Form and Rebirth

There are a few good posts up that I want to highlight for you all. First off, over at the blog of our sangha's head teacher is a post about form and Zen practice. We have been doing a lot of reflecting as a community over the past few years about form, particularly what ritual looks like within a lay practice context. I have written about all of this before, but wanted to share the following words of our teacher:

Precision can easily be usurped by the “manas” or our self-centered consciousness that wants to be the best, be more evolved, to be better than other practitioners. When precision becomes a project it has been taken over by ego-building consciousness.

Perfectionism is the devil in disguise. Outwardly, because of our highly choreographed form, a newcomer can interpret zen’s goal as being perfect in the form. This can become oppressive and obsessive. I would like to see a form coming out of our expression of generosity, inter-being, and spaciousness.

I'm guessing anyone who has spent any significant time practicing in a Zen center or community has probably gotten caught up in trying to do meditation perfectly, bow perfectly, and chant perfectly. This kind of thing is even more common amongst those of us who have done longer forms of practice, like meditation retreats, where there are numerous forms in place that can be co-opted by the self-centered mind. I kind of snicker now when I think back to the attempts I made to wash dishes in a "perfectly Zen way" on my first retreat. The anxiety was so intense at one point that I nearly passed out. Pretty ridiculous, isn't it?

Anyway, head over and read the rest of Byakuren's blog post, and feel free to add comments here (she doesn't have a comments section on her blog).

Over at Barbara's Buddhism blog is a post about rebirth and the population growth. Given how often people, even many practicing Buddhists, are muddled about what rebirth means, I enjoyed the following lines from Barbara's post:

Since rebirth in Buddhism really isn't about the continuation of an individual self, I'd say the answer to the question is "yes." And if you want to know how, stop looking for "extraordinary evidence" and educate yourself as to what Buddhism actually teaches about rebirth. To me, looking for a one-to-one ratio of reborn individuals is like assuming there can be only a fixed number of waves on the ocean.

I don't know exactly what rebirth is, nor how (or if) it actually happens, but I find the reductionist efforts of folks like Stephen Batchelor to "rid Buddhism" of such concepts tedious at best. Life is still full of mystery, even if we are able to "explain" more now than our ancestors could.

Your thoughts?


*I took the photo above at our Occupy MN site this afternoon.

Hauntings

I've sometimes wondered if a pregnant ghost has come to haunt my body, it's bony shoulders poking at mine, as it's fat stomach presses hard against my own. Every autumn, as the sun's rays slowly fade away earlier and earlier by the day, that acute haunting returns. An old friend - or enemy - depending upon my mindset in the moment, sometimes I call it "loneliness," but that's just an easy label, one that serves a purpose, but really doesn't hit the mark fully.

The well known Buddhist author and teacher Pema Chodron writes: "Usually we regard loneliness as an enemy. Heartache is not something we choose to invite in. It's restless and pregnant and hot with the desire to escape and find something or someone to keep us company."

I was walking around the plaza where our OccupyMN group is located yesterday, feeling just that. That there were plenty of people around didn't matter. That I had had a few good conversations already didn't matter. That I had felt great most of the previous day or so didn't really matter.

A cold wind swirled, and a few errant squirrels scampered across the bricked ground, scared by the movement of too many feet. I watched an argument about food between a half a dozen fellow "occupiers" slowly descend into agreement. Finally, the two men at the center of the conflict, a younger African-American man and an older white man, hugged. It way touching. I've witnessed scenes like this again and again over the past three and half weeks, something the myriad of armchair critics have no idea about, or dismiss as mere "camaraderie."

Still, that restless ghost thumped away within me. Nothing unbearable, and something certainly spurred on by the change in seasons, but definitely not a mere "psychological issue" like seasonal affect disorder. That might be there as well, but I have felt this other "thing" in all sorts of places, under all sorts of conditions, even during and after love-making.

Today, what comes to mind is this: "We fail to trust our hauntings." Fail to trust that this, too, is our life - and yet, it does not define us, does not need to be fought off madly or given into desperately.

The story of Buddha's enlightenment is riddled with ghosts. Various hauntings that come to test him as he sits through the night. Mara is said to be the bringer of these, an almost Satan-like being that continually presses in on Buddha until he doesn't flinch anymore in any direction.

I still flinch a fair amount. I can imagine many of you do as well. That flinching goes beyond any individual "you" or "I."

Just as liberation goes beyond any individual "you" or "I."

What is haunting?

Just this breath, flowing in and back out.

Social Dukkha - Addressing Suffering on a Global Scale

Working with people from all over the world, whose ideas and ways of living are often very different from my own, has definitely helped to jar the sense of self I have.

In addition, the discussions I have had with these same learners in my classes have shown me as much as anything how constructed our views of the “good life” or “proper life” are.

Here’s a simple example of that from a recent class:

A woman originally from Somalia is pregnant, which sparked a discussion about family size and also happiness. She was asked by another learner how many children she would like to have. I believe she said “maybe four” although I may be misremembering that number.

Another woman, a very joyful Ethiopian woman in her fifties, asked, “Why not more?” She went on to talk about her eight children, how she loves big families, and would have more children if she could. Recently, her son graduated from college, the first degree in her family, I believe, and she’s been walking around beaming about his accomplishment, telling anyone who will listen about it.

A few other learners, including ethnic Karen from Burma, gasped upon hearing the desire for very large families. One said something to the effect of “three is enough, thank you very much.” There were other expressions from this group about the hard work and difficulties large families create for mothers. This brought us to economic issues in the U.S. and a short conversation about how expensive it is in the U.S. to have a lot of children. But the woman from Ethiopia didn’t stand down – she still felt that there was more joy in a bigger family.

I have had other learners in the past, from other nations, express very similar views. Yet, even within groups, as should be expected, there is a fair amount of difference of opinion about this question. However, despite wide differences of opinion within any group, it can be said that the culture and social structures of a given society have an influence on how people think and act in the world. Because of this, I believe there has been a failure on the part of many in the covert western Buddhist world to see beyond individual practice, and individual “enlightenment,” as a way to address the suffering of the world.

Dukkha is the Pali term which is usually translated as suffering. It is often viewed as the sense of dissatisfaction or disease a person feels with the world as it is presenting itself in one’s life now. Of dukkha, Buddha said that all of us experience it in our lives – many of us so much so that we are consumed by it.

Yet, as Buddha himself experienced, there are ways to be liberated from it. In terms of Buddhism, these ways are expressed as The Eightfold Path. (Other spiritual traditions have other methods which I would argue also can be gateways to liberation, but discussing those would lead us off track today.)

Returning to the classroom discussion above, the Ethiopian woman seems have pinned at least some of her happiness in life on having a large family. Although I don’t know for certain, it seems that larger families are more common in Ethiopia than they are here in the U.S. When you think of the droughts, famines, wars, and other difficulties that have plagued Ethiopia over at least the past century, it’s very understandable that an emphasis on procreation might be promoted not only in individual families, but much more broadly, as a social or cultural value.

Since she has a larger family, the woman in my class might be viewed in a positive way by others in her cultural group, and she might internally view herself more positively because she has manifested what has value within the larger group.

Of course, many individual factors play into this as well. Her family seems to work together well. Her children are doing well academically, and unlike other learners I have had in the past, she doesn’t come to class with a heavy burden of problems her children are having at home, or at school, or elsewhere. So, it’s very much possible that her emphasis on “big families” is as much, if not more, tied to her personal experience than to cultural or social values or constructs.

Yet I think it’s foolish of us, especially if we believe in the view that there is no solid, fixed self or “I,” to place all our eggs in the individual basket. Any one person’s suffering or joy is a product of a complex uprising of causes and conditions, some of which one might be personally responsible for, but which also include others that are much bigger than any one person.

No one person, no matter how powerful, is responsible for bringing about war, for example. Or environmental destruction, or patterns of patriarchy, or racism, or sexism, heterosexism, or any other number of social ills that infiltrate and effect our lives on a daily basis.

In his excellent book The Great Awakening: A Buddhist Social Theory, David Loy spends a lot of time examining these kinds of larger patterns. Using the term “social dukkha,” he argues that Buddhist teachings — the precepts, emptiness, compassion and others — can be applied to broader social issues as a means of potentially reducing suffering on a larger scale.

Now, Loy certainly isn’t the first to say any of this, nor is he a lone wolf crying in the wilderness. But it strikes me that until there is a critical mass of us speaking and acting in ways that might address these larger scale issues, no amount of individual effort on spiritual practice will be enough to greatly reduce suffering in the world.

Maybe if all of us all took up meditation practice and stuck with the practice diligently, there would be some massive change. But I still wonder, even then, if oppressive social structures would simply fall away, or if, in spite of our efforts, we’d still be facing the problems these structures create.

I have a hard time believing that racism, sexism, and heterosexism would simply vanish as a result of all of us individually — or even as collectives of individuals — doing meditation practice. This is not at all to denigrate meditation – I love it – but to suggest that given where we are at on a global scale today, it seems additional, more collective approaches to the dharma are being called for.


*Note: I wrote this last year for the Life as a Human webzine, but given the influx of grassroots, social movements that have sprung up over the past year (all over the world it seems), I thought this article was worth another look.

Squrriel Friends

About a week ago, I noticed an overturned squirrel in the road, mouth and eyes wide open, but otherwise untouched. Maybe a heart attack victim; I don't know.

Yesterday, as I came upon the body while on my bicycle, I found another squirrel pausing, checking out the scene. The living squirrel seemed curious, interested in what was there, without really any extra jumpiness or fear. Just observing fully. For a moment, life and death came together, not separate at all. The living squirrel lifting its leg over the dead squirrel's body as I approached. And then it happened: the living squirrel ran, spooked by the oncoming, spinning bicycle wheel - and the giant figure sitting on top of it.

Seems to me this is how most of us handle life and death. We are curious and interested at times, but too often, something giant and/or spinning scares us away from our true lives.

How to see through the mirage? Time to go sit with that.

Occupy Genjokoan

I was meditating on the plaza where our Occupy protest is going on today, sitting next to the sign you see above. Next to me also sat the book in the photo, a fairly well known academic commentary on Zen Master Dogen. There was a cool breeze, and the air was fairly damp as I sat, watching my breath, and taking in all the various sounds of the folks around me.

Suddenly, I hear the following:

"To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things of the universe."

I opened my eyes and saw a guy about my age standing in front of my sign. He said "What's the next line?"

And together we came up with the next line of "Genjokoan" about dropping off body and mind.

We bowed at each other. He said "I saw your book about Dogen sitting there and then read your sign."

It turns out he had been attending services at one of the other local Zen centers, which is where he had learned the Dogen quote from.

We talked a bit more, and then he left to get something to eat. As he walked away, I thought "What a small world it is to have someone walk up to you and start quoting Dogen."

Fearless and Fragile in Life and Death

In an old issue of Shambhala Sun I stumbled upon, Zen teacher Joan Halifax Roshi is described by one of her students using the two title words for this post: fearless and fragile. Roshi Joan, as she is called, has spent much of her adult life caring for the sick and dying, and teaching others how to do so. What I find so inspiring about her life story is this simple, but profound commitment she made after her grandmother's death years ago. Her grandmother, she said, "normalized death" for her by being a caregiver for dying friends when Halifax was a child. However, the grandmother's own death was a long and lonely process, and Halifax later came to realize that much of her grandmother's "misery had been rooted in her family's fear of death, including (Halifax's) own." And so, at her grandmother's death, Halifax "made the commitment to practice being there for others as they died."

The fragility of life is all around us, available at every moment. We don't need the death of a loved one to be reminded of it, although often this is the only time when we allow ourselves to be reminded. Willfully ignoring the fragility of life is a particularly well developed, commonplace human trait. I've long felt that our society is particularly poor when it comes to the whole issue of death and dying. Many of us lack the support, and courage, to open to what is a natural process and a part of all of us. And, as a result, our relationships with the living, and the dying, suffer greatly.

I still remember the day I came home from a day trip to Red Wing with my ex-girlfriend to find that our beloved family cat, Buzz, had collapsed and was put down by my mother and sister while we were gone. It was a shock to realize that the vague glance I gave him that morning, thinking he looked a little tired, was my goodbye.

How many of us have multiple stories like this about friends, family, pets, co-workers? And by this I mean that the story includes some level of loss beyond the loss of the person or animal - a sense that you weren't really there, or had assumed a continuity about the others' life that turned out to be just a story. It seems to me that fearlessness involves being fully alive and deeply engaged in your relationships as much as possible. And not only human relationships, but with animals, plants, your every surrounding. To be able to be open to what is there without rejecting or manipulating - including your fears and failures.

Yoga and Contentment

The second niyama discussed in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras is santosha or contentment. The thinking is easy. In order to achieve great happiness, learn to be content with what you have and accept what is. Let go of expectations and rest easy in the flow of life. Learn that the state of mind does not depend on any external status or material things. The state of your mind and happiness depends on your perspective and willingness to remain calm with each success and failure...

The easiest way to practice santosha is to find gratitude in your life daily. Each day wake up and count at least 10 things you have to be grateful for. In the same way, seek abundance in your life in all that is around you. The sun in the sky, the green grass, the breeze that wisps across your neck. Make the most out of every situation...

The above is from the current post on the blog Capricious Yogi. I think it's a pretty decent summary and practice offering, and obviously somewhat similar to what I wrote in a recent post about gratitude.

Here is a little more specific focus on the verse from the Yoga Sutra in question.

2.42 From an attitude of contentment (santosha), unexcelled happiness, mental comfort, joy, and satisfaction is obtained.
(santosha anuttamah sukha labhah)

santosha = contentment
anuttamah = unexcelled, extreme, supreme
sukha = pleasure, happiness, comfort, joy, satisfaction
labhah = is acquired, attained, gained

Santosha brings happiness and joy: From an attitude of contentment (santosha), unexcelled happiness, mental comfort, joy, and satisfaction is obtained.

Contentment comes from within: We humans seem to always be seeking satisfaction in the external world and our internal fantasies. Only when we comfortably accept what we currently have will be able to do the practices that lead to the highest realization.

I've noticed lately how often yoga teachers and students seem to lean on the translations "comfort" and "happiness" when discussing santosha. I don't think it's an accident, and I do think it can create limits on how people perceive and enact the teachings.

Simply put, finding comfort and happiness are two of the grand addictions of modern, Western life. And even though it doesn't take a lot to see that what the Yoga Sutras are speaking about isn't the same as pop culture is speaking about, the very words can be Pavlovian triggers for many of us, regardless of how much practice we do.

So, what is contentment really? And how might we fully embody and express it?

To me, contentment is fairly easy when things in my life are not too difficult. But what about in those situations where you're mad as hell, and others are mad as hell at you? Or when you're surrounded by people who are upset, depressed, outraged, or even hateful?

How might you fully embody and express contentment there?

If you're like me, you probably tend to go off kilter in these situations. Either you start to take on the energy and actions of those around you, or you create a wall and stuff anything remotely unsettling down into yourself.

I'll be honest, many of the ancient yoga texts are really weak when it comes to addressing living the teachings within complex, communal situations - like in a bustling city for example. Many of the old yogis were elites who separated themselves from all of that, so it's not a huge surprise.

And neither is it a surprise that I have come up with more questions to sit with. It's a skill I seem to have.

Perhaps contentment comes through being at ease with questions...