May newsletter: What do you love?

what do you love?

Not as an abstraction or an ideal
What do you love enough to take action to defend it?

Know it
name it
own it
claim it

it is under immediate threat

by taking action to defend it, nurture it, grow it
you grow into the person you were meant to be

anger tempered by love becomes purpose
fear tempered by love becomes resolve

why are you here

from the poem “Why are you here?” by Andy Mahler

Personal Notes

Forgive my silence. It’s been a time of changes, and writing just didn’t work. Finally, I’m healing from the compulsion to do everything.

Last year my focus was on getting professional work with a stable income. That’s done. I now work 2 days a week in Northfield, in private practice as a psychotherapist, and have enough to invest a little money in the farm. Last year I took a 5-week pilgrimage to sacred spaces and inspiring Buddhist community. This year I’m staying home on the land, this land, caring for it and letting it nourish me. I’m also upgrading the buildings to be more welcoming for retreats and guests, and the hypothetical future residents. Peter Bane, my permaculture teacher, came to do a day-long consult, made a host of recommendations, and left me with a surge of creative energy. The energy is fading a bit, but the vision inspires and I’m taking slow steps. And that workday when four people with a wood splitter put up enough firewood for next year in a shed built by a hired carpenter. 8 hours of heavy work, I was sore for a bit, but happy to have a working body again. Planting small trees now.

And there’s a magic happening at the potlucks, twice now. I don’t even know what made it happen, only remember Jenny asking why I called everybody here, and a series of deep questions from a whole bunch of different people.

Observing the world

I have little to say, it’s too depressing. The likelihood of war with Iran, the increase in authoritarian rulers around the world (including the United States), and a series of increasingly oppressive state laws (Georgia on abortion, South Dakota on criminalizing protest). Yet there is also the growing edge of life, I can’t describe, and the strength of resistance to the death culture.

Climate change is now so obvious it’s mentioned in mainstream news. That’s a fairly random example, I see new ones every day.

And people keep writing wonderful books. The one I want to mention now is not new, though. Rebecca Solnit, A Paradise Built in Hell, describes the way ordinary human beings help each other in catastrophe, when not prevented. And a very old movie about nuclear disaster: Threads. Found in several libraries, lead author Barry Hines, originally from the 1970’s. If you’re not adequately worried, take a look and get really scared about how bad things could be. How important it is to take action – whatever that action might be.

Study/Action Group

What might I recommend?

Always, sitting meditation. Always, get outdoors, walk on the earth, under trees if you can, listen to birds or water or whatever is available.

And then – I just listened to an 80-minute video of Derrick Jensen, maybe 11-12 years ago, discussing the state of civilization and so forth. It was motivating. Also, he was funny. He does use a lot of bad language.

MWA Upcoming Events – local

Work days at the farm (a way to support us, while learning, good times, and good food):

• June 8, July 20, August 17, September 14

Retreats

• May 17-19, “Spiritual Practice with the Natural World,” a land care retreat. Not too late, if you register by Wednesday May 15. Email me directly please.
• June 28-30, Sesshin. Just sitting quietly together, letting the universe support us. At the farm. Cost plus donation, or work exchange. Register here.
• July 26-28, Sesshin, as above. Register here.
• August 9-11, Land Care Retreat, as above, with special guest Rev. Shohaku Okumura. Register here.
• And so forth, once a month.

Other

• May 19, “Declare Climate Emergency” gathering at the farm, at 4 pm Sunday. Email Shodo to register.
• Potluck study and discussion group continues to meet monthly at the farm, usually the third Sunday evening. To join contact Shodo.

MWA News and Events – elsewhere

• June 12-17, Five-day “just sitting” meditation retreat at Hokyoji Zen Practice Center in Southeastern Minnesota. With complete silence, it’s a time to let in the support of the whole universe, dropping away the thoughts and ideas that get in the way. Comfortable accommodations, great food, and a beautiful setting. Co-leaders Eido Phoebe Reinhart and Lee Lewis. Feel free to ask Shodo for more information. Registration here.
• October 11-13, Women’s Retreat at Sanshin Zen Community, Bloomington, Indiana. Just a Zen retreat for women, led by me. Registration here.

Friends and Colleagues

• May 18, 11 Central Time, “Declare Climate Emergency” with OneEarthSangha: an interactive webinar.
• Million Hazelnut Campaign: donate $7 for one hazelnut tree, to be planted at a farm where it helps regenerate land and climate. More information.  Using this link generates $1 for MWA (us) for each donation – and the trees get planted.

Financial Support

We’re getting by, covering the minimal expenses, and I’m committed to support the Alliance financially as long as necessary. Several of you did sign up for the iGive automatic donation thing, thank you. If a few more people would commit $5/month – or $10/year – we’d be able to do more. If that’s you, look here.

Volunteers are also great. At the farm, or maybe internet help. Email me.

Love,

Shodo

April newsletter: God bless the grass

There’s a thing about dancing: it’s an act of life, it expresses being alive in body as well as in heart, and it’s a way of connecting with the world around us. For about ten years of my life, I lived to dance. Then, I went down to the Women’s Coffeehouse whenever they were open and danced until they closed, danced with my full body and attention, through exhaustion and beyond – and it gave me life.

Last weekend I was at a dance sesshin, sponsored by Clouds in Water Zen Center and by Don’t You Feel It Too? And was reminded of that matter of bringing our aliveness and joy into every situation. And I was reminded of Malvina Reynolds’ 1966 song “God Bless the Grass.”.

Dance gives life. Malvina writes about life here. In hard times, when we think society might collapse, when we see fascism in every news item, the most important action is to be alive, to love each other and every thing and every one, to be passionate and fully present – and so we have Dancing at the Gates, the expression of love and spirit that has no specifics yet. The details will evolve.

God Bless the Grass

Notes: words and music by Malvina Reynolds; copyright 1964 Schroder Music Company, renewed 1992. People often think of this as an ecology song, but Malvina wrote it after reading Mark Lane’s comments about the John F. Kennedy assassination.

God bless the grass that grows thru the crack.
They roll the concrete over it to try and keep it back.
The concrete gets tired of what it has to do,
It breaks and it buckles and the grass grows thru,
And God bless the grass.

God bless the truth that fights toward the sun,
They roll the lies over it and think that it is done.
It moves through the ground and reaches for the air,
And after a while it is growing everywhere,
And God bless the grass.

God bless the grass that grows through cement.
It’s green and it’s tender and it’s easily bent.
But after a while it lifts up its head,
For the grass is living and the stone is dead,
And God bless the grass.

God bless the grass that’s gentle and low,
Its roots they are deep and its will is to grow.
And God bless the truth, the friend of the poor,
And the wild grass growing at the poor man’s door,
And God bless the grass.

Observing the world

I have not much to say today about the world. Julian Assange has been arrested and might be extradited; my friends are of different opinions about him; I’m of the opinion that freedom of the press is more important than specifics of personality or judgment. We have big snow storms here, and across the Midwest, for the second April in a row. I wonder whether this will be the new normal – and how to manage growing food. It has been pointed out that societal collapse has happened everywhere that European civilization met indigenous cultures, and it is going on now not just in Venezuela but everywhere, with the U.S. as a prime example. Most of us are waiting for it to get to us.

Study/Action Group

I recommend the book by Phyllis Cole-Dai, Beneath the Same Stars: a novel of the 1862 U.S.-Dakota War. Deeply researched, it’s an exploration of what it might have been like for one white woman in that time and place, and includes lots of cultural information as well.

While I’m here, let me also recommend another well-researched fictional series, The Irish Century by Morgan Llywelyn, which begins with the novel 1916 and ends with 1999.

And for lived study/action, please look into dance.

MWA News and Events – local

Work days at the farm (please register, it really helps):

• Saturday, April 20, 9-5, working indoors and out as weather allows. Indoors, we’re preparing the house for better hosting, a larger meditation hall, and more. Outdoors, either transplanting, digging, or working on our wild fence. Register here.
• Sunday, May 5, 12-6, firewood. We’re borrowing a wood splitter and would like to haul, split, and stack the wood downed in the tornado, which should heat the house for several winters. There will be a lunch break. Register here.
• June 8, July 20, August 17, September 14 – usually the 2nd or 3rd Saturday of each month.

Retreats

• May 17-19, “Spiritual Practice with the Natural World,” a land care retreat. This weekend is a chance to relax and settle into relationship with earth, sky, silence, and community as teachers. It’s on a “cost plus donations” basis. It’s also possible to do work exchange, volunteering at a work day or by arrangement. Register here.
• June 28-30, Sesshin. Just sitting quietly together, letting the universe support us. At the farm. Cost plus donation, or work exchange. Register here.
• July 26-28, Sesshin, as above. Register here.
• August 9-11, Land Care Retreat, as above. Register later.
• August 23-25, Sesshin. (maybe) Register here.
• September 27-29, Sesshin. Register later.
• October 25-27, Sesshin. Register later.

Other

• April 27, Northfield Earth Day, we will have a table and will be available to talk with people about climate grief and fear, about spiritual response, and about finding community to respond together.
• May 19, “Declare Climate Emergency” gathering at the farm, at 4 pm, after the Land Care Retreat ends.
• Potluck study and discussion group continues to meet monthly at the farm, usually the third Sunday evening. To join contact Shodo.

MWA News and Events – elsewhere

• June 12-17, Five-day “just sitting” meditation retreat at Hokyoji Zen Practice Center in Southeastern Minnesota. With complete silence, it’s a time to let in the support of the whole universe, dropping away the thoughts and ideas that get in the way. Comfortable accommodations, great food, and a beautiful setting. Feel free to ask Shodo for more information. Registration is https://www.hokyoji.org/event-directory/
• October 11-13, Women’s Retreat at Sanshin Zen Community, Bloomington, Indiana. Registration not open yet.

Friends and Colleagues

This is a space for news and events from groups we’re working with or just things we’d like you to know.

Million Hazelnut Campaign: They are part of the movement to physically interfere with collapse (climate, food, and other) by planting hazelnut trees – which then become the ideal setting for chickens to live, along with a group of other plants and animals. They are asking people to donate $7 to support a single hazelnut tree, to be planted at a farm where they will take care of it. Using this link generates $1 for MWA (us) for each donation – and the trees get planted.

OneEarthSangha: They have been doing webinars about climate emergency from a Buddhist perspective for some years now. The next one is at 11 am Central Time, May 18, the festival of Wesak, and can be found here:

Souland: I just discovered this group in Totnes, England. They seem to be doing beautiful things.

Financial Support

There’s a way to support MWA for almost free. Instead of Amazon Smile, you can use iGive to shop at many online stores with a percentage going to us. Right now, they’re adding $3 just for signing up by May 10 and making a single purchase by May 25. The easiest way is to install their button on your computer; when you shop at an included store the discount will happen automatically with no bother.

And thank you to all who are making a monthly or annual donation – it really helps. What if 20 people gave us $5 a month? It would be incredible! Do that here.

Love,

Shodo

Dancing at the Gates

I spent the weekend at Winyan Awanyankapi,“Protecting the Lifegivers” – a conference about missing and murdered indigenous women. While there were painful stories, my experience was more about healing and hope – and connecting with people of like heart.

Something important happened for me, that I want to share. I was in a workshop by Phyllis Cole-Dai, author of the new novel about the 1862 U.S.-Dakota war, Beneath the Same Stars, well-researched and highly recommended – and by Darlene Renville-Pipeboy, a Dakota elder who became her advisor on language, history, and culture.

The Dakota people remember a story from the time when women, children, and old people were imprisoned on the river flats below Fort Snelling on the flats along the river. After a forced march to the camp, they had been imprisoned there all winter with little warmth, minimal food, much disease and no medical care, frequent rape and occasional gunshots by the soldiers supposedly protecting them. Once during this time the women went and danced together at the stockade gate, led by an elder with a hand drum. Suddenly the chains fell off the gates, the gates swung open, and they could see the Mdote – the sacred land where the two rivers came together, the land where they had lived and once been free. Everything changed in that moment, even as the soldiers rushed to close the gates again.

Phyllis asked us this question:

“What would it mean to dance at the stockade gates in this time?”

That question stirred up something in my heart. Some others felt it too, we’ll be having an email conversation, and you’re invited to join us.

The answer cannot be given, only lived. Yet I have some thoughts, guesses actually, that might be helpful.

The women, imprisoned and starving, gathered together to do sacred dance and prayer in their tradition. They did it together. They didn’t rush the gates. I don’t think they expected the chains to fall. But the gates opened, they saw Life outside, and Life gave them heart again.

They were all women. I don’t know whether it was a women’s dance they did; there were very few men in the stockades. I’m guessing that a dance including all genders would be equally powerful, perhaps different.

The story reminds me of some actions that are becoming part of the new tradition of protecting water and land – an indigenous-led tradition. Build a healing camp in the path of a pipeline (Unistoten Camp, British Columbia). Meditate and pray outside a prison when an execution will take place. (San Quentin, California). Pray, make offerings, create a community life, in the path of death (Standing Rock, Unistoten, and many more). Do a sacred walk through the land that is slated for destruction (how many now? Sharon Day leads a Water Walk every year. Compassionate Earth Walk was one of dozens or hundreds.) Plant sacred corn in the path of the pipeline (the Ponca tribe and Bold Nebraska). I want to include the valve turners – simply turning off the flow of oil, then staying for the arrest, seems like a sacred act of its own kind.

Do sacred acts in the face of violence. In the place where you may be imprisoned, killed, or worse for doing them. Dance the sacred, pray, return our own humanity to proper relationship with the earth, through the offering of dance and ceremony, and the chains of imprisonment drop away.

Those of us at less risk because of our white skins or other privilege – what possibility opens to us, when we consider dancing at the gates?

At first, this question stopped me from action. I don’t feel imprisoned. Limited, yes, by my early training in how to be a woman, and by the sexist discrimination that still exists – and yet as an older white woman I move pretty freely in the industrial growth society. This society, here in the United States, North America. (One measure of how much I’m not a target is how easy it is to go through airport security. Or to interact with police.) Am I inside the stockade? How dare I claim the right to dance to oppression.

And yet – I face climate change along with everyone, though later than many. And I could become a target easily enough, if I broke more openly with industrial growth society. For me the fantasy of benevolent government and unconditional safety disappeared in the 1970’s, when I started paying attention. Yes, I am inside the stockade along with my red, brown, and black sisters and brothers, along with my queer and trans siblings, along with Muslims and ecoterrorists and refugees. I actually doubt anyone is outside, though some are guarding the gates or profiting – but that’s a different discussion.

What does it mean to dance at the gates? It’s a Zen koan, a question for study, not something that can be answered once. I’m making words to cultivate the ground on which our lives make the answer.

When I “bought” this land, I sought a place of sanctuary, where you can actually feel the sacredness of the earth. It’s not noticeably threatened by pipeline, mining even development – yet could be easily damaged by zoning changes or even the neighbors. It’s both fragile and privileged. Yet it’s a moment of safety, just as an urban church basement or community hall can offer a safe spot for our gatherings. It’s meant to be a place to learn and listen, to discover/remember what the dance of this place is – without copying or stealing. I imagine the women at the stockade gates danced a way known for centuries. I dream that here and now we might open our hearts and bodies to the voice and movement of the earth.

So we learn to dance and pray together, we honor the sacred together, we get very deep in dancing the dance of holy life together, and then we dance in the face of the enemy, the frozen face of unlife, whatever that may be. What walls imprison us, what gates are there?

My wish is to come together first, in a sacred manner. Together we can find out the nature of the dance and where it belongs. We will be told. I believe that.

If this calls you, please let me know.

Declare Climate Emergency

It’s spring. Things are moving and melting.

We like this, sometimes. I spent half of Friday outside in the garden, and came back happy. And we don’t like it, sometimes. In Mogadishu (Somalia) people are dying in the floods. Nebraska has had such flood damage that food prices will be way higher this fall, if not sooner. There will be more hunger among humans. Vast numbers of other species have died in those floods, plants and animals both, but we don’t think of them the same way.

It makes me think of hubris. “To the Greeks, hubris referred to extreme pride, especially pride and ambition so great that they offend the gods and lead to one’s downfall.” Merriam-Webster. I add, a common characteristic of the Industrial Growth Society, in sincerely believing that all material limits can be conquered by human ingenuity and technology. Hubris leads to ruin. The hubris of industrial agriculture, ignoring the ways water, earth, and wind naturally move, has led to the opposite of resilience in these fields. Chemical toxins and radioactive wastes, assumed safely stored but now flooded, compound the problem.

I also wonder about my own hubris, daring to think I can talk with rocks and rivers and forests. Only I know that millions of people have done this before me. It was called prayer, mostly, and ridiculed by moderns. How dare I go against the teachings of my culture? Can I say, simply, because my culture is so obviously mistaken that it is destroying itself? Would that be enough? (These days, I have plenty of company in my heresy anyway.)

Yesterday this came to my attention: https://www.souland.org/blog/declare-climate-emergency. It’s a Buddhist call to action. Declare that climate emergency is real, and organize to take steps around it. The essay was written mainly by Thanissara Mary Weinberg, and promoted by Joanna Macy. (Because she has name recognition, I’m sure.)

They are proposing we gather at Wesak, a Buddhist festival in May that celebrates Buddha’s birth, enlightenment, and death, all in one day. Gathering to declare climate emergency, and talk with each other, and consider our actions.

This seems to me a good thing. It also happens on a weekend with some other good things already planned. So we will have the Land Care Retreat, May 17-19, then Sunday afternoon gather in council to Declare Climate Emergency and consider moving forward together. The Sunday evening potluck will be a chance to continue the conversation.

I’ll prepare for that by being available at the Northfield Earth Day celebration April 27, hosting a table where talk of climate emergency is welcome, along with all the emotions, and offering lead-ins for this event and other ways of connecting.

If anyone out there wants to talk about promoting Declare Climate Emergency where you are, please get in touch. I’m happy to do what I can.

In my life, it feels like spring. Just like the cold weather, my insides have been frozen too long. I’m happy to be moving.

Love to you all.

Shodo

March newsletter – Mountains and Waters Alliance

Newsletter and a link to “Deep Adaptation” article

Dear Friends of Mountains and Waters,

This is a repeat of last week’s blog post, which seems to have disappeared.

Here’s an overview of what’s coming up, and at the end thoughts and a link to Bendell’s work on “Deep Adaptation.”

Retreats:

Sesshin (Zen meditation retreat): 3-day sesshin at the farm, March 22-24 , June 28-30, and the fourth weekend of most months. Registration is always essential. Local people are welcome to come and sit for a few hours, but I need to know so I can be prepared to open the door.

Land Care Retreat May 17-19: Explore the unique offering of Mountains and Waters. Detailed information and registration here. Please register early. If you would like to do work exchange in advance, look below.

Looking Ahead: (because these require advance planning)

June 12-17: five day silent retreat (sesshin) at Hokyoji (Eitzen, MN). More information here. Co-led by Shodo with other Zen teachers, in the tradition of Okumura-rosho.

August 9-11 Land Care Retreat includes a Dharma talk by my teacher, the respected Shohaku Okumura-roshi. Early registration is recommended. There will be a few spots for the Saturday evening talk alone.

October 10-13: Women’s Retreat at Sanshinji, Bloomington, Indiana, led by Shodo. Registration opens in April, here.

December 1-8: Rohatsu Sesshin, here at the farm, 7 days of just sitting with reality.

Farm and Volunteer News:

Potlucks: We’re still having potlucks on third Sundays at 5:30-8 pm, food followed by study and discussion. We’re enjoying the small group, and there’s space for more. If you want to join one, ask to be added to the emails.

Volunteer work days: These are a chance to spend time here, practice mindful work and/or meditation with us, and possibly do work exchange for a later retreat.

March 15-16-17: Basically it’s 9-5 Saturday March 16, but you can come early or stay the 17th, and join the potluck as well.

• • Building: We’re making the space better for group practice. Indoors, this means more separate bedrooms, a larger zendo, and general upgrading including painting. Maybe firewood, depending on weather.
  • Garden: Seed starting.
  • Outdoors: If weather is great, see the April outdoors and farm list. Plus a remote chance of tapping trees for maple sugaring.

April 19-20-21:

• • Building: continue as in March
  • Garden: outdoor preparation, work with seeds.
  • Outdoors: Walking paths, tornado clean-up.
  • Farm: Soil preparation, fences, transplanting.

May 17-19: This is the Land Care Retreat.

June and after: not yet scheduled. Feel free to ask.

Volunteers are welcome other times as well; just get in touch and we can set something up.

Membership:

Information is here for membership, and here to donate.

Thoughts:
Climate change has arrived, big time, right here. We still don’t have wildfires or floods. But the past month’s record snowfalls have gotten everybody’s attention: Several days of being unable to get to work, or of clients canceling because they can’t get in or because schools are closed. Two days of “car won’t start” because of the cold. This is a place I thought would be safe. Meanwhile, there is scientist Jem Bendall and his work on Deep Adaptation. I recommend listening or reading – both are here. My summary and response:

Bendall thinks that societal collapse is inevitable, catastrophe is probable, human extinction possible. This is more optimistic than some of the people I read, but I find it credible. We are clearly in the process of societal collapse: hatred of refugees, increasing violence and polarization, police killing unarmed people – and unspeakable acts, including separating children from their families with no plan to reunite them, being defended by people who think they are moral. This is not “bad people” – it is collapse. It is the beginning of The Age of Consequences, which is a term for the fact that we have been using up stored resources (coal, oil, soil) and not replenishing everything (factory farming). The bitter fights on both Left and Right are symptoms of collapse.

It is up to all of us to find a way to help each other while the society that raised us (well or badly, privileged or oppressed) crumbles – and to build what will replace it. I found Bendall profoundly optimistic. I recommend listening, especially to the last half hour – but really to the whole thing.

Blessings and love to you all,

Shodo

“Why America Failed”

Last night the potluck group listened to Morris Berman on “Why America Failed.”

Halfway through I was wondering why I did this. By the end I remembered.

But first let me mention this: most of the hour consisted of an overview of what’s wrong. (This talk was pre-Trump, by the way, but you could already see which way we were going.) It wasn’t new to the people in the room last night, but it might be new to you. If you think things are okay (or were until Trump) please listen to this talk and pay close attention.

The smaller of the reasons would be his stark assessment of personal options, during the question period. He outlined three: (1) Change the system – forget that, can’t be done. (2) Leave the country if you can. (3) Within this country, try to make a space that will be more human-friendly during the collapse. Which of course is what is happening here, in the local small-farming community which includes us.

Giving up on the thought of system change is depressing. Recently I listened to my friend Beth about when she gave up on system change in Palestine – and the personal implications of that. She went to work with dying people after that, for many years. I won’t try to share more about it, because listening made me more aware of how hard I cling to hope.

The big reason is the analysis of why we’re like this; why America, of all the world’s nations, persists in cruelty to everyone who is not “us” AND destroying the planet AND let’s not do the long list of outrages – latest being the border wall “emergency” and before that the cruelty to migrants – but this talk was during the Obama presidency.

Why are we like this? It’s about identity, he says. We define ourselves by our enemies. We have defined ourselves against the British oppressors, against the [pick your adjective] indigenous, against the evil Mexicans, against the Communists, against the Fascists, against the Nazis – who are we? Of course that is the “white people” we. It tells us why, these days, the leadership of environmental protection is with indigenous people. They have a community, they have an identity that is not about being against something. Of course many of them have the disease too, but there’s a core that holds. Maybe that’s what attracts so many of us white people, settlers, colonizers – just to feel a wholeness that we haven’t known.

If that sounds like someone else, think again. I’ve had many identities in this lifetime, and the last few decades have defined myself against patriarchy, capitalism, militarism, racism, heterosexism, industrial civilization…. and who am I but a member of all those groups? Stopping climate change – stopping the root causes of climate change – my enemy? My self-definition? Where, then, is peace and wholeness? Who am I?

This is a question, or perhaps a project. First, to notice what’s missing in our own experience of the world. We can realize that we are the hungry ghosts of Buddhism (always hungry, impossible to satisfy), or the wetiko described by Jack Forbes (warped, cannibalistic… ) First, know something is missing, then learn how to find it. That’s the process called “decolonization” for those of us who became colonizers. It’s hard and people usually do it badly.

I’ll say that Zen practice has given me a sense of identity as a part of the universe. And a peace I didn’t have before. I will not say that’s the answer; it helps me a bite. Needing to study this – well, sesshin is next weekend, I’ll place that personal wound on the altar and just be present with it, allow myself to settle down with it.

And that’s what I have to offer this week.

Next month’s potluck will listen to a talk by Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass. Nourishment.

Love to you all.

Shodo

Play is how we become ourselves

To know play, remember.

For me, the memory goes back to the house where I lived from ages three to twelve. One summer I spent hours perfecting “tricks” on the swing set, demanding my mother watch again and again until she said no. My own body was the universe, and I was finding out what it could do. Another year I found the wild iris like a miracle back in the wild spaces, and every year after spent weeks in the spring looking for them until I remembered where they were, under the two tall spruce trees, and learned when they arrived, late May. Every year I picked raspberries that my mother made into pies, cobblers, and jams. I couldn’t imagine how people lived with their back yard shoved up against somebody else’s yard – like a prison. But some of those children were playing ball on city streets, or roaming the urban wilderness with their friends.

I can’t remember my own discovery of my fingers and toes. But I remember some of my grandchildrens’ first learnings, and my childrens’ are somewhere in memory. I was there when my first grandchild first climbed down the stairs instead of up. The exploration of physical reality, the ability to grasp, learning to walk, learning to run, learning to manage our own bodies – these are play, even while they’re the most important work. Play is how we become ourselves.

Nature
Go to the wildest place you can easily find. Writing that, I think of trees and unmanaged plants, forests and rivers and oceans and rocky bluffs – but this is not the whole thing. Weeds pushing up through a sidewalk. Children running wild. Wild party dancing? Sitting zazen? The beach, with dead fish and seaweed washed up on it, or marshes and mosquitoes and damselflies, or climbing a steep hillside during January thaw and getting a little scared, learning how to stay safe. I don’t know. Go and let it soak into you, spend some time, give it your full attention. And if you feel like digging a hole, building a sand castle, walking on a log, playing pirate – please do.

Please write a comment on this post, and tell us somewhere you’ve found the wild. Short is fine. Take a chance, be the first. Do it as play, we can play together and encourage each other with words. (I’ll write one too.)

Recommended reading:
Playing by Heart: The Vision and Practice of Belonging – O. Fred Donaldson – this was utterly inspiring. I gave my copy to a friend who was planning to become an elementary school teacher; I hope it helped him play in the classroom.
Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder – Richard Louv. This is more about why than how. It’s convincing.
And please get these books from your local library (they’ll probably buy it for you) or your local bookstore, not the giants.

That’s it for now.

My plans for next week are to finally catch up with the journal postings from last summer’s trip. I’ll make a note here when I do it.

Love,
Shodo

Letting the Way find us – Part 3

There was a Japanese monk, once in the 1800’s, who wanted to visit Tibet, which was completely closed to foreigners. When he got there, sometimes he would be walking for days along mountain paths, and come to a fork where he had no idea which way to go. At these times, he sat down in zazen until a direction appeared. He called this “Decision-making samadhi.”

This poem is about that, and it helps me.

Do not try to save the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create a clearing in the dense forest of your life
and wait there patiently,
until the song that is your life
falls into your own cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know how to give yourself
to this world
so worthy of rescue.

—Martha Postlewaite

“Create a clearing…and wait there patiently” until you know which way to go.

I waited for years, never patiently, and finally the direction showed itself while I was sitting in the zendo in monastic retreat. I found myself walking through the Great Plains along a pipeline. When that was done, I again knew what came next. It keeps changing, but that’s fine.

Perhaps this is not useful. I could be more specific. Here, these things:

•  Do sitting meditation, zazen or any other kind, not until it becomes uncomfortable but even longer, until it becomes joyful. Sit with whatever emotions come up, and with the chaotic thoughts, with hopes and fears, with everything. Sit and be patient with yourself, and with your impatience, until something settles down. Daily is good. Retreats are good, and they go best with a group and a teacher. When I say “any other kind” I include yoga, and walking meditation, and lovingkindness meditation, and gratitude meditation, and body scans and even guided visualizations though I can’t promise what will come. Ultimately the point is to allow your life to be itself – to create that clearing in the forest and just wait, allowing your life to come forward.
•  If you do volunteer work, do it for its own sake and treasure every moment. Direct engagement with people – children, refugees, forests, anyone you meet face to face – is easiest for this, it can move you out of your internal focus. Political activism is probably hardest, too much goal focus.
•  Some people like journaling; a simple notebook is good, with date and location of each entry. Breathe and write. Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg is good if you want help.
•  And then there’s just noticing which way you’re going already. Wishcraft by Barbara Sher might be helpful. Get these books from your public library, you don’t need to own them.

Those are ways of making space in your life to hear what needs to be heard, or seen, or felt or tasted. Any way is fine.

If you already know your direction, follow it. It’s the only way to be alive, really. It can be discouraging and hard. All your faults appear, interfering with the work – or shaping it, how are we to know?

If you don’t do it, though, if you protect yourself from those humiliating mistakes and hide your character flaws – well, you can feel safe, and you can resent the people who are taking action, becoming known or even famous, who are far inferior to you. Resentment is a miserable way to live, and meanwhile your gifts wither on the vine. Forget safety.

More later.

Shodo

Mindfulness

So here’s the thing: will you be here for your life, or will you miss it?

Do you remember, perhaps, how summer days were in childhood? Did you wake in the morning with a whole day in front of you, go out the door to play with friends or to wander outdoors? Occasionally chores? And when evening came, you could barely remember morning, it was so long ago?

There’s an expression from a Zen teacher about sesshin (meditation retreat): “the days are as long as they were in childhood.” We sit facing a wall, with structured breaks for walking, eating, chanting, talks, and maybe a work period. With no escape except the daydream, the days are long, the minutes move slowly. That could be a blessing or a curse, but it’s mind’s habits that make it a curse.

Mindfulness is about becoming free from those habits. I could say changing those habits, and that would also be true. Develop the habit of calm, of readiness, of openness, of interest, replacing habits of fear, escape, or complaint.

One training is to sit still and upright, and let the mind follow the breath: sitting meditation. Of course the mind wanders, and the training is to bring it back. It can feel like work, because the mind’s wanderings seem fascinating, and the present seems boring. This is the cognitive mind, which only knows thoughts. But thoughts are just another experience, known in Buddhism as one of the six senses.

The mind of awareness knows more. The body itself is an infinity of sensations, when we notice them. Even just sounds – stop for a moment and listen, listen, listen. Even the most subtle movements of the body, proprioception. Heat and cold, the movement of air on the skin, the touch of clothing or objects. And the cognitive mind is a vast ocean, thoughts arising and falling, arising and being pursued, arising and being avoided. All the senses – sight, smell, taste as well as sound, touch, and thought – offer vast entertainment for the calm mind, and that calming eventually leads to the delight of deep calm called samadhi, or one-pointedness.

Every action, even stillness, becomes an ocean of sensation for the mind of awareness. And then you are alive.

Writing this is not to deny the thing called work, meaning taking an action with the intention of a result. That requires its own writing. Another time.

And here is something I’m aware of right now, in world events.

May you be here for your life.

Warmly,

Shodo

What if our religion was each other?

“what if our religion was each other,
if our practice was our life,
if prayer, our words.
what if the temple was the earth,
if forests were our church,
if holy water—the rivers, lakes, and oceans.
what if meditation was our relationships,
if the teacher was life,
if wisdom was self-knowledge,
if love was the center of our being.”
—ganga white

Isn’t that the dream? Every day, every moment, every person and tree and pebble known as holy, met fully in joyous intimacy – isn’t that the dream of how life might be?

We’re working our way there. Here are some bits of this work. Perhaps one of them will speak to you.

There is now a small group, meeting monthly over food. We listen to a thought-provoking talk or watch a film, with time for discussion afterward. It was a little awkward at first; gradually it’s growing deeper. After the last meeting, another member said to me “We could actually do the things talked about – become that community rather than talking about it.” I agreed. I believe we will. It will take patience and persistence. (We’ve been listening to Martin Prechtel, “Grief and Praise,” a talk on Youtube in three segments. We haven’t chosen the next one yet, and we will come back to this.)

This reminds me of something we did at Sanshin Zen Community. There’s a Zen tradition called the Precepts Ceremony, or the Full Moon Ceremony. At Sanshin we did it differently: there was chanting and reciting the precepts, then a short talk by the teacher and a sharing circle. Each of us said what precept we were working with now. It took over a year to move from formality to real sharing. I still remember the time when, after saying what I had planned to say, I broke down and confessed to killing hundreds of ants that had gotten into my bed. Reflecting on our own ethics and our own lives – this is a space for connecting.

As an individual, I give attention to the earth as temple and the forests as church. I spend time there, and make offerings. I speak with and listen to whatever earth beings call to me. In caring for the land at the farm, I attempt to remember that they are beings too. The invasive plants and animals especially – they are so much like me as a civilized human – taking their space even though it hurts others – that I struggle with how to restrain them. The kinds of restraint that came from my European ancestors are imprisonment from which I seek freedom. Do I do the same to others – even the not-human? Can they listen, can they change consciousness and learn to coexist? It seems highly doubtful, but as a colonizer dare I claim to be better than other colonizers? And yet, how can I not defend the native plants, not to mention those I planted for food?

So there is this thing I don’t know. I do my best to share it anyway, to make situations for others to meet the earth beings too. These are sometimes called “Land Care Retreat” and sometimes just farm workdays.

So I invite you to these actions – one or more of them:

• Gather with other people to make a holy place and time, as we are doing with the potluck/study group. Choose a theme, and adjust it from time to time. Make a habit of it; commit.

• Acknowledge the ones who are already with you – spouse, family, friends – honor them, worship the love between you, help it to grow. Just do this all the time.

• Worship the forests, the earth, the waters. Do it formally, making an offering of some kind – an offering of words or song or poetry, of dance or movement, of something you made – and listen and accept their offering too. Make a habit of it.

• Also do this with others. Be patient, and persist.

And that’s what I have to offer, as we turn toward 2019. Please practice community as religion, in every way.

“The sangha is the whole of the holy life.” (Said the Buddha to Ananda)

The Gods Will Come.

“Go ahead, light your candles, burn your incense, ring your bells and call out to the Gods but watch out, because the Gods will come. And they will put you on the anvil and fire up the forge and beat you and beat you until they turn brass into pure gold.” ~ Author Unknown

This writing is for those whose intention is holy. Who are committed to service. Who are willing to turn their lives over to the powers beyond human – by whatever name, here called The Gods – and be used for whatever is most needed by The Whole. That probably means you. If you doubt yourself, it still probably means you. Only if it sounds silly should you exclude yourself from this.

Stories come to mind, of people who have made that commitment, but there are too many. Please share yours, here in the comments. I offer mine, for starters.

I grew up in love with the natural world, and mostly excluded by my peers. My parents were good people, religious, with no psychological or social understanding of how to help me. (Years later I realized how much they loved and treasured me – fortunately while they were still alive.) So the beginning of my commitment would be whenever I started to see myself as an actor in the world. That would be late high school. There’s a marker: in 12^th grade, applying for a summer research program at a college, I remember saying “I want to understand everything, and I want it to be useful.” I thought that meant physics, and I didn’t know its use. Later I saw that it meant Buddhism, and the use is evolving.

There were two markers after that. In 2004, not knowing how to respond to political evil, I went to sit zazen (meditation) in public outside both the conventions. It was hard, and I was tired. And, walking from Boston to New York with an anarchist group. I learned that walking is home. In August 2011 I went to Washington with 350.org and got arrested at the White House. I stayed for a week, and on the other days mostly I sat zazen facing each day’s protest. One day I did walking meditation at the protest site. One day, as the only visible Buddhist, I led the group in metta (lovingkindness) meditation, and found it well received.

That September, during formal monastic training, while sitting in the zendo, there were pictures in my mind, pictures of walking along the KXL pipeline with a group of people. The pictures wouldn’t go away. I checked it out with teachers and advisors, and gradually concluded that I should do it. My own teacher simply said “Wait until you have Dharma Transmission.” Another year. The Compassionate Earth Walk happened in 2013.

The Walk itself was very hard, and I was often angry. The walkers talked about why it was so hard, and concluded that our proposal to heal the culture had invoked its faults in our group life. This was some consolation but it was still terribly hard.

I asked myself, again and again, what I could have done differently, what could have made it better. Yet I have never felt so alive, before or since, as when I was fully engaged in that work.

That is the point of this post: the experience of responding to the call is difficult. It is painful. It is full of “what I did wrong” or “what should I have done differently?” or “what a failure I am.”

“the Gods will come. And they will put you on the anvil and fire up the forge and beat you and beat you until they turn brass into pure gold.”

The matter of feeling inadequate is part of the process. It would be nice if we could refrain from beating ourselves up over our inadequacies. But it goes like this: we commit to doing something that is larger than our capacity. We do it – well or badly – and in the process, because our intention is pure, every single flaw is pushed in our face.

That is how it works – becoming more able for the next part of the work.

Two closing thoughts:

If you can recall yourself as part of the whole rather than an independent actor, it helps with those thoughts. There is no such thing as an independent actor; every one of us is a product of the entire world, embedded in it and supported by it. As are our flaws.

The awareness of the flaws is an essential part of the process. Still, there is kindness. Be good to yourself. Take care of yourself. Seek support from friends, see a therapist, get enough sleep, good food, calm and joy in your life.

To be continued.

Moving into leadership

On Saturday, Thich Nhat Hanh returned to his root temple in Vietnam – the place where he entered the Way. He wrote “It has been my deep wish for many years now to return and live where my ancestral teachers lived … until the day this body disintegrates.” (Full letter is here.) Louise Dunlop sent me the video of his return, here.

Sunday morning, Tetsugen Bernie Glassman died. I was eating lunch with my friend Gentle Dragon, who practices with Zen Peacemaker Order, when she got a phone call telling her that he had passed. something about who he was –He was an important person in the world of Buddhist activism – Here’s something about his life.

I had mentioned that someone, quoting me, wanted to call me Roshi and I told her no. GD said, let them call you Roshi. The generation before us is leaving. We have to take our places, we have to step up. (And then she got the phone call. I think that’s the order of how it happened.) Once, there was a Zen abbot who refused ever to move into the abbot’s quarters, keeping his place as student even as he ran the monastery. But mostly, they accept the mantle. Here we are.

My teacher is retiring in a few years. Her teacher is practically retired. And I can see the faces of teachers passed away in the last few years. Our teachers are leaving. It’s time to step up.

This is for me. It might not apply to everyone. People still get to be young, beginners, learners – that time is important. But for me, with 35 years of Zen practice and 6 years since Dharma Transmission, I start to see a difference between hiding and humility.

This is something else, about daily practice:

In an apparent coincidence, my housemate was watching a film series on shamanism, and I joined him to listen to one talk. The speaker, a Peruvian shaman, was talking about always being in ceremony whether we know it or not. He spoke of ways to take care of that, like blessing the water before you drink it and the food before you eat it. And that reminded me: I used to live that way. It’s time to come back. It’s not a hardship, but it is a sacrifice – which means “making holy.”

I’ll write more another time.

And I’m doing some updates on various pages here.

Love to you all.

Shodo

Letting the Way find us (part 2)

Years ago, a teacher at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, said to me “We each have to find our own way.” There, when entering monastic practice for the first time, we would first sit in silence for five days. This was called “clarifying the mind.” Now, seeing more clearly, I recognize that this means dropping ideas and letting the Great Way find us.

Some things are now clear enough that I can share them with you. It seems like a direction change, but it’s not.

The most important thing that I am doing is my practice, also known as my work. At this time that means to carry on the combination of zazen (sitting meditation: just sitting with the whole universe as we all create each other) and intimate relationship with all beings of the earth. Those are actually the same, but one looks like sitting still and the other like walking outdoors, making ceremony and offerings, visiting sacred places.

To make space for this, I am dropping some activities. Most of them involve efforts to get people to join me in my work. I’m going to the “attraction rather than promotion” model.

• I continue to sit retreats, they will be posted here, and you can contact me about joining them. I’ll also work with the land, including some actual farming, and you can contact me if interested.
• Instead of formal fundraising, I’m earning money by working as a therapist and life coach. That takes time but is less distracting and more reliable than writing grants and doing fundraisers. If donations happen, I’ll be able to shift focus back to this work. If the “ideal” foundation appears, I’ll ask again.
• till invite you to join me with that vow to save the pine trees. A few people have.

Here are two talks that I liked, from 2016.

“The whole world is the true human body.”

“A single hand held out freely.”

Much love,

Shodo

Letting the Way Find Us – October 19 and 22

From my childhood I remember going on walks in the woods with my father. He would take me and my sister to the “real woods” – not the overgrown orchard where we played all the time – and would talk about things, and he always brought cookies. It was a special time. Once we found a rotted tree stump, and he said “peat moss” and the next time he brought a bag to take it home for the garden.

Yesterday I went out to the woods on probably our last warm day for the season. I went to heal, to renew my connection with the land, damaged as it was from the tornado. I hadn’t noticed I was hiding indoors, but there it was. I found tiny sugar maples, and praised them; one Korean nut pine is alive and well, and I spoke encouraging words. And in the many, many fallen trees I noticed how many were hollow, or aging, or beginning to rot inside. Peat moss.

Some places are barely recognizable. The ancient cedar tree is standing but tilted. The old paths, sometimes, are covered with fallen branches or giant trees. The woods are more open – and I can feel the possibility of change, of renewal. Remembering the image of storms as cleansing. New things will happen here. I will be able to allow them.

Some of the old sacred places are simply buried. I can’t get to the East Gate at all, and the North Gate now requires a long walk. But the river still sings, and the favorite place on the bluffs is open and beautiful. The higher places are changed. By the creek, the bluffs are radiant.

This time I was able to take pictures. Because I begin to be ready to move forward, to let the land recover, to let it be.

I gave a talk recently, and have found some old talks that aren’t posted yet. I don’t know how to put them in the proper web page, but I’m temporarily putting the new one here. And the potluck group has started listening to talks by Martin Prechtel, here.