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.

You Haven't Loved the World Enough to Let it Go

I saw an article about the recent spill in Arkansas this morning with photos of oil covered birds in it. Every time I see oil covered birds, I think of the Exxon Valdez. Pictures of oil soaked, choking birds from that spill turned me into an environmentalist. At age 13. And I never turned back.

Last year, there were 364 oil pipeline spills in the US alone. One a day, and that's only the reported ones. It's been normalized, the destruction of the planet in the name of profit and human fuel "needs." Most of us don't even blink anymore at photos like the one above. Oh, the poor birds. A twinge of pain before you get into your car to drive somewhere, anywhere away from thinking too hard about what photos like this really mean.

People who have lived through the devastating effects of oils spills tend to be more awake. Perhaps I should just hope for a doubling, tripling of spills. Maybe then there will be a mass ready to break the cycles of addiction and greed that have driven us to this place we call modern, American life. This blip in the historical record that has done more damage than anything else humans have done since our beginning.

I don't find a hell of a lot of solace amongst Buddhist circles either. The teachings may help me relax my outrage and concern a bit, but beyond that, it's just something I get to struggle with. We get to struggle with. Because this is our collective grief. Seeing bees and monarchs disappear so rapidly it's hard to even imagine. Recognizing that the water is poisoned to undrinkability in places all over the world, even large numbers of communities in a supposed "First World" nation like the U.S. Watching the learned helplessness of the majority of people who have been indoctrinated that this way of living is the "most evolved, never mind it's flaws," and who can't imagine an alternative worth making the effort to build. Recognizing that Buddhism can be just as much of an "opiate" or escape as any other religion or spiritual program. That humans are as much an invasive species gobbling up everything in our wake as we are interdependent, loving and compassionate. That some of us place 100 fold the amount of time and energy on fighting for the rights of unborn babies as we do on taking care of the planet. Which is ourselves.

I do believe that Buddha's wisdom eventually points to a certain letting go of all worries and attachments to the planet. While at the same time loving it completely, moment after moment. That seems to be the paradox that he taught, from what I can tell.

And yet, I think that most of us on the path short circuit the whole works. I've been lectured in the comments section a fair number of times by folks who claim some sort of calm detachment around social and environmental issues. That such concerns are simply trouble, and not particularly helpful in "waking up." To these folks, I'll say this:

You haven't loved the world enough to let it go. I see your words online. I hear your words in person. The many of you, those I've met and those I haven't. And frankly, you sound like disembodied liars. Perhaps you've realized something I'm still figuring out, but I seriously doubt you've touched the suffering of an oil soaked pelican. Have had your hands in the soil year after year after year, learning it's rhythms and recognizing both it's amazing resilience and also it's amazing fragility. I doubt your zazen has opened to the pit of nuclear energy and the countless grief producing realities that it represents. I doubt you've swallowed whole the life and death of the wolves being killed by sport hunters all over the Midwest. I doubt that you truly know from what and where you came from. Your original face if you will.

You are a small minority though. For the most part, what I see amongst my fellow practitioners is more benign looking. A lack of applying the teachings to how we live on the planet (beyond things like recycling that is.) Or an overall attitude that Buddhism is an individual path, and that what it's mostly about is how we deal with our individual emotions and thoughts. That it's something which happens mostly on our cushions, in pristine looking buildings far away from the mud of an early spring rain, or the toxic sledge from an overturned oil tanker. In a certain way, this it true. Our path is each of us alone. And yet it's not complete. This way of thinking that pervades the minds of privileged practitioners. Those who haven't had their lives totally altered or destroyed by environmental racism, for example, or simply by taking in the suffering of our planet deep to their core, to the point where there's no distinction - the suffering within and suffering outside of self.

To you all, my dharma brothers and sisters, I say: expand your view. Stop turning away. Be the grief that lingers within you. Let the outrage burn through you until it transforms into beneficial action.

I am not immune. I speak fiercely now, but sometimes it's all too much. I, too, am as cloudy about what to do next as I am full of ideas. There are times when I give in to convenience at times when doing so is really unnecessary. I feel like I have more work to do when it comes to intimacy with this miraculous place we call home.

I know in my heart that I have not loved this world enough to let it go in a truly liberated fashion. I would like to believe that Buddhas do not let go of their fierce compassion for all things living just because they've let go of being attached to all things living, including themselves. That the historical Buddha's numerous caring actions towards others post-enlightenment weren't just symbolic gestures on his way out of here forever. That the countless Buddhist poets and artists who have taken the natural world as their central source of inspiration and wisdom throughout the centuries weren't just using it all to get enlightened and get out. That this path is as vitally pagan as any indigenous spirituality if you look hard enough, and stop trying strip away everything that you can't explain as superstition or "cultural baggage."

When a bird is covered in oil, it's life is drasticallyaltered, sometimes forever. We are living in times where any of us can become that bird. Where the ways of living we accept as normal, even enlightened, are forms of oil themselves. Coating our wings. Destroying our hearts.

But we don't have to keep drowning. Either the birds or ourselves. It's time to learn how to love the world enough to truly let it go. This is my path. Come join me.

Zen of the Earth

This morning, I gave my first Sunday morning talk at my home sangha, Clouds in Water Zen Center. When I was asked about six weeks ago if I'd consider speaking, it didn't take long for me to answer. The time felt right to step forth and offer something to the community. Of course, I have been heavily involved in other aspects of the sangha, including board leadership for half a decade now. But offering a teaching from what you have learned, however small an offering, is something different. And a humbling experience, if you have right relationship with it.

I chose too focus on the Earth. How the Buddha's story and so many of the teachings are all inclusive, endlessly reminding us to move past our human-centric obsessions. Buddha's awakening experience is entirely located in nature, his enlightenment confirmed and upheld by Earth itself. Modern Buddhism, especially convert practice, tends to de-emphasize the Earth and its creatures. In that way, although we are going against the grain by slowing down, listening deeply, and learning to let go of our numerous attachments, there's also an element of going along with the dominant culture as well. Namely, in echoing that cut off sense when it comes to our intimate relationship with the planet.

You can listen to and download the talk here.

I would like to add a few points that came out during the discussion following the talk. Multiple people spoke of their relationship to the media, and how important it has been for them to reduce or watch their intake of news. That sometimes, adding more stories about the awfulness present in the world is basically poisoning yourself. Creating an internal flood of overwhelm that destroys any ability to make changes and act beneficially.

Another issue that came up was how to practice meditation outside. One member said she sometimes gets distracted when sitting outside. I offered that it's always good to experiment with different approaches. Our head teacher suggested she try to open all of her sense gates. To just experience taking in everything through her eyes, ears, nose, etc. And I added that she could focus on one at a time, spending 5 minutes fully listening, and then moving on to another sense.

And finally, I gave some more information about the Whealthy Human Village Project, which I wrote about in this post.

May you enjoy the rest of this fine Sunday!

Beware of the Consumer Driven Mentality

This Yoga Journal article has some interesting stuff in it. I've always liked the idea of envisioning yourself as already awakened, and doing things in your daily life from that place. However, I'd like to take up the following paragraph to consider a little more closely.

This all-or-nothing notion of enlightenment is deeply rooted, and insidious. I often get questions from students who experience an expansion of consciousness and then worry, "But if I keep doing this, will I have to give up my family? Will I lose my personality?" If we think pursuing high states of consciousness means giving up other aspects of life, it won't seem like an attractive option. On the flip side, we may be attracted to the idea of enlightenment yet imagine it to be a way of bypassing ordinary challenges and irritations, and then we may get discouraged if we don't experience an immediate transformation, or get frustrated when we aren't lifted miraculously beyond the everyday demands of work and family relationships.

While I agree with the insidiousness of that all-or-nothing view many folks have around enlightenment, I find the downplaying of renunciation troubling. Although I think Sally Kempton is mostly pointing to not having to give up your most important relationships, or all your possessions, it's really easy to mistake that caution for a declaration that we can basically have it all. It takes effort to break through the consumer driven mentality so many of us are surrounded by and internalized, and as such, it's important for writers and spiritual teachers to take that mentality head on, to assume that it may still be present in the audience members, be they serious students or simply interested parties.

The way I see it, even if you maintain certain relationships, careers, and whatnot, the more committed you become to living a spiritual path, the more likely it is that you'll shed parts of your life that once might have been cherished. In other words, renunciation - either deliberately or more naturally unfolding, will be a part of your life, and it's important to figure out ways to speak about that without sounding dour and/or severe.

When I look at my own life, there are definitely things that have diminished or disappeared completely. And while some of these changes are normal shifts that can happen to anyone, some it is clearly a result of spiritual commitment. Entertainment, like music concerts and sporting events, play a much less central role in my life these days. Friends that were once central figures in my life are no longer so. I don't watch TV anymore; I go shopping much less than I did in the past. I used to be fairly obsessed with "looking good," and more recently appearing "Zen-like" - neither of which have such a major hold on me anymore.

However, more than any of that, I believe that commitment to a spiritual path often leads to a slow abandonment of selfishness and self-cherishing. That is, if you learn to be honest with yourself, and apply the teachings you're studying in a deliberate, sometimes ruthless manner on a consistent basis.

There are other ways you could read Kempton's paragraph above, I simply wanted to highlight what I feel is a commonplace lack of challenging the basic, collective conditioning that hinders so many of us. Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments below.

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?"

Fully Enlightened Dharma Heir Required for Establishment of "Western" Buddhism: Film at Eleven

I enjoyed writing that piece on clothing and naked buddhas this morning, but when I looked at it again this evening, it felt a bit too metaphoric. So, I took it down for now. Maybe it will reappear again, but in the meantime, here's a big bone for everyone to chew on, courtesy of today's Tricycle blog:

In Tricycle’s most recent issue there is a piece titled “It Takes a Saint.” In this piece, Tai Situpa Rinpoche shares his beliefs on what it will take for Buddhism to become truly established in the West. He writes,

“I’ll make it simple: One Western person must attain full enlightenment in the same way as Marpa, Milarepa, or Padmasambhava. If one Westerner—man or woman, doesn’t matter—attains that level of realization, then pure dharma will be established in Western culture, Western language, and environment, and so forth. Until that time, dharma can be taught in the West, which is already happening; it can be practiced in the West, which is already happening; and it can be recited in Western languages. But it’s not yet one hundred percent complete.”

Read the whole piece here.

For me, it was love at first sight with this article. I remember reading it for the first time and holding back the urge to cheer while reading certain passages (particularly when Tai Situpa speaks of what would happen if such a Mahasiddha rose above New York City while singing the perfect dharma song for New Yorkers). Yet before long I realized that what was striking me so deeply was not necessarily what he was saying, but where the piece was taking me in my mind—to a West where the Dharma was utterly thriving. THAT is what had me on the verge of joyful cheers. Once I noticed this, I began to question his main point and I realized that while I don’t necessarily disagree, I don’t necessarily agree either. I’m not sure what the answer to the question is.

The writer of the post goes on to interview a few people he knows, asking them what they thought. One said the dharma is established, but just young. Another felt we needed a strong monastic tradition before any claims of established dharma can be made. Neither answer does much for me, but this "established/not established" argument does bring up a question for me. What is behind these kinds of discussions anyway? Are people trying to measure up? Too focused on what has fruited, and not enough on all the seeds being planted? I guess I don't know for sure, but before long - maybe 50 or 100 years - this kind of talk will be history. And then what? Maybe there will be a different issue to deal with - like an "established" dinosaur that doesn't attract anyone's attention.

I personally rather enjoy this somewhat unsettled, often experimental, and sometimes confused thing called Buddhism here in North America. Where else could you have a 100 year old + Buddhist organization be considered both "youthful" and open to major changes? Among other things, said organization, the Buddhist Churches of America, has had an ongoing debate about adding practices like sitting meditation that appeal to non-Japanese practitioners. Now, similar debates and changes are being made in sanghas in places like Thailand, but the difference is that in the United States, the traditional practices aren't really that old. And if you look at the oldest groups, be it the BCA or a place like San Francisco Zen Center, major changes and shifts in emphasis have been more normal than long periods of consistency.

And although it can certainly be a source of confusion, conflict, and sloppy dharma, I have to say that living in the middle of such a flux is pretty damned interesting. Whether or not a viable practice called Buddhism has been established, I'll let the philosophers decide that issue. How about you?

*painting by Rene Magritte