tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56946221471632131232024-02-19T02:05:44.964-08:00Being and EmptinessRyusenflowingfountainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14243822868909412059noreply@blogger.comBlogger66125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694622147163213123.post-58060343650256982482017-11-29T10:39:00.000-08:002017-11-29T14:07:59.076-08:00Fighting Over Me in the Criminal Court?<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">That’s what happened
according to my husband Brad, who has trial litigation experience. I was in a
room of 175 people called for jury duty in a criminal case.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was surprised that I, along with 70 others,
were called to the courtroom. We filed into the courtroom. The defendant – a
man named Mohammed with dark hair and skin – and his attorney scanned our faces
as we sat down. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I immediately felt sorry
for the defendant, imaging he had been the recipient of harm, not a criminal. I
wonder if this showed on my face. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">We went outside the courtroom
for about fifteen minutes and were called in again. Much to my surprise, I was
named second seat in the jury. There were twelve of us, with six back-ups. Then
began the questioning by the judge. This was a misdemeanor case of alleged
vandalism. Ten people of the potential jurors had been victim of car vandalism.
The judge asked each of these people whether they could be objective in this
case. They wavered saying variations of “I’ll try” or “I think I can.” The
judge was getting exasperated. “No, I don’t want ‘I’ll try’, I need to know
whether you will or will not put your own vandalism experience aside.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">I was then questioned by the
judge. I said I was a Zen Buddhist practitioner and teacher. I said how I was a
defendant in a criminal case. I had turned into a parking space at Safeway, and
a woman accused me of hitting her with my car, backing up and hitting her two
more times. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was outraged and
humiliated and suspected a scam. I told the court that I was shocked how easily
criminal charges can be filed against someone. I didn’t say this to get out of
jury duty, it was simply the truth. But I thought the plaintiff attorney wouldn’t
want me and the defense attorney would.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">We were dismissed again,
while the judge and attorneys conferred.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It was at this time that the attorneys were discussing their peremptory
challenges. Each attorney could dismiss three jurors without a reason. When we
returned to the courtroom, the attorneys proceeded with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">voir dire</i>, the process of questioning jurors
to determine if they would help or hurt their case. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">They asked several people whether
they thought “the criminal justice system is broken.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most people mumbled opinions that the system
was not broken; people make mistakes. Mumble, mumble.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">I, on the other hand, said: “I
read an article in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New Yorker</i> about
a young African American man, who was incarcerated for a very long time on
false charges. Very sad. People of color fill the jails and prisons, while the
white and affluent stay out of jail.” [I wish I had said, “Like the white criminal
who is the President of the United States.”]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Questions to me started flying
from both plaintiff and defense attorneys. I knew the plaintiff attorney would
not want me on the jury, and for the defense, I would be a dream juror: aware of
systemic injustice, personally aware that false charges can be brought, and yet
articulate about the necessity of following legal instructions by the judge.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">The defense attorney said, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">“Ms. Byrum, what about my
client?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">“I don’t know him.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">“Well, look at him, what do
you think?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">“I think I would be
sympathetic, but I would judge the case on the merit of the evidence produced.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">[I wish I said Buddhists are
trained to sympathize with everyone.]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">“What would be beyond a
reasonable doubt for you?” [The standard in a criminal case.]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">“If after all the evidence
was produced, and I still could not be certain that this man was guilty, I
would have to vote “Not guilty.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">It was bizarre. There were 17
other people, but I was asked question after question. Plaintiff attorney
wanted me out, but she had to make sure there were not more “biased” potential
jurors. Defense wanted me in and wanted to demonstrate I could be fair and
reasonable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">After questioning, the
plaintiff attorney said,” Thank you Ms. Byrum. You are excused.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">If I had known that I would
have the platform of an entire criminal court, with 70 potential jurors, I would
have come better prepared to give a speech about injustice in the criminal
justice system.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">The best long term outcome,
however, was that at a break, a young software engineer asked me about
Buddhism. She lives in San Mateo and I recommended the Insight Meditation
Center.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think she will go. My one for
sure bodhisattva act.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Ryusenflowingfountainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14243822868909412059noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694622147163213123.post-29481962693099668912017-08-25T10:28:00.000-07:002017-08-25T12:53:02.834-07:00Is Forgiving a Choice?<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">My husband Brad told me a story that Frank O. tells. A devout
Catholic woman was dying. The priest came to give last rites, but she refused.
She did not want to be in heaven. She did not want to be with her husband who
had beaten and abused her. I wonder if she was thinking, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I would rather forsake heaven than see that man again.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Aren’t we told we should forgive all those who have hurt us? Of
course, we all know that forgiving is a good <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">idea</i>. We Buddhists receive the precept: “A disciple of Buddha does
not harbor ill will.” Forgiving is ultimately freeing ourselves from the knot
of pain around resentment and ill will. And, when it comes down to it,
forgiving is for ourselves, for our own peace of mind, not for the peace of
mind of the forgiven.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I have led workshops on the IONS Conscious Aging curriculum.
One of the sessions is on Forgiveness. Last time I introduced this session, I
said, “Sometimes I would like to skip this section. I am sitting up here
teaching how important it is to forgive, and I have a really hard time doing
this myself.” Perhaps this kind of upfront honesty is good, but, also, it is
troubling to me that there are people I cannot forgive. How can I encourage
others to forgive, when I sometimes have such a hard time forgiving?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">One of those people I can no longer forgive is my sister.
Over our fifty years together, she has repeatedly said the cruelest words she
could find. The cruelty of her words has been like a knife, cutting deeply into
my heart. And family can sometimes do this better than anyone else, because
they intimately know our vulnerabilities. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Often her words had no relevance to the trivial
situation at hand. I know that she has had a lot of
suffering in her life, but that does not lessen the deep hurt of her words.
And, after having let go and forgiven her many, many times, I am no longer
willing to do this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I realize that I have closed the doors of my soul to her. I
will protect myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is not a
choice. It is like a sea anemone that automatically closes up when it is
touched. Self-protection, self -defense is probably a deep evolutionary
response. (Evolution is used to justify a lot these days!) It is not that I
choose to hold on to anger; it is that I can no longer trust and risk the pain.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So we are enjoined to forgive: our families, our friends. But
in some cases, I cannot do this. So then a super-ego kind of voice scolds me
for not being a good Buddhist. For not being a good person. Blame on top of
pain. Perhaps self-compassion is in order instead of self-scolding.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In our religious groups and sanghas, there is often a kind of
spiritual bypassing: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Just forgive. Just
let go! </i>A noble aspiration, but this can ignore reality as it is: trauma,
pain, fear. In trauma work, in the world of psychotherapy, trauma can only be healed
when it is met head on. Maybe there should be another precept that bodhisattvas
take: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I will honestly meet all the grief
and anger and pain within</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think
Pema Chodron calls this “The wisdom of no escape.” It is Buddha practicing
within delusion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When we honestly acknowledge the “inner demons,” grace might
then be possible. Forgiving is not a gift we give, it is the gift we receive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Ryusenflowingfountainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14243822868909412059noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694622147163213123.post-48150329513400347972017-06-10T13:27:00.000-07:002017-06-10T13:27:44.865-07:00Burning down the house<br /><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">“Hold
tight<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Wait ‘til
the party’s over<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Hold
tight<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">We’re
in for nasty weather<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">There
has to be a way<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Burning
down the house.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>~<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Talking Heads<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">“All
my ancient twisted karma<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">From
beginingless greed, hate and delusion<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Born
through body, speech and mind<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">I
now fully avow.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>~ Buddhist chant of
repentance<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">In a way, we can be grateful
to Donald Trump. He is the spokesperson, the big screen poster boy, for greed,
hate and delusion. The whole world can see this darkness clearly, broadcast
every day on national headlines. As a symptom of a deep disease, we can now see
and address chaos and evil as never before. (Note: I almost never use the word “evil,”
but now it seems appropriate.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">HATE is tearing us apart:
personally, within families and nationally. Now, with Trump, it is more
apparent, more blatant, more shocking. His mouth is a megaphone for hate. American
politics has devolved into open, partisan contempt and hatred. There is
internal warfare among families, fractured because people will say on Facebook
what they will not say openly face-to-face. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Open hostility on the road has escalated. The
other day I accidentally cut off a man’s car because he was in my blind spot.
He positioned his car right in front of mine and continually braked, while
leering in his rearview mirror. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">And I am really pissed off. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Corporate GREED is ravaging
our planet. We all know the evidence: anthropogenic global warming, melting artic
ice caps, destruction of the Great Barrier reef, daily extinction of animal and
plant species – perhaps all irreversible, perhaps a downward spiral. This
catastrophe is ignored for reasons of personal aggrandizement and greed by the
1% - Trump and his club of billionaires, especially Tillerson, his Secretary of
State.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">DELUSION: Humans are not an
isolated species with unlimited power to manipulate and control. Interconnection
and codependence are reality, not some beautiful Buddhist ideas. It is worth
noting that Trump’s mental pathology is malignant narcissism, which means he
cares for no-one but himself. But this delusion is hardly limited to Trump. Fundamentally
we all share the delusion that the only thing that really matters is ME.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">So is the house being burned
down, or can we burn down the house? The latter calls for a revolution. A
revolution and transformation of consciousness that is beautifully called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Great Turning</i> by Joanna Macy. She
says, “Having evolved us into self-reflexive consciousness, the world can now
know itself through us, behold its own majesty – and also respond to its own
suffering.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>( see her website <a href="http://www.joannamacy.net/thegreatturning.html)">http://www.joannamacy.net/thegreatturning.html</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">I have sat vigil for the
earth in Union Square, San Francisco, but a far deeper transformation is called
for in me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I need to recognize my own
anger and how it is daily triggered by the news and the all-pervasive, ambient
anger.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">I have made it a daily
practice to recognize my anger and work with it mindfully. I see how anger
destroys peace of mind. I pause and ask myself <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Where does this anger come from? What am I trying to protect? Why am I
afraid? </i>If I can learn to be accepting and compassionate with my own greed,
hate and delusion, I can move toward treating everyone in the same way through kindness and compassionate action.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">If corporate America is
burning down the house, I feel helpless and in despair. If I can burn down my
own house of anger and just be a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">flowing
fountain</i>, then that is, at least, a step forward from this insanity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
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Ryusenflowingfountainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14243822868909412059noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694622147163213123.post-59597385341903848082016-12-02T10:18:00.002-08:002016-12-03T09:39:29.835-08:00Dialogue May Not be Possible<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.5pt;">Before Thanksgiving, my husband, Brad, and I travelled to South
Dakota – land of a very large Byrum clan. I knew it would be difficult to
travel to a state where almost every white person voted for Trump, because I am
unabashedly, passionately distraught over the election results. Many of my fellow
Buddhists have been recommending dialogue with those of an opposite viewpoint.
I knew that preserving family harmony trumped (as it were) political
discussion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.5pt;">I had one ally: my young step grandson is half Lakota Sioux. So
at the huge dinner gathering – held in a hunter lodge – I started discussing my
sympathy for the Water Protectors, privately with him. One of the more outspoken
Trump supporters jumped into the conversation to inform me that the protestors
were all paid by Black Lives Matter and were throwing kerosene bombs at the
police. I got sucked in. Moments later he was telling me that Obama was full of
hateful rhetoric. I could see my mother-in-law looking at us across the
kitchen; she said, “No politics!” I said, “I agree 100%...one hundred percent!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.5pt;">I have been thinking of the millions of primarily white voters
who voted for a man so stupendously unfit for office. One demographic is the
Christian evangelical, conservative vote. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am particularly aware of this group, because
Brad used to be a minister with Assemblies of God. They have one issue: Pro
Life. They willfully ignore Trump’s racism, misogyny, narcissism,
and proto-fascist tendencies –because of this one issue. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.5pt;">To me, this is ignorance. The Latin root of ignorance is “not
knowing,” but I think it is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ignoring the
truth</i>. Many of these people probably know that Trump could dismantle Social
Security, Affordable Care Act, and Medicare, but they choose to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ignore</i> it, because of their One Issue.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.5pt;">Brad has used the analogy of two pick-up trucks driving toward a
precipice. One is blue, full of people shouting, “Unity in Diversity” and the people
in the red truck shouting, “Make America White Again!” Global, corporate greed
is driving the truck, and we are all headed for disaster: global destruction,
if nothing else.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.5pt;">Also, political discourse may be impossible with Facebook and
the Internet and Twitter, where one can put forth an opinion with great
certainty, but with no basis in fact. This morning I saw a video clip from CNN
in which the moderator was interviewing Trump supporters. One woman was
convinced by Trump’s statement that millions of illegal immigrants voted for
Hillary. When asked about the source of her opinion, she said: “Facebook.” We
know that Trump mastered this technique of manipulating social media. John
Daily used to call his show “false news.” But now it is more difficult to
distinguish between true news and false news. More and more, I have even become
suspicious of posts by Facebook friends: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Is
this really true? </i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.5pt;">How would dialogue even be possible in these instances?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.5pt;">So what is our Buddhist practice at this time? Well, on the one
hand, a meditation practice and a general grounding in the knowledge of the
impermanence of all phenomena, can be very helpful in regaining some
equanimity. And, of course, we know we can be compassionate because all the
Trump supporters are each suffering in his or her own way. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.5pt;">But the unanticipated result of this election is a waking up to
the reality that we need to take action, we need to stay informed. Every day. Complacency
seemed safe, but now we know, for sure, that it is not.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="display: none; mso-hide: all;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Message Header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 2"/>
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Ryusenflowingfountainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14243822868909412059noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694622147163213123.post-91493961920973547262016-08-08T11:20:00.000-07:002016-08-08T11:20:53.681-07:00What is Nirvana Anyway?<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">I have been listening to a
talk by Shohaku Okumura on the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mahaparinirvana
Sutra</i>, the teachings of the Buddha at the end of his life. In Sanskrit <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Maha</i> means great beyond great; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Parinirvana</i> is the death of the body of
one who has attained nirvana in his or her lifetime. A verse from the sutra
says:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-themecolor: text1;">Then the Lord said to the monks, “Now, monks, I declare
to you all conditioned things are of the nature to decay. Strive on
untiringly.” These were the Tathagatha’s last words</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">I have been thinking of
nirvana, perhaps the most important idea in this sutra. In Soto Zen, we chant
the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Heart Sutra</i> regularly. One of the
lines is “Far beyond all inverted views, one realizes nirvana.” When I pause
for a moment to think about the words that I am chanting, I am always amazed by
the complexity of just one word. What do I think that nirvana means?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">The Sanskrit word nirvana
means “blown out,” as a candle is blown out. In the Indian tradition, nirvana
means complete freedom and liberation from samsara, or the wheel of birth and
death, the wheel of earthly existence. The individual soul, or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Atman</i> in Sanskrit, is extinguished and merges
with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Brahman</i>, the supreme divine
consciousness (God.) Nirvana can be attained in this lifetime with intense and
lifelong yogic practice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">In pre-Mahayana Buddhist
practice, nirvana can be attained in one’s lifetime, but as in the case of the
Buddha before his death, nirvana is considered incomplete, because he still had
a physical body. Complete nirvana, or Parinirvana, occurs when the five skandas
(body, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness) are
dissolved. When the Buddha died, he entered complete nirvana, because he no
longer had body and mind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The insight I had while
listening to Rev. Okumura’s talk is that in the Chinese version of the </span><i style="font-size: 14pt;">Mahaparinirvana Sutra, </i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">a Mahayana text,</span><i style="font-size: 14pt;"> </i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">there is an important difference in the
meaning of nirvana. </span><b style="font-size: 14pt;">In fact, the meaning
of nirvana has almost completely changed.</b><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> Nirvana is not the cessation of
the skandas, the death of the body and mind. Nirvana is the cessation of
arising and perishing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">As I understand it, then,
complete nirvana can occur in this lifetime, while you still have a body and
mind. Nirvana is not the cessation of conditioned things. Nirvana is a state of
mind, according to Rev. Okumura, in which the idea of arising and perishing
ceases. This state of mind is freedom from suffering.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Now I need to look at my life
and figure out what this means. Well, clearly things arise and cease. That is,
a person is born. I gave birth to my son. And a person dies. The other day I
was sitting next to a corpse, and that person was clearly dead and gone. To
deny that things arise and cease in this world would be absurd.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">So what does this cessation
of arising and perishing mean? Rev. Okumura says, <span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">“</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-themecolor: text1;">So the time when arising
and perishing, a dichotomy, ceases means we are really right now, right here.”
He gave the example of firewood and ash, from Dogen’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Genjokoan</i>: when firewood is firewood it is 100% firewood; it is not
ash. And ash is 100% ash. So I would relate this to my own life, thinking when
I am alive, I am 100% alive, not dead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When a body starts failing, it is often said that the person is dying.
But, no! That person is alive until the final breath.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-themecolor: text1;">For me, this isn’t just about birth and
death. It means a radical acceptance of what is right now. We accept that
things are born and die, that things come and go. It is the clinging to
perishing that can be so painful. My birth family relationships are gone. My
son has moved 1500 miles away. My body is changed and weakened. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-themecolor: text1;">These are facts: things arise and cease.
Nirvana would be cessation of wishing things were different. Acceptance doesn’t
mean denial of events that are sad, such as the loss of a child. It would mean
that at a deep and radical level, we accept the inevitable suffering in our
life. We understand and accept that things arise and cease. This would be equanimity.
This would be peace of mind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-themecolor: text1;">Does this make sense?</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Ryusenflowingfountainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14243822868909412059noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694622147163213123.post-136405188896615652016-05-13T16:39:00.000-07:002016-05-13T16:39:08.071-07:00Sitting with the body of Zenkei Blanche Hartman Roshi<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Great teacher, Archarya
Zenkei Blanche Hartman, died last night. I am grateful to have sat with her
body this morning in the Buddha Hall at Zen Center. She lay to the Buddha’s
right. She was surrounded by long- stemmed yellow flowers. Her brown okesa was
perfectly draped around her. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">What
I noticed the most were her hands. A long mala was gracefully arranged
around her hands. I could imagine her fingers moving the beads. Did she
repeat a mantra? Did she touch a new bead with each breath? I could
imagine her chest – now completely still – gently going up and down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Millions of breaths in 90 years.</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">I
thought of her hands that had touched and rescued thousands of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">rakusus</i>. If you made a mistake in the
sewing room, and thought you would have to take out a row of stitches, she
would re-do the stitch and tie a knot from 2 or 3 millimeters of thread. I
watched this miracle with amazement. I was fascinated with her patience and
care – a lesson in itself, especially for someone like me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">I
saw her slender gold wedding band and thought of her life’s devotion and love
for her husband Lou. I remember sitting with Lou’s body at Zen Hospice. When I
left, I could see Blanche sitting on the front stairs of Zen Center. I crossed
the street. I have not been one of her close disciples, so I was moved when she
stood up and embraced me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">I
saw the brown marks of old age on her hands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I saw the bruises from needle sticks and all the medical work done on
her body.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">So
this was Blanche Hartman, a woman who was born, who matured into a great
beauty, who loved her husband, was the abbess of Zen Center, and who had
children and grandchildren and maybe even great grandchildren. She was born and
she died.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">I
have no idea what happens after death. I may even be a heretic, because I
really insist that I don’t know and won’t guess. But I felt that Blanche
Hartman, as a person, was gone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">I
did, however, have a sense what “beyond the duality of birth and death” might
mean. Her life was entirely in the stream of practice. She was a portal for
hundreds (thousands?) who entered Zen Center and who were awakened to the
aspiration to free all beings. She ordained lay practitioners and priests, gave
dharma transmission, and for the most part, sent them off into the world to do
the work of the Buddha. She was the mother of bodhisattvas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What a magnificent life!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">I
think of her sitting zazen for years and years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I wonder, was she trying to know herself, or drop away body and mind, as
some people suggest is the purpose of zazen?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As I looked at her body, I thought that she practiced zazen purely out
of devotion to the practice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think
that she sat zazen for the sake of zazen. And along the way, brought thousands
to the dharma.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">So
this is how she is beyond the duality of birth and death. Her body, her mind,
her heart are part of the lineage, the unbroken flow of practice through Suzuki
Roshi and the ancestors.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">This
is the undying transmission.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Thank
you, Blanche, for your beautiful life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Ryusenflowingfountainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14243822868909412059noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694622147163213123.post-90237233517131125532016-04-04T11:37:00.000-07:002016-04-04T11:37:06.664-07:00Getting Old is Letting Go of One Damn Thing After Another<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">I don’t know where I heard
this joke. Maybe Sue Moon’s book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">This is
Getting Old</i>. I will attribute it to her, whether she wrote it or not!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Two old friends were at a
restaurant. One woman said, “I was just at a Zen retreat on aging!” Her friend
replied, “I don’t need a Zen retreat. I know that getting old is letting go of
one damn thing after another.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">The Buddha’s fundamental
teaching on suffering and the cause of suffering is summarized by the phrase
“letting go.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He taught that the cause
of suffering is desire and clinging, and that the end of suffering is letting
go.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">We so often hear about
letting go that we actually believe that we know what this means. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">If I just let go, I will be happy</i>. But I
think the reality of clinging and letting go is profound and elusive and
subtle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is perhaps the most difficult
spiritual work that we have to do, if we want to be truly happy and present in
our lives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">We hear the word “desire” and
think of lust or greed. But desire is the deep, endless yearning for things to
be other than they are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We want more and
more and more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We had a joke in my
college dorm, “Too much is never enough.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">This dissatisfaction with our
life as it is may be the single greatest cause of our unhappiness. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Another word for desire, in
the sense I am using it, is clinging. And this clinging is entirely expected,
especially as we age.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We cling to a more
youthful me. We cling to the idea of a body that used to be strong. We cling to
our lovers and partners and children. We cling to life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">There is nothing wrong with these
kinds of clinging. It is normal. It is human. But this clinging causes immense
suffering.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">It causes suffering because
of impermanence and change. Things change every moment. Things come, things go.
Thoughts come, thoughts go. People come, people go. There is nothing to hold
onto, not even ourselves. Not even our own identity. Every moment we are born
anew.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">We cannot remain as we were
in our thirties; our bodies are always changing. We cannot cling to our parents
and our partners and friends, because they will eventually die. We can’t cling
to our children. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">We wish to possess that which
we can never possess, because it was never ours in the first place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Kahlil Gibran wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Your children are not your
children.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">They are the sons and daughters
of Life's longing for itself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">They come through
you but not from you, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">This is a huge challenge to
me. I cannot let go of my child, nor would I want to. But my child is an adult
man. I can no longer have the intimate relationship of mother and child. I
cannot fix his problems and I cannot make his life easier. I can only pray for
his well being. As most parents know, we are powerless. I am not sure after
what age of the child we are powerless, but probably when they get their
drivers license.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">So how can we practice with
impermanence and change?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We practice
acceptance – radical acceptance. We accept life as it is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is not giving up; it is an aspirational
act.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As we get older, I think we
realize, more and more, that we are not in control. We do our very best and
accept the rest. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">One of the great truths in
spiritual living is that we can’t open fully to this life <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that is right here</i> if in any way we are ignoring or warding off the
truth of impermanence, mortality and death. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Our capacity to live and love
is directly related to our acceptance of change and loss.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">However, I am always aware of
spiritual bypassing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Letting go,
especially of loved ones, is very, very hard. It is not done in an instant, although,
maybe it can.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Letting go and forgiveness
and gratitude are life practices. But first we have to remember to do them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Angeles Arien said, “I think
that a reason to do spiritual practice is to commit ourselves simply,
consciously to say, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Yes, yes, yes</i> to
this whole process …<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that we will
undergo anyway: aging, sickness, and death.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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Ryusenflowingfountainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14243822868909412059noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694622147163213123.post-5269480594130428892016-01-04T17:50:00.000-08:002016-01-04T17:54:26.705-08:00Are we committed or are we just fooling ourselves?<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 16.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">Norman will be teaching from Thich Nhat Hanh’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Old Path White Clouds</i>. I got to page 256
and I put it down, probably forever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
know that mythological stories are important for their archetypal themes and as
an expression of populist religious ideas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That Buddha-to-be left his wife and child is well known, and it seems
that in general we Buddhists – or at least the ones of know – accept the story,
even if we do not totally agree that this was an ethical thing to do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">So at some level I accepted his leaving as an important
story, the path to Buddha’s enlightenment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And since we tell this story every year around December 8<sup>th</sup>,
the mythological date of the Buddha’s enlightenment, it no longer disturbs me
as much as it did. But in the narrative by Thich Nhat Hanh, the Buddha returns
to visit his wife and very young child Rahula for a short time. It is said that
Rahula is allowed to visit the Buddha in his forest monastery, and then he is
ordained, breaking the heart of his mother and grandparents. Meanwhile we are
told that the Buddha is walking gracefully and mindfully in the forest, (while
his loved ones suffer.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">The message is clear: the Way is for male mendicants, and
that it is all right to leave your wife and home in order to follow the Way. Not
only is it all right, it is desirable!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">As we know, religions mutate slowly in a new culture. So in
American Buddhism, we now ordain women (thank goodness!) and we no longer
believe that one must be celibate and live in a monastery in order to follow
the Way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">But as I have considered this,
I wonder about the deep story here. The goal of renunciation is to focus one’s
entire life on spiritual practice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
say that we can attain the way “in the world,” but are we really practicing
with the commitment and one-pointedness of the Buddha and his disciples in this
story? Or even with the commitment of our friends who live a monastic life? What
does it mean to practice with commitment anyway?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is reading a book or two and sitting once a
day (a great discipline, actually) enough? I wonder if it isn’t very possible
to become complacent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And what does
“enough” mean anyway? We no longer talk about a specific goal like
enlightenment, but what are we doing? Are we following the precepts and living
ethically (a wonderful achievement)! Is that enough?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">What does it mean to be a priest in our secular world, living
at home, doing the shopping, etc?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I
age and see death always on the horizon, I am called to commit, but to what and
for what end? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">Pretty slippery stuff, but we must, I think, continue to
investigate and look deeper. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Ryusenflowingfountainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14243822868909412059noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694622147163213123.post-90713201576543276802015-09-19T08:38:00.000-07:002015-09-19T08:38:02.037-07:00Avalokiteshvara and the Gospel According to Mark<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Brad is preaching tomorrow,
and, as is our custom, I ask what the gospel is for this Sunday. (They rotate
on a yearly basis in the Episcopalian church; this year is the gospel according
to Mark.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Brad said it is Mark’s story
of the disciples traveling to Jerusalem with Jesus. He has told them that he is
going to be killed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are in denial
and disbelief because, according to the Jewish tradition at that time, the
Messiah will reign supreme – literally, on this earth as a king.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not metaphorically or metaphysically as the
king of heaven. The disciples further argue among themselves who will be first
in the new reign of the messiah. (Kind of like, I think, arguing over who will
be chief deputy or prime minister.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">To use Buddhist language, Jesus
is telling them to accept things as they are, and, in effect, to turn toward his
suffering. I asked Brad what would have happened, hypothetically, if the
disciples did believe Jesus, did experience the deep pain of his eventual death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Brad said, “Jesus would not
have been so alone and isolated.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">When Brad said this, I had an
insight into the first line of the Heart Sutra: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Avalokiteshvara
when deeply practicing prajna paramita clearly saw that all five skandas are
empty and thus relieved all suffering.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">This teaching, I think, is
not something that a mystical bodhitattva <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">has
done</i>, that by her perceiving that all five skandas are empty of own-being,
has relieved or removed our suffering.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">No, we are each
Avalokiteshvara practicing seeing that every constituent of individual being –
form, feeling, perceptions, thoughts and the container of consciousness – are not
fixed and separate from all other beings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Inter-being is all that there is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">The suffering part is that we
see ourselves as separate and alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This is, perhaps, the fundamental basis of suffering.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When turning toward our suffering in the
light of the reality that we are, in fact, one body of being, we could begin to
remove the suffering of isolation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">And when we don’t turn toward
our own suffering, we increase the suffering of others, just as Jesus had to
face the horror of the destiny of his crucifixion alone. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Ryusenflowingfountainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14243822868909412059noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694622147163213123.post-17148504870517056762015-09-02T08:04:00.000-07:002015-09-02T08:06:22.085-07:00Notes from Rev. Okumura's Commentary Hokke Ten Hokke<div class="MsoNormal">
Hokke Ten Hokke: Dharma Flower Turns Dharma Flower<o:p></o:p></div>
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This essay contains selected notes on Shohaku Okumura’s
commentary at GGF August 2015, but the gems of his commentary, for me, are the following ten statements.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">We practice as bodhisattvas not to become Buddha
but to stay in the world as Buddha. To become a Buddha is not the goal, but the
starting point.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Our practice IS the Buddha (interesting!</span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Buddha is a verb)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Bodhisattvas are the 5 skandas. [my note: we
tend to think of them as disembodied, magical beings.]</span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">We are bodhisattvas.</span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Bodhisattvas are ordinary beings and work
through embodied interconnection.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Prajnaparamita is the five skandas. (We were
amazed!)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Buddha’s “desire” (see paragraph 2) – “Desire”
as sickness or malady. Buddha appears in Lotus Sutra because he wants all
beings to know reality – to practice.</span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">
</span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Bodhisattvas have this desire and have to practice. Keep making VOW to
walk to Buddhahood with all beings.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Freedom (from identification) from skandas is
liberation. Skandas themselves are suffering. We are free from suffering when
we see the skandas as empty.</span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">(first line
of heart sutra.) Dogen: “dropping body and mind” is dropping the 5 skandas.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Dogen’s practice is not to stop thinking,.
Thoughts are who we are.</span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Thinking and
not thinking are both there. This is why Dogen is unique.</span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Only one to say you don’t have to stop
thinking, just let go.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Dogen: taught everyday mind. (not some special
mind.)</span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Don’t [need] supernatural
world.</span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Dogen talked about the phenomenal world, nothing
beyond this world and its emptiness.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Practicing in delusion (ours) is bodhisattva
practice. (Not some pure bodhisattva practicing in someone else’s delusion!)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">For Dogen, doesn’t matter if the mind is
agitated. How we relate to others is what matters. Our mind becomes distorted
when not relating well.</span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">When relations
are good, our mind calms.</span></li>
</ol>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Introduction<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Hokke Ten Hokke is a unique fascicle: written as a letter to
his student Etatsu on the occasion of his ordination. Dogen wrote the fascicle
in both Chinese and Japanese, making translation more difficult.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">comments re Mahayana</b> (condensed):<o:p></o:p></div>
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That the Buddha practiced as a bodhisattva is the gem of the
creation of the Mahayana. <o:p></o:p></div>
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There are two sets of buddha’s teaching: Do good and do not
do evil; otherwise, a person could go to heaven or hell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(practice offerings, etc) The second set of
teachings was to go beyond good and evil: beyond discriminatory mind and enter
nirvana. Going beyond means no clinging to good deeds or afflictive emotions (like
anger). Mahayana combined both sets of teachings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Central tenet of Mahayana: samsara and nirvana are one.
Prajna paramita sutras were the insight of emptiness. Basic goal is to become a
buddha and stay in samsara AS A BUDDHA.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Not crossing over [from one plane of existence to another]
results in samsara and nirvana being one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>With this attitude itself, we discover nirvana (in the middle of
samsaric world)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Dogen and the Lotus Sutra<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Dogen became a monk in the Tendai tradition, and its main
text was the Lotus Sutra [LS]<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Buddha’s first statement in chapter two of the Lotus
Sutra:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Sho ho ji so</b>: all dharma beings are true reality.<o:p></o:p></div>
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All people have a unique expression of Buddha’s life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each one of us expresses the dharma.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Body and sound are one thing. Dogen’s realization: no
separation subject and object. Everything (sentient and insentient) expresses
the dharma when our eyes and ears are open.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Those who hear the dharma are rare. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Main topic of LS chapter 2– 13: prediction that all
bodhisattvas will become a buddha. Bodhisattvas will not enter nirvana, but
stay in samsara.<o:p></o:p></div>
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To become a Buddha is not the goal, but the starting point.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Chapter 15 of the Lotus Sutra: buddha’s infinite lifetime<o:p></o:p></div>
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Nirmanakaya: Buddha’s human body and lifetime<o:p></o:p></div>
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Dharmakaya:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Buddha’s
teaching<o:p></o:p></div>
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Buddha: if you see dharma, you see me<o:p></o:p></div>
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BUDDHA IS YOUR PRACTICE<span style="background: yellow; mso-highlight: yellow;">. </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Must
study and practice. Dharma body is always present, manifests when you practice<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Commentary on Hokke
Ten Hokke</b> – Dharma Flower Turns Dharma Flower<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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( paragraph 1) <o:p></o:p></div>
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“Within the buddha lands in the ten
directions” [direct quote from Lotus Sutra] is “only being” of the dharma
flower.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Dharma flower is the flower of emptiness and refers to the
Lotus Sutra.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A lotus grows in muddy
water. (symbol of samsara and nirvana)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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“ten directions”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>everything, everywhere. Where you are.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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All beings are turned by dharma flowers and turning dharma
flowers.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Reality and awakening are within the same One Vehicle<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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“Within these buddha lands are
“original practices within the bodhisattva path” [quote from Lotus Sutra]
without backsliding or deviating [we cannot go backward], the wisdom of the
buddhas that is extremely profound and beyond measurement and peaceful and calm
samadhi that is difficult to understand and enter.” [the entire universe is in
samadhi and cannot be observed. There is no way to know the dharma, because
there is no separation into subject and object]<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Practice for a bodhisattva: not to cling to
change/impermanence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shohaku:
bodhisattvas are the 5 skandas. [my note: we tend to think of them as
disembodied, magical beings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are
bodhisattvas.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Paragraph (2) Hokke Ten Hokke<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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This [Buddha’s Appearance ch 15 of
LS] is nothing other than the one time he desires to “open” and “display [the
Buddha’s insight] and “enable living beings” to “realize” and “enter” saying “I
and the Buddhas in the ten directions are able to know this matter.” [Quotes
are from LS]<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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LS says only Buddha can fathom reality. Dogen:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>ALL BEINGS. The entire universe is in
samadhi.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Buddha’s “desire” Desire as sickness or malady. Buddha
appears in LS because he wants all beings to know reality – to practice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bodhisattvas have this desire and have to
practice. Keep making VOW to walk to Buddhahood with all beings.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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To find our own, unique activity is to share the dharma. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Paragrah: Dialogue between Huineng and Fada<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Dharma in LS and Zen tradition are in the One Vehicle. It
appeared in the world; “indeed it has appeared right here..”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The dharma is right here, right now, in your
life, not in some distant buddha land.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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“Lifespan of Tathagatha” one<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>seamless moment. Reality in seamless time and space.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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“bestowing of the prediction.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In LS, Buddha’s prediction was that all
beings will be Buddha.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Dogen, not
about the future. Not in time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
actualized self is the prediction itself.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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(9)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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You must now believe that the
Buddha’s insight is nothing other than your own mind.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Shohaku spent time talking about
mind:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Senika teaching:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>atman (essential self) is pure and unchanging and undefiled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Must do ascetic practices to mortify body to
realize the atman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Buddha did these
practices. This is a non-Buddhist idea. (a permanent, unchanging essence}<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Senika influenced Huineng (6<sup>th</sup> ancestor) (Nanyo
Echu] whose lineage led to Southern school and sudden realization. (Rinzai) (The
philosophy changed through the generations.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Buddha taught anatman -<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>no self.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are 5 skandas and
nothing else.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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When asked “what is buddha-nature?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shohaku said “I don’t know.” Idea of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>buddha- nature appeared with Nagarjuna.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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“Mind itself is Buddha” was not in Indian Buddhism, but Chinese
Chan, crafted by Baso <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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150-250 ad:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Madyamika
appeared. Idea of tathagarbatha.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Womb
nature, tiny golden buddha within a person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Not “the owner of the skandas as with the atman idea.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This idea needed to show a person could
become a buddha. There must be the possibility of Buddhahood.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Dogen: mind is grass, trees, tiles and pebbles. See Dogen
fascicle: Mind Itself is Buddha<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Our mind is all dharmas, the reality of all being. Not
beyond the phenomenal world.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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For buddha, the 5 skandas are Mara.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Buddha did not conquer mara, but lived with
her/him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We identify with the 5 skandas,
and this is the cause of suffering. We identify with the “I” of suffering, but
no one is actually suffering.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Freedom (from identification) from skandas is liberation.
Skandas themselves are suffering. We are free from suffering when we see the
skandas as empty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(first line of heart
sutra.) Dogen: “dropping body and mind” is dropping the 5 skandas.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Everything:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>prajna
paramita, bodhisattvas, us are the 5 skandas.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Southern school:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>only
sentient beings can have buddha-nature. Dogen, not so. This highly debated
point and separated northern and southern schools.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Dogen: insentient beings can expound the dharma: pebbles,
rocks, tiles, a stream.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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See Dogen fascicle: Mountain Streams Chant<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hearing with eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Subject and object one, unmediated.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Dogen’s practice is not to stop thinking,. Thoughts are who
we are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thinking and not thinking are
both there. This is why Dogen is unique.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Only one to say you don’t have to stop thinking, just let go.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Yakusan – Tozan – of northern school mixed with southern
school teachings – intertwined like fibers of a rope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can find idea of original mind or face in
both.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He did not reject Baso.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Dogen: everyday mind. Ordinary world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t [need] supernatural world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bodhisattvas are ordinary beings and work
through embodied interconnection.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Dogen talked about the phenomenal world, nothing beyond this
world and its emptiness.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Paragraph (12)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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“You should know that all beings without exception are rare
treasures.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoListBulletCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: 0in;">
Relates to famous story of son who ran away and becomes
impoverished.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His father the king is
wealthy, and when his son returns, he puts him to work in the cowshed, because
the son was not ready for the knowledge that he was the king’s son.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After the son gradually learns to manage the
kingdom, the king reveals to the son who he really is and that he is the owner
of great wealth.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We are buddhas. We are the rare treasure. This is the message
of the Lotus Sutra, of Buddha’s appearing in the world and his infinite
lifetime.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Our treasure is interconnection: Indra’s net. Each node is a
unique individual (five skandas) but Shohaku went on to say there is no being
(because always changing), just connection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You are the entire network: therefore, everything is yours. (your
treasure.) <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(16) Dogen’s Dharma
Flower turning<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Shohaku: “having a question is
practice”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Before Dogen: one practiced over time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One heard the teaching and put it into
practice. Cause and effect. Then there was verification of satori based on
evidence. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Dogen: not a matter of cause and effect.
Practice/enlightenment is one word. Cause and result are one. Practice itself
is the evidence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Shohaku related this to the Genjo Koan:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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When we carry ourselves to the dharma, we are in delusion.
Satori comes to us is realization.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is
a matter of direction.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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When we try to control others and our life, we are in
delusion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(discriminatory mind) When we
are receptive to the world, we are in enlightenment.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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For Dogen, doesn’t matter if the mind is agitated. Practice
is not to stop the mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How we relate
to others is what matters. Our mind becomes distorted when not relating
well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When relations are good, our mind
calms.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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A bodhisattva cannot escape from the world. Must make decisions
in the world. Discriminating mind is important, therefore, delusion is not bad.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(16) <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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“Because [the dharma flower’s
turning] is only the one Buddha Vehicle, and because it is the dharma flower as
forms of suchness…Whether it is turning or being turned, it is the one Buddha
Vehicle and the single great matter.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Realization and delusion are one vehicle. Turning and being
turned. Turned by both mayori (delusion) and satori (realization.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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We practice and put forth effort, and at the same time, all
dharmas come to us and support us in our practice.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
“Therefore, do not regret having
mind delusions. Your activities themselves are bodhisattva practices.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Practicing in delusion is bodhisattva practice.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(17)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The phases of opening, displaying, realizing
and entering are all instance of being turned by dharma flowers.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Burning house metaphor: in order to get the children out of
the burning house, the Buddha promised toys. This could be pictured as the
house, the gate, and the open field. So through the Buddha’s teaching, one
could travel out of the house, through the gate, and into the open field.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
According to Dogen, we are in both the burning house
(samasara) and the open field (nirvana.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Our minds are always in delusion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But delusion does not have the bad connotation that it has in
English.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are always inquiring. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We are not trying to escape the burning house.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“right at the gate”
Whether inside the gate, at the gate, outside the gate: we are at the place of
“coming and going.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Right where we are;
each moment of our lives.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Although called delusion, we are always walking toward the
dharma (which is my own particular way and best way for me.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We need “opening and displaying” by the teacher.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
We should know that within the
carriage there is the turning [of the dharma flower] enabling buddhas to “open”
and “display” and [enabling living beings] to “realize” and “enter” the burning
house. And on the open ground, there is turning which causes us to open,
display, realize and enter the burning house.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Bodhisattvas choose to enter the burning house.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Outside (nirvana) and inside (samsara) the burning house is
practice: One Vehicle, one practice.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Our practice is to enter the gate [to the burning house or
to the open field] right were we are. There are boundless gates, and the gate
we enter is the universal gate. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[22]<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
“Giving the prediction [of future
Buddhahood in the Lotus Sutra] is nothing other than opening the Buddha’s
insight within the self; it is the dharma flower’s turning that cannot be bestowed
by others. This is exactly what is meant by “mind in delusion” is turned by the
Dharma flower.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When we practice Buddha’s teaching, our practice here and
now is the prediction. Not some future event. [see Dogen’s fascile Juki,
prediction]<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(23) Mind in realization turns the dharma flower<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in;">
“The dharma flower in turn
manifests the energy of suchness that enables us to turn the dharma flower.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListBulletCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in;">
Shohaku calls this energy of suchness,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“the life force.” This energy allows us to practice
and, in turn, manifest the life force.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListBulletCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in;">
Shohaku
offered an analogy to the lines in Genjo Koan:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListBulletCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in;">
“To carry
yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. That myriad things
come forth and experience themselves is awakening.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListBulletCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in;">
How can
we practice two seemingly different things?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListBulletCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListBulletCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: -.25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: 0in;">
T The first sentence is being
turned by the dharma flower. Our individual life force goes out to
practice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>D e Delusion is not necessarily a
bad thing. The second sentence is that myriad dharmas allow me to p ractice. When we practice with the attitude that we
are being turned by myriad dharmas is realization.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The attitude corresponds to Uchiyama’s famous
expression, “opening the hand of thought.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListBulletCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: -.25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: 0in;">
These two approaches happen at
the same time. [see Dogen’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Zenki,</i>
Total Function.]<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListBulletCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: -.25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: 0in;">
Buddha’s eternal life is
manifested through our practice.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Ryusenflowingfountainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14243822868909412059noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694622147163213123.post-58972419238816380542015-06-01T07:36:00.000-07:002015-06-01T07:47:13.469-07:00Form IS form. And Emptiness IS emptiness<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We chant in the Heart Sutra “Form is emptiness. Emptiness
is form,” as if the truth of these statements is as obvious as the sun coming
up in the morning. We could easily think that “emptiness” – no isolated,
separate being-ness – is exactly the opposite of form. But the Heart sutra teaches that this opposite
is the description of reality as it is: form is emptiness and emptiness is
form.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">One big contradiction for our logical minds. How can we
understand this? (How could we logically understand the illogical!)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In “Western logic” we believe that truth must be expressed
in non-contradictory terms. <span style="background: white; color: #222222;">According
to this logic, the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>law of excluded middle<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>(or the principle of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>excluded middle) is the third of the three classic<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>laws<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>of thought. It
states that for any proposition, either that proposition is true, or its
negation is true….but not both.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In Mahayana thought, however, this is not the case. Both a
proposition and its negation are true. In Buddhist logic, when something is
defined, it <i>includes</i> its opposite. All
relative events and things, and all absolute events and things, are shot
through with contradictions, with paradoxes.
<span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Edward Conze, in his book, </span><i><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Buddhist Thought in India,</span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
notes: “We <span style="background: white; color: #222222;">cannot make the
statement “A is A” unless not-A is presupposed.” (Page 261). The thing contains
its opposite in itself. The presupposition of “no form” is contained within
“form.” As an example: to say that a sentient being is human assumes that there
are sentient beings that are not human.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Why do all things contain contain their opposite? Because, according to Conze, of “tathagatha.”
<span style="background: white; color: #222222;">This term is often thought to mean
either "one who has thus gone" (tathā-gata) or "one who has thus
come" (tathā-āgata). The opposites are contained: coming, going, and both.
In other words, the name of the Buddha. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">This way of thinking helps me
understand the fundamental teachings of great, Buddhist teachers that the
absolute (love, compassion) contains the difficult: suffering, war, poverty.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">So, this is a world in which
opposites are true. Things coming in and out of existence, both at the level of
atomic particles and our moment to moment experience, are dazzling and
agonizing at the same time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This is tricky, however. In
speaking about Buddhist teachings, it is easy to put the emphasis on the good
part, the absolute, forgetting that life can be, in fact, agonizing. When I
read Pema Chodron, and other great teachers, it seems that if we just understand
the transcendent, then we can be light and relaxed in the face of our day to
day struggles. She says in <i>The Places
That Scare You</i>, “But the flexible mind of prajna (wisdom) doesn’t draw
conclusions of good or bad. It perceives the sound without adding anything
extra, without judgments of happy or sad.” (page 94.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I am becoming increasingly
wary of this teaching. Maybe life is like a teeter totter: the more both sides
are balanced the better it works. Too heavy on the side of suffering, and we
sink into despair. Too heavy on the transcendent, we are out of touch with our
lives and the lives of others.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">So, besides saying, “Form is
emptiness. Emptiness is form,” we can say form is form, and emptiness is emptiness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Ryusenflowingfountainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14243822868909412059noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694622147163213123.post-37163179468159063002015-04-18T12:52:00.001-07:002015-04-18T20:00:22.781-07:00Reb, With All Due Respect: Practice Matters<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I appreciate
Reb Anderson’s dharma talks. I feel that he approaches the dharma from the
point of view of the emptiness teachings. I am always delighted by his
teachings and endearing (to me) idiosyncrasies. But sometimes I just have to
disagree.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In a recent
talk, he spoke about one of my favorite topics: what is a Zen master? As I have
thought about this over the years, I have increasingly come to the opinion that
there can be no Zen master because there is nothing to master. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In the talk, Reb
described – at least as I understood it – a Zen master as not being a
particular person, in a particular state, but the actual meeting between two
people. I understand this to mean that the unfolding of the dharma, the
teaching of the dharma, is a kind of formless, enlightening energy that can
occur in a face to face meeting. The implication is that this meeting can occur
between anyone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">He told the
story of his being introduced to a famous Zen master in Japan, only to meet a
very old man who was drooling. He had asked himself if this old man was a Zen
master. He then realized that the Zen master was the meeting between him, this
young (earnest) man, and an old Japanese teacher.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">So I was
excited to be listening to Reb’s teaching. But I still felt that there is a
reason we are all sitting in front of Reb, listening to his teachings. Or
sitting in front of other great teachers like Norman Fischer. So I thought that
a person who has practiced for a long time has something, some Zen, to offer
us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I raised my
hand. (One is always somewhat at risk when you ask Reb a question, something
anyone knows who has attended his talks for a while.) Our exchange follows:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Me: It seems to me that in a meeting between two
people, if one of the persons has practiced for a long time, the dharma is more
likely to manifest between them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Reb. No. What exactly are you saying?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Me: Practice matters.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Reb: No. Practice doesn’t matter. I will repeat
this again. (In a louder voice) Practice doesn’t matter!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I was
irritated and vexed. Not simply because I was contradicted, and almost scolded,
but because I don’t believe this to be true.
After the talk I turned to one of his young disciples and said, “Why
don’t you sit up there instead of Reb?” He laughed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I haven’t
decided whether his pronouncement that practice doesn’t matter is a very
profound teaching, or whether it was just a pique of ego, that somehow I was
being reprimanded for contradicting him. Perhaps both.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">So this
morning I was interested to read Chapter 16 of the Flower Ornament Scripture (<i>The Avatamsaka Sutra</i>) called “Religious
Practice.” The enlightening being Truth Wisdom describes how all the usual ways
we think about practice are not really practice at all. “Body” practice is not
practice because, according to the sutra, the body is “unclean” and becomes a
corpse. “Physical action” is not practice. (This rules out bowing and sitting
posture.) Speech is not practice, since mere breathing in and out is not
practice. (Ruling out following the breath). Verbal activity is not practice,
because this would include all sorts of extensive explanations and criticisms.
Mind is not religious practice, because this would include various thoughts and
explanations and dreams. The Buddha is not religious practice because what is
the Buddha anyway? Our conceptions of him/her? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And so the
enlightening being, Truth Wisdom, continues in the same manner to rule out
teachers, the teaching, the community, and even the Precepts as practice. (“Putting
on monastic garb,” etc.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">However,
Truth Wisdom says that contemplating the question of what is practice, where it
comes from, by who is it performed, whether it is form or not form,
consciousness or not consciousness leads to the reality that religious practice
<i>cannot be apprehended</i>; that the mind
has no obstruction, that the sphere of operation is nondual. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In effect,
“…because of knowing the Buddha’s teaching is equanimous, because of fulfilling
all qualities of Buddhahood, is such practice called pure religious practice.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In other
words, I think this means that all the usual practices that we consider to be
religious practices – bowing, zazen, reading sutras, listening to talks, precepts
– is not practice. Practice is an act of faith: knowing that the teaching of
the Buddha is reality. And if you can manage it, living as a Buddha. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Ryusenflowingfountainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14243822868909412059noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694622147163213123.post-22015783997340668272015-03-04T09:01:00.000-08:002015-03-04T09:01:12.460-08:00There really is nothing to stand on<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The <i>Perfection of Wisdom</i> teachings say, over
and over again, that a bodhisattva must be fearless. This is a liberating, but
daunting, theology. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">[Caveat:
what follows may be difficult to hear, and you might not want to read further.]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The jubilant
side of the <i>Perfection of Wisdom</i>
teachings is that if there is nothing to stand on – no teacher, no teachings,
no doctrine – we are free. If the formations of our mind, rising and falling,
have no own being, then the mind can, indeed, be far beyond hindrances and
fear.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Starting
with yogic gurus in the late 70's, to the present time of studying with Zen teachers, I have had
great devotion and also, I suppose, high hopes. But, in general, gurus and roshis
have often betrayed us with sexual crimes or abandonment. Teachers, like all
of us humans, seem to be just as broken and as full of suffering, as I am. So it
is with great doubt that I now question whether anyone can actually guide me or
teach me or help me. Or do anything more
than point at the moon. (And I do see the moon.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Recently, when
I realized, with some flash of clarity, that “teachers” have nothing to stand on,
that they are one more “karmic construction,” I felt liberated. With no
clinging to this deep seated need to be pulled up to a higher plane by another,
I felt free. “Yes! It is over, I thought.” This decades-long entanglement with
gurus and teachers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But the
shadow side to the <i>Perfection of Wisdom</i>
teachings is the realization that there <i>is</i>
actually nothing to stand on. Instead of the fuzzy feeling of interconnection,
we are ultimately alone, in the same way that when we are dying, we are
ultimately alone. We may have dharma friends who offer love and consolation and
support – to the extent possible – but ultimately we are alone. We may care
deeply for each other as spiritual friends, but, in the end, we are alone. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And that is
very scary. That is why the <i>Perfection of
Wisdom</i> teachings say, over and over again, that a bodhisattva must be
fearless. This is a liberating, but daunting, theology.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Ryusenflowingfountainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14243822868909412059noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694622147163213123.post-81170090798653977822015-01-28T16:58:00.000-08:002015-01-28T16:58:34.284-08:00<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15.4559993743896px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
“Ryushin Sensei stepped down as abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery after it became known that he had been committing adultery for the previous six months.”</div>
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A response from a priest friend of mine was “Shit. Another one.” And mine has been “Why does this keep happening over and over again?”</div>
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I am beginning to think that “spiritual bypassing” may be a root cause of the rash of sexual misbehavior in Zen communities. It occurs to me that this tendency in all of us may contribute to priests breaking the precepts and our unwitting perpetuation of this problem. I highly recommend the book, Spiritual Bypassing: When Spirituality Disconnects Us from What Really Matters by Dr. Robert Augustus Masters.</div>
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Spiritual bypassing is defined by Dr. Robert Masters as “the use of spiritual practices and beliefs to avoid dealing with our painful feelings, unresolved wounds, and developmental needs… Because this preference has so deeply and thoroughly infiltrated our culture that it has become all but normalized, spiritual bypassing fits seamlessly into our collective habit of turning away from what it painful, as a kind of higher analgesic.”</div>
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It is a kind of “metaphysical valium.”</div>
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As I read a Facebook string based on the announcement of Ryushin’s stepping down as abbot, I see that there are several comments to the effect that we shouldn’t judge him, the implication being, I think, that judgment is not spiritual. One comment, ironically, judged the judgers: “Underneath any holy vow there is just a person. The judgment being held against those who break their vows for one reason or another is as scary as what they are accused of.”</div>
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When one judges within a spiritual community, one risks being censured for being unspiritual. Spiritual people should be compassionate – and I agree! – but the underlying belief is that compassion is incompatible with judgment. But we do judge, and we should call out wrongdoing. Yes, judgment can have the negative aspects of condemnation or moral superiority, which we should eschew, but we should name behaviors we know are wrong: adultery, betrayal, lying. I think compassion and naming wrongdoing go hand in hand. They are not mutually opposed to one another</div>
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On the subject of judgment, Dr. Masters says:<br />“Much of this behavior (spiritual bypassing) has to do with the popularized notion that we shouldn’t judge others. There are some very serious problems with this kind of thinking: First of all, we do judge others. To make it wrong – that is, to judge our judging – only drags us into guilt’s domain, splitting us into “good” (read: not judging) and “bad” (read: judging) factions.</div>
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The second problem with the notion that we shouldn’t judge others is the fact that judgment per se is not necessarily a negative phenomenon. Strip away the hostile, condescending, or mean-spirited elements that often characterize judgment, you may find a kernel of valuable insight. Judgment is not necessarily equivalent to condemnation!</div>
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For in not bringing people face to face with the consequences of their actions, we are actually depriving them of something they might sorely need. Furthermore, in letting them off the hook, we are doing the same for ourselves.”</div>
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Since we are interdependent and co-create ourselves, especially in religious groups, we are all responsible for our collective habit of bypassing what is painful, of spiritualizing or ignoring our shadows. And we are all responsible for all the group dynamics that contribute to the confusion a teacher might feel when confronted with his or her very human behaviors – sexual or otherwise. It's bad enough when we do spiritual bypassing vis a vis our own problems, but it can be really destructive as a group mentality.</div>
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If we were all – priests and lay people alike –supported and encouraged to honestly examine our shadows like lust and greed and anger, we would have healthier selves, healthier sanghas, and we wouldn’t read, “…after it became known.”</div>
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We need, of course, to be gentle with our spiritual bypassing. Understanding our tendencies to do this can only deepen and mature our practice.</div>
Ryusenflowingfountainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14243822868909412059noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694622147163213123.post-35740492559340836792014-07-26T09:42:00.000-07:002014-07-27T06:39:08.503-07:00Upaya practice period with Norman and Kaz<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-size: large;">Upaya Zen Center, outside of Santa Fe, is in a high valley
at 7000 feet, surrounded by dry hills that are covered with high desert bushes
and trees. Every hot afternoon, there was the mercy of high cumulus clouds and
thunderstorms, accompanied by a celestial game of Buddhas Bowling, with thunder
balls rolling down the valley.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The zendo is in an adobe structure and is an exquisite
combination of Japanese woodworking and Southwest design. There are soji
screens along one wall, and the remaining three sides are held up by giant grey
tree trunks. A picture of Green Tara covers almost entirely one wall. The floor
is a dark brown. The altar looks as if it could have been a Hopi Indian work
table. Everything was cool and beautiful – all an expression of Roshi Joan’s aesthetic
and attention to detail (and love of female bodhisattvas). </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Eva B and I were roommates in the beautiful Upaya House,
along with Norman and Kathy. I rarely saw Norman, but every morning at 5:30 am,
I made coffee for them. And every morning Kathy and I bowed to each other in a
way that is the Bowing Prayer: the bodies of bower, the bowed to, and coffee
are one.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7TceKg9J67Cx-7WVxAFuocheXhkrFSIGU15t1x3cTx_YBCZBW0L47RMHo6ejIsx0TQEXCGcGTPnXvOXfjBjPsidX-Nt8JCGitUoj3IYgzeQs4C7pUSqiqLGdlJqoWLYpJa2ubrLq9l6BD/s1600/slide-pillows.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7TceKg9J67Cx-7WVxAFuocheXhkrFSIGU15t1x3cTx_YBCZBW0L47RMHo6ejIsx0TQEXCGcGTPnXvOXfjBjPsidX-Nt8JCGitUoj3IYgzeQs4C7pUSqiqLGdlJqoWLYpJa2ubrLq9l6BD/s1600/slide-pillows.jpg" height="131" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The following is very difficult for me, but I feel compelled
to express my concern about the “scene” around Joan Halifax, or “Roshi” as she
is called. For many years I was intimately connected with the guru scene around
Gurumayi Chidvilasananda. Gurumayi lived like a queen, while young people
worked 12 hour days, with no pay, to anticipate her every wish. Apparently Joan
has “retired.” She is doing important work, but the resident students at Upaya
have no teacher. Based on what students shared with me, she inspires awe and actual
fear. She has people preparing her lunch, doing her laundry, and one young,
handsome man appears to be her <i>constant</i> companion, which was the most
disturbing observation of all. I don’t really
know the whole story, and I am probably coming from my own pain around the
issue of celebrity, genius, abandonment by my teacher, and the exploitation
that I have experienced in my own life.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">For the first time, to my knowledge, Kathy came forward to
take the dharma seat. She gave talks that subtly used her knowledge of amoebas,
sea stars, and sharks to illustrate the dharma. She gave dokusan along with
Norman, and as people discovered her great kindness and charm, the list for
Kathy quickly filled up to capacity. And because the Upaya students are
desperate for a teacher, many wished to become Kathy’s students.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">So, every morning, I woke up at 4:30 and drank coffee until
the first birdsong at 5:13 am, and then walked to the zendo in the
early morning light. I often stopped at a stone bench, surrounded by
wildflowers. For the first meditation, we all sat facing inward. I love the way
that Norman so nobly enters the zendo, and I would always think, “Good morning,
beloved friend.” When he did the three bows, it was clear that he was bowing to
the altar, to us, and the great boundlessness.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Upaya has different versions of the chants. Norman says they
have been “kaz-ified”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Creations are numberless; I vow to
free them</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Delusions are inexhaustible; I vow
to transform them</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Reality is boundless; I vow to
perceive it</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">The awakened way is unsurpassable;
I vow to embody it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The schedule was rigorous and was pretty much the same as that
at Zen Center at sesshin. It took me almost two weeks to acclimate to the altitude, and
because I have residual pain and fatigue due to rheumatoid arthritis, I had
a difficult time physically. By the third day I was in tears and told Norman,
“I can’t do this practice.” He gave me permission to rest during a period of
zazen (although I ended up doing all zazen sessions except the late evening
sits.) I was reminded that my practice <i>is
</i>my practice. How could it be otherwise?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The three weeks was a wonderful way to practice with Norman
in a monastic setting. And this practice for me is more than “just sitting.” It
is sitting with sangha and is practicing with our teachers and listening to the
dharma. Just practicing together, doing our best, knowing that in some
mysterious way, it is the most important thing.</span></div>
Ryusenflowingfountainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14243822868909412059noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694622147163213123.post-8138735401940445052014-06-03T13:16:00.000-07:002014-06-05T10:30:13.651-07:00Ordination: The great offering of ancestors and teachers <div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">This calling to be ordained – to give myself completely to
the dharma – has been present for thirty-two years, or, maybe, it has always
been so. Long ago in India, I stood outside a small room in the jungle,
listening to the chanting of those taking the vows of sannyasa, monkhood in the
yogic tradition. I cried, knowing that I could not take vows of celibacy. [And
if I had, I never would be married to the kind and gentle seeker of the
truth – Brad, my life companion and friend and husband.] </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Due to the love and grace of Hoka Chris Fortin, I was given
permission to sew an okesa, Buddha’s robe. She said, “I see your shining priest
heart.” So began a year of the joyful, but arduous path of sewing an okesa, a
rakusu, and a bowing mat. Each stitch taking refuge in the Buddha. The robe
itself became the Buddha, the offering of myself to the dharma. It was
literally a year of blood, sweat, and tears: doing a long row of stitching,
only to discover that I had sewed the wrong side of a panel to the border, having
to remove the stitches, and sew the row all over again. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">When I contemplated being a priest, I had one fear: that I
would think I had become someone special. Humility is the essence of priesthood, along
with seeing the Buddha in everyone, and a desire to serve all beings. I just didn’t
– and don’t – want to take myself too seriously, while taking the vows themselves
very seriously. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The day before the ordination, several friends helped me and
Mary Ann shave our heads. I had an overwhelming sense of disorientation and a
kind of confusion. I didn’t know who I was. Deep in my heart, I knew that I didn’t
really know anything. Such a gift:
beginner’s mind – immeasurably deep and profound, as the ordination ceremony
says. The fear that I would take myself too seriously lessened.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The night before the ordination, I had a remarkable dream. I
was a passenger in a Ford Explorer. We were on a road, stopped at a river. The
river looked deep and flowing. I knew we had to proceed through the river, but
I was scared. I knew that I had to trust the driver.</span> </div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">During the ordination ceremony, I was in a state of deep
concentration and inward focus. It felt like a powerful form of zazen. I felt
still and quiet. It was a backward step, an inner deep return to myself. During
the entire ceremony, I was never aware of the large number of people attending.
I saw and heard only what was right in front of me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I saw Chris’s radiant smile as we bowed to each other, and
she offered me my name, a sitting robe, a rakusu, a bowing mat, and finally the
okesa. Every time I received a gift, our fingers intertwined as she released it
to me. So tender and beautiful!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Apparently I kept sitting down on my robe, and every time I
stood up, it would pull apart. Three times I stood up and turned to Arobin, who
tucked it back in again. The third time, Jeff Bickner whispered to me, “Don’t
sit on your robe.” To credit the robe itself, I remained quiet and still as my
robe was put back on. [Norman had spoken to me a few years ago about wearing the
robe with the quiet dignity of a buddha.]
I was embarrassed, though, and I am sure my face was flushed. But this
is good! So much for taking myself too seriously! Hard to do, when your robe
keeps falling off!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The language of the ordination ceremony is a great promise
of freedom from karmic bonds. It is a promise of liberation and enlightenment.
We vow to live a life of enlightenment. I think, “What if this is true? What if
I am really freed from my karmic formations?” Now, a few days later, I think it
is not that the seeds of karma are exterminated; it is that we can see them
through a new lens. My relationship to them could change. May it be so!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">More than this, I vow to act and speak from the ground of
the precepts. I vow to have love for others and service to others, as my only
desire.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Gratitude to the ancestors and lineage of teachers, handing
the dharma to me this day. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">This is really the essence of what I wish to say: thank you.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG7sovmN9d9dDgiPUOHm4T_Ic1UpHnlHkmUqcSs4cobSQYOKlE-Tiyd89BTI7QOPlyov1rw2v_FpbmTt8HmvmtgFApyk9SjHnThkYSGgUl8IRREdTBwLr6EnZZ53bBs7eUsCIYWf2ZJFWY/s1600/ordination.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG7sovmN9d9dDgiPUOHm4T_Ic1UpHnlHkmUqcSs4cobSQYOKlE-Tiyd89BTI7QOPlyov1rw2v_FpbmTt8HmvmtgFApyk9SjHnThkYSGgUl8IRREdTBwLr6EnZZ53bBs7eUsCIYWf2ZJFWY/s1600/ordination.jpg" height="214" width="320" /></a></div>
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Ryusenflowingfountainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14243822868909412059noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694622147163213123.post-25526538292714988812014-04-09T11:52:00.000-07:002014-04-09T11:52:21.078-07:00Can we wake up (or not)?<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">We Zen practitioners use the words “wake up” as if we
actually understand what waking up is. One can even buy coffee cups and tee
shirts with the words, “Wake Up!”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The historical Buddha said, “When <i>one person</i> [italics added] opens up reality and returns to the source,
all space in the ten directions disappears.” Pre-Mahayana literature describes
this as an act of awakening that happens to a practitioner after rigorous
practice over many lifetimes. [I won’t discuss here the confusing paradox that
there is no-self to wake up!]</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">With the <i>Lotus Sutra</i>,
and its emphasis by Dogen, awakening is a liberative function of all time and
space. Thousands of bodhisattvas emerge
from the earth, and the Buddha has an inconceivably long life span. Quoting from Dan Leighton’s wonderful book, <i>Visions of Awakening Space and Time</i>, “But
Dogen’s own version of this utterance [the words of the Buddha] expresses a
deeper appreciation for the vitality of the spatial environment and for the
actual spiritual potency and capacity of the world to manifest awakening.” [I
like to visualize Kogen in the fields of Green Gulch Farm!]</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Important to note, I think, is that Mr. Leighton does not
say here the capacity for one person to wake up. And this gets to my question:
can one person wake up? According to the
Soto Zen view, as I understand it, there is no final state of enlightenment, as
in one moment you are deluded, and then you wake up and are enlightened. “Practice
enlightenment,” as described by Dogen, is ongoing, continuous practice. In fact, great teacher Norman Fischer said in
a talk recently that for Dogen,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Awakening was a kind of
metaphysical reality, not a mere psychological achievement. Awakening existed
in its fullness, always, and everywhere. It was not something produced by a
little person’s little activity. ~ from <i>Introduction
to the Precepts<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Ouch! “A little person’s little activity.” I do love this idea of a metaphysical
reality. But I don’t want to limit myself, to say that I, personally, cannot
wake up or experience waking up. I don’t
know what to call them exactly, but I have had glimpses of a kind of non-dual
reality, and <i>always in the context of
nature. </i>At risk of sounding like some hippie-dippie person, I recently had
an experience of the unity of all things.
I was walking kinhin outdoors and came across a radiant, golden poppy.
For a moment, I did feel that I was actually that flower…until my mind kicked
in and obscured and negated the whole experience.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Again quoting Leighton, “According to Dogen, there is clear
and beneficial mutuality in the inter-relationship between the practitioner and
the environment.” So that seems to validate my experience. But do I need Dogen – or any teacher – to validate
real experiences of spaciousness and love and the unity with all things? No, I hope not!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The best language might be to change the verb tenses. Instead of the past tense of “she woke up,”
you could use the present participle, “she is awaking.” Instead of “enlightenment,”
use the sense of “enlightening.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">However it is talked about, I have faith in the mystery that
is always available to all of us and to have faith in my own experience.</span></div>
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Ryusenflowingfountainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14243822868909412059noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694622147163213123.post-42072510832787859262013-12-09T08:42:00.000-08:002013-12-09T08:42:07.006-08:00Buddha's sorrowful and joyful rainbow body<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Last week-end I attended the Rohatsu retreat held by Chris
Fortin and Bruce Fortin.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">In some traditions, the pilgrimage is as important as the
sacred site, or, in this case, the shared intention to sit together at the
important time of the Buddha’s enlightenment. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">For me, the trip to St Dorothy’s Rest, the retreat site
outside Occidental, was upsetting and even scary. I left at 2:15 pm, allowing almost three hours
to drive up through San Francisco and up highway 101. On 19<sup>th</sup> street,
in San Francisco, I saw a somewhat demolished motorcycle and worried about the
driver, who was no longer present on the street. I hit snail traffic at San Rafael. I get claustrophobic in this kind of traffic,
so I decided to exit at Lucas Valley Road and drive up the coast. It began to rain and get dark. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">On the climb up Lucas Valley road, I pulled over so that a
car – the driver was in a big hurry – could pass me. A few minutes up the road I could see that he
had side-swiped a car, and both cars both were limping off of the road. I had no map, and I have refused to get a
smarty-pants phone, so I didn’t know the way to Occidental. I periodically made wrong turns and had to
call Brad for instructions. I reached
Occidental in the dark. The redwoods
were dark and rainy. I got lost on the
way up to St. Dorothy’s and found myself on a one lane road, high in the
redwoods, with no side rails. I arrived in tears.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Usually people talk about the difficulties of meeting
oneself “on the cushion.” I have now
reached the point in my practice where zazen is actually restful. Often the “bliss and repose” that Dogen
described. The retreat itself was very quiet – practicing alone and together.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I meet the longing and sadness and anxiety in my life off
the cushion. When I listened to various people at the retreat share their own
grief and physical pain, I thought that this suffering has to be the fabric of
our lives, and there will never be some mystical, end-point enlightenment.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">At the moment, I am sewing a black okesa. I hold it in my hands and wonder, “What is
this?” It seems dark and beautiful and
sacred, but somehow “other.” At the
retreat I had a vision of the actual Buddha’s robe: it is made of shimmering,
translucent fibers of silver and gold and pinks and blues. It is the robe made of the beautiful and
sorrowful and ever-changing patterns of human existence. It is my skin and the skin of others. It is actually “wearing the Tathagatha’s
teaching,” as we say in the Robe Chant.</span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhjkSWxnww2GJ4657C7Wzw3GFmTVP58fVKSbpQ7gyZTozuc0HWUTOsksctg40ytoc2OckAgeCAXUpB1CiLnKe1bvEn5DTVunlN09d77LcE_qBg4dqs4xoAtlhsezbZRoGeJPJFlPvzpr8q/s1600/fabric.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhjkSWxnww2GJ4657C7Wzw3GFmTVP58fVKSbpQ7gyZTozuc0HWUTOsksctg40ytoc2OckAgeCAXUpB1CiLnKe1bvEn5DTVunlN09d77LcE_qBg4dqs4xoAtlhsezbZRoGeJPJFlPvzpr8q/s1600/fabric.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">On the way home, I decided again to drive down the coast,
but this time it was a low light, golden winter day in California. I stopped at a seafood restaurant at Tomales
Bay that had once been a kind of shack, but had now become upscaled. A woman at a table next to me said, “If I
drink one more Napa Chardonnay, I’ll scream.” I felt sick at heart. On the way home, there was bumper to bumper
traffic approaching the Golden Bridge.
It seemed early in the day to be so slow. People had slowed to watch a man, who was
perched on the rail of the bridge, while police were “talking him down.”</span></div>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I can’t actually ordain with the robe I had imagined. But I think I will go to Britex to find this
fabric and make my own, special robe: Buddha’s rainbow body: car accidents and
ice cold rain and getting lost and peaceful zazen and suicides. And love.</span></div>
Ryusenflowingfountainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14243822868909412059noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694622147163213123.post-75973198368316751832013-11-22T17:56:00.003-08:002013-11-22T17:56:58.308-08:00All is Lost - Robert RedfordWhat do you believe? Is there a divine rescue, or <i>is</i> all lost?<br />
<br />
Okay - if you plan on seeing this movie, don't read any further, unless you want to know the ending.<br />
<br />
This movie's only actor is Robert Redford, who is sailing a small sailboat somewhere in the Indian Ocean. This is how he loses everything:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>A steel cargo container, floating in the ocean, rams a whole in the side of his boat</li>
<li>Redford manages to patch the hole.</li>
<li>Finally he finds the radio (and we have been wondering why he has taken so long), but he can only get vague crackles</li>
<li>There is a huge storm, and the mast is broken.</li>
<li>Water is a few inches deep in the boat, but overnight it is filling rapidly</li>
<li>He inflates and boards the life raft</li>
<li>The boat sinks. </li>
<li>His potable water is contaminated</li>
<li>The one fish he could catch was snatched away by a shark.</li>
<li>Two ships pass him by and dont see the flares.</li>
<li>He is near death, but sees a boat</li>
<li>He makes a fire, but soon the whole raft is aflame</li>
<li>He falls into the water, falling peacefully deeper and deeper.</li>
<li>All is indeed lost.</li>
<li>But not really! A light shines down, he swims upward, and we see an arm pulling him up.</li>
</ul>
<div>
So it is clear to me that this is an allegory of a man approaching death and dying. [Redford at age 77 surely must be thinking of these matter.]</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I liked the image of him peacefully passing away. I was really angry at the ending!</div>
<div>
Not that I wouldn't wish the imaginary best for the character he is playing, but it is too <i>deus ex machina.</i></div>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<div>
One could respond that this is Redford's vision of the ultimate: a benevolent arm pulling one up to the light.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
I think a lot of people have this image or love this image. My own opinion is that it ruins the truth of what we actually know: that when you die, you lose everything.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
There is part of me, however, that wishes I could believe in the divine rescue. I just don't. Ever since I was a child I have thought that one should not believe something because it is a beautiful story.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Maybe buddhist practice is here, right now, losing everything. </div>
Ryusenflowingfountainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14243822868909412059noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694622147163213123.post-35988532244500085852013-08-28T08:26:00.000-07:002013-08-28T12:00:06.474-07:00Death in the Family<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFoVVOn4dyu7K-4647q-YLiPxykUYDmYnENR5k7ZNqAPPTDmUB0WImuNPmSdD29oS1h4pUIeF88kqe5cBOxJhy8hWRGBoHglrEZSF42Jh5xSkvoUxmQWGdGghVT8b4c4Ecowxylt1LK57_/s1600/amelie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFoVVOn4dyu7K-4647q-YLiPxykUYDmYnENR5k7ZNqAPPTDmUB0WImuNPmSdD29oS1h4pUIeF88kqe5cBOxJhy8hWRGBoHglrEZSF42Jh5xSkvoUxmQWGdGghVT8b4c4Ecowxylt1LK57_/s200/amelie.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">For me, the end of a life is always announced with a phone
call:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">“Hi John.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">“Amelie was killed.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Just a few words to open shock, disbelief, sobbing. Amelie, my niece, was only 24 years old. She was riding her bike South of Market at
7:07 am, riding to make an early morning meeting at her
work, Voce Communications. A big rig
passed her on the left, and then cut to make a right turn. Amelie crashed into the truck and was run
over by its rear wheels. I saw a photo of her mangled, blue bike on the
Internet.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">I rushed down to my sister Jessie’s home in Redwood City. We
embraced, sobbing. “My baby is gone. My
baby is gone,” she repeated. What to
say? What to do but sit with this giant grief.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Until these moments, I had never really believed in “life
after death.” It’s not that I disbelieved
it either. I just didn’t know. But I
said to my sister – and now believe – that she is very much present with us,
between us. I could actually feel her. Jessie
said, “Yes, I am closer to Amelie than I have ever been.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">What I want to say is this: joy and grief and love exist at
the same time. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Amelie’s brother, Charlie, aged 21, wandered in and out of
the rooms, crying, confused. Jessie would disappear and then re-emerge, saying,
“This can’t be true. I don’t believe
this.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Over the next few days, Jessie’s friends arrived, a few at a
time, bringing food: lasagna, cheese, cookies, fruit. I think I would go to bed and not get up
again, but Jessie needed this flood of love and support. I told her of “Indra’s net,” the celestial
net in which the nodes are stars, are beings, and that we are all
interconnected. And that the net would
hold her and <i>would not let her fall.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">What I want to say is: Joy and grief and love exist at the
same time. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">There were decisions that one thought one would never have
to make. Immediately. Cremation? Open
casket and then cremation? Going to Amelie’s
apartment to find clothes she could wear – to cover everything but her face. Scattering
of ashes? Where? Phone calls, phone
calls, phone calls.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Brad, my husband, was the anchor to all the plans, gently suggesting
to Jessie that her ex-husband, Amelie’s father, Denis, might want to see the
body. He was arriving from
Strasbourg. Amelie’s sister, Rose,
needed to be located. She was traveling
somewhere in Spain with her cell off.
Every grieving and confused and overwhelmed family needs someone like
Brad to guide them, love them, hold them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">It was decided that there would be a viewing of her body at
the funeral home before cremation. How
odd when the body is dead. The person is
gone, but, still, the body is there. So
sad – her beautiful eyes, her perfect mouth with the bright red lipstick she
always wore. Her hands utterly cold and
hard – with nail polish, carefully applied by someone we didn’t know.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">I grieved for those who grieved. Her young friends came up to the casket. Some
stood at a distance, some kneeled, some sobbed.
I wondered if this was the first time they had seen a dead body, had
realized that death is indeed possible, even for them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">I could hear, across the folding screen, laughter. Jessie’s laughter! Others laughing as they shared Amelie
stories. She was a wild and loving and
crazy young woman. People would go back and forth: to spend a few moments with
Amelie, and then to go to the adjoining room to drink wine and share
stories. Brad and I remained with her
body. I wanted to keep vigil in some
way. I wanted to stay with her.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Later, above her casket, in the subdued golden light, there
was a slide show of her life. People
were laughing, because she was a very funny person. She loved to make faces in front of a
camera. Amelie lay motionless below her
life.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Her ashes were spread in the waters just beyond the Golden
Gate bridge. We threw flower petals to
follow her ashes. The fog was such that we were in a gray, cold place to say
good-bye, and then as we entered Sausalito, blue sky and then radiance of sun
on water.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2pDQ6zdDNCe-C6yYClGfnQCECyrBllJ-6KkhWvYBBAm2iTnYfPltp4VpLqMWhtg1nOIX2BfJFdNH3ASAXUbcuY8pZSiVvKCMzDcBOhxANvggsB5KafREPJIY-hIkAub2v9KJBaduBOfco/s1600/amelie+095.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2pDQ6zdDNCe-C6yYClGfnQCECyrBllJ-6KkhWvYBBAm2iTnYfPltp4VpLqMWhtg1nOIX2BfJFdNH3ASAXUbcuY8pZSiVvKCMzDcBOhxANvggsB5KafREPJIY-hIkAub2v9KJBaduBOfco/s320/amelie+095.JPG" width="180" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">What I want to say is this: joy and grief and love exist at
the same time in this very fragile and precarious life.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Ryusenflowingfountainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14243822868909412059noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694622147163213123.post-85956826542958905702013-03-30T09:04:00.001-07:002013-03-30T09:04:35.802-07:00Phony Guru
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">I saw a documentary called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kumari,</i> made by a second generation Hindu living in Los Angeles. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think his name was Dave, or Jim, or
something like that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was raised as an
all-American boy, and his film documented his real life experiment of adopting
the guise of an enlightened Hindu yogi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At age 26 he went to India to study hatha yoga
and observe the wandering yogis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When he
returned, he decided to grow his hair and wear the orange robes and beads of an
Indian sannyasi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He adopted the accent
of a Hindu speaking English.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">He then took two women friends who taught hatha yoga, and he
set up a store front shop as an enlightened yogi in a Los Angeles suburb.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Slowly, more and more people, young and old,
came to study with him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He would sit
cross-legged across from a disciple and listen deeply and empathetically to the
disciple’s problems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He and his yoga associates set up “intensives” where disciples would send “blue light” to
each other. He even lead them in chanting his name, “Kumari jaya jaya.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">There were many testimonials by disciples of how Kumari had
changed their lives, and how they saw their “inner light.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the end of the film Jim – or whatever his
name – has an “unveiling” of his true identity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>About one half of his disciples left in shock, but the other half
laughed and embraced him, saying it was a good joke.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">Based on my life experiences with spiritual gurus and
teachers, this film was really disturbing and creepy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">So,the documentary is humiliating – that we
could be so easily duped.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the other
hand, it shows that we essentially need each other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In our daily, work-based lives, we do not
communicate deeply, at the level we would call “spiritual.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This documentary suggests that even if the
teacher is a phony, the premise of two people meeting deeply is authentic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The problem, of course, is that the “spiritual
teacher” often ends up exploiting his followers – most especially, taking
sexual advantage of the adoring female followers.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">The more relationships I have with teachers, the more mysterious and confusing this has become.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></div>
Ryusenflowingfountainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14243822868909412059noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694622147163213123.post-62906362901326936232013-02-25T09:04:00.000-08:002013-02-25T13:32:16.384-08:00Proust and Zazen<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">My husband, Brad, and I have been
reading Proust’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Search</i> aloud for
three years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We drive to a beautiful
spot and read about ten pages (which actually takes awhile).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Saturday, parked high above the Golden Gate Bridge,
we have just finished volume three, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Guermantes Way</i>. The main characters in this volume are the Duke and Duchess
of Guermantes, who are aristocrats in Parisian society of the late 1800’s.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Proust is known as one of the
greatest Western novelists, and, indeed, he has great descriptive power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He can write ten pages on the beauty of a
Hawthorne bush.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, he can also be
really, really tedious, especially when he describes a Parisian salon or dinner
party, as he does here, at the home of the Guermantes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Near the end of volume there is a long
dialogue – forty or so pages – between the Guemantes about their aristocratic
and noble families.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An excerpt:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In the past we
were Ducs d’Aumale, a duchy that has passed as regularly to the House of France
as Joinville and Chevreuse have to the House of Albert.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For instance, my sister-in-law’s son bears
the title of Prince d’Agriente…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">These descriptions became so boring
and oppressive that I wanted to skip them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But Proust always has a “method to his madness.” Near the end of this
long dialogue, an old friend, Swann, is ushered in by the footman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Guermantes are on the way to a dinner and
ball. Their discussion about their aristocratic heritage continues as they are
about to enter their carriage. When the Duchess blithely asks Swann if he will
accompany them to Venice, Swann says he cannot go because he is terminally ill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The duchesse dismisses this as
impossible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She is poised with one foot
inside her carriage when Swann asserts that he is, in fact, going to die within
three months.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She hesitates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Will she stop, turn to her friend,
and speak earnestly of his illness, or continue to enter her carriage, denying
any possibility of her friend’s death? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She enters her carriage. She is completely caught in the habit
energy of her life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She can speak for
hours on the most trivial of subjects, but she cannot pause for her friend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She gets into her carriage, missing any
opportunity for meeting the actual truth of her life – that she and everyone
she loves will one day die.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And the genius of Proust is that
this applies to us all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I often feel the
rushing of my mind and life energy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I often
feel as if I have an appointment, but this is absurd, since I am retired and rarely
have appointments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am especially aware
of this crazy energy when I sit zazen. It can be very difficult to be quiet, to
step out of the river of my rushing habit energy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 362.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But sometimes I
can sit straight, and my mind is still, and this feels like the most important
thing I can do for myself and for those I love.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
Ryusenflowingfountainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14243822868909412059noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694622147163213123.post-23762383651051156372013-02-17T08:26:00.001-08:002013-02-17T08:26:11.523-08:00Unrelenting Passion
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I am listening to Beethoven’s
Moonlight Sonata, and I visualize him full of passion and longing and grief – a
passion that brings forth this sad but beautiful music.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I struggle with this passion,
a lifelong friend and challenger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What
is this?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What is this driving
insatiableness?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Earlier in life it felt like sexual
desire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And now it
doesn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I once was an actress, using
this passion to express myself, but once the curtain fell, the thrill was gone,
and the passion has been as strong as ever.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">One of the greatest causes of
suffering is the feeling that one’s life is unsatisfactory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I cultivate gratitude as the antidote, but
I know deep in my heart that I am still desperately dissatisfied.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then I am disturbed that I must not be
grateful <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">enough</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What do I want?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What would fill me up?</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I am practicing Soto Zen from
the same place of longing and passion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Zen
could be seen as both easy and difficult.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Easy because there is no dogma and no fixed beliefs to which I must
subscribe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And this is a good thing,
because I have arrived at a state of intellectual anarchy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And yet I have faith that sitting zazen is
the way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To what?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now that is the hard
part.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are meaning constructing beings
and our passion and longing is for some kind of coherence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do we need this because of our certain death
– and as an older person, I think of this daily – or because there is something
we need to become, to actualize?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Whenever I hear Mary Oliver’s line about how are we going to live “our
one and precious life”, I cringe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t
remind me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I need to chill out around
this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I need to relax.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I shouldn’t take things so seriously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Wouldn’t it be great if “just
sitting” was enough?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think the spin on
“just sitting” in Zen could mean to focus on zazen and not on scriptures or
other forms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the “just” might mean:
drop all hope of identity and purpose in this lifetime.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Drop all aspirations and longings and passions
– even for the good stuff.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I think this is what Zen is
about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just being yourself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clinging to nothing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now we all know these words very well, but
there is a reason that bodhisattvas are called “fearless.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because if you really, really drop all hope
for meaning and identity, you might end up in a very scary place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">On the other hand, passion
and fire may be our very selves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To be
alive <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i> to be passionate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The practice may be just to sit with that
passion and expect nothing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
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Ryusenflowingfountainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14243822868909412059noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694622147163213123.post-74916390927466749022012-12-19T11:06:00.000-08:002013-01-19T06:39:42.224-08:00Green Gulch practice period Part 4: Reb Anderson<br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It amazes me that I have been
in the Bay Area for 40 years and had never met Tenshin Roshi, aka Reb
Anderson.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was delighted to spend time
with this great teacher.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is, as most
know, one of the original students of Suzuki Roshi and has subsequently been the
abbot and senior dharma teacher of the San Francisco Zen monasteries for many
years.</span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Reb has the amazing gift of
greeting every person with great love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He has a penetrating, almost unnerving, look that seems to create an
immediate intimacy and friendliness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
I was able to meet his look without fear or shyness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I particularly remember being only a few feet away
from him in the dish room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We looked at
each other eye-to-eye, in a way that one rarely fully meets another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I must say I was a little
wary of him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I knew very little about
him (and still don’t), but I had heard he had a lot of charisma and personal
power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I spent many years with
charismatic gurus in the tradition of kundalini yoga, and while I received many
gifts of insight and love from them, I now believe that I will be very careful
about giving my complete devotion to any teacher.</span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Norman Fischer advised me to
have dokusan with Reb, so I set up a meeting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I felt strangely exhilarated in his presence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were both laughing, like two children in a
sandbox.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I told him how I had once asked
Norman if he was a Zen master, and Norman replied, “Unfortunately, no,” and how
later Norman told me that I could study with Reb, a genuine Zen master.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After telling him this story, I looked directly
at him and said, “Are you a Zen master?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He smiled his enigmatic smile and said, “I don’t know.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I asked him what a Zen master is, and he said
both the “unknowable and mysterious” and “all the stories we tell about him.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was flattered that Reb asked my permission
to tell the story at Sunday’s dharma talk, without mentioning Norman’s
name.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was interesting that Richard
Baker was there at his talk, which could have been entitled, “What is a Zen
Master?”</span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In my second dokusan –
encouraged by Norman – I told him about my many years with kundalini gurus and
the hurt I had suffered by their betrayals of my trust.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I told him I am now reluctant to trust any
teacher.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although I am very devotional
by nature, how can I love the teacher but not the man? This is my lifelong
koan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His answer at the time was a
little vague to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He seemed to be
linking the Perfections (generosity, etc) with how to love the teacher.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But a few days later, I
experienced an important insight, which I saw as a profound answer to my
question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Reb and I passed each other in
the dining room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We looked deeply at
each other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Afterword, I was filled with
great love and joy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I realized that it
was just love, not really directed to Reb, because, after all, I do not know
him at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was just love – fluid,
dynamic, alive!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anything added on is
just extra.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Love is the mysterious and
pure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we add on our stories to the
person, we open ourselves to attachment and suffering.</span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Wouldn’t it be a wonderful
practice to greet each person with this non-clinging and mysterious love?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Ryusenflowingfountainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14243822868909412059noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694622147163213123.post-81136954844167621482012-12-17T11:02:00.001-08:002012-12-17T11:02:31.661-08:00Green Gulch Practice Period Part 3: “Everyday mind is the way”
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I had heard many of the
senior dharma teachers in Everyday Zen say that Zen is a “body practice.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I never really understood what they were
saying.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Zazen is sitting in the body<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, but</i> isn’t every meditation technique
also in the body?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What could this mean?</span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I would say that one of my
greatest insights during this Practice Period is that Zen is indeed “washing
your bowls.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or, in more rustic terms, “chopping
wood and carrying water.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The monastic schedule was
very rigorous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was up at 4:15 am to
take a shower (primarily to wake up, but it also seemed like the only luxury,
since the lavender scented shampoo smelled so good).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were two periods of zazen, and the rest
of the time I was working in the kitchen until 2 pm, with breaks for breakfast
and lunch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was a rest period
between 2 and 4 pm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I learned to fall
asleep the moment I lay down!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At 4 pm there
was a study period, but I have to admit that as much as I love reading Buddhist
books, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I was not interested in this at
all</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then zazen, dinner, and two final
periods of zazen.</span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The kitchen work was fun but
really exhausting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I became one of the
official onion choppers, since I was one of the few people who could tolerate
this work. We chopped in very close quarters, and as fast and efficiently as
possible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was concentrating so hard
that once Martha de Barros came to stand right by my side, and I didn’t notice
her, until she softy said, “Hi, Barbara.”</span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">There were days that we have
a half day sit, with 5 periods of zazen in the morning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the full day sits and during sesshin, we
had ten periods of zazen.</span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The thoughts in my mind were
no more intellectual or “spiritual” than asking myself, “What’s next?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> "</span>Do I have dishes tonight?"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> "</span>Do I ring the Bonsho bell today?"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the way from the kitchen to my room in
Cloud Hall, I would often look at the mud and leaves on the path and think, “Just
one foot in front of the other.”</span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In zazen, my thoughts did not
race.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, as I look back, I am not
sure I was thinking of anything other than how to hold my posture in such a way
that I could make it to the end of the meditation period.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes I actually counted my breath.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes I did deep breathing, not because it
was recommended that I breathe from the “hara” (an area around the navel), but
because it felt good to get oxygen to as many cells as possible!</span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So, my awareness was
literally in my body – either sitting upright, or paying attention to the sharp
knife so I wouldn’t chop a finger off.</span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Perhaps this body practice is
good because it keeps you very mindful in the present moment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The “be here now” sort of thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think that we mostly don’t do this in our
usual everyday lives, so it was an important experience for me to live this way
for two months.</span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Everyday mind is the way,”
as it is said in a famous koan.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Ryusenflowingfountainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14243822868909412059noreply@blogger.com1