Village Zendo Bulletin

Happy Independence Day!

It’s a bit of a funny name for a holiday if you’re a Buddhist, of course. After all, as our teachings remind us, there is no independent self—no you or me (nor anyone, nor anything) that exists separately from everything else. What can be removed from relationship, from cause and effect, from the sun beating down, the rain, wheat, flowers? Go ahead and pluck something and set it aside, see if it stands.

Everything leans on everything.

Of course, it’s easy to see how we could be mistaken, though, now that space and time have stretched out a bit from that ferociously dense first instant of long ago. I mean, look! Bird, elephant, tree, me. Each of us distinct, unique, and theoretically free.

That’s what it’s all about, apparently, this day, our obsession with being free—the great struggle to be me. What a joke. And such a sad one, too—how much suffering has ridden in on the back of that ugly word, “freedom.” How much misery from that initial misconception: that I need to guard, with tooth and claw, this fragile, separate self.

Forty years? I mean, if ever there was an example of time swiftly passing by.

And yet, in those forty years, look what’s been built! A gathering place of enormous heart. An institution of great insight and compassion. A legacy of sincere practice, embodied wisdom, and courageous expression.

But more than all that (and more simply than all that)—a kind of home. Appropriate, perhaps, that the Village Zendo began in Enkyo and Joshin’s apartment so long ago, and that though it’s moved spaces more than once, it still maintains that sense of intimacy and warm welcome—for I really do believe that’s what it has become for so many of us: a place to come home to. A refuge where we can come home to ourselves.

I’m exhausted. Spent. Kaput. Dunzo.

Sorry, I don’t mean to complain, but I get the sense I’m not alone in feeling this way, like we’re getting it from all angles at all times these days: a constant bombardment of too much too much. No rest for the weary, I guess.

Or is that what our practice is—a space of rest? Not an escape, exactly, but a kind of refuge. A place to come home to. The relative sanity of Sangha. The welcome truth of Dharma. The reassuring peace and comfort of the Buddha that resides in us all. And zazen, that good old gate of ease and joy, and the way that through it, we can rest for a while in the sweet darkness of the moment—the great underbelly of life, Tao, shadowed and refreshing and cool.

My mind is not in the right place. I am free—but honestly, I do not feel that way. I feel constricted; my shoulders are tense, my jaw. I’m all knotted up, inside and out. What is this? Is it, as Maezumi suggested, just delusion? Or is there something real binding me, imprisoning me, holding me back. And really, what’s the difference between that and delusion anyway?

Well, one difference is that, for now at least, thank God, I am physically free. I am not in chains; I am not enslaved; I am free to say Fuck Trump and not end up in prison. I can march. And oh, this is not something to be taken lightly, this freedom, but it is not everything. We can (and many of us do) live in a reasonably open society, and yet still we may not feel free on the inside. And this is one of the reasons we practice: to become truly liberated, through and through….

It’s such an unusual state for the city to be in, when a great snow falls. For once everything is pristine, unmarked. The past, the present, the future—all of it has been erased. There are no footprints yet. Just this stillness, this giant hush.

Honestly, I’ve always struggled to wrap my head around the dual nature of existence—how the one and the many are always at play—but a snow like this makes the One of it clear enough, for a while.

Interesting, though, the word play, for that in the end is what a great snow invites. In the face of it, we are all children for a moment. We throw snowballs, devilishly, at unsuspecting people we love. We construct snowmen with big round buddha bellies, and buttons for eyes. We allow ourselves to fall backwards into great heaps of it, sweep our legs and arms up and down, make snow angels, which is all any of us are at heart anyway: beautiful angels that are only here for a minute.

anything you say will inevitably fall short. I seem to remember a Fusatsu talk about “non-lying” many years ago in which Enkyo Roshi mentioned that this precept also included not saying anything at all under certain circumstances—for instance, when someone you love has just told you they have terminal cancer. What can you say that will not in some senses be a lie? You cannot come up with some kind of solution. You cannot make it better. But you can sit there with them, be there fully, offer a hug, hold their hand.

I feel similarly muted right now. Our country, it seems, is really sick, and nothing I say, I don’t think, is going to change that right now. As a writer, this makes showing up especially difficult—when words just won’t cut it. Of course, in our practice, words are often recognized as ineffective—pointing, perhaps, but never leading you all the way there—so I should be used to my craft being a largely ineffective one by now, especially when it comes to the matters that matter most….

When you become a parent, it’s easy to come to the conclusion that your life is no longer your own. It’s all about the kid now, everything. Your life as you know it, that’s a thing of the past. And there is some truth to this. Life will indeed never be the same. But it’s still your life—well, as much, perhaps, as it ever has been.

Truth is, you’ve been giving away your life, your time, all along, since way before the bambino arrived. At work, your time is someone else’s—company time, I guess they call it. Obligations—family events, household chores, appointments, etc.—more time that is not yours. In the end, it sometimes seems like time that really is yours, time that you can do whatever you want with, amounts to a mere fraction of your day. You cherish these moments, protect them fiercely. You curl up obstinately on the couch and turn on the TV, free at last…

o paraphrase that old question of Dogen’s that spurred him on his lifelong spiritual quest: “If everything is perfect as it is, then why the need for practice?” In On Zen Practice, Bernie Glassman disparagingly calls that notion “Buji Zen,” which he translates as “No Matter Zen”—going on to expound how this limited perspective can lead one to believe that because we’re all intrinsically Buddhas, everything we do is Zen practice. Of course, on one level, everything can and should be practice: not just sitting on the cushion, but washing the dishes, petting the dog, sending an email, and so on. But let’s be honest: If you’re anything like me, you, too, have probably had some moments on the cushion—mind wandering, nodding off into dreamland—when it’s definitely no longer practice. Sure, sleepy Taylor, sleepy Buddha; Taylor watching TV, Buddha watching TV—and yet, sorry, Bub, practice is something else. So: what is it?

Well, marching with my fellow Sangha members on No Kings Day—that was practice, (and strangely, quite an enjoyable practice, too. See Seido’s beautiful remembrance and photos of the event below). Doing my damndest to write this sentence—and get it right—that’s practice (even if I get it wrong). Sitting down on the cushion, even (especially!) when I’m tired and might drift off—that’s practice. In the end, I think practice might have most to do with the simplest and most basic first step: showing up.

We Zen students can be so hard on ourselves, so serious—it’s always work work work, practice practice practice—but it’s important to remember to celebrate sometimes, too. This Friday, October 3rd, the Village Zendo will be throwing a little party to honor the launch of the new website, Zen Women Pioneers, which features Enkyo Roshi and was created in collaboration with many VZ members. It sounds like a lot of fun, and I hope to be able to attend, and have a little fun myself.

I am not suggesting that our whole existence should be some kind of party (I personally have spent far too much time attempting to live like that, and it’s exhausting and pointless). This life is, after all, the grave matter—and there is much in it that needs to be attended to with the most serious of minds. And yet I do believe that there is room, too, for lightness, joy, celebration—indeed, these elements are essential…

I hate the end of summer. It goes back to childhood, probably, when the end of summer meant the end of fun: back to school, back to work, no more sunshine, no more sea. In many ways, I’ve lived my life like this—hanging on to summer with all my might, refusing to let go: of these long, sunlit days, of my youth. If I get the opportunity, I plunge into the ocean in October, early November—the water still warmish but the crisp air biting at you when you get out. Winter, ignored. Middle age be damned.

I mention all this because, well, I’m nearing fifty now and I still don’t want to grow up. I want to be young and stupid forever, even though I know how stupid that would be. Why this resistance to growing, evolving, becoming who I always knew I was meant to be?