Myriad Jizos

Grasses, Trees and the Great Earth Sesshin.  This sesshin is also focused on Jizo Bodhisattva.  It's a kinder, gentler sesshin, in that there is a great deal of outdoor meditation.  There is a large meadow, and a generous woods, and everyone grabs a little 3'x3' section of tarp and heads out with their cushion to a spot for most of the meditation periods.

Except for the one block of meditation after the lunch break when we were making ceramic Jizo statues for the Jizo garden.

The taller ones are the main molded ceramic Jizos made at the Monastery.  Articles of clothing are made for them during Jizo ceremonies to honor children who have died.  

One of the amazing Japanese Jizos at the entrance of the Jizo Garden

There are many kinds of Jizos all along the trails and tucked away in the Jizo Garden.  

Chozen Roshi would talk about Jizo in her Dharma talks, and then we'd go make them.  I had no idea we would be doing crafts at sesshin.

She spoke about Jizo's "division bodies" or "transformation bodies".  Whenever there is a need, and a person calls out for Jizo to help them,  Jizo comes to their aid in whatever form is needed for that person.

"...When someone is suffering and cries out even silently for help, a transformation body is born because of that request.  How many transformation bodies are there?  As many beings as there are right now who are in distress and asking for help, that is, right now, the number of transformation bodies.  

This has important implications... If we are in need of spiritual help, we should ask for it.  Our asking is the causefor the arising of division bodies.  If we don't ask, not only are we stuck in our own pride, but we are blocking the arising of bodhisattvas like Jizo.  

We all have had the experience of being transformed by becoming aware of someone's vulnerability and suffering.  We are often not aware of their plight until they ask for help." 

So our ceramic Jizos are little division bodies, being made for the garden and everyone who comes through there.  Each day, more little "division bodies" would be created.  I loved to go and visit them on the breaks as they dried in the sun.  Some of them were bisque fired, glazed and completed by the end of the week.  Some were left from last year, and other people glazed those and put them out in the Jizo garden, dedicating them to someone or something.

This is my overwhelming favorite.  Clearly a division body -- a Jizo called into being by and for parents with tantruming children.    The person who made this later shared that her whole sesshin was spent struggling with her own tantruming child mind.

I don't know who made the Kitty Jizo with Mice.  But wow.  

Some pieces from last year that were bisque fired but did not get to be glazed.  

Some Jizos from a previous retreat in which people carved Jizos from stone.  

The Path.  It is like an Easter egg hunt out there in the Jizo garden.

 Here are some of the ones that got finished during the week and placed in the garden:

Living Bodhisattva

I want to share something significant.  It's another post about a therapist-teacher in my "lineage": Marsha Linehan.  I don't use the term Bodhisattva lightly.  Marsha Linehan is responsible for decreasing suffering on a grand scale, people.  The occasion for this post is that she has now "come out" about her own history of severe mental illness.

Courageous

I have been in the field of mental health long enough to have seen how things were before her therapy, DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) was widely used.  And it was ugly.    

Marsha Linehan developed DBT in the early 1990's for people with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).   Prior to DBT, people with this diagnosis were pretty much the lepers of mental health.  Mostly women, usually trauma survivors, some broad-brush features of BPD are:  Extreme emotional sensitivity -- like having no skin -- and the concomitant extreme ups and downs in mood, a tendency to see things in a very polarized way, engaging in self-injurious behavior and / or frequent suicide attempts.  Therapists in the past did not have effective tools to think about or deal with this high-risk, high-suffering population for whom traditional therapies often did not work.  So therapists -- in the face of this tremendous, excruciating pain, ostensibly with the responsibility to relieve that pain, and an inability to do so -- would become frustrated.  Sometimes even experiencing rage at the patient.  Unable to tolerate or even admit their own helplessness and rage, they would often blame the patient for "manipulation,"  not wanting or not trying to get well.  And reduce their behaviors to "trying to get attention."

This is probably why she couldn't have "come out" a minute sooner.

This article reveals Linehan's account of her own 2-year(!) psychiatric hospitalization in the 1960's, which included electroconvulsive therapy, hard core antipsychotic and sedative medications, Freudian therapy and isolation.  Truly the dark ages*.  Things maybe got a little better in that by the 80's and 90's they stopped keeping people with BPD in the hospital for long durations.  Though that didn't stop therapists from dealing with their own helplessness by turning people with BPD into caricatures, or worse.

I have heard colleagues on the crisis phone line I used to work for verbally demean clients, and after hanging up, feel justified and bemoan how the caller was "such a Borderline."  Also have heard of clinical supervisors end all discussion of cases because they were "just a Borderline."  Therapists in general were so hostile to people with Borderline that it became a pejorative term in the field.  Early in my career I witnessed a woman with this diagnosis in a hospital being strapped to a gurney.  There are some situations in which this might be appropriate to protect someone from self-injuring. It was the extra words that the hospital employees used, getting close to her face and saying, "There, now you made us tie you down.  Now you got what you wanted.  Are you happy now?  Huh?"  Remember, many (not all) of these people are survivors of violence, including childhood sexual abuse.  It makes my guts churn just thinking about it.

So here comes DBT treatment:  It's a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy / Zen fusion.  Marsha Linehan, a clinical psychologist and researcher had also been practicing contemplative prayer in the Catholic tradition for decades.  She had also become a serious Zen student.  She took on this patient population that others wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole, and figured out how to operationalize and teach the skills of mindfulness, step by step.

The dialectic in dialectical behavior therapy is an ongoing search for synthesis of polarities.  The primary dialectic in this treatment is Acceptance and Change.  The revolutionary part of this treatment, in my mind, was the acceptance part.  Half of the treatment is about expressing compassion, and validating the patient's experience, sometimes called "seeing the function in the dysfunction."  But this is only half.  Acknowledging and validating someone's feelings is indeed powerful but in some cases, there's an urgency and a sense in the client coming in with REAL life-or-death problems that need SOMETHING.  NOW!!!  DBT includes many many practical skills to place in clients' hands.  Oh that didn't work?  Here's ten, twenty, fifty more things you can try.

This is another primary dialectic

Mostly, though, DBT is for therapists.  It gives therapists a structure within which to work.  It requires that this work be done by team.  That there be a classroom component for teaching skills in addition to the individual therapy component.  And it requires that team to practice the skills themselves, and on each other in a regular meeting.  Marsha Linehan wrote a textbook (dense as hell), and a skills training manual.  The training manual details out step-by-step, session-by-session how to run a DBT class.  The textbook guides the creation and maintenance of a DBT program.  A handful of colleagues and I followed these to the letter in the rural county mental health agency I worked in, and no shit, it worked!  Sometimes I felt like I was emergency-landing a plane with Marsha in my headphones talking me through the steps.   

While I was practicing DBT in this agency, it didn't take me long to realize I needed to deepen my own mindfulness practice somehow.  Then this Zen monastery opened up in the county I worked in, and well, one thing led to another.

Marsha has some serious fans, of course, and I'm unashamedly one of them.  I often joke that I'll make a bundle off my "WWMD" bracelet line.  When she gave a training here, I was able to personally give her one of the singed-robe Jizo Bodhisattva statues made by the monastery.

I have always seen her as a manifestation of  Jizo Bodhisattva going into the hell realms to get others out.

Marsha Linehan, again, with optimism and fearlessness, has done the therapeutic community and the clients we see a tremendous service.  Thank you.


*These meds continue to have their useful place for certain diagnoses and situations, and ECT, now apparently much more refined, is reportedly making a comeback as more of a scalpel rather than the chainsaw it once was.  

My Mom Continues to Be Awesome

Apologies for the all-caps.  She doesn't usually type in all caps, but my mom is 77 and I'm just glad she's no longer internet-averse, and I get a good note from her every now and then.  My mom is a fairly gentle Christian and a hard-core Republican, and mostly we don't talk about these things because we like each other too much.  Though she has, in her quiet way, made it clear to me that she'd love me if I was a devil-worshipper.  


Here is a Bodhisattva story about the Joplin Mo tornado.  

JERRY, WAS VISITING HIS  DAUGHTER AND GRANDDAUGHTER WHO LIVE IN JOPLIN LAST SUNDAY.   AFTER CHURCH THEY DECIDED TO HAVE SUPPER AT I-HOP.  AS THEY SAT THERE JERRY, WHO LIVES IN TULSA, OKLA., LOOKED OUT THE WINDOW, STOOD UP AND SAID, 'FOLKS, WE HAVE TO FIND SHELTER RIGHT NOW.  THE STORM THAT'S COMING IS A REALLY BAD ONE."

THE MANAGER SAID, "WE HAVE A WALK-IN FREEZER.  LET'S ALL GET IN THERE."  SO JERRY AND FAMILY AND OTHER CUSTOMERS AND COOKS AND WAITRESSES ALL GOT IN THE FREEZER AND WAITED OUT THE SCREAMING, ROARING WINDS AND VIBRATIONS AND SHAKING.  WHEN IT ALL CALMED DOWN, THEY STEPPED OUT AND WERE OUTSIDE.  EVERYTHING AROUND WHAT HAD BEEN THE BUILDING WAS FLATTENED.  ALL OF THEIR CARS WERE PILED UP, TWISTED, AND DEMOLISHED.

JERRY'S GIRLS LIVE ON THE SIDE OF TOWN THAT WAS NOT HARMED BY THE TORNADOS; BUT GETTING THERE WAS A PROBLEM WITH NO CARS.  NOBODY WHO COULD WALK WAS COMPLAINING, THOUGH.

MARILYN SAID THAT ALTHOUGH SHE HAD BEEN BORN IN JOPLIN AND LIVED THERE MOST OF HER LIFE,  SHE WAS UNABLE TO ORIENT HERSELF TO ANY LOCATION IN ANY OF THE PHOTOS.  THERE ARE NO LANDMARKS, NO STREET SIGNS, NOTHING OF ANY DEGREE OF FAMILIARITY.  HER NIECES HAD INVITED HER TO COME DOWN FOR THE REUNION, BUT SHE HAD TO STAY HOME AND HELP OUT AT HER CHURCH AGAIN.  SHE SAID,  "IT SEEMS ODD THAT JERRY SHOULD HAVE BEEN SENT THERE TO SAVE THE LIVES OF THOSE PEOPLE."  

I HAVE A HARD TIME UNDERSTANDING WHY ANYONE WOULD LIVE IN OKLAHOMA, BUT IN THIS CASE IT MAY HAVE BEEN SO HE COULD RECOGNIZE WHAT WAS COMING AND SOUND THE ALARM.

HERE'S HOPING THE WEATHER IS CONSIDERABLY CALMER WHERE YOU ARE.  LOVE,  MOM

Rant

I've been aspiring to write a series of posts on Pema Chodron's teachings on Shantideva's Way of the Bodhisattva, and well, just haven't found the energy and focus to really get started. But the energy and focus found me. Yesterday I came face to face with a teaching. Yesterday I found myself in the thick of a rant. The rant came after a work-related phone call with another professional. I remained (mostly) polite over the phone, save for a moment or two of sarcasm. When I got off the phone, I realized I was sweating. The anger got internalized, and then in a couple conversations afterwards, it came right out in a self-righteous, beleaguered, insulted, pissed-off rant. With hand gestures. And dramatic vocal range. Now there's some energy and focus. What force could possibly knock Jomon from her equinimitous (is that a word?) Ango practice of Right Speech?

4.27

I am as if benumbed by sorcery,

My mind reduced to total impotence

With no perception of the madness overwhelming me.

O what is it that has me in its grip?

Insurance companies. The minions of Mara.

Dealing with insurance companies is, for me, such a reliable, predictable trigger into fervent righteous angry victim mode, that it is familiar, becoming tiresome even, and still I seem to be able to only helplessly watch it arise. My best intervention has been to just try to avoid interacting with them, though this is not entirely possible. And I'm coming at it from the provider side of things; not even an ill person in need of benefits. I can know this is a danger zone for me, and believe I am about to use my skills to navigate sanely through it this time, and then the next thing you know, I'm Corky St. Clair in "Waiting for Guffman:"

Nobody ever plans to be Corky St. Clair:

6.24

Never thinking, "Now I will be angry."

People are impulsively caught up in anger.

Irritation, likewise comes --

Though never plans to be experienced!

All of it gives me a chance to see where the little velcro hooks are in me that get caught here every time. Certainly I harbor some opinions and views about how health care SHOULD be delivered, but boy howdy, isn't. In fact, this rant always ends the same way, with a soliloquy about the collective cost to a nation of all these bean counters on each side fighting over the same $20 bill in the no man's land of paperwork trench warfare, blah blah blah...

As I've said before, I'm a cheap date when it comes to righteousness (it does have an addictive quality), and I like to be right, and I don't like to not-know. Very strengthening of this ego, this self -- to have some evil empire to bump up against, generate emotion about, and verify all this selfing.

For whatever reason, I also get stuck in the roles in these conversations. I take them too seriously. I fail to see the larger picture. I hold my professional role too tightly, and I also see a them on the phone, something like one of the Borg in a big heartless, faceless corporation.

Indeed there may be some place for righteous anger, perhaps as fuel to change conditions that are oppressive. Nevertheless, Shantideva recommends patience as an antidote to anger. Certainly needed if there is to be change in this system, otherwise burnout will come fast and hard, and what good is that to anyone?

6.2

No evil is there similar to anger,

No austerity to be compared with patience.

Steep yourself, therefore, in patience--

In all ways, urgently, with zeal.

Pema Chodron and Shantideva also talk about three sources of patience:

1. Reframing our attitude toward discomfort,
2. Understanding the complexity of any situation,
3. Developing tolerance.

But here is the kicker:

6.107

So like a treasure found at home,

Enriching me without fatigue,

All enemies are helpers in my bodhisattva work

And therefore they should be a joy to me.

*Sigh*

This bodhisattva work is tough stuff.

Now I Atone For It All

It's a good thing I had a few days to reflect on this searching and fearless moral inventory. The workbook I used listed many open questions on each of the following topics:

Honesty, Love, Maturity, Sex, Fear, Anger, Self-Worth, Responsibilities, Finances, Gratitude, and more. Daunting, but so helpful!

So what comes of setting aside a few days to reflect on one's strengths and shortcomings? After a few days of writingwritingwriting on these subjects, it turns out there is a lot more right with me than there is wrong with me. This is no surprise -- to anyone who doesn't carry my driver's license. Actually going through the whole process was key to seeing this clearly. To be open to it all, positive, negative, neutral, and to remain in non-judgmental stance as much as possible. When we're afraid to look, the challenges can loom large -- like a monster in the closet. But opening the door and shining a flashlight reveals it was just a coat.

There weren't really any big surprises, just a wonderful opportunity to focus, and to begin moving more deeply into practicing with the Precepts. From here, I have decided to focus more on the Precepts pertaining to Right Speech.

One of the many great things about this retreat was that I got to create my own structure and container. Another great thing was that I actually worked with the Dharma books I brought (as opposed to hauling them around out of worry that I would lack something to do). Mostly I read and worked with Waking Up to What You Do, a wonderful book on applying the Precepts in our lives by Diane Eshin Rissetto. This book deserves a whole post of its own. One of the things I love about it is her re-ordering of the Precepts, and her use of language in the positive. For example, "I Take Up the Way of Speaking of Others With Openness and Possibility." "I Take Up the Way of Meeting Others on Equal Ground."

I also worked with No Time to Lose, A Timely Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva by Pema Chodron,

and The Heart of Being by Daido Loori.

All of these focused to some degree or another on the Precepts, and I really enjoyed seeing the overlaps in the 12-Step process and the Precepts, since this is the first time I have done such a structured 4th Step (Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves) since I started practicing Buddhism.

And of course, I'm not done; the 4th Step is followed by the 5th Step (Admitted to our Higher Power, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs).

There is something spiritually universal or archetypal around this template of self-assessment, confession, atonement, and rededication. How wonderful that we do not have to reinvent the wheel of how to live a decent human life. It only occurred to me yesterday that this retreat happened to fall during Yom Kippur. I appreciate James Ford's post about Yom Kippur and the importance of ever-returning to such practices as atonement and rededication as an integral part of the path to peace.

Shantideva spends a lot of time doing what Pema Chodron calls "Preparing the Ground" for being a Bodhisattva. This includes atonement. She writes,

Rather than hiding our mistakes from ourselves and others, we forthrightly declare them. By acknowledging them to ourselves, we avoid self-deception. In certain circumstances we may also declare them to someone else, as witness to our wise intention.

To see clearly how we strengthen or weaken crippling patterns, we have to bring them to light... You may ask, "Isn't it enough to acknowledge my regrets to myself?" It does help a lot, but not enough to completely dissolve self-deception. When we express our regrets to the buddhas or another human being, we can't kid ourselves. As an act of self-compassion and self-respect, we use a witness to expose ourselves to ourselves...

The practice of confession... relies on the view that neurosis, while it may feel monolithic or immutable, is essentially transitory and insubstantial. It is just very strong energy that we mistakenly identify as a solid and permanent "me". Confessing, like making offerings and prostrations, helps us let go of this fixed version of who we are.

A friend in the 12 Steps said the 4th Step and 5th Steps are like flushing the toilet. What if you never did that at home, and instead chose to ignore or pretend there was no need? What if you flushed once and said, 'Whew! Glad that's overwith.' No, we have to deal with our "shit" on a daily basis. And being full of shit is not a problem unless we are not recognizing it and acting accordingly.

I admit to some resistance to the process, though, which I think is pretty natural. My resistance showed up in at least one amusing way. I had decided that Friday Morning After Breakfast would be when I would start writing. I brought my workbook and little tote bag of other books into the peace and quiet of the Lodge library, crawled into an overstuffed couch, and found myself not writing, but reading. Reading the first chapter of Eshin's book, which was on Honesty. Well the first workbook writing would be about Honesty, so I guessed a little preliminary reading was OK. And ahh, the geothermally supplied warmth of the radiators! The comfort of the sound of gently falling rain outside! Yep, I was instantly and completely overcome by a drooling NAP. Fell sound asleep whilst reading Waking Up to What You Do. It would have been a marvelous photo.

These aggressive naps overtook me throughout the process just prior to starting out another session of writing. And it's not like I'm tired. I have not been this well-rested and stably energetic in quite a while. No, these were psychological / emotional naps. And I didn't make a big deal about it, I would just wake up, mop the drool, and begin the next writing session perhaps even a little more refreshed and focused.

More on the Way of the Bodhisattva soon.

Stats!

Oh dear. I have just discovered something that is apparently new to blogspot: Stats. When did they add stats? Or have I just been blissfully ignorant of them all this time?

I've read many a post from you other-kind-of-blog bloggers about your practice with stats: How many hits have I gotten? Who's reading my blog? Why was that post popular and that post wasn't? What search terms are people using to get to my blog? Kloncke wrote a great post about this, and even created StatDragons to illustrate the weekly ups and downs of feedback from blog hit statistics. I have always been grateful that I hadn't the same ability to check and check and check: How am I doing? What does everybody think of me?

Now I do.

So observing myself observing the numbers, learning features of the stats application, like being able to see the different countries from whence the hits have come (hey there, Estonia!); this seems fine. It's the Olympic-level jumping to conclusions, the interpretations, the stories being generated about what it all means about me that starts to feel potentially problematic.

So I'll try to balance this shocking new option for self-obsession with a morsel from Pema Chodron's No Time to Lose: A Timely Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva, in which she combs through and comments upon each line of Shantideva's Way of the Bodhisattva, a text written in the eighth century, and no less relevant this very minute.

6.93

Children can't help crying when

Their sand castles come crumbling down.

Our minds are so like them

When praise and reputation start to fail.

"We invest so much energy into getting people to admire us, but our reputations, like everything else, are as impermanent as sand castles, and attachment to them causes so much unnecessary pain.

There's a Charlie Brown cartoon that shows Lucy building an elaborate sand castle, saying proudly, "And a thousand years from now, people will see what I did here today and be totally amazed." It's this nonsensical attitude that Shantideva addresses here.

Better to regard yourself as a character in a play. You can take the part of a person who's famous or admired, without taking this identity too seriously. If praise and reputation are as fragile as sand castles, it's realistic to not be disturbed when they pass away with the changing tides. Then you can build a magnificent sand castle, covered with beautiful shells and stones. You can even get people to help you and enjoy it thoroughly, and when the waves come in, out it goes."

sand castle originally uploaded by Ben Amstutz

MBBR: Mindfulness-Based Bus Riding

Untitled by Ian Sane

Riding the bus every day just seriously rocks. I am not kidding. This after 9 years of a 45-minute-one-way commute in the car. Now I have a 20-minute-each-way bus ride every day. I have been folding it right into practice, or rather, it has been offering me some practice opportunities. Here are some Mindfulness-Based Bus Riding (MBBR)* practices I have been enjoying:

Just Getting on the Schedule: Yes, there's a schedule and technology to help track each bus' moves to the minute, but still, the bus is on its schedule, not mine, and adjusting myself to that schedule is a change. Not being in the drivers seat moves me one more welcome degree away from the center of the universe.

Driver Practice: Watching the attentive eyes of the drivers take in the road, the periphery, the doors, and the passengers, around and around, over and over. Just maneuvering these mammoth beasts throughout town is a remarkable skill. Some of the drivers are anxious and cranky, some of them are incredibly cheerful and open. Appreciating their training not just in the technical aspect of the job, but in how each of their personalities and their millions of interactions with the passengers sets a tone on their bus that is palpable.

Love Bus: Metta Practice is perfect for the bus. My friend Gensho and I spent an afternoon practicing Metta on MAX, the light rail train (see Lovingkindness to the MAX). The bus is a rolling metal tube hurtling people through town, and it can be filled with a powerful heart-wish for each and all the beings on it to be free from fear and anxiety, to be at ease, to be deeply happy.

TriMet: A Bus in Downtown Portland by Trimet

Bodhisattva Detective: The bus can call up images of human suffering, and suffering is certainly there, but the bus can also be full of moments of human grace. People moving aside to share a seat, people giving genuine attention to relative strangers talking about the health and lives of their families, the young African American man who jumped off the bus to take the hand of the blind woman and escort her all the way into her doctor's office (she was having some difficulty navigating the corner, and the driver was trying to verbally help her for some time). It's easier to find these Bodhisattvas when you're looking for them.

Body Scan: This can be difficult, as the bus is full of so many distractions. So there's always the option to sit down and cue up a body scan meditation on the iPod. What if we all did this?

This is my preliminary list. I hope to add more practices. Anyone else have their own Mindful Bus Practices? Or anything similar?

*apologies to Jon Kabat-Zinn and the Center for Mindfulness

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).

A Bodhisattva and a Codependent walk into a bar...

I have no idea how to finish that joke, but I almost think the lead-in is funny enough on its own! I have often wondered what the difference is.

Bodhisattvas are essentially the Buddhist version of saints. They have one foot in the Divine realm, and one foot in the human realm. They are humans whose practice was such that they could enter Nirvana, but instead volunteer to remain in the human realm to help others until all beings are freed. They are selfless. Jizo Bodhisattva vows to enter the Hell realms in order to free all beings there, getting his / her robes singed in the process. Kwan Yin "hears the cries of the world."



Here is a chant we do at the Zen Center called Shantideva's Way of the Bodhisattva:

I rejoice in the virtue of all beings which frees
them from suffering!
To help them attain the Way I offer any virtue
that I have.
Thus may the pain of every living creature
be completely cleared away!
May I become doctor and medicine and may
I be the nurse for all sick beings in the world
until everyone is healed.
May a rain of food and drink descend to clear
away the pain of thirst and hunger,
And during the ages marked by scarcity may I
change into food and drink!
May I become an inexhaustible treasure for
those who are poor and destitute;
May I turn into all things they need and may
these be placed close beside them!
Whenever those who encounter me conceive a
single faithful or angry thought,
May even that become the source for fulfilling
all their goals!
May all who say bad things to me or cause me
any other harm.
And those who mock me and insult me have
the fortune to awaken fully!
May I be a protector of those without one -
a guide for all travelers on the way;
May I be a bridge a boat and a ship for all
who wish to cross the water!
May I be an island for those who seek one
and a lamp for those desiring light!
May I be a bed for all who wish to rest
and a servant to those in need.
May I be a wishing jewel a magic vase
a great mantra and potent medicine,
May I be a wish-fulfilling tree and
a cow of plenty for the world!
Just like the great elements such as earth
enduring as space itself,
May I always support the life
of boundless untold beings!
And until they pass beyond pain may I also be
the source of life for all the realms of varied
beings that reach unto the ends of space!
Just as the previous Buddhas embraced
the awakened state of mind.
And just as they step by step embodied
the Bodhisattva practices
Likewise for the sake of all that lives
do I adopt the spirit of enlightenment,
And will also follow
the Way of the Bodhisattva.

Selfless, completely other-focused, willing to suffer in the name of assisting others. Sometimes when I read these aspirations, it makes me physically tired. I certainly have yet to become that inexhaustible treasure. A more contemporary description can be found in this article by Lama Surya Das, "The Backyard Bodhisattva."

Codependents... don't actually have an official definition. This makes the word a bit of a blunt instrument. It can be broadly applied. The term was initially "enabler," often the non-alcoholic partner in an alcoholic family, often a woman. And it is often applied to behaviors that have been specifically encouraged by patriarchal culture, then handily pathologized. I am fishing the baby out of the bathwater here in looking at some of the possibly useful criteria. There are not specific diagnostic criteria, but there are collections of patterns and behaviors common to those who have grown up within a family touched by addiction, and those patterns and behaviors may not be very effective. Codependent behavior is characterized by compulsive helping. Helping that breeds dependence. Here is a list from CoDA, Codependents Anonymous:

Patterns and Characteristics of Codependence

These patterns and characteristics are offered as a tool to aid in self-evaluation. They may be particularly helpful to newcomers.

Denial Patterns:
I have difficulty identifying what I am feeling.
I minimize, alter or deny how I truly feel.
I perceive myself as completely unselfish and dedicated to the well being of others.

Low Self Esteem Patterns:
I have difficulty making decisions.
I judge everything I think, say or do harshly, as never "good enough."
I am embarrassed to receive recognition and praise or gifts.
I do not ask others to meet my needs or desires.
I value others' approval of my thinking, feelings and behavior over my own.
I do not perceive myself as a lovable or worthwhile person.

Compliance Patterns:
I compromise my own values and integrity to avoid rejection or others' anger.
I am very sensitive to how others are feeling and feel the same.
I am extremely loyal, remaining in harmful situations too long.
I value others' opinions and feelings more than my own and am afraid to express differing opinions and feelings of my own.
I put aside my own interests and hobbies in order to do what others want.
I accept sex when I want love.

Control Patterns:
I believe most other people are incapable of taking care of themselves.
I attempt to convince others of what they "should" think and how they "truly" feel.
I become resentful when others will not let me help them.
I freely offer others advice and directions without being asked.
I lavish gifts and favors on those I care about.
I use sex to gain approval and acceptance.
I have to be "needed" in order to have a relationship with others.

Patterns and Characteristics of Codependance is reprinted from the website www.CoDA.org with permission of Co-Dependents Anonymous, Inc. (CoDA, Inc). Permission to reprint this material does not mean that CoDA, Inc. has reviewed or approved the contents of this publication, or that CoDA, Inc. agrees with the views expressed herein. Co-Dependents Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women whose common purpose is to develop healthy relationships and is not affiliated with any other 12 step program.

Copyright © 1998 Co-Dependents Anonymous, Incorporated and its licensors - All Rights Reserved

The difference was made even clearer to me when I ran across this article by Rachel Naomi Remen, MD. "In the Service of Life". She contrasts helping and serving. Helping, she says, is basically all about me. It's all about what I can do for you, from a position of knowing to your not-knowing. You become indebted to me for my help. Service, on the other hand, comes from a place of equality, recognizing the humanness of each of us, and each of us bringing the completeness and wholeness of ourselves -- our light and our shadow -- to this Mystery of interaction, and both of us benefit.

Here is a wonderful merging of the two; The Path to Recovery also from CoDA:

I am aware of my feelings and identify them, often in the moment.

I embrace my feelings as being valid and important. I am truthful with myself.

I keep the focus on my own well-being. I know the difference between caring and caretaking.

I trust my ability to make effective decisions.

I accept myself as I am. I emphasize progress over perfection.

I feel appropriately worthy of the recognition, praise, or gifts I receive

I meet my own needs and wants when possible. I reach out for help when it’s necessary and appropriate.

I have confidence in myself. I no longer seek others’ approval of my thoughts, feelings, and behavior.

I recognize myself as being a lovable and valuable person.

I am rooted in my own values, even if others don’t agree or become angry.

I can separate my feelings from the feelings of others.

I am committed to my safety and recovery work. I leave situations that feel unsafe or are inconsistent with my goals.

I respect my own opinions and feelings and express them appropriately.

I consider my own interests first when asked to participate in another’s plans.

My sexuality is grounded in genuine intimacy and connection. I know the difference between lust and love.

I realize that, with rare exceptions, other adults are capable of managing their own lives. My job is to let them.

I accept and value the differing thoughts, feelings, and opinions of others.

I feel comfortable when I see others take care of themselves.

I am a compassionate and empathic listener, giving advice only if directly asked.

I carefully and honestly contemplate my motivations when preparing to give a gift.

I feel loved and accepted for myself, just the way I am.

I develop relationships with others based on equality, intimacy, and balance.