Our Twelve AND Zen Culture

This article by John Tarrant (my teacher and founder of Pacific Zen Institute) comes to you from the Spring 2014 issue of Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Quarterly.  What John is telling us is exactly what Pacific Zen Institute (PZI) is doing and how it is doing it.  We are building a culture.

But I can't help but think about my 12 Step program and fellowship.  This, too, is a culture.  When I read his seven parameters,   I thought, "This is what we do in meetings!"  We look behind the "no trespassing" signs, we speak from the heart, we listen to all the voices in the room,  new people count, and we have very few rules.

When people ask me about my "program", I tell them about 12 & Zen...the Twelve Steps and Zen koans, this is my practice... This is the culture that we have here.

Lots to be grateful for,

Bill

 

Step 3: Deciding to change

Some say it’s time for March Madness (college basketball).  I say it’s time for March Gladness!  Time for us to sit with Step 3 and a new koan.  Of course, begin sitting with this now...continue doing this
for the entire month;  what we are doing here is portable, accessible, and a good thing.

Step 3:  Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

                                                Koan:

Hint:  In Zen koans, often the moon is a metaphor for "awakening"...

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Also I’d like to share an email I received.  It’s about what we are doing here together, this 12 & Zen project, and its affect (koans and the Steps) upon people.



“thank you bill for tugging at my sleeve....koans from last year visit me often. it is nice to be with them....and sometimes too, they are like a stone in my shoe.

i have not been meditating and don’t seem to care or worry about it. a seed has been planted in what seems right now a reluctant soil.  "how’s that workin for ya     an old sponser used to say of my    perhaps  poorly chosen  behaviors" she knew i was not a quitter...but more, just habituated to the comfort of my bad habits.

so it goes. However, koans are tucked in some hidden place in me     and/or emanate  from  seemingly random stimulus (usually the beauty of nature or art)....and then move with me and i with them....it is really consoling  how much less lonely i feel when one of them arrives....i feel kinda like i did when i had imaginary friends  for whom i would make tea, save a space in my bed or pray when they were having trouble.... a little "ahhhh" happens. nice.

my mom is still battling cancer. it has been three tumultuous years now  living with a woman I don't like, yet somehow can find ways to admire......when teachers speak of the transitory and irrefutable beauty of life or the fact that a thing holds its opposites as well ..it helps me to    see  the bigger picture of her and me.   i live so close to the intimate and  constant hard requirements of advocating for a delusional  stubborn and very angry 90-year-old woman  that i forget    we are  part of something   else…and even in our uglier moments  (which happen frequently when our wills collide or our feelings get hurt and egos race forward to protect their interests)   there is   something tender sweet    laughably human about our sad little treacheries.  It feels   living with her   like we are both on a rollercoaster ride. I want to puke, refuse my ticket, grip the rail, hunker down on the floor as low as i can get, evacuate my seat. I did not design the ride but i did chose to get onto it...so... I am learning a lot. It is rich, but feels at times   more demanding than I can meet.  We forge ahead.

so. i write  as i do    to say how it is here. Koans do a lot to help me. Unlike other many other dialogues they allow me the fullness of time and space to build with them a new way of seeing and being   or ignore them or fight with them   or....there is great relief  in having the possibility of relationship  with something  kind and open   not agendized  and very elastic and forgiving . i need courage and koans give me that.  so there it is.   i am not up for much more socially than helping my mom, taking care of what our days require and visiting with koans and other poetry i read. (check out mary oliver if you have not already...she is  both zen   and christian. and artist  ...like that one zen monk whose name i cannot spell)…so, once again, ONE has sent what I need      zen and poetry together to help me just be ok with it all. and sometimes  to also remember the possibility of joy.

hope you are well.

see you  on the second friday...thank you   for   patience  warmth   non-judgment and glee...

-wobbly zen  student of what if  and howsthatworkingforya?"  N.C.



Bill K.

Step 2: The Mind Comes Forth

 

Last Friday was Valentines Day.  I thought we might not have our “usual” number of people attending 12 & Zen, but I was wrong.  Twelve people showed up.  Step Two was our Valentine.  We had a good time of it all.

Step 2:  Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Koan:  Abiding nowhere, the mind appears.

The prior posting is still with me, especially the “turning the corner” aspect.  It seems to fit nicely into Step 2 and this koan, beginning with the word Came.   Came has this sense of movement…from there to here.  Turning the corner is moving, too.  So coming to believe, we're bouncing along in this vehicle we call the self,  traveling from one belief to another – from not the way I used to be, to not yet the way I will be.  Where is this place?

Abiding.  It means continuing for a long time or to stay or live somewhere for a long time.  Nowhere.  Not here, not there, but still abiding is taking place somewhere; that place of no thoughts of “where”.  One person said abiding nowhere was when they were not attached to beliefs, and stories, etc. 

Another person said, “The mind appears;  but it’s not my mind.”  You could say God, or the collective consciousness of the Universe, or Big Mind (as opposed to our day-to-day little mind. It's a totally different view of things because we, the "viewer", are changing.

The mind comes forth – this is the appearance of sanity.  As an example, not drinking today is a sane choice for some of us.  We are seeing things in a sane perspective.  It's this different perspective that gives rise to a growing trust in a Higher Power of your understanding.

Bill

Step Two, Turning the Corner

A month or so ago at one of my regular meetings a young woman, (“C”) spoke up about being an avowed atheist.  This particular meeting is all about prayer and meditation, the 11th Step and “C” was relating what a struggle this has been to her program, you know, the “God” thing.  BUT she went onto say, “I think I’m turning the corner toward agnosticism.”  My heart broke open in hope for her.

Last week “C” chaired the same meeting.  What struck me as funny was here we had a person sharing about her “turning the corner toward agnosticism” and when it was time for people in the audience to speak we had one of the most expansive, spiritually animated, and heartfelt discussions about God that I have heard in a long time.

One brilliant comment came from Alison regarding the angst about the word “God”  and/or “Him” as its written in the Big Book. We hear this at meetings all the time.  She began be stating that we all know that Bill W., one of the founders of AA, had a personality  (Yes) – that all the other people who helped write the book Alcoholics Anonymous each had a personality, too (Yes) – therefore the book Alcoholics Anonymous also has a personality (Yes!).

“…ever reminding us to place principles before personalities” comes from Tradition 12.  This is a good thing to keep in mind when reading the Big Book.  Never mind that it uses old-fashioned language of the 1930s.  Never mind that it refers to God as a “Him”. Things like this aresimply personality traits of the Big Book and the way they spoke back then.  I accept this.

When I hear someone at a meeting describe their Higher Power contrary to my understanding, I must remember that they are telling me their story about their God.  My job is to listen to the underlying principles of the program in their message and not judge their personality traits or their choice of a Higher Power.

The way the 12 Steps are written, affording each one of us the gift of choice in finding a Higher Power, is what makes this process we call recovery work – if we are open to it.  “Turning the corner” is how we “came to believe”.  It’s what we all did to find a God of our understanding…or maybe a God not of our understanding... or maybe something out there we don't even want to call God.

All of which leads quite well to this month’s Step and koan.

Step 2:  Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.


Koan:  "Abiding nowhere, the mind appears."

As usual, we will be meeting on the second Friday of this month...

... On Valentines Day!

Bill

Step 1: Die Well

Step One:  We admitted we were powerless over something -- that our lives had become unmanageable.

Case 5 of the Mumonkan:  "Hsiang-yen: Up a Tree"
 

Everything here was once alive

The priest Hsiang-yen said, "It is as though you were up in a tree, hanging from a branch with your teeth. Your hands and feet can't touch any branch. Someone appears beneath the tree and asks, `What is the meaning of Bodhidharma's coming from the West?' (What is the meaning of Zen?).  If you do not answer, you evade your responsibility (break all the rules of common decency). If you do answer, you lose your life. What do you do?"

Thus began our 12 & Zen gathering this past Friday.  We had 18 people this evening, with three of them new.  What made it even more interesting to me was that more were coming from 12 Step programs other than AA.  New issues arose, and still I think we all came away with a common sense of accomplishment.

What life do we lose by letting go?

After first reading the koan as written above, I then made a few “adjustments” for the evening.

You are up in a tree, hanging from a branch with your teeth…from down below a person asks, “What is recovery? What are we doing here?”

If I don’t answer, I evade my responsibility, not only to others but also to myself.  By not answering, I’m not responding to the situation at hand.  We have this same dilemma with Step One.  How will I respond to this Step?

If I do answer, I’m engaging in my life, even though it means whatever happens next is unknown to me.  When I admit my powerlessness, I’m conceding that Step One is true or valid for me.

To fully engage in my life I recognize there is death all around me.  My in-breath passes (dies) onto the out-breath.  Each moment dies away and the next moment appears.  To admit my powerlessness over people, places, and things is (can be) the passing away of my delusions; conceding this to myself produces a shift from self will to aligning to the will of the Universe.


Our lives pass away every minute, every hour, every day.  To be fully engaged in my life, no matter what is happening around me, I must let go and fall into the next moment with awareness.  This is what living is!

Life is about coming and going.  Things come into our lives and then go.  To be happy, it helps to make the best of what comes and the least of what goes...to die well.

Bill K

Step 12: Seeds of Good

The Twelve Steps, 12 months, it works to sit with a different Step each month; but something seems even better for it all here in December.  There’s so much going on now – Buddha’s enlightenment celebrations in early December, Hanukkah in the rededication of their temple practice, Christmas celebrating the birth of Jesus, and Kwanzaa which speaks to the best of what it means to be African and human in the fullest sense. Perhaps the sum of them all is spreading and gathering seeds of good.

Step 12: Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics [others], and practice these principles in all our affairs.

Koan:

Autumn deepens
My neighbor
I wonder how he’s doing

Bassho

“Autumn deepens…” We have less daylight now (at least here in the northern hemisphere) so we spend less time out and about and more time with ourselves.

“My neighbor…” here is someone else, outside of self.  This could be the person sitting next to me at a meeting, or the person driving in the next lane over, or my neighbor next door.  “I wonder how he’s doing…” is a concern for another.

We sit with Step 12 now.  Our spiritual awakening requires introspection and self-appraisal.  This is how we have prepared ourselves to be of maximum service to others.  We also have a concern for whoever our neighbor is.  But we can’t just sit on this. “Try” is an action verb that requires us to strain, stretch and tax ourselves in order to make an attempt, to carry the message.

Of course we practice Step 12 all year long; but sitting with this koan and Step seems a little bit juicier right now; perhaps by making us a little more receptive to wondering, “How is my neighbor doing?”

Be well, and cherish it.

Bill

Commiting to Step Eleven, Zen Version

Yesterday I spoke to our PZi community at large, the 11th Step continued as my topic,  but this time I used the "Zen" version.  The evening went pretty well, too, and just like at our 12 & Zen gatherings , the discussion after the talk was moving and personal.  If you have considered doing this with your Zen community, I urge you to give it a try. 

The following is a consolidation of my notes; it will give you an idea of the evening's format and content.   

INTRODUCTION:

Welcome to Monday evening at PZi.  Some of you are familiar with what we do every second Friday of the month, called 12 & Zen.  In 12 & Zen we use the Twelve Steps that originated with AA. There are hundreds of recovery groups that use variations of the original 12 Steps.  Since November is the eleventh month, we’ll sit with Step 11.  So this evening we will be sitting with a Zen version by Bernie Glassman.

[A hand written example of Step 11, Zen Version, was hanging on the wall]

I made a commitment to deepen my realization of the Enlightened Way.

This Step is about staying the course...it's about our meditation practice.  First we’ll sit with this Step for about 10 minutes.  Find yourself in this Step.  And then I will introduce the koan for this evening – where we will sit with the koan and Step for the remaining 30 minutes.

MEDITATION PERIOD  [BELL]

Koan:

This dewdrop world

It is but a dewdrop

And yet – and yet 

As we meditated, I would occasionally offer a few questions for stimulation:

• "Where does dewdrop take you?"
• "Dewdrop/commitment ...Commitment/dewdrop."
• "What is your dewdrop this evening?"

[BELL, BREAK, TEA ...
AND TALK]

Issa (18th Century Japanese poet, often Haiku poetry)  1763-1828…was living when our country was in it’s formative stages. He had great losses in his life:

Wives died... his children died.  His first son died one month after birth;  his first daughter died from smallpox about a year old; his second son died by suffocating while bundled on his mother's back. Issa wrote this poem right after his daughter died, at a time of deep grief.  In so few words he offers us such vast possibilities.

Perhaps he was thinking, “My little girl’s world, it is but a little girl, and yet –and yet…but this poem includes much more -- all of us in this room are included.  It’s poetic genius that he chose the word, dewdrops.  Dewdrops.  The conditions must be just right for them to form, the right moisture in the air, the right temperature.  Then they appear.  They shine in the morning light.  Then they drop away or evaporate.

Issa’s little girl, the conditions were right for her to be born.  As a little girl she shone in the adoring light of her parents.  Then she died.

This is what life is …yes?  How life works.

Our thoughts usually have this coin-toss tendency of calling out “heads or tails.” Conditions are ripe, things appear, we pass judgment --we limit our perspective to this or that, good or bad, life or death…"this shouldn’t be happening to me."

Everything has but a short cosmic life -- a beginning, a middle, and an end. And yet collectively [LIFE] it all continues on and on and on.  No.  It’s heads AND tails.  Dewdrop world is heads AND tails, good AND bad, life AND death, Step 11 and this poem.

I MADE A COMMITMENT:

1)  FIRST, There’s the idea to commit to something – STEP 11 here:
I need to meditate more.

2)  OK, I’m going to do it  -- the decision is made:
Tomorrow I’m going to meditate 30 minutes right after breakfast.

3)  The next day I recognize that I’m doing what I told myself I would:
 I did it! I’m meditating! Mission accomplished!

4)  and yet …and yet …things change.
The phone rings, someone comes to my door…I fall asleep…I hear a branch fall on my car…

Last week I donated blood.  A feel good sort of thing, something I’ve been doing for quite a while… Actually two commitments arose, my plans were to donate blood right after visiting the eye doctor, and then it came to me as I drove to the blood bank. I told myself that I would not eat any sweets afterwards.

If you haven’t donated blood before, the way it works, there’s a 15 minute required rest time after donating (to see if anything develops like fainting, dizziness, etc.).  I told myself no sweets this time, only water and a small bag of peanuts.  As I was sipping my water and munching my peanuts, another man there got up from his chair, walked to the counter, and opened up a Tupperware container full of chocolate chip cookies.  I had forgotten they bake cookies there!  And yet – and yet …I knew I was doomed...and went over and retrieved (only) two cookies.

Life turns on a dime.  This was my “AND YET” moment.  I ate my two cookies, rested the 15 minutes and went on with the rest of my day. Even though I had made a commitment not to eat sweets, it became a peanuts AND cookies moment for me. It’s was OK for me …and not a time for self-judging…just notice.  This is meditation...to notice without judging.

What does it mean TO DEEPEN MY REALIZATION?

Isn’t this a form of digging?  To dig deeper, below the surface, to see what treasures I may find.  Little insightful treasures …humongous treasures of insight, I keep digging…I keep meditating.

THE ENLIGHTENED WAY

In our sutras we chant, "Nirvana is right here!"  But alas, it goes unnoticed much of the time …because I haven’t paid enough attention to right now.  Remedy?  Meditation.  Meditation brings about more awareness.  Step 11 is an agreement I make with myself to find space in my daily life for meditation.  Find the space.  Make the space.  Carve out the space.  When we took our vows, John Tarrant Roshi asks that we commit to meditating every day – at least one hour a day of meditation.  This is how a meditation practice develops – meditate every day.  Dig deeper every day, the treasures will come.

Making a commitment doesn’t mean I will keep it.  But what I practice here is to come back to my commitment in Step 11.  Mind wanders? Come back to my breath.  Mind wanders? Come back to my koan. This coming back is also commitment.  The point of having a commitment to Step 11 is what strengthens my practice. My practice, in this dewdrop world, becomes more effective, efficient, portable, accessible.  It brings more happiness and peace into my life.

GASSHO

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This is enough from me.  What came up for you this evening?  Where did Dewdrop take you?  How is your commitment to practice?  And yet – and yet?


Bill K.

WAY…our treasure: