WORDS WRITTEN AT THE POINT OF GRATITUDE - NO 4

A selection of extracts from recent entries in my Gratitude Journal.

• "I continue to marvel that I still have all my faculties post the HA!. I remain in relative good health both physically and mentally. My Mother's mind was as bright as a pin right up to her death, even as various physical ailments gradually rounded on her. Whilst my memory fails me from time to time, I do well. I am able to write a lot and to be creative in so many ways. I can plan my life and carry out that plan. All of which are a huge boon and to be thankful for. Yes, there are the ever increasing aches and pains, but they come and go dependent upon usage and weather. I can still be grateful that a lot of my ailments are not permanent losses, as yet."
  
  
• "One can only be grateful for what brings you joy, love and a sense of meaning. And you start to find and encounter these things everywhere."
  
  
• "To be grateful is to feel a simultaneous impulse to be generous. It is I suspect founded upon a sense of an unburdened love. You feel the flow of love for so many things that it cannot but be expressed in gratitude. Love and joy are like two sides of the same coin, with a similar volition to be generous with one's time, thoughts, feelings and actions."
  
  
• "I've been wondering about ingratitude. In my experience it is more often a studied resistance to either expressing gratitude or feeling one is expected to be grateful or coerced to be so. It exists in a reactive relationship with its opposite. It tries, and more often fails, to present itself as rational and reasonable whilst essentially not being either.....Ingratitude is like a form of metaphysical sulk."
  
  
• " This morning I'm feeling a bit bereft of gratitude. Its like looking for recognisible faces in a crowd, but not finding any."

ARTICLE - What's With All The Bowing?

For many months I'd resolutely refused to bow when I approached a Buddhist shrine. I just sat watching the ritual proceedings until the moment arrived, where everyone else approached with seeming ease. As one by one they did a bow or prostrated, placed a flower offering, lit incense and a candle, then returned to their zafu. I remained a nervous observer, forever teetering on the edge - ' maybe I'll get up - Now! ' I was still trying to be clear in my mind why you did it, how you did it, the what and when of it. 

Why did I make bowing such a big deal? I guess it is like this for most people in any religious tradition. It feels a much more important thing than the minutiae of bowing might indicate. It is an act of devotion, it is a commitment, it is an expression of belief, and it is also done in public while everyone else is chanting a mantra, and probably scrutinising your every fumbling devotional move. Yeah, bowing freaked me out.  Nevertheless it remains important to work out for yourself what it means to you, and why you do it.

There can be a lot of bowing in any religious tradition, not all of it taking place within devotional contexts. Buddhists traditionally greet each other with a bow. Unlike a handshake that has its origins in proving you mean no one any harm by offering your sword arm, a bow in greeting is a mark of respect. Respect from one human to another, a recognition of meeting a fellow Buddhist practitioner, and as a salutation to the potential for Buddhahood that lies within everyone, however unconscious or conscious that may in fact currently be. If a bow is to someone who is senior to you, or is leading a devotional ritual you are taking part in, the bow becomes a recognition of the sacred role that they are performing. Bowing demonstrates and honours the difference between you and them within that ritual event..

At the beginning of some Zen services, you bow towards you meditation cushion that you are about to sit to practice upon, offering respect simultaneously to what you are about to do and where you are about to do it. But also because it was through meditation that the Buddha became Enlightened. With each period of meditation practice you re-embark upon a similar journey. Bowing dedicates any meditation time on the zafu to this endeavour. In this way a simple bow can become both an act of deep respect and an expression of your gratitude. Bowing is intrinsically a humbling action, imbued with a feeling of indebtedness to the object or person in front of it. In its purest volition it is founded upon gratefulness.

Bowing can so easily become something executed in an automatic and unthinking manner. The volition of respect or gratitude perhaps lapses. Bowing can become just part of a form of ritual expression that you blithely regularly execute. Not necessarily mindlessly, but certainly without heart. Lets just first acknowledge that this does happen. Somehow repetition can dull the edges of our awareness,. Bowing turns into an empty vessel. It is the same for any devotional practice that is done regularly. Our engagement with it can wear thin at times. In the future, when my outward commitment to Buddhism was more firmly established, I would occasionally have a 'faith wobble'. At such times I'd find myself executing a more hesitant half-hearted bow, in response to the quivering of my own doubt.

What often happens is not that your attitude to the ritual of bowing is deteriorating. It's that the depth of your faith can sometimes lag behind any outward expression of your commitment. You can get ahead of yourself, by sheer force of will.  Bowing can be synonymous with letting go of many things, of control, of one's ego, of one's pride, to name but three. It asks you to surrender yourself to the moment of bowing without thought of what you will gain from it, or paradoxically what you are trying to achieve or express through it. In this surrendering of your agency and your Self to Other, is where what is Other - Buddhahood or Enlightenment - may move to greet you. This is the point where letting go of any idea of consciously attaining anything through practice begins to kick in. Though there is often a lot of self conscious rehearsing before any surrendering is able to manifests itself. So lots of time, equanimity and patience is required

Lastly, bowing within a devotional ritual is a small individual action within a much larger collective volition. You chose to come to a place to perform this ritual together with others. It is often said that potential for Buddhahood arises most strongly within collective practice and rituals. The fact that you are all doing the same thing gives it added potency. Its never just you bowing, your individual efforts at practice that necessarily makes the decisive difference. Hundreds of voices chanting a mantra can have hugely more impact on you, than your lone voice on its own. Even as you bow to your shrine alone at home, thousands upon thousands of other people will be doing exactly the same thing as you at the same time. Bowing unifies you with a wider network of the Buddha's disciples in the present moment. But also calls upon over two millennia of lineage of ardent Buddhist practitioners. All of which makes bowing pretty mind blowing.

WORDS WRITTEN AT THE POINT OF GRATITUDE - No 3

Another edited selection from my gratitude journal from recent weeks.

• I'm grateful to a sense for time and the clock marking its passing, a constant reminder of how fortunate I am. That time, however fleeting, always offers you an opportunity to do things better or differently until the very last second or minute of your life concludes.
  
  
• Meditation can be challenging at the best of times, and it was today. When I'm tired or sleepy the practice becomes to embrace the tiredness, the unwilling heart that wants to settle or snuggle into itself. In those moments when focus and intention returns, however briefly, there is a sigh of recognition, as if to say - Ah! I remember you, I remember this. And you feel a short wave of gratitude, a bit like a reward for coming back to a different sense of oneself and your relationship with the world.
  
  
• Strangely grateful for being a bit of a grump this morning, it's a good teacher when read as an indicator that something needs addressing. I believe in finding a way to be grateful for feeling bad tempered and moody. You can't just be grateful for 'the nice cuddly stuff', which would be too one sided.
  
  
• Grateful for every thought, feeling, idea and experience, all are some form of gift. That these things may not be what they first appear to be. You can feel grateful for anything, you just have to find the right angle to approach it with. This can take some working out.
  
  
• There are insights to be had even from the most unpromising or resistant material. And, yeah, that can be something to be grateful for.
  
  
• To be fully awake to the world would in itself be a state of gratitude.

WORDS WRITTEN AT THE POINT OF GRATITUDE - No 2

This one is a longish edited entry from a recent gratitude journal. This came out in one extemporaneous flow.

" You know I would say today I'm feeling gratitude for my life and experiences. Looking back at the whole cornucopia of it. Its full of my interests, doubts, successes and mistakes, the opportunities taken and missed. It's all a bit of an exotic melange. One I would not have missed for the world. I'm grateful for it all.

Any human life, according to Buddhism, is 'a precious opportunity'** And this morning I'm feeling the fragile delicate nature of that opportunity. The only coda I could put at the end of that would be gratitude - for everyone I've ever met and had contact with - have loved and fallen in love with - have worked or crossed swords with - have exchanged ideas with - have worked creatively with - have appreciated, idolised and been a huge fan of - if only for five minutes - the toys both childhood and adult I've enjoyed playing with - the hearts I've broken - the hearts I've lifted - the one's I've let down and the one's I've made proud - the one's I've admired closely or from afar - the rush of my enthusiasms - the chasing of wild dreams - the despair of the last bus home after a hopeless evening - the tender ending of an affair - all the learning and the seeking for knowledge - and through it all a sense for the history of it all - of past lives lived - the complex inheritance of our humanity - these can only instill a sense of gratitude.

This morning I am sensitive and emotional, to the enormity of what I've written this floods me with feelings of love for it all, and not wanting to let go of one moment of it. To hold life to my chest tightly like a bunch of bright fragrant flowers. Simultaneously knowing that flowers fade and my memories die with me. And though I do not fully understand why, that forgetting, that fading away is a good thing. Nothing is permanent in this life, it is changeable and fickle, yet that is what makes it also unpredictable and offers up surprises, happiness and joy, in unequal measures. That it's something to feel grateful for, that nothing lingers for long, whether good or bad. Whatever I do, I should never become indifferent to it. Never stop trying to be better at riding the roller coaster."


** Human life is 'a precious opportunity' because through it you can wake up, be enlightened to what the 13th century Zen monk Dogen called 'the dream within a dream'.

WORDS WRITTEN AT THE POINT OF GRATITUDE - No 1

I've recently begun writing a gratitude journal. I'll post from time to time edited selections. Here's a few from recent weeks.

• I have to be aware of not turning gratefulness into a task list, that I must find a dozen things to be grateful for in one day, or I am failing. I am trying to be more open, as I write, to the gratitude journal being whatever it turns out to be on any one day. Imbued with an aura of gratefulness, where it moves in and out of states, of being more or less explicit. Gratefulness can be a demeanour, where gratitude is one quality implicit within it.

• Writing here forces you to be more aware of what is going on around you. At the moment I oscillate between looking for things to be grateful for and examining the process of gratefulness emerging. Awareness seems primary, which appreciation follows, and though it is part of what gratefulness is, it is not gratefulness, but a close cousin. Appreciation is more like an observation, done from a distance, not fully emotionally engaged with what it is seeing. Gratefulness appreciates and goes out to the thing observed to express gratitude, in a sense directly to it.

• Gratitude, at its purest, is given freely to the object or person. If the latter, it also has to be received. Any form of gratefulness is welcome, but it seems that there are differing degrees of it, depending upon how publicly it is being expressed. In this sense any gratefulness is an incomplete thing the more abstract it is. It is always a work in practice, one that is never finished like a task list. 
  
  
• To be fully grateful you have to be content. The rolling stones of discontent tending to drown out our more appreciative thoughts. Our society is at present going through a huge roistering amount of discontent with itself. So its hard to resist getting caught up in its whirlpools.

SOME WORDS OF SETH GODIN - On Contributing

" Our role as creative people is
to just show up with the stuff.
To go on the journey
and to not take it personally.

Figuring out how to be a productive contributor
is the creative way. 

Its how we move forward."

SETH GODIN - In his lecture on Mindfulness & Creativity at Work
from Love & Resilience - The Contemplative Care Summit, 2021.

SOME WORDS OF SETH GODIN - On Resistance

 

"Resistance is our way of getting ourselves off the hook.

Resistances provide us with a shroud to hide ourselves behind.

Peace of mind (in relation to resistances) means -
you accept that there are waves in the ocean
that each wave that comes will be different
and that surfing them is the whole point."

SETH GODIN - In his lecture on Mindfulness & Creativity at Work
from Love & Resilience - The Contemplative Care Summit, 2021.

SOME WORDS OF SETH GODIN - On Reassurance

"Reassurance is Futile.

It's futile because the person who reassures us
that its all going to be OK,
cannot possibly know that.

Seeking reassurance is a trap.

What we need to know is
that people have our back,
that when it doesn't work someone has got us
that they will help us try again,
help show us where to go to next."

SETH GODIN - In his lecture on Mindfulness & Creativity at Work
from Love & Resilience - The Contemplative Care Summit, 2021.

SOME WORDS OF SETH GODIN - On Impostor Syndrome

"If you are doing something
that you've never done before,
how can you know if its going to work?
You can't.

If you don't feel like you are an impostor in this situation, you might not be trying hard enough.

Whenever you feel like you are an impostor
remind yourself, you are on to something."

SETH GODIN - In his lecture on Mindfulness & Creativity at Work
from Love & Resilience - The Contemplative Care Summit, 2021.

SOME WORDS OF SETH GODIN - On Writer's Block

 "Writer's Block is a myth.

Your ideas don't come from outside, but inside you.

Writer's block is a socially acceptable name for -  

'I'm afraid of my bad writing,
and because I'm afraid of my bad writing,
I'm afraid to write at all'

If I say I am blocked,
I don't have to encounter my bad writing.

So what I encourage you to do here
is to get over your fear 
of writing badly

You do that by writing"

SETH GODIN - In his lecture on Mindfulness & Creativity at Work
from Love & Resilience - The Contemplative Care Summit, 2021.

SOME WORDS OF SETH GODIN - On Failure

" We cannot do creative work
unless we are prepared to accept the fact
that creative projects don't always succeed.

Failure is an event, not a person.

What would you do if you knew from the start
you were going to fail?

What would be worth doing anyway?"

SETH GODIN - In his lecture on Mindfulness & Creativity at Work - as part of Love & Resilience - The Contemplative Care Summit, 2021.

ARTICLE - Water Takes The Shape That It's Given

Inspector Montalbano is investigating the death of a prominent politician, whose body was found in a car left in a place known for prostitution. Witnesses say they saw a man having sex with a woman in that car the night before. The post mortem confirms he died of a heart attack, Montalbano, however, is suspicious about the scene of the crime, there are just one too many anomalies. He visits the deceased's widow who believes the death of her husband was politically motivated. Neither of them has any proof. 

'What can I do' bemoans Montalbano.
'Well, you could just accept the shape they gave to the water'
'what do you mean' he asks.
She recounts a childhood encounter with a young country boy .He'd put on the edge of a well a bowl, a cup and a square tin all full of water, and he was just staring at them
she asks him
'What are you doing?
he replied with a question.
'What is the shape of water?'
laughing she says
'Water doesn't have a shape, it takes the shape that its given'

I watch a lot of crime procedurals, not usually with the expectation of being left reflecting on a phrase. But 'water takes the shape that its given' stayed with me. There is something about it that made me want to dig a little deeper into the what and why of it.

I was viewing this particular episode of Montalbano the morning after five days on retreat at home had concluded. My retreat reading had been Dogen's - Sansuikyo - The Mountains & Waters Sutra, and a commentary on it by Shohaku Okumura. Other watery spiritual metaphors had seeped in from other reading directions; from Gary Snyder's The Practice of the Wild and Sheng Yen's commentary on Seng Ts'an's Faith In Mind. The natural symbolism of water appeared to be falling out of thin air and into my lap. Then, once the retreat was over, I was merely relaxing watching TV, and was presented with yet another.

'That -- water takes the shape that its given'

Our bodies are largely made of water, too little and we die of thirst, too much and we drown, it scalds, it freezes, it falls, it pools, it moistens, it floods, it flows, it steams, it snows. Water adapts itself to whatever circumstances it finds itself in. Water is a shape shifting element. 

'Water reaches into flames, it reaches into the mind and its images, into wit, and into discrimination, and it reaches into realisation of the Buddha-nature'     Dogen

Waters capacity to flow as a spiritual metaphor is irresistible. To be able to mimic waters ability to go with the flow of whatever it encounters, to get through, in, over, around or under it. If only our experience of life could be more like that. Moving smoothly from one thing to the next, nothing ruffling us as we ride those tigers and paddle through those doldrums. Water brings insights into a better way of relating to reality. 

That our original shape was quite like water 

Water has more than ease of flow to recommend it.  Unlike humanity water never gets stuck for long in one particular form or way of being. If water has any sense of itself as water, it is not one that is stifled or inhibited by its own self consciousness. Water doesn't have a fixed permanent sense of who it is. A quality of water is that it has no will, no desire for control over its destiny. Water is compelled to fully embrace its innate willingness to adapt and be transformed by external circumstance.  It doesn't have to be protective of, or define, who, what or how it is. Water is content within its wateriness.

'Water embraces whatever shape it currently is, however brief.'

Dogen extols the virtues of water. Though he asks us not to allow our perceptions of them to be limited only to human centred viewpoints.  Do not assume perceptions are the same for all sentient life. How, for instance, does a fish view water, what form does water take through a fish's eyesight, how would that perception feed into its imagination and way of living?  Can we conceive of what fish-water, duck-water, or Buddha-water might look like?  Lets not assume all sentient life defaults to the human way of seeing things - for why should it?

Perceptions of water take the shape that we give them.

Humanity tends to find different perspectives, different ways of doing things challenging. It prefers consistency, routine and certainty over their opposites. Our use of the internet appears to be making intolerance of other cultures and opinions more intense. History shows that people have often tried to force people to believe or see things in one way, the way that they do. If they refuse to conform, then we imprison or kill them. Yet our opinions, like our sense of our self, evolve, they are not the fixed things we think they are. Actually we all possess a more water like sense of self, even if we carry it around in a bottle.

Like water our sense of our self can become frozen

We protect self identity, reinforce its shape through how we interpret our perceptions, the stories we weave around them about who we are, why we are the way we are, what we are or are not capable of. Then apply the same criteria to other people, why they are who they are and what they are. We force ourselves and others into predefined shapes. Seeing them only as what we've made them into, the particular box that we've constructed then put them in.

'In general, ways of seeing mountains and water differ according to the type of being that sees them. There are beings which see what we call water as a string of pearls, but that does not mean that they see a string of pearls as water. They probably see as their water a form that we see as something else. We see their string of pearls as water.'    Dogen

Can we imagine ourselves being more like water? Adopting the shape of other peoples opinions and ways of being, To understand anyone requires imagination, empathy and being able to listen, often without comment, as we soften our world view in order to accommodate someone else's. To see the world as if through another persons eyes, broadens who we are or can be. Someone being different to us doesn't make them unknowable. We can befriend people entirely unlike us, it can be quite invigorating. 

We already do this in a smaller way with friends, partners and family, all the time. Unconsciously adapting our shape and way of being in order to sit easier with another person's shape and way of being. We find ourselves behaving differently with friends from schooldays than we do with those from our work or the buddhist centre. People from these different contexts don't necessarily get on, even though they all have you in common. They appreciate a different side of you. There are people you clash with all the time, something about their shape you cannot adapt to or accommodate. It's worth investigating why.

Different people's shape allow you to be a different shape too. 

There is a traditional Buddhist story of the five blindfolded people each describes what an elephant is like for them. One knows an elephant only by its trunk, another by its ears, another by its legs, another by its tail, another by its belly. Each is correct according to the experience it has of it, but incorrect in describing the whole animal.  The same goes for us and our family, partners and friends, each has their own partial view. No one can fully describe the shape of you, not even you.

' Now let us be wary of this. Is it that there are various ways of seeing one object? Or is it that we have mistakenly assumed the various images to be one object? ....If the above is so, then practice-and-experience and pursuit of the truth also may not be only of one kind or two kinds; and the ultimate state also may be of thousands of kinds and myriad varieties.'    Dogen

Lets integrate the diversity and inconsistencies that we hold within ourselves, be with them, rather than fighting against them. Resist making ourselves conform to a consistent shape, particularly if that shape is not of our choosing. The shape of ourselves can be far more flexible and fluid than we allow it to be. The same is true of other people, of our way of seeing the world, of our conception of how reality is. There maybe an infinite number of tracks up to the top of a mountain, numerous routes to cross an ocean by, many a circuitous, winding path toward Buddha Nature.  

Reality functions like water, it has no permanent shape.,

Reality shape shifts

We are shape shifting sentient beings, that do not yet realise it..

FEATURE - Three Dogen Mountain Poems

These three short poems are each written by Dogen, they arose from his reflections on the Lotus Sutra. They capture something of what he was trying to convey through his own Mountains and Waters Sutra; that an intimate connection with reality in its true state is right in front of our eyes.

In the valley, vibrating sounds
On the peak, monkeys' intermittent chattering,
I hear them as they are exquisitely expounding this sutra.

Grasping the heart of this sutra
even the voices of selling and buying
in the world are expounding the Dharma.

Colours of the mountain peak and echoes of the valley stream
all of them as they are, are nothing other
than my Shakyamuni's voice and appearance.

Eihei Dogen

FINISHED READING - Three Commentaries on Dogen's Uji - 'Being-Time'

Late in 2019 I began re-reading through my four volume copy of Dogen's Shobogenzo. The last time I did this was twenty years ago and it took me four years to complete. My experience then was of constantly being thrust up against my ignorance, non-comprehension, the impenetrable cliff of being spiritually baffled and yet strangely thrilled, often simultaneously. Six months into my re-reading I reached the chapter Uji, usually translated as 'being-time' or 'existence time' and I've been erratically, and given the nature of the text, slowly working my way through the three modern commentaries on it that I have.

Uji is challenging to understand, I don't quite get or connect with quite a lot of it still. Yet what I do grasp of it has come to mean a hell of lot to me. The dense allusive phrases, rich metaphors, stories, koans, all embellished with colourful imagery reference ideas that do not easily unpack themselves even to experienced Zen Buddhists. You do need an experienced reliable teacher or their commentary to guide you through it. It is clear to me that Uji contains the central idea informing Dogen's whole approach to spiritual and everyday life, so it warranted close examination. I've published a simplified summary of what I think I've understood in an article that preceded this post.

Dogen's use of the unified terms 'practice-realisation and 'being-time' are pretty much unique to him. Like' buddha-nature' their identifiable antecedents in Buddhist texts are hard to locate beyond the late flowerings of the Mahayana itself. If there has ever been such a thing as a pure orthodox view in Buddhism, then Dogen was taking a knowing detour from it. However, the idea of 'being-time' does support and form interesting new correlations with the Buddha's fundamental teachings of conditioned co-production and contemplation of impermanence. You could say he was simply opening up a new window upon an familiar landscape that needed refreshing..

Three Commentaries on Uji 

Each Moment Is The Universe - Dahnin Katagri, - Pub Shambahala, - 2007
I've read Each Moment Is The Universe twice now. It is an intelligent compilation of edited talks given by Katagiri over a number of years which relate to or explore themes derived from Uji. As such it is a bit scatter gun in its logical sequence, lacking the directed flow of exposition that a purposely written book would have. Katagiri comes across as a gifted teacher, with a very personable accessible style of presentation that avoids becoming too tangled in the texts more abstruse philosophical consequences. His focus is on how the idea of 'being~time' itself affects our everyday practice and daily life. I did gain a basic grasp of' being-time' through reading this book and in my opinion it is the best introductory commentary on Uji currently available.   *****

Deepest Practice, Deepest Wisdom - Kosho Uchiyama - Pub Wisdom - 2018
The Kosho Uchiyama, I think has likewise been edited down from a series of talks. But they do have a sense of a coherent sequence running through them. Uchiyama, like Katagiri, avoids using specifically Buddhist jargon and tries to express even a complex text such as Uji in as straightforward a language as possible. Had I not read the Katagiri first, I'm sure I would have found his commentary as revelatory. For me, it reinforced through restatement what I'd first understood through reading the Katagiri. Both Uchiyama and Katagiri are great spiritual communicators and the depth of their practice shines through in the plain, matter of fact and frequently humorous way they present their thoughts and reflections. ****

Being Time, A Practitioner's Guide To Dogen's Shobogenzo Uji, 
Shinshu Roberts - Pub Wisdom - 2018 
Shinshu Roberts takes a logical, thorough going approach, with a line by line, paragraph by paragraph dissection and exploration of the themes in Uji's text. This means the commentary itself can quickly become extremely heavy going. There was something absent for me in its depth and illumination that I can't quite put my finger on. The use of the subtitle A Practitioner's Guide to Dogen's Shobogenzo Uji, I found to be not sufficiently born out by the commentary itself. It's not very practical. It has a dry, academic tone, with few cogent examples drawn from experience how the whole notion of 'being-time' might imaginatively play out in our day to day life and practice. I doggedly stuck with it to the bitter end, but with a diminishing sense of active engagement. ***

EVERYDAY LIFE - Why is living in the present moment so important anyway?

We all tend to view time as something external to us that flies or passes us by, that there is either too much or not enough of. It divides up our life experience and memories into what is past, present or for the future. We tend to conceive of time as proceeding in this sequential way as our clock dials go from 1 to 24, so our day to day experiences fall like dominoes from dawn to dusk, A to B, life to death.

Time re-frames our life story, turning individual experiences and events into a self propelled narrative along a path that we visualise ourselves as having directed.  Even spiritual practice can be turned into another form of this self-improving journey, except this one ends up with the state of Enlightenment. Most of the time this causes no problems. There are, after all, countless Buddhist lists that appear to encourage us to present the purpose of Buddhist practice to be a bit like climbing a ladder or a spiral staircase. 

This implies that Enlightenment is not attainable in this present moment, but is at a point far away that we are nowhere near reaching right now. But when that point is reached, when realisation does occur, the place where that will happen will be there, right then, in that future present moment.  The sequential stages of progress may help prepare us but only so far. Whether our view is sequential or immediate, the way we conceive of and use the present moment is extremely important, if we are ever to 'see things as they really are.'

It is an overused cliche to talk of living in the present moment. We rarely ask what and where that present moment is in our experience?  Though we are aware that the present moment exists, it does so consciously only in retrospect, we analyse and comment on what has happened there, after it has happened. We say to ourselves 'Oh that was interesting' as our self-awareness kicks in subsequent to the event. When the present moment is actually happening it is just being lived, not cross-examined and probed for significance or meaning.

We cannot self-consciously make ourselves 'present' within the present moment. It's not a place where self analysis can exist alongside it, because we are so deeply embroiled as an integral part of the moment that has arisen. According to Dogen in his Shobogenzo essay Uji, our sense of being and our sense of time are one indivisible dynamic event occurring in each presenting moment. Being-Time is not a duality, it is 'not two', its like a coin without two sides, no heads, no tails, but valuable.

If only the present moment of 'being time' can be experienced then each moment contains within it everything that has ever happened, not just to ourselves but to everyone and everything that ever existed. In every singular moment we experience the impermanent nature of the phenomena happening immediately in our present life, whilst also being involved in the endless, ever shifting network of interconnected phenomena that encompasses us on a world or cosmic level, this is where 'each moment is the entire universe', as Dahnin Katagiri puts it. 'Being-time'  though experienced as particular to us, is simultaneously intimate with and inclusive of everything in every time frame.

This idea of being-time is linked philosophically with 'buddha nature' though the latter as a concept is a contentious one. That we can already be something, but not be aware of it, is inherently problematic. Dogen was not the first Buddhist to point out that this appeared to undermine the necessity for spiritual practice altogether. In the Shobogenzo chapter on Uji*** he proposes his own resolution to heal the apparent disjuncture between practice and realisation that the concept of 'buddha nature' opens up. Practice-realisation, like being-time, does not run along some imagined parallel linear trajectories, but are one singular simultaneous activity in the presenting moment. All these terms become intertwined in where they take place - the present moment.

If you hold too literally to the view that spiritual progress happens sequentially in an elevating hierarchy of states, then the concept of practice-realisation will be difficult to see the sense of. Even if one puts trust in the idea of 'buddha nature', realisation will often be impeded by subtle sub-conscious views of realisation that are sequential or self-focused in nature. Practice-realisation is not like bringing hot water, green tea leaves and a teapot together in order to make a truly fabulous cup of tea. 

Without taking it too literally, it could be said that - realisation prompts practice and practice prompts realisation. Relatively speaking, we experience practice as either 'touching' or 'not touching' full realisation, but if we were to speak from a more absolute position, practice is never in nor out of touch with realisation. At some point our words, images, concepts are always in danger of failing or implying a duality that will obscure fuller comprehension, but we have to keep trying.  Practice, because its not separate from it, is not the means to achieve realisation, but resembles a constant emanation like the beams cast from a lighthouse, sometimes intermittent, sometimes steady.

Realisation doesn't exist without practice and practice doesn't exist without realisation. After all the Buddha continued practicing meditation regularly even after his own 'awakening', if 'awakening' had been the breakthrough conclusion that would not have been necessary. Realisation is always there in the moment of practice, even though most of the time we are blind to it.

Zazen meditation practice is unique in having no purpose, no technique, no formal structure to master, nothing to be done or nothing to be gained. This is a practice that encourages no desire to 'touch' or 'not touch' full realisation, and cannot be forced to go anywhere without that willfulness becoming self-sabotaging. You sit present to whatever is there, letting go of any mental entanglement that arises and returning to the presenting moment. Zazen practice places you in a space where you rehearse how to 'just be a being' . At some point this 'practice - leads to - an experience of being-time in the present moment' and ' an experience of being-time in the present moment - leads to realisation' in one dynamic synchronous event.

That's why learning how to be in the present moment, whether on or off the cushion, in everyday life, at work or play, is considered so important.

*** My recent background reading of Uji has informed most of this article. This is reviewed in a post that will follow this article.

PS 
Within the limitations and predispositions of my own intellect, writing ability and comprehension, I've attempted to present the basic thrust of Dogen's ideas concerning the present moment in simple, clear language. Subtle nuances and fine details have inevitability been left out. All our conceptions when we are on the wrong side of Awakening will  be likewise wrong. Even the Buddha was initially unsure he could communicate his Enlightenment experience effectively. All teachings are the proverbial fingers pointing at the moon, they are only indicate the general direction we should travel in, they are not the Moon.
Insight and understanding are, as ever, a work in progress.

QUOTATION MARKS 49 - Koshin Paley Ellison

 " What has worked for me is full commitment.
 Just get to the end of the 'hokey pokey'
and put your whole self in... the elbow... the leg....

It doesn't mean we ever arrive perfect,
there is no arrival...
not even interested in perfection,
and yet completely practicing in a perfectly imperfect way.

Imagine you're so sure that you think you're doing the right thing,
for the right purpose and just freely giving.
For me that's a beautiful example of this commitment to practice. 

Its not about the form, but about how you are.
How you practice, and for what."

KOSHIN PALEY ELLISON
Taken from his talk Open Your Treasure House

POEM - To Surrender To The Other

Flint-hearted, am I
the one pure pebble
cast amongst a whole terrace
of football hooligans 
stratified banks of them
all similarly rounded, the
roughly the same, some laid intact
others cracked, holed, bruised
shattered in half. yet all
differently coloured
pattern mottled
placed in ever shifting hierarchies
where size matters, each prepared
to surrender to the other,
to rub up along with and against
each stone cold cheek
in tidal increments, a movement
inward, along the beaches
tossing and turning like opals learning
how to erode and be smoothed
by the hug of the moon
through our collisions and encounters
with the other, though
causally gathered together
we remain totally alone
on the long long journey
towards the becoming of sand
locked in a ruttling percussive rumba
within the sea of maracas.

written September 2020
Stephen Lumb

  

SHERINGHAM DIARY 40 - One Small Step Toward Returning The Nameless Son

NAMING STEPHEN

In the early hours of June 26th 1957 I ceased to be an imagined person. I was now born, alive to the world outside of my Mother's womb. A naked infant, pure, untainted and, for a brief time only, a nameless son to my parents - June Margaret and Lewis Lumb. 

My Mother thought Dad's name was too short, over far too soon, the alliteration more a word and its echo. As had often been the case, she got her way over our Christian names, like her I was given two, so my full name is Stephen Nigel Lumb. These Christian names were not indebted to passed family members, they were entirely my parents composition.

Stephen, means a 'garland' or a 'crown' and by extension 'reward', 'honour', 'renown' and 'fame' Its popularity arose from St Stephen, the first Christian martyr who was stoned to death and is often depicted holding three stones and a martyr's palm frond.

Nigel, is derived from Nigellus, a medieval latinised form of Neil. The latin source word being 'niger' meaning 'champion' or 'black'. 

Lumb, has its origins in an Old English term 'lumm' for a pool or lake. So the surname originally belonged to someone who lived in a clearing or dwelling by water. Lumb is also a hamlet in the Pennine Hills, and it is a very common surname in what was the West Riding of Yorkshire where I was born. My Father's family were originally Pennine farmers until his branch migrated closer to, and then into, Halifax from the late 19th century onwards. My ancestors apparently never moved far.

Despite my Mother choosing to spell Stephen with a 'ph' in an attempt to prevent it being shortened to Steve, this happened frequently. To be honest I have never minded. When people do call me Stephen, it does feel paternal and respectfully proper. Steve seems to me to have a more affable, friendly and companionable feel to it. Nigel remains quite rightly a secretive N on my debit cards . 

THE PLAYGROUND NICKNAME

At primary school I would sometimes behave in a deliberately crazy idiosyncratic manner. Probably in a misjudged attempt by me to be funny or entertain, but mostly, I suspect, to get the bullies to like or lay off me. As a strategy this didn't work. Once one teacher referred to me as 'loopy' the likelihood of this word being paired with my surname became unstoppable, and I was soon taunted with it. I was stuck with this playground nickname of 'loopy lumb' for the next ten years. Only able to escape it once I went to art college.

For 43 years of my life these were the names associated with being me.

EMBODYING VIDYAVAJRA

It's early June 2000, the moment in my Buddhist ordination where I took on a new name and became a member of a Buddhist Order. At this point, spiritually speaking at least, I let go of seeing myself entirely through the lens of my old names.  This didn't feel traumatic, my sights set on a higher goal, appeared to placate whatever feelings I had about no longer being referred to as Stephen day to day.

It is tempting to think of ordination as wiping the slate clean, but it does not. It's highly unlikely you'll completely let go of the identity views that cluster around your sense of who you are overnight. Made painfully apparent upon returning from four month's on the ordination retreat, as familiar ways of being reasserted themselves. Contained even within my new Buddhist name were confirmations of personal talents and qualities, some I currently possessed and others that needed to be cultivated further. 

My Buddhist name - Vidyavajra, was to become as much a part of my self-view as any that preceded it.

Vidya - is quiet, subtle and suggestive, an aesthetic sensibility that is a more intuitive, instinctual and imaginatively felt form of knowing. In practice its an instinctive trust and confidence in your particular way of responding to the insights and revelations that emerge along the Buddhist path.

Vajra - provides the energy, determination and volition with which to train and pursue ones practice. The greater the confidence one has in one's vidya the more vajra you will have available.

Over eighteen years I learned to put greater trust in the name Vidyavajra as an invaluable guide to how to train myself through spiritual practice. Yet after so many years of involvement, I grew disquieted within me about being a member of the Order. I'd begun to experience strong feelings of no longer belonging there. There were a few years of prevarication and reflection prior to June 2018, when I finally submitted my resignation.

LETTING GO OF VIDYAVAJRA

I could have ceased using the name Vidyavajra right there and then. But at the time I saw Vidyavajra as a post resignation starting point from which I would move forward. Remaining Vidyavajra maintained some continuity as I passed from being an ordained person to a not ordained person.  In truth I do still love the name.

Names define, and you can never really escape that, whether they are secular or religious in character. Fundamentally Vidyavajra was a name given to signify my belonging to a specific Buddhist Order. Though I am no longer physically or emotionally part of that Order, the name has its origin engraved upon its soul. I'd hoped to use the name to illuminate my way ahead, instead I've found it holding me in a position where I am backlit by it, as though it were my saintly aura.

Vidyavajra has turned into a cypher to represent twenty seven years of Buddhist practice to the outside world.  So people understand I'm an experienced Buddhist, who was once ordained, without need of explanation. Without it I would be just Stephen Nigel Lumb of no fixed religious address. I've come to realise that that may just be a better place for me to be right now.

THE POINT OF RETURNING

Names overtime harden around you, making it trickier to move on to something else if you wish. These days Vidyavajra is used by friends from my old order, in the Soto Zen group I go to, and by my Husband and his immediate family. All of these because I chose to want this to be so. 

On a practical level it's not possible to remain nameless. I could have invented a new name for myself, but that seems far too precious, indulging in another type of specialness, one that glories in the power to control and self-define what I'm called. 

Returning to being Stephen seems the simpler thing to do. It doesn't have to be viewed as retrograde. I do spend most of my time these days in public contexts where I'm called Steve. Though there is also a balance to be struck, because Hubby and his family have never known me as anything other than Vidyavajra, so in this private context I'll continue to use it. Vidyavajra was a significant part of who I have been, how I became what I currently am. To let go of it doesn't mean I'm required to eradicate it completely in a sort of fundamentalist purge.

The unpicking of this will of necessity be patchy, slow and gradual, I imagine. I'm familiar with the stuff that comes with being Stephen. I've spent my Buddhist life trying to fathom or come to terms with most of it. Apart from it being a Christian name with a biblical origin, its holds no other religious baggage, so it can hold me and I can hold it in a lighter way.

Let me not make too big a deal out of any name I use. Stephen can be just Stephen, in the same way that carrot can be just a name for carrot, its a name for the person who is me. It's just one small step toward returning the nameless son.

POEM - Reassembling Sleep

disquieted

at 2am, alerted to

sleeplessness and the perception

of being quite alone with it

tinged with a fear, that

never being able to curl up, ever again,

is a distinct possibility, such is this moment,

such is me, such a watery gaze I have

both lost in and founded upon the beat

that my heart hits, it feels louder,

more insistent here

as penetrating as a smoke alarm

as bodily resonant as

the alarmist emotions

explode into a galloping rhythm

wah u wah u wah, why

do I waver, between flooding

and no access to tear ducts

for love, for myself

for no one's love

do I despair more

because I cannot dream?

lying in bed, bodily still

yet quavering over the smallest passing

of one period of time

being alive, is where everything

turns into emptiness

none of which hurts

and I don't scream out

as the darkness hums

all around like a soft blanket

muffling against my breath

there is always the quiet drum rolls

and a tympany of rain

the stubble on my head

feeling brushed by the hand of static

or was it my Mother? whichever it is

I am drop dead tired

yet too alive and affiliated

at 2am, for any

reassembling of sleep.

written July 2020
Stephen Lumb

200 WORDS ON - The Pursuit Of Happiness

The pursuit’ of happiness, sounds as if we are hunting happiness in order to capture and hold it prisoner. If happiness ‘eludes’ or ‘escapes’ us, it’s because it wont be tied down or we don’t recognise it when it arrives. If we were eternally happy how would we know? Happiness could turn into a special state of hell. Knowing you’re happy is bound up with knowing you were unhappy. To take pleasure requires the dark shadow of pain to stand over it.

What makes us happy? A deep satisfaction in an achievement, in a person, situation or place that helps us feel fulfilled and content. Everything in our world seems suddenly to be alright. Happiness invariably arrives unannounced, further surprising and pleasing us because it did so unexpectedly.

Whether happy or unhappy we can become over-intoxicated with it, in the heights of our glee or the pit of our misery, this unbalances us. From a point of morbid despair ‘the pursuit of happiness’ can feel ridiculous. Unbounded happiness can become stifled by its own greed.

Mostly we’re just doing OK, and maybe that is, paradoxically, a much happier way of living your life, than endlessly pursuing the chimera of happiness.