A Few Practice Essentials: Curiosity, Patience, Intimacy and Care

In the last post I focused on Simplicity in practice. I thought it might be useful to follow up and say a bit more about the bare essentials of practice. As I sat and reflected on what was most basic and clear for my practice, two word-pairs arose and these were the foundation for our Inquiry.

The first pair were Curiosity and Patience. With simple curiosity we engage beginner's mind. Whether we are sitting, walking, standing, or lying down (the Buddha's four noble actions) we commit to turning toward unfolding experience without being caught in belief or expectation. Of course these things do inevitably arise and with them come hope and fear, so our practice commitment includes remaining curious about their arising. This requires a good deal of patience, the willingness to make space for not knowing, and to acknowledge that things take time. Sustaining patience, we remain curious. Engaging curiosity opens a greater capacity for patience. This seems like a good place to start — curious and patient.

The second pair of basic practice pointers that arose were Intimacy and Care. Our practice is to engage intimately with our experience, both inside and out, and in doing so we meet life as it is. Neither leaning in too strongly nor away too reactively we aim for the Middle Way, intimate with everything. Remaining intimate with each moment is also a way to invite the immediacy of care. Caring for our body, for our thoughts and feelings, and for our relationships is a deeply intimate act. This intimacy flows back as care. This seems like a generous cycle for practice.

In the Tibetan tradition it is said that practice is "good in the beginning, good in the middle, and good in the end." I would say that practice is characterized by gratitude in the beginning, gratitude in the middle and gratitude at the end. Gratitude is the ground from which practice grows and is the ultimate fruit of wholesome practice. And in the middle, gratitude is a complete practice in itself.

So here are the simple pointers: Opening to gratitude, we ask ourselves to remain curios accompanied by an attitude of spacious patience. Practicing intimacy with each thing and each moment we offer ourselves as a lively expression of care. Care is both intimate and patient. Intimacy is an expression of patient care and gratitude is the realization of patient curiosity and intimate care.

Inquiry recording:
https://soundcloud.com/appamada-zen/2015-02-10-inquiry-flint-sparks

How Simple Are You Willing to Let This Be?

It is easy to make things complicated. It is harder to allow them to remain simple. This is most essential when approaching spiritual practice and meditation. This Inquiry reflection is on what it means to let go of every instrumental definition of meditation. It is an invitation to see what it means to truly engage in a meditation practice without any ideas about what it “should” do for us. How simple are we willing to let it be? When thinking about what I might say I ran across this small poem by the Nobel Prize-winning poet Wislawa Szymborska. The attached photograph is mine and the recording of the Inquiry session can be found on the blog post itself.

The Three Oddest Words

When I pronounce the word Future,
the first syllable already belongs to the past.

When I pronounce the word Silence,
I destroy it.

When I pronounce the word Nothing,
I make something no nonbeing can hold.



Inquiry recording:
https://soundcloud.com/appamada-zen/2015-02-03-inquiry-flint-sparks

Control and Self Surrender

I recently spent a wonderful week co-leading a retreat in Taos, New Mexico. Late January is a lovely time to be in the mountains of northern New Mexico although the dry, thin air can be challenging for those of us who live near sea level. The cold sky can be crystalline and clear but it can also be dark and dangerous. We had both that week, but on one particularly stormy night, it actually felt threatening and dangerous. Only a few minutes after tucking myself into bed I heard something fall and break. It sounded as if there had been an accident in the room next to mine or maybe in the kitchen which was one floor below. The violent wind gusts were battering the old adobe structure and something kept banging. I was concerned that a window may have come unlatched or a screen door had blown open and I was going to have to listen to its noisy dance with the wind all night. I finally got up to see if I could locate the clatter but all I could detect was an odd wind rattling the door to my room and then rushing past me down the stairway when I opened it to check the hallway. Something wasn't right. I finally turned in the opposite direction to the far side of my large room and discovered that a window had blown out. I stood there dumbly looking at the flapping curtains and the snow blowing through the perfectly square opening in the bedroom wall. I had no idea what had happened and little idea about what to do. I looked more closely and discovered that the glass had not blown into the room nor had anything hit the window to cause it to break. I could see the entire pane shattered in the snow on the roof of the kitchen below. No pieces of the glass remained in the sill. Apparently the entire pane had released itself and flown away from the frame out into the storm. What was this mysterious force that had caused the pane to jump cleanly off the frame out into the storm?

More important than solving this mystery was closing the opening. It was very near zero-degrees outside and the wind was quickly chilling the room. I contacted the on-call maintenance person and we managed to secure the rupture with cardboard and tape, shoving a large armoire over the patched space to add some measure of protection. It was 50-degrees in the room by the time I got back in bed around midnight. By morning the storm had passed, the sun was shining brightly and the world was white and soft. A new pane was cut and glazed into place. Through it all I was reminded of how weak I feel in the face of nature's impersonal chaos. And the very next day I ran across a post in BrainPickings, a wonderful online source for amazing reflections on life, spirituality, literature, art and how to live a good life. I might not have even looked at this one except a friend had mentioned the author and the exotic (and out of print) Scandinavian children's book from which this post was taken. It caught my eye and then took me deeper as I discovered the beautiful little story of the Moomintroll and his night this a raging snow storm. You can read the excerpt here. I also used it for Inquiry the following week at Appamada and that recording is posted on the blog site and available for listening.

Inquiry recording:
https://soundcloud.com/appamada-zen/2015-01-27-inquiry-flint-sparks

Make of Yourself a Light

We are in the last full day of the Leadership Pilgrimage Intensive retreat in Taos, NM. Our theme for the week has been "Becoming a Compassionate Leader," and our study text is Norman Fischer's Training in Compassion. During our last morning meditation I spoke about the way in which becoming a compassionate leader is, in a sense, becoming a light in the world. I was reflecting on the Buddha's final teaching and the famous quote from the Mahaparinibbana Sutta which chronicles the events and teachings at the very end of the Buddha’s life — “Be a light unto yourself.” Much could be said about this statement, but in my comments I was suggesting that he was recommending that we practice in order to bring light where there is darkness and sight where there was once blindness. He is suggesting that we become that light and learn to have faith in our own life-light.

A very wonderful Japanese teacher, Kobun Chino Roshi (1938-2002), would often use “light” as a metaphor for sitting practice and for life energy. He was a delightful teacher and a poet. One of the first quotes given to me by my own teacher (Zenkei Blanche Hartman) was the following from Kobun Chino. She gave it to me before the first seven-day sesshin I was about to enter with her.

"The main subject of this sesshin is how to become a transmitter of actual light, life light. Practice takes place to shape your whole ability to reflect the light coming through you, and to regenerate your system, so the light increases its power. Each precept is a remark about hard climbing. Maybe climbing down (to the very ground of your being). You don't use the precepts for accomplishing your own personality or fulfilling your dream of your highest image. You don't use the precepts in that way. The precepts are the reflective light world of one precept, which is Buddha's mind itself, which is the presence of Buddha. Zazen is the first formulation of the accomplishment of Buddha existing. The more you sense the rareness and value of your own life, the more you realize that how you use it, how you manifest it, is all your responsibility. We face such a big task so, naturally, such a person sits down for a while. It's not an intended action, it's a natural action."

There is an enormous amount of teaching that can flow from this statement by Kobun Chino, certainly much more than I will comment on here in this small post. It made a big impact on me the first time I read it and it has stayed with me through the years, continuing to unfold its meaning. I discovered the truth of “climbing down” in practice, just as I had in psychotherapy, but the difference was that in zazen I was climbing toward nothing; no gain: no accomplishing of my own personality or of fulfilling the dream of my highest image. This was naturally something that made me sit down for a while, and I’ve remained on the cushion in one way or another since then.

Here is another beautiful reflection on the use of “light” by Kobun Chino Roshi. It is found in A Light in the Mind: Living Your Life Just As It Is, an homage to Kobun Chino’s life and teaching by his long-time student and Zen teacher Carolyn Atkinson. In this segment she is describing a moment late in his teaching life.

“We sit,” Kobun began slowly, “to make life meaningful. The significance of our life is not experienced in striving to create some perfect thing.” He looked down at his hands as he spoke. He was quiet for a long time. Then he continued, “We must simply start with accepting ourselves. Sitting brings us back to actually who and where we are.” Again he waited, as he perhaps reflected upon his own life. “This can be very painful. Self-acceptance is the hardest thing to do.” Once again, he paused, so long at this point that I wondered if perhaps he had finished. But finally, he continued, “If we can’t accept ourselves, we are living in ignorance, this darkest night. We may still be awake, but we don’t know where we are. We cannot see. The mind has no light.” He stopped and looked around at us in our small circle. He moved from face to face with his eyes, seeing deeply into each one of us, his long-time, oldest students. Finally, he nodded slightly, and concluded, “Practice is this candle in our very darkest room.”

She captures what I imagine was a tender moment with her teacher, sitting together in stillness and silence. His “life light” must have touched everyone in the room. Such illumination was not brought about by his being grand or special, but by being ordinary and wholehearted. His vulnerability opened the way for wisdom. His willingness to nakedly face himself and his students opened the way for compassion. This is being a light.

Interestingly, the American poet Mary Oliver has written a poem entitled “The Buddha’s Last Instruction,” speaking to this same teaching about becoming a light. It underscores the relational quality of our practice-realization and life-transformation. Over time we inevitably discover that this is not a solitary practice that will lead us to individual achievement. It is a practice of profound meeting and intimacy.

The Buddha’s Last Instruction
~ Mary Oliver

“Make of yourself a light”

said the Buddha,

before he died.

I think of this every morning

as the east begins

to tear off its many clouds

of darkness, to send up the first

signal - a white fan

streaked with pink and violet,

even green.

An old man, he lay down

between two sala trees,

and he might have said anything,

knowing it was his final hour.

The light burns upward,

it thickens and settles over the fields.

Around him, the villagers gathered

and stretched forward to listen.

Even before the sun itself

hangs, disattached, in the blue air,

I am touched everywhere

by its ocean of yellow waves.

No doubt he thought of everything

that had happened in his difficult life.

And then I feel the sun itself

as it blazes over the hills,

like a million flowers on fire-

clearly I’m not needed

yet I feel myself turning

into something of inexplicable value.

Slowly, beneath the branches,

he raised his head.

He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.

“Clearly I’m not needed/yet I feel myself turning/into something of inexplicable value.” Relinquishing self and reveling out True Nature; Kenosis (self-emptying) and realizing identity with the Divine; Mind and body of themselves, dropped away. There are many ways this essential paradox has been expressed. And in the end, “He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.” The poet doesn’t say, “and then everything was OK.” She also does not imply that, “then he gave his final wise teaching.” The suggestion is that the looking itself was the teaching. This is life light — this willingness to look and truly see. This is what enlightens and frees all beings. This is making ourselves a light.

Evening light at Mabel Dodge Luhan House in Taos.

Experiments in Trust

I recently heard a quotation from the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr that will likely be familiar to some of you: “Salvation is being on the right road, not having reached a destination.” This is so resonant with our own teaching of practicing with "no gaining idea." Yet, we do have ideas about what we want and the things that motivate us to practice. When we receive such teachings we might wonder what we can trust. How do we know we are on the right road? Is our practice the practice that will deliver salvation, freedom, enlightenment, an open heart and a clear mind? We can't know exactly. But we can cultivate a faith that does not rest outside of ourselves, outside of Buddha Nature. We can come to see our practice as an ongoing experiment in realizing faith in our True Nature.

Suzuki Roshi once said, “Big mind is knowing that we have to see the world through our small mind.” Dedicated practice slowly relieves us of the false (and often tightly held) hope that we will eventually become someone else. Commitment to zazen, study, and working with a teacher eventually demonstrates to us that we will not become something else other than human. We will always be limited, impermanent humans that can paradoxically imagine and awaken to the limitless and the inconceivable. Everybody sees the world through their own eyes and with their own unique perspective. We are naturally under the illusion that what we are seeing is real and whole. But, by definition, we are limited creatures using limited equipment, meeting other limited beings and impermanent things in a never-ceasing flow of change. As a result, we are anxious.

So, a meditation center and a community of practitioners is a laboratory for trust in the face of this anxiety. "Can I experiment in this environment with simply being myself? Do I even know who this person is? Is it OK to be this person?" As we meet these inevitable questions, it is important to remember one thing: This is not a practice path that helps us necessarily trust others or our surroundings or conditions to deliver the freedom we seek. Everything is contingent and without an abiding self, so we can't reliably place our trust elsewhere. This road is about trusting ourselves. Practicing in this way, with our small minds, reveals to us the larger perspective that salvation is, in fact, trusting ourselves to be ourselves. Profound acceptance is the road of Big Mind and we travel it with small mind.

I would venture to say that pretty much all of the optional suffering in the world derives from our not wanting to be ourselves, especially not wanting to feel what we feel. There is pain and suffering in this world that we can’t do anything about, but the rest of it comes from not wanting to be "this person." Rather than learning to be with and to greet all the parts of ourselves that arise in response to the challenges we meet along the road, we resort to habitual patterns and automatic habits of protection and coping. Sitting in stillness and silence in zazen is an experiment in trust. "Can I be this person? Can I sit with all of this and meet it with a wholesome attitude—with an open heart and a soft mind?" This is the road of Big Mind.

But to sit in stillness and silence can bring up powerful things that might feel like barriers to Big Mind. Stillness and silence shine a light on the little nooks and crannies of our being like nothing else. When we relinquish our habit of coping and protection and sit in the naked now, things are reveled that would otherwise not be shown to us. Here are a few that were manifest during our recent Integrated Intensive. These, and many others, can become dharma gates for our release, rather than perceived barriers to practice. These are the challenges to liberation and they show us where we are shaky and lacking trust in our True Nature. This is where we can meet and transform that which we have lived with all of our lives, often with a sense that we are stuck, trapped, or that nothing will ever change. We hear about mediation practice and enlightenment hoping that this will be the magic we long for. But when we enter the practice path of sitting in silence and stillness, this is what we may actually encounter:

1. In some families, silence was used as punishment. So when we are asked to sit in silence, this painful feeling might arise. We have a chance to meet this suffering differently and find some freedom if we have skillful support.
2. We might also be asked not to make eye contact during a retreat. However, looking away and “ignoring” is one powerful way that shame in triggered, especially when we are young. Once again, the light of awareness can bring forward these tender parts that carry shame.
3. For those who lived in a violent or otherwise unsafe environment as child, being still can be experienced as terrifying. We might feel a profound sense of danger, especially is we are facing a wall and things are going on behind us that we cannot see. Not speaking might be construed as harsh suppression or being muzzled, another painful or terrifying possibility. Practice does not become "safe" by avoiding these realities. We build a life of trust and safety by transforming these embodied memories and habits through practice and new relational experiences that disconfirm our embodied beliefs.
4. Sometimes stillness for long periods is proclaimed to be “not me” – “I'm the kind of person who needs to move.” Such a statement is a description of a preference or a habit pattern that might feel quite good and might be truly healthy and beneficial to a body-mind. This is in no way discouraged as a lovely and wholesome practice. However, in our Way, stillness brings forward what is not shown in movement. Movement can be a healing and generative practice, but it can also be a spiritual bypass for the parts that arise only in stillness. Restraint can be felt as bondage, but the deepest bondage, in truth, is from the fear held by our exiled parts that protective and active habit patterns continue to cover.
5. The attentive silence and steady stillness of zazen can be misconstrued as seriousness and heaviness. Zen students or mediation practitioners can take on an unnecessary attitude of rigidity and harshness that is totally unnecessary. It is as if people carry a false belief that “spiritual” somehow means “serious and heavy.” This path is the road to freedom from suffering, which is joy and ease. We engage in activities that bring forward all the parts of us that are not joyful and at ease so that they can be met fully. An affected attitude of seriousness and heaviness is not an antidote to pain.
6. Likewise, mindfulness is not about being lost in inner reflection, going inside over and over, and moving in slow motion. Mindfulness is not dissociation from the immediacy of experience and is not a replacement for the actual lived experience of the moment. Mindfulness is resting in and as the embodied presence of the moment, but it requires us to accept this body, this mind, this heart, and these circumstances as the reality to be met. Can we trust this?
7. As we learn to trust ourselves in this moment, we also discover that meditation is not the practice of waiting. The road is right beneath our feet and seat. We are not moving into silence and stillness so that something new and better will happen. We are sitting to accept and trust this moment as the fullness of life right here and now.

This body is the altar—a shrine if you will—the manifestation of the Buddha’s Body, our True Nature shining forth. Nothing can disturb the unconditioned (Big Mind) even as we live with the disturbances of our conditioned selves (small mind). Big Mind is knowing that we always see through small mind. This is the road of salvation, not the road to liberation.

So we live with the questions: “Am I willing to actually be this one? Can I trust myself to meet it all?” Here is the Inquiry reflection and the meetings that ensued. If this does not show up in the email, please go to the blog itself to hear the Inquiry session.

Inquiry recording:
https://soundcloud.com/appamada-zen/2015-01-13-inquiry-flint-sparks

Stillness and Movement

One of the many things I love about visiting the beach is the way in which peaceful stillness and powerful movement can come together. When we sit in the stillness and silence of meditation, we discover a vibrant aliveness. There is subtle and fluid movement in true meditation, otherwise we would become rigid and disembodied. Likewise, when we move gently in yoga, we discover the profound stillness at the center of each gesture and every posture. In both practices we become intimate with the stillness in movement and the movement in stillness.

This is precisely what I recognized in this photograph taken on Molokai last November at Popahaku beach — the power of the oceans unrelenting movement alongside the quiet stillness of the tidal pool. In the wave I feel the vital elements of power and change. In the stillness of the pool I sense the reflective quality of my mind in meditation. Which is the real ocean, the crashing wave or the quiet pool? It is all water. Which is my true mind, unceasing thoughts or quiet spaciousness? It is all Mind.

The Song of the Grass Roof Hut

We are in retreat at the moment at Appamada, and we are using a poem written in the 8th century by the Chinese teacher Shitou (Sekito Kisen in Japanese) as our source for study and practice. Shitou was also the author of another very famous poem that is often chanted in Zen temples and monasteries (Sandokai or Merging of Difference and Unity), but this poem is very personal. It is accessible and speaks of a modest hut and everyday affairs. I offer it here for your enjoyment. Please stay with it, read it, let it work on you, meet the person in the hut, and find your way through the grasses and weed of daily struggles.

Song of the Grass Roof Hut
~Shitou

I've built a grass hut where there's nothing of value.
After eating, I relax and enjoy a nap.
When it was completed, fresh weeds appeared.
Now it's been lived in—covered by weeds.
The person in the hut lives here calmly,
not stuck to inside, outside, or in-between.
Places worldly people live, he doesn't live.
Realms worldly people love, he doesn't love.
Though the hut is small, it includes the entire world.
In ten feet square, an old man illumines forms and their nature.
A Mahayana bodhisattva trusts without doubt.
The middling or lowly can't help wondering;
Will this hut perish or not?
Perishable or not, the original master is present,
Not dwelling south or north, east or west.
Firmly based on steadiness, it can't be surpassed.
A shining window below the green pines—
jade palaces or vermillion towers can't compare with it.
Just sitting with head covered all things are at rest.
Thus, this mountain monk doesn't understand at all.
Living here he no longer works to get free.
Who would proudly arrange seats, trying to entice guests?
Turn around the light to shine within, then just return.
The vast inconceivable source can't be faced or turned away from.
Meet the ancestral teachers, be familiar with their instructions,
bind grasses to build a hut, and don't give up.
Let go of hundreds of years and relax completely.
Open your hands and walk, innocent.
Thousands of words, myriad interpretations,
are only to free you from obstructions.
If you want to know the undying person in the hut,
don't separate from this skin bag here and now.

For a wonderful reflection on the poem, see Ben Connelley's new book Inside the Grass Hut: Living Shitou's Classic Zen Poem

"Live to the point of tears"

Lately I have been finding my self “leaking” frequently. I am not sad or depressed. Nothing bad is happening and I have not suffered some serious loss. In my work with my students and most recently in the photography workshop in Hawaii, I realized I am being gently broken open and moved by the vulnerability and beauty around me. As I was reflecting on this, I recalled the line from Camus' Notebooks, "Live to the point of tears." This seemed to meet something in me that I hadn't quite been able to name. I wanted to find my own words to describe what I was experiencing, so I sat in silence and stillness to see what would arise. Three keywords came to mind.

First, I realize I am opened by an immense gratitude for all the natural beauty I see around me, and for the ways everyone is struggling with their vulnerability while simply trying to live their lives. When I open in this way, I then feel a great generosity welling up. I want to offer myself, in my own limited and vulnerable way, to my tender companions on the journey. But to do so evokes the last word, humility. Without humility, all that has arisen could become a personal project or endeavor, all about me. So, as I sat I realized that these three qualities that invited and encouraged my tears were, in a way, all the same. They were different aspects of the one thing — tender care.

In another book, Summer in Algiers, Camus wrote, “If there is any sin against life, it consists not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.” And this is the invitation of Zen practice, to cultivate a capacity to live this life fully, not missing its incredible grandeur despite the inevitable suffering involved. Maybe some measure of gratitude, generosity and humility are what make a gracious life possible. Certainly everyone's life is worth a few tears.

As I was reflecting on these matters I received the following poem from a student. “Because of Our Wisdom” we can say, “I am hungry to know you.” How far will you travel for love? And, will you allow gratitude, generosity and humility be open as gateways to Divine Truth? Some of these questions arose in our Inquiry session this week.

Because Of Our Wisdom
—Hafiz

In many parts of this world water is
Scarce and precious.

People sometimes have to walk
A great distance

Then carry heavy jugs upon their
Heads.

Because of our wisdom, we will travel
Far for love.

All movement is a sign of
Thirst.

Most speaking really says,
“I am hungry to know you.”

Every desire of your body is holy.

Dear one,
Why wait until you are dying

To discover that divine
Truth?

Inquiry recording:
https://soundcloud.com/appamada-zen/2014-12-09-inquiry-flint-sparks

Just This is It

Having just finished a week-long photography workshop — See the Light — I am remembering this Inquiry session that preceded that week. In it, we were reflecting on the traditional Zen saying "Just this is it." The truth is, things happen in just the way they happen. They do not happen in any other way. They happen just like this.

Our photos, if captured well and freely, reflect just this.

Something is always happening. Things arise and pass away — just like this — aside from the ways we wish, want, expect, understand or live them. However, we do wish, want, expect, try to understand and inevitably live out our self-centered dream. However, there are other possibilities:

1. wish = It is easier to hope rather than meet experience with acceptance, immediacy, and engagement; wishing is passive, and not in our best interest;
2. want = Wanting it more energetic, but with an edge of grasping and, hence, suffering;
3. expect = This often suggests a form of entitlement; passively wishing and wanting to be met, and ultimately to be saved;
4. understand = With this one we act as if conceptualization were the same as intimacy with all things;
5. live = Our automatic reactions and habitual responses to what is happening is how we move in life rather than actually meeting what is happening; this is the function of meditation practice (zazen), to teach us to be with experience outside of habit patterns.

In this way, we come to realize that each moment has a stark reality to it — a sacred intense presence — just like this.

If we can actually meet life as it is — just like this — then we are better prepared to respond appropriately to life as it is, rather than merely through our wishes, desires, expectations, understanding, or habits. Meeting things — just like this — is not an invitation to be passive, but to be immediate and clear.

Inquiry recording:
https://soundcloud.com/appamada-zen/2014-11-11-inquiry-flint-sparks

Intimate vision

I have said in other posts that I see humans as “messy miracles.” Somehow we become so identified with our messiness that we forsake the miraculous in coming to know our true nature. The essential key to reunite what is so often separated seems to be our willingness to face our fundamental vulnerability and realize it as the gateway to freedom and joy. Of course vulnerability is the shaky, feared place around which we develop our basic strategies from childhood that both protect us and prevent us from receiving what we long for so deeply — the nourishment of real intimacy. I certainly see this in my clients, my Zen students, and most closely within myself. This is just part of being human and I am witnessing it this week in the See the Light photography workshop in which I am participating.

When I signed up for the workshop I expected to get expert training from the two principle teachers, Jonathan Kingston and John Barclay, and I also anticipated receiving inspiration and photo wisdom from Rikki Cooke and Dewitt Jones. What I did not expect was to find myself in a morning “sharing circle” in the pavilion at the Hui with tears streaming down my face as we talked about what the process of photography opened in us. I am used to this in my everyday work life. I just didn’t think that a photography workshop would reveal the same essential vulnerability in such tender and loving ways. I feel like I am participating in a meditation retreat, engaging in practices (shooting in nature and learning Lightroom), dharma talks (teachings about dropping the self, turning toward gratitude, and allowing the world to come to us), and practice discussion (meeting with the teachers, feeling vulnerable and stupid, showing them my innermost vision through my images, fearing judgment). Here were the same lessons I offer my students all the time: Loving presence is the foundation for how we do everything and meet everyone; Curiosity is the key to turning from habitual reaction to response and choice; Everything is relational and I am not the center of it all; Learn to look deeply and learn to allow yourself to be seen; Honor everything and turn to gratitude as a way to live; Humility is the appropriate response to meeting this tender world and to caring for each other. Everything belongs, so what do we ignore or avoid?



One practice at a time, moment after moment, relationship after relationship, and with a commitment to cultivating attention and care as our vow, we slowly build a way of life that can gently hold our basic human vulnerability. Rather than bracing against our fears in automatic and habitual ways, we discover that real intimacy — the essential nourishment we will always require — becomes available in abundance, and then we can share it with each other. That is what I regularly feel in our warm sangha at Appamada and this is what I was experiencing in the circle in the photo workshop. The simple blessings that are appearing in this space of loving presence, the grace that is flowing through our warm connections, and the spacious intimacy that we discover together are the essential balms to life’s challenges and humiliations. This is what brought tears to my eyes. This is what opened my eyes.

Another day, another rainbow...

This beautiful Sunday morning is the first full day of the See the Light photography workshop at Hui Ho’olana in Hawaii, and it is my first full day as a student in a retreat center where I have taught for the past 15 years. In fact, the Embodied Mindfulness workshop co-led by me and Donna Martin preceded this workshop by a week, so I have been on the island of Molokai for just over two weeks. As people were rousing to begin their day and as the sun peeked over the mountains behind us, a light mist began to fall in the morning sunshine. This combination of mist and sun means one thing to photographers – there is a rainbow somewhere!

And, indeed, there was, just where the morning rainbows always appear, beautifully and predictably when the conditions are right. The lawn outside of the lodge looked like it had sprouted tripods and everyone looked for just the right spot as the rainbow came and went.



My initial response was, “another day, another rainbow,” as I drank my tea and watched the excited newcomers get into position. This is how it goes, isn’t it? We grow accustomed to the amazement that is actually our LIFE! We make ordinary what is extraordinary and lose sight of the mystery as it appears right before our eyes. It is in the beginner’s mind that things appear new, fresh and NOW! This is certainly the teaching I offer all the time and I was receiving it back once again on this first day as a “student.” This was not “another day.” This was not “another rainbow.” This is IT!

Suzuki Roshi’s famous statement in the opening chapter of Zen Mind Beginner’s Mind:
“For Zen students the most important thing is not to be dualistic. Our ‘original mind’ includes everything within itself. It is always rich and sufficient within itself. You should not lose your self-sufficient state of mind. This does not mean a closed mind, but actually an empty mind and a ready mind. If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few.”

And this is our path, to always remember beginner’s mind, to always remain curious and open to life, and to return to gratitude as the most essential nourishment. Erin and I were going to visit a friend a couple of days ago and we were a little early, so we decided to drive up the road a bit to look at the landscape. We eventually slowed and turned into the driveway at the Molokai Museum and Cultural Center in order to turn around. This is what stopped us in our tracks.



This is what is always available and always has the potential to bring us to a stop along the path. But, if we don’t take the time for the aimless drive, dropping our narrowly focused agenda, we can't truly stop and make the turn – the “backward step” as Dogen described it 800 years ago — we will never “see the light,” and there is always light. This is not just another day, and not just another rainbow. THIS IS IT!



Here are Dogen's words from his Fukanzazengi (Universally Recommended Instructions for Zazen): “You should therefore cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words and following after speech, and learn the backward step that turns your light inwardly to illuminate your self. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will be manifest. If you want to attain suchness, you should practice suchness without delay.”

This fleeting world...

Several weeks ago I was privileged to lead a two-day workshop in Brussels, Belgium titled “Nothing Missing.” We were exploring the intersection of Zen practice and psychotherapy, especially through the Internal Family Systems model. I had never been to Belgium and had never visited the older parts of the city of Brussels. In the old square, my friend Sophie and I came upon two young men energetically preparing something mysterious for the crowd of tourists. Their offerings soon emerged as ephemeral, beautiful, and playful. Huge bubbles began to float across the cobblestone square. People stopped to marvel at the fragile creations. Children ran after them, fascinated and determined to touch them, knowing that to finally capture the object of their fascination would be to destroy it. Time after time they stood entranced, waiting for the next bubble, repeating their joyful pursuit to the inevitable destructive ending, thrilled at the next opportunity to grasp at nothing.



Each bubble was dazzling, but more interesting was the unending cycle of creation and destruction. As I watched, I recalled the famous lines of the Buddha responding to the question posed to him by his disciple Subhuti in the Diamond Sutra, “How are we to contemplate our conditioned existence in this fleeting world:” The Buddha responded:
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom and a dream,
So is this fleeting world.



Sometimes we are the ones creating the bubbles, mistaking them for substance, totally entranced by their evanescent beauty. It is as if they are the promise of something that can never be delivered. We sense the excitement rise as each loop is dipped in the soapy water, so there must be something real about these appearances. We can feel them. They have meaning in our agitated bodies. We anticipate the next creation, hoping that this one will be the one that satisfies – but satisfies what? If one bubble is good, maybe two will be better. I know that more of nothing is still nothing, but didn’t my nose get wet when the bubble exploded? Didn’t the others see it happen as well? Maybe the next one will last forever!



There are times when we identify as the witnesses, satisfied to stand on the sidelines watching the dance, feeling its pull, but hesitant to jump in. And sometimes we simply stop and look through the whole thing. Or is it the looking-through that actually stops us? In the stopping we turn. This stopping and this turn is the entrance to practice. We turn and SEE!



In seeing we come to realize ourselves not only as the bubbles, but as the bubble maker, the witness, and the child — no separation, nothing solid, and nothing missing.
With this realization we rejoin the dance. We can now plunge in with our whole body, with energy and creativity, knowing exactly what we are doing and being amazed that we are actually doing it. This clear seeing with full engagement is called Wisdom. Wisdom helps us realize that there is no escape from the impermanence of forms within conditioned existence, but nevertheless we celebrate and participate fully in form for the sake of everyone and everything. And this wholehearted offering and generous care for all is called Compassion.



Seeing the shining faces of our friends reflected back through the veil of appearances, full of love and joy, we live out our lives. Our lives and the fragile bubble have only one sure outcome. Even so, we learn not to hold back from the inevitable. This is where human longing and heartfelt gratitude come to understand each other as the most intimate partners. This is how they eventually find their home in embodied immediacy in each moment until there are no more moments — until the bubble bursts.
And how is this accomplished in this fleeting, human world? By viewing life as the Buddha taught…
Like a star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud.
A flickering lamp, a phantom and a dream.

Flint Sparks
Hui Ho’olana
November 18, 2014

Wait

I just returned from two weeks in Europe, having led a retreat in the Swiss Alps and two workshops focusing on the integration of spiritual practice and psychotherapy. I met wonderful people and we worked together in deep and meaningful ways. There were challenges, nourishment, silence, care, and real love along the way. On my arrival home, I found that the poet Galway Kinnell had died (February 1, 1927 — October 28, 2014). A student sent me his poem Wait which you can read here. It reflected things that opened during my time in Europe and it stands alone as a tribute to this great poet.

Wait
—Galway Kinnell

Wait, for now.
Distrust everything, if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven't they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become lovely again.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again,
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. And the desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.

Wait.
Don't go too early.
You're tired. But everyone's tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a while and listen.
Music of hair,
Music of pain,
music of looms weaving all our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear,
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.

Inquiry recording:
https://soundcloud.com/appamada-zen/2014-11-04-inquiry-exhausted-flint-sparks

Love and Death

Love and death are the two great gifts that are given to us; mostly they are passed on unopened.
—Rilke

If you want to understand suffering, learn to love.
If you want to understand love, face suffering.
—Training in Compassion by Norman Fischer

Inquiry recording:
https://soundcloud.com/appamada-zen/2014-10-14-inquiry-flint-sparks

In my recent workshop in Madison, Wisconsin, Living Our Dying, I began to realize as I listened to the participants describe their experiences that the barriers to facing death are precisely the same barriers to giving and receiving love.

This Inquiry session is an invitation to opening these gifts.

Norman Fischer on Love and Practice

The wonderful Zen teacher Norman Fischer recently gave a graduation speech for Stanford University. I was so imaged by the talk that I used a few pieces to invite the sangha to reflect on the central importance of love in a life of meaning, the commitment and practice that real love requires, and the "uselessness" of spiritual practice in a conventional sense. I read from an edited version of the speech that appeared in the November 2014 issues of the Shambhala Sun.

Inquiry recording:
https://soundcloud.com/appamada-zen/2014-09-30-inquiry-flint-sparks

YouTube of the actual speech by Norman Fischer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN9p__BHHDs

Prepared transcript of the speech:
https://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/june/fischer-baccalaureate-text-061414.html

What should I do?

No matter what a student seems to bring in Inquiry, they most often begin with some version of, “What should I do?" In three reflections on moments with Suzuki Roshi, told by former students, we got a chance to reflect on the hope that we might be liberated through external achievement or freed by inner cultivation and purification. We also considered how to turn everyday actions into kindness.

Inquiry recording:
https://soundcloud.com/appamada-zen/2014-09-23-inquiry-flint-sparks

The Buddha's One Question

The first question that struck the young Gautama on being confronted with sickness, old age and death — how can I understand and respond to suffering — became his one question, the koan for his entire life. In this Inquiry we investigate the nature of samsara and the difficulty that we encounter as we begin to see the arising of our habits of reactivity. We also consider what it would mean for this reactivity to fall away and the opening to nirvana.

Inquiry recording:
https://soundcloud.com/appamada-zen/2014-09-16-inquiry-flint-sparks

Turning things around

In this Inquiry session I decided to start with Inquiry following our sitting and then speak afterward. However, the wonderful questions and deep meeting took us to the end of our time and the last person who came forward offered the dharma talk through her clear and vulnerable presence.

Inquiry recording:
https://soundcloud.com/appamada-zen/2014-09-09-inquiry-flint-sparks

Shining Practice or Great Activity: Samantabadra

Samantabadra Bodhisattva is often called the bodhisattva of “Shining Practice” or “Great Activity.” He or she is traditionally depicted seated on an elephant because an elephant is a work animal. Our practice is our work — it is the ordinary activity of our lives. Curiously, the Buddha spoke of "appamada" as "the elephant’s footprint," meaning that mindful, diligent care is the largest "footprint" in the teachings, just as the elephant's footprint it the largest in the forrest.

Our everyday activity in the world may seem great or small. It may look like shining practice or dull practice, but whatever we do expresses our understanding of the dharma through our body. This is why we have forms in Zen training, because we are training your body in mindfulness, revealing patterns of attachment, aversion and delusion. Training in the body supports us in understanding relinquishment, wholeheartedness, stealing, killing, lying, intoxication, and seduction — all of the precepts and the paramitas (the practices of the Bodhisattvas). "The entire ten-direction world is the true human body" is an expression often used by Dogen Zenji.

Our work is the work of a bodhisattva in the world. This is the work of loving the world. Here are Mary Oliver's words about this kind of everyday work in the world:

Messenger
~ Mary Oliver

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird –
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

which is, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

Here is the Inquiry: http://appamada.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/84932332/9-2-14%20Flint%20Inquiry%20%E2%80%94%20Samantabadra%20on%20the%20Elephant.MP3

Simple Gratitude

I wrote this upon a request by the developer of Sweeping Zen, a web-based encyclopedic project dedicated to the advancement of Zen Buddhist studies here in the West. I was reminded of it recently by a student who was practicing with gratitude. She found it after 4 years on the site and reminded me of its message. Here it is again.

November, 2010
Making things complicated is easy. Making them simple is hard. The Buddha was a master teacher who found ordinary ways to express the ineffable. He was also a master rhetorician who spoke with clarity and ease to anyone who came to him, commoner or king. Centuries later, the great Ch’an masters, informed in part by the Taoist sages, and then the Zen masters of Japan and Korea, transmitted the Buddha’s teachings with a fierce and spare elegance that remains a treasure today. I found myself responding to this kind of startling clarity when I first read the poetic version of the Four Noble Truths used by Joko Beck. Suddenly, the foundational teaching of the Buddha began to come alive for me.

Caught in the self-centered dream, only suffering;
Holding to self-centered thoughts, exactly the dream;
Each moment, life as it is, the only teacher;
Being just this moment, compassion’s way.

I was captivated by this simple yet profound clarity, but I still didn’t really understand it with my whole mind and body. I needed someone to show me.

Early on in Zen practice I arranged to spend some time as a guest at the City Center location of the San Francisco Zen Center. It was the week before a new Abbott was to be installed.  The more experienced students explained to me that in traditional Zen monasteries and temples the installation of an Abbott is called a Mountain Seat Ceremony.  The new leader "ascends the mountain and takes their seat" alongside all the teachers that preceded them.  I was told that this was a great honor accompanied by a beautifully complex ceremony steeped in tradition and full of meaning.  As a fledgling student, I was, as always, the volunteer help.  I offered myself enthusiastically, cleaning the temple and engaging in the preparations for visiting dignitaries and local members. As I busied myself working in the temple I was also very busy thinking: "I am too old.  I see all of these young people here starting out fresh, dedicating themselves to the dharma.  They are the lucky ones.  I missed out on Suzuki Roshi.  I missed all the other really cool teachers who came through here in the past.  I don't know why I think I can even do this or why the current teachers would even want me as a student."  On and on I went, building a case for my pitifully lacking nature and comparing myself unfavorably to everyone and everything.  This was a familiar rut.

For security reasons, the front door of City Center remains locked.  To gain access one must have a key, be accompanied by a resident, or simply knock and hope someone will let you in.  I was sweeping the foyer grumbling to myself in this downward spiral of self-pity when someone knocked at the front door.  With some irritation at being disturbed in my misery I went to the door and opened it.  Standing in front of me with a warm smile was Hoitsu Suzuki, the son of the temple's revered founder, Shunryu Suzuki.  He had arrived on the temple's doorstep having just flown from Japan to officiate in the Mountain Seat Ceremony.  He was standing there in front of me with suitcases on either side of him hoping that someone would grant him access to the building. I looked at him with a shock of surprise because I recognized who he was.  He simply bowed and smiled.  I returned his warm gesture, grabbed one of the suitcases, and stepped aside so he could enter.  He came in and immediately put down his bag, slipped out of his shoes, and made his way into the Buddha Hall adjacent to the entrance.  He lit a candle, offered incense and then three full bows, all gestures of deep respect at the altar of the temple his father had established so many years ago. I watched all of this unfold with reverence and awe. I had simply stopped!

The suffering I had been generating was shattered in those few moments after answering the knock at the door.  I had been lost in my story, fully engrossed in its apparent "reality."  Then, with a generous smile and with palms together, this small Japanese man had turned my world upside down.  Suddenly there was no such thing as a "missing past."  My age and accomplishment in the Zen world had no meaning.  It was not as if my aspirations or fears were unimportant, they were just not relevant to the moment.  Everything I assumed was missing in my spiritual life was manifest in those few moments. I could attempt to stay caught in the self-centered dream but to do so would have meant I would have had to stay loyal to my self-centered thoughts.  However, the potency of the moment was such that it pierced my dreamlike bubble and I was invited into a moment of simple intimacy and effortless grace. I was met by great generosity and I was able to respond with an unselfconscious receptivity.  I was shocked to find how close at hand real freedom is when stories fall away.  Spontaneous relief and undeniable joy were right there. I didn't have to work for them or create them. These qualities revealed themselves quite naturally in this simple meeting beyond self-concern.  This was liberating intimacy, unfolding naturally in relational virtuosity. He had shown me.

I learned something essential in that brief and unexpected meeting: The heart of practice is simple gratitude. It is not revealed in complicated teachings or impenetrable stories of our ancestors. A moment of profound meeting in the most ordinary way contains everything that is necessary. I am deeply grateful for having been shown this, and I began to see that the quality of gratitude I discovered was not the ordinary “thank-you” or customary appreciation for a precious gift received or something special achieved. Instead, it was the profound and almost unspeakable appreciation for life, exactly as it is. It was the deep realization that our very existence is a mystery, and that this fact of being alive is a gift beyond measure.

Earlier this year (15 years after that brief meeting at City Center) I was co-leading the annual “Heart of Meditation” retreat in Hawaii with my wonderful friend Donna Martin. After more than ten years of bringing people to Molokai to practice at the beautiful Hui Ho’olana retreat center, I was reflecting on the meaning of the title we had chosen. I wondered if someone were to ask me, “What is the heart of meditation?”, or “What does your title mean?”, how would I respond? When most Buddhist practitioners think of “heart” alongside “meditation” we immediately have associations with loving kindness and compassion practices. These are definitely heart practices, but what is the heart of all practice? As I sat and walked in the natural beauty of Molokai this past summer, as I awoke each morning with the sun and the birds, and as I moved through each glorious day looking up into the ever-changing sky and out over the vast ocean, I realized a different meaning of “heart.” I came to see again, but even more deeply, that the very heart of meditation is gratitude.

During that week of retreat, we received shocking messages that two of our close friends had suffered heart attacks from which they were just beginning to recover. A few days after the end of the retreat, I heard that yet another very special person on the island had also just been rushed to a medical center in Honolulu for treatment of a heart attack. In an email message from a support person letting us know how she was doing I received these words: “I spoke with her today, she is doing well...she suggested that maybe she is here to simply breathe...and what a challenge that is going to be!” What a challenge it is for all of us as we sit silently on our meditation cushions and follow our breath — in and out, over and over, slowly realizing the amazing fact of our life.

There is a special word in the Hawaiian language which speaks about gratitude. Here is what I discovered about hoomaikai.

We have much to celebrate. Our being alive, awake and aware and able to survive are great blessings. Most of us can feel the wind on our face, listen to the early morning birds, sample the fragrance of fresh-cut blooms, treasure the visual magnificence of the moonset. When we gather in community to share our gratitude for all of life’s gifts, we create an opportunity for social bonds to be strengthened and past transgressions forgiven. The idea of being hoomaikai is woven deeply into the fabric of Native Hawaiian Culture. Music, dance, the exquisite variety of fine artworks, and personal adornments all function as expressions of thanksgiving. When you focus more on what you have, than on what you want, a special abundance is created. Happiness is indeed wanting exactly what you already have. When we take time to recognize and actively give thanks for all the goodness that is, we complete the circle that began with the asking and receiving.

As I reflect on simple gratitude and the gift of practice this Thanksgiving season, I realize yet another level of appreciation unfolding. The meaning of simple gratitude I was shown that day in San Francisco by Hoitsu is also suggested in the description of hoomaikai I found in Hawaii. Together they have revealed to me that gratitude is much closer to relinquishment than it is to attainment. We seem to be most in touch with the heart of gratitude as we relinquish our self-centered ideas about how life should be or how we would like it to turn out. As our ideals and models for some fantasied spiritual life fall away, sometimes through active letting go in practice and sometimes because life simply defeats our hopes and dreams, we are left with the bare essentials of living — our breath, our beating heart, the wind, the birds, the sun and moon. And, it is in the ongoing release of our ideas about life that allows life to come to us, just as it is. We then experience the simple gratitude of this immense and incomprehensible gift.

Here are some words from Suzuki Roshi as he reflected on this very full release into mystery.

Many Zen masters missed this point while they were striving to attain perfect zazen: things that exist are imperfect. That is how everything actually exists in this world. Nothing we see or hear is perfect. But right in the imperfection is perfect reality...

We talk about enlightenment, but in its true sense perfect enlightenment if beyond our understanding, beyond our experience. Even in our imperfect practice enlightenment is there. We just don’t know it. So the point is to find the true meaning of practice before we attain enlightenment. Wherever you are, enlightenment is there. If you stand up right where you are, that is enlightenment.
This is called I-don’t-know zazen. We don’t know what zazen is anymore. I don’t know who I am. To find complete composure when you don’t know who you are or where you are, that is to accept things as it is...
When we find the joy of our life in our composure, we don’t know what it is, we don’t understand anything, then our mind is very great, very wide. Our mind is open to everything, so it is big enough to know before we know anything. We are grateful even before we have something. Even before we attain enlightenment, we are happy to practice our way. Otherwise we cannot attain anything in its true sense. (all emphasis added)

Even though his words may sound unusual, there is something that rings true at the heart of his message. “Things that exist are imperfect...but right in the imperfection is perfect reality.” Eventually we realize that there is nothing but perfection, but we only begin to see this as our minds open and our hearts soften. The simple gratitude of existence eventually reveals itself as profound self-acceptance. “To find complete composure when you don’t know who you are or where you are, that is to accept things as it is...“

One of my teachers used to say that sitting zazen facing a wall was essentially enacting the message, “Thank you very much, I have no complaints whatsoever.” Sitting in stillness and silence, without striving for anything, aware of everything, is enacting gratitude for this moment, this life, this body, these people, and these circumstances. This is very different from practicing to improve ourselves or to achieve some special state of mind. We all have what it takes to live our way into a big heart and an open mind, beyond knowing and beyond attaining anything. In doing so, we discover we have always had everything we ever needed. Knowing this we realize the “heart of meditation,” full of gratitude and free of self.