July and Step Seven

Step 7:  Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

Koan:  Case 10, Gateless Gate:

A monk, Seizei, eagerly asked Master Sozan, "I am solitary and poor.  I beg you, Master, please help me to become prosperous."

Sozan said:  "Venerable Zei!"

"Yes Master!" replied Zei.

Sozan said,  "You have already drunk three cups of fine Hakka wine and still you say that you have not yet moistened your lips."


Here is your July koan to sit with, along with Step Seven.

To sit with...this is what we hear much of the time.  Also to remember that this koan is about you, just as this Step is about you. 

Koan as spirit is what friend David Parks-Ramage said the other day.  Your spirit.  This koan is your spirit.

Bill K.

How Are We Doing?

This is exactly what I asked myself a few weeks ago... "How are we doing with 12&Zen?"  Ever since we moved to a once-a-month format back in October, I felt a shift for the better  in how the
the evenings progressed.  But I wanted to know how the participants felt ... so I asked them to send me some examples of what they are getting out of 12&Zen.  Have they noticed any changes?
Here is what four people had to say, plus a bonus contributor (whose email simply arrived in time).

J.S. -- It's done at least two things I can think of immediately...first, it's solidified for me how koans are way more than mind puzzles...applying a koan to a step enriches my understanding of the step...perhaps as valuable, the participation of the group members in the discussion of the koan allows me to see other ways of thinking about how the koan and the step interact with each other and within my life...


B.F. -- The 12 and Zen has improved my conscious contact with God, as I understand him...hoping and praying that this knowledge will guide me in doing HIS will and carrying that out, to the best of my ability.

 K.G. -- I've attended the last two 12 Step Zen meetings.  These meetings are my first experience working with koans and I have really enjoyed trying to find the connection between the koan and the step.  The koans have challenged my understandings of the steps and invited me to think of them in different ways.  I appreciate the gently guided meetings and the respectful and light-hearted group who attend.  I really enjoy hearing how the other meeting attendees link the koan and the step and I generally keep thinking about the koan for a few days after the meeting.  I very much appreciate the chance to attend a 12-step meeting that is not solely Christian in it's understanding of the steps.  I look forward to attending in June.

L.M -- What I get from working in a small group around the steps is support, a different take, and an intimate relation-ship that only meditation brings.

And lastly the bonus contributor who lives 2000 miles away.  He shows by example that one can practice and become a part of  our 12&Zen community  by reading this blog, following his 12 Step program and embracing koan practice.

O.M. -- Just wanted to say that I've really been benefiting immensely from the blog.  It really has solidified the fusion between recovery and practice, clarifying that they are one and the same.  It's also been instrumental on a number of other phenomena, most notable selflessness (forgetting the self) and its centrality in the practice as recovery, and in the fostering of an awakened mind.

After sesshin paradigmatic shifts can often be ushered into one's life.  After this particular one, and because of the presence of the 12 Step Koan project, it seems like an unfolding of a new type of understanding of my koan practice has emerged.   Over and over again, 12 Steps/Koans enable me to see the koans in the steps and therefore in my life.  There is something congealing, as it were, and this for me is kinda exciting because the life of the mind and the external physical aspect of life are getting closer to one another.  This most assuredly makes life somehow better. But don't ask me how.

- - -

Bill K.

Step 6: Hush ...

Koan:  Who is hearing?

I can hear myself saying to my kids, "Time to get ready."   Getting ready takes some effort.  Getting ready takes some attention to the details at hand.  The same is true for truly hearing … first we have to be ready to hear, then pay attention to what comes our way.  

Who is hearing?  If we're comfortable with our Higher Power -- trust in our Higher Power -- practicing Step Three with our Higher Power, then we believe we will be heard by our Higher Power.  Believing that we are being heard, then, creates a space for a dialog with God … communication … a conscious contact… and the expectation that God will speak to us in some mysterious way. 

Today is June 1st,  a good time to sit with Step 6.  As with all mysteries, it's important to pay attention to clues along the way.   Some are delivered ever-so-faintly.  Hush… I think I hear something.

Bill K.

Giving and Receiving

It's probably not too much of a stretch to say that gratitude has an easier way of being noticed by those in recovery, especially when going over what it took (hitting bottom) to eventually get to where we are today.

Not only was gratitude arising from the  koan given a few Mondays ago but it  came via the relationship of giving and receiving and how they correspond to each other.  This also includes not giving, not receiving, taking, pushing away and the most amazing way we realize that we've received something good but not recognizing it at the time.  I was feeling a general sense of gratitude for what the Universe has given to me throughout my life -- grateful for life itself -- grateful for things that, at the time, seemed negative and foreboding.

Daito (1282-1334) is revered as one of Japan's most famous Zen teachers.  As the story goes, he practiced for 20 years living with beggars under a bridge in Kyoto.  The emperor heard about this accomplished teacher and in disguise, went searching for him.  He also heard that Daito was fond of melons.  Coming across a beggar under the bridge whose eyes were full of life, the emperor said to Daito, "Take this [melon] without using your hands."  The immediate response was, "Give it to me without using your hands."

At first I thought this koan would be well suited for Step 12 … at the time where we have finished this Step and are ready to help others find what we have found.  Twelve Step programs are given freely to all who are open to them -- to those who are willing to stop the pushing away in whatever form.

But it's not about finishing Step 12 or any Step for that matter;  it's more about my daily life and what is given to me and what I can give to others.   Take this koan when you feel gratitude; take this koan when you're not feeling gratitude.  Giving and receiving take many forms, including when doing nothing.

Bill K.

Step 5: How Did I Get Into This Mess? How Do I Get Out?

Step 5:  Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

Koan:  From a very young age, you raised a goose in a bottle.  Now it is fully grown.  How do you get the goose safely out without breaking bottle?

Sit with this koan and Step for a spell, then read on.

 - - -

No one would readily choose to admit one's faults to another person, especially to the degree of honesty asked here, without a significant pay back.  I've heard at many a meeting that the chances of going out (relapse) are dramatically increased if Step 5 is not completed, not perfectly;  but to the best of our ability at the time.  It is very well a life and death situation.   Step 4 is where we realize the significance of the situation we're in, Step 5 is doing something positive about it.

This koan came to me via one of our other group leaders.  It was the koan his group had been sitting with. "Feeding" was the word that got my attention.  Presently I am taking a couple of men through the Steps and both were working on Step 4 and 5.  My oh my how we can feed our resentments…and we know the devastating affect they play in our lives (mostly in our own minds, yes?), still we feed them more, hoping for some kind of relief;  but it never comes.  Our resentments have an insatiable appetite to the bursting point.

Our 12 @ Zen group last week offered up a number of different possibilities and questions.  "How did I get into this bottle?" one asked. "What or who is the goose, anyway?" "Who is doing the feeding?" "What does it mean to be safely out of the bottle?"

Before my recovery, the usual response would be to smash the bottle (self will) … to force the issue to suit my needs.  This never brought about the results I wanted -- like trying to push a rope uphill. At the Sunday meeting a person brought up the notion that "we pause."  Take a step back.  Somehow, in the pausing, great things can come to be.  Pausing in prayer.  Pausing in meditation.  "No, No, No, I'll never tell anyone what I did!  But this is what we do in Step 5.  "Outwardly it is sharing our deep dark secrets with another person.  "Once we have taken this step … we can be alone at perfect peace and ease." (Big Book, P. 75).  The bottle has disappeared.

Now if you'd like, sit with what I posted here.  When have you been trapped in a bottle, then given up the struggle, to eventually find freedom in realizing that the bottle has disappeared?

Bill K.
  

Koans Appearing

 It's not uncommon for me to hear someone at a meeting say, "I hear my Higher Power through other people."  The same could be said how the mere mention of a koan by a person is exactly the koan I need to hear.  Just another example of how koans appear to me.  In these moments, the koan seems to be a mirror image of what I'm dealing with. 

Here's a recent example of how I really screwed up.  On Saturday the contractor came by to install four additional solar panels atop my roof.  Another item he pointed out to me was that our circuit breaker box was out-of-compliance,  but that he would fix this, too.  As we were looking at the box, I pointed out that "this" wire/conduit could be disconnected because it went to a now defunct hot tub.  Then he went to work.  An hour or so later he asked again about the wire/conduit in question and again I assured him that it went to nowhere, the hot tub was long gone.  The installation went  smoothly and quickly, he completed the job by early afternoon. 

It was an unseasonably warm April day, hitting 90 degrees by late afternoon.  I was getting quite warm inside so checked on the thermostat.  It showed the A/C on but the temperature read 79 degrees.  I checked a vent and no cold air.  Uh oh.  I went outside and there it was -- the air conditioner fan was motionless.  You guessed it.  The wires I was so sure went to the hot tub actually went to the AC.  I had no air conditioning. 

"You stupid turkey," voices began.  How *unobservant* of me!  Not paying *attention*.  Later on hearing my wife say, "How could you have done this?" didn't help matters.  Before I had found recovery, something like this would have been a perfect reason to tie one on.  But instead, sooner rather than later I came to realize the Universe had giving me reasons to laugh at myself instead of  judge myself. 

The first message came from Jesse,  where in our PZi Group he had emailed, "I suppose I'm more interested in being happy than figuring things out.  Life doesn't make sense, so go with what you get."

I soon realized that yes, I am more interested in being happy.  To go over and over again in my mind on what a stupid mistake I had made was not making me happy.  Things began to loosen up for me.  I even slept pretty well that night, knowing that this was not the end of the world, that the matter would eventually get fixed.  It just needed to be re-connected.

The second message came via an announcement that John Tarrant sent out to us.  "Hi everyone," he said,  "I'm working on the Zenosaurus course again and this time I've done the earliest, first koan of the course, Sickness & Medicine."

http://zenosaurus.blogspot.com/

We've all heard that laughter is the best medicine, yes?  And now the "Sickness & Medicine" koan has been brought to my attention.

“Sickness and medicine correspond to each other.  The whole world is medicine.  What am I?”  This koan comes from Yunmen, one of the great Chinese masters.

What am I?  I'm going to stop beating myself up.  I'm going to find happiness again.  Hahahahaha.


Bill K.

P.S.  Sunday was almost 20 degrees cooler.  On Monday the contractor came by and put everything back into working order in about an hour.  Hahahahaha.

Passing A Koan ...

... a Big Book Koan at that!

Part of me once wondered if there were any koans in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Over time, rather than trying to search for them, they appeared to me. "Hey, this sounds like it might be a good koan," I told myself. So I took my ideas to one of my teachers, David Weinstein Roshi. He gave me some rewriting suggestions and then he asked me for the answers! Gulp. No hiding here...this was just like dokusan (we call it Work In The Room), the exchanges between teacher and student...except this time it was via emails.


The following shows how the questioning took place. Hopefully this may take a little mystery out of the way one "passes" a koan with a teacher. The end result is not like receiving a good grade from the teacher, it's more about "actualizing" the koan...finding one's place with the koan and discovering one's place right now.

Here's an example of a Big Book koan:

“Deep down in every man, woman, and child, is the fundamental idea of God.” (Page 55 in Alcoholics Anonymous). Show me the fundamental idea of God.

Before reading on, I suggest you turn your computer off for a while and sit with this koan alone. See where it takes you. And then, after you feel at ease with it all, come back and continue reading how this went for me...


These are a series of emails over several days, beginning with David.


David: So show me the fundamental idea of God.


Bill: "In today's local newspaper!

There is an article about the birthing center's 3000th baby (two of my grand children were born there).

There is an article about a 12 Step friend who has a local recording studio.

There is the obit of another 12 Step friend who took his life last Wednesday, the
same day I had my heart procedure.


David: Show about something more intimate?


Bill: Maybe it's the way I described it.

1) Last Wednesday when I learned that my friend had taken his life (BTW, he didn't go out...but was experiencing a deep, dark, depression) I wrote this:

the voices got their way
convincing my friend
to pull the trigger
the voices got their way
on this very day
as the doctor was mending my heart
others' were breaking

2) When I read the article about the birthing center I was reliving the times we saw our grand kids only hours old.

3) When I read about my 12 Step friend and his recording studio, I felt good thoughts about his success and our friendship in the fellowship.

When I wrote you, while reading the local paper, I found myself holding all three of these examples together and felt really alive and grateful.


David: Ah...feeling alive & grateful...that's it. What else?


Bill: More than feeling alive and grateful...

The examples I have given are the fundamental idea of God.

These are examples of my life.

I am the fundamental idea of God.


David: So...if that's true, then what else?


Bill: God is the fundamental idea of me. Like we say we are all Buddhas.


David: Forget about ideas, show me the fact, in a different way than you have.


Bill: Mmmmmmm, sip (good tasting coffee) is the idea of God.


David: What about bad tasting coffee?


Bill: Sip (who made this coffee anyway?) is the idea of God, too.


David: Alright!

- - -

It was right there in front of me all the time. That's what we have. Our life is right here.

Bill