I've been practicing something while I've been home with my family: I just listen. When they talk, I only hear what they say. I don't think about how to fix what they are saying, I don't try to correct them or help them, I just listen to their actual words. Sometimes, they ask me questions, and even then, I only listen. I don't interpret their questions or guess what they want me to answer, I just answer, truthfully. And then, if I wonder what they are thinking, I ask, and again, I listen just to their answer, not to my interpretation of it.
"Do you want dessert?"
"No."
A frown on the face of my family member after I answer.
"Did you want dessert but don't want to be the only one ordering dessert?" I ask.
A guilty smile comes across the face of said family member.
"I can order dessert so that you're not the only one ordering dessert. We can even split it."
And when the flan comes and a little one who forgot to order dessert is devastated by their lack of flan I say, "Why don't you two split it? I was only ordering it so that you could have dessert and not feel bad being the only one ordering," and it's true, that's exactly what I did.
When I ask about the food that was served at the party and my family member says they don't remember, I am disappointed. I want to hear about the party, I want to hear if it was a potluck, I want to know if the host made the food herself, I want to imagine the party and my family member being at it. So I ask again, in a different way, "Was it a potluck or did the host make all the food herself?"
My family member considers this new question and then answers the same way, "You know? I honestly don't remember." And he doesn't. And I remind myself, "Listen. He is telling you that he doesn't remember, listen to him."
But this listening, takes a lot of not asserting your self in to the equation. Because when I ask things, I have an idea of the answer, or there is an answer I want to hear, or a story I want to be true. But it doesn't always work out that way. What I expect isn't always what I get, but by listening, I get what is actually there, and that seems to cause a lot less suffering, on everyone's part. Frequently, I would hear myself expecting an answer, but instead, I would listen, and then let go of what I was hoping for and be open to what they were offering.
This worked really well on the first two days of vacation, when I had nothing to do, was well rested, and had been meditating every morning. But by the third day, I hadn't meditated, and things needed to get done, and this whole "letting go of my story" stuff was really getting to me. I noticed myself getting annoyed, reading in to what my family members were saying, coming up with clever responses to point out their own stories, and could feel my shoulders tightening by the minute. I don't have the comfort level with my meditation practice to announce ,"I'm going up to my room to meditate because you all are totally bugging me right now and I don't want to get caught up in it," so instead I say, "I have to use the bathroom," and excuse myself.
I suppose they wondered what I ate for lunch that day because I was gone quite a long time but I went to my room, and meditated. I suppose you could actually go to the bathroom, if you didn't have your own bedroom to go to, but for me, it was nice to just sit down, and breathe. I didn't get a zafu or even sit all posturey or anything. I just sat cross legged at the head of my bed, closed my eyes, and breathed.
At one point, a family member came and knocked on my door and walked in to see me sitting there. My first response was to uncross my legs and pretend I was sleeping or reading or something but that seemed silly, so I just sat there. They asked me questions about plans for tomorrow. I answered only what they asked and when I didn't have an answer, I just looked at them, and they seemed to answer that one for themselves.
When I finally came back in to the kitchen, I walked back in to the same things I had been experiencing before. But this time, as I felt myself wanting to snap back or assert myself in to the conversation, or do anything other than just listen and respond to what they were saying, I would take a deep breath, just like I had been doing when I was sitting on my bed, and listen instead.
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Comparing yourself...to others
I was noticing that I was comparing myself to others: How close was I to this friend? Who had shared more about their lives with me? How much did I know about this person compared to how much someone else knew about them? I thought it was interesting that I had some sort of ranking system in my relationships with others and I wondered about it. Was I trying to judge myself to be a better friend? It didn't feel like that. It didn't feel like I was doing this to be better at it. It felt more like I was afraid of being left. It felt like I was checking to see who was going to be chosen as "the one." Like if I didn't get my stuff together, and figure out how to be the best, the other person would be chosen, and I would be left all alone, completely out of the competition.
I thought this was kind of weird, because friendships aren't like that. People have varying degrees of closeness and intimacy but you usually don't get left behind because of it. But then I thought about competition and our society. I thought about how often there is just one winner, and that no one hears anything about anyone else after that. Number two is just...gone. I thought about my classroom and our tests. I thought about applying to college and I thought about how so much of our society is about weeding people out- that we are constantly striving to be the best, not necessarily to be the best but just so that we aren't thrown out or demoted or left behind.
It made me understand the desire and fear I have around comparing myself to others. I feel like I need to know what to do to stay at the top. It's not so much that I want to be better than that other person, it's more that I don't want to be the one who's rejected, the number two that's never heard or seen from again.
I thought this was kind of weird, because friendships aren't like that. People have varying degrees of closeness and intimacy but you usually don't get left behind because of it. But then I thought about competition and our society. I thought about how often there is just one winner, and that no one hears anything about anyone else after that. Number two is just...gone. I thought about my classroom and our tests. I thought about applying to college and I thought about how so much of our society is about weeding people out- that we are constantly striving to be the best, not necessarily to be the best but just so that we aren't thrown out or demoted or left behind.
It made me understand the desire and fear I have around comparing myself to others. I feel like I need to know what to do to stay at the top. It's not so much that I want to be better than that other person, it's more that I don't want to be the one who's rejected, the number two that's never heard or seen from again.
You're doing it, right now.
If someone had told me this when I first started sitting, I think I would have punched them in the face. It's actually kind of a mean thing to say because it makes it seem like this practice is as simple as just breathing; like anyone can do it, like you're the only idiot who can't seem to just sit there, and breathe.
But, the truth of the matter is, it's true. You're already doing it. You're breathing, right now. And probably, you're sitting, right now. So, honestly, you're doing it, right now. You're sitting zazen.
I know, it doesn't feel like it. And often, as soon as you actually sit down and try to breathe, a million thoughts come in your head and you can't find your breath and your leg starts hurting and the cat starts meowing and the garbage truck decides to explode those air brakes....
But really, through all of that, you're breathing and, depending on the way you "sit zazen," you're sitting too. And that's all you have to do. In fact, your body is already doing it for you. Your body breathes whether you want it to or not (well, I guess that's not true, maybe you could hold your breath but I've heard that if you do it long enough, your body makes you pass out so that you'll start breathing again).
Like I said, I wouldn't have wanted to hear this when I first started sitting and, honestly, I wouldn't have wanted to hear it last week either. But this week, I've been sitting at home and there have been fewer distractions. Also this week, I've been almost closing my eyes. One of the leaders at Young Urban Zen explained the practice of closing your eyes enough so that your top and bottom eyelashes barely touch- but your eyes are still open. I had never done this before, I always just kept my eyes open and gazed a few feet in front of me. But now, as soon as I almost close my eyes, my shoulders relax completely, I slouch a little bit, but I totally feel my breath. I'm not feeling for my breath, I actually just am in to my body, probably because with my eyes almost closed, I have nothing else to do. Regardless of what causes it, I've been feeling my breath all week. And on Friday, as I was filling up the kids' water bottles before school, I felt a breath. It was the same feeling I had had when I sat zazen the morning before. It's the same breath, it's my body, breathing. I didn't ask it to breathe, I didn't focus on it, it just breathed, while I was filling up the water bottles. And I realized, that this was happening all the time. I'm breathing all the time. I don't even have to think about it, my body is going to do it for me. All I have to do is let it.
And I thought, "Darnit- this is a little too familiar. This sounds an awful lot like "just let things manifest, you're already perfect the way you are, just let your life live itself" blah blah blah. Darnit! But it's true. If your definition of zazen is "to just sit and breathe," half of it is already done for you. You're already breathing, so you can just sit down.
Sorry, it's not what I wanted to hear either but I just keep feeling it, all day long. That same breath that I'm doing as I walk around, it's the same breath that I'm deperately trying to focus on during zazen. We'll see what happens tomorrow when I try to just sit down with it. But still, I do know that I'm doing half of zazen (breathing), all day long.
But, the truth of the matter is, it's true. You're already doing it. You're breathing, right now. And probably, you're sitting, right now. So, honestly, you're doing it, right now. You're sitting zazen.
I know, it doesn't feel like it. And often, as soon as you actually sit down and try to breathe, a million thoughts come in your head and you can't find your breath and your leg starts hurting and the cat starts meowing and the garbage truck decides to explode those air brakes....
But really, through all of that, you're breathing and, depending on the way you "sit zazen," you're sitting too. And that's all you have to do. In fact, your body is already doing it for you. Your body breathes whether you want it to or not (well, I guess that's not true, maybe you could hold your breath but I've heard that if you do it long enough, your body makes you pass out so that you'll start breathing again).
Like I said, I wouldn't have wanted to hear this when I first started sitting and, honestly, I wouldn't have wanted to hear it last week either. But this week, I've been sitting at home and there have been fewer distractions. Also this week, I've been almost closing my eyes. One of the leaders at Young Urban Zen explained the practice of closing your eyes enough so that your top and bottom eyelashes barely touch- but your eyes are still open. I had never done this before, I always just kept my eyes open and gazed a few feet in front of me. But now, as soon as I almost close my eyes, my shoulders relax completely, I slouch a little bit, but I totally feel my breath. I'm not feeling for my breath, I actually just am in to my body, probably because with my eyes almost closed, I have nothing else to do. Regardless of what causes it, I've been feeling my breath all week. And on Friday, as I was filling up the kids' water bottles before school, I felt a breath. It was the same feeling I had had when I sat zazen the morning before. It's the same breath, it's my body, breathing. I didn't ask it to breathe, I didn't focus on it, it just breathed, while I was filling up the water bottles. And I realized, that this was happening all the time. I'm breathing all the time. I don't even have to think about it, my body is going to do it for me. All I have to do is let it.
And I thought, "Darnit- this is a little too familiar. This sounds an awful lot like "just let things manifest, you're already perfect the way you are, just let your life live itself" blah blah blah. Darnit! But it's true. If your definition of zazen is "to just sit and breathe," half of it is already done for you. You're already breathing, so you can just sit down.
Sorry, it's not what I wanted to hear either but I just keep feeling it, all day long. That same breath that I'm doing as I walk around, it's the same breath that I'm deperately trying to focus on during zazen. We'll see what happens tomorrow when I try to just sit down with it. But still, I do know that I'm doing half of zazen (breathing), all day long.
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Accepting death, just death
I was having imaginary dokusan with one of the teachers at the zen center. In it, I was describing my struggle last March with whether or not I could include my mother's name in the well- being ceremony during sesshin. I wasn't sure if her name belonged because I didn't know whether the well- being ceremony was for people who were alive and sick, or for people who had died.
But my real struggle wasn't whether or not she belonged in the ceremony, it was whether or not she was alive, or dead...because at the time, for me, she was somewhere in between.
Cognitively, I knew she was dead: she wasn't here, I couldn't contact her, and for most of my life, she had simply been the "angel in heaven" that I had created as a six year old. But right before sesshin, I had gone through some experiences in which my mother had begun to become real to me. She was a real person, with feelings, desires, joy, happiness. She had actually become alive to me, in a way I had never felt before, and so I was confused. I didn't want her to be dead, I wanted her to be alive. And I was confused because she felt more alive to me than ever before, so how could I suddenly accept that she was dead?
I was telling the teacher that this struggle, with life and death, was the beginning of my sesshin, and I joked about how this had set in motion an entire week of crying, in every possible venue at the zen center.
"And where is your mother now?" the teacher asked.
The question struck me, pulled the grin off my face, made me look away.
But then I looked back at the teacher, and started to say, "She's dead."
And then I stopped.
It was hard to say it, and I didn't want to say it. Saying it meant that I didn't have a mother, that she was gone, that I had lived most of my life without a mother, and that was hard to accept. It also meant that I wasn't a six year old anymore, that I was a grownup who had outlived her mother, that I was 41, that I was an adult too.
But a voice inside my head said, "Accept this. You know it will be better if you accept it. So far everything has gotten better when you have gotten closer to it and seen it."
But still, I didn't want to.
And then I asked myself the same question the teacher had asked me, "Is she alive or is she dead?"
And I knew the answer to that one: she's dead.
I mean, that's just true. I know she's dead. She really is. She's not here. She's not alive.
I looked at the teacher. "She's dead," I said, and kind of shrugged my shoulders in detachment from this fact. It wasn't even debatable, it had nothing to do with me, she was just dead.
And I guess that's when I realized that that was all I was accepting: her death.
There were other things that went along with her death that I didn't want to accept: the experience of a six year old having her mother be gone suddenly, the experience of not having a mom, the experience of being a grownup now- someone without a parent. But those things, aren't my mother's death. Those are things that are hard to accept, those are things that I don't like, but they're things that I've added on, they're things related to my mother's death and to my life, but her death, that's just a truth, it just is. I can't deny the fact that she's dead. She just is... dead.
And... it's all I have to accept. I don't have to accept all the other stuff yet. In accepting her death I'm not necessarily accepting all that pain and loss and grief. That stuff will come, or maybe it won't. But I can accept her death, just her death, because it's true.
But my real struggle wasn't whether or not she belonged in the ceremony, it was whether or not she was alive, or dead...because at the time, for me, she was somewhere in between.
Cognitively, I knew she was dead: she wasn't here, I couldn't contact her, and for most of my life, she had simply been the "angel in heaven" that I had created as a six year old. But right before sesshin, I had gone through some experiences in which my mother had begun to become real to me. She was a real person, with feelings, desires, joy, happiness. She had actually become alive to me, in a way I had never felt before, and so I was confused. I didn't want her to be dead, I wanted her to be alive. And I was confused because she felt more alive to me than ever before, so how could I suddenly accept that she was dead?
I was telling the teacher that this struggle, with life and death, was the beginning of my sesshin, and I joked about how this had set in motion an entire week of crying, in every possible venue at the zen center.
"And where is your mother now?" the teacher asked.
The question struck me, pulled the grin off my face, made me look away.
But then I looked back at the teacher, and started to say, "She's dead."
And then I stopped.
It was hard to say it, and I didn't want to say it. Saying it meant that I didn't have a mother, that she was gone, that I had lived most of my life without a mother, and that was hard to accept. It also meant that I wasn't a six year old anymore, that I was a grownup who had outlived her mother, that I was 41, that I was an adult too.
But a voice inside my head said, "Accept this. You know it will be better if you accept it. So far everything has gotten better when you have gotten closer to it and seen it."
But still, I didn't want to.
And then I asked myself the same question the teacher had asked me, "Is she alive or is she dead?"
And I knew the answer to that one: she's dead.
I mean, that's just true. I know she's dead. She really is. She's not here. She's not alive.
I looked at the teacher. "She's dead," I said, and kind of shrugged my shoulders in detachment from this fact. It wasn't even debatable, it had nothing to do with me, she was just dead.
And I guess that's when I realized that that was all I was accepting: her death.
There were other things that went along with her death that I didn't want to accept: the experience of a six year old having her mother be gone suddenly, the experience of not having a mom, the experience of being a grownup now- someone without a parent. But those things, aren't my mother's death. Those are things that are hard to accept, those are things that I don't like, but they're things that I've added on, they're things related to my mother's death and to my life, but her death, that's just a truth, it just is. I can't deny the fact that she's dead. She just is... dead.
And... it's all I have to accept. I don't have to accept all the other stuff yet. In accepting her death I'm not necessarily accepting all that pain and loss and grief. That stuff will come, or maybe it won't. But I can accept her death, just her death, because it's true.
Hating yourself... isn't helping anyone
I've always had a hard time "loving" myself. Whenever we practice sending kind thoughts to ourselves or practice forgiving ourselves, I get kind of blocked and uncomfortable and just disengage. I never have a problem sending kind thoughts to others or extending compassion to strangers, it's just me I have a hard time being nice to. I'm not exactly hard on myself, but it's always felt really weird or wrong to "love" myself.
I never felt too bad about this. It didn't seem like there was any problem in not loving yourself. I mean, what's the harm in that? You're the only one who's suffering when you don't love yourself so it's not such a big deal if you're not doing it.
But then, I was having an imaginary conversation with a friend. In it, we were talking about the roles we played in each other's lives. We both agreed that there were times that I had brought her joy and ease. But we also agreed that I had done that because I had intended to do that, that my focus in our relationship was to make her happy.
Then we talked about what she brought to our relationship. We laughed because we both knew that the joy and ease she had given me had come through some suffering on my part. But we laughed because we knew that this suffering had come from a place of honesty and care, and that the suffering had kind of pushed me along, had helped me to see things about myself that I didn't exactly want to see but in seeing, helped me to kind of heal around it.
After the conversation, I had another imaginary conversation with this person and in it I said, "It's true that your role in my life was to be honest with me, to say those things that no one else was willing to say, but all I really wanted from you was love and acceptance. That's all I really wanted and it's something that you never gave me, that I don't think you ever will give me."
She agreed, "Nope, I probably never will give that to you. It's not my role in your life."
I knew this was true about her, at least about our dynamic together, that she would never shower me wih love and praise. But I was still kind of mad at her for it, disappointed in her for it, and I noticed that because of that, I just kept wanting things from our relationship that were never going to be given. I realized that I was spending our time together feeling angry with for her not giving me what I wanted.
And when I heard myself say "What I wanted," I realized that I wanted love and acceptance. I heard myself loud and clear: All I ever really wanted was love and acceptance.
And then I thought about how my therapist always says "It's never about the other person, it's always about you."
And I thought, "Oh, guess what, you're the only one who can give you love and acceptance. If you really want love and acceptance, you're going to have to start giving it to yourself."
And then I thought about how in asking this other person to give me love and acceptance, I was kind of messing up our relationship. It was kind of unfair of me to keep asking them to give me something that could only come from myself. In some ways, I was kind of shirking my responsibility around this- asking others to do it for me- and wasting a lot of time and energy on it.
And that's when I realized that hating yourself, or at least not loving yourself, is kind of harmful. Well, I don't know that it's harmful but it sure keeps you from loving others. If I keep looking to others to love me, I end up doing a couple of things. First, I'm not being present to them or what they offer, I'm too focused on looking for love and acceptance from them that I don't see what they are giving me. Second, I think that in not meeting my own needs, in not giving myself the love and compassion that I need, I'm kind of crippling myself. If I keep on hating myself, I'm going to keep on creating a need in me and that kind of keeps me empty and wanting. When I picture myself feeling loved and accepted, I picture myself smiling and full and that feels like I can be present to others- that when my needs are met, I have the space and presence to see others and respond to them with kindness and love.
I never felt too bad about this. It didn't seem like there was any problem in not loving yourself. I mean, what's the harm in that? You're the only one who's suffering when you don't love yourself so it's not such a big deal if you're not doing it.
But then, I was having an imaginary conversation with a friend. In it, we were talking about the roles we played in each other's lives. We both agreed that there were times that I had brought her joy and ease. But we also agreed that I had done that because I had intended to do that, that my focus in our relationship was to make her happy.
Then we talked about what she brought to our relationship. We laughed because we both knew that the joy and ease she had given me had come through some suffering on my part. But we laughed because we knew that this suffering had come from a place of honesty and care, and that the suffering had kind of pushed me along, had helped me to see things about myself that I didn't exactly want to see but in seeing, helped me to kind of heal around it.
After the conversation, I had another imaginary conversation with this person and in it I said, "It's true that your role in my life was to be honest with me, to say those things that no one else was willing to say, but all I really wanted from you was love and acceptance. That's all I really wanted and it's something that you never gave me, that I don't think you ever will give me."
She agreed, "Nope, I probably never will give that to you. It's not my role in your life."
I knew this was true about her, at least about our dynamic together, that she would never shower me wih love and praise. But I was still kind of mad at her for it, disappointed in her for it, and I noticed that because of that, I just kept wanting things from our relationship that were never going to be given. I realized that I was spending our time together feeling angry with for her not giving me what I wanted.
And when I heard myself say "What I wanted," I realized that I wanted love and acceptance. I heard myself loud and clear: All I ever really wanted was love and acceptance.
And then I thought about how my therapist always says "It's never about the other person, it's always about you."
And I thought, "Oh, guess what, you're the only one who can give you love and acceptance. If you really want love and acceptance, you're going to have to start giving it to yourself."
And then I thought about how in asking this other person to give me love and acceptance, I was kind of messing up our relationship. It was kind of unfair of me to keep asking them to give me something that could only come from myself. In some ways, I was kind of shirking my responsibility around this- asking others to do it for me- and wasting a lot of time and energy on it.
And that's when I realized that hating yourself, or at least not loving yourself, is kind of harmful. Well, I don't know that it's harmful but it sure keeps you from loving others. If I keep looking to others to love me, I end up doing a couple of things. First, I'm not being present to them or what they offer, I'm too focused on looking for love and acceptance from them that I don't see what they are giving me. Second, I think that in not meeting my own needs, in not giving myself the love and compassion that I need, I'm kind of crippling myself. If I keep on hating myself, I'm going to keep on creating a need in me and that kind of keeps me empty and wanting. When I picture myself feeling loved and accepted, I picture myself smiling and full and that feels like I can be present to others- that when my needs are met, I have the space and presence to see others and respond to them with kindness and love.
Because I love you
I was having imaginary dokusan with a teacher. I'm sure this is very bad practice, because it's delusional, and that's never a good thing, but in this case, it ended up being instructive.
In my imaginary dokusan, the teacher asked me what had brought me to practice. I didn't have an answer, and so I looked away to think about it.
"Answer me quickly," the teacher said.
Inside my head I heard, "Because I love you."
There was no way I was going to say that to the teacher.
Plus, I didn't come to practice because I loved that teacher. I don't love that teacher. I barely know that teacher.
But in my imaginary dokusan, the teacher was still looking at me and they had said "Answer me quickly" and I so I felt like I had to say something.
I looked at the teacher and said, "So, I get why you're saying 'answer me quickly' because it gets me to answer with my gut, with the essence of the answer but in this case, it isn't working. The words in my head are 'Because I love you,' and that's just not why I came to practice, it just isn't, so..."
The teacher was quiet. They didn't even raise an eyebrow or anything and they weren't looking at me or waiting or anything, they were just quiet, just there. And so I thought some more about my answer. I thought about what my therapist always tells me, that it's never about the person you're talking about, it's always about you.
"Oh," I thought. "It's because I love you. I love you. Like, I love myself."
But this didn't make sense either, at first. I'm not so good at loving myself. It's not so easy for me and I often feel wrong in doing it, guilty or selfish or undeserving.
But then I thought about why I started coming to the zen center two years ago. I came because I cared about myself. I came because my friend told me to go to church and I didn't want to go to church but I came because I cared enough about myself to try to help myself. I was lonely and I didn't have a community but I cared enough about myself to try to change that. I was actually taking care of myself when I brought myself to the zen center.
So it actually was the answer to the question. I came to the zen center because I love you. I have to admit that I still don't know who the I is in this statement, and I don't really know who the you is either, but someone cares about someone, enough to keep coming.
In my imaginary dokusan, the teacher asked me what had brought me to practice. I didn't have an answer, and so I looked away to think about it.
"Answer me quickly," the teacher said.
Inside my head I heard, "Because I love you."
There was no way I was going to say that to the teacher.
Plus, I didn't come to practice because I loved that teacher. I don't love that teacher. I barely know that teacher.
But in my imaginary dokusan, the teacher was still looking at me and they had said "Answer me quickly" and I so I felt like I had to say something.
I looked at the teacher and said, "So, I get why you're saying 'answer me quickly' because it gets me to answer with my gut, with the essence of the answer but in this case, it isn't working. The words in my head are 'Because I love you,' and that's just not why I came to practice, it just isn't, so..."
The teacher was quiet. They didn't even raise an eyebrow or anything and they weren't looking at me or waiting or anything, they were just quiet, just there. And so I thought some more about my answer. I thought about what my therapist always tells me, that it's never about the person you're talking about, it's always about you.
"Oh," I thought. "It's because I love you. I love you. Like, I love myself."
But this didn't make sense either, at first. I'm not so good at loving myself. It's not so easy for me and I often feel wrong in doing it, guilty or selfish or undeserving.
But then I thought about why I started coming to the zen center two years ago. I came because I cared about myself. I came because my friend told me to go to church and I didn't want to go to church but I came because I cared enough about myself to try to help myself. I was lonely and I didn't have a community but I cared enough about myself to try to change that. I was actually taking care of myself when I brought myself to the zen center.
So it actually was the answer to the question. I came to the zen center because I love you. I have to admit that I still don't know who the I is in this statement, and I don't really know who the you is either, but someone cares about someone, enough to keep coming.
Being honest in dokusan
I was still feeling unsettled about my whole dokusan realization that, basically, I was just looking for praise, acceptance, and a personal connection with a teacher when I went in to dokusan. I knew it was inappropriate to want these things, knew it didn't belong in zen practice, but still found myself feeling angry and hurt, and wanting to criticize the teacher instead of actually listening to what they had said to me in dokusan.
It had helped to write a blogpost about it, that was what made me see that the teacher's response to me was not a rejection of me but an appropriate response to someone asking a question about practice. They had actually answered my question and given me ideas to help me consider my relationship with control and acceptance.
But still, it kept coming up for me, so I decided to talk to my therapist about it. I figured that was the place to talk about personal connections and prasie and acceptance. In therapy, it actually could be all about me, not so much about practice, and I could do whatever I wanted in therapy- I didn't have to be present or just listen or sit zazen or anything, I could just blah blah blah the whole time.
So I told my therpaist all about it. And this is what she suggested:
"What would happen if you said to the teacher 'I'm looking for praise and acceptance from you.' What do you imagine their response would be?"
I looked at her wide eyed with the thought of actually saying that to the teacher. But then I thought about what they would say. "They would probably ask me a question that would help me to see my relationship with praise and acceptance."
"You mean they wouldn't hit a buzzer that said Anhh- you're out!"
I smiled. "No, they wouldn't."
"So they're not looking for you to get it right?" she asked.
"No," I answered. "They actually said to me in my first dokusan 'This practice is about being honest more than it is about getting it right."
"So they actually directed you to be honest."
"Yes," I answered.
But I was terrified to admit to the teacher that that was what I wanted. I was afraid that it would make me a bad student, that the teacher would find out that I was only here for personal connection, that I wasn't actually studying Buddhism like everyone else.
My therapist challenged me on this one. "Do you know what everyone else is doing? Are you so sure that no one else is here for personal connection too? Isn't the main tenet of Buddhism developing compassion for others? How can you develop compassion for others without having compassion for yourself? Isn't this mostly about personal connection? You might even find that the teacher came to this practice looking for acceptance themselves."
I thought some more about my desire to be a good student, how though part of me did want to have personal connection; there was also a really big part of me who wanted to hear that I was a good student, who wanted praise and acceptance around my understanding of this practice, who envisioned the teacher with their arm around me smiling at how well I had put into practice the teachings that they had shared with me.
"Oh shoot," I realized. "I don't actually want to be a good student, I just want a personal connection with a teacher and I know that the appropriate way to have that is to be a student of theirs. Darnit! Even my wanting to be a student isn't real- it's just a backdoor to intimacy. Darnit!"
And that's when I realized there was no escaping it. It was true, even if it was wrong, it was what I wanted from zen practice. I wanted praise and acceptance and personal connection. I could lie about it and pretend that that wasn't what I wanted but that would be silly and dishonest and not helpful to anyone involved.
Instead, I could be aware of it, accept that this is why I came to the zen center, that this is what I want, as scary as it is to admit it.
Now, I'm not going in to my next dokusan and sitting down and saying "Um, I have to admit to you that what I want from you is praise and acceptance." Or maybe I will. I don't really know. What I do know is that I'm just supposed to be honest about this, be willing to sit in front of the teacher and say "This is what's coming up for me. I'm terrified that you will reject me for sharing that with you but I'm trying to be honest so there it is," and then be quiet, and listen.
It had helped to write a blogpost about it, that was what made me see that the teacher's response to me was not a rejection of me but an appropriate response to someone asking a question about practice. They had actually answered my question and given me ideas to help me consider my relationship with control and acceptance.
But still, it kept coming up for me, so I decided to talk to my therapist about it. I figured that was the place to talk about personal connections and prasie and acceptance. In therapy, it actually could be all about me, not so much about practice, and I could do whatever I wanted in therapy- I didn't have to be present or just listen or sit zazen or anything, I could just blah blah blah the whole time.
So I told my therpaist all about it. And this is what she suggested:
"What would happen if you said to the teacher 'I'm looking for praise and acceptance from you.' What do you imagine their response would be?"
I looked at her wide eyed with the thought of actually saying that to the teacher. But then I thought about what they would say. "They would probably ask me a question that would help me to see my relationship with praise and acceptance."
"You mean they wouldn't hit a buzzer that said Anhh- you're out!"
I smiled. "No, they wouldn't."
"So they're not looking for you to get it right?" she asked.
"No," I answered. "They actually said to me in my first dokusan 'This practice is about being honest more than it is about getting it right."
"So they actually directed you to be honest."
"Yes," I answered.
But I was terrified to admit to the teacher that that was what I wanted. I was afraid that it would make me a bad student, that the teacher would find out that I was only here for personal connection, that I wasn't actually studying Buddhism like everyone else.
My therapist challenged me on this one. "Do you know what everyone else is doing? Are you so sure that no one else is here for personal connection too? Isn't the main tenet of Buddhism developing compassion for others? How can you develop compassion for others without having compassion for yourself? Isn't this mostly about personal connection? You might even find that the teacher came to this practice looking for acceptance themselves."
I thought some more about my desire to be a good student, how though part of me did want to have personal connection; there was also a really big part of me who wanted to hear that I was a good student, who wanted praise and acceptance around my understanding of this practice, who envisioned the teacher with their arm around me smiling at how well I had put into practice the teachings that they had shared with me.
"Oh shoot," I realized. "I don't actually want to be a good student, I just want a personal connection with a teacher and I know that the appropriate way to have that is to be a student of theirs. Darnit! Even my wanting to be a student isn't real- it's just a backdoor to intimacy. Darnit!"
And that's when I realized there was no escaping it. It was true, even if it was wrong, it was what I wanted from zen practice. I wanted praise and acceptance and personal connection. I could lie about it and pretend that that wasn't what I wanted but that would be silly and dishonest and not helpful to anyone involved.
Instead, I could be aware of it, accept that this is why I came to the zen center, that this is what I want, as scary as it is to admit it.
Now, I'm not going in to my next dokusan and sitting down and saying "Um, I have to admit to you that what I want from you is praise and acceptance." Or maybe I will. I don't really know. What I do know is that I'm just supposed to be honest about this, be willing to sit in front of the teacher and say "This is what's coming up for me. I'm terrified that you will reject me for sharing that with you but I'm trying to be honest so there it is," and then be quiet, and listen.
dokusan desire
I met with one of the teachers at the zen center to have "dokusan" (practice discussion). I think dokusan can be a lot of different things but for me, this time, it was a chance to ask a question of the teacher that was related to where I was at in my practice.
I knew what question I wanted to ask: Can you tell me about the first time that you didn't want to try to control things?
I was asking this question because I had had an experience in which I actually didn't like controlling the kids in my classroom. This experience had been brief, I felt it hours after the interaction between the students, and it didn't last- I was happy to go right back to contolling the kids the next day. But in that moment in which I didn't like controlling them, I saw that this might help me to begin to accept them. So I was curious to find out if the teacher had had a similar experience when they first stopped wanting to control things.
As I considered asking this question, I considered how the teacher would respond to it. I pictured them asking me a question in return, I pictured them praising me for noticing the connection between control and acceptance. Finally, I pictured the teacher smiling with me in a shared understanding of this practice.
That made me rethink my question: Why was I asking it in the way that I was asking it? If I really just wanted to know about how people experience letting go of the desire to control why wasn't I asking that?
And that's when I saw that what I really was asking for in asking this question was to have a shared experience with the teacher, to have a personal connection with them. I saw this and I noticed it and I considered rephrasing the question to remove the personal piece of it.
But as I did this, it changed the nature of the question- it turned it into "Do people do this?" or "Is it like this?" instead of "Tell me about it" and to me, the first two were limiting or assuming while the third one was broad and inquisitive. I also felt the first question, it really was what I felt and I thought that, even though I knew that it was inappropriate for me to try to create a personal connection with a teacher, it was what I wanted, it was what I felt, and so I decided to leave it the way that it was.
As I was waiting to meet with the teacher, I imagined what other things we would talk about, prepared my answers, and imagined their response: I wasn't in the zendo each morning because I was sitting at home. (what discipline you have to do it on your own!) I was doing yoga with the extra time I had not going to the zendo (oh good- that should help with your posture). I was focusing more on my breathing and my posture seemed more aligned (ahhh, you did your homework). How was my zazen? "Interesting" I pictured myself saying (and I pictured the thoughts in the teacher's head: Ahhhh, she's not evaluating her zazen, she's just noticing it- what a good student she is).
And the thing is, I actually felt totally fine in all of this because all of it was true. I had a question that was true to my heart and what I was feeling at the moment, I really was practicing at home intentionally and, as a result, was more focused on breath and posture, and I really was approaching my zazen with interest and curiosity (though this was only after three days of disappointment). I really thought that I was going in to dokusan with honesty and awareness.
But I wasn't. I was going in with desire.
Deep down, I wanted a personal connection with the teacher.
Deep down, I wanted them to praise me.
Deep down, I wanted acceptance from them that I was a good student, that this was what I should be doing with my life, that I was in-like-Flynn in the zen world and was made for this.
And I went in with these desires and because of that, much of my dokusan was spent doing two things:
feeling disappointed. The teacher answered my questions clearly and in a way that left me with tools to develop my awareness around my relationship with control and acceptance. It's just that I wasn't actually wanting answers; I felt disappointed because answers didn't give me what I wanted: praise and acceptance.
saying things that would illicit praise, acceptance, and personal connection; instead of actually listening to the teachings I was being given.
So I left dokusan disappointed. Actually, I left doksuan feeling confused, hurt, and unsettled. What I wanted was to be accepted and praised as a student but I left feeling foolish and like a beginner- which, now that I think about it, I probably was, probably am.
But I learned a few things:
For me, the main reason I'm not feeling praise and acceptance for being a student is because I won't even accept myself as a student. It's been one of the biggest obstacles to my practice. How can I possibly begin to consider myself a good student if I refuse to even see myself as a student at all?
Second, all I really "need" to do is be present to dokusan. There were about a million times during my doksuan where all I thought about was what I "should" be doing: I hear the breakfast bell, should I stop so they can make it to breakfast on time? I have nothing to say, should I just stare at the teacher? And there were times when I acted from my desires; I thought up stuff that was only slightly related to what they said, just to try to connect. I wasn't even present to my own doksuan.
Third: dokusan isn't a place for desire. Dokusan is a place to ask a question and to listen to the answer. That's all.
At least, for me, for now, I think that's all it is.
I knew what question I wanted to ask: Can you tell me about the first time that you didn't want to try to control things?
I was asking this question because I had had an experience in which I actually didn't like controlling the kids in my classroom. This experience had been brief, I felt it hours after the interaction between the students, and it didn't last- I was happy to go right back to contolling the kids the next day. But in that moment in which I didn't like controlling them, I saw that this might help me to begin to accept them. So I was curious to find out if the teacher had had a similar experience when they first stopped wanting to control things.
As I considered asking this question, I considered how the teacher would respond to it. I pictured them asking me a question in return, I pictured them praising me for noticing the connection between control and acceptance. Finally, I pictured the teacher smiling with me in a shared understanding of this practice.
That made me rethink my question: Why was I asking it in the way that I was asking it? If I really just wanted to know about how people experience letting go of the desire to control why wasn't I asking that?
And that's when I saw that what I really was asking for in asking this question was to have a shared experience with the teacher, to have a personal connection with them. I saw this and I noticed it and I considered rephrasing the question to remove the personal piece of it.
But as I did this, it changed the nature of the question- it turned it into "Do people do this?" or "Is it like this?" instead of "Tell me about it" and to me, the first two were limiting or assuming while the third one was broad and inquisitive. I also felt the first question, it really was what I felt and I thought that, even though I knew that it was inappropriate for me to try to create a personal connection with a teacher, it was what I wanted, it was what I felt, and so I decided to leave it the way that it was.
As I was waiting to meet with the teacher, I imagined what other things we would talk about, prepared my answers, and imagined their response: I wasn't in the zendo each morning because I was sitting at home. (what discipline you have to do it on your own!) I was doing yoga with the extra time I had not going to the zendo (oh good- that should help with your posture). I was focusing more on my breathing and my posture seemed more aligned (ahhh, you did your homework). How was my zazen? "Interesting" I pictured myself saying (and I pictured the thoughts in the teacher's head: Ahhhh, she's not evaluating her zazen, she's just noticing it- what a good student she is).
And the thing is, I actually felt totally fine in all of this because all of it was true. I had a question that was true to my heart and what I was feeling at the moment, I really was practicing at home intentionally and, as a result, was more focused on breath and posture, and I really was approaching my zazen with interest and curiosity (though this was only after three days of disappointment). I really thought that I was going in to dokusan with honesty and awareness.
But I wasn't. I was going in with desire.
Deep down, I wanted a personal connection with the teacher.
Deep down, I wanted them to praise me.
Deep down, I wanted acceptance from them that I was a good student, that this was what I should be doing with my life, that I was in-like-Flynn in the zen world and was made for this.
And I went in with these desires and because of that, much of my dokusan was spent doing two things:
feeling disappointed. The teacher answered my questions clearly and in a way that left me with tools to develop my awareness around my relationship with control and acceptance. It's just that I wasn't actually wanting answers; I felt disappointed because answers didn't give me what I wanted: praise and acceptance.
saying things that would illicit praise, acceptance, and personal connection; instead of actually listening to the teachings I was being given.
So I left dokusan disappointed. Actually, I left doksuan feeling confused, hurt, and unsettled. What I wanted was to be accepted and praised as a student but I left feeling foolish and like a beginner- which, now that I think about it, I probably was, probably am.
But I learned a few things:
For me, the main reason I'm not feeling praise and acceptance for being a student is because I won't even accept myself as a student. It's been one of the biggest obstacles to my practice. How can I possibly begin to consider myself a good student if I refuse to even see myself as a student at all?
Second, all I really "need" to do is be present to dokusan. There were about a million times during my doksuan where all I thought about was what I "should" be doing: I hear the breakfast bell, should I stop so they can make it to breakfast on time? I have nothing to say, should I just stare at the teacher? And there were times when I acted from my desires; I thought up stuff that was only slightly related to what they said, just to try to connect. I wasn't even present to my own doksuan.
Third: dokusan isn't a place for desire. Dokusan is a place to ask a question and to listen to the answer. That's all.
At least, for me, for now, I think that's all it is.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Will zen practice "fix" my life?
No.
It won't.
Sorry about that.
But here's what I have found has happened for me in the last 2 or so years that I've been "practicing" zen at the zen center. I have found that I'm not so interested in "fixing" my life anymore. Not because my life isn't bad or that there aren't things that need to be changed, its just that is isn't about that.
See, it feels like your life is what needs to be fixed, like if you could just do this or be like that, that your life would be all perfect and happy. But the thing is, it's not your life that's bumming you out, it's your evaluation of it that's causing you suffering.
It's hard not to evaluate your life, it's hard not to have some idea of who you want to be or how you want to live your life. But once you stop evaluating your life, once you start accepting that all of your life is living your life, that the acceptance of your life, just-as-it-is, is what allows you to live it in a way that kind of fulfills you and then helps you to be generous and open with others, then, well, I don't know what will happen.
I just know that I don't really think about good or bad anymore when I think about my life. I don't think so much about right or wrong. I think about whether or not I am experiencing the life right in front of me at that moment, or if I am adding stuff on to it or trying to control it. I think about whether or not I am seeing the people in front of me for what they are offering, not what I think they are doing or how I think they should be. And I notice this- I ntoice when I do it and when I don't and how I can try to do it more often.
I still get mad at myelf, I still get frustrated, I still cringe at the thought of things I've done that day. But that day is over and I'm here now and all I can do is try to live my life as the next moment presents itself to me... just live it, that's all.
It won't.
Sorry about that.
But here's what I have found has happened for me in the last 2 or so years that I've been "practicing" zen at the zen center. I have found that I'm not so interested in "fixing" my life anymore. Not because my life isn't bad or that there aren't things that need to be changed, its just that is isn't about that.
See, it feels like your life is what needs to be fixed, like if you could just do this or be like that, that your life would be all perfect and happy. But the thing is, it's not your life that's bumming you out, it's your evaluation of it that's causing you suffering.
It's hard not to evaluate your life, it's hard not to have some idea of who you want to be or how you want to live your life. But once you stop evaluating your life, once you start accepting that all of your life is living your life, that the acceptance of your life, just-as-it-is, is what allows you to live it in a way that kind of fulfills you and then helps you to be generous and open with others, then, well, I don't know what will happen.
I just know that I don't really think about good or bad anymore when I think about my life. I don't think so much about right or wrong. I think about whether or not I am experiencing the life right in front of me at that moment, or if I am adding stuff on to it or trying to control it. I think about whether or not I am seeing the people in front of me for what they are offering, not what I think they are doing or how I think they should be. And I notice this- I ntoice when I do it and when I don't and how I can try to do it more often.
I still get mad at myelf, I still get frustrated, I still cringe at the thought of things I've done that day. But that day is over and I'm here now and all I can do is try to live my life as the next moment presents itself to me... just live it, that's all.
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Bunny Hop Flash Mob at the zen center (buddha's Enlightenment Ceremony Part 2)
I attended buddha's Enlightenment ceremony this morning at the zen center and for me, it seemed a little like a Flash Mob. The first part was all serious and formal, then we basically busted out into dancing and laughing and Alice-in-Wonderland madness, then we went right back to being all serious and quiet again. I loved it, especially seeing all the senior teachers being all serious again at the end- it just made the middle part of it all the more fun.
You know how in the Bunny Hop at weddings everyone lines up and prances around to music? Well, that's kind of what you do at buddha's Enlightenment ceremony. You don't hop or hold on to each other's waists but you definitely line up and walk together. It's just that you're walking to drums, and chanting-in-Japanese.
I can't remember how it started, but at one point, we started chanting the Haka Manya something (I think it's the Heart of Perfect Wisdom sutra in Japanese). As soon as we started chanting, people started moving. Some people turned to face the back of the Buddha Hall, some people turned to face the front of the Buddha Hall. I followed the person in front of me, and turned to face the front of the Budhha Hall. But then, we apparently were doing it wrong, so we turned and faced the other way. But then, when we turned that way, we were facing someone, instead of following them so we turned the other way. But then it happened with that person too, and so we didn't know what to do. Meanwhile, the line of people next to us was moving. At one point, the Ino directed someone to go one way but our line was still confused about how to follow. Finally, Paul came over and just told one of us to join in after the next person and the line started moving. But then the line went past us and I didn't know how to get in it and one of the senior teachers was in the line and approaching and I was afraid that he would be annoyed with me for just standing there and then, fortunately, some kind soul stopped, and invited me in to the line, and so it began.
I marched around the Buddha Hall, with a bounce, keeping time with the great drumming of the shuso and another practitioner who were hitting both sides of the huge drum in the room. I pretended to be chanting the sutra but mostly, I was looking around at all the smiling faces in the room. See, I don't know why, but part of this ceremony involves throwing flower petals...AT each other. Really, it's what you do, like, you aim for each other. So there were these people (only a few had bowls of flower petals) throwing flower petals at you. And there were all these people, being pelted with flower petals, which just makes you smile. Meanwhile, you're walking in time with a drum, chanting Japanese syllables, and passing right next to everyone because you're kind of snaking along the edges of the tatamis. Everyone is laughing and smiling while they're chanting and walking and it's just all around silly.
After the first round of the chant, I found myself face-to-face with my good friend. She grabbed a huge handful of flowers and threw them right at me. It was awesome. But at that point, even though we had apparently finished chanting, we hadn't walked around enough to end up back in the spots we started in, so I was confused about what to do. But then someone started us chanting again, and so I started marching again. Only this time, I tried to be all present and serious and pay attention to the chant sheet. I'm pretty sure I only did this because I knew that some of the senior teachers were near me and I didn't want them to think that I was just having fun. I watched as I tried to time my walking to the rhythm of the chant and it reminded me of my sister, how earnest she is in wanting to do things right. I thought about how I often judge her for this, perceive her as needing acceptance from others, and wanting to tell her to stop it- to not worry so much about other's opinions of you. Yet here I was, doing the exact same thing myself. "Have compassion for her," I thought. "Understand that this is where it's coming from and that you do it too- that you are together in this need."
We kept chanting, for a third time, and I somehow ended up near where I had started, but not next to the same people. And then someone rang a bell and it was time to bow. At that point, I was the third of what should have been only two people on a tatami mat. Before I could even think about how this was going to work, someone grabbed me from the back and pulled me to my original spot, where there was space to bow.
Then we bowed, three times. Afterward, the person who grabbed me (who turned to be another one of my good friends) turned to face me. I bowed to her in gratitude. As we turned to face the center of the room, I watched as she gently removed flower petals from the hood of the person in front of her and I was struck by the overflowing of care and love in the room.
Then the bell rang, and everything went back to normal. We all put our hands in gassho, and bowed. I watched as the doshis turned to the left, all serious and meditative, and followed all the forms for exiting the zendo. I thought, "Oh, this was kind of like a flash mob, where everyone goes all crazy in the middle of everything and when it's over, everything goes back to normal." Since it was the seventh day of sesshin, normal was abolute silence and no eye contact. So then we all went back to normal. We all waited for the person to the side of us, took a step forward, turned, and walked until the end of the mat, turned, walked to the altar, turned, stepped down, bowed, and exited the hall to line up for soji.
You know how in the Bunny Hop at weddings everyone lines up and prances around to music? Well, that's kind of what you do at buddha's Enlightenment ceremony. You don't hop or hold on to each other's waists but you definitely line up and walk together. It's just that you're walking to drums, and chanting-in-Japanese.
I can't remember how it started, but at one point, we started chanting the Haka Manya something (I think it's the Heart of Perfect Wisdom sutra in Japanese). As soon as we started chanting, people started moving. Some people turned to face the back of the Buddha Hall, some people turned to face the front of the Buddha Hall. I followed the person in front of me, and turned to face the front of the Budhha Hall. But then, we apparently were doing it wrong, so we turned and faced the other way. But then, when we turned that way, we were facing someone, instead of following them so we turned the other way. But then it happened with that person too, and so we didn't know what to do. Meanwhile, the line of people next to us was moving. At one point, the Ino directed someone to go one way but our line was still confused about how to follow. Finally, Paul came over and just told one of us to join in after the next person and the line started moving. But then the line went past us and I didn't know how to get in it and one of the senior teachers was in the line and approaching and I was afraid that he would be annoyed with me for just standing there and then, fortunately, some kind soul stopped, and invited me in to the line, and so it began.
I marched around the Buddha Hall, with a bounce, keeping time with the great drumming of the shuso and another practitioner who were hitting both sides of the huge drum in the room. I pretended to be chanting the sutra but mostly, I was looking around at all the smiling faces in the room. See, I don't know why, but part of this ceremony involves throwing flower petals...AT each other. Really, it's what you do, like, you aim for each other. So there were these people (only a few had bowls of flower petals) throwing flower petals at you. And there were all these people, being pelted with flower petals, which just makes you smile. Meanwhile, you're walking in time with a drum, chanting Japanese syllables, and passing right next to everyone because you're kind of snaking along the edges of the tatamis. Everyone is laughing and smiling while they're chanting and walking and it's just all around silly.
After the first round of the chant, I found myself face-to-face with my good friend. She grabbed a huge handful of flowers and threw them right at me. It was awesome. But at that point, even though we had apparently finished chanting, we hadn't walked around enough to end up back in the spots we started in, so I was confused about what to do. But then someone started us chanting again, and so I started marching again. Only this time, I tried to be all present and serious and pay attention to the chant sheet. I'm pretty sure I only did this because I knew that some of the senior teachers were near me and I didn't want them to think that I was just having fun. I watched as I tried to time my walking to the rhythm of the chant and it reminded me of my sister, how earnest she is in wanting to do things right. I thought about how I often judge her for this, perceive her as needing acceptance from others, and wanting to tell her to stop it- to not worry so much about other's opinions of you. Yet here I was, doing the exact same thing myself. "Have compassion for her," I thought. "Understand that this is where it's coming from and that you do it too- that you are together in this need."
We kept chanting, for a third time, and I somehow ended up near where I had started, but not next to the same people. And then someone rang a bell and it was time to bow. At that point, I was the third of what should have been only two people on a tatami mat. Before I could even think about how this was going to work, someone grabbed me from the back and pulled me to my original spot, where there was space to bow.
Then we bowed, three times. Afterward, the person who grabbed me (who turned to be another one of my good friends) turned to face me. I bowed to her in gratitude. As we turned to face the center of the room, I watched as she gently removed flower petals from the hood of the person in front of her and I was struck by the overflowing of care and love in the room.
Then the bell rang, and everything went back to normal. We all put our hands in gassho, and bowed. I watched as the doshis turned to the left, all serious and meditative, and followed all the forms for exiting the zendo. I thought, "Oh, this was kind of like a flash mob, where everyone goes all crazy in the middle of everything and when it's over, everything goes back to normal." Since it was the seventh day of sesshin, normal was abolute silence and no eye contact. So then we all went back to normal. We all waited for the person to the side of us, took a step forward, turned, and walked until the end of the mat, turned, walked to the altar, turned, stepped down, bowed, and exited the hall to line up for soji.
Buddha's Enlightenment Part 1: A Ceremony of Compassion
This morning, I attended Budhha's Enlightenment Ceremony. I hadn't originally planned on going because I thought it would be too crowded. But then my friend made it impossible for me to not go, "People will be throwing flowers at each other and you do a little dance," he explained. "Plus," he continued, "I've never attended an enlightenment ceremony where there wasn't some giggling involved." I couldn't pass on giggling at the zen center so I set my alarm for 6:10.
I entered the building as quietly as possible because the ceremony was taking place during sesshin (an extended period of meditation- seven days in this case) and did my best to respect the rules of sesshin: no eye contact and bow to everyone as you pass them. As I looked around the Buddha hall I saw three of my friends, right in front of me; and an old friend, across the way. One of my friends had a bowl of flowers behind her and I thought, "Cool, she got the job of flower thrower!"
The bells rang and the doshi came in, did some bows, and then there was this passing around of ornamental objects between the four people standing in front of the altar (I found out later that this was an offering to buddha). From my vantage point, it looked like one person was picking up something from the table in front of the altar, turning to pass it to the abbess, who then bowed with it to the altar, then passed it to the tanto, who then passed it to the senior dharma teacher, who then put it down on the other side of the table.
As I watched this, it reminded me of the relay race in track where you pass the baton and I started to write a comical blogpost in my head poking fun at the speed with which the objects were passed and the fact that, after all the passing, they ended up in exactly the same place: forget the tortoise and the hare, did you hear about the tortoise and the zen student? Who needs the 4 by 100 yard relay when you've got the 4 by 1 inch relay!
But then I noticed that in doing this, I was trying to separate myself from this practice, denying the fact that I had come this morning, that I was actually attending this ceremony, on a Saturday morning, when I could be sleeping in my nice warm bed.
So then I looked at the ceremony with different eyes. I saw that in passing the objects as slowly as they were, the participants were actually practicing being present to what was immediately in front of them, taking absolute care with them, treating them as equally important as themselves.
I also saw that in passing the objects to each other, and bowing as they did this, they were being present to each other; to me it felt as if there was an expression of gratitude for each other's support, an acknowledgement that we actually need each other and that we do things together.
And as I saw the last object being placed in, basically, the exact same place where it had started, I was reminded that this is all a practice, that we aren't doing it for something, we're doing it just to do it in the moment, to experience what we are doing, not what we've done.
And to me, all of this, was practice in developing compassion. Treating an object with utmost care, as equal to oneself, is practice in treating everyone as an equal and in treating everyone with utmost care.
Bowing to each other, acknowledging that we need each other, fosters respect for what we all have to offer.
And being present to what's in front of you, right now, allows for forgiveness of the past, keeps us from projecting in to the future, allows us to see each other, in this moment only, and that helps us to accept each other and love each other.
But apparently, those eyes closed and some skeptical ones opened as soon as the kokyo started chanting. The way I remember it, she called out something about how on this day, Buddha opened his mouth and a lion's roar came out. As soon as I heard this, I rolled my eyes and thought, "Oh brother, this sounds like the whole burning bush parable or walking on water thing..." Then she said that Buddha sat down and saw the morning star for the first time and I thought, "He did not! I'm sure he saw that star a million times before." I thought to myself, "Why are we making this in to this big moment? Doesn't everyone say that enlightenment doesn't come all at once?"
And then she said that in Buddha's eye there lies all of the universe (or something like that) and I thought, "Oh, well I can see that. Maybe it wasn't that he was literally seeing the star for the first time, it was that he was seeing the star with new eyes; he was seeing the star as connected to him, that they were part of the same universe, that they were equals. And that's why the universe was in his eye, because he was seeing that everything is connected."
Then we started chanting "All...hail...Shakyamuni Budhha" and I thought, "Oh...no... I am not hailing some guy! No way am I blindly chanting, basically, 'Buddha is all that and I'm just a lowly person. Isn't this about there not being a leader? Isn't this about everyone having something to offer?"
But the second time we chanted it, someone kind of shouted it, like, "Hail Buddha!" and it felt like "Go team!" like "Go Giants!" Then the kokyo said something about expressing gratitiude for all the teachers who, through their compassion, spread the teachings and I thought "Oh, I guess that is true. In their compassionate appraoch to teaching, their generosity with it, their belief that everyone is capable of it, they're sharing it with everyone." Then she said something about practicing with joy, and for the benefit of all beings, and I thought, "Oh, this isn't about buddha, this is about 'Yay this practice! Yay all these people who share it! And yay us for being lucky enough to have come across our teachers and everyone in this room for practicing."
And then the flash mob started...
I entered the building as quietly as possible because the ceremony was taking place during sesshin (an extended period of meditation- seven days in this case) and did my best to respect the rules of sesshin: no eye contact and bow to everyone as you pass them. As I looked around the Buddha hall I saw three of my friends, right in front of me; and an old friend, across the way. One of my friends had a bowl of flowers behind her and I thought, "Cool, she got the job of flower thrower!"
The bells rang and the doshi came in, did some bows, and then there was this passing around of ornamental objects between the four people standing in front of the altar (I found out later that this was an offering to buddha). From my vantage point, it looked like one person was picking up something from the table in front of the altar, turning to pass it to the abbess, who then bowed with it to the altar, then passed it to the tanto, who then passed it to the senior dharma teacher, who then put it down on the other side of the table.
As I watched this, it reminded me of the relay race in track where you pass the baton and I started to write a comical blogpost in my head poking fun at the speed with which the objects were passed and the fact that, after all the passing, they ended up in exactly the same place: forget the tortoise and the hare, did you hear about the tortoise and the zen student? Who needs the 4 by 100 yard relay when you've got the 4 by 1 inch relay!
But then I noticed that in doing this, I was trying to separate myself from this practice, denying the fact that I had come this morning, that I was actually attending this ceremony, on a Saturday morning, when I could be sleeping in my nice warm bed.
So then I looked at the ceremony with different eyes. I saw that in passing the objects as slowly as they were, the participants were actually practicing being present to what was immediately in front of them, taking absolute care with them, treating them as equally important as themselves.
I also saw that in passing the objects to each other, and bowing as they did this, they were being present to each other; to me it felt as if there was an expression of gratitude for each other's support, an acknowledgement that we actually need each other and that we do things together.
And as I saw the last object being placed in, basically, the exact same place where it had started, I was reminded that this is all a practice, that we aren't doing it for something, we're doing it just to do it in the moment, to experience what we are doing, not what we've done.
And to me, all of this, was practice in developing compassion. Treating an object with utmost care, as equal to oneself, is practice in treating everyone as an equal and in treating everyone with utmost care.
Bowing to each other, acknowledging that we need each other, fosters respect for what we all have to offer.
And being present to what's in front of you, right now, allows for forgiveness of the past, keeps us from projecting in to the future, allows us to see each other, in this moment only, and that helps us to accept each other and love each other.
But apparently, those eyes closed and some skeptical ones opened as soon as the kokyo started chanting. The way I remember it, she called out something about how on this day, Buddha opened his mouth and a lion's roar came out. As soon as I heard this, I rolled my eyes and thought, "Oh brother, this sounds like the whole burning bush parable or walking on water thing..." Then she said that Buddha sat down and saw the morning star for the first time and I thought, "He did not! I'm sure he saw that star a million times before." I thought to myself, "Why are we making this in to this big moment? Doesn't everyone say that enlightenment doesn't come all at once?"
And then she said that in Buddha's eye there lies all of the universe (or something like that) and I thought, "Oh, well I can see that. Maybe it wasn't that he was literally seeing the star for the first time, it was that he was seeing the star with new eyes; he was seeing the star as connected to him, that they were part of the same universe, that they were equals. And that's why the universe was in his eye, because he was seeing that everything is connected."
Then we started chanting "All...hail...Shakyamuni Budhha" and I thought, "Oh...no... I am not hailing some guy! No way am I blindly chanting, basically, 'Buddha is all that and I'm just a lowly person. Isn't this about there not being a leader? Isn't this about everyone having something to offer?"
But the second time we chanted it, someone kind of shouted it, like, "Hail Buddha!" and it felt like "Go team!" like "Go Giants!" Then the kokyo said something about expressing gratitiude for all the teachers who, through their compassion, spread the teachings and I thought "Oh, I guess that is true. In their compassionate appraoch to teaching, their generosity with it, their belief that everyone is capable of it, they're sharing it with everyone." Then she said something about practicing with joy, and for the benefit of all beings, and I thought, "Oh, this isn't about buddha, this is about 'Yay this practice! Yay all these people who share it! And yay us for being lucky enough to have come across our teachers and everyone in this room for practicing."
And then the flash mob started...
Mindless chanting... wtf?
I have no idea what the real reason is for chanting at the zen center. I just know that it has been the hardest part of this practice for me to accept.
At first, I didn't do it, because it felt disingenuous. It felt wrong to be chanting something that seemed meaningful or sacred when I didn't agree with it, or even know what it meant.
Then I didn't do it because it felt mindless. It felt weird to be following alng with everyone else, chanting this thing that I didn't understand, and doing it in this monotone voice that left no room for individuality or expression. It made me feel like the monkeys in the Wizard of Oz, blindly following the line of workers that snaked up the mountain.
Over time I got used to it. For a while I thought it was practice in not getting caught up in things, that in keeping your voice at one tempo and one pitch, you were practicing not getting carried away. During sesshin, I thought chanting was kind of like learning your ABC's. As I started to actually pay attention to the chants that we did in English, I saw that some of them were kind of helpful reminders about how to do this practice.
But I have to say that the most confusing part of the chanting for me was the chanting of syllables in Japanese. See, someone explained to me once that one of the chants was just syllables. That even when people who could read Japanese read those chants, they didn't make sense to them either- they were just syllables. This didn't make sense to me. Why would you chant just syllables?
But here's what I have found.
Well, let me back up a bit and explain a little about reading. When you read, your eyes scan ahead about 3-5 words. This is what allows you to read things with expression and understand the concept or idea of the entire sentence which allows you to figure out unfamiliar words, etc. So even though you're reading the word reading right now, your eyes and your mind are two steps ahead of you, figuring out the rest of the sentence to help you read.
But do you ever notice that when you chant the chants in Japanese (or in English if you're someone whose native tongue is Japanese), you don't really chant them with expression? You don't really chant them with yourself involved, with any interpretation or any meaning of them, you just kind of say them, exactly-as-they-are? Sound familiar? Ha ha ha- gotcha!
Here's what I think. I think that chanting chants in a foreign language, especially chanting syllables, forces you to do two things. The first one is what I just explained: it forces you to focus just on the chant as-it-is, without meaning, without interpretation, without yourself getting involved.
The second thing, and this is especially true of the syllables, is that it forces you to stay in the moment. When you are chanting syllables, your eyes and brain actually can't be two steps ahead of you. I mean, I guess they can but it doesn't help you at all. Each one of those syllables is its own thing, its own moment in time. You can't possibly connect them to each other, make a story up about them, predict into the future. All you can do is read that one syllable at that one moment.
It's just more practice at being present and giving up yourself. At least that's been my experience with it but, like I said, I have no idea what the real reason is for chanting.
At first, I didn't do it, because it felt disingenuous. It felt wrong to be chanting something that seemed meaningful or sacred when I didn't agree with it, or even know what it meant.
Then I didn't do it because it felt mindless. It felt weird to be following alng with everyone else, chanting this thing that I didn't understand, and doing it in this monotone voice that left no room for individuality or expression. It made me feel like the monkeys in the Wizard of Oz, blindly following the line of workers that snaked up the mountain.
Over time I got used to it. For a while I thought it was practice in not getting caught up in things, that in keeping your voice at one tempo and one pitch, you were practicing not getting carried away. During sesshin, I thought chanting was kind of like learning your ABC's. As I started to actually pay attention to the chants that we did in English, I saw that some of them were kind of helpful reminders about how to do this practice.
But I have to say that the most confusing part of the chanting for me was the chanting of syllables in Japanese. See, someone explained to me once that one of the chants was just syllables. That even when people who could read Japanese read those chants, they didn't make sense to them either- they were just syllables. This didn't make sense to me. Why would you chant just syllables?
But here's what I have found.
Well, let me back up a bit and explain a little about reading. When you read, your eyes scan ahead about 3-5 words. This is what allows you to read things with expression and understand the concept or idea of the entire sentence which allows you to figure out unfamiliar words, etc. So even though you're reading the word reading right now, your eyes and your mind are two steps ahead of you, figuring out the rest of the sentence to help you read.
But do you ever notice that when you chant the chants in Japanese (or in English if you're someone whose native tongue is Japanese), you don't really chant them with expression? You don't really chant them with yourself involved, with any interpretation or any meaning of them, you just kind of say them, exactly-as-they-are? Sound familiar? Ha ha ha- gotcha!
Here's what I think. I think that chanting chants in a foreign language, especially chanting syllables, forces you to do two things. The first one is what I just explained: it forces you to focus just on the chant as-it-is, without meaning, without interpretation, without yourself getting involved.
The second thing, and this is especially true of the syllables, is that it forces you to stay in the moment. When you are chanting syllables, your eyes and brain actually can't be two steps ahead of you. I mean, I guess they can but it doesn't help you at all. Each one of those syllables is its own thing, its own moment in time. You can't possibly connect them to each other, make a story up about them, predict into the future. All you can do is read that one syllable at that one moment.
It's just more practice at being present and giving up yourself. At least that's been my experience with it but, like I said, I have no idea what the real reason is for chanting.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
First dokusan as a student
After I asked Paul to be my teacher and he said yes, he asked me to tell him about my practice. I had recently had a change in my practice so I asked him if he wanted me to tell him where I was now, or my history of practice. He said that I should talk about whatever seemed appropriate.
I decided to talk about my recent changes in practice. I explained that I had inadvertently taken ten days off of practice because I had been sick and that I noticed how much it affected me. I talked about how when I wasn't sitting, I started using my thoughts to control the future, how I was grasping at things, and how I was trying to control the kids and my classroom. I explained that it made me realize how much sitting had actually helped me and how that kind of motivated me to get back into sitting regularly, and twice a day. I also said that in some ways, zazen was kind of annoying me because I had been apart from it for so long that it was hard to get back in to it.
Paul talked to me about this, and what I took from what he said was that while it's true that we need to practice to sustain our ability to be present and not get caught up in our thoughts, we also need to be able to develop the skill to remain "upright" when we are faced with times like what I had described. That yes, it's obviously important and necessary to meditate regularly but that I can't totally rely on that to be some "fix it" for keeping myself from grasping or trying to control things. I also need to develop the skill to remain present even when I haven't been sitting.
I thought this was really instructive because I really did think that all I needed to do was just sit more, and everything would be okay. It was interesting to see that I need to develop the skill to deal with when I can't just go sit more and also to see that just sitting more isn't going to solve all my problems.
But I also have to admit, that I noticed that I was disappointed. Part of me had really wanted Paul to be impressed by my dedication to sitting, to say "Wow! Twice a day! That's impressive that you're willing to do that." But he didn't, and when he didn't, I noticed this feeling of disappointment and I thought, "This isn't about showing off. You don't need to impress Paul- he's not looking for you to be a good student, he just wants to know what you're doing so that he can give you feedback on it."
Later, as he was explaining something to me, I offered my conclusion of it, my "Oh, so it's like this..." version of what he had said. But as I heard myself saying it I thought, "No, it isn't about figuring it out. It isn't about your version of what he says. You're not here to co- construct some great understanding of this practice, you're here to listen. Let his teachings flow over you, and then let them sink in in the spaces where you are actually open to them. Don't make his teachings into neat and isolated lessons that act as final pieces in your puzzle of understanding. And don't think that it's your responsibility to "get" them, that Paul will like you better if you understand what he is saying. He is offering his teachings, that's all, receive them as they are."
At one point, as he was describing something, I started to give an example of how I had done that in my practice, to say "Oooh, look, here's my example of how that works." But then I thought "You didn't come to dokusan with Paul to hear yourself talk. You can hear yourself talk anytime you want. This is a time to listen. There's a person in front of you who has been practicing longer than you have been alive. Listen to him."
At one point, Paul said something to the effect of, "This practice is about being honest, not so much about getting it right."
"I think I chose the right teacher for me," I thought to myself. "Honest, I can do. Honest is safe, I know where it is, I know how to do it. Getting things right? Not so much."
Next we started talking about zazen. The way I remember it, he asked me what I focused on during zazen and I said that I focused on letting my breath breathe me: on waiting for the breath to come naturally instead of me making it happen. We also talked about the fact that for me, focusing on my breath felt like I was focusing on something whereas when I paid attention to my thoughts, it felt more like I was pushing them away or blocking them. For me, it felt better to to focus on breath than to push away my thoughts. Paul suggested seeing my thoughts as the same as sounds.
I hadn't really thought about this before, and when he said it, I thought that seeing my thoughts as sounds would help me detach from them, see them as separate from me, not read in to having thoughts as bad or as something I need to control, they are just as much a phenomenon as the sounds outside. Then he mentioned the fact that the self was a mental construct. So I decided to make the connection that if the self is a mental construct and during zazen you're not thinking, then in zazen, you're also not creating more of the self.
I thought this was pretty amazing, I thought I had just had this really cool realization and I thought that Paul would say "Exactly!" but he didn't. Instead, he paused, and from the tone of this voice I concluded that it was more complex than what I was seeing. I got the feeling that my "realization" was kind of a beginner's mistaken understanding of it, and that made me sad. It kind of made me feel like Paul was somewhere over there and I was over here; that I was just a beginner and he was an expert, which...is pretty much true.
And then, I think in order to to help me see beyond my somewhat simple understanding of the self, Paul offered an example from Dogen. And as soon as he said the word Dogen, I freaked out.
"Oh my gosh he's talking about Dogen! And he's talking about Dogen casually, like this is something we talk about, or something we will talk about," and I got really scared. "I'm sitting across from someone who knows so much about this practice, and he's talking to me, about this practice, as if I do this practice, as if I have this knowledge. I can't talk about this practice like that. I don't know anything about Dogen or Buddhism or history or theories. Am I supposed to be talking with him about this as if I have that knowledge? I don't have that knowledge."
Suddenly, I saw Paul in the room all by himself. He was sitting where he was and there was this space to his right which was bordered by all the books on the shelves and I pictured him talking in to this space and I imagined that people in that space were studying Dogen and talking about the history of this practice and I wasn't there at all.
But as he continued to talk, I realized that his offering of Dogen was one that I had heard before. It was the one about how to study the self is to forget the self, or something like that. I realized he wasn't offering some big Dogen example and in fact, I had had my own life experience with the idea that studying the self actually helped the self to kind of diminish.
And then it was just Paul, and he was talking about practice. And yes, I had felt left behind when he mentioned Dogen but Paul wasn't asking me to discuss theories with him, he was just mentioning Dogen. I don't have to be an expert and he's not leaving me behind.
Next, we talked about my posture so I sat zazen; which was fine, until I settled in. Once I settled in, I found that my gaze was settled at Paul's abdomen. This felt really awkward and I thought, "Should I change my gaze so I'm not staring at his abdomen?" But then I thought, "No, that would be silly because then I wouldn't be sitting zazen the way I normally do so he wouldn't be able to give me feedback on it." I took a couple of breaths and then I thought, "Oh wait, am I not supposed to be sitting zazen right now? Am I totally wasting my dokusan time by sitting zazen and Paul is just sitting there waiting for me to ask him a question?"
And then I thought, "If Paul wanted you to stop sitting zazen, he would tell you. Let him be the teacher, let him lead you through whatever it is you're doing right now. Just be in this moment and respond to a request if he makes one. Otherwise, just be."
At one point, Paul finished talking and I just looked at him. I didn't have anything to ask so I just kept looking at him. I started to think, "What do I do now?" but then I thought, "Just be present" and so I was: I had nothing to ask and he hadn't asked anything of me, so I just kept looking at him.
I think that's when he said thank you, and I said thank you back, and we bowed to each other.
I got up and started to fluff the extra cushion I had sat on. Then I put it aside and started to fluff the one that was there originally. As I was doing this I thought to myself, "Paul probably needs to get somewhere. He doesn't need to wait while you fluff the extra cushion. You're only fluffing the extra cushion so that he knows that you know how to follow forms and because you want to leave things the way they were when you got here. You don't like to leave traces of yourself because you don't want to make others take care of you." But then I thought, "Yeah, but Paul needs to know this about you too. Don't hide your quirks from him. He can't help you to see yourself if you hide yourself from him."
I did my three prostrations and as I approached the door, I asked Paul the same question I always ask Paul as I approach the door, "Should I leave the door open or closed?"
He looked at me, smiled, and gave me the same answer he always gives me, "Open."
I decided to talk about my recent changes in practice. I explained that I had inadvertently taken ten days off of practice because I had been sick and that I noticed how much it affected me. I talked about how when I wasn't sitting, I started using my thoughts to control the future, how I was grasping at things, and how I was trying to control the kids and my classroom. I explained that it made me realize how much sitting had actually helped me and how that kind of motivated me to get back into sitting regularly, and twice a day. I also said that in some ways, zazen was kind of annoying me because I had been apart from it for so long that it was hard to get back in to it.
Paul talked to me about this, and what I took from what he said was that while it's true that we need to practice to sustain our ability to be present and not get caught up in our thoughts, we also need to be able to develop the skill to remain "upright" when we are faced with times like what I had described. That yes, it's obviously important and necessary to meditate regularly but that I can't totally rely on that to be some "fix it" for keeping myself from grasping or trying to control things. I also need to develop the skill to remain present even when I haven't been sitting.
I thought this was really instructive because I really did think that all I needed to do was just sit more, and everything would be okay. It was interesting to see that I need to develop the skill to deal with when I can't just go sit more and also to see that just sitting more isn't going to solve all my problems.
But I also have to admit, that I noticed that I was disappointed. Part of me had really wanted Paul to be impressed by my dedication to sitting, to say "Wow! Twice a day! That's impressive that you're willing to do that." But he didn't, and when he didn't, I noticed this feeling of disappointment and I thought, "This isn't about showing off. You don't need to impress Paul- he's not looking for you to be a good student, he just wants to know what you're doing so that he can give you feedback on it."
Later, as he was explaining something to me, I offered my conclusion of it, my "Oh, so it's like this..." version of what he had said. But as I heard myself saying it I thought, "No, it isn't about figuring it out. It isn't about your version of what he says. You're not here to co- construct some great understanding of this practice, you're here to listen. Let his teachings flow over you, and then let them sink in in the spaces where you are actually open to them. Don't make his teachings into neat and isolated lessons that act as final pieces in your puzzle of understanding. And don't think that it's your responsibility to "get" them, that Paul will like you better if you understand what he is saying. He is offering his teachings, that's all, receive them as they are."
At one point, as he was describing something, I started to give an example of how I had done that in my practice, to say "Oooh, look, here's my example of how that works." But then I thought "You didn't come to dokusan with Paul to hear yourself talk. You can hear yourself talk anytime you want. This is a time to listen. There's a person in front of you who has been practicing longer than you have been alive. Listen to him."
At one point, Paul said something to the effect of, "This practice is about being honest, not so much about getting it right."
"I think I chose the right teacher for me," I thought to myself. "Honest, I can do. Honest is safe, I know where it is, I know how to do it. Getting things right? Not so much."
Next we started talking about zazen. The way I remember it, he asked me what I focused on during zazen and I said that I focused on letting my breath breathe me: on waiting for the breath to come naturally instead of me making it happen. We also talked about the fact that for me, focusing on my breath felt like I was focusing on something whereas when I paid attention to my thoughts, it felt more like I was pushing them away or blocking them. For me, it felt better to to focus on breath than to push away my thoughts. Paul suggested seeing my thoughts as the same as sounds.
I hadn't really thought about this before, and when he said it, I thought that seeing my thoughts as sounds would help me detach from them, see them as separate from me, not read in to having thoughts as bad or as something I need to control, they are just as much a phenomenon as the sounds outside. Then he mentioned the fact that the self was a mental construct. So I decided to make the connection that if the self is a mental construct and during zazen you're not thinking, then in zazen, you're also not creating more of the self.
I thought this was pretty amazing, I thought I had just had this really cool realization and I thought that Paul would say "Exactly!" but he didn't. Instead, he paused, and from the tone of this voice I concluded that it was more complex than what I was seeing. I got the feeling that my "realization" was kind of a beginner's mistaken understanding of it, and that made me sad. It kind of made me feel like Paul was somewhere over there and I was over here; that I was just a beginner and he was an expert, which...is pretty much true.
And then, I think in order to to help me see beyond my somewhat simple understanding of the self, Paul offered an example from Dogen. And as soon as he said the word Dogen, I freaked out.
"Oh my gosh he's talking about Dogen! And he's talking about Dogen casually, like this is something we talk about, or something we will talk about," and I got really scared. "I'm sitting across from someone who knows so much about this practice, and he's talking to me, about this practice, as if I do this practice, as if I have this knowledge. I can't talk about this practice like that. I don't know anything about Dogen or Buddhism or history or theories. Am I supposed to be talking with him about this as if I have that knowledge? I don't have that knowledge."
Suddenly, I saw Paul in the room all by himself. He was sitting where he was and there was this space to his right which was bordered by all the books on the shelves and I pictured him talking in to this space and I imagined that people in that space were studying Dogen and talking about the history of this practice and I wasn't there at all.
But as he continued to talk, I realized that his offering of Dogen was one that I had heard before. It was the one about how to study the self is to forget the self, or something like that. I realized he wasn't offering some big Dogen example and in fact, I had had my own life experience with the idea that studying the self actually helped the self to kind of diminish.
And then it was just Paul, and he was talking about practice. And yes, I had felt left behind when he mentioned Dogen but Paul wasn't asking me to discuss theories with him, he was just mentioning Dogen. I don't have to be an expert and he's not leaving me behind.
Next, we talked about my posture so I sat zazen; which was fine, until I settled in. Once I settled in, I found that my gaze was settled at Paul's abdomen. This felt really awkward and I thought, "Should I change my gaze so I'm not staring at his abdomen?" But then I thought, "No, that would be silly because then I wouldn't be sitting zazen the way I normally do so he wouldn't be able to give me feedback on it." I took a couple of breaths and then I thought, "Oh wait, am I not supposed to be sitting zazen right now? Am I totally wasting my dokusan time by sitting zazen and Paul is just sitting there waiting for me to ask him a question?"
And then I thought, "If Paul wanted you to stop sitting zazen, he would tell you. Let him be the teacher, let him lead you through whatever it is you're doing right now. Just be in this moment and respond to a request if he makes one. Otherwise, just be."
At one point, Paul finished talking and I just looked at him. I didn't have anything to ask so I just kept looking at him. I started to think, "What do I do now?" but then I thought, "Just be present" and so I was: I had nothing to ask and he hadn't asked anything of me, so I just kept looking at him.
I think that's when he said thank you, and I said thank you back, and we bowed to each other.
I got up and started to fluff the extra cushion I had sat on. Then I put it aside and started to fluff the one that was there originally. As I was doing this I thought to myself, "Paul probably needs to get somewhere. He doesn't need to wait while you fluff the extra cushion. You're only fluffing the extra cushion so that he knows that you know how to follow forms and because you want to leave things the way they were when you got here. You don't like to leave traces of yourself because you don't want to make others take care of you." But then I thought, "Yeah, but Paul needs to know this about you too. Don't hide your quirks from him. He can't help you to see yourself if you hide yourself from him."
I did my three prostrations and as I approached the door, I asked Paul the same question I always ask Paul as I approach the door, "Should I leave the door open or closed?"
He looked at me, smiled, and gave me the same answer he always gives me, "Open."
Accepting your family, accepting yourself
Nope, not there yet, but I'm definitely noticing a difference in how I respond to my family; and the interesting thing is that it's mirroring how I've begun to respond to myself. And I think there's a reason for that; I think acceptance of others only comes from acceptance of yourself.
I first noticed this last week when I was having dinner with a family member. See, often, when I am with a family member, I notice certain behaviors in them, and at the same time recognize those same behaviors in myself. In the past, when I've seen my self in my family members, I've had a variety of reactions. At first, it was annoyance: why do you have to be like that? (I think I was asking this both of them and of myself). Then it was blame: No wonder I'm so (insert criticism of self here)...I was surrounded by this behavior in you guys. Then it was an attempt to change: Okay, so, if I can just accept this about this person, maybe they'll stop being like that. Or, if I can just accept this suffering that it brings me, I can respond to them instead of react to them, and then it won't bug me so much that they are like this.
But last week, at dinner, I just noticed our behaviors, I just noticed that we do these things. That's all, I just saw it. I almost had a fondness for it, like, "Awww, this is how we work. This is how we negotiate this life that we sometimes struggle with." I wasn't mad, I wasn't bitter, I had no need to blame or complain to try to change, I just saw that this is who we are. And it was fine. Actually, it was nice to not be so attached or caught up in it, to look at it with fondness and affection.
It's how I've been looking at myself lately. I didn't mean to start looking at myself this way, it just happened. I stopped trying so hard to change who I am because I can't; believe me, I've tried. But whoever this person is who's manifesting herself inside of me doesn't seem to respond to anything other than me just getting out of her way.
I also didn't mean to suddenly accept my family, and I definitely haven't accepted them yet, I still get caught up and want to change things. I still get mad that we are like this and wish we could be otherwise, who doesn't? But there are times when I just see us, and I'm starting to feel kind of grateful that we are who we are because we kind of have some place in this world. I don't really know what it is or why, but I can see us and I can see that I'm a product of my family and, for better or for worse, this is who I am and, to some extent, it's because of who they are, and I feel kind of lucky about that.
I first noticed this last week when I was having dinner with a family member. See, often, when I am with a family member, I notice certain behaviors in them, and at the same time recognize those same behaviors in myself. In the past, when I've seen my self in my family members, I've had a variety of reactions. At first, it was annoyance: why do you have to be like that? (I think I was asking this both of them and of myself). Then it was blame: No wonder I'm so (insert criticism of self here)...I was surrounded by this behavior in you guys. Then it was an attempt to change: Okay, so, if I can just accept this about this person, maybe they'll stop being like that. Or, if I can just accept this suffering that it brings me, I can respond to them instead of react to them, and then it won't bug me so much that they are like this.
But last week, at dinner, I just noticed our behaviors, I just noticed that we do these things. That's all, I just saw it. I almost had a fondness for it, like, "Awww, this is how we work. This is how we negotiate this life that we sometimes struggle with." I wasn't mad, I wasn't bitter, I had no need to blame or complain to try to change, I just saw that this is who we are. And it was fine. Actually, it was nice to not be so attached or caught up in it, to look at it with fondness and affection.
It's how I've been looking at myself lately. I didn't mean to start looking at myself this way, it just happened. I stopped trying so hard to change who I am because I can't; believe me, I've tried. But whoever this person is who's manifesting herself inside of me doesn't seem to respond to anything other than me just getting out of her way.
I also didn't mean to suddenly accept my family, and I definitely haven't accepted them yet, I still get caught up and want to change things. I still get mad that we are like this and wish we could be otherwise, who doesn't? But there are times when I just see us, and I'm starting to feel kind of grateful that we are who we are because we kind of have some place in this world. I don't really know what it is or why, but I can see us and I can see that I'm a product of my family and, for better or for worse, this is who I am and, to some extent, it's because of who they are, and I feel kind of lucky about that.
Monday, November 12, 2012
How to NOT figure things out...
I like to 'figure things out.' I like things to have a system, a way, something I can follow or hold on to that gives me a framework for understanding things. Apparently, this is not conducive to zen practice, at least in my experience. I have found when I say things like "Oh, okay, so if I do it this way," I am met with a kind smile.
To me, this kind smile means, "Mmmm, not really. There's isn't really a way to do this."
This is really hard for me to accept. I don't know how to not have a way to do things. I don't understand how to "figure this out" without "figuring this out." I mean, what am I doing here if I'm not trying to learn, to understand, to follow the models of others around me and pattern myself after them? If I don't ask questions, if I don't notice, if I don't think about what I'm doing, how can I learn to be present, to even do any of this stuff?
This came up for me during sesshin. Immedately after the whole "Be Silent and Still" experience that I had, I felt like I had a deepened and true understanding of what needed to be done to really embody this practice. I honestly felt like I felt this practice, like I got it, without even trying.
But then, two days later after repeatedly coming back to 'be silent and still' I started to notice that I was using 'be silent and still' as a sort of catch all phrase, as a panacea, as some sort of rule, guideline, absolute truth and I thought. "Uhn unh, you know it doesn't work that way. This isn't your only answer and you know, all too well, that you're not even supposed to feel like this, like you've arrived, like you've got it. You haven't figured it out; this was a good teaching, but you can't cling to it."
And then, in dokusan, Paul actually said to me, "It isn't about figuring it out, Eli."
And I knew he was right, but I didn't know what to do about it. I honestly didn't know how to not figure things out. How do I not learn, how do I not think, how do I not try to deepen my understanding of things?
On the last day of sesshin, Victoria Austin was kind enough to meet with me for practice period discussion. I sat down in front of her and said, literally, "I need your help. I know I'm not supposed to figure things out but I don't know how to not figure things out."
She smiled and checked in with me about the kids in my classroom. She asked me what I did in certain situations with them. As we talked, I thought to myself about the fact that I often respond to things that happen in my classroom by figuring things out. I often try to determine the source of the problem and then base my response on what would best address the problem, what would prevent it from happening in the future.
So then she talked about how figuring things out can be a tool that we use to help us. But, well, it's not that it's a bad tool, it's just that it doesn't always work. We talked about the fact that there are situations in my classroom where, no matter how much I figure a kid out or think I know what needs to be done for them, it just doesn't work. Maybe they're not ready to learn, maybe I don't get it, whatever it is, there are times when you honestly can't figure it out. It's not bad practice, it's just not that effective because, well, the world, and people, and ourselves, we're not so figure-out-able.
And then she started talking about cupcakes. She said, "It would be like saying 'Okay, if twelve cupcakes take twenty minutes, then twenty-four cupcakes cupcakes would take forty..."
"No no no!" I said. "Bad cupcakes! Bad cupcakes!"
"Right," she said. "It's more like, 'Hmmm, it smells like chocolate. I think they might be done. I should check before they start to smell like charcoal."
And I smiled, because I kind of got it. It's okay for me to think about this, to try to understand this, I just need to know that it's not an answer, it's not a finish, it's ongoing and changing and there isn't a system to it. It's like a dynamic, and being aware and present to what comes up, being aware and present to yourself and how you respond, I guess that's living life, and that's all it is, and it keeps the cupcakes nice and moist.
To me, this kind smile means, "Mmmm, not really. There's isn't really a way to do this."
This is really hard for me to accept. I don't know how to not have a way to do things. I don't understand how to "figure this out" without "figuring this out." I mean, what am I doing here if I'm not trying to learn, to understand, to follow the models of others around me and pattern myself after them? If I don't ask questions, if I don't notice, if I don't think about what I'm doing, how can I learn to be present, to even do any of this stuff?
This came up for me during sesshin. Immedately after the whole "Be Silent and Still" experience that I had, I felt like I had a deepened and true understanding of what needed to be done to really embody this practice. I honestly felt like I felt this practice, like I got it, without even trying.
But then, two days later after repeatedly coming back to 'be silent and still' I started to notice that I was using 'be silent and still' as a sort of catch all phrase, as a panacea, as some sort of rule, guideline, absolute truth and I thought. "Uhn unh, you know it doesn't work that way. This isn't your only answer and you know, all too well, that you're not even supposed to feel like this, like you've arrived, like you've got it. You haven't figured it out; this was a good teaching, but you can't cling to it."
And then, in dokusan, Paul actually said to me, "It isn't about figuring it out, Eli."
And I knew he was right, but I didn't know what to do about it. I honestly didn't know how to not figure things out. How do I not learn, how do I not think, how do I not try to deepen my understanding of things?
On the last day of sesshin, Victoria Austin was kind enough to meet with me for practice period discussion. I sat down in front of her and said, literally, "I need your help. I know I'm not supposed to figure things out but I don't know how to not figure things out."
She smiled and checked in with me about the kids in my classroom. She asked me what I did in certain situations with them. As we talked, I thought to myself about the fact that I often respond to things that happen in my classroom by figuring things out. I often try to determine the source of the problem and then base my response on what would best address the problem, what would prevent it from happening in the future.
So then she talked about how figuring things out can be a tool that we use to help us. But, well, it's not that it's a bad tool, it's just that it doesn't always work. We talked about the fact that there are situations in my classroom where, no matter how much I figure a kid out or think I know what needs to be done for them, it just doesn't work. Maybe they're not ready to learn, maybe I don't get it, whatever it is, there are times when you honestly can't figure it out. It's not bad practice, it's just not that effective because, well, the world, and people, and ourselves, we're not so figure-out-able.
And then she started talking about cupcakes. She said, "It would be like saying 'Okay, if twelve cupcakes take twenty minutes, then twenty-four cupcakes cupcakes would take forty..."
"No no no!" I said. "Bad cupcakes! Bad cupcakes!"
"Right," she said. "It's more like, 'Hmmm, it smells like chocolate. I think they might be done. I should check before they start to smell like charcoal."
And I smiled, because I kind of got it. It's okay for me to think about this, to try to understand this, I just need to know that it's not an answer, it's not a finish, it's ongoing and changing and there isn't a system to it. It's like a dynamic, and being aware and present to what comes up, being aware and present to yourself and how you respond, I guess that's living life, and that's all it is, and it keeps the cupcakes nice and moist.
"Getting things done" at work
Recently, at one of our YUZ meetings, someone expressed their frustration at putting "zen practice" into practice... at work. They talked about how hard it is to not respond to all their emails, to not strive to get all their work done within given deadlines, and to not feel stressed about all of this. Conceptually, zen was great, but in practice, it seemed impossible.
As I heard this, I wanted to say "Just try not answering all your emails, you'd be surprised at how okay it is to not answer them all. And those deadlines, if you miss them, it turns out that the world doesn't end. There will be some suffering, and probably some yelling, but life will continue."
But I didn't say that, because it was ridiculous. I wasn't going to ask someone to risk not returning an email just because they wanted to be zen. What if that 9th email that wasn't answered was the one email that everyone needed in order to finish the project?
And so then I thought about what had allowed me to start risking practicing zen at my work, what allowed me to leave at a reasonable hour each day, what allowed me to let those seemingly all important tasks not get completed. How did I gain the confidence to risk "letting go"?
I realized that I had only gained this confidence through practice, and that this practice had come from some very specific things I had been doing at the zen center. One of the most imporant things I had been doing was soji. I think soji translates to "temple cleaning," but it's not the cleaning that develops the skill of "letting go," it's the gong.
See, when you do soji, you do whatever task the work leader assigns you to do, and you do it completely, until you hear a gong. As soon as you hear the gong, you're supposed to just stop, whether you're finished or not. This is extremely hard to do, and on several occasions, I have secretly kept working after hearing the gong in an attempt to "finish" my job. But here's what has happened. I have worked after the gong, to completely clean a bathroom, only to find it dirtied again, within the half hour. I have also fully cleaned a bathroom before the gong, had extra time, and discovered that what I thought was fully clean, could use more cleaning. In doing this, I've come to understand that, in all honesty, jobs are never done, and they're always done. We're the only ones who are making up this concept of completion. If we want to feel done, we just need to consider what we think is done and once we've done that, we have to let it go.
So then I thought about how someone could do this at home, how they could practice "soji" if they weren't lucky enough to be able to do soji at the zen center on Saturday mornings like me. Here's my suggestion. Choose some chore at home and set a timer. Do the chore until the timer goes off and then stop, really stop, leave that hair on the sink, and walk away. Then do it again the next day, but set the timer for a different time, longer or shorter, doesn't matter, just different and do the same task and stop, no matter what. Hopefully, over time, you'll see what I saw- what feels like it has to be done, doesn't, and in the grand scheme of things, we're never done. Eventually, hopefully, you'll feel like this at work too. I'm not saying that you should abandon things that need to be done because it's five o'clock. I'm just saying that over time, with practice with not totally cleaning the bathroom, you might feel better about leaving work even if the millionth email hasn't been answered.
As I heard this, I wanted to say "Just try not answering all your emails, you'd be surprised at how okay it is to not answer them all. And those deadlines, if you miss them, it turns out that the world doesn't end. There will be some suffering, and probably some yelling, but life will continue."
But I didn't say that, because it was ridiculous. I wasn't going to ask someone to risk not returning an email just because they wanted to be zen. What if that 9th email that wasn't answered was the one email that everyone needed in order to finish the project?
And so then I thought about what had allowed me to start risking practicing zen at my work, what allowed me to leave at a reasonable hour each day, what allowed me to let those seemingly all important tasks not get completed. How did I gain the confidence to risk "letting go"?
I realized that I had only gained this confidence through practice, and that this practice had come from some very specific things I had been doing at the zen center. One of the most imporant things I had been doing was soji. I think soji translates to "temple cleaning," but it's not the cleaning that develops the skill of "letting go," it's the gong.
See, when you do soji, you do whatever task the work leader assigns you to do, and you do it completely, until you hear a gong. As soon as you hear the gong, you're supposed to just stop, whether you're finished or not. This is extremely hard to do, and on several occasions, I have secretly kept working after hearing the gong in an attempt to "finish" my job. But here's what has happened. I have worked after the gong, to completely clean a bathroom, only to find it dirtied again, within the half hour. I have also fully cleaned a bathroom before the gong, had extra time, and discovered that what I thought was fully clean, could use more cleaning. In doing this, I've come to understand that, in all honesty, jobs are never done, and they're always done. We're the only ones who are making up this concept of completion. If we want to feel done, we just need to consider what we think is done and once we've done that, we have to let it go.
So then I thought about how someone could do this at home, how they could practice "soji" if they weren't lucky enough to be able to do soji at the zen center on Saturday mornings like me. Here's my suggestion. Choose some chore at home and set a timer. Do the chore until the timer goes off and then stop, really stop, leave that hair on the sink, and walk away. Then do it again the next day, but set the timer for a different time, longer or shorter, doesn't matter, just different and do the same task and stop, no matter what. Hopefully, over time, you'll see what I saw- what feels like it has to be done, doesn't, and in the grand scheme of things, we're never done. Eventually, hopefully, you'll feel like this at work too. I'm not saying that you should abandon things that need to be done because it's five o'clock. I'm just saying that over time, with practice with not totally cleaning the bathroom, you might feel better about leaving work even if the millionth email hasn't been answered.
The universe is NOT out to get you (or teach you a lesson)
As I was driving down 101, I was thinking about a friend of mine, and a comment she had made about why she hadn't yet fully recovered from an injury.
"I haven't learned this life lesson yet," she explained. "I figure that once I learn what it's like to live with this injury, to slow down and accept this, that's when it will heal."
I understood why she made this comment. I could see how she might feel like she had gotten injured from working too hard or that she would heal once she slowed down and gave her body the chance to rest. In some ways, there was truth to her statement about why she hadn't healed yet. It was true that once she slowed down, she probably would heal faster.
But for me, there wasn't any truth to the idea that it was about a life lesson. For me, she was going to heal when her ligaments healed. Her ligaments had no idea whether or not she had learned this life lesson, they're just ligaments. Ligaments don't have any intentions, they aren't trying to teach you anything, they're just cells, they just heal, they're not thinking about you or holding off on their healing until you figure things out.
Then I thought about the universe and the fact that it doesn't have any intentions either. The universe is made up of cells too, and they have no interest in me, they have no awareness of me; they're just growing and interacting and dieing and colliding and doing whatever it is that the universe does. There is no way that the universe has an awareness of me and is changing itself in response to me-it's the universe for Pete's sake, I'm just a speck of dust in it.
But so often, it feels like the universe is punishing us or responding to us or that one action causes another. It feels so much like we have some control over this life and that if we do it one way or another, certain things will happen in one way or another. But the truth is, it isn't really like that. It can't be, the universe just isn't cognizant, the universe isn't thinking any more than my friend's ligaments are thinking.
But at the same time, the universe does exist, and we exist in it. We feel the interactions of the universe and our actions play a role in the universe. We aren't free of each other but we don't control each other either.
It's like my friend and her ligaments. Her ligaments are definitely not waiting to heal until she slows down and accepts her injury. They aren't monitoring her or watching her, their purpose is not to teach her a lesson. At the same time, it's likely that if she slows down, her ligaments will experience less stress and will probably heal sooner. But it's not necessarily true, her ligaments could do something completely different in response to her actions, they're ligaments.
So I guess the universe just is, and so are we. We co exist, we affect each other, but only so much as we do in the way that we share the same space, share the same make up, are actually different formations of the same cells and elements. We may want to believe that if we do one thing the universe will do another or that when things happen to us, it's because of something the universe did in response to us or that we did in response to it but in truth, we're just not that significant. All we're doing is co- existing, living in this same space, being affected by others in ways that neither of us have any control over.
"I haven't learned this life lesson yet," she explained. "I figure that once I learn what it's like to live with this injury, to slow down and accept this, that's when it will heal."
I understood why she made this comment. I could see how she might feel like she had gotten injured from working too hard or that she would heal once she slowed down and gave her body the chance to rest. In some ways, there was truth to her statement about why she hadn't healed yet. It was true that once she slowed down, she probably would heal faster.
But for me, there wasn't any truth to the idea that it was about a life lesson. For me, she was going to heal when her ligaments healed. Her ligaments had no idea whether or not she had learned this life lesson, they're just ligaments. Ligaments don't have any intentions, they aren't trying to teach you anything, they're just cells, they just heal, they're not thinking about you or holding off on their healing until you figure things out.
Then I thought about the universe and the fact that it doesn't have any intentions either. The universe is made up of cells too, and they have no interest in me, they have no awareness of me; they're just growing and interacting and dieing and colliding and doing whatever it is that the universe does. There is no way that the universe has an awareness of me and is changing itself in response to me-it's the universe for Pete's sake, I'm just a speck of dust in it.
But so often, it feels like the universe is punishing us or responding to us or that one action causes another. It feels so much like we have some control over this life and that if we do it one way or another, certain things will happen in one way or another. But the truth is, it isn't really like that. It can't be, the universe just isn't cognizant, the universe isn't thinking any more than my friend's ligaments are thinking.
But at the same time, the universe does exist, and we exist in it. We feel the interactions of the universe and our actions play a role in the universe. We aren't free of each other but we don't control each other either.
It's like my friend and her ligaments. Her ligaments are definitely not waiting to heal until she slows down and accepts her injury. They aren't monitoring her or watching her, their purpose is not to teach her a lesson. At the same time, it's likely that if she slows down, her ligaments will experience less stress and will probably heal sooner. But it's not necessarily true, her ligaments could do something completely different in response to her actions, they're ligaments.
So I guess the universe just is, and so are we. We co exist, we affect each other, but only so much as we do in the way that we share the same space, share the same make up, are actually different formations of the same cells and elements. We may want to believe that if we do one thing the universe will do another or that when things happen to us, it's because of something the universe did in response to us or that we did in response to it but in truth, we're just not that significant. All we're doing is co- existing, living in this same space, being affected by others in ways that neither of us have any control over.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
THIS is love
I grew up watching the Brady Bunch (reruns). And then I moved on to Family Ties and The Cosby Show. I watched the Christmas specials with all those people gathered around Christmas trees and families together and parents holding kids in their laps and maybe even holding hands while they said grace or something around some Thanksgiving dinner table. I watched this and I thought, "This is what families do. Parents are affectionate with their children and everyone is all in harmony and parents look lovingly at their kids and everyone is happy. This is a family. This is parents-loving-children."
As I got older, I watched 16 Candles and heard about romances among seniors at my high school and heard about perfect boyfriends and pined over romantic lyrics in pop songs and I thought, "This is what a boyfriend is. This is what boyfriends do for girlfriends. Love is thinking about the person all the time and secretly sending flowers and saying the perfect thing at exactly the right moment and just when you thought he didn't like you, he liked you all along and..."
But last week, as I was walking to work, I thought about my family. I thought about breakfast on the table every morning and french toast that was cut into pieces small enough for me to eat. I thought about the bag lunch with my name on it that somehow made it to school by lunch time, even if I forgot to put it in my backpack when I left that morning. I thought about pajamas and the did-you-brush-your-teeth breath check. There was no bedtime story but there was dinner and staying up a little late because the 'specials' were on. I thought about long drives in the car and conversations that didn't have to happen, but that did.
And it occurred to me: I was loved, and I missed it. I've been loved my whole life, but I missed it because it wasn't TV love, it wasn't nuclear family love, it wasn't Meredith Baxter Birney putting her arm around you or saying I love you. I was so busy wishing that I had that kind of love that I didn't feel the love that I was given every morning when I was woken up, when I was given breakfast, when I was handed the lunch that was made for me the night before. All my life my grownup has been loving me, just because. And yet I've been searching to be loved 'just because.'
It was right there, it is right there, it's always been right there, I just wouldn't see it, because I thought love was what they showed on TV.
I was sad when I saw this, sad for the love that was given but not recevied. But then I thought that the person who was giving it wasn't giving it to get something back, they were just giving it freely, just because. And they still are, in their lovely way. And I can start to see it, to feel it, maybe connect with them around it, but most importantly to actually see it, for the love that it is.
And then I thought about the love that's all around me that I don't see either. The door held open for me, the smile in the hallway, the 'you first' in the grocery store, the compliments I don't receive. And I thought too about the love of friends, the conversations, the noticings, the truthful words that risk our harmony but are said anyway. And I thought about relatives and phone calls and parties and 'how are you?'s and food that is shared.
"I'm surrounded by love," I thought to myself. "I've just never seen it, or felt it, because I only had one view of love. All this love...everywhere...and I'm so busy looking for it somewhere else. All I have to do is see it, right in front of me, understand that this is love, all of this. All of this, is love."
As I got older, I watched 16 Candles and heard about romances among seniors at my high school and heard about perfect boyfriends and pined over romantic lyrics in pop songs and I thought, "This is what a boyfriend is. This is what boyfriends do for girlfriends. Love is thinking about the person all the time and secretly sending flowers and saying the perfect thing at exactly the right moment and just when you thought he didn't like you, he liked you all along and..."
But last week, as I was walking to work, I thought about my family. I thought about breakfast on the table every morning and french toast that was cut into pieces small enough for me to eat. I thought about the bag lunch with my name on it that somehow made it to school by lunch time, even if I forgot to put it in my backpack when I left that morning. I thought about pajamas and the did-you-brush-your-teeth breath check. There was no bedtime story but there was dinner and staying up a little late because the 'specials' were on. I thought about long drives in the car and conversations that didn't have to happen, but that did.
And it occurred to me: I was loved, and I missed it. I've been loved my whole life, but I missed it because it wasn't TV love, it wasn't nuclear family love, it wasn't Meredith Baxter Birney putting her arm around you or saying I love you. I was so busy wishing that I had that kind of love that I didn't feel the love that I was given every morning when I was woken up, when I was given breakfast, when I was handed the lunch that was made for me the night before. All my life my grownup has been loving me, just because. And yet I've been searching to be loved 'just because.'
It was right there, it is right there, it's always been right there, I just wouldn't see it, because I thought love was what they showed on TV.
I was sad when I saw this, sad for the love that was given but not recevied. But then I thought that the person who was giving it wasn't giving it to get something back, they were just giving it freely, just because. And they still are, in their lovely way. And I can start to see it, to feel it, maybe connect with them around it, but most importantly to actually see it, for the love that it is.
And then I thought about the love that's all around me that I don't see either. The door held open for me, the smile in the hallway, the 'you first' in the grocery store, the compliments I don't receive. And I thought too about the love of friends, the conversations, the noticings, the truthful words that risk our harmony but are said anyway. And I thought about relatives and phone calls and parties and 'how are you?'s and food that is shared.
"I'm surrounded by love," I thought to myself. "I've just never seen it, or felt it, because I only had one view of love. All this love...everywhere...and I'm so busy looking for it somewhere else. All I have to do is see it, right in front of me, understand that this is love, all of this. All of this, is love."
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Time to die
I was at a "post apocalypse" bookswap at The Booksmith and this guy and I started talking about living forever vs. being forever young. He said that if he could take a pill that would allow him to live forever, he'd do it in a second. I pointed out that he'd have to watch all of his friends and family die. He said that would be okay because he would meet new people and he'd always have the trees and the mountains and the oceans, etc. He talked about how much he loves this life and how sad he would be to leave it.
I remember that. I remember not wanting to leave this life, not being able to imagine wanting anything more than being here. In some ways, I guess I still do want to be here more than anything else, to live this life, but I don't want to live forever. I originally thought that it was because I'd have to say goodbye to everyone, to watch everyone die and feel kind of lonely still being here when everyone I knew and loved had left. But as I thought about it, it felt more like there's a point at which, you don't really belong here anymore.
Have you ever been at a party, after most people have gone home, and the host is cleaning up, and you're just, there? It's like it's done, but you're still lingering. Or when you've put a ton of work in to some project and it's up and running on its own and you can just leave, but you're still there watching it, from the sides, feeling a little superfluous? When I pictured myself living forever, it felt like that- like I was still lingering around after my life was over. It's not so much that I don't love this life or want to be here in it, it just feels like there will be a point in my life when I'm kind of done. I don't know when it's going to be and I might even die before I reach that point, but still, it just feels like there will be a time in my life when I have offered all my stuff and I'll feel comortable leaving.
The next morning during service, it struck me that maybe my mom was done when she died, that she had reached that point too. But then I thought that that didn't make sense. It didn't make sense that my mom's "purpose" in life was to raise three kids and to only be there for 6 years of the youngest one's life. That just didn't sound right.
But then I thought about the fact that she had cancer. Maybe she had a purpose in life, maybe it was fulfilled, maybe it wasn't, but then cancer showed up, and it changed things. Maybe by the time she actually did die she really was done: with fighting cancer, with saying goodbye to her friends and family, with accepting that she couldn't live this life anymore. Maybe if she kept living after the point at which she was supposed to die she would have suffered, through worse cancer or something else that no one knew about. I don't really know. It just feels like maybe she just died when she died, that it was her time, that her life was done, even if none of us wanted it to be.
I don't think it makes it any easier but I guess it feels more matter of fact, like there wasn't a choice, like we didn't lose her, like she just took another step, in a road she was already on.
I remember that. I remember not wanting to leave this life, not being able to imagine wanting anything more than being here. In some ways, I guess I still do want to be here more than anything else, to live this life, but I don't want to live forever. I originally thought that it was because I'd have to say goodbye to everyone, to watch everyone die and feel kind of lonely still being here when everyone I knew and loved had left. But as I thought about it, it felt more like there's a point at which, you don't really belong here anymore.
Have you ever been at a party, after most people have gone home, and the host is cleaning up, and you're just, there? It's like it's done, but you're still lingering. Or when you've put a ton of work in to some project and it's up and running on its own and you can just leave, but you're still there watching it, from the sides, feeling a little superfluous? When I pictured myself living forever, it felt like that- like I was still lingering around after my life was over. It's not so much that I don't love this life or want to be here in it, it just feels like there will be a point in my life when I'm kind of done. I don't know when it's going to be and I might even die before I reach that point, but still, it just feels like there will be a time in my life when I have offered all my stuff and I'll feel comortable leaving.
The next morning during service, it struck me that maybe my mom was done when she died, that she had reached that point too. But then I thought that that didn't make sense. It didn't make sense that my mom's "purpose" in life was to raise three kids and to only be there for 6 years of the youngest one's life. That just didn't sound right.
But then I thought about the fact that she had cancer. Maybe she had a purpose in life, maybe it was fulfilled, maybe it wasn't, but then cancer showed up, and it changed things. Maybe by the time she actually did die she really was done: with fighting cancer, with saying goodbye to her friends and family, with accepting that she couldn't live this life anymore. Maybe if she kept living after the point at which she was supposed to die she would have suffered, through worse cancer or something else that no one knew about. I don't really know. It just feels like maybe she just died when she died, that it was her time, that her life was done, even if none of us wanted it to be.
I don't think it makes it any easier but I guess it feels more matter of fact, like there wasn't a choice, like we didn't lose her, like she just took another step, in a road she was already on.
Sejiki
I was waiting for the 71 to take me to the zen center for Sejiki when my friend called to say she wasn't going to make it in time for the ceremony. She mentioned that she was disappointed because she had enjoyed it so much last year, and hoped that I would enjoy it. After I got off the phone with her I realized that I was going to a ceremony, and it was kind of for dead people or, at least, for "spirits" in another realm.
"Uh oh," I thought. "This might bring up some stuff for me."
I thought about the idea that I should have put my mom's name in with the list of people who had died but then I thought that I didn't really want my mom to be at the Sejiki ceremony. It didn't feel right. To me, Sejiki was a Halloween party, and my mom didn't belong there.
But then I remembered my friend describing how she had liked all the chanting in the ceremony and I thought, "This isn't a Halloween party, this is a ceremony, to kind of welcome the spirits of the underworld. This is a serious ceremony, not a Halloween party."
So then I decided I didn't want to go. I didn't want to be in the Buddha hall, crying, at Sejiki. Sejiki is definitely a ceremony but it's also kind of funny- everything is all turned around and everyone is in costume so there's kind of this playfulness or lightness to it, it's borderline tongue-in-cheek. I didn't want to be the one all solemn at it, I didn't want to be the downer and I really didn't feel like crying while everyone else was in costume and playful. I considered stalling so that I'd be too late to get a seat at the ceremony, but I was early, impossibly early to be "late." So then I considered sitting on the steps outside the zen center until it was all over. But it was raining so I couldn't do that either. Instead, I just walked in, and was greeted so warmly by the work leader that I immediately forgot about trying to not go to the ceremony.
As soon as I stepped in to the Budhha hall, several faces looked up at me and smiled. Then I saw my friend, who was "one third" of our "Team Triple Treasure" costume, sitting right in the front row and I was so excited that she was there (I thought she was going to be late too) that I just walked across the room and sat down.
There was a creepy ghost sitting next to me whose face I literally could not see. And over to my right, my friend was a pinata or a fiesta, I couldn't tell. There were random costumes, goofy hats, and someone who seemed to be playing the part of a "new guest student" enthusiastically attempting the forms with such gusto it was comical. I just kept looking around, seeing all the fun things that were happening, just watching the scene, and forgetting completely that this was a ceremony.
But then the procession started and I heard the familiar "ting" of the bells but it was followed by this harsh thump, which I really didn't like. This thump kept coming, like a mummy or a dead person, stumping their body across the floor. As soon as the abbess walked in the room with the procession I surmised that it was her, intentionally hitting the floor with the stick she was carrying in her hand. Then I heard the bells again, but they rang out of time with each other, and as I watched the people ringing them, it seemed like they were intentionally misaligned, like they were trying to create a sense of non-harmony of unsettledness. And I pictured all these hungry ghosts, all these spirits living between two worlds, wanting to be in one but feeling pulled in by another. I felt really unsettled and uneasy and I remembered that I don't like scary movies and that I always cover my eyes at these parts.
And then the abbess said something about inviting the spirits in to the room or welcoming them or something and there was all this misalignment of noise and sort of a cacophany and I pictured the ghosts swirling around the room in a frenzy. But in that same image, I saw my mom. She wasn't swirling around the room like a phantom, she was just like she is in the picture and I thought, "This is kind of unfair. It's not really fair to make all these ghosts seem all unhappy and misaligned and swirling around. They're just dead, it's not really their fault. They're not really ghosts, they're just people, who died."
And then I acknowledged that my mom was a person who had died. I guessed she was a ghost, if in this ceremony we were being categorized as the living and the dead, she definitely was in that realm, not this one, and that was kind of sad. She's over there, not here. But at the same time, I felt a connection to her, and to all the "ghosts." We're all going to be them some day, it seemed unfair to keep seeing them as experiencing such suffering. But I also knew that really, she was over there, and I was here. She was dead, she was with all those ghosts swirling around the room. My mother was one of the dead people in the room.
I really didn't like that and I started to cry but I really didn't want to cry, so I swallowed my sadness and rubbed my palms against my thighs and fought back the tears. But then I remembered that it was in this same spot in the zendo, almost two years ago, that I "sat" for the first time. And I knew that it was this act of "sitting" that first caused me to cry, and then allowed me to continue to cry when I heard that someone in the community had been moved across the street to hospice. And I knew that back then, even though I might have thought that I was crying for the person who was losing someone, really, it was the beginning of my own process of grieving- that back then was the beginning of me mourning the loss of my mom. So I let myself cry, a little bit, and then we started chanting.
As soon as we started chanting, the baby in the room started to cry, and I think we all kind of laughed about that. It was nice to have some life in this ceremony, it was nice to have someone not like all the chanting sounds, it was nice to hear someone kind of prefer the harmonious and happy side of things.
After the chanting, names were read. It was beautiful to hear these names, pronounced the way they were, and those names were placed on the altar, for us to offer incense to, at the end of the ceremony.
By the end of the ceremony, I was over all the drama about my mom and had moved on to being excited about my costume and what smelled like macaroni and cheese for dinner. Member three of Team Triple Treasure showed up, we took pictures, and there was chocolate pudding for dessert. I guess in the end, it kind of just was a Halloween party but I also have to accept that my mom belonged there too. I guess she's a spirit, I just don't really want to think of her that way. I still want her to be real, and alive, and somewhere that I can visit her.
"Uh oh," I thought. "This might bring up some stuff for me."
I thought about the idea that I should have put my mom's name in with the list of people who had died but then I thought that I didn't really want my mom to be at the Sejiki ceremony. It didn't feel right. To me, Sejiki was a Halloween party, and my mom didn't belong there.
But then I remembered my friend describing how she had liked all the chanting in the ceremony and I thought, "This isn't a Halloween party, this is a ceremony, to kind of welcome the spirits of the underworld. This is a serious ceremony, not a Halloween party."
So then I decided I didn't want to go. I didn't want to be in the Buddha hall, crying, at Sejiki. Sejiki is definitely a ceremony but it's also kind of funny- everything is all turned around and everyone is in costume so there's kind of this playfulness or lightness to it, it's borderline tongue-in-cheek. I didn't want to be the one all solemn at it, I didn't want to be the downer and I really didn't feel like crying while everyone else was in costume and playful. I considered stalling so that I'd be too late to get a seat at the ceremony, but I was early, impossibly early to be "late." So then I considered sitting on the steps outside the zen center until it was all over. But it was raining so I couldn't do that either. Instead, I just walked in, and was greeted so warmly by the work leader that I immediately forgot about trying to not go to the ceremony.
As soon as I stepped in to the Budhha hall, several faces looked up at me and smiled. Then I saw my friend, who was "one third" of our "Team Triple Treasure" costume, sitting right in the front row and I was so excited that she was there (I thought she was going to be late too) that I just walked across the room and sat down.
There was a creepy ghost sitting next to me whose face I literally could not see. And over to my right, my friend was a pinata or a fiesta, I couldn't tell. There were random costumes, goofy hats, and someone who seemed to be playing the part of a "new guest student" enthusiastically attempting the forms with such gusto it was comical. I just kept looking around, seeing all the fun things that were happening, just watching the scene, and forgetting completely that this was a ceremony.
But then the procession started and I heard the familiar "ting" of the bells but it was followed by this harsh thump, which I really didn't like. This thump kept coming, like a mummy or a dead person, stumping their body across the floor. As soon as the abbess walked in the room with the procession I surmised that it was her, intentionally hitting the floor with the stick she was carrying in her hand. Then I heard the bells again, but they rang out of time with each other, and as I watched the people ringing them, it seemed like they were intentionally misaligned, like they were trying to create a sense of non-harmony of unsettledness. And I pictured all these hungry ghosts, all these spirits living between two worlds, wanting to be in one but feeling pulled in by another. I felt really unsettled and uneasy and I remembered that I don't like scary movies and that I always cover my eyes at these parts.
And then the abbess said something about inviting the spirits in to the room or welcoming them or something and there was all this misalignment of noise and sort of a cacophany and I pictured the ghosts swirling around the room in a frenzy. But in that same image, I saw my mom. She wasn't swirling around the room like a phantom, she was just like she is in the picture and I thought, "This is kind of unfair. It's not really fair to make all these ghosts seem all unhappy and misaligned and swirling around. They're just dead, it's not really their fault. They're not really ghosts, they're just people, who died."
And then I acknowledged that my mom was a person who had died. I guessed she was a ghost, if in this ceremony we were being categorized as the living and the dead, she definitely was in that realm, not this one, and that was kind of sad. She's over there, not here. But at the same time, I felt a connection to her, and to all the "ghosts." We're all going to be them some day, it seemed unfair to keep seeing them as experiencing such suffering. But I also knew that really, she was over there, and I was here. She was dead, she was with all those ghosts swirling around the room. My mother was one of the dead people in the room.
I really didn't like that and I started to cry but I really didn't want to cry, so I swallowed my sadness and rubbed my palms against my thighs and fought back the tears. But then I remembered that it was in this same spot in the zendo, almost two years ago, that I "sat" for the first time. And I knew that it was this act of "sitting" that first caused me to cry, and then allowed me to continue to cry when I heard that someone in the community had been moved across the street to hospice. And I knew that back then, even though I might have thought that I was crying for the person who was losing someone, really, it was the beginning of my own process of grieving- that back then was the beginning of me mourning the loss of my mom. So I let myself cry, a little bit, and then we started chanting.
As soon as we started chanting, the baby in the room started to cry, and I think we all kind of laughed about that. It was nice to have some life in this ceremony, it was nice to have someone not like all the chanting sounds, it was nice to hear someone kind of prefer the harmonious and happy side of things.
After the chanting, names were read. It was beautiful to hear these names, pronounced the way they were, and those names were placed on the altar, for us to offer incense to, at the end of the ceremony.
By the end of the ceremony, I was over all the drama about my mom and had moved on to being excited about my costume and what smelled like macaroni and cheese for dinner. Member three of Team Triple Treasure showed up, we took pictures, and there was chocolate pudding for dessert. I guess in the end, it kind of just was a Halloween party but I also have to accept that my mom belonged there too. I guess she's a spirit, I just don't really want to think of her that way. I still want her to be real, and alive, and somewhere that I can visit her.
Sunday, October 21, 2012
The Great Zendo Experiment...
This week, I received an email from YUZ (Young Urban Zen) titled: The Great Zendo Experiment.
In it, one of the leaders explained that YUZ was going to try meeting in the zendo for its next meeting. It included details of timing and asked for some volunteers to help set up the zendo and take it down that night. The reason we were trying to meet in the zendo was because we were getting a bit too big for our current space and wanted to see if the zendo might be a place where we could meet instead.
I was excited when I got the email. I liked the idea of us meeting in the zendo. As someone who was so intimidated by the zendo that I sat in the gaitan for three months, I wanted others to see how warm the zendo was, to see beyond it rules and forms, to understand that it was a welcoming place and that, in all honesty, it was just the basement of a building. It was sacred, but it was sacred because of the people in it and the way we set it up; it wasn't there to exclude you, it was there to support you.
Other people in YUZ weren't so keen on the idea. They felt like the zendo was the one place at the zen center where they were quiet, and they thought it might feel weird to be in there, talking. Others felt that it was a sacred place and shouldn't be used for something which didn't feel exactly...sacred. And others worried about our impact on the residents of the building. If we were too loud after our meeting when we were next door to the zen center, what kind of ruckus would we cause if we were actually in the building?
But on Monday night, we all showed up anyway, to be part of this experiment.
I got there a little late and was surprised to see people still outside the building, on the corner, talking. But talking is kind of what we do a lot of at YUZ, so I gave hugs all around and walked in the Laguna street entrance of the building, in to the gaitan. Shortly after I walked in, a good friend of mine walked in, and as she was hugging her friend, they started laughing and talking animatedly.
I immediately "shooshed" her, focused on the fact that we were standing right next to the men's dorm and afraid that we were making noise that would keep others awake.
"Sorry," I said. "It's just that we're, basically, standing outside someone's bedroom door, talking."
"It's okay," she said, and got quiet.
And then I heard talking from the zendo and I realized it was 7:30 and probably no one was actually sleeping. And then I thought about who I had just shooshed and how we had been talking just that past weekend about how even though the zen center sometimes feels like a quiet place, even though it sometimes feels like you're supposed to quiet your emotions, it's actually a place where you're supposed to feel your emotions, where you're not supposed to repress them. And I thought, "Oh my gosh, and I just shooshed her, for hugging and laughing with a friend!"
I went back over to her and apologized to her for shooshing her and then I hugged her hello and we walked in to the zendo together.
The zendo looked great. The leaders had moved it around just enough that it felt like a different space, but not so much that it felt like we weren't in the zendo. I went over to a corner spot on an upper tan and bowed to my cushion. But then I noticed it was a flat cushion, so I grabbed the nice firm one from the next zabutan over, and swapped them. Shortly afterward, someone came to sit in the spot next to me, where I had just placed the flat cushion. He immediately remarked on how excited he was that he got that seat, because he knew it was a good cushion because he had just sat on it during afternoon zazen.
"Oh," I said. "I just swapped them. That one is really flat. I should put it back."
"That's okay," he said. "I have a support cushion," and he sat down.
We talked about how it felt to be in the zendo and he remarked on how many people were there that night. I thought for sure that there were fewer people there that night and started to count. It was weird, we were actually big, definitely more than 40, but it didn't feel big like it had in our old space. I smiled as I looked around the zendo and saw people sitting on the floor, leaning back against the wall of the tans. I felt a little bit like we were in high school, sitting on the quad at lunch. It was actually really sweet to see people seem so relaxed in the zendo. One of the leaders rang the bell and we began to sit. It was kind of weird to sit in the zendo facing out, but at the same time it was normal because we always sit facing out at YUZ. After our sit, we introduced ourselves and everyone echoed everyone's name back like we always do.
Then the leader passed around the reading for that night which was 'Not Always So,' by Suzuki Roshi. I laughed inside at this- how fitting for us to be in the zendo, to be in this 'sacred' place in a whole new way: 'not always so' indeed. In it, the reading talked about how water is not always water; to fish it is a home, to someone dying of thirst, it is life (or something to that effect) and I felt even more grateful that he had chosen this for our reading.
Before we broke in to small groups, the leader explained the importance of the cushions that we were sitting on. He explained that many of the cushions fit the people who sit on them in a particular way and that they need them to support their zazen. He asked that we be aware of and careful with the cushions- that we try to keep them in the same place that we found them.
I turned to the guy next to me, "Can I put back the cushion?"
"I think we'll have time at the end," he suggested.
"No," I said. "I need to put it back now. I need to be sure that it isn't disturbed."
He handed me the floppy one, I handed him the firm one.
"Karma cleared," he said, and smiled.
Then we broke in to small groups. The leader explained about not walking in front of the altar and I walked all the way around to my group's area, near the doshi door. Once there, I saw a bunch of brown cushions on the floor and thought, "Uh oh, those are, like, doshi cushions or something. They shouldn't be on the floor..." but then I thought, "Not always so. The leaders set it up this way, they'd move them if there was a problem with it."
As we sat down to talk, I cringed as I saw someone's bare feet rest on the meal board. But then I reminded myself, "Not always so...Right now, maybe that meal board is just a piece of wood, and that person is just sitting. I know for sure that they have no idea that what they are doing is considered disrespectful or inconsiderate. Let it go."
We talked in our group about the reading, about our lives, about our questions. We shared ideas and answers and experiences, and then the bell rang and we came back to the larger group.
We were a little pressed for time at that point and there were two more things that the leaders had planned for us to do that evening. So, instead of us sharing out in the large group all the things that had come up in the small groups, he asked if there were any big epiphanies that anyone felt that they really needed to share. Of course, someone did.
Then one of the members of the group (who was going to be moving away and whose last night it was) shared their experience with YUZ, and their gratitude.
Then the leaders asked for feedback from the group on the space. All in all, the response was positive. Many people shared how intimate it felt, even though the space was large, and a few people said that they had their misgivings about meeting in the zendo but were pleasantly surprised. One person suggested that we do some sort of a "zendo" training for new people, so that they would know about the meal boards.
The leader explained that there seemed to be enough people in the group who were familiar with the forms that we might not need to have a formal "traning" each time. He explained that there is a place in this practice for relaying the forms to others as they come up.
"Oh," I thought. "I totally could have explained to that guy about the meal boards and his feet. It wouldn't have been me being all fixed on things being one way, it would have been me sharing my practice with him."
The leaders also mentioned how we were able to meet in the zendo the way it was; that modifications had been made to the dividers so that they could easily be moved and that the leaders at City Center had encouraged us trying out the zendo as a meeting space.
I was touched by this. "They wanted us to meet in here? I thought we were just the loud group that used 300 Page street for free."
And then I remembered how the abbess had come up to where a bunch of us were hanging out after the dharma talk on Saturday, and remarked on what a nice energy she felt the group had.
"Maybe we're okay," I thought. "Maybe they like us."
I wasn't watching my clock but it must have been getting later and later because the leaders seemed to be both wanting to hear our feedback but needing to close the meeting. I couldn't help it, I had to raise my hand.
"Can we maybe walk that extra 100 yards across the street to Samovar to do our talking after the meeting is over? That way we could keep talking and we wouldn't bother the residents and, well, no one could really get mad at us because, well, it's a public place."
Shortly after that, the leaders closed the meeting and asked for volunteers to help return the zendo to its original state. They had asked for this help in an earlier email and I had chosen not to do it. I knew it would mean getting home late and I knew I had to get up for zazen in the morning. But when they asked for volunteers then, my hand shot up. I wanted to do everything in my power to make this work. I wanted the zendo to be totally untouched. I wanted it to be like we had come and gone and no one had even noticed that we were there. Mostly though, I wanted everyone's zazen in the morning to be undisturbed. I wanted them to be able to come to their place and sit, without any extra thoughts about cushions or space.
It was really interesting to put the zendo back together. I loved seeing the different degrees of fading of the wood on the floor where the tatamis had been all these years. I loved seeing how the tatamis fit with the dividers and I really loved the latches that held them together. It reminded me again that this was just a place, it was wood and metal and, whatever tatamis are made of (I've just been informed that they're made of bamboo).
As we tried to return the the cushions back to their spots in the zendo, I started to freak out. I worried that cushions and nametags had been moved, and I had no idea how to put them back exactly as they had been. I looked at the seating chart outside the zendo but that only helped for a few spots and some of the spots on the chart didn't match our actual experience with where we had seen people sitting. I didn't know what to do. "Maybe we should take a picture next time," one of us suggested.
"Should we write a note to Valorie, letting her know that we tried our best?" I asked. "Or is that me trying to control the situation?"
The leaders smiled at me, which to me meant, "We tried our best, that's all we can do."
I went home worried, and noticed this; noticed how invested I was in this going well, how much I wanted this to work, noticed how much I wanted to "please" the "leaders" of City Center and how much I cared about the zendo.
The next morning, as I was walking in to the zendo, I saw someone walking out, and I thought it was weird. Then, as I was bowing to the zendo, I noticed them walking back in, with a cushion in their hand.
"Darnit," I thought. "We didn't put their cushion back in the right place. And now their cushion is somewhere in the zendo and they don't have the time to go and find it. They have to sit zazen on some random cushion, and that's a total bummer. Their zazen, is a bummer now."
I knew in my head that it wasn't the end of the world, that everyone in the zendo knows this practice, knows that having your cushion moved is a dharma gate, not a bummer. But still, it seemed like a crummy way to start your day.
I didn't want them to feel crummy. I didn't want them to think that someone had moved their cushion in carelessness or apathy, I didn't want them to start their day with that kind of a feeling. So I emailed them and told them what had happened and apologized.
And that was that. That was the end of the Great Zendo Epxeriment. I have no idea if we're going to meet in there ever again.
In it, one of the leaders explained that YUZ was going to try meeting in the zendo for its next meeting. It included details of timing and asked for some volunteers to help set up the zendo and take it down that night. The reason we were trying to meet in the zendo was because we were getting a bit too big for our current space and wanted to see if the zendo might be a place where we could meet instead.
I was excited when I got the email. I liked the idea of us meeting in the zendo. As someone who was so intimidated by the zendo that I sat in the gaitan for three months, I wanted others to see how warm the zendo was, to see beyond it rules and forms, to understand that it was a welcoming place and that, in all honesty, it was just the basement of a building. It was sacred, but it was sacred because of the people in it and the way we set it up; it wasn't there to exclude you, it was there to support you.
Other people in YUZ weren't so keen on the idea. They felt like the zendo was the one place at the zen center where they were quiet, and they thought it might feel weird to be in there, talking. Others felt that it was a sacred place and shouldn't be used for something which didn't feel exactly...sacred. And others worried about our impact on the residents of the building. If we were too loud after our meeting when we were next door to the zen center, what kind of ruckus would we cause if we were actually in the building?
But on Monday night, we all showed up anyway, to be part of this experiment.
I got there a little late and was surprised to see people still outside the building, on the corner, talking. But talking is kind of what we do a lot of at YUZ, so I gave hugs all around and walked in the Laguna street entrance of the building, in to the gaitan. Shortly after I walked in, a good friend of mine walked in, and as she was hugging her friend, they started laughing and talking animatedly.
I immediately "shooshed" her, focused on the fact that we were standing right next to the men's dorm and afraid that we were making noise that would keep others awake.
"Sorry," I said. "It's just that we're, basically, standing outside someone's bedroom door, talking."
"It's okay," she said, and got quiet.
And then I heard talking from the zendo and I realized it was 7:30 and probably no one was actually sleeping. And then I thought about who I had just shooshed and how we had been talking just that past weekend about how even though the zen center sometimes feels like a quiet place, even though it sometimes feels like you're supposed to quiet your emotions, it's actually a place where you're supposed to feel your emotions, where you're not supposed to repress them. And I thought, "Oh my gosh, and I just shooshed her, for hugging and laughing with a friend!"
I went back over to her and apologized to her for shooshing her and then I hugged her hello and we walked in to the zendo together.
The zendo looked great. The leaders had moved it around just enough that it felt like a different space, but not so much that it felt like we weren't in the zendo. I went over to a corner spot on an upper tan and bowed to my cushion. But then I noticed it was a flat cushion, so I grabbed the nice firm one from the next zabutan over, and swapped them. Shortly afterward, someone came to sit in the spot next to me, where I had just placed the flat cushion. He immediately remarked on how excited he was that he got that seat, because he knew it was a good cushion because he had just sat on it during afternoon zazen.
"Oh," I said. "I just swapped them. That one is really flat. I should put it back."
"That's okay," he said. "I have a support cushion," and he sat down.
We talked about how it felt to be in the zendo and he remarked on how many people were there that night. I thought for sure that there were fewer people there that night and started to count. It was weird, we were actually big, definitely more than 40, but it didn't feel big like it had in our old space. I smiled as I looked around the zendo and saw people sitting on the floor, leaning back against the wall of the tans. I felt a little bit like we were in high school, sitting on the quad at lunch. It was actually really sweet to see people seem so relaxed in the zendo. One of the leaders rang the bell and we began to sit. It was kind of weird to sit in the zendo facing out, but at the same time it was normal because we always sit facing out at YUZ. After our sit, we introduced ourselves and everyone echoed everyone's name back like we always do.
Then the leader passed around the reading for that night which was 'Not Always So,' by Suzuki Roshi. I laughed inside at this- how fitting for us to be in the zendo, to be in this 'sacred' place in a whole new way: 'not always so' indeed. In it, the reading talked about how water is not always water; to fish it is a home, to someone dying of thirst, it is life (or something to that effect) and I felt even more grateful that he had chosen this for our reading.
Before we broke in to small groups, the leader explained the importance of the cushions that we were sitting on. He explained that many of the cushions fit the people who sit on them in a particular way and that they need them to support their zazen. He asked that we be aware of and careful with the cushions- that we try to keep them in the same place that we found them.
I turned to the guy next to me, "Can I put back the cushion?"
"I think we'll have time at the end," he suggested.
"No," I said. "I need to put it back now. I need to be sure that it isn't disturbed."
He handed me the floppy one, I handed him the firm one.
"Karma cleared," he said, and smiled.
Then we broke in to small groups. The leader explained about not walking in front of the altar and I walked all the way around to my group's area, near the doshi door. Once there, I saw a bunch of brown cushions on the floor and thought, "Uh oh, those are, like, doshi cushions or something. They shouldn't be on the floor..." but then I thought, "Not always so. The leaders set it up this way, they'd move them if there was a problem with it."
As we sat down to talk, I cringed as I saw someone's bare feet rest on the meal board. But then I reminded myself, "Not always so...Right now, maybe that meal board is just a piece of wood, and that person is just sitting. I know for sure that they have no idea that what they are doing is considered disrespectful or inconsiderate. Let it go."
We talked in our group about the reading, about our lives, about our questions. We shared ideas and answers and experiences, and then the bell rang and we came back to the larger group.
We were a little pressed for time at that point and there were two more things that the leaders had planned for us to do that evening. So, instead of us sharing out in the large group all the things that had come up in the small groups, he asked if there were any big epiphanies that anyone felt that they really needed to share. Of course, someone did.
Then one of the members of the group (who was going to be moving away and whose last night it was) shared their experience with YUZ, and their gratitude.
Then the leaders asked for feedback from the group on the space. All in all, the response was positive. Many people shared how intimate it felt, even though the space was large, and a few people said that they had their misgivings about meeting in the zendo but were pleasantly surprised. One person suggested that we do some sort of a "zendo" training for new people, so that they would know about the meal boards.
The leader explained that there seemed to be enough people in the group who were familiar with the forms that we might not need to have a formal "traning" each time. He explained that there is a place in this practice for relaying the forms to others as they come up.
"Oh," I thought. "I totally could have explained to that guy about the meal boards and his feet. It wouldn't have been me being all fixed on things being one way, it would have been me sharing my practice with him."
The leaders also mentioned how we were able to meet in the zendo the way it was; that modifications had been made to the dividers so that they could easily be moved and that the leaders at City Center had encouraged us trying out the zendo as a meeting space.
I was touched by this. "They wanted us to meet in here? I thought we were just the loud group that used 300 Page street for free."
And then I remembered how the abbess had come up to where a bunch of us were hanging out after the dharma talk on Saturday, and remarked on what a nice energy she felt the group had.
"Maybe we're okay," I thought. "Maybe they like us."
I wasn't watching my clock but it must have been getting later and later because the leaders seemed to be both wanting to hear our feedback but needing to close the meeting. I couldn't help it, I had to raise my hand.
"Can we maybe walk that extra 100 yards across the street to Samovar to do our talking after the meeting is over? That way we could keep talking and we wouldn't bother the residents and, well, no one could really get mad at us because, well, it's a public place."
Shortly after that, the leaders closed the meeting and asked for volunteers to help return the zendo to its original state. They had asked for this help in an earlier email and I had chosen not to do it. I knew it would mean getting home late and I knew I had to get up for zazen in the morning. But when they asked for volunteers then, my hand shot up. I wanted to do everything in my power to make this work. I wanted the zendo to be totally untouched. I wanted it to be like we had come and gone and no one had even noticed that we were there. Mostly though, I wanted everyone's zazen in the morning to be undisturbed. I wanted them to be able to come to their place and sit, without any extra thoughts about cushions or space.
It was really interesting to put the zendo back together. I loved seeing the different degrees of fading of the wood on the floor where the tatamis had been all these years. I loved seeing how the tatamis fit with the dividers and I really loved the latches that held them together. It reminded me again that this was just a place, it was wood and metal and, whatever tatamis are made of (I've just been informed that they're made of bamboo).
As we tried to return the the cushions back to their spots in the zendo, I started to freak out. I worried that cushions and nametags had been moved, and I had no idea how to put them back exactly as they had been. I looked at the seating chart outside the zendo but that only helped for a few spots and some of the spots on the chart didn't match our actual experience with where we had seen people sitting. I didn't know what to do. "Maybe we should take a picture next time," one of us suggested.
"Should we write a note to Valorie, letting her know that we tried our best?" I asked. "Or is that me trying to control the situation?"
The leaders smiled at me, which to me meant, "We tried our best, that's all we can do."
I went home worried, and noticed this; noticed how invested I was in this going well, how much I wanted this to work, noticed how much I wanted to "please" the "leaders" of City Center and how much I cared about the zendo.
The next morning, as I was walking in to the zendo, I saw someone walking out, and I thought it was weird. Then, as I was bowing to the zendo, I noticed them walking back in, with a cushion in their hand.
"Darnit," I thought. "We didn't put their cushion back in the right place. And now their cushion is somewhere in the zendo and they don't have the time to go and find it. They have to sit zazen on some random cushion, and that's a total bummer. Their zazen, is a bummer now."
I knew in my head that it wasn't the end of the world, that everyone in the zendo knows this practice, knows that having your cushion moved is a dharma gate, not a bummer. But still, it seemed like a crummy way to start your day.
I didn't want them to feel crummy. I didn't want them to think that someone had moved their cushion in carelessness or apathy, I didn't want them to start their day with that kind of a feeling. So I emailed them and told them what had happened and apologized.
And that was that. That was the end of the Great Zendo Epxeriment. I have no idea if we're going to meet in there ever again.
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