Tag Archives: practice

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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 man…

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…he’s a really good friend.

There has been a confluence of blog posts in the last few days that have me wondering if my practice has turned me into a buddhablob.  It started with Nate’s post Happy Bodhi Day 2009 on Precious Metal and that darned cute picture of a bodhi-mas tree.  I got all warm and fuzzy thinking about how special it was for him.  That should have been the first sign of impending disaster: as sincere as my wishes to Nate are, I’m not the warm and fuzzy type.  Never mind those Beanie Babies on my bookshelf; they are leftovers from the days I thought I would be able to finance my daughter’s education by hoarding BB’s and selling them on Ebay.  After the Great Beanie Crash of ’99, I switched back to unicorns – if you think they’re cute, you’ve never seen what a unicorn horn can do to protect a virgin.

Then there was John’s post on Orc-Sex.  Whatever merit I had accrued from my practice over the last 10 years got sacrificed faster than anyone can Google kama sutra. I hit ‘publish comment’ and then read my comment – some people reverse letters, I go one better.  There She was.  I must admit, I’ve missed me: that Me who had an opinion, who leapt fearlessly if somewhat stupidly into a fray, who rarely let a bunch of gentleman-folk talking about sex, drink and fly fishing (or visualizations) stop her from joining in, who gets really perplexed by the weird reaction when she sends a letter that says “Dear Joe, I want you to know I’ve always treasured our friendship…”

I can thank Barry from Ox Herding for the insight that I can blame my gender-blindness and its consequences on not being held enough as a child.  And on growing up with 5 boys (cousins) and one older brother.  Which is why I have not figured out that men think differently from women about relationships.

Don’t get me wrong: it’s not like I’ve had an indulgence of men falling for me.  Hell, there are a number of women who shall go nameless who now have all the men I didn’t even know I was meant to love and leave.  So when a guy comes along who becomes a good buddy… and I really did treasure his friendship… when he says “let’s go fly fishing,” how was I to know … (Note to Self: G-rated blog; stop before you have to say you’re sorry!)

It occurs to me that in getting past the wormy confusion of misconstrued exchanges, I may have taken this practice of “mindful living” a bit to far.  Don’t get me wrong (again): I hate that cutesy, flower child speak I hear that passes for loving kindness or conflict avoidance that passes for consensus.  But when did equanimity become a refusal to engage in relationships that are edgy, challenging, and meaningful in ways that I don’t think uni-gendered relationships can be?

It’s tough being a gender-blind female in a world that is relationally bimodal by gender.  Whether assimilated or segregated, you become outcast to some aspect of the relational.  Schireson makes that point really clear in Zen Women.  Early “female Zen masters” are portrayed in the same image and idiom as male Zen masters, as chang-fu – manly men.  Assimilated into the male, they have no relational markers of being female; even Schireson fails to find the female version of Zen “master” other than to use the male term and avoid using its antonym, “mistress.”  Where they aren’t chang-fu but segregated in their female role, women who became fully realized in their Zen practice have complicated, entangled lives riddled with misconstrued relationships to self and (usually male) Others. It’s enough to make a grown woman cry.

I enjoyed Kyle’s post on the Reformed Buddhist and though it was all in good fun, it made me wonder if, in building meaningful sanghas, we’re doomed to end up with smoking rooms and sewing circles (notwithstanding or perhaps thankfully for the Lady Lamas).

The secret to the Zen art of telling a man he’s a good friend lies deep in the watery cave of the Nagas.  It’s the esoteric last verse of the Prajnaparamita: form cannot be sacrificed for interbeing.  So, before I convince myself that the Buddha had it right when he separated male and female disciples because otherwise it just would have been a (t)horny mess, I think I’ll take up fly fishing again.

Thank you for practising,

Genju