A Poem from Life Vows Sesshin

"Not Two"

Possibilities for a life fill the open sky
like a flock of swifts.
Each bird with a wing of wisdom, and a wing of compassion.
Now moving as one body, they vow,
concentrating themselves down
towards one point,
like a cyclone touching ground.

So, too, the geese
decisive in their direction,
forming the 'v' of vow.
Sticking their necks out
together they point the Way.
Chanting dharanis as they move their wings,
wisdom and compassion are not two things.

Acedia IV - Spiritual Laziness or Dark Night of the Soul?

Acedia is sometimes simplistically referred to as spiritual laziness.  It is usually considered a vice; something we have more control over than, say, an illness like depression.  Its origins in the Christian monastic communities of the 3rd Century identified it as one of eight "bad thoughts", or obstacles to intensive contemplative practice.  It later got thrown in with Sloth, one of the Seven Deadly Sins.  


Is it just a vice?  Or is it part of the process of deepening spiritual practice?


Here are the "different ways in which acedia overcomes a monk"  and takes him off the path, by John Cassian, one of the Desert Fathers:

"AND so the wretched soul, embarrassed by such contrivances of the enemy, is disturbed, until, worn out by the spirit of acedia, as by some strong battering ram, it either learns to sink into slumber, or, driven out from the confinement of its cell, accustoms itself to seek for consolation under these attacks in visiting some brother, only to be afterwards weakened the more by this remedy which it seeks for the present. For more frequently and more severely will the enemy attack one who, when the battle is joined, will as he well knows immediately turn his back, and whom he sees to look for safety neither in victory nor in fighting but in flight: until little by little he is drawn away from his cell, and begins to forget the object of his profession, which is nothing but meditation and contemplation of that divine purity which excels all things, and which can only be gained by silence and continually remaining in the cell, and by meditation, and so the soldier of Christ becomes a runaway from His service, and a deserter, and "entangles himself in secular business," without at all pleasing Him to whom he engaged himself."

John Cassian shows us that acedia appears differently in different people.  It could look like a total retreat from activity, or it could look like an increase in activity or distraction.  One way or another, it pulls the practitioner away from meditation.  

St John of the Cross

Later in the 16th Century, St John of the Cross, a Carmelite (contemplative) monk wrote the poem called The Dark Night of the Soul, describing the process of Union with the Divine; a two-part process of purification.  The first part is sensory purification, the second (and more difficult) part is spiritual purification.  His writings describe the process as orchestrated directly by God, according to each person's readiness and ability.  


It is a weaning process, in which God titrates a practitioner from dependency on pleasurable experiences in spiritual practice, burning away the more selfish motives for practice, leaving the  practice of virtue for its own sake.  


From the translation by Mirabai Starr:

"Beginners may become bored with the very things that are the most deeply spiritual, which are the things that belie sensory satisfaction.  These souls are lazy.  They are addicted to sweetness in spiritual practice, impatient when they cannot find it.  For their own great good, God may withhold this gratification, to test and prove them.  Yet if even one time they reach out in prayer and do not come away with the delights they crave, they may not want to return to it.  They may abandon prayer altogether or go about it with serious reluctance...

It is clear how urgent the need beginners have for God to place them in the state of the adepts.  And he does this.  He leads them into the dark night.  Here is where he weans them from the breasts of personal pleasure, through pure aridity and inner darkness.  He removes all the gratuities and childish attachments and helps them acquire the virtues by very different means."

He goes on to more clearly differentiate laziness / acedia from the Dark Night:

"Internal aridities may not always be the result of the dark night of the soul.  Sometimes they arise from transgressions and imperfections, or from laziness and apathy, or from some other kind of bad humor or bodily weakness."  

He states that if it's part of a purification, then the dryness and lack of pleasure in spiritual practice will be global -- there is no escape anywhere, and other sensory distractions are not attractive or enjoyable either. 
   
On the path of deepening practice, there is also a pain and sadness for the loss of her former abilities.  This "purifying dryness holds within itself a longing, a passionate concern, and grief about not serving God."

This is caring about not caring.  In acedia, all caring is absent.

Acedia III: Jomon vs Acedia

The day after writing about wrestling with the demon of Acedia, my husband picked up the Spring issue of Tricycle magazine.  Inside is a wonderful article called Into the Demon's Mouth by Aura Glaser.  You'll have to pick up the magazine to read the article, and I strongly recommend that you do.  

Wrestling + Swords. 

Aura Glaser is a dharma teacher and psychotherapist.  This article is about deeply accepting our demons, not trying to eradicate them.  She tells the story of Milarepa, who, upon finding his cave full of demons, attacks them, trying to forcibly evict them.  His efforts seem to cause them to settle in more.  


He then decides to teach them the Dharma.  An indirect effort at changing the situation.  Still the demons just stare at him, and continue to make themselves more comfortable.  


So he gives up, and figures he's now got a few stinky roommates.  He surrenders to his situation, looks into each of their faces, and bowing, opens himself to whatever they have to teach him.  And suddenly they all disappear.  


Except one.  The meanest-looking, scariest demon of them all.  So he goes right up to this demon, and offers himself completely to the demon as a meal.  Only then does the demon dissolve.  

Not wrestling.  

Andrew Solomon titled his book about depression The Noonday Demon.  Acedia has been referred to by this moniker as well. Whereas most demons like to hide under cover of darkness, this is a demon that seems to be unaffected by the light of day.  It is unapologetic about its existence.  Seeing it clearly does not move it.  Having insight about it does not change it.  It doesn't even blink when presented with Dharma teachings!

I know what I need to do.  

And that does not make me do it. 

In her wonderful article, Aura Glaser even references one of my favorite quotes by Carl Jung:  "We don't become enlightened by imagining beings of light but by making the darkness conscious."  But she left out the rest of the quote:  "The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable, and therefore not popular." 


This is where Acedia and the Dark Night of the Soul might intersect.    

Heart of Wisdom Zen Temple Open

Some last minute preparations.  Fluffy newly-sewn Zabutons.

Jizo greets us at the Zendo entrance.

Cakes and fruit, light, incense, and flowers for the Buddhas.

Enso by Shodo Harada Roshi.  Hogen points out that this enso reveals Roshi's state of mind, and encourages us to imagine the state of mind that could create such a piece.  

Please sign the guest book!

The teachers.

The Zendo was already full!  

Sitting in our new Temple for the first time, listening to the "new" sounds.  We are now in a neighborhood filled with the sounds of children!  At the seats nearest the walls, as the natural light fades, the lights in the ceiling gradually reveal our own shadows on the wall.  There is a faint smell of floor varnish and paint.  There is a lightheartedness, and a getting-to-know-you feeling in this place.  There is a sense of stunned joy that this is actually happening.  

Our first night, we did a Five Precepts ceremony.  Rooting the Temple in ethics from the start.

   

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.  

Boring!

Meh:  The near enemy of equanimity.  


My practice is in a challenging place.  There was this place I called "dormant", suggesting some subterranean life somewhere.  Now it's full-on, undeniable "boring."  A dry, irritable place.  Desert metaphors do not do justice, for in deserts, there are potentially dangerous creatures, and those are interesting.    


One of the more recent expressions of this boredom is suddenly becoming enamored with another credential; flirting with the idea of getting into a counseling-related program which includes dream work, and art, and archetype study.  A 2-year training program, which I suppose I would be doing on top of the 3-year Buddhist study and leadership program several of us lay practitioners have just started with Hogen called Sanghakai.   

I sat down to blog about all this, and then realized a beautiful Portland spring evening was slipping away.  So I went out and took a walk to our new Temple (not yet open for business, but soon), which takes about an hour at a gentle pace.  

The world offers its sights, sounds of baseball games, dogs, and traffic, the smells of people's dinner cooking and laundry drying, and just feeling the sidewalk underfoot.    

 There are two kitties in the above photo!

Dormant

It seems reflective of the season. My practice feels dormant. At least the contemplative part. And I suspect this is just fine.

"Don't judge your practice." Zen Teacher Hogen Bays repeats this often, in many different forms. Over and over, he reminds us that we are not in any position to gauge what is going on, how we are doing, or what is happening.

Nevertheless, there is a sense of superficiality, of busyness in the mind, of easily distracted Zazen.

Okay, so compared to what? Compared to last spring and summer -- the experience of intensive Zen practice in the midst of a yearlong Sabbatical with regular sesshin, being inactive as a social worker, working on a koan and sweating an impending Hossan ceremony.

Now things are different. I am gainfully employed in the world again, and facing outward quite a bit more. Our Sangha has just purchased a church that will be the Heart of Wisdom Zen Temple. With such a change on the horizon, being a part of many of our Sangha's transition plans is a high-energy, high-people-contact endeavor.

I still sit, I still practice, I still enjoy being at the Zen Center twice a week. It's practice without much drama. Not sure what the fuel is. It seems a little quieter, and cleaner-burning than some earlier practice that seemed all about having eye on how I am doing, and how I am received by others.

I don't know if that makes sense.

Chozen Roshi talks about how our Zen practice has a natural rhythm with more passive times to incorporate periods of intense practice. Using the example of non-practicing spouses of serious practitioners, she says sometimes these latent periods can last lifetimes.

The last few sesshin, I have come away without a Zen adventure ("Zenventure?"), but instead just saying, "Something happened. I have no idea what it was."

I guess this is just another flavor of practice.

Pick a Winner Every Time!

During Sesshin, in our efforts to empty the mind, Chozen Roshi reassured that it is not really possible to stop the mind. She referred to the term mindstream. This is apparently a term used more commonly in Theravada and Vajrayana practices, and after looking it up, I am perhaps even a bit more confused than I was before, so forgive me if I am not communicating about it clearly. Basically the point is that the mindstream is continuous, and flows even through lifetimes. Purifying the mindstream, as I understand it, is about reducing and removing the pollutants of greed, anger and ignorance.

It's easy for me to visualize the "stream of consciousness" or the "stream of thought." This common metaphor encourages us to sit on the banks, watching a little stream, and observing the leaves of thought and sensation innocently floating by. I would add, perhaps a bit judgmentally, observing the random trash floating by, particularly my "greatest hits," which are my most repetitive thoughts. With practice, the stream might sometimes slow down to some degree, but really doesn't altogether stop. The trick is to stay on the banks, rather than reaching out and grabbing hold of any of the tempting items floating by.

While it may still be true that my mind is a 2-year-old black lab that eats poop, it would also seem that my mind is the duck pond at the fair.

Pick a Lucky Duck originally uploaded by dcjohn

Pick a winner every time! A game requiring no skill! A prize every time! I remember playing the duck pond carnival game as a child. I remember the ducks had numbers written on the bottoms, in permanent marker. If you picked a duck with the number one on the bottom, you won the big fluffy huge pink teddy bear dangling at the top of the kiosk. But as the numbers got higher, those were the less desirable, and much more common prizes.

I think I might have been about seven years old when I last played this game. I, of course, picked a high number. I "won" -- I am not kidding -- a Roy Rogers poster.

Now, nothing against Roy Rogers -- he was a sweet man. But what kid on earth wants a Roy Rogers poster in the late 70's? Where did they even get this "prize"? The funny thing was, I actually put it up in my room for a while. I won it, right?

I am always similarly tempted to reach out and grab items of thought in the mindstream. But they tend to be the same things over and over -- just like the duck pond and its circular stream -- the same little duck-thoughts over and over, despite how important the mind insists they are, the endless hope and the mind's insistence that this time, this thought is the enormous pink teddy bear, not the Roy Rogers poster.

But just like at the fair, each thought really is always the Roy Rogers poster. And there is nothing more satisfying than going to the fair, watching those cute little ducks just float on by, and leaving emptyhanded.

prize everytime originally uploaded by pulpmojo

I Vow to Make Mistakes With GUSTO!

The image in my mind is of an Olympic gymnast, making an absolute train wreck of some ending part of her routine, recovering to a minimal degree, then doing that TA-DA! move anyway. TA-DA! with the arms way up. TA-DA! to this side of the room, TA-DA! to that side of the room. Apparently that's called "sticking the landing".

I looked on YouTube for a gymnast moment like this, but ended up being fairly traumatized by some videos of really serious gymnast injuries. I don't recommend it.

But then I found this. "How to Stick the Landing." Someone with some video skill had the same idea. TA-DA! with every success, and TA-DA! with every mistake. Don't just meet mistakes, but greet mistakes!

All you need is

1) Coordination

2) Shamelessness

and 3) The ability to laugh at yourself.

How To Stick the Landing on Howcast

I am actually pretty coordinated. It's #2 and #3 that need a little more practice.

I vow to stick the landing.

Enjoy.

Zen Women - It All Comes Back to Childcare

This just in - Buddhist Geeks interviews Grace Schireson about her new book, Zen Women which tops the list for my next trip to Powell's.

Grace Shireson has been studying the women in Zen stories, koans, literature and lineage. In the interview, she notes that often the women in the stories and koans are characters (objects), when the subjects are usually the male monks. For example, she notes that there are many stories of "mere" tea ladies whose understanding surpasses the male monks, and this aspect of the situation makes it all that much more humiliating. This is where Zen gets its macho rep. Even the women are made of iron. At least Dogen laid it down in the 1200's that women who have understanding are no different and should be respected as teachers. So you'd think this would have manifested in the history of Zen practice. Of course, reality has many more dimensions.

Teacher Hui Kong, Kuang Jiao Si

But the highlight in the interview is her discovery that the value of studying women ancestors is this: The women ancestors had to figure out how to adapt traditional monastic practice to a practice more centered around home and family.

Cutest baby in China, Second Ancestor's Village

Indeed, it is already something I can observe in Sangha members around me -- that having children requires a practice that is not centered around a monastery, long retreats, or even coming to a Zendo to sit from 7:30 - 9 :30 in the evenings (hello? bedtime!). Having children kind of takes you out of the community practice game for a few years. Hopefully there's a good foundation of practice, some semblance of Sangha support, and maybe even a dog-eared copy of Jon and Myla Kabat-Zinn's Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting lying around somewhere.

Grace Shireson posits that our female ancestors authenticate the value of lay practice as a viable Path to Awakening. Similarly, Zen in the West must address the needs of householders. And IMHO, childcare is at the top of that list of needs.

It looks like my karma does not include being a biological mother in this lifetime. My Path and work as a social worker and therapist has for many years included working primarily with women in crisis, and this overwhelmingly means supporting mothers. That is an area of need that appears bottomless. It looks like my own life Path is that of an allomother and a support person to mothers and parents to some degree. The child-free path does enable my husband and me to focus on and deepen our own practice in more traditional ways (retreats, monastic stays, frequent community practice and organizational participation). But how can this practice benefit those who are raising children?

When we did a two-day Sangha-building retreat last year called "Upholding the Sangha Treasure", we looked deeply into the needs of our Sangha and where to turn our attention to cultivating growth. We narrowed the list to ten things. Two of these things relate to the needs of parents and families in the Sangha; specifically having childcare available during practice periods, and creating a workgroup to focus on the needs of children and families in the Sangha, and how to meet those needs. But until we have our own physical space that can accommodate doing more than two things at a time (zazen upstairs, intro to meditation downstairs), this will remain an aspiration. But it is an aspiration that has been called into being, and one that I have a very strong intention to realize.

Wild Goose Pagoda, Xi'an, China

This Year's Death Poem

This life, this body

In service to this moment

Already so vast.

New Year's Eve, Zen Style

This ceremony is what helped me first feel connected to this community about five years ago, and I have not missed it since. I do love a good ceremony. On New Year's Eve, the Zen Community of Oregon and Dharma Rain Zen Center join together to create a lovely New Years' celebration. I believe they have been doing this for decades.

It begins with what is probably the best vegetarian potluck in the Pacific Northwest since Thanksgiving at Great Vow Zen Monastery. If you show up early, so many new dishes, er, people have shown up, you can have a completely different meal at seconds.

After a hearty meal and lots of chit chat, the group will split into about half or 2/3, with most going upstairs to participate in some very easy sacred circle dances. Chozen Roshi loves to lead these old dances from various cultures and countries, and always manages to weave in some Dharma teaching into all of them. Those who are not dancing are, quite gratefully I am told, washing all the dishes, pots and pans.

I enjoy the dancing, and am always amazed by how much I do. These dances are gentle and forgiving, can allow for turning inward (some can even be done with eyes closed), or focusing outward into the larger body and all of our fumbling magnificence.

The large number of dancers usually heats up the Zendo quite impressively, and the big windows get opened, and usually stay that way all evening.

The dancing transitions into the evening's program, and people are given small pieces of paper and writing implements, so as to write down anything particularly unskillful to be let go of in the coming year. There is a shifting and a quieting as the dishwashers are reassured that the coast is clear, and people can begin to come upstairs, settle down on a cushion and reflect on a few things in need of refinement.

During this time, the teachers and all the monastics go to change into their robes. The coming evening program is relatively formal, with lots of bells, a ton of bowing, and the big taiko drum! The teachers carry their sticks, wear their malas, and Kyogen even carries his fly whisk. Although it is formal, despite all the "smells and bells" I do find it very accessible.

The burning bowl is set up in front of the altar, with two of the teachers there to tend it, usually saying something about the transformational quality of practice. Chanting begins, and people are given an opportunity to step forward and burn their small paper in the fire.

There is a Fusatsu Ceremony, including the Gatha of Atonement:

All evil karma

ever committed by me

since of old

on account of my beginningless

greed anger and ignorance

born of my body, mouth, and thought

now I atone for it all.

Then we verbally and physically take refuge; recommitting to the Precepts, and offering a full body prostration after each one, to help the body absorb its vows, and to express them bodily.

We list and chant Being One with the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, with bells and bows after each precept, and after each ancestor is announced. I am usually pleasantly sore in the morning from all these full prostrations.

When the precepts and honoring the ancestors are done, there is quiet as the hour approaches midnight. Participants sit in Zazen, and four people, two from each Sangha are chosen to ring the big bell and offer a bow 27 times each, bringing the total to 108 bows (I got to do this two years ago) while Southeast Portland erupts all around us into the new year.

During this time, the four teachers go through each of the rows and individually, reverently, ceremonially pour and serve each student a small cup of sparkling cider. It is a way to express humility, honor, and respect in this relationship. After all are served, there are a few words, and then it's done! "Happy New Year!"

Then I go find my husband Bansho and give him a kiss.

When we first attended this, you know what the most striking difference was? Feeling bright and clear on New Year's Day -- not hung over the next morning. Not that I used to get fall-down drunk on New Year's Eve or anything, but just staying up that late while nursing a buzz for 4-5 hours will lead to some foggy-headed late-sleeping mornings needing more recovery than anything.

This is a blessed tradition, one that I cherish, as is writing a death poem, or a poem of our deepest understanding for the year. These are shared the next day. I am working on mine for this year. Last year's was posted here.

Happy New Year!

Sitting with what sucks -- I mean, what is.

Maybe my hair is ready to ordain.

Head-shaving has long been a symbol of renunciation in Buddhism. Head-shaving has been a way to physically express the cutting off of the three poisons -- greed, anger and ignorance. Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn even called hair "ignorance grass".

From Only Don't Know:

The Buddha taught that hair is ‘ignorance grass’, so cutting is necessary. If your hair is long, maybe your ignorance is long. When you have hair, you always worry how it looks … We put so much concern and time and effort into keeping this hair the way we like it. So this hair is always pulling our minds around. Being a monk or nun means cutting off all attachments and becoming a completely free person. Being attached to your hair cannot help you do this, so we cut it.

The bald spots on my head are getting larger, and a new one was just found at my last trim at the barber. Alopecia Areata is presenting me with quite a practice. Despite my ideas about myself as a pretty wash-and-go gal, ready or not, I am getting better-acquainted with these attachments to my physical presentation: Thirtysomething woman with cute, short, thick, dark, slightly graying hair.

Holding onto that idea of myself is painful when it's falling apart every moment.

For many people, hair loss is often a side-effect of chemotherapy. Something that adds insult to the injury of life-threatening illness. Mine is certainly not that severe, and even if it gets to that point, Alopecia Areata will damage only my ego, and so I try to keep that in perspective, and see it as an ally in this way.

Also:

• I should always have a full head of hair, the appearance of which loosely commensurate with my age.
• I should be able to control this body.
• I should understand why this is happening.
• Something is wrong with me.

The glue holding this self together is made up of thoughts like those.

Also revealed are my pet notions of how a Zen student "should" respond to this. Well, not just any Zen student. I would not expect others to have some miraculous calm about such an experience, but I have apparently been feeding this notion that I should welcome this teaching with instant acceptance, serenity, equanimity, and even humor or delight at the opportunity to further simplify my daily routine. Let me be clear: That's not how it's been.

There has been quite a bit of resistance to actually feeling the truth of my feelings around this; pain, embarrassment, anger, irritation, shame. And so many of these are secondary emotions; embarrassment about feeling embarrassed. Anger about feeling anger.

Lama Surya Das on renunciation:

...it doesn't necessarily imply suddenly, impulsively, dropping everyone and everything. What renunciation really means is letting go, openness, relinquishing the tight-fisted grasping. The heart of renunciation means allowing rather than controlling; letting go of the controlling and the contrived, selfish manipulation you do in order to get what you think you want. We try to see through the manipulation so that we're less invested in the fool's gold of materialism, of spiritual materialism, or anything that we believe is going to save us or make us happy for ever.

Not a pushing away, but a letting go. Not a wrenching away, but a releasing.

I've actually had that experience with Zen practice. As this life turns more toward practice, the things I used to spend time doing just fall away quite naturally and without much fanfare. Like the time I had signed up for a week-long Sesshin, which turned out to be the week that my home team, my beloved St Louis Cardinals went to (and won) the World Series. I was surprised that my reaction to missing the final games was such a non-reaction. I was surprised to be so satisfied with turning my attention to practice instead of the games. Even missing the games, I did not have any sense of missing anything. It was easy. Effortless.

Lama Surya Das again:

In Tibetan the word (renunciation) is very interesting. It means the arising of certainty, which has a highly positive valence. It doesn't mean throwing away your life, your wife, your husband, your kids, your career, your health, and flagellating yourself in various ways. It means the arising of inner certainty. For example, drinking salt water does not alleviate thirst, so when you know that, you don't have to renounce drinking salt water when you're thirsty; it just doesn't make sense so you naturally relinquish such an action. It doesn't help, so you effortlessly renounce it. When you have inner conviction and spiritual certainty, what is there to renounce?

That is why the Buddha said:

"Adopt and cultivate what is wholesome and beneficial;

Relinquish what is harmful.

Purify your heart and mind;

This is the way of enlightenment."

The way the Tibetan idea was translated from Sanskrit was not sacrifice, but more like the ridding of excess baggage. We have to pay for every kilo of excess baggage, so sloughing off the excess is not a very dire renunciation. Buddhist teachings strongly emphasize notions such as non-attachment, renunciation, simplicity. This is not because Buddhism is pessimistic, but because it's practical and realistic. Everything is passing and changing, so resistance or holding on to fleeting things and relationships is ultimately unsatisfactory. These are the first sublime truths the Buddha taught; they're just the facts of life, not some holy ontology or mythology about the beginning of the universe. These are the facts of life: If you want to suffer less, then resist less, grasp less, identify less with ephemera. It is very unsatisfying to hold on to what is ungraspable.

Yeah man, very unsatisfying. Like getting a crutch kicked out from under you.

All the while, I continue to turn my mind toward looking at this as simply what is; not struggling, but cultivating willingness to actually feel the pain of trying to hold onto something that is transient. To really be awake to how it feels to take refuge in a burning house. To sit and feel the feelings of embarrassment that are not in fact the result of hair loss, but are the result of identifying with these thoughts, this idea of a self as is "should" be.

So instead I just let myself cry, and wordlessly go through this process as it is. To open and widen beyond the tight little clutching confines of me, me, me, self, self, self. Actively receptive.

Heart-Warming

Is it the bowl that rolls around the pearl,
Or is it the pearl that rolls around the bowl?
Is it the weather that is cold,
Or is it the person that is cold?
Think neither cold nor heat.
At that moment,
Where is the self to be found?

~Capping verse from Dharma Discourse by John Daido Loori, Roshi

Our downtown Sangha --The Heart of Wisdom Zen Temple -- practices at the Portland Dharma Center.
This space is owned by our sister Sangha, Dharma Rain. Most of them are now up at Great Vow Zen Monastery for Rohatsu Sesshin. Including the Dharma Rain teachers and their Shusso, who are the only ones who have Transmission of How to Restart the Furnace.

The furnace is a wonky old thing; an old boiler and radiator system that clanks and rattles when it's getting going. It makes sitting with sound a lively experience, although my imagination tends to drift towards visions of seven dwarves with their shovels and pick-axes hammering and tapping away somewhere underground.

We've had a cold spell here in Portland (which means it's been below freezing for a few days in a row causing Portlanders to wring their hands and wonder if they are being punished for something), and on a bright and crisp Bodhi Day morning, the heater at the Dharma Center went off again.

The optimistic folks who were at our Tuesday morning service told me it was 56 degrees in the Zendo, and figured the furnace would kick on at some point in the day. By the time I got there Tuesday night, it was 40 degrees in the Zendo. It was only slightly warmer downstairs, as the Zendo has large drafty windows and a very high ceiling. Ordinarily, when this happens, the Heart of Wisdom Shusso is authorized to tinker with the thermostat a little, then failing that, go across the street and get Dharma Rain's Teacher or Shusso. But nobody was home there. They were all in the middle of Sesshin an hour and a half away.

What to do? I called the monastery and left a message for the Dharma Rain teacher, figuring he'd get the message in the morning, and let me know what he wanted me to do. Despite my mind's continual returning to problem-solving, that was, in fact, all that could be done there.

As people arrived for Tuesday night's sitting, I warned them of the situation, letting them know they might not want to remove so much outdoor wear just yet. We moved zabutons downstairs, and suspended the no hats rule. People wore their hats, and their scarves, socks, gloves and coats! To see a wagessa slipped on over a ski jacket -- well it was just the picture of dedication! There were a few blankets that got distributed and wrapped around people as well.

The bell rang, and the meditation period began.

Nobody left, there was no fidgeting, no complaining (at least not audibly). Just sitting. Just being with the situation as it was.

We ended the meditation period, and proceeded with the Tuesday night program, which includes some reading on a Dharma-related topic, then discussion. People got up to stretch, acquired some cups of tea (primarily as hand-warmers), and we read about the Buddha's enlightenment -- a particularly storybookish version. We took turns reading paragraphs, and for me, it was just like hearing it for the first time.

Our discussion centered around the archetypal Hero's Journey, and how aspects of this infuse our own lives, our own practice. What have our spiritual searches entailed? How have we tried the strategies of decadence and asceticism in our attempts to avoid suffering? What is the Middle Way in our lives? What temptations and distractions do we face? How do we transmute what feels like negativity coming at us into something more skillful? What does the golden bowl floating upstream mean? How do we call upon the Earth as our own witness? Is enlightenment really possible?

We ended the evening with our chanting service -- the new service position holders focusing deeply in their new roles -- and that was that.

I am left just struck by the willingness I observed. This willingness to feel our lives, this willingness to participate in something that didn't match an idea of what was supposed to happen. This willingness to hold the space for each other to just sit, in any circumstances, and look into the truth of this life.