Tag Archives: Joan Halifax

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a mandala of precepts

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from my notes on the talk on precepts by Roshi Joan Halifax:

In the practice of Buddhism, the context of moral authority is  transmitted through a dharma mandala of Theravada, Mahayana, and Buddhayana.  The Theravada teachings provide a literal perspective that connects action to consequences, cause and effect.  The Mahayana lens enters the realm of interconnectedness.  Suffering is shared and therefore compassion is generated for the liberation of all beings.  The Buddhayana lens is the boundless mind, encompassing not just all beings but all concepts and visions of the path, lifting desire away from outcome.  Thus, moral authority resides in the integration of action, interconnection, and casting the net of compassion wide.

The guiding principles of such moral authority are manifested in three dimensions: inner, outer, and interactive.  The inner source of moral authority arises from a singular precept: regulation of one’s mental continuum.  This coolness and peacefulness prepares the ground to “pull aside the curtain that makes our ethos less visible to us.”  That is, a solid stance taken on stable ground increases the likelihood of seeing what is present, unclouded by preferences, conditioning and cultural bias.  By taking on the precepts, we clarify our intentions, direct our motivation and center our aspiration.  It makes conscious our intention and holds up to scrutiny the rationale for doing what we are doing.  These are also ego-taming precepts that regulate the psychological domain and mitigate the effects of anger, addictive behaviours, and preferential judgments.

The external source of moral authority is evident in the behavioural manifestation of what it means to be a good person within our social order and the congruence with cultural expectations of gender, age, and faith.  These behaviours do not and cannot exist in a vacuum, free of the changing expectations of women, men, and children of any generation.  It is within this crucible that the precepts of realization form and generate our awakening.

The practical source of our moral authority arises from the interaction with the world.  Like the external source of our development, they are consequentially-based and context-driven.  Actions congruent with one community may be incongruent or misperceived in another.  The demands of living this precept requires a relinquishing of fixed knowledge and entering a “not-knowing.”  Within this context, bearing witness provides that context-based way of engaging and compassionate action can be sensitive to the sacred language of the community.

The world as I experience it remains cold to the concept of practice that arises from precepts.  It is enamored of situational ethics and moral ambiguity.  As I reflect on the many scenarios of my personal and professional life, I am suddenly aware that we spend a lot of time negotiating around and from that place of outer and practical precepts but rarely spend time learning of the other’s inner precepts.  Yet, it is these inner precepts that allow us the flexibility and clarity to develop the other two and engage wisely with our community.

Thank you for practicing,

Genju

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joyful openness of the heart

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I’m torn between continuing with Katagiri’s books and using this week to bring forward the words of women zen teachers.  It’s one of those conundrums (not a koan, just a conundrum) one encounters, I suppose, in trying to find tasty nuggets of teachings that are immediate in their impact, emotionally and culturally.  In the end, it was an academic exercise because, I was somewhat chagrined to discover, I don’t have many Zen Women on my shelves!  Joko Beck, Joan Halifax, Maurine Stuart, Diane Eshin Rizzetto and Grace Schireson.  That’s it.  This calls for more mindful consumption at my local bookstores for Zen Women writers, not because I think there are better teachings to be had but because I wonder if some challenges in practice would benefit from teachers who are intimate with the conditioned female self.


In reading Katagiri’s book You Have to Say Something, I fell into the chapter titled Opening your heart which lead to certain considerations.

For anyone living a spiritual life, the most important practice is openheartedness.  But dealing with life with compassion and kindness is not easy.  We tend live in terms of “me.”  But if you’re interested in the spiritual life, you will have to consider more than just yourself.

This is a challenge not just because of the self-protectiveness we train to deal with a lifetime of disappointments but because opening to others includes a willingness to be vulnerable to the consequences of their actions.  There’s another part to this that is the cultural baggage of being female: I’m constantly told I have to consider more than just myself.  It might be related to my generation but the roll call of all the women I work with says, perhaps not.  It feels like a conundrum: realizing a spiritual life means not only risking hurt but also could continue to foster a gender myth of willing self-sacrifice.  At the same time, if there’s an element of truth in the myth (as there often is), sacrifice should come easy.  It doesn’t and I think it goes back to the willingness to experience the vulnerability of opening the heart.

At the beginning of a retreat, Roshi Joan Halifax commented that she had heard that evening so many stories of hurt, of “being dropped from arms that should have caught (us).”  Joko Beck writes in Nothing Special,

…I am struck that the first layer we encounter in sitting practice is our feeling of being a victim – our feeling that we have been sacrificed to others.  We have been sacrificed to others’ greed, anger, and ignorance, to their lack of knowledge of who they are.

In practice we become aware of having been sacrificed, and we are upset about this fact.  We feel that we have been hurt, that we have been misused, that somebody has not treated us the way we should have been treated – and this is true.  Though inevitable, it’s still true, and it hurts, or seems to.

Though inevitable. It’s taken me a long time to understand it is inevitable; careening off each other will bring an unavoidable hurt as much as it will an ineffable joy.  Beck goes on to write of practice as acknowledging that we have been sacrificed and cultivating our awareness of the need to retaliate, to react.  And then, to see how we too sacrifice others on the altar of our desires.  This is where the openness is crucial: seeing our own willingness to sacrifice others and yet, and yet, to not do so because that is the only means of ending the cycle.  The willingness to make a sacrifice whose intent is the end of suffering is not perpetuating victimhood but ending it.  In fact, it strengthens the heart so it can stand up to and speak out against abuse in all its forms of rejection, unrealistic demands, and neglect.

The first dharma name given to me was Joyful Openness of the Heart. I was not wrong to see the conundrum-not-koan in it.

Thank you for practicing,

Genju