Saving All Beings (part 2)

Recap of Part 1: The injunction to ‘Save all beings’ is one of the Zen Buddhist Precepts. But, according to these same teachings, we are already saved/awakened and there are no ‘other beings’ that are completely separate from ourselves. So how do we practice the Precept to ‘save all beings?’

Sometimes we get what we want, and sometimes we get what we don’t want. When we get what we don’t want, we have several choices, but not getting what we already have is not one of them. (This applies to whatever mind-state you are experiencing as you read this as well as to the identity of your President-elect.) We can spend our time complaining and wishing it were otherwise, but at some point we may choose simply to acknowledge what is already here—both in our inner world and in the world around us. We don’t even have to like what is here, but it is indeed here.

Saving all beings, is a vow to meet whatever arises without turning away. Rather than living a life of simply trying to get more of what we want and less of what we don’t want, we set an intention to meet what comes with an open heart.

In our inner world, ‘saving all beings’ means to be present with the many ‘beings’ that arise within our own experience. And we ‘save’ them by allowing them to come as they come, and go as they go. Rather than fighting and trying to manipulate our inner experience, we do our best to cultivate a basic friendliness. What is here? What is it like to feel what I’m feeling now? We don’t have to like it, but we do vow to set aside the usual complaining and resistance, to simply notice what is already present.

We take this same vow toward what arises in our outer world. Part of this is beginning to see that everything we encounter in the world is some part of us. The greed and ignorance we see in others, is actually a part of every human being (including ourselves). It is so easy to dismiss some people as ‘those kind of people.’ But this Precept of ‘saving all beings’ invites us to practice this basic friendliness toward everyone – omitting not one single person.

So saving all beings means to open our hearts to what is arising in the moment – the pain and joy, the wisdom and the folly. This is not to be confused with falling into a state of passivity, but rather an invitation to stop fighting the reality of human experience. From this place of basic friendliness, we can move from judgment and resentment to reconciliation and action. We see what is happening and are free to do whatever we can do to alleviate the suffering of the world. Where people are hungry, we can offer food. Where people are hurting, we can offer comfort. Where injustice appears, we can stand on the side of justice and dignity.

Saving All Beings (part I)

Melissa and I participated in a Precepts Ceremony yesterday at the Greater Boston Zen Center with our dear friend and colleague, Josh Bartok, Roshi. The ceremony marks the formal entry into the Zen Buddhist path. I’m always moved as the initiates receives the sixteen Buddhist precepts and each speaks of the personal meaning these ancient teachings hold for them.

Three of the initial precepts are called the ‘three pure precepts’. They are quite simple: Avoid evil, Practice good, Save all beings. I could go on at length about the first two, but it’s the third, Save all beings, I’m interested in this morning. But first some theological background.

The essential Zen teaching parallels one of the core teachings in Christianity. In Zen we say everyone is already awake – already enlightened. Christians might say we are already saved. Both ways point me to a life where the most important work has already been done. I cannot be good enough to earn my salvation and I cannot work hard enough to achieve enlightenment. It’s already happened.

I find these teachings to be a deep mystery. My ordinary experience is that I am a quite imperfect human being who is clearly not good enough deserve salvation. And I am certainly not in any kind of state that I would think I should be if I was enlightened. But when I let these teachings sink in, and consider the possibility that I am acceptable, loved and awake as I am, it brings tears to my eyes. Could it be so? Is it possible that I don’t have to earn my life?

In this larger context, what could the precept to ‘Save all beings’ mean? All beings are already saved, already awake. And beside that, in Zen we say that ‘all beings’ are ‘one body’. The separation between me and you, between us and them is simply a perceptual stance that fails to acknowledge the true interdependence and interpenetration of all things.

In my experience, the ‘many beings’ appear both within me and outside of me. Some of the beings that appear come in the guise of people I like and admire, people I think are ‘like me’, people I want to spend time with. Other beings appear as difficult, untrustworthy, different from me, people I judge and don’t want to be around. In ordinary life, we simply try to spend more time with those we like and less time with those we don’t like. (And we try to elect the former and defeat the later.)

There are several problems with this approach. First is that each of us actually contains many different aspects of our self—many different ‘beings’ within us. Sometimes we are patient, sometimes we are in a hurry. Sometimes we are kind, sometimes we are callous. Sometimes we are brave, sometimes cowardly. And though we might prefer some parts of ourselves over other parts, the truth is that we are many things. We might even say we are many beings – one coming after the other. So how do we meet the parts of ourselves we don’t like? How do we save the many beings within us?

Similarly, even the people we most love (especially the people we most love?) appear in many different guises. Sometimes as kind partner, sometimes as disturber of my peace. Sometimes generous, sometimes selfish. And then there are all the people who we judge to be ‘different.’ We may look out at Chris Christie and say ‘What a conniving politician he is. I would never do something like that.’ Or look at the Dalai Lama and think ‘What an amazing human being, I could never be like that.’

So what could this vow to ‘save all beings’ mean?   (….to be continued)

Gripped by Anxiety

Last night, I woke around two a.m. and slowly realized I was caught. I often drift into awareness at various points in the night, only to float back into a deeper sleep. In fact, sleeping has been one of my life-long talents. I’ve been told that one afternoon the four-year-old me went missing. After some increasingly frantic searching, I was discovered—peacefully sleeping behind the couch. But that wasn’t last night.

Last night I woke up entangled in the mind of anxiety and fearfulness. It happens to me sometimes, so I’m beginning to know its contours. This mind-state appears first as thoughts about some important issue that needs immediate attention. The thoughts are accompanied by a feeling of unease, sometimes quite subtle, sometimes quite strong. At first, it all appears quite rational – ‘Oh, there’s an issue in my life that needs some attention. I’ll try to figure out what to do about it.’

But looking closer, the thoughts are really quite repetitive. It’s not thinking as much as obsessing. If I turn my attention to something else, that subject too appears as disturbing. But often, the mind refuses to be diverted from its important business of ruminating.

Last night, the great issue I was grappling with as I lay awake in the post-election darkness of a new President appointing men of questionable character to his cabinet, was the bathroom door of our new house. I have come to the firm conclusion that our decision to have it open from the left was incorrect and it should open to from the right. Now, I have to admit that most of the time, this matter is not one of my bigger concerns, but last night I was stuck amid the looming Trump presidency and the ongoing affairs of the Temple and my life. But last night, I was stuck going over and over the urgent issue of the bathroom door.

From time to time, I would escort my attention to the sensation of my breath. For a little while, I would rest there, but my mind would eventually return to the disastrous situation of the door. I also tried doing a ‘body-scan’ — just being aware of the sensations in my body lying in bed. I tried thinking of other things. There was momentary diversion, but the beast in the dark pit of anxiety appeared to have no intention of allowing me to crawl out.

Then, after what felt like a very long time, I realized that I was where I was—caught in the mind of anxious fearfulness and that it was really unpleasant. I remembered that part of geography of this mind-state is the not wanting to be here—the feeling that I must get out. And somehow, realizing that I was simply in mind-state I didn’t want to be in and was feeling things I didn’t want to feel—I was able to relax and struggle just a little less. Then it was morning.

I report all this as part of an ongoing investigation of how to live with the full range of our human experience. Also to illustrate that the political uncertainty and anxiety may express itself in indirect ways—less flexibility of thought, less reserves of patience, more easily upset. This is normal as the line between personal experience and the political landscape is not as clear as we might wish it were.

Poem After The Election

Golden trees illuminate
the Temple garden.
I trudge alone
toward the rising dead leaf pile
dragging the blue tarp
laden with dry brown leaves—
this season’s generous offering
of what is no longer needed.
Solo yellow leaves still ease
downward today,
fully determined
to disappear back
into the dark source
of life. This year my father too
vanished, as did a precious
friend, and a dream I had
about my country. I keep trying
to remember to keep my head
up to see the beauty that is
undisturbed in the midst
of these predictable
and staggering losses.
Each trip to the leaf pile
a pilgrimage into
the golden world.

How We Cope: Traversing the Many Realms

Since the election, I have had many conversations with friends, colleagues and strangers about how we are all coping with the shock of the election results.

(It’s quite revealing about my life and the tribal segregation of our country that, to date, I have not yet had even one conversation with someone who has told me they voted for Trump. So I am writing for those of us whose worldview was upended on 11/9 when the election results were confirmed.)

Today, I want to report the obvious. All of us are dealing with our shock, grief and loss in a different way. I want to affirm that, aside from obviously self-destructive behaviors, however you are dealing with the election is how you should be dealing with the election.

Here’s my partial list of time-tested methods that support human beings coping with loss that you may find familiar:

Denial is an expression our wonderful human capacity to turn away from something that is overwhelming. We stop watching the news and refuse to enter the endless conversations about what happened and what will happen. This turning away can allow us to go on with the necessary and comforting rhythms of our life and to deal with the trauma in our own time and in our own way.

Grief is the beating of the shattered heart—a place of deep sadness. We know we have lost something that cannot be retrieved. Some of us wail and cry, others simply feel the depth of the loss with dry eyes. Some of us need to be in the presence of others to be safe enough to feel this depth of pain while others need to be alone. In this territory of raw intensity, we meet and feel the overwhelming thoughts and emotions.

Confusion is the place where our world no longer makes sense. Like being in the middle of a thick fog, we look around and can’t find any familiar points of reference. We feel groundless and uncertain. We may feel the urge to panic—to run toward some kind of certainty.

Anger is an arousal of strong emotion. We rage against what has happened. We are certain in our perceptions and often look for someone to blame. This must be the fault of someone—ourselves, others, God—anyone will do. This an important and potentially valuable energy. Anger can fuel extraordinary action.   The intensity and certainty of anger can also cause us to lash out and intensify the conflict.

Depression is a dark place of low energy. We feel hopeless and often without impulse to do anything. Why bother? Though we may know there are reasons to be hopeful, those reasons don’t touch the certainty of our hopelessness. Depression can be a huge problem is we get stuck here, but is also a natural and necessary break from the world. The disconnection of this place can be a place for our biological organism to regroup and find the strength to re-emerge at a later time.

Action is another form of arousal. We take stock of what is happening, and we feel the impulse to DO something. We have conversations, we send emails, we go to rallies. This different from the place of ‘I should do something.’ In this state, we feel aligned with our deep values and our action is an expression of our love and our deep values.

It’s easy for many of us to imagine there is some way we should be feeling or that there is some path through these many territories that will be neat and sequential. I don’t find this to be true. Over the past nine days since the results were announced, I find myself cycling through all these and many more states. All are healthy, normal and wise.

It may, however, be helpful to be aware what state you are in at any moment. Many of these places feel strange and uncomfortable. That’s OK. Knowing they are a part of a larger process of healing can allow us to abide where we are without having to force ourselves (or others) to be different than we are. In this way, we can support the natural range of our human experience and move toward uncovering the path that is right for us as we move deeper into the mysterious unfolding of our lives.