.”

 

His feeling was that the best way to understand bowing was just to do it, rather than talk about it. So we do. We bow when we enter the meditation space, we bow to each other when we sit down, we bow to the altar which symbolizes our universal Buddha nature. We bow to the sacredness of all being, actually, and while as adults we have various ideas or early experiences about religion that may make us reluctant to bow, children do not seem to have any difficulty with it. They just, as Suzuki Roshi said, do it. -- LEW

Sept. 17 Recently, in describing the kind of Buddhism I teach, I have taken to saying that I am not teaching Japanese Soto Zen, nor Japanese Zen, nor even Zen. I am trying to convey what I think my teacher Suzuki-Roshi wanted to convey: essential or essence Buddhism, before there were sects or schools or even culture. And since I am an American teaching in America , who studied with a teacher who taught Americans in English, I could also say I am teaching American Zen.

 

Of course I am steeped in the Japanese Soto tradition. I have had six Japanese Soto Zen teachers (including Suzuki-Roshi) in addition to my American Buddhist teachers and colleagues. So I cannot deny my lineage, nor do I want to. But Suzuki-Roshi left behind his career and temple in Japan for a reason. As he described it, he wanted to go somewhere where people knew little of Buddhism, so he could teach it as he felt it should be taught—without limitation of sect, culture, or even belief.

 

Over the years, I have examined and studied in a variety of Buddhist meditation traditions, and I have concluded that although there are many differences, there are seven practices that I think are universal to all of them. These are:

 

Sitting Meditation

Walking Meditation

Chanting

Bowing

Precepts

Robe

Transformation

 

I'll be talking about these in future weeks, but this week I began talking about Transformation, usually spoken of as “enlightenment.” Our Buddhism is a Buddhism of experience, not belief. We experience first, then talk about it. And our experience is innately transformative: not at some future time when something remarkable might happen, but right now, every day, every time you sit. Transformation is the essence of real spiritual life. In our tradition, this called “Genjo Koan,” or the manifestation of awakening that is right before us, right now, in each moment of existence. More later, as they say…LEW

Sept. 10 I have recently been reading the essay by Suzuki-Roshi in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind entitled “Nirvana – The Waterfall.” Much of it concerns Suzuki Roshi's visit to Yosemite, where he saw the great Yosemite Falls . He immediately saw the falls as a metaphor for human life: “We have many difficult experiences in our life. But, I thought, the water was not originally separated, but was one whole river. Only when it is separated does it have some difficulty in falling.”

 

This is such a powerful and beautiful metaphor it always stops me when I read it, even though I have read it innumerable times. Suzuki Roshi did not dream up this image as an intellectual exercise. It was simply his pure emotional response to the beauty of nature, which is also our nature. The water in this metaphor represents our “original nature,” or big mind. From a Western perspective, we might even call this God, or the innate nature of God. Or, as Suzuki Roshi says, ‘Before we were born, we had no feeling; we were one with the universe.” So we could say, one with God. Yet from a Buddhist viewpoint, we are not actually separated from our nature at birth. It is actually always with us. It is immediately accessible when our mind is calm in sitting. So even though we experience ourselves as an individual, separate drop, free-falling in a frightening, confusing world, actually we are one with the stream that produces this waterfall. And each of us, as individual separate drops, is connected through that oneness.

 

Buddhism sounds very complicated and involved on the page, or in books. But that is just mental chatter to encourage us to come to the cushion. Really, Buddhism is much more like the waterfall, the deep feeling that Suzuki Roshi felt and conveyed to us through his words. “Free-fall”: it can actually have two meanings. Usually it means a terrifying loss of control and support: the worst possible thing. But it can also be read as a “free” fall—that is, innately liberated. We are falling, but we are free every inch of the way. There is no fear, as the Heart Sutra says. -- LEW

 

Sept 4. Continuing on the subject of meditation energetics: Buddhist meditation is a subset or specialty of meditation in general. Yasutani Roshi, a 20 th century Zen Master from Japan , had a 5-fold classification of meditation that I like. The first, which he called “ordinary meditation” is meditation used for stress-reduction, calming the mind, and so on. This is what the Dalai Lama calls meditation using the ordinary calm of the quiet mind.

 

The second category, which Yasutani calls “outside meditation”—meaning outside Buddhism—is the meditation used in martial arts, healing, and so on. This is meditation for the purpose of obtaining concentrative power. It is non-Buddhist because it is ethically neutral. The healer may use it to benefit others. The martial artist may use meditation to increase his ability to hurt or kill people—the “samurai” meditation. In Japan , this historically led to a corruption of Buddhism, insofar as the Zen school was patronized by the samurai ruling class, and sent its young men to Zen monasteries to develop concentrative power to help them wield the sword.

 

The third category, which Yasutani calls “small vehicle concentration”—is meditation designed for one's own liberation. He falls into the common misconception—common in Mayahana Buddhist countries—of “putting down” the old-school Buddhism of the Theravada. This is the Buddhism still practiced throughout Southeast Asia , and it is not accurate to say it is for the purpose of one's own liberation. Nevertheless, meditation for one's own liberation—which is a common motivation in the West—is not exactly the highest form of meditation.

 

The fourth category, which Yasutani calls “great vehicle meditation”, is performed for the benefit of all beings' liberation. This includes our Zen tradition at its best. We develop meditation ability not just for our own benefit—though it includes that—but for the benefit of the whole, everyone.

 

The last category, which Yasutani calls “the supreme vehicle meditation”—is performed for no purpose at all. It is done simply as an expression of our innate awakened nature. This is the meditation taught by my teacher, Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, and indeed is the most exalted of all forms of meditation. Any sense of purpose or goal in meditation limits it; Suzuki Roshi talks about this a lot in his book Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. In its true sense, our Zen meditation is beyond purpose or concept. It is innately ungraspable. But that does not make it mysterious or difficult to understand. It is just that the human condition itself is ungraspable. We come to rest in that every time we sit. --LEW

August 27. Buddhist meditation may still be a fairly exotic discipline in most parts of America , but the larger context of inner energetics is not. Think of acupuncture, Tai Chi, Chi Gong, Martial Arts such as Aikido, and even Yoga. All of these disciplines are related, all draw their knowledge from the energetic aspects of sitting meditation.

 

Acupuncture, for example, has a whole system of energetic pathways throughout the body. It is the basis of its curative method. Western science mostly discounts this theory per se, though it cannot deny, and has proven experimentally, that acupuncture works for a whole range of ailments. But where did this “theory” of energetic pathways come from? It is not a theory; it is an experiential sense of an “inner” body, developed through millennia of sitting still in meditation.

 

Similarly for yoga, though these days it is thought of as a kind of stretching and exercise. The inner basis of it is this same energetic experience of a subjective body/mind. If we lump together all practitioners, followers and students of these various disciplines, the penetration of this “Asian” wisdom technology is deep indeed.

 

Buddhist meditation is the application of this energetics to the task of liberation, or of transforming the body/mind into a vehicle of compassionate activity. The purpose is lofty—maybe the loftiest—but the energetics are similar. Something happens when we sit; we feel different, we feel more sensitive, more aware, more alive. Our skin feels softer; our breath more subtle. Our mind and mental activity follows this, in fact it is simply another element of this.

 

There is a great deal of teaching in Buddhism, and in the Zen tradition, about this energetics, which we need not go into here. But the experience of it is undeniable. I like to say that in Zen we have the experience first, and then talk about doctrine or teaching. Besides, where did the doctrine or teaching come from? Same place as acupuncture: from the inner experience of sitting still. -- LEW

August 20. As the summer draws to an end, I am reflecting on the coming autumn as a season that, in the Zen tradition, represents transiency, the passing away of strength and beauty, and the bittersweet quality of the cooling days and falling leaves.

 

Given the headlines of the past few weeks, the phrase “cedars of Lebanon” has been coming to my mind. This phrase is part of our biblical heritage, and indeed there was a time when giant cedars covered the mountains and valleys of Lebanon —a wonder of the natural world in that area. But no more. They were all cut down, long ago, and it may very well be that they will never return. This is what human beings do; the phrase “cedars of Lebanon” has a quality of sadness and tragedy to it. It is not at though anyone wanted them to disappear, but disappear they did.

 

At the same time, I think it is important to recognize that the underlying emotional quality of our Buddhist practice and world-view is one of happiness, even joy. Not the relative happiness of getting what we want and being in a situation where nothing bad is happening to us, but the happiness of having the composure to understand and accept the events around us with wisdom and compassion. I like to say that Suzuki-Roshi laughed a lot. He really did. His life was full of tragedy—more than most, I think. But there was some way that he enjoyed the livingness of his life, a way that allowed him to face his death with equanimity and lightness.

 

Dogen, the founder of Soto Zen in Japan, once said, “If you try to build a temple, but only erect one pillar, and then after you die the ocean washes the one pillar away, what you have done will not be lost.” This is a hard concept to understand from a Western materialistic perspective. What a failure! We'd be tempted to say. Failure of what? Failure of whom? Already there are relatively few people who were close to Suzuki-Roshi in his lifetime who are still active in the Buddhist scene. Soon there will be none. What will be left of him? His books? The institutions founded in his name?

 

There is a way that the cedars of Lebanon are not lost, were never lost, and will be forever with us. In Japan , scientists are looking for a way to use the frozen sperm of Ice-Age Mastodons to re-create the species, using modern relatives, such as elephants. Nothing is lost, because everything is in continuous transformation. There is real happiness in this. We should sing a song. -- LEW

August 13. Returning to our discussion of precepts, the third precept states, “A Disciple of the Buddha does not lie.”

 

Speech is an important part of what makes us human, and which makes each of us individual personalities. Our speech is uniquely our own, a constant creation and re-creation of our thoughts, feelings, and perceptions. Even thoughts are largely composed of words or pre-speech vocalization. Consequently, speech is both a vehicle for awakening and for delusion, joy and suffering. One short phrase—“I love you” – can seal a relationship, just as a similar short phrase – “I hate you” – can destroy one.

 

We are our words, and false speech—to ourselves or to another—is one principal way we occlude what is true and wholesome about the world. We think that we bend our speech to avoid suffering, but actually it increases it.

 

   How great a web we each do weave

  When first we conspire to deceive

 

“Right Speech” is one of the spokes of Buddha's Eight Fold Path, and it is often defined as follows:

 

Speech that is

  True

  Necessary

  Kind

  Well-Intended

 

These are the Four Gates of wholesome speech, and you can see that for all of them to be fulfilled, there are many subtleties that must be considered. Not all truths must necessarily be spoken. If truths are to be spoken, and must be, then kindness must rule, even at the expense of mechanical accuracy. “No, of course you don't look fat in that dress” may not be mechanistically true, but it is kind, and the intention is good. Besides, what “looks fat?” The whole interchange is not about fat or not fat, but a sense of re-assurance. “Will you re-assure me?”

 

Japanese is an interesting language. For centuries, Japan was ruled by a totalitarian regime. Direct speech was dangerous; in some circumstances, it could get you killed. Consequently the Japanese developed a way of speaking that was indirect and intuitive. One did not (and to some extent this is still true) speak the raw, unadorned truth of how one thought or felt except to a trusted intimate; this is called honmai, or “true face.” Instead, one expressed one's tottemai, or “public face.” What you are saying has to be intuited from the context—and even then the listener is not sure. Westerners trying to make their way in Japan without an intimate knowledge of the language are often at sea. What did the person mean? A dictionary often doesn't help much.

 

Speech is a window into the soul, and a revelation of the heart. As much as we care to disguise it, everything is exposed in speech. What is a lie? What is truth? The tradition of the koan in Zen—which are essentially words spoken by ancient Chinese masters of Buddhism—are a way of using speech to point to what is beyond speech, to what is our direct experience.

 

True, necessary, kind, well-intentioned. The greatest of intentions is the desire to liberate all beings from their misconceptions and suffering. This is Buddha's speech. -- LEW

August 6. Hiroshima Day.  We pray that it never happen again.

The last few weeks have been “headline” weeks, i.e. our thoughts have been dominated by the latest horrors in the headlines—children being blown up, rhetoric of destruction and annihilation on all sides of a sudden new war. At such times, the question often arises for us as Buddhist meditators, What good is meditation? What is the point? How can that help?

 

To understand the Buddhist answer to such questions, it is helpful to remember that the Buddhist world-view is based on the reality of radical interconnection, or, as the Buddhist scriptures say, “affinity,” or causal connection. From a materialistic point of view, we are here, and the wars are there, and there is not much we can do. We are small, insignificant, helpless. But from the standpoint of interconnection, our consciousness as one human being is connected to the consciousness of all other human beings. What we do and think affects what others do and think, radiating outward from one of many centers of awareness.

 

This notion of affinity is really not so mysterious; we all have it, for our families, children, and those close to us. We are always thinking of them, and they of us. No matter where your children are in the world, or how old, if something bad happens, you are the first people they call. Look at the call list on your cellphone—that is affinity.

 

The problem is that for most of us, affinity extends not much farther than that. What's more, what is outside our narrow notions of affinity is perceived of as strange, “other,” maybe enemy. In Western religious thought, there is one entity who is allowed and expected to have affinity and love for everyone and everything—God. We might say that the Buddhist conception of affinity places that power not just in one, all-powerful entity, but in each of us. We share that all-encompassing love with everyone and everything.

 

When we sit in stillness we rest in that love. It doesn't mean we don't act, we don't participate. That notion of meditation as escape has been the weakness of Buddhism historically—not to have participated in society at large to work for the actualization of that affinity and love in government, economics, and work for peace.

 

That is all changing. The whole planet is waking up to this change. Yes, it is getting hotter in a material sense, but it is also getting warmer in an affinity sense, too—the headlines notwithstanding. Fighting and waking up go together. Great conflict and great suffering precede great awakening. It all goes together—affinity! -- LEW

July 30. The second Bodhisattva precept states: “A disciple of the Buddha does not take what is not given.”

 

In order parlance, it means not to steal. This is not all that helpful; few of us practicing Buddha's way are thieves in any literal sense. Anyway, the actual wording of the precept (which, granted, is a modern construction) has to do with giving, and being given. So what is given? In a sense, the whole world is given, or a given. It is there, accessible to all of us. In another sense, nothing belongs to us. In a third sense, our “property” belongs to us. Native Americans were shocked and confused by the European idea of land as “private property.” How could the land belong to anyone? We see by their reaction the ideas of “property” and “Private” and “possession” are concepts—ideas worked out from time immemorial to allow growing human populations to share and trade. It is interesting that the first draft of the Declaration of Independence said, “Life, liberty and the pursuit of property.” It was Benjamin Franklin, apparently, who that that happiness was a more felicitous way of expressing this sentiment. Clearly, though, the founding fathers thought of the two as nearly synonymous.

 

The seeming dichotomy of “everything is given” and “nothing is given” forces us to pay attention to the whole issue of given-ness. We can easily see that enormous amounts of suffering—historically and today—revolve around our understanding of this concept. Wars past and present are fought over land, property, and territory. Intuitively we understand that there is something amiss in our ordinary concepts of property, but at the same time, it is hard to imagine a life where everything is truly held in common (although some religious groups, such as the Mennonites and the early Christian Adamites, not to mention 60's communes, attempted to do just this).

 

In the end, given-ness boils down to what we need vs. what we want. Our wants are, strictly speaking, infinite. There is no limit to what we can desire. Our needs are finite; we can only eat so much food, or drink so much water, in a single day, for example.

 

How do we human beings, exploding in population and inventing ever more efficient ways to mine and exploit the natural given-ness of the planet, find a way to harmoniously share, a way which also allows for individual freedom and creativity? If you have the answer, or anything close to it, email this blog! -- LEW

July 24. The Zen tradition is experiential Buddhism. That means that even before we try to understand intellectually what Buddhism teaches, we experience it in our body and feelings and sensations. So the most basic instruction for Zen meditation might be, “Feel your own aliveness.” Feel the basic comfort and satisfaction of breathing. Feel your skin. Feel the air. Feel the space around you. Feel the immanent sentience of your own awareness.

 

This feeling is like cradling a baby in your arms, feeling it breathe, feeling its helplessness and vulnerability, feeling its life force—except that you yourself are the baby that your are cradling.

 

When we feel this—and sitting meditation is the most direct and basic way to do it—suddenly the precept “do not harm, do not kill” isn't an idea. It isn't something you need to think about. It's just a natural response.

 

It's when we don't feel our own and others' aliveness—in other words, when we have already “killed” that sensation in ourselves—that we find it possible to harm, to kill, to commit violence, to have an enemy, to destroy. Our meditation practice IS the precept not to kill, simply by experiencing the purity and preciousness and fragility of what it is to be alive. -- LEW

July 16. The first Buddhist precept states: “A disciple of the Buddha does not kill.”

 

Buddhism and Hinduism, from time immemorial, have honored the principle of ahimsa – non-harm – as a basic attitude and moral imperative for human life. Even today, we read that in Tibet at the time of the Dalai Lama's youth, people sifted out the earth before laying a new building foundation to avoid needlessly killing worms and insects who lived in it. Imagine that kind of sensibility on one of America 's construction jobs today!

 

In fact, the principle of not killing or harming is embedded in the sensibility of all the world's religions. In Buddhism, however, which also understands the innate connectivity of everything, we know that the live on the earth is to harm. For us to be, something else which is alive has to not be. So at the same time we take up the vow not to kill, we generate the awareness that we are killing constantly. Even if we are strict vegetarians, this does not get us off the hook. We know now that to use electricity, to burn wood or coal, or drive a car is having a planetary impact on numerous species of life.

 

So what does it really mean, in its deeper sense, “not to kill?”

 

We could say, “Oh, I will undertake not to kill or harm unnecessarily, and make an ongoing moral judgment about that.” That is good, but the underlying structure of the psyche that drives harm is not necessarily touched deeply enough by that. What we have to understand is the deeper meaning of ahimsa -- to minimize protecting ourselves at the expense of others. We all want ourselves and our family to be safe; we might even have a shotgun in our closet if we live in a dangerous neighborhood. Even if we don't', we would certainly call the police who do have shotguns if someone threatened us.

 

Buddhism is not saying we should 100% percent give that up. That would not be realistic or practical. But we should develop an awareness of common good vs. personal good, and let that drive our actions. So we look not just at protecting ourselves from criminals, but understanding the causes and conditions that produce criminals and our complicity in that as a society. We see the big picture; harm is not just a moment to moment judgment about our own actions. Harm is everywhere, in everything we do as a society of human beings. How do address that?

 

The deepest and most fundamental understanding of “not to kill” rests in the realization of the nature of heart/mind, and of reality itself. Actually, as Suzuki-Roshi sometimes said, we can't really kill anything, because everything is in the process of transformation, including our cherished self. One thing turns into another endlessly. This is the highest wisdom, but if we miss its deep meaning we can easily fall into a nihilistic, pathological rationale – “Oh, I can't really kill anything so it doesn't matter if I cause harm; it isn't really harm.”

 

What it means is something like the opposite: that we can't really kill anything means that we have to take utter responsibility for everything as it already is, inside our big mind. Everything and everyone is our baby. It is already a part of us as we are of them. This is not an intellectual insight; it is perceptual and energetic. It is a fruit of sincere and dedicated meditation practice. With this insight as our guide, our heart can guide us in the moment to moment decisions we need to make for ourselves and others. As Suzuki-Roshi said, “Buddha will help you.” Or as St. Augustine famously said, “Love, and do what you will.” How to do that? That's the rub! -- LEW

July 9. It has come to my attention that this Tuesday is, in some Buddhist traditions, celebrated as the day that the Buddha gave his first lecture, on the Four Noble Truths.

 

So in honor of that, I will give such a lecture this Tuesday, concentrating on the first truth: “All conditioned existence is marked with duhkha.” This is often badly translated as , “Life is suffering.” Dukkha is often translated as “suffering,” but to say so in a careless way implies, first, that Buddhism is a pessimistic, gloomy faith, and also that there is no joy in life, which is of course not true.

 

It is important to stick with the original language: ‘All conditioned existence.” Conditioned existence means the impermenant, evanescent beings and things of everyday life. In this sense, there is a tragic quality to all human life; all the people and things we cherish (including our own precious self) are constantly under transformation, and will one day pass away.

 

It is interesting to note that Thich Nhat Hanh translated this first noble truth as, “All conditioned things is marked by enlightenment.” Indeed, it is only when we cling to that which we love, hoping against hope that we can retain it, hold it, own it as long as possible, that we suffer. When we release that fearful clutching, that swimming against the stream of how things really are, then the very evanescence of everything becomes suddenly beautiful. The flower, withering at the very moment that it bursts into bloom, is for that very reason beautiful, while the plastic flower is not. We begin to take care of each moment without thinking ahead or dwelling on the past, dealing with just what is in front of us as something precious.

 

This is also why we sit—to experience this re-centering in the time of this present moment, which includes everything. So the third noble truth—“There is liberation from suffering”—is the one that really counts. There is liberation, for all of us. All the injustice, exploitation, and needless suffering that we inflict on one another as human beings is because we are all each clutching for dear life to own little blossoming flower, unwilling to see that only by letting go of it, to be what it is, can we be truly happy.

 

Buddhism is not a pessimistic, gloomy faith; it is realistic, and for that reason, joyous. In each breath we find our joy, and the joy of others. How can we harm or inflict suffering on others like us? From this the precepts and the Path of an awakened life naturally flow.--LEW

 

July 2. The linchpin of all Buddhist life are the precepts—its principles of ethical behavior and action. In our Zen tradition, there are sixteen “Bodhisattva” precepts, which are followed by both laypeople and monks. As we begin our more in-depth exploration and re-envisioning of householder practice in America , it behooves us to study these precepts in more detail.

 

As with many teachings of Buddhism, there is both an “outer” and “inner” understanding of precepts. Suzuki Roshi sometimes referred to these as the negative and positive ways. The negative, or prohibitory way, understands precepts as injunctions against certain kinds of harmful behavior—“A disciple of the Buddha does not kill” is an example. The “positive” or “inner” understanding is to act spontaneously from the compassionate heart, recognizing the innate Buddha nature of all beings and things.

 

The first way understands the precepts more intellectually, or as verbal teachings: avoid this, do that. The second way is a more emotional, or energetic response. When we love someone, there is no real need to have a set a guidelines for how to act toward them. We act spontaneously in a loving, compassionate way because that is our feeling. We treat them as an extension of ourselves, or as our own tradition puts it, “We love our neighbor as ourselves.”

 

Suzuki Roshi taught both ways, but he preferred, or emphasized most, the second way, because it is a more yogic or transformative approach. At times he went so far as to say that if one strictly practices only the negative way, one is not actually following the precepts in their true sense.

 

Zazen, or sitting meditation, is the innermost way to express the precepts. Resting in the formless expanse of innate awareness, body and breath harmonized, we are at one with the precepts. Even if we have an unwholesome thought or feeling, it is held in the container of our zazen mind. There is no need to do anything else. -- LEW

June 25. Now that the Sangha is approaching our third anniversary, we are looking more closely at our charter to explore and develop Buddhist householder practice in America . There are, I think, three established models for the spiritual life we find in Buddhism, and indeed in most religions: monk, priest, and householder. The monk is someone who abjures the worldly life, and lives apart, either alone or in a monastic community. The householder is immersed in the worldly life—livelihood, family, money, and so on. The priest bridges these two worlds, often training as a monk but then living in the world, maintaining temples and creating and holding the sacred space of practice for householders.

 

The ancient Buddhist Sangha was divided into four parts—monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen. There were no “priests” as such. Throughout the centuries, it has been the monks and nuns who maintained and preserved the meditation practices in monastic establishments. Householders for the most part played only a supporting role, donating to the monasteries and worshipping the Buddha ideal which the monastics were imagined to have fully embodied. The “priest” function emerged in the 18 th and 19 th centuries in some Buddhist societies (such as Japan ) as a response to the need for social modernization and a desire to bring the monastic establishments under the domain of central government.

 

Now as Buddhism takes hold in the West, we are seeing all three archetypes being recreated; but the categories have changed. Some practitioners are embodying the ancient vocation of lifelong monks. As for the others? Well, as Suzuki Roshi articulated in Zen Mind Beginner's Mind, meditation-practicing Buddhist householders are now neither traditional laypeople nor priests, but something in between, some “new kind of people,” in his words. Householder Buddhists can be seen entering retreat centers or lives of solitude for weeks, months, or years, and then returning to the marketplace and lay life. Priests or Lamas convey the teachings and lead the practice, but often have jobs to support themselves very much like the archetypal householder. Householders have essentially become part-time monks or part-priest householder.

 

But what about the pure householder? Someone who leads a busy life, works at a demanding job, raises children, owns a house—the “full catastrophe”, as Zorba the Greek put it? From ancient times to today, the householder/practitioner has been the least worked out, the least developed, of all.

 

That is our challenge in the Vimala Sangha. We are committed to developing ways for the “pure householder” to participate as full partners in the great goals of personal transformation and the accomplishment of our Bodhisattva vow to liberate all beings. How will we do it?

 

Together! -- LEW

June 19. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, “We never step into the same river twice.” He is often said to be the most “Buddhist” of the Greek sages; his philosophy emphasized the ever-changing nature of existence, an insight which became the core teaching of Gautama the Buddha. Some Buddhist scholars think that the pre-Socratics and the Buddhists (who were 5 th century B.C. contemporaries) may have had some contact through the silk routes that traversed the Middle East into India . We should not be fixed on the notion that Buddhism is “Eastern,” or “Asian.”

 

And yet that flowing river is always there. At once ever-changing and ever-present, it is an apt metaphor for Mind, and often appears in Chinese Taoist and Buddhist imagery.

 

There is a Zen story that goes as follows:

 

A monk asked his teacher, “How do I enter the Path (the Tao?)”

The teacher replied, “Do you hear the river?”

The monk said, “I hear it.”

The teacher nodded. “That is the way to enter.”

 

We are going to be returning to the Bodhisattva precept ceremony in future weeks, and we will be taking up the study of the Buddhist precepts as we do. It may not seem obvious how this story about the sound of the river relates to precepts and ethical behavior, but from the point of view of the Zen tradition, they are closely related.

 

Stay tuned…LEW

June 11. There is a passage from the Bible (it may be from a psalm:) : “Be still and know that I am God.”

 

I am told that this passage was the favorite of Ramana Maharshi, the early 20 th century Indian mystic. It certainly has a yogic, even Buddhist, flavor. I am reminded that before and during the time of Jesus, there was a mystical sect of Judaism, the Essenes, whose adherents lived alone in remote places, even on top of stone pillars. They were certainly practicing “being still.”

 

As being still is the core of our Zen practice, it is worth reflecting that at some level this practice is embedded in our own Western spiritual traditions. In fact, it is probably at the root of all spiritual traditions. The question is: what does it really mean to “be still?”

 

Does it mean, for example, to stop all physical and mental activity? Some of pre-Buddhist yogic practitioners in ancient India though that. They saw (as the Gnostics Greece and the Middle East thought) that the physical body was a hindrance to liberation, and they developed practices to slow or stop the breathing, as well as trance states to slow or stop all mental activity. One of the insights of Gautama (whom we now call the Buddha)—who early on in his spiritual career mastered these yogic practices—was that these dualistic separation between body and spirit was not truly liberative. His path was to develop a spiritual practice that engaged the body, mind, and thoughts, transforming rather than suppressing them.

 

So from our Buddhist point of view, to “be still” means to experience the stillness that abides in motion—in T.S. Eliot's words, ‘the still point of the turning world.' The stillness that abides in motion is awareness itself, being itself, which is neither separate from nor identical with the body, the mind, and ordinary mental activity. Buddhist texts have a word for this kind of stillness— sunyata— which is usually translated “emptiness.” Emptiness is a fairly misleading world to capture the actual flavor of sunyata. “Wholeness” or “completeness” or “non-separateness” all are part of the meaning; some recent translators have said “boundlessness.” In the end sunyata is untranslatable.

 

Why should it be? Why should stillness, or for that matter life itself, be translatable? Or for that matter, why translate it at all? It is as it is. “Be still and know…” That probably is enough. Know what? That's asking for a translation. We are already the what, complete unto ourselves. --LEW

June 4. More on Thinking:

 

In the Buddhist view of things, the thinking mind is a sense-organ just like the eye or ear. In the same way that the eye perceives objects of sight (tree, chair, etc.) the mind perceives thoughts (Report due tomorrow! So and so bugs me!). This is a rather different approach than Western philosophy ( or much or it) which imagines the thinking mind to be something of a different order entirely than the eye.

 

But in the same way that, when the eyes are closed, we do not perceive objects of sight, when the mind is calm, it does not perceive thoughts. However, it is much easier to close the eyes than to “close” the mind. Why? Because that stream of thoughts (often called the “inner dialogue,” although much of that stream takes places as images rather than words) is extremely important to us, much more important than objects of sight. That stream of thoughts is what we typically identify as ME. Someone else can see the tree, we think, but only this precious self can think “That tree looks just like the one in Aunt Jessie's garden when I was four years old.”

 

Except perhaps in the exotic realms of Christian or Jewish mysticism, Western religious traditions have little experience or reference to a mind that does not perceive thoughts, that is at rest. But we in Buddhism look to it as the essential experience of spiritual transformation.

 

I mentioned last week that Dogen's oft-quoted dictum is, “To study the Buddhism is to study the self.” There are many layers and aspects to what we might call the self. We might add to his dictum the word “directly.” To study Buddhism is to study the self DIRECTLY. How do we do that? Well, stop looking outward, and let the mind rest in itself. Whether there is thinking going on or not is not so important at this stage. What is important is the attitude of self-inquiry. What is really going on?

 

Who is thinking these thoughts anyway? Where do they come from? -- LEW

 

May 28. Recently, a topic came up in our Tuesday evening discussion that is well worth exploring in more detail, and that is: What is the role or place of thinking in meditation? Is thinking good, bad, neither, helpful, unhelpful, irrelevant, or what?

 

I begin by recounting a story of a dialogue between a Zen practitioner and Suzuki Roshi. The practitioner came to him privately and said, “My zazen is terrible. I can't stop thinking.”

 

Suzuki Roshi replied, “What's wrong with thinking?”

 

We could (and should) read this dialogue in two ways. The first is, “Thinking is fine. Don't worry about it.” The other is, “Well, let's look at thinking. You think it's wrong or bad meditation to be involved in thinking. Why is that?”

 

It may be that the average person, hearing the basic instructions in meditation (and in particular, the dictum to follow your breath) may think, “Well, if I'm distracted from my breath, that's bad. If I stay with my breath, that's good.”

 

This is not a wrong view, exactly, but it misunderstands both the purpose of following the breath and the larger purpose of meditation in general. The point of following the breath is not to do it perfectly, but simply to experience what happens when you shift your attention away from an unstable, jagged object (e.g. thinking) and something regular and stable, like the breath. Technically, the purpose of having an object of attention in meditation is to cultivate concentration or calm. Some concentration in zazen is good and necessary, but concentration by itself is not the point of sitting.

 

The Buddha himself, early in his spiritual life, also imagined that if a little concentration is good, more is better, and mastered the deep trance states in which thinking, feeling, and indeed all mental activity was suppressed. These states of mind are profoundly calm and blissful, But eventually he rejected such an approach as unsatisfactory, because it was only a temporary respite from suffering, not liberation from it. Concentration is just another state of mind to be in; by itself it doesn't accomplish the decisive transformation away from self-clinging which is the essence of the Buddhist path.

 

The ultimate purpose of meditation is to express and realize liberation from suffering. So from that point of view, we do not reject thinking as wrong or unskillful, but at the same time we do not pursue thinking, identify with it, or give it energy.

 

What do we do with thinking? Just let it be. There is no need to do anything about it, or take care of it in some way. Just keep sitting. It will take care of itself. -- LEW

May 21. This week in our Tuesday meeting we continued our discussion of our zazen experience, this time focusing not so much on the body, but on the mind. What happens in the mind when we sit? What is the mind, anyway? Is it our thoughts? If it is, what is it that experiences our thoughts?

 

I mentioned that while it is tempting to leap wholesale into believing whatever it is Buddhism says as true, the reality is that whether that is so or not, it is a more fruitful attitude to think that while Buddhism may or may not have the right answers, but it does have the right questions. Who are we, really? Why are we here? Is there a purpose for our being here? Why do human beings treat each other so badly much of the time?

 

Dogen, the founder of our Soto Zen lineage, put it best: “To study Buddhism is to study the self.” In other words, Buddhism is at root not a philosophy or system of metaphysical speculation, but a direct inquiry into the nature of our existence. As it happens, this is an inquiry for which we are eminently and innately equipped. As aware beings, all we need to do is stop doing all the other things we usually do, and just BE. Then we are immediately studying the self. This is the essence of Zazen practice.

 

But beyond that, how do we pursue this study? This is where faith, or confidence, in the Buddhist tradition comes in. Actually, when we begin to sit, and for a long time after, we don't actually just BE. We are typically thinking about all kinds of things. So we have to begin there. Why are we thinking these things? Where do these thoughts come from? What is a thought, anyway? What would happen if we stopped thinking for a while? This is the beginning of authentic Buddhist inquiry, and we need confidence—faith, really—that this is the path to liberation. We need to deeply believe that this is the same path of inquiry that the Buddha and all his successors in all countries and traditions followed.

 

If we believe that, then we will persevere. In the end, the biggest secret of zazen is the simplest and really no secret at all: for it to bear fruit, you have to do it and keep doing it. As as Herbie Hancock song goes: “Just keep on do-ooing it…” That's the whole song, that one phrase over and over.--LEW

 

 

May 15. Some questions have come up in the last couple of Sangha meetings regarding sitting—sitting in a chair, the importance of posture to sitting, and so on.

 

The most essential point of sitting practice is to let go—or as Dogen famously said, “let go body and mind.” This means letting go at every level. There is physically letting go, relaxing all the muscles large and small, sinews, organs, breath, and energy. There is mental letting go of thoughts, opinions, plans, expectations, and so on. And there is also emotionally letting go of identification with deep feelings, likes and dislikes, attitudes, and the like.

 

And, at the deepest level, there is letting go of the construct of self. This is the real meaning of “dropping body and mind” in a Buddhist sense: seeing through the seeming fixity and reality of self and self-clinging.

 

The big question is: how do we do all that and how does sitting fit in?

 

Many of our Sangha members—some of whom are considerably older than I, and I am (alas) no longer young—need to sit in chairs, and we have had some discussion about whether it is necessary to sit in the traditional cross-legged posture. In some American Buddhist traditions, the traditional posture is not emphasized, so this is an important issue for us to clarify.

 

The short answer is that we sit any way we can, and any method of sitting can be effective if our intention is valid and sincere. It is true that the traditional posture offers some advantages. It is easier to keep the spine erect and at the same time let all the muscles relax around it. There is a “yogic” component to cross-legged sitting too; one aspect of our ego-identity is reflected in the energy flow and patterns that we habitually hold, and the yogic posture works with this. It is interesting that all schools of Buddhism have virtually identical descriptions and instructions for cross-legged sitting. It seems to be a deeply transmitted practice that is the fruit of hundreds and thousands of years of experimentation.

 

It is also the case that meditation practice pre-dated the invention of chairs, and in ancient times everyone sat cross-legged on the floor (or the earth). It was just the way people sat. So in the modern age, we may develop ways of chair sitting which closely emulate the yogic advantages of cross-legged sitting (in which it admittedly is an advantage to be young and flexible).

 

Sangha members have reported that having a cushion behind the back to allow the spine to remain erect is important. Some also mentioned the important of having the knees a little lower than the hips. There are undoubtedly other tips too.

 

There is no “right” sitting posture. Each person's sitting posture is self-instructing if you tune into the body's messages and understand the underlying principle of deep relaxedness. -- LEW

 

 

May 6. I think there is a principle common to alL religious traditions, which is that it takes effort to be a good human being. We have written earlier about the various approaches to this problem. In some traditions, human nature is conceived of as innately flawed (e.g. “we are all sinners”) and we need to make continuous efforts to overcome this flaw. In Buddhism, we start from the premise that human beings, at root, are innately good, and that our flaws are due to an obscuration, or fault of vision, that prevents us from seeing that and acting on it.

 

These different approaches may be understood, from our modern scientific standpoint, in terms of the evolutionary development of the human brain, or in the psychodynamic development of the human child. Our consciousness (brain) has many conflicting structures and needs, some selfish, some godlike. Each of us, in our lifetime, is on a trajectory to complete, or at least advance, the development of consciousness that begins when we are born. I like to say: Childhood, Adulthood, Buddhahood. We all know that even adults can act very childishly, very cruelly, and that other adults are like saints. What is the difference? How do we advance on the spiritual path toward fully expressing our innate goodness?

 

Our practice, in the Zen tradition and all contemplative Buddhist traditions, is to express this innate goodness by sitting still, the mind concentrated, the breath harmonized. This is an immensely simple practice—probably the simplest that there is. It is not like the meditations of yoga, or even exactly like the mindfulness or loving kindness practices that are widely taught now. Zazen practice underlies and underpins all other contemplations. Simple though it might be to do, it is not simple to master. Mastery requires a lifetime of effort—daily, weekly, yearly—and a consistency of intention, as we realize that it is not just our own innate goodness that we are activating, but those of everyone and everything that we are connected to. This is Buddha's great activity, and the great activity of each one of us, individually and together.

 

Never before in history has the full range of contemplative discipline in Buddhism been available and taught not just to monk professionals, but to ordinary people like us. What has worked in the past, in the cloister and discipline of monastery life, may not work for busy people in today's insanely busy world. Just to quiet the mind after a morning or day of busy multi-tasking is not easy. Those of you who experience this should not imagine for a moment that you are deficient in meditative talent!

 

I'm hoping that as our sangha develops, there will be opportunities for many of us to experience what it is like to sit intensely for longer periods—one day, two or three days, or even a week. Only then will you realize how much the busy surface of the mind simply needs some time and space and quietude to calm down, so a deeper mind can emerge and be recognized. But how to find the time? How indeed? The great challenge…LEW

April 30. I have been speaking in the last week about the Buddhist teaching of the preciousness of human birth. Buddhism, being a product of the ancient world, with its much closer connection with the natural world and our interdependence with it, saw the myriad of life forms, plant and animal (as well as non-material, celestial life of gods and spirits) and saw all of it as a constantly changing, transforming complexity of being and living.

 

The original Buddhists also lived at a time when there were not so many human beings, and when it was not easy to survive and prosper as a human being. It was necessary to work hard to till fields, care for livestock, and deal with the uncertainty of weather and environment. Therefore, it was perhaps much more vivid then than now how precious and rare it was to be a human being, to be born at all, and then survive the travails of childhood to grow up to adulthood.

 

Last Tuesday, I told the story which I like about Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper. Some of you may know this book. In it, a prince in ancient England meets a pauper boy his age; both boys realize they look astonishingly alike, almost as though they were identical twins. They decide, on a whim, to change places; the prince becomes a street beggar, and the pauper goes back to the palace in the prince's clothes and begins living the royal life.

 

It's not easy, though. The pauper turned prince knows nothing of his new role. His tutors are perplexed, for example, that he seems to have forgotten all his Latin. The two boys meet secretly from time to time, and the real prince coaches the pauper/prince in how to behave. At one point, it comes to light that the Great Seal of England is missing; no one can find it, and this is a source of great concern. As everyone hunts frantically for the missing seal, the two boys have one of their meetings and the pauper/prince mentions that everyone seems quite upset about this Great Seal.

 

“I may be able to help you,” says the rightful prince. “The last I saw it it was in my chambers.”

 

“What does it look like?” The pauper / prince asks.

 

When the rightful prince describes it, the pauper/ prince gets an embarrassed look on his face and says, “Oh, that! I've been using it to crack walnuts!”

 

That's how it is for most of us. Born into this precious, rare human form, we spend much of our life using it for frivolous things, when we could be applying ourself to understanding and penetrating life's great mystery: the conundrum of consciousness.

 

In spite of how desperate the straits of the modern world seem to have become, I remain quite hopeful. Underneath the surface of the daily news, there is a kind of awakening going on, not unlike the pauper /prince exclaiming, “Oh, that!”

 

Once we recognize what the Great Seal is, and what it is really for, it is hard to go back to cracking walnuts with it. The world, alas, is still full of frightened, impulsive, obsessive walnut crackers, and they are doing themselves and the world much harm. But there are some (and our small Sangha is among them) who have discovered a different use for this wondrous thing, the Great Seal. It may seem as though we aren't doing much, but things are not always as they seem. -- LEW

April 23. I have been speaking in the last couple of posts, either directly or indirectly, about the Buddhist doctrine and experience of our innate nature as Buddhas, awake aware beings. Trungpa Rinpoche, an early pioneer in bringing Buddhism to the West who taught in the 1970s and 1980s, called this quality our “innate goodness.”

 

We might say that our fundamental zazen practice in the Zen tradition is to sit resting in our innate goodness. This is a profound truth beyond ordinary intellectual comprehension. Though this is so, it is also true that meditation has many ordinary benefits, not the least of which is bringing a clear, calm mind to ordinary life situations.

 

In my first book, Work as a Spiritual Practice, which was published in 1999, I described 20 or 30 specific in-the-world (specifically in-the-workplace) practices of “applied meditation” to help us do this better. Our ordinary American life is so stressful, so full of noise and distraction, not to mention deep misunderstandings about what is important in life and what our fundamental values are, that just to do this (i.e. keep a clear head in the chaos of ordinary life) is of tremendous value.

 

That being said, Buddhism is at root a liberative path; it's ultimate goal is to bring ourselves and all beings into full realization of the ultimate truth of our intrinsic nature as Buddhas. As yet we have not emphasized, in our Sangha, the supportive practices, such as chanting, bowing, and ceremonial confirmation of our aspiration for liberation and our gratitude for all the teachers and beings, visible and invisible, who support our spiritual practice. I gave a series of teachings about the “Bodhisattva Ceremony” which is one of these supportive practices, and I would like to return to this theme. I would also like to introduce, as we go, this and other core practices to strengthen our resolve and commitment to continue and develop our practice together.

 

Stay tuned, as I like to say … --LEW

April 16. I have been reading, during this Easter season, various news articles about trends in belief about Easter among Christians; there seems to be a divide between those who belief that Jesus “really” rose from the dead, and those that see this event in more metaphorical terms.

 

This debate reminds me a bit of the story I like to tell from the Don Juan books of Carlos Castaneda that were popular in the 70's. Though Castaneda's writing has been criticized as more fiction that fact, there are some incidents in the books I find instructive. One concerns a time that Castaneda, under the tutelage of his shaman teacher Don Juan, took a psychoactive drug, after which he “turned into” a crow, and flew about the landscape for a while.

 

After the drug wore off, Castaneda asked Don Juan, “Did I really fly?”

 

Don Juan laughed. “What do you mean, did you really fly? You flew, didn't you?”

 

Castaneda persisted. “Yes, but did I actually fly, like an airplane in the sky, or was it just in my imagination?”

 

Don Juan waved him away. “You flew. That's all you need to know.”

 

From the standpoint of the Buddhist worldview, there is not as much difference between the two as we would ordinarily think. From the Buddhist perspective, our entire experience of reality is a kind of metaphor, a creation of our senses organs and mental faculties. There is certainly a key difference between dreaming that you are flying, and actually flying in an airplane. But Buddhist texts liken the whole of our customary existence to a different kind of dream. Both are in a sense creations of consciousness. To think that there is no difference between dream-flying and airplane-flying is absurd, but to think that there is no connection is not quite right either. In fact, anything we think about our experience is not quite right.

 

Gautama the Buddha was a human being who lived in the 5 th century B.C. and died like an ordinary person. On his deathbed, he consoled his grieving disciples by encouraging them to be “a light unto themselves” and not to rely on him for their spiritual salvation. At the same time, the essence of who Gautama was is not limited to his particular time and place, nor to his particular human body. As we said in last week's blog, our nature as Buddha is universal; as Buddhism developed as a religion, the notion of “Buddha” became more like this, less material and more cosmic.

 

Buddhism does not hold that Gautama's physical body was resurrected after death; it would be closer to Buddhist teaching to say that the true Gautama in actuality was never born at all. The eccentric Zen teacher Bankei, of 16 th century Japan , taught exactly this: that the actual nature of each of us is “unborn.” “Just realize this,” Bankei would often say, “and you will have no more worries.”

 

Is that really how it is? Did Castaneda really fly? Why did his teacher wave him away? What is really important to know?

 

Sometimes the questions are more important than the answers. -- LEW

April 9. At the moment of his enlightenment, Gautama was supposed to have exclaimed, “How wonderful! How marvelous! I and all beings are like this!”

 

In other words, Gautama's spiritual awakening—the central fact and touchstone of all of Buddhism—was not just for him alone. It was not just some kind of personal peak experience, it was for everyone and about everyone, about you and me and the whole world of beings, human and non-human. This is the basis for the fundamental Buddhist doctrine of Buddha-nature. Each of us are, fundamentally, at root already Buddha, already awakened. The awakened nature of conscious awareness is immediately accessible to us, always. Each moment of existence is a moment of this awakening. Each moment of zazen—sitting meditation—is a moment of this awakening. We are never apart from it.

 

One of Suzuki-Roshi's most characteristic and important teachings was “no gaining idea,” his Buddhist-English way of expressing the Heart Sutra's “no-attainment.” In spite of what you may have read (and there is SO much to read these days on the Buddhist bookshelf), in spite of how it may seem, there is nothing we need that we haven't already got. In fact, the actual course of spiritual practice and of the Path of Buddhism is more the reverse. We need to divest ourselves of that which we do not need—all of our self-centered ideas, our clinging to objects of desire as external to ourselves, our mistaken assumptions about what is real and important—to allow our innate Buddha-nature to shine.

 

But whether we feel it shining our not, it is always there, always expressing itself. Suzuki-Roshi's admonishment to anyone (especially a Buddhist teacher) thinking of criticizing another, is to remember that whatever someone is doing, first and foremost it is an expression of their Buddha-nature.

 

How hateful, spiteful, ignorant actions (which we see so much of in today's world) can be an expression of Buddha-nature is not easy to discern with our thinking mind. In fact it makes no sense at all to that part of our mind. But it is the basis for the development of compassion toward others and toward ourselves.

 

That is not to say that Buddhist practice makes us wimps or pushovers for the evildoers and malcontents of our world. The true expression of compassion is not always mild-mannered or polite. As the Dalai Lama said in a book about anger, “Sometimes NOT to get angry is a violation of our Bodhisattva vow.” But that anger, if it is true and truly comjpassionate, needs to come from our perception of others as innately Buddhas, confused or ignorant though they might be.

 

I am struck, in our world of increasing religious fundamentalism and war in the name of religion, how tolerant the Buddhist world-view is. I'm not even sure, in the sense of a religion against or apart from other religions, that Buddhism is even a religion. I really don't know what it is, or what to call it. Maybe we should just call it Tolerance with a capital T—Tolerance which is one of the perfections of the Bodhisattva path. Tolerance to all beings and things, as though each of them are our only child, whom we never give up loving no matter what they do. -- LEW

 

April 2. We spoke last week about the three kinds of dukkha ( suffering or unsatisfactoriness) distinguished in Buddhism: ordinary pain, the suffering of impermanence, and the existential suffering of the duality of self and other.

 

The third one—the suffering of duality—is the most fundamental, but as it is also the most profound, let's take up the other two first. The dukkha of ordinary pain refers to experiences as trivial as a headache and as devastating as cancer. It can also include emotional pain, such as the trauma of a divorce. This level of dukkha is what most people think of when they hear the word “suffering,” and it is common misunderstanding to think that Buddhism just teaches that “life is suffering.” Since we all know that a human life includes all manner of joy and sorrow intermixed, to say that Buddhism only teaches that “life is suffering” is to trivialize its message, allowing us to dismiss it as not accurate.

 

What the Buddha actually taught (in the First Noble Truth) is that “all conditioned existence is marked by dukkha.” “ Conditioned existence” means a world of impermanence and continuous change, so Gautama was really referring in this statement to the second form of dukkha, the dukkha of impermanence. To understand the nature of this level of dukkha it is helpful to begin by thinking of something joyful and wonderful in your life, such as the love you feel toward your spouse or your child. This is a great thing about being alive, to have that love. We would give anything to have it, and anything to keep it. But just think for a moment how we would feel if our child suddenly died. That feeling is an intrinsic part of the love we feel for our child. We can't really separate the two; the love we have for the living, healthy child is shadowed always by the grief we would feel if something bad were to happen to her. So we worry a lot about our child. This is the second kind of dukkha, the dukkha of impermanence. You can see that just to translate the word as “suffering” doesn't do it justice. It is more complex and layered than that.

 

But why is it that we suffer so much from the truth of impermanencee? What causes us to bend so much of our psychic and emotional energy to getting and preserving what we need and want in the world, even at the expense of others? Well, lurking behind these two forms of dukkha is the third—the dukkha of an individualistic, separate selfhood as the totality of who and what we are. This view says: I am me, I am separate, I am individual, I am unique (and underneath it all, quite alone).  I need to negotiate with an outside, often hostil world to get what I want for myself and those I love.  Buddhism responds with this simple, direct teaching: that our individualistic, separate selfhood is not all that we are. We are more; we are also one with the limitless awareness that is reality itself. We are each of us also Buddha.

 

At the moment of his enlightenment, Gautama was supposed to have exclaimed, “How marvelous! How wonderful! I and all beings everywhere are just like this!”

 

What was he talking about? Stay tuned…. Lew

 

March 27. In ordinary parlance, there is not a clear distinction between kindliness, friendliness, and compassion, but in the Buddhist practice of the Heartitudes, they are distinct. Metta is the practice of generating kind and loving feelings, toward oneself or another. Karuna, or compassion, is the practice of absorbing and feeling the suffering of ourself or another. Generally speaking, karuna is harder. It can often be a rather difficult thing to open ourselves to the suffering, either of ourselves or of another. That is why we often don't do it.

 

Buddhist compassion is the actual feeling, the sensation, of opening to suffering. It is actually, in that sense, a yogic or contemplative discipline. In the West, we often conflate compassion with social action or tangible action to help someone. This can be a genuine outcome of real compassion practice, and it is certainly a part of the Buddhist worldview. But often we can find ourselves rushing to fix someone else's problem, or make something better, not as a way of expressing our true compassion, but as a way to avoid actually feeling the painful feeling of it. As one well-known Buddhist social activist once said to me, “In the early days, when I worked in the third world struggling to help poor people, I think a lot of that was trying to escape from my own pain.”

 

Compassion is hard, and yet immensely satisfying, because it is a true, authentic response to the reality of the various levels of suffering which the Buddha taught is an essential, inescapable feature of ordinary human existence. Buddhism distinguishes three kinds of suffering: ordinary pain, such as from an illness or injury; the suffering of impermanence (even if we are blissfully happy in a relationship, it won't last forever, and behind the scenes our deep mind knows this sadness which is intrinsically there); and lastly and most fundamentally, the suffering of duality, or of the mistaken view of self and other.

 

In a future post we will go further into these three kinds of suffering, as they all factor into the practice of compassion. -- LEW

 

 

March 20. Continuing with our discussion of the Heartitudes, one small correction: at the Green Gulch retreat on April 8, we will be concentrating on Metta, or kindness. Kindness is a core attitude of the Buddhist world-view, and of Buddhist life. As I have mentioned in previous postings, kindness can be seen as one of the basic characteristics of an awakened life, along with Relaxed Presence and Happiness.

 

In general, compassion and wisdom are two sides of the same awareness, the same awakened mind. In the Buddhist scriptures, this is sometimes symbolized by the two wings of the Garuda bird. The Garuda bird was a large mythical bird. One wing represents wisdom, the other compassion. The bird cannot fly with either wing alone. Or to make the metaphor even more apt, flying itself involves the simultaneous movement of both wings.

 

So from a Buddhist point of view, Kindness is not just a “supposed to,” not yet another rule to follow in life. Kindness is the natural state that emerges when the boundaries of ego are softened, when we actually experience the connectivity between ourselves and others. By “experience” we mean something physical, an actual sensation or perception, that can emerge out of our meditation practice and be strengthened by it. So Kindness is not just an idea or concept.

  

  There are two primary gates to the practices of Kindness: the mind, and direct emotional experience. The Metta prayer, which we recite after every meditation session in the Vimala Sangha, is an example of the former:

 

   May all beings be filled with loving kindness,

  May all beings be free from suffering,

  May all beings be happy and at peace.

 

This verse comes from the Metta Sutta, a scripture from the Pali canon which we recite as part of our devotional service on Tuesday nights. This prayer expresses not just the idea of Kindness, though that is certainly there. It also represents a deep wish or intention, which goes beyond thinking. It is how we feel naturally about those we love—for our spouse or partner, children, and family most specifically.

 

That being said, the true practice of Kindness—in fact all the Illimitables—in Buddhism begins with the object of kindness being ourselves! This is how we are going to begin the practice on April 8, though we will extend it somewhat as the day goes on.

 

To be continued…. -- LEW

March 13. In anticipation of our upcoming Green Gulch retreat on April 8 (Theme: “Practices of Compassion”) I wanted to begin a discussion here about the Buddhist practices in this area. From the earliest layer of Buddhist teachings and scriptures, there has been a doctrine of the “Four Illimitables,” or as Lama Surya Das likes to call them, “The Four Heartitudes.” These are metta, karuna, mudita, and uppekka, or in English, loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity.

 

The practice of metta specifically has been greatly popularized in the last couple of decades in the Vipassana tradition, and this is essentially a prayer practice, in which the metta prayer of loving kindness is repeated by the practitioner and directed to various people—first and most importantly, oneself, and then to one's friends, and finally even to one's enemies. It is important to know that, first of all, metta is just one of the four Heartitudes, and that practicing it as a prayer is only one of the many ways these Heartitudes can become transformative inner practices.

 

In the Zen tradition, rather than being a separate set of practices, the Heartitudes are embedded into the rituals and ceremonies of monastic life. The meal ceremony, with accompanying recitations, is a formal way to receive food with gratitude and awareness of all the work and suffering of many beings of things to grow the food and bring it to us. In the Tibetan tradition, the Heartitudes are practiced less as verbal utterances and more as envisionings of various images and beings that embody the compassionate spirit.

 

At our Green Gulch retreat, I will be explaining in more detail all the ways that the Heartitudes—and specifically Compassion—can be practiced, and then we will do them together and discuss our experiences with them. The question for us in the Vimala Sangha, and more generally in Western Buddhism, is, What is the best and most effective way for people living in the world, with jobs and families, to practice the Heartitudes? How can these venerable and rich practices best help us?

 

More on this next week: LEW

March 5. An amendment to last week's remarks about “presence.” Presence may be too nondescript a word by itself. Perhaps “relaxed presence” works better—relaxed because what is there to be worried about? In the light of prajna or wisdom, we no longer identify with a self or a body which needs to be protected or be worried about. This quality of relaxed presence is perhaps the most powerful and helpful outcome of a life of Buddhist meditation practice. It works in all circumstances, it helps others in every situation, it transforms without trying. It is the essence of the Bodhisattva path.

 

The second mark of an awakened life is “happiness.” Yawn: that's our first reaction. “Don't worry, be happy.” “Money can't buy happiness.” The platitudes multiply. But we are not talking here about ordinary American happiness—sunset in the Bahamas with a margarita in hand. If you can imagine being happy while in great intractable pain, or in the presence of the pain of a loved one, or in the full knowledge of how deluded and cruel human beings can be, then you have some sense of the kind of happiness we are talking about. Perhaps “unconditional fundamental joy” would be more descriptive, though harder to say. This is the emotional component of “relaxed presence”--how one feels in the light of transcendent wisdom. Strangely enough, this joy actually includes great suffering. A person mature in dharma doesn't wander around with a silly happy smile all the time. I am reminded of a story about Marpa, a saint in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.

 

Once one of Marpa's sons was thrown off a horse and killed. One of Marpa's disciples found him sobbing uncontrollably over his son's dead body. “I thought you teach that this life is just a dream,” the disciple said. “Yes,” Marpa replied, “and this is a nightmare.”

 

My own teacher, Suzuki-Roshi, experienced many terrible things in his life, both that happened to him personally, and to his Japanese society. And yet he was a person who –when we knew him--laughed all the time, someone who seemed genuinely happy just to be alive with all of us. There was no disconnect, I think, between those terrible things and his happiness. They were of a piece, part of the fabric of his lifetime of Buddhist practice. They were, we might say, the crucible that forged his happiness. We cannot be fundamentally joyous if we exclude or avoid the actual pain and sorrow that surrounds us. We have to find a way to penetrate into it, to understand it, to transform it.

 

This is why we sit. --LEW

 

Feb 27.  Last week I spoke of the “three marks of an awakened life.” The first I termed “presence.” This is how we experience a person mature in dharma; they seem to be completely there for us, unencumbered by obscurations and emotional defilements or distractions.

 

In Buddhist terminology this quality of presence is called by many names, most of them really untranslatable. What all these terms mean is that through our practice and realization we come to rest not in our ordinary idea of ego or self, but in the luminous, boundless Buddha nature that is what we truly are. Trungpa Rinpoche used to translate this into ordinary English as our “basic goodness.” This is nice, because it puts an emotional and feeling tone into something that otherwise would seem abstract to us.

 

As I have often said, the actual purpose of Buddhist meditation practices are not just to be calm and compassionate (though that is a beneficial side-effect), but to be awake to our fundamental nature as Buddhas, resting in our basic goodness. Any given period of meditation practice may be calm or not so calm. It may be positively agitated sometime. This is the nature of the path of awakening. Our core practice in the Zen tradition is to develop an awareness of who or what is aware of whatever is going on—awareness of awareness itself. We may be agitated or upset, but we need to keep coming to rest in that which is aware of our agitation and upset. What is the nature of that awareness? Is it also agitated or upset? How is it? What is it?

 

In our tradition we call this deep inquiry “studying the self,” which could be better translated “studying awareness.” In this sense our very upsets are the seeds or raw material for our awareness study. We should not avert our gaze from our problems, and we should definitely not think of them as signs that our meditation is not working. Everything that comes into our meditation is good, is a manifestation of our “basic goodness,” our intrinsic nature as awake aware beings. We bow to all of it. We vow to be open to all of it, as the poet Lew Welch says. -- LEW

Feb. 20. We don't live in a Buddhist country. We don't have a thousand or more years of monastic practice, of realized Buddhist teachers living in the culture and conveying their understanding. In fact, even though contemplative Buddhism has been practiced the West for more than 40 years, and even though there are more than 10,000 books in English on Buddhism, I think we are still a bit vague about the goals of Buddhist practice, and what an accomplished practitioner of Buddhism meditation looks and feels like.

 

In thinking this through, I have begun talking about what I call the “three marks of an awakened life.” These are presence, happiness, and kindness. I have met many good Asian, and now Western, teachers of Buddhism, and these three qualities are what I think they hold in common. When you meet them, you really feel they are meeting you. They are fully present—not thinking about something else, not strategizing about being liked, not trying to get anything. Just there.

 

Secondly, a person mature in practice also has an underlying sense of ease or happiness, regardless of what is going on. This is much different than the usual relative sense of happiness that comes from experiencing pleasure or getting what we want. There is a fundamental joy about being alive that transcends ordinary joy or sorrow.

 

Thirdly, a person mature in practice is unfailingly kind—or if they are not, they quickly see that and sincerely apologize, turning what could be painful karma into something workable. As the Dalai Lama has often said: Kindness is my religion. And he was not just whistling Dixie . He means it.

 

There is much more to be said about all of this. There is a standard teaching doctrine in Buddhism called the Three Marks of conditioned existence: unsatisfactoriness, impermance, and no abiding self. I feel that these corresponding “three marks of an awakened life” are these same three truths transformed by wisdom. More on this next week. -- LEW

Feb. 12. Beginning this month, I want to take a detour from our exploration of the Bodhisattva full-moon ceremony and talk a bit about the idea of a one-day or part-day personal retreat. Many of us in the Vimala Sangha lead busy, complicated lives, and often our ability to come to the regular group meditation sessions—even once a week – is limited. However, I think it is possible for a busy person to schedule in time for a one-day or part-day personal retreat.

 

The problem with doing a personal retreat, of course, is that we do it alone, without the support or discipline of the group. That makes it more difficult, and as a practical matter more likely that we will not really do it at all. But it can be done, and I will be talking this Tuesday and perhaps for a few Tuesdays on the different aspects of personal retreat, how it can be organized, the challenges and distractions, and so on.

 

The most important aspect of a personal retreat is that it is really a retreat. This means disengagement with the most elementary distractions of the day: children, phone, appointments, making meals for others, and so on. So the first step in planning a personal retreat is to calendar it. Even if you have to do it two or three months in advance, do it now. If a full day is impossible, try half a day. And as the day grows closer, discipline yourself not to let anything else eat into that calendared time. If something comes up that absolutely must be done on that day, then push the retreat date out further and try again.

 

The next aspect that will make the retreat work is the physical space. Ideally, a quiet house with no one in it is the best. Then you can freely access the kitchen for tea and meals and not feel that you are breaking the retreat feeling. If that's not possible in your own house, perhaps a friend's house could work. If none of the above are doable, then perhaps a room in the house that could be off-limits to others during the time of your retreat.

 

As you can see, there are many aspects to these preliminaries and plans, and not space in this blog to go into them all now. Stay tuned as we explore this vital topic, bit by bit.

 

A friend of mine who teaches in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition sent me this quote from Longchenpa, a revered master in that tradition:

When something unwanted falls into your lap, you have a negative reaction,

such as anger, dislike, envy, upset, irritation, anxiety, depression, mental anguish,

or fear of death and rebirth.

When such reactions arise as a display due to dynamic energy, identify them as such.

Do not renounce them, indulge in them, refine them away,

transform them, look at them, or meditate on them.

Rather, rest spontaneously in the single, naturally settled state of evenness,

free of the proliferation and resolution of conceptual frameworks.

Mind as pure expanse of space, in which things vanish naturally and leave no trace,

arises with intensity from within, pristinely lucid.

--Lew

 

    

Feb. 5, 2006. The word Bodhisattva literally means “enlightenment – being”. It is a core term in Great Vehicle Buddhism—the form of Buddhism which emphasizes compassion, and a vow to practice not just for our own liberation, but the liberation of everyone. The vow of the Bodhisattva is to postpone his/her own final enlightenment and remain in the world for the benefit of all beings. Originally the Bodhisattva ideal was simply a more inclusive spiritual goal than the earlier notions of Arhatship or personal liberation. But over time a Bodhisattva also came to mean a celestial being representing spiritual principle – Avalokitesvara, the Bodhisattva of Infinite Compassion, is a well-known example. This development has, perhaps, a very rough analogy to the proliferation of saints in Catholicism. Each saint – St. Christopher, for example, or the Blessed Virgin– specializes in one aspect of spiritual aspiration or function.

 

If you go to the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco , or for that matter to Green Gulch, many of the Buddhist statues you will see are not of the historical Buddha, but of these celestial Bodhisattvas. These Bodhisattva archetypes can be understood in a number of ways – literal, energetic, and psychological.

 

The Tibetan Buddhist tradition tends to view these Bodhisattvas as literal beings who reside in a non-material realm, tend to the spiritual well-being of human beings, and are responsive to their prayers and supplications. These celestial beings are part of a larger pantheon of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and other beings with whom the practitioner interacts in the course of spiritual development.

 

The Zen tradition, which is rooted in the present moment of experience, sees these Bodhi-beings as representations of energies within ourselves which can be evolved and developed through meditation practice. So Samantabhadra Bodhisattva, whose specialty is the vow, represents that powerful energy that is evoked in us when we take a vow. Many of the ceremonies we do in the Zen tradition –such as our ordination ceremony-- are derived from Buddhist scriptures featuring Samantabhadra.

 

From a psychological perspective, the various Bodhisattvas represent aspects of the human psyche which are transformed in the course of spiritual practice. Avalokitesvara thus represents the quality of love and compassion in ourselves. Whenever we experience that quality, we are essentially manifesting Avalokitesvara (Kanzeon in Japanese, Kuan-Yin in Chinese).

 

The Bodhisattva ceremony includes a section in which we pay homage to all the major Bodhisattvas of the Great Vehicle Buddhist tradition. So it is helpful to understand the background and context of the Bodhisattva ideal. In future postings here I will talk about each of the Bodhisattvas in more detail.

 

One of the best studies of the Bodhisattva ideal is Dan Leighton's Faces of Compassion. We will try to buy some copies to put out in our bookstore table, for those who are interested.  -- LEW

 

 

 

 

Jan. 30, 2006.  Typically, at most Zen centers, there is a scheduled time for "zazen instruction," instruction in sitting meditation.   These instruction sessions tend to be either mostly about physical posture, or contain so much information that it is hard for a newcomer to absorb and retain at one go.  My style in the Vimala Sangha has been to offer some instruction on one or two points of meditation at each of our sittings.  However, with the growth of the Sangha and the increasing variety of offerings, we have decided to offer a more traditional meditation instruction at 6:45 p.m. before our regular Tuesday sittings.  Anyone who wishes to receive this instruction may simply come early and receive it in the upper area of the mezzanine while setup is going on in the main area.  Even those who have been sitting for a while can benefit from a review and systematic presentation of the main points of Zen meditation.

Probably the most important line in the Bodhisattva ceremony is "I now fully avow."  This is an attitude of unconditional acceptance and positive regard for our own history, personality, and spiritual aspiration.  It has often been pointed out that the Buddhist world view does not include anything like the "original sin" of our Western traditions.  From the Buddhist point of view, our intrinsic nature is that of Buddhas, fully awakened compassionate beings.  What we imagine to be our and other's shortcomings and faults, whether major or minor, are obscurations of this basic undefiled Buddha nature due to our ignorance about the nature of reality.  Often this is described using the metaphor of clouds and sky.  Our Buddha nature is like the clear sunlit sky, and our faults are like clouds covering the sun.  The sun is always there, but we cannot always see it.

In the Western world view, we look at the way the world is, the confusion, the suffering, the injustice, the exploitation and pain, and think, "What's wrong with us? Why is there so much evil in the world? We human beings are bad, we're terrible.  Look what we do to each other."  The Buddhist perspective does not ignore any of this.  It is all true.  But we see the cause of it not as some fundamental imperfection, but as a lack of self-awareness--a perceptual problem, not an existential one.  For contemplative traditions such as Zen, meditation practice is a direct way to overcome and transform this perceptual misunderstanding and directly experience that we and all beings are intrinsically aware, awake, compassionate, loving.

Practically speaking, for each of us it is very important to come to the sitting cushion with a sense of self-acceptance, of self-forgiveness and compassion.  We fully avow who we are, and when we sit down and look at the mind directly, we experience who we are without criticism and judgment.  Many things come up in the mind--fears, lusts, distractions, worries, attempts to change or control our situation:  the whole nine yards!  We fully avow it.  Yes, these are all really there in our mind.  Out in the world, due to our habitual tendencies and lack of self-awareness, we may act on these thoughts and cause suffering to ourselves and others.  On the cushion, our body still, our breath calm, there is no problem.  Thoughts come and go; we see them arise, sustain themselves for a while, and dissipate. 

"Avow" means something like this.  We see who we are by looking at the mind directly, and we accept all of it.  At that very moment of acceptance, transformation begins and compassion grows, as we realize that as it is for us, so it is for everyone.  Yes, the world is full of the dark clouds of ignorance and suffering.  Bad as it may seem today, it probably was much the same in the time of the historical Gautama.  It seems that darkness surrounds us.  But the light of the sun is there, always.  It is within us, and within each person, always.  It is the essential luminous nature of the heart-mind.  "I now fully avow" is the attitude we bring to the sitting cushion.  It is itself liberation.

--Lew

Jan. 16, 2006.  I have begun talking about the oldest ceremony (and in ancient times the only ceremony) in Buddhism-- the Pratimoksha gathering at the full and new moon to recite the precepts, or rules of the Sangha, and confess transgressions.   In the earliest days of the Buddhist Sanghas, the monks and nuns did not physically live together.  Most of the time they lived in the forest alone, and came together at the full and new moon to renew their commitment to the monastic rule.  It is unclear whether laypeople joined in this ceremony, but they probably did.

Over the centuries, as Buddhism moved to different cultures and countries, and developed its doctrines, this ceremony changed, but the essence of it remains the same.  The ceremony we have inherited from Japan and China in the Zen tradition is called the Bodhisattva ceremony, and it is still performed in monastic establishments in Japan on the full and new moon.

Instead of reciting the 256 monastic rules of ancient Buddhism, we recite the 16 Bodhisattva precepts for an awakened life, and pay homage to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of the past.  I'm not sure exactly what form this ceremony will take when we start doing it in our Sangha.  We will probably make some adjustments for our situation.  And before starting to do it, I've begun giving talks about the text of the ceremony, beginning with the first line: "All my ancient twisted karma..."  

THis phrase has many layers of meaning, and before we become too excited about the word "twisted," I want to check the original Chinese to see what it really says.  The basic idea is that we come to the present moment with all our past action and experience embedded in us--today we might say neurologically embedded.  In fact "twisted" is not a bad physiological description for the way neurons grow and intertwine in our brain.  And not just in our brain.  Our muscles, sinews, our very being are shaped and limited by this history--call it the result of past karma, or past action.

The point of the Bodhisattva ceremony is that though this is the case we are not actually limited or constrained by our habitual action.  There is no past except as it is brought forward into the present moment, and the present moment is ours to shape.  From the standpoint of Zen meditation, this is what we do when we sit: experience all of our history, our thoughts and plans, our regrets and history, on the cusp of each breath.  As one of my early teachers used to say: "Every breath, new chances."

--Lew

Jan. 2, 2006.  Back to normalcy.  Holiday guests gone, food eaten, put away, or gotten rid of.  Job starts up again.  It's interesting to reflect that compared to traditional societies, past or present, our post-industrial tech society has very few holidays.  Christmas, New Year's, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving--and then some made-up ones: Mother's Day, Flag day, and so on.  But a real celebration or festival is something like Mardi Gras--a time when usual personality and roles are set aside, everyone dresses up in costume, and acts very differently.  In a real festival, whether tragic or happy, we are transfigured and transformed. 

The Buddha taught that the notion or experience of a fixed, unchanging self is a kind of necessary fiction.  We need our identity for survival, social congress, and relationship; and there is no particular problem in all of that.  But if we allow our sense of self to become magnetized, so that it is powerfully attracted to some things, and repelled by others, then we become the center of a storm that never ends.  To de-magnetize the self--which might be a description of meditation practice--so that its push-pull is neutralized, is to enter the world of unending festival, every moment a kind of celebration or transformation.  We don't know what will happen, but it is ok.  Whatever happens is ok. 

It is something like ice melting.  Actually, ice and water are not different.  They are the same material.  But ice is fixed and frozen, while water flows.  This is a metaphor for practice and awakening made famous in a poem by Hakuin, a 17th century master of Japan.  For someone who is only used to ice to get all excited about water is perhaps understandable, but it still misses the point.  It is all H20.  So in the end there is nothing wrong with the "self," nothing that needs to be gotten rid of.  It is simply a matter of whether it is capable of flowing. 

"Go with the flow": these irritating spiritual catch-phrases almost always disguise something important and real.  Unfortunately, the actuality of these real experiences can never really be captured in language.  "Today is the first day of the rest of your life."  Almost all the books about Zen in English are misleading.  Can you really express what actually happens to you in meditation in language? You can try, but somehow it always falls short.  Even poets can't do it.  As T. S. Eliot once wrote:  "Poetry is a raid on the inexpressible with shabby tools." 

Last week I commented on the Zen story, "Every day is a good day."  Today I'm saying, in effect, that every day is a festival.  Even when there are many problems, even when life is quite difficult, there is some Mardi Gras of the spirit going on.

In Vimala Sangha, we're back to our usual schedule.  We sit this Friday the 6th, and then the next Tuesday, the 10th.  The Sunday half-day sitting will be on the 15th.

See you all at the next festival!

Lew

Dec. 26. A Chinese Zen teacher once said to his assembly of monks, "I do not ask about fifteen days ago, or fifteen days hence.  But what about today?"  When no-one could answer, he added, "Every day is a good day."

As the year turns, we all know that there is a cultural custom called "New Year's resolutions."  They are often trivialized and made fun of--lose weight, stop smoking, watch less TV.  The sense is that we know we will not be able to keep them.  But actually, these resolutions are one example of what in Buddhism we would call a mindfulness practice, or even vow, and they are not trivial at all.    They express the best of ourselves, and what we wish for ourselves and others.  The change of seasons, or the change in calendar, are a ritual opportunity for us to renew these vows.  Actually, as the above story illustrates, every day--even every moment--is such an opportunity. 

The point is not to think of these resolutions as some kind of good/bad, pass/fail  test of character.  A resolution that we can keep is not perhaps so interesting.  Our largest and most comprehensive resolution is the Bodhisattva vow to liberate all beings.  This vow is interesting and inspiring precisely because it is impossible in the usual sense.  We cannot, as individuals or small groups, transform the world--we think.  Impossible!  But the world, which includes each of us, is already in the process of transforming itself constantly.  To think, "Oh, well I'm such a small insignificant individual, I can't do anything" disregards the fact that already each of us is doing something. 

One of the many disadvantages of our celebrity-obsessed culture is the way it makes us all feel disempowered.  We think because we are not rich or famous or powerful we have no influence.  But just because someone has influence doesn't necessarily mean they are helping anything or anyone.  It is not the magnitude of the action that is the measure of its helpfulness, but the directionality.  If an act, even a tiny one, is in the direction of liberation, it has a power that will never be reported on Entertainment News.  You yourself, as the originator of the action, may never hear any news about it.  But someone, or something, will hear.

Every day is a good day.  Every moment is a good opportunity.  Fifteen days before, fifteen days after--that's how we always think, regretting this, planning that.  New Year's resolutions are good, but what about New Moment's resolution? That could be a good description of authentic meditation practice.

Happy New Moment! (Year).  -- Lew

Dec. 19.  Tomorrow is our Solstice potluck at the OHanlon Center.  I'm looking forward to spending a celebratory evening with Sangha members.  The question comes up: what is the role of celebration and holidays in Buddhism?

I have observed with interest the current hullabaloo about whether to say "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays."  Actually, Dec. 25 was originally a "pagan" solstice celebration. In Northern Europe, Dec. 25 was the first day after the solstice that one could actually observe the sun moving in the other direction, toward light rather than darkness.  In a pre-scientific societies that thought of the sun as having a will of its own, one could never be sure if it would decide to come back.  When it did, that was indeed cause for celebration.

Of course, the birth of Jesus is the emerging of light in a spiritual sense, so to celebrate that moment on Dec. 25 makes a lot of sense.  Recognizing Christmas as the birth-date of Jesus as a great compassion-being in not inconsistent with Buddhist values, either.  We celebrate all manifestions of compassion, large and small.

So yes, we do celebrate things in Buddhism.  Aside from the foregoing, we celebrate the gift and fragility of life, the natural environment that supports us and nourishes us, the generosity and gift of other people important to us--our parents, friends, and society.  Meditation practice itself could be seen as a kind of celebration of each of these things, by invoking an awareness and appreciation of each of them. 

And when we celebrate, we should be joyous and happy.  It is important that as we develop an authentic Buddhist culture in the West, that we do not conflate it with some kind of one-sided, puritanical or purist attitude denial and asceticism.  Buddhist spiritual life is neither ascetic nor hedonistic; it is "truth-istic."  This is one way of understanding the term "Middle Way," which was the Buddha's own term for his teaching. 

All life comes from the sun.  Solstice celebration acknowledges that fact, enjoying that basic cosmic energy of life itself.  I have no problem saying "Merry Christmas."   What I have a problem with is criticizing others for what they believe or what they do.  What a waste of time!  We should honor every day and everyone.

Happy Solstice.  -- Lew

Dec. 13.  Siddhartha Gautama, whom history calls the Buddha, was, in a sense, one of the world's first great empirists--that is to say, he trust not religious belief, or superstition, or custom, to discern how the world worked, but rather his own experience.  I once debated a well-known Japanese Buddhist scholar on this point.  I contended that Buddhism was akin to science in this regard; the scholar vigorously disagreed.  I have always felt our disagreement was more a matter of language than substance.  In any case, The Dalai Lama's recent interest in scientific research on the brain (see below) is in the same spirit.  What is true about the world? Gautama and modern science both ask this question.  The difference is one of methodology.  Gautama, and all subsequent generations of meditation Buddhists, contend that the mind can be studied directly, from the inside, by those of us who have one (a mind, that is).  Science, with its reliance on measurability and repeatability, demurs.  The ability to repeat an experiment and obtain the same result (repeatability) is an important cornerstone of the "scientific method."  This is one of the elements in the debate between evolutionary biologists and so-called "intelligent design" theorists.

However, many things happen in the world that are not particularly repeatable by someone else.  A thought or sensation, for example.  The feeling we have on looking at a particularly glorious sunset.  Most of the inner experiences of the mind are not really repeatable, even by ourselves.  They happen once.   Life itself is not repeatable.  In fact, most of the important elements of what it is to be human are not really repeatable.  And yet we have a vivid experience of being alive, of living in a constant stream of uniqueness. 

This is the "study" that meditation is--to investigate that stream, to discern clearly what it is.  The typical scientist of today would not call that investigation "science," but our inner experience is arguably the most important natural phenomenon there is--it determines everything about how we live, about whether we live in harmony with others or not, about whether we come to the end of our life with some sense of satisfaction and completeness, or not.  Maybe meditation isn't science, but it is important, and it has to do with the truth of how things are.  Call it what you will.

A few weeks ago I mentioned an article on the web about research demonstrating that meditation can "grow" brain cells in the cerebral cortex.  Steve Levine has contributed the link to the article, here.  The research a thickening of the brain in a certain area of the cortex among regular meditators.  Significance? Hard to say, but for those that like scientific proof that the things they do are good, it supplies some.  So if you've been noticing a "thick" feeling in the front right part of your head, maybe that's what's causing it.  Or maybe it's just allergies.   -- Lew

Dec. 6. In our discussions of "karma," it is helpful to remember that the term is used in Buddhism in the context of the Buddha's world-view of interconnectedness.  Our pop-culture understanding of karma is linear and simplistic; "Oh, I did such and such and it will create bad karma."  From the standpoint of Buddhism, cause-and-effect in the universe at large, and the human realm in particular, is not linear, but global.  Everything effects everything; we exist in a fluid ocean of cross-current and influence.  So even to say "I did this or that" is not quite right; language fools us in this regard.  This individual self that we refer to as our ordinary experience of being-here is really a node, or location point, in this fluid ocean. 

Through practicing meditation we train the mind, train the heart, to function appropriately in this ocean, so that the things that we do or say, or even think, take into account the totality of our existence, not just the narrow notion of our individual location point.   Suzuki-Roshi speaks of "small mind" and "big mind" as though they are two different things, but you notice that there is the same word "mind" and a size descriptor--small or large.  It is the same mind either way; it is just a question of how broad our realization or understanding of ourself really is. 

When we have this kind of broad notion of ourselves, it changes how we speak and act quite profoundly.  We have a different responsibility.  In that sense, the cowboy-individualistic mythos of American frontier culture, which is so much a part of how our society thinks of itself, is, we might say, on the small-minded extreme of this continuum.  It may of had value when someone had to strike out across the empty plain and build a house on the prairie; but it has diminishing value in the world of today--an interconnected world not only in a subtle, spiritual sense, but in a gross material sense. 

I like reading the drudge report on the web-- www.drudgereport.com -- because it has links to web sites all over the world.  You feel, on that one page, a visceral sense of global community, of global connectedness, of the multiplicity of cultures and views.  The ocean of connectedness is right there.

Our next Tuesday night meeting will be on the 13th, when we will discuss these issues in more detail.  Until then, as Edward R. Murrow would say, "Good night and good luck."  I hear this is a fabulous movie.  I'm planning to see it soon.  -- Lew

Nov. 28.  We have begun using our chant book more at our regular meetings, particularly on Tuesday evenings.  At the end of the evening, we have a short service in which we recite the Metta Sutta, the scripture of Compassionate Mind.  I would like to see us begin reciting the 3 refuges too, but when I looked at the translation in our book, it didn't seem quite right to me.  Here is the new translation:

I take refuge in Buddha; I take refuge in Dharma; I take refuge in Sangha.

I take refuge in Buddha, Awakened Mind.

I take refuge in Dharma, Awakened Teaching.

I take refuge in Sangha, Awakened Life.

I have completely taken refuge in Buddha.

I have completely taken refuge in Dharma.

I have completely taken refuge in Sangha.

"Awakened Mind" is much closer to the actual, literal meaning of the word "buddha," which is the common word for "awake" in Sanskrit.  And Dharma and Sangha follow, as expressions of that awakened mind in teaching and in our life together as a community.  "I take refuge in the Buddha sounds a lot like worshipping the particular human being--Siddhartha Gautama--whom we call Buddha.  But, at least in our Zen tradition, that is not really the deeper meaning.  The point of Gautama as a human being is just that he was born with the same body and mind as we were.  He had the same equipment.

I can imagine the people living at the time of Gautama saw him walking around and said to themselves, "Buddha!"  "Awake!"  That's all.  We shouldn't get too excited about the word Buddha.  It just means who we most deeply are.  --Lew

Nov. 21. At our half-day sitting yesterday, we continued discussing karma, especially its implications for our meditation practice.  Only through silent sitting, with the mind stable and focused, can we actually experience the usually unconscious working of karmic life.  Some thought, feeling, or emotion arises in meditation--a memory, a fantasy, a plan for the future--and we have some reaction to it.  We become involved in it; we follow it.  This is the activation of "intentional activity in the present moment"--karma.  The 16 Bodhisattva precepts, beginning with "I take refuge in the Buddha"--are our template for living a life that transcends karmic attachment. 

Throughout Buddhist history, there have been three main methods of training to transform consciousness and resolve our cycle of karmic attachment: individual meditation practice, monastic life, and practice-in-the-world--daily life effort.  Of these three, the least developed until now has been the last--practice in the world, the kind of effort exemplied by Vimalakirti, the householder Buddha after whom the Vimala Sangha was named.  That is a challenge for Buddhism in the 21st century--how to develop practice-in-the-world so that it is truly transformative, and reaches into all aspects of family, work, relationships, livelihood, ambition, striving, social transformation, politics, and so forth. 

This is the focus of The Vimala Sangha; "The Awakening Path of Householder Zen."

--Lew

Nov.14.  Last week I said that karma is roughly "assumptions."  These are not any old assumptions, but deep ones, those that persist in consciousness as emotions and reactive emotional responses.  Most of them are unconscious--that is, unless we practice meditation and begin to experience them emerging into conscious awareness.  These karmic patterns are what the Buddha indicated in the second noble truth are the cause of our needless suffering as human beings.  Traditionally, Buddhism lumps these patterns into three basic categories--aversion, attraction, and confusion, otherwise known as greed, hate, and delusion.  I like the former terms better, because they themselves are not so emotionally charged, and because the first two, anyway, map the energetic activity of all living creatures.  We are attracted to things in our environment--most fundamentally, sex and food.  We are repelled by others, most notably as threats to our existence, such as a predator or environmental danger.  When we are neither attracted nor repelled, human beings generally abide in a kind of melange of ideas, memory, fantasy, and visualizing commonly called "thinking." 

The world of attraction, repulsion, and confusion is the world of karma, and most people who are not self-aware or who have not encountered the Dharma believe that this is the way the world is.  It is the way the world is, but it is a world, says the Buddha, which is largely self-created.  The world as it actually is--free from these three karmic terrains--is really quite different.  We touch this liberated world whenever we sit still and stop "kicking the potter's wheel" of karma, stop replicating the spinning of our thinking/feeling emotionally charged heart/mind.  Of course when we get up the wheel spins again; to stop its spinning, or even to change its direction somewhat, requires a fundamental transformation of our whole outlook. 

In the next weeks and months, I want to stay with this topic of karma, since it is one of the central teachings of Buddhism and one with immense practical significance for our lives.  Presently I will take up the text of the Bodhisattva Full-Moon ceremony, the oldest (and for many centuries the only) ceremony in Buddhism, one which directly expresses our commitment and vow to penetrate and see through the fabric of our karmic creations.  Stay tuned. -- Lew

Nov. 7.  This week I will resume talking about "assumptions," which is roughly what Buddhism means by "karma."  There has been so much noise and chatter about techical terms such as "karma" over the last decades that it is almost impossible to talk about karma in the context and meaning that the Buddha taught it, but I will try.  We make all sorts of assumptions, or pre-conceived ideas, about things, from the trivial to the profound, from the quite conscious to the very unconscious.  Basically, we bring to every situation, to each moment of perception and consciousness, a framework of memory, learned behavior, trauma, and fear that is probably reflected in our physical being as neurological patterns.  Every creature does this; that is how we survive.  Just as a simple example, we have noticed recently that in a stretch of road near our house the bodies of several dead squirrels that have been run over by cars.  These are the unlucky squirrels that did not adequately learn and internalize the fact that this man-made artifact in their habitat was deadly dangerous.  The squirrels that did learn this are presumably still scampering in the trees.  So learning to avoid cars is a kind of assumption, or karma, that helps the squirrel. 

We humans are a good deal more complicated.  We all learn (or don't) at an early age various lessons about our world; many of these lessons are emotional, and we carry those lessons forward for the rest of our life.   In spite of the popular notion that "karma" means the consequence of previous actions, or the "fate," that emanates from them, that is not really what karma means in a Buddhist context.  The word karma literally means "action" in Sanskrit, and what is important for Buddhist practice, and for liberation from our fixed patterns of behavior, is not what happened in the past, but what we are doing right now--the action or energy we are creating and moving forward into the next moment.  Either we are consciously or unconsciously replicating the patterns we have learned, or we are acting in a way that is aware of and free from them--action that is responding to what is actually happening, rather than what our assumptions impel us to believe is happening.  Meditation practice is the most direct way to become aware of these patterns; we can watch them rise and fall in consciousness as we sit, without doing anything about them.  This is our liberative training; this is how we transform our karmic activity into compassionate action.

More on this at tomorrow's Tuesday talk and on this blog.  --Lew

 

Oct 31.  This weekend we completed our one-day retreat in the Yurt and Green Gulch, with twenty five participants.  The morning was devoted to teaching and practice in meditation technique, both concentration (Shamatta) and insight (Vipassana).  The afternoon began with small discussion groups on the topic of refuge, as a background for teaching and practice on taking refuge in Buddha, the Awakened Mind.  The consensus seemed to be that the day was fruitful and successful.  Not only did the different constituencies of our Sangha get to meet and interact with one another, but we were able, I think, to find a way to practice authentic Dharma in the spirit of Vimalakirti, the great Householder Buddha, who lived in the world but not of it, manifesting peerless wisdom.  We will schedule a return visit to the Yurt with a similar one-day retreat sometime in the Spring, perhaps in April.  The tentative theme for the retreat will be the practice and manifestation of Great Compassion.

Magdi, writing from afar in Maryland, reflects on the last Blog post (about "conscious" livelihood) as follows.  His work is in construction:

I think positive thoughts about the money I give the crew, I think how happy it makes me that we can help each other and make money for our livelihood and how grateful I am that they help me with the income that allows me to make my payments.  We are so obviously connected and Conscious Livelihood is agroup thing.  I am also grateful to my customers and I wish them the best and want to do a good job for their happiness...

It is important, I think, for we Western Buddhists not to be too idealistic or "in the clouds" about our understanding of our spiritual practice.  There is spirit in wisdom in the daily effort to secure our livelihood for ourselves and others; for many people, all over the world, just to have enough to eat is a great effort.  Our Sangha is fortunate to live in sunny Marin, where the weather is fine and there is a sincere spirit of compassion and connectedness in the air.  For those less fortunate, for those who struggle just to eat or breathe, we send our energy, mindfulness, and compassion.  We are connected, and over time there are undoubtedly many ways that our Sangha can express that connection, tangibly and intangibly.  -- Lew

Oct. 24.  I gave a brief presentation yesterday at Green Gulch about livelihood.  Most discussions of the Buddhist principle of "right livelihood" focus on the traditional sense that certain kinds of livelihood are more wholesome than others--that being a butcher, for example, is less wholesome because it involves killing living beings.  I chose to emphasize a less dualistic apporoach, beginning with the observation that for all living beings--even bacteria!--livelihood or survival is their root practice, coming before all others.  And that all human beings, with two exceptions, worry about their livelihood all the time.  The two exceptions are the independently wealthy and monks living in voluntary poverty.  Actually, they aren't really exceptions, because the wealthy think about money all the time--that's generally why they became wealthy!--and monks have to manage their survival on a daily basis too.

Gautama the Buddha traded in his life as an independently wealthy prince for the life of a mendicant, homeless monk; so he went from one extreme to the other.  The point is that this worry about livelihood unites us, and connects us, and should be the source of compassion for others.  The choice we have about livelihood is not this job or that job necessarily--most people in the world are grateful to have any job--but whether our livelihood leads us to connection or separation from others.  Buddhism--and now science--understands that the universe we live in is biased toward connection.  Living in a gated community, hoarding our wealth and protecting it with a shotgun (literally or metaphorically), the attitude of "I've got mine, to hell with you, Jack" (which my father used to say was the secular religion of America)--is not in accord with reality, and will inevitably cause suffering.

Whatever occupation you are in, however you make your livelihood, always move in the direction of connection, of compassion, of shared fate and togetherness.  This was the living style of all humanity before cities and industrialization and still is in much of the world.  This, in my opinion, is the deeper and more embracing meaning of "right livelihood," which I prefer to translate as "conscious livelihood."  -- Lew

Oct. 20.  Late again! This blog business is hard.  There was a front page story in the New York times recently about a controversy regarding whether the Dalai Lama would be allowed to speak at a conference on Neuro-Science.  Many of the scientists are uncomfortable having a religious person speak regarding the emerging research on the effects of meditation on the brain.  It's probably inevitable that there would be this controversy.  In the end, I'm not sure how important or relevant this research will be, except that if proven it may give our skeptical, science-based culture confidence in meditation practice.  What is important, from the standpoint of the practice, is the confidence.  Confidence, faith, refuge, etc. is remarked on in all schools of Buddhism as an essential prerequisite for progress.

I have been talking lately about assumptions, particularly assumptions about Buddhist practice, Zen, meditation, enlightenment, and so on.  As adult converts to Buddhist practice, with a childhood steeped in some other religious tradition, we bring to our practice many conscious and unconscious assumptions.  In addition, there are now more than 10,000 books in English on Buddhism.  While each of them are well-meaning, and many of them useful, they give us cognitive "baggage" as we approach the actual practice.  Again, all good meditation teachers in every tradition encourage us to set aside whatever assumptions or expectations we have about the practice and rest in our actual experience.  Suzuki-Roshi called this "beginner's mind."  In other traditions, there are other terms.  We should not throw the "grappling hook" of our cognitive ideas out onto a rock somewhere and pull ourselves up by it.  Rather, (to continue the rock-climbing metaphor) we should put our hands and feet one in front of the other and climb steadily, concentrating on exactly where we are.  Otherwise, when we fall, the grappling hook method won't save us.

I am looking forward to our all-day meditation retreat at Green Gulch on the 29th of October--a chance for the different constituencies in our Sangha to all come together and meet one another.

 

Oct. 4 .  Zoe Goorman submits this wonderful Bodhisattva story:

A few years ago at the Seattle Special Olympics, nine contestants all physically or mentally disabled, assembled at the starting line for the 100-yard dash. At the gun, they all started out, not exactly in a dash, but with a relish to run the race to the finish and win.

But one boy quickly stumbled on the asphalt, tumbled over a couple of  times, and began to cry. The other eight heard the boy cry. They slowed down and looked back. They all turned around and went back to help him. Every one of them.

A girl with Down's Syndrome bent down and kissed the fallen runner and said, "This will make it better."

All nine linked arms and walked across the finish line together.

Everyone in the stadium spontaneously stood and cheered. The standing ovation went on for several minutes. People who were there are still
telling the story. Why?

Because deep down we all know this one thing: What matters in this life is more than winning for ourselves.
What truly matters is making sure that everyone gets across the finish line, even if it means slowing down and changing our course.

Sept 12 . Tomorrow night we will conclude our regular Tuesday evening sitting with a short ceremony honoring victims of Hurricane Katrina. We will recite the Metta Sutta in full, and dedicate our thoughts to our suffering fellow Americans scattered throughout the country in the wake of this storm that has been a tempest with physical, spiritual, and political dimensions.

 

As preparation for our one-day Green Gulch retreat on Oct. 29, we will begin our lengthy systematic exploration of the different kinds and qualities of Buddhist meditation practice. Buddhist teaching is roughly divided into three areas (in ancient times called “baskets”)—Precepts, Concentration, and Insight. This could be translated as follows: how to live, how to focus the mind, and how to understand and liberate the mind. Much of what people think of as “meditation”—following the breath, reciting the Metta prayer, repeating a mantra—are actually part of the Concentration basket. The Buddha learned during his own life of practice--and each of us learn as we attempt to replicate the path the Buddha took-- that Concentration (shamatta) is a necessary condition for wisdom, but by itself does not produce liberation from suffering and the cycle of karma. It is something like symptomatic relief, which also creates and maintains a focused, stable awareness that can see things as they are.

 

Shamatta and Vipassana, Concentration and Insight—these are the two wings that together make the practice of meditation soar.

 

Sept 5.  I have been watching the Katrina news and coverage all week, mostly on the Web. It is a horrific tragedy; but what really strikes me is the way that REALITY has intruded into an American consciousness that is ordinarily so soaked and suffused with advertisement, glamour, dissembling, and fantasy. This disaster is real, and exposes the “real” that is always there beneath the surface but which we all try, in various ways, to avoid really facing. I have often said that our meditation is not about being calm, it is about being real.  We sit not necessarily to make ourselves feel better (sometimes we do, sometimes we don't) but to experience our own actual experience, intimately, breath by breath, thought by thought--vividly observing how our own grasping universe comes to be, moment by moment. Every time we sit down we face how it really is, for ourselves and everyone, and from that ground of the real we draw our strength.

 

Regarding the hurricane and its aftermath, I know we are all asking ourselves, What can I do? How can I help? There are myriad ways, and Buddhists have a responsibility to offer help to suffering beings whenever and however we can. I think the more difficult and gnawing question is, Suppose I can't really do anything? Suppose whatever I do nothing will really help? Suzuki Roshi writes about this in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (in the talk “The Marrow of Zen”); he asks what we would do if our child is dying from a hopeless disease. What can we do? He says, “Actually the best way . . .is to sit in zazen. . .If you have no experience of sitting in this kind of difficult situation you are not a Zen student.”

 

Later he adds, “The awareness that you are here, right now, is the ultimate fact.”

I sometimes think that we Buddhist teachers in America need to work harder to cut through the pop culture notion that Buddhism is merely some kind of exercise or technique for attaining calmness and compassion and feeling better—“Pilates for the mind.” In a sense that is true, but that is only the “skin” of the teaching, not its “marrow.” How we confront the REALITY of suffering beings in the world everywhere— suffering which is greatly exacerbated by the ignorance and self-centeredness of human beings—is by not losing our head. When the Dalai Lama was asked if he gets angry at what the Chinese have done to his people, he replied, “They have taken everything from us. Why should I let them take my state of mind too?”

 

I wish that American Buddhist leaders had a higher profile in this disaster, that there is something special and unique that we could offer. I continue to hope that someday in this country Buddhists would be looked upon for their special expertise in conflict resolution and calm in a crisis. But we are not there yet.  Our task is to continue to investigate and create a vibrant, relevant, engaged and transformative American Buddhism, one that actually connects with the consciousness of this society, its own suffering and its role in exacerbating the suffering of others around the world.

 

May the suffering of all the many beings impacted by this great natural and human disaster find some solace and relief; may we who are not directly impacted be able to remain clear in our thinking and compassionate in our hearts. May we do all we can, and when we have done that, be courageous enough to face the fact of how little we can really do.

Footnote: This professor from Tufts University, a visiting professor in England, writing in The Independent, a British newspplaper, pens an impassioned, eloquent critique that you must read to appreciate, here .

 

Sept 2.  Listen to Ray Nagin, the mayor of New Orleans, on talk radio last night here .  Excerpts of this brutally honest and emotional speech have been in mainstream media, but the whole thing is stunning in its compassion, despair, and extreme frustration. 

August 29.  (Update Sept 1:) HURRICANE KATRINA: If you are overwhelmed by mainstream media reports of what is happening in New Orleans, and want to know what is really going on, check out this blog by a local New Orleans TV station--unadorned, minute my minute updates here  -->   Katrina Blog.  Yesterday Ed and I attended a ceremony at Everyday Zen, the Sangha of Zen teacher Norman Fisher, where three senior members of his community received Lay Entrustment, the same ceremony that Ed received in July. My sense is that this is an important milestone in our lineage and in the growth of Buddhism in America , that mature practitioners of Dharma are being acknowledged and empowered as teachers and guides for the next generation. In one form or another, this process is happening in all the Buddhist lineages—Zen, Vipassana, and Vajrayana—and it is good. The world needs it.

 

Tomorrow night we will formally begin the investigation of the Five Families of Meditation, by discussing: what is meditation in a Buddhist sense? What is its fundamental principle? What is its purpose? Why do it? What's the point? Little questions like that.

 

At the ceremony yesterday, the grandson (about ten years old) of one of the recipients came up and asked a Dharma question (this was part of the ceremony). His question was: What is the point of Buddhism?

 

That's a good place to start.

 

Hurricane Katrina is in full force: nature versus the puny works of man. May all those in its path find safety and be spared tragedy as much as possible. From a Buddhist perspective, while these natural disasters are terrible, they are not what the Buddha meant by the word dukkha, which is usually translated as suffering. Dukkha means the unsatisfactoriness that emanates from the confused human mind. So “suffering” is not the right translation; our life includes both ordinary suffering and joy. Dukkha means something more like “self-imposed suffering” or “extra, needless suffering.” We can't stop a hurricane, but we can stop the endless looping of our grasping mind.

 

Is that the point of Buddhism?

 

Maybe so, to quote a beloved teacher in our tradition.

August 22.   There are a couple of new audio lectures posted on the "Teachings" link (above).  One is a summary of the "Six Realms" series, another is a summary of the "3 key points of Suzuki-Roshi's Teaching" which was given at the Hartford St. Zendo.

We had our Sunday half-day sitting yesterday during which we discussed the last of the Six Realms: the human realm. The human realm is, from the Buddhist point of view, the most auspicious realm into which to be born, as it is the one realm from which we have sufficient self-awareness to achieve liberation and actually see through the six realms of Samsara, or delusion. By penetrating the six realms, we transform them all into Bodhi-mandalas, locales of awakening. We'll be discussing this more tomorrow evening (Tuesday).

 

There are many ways to understand our endless transmigrations in the Six Realms. I have been discussing it more psychologically, as a moment-to-moment journey. One moment immersed in the animal realm, next moment blissed out in the god realm, for example. From that point of view, we are not always, strictly speaking, in the human realm. Only when we are self-aware, rational, and reflective are we ready to hear and absorb the Dharma, and generate the bodhicitta, or thought of awakening.

 

It helps to remember this in generating compassion for our fellow “human beings”; at any given moment, they may be stuck in some other realm, and not really able to hear what you are saying from your stance in the human realm. Ever tried to reason with your dog? Especially when it is snarling at you? Dogs are marvelous creatures; in some ways--in their intuition, their empathy, and loyalty--one could argue that they can be superior to people.  Dogs do not intentionally kill one another; no dog ever tortured another dog for the pleasure in it, or because of an ideology.  According to Mahayana Buddhism, all sentient beings, including dogs, are endowed with the intrinsic nature of a Buddha.

Nevertheless, only with the full self-awareness and reasoning power of the human realm, can we fully realize and manifest our intrinsic Buddhahood.  It is paradoxical and tragic that these very faculties also create the potential for immense suffering and self-destructiveness.  This is perhaps a deeper meaning of the term dukkha which the Buddha used to describe our ordinary human life.  It may also be why Thich Nhat Hanh has been known to express the first noble truth as follows: All conditioned existence is enlightenment--replacing the word dukkha with "enlightenment." 

 

Footnote: The Hungry Ghost realm, which we discussed last week, is the realm of addiction, where people try to avoid facing their fear and pain through some pain-numbing substance or idea. When we think of addiction we usually think of drugs or alcohol, but ideologies can be just as addictive. From the Buddhist standpoint rigid belief systems can function as “intoxicants” just as much as drugs. This is one meaning of the precept “A disciple of the Buddha avoids intoxicating self or others.” Even so-called "Buddhism," as a belief system to which we cling, can become an intoxicant.   This understanding may help us when we read the daily newspaper, seeing it as reportage from a world full of frightened addicts. 

 

August 15 (posted late). Regarding the question posed in last weeks post—what are we, as engaged and socially conscious Buddhists, called to do—a Sangha member writes:

 

As I get older, I think more and more that politics is a degraded substitute for intention-rich action. What I mean by this is that it is inevitably a linkage of "interests", and because of that, implicitly full of 'self'-centered thinking with all the attendant bickering, maneuvering, and greed. The antidote is to "do" something----begin feeding people, nurturing children, teaching skills, etc. The "act" has within it all the goals of politics without the divisive ideas. The act generates an attractive magnetism that pulls people into its orbit without overmuch explanation.

    Having said that, politics is as "real' as anything else, and as part of the world needs to be adressed, but it does not necessarily need to be adressed on its own terms. (That's a whole long essay there.). It can also be approached through "the act" in various ways, and such an approach seems far more consonant with Buddhism than direct, ideological involvement.This is something I've been wrestling with most of my conscious life, and obviously haven't resolved, but having wasted years and years giving money, writing and speaking politically, only to see what was accomplished unwound, I began, in the late Sixties to look at "culture" as a much more appropriate and durable locus of energy, and still feel that way. Today nearly everyone accepts alternative medecine, alternative spiritual practices, organic food, women's rights, civil liberties (even in their absence)---and these are all things that have spread by mimicry; by people doing them, talking about them naturally and simply, and the lessons blossoming.

 

I would just add that the Vigil, as a form of social action/expression, is, I think, particularly wellsuited to the Buddhist world-view, since it is beyond opinion and ideas. In vigil, we are just present. And they do “spread by mimicry.”  One could think of zazen itself as a kind of vigil.

 

This week's Tuesday evening's talk and discussion was devoted to the fifth of the “Six Realms” of deluded consciousness, the Hungry Ghost realm. This is the realm of addiction and obsessive behavior. Hungry Ghosts, overcome with their own suffering and pain, and terrified of the ultimate ego-trap of the Hell Realm, fall into the psycho-physiological feedback loop of addiction—whether to drugs, alcohol, gambling, ideology, or something else. Anyone who has been addicted, or know someone who has, knows how powerful is this craving, and how difficult the escape.

Next week we will finish up our series on the Six Realms with a discussion of the Human Realm. This realm is the best, as far as Buddhism is concerned, because it is the only one where we have sufficient awareness to achieve Buddhahood, liberation.

 

The theme for the Fall and into the Spring will be the Five Families of Meditation, which I mentioned in last week's Blog. There are many different kinds of Buddhist meditation being taught in the West. We will methodically explore many of them as a way of broadening and deepening our own meditation experience, and as a means to better understand our own Zen tradition and how it fits in with the larger picture.

 

August 8. (posted early).  I'll be away this week (along with everyone else, it seems in Mill Valley.  The streets are kind of empty here.)  Ed, who just got back from a week hiking in Yosemite, will be doing the teaching on Fridays and Tuesdays until my return on Aug. 16.  I hear from my Buddhist author friends that the publishing world seems to think that the "Buddhist" thing is over--Buddhist books aren't selling, the publishers aren't buying.  I'm reminded of the old Groucho Marx line about a restaurant: "It's so crowded no one goes there anymore."  Maybe the 30-year run of Dharma as a "new thing" is over, and now the next thing, the "real" thing, can really start.  Anyway...

To which a respondent writes from Amsterdam:

I wanted to comment about what your Buddhist author friends are saying, which is 'the publishing world seems to think that the "Buddhist" thing is over'. I am not quite sure whether I totally agree with that. In fact, I feel that it is the "Publishing" thing that is over, at least as we know it.

We have now more than one way to be published. We can ask a publisher to please please please publish our book please. Or we can publish ourselves. We can start a website or a blog and publish our work in that way. We can post our articles into website which distributes them to thousands of other websites. We can use a publishing service like Lulu, which publishes anybody's work and prints books after somebody buys them, or sells them for you in an electronic format - changing in this way the supply-chain sequence of the traditional publishing world.
 
I admit that my fondest memories of discovery and exploration were spent in bookshops browsing through the shelves looking for the answers, more often than not finding the questions. When I moved from London to Amsterdam 3 years ago I did miss the days in which at a whim I would just walk downstairs, walk past the Royal Opera House, cross Seven Dial to end up right in the middle of books paradise. For more than 10 years I was living in a tiny apartment in Covent Garden and Charing Cross Road lined with new and second hand bookshops was just a couple of minutes away.

I've been reading Tom Friedman's new book, "The World Is Flat."  A comprehensive look at what's happening globally, the rise of China and India as global economic powers, and so on.  Striking that there isn't a single word in the book about the arts or about the spiritual life.  Of course that's not Friedman's area, but I wonder what all of these hustling global stalwarts are going to do in whatever spare time they have, and where the inner meaning of their life will take shape, once they've made their fortunes.  Interesting that China and India, the original fountainheads of Buddhism, are suddenly surging, along with Japan.  Any connection?

A Sangha member has this to say about Tom Friedman:

'm much less enchanted with Tom Friedman. He's a dedicated neo-con thinker who believes that globalism will automatically deliver democracy and civil liberties. It's an unsupported ideology that ignores much of the on-the-ground reality in the world----Al Quaeda using cell phones, Russia's closing democratic front, a host of countries who are participating in the global market place without embracing democracy or capitalism. Furthermore, in his review of what has changed the world notice how he makes no mention of nationalism and religion. It was not Ronald Reagan but Poland that created the first viable post-communist state and they did it as Catholics and nationalists. Nationalism is a huge force at work everywhere from Iraq to Western Europe, yet because Friedman does not want nationalism to fit into his one world-linked-by commerce, he overlooks and ignores it.

I think an ongoing theme that has surfaced and will continue to surface in our dharma discussions and meetings is: faced with the realities of what is going on in the world--the suffering, the confusion, the rigidity, the fear--what can we do? What can any of us do? Does the Buddhist tradition begin and end with an act of silent compassionate witness? Or are we called to some specific action, and if so what? My own answer to this question is that though the Buddhist tradition does not end with silent witness, Buddhist history is not rife with examples of engaged social action, though there are certainly examples.  Now, of course, there are many Westerns Buddhists engaged in specific acts of social engagement.  As a new, emerging Sangha in Mill Valley, California, U.S.A, Planet Earth, Milky Way, Universe--what will be the specific flavor of our call to action? Thoughts? Comments?

Zoe Goorman, whose son knows Sanskrit, reminds us that the literal translation of "Avalokitesvara" (the Bodhisattva of Infinite Compassion) is see-world-lord.  The lord who sees the world.  Or more poetically, "who hears the cries of the world."

See you all on my return.  Please send your comments, contributions and tidbits.  The point is for all of us busy in-the-world types to meet in an online virtual community and stay in touch when we can't meet in person.

 

August 1. Last week, following on our discussions of the Six Realms—the various states of consciousness through which our self-centered ego constantly tries to protect and project itself--we began looking at where Zen meditation (zazen) fits into the many different styles of Buddhist meditation that are being taught in the West. We talked about five “families” of meditation practice—visualization, mantra, mental observation, breath, and pure awareness. Visualization and mantra are emphasized in Vajrayana (Tibetan Buddhism), mental observation in the Theravada (Vipassana tradition); breath awareness is practiced in all schools and traditions, and “pure awareness” is characteristic of Zen, as well as the Dzogchen and Mahamudra schools of Tibetan Buddhism.

 

Buddhist prayer--such as the Metta prayer--is also a kind of meditation; depending on how it is practiced, might be considered as a kind of particularly meaningful and purposeful mantra.

 

We then did a simple practice of visualizing Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Infinite Compassion. In future weeks, we may explore some practices in the other meditation “families,” as a way of better understanding our core Zen practice of “shikantaza,” pure awareness.

August 6 is Hiroshima day. 

  

July 25, 20o5.  Last Sunday, July 17, we had a wonderful ceremony officially appointing Ed Sattizahn a Lay Dharma Teacher.  Ed has been performing teaching functions in the Sangha since the beginning, but this ceremony--attended by several dignitaries from Green Gulch, the San Francisco Zen Center, and other sanghas in the Suzuki Roshi teaching lineage, made his role official.  Welcome, Ed, to the wonderful strange world of being a dharma teacher in America.  None of us know exactly what we are doing, so if that's how you feel too, you have arrived at the right place.

The last few weeks I have been lecturing on the Six Realms, the Buddhist teaching about the different states of awareness in which sentient beings find themselves: The God realm, The realm of the Titans or Power-Beings, the Human Realm, the Animal Realm, the Hungry Ghost realm, and the Hell realm.  There are various ways to understand these realms, but one way is to see them as various ways our self-centered ego protects itself and remains deluded.

We seem to live today in a world where Power-Beings seem to run things (and we're not talking about abstract power; some of these folks have nuclear weapons!), and where so many people seem stuck in the Animal Realm of primitive lusts, fears, terrors, and appetites.  The point of Buddhist practice, from one point of view, is to see through the transparency and illusory nature of each of these six realms, and thus be liberated. 

It is possible to read the daily newspaper and see it as reportage from the Six Realms.  It's something we Buddhists should study closely.  If we're going to see through these six realms, first we have to know what they are.

More on this as time goes on...

For now, welcome to this new feature of our website.  May it prove helpful and interesting to those who peruse it!

Notes from Sangha members:

Cary recommends THe Wheel of TIme, a movie playing at the Rafael theatre about a large gathering of Tibetan Buddhists in BOdh Gaya.  Veronica reminds us that there is, or is soon to be, an important exhibit of Tibetan art at the new Asian Art Museum in downtown San Francisco.