Practice on the Road

Recently, my wife and I took our children on an grand driving vacation.  We went across Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Maine, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio in just 11 days.  Oi!

In general, the vacation was splendid.  It only rained when we travelled.  We had nice hotels and wonderful visits with family and friends.  We had ideas about what we wanted to do, but we left a lot of wiggle room and just figured it out as we went.

There was nowhere to go, but where we were.  There was nothing to do but what was in front of us.  That is where the real magic of the vacation took place.  Being on the road provided an incredibly rich opportunity for practice.  What is made it so rich and so easy to engage, was the very fact that we were on the move.  It was impossible to see each day and each moment as anything other than fleeting and fluid.

Somedays we woke with only vaguest ideas of what we wanted to do that day and where we were likely to be at it's end.  Even the days that were well planned involved places and activities that were so new that this raw, open, welcoming state of mind was naturally arising.

In terms of practice, the challenge to this flow state came once we got home.  When the settings were once again familiar and the schedule re-emerged, I could feel my expectations gaining weight.  Some of theme became downright obese.  However, being school teachers we have the summer.  As such, there are only so many constraints on our time.

The great challenge before me this season is embodying this fact:   The ease of mind on our trip was not a function of the places we were, or of our timings.  This is a function of mind.

Despite the weather, the scenery and the activities, there was still the possibility for stress and anxiety to rule the day.

-We drove over 5000 Km with 2 girls in tow, ages 8 and 10.
-the air conditioning died late in the trip.
-we (I) had a difficult with one way streets in Old Quebec.
-We drove in downtown Manhattan.
-We often had very different ideas of how to spend our time.

It would be easy to tell the tale of a vacation in which these were the dominant factors.  They weren't.  They were part of the texture of each day, just like the back roads of Maine, the zip-lines in Moncton, the friends in Long Island and whales in St. Andrew's.

Over those 11 days, my very life taught me a wonderful lesson about how it should be lived.

I vow to take up the practice of embodying this each day.

A Dance of Life and Death

One of the things I really enjoy about practice is that it helps me to see the continuously dynamic nature of practice.  Phrases like "You can never step into the same river twice" point to it, but do not capture it.  Every moment, the universe is changing.  This means that all of it is changing - the actual cosmos, this planet, myself, the stuff in the fridge that I am pretty sure is meat.  As well, since my understanding and view is continually developing, even if the world could stay static, the mind that perceives it keeps changing.

I enjoy the fact that I can reread a book or a poem and get something completely new out it.  And if what I see is not actually new, it is different angle or a subtle shift of the same thing.  The reflection that put me on this train of thought was something from a talk given by my teacher Rinsen.

At the conclusion of a retreat, Rinsen Osho spoke on the practice of Zen and Seshin in terms of "Meticulous Kindness".  Coming at the end of a seshin, I was well primed for the "kindness" aspect of the talk.  In Seshin, so much focus is put into zazen as the study of the self, that all aspects of practicing our lives get magnified and amplified.  This is true of both the joys and the difficulties.  Having a track record of being hard on myself for my failures, the message helped me to take these difficult moments when I might feel I have fallen short, and accept them lovingly WITHOUT giving in to them.  In addition to helping me to view all of  my experiences as precious parts of my life, I began to feel more whole than I have in my adult life.

However, all good teachings are like an enormous and detailed painting.  There are so many places to look, and each one offers a beautiful and dynamic reality, unified and coexisting with the whole image.  Feeling safe in the "kindness" aspect of meticulous kindness, I find I am now focussing more on the "meticulous" side.  In the security of the integrated whole, I am starting to notice so many opportunities to turn up the heat on practice.

The heat that is arising would have crushed and discouraged me three years ago.  These days it has the flavour of a dance.  I still misstep in this dance, and in fact I catch myself more readily these days.  In seeing my snags, it was once along the lines of "Dang, I did it again!"  today it often feels more like the "Aha! there you are" of finding a child while playing hide and seek.  This is a dance of life and death.

I remain increasingly grateful for this practice and all I encounter in it.

Go too far to one side and it is too slack.  Go too far to the other side and it is far too damning.  Be meticulous and be kind

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.