Tools of the Trade

So exciting: Today features a guest post from Nate DeMontigny, author of the awesome blog Precious Metal. It is quite a pleasure to be hosting Nate because he happens to be the brains behind what is now the Third Great Buddho-Blog Swap! Nate brings a welcoming heart to the Buddhist blogosphere, always helping newbies like me feel a little more comfortable joining the conversations. Check out Nate's blog for all the swap-combos today. Nate is guest-posting here on the topic of my choosing: Tools of the Trade. Take it away, Nate!

I am excited to be writing about this topic.

Since I can remember, my father has always been into building. He's been in the construction business since I was a kid. I have three brothers, they are all in some way or another involved in the construction business. I am the only one that, until my current job, never got my hands dirty.

When we were kids though, my father would take us to certain jobs, the one's he knew the customer personally and knew they wouldn't mind a couple of punk kids hanging around. My father tried to teach us all the basics, and like I said, some got it and others did not.

When this topic was brought up to me, I thought it would be a great way to say that maybe I did become a builder of sorts after all, and pay tribute to my father for teaching me lessons that took a while to bear fruit. I know I've learned alot from my father, and maybe he did teach me a few things I never realized he did.

My spiritual practice is a construction project of sorts, and I hope this article will explain to you the tools I've used to build and maintain it. Time to get my hands dirty...

Foundation :

Like any structure, a solid foundation is always necessary. Without it, there is nothing to build upon. Regardless of the how and why, the foundation is the most important part when beginning to build something, whether it's a single family home, a duplex or even the tallest skyscraper.

I think some might argue with me on this one, but I parallel the foundation of a building with the path itself. Without the knowledge left behind by the Buddha himself, what would we be building upon? Some might think that meditation is the foundation, and while I agree to an extent, without the path we are really going nowhere. The foundation for this mental building of sorts are the teachings of the Buddha, specifically the 4 Noble Truths.

Nails and Screws :

Like any solid house, the things holiding it together are the nails and screws. All builders use these tools as they simply, are the most important tools they have to use.

Without them the walls would fall down, the roof would collapse. The building would not be very structurally sound to say the least.

This practice is very much a work in progress, we are always building and remodeling it. I liken the nails and the screws of the building to meditation. Without meditation, our practice simply falls apart.

There was a time when I thought I could get by without it, but the progress was never seen. I thought I could get by using the practice of mindfulness alone, suffice to say that didn't work out. After acquiring a pretty decent meditation practice, I noticed things started to come together. During meditation we are allowed time to slow down, to investigate and reinforce the ideals that we try to uphold.

Hammer :

Being one of the more forceful tools in the toolbox, without a hammer it'd be very difficult to pound the nails in and solidify our structure. A hammer is an unwavering force to reckon with.

I got stuck for a little while thinking of something to compare to hammer, something that is just as solid and unwavering. Then it came to me, the Noble Eightfold Path, that's the hammer. I spoken of "the path" before but without the Eightfold Path, and it's instruction, the walls of our spiritual structure would collapse in upon us. Just imagine not implementing things such as right speech, right mindfulness, etc. Where would our building be then?

Screwdriver :

A screwdriver is used for one purpose, to tighten the screws of the structure and make it more supportable. Much like the hammer, a structure would be useless without some form of screwdriver.

When I think of the way a screwdriver is used, to tighten things, I liken that to vows and refuge. To me, by vowing to uphold a certain practice, that practice is tightened up a bit. The resolve is there, you know? Also, by going for refuge, very similar to taking vows, we are placing faith in the teachings, tightening up our practice.

Walls, Flooring and Roof :

Once the foundation is complete, the building quickly comes together, held up with the tools above. We then have a shelter, something to hide us from the elements and give us a sense if comfort. With this new building, we invite others into it, creating a sense of community.

This one was easier to draw a parallel, The Buddha, Dharma and Sangha are all of those.

The Buddha, and his teachings, being our shelter of sorts.

The Dharma is something we take comfort in. We take comfort in it because it gives us something that sustains our practice and our lives, it is the heart and "soul" of our building.

And of course, the Sangha is our community. Whether it be teachers, friends, online friends, the Buddhist community is very supportive. I've found, even if I've never spoken with someone, yet I respect their opinion on a topic and ask, they always respond. I haven't met many "rockstars" in the Sangha, yet. I'm sure there are a few, I mean we are dealing with ego here folks.

So there you go, those are the tools that are used in building a solid practice. Of course, there are other nuts and bolts that do hold this thing together, but these are the bare bones.

Enough with the puns already Nate, I know, sorry. Hope you enjoyed this as much as I did writing it. And thanks for allowing me to guest post over here!!!

Intimidating As Buddhists

I just can't seem to get excited about the Brit Hume thing. If you've been under a rock or on a long retreat, here is an overview. More importantly, here is the Jon Stewart parody of the whole thing.

While this is actually garnering a little attention -- people are asking about whether Buddhism does or does not offer "the kind of redemption" that Christianity does. And a few folks from the Buddhist blogosphere have written some indignant letters to FOX News. I can't help but be reminded of a similar situation:

Norm MacDonald, a comedian, and not someone you'd call politically correct, briefly had a TV show on which he played a down-and-out hockey player. Maybe he even had to work off some community service. So the main premise of the show was that he was employed as a social worker.

It was already unlikely, because obviously, social workers need training. But Laurie Metcalf (the woman who played Roseanne's sister) was great as the high-strung straight man trying to smooth over Norm's various clueless gaffes or insensitive blunders. The show was kinda funny!

Anyway, the National Association of Social Workers came out and publicly condemned the show. They had a big press release, and talked all about how it made social workers look unprofessional and incompetent. I think they even asked us to write letters or make calls to the TV channel to try to get it taken off the air.

Norm's response was this:

"Oh yeah, I'm really scared of a bunch of social workers."

Hilarious.

A Tribute to Claire

My mom turns 76 today. She is from that cohort that would go to any lengths to lie about her age, and for years I had no idea how old she was. She even made herself a couple years younger on my birth certificate! Nowadays she says she lies in the other direction, telling people she's 85, so they remark about how great she looks for 85.

My mom loves baseball. And her mother before her. My grandmother used to take my mom out of school to watch the St Louis Cardinals play. Then my mom would fill her diary with baseball statistics. She still keeps score at games, and so do I.

Claire keeping score

My mom loves dogs. She talks for dogs and gives them all their own unique voices and accents. We had a standard-sized dachshund when I was little who had a German accent. I think dogs love her because they know she can read their minds. My mom can also speak Horse and Cat.

"Dolly" by CC Fawcett

Her dad, my grandfather, was an artist for Ralston Purina, and painted dogs for a living. She grew up among dog show people, and is one herself. She is authorized to judge Kerry Blue Terriers and a few other breeds. She married my dad, a veterinarian. That was probably the next best thing to marrying a baseball player.

My mom loves me -- she has observed me making choices in my life that I am sure make absolutely no sense to her. She is a seriously conservative Republican lady. My dad says she's "to the right of Ghengis Khan", which is a slight exaggeration. There are topics that my mom and I have no need to or interest in discussing, and we probably cancel each other's votes out in any election (my mom is also a die hard poll worker). One thing that probably worked in our favor was that politically and as a parent, she believed in laissez-faire. I think that I am among the last generation of kids who got to grow up roaming the neighborhoods until the streetlights went on. Actually, to call us in, she would honk the horn of the giant gold Oldsmobile Delta 88 (the "golden oldie"), and you could hear that for miles around.

She worries for me because Buddhism is really not about taking Jesus as a personal Lord and Savior. But I think in her quiet moments she can probably find some confidence about life and the afterlife working out okay for me. She has managed to communicate to me -- subtly and without a lot of sentimentality -- that she'd love me if I belonged to a Satanic cult. She would never say it in those words, but she has communicated it. A small pat on the shoulder when she's walking by communicates volumes in the WASP world. And she had a blast at my big fat Zen wedding (my dad, on the other hand, a slightly different story).

Ah, family.

She does worry a lot, and is a gentle person, afraid of pain, and has never gotten her ears pierced because of this.

She is also generous, and routinely holds up traffic to let other cars merge. She would always drive a small handful of my grade school softball team home from our games and stop at McDonald's for a snack on the way.

Once they got to know her, whether they were grade school or high school or even now, my friends will usually come to a similar conclusion that goes something like, "Your mom is so cool!" Not the cool let-you-get-away-with-anything-kind of cool. My curfew was 11:30pm until I went away to college. But the appreciate-the-beings-visiting-this-house-and-listen-to-them-kind of cool.

She is smart and funny, and loves a play on words, a crossword puzzle, a Tom Swifty, and can still speak damn-near fluent Spanish after only a few years of high school Spanish.

She is thrifty, and was recycling way before it was cool.

She is seriously into gardening, and I would not be surprised if she starts bowhunting deer from her rooftop to keep them from eating her roses. She asked for a chainsaw for her birthday one year -- relatively recently-- so she could clear out some brush in the back yard. She knows the names of most iris, which is her all-time favorite flower. When I took her to the iris gardens here in the Pacific Northwest, and she saw the sprawling acres and acres of blooming iris in ridiculous variety and color, she whispered to me, "It's even better than I thought it would be!"

So Happy Birthday Claire! Not everybody gets to have such an awesome mom. I am very glad you are my mom.

My Mind Is A 2-Year-Old Black Lab That Eats Poop

Woof originally uploaded by Jim Sneddon

This latest retreat was helpful to some degree in clarifying something about right effort. My Puritan roots tend to give me the default mode of over-effort, striving, and being quite mistrustful of anything that is not at least a little uncomfortable. This applies to meditation as well.

Hold It Tight originally uploaded by jbelluch

Also revealed were some unarticulated expectations I had tucked away: "This retreat will require less effort because there will be so much outdoor meditation. It will be easier." In some ways this was true. Someone else noted at the week's end that just feeling a breeze on the face during sitting provides such a pleasant focus for the mind. And indeed, listening to the tiny creatures rustling around in the forest, the mind just zooms right in. Someone else half-jokingly mentioned that they weren't sure this really counted as Zazen because it was so joyful! But does pleasantness make it easier? Does nature do our Zazen for us? If we sit outside and drift around in thought, is that any different than doing so in the Zendo?

Blades and Droplets originally uploaded by surfonaut

Chozen brought in a wonderful metaphor for Sesshin: You can't fix your car while you are driving around on the freeway. You have to drive it into the garage, turn it off, open the hood, and take some time to look and learn about how it works. The carburetor = the breathing system. The fuel injection = mindful eating, and so on.

Lucky Motors Bermondsey originally uploaded by MairiMcCann

So if this is true, then my mind wants to read Consumer Reports over and over. On this retreat, I was able to more closely observe some of my mind's favorite habits. This was a little easier to do, since I recalled previously cataloguing them after a Sesshin last September. In fact, here is the outline, and aside from the worries over the geriatric dog, now passed away, everything is just about the same:

I. What is everybody going to think of me?
A. Oh My God, I'm doing it wrong
1. Rehearse
2. Replay

II. Judging
A. Making up stories
B. Guilt about judging

III. Miscellaneous
A. Repetitive songs
B. Sudden thoughts of hilarity
C. Sudden thoughts of catastrophe
1. Health status of geriatric dog at home
2. US / World politics and economics
3. Health / mental health status of husband currently working in US politics.

I was thoroughly bored with myself and the above litany by evening of the first full day. It has previously taken me until about day 3 to get that bored with myself. There were no discoveries; just the same discursive mind. It's repetitive, it's annoying, it causes jolts of anxiety. And it's apparently highly addictive.

Hi, my name is Laura, and I'm addicted to self-making. The Pali word for which I learned from Ajahn Amaro in June: "Ahamkara." Self-making. There's supposed to be a little dot under the 'm' to indicate that the 'm' is actually pronounced with the sound "ng". "a-HANG-ka-ra". Short 'o' sound on the second syllable. Great word. Nice to have a word for something I do pretty much all the time.

Girl Doll and Clock originally uploaded by runran

I had a rather negative interaction with someone early in the week. And this was what my mind settled upon to obsess about. How could they talk to me like that? Aren't they supposed to be more skillful than that? Replay, replay, replay. How will I respond to them when I come out of Sesshin? Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.

Bo-RING!

Broken Record originally uploaded by Mista Kingasaur

It is amazing how bored I was with this, and yet, it persisted for days. I would catch myself in it, even after deciding once and for all that I would piously let it go, and NOT in fact talk to the person or anyone about it. Up it came anyway, like bad indigestion. I tried labeling it, giving it room, smiling at it. On and on it went.

Then I began to think of it more like poop. I was still catching myself churning about this brief conversation days and days later. It was like returning to analyze the long-digested and expelled breakfast of 3 and 4 and 5 days ago. And as if that is not gross enough, all the while, there is a gorgeous forest setting all around me, with chirping birds and crickets and breezes and swaying trees and bamboo and loveliness that keeps getting pushed to the edge of awareness. For thinking that is equivalent to poop.

green bamboo leaves originally uploaded by surfonaut

It became clear that I needed to take some steps to respond to this mind's broken-record antics. So I redoubled my effort at the primary practice -- at that point it was listening -- and I started using some of the tools that have been effective for me in dealing with repetitive discursive thinking.

One that is especially good for my repetitive rehearsing and replaying of conversations, is to imagine myself and whomever else as finger puppets. Then, in as much detail as I can imagine, really having the conversation between the finger puppets. Often the ridiculousness of this is enough to take the energy out of it. Then returning to the primary practice.

Tara and Finger Puppet Theatre originally uploaded by dimitrij

Another tool is that I sometimes imagine the sword of Manjushri dramatically cutting the line of thinking, Samurai warrior style, complete with internally yelling the word "No!" Then return to the primary practice.

Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom originally uploaded by Wonderlane

I was surprised I needed to bring these out. I had not expected to be so plagued, and for my mind to be so hypnotized by this content that it would drown out even the idyllic monastery grounds.

Misty Rain Sunbeam Log originally uploaded by opalmirror

I ended up saying "No" so many times, that it reminded me of training a dog. Which immediately allowed me a soft patience with myself and my mind, because I love dogs and all of their honest, wholehearted ways. I decided that my mind was most like a 2-year-old black lab that has had some training, looks like an adult dog, knows a few basic commands, but still has a lot of puppy energy. "Sit? Okay. Done. Now run around, right? Chew on stuff? Oh, sit again, okay. Done. Now run around, right?"

crazy dog originally uploaded by Phil Romans

One that likes to eat poop, and will do so whenever it can get away with it because it simply can't resist. One that can tell exactly when you are just saying "no" and when you actually mean "no" and have some behavioral intervention with which to back those words up. I don't have to be harsh. I don't have to be cruel. I don't have to extend too much effort. Just enough effort. And to be consistent. To follow my intention with action.

It appears my mind, too, is prepared to respond to my practice only as much as I mean it. Even in a delightful forest setting. I can sit there and sure wish I had a quiet mind, but unless that is backed up with some direction towards practice, it seems like it results in a distractable poop-eating puppy mind!

Nosey originally uploaded by A30 Tsitika

Bowing To and With Dogen

I thought Buddhism was just another patriarchal religion; another situation in which yet another dude was set apart from everybody else and venerated. I figured I would have to translate things for myself, changing all the pronouns again, and I was not interested in another religion in which women were not visible or reflected in any way without a lot of research or imagination.

I jumped into Buddhist practice with both feet once I learned about the existence of Kwan Yin. She helped bridge what seemed to me to be a patriarchal gap -- okay, chasm-- between me and Buddhism.

Kwan Yin

But from time to time, some patriarchal remnants would come up. Like the stories of the Buddha initially being unwilling to allow women into the Sangha: The Buddha allegedly even denied his own mother (actually his wet nurse / stepmother who raised him) until his personal attendant Ananda interceded for her and hundreds of other women who wanted the teachings too.

Buddha with Ananda, Longmen Caves, China

In some Buddhist traditions, they try to live the way the Buddha lived, and follow all the rules the Buddha taught, called the Vinaya. And within those rules, I would hear about the special rules for women; an additional hundred or so on top of the two hundred or so for the men. But I never noticed any special rules being applied to women in our Sangha at all, in fact, our Sangha is led by a woman. And anyway, I was too busy trying to figure out stuff like posture, breathing, what to do with the songs coursing through my head and what not.

Chozen

So I have gradually learned more about Buddhist history and these rules. For instance, right before the Buddha died, he told dear Ananda to tell the rest of the Sangha to just drop all the less important rules. Well once he was dead, the remaining followers couldn't agree which rules were less important, so they just kept all of them.

I also learned that nothing the Buddha actually said was written down until a few hundred years later. Think about it -- a 300-year-long game of 'telephone' steeped in +2000-year-old Indian cultural mores. So I kinda filed a lot of those rules in the "not applicable" folder. My art teacher used to call it the "round file."

Especially this one:

"A bhikkhuni (nun) who has been fully ordained even for more than a century must bow down, rise up from her seat, salute with hands palm-to-palm over her heart, and perform the duties of respect to a bhikkhu (monk) even if he has been fully ordained only a day. This rule is to be honored, respected, revered, venerated, never to be transgressed as long as she lives."

Dang!

During a recent retreat led by Ajahn Amaro, a Theravadin monk of the Thai Forest tradition, who has been strictly following the Vinaya for 30 years, one of the female priests from our Zen tradition asked him directly about these rules for women; basically whether, how, or when they might change. His answer was validating to some degree. He iterated the above rule, and said he was not comfortable with it, and that it is an extremely active topic within Theravadin Buddhism today. And then he shrugged and said he was "just one monk" and wished he had a better answer. Or something like that.

I was disappointed. Actually I felt like crying. I know it's complicated and all. I think the question was asked on about Day 2 of the 6-day retreat, so factor in that turbulence, but still. After the period was over and we had some free time for tea, I found myself going into the Jizo garden and sitting next to the statue of Kwan Yin in there, and I just let whatever it was come up.

I observed a feeling of grief for all the Dharma sisters to whom these rules are actually applied. I also noticed a sense of righteous anger. Careful there! I am a cheap date when it comes to righteous anger, and can get fall-down drunk on that stuff pretty quickly. Truthfully, I do not know all the complexities of Buddhist history, the various cultural expressions, and how the women of each tradition deal with their own brand of partriarchy, to which no culture is immune.

But Dang!

So some weeks later, along comes my Dharma sister, Senryu, who ran across this section of the Shobogenzo, in which Master Dogen, one of the Great Teachers of our Zen lineage, wrote about these rules as they were being applied to nuns in Japan being excluded from the main training halls of the monastery -- and he mocks these practices. He absolutely derides them:

And also, in Japan there is a situation which is truly ridiculous and worthy of laughter. It relates to what is called ‘The Grounds of the Enclosed Realm’ by some and ‘The Training Ground of the Greater Course’ by others, places that female monks and lay women are not permitted to enter. This mistaken custom has been handed down for ever so long, and people have never questioned what it is all about. Those who have studied the ancient ways have never attempted to change this practice nor have scholars ever taken up the matter. Some refer to this practice as ‘what an incarnation of a Buddha or a Bodhisattva does’; others speak of it as ‘the tradition of our ancient predecessors’. Moreover, they have never called the matter into question. It is enough to make a person split a gut laughing.

Master Dogen

This section is called Raihai Tokuzui, or "Respectful Bowing will Secure for You the Very Marrow of the Way." Did I mention it was written in the year 1240? Here is part of the translator's introduction:

The text is in two parts. The first, delivered to his monks in the spring of 1240, deals with being willing to learn from any who give voice to the Dharma, be they male or female, human or animal, living or dead, animate or inanimate. The second, given in the fall of the same year, specifically addresses various questions on learning from women. For unexplained reasons, the second part was not Incorporated in the earlier versions of the Shōbōgenzō, but was kept under lock and key in Dōgen’s temple, Eihei-ji.

Lock and key? Unexplained reasons? Srsly?

Things at Eihei-ji have changed just a little little in 800 years, despite Dogen's clarity. Get your hands on this book immediately: Women of the Way, by Sallie Tisdale. In the introduction, she recounts her experience of how women are still treated differently there.

In Women of the Way, Sallie Tisdale paints beautiful detailed portraits of Buddhist women, their own practice and mastery within the context of history and culture as best can be deduced. She has put together a women's lineage from the time of the Buddha that is chanted at the monastery on a regular basis. When I hear it and chant it, it washes over me like refreshing cool water being poured by Kwan Yin herself.

Anyway, about respectful bowing: Dogen takes specific aim at that one rule about accomplished nuns having to defer to monks ordained on their first day.

When a female monk who has realized both the Way and the Dharma becomes head of a temple, male monks who, in seeking the Dharma, wish to train under a Master will join her community, respectfully bowing as they ask her about the Dharma, for she is a splendid model for their training and study. It will be for the trainee like receiving something to drink when he is thirsty...

Someone who has not yet even dreamt of the Truth of Buddhism, even if he be an old monk of a hundred years, will not be the equal of a man or woman who has realized what Dharma is; he should not be reverenced, but simply paid common respect, as between guest and host. Even a seven-year-old—were he or she to train in and practice Buddhism, and then say something that is Buddha Dharma—can be a teacher and guide for monks and laity, male and female. This child will be a compassionate parent to all sentient beings... We should make offerings and pay respect to such a one the same as we would to all Buddhas and Tathagatas. This is an ancient custom of the Buddha’s Way. Those who may still be in ignorance and who lack the direct Transmission are to be pitied...

Once such a woman has realized what Dharma is, then she is truly an Old Buddha, so we should not look upon her as we did in the past. When we are having an audience with her, our contact will be from a new and special standpoint. When we meet her, we should face her with an attitude of ‘today is today’, regardless of how things were in the past. For example, a female monk to whom the Treasure House of the Eye of the True Teaching has been Transmitted should respectfully be bowed to and asked for the Teaching by those in the four stages of arhathood, those who are pratyekabuddhas, and those thrice wise and ten times saintly, and she will acknowledge this bow. Why should only males be worthy of respect? Boundless space is simply boundless space; the four elements are simply the four elements; the five skandhas are simply the five skandhas. And they are no different for women. When it comes to realizing the Way, everyone may realize It. In any case, anyone who has realized what Dharma is should be deeply respected: do not concern yourself with whether it is a man or a woman. This is a most excellent rule of the Buddha’s Way.

Dogen recounts stories of great female Masters Massan and Myoshin. Both of these women's stories are included in Women of the Way. He refers to Myoshin when he says this:

...Truly, her level of spiritual understanding is not surpassed even by those thrice wise and ten times saintly; her speech and actions are in direct descent from the Buddhas and Ancestors. For this reason, even today, when there is a vacant post for an Abbot or one who teaches in the Abbot’s stead, we should invite a female monk who has realized what Dharma is to take the position. Even though a male monk be one of greater age and longer residence, if he has not realized what Dharma is, why would you want him instead? The one who is the head monk for a community must undoubtedly be someone spiritually clear-eyed. A person who is as dissipated in body and mind as he is limited in outlook, however, will be so hard-headed that he will often be the laughing stock of ordinary people...

His tone is so clear, and his language so unmistakable. I can hardly believe this was so clearly articulated back in 1240. Speaking of contemporary value, there is even a section in this where he talks about not objectifying women:

And also, even today there are people, wretched from their folly, whose unconverted thinking has not gone beyond looking upon women simply as objects in the world of sensual desire. Disciples of Buddha should not be this way. Should you detest women because you think that they must be objects in the world of sensual desire, would you also detest all men? What causes staining and defilement to arise is treating men as comprising one world and women as another. In addition, looking upon someone as being neither male nor female is also to treat that person as ‘an object apart’; even looking at that person as though a phantasm or an illusory flower is likewise treating him or her as ‘an object apart’...

It says in the Vinaya: “The two orifices of a male and the three orifices of a female are alike when it comes to committing a grievous breakage of the Precepts; those doing so may not dwell within the monastic community.” Thus, if you dislike women because you think that they must be objects in the world of sensual desire, then males and females will end up mutually disliking each other, and it is unlikely that there will be any opportunity for either to find a way to the Other Shore. You should explore this principle in detail.

He even goes after the karma argument. You know, the one that says women are born women because of our bad karma?

And also, should you despise women because you think that in ancient times they have committed some offense, then you must despise all bodhisattvas as well. Or, should you despise women because you think that at some later date they will surely commit some offense, then you must despise all bodhisattvas who have given rise to the intention to realize Buddhahood. If you despise women in any such ways, you must despise every single person, so how will you make manifest the Buddha’s Dharma? Words like the ones uttered by such monks are, sad to say, the wild remarks of foolish people who do not understand what the Buddha taught. If the matter were like this vow, did the Venerable Shakyamuni and the bodhisattvas who were alive during His lifetime all commit offenses? Have Their enlightened minds been shallower than yours? You would do well to quietly think about this.

I just can't get over this! We chant Dogen's name at every service, and I had no idea he had my back like this!

In starting down this Path, I had some trepidation about getting into what I perceived as a patriarchal religion, and even though our Sangha is led by a woman, those of us who practice downtown interact primarily with her husband as our primary teacher. Initially, I was apprehensive around acquiring a male teacher.

Hogen

The teachers of our Sangha, like many of the first-generation American Buddhist practitioners have lived through the period in the 1980's in which it was discovered that lots of ethical breaches were being carried out by the teachers who first brought Buddhism to America. Our teachers are therefore committed to rooting practice in ethics. And they encourage us to just observe the community, just come practice, just come sit for a while before making any commitments to joining. I appreciated this so much. A gradual relationship has therefore been allowed to develop very organically between my teachers and me. They just keep being exactly who they say they are in many different situations.

And so I add Hogen, who has never been anything but compassionate to me, to my list of gentle, kind men I have had the pleasure of being close to in this life.

Bansho

Which leads me to what I think is Dogen's actual conclusion; that it does not matter what form your teacher takes. If your teacher understands the Dharma, you should show respect. You can learn from them.

...we should pray that the trees and stones give voice to the Dharma for us: we should hold in our hearts the wish that the fields and the villages also give voice to It. We should ask It of the pillar of a temple: we should have the walls and fences explore It thoroughly with us.

Whether that guiding Master has the physical features of a male or a female, or whatever, is irrelevant, but it must be someone who is spiritually outstanding, one who is truly ‘with It’* here and now. Whether he or she is someone of the past or a present-day person is of no matter; even one who has the nagging manner of a wild fox may prove a good spiritual friend, for this is the countenance of one who has secured the very Marrow, one who will be a spiritual guide and of benefit to you. This is someone who does not deceive others about cause and effect, and who will treat you, me, and others as spiritual equals.

Once you have encountered a teacher and guide, from then on you should discard your myriad involvements, cease frittering away your time, and devote yourself to diligently practicing the Way. You should do your training and practice, even though you may still be attached to discriminatory thinking; you should do your training and practice, even if you have gone beyond discriminatory thinking; you should do your training and practice, even though you may be half-hearted in the attempt. Study with urgency, as though you were extinguishing a fire on your head: study with joy and hopefulness, as though you were standing on tiptoes. Should you behave in this way, you will not be disturbed by bad-mouthing demons.

* translator's note: To be “‘with It’ here and now” is an attempt to render the term immo when used in its Chinese slang meaning for the condition of persons or things being just what they truly are, without any sense of an existence separate from time and without any sense of a false self.

49th Day

Today is the 49th Day since Cody died. I still expect him to be around the house sometimes. I still miss him of course. I really miss hugging him, and feeling his soft fur. I miss his "dog acknowledgement" when he would lower his ears, look slightly away, and "kiss the air". I miss all kinds of things about him. In another sense of things, he is essentially everywhere -- and always has been. That brings some comfort. I am just grateful to have been his friend and caregiver for so long. Here is a little poem.

"Repatriated"

Joe took Cody’s ashes in a floral tin box, back to the farm

in Makanda with the solemnity of a royal pallbearer.

Cody had come from and played hard on that land.

His cattle dog focus seemed to freeze time.

But as the wind picked up and swept his remains

into the air, back onto and into the ground of Makanda,

in Portland there were snow flurries.

Spring waited just a little longer.

Praise and Blame

Even as a solid rock is unshaken by the wind, so are the wise unshaken by praise and blame.

~Buddha

Praise and blame is one of my old sensitivities. Growing up, praise was the currency of life. Competing against my brother for what seemed to be a finite resource in an anxious family, I learned very well how winnow out praise, how to avoid or even deflect blame. As a child, I saw my brother suffer as he would often fall outside the lines of expectation, with sometimes harsh consequences, and I learned through him what not to do. Receiving praise at home and at school seemed to buy temporary respite from worry, anxiety, fear. Any blame would fall hard on me, and I would struggle mightily to get out of it, to recover this fragile sense of my goodness again.

It is also important to factor in the larger spiritual and cultural backdrop -- the Puritanical obsession with Heaven and Hell -- that looming sense of reward and punishment from on high which takes us out of the wisdom of our bodies and the reality of the present moment, and into some future to be feared or craved. A praise junkie was innocently, inadvertently created.
The construction of ego happens so early. I learned to pay close attention outside of myself to the sources of praise and blame, and carefully figure out just what it would take to extract them from my environment. Yet, even as I focused so hard on being "good" to earn praise and avoid blame -- by getting good grades, staying out of trouble, following the rules, etc., any feeling of reassurance from without could only be temporary. The pursuit of praise becomes an addiction.

When the source of peace is outside myself, I am destabilized and constantly trying to control that which is uncontrollable. "What does everybody think of me?" That tired refrain, that song stuck in my head, that habit of mind, putting its finger to the wind and being buffeted by the ever-changing opinions and views of others, usually as reported, amplified, exaggerated by my anxious and hypervigilant Inner Critic, and causing me to run around in circles, try to squeeze myself into an approved shape like a mass of play-doh, or just stop frozen in fear.

I am now looking very closely at the intentions behind all that I do. How much is based upon fear? Fear of blame, fear of loss of connection, fear of discomfort in any way, fear of the dissolution of this papier mache ego? How to be motivated by love and not fear?

First do no harm. I am learning to cultivate a life motivated by -- rooted in-- the ethics of the precepts. I continue to consult my own experience relative to the precepts, and finding skillfullness and right action being reinforced by this very body.

I am learning that an intention of love and a sense of my complete interconnectedness can be a source of fearlessness. When I engage in right action for right action's sake, and not for some external reward, my actions are less sticky, and I can let go of the outcome -- in this way, I can free all beings from this ego's sticky needs and agendas. Examining the intention behind everything, I can feel a world of difference, even in what may appear on the outside to be an identical action.
Intention is the bridge between thought and action. When I think / believe that I am a thing, distinct from all those "other" things outside of me me me, I think I am small, vulnerable, and my intentions coalesce around defending this small distinct jellybean I consider myself, and from that flow my actions. My life becomes one big commercial for the product of I, me, mine, trying to convince the world and my small self of the quality and worth of this product. That incorrect view naturally leads to those less than skillful intentions and actions, rooted in fear, and feels like a rollercoaster with ups and downs made of praise and blame.
Jizo Bodhisattva embodies a fearless love, rooted in the Earth itself. Still and solid as rock. In stillness my own compass points clearly (in stillness I find I actually have my own compass).

Thich Nhat Hanh enlarges the Paramita of Patience, calling it Inclusiveness, and encouraging us all to "make our heart(s) big." Big like the earth. "If your heart is small, one unjust word or act will make you suffer. But if your heart is large, if you have understanding and compassion, that word or deed will not have the power to make you suffer. You will be able to receive, embrace, and transform it in an instant. What counts here is your capacity."
The Buddha counseled his son Rahula in this way: "Develop a state of mind like the earth, Rahula. For on the earth, people throw clean and unclean things, dung and urine...and the earth is not troubled." All the elements are inclusive and untroubled in this way, absorbing and transforming everything without judgment. We are all composed of these same elements, and we all have this inherent capacity.

The Buddha also said, "Therefore, be ye lamps unto yourselves, be a refuge to yourselves. Hold fast to Truth as a lamp; hold fast to the truth as a refuge. Look not for a refuge in anyone beside yourselves. And those, who shall be a lamp unto themselves, shall betake themselves to no external refuge, but holding fast to the Truth as their lamp, and holding fast to the Truth as their refuge, they shall reach the topmost height."

Who Am I? Don't Know!

Lately I've been nostalgic about my late teens and early 20's. It's causing me to look at questions of identity, then and now. My recent habit of streaming AccuRadio's Alternative 80's Music has likely been a large part of this remembrance. Any reading of this post really ought to be accompanied by this music.

click above for the soundtrack of my teens and early 20's

I think another reason I keep looking back is the fact that my 20th high school reunion will be this upcoming summer. I have never attended one of those things, and have never really even considered it until this year. Mostly my friends in high school were much older, and / or went to different schools. So most of the folks with whom I would have connections at any sort of reunion would be my cohorts in grade school & junior high.

Even that is a little bit tempting; to reconnect with the people I traded lunches with and played kickball with and put our heads down on our big desks for a nap. It seems like when you know someone's childhood self, you know a bit of their original heart, before all the identities and group affiliations start crowding in and creating walls between each other.

My older brother, who was quite uninvolved in his high school even attended his reunion two years ago, and he even liked it. He recommends I go. I am very seriously considering it.

Still another reason for my reminiscence is the fact that my barbershop is redecorating, and is requesting those photos of ourselves with our embarrassing hairstyles of old to frame on an entire wall. So I led the response by supplying this photo:

Yeah, I totally stepped up. They completely loved it. I think this was from my Junior Year. So, 1987 or 1988. I would have been 15 or 16 at the taking of this picture. Yes, it's a mullet. It was the result of a "body wave" (a.k.a. perm), curling iron, and Aqua Net hairspray. Please note the rat-tail on the right. I had it dyed black, blond, and red at one point, and would divide the colors when I braided it. The bangs were slightly lightened by hydrogen peroxide, and inspired by my complete devotion to John Taylor of Duran Duran.


So my innocent high school portrait is now framed in a plastic purple and lime green asymmetrical frame on the future Wall of Hairstyle Horrors (not its actual name) at the Broadway Barbershop. They tell me that a customer recently came in and saw it, and started excitedly saying "I know that girl! I know that girl!" They asked if he went to school in the Midwest somewhere. "Oh, no. I grew up in Beaverton."

So maybe this is why I'm a bit fascinated -- this is an archetype. The sensitive new-wave girl from the late 80's. She was kind of everywhere, wasn't she? Everybody who went through that time either knew that girl or was that girl.

The Breakfast Club is the perfect illustration of this. If you went through high school in the 80's, you identified with one of those characters, didn't you? Wasn't that a great movie? The kids come to detention locked into their roles and identities, and gradually drop them and connect more genuinely. It was a total high school fantasy.

Which Breakfast Club character were you? Can you guess which one I was?

Well I wasn't quite this sensitive. But the "Basket Case" of the Breakfast Club was certainly the one I identified most closely with in high school. This and maybe the "Brainy" kid. Definitely a bit of a misfit. Never even close to the "in" crowd. My friends were the queer kids and the ones who participated in the anti-drug & alcohol stuff.

"Just Say No!" was a major feature of the 80's thanks to the Reagan years. Regardless of how we might look back at that administration, one thing that the so-called "War on Drugs" did do was route some crumbs of funding into the schools for Prevention / Intervention activities. My dear, sweet high school guidance counselor organized so many of these programs for our high school. I would go to these weekend retreats -- called Operation Snowball -- a sort of twice-a-year conference we'd hear information about substance abuse.
At Operation Snowball retreats, we got real information about all kinds of stuff -- eating disorders, sex ed, the family effects of substance abuse, including the roles of children in families with addiction issues (I realized I was somewhere between the Hero and the Rebel).

But the real reason we all attended was the small groups. We were all assigned to small groups of about 8 teens, each with an adult and teen facilitator. It was there we'd get to talk honestly and deeply about what was going on with us and our families. We'd get real listening and support from an adult willing to take a whole weekend of their lives to spend this kind of time, and from our peers. This is where I met all my friends from different schools.

Here's how cool I wasn't: Operation Snowball's slogan is, "Hugs Are Better Than Drugs."

I got to become a teen facilitator. My high school offered a Peer Counseling program, and I was a part of that all four years of school. This is where I learned Rogerian listening skills, an emotional vocabulary, and the healing power of listening.

Teens need this kind of opportunity. I've watched other prevention / intervention resources in the pacific Northwest get slashed for teens today. There's nothing like this for them now. It looks like Snowball is limited to Illinois (but they apparently have chapters in Lithuania and Poland somehow!). I feel pretty fortunate to have had that kind of exposure to alternatives to drinking and partying. I would have been mighty vulnerable to addiction to substances, and I'm grateful to those programs for teaching me just how to be with my feelings, and how to be with others' feelings.

But I digress...

Adolescence and early 20's is that precious time when we ask -- and answer-- "Who Am I?" Those answers were so important then, but their importance fades, only to be replaced by newly important answers.

So regarding the concept of identity, I'm going to make a tenuous connection to Buddhism here, and a ham-fisted attempt at talking about no-self. That 16-year-old with a mullet is completely gone. This identity that I'm feeling nostalgic about, and even this "me" that I'm identifying with now is really just a "changing stream of mental and physical processes that are constantly undergoing transformation." (quote from Indian Philosophy by Richard King).

click photo for source

A Buddhist analogy for self / no-self is like that of a river. You never see the same river twice. The river you saw last year --or even a second ago-- has completely changed with all new water, though there is this persistent sense of continuity, you really can't say it's the same river. Another analogy is how milk transforms to curd, then to butter, then to "ghee" (a highly refined butter-like substance). You can't say it's milk, but you can't say it's entirely unrelated to the milk.

I find this aspect of Buddhism -- no-self -- quite difficult! I feel quite attached to my identity -- then and now! However, I do experience the fact that maintaining that identity, for myself, and attempting to maintain others' perceptions of it is exhausting and painful. And maybe that's where my peskiest thought, "What does everybody think of me?" comes in. It's just a haunting refrain from high school, isn't it? And how useful was all that obsessing about it then? It's useless because there is no "me" to be found. Hogen keeps saying I am not a thing, but a process. I'm not sure I really "get" that in my bones and gut, but I have certainly had the experience of letting go of identity to some degree, and finding it a relief.

It reminds me of an exercise I did at a training for hospice volunteers. We were to write all the roles and identities we have on a piece of paper. And there could be hundreds of them, of course, but we got to write maybe 20-25 of them: Daughter, wife, social worker, dog-owner, Zen practitioner, driver, dragon boater, taxpayer, etc.

Then we were to take that list of 20-25, and cross out five. Which five could we part with, and how did that feel? Then cross out another five. How did that feel to subtract those aspects of identity? Then another five. I seem to recall they let us keep about five of them, but the point was, this is what happens in the process of dying. We are confronted with the relinquishing of these roles and identities that are not really who we are. And the process is a lot easier when we have already looked at that truth, and loosened our tie to a role or identity.

I'll end by quoting Seung Sahn, via Jon Kabat-Zinn.

He says that Seung Sahn, a Korean Zen Master, who came to the east coast and taught in charmingly broken English would always encourage his students to practice "Don't Know Mind" and to "only don't know." He says Seung Sahn would sit up in front of the group, meditating, and sometimes would just say things, in a long, drawn out whisper: "Whhhhhho am I ? .... Donnnn't Knnnnowwwww."

Who Am I? Don't Know.