The Light in the Darkness

“I could hear my heart beating. I could hear everyone's heart. I could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moving, not even when the room went dark.”
--Raymond Carver, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

"Just this is it".
--Dongshan Lianjie

Hello everybody!

I have been feeling quasi-inspired to write a blogpost for a while now. As this is no longer something that I do regularly anymore, it is now more difficult for me to start in on writing a post--the more time that passes between posts, the more overwhelming it is for me to think about trying to synthesize the thoughts and new understandings that arise in that time.

I wished to take photos for this post as well, but as I dusted off the ole camera it soon became rather apparent that my trusty battery, which has served me well for the past 8 years, has decided to finally poop out. So, until I get a new battery, I shan't be taking any more photos. I feel like this is some sort of karmic retribution for me neglecting that particular art form for the past 4 months or so, like my camera decided to stick it to me for abandoning it for so long by just up and dying. Well, well done camera, well done. I didn't realize just how much I wanted to wander the garden through your lens until I was no longer able to do so. It turns out you don't realize what you've got until you've got it no more (I hope I don't overwhelm anybody with this innovative and unique insight--it should by now hopefully be apparent that sitting a bajillion hours of meditation has made me a more deep and contemplative person).

Anyways, I am honestly unsure of how to even start to talk about all that I experienced and grew into during this past Practice Period. With every Practice Period, I feel like I expand; I become wider and deeper in ways that beforehand I didn't even know the potential of. Reading that last sentence back now it sounds real hokey and pretentious, but I mean it earnestly. It's amazing how much is opened up just through observing the mind...and it turns out that the more that you observe it, the more the world, the universe, and your person is likewise opened, like a blossom unfolding.

The theme of this Practice Period was "Guest and Host", and it had two parts: the first was an exploration of the poem "Song of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi" by 9th century Chan master Dongshan Lianjie (in Japanese he is called Tozan Ryokai) led by our abbess Fu Schroeder; the second part was an exploration of the Japanese way of tea and all of it's beautiful details led by our tea master Meiya Wender. "Guest and Host" in relation to the ceremony of tea can be clearly understood: in every tea ceremony there is a host to guests who are receiving bowls of tea. In relation to the "Song of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi", it becomes a bit more esoteric.

Buddhists generally believe that there are two forms of reality: there is the relative, which is the reality that we all readily understand and usually exist in, and then there is the ultimate reality which is ineffable, and yet perhaps much more "real" than the relative reality because it is not filtered through each of our subjective lenses (which are formed through our own karmic histories, societal upbringings, and/or just physical beings).  The relative reality is known as the "guest" and the ultimate reality is known as the "host". With this is mind, I'll post a link to the "Song of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi", which is a poem about the two forms of reality and how they interact here. (It was a bit too long to post on the blog, I think...but definitely worth at least a gander).

"The Song of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi" is definitely not clear in what it is describing--but you need to keep in mind that this is a poem, written by a Chinese Chan master, in the 9th century. So, you know, it'd be surprising if it were clear, really. With these poems, or really with most any work by a Buddhist master, it is greatly encouraged for us to study them with a teacher. This poem is actually rather interesting and full of profound insight, but I would not have that particular taste of it if it weren't for the guidance I have received in understanding it. Also, just to be super clear, I do not really understand it still. Anyways, as I said before, it is essentially about navigating the relationship between the dark (the ultimate) and the light (the relative).

To better navigate our relationship with the ultimate and relative realities, Dongshan came up with the Five Ranks. The Five Ranks describe the five different relationships we could have with the two forms of reality throughout our practice. They are similar to the the 10 Oxherding Pictures in that these ranks describe, essentially, a process of obtaining enlightenment, and yet they may not be (and in fact, usually are not) experienced in order. In fact, our lives are usually a rather sporadic dance across these Five Ranks, and seldom do we actually settle on one for very long. The Five Ranks are actually described in a poem by Dongshan, but I feel like there's enough going on here right now, and so I won't introduce the poem, but rather just describe what's essentially going on at each rank as I understand it (although you could look up the poem and think about it with the descriptions below. I actually think the poem is rather beautiful. Link to the Wiki page with the poem here).

The Five Ranks:

1. The dark in the light

This rank is essentially when you're going about your daily life, caught up in the flow of progression and consumption, and all of a sudden you realize that that is not the whole reality. That there is something more, and yet you are unsure of what it is or how you could even begin to understand it. Fu believes that everybody experiences moments like this, and it leads them to spiritual practice (in whatever form). I could easily understand how someone could come across such a sensation as this and believe it to be an encounter with God; for us atheist Buddhists, it is not given that name (it is given the name of the ultimate reality), but really they could very easily be the same thing.

2. The light in the dark

Having encountered this taste of darkness, and spent some time seeking to become intimate with it--it becomes the forefront of your attention. This could easily be understood in the lens of a Practice Period: I participate in zazen and in Practice Periods because of this taste of darkness, this taste of the grandness of reality which I know I cannot yet comprehend. I thus sit an exorbitant amount and distance myself from the goings-on of the world so that I might better become familiar with this darkness. As such, it becomes my daily life, this focus on the ultimate. Meanwhile the light--the relative world of relationships, politics, environmental disaster, consumerism, media, entertainment, etc.-- begins to just exist on the periphery of my awareness.

3. I forget what this one is described as, but I think of it as "on the mountaintop"(the dark?)

At this stage one drops away all connections to the world of the light. It could be understood as enlightenment: the dark becomes your reality. You see everything only in terms of its parts, its dependent co-arising, its non-self, its impermanence. You no longer see the world as a place that functions separate from everything else. You see the emptiness of everything. It is tempting to stay here, to stay in the ultimate reality and forget about the relative reality, which becomes a reality which is obviously contrived. The Buddha thought about staying in this reality upon his own enlightenment--and yet he decided to return to the world of the light, of the relative, and teach.

4. the light

It is important to leave the mountaintop. Just as the Buddha chose to return to the world with his new awareness, so must we all on this spiritual path. To live isolated in enlightened awareness of the ultimate is a selfish thing to do; and so we must take courage and live with compassion. Thus we return to the "marketplace" (the relative reality) and take the steadied ground which we gained in the third stage and use it to help cease suffering of those caught up in the relative reality in whatever way we can. For, after all, the relative reality is just as real as the ultimate is. To ignore it would not only be selfish, it would be ignorant. And so this stage is a return to living fully in the light once more.

5. the dark becomes the light (and vice versa)

This to me seems to be the stage of true enlightenment. It is when one realizes that the light and dark realities are actually not separate. They are, in fact, the same thing. One cannot be differentiated from the other. You fully live in a space of non-duality; you see the dark as light, and the light as dark. There is no need to choose to return to the mountaintop or the marketplace, for you see that the marketplace is on the mountaintop, and has been this whole time, and always will be. It is realizing that the relative reality is just an expression of the ultimate reality, and the ultimate is just an expression of the relative. They are not even two sides of the same coin; they are just the coin in and of itself. It is easy to live a life of love, unbridled and true, in such a place. It is not to live through compassion, but to live as compassion. It is not to live through wisdom, but to live as wisdom. And to die as the same.

**The ultimate reality is also knows as "emptiness" and the relative is known as "form"

Perhaps due to the topic matter of this Practice Period, or maybe perhaps due to the current state of our country and the world, or most likely due to a combination of both, I experienced my first true taste of nihilism this Practice Period, and thus also experienced my first rather profound existential crisis. Actually, to talk about all of this in the past tense is not entirely correct--I am very much still in this period of existential crisis.

I am naturally a rather optimistic person, which might seem odd for someone who has regularly experienced and lived in states of depression throughout her life, and yet so it is. I have a rather ardent faith in the principle of impermanence, and it has gotten me through most everything in my life up to this point (which, admittedly, is not a whole lot). I fully and completely believe that everything is transient, perhaps most especially with regards to feelings and mind-states. Through a large dose of meditation, it becomes especially clear that nothing that arises in the mind lasts for very long--pair that with a realization that everything that we experience or know is just a manifestation of our mind trying to perceive its ineffably grand environment (the guest trying to understand the host, the light trying to grasp the dark, the form trying to hold on to the emptiness, what have you)--and you begin to realize, rather viscerally, that everything is transient. Thus, the depression, anxiety, headache, heartbreak, etc. will inevitably come to end, as everything does. And, often, in its place there arises a spectacular joy, gratitude, vivacity, or maybe just a sublime normality. These too will not last, but in realizing that, one is more capable of fully living in that brightness, knowing it will fade.

I have always believed in the power of good--of love--to overcome. This, perhaps, is not an uncommon belief of children, and it seems that such a belief tends to fade the longer one lives in the world and is exposed to the rampant greed, hatred, and delusion that permeates our existence. Something I like about Buddhism is that from the get-go it is like, yeah, that shit's out there, and it's not going away. The Buddha initially taught us how, as individuals, we can live better lives separate from the greed, hate, and delusion--to not add to the poisons of the world, and through so doing, act as a sort of passive cure. Later, Mahayana Buddhists took it one step further: practitioners of Mahayana Buddhism (also called Bodhisattvas) decided to look at the horrors of the world, and to not only work and live towards not adding to the poison, but instead to actively work towards curing others from the poison, knowing full well that such a task was impossible.

The vows of a Bodhisattva are: "Beings are numberless; I vow to save them. Delusions are inexhaustible; I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless; I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable; I vow to become it." The entire set of vows just reeks of "yeah, this is impossible, and yet fuck it, we're gonna do it anyways." There's courage there: it is facing the inevitable, and yet daring to challenge it--all in the name of compassion and love.

So, anyways, I am drawn to Zen Buddhism for its brazen acceptance of the impermanence of all things--I like that pragmatism. I am equally drawn to the entirely non-pragmatic assertion that despite that, we're going to work towards making the world better. To have courage and compassion in face of the emptiness and impermanence.

However, during this past Practice Period, I experienced the entirely unwelcome crisis of my faith in impermanence no longer becoming my refuge from the uncertainty of life, and instead having it become the foundation for all of my uncertainty. Despite the fact that I studied biology in college, and thus have a rather well-versed understanding of our current climate crisis, it had never really sunk in for me just how dire it is until about a month ago. My optimism was a cloud over my eyes--I knew it was bad, but I had a blind hope that humanity would alter its ways and somehow save ourselves and the other species we're taking down with us. That veil of optimism was lifted rather abruptly, and it left me completely floundering. I began to see that the greed, hatred, and delusion I had been taught about was a real thing; I began to fully realize that humanity might not last on this planet much longer, along with many of the other species I'm rather fond of. I began to see and feel, really for the first time, the impermanence of everything. I felt, and still currently feel, the reality that humanity and the world as we know it will one day end, and it looks like it's on track to happen sooner rather than later.

This has left me teetering in many ways; I've always made a concentrated effort to make the most of my own single, precious life--but how can I do that now, through the lens of the end of everything I know and love happening some day? I've always wanted to have children--how can I now, with any wholeheartedness, bring children into this world? It would be a selfish thing for me to do, and I aim to not be selfish. How could I justify spending years of my short life to be in school, studying something that will soon end, or working for a non-profit that works towards saving something that will end, or how can I have a relationship knowing it will end, or start a friendship knowing it will end, etc.?

I've always been able to answer all of these questions through my optimism--my hope that love and goodness will come out right in the end, and so I need not worry about all of this. As long as I live well and with love, it will create a ripple effect, and everybody will end up living well and with love. Although I can still see how this could be true, how could I ever live well enough or create enough love to balance out all of the deeply engrained greed, hatred, and delusion that is so rampant? There was never a golden age of humanity in which there was no war, no rape, no inequity of resources--why should I hope this will change?

I recently left Green Gulch on a trip to Massachusetts for a family reunion, to celebrate my grandmother's 90th birthday. It was a lovely trip, and it was actually quite nice to see my family. However, it was definitely an instance of me leaving the "mountaintop" to be submerged in the "marketplace". While I'm in my nice bubble at Green Gulch, I live a  reality in which everybody is respectful of themselves, each other, their food, their water, their environment, etc. However, when I was back in Massachusetts, I realized that that is not at all the case everywhere: the America that I grew up in and was a part of for so long is still carrying on just merrily...

So many people live their lives through consumption. They buy whatever they can (as a means to end their suffering in some way, I'm sure), and then quickly realize that that doesn't do the trick, and so they throw away what they previously bought...to make room for the new stuff they're going to buy to try to fill the vacancy in their lives. It is what our capitalist, consumerist culture has taught everyone to do. Meanwhile, people have never been more depressed, and waste is created at an alarming rate--both physical waste, and, of course, the gases that are readily released into the atmosphere through this process that are slowly but surely altering our world.

So, this post is a bit more of a downer than the other ones hitherto have been. I'm sorry about this, genuinely. I'm sure the people reading this (probably being my parents, thanks for sticking with it this far guys), know full well that life is hard. Any living and cognizant American is currently in a state of panic about something.

The world has always had some sort of crisis--something that has seemed like the end of days, the end of our lives as we know it...and yet here we are. Human beings are good problem solvers (even if most of the problems we solve are ones that we create in the first place); it is perhaps one of our greatest evolutionary strengths as a species. However, we are still a young species, and it is of note how incredibly, devastatingly much we have altered the planet we inhabit in our short run as a part of its ecosystem. Species go extinct, and humans will one day too--there is nothing we can do about that.

I guess I just need to affirm that I have this nihilism blooming within my heart and mind right now--but just as importantly I need to acknowledge that I am still an inherent optimist. I am both (yay for non-dualism!). I am astoundingly afraid that everything will end and that beings will continue to suffer through the greed, hatred, and delusion of themselves and others; perhaps most pertinently I am afraid of my increasing realization that nothing is as it seems, that I am just a configuration of momentarily aligning fragments of the universe, as is everyone and everything else, and thus nothing has any individual importance. However, just as earnestly, I still see the beauty in all of it.

During this past sesshin (the week of all-day sits that ends a Practice Period) I was out walking in the garden, and I stopped to look at a leaf. It was an ordinary leaf--I can't even remember what plant it came from. I squatted down on the grass next to this leaf and examined it. I looked at the thin green tissue, the veins that delicately ran throughout the structure, and the compartments within the leaf. I thought about all I had learned while studying biology about the structure of a plant cell and photosynthesis. I had the soft realization that the vein structure in the leaf's body was not so different from the vein structure in my own. I thought about the first fatty acid that formed in the primordial soup eons ago, and how today that chemical incident takes the shape of great red woods, humpback whales, crows, mushrooms, the bacteria in the compost and in my gut, blades of grass, and my own delicate body holding onto the delicate body of a leaf in a sunny garden.

Everything in that moment was fragmentary. It could all be easily broken down into parts. It could easily be understood how all of it will end...and yet it was real and it was simple and it was ordinary and it was extraordinary. The ultimate truth was exposed and intertwined into my being and consciousness for an instant while I realized the grandness of this world and this universe and what it means to be alive.

Human beings are good at solving problems. Human beings are ourselves very problematic. So how do we solve this problem?

The universe has manifested in the expression of our species for this moment in eternal time. We are as we are. We will end as we will end. In the meantime, I see no other better way to spend my short, perhaps meaningless, existence than by making it full and deep. I choose to live with courage in the face of the inevitable, and to hold those that need holding and let go of those that need letting go. I choose to feel the brilliance of the ephemeral, the transient, the imperceptible. I choose to live my life in connection with my senses and with my own squishy, bony, hairy, smooth body. I choose to live as a Bodhisattva not because I believe in enlightenment or nirvana (I don't), but because it is the only way that I can see to make art of my life; to love radically, to be genuine and honest, to work towards the cessation of suffering of beings because that is what is what a good person does.

I am still unsure about the power of radical love to overcome all--it now seems naive. And yet, and yet, maybe it's okay to live thus anyways. Is there anything else that can be done but to work hard and earnestly, to rest easily and be amazed, to have children and raise them to be conscientious and good-hearted, to make love, to argue about the great matter, to eat and love your food and the effort that brought it to you, to build friendships and communities, and continue to live as a member of this species whole-heartedly?

Maybe there's no problem to solve here. Maybe just to exist, sitting silently, breathing in and out...maybe that is enough.

Maybe.


"When Death Comes" by Mary Oliver

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;

when death comes, 

like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door of curiosity, wondering;

what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridgegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.