Author Archives

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Maia on Charleston…

My friend and Zen teacher Maia Duerr has written what may be the best analysis of the whole Charleston tragedy and the racist milieu that gave rise to it.

Using the context of the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths, Maia breaks it down in ways that offer deep insight into the social and individual aspects of this national problem. Though it is Buddhist to the heart, it transcends that, and so is easily understandable and meaningful for all, Buddhist or not. Maia includes some wonderful quotes from Dr. King and Wendell Berry, as well as the Buddha and others, that elucidate her message beautifully.

These understandings are what we as a society must embrace if we hope to come out of this misery of racist lostness.

Dreams of Freedom.

“I believe it is essential for us to call this for what it is. This was not simply the act of one very disturbed young man. It has its roots in racial violence and distortions and inequities that have been part of the fabric of our country since its inception.”

 

Dreams of Freedom: Responding to Charleston

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A new direction…

My practice seems to be taking off in a new direction.

Actually it’s more of a rejuvenation of my familiar practice, though it feels like a new direction in many ways. I just began Dharma mentoring with a teacher, Therese, whose teachings I blogged about a bit in The Hybrid Way, and after the first call I’m feeling so strong and serious in my practice that I’m starting a whole new thread here on Shunyata’s Apprentice, which I’m calling Real Practice.

This path to a rejuvenation of my practice really began back in February with the “Waking Up to Your Life” online sangha experience with Maia Duerr and Katya Lesher.

WUYL was great, and got me back on track with a consistent practice, and it was through this experience that I built up the confidence to take on the dharma mentoring, which I had been considering since spring of 2014 when I first sat a sesshin with Therese. The people of that online experience, which included people from all around the US and Canada, I now consider my virtual sangha.

We were together for three months, with a website, a Facebook group (closed), and monthly one-on-one phone calls plus two group calls. Maia and Katya provided lots of programmatic material for us, and the exchanges were lively and warm. I think everyone deepened their practice or got established in a practice through the process.

I highly recommend it for people without access to teacher and sangha. Maia is online at Liberated Life Project and I understand that they will be doing another Waking Up to Your Life this fall.

After a few years of “wandering in the wilderness” [see The Hybrid Way] it feels real good to be in a stable, vital practice again. My original Zen teacher always told me, “If you don’t feel like sitting, don’t sit. When you don’t sit, you discover why you want to.” My period of disturbed, lost sitting – what the old masters called “Bompo Zen” – certainly has convinced me that I want to sit, and I need to sit consistently in order to live a productive, fulfilled life.

I am grateful to all of these people, and the people of Red Clay Sangha in Atlanta, for their support and for being there to guide me back to the cushion.

And I am profoundly grateful to Therese for giving me the opportunity to work with her in this Dharma mentoring project.

As part of this new level of practice, I am committing here to keeping a journal of my experience with practice and to post at least some of that here in the hope that it will be helpful to others who may be struggling to find a real, meaningful practice.

May all beings awaken from forgetfulness and realize their true home. Much Metta!

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Caught in a loop…

Re-blogged from some Tumblr post… Zenmister…

I Overthink…

Not sure who/what zenmister is, but it’s a good point, clear and concise, as a good zen guy should be!

I’ve been away a bit, no time for blogging… more to come soon. Am loving my “Waking Up to Your Life” cohort and the process… helping my practice immensely already.

https://www.tumblr.com/shunyatasapprentice/112425622874/i-overthink-its-always-negative-so-ill-accept

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True currency is time and love

honeythatsok's avatarhoneythatsok

You know that old bullshit saying ‘time is money’? Uh, no. This is a rather short addition to the 10 Steps, but it might be one of the most important. Realize that the only true currency is time and love. Money is an illusion but it can get you in some deep trouble so live within your means. You have build thick skin in order to resist advertising and focus mostly on needs, and only the occasional wants.

humanspaytolive

Human beings are the only species that have to pay in order to live on this planet. The powers to be figured this out long before the rest of us and found the perfect system of control – money. If we don’t play by their rules we go to prison, which robs of us the only two things of true value in this life – time and being close to those…

View original post 918 more words

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Inner activism

This simple  comment from Charles Eisenstein seems to express clearly much of why his approach to the situation we find ourselves in here well into the 21st Century so well complements my understandings of Buddhism and authentic living:

With few exceptions, anyone who has grown up in the dominant civilization is deeply programmed with the same story of self, theory of change, and habits of perception that are also responsible for ecocide and social injustice. That is why simply trying harder, putting more effort into doing what we have been doing, is unlikely to produce different results. After doing that for a while, we burn out. That is when the deeper inquiry begins; that is when invisible programming comes visible and is available to be changed.

 

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=865767286808677&id=220033021382110

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The culture of war

From Chris Hedges, who has seen a lot of war:

The culture of war banishes the capacity for pity. It glorifies self-sacrifice and death. It sees pain, ritual humiliation and violence as part of an initiation into manhood. Brutal hazing, as Kyle noted in his book, was an integral part of becoming a Navy SEAL. New SEALs would be held down and choked by senior members of the platoon until they passed out. The culture of war idealizes only the warrior. It belittles those who do not exhibit the warrior’s “manly” virtues. It places a premium on obedience and loyalty. It punishes those who engage in independent thought and demands total conformity. It elevates cruelty and killing to a virtue. This culture, once it infects wider society, destroys all that makes the heights of human civilization and democracy possible. The capacity for empathy, the cultivation of wisdom and understanding, the tolerance and respect for difference and even love are ruthlessly crushed. The innate barbarity that war and violence breed is justified by a saccharine sentimentality about the nation, the flag and a perverted Christianity that blesses its armed crusaders. This sentimentality, as Baldwin wrote, masks a terrifying numbness. It fosters an unchecked narcissism. Facts and historical truths, when they do not fit into the mythic vision of the nation and the tribe, are discarded. Dissent becomes treason. All opponents are godless and subhuman. “American Sniper” caters to a deep sickness rippling through our society. It holds up the dangerous belief that we can recover our equilibrium and our lost glory by embracing an American fascism.

[American Sniper article at Truthdig]

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We are (also) terrorists

Who are the terrorists?

If you ask most people this question, it seems that the near-universal response is “Islamic jihadists” or some variation of this. This is wrong on so many levels that it’s hard to summarize it. But let me try.

First, the facts show that jihadists are responsible for a tiny percentage of terrorism in the world. In fact, most terrorism – somewhere in the range of 90%+ – is carried out by by ethnic separatists rather than religiously motivated folks of any stripe. Think Progress details some of the data on this here. I have read other accounts of this with the same clear message: we have been duped into thinking of terrorism as an Islamic extremist thing since 9-11.

Second, even the jihadists are likely motivated more by the economic and social conditions of their lives than by Islam, even in its extreme versions. Chris Hedges expresses the radical notion that terrorism is:

…a harbinger of an emerging dystopia where the wretched of the earth, deprived of resources to survive, devoid of hope, brutally controlled, belittled and mocked by the privileged who live in the splendor and indolence of the industrial West, lash out in nihilistic fury.

We have engineered the rage of the dispossessed. The evil of predatory global capitalism and empire has spawned the evil of terrorism. And rather than understand the roots of that rage and attempt to ameliorate it, we have built sophisticated mechanisms of security and surveillance, passed laws that permit the targeted assassinations and torture of the weak, and amassed modern armies and the machines of industrial warfare to dominate the world by force. This is not about justice. It is not about the war on terror. It is not about liberty or democracy. It is not about the freedom of expression. It is about the mad scramble by the privileged to survive at the expense of the poor. And the poor know it.

Third, nearly everything the US and other wealthy developed nations are doing is making terrorism worse: more desperate, thus more likely and more extreme in nature. This is complex, but essentially our imperialism and our media sensationalism work together to create the conditions in which terrorism thrives.

For a more detailed, and nuanced, discussion of this, read my friend Gareth’s insightful new post, We’re Fueling Terrorism. Gareth also makes the important point that Muslim leaders are speaking out against Islamic terrorism, and includes a great essay from Rabbi Josh Lesser illustrating that much-ignored truth.

In addition to these ways in which we are creating terrorism on the mundane level, it is also true at the deeper level – what might be thought of as the quantum spiritual level – that we are the terrorists.

As Buddhist teachers (especially Thich Nhat Hanh) have been saying for many years, we are one with all that exists. We are the victim, we are the perpetrator. It is only our ignorance – born of the dualistic conditioning to which we are all subjected – that leads us to see ourselves as separate from the other.

We are the victims, we are the bombers; we are the imperialists, we are the dispossessed. The deeper we are able to sink into that realization, the greater our understanding of reality.