Joko Beck has died today. Her daughter writes: "For now, please think of some teaching of hers that may have opened you to transformation in some aspect of your life and the transformation that occurred."
Her book
Everyday Zen was one of the first, if not the first book about Zen that my husband ever bought. So I've been able to pick it up over the years, and always, Joko's firm and real voice would come through the pages.
One of my very favorite chapters is called
"A Bigger Container". Here are some excerpts from that:
"In daily life we know what it means to stand back from a problem... If you're sewing a dress, at first you cut and arrange and sew, but finally you get in front of the mirror to see how it looks. Does it hang on the shoulders? How's the hem? Is it becoming? Is it a suitable dress? You stand back. Likewise, in order to put our lives into perspective, we stand back and take a look.
Now Zen practice is to do this. It develops the ability to stand back and look. Let's take a practical example, a quarrel. I think - in fact I know - that I am right. I am angry, furious. I want to scream. Now what can I do with my anger? What is the fruitful thing to do? First of all I think it is a good idea just to back away: to do and say as little as possible, As I retreat for a bit, I can remind myself that what I really want is to be what might be called A Bigger Container. (In other words I must practice my ABC's.) To do this is to step into another dimension - the spiritual dimension, if we must give it a name...
...It may take weeks of hard practice before we can see that what we want is not to be right, but to be A Bigger Container, ABC. Step back and observe. Label the thoughts of the drama: yes, he shouldn't do that; yes, I can't stand what he's doing; yes, I'll find some way to get even -- all of which may be so on a superficial level, but it is till just a soap opera.
If we truly step back and observe -- and as I said, it's extremely difficult to do when angry -- we will be capable of seeing our thoughts as thoughts (unreal) and not as the truth. Sometimes I've gone through this process ten, twenty, thirty times before the thoughts finally subside. When they do, I am left with what? I am left with the direct experience of the physical reaction in my body, the residue, so to speak. When I directly experience this residue (as tension, contraction), since there is no duality in direct experience, I will slowly enter the dimension which knows what to do, what action to take. It knows what is the best action, not just for me, but for the other as well. In making A Bigger Container, I taste "oneness" in a direct way.
We can talk about "oneness" until the cows come home. But how do we actually separate ourselves from others? How? The pride out of which anger is born is that separates us. And the solution is a practice in which we experience this separating emotion as a definite bodily state. When we do, A Bigger Container is created.
What is created, what grows, is the amount of life I can hold without it upsetting me, dominating me. At first this space is quite restricted, then it's a bit bigger, and then it's bigger still. It need never cease to grow. And the enlightened state is that enormous and compassionate space. But as long as we live, we find there is a limit to our container's size and it is at that point that we must practice. And how do we know where this cut-off point is? We are at that point when we feel any degree of upset, of anger. It's no mystery at all. And the strength of our practice is how big that container gets.
As we do this practice we need to be charitable with ourselves. We need to recognize when we're unwilling to do it. No one is willing all the time. And it's not bad when we don't do it. We always do what we're ready to do...
... Remember also that a little humor about all this isn't a bad idea. Essentially we never get rid of anything. We don't have to get rid of all our neurotic tendencies; what we do is begin to see how funny they are, and then they're just part of the fun of life, the fun of living with other people. They're all crazy. And so are we, of course. But we never really see that we're crazy; that's our pride. Of course I'm not crazy - after all, I'm the teacher!"
May we all be serene through these transitions: Joko, her family, all of her students, and all of us who have been touched by her teachings.
om ka ka kabi san ma ei sowa ka
