The Power of Now

I have been listening to an audio version of The Power of Now. It is one of those rare books that can change your life if you let it.

Just yesterday I listened to the author explain why the statement "I think , therefore I am" is a fallacy. It is not because we think... It is despite the fact that we think. But we do not know this.

Even after a few years of Buddhist study and fledgling practice... I know this concept has been presented to me, but I can't say I ever did more than intellectualize it. Somehow, Tolle's delivery helped me to internalize it... to experience the truth in the words instead of simply going through the physiological process of hearing the words.

Lately I've felt that this blog is just a historical record of my noisy, complaining and self-indulgent mind. I've felt that something was in my way... that though I've been sincere about my desire to practice and grow in that practice, something stopped me from going deep. Something stopped me from developing the consistent discipline of daily practice.

Perhaps it was because my noisy mind was in control... it presented itself as something that wanted to achieve something but it has often had ulterior motives. Mostly, it just wants to keep talking... to keep making noise and it doesn't seem to care if the noise is judgmental or paniced or logical or empowering or the pseudo deep ramblings of a spiritual seeker.

My noisy mind doesn't care if I ever experience enlightenment. It is satisfied as long as I can simply blather on about it and myriad other things. It actually comes up with strategies to keep me from my practice and it is skilled at coming up with reasons to avoid the activities that have the power to silence it.

Taking a Look at The Depression Book

Something shifted for me this weekend. Somehow, I stopped wallowing in what's been up for me long enough to just look at it and it disappeared. That's what Cheri suggested could happen, and it did.

Here's something I struggle with as a beginner: I want to practice but I easily fall into my habitual ways of dealing with my day-to-day life when I'm not focused on my practice. When stuff comes up that is particularly difficult, particularly heavy in the sense that it leaves me particularly stuck then that's where I am. Things tend to need to be somewhat level (ordinary without too many highs or lows) for me in order for me to easily engage in regular practice. Turn my world upside down? Then you'll see how difficult it is for me to bring my practice home.

Something shifted for me this weekend. I read about half of The Depression Book. I took it on and it "worked." I say "worked" (in quotation marks) because it's not like I read the book so as not to be depressed and it became the magic wand that I needed that wiped my "stuck-ness" away. No. That's not what I mean. Yes, a lot of feelings I've been carrying around lifted. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that they lifted because I looked at them honestly... really looked instead of seeing without really seeing.

I read something yesterday that reminded me of one of those chain e-mails that circulated amongst a group of friends not too long ago. It was an entry from the Digital Buddha Vacana. I'll post it as today's Daily Dharma when I'm done with this entry. The thing it reminded me of was a quote by T.D. Jakes that said something along the lines of "the only thing your job owes you is a paycheck."

I'm not a materialistic person. I'm not interested in Prada. I don't need to drive a BMW, a Mercedes or a Caddy. Somewhere deep down, I think this means I'm a person who doesn't want much. Maybe when it comes to material stuff, that's mostly true (except for tech stuff and books). So I don't really pay attention to the things that I crave. I don't consider them to be things. At least I didn't until today.

I crave fairness. When stuff goes on and it's not fair, that really kills me. I get all worked up about it. I blather on with no end in sight to whoever will listen. I annoy and bore my friends because I can't get over it. But why should I? Life is supposed to be fair, isn't it?

Not necessarily.

I crave professionalism and orderliness. When I'm forced to work in an environment where either of these things are lacking, it kills me. Shouldn't the workplace be a place of professionalism and orderliness? Aren't I right to want these things?

Not necessarily.

I enjoy it when adults act like adults. When I'm faced with an adult who acts like a child it kills me. Shouldn't I be able to count on people of a certain age to act with a certain level of maturity? Aren't I right to be frustrated when they don't?

Not necessarily.

What I learned from Cheri this weekend was simple. Depression is just one of many available avoidance responses. It's a big one, but it's just one. When we don't want things to be as they are, we shift into one of them. Some of them we extract ourselves from quickly because we've learned how to do that. Some of them we embed ourselves in because we get some payoff. The key to getting over it is simple... being willing to look where you haven't been willing to look before... being willing to be still and observe where you've been labelling, complaining, or participating in some other form of avoidance.

This was a huge lesson for me.

Survivor

I've been a little sad this week.

If you ever were to ask me what fiction book(s) I would want to have with me if I were to be stranded on a desert island, I would definately say "Anything Octavia Butler." When a friend e-mailed me about her passing last weekend, it completely stopped me in my tracks. I talked to a friend about it Monday evening, and said something very similar to what Angel is saying on the subject...

Octavia's passing for me is such a lesson in impermanence. We are not (any of us) promised tomorrow, so we really need to be about the business of doing whatever it is we feel moved to do with our lives... What are we waiting for?

A few months ago, I read Octavia's final novel... an engrossing twist on vampire lore called Fledgling. I was so excited about the work... and I thought it would become a trilogy to match Wildseed, Mind of My Mind and Patternmaster. I absolutely couldn't wait for the next installment. And then Octavia died.

I have but one opportunity to read something she wrote that I haven't read yet... I'll need to procure a copy of the book she personally felt was sub-standard and has been out of print for ages... a book that fans still rave about called Survivor. A few years ago, battered, well-worn copies were selling on Amazon.com for anywhere between $100 and $400 dollars. I can't imagine what they must be going for now.

I'm thinking now about my own survival. I've been really unhappy with corporate life for a long time. In my ideal scene I'd be writing, going on retreats, practicing yoga, becoming certified to teach yoga, exploring my artistic side (musically and visually) and spending more time with my daughter. My current job doesn't afford me the time to do any of these things with consistency without feeling like a zombie.

Maybe 2006 will be the year that I totally reconstruct my life, and maybe Octavia will be the inspiration.

Rage, Rage Against the Rising of the SHAM

I don't know anything about punk rock and I don't particularly like monster movies... but for some reason I kept looking at this book in the Still Point Bookstore called Hardcore Zen. The subtitle, Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth about Reality, was the source of my hesitance. I wondered if I was going to be able to relate to anything Brad Warner had to say.

I'm about halfway through the book and I have to say... this is one of the best books on Zen I've read thus far. Early in the text, here's what Brad says about questioning authority:

No matter what authority you submit to—your teacher, your government, even Jesus H. Christ or Gautama Buddha himself—that authority is wrong. It's wrong because the very concept of authority is already a mistake. Deferring to authority is nothing more than a cowardly shirking of personal responsibility. The more power you grant an authority figure the worse you can behave in his name. That's why people who take God as their ultimate authority are always capable of the worst humanity has to offer. Zen does not accept anything even resembling that kind of God.

If you aim to tear down authority, doing so honestly means doing so completely. Really tearing down authority means more than just opposing the big government and big business. You need to tear down the very roots of authority. This can never be done through violence of any kind—not ever—because the ultimate authority is your own belief in the very concept of authority. Revolt against that first. You need the courage to take responsibility for your own life and your own actions.

I've been thinking a lot about Warner's comments on anarchy, authority, and and society. I've also been thinking about a book review in the current issue of Shambhala Sun about a book called SHAM:  How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless.

A few years ago, self-help books dominated my shelves... owning at least 33% of my shelf real estate. I've also written in past entries about how drawn I can be to infomercials... especially the ones about improving your skin and obliterating your fat cells. Today, the self-help books are still in the boxes I packed them in last time I moved, and I can safely say I've spent my last dollar on the latest, greatest workout craze. I've started to incorporate exercise into my routine again, and I do use some workout DVDs. I've just learned that my desire to move, to exercise, is not what draws me to the infomercials... it's that small sadistic voice inside that says, "There's something wrong with you and this will fix it."

Patton Dodd, author of the SHAM book review , begins his review by introducing us to (or reminding us of) Walker Percy's book. Steve says:

The book's title, Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book, registered both Percy's dismay at the cultural condition and his hope that the movement would soon self-destruct.

Millions of diet books, thousands of relationship seminars, and one Dr. Phil later, it's clear that Percy's hope was in vain. The self help and actualization movement (the acronym for which, uncannily, is SHAM) is still with us, and with us in force.

I've been asking myself a question in the midst of all of this reading and reflection. Is it really wrong to want to be a better person? On the surface, there seems to be some nobility in it. As I think about it today, though, I think it is egocentric and I think SHAM feeds the ego's need to respond, respond, respond to dukkha—the sense that things are just unsatisfactory, that things would be better if we could just _____ or if we only had _____ or if someone else would just _____ or if we weren't so _____. (I could go on for days with this but I won't. You get the point.)

SHAM tells us that the insidious voice of dukkha is right about it, then tries to give us the tools to address everything that voice is right about... relationships, parenting, life at work, emotion management, our bodies, even our minds... SHAM tells us if we only had the right affirmation, if only we understood this particular rule or shared this certain outlook or followed the right seven point plan, our lives would be better.

I came to Buddhism like I came to most other things in my life... I thought that it would fix me. I thought Buddhism was about learning to be calm in the midst of chaos. I thought being Buddhist was about being good. The more I practice, the more I start to see that good and bad are irrelevant. Buddhism is about being real... about getting right with reality instead of running away from it. Getting right with reality begins with seeing and accepting it. We will never get right with reality if we are constantly trying to change it.

 

Summer Reading

I just finished Volume 6 in Buddha, a manga series by Osamu Tezuka. Tezuka is an amazing storyteller. As usual, his works are not entirely true to historical accounts, but I would be hard pressed to find someone who would say he doesn't stick to the spirit of the story.

I think my favorite passage in this volume was Chapter 8, the Sermon at Elephant's Head Mountain. Buddha speaks to his disciples about tempering desires and living simply without grasping so much:

Think of yourself as a fire, and let all your desires and worries die out, just like a fire... you will then gain health, of mind and body alike.

As ususal, the art is amazing.

I'm also reading a work by Paulo Coelho. Several passages in By the River Piedra, I Sat Down and Wept are likely to become favorite quotes, like this one:

You have to take risks, he said. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.

Every day, God gives us the sun-and also one moment in which we have the ability to change everything that makes us unhappy. Every day, we try to pretend that we haven't preceived that moment, that it doesn't exist-that today is the same as yesterday and will be the same as tomorrow. But if people really pay attention to their everyday lives, they will discover that magic moment. It may arrive in the instant when we are doing something mundane, like putting our front door key in the lock; it may lie hidden in the quiet that follows the lunch hour or in the thousand and one things that all seem the same to us. But that moment exists-a moment when all the power of the stars becomes a part of us and enables us to perform miracles.

I'm about a fourth of the way into this one. If you liked The Alchemist, try this one out... It's good.

Pearl

Sometimes I read non-stop. I pour every ounce of spare time into a book. Somtimes fiction, sometimes non-fiction. For the past week or so I've been consumed by Pearl, a novel by Mary Gordon.

Here is the premise:

A young American woman studying language in Ireland chains herself to the American Embassy. She has not eaten for six weeks. She will not eat, she will not drink, she will not move or be moved. She writes a treatise, explaining what she is doing and why. She wants nothing. She has no demands. She just wants to die.

What brought her to this place? This determination? She wants peace. She wants the peace treaty to end the violence in Ireland. She wants the IRA to stop bombing. But personally, she wants to apologize but feels she is unforgivable. She hurt someone. She feels responsible for his death. She cannot live with this. She says that we have an inherent will to do harm... a tendency that will not go away. She wants people to look at this. Her death, she thinks, will make people look at this.

I understand her point.

Life and death. Most days, there is no immediacy... no urgency. We just don't see it because nothing seems "life or death." Nothing seems to be on the line.

"No need to think about that now... I've got time. No need to do anything about that now... it can wait."

For me this book was about waking up. Somehow we have to wake up from the notion that we have an interest-bearing savings account... storing up time that we will spend tomorrow, next month, next year, in five years. So why sit today when i'm tired and I don't feel good. I have time. It can wait.

I started kong'an (koan) interviews two weeks ago. My teacher set a watch down in front of me and asked "What is this? If you say it is a watch, I will say wrong."

I clap my hands together really loud. For three whole seconds my mind is blank. I say "WEIGHT!" as loud as I can.

I have no idea what the right answer is.

But the immediacy of death points to the weight, the gravity of time. When someone is so willing to give it up... to end their life for a cause, we take pause. We start to feel the weight. We start to wonder. We slow down. We forgive. We appreciate.We look at how greedily we hold on to our own lives... how perfectly unwilling we are to give it up for anything. We marvel that someone could be.  We look at our lives and the time that we have and we wonder if we are doing enough with it.

Pearl. It is an amazing story... one I wouldn't have read if it wasn't recommended to me.

Meeting Faith

Sunday was the best day! It all started with the Dharma talk at Still Point delivered by Faith Adiele (pronounced Ah dee eh lay) on her recently published memoir Meeting Faith: The Forest Journals of a Black Buddhist Nun.

Reading her book, I was never quite sure where anthropology ended and spirituality began. Faith is clear about the fact that she chose the path of ordination more to resurrect her academic career after a failed semester at Harvard than for any other reason. She mentions that she was raised Unitarian, and that religion was important in her upbringing mainly as cultural information.

It is simply amazing that she moved from being a person who had never meditated before in her life to being planted in the forest practicing in one of the most challenging traditions on the planet for up to fourteen hours a day. It was clear that she took her commitment seriously. She didn't leave or crumble under the pressure whereas other temple visitors did.

Listening to her speak on her life, her family, her work, and this time in her life was a gift and a joy. At the end of her talk we were provided with opportunities to ask questions. I don't know that it would be appropriate for me to transcribe and publish her talk in its entirety. As an alternative, I'm hoping it's okay to share my question and her thoughtful, inspiring response:

Chalip: Through reading your book I was really curious about what you carried from your experience in Thailand into your daily life. Do you still meditate? Are there any parts of the practices that you learned or that you did there that you're still doing? How has it informed who you are right now?

Faith: That again has been a journey as well... Sometimes I go in and out... When I first came back it was very painful for me to meditate because I just wasn't someone who had had a practice here and then had intensified it there... I only knew crazy overachieving multi-tasking American life and then total ordination in an intensive meditation retreat center and so when I came back I didn't know how to put the two together. I was very, very overwhelmed. The best I could do in sitting meditation in America was to maybe not kill my boss that week. That was it in terms of peacefulness. But I would be sad because I knew I could be going so much deeper doing all this other stuff [from] before so I looked for other things... yoga, art work... other things that kind of brought my implements in. I would say the biggest shift for me was how I did my political work. Whereas before I think there had been a sense of urgency and outrage and being wounded and doing it out of "I'm really in pain about the injustices in the world," and "This is why we need to do stuff," and "You're not as committed as I am, there's something wrong with you..." I was just going to burn myself out, so learning to shift and to do that sort of work out of love and out of trying to connect with people who were different from me, trying to find a way to be politically active that's sustaining and so that you are imagining a better world so you're not doing it out of despair but out of love, peace and joy... So that was easier to do, to return to politics but in a mindful way rather than have the focus be on spirituality. And then there was a time when I had to put my art first. Like, was I going to continue to run non-profits and try to write on the weekends, give up all my vacations, get up at 5:00 in the morning and try to write and always feel that I wasn't doing enough for the cause... Or could I trust myself enough to believe that through writing I could be contributing to the world and that that was my political and social mission. So at some point I had to put the writing first, the art first, and then learn how to do that in a mindful way... How can you find spirituality in your artistic work or in how you care for people. There was a a moment then when I had to go through my Rolodex and say "Who feeds me/who doesn't feed me," who do I really want to take care of. Because, as your friends get older they go through harder things with their parents. There was a time earlier this year when I was cooking for five people in my town because they had all lost parents... so I'm rushing home, making casserole... making casserole... driving around town... so you have to decide where you want to put your efforts. it's always ongoing trying to remind myself what I learned, that I do have power, and then where I want to put that energy. Since writing the book, the opportunities for sitting have come back. Again, because there are more people there's not just Tina Turner now there's a whole bunch of us... So I've been able to come back to that which is a really fantastic benefit from the book that I hadn't expected.

I loved this response for several reasons... Hearing Faith speak, you get the sense that her temporary ordination was just something she did a long time ago that was somewhat embarrassing and that she didn't talk about it for a long time. It seems that her current experience (writing the book, speaking about it) is very empowering... at least I hope it is.

I also loved what she said because really we all just need to know that wherever we are with our practice is okay. We might go off for a weekend retreat then find it hard to bring that practice back to our daily lives... But meditation is really only one way to practice... Being Buddhist is not just about sitting in lotus position contemplating breath, mantra, or mindfulness. We can give of ourselves and make a difference in so many ways. It's really true... It's all a matter of where we want to place our focus and where we want to put our energy.

The Fab Five

I have been waiting for this since November! I ordered this book thinking it would arrive on time for my birthday, but no such luck. When I got to work today, I found a box from Amazon.com sitting on my desk. I knew it had arrived. Book Five.

Osamu Tezuka (often referred to as the godfather of Japanese manga comics) created an eight-volume work on the life of Buddha. While not completely accurate (Tezuka sprinkles some characters of his own creation into the story line) the journey of Buddha's life (beginning before his birth) unfolds as art.

These books are totally engrossing. I plan to lose myself in this one for hours when I'm on vacation next week. They are also a good way to introduce Buddha to children. While there is some nudity and mature language, the nudity is National Geographic not Playboy and in my opinion it is impossible to shield children from language (especially these days). So, I have allowed my daughter to read these books. She finds them equally engrossing and the story line provides me with the perfect context to talk about and teach about Buddhism.

During the Recess

Still Point was on recess for the month of August. Instead of listening to weekly dharma talks, I have been reading the memoir of a Zen student. I first learned about Natalie Goldberg's new book, The Great Failure, when reading the latest issue of Shambhala Sun at a local Barnes & Noble.

I have known Natalie Goldberg's work for thirteen years. My high school creative writing teacher often referenced her book Writing Down the Bones. I have purchased almost everything she has published since then... Wild Mind, Long Quiet Highway, The Essential Writer's Notebook, Zen Howl... so I was excited when I saw her name on the cover of that issue of Shambhala Sun. Natalie's done it again, I thought.

I read the magazine slowly as I sipped a cold, sweet coffee dessert. There was so much there. As I read, I realized how out of touch I am with the fact that people close to me will die. My father, years after an organ transplant, lives on. His health is like a roller coaster. Sometimes up, sometimes down. But he always bounces back, I tell myself. I don't want to think about looking at him, life expelled, like Natalie has looked at her own father and her teacher.

What a shock it was for me to see my great teacher's stiff body. This was for real? The man I had studied with for twelve years was gone? Stars, moon, hope stopped. Ocean waves and ants froze. Even rocks would not grow. This truth I could not bear. [from "When the Candle is Blown Out" Shambhala Sun, September 2004, page 66]

Here was an article introducing a book on how to practice with your life. I couldn't wait to read it. On a break at work the next week, I searched for the book on Amazon.com. The release date was posted... August 17, 2004. That August afternoon, I stopped at Border's on my way home from work to pick it up. I have been reading it ever since. I'm just starting Part III, and I'm totally enthralled.

You might read the back cover and think, "How juicy... a tell all." Sex, betrayal, family drama, death... almost sounds Shakespearian. I am finding this book juicy, but not for the drama. It is startlingly honest, sincere. It cuts to the heart of what it is like to deal with getting out of bed when we feel that others have let us down, when those close to us die, when broken vows break a spiritual community.

It is also a reminder of life, death and impermanence. We are not promised forever. We just delude ourselves into thinking that forever belongs to us. Reading about Natalie and her teacher, I am reluctant to make any correlation to myself and mine. I am only getting to know my teacher. She is simply not supposed to die yet. It is not time.

Yet it could be. Any moment.