firefly hall

awe-inspiring meditation skills

2012-01-08T10:17:00.001-08:00

Who are we talking about here? (I have some theories..) Thanks for the cartoon, Doug!

Firefly Hall and Firefly

2011-12-29T07:15:00.000-08:00

One of the delights of receiving the name Keido (firefly hall) is that it's also a shout-out to my favorite television show of all time, tragically canceled in 2003, but cherished in my heart forever. Here's a video showing that Firefly fans are still active, and standing up for all kinds of good things, including, in this instance, free speech on university campuses. (Thanks, James!)

Everything is Okay

2011-12-17T08:55:00.001-08:00

Truly, everything is okay. If this does not seem true to you, please click on this link:

http://make-everything-ok.com/

Lucky

2011-12-16T13:32:00.000-08:00

The beautiful smiles of our Rohatsu sesshin participants. We are all so truly lucky to practice together!

Every Day is a Fine Day

2011-12-13T08:58:00.000-08:00

We just finished our Rohatsu Sesshin, a moving and deep experience, full of insight and opening. One of my students came home to find this video in her email box. Please enjoy this visual Dharma talk!

no night no setting no rising

2011-06-29T15:32:00.001-07:00

I'm just back from teaching a training/retreat in Sweden. I was lucky to be there at midsummer (solstice), and to finally experience the midnight sun, which I'd heard about all my life. Being from a lower latitude, this timeless realm of light all day and all night never ceased to enchant me. This photo was taken at 11 pm, during the long dusk to dawn period lasting from 10:30 pm until around 2:30 am, when the sun rises brightly and wakes all of us sleeping southerners.

the power of words

2011-04-14T06:41:00.000-07:00

Dharma for all Ages

2011-02-23T06:48:00.000-08:00

In a few moments, we'll be starting our three week ango at Boundless Way Temple. Just in case you can't come and practice with us, here's some dharma teaching to inspire you:

family portrait

2011-01-20T12:48:00.000-08:00

A memory of summer in the bleak mid-winter -- when we are awake, all beings are one family.

This week marks the 19th anniversary of the Sunday Night Sitting Group, which has grown up to be the Worcester Zen Center, Boundless Way Temple. The second Buddha from the right was 5 years old at the time. The Sunday Night Group met at 8:20 PM so that our smallest Buddha could settle down for the night at 8 with a song and story. But she often came downstairs to sit with us, falling asleep in someone's lap in her pj's.

pelican at sunset

2011-01-16T13:16:00.000-08:00

I have just returned home, in the early hours of the morning, from a teaching/vacation trip to Costa Rica. There is some good fortune in this life, and sometimes we need to remind ourselves that everything we need is right here, patiently, insentiently, waiting for us. The pelican diving for fish knows this. The waves know this. The sky knows this. Every once in a while, we know it too.

encounter on a New Year's Day walk

2011-01-02T07:26:00.000-08:00

"When buddhas are truly buddhas they don't need to perceive they are buddhas; they are enlightened buddhas and they continue actualizing buddha."

-- from Genjokoan, by Eihei Dogen, translated by Shohaku Okumura

Okumura's definition of "genjokoan" is "to answer the question from true reality through the practice of our everyday activity." (From Realizing Genjokoan, Wisdom Publications, 2010.) The word buddha, of course, means "one who is awake."

When we look at everyday reality with the eyes of awakening, buddhas appear everywhere.

(photo by Myozen, rock and snow sculpture by Dae An.)

First Anniversary of Boundless Way Temple

2010-08-20T14:28:00.000-07:00

Last August, I wrote a little blog entry marking the anniversary of the day when we bought the building that is now Boundless Way Temple. Then I went off to Europe, and forgot about it until today. Time swiftly passes by. A year, a month, a moment -- can we appreciate what we have been given in this lifetime?

On August 19, 2009, we closed the real estate deal, and began a year of tremendous challenges and serendipity. Today, looking back, it all feels inevitable. There have been so many fortuitous occurrences: the revelation of the cherry tree, the arrival of the large Buddha, and many other discoveries and gifts. Supporting everything has been the energy and good will of all the folks who hammered and sawed, weeded and planted, swept and contributed to the Temple in truly countless ways. A dream became reality.

Our real estate agent left an anniversary gift at the back door on August 19 -- two beautiful knives, very sharp, and inscribed with her name and company. Swords of Manjusri, already dedicated to help in the kitchen to feed all of us hungry ghosts, and maybe to help us see more clearly, Perhaps this metaphor is already much too stretched out to bear meaning. But the knives cut through everything very well so far!

My teacher commented, on a visit to the Temple recently, that the huge Buddha seems to be getting smaller. Our minds get used to everything eventually, until the next major change, arrival or loss throws us back into confusion and wonder. What awaits us? Moment by moment as we live through the second year of Boundless Way Temple, Mugendo-ji -- all we can count on is to be surprised!

thinking of Robert Aitken Roshi

2010-08-09T14:05:00.000-07:00

Last night we had a visit from John Tarrant Roshi, my teacher James Ford Roshi's teacher. John's primary teacher, Robert Aitken, pictured above, died on Friday. John told us some beautiful stories about Aitken Roshi, someone whose books and life have been an inspiration to me for many years. He sounded, from the stories, like a lovely and complicated human being. I found myself so grateful to be in this amazing Zen lineage. I don't know what exactly gets passed on in Zen transmission, but I like having Bob Aitken as my Dharma great-grandfather.

Mugendo-ji garden in the rain

2010-07-23T13:43:00.000-07:00

In a few hours, our first 7 day sesshin at Boundless Way Temple will begin. We have done all of the work of preparation, and have obtained the necessary permissions and certificates from the City. The temple is quiet, waiting for arrivals. The big Buddha sits in his habitual stillness, looking out towards the street. The brick garden path glistens with the rain.

On Sunday, I will have my inka shomei (transmission) ceremony. A dear friend who can't be with us that day sent flowers along with a poem by Basho:

It's not like anything
they compare it to --
the summer moon.

Nothing can compare to this moment of the sound of the summer rain and the waiting before the "big" events happen. Right now, this is all that there is -- full and complete and just right.

enduring everything

2010-06-20T12:51:00.000-07:00

These pictures are of two dear friends who seem to be able to endure whatever comes their way. One is our big granite Temple Buddha, who sits smiling, on the day of his arrival, at the packing strap that lifted his two and a half ton body from the delivery truck to the stone garden where he now rests comfortably. He sits through rain, sun, daylight and starlight, with the same lovely smile. The other picture is of my friend Anne, who is in her late 80's, and has recently had a couple of hospitalizations based on the usual endlessly long list of the side-effects of aging. On this particular visit, she had to wear an EEG monitor on her head for 24 hours. You may have seen the picture of the Tibetan monk, Matthieu Ricard, after enduring a functional MRI, his head covered with a network of sensors, smiling beatifically. Anne, not a long-time meditator, but surely a Buddha, went up and down in mood during her ordeal, but here she is smiling. She has always made the best of things in her long life. I bow to her cheerful endurance, as I bow to the Buddha. May we all smile to our suffering, knowing we are more than our suffering.

Buddha visitors

2010-06-10T13:30:00.000-07:00

Buddhas are attracted by Buddhas. The new big Buddha at the Temple is inviting curiosity from animals, birds and all beings -- children, walkers, drivers, dogs. There's something magnetic about his solid serenity. We all want to be with him and sit with him.

The name Buddha derives from a Sanskrit word that means "awake." The big Temple Buddha is a Chinese sculpture of the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni, who lived around 2600 years ago. He stated very clearly that he was not a God -- simply a human being who had discovered a way to realize the truth of this life, to see beyond his own delusions and find clarity.

Buddha images are meant to inspire us to awaken to this unvarnished reality, not to be worshiped or venerated. And yet we human beings forget that this awakened nature exists inside every one of us, and so we look to others, rather than to ourselves. The invitation of the big Temple Buddha is to recognize him as a mirror, not as an image of something outside of you.

Buddhas are attracted by Buddhas. When you stand or sit before a Buddha figure, when you bow or offer incense, please know that you are bowing in gratitude to the awakened nature within you. May you see Buddhas everywhere!

Medium-sized Buddha waits for the Big Buddha

2010-05-30T13:55:00.000-07:00

We don't know when it's coming, but we have received many gifts in preparation for it. The man who dug up the driveway for the new sprinkler system donated beautiful local gravel for the garden that will hold our new Big Buddha. Some sangha members, including Ray, Chumkee, Jamie and Jason, have donated their sweat and expertise to preparing the ground. We have also received a few unsolicited monetary contributions. The Big Buddha waits somewhere, meditating peacefully. The medium-sized Buddha waits on the gravel pile. The universe is moving along, in its complexity, to bring these two together. The timing, as with everything else, seems to be out of our control. Nothing to do but sit and wait. As usual!

Big Buddhas, Little Buddhas

2010-05-23T12:34:00.000-07:00

The Temple has recently been offered a huge Buddha statue at a very reduced price. My husband and I have decided to purchase it as a gift to the Temple. (See his blog : www.rynickcoaching.blogspot.com for the full story. It's been quite "karmic" in its unfolding -- many causes and conditions -- just as the whole Temple adventure has been.) The big Buddha is five feet tall and four feet wide, and made of granite. (In case you're wondering, he's the one in the picture at the bottom of this post.) For many years, I have been collecting Buddha, Bodhisattva and monk figures, which come to me in very unusual ways -- tag sales, discount stores, Goodwill stores, gift shops and, of course, actual gifts. One of my friends called our former home the land of a thousand Buddhas. The little fellow smiling at you in the picture directly below is about 3 inches high and lives on the desk in my office. I believe he will welcome his new friend with the same calmness and sense of amusement he seems to bring to everything. He is a little walking monk -- wind him up and he walks on for quite a while. (As the old woman said to Zhao-zhou. "A good respectable monk, but he too goes on like that.") The new big Buddha figure, once he is set down by the crane (he weighs many tons) will not move again, we hope. He will sit and welcome visitors, letting anyone passing by know that something unusual is going on at the big white house on Pleasant Street.

Zen Romance

2010-05-15T09:54:00.000-07:00

Sam and Betsy met at a practice period at the Berwick Street Zendo in 2004, and according to Sam, it was love at first sight. Today they're getting married -- our first wedding at Boundless Way Temple. Betsy is a cello player, and her string quartet is playing in the entry hall, with Sam's daughter Sarah substituting for Betsy's cello part on trombone. The music is glorious and delightful.

The soon to be married couple couldn't resist taking a turn around the dance floor. Happy Wedding Day, Betsy and Sam!

Ready? Smile!

2010-05-13T09:03:00.000-07:00

There is a koan in the Gateless Gate collection that goes like this:

The priest Ruiyan called "master!" to himself every day and answered himself "Yes!"

Then he would say "Be aware!" and reply "Yes!"

"Don't be deceived by others!"
"No, no!"

One of our tasks as students of the Way is to understanding the meaning of "others." Who is this lovely and humble old man Ruiyan talking to? Are you talking to me? Who are you? What is this? Who is taking the picture? Ready?

Smile!

2010-05-01T11:28:00.001-07:00

The children have just left the Temple after the children's service, and all is fairly quiet. Birds sing, traffic goes by, and a walk by the gazebo reveals a little altar, carefully and slightly wildly put together by the children and their parents. Jizo stands next to a feather found at the Ecotarium, and sand from a Tibetan mandala sits between the cracks of special rocks and sticks. All Buddhas, throughout space and time, finding a home together.

Glimpsing the stars

2010-03-30T13:23:00.000-07:00

Here is a poem about Passover by Lynn Ungar. It is a beautiful warning about all our hopes for ease and protection. Essentially, all the choices open to us, to stay where it is safe or to plow ahead into unknown territory, bring with them the same results: the angel of death comes for us all, but perhaps we will be able to glimpse the stars along the way.

And by the way: this drawing contains a hidden image. Everything we encounter reveals something unexpected, if we see it fully. Once you see it, you won't be able to not see it.

Passover

Then you shall take some of the blood, and put it on the door posts and the lintels of the houses . . .
and when I see the blood, I shall pass over you, and no plague shall fall upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt.
-Exodus 12: 7 & 13

They thought they were safe
that spring night; when they daubed
the doorways with sacrificial blood.
To be sure, the angel of death
passed them over, but for what?
Forty years in the desert
without a home, without a bed,
following new laws to an unknown land.
Easier to have died in Egypt
or stayed there a slave, pretending
there was safety in the old familiar.

But the promise, from those first
naked days outside the garden,
is that there is no safety,
only the terrible blessing
of the journey. You were born
through a doorway marked in blood.
We are, all of us, passed over,
brushed in the night by terrible wings.

Ask that fierce presence,
whose imagination you hold.
God did not promise that we shall live,
but that we might, at last, glimpse the stars,
brilliant in the desert sky.

~ Lynn Ungar ~

(Blessing the Bread)

another view on not knowing

2010-03-25T12:17:00.000-07:00

There is a verse in the Gateless Gate, by Wumen, that begins: "Zen students do not know the truth. They only know their consciousness up until now."

We spend so much of our lives speculating about what the future will bring, and for those of us who practice meditation, what our future mental states will be like. We imagine we know what enlightenment is, based on our reading and our fantasies. How could we know something not yet known? When will we recognize that everything we are looking for is already here, but not seen?

Here is a koan response from T.S. Eliot, taken from his poem East Coker:

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope for hope
Would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

life turning

2010-03-22T14:23:00.000-07:00

"When I look inside and see that I am nothing, that is wisdom. When I look outside and see that I am everything, that is love. Between these two, my life turns."

A quote from Nisargadatta/photo by David Rynick

all beings rejoice together

2010-03-03T14:16:00.000-08:00

This weekend I ordained two wonderful people, a husband and wife, as Soto Zen Buddhist priests. And gave 16 people in their sangha the 16 Bodhisattva precepts (jukai.) It was a beautiful and moving ceremony, full of serious depth and humor and spaciousness. It seemed that, in the middle of this burning world, where suffering awaits us and surrounds us, we can still celebrate lives devoted to service and the energy of devoted meditation practice. With joy! Their young daughter (picture in front of us) took the first 6 precepts, and received the traditional short bib, or rakusu, in hot pink (rather than the more usual black.) Tears, laughter, community -- all beings everywhere rejoice together!

one thing leads to another

2010-02-15T13:32:00.000-08:00

Looking around at any group of people, or even being with one person, it's amazing to realize that every single one of us will die. How do we live with this knowledge? We can begin by turning towards any sorrow or sadness that arises in the face of this truth. And then we have a choice -- to expand awareness to include all of the possibilities of feeling, and to recognize that, in this moment, we can also allow ourselves to also feel the joy of human connection in the face of impermanence. This is a choice that we can make in every moment -- not to give in to despair, but to realize that our duty is to delight in what is here right now. We don't have to abandon our sorrow. We only have to feel the possibility of connection and gratitude that can co-exist with sadness and poignancy.

(photo of Mt. St. Helens by David Rynick)

A thousand joys and sorrows

2010-01-21T14:11:00.000-08:00

Yunmen said, "Every day is a fine day." My old Zen teacher used to say that it was incorrect to ever evaluate a day as good or bad -- too many moments, all perfect in themselves. And yet we judge and complain and celebrate and enjoy. Beyond all judging is the lived moment, now perceived as happiness, now as grief. As Rumi says, "A thousand joys and sorrows."

Yesterday I awaken to disappointing election news, and later, hear that Haiti has had another major aftershock. And as the work day ends, a co-worker tells me that one of her former students has killed herself. Saying good-bye to my boss, I say "what a day!" He replies, "yes! So wonderful!" "What?" I say, and repeat my string of bad news. "Oh" he says. "I was thinking of the successful program we ran today (...a lecture that attracted 40 people, with a terrific visiting researcher who engaged us all.) The energy of the office was so high today." And then he pauses, and sees my surprised face. "Ah," he says. And we both smile at each other. And he adds, "a thousand joys and sorrows."

apart and a part

2009-12-29T14:42:00.000-08:00

Phillip Hallie on Albert Camus: "Two French words summarize the mood (for it is a mood and not a philosophic system) that Camus expresses in his writings and in his life and death. The words are solidaire and solitaire. Only one consonant separates the two words from each other, but the difference between aloneness and union is immense. We are born into separateness: then, after a while, we die into it; and, in between our birth and our death, we are strangers and afraid in a world we never made. And yet we feel solidarity with others, love, from time to time,. We live out our lives apart from others and as a part of others."

waiting for the miracle

2009-12-10T13:28:00.001-08:00

The Temple is very quiet today, and clean and empty. Leonard Cohen's words echo in my mind: we are waiting for the miracle to come. In a few hours, over 40 people will be arriving, getting settled, and then diving into the silence and stillness of sesshin. I feel so lucky that I can participate in this miracle -- the unusual opportunity, with other like-minded Dharma friends, to realize the truth of what it means to be a human being.

ungrateful

2009-11-29T14:56:00.000-08:00

Some new research on healthy marriages suggests that spouses who express their gratitude to each other have a better chance of staying married. The connection between them is nourished by truly seeing and commenting on the other's loving acts. Intimate connection can also go beyond gratitude. The implication of this is expressed in case 17, from the Gateless Gate collection of koans, where Chung Kuo-shih calls to his attendant three times, and is answered three times. Kuo-shih says, "I was about to say that I was ungrateful to you. But the fact is that you are ungrateful to me." I myself am so grateful for this expression. Thank you Chung Kuo-shih!

a drop of ink

2009-11-19T14:06:00.000-08:00

An old friend just reminded me of something I said to her many years ago and I was happy to be reminded. It's an image I use when I'm confronted by suffering -- my own or someone else's.

I imagine that whatever is causing the suffering -- physical pain, a thought or an emotion, someone's behavior or our own actions -- is like a drop of ink. When the ink is dropped into a cup, it colors the water. When it's dropped into a big bowl, it becomes dispersed, and the water turns gray. When it drops into the ocean, there's no color left at all.

This is an important part of our work in becoming human beings who are free and useful -- to create a spacious container for our suffering -- to be open and present to whatever is here, and to everything else that is not the suffering.

Sometimes we contract -- it's human nature, and it's not a bad thing. Sometimes we expand, and that's not a bad thing either. Rumi speaks about this in his poem "Birdwings" as translated by Coleman Barks:

Your grief for what you've lost lifts a mirror
Up to where you're bravely working.

Expecting the worst, you look, and instead,
Here's the joyful face you've been waiting to see.

Your hand opens and close and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
You would be paralyzed.

Your deepest presence is in every small
Contracting and expanding,
The two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
As birdwings.

the dosage for happiness

2009-11-16T12:38:00.000-08:00

Lately I've been notice just how darn happy I am. I don't mean that I'm blissed out all the time, or even cheerful. There's just a very deep sense of contentment that seems to be patiently waiting for any temporary emotional, cognitive or physical storms to subside. I have a few theories about why this may be happening. For one thing, I'm thrilled with my work at the Center at the University, and my new life at the Temple. Everything right now seems to be revolving mostly about around what t I love. Next to my husband and daughter, and along with some dear friends and my brother, what I love the most in this lucky lifetime is practicing and teaching meditation. And I'm getting to do a lot of that. Another theory is that meditating so much (daily sittings at the Temple plus a few evenings and other times throughout the day) contributes to happiness, as so many researchers into meditation have been speculating and wondering about. (One of my favorite words related to mindfulness research is "dosage" -- how much time on the cushion creates a measurable effect in what-have-you: mood, health, behavior...) And I must say that I know well, based on what I know about human life, that the reality of all this is that at any moment, this lovely contentment could be altered by some significant personal or global event. But I'm beginning to suspect that even this potential tragedy wouldn't destroy the underlying awareness of something sweetly pleasant that lies just beneath the surface of our lives, waiting for us all.

It's dark outside

2009-11-05T10:48:00.000-08:00

This morning I had a conversation with a student about a much beloved koan. In the story, Deshan, who would later become a great master, is still young and somewhat confused (and we might even say arrogant.) At one point, as he's leaving Lungtan, the teacher he has just encountered, he looks outside and sees that night has fallen. "It's dark outside," he says. Both of us had tears in our eyes as we reflected together on this poignant moment. A beautiful poem by Wendell Berry came to mind, which I first heard from a stress reduction student who was in remission from breast cancer. She told me that the poem helped her to allow her to be with her cancer just as it was -- the possibility of death, and the big "don't know" of her life. It was dark in her life, but she found that simply being in the dark was enough. No need to make up anything, no need to know more than she could know.

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark.
Go without sight.
And find that the dark, too, blooms and sings.
And is traveled by dark feet, and dark wings.

trusting and encouraging

2009-11-04T13:45:00.000-08:00

This week most of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction teachers I supervise have noticed a similar personal pattern arising in their teaching: a kind of impatience that begins as a subtle desire to want their students to find relief from their suffering. This may seem obvious -- isn't the relief from suffering the reason any of us practice (or teach) meditation in the first place? Isn't it a common condition that we are habitually unhappy with our lives, and wish they were different? And, for those of us who teach meditation, this wish naturally extends to others. If we're on the bodhisattva path, it extends to all beings.

The problem here is that things are not different. In this moment they cannot be different. They're the way they are. Of course we know that in the next moment, they will be different. This is not a theory -- it's more of a guarantee. The problem is that we'd like to control the particular way they'll be different. And this is a recipe for even more suffering.

What is our actual work as human beings? Is it to do all the saving and healing of others ourselves, to give advice about what people should be thinking or feeling or experiencing or doing?

In my own teaching, I can feel this pull of desire for relief of suffering. Thoughts arise: "Wake up already!" "Get over it!" and..., most dangerously, "Here's what you should do!"

But it seems to me that the real work is to simply encourage people to wake up -- to point them in a direction and trust that, eventually, understanding and clarity will arise. Because these qualities appear to be waiting, very patiently, in the form of little embers of awakening, to burst into flame. We encourage, we point, and then we trust.

glass horses

2009-11-01T14:22:00.000-08:00

Living at the Temple has a certain simplicity to it -- many of our old belongings remain hidden away in boxes. There isn't much time in our busy lives to unpack...but every once in a while, like today, we rediscover the past in the form of things we used to think we needed, but have done without for months, and in some cases, years.

Today, as if returning home after a long voyage, I unpack a box that's full of memories. I don't see how I got along without these two glass bookends, in the shape of horses, that adorned my parents' bookcase fifty years ago. This afternoon they find themselves returning to their lost life, happy to hold up books about Zen, poetry by Rumi, and mystery novels. In the past, they held up my parents' collection of art books and hardcover novels by forgotten writers of the last century. Perhaps those books too will someday reveal themselves from the bottom of their own box. Until then, I welcome back my sturdy and reliable glass friends, ever alert, performing their still and quiet function.

the destruction business

2009-10-24T10:43:00.000-07:00

Today the construction crew at the Temple are working on the handicap ramp. They're making the entry way level so that people can enter the main hallway from the porch without having to go up steps. I've been curious about how they were going to manage this, not being someone who understands even the basics of building, and have been mighty impressed with a number of things. One is how Will, the volunteer foreman of the crew, gently and directly explains tasks to his (mostly) unskilled volunteers. And another is how, in order to make this new entrance, the old entrance has to be destroyed.

It's probably pretty obvious -- the need to destroy something to allow something new to emerge. And it pretty much describes how everything seems to be emerging in this new Temple life. Personally, I've been finding that all my old ideas, habits, patterns, are slowly but surely being eroded by the demands of this amazing project. The new life arises through the destruction of the old. And through this wide and spacious new door will come people who never knew the limitations of the old narrow entry.

Privacy

2009-10-11T10:10:00.001-07:00

Living in Boundless Way Temple is strangely freeing. Although I feel that I have lost some of my privacy, I find myself feeling more at ease and present. As if in confirmation, I came across this quote from Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche in the November Shambhala Sun: "The point is that when you give up privacy, that is the only time you can be with yourself. Our normal version of privacy is not really privacy. We say, "I need my privacy." If you are bottling yourself up with your so called privacy, you find yourself getting in your own way. There is no privacy in that situation. The privacy does not exist. Instead, you feel completely bombarded with internal emotions and thoughts, which take away from your chance to be with yourself and relax with yourself completely. Once you begin to give up privacy, you open your heart and your whole existence to the rest of the world, and then you find greater privacy. You find that an actual discovery of yourself is taking place."

a new life

2009-09-23T11:20:00.000-07:00

My life has completely turned upside down since August. My husband and I have purchased a big new house, part of which we are using as our home and most of which is devoted to use for our Zen community. Boundless Way Temple is an exciting place to live -- so much energy and creativity coming from the sangha, and such promise for the unfolding of American Zen.

And -- practicing impermanence is definitely on the menu! Having left my old home, I find myself waking each morning as if on a journey. I don't know where to find the simplest things, all my old routines are gone, and every moment brings a new mood, sometimes confusion, sometimes deep gratitude, and on and on...

What an amazing new life!

at home in uncertainty

2009-08-16T16:15:00.000-07:00

My husband and I are buying a large house where we are planning to establish a temple for our Zen community. We sit in a great deal of flux and uncertainty as we wait for our closing date, and we are full of gratitude to so many friends and sangha members who have helped us pack this week.

One friend in Canada sent this poem from Kodo Sawaki Roshi, quoting a popular verse:

Wherever it goes,
The snail is at home when it dies.
There is no world outside the kesa.

lovingkindess part two -- embracing fear

2009-05-23T08:48:00.000-07:00

To practice loving-kindness is to embrace everything that is, just as it is, and to detect within this "is-ness" a spark of something sweet and tender. It's easy to use this practice as a way to avoid the truth of our emotional reality, and this can be very dangerous. Right underneath a calm surface there can be unacknowledged turmoil, waiting for a chance to manifest itself. Embracing fear and anxiety is not easy, but is an essential step in learning how to feel the sense of safety and peace that is subtly waiting to be revealed, once we stop fighting our fear. Is fear present right now? How do you know this? Is the awareness of fear afraid? Is there a sense of fear in the body? Are there fearful thoughts present? This exploration is a powerful practice -- to turn towards any fearful thoughts or sensations, and simply know that they are present, without trying to get rid of them. Pay attention to what arises in the presence of this loving curiosity and openness to what is here, temporarily manifesting as fear. Notice if and how it transforms.

2009-04-12T13:34:00.000-07:00

Here's a quote I heard from Jay Leno: " I went into a McDonald's yesterday and said, 'I'd like some fries.' The girl at the counter said, 'Would you like some fries with that?'"

Jon Kabat-Zinn, one of my mentors and my former boss, defines mindfulness as "paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, without judgment." A big part of paying attention in this way is connected to really hearing, seeing, being with things the way they are, and especially noticing when we fall into the trap of ignoring what people are actually trying to communicate. My day today was filled with discussions with people who were stuck in old patterns of reactivity, and of course my own patterns were triggered by their patterns. We found ourselves in a soup of misunderstandings and confused communication. Some of these folks practice mindfulness, however, and so we gradually found that we could reach some kind of clarity. Working through this together was profoundly connecting. I feel so grateful for being on the planet with people who are willing to wake up to their own expectations, filters and confusion to a shared tenderness and kindness.

The three marks of existence go into a bar

2009-04-12T13:33:00.000-07:00

The three marks of existence are ways of framing reality. Through paying attention to what arises moment to moment, within the frame of a settled body and mind, we come to understand them as experiences, not as theoretical constructs. The Pali words, used in the early Buddhist sutras, are dukkha, annicca and anatta. Dukkha means unsatisfactoriness, things being out of alignment. (The original meaning comes from the sound a cart makes when one of the wheels is a little bit off-balance: dook, dook, dook.) Annicca is the truth of impermanence, and and anatta is the recognition that there is no fixed self that abides through time. After a talk I gave about the three marks at the Berwick Street Zendo the other night, my husband and fellow teacher David Rynick, and my colleague at the Center for Mindfulness, Florence Meleo-Meyer, came up with this joke:

Dukkha, Annicca and Anatta go into a bar. Dukkha says, "life sucks!" Annicca says, "it won't last." Anatta says, "Are you talking to me?"

Not backing down

2009-04-05T11:01:00.000-07:00

When I'm afraid to show up in any situation, I often find that I'm having a thought like, "if only I could be better or more accomplished than I (believe I) am." And when I do it anyway, I find that what I really needed was not to be the best, but to be fully committed to the moment ... as present as possible. Here's some inspiration along those lines from from Sasha Frere-Jones, in The New Yorker, April 6, 2009, writing about Bono, the lead singer of U2.

"For all his limitations -- he's one of the last vocalists you can imagine making a solo record -- Bono is the only singer who could possibly make U2's music succeed...Bono's voice can sound strained fairly quickly...Bono's gift is the ability to sound utterly immersed in and committed to whatever his band is proposing. He backs down from nothing that the band starts."

Heavenly Abodes right here on earth

2009-03-25T10:15:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite meditation practices derives from the Theravadin tradition: the four Brahma Viharas or heavenly abodes. These are a set of contemplations that encourage the cultivation of loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity. In working with myself and with students, I've found that these practices hold a hidden danger -- they can be done in such a way that they inadvertently contribute to the old familiar feeling of wanting things -- myself, the world -- to be different. For example, saying the traditional phrase "may all beings be at ease," can subtly create a feeling of aversion to the way things are and a desire for things to be better. While hatred and greed are natural human feelings, cultivating them might not be so useful for a meditation practice focused on seeing through the clinging to a self that is the cause of most of our suffering. In grappling with ways to clarify these practices for myself, I've begun to suspect that they could be phrased in ways that helps rather than hinder our waking up to reality. One entry point is to first bring attention to any subtle or strong feelings of desire or aversion to the present moment by asking something like "How could it get any better than this?" and then allowing an opening to all the variations of desire that arise with this simple phrase. In future posts, I'll continue to explore ways of investigating the heavenly abodes, experienced right here, right now.