Open and Flexible

In the current issue of Buddhadharma, Soto Zen priest Norman Fischer has an intriguing article about the evolution of Buddhism in the "West." Specifically, he proposes that if we do not remain open and flexible in terms of how we teach, learn, and enact the dharma, it's possible that zen, and other forms of Buddhism will either fade,or simply be the province of a privileged few here in the West. (side note: I find the whole west-east language construction problematic, but haven't come up with a better one as of yet.)

Of what Fischer writes, I find this comment fairly provocative: "Buddhism (as Thich Nhat Hanh might say) is made of non-Buddhist elements; that is, while we appreciate and honor Buddhism's many cultural expressions, and recognize their importance, we know that there is no 'core' Buddhism within them that can be extracted and must be protected."

Now, as someone who appreciates many of the forms and rituals of Soto Zen, and feels that they support and inform me in many ways, Fischer's comment is a cause for pause. Not pause out of a fear of attachment to something that developed in another culture, or that I'm simply an American copycating Japanese ancestors. No, the pause is out of the recognition that this statement points to a democractic expression of form and structure when it comes to Buddhist practice. In other words, what it looks like, where it takes place, what forms and rituals accompany it, etc. are really up for negotiation.

The practice we have today, no matter if one lives in St. Paul, MN or in Columbo, Sri Lanka, is different in many ways from the practice that occured during the Buddha's time. This shouldn't come as a suprise for most of us, and yet I do believe that many of us still hold on to a view that somehow things really shouldn't change that much when it comes to spiritual traditions, and that those who innovate and move outside the box are somehow destroying or disparaging the dharma.

It strikes me that the recent "reforms" in the Catholic Church, as led by the ardent traditionalist Pope Benedict, should be a warning to us in western Buddhist communities. There has been a strong effort to eradicate or at least marginalize liberal and progressive Catholics in general, and to remove or demote those Catholic leaders who suggest anything that remotely threatens the hierarchy and patriarchy that runs the Church as a whole. In addition, such long discarded structures as papal indulgences and Latin mass have been reintroduced and promoted as more true espressions of the religion, never mind that they, too, were once new kids on the block. It's one thing to unearth old and forgotten teachings and rituals that might serve people in current times - I'm all for that. But it's quite another to suppress any and all innovations in the name of "keeping the tradition pure."

For those of us in Soto Zen land, it's absolutely important to remember that our founding teacher, Dogen, was something of a rabble rouser back in 13th century Japan. He abandoned what was considered to be The Practice in Japan, and went off to China to discover something more vital, more true to the calling he was experiencing. And upon his return, the emphasis he placed upon zazen, sitting meditation, as the main path to enlightment was fairly unique, and definitely not the norm in those days. Or even now.

It's fairly easy to suggest that things like Jon Kabit-Zinn's mindfuness-based teachings, or sanghas that have dispensed with robes and Japanese rituals, or Buddhist talking groups, or wacky teachers like Brad Warner, or even blogging are expressions of false dharma. But if you go down that route, without an awareness of history, then how can you really point to what is a true expression of dharma?

If we truly believe in Buddha's view that there are 84,000 dharma gates - in other words that there are innumerable ways to awaken - then it's best to remain open and flexible as to how Buddhism should unfold here in the West. This is not to throw out the critical eye that can thwart simplistic and incomplete innovations and expressions, but to recognize that what is skillful and enlightenment producing today may be very different from that which was in the past, or that which will be in the future.

Ah, good old impermanence.

Blogosphere Awards

Well, it's such an honor that both Marcus from http://marcusjournal.blogspot.com/ and Carole from http://www.blogger.com/profile/06051368546505731081 consider my blog among their seven most favorite. Marcus is a thoughtful practitioner who works the teachings in his life, and writes honestly about his experience. I also appreciate his humbleness, and willingness to share his struggles with us all. And Carole is a wonderful artist, and pretty fearless zen student who writes witty posts filled with examinations of her life and the world around her.

So, I'm supposed to choose seven more blogs to honor, and then write 10 honest things about myself. Hmm --- and I was also supposed to brag about winning the Honest Scrap award, which I'll do so by saying I also got the Lemonade Award, which "is given to bloggers who show a positive attitude, gratitude, and a willingness to share their ideas, support and online friendship. In other words, people who make lemonade when they get lemons!"

Seven Brilliant blogs

1. http://yogajourneys.blogspot.com/ is a wonderful blog by a yoga student who pays close attention to her life. As I am also a yoga student, I always appreciate seeing what fellow yoginis have to say.

2. http://givingnoticenow.blogspot.com/ is another enjoyable blog. Jennifer writes honestly about her life, has been giving us lots of good Pema Chodron quotes lately, and always leaves interesting comments on my blog page.

3. http://beingjakekujava.blogspot.com/ is the site of my good friend Jake. He's an artist, comic strip writer, into zen, and a general all around good guy. Check out his artwork on the blog.

4. http://paleonym.blogspot.com/ is always interesting. I love that the author covers so many topics, from spiritual practice, to social issues, to literature.

5. http://possibleway.blogspot.com/ has lots of good zen talk and commentary, which shouldn't been surprising given the blog title.

6. http://homelesstom.blogspot.com/ is such an ecclectic experience. This guy writes about so many things, from homelessness in Sacramento to zen, to Christianity, even the Talking Heads.

7. http://thewheelofdharma.blogspot.com/ is another good blog. Lawrence isn't afraid to tackle difficult issues, like anger and sexuality, and often with a sense of humor to boot.

Now, ten honest things about me.

1. I have never had a driver's license.

2. Even though I am often very repelled by anything sappy, I love the movie "It's a Wonderful Life," which definitely has sappy moments.

3. In third grade, I got sent to the principal's office because I was threatening to hit a friend with my cast. I had broken three fingers on my right hand, had it put into a cast, and got upset with a friend at lunch because I thought he was spitting in my food. Not the brightest moment in my life.

4. I have a fondness for squirrels.

5. I really enjoy dharma magazines like Tricycle, Buddhadharma, and Shambala Sun. There is something about a magazine that is fulfilling.

6. I grow my own medicinial herbs and make my own medicine with them.

7. I'm an excellent speller who sometimes still makes mistakes with easy words.

8. I am a co-founder of a non-profit organization that is in it's fifth year as an all volunteer run organization.

9. I'm left handed.

10. I really like eating figs and beets, but not at the same time.

"My stuff, my stuff!"

I've been reflecting about a pair of stories concerning outrageous attachment to stuff. The first story has to do with my own family. I was out with my father for dinner before heading to a baseball game on Friday. He told me he was going out to Pennsylvania to visit my grandmother, and I asked how everyone was. The response was the following: sometime in the past month or so, a few guys visited my grandmother's house, wondering if she was going to use some old scrap metal that was in the back yard. She said no, and allowed them to haul it away. (She's been in an increased reduction of possession mode ever since my grandfather died in February.) Anyway, a few weeks later, my uncle discovered the "stuff" was gone from the pile, and asked my grandmother where it had gone. When she told him, he got angry and started an argument. Aparently, he had placed some old grates in the pile, and was planning on using them to build a grill. Now, these grates had been aquired for nothing, left in the pile for nearly twenty years, but suddenly they were more precious than kindness toward his mother.

I have no desire to single out my uncle's behavior here, although it is petty extreme. I believe most of us have similar warped places in our own lives, where attachment to something is way out of proportion to what that something means, or should mean, in our lives. But hearing how my uncle got so wound up that the issue lingered for over a week - in fact, probably still lingers - made me pause.

The second story comes from Buddhist teacher Sharon Salzberg in the current Buddhadharma magazine. In it, she retells a moment from the recent plane crash into the Hudson River that made Captain C.B. Sully Sullenberger famous. She says "after the plane had landed in the river and everyone had to evacuate immediately, one of the passengers was blocking the aisle, reaching into the overhead bin. She kept saying,'My stuff, my stuff!' She wouldn't leave the plane without her laptop or something."

What is this drive within us that makes us risk our relationships, even our lives, for some object? Is it simply difficult attachment that can be broken with a lot of hard work and patience, or is it something more complicated?

Dogen writes in the Genjokoan "with confused thoughts about body and mind, holding to discrimination of the myriad dharmas, one mistakenly thinks his own mind and nature are permanent."

It strikes me that there's something of this belief in a permanent, fixed self that bleeds out into our understanding of objects and their value. How else could someone choose to privilege a set of crusty, old metal grates over his own mother, or anything in a sinking plane over her own life?

Among the many slogans of former President Bush and his administration was "The Ownership Society." Behind this slogan is the view that the more an individual has control over his or hers' material wealth, the more personal happiness one will feel, and the more societial value one will have. In other words, one's life is measured primarily in terms of ownership of stuff.

I would like to argue that even as President Bush was rejected by three-fourths of the U.S. population at the end of his time in office, this old idea of "the Ownership Society" was still beloved by the vast majority, and continues to be beloved today. We in the U.S. love our stuff, and we love the idea that our stuff will make us happy and fulfilled. Which makes it all the more difficult in this tanking economy to find peace, be peace, in every moment. Or even just some of the moments of every day.

So, what is it that you are attached to? What story drives you to cling, and what are your fears about letting it go?

If we don't examine questions like these in our own lives, over and over, how can we ever speak of such lofty things as a kinder, more enlightened world?

Cat Zen

This is a photo I took of my mother's cat, Baby Jesus. Now, just where exactly the name came from, I'm still not sure. My mother isn't Christian, nor does she really have a lot of interest in Jesus, as far as I know. She told me the name just came to her, and really, maybe that's just how it was - things seem to come to us when we pay attention closely.

Now, Baby Jesus, also known as "the resurrected animal," has in some ways outgrown the baby. He's a big cat, probably weighing in at close to twenty pounds. He's very much a dominant presence in the house in a way a kitten can never be. He lounges effortlessly, leaps often, and attends to laps like an expert physician attends to surgery.

I have long thought that cats are good roles models for us muddling, sometimes meddling humans. Having lived with cats most of my life, and having experienced the cats of many friends and family over the years, I really think that, for the most part, cats are good at expressing and living out their catness.

Even though there are as many different personalities as there are cats in the world, there seems to be a directness and clarity that cats naturally have, and which people spend often entire lifetimes trying to cultivate. Emotions are expressed easily; actions are done without tons of calculating and over-analyzing. And anyone who has ever lived with a cat, or spent any significant time with one, knows that cats can focus their attention on something (a mouse, a bird, a fluttering dust bunny) and keep it there for a very long time, often without moving. They seem to have object-based meditation down pat, even if there is an end goal in mind (catch the moving object, eat the moving object, etc.)

Cats also have had their role in zen literature, most famously perhaps in the koan of Nanchuan's Cat. Here's the case, along with Mumon's comment and poem.

"Nanchuan saw the monks of the eastern and western halls fighting over a cat. Seizing the cat, he told the monks: 'If you can say a word of zen, you will save the cat.' No one answered. Nanchuan cut the cat in two. That evening Zhaozho returned to the monastery and Nanchuan told him what had happened. Zhaozho removed his sandals, paced them on his head, and walked out. Nanchuan said, "If you had been there, you would have saved the cat."

Mumon's comment: Why did Zhaozho put his sandals on his head? If you can answer this question, you will understand exactly that Nanchuan's action was not in vain. If not, danger!

Mumon's poem:

Had Zhaozho been there
He would have taken charge.
Zhaozho snatches the sword
And Nanchuan begs for his life.

There is so much that could be talked about in this. And so many landmines I could step on in talking about any of it.

But one thing I have always found so intriguing is this business of silence on the part of the monks in response to Nanchuan's request for a word of zen. You can imagine that these guys might have spent hours or maybe even days arguing with each other about this cat, each side certain that they had the right answer to the issue at hand. And what issue was that? Some say it was an argument over whether the cat had buddhanature. But maybe it was something more mundane, like whether the cat should be in the monastery, or who's turn was it to clean up after the cat. Discussions of buddhanature or the ultimate nature of things are fairly rare, even in a place like a zen monastery. But discussions about cat shit, if a cat lives nearby, are fairly common. Hard to escape those everyday details, but very easy to get hung up on your view of those everyday details.

So, you can imagine these guys fighting with each other in some puffed up way over this cat. And Nanchuan stepping in, seizing the cat, and startling all of them silent.

At this moment, all certainty goes out the window for the monks. Just a moment before, they were divided just as so much of our lives get divided by our black and white biased minds. Yet, in this silence there's an opportunity, and Nanchuan isn't going to let that opportunity go. He speaks his words of zen to the monks, but then they stay stuck in silence, unable to join the conversation, the expression of life.

Even though speaking itself places a divide across the world by naming and separating, as Katagiri Roshi said "You have to say something."

Or do something. Maybe be a little bit like Baby Jesus, but not too much, not copying him. Baby Jesus jumped into a box, as you can see. How about you?

Past moment, present moment

I was just viewing the blog of the old teacher of our center, Dosho Port (Wild Fox Zen), as I have been doing fairly often since starting this blog. In fact, seeing his blog was an inspiration for starting my blog, so I guess there is still some influence going on there.

I only studied together with Dosho a few years, and the break between him and the community wasn't so pleasant, but I for one believe the bodhisattva vows continually call me to recall desires to outright reject anyone. And frankly, the older I get (not that anyone here is calling me "old" by any stretch of the imagination :), the more I see that it's better to consider everyone and everything a teacher, or at least strive to do so. Plus, I just enjoy Dosho's blog.

Note. Dogen: 13th Century Japanese Zen Master.
Dosho: 21st Century American Zen teacher.

So, Dosho was writing today about that famous, or infamous, line from Dogen's Genjokoan. (I can hear the cheers from the Dogen fans out there as I type, and also the groans from everyone else.)

Anyway, for those who don't know, the lines goes as follows "To study the Buddha Way is to study the self." The line is actually the beginning of a set of lines that really point to the heart of Dogen's practice of zen as he experienced it, and taught it.

Now, Dosho's commentary on this line starts like this "What is meant by 'self?' Usually it is understood as our modern self construction - the psychological self with a certain history, preferences, feelings, and longings." This description makes me think of Eckhart Tolle's continual emphasis of the ego, and how it runs amok for us in our world. I have always felt uneasy about this focus on the "egoic" self because it seems to collapse back onto us as individuals a bit too much. Clearly Dosho is also skeptical of this focus when he says "Dogen was a medieval fellow, way back before Freud, Jung, Pearls and Maslow. Dogen's "self" as I'm using the word here, was probably much more of a community-based self, like most people prior to the modern era."

So, what is this "self" Dogen is talking about if it's not solely the psychological self we modern folks like to talk about? A little birdy in my head wants me to say it's everything in the world, but somehow that feels a bit too easy.

Instead, a question comes to mind, not suggesting itself as a concluding answer.

How do we live everything in each moment?

Time to sit on that one for a bit, and see what comes.

Catastrophe Thinking

"I have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened." Mark Twain

I've been reflecting on what I will call "catastrophe thinking." You know, the kind of story you build in your head where the absolute worst thing you think can happen does. Like you wake up with a cold and think you're going to die. Or you have a disagreement with your boss and you think you're going to be fired on the spot. Or the one we have been dealing with on a collective scale: "I'm going to get swine flu, I just know it." This kind of thinking.

I'm guessing you are familiar with this kind of thinking, maybe even have experienced this kind of thinking once, twice, a few thousand times.

There's a common saying whose exact origins I'm not aware of at this time: be prepared for the worst. People often use this to run their lives. Businesses often use this to direct their work. In fact, I would say that even entire nations use this line of thinking to direct their policies and decisions, at least some of the time. Various governmental reactions to swing flu, ranging from towns and cities in the U.S. ordering schools closed down when a single potential case of the flu is found to Egypt's order to slaughter all the pigs in the nation, are being directed by the thought that it's best to be prepared for the worst, with a lot of "better safe than sorry" added along the way.

I have to say I'm beginning to think that using "being prepared for the worst" as way of life, and a way to run a country or business, is pretty stupid.

Why? First of all, when you focus all your energy and effort on "the worst," where is there an opening for something positive to manifest? Or where is there time and space to be creative enough to shift what's happening into something beneficial, when all you're doing is fighting off every last threat?

Second, how often does "the worst" happen? Or, even more importantly, how do we even know what the worst thing would be in a given situation? Sometimes, what we think would be the worst possible outcome proves to be a positive outcome. And sometimes it proves to be minor compared to what actually happens.

I'm not suggesting that we give up having plans, give up considering various possible outcomes in any given situation, including very damaging and destructive ones. Nor an I suggesting that we pollyannishly believe that everything will always turn out good and wonderful.

But I am suggesting that excessive focus on "the worst" is a deep form of attachment many of us have, both individually, and on a collective scale. And I think it's part of the path to war, to greed-based economics, to environmental destruction, and a whole lot of suffering on the personal level as well.

To me, the catastrophe is often that you've wasted so much of your life worrying about a catastrophe that never comes. There is often more suffering incured during that time of thinking about something coming than during any actual event.

What is the impact on others of all that anxiety, panic, projecting, etc? And where does that energy go if not into the communities we live in, adding to the abundance of pain and suffering already there.

We could all do with a little less catastrophe thinking, and a lot more awareness of what is happening now. As for looking into the future, sure, there's nothing wrong with that. But can you do it without attachment to goals and outcomes? That, to me, is the real test for those who want to be prepared for anything.

Experiments in Trusting

First a poem:

Tempo

placement,
because there is still a layer of ice
covering the cobblestones,
every step is an experiment in trusting
that the way you have chosen to move through the world
is at just the right tempo
for being now

Now a comment:

I've been writing poetry for years, maybe even most of my life. I even have a masters in creative writing, and have a couple of things published. Pretty exciting, eh? Probably not, but what I have always found interesting about creative writing is how insights about life often appear in one's writing before they fully are living those same insights. I would love to take every step as an experiment in trusting - I'm getting closer to that, but still am a ways off.

I was reading an interview with Allen Ginsberg from 1989 this morning. He was talking about a lot of things, poetry things, social justice things, oppression - but what was so powerful was these questions he asked. "What is it that you most desire?" "What breakthrough are you looking for?" To me, these are dharma questions digging deep into our spiritual lives. And poetry - great poetry - digs deep into our spiritual lives as well, and in doing so can inspire personal, social, political, and spiritual changes. It really can.

Many great zen practitioners have also been poets. I think it's one of the reasons I was drawn to zen: the long standing tradition of belief or valuing poetry as an expression of spiritual teaching and spiritual life.

Capping phrase:

Mistakes are abundant daily, and yet even still
the opportunity to experiment with trusting is there
in this moment and the next and the next...