WW: Sitting with demons

(This was a hard photo to bag: a one-handed phone capture from a fixed position in near-total darkness. Rather a hail-Kanzeon shot, what.

What I've documented here is a demonic micro-tiger who stationed herself on my leg during the night sit, for the purpose of distracting me from my enlightenment practice.

In which ambition she succeeded.

So I got a ways to go before I become the Buddha.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Military Meditation

Some time ago I surfed into What You Need to Know about Mindfulness Meditation, an article made available to military personnel (and everybody else) by the US Department of Defense. It leaves me a little conflicted.

As far as the information it contains is concerned, there's little enough to carp about. Yeah, dhyana probably didn't start with the Buddha, but that's minor and arguable. And the whole thing has a pronounced "meditate to get stuff" bias, but let's be honest: much in the Buddhist press does as well. And we all first come to Zen to get stuff, though the delusion softens if we practice properly.

And that's what disturbs me about this piece. Because the fact is, if you're truly practicing Zen, it's going to get progressively harder to be a soldier. Right wing politics, nationalism, certainty, fear of authority – to say nothing of killing strangers in their own homes – are things it's difficult to convince Zenners to embrace.

Which leads me to wonder what exactly the DoD is selling.

The argument cœnobites perennially throw at eremitics such as myself is that Zen needs patrolling – that without ordained, presumably accountable leadership, anybody can sell anything as Zen. And that, we're told, leads to charlatans who mislead others, individuals who mislead themselves, and the general obfuscation of the Zen path through the Red Dust World.

None of which I dispute. Rather, I question the contention that ordination eliminates these pitfalls, that the Buddha ordained any authority but his own, or that anyone has a patent on enlightenment practice. (A conviction well-buttressed by my experience of those who claim one.)

But I gotta say it, this DoD article gives off a definite whiff of caveat emptor.

It's not that anything it says is wrong. It's just that I misdoubt its motives.

Which is also how I feel about Zen teachers.

I'm certainly not opposed to Zen practice in the military. To begin with, that profession destroys just about everyone it touches – at least when fully exercised – and that creates a howling need for clear-seeing and moral autonomy. And carried forward, a Zen-practicing army would soon cease to be one, which is the next step in our evolution.

But that's what bothers me. Because this writer never openly suggests just what the war industry's aims might be in promoting mindfulness. Probably not reasoned insubordination, I'll wager. Where secular authorities advocate meditation, it's virtually always about making individuals docile, so they'll continue to commit or tolerate acts Bodhidharma (a war veteran) would condemn.

One would like to believe that any attempt to harness Zen to such ends would backfire – that the practice itself would free practitioners from quack intent. Sadly, religion has never worked that way. Zen has been weaponised before, with karmic results that outstripped its epically-appalling historical ones, and it's currently being turned to similar ends in business, education, and corrections as well.

As a one-time convicted Christian, the fear that my current path will become as debased as the former is very real. This practice is vital; too vital to allow careerists to usurp its brand. That road leads to the utter annihilation of Zen, as it has other religions.

And the last thing we need around here is yet another cargo cult.

I hope military personnel, active and discharged, around the world learn about Zen; that those who are suffering know that it might keep them breathing; and that those who are in pain will give it an honest shot and see if it helps. Some of our best teachers came from that world, channelling the laser insight they scored waging war – and the iron discipline their instructors gave them – into kick-ass monasticism. (The two callings are remarkably similar.)

Because it's not that there's nothing soldierly about the mindfulness path. It's just that it leads to a diametrically opposite destination.


(Photo of the Ryozen Kannon, Japan's WWII memorial, courtesy of Bryan Ledgard and Wikimedia Commons.)

Compassion Kyôsaku

"[Kitano] was thin and not in good health, but Shunryu was mesmerised by the way he would lay out his bowing cloth and lower himself to place his forehead on it, and above all by the way he would rise up again. He was so frail that every time he bowed Shunryu thought he wouldn't be able to get up, but he did, time after time.

"Eventually Shunryu realised that it was harder for him to watch Kitano bow than it was for Kitano to do so."

David Chadwick, Crooked Cucumber



(Photo of Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva statue in Bodhisattva garden of Truc Lam Tri Duc Zen Monastery courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)

Everything Doesn't Happen For A Reason

A few weeks ago a friend directed me to Everything Doesn't Happen For A Reason, by Tim Lawrence. It's attracted an enthusiastic following online, and since August has become the traditional time for Rusty Ring to address such topics, I figure this is my opening.

Tim's central hypothesis – you gotta love writers who state their thesis right in the title – is also a primary Zen principal, but his objective trends rather more to the negative than affirmative.

Specifically, he's that tired of grieving people being told they're "suffering for a reason", that it's all part of some great compassionate plan, that "God never gives you more than you can handle."

"That's the kind of bullshit that destroys lives," he says. "And it is categorically untrue."

Preach, brother. The problem with the "everything happens for a reason" crowd, aside from their faulty analysis, is that they lay a giant trip on the injured, just when their resistance is low. Now they're dumb, weak – hell, even ungrateful – as well.

Tim goes on to finger the origin of this nonsense:

...our culture has treated grief as a problem to be solved, an illness to be healed, or both. In the process, we've done everything we can to avoid, ignore, or transform grief. As a result, when you're faced with tragedy you usually find that […] you're surrounded by platitudes.

…In so doing, we deny [sufferers] the right to be human. [My emphasis.]

It's a hallmark of some worldviews to meet dukkha with weapons-grade denial. If you insist the Universe is ruled by a benevolent force, or that a given socio-political system is self-correcting, you'll immediately bang your skull on the titanium grille of the ever-oncoming First Noble Truth. Then you'll have to abandon all positive ends and exhaust your remaining intellectual capital on explaining why bad things keep happening in your Dictatorship of Infinite Good.

Therefore, for the benefit of all sentient beings, Ima say it right out loud:

Life is pain.

This is a direct result of the inescapable nature of existence. (Seriously. Don't try to escape it. That's a major source of pain. Second Noble Truth, for those of you playing at home.)

All of that is orthodox Buddhism – though Tim is an Anglican monastic. There is, however, one aspect of his programme that flirts with unskilfulness.

He's big into "letting people go".

Not that this isn't often an excellent idea. Good people tend to allow themselves to be abused, on the belief, inbred or inculcated, that they somehow deserve it, or that they owe it to others. Like other decent folks, I've suffered at the hands of those who took advantage of my patience and good will. I should have let those people go right off. Ideally before I picked them up.

However, like all weapons, this one is apt to wound its wielder, especially if overused. Thus Tim:

If anyone tells you that all is not lost, that it happened for a reason, that you’ll become better as a result of your grief, you can let them go.

Seems a tad trigger-happy to me. I've often said useless things, maybe even hurtful ones, to people I authentically wanted to support. Problem was I didn't know what to say.

(Free tip from our Hard-Earned Insight Department: Sometimes you can't help. Sadly, the world is still awaiting the self-improvement book How to Help When You Can't Help.)

So let's not lose our humanity, here. When I've been in the worst possible shape, my capacity to remain human in the face of inhumanity has been tremendously gratifying.

Tim also loses me when he suggests that grief won't make you a better person. It damn well will, if you're determined that it will. As self-centred as I am now, I'm a buddha compared to what I was before. If recent politics prove anything, it's our moral obligation to suffer intelligently.

But of course it's not skilful to say that to someone in the throes of heartache. Instead, I try to offer tested survival tips from my own laboratory. And, since guilt and regret are key components of grief, I also bear witness to their decency. Psychopaths don't suffer.

Still, advising others is fraught. Often the best tack is just to accompany the sufferer in shared silence, accepting the person and the pain. Especially, to remember him or her actively. Call and text (that strange word again: "and"), visit, invite him or her out, break the isolation that's the warhead of both shame and grief.

Tim makes all these points, and others as well, in his timely essay. There's a reason it's been so well-received. Whether you're in pain yourself, or accompanying someone who is, give it a read.

(Photo of artist drawing Kanzeon, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, courtesy of Republic of Korea Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism and Wikimedia Commons.)

Good Movie: My Life as a Dog

"It could have been worse."

So says the young protagonist of Mitt liv som hund ("My Life as a Dog"). For him, every misfortune is an opening to Kuan Yin.

That the speaker is twelve; that his life is crap; and that there's no reason to suspect it's going to get any better, tells you this is no ordinary kid.

My Life as a Dog was made in the Eighties, when my parents' generation came into their "power years" – the moment just before retirement when a peer group finds itself running things. Movie-wise, the result was a slew of barely-fictionalised memoirs of childhoods spent negotiating World War II and its aftermath.

A festival of these films – all of them superb – might include Le Grand Chemin, Empire of the Sun, Hope and Glory, Au Revoir Les Enfants, Stand By Me, Europa Europa, and De aanslag.

But this one is my favourite.

In Dog we shadow Ingemar – a Swedish kid deserted by luck and most of his family – as he strives not to upset anyone. The fact that he takes Laïka, first Earthling in space, as his role model, is just the first instance of his rare insight.

He needs it. His mom is dying. His family is destitute; his dad abandoned them long ago. Ingemar and his older brother are trapped between the need to placate and care for their increasingly erratic mother and keeping the social workers at bay.

His only friend is his dog Sickan. As long as they're together, he believes, everything's OK. (Nor is he the first human to conclude that dogs are better company than people.)

Canine loyalty is a godsend for Ingemar, because notwithstanding his unfailing goodwill, he's a lightning rod for disaster. Other kids take advantage of him; adults project their fears and disappointments on him. And he just doesn't fit in. He's too happy, too game, too prone to pluck the straight laces of Cold War Stockholm. Everywhere he's told he's one too many: unsuitable, unwelcome, a jonah. Like his cosmonaut hero, he's a defenceless alien, suspended far from home in an airless hell.

And then he's blasted off to an uncle he's never met, in a rural wasteland known to cartographers as Småland. (Literally: "Small Land".)

Nevertheless, to take a page from our young friend: "it could be worse". Småland is green. The sun is soft. And the first words he hears on touching down are, "You've brought the nice weather with you!"

One would be tempted to dismiss the little village he ends up in as urban romanticism: a stable, supple community where generations live in harmony. But director Lasse Hallström seems to be pointing out that there are two ways to raise children. In Småland it's for grown-ups to take care of kids, not the other way 'round. And as the old saw would have it, the whole village is actively engaged in just that.

Better still: Uncle Gunnar turns out to share the same quirky DNA as his nephew. Under his roof, Ingemar gets the adult direction he's been missing: loving, understanding, respectful of his nature.

Not that there isn't friction; this is, after all, 1958. A ringing Brigitte Bardot lookalike signals Sweden's impending sexual liberation. Girls muscle into sports. Boys mock the Church. Immigrants crowd in. TV mesmerises a neighbourhood. Tempers flare.

But then they flare out again. Nothing is that important in Småland.

Young Anton Glanzelius received a mountain of justified praise for his bodhisattva-league performance as young Ingemar. Now a television producer, he says, "I just played myself." And though actor Tomas von Brömssen caught a little criticism for his Stockholm accent, one would be hard-pressed to find a closer reading of rustic Uncle Gunnar: a carefully-measured jumble of eccentricity and responsibility.

But what truly makes Dog is Hallström's palpable affection for children. His instinctive grasp of their perspective and mannerisms recalls François Truffaut's own kindergeist masterpiece, Argent de Poche. You'll want to hug every one of these kids. (Even Ingemar's damaged brother.)

A few critics took issue with what they perceived to be a surfeit of treacle in Hallström's vision, but the well-researched trauma symptoms subtly insinuated into Ingemar's personality attest to significant, if unspoken, darkness. (His "drinking problem", for one, is a documented neurosis of emotionally disturbed children.)

It's just that not quite everybody in his life is unreachable. Also, Ingemar has this theory about dukkha – one he's backed up with hard data:

In fact, I've been kinda lucky. I mean, compared to others. You have to compare, so you can get a little distance from things.

Like Laïka. She really must have seen things in perspective. It's important to keep a certain distance.

I think about that guy who tried to set a world record for jumping over buses with a motorcycle. He lined up 31 buses.

If he'd left it at 30, maybe he would have survived.

Until next time: keep a tight rope, droogies.

Bodhisattva Day is Sunday, 20 March 2016

Get out your cardigans, brother's and sisters! Bodhisattva Day 2016 promises to be a thunderous display of quiet wooly determination.

This Sunday, let's all button up and double down for compassion. Seems Kuan Yin's army can use all the swelling it can get these days.

Please recall that you don't have to be Buddhist, or practice any religion at all, to join. Compassion and humanity are universal values, and as Sigmund Freud might have said, were he a Zen student, "a cardigan is just a cardigan".

So let's wear 'em, troops! We gonna LIGHT this mofo UP!

See you Sunday in your Aran armour.


(Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)

Kanzeon Meditation

Fictional bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara (Kuan Yin, Guanyin, Kanzeon, Kannon, Gwan-eum, Quan Âm) incarnates a specific insight about the nature of reality, chopped down to a simplistic platitude in the marketplace. The platitude is "Bodhisattva of Compassion", a role most evident in one of his many avatars: the Virgin Mary. (This primordial figure has both genders, befitting the quality she represents. Unfortunately this is more insight than the average monkey can chamber, so in India he's usually called a man; Western Buddhism, with its Christian influence and largely female direction, almost always cleaves to the East Asian tradition that she's a woman.)

But the original Sanskrit – "Lord Who Looks Down" – is a better description of what this bodhisattva actually does. Avalokiteshvara doesn't intervene on anybody's behalf; she's not a patron saint (actual existence being a prerequisite for that job) or goddess. He just, like, looks down. Why? Because she's a compassionate dude.

The more active face of this universe is something sailors readily perceive, because they have an ongoing relationship with another infinite, unfathomable entity that will happily kill you without a second thought. No, not happily. Indifferently. To have contempt for you, it would have to realise you exist. And it's 'way too busy for that.

But the universe has another nature that's just as important: opportunity. In this infinitely generous life, we can grow, learn, change. Practice. An endless stream of bricks bounces off our skull, but every one of them has a note wrapped around it. Kuan Yin looks down from heaven, sees your suffering, and says, "Come on, crow meat! You're hurting both of us, here. Practice, dammit!"

Because the universe wants you to succeed. It may not be snuggly and cute and sweet-smelling, but every problem here is its own cure. And if it weren't for the pain, we'd never be motivated to reach it.

As one of Fudo's crew, I don't meditate much on Avalokiteshvara. But the new year puts me in mind of her. In this moment, more than others, folks think about the paths they arrived on, and those that lie ahead. Along the way we acquire great weights of resentment, and an equally crushing load of denial. We ignore life's windfalls, and our own role in pumping pain into it. But mostly, we deny the simple opportunity it gives us.

This ain't hell. We can get out of this.

Some time ago the following meditations invented themselves while I was sitting. I return to them from time to time, when the burden grows great. Therefore, in steely Fudoesque anticipation of 2014, I offer them to all seekers, in the hopes they may be of help to other enlightenment practices.

I.

I forgive myself for not being perfect.
I forgive others for not being perfect as well.
I forgive my judges for not knowing the whole truth.
I forgive humanity for containing evil people.

II.

I honour the progress I've made.
I honour the roads of others as well.
I honour those who evolve with courage.
I honour this life for the opportunity to practice.


(Photo of Guanyin Bodhisattva statue courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation's Southeast Asian Art Collection, and the Walters Art Museum.)

Street Level Zen: Stepmothers

Remember: This is a test you cannot pass.

This may be the best opening line ever. Not only is it memorable, it sums up the entire koan of step-parenthood, with Zen-worthy genius. Jōshū could have done no better. The fact that Beverly Rollwagen chose to open with the solution and then elaborate is further proof of her enlightenment.

How to Become a Stepmother, by Beverly Rollwagen, is the definitive guide to a delicate undertaking, in six brief quatrains.

Out of respect for the author's copyright I've linked to the full text on Garrison Keillor's site, rather than copying and pasting it here. Not only has my brother Garrison permission to post, but you can hear him read the poem aloud if you click on the audio link above the title. I heartily recommend it; Keillor is as good at reading poetry as Rollwagen is at writing it.

(On a purely frivolous note: if Zen had come to the West a thousand years ago, so that monks here took names in our own languages rather than Asian ones, Rollwagen could easily have been one of them. Check out this speculative Wikipædia entry from that parallel universe: "Road Across the Moors is a collection of koans from the fourteenth century, popularly attributed to Zen hermit Rollwagen of the Yorkshire lineage.")

An auspicious Mother's Day to Avalokiteshvara in all her disguises.

Deep bow.