Tag Archives: zen women

women ancestors

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Today is International Women’s Day. A heartwarmed cheer to all of you who take the time to share your insights!  May you feel honoured today as you so deserve!

Over the weekend, I have been reflecting on the various women in my life who have influenced – some only by nefarious comparison – not only my choices but also my way of being.  Growing up equally willing to climb trees and play with dolls, I never really thought of gender as a defining aspect of my life.  Some time in my educational path, someone pointed out that my unresolved feelings towards my mother underlay my love of all things unconventional for females.  “There are things unconventional for females?” I asked.  “Whoddathunk.”

But seriously.  I admit a penchant for strong, uncompromising women.  Coming from a matriarchal lineage of such types, it is not surprising that my first role model was a professor called the “Tasmanian Devil.”  Others have been equally powerful and relentless in their determination to stand up for their values and never apologize for their standards.  If all this sounds too harsh, I’ll freely admit, it can be and has been.  I learned many lessons at their feet; some I’ve modified a tad because apparently, it’s not de rigeur to bring grown men to tears, even in the cause of saving the world. For the most part, I feel a measure of success in taking what was good in their teachings.

I also feel a measure of failure.  There are still times when I desire community so much I will sacrifice common sense.  Times when exclusionary tactics trigger a cloying “oh please let me in.”  Times when I want to be that limpet in the front row, sighing at the dharma teacher, exuding “save me!”  In a recent email exchange with a Zen Woman, I was asked pointedly if I really did not desire “the Good Daddy” to make this spiritual path “all better.”  The truth?  I don’t anymore – if I ever did.  Certainly, I’ve been caught in the games of emotional vampires who demanded adoration in exchange for protection, who baited the hook of their needs with morsels of dharma.  And, I’m proud of the scars left from tearing out the hooks they embedded deep in my being.

So, on this one day of honouring my women ancestors, I remember some of the most important teachings.

I am not just this bent and sometimes broken creature,who can only be saved through dependence and subversion.

I am more than any one person can see through their own needs.

I am strength beyond words, weakness beyond cries, concepts extinguished so absolutely that I can only be met in a gaze that sears all guile.

As are you.

So, on this day of honouring my women ancestors, I invite you~

To walk away from all that keeps you too small for your world.

To see yourself as beyond labels and injunctions.

To take what is truly you, in all its power and surrender, and throw it into the face of what holds you back.

To know that you are not the first to be told you will be someone’s saviour, someone’s salvation, someone’s cause – even if you are in this one instance.

To see that refusing to be a Saviour, bring Salvation, be a Cause, is to keep yourself for what is far more challenging: an honest relationship.

To understand that turning away from sainthood is turning towards your humanity.

To be wary of anything that elevates you up from the solid ground into which your roots are driven.

To be open to all things that make your eyes widen with awe and wonder – especially if it’s your reflection in the clarity of your actions.

To be your own best friend, lover, and partner to the last moments of that marathon, that walk, that day, that breath.

Thank you for practicing,

Genju

both hands clapping

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In all this chasing after concepts of emptiness, it’s easy to lose sight of the essentials.

“Old Lady O-San” was an enlightened student of Zen master Tetsumon.  She was later tested by Hakuin who posed the koan about one hand clapping.  Ever the pragmatist she replied:

Rather than listen
to Hakuin’s sound
of one hand clapping,
clap both hands
and do business!

from Zen Antics: 100 Stories of Enlightenment transl. & ed. by Thomas Cleary

Shall we get on with our lives?  What needs two hands to grasp, hold, hug, support?

Be kind, be sweet, take a stand, get grouchy, and if he’s not available go for dopey – he’s always been my favourite anyway.

See the universe through the reeds, the forest through the trees.

Thank you for practicing,

Genju

back in the igloo

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Well!

I certainly did not expect this to greet me on my return from far away places.

Best Buddhist Women Bloggers of 2009

I’m quite speechless.

Of course, thankfully, that was a brief moment of aphasia before John Pappas, intrepid householder practitioner, threw up this challenge:  Vote for the Hottest Male Buddhist Blogger.

Now, I’m fascinated.  Do I smell a cultural reversal?  Not that I’m complaining, mind you.  Other than a lack of …ahem…. “life-seasoned” bloggers, that’s a nice collection of  … er… intelligent young men.  My daughter might have been proud to partake in the poll if she wasn’t busy riding wild ponies in New Zealand.

And there are interesting statistics unfolding.  Within minutes of John’s Hottest Male post, the views soared to 302 with 11 comments.  The Women Buddhist Bloggers?  Interestingly, 73 views and 2 comments (as at 1343 today).  So, it would seem that even when we (playfully) objectify the men (karmic payback?) and extoll the intellect of the women, something doesn’t fire up the engines.  Sadly, I wonder what the numbers would have been if John had done a “Vote for The Buddhist Hottie Blogger of 2009″ and linked it to Bitterroot Badgers’ self-portrait.  I’m willing to bet without mention of gender, the clicks would have melted laptops everywhere and expectations would have been trashed (Sorry, BBBB!  It’s an instrumental exploitation of your cute mug!)

Well, I’m glad The Dalai Grandma lead our pack.  We need some sane, steady Wise Women at the helm. I’m proud to be supported by and surrounded by the women in my life who have the strong back and soft front of practice.

In all seriousness (as much as I can muster):  Thank you, John, for your consistent support of everyone without discrimination or preference.  Zen Dust, Zen Dirt is an important vehicle for householder practitioners.  You do a great job being in service – and isn’t being in service the true intent of practice.


I leave you all, on this snowy day, with a piece of poem Hawthorn by David Whyte:

Our pilgrim journey
apart or together,
like
the thirst
of everything
to find its true form,
the grain of the wood
around the hatched knot
still
straightening
toward the light.

Thank you practicing,

Genju

enso & mu

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We end the week of enso traces in Enso: Zen Circles of Enlightenment with No. 55 Mu by Kojima Kendo who was one of the leading Soto Zen female monastics of the 2oth century.  She was 97 and in the last year of her life when she traced her Mu Enso.  The calligraphy combined the enso and the regular script for mu off-set to create white space for the mind to fall into.   Kojima Kendo dedicated her life to social service and creating equity of practice opportunities among monks and nuns.  In her time as abbess, she fought for moral and financial support of the order of nuns whose ordinations and transmissions were not recognized.  Sadly, not too much different from today.

In preparation for my precepts ceremony, jukai, at Upaya Zen Center, I became engrossed by the matriarch lineage I had to prepare.  The penetrating influence of Dragon Lady teachers like Roshi Joan Halifax and Sensei Beate Stolte intensifies the strength of being Zen Women.  Daily, I practised Kojima Kendo’s Mu Enso, starting first in the tradition of calligraphy students by copying it as faithfully as I could.

But mu and enso don’t lend themselves to being borrowed.  Eventually, Kojima Kendo’s playful and energetic enso gave way and set mine free to be just what it is.

Of course, no enso practice is complete without a bow to the ultimate process enso: the Ox Herding Pictures.  For that I defer to my dear dharma friend & a quietly irreverent teacher, Barry Briggs at Ox Herding who has challenged my no-mind since I entered this virtual realm.

I would also encourage reading John Daido Loori’s teachings in Riding the Ox Home:

Thank you for practising,

Genju