the empty boat

February 8th, 2023    -    3 Comments

Midnight on the lake
No wind, no waves
the empty boat
is flooded with moonlight.
—Dogen Zenji

It has been quiet over here for a long time. There is great comfort in deep silence amid the cries of our suffering world.

Silence doesn’t have a meaning but we often project a meaning onto it. We might think, for instance, that silence implies anger, offense, or indifference, but that is not always true. What is true is that silence and stillness abide eternally in our very being, when the winds of emotion have calmed and the waves of thought have ceased. Then we might have something useful to say. Or not. Sometimes silence says it all.

The other night I gave a talk on forgiveness. It came to mind because of things in my own life and most certainly because of the cruelty, injustice, and inhumanity in our world. We need forgiveness, and we need the humility to give it, because forgiveness is the best remedy for anger and resentment. It allows a new beginning.

But forgiveness is a rather sticky business. Anger is an intoxicant, and intoxicants are addictive. If we look at ourselves closely, we may see that we hold onto our anger, grievance, and blame. They give us—what, really? A sense of self, perhaps. Purpose. Certainly a sense of self-righteousness. Letting go takes the strength and discipline to get over yourself. You have to really want to get rid of the pain.

Years ago someone asked me a particularly good question. They asked how this practice changed the way I dealt with conflict. All high-mindedness aside, how does it make a day-to-day difference? I didn’t give a long answer, I just said that I’d learned to pause in the face of conflict so that I didn’t immediately react to anger with anger. I could still respond, but it was more often with silence. Or an apology. It’s a lot of trouble to win an argument but there’s always a way to end it.

The talk was given on a night when our sangha observed the ceremony of atonement, called Fusatsu, which conveys complete acceptance of one another and total responsibility for the harm we cause.  No excuses, no blame, no wind, no waves, no self. It returns us to the silence of a night sky, the stillness of calm water, and the radiant light that shines in us, when we empty ourselves out.

You can listen to the talk right here. Or here. Or not listen, and just enter the silence.

where in the world

October 12th, 2022    -    6 Comments

If you don’t see the Way, you don’t see it even as you walk on it.

The other day I had a letter from a longtime friend. “I keep in touch with you through your blog,” she wrote. I felt guilty, because if my writing is a way to keep in touch with friends, I’m not a very good friend. I don’t write much anymore, least of all here. Not sure why, except fewer topics occupy my mind.  Still, that’s no reason to keep my distance. Hello, Leslie!

Someone asked me a while back if I was now “bicoastal.” That’s  because I seem to be taking a lot of trips back east to visit my daughter in New York. The question sounded ridiculous. Of course I’m not bicoastal. I have only one address, one home. But then I thought, “Why not?”  When you live as far west as I do, the place you’re most likely to travel is east. And from time to time, my daughter asks me to come. Any parent knows they would move mountains for a child, so why not move yourself? It suddenly seems extremely feasible and important to go, and so I do.

Once you make it to the airport, through security, and on board a plane, you can sit in one place and get anywhere. Land and exit the plane and you find that the same earth is underfoot, same sky overhead, and maybe just a little more rain. It’s not far, whatever time or trouble you think it takes.

When you walk the Way, it is not near, it is not far. If you are deluded you are mountains and rivers away from it.

This last trip was a purposeful one. A few months ago my daughter moved into a new apartment and started a full-time job. You might remember the shock after you start your first full-time job: you suddenly have no time for anything else. No time to cook, no time to eat, no time to make a home to come home to. A friend asked me what I was going to do on this trip, and I answered sheepishly, “Just cook and clean.” And he said, “You’re a really good mom.”

He proceeded to tell me about his twenty-third birthday, which was more than twenty years ago. He was just starting out, trying to make his way in the world. He didn’t tell any of his friends it was his birthday because he didn’t have the money to go out. He was still in school and also working, and he got back to his apartment late. When he walked in, he knew his mom had been there. She had cleaned, done his laundry, and filled the fridge. He sat down and cried then, and teared up even as he told me this story. He said it was the best day of his life.

Any day that you realize you are loved is the best day of your life. And, of course, any day you give your love is as good as it gets.

I talked recently with my good friends, podcasters Lori and Stephen Saux about love, patience, and trusting wherever you are. Maybe this is a good place and time to join us.

Photo by Matt Le on Unsplash

where feet don’t reach

August 31st, 2022    -    10 Comments

If you wish to see the truth, only cease cherishing your opinions.— Sengstan

This is a line from an ancient Zen poem that stops me every time I run across it. Can it be that the only thing that keeps us from seeing the truth of our lives is what we might think about it? Whether we like it or not? Agree or disagree? Or in today’s parlance, “how it aligns with our personal values?”

I recently saw a smug somebody define the two US political parties not as Democrat and Republican, not as liberal or conservative, not as right or left, but as my friends and my enemies. In other words, if you think like me you’re safe, and if you don’t you’re dead. Just imagine how much truth has been left out of that assassin’s opinion. Pretty much all of it. But that’s where we always are: far, far from the truth under our feet.

I suppose if we didn’t each have a steady stock of opinions there would be nothing to discuss. Discussion used to be something you had at work, after church, or at your book club, but now it seems to be strictly limited to Facebook or, even less, Twitter. In other words, there is not a discussion at all, just a continuous stream of opinions, rationalizations and condemnations veering miles away from truth.

That reminds me of a long time ago at book club when the topic turned to the death penalty, of all things. I was asked if I was for or against it. Now think about it, when you are sitting in your own living room sipping a bottomless glass of Pinot Grigio and dipping carrots into a bowl of spinach dip, how far from reality is your opinion of the death penalty? I said I was against it. In my memory at least, there arose a clamor of what you might call “personal values.” How could I be against the death penalty if my sister, let’s say, was murdered? Or if my parents were shot dead in their beds? Or if my child was abducted and buried alive? Let me assure you that not then, nor at any time in my life thus far has any of those heinous acts occurred.

I said I was against it because I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t flip the switch. I couldn’t plunge the needle. It seemed to me that the only way I could formulate a view one way or the other I’d have to put myself in the shoes of the executioner. Opinions, you see, tend to float in the weightless ether where your feet don’t reach.

And lately, folks seem to have some pretty firm opinions about what should be done with student loans, and by that I mean other people’s student loans. Should they be forgiven? Mostly? Slightly? Not at all? And all of these opinions seem to be based on principles, an intellectual bit of flavoring that sounds, well, “principled.” All of my friends have principles, and none of my enemies do. 

I am not a college student today, nor have I been at any time in the last 44 years, having matriculated when higher education was so cheap that no loans were required for me to attend, therefore I am not qualified to have an opinion on this matter. I consider myself abundantly fortunate to recuse myself from this debate, as it involves an entirely abstract and irrelevant judgment of others.

I actually wrote that in response to a discussion. On Facebook. Don’t judge.

Photo by Allan Nygren on Unsplash

 

 

how do you come to Zen?

July 27th, 2022    -    No Comments

For practicing Zen, a quiet room is suitable. Put aside all involvements and suspend all affairs. Do not think “good” or “bad.” Do not judge true or false. Give up the operations of mind, intellect, and consciousness; stop measuring with thoughts, ideas, and views. Have no designs on becoming a buddha.

At your sitting place, spread out a thick mat and put a cushion on it. Sit upright, leaning neither left nor right, neither forward nor backward. Align your ears with your shoulders and your nose with your navel. Rest the tip of your tongue against the front of the roof of your mouth, with teeth together and lips shut. Always keep your eyes open, and breathe softly through your nose.

Once you have adjusted your posture, take a breath and exhale fully, rock your body right and left, and settle into steady, immovable sitting. Think of not thinking, “Not thinking—what kind of thinking is that?” Nonthinking. This is the essential art of zazen.

Having begun, begin again.

Chapin Mill Retreat
Batavia NY
October 6-9, 2022
Registration Open

 

please send the police now

June 1st, 2022    -    15 Comments

It was the summer of 1965 and the city was burning. The Watts Riots had erupted one hot August night in Los Angeles and kept going for days. On the fifth day, we were piled into our family station wagon heading down the 405 freeway after a visit to my grandparents’ house an hour north. We made this drive nearly every weekend, only this drive was different. A convoy of National Guard vehicles lined the road, soldiers at the ready. Street fires glowed on the horizon, their smoke darkening an already dark sky. Traffic barely moved and we were far from home. I was 8 and very afraid. My world wasn’t safe. It wasn’t even my world anymore.

Please send the police now.

For years after that I had nightmares in the bunkbed of the back bedroom in our teeny house on Eastwood Street. Nightmares about being attacked. Sometimes by a war party of Indians with feathers and facepaint, just like in the movies. Other nights by soldiers in helmets with rifles crawling in the windows and inching down the hall. Either way I was undefended and about to die. I was little, my house was little, and my parents were asleep in the other room.

Please send the police now.

Such sad words. Such desperate words. Please now, please now, the little girl in Uvalde whispers into the phone while the police are asleep on the other side of the wall. How brave she is! And how goddamned polite! But no one can hear you whispering when you are in the middle of a nightmare. No one comes.

Please send the police now.

Those words remind me of another time I went looking for the police. Well, looking for the good guys, any good guys, the Army, the Navy, the Secret Service, the Search & Rescue Team. Surely someone was about to be dispatched to save me, to save the country, to save the world from tyranny and ruination. It was right after the presidential election of 2016. No one came then either.

Please send the police now.

These days you hear people decry the “politicization” and “polarization” of our public discourse. That’s bullshit. There’s no discourse. There’s hardly even any politics. What’s really happening is that we are killing one another, and not with words, not ideas, not policies or opinions, but with guns. Guns made for killing people, and lots of them, especially in 4th grade classrooms or churches or grocery stores. at concerts, in dance halls and a medical building in Tulsa. Really, people? Just try to convince yourself this is about the Constitution.

I don’t know what toxic sludge of rage, shame, hate, impotence, boredom and extreme self-loathing motivates a mass shooter. Nor can I fathom the pious defense of a weapon whose only purpose is slaughter. But it’s too late. Horror stories always end in horror.

A little girl is on the line. The call is coming from inside the house. And right now, in America, it’s the shooter’s house.

Photo by Rubén Rodriguez on Unsplash

what trees teach

May 20th, 2022    -    No Comments

Our Lady of the Pines Retreat Center
Fremont OH
June 23-26, 2022
Registration open until June 1

A weekend of Zen meditation on a 60-acre wooded estate located one hour southeast of Toledo, Ohio. Experience the healing presence of sitting in silence or walking in meditation, chanting, Dharma talks and private encounters with a teacher. Three nights, all meals included. Beginners are welcome. More information and registration here.

Photo by Aperture Vintage on Unsplash

the ministry of presence

April 21st, 2022    -    4 Comments

All evil karma ever committed by me since of old,
On account of my beginningless greed, anger, and ignorance,
Born of my body, mouth, and thought,
Now I atone for it all.

It can be unnerving to come across this verse, which is routinely chanted in Zen ceremonies when we take precepts, or vows, and as part of the monthly ritual of atonement called Fusatsu. Gone are the sweetness and light, the fairy dust and moonbeams that might first attract us to Buddhism. Things suddenly take a serious turn. Evil? But I’m a nice person. Karma? It wasn’t my fault! Ignorant? Who are you calling ignorant?

The verse is not a confession of sin or an admission of wrongdoing. It is a statement of responsibility. I can make my life whole, and only I can do it. In performing atonement, we acknowledge the suffering caused by our own ignorant view of ourselves as separate from the world we inhabit. Our ignorance of the truth gives rise to greed and anger. The verse serves the same purpose as all Zen chants, which is to transport us beyond the self-centered view that judges, blames, sets boundaries, destroys peace, and splinters the world into opposing sides — our egocentric mind. It affirms the aspect of ourselves that is eternally present, selfless, generous, patient, and compassionate — our Buddha mind.

The voice that speaks these words has the power to stop suffering in its tracks. It has the ability to instantly restore harmony simply by invoking it now. It is an awesome responsibility, but it only takes an instant.

New dharma talk: Love Without Ending
If you listen to the talk, you might also be interested in:
Richard Powers, novelist  
Julian of Norwich
Benedictine hospitality
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

moving on

April 11th, 2022    -    1 Comment

 

All practice is the practice of making a turn in a different direction. A pivot toward one thing and away from another: the particulars in any situation don’t matter, because when the time comes we know the right way. Out of the darkness of anger and fear and into the light of day.

A new podcast: Trusting Your Journey and Embracing the Pivot

Photo by Tobias Hüske on Unsplash

 

the hidden power of helplessness

March 21st, 2022    -    4 Comments

When we accept our own suffering, we accept all suffering. And when we accept all suffering, it is our own suffering. We allow ourselves to feel the pain, the fear, the horror, and yes, the helplessness.

Right now we can’t help but face what is happening in our world, and it’s not a world we recognize. It’s not the world we thought we were living in. How do we respond? What is our practice? And how does it help?

Simply enough, it starts here: a new dharma talk about the hidden power of helplessness.

Photo by Bonnie Kittle on Unsplash

how free is your free

February 7th, 2022    -    10 Comments

There are two freedoms: the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; and the true, where he is free to do what he ought. — Charles Kingsley, 19th century Anglican priest

The other day I read about the guy who refused a life-saving kidney transplant because doctors told him he would have to get a COVID vaccine. You probably heard about this too. The vaccination requirement is not surprising, since transplant recipients have to take immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of their lives, making them acutely vulnerable to infections. Days before that, another man was taken off the list for a heart transplant because he wouldn’t take the vaccine.

These are stories you can hardly believe. But then again, they make perfect sense if you believe freedom means not doing what you don’t want to do.

The patient with failing kidneys explained his refusal, saying “I was born free, I’ll die free,” a little like the words of a war hero. But I would ask what he means by free. Even as he stakes his life on freedom from a certain vaccine, he likely already had them for the other 18 dangerous or deadly diseases Americans are routinely vaccinated for. He’s also undergone numerous heart surgeries, had both legs amputated and is hooked up to a dialysis machine three times weekly. On top of that, he’s already had COVID twice. So how free is his free?

That kind of freedom is not actual freedom, it’s just the idea of freedom. We are all free to think what we think, but acting on our our own ideas can be fatal—and not just to ourselves, as pandemics prove. Fiercely held ideas are what imprison you. Until you die. In a prison of your own making.

I do not want him to die, nor do I wish him ill. Still, his story makes a powerful point for the rest of us.

We should all take a long look at how we cherish our own ideas and opinions, not just about pandemics, politics, and people, but everything, because beliefs distort our reality. And that’s a problem.

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. – George Bernard Shaw

In the first week of December, individuals who were unvaccinated were 97 times more likely to die from COVID than those who were vaccinated and boosted, according to data from 25 U.S. cities, states and territories.

I know someone who won’t get vaccinated, and when presented with the inconvenient truth that vaccines save lives, dismisses it smugly, saying “I’ve heard the talking points.”

But facts aren’t talking points, and neither is math. Talking points are what you hear from lying governors, anti-vax crackpots, rabid talk show hosts, pigheaded podcasters, and Fox News.

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. — Albert Einstein

Last week someone asked me “What is the COVID vibe in California?”

I’m not sure I would recognize a vibe even if it hit me upside of the head. So I answered, “First off, this is California,” which is to say, by and large we don’t have a problem. But then, I only have my own experience to go by.

When they told us to stay home I stayed home and, all things considered, it wasn’t a problem. When they told us to wash our hands I (pretty much) washed my hands and it wasn’t a problem. When they told us we didn’t have to wear masks it wasn’t a problem; and when they later realized we did have to wear masks it was even less of a problem. Then when they told us to go outside without a mask but to wear a mask inside, I did! It wasn’t a problem. It’s still not a problem. And when the first vaccines came out, that sure as hell wasn’t a problem. Or the second. Or the third. Not a problem at all. Wear a mask in Walmart? Home Depot? On an airplane? You betcha. Show proof of vaccination? Happy to. Freedom is instantaneous the moment we accept things as they are, and not cling to how we wish them to be.

May all beings live free and save their dying for later.

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

 

still here

January 26th, 2022    -    No Comments

Holy Wisdom Monastery
Madison WI
April 28-May 1, 2022
Registration Open

Spring brings us back to the blooming prairies of Holy Wisdom Monastery in Madison WI with renewed gratitude for life. All levels of practitioners are welcome to a weekend of seated meditation (zazen), walking meditation (kinhin), chanting, Dharma talks and the opportunity to work privately with a teacher.  More information and registration here.

Photo by Amy Clark

something about the hair

January 14th, 2022    -    7 Comments

I was in the waiting room at the dentist’s when the woman sitting across from me said, “I love your hair.”

This happens quite often. Of course, people who think otherwise aren’t likely to say so.

A few years ago a woman called to me from across the parking lot at Whole Foods. “I love your hair,” she shouted, and then she walked over to me to inspect it.

“I could never do that because I don’t have the right-shaped head,” she said.

That happens quite often too. In fact, I don’t think that anyone has ever said that they like my hair and hasn’t immediately followed with, “But I could never wear it that way.” Their head is too flat or their cheeks too round or their ears too long or some other disqualifier that is always held at the ready, like all our reasons why not.

I say thank you, although I don’t have much to do with my hair or how it got this way.

Still, I wonder what prompts the outburst. Is it out of kindness, shock or maybe pity? Compassion, curiosity, or discomfort? No, I don’t think so. I think it springs from a deeply held wish, a wish that I have too, a wish that unites us. The wish to be free from ourselves and all our reasons why not.

Photo by Adam Winger on Unsplash

 

the accident that ended my life

December 27th, 2021    -    12 Comments

Not long ago my husband and I watched the season finale of a British detective show. The chief detective is driving home from work late at night. She is exhausted, and on top of that, distracted about a disagreement she’s had with her aging father. As she is driving, she picks up her phone and calls him for the umpteenth time, but he is not answering her calls. She leaves a voicemail apologizing for the anguish she has caused.

Then she hangs up, runs a red light, gets hit and dies.

I turned to my husband and said, “That happened to me once.”

It was in the old days, in my old life, when I was driving back from a client meeting that had gone on way too long. I can’t remember what the meeting was about, but it was irritating. This was a good client, and by that I mean a big-name, well-paying client, but I had begun to see the lies and larceny in everything they did. It’s a sickening feeling to realize that you’ve devoted a good part of your life to a truly dastardly cause — your own greed.

This was before mobile phones, or at least what we think of as phones now. So when I was stopped at a red light, I picked up my “car phone,” a contraption the size of a shoebox and as heavy as a barbell, and called my office to say I was twenty minutes away from the appointment that I was already thirty minutes late for. I would never catch up. But then again, that was how I felt every day: behind.

I hung up the phone, and then, out of an unconscious impulse, pushed the accelerator, ripped through the red light, and plowed straight into an oncoming van.

No one died, no, not really. My BMW was totaled, and the beat-up van I hit was probably never driven again. Three guys got out and waved their arms at me as I sat numbly behind the wheel of the wreckage. They looked like they might be housepainters, construction workers, or odd-jobbers, like the van was uninsured, and that I’d just destroyed their everything. I probably did.

The police came, then a tow truck, and someone drove me home. The insurance company did its job, but things were never quite put back together again.

After that, my first marriage ended and I left my home with just the things I needed. I quit my job, went back and then quit it for good. I never again drove a BMW. I drove a Camry, then a Corolla. I was done with cars as status or accessory. I still don’t have a phone like the ones everyone else has. It must seem pretty silly. People keep telling me I can’t live without one. But you can live without a lot of things. I lost my reckless ambition in the accident, or at least my momentum. Someone died, and someone else came alive.

People sometimes ask me how I made such a big change all those years ago. But I didn’t make a change. I made a mistake, a terrible mistake, and it changed everything.

Offered in the spirit of fresh starts, second chances and, please Lord, better days.

Photo by mohsen ameri on Unsplash

 

 

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