This is not what I signed up for

When I first encountered Zen meditation, it was immediately evident that there was definitely something nurturing to my spirit.  Given my past, it didn't have to be much, because honestly,  I liked the wrapping.

When I was little I was incredibly interested in asian culture.  Some station in Detroit would broadcast Golden Harvest films on Saturday and Sunday.  There would be the occasional Bruce Lee flick, but usually they were these cheesy kung fu flims that were set in some version of ancient china.  When I had the chance to study Tae Kwon Do, I was very excited at the prospect of participating in this aspect of the culture.

Many years later when I learned about Zazen, the trappings of Japanese culture which framed my first exposures touched the same nerve in me.  After sitting on my own for a couple of years, without any regular connection to other practitioners, Zazen lost the Asian character I initially perceived.  It was just "my practice".  It informed my humanity.  It informed by faith as a Christian.  It nurtured the part of me that sought to be a good husband and father.  What began as very Japanese practice in my mind had melted into being a human practice.

What I was doing in Zazen also went through a similar transformation.  Like a lot of people who come to a spiritual practice, I came looking for something.  I felt broken and lacking.  I wanted to feel whole.  Like so many other solutions I had tried in my life, I looked to Zazen to give me that missing component.   What is interesting about Zazen however, is that it never adds anything to this fractured self.  It can't.

Zen teaches that there is nothing to add and nothing that can be added.  It teaches that our deepest essence is perfect and complete, lacking nothing.  Although I understood the meaning of these words early in my practice, their truth was exterior to me.  I was still looking elsewhere.  Maybe I still am sometimes, but the understanding is deepening.  How do I know?  I am not sure, but there are changes.  I am finding it easier to trust myself.  I am finding it easier to forgive myself (at the same time holding myself to clear ethical standards).  I find that although I still have the capacity for anger,  I don't swim in it like I am the only kid on the block with a pool in August.  Despite how I came into this practice, I am finding all of these things in me.  I am just getting better at accessing them.



When people used to ask me why I practice Zen, I used to say that it helped me be calmer and more focussed.  This answer does not fit anymore, and I am not quite sure how to respond.  What I have written here is only a dash of expression.  The feeling and experience present in the moment of my life feels ever expanding.  How can it be fully described in a paragraph?

My view of practice is so very different than it was at the start.  This is not the practice I signed up for, and I am grateful.

Working on it

Tomorrow, at the end of my work day, I leave for sesshin.  Sesshin is a zen retreat that focusses heavily and almost exclusively on zazen.  It is very hard work and extremely fulfilling.  Zazen is so much more than sitting quietly.  For me, one way to say it is that it is the pure working of the mind.  Letting the stories go, letting the dramas go, there is just mind perceiving whatever arises and not getting hooked by it.  Sounds simple, but it takes a lot of work.

The availability of sesshin in my life has changed a lot over the last year and a bit as the sangha of the Toledo Zen Center has continued to grow and develop.  It has reemphasized to me, how important community is.  Family and friends have their function in our lives, but so does the spiritual community.  Although the work of zazen sits solely on my shoulders, sitting with others makes it easier.  Although I can sit at any time in the course of the day, being able to meet with people regularly makes it easier.

For me, sesshin is the Nth degree of this.  Coming together as a community, simplifying the retreat schedule to emphasize this individual effort, we all sit together.  Isn't that wonderful?!  On paper, it does not seem like much.  to paraphrase my teacher...

We sit a bit, take little bitty walks, eat some rice.  We rest a bit too.  To someone who has done sesshin, there is humour in that description.  What is there when the mind is at rest?  Not asleep, not tuned out.  Rather, when it is settled but aware, quietly perceiving what arises.  Nothing more, nothing less.

Tomorrow, I will once again look closely at this question.

Have a great weekend.

404 is not an error

In my journey to understand the self, sometimes I feel like Sherlock Holmes.  Not that I feel masterful or skillful, but that I a forever discovering what the self is not, and that what remains, however unlikely, is it.

Yesterday I received a great compliment.  I am AWESOME!
Today I dropped the ball on a meeting for work.  I am HORRIBLE!
Last night I was unskillful in parenting my youngest.  I am HORRIBLE!
Also last night I was very skillful in parenting my youngest.  I am AWESOME!

Looking at my entire life in this way it gets pretty comical actually.  Going back and forth between awesome and horrible is very tiring.  I know there is a better way.  In the midst of this roller-coaster I breathe, and I can taste it.  Although I have heard words to explain it, it is in breathing the moment that I sense my pure potential.  In each of these moments I hold the potential for awesome, horrible and everything in between.  Present in the moment, the intuitive action meets the need.

No matter my intention, as I stumble I can be confident I will stumble again, to one side or the other.  When I hit the ground, it hurts.  When I fall on others, they are hurt.  When I help, suffering is eased.  With all these possibilities and potentials present in each moment, I vow to move forward with grace and compassion, cleaning up my messes as I go.

404 error  Self not found.

Faith

I have been thinking a lot about faith lately.  This is not a comfortable word for a lot of people these days.  Alone, it simply refers to belief.  Everyone believes in something.  I have faith that the Sun will come up tomorrow.  I have faith that the oncoming car will stay in its lane.  These types of faith or beliefs are not so hard.  Belief in God, a greater power, or that the universe is more than it apperas;  well, those get a mixed reaction from different people.

When I think about faith, my mind very often goes to the concept of blind faith.  I like this concept because I think it is very misunderstood, and seeing how people react to this particular concept says a lot about their spiritual journey.

It is probably important to start off by saying what I understand blind faith to be.  The discerning believer seeks to understand.  Although it is important to know that there is a commandment that says do not kill, it is important to understand why that is.  Hopefully the answer goes deeper than "if you kill you will go to hell!".  It is important to understand our connection to others, to see the impact that killing has on other beings and to sense the disruption in the natural order that such a violent act has.  When such clarification is sought and gained,  "thou shall not kill" becomes a natural expression of my heart and mind, and not just item on a list of rules.

In the same way, when we seek to understand the divine, we can bring our lives in tune with its natural expression.  However, at least in the tradition that I was raised in, it would be foolish to think that my finite brain, with its limited capacity could full understand the mind of God.  The finite can not full grasp the inifinte, although it can reflect it.  Belief in a God that I can never fully understand includes an expression of blind faith. 

Often when I see people people use the term blind faith, they are descrbing something else.  Often they are either invoking or criticising a faith that does not try to know.  Having been told something once, they believe and never question.  This has always struck me as a very young and underdeveloped form of faith practice.  Although there are limits to what can be known, I have seen people just give up under label of "blind faith".  In the worst examples, it seems to be a mechanism of an unexamined spiritual identity.  Some version of "It doesn't matter what you say, I believe what I believe at there is nothing more to it".  There is a line here, between confidence in one's own views and putting those views into a box.  Although, as humans, we like to define and categorize things, putting concepts of faith into such clearly defined parameters is impossible.  How do we define and contain that which is unknown or unknowable?

Even in Zen, which focuses on the mind and its function in our living, there is much that can not be known in the traditional sense.  Not knowing is at least as important as knowing.  The Zen student cultivates the ability to "not know", and to be at home in that space.  This type of not knowing is an embracing of the moment.  It is the accepting that what will come cannot be known, so we wait and work with what arises.  In this form, "blind faith" might be seen as faith in what we are blind to.

I have faith that cars will stay in their lane, but they don't always.  I have faith that the sun will rise, but some day it won't.  I have faith that there is a better way, even if I am not always able to live it.  I have faith that I can embody God's will, even as I sin.  I have faith in my Buddha nature, even if I don't make choices that are in harmony with the Way.

In all things, I find faith.

Live-in Teachers

Recently, our youngest daughter went through some educational / psychological testing.  The short and to the point version is that she is me.  My daughter has inherited the same basic make up that I had at her age, both psychologically and behaviorally.

I found a fair bit of stress in this confirmation.  I did not have the easiest of childhoods (who does?), and there were a number of aspects, mostly social challenges that I desperately wanted my children to avoid.  What I failed to see in all of this however, is the difference between my hang ups and her reality.  I brought a lot of my own personal baggage to my view of how I wanted her life to be.  Looking at her life however, I can see that she is happy, adaptive and has the biggest, most naturally expressing heart I have seen in a human being.  Her life is wonderful.

I can no more control the parameters of her life than I can my own.  Despite my intentions, I see that what I was worried about amounted to protecting her from the texture of life.  Looking at it this way, I am reminded of the the Buddha's father and Marlin, from "Finding Nemo".   It is comically silly when I look at it that way.

I love her, and I want her to get the best things out her life.  Remembering to watch the way she engages her experiences would be a good practice.  Even if there is a similarity between her struggles and those I had early in life, hers are totally different.  What makes them different, is that they are hers.  I will endeavor to see them as such.

I vow to stop trying to stack water.  If I fail to realize this vow from time to time, I will also vow to not be surprised when it doesn't work (which will be every time).

Time to tuck my little teacher into bed and sing her a lullaby.