Category: Dharma Talks

I believe

Jeff

This is the text of a talk I gave this morning at the annual Credo service at the Unitarian Church of Sharon.

 

The modern translation of Credo is “I believe,” and the word creed has come to mean a statement of religious beliefs.

 

Being asked to talk about my religious beliefs presents something of a problem for me.  I’ve come to think beliefs aren’t the most interesting or important – or even an essential – element of religion.

 

In fact, I’ve come to think that metaphysical beliefs can, for many – present company excluded – be a real impediment to development of a sense of wonder and reverence, of a broad and deeply felt connection to the universe, other beings, and oneself.  For me, these are hallmark traits of mature spirituality.

 

Any praiseworthy ethical framework flows from this sort of orientation.

 

I suppose I do have my religious beliefs (including those just mentioned), but they’re quite spare.

 

I didn’t arrive at this perspective through a syllogistic reasoning process or an act of mental will, though I certainly have done my fair share of thinking about religion.

 

I was raised Catholic and still have a deep appreciation for the mystical tradition in Christianity.  I’ve always had what I’d call a contemplative orientation.

 

As a young child I was troubled by the confusing and inconsistent ways in which people used the word God – it seemed like the free space in Bingo, or that proverbial blank to be filled in however one might wish – and yet I felt the deepest connection to . . . to . . . to what?

 

I made a secret shrine in a construction zone near the new subdivision to which we moved when I was eight or nine, and I sneaked away to pray there several times a week.  I read the Bible, Jonathan Livingston Seagull – for those of you old enough to remember it – and all the Hardy Boys novels, of course, in a quiet little monk’s cell I made on my closet floor.

 

I eventually attended a Jesuit university.

 

In my late 20’s, shortly after finishing law school and entering law practice, I began to meditate.  I soon became very involved in a movement called Contemplative Outreach, which is reviving the ancient practice of silent prayer within the Christian community.  It was started by a Trappist monk, Fr. Thomas Keating – a lovely man who has had a big impact on my life, and on the lives of so many others.

 

I also encountered Zen during this period, initially through Kyudo, or Zen archery.  I studied with Kanjuro Shibata Sensei, an archery master and the Imperial Bowmaker of Japan.  He lives in Boulder, Colorado, much of the year.

 

I spent a great deal of time on silent retreat at monasteries and convents in Colorado and New Mexico.

 

During this era, I began to feel that my world, that I myself, was divided between interior and exterior, between the contemplative perspectives and pursuits that had become so important to me, on the one hand, and the rough-and-tumble world of business and corporate law, on the other.

 

Unable to reconcile these seeming poles at that life-stage, in 1995 I turned down an offer of partnership in a good law firm to study at Harvard Divinity School.  I planned to get a Ph.D. and become a scholar of comparative religion.

 

It turned out to be an absolutely brilliant move, but not for any of the reasons I thought I was making it.

 

During my first year I took a class on comparative theologies in which one session’s readings, and much earnest discussion regarding them, focused on the problem of syncretism – of combining religious perspectives and forms.

 

In reality, all religions are syncretistic, a fact too few religious people appreciate.  The overt syncretism of Unitarian Universalism is one of the things that attracted me to it.

 

One of those class readings and the discussion that flowed from it revolved around questions like, “If a person borrows from Christianity and Buddhism, might his brain be reincarnated in a newborn’s body and the rest of him end up in heaven?  Are these people putting themselves in some sort of metaphysical jeopardy?”

 

I’m not joking.

 

In the very probing, yet balanced, manner of the scholars I had come to learn from, I reflected for a moment, then raised my hand and asked the group,

 

“Are you serious?  Who cares?”

 

This didn’t endear me to the professor or most of my classmates.

 

Around the same time, the NY Times published a huge expose about the battle of Srebrenica, which occurred in July 1995, near the end of the war in the former Yugoslavia.  Thousands of Bosnian Muslims were massacred in an assault the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia later declared to be an act of genocide, and the worst mass slaughter on European soil since World War II.  It seems NATO – the Clinton administration and other western powers – may have let Serbian General Ratko Mladic overrun a supposed UN safe zone where the Bosnians were encamped.  It was inconveniently located in territory western officials believed would have to be ceded to the Serbs in order to achieve a peace accord.

 

The NY Times article contained a picture of a Muslim woman hung from a tree limb, a rope around her neck.  She killed herself to avoid being killed.  I broke down in tears.

 

I knew then that the academic study of religion, or of theology, at least, was not my calling – at least not then.  I retooled my program, and my path, by combining my legal background with my interest in religion and international affairs.  I created a course of study in international conflict resolution, and eventually ended up teaching and practicing in this area at Harvard Law School for several years after I graduated.

 

I eventually returned to private law practice, but I’m now also part of an NGO that helps create and support broad-scale peace processes to end civil wars, as well as broad-scale national dialogue processes to help avert them.  We helped end Nepal’s civil war in 2006.  Our current project is in Lebanon, and it’s beginning to spread elsewhere in the Middle East.

 

The meditation practice I began 20 years ago seems to have contributed to the progressive dismantlement of the religious conceptual framework I inherited.  I sat alone during 10 years in the middle of those 20, until eventually finding a spiritual home in the Zen tradition.

 

I’m part of an emerging western Buddhist community called Boundless Way Zen – BoWZ for short.  Last year I became one of its very junior teachers.  BoWZ has a strong, if informal, connection to Unitarian Universalism.  Our most senior teacher, James Ford, is minister of the First Unitarian Church in Providence.

 

I consider myself nontheistic, which I prefer to the term atheistic.  For me, non-theism is about being religious without a reified idea of god, or even needing to speak of god, nor standing in opposition to the many wonderful people who do speak of god.

 

A revered, ancient Zen teacher once said, “Not knowing is most intimate.”  That’s certainly my experience.

 

This “not knowing” is not the “I don’t know” of agnosticism.  It’s not the product of indifference or laziness or resignation.

 

It’s a full-to-the-brim sort of not knowing.

 

Unlike the author of the author of the late 14th century classic of contemplative Christian spirituality, The Cloud of Unknowing, however, I don’t experience this “not knowing” primarily in theistic terms.  That just doesn’t resonate with me completely anymore, particularly not in terms of the person-like images of God presented in the Hebrew Bible and some of the sayings attributed to Jesus of Nazareth. All ideas break down.

 

For me, this not knowing can’t be contained.  In words, in beliefs.

 

Or, rather, it’s contained by, and it contains . . . this.

 

 

Just this.

 

 

Nothing extra.  Nothing less.

 

Now I look back at that nine-year old praying at his shrine – or throwing a ball, or chasing his dog, or hugging his parents, or staring at the night sky – and understand why Jesus pointed to children, and the lilies in the field, when adults asked him how to enter the Kingdom of God.

 

He also reminded them that “the Kingdom of God is at hand.”

 

 

Here, now.

 

 

These hands.  No hands but our hands.

 

My family is new to this community, yet Esther and I saw immediately how it accommodates a range of religious perspectives, including those that emphasize belief more than mine does.  I’m so impressed by the open-mindedness and big heartedness that makes this possible.

 

Just this includes everything.  In the words of another revered, ancient Zen teacher, there is “nothing worth begrudging.”  Nothing that can’t teach us; no fact, experience or viewpoint that can’t serve as grist for our individual and collective mills.

 

The modern meaning of Credo is “I believe,” but I understand its ancient usage conveyed a somewhat different meaning – something more along the lines of “I give my heart to this.”

 

And, I do.

 

Bodhidharma’s Outline of Practice

Jeff

 

 

This post is based upon a Dharma Talk I gave on February 4, 2012.  During the Boundless Way Zen Winter Ango, each of the Guiding Teachers, Senior Dharma Teachers, and Dharma Teachers is giving a talk on Bodhidharma‘s Outline of Practice.  Recordings of our talks can be found online.

 

Bodhidharma’s Outline of Practice

 

Many roads lead to the Path, but basically there are only two: reason and practice. To enter by reason means to realize the essence through instruction and to believe that all living things share the same true nature, which isn’t apparent because it’s shrouded by sensation and delusion. Those who turn from delusion back to reality, who meditate on walls, the absence of self and other, the oneness of mortal and sage, and who remain unmoved even by scriptures are in complete and unspoken agreement with reason. Without moving, without effort, they enter, we say, by reason.

 

To enter by practice refers to four all-inclusive practices: suffering injustice, adapting to conditions, seeking nothing, and practicing the Dharma.

 

First, suffering injustice. When those who search for the Path encounter adversity, they should think to themselves, “In countless ages gone by, I’ve turned from the essential to the trivial and wandered through all manner of existence, often angry without cause and guilty of numberless transgressions. Now, though I do no wrong, I’m punished by my past. Neither gods nor men can foresee when an evil deed will bear its fruit. I accept it with an open heart and without complaint of injustice. The sutras say, ” When you meet with adversity don’t be upset, because it makes sense.” With such understanding you’re in harmony with reason. And by suffering injustice you enter the Path.

 

Second, adapting to conditions. As mortals, we’re ruled by conditions, not by ourselves. All the suffering and joy we experience depend on conditions. If we should be blessed by some great reward, such as fame or fortune, it’s the fruit of a seed planted by us in the past. When conditions change, it ends. Why delight in its existence? But while success and failure depend on conditions, the mind neither waxes nor wanes. Those who remain unmoved by the wind of joy silently follow the Path.

 

Third, seeking nothing. People of this world are deluded. They’re always longing for something — always, in a word, seeking. But the wise wake up. They choose reason over custom. They fix their minds on the sublime and let their bodies change with the seasons. All phenomena are empty. They contain nothing worth desiring. Calamity forever alternates with Prosperity. To dwell in the three realms is to dwell in a burning house. To have a body is to suffer. Does anyone with a body know peace? Those who understand this detach themselves from all that exists and stop imagining or seeking anything. The sutras say, “To seek is to suffer. To seek nothing is bliss.” When you seek nothing, you’re on the Path.

 

Fourth, practicing the Dharma. The Dharma is the truth that all natures are pure. By this truth, all appearances are empty. Defilement and attachment, subject and object don’t exist. The sutras say, “The Dharma includes no being because it’s free from the impurity of being, and the Dharma includes no self because it’s free from the impurity of self.” Those wise enough to believe and understand these truths are bound to practice according to the Dharma. And since that which is real includes nothing worth begrudging, they give their body, life, and property in charity, without regret, without the vanity of giver, gift, or recipient, and without bias or attachment. And to eliminate impurity they teach others, but without becoming attached to form. Thus, through their own practice they’re able to help others and glorify the Way of Enlightenment. And as with charity, they also practice the other virtues. But while practicing the six virtues to eliminate delusion, they practice nothing at all. This is what’s meant by practicing the Dharma.  (Translated by Red Pine)

 

I’ve read Bodhidharma’s little practice manual several times since it was selected as our Ango text a month or so ago.  It’s almost impossibly rich.  There are so many directions in which one could go in a talk on this text.  For a while, I really wasn’t sure where to go myself.

 

When I first read the piece, however, I had immediate, stream-of-consciousness reactions to each of the five paragraphs describing the two paths Bodhidharma identifies.  I jotted down these reactions – each of them a little phrase – in the margin of the text.  I ultimately decided just run with them.  To use each these little reactions as a launchpad for reflection on the paths Bodhidharma charts for us.

 

Each paragraph of this text is action packed, so I’ll just tug on a thread here and there.

 

The Path of Reason

 

When I read the first paragraph of our text, which is on reason, I thought, “The dog stops chasing its tail.”

 

Reason as we think of it in the west has this quality of parsing.  Of dividing the world into pieces.

 

This is endlessly useful in a relative sense.

 

Yet, this slicing and dicing can make us crazy.  It does make us crazy, individually and collectively, when we lose the perspective that embraces the whole, unifying the parts.

 

We can become like dogs chasing our tails when we’re stuck in this parsing mode.

 

The irony is that the dog thinks it’s chasing something other than itself, when in fact it’s chasing a feature of itself it doesn’t recognize as such.  It sees this and that.  The dog sees itself as this, and pursues that.  Jeff pursues cessation of pain.  Pursues happiness.  Pursues wisdom.  Pursues enlightenment.  Pursues his tail.  The answer is out there.

 

To my thinking, Bodhidharma is telling us, with more than a touch of humor and irony, that the tails is us, and we can’t lose it.

 

I chased my tail for decades in spiritual and other matters, and sometimes still do.  I turned down an offer of partnership in a good law firm nearly 20 years ago to do graduate work at Harvard Divinity School, in part, as a strategy for getting answers to life’s questions.  I thought I’d get a Ph.D. and become a scholar of comparative religion.

 

It turned out to be a brilliant move, but not at all for the reasons I expected.  I eventually exhausted my search for tidy, rationally satisfying answers –not ended it the way a mathematician ends her work by logically equating one function to another, but literally by exhausting myself from the search.

 

And that’s when things really started to happen.

 

For me, Bodhidharma’s wonderful guidance has this quality.  Reason isn’t always about making one’s way syllogistically toward an answer.

 

The “right” answer to a koan often has this non-linear quality.  Just like life.

 

A personal case in point:  My dad is rather conservative.  When my youngest brother – the other center-left member of our family — or I visit, our father often tries to draw us into debates about politics.  Often he succeeds, and this can lead to fireworks – and not the glorious kind we enjoy seeing and hearing on the 4th of July.

 

I was telling Josh Bartok about this dynamic and, specifically, about an encounter with my dad during a visit this past Thanksgiving.  I knew I’d handled the moment poorly, and I was still unsettled about what had happened.

 

Shortly after we arrived at my parents’ home in Colorado, my dad said, “We’re not going to talk politics this time, Jeff, but you have to answer one question for me:  Do you still like Obama?”  I smiled, then thought for a minute before venturing a nuanced answer I hoped would create an opening for some genuine, open dialogue:

 

“It’s a complicated question,” I said.  “He’s acted differently in some respects than I expected.”

“You haven’t answered my question.  Do you still like him?”

“I’m trying.  My answer is nuanced.  As with most human beings, he’s done some things I like, and some things I don’t like.”

“You won’t answer the question.”

Sigh.  “Yes, on balance, I still like him.”

“He’s a jerk,” my dad said.

 

I walked away muttering similar expletives.

 

When Josh heard this story, he asked how I could have approached my dad’s question as a koan.  I was stumped – stumped the way I’m often stumped when I’m too close to something, when it’s in my blind spot.

 

Josh gently slapped me on the back, smiled, and said, “It’s great to see you, Dad.”

 

Yes.  The answer is orthogonal to the question, yet meets it perfectly.  So simple.

 

I don’t intend to denigrate this tail chasing, and I don’t think Bodhidharma does either.  It can be very productive; it can lead to something.  For many of us, as in my case, that something is a sort of exhaustion, which can create an opening in which we realize what we’re after is not an object of thought – not something we can conceive of.  It’s in subject position. The subject encompasses us, and yet isn’t limited to us.

 

The dog discovers itself.

 

The Path of Practice

 

Bodihdharma’s little practice manual breaks the second path – the Path of Practice — down into four practices: suffering injustice, adapting to conditions, seeking nothing, and practicing the Dharma

 

Suffering Injustice

 

When I read Bodhidharma’s paragraph on the practice of suffering injustice, I thought, “You’re bound to step on a stone from time to time.  Just don’t curse the gods when you do.”

 

I imagine the path of practice as having stones here and there.  Some of them are jagged.  Every now and then one jabs us through the sole of our shoes, and it hurts.

 

I don’t see these stones as the natural, personal conditions of existence – old age, illness and death.  For me, that’s the subject of Bodhidharma’s next practice, adapting to conditions.

 

I hear Boddhidharma talking more about the social landscape – the conditions we create for ourselves.  This includes our own past transgressions and their karmic effects in the present.

 

But I also hear Bodhidharma talking about something more diffuse and subtle.  Much of our misguided behavior can be traced back to our various human default modes, chief among them the illusion of separateness at the root of our greed, anger and ignorance.

 

I think Bodhidharma is holding this up for us to see, in ourselves and in others, and he’s inviting us to use it as grist for our mills.

 

He says, “When you meet with adversity don’t be upset, because it makes sense.”  Makes sense, how?  With so many of us striving to make life conform to our selfish ideals, we’re bound to spend much of our time scheming and railing against the world and one another.

 

And, he says, “With such understanding you’re in harmony with reason.  And by suffering injustice you enter the Path.”

 

When we see through the illusion of separateness, without losing sight of our own and others’ genuine distinctiveness, we’re no longer compelled to try reflexively to make the world conform to our selfish ideals.  We see how that impulse is one source of injustice.

 

But, what does it mean to suffer it?  I don’t think Bodhidharma necessarily means we suffer it passively.  I suspect he means one now has freedom of choice – choice not to respond tit-for-tat, or else to internalize our feelings of hurt and let them fester and progressively break us down.  One has the choice to respond skillfully, in ways that tend to reduce suffering.  And because everything is connected in this Indra’s net of a universe, all beings are saved in the process.

 

Adapting to Conditions

 

Why delight in good fortune, Bodhidharma asks?  “Those who remain unmoved by the wind of joy silently follow the Path.”

 

When I finished reading this last line of Bodhidharma’s commentary on the practice of adapting to conditions, I thought, “Yes, but don’t resist the urge to smile as that wind passes through you.”

 

Zen sometimes is seen as overly stoic and serious.  It probably is in some quarters, but our teachers make it rather hard to maintain that perspective here.

 

Reading this paragraph, however, one could be forgiven for concluding that Zen is a super intense and dour religion.

 

I’m inclined to think Bodhidharma is having a little fun here.  He’s just told us to smile at the injustices we suffer.  Now he seems to be telling us not to enjoy our good fortune.

 

It seems pretty clear to me that he’s simply reminding us that things change, and that getting too attached to anything we like is a recipe for suffering.

 

I had an awful affliction for a long time – an illness of the heart.  I suffered with it for decades (as did some of those around me).  My life was filled with mostly wonderful stuff, but I couldn’t enjoy it.  I eventually came to understand that I had walled off my sorrow – or at least I thought I was walling it off.  In truth, I was attached to it.

 

It seems to be a law of emotional physics that we can’t know happiness unless we can grieve, and vice versa.

 

So, I hear Bodhidharma telling us:  Things change.  Be happy and grieve as they do.  But, don’t get attached to the happiness or grief.  Let them pass.  Know that you are the ground over which they pass; the space through which they pass.  Find your ultimate joy and consolation there.

 

Seeking nothing

 

As I read the sentence “When you seek nothing, you’re on the Path,” I thought, “The path is boundless.  Don’t get lost!”

 

I think “seeking nothing” can manifest in several ways:

 

When we seek to understand/know this nothing – when Mu is burning in our gullets like a hot iron ball – we’re on the path.

 

And when, having been seared by that iron ball, we’re truly seeking nothing, not even nothing, we’re on the path.

 

And, being unaware of the Buddha Dharma and wandering through this life, unaware of this nothing, and therefore not seeking it, we’re on the path.

 

We can’t be off the path – and, still, it’s easy to feel lost.  And, feeling lost, it’s easy to transgress (see above).

 

Practicing the Dharma

 

Bodhidharma gives us his definition of Dharma right up front:  It’s “the truth that all natures are pure.”

 

Having previously talked about delusion and attachment as if they’re real – and he of course knows they are, relatively speaking — he tells us “Defilement and attachment, subject and object don’t exist.”

 

And he tells us “Those wise enough to believe and understand” all this “are bound to practice according to the Dharma.”

 

One could be forgiven for thinking this sounds rather circular, like that dog chasing its tail:

 

All natures are pure.

 

That act of kindness that seems so good, it’s pure.  Just like that act of violence.

 

If we realize this, we’ll practice according to it.

 

Sounds like it doesn’t much matter what we do.

 

But, Boddhidharma encourages us to practice charity and the virtues, everywhere, always, precisely because everything is worthy of our attention and loving regard.  “[T]hat which is real includes nothing worth begrudging,” he tells us.

 

Nothing worth begrudging.  I love that phrase.

 

That person who committed that violent act – not worth begrudging.

 

The act of violence itself:  What does it have to teach us about the world we live in, the world we and innumerable past and present conditions – physical and social — have helped create?

 

I heard a scientist who studies serial killers interviewed on the radio some time ago.  He’s identified a genetic condition he believes all of them share.  He contends this genetic condition predispose them to do what they do.  It prevents them from feeling empathic the way other people do.  They know what they’re doing is wrong, but they can’t regulate their conduct; they can’t relate to the pain they’re causing.

 

I don’t have the skills to assess the strength of this scientist’s claims.  If they’re true, then, for me, this provides another very compelling argument against the death penalty.  Who knows?  Perhaps his research ultimately will lead to a gene-based therapy eradicating the suffering this type of conduct causes so many people.

 

I’m holding this up here simply because I’m so impressed by the open-minded, open-hearted way this scholar approached his work.  He certainly didn’t approve of this conduct, but he approached it with great curiosity.  He didn’t just begrudge it, or the killers.  And this disposition may eventually help save many beings, in a very literal sense.

 

It wasn’t until I’d read the next to last sentence of this final paragraph of Bodhidharma’s text that I had my little stream of consciousness reaction:  “But while practicing the six virtues to eliminate delusion, they practice nothing at all.”

 

I hear Bodhidharma saying, “Ultimately no merit, but let’s all try to keep up the good work anyway.”  It does make a difference here and now.

 

I’ll stop here, except to say, maybe this is why Bodhidharma came from the west:  to give us this wonderful little text for our Ango.

 

Taking Refuge: Nowhere to Hide

Jeff

 

This post is based upon a Dharma Talk (my first) that I gave on October 25, 2011.

I take refuge in Buddha

I take refuge in Dharma

I take refuge in Sangha

The Three Refuges we chant during our Zen liturgy seem to me to be the closest thing we have to a creed in this non-creedal religion. Creeds are statements of belief. In some religions they are the litmus test for “true believers.” They often require one to submit to improbable metaphysical claims and rigid authority structures.

I was a questioning Catholic 20 years ago when I first encountered Buddhism and the refuges.  Elements of the Nicene Creed, which Catholics recite, always have been hard for me to swallow; certainly in any literal sense. Creeds of any kind – even the UU Covenant – tend to press my buttons to some degree.

I know from talking to other members of our sangha that I’m not the only person who has been agitated by one of the traditional Zen forms. Bowing. Chanting. The Four Vows. Whatever. For me, it was the Three Refuges.

But, here they are. We chant them every week. And, though we don’t make much of “being Buddhist” the way some religions do – there’s no salvation, spiritual or otherwise, in simply self-identifying as a Zen practitioner – “taking refuge” by reciting and embracing the Three Refuges is the traditional way Buddhists the world over signal their commitment to this path.

I had little choice but to sit with my agitation and get to know it. Why this discomfort?

I ultimately concluded that my agitation stemmed from two sources.

First, the very idea of “taking refuge” offended me. I’ve tended to think of myself as autonomous and self-reliant. Taking refuge seemed like submission. I’ve tended to think of myself as strong. Taking refuge seemed like an admission of vulnerability, of weakness. I’ve tended to think of myself as engaged and action-oriented. Taking refuge seemed like hiding.

Second, my early ideas about what Buddhists must be taking refuge in troubled me.

What’s Buddha? Another messiah? Hmm.

What’s Dharma? Did I hear doctrine? Dogma? Forget it.

What’s Sangha? Another exclusive community? Only true believers are saved? Can’t go there.

These reactions were conditioned, of course. I’m a product of western culture, in which values like autonomy, self-reliance, strength, action and the like tend to be privileged over values like interdependence, connection, community, vulnerability, and introspection. Then there’s that Roman Catholic upbringing. There’s so much that’s rich and beautiful about Catholicism, and also much I can only relate to in a mytho-poetic way. Perhaps my reactions also were gendered to some degree.

My early encounters with Buddhism actually helped me discover the Christian contemplative tradition. D.T. Suzuki sings the praises of various Christian mystics in one of his books – names that were unfamiliar to me when I encountered them there 20 years ago. I soon learned that a form of sitting practice that’s often called centering prayer today was developed and preserved in Christian monastic communities through the ages, and that there was a budding lay movement (catalyzed by monks) that embraced it.

I sat in that tradition for many years, and I think my sitting practice ultimately contributed to the disintegration of my Christian religious worldview. (This doesn’t happen for most who sit in that context, and I’m not saying it should, but this was my experience then.) I continued to sit alone for 10 years before making my way to Zen.  And, Zen ultimately helped me appreciate the contemplative strain of my birth tradition in new ways.

I decided to take refuge on this Zen path, in part, because I began to feel that what I was looking for wasn’t to be found in solitude, at least not in my case. I wanted a supportive context, open and devoid of dogma, and I sensed I would find kindred spirits along the Zen path.

I’ve ultimately come to think of the refuges much differently since the time I first encountered them. Those old notions have been turned on their head.

These days, I take refuge from the illusion of complete separateness that seems to be the lens through which so many of us see things – our default mode, if you will. It’s the source of endless personal and collective suffering. I take refuge from my narratives and mental constructions that indulge this illusion.

I now think of this taking refuge from as more of an opting in, than as an opting out. I’m choosing to opt into life as it really is. It includes this illusion of complete separateness and all of my narratives and habits that indulge it, but the whole of life isn’t defined by that illusion, even if my subjective experience sometimes seems to be.

We are distinct, but there really is no sense in which we are separate. We’re immersed in it all. We’re of it all.

What do I choose to opt into?

Buddha signifies a couple of things for me.

It’s our potential to awaken to the reality that we’re not separate from the rest of this universe and everything else in it – we’re not a sort of two-dimensional, Flat Stanley sort of sticker of a human being laid over a flat, background universe. Buddha is oneness, and our capacity to experience this oneness – not just to intellectualize about it, but for this background reality to become our new foreground. Our new ground and no-ground.

But we’re also reminded time and again that we’re Buddha just as we are now, however we are. That each of us embodies and reflects this oneness at this very moment. So Buddha – or Buddha nature – must be me, with all of my foibles and failings, my doubts and insecurities.

Buddha when I snapped at my wife about something senseless the other day. Buddha when I apologized after 15 tense minutes had passed.

Buddha as my mind wanders on or off the cushion, brooding about some perceived indignity, anxious about the demands of work and family life, plotting to better my lot, or whatever.

Dharma includes Buddhist texts and teachings, of course, but, more broadly, I see it as the 10,000 things: ants and sticks and grizzly bears, the steam rising from my teacup, that noxious pile of trash, my kid’s tantrum, you and me as distinct beings, and all the rest. It’s the diversity that exists within the oneness. It’s what each being and thing has to reveal to us.

One of the most profound experiences I’ve ever had was several hours spent sitting alone in the branch of an old tree on a moonlit night. The learning didn’t result from that experience; it didn’t consist of thoughts I thought while I was up there, or after I climbed down. The experience was the learning.

That experience and others like it help prod me beyond belief, beyond the false certainty of our creeds and fixed views, which come in so many forms in religion, in politics, in families, in one’s conception of oneself.

What could it possibly mean to believe in a tree? To believe in moonlight?

I’m reminded once again of Dogen’s lovely verse:

Entreat trees and rocks to preach,

and ask rice fields and gardens for the Truth;

ask pillars for the Dharma,

and learn from hedges and walls.

We engage texts and ideas with our whole being, holding them lightly even as we revere the better ones, but, just as importantly, we engage fully and openly with this universe and all that arises.

Sangha, for me, is our little sitting group and our broader Zen family, and it’s also the broadest community that’s the unity of Buddha and Dharma. The community of the 10,000 things, all of them Buddha, all of them Truth, all intermingling and utterly interdependent.

The tragedy of the human condition, in my view, is that too many of us believe and feel we are utterly separate, and so think and act in ways that reinforce those beliefs and feelings in ourselves and others.

There’s also blessing in this; there’s no doubt some evolutionary necessity to this illusion of separateness. But, we also have the capacity to experience not one, not two, and to make that the orientation from which we think and act, from which we express our distinctiveness.

The term spirituality is problematic even for theists, I think, and it’s doubly so for anyone who considers him- or herself non-theistic. I’ve come to think of it as a sense of connectedness to oneself, others, and the universe – and the felt quality of those connections. Sangha.

So, for me, the refuges have come to serve as a reminder that there’s nowhere to hide. We’re in the stew, and there’s no way out of the pot.

These days I try to take my refuge in:

  • The special mess that I am, including my fears, my insecurities, my shame, my greed, anger and ignorance
  • The 10,000 things, especially the 5,001 to which I’m particularly attracted or averse, and which therefore have much to teach me
  • My utter inseparability from, and therefore complete vulnerability to and dependence upon, all of this

This may all sound a bit free-form, and in an important sense it truly is. But these free-form thoughts can be stood on their head, as well. I also want to stress that I do experience Buddha, Dharma and Sangha in the more formal ways those terms are used – the historical Buddha’s teachings and example (and the example of our many other teachers), our Zen practices and texts, and our community – as a refuge. They form a context in which I try to summon forth and present “the better angels of my nature” with the support and companionship of others who are trying to do the same.

The question that agitated Dogen and animated his practice for years was, “If we’re already Buddhas, why must we practice?” There are many possible answers to this question. For my part, I take refuge on this path and in this community because I need to in order to do my best to show up to life in the way I truly want to show up.

I suspect the illusion of complete separateness never loses its attractive force. The trick, I think, is to see it as the doorway of compassion – compassion for ourselves, as well as for others. Buddha, Dharma, Sangha – they prod me toward that doorway, and help me find it again when I’ve lost sight of it.

I’ll conclude with a thought and an image.

The thought is about this word “creed,” which is from the Latin root for belief. “Credo” often is translated “I believe.” But, it’s apparently a modern definition. I’m told the ancient meaning of “credo” was something more along the lines of “I give my heart to this.”

I like that.

The image is this: A revered, ancient Zen teacher is said to have spent his final, dying days walking around a pole in his room, on which he had inscribed the words Buddha, Dharma, Sangha.

Buddha, Dharma, Sangha.

Buddha, Dharma, Sangha.

Buddha, Dharma, Sangha.

He clearly found his refuge there, all the way to the end. What a powerful image. What a powerful, final teisho for his community, and for all of us.

Buddha, Dharma, Sangha.

I can, and do, give my heart to that.