Degenerate Zen

Having taught weekly meditation classes for over a year now, one of the repeated themes that comes up is that of the "bad meditator." It's rare that a month goes by without hearing someone say something about not being "good" at meditating, or having tried it "once," but found that their minds were really noisy, or that they couldn't sit still.

There are a lot of stories about what meditation "should" look like, and most of them are hindrances. You're not doing it right if you're mind is full of thoughts. The "goal" is to force all thoughts into silence. You have to sit in full lotus or half lotus. Meditating on chairs isn't meditation. If I can't find a perfectly quiet room to meditate in, I can't do it. The list goes on and on.

I have meditated on buses, park benches, in the middle of protests, and in public restrooms amongst other places. I also frequently chant while bicycling, and for two winters in a row, did lovingkindness meditations while walking in the skyway system in downtown St. Paul. Of course, I also do the normalized formal practice on my meditation cushion at home, at zen center, and in my classes at the yoga center.

And sometimes, I do none of the above.

One of the problems with meditation culture in general, and Soto Zen in particular, is a fixation on one practice. As if it's the only gateway to awakening. Or even the "best" one. I personally think it's an excellent gateway, but that's about as far as I'll go.

Meditation has been a good friend for most of my adult life, always ready to hang out and just be, regardless of how I am. But I have other spiritual friends, and actually, I think we all do, even if we've given in to the notion that whatever practice is the one and only for us.

The dharma name I was given is Tokugo, which translates to "Devotion to enlightenment." Not "to zazen" or "to Zen," but to awakening itself.

I sometimes wonder how the old Zen masters really lived. Not the carectures that have been handed down to us, but the actual people. I'm guessing they weren't really like what we think they were.

The Buddha predicted the eventually decay of the teachings, and lately I've been wondering if we aren't living in the degenerate age he spoke about. There's obviously high levels of social corruption and oppression present in the world today. However, the past was no where near perfect either. The main difference, as far as I can see, is that we have become more efficient as a species, globalizing many of the hells that once were localized.

When I think of all the noise and distractions in the world today, it's hard not to wonder if even issues like "the bad meditator" narrative aren't indicative of causes and conditions of a degenerate age, where the dharmas of awakening are easily overshadowed. At the same time, I'm open to the idea that Joanna Macy and others are putting forth that we are in the middle of a "Great Turning" that is transforming the way we are in the world towards a more awakened, shared experience.

Perhaps both sides of the coin are true together. Devotion seems to keep calling me in that curious direction.

Zen Flow

Here are a few lines from Master Sengcan's dharma poem "Trust in Mind" (Xinxinming).

"If you wish to see the truth,
then hold no opinions for or against anything."

Take a look at those first words - "If you wish to see the truth." How often do you truly wish to see the truth? And how often do you do anything in your power to turn away from it?

This line seems to point at the choice that's required of each of us in every moment to want to see the truth. We have to aim ourselves in the right direction - or, more accurately, allow ourselves to be aimed in the right direction by life itself. If we're too busy being obstructionists, propping up sham arguments about ourselves and others, there's no room for the truth to seep in.

In the second part of the line, the word "hold" stands out in my opinion. As in hold tightly. Sometimes death grip tightly.

When I first read this line, I thought it meant don't have any opinions about anything. Which reminds me of a former sangha member who ran for Mayor several years ago. He went door to door talking to people about his campaign. When they'd ask him what he stood for, he said "I don't have an agenda, other than what the people tell me." When they'd press further about specific plans, he'd say "I don't have any fixed plans. I'm listening to the people first." Needless to say, he didn't get many votes.

In some ways, it was kind of amazing that he went into the community offering to be a mirror for the rest of us. Politicians always claim to represent "everyone," but they never do. Primarily because it's impossible, but also because the vast majority of them are beholden in some manner or another to special interest elites. Whatever mirroring of everyday folks they do is mostly extra, carrots in exchange for votes and/or doing something to appease their uneasy consciences.

Anyway, one of the themes I see in Master Sengcan's poem is flow. Being able to flow in the absolute and relative realms. Not getting caught by either emptiness or concrete things and experiences.

So, having opinions, even strong ones, isn't the issue. But is there flow and openness? Are you able to enter into situations, express yourself clearly, do what needs to be done, and then move on?

Of course "moving on" sometimes involves repetition or slight revision. Conversations about race and racism tend to be like that for example. But even there, in the heat of all that karmic collective muck, you can find spaciousness. Not easy, but it's possible.

"With a single stroke we are freed from bondage;
Nothing clings to us and we hold to nothing.
All is empty, clear, self-illuminating..."

What is the single stroke? What is the truth of this moment? We don't need to withhold ourselves to be mirrors for each other.

Valley Girl Dharma

Inspired by Daniel's comment about Valley Girls and Buddhist blogs, I decided to write a short, three act play. In case some of you think I'm always a thought, but serious guy, this piece of writing should blow a few holes in that theory. And because I'm not only a blogger, but also a long time reader and writer of various forms of creative writing, I decided to start another blog. I don't know how often I'll update it, but I plan on linking to it from Dangerous Harvests whenever I have new material. It's all set up for you to become a follower as well, so feel free to join thew revolution, lol!

Anyway, here's the play for your viewing pleasure. Like, oh my God! Enjoy!

Anger as Entertainment

I have had one of those days where, for whatever reason, the longer the days goes, the less I want to interact with others. In fact, the past three or four hours, I've had waves of crankiness that haven't been so pleasant. Crossing a busy street, and getting cut off by cars in both crosswalks when the light was green didn't help. Nor the struggles I'm having with my second ESL class, which recently became a combined level class due to a colleague resigning. The old "leave the position empty" and "reallocate" game.

What's interesting about all this is that I work up early and did a longer period of zazen than I have been recently. Most mornings, I'm lucking to get 10 minutes and/or chant the refuges and bodhisattva vows before going out the door for the bus. Not only did I sit a half an hour, but also did a longer chanting service. I've always been more of a evening/night meditator, so whenever I can start a weekday morning doing both a morning sit and chanting service, it's always a plus.

Given this, the emotional contrast between this morning and this evening is vast.
Pema Chodron, writing about karmic momentum, has some interesting commentary to consider. She writes:

We entertain ourselves with anger, with fear, with grief —All kinds of thoughts are better than nothing— is our motto. The bodhichitta practices, and actually all meditation practices, are about learning to stay still and going through what I always refer to as the detox period of finally connecting. Sometimes it feels like stillness and peace, but if that happens it will also alternate with this restlessness and this unease.

Curious. I didn't feel like I was "entertaining" myself. However, if we broaden the definition a bit, it actually fits. With the class, the anger was really a diversion from experiencing disappointment, loss of my old, higher level class, and also just exhaustion with the seemingly endless rounds of change in the student body. In term of the cars in the crosswalk, the anger was a response to pedestrian unfriendly city planning, as well as a quick leap from the fear of getting hit.

I'm not one of those people who considers anger always an inappropriate response. The three poisons are greed, hatred, and ignorance - but many translations have it as "anger' instead of "ignorance." There are times when a flash of anger might be the appropriate response, but it's far less than what most of us express on a daily basis.

The thing is that it's hard to stay with what's coming up when the world seems to be calling for some kind of action from you. In fact, even in situations like the street crossing, where you need to get to the other side, afterward it's terribly easy to get lost in stories about "those assholes" blocking the crosswalk. The opportunity to hang with what's coming up is there, and yet it gets lost pretty fast if you allow yourself to get hooked.

Does a Vegan or even Vegetarian Diet Reinforce Self Identity?

The teacher Bodhipaksa has a fascinating postconsidering the issues surrounding vegan/vegetarian diets, Buddhist,and identity. Responding to another article, he questions that writer's views that choosing to be vegan, for example, is a sentimental choice that can easily reinforce attachments to an identity.

He writes:

While I agree with Dayamati’s point that our dietary preferences can become unhealthily clung to as an identity, I don’t think he sufficiently takes into account that it’s possible for us to live on a vegan or vegetarian diet without it distorting our identity. He does say, “Needless to say, there is no invariable causal relationship between deciding to be a vegan and becoming incapable of thinking carefully and impartially.” That’s welcome news.

I’m more bothered, however, by the following:

As long as one makes such decisions whimsically and realizes that the decision is a manifestation of sentimentality, everything is fine. It is only when one begins to think that there is something rational and righteous about the decision that one begins to get into spiritual (and philosophical) trouble.

I’m not sure quite what he means by making a decision to eat a vegan diet “whimsically.” If he simply means “with a lack of attachment” then that’s fine by me. If he means that we should only decide to eat a vegan diet on the basis of a passing irrational impulse, then I disagree. I think it’s possible to seriously consider the effects of our diet, and the sufferings that farm animals experience, and decide not to eat animal products. It’s only when I disengage my thought processes and refuse to consider these things that I can eat animal products. It’s when I surrender to the passing irrational impulses of hunger and craving that I find myself eating dairy products or eggs.

The suggestion that we should realize that “the decision is a manifestation of sentimentality,” leaves me puzzled. The word sentimentality implies that we have a disproportionate emotional response to a situation. Actually, our situation as a species is grave. We’re seriously messing up our world, and the problem is caring enough — our brains just aren’t well designed, it appears, when it comes to thinking about long-term consequences and the suffering or large numbers of beings.

I have had a vegetarian diet for about 15 years now. I have never felt compelled to become vegan, and I do have to say that I've met more self-righteous vegans than self-righteous vegetarians, but certainly that could just be my experience. In addition, although some would argue differently, I don't think being Buddhist means you must eliminate all meat from your diet. It seems more complicated than that.

I remember reading a chapter in one of herbalist Christopher Hobbs' books about how, after 20 years of not eating meat, he started experimenting with the use of fish oil supplements. He had been experiencing a lot of joint pain, so much so that he was concerned about his long term health. And he discovered that consuming fish oil for short periods of time - a few months each year - his quality of life dramatically increased.

That's just one example. There are plenty of others to consider out there. What do you all think about these issues? For example, what do you make of being vegan? Or are you already one, and can offer your perspective here?

Holding the Bag of Life and Death

*Gustav Klimt "Life and Death" 1916

My father sent me this essay a few days ago about aging, "unwanted" medical miracles, and the challenges of having a family member with a terminal illness that goes on and on. I had to stop reading it the first time through, my eyes wet, sitting in a coffee shop full of strangers. The second time around, I see all the ways in which death flips the switch on every one of us, turning all "conventional" wisdom and behavior on its head.

Here's a short excerpt from the essay:

I don’t like describing what dementia did to my father — and indirectly to my mother — without telling you first that my parents loved each other, and I loved them. That my mother, Valerie, could stain a deck and sew an evening dress from a photo in Vogue and thought of my father as her best friend. That my father had never given up easily on anything.

Born in South Africa, he lost his left arm in World War II, but built floor-to-ceiling bookcases for our living room; earned a Ph.D. from Oxford; coached rugby; and with my two brothers as crew, sailed his beloved Rhodes 19 on Long Island Sound. When I was a child, he woke me, chortling, with his gloss on a verse from “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam”: “Awake, my little one! Before life’s liquor in its cup be dry!” At bedtime he tucked me in, quoting “Hamlet” : “May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!”

Now I would look at him and think of Anton Chekhov, who died of tuberculosis in 1904. “Whenever there is someone in a family who has long been ill, and hopelessly ill,” he wrote, “there come painful moments when all timidly, secretly, at the bottom of their hearts long for his death.” A century later, my mother and I had come to long for the machine in my father’s chest to fail.

Last winter, after what was probably about 10 years of Alzheimer's and a myriad of other issues, my grandfather finally died. I think that, like the woman who wrote the essay, many of us in my family had that similarly odd desire for it all to be over. That last year or so, grandpa had become a young child in an old man's body, barely able to remember the food he'd just finished at dinner. He frequently repeated questions about people who had died twenty or thirty years ago, and wasn't really sure that the house he'd lived in for thirty years was actually his house. He was fond of bright, moving objects and people in the way a toddler is, filled with a curiosity that was matched only by his ability to forget.

Who was this guy anyway? He became, in his final years, a strong, visceral reminder of the lack of a solid, unchanging self and frankly, even as a Buddhist, this was terribly unsettling.

Thanks to advanced medical technologies, elderly people now survive repeated health crises that once killed them, and so the “oldest old” have become the nation’s most rapidly growing age group. Nearly a third of Americans over 85 have dementia (a condition whose prevalence rises in direct relationship to longevity). Half need help with at least one practical, life-sustaining activity, like getting dressed or making breakfast.

My grandfather was 89 when he finally went. The last six or seven years of his life were spent in need of progressively more constant care, primarily from my grandmother. She told my sister once "I hope we go together," but that didn't happen - grandma is still here, experiencing a life alone for the first time in over sixty years.

I can't recall how many "miracles" were performed on my grandfather, but one sunny day a few summers ago, I stood in the center of one of them. Grandpa's blood sugar had dropped to almost nothing and he was barely responding. I was sleeping in the basement of my grandparent's house, only to be woken by the sound of my grandmother screaming out the window, thinking everyone had gone hiking in the nearby hills.

Groggy and confused, I didn't come upstairs until the ambulance arrived in the driveway. Grandma was surprised to see me, said something about grandpa's blood sugar, and then made for the front door.

About fifteen minutes later, Grandma was handed a saline solution bag from one of the paramedics, which they went through some check list with her. She held the bag over my grandfather as the contents slowly dripped into him. I stood next to her, stone silent, with no idea what to do or say.

As they went through the check list, Grandma got more and more animated. "No heroics! None!"

She turned to me at some point and said, "I can't do this any more. Please take the bag."

It was a strange feeling, being handed the very thing that was between Grandpa and death. For a moment, I felt resistance, not wanting such responsibility, but really, there was no place to go.

The whole experience reminds me of Dogen's commentary on the Seventh Precept.

"When the dharma body is manifested, there is not even a single square inch of earth upon which to stand."

Looking down and my grandpa, I thought, "Maybe this is it. We leave for home tomorrow; maybe he's going too."

And then I watched as this bag of clear liquid went into his veins, and within a matter of minutes, he went from death's doorstep to cracking jokes with the medics. It was like a scene from a Monty Python movie, happening in real time, and there I was, right in the middle of it, completely speechless.

What was it that was happening in those moments? What was it to be a man living in a body that had a mind that barely functioned? What was I doing there, holding that bag, reviving someone who couldn't remember I was his grandson?

Even now, I really don't find that any words adequately describe all that was then. In fact, the whole disintegration of my grandfather's memory, and eventually his character (as we knew it), seems like a mystery.

Our minds want to point to that last breath as the moment of death, but there's something about an illness like Alzheimer's that makes such a view feel foolish, even if there is a certain truth to it. If you don't even have a sense of what death is, and how it functions in your life, how will you ever be able to truly die when the time comes to do so?

Can Lifestyles that are Unsustainable be Moral?

Given all the talk lately about the Gulf oil spill, drilling policy, and energy use in general, my new post on Life as a Human seems timely. Here is an excerpt to get you all started:

I look around at my own life. It’s fairly minimalistic as far as lives here in the U.S. go. No TV, no car, few appliances, some home-grown food, mostly organic purchased food, mostly used clothing, lots of recycling and giving to others the things I don’t use.

And yet, I’m still light years ahead in negative environmental impact compared to most of the rest of the individuals in the world. Is even my lifestyle unsustainable? I’d argue, to some degree, yes. And in doing so, I’m not interested in creating a wild guilt complex in myself, or within anyone else reading this.

We have to go deeper than simply talking about what we use or don’t use, or how much money we are going to invest in green jobs and new technologies. In my opinion, it’s really time to question the morality of our economic systems as a whole because they have gone global, for better or worse.

What do you think about this? How do you feel your practice informs how you move through the material world?

A Little Sound byte Dharma For You All

Yes, our lives are often complex. But sometimes, a handful of sound bytes is exactly what we need. Enjoy!

Everyone's Folly: The Eight Worldly Winds

Jeanne over at the Dalai Grandma recently received a short teaching from the Dalai Lama about the Eight Worldly Winds. In her post today she writes the following:

Oddly, the Dalai Lama's subject is called, as in my title above, "The Eight Worldly Concerns," though to my mind there are four concerns, each of which encapsulates wishing not to get its opposite. But when it comes to understanding the human mind, I bow to him. Here they are, more interesting stones that mark the Buddha way:

* wanting to be praised and not wanting to be criticized,
* wanting happiness and not wanting suffering,
* wanting gain and not wanting loss, and
* wanting fame and approval and not wanting rejection and disgrace.

"We all experience these, don't we?" he writes. "Even animals probably have them in some slight measure." Sheba reminds me that dogs' desire for approval is itself a disgrace. Her own ambition is small and appropriate: she wants to be up on the kitchen table while we are eating.

Who among us can claim to be totally immune from these pairs of opposites? If any of you raised your hand, I sentence you to twenty hours of zazen, followed by a long look in the mirror at yourself!

A lot can, and has been said about the Eight. What I'd like to add this morning is this: the very thing you fear might actually be exactly what's needed.

For example, being a political animal whose views are rarely mainstream, I have had to learn how to handle ample amounts of rejection, criticism, and yes, even some lost connections with people. However, what's interesting about it is that seeing the world as I have had provided me with an almost endless opportunity to live with the impermanence of views and reputation. One minute, I'm a good friend. The next I'm some crazy guy who isn't supporting "the cause." Then, sometime later, what I stood for is considered right and all is forgiven. Or I was completely wrong, but all is forgotten.

Fifteen years ago, when I was a young adult who refused to own a car and who bicycled most of the year, the vast majority of people thought I was either ridiculous, rebellious, quaint, or kind of foolish. Now, a lot of people think these practices are cool and hip. What I'm doing is still the same, but the winds have changed.

In her post, Jeanne brings up the NY Times list of 20 fiction writers under 40 "worth watching," then speaks about all those thousands of others out there who want to be on that list. When I was younger, a part of me wanted to be on such lists for poetry. Or for essay writing. Maybe even a novel or two. But the idea of being a famous anything does nothing for me now. I want to be published, sure, but it's really more about providing something that benefits others in some way or another that motivates me now.

When you look at the struggles most of have with these Eight "winds," so much of it is tied to believing that whatever we are experiencing is both permanent and representative of who we are. Am I that crazy biker or a cool and hip cat? Neither, really. So wanting one, and not wanting the other, is kind of foolish, don't you think?