Do Not Want!

A brief entry that will probably not be as eloquent or graceful as I'd like it to be: I apparently have alopecia areata. This is an auto-immune problem, in which the immune system attacks hair follicles. It's relatively common, though I'd never heard of it before.
It was diagnosed by my barber about 2 months ago, and started out about a dime or nickel-sized spot. The original bald spot has since gotten bigger, and a new bald spot has developed behind my right ear too. So I am seeing my D.O. next week. Y'know, for an actual diagnosis.

Like many auto-immune issues, this is apparently totally unpredictable. Many people spontaneously start growing their hair back. Some go on to have alopecia totalis, and lose every hair on their head and body.

I guess I picked the right religion if I go bald.

So here it is, an opportunity for practice. I am so glad I have some skills to deal with this mind! Were it not for some very functional brakes, the Scary-Thought Train goes non-stop to complete debilitation with Rheumatoid Arthritis or Systemic Lupus, or some other one of those big scary auto-immune diseases that are often associated with alopecia areata, and Raynaud's Disease, which I also have.

But that is not happening right now.

Also what is not happening: About 5,000 other worse things. There are many worse things than these odd little bodily quirks I am currently experiencing. This is not to say I am not paying attention. My dear friend Amy P who has been a nurse for nearly 2 decades and is currently an acupuncturist and Chinese herbalist has given me a free consultation, and says that my collection of problems are quite comprehensible within the framework of Chinese medicine.

This is apparently a metal and wood problem.

And it may also be related to celiac disease (hi, Tay!), and there's a whole 5 stages of grief that wants to happen around saying good-bye to gluten. But that's not happening right now either.

So now my job is to fill out a daily log of ten categories, with many things that western medicine wouldn't probably care too much about.

That and go to sesshin. So I need to get packing and go within the next hour.

There, at the monastery, I get to sit down with this mind's habits, and one of my greatest hits, which is really awake and triggered by this newest change: What does everyone think of me? Good lord, this is boring, but there it is. Again. This hair loss has resulted in me wondering what stories people make up when they see the bald spot. As if it looms as large for anyone else.

I have been trying to cover it with hair, and subsequently have cared more about my hair than I have for years and years. I have even used a hair dryer for the first time in about 10 years. It is so exhausting, this thought habit of my mind, and I am really so tired of it.

Off to sesshin.

See you next week!

Sanzen: FAIL

Inspired by failblog.org. And Zen practice.

Sanzen (参禅), aka nisshitsu (入室), means going to a Zen Master for instruction. In the Rinzai school , it has the same meaning as dokusan, which is specifically a private interview between student and master, often centering around the student's grasp of an assigned koan. If the master rings a bell to dismiss the student, this means the student's understanding is not right and that their work with the koan must continue.

From a talk by Yasutani Roshi given in 1961 and translated by Philip Kapleau Roshi in The Three Pillars of Zen:

The great merit of koans, which range over the vast area of the Mahayana teachings, is that they compel us, in ingenious and often dramatic fashion, to learn these doctrines not simply with our head, but with our whole being, refusing to permit us to sit back and endlessly theorize about them in the abstract.

What Heinrich Zimmer says about certain types of meditation is especially true about koans, the spirit of which must be demonstrated before the Roshi, and not merely explained. "Knowledge is the reward of action... for it is by doing things that one becomes transformed. Executing a symbolical gesture, actually living through, to the very limit, a particular role, one comes to realize the truth inherent in the role. Suffering its consequences, one fathoms and exhausts its contents..."

It must not be supposed, however, that one reaches this point easily, or without a generous measure of frustration or even desperation. In his Zen Comments on the Mumonkan (p 101), contemporary master Shibayana quotes his teacher on the function of the koan:

"Suppose here is a completely blind man who trudges along leaning on his stick and depending on his intuition. The role of the koan is to mercilessly take the stick away from him and to push him down after turning him around. Now the blind man has lost his sole support and intuition and will not know where to go or how to proceed. He will be thrown into the abyss of despair. In this same way, the koan will mercilessly take away all our intellect and knowledge. In short, the role of the koan is not to lead us to satori easily, but on the contrary, to make us lose our way, and drive us to despair."

The complete solution of a koan involves the movement of the mind from a state of ignorance (delusion) to the vibrant inner awareness of living truth. This implies the emergence into the field of consciousness of the immaculate Bodhi-mind, which is the reverse of the mind of delusion. The determination to struggle with a koan in the first place is generated by faith in the reality of the Bodhi-mind, the struggle itself being the effort of this Mind to cast off the shackles of ignorance, and come to its own Self-knowledge.

Re-entry

Bare reflections on Sesshin. Because I can't put it together in a coherent post right now, or maybe ever. Funny how some of them are like that. So instead I will share a few photos. I don't take photos during Sesshin, but these I took right after.

Found on the sidewalk Saturday evening, perfectly intact, appearing to be sitting nobly staring into the sunset. Alive or dead? I won't say.

Work practice this week was on the groundskeeping crew. Another woman and I were assigned to clean the rock gutters on either side of the Zendo. It took the whole week, and we still were not quite finished. Here is part of one side:
And another side.
This may not appear clear, but there are several yards of rocks that meet in a 'V' shape. The rocks allow rainwater to flow and soak into the ground, not puddle up on the sidewalks. There are two of these 'V' shapes on wither side of the Zendo.

The process of cleaning them is as follows:

Gathering a large bin, about two or three feet long, and a foot or two wide. Removing the rocks, filling bin about halfway with rocks. Adding water (blessedly warm water, brought by our crew leader, full of the kindness of Avalokiteshvara). Rinsing the rocks. Pulling up the screening beneath the large rocks, and removing all debris, weeds, seeds, sprouts, roots, grass clippings, scraps, and anything else not-rocks. Tending to the smaller gravel below, leveling and returning the screen. Then returning the rocks, clean, warm and steaming back to the gutter.

It is lovely to have a job with such visible dividends. And so audibly rich -- the sound of rocks -- rubbing, hitting, plunking. And one that allows the deep examination of the many worlds and communities of creatures we inevitably dislodged in the process of our work practice. Such a miracle. The spiders, pill bugs, worms, caterpillars, grubs, beetles and things were simply captivating.

I have a recurring fantasy of creating a photo project of Sesshin cushions throughout the week. So often people's mind states are reflected in how they arrange their cushions when they are gone, and there is such a wide range from person to person, and from day to day: Tidy or disheveled; one spare zafu, or a veritable nest of cushions, blankets and props. I can't do that, but I did take a few photos on the last day.

Here is the aforementioned hankie toiletries-holder, reminding me that ever day is a good day:
The Spring Garden outside the Sympathetic Joy dorm:


And on the drive home, I heard myself loudly exclaim: "I believe that is the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile!"

Indeed, it was.

Coming home after Sesshin, usually cleaning the house is the only thing that makes sense.

And plowing the work of Sesshin back into home practice.

Manual Labor of the Mind

It's a Scary World out There by BGLewandowski

I wasn't sure whether to add a post before I depart for Sesshin -- this time it's Koans Sesshin! Big, bad, scary, super-Zen-y, Rinzai-style Koans Sesshin! Stirring up the hungry ghosts and scary thoughts in my mind just in time for Halloween.

How did I even end up on the path of Zen, anyway? I think in some alternate reality, I am really a Vipassana practitioner. I love colorful scarves and shawls, and would love to wear them while meditating with the community. Or maybe I'm a Shambhala practitioner at heart. There's a common stereotype about Zen that it's the most hard-core, and the Vipassana and the Shambhala practitioners are so much gentler. I have a very high tolerance for fidgeting in the Zendo, and can sometimes feel out of place with what seem to me like a bunch of stone Buddhas. But now I have more black shirts and pants than anyone I know. And I pack nearly every one of them in a big suitcase to stay one week at the monastery where nobody is looking at me.

It's all just pre-Sesshin jitters. Pre-Sesshin jitters are very interesting to watch. The small mind just knows the jig is up, and that it will not get to live in the manner to which it has become accustomed. It can get very energetic and create some mighty delectable and hard-to-resist trains of thought.

I am also noticing that the more I go, the less I understand why I do.

Anyway, I was inspired, as I usually am, by the Dalai Grandma. Today, she writes about that tender feeling of compassion for those who leave Sangha, or leave the practice of meditation because they think they can't meditate, or it has become too hard. Which it is. Hard. Which is why we need to be so compassionate to ourselves in practice. And yet disciplined. Sheesh. She explains it a lot better than I do! Give a bow to the Dalai Grandma.

I have kept the July issue of the Shambhala Sun right by my computer, because I have been meaning to turn a few sentences of an article from it into a blog entry. Again, this koan of Right Effort.

Here are a few snippets from "It's Not Us and Them" by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche:

Because as practitioners we are doing something that is good and wholesome, we too have difficulties. It’s important for us not to give up. We should not be foolishly seduced into fantasy, thinking that somehow something miraculous is going to happen. When it comes right down to it, the practice path is manual labor of the mind, and it’s hard work. But that doesn’t mean that there is no magic. When we pay attention to the details of our life, we do find magic. This particular magic is all-pervasive; it is something that is part of us all the time. Seeing it, we appreciate the honesty of this spiritual tradition that says we have to work to uncover it.

With gentleness and mindfulness, we can appreciate what we have....

...we all need to practice responsibility and discipline ourselves. We must look at our own habits and begin to alter them. We can’t hire out our practice and have somebody else do the work, but we can do the manual labor with delight and decency. True relief lies in finding what lies under the chaos and negativity—our inherent awakened nature. The notion of fearlessness is finding it now.

Manual labor of the mind.

I believe it was last year on Sesshin when I was assigned to groundskeeping, and was a crew leader for a team of us assigned to dig out blackberry crowns. Not cut them to the ground -- that had already been done. But digging them out, digging down to the root ball and removing the whole plant once and for all. That is the stated goal.

The reality is not even close. More often, the roots travel sideways in many directions, and wrap around and under big rocks the shovel clanks on. Then it's digging up a big rock. The roots also wrap around and hide under tree roots, so it is hard to know what to dig out and what continued digging might be harming a tree. More often than not the blackberry roots get cut by the shovel, and end up escaping and not found again, and then there's a huge series of holes that need to be filled back in. Factor in rain, or mud, or cold.

Workhorses, SoulCollage card by Laura

At one point, checking in with one of my workmates, who was not feeling well, we broke Noble Silence. She said, "It's no use. These are all just going to grow back."

I realized then one of the reasons for Noble Silence. Her words echoed in my head for days.

But sometimes, I could find the crown-- some people called it the heart, one person called it the brain -- the tangly ball that is the source of the lanky, leggy, stickery, pervasive blackberries. I started calling it the shin -- the heart /mind. Sometimes I would find it, and successfully dig it out. Only then could I know that at least this one blackberry plant would not return.

At the monastery, they say everyone who is assigned to the blackberries for work practice always returns saying "It was just like my mind!"

I enjoy this kind of manual labor. I know nature can and often will just grow right back without some regular maintenance. It's so obvious. So unarguable.

This practice keeps saying that the result is not what's important. Matching reality to a picture I have in my mind is not what this is about. It's the process, including the compassion I might bring to a wholesome day of work, whether that is shoveling around in the mud at the monastery, or just pinching the spent geranium blossoms, or lying down because I'm bone tired.

It's our intention --- to just be open to the experience of this life. Simple. Not easy.

Maybe there are ways to meditate lightly, to do what you can, still maintaining the essentials. What are those? The intention, I think. It has to move from being the hope to feel peaceful or to rest to being something more, like the hope to be fully human, to be entirely with it for this moment.
~The Dalai Grandma

Life Among the Brambles by bibliona

The sweetness of women never ceases to delight me.

This story begins with The Festival Hankie:
I think this hankie came from an antique store on "Antiques Row" in Sellwood, once a suburb of Portland. I think I bought it when I first moved to Portland and was still doing fun, touristy things, like visiting Sellwood.

"The Festival" is the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, to which I have been making the pilgrimage for 16 consecutive years (until just this past August). There, in womyn-only space, I get to spend a whole week with my sisters from all over the country, and all over the world. We all converge on this place, to create this place, for one week out of the year which is like no other.

In a place without men, the threat of stranger-perpetrated violence is just about absent*. That's just the truth of the matter. And to have the opportunity to let go of the 24-hour vigilance that is reality for women everywhere causes something amazing to happen: Joy erupts. It takes a lot of energy to be vigilant. And when all that energy is available for something else, and I happen to be in a place with 4,000 other women who are also channeling that energy into fun... well, it's about as sweet as can be.

My best girlfriends and I camp together and meet every morning and evening in a camping-gazebo we have to haul in from Portland, or Cleveland, or wherever we are coming from. And in this safe little container within a safe big container, reconnecting with each other, we usually end up processing some sensitive, deep, painful material. And also laughing a lot.

One way or another, inevitably, there are tears.

It wasn't with this in mind that I happened to have it on me one night in the gazebo-- the hankie, that is. But I did, and it was a tearful moment for my dear girlfriend Amy P. When suddenly presented with this sweet, soft floral hankie, she enjoyed it so much that she started laughing, and to this day, we don't remember why she was crying.

So that year, or maybe it was the next year, there was a craftswomon who was using these old floral hankies and stamping words on them. Amy bought me a hankie with some flowers and ferns embroidered on it and the word "feminist," which I used as a little nightstand decoration then, too.

And then she sent me this one:
This hankie, you may recall, was featured in its very own blog post in June called "Sesshin Sweetness." I place all my nightstand and toiletry items on it at every Sesshin I attend. It includes the reminder in the corner that every day is a good day.

~~~

We recently had our Jukai ceremony. Jukai is a ceremony in which people are essentially committing to the path of Buddhism. They ask to be given the Sixteen Bodhisattva Precepts. Beforehand, they take classes in the precepts, attend at least two Sesshin, make a chart of the lineage all the way back to Shakyamuni Buddha, and sew a rakusu, a small version of a Zen robe. So in this ceremony, the teachers give them the precepts, their "robe" and a Dharma name. It is incredibly meaningful.

Four people took Jukai, and two took the Five Precepts. There were a lot of family and friends in the audience, many of whom had never and maybe would have never stepped foot into a Zendo! Whenever there is a Jukai ceremony, it is an opportunity for the rest of the community to take the precepts in our hearts right along with those in front of the teachers. It is a very active, meaningful ceremony for everyone involved.

So it was not surprising that there were tears. From someone in the ceremony.

Where I was seated, I couldn't see their faces, but Shinju, who was seated right up close to the ceremony in the audience looked to me and indicated need for kleenex.

The zendo was absolutely packed, and I was all the way in the back. Getting kleenex from downstairs would have been disruptive, but it was really early in the ceremony. Ah! I recalled the hankie, neatly folded in my pocket, and unobtrusively handed it to her.
After the ceremony, I enjoyed letting the newly-named Yushin know that this hankie had its own lineage. Now that it had now been employed in dabbing Jukai-induced tears, well that added another layer of preciousness onto it for me!

Yushin asked if she could please return it to me washed.

I got it back yesterday, in a cute little bag, and when I took it out to put it in my samue pocket, I found this:
Another beautiful, soft, floral hankie. Thank you, Yushin! May such sweetness continue to extend out into the four corners and in the ten directions.



*Yes, there are other places where this threat is practically absent: A house with many deadbolts, the monastery grounds, etc. Yes, women can and do perpetrate violence. But not as much as men do, and not usually towards strangers. Yes, there are non-violent males. I'm married to one.

It Takes A Village, People

I just finished a weekend with my 22-month-old "Buddha-son". It's easier to introduce him to other folks at the park as my "nephew," but my husband and I were invited to be the Buddhist half of his spiritual guides along with a Christian couple.

One of his moms is an old friend from college, who stood up at my wedding, and is a sister to me. She is also on the path of Zen. Amazingly, we both came to this path completely independently of each other. She is about to take Jukai in Iowa next week. Incredible.

I had not spent any significant time with Hans since his baby blessing when he was an infant.

He departed blowing kisses from his carseat. I found him to be a surprisingly agreeable little guy, especially for an almost-two-year-old. His meltdowns are usually for good reason: HALT (hungry, angry, lonely, tired), just like mine. Well, I guess you could add poopy diapers. And I bet it would not take long for me to melt down if I had poopy diapers. That might appropriately fall under the "angry" category.

Anyway, I feel like I just did a Beginners' Mind weekend retreat. Entering the world of a toddler is just not much different than Sesshin. He was even awake at 4:30 am (having come to Pacific time from Central time). We spent time at the park, and at one point watched a little iridescent bug for what, five, ten, fifteen minutes? It's relentless; a roller coaster of emotion, requiring constant consciousness and intentional widening and narrowing of focus. The difficult times just keep calling for more growth to contain it all. The sweet, wonderful times feel so cosmically delightful. And Hans simply embodies wholeheartedness. He would give big hugs, one by one, to everyone's who was standing in the kitchen in one moment, and then fling himself, inconsolably sobbing, from one end of the house to another in the next moment.

But there was a point on a hike we took at the coast, at which I felt like an Auntie in an elephant herd. I simply knew that if anyone ever tried anything on this boy, they would have to get through me first.
What is that? What causes this connection? Is it biology? It sure feels biological. But I've been around other kids, and don't necessarily experience that, or at least I'm not conscious of it. Is it the closeness between me and his Mommy? The time spent with him? I find it kind of astounding.

So I googled around and discovered that the word for these "aunties" of either sex in species of animals who do share parenting is called "allomother."

I ran across an article in the NY Times discussing a primatologist's research into this phenomenon. Dr. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, in her book called Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding, theorizes that humans developed this ability to cooperatively parent not to be competitive with other groups, but because it was effective:

“I’m not comfortable accepting this idea that the origins of hypersociality can be found in warfare, or that in-group amity arose in the interest of out-group enmity,” she said in a telephone interview. Sure, humans have been notably violent and militaristic for the last 12,000 or so years, she said, when hunter-gatherers started settling down and defending territories, and populations started getting seriously dense. But before then? There weren’t enough people around to wage wars. By the latest estimates, the average population size during the hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution that preceded the Neolithic Age may have been around 2,000 breeding adults. “What would humans have been fighting over?” Dr. Hrdy said. “They were too busy trying to keep themselves and their children alive.”

She posits that it's this development of cooperative breeding that is the source of much of our behavior and extreme sociability (empathy, cooperation, relative pacifism, and trust), rather than the complexity of our brains.

And that somehow, it's those helpless babies who trigger and promote "many of the behaviors and emotions that we prize in ourselves and that often distinguish us from other animals, including a willingness to share, to cooperate with strangers, to relax one’s guard, uncurl one’s lip and widen one’s pronoun circle beyond the stifling confines of me, myself and mine."

So apparently it takes a village, not only to raise children, but to evolve ourselves.

May we all be serene through these transitions

John Diado Loori originally uploaded by albill

Honored Teacher John Daido Loori Roshi has passed away this morning.
Here are some writings about him.
James Ishmael Ford's post is the best. Alive or dead? I'm not saying!


May he and all of the Zen Mountain Monastery Sangha be serene through these transitions.