Reposting: Motherhood as Spiritual Practice

I rarely like to do this, but this time I'm making an exception: I'm re-posting here something I've written on my "personal" blog. For finally I was able to translate into words and images some of the things I have been experiencing as my practice has made the transition from "temple" to "home". The hardest part of this, of course, has been to accept that this practice is indeed "real" and "worthy", just as real and worthy as a more focused sangha-in-a-Buddhist-setting practice.

I have read too many times that one's dedication and determination cannot be as true as what is the norm in temple practice. Indeed, in some circles there is much chatter about the superiority of Zen Temple practice. And I have looked at this scant little blog of mine, and felt much guilt about my lack of sangha, my inability to "get thee to a nunnery", or somesuch of a hot-bed of focused, intense practice.

Slowly, slowly I am learning otherwise, through wonderful books (like Grace Schireson's and Perle Besserman's) that opens the can of worms that is a woman's domestic practice (among other types, of course), and through my own experience.

I have been surprised at my inability to continue my Boston Dharma Center exploration with any regularity, and I suspect now there is a reason for that: the Teacher that is pointing to right here, right now. There really is no other option, is there?

Enjoy-
~


The morning after my ordination (Tokudo), I had an interesting vision: a wide field opened before me. Anything felt possible. I could not see into the future; it was as if my friend foresight just breathed out all chance, and the grass-grains bent in unison as an invitation to come. experience. In those days, I took it as some sort of sign that my mind had opened somehow. Not that my mind was enlightened, but more receptive.

Or, something like receptive.

A year and a month and six days after my Tokudo, I found myself at the edge of a well-worn waterway. The ancient redwoods and grandfather oaks bore witness to the child I bore in my belly, and the ring I took- and gave- to another human being. More vows, more joy; more open possibility, more open to chance. My heart felt more open, more receptive.

Or something like receptive.

Because the truth of motherhood revealed to me that I was still very much closed; still very much embroiled in all my old patterns of desire, of anger, of complete and utter cluelessness. Anything I thought I understood quickly washed away (...like a baby with the bathwater?), and everything I reached for dissolved (...like taking candy from a baby).

Slowly, so slowly, I am finding now. That now includes what I think, however misguided. That now includes all I could ever hope for, as well as what I already have. The meanness, the gorgeousness: nothing is lacking.

I am grateful for this constant shifting, this ebb and flow they call "motherhood", this Universe folding and unfolding upon itself like a shining, terrifying Mandelbrot, this constant moonlight. It is a spotlight, the most honest critique that I can't possibly evade, and ever I am brought to my knees and humbled, again and again. I said I was leaving home, and home indeed was taken away; but that wasn't the point. The home was the coziness of my own opinion. I took one step out that door, and ironically enough I found a child in my arms, a husband in my heart and a new hearth to warm my bones by.

So for this zen mother, a koan of irony: the practice of learning to embrace totality, the grace of living in its reciprocal embrace... and the gift of it, sensing that renunciation might actually look something more like reception.

The Bird's-Eye Veiw of Home Practice

You can find this wonderful view of the English village of Warkworth here.

Ever since I was a little girl, I've wanted to be a witch. Not just the pagan god-loving, earth-hugging, mud-stomping kind, but a real witch-- the broom-riding, hearty-cackling, soulful old crone who steals our imagination every year in the Autumn season.

And I must admit, aside from being able to talk to (and turn into) cats and bats and other furry morsels, the flying was the piece that impressed me the most. For long have I tended toward the quieter side, the reclusive side, so that the thought of experiencing a whole town, all at once the whole of it and in perfect secrecy, thrilled me.

And so it is that Halloween, or more properly the Celtic Samhain, is my favorite holiday of the year, for the celebration of it allows this imaginative soul to indulge in such wonderful play as pretending to be exactly who it is I think I should be, to its fullest expression.

And so I did; and clutching my wide-brimmed hat to my head against the cold evening wind, I drifted through the twilight new-dark of our neighborhood, spooked and spooky alike, powerful as the old crone as I longed to be, and just as stealth, too; for who questions the presence of a flying witch, on Halloween?

To study the self is to forget the self, and to realize that all that is lives its existence through you; that is my lesson from the greatest shape-shifter of them all, Master Dogen. For truly, we are anything and everything, and nothing at all. When viewed in view of the liminal nature of Samhain, Dogen's teaching breathes the most powerful magic of all: the living truth of an interconnection and inter-weaving so very tight, and constant; an experience of self so expansive and inclusive, all boundaries fall away, so indeed there is nothing to include, and no expanse at all. This truth rings to me as clear as a crisp witch's cackle.

Samhain offers a chance for one to look upon the yield of what was harvested over the last several months of effort. The fields are clear, the table is set, and the ancestors themselves are invited to feast with the living on the fruits of their collective labors.

This year, I survey my empty field, and my harvest, and the theme becomes clear: after so much struggle, heartbreak, and chaos, What is this Zen for? What is the purpose of this faith?

My teacher is understanding as I recount my past "successes" in practice, and my present dissatisfactions. She quotes Kodo Sawaki Roshi: Zen is good for nothing. "Wonderful things happen in zazen," she said. "But if we attach to them, life becomes a disappointment.

"If we try to kiss ourselves goodbye-- all those nasty, brutish things that we are, 'goodbye'-- that's just death, the limitation of form, our value judgments. If we attach to the beautiful side, it's harder to cope; it's not realistic. It is what it is. We are part of it. It is us."

I thought I already understood this, but in fact it's not just an understanding, but a bodily sense we must cultivate often, even in the worst of times, when it's hardest. Oh, and how hard it is, when it is hardest!! "But how do you suffer?" I asked her; "How do you cope, when the coping is itself unbearable?" Her answer reminded me of the wise old crone on the broom: cry. curse. out loud. And, sit, a lot, when you're confused, because "you can see a lot more of what's happening," just like that witch, resting easy on the swoosh of her broom, taking in the aerial view.

I told her I'd been attempting to create Home Retreats, but aside from some calm, I didn't find too much success in them. "Retreats are a monastic practice," she reminded me. "Not facing the whole thing at once-- that's the way of the monastery. Trying to duplicate monastic life in the household with a small child isn't realistic.

"Rather, make yourself available to your life, with mindfulness practice, remaining in the center of your life, continually reminding yourself to be where you are, to be with it.

"I don't think we can perfect ourselves; I think the best we can do is try to help each other."

And so it turns out I'm the witch after all: the mom crafting herbal potions to ward away the discomforts of cold weather; the seeker in contemplative, dark garb, settling in the seasonal quiet; the wild woman at once soaring high above, gathering a sense of the 'big picture', yet still fully part of it, adding her own unique expression in concert with everything else. All the more reason to practice the "good for nothing"... All the more reason to embrace, and celebrate, this dark season of the Witch.

Amazing Grace

Schireson sensei and friend, Hokkeji, Japan. Original image and Grace's good words here. Further on down, the image of First Church Boston can be located at good ol' Wikipedia.

Blooming on a busy corner of Boston's gorgeous, historical Back Bay is First Church Boston, where a modest wattle-and-daub room for worship created by the founders of Boston eventually grew into a soaring-from-the-ashes phoenix of an early-70's architectural dream of a church. And this is where I found myself, by no small miracle, this past Saturday night: staring into a bright night sky through the odd frame of a burnt-out rose window.

By miracle, I do mean miracle. Like many an at-home mama, I'm not quite sure how I made it out of the house, into the car and down the street after the day I had. And I'm less sure of how I managed to navigate the unfamiliar streets to actually make it to Marlborough Street armed with only a few scribbled notes from Google maps and an intuitive guess where street signs were lacking. But nevermind that-- once I arrived, I actually found a parking space right in front, thankyouverymuch. Indeed by then it was a miracle that I made it just in the nick of time for a short period of zazen. After all, the sit was scheduled to begin at 6:15, and I had only just wedged myself into the aforementioned miracle-parking-spot at precisely 6:14...

Yet even that was not the real miracle of the night; did I mention I somehow had enough time to quickly visit the ladies' restroom? Ah, me, late as I was, I did; and just as I ran up a long flight of stairs and slipped off my shoes and snuck onto an available zafu, Zen teacher, abbess and author Grace Schireson bowed and snuck on to her own directly across from mine. Grace has been on the circuit promoting her new book, Zen Women: Beyond Tea Ladies, Iron Maidens, and Macho Masters, and tonight she was to share an intimate talk with some of the sangha of Boundless Way Zen.

It was rather a miracle that I found myself meditating beside her, and not just because of that incredible, aforementioned parking spot. No, I'd actually had it in mind to meet Grace for about 4 years now, an impulse harking back to the days when I lived in Northern California, closer to my own Zen teacher who encouraged me to join the two of them at an all-women's retreat at Grace's Empty Nest Zendo. But as it was I was nursing a new babe-in-arms, and though they promised to accommodate, such a retreat was (and has been) a luxury of thought only. One day, has been my mantra. Maybe next year. You can imagine my excitement, then, when I learned she was coming to me-- in a way, it felt to me that my own teacher, and even the entire energy of that all-women zen retreat, would somehow be in the room with her. (The joy of that thought helped my navigation through the squirrelier parts of Boston rush-hour traffic, I can assure you.)

Yet even the serendipity of that was not the real miracle of the evening.

The real miracle, the real grace of Grace, her book and this talk tonight was the imparting of a long-held secret: the reality and beauty of a women's Zen Buddhist lineage.

Lineage is the cornerstone of Zen; it offers something of an immediate access to Buddha himself, as if saying the names of the people he touched somehow allows us to touch him, too. At any rate, the offering of this chant also reminds the practitioner of just how close we are to Buddha, and how long our history with him has been. So it was that each day in our Soto service at my temple, we chanted the names of the... patriarchs. And so how sweetly it is I can remember the surprise of tears that came the first time I chanted the names of our female Buddhist ancestors. The woman who would later become my teacher had brought the list with her to share during the sesshin that culminated with my ordination ceremony. I had had no idea that just reading the names of these women would draw such a strong, emotional response! The real gift of Grace's book, then, is that she has gathered so many of these Zen ancestors' stories into one place, into one resource. She has given them light of day, and granted new life to what were once (in lucky instances) just names on a page.

It's hard to explain why this is important; rather, I trust that my body and my psyche know it is. For it is still true that in many parts of the world, and in many instances here at home in our own Western culture (78 cents on the man's dollar, anyone?), women are conveniently regarded as second-class citizens. And even if this is not at the center of one's concentration, the shame of being treated as less-than-whole emerges in interesting, least-expected ways, such as crying one's way through a most touching lineage chant.

As for that chant? Sure enough, the paper carrying all those women's names was folded up and recycled once the sesshin was through. And although the addition of those names cost perhaps 2 minutes extra time during our daily morning service, we never again chanted them. Does sex-- the female sex-- matter in Buddhism? If we are all one, what does it matter? It's a long debate and it certainly deserves its own post, but my focus right now is the grace that came once those names were given breath, once those women's stories were given life.

When something that you had no idea was missing shows up in your life, it is profound and permanently altering. And how appropriate it seemed to me then that I should find myself at the end of my first Saturday-night-out in a long while gazing up at the burnt-out grandness of a 19th century rose window, the fresh breath of a late-summer night breezing through an untold past feeding my own breath, my own hope. Here, here then, to 'untold' pasts made manifest!

Contemplatively Contemplating Contemplation...

Forgive the absence, dear ones; it's been a busy summer. We'll be back to our regularly scheduled Zen Adventure in the weeks to come. In the meantime, though, a friend, who is a new mom herself, asked me: "how do YOU practice in this new phase of your life?" I think there are more than a few of us who would sum it up as "I basically daydream about meditating while I'm vacuuming, and I feel guilty..." But as I wrote my response to her, I realized that while the practice itself may look different, the intention, concentration and effort are very much the same.

lol-- laughter and guilt. That seems to sum it up for me these days!

This morning I sat, actually, for the first time in many weeks. (Alright, technically we should call it "months" I guess, at this point!) My last great effort was my At-Home Retreat, which was in May if memory serves. What was interesting about that time was the amount of teachings that popped up in least-expected places, not the least of which was an admonition from my Teacher (Kobun roshi) on some random website I found, to "not feel guilty." To practice zazen when you practice zazen, and not sit zazen when you're not sitting zazen-- not to pine after it when you're not doing it.

Simple enough, but the rest of the message got my head straight: "The best way to live is to consider the people who relate with you in your day to day life and emphasize how they feel about your absence. Their tremendous kindness makes you able to join this sitting practice."

The other interesting thing that happened in that week was that true to any sangha in deep practice, the fissures in my marriage began to show. My annoyances and resentments toward my husband were painfully present and in truth, it's why my Retreat lasted only a week. I think of it as a ripening time, where I allowed myself to really open to what was happening here in my family-- and I understood, finally, what a great mirror we are for each other, in all our guises.

So in a way, I feel like the Great Cosmic Zen Master stepped in and hooked us with a good whallop from the kyosaku ("encouragement stick"), because that's when everything began to unravel. Which is excellent now, from this vantage point at least: attention has been received where it was most needed, and we are all working together now, rather than each in our own separate corner, trying to get it right on our own.

I dunno. I miss sitting, I miss the discipline of living at a temple and waking earlier than the rest of the world, that sense of the night-creatures heading back to bed and the morning earth drowsily rolling through sunrise. I miss being a part of that and part of a quiet group of folks all really dedicated to... something, their own inner hope. When I say I'm a priest now, usually my mind follows up with, "Yeah, right..." so that I don't really even know what it means anymore. A friend recently posted, "How are you of service?" and that focus has shifted from, "I'm going to be the next Joan Halifax and save the whole, big world!!" to "I'm going to go fold socks!"

But seriously, I don't doubt for a moment that this service is important. It's a physical manifestation of chanting the Heart Sutra, is my take on it. Bringing a new human into this world is the hardest work there is. You CAN'T get lost in your ideals within this practice-- it won't LET you. And you cannot escape it, even on the worst days. It's all you have and you know it. It is an excellent, excellent teacher and opportunity in the way that Temple living cannot be, because in Temple life, truly the back door is always a little ajar...

So, there you have it. My practice these days consists of a healthy attention to Right Thoughts, with Right Speech and Right Action following as the branches off that trunk. (That just means I spend a lot of time in my head, talking to me'self ;) I've taught my son how to make an incense offering and bow, and we do that quite often because he likes it. Once in a great while, we actually sit zazen together, and oh there is NOTHING sweeter than sitting zazen all of 54 seconds with a toddler!! And each night I soak my tired feet and use that time, right there locked away in the quiet bathroom and perched on the closed toilet, to sit zazen. I read a lot of Buddhist blogs, and I write on my own blog, concentrating on the relational aspect of all of life. And each day I'll make an offering on my altar, giving thanks to my teachers.

When I first moved to Boston, I decided to make an adventure of my practice and visit each meditation center the area offers. There are a lot of places, it's rather like a mini Buddhist mecca! Alas there are no strictly Soto sanghas here, so it's been a lot like visiting different "countries" of Buddhism.

The other nice thing is the local Insight Meditation Society offers a GREAT program for children called Little Buddhas, so we're attending that monthly as a family.

So, that's it for me- how about you? What does your practice in the Family Sangha look like?

Floating Zen: Field Day

CZC hadn't posted photos from its fundie by today as I'd hoped, so I snatched this equally fun shot from here. Be sure to visit the CZC website photo album in the near future to see what all the fun was about!

Just around the corner from our new home is a grand park. It's got a playground, ball field, ball court and water-park; and it's got an elementary school adjacent to it, the soccer field of which is nearly always full of kids. Well, this past week it was especially so, as the children celebrated Field Day. Potato sack races, running, hopping, jumping and throwing of every description... and, the joyful noise of it filled our neighborhood. What a delight!

And, as it turns out, what symbolic timing, as my two excursions for Floating Zen for the month of June were nothing short of a field day for my 3-year-old son.

No sooner had that final ref's whistle blown on Friday, our little family gussied up and headed over to the Cambridge Zen Center for a fundraising event. We had visited CZC a few weeks before, myself for the first time, but a return trip for my husband, who took refuge in the late Zen Master Seung Sahn's lineage many years ago. CZC is in the Kwan Um School of Zen, which is a Korean tradition. We'd taken a little tour of the house and grounds, and it felt very comfortable and familiar. And, I realized a little wryly, it had been at least two years since I'd stepped foot in a dedicated, monastic zen setting! The smell of incense and effort from years and years of celebrated, concentrated practice was lovely and reassuring. I'm hoping to make it over there to practice "for reals", and perhaps even with my husband, for an introduction to Korean-style zazen. But this was for play and hopefully meeting some new friends in a zen community. Only, it didn't quite happen as we'd planned...

The CZC community was wonderfully vibrant and evidently cohesive. The entire even was well-planned and really well executed, and fun. There was an ease-of-being there that suggested to me that I was witnessing a well-established and joyous community. Not without its problems, I'm sure; but really, there was such great diversity in age and background that I found myself very much hopeful to include myself as a part of what was going on.

Only, there I was with a little maniac toddler...

Having a child certainly separates you from the wider world. One's focus becomes narrowed as a parent-- decent childrearing really rather demands that of you. Especially the kind of childrearing that keeps the parent focused on the child not harpooning all those lovely koi with a well-pointed stick! There were other children at the event, all ranging in their ages from very recently born to 9, and there were loosely organized activities for them. But as the evening went on and most parents inside focused on the auction taking place, chaos erupted as a wily children's tribe took over the once-peaceful garden. Bubble-blowing turned into bubble-bathing; face-painting turned into a all-body free-for-all color extravaganza. The poor young woman who had been in charge, once vibrant and assured, was at her wit's end as a pillow-fight karate-session erupted in the craft tent. Ah, me! But who decided it would be fun to break out the hose? Swiftly we took our son out of the equation, and ended our night early with an earnest thank you to the hostess.

Overall? I'd describe Cambridge Zen Center as vibrant and alive, cohesive and wonderful. I really look forward to spending more time-- quieter time-- there.

Our next Buddhist field day event took us to the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center for their Little Buddhas program. Begun about 3 years ago by Rebecca Lavine, a mom herself, Little Buddhas is geared for children from age 3 to 9 as an introduction to family mindfulness practice in the Theravadin insight meditation tradition. Really, there are just not enough good things I can say about this program-- it was really well run, nicely organized, spacious, mindful, fun and a truly spot-on introduction for my child to Buddhist practice. We began at 10-ish a.m., with families gathered in a circle of zafus and zabutons. There were so many in attendance! We began with a quote for the parents, and introduced ourselves to the circle; we listened deeply to the ring of a meditation bell; we practiced walking mindfulness, and lying-down body-awareness. The theme of the day's meeting was anger and aversion, and so much was discussed about what anger feels like, or how aversion is experienced. We ended at 11:15 with a story about letting go of anger (for the little ones) and a play (put on by the older children), and a snack.

How curious it was for me that June's Floating Zen centered around my little boy and the notion of family practice, as all last week I embarked on what I called a Home Retreat, which I documented here. How fitting that I should end that effort with my family in two distinct and well-established practice centers!

Renewing Home Practice, revisited

Alas, but my exploration of Boston Zen has been put on hold for yet another month of interesting tales and tribulations to share; for this time we were forced to leave our home (I need to say yet again) because of an issue with mold. And once again, I found myself grappling with more than a few of the same demons that taunted me last time 'round. But this time a sense of grace appeared, and in an unexpected way. And so for another month, dear reader, my search for Boston Zen lands squarely back on my own figurative zafu, no further than the very tip of my own knowing.

I've not discussed it much here, but I'll give a bit of background: Last year this time, spring was unfolding with awfully high temps in southern Maryland, but other than a bit of general concern about Global Warming, I didn't lose to much sleep over it. My zen group, Open Palm Zendo, was growing, and I was enjoying the warm buzz of spring that softened all of those Saturday mornings. Yet by the early autumn, mold suddenly began growing on anything and everything. We were forced to move, and in a hurry. We lost many, many cherished things-- and, let's be real, a few things we were ready to let go of! But what resulted was a period of two months of completely diabolical, stressful exhaustion as we made a go of tediously cleaning a handful of our belongings that we could save from the house, living in someone else's home and all-the-while grieving the loss of our sense of security.

Finally by December we landed in the Boston area and quickly we worked to make amends in our tired, battle-weary little family. Quick trips to Ikea allowed us to cheaply replace much of the furniture we'd lost. A hopeful attitude replaced our sense of despair. We seemed to be on an upward swing... Until Easter Sunday, when a little heat-wave struck and my young son soon began waking up with daily nosebleeds and coughing spells. My sense of smell and my own allergy confirmed my worst fear. It was happening again!

This time, though, we were addressing things before our furniture turned green-- which meant we wouldn't have to lose so much as we did last time. But just like last time, the whole chaotic and disappointing affair got me wondering a lot about my Zen vows of tokudo, of home-leaving. Surely, it was not meant to be quite this literal! was one thought that popped to mind. And, my family did not take the vow alongside me, did they? is another. But of them all, one thought was fairly constant:

Why do we keep losing our home?

As my mind chewed and chewed on this koan, what was revealed was this: a sense guilt over lost chances and laziness in my Zen practice; a sense of split-self between parenting and family life and the "priestly" life I once knew; and perhaps most potently, a full-on storyline ravaging my mind of not deserving the okesa, the Buddha's Robe.

On that final point I finally found my tears, for a deeper mystery had been solved at last. You haven't got to deserve, as the saying goes. "How can you 'become' what you already are?" my old teacher once put it. Sewing the okesa was, for me, a practice of experiencing my life weaving into a much larger picture, a much older tradition than my little mind could conjure alone. Wearing the okesa was, for me, a practice of experiencing a putting-on of Buddha's own skin. (It is powerful and transformative to wear the clothes of those you admire, as any 6-year-old girl dressing up in mommy's finery will tell you.) Entering the Soto priesthood was, for me, the practice of allowing, at long last, a sweet exhalation into the larger being that I knew I already was.

And so I return: we didn't lose our home because we have been bad (as my old Catholic-self would think). We didn't lose our home because we have offended the mold gods (as my old pagan-self would suggest). We didn't lose our home because of all our ancient, twisted karma (as my old inner-Buddhisht --yes I meant that spelling-- would reprimand). Losing our home is happening.

Finally now we have resettled into a very sweet new home, with wonderful landlords who adore my son, in a great neighborhood and under what appears to be a brighter and more forgiving sky. Finding home is happening. And as it turns out, the okesa never really came off.

Renewing my Home Practice

Good gracious, has it really been a month since I've gone exploring into the wilds of Greater Boston zen? Say it isn't so!!

Truth is, I returned to my favorite zen spot, Open Circle Zen, only to find it partially submerged during a long, steady rain. We all laughed about it, of course, once the shock wore off, and then went about the task of cleaning up the puddles so that we might sit. We managed an hour of sitting and then noticed the puddles had returned anew. One lapped dangerously close to the doan's zabuton. "Zen on the edge," I quipped; oh, the hazards of a basement zendo!

So while a more earnest cleanup is in process, 'tis up to my own devices to experience another bit of Beantown Zen. Funny, then, that I should find myself inspired by a zen center in Nebraska: noticing the full moon falls on the 3oth this month, I decided to take advantage of the timing and experience my first Ryaku Fusatsu.

We never celebrated the full-moon ceremony at my training temple, but I've enjoyed reading bits about it from temples that do honor it, and I realized that as I've been feeling somewhat lazy about my practice discipline since becoming a mother, perhaps there is no time like the present to do something about it.

It turns out, I had 10 minutes while my son was in the bath with his dad to throw it together. Ah, the hazards of a practice whilst endeavoring to parent... One does what one can. So I made an offering of incense, made 3 bows, rang the bell, and set about renewing my vows as I had taken them at my tokudo, 5 years earlier. And wouldn't you know, just as I was vowing yet again not to "abuse the 3 Jewels", the bath ended and a wacky naked toddler ran into the bedroom and hugged me, drenching me with bathwater, and giggling away back to the towel he managed to evade moments before.

I laughed. Certainly not something you see at your average Very Serious Zen Temple.

And then, truth be told, I began to feel very guilty about the whole thing. This is not real zen, I thought to myself. I should be...

But then? Then I found this gem, right in my lap, written long ago by someone paying attention to my lineage-teacher, Kobunsama. Even so many years later, he spoke directly to me:

You cannot attach to zazen while you are not doing it. Do you understand? It seems that if you cannot do zazen it is alright. Don't do it. To enjoy what you are doing is the most important thing. Instead of looking a zazen with mournful eyes while washing the diapers, you enjoy what you are doing, and when the chance comes, you sit.

Often while we are sitting a call will come from someone asking for us to relate to them. When important things call you, this opportunity to sit is almost impossible to have. So you are deeply involved with others, and most of the time you don't regret not doing zazen because you are doing something else. Zazen doesn't draw you from what you are supposed to be doing; simply, you miss the opportunity to sit because there is so much emphasis on the importance of communication.

You often feel guilty when you take off from your daily activities to join sitting. You feel you are doing a personal thing, and at the same time you doubt if there is time to do it. The best way to live is to consider the people who relate with you in your day to day life and emphasize how they feel about your absence. Their tremendous kindness makes you able to join this sitting practice. Usually you don't think about your situation this deeply, since you have such an urgency to discover your true nature. On that level the people you are concerned with, the people who are concerned about you, let you go to come waste time here. And they literally say, "wasted time," when you come back with a shabby face!
Kobun Chino Otogawa, roshi, aspects of sitting meditation

So I will have to wait a little while longer for my baby boy to come to know his mama's been-too-long-at-sesshin face. In the meantime, a super-wet after-bath giggly-boy hug is the perfect final bell at the end of my practice. This bell rings continuously...

My home altar, ready for action. We've since moved it from the bedroom to the living room... and I'm glad to have it more a part of our every-day, rather than sequestered in the spot we hope we might get to use...

Floating Zen: Harvard Buddhist Community

Photo © 2006 Laine Walters/The Pluralism Project; you can visit the beautiful Andover Chapel virtually here at the Pluralism Project's resources page.

This one I'm going to call Dharma treat.

Especially after the day I had-- oy! Pilar Teishin and the very bad no awful terrible horrible day. (A mama's nod, obviously, to this gem.) To wit: my kitchen flooded-- Twice; and thus I learned my landlord is terminally ill. Some mean 20-year-olds began dismantling the igloo I'd just made for my 3-year-old in front of him, apparently for snowballs. And to make matters worse, turns out I'd put my underwear on inside-out while dressing this morning. Gah. This day!

I'd planned to visit the Harvard Buddhist Community meditation session in the evening, but while stirring my rice for dinner I decided I oughtn't count on it... and so began the utter blessing of remembering to give up completely.

I even gave up on counting on knowing where I was going, once I made it there --and so I did, at 6 o'clock sharply. And so imagine my delight when I arrived at the chapel's front door just in time to meet a very nice law student who was on his way there also. A guide. Wonders!

We ascended a noble-looking stair and entered an old chapel that took my breath away. I'd read a bit of its history on the Pluralism Project website (the link is above), but really, web sites do no justice to delivering the real feel of a place. Old wood, wide walls, grand ornamentation and lofty, pointy ceilings-- I entered the room and felt elevated.

And so should one feel at Harvard, one supposes...

At the center of that ruckus of a wooden-chair-gathering you see pictured above was a nice, cushy oval rug, and upon that rug were a handful of zabutons, upon whose zafus sat a handful of students. Honestly, it was a novelty for me-- nearing 40 as I am-- to at long last be the eldest person in the room; most dharma communities I visit are home to folks far older than I, and I've long been one of the youngest in attendance, even now. Yet at the opposite end of the oval stood a simple wooden table, and thereupon sat the oldest One in attendance, with a bright offering of a single candle beside the icon. I bowed to all the ages, and sat.

Tsultrim, the student leading the group, gave a brief introduction to the practice, which was grounded in awareness, effort and relaxation. There is no particular style HBC follows; rather they are open to any meditation tradition and so echo that diversity in the format they offer. We sat "in our own way" for 20 minutes, facing the center of our oval, and after had a brief Council-style sharing session where we could say aloud whatever was on our minds at the moment, passing the talking-stick afterward to our neighbor. Tsultrim began our Council practice with a short reading on past, future & present from his Tibetan resource of Mind Trainings. At the end, by my request, we said our names again and what meditation tradition we followed.

The real gift of the evening-- I mean besides giving up completely-- was in the joy offered by sitting with others who are from such different backgrounds, inspirations, techniques and traditions. It struck me that this doesn't really happen that often-- usually, one goes to a Zen Center or a Tibetan Center or a Theravadin Center, and that's that. So throughout the meditation period, before even knowing anyone's training or experience, and without those labels or the "common cause" that can rally (...and distract) those within a given tradition, I returned again and again to this sense that all of us were just sharing a truly human experience. By whatever means, we were simply meditating. And struggling with the same repetitive thoughts, soreness of muscles, antsyness, stillness... Just sitting.

The Harvard Buddhist Community is open to anyone who has an interest in sitting with such a lovely diversity of folk, and tonight students old and very new in the Vipassana, Zen, Tibetan, Thich-Nhat-Hahn, Catholic and "otherwise nameless" traditions met together with great sincerity.

And, once again (lucky me), with great zafus...


Three out of three enso!

Floating Zen: Spring Hill Zen

An old image of the UU Church of Medford, found here. You may also visit their website here.

Boston Dharma Tour 2010 continues...! Today I chanced to visit Boundless Way Zen of Spring Hill in the Medford neighborhood. Housed as it is in an old Unitarian church (est. 1663!), my first impression was quite grand: Today I am going to have a truly religious experience.

Indeed, one of my very favorite things about experiencing the different types of zen offered in the area lies in the precious discovery of so many approaches to practice. For there are so many expressions to offer, as I've always assumed, but never explicitly sought out. It's a treat and a gift to be in this position-- of not being a seeker, per se, as I've already found "my" lineage and practice-- I'm not shopping for form. Rather now I'm simply exploring what is out there, to enjoy and learn from what others do.

For Spring Hill Day I arrived a little early, thinking I'd acquaint myself with the new surroundings. I found the sangha gathered in a large social-hall in the back of the church. (I'd actually hoped for a peek into the church itself, but ah well, next time...). They were a friendly group, and in good, intimate number; again as it was at Open Circle, the core seemed to consist of 4 long-time members. Additionally there was a visiting teacher, and another newcomer and myself. Such a mix lent a good dynamic as far as age-range and practice experience, it seemed to me. We stood outside of a smaller room, speaking quietly to each other until 9 am. Then we filed in, chose our places, and sat facing forward until the service began.

The service! My. I have not attended a full Zen liturgy in years and years! And this is where my first bit of resistance popped up: Shaddap already. I just want to sit. Yet you'll see a note on their website that specifically addresses this resistance (what, you think I'm the only one?), and at the end a key point by John Daido Loori roshi: that it's through this practice of offering and expressing our beliefs that we bring Buddha to life. Not here, not gone: Buddha exists beyond absolutes, and our devotional practice--performed with the right spirit-- allows us a moment to access that sense more fully.

One of my first observations was that the ceremonial form of the practice toys with absolutes...Meaning the quality of the practices did not settle, but changed with each turn: first chanting cadence up, and then down... kinhin slow, and then fast... zazen facing the wall, and then the center. The practice seems to me another mix of Soto and Rinzai Zen, which I'm finding typical for the area. And without settling on one or the other, a pattern developed, a rhythm of doing, a rhythm of change, that offered me a new perspective, a new approach, to not knowing.

The morning thus consisted of a 1/2 hr service (facing center!), with lovely bells and drums and song; then 5 minutes of kinhin (slow, then fast!), and then four 25-minute periods of zazen (facing/not facing/facing/then not facing the wall), punctuated by the same kinhin practice. We ended with a recitation of the 4 Vows & of course, 3 Bows, announcements... and an invitation to brunch down the street.

Spring Hill Zen offered a vibrant, committed and intent-driven practice environment. And situated as it is in an old church, being surrounded by fragrant old wood and stained glass offers one a real sense of tradition that is not as evident in the shiny-new (current century, that is) patina of many Zen Centers. Oh yes, and once again? Great zafus.

"Three out of three enso" ;)

Exploring my Personal Lineage

(Wandering Monk, A. Kulakov- my favorite piece, the first "real art" I ever bought.)

This morning as I sat typing out an email-of-introduction to the next zen center I'll attend for my floating zen experiment, I had a bit of a realization concerning practice, lineage and ...maturity. For it was 19 years ago-- nineteen??!?-- that I first sat down on a pillow snatched from my couch to give zazen a try. Instructed only by Alan Watts' Way of Zen and my own intuition, I entered a doorway that opened me.

"They say there is a doorway from heart to heart, but what is the use of a door when there are no walls?" -Rumi

It's taken these years of practice to realize that all those years of practice don't mean anything; there's no advancement, no elevating epitomes, no ways-beyond. For you're always in the stream; the difference is in realizing it, or not. It's all a play of the mind, otherwise, because whatever understandings shine through, enlightenment is happening all the time.

So I was reading the Spring Hill Zen website and orienting to their philosophy, which seems to focus very specifically on the practice of sangha. And that got me to thinking about my practice of sangha: where I've sat, how I've sat, and how I've related to those sitting with me. I wondered for a moment about the senior students of this new zen center-- those who had been there many years, and how this orientation to practice has affected their way of thinking or being. And that led me to think about my own personal lineage, and how my own interaction with sangha has shaped my practice and life.

I've wandered around a lot, lived in many different states and practiced with a number of different sanghas. I always get a little sentimental when I think of those imaginary 'senior students' of any given center, wondering what it must be like to stay in one place, and practice with one sangha all the time. It's a sensibility that other military brats or gypsies in general will never know, but always wonder at; moving to another town and meeting a new friend who has always lived in the same house on the same street in the same town for the whole of their lives, it feels extraordinary and a little surreal.

But there too I think of the first sangha I ever joined, as in made myself an active and intentional part of, and I am ever grateful that I left: because for all its instability, paradoxically this bouncing-around has given me a maturity I don't know I would have gained otherwise.

I entered my first sangha with wide eyes, a shy demeanor and awfully high expectations. I think that like many, when I first set out on this path I assumed such places to be a kind of shangri-la, some oasis of good intentions and disciplined, loving, selfless interactions. In other words, perfect. Enlightened, even. And decidedly not human.

I've been reading a lot lately on other blogs about the branding of zen, the expectations of sangha and even the non-existence of "real" zen in the West. Again and again I encounter that same seed of first hope that I carried so closely to my heart, this expectation of what Zen Is, like some bubble I did not want chance to pop; and again and again, I'm reminded of the sangha that split itself in two from its clash of philosophical orientations... Or the sangha that shunned me, for not sharing its beliefs... Or the teacher I left, when I discovered how human he was.

My own path is filled with so many splits and wild encounters, and I'm willing to guess that yours is not so dissimilar. But the gift I came to appreciate today was the maturing mind birthed by all those splits and fissures: to look at last at a web-site, and think not of the shangri-la that will somehow save me, but simply of the group of people I'll chance to meet and grow with, bit-by-bit.

What is real sangha, but all that we relate to? Even if we exclude, we're still relating... And there's the trick of it!

Floating Zen: Open Circle Zen Group

Hello again, this time from... Boston! Yes, as you may have read from my earlier posts and my new banner, my little family & I have relocated to the city-by-the-bay ;) to enjoy chowdah, cream pie, and (evidently) lots of snow.

As my side-menu says, if you're in the Hollywood, MD area and interested in continuing (or discovering) your zen practice, feel free to contact me. I am grateful for all who came by to practice with me at Joy Lane all those Saturday-mornings-ago.

So now it is my turn to discover my Zen in Boston area. How do you find a sangha when you move to a new area? I thought this would be a good place to chronicle my search, hopefully providing some helpful tools and anecdotes along the way.

With a little research via the internet, I was amazed at the sheer diversity of practice centers in Boston. Two sites that I found incredibly helpful were DharmaNet and the Harvard University Pluralism Project, as they list many centers, helpful links and a bit of information about each. The Pluralism Project was an especially wonderful find, as it offered a unique look at the history of Buddhism in Boston. After locating information about each of the practice centers, Sweeping Zen made for a nice cross-reference as I looked more deeply into the teachers who head each center.

The first center I decided to visit was Open Circle Zen Group. Judging from their website, I guessed that they would be very down-to-earth, straightforward and unpretentious-- and I guessed right. The group meets on Sunday mornings in an office in the basement of the Social Security office by Davis Square. Therein they use the sitting space of the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order. It's a small, tidy space, and colorful-- not at all the drab basement I'd worried about.

I decided to walk; a luscious option, given my proximity to the square. Yet it was a bit of a risk, and I arrived just in time for the 9 o'clock bell, with just 3 minutes to spare-- and found myself quite alone! For an instant I sweated out my concern: was this the group that locked their doors promptly at 9 a.m.? Yet twelve minutes later, I lost all concern, for there was a smiling face walking quickly toward me. "We're sometimes late," she laughed apologetically. My kind of sangha, was my first impression.

We sat for 3 sessions of zazen: two at about 20 minutes, and one for at least 40. (Or, maybe it just felt that way...) These sandwiched two quick-paced kinhin sessions. At the end we chanted a version of the Heart Sutra that was quite new to me, along with the Four Great Vows and the Three Treasures. This final piece was in Japanese, and we bowed for each. It was lovely-- and reminded me well of the benefit of practicing with a seasoned group! I was very happy with the good energy toward practice I felt in this place: focused, direct and unpretentious. The sangha was warm, friendly and generous.

Open Circle Zen Group welcomes practitioners from all backgrounds. There is no teacher; they tell me that most of the sangha who practice there have teachers elsewhere (...a good match for me!). They sit Soto-style (facing the wall), and as well I felt there were elements from other schools mixed in to the service and overall practice. Three of the founding members whom I met that day were students in the lineage of Yasutani Roshi (you may recognize him as Philip Kapleau Roshi's teacher, and Harada Roshi's successor). This lineage practices a mixture of Soto and Rinzai Zen, and has a very interesting history-- by all means, peruse the link!

All-in-all, I felt comfortable in this group, most notably because I felt no pressure to become or do something other than who I already am, and what I already practice. And they were very friendly. Oh, and-- so important, people, so important-- I liked my zafu. Yes. It was properly worn-in, which is important to short people like myself.
"3 out of 3 enso"