Imagining New Worlds Through the Old

Today, I'm linking to a piece I've worked on for several years that's featured at another one of my blogs. It's part fiction, part historical exploration dealing with multiple periods of "discovery." The draw of these eras of history continue to grow upon me, as I dig deeper into colonization and decolonization. A lot of the particular oppressions we face today were created not too many centuries ago. It's in the stories we tell, how we put them together and let them resonate through our actions, that shape the way we go. This little piece is about reclaiming the past, and also the imagination to move forward to perhaps a more liberated world. Here's the first paragraph. Enjoy!

It is June 1905. The eminent physicist Max Planck has just finished lunch and is now sitting down to read his mail. Outside, blue jays yelling, marking their territory. All around them, a heavy rain, carrying away the gravel roads, yet again. Inside, dust, books, and the smell of day old smoke. The volume of mail: high. The prospects for sun before the day is out: low.

The Ghosts of Empire

Out walking this morning, I noticed the effort people put forth in cities to contain the growing environment. The streets that slice across and cover large swaths of the land. The sidewalks that mirror the roads. The alleyways that linger behind our homes and businesses, attempting to hold creeping weeds at bay. Trees circled by grates and other holding devices. Lawns of imported, uniform grass mowed flat and inconspicuous. And for whatever breaks through all of that - weed wackers, poisons, more asphalt, the occasional hands of mostly elderly folks living alone, perhaps forgotten, with too much time on their hands.

I think of lines from Shitou's Song of the Grass Roof Hermitage: "When it was completed, fresh weeds appear. Now it's been lived in covered by weeds."

Somehow, most of us have forgotten this. Maybe never knew it all at - consciously at least.

Over a hundred and fifty years ago, American artist Thomas Cole painted a series of paintings charting the rise and fall of Empire. I remember first discovering them during a traveling show of 19th century American landscapes several years ago, and being in awe of the grandness of the images.

Now, though, they feel like ghosts taunting us "modern Americans," living as we do in a crumbling empire.

Elementary school comes to mind. Discussions of what the world might look like after nuclear war. The horror that multiple generations of children have had to think about such things happening.

What would last? Rats. Cockroaches. Twisted up trees perhaps. It's hard to have a real sense of what nuclear bombs can do when you are nine years old, but you're mind is open to possibilities in a way adult minds' rarely are. So, things get strange, very strange. Like elephants with rat heads flying through fields of black smoke.

Perhaps today's children are more worried about terrorists destroying their homes, or some generalized form of environmental collapse. Nuclear war still lingers, but isn't the only major specter haunting us. I've heard people use various Buddhist terms to describe this day and age, but more and more, the Hungry Ghost Realm seems most appropriate.

More lines from Shitou spring forth: "Who would proudly arrange seats, trying to entice guests?" Isn't this the whole basis of the modern, settler colonialist world so many of us live in today? Aren't we all called upon to be proud arrangers and enticers, regardless of the consequences?

The pockmarked, synthetic, damaged, and obliterated landscapes we live in reflect exactly this. What it comes down to is that most of us really can't handle the weeds that always appear, no matter what we do to keep them away. I used to obsess about clarity. Wanting a mind that could basically see the future, including where those weeds might appear, how I should deal with them.

Just another form of intolerance and resistance to the wildness that is our true nature. When the empire was completed, fresh weeds appeared. Now it's been lived in, covered by weeds.

Let it go. Let it go.

Happy Spirituality

Awhile back, I witnessed an interesting exchange between a male yoga teacher and two female yoga students. The teacher was expressing caution around doing women inversions while on their period, and cited a long history of teachers agreeing on this point. One woman said "Almost all of those teachers were men. How long have women been practicing yoga?" This was followed by another woman who basically disagreed with the male teacher, citing potential health benefits and personal narratives of her students and friends. In fact, at one point during the discussion she said, point blank, "I'm just expressing my disagreement with you, is that ok?"

I didn't get the sense that the male teacher leading the class was comfortable with this kind of disagreement. Perhaps he worried about loosing control of the class. Perhaps, there was a bit of sexism going on. But I mostly think it was about maintaining that harmonious yoga environment which people tend to expect to be there.

As someone who really appreciates debates and discussions of different views, even if I'm not directly involved, the way things played out was a disappointment, and it's something I have repeatedly experienced in spiritual community settings. Things start to get juicy and the "happy face" is held up by leaders and/or students to get things back to the safe "norm." Which often means the loss of an opportunity for learning, deepening our understanding, or simply for different ways of seeing to be expressed.

I feel some compassion for teachers that rush to shift uncomfortable dynamics. When I was an English as a Second Language teacher, there were times when things got heated in class and I struggled to facilitate. I remember a time when a particularly outspoken Muslim student starting putting down those of other spiritual/religious backgrounds. She even went as far as to chastise her fellow Muslim students, who mostly stood up for their classmates and for openness and sharing across differences. I found myself wondering how to stay loyal to my own desire for an active, participatory classroom, and yet also make sure that one or a handful of voices didn't dominate and alienate others. In some ways, this situation was an ESL teacher's dream. Over half the class actively using English to talk about their lives and share opinions. On the other hand, there was a distinct upset quality that lingered long after we had moved on to other things.

So, it can be a tricky thing, developing a culture where openness, difference, and debate can flow in a respectful manner. But I tend to think that there's less of this in places like yoga and Buddhist centers, and a lot more of folks playing nice and/or leadership subtly controlling things so that the appearance of harmony is maintained. In my view, is a result of our collective obsession with happiness. Feeling good. And avoiding anything uncomfortable. Some of the very things the great spiritual teachings warn us about, again and again.

American Yoga's Meditation Challenge

In about a month, I will begin teaching a weekly meditation class at one of our local yoga centers. The director of the center, one of my old yoga teachers, was excited to add me to the schedule, and said that it was about time that they had a class specifically devoted to meditation and study of the teachings. As such, I found this post rather telling of the state of much of North American yoga, particularly around the issue of meditation practice.

The author of the article, J. Brown, has written a lot of thought provoking stuff about yoga standards, consumerism, and other issues in modern practice. I usually find his articles well written and full of great points. This current piece seems pretty muddled to me. A mixture of disdain and respect for meditation, and also confusion.

Early in the piece, Brown correctly posits that the few minutes of tacked on meditation at the end of yoga asana classes doesn't really do the practice justice. From there, he goes on to offer the following:

When we are told that meditation will alleviate everything from emotional imbalance to Irritable Bowel Syndrome, and will bring about everything from increased fertility to a knowledge of our true selves and maybe even enlightenment, its kind of hard to not be seeking for those things when we are sitting uncomfortably waiting for the allotted time to be done. And if we are seeking for something, whatever it may be, then we ensure its absence.

Listening to Deepak Chopra give a guided visualization about our inter-connectedness to nature and universal consciousness is a beautiful thing that likely has a positive affect for many. But this is not meditation. Nor is observing breath, chanting mantras, performing physical postures or sitting still. These sorts of techniques are intended to be a vehicle for concentrating the mind and easing the body, whereby some conditions are encouraged that tend towards an experience of meditation. But these techniques are not meditation in and of themselves.

Setting aside Deepak Chopra (and please, let's set him aside), I tend to agree with Brown that the way meditation practice is often presented in yoga settings - and even in some Buddhist settings - is something of a cure all. People get lots of gaining ideas about meditation as it is. Seriously, a dozen years of Zen practice and reminders from teachers and fellow students haven't eliminated all sense of "getting something" from my mind. There are still plenty of times when the only thing that gets me to sit still for a little bit is the thought that it might "help me." Or "liberate me." So, clearly it can be a problem when you have teachers repeatedly telling you that your meditation practice is almost guaranteed to lower your blood pressure, make your relationships better, and maybe even liberate you from all suffering.

At the same time, Brown's concerns only represent one side of the "gaining mind" stuff. The other side is this. Gaining mind thoughts can, and often do, propel people to keep going. To stay with it, even when things get difficult. They can be delusions as skillful means. Which doesn't mean that one should keep wanting something from practice forever, but I tend to think that you have to burn through a certain amount of this gaining mind before you're able to let such thoughts go and come to practice - whatever practice it is - without a need to get anything or go anywhere.

Brown's definition of meditation throughout the piece is kind of muddy. Is it about uncovering the truth? Liberation? Mindfulness? Stress reduction? Something else? One thing I notice a lot these days is how often mindfulness is treated as the totality and end all of meditation practices. When it's really just one small segment of a myriad of practices found throughout both Buddhist teachings and yogic teachings.

Anyway, Brown goes on:

If the student is striving in practice, inadvertently or not, then this will most certainly find its way into any seated repose. And attempting to meditate as an activity, rather than understanding it to be the natural result of mindful practice, imposes a sense of lacking when there is none.

Meditation is a description of what happens as a consequence of healthy choices, not a prescription for bringing them about. When we have an intimate relationship with our actual lives, it simply occurs. Stop meditating. Learn to take pleasure in a regular practice that soothes the system and the rest is coming.

This really isn't a new idea. I remember reading something similar in at least one of B.K.S. Iyengar's books. It stems from the idea that asana practice, the postures that the majority of Americans think is "Yoga," are what anyone should do and master first before moving on to the more subtle yogic practices, including pranayama and meditation. Iyengar, Jois, and other mid-late 20th century teachers that raised the popularity of modern yoga practice in America responded to the highly stressed, and poorly focused students they encountered by focusing on progression through stages, beginning with the postures. And for many, that beginning has been the end point as well. In large part, I'd argue, because asana practice is treated as "complete" in and of itself. And it easily sells, whereas the more subtle practices aren't as "sexy."

As I wrote in my essay from the volume 21st Century Yoga: Politics, Culture, and Practice, there's an almost opposite cutting off of the body present amongst many convert American Buddhist practitioners. Even though nearly every majority ancestral teacher, from the Buddha to Dogen on down talks at length about body awareness, posture, and the breath, it's still pretty easy to find Buddhist students lost in intellectualism and thoughts, sometimes to the point of injuring themselves while doing seated meditation. Whereas the body seems to matter too much to the average yoga student, the body doesn't matter enough for the average convert Buddhist.

One thing I have learned from all these years of Zen practice is that meditation doesn't really "just come." There needs to be some effort put in. Sometimes, very little, and sometimes a lot. And sometimes, practice does seem effortless. But I don't really agree with Brown's notion that doing asana will naturally lead to meditation. I've met yoga teachers with one, even two decades of asana practice who have barely touched - in any intentional manner - the other limbs of yoga practice. It's all about the postures. Or mostly about the postures. Some think meditation is too hard. Others dismiss it as "pretentious, "religious," or any number of other absurd judgments.

What you might find surprising is that I actually think that Iyengar and the others weren't necessarily wrong in focusing primarily on the postures with beginning students. In fact, I tend to think that the average Buddhist student in America could benefit from learning and practicing small sequences of postures, and that deliberate physical movements of any form would probably be better than struggling like mad to sit still in zazen with a highly agitated and confused mind. Zen students do "work practice" in the middle of retreats, for example, which in my view is a nod to the myriad of ways that monastics throughout history have had regular labor incorporated into their days by necessity.

Moving beyond the level of survival and needing to secure the basics creates all sorts of opportunities to make artificial divisions, and loose a sense of wholeness. Lately, I've been thinking that it makes a lot of sense that meditation practice is so popular amongst Americans, even if it proves to be difficult for the vast majority of us. Sitting around is a habit. Not moving much is a habit. We aren't too good at stillness, and our minds are a mess, but hell if we aren't skilled in sitting down.

What do you think?

Alzheimer's Self: Or, Who Are You Anyway?

This post from the Nyoho Zen blog really struck me. Especially the opening story.

My grandmother — we called her Oma — struggled with Alzheimer’s before passing away a few years ago. One evening after dinner, during her last Christmas visit with our family, we were sitting around the table — Oma, my brother, Tracy, and I. Oma took a cookie from her plate, held it up, and asked, “What is it?” One of us, in the gentle way that people do, said, “Oma, that’s a cookie.” She looked irritated. Again: “What is it?” We all glanced at each other around the table. This was awkward. This time, one of us started to explain how a cookie is made. “Well, there’s flour, and egg, and this one has chocolate chips.” Then this 90-plus-year-old woman, who in her lifetime had probably baked about 80,000 cookies, shot us all a very lucid, fiery look, as if we were all disappointments. “I know how to make them,” she said. She held up the cookie again. “What IS it?”

And so the four of us found ourselves staring in earnest at a cookie in an old, shaking hand, really unsure of the answer. What was she asking us? We all looked hard at that cookie and said, “Wow, Oma, I don’t know.” That was how we left it.

The author goes on to talk about koans, and the ways in which a lot of folks these days like to toss around big phrases and ideas, but seem to lack a sincere desire to help others, or be of service to what I'd call "our mutual awakening." One thing I've noticed for myself is that I don't leave as many comments about dharma online anymore. I'm less inclined to spend a lot of effort on debates, especially ones filled with heady, intellectual big shotting. One discussion I did recently participate in ended up producing some really interesting stuff. It also included a rather stereotypical, huffy exit from an older, and I'm assuming white male, who was tossing his weight around in ways that felt exactly like what Koun (from the Nyoho blog) described on folks being insincere about koan study.

Anyway, back to the story above, Oma's lucidity reminds me of my grandfather, who also had Alzheimer's. There's something almost time shattering about life with Alzheimer's. On a visit to my grandparent's place towards the end of his life, I remember waking early one morning and coming out to see grandpa in his chair. He'd been mostly gone the day before, but as I stepped into the living room that morning, he looked me straight in the eyes and said "Morning, Nathan. How's it going?" I was a bit startled, since he hadn't really remembered who I was the entire week we'd been there. We went on to have what felt like a "normal" conversation. Talking about the birds outside. Food. Something about an old friend of his that lived down the road. Not an hour later, the rest of the family was up, and eating breakfast together. And the "normal" was replaced by the new normal of don't remember anything.

Moments like that made me question the entire narrative I had about the past. And memory. And time. I have had a few similar experiences during meditation, but for some reason, the shifting in the flesh and blood of my grandfather seemed more startling.

I don't know what Oma was like as a person before Alzheimer's, but it sounds like this fierce questioning about the cookie was a surprise for the author and his/her siblings.

Who is this person? What happened to the person I knew? If this is true, then what does it mean to be "a person" in the first place?

We seem to both hold together in certain ways, and also fall apart - at the same time. Sometimes, the falling apart is drastic, other times it's barely noticeable. But the sense of self most of us cling to really isn't what we are. And that's both liberating and scary. Don't you think?

We are Not Resources: Reflections on Right Livelihood Under Capitalism's Boot

My teacher Shohaku Okumura says this:

When you sit zazen, you place yourself on the ground of reality.

He also said a fundamental problem is seeing other beings as resources. They are not resources, they are beings – trees, humans, insects, minerals. If we saw them as beings, we would treat them differently.

This is from a post by Shodo Spring. Shodo and I live in the same state and occasionally practice in the same local sangha together. We walk very similar paths though, seeing the dharma as much through social action and public witnessing as through zazen and sutras. Sometimes the two side manifesting together completely in time/space - and other times, awareness of their togetherness regardless of the moment's time/space experience.

Anyway, I want to write a little bit about work and money, and how the structures and functions of capitalism almost force us to view everything else as "resources."

I have been without a financial cushion for most of the past year now. When I say that, I mean I barely make rent and feed myself every month. The money I had in the bank, as well as the in the stock market game called an IRA, are gone. Eaten away. Given to landlords and utility companies that use fossil fuels and nuclear power to heat my apartment and power my stove and laptop. My attempts at generating income on my own through various means haven't yet brought in enough to move past poverty, and really, as it is, a return to the wage an hour world in some form or another is probably coming soon.

This stepping out that I did a little over two and a half years ago now was done partly out of desperation (needing to reduce my stress levels before it was too late), and partly out of a desire to truly question what it means to do Right Livelihood in the world we live in. I've run through all sorts of emotional states and narratives during the process. Delusional "get rich quick" dreams. Carefree "I don't need money anyway" stories. Shame-ridden hopelessness over being so broke I couldn't buy my own groceries. The hazy confusion of "what's next?" Disillusion of looking for jobs and feeling trapped in the process. Dreams of "How can we do this differently?" Fears of being called "a lazy bum," "slacker," or whatever and then wondering why it is that I let such nonsense get to me, especially since the majority of people who say such things give and do so very little in their communities. The list goes on and on.

I want to live in a world where people are supported for the gifts they already give to the world, regardless of whether those gifts are "money making" or not. I would love a world where just being and doing what you can is enough to be considered worthy. Sure, on a spiritual level these are already true. I don't need to want anything. I get that. I hear it all the time in the teachings, in dharma talks, and the like. I get that. What I'm saying is that it would be great to see it manifested more on a societal level. And frankly, it would be wonderful if - instead of so many folks feeling compelled to say "That's not possible. Be realistic. Be practical." - that more of us would naturally gravitate towards the beautiful visions of the possible and make it so. Make it real. Say to hell with the conventional practical and make a new practical.

Hindrances aren't confined to individual lives and minds and psychologies. Some are systemic poisonings. Thefts of dreams and the hearts that have them. Just as some of us plunder the earth for others to make money and still others to power their lives until some other way is forged, so too often goes the ways of forging themselves - the imaginings and the experiments, individually and collectively.

The visions and possibilities that have come to me over the past few years have been battled back - mostly internally - by all the bullshit I've swallowed in my 37 years on this Earth, in these United States.

Thus I have heard from the family, and friends, and the media, and the school teachers, and the co-workers, and whomever else, living and dead, about what it means to be a man,

to be a white man

to be a white, middle class man

to be a white, middle class successful man

to be a white, middle class successful man worthy of respect

to be the standard by which every last thing of value is measured, still, consciously or not, in this society

This is a heavy fucking straight jacket to wear.
For anyone.
And it brings us all down.
Deranges us.
Tames and tampers us.
In different ways and to different degrees.
But suffering is the end result no matter how you slice it.

I love giving away my life. I serve frequently. I give my time, my words, whatever I can because I'm aware that, in the end, it really isn't "mine" anyway. It's an almost natural state, despite all the impediments. And yet the more I see, the more I realize how this society we've given in to works completely against all of this How it makes people like me poor, more than poor. In need of begging, and not of the holy kind.

I understand a thing or two about motivation now. Having lived as I have. How what frequently is labeled lazy is more about despondency. A recognition that you've been dehumanized by your own society and aren't sure what you can do about it. Zazen, sutra studies, chanting, bowing, and practicing with my dharma brothers and sisters give me an edge many others don't have. And yet, none of that has prevented that dehumanization feeling from taking hold. That sense that I'm either to be someone else's resource or to figure out a way to make them mine. Sure, it's not only those two options, but frankly, much of what constitutes "paid work" these days is exactly those two options.

I live in a country where corporate executives can "downsize" a thousand people's jobs at a moments notice, spin the profit back up to them and their shareholders, and then turn around the next day and lobby against something so basic as a decent minimum wage by suggesting that it will force them to "have to lay people off." It's much worse in other places, but frankly I have no interest in using that knowledge to prop up what we have as "this is as good as it gets."

Sure, I could make all of this easier on myself. I could go along today or tomorrow, get some job, and stop my bitching. I'm sure a few readers would love that. But actually, it's not that easy. Even with all my experience and education and white privilege and gender privilege, I haven't found finding a job - and I say job deliberately there because Right Livelihood is so corrupted under the conditions we've collectively created in the modern world - I haven't found finding a job all that easy. Under qualified. Overqualified. Lack of the right connections. Sham job postings offered out of protocol for positions already given to someone else. Struggles with the dehumanization of it all. Lack of motivation. Some actual laziness. Efforts and focus on building a few small businesses. Short lived dreams that some of my writing was about to become a bridge to a decent income. Other dreams dreamt and piddled with for a few days, weeks. Time spent protesting and working with others to experiment with some other way of being together. Service to my sangha. Days, weeks of my life given to the sangha.

Under terms of colonialism and the capitalism it spawned, all of these complications to the narrative are erased. Ignored. Downplayed. Medicated. Plunged under water in hopes of drowning completely. Institutions do it to us. The people around us do it to us. But for the most part, we do it to ourselves. It's a sign of how well the whole thing works. That there really isn't too much of a need for external pressure.

In fact, I tend to think that the increasing militarization and attempts to control are - in part - a positive because they're signals that more of us aren't willing to go along, even if some of our not going along is violent and suffering producing.

Right Livelihood is so corrupted under the conditions we've collectively created in the modern world. And as an able bodied man in the prime of his life, I feel a lot of pressure around all this. Genderized pressure. It's still really not ok for the most part for able bodied, or able body looking men, or trans-men, to be without a decent income. To not be in a financial position to take care of themselves, and others in many cases. No one who is financially poor gets much sympathy, but broke young and middle aged men are probably at the bottom of the sympathy ladder. Treated like rats, hurled frequently with insults, and left to rot as miserable scum in the psychological sewer. And a few in actual sewers. Is it any wonder that men in financial crisis often break down, get lost in addiction, increased violence, isolation, and mental despair?

This is the flip side of male privilege. The deep imbalances in our societies poison us all in different ways. I can't say that enough.

Going back to Shodo's comment. All of this goes deeper, comes from a deeper place. Our disconnect from the planet. All the ways in which the majority of modern humanity across the globe has deluded itself into believing it's separate from the rest of the living beings, and the very Earth upon which it/they/we stand. There isn't any true Right Livelihood without breaking through those lies. Both individually and collectively. Which doesn't mean that everyone should quit their day jobs like I did necessarily, but it sure as hell means we need to look at, and start doing a whole hell of a lot things differently. If we want to fulfill our vows that is.

When I write like this, talk like this, a fair number of people - mostly white, privileged people I must add - get a bit twisted up in their trousers. Oh, the names I've been called over the years, even long before I was brave/crazy enough to do something like I've been doing over the past few years. And oh, how some feel the need to talk me gently or not so gently down from some imagined ledge. "I love your spirit, buddy, but you've gone a bit too far." Or "If only the world worked that way, but it doesn't, and don't get so distraught or wound up about it all." The funny thing is that sometimes I actually did need to calm down a bit, but it had nothing to do with the actual content and everything to do with my attachment to the content and others' approval of it. These days, I expect resistance. Because it's in the very water we drink and food we eat to resist our true paths. Our most awakened paths. Individually and collectively. The Buddha's teachings point to that resistance as almost built into us. And I happen to think that what we've done in the modern, colonial world is build societies that amplify that resistance to the point where it nearly deafens us.

We all need to invest in some major earplugs. And those who have had them awhile, would do well to share their secrets with everyone else. Given the climate crisis we live in, we don't even know if we'll be around as a species for much longer. It could be that bad, but there's no need to give up based on something that may be possible. Whatever I personally do in terms of jobs and money and the like, I don't intend to give up. Because no matter how you slice it, Right Livelihood is intimately connected to the well being of every last human on the planet, and every last being on the planet. How could it be otherwise?

The Selfishness of Guilt and Shame

A few comments during a discussion at the zen center yesterday brought to mind the issues of guilt and shame. During the particular discussion, we were talking about the idea of praying for "buddhas and ancestors" to support us. What that meant. Whether such a practice resonated with each of us or not. And how it was different from mainstream Christian notions of praying to God or Jesus for support.

Anyway, all of that made me think about guilt and shame. (Yes, it's a bit of a leap.) And how both of them - in my view - increase the separation narratives we have that alienate us from our true natures.

In my experience, guilt is always self-focused, overly attached to a solid self that "screwed up." Feeling guilty about yelling at your kids, or stealing money from the petty cash jar at work doesn't do anything to rectify the situation. In fact, it maintains the focus on yourself. The person or group of people who have been harmed by your action confront you and you say something like "Oh, I feel so guilty. I wish I hadn't done that." And sometimes what happens here is that the other person or group of people end up talking to you about your guilt. Or they end up having to accept that you felt guilty, and that nothing else can be done about what happened. Of course, sometimes nothing else can be done, but that's not really the point.

Shame is more tricky, although I don't think in the end, it's any more helpful. For the most part, shame just universalizes a mistake or set of mistakes into a totalized view of one's self. Instead of feeling bad about a particular behavior and it's consequences, you see yourself as a "bad person" who will "never get it right."

Indulging in either shame or guilt, in other words, not only doesn't help rectify the original situation, but also creates a stickiness around the mistaken behaviors that keeps them fixed in your mind and body. You keep thinking about what happened. You create a negative image of your self around what happened. And so you end up carrying what happened, often long after others might have forgotten it.

Buddhist teachings tend to point to remorse as a more appropriate response. Remorse is tied to repentance for specific actions, which then can lead to a sense of compassion for yourself and others who have made similar mistakes. Being remorseful help break down the self-focus, and also burns through attachments to misdeeds through both the act of repentance, and also any decisions that aid in rectifying a situation.

I could write more, but I think I'll end it there for now.

What have your experiences been with guilt and shame? Do you see them as helpful or harmful?