Category Archives: reflections

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compost 2

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This life of practice is challenging.  The almost three weeks we spent away from home and garden had serious consequences.  As you can see the lettuce has “shot” – I’ve never seen lettuce flowers; they’re very cute.  The tomatoes succumbed to the heavy rains and intense heat; we’ll be lucky to get a dozen or so from the boxes.  We got one meal of green beans and yellow squash.  The bean plants and two baseball bat-sized squash are destined for the compost pile.

The other types of squash however are running rampant.

I’d planted spaghetti and crookneck squash which didn’t seem to have taken before we left.  And here they are shoving around the roses.

I love an orderly life – I love an orderly garden which to me is external proof of an equally orderly internal environment.  Apparently, my desires are not on the agenda this go around.  Or perhaps, it’s a clear message that my internal life needs a Master Gardener.

Practice sends me the same message.  I tend to get very organized and obsessive about making it pretty.  And then, some part of life takes me away and what was once pretty becomes wild and unruly.  Or it becomes a psychological bully that insists everyone’s way has to give way to my Way.  That’s the time when two really important practices come into play – both in gardening and the guck stuff.

Let go.  Order is subtle.  Things tend to follow a path that isn’t immediately evident.

Compost.  Everything gets 10, 000 chances.

When I first starting sitting, order had to be forced out of chaos – in the room, in the mind, in the body.  I haven’t quite let go of my need for order.  I’m just not as ruthless about it, I hope.  At the same time, the discipline grows out of skilfully illuminating each so that the other comes into relief.

I mentioned to Carole at ZenDotStudio that I’ve never been successful at composting.  That’s true in a gardening way; it’s also true in a practice way.  Managing impatience for change and a desire for permanence is tricky.  And when they sit on that cushion with me, it gets crowded and precarious.  So I’m learning how to prune away what isn’t necessary in this moment, what has yielded its fruit, what has shot to flower.  These go in a pile for the worms and bacteria to transform.  They are more powerful and skillful at that than I.

Thank you for practising,

Genju

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destructive behaviour and the collusion of communities

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108 Zen Books publishes once a day as a form of practice.  If there is something significant that shakes the ground of practice, I feel it important to put out another post.  The fragility of our world of practice was brought into clear focus last week with the resignation of Eido Shimano following decades of unresolved suffering caused by his sexual liasons with students in the Zen Studies Society.

This morning, I read one of the most lucid, compassionate yet fearless commentaries on the issue by Barry Briggs of Ox Herding. I have developed a fond respect for Barry’s teaching over this year of blogging. Today, I bow deeply to his strength of practice and devotion to the Dharma. You can read Barry’s commentary here.

Each time I read and hear of teachers engaging in sexual activities that cause such deep and profound damage (suffering just isn’t a sufficient word), I am enraged.  And sadly, I have learned through my own attempts to intervene and call organizations to account for exploitative behaviours by their teachers that a lone voice will not suffice. What I’ve learned from the Shimano debacle also is the amount of time it takes when organizations close in and become partners in the abuse.  Decades.  That, perhaps, is the greater travesty: not the actions of the man but the cowardliness of the community.  But we are frail and need our structures to protect us even if those structures are only reflections of our rotted beams and foundations.

I want to add something here that might get forgotten in such frays.  Sexual relationships with teachers are not for the good of the student.  Emotional relationships with teachers are not for the good of the student.  They are exploitations of vulnerabilities.  If you suspect you are in such a relationship, do not be ashamed.  Seek help.  Expect not to be believed because of the inherent blindness of the organization.  Then, keep seeking help until you are heard.

(Post-drive to work edit: If you are a community member and especially if you are someone in a position of some authority who receives information of boundary violations: Please listen.  Please see the trust under the distress.)

Please practice,

Genju