Irrepressible love

The Buddha taught skillfulness.  With intention, attention, and effort, one can approach the goal of freedom.  So if you have an afflictive thought/emotion such as anger or desire, he taught that you can identify that afflictive thought.  You can see that the thought/emotion will harm yourself or others.  In the same way, you can see that putting into action an afflictive thought such as anger or desire, one will cause harm to oneself or another.

He taught that having realized this, one can choose renunciation of the thought and action.

Wouldn’t this be wonderful!  But the deepest afflictive emotions cannot be reasoned with.  They cannot be persuaded to go away.  Yes, one can effectively restrain oneself from acting on these thoughts, but they may never go away. Over time – maybe long periods of time – the thoughts can erode into less compelling psychic forces.  But in the meantime what can we do?

I have a friend who is in a profound state of anger and shock, because her husband of fourteen years left without a word or a warning.  I have a former husband, who is now a friend, who is dying of incurable lung disease.  My friend and former husband have just fallen in love.  This is wonderful!   Love is irrepressible, as it should be.  There are deep, psychic forces, like love, that are irrepressible despite the “prognosis.”  Love is not normally thought of as afflictive, but it often is a cause of pain.

Irrepressible.  So maybe trying to make these emotions go away, or trying to be skillful to effect renunciation, won’t work.  What is left is to accept them, to live with them.  If the emotion is love, then whole-heartedly accept that loving, even though you know it could be painful.  My friend and former husband know that pain lies ahead.  He will die within the year, and she will lose him.  But they are going into this with eyes wide open, and hearts wide open.

To accept that there is suffering and pain, and yet to love with our whole heart is the nature of being alive.

Buddhism talks about “letting go.”  But it may be that letting go is the letting go of resistance – of pushing away, of trying to isolate and protect oneself.  Letting go may be a kind of surrender to your life as it actually is.

Soto Zen Hierarchy (2)

It feels safer to have postive thoughts about one’s religious practice.  Devotion and faith and being positive are essential, but one cannot throw out one’s critical thinking. 

I read that scholars have shown that this direct, one-to-one, historical lineage, beginning with the Buddha, is religious fiction. It is a religious myth.  [Although I don't need scholars to tell me that; it seems obvious]

The myth of lineage – not limited at all to Soto Zen – legitimizes and verifies internal structure and hierarchy.  It is a kind of governance and control of who has the power within the organization.  This control does serve the important function of creating coherence and continuity of practice. 

In its most powerful and beneficial aspects, myth of lineage reveres all those who have preserved and brought to us the tradition and practice of Soto Zen.  It honors and remembers all the practitioners that have caused our practice to be what it is today.  Without them, there would be no cohesive practice.  It is the flow of life. 

It is a flow of awakening and buddha-nature, and that is why I felt joy to receive the women's lineage papers from Norman and Chris.

On the other hand, I think we have to see through this.  We need to remember that it is myth. I don’t  believe that we should reify lineage or worship it.  Particular placeholders in the lineage may have existed or not.  And there are the myriad of unknown male and female practitioners who have practiced and influenced our practice who appear on no lineage chart.

This morning I read these words of Dogen:

When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point; for the place, the way, is neither large nor small, neither yours nor others.  The place, the way, has not carried over from the past, and is not merely arising now.

To me, this says it all.  Lineage is a beautiful and necessary metaphor, but it is empty of intrinsic reality.

Waking up to Soto Zen Hierarchy

It’s as if I woke up from a dream, or some self-imposed amnesia. It’s not that I didn’t know that Soto Zen is a hierarchy, and patriarchal until just recently. [My friend and teacher Norman Fischer has been instrumental in introducing the women's lineage papers.  A noteworthy achievement.]

Clearly the ordained and lay entrusted have the only real status.  It is not a status based on actually living the dharma – although many do - but on an ordination that may have happened years ago, or upon acting as shuso for two months.  When I first came to Zen, it was clear there was a kind of elite club: the priests. A kind of caste system. At Zen Center, I am told this enactment of hierarchy is very precise – down to where the zafu is placed for certain services.

What triggered my awakening to this after all these years of my being willing to ignore this every entrenched tradition within Soto Zen?

I was given a list of how people should line up to receive the new women’s lineage documents.  And there it was: a literal expression of rank.  Priests and lay entrusted first and everyone else. One priest – a dear friend – told me that the ordained hold responsibility for our practice.  Although this responsibility is taken seriously in most cases, there are many who through questionable ethical behavior, or simple lack of involvement with a sangha, do not hold the practice for me. 

Another dear friend told me that it is simply a tradition of honoring the elders and their longevity of practice.  I would agree that it is valuable to do so, but the problem is that there are many people who have practiced just as long, or longer.  And there are people who are not ordained and who have devoted themselves to service in our sangha for years and years.  These people will never receive this kind of honor and attendant privilege.

It’s as if I woke up, and I was shocked.  How could I have given so much time, have given so much of myself?  I am very egalitarian, and I do not believe there should be a special class of people.  Everyone has his or her own role, based on the causes and conditions of her life.  There are mothers; there are those doing socially engaged Buddhism; those sitting at the bedside of the dying.   

So how do I hold this with integrity?  By being so active in my Zen community am I being complicit with a value system that is not my own? Is this an actual moral question, or can I continue giving and receiving love?  And ignoring.

The Prodigal Son: Christian and Buddhist versions

I am reading the Lotus Sutra in preparation for Chris Fortin’s discussion of this text in the Everyday Zen dharma seminars.  I just finished the chapter, “Belief and Understanding,” which is really the parable of the prodigal son…called the “impoverished son” in this text. 

In the Buddhist version, like the Christian, the son leaves home for many years and falls into a destitute state – a state in which he finds himself despicable and the lowest of the low.  In the Buddhist version, the father is also wealthy, although in this version, the father is king-like, sitting on a throne of pearls.

According to the Buddhist story, the father knows he is going to die eventually and sends for his son, so that he will have someone to inherit his vast wealth.  But he knows his son would not believe he is the son of a wealthy king, so he asks the messengers to say, “This wealthy man would like you to work for him.”  And also knowing that the son would feel unworthy, says to the messengers, “You can tell him that he can shovel excrement.”

The son in the Buddhist parable does return, but he refuses to see the king, because he considers himself to be filthy.  So the king – wishing to approach his son - puts on dirty clothes, puts excrement on his body, and goes to his son saying, “Let us work together shoveling excrement.”  After many years, the man gains the trust and love of his son.  The father then reveals his identity, but he still knows that the son cannot accept that he is the son of a king, so he puts his son in charge of the treasury, dispursing  great sums of money.  Only after several years of doing this work, can the son really believe that he is the son of a king.

In the Christian version, the son wants to return home, but fears the wrath of his father.  When he is returning home, his father sees him far down the road.  The father runs down the road, throws his arms around him, and forgives him.  He is overjoyed to have him home at last.

So here is what is so interesting to me:  In the Christian version, the father – God – is the antecedent to forgiveness and wholeness.  In Buddhism, buddha-nature is the antecedent.  That is, according to Buddhism, we are already pure and great.   We are buddha-nature.   Only because of our fear and suffering and low sense of ourselves do we feel unworthy to step up to our greatness.  In the Christian version, especially the evangelical version (as explained to me to my once evangelical husband), we are sinners and will always be sinners, but it is through God’s love and his incarnation into a suffering Jesus, do we find redemption.

I would guess that the Buddhist parable was heard on the “silk road” in the time of Jesus.  The story was then changed and told both through a Jewish perspective and through Christ’s message.

The parables seem very different, but somehow the same.  In one story the greatness is outside of ourselves in the form of God.  In the other story, our own true nature is already great.  But in both stories, we find peace and love and belonging.

living freely as an unmoored boat

           Great is the matter of birth and death
           Life slips quickly by
           To waste time is a great shame
           Time waits for no one.

These are the classic words written on the han, the wooden board that is hit with a mallet, to call people to meditation in the Zen tradition.

These words are meant to wake us up to the great matter, to the investigation of what it means to be human.  What it means to live a life of value.

I do not need to hear these words!!  I am actually very aware that I am going to die!  I would say I am obsessed with the passage of time, and this obsession has produced a kind of dread.  This is not how I want to live my life, feeling in bondage to the passing of time.  I know that my deep commitment to the spiritual life in part comes from the knowledge of the passing of time, but the constant reminder of my mortality is more depressive than up-lifting.

Often one hears a dharma teacher quote this verse from Mary Oliver’s poem A Summer’s Day:

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Doing, doing, doing is the disease of our modern culture.  “To be is to do” is the mantra subconsciously repeated by all of us who have been taught to strive for achievement.  Personal fulfillment is defined in terms of accomplishments that will give legitimacy to our lives.

Ironically, Zen Buddhist teachings suggest that we should be happy with our lives as they are.  To enjoy this moment as it is.  And yet, I see the persons I love most within this tradition working and working and working.  Travelling and giving talks and publishing.  One might argue, “But this is how he enjoys the moment.” But I do wonder about the need and value of a simpler life.  Isn’t something being sacrificed in all this busy-ness?

What if I decide – right now – to do nothing?  I am retired, so this should be easy.   Being alive, being joyful, being thankful should be enough.  I do not feel that I actually need to repay the incomprehensible generosity of having been given a beautiful life.

I am now studying the Taoteching.  I especially like the commentary by Chuang-tzu on verse 34.

Those who are skilled toil, and those who are clever worry.  Meanwhile, those who do not possess such abilities seek nothing and yet eat their fill. They drift through life like unmoored boats.

What a wonderful image: living freely as an unmoored boat.

Is Zen really a male practice?

It seems that in American Soto Zen a lot of progress has been made in terms of awareness of gender inequality, and also progress in terms of having female priests, role models etc.

But I have been thinking of how gender differences may deeply inform our view of Zen practice itself.   Without having to turn to social or psychological theory, it is clear to me that in our EDZ practice, the women are more social.  The women's retreat is huge and there seems to be no need for the men to have their own retreat.  This warmth and desire to connect may reflect the proclivities of our female gender.

Obviously Soto Zen comes from a male dominant Japanese culture. I would suggest that the very spirit and energy of our practice reflects that gender difference.  Zen is considered cool, unemotional, and controlled. These traits are generally considered male.

Although women can fully practice in this manner - and it is a beautiful practice - our desire for warmth and connection has led to what many of we women call "warm hearted zen."  And this is the practice that most strongly appeals to me.

So I am suggesting that we deconstruct how we view Zen practice itself, based on gender difference.

Do women experience greater distractions?

In the Diamond Sutra, chapter two, the Buddha answers Subhuti’s question about how a “noble son” or “noble daughter” should act as they embark upon the path of the bodhisattva.

In the edition translated by Red Pine, there is a quote by Chiang Wei-nung that says:

In Buddhist sutras it is sometimes said that women experience such great distractions that they cannot become buddhas, but must first be re-born as men.

Wei-nung then goes on to say that the Buddha did not see male or female and that the dharma is shared by all.  However, he makes an interesting distinction between love and compassion, which supposedly explains why women are so easily distracted:

Still the distractions of women are great.  First is the distraction of motherhood.  Second, they frequently confuse love for compassion.  Compassion is impartial.  It knows neither direction nor degree.  Love, meanwhile is a river of life and death, of endless rebirth.

Of course, being a 21^st century American woman, the idea that a man is more suited for spiritual practice is outrageous to me.  It does seem like a very old idea that has certainly pervaded religions for thousands of years.  [An example is the attitude toward women found in the ancient Upanishads, where women are likened to cows, and where re-birth as a man would definitely be an excellent idea!] 

I wonder about the impartial “compassion” of the supposedly great Zen teachers such as Genpo Mertzel and Eido Shimano, who had to dis-robe due to sexual predation.   Perhaps there are female sexual predators, but this seems to be the domain of men – the ones more suitable for the bodhisattva path – or so it is said.

But as I was reading this while parked at Linda Mar beach, I was somewhat startled to see that I am easily distracted, certainly by love.  I have a deeply devotional nature and have loved my two gurus and now my Zen teacher.  Although this love has inspired me all my life to dedicate myself to meditation, reading, service, etc, it has been painful, and it has been a distraction.  After a lifetime of inspiration and terrible disappointments, I think that it might be a good idea to be impartial in my love and compassion.

Well, that sounds good.  It sounds like some kind of spiritual maturity.  But is it?

We have idealized impressions of Buddha’s disciples as leading a life of absolute discipline.  We have impressions of monks living in their cells, undisturbed and undistracted by human emotions such as anger, lust, boredom, attachment, and doubt.  We have this idea that with enough practice and resolve, we also can be free of these distracting [and degrading] human emotions.

I think that this is not possible nor even desirable.  Although we can witness our emotions in meditation and can gradually move to some peace of mind, and although we can step back for a few blessed minutes in zazen, we are human, and it is good to love and be attached and passionate about our lives.

It is difficult for me to imagine compassion devoid of deep, painful human experience and suffering.  How helpful would a friend be –how compassionate could she be – if she had not also suffered the attachment and the confusion that can often be found in loving another?

I suppose there must be a middle way between being thrown about by human emotions, on the one hand, and being completely detached from emotions, on the other.  And I suspect that applies to men and women alike.