I'll cut right to the chase. What am I indeed up to? Where have I been and where am I going?
I'm currently settled in the town of Mt. Tremper, NY, in the southern part of the Catskills. It is quiet and green, with good hiking and biking in abundance. There are many places that look like this picture above. This one is the view from a small bridge about 200 yards from my apartment. If you go north another 100 yards, you're at the gate of the zen monastery where I practice. Best commute ever - walking through natural beauty to a place dedicated to awakening.
Jess and I have split up. We are... friends. She is living at the monastery now, halfway through the first of her 12 months as a full-time resident. We see each other several times a week when I go over to sit zazen, work, or socialize. It is a blessing to have a shared practice that feels very deep for each of us individually and also informs how we want to relate to other people, including each other.
This fall, like every fall, the monastery sangha dedicates itself to a period of ango, which translates as "peaceful dwelling." It is a three month period of intensified practice, where you commit yourself to practice beyond your ordinary routines in eight areas: Buddhist studies, art practice, body practice, concentration on a simple task, stewarding the earth, liturgy studies, two intensive retreats, and zazen practice. The focus of this ango is The Bodhisattva Way of Life, including a study of the book by the same name.
It is really interesting to devote myself to religious practice and study. It is something that I have never really done in my life before. When I was a child, I did not take Sunday school at church seriously at all. While in college, I studied Buddhism in great depth, but always as an intellectual endeavor, from the viewpoint of art criticism, symbolic studies, history, cultural anthropology, etc. Here and now, it is a whole new game for me.
The focus of much of our study is around three key virtues of the Bodhisattva way - effort, generosity, and patience. My art practice is painting watercolor (which I'm totally new at, and is really fun), and I have spent several afternoons sitting and painting the experience of patience. This is really wild for me. We're encouraged to go beyond symbolism or simply painting something that we think of when we think of patience, like Ghandi's face or something like that. Instead, I just sit with the experience of patience and... paint. So far I've turned out some landscapes, like a maple tree by a river or a pumpkin on a tree stump, and I've also painted some gritty patterns and images just made of lines. I don't know what any of them mean, which is great.
As always in zen, this practice and others rest on the fundamental practice of zazen - sitting in quiet meditation. What do I discover when I investigate deeply into my experience of the world? Who is the I that is experiencing things? What does it mean to experience "something"? If everything seems to be changing all the time - emotions, perceptions, my ability to perceive, the physical world - does that mean anything for the story that I carry about How Things Are? Where are my footholds in my sense of self when everything dissolves under close scrutiny into smaller constituent phenomena, that in turn dissolve again?
As my skepticism deepens, how does that in turn inform my practice of effort, generosity, and patience? For me, I find myself humbled again and again by what shows up in my investigation. It seems that we are all connected, both in a spiritual sense of sharing similar outlooks on life, and in an ecological sense of being made up of similar systems. I draw on this sense of connection to energize my practice. I enjoy seeing others awaken to deep introspection, and my effort becomes more dedicated. I give more generously, as I see that clinging to things feeds my narrow, rigid sense of self while giving away creates an open, spacious feeling of connection. And patience feels like the deepest practice right now. In a world that we are all degrading but deeply want to preserve (consciously and unconsciously), I am aiming to cultivate patience so as to keep practicing, keep coming back to the meditation cushion, keep making myself available to friends, keep aiming to live more lightly on the planet, etc. If I indulge a sense of haste and urgency, then I end up cultivating anger at myself and others for all sorts of reasons, which is actually an impediment to anyone walking this path.
So this is the practice that takes up much of my life. I fill in from the edges with writing letters, reading books, and missing good friends who are far away. I do some carpentry to pay my small bills each month. I'm really loving life here right now, and opening up to what comes with each day. I wish you a wonderful Here and Now wherever you are, and look forward to seeing you again.
