Systems Change and Taking Care of Present Moment Conditions

Ever since I first read about him, I've always admired Bernie Glassman. Even if what he does isn't always on the mark (like the recent Vast Sky project with Ken Wilber and Genpo Roshi, which seems tainted by consumerism), he seems to readily engage in ways to merge spiritual practice and social justice work. Here is an excerpt from a recent interview with him:

My biggest interest is in bearing witness to the system. My reflection has been that people honor those who attend those hurt by the system, but we kill those who try to change the system. Many wonderful people, like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahtma Ghandi were assassinated because they were changing the system. I think one can both bear witness to the people in front of you and to the system as whole. That is why I’m trying to promote social engagement throughout all of Buddhism. That is a systems change.

You don’t have to choose between meeting the needs of the people in front of you and changing the system. You do all of it. If you run into someone who is hungry, you feed them. It doesn’t prevent you from doing the job training and help get out of welfare, but it is critical to take care of issues that threaten people’s lives.

Some people get upset when they observe how much going is on. They ask, ’how can I do it all? I only have two hands!’. I ask ’what is the best thing I can do now?’ When Kannon makes the Boddhisatva vow of saving all beings, Kannon breaks into tons of pieces. If you think of only what you have, you could think of all kinds of reasons for not doing things. But if you think of the whole world as you, you have many more resources. Leaders need to motivate, mobilize and coordinate entire communities.

I appreciate most this sense of not limiting yourself - but doing what you can to both address immediate needs, as well as systemic change.

Makes me think of the lines from the dharma poem Harmony of Difference and Sameness

"Light and dark oppose one another
like the front and back foot in walking."

A lot of us like to think of spiritual practice and addressing difficult social issues as somehow separate. But how can this be? We walk on this earth, take each step on the very same ground. The only separation is in your mind.

Just a Different Expression

Woke up this morning at 5:30 and went down to zen center for a half day meditation retreat. Just finished about 45 minutes ago. I don't have much to say about it, other than it's good to take a break from the wild, moving, everyday world and watch yourself more closely. It's really no break, just a different expression.

Got to sit with that mud I wrote about yesterday, watch the waves of fear, tightness, and mind chatter rise and fall. Lots of fleeting hang ups, but also a bubbling brook of desire to stay devoted to embodying the bodhisattva vows in my own, unique, lay practitioner life. Everything I wondered about yesterday is still valid, just less frantic and tensed up.

Waking, I bicycled to bird calls.
Stepping back into the world six hours later,
to a greeting of tar
and road construction.
Every breath
seamlessly
moving through it all.

May your lives go well.

Choices, Classism, and Buddhist Living

Thanks to Katie over at Kloncke for this poem from an old favorite, Jane Hirshfield.

Tree

by Jane Hirshfield

———

———

It is foolish
to let a young redwood
grow next to a house.

Even in this
one lifetime,
you will have to choose.

That great calm being,
this clutter of soup pots and books –

Already the first branch-tips brush at the window.
Softly, calmly, immensity taps at your life.

Katie talks a little in her post about wondering if she has to choose between deep dharma practice and things like social justice work and relationships. I've felt this divide myself many times. Ultimately, I don't think they have to be separate "things" we have to choose, but how exactly they come together, I frequently feel at a loss.

According to the old narrative, at 34, I'm supposed to have my shit together to some degree. To know my career. Be partnered. Have children or at least own something substantial (house, car, whatever). Well, that's the old narrative, and obviously people in their 50's, 60's, and even 70's are redefining themselves, and/or being forced to by external pressures.

It's a confusing era where there are no sets of blueprints available. It's a liberating era, where the confinements of the past blueprints have fallen apart. Hell if I know how to describe what's actually going on in the greater society right now. But in some ways, it seems that feeling like standing atop that 100 foot pole we Zennys talk about is pretty easy to access. I've felt like I've been standing on it for awhile now, looking all around and not being able to let go and step off.

In some ways, maybe it would have been easier to have grown up in a time and/or place where the options were few, and you hadn't just spent your twenties and early thirties watching the material comforts your parents generation had access to suddenly disappear. Frankly, I find it challenging to listen to Baby Boomer dharma teachers who have retirement accounts and lake homes tell people like me that life is always precarious, and the practice is to let go of hang ups about material wants and desires. Sure. That's easy for you to say. Try living nearly a decade without health insurance, never making more that 20 grand a year because you're trying your best to actually do work that fulfills those pesky bodhisattva vows.

In Buddhist circles, I hear phrases like "we always have choices" in this life all the time. It's true. There's always choices available in terms of how we view this life. Always. Some days, I'm totally able to see the blessings of things as they are. Others, not so much. But when it comes down to it, phrases like "we always have choices" tend to come from places of privilege. Long ago, I remember saying something like this to a student in an ESL class, only to receive a "dharma" lecture about the real-life limitations this person faced being a middle aged refugee with little formal education living in a nation like the U.S.

Honestly, I can feel that redwood tree growing within me, and outside of me as well. The pressure of the roots of confusion and attachment within; the pressure of worsened economic conditions and cloudy social standards on the outside. Making choices is really an act of faith and trust in this kind of environment, and sometimes, I just don't feel up to it. What's a devoted lay practitioner who isn't attracted to monasticism at this point in his life to do?

Sandhill Cranes and Speaking from the Heart

Last week, my father wrote me saying that the state of Minnesota was considering opening a hunting period for Sandhill Cranes. My first thought was "How odd? Why?" Sandhill cranes have been protected in our state and many others for a long time now, and besides, they are amazing birds that have been threatened with extinction in the not to distant past.

For many years now, I have written letters and e-mails to public officials, feeling that this is one part of being an active citizen, and engaged member of the community. How wonderful it was, then, to open my e-mail to the following message my father sent to a state DNR official:

Not sure if this is going to the right person but I wanted to voice my families objections to the killing of Sandhill Cranes. With so many other game birds in our state why in heavens name would the DNR put a season on these majestic birds? I can see no good reason. You yourself said that you don't even know the number of Sandhills in our state. They have been protected in our state up to now. They are beautiful and unique and mate for life and should be still worthy of protection. I live in Chisago County and on rare occasions see and hear them. What a site they are standing out in the fields over 4 feet tall and using their loud, unique calls to each other. I know that other states except Nebraska have seasons on them but that shouldn't influence our state and its practices. I am not anti-hunting and understand the need to manage the wildlife we have here, but maybe the state should do more Sand Hill Crane research before they go ahead and kill these beautiful animals.

A balanced message if there ever was one, straight from the heart, but also with enough facts to support what's said. Well done. An example for us all.

Stephen Batchelor, Secularism, and "Wrong View"

The Zennist brings up an interesting set of issues in his current post. Taking on the in vogue Stephen Batchelor, among others, he writes:

One can deplore the incursion of secularism into Buddhism by the likes of Stephen Batchelor and others. But one cannot stop the advance of secularism except by really understanding Buddhism from its own side in which the Buddha is allowed to speak for himself. This is a key matter because there are books about Buddhism that are essentially products of eisegesis. In other words, these books amount to the author reading his or her own ideas into Buddhism when such is not in the Buddhist canon. Stephen Batchelor’s book, Buddhism Without Beliefs, is a perfect example of eisegesis. He interprets Buddhism as being secular, or somewhat the same as being fit for a modern secular world.

A number of modern Buddhist authors have a strong inclination to read into Buddhism what is, essentially, not there, seeing modern ideas in the Buddha’s teachings, instead. This, to be sure, is eisegesis (read into)—not proper exegesis where the meaning of what the Buddha said is drawn out hopefully making it clearer for the reader—but not fundamentally altering his teachings.

I tend to find The Zennist a bit stodgy and fundamentalist at times. However, I find these comments compelling in some respects. It's very true that there are plenty of books, teachings, and teachers out there who have bent Buddha into a pretzel trying to fit into the lives people already have. And then there are folks like Mr. Batchelor, who claim to have stripped the "trappings" away, while doing so through the trappings of their modern, "Western" filters.

I actually don't have much issue with secularism "creeping" into Buddhism. Many of the practices that occur in religious settings can also occur in secular settings - and there's benefit in both. It's not terribly important to me to "guard" the tradition. However, I do think it's valuable to have clarity about Buddha's teachings, and to be wary of people who suggest that they have the "pure" way figured out. What do you think?

"Happy Suffering"

I've been perusing the Buddhoblogosphere, following threads and links, and discovering wonderful new (to me) writers out there. Among the new blogs is one by a spunky, fashion-savvy Tibetan Buddhist named Paris (photo above is of her and her teacher H.E. Tsem Tulku Rinpoche). In a recent post, she says this:

Rinpoche said this today about dedicating your life to working for others: "You don't think of it as work, you think of it as happiness". It was the most perfect expression of what I have been feeling over the last few months and I didn't even realise I've been feeling this way until my father sent me an SMS one day to tell me that I shouldn't work so hard.

I didn't answer the SMS immediately because I didn't know how to answer. It was only after a few days of thinking about it that I realised why the SMS had bothered me so much - the fact that my father had referred to it as "work," which is exactly what I have stopped thinking of it as being.

Since committing to Dharma work full-time and since being given the huge honour to be a Liaison within the Kechara organisation, I have stopped thinking of what I do as work but as something that is living, being, doing. I couldn't imagine doing anything else but this. Rinpoche clarified it so beautifully tonight when he said, "You think of it as happiness" which it truly is. No matter how tired, agitated, frustrated, ill or even angry I get when I'm here, I'd still rather "suffer" it than be anywhere else doing anything else. It is the closest I have been able to get to understand what it means to have "happy suffering."

Having done a lot of volunteer and service "work" over the years, I've certainly had my share of struggles around how to view my various commitments. There are times when I feel great joy in being involved, doing what the situation calls for, and walking with people through the various issues of their lives. Other times, though, it definitely feels like work, heavy, difficult work. But Paris and Rinpoche both are right in point me, and all of us really, back towards the joy of service and walking with others. I prefer the term walking with others, as opposed to "helping," or even "teaching" really, although in my role as an ESL teacher, there's no completely getting around "teacher." However, recently, when I think of the bodhisattva vow to liberate all beings, it points me back to the Four Divine Abodes.

Love or Loving-kindness (metta)
Compassion (karuna)
Sympathetic Joy (mudita)
Equanimity (upekkha)

These are the tools required to live out that vow, as far as I'm concerned. And when it comes to the call to view seeing working with others as "Happiness," the four abodes are the houses from which happiness springs forth. I have to constantly remind myself of this, as I get irritated and overwhelmed at times, and sometimes land in despair over the state of the world. There's a hell of a lot of misery, but that's only part of the story. Thanks to Paris and Rinpoche for the reminder.

"My Wants are Endless!"

Here's a catchy phrase, and a bit of commentary, for you all courtesy of Barry over at Ox Herding:

My wants are endless; I vow to satisfy them all.

Most of us are familiar with this vow, even if we'd never say it out loud. How could we not recognize ourselves in it? After all, desire is one of the "marks" of existence.

The sheer scale of our desires and wants frequently masks the reality of our simple human needs.

I sometimes wonder what our ancestors would think of us if they could arrive in the present. Clearly, desire has always been a human condition that has caused immense amounts of trouble, but it's probably also true that we "moderns" have more stuff and ideas to want than anyone throughout history. We've gone global with nearly everything, and many of us spend countless hours of our lives longing for things that our ancestors neither dreamed of, nor needed to live happy lives. In fact, we don't need most of these "things" either, but have given in to the collective delusion that they are required.

Always one to live on borders - a foot here and a foot there (wherever here and there are) - I have made some decisions that stand out amongst my fellow Americans (oh lord, I think I just channeled George Bush!). I've never owned a car, which has shaped my a bit differently when it comes to certain things - like speed, for example, as well as living in the weather, with the weather, as opposed to being always sheltered from it during travel. I've never had a cell phone, and always find it amusing when people say they absolutely "need" to have one. Until 15 years ago, almost no one had one at all. We've simply reshaped our lives around the convenience a cell phone offers. I suppose it's nice. There have been some benefits for sure, but at what cost?

I always wonder about these issues. One hundred and twenty years ago, in 1890, almost no one had an automobile. Cities and towns were built around public spaces and shared transportation. The phone was flickering invention just starting to be manufactured and used. Electricity was for the wealthy, period. Indoor plumbing as well. And that was here in the affluent United States.

What have we given up as a result of all these inventions and the social shifts that came around them? Buddha taught that cause and effect really aren't separate at all. They function as a team, even though they might appear to be separate across space and time.

More and more, the public is becoming private. I often find myself at coffee shops, enjoying chatter with others or reading and writing over a hot cup of joe. However, these are decidedly privatized spaces that were, in no small part, developed as a result of our collective wants for both quality coffee and a space to be social and drink it in. Coffee houses are by no means new inventions, but the currently form is often much more privatized, and/or grounded in making profits, than in previous generations.

Even the layout of our cities themselves, or the ways in which we change the layout in order to create more freeways and speedways, reflects an attempt to satisfy wants - such as getting to places faster - at the expense of communities. I live on the edge of the Rondo neighborhood in St. Paul, MN. Once a thriving, predominantly African-American community, it was shattered by the installation of I-94 back in the 1960s. I sometimes wonder what might have been as I bike through what's left of it today.

My wants are endless; I vow to satisfy them all. And I'd add, when we're in this state of mind: no matter what the costs. Something to consider as your mind spins around it's "wants" today.

*Image is from the Credjafawn Co-op Store, 678 Rondo, St. Paul, ca. 1948.