Body as Body

I've picked up attention to the body again. It seems I'd put that away for a time, after a few years of participation on a highly competitive dragon boat team.


The time demands for that and for deepening Zen practice was leaving little room for niggling details like work and going to the bathroom.
But as I've started to become alarmingly dependent upon my elastic-waisted yoga pants for daily wear, and noticing a very bad attitude towards work creeping in, it is clear that there is a major element of self-care missing from my repertoire. Exercise.

I do not mean the kind that you picture a person at the gym in some cute outfit sweating profusely. I just don't push myself that hard (well, unless I'm on a team), and I have learned that is not even necessary or realistic when I am exercising alone. I am talking about gentle, steady, regular, loving body movement.

Children and dogs respond so beautifully to structure and routine, and the fact is, us grown-up people are no different. So I am mothering myself with a gentle structure for adding in some exercise on a very slow and steady incline.
I started by checking out one of the *free* yoga classes at my gym, which is on my way home from work at a perfect time. I have committed to one night a week for that. Even though it is not the awesome and spiritual experience from my very favorite yoga instructor at the fancy studio a mile and a half away, my body actually does not care one whit! My body was seriously grateful.

And... given that Monday is Camp Laura Day, there is no reason for me not to go to open practice on the dragon boats every Monday morning at 9am. Open practice is aptly named. It's open to anybody who wants to just show up and paddle for an hour on the Willamette. It's hosted by the Golden Dragons, the team made up of seniors 50 and older, whose median age is something like 70 (They have an 82-year-old who may be throwing off the curve).
This fabulous arrangement does not require membership on a team, commitment to go to any races, or even the expectation to work very hard. Competitive team practices used to include a break about halfway through, in which we'd hear various announcements about technique, practice, working harder, race logistics, proper diet and hydration.

These open practices also stop halfway through for announcements. The two or even three (!) boats full of seniors will stop paddling, grab hold of each others' boats, then a call goes up for any announcements. Moments later, someone will stand, get everyone's attention, and then tell an old-people joke. Usually the punchline gets repeated a couple times down the boat for those hard of hearing.

The two women sitting behind me absolutely never stopped chatting for the entire hour of practice. They were undeterred by drills, closed-eye exercises, race pieces, or even the announcements!

So that's Monday mornings.

And that's it so far. That's enough. Yoga once a week, gentle paddling with the elders once a week, and anything else is just bonus. I am not a person who can get away with not exercising. They've done studies pitting very gentle -- like 20 minutes of walking 3x per week -- exercise against prozac, and exercise won.

Duh.

There's no way for me to have any clarity of mind and heart without moving this body. It's actually amazing for me to consider almost no difference between moving the body and loving the body. I have come such a long way!

Cody at the Beach

Just a new video of our dear geriatric Cody. I think he has to open his eyes wide to try to see around the cataracts. He is doing remarkably well, and I believe he will be 16 in about February, if we all can survive his deadly and nearly constant gas.We spent some post-election R&R at Rockaway Beach. We dearly love the little Silver Sands motel for its cozy basics, kitchenettes, pet-friendly ways, and of course, the sound of the Ocean all day and night.

Yes We Can!

Today I am so... relieved, surprised, proud, happy, hopeful.



I am so happy for us as a nation. So happy for -- and with -- African Americans today. We as a nation really were dancing in the streets last night. We really were!

"Metta Cranes Assembly" by Roy Goodwin

On a more serious note, I want to join my own practice of metta -- wishing all beings to be safe, at peace, happy, and free from suffering -- with the fervent prayers of all the Sunday-hatted Black ladies across this nation to protect our president-elect, Barack Obama. The prayers and well-wishes of all of us will surely be the virtual Pope-mobile I have been offering to contribute to since Barack first spoke to the Democratic National Convention in 2004.

Additionally, to our new First Lady, Michelle Obama. What a strong woman. I am so excited to see how she will use this world stage to advance causes of healing and connection. One thing is for sure -- she will bring grace and intelligence to her role.

I am so glad we now have a President we no longer have to apologize to the world for. Remember?

What a contrast. This video made me cry. Finally. I realized I have been holding my breath, and holding back a large amount of hope. I am so grateful to all those who worked their asses off for this, and who simply voted.



It IS a beautiful day today.

Groundhog Day

I found this little vid on the wonderful blog, "Cute Overload." It made me laugh and then it made tears come out of my eyes from laughing! Apparently this kitteh's name is "Maru."




Aren't we all just like this?

Doing the same thing over and over, having the same problem over and over, getting stuck the same way over and over, using the same strategies over and over -- often using them to try to solve that same problem over and over!

"Oooh! what a wonderful box! I must investigate! Aaaagh!!! Get it off me!!! Oooh! what a wonderful box! I must investigate! Aaaagh!!! Get it off me!!! Oooh! what a wonderful box! I must investigate! Aaaagh!!! Get it off me!!!

Here is Maru the Kitteh again to demonstrate:



That wonderful unintentionally Buddhist film, Groundhog Day, certainly speaks to this human (and animal) tendency; making the same mistakes over and over, and (hopefully) eventually becoming more refined, more skillful.



I recall after my very first Sesshin, I was amazed at how much it all reminded me of that movie -- Groundhog Day. At Sesshin, we do the very same things every day. Same schedule, same work practice, same meditation hall, same dining hall, same bed, same chants, same everything, with very little variation. Only sometimes I'd feel in a hurry and forget to hold a door open, or move past someone in a sleep-deprived rush, maybe even somewhat rudely, focusing on getting me! me! me! to the Zendo on time, and then have hours of silence to recap the day; or at least my Inner Critic would.

So I noticed that I did manage to become ever more conscious every day. I'd move a little more aware of my surroundings and the people in them. I'd slow down and be able to look a little more deeply into what was in front of me. Ideally, that's what we're doing.

And of course here is that popular poem which expresses it so well:

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters
Portia Nelson

1) I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I fall in.
I am lost...I am hopeless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

2) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I'm in the same place.
But it isn't my fault.
It still takes time to get out.

3) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I see it is there.
I still fall in...it's a habit
My eyes are open
I know where I am
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

4) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I walk around it.

5) I walk down another street.

Just a slightly unrelated note on dear Maru: I was also reminded of one of my favorite books as a child, My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes, by Eve Sutton.
My mom is quite masterful at taking on various accents, and would read in the appropriate accent:

The cat from Norway got stuck in the doorway!
But my cat likes to hide in boxes.

The cat from France liked to sing and dance!
But my cat likes to hide in boxes.

The cat from Spain flew a big aeroplane
But my cat likes to hide in boxes.

Here's Maru again -- just being himself.

I just returned from the Koan sesshin last night. I think this may actually be a short entry, as I am winding down. Also known as hitting the wall. I have been up late last night, and up early this morning. I unpacked, did laundry, took care of the beloved geriatric dog, chopped some veggies and threw them in the crock pot for soup, cleaned out my e-mail inbox, etc etc. It reminds me of when I worked graveyard shifts, and I'd come home on my "Friday" in the morning and stay up in this rather manic cleaning binge, then drop at night. I've been a total chatterbox to Patrick and also calling people and enjoying all the talking since my week of "silence".

Though it was anything but silent in my head all week.

We got to choose from a handful of koans to work with this week. I eventually settled on the koan of "Who Am I?"

I chose this one because Hogen keeps pointing to all this emptiness and spaciousness within that I just can't seem to see. Also because of the incessant experience of somehow being simultaneously bored and tortured by my own obsession with "What does everyone think of me?"

So I decided to trace this "me" to the root. To challenge this "me" to show her/itself.

Who am I?

I was continually asking "WHO AM I?" in response to my own thoughts and feelings and experiences and decisions and judgments and preferences with "Who IS it that ___?" Fill in the blank. Who IS it that is hungry? Who IS it that is walking? Who IS it that wants jasmine tea not black tea? Who IS it that wants to go back to bed? Who IS it that hopes the teachers see me sitting late at night? Who IS it that just thought that thought? Who IS it that's making up a story about that person over there? And what ended up my favorite abbreviation: "Who cares?" No, seriously! Who DOES care? Who IS it in there that cares?

"I am not my thoughts" seemed to be confirmed by the experience of someone having left the radio in my head on to a Lite Rock of the 60's and 70's station. And that is certainly not "me"! I happened to be sitting behind a fellow named Daniel all week, so my mind decided that putting that Elton John song, "Daniel" on heavy rotation was a great idea. Sheesh!

At some point I did have a sense of the emptiness, the groundlessness of so much of who I think I am. Like a papier-mache construction, I have been pasting scraps of thoughts and ideas and memories into a shape and calling it me, and trying very hard to make it look good. Except even papier mache is more real than thoughts. And other people's thoughts are even more impossible to control than my own! I keep holding up this papier mache "me" and hoping it looks good.

Well, it is starting to rain on that thing.

Click photo for source

Again, I know a lot less than I did when I went on retreat. I know a little more about what I am NOT, though I have a glimmer of what I actually am. I caught a glimpse, and although my mind shut down on that rather fast, but it wasn't scary. That was an important thing to experience, because I want to be motivated by love not fear.

The 60's & 70's DJ also decided that appropriate accompaniment to this experience should be that song "She's Not There." Not the bad parts about how she lied and all. Mostly this part of the song:

How would I know, why should I care
Please don't bother tryin' to find her
She's not there

Well, let me tell you 'bout the way she looked
The way she acted, the color of her hair
Her voice was soft and cool, her eyes were clear and bright
But she's not there

So much of what goes on in my head is utter ridiculousness! No wonder we resist quieting down! This practice really requires you to acknowledge how foolish and ridiculous and small we are. Yet at the same time, large and with no edges; all encompassing, and infinitely attentive. And that may be even harder to acknowledge.

I'll close with this sweet awesome song by Dar Williams. My random DJ in my head did at some point abandon the 60's and 70's to throw this song on, mainly for that line:

When you feel your soul go beyond your skin
When you know that's the way that it's always been
Hey what do you love more than love?

(P.S. Gail Ann Dorsey on bass playing with Dar?!?! What is this, the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival? What a find!)

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.

Everything is alive. Everything is participating.

Hogen says that an insight is worth $5 and a cup of coffee. I think he says that so we don't get too attached to our insights when they come. So we don't go around thinking we have it all figured out.

click photo for source

No need to worry about that. I returned from my 10-day Sesshin knowing a lot less than I did before I went.

I have never practiced so hard. I was amazed at the ingenuity of my mind to engage me in thought, and always, before I knew it, I had slid off focus into a realm of dreamy thinking. Then bring it back to the practice: Breathe Buddha. Inhale 'Bu' and exhale 'Daaahhhh'. It was like heavy lifting -- repetitive weight training -- to build the muscles of mind-focus.

This was an active Sesshin. The Teisho, or daily Dharma talks, were calls to active focus and continuous practice in every activity beyond sitting as well. Hogen told a story of a rabbit in a woods, fleeing for its life, then accidentally running into a tree, killing itself right in front of a hunter who happened along. The hunter, pleased at his luck, thought they'd have rabbit again the next night, so he hunkered down in front of the same tree to wait for another rabbit to come along! The example was to illustrate that this was not the way to approach zazen -- passively -- but to be active and energetic in our practice.

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I find that I do tend to bring a lot of energy to Sesshin. It's hard to adjust to the schedule, and I gather as much determination as I can to punch through those first few days of struggle. It is like most of the time, we are operating on battery-power. We go to Sesshin, the batteries wear down, and then we realize we are actually plugged into the wall. Connected.

Chozen has described that the usual ratio of thinking : awareness is like, 90 : 10. And all that thinking is what is wearing us down. Retreat allows that ratio to reverse. Such increased awareness and decreased thinking requires a lot less energy. Need for sleep and food diminish, the mind and senses sharpen, and the ability to see more clearly emerges. Practice is powerful technology.

It was like being in a group of hard core, experienced mountain-bikers, on a difficult mountain trek. Most of them were way ahead of me going up a heavily wooded and steep hill. Then, as we all approached the crest of the hill, Hogen would encourage us to keep pedaling on the downhill, and not slow down and coast! However my personal downhill slope still had lots of trees and obstructions in the way, and I was feeling a bit freaked out. Like I was doing it wrong.

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Always I am pretty sure "I am doing it wrong." That is one of my greatest hits on the repetitive thought hit-parade. Although "What does everybody think of me?" has topped the charts, I believe, for decades now. "I am doing it wrong" is actually just a variation on "What does everybody think of me?".

In fact, I was able to organize an outline of the repetitive thoughts I experienced for ten days, they were so repetitive:

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.

Every day at Sesshin, you get to go to Sanzen, a face-to-face meeting with the teacher. I think Sanzen means "reality-check" in Japanese (just kidding). On about day 3, I told Hogen I was feeling like neither the waiting hunter nor the chasing hunter, but the rabbit. He asked if I could feel my hands. Yes. Could I feel my feet? Left shoulder? Yes. Yes. Are you sure? Yes. Could I feel my breath? Yes. You're doing it. You're fine. It's nothing but this. He didn't say this, but I heard, "Don't even trip out."

So the next morning, what may have been one of the imports from China that had come to Great Vow Zen Monastery since our trip there had been to start the morning with fast walking, then bowing practice. Every morning we did 36 full-body bows, reciting the name of Kwan Yin, Bodhisattva of Compassion. Wonderful to have so much movement at 4:30am even to the point of breaking a sweat! Not only did that keep me warm for the first two 25-minute sitting periods, but it reminded me to be kind to myself as I was bringing my mind back to the practice.

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I often utilize a practice I heard from Pema Chodron, about the importance of a kind tone when reminding ourselves to return to this moment. Their practice often consists of "labeling." When you notice yourself having a thought, you label it, by saying to yourself, "Thinking." When you notice yourself making a judgment, you label it by saying to yourself, "Judging." And of course, our mind and its Inner Critic can turn this meditation practice into a bludgeon. You can violently castigate yourself for "THINKING!" And you can just about roll your eyes and seethe in disgust at yet another "JUDGING!" And don't even get me started about judging my judging!

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So Pema Chodron encourages us to maintain a kind tone. She tells a story in which she was teaching in Texas, and a man -- apparently a trucker -- came up to her and said he had taken her encouragement to heart. He would be driving long distances, practicing being in the moment, find himself thinking and then he would say to himself (with a gentle southern accent) "Thinkin' good buddy."

I use this technique a lot. So this is what I did. All. Day. One whole day. Thinkin' good buddy. Thinkin' good buddy. Thinkin' good buddy. And an occasional Judgin' good buddy for good measure. And it allowed me to settle into the practice. My practice, not anybody else's.

Then the next day that stopped working. The gentle touch was allowing my mind to slip and float and drift. I would find myself way way off in a complicated thought, or rehearsing! Geez, so much rehearsing! I would find myself rehearsing what I was going to say about my insights after the retreat. Never mind the fact that the retreat was less than a third of the way through. I realized I needed to bring a little more fire into returning to the practice. So I tried energetically saying "NO!" in my mind, and then returning to the practice. This worked, and was not at all a bludgeoning or criticism. It was simply what was needed. All. Day. That. Day.

I had housekeeping for work practice. I enjoy it. I actually like cleaning bathrooms (see previous blog post about cleaning bathrooms at Great Vow on my wedding day). We were all encouraged to practice continuously with the Buddha breath -- even during our work practice, noticing everything we could experience, every sensation, the hara and everything else, everything was Buddha.

I was able to breathe the Buddha breath out loud while vacuuming.

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I would practice while scrubbing the toilets. Even that is Buddha? The dead bugs at the bottom of the men's urinals? Buddha? The gunk I pulled out of the drain in the women's gym showers? Buddha? No separation. Everything. It seemed kind of a mental exercise at times, but focusing on the breath, there left little room for thought.

Then at some point, when the days began to blend together and the practice began to practice me, during zazen Hogen added some inquiry: What breathes? What is alive? What is the source of this breath? What is the source of this life?

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I remember sitting there and asking myself about this. What is breathing? Then I tried to stop my breath, and experienced the fact that I couldn't for very long. I would be breathing, like it or not. The breath breathes in spite of me. It breathes even when I forget to, which is most of the time. It breathes when I am sleeping. Something is breathing; something infinitely attentive and wise enough to take care of this amazing task and it's not "me". I began to get a slightly creepy feeling. I felt like I was in one of those horror movies when they call the babysitter and shout "The phone calls are coming from inside the house!" There's definitely something not "me" that's breathing, that's connected to and engaging with and welcoming life in this way. And then one day it will stop doing it in that way.

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What is alive? I wondered as I brought a spoonful of vegetable soup to my mouth. I could see the carrots. Are the carrots that have been pulled out of the ground and chopped up and boiled "dead?" My body clearly says no. My body says they are alive. My body takes them in and they transform into my body. Alive. If they were in the compost bin, the earth would take them in and transform them into some other life. But they are no longer growing. They have arisen, existed, and are now disappearing and becoming some other thing that is arising. When do they stop being carrots? When to they become "me"? Can we "kill" them? Can we kill anything? Or do we just re-route the way the life is being expressed? Can we create life? I can see that we can cultivate life -- we can plant seeds and water them and foster a particular expression of life. Are my fingernails "dead?" No. At some point they will disintegrate and become something else. Is the gunk at the bottom of the shower dead? No. It, too will disintegrate and join the life of some other expression.
Everything is moving in this dance. Everything is constantly inter-relating. Thich Nhat Hanh calls it inter-being, and I can see this. I can see this even in the large rocks in the back of the Monastery that are going to become a Zen garden. The evidence is in the water marks carved in their sides. Even they are moving and breathing and transforming and participating in this dance. The same thing that breathes my belly is breathing the little frogs is moving the rocks is digesting the carrots is decomposing the compost... and on and on. And it's all alive, and it's all participating, and I can't find anything that isn't.