Saving the world by sitting on our butts

My wife (who has a sensitive and anxious disposition) desperately wants her first child. She is in her mid-30s now. In the course of the last year she has miscarried three times and three times I have seen her heart break. There is no instruction manual given out for how best to support someone going through something like that and it has been a real learning curve for me. Even her normally-very-supportive best friend told her she could no longer support her and they are no longer firends. I know that I'm far from perfect but also know that I've been invaluable to someone who was dependent on me and whom I was in a position to genuinely support. I also know that my Buddhist and mindfulness practice has helped a great deal - allowing me to be calmer, more patient, more empathetic, less interfering and to have a better view of my own 'stuff' than I might otherwide have had.

Zen teachers I know have stated (quoting Dogen as saying that a person who does zazen unconsciously and automatically benefits all beings) that the best way to help others is not by supporting them or engaging with them in any way, but by practicing zazen. One explanation given was that without wisdom our attempts are useless or even harmful (which by itself I have some agreement with). And that zazen by itself (perhaps via the dedication ceremony) benefits all beings through some mysterious karmic processes.

This doesn't accord with my experience. My experience is that to influence the world we need to engage with it. I certainly have no experience of this mysterious process and would have to believe in it through blind faith. I remember hearing about the belief among transcendental meditators that simply by doing TM they could influence social harmony in a positive way (by emanating harmony in some mysterious way). But, as I recall, the supposed evidence for this didn't withstand much scrutiny.

One of these teachers (not knowing the full background) suggested that I should not have cut short a week-long retreat to support my wife. This seems like a rather escapist view of life.

I have also heard of a monk in the same lineage declining to visit his own father on his deathbed in order to attend an extended retreat.

Buddhist ethics are indeed focussed on the intentionality behind our actions, but if my intention is sincerely to benefit all rather than just myself then my intention will be to actually act rather than merely to have 'good intentions'. My understanding of our dedication ceremonies and vows had always been that they are expressions of selflessness, ways to let go of selfish attachments, rather than seen as acts which by themselves help others and absolve us of any further responsibility to them. Is it really more selfless to dwell in private feelings of harmony than to actually help others? For me, to help others we have to actually engage with them. Meditation and self-awareness may help us in our relationships a great deal. Letting go of trying to change others may help a great deal, but we still have to engage, to be there, to care, and to act with wisdom and compassion. We need to 'return to the world' or 'return to the marketplace' rather than simply look after and dwell in our own feelings of cosmic harmony.

Dogen's Genjo Koan: Section Nine

Now if a bird or a fish tries to reach the end of its element before moving in it, this bird or this fish will not find its way or or its place. When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point. When you find your way at this moment, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point; for the place, the way, is neither large nor small, neither yours nor others'. The place, the way, has not carried over from the past, and it is not merely arising now.

The particular cannot be separated from the whole. To try to escape from your current situation is delusion. To realise your current situation is true practice. And yet 'finding your place where you are' goes beyond both the idea that reality is carried over from the past and the idea that there is no past and that only the present moment exists.

Dogen's Genjo Koan: Section Eight

A fish swims in the ocean, and no matter how far it swims there is no end to the water. A bird flies in the sky, and no matter how far it flies there is no end to the air. However, the fish and the bird have never left their elements. When their activity is large their field is large. When their need is small their field is small. Thus, each of them totally covers its full range, and each of them totally experiences its realm. If the bird leaves the air it will die at once. If the fish leaves the water it will die at once.
Know that water is life and air is life. The bird is life and the fish is life. Life must be the bird and life must be the fish. You can go further. There is practice-enlightenment which encompasses limited and unlimited life.

There is a story of an old fish swimming past two young ones who says “The water’s nice today isn’t it?”. One of the younger fish turns to the other and says “What’s water?”.

We may go through much of our lives with our attention so preoccupied by our various goals that we may not notice, but one day we may suddenly wake up to the most fundamental of things - the reality of this moment-to-moment existence. We can call it mind, or being, or life, or Tao, or Buddha, or God, or emptiness, or the present moment, or reality - it doesn't matter much - none of these concepts really captures it.

It is easy to fall into treating this experienced reality as if it was a distinct thing and becoming attached to various metaphysical beliefs about it. At the time of Buddha, Bramins claimed the whole experience of our lives was experienced by an absolute, unchanging atman or metaphysical soul which was at the same time identical with Brahma, or God. Buddha denied this of course and so does Dogen.

This 'essence of being', Dogen calls 'life' - the fish is life and the water is life, the bird is life and the air is life. The fish is not separate from the water - wherever the fish goes, water is there - wherever the bird goes, air is there. The bird and fish are in harmony with the universe. This is their practice-enlightenment.

Beings are totally surrounded by and at one with this emptiness - breathing it in and breathing it our moment after moment, totally dependent on it and inseparable from it. Buddha is like this - it is always present and yet we may see it clearly or be blind to it.

Can Buddhism and Psychology Co-Exist?

"Meet a doctor who thinks you can better understand the self by destroying it"

After the confusion about 'annihilating the self' is cleared up this is a very interesting story.

Can Buddhism and Psychology Co-Exist?

A moment of commuter time

A moment of commuter time,
rush hour frozen,
drivers rage silently,
trapped in their cars,
rising sun illuminates,
this hazy world.

Dogen's Genjo Koan: Section Seven

When dharma does not fill your whole body and mind, you think it is already sufficient. When dharma fills your body and mind, you understand that something is missing. For example, when you sail out in a boat to the middle of an ocean where no land is in sight, and view the four directions, the ocean looks circular, and does not look any other way. But the ocean is neither round nor square; its features are infinite in variety. It is like a palace. It is like a jewel. It only looks circular as far as you can see at that time. All things are like this.
Though there are many features in the dusty world and the world beyond conditions, you see and understand only what your eye of practice can reach. In order to learn the nature of the myriad things, you must know that although they may look round or square, the other features of oceans and mountains are infinite in variety; whole worlds are there. It is so not only around you, but also directly beneath your feet, or in a drop of water.

Here Dogen is talking about the relative or particular and it's relation to the absolute or universal.

There are many sayings from Patriarchs and Masters which appear to equate the particular with the universal.

For example:

A monk asked Joshu, "What is the meaning of Bodidharma's coming to China?" Joshu said, "The oak tree in the front garden."

And there are many Zen practitioners who see their own experienced reality as the whole of reality. However, according to Dogen this is an incomplete understanding. This is a self-centred or solipsistic position that takes one's relative, subjective perspective for the whole of reality. The full understanding of the dharma is that no one perspective is the whole picture. Even though object and subject are not divided, reality has an unlimited number of aspects or views depending on various viewpoints. All beings are the dharma.

Each entity in the world - his example is an ocean - has myriad appearances depending on the perspective - to a man in a boat it appears circular, to a sea-dwelling dragon it appears as a palace, to a deva in the heavens it appears as a small precious jewel. It has infinite appearances. No single perspective or appearance can be singled out as the real or objective entity. (This is not the same as the subjectivist theory that all opinions are equally valid or that believing something is the same as it being true.) Each appearance is according to the limitations of each viewpoint. All of our experiences are like this - we cannot see the whole of reality at any time. Reality includes all of these interdependent aspects of subject and object. And this is the case for everything we see and don't see.

To know the universal is to know the relativity and limitation of one's own perspective. Subject and object are not separate, yet the universe is not limited to a viewpoint of a single invidual, rather it is like a jewel with ever-changing facets or like Indra's net - a vast net with a shining, multi-faceted jewel at each vertex - each jewel reflecting every other.

Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out infintely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel in each "eye" of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number. There hang the jewels, glittering like stars in the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that there is an infinite reflecting process occurring.

- Hua-Yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra, Francis Harold Cook

Dogen's Genjo Koan: Section Six

Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken. Although its light is wide and great, the moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide. The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in dewdrops on the grass, or even in one drop of water.

Enlightenment does not divide you, just as the moon does not break the water. You cannot hinder enlightenment, just as a drop of water does not hinder the moon in the sky. The depth of the drop is the height of the moon. Each reflection, however long or short its duration, manifests the vastness of the dewdrop, and realizes the limitlessness of the moonlight in the sky.

This section is about the relationship between relative and absolute or ordinary beings and enlightenment. Enlightenment is true nature, true reality and is here represented by the moon. The relative, finite, personal mind is represented by water, which reflects the absolute.

The moon does not get wet,

You cannot hinder enlightenment. The absolute is unborn and unconditioned, it isn't obstructed by our conditioning, our karma, our relative minds. It is always fully manifested. The particular cannot obstruct the whole, for it always is a manifestation of the whole. Being empty of self-nature, it is delusion to imagine that we can be anything other than Buddha.

nor is the water broken.

Enlightenment does not divide you. True realisation does not create a duality out of enlightenment and samsara. An ordinary being who does not know enlightenment creates a duality out of samsara and imagined enlightenment. An ordinary being who has glimpsed enlightenment may create a duality out of samsara and recalled enlightenment. True enlightenment is to see that there is no duality between samsara and enlightenment. Or as Dogen put it earlier 'no trace of realisation remains'.

Although its light is wide and great, the moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide. The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in dewdrops on the grass, or even in one drop of water.

If we examine a particular thing carefully we cannot find it's essence, all we find is conditions produced by conditions produced by conditions which ultimately include the whole universe. Buddha nature is universal - it is perfectly expressed without hindrance through each particular thing no matter how small. Each particular is the entire vastness of the universal.

The depth of the drop is the height of the moon. Each reflection, however long or short its duration, manifests the vastness of the dewdrop, and realizes the limitlessness of the moonlight in the sky.

The mind is the universe and the universe is the mind. Buddha nature or enlightenment are not something separate or additional to the self and the world. They are the true self and the true world. They are the actual nature of things at all times.

Dogen's Genjo Koan: Section Five

Firewood becomes ash, and it does not become firewood again. Yet, do not suppose that the ash is after and the firewood before. You should understand that firewood abides in the phenomenal expression of firewood, which fully includes before and after and is independent of before and after. Ash abides in the phenomenal expression of ash, which fully includes before and after. Just as firewood does not become firewood again after it is ash, you do not return to birth after death.

This being so, it is an established way in buddha-dharma to deny that birth turns into death. Accordingly, birth is understood as no-birth. It is an unshakable teaching in the Buddha's discourse that death does not turn into birth. Accordingly, death is understood as no-death.

Birth is an expression complete this moment. Death is an expression complete this moment. They are like winter and spring. You do not call winter the beginning of spring, nor summer the end of spring.

This analogy about firewood and ash is really pointing to the nature of human existence. It's sometimes interpreted to mean that Dogen taught that there was no such thing as post-mortem rebirth and initially I interpreted it this way too. However, I don't think this is correct. However, having said that, there are other important Zen masters such as the 6th Patriarch who do point to rebirth in other realms in terms of states of being in this life - psychological interpretations of rebirth are not just a modern phenomenon. This section is an introduction to Dogen's theory of Uji, 'Being-Time'.

Firewood becomes ash, and it does not become firewood again.
Change occurs only in one direction. In modern physics we have a concept of the 'arrow of time' and this corresponds loosley with that. This is change from the conventional perspective.

Yet, do not suppose that the ash is after and the firewood before.
Having said that, since entities do not have a self or identity that is continuous or carried forward through time, it is incorrect to say that one state changes into another. Before it burns firewood is just firewood. By the time it is ash, the firewood is already gone. The 'firewood' nature or identity is not preserved and carried forward within the ash - it is always only exactly what it actually is at a given moment. One thing does not change state, because there is no 'one thing' that continues from the before to the after. Existence is momentary. This corresponds to an understanding that could be expressed as 'only the present moment exists - the past and future are illusions'.

...fully includes before and after and is independent of before and after.
Each moment or state includes its past and future - the universal laws of conditionality (causality) are what allow things to be what they are at any given moment - and there is no phenomena other than those laws of conditionality. And yet, simultaneously each moment or state is completely just itself, independent of it's past and future, because no self is carried forward through the change - from the before to the after.

Just as firewood does not become firewood again after it is ash, you do not return to birth after death.
This is the line that is perhaps most tempting to interpret as a denial of rebirth. But (as I recall, please correct me otherwise) Dogen makes reference to literal rebirth elsewhere in his writing, so this can be taken as a reiteration that there is no self which is carried forward from one life to another. As one state never returns to its previous state, death never turns into life. That is, no self is ever carried forward to be reborn.

it is an established way in buddha-dharma to deny that birth turns into death
Yet, in Buddhism it is taught that life does not change into death. Because there are no selves, nothing is ever born, nothing really comes into being. In this sense there is no birth. It is also taught that death does not turn into life. Nothing is carried forward through death into the next life. In this sense there is no death. Since there are never any substantial selves, nothing ever comes into being or is destroyed. What we commonly see as birth and death is ultimately no birth and no death, that is The Unborn.

Birth is an expression complete this moment. Death is an expression complete this moment.
The Unborn isn't something that exists in addition to phenomena, it is phenomena just as they are. Things are always just as they are, and without the continuity of a real self to unite them, each state or moment is just itself, one does not become the other.

Sickest Buddhist

Bit of an abrupt change of tone here. But I thought you guys might appreciate this video by Arj Barker of Flight of the Conchords fame.

Sickest Buddhist from GenerateLA on Vimeo.

Impermanence and suffering: Our story

Can I share something with you all?

My wife suffers with anxiety. We've been trying for a child for about a year. She is afraid that she'll never be able to have one. She miscarried in January and again in April. Many people have no idea what miscarriage can be like, thinking of it as nothing more than a 'heavy period'. In fact, it can really be a bereavement. Now she's pregnant again, which is great in a sense, but in another means a great deal of stress and worry for her - especially during this early period.

My role, of course, is to give her whatever support I can. And mostly this means listening and being there for her. My own practice has helped me tremendously. As a Zen Buddhist and someone learning to teach MBCT of course I've suggested meditation, but she can't - the silence and doing nothing makes her feel anxious - perhaps she feels too strongly that she has to 'try to relax', I'm not sure. But anyway she's not inclined to keep trying and it's not beneficial for me to pressure her.

She is sympathetic to the 'Buddhist approach' and gets some benefit from listening to the wisdom of Edward Brown (SFZC), Pema Chodron and Ekhart Tolle. Yoga, pilates, the gym and having a dog also help.

After losing her pregnancy symptoms the second time, she had a scan but had to wait for another 12 days for a second scan to confirm it. That period was possibly the most difficult period of her life. Even though she has a great career, and a loving family and plans for the future, she found it so intensely distressing that she was contemplating suicide.

After we confirmed the second miscarriage, she had a breakthough. She realised that she couldn't go on like that and at some level she decided that things had to change. She simplified her life as much as possible and decided just to stop ruminating about the past and future so much and live more in the present. It was borne of sheer necessity but influenced by Buddhist thought, and Ekhart Tolle too.

My brother-in-law also found Eckhart Tolle helpful while he was splitting up with his wife (he now does Soto Zen practice). And he gave her some valuable 'spiritual' support at that time too. One of my Soto Zen teachers cited 'The Power of Now' as one of his favourite Zen books even though it's not technically Zen. I also quite like it myself, although there are parts about the evolution of consciousness that I'm happy to leave.

For me the fundamental principles of Buddhism are universal and different approaches suit different people. Something that occured to me was that perhaps 80%+ of the population would benefits from applying these principles to the way they live and yet 95% of the population are put-off by the trappings of traditional Buddhism. This is why I started to study Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy. And hearing face-to-face how MBCT is helping people with chronic depression and other problems - people who would never practice Zen - just reinforces this view.

I'm all for ways to make these principles accessible for people who wouldn't go near a traditional Zen dojo.

Thanks for listening.

_/\_ Justin