Gordon Sondland testified before the committee today, and he seemed like a decent sort, not terribly savvy but certainly eager and well-enough meaning to be considered credible. He offered his honest-ish opinion of what was going on during the summer when the White House ordered withholding of some $400 million in military aid to Ukraine while, supposedly, the new president Volodymyr Zelensky was vetted for... well, that's the question, isn't it?
He said the White House -- ie: Trump -- had an ask that needed to be satisfied before the funding would be released: Zelensky needed to clearly and publicly state that he was ordering the opening of investigations into Ukrainian interference in the 2016 US presidential election and the corruption of gas company Burisma with a focus on the Bidens, père et fil.
That was the deal, the whole deal, according to Sondland. And even though Trump never used the exact terms with Sondland, he did with Zelensky in the infamous July 25 phone call with Zelensky. Case closed.
Sonland basically confirmed the allegations being investigated by the committee. Therefore, there is nothing much more to say, is there? Trump did what he's accused of and "everyone" in the loop at the time knew it. The argument from the Rs is basically "So what? This sort of thing goes on all the time, BidenClintonClintonObama. Nyah nyah."
And they might get away with it.
The way Trump conducts the business of government is outrageous, but quite a few people inside the government (and not just Rs) are fine with it. He gets them a lot of what they want, and a lot of what they want is a change in the way government and foreign policy operate. There's a lot of resistance from inside the government bureaucracy. Bureaucracy does not like change and doesn't adapt well to new things or people who don't "fit" the standard models.
Bureaucracy considers itself permanent and indispensable, but there is a faction within government and without that believes the bureaucracy is intrinsically wrong and out of control and should be destroyed and/or rebuilt.
Trump has taken upon himself the task of fixing things the way he wants and he's now facing impeachment for it.
I predict right now that neither the bureaucracy nor the White House will win this one. Trump will be impeached for what amounts to the least of his crimes, but he won't be removed (nor will he be reelected barring the unforeseen) and the government bureaucracy will be overhauled to serve the president much more than the institution or constitution.
There's no going back from where we are. That's the problem. A grossly authoritarian president has been put in office and has been allowedto get away with pretty much whatever he wants, and there is very little that can be done about it now. He's instituted strong-man, indeed gangster rule at the top, and a lot of those who might otherwise object are fine with it. He's packed the courts with right-wing ideologues who share is proto-fascist beliefs, and from them the institutionalisation of the Trumpist authoritarianism will flow for at least a generation to come. There's no going back, and the republic is effectively kaput. This is it. We've reached the long-anticipated end-point of the US experiment in self-government.
Thursday, November 21, 2019
Saturday, November 16, 2019
The Impeachment Thing
[Note: Buddhism, in some cases especially Zen, doesn't preclude one's interest and involvement in the material world. It does, however, affect one's sense of the importance of this or that aspect of it. 🕉]
The current impeachment inquiry is the third in my lifetime. There have only been four attempts at impeachment of a president in the history of the United States. None have been successful [Nixon resigned before the impeachment resolution went to the floor of the house]. The betting is that this one won't be, either, but of course you never know.
The charges likely to be included in any House resolution to impeach Trump are being laid out day-by-day, pretty much as follows:
The current impeachment inquiry is the third in my lifetime. There have only been four attempts at impeachment of a president in the history of the United States. None have been successful [Nixon resigned before the impeachment resolution went to the floor of the house]. The betting is that this one won't be, either, but of course you never know.
The charges likely to be included in any House resolution to impeach Trump are being laid out day-by-day, pretty much as follows:
- Abuse of power -- impeachable, not criminal
- Bribery -- of Zelensky/Ukraine; impeachable, criminal
- Intimidation of witnesses -- impeachable, may be criminal
- Suborning perjury -- impeachable, criminal
- Defying Congressional subpoenas -- impeachable, may be criminal
- Probably violations of emoluments clauses -- this might be a throwaway
- Misprision of felony -- impeachable, criminal
And so on. The charge-list could get quite long indeed. But there is no likelihood, whatever Trump does, that a Republican-controlled Senate would vote to convict and remove him from office. At least not now.
It's possible that not even a Democratic controlled Senate would do so.
Here's the problem as I see it:
Trump has been allowed to get away with just about anything he wants to do during his tenure in office -- just like he's largely been allowed to do whatever he wants throughout his life. He's a terrible person and a rotten president, but.... he gets away with it, just like he always has.
As president, he's changing the presidency and the nature of the federal government. He's making the presidency over into a highly authoritarian position (it's always had such elements) in command of not just the government, but of the nation as a whole. In other words, the point is to make the president a ruler rather than a servant of the people. Opposition to be crushed rather than co-opted or negotiated with.
In this remodeling of the presidency by Trump, the president is to have full and personal control of the federal government independent of any advisors, systems, precedent, Congress, or the courts. S/he will personally direct and control every aspect of the federal government (something no individual human being can do, but that's beside the point). The president becomes a de-facto emperor. Something that again is inherent in the position, but which until recently has been suppressed in action.
These are among many aspects of systemic changes we're seeing in real time under Trump's presidency, and they will become precedent for future presidents. Trump may be a bad emperor -- oh yes -- but what he's being allowed to do can lead (in time, if we're very, very good) to a Good Emperor. But Emperor it will be, good, bad or indifferent.
I came to this conclusion while watching part of the Yovanovich testimony yesterday. What it boiled down to was a question of whether the president has the power and authority to emplace anyone he wants in an ambassadorship (yes), and whether it is appropriate for a president to engage in the smearing of an ambassador in the process of having her removed (could be.)
In this case, the ambassador is the avatar of any federal officer, the smear is the symbolic means of removal/replacement that could affect anyone in federal service. We've seen examples in the past (Shirley Sherrod comes to mind, but there have been many others, especially since the 2000 election.)
But now it seems the smear-and-removal will be codified.
These are big changes to what the presidency is, not so much what it could be, and I predict they will be permanent. Trump can go or stay, it really doesn't matter. The governing system is what is being overhauled-- mostly without the knowledge or consent of the governed -- and there will be no going back. Impeachment may just fade entirely from the conception of checks and balances. After all, the consistent argument during the Trump reign is that ONLY impeachment can be used to control the actions of the president, and if impeachment fails to remove him (likely), there's no remedy under the constitution or law. That's it, he gets away with it.
Ambassador Yovanovich was quite eloquent in defending norm, process, propriety, etc., but I don't see a future in which those things are considered necessities for governing. Indeed, just the opposite may become normalized. The reasons are simple enough. We're entering into a rough transition period in which the consequences of climate change and decades of neoliberalism become one continuous crisis. There's really no escape at this point. Past norms and processes will have to be jettisoned in order to deal with the inevitable crises, or the permanent crisis. No way around it. Trump is crude and awful, but he's doing what the ruling class believes is necessary to cope with the transition and beyond. That's why he's been protected and allowed to get away with so much harm.
Better it should happen now. So that we can become accustomed to it. It's only going to get worse for most of us.
Trump won't be in the Big Chair forever. And whoever comes after him -- whenever that happens -- will almost immediately be considered a "savior". Because he or she won't be as terrible a person nor as incompetent and chaotic a ruler.
But Ruler/Emperor the follow-on president will be. And most of the hoo-hah during the Trump years will seem silly in retrospect. We have serious business to attend to.
So, that's my theory of what's really going on...
🕉
Sunday, November 10, 2019
Guided Meditation
For the last few days, I've been participating in guided meditation sessions. At times they make me laugh.
This is a practice I haven't done for decades, and I'm finding it difficult to return to. Guided meditation can be useful, I think, to people who are unfamiliar with the practice of sitting meditation, or to people involved in a therapeutic situation, but I'm not sure it works very well for someone who doesn't fit those fairly narrow categories. It's a technique that's often used as introduction and motivation, and not solely in a Buddhist context.
Introduction to what? Motivation for what? In my case, I was looking to dealing with some habits I'd built up over the years I've been dealing with chronic health conditions. I was in so much routine physical pain for so many years that I had consciously and unconsciously developed habits to cope with the pain. Habits that continued even when the pain was gone. They restrict my movements and actions and my thinking, ultimately interfering with living a relatively full life in my dotage. As I explained to a relative not long ago, I'm pretty much housebound these days, even though the original reason for limiting my activities (pain) has almost completely dissipated.
The pain has been all but gone for the last three years or so thanks to a whole lot of medication and treatment, but the habits I developed to cope with the pain continue. I could say that about a lot of habits I've developed as coping strategies. But I specifically wanted to deal with the habits of pain-coping when there was no longer any pain to speak of.
I thought guided meditation could be useful, and to some extent it has been, even if the guides from time to time unintentionally spur my laughter. One, for example, started the session with a very long introduction, claiming over and over we would be doing a two minute guided meditation, starting "now," and then doubling back on himself and introducing and "starting" the meditation again, and so on repeatedly, so that in the end, the two minute meditation took a good ten minutes and maybe more. Each time he went around the introduction circle I laughed. I don't know whether he was conscious of doing that, and I doubt he saw or understood how funny it was to people like me.
On the other hand, by participating in the sessions (a few more to go) I've been able to focus my attention much better on my particular goals for starting these meditations, and gradually some of the habits that are no longer useful are dissipating or lifting.
Just yesterday, I was able to get up and do things consciously and mindfully without falling back on coping mechanisms that had stymied me in the past. It's going to take some time to work through all of this, though, and that's OK. I can see progress already, and because the necessity to cope is lessened if not altogether gone, I can more easily visualize a forward path.
Many years ago, I had guided meditation tapes that were useful to begin a series of zazen sessions, but I was encouraged not to rely on them, ultimately not to need them. I don't recall how long I used them -- I don't think it was very long -- but it was a little odd to be put back in that guided context again after so many years. My laughter, I think, was prompted in part by the realization that this was something I hadn't done for so long but with which I was very familiar. Is it like riding a bicycle? You never forget? Well, guess what? I can't ride a bicycle very well anymore.
As I gradually become re-accustomed to the dharma, all sorts of things are changing, coming back to me, new paths opening. Christians refer to being "re-born". That isn't quite what's happening. But it is very interesting to witness a kind of automatic youth reversion that carries me back to another time. Or at least evokes it.
Wonders never cease.
This is a practice I haven't done for decades, and I'm finding it difficult to return to. Guided meditation can be useful, I think, to people who are unfamiliar with the practice of sitting meditation, or to people involved in a therapeutic situation, but I'm not sure it works very well for someone who doesn't fit those fairly narrow categories. It's a technique that's often used as introduction and motivation, and not solely in a Buddhist context.
Introduction to what? Motivation for what? In my case, I was looking to dealing with some habits I'd built up over the years I've been dealing with chronic health conditions. I was in so much routine physical pain for so many years that I had consciously and unconsciously developed habits to cope with the pain. Habits that continued even when the pain was gone. They restrict my movements and actions and my thinking, ultimately interfering with living a relatively full life in my dotage. As I explained to a relative not long ago, I'm pretty much housebound these days, even though the original reason for limiting my activities (pain) has almost completely dissipated.
The pain has been all but gone for the last three years or so thanks to a whole lot of medication and treatment, but the habits I developed to cope with the pain continue. I could say that about a lot of habits I've developed as coping strategies. But I specifically wanted to deal with the habits of pain-coping when there was no longer any pain to speak of.
I thought guided meditation could be useful, and to some extent it has been, even if the guides from time to time unintentionally spur my laughter. One, for example, started the session with a very long introduction, claiming over and over we would be doing a two minute guided meditation, starting "now," and then doubling back on himself and introducing and "starting" the meditation again, and so on repeatedly, so that in the end, the two minute meditation took a good ten minutes and maybe more. Each time he went around the introduction circle I laughed. I don't know whether he was conscious of doing that, and I doubt he saw or understood how funny it was to people like me.
On the other hand, by participating in the sessions (a few more to go) I've been able to focus my attention much better on my particular goals for starting these meditations, and gradually some of the habits that are no longer useful are dissipating or lifting.
Just yesterday, I was able to get up and do things consciously and mindfully without falling back on coping mechanisms that had stymied me in the past. It's going to take some time to work through all of this, though, and that's OK. I can see progress already, and because the necessity to cope is lessened if not altogether gone, I can more easily visualize a forward path.
Many years ago, I had guided meditation tapes that were useful to begin a series of zazen sessions, but I was encouraged not to rely on them, ultimately not to need them. I don't recall how long I used them -- I don't think it was very long -- but it was a little odd to be put back in that guided context again after so many years. My laughter, I think, was prompted in part by the realization that this was something I hadn't done for so long but with which I was very familiar. Is it like riding a bicycle? You never forget? Well, guess what? I can't ride a bicycle very well anymore.
As I gradually become re-accustomed to the dharma, all sorts of things are changing, coming back to me, new paths opening. Christians refer to being "re-born". That isn't quite what's happening. But it is very interesting to witness a kind of automatic youth reversion that carries me back to another time. Or at least evokes it.
Wonders never cease.
Thursday, November 7, 2019
Unless We Are Japanese
Much of Western Zen practice is modeled on that of Japan -- as would be expected given its origin in the West among immigrants from Japan in the 19th century. Too often, though, I think Zen practice in the West is completely divorced from its Japanese cultural, political and economic context, though not necessarily divorced from its history.
The history points to lines of transmission of the dharma from the Buddha through various teachers in India, then China, thence to Japan where three main schools of Zen developed from Chinese Cha'an Buddhism, and so here we are today. Most Western Zen practice amalgamates these Japanese schools without getting into the weeds of how they came to be and what their differences are and the many and sometime bloody struggles between them.
When the roshi tells you about the peaceful intent of Zen Buddhism, question it.
I've mentioned that Zen is in some respects a warrior cult, and Zen monasteries are partly modeled on samurai training. Zen's origins in China provide the foundation, but the development of Zen in Japan was closely tied to the samurai and feudal Japanese culture. Zen flourished (and was sometimes repressed) under the Shoguns, particularly so, it would seem, under the Tokugawa Shogunate, the ruling power in Japan from the 1600s until the Meiji Restoration of Imperial rule in 1868.
Zen declined from that point as did all Buddhism in Japan. The Imperial Shinto cult took its place. After the War in the Pacific, as it is called, the Imperial cult declined, but Buddhism, for the most part, did not revive much. Irreligion and secularism became the model to follow under American occupation after the war, but gradually Buddhist and Shinto practices reasserted themselves.
Zen, it must be understood, was never universal or even the dominant school of Buddhism in Japan. It isn't now. It is a special practice meant for a certain class or quality of individual. In old Japan, that was generally the samurai and some elements of the Shogun, Daimyo and Imperial households. In other words, very much upper class. Of course the lower orders could practice zazen, anybody can. But the hierarchy of Zen teaching and transmission, and admission to the monasteries was not open any but the "right sort", and the right sort usually meant high born and wealthy.
Monastic Buddhism can be criticized for being very class conscious. It's hard not to be, I think, given the Buddha's own princely origins. His example may apply to all classes, but he couldn't help being the aristocrat he was. His monastic life was outwardly poor and simple, but it was an aristocrat's expression of poverty and simplicity, not at all something grown from the bottom of society.
And so it has been with most monastics in the West as well as Asia. I don't criticize Zen or Buddhism for its classism, but I do acknowledge it, just as I would with Catholicism or any other religion.
St. Francis, my adopted patron saint, was also the son of an Italian merchant-aristocrat and a high-born French woman.
To see these high-born men and women putting on robes and going out begging is rather stunning when you think about it. But that's the way of monastics. Has been for many long centuries.
That aside, I think it's critical to recognize -- and honor -- Zen's Japanese origins without necessarily "turning Japanese." We in the West don't have more than a very superficial and probably erroneous understanding of Japanese society and culture and how Zen is integrated within it. We may be able to see and touch its outer shape and form, but Zen teaches us that's an illusion. We see nothing, really, because there is nothing really there.
Why would we put on robes or go on pilgrimage or chant the sutras? There's nothing to find, is there? No merit is gained.
There's nothing to learn, nothing to gain, nothing to have, nothing to be. Zen teaches knowing nothing.
There's a cow-kitten at my feet playing with a catnip fish taco.
That is Zen.
Other household cats will practice zazen randomly. We could ask "Does a cat have Buddha nature?" But why? Do the cranes flying overhead know and practice the dharma?
The history points to lines of transmission of the dharma from the Buddha through various teachers in India, then China, thence to Japan where three main schools of Zen developed from Chinese Cha'an Buddhism, and so here we are today. Most Western Zen practice amalgamates these Japanese schools without getting into the weeds of how they came to be and what their differences are and the many and sometime bloody struggles between them.
When the roshi tells you about the peaceful intent of Zen Buddhism, question it.
I've mentioned that Zen is in some respects a warrior cult, and Zen monasteries are partly modeled on samurai training. Zen's origins in China provide the foundation, but the development of Zen in Japan was closely tied to the samurai and feudal Japanese culture. Zen flourished (and was sometimes repressed) under the Shoguns, particularly so, it would seem, under the Tokugawa Shogunate, the ruling power in Japan from the 1600s until the Meiji Restoration of Imperial rule in 1868.
Zen declined from that point as did all Buddhism in Japan. The Imperial Shinto cult took its place. After the War in the Pacific, as it is called, the Imperial cult declined, but Buddhism, for the most part, did not revive much. Irreligion and secularism became the model to follow under American occupation after the war, but gradually Buddhist and Shinto practices reasserted themselves.
Zen, it must be understood, was never universal or even the dominant school of Buddhism in Japan. It isn't now. It is a special practice meant for a certain class or quality of individual. In old Japan, that was generally the samurai and some elements of the Shogun, Daimyo and Imperial households. In other words, very much upper class. Of course the lower orders could practice zazen, anybody can. But the hierarchy of Zen teaching and transmission, and admission to the monasteries was not open any but the "right sort", and the right sort usually meant high born and wealthy.
Monastic Buddhism can be criticized for being very class conscious. It's hard not to be, I think, given the Buddha's own princely origins. His example may apply to all classes, but he couldn't help being the aristocrat he was. His monastic life was outwardly poor and simple, but it was an aristocrat's expression of poverty and simplicity, not at all something grown from the bottom of society.
And so it has been with most monastics in the West as well as Asia. I don't criticize Zen or Buddhism for its classism, but I do acknowledge it, just as I would with Catholicism or any other religion.
St. Francis, my adopted patron saint, was also the son of an Italian merchant-aristocrat and a high-born French woman.
To see these high-born men and women putting on robes and going out begging is rather stunning when you think about it. But that's the way of monastics. Has been for many long centuries.
That aside, I think it's critical to recognize -- and honor -- Zen's Japanese origins without necessarily "turning Japanese." We in the West don't have more than a very superficial and probably erroneous understanding of Japanese society and culture and how Zen is integrated within it. We may be able to see and touch its outer shape and form, but Zen teaches us that's an illusion. We see nothing, really, because there is nothing really there.
Why would we put on robes or go on pilgrimage or chant the sutras? There's nothing to find, is there? No merit is gained.
There's nothing to learn, nothing to gain, nothing to have, nothing to be. Zen teaches knowing nothing.
There's a cow-kitten at my feet playing with a catnip fish taco.
That is Zen.
Other household cats will practice zazen randomly. We could ask "Does a cat have Buddha nature?" But why? Do the cranes flying overhead know and practice the dharma?
Wednesday, November 6, 2019
Palace Zen
Katsura Rikyu (Katsura Detached Palace, Katsura Imperial Villa) is one of several historic properties in Kyoto overseen by the Imperial Household Agency. As the former capital of Japan and a strong spiritual center today, Kyoto boasts many historic and important cultural sites. Katsura Rikyu is considered the purest and most expressive example of Japanese "traditional" architecture and an almost perfect example of Zen and Ma in the material world.
Katsura Rikyu was built and expanded over a number of decades during the 1600s by members of the Imperial family -- not the Emperor -- as a retreat and part-time home for its members. It is a complex of buildings situated in a park along the Katsura River several miles beyond the historic center of Kyoto and the historic Imperial Palace. When the capital was transferred to Tokyo during the Meiji Restoration of the 1860s, the Kyoto palaces and temples remained behind and the spiritual and cultural life of Japan stayed rooted in Kyoto as it had been for centuries. Indeed, for the recent enthronement of Emperor Naruhito, the thrones of the Emperor and Empress, kept at the Imperial Palace in Kyoto, were carefully dismantled, transported to Tokyo and re-erected at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo for the ceremony. And then they were taken back to Kyoto.
It's worth noting that the Emperor and Imperial family had little public profile and no power in the 1600s when Japan was ruled and controlled by Shoguns and Daimyos. At best, the Emperor was a figurehead. Typically, he was captive to Shoguns.
That's a context that often is not clarified in the sometimes rapturous consideration of the Katsura Imperial Villa as a shining ideal of "traditional" Japanese design and architecture. The Emperor was rarely put on display, and the members of his extended family were, to be blunt about it, "nobodies."
Luckily for the Imperial princes who had Katsura Rikyu built, they married money and so were able to carry out their ambitious though severely ascetic plans.
The result has been preserved nearly intact for us to admire to this day. The Imperial Household Agency -- essentially the Emperor's management organization -- conveniently makes it available for public tours from time to time, along with the other Imperial properties in Kyoto as well as the current Imperial Palace in Tokyo.
Their website hosts some very nice videos of the Imperial properties in Kyoto, and I urge readers to vicariously visit them in order to compare and contrast Katsura Rikyu with the other Imperial palaces from approximately the same time.
I've said that Katsura Rikyu is all but unique. There's nothing else quite like it in Japan or anywhere else, though it was certainly influential in its own time as it still is.
The other Imperial palaces in Kyoto seem excessive and over-done compared to it. Yet in some ways, the others are just as "empty." They are presented with no more furnishings than Katsura Rikyu. The construction module is nearly the same, floor plans are not dissimilar, the stark black and white exteriors evoke one another though they are not the same, and even the gardens and tea houses are similar between the Katsura Rikyu and the other Imperial palaces in Kyoto.
In other words, there is a family resemblance, but Katsura Rikyu is on another plane.
The difference may appear subtle but it's there and it's profound. The difference is Zen.
Zen was a practice deeply ingrained in the samurai warrior culture of the era. It was a form of mind discipline that helped enable and maintain the warrior's supremacy in battle and in life. The Shogunate was an outgrowth of Japan's feudal warrior culture. The Emperor and all things Imperial were outside it, almost irrelevant to the Shoguns and Daimyos. And yet at Katsura Rikyu, some members of the Imperial family took on the task of showing what Zen would look like in the material world. Not at all like the overdecorated and heavy-roofed, vermilion, gold and gem encrusted palaces of the Emperors, Shoguns and Daimyos nor like their temples but rather it evokes the lean, spare, stark, and "empty" houses and gardens of the samurai and the primitive accommodations of the Japanese peasant.
Of course the scale of Katsura Rikyu is quite different, and the materials, fit and finish are on another level altogether, and yet... that can be considered Zen as much as anything else about the place.
As a means of "showing" Zen, Katsura Rikyu puts the many monasteries and Zen temples around Japan to shame. By reducing decorative elements almost exclusively to nature and the moon (very important in Buddhist iconography) and emptying the residence (body and mind) of everything that isn't the "Now", Katsura Rikyu becomes the embodiment of Zen, even more so than its models in samurai and peasant houses and gardens.
But in the end, it's an Imperial palace, quite beyond the wherewithal of any ordinary person or family to undertake and maintain. When it came under Imperial Household Agency control and authority it was partly because no one else could afford to maintain it. It has to be renovated and restored periodically -- at breathtaking expense -- and the gardens, gates and teahouses require constant maintenance in order to maintain an appearance of Zen perfection.
It takes an army of servants even now to keep the place in order and looking its best.
That doesn't come cheap.
As an embodiment of Zen, Katsura Rikyu, of course, is not Zen. The appeal to the senses is undeniable, but it's an illusion. Everything you see, feel and experience there evokes a sensation which is not Zen, and in the end, as captivating as the great emptiness and stark beauty of the site may be, it is neither Zen nor enlightenment.
The perfection of Katsura Rikyu may indeed prevent enlightenment.
That preventional problem has been noted of much of Zen practice. Monasteries, teachers, roshi, the whole panoply of Zen practice has long been criticized as the perfect means to ensure that practitioners, sensei and roshi never achieve satori or enlightenment but remain forever trapped on "the path."
When I initially engaged my interest in Zen in the early-mid '60s in California, I corresponded with someone at the San Francisco Zen Center. I believe he was from Japan, but as I never met him, I cannot say. I informed him that I could not come to San Francisco at the time, and so I could not be part of the community (sangha) in person. I was told there was no need. One did not have to be there in person to participate, but also one did not have to participate in the community to practice Zazen. Not everyone who could did, and not everyone who did should.
Zazen was a practice that existed independently of Zen sites and communities.
And I've wondered if Katsura Rikyu was an intentional alternative to "monastery/temple Zen;" we might call it "Palace Zen." In many ways, it seems to represent the interest of an individual, rather than a community, in the practice of zazen. A prince could sit himself down essentially anywhere at the site and practice zazen, with or without company, and it seemed to me the whole place might have been intended for just that purpose and no other.
The thought made me smile. 😊
And this gets us into the influence of Zen and especially Katsura Rikyu has had on modern thinking about architecture, dwellings, and so forth.
I mentioned that initially my exploration of Japanese design and architecture which led to my interest in Zen was driven by the fact that the house I was living in at the time featured elements of Japanese design in the roofline and decorative appliques on the facade. The living room also featured a 16' wall of glass with a sliding door, and there were various Japanese or Frank Lloyd Wright inspired touches here and there in the interior. This was fairly radical for the time.
This is a Google street view of the house taken in 2011. You can't see much of the "Japanese" look of the house, except for the roofline over the garage. The rest has either been painted out or replaced as in the case of the garage door which originally had an applied "shoji" design.
We moved in in 1962, but the house was built in 1957, only two years after the publication of "The Japanese House and Garden", and from the outset, I was quite astonished by its Japanese-ish features. The builder was previously known for building thousands of nondescript post-war houses in Sacramento and the Bay Area with no style at all. Then suddenly in 1957, he started offering new houses and floor plans, with a choice of three stylish exteriors -- Farmhouse, Contemporary, and Japanese -- that sold quickly and at a premium price, although the Japanese-ish model was not the favorite. Nevertheless, it was influential, and you started seeing Japanese-ish features on many houses built by other builders until the late '60s-early '70s.
I was taken enough with the minimal Japanese-ish features of our house to eventually add elements like verandas, attempts at extended eaves, and a small Japanese-ish garden behind a Japanese-ish reed and bamboo screen-fence. The front garden was still there in 2011, pretty much as I planted it, but the screen-fence is long gone.
None of it was Zen, of course, but it was pleasing.
The interior of the house was a mish-mash of "builder styles" that was pretty chaotic but late in my residency there, I attempted a minimalist-ish re-design that got rid of most of the accumulations of the decades and limited the chaos. I see it in my mind's eye better than I remember it, though!
My practice of zazen started while I lived there, and it continued for a number of years after I moved out, but by 1973 or 74, I'd pretty much stopped the practice, though probably I should have continued. Or maybe not.
Zazen creates conditions within the practitioner that can lead to satori (sudden enlightenment) and once it does, if it does, the question arises: what's the point of continuing with zazen? Of course. There is no point. So. One can continue or not after enlightenment, just as one can continue or not before enlightenment. (One chops wood and carries water regardless.)
How liberating! 🕉
My carved wood image of the Kamakura Daibutsu is painted gold so it will glow in the light from Kanthaka. Hotei smiles. A laughing sage stands under cherry blossoms made of silk. The scent of nag champa wafts in the perpetual breeze. Reminders one and all.
Katsura Rikyu was built and expanded over a number of decades during the 1600s by members of the Imperial family -- not the Emperor -- as a retreat and part-time home for its members. It is a complex of buildings situated in a park along the Katsura River several miles beyond the historic center of Kyoto and the historic Imperial Palace. When the capital was transferred to Tokyo during the Meiji Restoration of the 1860s, the Kyoto palaces and temples remained behind and the spiritual and cultural life of Japan stayed rooted in Kyoto as it had been for centuries. Indeed, for the recent enthronement of Emperor Naruhito, the thrones of the Emperor and Empress, kept at the Imperial Palace in Kyoto, were carefully dismantled, transported to Tokyo and re-erected at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo for the ceremony. And then they were taken back to Kyoto.
It's worth noting that the Emperor and Imperial family had little public profile and no power in the 1600s when Japan was ruled and controlled by Shoguns and Daimyos. At best, the Emperor was a figurehead. Typically, he was captive to Shoguns.
That's a context that often is not clarified in the sometimes rapturous consideration of the Katsura Imperial Villa as a shining ideal of "traditional" Japanese design and architecture. The Emperor was rarely put on display, and the members of his extended family were, to be blunt about it, "nobodies."
Luckily for the Imperial princes who had Katsura Rikyu built, they married money and so were able to carry out their ambitious though severely ascetic plans.
The result has been preserved nearly intact for us to admire to this day. The Imperial Household Agency -- essentially the Emperor's management organization -- conveniently makes it available for public tours from time to time, along with the other Imperial properties in Kyoto as well as the current Imperial Palace in Tokyo.
Their website hosts some very nice videos of the Imperial properties in Kyoto, and I urge readers to vicariously visit them in order to compare and contrast Katsura Rikyu with the other Imperial palaces from approximately the same time.
I've said that Katsura Rikyu is all but unique. There's nothing else quite like it in Japan or anywhere else, though it was certainly influential in its own time as it still is.
The other Imperial palaces in Kyoto seem excessive and over-done compared to it. Yet in some ways, the others are just as "empty." They are presented with no more furnishings than Katsura Rikyu. The construction module is nearly the same, floor plans are not dissimilar, the stark black and white exteriors evoke one another though they are not the same, and even the gardens and tea houses are similar between the Katsura Rikyu and the other Imperial palaces in Kyoto.
In other words, there is a family resemblance, but Katsura Rikyu is on another plane.
The difference may appear subtle but it's there and it's profound. The difference is Zen.
Zen was a practice deeply ingrained in the samurai warrior culture of the era. It was a form of mind discipline that helped enable and maintain the warrior's supremacy in battle and in life. The Shogunate was an outgrowth of Japan's feudal warrior culture. The Emperor and all things Imperial were outside it, almost irrelevant to the Shoguns and Daimyos. And yet at Katsura Rikyu, some members of the Imperial family took on the task of showing what Zen would look like in the material world. Not at all like the overdecorated and heavy-roofed, vermilion, gold and gem encrusted palaces of the Emperors, Shoguns and Daimyos nor like their temples but rather it evokes the lean, spare, stark, and "empty" houses and gardens of the samurai and the primitive accommodations of the Japanese peasant.
Of course the scale of Katsura Rikyu is quite different, and the materials, fit and finish are on another level altogether, and yet... that can be considered Zen as much as anything else about the place.
As a means of "showing" Zen, Katsura Rikyu puts the many monasteries and Zen temples around Japan to shame. By reducing decorative elements almost exclusively to nature and the moon (very important in Buddhist iconography) and emptying the residence (body and mind) of everything that isn't the "Now", Katsura Rikyu becomes the embodiment of Zen, even more so than its models in samurai and peasant houses and gardens.
But in the end, it's an Imperial palace, quite beyond the wherewithal of any ordinary person or family to undertake and maintain. When it came under Imperial Household Agency control and authority it was partly because no one else could afford to maintain it. It has to be renovated and restored periodically -- at breathtaking expense -- and the gardens, gates and teahouses require constant maintenance in order to maintain an appearance of Zen perfection.
It takes an army of servants even now to keep the place in order and looking its best.
That doesn't come cheap.
As an embodiment of Zen, Katsura Rikyu, of course, is not Zen. The appeal to the senses is undeniable, but it's an illusion. Everything you see, feel and experience there evokes a sensation which is not Zen, and in the end, as captivating as the great emptiness and stark beauty of the site may be, it is neither Zen nor enlightenment.
The perfection of Katsura Rikyu may indeed prevent enlightenment.
That preventional problem has been noted of much of Zen practice. Monasteries, teachers, roshi, the whole panoply of Zen practice has long been criticized as the perfect means to ensure that practitioners, sensei and roshi never achieve satori or enlightenment but remain forever trapped on "the path."
When I initially engaged my interest in Zen in the early-mid '60s in California, I corresponded with someone at the San Francisco Zen Center. I believe he was from Japan, but as I never met him, I cannot say. I informed him that I could not come to San Francisco at the time, and so I could not be part of the community (sangha) in person. I was told there was no need. One did not have to be there in person to participate, but also one did not have to participate in the community to practice Zazen. Not everyone who could did, and not everyone who did should.
Zazen was a practice that existed independently of Zen sites and communities.
And I've wondered if Katsura Rikyu was an intentional alternative to "monastery/temple Zen;" we might call it "Palace Zen." In many ways, it seems to represent the interest of an individual, rather than a community, in the practice of zazen. A prince could sit himself down essentially anywhere at the site and practice zazen, with or without company, and it seemed to me the whole place might have been intended for just that purpose and no other.
The thought made me smile. 😊
And this gets us into the influence of Zen and especially Katsura Rikyu has had on modern thinking about architecture, dwellings, and so forth.
I mentioned that initially my exploration of Japanese design and architecture which led to my interest in Zen was driven by the fact that the house I was living in at the time featured elements of Japanese design in the roofline and decorative appliques on the facade. The living room also featured a 16' wall of glass with a sliding door, and there were various Japanese or Frank Lloyd Wright inspired touches here and there in the interior. This was fairly radical for the time.
This is a Google street view of the house taken in 2011. You can't see much of the "Japanese" look of the house, except for the roofline over the garage. The rest has either been painted out or replaced as in the case of the garage door which originally had an applied "shoji" design.
We moved in in 1962, but the house was built in 1957, only two years after the publication of "The Japanese House and Garden", and from the outset, I was quite astonished by its Japanese-ish features. The builder was previously known for building thousands of nondescript post-war houses in Sacramento and the Bay Area with no style at all. Then suddenly in 1957, he started offering new houses and floor plans, with a choice of three stylish exteriors -- Farmhouse, Contemporary, and Japanese -- that sold quickly and at a premium price, although the Japanese-ish model was not the favorite. Nevertheless, it was influential, and you started seeing Japanese-ish features on many houses built by other builders until the late '60s-early '70s.
I was taken enough with the minimal Japanese-ish features of our house to eventually add elements like verandas, attempts at extended eaves, and a small Japanese-ish garden behind a Japanese-ish reed and bamboo screen-fence. The front garden was still there in 2011, pretty much as I planted it, but the screen-fence is long gone.
None of it was Zen, of course, but it was pleasing.
The interior of the house was a mish-mash of "builder styles" that was pretty chaotic but late in my residency there, I attempted a minimalist-ish re-design that got rid of most of the accumulations of the decades and limited the chaos. I see it in my mind's eye better than I remember it, though!
My practice of zazen started while I lived there, and it continued for a number of years after I moved out, but by 1973 or 74, I'd pretty much stopped the practice, though probably I should have continued. Or maybe not.
Zazen creates conditions within the practitioner that can lead to satori (sudden enlightenment) and once it does, if it does, the question arises: what's the point of continuing with zazen? Of course. There is no point. So. One can continue or not after enlightenment, just as one can continue or not before enlightenment. (One chops wood and carries water regardless.)
How liberating! 🕉
My carved wood image of the Kamakura Daibutsu is painted gold so it will glow in the light from Kanthaka. Hotei smiles. A laughing sage stands under cherry blossoms made of silk. The scent of nag champa wafts in the perpetual breeze. Reminders one and all.
Monday, November 4, 2019
The Japanese House and Garden and The Space Between
I received the book promptly, despite the electricity blackouts and wildfires in California, and I've been reading it in sections since it arrived. This is the 1955 edition, second printing 1956, so it's not quite the same as the version I read in the '60s. But it's close enough. According to the author's preface, it's a re-do of the original 1935 German version, published in Berlin. In fact, some of the illustrations have German captions. It's a little disconcerting given the circumstances in both Japan and Germany at the time of the original publication, and even in 1955, the bitter taste from the late war -- referred to as the War in the Pacific by the author, Tetsuro Yoshida -- still lingered.
I'm given to believe that Yoshida died in 1956 and he was quite ill during the revision process for the 1955 edition. Thus, I'm somewhat puzzled over how the revisions in the 1962 and 1969 editions came about. Oh well, it's hardly important now...
Yoshida treads lightly on the topic, but he does try to inform his Western readers of how -- and when -- "traditional" Japanese domestic architecture came about. He puts it delicately, but he points out that these "traditional" tatami rooms so beloved in the West have an origin-point in Zen practice by the Japanese warrior class or samurai. The style was developed from prior hybrid Japanese-Chinese styles, but without the Zen and warrior overlays, the asceticism of the "traditional" style would have likely been much less if not completely absent.
Like most people, Japanese love their ornament. The "empty" style was something else again. It isn't entirely ornament free, but it is stripped to the bone. Such ornament as there is is confined to specific places (the tokonoma, eg) and specific times (the tea ceremony, eg.) Otherwise and at other times, there is practically nothing to experience but the bare structural elements of the room or building and whatever people happen to be there at any given time. Not to forget, however, the natural world all around and interpenetrating the empty spaces of the tatami/Zen rooms.
This extreme emptiness captivated Western observers starting in the 19th century and continuing to this day.
The "empty style" is partly the product of the tea ceremony and the tea huts built in gardens of noble properties in the 16th century in imitation of peasant houses. The tea ceremony itself is partly a product of Zen asceticism dating back much earlier but adopted by the samurai and noble classes in feudal Japan starting in the 13th century and becoming almost universal among them by the mid-1600s.
The "empty style" was not the rule among the common people then, nor is it today. Like contemporary minimalism -- which is itself founded in the "empty style" of feudal Japan (::waves at Marie Kondo::) -- it is an important style but not the ultimate or universal style of the entire people.
In fact, if you visit a traditional "empty style" Japanese house today, you'll find they're not so empty at all. By contrast to the illustrations of the "empty style" in books like "The Japanese House and Garden", contemporary lived-in examples are rather cluttered. Lots of things accumulate during living, and despite an apparent abundance of storage in these "empty" houses, there''s really no place to put it all. The "empty" rooms start filling up. In addition, no one today, and hardly anyone back in the day, has or had the wherewithal to employ the army of servants necessary to maintain an "empty" household.
I suspect that originally, these "empty style" houses could be just as cluttered if not more so than what we see in traditional Japanese houses today. And to pile on the criticism, they were, and in many cases remain, extraordinarily uncomfortable.
Of course discomfort was part of the asceticism of the style.
Which goes back to Zen. Let the circle be unbroken....
One of the principal examples of the style, frequently referenced by Yoshida and many others, is the Katsura Imperial Villa in Kyoto, now a museum but formerly a pastoral retreat for the Imperial family, a complex of residential and ceremonial structures and gardens built in the 1660s, and about as Zen as you can find anywhere in Japan, more Zen in some ways than the Japanese Zen temples.
Yoshida uses it as a primary example of traditional Japanese architecture, but in fact it's rather unique. Though there may be some others, I'm unaware of a single comparable complex anywhere in Japan -- or elsewhere for that matter.
Katsura Imperial Villa (aka Katsura Detached Palace) stands essentially alone in its stark simplicity and exquisite emptiness.
A five minute video tour:
Of course it should be noted that the "exquisite emptiness" of the Katsura Imperial Villa is part of the long time museum presentation, not necessarily how it was used by the Imperial family in the 17th century.
But then again, the emptiness of the palace today is part of its charm. And there are many examples of Japanese traditional tatami rooms in houses of all classes, spanning a wide range of eras, including today. A tatami room is ideally "empty" though in practice the rooms are not empty at all.
And there is a concept of "ma" -- the space between -- that is found throughout Japanese culture, Shinto and Zen.
This discussion has become more and more circular, so I'm going to put it to rest. There may be more to come. Or not. 🕉
Friday, November 1, 2019
50 - Again
Today is our official 50th wedding anniversary. Ms. Ché and I were married in Reno on November 1, 1969 and returned to Stockton where we were then living late that evening after dropping my best man off at his house in Citrus Heights. It was a whirlwind day that started off with Ms and I both sitting in meditation in the darkened dressing room of our tiny apartment -- the first "home of our own."
We got together two years before we were married and we celebrated that anniversary as our 50th and the following year we celebrated another 50th. Now we've arrived at the 50th anniversary of our legal marriage.
In order for Ms to get a driver's licence earlier this year, she had to produce a marriage certificate since her last name at birth is different than her married name. She had no idea as there is nothing on the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Dept website that even hints at such a thing. Well, she stormed home when she was told she needed to bring her marriage certificate, and stewed for a bit, wondering what to do. Where was that thing, anyway? What if it was still in California amongst our other possessions still stored there?
She fumed for a while and then got to work in her library/office/workroom where she keeps a lot of our important papers. She had never been asked for a marriage certificate before, at least not in the recent past, so she had no memory of where she had put it. But after about 20 minutes, she came forth with the document (and her birth certificate, SS card, two proofs of residency and her expired driver's license and stormed back to the MVD office up the road.
I've had to deal with that office a few times, and the personnel is very nice. But they're strict when it comes to "Real ID" requirements, and they brook no workarounds. You either have the proper documentation or you don't get a "Real ID."
The thing was, Ms. Ché could find nothing on the MVD website requiring the presentation of a marriage certificate by married women who use their husband's last name, and she printed out the MVD web page to prove it.
The clerk expressed surprise that it wasn't on the website and assured Ms. Ché that she would promptly inform Santa Fe of the problem. Of course I figure the same issue has come up thousands of times before, so I doubt Santa Fe gives a good gott-dam about it, but whatever. Ms. Ché got her driver's license, and there you go.
Yes, we started that day 50 years ago in sitting meditation -- Zen -- but a few years later we would stop practicing, she before I did, and have our adventures, what I'm now thinking of as "life pilgrimage."
A couple of years ago, Ms. spent a few weeks at Naropa Institute (University now) at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics where daily meditation sessions were offered, not required. She took them up. Oh yes.
She reported back that it was the most amazing thing, a reminder of what we did so many years ago, but also different because of the sensei and the sangha context, the large Tibetan singing bowl to signal the beginning and end of meditation, and the talks given by sensei. She said it was not the easiest thing for her elder bones to get up and down from the cushion on the floor, but she did it, and every time she meditated at Naropa, she felt both peace and whole.
When she came back, she brought her renewed Buddhist insight with her, and she was going to set up a meditation corner in the house, with cushion and bell and our painted wooden sculpture of the Daibutsu but realized she couldn't do it because of the cats.
We have cats of course. We've always had cats. Cats are elemental creatures for both of us, we could argue they are totem creatures, as both of us see our selves and our natures reflected in the cats who live with us. More and more of them have become house cats, which was not the plan -- we had one house cat at first and took care of many ferals. But gradually one or another feral cat was tamed and began tentatively to join us in the house. We were given a pair of kittens by the neighbor boys. Others have just arrived on their own. Ms. Ché has a strong adoptive instinct, and as more and more cats join us in the house, we have to make certain adaptations to their ways and needs. One of them being a soft, warm place to snuggle. A cushion for sitting meditation would be perfect. In fact, the one Ms. Ché got for that purpose is now a cat-bed. Of course.
Some of our house cats practice Zenning on their own account, Larry being a prime example. He was very hyper when he arrived, apparently after wandering a good long time. An older feral we called Joe adopted Larry and took it on himself to instruct the younger cat in Zen meditation. I kid you not. Joe had been Zenning out in the yard for a long time, and when he took on Larry, he literally taught him step by step what to do. And gradually, Larry learned. He is now wise and calm, and he goes into Zen state randomly, like a tested master, and he's showing some of the younger cats what to do.
It's almost as if the feral colony is becoming a monastery. But like many other monasteries, not everyone can handle the challenge and they go about their cat-business on a lower plane. Some are clearly ascended masters, though. Larry is very nearly the Abbot of this group though he rarely puts on airs.
When the meditation cushion was given to the cats it meant we would not have a dedicated meditation corner in the house, but oddly that's been liberating. Since we don't have this singular place for meditating in the house, we can and do meditate wherever we are. Randomly. It's a kind of liberation that many practitioners seek but never find. They need and want the structure of regular meditation times and places, wearing regular meditation robes sitting on regular meditation cushions, and all the trappings of "actual" Zen meditation. Otherwise, perhaps, they can't do it. It doesn't feel right.
That's one of the common hazards Zen masters pointed to long ago: attachment to particular places, things, needs and wants. Attachment to people like your sensei or roshi. Without them, you can become lost. 🕉🕉
Indeed. It's true. Learning to practice without the structure you may be used to is a definite challenge which not every Zen practitioner can master or necessarily wants to master.
So, no. We don't have a meditation corner in the house, but we have our workarounds. The sound of the singing bowl is the signal we use for meditation -- just as a small brass bell was 50 years go. We may still have that bell, but if we don't, we have others like it. The singing bowl, however, is a recent nod to Naropa, and I must say, small as it is, it has an impressive tone. Not quite as deep and long-lasting as the one at Naropa's meditation room, but as effective just the same.
When one or the other of us strikes the tone (it is usually Ms. who does), the meditation moment begins.
Not only do we shift into a sitting meditation mode, so do some, not all, of the house cats.
Could we do it without the tone of the singing bowl? Of course.
Our shrine to the Buddha is also one of the helpful elements as it is a reminder to meditate. The gold painted wooden statue of the Kamakura Daibutsu is so eloquent that a mere glance is sufficient to put me in that meditative space.
And so it goes. It's our official 50th, and so we will celebrate in various ways today and tonight. It's a reminder of our long time together and how very challenging and rewarding that time has been.
🕉🕉🕉
We got together two years before we were married and we celebrated that anniversary as our 50th and the following year we celebrated another 50th. Now we've arrived at the 50th anniversary of our legal marriage.
In order for Ms to get a driver's licence earlier this year, she had to produce a marriage certificate since her last name at birth is different than her married name. She had no idea as there is nothing on the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Dept website that even hints at such a thing. Well, she stormed home when she was told she needed to bring her marriage certificate, and stewed for a bit, wondering what to do. Where was that thing, anyway? What if it was still in California amongst our other possessions still stored there?
She fumed for a while and then got to work in her library/office/workroom where she keeps a lot of our important papers. She had never been asked for a marriage certificate before, at least not in the recent past, so she had no memory of where she had put it. But after about 20 minutes, she came forth with the document (and her birth certificate, SS card, two proofs of residency and her expired driver's license and stormed back to the MVD office up the road.
I've had to deal with that office a few times, and the personnel is very nice. But they're strict when it comes to "Real ID" requirements, and they brook no workarounds. You either have the proper documentation or you don't get a "Real ID."
The thing was, Ms. Ché could find nothing on the MVD website requiring the presentation of a marriage certificate by married women who use their husband's last name, and she printed out the MVD web page to prove it.
The clerk expressed surprise that it wasn't on the website and assured Ms. Ché that she would promptly inform Santa Fe of the problem. Of course I figure the same issue has come up thousands of times before, so I doubt Santa Fe gives a good gott-dam about it, but whatever. Ms. Ché got her driver's license, and there you go.
Yes, we started that day 50 years ago in sitting meditation -- Zen -- but a few years later we would stop practicing, she before I did, and have our adventures, what I'm now thinking of as "life pilgrimage."
A couple of years ago, Ms. spent a few weeks at Naropa Institute (University now) at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics where daily meditation sessions were offered, not required. She took them up. Oh yes.
She reported back that it was the most amazing thing, a reminder of what we did so many years ago, but also different because of the sensei and the sangha context, the large Tibetan singing bowl to signal the beginning and end of meditation, and the talks given by sensei. She said it was not the easiest thing for her elder bones to get up and down from the cushion on the floor, but she did it, and every time she meditated at Naropa, she felt both peace and whole.
When she came back, she brought her renewed Buddhist insight with her, and she was going to set up a meditation corner in the house, with cushion and bell and our painted wooden sculpture of the Daibutsu but realized she couldn't do it because of the cats.
We have cats of course. We've always had cats. Cats are elemental creatures for both of us, we could argue they are totem creatures, as both of us see our selves and our natures reflected in the cats who live with us. More and more of them have become house cats, which was not the plan -- we had one house cat at first and took care of many ferals. But gradually one or another feral cat was tamed and began tentatively to join us in the house. We were given a pair of kittens by the neighbor boys. Others have just arrived on their own. Ms. Ché has a strong adoptive instinct, and as more and more cats join us in the house, we have to make certain adaptations to their ways and needs. One of them being a soft, warm place to snuggle. A cushion for sitting meditation would be perfect. In fact, the one Ms. Ché got for that purpose is now a cat-bed. Of course.
Some of our house cats practice Zenning on their own account, Larry being a prime example. He was very hyper when he arrived, apparently after wandering a good long time. An older feral we called Joe adopted Larry and took it on himself to instruct the younger cat in Zen meditation. I kid you not. Joe had been Zenning out in the yard for a long time, and when he took on Larry, he literally taught him step by step what to do. And gradually, Larry learned. He is now wise and calm, and he goes into Zen state randomly, like a tested master, and he's showing some of the younger cats what to do.
It's almost as if the feral colony is becoming a monastery. But like many other monasteries, not everyone can handle the challenge and they go about their cat-business on a lower plane. Some are clearly ascended masters, though. Larry is very nearly the Abbot of this group though he rarely puts on airs.
When the meditation cushion was given to the cats it meant we would not have a dedicated meditation corner in the house, but oddly that's been liberating. Since we don't have this singular place for meditating in the house, we can and do meditate wherever we are. Randomly. It's a kind of liberation that many practitioners seek but never find. They need and want the structure of regular meditation times and places, wearing regular meditation robes sitting on regular meditation cushions, and all the trappings of "actual" Zen meditation. Otherwise, perhaps, they can't do it. It doesn't feel right.
That's one of the common hazards Zen masters pointed to long ago: attachment to particular places, things, needs and wants. Attachment to people like your sensei or roshi. Without them, you can become lost. 🕉🕉
Indeed. It's true. Learning to practice without the structure you may be used to is a definite challenge which not every Zen practitioner can master or necessarily wants to master.
So, no. We don't have a meditation corner in the house, but we have our workarounds. The sound of the singing bowl is the signal we use for meditation -- just as a small brass bell was 50 years go. We may still have that bell, but if we don't, we have others like it. The singing bowl, however, is a recent nod to Naropa, and I must say, small as it is, it has an impressive tone. Not quite as deep and long-lasting as the one at Naropa's meditation room, but as effective just the same.
When one or the other of us strikes the tone (it is usually Ms. who does), the meditation moment begins.
Not only do we shift into a sitting meditation mode, so do some, not all, of the house cats.
Could we do it without the tone of the singing bowl? Of course.
Our shrine to the Buddha is also one of the helpful elements as it is a reminder to meditate. The gold painted wooden statue of the Kamakura Daibutsu is so eloquent that a mere glance is sufficient to put me in that meditative space.
And so it goes. It's our official 50th, and so we will celebrate in various ways today and tonight. It's a reminder of our long time together and how very challenging and rewarding that time has been.
🕉🕉🕉
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