The Moment of 65 Ksanas

"And I realize now that the tumultuous life of a human being is no more than a passing flash of light against the timelessness of nature."
--Geyang, translated by Herbert J. Batt, in An Old Nun Tells Her Story

Flower of the Week:

Rudebeckia, or Cone Flowers, or Black-Eyed Susans

Buddhist Lesson of the Week:

The Moment of 65 Ksanas

Okay, this isn't really a list…but I think that's okay.  This is an element of Buddhism that is intriguing to me, and one that I was introduced to here but that seems like an understanding I've had for a long time. It also relates to an idea that Reb has really been peddling super persistently in his talks this past week (which is the "pivotal activity of the Buddhas", which I'll definitely touch on later). 

The sedum is finally starting to bloom!

A ksana is a moment that is quicker than a second. It is said that there are 65 ksanas in the time it takes a person to snap their fingers. In every single ksana, all of the five aggregates arise (i.e. the collection of delusions that give us a connection to our practical and tangible existence, that we cling to as our existence, and in so doing separate ourselves from the ultimate truth of dependent co-arising…I should definitely do a Buddhist Lesson of the Five Aggregates, maybe next week). 

Another way of looking at a ksana is that it is the time it takes for all of the elements of the world who aren't you to come together to form you, only to fall away again, to come together again in the next ksana. It is like a snapshot, a still frame; when you string all of the frames together, you get the running movie that is your life as you perceive it. No normal person can perceive the ksanas--that is something realized by those who are enlightened, by the big "B" Buddhas. 

The ksanas help explain the Buddhist understanding of there being no continuous self. In every moment, in every ksana, there is a person who arises, manifest from all of the elements and beings in the world that are not it…and then it immediately dissolves and fades away, to be replaced by another self in the next ksana. 

There is an understanding that one of the aims of zazen and of practice is to get to a point where we can recognize the story that is created for us, moment by moment, and to watch it and fully realize it.

So, according to Buddhists, not only is there potential for you to re-create and re-invent yourself, quite literally, every second of your life---there is that potential in every 1/65 of a second.

Dahlias! I call these ones "firework dahlias" in my head.

I've heard that there's something in psychology that adds credence to this Buddhist understanding, but I honestly forget the details of what was explained to me. Something like it takes roughly 1/50th of a second for our brains to process a thought or something like that. Anyways, ksanas could be looked at through the lens of neuroscience and psychology, of firing synapses and nervous relays and all of that...that every partial moment we need to re-process our environment, and on some sub-conscious level this is done for us by the operations of our brain; in other words, our minds need to re-create our reality continuously for us, without our ready observation and understanding of it.

I'll touch on how this is relevant to the "pivotal activity of the Buddhas" more below.

Life at the Center:

I just want to say quickly that the quote at the head of this post is one of my favorite things, and has been since I read An Old Nun Tells Her Story for my Tibetan Buddhism class my Junior year of college.

So this past week has been a weird one, to say the least (weirder than normal, that is). Before I get into that too much, I want to talk about something that I've been meaning to bring up for the past 4 blog posts or so…which is that our sister temple Tassajara has been snuggled in nice and close to a huge, massive, extreme forest fire.  As such, a handful of Tassajaran refugees have been staying here at Green Gulch for the past month or so. It was announced sometime last week that the fire is 80% contained now, but the 20% that isn't contained is still heading in Tassajara's direction. There was a handful of residents of Tassajara who have been trained as fire fighters who stayed behind and braved the smoke and the flames to try to save Tassajara should the fire encroach too far. Despite the fact that the fire is still heading towards Tassajara, the people who live there were given the option to return, which I don't quite understand. Most of them did, although a few of them stayed behind to attend sesshin this past week. Which brings me to why this week was so weird…

Juniper, me, and Claudia in front of
our flower cart, prepping for altar
arrangements

SO, it's been sesshin here for the past 5 days. "What the heck is sesshin?", I'm sure most of you are asking, "She always throws down these terms and expects me to know what they are!" That's a fair point, and I'm sorry for it. I'll explain sesshin though, right now. Sesshin is a week (or as is the case right now, 5 days) of all-day sits. Now, some of you who read this blog regularly know what an all-day sit is, and that I've partaken in a couple already (my first post on them can be found here). The daily sitting schedule of a sesshin is not dissimilar from the schedule of the regular all-day sits, except that there's another 2 periods of sitting in the evening, and dinner is eaten in the zendo as well. So, essentially, the daily schedule of a sesshin consists of starting zazen at the normal time (5 am), then staying in the zendo, more or less, until 9 pm. All three meals are eaten in the zendo in oryoki style (a highly ritualized manner of eating, like a Japanese or Zen tea ceremony). There was a dharma talk given every day by Reb Anderson (who is the official leader of this sesshin). There are also hour-long breaks after every meal, and plenty of kinhin (walking meditation) sprinkled in as well, during which you can leave to go to the bathroom, if you need to. 

Participants of the sesshin are not supposed to talk, read, or write for the duration of the sesshin.

There was something like 36 outside people who came to participate in the sesshin, along with about 10 or so residents who participated for the entire duration. Most of the rest of the community participated for at least one of the days (I sat on Thursday). 

Dahlias!

In order to make it easier for the participants of sesshin, who are in a rather fragile state by the end of it (and really, throughout the whole thing), the people who live here who were not participating in sesshin were expected to be as quiet as we could be. That meant that mealtimes, which are usually the only time available to us to freely mingle, became times of eating together quietly (or, most often, by ourselves quietly). If conversations did occur, they were done in a hushed and semi-frantic manner, like kids talking in the back of the classroom, trying not to get caught by the teacher. Any laughter at all brought many stares in your direction (some starers seemed bemused and border-line relieved to see an expression of spontaneous joy, some seemed annoyed and ruffled). 

Marie harvesting rose geranium in the orchard. Photo by
Claudia

Wednesday was the first full day of sesshin, and it started out on a rather interesting and pleasant note for me. All of the crews have "crew meetings" every other week, and one of the components of crew meetings is to do "check-ins", where we all share what's happening to us with our practice, as well as our physical, emotional, and psychological selves. In the garden, Claudia asked all of us to do a class during a crew meeting as well. I did a history of flower arranging, Rebecca did a class on flower longevity in arrangements, Juniper did a class on resources for herbal medicine, and this past Wednesday was Marie's turn. She chose to do a class on encouraging and supporting interconnectedness in a community. She brought forth a few exercises for us to bond with both our own selves and each other. I found them all to be very impactful, and we ended up spending the entire first half of the day in the crew meeting, bonding (interrupted part way through with a Reb dharma talk). 

Dahlia! I think of these ones as "fire dahlias"

The first activity really struck me, and I think it also really struck most everybody else there, a lot. It was a guided meditation that Marie led us through. I'll try to describe it as best as I can, but obviously some of the impact will be lost in relating it in this manner (especially because I can't remember all of the moving and beautiful language Marie used to evoke in us our response). It started out with us closing our eyes, and imagining us standing in our home. Home could be whatever felt right, truly; it could be our childhood home, it could be Green Gulch, it could be a made-up place that felt right. Then, once we comfortably pictured ourselves at home, we saw an older version of ourselves, older by a couple decades or so, coming toward us. We pictured her as clearly as we could--what her hair was like, what clothes she was wearing, how she held herself, how she looked at us when she approached. She came and stood right in front of us, as we exist now, and we told her about something that's happening currently that we needed her advice on. Something, anything, that's really bothering us, that we're entirely unsure how to proceed with--and then we listened to her response, and there was always a response (at least there was for everyone there). She then held us for a minute, and then left.

Me harvesting ornamental oregano. Photo by Claudia.

I won't tell now what I asked her about, but I feel alright sharing her answer, spontaneously coming forth from my own mind to answer my own question: Just keep loving everybody as deeply as you can.

I was struck by several things in this exercise, not all of which I want to share on here necessarily…but I definitely think it was a useful exercise, and gave some really interest insight into myself.

The other exercises were more familiar to me. They just involved us giving one appreciation to the person to our left (I got Miss Rebecca, so that was an easy one for me! I just think she's so wonderful in so many ways…but I had to just pick one, which was sort of hard). Then we did very quick check-ins (we were limited to three minutes), and the person to our left "looped" our check-in back to us, relating back to us what we said and what our emotional intent and expression was behind our stories. All in all, it was, I think, quite the excellent way to start out this period of enhanced quiet.

Wild jungle of dahlias!

I'll admit that I only went to 2 of the 5 dharma talks that Reb gave this week (there's actually one happening exactly right now, as I write this, it's probably literally starting this very second). I really enjoyed the talks I went to, but he kind of just keeps saying the same thing over and over again, in kind of different wording--which I am positive he is entirely aware of and is doing with great intent. Anyways, I feel like I get it for the time being, especially considering I'll be getting more and more of it during Practice Period anyways (Reb is also leading the Practice Period, so it will be another 2 months of his lectures, and I'm just not concerned about missing 3 right now, knowing what's coming up in my future). The sesshin, and Reb's talks, and really Reb's whole teaching philosophy right now is based on this poem, written by a Chinese Buddhist monk something like 1000 years ago, that starts out with lines saying something along the lines of "The pivotal activity of Buddhas, the essential activity of ancestors".

Juniper with one of her bouquets to be sold
at Ferry Plaza Market. Photo by Claudia

Reb loves LOVES the word "pivot"; if you were to analyze a transcription of his talks, I would not be surprised to find out that the word "pivot" or "pivotal" would constitute 80% of it. In the duration of one of his talks, he repeats himself a lot; but this is also done with great intent, I believe. It is necessary for him to repeat himself because oftentimes it is hard to understand the concept he is trying to teach--so he says the teaching a myriad of ways until one of them sticks. That means that for most of his lectures most everyone is sitting there with a furrowed brow, trying to conceptualize his lesson, until there's one brief moment of clarity, immediately shrouded once more in esoteric and emphatic speech. 

I can only share what I gather to be what he is talking about. The "pivotal activity of the Buddhas" is the activity of something becoming so entirely what it is that it is no longer it, it becomes its negation. I know, I know, that's not very clear either. I'll try to explain. So, a Buddha becomes a Buddha (which is a realized being, or a being that is no longer living in the realm of practical existence, but a being living in the realm of the ultimate) when he "pivots". So, say, I would become a Buddha if I became completely, truly, and honestly me, thus truly and honestly aware of my ultimate reality. The ultimate reality is that I am nothing but the culmination of everything I'm not--I only exist because everything that is not me exists as it does in this present moment (and all of the moments that led to this one). I am only the culmination of the myriad elements entering and exiting my body, the interactions of myself with others, the interactions of others with others, as well as the interactions of of all the elements and beings in the past, leading to me now. I am only here because I am supported through the lives and existence of everything that went into my existence. If this is hard to understand, I think Thich Naht Hanhs gives a clear example:

"If we look into this sheet of paper even more deeply, we can see the sunshine in it. If the sunshine is not there, the forest cannot grow. In fact nothing can grow. Even we cannot grow without sunshine. And so, we know that the sunshine is also in this sheet of paper. The paper and the sunshine inter-are. And if we continue to look we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be transformed into paper. And we see the wheat. We know that the logger cannot exist without his daily bread, and therefore the wheat that became his bread is also in this sheet of paper. And the logger's father and mother are in it too. When we look in this way we see that without all of these things, this sheet of paper cannot exist."

Me and Juniper with bouquets we made to sell at Ferry Plaza.
Photo by Claudia

So, once I truly realize that I am me, I realize that I am not me, not at all. I am everything else, just as that sheet of paper is not the sheet of paper, it is the sunshine, the logger, the wheat, the logger's parents, etc. This part of "pivoting" reminds me of the ksanas--it is the realization that not only does my "self" change 65 times every moment, the "self" that arises in each of those 1/65ths of  a moment is only the culmination of all of the elements of the universe coming together to create the me that is manifest in that moment: My own personal history, my surroundings, the beings around me, their personal histories, their surroundings, the beings surrounding them, their personal histories, their surroundings, and so on, ad infinitum, until the entire universe is included.

That realization is "pivoting" from "me" (which is a practical, but incomplete view of everything) to "not me" (the ultimate realization of non-self, of the dependent co-arising of the universe). 

"White" corner of the herb circle. Photo by Claudia.

This can be practiced in our narrow, non-Buddha lives as well (of course, we're all buddhas, but we're not all Buddhas). When we encounter a moment of anger, or frustration, or sadness, or most pertinent to me, anxiety, we can so fully become that thing that we then become it's negation. So, if I'm feeling anxious, I can practice so fully being anxious that I realize that the anxiety is not actually a contained feeling or entity or existence at all--it is only the culmination of everything else---and then that anxiety is released. It is no longer a part of me. It is no longer me. It is no longer even itself. It is just one of everything just as everything is one of it. 

This, of course, is good to practice with positive feelings as well--happiness, joy, love, gratitude, etc. We should so entirely feel and be joy and gratitude that we no longer hold onto it as our own. It is then"pivoted" to, again, the ultimate realization of dependent co-arising, and those positive feelings are no longer something that is threatening to inspire covetous or clinging desires (not wanting to be apart from that good feeling)…it instead becomes a part of everything. That joy and gratitude is released back into the entirety of everything that led to its origination.

Upper beds and orchard, as seen from up-high.
Photo by Claudia.

This is all very philosophical and is hard to actually practice with. I guess that's why we sit…to have a space and place where we're not doing anything except just being, and in that framework we can begin to practice our own "pivoting". 

I think that's enough on that for now. The word "pivot" is beginning to give me a bit of a nervous tic, which I think Reb would delight in (he is the perfect image of an enigmatic Buddhist teacher who knows he is being ridiculously esoteric and is completely smitten with everybody trying to keep up with him). 

The quietude that comes from sesshin has lent itself to some interesting observations, I think. Such as the sound of my own footsteps in a familiar place, or the way my tongue moves when I chew my food, or trying to capture the moment of decision when some (conscious?) part of my brain decides where on the apple I'm going to bite into next. There is so much to realize in every moment, it is just ridiculous.

Book of the Week:

I am still working my way through The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, which is very, very good. Honestly, this is some of the best science fiction I've come across in a long time. It introduces many new, compelling ideas through its characters, which isn't something I see very much of anymore. Also, it has a wonderfully anthropologic focus on the crew and of the species that constitute the book, and is absolutely so, so refreshingly and genuinely feminist, in the true sense of the word. It has great moments of beautiful, bizarre, tragedy, as well as tense moments of surreal action and chaos. I've also fallen in love with all of the characters, and all of their backstories and development. Furthermore, it is wonderfully dusted with poignant insights into life and humanity. Anyways, this is a high, high recommendation from me--not just if you like science fiction, but just in general. I think people should read this book. But, as this was the book for last week, I will choose a different book for this week. Which is...

All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury

I've also been thinking of another science fiction piece this week--a short story by Ray Bradbury that I last read when I was 12, but has stuck with me all of these years. It's a story about Margot, a girl born on Earth but who lives on Venus. Venus only gets to see the sun for two hours every seven years, as it is perpetually covered in rainstorms...and for a girl born on Earth, Margot sure misses the sun. I am relating, very much, to Margot right now. 

Anyways, the story is rather sad, as on the one day that the sun appears on Venus, Margot's classmates shove her in a closet, so that she misses it.

It's sure good at invoking empathy and compassion for poor Margot. 

Songs of the Week:

I've been thinking of doing this one as the featured music of the week for a while now, and this week seems like the right time to do it. It's the entirety of the Grizzly Bear album "Shields". I recommend listening to this album all in one go, with the songs in the order that the band orchestrated them to be in on the album. If you do, it's like one long, resonant song. I listened to it once hiking through the hills around the gulch, with the fog swirling and soaring past me like a softly persistent river, and it was an ethereal experience. I suggest listening to this while you're alone, and you have some time to immerse yourself in the feelings of the songs a bit…so a long hike or a long drive or walk or something. 

You can find the album on this link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_P9Ep_F05I-IV1zeoxNr9Lz6xsepRjZY

It's also on Spotify and other such places too, of course.