No Home, No Mountains

Photo by Sara J. Heidt

During my month-long residency at Zen Mountain Monastery, I became very aware of the richness of the experience.  The intensity of the mindfulness that was supported by the monastic schedule, the reminders of the physical environment and extended living within a community of people dedicated to practice is no small thing.  I can remember thinking that I would have a lot to share with others about my experiences.  Having returned home, what I thought I would share was gone like smoke in the wind.

I could talk about the experience of being held by the schedule, flowing with the movement of the community throughout the day.  But when I describe the details, they seem very narrow.

I could talk about the people.  Each person, like me, looking to find something or deepen something.  Each person bringing an openness and sensitivity to each meeting, or at least more than we would assume of the stranger who is gassing up his truck next to us at the service center.  Again, saying it, it feels narrow.

I could try to explain how the weather nurtured me.  Soft sunsets, blazing hot days, pouring sweat in the Zendo, waking up cold at 3 am.  Narrow.

In the end, if I was going to offer anything about the time spent there, it would be zazen.  The work was there, but that does not mean the work was in the zendo.

My first meeting with a Zen teacher was about 14 years ago.  Alone with Daido Roshi (founder of ZMM) I asked him how I could go about bringing the clarity I found in zazen into the rest of my life.  He said "sit more" and rang the bell, ending our meeting.  I left in shock, certain that I had been blown off.  It must have taken everything in his power not to scoff at my question.  Brushed off.  Yep, that was it.  But despite my initial reaction, I had learned enough about practice to trust that there was something there;  something to take a look at.

That exchange has informed my practice ever since.  How does a person close the gap between zazen and the rest of their life?  I tried mindfulness practices, little signs, mantras, you name it.  In the end, the only thing that seemed to close this gap was more zazen.  Over the years, the more I sat, the more readily that focus, that mind, was available.  The gap bewteen zazen and everything else I saw or did began to close. 

Now don't get me wrong, I still hit that gap a lot in my life.  But today it is smaller, and it does not last as long when it arises.  I have no doubt that zazen has been the key to this.

When I left for ZMM, I kept fixed in my mind that I was not running away from my difficulties.  Those places in which we have trouble are not in the nature of the external circumstances of our lives, but how we use our mind when we encounter them.  Sure enough, the shadows of my difficulties were cast at ZMM as well.

However, living in a practice community that is designed to help people wake up to their inherent nature, I was able to dive deep into a relentless, ceaseless awareness.

ZMM itself is an amazing place, but it is still just a place.  The work of the sangha and teachers is a marvelous activity, but it is still just making soup, editing audio, cutting grass, and talking to people. 

In these early years after the death of Daido Roshi, nostalgia is abundant.  Sometimes it evens starts to cross the line into deification.  He shaped a community and a form that presents countless entry points to practice, but the mind that built this place is not to be found in the stone building, the mountains or the rivers.  During a retreat talk in July, Ryushin Sensei, the current abbot of ZMM said "you want to know Daido Roshi?  Sit Zazen.  That's him."

I went to that place.  It was just a place.  I left that place.  Still just a place.  But what moves from here to there and back is this changing life.  I appreciate the time spent.  I appreciate the training. It helped.

So go.  Go to the mountain, but never leave the city.  Then go back to the city without leaving the mountain.  Maybe your mountain is in the Catskills.  Maybe your mountain is in Toledo.  Maybe it is on a cushion in the corner of the living room.  Maybe it is in line at the gas station.  Just go.

That's how it felt.

32 Days on the Mountain

The peach tree when I arrive

I just got back from spending the month of July in residence at Zen Mountain Monastery in the Catskills of New York State. This is a residential monastic community in which lay practitioners follow the monastic schedule along side of the monks. I am still unpacking the impact that it has had on me and my practice, but I thought I would say a little bit about the place and what goes on there.

I first went to ZMM for a weekend about 14 years ago. I returned the following summer for sesshin, and I had always wanted to go back. My wife and I planned early on this past year for me to go in July, and I owe her a great debt for helping me to make this happen.

Much of the form of what goes on at ZMM is held in the daily schedule. Most weeks it looks like this...

4:20 AM Wake-up (Rule of silence observed until work practice)
5:00 - 6:30 Dawn Zazen/Dokusan (Be seated in zendo by 4:50)
6:30 - 6:50 Morning Service
7:00 - 8:00 Body Practice/Art Practice/Academic Study
8:00 - 8:30 Breakfast
9:00 - 9:45 Caretaking Practice
10:00 - 12:00 Work Practice/Retreat Sessions
12:00 - 12:30 Dinner
1:30 - 5:00 Work Practice/Retreat Sessions
5:00 - 6:00 Zazen and Evening Service
6:00 - 6:30 Light Supper
7:30 - 9:00 Evening Zazen/Dokusan
9:30 PM Lights out

Work practice was varied. Turning compost, harvesting vegetables, planting herbs, weeding, fixing stone paths, moving garbage, mowing grass, cleaning the monastery and updating an audio database card catalogue. The work is approached just like zazen. It is treated as an invitation to intimacy in the moment, with whatever is going on.

It is hard to say much more than that without giving the impression that that is what was important. What was important was the work with the mind: in Zazen, liturgy, walking to the cabin, speaking to people. Ultimately this is the same work I have always encountered. The only work I could encounter. What the residential training did was provide an extended, supportive environment that relentlessly points back to that focus. Even in difficulty, there emerged and equanimity of mind.

It was a wonderful experience, but what really made it worthwhile was what I saw in myself. I am grateful for that, because if it were anything else, it would not be something I could bring with me. The place is just a place. No magic powers, just a community working towards awakening themselves and everyone there.

Sitting here now, it feels as though writing a blow by blow account would miss the point. I set out now to manifest this mind in my everyday life.

May in July

The South side

The peach tree when I left

Away

I will be away from my computer for the month of July.

I'll tell you about after my techno hiatus.

until then...

There is always a storm, and there is always the sky.

I spent the weekend in stillness.  Even in the challenges of sesshin, there was a peace.

I came home, and shortly after saw that Osama Bin Laden had been killed.

I saw people celebrate.

I saw people shy away from jubilant expression.

I saw people of both minds be critical of each other.

Then I took my girls out for ice cream.

I went and got some frozen yogurt at a friend's store and the girls got scooped ice cream around the corner. I waited for them in the King's Navy Yard Park.  While I waited, I thought about peace.

Sitting on the edge of a beautiful fountain, I was held gently by the cool evening air.  The river, a few meters away was as smooth and calm as I have ever seen it.  It was utter tranquility.  However, the Napoleonic cannons and the various flags in the park reminded me that I was sitting on the site of a great machine of war, some 200 years past its prime.

It is from this location that the British Navy and Provincial Marine staged its efforts in the War of 1812 to defend Upper Canada from American invaders.  When the war ended, the borders were restored, the US and Britain quickly resumed cordial trade relations and 1000's of families began picking up the pieces of the lives shattered by the loss of a loved one or the destruction of a home or farm.  Even in this place of quiet tranquility there was the memory of war.

On the shores my own town, on the shores of Normandy, at Ypres, and in the deserts of Afghanistan, my countrymen have fought to ensure (among other things) the preservation of a peace in which my children and I have had the fortune to live our lives.  Then, as I waited, I took notice of the other people encountering this moment with me.

A young girl out for jog,  an old couple strolling in the park.  A grey haired man slowly making his way to the Legion, and a mother letting her children run in the grass.  They too, along with my family and I were building the very peace that others fight elsewhere to protect.

If you know me, then you my deep affinity for those who put themselves in service of their country, for they do the hard dirty work of preserving peace.  But here, at home, in the park, we build it.

We go about our business and are tolerant, if not respectful of others as they go about theirs.  We pass masses of people each day.  I do not take issue with their congregations, nor that they express their opinions publicly, nor that they worship differently than I, nor that they differ from me in race, gender, and so on. They, in turn, do not take issue with me.  Some of this small town cohabitation is based acceptance, some on tolerance, some on begrudging tolerance and some on obliviousness.  But regardless of the base it rests upon, it rests there with weight and inertia.  It is the repository of peace.

When this peace is disrupted we can feel it.  We have created many laws and moral codes (spoken and unspoken) to deter such disruptions.  We cherish this balance.

This peace may have been protected in Flanders, Tripoli, Queenston Heights and Iwo Jima, but it was not created there.  The difficult, messy actions that may be required to preserve peace can not create it.  It may be preserved on the battlefield, but it is built in the town hall, at the ice cream parlour, the breakfast table, and in the kindergarten classroom.

While I don't want the people of my community to ever lose sight of what has been sacrificed to preserve the peace,  I would hate to think that we might see violence as a tool for creating it.

All peace, of any true and lasting nature starts in your own heart.  Not the general "you" but the INSERT YOUR NAME HERE________________________ you.  From there it radiates outward.  The only question is "how far?".  When communities are built in this way, they know peace.  It is a peace that can be bruised and broken, but can also be healed.

May communities that do not know peace come to this great fortune.

Today the world takes note of a man who has been killed.  It is not the first time people have set out to kill to protect peace, nor will it be the last.

In the end, I am not entirely sure how I feel about the events of these last days.  But I know this:  As I set about my daily activities tomorrow, I will be more keenly aware of whether I am making war or peace with others and in my heart.

Standing

I have often heard that one of the jobs of the Zen teacher is to pull out the rug from under the student's feet,  help them up, and then pull it out again and again until the student  does not fall anymore.

The student learns to stand on their own two feet.  Stable and solid.

Lately I have become increasingly aware of those places where I am not standing on my own two feet.  Specifically, those times when I am deliberately trying to lean on others in order to stand.

I am not talking about the supports that an ordinary human being needs.  We are, by nature, social.  We work together and operate in various groups and achieve more than we could on our own.  What I am seeing are those places in which my sense of stability, success and authenticity are dependent on validation from other people.

For me, I notice it out of the corner of my mind.  At first awareness it seems like a subtle coating to moment.  When my attention turns to it, I can see the gateway into all of my fears and insecurities.

I have stood at this gate before.  Many times actually.  I generally find a quick reason to run the other way. A distraction or something big and pleasurable.

This time however, I think I will walk through that gate and stroll down its path.  It is lined with things that are uncomfortable.  But they aren't really scary.  How could they be?  They are familiar, like old friends.  They have been with me my entire life.

Putting Aside the Button.

Today was good.

Things did not necessarily go good.

Things were not really bad.

It was just... good.

I had a moment that really anchored the day, though it happened late.  I found myself in the presence of one of my greatest conditioned responses.  I felt "OMG! here we go again" arise.  I felt my body begin to move to leave.  Then I stopped.

A small voice "what is the big deal?  Do you really need to run away from this?".  So I settled in, tuned in , listened and engaged.

Nothing happened to changed the trigger mechanism.  The pushing element continued.  I just put aside the button.

The moment and reality that I thought I "knew" so well were transformed, from the only place that it could be.  It shifted, because I shifted.

The moment, in one sense was exactly what it had always been.  But in the sense that I experience it was transformed.  Simply, subtly, profoundly.

It was a good day.

Cold Hell

What stops you? Deep down, do you know your achilles heel? It might not be so obvious. When you see it, really see it, you recognize it right away. You might even feel foolish for not really recognizing its presence there all along. Maybe you saw it all along, but didn't know its name.

I have seen mine. To put it into word, it is expectations. Yours. Who you think I should be and what you think I should do. Depending on who you are, your expectations might be a big obstacle for me. You might be the person whose expectations of me are easy for me to get over.

When this comes up strong, it is a cold hell. I am frozen, unable to move. It passes, but the odds are I missed an important moment to act during that time.

I can tell myself that I am trying to avoid being rash. It's true, but it can also be a copout.

I can tell myself that I am trying to avoid being a jerk. It's true, but it can also be a copout.

Standing on the edge and desperately wanting to act.

Act.

act.