Like A Lotus in Muddy Water

I am a huge Merwin fan these days. Something in the construction disrupts my thinking enough that I can move beyond the words. Like a koan, just experience, don’t read, don’t think. Allow it inside. Allow it to be itself fully. In allowing such a thing; you might get a brief glimpse of yourself being yourself fully.

To The Present Tense
by W.S. Merwin

By the time you are
by the time you come to be
by the time you read this
by the time you are written
by the time you forget
by the time you are water through fingers
by the time you are taken for granted
by the time it hurts
by the time it goes on hurting
by the time there are no words for you
by the time you remember
but without the names
by the time you are in the papers
and on the telephone
passing unnoticed there too

who is it
to whom you come
before whose eyes
you are disappearing
without making yourself known.

Like a Lotus in Muddy Water, The Mind is Pure and Goes Beyond: Thus We Bow to Buddha

It’s been a rough couple of weeks here. A community member who was much loved, despite his inability to recognize it, decided to end his own life. This suicide hits several buttons for me on several levels. Coming so close on the heels of my own ordination, I was particularly raw and open, and deeply affected.

Today I was having a conversation on Google+ with a friend about Vow. My friend is an Episcopal Brother in the order The Brotherhood of St. Gregory. He is a deeply thoughtful man, and a dear friend I have known for over 15 years, so it was a pretty intimate and intense conversation. I had forgotten that others could read our words, and when one of his brothers shared a poem he wrote a few months ago, which was completely in keeping with our conversation, I was again caught by surprise, and completely moved by my openness and the depth of the words. So I share them with you today.

Tachment
by Br. Thomas Bushnell, BSG

Buddha
would have me know my attachments
and would teach me
the path to releasing them.

But that’s wrong
as if
Buddha
were attached
to my non-attachment.

(Buddha
is not attached to
what is unattainable.)

Christ
would have me be attached
and would teach me
the path to attachment to him.

But that’s wrong
as if
Christ
needed
to be needed by me.

(Christ
does not need
what is unattainable.)

My detachment
at the feet of Buddha
is not unattainable.

My attachment
at the feet of Christ
is not unattainable.

Christ and Buddha
ironically twinned
and ironically separate
both desiring and not desiring
both focused and not focused
on me alone
as if
there were nothing else.

What in my life
are the attachments
which keep me
from attaching myself
to Christ?

What in my life
are the detachments
which keep me
from learning
from Buddha?

Buddha and Christ
mystically separate
and mystically twinned
both teaching and not teaching
both followed and not followed
by me, alone,
as if
there were nothing else.

I have spent my life
attached
to what is not attachable
and detached
from that to which I am
attached.

To reverse this,
to turn around,
to find the attachments
to detach from,
to find the detachments
to attach to,
is the task
of a human life.

My past
is a burden
with no weight.

The fear of change
of releasing the burden
weighs around my neck.

My future
is a weight
I need not carry….

“Renunciation isn’t about giving up things, it’s recognizing that things will all go away” – Suzuki Roshi (paraphrase)

What does it mean to Vow? As I prepare to be given the precepts once again, this question is among the many that arise. I took the precepts the first time in April of 2006 with my teacher in a ceremony called Zeike Tukodo. This time I am doing the same thing in a ceremony called Shukke Tokudo. But is it the same thing? In the mundane reality, this time I will become a priest. My teacher will shave my head, and I will “officially” be a home leaver. What does that mean when you gave up your home several years ago? What does any of it mean? On one hand it’s a way of saying, “this is how you are already practicing” or “this is how I see your practice”.. On another hand it is the beginning of a deeper commitment, a deeper intention, a different relationship to vow. Everything changes, yet nothing changes at all.

I notice the changes in how people project their stories onto me. I notice the change in how I react to the projections of others. I notice the difference in how I deal with my own projections on myself. The stories, ideas, and fear rise and poke me. Luckily they dissipate as quickly as they rise, and once again I come back to this very moment.

When the Buddha sat under the Bodhi tree, the last “challenge” Mara presented him with was the question, “Who are you to sit there?” “What right do you have to be enlightened?” This question rises in me as well. My own personal mara is alive and well. Bringing forth all of my so-called shortcomings, my sense of inadequacy, and my insecurities; all in pursuit of moving me from my seat. No matter what is happening in our life, I think we all are answering to our own personal maras on a regular basis. So how do we answer them? In the words of my teacher, “What is it to practice with it?”.

The Buddha, when questioned by Mara, touched the earth. To me, this was a simple expression of bringing himself back to this very moment. Not pushing away or moving towards, the question, doubt or insecurity, but just touched back to the now. As he touched the earth, he is said to have remarked, “The entire earth will bear witness for me.” My take on this again is that this moment contains all the answer I have to give. What interests me is that he didn’t defend himself, he didn’t argue, didn’t even deny the accusations. He simply stated that they were irrelevant. That in this moment, all that was relevant was this moment. I wrote before about how in Zen we believe that everyone is Buddha. That this very mind. The mind in this very moment is the mind of enlightenment. This is the teaching of this story for me.

Dogen (the founder of the school of Buddhism I practice) says that there is no difference between practice and realization. That the moment I sit on the cushion or the moment I practice, is the moment I am enlightened. In another way, he is saying that we practice because that is what Buddha’s do, and since we are all Buddha’s, we should all practice. Of course, that is often easier said than done.

The more I practice, the more subtle and insidious my personal mara becomes. That voice inside that says, “You aren’t good enough, committed enough, holy enough, enlightened enough…” The list of what I am not seems to be endless, and it seems to spring up out of the blue. What the teaching is though, is to respond to each instance, not with argument or answers, but to just touch the earth. To come back to this moment, and let this moment answer for you. To call on the whole universe to answer on your behalf.

Like a Lotus in Muddy Water, The Mind is Pure and Goes Beyond. Thus We Bow to Buddha.

“The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.”~~Hsin Hsin Ming

The funny thing about preference is that I often don’t even notice them forming. My opinions are so insidious and so habitual, I often don’t even see them until the suffering starts. Living in a physical body, in a realm of constant choices, constant movement towards and away from “things”, we need to navigate in some way. There are “things” and “people” and we can’t really live or function without making choices for or against something. One mistake those who identify as Buddhist make is the idea that we have to discard all these ways of being in the world, so that we can become more “spiritual”.

The goal of Zen that I see is to figure out how to make these choices, how to navigate in the midst of our lives, while understanding that in the end it’s all empty and without any real substance. Can I make a choice or set up a plan for my life and not hold onto or even “substantiate” the outcome. Can I move towards those things that seem skillful or appropriate and away from those things that aren’t, and still let go of the “realness” or “importance” of it.

The more I practice; the more I take the backward step that turns the light inward; the more I believe that in the end, it’s really all about my relationship to the causes and conditions that make up my life in each moment. It’s not about getting rid of this, or overcoming that, or even attempting to gain this or that. Instead can I change the way I am relating to what is right here right now. I don’t have to “cut off desire” as much as just let desire be desire and understand that it’s no more real or “substantiated” than anything else. It doesn’t actually MEAN anything. It’s just a thought, idea, sensation, feeling or experience. It’s my relationship to it that changes it into a “thing” that must be cut off.

In the teachings of Yogacara it is offered that all things that come into our sense doors are not real. The thought is that we really only have access to our thoughts about the causes and conditions that make up our experience. In this way, we “perfume” all of our existence with ideas, which means we don’t really get to see what’s “real” about this or that. Can I notice the perfume as perfume and the experience as the experience? Can I see through my ideas about what this or that is? The interesting thing I am finding as I practice with these teachings, is that my relationship to my internal world, this mind, this sensed experience begins to change. I am noticing the misty, ghostlike substance of my reifications and on occasion I manage to not reify in the first place. I notice that the easier, softer way I have hoped to find, is actually there. It’s found by changing my relationship to both the litter and the flowers that make up this experienced existence. It’s realizing that my opinions will always be there, but they are of no more substance than the things they are pointing at.

Like a Lotus in Muddy Water, The Mind is Pure and Goes Beyond. Thus We Bow To Buddha.

I am working on a new site for the Zen Center’s Queer Dharma Group. It will focus on News, information, teachings,etc for the Queer Dharma Group. It will also give us a spot to start posting our talks to. Eventually the site will be growing but check it out HERE and let me know what you think. It isn’t pretty yet, but you can get an idea of what it’s for. If you have news or info to share on the site you can email it to me and I will get it up.

Daibai asks Basho, “What is the Buddha?”
Basho replies, “This very mind is Buddha.”

I often find myself thinking things will get better. Somehow the idea has taken root that once things are better, then I will be a better person, or enlightened, or a myriad other ideas. I seem to be constantly in a state of waiting. “When I am ordained” or “When my body feels better” or “When I have a boyfriend” and on and on and on and on.

The problem with this is that I am never satisfied. There is no contentment. There is nowhere for me to find acceptance. Suzuki Roshi once said, “Just this is it.” And it is in the “just this” that contentment, peace and nirvana happen. It is in that exact moment of presence that we can see ourselves and the world exactly as they are.

This very mind is Buddha. Not the mind I think I need to have, not the mind that someone else says I can have, but THIS very mind. The one I have right now, with all it’s judgements, unsettledness, and allergy to this present moment. So even when I am failing at “Just this is it”… I am still Buddha. I am simply failing Buddha. The same can be said for my fear, irritability, grief, anger, or anything else. It is all Buddha.

That’s the part I keep forgetting. I keep looking for my buddha nature, thinking it is somewhere other than right here. I keep looking for this thing called settled, or this thing called priest practice, or whatever else my mind creates to steer me away from the equanimity and peace of this very moment.

I woke up this morning and thought, “If this is as good as it gets, can I find a way to be okay with it.” The funny thing about that is that this is as good as it gets. There is nothing beyond just this. I only think there is somewhere else, or some way else I am “suppose” to be. Again, Suzuki Roshi is right; Just this is it.

Haller Roshi, my teacher is often fond of asking me (and everyone else), “What’s happening now, and what is it to practice with it.” He also requests us to put the answer into as succinct a response as possible. A few words. There is something in the boiling down of what is happening now that causes me to look deeper into it. Is it anger? No not really, Is it fear? Not quite there… and on it goes.. This is how we practice with Dogen’s “To study the Way is to study the Self.” Can we get to the essence of this experience, before it passes away, and truly experience it. That’s the “what is it to practice with it?” To really allow that momentary experience to come into contact with our awareness, to fully experience it as it passes through. Not attaching some idea or response to it, not even coming up with an expression for it, but to just allowing it to register.

Like a lotus in muddy water, the mind is pure and goes beyond. Thus we bow to Buddha.

To Monday
by W.S Merwin

Once you arrive it is plain
that you do not remember
the last time

you are always
like that
insisting upon
beginning
upon it all beginning
over again
as though nothing had really happened
as though beginning
went on and on
as though it were everything
until it had begun

you never know who you are
the hands of the clock find you
and keep going
without recognition
though what your light
reveals when it rises
wakes from another time
which you appear to have forgotten

travelling all that way
blank and nowhere
before you came to be
with the demands
that you bring with you
from the beginning

each time it is
as though you were the same
or almost
O unrepeatable one
needing nothing yourself
and not waiting.

As I watch us celebrating at the death of one man, I cringe. I remember how painful it was to watch others celebrate our suffering not so long ago after the violence of September 11. How is our celebration different from that one?

What comes forth from me is concern. Concern about how easy it is for us to believe that there is an “us” who are the good guys, and a “them” who are the bad guys. Putting aside the ridiculousness of good and bad, let’s just look at “us” and “them”.

“Us”- Who is “us”? Where does “us” end? In my own life, I notice that the “us” changes as I move the “them” around. “Us” becomes nothing more than some moving target I never can quite grasp, especially when someone who use to be a “them” becomes an “us” or when one of “us” becomes a “them”.

“Them” – Sometimes “them” is thrust upon a class of people (The rich aren’t paying their share, the poor are lazy and only want someone to support them, etc. etc.) or upon a race, or a gender expression or upon a sexual identity. But honestly who is “them”? As I see it “them” depends on what pain I am currently trying to solve. In the end of it all, “them” is anyone who isn’t “me”.

So here we are celebrating the death of someone who did harm. Even at the worst, the harm created was no more or no less equal to the harm “we” have perpetrated on the world in search of revenge, vindication or so called “justice”. Or how about the harm we have created in not providing for those who are the least of us?

I asked last night, and I ask again. “If we killed everyone who did harmful or heinous things, who would be left alive?”

I hear the cries of the world, and I grieve. I won’t meet suffering by celebration. I won’t forget that we all live in greed hate and delusion and sometimes, we continue to feed it.

May all beings be free of suffering and the roots of suffering
May all beings be happy
May all beings feel safe, and be at peace
May all beings know that they are better than whatever their mind can conjure up.

Like a lotus in muddy water, the mind is pure and goes beyond. Thus we bow to Buddha.

I was reminded today by a friend of the advice from an old sage. A couple of his students came to him complaining that while they were meditating in some cave, the demons would continually come and harass them. His advice was, “Feed the Demons Cake.” Such a simple instruction, but when you try to put it into practice, it’s not so easy to do.

We are socialized to “get over it” or at best to “work through it”. Some feeling we don’t like occurs and we need to fix it or change it. What I am finding is that it’s usually better if I can find some way to get intimate with it. If I can not just accept it, but really experience it without the judgements or ideas about it, I am able to be more settled, more stable more upright in my life. I also notice that I am able to make choices about my responses and actions that aren’t available to me when I am attempting to correct or manipulate myself out of my feelings. This is the real teaching of Buddhism. We settle the mind so that we are able to see our way past the opinions and ideas or stories about something and just welcome it in. Hurts are as welcome as joys. Feeling separated or apart from is given the same treatment as the sense of intimacy or connection. Anger and frustration loved and appreciated in the same way compassion and mudita (sympathetic joy) are.

Right now, I don’t want to like what I am feeling. I want to cure it. The problem is that this isn’t how life works. There is nothing to cure since there is no disease here. The real medicine is to completely surrender to my life. “Just this is it”. To love and honor myself is to love and honor things as it is.

Like a Lotus in Muddy Water, The Mind is Pure and Goes Beyond. Thus we bow to Buddha.

Sometimes there are things that happen in my life that offer me the opportunity to really see the causes and conditions of my life, and the way they influence and hook me. For me, practice is often the idea of looking deeply at what is happening, and I often don’t like what I find there. Then my practice is to sit still and allow it to pass without pushing it away or holding onto it.

One of the interesting things is that last part. The holding onto it. See there is safety in the familiar, in the habit formations, even when they are painful or difficult. It is easier for me to hold onto my insecurity and fears of loneliness because I feel somehow believe that there is safety in the monsters I know. I don’t know what will happen if I let these things pass through me. The issues on the other side may be too great, or even worse. So I will just stay here and play with the things I know.

Problem with this is, that you eventually see that it’s not really working. That even in these things I know, I am not really safe. They too go away, even when I try to cling to them. The more I practice the more difficult it is for me to fool myself into the idea of safety. But then what?

Thus we bow to Buddha