Zendo and Mosque: Sharing Space in Ireland

The murder of seven UN Workers and five others today in Afghanistan is an awful act by Muslims outraged at another act of religious intolerance, the burning of a Koran by an American Christian pastor. It's also my guess that the nearly decade long military occupation in Afghanistan also played a large role in these acts of violence, but it's hard to ignore the influence of religious intolerance in this incident.

As such, I'd like to share this, from a discussion thread at Treeleaf Zendo:

I’ve a sitting group in the college I work in. The college is bang in the middle of Dublin City Centre and full of students from all over the world. Each Monday, we sit in “The Quiet Room” for an hour. The Quiet Room is available to everyone for spiritual practice and for such classes as Tai Chi and Yoga.

So, what’s been happening is that the Islamic students come in during zazen and totally ignore that a sit is in progress. They lay out their mats and pray facing Mecca, while the rest of us sit facing the wall or rise on the bell for kinhin.

After zazen had been interrupted a few times, I put a poster outside on the door while we sit: “Zen Meditation in Progress, 12 noon to 1pm” it says. But still the Islamic students come to pray in our midst, undeterred.
I considered asking them to wait until we are finished. We have the room booked for the hour, after all. But in the end I’ve decided that we should sit regardless of whoever comes through the door and to whatever purpose.

So, we just sit in silence often, and sometimes we sit to the mumbled incantations of “Allah Akbar”.

Obviously, religious tolerance is a complex thing.

The discussion that follows is also worth scrolling through. There are a few stereotypical "you can't talk sense to Muslim comments," but overall I find the response of the original poster to the situation, as well as the comments of other Treeleafers respectful, positive, and even insightful at times.

Peacefully sharing space with other worldviews, especially in the realms of religion and politics, is a challenge. Humans are fully capable of doing it, but we are also really good at not doing it at all. Excuses are many. Grudges from the past are many. And fears about what might happen in the future are also plentiful.

So, when people are able to work together, talk together, or simply be together like in the example above, those examples should be shared. Especially as a way to counter all the failures, small and horrific, that fill the news on a daily basis.


*Image from a 2006 Dialogue between Muslims and Buddhists held in Thailand.

Mindfulness and the Body

During our core session at yoga teaching training last night, we were working on alignment in standing poses. Given the way the schedule has fallen, I have also attended two other classes focusing on alignment and adjustments in - you guessed it, standing poses. So, I'm more aware of the differences between standing and sitting, for example, right now. There's nothing terribly profound about that, but it's still interesting.

As you may have noticed, I have had a lot of posts up over the last week, and many of them were dealing with heavy subject matter that brought up some reactions. Reactions from readers and reactions from myself. But what I noticed yesterday was the postures my body was taking, while writing, while considering what I was reading, while sitting on a crowded bus.

When I reading something I didn't agree with, or was confused by, there was a tension in my stomach and I was more hunched down towards the computer screen. When I was intent on making a point during a particular comment, I felt pressure in my fingers and neck, and leaned in even closer to the screen. While on the bus, I noticed a desire for more space competing with attempts to squeeze my body inward and become smaller. And after all of that, I arrived at yoga training, was asked to do Warrior pose, and the teacher noticed right away how tense my shoulders were.

The thing is, I wasn't really upset, anxious, sad, or angry while reading and writing online. And the bus ride wasn't that bad, but perhaps the combination of three or four hours of poor body posture and a dislike towards feeling "boxed in" led to the struggle between body and mind I was experiencing. However, what is true is that I wasn't paying very close attention to body posture, only glimpsing it now and then as I got lost in what was happening around me. While I might have been mindful about choosing my words, and interacting with others when there were others to interact - I was mostly mindless about the body, as if it wasn't even there.

The Kayagata-sati Sutta has this to say about mindfulness and the body:

"There is the case where a monk — having gone to the wilderness, to the shade of a tree, or to an empty building — sits down folding his legs crosswise, holding his body erect and setting mindfulness to the fore. Always mindful, he breathes in; mindful he breathes out.

"Breathing in long, he discerns, 'I am breathing in long'; or breathing out long, he discerns, 'I am breathing out long.' Or breathing in short, he discerns, 'I am breathing in short'; or breathing out short, he discerns, 'I am breathing out short.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe in sensitive to the entire body.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out sensitive to the entire body.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe in calming bodily fabrication.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out calming bodily fabrication.' And as he remains thus heedful, ardent, & resolute, any memories & resolves related to the household life are abandoned, and with their abandoning his mind gathers & settles inwardly, grows unified & centered. This is how a monk develops mindfulness immersed in the body.

"Furthermore, when walking, the monk discerns, 'I am walking.' When standing, he discerns, 'I am standing.' When sitting, he discerns, 'I am sitting.' When lying down, he discerns, 'I am lying down.' Or however his body is disposed, that is how he discerns it. And as he remains thus heedful, ardent, & resolute, any memories & resolves related to the household life are abandoned, and with their abandoning his mind gathers & settles inwardly, grows unified & centered. This is how a monk develops mindfulness immersed in the body.

When I am intensely interested in something intellectually. Or when I am really struggling to accept thoughts, emotions, or events in my life. It is at these times the most that I revert back to the old mind/body splitting that is common in our society. The years of Zen training and yoga practice have broken through a fair amount of this conditioning, but it's kind of like a dandelion - you can cut it back again and again, but just a little water will make those roots sprout right back up.

A few nights ago, I was waiting for a bus on the way home from another yoga training class. Under the street light, my eyes traced the cracks in the road, appreciating the texture, as well as the image as a whole. It was the kind of thing I curse at while biking sometimes, mostly out of worry about an impending flat tire. But at that moment, there was nothing but breathing in, breathing out, broken asphalt and smooth asphalt.

In a sense, everything else was abandoned as I stood there. And in that abandonment, all could be taken in fully.

This is what I think is missed when things get split off. When the mind cuts off the body. Or when you try to cut off the mind.

It's in the functioning all together, that an awakened life is lived.



* I took the photo recently in a cobblestone alley.

Buddhist Blogger Round Up

While I have been fixated on natural disasters - maybe you all missed the recent earthquake in Burma - there's been other things going on in the blogosphere.

Please keep Jeanne, from over at the blog The Dalai Grandma in your thoughts and prayers. She has had a lot of health challenges in recent years, and currently is struggling.

Over at Open Buddha is a post about the continued game playing of Genpo Roshi. Is he a Zen teacher or not? Is he stepping down or not? Is anyone going to do anything or not? The whole thing has gotten tiring, but if you're interested, there's also an excellent analysis here that includes some pointed remarks about the persistence of sexism in convert Zen circles.

Algernon has a good post on the U.S. role in Lybia, and particularly how it's being framed by the Obama Administration.

Maia Duerr's new blog, The Liberated Life Project, has been a treat to see unfold. Her current article takes lessons learned while being a non-profit executive director and applying them to one's life in general. It's worth a read.

Daishin offers a good reminder to us all that you'll have to check out if you are curious.


And finally, Nate over at Precious Metal takes up the dicey question "Is rebirth relevant?"

Happy Wednesday! Enjoy!

Narratives in Blogging on Social Issues

To those who have been reading my comments in relation to disaster relief, and few clarifications.

1. I am not blaming the Red Cross for all ills that occur after natural disasters.

2. I am not advocating that locals in disaster areas should do all the work themselves, and that "outsiders" are just a problem.

And most importantly 3) When writing about social issues, I tend to focus on areas I feel either aren't being explored, or are underexposed views. Sometimes, they are the views that I prefer, and sometimes they are ideas that I'm trying to understand better through writing about them, and may or may not see them as "my take on things."

I see this both as a practice of trying to "see more of the whole" myself, and also as a way to offer something to others that isn't repetition of what's already out there. One thing I have learned from Zen is to interrogate personal narratives through questioning, problematizing, and letting them go. And I extend this practice to everything else.

One dominant narrative around natural disasters is that "experts" and "professionals" should run the show because they know what to do in such situations. I see questioning that as practice, not just in terms of offering a different view on the particulars of natural disaster work, but also because it helps train my mind to question narratives. In other words, even if some of my conclusions about the particulars in Japan end up being wrong, the practice of investigating the story, researching other views, and checking my own biases is beneficial. In addition, I'd like to think that in offering viewpoints that are not mainstream, and that perhaps even are uncomfortable to hear, I am offering others the opportunity to reconsider whatever story they have around an issue.

Sure, I like it when others agree with me, but in the end, if whatever I write both gets readers' minds turning, and/or aids in loosening the grip readers' have on their view - then I'm happy.

And when I receive respectful and thoughtful disagreements in the comments section, this offers me the opportunity to experience that which I am sending out.

Anyway, I think it's helpful sometimes to share the process behind the process of writing.

Disaster Relief: The Damages of Excessive Outsider Reliance

A few days ago, I wrote about the Japanese Soto Shu's questionable disaster fundraising decisions. This story, about a Soto Zen priest staying in his temple not too far from the damaged Fukushima nuclear reactors, offers a few additional points I'd like to make about Soto's Shu's decision.

Mita is a kindly, round-faced man in his late sixties, and is not concerned with his own safety. His job—to tend to anyone who is suffering and in need of comfort—is a growth area in a shattered economy. “I would only leave if I were the last person standing in this town,” he says. Fear of radiation may make his prediction a reality. The temple, which is of the Sotoshu or Zen sect, is located about twenty-five miles from the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The temple’s precise distance from the plant places it in bureaucratic limbo: outside the mandatory twelve-mile evacuation zone imposed by Japanese authorities, and just beyond the twelve-to-nineteen mile “stay indoors” zone. Skeptical of official pronouncements, residents at the twenty-five-mile mark have no particular reason to feel secure. And all the roads down from the temple, which is on a hill, lead to Iwaki; to get supplies, my relatives must cross into the “stay inside” zone.

Food, water, and gasoline in Iwaki City remain scarce. A few stores have supplies, but shopping requires standing in line outside for two to three hours at a time. Supply trucks reportedly refuse to enter the city for fear of radiation, forcing residents to find creative ways to cope. At the temple, the family survives in old ways and new. Mita’s wife, Ryoko, goes to her neighbor’s house once a day to pump water from a well and to fill up buckets and canisters so she is able to cook.

One of the things I have noticed with many of the natural disasters that have happened in recent years is that there is an over-reliance on "outside experts." Or, perhaps it might be more accurate to say that large organizations like the Red Cross have become so default that when something devastating happens, national leaders in a given country will automatically see these groups as the main - even only ones - capable of handling the heavy, difficult work of finding missing people, and cleaning up the destruction.

Now, I bring this up not to diminish the importance of, and general goodwill of, outside groups aiding in situations like what happened in Japan. I bring it up to point out that those who are most intimate with the conditions on the ground - the people, culture, and the land - the locals - tend to be displaced. In fact, they themselves might discount their own skills and abilities to serve their neighbors, friends and family who are suffering, and/or are told by the powers that be that whatever they do must be subordinate to the directives of those "outside experts."

Another issue that comes with this reliance on outsiders is that the most dangerous, devastated, and/or outlying areas often receive the least support. The story above demonstrates this, and I recall recently reading an article about more rural areas in Haiti that were left barely touched by aid work months after the earthquake that happened there in early 2010. Because conditions might be considered "too risky" for aid workers, or because the groups in charge simply don't know about outlying villages or are approaching things from a numbers game - how can we help the most people - others are left to fend for themselves under miserable conditions.

And at the same time, even with these miserable conditions, there might be individuals and groups who have the skills and wherewithal to do something, but their reach ends up being limited by the lack of resources and support.

When I wrote that the national Soto Shu could have used donated money to support their people on the ground, I wasn't saying they should try to become like a mini-Red Cross. What I was saying is that they could have figured out ways to get money and relief goods (food, clothing, medical supplies) into the hands of those like Head Priest Mita, who are in the middle of it all, and are intimate with the current needs being presented.

I see all of this as part of a larger pattern of mistrust - internally and externally. National religious bodies like the Japanese Soto Shu decide not only that they aren't capable of doing anything helpful, but that they also can't trust giving funds over to their local temples to distribute. Government officials, who tend to come from privileged backgrounds, don't trust the "common people." Outside groups, like the Red Cross, present an image of being trained to deal with everything in a disaster situation. And so collectively, being in the middle of the storm of suffering, the different forms of leadership turn their back on whatever wisdom and skills they have, believing that the outsiders must have a better sense of what to do.

The realities tend to be more complex. Outsider groups bring certain gifts, and insider groups bring certain gifts. And when those two realities are recognized, wonderful things happen. However, too often, the insider groups - especially those made up of everyday people - are either considered of secondary importance, or are completely overwhelmed by the outside experts. In fact, sometimes their efforts to help their fellow neighbors are completely blocked, and considered wrongheaded by people who have little or no knowledge of the cultural norms of the community in question.

I fully support outsider groups offering skills, expertise, and a sense of calm in crisis situations. However, I believe it's extremely important to support organizations that deliberately make partnerships with those who are of the communities impacts - that they exude a sense of trust in the people of the place to know what directions are most appropriate to go in, and which are not. That they know how to work with people whose communities have been destroyed in such a way that, through whatever they are doing, it's more possible for the local leaders to tap into their wisdom and skills, and trust themselves enough to help lead the relief work.

In some ways, just blaming the Red Cross or Soto-Shu, isn't a deep enough analysis. The pattern of believing in outside experts isn't limited to disaster relief - it's a human trend, especially when issues become complicated. Sometimes, experts are the correct remedy. And sometimes they are a great hindrance. Consider the recent discussions about Zen teachers, and the teacher/student relationship. When students cling too much to their teacher, crappy shit tends to happen for everyone involved. And it also seems to be the case that when students take the loner role, thinking they can do it all on their own, crappy things often happen.

Right relationship, whether you're talking about disaster relief or teachers and students, requires more fluidity, shared wisdom, and a more intelligent form of intimacy.

"Cult of Positivity"

Over at the blog Recovering Yogi is an excellent post by Kimberly Johnson about the excessive positivity found in many yoga communities. It's also a problem in Buddhist sanghas, and other spiritual groups, and one I have written about before.

That secret code is the code of constant positivity within the yoga community.

In the yoga world, you are not supposed to disagree—even though everybody does—and you certainly are not supposed to be disagreeable. Of course, most people have strong opinions about which kind of yoga is better (their kind) and what the other schools don’t understand, because if they did, clearly they would convert to the right school. The right thing, in yoga, is always the thing that you do. But most people don’t express it openly. Better to feign peaceful coexistence and call it “acceptance.”

However, I have found both in myself and in my peers a lack of courage to engage in truthful dialogue around teaching philosophy and practice. I didn’t have the nerve to tell my friend that she was giving the same dharma talk in every class and it was getting old. No one had the nerve to tell the male teacher to stop serial-dating his students. There is this gaping hole of communication, as if egos are so fragile and every class so personal and precious that there is no room for dialogue.

The feelings of guilt and betrayal I felt when exposing my truth in my last Recovering Yogi article were the tiny echoes of a victim/abuser relationship, where the victim feels protective of the abuser, says things to defend the abuser, and is afraid to speak truthfully about the experience publicly.

What I like about Kimberly's post is that she show how a failure to disagree, debate, and offer criticism when appropriate actually weakens the whole project. When people choose to smooth over destructive behavior by teachers or fellow students, it makes it less likely that anyone in the community will benefit from the teachings and practices. When getting along is privileged over getting at the truth, everyone misses out.

I witnessed an interesting exchange a few weeks between a male yoga teacher and two female yoga students. The teacher was expressing caution around doing women inversions while on their period, and cited a long history of teachers agreeing on this point. One woman said "Almost all of those teachers were men. How long have women been practicing yoga?" This was followed by another woman who basically disagreed with the male teacher, citing potential health benefits and personal narratives of her students and friends. In fact, at one point during the discussion she said, point blank, "I'm just expressing my disagreement with you, is that ok?"

I didn't get the sense that the male teacher leading the class was comfortable with this kind of disagreement. Perhaps he worried about loosing control of the class. Perhaps, there was some bit of sexism going on. But I mostly think it was about maintaining that harmonious yoga environment which people tend to expect to be there. As someone who really appreciates debates and discussions of different views, even if I'm not directly involved, the way things played out was a disappointment, and it's something I have repeatedly experienced in spiritual community settings. Things start to get juicy and the "happy face" is held up by leaders and/or students to get things back to the safe "norm."

So, perhaps the next time a debate or disagreement appears in your sangha or yoga class, instead of being part of the effort to get rid of it, be a part of the effort to explore it, examine it, and respect it as part of the process.

Japanese Soto-Shu Not Helping Earthquake Victims

Jundo Cohen from the online zendo Treeleaf, and who lives not too far from the worst hit areas in Japan during the earthquake and tsunami, is trying to get the word out about the current actions of the Japanese Soto-shu. As the head organization of the Japanese Soto Zen sanghas, and which also has offices in North and South America, and in Europe, it's an organization with a lot of potential to be doing beneficial work for those currently suffering in Japan.

However, it seems they have chosen to focus internally. They have decided to "re-donate" 70% of incoming funds for earthquake relief to the Red Cross, and use the remaining 30% to repair/rebuild temples. Now this isn't an organization lacking in people or resources. As Jundo writes:

However, I am also sure that the Soto-shu in Japan, with its 14,000 affiliated temples nationwide, universities with medical and dental schools, thousands of priests and lay followers, substantial financial and material resources, could be doing --just as much, if not more-- than other religious bodies do, even smaller and less organized.

Under the circumstances, re-donating is a lazy approach which delays much needed support. In addition, the Red Cross is not exactly the most squeaky clean organization itself, and certainly some of that money will be lost in "overhead" costs alone.

Personally, I'd recommend that anyone currently desiring to send money to aid earthquake victims in Japan consider Tzu Chi, a Buddhist relief organization, or Doctors Without Borders.

It's disappointing that the leaders of Soto Zen in Japan aren't leading their sanghas into the center of the fire of suffering, to offer support to those in need. Not only are they ignoring the great need of their fellow citizens, but they are also failing to support the priests and members of individual temples who could do much more than they already are with increased resources. I wish it were surprising, but the Soto-Shu's actions seem consistent with those of other large religious and secular bureaucracies. When times are tough, they look to save their own asses first, and sometimes only.

Update: Here is another report from an American Zen priest living in Japan about Soto efforts from individual temples. It seems clear from this letter that individual priests and monks are doing their best, and that there is more confusion this time around than during the 1995 Kobe earthquake, during which over 6000 people lost their lives.