Diary of an Atheist Buddhist: All Buddhas & Loving Kindness Meditation

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return"--Nat King Cole

Flower of the Week:

I have no idea what these are called, nor how to find what they're called. They're awesome though...they look like stalks
of tiny purple bubbles until they open up into these lovely, delicate flowers. I just call them the "Purple Bubble Flowers"

Buddhist Lesson of the Week:

All Buddhas & Loving Kindness Meditation

A plump and handsome quail

During morning service, after we chant either the Shosaimyo Kichijo Darani or the Enmei Jukko Kannon Gyo, the Kokyo (person who leads the chanting for the service) gives appreciation to Shakyamumi Buddha, Mahapajapati (first female ancestor), Bodhi Dharma (founder of Zen in China), Eihei Dogen (founder of Soto Zen in Japan), Shunryu Suzuki (founder of San Francisco Zen Center), and the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, Manjushri (during which all of us in the zendo are in a sort-of full-prostration, with our foreheads touching the ground, but done from a sitting position.) We then chant the "All Buddhas" chant, followed by a longer chant that is often done pretty awkwardly because people inevitably become desynchronized at some point and it becomes rather discordant and quiet. The longer chant rotates based on what day it is. After the longer chant we chant the names of the ancestors (usually the male ones, but sometimes we chant the female ones as well.) We then chant the "All Buddhas" chant in Japanese, and that's usually the end of the chanting portion of service (we still have another three full prostrations to go, followed by many more standing bows before service is actually done.)

I thought I would begin to introduce the longer chants that we do now, as they're usually more interesting than the shorter chants we do every day. We're going to start with one of my favorites (perhaps my favorite one,) The "Loving Kindness Meditation." It should hopefully be obvious why I love this one so much. It is, quite simply, lovely. It is such a clear, obvious, yet joyfully loving way to approach living life... Including being wise without being "puffed up" (I really, really, love that.)

Zinnia bed

All Buddhas (English)

All Buddhas, ten directions, three times.
All beings, bodhisattva mahasattvas.

Wisdom beyond wisdom, maha prajna paramita.

All Buddhas (Japanese)

ji ho san shi i shi fu
shi son bu sa mo ko sa
mo ko ho ja ho ro mi

Loving Kindness Meditation

This is what should be accomplished by the one who is wise,

Who seeks the good, and has obtained peace.

Sweet Peas

Let one be strenuous, upright, and sincere,

Without pride, easily contented, and joyous.

Let one not be submerged by the things of the world.

Let one not take upon oneself the burden of riches.

Let one's senses be controlled.

Let one be wise but not puffed up and

Let one not desire great possessions even for one's family.

Let one do nothing that is mean or that the wise would reprove.

May all beings be happy.

May they be joyous and live in safety,

All living beings, whether weak or strong,

In high or middle or low realms of existence.

Small or great, visible or invisible,

Near or far, born or to be born,

May all beings be happy.

Let no one deceive another nor despise any being in any state.

Let none by anger or hatred wish harm to another.

Even as a mother at the risk of her life

Snap Peas

Watches over and protects her only child,

So with a boundless mind should one cherish all living things.

Suffusing love over the entire world,

Above, below, and all around, without limit,

So let one cultivate an infinite good will toward the whole world.

Standing or walking, sitting or lying down,

During all one's waking hours,

Let one practice the way with gratitude.

Not holding to fixed views,

Endowed with insight,

Freed from sense appetites,

One who achieves the way

Will be freed from the duality of birth and death.

Life at the Center

It's been a couple weeks since I last wrote a post, which I have good reason for. Last week my weekend was pretty much entirely taken up with Pride in San Francisco, and I had almost no free time. Writing this blog takes up copious amounts of my free time, and so, for last week, it could not be done. Honestly, I can't really remember much of anything exciting or noteworthy that occurred the week before this past week, and so I feel okay with not really writing anything about it. Last week, however, was decently full of some interesting events.

Me and Duras in the parade

I think I would like to start by talking about Pride. I can't say I've always necessarily felt a super strong inclination to participate in Pride festivals, as I do not identify as LGBQT+. However, in recent years (really since I started college onwards) I have made some really good friends who do identify as LGBQT+, as well as having one of my best friends recently come out as gay. I've always believed that LGBQT+ people were entitled to the same rights as heterosexual people, in a really basic, innate sense...because you know, it makes sense. I'm happy to celebrate the recent advancements in the rights of these people, who definitely represent a sizable portion of our population, are people, and thus should be treated as people are. It makes me rather indignant and fiery to think that there are so many people in the world who are so delusional as to think that for some reason who someone is attracted to emotionally and physically (as long as it's a consenting adult) should some how be regulated, or that a person's rights should be restricted in some way because of it. Aaarrrghhh. It makes me mad.

Anyways, especially in relation to the recent tragic, horrific mass-shooting in Orlando, it felt more important to me than ever to show my support as an ally to the LGBTQ+ community. It is also fairly well-known that San Francisco Pride is sort of THE Pride event (or at least the largest.) San Francisco Zen Center has a spot in the parade every year, and so it seemed entirely tantalizing to me to pop my Pride cherry by participating in the parade of the largest, grandest Pride event there is.

A group of us left Green Gulch on Saturday night to stay at City Center (the branch of San Francisco Zen Center actually in the city.) I've never been to City Center before, and I was very excited to check it out. I was definitely not disappointed. It was absolutely lovely. It's in this big, old building in a rather nice neighborhood of the city. The building used to be a home for Jewish girls before SFZC bought it, and so there are large Stars of David in the iron working around the center. There's a large courtyard in the middle of the complex, and the building itself is four-stories tall. We were told to check out the roof, and we managed to time it perfectly so that we were on the roof at sunset. It was astoundingly, staggeringly beautiful. The roof provided a 360-degree view of the city, and the sky all around us was a soft pink, with no fog to be seen. The Civic Center was lit up in rainbow colors to commemorate Pride. As a country bumpkin myself, who has never really lived in a city, I was in awe of how beautiful the city scape was. I had the thought that the sort of awe and wonder I was experiencing on the roof was probably similar to what people experience when they first see the Green Gulch garden (and farm.) It's been 5 years for me now, and I can't remember what my first impressions of the garden were, especially now that I have a more intimate relationship with it. I imagine it was one filled with splendor, as that's what I still experience softly most every day.

Green Gulch crew at Pride

We slept in the Buddha Hall, which as far as I can gather is the zendo-type space that the public practices in (there was an actual zendo, but I think it's just for the ~60 residents of City Center.) Before we went to bed an apprentice at City Center recruited us to make the signs for SFZC to hang on the sides of our van in the parade. It was about 9 o'clock at night when we started, which for us Zen students is mighty late. Anyways, long story short, we spelled "Francisco" wrong on both of the signs, and didn't realize it until they were up on the van in the morning (we spelled it "Fransisco.") It was definitely something for me to practice with. I seldom make spelling errors, let alone such an egregious one that was going to be seen by thousands of people as a representation of the organization I am part of and respect. I ended up just hoping that people, if they noticed it, would find the mistake endearing. Otherwise the signs were quite lovely.

One of the notorious signs

We were told that we should "dress up" for the parade, but in a way that was fitting of the religious institution we were representing. I had no idea what this meant. Recently my friend Jo and I found some astounding pajamas in the Goodwill here at Green Gulch that had flying pigs on them, and were clearly meant to be worn by a pre-pubescent person. We split them, Jo got the top and I got the bottoms; Jo generously decided to let me wear the top for the parade. I thought that it was fun, but not too revealing...it still ended up being far and away the most revealing outfit of the SFZC crew, but the elders didn't say anything to me about it, so I think it was okay.

During the parade we didn't really do anything. It was interesting because we had a huge corporation in front of us (SalesForce) which had a large float with a DJ just blasting music and a couple hundred employees marching behind it making all sorts of hooplah. Then comes SFZC, just walking. It was pretty Zen.

Marchin' and reppin'

I didn't really fully conceptualize how many people were going to actually be watching the parade. There were a lot. Thousands. A lot of them taking photos of us...so there are definitely photos of me floating around out there that I have no idea about. I also didn't really realize how corporate the whole thing is until I was a part of it...but yeah, really, really corporate.

My favorite part of the day was actually the festival after the parade. A huge part of the city (like 10-blocks by 10-blocks...at least I think that's huge, I don't really know if it is or not) was blocked off for the festival, in front of Civic Center. Pretty much every block had some different group with a DJ trying to out-do each other. There was a lot of dancing. There were a lot of topless women and naked guys, letting it all hang out. It was, in many ways, the opposite of Green Gulch--Pride was loud, colorful, over-stimulating, and sexually open, active, and accepting. It was actually quite refreshing to be around (for a little bit). The completely open and embracing energy of the day helped to pull me out of the self-critical vortex I had been slowly falling into for the weeks prior.

Nonetheless, it was nice to return to our quiet valley at the end of the day.

Wildflower berm in the kitchen garden

On Tuesday the Farm and Garden went on a field trip in Sonoma County once more. It was a full, but glorious, day. We started out the trip by touring Occidental Arts & Ecology Center right outside of the tiny, lovely town of Occidental. I became completely enamored with OAEC. I felt like I was falling in love with a person, the way I fell in love with that place. As Hazel Grace says in The Fault in our Stars: "I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once." Every new thing we saw on the tour made me fall in love with the place more. We started out by looking at their absolutely incredible green house, in which they had hundreds of plants from all over the world, including Mate trees and actual Marsh Mallows. We then got to see their seed vault, their glorious barn, and their lovely garden. They also have a Chautauqua theater in which they do a Chautauqua show once a year. They have programs to help save the North American Beaver. They had an initiative to make it so that wherever you were at OAEC, you were amidst beauty. Anyways, it was lovely. I asked, and they have a garden internship that starts in March...

More bubble flowers!

We then went to a food bank that caters to people with HIV/AIDS and other serious illnesses, called Food for Thought, in Forestville. Surrounding this suburban food bank (that was modeled to look like a small grocery store, to make their patrons feel more comfortable with the whole situation and less stigmatized) was a marvelous edible garden, designed and run by the Garden Manager at OAEC who gave us our tour. The garden provides food to the food bank, as well as helps it gain revenue through special events.

After the Food Bank we toured Coyote Family Farm, which is really only a baby farm, only 3 years old. One of the farm managers used to be a farm apprentice at Green Gulch, and he was super happy and excited to show us around. It was really interesting visiting a farm that young--I'm not sure I've ever been to a farm that was less than at least 7 years old, and already pretty established. It was interesting to hear all that they had to struggle through their first couple of years to get it going, including dealing with the fact that their land was really quite rocky. They ended up having to remove so many rocks from their farmland that they just sold baskets of rocks for a while before the could make any money from selling their produce. Now they seem to be doing okay. They have the aim of also being an intentional community, and so they make some money from renting out the houses on the property, as well as renting out their spaces for big events (weddings and such.) They also have an apprenticeship program.

We ended our day with dinner in San Rafael. It was hosted by the Marin Interfaith Chaplaincy, and they provide a discussion and a dinner for the homeless throughout Marin. Green Gulch Farm donates greens to the dinner every week (I'm pretty sure,) and they wanted to give us dinner as a thank you. We arrived just at the end of their discussion, in which they were exploring a poem by Rumi. We then ate dinner and intermingled with the people who usually frequent the meetings and dinners. Needless to say, it was an enlightening evening.

Some glorious fennel growing amongst
the greens at GGF

I ended up mostly talking to 2 individuals named Cindy and Matt. Cindy and Matt were quick and eager to tell any and everyone that they were best friends. Matt was a very friendly fellow who had a strong opinion that Elementary School children should be more exposed/educated to homelessness, as well as implementing a moratorium in the US on allowing couples to have more than 4 kids. Cindy is living in hospice currently; she has lupus, diabetes, and COPD, and told me that 6-months ago her doctors told her she only had 6-months to live. They were both very open and eager to share with me and the others at my table what it was like to live in their shoes. They told me that Cindy's birthday is on July 3rd, and they have a tradition (as of last year) to go to Applebee's and get daiquiris and to share a steak. Cindy told me that she met Matt in the hospice last year, and he gets her to go out and do things. They go to parks, bird sanctuaries, and McDonald's for special treats, when they have the money. Matt has worked for a publisher that makes hundreds of books on Special Education for the past 40 years.

It was interesting to leave that dinner and drive through San Rafael on our way home, passing the many nice restaurants full of people on a Tuesday evening eating nice food and drinking nice wine. There are so many elements to existing in our world. There is so much to learn and to empathize with, so much to experience to extend our capacity for compassion.

I've lately been feeling so, so grateful for being young, healthy, educated, and well-fed.

Prayers on the Tibetan Cherry Tree in the Peace Garden

Book of the Week:

I recently found in our "free book" area of the student lounge a young-adult science fiction called These Broken Stars. I would not say that it's great literature, but it's written just fine, and was a fun read. It's part of a trilogy called The Starbound Trilogy. I haven't really found any reason for the title of either the book or the trilogy, except that they both sure sound like catchy science fiction-y things. The story follows two star-crossed teenagers who get abandoned on a planet after their ship gets mysteriously yanked from hyperspace and subsequently destroyed. There are actually some kind of creepy/intriguing story-lines on the planet, but mostly it's just a teenage love story. It was definitely good entertainment. I gave it to Juniper when I was done with it, and she enjoyed it as well. We're going to try to get the sequel This Shattered World from the library hopefully soon.