The spring breeze is our every breath

The world before my eyes is wan and wasted, just like me.
The earth is decrepit, the sky stormy, all the grass withered.
No spring breeze even at this late date,
Just winter clouds swallowing up my tiny reed hut.

Zen Master Ikkyu, 1394-1481

Many years, we here in Minnesota are still being swallowed up by winter clouds. This year, not so much. All around, the trees are budding. The lingering snow and ice is melting. And the air is filling with the songs of returning birds.

The same might be said of how people experience awakening, enlightenment. Most of the time, it seems to be some thing distant, buried under the snow of our sufferings and attachments. However, it need not be that way. Even in the worst winter storm, there is a spring breeze waiting to be discovered.

Ikkyu stands exactly where he is in this poem. There's not much desire for something to be radically different, just description and acceptance of what is. And also weariness. A weariness that isn't what it seems to be.

The spring breeze that isn't in the relative moment is fully alive in Ikkyu's heart/mind. In the poem, it breathes a love into everything that is, just as it is. And in doing so, he moves beyond being owned by that relative reality.

That weariness isn't of a man who's been beaten down by the world. As I see it, it's of a man who has grown tired of riding the emotional tides of life's endless changes.

Whatever comes, he's ready to embrace it.

I must remember that the budding trees will someday be rotting logs. I also must remember that the rotting logs contain budding trees.

The spring breeze is our every breath.

Zen Desire

The world before my eyes is wan and wasted, just like me.
The earth is decrepit, the sky stormy, all the grass withered.
No spring breeze even at this late date,
Just winter clouds swallowing up my tiny reed hut.

Zen Master Ikkyu, 1394-1481

I have been thinking this morning about delay. Specifically, how delay is felt, experienced, and the desire behind it. When things don't come to us when we want them to, or expected them to, we call it a delay. We say we are in waiting, putting a future focus on what's happening now. And often, in the process, stepping out of the now all together.

Something was desired to occur at a certain time. It didn't. Now what?

When faced with that now what, we tend to experience a taking over by desire. Instead of using our desire energy to move through life, we become owned by it. Controlled by it.

Although it may not have been the case, in Ikkyu's poem, I sense a bit of longing for spring. Both for the literal spring and, also, the spring of waking up to some part of his life he continues to miss.

When desire owns us, everything seems to be colored by lack.

When desire is a tool used by us, there's no lack of abundance.

Being in waiting for something can live in either of those fields. You can wait for spring without being controlled by it.

But that's easier said than done. Those winter clouds too often feel ominous to me. Even when there's no storm in sight.

May this be the winter of burning through the hut's flimsy walls.

Winter Buddha

I woke up this morning feeling a little "under the weather." Not quite sick, but not quite right either. When I went to bed last night, my apartment was warm. Waking, it was cold. This is how it goes, living in an old building with a middling heating system and a slightly cheap landlord.

It's not winter yet, but the past few days have felt like winter. Winter in Minnesota is a long slog, so much so that every moment which breaks through the icy grip on us is a moment worth celebrating.

However, many ways in which we Minnesotans tend to reject the dark, harshly cold days of January for example, are similar to how humans choose to reject whatever experiences and emotions they don't wish to experience.

In other words, our tough doggedness comes with a side of bitching and moaning.

I remember a story about Zen teacher Katagiri Roshi, during the early days of Hokyoji, a retreat center in southern Minnesota. He was doing zazen outside with a small group of students and it was cold, very cold. Someone asked Roshi how he was taking it, the cold I mean, and he responded something like "When it's cold, just be cold. When it's hot, just be hot." I can imagine this guy sitting in his robes with his teeth chattering as he said this. It's a pretty funny image, and also a quality example of not adding on to one's experience.

Talking about the weather is a common point of connection here in the land of 10,000+ (frozen) lakes. We use it as a gateway to bonding, an almost fool proof mechanism to bring ease between even the most dissimilar of people. But I think most of that talking is just adding on, and in many cases, in ways that promote rejection of what's present.

How to engage "weather conversations" differently?

Today, no answers. Just one frosty breath after another.

*Photo: Minnesota snow storm. December 2010.

A Short Meditation on Spring Arriving

There are all kinds of ways to avoid the natural environment. To act like you aren't part of the earth. But even so, you can't escape it: we are all, still, just mud and clouds.

This time of year, when winter is disappearing and spring is stepping forth, often feels unstable. ,One hour, you're slipping on half melted dirty ice and getting honked at by some woman in a grungy car, and the next you're marveling at the beauty of the first opened flower, the miracle of breathing, just being alive together.

Some of the plants in my apartment window have suddenly started sprouting little clones of themselves. Tiny sage bushes, strands of mint, leaves of lemon balm. A few others have sections which have suddenly dried up, as if the life that was there was borrowed to make the new life in a neighboring pot.

Seasonal transitions aren't given their due in modern culture. We wake up with a cold, and shrug it off or complain about it. We feel a new calling or interest, and fail to connect it to the ways the Earth is shifting.

The fleeting, ever shifting nature of life is more apparent right now. And whether you choose to honor it or not, the sometimes dramatic nature of change is never too far away. Step on the wrong sheet of ice and you're gonna fall through. Overturn a loose stone and find the ground below has been colonized by weeds.

We are the seasons and the seasons are us. As spring unfolds all around you, pause and remember. Taste the sun that stands higher in the sky now, bringing forth new life.

Blogisattva Awards and Dark, Cold Meditation

Hi from the cold, dark tundra known as Minnesota. The seasonal funk has set in, so I'm finding myself challenged by all sorts of mental garbage. Yesterday, I was quite cranky and depressive. Today, the sun is out, and I'm doing fairly well. Don't think the sun's presence is only reason for the change, but it certainly helps.

There's a lot of buzz around the Buddhoblogosphere about the announcement of the Blogisattva Awards. You might call it an insiders guide to the best of the English language Buddhist blogging world. Anyway, I'm a finalist in a few categories, including "Best Achievement Blogging Opinion Pieces or Political Issues."

All winners receive a "Get out of Samsara Free" card, so keep your fingers crossed for me and all the other nominees.

Meanwhile, today is Bodhi Day, or the day many Buddhists commemorate the enlightenment of the Buddha. Lately, I've been doing walking meditation outside after dark, breathing in the cold air with each step, listening to the snow crunch under my feet, sometimes chanting the Jizo mantra, and sometimes just stepping in silence. This effort to return my formal practice outdoors, in the elements, has been growing in me for awhile now. And it feels in line with the Buddha's touching of the earth, calling upon the planet as a witness to the enlightenment he experienced.

I'm not particularly in love with the cold or the dark. Actually, I don't much like the cold darkness at all. And yet, I have found moments while walking where the arrival of a lightning bolt shiver or an ache in my bones instantly reminds me of the vitality of being alive. In other words, I experience it beyond like and dislike. Just like the goofy pigeons landing on the rooftops do. Or the scampering squirrels. Or the feral cats I see along the river sometimes this time of year.

One of the interesting things about being really cold is the intensity of energy movement. How a sudden cold wind blows through you, dislodging an anger or sadness or joy you didn't know was present. I've felt all three of those rip through me while walking outside in the cold darkness, a reminder that notions about "frozen" or "dead" applied to winter landscapes and human experiences of winter landscapes really aren't accurate. It's living differently. Less visual. More visceral.

I keep thinking that one of the reasons why humanity is having so much trouble shifting away from earth-damaging forms of living is too many of us are divorced from the planet's rhythms. Or we've become conditioned to "pick and choose," being "one with nature" when it feels good to, but avoiding the planet like the plague the rest of the time.

Maybe I'll never love the cold, dark time of year the way I do the spring and autumn. However, I'm starting to think that awakening as humans has to be tied back to the planet we are fully interdependent with. It can't just be imagined from inside a warm, cozy building while sitting on a supportive cushion. It must be tasted, drank in fully and repeatedly, breath after breath.