Public Speech - Right Speech

There is a powerful post over at Bookbird's blog I urge all of you to read. It's heartening to see this relatively new Buddhist practitioner standing up with clarity and expressing the dharma in her own unique way without apology.

Today is National Coming Out Day, an effort to bring public awareness to issues impacting the GLBTQ community, and really, all of us, regardless of sexual identity. Here in the U.S., a string of teen suicides, one of which I wrote about recently, has illuminated the limitations of polls suggesting that more people hold Queer friendly attitudes than in the past.

As Bookbird points out so clearly in her post, how we speak to each other - the words we choose to use - sometimes have a much longer lasting impact than we might wish them to have. A comment made in anger by a Zen teacher awhile back still haunts her, for example, even long after apologies were made and others have moved on. Before you suggest that she, too, move on, read this:

As a new Buddhist my heart was breaking watching this craziness unfold, but I tried to stay clear. Until the teacher levels a particular criticism at the student. “You and your butt buddies...” he begins. Yes, yes, yes... his insult is to call this student gay. My heart fell into pieces, and tears leaked from my eyes.

Who are we? What do we stand for? And more than this, by our silence, what do we permit? What do we condone?

And did that teacher know that those words, said in haste, said in anger, would continue to bite at people? That words written in this way extend homophobia again, and tell me that my identified sexuality is just a joke to throw at people we dislike? That his comments would breed self hatred in some of our most vulnerable people? That I would read this comment and again wonder, how welcome am I in this community?

So to the Buddhist community I would like to say – make the link. Make the link between our everyday actions to the hurt that stays with others. Our words can become so casual when we are continually talking – commenting on blogs, tweeting, chatting on forums. But those words stay – and people who come after us will read what we say, and will think about the way we have said it.

What I love about this is the broader call to all of us to basically watch our words, whatever we are talking about. It's not always easy to do. Sometimes, we make mistakes. Big ones even. And that's part of the process of working with Right Speech.

I remember a heated argument I had with an old girlfriend. Our relationship was on its last leg after three years, with both of us having had piled up way too many grievances against each other, so that the particulars of that day really were about our whole relationship. I had spent several hours over the course of a week researching for an upcoming vacation we were going to take, when she suddenly announced that she couldn't afford to go. There was a threat of a strike at work, which I fully supported, but I couldn't get over how this decision was like so many others with her. She made a lot more money than I did, but somehow was often broke when it came time for us to do things together. I stupidly leapt from my anger about this pattern, called her "selfish," and went into a litany about various disappointments I had about her. And then I walked out of her apartment and didn't speak with her for three days.

It was a low point for me. And after a few more months of trying to keep things going, she told me she never got over what I said to her that night, and the way I said it. The relationship might have been doomed anyway, but that outburst on my part was a major factor in the drawn out and unclear ending that followed.

Fortunately for both of us, this happened in private. Sure, various friends and family ended up hearing about bits and pieces of our struggles, but it wasn't something left to hang in the public eye for months and years on end. There was definite hurt done to her - and amends I had to made. But it's not like the sometimes hate filled arguments and diatribes done in the public eye, which go on negatively impacting strangers long after the initial parties involved might have moved on.

This, to me, is one of the great challenges of the world becoming "smaller" and more globalized. Everything people say and do has more potential to impact strangers living half way across the planet. Obviously, this can be of great benefit when the best of the human experience is upheld for everyone. But it also can have terribly consequences when the worst is upheld.

Let us endeavour to give the best of ourselves to the world, and to work with our mistakes with an honesty and sincerity that transforms them into gold.

Are You Choosing to Die Already?

I'm in my mid-thirties - old enough to have some experience under my belt, but still pretty young in the grand scheme. And yet, when I look around at many of my fellow late Gen Xers, I can already see it - the choosing to die syndrome. This is not the living and dying in each moment that we all experience, nor is it about a physical death. No, this is about something else entirely.

The Choosing to Die Syndrome

What is it? It's the slow accumulation of decisions towards a fixed identity and away from the fresh aliveness of your life. It's giving in to the prevailing views of what life is about, and the building up of habits and defenses that maintain those views. It's the murder of curiosity, and the killing off of exploration. It's the embracing of certain certainties in order to soothe to pain of living in an ever changing world.

Even Buddhists do it - Gasp!

The longer I practice Zen, the more I have developed a faith in it's ability - somehow - to be totally transformational. It's not about becoming a different person, but is about the fact that when you're completely you, it's a very different experience from living out of habits, fixed views, and emotional states.

I've gotten the sense, though, that a lot of us convert types - and maybe a lot of Buddhists of all stripes - don't really have much faith in such a transformation. In fact, many maybe aren't even thinking about it. Buddhism is mostly a way to be calmer, or a little more present, or accepting, or whatever positive quality you want to fill in the blank with. There's nothing wrong with any of those qualities mind you, but when I chant the Bodhisattva Vows, for example, it doesn't make any sense to hope for being "a little better" - whatever that is. No, those vows aren't about improvement at all - they are about transformation.

Are You Transforming or Killing Yourself Slowly?

The word "transform" means to alter or be altered radically in form, function, etc. If you are like me, you often attach the word to major changes in a form, like in a building project or melting down metals and then reshaping them. It's easy to get fixed on form, just ask any longtime meditation student who can't sit in full or half lotus anymore. However, in the context of Buddhist practice, transforming doesn't really look like anything at all. It's not something you can explain well. You can point to appearances, but what exactly is going on, it's kind of hard to say.

I have a retired friend who has, in certain ways, transformed over the past few years. After years of defensive efforts to maintain her "self," she's dropping that off, and risking being out in the world as she is. While many women her age have decided that their lives are basically over, and are content to sit in a chair and watch TV, my friend joined an on-line dating service, found a new partner, and spent much of the last six months traveling, trying out new things, and loving life. She has renegotiated relationships with her family by being more open and honest with them. And she left a church community where she liked the people, but didn't feel connected to in a deeply spiritual way. If you would ask her how this all happened, she'd probably point to her meditation and yoga practices immediately. But I think it's something more than doing the forms going on. It's an again and again and again process of choosing not to kill yourself off, which happens within forms, but also fully bleeds into one life completely.

Killing Yourself Off is Society Approved

My friend's life is an anomaly amongst her age group. Major changes often do happen for elder folks, but it's usually not coming from conscious decisions and openness to not knowing. It's usually about illness, loss of a spouse, or money issues that press the person into a different life.

It's more likely to find the kind of conscious decisions and openness to not knowing amongst younger people, who haven't yet killed off most of who they truly are. But you know, I think the pressure and desire to fit in makes a lot of us "decide" to accept certain stories about how to live as the only way, even when human history and current reality suggests otherwise. Take employment. How long have people been working for hourly wages at companies and other organizations? Two, three hundred years maybe. And yet, if you asked a hundred Americans what it meant to work, ninety of them would probably describe some variation of a salaried job. Even people who are entrepreneurial gravitate towards time segments and money payments based on time. Which goes to show you how fixated most of us are on a certain view of time, and how we believe it functions in our lives.

The point here isn't to denigrate salaries jobs, or the conventional view of time, but to suggest that when a person has attached to these things as "common sense truths," they have killed off part of life.

Form Can Be Deceptive

I have met people who, on the surface, seem to be living very conventional lives - jobs, houses, children, etc. - but who have a very fluid sense of what life is all about. At the same time, I have met people who are very radical looking on the outside - piercings, tattoos, open sexual relationships with multiple partners, unusual work - but who have very fixed views about their lives and the world around them. So, forms are tricky. It's easy to think, for example, that doing meditation practice is going to radically change you. But that's just another story.

What is This Guy Rambling on About?

If you are a Buddhist practitioner, or interested in Buddhism and reading this blog, what's your deepest intention? Is it really just to feel better, or be a little kinder, or more helpful, or is that just a story you've chosen to protect yourself with? Are you inspired by Buddhist practice to transform your life completely, or is it just a better tasting, more holistic add on than going out and buying a new TV?

I have no idea if the kind of transformation you see in the stories of the enlightened masters will occur in my life, but I figure why the hell not aspire to awaken fully anyway. The times I have been most depressed and miserable in my life have been the times I have chosen to either kill my largest dreams, or cling to them fiercely and defiantly.

You can have the most expansive vision possible about everything without making it into something you must defend and force into existence. You can make choices that might lead you to transform, or you can do things that are pretty certain to kill off your life. It's your call.

"What are you going to do with your one precious life?"

A Short Wild, Cranky Ride - Complete with Mild NY Yankees Bashing

Well, I just got back an hour ago from watching another loss to the New York Yankees, the best team money can buy. Sure, they've got 27 championships and oodles of Hall of Fame candidates, but really, after a certain point, being one of the biggest and the best most of the time is a sure fire ticket to hell. Just ask the good folks at Bear Stearns or the Lehman Brothers.

Anyway, since I'm in a jovial, but slightly cantankerous mood, let's take a jaunt through the blogosphere together.

Nella Lou has a good post taking aim at those who argue that the internet is a terrible breading ground for bad behaviour and general meanness. Frankly, anyone who is worried about the horrors of the internet might best check themselves in the mirror as they crank down the highway, cussing out every last driver in their way. Or perhaps, if road rage isn't your fare, you might consider the latest gossip you shared about your relatives, or how you tore political candidate X a new asshole over lunch with your co-workers. I mean really, anything you see on Twitter or Facebook is just a mirror for what's going on in the "real world" folks.

Speaking of politics, Kyle over at Reformed Buddhist asks whether the political "center" is disappearing in the U.S., to which I'd say, yes. The same goes for the "left," the "progressives," the "Greens" and anything else not associated with a conservative, right wing agenda. Sure, plenty of us still hold ideas that fit into the "center" or "left" politically, but the power and control - right now - are firmly in the hands of right wing, corporate conservatives. And really Obama supporters, it's time to get over the apologies and recognize that the Obama Administration is mostly invested in maintaining the status quo.

Perhaps, enough of us will collectively take a hint from someone like Jodo Shinshu Minister Toshikazu Arai, who writes:

It is high time that humans mobilized their wisdom. They should all sit down together and solve existing territorial issues by establishing ways to share natural resources and dropping territorial claims for peaceful coexistence.

Or maybe more of us will start to feel that we have had enough, as Barry asks over at his blog, and begin to wonder what happens once you have burned through "enough" accumulated things and experiences that you thought would bring you happiness.

It seems to me that, at the very least, bringing about shifts in the world we live in begins with, as bookbird points to, fully accepting ourselves.

And if you aren't there yet, you can always take a seat and do some zazen, even if, as Petteri suggests, it might be good for nothing.

Anapansati Sutra

Sitting in the central branch of the public library right now, listening to a pair of women discuss the obituary of another woman they are trying to locate in a newspaper from 1974. I am about to head off to my class at the zen center on the Anapansati Sutra, which is essentially a condensed training manual for awakening through breath study. Outside, red, yellow, orange and brown leaves are blowing across the sky and across the busy downtown streets. It's the end of another workday for many, although for me, it has been another day in the bardo I currently am in.

The life of the breath is something I have paid some attention to for many years now, but if I'm honest, not terribly closely. Just as the appearance of a tiny field mouse in the park yesterday surprised me, so too does the ebb and flow of breathing. How does it keep changing it's appearance in my life as it does? No two breaths are alike, which points to the fact that there is no "self" that is stable either. It's always moving, always changing, even if only in the slightest way.

The field mouse I saw had a short, happy gallop across the grass behind me. That is, until a blue jay broke ranks, doing it's best raptor, swooped down and gobbled it up, before disappearing into a tree above the nearby waterfalls.

The I That Feels No Terror

Let's take a look today at a little teaching from one of the first Buddhist nuns, Uppalavanna, in the sutra named after her.

the bhikkhuni Uppalavanna, having understood, "This is Mara the Evil One," replied to him in verses:

"Though a hundred thousand rogues
Just like you might come here,
I stir not a hair, I feel no terror;
Even alone, Mara, I don't fear you.

I can make myself disappear
Or I can enter inside your belly.
I can stand between your eyebrows
Yet you won't catch a glimpse of me.

I am the master of my own mind,
The bases of power are well developed;
I am freed from every kind of bondage,
Therefore I don't fear you, friend."

Then Mara the Evil One, realizing, "The bhikkhuni Uppalavanna knows me," sad and disappointed, disappeared right there.

In the Pali Canon, Mara often appears to be a devilish spirit that comes and goes, threatening to destroy everything in his way through various means. He looks to be outside of the practitioner, every bit the troublemaker that the Christian Satan is in the Bible. However, Mara isn't a separate being - Mara is our own troubled, ordinary mind.

"Though a hundred thousand rogues/Just like you might come here..." Where is this "here"? In the story, it's said to be in a forest, where Uppalavanna sits alone. You can imagine what it's like to be alone in the middle of a forest. Maybe you have been there yourself.

But I think this sutra is more than just about conquering fear while sitting in a forest.

I stir not a hair, I feel no terror;
Even alone, Mara, I don't fear you.

I can make myself disappear
Or I can enter inside your belly.
I can stand between your eyebrows
Yet you won't catch a glimpse of me.

Who is this "I"? It certainly isn't the "I" that I think I am in this world. This "I" is riddled with fear, and anger, and confusion, and all sorts of other things.

No, when I sit with this teaching as a city dweller in the 21st century, what I see is a calling to reorient ourselves to the "forest" living in each of us, and also all around us. That is "I" of Uppalavanna speaks of cannot be found in anything we can know or possess, because both knowing and possessing are forms of grasping.

In addition, given how we modern folks are so attuned to psychology and emotions, I think its' vitally important to sense that this "I" in the teaching that "feels no terror" is found nowhere else but within the very body-mind that is often riddled with various terrors.

And finally, I believe that us city dwelling, internet using, inside of building living types best heed teachings like this as calls to remain connected to the untamable wildness of the earth. It's good to remember that Buddhism was birthed during a period of great commercial development that led to a lot of society building, with an emphasis on economics, political power, and warfare. As such, I can't help but feel that the very setting of many of the Pali Canon teachings, and the ways in which the setting (in this case, a forest), teach us, are imploring each of us to see how who we are can never be divorced from the earth we live in.

Zen Burn Out

There was a time when I did 1 1/2 to 2 hours of sitting meditation everyday. When I was a fairly regular retreat practitioner, and when I would look around at the people who only attended Sunday services at our zen center and thought to myself "these folks aren't very dedicated." Those thoughts were certainly smug, and that level of devotion wasn't, at least for me at that time of my life, sustainable. I can point to many reasons why "my practice" changed over time, but what I'm more interested in these days is the sometimes huge tension between predominantly lay people trying to practice in Zen communities (or even on their own) from teachings that are predominantly monastic in flavor.

You may notice that my dharma name, Tokugo, is translated as "Devoted to enlightenment." It's a pandora's box once you start paying attention to it. I have a regular zazen practice, chanting practice, study practice. I'm pretty deeply involved in my sangha, as you have seen from previous blogs. And yet unlike in the past - I do almost no retreat practice. It has almost no draw for me right now. At the same time, I have spent the last month unemployed, not rushing, watching myself be a person in the world with no job, no partner, a shifting group of friends - in other words, being a person who is doing his best to stand in the middle of the flow of life as it is.

What does "devotion to enlightenment" mean for a lay practitioner? What are some necessary ingredients and what is simply form that might be helpful and might not, depending upon the circumstances?

When I plunged head first into what I believed was THE correct way of practice several years ago, what I saw was an interesting mix of wise renunciation and madness. Even though I seem to have a lot of tension these days around what "devoted" looks like, one thing I'm confident in is that it involves renunciation. If you want to see into the nature of this life, you have to give up a lot of the "entertainments" in your life. This is not only about ending the video game addiction you have or forging the weekly music concert binge - it's also about renouncing the stories you have about your life and the world, and giving up ownership of the various certainties you have collected over the years.

At the same time, I remember once having to decide if I were going to use the only paid vacation time I had to attend a meditation retreat. And feeling like if I chose to do something else, I was a "lesser" practitioner for it, but also sensing that if I didn't take some time to rest, I was going to burn out sooner rather than later. Although I don't attach as much to this notion of being a better or worse practitioner these days,I still find these quandaries coming up because the line between being lazy and self-care isn't always too clear to me. And when I read the great monks of old, or even many teachers of new, steeped in the tradition of those monks, I find myself thinking Yeah, that makes a hell of a lot of sense when you're in a monastery. What about the rest of us?

To be quite frank, when I hear some Zen teachers say things like "Well, this is why our tradition has always been small, and not for the faint of heart," I'm not terribly impressed. It sounds true, and points to the intelligent rigorousness that I have always been inspired by in Zen. But it's also a cop out, a way to skirt around the real life tensions between what's been handed down to us, and how our lives are in the world today, 2010, as lay practitioners.

Simply put, I don't buy it that the only way to practice Zen in a completely devoted way is to increasingly immerse yourselves in meditation practice, retreat practice, even monastic practice. And when I hear people saying things like "Oh, I'm not much of a Zen student. I don't do such and such. Just look at so and so..." I think - what good is that? How does all this comparing helping you, me, or anyone?

There are plenty of warnings about the trap of "comparing mind," and yet I also think the lack of honest reflection around the tensions between studying and implementing Dogen's teachings and being a lay practitioner set up a lot of ready made comparisons. Those who immerse themselves in zazen - good. Those who take up the various monastic roles in the sangha - good. Those who don't - slackers. I'm saying this as someone who has done some of those roles, been immersed in zazen, and also who has had times where I was definitely slacking and letting myself off the hook too easily.

Now, the black and white dichotomy above isn't what actually happens most of the time. It's more of a subtle undercurrent within Zen communities. Like what's upheld as "good practice" or who is considered a community "leader" and why.

I know I'm not alone in feeling these tensions, and having the kinds of questions that I do. But what I find frustrating is how often conversations about the various issues around the lay/monastic tension either slide into privileging monasticism (and it's forms), or platitudes about how "it's all good." The former is just a fast path to an inferiority complex, and the latter is a niceness that just makes everyone feel good, but doesn't really aid us in living our lives more in a more awakened way.

When I see discussions, for example, about how all Zen teachers should have X number of months of retreat practice under their belts before they are considered legitimate, I think "Is that the only way to wisdom?" It's hard not to view such requirements as akin to standardized tests - these tools we have determined to be the magic bullets that someone prove our children or college students are smart, capable, and ready to succeed in life. The thing is, wisdom isn't uniform. Awakening doesn't follow a single track, nor does it manifest the same for even two people, let alone everyone.

There are times when I think "maybe Zen just isn't your thing," whatever that means. I have seen others facing some of this stuff who have decided to move on, and find something else. But that just feels like going shopping to me. And to be honest, I find this tension pretty fascinating, even if it grates at me at times. And I love those old Zen dudes, and their monastic or wandering Zen ways.

So, in some ways I'm like the famous Catholic monastic Thomas Merton, who spent much of his life questioning and bucking the very tradition he also loved. How odd, but there it is.

Tyler Clementi, and the "Little Secrets" We Spread About Each Other

I've been thinking about the freshman college student in New Jersey who committed suicide recently after a tape of him with another male student was spread around the internet. It's really easy to forget that our minds can go wild when our secrets are exposed, especially ones with a social stigma attached to them. In addition, it's really seductive to be amongst those in the "know," who first spread such information around, hoping to stick it to someone or a group of someones we don't like.

Tyler Clementi's case is an extreme one, but at some time or another, all of us probably dip our toes in the stream of gossip and/or sensitive information spreading. And when we do, we override memories of our own experiences of being surprised, or even shocked, when something secret came out behind our backs.

I'm not really sure how best we collectively can address tragic cases like Tyler's. The two students involved will probably receive jail time, and there will will probably be a lot of talk about cyber-bullying, homophobia, and the like. Which is fine. But I think it all begins with each of us in our everyday lives, watching our words, checking in on whatever variation of Right Speech our ethical code provides on a regular basis. Because there are many more Tylers out there counting on us to do so.