The Four Noble Truths

"We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence."

"According to Dogen, one continuous mistake can also be Zen."

--Suzuki Roshi, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

Flower of the Week:

Sculpit flowers. I really like using these in arrangements.

Buddhist Lesson of the Week:

The Four Noble Truths

An altar in the garden

The Four Noble Truths are the backbone of the dharma. They are the great revelation of Buddha's enlightenment under the Bodhi tree, and the first thing he began teaching upon his awakening. I could talk about all four of these for a while, and have literally written papers on them...I am taking a six week class on them currently. Therefore, for this (for all intents and purposes) brief lesson segment on Buddhism, I shall just stick to the bare bones of what they are.

1. Dukkha, or the fact of suffering

The first noble truth is the understanding of the fact that there is suffering in the world, and in our lives as we exist in the cycle of samsara (the cycle of birth and rebirth, or reincarnation.)

2. Dukkha samudaya, or the origin of suffering

The second noble truth is that all of the suffering in the world comes from delusion, or an unawareness on the actuality of the world. Delusion leads to greed (wanting, desire, craving) and hatred (avoiding, dissatisfaction, rejecting). Delusion, greed, and hatred are the three great defilements within Buddhism. 

3. Dukkha niroda, or the cessation of suffering

The third noble truth is the good news that there is a way to cease suffering (and thus gain enlightenment,) through the cessation of delusion, greed, and hatred.

4. Dukkha magga, or the path to the cessation of suffering

Altar decorated for Buddha's birthday
(celebrated today, May 1st)

The fourth noble truth is the offering/instruction/awareness that the path to the cessation of suffering is the eight fold path. By following the eightfold path, one can find Buddha nature, thus finding enlightenment. Enlightenment means reaching nirvana, which is a place free from the defilements and free from samsara, where one can see things truly as they are with no delusions.

**Again, there is a whole lot to say about all of these in great detail, which maybe I can do at some point. Something I'll say briefly now is how much I appreciate the four noble truths, as an atheist. In college I took a "Philosophy of Religion" course that tackled many ethical and philosophical queries the come from believing in a God. One of the toughest ones to comprehend was why, if God was all good, there would still be suffering in the world. Why would a benevolent, compassionate, and omnipotent God allow genocide, starvation, infant mortality, rape, etc.? 

Buddhism surpasses this question entirely. Its most basic foundation is the acceptance that that is how the world is, beyond our control. There is suffering. There will be suffering, until every being is awakened. That is where we start, with the understanding that the world can be bad, but that we can be good, and act as lights in the darkness; in Mahayana, Bodhisattvas use their lights to guide others to their own lights, until eventually the whole world is no longer in a fog of needless anguish.

I suppose I should also say that freedom from suffering is not free from pain; pain cannot be helped. Physical, and even emotional pain, happens. If the whole world is full of enlightened beings it does not mean that people will stop stubbing toes, breaking arms, dying in childbirth, or even getting upset, angry, scared, or sad. Freedom from suffering means differentiating the pain from attachment. You will not always be in pain (so the key Buddhist principal of impermanence is also at play here.) Thus we just live with it as it is happening. We do not push it away (for that is a form of hatred for what is happening in the moment) or cling onto the illusion that something will make it better (for that is a form of greed,) but instead fully experience that pain as it's happening. With that comes a sort of peace and acceptance, and even gratitude, for being able to have such a human experience in our short lives.

Outside of zendo (left), Cloud Hall (center), and Stillwater Hall (right), all essentially one building (a complex, I guess)

Life at the Center:

This past week has been another full week full of learning a whole lot of wonderful things. I will say that it is definitely noticeable that all of us are beginning to get tired (physically) of having so much to do all of the time, and having such full schedules. I've heard from quite a few people who have been here a long time that that tiredness does not go away, at least for quite some time. But although it seems to still be an impulse amongst most of the new apprentices to complain about our lack of free time, we inevitably backpedal on our complaints. Yes, we are very busy, but we are very busy doing just such lovely things, who are we to complain in the end? I appreciate this awareness.

Practice

Delphiniums in the garden

I've been thinking a lot these past few weeks about something that Suzuki says in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, in which he essentially told his students to not worry about remembering anything he said to them; that when he gives a Dharma talk, his students should listen during the talk, but then forget about what he said as soon as it's over. Of course, this seems silly at first; however, I've come to realize what he meant by that (at least as it could pertain to my own life.) My first few weeks here I was worrying about remembering everything that I was being subjected to--I felt a sort of stress in expecting myself to remember the schedule, the peculiar intricacies of protocol in the zendo, the names of the flowers in the garden, the medicinal native plants growing along the hills, the names and lives of everybody here, the lessons presented during every dharma talk and class, my own personal revelations, etc. However, the more I'm exposed to something, even (or maybe especially) if I don't make a concentrated effort to remember it, the more likely it is to softly nestle its way into my brain space. This is particularly true for lessons on life understood through the dharma. I often find myself thinking "Oh what a wonderful point, I shall remember this and be such a better person forever," a few dozen times during every dharma talk or class. Eventually I realized while having one such thought that that is seldom the case; I forget most every epiphany learned, only to re-learn them some weeks, months, or years later, only to forget, only to rediscover, until it is just a part of being and understanding. That is why we practice (not only Buddhism, but really anything), so that we may comfortably adapt to our new understandings through repetitive exposure.

My dokusan (practice discussion) with the tanto (head of practice) went very well. I definitely see the benefit of bringing up objections to understandings (or misunderstandings) I have about the dharma or anything I do here. Not all of my qualms were quelled, but she gave me unexpectedly interesting insights into my own apprehensions within my own life through her answers to my questions on practice and life here.

Stillwater Hall--a dorm (upstairs)
and a yoga studio (downstairs)

At one point during morning zazen I watched as the farmer who sits in front of me rose to attend to one of his zendo duties. As is custom, upon rising from his cushion after sitting he carefully fluffed, arranged, and then bowed to his cushion before leaving it; upon witnessing this, I had a revelation. A lot of my questions about what I was doing here that arose last week were answered in watching him attend to his cushion. I felt an immense sense of gratitude and joy to be participating in a practice that for centuries has encouraged people to be respectful to cushions.

Last week's dharma talk was given by Ed Sattizahn, who is the abbott of City Center. He was entirely delightful. I actually laughed out loud a few times during the lecture. He was just so entirely down to earth and at ease with where he was, and took his enlightenment with a side of a dry awareness. In any case, he told one story during the lecture that stayed with me for most of the week, and I think presented a lovely lesson. The story was this: Ed and his wife were traveling around the Vancouver area visiting friends. One night they reserved a table on this lovely patio at a great restaurant; their table would have allowed them to have enjoyed their food while looking out over the whole city. They were very excited for this wonderful opportunity and experience. However, when they were driving into Vancouver to get to their reservation, they hit horrible traffic and weather, both of which offered plenty of opportunities to spoil their moods. When they finally got to the restaurant, they discovered that there was a huge wedding party that had booked up the whole restaurant, which unfortunately included their reserved table they were so much looking forward to. The restaurant offered them a table right next to the bussing station in the back, which they declined, deciding to venture out into the city. They found a little hole-in-the-wall pub, where they struck up conversation with the people at the table next to them, asking them about what they recommended from the menu and such things. The couple turned out to be both entirely fascinating and of like mind to Ed and his wife. Ed and his wife ended up hanging out with the couple for the rest of the night, visiting them at their house after dinner to continue conversing.

Ed made the point that that is why we do not become attached to certain plans, goals, or outcomes. If something does not happen the way we plan for it to, then we should just be still and look around at the new outcome, and be with it. There is usually something just as lovely happening instead of what we planned. This would eliminate unnecessary suffering, as well as give a fresh sense of joy and wonder. This is something good for me to keep in mind. I've always wanted to keep it in mind...that's why I have a tattoo stating "So it goes." Hopefully one day it will become so with me.

Bathhouse altar. That is one of my arrangements :)

As far as actual sitting goes, this was the first full week of two-periods of sitting every morning. I honestly don't really feel much of a difference between waking up at 4:15 am instead of 5:05 am, it's still waking before the sun either way. However, I do notice how much harder it is to stay awake in the morning now. During first period I am pretty much just consistently catching my brain drifting into dream like thoughts--which I guess in and of itself is fairly interesting, being able to now consciously identify when my thoughts become ones that lead into a dream. It's actually sort of surreal that I can watch the process of my brain drifting from conscious to subconscious, disjointed, surprisingly illogically logical thoughts. When I catch my brain forming a seamless connection between say, my fifth grade teacher and a city alleyway and a crate full of rabbits (or I don't know, whatever,) that's when I can say "Ha! Brain, nice try. But that is not what we do right now. Right now we sit with our eyes slightly open and stare at the table leg in front of my cushion. Stop connecting such silly thoughts for the time being." I'm interested to see if I can eventually feel awake and aware during morning zazen (at least the first period, the second period usually isn't so hard.)

Sometimes during zazen, when my mind just will not slow down or be still in any sort of way, I see what all sorts of detailed and obscure facts I can remember from college--you know, the stuff that you force feed your memory right before an exam only to forget it completely as soon as the exam is finished? One morning I went through the entire history of the planet, in as detailed a way as possible, and then presenting it back to myself as though I was teaching it to someone else. It was not at all zen, but it was useful to have so much time to spend thinking about such things. Now I remember so much more than I used to, so that's neat.

Work

Most of the work we do in the garden is weeding...but that's okay. I actually quite enjoy weeding, and it's good work for practicing mindfulness. People from the farm (as well as others) actually ask Juniper and myself quite frequently what it actually is that we do in the garden. It occurred to me this past week that our job is essentially just to make sure that the garden is beautiful. This includes, in my mind, cultivating, propagating, and cutting flowers. It also includes mowing the lawns, trimming the hedges, and of course, weeding the beds. It means ensuring that the flowers and herbs growing in the garden are as healthy and happy as possible, which means making sure they have access to our lovely artisan compost, are watered regularly, and of course, not surrounded by weeds. 

I was able to do flower arranging again this week, which was just stupendous. I love it. Not only for the reason that I don't have to wear my garden work pants for the day. It's very interesting seeing which arrangements get reactions, which don't so much, which flowers last, and which don't, as well as potentially understanding my own state of my mind when I create them. It's something I'm very excited to explore further.

Baby apple bunches

On Thursday we started to work on the orchard a bit. Claudia is letting us have our own little patch of trees in the orchard that we tend to, which I am quite happy with. That way we can see more easily and directly see the impacts of our work with the trees. Right now all that we are doing is thinning the apples. The apples in our orchard (and I imagine apples elsewhere as well) naturally grow in clumps of 5-6. When they grow to the size of a walnut, it is important to thin out the bunches so that only one or two apples from each clump remain; this helps the apples grow larger (more room) and sweeter (more sugar and water diverted to only a few instead of all of them.) I'm going to be honest, it felt like playing God a little bit, choosing which ones were allowed to grow to fruition (literally) and which ones could not. I suppose that playing God is all that artificial selection is, though. I was also comforted by the thought that either way all of the apples will die at some point, so it doesn't really matter which ones live now, in the grand scheme of things.

Community

They give us many opportunities to learn more not only about zen and gardening/farming, but also our surrounding area. Last Saturday evening, as well as this most recent Friday morning, a local ornithology enthusiast--as well as past Sangha member--Zach Denning came and gave simply astounding bird walks. They were incredible. His knowledge about birds was unbelievable. He knew some sort of fun fact about every single bird that was posed to him. He could sit and listen and hear 15 different bird calls when the rest of us could only hear 4. He would often be delving into some really interesting fact about a species of bird I had never heard of and will probably never remember the name of only to be distracted by a bird flying above, and then he would delve into a story about that bird, only to hear the call of another one, and so on. It was a splendid onslaught of bird information that I absolutely loved. 

On a related note, quails are abundant here. I think that if Green Gulch were to have a mascot, it would be the quail. They're just so wonderfully dithered at all times. They're cutie pies. Anyways, quail calls are easy at this point to identify and mimic, and sometimes in the garden we'll do them to find each other.

A rainbow of irises in the garden

On Saturday (yesterday) the farm and garden apprentices were treated to a lesson/experience in Green Gulch's tea house to the zen art of tea. It was so so wonderful. Being inside the tea house felt like being inside of a doll house, because everything is so delicate and well-crafted by skilled artisans. The tea ceremony is, of course, very intricate and completely different than zendo ceremonies. It was interesting to see how much we actually are conditioned in the mannerisms of the zendo. Simple things, such as how we hold our hands (hand positions are called mudras) have become second nature; in the tea house there were different mudras than those we use in the zendo, and different ways of sitting, speaking, and bowing. Something I loved about the ceremony was that when we were offered tea we had to bow to the person before us and say to them "I will join you in having tea," and then bow to the person after us and say to them something in Japanese that translates along the lines of "excuse me for drinking tea before you." It is important to be as clean as possible in the tea house, as well as to hold the tea bowl in a very steady and respectful way. At the end of the ceremony Meiya (who runs the tea house and does all of the tea ceremonies and classes,) read an absolutely lovely poem written by Reb Anderson about tea that was so absolutely stunning and stirring we asked her to read it a second time. Meiya said she will give us a copy of the poem at some point; when she does (hopefully she will), I'll post it here for you all to enjoy.

Outside of the dining hall (bottom left) and
Wheelwright Center (top right)

On Monday night I started my "Wisdom in Writing" class taught by our tenzo (head cook) Catherine, which was just wonderful. The class was an hour, and we only wrote one thing, but it was a really interesting exercise nonetheless, because everybody read aloud what it was that they wrote down. The prompt was inspired by a couple paragraphs from Jorge Luis Borges' "The Other." The paragraphs read were a conversation in which Borges talks about himself in both the first and third person, essentially discussing himself as seen in the world and the self that is true within him. He talked about how sometimes they related and were the same, and how sometimes they were very different. In our writings we started with the sentence "The other one, the one they call (our names)..." and just let our stream of consciousness write what it willed for ten minutes. It was beautiful and inspiring just how different everybody used the prompt, and what deeply profound understandings emerged about our own selves and the selves of the people in the room with us. I have gone back and forth about sharing mine on here, and I think I will. I'll post it below.

On Wednesday we had a residents' meeting, which was just an opportunity for the residents here at Green Gulch to share ideas or discuss concerns with each other, so as to best live and work together here. At the end of the meeting Fu, our abbess, had us write our own version of the shingi (a manual of rules for living in the sangha.) The rules we wrote were to be about how we could live here as a "we" over the summer, instead of a collection of "me's". My group wrote three rules, but I can only remember two of them right now. They were: 1) Accept every moment as it happens, it all its myriad forms, and 2) Work on remembering that the sangha extends beyond the temple.

Also on Wednesday we had our first evening Dharma talk, which was great. It was given by Doris, who also teaches my class on the Four Noble Truths. The talk was about exploring what "faith" means in Buddhism. Faith in Buddhism means three things: 1) a conviction that something is, 2) a determination to accomplish goals, and 3) a sense of joy in accomplishing the other two. It is a remedy to doubt. It is something more than belief--it is something that involves inquiry and investigation into the alignment between what the dharma teaches and your own values. It involves contemplation, and is not just a blind following of some belief. It is different from hope, because it is not limited as hope is. It is a process, and cannot be fixed, because everything in our world changes. It is given and yet can be cultivated. It is believed that, especially at the beginning of the path of dharma, some faith is needed; there needs to be some not knowing in order to intrigue the mind--it is the seed of the spiritual path in Buddhism.

Pool deck where we often eat meals on nice days. The building in the background hold showers and saunas.

Book of the Week:

Honestly, I have not had any time this week to read even a little bit. So instead of again simply just stating how I'm still reading Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, I thought I'd share the book that we start our days off with in the garden. Every morning after we bow in and before we start working, we trade off reading aloud one paragraph from Love Letter to the Earth by Thich Nhat Hanh. It's amazing how every single paragraph from that book is stirring in its own right. It is, quite simply, delightful, and indeed as moving and profound a love letter to someone as anything I have yet encountered. I would definitely, definitely suggest perusing it, especially if you feel some sort of loving connection to our planet (which I suspect is most people.)

Song of the Week:

"Someone New" by Hozier

I chose this song for this week because I really do feel this way. Every day I fall in love with someone here, in some way, unfailingly. The people here are just so beautiful and interesting, and I'm truly loving getting to know all of them (and having them get to know me.) I think meaning of the song isn't really as pure as I intend it to be right now, but maybe that's the beauty of interpreting art.

"I fall in love just a little, oh little bit every day with someone new."

The Other:

The other one, the one they call Catherine, I am just beginning to get to know, it would now seem. The fog of angst and delusion that surrounded her adolescent years persists with great stubbornness to this day. In those times, she felt like nobody, because every moment of every day was one of growth. I suppose that is still the case, but now the growth is more steady, predictable, and deep than the growth that was present throughout the teenage years. Young Catherine never felt beautiful, in any real sense of the word. She was discovering that the childish, whimsical, and petulant behavior that had for so long served her no longer held its charm. Without the patterns of her youth to fall back on, she felt empty and scared; this led her to a chronic sense of worry that derailed many chances for her to be happy.

Now, Catherine is more grounded. She is standing upon the slippery slope of her growth of character, looking over the edge into the abyss of the past. She is steadily gaining her feet and looking around to find me, standing right beside her. Gently, I take her hand, although she initially flinches from my touch. Together we walk up the hill. Sometimes Catherine gets ahead of me, but she's learned to be patient for me to catch up to her. I can see how desperate she is to hold on to me now that she's found me, and I don't mind consistently and softly reminding her that I won't let go.

It is lovely becoming acquainted with Catherine, and I can see that she feels the same for me. As we calmly climb this slippery slope together, we have begun to find time to look around at the wildflowers blooming here. Together, we learn to look over the horizon that once seemed to be full of a dark fog, only to discover that it is actually a soft, bumbling, and bouncing cloud.

Buddha sitting outside of the welcome center