This is part two of my “Zen Testimonial,” composed of prose and poetry I wrote between 1995 and 2005 – starting just before I got involved in Zen practice and stretching over ten years. See Episode 342 for the first part.
Journal entries and correspondence have dates, and I have interspersed poems I wrote between 1998 and 2004 wherever they seemed appropriate, and I briefly mention some significant events in my life as we proceed through time if they aren’t described in the writings.
Just a warning: I do speak a little about suicidality, but I also speak about how I moved through such thoughts and left them behind. If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts, I encourage you to seek support. Hang on, it’s worth it.
Content:
June 2nd, 1998, email to a friend
Poem: RESURRECTION
March 22nd, 1999, Article for the Zen Center newsletter (Allowing the Ceremony to be the Voice of the Buddha)
Poem: THE GOOD STUFF
January 27th, 2002, email to a friend
Poem: ASPIRATIONS
March 8th, 2005, Journal Entry
Poem: ENCOURAGEMENT
Poem: ABSORPTION
Conclusion
Poem: TRUTH ROARS
Spring 1998: Moved to Zen Center, to finish writing master’s thesis there
June 2nd, 1998, email to a friend:
I am tumbling through my days. I must forsake the idea that The Path is a good one only if I am happy and at peace while on it. On the contrary, my heart is troubled, my ego quakes, my eyes rest on the hatefulness in my own character. Onward I go, slowly, grudgingly, giving up ideals and glib optimism for a realization that there is a terrible, ceaseless gnawing in my heart and a wall between me and intimacy with the Buddhas and the flowers and the slugs and myself. This is what spurs me on, keeps me awake, fuels the fire.
And yet, more and more, I see there is nothing to be gained, no end to this samsara. Lay or monk, realized or ignorant, disciplined or hedonist, we are all dying. Not even a moment can be held; I never see myself, I never get anything worked out, I never GET THERE. The words of the Buddhist scriptures become more and more personal; nothing need be added to them. I thought I lived from the heart, and I find myself tangled in a web of intellectualizations. I thought I was generous and loving, and I find myself playing an over-sweetened role while my mind pronounces heartless, vicious judgement on the world. I thought I was strong and independent, and I find that my goals and motivations are like stagnant water, reflecting the strongest images I find around me. I thought I was courageous, and I find myself shrinking back, wanting desperately for someone in authority to tell me I am right. I thought I was virtuous, and I find my self-discipline mocked as heartless, ignorant, useless folly.
Don’t tell me that these things should not upset me, that they are common aspects of every human life. That is not the issue; there are no answers in taking refuge in the fact that you are similar to others. I must face the dissatisfaction in my own heart, let it overwhelm me, let it cover me with its stench, let it confuse and confound me. I cannot find my voice. I cannot say. The birds sing to me, their own sweet, pure and complete songs, and I am tongue tied, cannot answer them, cannot find a way to move with imitating, grasping. I am a complete fraud.
One can never be certain of the future, only of one’s next step and of one’s choice of direction. Of that, I have great certainty. My path leads directly to monkhood and the great death. This is no game. This is no hobby. This is life itself, the sweet strawberry on the vine, a tiger above and a tiger below.
—
Ah, hah, my dear! This is a second message. If you haven’t read the first, go back and do so, for the difference between that message and this will probably give you a good chuckle. I held off on sending the first for a day, to think about why I was sending it and absorb what I said in it. Well, I never figured out why I should send it, but I did. But that intervening day!
I sat this evening, alone in my office at school, my zafu on a sleeping pad I keep stashed under my desk. And as I sat, I remembered something. Something key, something absolutely essential, something so obvious, it made me laugh out loud when I remembered it, something I have known in the past but apparently forgotten. What was it? JUST SIT. Hah! So funny, I do it so rarely. I am always striving, figuring, seeking. I don’t realize it, usually, but I am. Dissatisfied, desperate, in pain, I sit driven by my passionate aspiration – or else I fall asleep. Without a passionate cause, I am like a deflated balloon. Without something to clean, purify, DO, I don’t know what to do with myself. And so, I strive, and by taking something with me into meditation, I miss the THING I am seeking. But this is fruitless; the ancestors truly meant it when they said JUST SIT. The truth will appear naturally. This is tricky, though, for that just sitting is not a passive thing, it is not in the mind, it is not chilling out in a lazy fashion until one’s inner child pops up out of nowhere with the answer. In the very end of grasping lies the answer. Ah, so difficult and yet so easy. And when all one must do is sit, when one really, truly sees that one must simply sit, the suffering dissipates!
RESURRECTION
When you are tempted, remember
the very real night
you sought refuge
in the fantasy of suicide, the sweet solace
of arranging everything and writing
a sincere note of apology, the climactic
satisfaction of committing your last act
in a desperate bid –
and then remember
the mute and unsophisticated will to live
that appeared like a phoenix
among the ashes – determined
and willing
(and it wasn’t because you discovered some fragile optimism.
no.
it was because,
if you didn’t dedicate your life to the effort,
you would wander back to that hell realm again
and again
and again,
seeking in death
a shortcut to peace,
and there are no shortcuts.)
March 22nd, 1999, Article for the Zen Center newsletter:
Allowing the Ceremony to be the Voice of the Buddha
Three years in the past, completely new to practice, entering sesshin for the very first time. This is utterly unlike anything I have ever encountered before, let alone anything in which I have participated. What goes on within the four unassuming walls of this little temple building – it could have escaped my attention for my entire life! People – calm, generous people that seem to have a great reserve of strength and compassion – robes, candles, incense, bowing mats, bald heads, silence, respect, reverence for the moment and for the carrots and brooms and moss and pots and those annoying people that sniffle all through sitting…(oops!)
But this is Daijukai. In the evenings, if they aren’t insisting we sit still until our knees are screaming, they are roping us into ceremonies! I can explain the other parts of this complicated yet simple practice to my friends and significant other, “when you remove yourself from the hustle and bustle, you can see things more clearly, and it inspires change” or “when you pay mindful attention to things, you miss less and can enjoy life more.” But this? As I allow the peer pressure to push me into action, slowly chanting “Na-mu Sha-kya-mun-i Bu-tsu” over and over and over, plodding slowly along in line with the others like some kind of mindless automaton through a spooky maze of candles and abbots, I imagine my friends and family looking on. Self-consciousness arises strongly; a small part of me even feels somewhat violated: it is one thing to talk, sit and leave, but quite another when I am asked to move my body into this space, a space I know absolutely nothing about!
But I work on this resistance as I walk. Then, the last abbot’s jisha recites the contrition verse just… for… me! I gasp as tears start flowing out of my eyes. It is as if someone has punched a hole in my wall. Just one hole, but I can see other parts threatening to crumble, too. These people don’t even know me! I am resisting and judging their kooky ceremony, and yet they entrust me with participation, just as they are going to entrust me with the Buddha’s precepts in a few short days. Such open-handed compassion makes me feel like a vulnerable, trembling child – but a safe and fortunate vulnerable, trembling child. How did they know what I needed?
A few weeks in the past, somewhat less new to practice, entering sesshin for the thirteenth or fourteenth time. Zazen fills the day. Monkey mind dances around the edges, but her chattering is a dull buzz. I try to keep silence in my own head, repeating one piece of advice to myself: Sit like an idiot, walk across the street like an idiot, chop vegetables like an idiot, sleep like an idiot, put on the robe like an idiot, open the door like an idiot…
And start chanting “Na-mu Sha-kya-mun-i Bu-tsu” like an idiot. It makes it much easier that I have been to this space many times before. Someday, I suppose I will not even think about how I feel, or write any articles about it, but my practice is young enough that a few times throughout the ceremony I remember how I felt last time, and compare. Where is the self-consciousness? My friends and family have lost interest in looking on, but if they did, I would bow to them and smile, not even trying to explain, and then keep right on chanting. Where is my sense of separateness? This is my family. I own these ceremonies with them. Where is my sense of unworthiness? Ah, being worthy is not the same as being perfect. And where is my sense of physical resistance? The mind has strained and struggled at the door to samadhi so many times, and finally has given up and backtracked in order to bring the body along, too – hah! As if the inside of the cup could hold the Dharma without the outside of the cup!
Expecting nothing from the ceremony, putting nothing into the ceremony, without conceptualizing the ceremony, without judging the ceremony, I nevertheless try very, very hard to be present for the ceremony. And then! The Ino’s sweet, clear, compassionate voice rings out for each participant, “Om to the one who leaps beyond all fe-ar!” Chills run down my spine, and tears start streaming down my face. She sings for me! She sings for each one of the people here, some of whom I know are feeling like vulnerable, trembling children inside. And then I realize that for a moment – just a moment – I heard a voice that was not my own. It was not my chattering monkey mind, it was not one of my ideals constructing reality for the self. I didn’t make this up! Allowing the ceremony to be, my faith is powerfully deepened that I am not alone in the universe.
THE GOOD STUFF
Somewhere along the line I got the idea
that there are “winners” and “losers” in this world
so I honed my skills, oh
I could spot a loser from a long way off
(and yes, the loser was often me,
but I won a few things)
But it’s like God loves jokes
and he pulled off a good one
at the expense of my pride.
One day I went to my treasury
to slide my fingers lovingly over
all the stuff I’d won
and some chip in the gold paint
gave it all away.
And the good stuff?
It was being handed out for free
by a bunch of hippies, only
you didn’t even have to go to them
to get it.
At first I wondered what was the good
of being loved
when it wasn’t because of anything you did
or anything you were,
but then I found out how nice it was,
and it’s all I’ve wanted
ever since.
Summer 1999: Finished Master’s
September 1999: Started postulancy for monastic ordination
March 2nd, 2001: Ordination
January 27th, 2002, email to a friend:
My daily life and practice feels very full and complete right now. But that does not mean I feel happy and satisfied! Ah, far from it. But my faith remains that the sorrows and pains and confusion and delusion I am writhing in are exactly where I should be. Sometimes that faith is buried quite deeply, though… Most days I wake up cursing about having to get out of bed, and then questioning, just as I did as a teenager and have continued to do all my life, “What the hell is the point?”
I long so much to see some measure of my progress, some sign that I am not wasting my time! I crave respect because it would mean I am a worthwhile person, I crave authority because I want to know I am fulfilling my Bodhisattva aspiration to help others. My opinion of my practice is very, very low. I feel utterly ignorant. I feel like I have nothing valuable to add. I feel like a fraud, and the only reason I can hold my head up and put the kesa on every day is because I manage to show every day and refrain from killing, stealing, illicit sex, lying and getting intoxicated – the most basic, physical precepts of body. In my mind, precisely because I am so hard on myself, I break all of the other precepts with impunity. I dwell on anger, judgement and disgust toward others. I pull back from them or lash out at them in revulsion. They are so pathetic, so self-absorbed, driven by so many compulsions. I worry that I have not advanced an inch. I am still stuck in the same loops, obsessing over the same questions, performing the same stupid karmic patterns.
My touchstone and inspiration lately is Dogen. I firmly believe that I could achieve all the understanding I am capable of achieving in this lifetime simply by reading, studying, meditating on and living Dogen Zen. It’s all there! But I have not personally realized one shred of Dogen’s teachings. Not one tiny piece. It’s all just an intellectual thing at this point, all just, “thus have I heard,” but my heart bleeds with longing to really know It for myself.
How difficult it is to long, and yet to be utterly unattached to any outcome! I swing back and forth between the two extremes of spiritual materialism and laziness. By laziness I do not mean, necessarily, a lack of energy or activity. Rather, this laziness is perfectly exemplified by refusing to transform the mind. I let the thoughts of hatred and miserliness run around in my mind all day long… and I descend into self-hatred… and I recognize that in dwelling on myself in this way I am simultaneously breaking the precepts not to dwell on past mistakes, not to indulge anger, and not to focus on praise and blame… and I feel even more unworthy… Good lord! Just the same old crap, over and over and over!
Until I get a long block of time to sit zazen. Then, then… I stand back from this samsaric wheel for a time and see it all as dream. That’s as far as it goes, though… I just sit there, feeling calm, seeing it all as a dream. Isn’t there something more? Gyokuko says I am just scratching the surface of samadhi. It makes me want to tear my heart out in frustration and grief: How am I supposed to get deeper into samadhi if my life has so little space in it for zazen? Then I am back on the samsaric wheel, of course! But you know what’s funny? I get that same, calm, this-suffering-is-a-dream sensation when I just stop fighting it all.
Glimpses behind the curtain, tears leap to my eyes. Such gratitude and intimacy… gone again as quickly as it came under the weight of my conceptual universe….
ASPIRATIONS
Is an aspiration still an aspiration
when you stop believing you can attain it,
when you stop believing it can be attained?
Just one of billions –
a number beyond imagining –
and full of rot,
sainthood recedes like a puddle of water
in a hot pan.
I, for one,
had soup for lunch,
stooped to caress a cat on the sidewalk,
and drew easier breath
under the yellow-garland cottonwoods
on the riverbank.
What have I to do with saints? their
insight and perfection,
their principles and influence?
And yet, I’m not ready to fold up
in my stacks of linens
or drown in my dishwater.
Those sages agitate my living
like a mosquito near my pillow in the night.
I keep going forward,
more and more hopeless but
unable to ignore that sound.
March 8th, 2005, Journal Entry
Oh, such gratitude… how easy it is to forget what was before. How easy it is to see only what is lacking. But when I truly reflect, I know that the difference is as between heaven and earth.
In moments of craziness, I have destroyed all evidence of what I was before. Still, though my memory is terrible, I remember some things. I remember the torment, the anguish, the despair. Now, I see the possibility of descent approach, I see the choice, and I choose the light. It is not that it is easy, but it is clear. I could sink into the hell of jealousy and envy and sadness, of competitiveness and a sense of profound inadequacy. But I know this too shall pass, and why not choose the bright way from the beginning? Choosing to let go of suffering… so simple. So simple. Despite every difficulty, so simple.
The gifts from my Perfect Teachers – those human teachers with failings, flaws, and warts, those perfect teachers – who have given me my life! How is it I have been so fortunate to happen upon such things? My gratitude truly knows no bounds. Without these words, without this compassion, without this guidance, I might as well have not been alive at all. And with them? I taste things I could not have even imagined before. A freedom and a simplicity, a joy and a release, a passion and a contentedness, an intimacy and a pervasive detachment, a humility and a power that suggests an infinite potential…
Those perfect teachers… they say:
Our true state is “detached” compared to the way we usually operate, because we usually identify with our reactions to things. We are not our reactions!
To hold the true state of mind even when faced with other beings or requirements for action, we must include the possibility of failure. As long as we are still reaching for success in one form or another, we are not fully relaxing into our true nature.
When you encounter an obstacle, do not try harder.
ENCOURAGEMENT
To you who would let go the lifeline and
let yourself drown:
for one more hour shoulder the burden of living!
There will come a time
when the world will become visible to you
like a mountain range from afar:
vast
and
complete.
There will come a time
when you hold something so delicate and precious
you would let every bone in your body be broken,
one by one,
before you would let it drop on the cold, hard ground.
There will come a time
when you see your path as a tunnel
with entrance and exit
and your hell for the fire you must pass through
between them.
ABSORPTION
Luminous moon,
how many anguished hours have I spent
gazing into the heavens,
longing for your bright secret? All the while bound
to the low and heavy earth
with the weight of my passion?
You are beaming with relief
like a proud parent
as I make the daring leap, call out:
Hey, moon!
How wonderful that we ended up
in the same night sky!
Conclusion
At some point in my junior monk training (the early 2000’s), I stopped journaling and then stopped writing poetry. I think I just got busy with serving the Sangha and wasn’t so focused on my personal angst anymore. Therefore, my offering of writings from that time in my life ends pretty abruptly. If you’re interested, see my “spiritual journey” episodes for descriptions of some of my experiences past this point.
Our growth in practice is gradual and complex. Even when we’re in the midst of misery, there are times of joy and wisdom. Even when we’re blessed with insight and liberation, there are moments of arrogance, delusion, and doubt. The process of maturing takes a lifetime, and at no point do we become infallible, perfect people immune from suffering. Still, real growth happens and is a cause for celebration.
TRUTH ROARS
Once upon a time,
the Truth seemed subtle and shy.
I used all of my wits
to coax it closer
and convince it to stay.
Now the Truth looms over me like a mountain
and stalks me like a tiger –
Who’s shy now?
