Form IS form. And Emptiness IS emptiness

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.

One big contradiction for our logical minds. How can we understand this? (How could we logically understand the illogical!)

In “Western logic” we believe that truth must be expressed in non-contradictory terms. According to this logic, the law of excluded middle (or the principle of excluded middle) is the third of the three classic laws of thought. It states that for any proposition, either that proposition is true, or its negation is true….but not both.

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 includes its opposite. All relative events and things, and all absolute events and things, are shot through with contradictions, with paradoxes. 

Edward Conze, in his book, Buddhist Thought in India, notes: “We 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.

Why do all things contain contain their opposite?  Because, according to Conze, of “tathagatha.” 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. 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.

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.

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 The Places That Scare You, “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.)

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.

So, besides saying, “Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form,” we can say form is form, and emptiness is emptiness.

Reb, With All Due Respect: Practice Matters

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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:

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.

Reb.    No. What exactly are you saying?

Me:    Practice matters.

Reb:   No. Practice doesn’t matter. I will repeat this again. (In a louder voice) Practice doesn’t matter!

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.

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.

So this morning I was interested to read Chapter 16 of the Flower Ornament Scripture (The Avatamsaka Sutra) 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?

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.)

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 cannot be apprehended; that the mind has no obstruction, that the sphere of operation is nondual. 

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.”

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.

There really is nothing to stand on

The Perfection of Wisdom teachings say, over and over again, that a bodhisattva must be fearless. This is a liberating, but daunting, theology. 

[Caveat: what follows may be difficult to hear, and you might not want to read further.]

The jubilant side of the Perfection of Wisdom 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.

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.)

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.

But the shadow side to the Perfection of Wisdom teachings is the realization that there is 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.

And that is very scary. That is why the Perfection of Wisdom teachings say, over and over again, that a bodhisattva must be fearless. This is a liberating, but daunting, theology.

“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.”

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?”

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.

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.”

It is a kind of “metaphysical valium.”

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.”

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

On the subject of judgment, Dr. Masters says:
“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.

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!

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.”

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.

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.”

We need, of course, to be gentle with our spiritual bypassing. Understanding our tendencies to do this can only deepen and mature our practice.

Upaya practice period with Norman and Kaz

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.

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).

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.

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 constant 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.

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.

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.

Upaya has different versions of the chants. Norman says they have been “kaz-ified”

Creations are numberless; I vow to free them

Delusions are inexhaustible; I vow to transform them

Reality is boundless; I vow to perceive it

The awakened way is unsurpassable; I vow to embody it.

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 is my practice. How could it be otherwise?

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.

Ordination: The great offering of ancestors and teachers

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.]

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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!

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!

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!

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.

Gratitude to the ancestors and lineage of teachers, handing the dharma to me this day.

This is really the essence of what I wish to say: thank you.

Can we wake up (or not)?

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!”

The historical Buddha said, “When one person [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!]

With the Lotus Sutra, 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, Visions of Awakening Space and Time, “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!]

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,

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 Introduction to the Precepts

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 always in the context of nature. 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.

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!

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.”

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.