Category Archives: Western Teachers

Teachers primarily of American and European cultures

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enso & the great things about buddhism

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There was a sangha I used to travel to every month for an all day session.  In Thich Nhat Hanh’s tradition it’s called a Day of Mindfulness.  It starts around 9:30 AM with a series of sitting and walking meditations.  Then there’s usually a dharma talk followed by lunch, a nap (total relaxation with snores) and an afternoon of sharing your experience of the day.  I met a number of good and kind people during those days which made the 4 hour round trip commute very worthwhile.

The search for community can be frustrating and filled with disappointments.  We take with us templates about personalities and patterns in the hopes that the “good fit” will happen with an audible CLICK.  Sometimes it does.  I’ve been lucky that way.  Except for one, the communities I’ve connected with have been warm and comforting.  If something didn’t work out, it was usually because of physical or philosophical distance and not dissent.  The one community I left because of feelings of discomfort was just odd: black clothing, no eye contact, no talking to each other, no standing around in the hallways, and (my personal favorite) no flicking your eyes in dokusan.

When the search brings us to a space that feels like we have found refuge it can be a tremendous joy.  My early days with my root sangha were exciting.  I felt filled with wonder and hopelessly curious about the Dharma.  That’s a capital-D-large-font-bold-italicized “Dharma”.  Having been recently released from the prison of academe, I was prepped to the teeth to tackle sutra studies, koans, dharma debates, and tea ceremonies.  I likely drove everyone nuts and it is a testament of their practice that I wasn’t sent to meditate in the snow in the hopes I would expire under a white mound or drown in Spring slush.

There were huge moments of growth.  Learning the practices: incense chants, touching the earth, sutra chants, tea ceremonies (yes, I got to do that!).  The Evening Chant and the Heart Sutra never fail to choke me up to this day.  I even took voice lessons so I could lead the sangha without defaulting to recitation.  There were also massive disappointments over the years.  Looking back from where I am now, I can see the clash of templates we all brought to the zendo.  I can understand all but one.  Some day I will get my head around it enough to write about that one.

Now, I lead a sangha with my partner.  We watch the interplay of newcomers with “regulars” and the clash of templates is ever so obvious.  We also watch our own expectations closely and weigh their value carefully.  Practitioners come and go.  We never hear why one way or the other.  It’s our own practice to not become hooked into their templates or become the outcome of their predictions about self and other.  We light the candles, ring the bells, serve the tea, and touch the earth in unison as best we can.

The search is an imperative in each of us.  It is fed by the longing to fall into that moment in that space with that being – and know it is all me.

I noticed in the stats of this blog that the most frequent search engine term used is “enso” and the least is “great things about Buddhism.”  Both terms brought people to this space in a moment of seeking.

So perhaps, I should offer something direct about the terms.

An enso is a circle drawn in one stroke, starting somewhere on a surface and ending wherever it does.  It is a path you trace that starts wherever you want it to and ends where you lift off into the air.  It can be open or closed.  It can be thick or thin.  It can be solid or spacious.  It is a mirror which reflects your true self and contains the ancestral history of your becoming.  It cannot be perfect or imperfect.  It is always complete.

One of the great things about Buddhism is tracing that path with your life, starting and finishing wherever you are, lifting off into boundlessness, open, closed, thick, thin, solid, spacious.  Neither defiled nor immaculate, neither increasing nor decreasing.  It is not perfect or imperfect.  It is always complete.

In short: An Enso is one of the great things about Buddhism.

You can also read Enso: Zen Circles of Enlightenment by Audrey Yoshiko Seo (see sidebar) or follow the tags for Kaz Tanahashi below.

Start each morning drawing an enso; it can be one of the great things about waking up.

Thank you for practising,

Genju

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zen and the art of telling a woman…

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… that being strong, smart, and funny is not a come-on.

This might be the flip side of yesterday’s post.  Or not.

A long time ago, just after DOS and before Google, I discovered and inhabited several message boards.  Some were putatively professional; all were mainly entertainment.  Those were exciting times of vitriolic flamings, on-line romances (none of which I partook) and the occasional useful discussion on the merits of catch-and-release on rainbow trout populations in Montana.  After one particularly vicious skirmish, I sought refuge with a psychologist colleague and tried to determine what I had done to provoke the imprecations about my sexual mores.  I wanted him to know under no uncertain terms that I had not, repeat had not, been acting in a way that could have been interpreted as sexual.  I was a lapsed Catholic, for goodness sake, who still practiced guilt fervently.  His response shocked me: “So what?”  So what?  “That’s right.  So what if you had been flirtatious or even – heavens – brazen?”

I did what I always do when I don’t like the direction a deconstruction is going.  I got a second opinion.  This one arrived from a friend who had witnessed the online exchanges.  The long and short of his explanation was that women who project a “strong, smart, funny” persona sometimes are seen as “seductive.”  (“Seductive” was not his word, by the way.)  It apparently has something to do with feeling emasculated if bested by a “girl” in an intellectual battle.  The upshot of it all is that it’s easier to cast aspersions on the female’s sexual morals than to say, “You’re wrong.  So there!”  I trusted his opinion because not only does he earn his living deconstructing language, he is the owner of an intellectually formidable male brain.

Thankfully, my online days ended soon thereafter and the issue became moot.  But over time, in the RL, I’ve learned to tread carefully as the “strong, smart, funny” persona elicits a very different response than the “i-need-help” or “i-need-rescuing.”  (For the record, I don’t have an “i-need-rescuing” persona; it’s more like “shut-up-and-listen-because-i’m-trying-to-drain-the-swamp” persona.)

Zen content:   Schireson describes Zen Women who don’t permit rescuing.  They face rejection after rejection from the Zen masters they approach hoping to be accepted as students.  They fight to be seen for who they are: strong, smart, funny – vibrant, devoted, and yes, even sexual.  They accept being sent home to care for family as part of their commitment to following the path.  And they return to the Zen master when they have met their familial obligations.  They didn’t beg, plead, offer their bodies or spirit to get their way; they neither asked for help nor needed to be rescued from injustice by anyone.  Not only could they “not afford to take (perceived or actual) inequity personally,” they had to “let go of (their) demand that Buddhism meet (their) needs perfectly.”

Strength of practice is in not letting actions or judgments of others direct the way we want to be in relationship.  Buddhism as a practice of the relational enhances the dynamic tension between the “strong, smart, funny” and the “i-need-help” aspects of self. That’s a mouthful of a sentence.  Simply put: our commitment to save all beings has us sensitive to “help-me-rescue-me” vibes.  If unaware of this tendency, we can and will fall prey to bolstering our own value through the vulnerability of the Other.  And we will miss the power of relating through the strong, smart, funny nature we share.

“Strong, smart, funny” says we’re in charge of our own way of being, open to a boundless relating.

It’s not a come-on.

It’s an invitation to the Other to meet as an equal.



Thank you for practising,

Genju