Category: Practice

Ceaseless practice

Jeff

 

This an an approximation of a talk I gave on May 31, 2017 at Bright Sea Zen, the sangha led by my dear friend, Kate Hartland.

“The meaning of zazen, the enlightenment and liberation of all living beings, is not brought forth by the power of personal effort and is not brought forth by the power of some other.  Zazen doesn’t start when we start making effort, doesn’t stop when we stop.

We can’t do it by ourselves, and nobody else can do it for us.”

From “Guidance in Shikintaza,” by Reb Anderson

I want to use this passage from one of our chants tonight to talk about the notion of ceaseless practice.

The universe practices ceaselessly.  Everything that’s happening right here, now – everything that’s happening everywhere – is the universe’s practice.  The universe is universing.  This is Buddha’s practice. It is Buddha nature expressing itself.

Buddha nature expresses itself ceaselessly.  The universe practices ceaselessly. E ndlessly flows forth; erupts; gives its all; gives it all up for the sake of . . . giving it all up.

Kate and I just had a nice visit at her house before our sit.  She definitely delivered on her promise to make a wicked grilled cheese sandwich.  The sandwich and time with her were a real treat, yet the main event was a tour of Kate’s beautiful garden.  Kate is an avid gardener, as I suspect you know.  I’ve always appreciated and admired the way so much of her teaching is inspired by what nature teaches her.

Kate’s garden is radiant now.  Many of the flowers are erupting.  The universe erupting as Kate’s flowers.

And, later in the year, when the flowers die, their death is the universe erupting, too.

It’s the same with us.  Each of us is the universe universing.  We are flowers blooming. Our lives – our thoughts, speech and action – are the universe erupting.  And our deaths are the universe erupting, too.

And, yet, many of us, much of the time, don’t seem to regard our lives this way.  We have this gnawing sense of separateness, of isolation, of not-okayness.  And we often, in more or less unconscious ways, respond anxiously to this sense, and often in ways that tend to compound it.  We take refuge in thought, speech or conduct, in situations we create or gravitate toward, that are about escaping from the here-and-now.  That aren’t about nearness to it and intimacy with it.

Why is this?  I don’t know. In some religious worldviews, it’s a mark of our fallen nature.  In some, it’s a pathology; a kind of sickness.

I’m more inclined to see it in the spirit of what Zen types call the “samadhi of play.”  Why shouldn’t the one wish to flow forth and know itself in the many; in and as myriad dharmas, “the 10,000 things”; as you and me?  And why shouldn’t the many, why shouldn’t you and I, truly feel distinct and separate, with the twinge of discomfort that entails (even as it also creates opportunities for joy).  And why shouldn’t all delight in discovering, and constantly rediscovering, oneness-in-manyness and the boundless love manifested in and generated through all this?

But these are just ideas, and, so far as I can tell, the universe universing doesn’t seem to be dependent upon my own or anyone else’s ideas about it.

This is the “we can’t do it for ourselves” part.  We can’t do it for ourselves, because it’s already done.  From this perspective, there’s nothing at all to do. Polishing ourselves – trying to be wiser, more virtuous, more spiritual; shinier, newer or whatever – it’s all futile from this perspective.  This is a come-as-you-are universe.  The universe goes on erupting, despite and as our efforts, whatever our efforts may or may not be.

So why practice?  We practice because of the opportunity it provides to become more and more aware of the universe universing, and to discover ourselves as participants in the universe universing.  It helps us not to resist our participation, just as we are here and now.  To attune.  Zazen tends to help us attune.

This is the “nobody else can do it for us” part.  Nobody else can live our lives, and nobody else can sit for us. Nobody else can practice for us.

Sitting is optional . . . we’re part of it all, no matter what, and the universe goes on practicing as me, whether or not I sit.  Yet this attunement, this particular quality of willing participation, can matter so much personally and collectively.  So much individual and collective suffering is attributable to our resistance; to our attempts to take refuge in someplace other than this.  Someplace we think promises something more.

The quality of our lives – our thought, speech and actions – may begin to change as we attune.  The universe goes on erupting despite our efforts and as our efforts, no matter what, but we do have agency.  We participate.  We have the ability to influence the universe erupting as our efforts.

So what we realize from our practice is simply that we are part of the universe’s ceaseless practice.  We realize that we are already home.  That we are practicing ceaselessly, too.

This isn’t exactly a destination, at least not in the way we’re accustomed to thinking about destinations.  The universe’s practice is completely open-ended.  And our practice must take on this open-ended quality, too.

Time and again in our practice, we must confront the idea that there is a goal, a destination, an ultimate point.  This idea can arise in many different ways, sometimes with a positive, sometimes with a negative tinge: a belief that there’s something wrong with my sitting practice, or that my practice is going really well; a belief that I’m virtuous or not virtuous; a belief that I’m not enlightened and never will be or that I’m finally realized.

However this idea arises time and time again, time and time again we must let it go.

So it’s all sort of like the line in that old folk spiritual:  “My life goes on in endless song. How can I stop from singing?”  The universe goes on universing as me no matter what.  Goes on in endless song.  So why not sing in tune?

As we let go of our gaining ideas over and over and over again (including our gaining ideas about supposedly losing), we tend to begin to manifest a positive quality of poverty of spirit.  By this I mean simply that we become more at ease with our practice and with ourselves and our lives.  We tend to increasingly practice without striving.

Another word for this quality of practice with poverty of spirit is reverence.  Simple reverence.  Reverence with a light touch.  Reverence with a sense of humor.  Reverence that is loving, but not too precious.

Reverence for the 10,000 things.  Reverence for your own life and experience.  Reverence for others’ lives and experiences.

Experiencing things this way is a cue that our personal practice is aligning with the ceaseless practice of the whole universe.

The universe, you and me practicing together.  Each breath.  Each step.  Each supernova bursting.  Each grilled cheese sandwich.  Each flower blooming.  Ceaselessly.

 

Jerusalem’s Holy Esplanade

Jeff

I was in the Middle East last week for meetings and work related to a project exploring the recent tensions regarding the Holy Esplanade (the Noble Sancturay to Muslims and the Temple Mount to Jews) and the ways in which this holy site figures into the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict and possibilities for its resolution. It was a fantastic, intense productive week, which included many related activities, like visits to the site and time spent in the Balata refugee camp in the West Bank, from which the first and second Intifadas began. The Second Intifada was sparked by Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Holy Esplanade. 

A (Zen) Valentine’s Day Reflection

Jeff

Love is the frequency of the universe.

We vibrate to it whether we know it or not.

Some people seem to oscillate (in their own ways) in that frequency without knowing it, and without needing to know it.

Some people, at some points in their lives, seem to feel out of sync.

Zen practice is one way to tune in if we feel out of sync, if we doubt.

(Deep bows to great doubt!  Doubt that softens hard hearts, helps timid hearts find courage.)

Zen practice helps us deepen that sense of synchrony and to celebrate and honor this once the feeling passes (and even if it doesn’t).

If and as we tune in . . . no separation.

Buddhahood, Enlightenment, Awakening: a quality of the universe, not something we attain.

So lovely, so reassuring, to know it, if ever we’ve doubted.

 

 

 

 

Cultivating the Empty Field

Jeff

My dear friend Kate Hartland gave a wonderful Dharma Talk at the Greater Boston Zen Center last night.  She spoke about the writing/poetry of Master Hongzhi collected in the text, Cultivating the Empty Field.  Hongzhi was first to spell out the approach to meditation we know was shikantaza, or “just sitting.”  He was a major source of inspiration for Master Dogen, founder of the Soto stream of Zen.

(Kate is a Dharma Holder in Boundless Way Zen.  You can learn more about what that means here, if you’re curious.  Part of what it means for me, practically speaking, is that I see her less often these days . . . and I miss her!  Kate and I sat together for many years as part of the former Ralph Waldo Emerson Zen Sangha (affectionately known as “Waldo,” which was the name of the dog my family had when I was a kid), and then as part of the GBZC, once we got our permanent digs in Cambridge.  A couple of years ago, Kate started, and she continues to lead, Bright Sea Zen in Weymouth.)

One of the many golden nuggets in Kate’s talk was her take on this notion of cultivation – of human agency.

Weeds will grown in an empty field, of course.  Indeed, fields full of “weeds” often look really lovely.  There truly is nothing we must become; nothing we must do.

This goes on happening, regardless.

And, yet . . .

We have this wonderful opportunity to act, to influence, and to do so intentionally.  (In fact, we leave a mark whether we act intentionally or not.)  We can plant flowers, so to speak, and so help shape the field into something it might not otherwise become.  Not something “better,” mind you, but something else to behold.  Something in which we’re participating, and know we’re participating.

Something expressing and reflecting our best intentions.

It’s so lovely when our own best intentions are sensitively and skillfully integrated or aligned with others’ best intentions.  The field becomes yet something else to behold.  Something in which you and I are participating together, and in which we know we’re participating together.

Shaping and being shaped by it.

Shaping and being shaped by one another.

That’s what Zen practice is about, really.

And that’s what work life, and home life, and all else are about – with a Zen heart.

Thank you, Kate.

 

Harvard Divinity School with the Pastor and the Imam from Nigeria

Jeff

I’ve been teaching a graduate seminar on religion and peacebuilding at Harvard Divinity School one night a month this year (as HDS’s first Lecturer on the Practice of Peace). The course is connected with the public speaker series that is part of the school’s new Religions and the Practice of Peace Initiative.

Our most recent speakers were Pastor James Wuye and Imam Muhammad Ashafa, founders of the Interfaith Mediation Center in Nigeria. They once led rival youth militias and tried to kill one another. James lost his hand in combat. Muhammad lost his teacher and two cousins. They ultimately made peace and now help others do the same.

I’m pictured here with them, and with Dean David Hampton, Professor Diana Eck (one of my teachers when I studied at HDS years ago), and Professor Darren Kew of UMass Boston (who I know from my student days, and who now focuses his academic work on Nigeria).

IMG_0813.jpg

 

Dedicating our practice

Jeff

This is an approximation of a Dharma talk I gave at the Boundless Way Temple on February 19, 2015, during our annual Coming and Going Retreat. It is the next in a series of talks I have been giving about the major elements of our liturgy.  A recording of the talk, along with many other lovely talks from the retreat, can be found here.

I went skiing with two Swedes a few weeks ago. At the end of the day, I asked them – rather innocently, I thought – “Did you have a nice time?”

One of the two, who has become a close friend over the past five years, and who now lives in the U.S., said, “It was a great day.”

Our other companion, who I’d just met, said nothing. I looked at my friend, wondering whether he’d had a bad day, despite outward appearances.

My friend explained that this is an awkward question for Swedes. Theirs is a fairly collectivist culture, and yet also a fairly competitive culture. This question puts Swedes in a bind.

On the one hand, everyone is supposed to have an equivalent experience.   That’s the ideal. On the other hand, people really don’t have precisely equivalent experiences, and people do desire to have a comparatively good experience.

My friend has known me long enough, and been immersed in U.S. culture long enough, to have felt compelled to respond to my question. Not so for the other Swede.

From this cultural frame of reference, revealing how he felt about the day – good, bad, or in-between – would have been to engage in a comparison of experiences, which is verboten.

Because we do have different experiences, and experience things differently, my skiing companions explained that this taboo often leaves Swedes feeling jealous, but not having any way to contend with that feeling. As a result, they said, it can be hard for Swedes to take joy in others’ joy.

My friend tried to explain how these cultural patterns are born of the cold and darkness that makes life up north so hard. They’re a recipe for group survival in harsh conditions.

I told them that the ideal I’m more acclimated to, at least in my little corner of the U.S., is taking joy in other’s joy, even though most of us probably practice it quite unevenly. It’s a nice idea, they agreed.

I was also thinking, of course, of one of the closing dedications for our sutra services:

Buddha nature pervades the whole universe, existing right here, now. The wind blows, waves fall on the shore, and Guanyin finds us in the dark and broken roads. We give thanks to all the ancestors of meditation in the still halls, the unknown women and men, centuries of enlightened women and men, ants and sticks and grizzly bears. Let wisdom go to every corner of the house. Let people have joy in each other’s joy.

I really appreciate our dedications. For me, they answer the “So what?” question about our practice. What is our practice about?

And I’ve always loved this particular verse.

Buddha nature pervades the whole universe, existing right here, now.

Other dedication verses also open with this reminder. I find it so interesting that this verse, which is about dedicating our practice, opens with something akin to a statement of fact; some might also say an article of faith:

We’re alive. All is alive. And all is blessed.

Notice this! Wake up!

After this or another opening reminder, other verses tend to transition into what we might think of as more clear cut dedications: to all being; to those who suffer from calamity, cruelty and war; to specific people who we know are suffering.

With this verse, we chant:

The wind blows, waves fall on the shore . . .

The alarm clock rings.

The dog scratches its neck.

An email arrives.

Buddha nature pervades the whole day.

. . . and Guanyin finds us in the dark and broken roads.

Compassion does have a way of finding us in our “dark and broken roads.” We may be particularly open to others’ helping hands and the compassion that fills the universe, including our own broken hearts, in moments when we feel lost or down. And, of course, that’s precisely the same love available, and that we may feel, in the wind blowing on our face; the surf pounding against our chest on a warm summer day; that email arriving. Whatever our current life circumstance and disposition.

We give thanks to all the ancestors of meditation in the still halls, the unknown women and men, centuries of enlightened women and men . . .

We dedicate ourselves to this practice, for all it gives us, and enables us to offer to others, with gratitude to those who have sustained it and transmitted it to us. It’s truly something to be cherished, preserved, and developed.

And we dedicate ourselves to . . .

. . . ants and sticks and grizzly bears.

Chanting and hearing this for this first time was one of the moments when I knew Zen was for me. I remember laughing out loud. I was hooked.

This is both playful and serious, of course. Matter of fact. Buddha nature pervades the whole universe, ants, sticks and bears included. The 10,000 things.

And it is our animal nature; the baser parts of our human nature. We, too, are crawling on the ground, like ants. We are dirt and sticks. We can be grumpy and brutish, like bears. We dedicate ourselves to these parts of ourselves, too. We’d might as well face them. We’re enmeshed in it all. We’re in the stew.

Let wisdom go to every corner of the house.

I hear this less as an expansionist, missionary aspiration, than as yet another reminder of what’s here already. This practice is so much about just noticing, I find; about letting be; about getting out of the way – or, rather, coming to know in our bones that we are part of this, and this is the way.

Let people have joy in each other’s joy.

Can there be any doubt that we’d all be happier if we could learn to practice this collectively and consistently? This is the pithiest little ethical mandate I know.

And, like the phrase before it, I think it’s as much descriptive as it is prescriptive. People taking joy in others’ joy. This is the way. The motion and frequency of the universe, to which we can tune in and with which we’re invited to cooperate.

Such a simple principle.

Yet, it’s the work of a lifetime, it seems.

And of generations, across cultures.

The Five Remembrances

Jeff

This is an approximation of a Dharma talk I gave on April 30, 2014, at the Greater Boston Zen Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

 

 

I am of the nature to grow old;

There is no way to escape growing old.

I am of the nature to have ill health;

There is no way to escape having ill health.

I am of the nature to die;

There is no way to escape death.

All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature of change;

There is no way to escape being separated from them.

My deeds are my closest companions;

I am the beneficiary of my deeds;

My deeds are the ground on which I stand.

 

— The Five Remembrances

 

 

Tonight I’ll continue exploring features of our liturgy by talking about The Five Remembrances.

 

This short verse from the Pali Canon is as spare, and non-metaphysical, and direct – even “in your face” — as anything one encounters in religion. It tells it like it is, and does so succinctly.

 

It doesn’t make any speculative truth claims.

 

It doesn’t draw lines between chosen and un-chosen, saved and un-saved.

 

It doesn’t make any promises.

 

It doesn’t idealize.

 

At first blush, this verse may not seem to offer any comfort in light of the stark realities of this life that it describes – and, let’s be clear: comfort is what we seek.

 

This verse spoke to me deeply the first time I heard it, and it continues to speak to me deeply today. For me, personally, it is our most important text; at the core of what we do, and of what Buddhism is as a religion.

 

If we want to live fully and skillfully, we must eventually see and accept things as they are. Buddhism offers so much to help us live fully and skillfully, but accepting the inescapable facts of this-worldly life is an essential part of the equation. It is the essential part, really. Unskippable.

 

We won’t live as fully and skillfully as we can unless and until these seeming barriers become gates for us.

 

And this acceptance must occur moment after moment after moment. Much of our default programming points us in another direction.

 

The Five Remembrances are aptly named. Many of us need to be reminded constantly of these facts of life, either because we try to avoid them, or because we anxiously obsess about them and need to meet them in a new way.

 

Life manifests as change everywhere and always. It can’t help but do otherwise. This is obvious enough.

 

It’s the balanced accepting part that’s hard for us; so often, some form of avoiding becomes our refuge. Repeating The Five Remembrances each time we gather makes it harder and harder to hide. More and more evident that our efforts to escape are futile, and counter-productive.

 

The first four of The Five Rembrances remind us that we are “of the nature of change,” offering us no escape from that fact:

 

  • We grow old, if we’re lucky.

 

  • We become ill along the way. Some of us are born with serious ailments, and spend our whole lives coping with them.

 

  • Ultimately, we die.

 

  • Those we love are “of this nature,” as well. No one, nothing, is immune. Partings are unavoidable.

 

Do any of us really doubt this?

 

But do we really accept it – and not just casually and conceptually?

 

So much psychic and physical energy is exerted, so much social, political and economic activity is generated, to try to evade these inescapable realities.

 

That’s not all bad, of course. Quietism and defeatism aren’t noble responses to the facts of existence. By all means, let’s cure diseases. Extend life, if we can make the time worth living. Our urge to avoid old age, sickness and death propels much valuable social, political and technological effort and innovation.

 

And it also breeds much avoidable anxiety, conflict, misuse of resources, and misdirected energy and missed opportunity. So many forms of escapism – substance abuse, consumerism, and the like all can be that.

 

As we truly accept the basic facts of our existence, we tend to cherish life more. Live and love more fully and intimately.

 

The final remembrance is equal parts prescription and description. In this realm of constant change, the only solid ground – indeed, our very being, is what we do (and say) right here, right now.

 

Our actions and speech are rubber and road, and here-now is where they meet.

 

This is it, so far as we know and seemingly can know. This is conditioned by our own and others’ deeds in past moments. This is conditioning future moments, just as past moments have conditioned the present.

 

Each of us is the beneficiary of our deeds in this moment. We lie in the beds we make, so we should make our beds with care.

 

The present is our opportunity to shape the future. What preceded this moment conditions the present, but now is our opportunity to address what we’ve left undone in the past, or know we’ve done poorly.

 

Meditation and our other practices may tend to increase our capacity to conduct ourselves skillfully, to show up as the precepts encourage us to show up. If and as we do, that can have ripple effects, seen and unseen.

 

This past weekend I was home alone organizing things in our basement – creating a craft table area for the kids, an exercise space for my wife and me, a storage area. My family came home, and our eight-year old son made a big fuss about how I was encroaching on his indoor soccer space.

 

I had little patience for this at the moment. I told him to calm down. He didn’t, so I told him to go upstairs and leave me alone. I had a project to finish, and I couldn’t deal with the whining. He went upstairs in a huff.

 

Not skillful.

 

I got my bearings, went upstairs, and asked him if he’d come back down to help me make decisions about the layout of the space, including an area for him to play with his soccer ball.

 

We talked it through, and came up with a sensible plan that satisfied everyone. He was great. So cooperative when I was truly listening to him and demonstrating concern for his concerns.

 

Such a small moment, but such a chance to strengthen a bond and to model behavior that I hope will help my son resolve conflict constructively with others.

 

I don’t want to idealize about this mundane encounter, make predictions from it or make other big claims based upon it. I can’t.

 

But I will say that the tension, and my initial response to it, were a gate, not a barrier. Past conduct conditions the present, but the main thing that imposes constraints in the present is our narratives about the past, and what’s possible now.

 

We don’t get a chance to rewrite past moments. They stand.

 

We do have the opportunity to meet this moment in an intentional way.

 

The Five Remembrances may strike us as bad news initially, but they’re really the good news. Embracing these facts of our existence, not raging against them, is liberation.

 

The good news is that everything is of the nature of change.

 

As a witty theist once said, God created time so everything wouldn’t happen all at once.

 

And, as the Germans say, machs gute. Let’s make it good.

 

The Sound of the Bell

Jeff

 

This is an approximation of a Dharma talk I gave on March 25, 2014, at the Greater Boston Zen Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

 

 

[Ring Inkan bell, which sounds something like this: ding.]

 

I recently committed to giving four talks – five, if we count the one each BoWZ teacher gave at the Temple during the Ango – in March and April. I have three to go, and this seemed like an opportunity to organize several talks around a theme. I’ve spoken before about features of our liturgy, and I’d like to use these next few talks to touch on aspects of our liturgical forms that I’ve wanted to speak about for some time.

 

[Ring Inkan]

 

Our liturgy practice begins with this bell, one of several we hear throughout the service.

 

It could end here, too.

 

In fact, it does begin and end here.

 

[Ring Inkan]

 

Here’s a koan from the Miscellaneous Koan set in our Harada/Yasutani koan curriculum:

 

Stop the sound of that distant temple bell.

 

[Ring Inkan]

 

From The Gateless Gate koan collection:

 

Yunmen said, “See how vast and wide the world is! Why do you put on your seven-piece robe at the sound of the bell?”

 

[Ring Inkan]

 

A koan from the Book of Serenity:

 

Yakusan had not ascended the rostrum for a long time.

The steward said, “All the assembly has been wishing for instruction for a long time. Please, Master, give your assembly a sermon.”

 

Yakusan had the bell rung. The assembly gathered. Yakusan ascended the rostrum and sat there for a while. Then he descended and returned to his room.

 

The temple steward followed him and asked, “You said a while ago that you would give the assembly a sermon. Why didn’t you speak even a word?” Yakusan said, “For sutras, there are sutra specialists; for sastras, there are sastra specialists. Why do you have doubts about this old monk?”

 

[Rink Inkan]

 

I’ll end this little carol of bells with a poem by the famous British Jesuit, Gerard Manley Hopkins, that I’ve always loved:

 

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;

As tumbled over rim in roundy wells

Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s

Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:

Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;

Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,

Crying What I do is me: for that I came.

 

I say more: the just man justices;

Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;

Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is —

Christ — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

 

[Ring Inkan]

 

This bell with which we begin our service – and each bow, each tone chanted, each drumbeat, each waft of incense, and each breath and footstep that follows – presents itself.

 

We present ourselves.

 

All presenting together.

 

Now. And now. And now.

 

And so our liturgy begins.

 

And ends.

 

And so we carry on.

 

Right here, now.

 

Remembering Mandela

Jeff

I never met Nelson Mandela, which I regret, because that probably would have been possible even just a few years ago. Mandela was one of the five Nobel Peace Laureates who gave the Peace Appeal Foundation its original mandate. That was late-1999/early-2000.

I became involved in late-2000, when Hannes Siebert, who served in the South African Peace Secretariat under Mandela, and was the driving force behind formation of the Peace Appeal, walked into our office at Groove Networks to request help tuning the product to his needs as the new external advisor to stakeholders in the peace process in Sri Lanka. After we sold Groove to Microsoft in 2005, I joined the Peace Appeal’s board.

We could have traveled to South Africa years earlier, when Mandela was in better health. It wasn’t possible to see him when we were there this March. He was too frail.

The Peace Appeal Foundation is a small part of Mandela’s legacy. He has certainly touched and influenced my life by helping launch it. I have heard Hannes say that he has devoted his life to Mandela and his legacy by committing himself completely to conflict resolution work (at considerable personal cost, in his case, I would add).

We sent a reflection on Mandela’s life to our supporters via email (copied below) and devoted our homepage to him.

The Power of Forgiveness:
Reflections on the Life and Legacy of Nelson Mandela

By Shirley Moulder and Derek Brown

A generation from now when parents, teachers, politicians and others seek to describe moral courage and distinguished leadership, there will be one person from their lifetimes whose name will rise to their lips: Nelson Mandela. There are very few true global heroes; Mandela was one.

Though millions across the globe have been awed and inspired by a man who chose reconciliation over revenge, moral leadership over personal gain, and justice over tyranny, Mandela was first and foremost a South African, whose dedication to his country has only been matched by his countrymen’s reverence and dedication to him.

In 1990, upon his release after 27 years of imprisonment, Mandela gave a speech in Cape Town demonstrating the qualities that would cement his reputation. He concluded his speech with the same words which he spoke at his own trial in 1964:

“I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

Mandela thankfully lived, leading his country in one of the 20th century’s most profound political transformations. In the process he has become an icon to much of the world for his statesmanship, his dignity, his tolerance and ability to forgive, and his commitment to non-violent political change.

His status as a global hero is all the more remarkable in our media obsessed age, where leaders are subject to intense scrutiny of their personal lives, not just their political careers. No statesman or woman today has enjoyed the near uniformity of approval which was bestowed on Mandela.

Despite this seemingly heavy burden of respect, Mandela wore the label of hero lightly. He took the limelight when it was necessary, but was happiest when stepping back to let others take the lead. He often described himself as just “a country boy.” Those who worked with him spoke of his ability to identify what was needed and to pursue it with single minded determination. In his post-presidential years, he was a tireless advocate for children’s education, devoting much of his time to raising funds for new schools and education programs throughout South Africa and the world.

The most important legacy of Nelson Mandela, in his life as well as in his death, may well be his remarkable ability to bring parties of all persuasions together, ultimately transcending the deepest divisions, suspicions and even hatred – a skill which only grows in importance in our world.

His cohort of political activists, many of whom were defendants with him at the time of the Rivonia Trial in 1964, represented a multi-racial, multi-ethnic and multi-religious panoply of South Africa; black, white, Asian, Xhosa, Zulu, Jewish, Muslim, Christian. Following his release from jail, this cohort was transformed into a remarkable coalition that included representatives of the government which imprisoned him – a coalition that brought a post-apartheid, democratic South Africa into being.

Mandela’s ability to work across political divides in South Africa would have warranted him a special place in history by itself. Yet it was his extraordinary ability to inspire and connect with people that vaulted him into the rarest pantheon of global statesmen and women. One of his many acts of political genius and moral leadership was portrayed in the movie “Invictus.” When racial divisions still threatened the dream of a united South Africa, Mandela donned the captain’s jersey of the South Africa’s newly minted world champion Springboks rugby team, and walked onto the field post-game – amidst thousands of white fans, many waving the nationalist flag of 1928 – to present the trophy to the team. With this simple act, he managed to win over millions of skeptical white South Africans to the cause of a new, multi-racial and democratic South Africa.

Even in these past months of his declining health, he brought unity amid diversity in his nation. Across South Africa, from the Johannesburg to Mandela’s ancestral home community of Qunu in the Eastern Cape, people have publicly honored the man many call “Madiba” (his ancestral clan name), or simply “Tata” or father. In the all-white Afrikaner community of Orania in South Africa’s Northern Cape province (home until her death of Betsie Verwoed, widow the former Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoed who was architect of the apartheid system), the community began praying for Mandela daily this past summer.

The collective reverence that has gripped most of South Africa these past months, and indeed much of the world, comes at a time when tremendous political divisions threaten to divide the country. (Less than 12 months ago, the cover of the Economist magazine featured South Africa with the cautionary heading “Cry, the beloved country” raising questions about South Africa’s political and economic leadership). These challenges serve as a reminder that the South African national journey will be an ongoing project as it seeks to fulfill the vision that Mandela so tirelessly pursued.

The highest honor we can pay this extraordinary man, whether we are citizens of South Africa, the United States or elsewhere in our world, is to renew a commitment to his vision of democratic and free societies in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. Let Mandela’s dream live on.

The authors, based in Johannesburg and Charlottesville, Virginia, are board members of the Peace Appeal Foundation, founded in 1999 with the support of five Nobel Peace Laureates, including Nelson Mandela,
F.W. de Klerk and Desmond Tutu.

Don’t Separate from this Skin-Bag Here and Now

Jeff

This is an approximation of a Dharma talk I gave last night at the Greater Boston Zen Center.

 

These are the final lines of Shitou Xiqian’s lovely poem, Song of the Grass-Roof Hermitage, which is sometimes part of our liturgy:

 

If you want to know the undying person in the hut,

don’t separate from this skin-bag here and now.

 

Many of us come to Zen practice with this nagging sense that there must be more to life than this.  There must be more to me than this.

 

There’s something missing.

 

And so we go looking for it.  The undying person in the hut.

 

“Dukkha,” the key word in the first of the Buddha’s four noble truths, is typically translated into English as “suffering.”

 

But it’s apparently a richly nuanced word in Pali, and the physical suffering caused by hunger or a broken bone doesn’t capture its full meaning.

 

It includes this sense of uneasiness about who we are and about this life we’re living.

 

Somehow this isn’t the real deal, the whole story, we feel.

 

It seems quite significant to me that Siddhartha Gautama chose to call attention to the fact that we have this sense of something being amiss as the first point in his first public, spoken sermon.

 

That the first thing he wants to say to us is that we should take note of and investigate this sense of uneasiness.

 

This sense of absence is so present for many of us.  It drives so much of our thought, speech and action.

 

And yet many of us never truly get close to it, get to know it.  We push it away, and so it pushes us around.

 

It seems the human heart and psyche, like nature, abhor a vacuum, real or perceived.

 

So we try to fill the vacuum.

 

Taking up the Zen path can be great way to begin to get up close and personal with this uneasiness.

 

And we also may use it to fill the vacuum for a while.

 

Much earnest practice.

 

Much reading.

 

Much speculation.

 

All with a goal in mind.

 

Much searching for a way out of our discomfort, a way into an imagined better state.

 

Like the historical Buddha before him, Shitou Xiqian is telling us in his lovely poem that this sense of something amiss might itself be a fertile place to begin to look for that which fills the void we perceive.

 

The undying person we seek is no other than this skin-bag that’s looking for the undying person.

 

The skin-bag having this experience of something missing is the path, Shitou tells us, and here and now is the entry point, the trailhead.

 

He tells us not to separate from this skin-bag, which obviously implies that this is what we’re often trying to do.

 

This practice ultimately is about inhabiting this skin-bag.

 

Becoming at home in our own skin.

 

This includes our greed, anger and ignorance.  Getting to know them; seeing how they arise for us.

 

Our aversions.

 

Our anxieties.

 

Our rough edges.

 

Even the really uncomfortable stuff.

 

Biases we discern in our thoughts, words, and actions.

 

The things we’ve said or done in the past that we just know have royally and irreversibly screwed up our lives.

 

Our bodily characteristics, and limitations.  Let’s not neglect the fact that this skin-bag is a body.

 

All the stuff we try to separate from.

 

All of it, opportunities.

 

Invitations.

 

Dharma gates.

 

Opportunities for growth, perhaps.

 

Invitations to work compassionately to right a wrong, perhaps.

 

Gates into new territory; the sense of absence a gate into a deepened sense of presence, perhaps.

 

I have long been haunted and inspired and called by a line at the end of another favorite poem, this one by the romantic poet Rainer Maria Rilke.  You can take or leave the theistic perspective.

 

Rilke’s poem ends:

 

For the god wants to know himself in you.

 

What if it’s true?

 

What if what you’re experiencing right now, and this week, and in this life, truly is god’s gift to the world, so to speak, and the world’s gift to you?

 

Not in some grandiose sense, but in the sense that your life is just as it should be – which is to say, the only way it can be, which is just as it actually is right now.

 

That feeling of absence a part of it, and a prompt, perhaps, an invitation.

 

What if the universe really does want to know itself in you?

 

Will you let it?

 

How might we meet this moment from that orientation?

 

How might we meet others as the universe wanting to know itself in them, too?