On Being (Or Not Being) "The Good Zen Student"

Recently, I met with our head teacher to talk about my practice (as well as some zen center board-related issues. Fairly early on in the conversation, she asked me point blank,"Why don't you do 'group practice' anymore?" The question was followed by a number of possible reasons she had come up with, but at a certain point she stopped that and waited.

I paused. Looked inward a moment. And then said, "Well, I'm not sure what you said is true. I'm still coming to Sunday services. Attending classes when I can. Etc. What you're really asking about is sesshin, right?"

After confirming this, I basically responded, "I feel called to practice in the world right now." And then I went on to tell her about how, for example, I meditate and/or do chanting practice before (and sometimes during) protests and rallies. And that I do a lot of "public" zazen, meditating on buses, park benches, in fields, in my garden during spring and summer ...

But really, what it comes down to, is that for the most part, I'm over worrying about what constitutes "being a good Zen student."

For most of the past three or four years, I have been skipping out on retreat practice. I have done a few half day retreats and some more intense periods of practice with others at Zen Center, but none of the multiple day or week long sesshins. It's kind of blasphemous to admit, given that I've been on the path over a decade now, and past the kind of initial fears folks have about meditation retreats before experiencing a few of them.

Lately it has occurred to me that doing meditation retreats is something that many Buddhist communities - including my own - view as part of being a dedicated practitioner. Which is totally understandable. Buddha's path to enlightenment flowered open after intense, sustained meditation. However, "dedicated" is really just another word for "good" when you look at it closely.

For a long time, I got hooked when it came to wondering what my fellow dharma brothers and sisters were thinking about my absence from retreat practice. It's kind of silly - wanting to be "seen" as a "good student" - because in the end, Zen isn't about that at all. Being respected and elevated within a community doesn't mean squat when it comes to breaking through greed, hatred, and ignorance. And yet, like the rest of life, outward markers easily get mistaken for wisdom and depth.

It's so easy to forget all that when you've spent much of your life trying to be liked and cared for by others. I occasionally still get tripped up by this stuff when I'm at zen center, talking with my dharma friends.

Odds are, there will be another period in my life when lots of inward reflection and retreat practice of some sort will call me.

For now, I will go with what is moving me. This experiment of practicing in the middle of the swirl of daily life.

There's a natural ebb and flow movement between "inward" and "outward" that, once you recognize, you can allow yourself to move with it.

Form and emptiness, emptiness and form. Every breath can be a sesshin, if you allow it to be.

Cold Stone Zen

Two retreats ago there was a woman who’s husband had just died, and we all either knew them, or one or two people knew, but it was very clear. And what was so interesting is it became this beautiful time together, because she sobbed through almost every day. She ended up sitting behind me a lot, and I had a moment where my impulse, I could feel her so profoundly because we were still, and I had this moment where I just wanted to touch her, and I had to go through all my rules about: “am I allowed to reach out and touch her in a retreat center, blah, blah, blah,” and then … I realized, “Please.” And I reached out and touched her because it’s my human impulse, and she’ll let me know if she doesn’t want that. And I probably did that three times during the week. And at the end of the retreat she said, “Oh my God, thank God, you touched me. I needed contact, I’m in a freefall.”

This passage was part of a fascinating two part panel discussion on Buddhist practice, trauma, the body, healing, and several other topics. Over and over again, the participants bring up challenges they have faced, and questions they have about the ways in which convert Buddhist practice has been set up here in North America. I encourage folks to read it, and I may take up a few other sections of the discussion in future posts.

Back to the story above. I don't know about other branches of Buddhism, but there's a lot of talk about form and the role of a strong "container" amongst Zen folks. This is especially true in retreat contexts, but even during daily services, attention to precise details, from bowing to offering incense, are emphasized. What's important to note is that that attention is directed towards doing things in a certain way. Not really clinging to rules, but certainly maintaining a particular, shared direction.

Chanting. Bowing. Walking. Maintaining silence. Forms for eating meals. All have particular instructions, and everyone involved aims in the direction of embodying those instructions as best they can.

There's a lot of beauty to this. Being in the middle of a group of 60 adults all bowing at the same time in the same basic way can be life affirming. Listening to an even larger group, including children, chanting the precepts together - which we did at our sangha this past Sunday - is often quite exquisite.

And yet, the story above demonstrates something of an absence I sometimes feel. The lack of touch, especially during retreats, is one thing. However, overall, touch or not, I sometimes wonder where the warmth is.

A few years ago, I essentially stopped doing meditation retreats at my zen center. For awhile, I really struggled with the resistance, thinking it was just laziness, or fear. And perhaps some of both of those are true. However, even when I first started developing the resistance, I knew it was more than that.

Do you know the story of the monk whose hut was set on fire?

There was an old woman in China who had supported a monk for over twenty years. She had built a little hut for him and fed him while he was meditating. Finally she wondered just what progress he had made in all this time.

To find out, she obtained the help of a girl rich in desire. "Go and embrace him," she told her, "and then ask him suddenly: 'What now?'"

The girl called upon the monk and without much ado caressed him, asking him what he was going to do about it.

"An old tree grows on a cold rock in winter," replied the monk somewhat poetically. "Nowhere is there any warmth."

The girl returned and related what he had said.

"To think I fed that fellow for twenty years!" exclaimed the old woman in anger. "He showed no consideration for your needs, no disposition to explain your condition. He need not have responded to passion, but at least he should have evidenced some compassion."

She at once went to the hut of the monk and burned it down.

What I have often felt in Zen meditation retreat is similar to that monk, only it's magnified throughout the entire group. With our current teacher, this has been less so, but somehow the combination of the people attracted + the forms themselves, seems to bring out that cold rock in winter feeling.

One of my dharma sisters has been talking a lot about body practice recently. She's gotten interested in Reggie Ray's work, and since I, too, have been interested in body-mind connections, I have listened closely to what she's said. And I think I hear that similar voice behind her words. The one that's saying "Something is missing."

The thing is, it would be really easy to suggest that this voice is just longing and desire. Coming from a place of dis-ease. I do not doubt for a moment that some of it is. But not all of it. Perhaps not even the majority of it.

Something I learned towards the end of my yoga teacher training were some simple massage techniques to apply in classes. Actually, it might be more accurate to say massage coupled with posture adjustments. The thing that stood out for me in practicing these on classmates was the ways in which, when I let go of trying to "do it right," there was a subtle exchange of what I'd call wisdom that happened. It didn't need words. In truth, that same exchange happened when I was fumbling around, or my classmate was fumbling around, trying to get it right. It's just that the depth wasn't there in those cases.

Is there a gender component to all of this?

The two women in the retreat story shared something. It was beyond words. Sure, it wasn't part of the "retreat plan," but it does seem to me to be part of the awakening plan. Especially for those of us living in the everyday world, dealing with all the challenges of a lay life.

Your thoughts?

Zen Finances and Practice

Algernon over at Notes from a Burning House has a thought provoking post about, among other things, the costs of running a Zen center, retreats, and the power of having to ask for help. I agreed with a lot of what he had to say, but did find myself thinking a bit differently about a few points. Algernon writes:

Buddhist centers are in a bind because the dharma should be free for all. This value does not apply to rent, repairs to a roof, heating and cooling a space, utilities and insurance, or flying a teacher to the location for a retreat. Deming Zen Center is almost 100% donation-only, and sometimes that bites us in the back. Operating a Zen Center on the basis of dana is very difficult even when everyone chips in. Sometimes people don't.

So there is a need for fees, even though it establishes financial gates and is a factor in the oft-reported trend that Buddhist practitioners are middle-class and up. Privileged, in other words.

One of the commenters on this article also points out the difficulty of retreats, not just because of fees but also time. Very few people are able to take time away from work to participate in 7-day retreats or longer. Many centers (including ours) do shorter retreats on weekends to allow for more participation, but this is a compromise: a short retreat is very different than an extended retreat.

Unfortunately, the commenter is led to question the importance of retreats: "It's possible that the problem lies not with the cost of retreats but with over-emphasis on the retreat model altogether." Note we are now embracing the language of capitalist enterprise: the retreat is spoken of as a product, part of a business model.

Now, here are my thoughts.

1. I think there is something valuable behind the guy's point about "retreat models," even if it's a bit off in terms of view.

As a long time Zen practitioner who has done retreats, but isn't doing much in that vain right now, I notice an in-group, out-group flavor amongst convert Zennies. If you're doing retreats fairly regularly, you're seen as "deeply practicing." If you're not, or never have, then your practice is viewed as suspect. I think this kind of division is a false one built up around the models of practice we have here in North America and in Europe. Sesshin practice, though quite powerful and excellent, is simply one form available to us.

2. To me, there is sacrifice and commitment on the one hand, and there are issues of privilege and life circumstances on the other. Katagiri Roshi used to tell parents with really young children that their main practice was "shikan-baby." Which makes sense to me. And I think there are plenty of people who have practices that don't "look deep," but whom are powerful, compassionate people in the world. My own experience has been one of working with the ebbs and flows without pressing, or doing things mostly for approval. Which has been challeging at times, given my position in our sangha, and the years of practice I have behind my belt.

3. I'm right there with you about the benefits of practicing "the ask." I have had to ask for fee reductions and wavers at zen center several times in recent years, and it's been a learning process about trust and letting go of "image." In fact, I kind of wish there were a way to create that opportunity for everyone in our sanghas. The closest thing seems to be - at least in our sangha - asking the teacher to do jukai or become a priest. But a lot of folks never go that far, so maybe there are other ways to do it for the average lay practitioner.

4. Finally, I also support breaking middle class norms in order to place your spiritual practice in the forefront. This is something I have done constantly, choosing to have much, much less in disposable income and material possessions, so I could have more time and opportunity to practice in different ways.

I'd like to expand on the point about "asking for help," especially financial help, but maybe that would be a good post on it's own.

So, what are you're thoughts on all of this?

Homeless Zen Retreat

I don't have too much to say about this post, other than it's so much more inspiring than a lot of the stuff I have read over the past week.

When I went on my first 9-day retreat, I felt claustrophobic. There was no place to run and nothing to do but sit with my thoughts. What came up was sometimes poignant and sometimes scary. I spent many hours marveling at the tenderness of my own heart. But I also had to face my lifelong habit of wriggling away from anything that required true commitment. I was so afraid that I would wither away if I stayed in one place or dedicated myself to one thing. But only through going on retreat—and subsequent meditation practice—did I begin to dismantle those fears, and gradually build an organization in which I, and hundreds of homeless youth, could experience a true sense of belonging.

But as I learned last month, dreaming of going on retreat and actually going on retreat are worlds apart. Taking twelve homeless youth to a Zen-Buddhist monastery for 3 days was an experience that I could not prepare for. And while I had designed the experience for them, I too had to open myself to learning along the way. As it turned out, one of the first lessons appeared even before we left the city.

The post goes on to detail the experience. I loved how the retreat leaders and monastics at the retreat center seemed to balance holding the container of a retreat with the basic needs of teenagers who have lived quite unstable lives.

Amidst wranglings over the intentions of Buddhist teachers at some conference, or endless dissections of the behavior of a Congressman named Weiner, writings like this are a reminder to me to stay focused, and let whatever seems like a distraction roll off my back.

Giving homeless youth the gift of a Zen retreat is the kind of engaged practice that makes my heart happy to hear. May we do more of it. May it become commonplace.