Thursday, January 13, 2011

A loving memory-


She used to get a bit of a twinkle in her eye, you know. An impish, wondrous twinkle. "They're all going to be jealous," she said, speaking of all the other grandmotherly zen teachers in her circle, "when I tell them my sangha has a baby!"

And she warmly welcomed my baby, just a bit over a year old at the time and very (rambunctiously) mobile, into the very intimate group we had that met on Tuesdays at Healdsburg Yoga Studio. Darlene shared his free spirit; you could tell that she, too, was in love with the world. This open, clear penetration was evident in everything she did, in the way she made you feel. All at once I was warmed by her, mystified by her, and a little intimidated. (You don't come into contact with that kind of clarity without feeling a wee bit so.)

I've always known she would die. She spoke openly about her experience with chronic pain and cancer, as these very points were the cornerstones of her own practice. Yet it was a shock to read that she had died, just yesterday, while here in Boston the snow was flying. The glorious snow was flying, our neighbors were sharing a laugh and a grumble in a shoveling extravaganza, and life was going on. Life and death juxtapose so strangely on some days. Do you laugh? Do you cry?

"You do both," she'd say. For it was from Darlene Cohen that I finally learned to accept all of my emotions, and understand them as vital parts of myself, and vital to my own practice. "Nothing is pushed away," she'd say. "Not one thing needs changing. Except maybe your orientation to it."

On her birthday, which was a day shared with the Halloween holiday, she'd come to sit zazen with us in full costume. On other days, she'd sport the most amazing earrings... oh, her collection of earrings, you would not believe some of these bits of artful extravagance! Nothing is pushed away. Darlene sat with her whole self, warts and pain and all, and in this her gift to us was an attitude of complete acceptance-- of who we were, of how we were, joyfully.

I left California, and our little sangha, in September of 2008. I daydreamed of returning to share the women's retreat with Darlene and my teacher, Angie, at Grace Schireson's Empty Nest Zendo. I daydreamed of the letter I'd send Darlene and the sangha in the meantime-- or at least, the birthday card that I meant to send this year. Always life flares up and always, these precious intentions are left on the back-burner.

Turns out, that's precisely where our zen practice cooks the most: the back-burner of intentions, wishes, hopes and best-laid plans. Things we'd like to ignore, things we pray will change... we can push any number of things, sure; but the truth of it is, they do not go very far away.

Thank you, Darlene, for reminding me to stir that pot.

Monday, January 3, 2011

Resolution

Resolution*: the process or capability of making distinguishable the individual parts of an object
To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things of the universe. To be enlightened by all things of the universe is to cast off the body and mind of the self as well as those of others. Even the traces of enlightenment are wiped out, and life with traceless enlightenment goes on forever and ever. Dogen Zenji, Genjo Koan
Resolution: a rule of inference used for automated theorem proving

I've long feared that my practice wasn't "good enough". Even my practice of nyoho-e, "sewing the Buddha's robe", was punctuated by nightmares of black-robed monsters pulling out my stitches while fiercely admonishing, "you're doing it wrong." They appear again and again even now, in my day-to-day. It's been a strain, parlaying practice from temple to home.

Resolution: a formal expression of opinion or intention made, usually after voting, by a formal organization, a legislature, a club, or other group.
Zen practice and instruction in the west is lame, weak and watered down. Norman Fisher? Puhuleeze.

Resolution: a measure of the amount of detail in an image; the level of information in a display device; the capability of an optical system to discern and distinguish different frequencies or details

Eye awareness is not existent in the eye. It is not existent in form, nor in the space in between. What is constructed dependent upon the eye and form is erroneous.

If the eye does not see itself, how can it see form? Therefore, the eye and form are insubstantial. The remaining sense spheres are also similar.

The eye is empty of its own substantiality. It is empty of another's substantiality. Similarly, form is also empty, and also the remaining sense spheres.

-Nagarjuna, Seventy Verses on Emptiness


Resolution: the move of a note or chord from dissonance (an unstable sound) to a consonance (a stable sound)



Resolution: the point in a literary work at which the chief dramatic complication is worked out