In the cacophony of clicks, clatter, bells, and whistles that is social media, the art of conversation has been reduced to drive-by comments—swift, reckless, and as enriching as a fast-food binge, and usually as enjoyable as a carjacking. Our keyboards and smartphones are battlegrounds where restraint meets impulse, and, sadly, impulse often wins. Yet, in this era of digital verbosity, the Buddhist eightfold path offers an antidote to this affliction—a call to right speech remains ever relevant.

Right speech, one of the ethical imperatives of Buddhism, isn’t about censorship; it’s about intention, awareness, and the karmic ripple effect of words. Imagine if, before spewing a half-baked retort based on a headline skimmed with one eye on the television, we paused, breathed, and considered the weight of our words and the comment we felt mindlessly compelled to spew from our smartphones. Right speech isn’t an archaic muzzle but a revolutionary act of freedom from the knee-jerk need to be part of the noise, to throw your single penny into a fountain overflowing with coins.

Scroll through any comment section and you’ll witness a battleground of unbridled tongues (or fingers, in this case). Each comment is often more about the commenter’s eagerness to speak than any meaningful engagement with the article, and often telling others more about themselves than they realize. The endless stream of terse comments is mostly worthless idle chatter. (Did you read the article, Karen?) It’s as if the act of commenting is an end in and of itself—a noisy echo chamber where listening and understanding are casualties trampled underfoot by the rush to be heard and seen. 

Although it would fall under the warning against idle chatter, I’m not talking about your “So cute!” comment on Aunt Janet’s 400th picture of her cat’s lazy eye. The internet needs more lazy-eyed cat pictures and Aunt Janets. And in those instances, social media is working as it should—connecting us to family and friends scattered across a busy, noisy, and often harsh world.  

The drive to voice our opinion that I’m referencing, even when it’s half-formed, clashes with our Buddhist contemplative tradition, which teaches that every action—including speech—should arise from a place of awareness. What would happen if we treated every comment as if it were a pebble dropped in water, its ripples reaching far and wide? The same could be said for every social media post, but that is a whole other psychological rabbit hole.

Restraint as rebellion, attention as an act of revolution.

The precepts built around the teaching of right speech are not simply a means to shackle the unruly but a way to unchain ourselves from our basest impulses. By connecting with this moral imperative, we learn to choose words that enlighten, engage, and encourage. Our words may even ignite emotions in others or trouble them deeply, but they should come from a clear sense of awareness and intention. This isn’t control; it’s liberation—a path to awakened interaction that can turn the comment section from a ridiculous romper room of Pavlovian responses into a space for introspective dialogue that furthers the dharma (I can dream).

For those brave minds willing to swim against the rough rapids of hasty and, let’s say it—worthless—commenting, here’s a radical proposal: read the article. Fully. Reflect. Then—if you must—leave a comment that contributes, that respects the silent work of reading, and that honors the exchange of ideas. This is right speech for the digital age—restraint as rebellion, attention as an act of revolution.

The comment section is a microcosm of the world. It can be a wasteland of worthless words or a refuge of thoughtful exchange. By applying right speech, we can choose the latter. We can choose to be part of a solution that reveres silence as much as speaking, that values reflection over reaction, and that places understanding at the heart of communication. Or choose the wasteland of hungry ghosts wandering in a state of self-inflicted ignorance. Choice is the key operative here.

So the next time you’re about to launch into a comment, pause. Think. Reflect. Your words have power. Use them wisely and intentionally. This is right speech. Each moment, each action is a great sutra unfolding before us, teaching the dharma. Your digital footprint reveals the path you’re on, one comment at a time. And be careful! The author might be lurking and waiting to pounce—and you don’t want to be that Chad they call out with the burn, “Did you even read the article?”

The post Read Me! appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Every month at Dai Bosatsu Zendo, New York Zendo, and the Zen Center of Syracuse, we hold a Mandala Day celebration to commemorate and pay homage to the predecessors in our lineage and all related teachers, sanghas, known and unknown, who helped to further the buddhadharma. The beauty of our monthly Mandala Day celebration is deeply felt in every season, no matter the weather. I remember during last August’s celebration, there was a greatly needed downpour. During zazen, we heard the wonderful sound of purifying rain and the rumbling voice of the universe. And the day before, you know that expression “out of the blue”? A light rain fell and then stopped; the sun came out, and right then, crack. One strike of lightning and then a few seconds after, the thunder, and that was it. 

With the events of that August—the transmission ceremony for my second dharma heir, Hokuto Daniel Diffin Osho; Obon, and Mandala Day—we opened to that which cannot be fathomed by the usual rational mind. I know that many people go to Obon thinking, “Do I really believe this stuff? You know, all about the spirit world….” Such thoughts seem to fall away once we chant at the Opening Fire, invite all the spirits to join us, create our lanterns, and surrender to the inconceivable power of the Obon ceremony. As Soen Nakagawa Roshi wrote, “Where we live is in fact the spiritual realm, a realm of many billion worlds, which goes beyond three, four or even infinite dimensions. … It’s all manifested right here at this moment. It is alive and kicking!” 

We felt this so strongly at Obon 2022. After our chanting and my talk, we walked down to Beecher Lake carrying our lit lanterns, which we had inscribed with the names of our departed teachers, ancestors, and loved ones, and ten lanterns bearing the numbers 100,000 for the more than one million Americans who had died of COVID. We handed the lanterns to the rowers in the two boats. So many lanterns, they barely fit! 

Then we experienced something that in all the years I’ve attended Obon ceremonies, has only happened once or twice. The boats silently rowed off, and the glowing lanterns were set out on the still water. A white light in the sky got stronger and stronger. As the lanterns returned to the spirit world, to the other shore, the glorious full moon slowly rose above the mountain, right in front of us. Namu Dai Bosa! 

This kind of mystical occurrence is in fact always happening in myriad ways. What we think is rare is not really so; what’s rare is our being open to it, right in the midst of the ordinary. As Soen Roshi put it, “At the same time that we experience a world where all is one, we see the world of differentiation, where not one thing is the same. The world of absolute differentiation is, as it is, a world of absolute equality.” 

All the great teachers to whom we dedicate our chanting, and every single one of us, are woven into this interconnected reality. It’s indescribable, but perhaps the Japanese word myo conveys it best: wondrous, mysterious, subtle, as in Maurine Stuart’s dharma name, MyoOn, Subtle Sound. That subtlety means that we cannot experience it if we are caught up in ego-driven preoccupations. Yet it’s always here. 

You’re probably familiar with the story of the student who goes to a teacher and asks, “How do I get into Zen? How do I enter the Way?” The teacher asks, “Do you hear the sound of the rushing stream?” “Yes, I do.” The teacher says, “Enter from here.” 

Right here, in every moment! “With ears to hear, eyes to see,” the Zen saying goes. It’s in everything. I am sure we all felt this in our Mandala Day zazen when the thunderstorm, with its strong wind and pounding rain, came passing through. The sound surrounded us, moved through us, was who we were. This is true of every phenomenon; it’s not limited to a thunderstorm or a gurgling brook, of course. We cannot lock onto any one particular manifestation—grabbing hold of it, we’re already separated from it, lost in the past tense. Right now: enter from here. This siren—wake up! Wake up! Do you think you have time to doze off in your life? No, no. Wake up! 

What we think is rare is not really so; what’s rare is our being open to it, right in the midst of the ordinary.

It’s our erroneous belief in a separate selfhood, with its insistent refrain of “I, me, mine,” that keeps us from hearing and seeing directly. That constructed self worries, “How am I going to get what I need? What does this mean for me? I have to protect what’s mine!” The discomfort that this brings makes us want to run away, but as Bob Marley sang, “You can’t run away from yourself.” We seek distractions so that we don’t have to face that discomfort. We can call it dukkha, we can call it many things, but it’s essentially not being present for our lives. We think, “There must be a better way. There must be a better place. If I could only get rid of … ” whatever. But instead, we have to go straight into it. Experience it directly, without analyzing, without judging. 

This is what is so crucial about zazen. We begin to see that everything that causes us suffering is conditional, changing, and has no fixed reality. Why should we believe in it to the exclusion of everything else that is revealing itself in this moment? Old habits, as they say, die hard. And there’s a lot of fear. What if we didn’t have these habits? Who would we be then? What if we didn’t cling to what we have come to believe in as the self? Then what? 

So our practice is to go right into that “then what?” To sit with the willingness to experience things as they are. This can only happen when we start to feel the impermanence of all composite things, which disrupts the belief that we are controlled by them. 

What is sitting, really, but opening to the possibility that we don’t know what’s happening? That things as they are right now, including all that we have identified as problems, are our biggest teachers, our most wonderful teachers. This is where practice in relationship—someone you live with, someone you work with—can be quite illuminating. Very few of you are complete hermits, right? Every now and then you go out, and you see someone, and you get irritated. Some of us don’t have to go out to get irritated. That’s the great teaching of relationships! 

What if you can really appreciate this, and see that annoying person as the teacher you need? Maybe they’re not the teachers you want. But that “I want” is a big impediment, right? “I refuse to accept this; I want it to be different!” “I know exactly how this person should be, and I will tell him/her/them.” That doesn’t seem to work very well. 

The thing is, you don’t trust yourself. You don’t trust the mind that opens in zazen. But that’s the point of practice. Something comes up, a thought comes up, a trigger arises. You see it for what it is, and let it go on the out-breath. Again and again and again. Your zazen allows you to question, “Is this real? Why am I feeling enslaved by it?” Again, just returning to this exhalation. What you think matters doesn’t matter. 

Master Rinzai often spoke of students’ disease—dis-ease—as a lack of self-confidence, by which he meant a lack of trust in the true self. He said, “If your faith is insufficient, you will keep on wandering in confusion.” If you don’t trust in your own true nature, you will be gripped by everything that arises. He continued, “You will be controlled and led around by others. You will not find freedom.” And he ends that passage, “Is there anything you lack in your everyday activities? The six rays of divine light never cease shining.” 

This is another way of saying myo, another way of saying Mandala Day, another way of saying the spirit world is revealing right here and now, whether we call it Obon or whether we call it just sitting down and shutting up. Right here, right now, the rays of light never cease shining. “If you can understand in this way, then you will just be a person of buji throughout your life,” Rinzai said.

I really encourage you to read or re-read Eido Roshi’s commentary on buji in the translator’s introduction to The Book of Rinzai. He wrote, “You may ask, if buji implies doing nothing, then why do we have to practice? Isn’t ‘doing nothing’ in the usual passive sense of the phrase enough?” 

This is a question you may struggle with, when you think “doing nothing,” or “there’s nothing to do,” means checking out. As bodhisattvas, we are called upon to respond to circumstances, not reactively, but with the clarity of mind that arises from true insight. That clarity of mind itself is buji. It’s having no fixed thought about the situation, no preconception about what your response should be. Coming directly from the One Mind of zazen, awake to whatever has arisen, you can respond appropriately, not out of some view or opinion or controversy that has entangled you. 

At a recent sesshin a student had a remarkable, deep experience, kensho, and was so happy. Even when in pain or making a mistake, he couldn’t wipe the smile off his face. A few weeks later he came for dokusan on Zoom, and he was still smiling. But then he said, “I’m just a little worried.” I asked, “How so?” He said, “Well, maybe I am becoming complacent.” 

This is what Rinzai was getting at. Trust in this opening to who you truly are, which is all of it. This light that keeps shining, shining through, shining through, this radiance. No need to add a thought like, “Oh, I should be trying harder. I should try to make it something more.” That of course comes from our conditioning. “I can’t just be sitting here in bliss; shouldn’t I be making an effort?” These are the funny thoughts that come from that old conditioned mindset. 

I told him, “Just put your palms together; allow yourself to feel your gratitude.” That’s all. Allow. Feel. No need to weigh it, no need to make a new effort, to make it more, or try to hold onto something you can’t possibly grasp. It’s far beyond any limited conception. You are far beyond. This is the point. It’s not something out there. It’s within you, right? This is it. So, no gaining idea, no “okay, now I got something and I better get more.” It’s ridiculous when you put it that way, but it’s understandable. And this is a very important point: no judgment. No blame when your mind starts taking you to these places. Just return to the breath with a grateful heart, that’s all. No need for anything else. 

On the afternoon of August 21, the Zen Center of Syracuse Hoen-ji held its annual meeting. It’s been fifty years since this sangha started in a little room at Syracuse University. Who would’ve thunk it? Eido Roshi came to SU in the fall of 1972, gave a talk, and sittings continued uninterruptedly at various sites, including the attic of my home, during the next twenty-four years. Finally, we found this place at the intersection of Onondaga Creek and Seneca Turnpike—two of the Haudenosaunee Six Nations, to whom we bow in deep acknowledgment and gratitude. We had our formal opening on October 18, 1996, and renovated the old carriage house into a beautiful zendo. But the myo of what really happened is this: fifty years ago, a few people sat down. 

The post In the Midst of the Ordinary appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

As practitioners, we eventually need to face the fact that this is it. Our lives are this moment, and they are the way they are…at least for right now. There is no other time or place where we can fully meet ourselves or our lives. The grass isn’t greener anywhere else, because we have only the grass that’s here and now. There is no other side of the rainbow. There’s only the side we are on. 

The truth is, everything we could possibly need for joy, ease, wisdom, and compassion is right here and now, in the ordinary messiness of our lives. At some point, we finally realize this and learn to let go of the struggles and the wishes for some other life, and, with a sense of wonder and courage, trust-fall into our actual lives with a deep sense of radical acceptance—a profound OKness that meets the reality of this moment with an authentic gratitude and balanced appreciation for all its beauty and pain. 

Recently, I came across a story that shows this very subtle yet radical acceptance and appreciation. The story goes like this: There was a Zen master named Sono who was a very intense and well-respected Buddhist teacher who offered everyone she would meet the same teaching: “Thanks for everything. I have no complaints whatsoever.” No matter what was happening in someone’s life, she would give this simple mantra and would have them repeat it day and night. One day a man came to see her looking to find ease in his heart, and she told him to repeat this mantra every morning, evening, and whenever anything whatsoever happened to him. The dedicated practitioner did as he was instructed for a whole year but came back frustrated because his heart was still not at peace. Nothing in his life had changed, he said. The mantra didn’t work. He looked to Sono for further instructions to move forward, and she immediately said, “Thanks for everything. I have no complaints whatsoever.” When the man heard these words, he burst into laughter and left in peace.

What was it that this man realized that put his heart at ease? His life hadn’t transformed after a year of practice, so what did he understand at that moment? More importantly, are we capable of realizing the same thing?

I have my own interpretation of what this mantra is pointing to, but I feel like no matter what explanation I offer, it will miss the mark, as the true meaning of this story seems to be unspeakable. That being said, I hope the following words offer a useful lens for interpreting the story and can guide you to an experience beyond words.

“Thanks for Everything.”

To me, the first line of this mantra is waking up to a deep sense of appreciation for the actual lives we lead. I’m not talking about the inauthentic, phony type of gratitude we often see in spiritual practice, where people force themselves to be grateful as a way of avoiding or ignoring their pain. I’m also not talking about repeating positive affirmations or making a list of what we’re grateful for. The appreciation realized by the man in the story was a natural surrendering and opening to his life, just the way it was. He was angry and selfish. Of course! These are the expected ingredients of a human life. His lightheartedness came from a deep letting go of wanting some other spiritual, perfected version of things. At first, he was repeating the mantra, hoping to get some other life, while all that kept showing up was life itself—the one thing he was trying to run away from. In that final moment of the story between him and Sono, he realized this is life and he burst out into laughter. 

Over the years, I’ve had many glimpses of this “thanks for everything”–type of appreciation, and they all seem to arrive during the most mundane and ordinary moments. I once remember going to the grocery store—a task I typically don’t care much for. As I grabbed my shopping cart, I was infused with love, ease, and gratitude. There wasn’t anything special going on, and nothing particularly profound or exciting happened earlier that day. But there I was, in a place I normally can’t stand, filled with appreciation, wonder, and seeing beauty all around me. It’s very hard to describe in words without sounding like a complete lunatic. But, much like the man in the story, I, too, could have easily burst out into laughter (or even tears!). 

So many of us believe we have to clean up our lives, and like the man in the story, that our practice is going to magically fix all our problems. But what we’re really looking for is right here in the messiness of our humanity—in the struggle of our ordinary lives. “Thanks for everything” is not just being grateful for times when things feel good or go according to plan, but a deep appreciation for what Zorba the Greek would deem “the whole catastrophe.”

What practice can do, however, is, in some mysterious way, help us fall into that gratitude for the whole catastrophe. It’s kind of like tending a garden. We don’t get to decide when, if, and how things will grow, but every day we can show up, plant the seeds, and nurture the soil. We can offer daily doses of water and make sure to keep the animals out, but at the end of the day, we can’t force anything to happen. “Thanks for everything” doesn’t just magically happen because we want it to. It’s offered to us by life itself when our hearts and minds are ripe enough to receive it. Had the man in the story not done a year of working with the mantra, there’s a good chance he would not have awakened at that moment.

Our practice is like a journey, because there’s a natural unfolding that happens in our hearts and minds when we practice consistently for a long period of time. That being said, our realizations come and go just as the moon waxes and wanes and the tide rises and falls. There are times where we just don’t get it at all and we think our practice is complete bullshit, and we go on struggling, fighting, and resisting. Then, much like myself at the grocery store, we have moments where we actually get it: “Oh, wow! Yes! Thanks for everything! Thanks for all of it!” 

“I Have No Complaints Whatsoever.”

While the first line gets us in touch with this underlying gratitude and appreciation, the second one helps us realize and connect with an underlying profound OKness. 

The man in the story spends a whole year doing all of this work repeating the mantra over and over again, and what keeps happening? Life! The messiness of his life just as it is. He’s still selfish and still angry. He still gets frustrated and still loses his cool. He sounds a lot like me! Well, in fact, the man in this story is each of us. We show up to our practice and spend twenty to thirty minutes a day sitting quietly with our thoughts and moods. We go on retreats, aim to be kind, continually bring attention to our moment-by-moment experience, and what happens? We try and try and try again, and still we end up confused, imperfect human beings. It’s actually very humbling.

At some point, though, usually when we least expect it, it hits us like a lightning bolt. This is it! Thanks for everything. I have no complaints whatsoever! All of a sudden it’s all OK and everything—the good and the bad—has its place. I don’t think it’s an intellectual knowing, though, but rather more of an embodied understanding of radical acceptance. 

Our meditation practice, when correctly understood, encourages this “I have no complaints whatsoever.” As we show up to our cushion, day in and day out, we are learning to sit with everything—absolutely everything. We sit when we feel good and things are going our way. We sit when our lives feel like they’re going to shit. We sit with our happiness and joy, our grief and pain. We sit in sickness and health, youth and old age. And as our practice leaks into daily life, we will surely make mistakes there as well. But that’s OK. 

A Zen master is nothing more than someone who has repeatedly screwed up and eventually learned something. We can do the same.

I am reminded of the story of a fish swimming around asking all the different fish gurus where the great ocean is. He swims around and around, searching for the great ocean, not realizing he’s already intimately part of it. No one could explain it to him; it was something he had to wake up to himself. 

In the Chan tradition I studied in, my teacher would always say, “Enlightenment is an accident, and meditation makes you accident-prone.” Master Sheng Yen, the main teacher of the lineage who I unfortunately never met, used to say something similar on retreats: “Let the universe do it.” 

So are you willing to take on the mantra: “Thanks for everything. I have no complaints whatsoever.”? Are you willing to let go and stop resisting your life? Could you try pausing and slowing down long enough to allow the grace of appreciation and beauty to flow through you, and even if your life is currently not full of smiles, be willing to show up anyway with balance, joy, and ease? Can you show up and hold yourself, no matter what you did wrong today, no matter how much you may have messed up, and no matter how you’re feeling at this moment? Can you show up and sit with everything and love it anyway? 

I believe you can and I wish you the best of luck!

The post Thanks for Everything. I Have No Complaints Whatsoever. appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Jack Pine Story #1: Wild jack pines begin life in the aftermath of a devastating fire. That’s not a coincidence; it’s a strategy. It begins with the seeds, many of which are sealed inside the cones with resin, which protects them from drying out. 

My wife’s 96-year-old mother (we all know her as Mrs. T) has dementia, and she’s been in her own home now for forty-seven years—cared for during the past five years by live-in aides. We knew that if she lived long enough, the impressive amount of money that she and her husband had saved during their lifetime would eventually run out. But we thought it would be end of summer or sometime later this year. 

After a meeting in January 2022 with our accountant, we realized…it’s now. It’s, like, right now. She needs to be moved in by February 1, and the house has to be listed by March 1. 

We hung up the phone and sat there, gaping at each other. Our minds and hearts galloping to catch up, then screeching to a halt, then galloping again, we couldn’t even find words. We went to bed, each of us awake, our seeds of growth and resilience safe inside the resin of our willingness to step up. And both of us, terrified. 

Jack Pine Story #2: In the heat of a wildfire, the jack pine’s resin melts and the seeds are released. Although the fire may kill the parent trees, the seeds survive and grow quickly, more quickly than most other trees in the forest. 

At around 3:30 a.m. this morning, Mrs. T’s aide, Lorraine, called us and said Mrs. T wasn’t responding and to come right away. We flew into our clothes and arrived to witness my mother-in-law’s face, a kind of death mask, unmoving, mouth open and only occasionally making a haunting sound with her vocal cords. 

We called the priest for last rites. We called her other children and her grandchildren. Everyone said their goodbyes. We said the Lord’s Prayer. We said the rosary. The priest arrived, forgave all her sins, and anointed her in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. 

I went home, Elena stayed with her mom. This time of resin-melting extremity released the seeds of sacred intimacy, of healing, of profound connection between them. In the morning, Mrs. T reached for her daughter, stroking her hair, smiling. Her eyes came back to life. And after a while, she actually said, “What are we doing today?” 

Jack Pine Story #3: In the heat of the wildfire, the seeds are released, they survive, and they grow quickly.

So we’re back at the “February move in, March house listing” part. Everything about our way of life—the daily rhythms we’ve developed over the last twenty years, the quiet mornings, Elena’s crossword puzzle, my blog, the daily walk and home-cooked meal with Mrs. T, combined with the blessed sanctuary of our ability to withdraw ourselves from her dementia’s unending noise, repetition, and demands—all of that expires in February. 

And if we think we’ve got troubles, it will be exponentially harder for Mrs. T. At least Elena and I are still in our own home. Of course, we will keep all her familiar furniture and photos around her, but I don’t think that’s going to mean much. During her last hospital visit due to a broken hip, she kept the entire wing awake yelling for home, furious that no one would take her there. My heart breaks for how this desperate search never ends for her. 

Heat and destruction are crucial to the seeds popping out and creating new life. 

Our existing days—all the patterns and peace that we’ve taken for granted—will go up in smoke. I’m 67, and terrified of losing my privacy. I’m scared to death we’ll buckle under the pressure, or that I’ll become someone I can’t stand, someone I’m ashamed of. That’s the fire. 

The melting resin, the seeds exploding, inseminating the ground around me—that’s this whole opportunity. This doctoral program in Buddhism. This chance to actually put my feet on the way of the bodhisattva.

I’ve studied and practiced and grown in Buddhism for twenty-three years now. And with this next step, it’s like after sending out applications and checking the mail every day, the envelope finally arrived. The fat one. My acceptance letter from the school I was most hoping to get into. 

Now I have to find my dorm room, show up for class, and do the work. 

Parting Thoughts: The jack pine doesn’t usually grow very tall because it often lives in nutrient-poor, sandy or rocky soil.

The nature of our existence is to be dissatisfied in some way with our own unique-to-us, nutrient-poor, sandy or rocky soil. We’re all too familiar with this equation: If I only had “X,” then I’d be happy. Dissatisfaction is just part of our human habitat. 

It’s what we do with it that counts. We can scurry down the dark alleys of our fear. We can run to the comforts of distraction, drugs, dissociation. 

Or we can call on the power of the seeds we carry. We can invite the flames of irritation, rage, boredom, and frustration into our experience. We can let the fire burn off our resistance to What Is. And we can let the heat melt our protective resin until we explode with new beginnings, new wisdom, new joy. 

When you reach the limits of your maturity, turn to this part of you—borrowed from the real world of trees—to remind you that the unquenchable fires in your life are the parents of every new forest in you waiting to be born.

The post Three Jack Pine Stories appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Most of us feel that we know ourselves through and through, but in fact, we do not. Because we do not, we have difficulty deciding how to make human relations go smoothly. As often as not, what we actually do has the opposite effect from what we intended.

One afternoon a fly strayed into my laboratory at the university. After a trip or two around the room, he alighted on the window glass and began to beat his wings frantically. Outside, it was a warm day in May. The fly could see the clear blue sky through the window and obviously could not comprehend what was preventing him from flying outdoors. The transparent glass was not perceptible to him even though he was pressing himself against it with all his might.

The window was partly open—the fly had flown in through it in the first place. But now the poor creature was so determined to exit through the glass that he did not even think of backing off and taking another look. Taking pity on him, I brushed him toward the open part, but a little later, after I had read another page or two in my book, I glanced up and saw that he was back where he had been before, pushing frantically against the glass. Eventually, he exhausted himself and fell dead to the window sill.

People make the same sort of error all the time. We have sufficient visual capacity not to be fooled by transparent glass or plastic walls, but we are extremely prone to the belief that nothing exists in this world save that which we ourselves see. How obtuse! The natural environment in which we live contains an infinitude of objects that our eyes cannot see.

The teaching of the Buddha warns us not to be misled by what we see with our eyes, hear with our ears, or taste with our tongues. The impressions we receive from our five senses tend to make us ignore the truth that underlies the appearance.

On the opposite side of every front, there is a back; on the opposite side of every back, there is a front. One cannot exist without the other. Yet human beings invariably tend to see only the front and to assume that this is all that exists. What is worse, we base our actions on this partial view.

When we push, we must not forget that pulling might be an alternative method. Unfortunately, we do in fact forget. When we have a viewpoint, we must not forget that other people have viewpoints too. Unfortunately, we do in fact forget. Every human being is subject to the illusion that his is the only existence in the world. 

Neither we ourselves nor the world around us can be saved unless we learn to see both sides of things, learn to pull as well as push, and learn to maintain a broad and lofty view of the truth. Such, I believe, is the teaching of the Buddha. 

⧫

This excerpt was adapted from Masahiro Mori’s 1974 book, The Buddha in the Robot: A Robot Engineer’s Thoughts on Science and Religion. Read another excerpt from the book on whether robots have buddhanature, here. 

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It’s Christmas morning and I’ve just come in from an early morning walk with a friend. The streets are still quiet, but whomever we meet seems animated by that “Good will toward all” sentiment of the day. “Merry Christmas,” something rote but right, going beyond the customary “Hi,” if that much. May that little extra last into the New Year. My companion and I agree that it’s a relief to have the big build-up to Christmas over. I’m grateful to have the peace the season promises. I do find, however, on reflection this morning, a moment of sheer grace in recent days which gives me some hint about the possibilities of finding the spirit of the season—the spirit, it should be in any season—in the most unexpected places.

One of those days of the the general frenzy of the countdown to Christmas, I found myself in the local hardware store, in the midst of a project. The place was thronged with folks buying holiday ornaments and the other trappings of the holidays and I had a hard time securing help. Taking matters into my own hands, I seized on a stray clerk who seemed to be in a holiday daze himself, spinning from one demand or another, but for a moment at loose ends, it seemed. I’d noticed him before, a burly young man, the sort I’d normally presume was informed, competent and available solely for my purposes. But I’d also noticed—how was this apparent?—that he had about him a sensitivity, vulnerability a life of his own that would be worth knowing about: an individual, in short. I’d gotten as far as putting a name to the face—Eddie—and we’d had a brief conversation or two reaching a little way across the divide of customer and clerk, that divide that seems necessary to the efficient running of the commercial machine. He had a family, I knew that much (and how, I wondered—but politely didn’t inquire into—did he support them at this likely minimum wage job?)

The post A Carol Everlasting appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

There’s a koan from the Book of Rinzai that Zen master MyoOn Chiko Maurine Stuart loved. “Which is the true eye of Avalokitesvara, or in Japanese, Kanzeon—the hearer of all cries?” The Bodhisattva of Compassion is said to have a thousand arms, and on each of her thousand hands is an eye. One thousand—it means innumerable; a quantity beyond measure. To hear; to see; to lend a hand—to save all beings! 

Having taken this rare and precious human form, having encountered the dharma, each of us can offer the hand of compassion, the wisdom eye to everyone. We are not chanting to Kanzeon; we are one with Kanzeon when we dedicate our lives to this true eye, this true hand, in any and all circumstances. Maurine did exactly that throughout her life. Born on March 3, 1922, she would be 100 this year.

In one of her talks, she said, 

The Bodhisattva Kannon grows arms and heads in abundance to be able to respond wherever there is a need.This bodhisattva spirit in each of us bows down in humble gratitude as we become freer, more awake and aware of what it means to be a true friend. Nobody is forcing us to do something; we spontaneously do what needs to be done. This one treasure is found within ourselves. This untaught wisdom is found in all the subtle actions of our lives.

During my 79 years I’ve been extremely fortunate to have many women teachers, among family and friends, educators and dharma guides. Foremost was Maurine. She and I both started sitting at the Zen Studies Society’s small zendo in an apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in the late 1960s, but we didn’t really meet until a weekend sesshin in 1970 at the Society’s new home in a restored carriage house at 223 East 67th Street, where New York Zendo Shobo-ji formally opened in 1968.

So we began as dharma sisters, inspired by the visiting Zen masters Haku’un Yasutani Roshi and Soen Nakagawa Roshi. They were both teachers of the dynamic young monk Eido Tai Shimano, who established New York Zendo and, a few years afterward, Dai Bosatsu Zendo.  

In 1965, after two beginners’ workshops at the West Side zendo, Maurine signed up for a weeklong sesshin led by Yasutani Roshi held at Pumpkin Hollow, a retreat center run by the Theosophical Society in upstate New York. She continued attending nearly every sesshin offered from then on. She met Soen Roshi during the summer of 1968, and that fall he conducted Jukai for her and several other students, giving her the name MyoOn, “Subtle Sound.”

Even after moving to Boston with her husband, Ozzie Freedgood, and their daughters, Maurine continued going to sesshin. At Dai Bosatsu Zendo, on the last day of Rohatsu [Bodhi Day, which commemorates the Buddha’s enlightenment], on December 8, 1977, Maurine was ordained at DBZ by Eido Roshi. The ordination name he gave her was Chiko: Wisdom Light. Although I had moved to Syracuse by then, we stayed in close contact.  

Maurine was one of the teachers we invited to a conference that my first husband, Lou Nordstrom, and I organized in 1977 at Syracuse University, where he was teaching. We intrepidly called it “The Flowering of Buddhism in America.” I recently came upon a mention of it in an article by one of the few academics we invited, Charles Prebish, now Professor Emeritus at Pennsylvania State University.  

He wrote that it was, “An exciting conference that had a real impact on the development of American Buddhism, and on my career. Although the title of the conference was overly ambitious and inaccurate, it was great fun. With the exception of me, and one or two others, the presenters were all practitioners rather than scholars . . . and their enthusiasm had all the uncritical abandon that one might expect from such a congregation.” 

Those were wonderful years of enthusiasm and, yes, uncritical abandon—perhaps not quite the flowering we envisioned, but certainly sprouts were everywhere. And as Nyogen Senzaki said some decades earlier, “America has Zen all the time. Why should I meddle?”

In 1982, Soen Roshi made his last visit to the US and asked Maurine to meet him at Dai Bosatsu Zendo—not in the monastery but in Joraku-an, the present Beecher House, where we originally lived and practiced while the monastery was being built. In that private meeting, he said, “You are a true Zen master. Tell your students to call you Roshi.” There was no ceremony, no formal authentication. It was a formless transmission.

Maurine told her students about it but said, “Please just call me Maurine.” As I wrote in my introduction to Subtle Sound: The Zen Teachings of Maurine Stuart, 

It was not in her nature to seek credentials or titles; she simply went on as she had before, wearing the same robes, keeping the same busy schedule of sesshin, daily zazen, piano recitals and lessons, spending time with her children, traveling. Yet increasingly one could sense a redoubtable power within this elegant lady with the leonine hair (now white) and strong, dark, arching eyebrows, who wore lipstick and foundation, who offered Bach instead of calligraphy.

Maurine was the first person I called when I learned of Soen Roshi’s passing on March 11, 1984. I invited her to Syracuse to lead a weekend sesshin honoring him. That began a shift in our relationship, in which I became her student.  

In my journals focusing on our time together from that year through her death in 1990, I wrote, “We talked today in dokusan, [the private exchange between master and disciple], about my forthcoming ordination. What does it mean to me, Maurine has been asking me. I’m beginning to understand what’s at the core, what must be: “Shujo muhen seigan do,” as the Bodhisattva vow begins—and not an abstract salvation but starting right here, at home. . . The endless whirl of ego begetting suffering begetting ego. 

“In our evening dokusan, Maurine said ordination was like Nansen’s koan “Ordinary Mind is the Way,” and as I was bowing, she said she was reminded of Soen Roshi saying so frequently, “ordinary mind is extraordinary mind.” And that reminded me of the dokusan I had with Soen Roshi at DBZ just after the monastery was built—he and I chanting “Shujo muhen seigan do” together in the candlelight in the front entryway.  

My ordination took place at Cambridge Buddhist Association on the last day of Rohatsu, 1985. Maurine gave me the ordination name Myochi—Subtle Wisdom—both kanji from her own names, MyoOn and Chiko.  

Attending sesshin with her in Cambridge and here in Syracuse, I was deeply affected by her talks, and asked her if she would agree to my editing them into a book. With typical modesty, she said, “Oh, if you think there is something that might be helpful in any of them, please do so.” Over the years, I listened to hundreds of her teisho (dharma talks) on tapes, which were transcribed by students in Syracuse, Cambridge, and California; I read and reread her journals and little slips of paper, and do so every year at her commemoration.

Maurine was never anything but who she was. She put no head above her own, even though she had great respect for her teachers. She was fiercely independent, yet she devoted herself to the training, both in music and in Zen, with utter conviction and dedication. She was disciplined in every way but had a great sense of joie de vivre; she was just so much fun to be with.  

She was passionate about life, music, and all the arts. Going with her to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, which has one of the finest collections of Japanese art outside Japan, and spending time among the buddhas and bodhisattvas there, was like being in sesshin, so intense and intimate was our connection with what we were seeing, feeling.  It was the same with food, clothes, literature, and even driving—how she loved to speed along in Boston traffic, terrorizing everyone in her path! She gave of herself utterly to everything. Her hugs were completely enveloping.  

Maurine and my husband, Andy, enjoyed each other greatly, and she was very encouraging to him as he was beginning his Tibetan practice with his teacher, the late Domo Geshe Rinpoche. She and our son, Jesse, were completely in love. She came here for sesshin on weekends twice a year from 1984 through 1989, thoroughly in sesshin mind and observing sesshin protocol up in our attic zendo. But afterward she and Jesse would do special things together: sitting on our porch swing, then walking down to the now defunct store Seven Rays to pick out some object, maybe a crystal, a book, or a tiny carving.

In 1987, Maurine was diagnosed with cancer. That didn’t dissuade her, however, from taking a small group of students to India. She continued teaching with as much intensity as ever. At a weekend sesshin with us in Syracuse in October 1988, Maurine said, “The small self is what gets stuck in positive versus negative, health versus. illness. Living in health with good cells, bad cells: it’s all impermanence.” That was the last time she was able to come to Syracuse.  

I went to Rohatsu Sesshin at Cambridge Buddhist Association (CBA) that year, and on the last day, instead of giving teisho herself, Maurine played a recording of Yo Yo Ma performing Bach’s “Fourth Suite for Unaccompanied Cello,” the prelude to which I often play for her commemoration.  

The next day, as we sat at her kitchen table, I asked if she felt she could lead sesshin in Syracuse in the spring, or if she’d rather some of us came to CBA. She responded, “No, it’s time for you to lead your own sesshins and give talks yourself.” The sangha here was growing; she encouraged me to look for a larger place for the Syracuse zendo, outside the family home. 

At what turned out to be her last Rohatsu Sesshin in 1989, it was clear that she was in a lot of pain, yet she managed to present talks on the ten oxherding pictures. She emphasized that we take this form for a brief period, and after our death, our energy continues as it had before our birth. 

She managed to lead a January 1990 weekend sesshin at CBA but was hospitalized in February. She passed away at 4 a.m. on February 26. Her last words were, “Wonderful peace. Nobody there.”

Not long afterward, several of us here in Syracuse started to look at possible sites for the larger and more permanent home for our zendo that Maurine had suggested. Nothing was quite right. Then we saw a beautiful property in the spring of 1996. It was the rundown carriage house in the back that clinched the deal for me, even though no one else at the time could imagine that such a place could become a zendo. But I knew Maurine would have nodded and smiled. A carriage house!  

The post In Remembrance: MyoOn Chiko Maurine Stuart appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

For poet Ocean Vuong, being an artist requires an allegiance to wonder and a willingness to get close to what scares him. As he shared on an episode of Life As It Is, Tricycle’s monthly podcast with editor-in-chief James Shaheen and meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg, he thinks it is the task of the writer “to look long and hard at the most difficult part of the human condition—of samsara—and to make something out of it so that it can be shared and understood.” 

Vuong wrote his latest book, Time Is a Mother, in the aftermath of his mother’s death, and the collection addresses a variety of forms of loss, both personal and communal. On Life As It Is, Vuong discussed Buddhist rituals of mourning, how he protects his sense of wonder, and how his Buddhist practice influences his approach to writing—and how he lives his life. Read an excerpt from the conversation below, and listen to the full episode here.

***

Sharon Salzberg: As a child, you attended Baptist church services with friends, where you say you developed an infatuation with Noah’s Ark and the idea of building a vessel for the future when the apocalypse comes. Can you speak a little bit more about Noah’s Ark and what it means to you?

Ocean Vuong: As a child, I thought it was real. I was 7 years old, going to a Baptist church in my neighborhood, and I experienced these myths. To me, the myth of Noah’s Ark made perfect sense—it reminded me of the myth of Le Loi that my grandmother would tell me about, where an ancient Vietnamese king defended his country from Chinese invasion by going to the lake and summoning a turtle, who leapt out and gave him a sword to defend the country. I thought that was real, and so when I heard Noah’s Ark, I was like, “Yeah, that sounds right.” I was fascinated by the idea of this great flood coming and then this responsibility of discernment, which is so important for Christian thinking. And I think for me, it’s important for Buddhism, too. Another way to translate mindfulness is discernment. What good things will you put into what you make, regardless of what you’re making? You can be a shoemaker or a poet, but when you really think about it, it becomes no longer a task or a job but a vocation that is invested with a spiritual intention. And that makes the work so much better. It also makes you so much better because you’re now imbuing the object and the task with a personhood. If two people cook the same recipe and one of them cooks it with intention and with love, that meal will come out a lot better. Noah’s Ark was so important to me because I realized that I always had the agency to decide what words to use. If the poem is the ark, then which words? You have to interrogate yourself, why this word, as opposed to the others? It’s a profound, elongated practice of imbuing care into what you do.

James Shaheen: You begin your latest collection, Time Is a Mother, with a line from the Peruvian poet César Vallejo, who writes, “Forgive me, Lord: I’ve died so little.” Can you share a little bit about that epigraph and the relationship you see between poetry and death?

Ocean Vuong: I love Vallejo. To me, it has that quintessential plea to a higher being, which is poetry’s classical condition. Before Homer began The Iliad, he pleaded to the muses: “Help me do this. I can’t do it myself.” In Buddhism, I think that same plea occurs, but it’s more horizontal. It’s a plea to the world: “Help me do this, world.” It’s a plea to the people we know, the books we’ve read, our teachers, present and gone. The spiritual crisis of the artist is to say that I’m not there; I can’t do this on my own. I think what Vallejo means by “I’ve died so little” is “I know so little.” To die so little, to suffer so little, is to know so little. Pain is also a vehicle of knowledge. It may very well be knowledge itself. I think that is actually the seat of a lot of my work. I included that epigraph to remind myself that we’re never there. If the destination is clear in sight, then there’s no point of going, no point of navigating the world. And so everything begins with this cry, but also this admittance, that we’re still so far from the knowledge that we need.

Pain is also a vehicle of knowledge. It may very well be knowledge itself. I think that is actually the seat of a lot of my work.

Sharon Salzberg: You’ve mentioned that you live across the street from a cemetery, and you’ve been practicing death meditation since the age of 15. How has your relationship to this practice changed over the years, and how has it influenced your writing?

Ocean Vuong: It influenced my writing, and it influenced my life. You do death meditation, and it’s hard to really be mad at anybody because you get close to this condition that, as mammals, we are so terrified of. That’s such a beautiful thing. You see an ant and you slap the table next to it, and it scurries in absolute frantic energy trying to preserve its life. I think that’s such a beautiful fact that we’re all in this to stay longer, and then the fact that we have to leave reminds us that there is that final door. When we think about passing through that final door, it’s hard to have these petty thoughts about who does the dishes or who takes out the garbage or something a colleague said in a committee meeting. It all fades away. And so it’s a really powerful tool to center ourselves back to what matters, back to that Noah’s Ark. To me, these two philosophies go hand in hand. The death meditation takes us back to the workshop of the ark. It’s like now that the silly pettiness is out of me, I can get to work and build something valuable and useful to myself and others. Ever since I was 15, that has been my North Star.

When we think about passing through that final door, it’s hard to have these petty thoughts.

But despite how much death meditation I’ve done, it never prepared me for the death of my mother. I thought that I was some sort of expert, particularly among my family. There were about eight of us there, and I was kind of leading the way. I was able to read the signs of death, and I could tell my aunts and uncles what was happening. When my mother took her last breath, all of a sudden, I realized I was just kneeling next to her bed wailing, screaming into her sheets. And I realized that there’s nothing that you can do to prepare for the ultimate truth. There is, in retrospect, a beauty in watching death occur because it is the ultimate truth. Honesty, for example, is truth that requires a medium. Honesty is the vehicle of truth. But death needs no vehicle. It is itself. And I’ve never seen something so truthful before and so devastating at the same time.

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As COVID-19 restrictions continue to dissolve, Buddhist writer Daisy Hernández has been thinking a lot about refuge. During the pandemic, Hernández found refuge in virtual BIPOC sitting groups, building up her home practice, and being a source of support to her journalism students as they navigated uncertainty and mental health crises. Just as it was then, writing continues to be a refuge for the author whose book The Kissing Bug came out in June, 2021. Now that she is starting to reemerge into the world, Hernández’s practices of refuge are just as important as ever. “The concept of refuge has felt really important these past few years,” she said on the latest episode of Life As It Is, Tricycle’s podcast with editor-in-chief James Shaheen and meditation teacher and author Sharon Salzberg. “I’m going to need to continue to work with it as I come out of my cocoon.”

Read an excerpt from the conversation below, and listen to the full episode here.

James Shaheen: Generosity really changes one’s state of mind, and it really gets one out of oneself and one’s own personal fears, which can be so imprisoning. I think of your book, for instance, as an offering.

Daisy Hernández: Right now, we’re precisely around the two-year mark where I said goodbye to my students. I assumed that I would see them the next week, and instead, I got the email that said, “We’re all going online. Get out of your dorm rooms, and figure out how you’re teaching this class online until further notice.” I definitely initially took refuge in being of service to my students because it was a shock for all of us, of course, but I was aware that I could stay where I was. For them, they just had a few days to take everything and head back home. For some of them, they could not head back home because they had parents who were immunocompromised or they had difficult home lives. We forget that for many students, college campus is actually the refuge. For them, it wasn’t just about going back to a parent’s home—it was figuring out an auntie or a cousin that could take them in.

In those initial weeks, there was so much goodness in being able to focus on how I could support them and how I could alter the class. We were about to start a module on literary journalism, and usually I have students interview people on campus. We changed it up and they interviewed people in their social circles around how they were coping with the pandemic. It was sort of literary journalism on the spot, but it was a refuge for me. I had to be really careful though—I noticed that after the first three weeks, I was exhausted. I realized I could take refuge in work up to a certain point, and then it’s very easy to lose oneself. So I had to course correct a little bit and notice when I needed to walk away. I started working with a timer. I started really paying attention to my dogs and to stop and take them on walks. I really had to be careful of that.

Sharon Salzberg: I also sometimes think about writing as a refuge, and I wonder if you see a relationship between your practice and your writing.

DH: I can’t imagine writing without a practice, and maybe vice versa as well. I think for me, the writing itself is definitely a refuge. When I was writing my latest book, The Kissing Bug, I was interviewing so many families who have faced a ravaging chronic disease: Chagas disease. The parasite that spreads the disease can often decimate the heart. I spent a lot of time with one patient who had reached a point where he needed a heart transplant and was living with a left ventricular assist device. He spent a lot of time with me, and we talked a lot about what was happening for him as he was waiting for a heart to become available, and then we also talked a lot about his childhood because he had begun to experience cardiac symptoms when he was a teenager. Those interviews were really difficult. It was an incredible refuge for me to know that I was going to be able to incorporate what he was sharing into a piece of work that would raise awareness of this disease. . . There’s a lot of energy and serenity that comes with transforming someone’s story into a narrative that will reach readers around the country. 

At the same time, when I was interviewing him, it was really important for me to have a meditation practice, especially a lovingkindness and tonglen practice. In moments like those, I’m there as a journalist. I’m not there as any kind of caregiver. It’s not appropriate for me to try to comfort the person I’m interviewing. They haven’t invited me to do any kind of therapeutic work. They’ve invited me to share their stories. That’s the work that I’m there to do. Sometimes my role is to just allow the silence to be there between us and to silently send someone lovingkindness. There were times when I would actually say out loud wishing him well as he went on his journey. For me, creativity, journalism, and the practice form a triangle. They’re three legs of the same stool.

♦

Listen to the full podcast episode: 

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On September 15, Buddhist monastic Sister Clear Grace Dayananda set out across the United States in the Great Aspiration, a Chevy van she converted into a portable meditation hall. This mobile monastery is the centerpiece of a project she calls the Traveling Nunk, which aims to make dharma teachings accessible to marginalized communities. Through chanting in public parks, collaborating with local faith groups, and giving out meals to those in need, she aspires to use her practice to move toward suffering and act with compassion and equanimity.

In a recent episode of Life As It Is, Tricycle editor-in-chief James Shaheen and Sharon Salzberg sat down with Sister Clear Grace to talk about her travels through the American South, the practice of meeting people where they are, and how we can learn to love those with whom we disagree. Read some excerpts from their conversation below, and listen to the full episode, “On the Road to Awakening with the Traveling Nunk.”

On moving toward suffering

This project, the Great Aspiration, has the power to take our dharma practice off of the cushion. How do we meet people where they are, and what have we been practicing for? What has the dharma taught us, and how do we engage with that? The Buddha’s teachings are full just as they are, and we don’t have to change them to fit our life or the suffering that we’re seeing. They can give us the energy and power to go into the suffering, so when we are faced with it, we’re ready for it. We’ve been training for these times. We’ve practiced well. A lot of us come to the dharma for self-reflection or inward practices of emptiness and the brahma-viharas. But at some point, these meditation practices should catapult us into the suffering in the world around us because we now have a higher capacity to hold all things without being carried away by our views. We are dharma responders, and we have to move toward suffering while bringing the presence and wholeness our practice gives us.

On building the Great Aspiration

The pilgrimage launched on September 15, 2021. I worked on converting and rebuilding the Great Aspiration (a 2003 Chevy van) for about three months with the help of a friend, who is a carpenter. I did a lot of research, watched a lot of videos on YouTube, and made a lot of mistakes—there were often sparks flying. Even though it’s a small space, I still had to build a home. We worked hard on it from early morning until the end of the evening, and it was really an act of compassion. There was this energy that came from the dharma. I was beyond my mental capacity, beyond my knowledge, and there were times where things would come together even when I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing. I had to look back and realize this was not me—this was just the power of the dharma. This is the fruit of practice. 

On equanimity as loving beyond disagreement

For me, the practice of equanimity involves mindful alertness and being able to see the dharma, as well as our own desires and tendencies. We have to know where we are, and we have to be honest with ourselves. We have to know what we can enter into. We have to know our capacity. But we have to also be willing to do the work, to be able to come to the fullness of our practice so that we can see its fruits and so that we can transcend our own biases and discriminations. With the power of the dharma, we can hold our views while also honoring the love and connection with those we disagree with. Being able to cultivate that moment of connection has been one of the biggest lessons on this journey. 

When clinging attachments arise inside of me, I know that I’m picking up a view, and the love can no longer be as it needs to be. But when I can see all of its parts, when I can know that it’s there and come to the fullness of understanding it, then there’s compassion on all sides, and there are no more sides. Then I’m able to come to that place in my wholeness, in my seeing all of the dharma, and meet that individual where they are. In that connection, we can begin to love our way through disagreement. This is an active leaning in, a destructing or a dismantling, so that we can be there and be present. Sometimes this is just my own internal work: How can I remove the defilements within me so that I can come to the fullness and love and expand my heart in the presence of views or disagreements without feeding the separation?

On the brahma-viharas in action

We’ve been through a lot as a nation, and I think we’re all looking for that outbreath in each other. I partner with a lot of churches doing service work, and I’m meeting a lot of the spirit of Christ here on the streets, definitely in the South. It’s empowering. It’s inspiring. I met this one bodhisattva in Knoxville, Marty, who opened up an empty parking lot with a chain link fence and offers showers and food and places for people to charge their phone every Sunday. She welcomed everybody. She knew everybody’s name and helped people come back into their bodies in crises, whether due to mental health or substance use. In her work, she is just present in all of her fullness. One woman was repeating, “I need a cigarette. I need a cigarette.” In the spirit of Christ, Marty was just being there, not offering the cigarette but also not saying, “No, it’s not good for you” or sharing her own views. Instead, she said, “Let’s eat a banana. You really need to eat something,” and gave her a banana. Then she got her some water and stayed there with her, encouraging her. To me, this was an example of the brahma-viharas in action for those who are suffering or for those who are in need in front of us. It takes great work as a practitioner to be able to be there fully and to be present without our views and our judgments. In that moment, community is community. It’s just human beings taking care of each other in all ways.

♦

Listen to the full podcast episode here: 

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