A Single Thread.net

The Power of Just Do It

All the utensils of the monastery and in fact everything that belongs to the monastery should be cared for as though they were the sacred vessels of the altar.                         

Many years ago, I worked for a manufacturing company and taught Lean 6-Sigma.  The aim of Lean 6-Sigma was to get rank and file employees to think differently about their day-to-day work.  The company hoped this training would improve efficiency, productivity and ultimately profits. The company wanted results.

Basically this Lean 6-Sigma is a method for sorting, cleaning, and organizing stuff. It was an attempt  to teach employees to take care of their workplace (monastery).  The program had limited success.  One of the limitations was that it required people to change for the benefit of the company which did not translate easily as a benefit for the employee. On the contrary, it cost the employee since it required a great deal more work.

Benedict asks his monks to care for the utensils in the monastery as if they were the sacred vessels of the altar.  In essence telling them to care for the stuff of the monastery as if they were the utensils that had actually held God…patens and chalices.  This seems to be a powerful motivator for care. Or is it? Is it the same as our earlier quote on humility and obedience for Christ? We don’t do things even for or in the name of God.

As a trainer, I couldn’t use Benedict’s motivator. I was too timid to explain what I really thought was the true motivation.  For as long as I can remember I’ve had a mantra for actions I take…do it, because it matters.  What I mean is to do whatever I do with my whole heart and not because of someone else’s expectations.  Doing something with a whole heart means not to judge the results.  It requires a removal of the doer (me) who often wants to take action for something, for some goal or reason. To take care of things as sacred is an empty willingness (no will for me) to do the next thing. No will is without a for your good. There is no judgment for or against.

Now, this rests on knowing that everything matters knowing everything is of the unborn, undying nature.  Cleaning up the clutter on my desk, organizing and prioritizing work, recycling paper, filing instead of piling.  All these things matter not because a company thinks it will make me more efficient or productive or because Benedict says so. Things matter because the vast inconceivable source that can’t be faced or turned away from is right here, right now. But getting here to this very high level requires practice. We may first need to unify the mind. We do that through concentration,  a power of the mind.

A concentration practice involves interaction with the things of our lives.  I am hand sewing a quilt.  I see it as a concentration practice.  When I started I thought that what I needed to concentrate on was the sewing.  I’ve learned that the concentration needs to extend far beyond the sewing.  Measuring and cutting cloth needs concentration.  Setting up all my work tools requires concentration.  Keeping track of pins and needles needs concentrated effort.  Putting things away after working requires concentration. It is a steady power, a strong stream of concentration, unbroken.

Concentration settles the mind.  When we experience a settled mind we are free of judgment, blame, fear and worry.  In concentration we open and like that sweet St. Kevin we are alone mirror’d clear in love’s deep river. Where we can take care of stuff and not seek reward.

A Single Thread is not a blog. If for some reason you need elucidation on the teaching, please contact the editor at: yao.xiang.editor@gmail.com

 

Inspired by the Open Truth of the Sky

 

As to pursuing our own will we are warned against that when scripture says to us:  Turn away from your desires; and in the Lord’s Prayer itself we pray that his will may be brought to fulfillment in us.

At the Adult Enrichment Group meeting several Sundays ago at St. Nicks Catholic Church, I found myself immersed in a compelling inter-faith dialogue.  Buddhists and Catholics gathered to listen to each other and test our understandings of faith in light of the views of those from another tradition.

It was a powerful experience for me, both the respect I felt from my Catholic peers, and the rigor of the debate between us. Though our discussion was over before real differences could be deeply probed, those differences were not insignificant. I felt inspired to be a rigorous student of the Way, to be constantly honing my knowledge and understanding, not resting on easy assumptions about Buddhism, so that in conversation with others I could accurately represent the heart of the Buddha’s teachings to those who are open and listening, as were the participants that day.  It felt important to do this, not only for my own edification, but so that this thing we call God, this thing we circle and circle, trying to find our way to, could be better known by all of us.

So, I left St. Nick’s that day with a better sense of some of Buddhism’s differences with Christianity, but also inspired by the deep and real similarities in our traditions, despite differences of language, tone, history, culture.  I have felt that same feeling throughout this process of reading and reflecting upon Benedict’s Rule.  That it calls me constantly to reach more deeply inside myself to find words that pierce MY heart, whichever tradition they may arise from. I am called by this process not to rest in my desires for easy solutions, for quick dismissals of another’s tradition, in fact, not to reject in any way this other facet of spiritual life called Christianity.  I am called to keep my heart open not to my will, or to my most visceral responses to differences, but to Truth.

I was raised a Lutheran but my faith, tested in adolescence, did not hold.  I rejected Christianity, I rejected God for many years.  In my youthful arrogance, I divided the world into right and wrong….and…. the church was wrong.  But more centrally, there was little in the church’s teachings that I felt faithful toward.  My heart was not in it.

Because Buddhism was, to my beginner’s mind, very much NOT like Christianity, I could open to these teachings and put my resistance toward religion aside.  As my love for the Buddha grew, and I would have moments of sudden insight into the heart of the teachings, I would be brought back to the words of liturgy or hymns I sang or chanted on Sundays at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church.  It was with surprise and joy that I welcomed these bits of my Christian past back into my consciousness.  Who knew THAT was still in me?!

And yet…….and yet, the use of the word “God” coming from my teacher, this I choked on.  I wanted to keep God out of MY spiritual life.   It was best to stay wrapped in Buddhist teachings, holding the dharma close, keeping the rest of religion at bay.  It felt clearer, it had more integrity in my mind, to remain in the purity of THIS way.

What I could not dismiss was the notion put forward by my teacher that all religions were speaking, ultimately, of the same thing.  This I could neither accept or reject, as I had no experience at all of that which she described.  Then this, too, changed.  A veil was lifted from my eyes, and I entered a circle of bright light where differing notions of the Way have no purchase.  I felt divinity itself moving through me, and the possibility of surrender to Absolute truth began to live as a possibility in my heart.

Looking back over the 50 years that have led me to the life of a monk, I now realize that I was never far from That which has guided me here.  I was unable to open to this guidance for all those years.  My drive, ambition and pride stood in for the Divine as my compass.  It has only been as a result of turning away from ego-based desires, often with great trepidation, and only because I felt my teacher at my side, that I was shown the way to go home, where my heart has so long yearned to go.

It is with deep gratitude that I have entered into this process of studying Benedict’s Rule and coming to know it through the lens of Buddhist interpretations.  I appreciate the imperative to honor Benedict’s wisdom while also leaving room for the possibility that I may not agree.  It requires a rigorous commitment to truth, to appreciate the meanings I hear in the Benedictine tradition, whose language and culture are not my own, and to let them into my heart anyway.  To respect them as if St. Benedict himself were sitting just behind me, paper cup of coffee in hand, at the Sunday morning meeting of St. Nick’s Adult Enrichment Group.

And for us to remember that the Buddha is sitting in the room, robes tightly wrapped around him (he isn’t used to February’s chill) and that he is smiling at Benedict, across the heads of people deeply engaged in serious debate, many hearts yearning to see Truth, opening to love in true humility.

Author: Getsu San Ku Shin

A Single Thread is not a blog. If for some reason you need elucidation on the teaching, please contact the editor at: yao.xiang.editor@gmail.com

 

 

Stop!

“In a monastery we ought to follow the advice of the psalm which says: I have resolved to keep watch over my ways so that I may not sin with my tongue.  I am guarded about the way I speak and have accepted silence in humility, refraining even from words that are good.”

I wrote the essay for this week and finished it before it was even due.  I sent it off to my teacher knowing it would come back with comments and suggestions of areas that need attention.  I would have plenty of time to add or subtract or elucidate. It was an OK essay.  My teacher even said it was “a fine teaching”.  All right, I thought.  I can follow up on suggestions made.  Then I reread her response.  I had missed the first sentence. It read, I “would like you to rewrite it.”  I didn’t say what came to my mind for, as the Psalm says, “I have resolved to keep watch over my ways so that I may not sin with my tongue.”  Then I laughed.  Then I felt frustrated and mad.  “Get real,” she wrote.  I thought I WAS real.  What’s real? I thought.  Am I that out of touch with myself?

Writing these essays is tough, I tell myself.  One a week!  I go through my litany of protestations.  Anxiety arises.   I talk some more.  What if nothing will come?  What if I won’t be able to express myself well?  Where is my focus?  Why is getting my thoughts together like herding cats?  Why am I not able to understand what my teacher is asking? I’m just don’t seem to be able to get it right! I wish I had more of a well ordered left brain, a 1, 2, 3 brain!  Why can’t I get it right!

Then I said,

STOP!

At that moment I received a phone call.  Jo, one of our residents died.  Her Procession of Honor would be at 8:30 this morning.  I came to my senses.  Really! What does anything matter?  What does getting something RIGHT matter? What does having an excellent essay matter?  What Jo has just done matters.  That’s what’s real.  Everything else is a blip.

We sang Jo out in company with her husband, nine kids and a crowd of residents.  Sang her out the door on “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”.

And the sweet chariot carrying what wasn’t Jo, slowly drove away.

….who never stops talking cannot avoid falling into a pit”.

That line is further down on the page of today’s quote.   It reads ‘sin’ but I changed ‘sin’ to ‘pit’ for ‘pit’ feels more like what I get into with my self talk.  The image works better.  It’s a dark place inside, a place of doubt and fear.  It’s full of the self that I look to for answers and find none.  Self talk throws me into my pit because I believe it.

Except when someone like Jo comes along and says look up.

My teacher once said, “Stop a word with a word.”  I think the word is STOP.

Author: Ho Getsu Sen Gen

A Single Thread is not a blog. If for some reason you need elucidation on the teaching, please contact the editor at: yao.xiang.editor@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Practice of Silence

In a monastery we ought to follow the advice of the psalm which says:  I have resolved to keep watch over my ways so I may not sin with my tongue.  I am guarded about the ways I speak and have accepted silence in humility, refraining even from words that are good.

“The Good Place” is a Netflix comedy that takes a hilarious look at the afterlife designed for “good people.”  It’s cast of funny characters includes a silent Buddhist monk who never says a word.  Though this is exaggeration for the sake of a laugh, it reflects a truism about Buddhism: Silence is the name of this game.

Buddhists, however, do not aspire to be zombies.  A spiritual practice of silence is not about shutting down.  As Benedict suggests, and Buddhists also practice, silence has spiritual value on two levels.  As we refrain from sinning with our tongues, our minds and hearts are freed to deepen our connection to the greatest, word-less truths.

Buddhist practice begins as a practice of silence within the stillness of meditation, full minutes of silence and stillness, slowly strung together into longer stretches.  Eventually one enters the meditation retreat experience of several full days of silence, including no eye contact, no speaking to other retreatants, no conversation at meal-time, no contact with anyone outside the retreat.  It was excruciating to not extend even a word of greeting to others in passing, to share a meal with others and not converse, to not discuss the wonder of all that I was experiencing in my practice with family and friends. Silence was a much more difficult practice than hours of sitting on a hard cushion in a drafty zendo.

Speech is a medium through which we experience being part of a group.  The call and response we have with each other is like bird song, giving others of our species clues about who we are and how we are, projecting our identities into the larger world.  It can be difficult to see birds in the wild, easiest to know them through hearing their songs.  This too is rather like people. Our true selves are hidden, only our noisy facades are identifiable.

Eventually I could see that as I discussed my practice with others, I was bragging, thrusting an identity out into the world.  Eventually I saw that my tendency to compulsively connect with friends and family often reflected thinly veiled neediness that I look to others to assuage.  I felt the anguish of letting loose with heated words, flung like arrows, meant to hurt.

Such failures are a necessary condition in this process of spiritual growth.  In failing to remain silent, I show myself to myself.  I squarely face my craving for control, one-up-ness, esteem, a lessening of the anxiety that I will be a lone bird, calling in vain for others of the species.

The fear and anger that drives so much of my speech began to lessen as I could feel my truest connection, the only relationship that I will follow into eternity.  This love is not for the other birds, with whom my relationships will always be transient.  As I don’t speak, I find I can turn my heart toward the undying, unchanging Source that lies beyond the human community we presently inhabit (but not for long).  Growing in my love of the Source, I let go of needing others to affirm me.  I find I feel deeper love for everyone and everything, and am driven less by needing something for myself.

By refraining even from words that are good we grow our ability to lean into and trust silence and stillness over thoughts and feelings generated by craving.  Receptivity takes the place of assertiveness; an agitated mind is replaced with an open heart.  We fly high above the tree tops, singing to all of our true colors.

Author: Getsu San Ku Shin

A Single Thread is not a blog. If for some reason you need elucidation on the teaching, please contact the editor at: yao.xiang.editor@gmail.com

 

Cherishing Silence

In a monastery we ought to follow the advice of the psalm which says: I have resolved to keep watch over my ways so that I may not sin with my tongue. I am guarded about the way I speak and have accepted silence in humility, refraining from even words that are good.

 Benedict adds, “it is written in scripture that one who never stops talking cannot avoid falling into sin.” I hold a similar view. When I feel the desire to talk, which is often, I usually want something for my small self. I wish to appear in some way that satisfies the needs of my ego. This is the case even when the words are “good” as Benedict says. When I talk less, when I move towards silence, it helps me restrain my desire to be seen as this or that.  Sister Wendy Beckett says less talk creates more opportunity to focus on one’s personal truth.  She adds,

“Truth is what you’re meant to be, but haven’t yet become…. what God meant you to be, all of your qualities fulfilled, no dead sections that you are afraid to work with within you, no areas of negligence that you just didn’t bother to take seriously.”

I meditate in silence each morning and observe silence at other times. The silent periods help me turn from the distractions of everyday life.  When in silence, I can observe and reflect upon what arises, my reactions, and my desires for the small self. More awareness helps me in my effort to be faithful to the precepts.

I live in a monastic householder setting. I practice in my home with another monk in training, and where I share in the tasks of running a household. It can be difficult to maintain my attention.

These are some things I do to help with that.

First, I try to pay attention to just what is in front of me.  When I do, I am less distracted by what swirls around me. When I lose my attention, I drift. It helps me refocus if I stop and chant. A favorite is “Little thoughts, subtle thoughts, when followed, stir up the heart.”

I practice to restrain myself from offering opinions. This is very difficult for me. The opinions I offer are based on my likes, dislikes and judgments. I offer them from the belief that I know. When I throw them around, the precepts vanish. I am calmer and less distracted when I speak less about what I think I know.

I look at art in silence. I sit with one or two paintings at a time.  Sister Wendy Beckett advises “to let the work speak without setting up preconditions, without defending the fragility of your ego, because works of art can teach us things about ourselves we would rather not know.”

The practice helps me focus my attention on what matters.

I write. I work with whatever I have written to strip away what is untrue, misleading or my own projection.  I once wrote a poem based on a photo of indigenous women who had suffered torture and rape. The image showed them sitting in a court room, heads covered, confronting their perpetrators. After a rewrite, my teacher would remind me to stop projecting onto the photo, see what was actually there, and write about it. Wonderful training that I do in silence.

Finally, I train to avoid chit chat. I need to train because it is a strong tendency of mine. It leads me to gossip and this brings in my prejudices. Even so-called “good” chit chat distracts me. My friend recently used the word “passive” in describing Buddhism. I bristled, but said nothing. It irritated me for several days. Reflecting upon it, I realized that I regarded “passive” to be bad, even though it is neither good nor bad. Chit chat distracts and wastes precious time.

Author: Zhong Fen li Bao yu Di

A Single Thread is not a blog. If for some reason you need elucidation on the teaching, please contact the editor at: yao.xiang.editor@gmail.com

 

 

 

Advice for Silence

In a monastery we ought to follow the advice of the psalm which says: I have resolved to keep watch over my ways so I may not sin with my tongue.  I am guarded about the ways I speak and have accepted silence in humility, refraining even from words that are good.

 

Several years ago I attended a several day silent Zen retreat.  On the drive back home, I commented to the people in the car that I thought it had been a particularly noisy retreat with lots of talking.  The people in the car disagreed saying that they felt it was a particularly silent retreat.

Needless to say, these comments left me puzzled.  Not wanting to argue, I started looking at why I thought the retreat was so noisy.  If what the people in the car observed about the retreat was accurate, what was I hearing?  Where was the talking, I kept hearing, coming from?  It took quite awhile and a fair amount of concentrated effort for me to finally understand that the talking I heard at the retreat was in my own head.  The talking, I thought I was hearing, was in my head.  My thoughts were making so much noise I believed it was other people.

A basic Buddhist teaching is:  To study the Buddha way is to study the self.  If it hadn’t been for the quiet, silent setting of a retreat, I wouldn’t have even noticed my thoughts.  My realization about my noisy thoughts opened a way for me to study myself.

I’ve always seen myself as a quiet person.  I was comfortable with long stretches of silence.  I once drove from Maine to Colorado and back in a car with no radio.  I now see that this image of myself tricked me.  I may in fact be a quiet person, but the continual roar of thought meant I really wasn’t in silence.  I was still in the midst of the noise of the world. I mistook not talking with knowing myself.  It wasn’t enough to just be aware of all the thoughts that continually circulated in my mind I wanted to learn more about the self that needed all the thoughts

One meditation instruction is to see your thoughts come and go like soap bubbles.  Let them just float through your mind.  Just see your thoughts and don’t grab them.  Let them just float in and out.  This instruction doesn’t work for me.  My thoughts don’t come as individual thoughts.  They are moving rivers, whole novels, intricate plans, a narrative that never turns off.

In Chapter Six, Benedict encourages us to guard the way you speak.  This is how one begins to learn to cherish silence.  What I’ve learned about myself is that before I can guard my speech, I need to guard the way I think.  There are two practices that I have learned and that I continually work with. The first is a practice of memorization.  I memorize Buddhist chants.  When I notice my thoughts trying to take over, I mentally substitute my racing thoughts or anxious thoughts or planning thoughts or fixing thoughts or remembering thoughts or should-have-done thoughts with a chant.  I do this over and over throughout the day.  When I am able to do this substitution I become aware that I am not my thoughts.

The second practice is concentration.  I have learned that I need time in a day to do concentrated work.  I’d like to say I can concentrate on any task, but I’m not that practiced.  Right now I am hand sewing a queen-size patchwork quilt.  I try to work on it a couple of hours each day.  When I make the effort to engage in this concentrated activity, I can feel my mind settling.  This settling isn’t immediate.  It takes time to get settled into the rhythm of sewing.  And for me when I am in the rhythm of the sewing the thoughts slow down and I can focus on the needle going into the cloth and coming out again, over and over.  This practice of concentration carries over into the rest of my day.  Over and over again I notice that I am not my thoughts.

To study the Buddha way is to study the self.  To study the self is to forget the self.  When my mind is quiet I can begin to find…the vast inconceivable self that can’t be faced or turned away from…the silent source that is clear and bright…and that in each moments thought a lotus flower blooms and each lotus flower contains a Buddha.

A Single Thread is not a blog. If for some reason you need elucidation on the teaching, please contact the editor at: yao.xiang.editor@gmail.com

 

 

Monastic Obedience

 

The first step on the way to humility is to obey an order without delaying for a moment.  That is a response which comes easily to those who hold nothing dearer than Christ himself.”

 

Forty five years ago I visited with Gerry, a young gifted sculptor.  His mentor was an internationally known older artist who was very challenging to work with.  I asked Gerry if it was difficult to work with this man. He said he didn’t care how hard it was.  He just wanted to learn all he could learn.

Joseph Goldstein writes something similar in Benedict’s Dharma.  He speaks of his teacher who required his students to largely surrender to his style and instructions.  The teacher saw that his role was to help awaken the student and he had no interest in debating or pleasing the student.  Joseph told himself, “I’m not here to argue, I’m here to learn.”

Both these students listened and obeyed an inner pull and entrusted themselves to a guiding teacher.  It was not a mindless submission to another but a conscious choice to listen and to receive from someone who was wise.  They exemplify what I strive to be about in my training.

When I entrust myself to my teacher I leave the comfortable and familiar and take a leap into the unknown and the unknown is in my very self. I never know how I am going to be brought face to face with my ego. The teacher points out the obstacles that trip me up. It may be a word that is hard to hear.  But something changes in me as I open myself to my teacher’s instruction and wisdom.  It is as if she holds open the door and steps aside and if I dare to walk through that door I will find the Divine.

Today I encountered her unexpectedly.  During this Lent as part of my training I have committed myself to study, meditation and writing. I say no to just about every thing else and am living pretty close to being a hermit.  This morning I received an invitation to be part of an enterprise that very much interests me. I felt torn because I really wanted to say yes to this work but was conscious of my Lenten commitment.  I happened to pick up a book and a scrap of paper fell out. Its message was written years ago by my teacher during some retreat or other.  I don’t remember when or where.  The note said, “Don’t let work overshadow sitting and walking. It’s tempting, I know.”  I listened.  It was just enough to remind what I am about. I said no to the request.

When I first read today’s quote where St. Benedict says to obey without delay I experienced resistance.  It felt as though I was being told to be docile and submissive.  I had to go beyond those few words to what he is really saying.  He is talking about the love one has for the Beloved and the willingness to do anything for that Love.  I believe that is what my teacher wants, for this student to go beyond the small self and to “hold nothing dearer than Christ himself.

 

Author: Ho Getsu Sen Gen

A Single Thread is not a blog. If for some reason you need elucidation on the teaching, please contact the editor at: yao.xiang.editor@gmail.com