New Website Debuts Sunday!

While there is still plenty of content from past years to be added to the new website, it will be going live this week, and we will be offering a tour so that you can get familiar with it. It’s surprising just how much material we have in our archives! We are very pleased with the Squarespace platform, which offers beautiful templates and an easy interface. They provide a “turnkey” approach to web building and hosting, so we will not have to worry about updates to the platform or administrative management. If you don’t have any experience building and maintaining a website that probably won’t mean much to you, but it is a big deal for me and other folks who will be adding content to the site. Please do look around the site and let me know if there is anything that needs attention, whether grammatically or in terms of links or graphics that do not work properly, navigation that is confusing, and so on. In other words, anything that causes you to stumble or wrinkle your brow.

All of the recorded dharma talks and inquiry sessions from 2010 to 2019 have been posted and intensives from 2019 back to 2016. I am working backwards from the present so it will take a little while to be sure all the intensives are up. The pages for Depth in Practice and Way-Seeking Mind talks and so on are also up to date. You can find recordings of dharma talks, inquiry sessions, and so on under the “Teachings” tab, and under the “Study” tab are suggestions for newcomers and others looking to deepen their practice. A couple of things to be aware of in the Study section are materials for newcomers, the full copy of Appamada’s chant book, the explanation of our daily chants, and a pretty extensive list of recommended books.

In the People section you will find listings for anyone with an official role at Appamada, including Board members, Zen Mentors, and Council members. Each names is linked to the contact page where you can send a message if you wish.

If there’s something you’d like to see on the website, please let me know. The more eyes the better!

Older blog posts uploaded

I’ve uploaded some older blog posts below. The actual dates are listed in each post. There isn’t a way to change the posting date in Squarespace!

APPAMADA CHANT BOOKS!

Appamada's new Chant Books are here in both regular and large-print editions.

03/07/18 07:10:pm

We are delighted to announce the publication of Appamada's Chant Book. We now have both the original version and the large-print version in print, and available for downloading. This project was a long time in development, and it is wonderful to finally see it in print! We have been offering some copies for sale at Appamada, and now we are glad to provide it as a downloadable PDF file on the Appamada Chant Book page. Most of all we want to thank Peter Williams for helping with layout and printing, Jenny, Ann, Joan, and Laurie for helping collate the pages, and our reception hosts, Ann and Robin. We are working on a Spanish language version and hope to have that posted soon.

CHICAGO BRANCHING STREAMS CONFERENCE REPORT

A report on the Branching Streams Conference in Chicago, where Peg was presenting Right Use of Power and Appreciative Inquiry.

09/25/17 12:40:am

The conference for Branching Streams, the affiliate sanghas of San Francisco Zen Center, was held at the Cenacle, a Catholic facility at 513 Fullerton Pkwy, in Chicago. It’s a nice facility for a small conference. The rooms are small, with a bed, a desk, a little sink, and a closet, but clean and comfortable. Bathrooms are shared, down the hall. The meeting room was on the lower level, a large room with carpeting and comfortable chairs and folding tables. It was quiet and the neighborhood, right at the north end of Lincoln Park, is older brownstones, now very upscale, and shaded with trees. The weather was absolutely glorious, about 68-70º and sunny every day. 

Steve Weintraub was coordinating the program, and his wife, Linda Ruth Cutts, the central abbot of SFZC was there, as well as Linda Galijan, the President of SFZC. Greg Snyder, from Brooklyn Zen Center, and many other people I had met in various meeting and conferences were also attending. It was the perfect audience: Zen teachers with a great capacity for paying attention and for self-awareness and mindfulness.
Thursday morning I did a three hour presentation on Right Use of Power. I was a bit nervous about it, because I had completely taken apart my previous structure for this work. I wanted to organize this workshop by providing first a general introduction to Right Use of Power, then three main sections: the individual, the sangha, and the world. For the individual section, we explored our personal relationship to power and to stepping into power, abuses or misuses of power folks had experienced, and our need not to deny or suppress our power. In the sangha section we talked about the power differential and the difference between intention and impact, about role power in sanghas, and the difficulty people have recognizing and stepping into the responsibility for their role power. We also explored leadership styles, both the positive qualities and the shadow side of each style. For the world section, I drew on the work of Joanna Macy, the current climate (the Buddha’s fire sermon: “all is burning”), Joanna Macy’s three domains of effective action (holding/blocking actions, provision of structural alternatives, and transformations of consciousness), the public expression of the moral clarity the world is in need of now. I read the Shambala Prophesy and David Whyte’s “Start Close In” to finish. There was a wonderful response to this work, from both the participants and the leaders from SFZC.

I followed with an afternoon breakout session on abuse of power, feedback, and repair, about an hour and a half. I organized the section on abuses of power around abuses based on the four dimensions of the power spiral. This was mainly providing content. Then I organized the rest of the presentation around three key points: Prevention, Mitigation, and Repair of abuses of power. We only had time for one exercise, the feedback script, in the Prevention section. Prevention has to do with the proactive efforts we can make to avoid abuses of power by ourselves or others. Feedback is critical to this, but so is the kind of awareness of our own conflict avoidance strategies, past conditioning, and tracking indicators, especially for the person in the up-power position. In the Mitigation section, we talked more about up-power/down-power differentials, the importance of tracking for indicators in both positions, and the continued importance of feedback. In the Repair section, we talked about the five steps for resolving difficulties, and walked through examples, but we did not have time to do any practices with it. That proved actually to be fortuitous, because later I was able to use a small incident that happened between two people at the conference to demonstrate the five step repair and it seemed quite helpful to the group. People were very happy with this session. They especially loved the feedback as investment in relationship concept. 

The second day of the conference featured a keynote by Taigen Dan Leighton on social activism, which drew deeply on the Buddha’s teachings as well as Dogen’s writings, but was much too short, in my view. I would have loved to hear more! He trained with Joanna Macy, who was a mentor for him, and also engaged in the antinuclear work she was doing back in the 70’s.  His talk was followed by a panel of folks engaged in social activism in their sanghas. I was very interested in these initiatives and hope to discuss possibilities with our own sangha. 

I was also asked to consult confidentially with several participants about particular issues in their own sanghas and relationships with students. These individual consultations seemed to go very well. 

Finally, on the third day I did a very brief (1 1/2 hour) overview of Appreciative Inquiry, extremely truncated, but still very well received. I was really constrained, and this is such rich material that it was hard to say what folks got out of it. But the evaluations were very positive about both presentations and the breakout session. It was a great pleasure to be able to share these models with the sangha teachers and leaders, and to see how powerfully they responded to them. 

MEDITATION ON BREATHING-PEG SYVERSON

This is the instruction I offered at the residential intensive for following the breathing meditation

From: 08/31/17 09:40:pm

 The instruction I gave at the Red Corral Residential Intensive for following the breath:

There is a core practice, and please simply follow this method for the entire intensive. It is simplicity itself and the method the Buddha used and taught. The method is mindfulness of breathing. 

Now why would I say mindfulness of breathing rather than mindfulness of the breath? Because in breathing we are not talking about something discrete, packaged like little sausages: a breath in, a breath out, a gap in between. Certainly there are methods that are expressed like that. But typically this results in people struggling in various, sometimes very subtle ways, to control the breath. They may even end up out of breath or gasping like a fish. But breathing is a tidal ebb and flow, constantly in motion, and not a series of chunks, bigger or smaller, shorter or longer. 

Here's an image that came to me when I was in zazen in Chicago, and it might be helpful for you in using this method. When I was very young, living in Wisconsin, an old man used to steal into my bedroom at night and wake me up about 4:00 to go fishing. I would quietly throw on some clothes and stumble out, and we would go down to the lake, still dark, in complete silence. We would drag the little blue boat down to the water, and row out to the middle of the lake, which was calm and quiet. We sat in stillness as the sky grew pale and then rosy, the lake enveloping us in the morning mist. As we sat there in the tiny boat, the gentle swells of the water would lift us and release us, in little waves. Holding the lines, we were alert and awake, ready to act. Even so, there was nothing to do but sit in silence in the still boat and be rocked by those swells that carried us effortlessly and in complete ease. 

Let your meditation be like that, your breathing just gently rocking you like a little swell on a still lake. As we sat in silence in our little boat, from time to time a fish would leap out of the water, gleaming, flip, and disappear again below the surface of the lake. So from time to time as you sit quietly here, a phrase, a thought,  or a line may spontaneously leap into your awareness, turn over in your mind, and then slip back into the depths. 

Over and over, simply return to the method, resting in the rhythm of breathing. Nothing complicated about it, no problem if you forget. You can't lose it, you can't do this wrong. Just be patient and kind with your own mind. And awake.

When sitting, let go of all worry, planning, devising, arguing, stories, and fantasies and just rest in the spaciousness and stillness. You can abide in the boundless wisdom and compassion that surrounds you and supports you here. This is a return to your original nature. 

VALUES, PURPOSE, AND DRIVE

A reflection on how we can be both more skillful and effective in meeting the cries of the world.

From 07/14/17 04:22:pm

Greetings from Chicago! Today in Zazen I realized that we need to be most alive to our values, purpose, and drive, and that if we can connect people strongly to these three existential qualities they will have astonishing capacities, especially when they come together. Obviously, values provide the foundation of our actions. Sincerity simply means acting in accord with our values. Shame arises when we have not acted in accord with our values or when our values themselves have been revealed to us as lacking or inadequate. 

So it is extremely important to reflect on our values: where they came from, what they are, and how well they accord with wisdom, compassion, and clarity. In our Zen Buddhist tradition, the paramount value is the Bodhisattva vow, to live and be lived for the benefit of all beings. Six aspects of this vow are expressed as the six paramitas, or practices of perfection: generosity, morality, patience, energy, concentration, and wisdom. 

Sometimes people have a simplistic notion of values. For example, they might say their core value is “family.” But family is a topic, not a value. Where one person’s value around family might be “keep my family safe in a dangerous world,” another person’s might be “share adventures and experiences with family in a wide, fascinating, and kaleidoscopic world.” This is why it is necessary to inquire, especially beyond simplistic slogans: What does it mean to keep a family safe? For one person, for example, it might mean guns and locks; for another, lots of helpful information. so again, the universal solvent is curiosity. We go deeper with every question: What threat most concerns you? What troubles have you faced in the past? and so on. 

But clarity about our values is not enough. We need a direction for mobilizing and expressing them in the world. We need a purpose, or a set of congruent purposes. Raising a healthy, sane, caring child is a purpose, for example. Such an effort entails other purposes, such as ensuring health care, quality schools, and so forth. Of course, every healthy set of purposes now includes the major challenge of restoring the health of our environment. 

So our values and purposes give meaning and direction in our lives. But there is one more critical factor: drive. In Buddhism the term for this is virya, energy, and it is exemplified in the Zen expression “to practice as if your hair is on fire.” This conveys the sense of urgency and dedication required, but not the scope. I would say we need to practice as if our world is on fire, because it is. 

We keenly sense our limited, puny capacities as lone individuals in the face of global catastrophes and large-scale human needs. I once described this as trying to fill Grand Canyon with a teaspoon. But we do not have millions of kalpas ahead of us. We must find ways to amplify our efforts. The best one I know of is to find others who share your values and purposes, and join forces. then join these streams and join again until a mighty river of shared effort and intention rolls out, carrying vast energetic care for the whole world. Don’t wait. You must find your partners in the urgent, profound, and healing work ahead. 

My domain is spiritual practice, the incubator for healthy, life-sustaining values and clarity of purpose. But I cannot provide the drive. That is the bottomless resource found in each and every person, no matter how obscured it may be by despair, dread, anxiety, and self-doubt. I know that luminous life force is there. I cannot forget it, and I feel a bit part of my work is helping people remember it. 

Why are we here? We are here to save the planet, to nourish and support all living beings, and to live life as the Buddhas we are. Sometimes we have to help each other recall who we truly are. 

This is not a trivial task.

So many things get in the way: everyday tasks, layers of habitual conditioning, past trauma, alarming events and circumstances in the world, difficulties in relationships, losses, and a sense that something is lacking, in ourselves or in our world. But all of these can and must be relinquished as unnecessary distractions and hindrances to our values, purposes, and drive—our vow, in other words. When we stay connected in this way, our limitations are merely a way our contribution gets shaped, and we begin to develop skillful means for working with them, in ourselves and in others. 

Remember the Buddha’s story in the Lotus Sutra of the father whose children are playing in a burning house. This is our present world situation. Will we be the children, blissfully and stubbornly playing with our toys as the flames devour us, or will we be the desperate but resourceful father who skillfully entices those children to come outside for even better toys? What will it take to bring a whole civilization out of the flames it's created for itself, playing with matches? We need to find out—and soon. 

So there is a genuine emergency here, and it is an emergency of human consciousness, as the Buddha taught. We must continue to help people wake up, feel empowered, and take action, together. As a sangha we are learning how to do this, together. As we take what we are learning back out into our everyday lives, we bring it into practice. That is my deepest hope for a suffering world.

NON-OPPOSITIONAL DISAGREEMENT

We often feel that when our views differ from another’s, and particularly where the stakes are high or the emotions are strong, we have only these choices: stifle our own views, oppose the other’s views, or try to persuade or argue the other to our position. Non-oppositional disagreement does not follow any of these patterns. It does not suggest that you become a doormat for others, that you go to war for your side, nor that you engage in a struggle to convince the other that you are right. It considers that our primary goal is to come to appropriate action on an issue, or make a wise and compassionate decision, or share multiple perspectives to deepen understanding. It considers the process by which our disagreements become known as a helpful one, which illuminates difficulties or reasoning outside of our own awareness. At the same time, it recognizes that our own perspective is based on the experience and intelligence we bring to the situation. Here are some features of non-oppositional disagreement.

Non-oppositional disagreement

• Does not make judgments of good or bad for either persons or ideas, groups or institutions

• Considers understanding, wisdom, and right action as emergent properties of human interaction, experience, and reflection

• Considers differences of perspective, even those strongly or rigidly held, as natural, healthy, and desirable for all social systems

• Maintains curiosity, openness, willingness to listen and to learn, even when firmly maintaining a particular perspective

• Appreciates the strengths, insights, and limitations of every point of view of position

• Considers disagreement a process of mutually seeking truth, meaning, right action, appropriate responses, and wisdom rather than a conflict between right and wrong, good and evil, best and worst

• Is not attached to outcomes

• Seeks clarity, not victory; that which benefits life over that which ignores or tramples over it; that which sustains and strengthens relationship over that which destroys it

• Affirms the highest aspirations of all participants, even where there are sharp differences of judgment, interpretation, opinion

• Recognizes the possibility that there is no such thing as fixed, abiding Truth, that all formulations are necessarily partial, provisional, temporary working constructs

Some frames for setting the stage include statements like these:

• Well, I do have an opinion on this subject, but I have an open mind and I’m interested in hearing other points of view. I’ve been misguided in the past, like anyone else. The process of getting clarity together is always helpful for me.

• I wonder if you might be curious about a quite different perspective?

For more charged situations, something like this might be helpful:

• You have made some really important points and it’s clear you feel strongly about this issue. I have a strong feelings, too, from a different point of view, and I have a concern that these strong feelings we are experiencing have the potential to lead us into conflict, when what we both want is to figure out somehow, how to respond appropriately to what is needed. Can we agree together on some ground rules for our discussion? Then you might describe what such ground rules might look like from your point of view. For example:
  
  I’m thinking, specifically, that I would like to be able to speak without being interrupted, that I may express the emotions I’m experiencing. freely without others taking it personally, and I will do the same. I also think it might be helpful to set a time limit for the discussion, so that everyone recognizes some shared boundaries. You might also have a ground rule that only the issue at hand be discussed, without dragging past grievances, collateral issues, or future hypotheticals.
  
  The next post will describe a process that allows us to use our Zen practice in resolving disagreements.

RESOLVING DISAGREEMENTS

Disagreements are inevitable in any community, and spiritual communities are no different. Often we fall back on familiar processes and our conditioning when disagreement and conflict arise. We become triggered, which means that we do not access the practices and teachings that offer wisdom and compassion for ourselves and for others. There is an alternative: bringing the light of awareness and the skills of our practice together.

A sangha is an ecosystem, a dynamic web of interactions, practices, ceremonies, people, teachings, and places. Every sangha, in any moment, is a reflection of its history of these processes up to that point. Every sangha is actively constructing the story of its future. Disagreements are an inevitable part of that process, and the way disagreements are discovered, met, and resolved is critical to the health and well-being of the entire ecosystem. This fact may not be obvious to individuals who find themselves involved in the disagreement. But because of the interdependent web of relations in the sangha, the entire sangha is affected by disagreements, whether expressed or submerged. One way to recognize this is to reframe a disagreement or conflict as a situation. That situation includes the entire sangha, and therefore everyone in the sangha, and possibly even some people outside the sangha has a stake in addressing the situation in a beneficial way.

Often, spiritual communities give the impression that disagreement within the community does not exist, or that it is not welcome. And of course we are learning together how to live in harmony with each other and with all beings. But the health and future well-being of a sangha depends on the awareness and skillful resolution of disagreement and conflict. A Zen sangha is not a monoculture with one right path, nor a coercive belief system all members must adopt. To the extent that we discover how to welcome differences and bring liberation and relief from suffering in our community we become better able to provide this in the larger world, where it is sorely needed. So it is very important to recognize the contribution that difference and disagreement makes in the life of the sangha, how it fosters reflection, discernment, and wise action. I’ve written a bit about that in the previous post. 

Here is a suggestion for a process to address disagreement and conflict in a sangha. There are many other models that might be used depending on the specific needs, time constraints, and conditions for a particular disagreement. But I think this one uses the practices and experiences we’ve developed at Appamada, with our focus on relational Zen. It adapts the Conversation Cafe model for our purposes. It takes longer to describe than to practice, so don’t be daunted by the explanation here. These are the steps:

1. Awareness: The realization that there is a situation in which there is disagreement. 

2. Discovery: Who is part of the disagreement? Who might also be part of resolving it? This includes not only affected parties, but also neutral counselors or teachers. 

3. Convening: Bringing those involved in the disagreement, as well as those who might be helpful in resolving it, together. 

4. Definition: What is the disagreement about? What is the situation? Clarify only the topic, not the positions, at this point. Participants agree to stick to this topic. 

5. Conversation cafe process:

   • Post the topic where everyone can see it. Clarify it if needed, and remind participants to stick to the topic

   • One minute of silence

   • Round one. Each person will speak in turn for an exact amount of time. The time allotted depends on the number of people and the total time available. One minute to five minutes is typical: five minutes is used when there are only two people. 

   • One minute of silence

   • Round two. Each person speaks in turn for twice the amount of time in round one. 

   • One minute of silence

   • Round three: Open discussion, staying on the topic. Time depends on time available: 15-20 minutes is typical. Check if more time is needed. Use a “silence” object in the center, such as a stone or shell or stick. If the conversation becomes too heated, off topic, or chaotic, anyone may pick up the silence object and all conversation stops. The person then says what he or she has observed. Conversation resumes when the silence object is returned to the center. 

   • One minute of silence

   • Round four: Appreciation. Each person in turn has one minute to express appreciation for something that another person has said. 

   • Conclusion: Open discussion. Is the disagreement resolved? What is still needed for satisfaction? Is there a vision for future well-being for the participants and the sangha?

EMPTINESS, KARMA, AND PRESIDENT OBAMA

How can we understand our collective karma and the path of our Bodhisattva Vow?

From 08/27/17 06:18:pm

Emptiness, Karma, and President Obama
Dharma talk 8/27/17
Peg Syverson

Introduction

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about karma, both individual and collective, and how we understand this concept so fundamental to Buddhist teachings. I think science might offer some light and help us understand it more deeply. 

Warning label:

I am not a scientist. I have always loved reading about science, and I’ve used scientific principles and theories in my academic work. I admire the dedication to knowledge and truth in most scientists, the willingness to seek the truth wherever it might lead, and a kind of intelligent curiosity coupled with great care in cultivating their craft of scientific research. Even though I am not a scientist, I have found in science a rich set of metaphors, models, and explanations that can open new insights into our world and ourselves. However, real scientists probably would be aghast at my clumsy use of their work. Please forgive me. Best to think of it as a kind of poetic view of science. It offers us a fresh perspective on this perplexing concept of karma. 

Scientists have theorized that so-called “empty” space around us and within us—or rather, constituting us—is actually teeming with energies and particles invisible to our senses and our instruments. Finding the Higgs boson was a validation of these theories. Some of this invisible array we are immersed in is dark energy, known only by its effects on light and gravity. 

It seems to me that our collective karma—the residue of a beginningless history of racism, genocide, misogyny, exploitation, and oppression— is like dark matter in physics. It permeates everything, yet is invisible to us except through its effects. It did not originate with us, and we cannot destroy it; we are swimming in it. It is beginningless, stretching back through time and space to…how far? Yet it is ever present, even today. It fills the spaces between and inside people, between actions, between events, between words. We all bear an underlying sadness, anxiety, fear, remorse, and overwhelm that are its hallmarks. It bends light and gravity around it. Sometimes it converges into dark holes which suck everything into deconstruction and chaos. Not even light can emerge from black holes because of the concentrated gravity. So it is with the black holes of karma. 

Dark energy of karma is not only manifest in huge events that rent the fabric of reality—the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., or the riots in Detroit, or the slaughter of Native Americans, or the 9/11 catastrophe of the attack on the Twin Towers. It converges in dark eddies on hate-filled websites, rallies, speeches, in the unwarranted police stop that spirals into violence, in a child left hungry, in a casual bit of unkind gossip. The dark matter of physics is uncharted and unmeasured, just like this bitter karma that permeates our common lives together. It is completely woven into the fabric of our shared reality. 

Here’s a thought experiment on what scientists call the event horizon. This experiment depends on close observation and fearless honesty. Just get mindful and close your eyes…..Imagine that you are walking alone at night on a city street. It’s raining lightly—lightly!— and the streetlights are hazy… The buildings around you are deserted… Through the mist you see a figure coming toward you. It’s still too far away to see anything but a vague shape… What do you feel? Stop and notice if there is any contraction anywhere in your body. What thoughts or feelings automatically arose? Do you imagine it would feel different if you were a different gender? A different race? Elderly? Disabled?

Now we’ll do a little experimenting… As the figure grows closer, you see more features… You realize it is a man… What happens inside? As the figure comes even closer, you realize it is a tall burly man who is staggering a bit, waving his hands, and talking angrily to himself… What do you feel as he comes closer and passes you? How do you feel toward him? Study this.

Now stop, reset. Go back to the first impression, a vague figure coming toward you… As the figure grows closer, you begin to realize it is a young teenaged man who is black, dressed in a hoodie and baggy jeans, with a bit of a swagger… What do you feel as he comes near and passes? How do you feel toward him? Study this. 

Now reset again, go back to the first impression, the vague figure coming toward you… As the figure grows closer, you see that it is a young girl, soaked by the rain, clutching a violin case to her chest… What happens inside you? How do you feel toward her?

What happened for you? What did you notice? Physical sensations, emotions, thoughts, stories? 

Here is a true-life story. It begins in rush hour traffic, on a backed-up up expressway. Traffic is barely crawling. A social worker is on her way to work, when a man jumps into her car, brandishing a knife, a carjacker. What would you think? What would you do? She told about her thought process: “He looks desperate. He doesn’t really want to hurt me. He is trying to get thrown in jail. Cold weather is coming, and he doesn’t want to be alone, cold and hungry on the streets at Christmas time.” What did she do? She rolled down her window, threw her car keys into the traffic, and stepped out of the car.  

Just as the bending of light around it reveals the presence of a black hole, your own automatic, unbidden physical and psychological reaction in each situation we explored above can reveal the presence of the dark matter of karma, invisible yet potent enough to evoke a visceral response. It is independent of any beliefs you might have about yourself and your world. It is independent of your wishes and hopes. It is independent of all that you think you know. 

But there is one important difference between our collective karma and dark matter described by the formulas and theories of physicists, and that difference is the influence of our intentions and our aspirations. While we cannot erase the dark karma of our beginningless history of greed, hatred, and delusion, or even our unskillful missteps, we can awaken to the potential for our own thoughts, words, and actions in this very moment to manifest wisdom, compassion, clarity, and connection and in this way, to cultivate the causes and conditions leading to greater peace, harmony, and mutual care for all beings on this planet. I mean this in the broadest sense: an ocean is a being, a redwood forest is a being, a fawn is a being, a clam is a being, a city is a being, and even a sangha, like Appamada, is a being. We can generate light and heat that counters the cold dark energy of past karma. 

There are implications here for Buddhist conceptions of reincarnation. Perhaps our consciousness, our very being is not so much the solid substance we take our bodies to be, nor the “emptiness” of space, nor our thoughts, hopes, memories, and dreams, but rather like a fingerprint, a unique whorl in the field of energies and information that make up the fabric of reality.  Perhaps that whorl is not a fixed, permanent pattern, but it does have some consistency and some persistence even while adapting to and responding to emergent circumstances. It leaves an imprint in time and space, in the world and in the lives of others, like a fingerprint on a mirror. And in the same way we receive these imprints too, from people we love, people we hate, from a sunset, from a book we’ve read, a conversation we’ve had—we are covered with the fingerprints of our encounters and experiences. So it is possible that this imprint can persist beyond the body mind it represents. Consider Gandhi, MLK, Hitler, and every being you have ever loved, hated, learned from or bumped into in the supermarket checkout line. Their fingerprints are all over you and they persist far beyond the immediate physical impression itself. Can that pattern reappear somewhere in the world as a new life form? Well, why not? Can you definitively prove that it cannot? 

Through our intentions we can actually alter the physics of our shared reality. We have been doing that for thousands and thousands of years. The primitive principle of “Tit for tat" still exists in the doctrine of “mutually assured destruction.” But we have fundamentally altered the human physics laws through the teachings of wisdom and compassion, teachings such as "turn the other cheek" "you are your brother's keeper," and the Mahayana teachings of the bodhisattva vow. 

Now just as physics has expanded beyond Newton’s laws to include the mysteries of quantum physics; expanded human physics laws include wisdom, compassion, clarity, care, reverence, and devotion, for example. These principles evolved; they were not part of our original equipment in cave clan days. 

The usual understanding of karma, that it is the good or bad result of something we did or said, is not wrong, as far as it goes. But it is incomplete and a bit childlike. A child may believe the earth is flat, for example, because it looks that way from where she is standing. That is understandable but incomplete. It is based on a limited view and a lack of knowledge, even though it is clearly based on personal sensory experience. But we feel there is something wrong with an educated adult holding such a belief. A more complex and complete understanding of the actual shape of the world is possible even when it contradicts our immediate sensory perceptions. The same is true for karma. 

When new physics laws are discovered, the old laws may not disappear, they may be recast or put into a different frame, as for example “useful under some circumstances,”  or “applying at human scale.” When the new laws of relating were discovered, the old ways did not disappear, but they became “primitive,” or “unskillful.” “Tit for tat” is still around, ingrained in our consciousness, and it can still manifest in our behaviors, but we are operating more and more from other principles and precepts, of mutual responsibility and care, of compassionate curiosity, of vow.  Our view of the universe changes from an “I-centric” view to a “life-centric” view. This is a larger, clearer, more inclusive, and boundless view. To imagine that we can change the world, with all of its complexity and interdependencies, is delusional. To imagine that we cannot change the world, in all its complexity and interdependencies is also delusional. So which is it? 

As a species we have evolved many means of altering our relational and operational laws of physics: the arts, the political sphere, religion, commerce, the sciences, psychology, sports, law. Nearly every human endeavor is about the discovery and development of new principles for relating. 

And this in turn evolves even more collective understanding, not only about mundane social interaction, but about the larger forces of karma, so poorly understood. The algorithms of karma are patterns that create and shape flows of energy and information. These algorithms are not fixed; they are actually “genetic algorithms,” which means they can evolve and change in response to conditions. 

Cathy O'Neil, in her excellent TED talk, says, Everyone uses algorithms. They just don't write them in code. Let me give you an example. I use an algorithm every day to make a meal for my family. The data I use is the ingredients in my kitchen, the time I have, the ambition I have. My definition of success is: a meal is successful if my kids eat vegetables. It's very different from if my youngest son were in charge. He'd say success is if he gets to eat lots of Nutella. But I get to choose success. I am in charge. My opinion matters. That's the first rule of algorithms. Algorithms are opinions embedded in code.

One way to think about karma is as the output of the algorithms we are using to live our lives. A life based on an algorithm of cultivating wisdom and compassion produces very different effects in ourselves and in the world compared with a life based on an algorithm of “survival,” say, or greed and ambition, or hatred of others. Fortunately, in humans, the algorithms are as I mentioned, genetic algorithms, so we are able to evolve and adapt. In this way we may continue to learn, choose, and evolve, despite whatever environments and circumstances have shaped our past. 

We face circumstances now that the world has never known before. Our ways of being, interacting, speaking, and thinking are changing in response to these conditions. This in turn sets new patterns in the energy fields we are immersed in. Dependent on our aspiration and intention, we create more dark matter or more light energy. This element of choice is the primary difference between what has been understood about the physical world and our human sphere. Still, even scientists have had to deal with the puzzling data that reflect the influence of observation and intention on the actual physics of supposedly insentient matter and energy that they are observing. 

What we observe and follow matters. What we do and say matters. Not from a childlike “all-powerful self” view that looks for immediate or tangible results, but immersed in the vast cosmic view in which every gesture of unbidden kindness, every wise action, every perfectly  chosen word emits light that can be seen, like stars, for millions of light-years, if we only know how to look. We are weak and fallible instruments, riddled with greed, aversion, and delusion, but we have been given this remarkable dharma, a brilliant perspective and a new system of human principles, that fundamentally alters our universe. It is an inexhaustible golden fountain that refreshes, restores, and nourishes us, together with all beings. We are entrusted with it, to radiate it and to convey it across the miles and generations for the benefit of all beings. We can at least try. 

It can be hard: the news is filled with terrible stories that portray a world filled with danger, threat, and catastrophe. Thupten Linpa, translator for the Dalai Lama, was interviewed by Krista Tippett for On Being a few years ago. In the interview, he said that the Dalai Lama feels most people have a mistaken understanding of the world from the news. In their daily lives, they generally trust the goodwill and decent intentions of the people around them; that is kind of normal. We expect it. So the news picks up the violent, sensational, or shocking, because that is not normal. That is what makes it newsworthy: it is not usual. So although from reading or hearing the news we might come to believe that the world is filled with terrifying events, monumental stupidity, cruelty and divisiveness, that is a big mistake. Generally speaking, our experience is fairly benign and ordinary, and this, of course, is not newsworthy because it is so common. Most people, generally speaking, have goodwill and at least a modicum of trust toward each other. Otherwise, we would not even be able to drive on the same highways. Of course there are exceptions, painful ones, but they are actually rare, as you will realize if you consider your own life so far. 

So I want to talk about our expression of aspiration and intention in the world, and how something that is gone can continue to live on, not through reincarnation but through vow. 

I want to talk about the legacy of President Obama

There are many perspectives on the Presidency of Barack Obama, some expressing dissatisfaction or disappointment with his accomplishments. I am not going to speak to the complexities of politics or the historical account of his eight years. Instead, I want to speak a bit about the man himself, and the personal qualities he embodies that have illuminated the world. Even a partial list would have to include:

Hope
Kindness
Wisdom
Truthfulness
Clarity
Respect for all living beings
Clear leadership
intelligence
Humanness
Warmth
Delight
Care
Strength
Calm
Dignity

He set an example for an entirely new physics of political relationships as human care; no matter how unready parts of the world are for these principles, we cannot now unknow them. These qualities cast a brilliant light onto our public consciousness, countering the dark karmic forces that would consume us. But, no single person can carry the whole world forever. 
Our responsibility is to take up this legacy, this new politics and physics of unconditional care, and continue to unfold it. Even in an environment fostering hatred, mistrust, greed, terror, and confusion, as it has ever been, the way is clear. We must be both brave and kind. 
We must be undaunted in the face of great challenges, because this is what we have been entrusted.  It is in his final Presidential speech to us, a masterpiece of encouragement and transmission. 

It falls to each of us to be those anxious jealous guardians of democracy; to embrace the joyous task we’ve been given to continually try to improve this great nation of ours. Because for all our outward differences, we, in fact, all share the same second title, the most important office in a democracy: Citizen. Citizen.
So you see that’s what our democracy demands. It needs you not just when there’s an election, not just when your own narrow interest is at stake, but over the full span of a lifetime. If you’re tired of arguing with strangers on the internet, try talking with one of them in real life. If something needs fixing, then lace up your shoes and do some organizing. If you’re disappointed by your elected officials, grab a clipboard, get some signatures, and run for office yourself. Show up. Dive in. Stay at it. 
Sometimes you’ll win. Sometimes you’ll lose. Presuming a reservoir of goodness in other people, that can be a risk, and there will be times when the process will disappoint you. But for those of us fortunate to have been part of this work, and to see it up close, let me tell you, it can energize and inspire.

We have mourned the end of Obama’s term as President, but that is not the end of his influence and example in our lives, nor is it the end of our responsibility for continuing, with unflagging cheerful optimism, to expand and cultivate this remarkable legacy. We will need to be bodhisattvas not only in the safety and comforts of our home and our Zendo, but in the public sphere of trouble, struggle, hostility and strife. We must not be afraid to speak and act from the place of clarity, wisdom, and compassion. We can do this, because we have each other, we have this heartfelt sangha of spiritual friends, because we have the great teachings from the Buddhas and ancestors that have been handed down to us, and because we realize the light of the Buddha in every living being. This is what we have been training for. 

THE WAR ON CONSCIOUSNESS

Don't go back to sleep.

From 02/22/17 10:00:am

No one should be diverted by self-oriented concerns—self-improvement, self-promotion, self-satisfaction, victimhood, or self-soothing when we are in the midst of a full-out war on human consciousness on a scale unimaginable in our time.

The assault on our collective and our individual wisdom, compassion, and clarity cannot be ignored. It is happening through the deliberate attacks on established sources of truthful information: reputable and reliable news media, scientists, academic experts, associations, agencies, and institutions that have proven their value in our culture beyond argument. Their occasional mistakes, oversights, and missteps cannot diminish their essential trustworthiness and importance in our social fabric. These reliable resources cannot be lumped together with the sources of propaganda, division, misinformation, misdirection, and all that contributes to greed, hatred, and particularly, ignorance, as if they are all to be dismissed or ridiculed. The information and analysis they provide cannot be treated as somehow equivalent, or incredibly, worse than the “alternative facts.”.

This is a grave danger to civil society, to our relationships with other cultures, and to the environmental well-being of this planet. By creating a smoke cloud of bizarre antics, distorted, inflated rhetoric filled with lies, and drastic destructive measures, there is a deliberate attempt to numb and demoralize any opposition to this war on consciousness. The sheer onslaught of damage to our world on every front—the environment, education, national security, international relations, the economy, medical care, not to mention truth itself—is breathtaking and can leave us feeling hopeless and disabled. This must not happen.

This is a war whose front lines run right through every mind and every heart; there is no sitting this one out. There are no non-combatants or innocent bystanders. We are drafted, against our hopes and dreams for a safe, comfortable, and predictable future, into the radical uncertainty of this conflict. Further, it is a battle that can only be won person to person, heart to heart, mind to mind.

Despite its many affordances, technology has been turned against us, causing so much damage to the web of human connections based on mutual trust that we must begin again, on the ground, to restore our own humanity. We must begin rebuilding sanity, truthfulness, kindness, care, protection of the vulnerable—wisdom and compassion and clarity, in other words—that is foundational to a livable society, and an inhabitable planet. We can do this, but our window of opportunity is short. The enemies of awakened consciousness are moving extremely quickly to consolidate their position, and to demoralize and disarm their opposition. I myself am shocked at how quickly this is happening, and the grave danger we are facing.

The transformation and dedication of consciousness for the welfare of all beings must be wholeheartedly, fearlessly, and tirelessly engaged and defended. This is our vow. This transformation can only happen relationally, through our willingness to connect across all boundaries, and to meet, with fearless optimism, the most difficult conditions. Those conditions might be as local as your uncle Frank, the racist, or as vast as our global ecosystem. You decide. The opportunities are boundless, but please get moving. You have five great weapons: curiosity, mindfulness, connection, clarity, and care. They are cultivated through our Zen practice, and they will serve you well.

And please vigorously support those individuals and organizations who are working hard to bring us truthful information and analysis in the face of increasingly brutal opposition and repression. Make your presence felt in support of the vulnerable, and in resistance to oppression. Be awake. There is no time to hesitate or ask directions. Move!

2016 SZBA CONFERENCE

A report on Peg's trip to the Soto Zen Buddhist Association conference

From 10/05/16 01:16:pm

Dear Sangha-

I’ve just returned from the Soto Zen Buddhist Association conference in Maple Lake, Minnesota, and wanted to fill you in on this trip. Soto Zen Buddhist Association is an organization for Soto Zen priests and dharma transmitted teachers in the U.S. The setting was Camp Courage in the beautiful woods of Maple Lake, which were just beginning to be kissed by color. The conference theme was “Hearing the Cries of the World.” 

Most of you know I was scheduled for two presentations there, the opening plenary session on Right Use of Power and the second-day plenary vision planning with the organization using Appreciative Inquiry. With 84 Zen teachers and priests from all over the country there, you can imagine I was rather anxious! I’ve read and studied and heard about so many of these distinguished teachers. Both presentations went very well and people were genuinely excited to learn about both of these topics. It was really marvelous to see them engaging in the experiential exercises, which were new to the conference. 

We also learned about a new Japanese training temple complex, Tenpyozan, being built in California on the traditional Japanese plan. Akiba Roshi, the bishop of Soto Zen here talked about this dream, which has been shared by Suzuki, Maezumi, and Katagiri roshis, as well as the Japanese Soto Shu for many years. It is a 100-year building project, but they will have the main building completed in the next year or two, with some additional funding. Then they will begin offering training, in English, with programming adapted to American students. To raise funds, they have a roof tile naming project. If you make a contribution of $35, your name will be inscribed on a roof tile by the master tile maker, who is coming from Japan in March. If you are interested in learning more about this remarkable building project, or to contribute to it, the website is www.tenpyozan.org. It was clear that the Soto Shu has great respect for the widespread sincere practice of Zen in America, and they really want to support us. 

David Loy gave a brilliant talk on the environmental crisis and our Buddhist response from the Bodhisattva Vow. So Gaelyn Godwin from Houston Zen Center and I collaborated to invite him to come to Texas and give some talks and workshops in April. I’m really excited about this wonderful opportunity for our sangha! 

We saw numerous other presentations and breakout sessions, which I am still absorbing. There was also a book signing for several books written by and featuring women teachers. I will leave them on the table in the study in case you are interested. 

There were several ceremonies as part of this conference, including an opening ceremony, a memorial ceremony for members who died in the past two years, a women’s-only Ananda ceremony, the Dharma Heritage ceremony, and a closing ceremony. These ceremonies were in full robes, as was morning zazen. The rest of the time we wore rakusus. So there were a lot of costume changes! But morning zazen was marvelous sitting among so many Zen teachers, like sitting in the midst of a majestic mountain range. 

The women’s only Ananda ceremony was created many hundreds of years ago by Buddhist nuns who kept it secret for fear the priests would take it away from them. It’s only in the last two hundred years or so that it has become known and celebrated openly. The ceremony expresses our gratitude to Ananda for convincing the Buddha to ordain women. In it, we learned and sang a song of 14 verses about Ananda’s life and death, made many bows, and recorded the ceremony to document it. 

The Dharma Heritage ceremony was extremely moving. This ceremony formally and institutionally recognizes participants’ Dharma Transmission in the Soto Zen School. There were 24 of us participating this year, and I was happy to see a range of ages. We entered and did three bows, then a jundo (where you walk in procession, bowing, in front of everyone else, while they bow to you). Then we offered lavender buds (in place of incense), and chanted “The Merging of Difference and Unity” while the rest of the assembly circumambulated around us three times. We returned to our places in the assembly and then received our formal certificates one by one. Finally we chanted the Heart Sutra together and did three more bows. You can see me in formal robes receiving my Dharma Heritage certificate from Hozan Alan Senauke below. 

I really appreciate all of your support for my representing our sangha in such distinguished company! Appamada is truly on the Zen map in an important way. Throughout the conference many people came up to me and asked whether I would bring the Right Use of Power or Appreciative Inquiry work to their sanghas, and I had opportunities to talk over meals and breaks with many others who were curious about and appreciative of our sangha’s organization and approach to Zen. I am grateful for our sincere and dedicated practice together!

Peg