gassho p.2

Fourteen days and there you are.

02/18/08

dearest friends,

Today marks the halfway point of my time here at the ZMM.

Although schedule-wise every week is the same as the one before it (except for next week's sesshin, but more on that in a bit), I think the consistency of the external daily experience serves to emphasize and highlight the mental, spiritual transformations and changes that happens within.

I feel like meditation practice is awakening a subtle and yet unmistakable layer of mental calmness. It's been fascinating to see how the mindfulness I've been cultivating during meditation somehow transfers over to my everyday living without any sort of deliberate, conscious effort on my part. It's hard to explain, I feel acutely more focused, more aware, more in tune in what's happening around me.

an interesting side note. maybe it was obvious, maybe it wasn't, but there are women here. It's probably a 60/40 split, and just like the guys, ages range from mid 20's to late 80's. Another twist, which was quite a surprise to me, is that this place is far from celibate. Many of the monks here are married (to other resident monks, of course), but even the lay practitioners are allowed to maintain relationships. I think the reason behind it is the abbot here realized (correctly, in my opinion) that denying the very natural relationships that develop between human beings living together ends up being more of a distraction than simply allowing them to exist, although with the absolutely mandatory condition of stability. There are certain rules that must be followed concerning the nature of relationships, where and how they develop and so on, but just the fact that the powers that be here take the enlightened approach of redirecting and channeling that relationship energy into something beautiful and spiritual rather than trying to flat out suppress it (the simpleminded, life-denying approach many organized religions are all to ready to embrace) is just one more reason this place makes sense to me on so many levels. It's so refreshing to be in a spiritual community where for once the focus isn't on shoving some rigid dogma or backwards morality down your throat, but rather providing you with the tools and and the environment to look within and realize your own truths.

a bit of philosophical musings. Buddhist ethics suggest that any act is not inherently good or bad in and of itself. What matters far more than what you do is the intent behind it. To make a direct relation to life, the act of using drugs or alcohol is not inherently good or bad. What matters is the intention behind it. Why am I taking this substance? Out of curiosity? To have fun? To escape my day-to-day reality? To offer some sort of variation into my otherwise dull day? Just to chill out for a bit with my friends? Going through process of asking myself these questions and seeking a true, undistorted answer has been quite eye-opening. It's like I'm suddenly gleaning a great deal of insight into why I do what I do, why I act how I act. My "self", that so-called ego, has been so very crafty at producing myths for me to believe, doing what it can to divert my attention from any sort of serious introspection. It seems to me that we humans often go through our reasoning process backwards. We start off with the conclusion we'd like to come to, such as "Judaism is the right religion" or "Christianity is the right religion" or "Marijuana is harmful" or "Marijuana is harmless", and then let our minds come up with arguments and rationalizations supporting the conclusion we were already predisposed to believe in the first place. How silly is that? It's so hard to cut through the bullshit because our egos have got such a tight grip on our minds, but through practicing meditation that grip becomes looser and looser, our egos dissolve more and more, until we get to the point where we can see things just as they are, without the distorted lenses and filters our preconceived notions and opinions add on.

So yeah, my hosan break will be just about over in an twenty minutes and I'll soon be starting another monastic week, which should interesting. The week after this one though, my last week here, when the previously alluded to sesshin begins, is when things are going to start to get really interesting. Sesshin is essentially what happens when you take the daily meditation practice here and crank it up a hundredfold in intensity. For one, the entire seven-day period is done in complete silence. From wake-up till lights out, there is no social interaction whatsoever. This is to allow you to maintain a degree of focus on your practice and on your mind that could never be reached in normal everyday life. No breaks, no reading, no writing. and so on. As you would imagine, the time we spend in sitting meditation is also greatly increased. Instead of the 1 1/2 hours we normally do in the morning and in the evening, during sesshin there is about 10 hours of zazen everyday. Wowee. If meditation has proved to be intense thus far, I can only imagine...

What else? Study here is based on sort a training matrix called The Eight Gates of Zen. The basic idea is that zen practice, although centered primarily on zazen, needs to be approached and penetrated from several different aspects of human life. So along with meditation practice and work practice, there's also academic study, body practice, and art practice. The new monthlong residents (that being Joel, Arkadiy, Lynn, and myself) were assigned the task of producing a piece of art that expresses the "suchness" of an object. So a couple days ago, when we were given an hour off from work practice, I threw on my hiking boots and ventured off into the streams and rivers that surround this place. I tried to use some ideas that have been floating around in my head concerning shutter speed to reflect the "suchness" of the photograph's subject as well as the newfound sense of calm that I feel has been gradually cultivating in my mind. I've attached a few. i'd love to hear your thoughts.

And on that note, I'm off and about for another week of mental exploration. be well friends. always in my heart.

~ofer

I'm going back tomorrow for the first time since I left. There's so many old friends I can't wait to see, but something tells me more then half of them won't be there anymore.