Life Vows Sesshin I

It has taken a few years of focus and inquiry to articulate the vows that are guiding this life.

I have a heckova time doing that thing people sometimes call "life visioning". This was very popular in the New Thought church I attended for a time, and I was always pretty terrible at it. I wonder if that's not from my years in social work making treatment plans, with their focus on achievable, measurable goals and objectives. Or maybe I don't engage much in fantasy (definitely rumination and catastrophizing, but fantasy not so much). Anyway, when the New Thought life visioning exercises would ask me to "imagine your DREAM job, the most AMAZING life, the PERFECT life with EVERYTHING you want" I would tend to sputter and start mumbling into my shirt.

Which is fine. Vows that are bite-sized and realistic are no less important. And who wants to be a vow-breaker?

Chozen Roshi said in one of the few portions of video that exist of Maezumi Roshi, he is interviewed about whether Buddhists believe in a soul that endures through lifetimes. He apparently paused for a moment and said that it is not a soul, but the Vow that continues.

Shrine to the Ancestors at Great Vow Zen Monastery

What vow could I possibly make that would continue -- intentionally -- beyond this lifetime? Could I make a Great Vow?

Here is what came out of the 2008 Life Vows Sesshin. A vow/poem. First a smidgeon of background:

It may have been my second sesshin ever. At that time, the monastery was allowing some very limited use of a hot tub for women on the last night of Sesshin, men the last day. Its use was to be a sacred bathing process, and to include vigorous Japanese-inspired scrubbing in the shower prior to entering the tub, and three full prostrations to Kannon before and after bathing.

I recall going to bathe on the last night, and feeling the body's bows after bathing to be much like a wet noodle! All that tension from a week of Zazen just soaked right out! I recall the week being overcast and Portland drizzly every day, except that night, the skies cleared (just like my mind!), and I could see the stars when I walked outside with my head steaming from the hot bath.

I also recall thinking I would easily go to sleep afterwards, but instead I found myself lying vibrantly awake, not because of any sot of rumination or anxiety, although a small piece of my mind wondered if I was having a manic episode (despite the fact that I do not have bipolar disorder). I could almost hear a talk I downloaded in which Chozen Roshi describes this phenomenon of joriki, and when this happens at night and you can't sleep to: "Get up and SIT!"

So I did.

Also, on Thursday morning of the Sesshin there had been the monthly Jizo ceremony, in which they uncover a large golden Jizo statue, and he looks out lovingly over the Zendo for the remainder of the week. The poem refers to this as well.

Anyway, here is the poem/vow from that retreat:

I Am Not a Thing, But a Process

Bowing three times to Kwan Yin

Steeping in the waters of compassion

and the heat of practice.

Brewing the body and essence of Jomon

Accepting all that is.

Aspects of Life Vow emerge One by one, like stars in the night,

As I emerge to look, listen, and love.

I have only to name them and connect the constellations:

Practice, Truth, Gratitude, Service, Healing, Receptivity, Creativity,

Liberation.

My guides.

Orienting to Openness.

Returning to sit,

Gestating under the golden gaze

of Jizo Bodhisattva,

A warm, undefended heart.

I vow to relieve suffering.

The vow to relieve suffering seems to be the North Star vow. The one that I can be sure of. The one that shines the brightest, even when my mind is cloudy.

It took a whole 'nother year of practice and a whole 'nother Life Vows Sesshin to articulate the vows I currently live with. They got refined at this last week of sesshin, and there are even some additions.

More on that next post(s).