Soto Zen by Keido Chisan

From September 14 to October 12 I co-led a class on Soto Zen: An Introduction to the Thought of the Serene Reflection Meditation School of Buddhism by Keido Chisan Koho Zenji at my Zen Center.

My co-teacher, Daicho, was able to give biographical information on Keido Chisan from a biography only available in Japanese.  The audio from the first class on this and the first chapter can be found here. Thinking of our class series, Daicho shared his thoughts on why Keido Chisan felt so driven to bring Soto Zen to the West, and to the United States in particular, and shared details from Keido Chisan's life that supported this.

More recently, Zen Center member Unkai published her paper on Keido Chison in the newsletter, found here. She concentrates more on Keido Chisan's younger years.

Unfortunately, the 2nd class on September 21 did not record correctly...nor did the 4th class...and I thought these were our most successful classes as discussions go.  (This happens because there is no way to double-check in real time that the recording is actually happening, they tell me.)

Chapter 2 really started to make sense to me when I realized I could express it in a diagram.  It was interesting to us that while the three foundational concepts of Buddhism that we usually talk about are anicca, anatta, and dukkha, in this case Koho Zenji talked about anicca, anatta, and karma (without naming them as such, but using English definitions for the "laws").  Altogether, these three laws allow what we think of as the self, always changing.  If I remember right, during class someone asked me where I thought dukkha (life is marked by dissatisfaction) fit.  I responded that dukkha flavors the whole thing.  The more one is subject to dukkha, and the clinging to the self being a certain way, the more separate from all beings, the more solidified the flawed self is, and the more unaware one would be of the middle of the triangle.

One of our monks pointed out that the inside of the triangle reflects the transcendent experience.  This pleased me, as I am tickled when something I create fits together even better than I originally conceived.

This diagram represents these statements by Koho Zenji in Chapter 2:

In Mahayana Buddhism we combine these three signs and say that they are but the One Sign which reveals the True Nature of all things. When we view the nature of things with the eyes of enlightenment, we see that all things are manifestations of Truth.


The law that all things are impermanent, based on the doctrines of causation and no-soul, ultimately developed into the concept of ku expounded in the Scriptures of Great Wisdom.


The law of causation, aided by the laws of impermanence and no-soul, was gradually deepened and led to the doctrine of phenomenal identity of the Kegon Kyo. Phenomenal identity is the name given to the idea that all phenomena have a deep, inseparable interrelation. Everything is related in both time and space to everything else, forming an inseparable whole, yet functioning freely.


The law of the non-existence of the soul, supported by the laws of causation and impermanence, led to the development of the idea of the Buddha Nature. The Buddha Nature is the essence of the Buddha. It is That which makes him Buddha.

Think about how radical this is, this Buddhism in the West. No soul, no God, no separable identity.

For the 3rd class on September 28, we discussed Chapters 3, 4, and 5, audio found here.

For the 4th class on October 5, we planned to discuss Chapters 6 and 7, but only got through Chapter 6.  We discussed sectarianism, and what the good and the harm could be.  We asked the question, "Why do we practice?" considering Dogen's teaching that training and enlightenment are the same, and Koho Zenji's statement, "Just-sitting based on faith is the fullest form of enlightenment." We also asked what people thought their Buddha Nature is, keeping in mind that as soon as we try to put words to it we would fall short.  We wanted to have fun with that, though with many newbies in the class, many thought they couldn't express this.  Mine, for example, is sparkly. Ebullient. In my younger years I did not have access to this consciously.

Koho Zenji says of Keizan, who is said to be the compassionate mother of Soto Zen, and who brought us our ceremonies,

We must enable them to know the joy that comes from a knowledge of the Dharma and the bliss that comes from the practice of meditation. It is absolutely essential to have a personal character like that of Great Master Keizan in order to carry out this mission. To regard all people with warm affection, to become the friend of the common people, to enter the realm of the ideal together with them and to share one's joy with others. These are the characteristics of the true man of religion.

We asked people to share this joy and bliss that came from their experience in a ceremony.  This particularly would have been nice to have captured in the audio.

Finally, the 5th class on October 12 can be found here.

On Zen Teachers and Students Part 2

Eric Storlie mentioned in his piece that Eido Shimano Roshi's behavior was known, and documented in Robert Aitken Roshi's papers which surfaced after his death.  Storlie says

In forty-six years of Zen practice I’ve observed Asian (and now Western) swamis, tulkus, roshis, rishis, dharma heirs, lineage holders, and masters of various stripes, as well as their disciples, explain that the master’s fiscal extravagance, alcoholism, cruelty, sex addiction, violence, and even rape is – of all things – "a teaching!"

Perhaps. Certainly the Age of Aquarius is marked by sexism in the guise of sexual freedom. I wonder if he judges the present based on his experience decades ago.  I also wonder if it is more ambiguous, as I think about how to write a document that says, "Take care."  I have contact with many leaders in my area, and I respect many of them.  Some I have reservations about.  I know for a fact that one did have an affair with a student. (I did not have reservations about him.)  I suspect another who has other obvious issues with sexism, not to mention authority, and simple courtesy.  The problem is not Transmission, but this Wild West infancy of American Buddhism.  Anyone can hang up a shingle and call themselves a professional priest.  Most people encountering Buddhism won't know anything about certifications and qualifications.

What I have to be concerned about is more subtle.  People seeking a new spiritual direction encounter kind and generous people, and they also encounter predatory people.  Myoan Grace Schireson's husband Kuzan Peter Schireson penned a comprehensive article on this that went along with my thinking: it's not just about sex, it's complex, and it can include vulnerability to cults.  He makes several points, drawing on the International Cultic Association website What is often considered good medicine in Buddhism can easily turn bad: respect for the teacher turning into unquestioning subservience; or letting go and leaving home turning into isolation and loss of autonomy.

Peter said, and I'd been thinking along these lines:

What I’m suggesting is that it might be useful to consider every spiritual community, every Zen sangha, as a cult risk. Human tendencies in this direction are strong. Societies and groups develop hierarchical structures and the impulse to endow leaders with special traits and powers seems hard to resist, arising from deep socio-biological roots. And these impulses are especially dangerous when a leader himself (or herself) – often an ambitious person despite other good intentions – is pulling for adulation and power.

I'd say these impulses are so strong even when a teacher isn't pulling for adulation and power, the students give it to them, and especially because they are good people, and modest, such teachers don't realize how isolated they themselves are in their opinions and views, because few disagree with them.

Later, Myoan Grace Schireson added a vital piece to the discussion.

So to study this problem. I propose we consider all three levels: personal, interpersonal and transpersonal. We cannot just say that these problems occur because of “bad actors” or sociopathic teachers– there are far too many similar situations to call these problems anomalous. We need to carefully study how all parts work together to intoxicate the Zen sangha and to enable a misguided teacher to harm its members. This is not about blaming teachers, but it is about making sanghas safer for practitioners through education and self-reflection—both outstanding attributes of Buddhist practice.

Things don't always start out this way, but thanks to the heady dynamics of spiritual intimacy, this pattern can easily happen.

In my own experience, and in those I have witnessed, I must say Myoan's third category to examine, the transpersonal or spiritual level, is very important.  This Buddhist practice of meditation and examination opens up areas of our beings long held constrained.  It is quite natural as barriers and boundaries dissolve, to feel love arise.  I suspect perhaps this may very often first manifest as falling in love in someone in particular.  It is compelling.  It would be difficult to turn away from, to say no to.  Such a connection feels too Big to ignore or wait for, yet if a love cannot go through a reasonable waiting period while such conditions of teacher and student are dissolved, perhaps it is not Big enough to be a lasting love.  In ordinary cases it arises between peers, and it is almost becoming a standard form in my community for young ordained to take time off from monk training to develop a newly found love interest.

Myoan says

It is not difficult to mistake spiritual energy for sexual energy, physical attraction or even human love. In fact, spiritual energy may be one of the bases for human attraction. We may not in fact be able to truly distinguish the differences between these energies, but the fact of their (simultaneous) existence needs to be clearly understood.

 I would go so far as to say, why separate them?  This cosmic goop of interconnection is what love comes from, what spiritual uplifting comes from, indeed what attraction comes from.  My teacher has often said that even the most heinous acts, such as murder, arise from this wish for not-two.  But, simple as the love impulse may be, repercussions (aka karma) are complex, thus the ethical rules.

I could see how a priest or other clergy leader could experience this once, discover the powerfully heady emotions, and seek it again and again, soaking up the excitement and the power.  I could see also how, because rules say it is wrong, and because we as repressed Americans are already poorly equipped to manage sexual feelings, that a clergy leader could be caught in this trap in spite of themselves, because they only have (poor) tools for abstention, not tools for management of these feelings.

So....

1. Legitimacy
2. Guidelines on boundaries
3. How to recognize cult-like dynamics
4. How to understand personal and interpersonal dynamics of the spiritual quest

These are the things I need to list and hone.

Oh!  How did I get this far and not mention my own community's ethics document? I'm sure I've got some specifics I can glean from there.

On Zen Teacher and Student Behavior

This first quarter of this year has been marked by teacher/student sex scandals in the Zen world.  I've been following Sweeping Zen on Facebook, and at least a dozen responses to these events from various American teachers have appeared there. For a couple of years I've intended to create a document for the Buddhist Festival in the Park that would say that a group's participation at the festival does not necessarily mean an endorsement by the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, and here are some warning signs, etc.  Considering this is on the minds of folks in the Buddhist world, it's about time I followed through with this intent.  I'm sure I'll have plenty of material to glean from these many articles, including some from psychologists who are also teachers.

For now, I'm going to try to collect my thoughts, so this may take several posts.

One person's response is to do away with Dharma Transmission.  Here was my response at the time:

I think Storlie mistakes the form for human nature. It doesn't matter what form it takes, human nature will bring about problems with power, authority, and institutional practices. The fairy tale is not dharma transmission, the fairy tale... is the archetypal transmission of power we humans give others. Take away dharma transmission, and we will insist on filling the void with new corruptible practices. Whether a 10 year institution, or a 1,000 year institution, diligence will always be required against this tendency to corrupt veneration and trust, no matter how pure the intent. Plus, no matter how you try to clear the slate, karma will still remain. Horrific things have been done while trying to ignore this. The Protestant Reformation quickly corrupted. Erase the tsars, create new despots among all the communist equals. Does it help or hurt for those of less corruptible intent to boycott the institutions? Personally I think it hurts more when something is erased and the void is left to be filled by ignorance. There are plenty of charlatans out there who refuse the institution of dharma transmission for their own gain.

A couple of days later, a Zen teacher and psychologist responded with an argument quite similar to mine. (Hmmm...yes...it is quite likely she saw my post...glad I could help.)

Aside from the question of sex with teachers, there is the question of legitimacy, and power and authority that needs to be addressed.  This is a huge topic, a morass of spiritual aspiration, heart entanglement, psychology, and ethical guidelines that attempt to put harnesses on this mixture of lofty and base predilections of this human animal. 

I guess what has triggered my procrastination pattern is this entangled morass, but in the end I suppose all I, and we who present the Buddhist Festival, is give some of the same old ethical guidelines, and point to them when it comes to light that someone has been violated.

So far:

1. I wish to address the issue of legitimacy.  How do you, a potential Buddhist practitioner, decide on the credentials of the person you look on as a teacher?  There are teachers who do not come from a line of Dharma Transmission.  There are teachers who have ethical and/or psychological training.  There are teachers who have been judged to have a spiritual understanding that enables them to guide you on this path of enlightenment. How do you judge these things?
2. Regardless of credentials, teachers will be human, and will transgress boundaries.  Guidelines regarding these boundaries need to be listed.

Diamond Sutra: Chapters 17-20

The Diamond Sutra
by Red Pine

Chapter 17

Hui-neng says, "If there is no self at all, how can there be others? But in order to liberate people, we establish a provisional self. Thus follows a chapter on ultimate selflessness." (Red Pine p. 286)

I like that, "provisional self." That self only exists when we stop to ponder it. Always in motion, all the pieces of this 'self' are unfocused until brought to bear. Right now, this self-bundle remembers, thinks, types. But you, the reader, relate only to a past self-bundle that related these words. It is like the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

Tao-yuan says, "What follows discusses how we should begin our journey on the road of practice--practice that depends on our understanding of what has gone before and that does not begin until we have achieved such understanding. The words here are the same, but the meaning is different." (Red Pine p. 287)

Conze dismisses these chapters as repetitions. Red Pine takes them more in the manner of Tao-yuan. As a practitioner, I ask, "What does it matter?" At my temple, for years as part of our meal verse we recited, "In the beginning the mallet strikes the Buddha on the foot. At the end it strikes the Buddha on the head." (or something like that) When the Soto-shu English translations became available, we learned these were liner notes...instructions on how to chant the meal verse, and where to strike wood on wood, and we weren't actually supposed to recite them. Yet over the years, some people had found profound meaning in those instructions. Ironic or a cosmic joke? Or Dharma?

Sheng-yi says, "When controlling our thoughts is discussed in the first half of the sutra, it means controlling thoughts that involve attachment to a self. When this is discussed in the second half, it means controlling thoughts that involve attachment to a teaching. If a bodhisattva falls in love with a teaching, this a bodhisattva's worst folly."

Huang-po says, "Buddhas and beings share the same identical mind. It's like space: it doesn't contain anything and isn't affected by anything. ...Here, the buddha says to save all beings in order to get rid of the delusion of liberation so that we can see our true nature." (Red Pine p. 288)

In the beginning we seek to be like the Buddha. We get somewhere with that, we gain understanding in the provisional nature of the self. At some point we have to give up the notion of the buddha looking a certain way, or that the buddha is anything other than a human being. The multiplicity becomes apparent, as does the not-two-ness of our 'identical mind.'

But what, after all, is liberated? As the Sanskrit makes clear here, bodhisattvas must be free of yavat pudgala-sanjna (even the perception of a soul), even the perception of an entity subject to liberation from rebirth. (Red Pine p. 289)

Perceptions are still perceptions, even if of liberation and buddhahood.

Hui-neng says, "By the 'reality' of all dharmas, the Buddha is referring to the ability to discriminate with skill among the six sensations of sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, and thought while remaining unperturbed, unaffected, unattached, unchanged, immovable as space, perfectly clear, and existing for kalpas. This is the meaning of the 'reality' of all dharmas." (Red Pine p. 298)

Clarity and calm, understanding while remaining unperturbed.

Thich Nhat Hanh says, "If those who teach Buddhism in the West keep in mind that all dharmas are Buddhadharma, they will not feel like a drop of oil in a glass of water. If you practice in exactly the same way we practice in Vietnam, Tibet, Thailand, Burma, Sri Lanka, Japan, or Korea, the oil drops will always remain separate from the water." (Red Pine p. 300)

Could be that has something to do with this.

And there is no such dharma as a bodhi-sattva (enlightened being), because there is no such dharma as a sattva (being). And there is no being because no being or any other dharma comes into existence. This is how bodhisattvas control their thoughts. (Red Pine p. 303)

What we think of as coming into existence is the wrapping of identity around karma.

Hui-neng says, "If bodhisattvas say, 'I can create a world,' they're not bodhisattvas. Although they create worlds, if they think about a subject or object, they are not bodhisattvas. On the other hand, even if they zealously create worlds, as long as they don't give birth to thoughts of a subject or object, they're called bodhisattvas." (Red Pine p. 305)

There is no plan to the plan. It is just meeting each moment with what is needed, this is to create worlds without giving birth to thoughts of subject or object.

Chapter 18

Seeing that all dharmas are empty and without any self-nature is not enough. The only way bodhisattvas can liberate other beings is by making use of the very selfless dharmas to which beings are attached. Thus, the Buddha introduces us to the dharma eye and the buddha eye. (Red Pine p. 309)

from notes, Red Pine and from class:
physical eye --> sensory world; sees outside, not inside; world of dukkha; 1st watch under the Bodhi tree
divine (deva) eye --> internal world; therapists' eye; sees how past lives affect the current, how karmic knots entangle and unentangle; 2nd watch under the Bodhi tree
prajna eye --> world of emptiness; end of suffering; nirvana/cessation; 3rd watch under the Bodhi tree
dharma eye --> myriad possibilities; upaya/skillful means/appropriate response eye; 4th watch under the Bodhi tree
buddha eye --> prajna and dharma eye merge; integrated eye; not attached to a particular view, not concerned with being a teacher, liberator, or emptiness; no attachment, flow without opposition

Closely related to the 5 ranks.

Chapter 19

Chi-fo says, "This is the sixth time the Buddha has mentioned an offering of the seven jewels.... And in this chapter, he says making an offering of the seven jewels does not compare with detachment from form, for attachment to form creates a karmic seed that can never produce a non-karmic fruit." (Red Pine p. 323)

The Buddha uses the conditional sacet abhavishyat (if their were) to stress the non-existence of the body of merit in order to accentuate the fearlessness of the bodhisattva's use of the dharma eye. Whereas the prajna eye sees only non-existence, the dharma eye sees connections, in this case a non-existing body of merit's connections with liberation. The Buddha speaks of what doesn't exist because what doesn't exist obstructs our path to enlightenment. (Red Pine pp. 325-6)

Let go, let go let go let go, let go. Why be obstructed by something that doesn't exist? ha!

Chapter 20

Hui-neng says, "If you only care about the Tathagata's thirty-two attributes and don't cultivate the thirty-two pure practices within yourself, it is not the perfectly developed physical body. Whereas, if you don't care about the Tathagata's body but are able to observe the pure practices, this is called realizing the perfectly developed physical body." (Red Pine pp. 329-30)

Tao-ch'uan says, "Officially, there's not enough room for a needle, Privately, carts and horses are able to pass through. My song goes: 'Please look up and see the sky/ far and wide and without tracks/ turn your body around a bit/ everything is right before you.'" (Red Pine pp. 335-6)

So simple and so close. And yet so difficult to find because we keep trying to look.

Diamond Sutra: Chapters 12-16

The Diamond Sutra
by Red Pine

(I am caught up with the reading, just not with blogging my thoughts and notes.)

Chapter 12

When this sutra is understood, that time and place should be memorialized. At least, make a note of it. They say this is the ending of the first part.

Chapter 13

Red Pine explains there are two ways to translate paramita, chooses one and explains why. My teacher Kyogen thinks the usage is meant to be ambiguous. That is, it means both "get to the other shore" and "perfection," as the sutra goes on to talk about the 32 marks of the Buddha, and the many grains of sand of the river Ganges.

Red Pine:
Prajna = logic of emptiness --> emptiness = absence or negation
Prajna Paramita = absence or negation of what is false, not of what is real

Sheng-yi says, "Every world is the result of karma. Without karma there is no world. The world is the result of the myriad delusions of beings in the past, and our delusions are like specks of dust. Due to the dust of our delusions, we undertake myriad actions and create the karma of our present world. ...But from the point of view of prajna wisdom, the dust of our delusions arrives from nowhere and departs for nowhere. Its nature is empty. Thus, it is not the dust of delusions." (Red Pine p. 212)

That is the logic of self/no-self.

Chapter 14

Subhuti was moved to tears.
He gets it.

Those beings shall be most remarkable blessed, Subhuti, who are not
alarmed, not frightened, and not distressed by what
is said in this sutra. And how so? Subhuti, what the
Tathagata proclaims as the best of perfections is,
in truth, no perfection.

Finally, the fearlessness is addressed.
Heart Sutra: "Because there are no obstructions, there is no fear."

Why are ordinary beings afraid?
Yin-shun says, "Because beings are confused by their everyday concocted views, when they hear about ultimate emptiness, they can't help feel alarmed and frightened. Disciples of other religions are afraid it will upset their supreme deity. Philosophers are afraid it will destroy their materialistic or nonmaterialistic conceptions. And students of Buddhism are afraid that if the wheel of rebirth stops they will have no place to stand." (Red Pine p. 233)

Sometimes I am that Buddhist.

Hui-neng says, "Only those bodhisattvas with deep roots can hear this truth and gladly accept it without being distressed." (Red Pine p. 234)
deep roots somewhat means well established practice

Yin-shun says, "The forbearance of birthlessness is the practice of prajna wisdom." (Red Pine p. 236)
Not explained, but I would say this is how there is no fear--nothing is created to defend that needs defending.

Only by resolving to liberate all beings can bodhisattvas truly free themselves of the perception of being. (Red Pine p. 240)
No longer all about me then.

The perfection of wisdom means an end to truth and falsehood. Every truth is dependent on conditions and in time becomes false, but not this teachings, which is the mother of those who are free of attachment to dharma and no dharmas, perceptions and no perceptions, truth and falsehood. (Red Pine p. 245)

Beware the analytical mind when looking at this, because then you might think well of course it's saying a whole lot of nothing about nothing because it's starting with a premise of nothing. This was a mistake, and this is why Nietzsche thought he was saying something new about the truth of perception because with his early translations about Buddhism he thought it was nihilism. No, with 'deep roots' this is experiential.

Huang-po says, "A bodhisattva's mind is like space. A bodhisattva gives away everything, outside and inside. Such great renunciation is like walking with a candle before you. You can't get lost. Lesser renunciation is like walking with a candle to one side or behind you. You're bound to fall into a ditch."

Note to self: save this for Zen and Money. Question for folks: what would it mean to give away everything as a lay person?

Chapter 15

body of merit -> sanbhoga-kaya
robe of buddhahood -> nirmana-kaya
body of truth -> dharma-kaya

Hui-neng says, "If people can hear this sutra and realize its truth, both self and other suddenly vanish, and they at once become buddhas. Renouncing the body has limited merit and cannot compare with the unlimited wisdom of upholding this sutra." (Red Pine p. 257)

Chapter 16

...for karma only exists as long as we distinguish cause and effect, pleasure and pain, good and evil. And in the light of wisdom, all distinctions appear for what they are: delusions empty of any self-nature. Thus, while shravakas seek to bring karma to an end by bringing anger and desire to an end, bodhisattvas do so by bringing delusion to an end. (Red Pine p. 270)

Hui-neng says, "In the space of one thought, one realizes the truth of birthlessness, puts an end to expectations, gets free of the upside-down views of other beings, reaches the other shore of the paramitas, leaves forever the Three Evil Paths, and realizes complete and final nirvana." (Red Pind p. 277)

Tao-ch'uan says, "Merit is not a wasted offering. My song goes: 'Boundless is the merit from worshipping a billion buddhas/ but it can't equal reading ancient teachings/ black words written on a sheet of plain white paper/ open your eyes and see what lies before you/ the wind is still but the waves are moving/ who is that person sitting in the boat?'" (Red Pine p. 278)

Slow Reads

I got myself into this situation again...reading several books at once, but these are slow, deliberative reads.

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

For a library classics book group, I will begin Great Expectations, starting Sunday. I meant to start this week, but the time is already getting away from me. I hope you will be inspired to read along with me...I have one person who has said she will. I will blog about it as I'm reading, though not so much as I did with Moby Dick. I vaguely recall perhaps reading this in junior high or high school, but I remember nothing. I have not been able to watch any of the movies. After the slow read of A Tale of Two Cities, however, I am looking forward to this.

My schedule (which comes to about 14 pages/day):

• April 19 to April 25: Chapters 1-12
• April 26 to May 2: Chapters 13-23 (thru Vol. 2, Chapter 4)
• May 3 to May 9: Chapters 24-36 (thru Vol. 2, Chapter 17)
• May 10 to May 16: Chapters 37-47 (thru Vol. 3, Chapter 8)
• May 17 to May 23: Chapters 48 to 59 (to the end)

If you can't get your hands on a book right away, you can read it at Project Gutenberg, or Google books, or a variety of other free spots with ads of varying degrees of annoyance factor.

Zen Center classes

Buddhist Wisdom: The Diamond Sutra and The Heart Sutra

For some reason Goodreads has this book by Judith Simmer-Brown, but it's not. She wrote the preface only. It's a 50+ year old translation and commentary by Edward Conze.

This will be my second reading. I took the class too long ago to be able to complete the paper, so here I go. This will complete my class requirements for our seminary.

Here's my schedule, sort of. The page numbers are inexact though, due to my teacher's old edition of the book:

• April 14 — Diamond Sutra, p. 9-24
• April 21 — Diamond Sutra, p. 25-50
• April 28 — Diamond Sutra, p. 51-64
• May 5 — Diamond Sutra, p. 65-74
• May 19 — Heart Sutra, p. 77-93
• May 26 — Heart Sutra, p. 93-107

The Diamond Sutra
by Red Pine

I discovered in the first class that several people also have the Red Pine translation and commentary, and it sounds much more personable, so I'm going to use that too. This is because Conze drew from Indian and Tibetan commentaries, which are rather analytical, and Red Pine from Chinese commentaries, which are based more in everyday life, or in practical application. I've also sent for Red Pine's Heart Sutra. (Thanks to Amazon Prime, they will arrive in 2 days.)

Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha

by Tara Brach

I'm reading this one for an open class at the Zen Center. (non-seminary, no paper)

• April 1 — Prologue through Chapter 2 . The trance of unworthiness, strategies to manage the pain, awakening from the trance, the wings of acceptance, what radical acceptance is not.
• April 8 — Chapters 3, 4. The sacred pause, unconditional friendliness.
• April 15 — Chapters 5, 6. Coming home to the body, desire.
• April 22 — Chapter 7. Fear.
• April 29 — Chapters 8, 9. Developing compassion for ourselves and others.
• May 6 — Chapters 10, 11, 12. Forgiveness, Radical Acceptance in Relationship, Realizing our True Nature.

There are audio podcasts of the classes, but I'm not going to link to them. If you really really want to listen to them to get more out of these books, contact me privately. The podcasts are there for the Dharma Rain community, but if you consider yourself part of my community, you could be extended family of sorts.

HNT #17: Zen Studies

I have been busy catching up on my blog about Dharma School. Three lessons I've given from February to April 1st, and I hadn't written about any. I'm becoming better about taking photos. Mindful that Mom the Minx wanted to see the "sandbox photos," I snapped a few during the class. These are not my hands, but I realized this was perfect for Half Nekkid Thursday.

Mini Zen Garden

Sometimes I record the class so I can listen to write it up. Something about my hesitant cadence and soprano voice sometimes rubs people the wrong way, and they think I'm having an attitude where there is none. I can't hear it when speaking, but when I listen to myself recorded, I hear shades of prissiness and whininess. Some of that may be karmic ghosts of past lack of confidence, something that affects the timbre of my voice even though I may speak with confidence now. Some of that may simply be my soprano, sometimes girlish voice. Nothing I can do about that.

My Dharma School blog can be found here. The funny thing is, Steve just recently went back and read my stories and enjoyed my pictures. I'd told him about the blog but he hadn't had the time to look, and needed to google for it. More photos of the hands shaping sculpey are there, as well as some sweet photos of my cat stepping on a previous lesson's project to get to me.

(for more HNT see link on sidebar)

This Space of Love

In Redefining our Relationships, Wendy-O Matik says, "There is a tendency to want to put love in a tight frame, easily defined, and then put it on a shelf to over- or underanalyze. But love is far too clever to cooperate on this insignificant level." So, it could be said, is the self that touches buddha nature.

During the fervent fertile years of my Buddhist practice, when I spent much time digging and tilling in myself during Zen retreats, I experienced a fear at times, a trepidation over some next step, some next digging. I don't remember the specific question, but I remember the teacher's answer, "Perhaps you are bigger than you think you are." The small self of the ego tries to protect its walls through defensive posturing, through shrinking into corners, through over- or under-analyzing. Visually I always picture my friend Patrick, who (years ago) put his arm up over his face, bent elbow sticking out both as sword and shield, gleefully reducing the fearful ego to a tiny armor-bound body that clearly couldn't see beyond those sharp-edged walls.

I was finding that big self that needed no sharp elbows, that could see and be seen. Step by step, my zen teachers and my sangha, my beloved spiritual community, helped me expand my self beyond, always going on beyond that little defensive self.

I was learning to love myself. I didn't really know what love was, until it burst off that little shelf and knocked me sideways when I was thirty years old. "There is no place to rest," my buddha nature said. "Nope, you have to learn to love with your whole heart, your whole body, your whole mind." I thought I had come into my own. I thought I had become who I was meant to be. I had. I had learned to love myself. I had learned clarity. I thought I had come to an end, but it was only the beginning.

Wendy also said, "To give without expecting something in return is the ultimate gift of love, but it takes practice." If those first ten years of my Buddhist practice were all about finding the me I was meant to be, this second ten years have been all about forgetting about me, and learning to love without expectation. I don't mean a kind of love that still sets you apart. It's easy to love from inside a monastery on a hill. No, I'm talking about passionate involvement, along with all the psychic bumps and scrapes that come with negotiating the balance of attachment and nonattachment, with diving headfirst into feelings and connections and needs and revulsions. It takes practice.

Being poly, I got to get a lot of practice! Now, I'm not talking just about romantic love. The more I've experienced of that, the more I'm inclined to resist those boundaries. Love is love is love. There are different flavors of love. Each relationship I have, each love I have, has its own flavor, its own urgency, its own rhythm, its own boundaries. All these connections, all my relationships, flow from this love within me that is the same, a pure intention and movement in the direction of good wishes, kindness, compassion. Sometimes that pure intention and movement toward particular persons includes sexuality, sometimes it must exclude sex, but include loving affection. All those monumental rides and crashing highs and lows that came with romantic love helped me open up to a more passionate caring love for my platonic-flavored loves. Those bumps and scrapes prepared me for greater ease with a tender heart. They gave me a tender heart.


I was inspired to try to express this by my newfound blogger friend, Rachel, and her post about How She Found Out She's Poly. She fell in love. She still loved her husband. The feeling and the secret were tearing her apart. She confessed. Her husband had an interesting response:

Now I would call such a thing a "crush", because I believe you shouldn't call something "love" until your souls have mingled, and that takes intimacy and time. I think you can easily have crushes on other people without it affecting love for your partner.

I don't like using that word, crush. Or infatuation. Or even NRE for new relationship energy. I still prefer to say "falling in love". The first smashes the feeling down as insignificant. Indeed that was the intent of the man I quoted. If a feeling is made insignificant, crushed down and made small, well then it will be small. This is what most of us do to ourselves. We have an opportunity for expansion, and we do our damnedest to shrink it down to something we can control and kick around. The second belittles the love, makes it something that doesn't even qualify as love. Love is relegated to some lofty exclusive realm that only certain people are allowed to receive, while others are only worthy of receiving a delusion. The third, so clinical. At least not a delusion, but still not worthy yet of inclusion in this space of love.

Later he says,

I think about human nature, and the way that love can make us irrational and jealous and giddy and happy and sad... Love between two is complicated enough!

Indeed love can be overwhelming with the giddiness and the sadness, but with more experience, more practice, it becomes easier to steer, easier to transform and redirect those strong feelings. You may not be able to control it on that little shelf, but it can be possible to steer it in a general direction. I have learned too that love between two can be simple enough. When we don't have to share all the same interests, the same hobbies, or even the same sexual tastes, it becomes easier to love and accept each other just as we are. The points of conflict become less when we don't expect to have so many points aligned. Not so complicated, we can simply share this space of love.

There's more that Rachel inspired me to say, but I'll take that up in the next installment. Go here for part 2.

Listed Here

I got a very complimentary listing in a Zen publication online.

I am very tickled.

It is Zen Unbound. Because the editor lists links alphabetically, I happen to be at the top!

I would say more, but I'm off to the coast for a few days.

Hyakujo's Fox

Early on in my relationship (if you can call it that) with Mr. Bad Boy, I told a few of my friends I knew I was in danger of living 500 lives as a fox. Hyakujo's Fox is a famous koan that comes up often even in the just-sitting Soto Zen sect. Hyakujo was a Zen master who was asked by a student if the enlightened person is subject to karma. As a reward for his answer of "No," he was doomed to live 500 years as a fox. At least that's how I saw it, doomed. I knew there would be bad karma for getting involved with a pathological liar, yet I chose to be drawn in. I hoped I could change that pattern somehow, and for that I was willing to take on some negative karma. One of my friends did not see the fox story as so gloomy, because even if your actions do create negative karma, you do not have to live with those results forever. Eventually Hyakujo's fox was able to receive an abbot's funeral, and the karmic rebirths were over. The lesson to be learned was that enlightened ones are still subject to karma, but they are not fooled by karma.

I was surprised to see some of my wishes for that love echoed in Zoketsu Norman Fischer's talk that I've linked to. He says, "When we accept what is as what is and make our best effort with all our heart, willing to accept what will come out of it, and to work with that, then we are free- not from karma, but with karma, in karma, embraced by and embracing karma." I had hoped that my whole-hearted embrace of love for him, no matter how bad he was, could show him a freedom, a way to let go of his controlling and manipulating ways.

Zoketsu goes on to say:

No way of living is correct always- it may be correct and true, but just for now. Every moment we are at the crux- the place where life and death meet, the place where time and the timeless meet, the place where Buddha and yourself meet nose to nose and merge. Crux, cross, also, in our culture, evokes the idea of terrible suffering, bottomless suffering, that contains within it the seed of redemption.

This seed of redemption, this is what I pointed towards when I told him that I hoped his heart would break. Right now, he just doesn't allow it. He doesn't allow people in. He wouldn't allow love in. I hope my love for him has an element of timelessness to it, so that if that does happen, he knows it is there, has been there for him.

Zoketsu also says, "Maybe karma isn't a question of right and wrong or good and bad but Buddha doing what Buddha has to do to get the job done- to evolve toward enlightenment. So it might not be bad to have 500 lives as a fox if that is what you need." I think I did need that. I'm still struggling with those 500 lives. Every day, like a drug habit, the urge to think about him is reborn. Even when I think I've figured out and released my more base motives, thoughts arise again. The urge to call him arises again, and I resist that urge each day. Today I realized I am grateful for that a little bit. It reminds me that I can make poor choices and I must continue to be mindful, continue to be vigilant. It also reminds me that 500 lives as a fox might well be worth it if another person can be released from his animal realm, where the needs of others don't matter, only the basic drives to survive.

I couldn't, I wouldn't have gone as far as I did with this person if I had been single. I knew I couldn't count on this person for certain things you look for in a significant other: companionship; dependability; even trust. Many told me, including my husband, "You deserve better." I know, but I do have better: my husband. I know I am grateful I will have a wonderful holiday with Steve. If there's anything falling in love with another has taught me, it's that my love for Steve only grows deeper and more secure.

Matter and Consciousness Part 3

Back in May 1996 I had a dream in which I was murdered, or at least that was the sense I woke up with. But it wasn't me, it was someone else I knew was me. The dying itself I couldn't remember.

I joked with my friends about it being a past life. They took the notion seriously. I wrote a short story based on this character from this dream, in a way I gave form to her being. She became Clara.

I've just looked back at the journal I wrote at this time.

May 31, 1996 I keep having this image from a dream from several days ago come into consciousness. I am in a house, bare floor boards, no furniture. Front door opens into a front room and other rooms branch off. Money has been stashed here from a heist or laundered money. Stacks and stacks. I have come here with others to pick up the money. Big, dangerous men, not ones you want to cross.

Now I see me/her. She is a wispy thing, blond hair, thin, dressed in a shifty thing like a night gown. Barely more than a child, she is more like the property of one of the men than a member of the gang. She participates fully yet like a frightened muskrat, fully expecting at any moment to be hit or hurt or killed.

A week later I went on sesshin. During this time in my life I was attending just about every one I could. I wrote in a journal throughout during rest and reflection periods. I was grappling with the feeling of separateness. "How can I ever be anything but self-contained? How can I feel the truth of not-two?" I became irritated by Gyokuko in sanzen, which is a very special container created between teacher, student, and ritual that allows the dharma to surface and flow freely. I felt she was treating me like a beginner. She said I needed to find the place in myself where I was truly OK. I thought I had. She said, "I think you've touched the surface, you haven't reached the depths you can go. You're trying to be small, no, trying is judging...this is not a criticism. You're too hard on yourself. You think you don't deserve it."

I kept pressing on this question. "Do I think I've gone into that place of truly OK?" and my answer was "oh yes." (This, by the way, is an excellent example of the Soto Zen view of the koan arising in daily life.) I returned to sanzen with Gyokuko and told her about Clara. It made sense to her then. She said working on past lives was Bodhisattva work. She gave me a way to work with it, telling me past life karma work was much like this current life karma work, "unraveling the karmic threads." After that encounter, I realized she'd been right, "I haven't felt truly OK to that depth: I have to find that truly OK sense of self in past lives too." This occurred during the evening meditation.

Thursday, June 6, 1996, from quick note before bed: Then, during Vespers I sang along with and to Clara, and I felt she felt more than I ever have the compassion and acceptance of those verses. She rejoices. I cried at her rejoicing. [Om to the One Who leaps beyond all fear! Having adored Thee, may I enter into the heart of the Noble, Adored Kanzeon! Thy life is the completion of meaning; It is pure, it is that which makes all beings victorious and cleanses the path of all existence]

Friday, June 7, 1996, 1:15 pm: As she integrates I feel the presence of Clara practicing right along with me. I feel in her the pleasure of beginner's mind, feeling the soft touch of this compassionate practice. Sometimes I feel I have to say to her, "I'm doing this practice," because she is having a beginner's reaction to it, many of the reactions I've long been through: wanting to do it all; feeling irritated at having to do some things. I feel as though I've had some small very tiny glimpse into the world of a person with multiple personalities.

In the years to come, whenever someone would tell me they just loved my voice when we sang Vespers, I've always felt it was Clara they were hearing.

It is good I have looked back at this. I now have an answer to that nagging question of separateness: love. I hadn't yet experienced that love that swept away all notion of self. I have now.

It was very important to me at this time to work through this as a past life, to experience Clara as a separate self. In the years since, she has informed my understanding of multitudes of selves, no one permanent self, no unchanging self, many heaps of selves arising and falling.

When I met the man who was to become my husband, and he scoffed at the notion of past lives, I had to concede I couldn't really know if it was actually a past physical life, but that it had been useful and important to me at that time to believe it that. The karmic work I had done would not have been as powerful.

Now, with the experience even more distant, I notice I had that dream at the end of May, near the anniversary of my brother's death. He committed suicide on May 25, 1986, on the day after his own birthday. On my birthday. Six years later thanks to my Buddhist practice I began the therapeutic work of untangling that karma. In the life of dreams, Clara could very well have been the me that was still wounded by that past karma, still not OK, even while the main me felt truly OK. If she was a past life, she could very well have been a past self of this life right now.

I just don't know. I am still puzzling over my friend Rinchen's note: "...born before the beginning; has slipped out of his skin again." My good friend H. has bristled over the use of nirvana in advertising, because non-Buddhists think it means heaven, but really it means extinction of rebirth. No more rebirths, and do they really want to use extinction of self to market a sweet fru-fru? No more lives. My eyes start to cross as I try to delve into this notion of the karmic stream, not exactly a soul, but a bundle of conditions leaving the physical body and traveling on some other plane of existence to the next physical body. The Tibetan Book of the Dead is all about negotiating those other planes, the bardos, and is spoken to the dead to remind them not to be afraid of nirvana, of extinction. I don't understand how something whose form lacks substance can continue to exist beyond the body, and really, is exist the right word anyway?

Zen seems to worry itself much less about what happens after death, but more about this life. Yet during a Zen funeral, exhortations are read that are meant to guide the recently departed, just like the Tibetan Book of the Dead. And I wonder, is it that I am a sleepy stupid Buddha and haven't yet awakened to this understanding? or is this a religious construction that helps us who are living feel better about our eventual death?

After fear, adventures in polyamory

Nearly every Sunday my zen center friends and I go out to lunch after our morning services. These relationships are a rich and important part of my life. This Sunday I overheard two at the other end of the table discussing the one-with-everything zen joke. There is an addendum to that joke. The (secret zen master) hot dog vendor prepares the one hot dog with everything for the zen monk, and the monk hands her a twenty dollar bill. The vendor doesn't give the monk any change, and when the monk asks for it, she says, "Change comes from within."

Zen is full of pithy stories about change coming from within, about one's whole connection to a person or thing changing because of one's own perception or attitude. Take for example the rowboat story. Briefly, someone in a boat is about to get hit by another boat. He yells and screams for the other boat to change course, and gets quite angry. Finally when it is close enough, he sees the boat is adrift, no one is on board. Now he laughs. Nothing about the boat changed but his perception and his own attitude. In its barest essence, zen is about paying attention to those changes within.

Right now I'm working on laying the foundation of what 'adventures in multiplicity' means to me. Before I started, I'd laugh to myself over my adventures in polyamory, which led to the broader concept. It's hard to summarize my multitudinous world view without hauling out the photo albums of my internal life, paging through, pointing out how I got here, how I got there. It's also hard because some part of this is a way to explain myself to my Buddhist friends who'd like to understand, but don't, why I choose polyamory.

My choice of polyamory is a natural outcome of my Buddhist practice. Some will think that rather shocking, as we have a Buddhist precept that says "Do not misuse sexuality," and it is often interpreted rather conservatively. I have been taught that rather than commandments, the precepts are guidelines through which we measure ourselves, and find our own internal truth that fulfills them. I don't recall ever feeling possessive of my significant other, or jealous, or wishing him to be faithful to me. I have likewise experienced a reluctance to look toward a future of committed monogamy. I did choose monogamy: my first marriage lasted nearly seven years, and we'd been together around eleven years. Throughout those years, I did not demand monogamy. He wanted me to be his everything, and was jealous not only of male friends, but of anything that took my time away from him, even my Buddhist practice. Ultimately, thanks to my Buddhist practice, my unconscious fear of being alone became conscious and that fear no longer held me in its thrall.

I awakened to a deeper possibility of love thanks to that lifting of fear. My direction shifted from a constant internal focus to one of connection to others. When I met someone who felt as I did about non-monogamy, we gradually incorporated it into our lives. I found that as we became more comfortable with it, and shed that societal conditioning that says monogamy has all the integrity, my connections to others opened up. I experienced a deeper appreciation for all my relationships, and I began to see all relationships as sharing in that same deep loving connection that I share with my primary significant other. I find myself reluctant to use those labels. Husband. Best friend. Secondary partner. Housemate. Some aspects of my life I share with my husband. Some aspects I share with other close friends and not with my husband. I would be as devastated to lose my Buddhist teacher as I would to lose my husband. What necessarily places one over the other? Why is there a hierarchy in the first place, why not just differences?

I enjoy learning. Getting involved with new people means learning new feelings, new facts, new intimacies, new ways of being a friend. When I identify as polyamorous, what I mean is that I'm open to the possibilities. It's possible we could be casual friends, deeply intimate friends, could be all business, could have sex, could not have sex, could never see each other again, could flirt outrageously, or flirt chastely, could fall in love.... Whatever happened, it wouldn't mean that I must turn away from all the other loves in my life. Whatever kind of connection I have now and might form in the future, honesty and respect would form the foundation, along with that love that connects us all. When we can share intimacy, we share in being one with everything. The way we share that intimacy is as varied as each rich moment shared with each individual. What an adventure!

The Multiplicity of No-Self

I have been practicing Zen Buddhism for 16 years. Remember the Zen joke: What did the Zen monk say to the hot dog vendor? ..."Make me one with everything." It might seem odd then that I focus on multiplicity. Zen is also popularly known for its paradoxes, but on a deep level, there is no paradox.

Throughout the nearly ten years that we have kept this commitment, my Zen teacher has advised me "Be authentic." and "Don't be afraid to make a mistake." Here comes my attempt to be authentic, in a public way.

A fundamental concept in Zen is the notion of no-self. Ultimately, the self has no form it can call its own, permanently and undividedly. Often people may get involved in Buddhism thinking the only way to understand this would be to have an enlightenment experience, I certainly did. I have not had that experience, but I think I understand this. In order to introduce the subject, we in our sangha will say, "think of it as no-permanent-self". I am not the same self as the little girl seeking acceptance on the playground, nor the same self as the weight-conscious teenager, nor the same as the philosophizing college student. I am not the same self that began writing this blog.

On the other hand, I do contain that little girl, that teenager, that college student. Just to complicate things, those selves that make up me have been changed by time and memory and subsequent experiences. Sometimes their faces emerge and influence actions I may make today. All my experiences, all the conditions that have gone into the mix to make up me, they are pieces of me. They are my selves, distinct and changing. Is there something between the distinctive pieces? I have had glimpses of that emptiness, at least, I think that's what it is.

Looking at the no-self from another angle, we have certain selves that arise in certain conditions. Family gatherings invoke one self, nights out with friends another, spiritual gatherings yet another self. This multitude of selves may not exist continuously, separately, but arise and are born, or reborn, as the occasion demands. We Buddhists like to say this is possible thanks to that emptiness, possible only because there is no inherent self.

I have also learned and experienced that through the practice of awareness, my sense of self became less rigid. Any person who takes up a mindfulness practice will find there must be a period of time to work through karmic knots: those past conditions and experiences that influenced our current being raise their ugly and not-so-ugly heads and demand to be unentangled. More and more, those conditions have less influence and we can meet whatever is in front of us. A multiplicity of options open up. Notions of right or wrong begin to have less to do with societal constraints and those karmic conditions, and more to do with an internal sense of truth.

This multiplicity of selves exist in relationship to something or someone. Just as my notion of my self has become more fluid, so has my notion of relationships. The usual boxes dissolve, and a multiplicity of options in relationships open up. More on that later.