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intimate, pure, and joyful – a review of This Truth Never Fails

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This Truth Never Fails: a Zen memoir in four seasons by David Rynick does not fail to bring the heart of Zen practice home.  Rynick, a Zen teacher and Life Coach, offers his lived experience of Zen in delightfully intimate detail and in a manner that dissolves the bewildering, misleading myths of Zen practice.  With the ever-constant changing of the seasons as a guide, Rynick takes us on a journey, bearing witness to the simplicity and elegance of the every day, the moment in hand, the singular and unique breath.  The lessons we learn are not only about waking up and choosing which self we will wear for the day.  They are about joining with Summer’s aliveness, Autumn’s release, Winter’s hope, and Spring’s re-birth.  At its core, Rynick’s teachings in the book, like the truth of practice, the essence of Zen, show us that it is all here, effortlessly gifted.

It is a sweet, quiet set of teachings and you can read a chapter here.  But there is something more important than what is held between the pliable front and back of this book.  I am of the firm belief that anyone can write a book.  Truly.  However, the real teaching is not in what we write but in the courage to let those words reflect the truth of our life.  Most of us tend to shy from conveying the intimate truth of our life and lean towards crafting this or that image.  We can’t help but live in our readers’ minds, seeking not-so-subtly to manipulate who we are in the folds of their brain.  The power of this particular book is that David (and I feel free to be so familiar) writes without such guile, unassuming and unpretentious.  It is something I hope for as the way of Zen: intimate, pure, and joyful.

In the interests of full disclosure, I should tell you I’ve experienced David as both teacher and coach.  I met David Rynick several years ago when I attended my very first sesshin at Boundless Way – it might even have been when Boundless Way was only on its way to being such.   David’s spouse, the ever amazing Melissa Blacker (now Roshi), had trained me in MBSR and was my first (and so far only) koan teacher.  I had never met David until that sesshin in Worcester and our dokusan brought a massive shift in how I engage in relationships.  But life swept me in other directions and yet I carried always their generous teachings and this one vision of a snow-covered, emerald-leaved rhododendron framed in the window of the zendo.  Living in a climate where rhododendron didn’t survive winters this image remained a heart-filling paradox of relationships and the adaptation and equanimity they demand of us.

About six months ago, David and I met through our respective blogs.  The universe is fascinating and somewhere there is Bodhisattva laughing.   I read an early draft of his book and set it aside as David and I began a coaching journey that has brought together some powerful threads which weave together authenticity and intimate truths.  These are powerful lessons that animate my life, breathe awareness into it, and hold my feet to the fire when I think I can slide off the track.  In fact, much of what you’ve read on this blog in the last six months has come out of the direct influence of our coaching sessions that teach me to always come into alignment with my own intimate truth.

Coach or Zen teacher, David’s own authenticity is evident in his connection and as a result is found in every chapter of This Truth Never Fails where he brings to the fore a comfort with the everyday connections we live.  He is likely one of the few practitioners who can write as passionately of the “View from My New Toilet” as he does “Remembering” that joy is in the everyday things like the handle of his coffee cup.  There is honesty in the opening lines of each chapter which are typically about waking up (what a metaphor!), poking through the clouds of worry, or relishing in a moment’s surprise of “Being Myself.”

My favourite quote somewhat predictably is in the chapter, Being Myself,  where he writes:

The rhododendron is rhododendroning – that is all it knows how to do.

I am like this too – I am David and I am Daviding.
Without thinking, my cells and my internal organs, my fingers and my brain, all know what to do.

If I understand the teachings, this “selfing” is the “mysterious truth of the Buddha.”  This is the truth that never fails: “in every moment and every place, things can’t help but shine with this light*” of who and what we truly are.

_____________________

*Torei Enji

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Kornfield brings home the dharma

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Jack Kornfield has written the book I’ve been waiting for.  The self-centeredness of that sentence probably is a good clue that I need the wisdom in his new book, now more than ever.  Bringing Home the Dharma, available from Shambhala Publications is a jewel and – if you’re into expectations of ever-increasing levels of insight – a worthy follow-up to his previous in-depth exploration of Buddhist concepts, The Wise Heart.  

One of the first things that impressed me in Bringing Home the Dharma is that it is not a recap or re-configured version of all his previous writings.  Sometimes teachers tend to re-package – and sometimes shamelessly – their words and ideas which truly diminishes the trust we have in their own growth.  Kornfield however has taken the droplets of dharma rain, collected them in little cups, and flavoured them with his own spiritual maturity.   They are offered to the reader, chapter by chapter, and when sipped with mindful attention to the subtle flavour, these moments are refreshingly honest examinations of practice.

He starts with the practice of mindfulness “as fearless presence.”  This is important because too often I find myself feeling very much the embodiment of the Cowardly Lion(ness) or just a nincompoop on a zafu.  “(Mindfulness) lets experience be the teacher.”  In one sentence, Kornfield erases the self-denigration that arises about  the experience and restores our lived experience to its rightful place as guide and mentor.  He describes the diligence necessary (yes, there is effort required) and the cultivation of awareness as something that “sits on our shoulder” respectfully noting the passing sensations.  

More important, Kornfield does not shy away from the shadow side of awareness (or any of the other skills we cultivate in practice).  He names them with such emphasis that we can no longer fool ourselves about the authenticity of our meditative or any other practice experience.  In fact, my favourite chapter, and one which I will return to over and over again, is Perils, Promises, and Spiritual Emergency on the Path.  There are explanations and revelations in that chapter about the side effects of meditation, the traps for the ego, and what in Zen we call “Zen sickness.”  I could feel frustrated as I think back to all those I have asked about these experiences and from whom I got some vague reply or a sense that I was somehow lacking.  But now feeling validated that my gut instinct said these experiences were a detour from practice makes up for it.  

Unfortunately (or not), the next two chapters on the near enemies of awakening and the bodhisattva way are not as luminous.  The concepts are not as well articulated and the writing tends to wander a bit.  There is almost a sense of trying to do too much, trying to integrate too many approaches to the Dharma so we can each, in our varied “yanas’  identify with the book as a whole.  But somehow I didn’t feel negatively about it; likely proof that the earlier chapters transformed my usual tendency to throw the whole index out with the disappointing chapters.  Regardless, Kornfield picks up the tight writing and confident pace for the rest of the book.  

The over-arching style of the book is a willingness, a generosity in imparting what he calls a “mandala of skillful means” to wakening.  You can’t ask for more from a teacher who has met his own demons, shares that experience openly, and who – based on the last two chapters – appears to be embarking on a new journey of guiding the emerging Buddhayana in the West.  I’m not sure I’m ready for all this consolidation and integration of various streams into one massive river; it feels too risky.  But the confidence and enthusiasm that Kornfield exudes in the final chapters at least has me curious and watching with awareness on my shoulder noting it all respectfully.

Over this week, I’ll post a few snippets and reflections from Bringing Home the Dharma by Jack Kornfield.