the unlabors of love

September 1st, 2010    -    1 Comment

“See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.”
– Matthew 6:28

I spent Monday with a friend whom I don’t see as often as I’d like. We sat outside in the shade while our daughters splashed in the last shimmers of summer. It’s been a busy season for her: always steering one child here or there, another starting behind the wheel, the eldest packed and gone for the first year of college. “This is the only time all summer I’ve sat down,” my friend said, sinking deep and slow into the weave of a warm lounge chair. I said little, and yet she relaxed into my every word, even into the pauses between the words.

This long weekend we welcome another friend and her daughter from the Midwest. She told me that since I saw her last in May she’s sold her home, moved into another and transitioned her father into a retirement center. I’m plumping up the sofa bed so she can sink into the quiet of this simple house and not lift another thing, at least for four days.

We have an enormous capacity to love one another simply by showing up. Really, that’s all I ever do! If you grant yourself the time to show up here in return, I have two things for you to relish over this Labor Day Weekend. They are the unlabors of my love, and they will bring you rest. read more

turning life into love

August 23rd, 2010    -    7 Comments

When I was at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral this spring, I asked the audience what they thought turned the inside of the church into a sanctuary. Was it the concrete walls?

When I was leading walking meditation in the chapel at Seattle’s Bastyr University in June, I asked the people with me what turned the ground under their feet into a pathway. Was it the terrazzo tile?

When I was at a yoga studio in suburban Milwaukee last Saturday, I asked the group in front of me to notice the change that occurred in the room from the time we convened at 2 p.m. until the hour we dispersed at 4 p.m. What turned the mildly restless, self-conscious discomfort at the start of our time together into the vast, settled calm at the end? Into a still and quiet ease so deep that no one cared to move? So satisfying that no one rose to leave?

The answer is you. The secret is yours. The power of your own nonjudgmental attention is what transforms space into spaciousness. It turns your wandering into the way. It transforms your life into love.

And now we’ll do the same in Boston when we gather for the Mother’s Plunge on Saturday, Sept. 18.  I’m so pleased that we’ll be meeting at the Seaport Academy, a therapeutic day school for adolescents who need extra attention to navigate the perils of growing up. The students will not be there the day we are, but your attention will, and your attention will transform our humble gathering into the spaciousness of infinite potential. Come see for yourself what the power of your love can do. We’ll leave some of it behind, and you can take the rest home with you.

And if you’re not on the East Coast on Sept. 18, come to the one-day meditation retreat I’m leading in LA on Sept. 12. We’ll turn our attention onto a bare white wall and unleash the wild blue yonder. You don’t have to believe it; you just have to see it.

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i stop for brakes

August 20th, 2010    -    3 Comments

There was a little article in the paper about a week ago that broke my heart. My heart breaks a lot, and you might be surprised what will do it. This was a piece that topped the news for less than a day.

“Driver error caused Toyota’s ‘runaway’ cars.” That was the indisputable conclusion from the government’s initial probe into the unintended acceleration scare that convulsed the country and crippled the company earlier this year.

If there wasn’t some mysterious electronic flaw, what caused all those incident reports that triggered the massive recalls and indignant congressional investigations? Sixty percent of the time, the report showed, cars kept going because there was a complete absence of braking. In another 25 percent of cases, brakes were only partially applied. We can deduce that the cars kept going because drivers kept pressing the accelerators.

Does that make you want to stop for a minute?

I’m on a roll! Read the rest of this rant and comment at The Smartly LA.

just one life

August 18th, 2010    -    9 Comments

We were side by side in the spinning class this morning when she turned to me and spoke over the pounding pulse of the imaginary road beneath us. We got into it last night. I nodded, and knew. After I made my plans and sent out the invitations, he won’t take the kids that weekend. The lonely long stretch of it, the gaping ache of betrayal. You just can’t do that! At every turn, the shock and sudden crumble. I know what he’s doing. He’s taking her and her kids on vacation. Another raging tremble. It’s more than we ever think we can bear. And I thought to myself “she should read my book.”
We rode.
We all ride.
Sometimes it’s steep.
We sweat and cry.
A slope, and then it’s harder yet.
Farther still and finally
The last gasp.

Class over, we slide off the bikes and she says to me “I should read your book.”
I wish you would, I say, because there’s just one life and I want you to know.
It’s not over yet.

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head over wisconsin

August 16th, 2010    -    5 Comments

Whenever Roso saw a monk coming, he immediately sat facing the wall. Hearing of this, Nansen said, “I usually tell my people to realize what has existed before the kalpa of emptiness, or to understand what has been before Buddhas appeared in the world. Still, I haven’t acknowledged one disciple or even a half. If he continues that way, he will go on endlessly.” – Case 23, Shoyoroku

I hate it when people talk about koans. I’m going to Wisconsin next weekend. This gives me a chance to talk about koans.

First, Wisconsin:
Extraordinary Ordinary: How to Fall in Love with the Life You Already Have
Sat., August 21, 2-4 p.m.
YogAsylum, Brookfield WI
Register by clicking here or arrive at the door
A wisdom teaching and book signing

Just this morning at the yoga class I teach in my dinky little hometown 2,042 miles from Wisconsin, someone told me his sister was coming to see me next Saturday in Brookfield. Then I heard from the venue manager, and the kitchen table tour host, one after the other, with last-minute details and well-wishes. All of that and I immediately sat up straighter and faced the trip before me with enthusiasm: “I love Wisconsin!”

Come see me so I can tell you in person.

Now, koans.

What is a koan? Nothing like what you’ve probably heard tell. Take this for instance, a perfectly reasonable and popular definition of koan as “a paradoxical anecdote or a riddle that has no solution.” It’s perfectly reasonable to define koan that way and it is completely wrong. Every koan has a solution; otherwise we wouldn’t train with koans as we do in my Zen lineage. We train with a collection of 750 koans including the one above. By train, I mean that when a teacher directs you to a koan, you meditate with it and then present the depth of your realization of the koan to your teacher in a private meeting. Most of the time, the depth of your realization isn’t deep at all: you just grasp at the meaning off the top of your head. You try to tease out some kind of explanation. At those times, the teacher tells you kindly and straightforwardly to keep working on it, and you are relieved of at least one of your erroneous concepts. read more

best seat in the house

August 12th, 2010    -    6 Comments

You are not nearly this or half of that. You are not almost or over. You are not in the middle of up, or on the way out.

You are all of 11.

And though I’ll never miss a thing, I miss you just the same. Happy birthday, daughter. It’s the time of year to put old clothes away, and party.

My girl was a big girl, her own girl, with her own loves and her own life. I was a spectator, but the show was splendid and I still had the best seat in the house. If I were forever looking forward or lingering too long looking backward, I would miss too much. I would miss it all. – Momma Zen

never farther

August 9th, 2010    -    2 Comments

I am inspired by questions I get about practice. That tells me that you’ve heard the most important thing I can tell you. That tells me that you’re trying.

I am inspired by posts like this.

I am inspired by the talks I’ve been listening to and transcribing every day. Old dharma talks on dusty cassette tapes, in which Maezumi Roshi tells me loud and clear, “This life you are encountering is nothing but the life of the Buddha.” And his question, “How are you living your life as the practice of Buddha Dharma?”

So here I show you what my practice looks like most days, and I snare you into seeing through my eyes. Where is your practice? Only you know; only you can answer. I hope you will.

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swallowing seeds

August 8th, 2010    -    4 Comments

Did you ever swallow watermelon seeds as a kid and wait for the vine to creep up your throat?

Luckily for me, my teacher Nyogen Roshi keeps repeating the same thing over and over again. (I’m beginning to realize that’s what teachers do.) In nearly every one of his weekly dharma talks he ends up reciting a set of instructions given to him by his teacher Maezumi Roshi in the early days of his training.

Wisdom teachings are fascinating things. They may not appear to be special. They are never complicated. They can sound so ordinary that we don’t even hear them or grant them consideration. But like seeds, they burrow into us and one day surface in full bloom. Only then are we ready to appreciate them. Here are Maezumi’s Three Teachings, which you’re not likely to find elsewhere. read more

the last chapter

August 5th, 2010    -    2 Comments

Last night I watched Georgia transform herself into a genie for a local kids theater performance of “Aladdin.” It was magic, I tell you, to see your baby girl grow up to be a genie who grants all your wishes with the shine of her smile. This morning, still reeling from the smoky potions, I remembered one of her lines, spoken to the wistful Aladdin who is wishing he could win the love of Jasmine by turning into a prince:

Al, all joking aside, you really oughtta be yourself.

And that reminded me of so much else, the whole of it, really, the beginning and the end, and so I spoke it out to share it with you here, the last chapter of Momma Zen. Listen and lose yourself in the story, the marvel, and then look up. See if you can’t crack a smile.

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a mother’s suitcase

August 3rd, 2010    -    4 Comments

First Stop:
Brookfield, Wisconsin, Sat., Aug. 21, 2-4 p.m. Extraordinary Ordinary workshop at YogAsylum. Register during these last 10 days of early bird savings.

Second Stop:
Boston, Mass., Sat., Sept. 18, 9-3:30 p.m. Mother’s Plunge retreat at Seaport Academy. Last 10 days of early bird savings.

Full Stop:
Los Angeles, Sun., Sept. 12 9-5, Beginner’s Meditation Retreat at Hazy Moon Zen Center. The best way to practice with me for real. Register here.

I’m home from a week’s retreat and unpacking my suitcase. My practice amounts to unpacking all the time, metaphorically and otherwise. Laundry piled and put away, refrigerator emptied and filled, mail opened and tossed before I’m off for warm pastures and waterfronts.

A letter waited on my kitchen table, and with it, this story unfolded. It’s the story packed in every mother’s suitcase. I hope you find yourself at home in it. read more

death by twitter

August 2nd, 2010    -    1 Comment

“Facebook is like a nosebleed. Twitter is like breathing into a paper bag.” Read more poetic license about our social ills in my first blog post at Smartly LA, a writers collective for “people who get it,” in which I confess how very much I still don’t get social media. “Like pointing to a Twinkie as the defense for murder.” Go there and tell the good doctor how you feel when you’re on a steady diet of social media. Oh, and follow me.

***

Only 2 more weeks of early bird registration for the Mother’s Plunge-Boston. For reals.

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trouble with buddhism

July 30th, 2010    -    10 Comments

When you’re as easily teased by Buddhist discourse as I am, you can see the same arguments over and over. Among the refrains I keep hearing are the ones I call The Biggest Lies in Buddhism. Believing them is serious self-deception and keeps you in a world of trouble.

I’m not a Buddha. You most certainly are; you may not yet realize it. “Buddha” does not equate to a celestial being or deity but to an awakened one. When human beings live in their natural awakened state, undisturbed by delusive thoughts and emotions, they live as buddhas. Buddhahood is your birthright. You claim it every time you wake up to the present moment. And even when we can’t quite convince ourselves, we practice the way Maezumi Roshi admonished: “as if” enlightened. “I’m only human,” we like to assess and degrade ourselves. And yet we have an entirely lopsided idea of what a human being really is. That leads me to:

My ideas are as good as yours. That’s true, however, no one’s ideas are any good at all. The practice of Buddhism is not intended to democratize personal views, as in Oh, you think that way? That’s OK. I think this way? That’s OK too. Buddhism is not a feel-good club that aims to equalize the worth of everyone’s self-reinforcing preferences; it simply transcends them. We practice Buddhism so we will no longer be blinded by what we think, confused by what others think, or stuck in the understanding we feel compelled to express on a Buddhist discussion board someplace. We practice Buddhism to wake up to how things are. How things are is not how you think they are. As Dogen said, “Your understanding of reality is not reality.”

No one is perfect. Everyone and everything is perfect as they are, we just don’t view them – or ourselves – to be so. Imperfection lies solely in our judging mind, the mind that picks what we like and calls it best or right, and labels what we don’t like as worse or wrong. This mind between your ears is the source of all conflict, and even then, it is functioning perfectly. Seeing it clearly, we must unleash ourselves from its mastery over our lives. Only then can we hope to repair the mess we have made of the world we inhabit.

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cloudy with a chance

July 27th, 2010    -    11 Comments

On a week when I am at away at a practice retreat, I asked Lindsey Mead of A Design So Vast to write this guest post. She offers her own practice reminder and weather forecast. If you’re in Boston, it looks like you’ll just have to get wet!

I never understood the saying, Our kids are our teachers. Actually, I’d go further.  I rolled my eyes whenever I heard it.  I thought it was one of those trite adages like another one that I love to hate, It is what it is.

Then one day last fall, the universe hit me over the head with the truth of that statement.  Grace, Whit and I were walking to the playground in Harvard Square.  Grace was in the middle of a long-winded story when I glimpsed a friend standing by the gate of the playground.  She waved at me and shouted hello.  “Hi! So glad to see you!” I responded, waving enthusiastically.  When I dropped my hand to recapture Grace’s I found that she had crossed her arms angrily across her chest.  She’d planted her feet in a classic I am NOT happy stance, stubbornly remaining behind as Whit and I kept walking.  I turned back to her.  “Gracie, what’s up?”  She shook her head, screwed up her eyes, and I saw tears rolling down her cheeks. I dropped Whit’s hand to hurry back to her, crouching down in front of her.

“Well, sometimes, when you see an adult and you are excited to see them you stop listening to me. Sometimes I feel like you are not paying attention to me. And you always tell me interrupting is wrong. But then…” she hesitated, “then you do it yourself sometimes?” Her voice wavered and I could tell she was not sure if what she was saying would get her in trouble. I wrapped her in a huge hug as I realized the wisdom of her words.  I whispered that she was right, that I needed to be more careful, that she was a thousand times right and thank you for reminding me. read more

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