If Eihei Dogen had a daughter in the 21st century, perhaps he would have encouraged her to be "steadily intimate in [her] mind field" in this way:
You have my okay
to suck the marrow out of life
to break through the effervescent exterior of the moment
and bite into its dark, rich truth.
You have my blessing
to do only what you can do with attention
to not layer in more because you ought, should, or were told to
Breathe, then ask your heart if this is what you intend.
If the answer is yes, go forth.
You have my support
to be less of the person you thought you were
and more of what you are fully in this moment,
to be aware of what drives you,
be they habits of mind, aspirations, delusions,
and to give yourself the liberty to chose which will surface today.
To know the world, start by knowing the knower - nothing is excluded.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Blindness
Saw this "improv" link a few days ago. Jaw still on floor.
But then it is all of a piece with the Human Zoo videos we're watching in CPE training..and the brown eyes/ blue eyes "lesson" conducted in the '60s by Jane Elliot ....
...and the genuine 'need' for the diversity initiative just launched in my organization, which may the 3rd or 4th within my tenure. All similar ways in which the world reminds us to wake up and turn the light inwards, if only for a second of self awareness.
I am not immune from this blindness, but I find that I am certainly drawn toward efforts to counter it. Hence the practice of meditation, the reflective confronting of 'self' in retreats, in CPE, in my work as a manager (though I could wish it were less confrontational...working on that). I think it is an outcome of something that happened early and indelibly - my bones and muscle memory have never forgotten being a minority - the other race, the "disadvantaged" economic group, the kid who stuttered and couldn't run fast enough, the smart/wise-ass who didn't fit in so stood out. Rolls reversed, deficits countered - and those memories still waft through actions to this day.
Zen's teaching of "no difference" has always made bone-deep sense. And my experience in chaplaincy has never failed to confirm it - who is suffering...who is the patient...this time you, next time me. All that seems to matter is how we meet each other in this moment. Anger, tears, frustration, hope, joy - are any of these "other"?
Can't help but consider that the way I've seen folks respond to kirtan is also proof of no difference.
But then it is all of a piece with the Human Zoo videos we're watching in CPE training..and the brown eyes/ blue eyes "lesson" conducted in the '60s by Jane Elliot ....
...and the genuine 'need' for the diversity initiative just launched in my organization, which may the 3rd or 4th within my tenure. All similar ways in which the world reminds us to wake up and turn the light inwards, if only for a second of self awareness.
I am not immune from this blindness, but I find that I am certainly drawn toward efforts to counter it. Hence the practice of meditation, the reflective confronting of 'self' in retreats, in CPE, in my work as a manager (though I could wish it were less confrontational...working on that). I think it is an outcome of something that happened early and indelibly - my bones and muscle memory have never forgotten being a minority - the other race, the "disadvantaged" economic group, the kid who stuttered and couldn't run fast enough, the smart/wise-ass who didn't fit in so stood out. Rolls reversed, deficits countered - and those memories still waft through actions to this day.
Zen's teaching of "no difference" has always made bone-deep sense. And my experience in chaplaincy has never failed to confirm it - who is suffering...who is the patient...this time you, next time me. All that seems to matter is how we meet each other in this moment. Anger, tears, frustration, hope, joy - are any of these "other"?
Can't help but consider that the way I've seen folks respond to kirtan is also proof of no difference.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
A "found" quote
...in the closing pages of Head Off & Split, poems by Nikky Finney.
Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer. - Simone Weil
CPE Reflection 2
CPE Reflection 2, Due February 6, 2012
“...as we contemplate our coming life, we are like children in a theater before the curtain is raised, sitting there in high spirits and eagerly waiting for the play to begin. It is a blessing that we do not know what is really going to happen. Could we foresee it, there are times when children might seem like condemned prisoners, condemned, not to death, but to life, and as yet all unconscious of what their sentence means.”"
“...as we contemplate our coming life, we are like children in a theater before the curtain is raised, sitting there in high spirits and eagerly waiting for the play to begin. It is a blessing that we do not know what is really going to happen. Could we foresee it, there are times when children might seem like condemned prisoners, condemned, not to death, but to life, and as yet all unconscious of what their sentence means.”"
(Arthur Schopenhauer, German Philosopher 1788-1860)
The last words I read before turning to this assignment were in a book by Thomas Nagel called What Does It All Mean. The book is a brief narrative of how philosophy approaches several key questions, building up to “What is the meaning of life?” (Alas, the answer is not Adams’ “42”.) Nagel is dissatisfied with a religious answer to the question (i.e., that we can’t know beyond the fact that it is God’s will or purpose) because it precludes our asking and being able to get a satisfactory answer to “Why” or “What is that purpose.” “Can there really be something which gives point to everything else by encompassing it, bit which couldn’t have, or need, any point itself? Something whose point can’t be questioned from outside because there is no outside?”
Nagel appears to lead to a conclusion that life may be fundamentally meaningless, but since we as individuals determine to care about our lives and each other, that’s gonna have to be meaning enough. He notes that some are troubled by this and ascribe it to a tendency toward taking ourselves too seriously, needing some larger sense of purpose or importance to energize our actions. To give this up a larger/higher purpose would be to acknowledge the ridiculousness of taking ourselves so seriously. “..if we can’t help taking ourselves so seriously, perhaps we just have to put up with being ridiculous. Life may be not only meaningless but absurd.”
Let’s take the above as true - that life does not have inherent meaning and may indeed be absurd. Then indeed the children are “condemned” to a meaningless existence. But it is their existence and their opportunity to explore its breadth and depth.
Let’s take the above as true - that life does not have inherent meaning and may indeed be absurd. Then indeed the children are “condemned” to a meaningless existence. But it is their existence and their opportunity to explore its breadth and depth.
The children in the relatively affluent United States (even those comfortably swaying in Mitt Romney’s imaginatively well-woven safety net) as well as those in nations from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe have the opportunity to not just discover an answer to the question of the meaning of life, but to create one. It is an opportunity, not a destiny. Many things are stacked up against such discovery, from being able to rise one's head above subsistence to developing the capacity for reasoned exploration. And then there is how little introspection most bring to the project of their lives. It often seems that only in the moments of crisis - illness and death - the question of meaning surfaces strongly enough to be considered if not addressed. But then, those moments eventually come to us all.
There is a Buddhist parable of the burning house from the Lotus Sutra that is relevant to this reflection in that it captures why I think of the children not as condemned but as having a real chance to realize if not create meaning. The story goes like this:
One day, a fire broke out in the house of a wealthy man who had many children. The wealthy man shouted at his children inside the burning house to flee. But, the children were absorbed in their games and did not heed his warning, though the house was being consumed by flames.
Then the wealthy man devised a practical way to lure the children from the burning house. Knowing that the children were fond of interesting playthings, he called out to them, "Listen! Outside the gate are the carts that you have always wanted: carts pulled by goats, carts pulled by deer, and carts pulled by oxen. Why don't you come out and play with them?" The wealthy man knew that these things would be irresistible to his children.
The children, eager to play with these new toys rushed out of the house but, instead of the carts that he had promised, the father gave them a cart much better than any he has described - a cart draped with precious stones and pulled by white bullocks. The important thing being that the children were saved from the dangers of the house on fire.
The father represents the Buddha (aka the awakened one, a perspective and realization available to each of us) and we are the ones trapped in the burning house. The burning house is the life we are “condemned” to, which inherently includes the “fires” of sickness, old age and death. The father/Buddha is calling the children out of the house - out of the delusion that the house is not on fire (the spectacle we will see on stage) - and into the possibility of awakening to a larger truth - and meaning. (The strategy the father uses is referred to as skillful means, i.e., means appropriate to the understanding of the children, so yeah - it was fine to lure them out of the house with treats; but this has limits - it wouldn’t be okay to say come out or I’ll kill your sister.)
Is it condemnation to know that the play will end or that it will have tears as well as joys? Knowing that the curtain will eventually come down is one thing. Not having an opportunity to influence the quality of the play, or to dream up an alternative plot, is another. It is a “blessing” that we do not know what is really going to happen in so far as it allows us to discover for ourselves. In Zen this is expressed as “beginners mind.” This idea is part of a key line in a Zen koan: “not knowing is most intimate”, i.e., it makes it possible to meet life without preconceived ideas, interpretations, or judgments. We can then discover what will happen for ourselves; that discovery may in fact be the “larger sense of purpose” that animates my activities.
Guess I get to own my ridiculousness!
Sunday, January 29, 2012
CPE Reflection #1
Weekly Assignment for CPE Unit, Due 1/30/2012
““The astonishing hypotheses is that you, your joys, your sorrows, your memories, and your ambitions, your sense of personal free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules
- Francis Crick
This statement was designed to challenge the bright line drawn between science and religion. Crick intentionally sought to invite scientific exploration of the mind, contending that the consciousness that we associate with spirit (or soul) may prove - upon exploration by neurobiologists - to be less mysterious and unknowable than religious traditions imply.
This exploration has been notably taken up by Buddhists. Tibetan Buddhist practice has long offered a focus on a science of mind that offers practices aimed at training the mind to cultivate a more expansive, positive state of being. Currently, the 14th Dahlai Lama is known as an active supporter of studies that examine what neuroscience can tell us about the patterns of behavior that drive craving and suffering as well as empathy and compassion. This interest is reflected in Chinese and Zen Buddhist traditions as well.
Inherent in Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths is a view of the mind and self as something impermanent and ever changing. One Zen teacher refers to thoughts as being the brain’s saliva - thoughts and their content being that out-of-control and unstoppable. Among the ways suffering emerges is through our investment in our thoughts - our habit of giving them weight and of identifying with them - the creative and affirming thoughts, as well as the self critical and troubling thoughts. I always think here of A Christmas Carol and the thunderous chains that Marley’s trails behind him into Ebineezer’s bed chamber. The clanging is the sound of the mental chains to which we cling, which is a root cause of suffering.
Buddhist practice is one in which awareness of the present is cultivated to challenge habitual behaviors, yet another expression of clinging. Ultimately, in identifying less tightly with our thoughts, we are compelled to consider what it is that constitutes the self. The past is here only as thought, the future is here only as thought. The self that emerges in this moment is as defined and certain as the thoughts we are able to or choose to entertain. It is liberating to consider how much real autonomy may exist in the choices made in this second, and the next, and the next.
From the Buddhist perspective, I find Crick’s hypothesis not astonishing, but entirely reasonable. Especially knowing that, physiologically, cells and neurons are always changing, renewing, and dying off. What is more astonishing is that we can witness this daily miracle of life and be so ho-hum. The phrase “no more than” seems way too dismissive of what is really a daily wonder.
What is astonishing is that what is taken as truth is a profound degree of separation - we solidify our notions of self - even in the face of science and experience that challenges those barriers. An extension of the mind-science work mentioned earlier is the emerging field of social neuroscience, which is uncovering how our cells and neurons may in fact be instrumental in allowing us to perceive and connect, revealing even that we may be wired for empathy. (See this 2006 interview with Social Intelligence and Emotional Intelligence author Daniel Goleman for a romp through the subject.) . From the amusing science that tells us that we are breathing the same atoms as dinosaurs to a recognition that we are all equally subject to the forces of both nature and nurture, how is it that we do not express empathy more actively as we consider our shared challenges?
This exploration has been notably taken up by Buddhists. Tibetan Buddhist practice has long offered a focus on a science of mind that offers practices aimed at training the mind to cultivate a more expansive, positive state of being. Currently, the 14th Dahlai Lama is known as an active supporter of studies that examine what neuroscience can tell us about the patterns of behavior that drive craving and suffering as well as empathy and compassion. This interest is reflected in Chinese and Zen Buddhist traditions as well.
Inherent in Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths is a view of the mind and self as something impermanent and ever changing. One Zen teacher refers to thoughts as being the brain’s saliva - thoughts and their content being that out-of-control and unstoppable. Among the ways suffering emerges is through our investment in our thoughts - our habit of giving them weight and of identifying with them - the creative and affirming thoughts, as well as the self critical and troubling thoughts. I always think here of A Christmas Carol and the thunderous chains that Marley’s trails behind him into Ebineezer’s bed chamber. The clanging is the sound of the mental chains to which we cling, which is a root cause of suffering.
Buddhist practice is one in which awareness of the present is cultivated to challenge habitual behaviors, yet another expression of clinging. Ultimately, in identifying less tightly with our thoughts, we are compelled to consider what it is that constitutes the self. The past is here only as thought, the future is here only as thought. The self that emerges in this moment is as defined and certain as the thoughts we are able to or choose to entertain. It is liberating to consider how much real autonomy may exist in the choices made in this second, and the next, and the next.
From the Buddhist perspective, I find Crick’s hypothesis not astonishing, but entirely reasonable. Especially knowing that, physiologically, cells and neurons are always changing, renewing, and dying off. What is more astonishing is that we can witness this daily miracle of life and be so ho-hum. The phrase “no more than” seems way too dismissive of what is really a daily wonder.
What is astonishing is that what is taken as truth is a profound degree of separation - we solidify our notions of self - even in the face of science and experience that challenges those barriers. An extension of the mind-science work mentioned earlier is the emerging field of social neuroscience, which is uncovering how our cells and neurons may in fact be instrumental in allowing us to perceive and connect, revealing even that we may be wired for empathy. (See this 2006 interview with Social Intelligence and Emotional Intelligence author Daniel Goleman for a romp through the subject.) . From the amusing science that tells us that we are breathing the same atoms as dinosaurs to a recognition that we are all equally subject to the forces of both nature and nurture, how is it that we do not express empathy more actively as we consider our shared challenges?
A phrase I heard just today was that there are so many interacting karmas, there is no way to really understand what we are to each other. This was in the context of a story told by an American singer of Indian devotional music, Krishna Das; the gist was this: He sought for and experienced great love in the presence of his guru. When his guru died Krishna Das was bereft. It took decades for him to come to a fleeting understanding that “his guru was looking out now through his eyes,” i.e., it took him time to really hear the words of his teacher, that we are all one. In the presence of his teacher, Krishna Das was able to see the equanimity that was in his own nature, and after his teacher’s death, he needed to learn to summon that for himself.
Daniel Goleman would have said that the experience Krishna Das had was one of “neural interconnection” that fuels the Asian cultural tradition of darshan, i.e., simply being in the presence of a realized being.
In darshan, "People go to be with someone who has stabilized in an equanimous, loving awareness. And because the social brain makes their state of mind contagious to anyone in their presence, those beings transmit a taste of their mind-state to those around them. So the point of darshan is just going to be in that presence, because you come away with a bit of what they have.”So it would seem that the seemingly random behaviors of cells and neurons may actually have a critical function in allowing us to live together. In Zen, this “neural interconnection” is expressed as “no separation.” So if there is no separation, no unchanging, independent self, what is there? The opportunity that opens up is for vast union with all beings. Circling back to Crick’s hypothesis, the “vast assembly” is of nerve cells and their associated molecules, but also is an assembly of Us.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Two poems of form and emptiness from Jane Hirschfield
Both from October Palace. Not my favorite collection, but a few pieces stayed with me.
The Kingdom
At times
the heart
stands back
and looks at the body,
looks at the mind, as a lion
quietly looks
at the not-quite-itself,
not-quite-another,
moving of shadows and grasses.
Wary, but with interest,
considers its kingdom.
Then seeing
all that will be,
heart once again enters -
enters hunger, enters sorrow,
enters finally losing it all.
To know, if nothing else,
what it once owned.
Ripeness
Ripeness is
what falls away with ease.
Not only the heavy apple,
the pear,
but also the dried brown strands
of autumn iris from its core.
To let your body
love this world
that gave itself to your care
in all of its ripeness,
with ease,
and will take itself from you
in equal ripeness and ease,
is also harvest.
And however sharply
you are tested - this sorrow, that great love -
it too will leave on that clean knife.
The Kingdom
At times
the heart
stands back
and looks at the body,
looks at the mind, as a lion
quietly looks
at the not-quite-itself,
not-quite-another,
moving of shadows and grasses.
Wary, but with interest,
considers its kingdom.
Then seeing
all that will be,
heart once again enters -
enters hunger, enters sorrow,
enters finally losing it all.
To know, if nothing else,
what it once owned.
Ripeness
Ripeness is
what falls away with ease.
Not only the heavy apple,
the pear,
but also the dried brown strands
of autumn iris from its core.
To let your body
love this world
that gave itself to your care
in all of its ripeness,
with ease,
and will take itself from you
in equal ripeness and ease,
is also harvest.
And however sharply
you are tested - this sorrow, that great love -
it too will leave on that clean knife.
Healing Zen, Ellen Birx, 2002 (R2012)
Collection of talks. Student of Roshi Kennedy and a nurse. A flavor of applied zen!
(23) Exhaust yourself: Citing Zen Master Mumons exhortation to exhaust yourself in sitting zazen. "You are not daydreaming or fantasizing. All of your energy is being used to be awake and present in the moment.....Wake up, sit up, pay attention, and be fully present with every cell in your body."
(57) Ghandi: May I live simply that others may simply live.
(76) Openness: When I am open to the patient, the patient is free to speak and question openly and to hear the answer that lies in his or her own heart.
(107) Hyakujo and the fox: Hyakujo believed it was punishment for a mistake that caused him to be reborn as a fox for hundreds of lifetimes. Not a view of the whole. He enjoyed hundreds of lives of grace as a fox.
(126) Zen meditation can be seen as a wordless prayer. It is not a means to an end. It is simply being with what is already here.
(130) on Hui-ko, letting go can sometimes feel like death, but it does not result in death. Letting go opens you to new life - a life of clear awareness of the whole.
(193) Seeing, insight are not ends in themselves. Seeing and responding go hand in hand. Zen insight leads you back into the world where you continue to ask "What do I see?" and "How do I respond?"
(23) Exhaust yourself: Citing Zen Master Mumons exhortation to exhaust yourself in sitting zazen. "You are not daydreaming or fantasizing. All of your energy is being used to be awake and present in the moment.....Wake up, sit up, pay attention, and be fully present with every cell in your body."
(57) Ghandi: May I live simply that others may simply live.
(76) Openness: When I am open to the patient, the patient is free to speak and question openly and to hear the answer that lies in his or her own heart.
(107) Hyakujo and the fox: Hyakujo believed it was punishment for a mistake that caused him to be reborn as a fox for hundreds of lifetimes. Not a view of the whole. He enjoyed hundreds of lives of grace as a fox.
(126) Zen meditation can be seen as a wordless prayer. It is not a means to an end. It is simply being with what is already here.
(130) on Hui-ko, letting go can sometimes feel like death, but it does not result in death. Letting go opens you to new life - a life of clear awareness of the whole.
(193) Seeing, insight are not ends in themselves. Seeing and responding go hand in hand. Zen insight leads you back into the world where you continue to ask "What do I see?" and "How do I respond?"
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