Nothing to be Sought

I am giving a sermon in August that I entitled "Befriending the Dragon".  I have no idea what it is actually about yet-- I just liked the title which came from a Rochester Unitarian summer spiritual assignment, and was frankly a bit bored with the seriousness of some other titles I'd considered.  It's summer, so time to let the spirit dress up and play!

Now the title begins to grow legs...These words came to mind today from a Western Zen retreat liturgy... Let what is there emerge from its lair...

Ah, so now the title has some meat to it... and the sermon begins to take shape.  Love this process of creation!  Much much work to do- and nothing to be sought? hmmm...

 The words will be posted for further chanting and contemplation on desk at work, and altar at home:

From the beginning                                      
there is nothing to be sought.
Already within
is the complete solution.

There is no sense in travelling.
No sense in seeking to get
from a learned teacher
the wisdom you already possess.

No sense in austerity
mindlessly sitting
sifting and searching
for another's insights.

No sense in adopting ceremonies,
rituals, oblations,
doing good just to feel good
trying to reach a destination hidden in the heart.

No sense in walking
to reach a goal that isn't there.
No sense in thinking
to solve a problem that doesn't exist in thought.

All you have to do
This minute
is to stop -
turn the mind upon itself.

Draw your sense within
Turn yourself inside out:
Gazing into the lake of awareness
Let what is there emerge from its lair.

Let what is there

invade your breathing.
Let what is there
pulsate in your heart.

Let what is there
warm your loins, spin in your skull.
What is this anguish of seeking in the future
that which is already lying in the palms of your hands?

Right now - you have it. Hold it close.
Look directly behind your own face.
Grasping the monster firm let him be
or he'll ride you out again along the paths of time.

And let it all go!
Fall!
Gone gone altogether gone!
See within the Universe ringing in your ears.

Time and space
are simply the ring
through which the Tiger
jumps.

Text by John Crook after study of the Platform Sutra. Approx 1975. Slightly revised 2001.

Contemplating Summer

It is still pretty hot and humid in the Hudson Valley, and the hottest room of all in my home is the meditation room.  There is still so much packing to be done before our move from this house at the end of July... and yet I have been procrastinating-  choosing waterfalls and rivers over cleaning, books over boxes, and practicing yoga and meditation amidst the mess.  

I don't have the means to travel, and between work and moving it might be difficult to call this time of year "a vacation".  There is a part of me that gets a little sour when I hear about exciting trips to beaches and islands and national parks... or just time in the day to play in the sun. (I'm taking a look at that- Why am I triggered? What's that about? I think it has something to do with belonging...)  But a closer look reveals wealth that is all around...there are such treasures  to be found in simple weekend forays into these mountains and rivers.   Isn't it strange that we might need to own so much and travel so far when the cascading hidden waterfalls lie undiscovered right in our own backyards?  On weekend adventures with my family we have found so many treasures: prickly pear cactus at the top of Sugarloaf Ridge, a rocky water slide- pulled by a current in and out of a deep pool in the Esopus River, a slithering bull snake on a muddy path to the top of Huckleberry Point in the Catskills.  When I think of these treasures I am reminded that what has been in deepest need of changing at this time is not my surroundings, but myself-- that I might awaken and see with new eyes.

Though I am still working 40 hours a week, I feel a sense of vacation and re-grounding from within.  Daily meditation and body practice- yoga and tai chi- have brought me back to myself, with a new sense of boldness, courage, and strength to face challenges. This is not a time to rest or escape, but to continue discernment and integration.  Though I am out of the woods of depression and anxiety (for the most part), it is essential to remain vigilant:  to notice emotions like fear and anger when they arise, to look closely at where they are coming from, and to continue the alchemical work of transforming those difficult feelings into strength and love.

Summer is also the time to fall in love... and so I fall down on my knees in worship and wonder at life.  I have the realization that my own smallness is a gift-- for only in the total loss and confusion and frustration that I've been in, can I let go into mystery.  There are no answers that I can find, though I have thought and thought and retraced the various routes in my mind a thousand times. And yet, through it all, my ecstatic mad love for God has grown deeper.  I let go, laugh, shrug my shoulders, and say ok....I trust you... let's see where this path will lead. You are so much more present and wonderful than this tiny little ego I cling to so fiercely.

Summer also opens me to take on greater religious discipline.  I don't quite understand congregations that take "time off" in the summer, and it makes me a bit curious about the purposes and privilege assumptions of these communities. If only the poor and oppressed could take time off....if only armies would be at peace, the imprisoned would be free, the sick well, the dying born back to life.. for a time. Vacations are not the same as Sacred rest.  Sacred rest, as it is practiced in sabbath, is a time for greater community, for unplugging, for celebrating and remembering a communal history in story and ritual. A summer sabbath then might be the perfect time to deepen our soul care and our outreach, which are so intertwined. It was, after all, on a summer of 2005 that I wandered into my own first UU community- seeking meaning in my search and wondering about the practice of prayer. In one of the largest congregations, there were three participants, which included a minister. It was through that experience that I found a spiritual home. While some religious communities shut their doors, others are more active than ever-- feeding children free lunches and caring for the homeless. Last year my congregation housed homeless families for a week in the summer, and I felt a renewal of spirit among us.

These days, I continue to see summer as a time to deepen my practice, and am considering further routes of study and engagement- perhaps within the Zen tradition- after I have completed my spiritual direction training. As an interspiritual contemplative, I need the discipline of a tradition and community to support the cultivation of my practice.  It might be any religious discipline that is able to fully integrate spiritual practice with daily life which calls to me-- whether it is a visit to Zen Mountain Monastery with my kids on a Sunday morning, or the words of Reb Zalman Schacter (I am savoring Jewish with Feeling on the front porch rocking chairs in the cooler evenings), or the wisdom of the Benedictine path remembered from college course studies of long ago. All this treasured world religious heritage rings me like a bell, calling me to the moment.

Summer brings me deeper into this contemplative life, and it is to this life that my soul is drawn.  This is not retreat or vacation.  This is a time to awaken...to celebrate being alive...and to fall deeply into love.   

Tending the Wound

It's a warm night and in the deep womb of meditation, I see and hold the pain.  It is easier to bear now, and I do not wallow in it.  Nor can I ignore it.  If the road to wholeness means integration, then I can only arrive there by bringing all that is hidden to light.

Recently a dream revealed a struggle I am facing.  In the dream I held a wounded kitten that had crossed a busy street on its own.  But I could not leave a job I held in a crowded children's camp to go and care for this kitten with the broken leg.  I was torn between responsibilities and the one that needed healing.  This was not the first kitten dream I've had, and reflecting further I recognized that I was the wounded animal...and all that was keeping me held was illusion.  I knew what I had to do in the dream and finding someone else to fill in for my job responsibilities, I left to take the cat to the vet. I took care of my wounded self in need of healing.

But care does not mean wallowing; it means tending to wounds with the intention of soothing and making one better.  The past week I've struggled with anixiety, and responded in self-negating ways.  On this roller coaster ride, trust has ebbed and been broken.  And I've still found the strength to rise, to find my core of resilient inner life.

Little by little I get through... not alone, but surrounded by kind gestures--like the crates a co-worker lent me and the merit another dedicates to me in her practice.  Like the countless kindnesses of community support from work, family, church, neighbors, and friends I have known forever.  How rich I am!  Though so much may feel uncertain- job, family, home, health- how rich I am in the spirit of friendship and connection.  How blessed I am with joy and ever-growing courage.  How loved I am by God.

I am not the center of this circle...it is more a web.  And in this interconnected web, I too dedicate this merit and send prayers for many near and far.  As a friend who is facing cancer shared with me-- she is holding this tumor not as her enemy, but as a wild animal in need of taming...like a part of herself that she will tend and gently remove before it causes her harm.  I hold all these ones, and their pain as well tonight.

May we envision wholeness... may what we bring to life in Self, in our consciousness, expand into greatest healing for this ravaged and torn apart world.

Amen.

Letting Go

On Friday night my six-year-old daughter, Elisa, cried and cried.  We had just told the kids that we would need to leave the house that we have called home the past four years and find a new place to live, and she was devastated.  Change is hard for all of us, but Elisa takes it the hardest. She ran outside to the large maple tree- the one she has spent hours climbing, swinging and jumping from branches- and hugged and held on tight. 

How do we say goodbye?  Moving on isn't easy, and changes strike suddenly like flashes of lightning.  

I am struck by sorrow... sorrow at this loss of control I suddenly feel as the places I have grounded myself to reveal their impermanence...and- more poignantly- the other sorrow that creeps up as regret. As I have felt threatened, perhaps I have struck out with claws to hang on, and lashed at ones I love, who have stood by me, in the clinging. 

I watch the first morning glories of the season creep their way up my trellis, and wonder if they will have covered the porch by the time I say goodbye.  I look around at this room I am writing in now, this wood paneled place of meditation and quiet, and I know that even this is illusion. 

All is temporal and impermanent....specific names, places, people.  But in letting go, perhaps there is also freedom, and non-attachment offers a way to peace.