Seeking Peace

There's nothing that does not grow light
through habit and familiarity,
putting up with little cares,
I'll train myself to bear with great adversity.

I chanted these lines from Shantideva daily for about four years, and still bring up them up from time to time.

Those "little cares" that arrive in our lives have the ability to muck things up greatly, if we can't meet them as they are in the moment. The pain in your back, for example, easily can lead to tension, and then irritation, and then angry acting out of some kind. So it often goes.

Many people come to Buddhism seeking relief from all of this. Seeking something they call "peace" and "calm." But how many of us really understand what peace and calm actually are?

It's easy to mistake a kind of relaxed dullness for peace and calm. Some think things like television, video games, comfort eating or drinking, and other such commonplace activities will bring them peace and calm. Others reject such notions, and try to avoid those activities all together, thinking that a certain "purity" will bring peace and calm. Of course, neither way "works."

I had a period of the latter during my early years of Zen practice. In some ways, I think the extreme of cutting out and avoiding all together many commonplace activities was helpful. A form of renunciation needed to gain clarity. However, it wasn't true renunciation, because I was still attached to "not doing" those activities. My identity of being a Zen student seemed tied to it in some ways in fact. Not eating meat. Not watching TV. Not drinking a drop of alcohol for a period. Never playing video games and similar "distractions."

Avoidance based renunciation is useful for breaking old habits, however in the end, it becomes a cage. It also ends up being a way to stall or push away the little cares of life. You can hide out in your meditation practice. Hide out in your view that you are a "good Zen student." And you can rationalize away whatever problems that arise, blaming others or dismissing them as not existing at all.

Those who are mostly lost in comforts and dullness, and those who live in ivory Zen towers, are easily thrown off balance when adversity arises. And this is often when learning to "put up" with little cares can slowly lead one to the peace and calm that is our birthright.

Boko Haram, the 969 Movement, and Owning the Evil Humans Produce

After posting an article dissecting the current responses to the Boko Haram kidnappings in Nigeria, and the ongoing imperialist agenda in Africa by the US and NATO allies, a friend of mine left a comment on my Facebook page that included the following lines:

"These men aren't Muslims. Let's be clear on this."

I started writing a response to her, but then realized it was getting long, so I'll offer it here as a blog post instead.

There has been a similar debate amongst Buddhists around the globe in response to the hatred driven violence of a group in Burma called the 969 Movement. I wrote this article last summer, and it's gotten worse over there since then, as the movement's influence has spread.

While I think these folks have gone off the rail, and have completely distorted Buddhist teachings to support their agenda, they're still Buddhists. Saying they aren't not only erases their identity, but also allows a false sense of separation from the evil they're producing.

So many Buddhists can't imagine that their religion/spiritual path could be so horribly co-opted and used to justify horrific actions and hatred, but this is only the most current example of a long history of such behavior in different nations. I think it's better to own all of this, recognize that nothing is beyond corruption, and join public calls to clean house. It's a subtle distinction perhaps. I want what the 969 Movement is doing to end, and those who won't stop to be stopped, even if it means they're disrobed, jailed, and tossed out of the Buddhist order (many of the leaders are monks). The difference is the starting point for me is their chosen identity, one which has often been lifelong, however wrong they've gone. What drove these Buddhist people to join this movement and believe the leaders of it? Why are they now turning on neighbors they've lived peacefully with for decades? These are the kinds of questions I have asked.

While I readily agree that the men in Boko Haram do not at all represent what Islam is about, I disagree that they are not Muslims. Especially if they have spent much or all of their lives as Muslims, and haven't just converted to join the fight. Which doesn't seem to be the pattern here. One of the biggest challenges is that this is so much more about poverty, human exploitation, sexism, fallout from colonialism, and fossil fuel power games than about religion. Many of the perpetrators were/are also victims of the elites in control of Boko Haram, and those dying and suffering from their actions are a cross section of Christians, Muslims, and folks with other backgrounds. Instead of saying they aren't Muslim, I ask "What drives these young Muslim men to join this group, and become murderers and oppressors? In addition to calls for this ending, how can we in the world community help diminish the likelihood of this happening again?

It may seem like semantics here, but I actually think it's crucial that these kinds of situations do not be treated as the actions of some small, evil "other." They are us, these folks who perpetrate the worst of atrocities in the name of whatever religion or philosophy they claim supports their actions. Nothing, however sacred and life-giving it may be, is beyond the realm of corruption and co-option. Owning up to this, and claiming the people who act so horribly as part of our communities, is the path towards peace and liberation.

Veteran's Day: Another Abstract American Holiday

This "holiday" today originally was called Armistice Day, marking the end of the hell that was World War I. After at least 20 million deaths, and entire nations left in rubble, it was supposed to be a reminder of the call "Never again!" from survivors. Including many leaders of the day. It wasn't about abstractions like "heroism," "freedom," "patriotism," or even "service." It was about remembering the millions of humans murdered in a conflict that WWI veteran Harry Patch described in these terms "if you boil it down, what was it? Nothing but a family row. That’s what caused it." Even though the nature of Armistice Day shifted quickly towards honoring military veterans, I choose to honor the original spirit. The end of war. The weariness of ever going there again. The desire for peace to remain, however fragile it may be. I think it says a lot about a country, what it's people choose to honor and celebrate. We're entirely too fond of celebrating war and those who participate in it, colonialist notions of "freedom," genocidal "heroes" like Columbus, and events tied to the colonizer form of Christianity. And the major holidays like Valentine's Day and Halloween, which aren't intimately tied to those narratives, are driven by consumerism. Regardless of what good folks make out of all this, it says a lot about how the U.S. is in the world, and where our collective energies are still going to in large degree. And so, in honoring the original spirit of Armistice Day, I call out to that place in each of us that is peace incarnate. That recognizes kinship with all beings, across arbitrary lines and divisions of any kind. What a day like this truly should honor, so that we might all come back to ourselves, put an end the petty battles and greed driven land grabs before they put an end to us.

Peace Isn't What We Tend To Think It Is

Photo credit: krosseel from morguefile.com

There's nothing that does not grow light
through habit and familiarity,
putting up with little cares,
I'll train myself to bear with great adversity.

I've been working with these lines from Shantideva's Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life for many years now. In order to keep them with me daily, I chant them silently to myself as I brush my teeth every night before bed.

Sitting here now, I can see where this teaching is a gateway into an utter calm and peace. All of those "little cares" that arrive in our lives have the ability to muck things up greatly, if we can't meet them as they are in the moment. Meeting them, however, isn't mere acceptance or some kind of resignation. It's not putting up with; it's allowing flow. Accepting what is in one breath, and then doing what you're called to do in the next.

In the cycle of samsara, the pain in your back during meditation, for example, can easily lead to tension, and then irritation, and then some kind of acting out. A few nasty words from some passerby on the street can easily lead to your own shouting, an escalation of conflict, and in some sad cases, violence and even death.

Many people come to Buddhism seeking calm and peace, but don't really understand what calm and peace actually are. And so whenever something disrupts what we've deemed to be calm and peace, we get upset and our lives are overturned.

I used to meditate like mad, associating calm with boredom, and thinking zazen was kind of an endurance contest I had to win somehow. Seems to me the "peace" I sought was otherworldly, some hyper chill state that couldn't possibly be located in the middle of this chaotic, suffering filled world.

In this, there was no room for the world to fully enter, to be "confirmed by the ten thousand things" as Dogen once said.

Things "growing light" does not depend upon outer conditions. As a social activist, I seek a more just, eco-centric, and peaceful world. However, if I get too attached to whatever is "lacking" now, or whatever vision I have for "the future," the flow of fully living stops. And the synergy of accepting what is and taking the next called for step can't happen.

Zen Master Dogen and the Crisis in Syria

It’s been a very interesting few days of developments in the crisis in Syria. The Syrian government agreed to a Russian proposal to hand over its chemical weapons and sign the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons treaty, which currently has 189 signatures on it. President Obama and his administration continue to press the case for military intervention, even as the diplomatic front has opened up. And recent polls suggesting a clear majority of Americans still oppose military action have been followed up by anti-war demonstrations all over the U.S., including here in the Twin Cities.

Reporting on the civil war in Syria tends to divide the conflict into two groups: the government-led military against an armed opposition composed of a mixture of grassroots Syrian groups and foreign “insurgents” from various terrorist organizations in the region. This fairly tidy, simplistic picture has actually been one of the reasons why so many Americans oppose military intervention. While plenty of folks truly reject warfare and military policing as a way to deal with international conflicts, others are driven more by a desire to avoid supporting either side, feeling that the choice between supporting the Assad government or a group of “terrorists” or “Islamic extremists” isn’t a choice they want to make.

Lost in all of this is the fact that the resistance movement started as a non-violent one, became violent in part because of U.S. arming of the rebel groups, and that non-violent efforts continue in Syria alongside the armed conflicts. When I wrote last week that Americans have a “crisis of the imagination,” this is a part of that. Odds are, if you polled the populace here, very few would even consider that non-violent resistance exists in Syria, or that it was the driving force early on in the conflict. This is the case, even though they were probably exposed to some news reports of the movement back in 2011. There are a variety of reasons for this, including Anti-Islamic sentiment and stereotyping, mainstream media coverage fixated on violence, and a general lack of awareness of the history and prevalence of non-violent resistance worldwide.

What would have happened if the U.S. and other nations had found ways to support the non-violent resistance movement back in 2011 that didn’t involve weapons? What if the international powerhouses put all of energy into an all out public campaign supporting non-violent resistance, encouraging their populations to help finance, document, and send prayer and meditation energy to the Syrians on the ground?

You can read the rest of the post here.

On the 10th Anniversary of the Iraq War

In honor of the 10th anniversary of the Iraq war, I offer this post from nearly 4 years ago. This was back when a small piece of me was still "giving Obama and the Dems" a chance to prove that they indeed wanted something different than the military industrial complex we are built on here in the U.S. That small piece of me is long dead, and truly it was only an olive branch to my liberal friends and family who wanted to believe. While most of the troops have been removed from Iraq, the fighting goes on in Afghanistan. U.S. sponsored Drone warfare is ever increasing in other nations. Our "justice" system is more likely to imprison and torture whistle blowers like Bradley Manning than the leaders that drive our foreign policy, and justify murder and environmental destruction with whatever flimsy bullshit they can come up with. Those of us who actively oppose war are more likely to be considered threats to the nation than those profiting off of death or those authorizing the draining of social safety nets to feed the war machine.

Democrats. Republicans. Little or no difference when it comes to war. Nor big oil and energy policy, it seems.

We live in an age of false polarization, fueled by ignorance, fear and hatred. The greed that drives our nation's government and economy is so obvious now, and yet still missed by so many. What will it take for folks to wake up?

The post below is riddled with questions. I don't really know what it will take to truly bring a lasting peace to the world. Or at least a lot less war than we have now. Sometimes, I think that this is just the way our world is. A plane of existence fraught with difficulties and suffering - offering each of us a chance to experience that and move on. Whatever is the case, I have no interest in giving up dream of a more just and peaceful world for us all. Whether such a world is possible or not is mere speculation. That's the same way I view the Bodhisattva precepts as well.

Supporting War as a Buddhist?

In recent days, President Obama and his defense department team have made proposals to increase troop levels in Afghanistan and to add another $83 billion dollars in "special" funding to an already huge defense budget. This, at a time when the U.S. economy is in shambles, job losses at a thirty year high, and nearly 50 million Americans (including myself) are without health insurance. The shift in focus from Iraq to Afghanistan (again), as well as the increase in war spending, is justified as necessary in the "fight against al-Qaeda." Is it just me, or does none of this seem to add up?

I'm well aware that many Buddhists, along with millions of other excited Americans, cheered and went wild when Barack Obama won the 2008 Presidential election. And it was, indeed, a historic moment, and hopefully, in terms of race relations, another turning point in the long struggle for equality, dignity, and respect that people of color and their allies have worked so long to achieve. In addition to that, all the talk and desires of that election squarely sat on the shoulders of change. And I think in many minds, not tiny changes, but real, substantive change.

I feel it's important for me to disclose that I voted for the Green Party ticket because I continue to greatly question the politics and decisions of both the Democrats and Republicans. And yet, even I was relieved that Obama won, hoping that his win would eventually signal a shift away from the war madness, oppressive domestic policies, and sometimes wildly delusional tactics of the Bush Administration.

Given this, the calls for large sums of money and troops to go into a country (Afghanistan) which has suffered thirty years of nearly continuous warfare strikes me as not only sad, but downright inhumane. Never mind that some of the funds are going for humanitarian aid, how is devastating an already crippled nation and then handing out some food and clothing a compassionate answer to what's going on there? It frankly inexcusable to continue to use the September 11th attacks, and the hunt for a scattered band of terrorists (who may or may not be members of al-Qaeda), as an excuse to invade other nations, murder civilians, and destroy infrastructure and ecosystems.

External wars represent the worst manifestation of the internal wars we have within each of us. The deep belief in separation, which plagues most of us (even those of us who are steeped in Buddha's teachings of interconnectedness), is the driving force behind the hatred and fear that spirals into killing and war in the world.

What then should be done in Afghanistan and Iraq exactly? And how do we address terrorism? I don't think there are any easy answers to these questions, and yet, continuing to fight massive scale wars in the name of creating peace is like repeatedly sticking your hand in a fire and believing that one of these times, it won't be burned.

The escalation of the war in Afghanistan, as well as air strikes in Pakistan, is a call to Buddhists and all Americans who voted for President Obama to reflect on what they really wanted when they made that decision. Even if you were aware that Obama's plans all along included some kind of increased presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, how do these decisions feel to you now knowing that our nation is in a deep recession? And how do these decisions mesh with your desire for a major change from the Bush Administration? How is fighting wars in the name of destroying terrorists any different from fighting wars against communism and communists? And of what value are teachings like the first precept of vowing not to kill, or the Bodhisattva vow to free all beings if one also supports massive war operations in other nations? In other words, can you really liberate anyone through large scale destruction?

I personally would love to be in an age where the United States is known as a nation of peace, and model of non-violent conflict resolution. But knowing this will take a very long time, if it ever happens at all, it seems reasonable to at least stand tall against state sanctioned warfare and do my best to learn about and promote other ways of thinking and acting. And even for those out there that support some military interventions, doesn't it seem insane to be increasing military spending at a time like this with all of our economic problems? Or isn't questionable to be escalating a war in a nation that fought off the old Soviet army, and fought off the British years before that?

May we all discover a way to true peace in this world.

Seeking Peace and Calm

There's nothing that does not grow light
through habit and familiarity,
putting up with little cares,
I'll train myself to bear with great adversity.

I've been working with these lines from Shantidevafor about four years now. In order to keep them with me daily, I chant them silently to myself as I brush my teeth every night before bed (for the most part).

Those "little cares" that arrive in our lives have the ability to muck things up greatly, if we can't meet them as they are in the moment. The pain in your back, for example, easily can lead to tension, and then irritation, and then angry acting out of some kind. So it often goes.

Many people come to Buddhism seeking relief from all of this. Seeking something they call peace and calm. But how many of us really understand what calm and peace actually are? It's easy to mistake "relaxed dullness" found through things like television, drinking, eating, and other such commonplace activities, as peace and calm. In fact, such dullness can become so pervasive in your life that you fail to notice the presence of actual calm and actual peace.

I used to meditate like mad, trying to break through the dullness, thinking zazen was kind of an endurance contest I had to win somehow. In this, there was no room for the world to fully enter, no room for the peace and calm that comes when being "confirmed by the ten thousand things" as Dogen once said.

Buddhist Anger and Conflict

Arun posted an excellent commentary by another Buddhist writer, Dolma, on his blog recently. It takes up the sticky issue of anger, in particular the ways in which Buddhists are stereotyped. Let's consider the following selection:

many individuals, whether they have any knowledge of Buddhism or not, seem to be comfortable with hushing a Buddhist critique. A patronising “calm down,” some poorly recited Sutras, and a “Well, I’ve read Siddhartha.” That’s what we get. Fantastic.

These dismissals truly stem from Orientalist ideologies. Asians are perceived as submissive and obedient, and therefore, adherents to an Asian religion must contain themselves in a similar manner. This is where my anger truly stems from, which is why I feel disheartened when my fellow Buddhists suggest that I’m overreacting. I always welcome discussion on religion, theology and spirituality. However these situations are not respectful engagements, they’re the layering of weary prejudices that are inherently violent. They’re disrespectful to my religion, ethnic community, and to my identity as a whole. In his teachings on anger, the Buddha encouraged us to avoid harmful speech, and to apply lovingkindness where there is anger.

It's important to note that the "positive" stereotyping of Buddhists as "always calm and peaceful" is probably as harmful as the "negative" stereotyping of Buddhists (especially Asian and Asian-American Buddhists) as passive and submissive. I can't tell you how many times I have been praised for my relative calm and ability to act in non-violent manners, and then have that linked to the idea that Buddhists never get angry anyway. It's sometimes subtle. Beginning with sincere respect and appreciation, but then swerving, for example, into muddled thoughts about what "Zen" is. Sometimes, though, it's absolutely not subtle. I get upset. Or speak in a somewhat raised voice about some issue I'm passionate about, and there's shock and confusion.

What's interesting is that over the years, I have ingested just enough of the stereotyping and pressures to conform that I probably don't express anger enough. Although actually, when I think about it, for me it's less about "anger" and more about variations on the theme that get suppressed. I don't consider myself someone who is filled with repressed anger. However, I am a man who is quite passionate about numerous issues, and who feels - sometimes intensely - the suffering of the world. The various oppressions. The injustices. And all of it pisses me off sometimes, and frankly, I think that's a good thing.

Beyond all of that, though, there's the issue of conflict. Because honestly, what people label as anger or angry is often really about the way they experience conflict with others. Something said feels fierce. Or stirs up some old wound or grief. And suddenly the label "anger" comes forth to the rescue. that's it. It's anger. The problem is that sometimes, it's not anger. And even if it is, so what? It's another human expression, one that need not control us or destroy is - and yet, so often ends up doing just that.

Going back to Dolma's post, I recall a conversation over the summer with a Christian guy who was certain Buddhists couldn't do the "hard work" of social activism. That Buddhists "are too passive and individualistically focused" to ever help bring about any significant social change. The levels of obnoxiousness in that conversation went through the roof at times. I spoke about my own experiences and involvements over the years, and the ways in which Buddhist teachings deeply informed that work. I spoke about social movements around the world designed by, and led by, Buddhists of all different backgrounds. None of it seemed to break through. At the end of the conversation, he stuck by his initial assertion that Buddhism is mostly about "individual peace," something he had a vague respect for, but which really didn't register as that valuable in terms of dealing with the big social issues of the day.

Ironically, the similar kinds of commentaries have come from folks within our sanghas as well. And from members of the worldwide online sangha as well.

And yet, the issues with anger and Buddhists are much larger than that which stems from social issues. I have witnessed interpersonal conflicts in my own Zen community that lingered on for weeks, months, perhaps years in some cases, in part - in my opinion - due to the ways in which the stereotypes around what a "good Zen student" is and isn't have saturated our community culture. As one of the sangha's leaders, I have often struggled with how strong and fiercely to present certain ideas I have out of a knowing that we sometimes collectively collapse around conflict.

One of the mistakes that gets made in my opinion is that strong, fierce, and even passionate presentations of views and ideas gets immediately linked to a deep, problematic attachment. Over the weekend, we had a board retreat during which I spoke quite candidly about wanting to keep our sangha in an "urban" environment. Desiring diversity and community engagement, as well as seeing ways in which "deep practice" can be done regardless of "where" one is located, I felt compelled to advocate for staying in the city. At points during that discussion, I kind of wondered if some might have mistook my passion for problematic attachment. Maybe not. I honestly don't know. Part of the reason I kept pushing in the first place was to help unearth what I believe are some unspoken differences about sangha lying beneath the general sense of agreement and consensus we tend to have as a board. And yet, this kind of purposeful, deliberate moving towards conflict could have been felt threatening or troubling because of how intimate conflict seems to be linked with "bad" or "not Zen-like."

Dolma sites the application of lovingkindness when anger arises. Yet, if we are constantly striving to be "perfect little serene Buddhas" within our Buddhist sanghas, how will we learn how to apply that lovingkindness? In all honesty, I have learned more about applying lovingkindness outside of Zen center in the face of anger - others and my own - than within. And sometimes, it's been quite a rough ride exploring different ways to be with and express anger with the teachings in mind. Lay Buddhist communities might need to consider ways they can set up deliberate "laboratories of anger" to help students practice dealing with anger in a safer, more contained setting.

Overall, the way many Westerners view Zen - insiders and outsiders - is broken down into a limited binary. On the one hand, you have the calm, serene monk meditating, studying texts, and perhaps washing some dishes and chopping wood. On the other hand, you have the koan caricatures of Zen teachers making dramatic, sometimes physically violent movements or short bursts of "enlightened" speech. What about all the territory in between? Stories about the abuses under samurai culture, for example, sometimes get referenced and offered as warnings by people who have studied a bit more about Zen. However, there's so much unexplored territory around how conflict and anger has actually been handled by Zen teachers and students throughout the centuries. And obviously Zen is only one of the myriad of branches of Buddhism out there, each of which has their own particular flavor of dealing with anger and conflict.

Whenever I or others online have written about power and sex scandals in Buddhist communities, the gawkers come out in full force. Many of them fellow Buddhists. Which gives me pause. Is part of the collective obsession with these scandals coming from an unspoken desire to somehow come to "understand" conflict through these situations, and then be able to construct "defenses against it" so that we can somehow move on?

Because I don't think there is a moving on really. More and more, I'm seeing conflict as an opportunity to grow and evolve. To awaken even. And sometimes that requires holding on to your views a little longer. Pushing a little harder. Being a bit more "difficult." Being fully human, including at times, angry and even outraged.

I personally feel the world is at a major crossroads. And how we approach anger and conflict will probably make a major difference in terms of what the world is like for our future descendents.

Peace Cranes

Just thought I'd share this one. Perhaps the story is familiar to some of you.

Sadako Sasaki (January 7, 1943 - October 25, 1955) was a Japanese girl who was two years old when the atomic bomb was dropped on August 6, 1945, near her home by Misasa Bridge in Hiroshima, Japan. Sadako is remembered through the story of attempting to fold a thousand origami cranes before her death, a wish which was memorialized in popular culture.

Sadako’s story has become famous all over the world as a little one who wished for, prayed for, peace. There is a legend in Japan that if one folds one thousand paper cranes, a crane will grant one wish. Sadako wished to be healed from her leukemia and for peace on earth. She viewed the 644 cranes she did fold as messengers.

"I will write peace on your wings and you will fly all over the world," she said.

A Revolution of Values - Bringing Alive Again Martin Luther King's Radical Dreams

Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Day here in the U.S. Memories of a remarkable man, and of a movement made up of millions, will be brought to mind. Dreams of a more peaceful, healthy, just nation will be invoked. No doubt recent tragedies and violence will also be invoked. However, the full story of Dr. King's benevolent radicalness will mostly remain untouched. His "dream" of 1963 will be where most will stop, out of fear of upsetting the precarious balance we have in our communities, or out of ignorance of the later more penetrating visions Dr. King had, which ultimately threatened the very power bases of the nation, and probably led to his assassination.

Here is an excerpt from a speech Dr. King gave in 1967:

It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin...we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

It almost brings me to tears. This speech could be given today, almost word for word. And it would still be as piercingly true, radical in vision, and yet inspiring as it probably was to those who heard it over 40 years ago.

I am still learning from this man, and the movement that helped shaped him. It is up to us - the living - to embody more than just the now palatable to most hopes and dreams of that earlier Dr. King. No, it's up to each of us to bring forth "a true revolution of values," through which all our actions are manifested.

This isn't about American greatness, or American dreams - it's really about the world, the present and future of our world. Every time I return to Dr. King's words, I'm reminded of that as much as from any Buddhist sutra.

It's time to be inspired again. To dream fucking huge again. To step into those dreams boldly, fearlessly, dragging all our fears and doubts with us like the homely children that they are. To let go of the need to be right. To be knowing. To be comfortable. To be safe and secure. To give up the ease of drinking from the trough of cynicism or swimming in a swamp of sugary optimism. To forgo all the privatized dreams we have been fed and to sprout the bodhisattva seeds that lie dormant within each of us.

It's time. Even if a mountain of snow covers the way right now, it can be moved, it can be melted. But only together can such a feat be accomplished. There is no liberation to be found in "I." Liberation is a verb, is us dynamically working and loving together. My effort is necessary, but not sufficient. Your effort is necessary, but not sufficient.

May we each be inspired to awaken, to take our particular oar into the water, and help take the boat to the other shore together.

Calm is Not Boring

To some extent, in our culture, we associate calm with a certain relaxed dullness, like lying in a hammock on a summer afternoon after a hard day's work. On the other hand, we are often alert but tense, as when we face danger or financial problems ... We associate alertness with a crisis mode. But this polarization is not intrinsic to human consciousness. What we are gradually learning in this practice is utter calm that is highly alert, like the frog that Suzuki Roshi used to talk about, sitting on a lily pad.

Larry Rosenberg, Breath By Breath: The Liberating Practice of Insight Meditation

I experienced this utter calm during our weekly class at the zen center last night. As people talked about their experiences, or ideas about the teacher's talk, I found myself listening simultaneously to what was being said and what was coming up within. I took in the visuals - the lights outside our zendo, the piles of dirt from the road construction, my dharma brothers and sisters, the jagged crack along the floor. And I sat with the rising and falling of my chest, the entering and fading away of every breath. Until a few lines from Shantideva's Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life arose, I experienced the familiar anxiety that comes before wanting to share, and then I spoke them:

There's nothing that does not grow light
through habit and familiarity,
putting up with little cares,
I'll train myself to bear with great adversity.

I've been working with these lines for about two and a half years now. In order to keep them with me daily, I chant them silently to myself as I brush my teeth every night before bed.

Sitting here now, I can see where this teaching is a gateway into that utter calm I experienced, and Rosenberg and Suzuki were speaking about. Because all of those "little cares" that arrive in our lives have the ability to muck things up greatly, if we can't meet them as they are in the moment. The pain in your back, for example, easily can lead to tension, and then irritation, and then angry acting out of some kind. So it often goes.

Many people come to Buddhism seeking calm and peace, but don't really understand what calm and peace actually are. And since it's easy enough to get to that "relaxed dullness" through things like television, drinking, eating, and other such commonplace activities, some of us fail to notice the presence of actual calm and peace.

I know I used to meditate like mad, associating calm with boredom, and thinking zazen was kind of an endurance contest I had to win somehow. In this, there was no room for the world to fully enter, to be "confirmed by the ten thousand things" as Dogen once said.

Can you be like the frog, taking it all in, ready in a moment's notice to eat the meal that comes?

Reflections on 9/11

Nine years ago today, I was at a school district training for what turned out to be line year as a elementary school teaching assistant. Just as the training was about to begin, there was some commotion in the large district headquarters building hallway, and I went out of the conference room to see what was going on. Someone had plucked a TV at the end of the hallway and two or three dozen people had gathered around it. I saw the Twin Towers on the screen, the smoke coming from one of them.

People were asking what was going on. A fire? A plane crash? There was an unease in the room that was about to shift into horror.

The second plane crashed into the Towers right before our eyes. I hear gasps. Someone shouted "This is America! How can this happen?"

I have to say that as the Twin Towers collapsed on the TV before us, and my fellow co-workers broke out in cries, shouts, and wails, I just stood there - not quite numb, but also not feeling at all part of this group. The first words in my mind as all this happened were "It finally happened."

I didn't loose anyone close to me that day. I have never even been to New York, so I clearly lacked the kind of connection that can lead to heightened emotion. However, I can't help but think that all the misery that has been spawned in the name of this single event very much reflects our collective failure, as a nation, to see how we are, and have always been, just as vulnerable as any other nation.

I'm not patriotic. In fact, I have long viewed the nation-state as a rotten invention that has caused more trouble than good. As the flag bearing and waving increased in the weeks and months after 9/11, I found myself feeling more and more isolated, and wondering how to respond to the actual tragedy that occurred without papering over the vulnerability that is a mark of all of our lives.

In a way, 9/11 probably helped speed up my entrance onto the Zen path. I found myself increasing frustrated, increasingly angry, and increasingly confused as the war in Afghanistan began, and I watched as people who had claimed to be peacemakers called for blood, saying "This one is different. We have to fight it!" Then, I found myself marching in protests, surrounded by people who hated the war, hated President Bush, hated, hated, hated. And slowly, I began to realize that true peace could not come from protests alone. I saw painfully that the hatred of the peacemakers and the hatred of the war-makers was the same hatred.

The events that happened on 9/11/01 were not a surprise to me. They were horrible, for sure - but no less horrible than many other terrorist attacks that have occurred around the world. And the dramas that have been unfolding over the Cordoba House project and the proposed Qu'ran burning in Florida show just how far we as a nation are from truly understanding our place as one amongst the many. As long as too many of us fail to realize that no amount of moral grandstanding, military prowess, or technological advancement can keep us safe, we will continue to be fixated on 9/11 in ways that distort nearly every collective social and economic decision being made.
That doesn't make us unique; every nation seems to have it's historical issues that suck collective energy. But the scale of the destruction, coupled with the reactions that followed, make 9/11 both a potential nation destroyer, and also a catalyst for a major societal shift, if only enough of us could wake up to that truth.