Category Archives: Ruminations…

The other day I saw an email from Code Pink, addressed toward President Obama and outlining all the reasons for concern about his leadership on issues such as health care and the military.

I agreed with some of the points in the letter, not with others. But what really bothered me was that midway through the email, the salutation became simply “Obama.” As in, “Obama, I am losing hope… Obama, we need renewed leadership.” This struck me as plain rude. What happened to “President Obama”?

Call me silly, but I think this matters. When George W. Bush was president, even though I disagreed with nearly everything he did and everything his administration stood for, I always made a point of saying “President Bush.” (Even though it really stuck in my craw.)

I think it goes back to remembering something that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said about loving your enemies. He actually said a lot about this — it was at the core of his preaching, and it was the fundamental basis of the Civil Rights Movement, as King interpreted it. He gave a whole sermon about it in 1957. Here’s what he says near the end of the sermon:

So this morning, as I look into your eyes, and into the eyes of all of my brothers in Alabama and all over America and over the world, I say to you, “I love you. I would rather die than hate you.” And I’m foolish enough to believe that through the power of this love somewhere, men of the most recalcitrant bent will be transformed. And then we will be in God’s kingdom. We will be able to matriculate into the university of eternal life because we had the power to love our enemies, to bless those persons that cursed us, to even decide to be good to those persons who hated us, and we even prayed for those persons who spitefully used us.

I realize this may seem like a trivial, but it feels like it points to something deeper. I’m curious — what do other people think/feel? Does this relate to your Buddhist practice in any way, or am I just way out on a limb here?

Today is the great Buddhist Blog Swap, and the guest author here is Shane Hennesey of Zenfant’s Home for Dirty Dharma. My post is over at Home Brew Dharma, Adam Johnson’s blog. Thanks to Nate DeMontigny of Precious Metal for setting this all up!

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by Shane Hennesey

Meditation for me has been something I have pursued since the age of 13 (I’m 40 now…that’s 27 years for you math types). I guess being an only child and being introverted, it felt fairly normal and natural as a process. I spent a lot of time quietly engaging my imagination, so it was not a stretch to try and focus that sense of play into intentional mental activity.

That being said, the way I got into the use of meditation was out of desire. I grew up a fearful kid and I thought if I could know and see and use the invisible world, I would have an edge over the other kids. I was fascinated with witches, wizards, and fantasy settings and I wanted to do what they could and know what they knew.

At age 17, I made a vow to meditated twice a day for an entire year. I did it faithfully every morning after waking up and every night before bed, regardless of where I was or what was going on. It wasn’t always easy, but I did it. Meditation at this point in my life was all about the proper visualizations. If had the correct symbols and rituals, it would work, otherwise nothing. Practice was very structured with images and sometimes mantras.

Something shifted for me during that year of regular practice. I began to get a sense of something greater about me, my mind, and existence. I didn’t know what it was exactly or how to put it into words, but there was a seed beginning to sprout. I felt curiously calm almost all the time and I felt somehow in my skin but larger than that, connected and part of something ‘more’. The ‘more’ didn’t have a name or an identity to speak of, it just ‘was’.

I explored different practices on a search for something that resonated with me to a degree I could embrace it totally…Wicca, Shamanism, mystical Kabbalah…but nothing fit in its entirety. Growing up Catholic, I felt sure that I would eventually find a table to sit at and that every dish would be yummy and I would stay at that table. I learned how to meditate in ways that were structured or unstructured, silent or wrapped in drum beat, how to ascend thru the spheres of consciousness to reach the ultimate light (yeah never got that high up back then ).

I took these interests with me into my counseling practice. I learned shamanic hypnotherapy and became a Reiki practitioner. In fact, I think Reiki is what pushed me over the meditation edge. It was in that practice that I found how to get very quiet and get ‘myself’ out of the way so the energy could flow. I didn’t know it then but I was practicing zazen or silent illumination style mediation while I was doing Reiki sessions.

The seed that had been growing was coming into full force now. I was starting to get an understanding (experiential, not academic) of how we really are all made of the same thing and we all interpenetrate each other. This wasn’t just people, it was everything in existence. Quantum physics was showing it to us in other ways as well…we are all the same thing; we are all one entity, all one field of being.

Interestingly, I got really burned out about 5.5 years ago on my counseling career and anything that had to do with spiritual practice. I still don’t know exactly why, but I did, and I left it all behind. Curiously, or not so curiously, I also entered a negative relationship with an addict and pretty much shut down emotionally and spiritually for a few years.

I know this will be hard to believe, but the relationship blew up and after a while of feeling lost, the only place I had to go back to was my meditation practice…the only place that let me settle and find peace again. This time, however, I had been introduced to Buddhism and in my random readings and what not, I came across Brad Warner’s Hardcore Zen and it really snapped my head around. I’d say something poetic like ‘it resonated with me’, but fact it, it hit me like a fuckin ton of bricks and it was just what I needed.

So for the past 2.5 years I have been practicing zazen almost exclusively. I have been amazed at how zazen and the whole of Buddhism totally echoed the seed that had organically been growing inside me for all those years…years before I even knew what Buddhism was. How could I say no to that?

I have been more committed to my meditation practice than ever before in my life and consequently I have started hitting the formless states of mind on a regular basis. I’m still learning them, and I’m frequently NOT in them, but they are getting steadier and more regular. I’ve also plugged into the Dharma Punx as my sangha…they are the only ones who fit my renegade state of mind. I study Zen and Chan as well as sutras and modern teachings.  Though my meditation is always higher on the priority list than academic study. I am the kind of person who feels his way through a process as opposed to studying it to understand it.

It’s interesting to me that for all the years I spent doing visualization based meditations, or what I call ‘full’ or ‘busy’ meditations, that I should feel so very at home in empty meditations…or maybe it’s not interesting or curious at all, but quite the right place to be.

Beyond feeling that Zen is my current path, I don’t feel much strong connection to any other school of Buddhism. What I know for sure is that I’m in the right pool, so I’m gonna keep swimmin’ here.

Moon over Santa Fe, NM

In just a couple of days, it will be the Winter Solstice – the longest night of the year. The other day, I was wondering what it must have been like to be one of the early humans, before there was a body of cultural and scientific knowledge built up to assure us that the light would, indeed, return as we turned the corner on this day and headed once again toward Spring. It must have been terrifying to see the sun drop lower and lower in the sky each day and the night grow longer and longer without really knowing if that trajectory would reverse.

So this is a dark time. And it feels like it, not only astronomically but also the world right now. Health care reform, at least in what I would consider any meaningful form, is for all purposes dead. It seems as though the insurance companies stand to gain the most if the current version of the Senate bill is to pass. The climate summit talks at Copenhagen have stumbled along, revealing just how much the richer nations of the world are determined to not step up to the plate and take needed actions to effectively address global warming. The economy is still in the toilet, and at least 15 million people are without jobs this holiday season (source: US Dept of Labor )

Fortunately, if you try to work with principles of socially engaged Buddhism, all this does not, necessarily, have to feel devastating. Even though it kind of is.

A number of years ago, I was the scribe at a meeting of representatives from Buddhist Peace Fellowship chapters from around the U.S. I took notes as they each described what kinds of actions and events they were organizing in their local chapters, and even more importantly, how they were doing these things.

A whole Mandala came out of this exercise that I’ll share in another post. For the moment, I just want to pull out the six qualities, informed by Buddhist practice, which emerged as ways that these folks perceived and practiced their activism in a unique way.

1. Looking at an issue through the lens of dharma, questioning the notion of “self” in relation to activism
2. Recognizing the truth of interconnection
3. Offering a calming presence
4. Having patience, being willing to slow down, recognizing the long arc of change
5. “Being with not knowing,” non-attachment to views and goals
6. Infusing our activism with bodhicitta, joy

Right now, those last three qualities might be especially helpful for us to remember. I don’t intend to be Pollyanna here, and breathing and smiling will not make the bad situations go away. But to truly be of use and to be effective as we try to nourish a more just and sustainable world, it can be helpful to ground ourselves in these principles. And remember that light and dark are always part of each other.

In the light there is darkness,
but don’t take it as darkness;
In the dark there is light,
but don’t see it as light.
Light and dark oppose one another
like the front and back foot in walking.

~From the Sandokai (Harmony of Difference and Sameness)

Santa Fe Winter

Happy Bodhi Day to everyone!

Back online again after 7 days of keeping the computer off during Rohatsu. Okay, full disclosure: this was not Rohatsu sesshin the way you Zen folks know it. I did a modified home-based version of sesshin, in order to be more available to my doggie who had an operation the week before.

But I didn’t turn on the computer, didn’t drive the car, practiced zazen at home and sometimes next door at Upaya Zen Center, and helped make several meals in the Upaya kitchen for everyone who was sitting Rohatsu there. Last night, a snowstorm blanketed Santa Fe; it’s wonderful to wake up on the last morning of Rohatsu and see fresh snow everywhere.

Even doing Rohatsu this way, I could feel my practice settle into some deeper places, and was reminded of how spacious life can feel when ‘unplugged.’ I definitely have an addiction to information and knowledge (not the same thing as wisdom!), and this past week was a reminder that I can get seduced into thinking that I’m connecting and engaging with people through all my online activities. But there is a very different quality to connection and engagement when they happen warm hand to warm hand.

I’m no Luddite, and I appreciate the many ways that the Internet has expanded my web of connections and made me aware of what’s going on in many corners of the world and given opportunities to respond. Take, for example, the Saffron Revolution in Burma two years ago — something we only knew about because of the courageous people inside Burma who were able to get out photos and communications via the Internet.

But at the moment, I’m aware of how easy it is for me to get lulled into thinking of the Internet as my sole channel for activism, and how much more balanced and enriching it would be to get engaged more with local issues, with real live people, on a daily basis.

I’m curious how those of you who are online a lot find ways to balance this out in your lives…