Green Zen

Today's post comes from my herbal medicine blog at NGTHerbals. Here is an excerpt.

Sometime in the middle of the 8th century, a Zen hermit living in China penned a now famous poem entitled "Song of the Grass Roof Hermitage." It begins with the following lines:

"I've built a grass hut where there's nothing of value.

After eating, I relax and enjoy a nap.

When it was completed, fresh weeds appeared.

Now it's been lived in - covered by weeds."

Whenever I work with the plants, I try and remember these words. The relaxed attitude about it all. The lack of fixation on certain things having value. The surrender to the fact that no matter what, there are always weeds. All around us, and inside our minds as well.

I try and remember, but more often than not I forget. Or loose track while I pick, pluck, and hack away, claiming the burdock roots for their liver health giving properties, while thrusting away the overgrown grape vines that have no clear use.

If we truly want to be healed and liberated, we need to bow down to the mystery of it all.

the basis for the bodhisattva work of non-violent intervention

I was on the bus this morning and I saw a woman hurrying across the street in front of us. She was clearly anxious and as she passed the large, wide front bus window, I noticed a ball of tension rising within me. Looking at her struggling, I felt a resistance, a not wanting to "deal" with her appearance in my life.

And it hit me - this was the confused mix of compassion and control I often respond to the human-filled environment with. I felt whatever she was experiencing trying to enter me, and I both wanted to heal it, and banish it at the same time. While desiring to heal or help someone is a compassionate feeling, it often tied to a self centered desire to significantly reduce the amount of time you have to spend witnessing another person's suffering. Wanting to banish suffering can also be a noble impulse, but too often this impulse is tied to violence and/or hatred.

"Turn around the light to shine within, then just return.
The vast inconceivable source can't be faced or turned away from.
Meet the ancestral teachers, be familiar with their instruction,
Bind grasses to build a hut, and don't give up."

We are called to learn how to see ourselves, and others, completely - moment after moment. That turning "the light o shine within" allows us to act in the world, as opposed to react to it.

Shitou (author of the above) , lived a lot of his life in intimacy with the planet as it was. The ancestral trees, grasses, medicine plants, waters, mountains - these were as much his teachers as any human, if not more. At the same time, familial and cultural human ancestors probably played a large role in his life. Another reason perhaps why it took only two poems to cement his place amongst the great Buddhist teachers. He didn't need a lot of words because he had taken everything in, and wasn't controlled by it, but could engage with it fully.

Things are probably more complicated for a lot of us living now, but at the same time, there are these lines from the Sandokai:

"In the light there is darkness, but don't take it as darkness;
In the dark there is light, but don't see it as light."

Bumping up against human stress and suffering might be more concentrated now, but still is not all that different from twelve hundred years ago. The stress and suffering of the planet is probably much more in our faces now, but decay and death have always been with us.

At the same time, we don't have the luxury to just copy what the various ancestors did. Or we can, but it won't bring the liberation we say we're seeking.

In responding to changing weather conditions, soil conditions, sunlight and moonlight conditions, each generation of trees grows somewhat differently from the previous ones. And yet, through the seeds, their ancestral lineage remains fully intact.

The basis for the bodhisattva work of non-violent intervention is being able to see ourselves, and others, completely - moment after moment. And then acting from that clear seeing.

Zen Herbalism

Today's post comes from the blog for my new venture: NGTHerbals. Here is an excerpt.

Sometime in the middle of the 8th century, a Zen hermit living in China penned a now famous poem entitled "Song of the Grass Roof Hermitage." It begins with the following lines:

"I've built a grass hut where there's nothing of value.

After eating, I relax and enjoy a nap.

When it was completed, fresh weeds appeared.

Now it's been lived in - covered by weeds."

Whenever I work with the plants, I try and remember these words. The relaxed attitude about it all. The lack of fixation on certain things having value. The surrender to the fact that no matter what, there are always weeds.

I try and remember, but more often than not I forget. Or loose track while I pick, pluck, and hack away, claiming the burdock roots for their liver health giving properties, while thrusting away the overgrown grape vines that have no clear use.

If we truly want to be healed by the plants, it's not enough to just covet those that will probably heal us. I'm convinced that to heal fully, we need to bow down to the mystery of it all.

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.

Let Go of Hundreds of Years

Another day; another early morning of zazen practice at the zen center. During our first sitting this morning, feeling both tired and tense - an odd combination - a line from Song of the Grass Roof Hermitage suddenly appeared.

Let go of hundreds of years and relax completely.

First off, this is a plug for regular chanting practice because whatever you chant enough is imbued into you, ready to show up whenever it's called for.

Second, here we are studying Dogen, and what comes to mind but a line from one of Dogen's Chan(Zen) ancestors.

So anyway, I sat, repeating that line for a little while, and then watching old memories come and go. By the end of the first sitting, I felt lighter. By the end of the second sitting, the next few lines had appeared from the poem:

Open your hands and walk, innocent.
Thousands of words, myriad interpretations
Are only to free you from obstructions.

Our timekeeper missed the end of the period, thinking we had another 15 minutes, so we all were treated to a 50 minute sitting period. Sitting longer with those lines offered a way through drowsiness, through rising and fading memories, and through the extended sitting time.

And consider this. "I" wasn't "letting go of hundreds of years." It was just unfolding on it's own. This seems to be the way of breaking up karmic patterns. That the effort of sitting, walking, bowing, chanting, and sutra studying is entered into the big stew of causes and conditions in each moment, but that in the end, it's not about "me" doing something in particular.

Engaging Your Environments Fully

More rain today here in Minnesota. It's been twenty degrees colder than normal all week, and wet, very wet. The stuff of gloomy thoughts and haunted blog posts, like the one I wrote yesterday.

I remember being about twenty and telling people "the weather doesn't impact me at all." I was the guy who rode a bicycle in -20 degree weather and who did two mile hikes on one hundred degree days without eating. Of course, there was burned skin and dehydration, but I didn't see it as a problem. I just trucked on, not considering how much the environment shaped my life.

With more life behind me, and more experience, it's obvious to me now that if you don't engage with how both the planet and the human-made environment are impacting your life, it will simply be another thing controlling you.

Do we talk about this much in Buddhist practice? I'm not sure. Some people write beautiful spiritual poetry about nature. Others examine the stress that comes from driving, living far away from your workplace, etc. Still others are involved in various environmental projects and activist work, from community gardening to Buddhist-inspired ecology work like the Ecodharma Centre.

Yet, so much of what I see is caught in a binary manifestation - either it's mostly about an "external" focus or an "internal" focus.

How do we bring the two together? This seems to be the pivot question I've lived with for most of my life.

If you don't engage with how both the planet and the human-made environment are impacting your life, it will simply be another thing controlling you. I was on the bus this morning and I saw a woman trying to cross the street in the crosswalk in front of the bus. She was clearly anxious and in a hurry, and as she passed the large, wide front bus window, I noticed a ball of tension rising within me. Looking at her struggling, I felt a resistance, a not wanting to "deal" with her appearance in my life. And it hit me - that this was the confused compassion mixed with control I often respond to the human-filled environment with.

I felt whatever she was experiencing trying to enter me, and I both wanted to heal it, and banish it at the same time. Neither of these are working with total acceptance of the present, the basis for the bodhisattva work of non-violent intervention.

Back to the weather - living in a place like Minnesota, filled with temperature and precipitation extremes, it's really easy to get hung up on the weather. In the winter, it's too cold, too snowy, to bitterly windy. In the summer, it's too hot, too humid, too stormy. In the spring, it's too wet and the temperatures fluctuate too much. In the fall, it's too dry and the temperatures also fluctuate too much.

All that talk is letting one's self be controlled by the natural environment.

What would it look like to engage fully with both the human made environments we live in and also the natural environments, the two of which always overlap in some way or another?

Some of you may have noticed the lines from Shitou's "Song of the Grass Roof Hermitage" in yesterday's post. I've been slowly reading a book of Suzuki Roshi's talks about Shitou's other great dharma poem, Sandokai, and interestingly, lines from the other poem keep appearing to me during my days. These lines in particular seem to apply to the question above as instructions:

"Turn around the light to shine within, then just return.
The vast inconceivable source can't be faced or turned away from.
Meet the ancestral teachers, be familiar with their instruction,
Bind grasses to build a hut, and don't give up."

We have move beyond seeing "ancestral teachers" as only old Zen folks. Shitou, himself, lived a lot of his life in intimacy with the planet as it was. The ancestral trees, grasses, medicine plants, waters, mountains - these were as much his teachers as any human, if not more. At the same time, familial and cultural human ancestors probably played a large role in his life, and another reason why it took only two poems to cement his place amongst the great Buddhist teachers. He didn't need a lot of words because he had taken everything in, and wasn't controlled by it, but could engage with it fully.

Things are probably more complicated for a lot of us living now, but at the same time, there are these lines from the Sandokai:

"In the light there is darkness, but don't take it as darkness;
In the dark there is light, but don't see it as light."

Even though we "moderns" have "more to deal with" in a certain way, it's really not all that different than those living their challenges in the past. Not the same, but not all that different. So we don't have the luxury to just copy what the various ancestors did, just as new generations of trees, for example, aren't able to replicate their ancestors' ways of growing and being. However, like the trees, we aren't cut off from that past, nor the environments around us today.

So, as it's raining outside, I'm offering this to you, and also considering my own life's ingredients. Let's work together for a more complete expression of practice, and more complete lives in the process.