Green Gulch Practice Period Part 3: “Everyday mind is the way”

I had heard many of the senior dharma teachers in Everyday Zen say that Zen is a “body practice.”  I never really understood what they were saying.  Zazen is sitting in the body, but isn’t every meditation technique also in the body?  What could this mean? 

I would say that one of my greatest insights during this Practice Period is that Zen is indeed “washing your bowls.”  Or, in more rustic terms, “chopping wood and carrying water.”   

The monastic schedule was very rigorous.  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).  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.  There was a rest period between 2 and 4 pm.  I learned to fall asleep the moment I lay down!  At 4 pm there was a study period, but I have to admit that as much as I love reading Buddhist books, I was not interested in this at all.  Then zazen, dinner, and two final periods of zazen. 

The kitchen work was fun but really exhausting.  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.  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.” 

There were days that we have a half day sit, with 5 periods of zazen in the morning.  On the full day sits and during sesshin, we had ten periods of zazen. 

The thoughts in my mind were no more intellectual or “spiritual” than asking myself, “What’s next?”  "Do I have dishes tonight?"  "Do I ring the Bonsho bell today?"  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.” 

In zazen, my thoughts did not race.  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.  Sometimes I actually counted my breath.  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! 

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. 

Perhaps this body practice is good because it keeps you very mindful in the present moment.  The “be here now” sort of thing.  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. 

“Everyday mind is the way,” as it is said in a famous koan.

Green Gulch Practice Period Part 2: Zazen

 

The zazen I speak of is not learning meditation.  It is simply the dharma gate of repose and bliss, the practice-realization of totally illuminated enlightenment.

                                                Dogen’s Fukanzazengi

 

Zen is, after all, zazen: just sitting.  But how many of us have wondered whether Dogen was making some kind of cruel joke?  Where is the repose?  Where is the bliss? 

Zazen, zazen, and more zazen.  Sometimes a minimum of two hours a day on the cushion, usually 3 hours, and during the 7 day sesshin, ten periods of zazen.   I checked the sesshin schedule, and there were 295 minutes of zazen a day (equaling 4.91 hours), and if you add in the dharma talk, tea, and three oryoki meals, that is an additional 3.5 hours on the cushion.   

I thought I had trained for this.  I was sitting 30 minutes a day, 3 times a day, for two months.  But I felt as if I had never sat at all.  I knew that I should not condemn myself or feel like a failure – although that was often how I felt.  As my good friend and mentor, Chris Fortin, said, “It’s not that you were a failure, it was just not what you expected.” 

The big shock was on Day 2, when we did a tangaryo.  I went to the Ino, the head of the hall, and said, “Let me get this straight.  I sit from 5 am until 9 pm with bathroom breaks and three short breaks for meals?” “Yes,” she said, “do your best.”   

Doing my best was an ever-present koan.  What is my best?  What is the discomfort one works through in order to gain a strong posture that one can hold?  What level of pain is simply too much – pain that would cause any reasonable person to stay in bed?   

During the entire practiced period, I was dismayed by how much my body hurt.  I switched between a chair and the cushion, but I can tell you sitting motionless in a chair for 40 minutes can be just as painful as sitting on a cushion. On the chair, I felt burning sensations in my neck and shoulders.  On the cushion, pain between my shoulder blades. 

One good thing:  during the 40 minutes, I was constantly making small adjustments and learned my true posture.  My teacher, Norman Fischer, said that I would become intimate with my spine.  How true! If I slightly bent my head or tucked my chin, my neck and shoulders felt better.  I would adjust my spine and learned that if the vertebrae were in a line, like children’s play blocks stacked in a column, I could sit better.  There was a balance between using muscles to sit upright and yet staying (relatively) relaxed.   

 

This must sound pretty masochistic, and one would reasonably question whether this is a “cult of pain,” – words my mind repeated at my very lowest experience.   There were instructions from the Abbess to stay with the schedule, to stay with the pain.  I do not agree with this philosophy at all.  I think intense pain is not necessary and possibly harmful.  But I do think, now, that pushing through discomfort can be useful. 

So, although this description might sound grim, it was, in retrospect, a wonderful challenge.  After these two months, it is as if I found my posture, found my foundation, and I am now able to just sit for several hours.  Not exactly in repose and bliss, but with a body-mind open awareness that is actually refreshing.

 

 

 

 

Practice Period Green Gulch Zen Center (part one)

I went to the two month practice period at Green Gulch Farm, one of the San Francisco Zen centers, to immerse myself in monastic practice.  These centers, founded by Suzuki Roshi of the Soto Zen lineage, are the “mother ships” of Zen practice in America, and I am extremely fortunate to have had this opportunity. 
 

I agreed not to leave from October 13^th until December 11^th.    

I imagined that my primary training would be in the “forms” – seated meditation (zazen), chanting, bowing, and moving in the zendo (meditation hall).  But upon reflection, I see that my primary training was how to live in harmony with a lot of people,  and the importance of following the precepts. 

Precepts are the foundation of Buddhist practice and evolved around the time of the Buddha.  The purpose was to create harmony in the sangha (community).  In fact, the precepts derive from The Six Harmonies, which include right speech and how to handle conflict. 

I lived with 2 other women in a very small room.  [Scientific studies have shown that if you put 3 elderly rats in a small space, they become aggressive, and subsequent studies have shown that this remains true for elderly women as well.]  I meditated, moved, ate, and worked in very close quarters with 30 other practice period participants.  It was so tight in the kitchen and the dish washing room that we were rotating and working around each others like small gears in a wristwatch.  

I was so exhausted that I had no tolerance for conflict.  Once a new arrival – a very large man – blasted a torrent of anger at me in the kitchen, because he thought I was violating “functional speech” by wanting to clarify whether we tore lettuce by hand or cut it with a knife.  Normally I would have a quick retort, but I was so tired that all I could say was “wow!”
 

Once I had a squabble with a roommate over the placement of a very bright light.  Of course, this seems absurd, and it is, but at the time it was very irritating.  But I saw immediately that I did not want my composure ruined by anyone or anything.  And the only choice is to let go.  Let go and let go and let go. 

I met up close and personal my own impatience and irritability and aggression.  I have a wonderful husband, and we rarely argue.  I am retired and spend most of my time alone, so I have not had to cultivate the virtues of patience and holding my tongue.  In effect: right speech.   

There is a precept that says “A disciple of Buddha does not harbor ill will.”  I was probably in continual violation of this precept.   But it is probably human to have antipathies toward certain people, and I learned that some people who have lived there for a long time, did, in fact, have feelings of ill will.  The difference is that they had learned to live skillfully and harmoniously.  You bow to everyone.  

So, yes, the most important lesson was how to live and move harmoniously with a lot of people.  It was to my benefit to cultivate these virtues.  The motivation came from within and was not something imposed from the outside – some way I “should” behave. 

When I think back to the conflicts I have had at my various workplaces, I think I would have been much happier if I had lived for two months in a Zen monastery.   I doubt the American corporations would endorse this kind of training, but it’s not a bad idea!

 

First seven day retreat at Green Gulch monastery

Seven days in a monastery, with seven periods of meditation (zazen) per day and three hours of classes per day and working in the kitchen and washing dishes and getting up at 4:20 am – understandably I was a little nervous that I wouldn’t be able to do this.  Even a young person, even a relatively healthy person would have difficulties.  But, I was able to follow the schedule, and I loved it! 

Sometimes I was so tired that I literally could not walk a straight line; I would not have been able to pass a test for a DUI. There were times in meditation that I felt as if hot lava was flowing down my neck and shoulders and back.  There were times that I felt as if little bugs were crawling all over my face, but I managed to sit without moving.  Why would I voluntarily do this to myself?  But there were times that I felt a kind of peace and calm, and rather than going forward to the practice, it came forward to me.  Make sense?

I especially loved the classes by Rev. Okumura on Dogen’s fascicle Only a Buddha and a Buddha.  He mentioned “dropping away of body and mind,” an important experience for Dogen.  I asked him, “I would like to know more about ‘dropping away of body and mind.’  I know I am entering the realm of trying to attain something (a kind of no-no in Zen), but I find it hard to believe that in my zazen there is dropping away of body and mind.”  I was surprised by Rev. Okumura’s answer.  In summary: don’t ask.  We are always trying to understand meditation or aim for something in meditation, but this is not possible.  This is all just conceptual.  Just sit.

I did, however, experience a kind of dropping away of my mind.  One morning I looked at the clock and it was 4:20.  I got up and got dressed and went to the bathroom to brush my teeth before everyone else.  I wondered why it was so quiet in the guest house.  I looked at my clock again:  1:30 am.  I was so embarrassed that I went back to bed fully clothed.

Once in the kitchen, I was supposed to crack 70 eggs.  I cracked 17 and then added on a piece of paper the 30 eggs in the flat of eggs in the carton, and that equaled 47.  Then I figured that 70 minus 47 equals 23, so I cracked 23 more eggs.  The problem is, I forgot to add the 30.  So, in all I cracked only 40 eggs.  Since they were to be used for frittata, there would have been a lot of hungry people, if I had not remembered in zazen, “Oh my God, I didn’t actually crack the 30 eggs, I just wrote that number on a piece of paper.”  Immediately I rushed to the kitchen to tell the cook.  He just laughed.  I was glad that zazen was good for something.

In a monastic setting, if you are alone, you know you must be in the wrong place.  Several times I wondered, “Where is everybody?”  And then I knew I was supposed to be washing dishes or attending a work meeting.  Kind of humbling.

It is impossible to explain why this seven days was so wonderful.  Certainly the classes were great, and the beauty and harmony of everyone moving in unison in the zendo was great.  But ultimately it makes no sense that I now want to do a two month monastic retreat.

Longing for Completion

I truly admire those people who remain single and alone and happy!  But it may be true that most of us seek a life partner, and that we feel most whole when we are in relationship.  When I was in my thirties and single, I desperately wanted a husband.   In fact, I felt lonely and depressed.  Everyone seemed matched up but me.

I met Brad when I was thirty-nine, and we have been harmoniously and happily married for twenty-five years.  Our marriage is amazingly effortless – what a gift!  But I am realizing that there is a deep longing, a kind of deep grief, even in the most perfect marriage. 

Brad longs for God, and I long for…well, I am not sure what I long for.  

I have been with yoga gurus and Zen teachers.  Whenever I have developed that deep bond of love and devotion with a teacher, I become overwhelmed with a sense of love and grief and longing.  I used to ask myself of Baba Muktananda, “What do you want? Do you want to sit on his lap?” I know that no teacher can satisfy that longing.  The teacher can only evoke that longing.

Recently a senior student at Everyday Zen asked me, “Were you held by your parents?”  I knew I was at the edge of a precipice when I said, “No.”  She helped me see that that longing and grief is primal, is pre-erotic.  One might be tempted, perhaps, to see this as a matter of poor parenting or a dysfunctional family (which mine became).  But I think it is much more than that.

Brad says that this longing is a gift.  I think it is a deep longing for completion.  All the yogic and Buddhist teachings say you are already complete.  Maybe, but clearly I don’t feel that!  Now what?

One could experience completion or wholeness in each person you meet.  On every meeting. This is remarkable to contemplate!  And one can certainly sense completion while being in nature.

I am wondering, now, whether this seeking for completion is never-ending, that completion is never complete.  While always seeking, always going deeper could be a good thing, I wonder if the grief and pain of separation will ever go away?

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.