Helping Haiti

The Vlogbrothers are 2 of my favourite people on Youtube. They don't come from any religious direction and they are not an organization themselves per se, but they are made of awesome, and they do help to reduce world suck. In Dharma speak, they practice good and avoid evil.

TZC

March Break affords much freedom, and this week, Julie and I took some for ourselves.  While our parents each took one of the girls, we went to Toledo do do some shopping, spend sometime alone together, and visit the Toledo Zen Center.

This is my immediate sangha, 2 hours and one nation away.  Over the years that I have been going down to there, it has changed from a arduous adventure, to a quick little jaunt.  I attribute this partially to familiarity, but mostly to the increased importance of Sangha in my life.

Touching in with people who practice always has a nourishing affect on me.

I am still the one who needs to sit, work with anger and difficult people, be mindful of the precepts and practice compassion to all beings.  (No one can take my naps for me ;) )

Despite all of this, it remains important to me to connect with other practitioners.  It helps me keep my arrow pointing north.  It helps me to not get lost.  It helps me to not get overwhelmed.

It improves my practice.

In Kinhin, we take the focus cultivated in Zazen and put it into motion.  We endeavour to develop a working samadhi that functions in all actions.

In the Sangha we engage others with the mind of practice.  Others who also practice, and support us.  We endeavour to manifest the same compassion and fresh mind when we meet the rest of world.

When I can't be there, I still have other supports.  My wife, the TZC forum (toledozencenter.org) and the podcasts (thedrinkinggourd.org) are big helps.  But being able to maintain a sense of a larger community of practice feeds my spirit.

I take refuge in the sangha.

Lent and Ango

Today is very important day for Roman Catholics around the world.  We are on the eve of Lent, the period of preparation for Easter.  For most of my life in the Church, I never gave Lent more than passing attention.  Most of what I gave up was for dietary and life style reasons, and WHAT I gave up was fairly insignificant (such as chocolate).  On top of that, I had never been able to keep these tiny sacrifices.  I never really understood why.

In the end, I realized that I what I tried to do in Lent was for myself, and in the grand scheme of the universe, that motivation didn't cut it.

A number of years ago, largely out of frustration with a lifetime of failed Lenten sacrifices, I decided to give up something that would be hard to casually forget.  I gave up all meat and alcohol.  This was made more difficult by the fact that there was no one around me sharing in this particular package of self denial.  However, something shifted during that lent.

The extent of the inconvenience continuously brought me back to the question of why I was doing it.  It drew my mind back to the purpose of Lent as a time to prepare yourself to receive, accept and embrace the redemption that was brought to humanity in Christ's death and resurrection.  Now that particular spiritual message may not be what floats your boat, but it helped me better understand the experience of spiritual preparation or seasonal training.  All traditions have it, whether it is Lent, Ramadan or Ango.

Ango is a period of intensified practice in Zen Buddhism that dates back to much earlier times.  Ancient monks would spend much of their time on pilgrimage, but in the rainy seasons they would gather together and practice.  Various groups practice this in North America, albeit in a modified form.  Since I don't live close to a community that engages in Ango, I have had a hard time paralleling the experience.

So this year, I am making a vow to a personal Lenten / Ango schedule.  In addition to my Lenten observances this year, I am making a vow to sit more regularly.  The primary form of this is to begin each weekday with Zazen.  I have set out to increase the frequency of my sitting at different times in the last 12 years, with varying degrees of success.  However, these past years of Lenten practice have helped me to clarify my understanding of this time of seasonal preparatory training.

The Lenten portion will take me to the last weekend of April, but my vow is to maintain this practice for 90 days, which will take me into June.  I won't explain what I plan for the traditional Catholic Lenten practice.  A priest who used to be in my parish always emphasized the value of keeping such things close to the chest, and that it was more important to DO something, as most motivations for giving up things in Lent tend to be self serving.

The goal is to deepen my practice, and in doing so, become more skilled in seeing each moment of my life as practice. 

Zazen, prayer, art practice, sesshin, cooking, bedtime stories, helping with homework, patience when it is called for, directness when it is called for.  As I continue to ask myself what the practices of this period are, my entire life comes up in answer.  

As the dark of winter begins to show the hints of the rising spring, I wish upon all that they find the renewal and growth of the season to be mirrored in their own lives.

Bows.