Now that our president has announced the US will be occupying Iraq for a while, there's no better time to start listening to the people whose fate is bound up with ours:
Fayrouz, an Iraqi expatriate
Baghdad Treasure, an Iraqi journalist
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Social Fear, a Sutra, and a Dream...
I'm having a hard time finding my way in the world after 2.5 years of monastic life. I occasionally feel really lost, and when I do, an old karmic propensity comes up: the inability to contradict anyone.
Even when I happen to have a PhD in the field they're bithely misunderstanding.
Or maybe because of that PhD. I really despised the argumentative culture of academia. I never learned to deal with it, and it occasionally got so bad that it was disruptive (as when I would leave lab meetings after the first two hours of arguing, forcing my advisor to tell me that wasn't acceptable).
This morning at 3:30 (when all the demons come home) I was struggling with this feeling of complete paralysis and self-betrayal. The feeling afterward, of having denied my truth, and being really dirty, is..of course... the same feeling that gives rise to an avoidance of conflict so profound that it paralyzes even silly, nonconfrontational situations.
Years ago, someone shared with me a quote from Suzuki Roshi, which really confounded me. Something like "Regretting things you've done is silly. The regret is itself the same energy that propelled you to the unskilful action in the first place."
After chewing on it for a while, I started to understand that failing to accept this life exactly as it is is the underlying delusion; "poor me" (especially the "me" part) drives selfish, stupid behavior, and it drives regret when the consequences of that behavior manifest; it drives an selective obliviousness to karmic results of karmic action.
So inferiority breeds more inferiority, and there is no way to get untrapped by running around that circuit.
The way these habitual tendencies do finally snap is by insight. Recognizing at the beginning that if I go down this road, I know exactly what the consequences will be like. And it's going to hurt a lot less to cut the crap now, rather than to do the same old thing yet again.
2500 years ago, the Buddha taught
Dharma Teacher Larry Rosenberg has opined that this sutra can stand as the centerpiece for study: it offers a sensible skepticism for those inundated by the various offerings of the modern spiritual marketplace, just as the Kalamas were trying to sort out competing doctrines in a period of spiritual ferment 2500 years ago. (Rosenberg's excellent article in an old Tricycle magazine explores this topic further.)
I began by suggesting that monastic life somehow exacerbated the problem of intellectual inferiority. My experience was that a number of my associates would probably characterize me as anything but intellectual shy— more of a know-it-all, a person who tells the teacher they're mistaken.
It's true that I did contradict teachers when they got something wrong. It's also true that I experienced the mental formations of estrangement, and the notion that speaking up as I did made me unpopular. Who knows where the truth lies; with this much baggage, no one can say. Anyway, I experienced estrangement, or subtly being shot down, ignored, etc., and I came to choose my battles very carefully.
Asking Fr Kennedy Roshi to explain why he would teach an advanced doctrine amounting to "not a single thing exists, including karmic consequences"— without first giving a grounding in ethics and in the dharma as it applies to the relative world—was one such case. It was important enough that I couldn't sit there and not speak.
But at that moment, I didn't feel lost: I was in Belfast and I was found.
I do not feel that way now. And someone mistaking the corpus callosum for the thalamus is frankly a lot less crucial. As is misunderstanding my random musings about human postnatal neurological development. The problem is not the promulgation of a particular misconception. The problem is that I shut myself up.
The solution is the teaching of the Kalama Sutra: You see that it's not working. In fact, it hurts. So DON'T DO IT. Buddhism is very simple. Just not easy.
Perceiving the painful consequences and altering our response has to take place from exactly where we're at. No point in hating karma, as Suzuki Roshi said. Our practice is as who we are, right now. And who I am is: occasionally totally stymied by group dynamics, be the in a lab, a monastery, or and informal conversation.
So the monastery is not the problem. It's an unrelenting version of a research lab, a place that takes 100% of your energy, rather than 85%. Indeed, the introspective tools I learned in that environment are priceless. Just to be willing to minutely look at mental phenonmena and feelings—without launching into a narrative that reinforces delusion—was a huge hurdle of faith. Not to believe my own mind; who would think that would be the gateway to some sort of freedom?
After sitting with these feelings (less verbally than presented here!), I went back to sleep.
The affecting thing for me was that 1. so many people had a felt there was something "hanging over" a relationship, 2. so many people wanted to make things right, and 3. even the beings with the simplest, most constrained lives had built up some relationship karma, and yearned for resolution.
Of course this is a dream, not the "real" world, but to me it holds some truth. And within that world, to choose to speak up, to imagine that others might feel similiarly constrained by past omissions, and to offer them—all parts of myself, in some sense—the structure to resolve their misunderstandings...well, it offers some hope for waking life.
...So is this Fleeting World.
Even when I happen to have a PhD in the field they're bithely misunderstanding.
Or maybe because of that PhD. I really despised the argumentative culture of academia. I never learned to deal with it, and it occasionally got so bad that it was disruptive (as when I would leave lab meetings after the first two hours of arguing, forcing my advisor to tell me that wasn't acceptable).
This morning at 3:30 (when all the demons come home) I was struggling with this feeling of complete paralysis and self-betrayal. The feeling afterward, of having denied my truth, and being really dirty, is..of course... the same feeling that gives rise to an avoidance of conflict so profound that it paralyzes even silly, nonconfrontational situations.
Years ago, someone shared with me a quote from Suzuki Roshi, which really confounded me. Something like "Regretting things you've done is silly. The regret is itself the same energy that propelled you to the unskilful action in the first place."
After chewing on it for a while, I started to understand that failing to accept this life exactly as it is is the underlying delusion; "poor me" (especially the "me" part) drives selfish, stupid behavior, and it drives regret when the consequences of that behavior manifest; it drives an selective obliviousness to karmic results of karmic action.
So inferiority breeds more inferiority, and there is no way to get untrapped by running around that circuit.
The way these habitual tendencies do finally snap is by insight. Recognizing at the beginning that if I go down this road, I know exactly what the consequences will be like. And it's going to hurt a lot less to cut the crap now, rather than to do the same old thing yet again.
2500 years ago, the Buddha taught
When you know for yourselves that "these mental qualities are unskilful; these mental qualities are blameworthy; these mental qualities are criticized by the wise; these mental qualities when acted on bring harm and suffering" then abandon them.
When you know for yourselves that "these mental qualities are skilful; these mental qualities are blameless; these mental qualities are praised by the wise; these mental qualiites when acted on lead to well-being and happiness" then follow them.
Dharma Teacher Larry Rosenberg has opined that this sutra can stand as the centerpiece for study: it offers a sensible skepticism for those inundated by the various offerings of the modern spiritual marketplace, just as the Kalamas were trying to sort out competing doctrines in a period of spiritual ferment 2500 years ago. (Rosenberg's excellent article in an old Tricycle magazine explores this topic further.)
I began by suggesting that monastic life somehow exacerbated the problem of intellectual inferiority. My experience was that a number of my associates would probably characterize me as anything but intellectual shy— more of a know-it-all, a person who tells the teacher they're mistaken.
It's true that I did contradict teachers when they got something wrong. It's also true that I experienced the mental formations of estrangement, and the notion that speaking up as I did made me unpopular. Who knows where the truth lies; with this much baggage, no one can say. Anyway, I experienced estrangement, or subtly being shot down, ignored, etc., and I came to choose my battles very carefully.
Asking Fr Kennedy Roshi to explain why he would teach an advanced doctrine amounting to "not a single thing exists, including karmic consequences"— without first giving a grounding in ethics and in the dharma as it applies to the relative world—was one such case. It was important enough that I couldn't sit there and not speak.
But at that moment, I didn't feel lost: I was in Belfast and I was found.
I do not feel that way now. And someone mistaking the corpus callosum for the thalamus is frankly a lot less crucial. As is misunderstanding my random musings about human postnatal neurological development. The problem is not the promulgation of a particular misconception. The problem is that I shut myself up.
The solution is the teaching of the Kalama Sutra: You see that it's not working. In fact, it hurts. So DON'T DO IT. Buddhism is very simple. Just not easy.
Perceiving the painful consequences and altering our response has to take place from exactly where we're at. No point in hating karma, as Suzuki Roshi said. Our practice is as who we are, right now. And who I am is: occasionally totally stymied by group dynamics, be the in a lab, a monastery, or and informal conversation.
So the monastery is not the problem. It's an unrelenting version of a research lab, a place that takes 100% of your energy, rather than 85%. Indeed, the introspective tools I learned in that environment are priceless. Just to be willing to minutely look at mental phenonmena and feelings—without launching into a narrative that reinforces delusion—was a huge hurdle of faith. Not to believe my own mind; who would think that would be the gateway to some sort of freedom?
After sitting with these feelings (less verbally than presented here!), I went back to sleep.
There's a group of people here from my present and past. Some misunderstanding between myself and another person has come up.
There's that feeling: that I shouldn't say anything, even though what's going on is really wrong. I realize I can't do it; it's just not worth the ongoing baggage of feeling misunderstood and unseen by the other person.
What's more, I realize that other people in the group, if they're anything like me (of course, they ARE me; it's a dream) might have issues with one another as well. What if there was some format for talking out the old grievances? What if people who sensed the air needed to be cleared could volunteer, and their associates could approach them with anything that felt unresolved?
So I say something: I ask the group if anybody wanted to offer to talk to others about any outstanding interpersonal issues. Most of the people raise their hands. I am surprised at how many confident-seeming folks are hoping to resolve something that has gone on too long. I take their names.
Then I go into a room where animals are kept in cages. It seems only fair to ask if any of them are open to hearing about unresolved relationship stuff. Sure enough, the rats want to clear the air, and the chickens do, too. Even the Daddy Longlegs in its web is hoping to discuss old misunderstandings. Only the juvenile mice aren't interested. Maybe they haven't been around long enough.
The affecting thing for me was that 1. so many people had a felt there was something "hanging over" a relationship, 2. so many people wanted to make things right, and 3. even the beings with the simplest, most constrained lives had built up some relationship karma, and yearned for resolution.
Of course this is a dream, not the "real" world, but to me it holds some truth. And within that world, to choose to speak up, to imagine that others might feel similiarly constrained by past omissions, and to offer them—all parts of myself, in some sense—the structure to resolve their misunderstandings...well, it offers some hope for waking life.
...So is this Fleeting World.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Daybreak
Inside, warm candle-glow
Outside, songbird launches skyward
One of us will live
In full-throated heedlessness, not knowing minutes or memory
And then the light will fade
Outside, songbird launches skyward
One of us will live
In full-throated heedlessness, not knowing minutes or memory
And then the light will fade
Saturday, March 18, 2006
St Patrick's Day Aftermath
St Patrick's is an odd holiday here.
Wearing green and drinking until sick are an odd way to celebrate Irishness, or a great saint.
I think this little creature would agree. Looks like she had too much corned beef and cabbage.
I'm hoping to write more about Patrick, but in the meantime here's an interesting, oh-so-slightly Roman Catholic, biography.
Green Tea Wakeup
Bodhidharma is said to have been so committed to zazen that he cut off his eyelids in order to banish drowsiness. Where they fell, a tea bush sprouted.
Four days this week, I've gotten up early (3:30 a.m.), brewed some strong green tea, and gone to sit in the backyard zendo. My life is a silly luxury compared to what practitioners of the past have endured. But thanks to the noble truth of dukkha, there seems to be plenty of suffering and dissatisfaction in my realm. And always the possibility of meeting it with awareness.
I'm really getting the spit knocked out of me at work. So I am practicing with feeling frazzled, with the superficiality of the retail facade, and with feeling unseen and discounted. I'm feeling anger and argumentativeness arise, and I'm breathing down into the vulnerabilty that lies below. I don't know why I sit or where I'm going. But there I am in the zendo, breathing. And then crying, suddenly and silently, hours before dawn.
I'm slowly developing the faith that there are no coincidences; nothing "just happens" independently or randomly. Everything in the cosmos —including my thoughts and feelings—arises in dependence on myriad influences, known and unknown. The temporary idea that I am "no good": it arises from the myriad things, it exists. And if conditions allow, it passes away. Mercifully. So this phase of insult and bedragglement will pass, in time. Just karma; all karma.
Feeling challenged by overwork and unappreciation isn't the only topic on the syllabus. There's something, too, about gratitude, courage and love: in the past two days, I have interacted with two blind women, and with two women about my age (32) undergoing chemotherapy.
The cancer patients' hair looks just like mine. One is in graduate school. They both spent a lot of time (1-2 hours) in the store, really revelling in the shopping experience. And they bought stuff. Under the circumstances, buying a sexy dress or a fuzzy hat seems so poignant, symbolic, and brave. Especially the sexy dress.
I do not own any sexy dresses. But then I do not have cancer.
One of the blind women was also a customer. Her husband ranged through the store, picking out swishy skirts and silky tops for her to try on. He was happy, patient, and totally in love with her. After they had picked out a great outfit, the husband went looking for accessories. He found a silver "OM" pendant he thought she might like. He held it so that she could touch it, and he told her, "The stone is green. It's the color of green tea."
Four days this week, I've gotten up early (3:30 a.m.), brewed some strong green tea, and gone to sit in the backyard zendo. My life is a silly luxury compared to what practitioners of the past have endured. But thanks to the noble truth of dukkha, there seems to be plenty of suffering and dissatisfaction in my realm. And always the possibility of meeting it with awareness.
I'm really getting the spit knocked out of me at work. So I am practicing with feeling frazzled, with the superficiality of the retail facade, and with feeling unseen and discounted. I'm feeling anger and argumentativeness arise, and I'm breathing down into the vulnerabilty that lies below. I don't know why I sit or where I'm going. But there I am in the zendo, breathing. And then crying, suddenly and silently, hours before dawn.
I'm slowly developing the faith that there are no coincidences; nothing "just happens" independently or randomly. Everything in the cosmos —including my thoughts and feelings—arises in dependence on myriad influences, known and unknown. The temporary idea that I am "no good": it arises from the myriad things, it exists. And if conditions allow, it passes away. Mercifully. So this phase of insult and bedragglement will pass, in time. Just karma; all karma.
Feeling challenged by overwork and unappreciation isn't the only topic on the syllabus. There's something, too, about gratitude, courage and love: in the past two days, I have interacted with two blind women, and with two women about my age (32) undergoing chemotherapy.
The cancer patients' hair looks just like mine. One is in graduate school. They both spent a lot of time (1-2 hours) in the store, really revelling in the shopping experience. And they bought stuff. Under the circumstances, buying a sexy dress or a fuzzy hat seems so poignant, symbolic, and brave. Especially the sexy dress.
I do not own any sexy dresses. But then I do not have cancer.
One of the blind women was also a customer. Her husband ranged through the store, picking out swishy skirts and silky tops for her to try on. He was happy, patient, and totally in love with her. After they had picked out a great outfit, the husband went looking for accessories. He found a silver "OM" pendant he thought she might like. He held it so that she could touch it, and he told her, "The stone is green. It's the color of green tea."
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Love Poem
It has been suggested that spam poetry is the result of translation software. But I maintain: This must have been poetry from the beginning. A little punctuation help was all it needed to shine forth.
It's true, however, that the references to studying, servants, the news, and a sandwich are not well-developed. Perhaps a title could provide some context.
Best read slowly and ponderously.
It's true, however, that the references to studying, servants, the news, and a sandwich are not well-developed. Perhaps a title could provide some context.
Best read slowly and ponderously.
Wanted pretty being.
Yours motor you explain.
Carefully force miserable studied somewhere?
Filled mischievous motor. Filled light light bought
Explain anything.
Different servants tying pretty—the immediate filled sugar servants.
Shining respect goes, or black.
Beautiful drew drew sandwich purpose fascinate.
Tying why pride benefit, black commit not tying?
Disappoint mischievous; news, letters, development.
Monday, March 13, 2006
The Mind of Zazen in the Land of Fear
The crocuses stretch upwards and the trees explode in bud and flower, and spring has been stirring in my psyche as well.
In my teen years, I started having extreme depressive episodes every spring. It got worse when I went to college, and culminated ten years ago in a Really Terrible Realationship Cataclysm. Which I will not discuss here.
Suffice to say, in the intervening years--and thanks to a great deal of assisted insight and precise inner observation--I have come to understand depression as a complex phenomenon, having to do in part with unaddressed truths and the imperative for personal transformation.
Can you imagine a crocus unwilling to grow, trying to fight all of Nature to stay in the soil? Not a winning game. And so when the deepest parts of myself start to stir, I now listen. Or try to.
I've been sick in a special way that I have. It feels like a retreat: I spend hours lying there calmly, grounding the mind in the lower body, just...existing.
I emerged from this strange state just in time for a Corvallis Zen Circle zazenkai, or "day of sitting." I got up early so that I could have as much time on the cushion as possible.
I sat very steadily, casting off personality and focusing on cutting anything that was not the immediate present.
That night, I was eager to sleep. I knew there would be good dreams.
The mind of zazen marched smoothly into these dreams. That minute attention to the present, without analyzing the past or trying to plan to the future; disregarding the drama of the the various voices that arise, and attending instead to the underlying feeling. Contacting the basic human creature, the one so prone to wants and fears and hates, and slowly turning it toward some greater awareness.
This may never happen again. It's great good fortune, the karma of this moment. But things will never be completely as they were before. And I am so grateful.
In my teen years, I started having extreme depressive episodes every spring. It got worse when I went to college, and culminated ten years ago in a Really Terrible Realationship Cataclysm. Which I will not discuss here.
Suffice to say, in the intervening years--and thanks to a great deal of assisted insight and precise inner observation--I have come to understand depression as a complex phenomenon, having to do in part with unaddressed truths and the imperative for personal transformation.
Can you imagine a crocus unwilling to grow, trying to fight all of Nature to stay in the soil? Not a winning game. And so when the deepest parts of myself start to stir, I now listen. Or try to.
I've been sick in a special way that I have. It feels like a retreat: I spend hours lying there calmly, grounding the mind in the lower body, just...existing.
I emerged from this strange state just in time for a Corvallis Zen Circle zazenkai, or "day of sitting." I got up early so that I could have as much time on the cushion as possible.
I sat very steadily, casting off personality and focusing on cutting anything that was not the immediate present.
That night, I was eager to sleep. I knew there would be good dreams.
To have this fear of betrayed trust so beautifully transformed and integrated feels deeply therapeutic. And it comes directly from practice.
In a subterranean tunnel/parking garage, I'm helping the distinguished "Doctor General" (a cabinet-level bureaucrat) to her car, when she turns on me. I am gripped by fear, or something like it.
I ask her what part of me she represents, being a dream figure and all.
Her distorted face opens in a giant scream. It's primal, beyond concept, absolutely terrifying.
I try to match it. There's no room for melodic variation, but if I throw everything into that scream..something works. It's glorious and chilling, a joyful leaping out of the fearful pact of the dream, and into the quivering. oddly-painful, body that lies twisted in my own bed.
I fall asleep again with relish.
What happened next is particularly meaningful for me because I have such a history of nightmares. I still remember ones from when I was a child. As a young woman I would awake exhausted from dreams-- first, of being chased; and later, of turning and brutally killing my assailant. There's no worse feeling than to wake up from a dream of murder..except perhaps to not wake up.
I am led to an examination room by a darkskinned man whose touch incurs great warmth and trust. I, and another patient from a long line of American Indian boys who have climbed up to this clinic, find the room filled with beds, looking messy and vaguely unhygenic.
A boil in my back in lanced. It's painless, although I'm bracing and grimacing in anticipation of the scalpel.
A great deal of pus and blood is showing up on the bedclothes. The medic turns evil. There is the hint of some sort of sexual abuse.
"But you're in my mind," I cry. "How could you hurt me? I could ...make you have horns!" And a giant rosy crystal of a horn sprouts out of his forehead. The other man is growing a whole clump of crystals, too.
It's ludicrous, lucid, free from terror.
In yet a third dream, I comically deprive a male assailant of arms-- they just melt away into his body. And the woman--she's harder to disarm. (Maybe she's too similar to the "me" of the dream.)
But..wait, I can give her blue lips! Some garish paint distracts her pretty well. There's great befuddlement in the evil characters.
The mind of zazen marched smoothly into these dreams. That minute attention to the present, without analyzing the past or trying to plan to the future; disregarding the drama of the the various voices that arise, and attending instead to the underlying feeling. Contacting the basic human creature, the one so prone to wants and fears and hates, and slowly turning it toward some greater awareness.
This may never happen again. It's great good fortune, the karma of this moment. But things will never be completely as they were before. And I am so grateful.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Death Follows Birth
Even as the night
darkens the green earth,
the wheel turns.
Death follows Birth.
Strive through the night
with every breath
that you may Awake
past day, past death.
Reflecting on the impermanence of life, the inevitability of death, and his incredible example as a dharma practitioner, this is offered In love and appreciation for Sensei John King, who is dying of throat cancer. He is at left in the photo below, taken on this occasion of his dharma transmission.
darkens the green earth,
the wheel turns.
Death follows Birth.
Strive through the night
with every breath
that you may Awake
past day, past death.
Reflecting on the impermanence of life, the inevitability of death, and his incredible example as a dharma practitioner, this is offered In love and appreciation for Sensei John King, who is dying of throat cancer. He is at left in the photo below, taken on this occasion of his dharma transmission.
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Mysterious Spam Poetry
One glint of the Great Mystery:
Gmail has a great spam filter, and so I am spared ever having to read those awful messages for "V1agrA", "Vi0xx", etc.
Until today. I thought I'd take a look at just one (carefully not opening the virus-laden attachment). Perhaps they are all this bizarrely poetic, and I've just missed it.
Is there a pill for poetic skill?
Gmail has a great spam filter, and so I am spared ever having to read those awful messages for "V1agrA", "Vi0xx", etc.
Until today. I thought I'd take a look at just one (carefully not opening the virus-laden attachment). Perhaps they are all this bizarrely poetic, and I've just missed it.
corner already fire. companion bad mischievous news
again pride?
somewhere mischievous black black.
night bad appearance teach use.
allow appearance promised benefit wife.
we principle added different love.
window reference love similar.
reading bought my pride end.
she nothing least taught
rich evening
Is there a pill for poetic skill?
Life in the Retail Realm
I wrote this for the revamped Zen Community of Oregon Newsletter (name yet to be decided), the house organ of Great Vow Zen Monastery and the affiliated Portland Sangha.
To me, “life off the cushion” is life outside the monastery. It’s a life where I can eat whatever I like. Where I have my own room, with a door. Where the people I encounter may or may not have much insight into why they do the things they do, buy the things they buy, or drive the things they drive. Where fears and assumptions masquerade as political and social truth. It’s a pretty wild place.
Zen is about responding to the circumstances of our lives. When we have no money, we get a job. In this case, working part time in a quirky women’s clothing store. I’m also starting to do web design, and really enjoying the creative outlet and economic possibility of that undertaking. I won’t work in a clothing store forever. But I need money, and there’s plenty to learn.
When I go to the store, I put on clothing that makes me look more like a fashion consultant and less like a little Zen waif. I will help customers, or get ignored, or have my ear talked off. I will be asked to fetch thirty garments for someone who buys none of them. I will work alone, or without a break, for long stretches of time. Like any work, it can be satisfying, or infuriating, depending on the mind you bring to it.
The nicest part of the job is helping customers choose gifts for people they love. It’s very sweet to watch a little girl choosing the perfect earrings for her step mom. The hardest part of the job is the shoplifting; there are some typical behaviors to watch for, but there’s only so much you can do, especially when the store is busy. It’s so sad to come across a discarded tag or an empty hanger, and to know that some deluded person has created terrible karma for herself. One girl, who had been acting suspiciously, returned to the store with an eighty-dollar shirt she said had “fallen into her bag. It was an extremely awkward situation. But, having done the wrong thing, all your options are painful.
Most of what happens in the store is formalized. There are the rituals of offering assistance, answering the phone, ringing people up, and running the credit card machine. We tag merchandise, straighten the racks, and greet the UPS man. In spare moments, I fold and dust and sweep and straighten the racks. It’s like living in an altar.
To me, “life off the cushion” is life outside the monastery. It’s a life where I can eat whatever I like. Where I have my own room, with a door. Where the people I encounter may or may not have much insight into why they do the things they do, buy the things they buy, or drive the things they drive. Where fears and assumptions masquerade as political and social truth. It’s a pretty wild place.
Zen is about responding to the circumstances of our lives. When we have no money, we get a job. In this case, working part time in a quirky women’s clothing store. I’m also starting to do web design, and really enjoying the creative outlet and economic possibility of that undertaking. I won’t work in a clothing store forever. But I need money, and there’s plenty to learn.
When I go to the store, I put on clothing that makes me look more like a fashion consultant and less like a little Zen waif. I will help customers, or get ignored, or have my ear talked off. I will be asked to fetch thirty garments for someone who buys none of them. I will work alone, or without a break, for long stretches of time. Like any work, it can be satisfying, or infuriating, depending on the mind you bring to it.
The nicest part of the job is helping customers choose gifts for people they love. It’s very sweet to watch a little girl choosing the perfect earrings for her step mom. The hardest part of the job is the shoplifting; there are some typical behaviors to watch for, but there’s only so much you can do, especially when the store is busy. It’s so sad to come across a discarded tag or an empty hanger, and to know that some deluded person has created terrible karma for herself. One girl, who had been acting suspiciously, returned to the store with an eighty-dollar shirt she said had “fallen into her bag. It was an extremely awkward situation. But, having done the wrong thing, all your options are painful.
Most of what happens in the store is formalized. There are the rituals of offering assistance, answering the phone, ringing people up, and running the credit card machine. We tag merchandise, straighten the racks, and greet the UPS man. In spare moments, I fold and dust and sweep and straighten the racks. It’s like living in an altar.
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Resistance is Futile
"Not Resisting. Yielding. Directly, vulnerably experiencing what is here, together with all the gross and subtle ways that this body-mind has cultivated to brace itself against the pain and agony of disturbance, condemning it, battling it, or even shutting down to avoid feeling it altogether.
When there is awareness, a reaction that is seen and understood to be a hindrance diminishes on its own. It may take a lot of repeated suffering, but a moment comes when the energy of seeing takes the place of the habit."
-- Toni Packer, The Wonder of Presence
Before this Nehan sesshin, I didn't relate to Toni Packer at all. I picked up this book today, thinking I'd pass it along to someone else. And then I saw words that described my experience perfectly. And another notion about myself and the world flew out the window! The entire book is brilliant, and just what I need right now.
The piece I meant to write, anchored by the quote “I am always with you,” was this:
This recent sesshin was really difficult. I know the basic instruction for dealing with racing thought and emotion: feel the feeling. Understanding that the impulse to think arises from a sensation lower than words, you feel that sensation, and you feel the impulse to fix or resolve or figure it out or otherwise force it to be different.
You become minutely aware of sensations in the body, the rush of adrenaline, the pang of yearning. Or maybe you don’t! These are like instructions for finding the surface in a raging storm at sea: sometimes you do break the surface and manage to inhale, but …it’s not always possible.
There is refuge in the stability of the body-mudra, the yogic posture of the Buddhas, rooted and balanced, upright through all assaults. And there is refuge in the breath, in attending to this body that breathes. But there are other refuges, false ones, ones that appear to give comfort, but only fuel the karma that is being uprooted. For me, these would be thinking, planning, and fantasy.
From minute personal observation, I can now report that, in the very depths of my being, when the going gets tough, I turn to two fantasies of comfort. The first is food—delicious, filling, flavorful food, its development and preparation. A universe of melted cheese and carbohydrates. At one point, I realized I had just reinvented tuna noodle casserole.
The second comfort is relationship: the gratifying love and appreciation of another human being; harmonious togetherness; maybe the thrill of discovery; some praise; some hugging. A couple people in particular—or their two-dimensional representations—served as reliable gratification-objects.
These depths of mind are not very flattering, but such is the karma of this person. It’s the material I have to work with—the unformed basis of Buddhahood if I hear the teachings right. I do know that judging or hating it just adds to the suffering.
And looking, again and again, is tremendously healing. It took every ounce of resolve to keep sitting, to sit through breaks and all the last night, and to continue noticing the mind and body with as much compassion as possible.
I wrote:
Trust
Relearned, remembered today
There is a place untouched and true.
An eye in every storm
Immediate, infinite
Deeply intimate
Somewhere under the roiling drama, there is indeed a quiet place to observe from, deeper than the stories that race around on the surface.
I guess the last thing I want to say is that I recognized my views of the world are Not Always Right. This is a basic teaching, but I’m talking about a systematic misunderstanding of my relationships with others in the world.
I suddenly realized, there was no need to be afraid at the monastery. Although I was in a state of minor emergency there for months on end. The Samdinhirmocana Sutra (and maybe others as well) liken the imputational aspect of mind to a flaw in vision. Like something in the eye that makes everything have a halo around it, or appear the wrong color. So we experience a reality mediated by these fundamental flaws, and experience it, without questions, as a real part of the world.
Birds build nests. Cats watch. Humans sit and know.
And look: I am jealous of A, suspicious of B, hampered by a strategy of unwilling surrender while here (at the monastery). Would it have hurt to spare them ONE kind thought all week?
I need them: I could not sit all night or all week without them. And they need me too. I forget my own basic dignity. And theirs. Who cares what C thinks she thinks of me? Or if I think it’s because of something I did two years ago?
We don’t see ourselves clearly: I don’t see myself; I don’t see others; and they certainly don’t see me clearly either. And it doesn’t really matter. My inner world of human relationships doesn’t reflect the truth: it’s the rather shallow experience of a scared, insecure person with an agenda of self-protection and gratification. People are actually much more interesting than my stories about them. And it’s pointless to waste thought on what I think their stories about me might be. That’s no way to live a life. (And yet I have, alas.)
The important thing is that our relationships are founded on wholesome ground. Whether I “like” these people at the moment or not, somehow we all come together anyway, and we sit, and things change. Just forget the story and focus on the intention.
Because people do change. And the people who come to spiritual practice are often pretty loopy, or desperate, or lost, and that’s fine. It shouldn’t be any other way. This is about resolving karma and seeing clearly; we need odd, quirky, deluded folks for that. And our own oddest and most dysfunctional selves are going to rise to the surface, blindly drawn toward the healing and destruction of the Dharma.
Gratefully borrowed from the vast ocean of the internet.
When there is awareness, a reaction that is seen and understood to be a hindrance diminishes on its own. It may take a lot of repeated suffering, but a moment comes when the energy of seeing takes the place of the habit."
-- Toni Packer, The Wonder of Presence
Before this Nehan sesshin, I didn't relate to Toni Packer at all. I picked up this book today, thinking I'd pass it along to someone else. And then I saw words that described my experience perfectly. And another notion about myself and the world flew out the window! The entire book is brilliant, and just what I need right now.
The piece I meant to write, anchored by the quote “I am always with you,” was this:
This recent sesshin was really difficult. I know the basic instruction for dealing with racing thought and emotion: feel the feeling. Understanding that the impulse to think arises from a sensation lower than words, you feel that sensation, and you feel the impulse to fix or resolve or figure it out or otherwise force it to be different.
You become minutely aware of sensations in the body, the rush of adrenaline, the pang of yearning. Or maybe you don’t! These are like instructions for finding the surface in a raging storm at sea: sometimes you do break the surface and manage to inhale, but …it’s not always possible.
There is refuge in the stability of the body-mudra, the yogic posture of the Buddhas, rooted and balanced, upright through all assaults. And there is refuge in the breath, in attending to this body that breathes. But there are other refuges, false ones, ones that appear to give comfort, but only fuel the karma that is being uprooted. For me, these would be thinking, planning, and fantasy.
From minute personal observation, I can now report that, in the very depths of my being, when the going gets tough, I turn to two fantasies of comfort. The first is food—delicious, filling, flavorful food, its development and preparation. A universe of melted cheese and carbohydrates. At one point, I realized I had just reinvented tuna noodle casserole.
The second comfort is relationship: the gratifying love and appreciation of another human being; harmonious togetherness; maybe the thrill of discovery; some praise; some hugging. A couple people in particular—or their two-dimensional representations—served as reliable gratification-objects.
These depths of mind are not very flattering, but such is the karma of this person. It’s the material I have to work with—the unformed basis of Buddhahood if I hear the teachings right. I do know that judging or hating it just adds to the suffering.
And looking, again and again, is tremendously healing. It took every ounce of resolve to keep sitting, to sit through breaks and all the last night, and to continue noticing the mind and body with as much compassion as possible.
I wrote:
Trust
Relearned, remembered today
There is a place untouched and true.
An eye in every storm
Immediate, infinite
Deeply intimate
Somewhere under the roiling drama, there is indeed a quiet place to observe from, deeper than the stories that race around on the surface.
I guess the last thing I want to say is that I recognized my views of the world are Not Always Right. This is a basic teaching, but I’m talking about a systematic misunderstanding of my relationships with others in the world.
I suddenly realized, there was no need to be afraid at the monastery. Although I was in a state of minor emergency there for months on end. The Samdinhirmocana Sutra (and maybe others as well) liken the imputational aspect of mind to a flaw in vision. Like something in the eye that makes everything have a halo around it, or appear the wrong color. So we experience a reality mediated by these fundamental flaws, and experience it, without questions, as a real part of the world.
Birds build nests. Cats watch. Humans sit and know.
And look: I am jealous of A, suspicious of B, hampered by a strategy of unwilling surrender while here (at the monastery). Would it have hurt to spare them ONE kind thought all week?
I need them: I could not sit all night or all week without them. And they need me too. I forget my own basic dignity. And theirs. Who cares what C thinks she thinks of me? Or if I think it’s because of something I did two years ago?
We don’t see ourselves clearly: I don’t see myself; I don’t see others; and they certainly don’t see me clearly either. And it doesn’t really matter. My inner world of human relationships doesn’t reflect the truth: it’s the rather shallow experience of a scared, insecure person with an agenda of self-protection and gratification. People are actually much more interesting than my stories about them. And it’s pointless to waste thought on what I think their stories about me might be. That’s no way to live a life. (And yet I have, alas.)
The important thing is that our relationships are founded on wholesome ground. Whether I “like” these people at the moment or not, somehow we all come together anyway, and we sit, and things change. Just forget the story and focus on the intention.
Because people do change. And the people who come to spiritual practice are often pretty loopy, or desperate, or lost, and that’s fine. It shouldn’t be any other way. This is about resolving karma and seeing clearly; we need odd, quirky, deluded folks for that. And our own oddest and most dysfunctional selves are going to rise to the surface, blindly drawn toward the healing and destruction of the Dharma.
Gratefully borrowed from the vast ocean of the internet.
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Flowers for Eldon
I’ve been sending out greeting cards. So many people I appreciate so deeply. And spring is here! Reason enough to celebrate when tiny flowers are pushing their way out of the dark earth.
One card said:
I am always with you.
It's true. But how could I give that card to anyone? What would they think? It's too profound a sentiment to buy for $2.50 at the shop. It requires a whole refiguring of conventional ideas of personality and the universe. You can't just put that in an envelope. Saying this type of thing is impossible, even for me, who is more and more expressive on more and more forbidden topics all the time.
But it's true. Memories of eating lunch with Hikari on a Tassajara ridgeline, or bouncing on oversized pillows with my sister, are vividly, vividly available. Usually they come for a visit after several days of sessin, when I'm trying to focus on the present. But they're IN there.
And beyond the storehouse of personality, "I am always with you" is true because the "something" which truly loves--which resonates and magnifies and opens to another being-- transcends this meaty body and self-centered little thought system. This person's personality isn't around for "always". So "I" and "you" are not the limited conventional selves.
It's worth finding that "I" that can never be apart from someone you love. Or love that fits the following:
Many rivers cannot quench love, nor floods drown it.
(Song of Solomon 8:7)
Love, and togetherness, outside of time and space. It's hard to buy a card that purports to talk about it, and it's not easy (I'm finding) to try to write a blog entry about it.
But I want to talk about someone I really love.
February 28 was the death-day of my almost-grandfather, Eldon Riddell, the Scots-descended sheep farmer whose family homesteaded in this area; they’re major landowners to this day. My parents did the back-to-the-land thing in the early 70s, and they were helped immeasurably by older folks who knew how to do things the old way.
As a child, I remember making repeated visits to consult with these old farmers. These people, none of them under sixty, were our friends and neighbors, farmers and beekeepers, fruit growers, and one rascal. These were larger-than-life figures to my small self. Their very names bear the scent of a lost era: Eldon Riddell, Fred Elliot, Wendell DeHaven, Art Bliven, Ray Adams, Marilyn Miller. They taught my parents to graft trees, to feed pregnant ewes properly, to mix cement, to keep ants from invading beehives–and that the injunction to love thy neighbor need not necessarily extend to trusting him. But that’s another story.
Of all these, Eldon was the greatest, most solid and kind individual. He and his wife Lora drove a gigantic sea-green Cadillac, lived in a vinyl-sided house, and gave us our first television–a mammoth piece of furniture. There was an old violin he would play, but rarely.
We would drop by unannounced, come in the back door and into the rust-and-yellow kitchen. Or trot out to the big white barn, where we’d find Eldon in his signature overalls, working with the sheep. They were known all over as the finest-looking animals in the Willamette Valley: not only were they healthy and happy (the company of a barn full of contented sheep is supremely comforting), but their conformation and wool quality was also exceptional. Eldon would regularly visit New Zealand and import Border Leicesters—beautiful intelligent animals with Roman noses and long silky locks of wool.
My little sister and I called Eldon “Grandpa” because our surviving grandparents were far away and, until we were a little older, somewhat estranged. I know my parents had their own relationships with him; I know they relied on him and trusted his advice. He raised roses as a hobby; he and my mother often compared notes.
On memorial day, my mother would cut flowers from our garden to give to Eldon. He had plenty of his own; his car was filled with flowers, but he needed a lot. He would visit graves all over the area. Many were so old, so otherwise forgotten, that his flowers were the only ones.
Finally, it was his turn. When Eldon fell ill and died, I was ten and eleven years old. It was my first exposure to extreme sickness, and then death. I have never seen my father cry like he did at Eldon’s funeral.
In the years since then, I grew up and moved to California. My parents divorced, sold the farm, and moved away. Eventually, the crooked path of life and practice drew me back to Oregon, and to the areas I frequented as a child.
So, I’m freshly out of sesshin, the flowers are pushing themselves into the world, the earth is waking up. And I realize, it’s February 28. Eldon’s day.
At the Safeway, they’ve gotten the first tulips. I know without checking that they’re from Mt Vernon, Washington. My mother lives there now; it’s the tulip capital of the world. (All tulips are from there, and all tulip bulbs. Even ones that say ‘from Holland’. They ship them there and then they ship them back. Or so I’m told.)
I buy two bunches of tulips, mix the colors, and save half for the zendo.
Dusk is falling as I start driving north, up towards my old life, towards Monmouth and the Pine Crest cemetery. It’s a beautiful ridge with tall trees, half a mile off the highway. Eldon’s family once owned the property, and they still control most of the surrounding land.
In that graveyard are graves from some of the earliest settlers, people who came west on the wagon trains. More recent immigrants are just beginning to be buried there: people from Mexico putting down roots, sending their children to the schools, and planting their dead in this earth. Eldon’s family, over four generations, is there as well.
Eldon’s grave is exactly where it’s always been. There’s Lora. A son and their oldest daughter have passed too.
In addition to the flowers, I have brought three sticks of good incense, and a Droste chocolate pastille, al little orange-flavored disk of fine milk chocolate. It will double as an incense burner: I’ve carefully bored three little holes into it.
I place the flowers. I light the incense and get them stuck in the chocolate without it melting too much. And I stand there, watching the light fade across the valley, watching the clouds. When I was little I took so much natural beauty for granted, but even then I found the Willamette Valley clouds heart-stoppingly beautiful. Darkness overtakes the hills I know so well, and the glints of headlights travel the highway down below. I’m crying.
I don’t intone anything dharanis or gathas for Eldon, much as I wish for his soul’s repose. He was one of those Christians who opens your heart to the whole faith; once the longest-serving member of Monmouth’s First Christian Church. Palms together, I just say that I love him, that I miss him.
Standing there, I realize that he taught me a tremendous amount about dedication and integrity and love, just by being himself. So I say that too. I was still a child when he died, but I desperately miss a benevolent older man, whose warm smell and scratchy cheek are still close at hand, who helped my parents, and who adopted us, in his way.
I go back to the car. I’m not thinking of anything. Llater I will reflect on how we create community and family. On how we find kindred souls because we need to take care of others, and to be taken care of.
In the failing light, I see the dark mass of flowers, and very dimly, the tiny glints of the incense, pouring fragrance into the night, long after I drive away. I take backroads home, to Corvallis.
OSU DEPARTMENT INDUCTS MEMBERS OF WITHYCOMBE CLUB
05-28-04
CORVALLIS - A long list of exceptional Oregon State University animal sciences alumni and others who have given outstanding service to the state's livestock industry were honored today by the OSU Department of Animal Sciences as charter members of a new honorary association called the Withycombe Club.
The induction ceremony was part of an awards luncheon held on the OSU campus. The event included presentation of a large donation to the OSU Animal Sciences Department.
"The department established the club as a way to give special recognition to individuals who have made significant contributions to animal agriculture," said Jim Males, department head. "Launching the Withycombe Club is also an opportunity to celebrate our long and productive history as one of the first departments formed, established in 1907, in the OSU College of Agricultural Sciences."
Posthumous inductees:
Eldon Riddell was a third generation
Willamette Valley sheep producer. His
father was an original importer of the
Romney breed. At the time of Eldon's death
in 1985, his Romney, Border Leicester, and
Suffolk flocks were some of the best known
in North America. He regularly imported
Romney and Border Leicester rams from
New Zealand and his Border X Romney
rams were sought after by commercial
producers throughout western Oregon.
Eldon's son, David, is carrying on the
tradition of breeding productive rams for
Oregon's commercial flocks.
One card said:
I am always with you.
It's true. But how could I give that card to anyone? What would they think? It's too profound a sentiment to buy for $2.50 at the shop. It requires a whole refiguring of conventional ideas of personality and the universe. You can't just put that in an envelope. Saying this type of thing is impossible, even for me, who is more and more expressive on more and more forbidden topics all the time.
But it's true. Memories of eating lunch with Hikari on a Tassajara ridgeline, or bouncing on oversized pillows with my sister, are vividly, vividly available. Usually they come for a visit after several days of sessin, when I'm trying to focus on the present. But they're IN there.
And beyond the storehouse of personality, "I am always with you" is true because the "something" which truly loves--which resonates and magnifies and opens to another being-- transcends this meaty body and self-centered little thought system. This person's personality isn't around for "always". So "I" and "you" are not the limited conventional selves.
It's worth finding that "I" that can never be apart from someone you love. Or love that fits the following:
Many rivers cannot quench love, nor floods drown it.
(Song of Solomon 8:7)
Love, and togetherness, outside of time and space. It's hard to buy a card that purports to talk about it, and it's not easy (I'm finding) to try to write a blog entry about it.
But I want to talk about someone I really love.
February 28 was the death-day of my almost-grandfather, Eldon Riddell, the Scots-descended sheep farmer whose family homesteaded in this area; they’re major landowners to this day. My parents did the back-to-the-land thing in the early 70s, and they were helped immeasurably by older folks who knew how to do things the old way.
As a child, I remember making repeated visits to consult with these old farmers. These people, none of them under sixty, were our friends and neighbors, farmers and beekeepers, fruit growers, and one rascal. These were larger-than-life figures to my small self. Their very names bear the scent of a lost era: Eldon Riddell, Fred Elliot, Wendell DeHaven, Art Bliven, Ray Adams, Marilyn Miller. They taught my parents to graft trees, to feed pregnant ewes properly, to mix cement, to keep ants from invading beehives–and that the injunction to love thy neighbor need not necessarily extend to trusting him. But that’s another story.
Of all these, Eldon was the greatest, most solid and kind individual. He and his wife Lora drove a gigantic sea-green Cadillac, lived in a vinyl-sided house, and gave us our first television–a mammoth piece of furniture. There was an old violin he would play, but rarely.
We would drop by unannounced, come in the back door and into the rust-and-yellow kitchen. Or trot out to the big white barn, where we’d find Eldon in his signature overalls, working with the sheep. They were known all over as the finest-looking animals in the Willamette Valley: not only were they healthy and happy (the company of a barn full of contented sheep is supremely comforting), but their conformation and wool quality was also exceptional. Eldon would regularly visit New Zealand and import Border Leicesters—beautiful intelligent animals with Roman noses and long silky locks of wool.
My little sister and I called Eldon “Grandpa” because our surviving grandparents were far away and, until we were a little older, somewhat estranged. I know my parents had their own relationships with him; I know they relied on him and trusted his advice. He raised roses as a hobby; he and my mother often compared notes.
On memorial day, my mother would cut flowers from our garden to give to Eldon. He had plenty of his own; his car was filled with flowers, but he needed a lot. He would visit graves all over the area. Many were so old, so otherwise forgotten, that his flowers were the only ones.
Finally, it was his turn. When Eldon fell ill and died, I was ten and eleven years old. It was my first exposure to extreme sickness, and then death. I have never seen my father cry like he did at Eldon’s funeral.
In the years since then, I grew up and moved to California. My parents divorced, sold the farm, and moved away. Eventually, the crooked path of life and practice drew me back to Oregon, and to the areas I frequented as a child.
So, I’m freshly out of sesshin, the flowers are pushing themselves into the world, the earth is waking up. And I realize, it’s February 28. Eldon’s day.
At the Safeway, they’ve gotten the first tulips. I know without checking that they’re from Mt Vernon, Washington. My mother lives there now; it’s the tulip capital of the world. (All tulips are from there, and all tulip bulbs. Even ones that say ‘from Holland’. They ship them there and then they ship them back. Or so I’m told.)
I buy two bunches of tulips, mix the colors, and save half for the zendo.
Dusk is falling as I start driving north, up towards my old life, towards Monmouth and the Pine Crest cemetery. It’s a beautiful ridge with tall trees, half a mile off the highway. Eldon’s family once owned the property, and they still control most of the surrounding land.
In that graveyard are graves from some of the earliest settlers, people who came west on the wagon trains. More recent immigrants are just beginning to be buried there: people from Mexico putting down roots, sending their children to the schools, and planting their dead in this earth. Eldon’s family, over four generations, is there as well.
Eldon’s grave is exactly where it’s always been. There’s Lora. A son and their oldest daughter have passed too.
In addition to the flowers, I have brought three sticks of good incense, and a Droste chocolate pastille, al little orange-flavored disk of fine milk chocolate. It will double as an incense burner: I’ve carefully bored three little holes into it.
I place the flowers. I light the incense and get them stuck in the chocolate without it melting too much. And I stand there, watching the light fade across the valley, watching the clouds. When I was little I took so much natural beauty for granted, but even then I found the Willamette Valley clouds heart-stoppingly beautiful. Darkness overtakes the hills I know so well, and the glints of headlights travel the highway down below. I’m crying.
I don’t intone anything dharanis or gathas for Eldon, much as I wish for his soul’s repose. He was one of those Christians who opens your heart to the whole faith; once the longest-serving member of Monmouth’s First Christian Church. Palms together, I just say that I love him, that I miss him.
Standing there, I realize that he taught me a tremendous amount about dedication and integrity and love, just by being himself. So I say that too. I was still a child when he died, but I desperately miss a benevolent older man, whose warm smell and scratchy cheek are still close at hand, who helped my parents, and who adopted us, in his way.
I go back to the car. I’m not thinking of anything. Llater I will reflect on how we create community and family. On how we find kindred souls because we need to take care of others, and to be taken care of.
In the failing light, I see the dark mass of flowers, and very dimly, the tiny glints of the incense, pouring fragrance into the night, long after I drive away. I take backroads home, to Corvallis.
OSU DEPARTMENT INDUCTS MEMBERS OF WITHYCOMBE CLUB
05-28-04
CORVALLIS - A long list of exceptional Oregon State University animal sciences alumni and others who have given outstanding service to the state's livestock industry were honored today by the OSU Department of Animal Sciences as charter members of a new honorary association called the Withycombe Club.
The induction ceremony was part of an awards luncheon held on the OSU campus. The event included presentation of a large donation to the OSU Animal Sciences Department.
"The department established the club as a way to give special recognition to individuals who have made significant contributions to animal agriculture," said Jim Males, department head. "Launching the Withycombe Club is also an opportunity to celebrate our long and productive history as one of the first departments formed, established in 1907, in the OSU College of Agricultural Sciences."
Posthumous inductees:
Eldon Riddell was a third generation
Willamette Valley sheep producer. His
father was an original importer of the
Romney breed. At the time of Eldon's death
in 1985, his Romney, Border Leicester, and
Suffolk flocks were some of the best known
in North America. He regularly imported
Romney and Border Leicester rams from
New Zealand and his Border X Romney
rams were sought after by commercial
producers throughout western Oregon.
Eldon's son, David, is carrying on the
tradition of breeding productive rams for
Oregon's commercial flocks.
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