Monthly Archives: March 2010

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embedded home

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<–Previous: why I had to hate Jack…

The conclusion of that day is likely obvious to all of you: I don’t know Jack.  I was convinced that all my reactivity was related to the incompatibility of Westerners with the True-Pure-Real Burmese tradition of Buddhism.  Starting an hour before dawn, I began, inviting all the evidence that would support my Theory of Everything Wrong with Western Buddhism.  Instead, all the heartaches, all the sorrows began to come home.  My inner theatre filled with scenes from childhood: the pagoda I lived next to in Rangoon, the walking meditation around Shwedagon Pagoda with my grandmother, feeding the turtles in the pond at Botataung Pagoda, and then the wrenching leave-taking from Home.  For years I wrote to cousins and aunties and uncles in Burmese, desperate to keep up my written skills.  As the country closed down, they stopped replying.  I practice the letters now in my shodo art; they are symbols stripped of language but still evocative in their beauty.

Through the morning, the afternoon, the evening, I sat with pain of this loss.  Penetrating through the craving, I felt the emptiness.  And then as I felt a sense of helplessness to fill that space, Mara spoke.  Just go home; Jack does. Emotionally, I fell off my cushion!  Jack goes home… to my Home…  (Note bene: The many travels of the IMS teachers to Burma have been instrumental in bringing the dhamma to the West and has likely protected the root teachings from being lost in the political mess that is Burma.)

Suddenly, I remembered a fight with my cousin who had come to live with us because his family was in upheaval.  We were playing school and there was a blue pencil we both wanted.  We struggled and he stabbed me in the arm breaking off the lead in my flesh.  The pencil broke and he cried, “Why should you have it if I can’t have anything?”  This was the heart of my suffering in my encounters with Theravada in the West.

The discoloration from that lead is embedded in my arm to this day.  A piece of home.  I felt flooded with joy: Jack has his Sayadaws; I have this little piece of lead in my arm I now wouldn’t trade for all the gold on the Shwedagon!  It’s hard to believe that anger can be so transformative.  At one level, I truly regret harboring such deep negativity towards incredibly generous teachers.  Yet, that anger has fueled my persistence in my professional and personal life, protecting me from the feelings of isolation and despair.  For so many years, that anger continued to be fueled by many perceived rejections and injustices.  Like the bulbs and plants in my garden, it multiplied by splitting: You/me, us/them, mine/yours.  And these concepts are defined by what I objectify in my environment through a false sense of ownership.

In the Q&A on Day 6 of the Vietnam retreat, Thay offered his guidance to a young woman who wanted to conceive a child but had been unsuccessful.  We develop an attachment to one thing and it becomes the object of our attention.  We come to believe it is the only way to feel fulfilled, feel happy, feel at home.  I look around as his voice fills the meditation room.  The roses on the altar evoke memories of the rose garden at the Botataung house.  The incense brings me home to the pagodas.  The sound of the bells in the water fountain is the tinkle of the bells in the spires.  The ancestor’s altar is filled with pictures of my father, his mother (a devout Buddhist and minus cheroot), his father, my maternal grandmother (a devout Catholic), and Frank’s ancestors who struggled in the poverty of the Deep South.  I am embedded in my life right here.

Next: transparency of water

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me & jack kornfield

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Some time ago, I read this article to our sangha.  The original title was “Why I hated Jack Kornfield for 30 years so it could transform my life.”  It was meant to be a tongue-in-cheek explore of a question people frequently ask me: Why did you choose the Zen path instead of Theravada?  It’s a legitimate question given my roots in a Theravadin culture.  I had no ready answer simply because I didn’t know.  In fact, there is enough history from the Japanese occupation of Burma to make my choice of a Japanese Zen path problematic in my family.  The article, which will unfold over this week, is a slice of my practice over one Rohatsu period.  It’s just a fun exploration – albeit it had important insights for me in the end.  As a side note, it was interesting that some folks in sangha had trouble with the article.  Apparently it’s not Kool to Kick Kornfield… more accurately, it’s not cool to say one has difficulty with iconic and beloved teachers…  That may be a good topic for a future post!

How I hated Jack Kornfield for 30 years so I could transform my life

It’s 10 AM and I’ve already lapsed in my diligence for the day.  I have 7 days alone on this sacred farm I call Home: alone, in silence, filled with intentions to rise at dawn, sit zazen, listen to 7 days of talks recorded during the retreat offered by Thich Nhat Hanh in Vietnam.  So far, all I’ve managed is to rise at that point where guilt masquerades as discipline and the cats are becoming fierce in their demands.  It doesn’t matter, I say to myself.  When all has been lost, when all has been given to everyone else, what is there left but the heating of water, the steeping of tea, and the sound of the bell to bring me home.  I’m surprised by the depth of emotion I hear in that inner dialogue.

Heat water, steep tea, sit.  In sitting, I bring myself to that feeling of “home” and find there is a deep ache.  For years, I sat with that profound ache which was most painful when it manifested as confusion, irritation and even anger each time I read books by Jack Kornfield and other teachers in the Theravada tradition.  How could I feel such deep anger towards these teachers who were giving so much, who seemed so loving and gentle, who continued the roots of my culture?  All these qualities I knew were good nutriments for my ailing life yet, being fed at that table, they stuck in my throat, closed my heart.  It was a dharmic allergy to good food.  So, like most things that trigger shock, I tasted of it minimally.  Mostly, I stayed away seeking refuge instead in the teachings of Japanese roots of the dharma and finding solace in such sanghas.  Eventually, I found a form of safe haven in the Vietnamese tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh.

Thay’s tradition was close enough to my Burmese birthright and memories of practice.  And the food was just as good as grandma’s cooking.  But I was still left with a profound reactivity to good old Jack.  And there seemed no way to build up a tolerance.  I tried all the usual methods: inoculation irritated me; desensitization frustrated me; flooding triggered a defensive superiority.  Out of desperation, I even hauled myself off to a weekend retreat with Kornfield and Trudy Goodman.  I sat in front row, attentively following my breath.  It was Woodstock without the chemical high.

Growing increasingly frustrated, I chose one day to sit with these feelings and observe them closely.  After all, I knew it had nothing to do with Jack or Joe (Goldstein) or Sharon (Salzberg) or Sylvia (Boorstein) or Trudy (Goodman) or anybody (including many Western Theravadin monks and nuns) in that tradition.  I had been watered sufficiently by Thay’s teachings to see that we are all of each other and that the teachings of compassion are non-discriminatory.  But there seemed a powerful purpose in hating Jack and I vowed that for one day’s sitting it would be my dedicated and devotional practice.  It was Bodhi Day; and I made a date to truly see Mara – secretly expecting Jack to show up, of course.

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