Like A Lotus in Muddy Water

I will be teaching here at City Center on 6/21 with the always awesome Mako Vokel. We will be teaching on “Practicing with Sexual Energy“. Click on the name for more info or to register.

May 26th I speak at SFZC’s Monthly Queer Dharma Group. 1PM in the Buddha Hall.

I will also be speaking May 27th at 10AM at the Gay Buddhist Fellowship.

After these dates, I am going to stop teaching for awhile. I need to step back a minute and get a sense of what’s what.

I spoke last Sunday at Gay Buddhist Sangha on “Sex and Zen”.

To study the Buddha Way is to study the self
To study the self is to forget the self
To forget the self is to be awakened by myriad things~Dogen Zenji

I have been meeting certain causes and conditions in my life, which have given me the chance to really see deeply into a pattern of behavior that I notice protects me. This pattern allows me to feel safe, protected and boosts my ego a bit.

Turning towards it I can witness it, and I can see it more and more clearly for what it is, a continuation of the duality that “I” am somehow separate from “you” and that “I” need to act in certain ways and do certain things in order to be safe from your criticisms or exclusion. I also see how this creates suffering for me. How it sets me up to be continually disappointed in myself, in you and in our interactions.

So what’s skillful? How do I walk through this in a way that is upright, sincere and responding appropriately to the causes and conditions as they arise?

The first thing I am trying to do is speak the story I have created. Tell you the “truth” of my experience and what I am noticing. But I also don’t want to set myself up as some kind of victim or martyr. That is just one more way for me to be dualistic and separate.

Starting at the beginning of the year, there has been some questions about what I can and can’t lead or teach in regards to Queer Dharma, the group I started more than three years ago. As the group has become successful, we (those who are guiding the group) were starting to look at ways to offer more than just the monthly programs. In this looking, there was some problems with the fact that I am not a former shuso.

Quick Sidebar: A shuso is a head monk. Part of the training here at Zen Center is that until you are shuso you are not suppose to be teaching the dharma. It is a tradition that we have created to mark a certain stage in training and to speak to who is qualified and who isn’t qualified to “teach”. Yes, this is an arbitrary construction that has nothing whatever to do with actual people, skills or that can universally be prescribed. And it is important that we recognize traditional models and carefully consider things before we go throwing them out or even saying something like “in this case, we will skip it, etc.” I am a fan of tradition, and this has put me on the horns so to speak.

Back to the point now. What I have noticed in this discussion was a repeated arising of my ego, of some forms of territorialism, and some wish to be recognized. It was obvious that a button was being pushed, and it took me some time to discover or study what was going on in a basic way. To slowly work my way through the layers of story to arrive at some clear seeing of what was going on for me.
What I am coming to recognize is how I have used my ability to succeed, to jump in and do what needs to get done, to lead and manage effectively not only as an offering of support and a skillful meeting of the moment. That is there, and I don’t want to discount that completely. I do however need to notice that I also use that as a way to prove myself “worthy”. A lifetime of rejection of who I am on a basic level, the repeated experience of being on the “outside” as a gay man, as someone with AIDS, and a myriad other ways I have been less-thaned has trained me or should I say, I found ways to avoid the pain of that.. I will just be so freaking awesome that you can’t help but appreciate and love me.

I don’t think I am awesome. I think I do my best most of the time, and I have been successful quite a bit of the time. I have a story though that basically says I HAVE to be awesome. That the only way to not be rejected to not be left on the outside is to be right there in just the perfect way, at just the perfect time.

I also have to acknowledge that during the height of the AIDS crisis, as my friends and loved ones were becoming sick, there wasn’t really any other way to respond. We all just jumped in and did what needed to be done. We learned how to care for each other, by doing it. We learned about medical procedures, and medicine, and how to move people who couldn’t move themselves. There was no one helping us, and we just needed to respond. So we did. We aren’t heroes; We just did what had to be done.

These two things combined to create a protection from pain for me. I can prove to myself and to you that I am okay by being great. Let me make myself invaluable so you can’t throw me away. I created a life that was impressive, that you couldn’t ignore. I think you get the point.

So what do I do now with this insight? Does the behaviors or the needs to separate and be protected disappear? No. As a matter of fact, I notice the strength of them. I notice how much stronger they are now that some light has been shed on them. In some way they have grown. I also am aware of the deep deep loneliness and isolation that is under all of that. The deep pain of rejection and loss and grief is present and unmistakable. The experience right now of drowning in my uncomfortableness is very present. It feels huge and overwhelming and like I don’t know what to do with it.

I am trying to make some choices and figure out a skillful response. Until I do, I just sit with it and feel it and see if I can get to know it. I believe that’s what Dogen is saying. To be awakened by myriad things is sometimes painful and slow and difficult. Much like Zazen.

What is Dogen’s intention in Genjo Koan when he says, “Here is the place. Here the way unfolds”?

Dogen’s intention is always to shake up our ideas about practice. I think a lot of his students were long-term practitioners with ideas and concepts about what it meant to practice the Buddha Way. As a skillful teacher he is, Dogen brings forth the dharma in such a way that it inspires us to practice, while at the same time, keeps us from turning the dharma into some “thing” to know, understand or grasp. Repeatedly Dogen is reminding us to practice and realize the dharma as an experience, not as a knowing, and to stop trying to gain some “thing” that is different than what is already here.

In the Fukanzazengi Dogen instructs us not to “go off to dusty realms”. His intention is to bring us back to right here, right now. This is where practice-realization occurs; in the midst of our experience of whatever is going on. Dogen keeps bringing us back to non-dualism of this is good practice, this is bad practice, this is enlightenment and this is delusion. We don’t need to create some special state of mind, or special way of being, or even set up special circumstances to bring forth the something called “realization”. Dogen repeatedly wants to remind us that this is realization and that this is Buddha.

I occupy a body that is disabled. There are limitations to the amount of energy I have to function, and there are limits to the amount of sitting practice my body can take. For a long time, I would look at my teachers and mentors, or look at other senior people and think, “If I could practice like them, I might “get it”. Or, “I can’t possibly experience enlightenment because I can’t physically do all the things I am “suppose” to do”. Dogen is breaking up that thought with seven simple words.

Can I let go of my view that something has to change for me to “really practice”? Can I stop thinking my enlightenment resides in my teacher’s practice, or in that other priests practice, and simply allow my practice to be what it is? The perfect expression of Buddha’s Way in this body with this mind, and living with these causes and conditions. Dogen is pointing me towards the enactment of practice as realization.

It is of interest to me as I unpack Dogen’s expression of Dharma, that he really does say pretty much the same thing over and over. Get rid of the idea that anything is separate including the dharma, including enlightenment, including delusion. Look at what is happening and let that expression be all that is necessary. Dogen does his best to shake up our ideas. This includes our ideas about what he is saying. There is nothing special here, which of course makes his teachings very special. Zazen practices Zazen; practice is realization; expound the dharma of this moment simply by letting go and allowing this moment to expound itself. We don’t need to find some special state, special practice, or special place. It’s all already here, practicing itself. I am starting to see the answer to Dogen’s question that sent him to China. He asked, “If we already have Buddha-Nature (or even are Buddha-Nature), then why do we have to practice?” He answers, “Because that’s what Buddha’s do. They practice.”

What does Dogen mean in Genjo Koan by “myriad things come forth and illuminate themselves”?

I think when we begin to practice; we want some relief from our suffering. There is something in our lives that brings us to do this, and we have some motivation to accomplish this thing called “relief”. We set out to achieve enlightenment, and then hearing Dogen, maybe we begin to search out this “dropping off body and mind” thing. We strive for something, we attempt to practice the dharma in the same way we live our lives; getting it right and receiving the rewards of getting it right.

Dogen here turns that idea on its head. He says, “To carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion.” Don’t think you have anything to “do”. It is similar to his instructions about studying. It’s not an intellectual study, nor is this an activity that is a “doing”. This is Dogen’s non-dualism again. Practice is realization. The activity is almost secondary in some ways.

Dogen follows this instruction with the line about those who have great realization about delusion are Buddhas, and those who are greatly deluded about what realization is, are sentient beings. So if you think you “know” something about realization, then you are stuck. But once you practice-realize the nature of delusion as awakening, then you are practice-realizing Buddhahood.

As human beings we always have an agenda; even if our agenda is to have no agenda. For instance, as a Chaplain, I want to enter a room and meet what is happening with an open mind and an open heart. I try to cultivate beginners mind, to meet each experience as new. This too is an agenda. Dogen is instructing us in this line to let even that be included in our expression of the moment. Not to worry when I notice myself having some agenda or writing some story about how “it should be”. Instead Dogen says, recognize that all things, including our agendas come forth of themselves, and not to worry about it. Let that story illuminate itself, see it for what it is, empty and without merit.

It is important to note that this is also Dogen’s reminder about non-duality. There is no right or wrong here. As the mind arises in this moment it isn’t closer or further away from enlightenment. It is doing what minds do. As our lives present themselves can we let go of the duality of right and wrong, good or bad, and just experience the arising as it is. Suzuki Roshi called this, “Things as it is”. The myriad things appear to us. We just let that register as a myriad thing, let it illuminate itself, and then allow it to pass away. Anything extra is moving towards that “thing” and into delusion.

This line is an expression of the instruction for what Dogen means by the word “study”. Let the experiences, and situations come forth, and tell you about themselves. To study isn’t some sort of knowing, but simply paying attention to the nature of the myriad things that arise in each moment. Sitting zazen, without an agenda or special process, but merely to allow zazen to come forth and then for us to meet it as it comes. That is Dogen’s shikantaza.