Drama

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

One of my fascinations in life is the role story plays in our lives. In training as a social worker my early mentor, Dr. Howard Goldstein (may his name be for a blessing), taught through demanding we examine story as key in understanding our clients. Somewhat dramaturgical, this idea is that we create stories where aspects (he refers to them as "persons") organize our perceptions and suggest responses.

This seems to me to be an integration of role theory and phenomenology. Oh, boy. We create a story through events in our lives, create parts, put ourselves in the play and then manifest the whole thing as we live out each moment.

Zen practice is the practice of examining this process and cutting it.

We are not a role, nor are we at the center of any story. We are the Universe. Story, while helpful, is a conceit. It is at root deceitful. But more importantly brings past karma into present moments as mechanisms for distortion. As Rabbi Shapiro says in his brilliant synthesis of major religions, including Buddhism, on "the sacred art of Lovingkindness":

"Spinning drama is what this self does. This is how narrow mind functions. But believing the drama to be other than a story is a trap that imprisons you in narrow mind. Anger is how we spring that trap. ...(the drama) is just another belief narrow mind conjures up to maintain a sense of self and self-importance..." (p.132).

This is an arrow in the heart of the matter. Retaining our story puts us in the center of the play, our anger keeps us there. To give up the story, takes us out of the play...afterall, there is no play in truth. And we are not the center of the universe, nor the center of our lives. We are the Universe, one, complete, and wonderful.

Cut the thought: undress the present, return to the present, and stay in the present. Be the buddha you are.

Be well.

Peace Day 2009

With palms together
Good Morning Everyone,

This evening we practice for peace together in support of the United Nations International Peace Day at Temple Beth-El. A number of local religious groups (including Clear Mind Zen) have come together, created an interfaith choir, and will offer songs, prayers and chants in support of peace. The event begins at 7:30 PM here in Las Cruces.

To honor this day I will practice streetZen at the Veteran's Park at 10:00 AM. If any of you are available and are interested please join me.

May you each be a blessing in the universe.

Notes

With palms together,
Good Afternoon Everyone,

Today has been very interesting. It began with an early 4:30 rise, zazen, and putting together an outline for a workshop on "Compassion Fatigue" for a local hospice organization. I managed to get in a short 1.5 mile walk through the desert park with friends Eve and Allen, but had to leave early to get to the hospice in time for the workshop at 8:00 AM

From there to the Temple to hear the finish of a discussion on the differences between the Christian "Old Testament" and the Hebrew Scriptures. On thing that came out: Jews are most interested in asking questions, Christians seek to find answers. As an aside, my sense is that Zen Buddhists just want to live as fully as possible. Scripture is relatively unimportant in Zen; it's the practice that is the Way and through the practice, the "scripture" reveals itself in our own original face.

Anyway, compassion fatigue, for those who don't know, is a potential condition arising from prolonged work with suffering. We used to call it "trauma by proxy" or "secondary trauma" when I was a clinician. Its a troublesome phenomena that can affect both an individual and an organization. It mimics post traumatic stress disorder in many ways and is an extreme form of burn-out.

Many Buddhist practices can be helpful in dealing with this. Practices like tonglen, zazen, and mindfulness practices as taught by the Buddha in his Four Establishments of Mindfulness sutra can be very helpful. Working to know our limits and establishing boundaries are also helpful. I have found that the basic practice of shikantaza to be the most helpful to me. This is the practice of "just sitting" wholeheartedly hitting the mark. No props, no breath counting, no watching the breath: just sitting. Developing the discipline of this practice is key. We are faced with ourselves, our thoughts and feelings, our internal 'movies' and so on, yet we just sit.

This is helpful as it develops the ability to be present in the presence of whatever. We do not take in and keep anything. We take it in and let it go. We become porous and Teflon like at the same time. The value is that we can be present with another's suffering without making it our own.

While this is a great skill, even harder, it seems to me, is the skill of appropriate response. I can be present. I can float like a duck. But I confess, I am often lost in exactly how to respond...especially with words. I would almost rather remain silent.

Sometimes this is good. Other times silence is not so good. Practice. Practice. Practice.

Be well.

Words

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

The meaning of words, goodness, they form such peculiar common ground. A word is a vocal symbol for something. To the degree to which we share an understanding of the symbol determines the degree to which we understand each other. The rub is that understanding is never pure. It is always distorted by our prior experience and memory of that experience. Moreover, the symbol itself has an often unspoken social meaning. It all gets so convoluted. Yet, we think we understand each other.

Sometimes shared agreement on a meaning is reached. What becomes important is the shared agreement, not the word. The word is just a trigger, so to speak, which fires up recall of the underlying shared meaning. But even this is not the thing itself.

Just because we share an understanding of something and the common words pointing to it, does not mean we are in actual touch with that thing. In such cases, shared meaning clouds our mind and we think we are in touch, but are only touching a cloud.

So a word is a symbol that points to something, but is not the thing. A meaning is something, a thought or belief, we assign to a word or an experience. And because each of these are thought processes, they are dualistic, produced as a result of sensory data being processes by a brain that sees itself apart from that which it perceives. Its all just chemical and electrical processes that dupe us.

So what is this? What is a cup or a foot or a computer? What is love, compassion, hate, distortion? These are words pointing to something, but not the things themselves. To uncover the truth we must set aside what we think we know, drop our baggage, and take the next step totally naked.

I'm getting a headache.

I take an aspirin. Simple. Not complicated. Zen.

Be well.

Visitors

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

This weekend was a beautiful one. Two of my wife's friends from graduate school (class of 1966) visited. It was the first they've seen each other since that time. They used to drive to their field placements in Akron together from the Cleveland area a couple of days a week. All three got married, had children, and then lived out their lives. Now, over forty years later, thanks to the Internet, they have reconnected. Its as if the intervening forty odd years did not exist. It was fascinating to witness.

Much older, grayer, and wizened, these three students, now Masters, came face to face with a sort of timelessness and a shared construction of reality with a few cracks. "Remember? Don't remember?" As each sought common ground, they each differentiated with the expectation of inclusion.

I admire My Little Honey and her two friends. This took courage. Clearly, people can and do care deeply for one another, and the constructions we call memories, can form a sort of knitting that holds each together.

Being in the moment, appropriate is the moment, and each moment's condition demands its own attention and authenticity. Letting expectations drop away like so many bags at a train station, we learn to recognize there is wisdom in letting go of those worn too thin.

Time to create a new story. Perhaps. But this time we should know: our stories don't define us; how tightly or loosely we clutch them does.

This is the Zen of Now.

Be well.

Life Bites

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,


Zen is neither mine nor yours. Awareness is neither mine nor yours. This moment is neither mine nor yours. Awakening is neither mine nor yours. Mine and yours have no place in the world of Zen. Even place itself does not exist. Mine and yours are convenient fictions we live by. We give them legal sanction, moral sanction, and sometimes even spiritual sanction. So: Everything is no thing.

Yet, a mosquito has bitten the back of my knee and it itches. At 4:30 AM Tripper barks and Judy grumbles. Our water is hard and leaves a residue on our glasses. No thing is everything.

We can say these do not exist, that mine and yours, like I and Thou, are based on constructions of a mind created through a neural net. But we live within this net. When our net collapses: so collapses mine and yours. So collapses mosquito, bite, itch, dishes, Tripper's bark. So collapses I and Thou.

Zen is living in both with full awareness of both and acting accordingly.

Be well.

Where Are You?

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

Going out into the world, going inside, good grief! Enough going. I practice not-going. Practicing not-going is to practice Zen. Everything is here now: no path, no attainment, no 'other shore'.

Of course, sometimes "I" "go", as in playing iPhone games, wandering around looking at things, diving into Torah or the Sutras, etc., yet, this is just the shift of an eye, isn't it. One "eye" says "this is relative to that", suggesting two. Another "Eye" says "this and that are one and seeing a 'this' and a 'that' is a delusion, a mortal mind-trick". The Infinite is constantly demanding of us, "Where are you?!"

Watch out for shifty eyes.

Practice not-going and witness an eternal Eye.

Be well.