Returning to Practice....After a Time Away

After a time, my practice dwindled.  Now, it's time to return.

There are many things that can derail a householder practice:  family obligations, a job, the ten thousand things of living in the world, health issues, and these days - electronic distraction.  We are all likely to fall off the cushion for one or more of these.  For me it has been caring for elderly parents, professional obligations, a broken ankle, an iPhone, and fatigue borne of all of these.  Practice fell away over several years.

Bodhidharma likely foresaw many of these, but I would particularly like to hear what the bearded barbarian would say about our present-day electronic distractions.  This seems applicable:

“But people of the deepest understanding look within, distracted by nothing. Since a clear mind is the Buddha, they attain the understanding of a Buddha without using the mind.” - Bodhidharma

And so, today, I return.  For encouragement, I have colored in one eye of a Japanese Daruma doll (達磨).  The tradition is to color in one eye when you make a vow to persevere in some endeavor, and
the other when you have achieved it.  The irony is not lost on me, as the Heart Sutra says: "Attainment too is emptiness".  So the other eye will never be colored in.  And yet, it is a way to mark intentionality of re-starting on the Path, although you don't ever leave it.

The Way Is Not Straight

There is no one true path, but all paths are on the Way.  As householders, our travels along the Way are are often crooked and interrupted.  There are obligations to loved ones, profession, and the craziness of living-in-the-world.  Committing to daily practice is difficult, and getting side-tracked is common.  When I first began, counting the breath up to 10 without my mind drifting away was almost impossible.  Sometimes it still is.  Sitting every day has been challenging, and there are stretches where I have been "off-mat" for weeks.  Today, in my 50th year, I am striving to sit zazen each day for a year, 365 days.

Sleeping Cat Zazen

 

Curled up in a ball on the cushion

No doubt, no striving

Sleeping cat zazen 

No going back

Visiting my parents, the house where I grew up.  They have aged, the neighborhood has aged, and I have aged.  Walking by the pond, red-wing blackbirds trilling in the evening, memories floating washing over me...  8 years old, listening to the red-wing blackbirds at the pond....  Mu.....

Not Dead Yet

 

A good friend is dying of cancer.  Seeing her struggle with the problem of birth and death is, in some way, her gift to all of us around her.  What a price for this gift!

 

When she says "I am afraid", she is the fear.  When she suffers from physical pain, she is the pain.  When she cries saying "I will miss my children", she is impermanence.  

 

When I say "Then what am I?", I do not even see the finger pointing at the sunset.

Fear of Zazen, Zazen of Fear

Again with fear...now fear of zazen.  Work, family, life, and a brief illness swallowed me whole, and my zazen practice went by the wayside for a month.  It has been hard this time to start back up, and part of this is an odd fear.  Fear of zazen, fear of disappearing into zazen.  Like walking out to the end of the jetty, and just going on, into unknown waters.  Clearly, this is where I must go, but it has become hard.  My great determination has fizzled.

The First Gate of Fear

I met fear today, utter, total, fear.  Going up to the top of the CN tower in Toronto with my daughter.  It has an observation deck with a glass floor, looking straight down about 446 meters (1,450 feet).  The glass is very thick, and you can stand on it and look down....all the way down.  The sign says that the glass can support 14 hippopotami can standing on it.  Maybe....but this one terrified Zen householder could not support no-mind looking down and standing on the glass.  I knew that the glass was strong, saw others standing on it, and knew I could not fall.  I still could not do it, and gripped by terror, could not penetrate  this gate.  And Mu will take no less than this, no less than everything....

Hammer and Nail

When all you have is one approach to the Great Way, you become a hammer looking for a nail.  The Way contains all things, and we must be lithe in our walking to take every step mindfully.  With all of the unanticipated turns and uneven ground, we must adapt our stride continuously.  If we are rigid, we become the hammer in search of the nail.  If they nail does not appear, we may be tempted to whack something anyway, just to feel the heft of the hammer and hear the ring of the blow on the nail, any nail, even no-nail....

Daily Grind

Making an effort once again to make room for daily zazen in the mix of work, attention to family, and all the rest.  Of course, all is part of the same fabric and web, but it sometimes feels at the end of the day that all I did was grind it all up, mix together well, and exhaust myself.  More sleep might help to stay awake in the zendo, more zazen might help me to be fully present when blowing bubbles with my younger daughter.

Make your own travel zafu

For zazen when traveling, a travel zafu is essential. The ideal travel zafu is light, collapsable, and does not take up much space in your luggage. It is not too difficult to make your own travel zafu, which is basically a zafu cover willed with an a partially inflated beach ball.  Sewing instructions for a zafu cover can be found here.  It takes about 3-4 hours, depending on how good you are with a sewing machine, and longer if you sew by hand.  You may want to consider a sturdy fabric, as outdoor zazen while traveling can be very inspiring, and the covers can get dirty.  A supply of beachballs can be ordered from various sources, and I find that the 20" size works pretty well.  Remember, the beachball will only be partially inflated.  I have tried a few things for a travel zabutan, but they are all bulky, such as yoga mats or air matresses.  If you have any suggestions, please contribute!

Beach Zazen

Traveling with family, it is hard to find the time and place for zazen.  The room at the inn was crowded with the shrapnel of clothing and stuff from 4 people.  So, I took my inflatable zafu down to the dunes by the ocean, and sat on a bluff overlooking rocks and sand.  It seemed fitting, as the travel zafu is basically a beach ball with a fabric cover.  The sound of the waves made concentrating on Mu very difficult.  A dull roar, pulsating, changing, the sound never the same, and punctuated by the gulls.  Thoughts of my family, and guilt at taking this time away from them.  Sunset, and returning to them, always, like the breath, like the koan....

Ring The Bell

I am fortunate to live 8 minutes away from the zendo, by car, if the 5:30 AM traffic light karma is favorable.  Flying through the zen center door, putting on my robe and gathering cushions.  The warning bell is struck, and fading harmonics echo through the building.  Ten thousand things, and "only Mu!" merge as I settle on my zafu, feeling the energy of a seasoned zendo.  Breath, no breath, fading resonance of the "I" that is not...here and now.

Just Sit, Every Day...

It's been very hard to keep a consistent practice this last eight months.  A move, family events, and much work have all converged to make daily zazen very difficult.  Most days, I can snatch 10-20 minutes to sit, usually at the end of the day, exhausted, sleepy.  I was not able to go to sesshin this year either, and making it to the zendo three or four mornings a week has not happened.  Often I wonder if I will ever be able to sit for two hours a day consistently, one in the morning, one at night.  The old masters might say that I do not have the burning desire for enlightenment.  Perhaps that type of enlightenment can best be sought via monastic practice.  But with a family, that is not really possible.  

Cutting Karma

It is not easy to finish an action that will cause another person to suffer, even if you believe that you have exhausted all other options.  Delusion and karmic patterns often lock us into cyclical and codependent patterns of suffering.  To break that pattern can be very painful:  leaving a lover, evicting or firing a person, tough love with your children, self-discipline.  My teacher tells me that this is the heart of Zen.  Sometimes true compassion is kindness, soft, and comforting;  other times it is hard, jarring, and painful. Don't flinch!

Practice

Both of my daughters are learning string instruments.  The older is very disciplined, practices almost every day, pushes herself with new challenges.  You can see the steady pace of her progress, and hear the beauty of her music.  The younger is more temperamental, and gets caught up in the suffering that comes with the difficulty of learning new things.  Two sides, and in both I see myself.  On the way to the Zendo early this morning, I was tired and grumbling about my small suffering with this commitment to sit every day.  So early, it seemed particularly burdensome.  Suddenly, I was thinking about my younger daughter who seems to struggle and suffer with with musical practice, but does practice almost every day, growing steadily. Her struggle and perseverance spurred me on.  Practice....and practice.  Gumble...sit on the zafu....MU!

Walking Without Seeing The Way

"If you do not see the way,
you do not see it even as you walk on it.
When you walk the way, it is not near, it is not far."

The Harmony of the Relative and Absolute (Sandokai)

It is fortunate that even when we do not see it, we walk the Way.   What can this mean?  We are not separate from the Great Way, even when we stop sitting for a time, and cannot see it.  Why then must we sit zazen?   It is not only to walk the Way, but to know that we walk on it.  Watching my children live their lives, I often see them express great mastery of some skill, or great insight, and not see it themselves.  On one hand, this is what zazen is about, returning to that state of simple, unaffected expression of a child.  Yet we are loaded down with concepts, grasping, aversion, and thoughts that obscure this sight and taint our actions.  As said by the Ancient Masters, going beyond this by zazen means that we eat when hungry and drink when thirsty, and now  know our intent and actions, simply and for what they are.  The vision of years and unencumbered action of a child.

Birth and Death

In my work, many times I see birth and death bracketing the day. In the mornings, walking by the newborn nursery, there is birth. In the afternoon, walking in the intensive care unit, there is death. What is this birth, this death? Standing by the bedside of the dying, I do not know. Standing by the window of the nursrey, I do not know. Sitting zazen, only this!

An Executioner Suffers

During the reign of the Khmer Rouge in Vietnam, millions were tortured and killed. In a profoundly moving editorial in the New York Times today, "My Savior, Their Killer", Francios Bizot, describes meeting his Khmer Rouge torturer decades later while he is tried for war crimes. While Bizot was freed, over ten thousand others were tortured and killed under the supervision of Kaing Guek Eav. In this essay, he describes how Kaing Guek Eav broke down when he revisited a site where over 30 years ago he inflected death and torture on thousands. I leave you with this haunting description to meditate on the nature of suffering, the poison karma of inflicting suffering on others, and what it means to forgive. Here, the former executioner speaks, as told by Bizot:

“I ask for your forgiveness — I know that you cannot forgive me, but I ask you to leave me the hope that you might,” he said before collapsing in tears on the shoulder of one of his guards.

I was not there — it was a closed hearing — but those who were reported that the cry of the former executioner betrayed such suffering that one of the few survivors of Tuol Sleng screamed out, “Here are the words that I’ve longed to hear for 30 years!”

It could be that forgiveness is possible after a simple, natural process, when the victim feels that he has been repaid. And the executioner has to pay dearly, for it is the proof of his suffering that eases ours.

...We shall all be at the trial — not just as judges, but also as victims, and the accused...

The genocide of the Khmer Rouge will be judged as a “crime against humanity,” a crime against ourselves. As such, Duch’s guilt exceeds his immediate victims; it becomes the guilt of humanity, in the name of all victims. Duch killed mankind. The trial of the Khmer Rouge should be an opportunity for each of us to gaze at the torturer with some distance — from beyond the intolerable cry of the suffering, which may veil the truth of the abomination. The only way to look at the torturer is to humanize him.

Excerpted from "My Savior, Their Killer", Francios Bizot, New York Times, February 17, 2009

Where is Monkey Mind? or Zazen Changes Your Brain

I stumbled across this interesting article the other day examining the effect of regular zazen on the brain using high-tech MRI imaging in the journal PLoS One. Functional MRI is a type of imaging of the brain that can show both an picture of the brain structure (like the one above), and the areas of the brain that are being used more than others at a particular moment. It turns out that such studies show the physical locations of monkey mind! Monkey mind, that stream of thoughts that rattles through the mind unbidden, is described by neuroscientists as:

"...brain regions that are metabolically active during wakeful rest and consistently deactivate in a variety the performance of demanding tasks. This “default network” has been functionally linked to the stream of thoughts occurring automatically in the absence of goal-directed activity..."

When the scientists compared activity in the brains of long-term zazen practitioners (3 years or more of daily meditation), the findings were quite interesting. Both zazen practitioners and a control group (non-meditators) were shown visual pictures of words, as well as non-sense combinations of letters. When zazen practitioners saw words, they still had signs of the brain activity of monkey mind, it was shut off very quickly; non-meditators had the long, ongoing brain reverberations that we are all familiar with. So, neuroscience tells us again what our teachers have for centuries: you can never completely rid yourself of monkey mind, but you can settle the mind into stillness with training.

Go sit, change your brain!

The Big Sit

OK....just when I judge the digital world bad for zazen, my judging good and bad comes back to bite me. Tricycle magazine is sponsoring a version of ango, the traditional 3 month monastic retreat. This digital version is particularly suited to householders and others who practice outside of a structured monastic environment: The Big Sit. During a 3 month period starting on February 23, you can commit to:

• Sit in formal meditation for 20 minutes each day.
• Listen to one dharma talk each week on tricycle.com.
• Study Dogen’s Genjokoan, the text selected for the period.
• Commit to the sixteen bodhisattva precepts.
• Practice with others at tricycle.com or at a local meditation center.

I think that attempting this kind of consistent commitment, for a limited time, can bolster one's practice. To feel connected to the larger sangha, even electronically, might help even more. It seems worth doing.