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.

Will Humans Disappear in 100 Years?

A few years ago, there was a provocative interview with Thich Nhat Hanh in the environmentalist magazine The Ecologist. He raised a lot of issues related to the state of the planet, from the importance of intentional communities to the potential value of having a vegetarian diet.

Today, though, I would like to consider the following:

According to the Buddhist tradition there is no birth and no death. After extinction things will appear in other forms, so you have to breathe very deeply in order to acknowledge the fact that we humans may disappear in just 100 years on earth. You have to learn how to accept that hard fact. You should not be overwhelmed by despair. The solution is to learn how to touch eternity in the present moment. We have been talking about the environment as if it is something different from us, but we are the environment. The non-human elements are our environment, but we are the environment of non-human elements, so we are one with the environment. We are the environment. We are the earth and the earth has the capacity to restore balance and sometimes many species have to disappear for the balance restored.

When I consider the state of things these days, I watch my mind swing back and forth between optimism and pessimism. That's what human minds tend to do, so it's no surprise.

I have dedicated myself to doing what I can to serve the planet. To be part of the life giving, life supporting, life defending element here. Not just human life, but all of it. The whole works. Sometimes, there is direct activism, sometimes I live in contemplation and meditation.

The weaving together of all this in a body/mind. That's what's going on.

At the same time, maybe we as a species won't make it. Maybe we aren't meant to make it. Species have come and gone on this rock for millions of years, so really, we aren't that special.

This little, blue rock is one of millions and millions of rocks, stars, specks of dust.

We haven't a bloody clue how big it all is, nor how tiny we really are.

A major evolution in collective consciousness is needed for survival. That's about all I know these days. Some predict it's on the way or already happening, while others think we're stuck, doomed creatures.

I don't know. I try to love and breathe it all in and let it all flow out as best as I can.

Our little, human battles sometimes need caring for, but in 100 years, how many of them will matter at all? How much of any of it will be remembered? Or remembered in an even remotely accurate way?

What seems to last are currents of energy in certain directions. Some contracting and destructive. Some life building and expansive.

I think our job is to care for each other, and not get stuck.

More of that, whether we make it as a species or not.

Bows to you all.

Seizing the Seasons: On Identity and Zen Effort

There is no I and there is no other.
How can there be intimacy or estrangement?
I recommend giving up trying to get there by meditation,
But rather, directly seizing the reality at hand.
The message of the Diamond Sutra is:
Nothing is excluded from our experienced world.
From beginning to end,
It inevitably exposes our false identities.

Layman P'ang (740-808)

This is quite a jolt of a poem, don't you think? This whole "exposure" process is interesting. Natural. How every spring, the snow melts away and reveals both a round of casualties and, also, a round of new life. Body of a squirrel. Barren tree. Rotting couch cushion. Tulip blooming. Burst of bee balm. Newborn robin. Shiny bicycle.

How every autumn the trees go bare, the grass goes brown, the wild growth of summer goes underground.

Natural, and yet how often are we simply afraid of being exposed. Of undergoing this expanding into view, and/or stripping away?

Spring comes to our identities. And so does winter. I once taught in English classrooms; now I do not. I once was afraid of public speaking; now I do it all the time.

But being in this movement between the seasons is easier said than done. Especially given how our mass culture tends to highly discourage such flow. And how so many of us are disconnected from the actual seasons themselves, the planetary ebbs and flows happening all around us.

This fierce call to "seize" from Layman P'ang, to me, is a reminder of that disconnection. How our minds figure out so many ways to impede our life from bursting forth completely. And because of this, there's a need for strong effort. For rousing up a willingness to be exposed again and again.

It seems to me that we have the option to be proactive, deliberately choosing to explore our various identities and ways of being in the world, or to be dragged by the world screaming and kicking into such work. Either through bottoming out experiences, or at the end of our lives, when there's no time left to live out the insights.

I invite you all to reaffirm your commitment to being more proactive. To reconcile with the seasons - inwardly and outside of yourself.

Today, I embrace late autumn, with all its cloudy, cold winds, sweeping away whatever needs to go.