Selections
from the Cypress Tree Zen Newsletter, Spring 1999Selections
from the Cypress Tree Zen Newsletter, Spring 1999Balancing Act
by Anne Rudloe, Abbot - CTZG
Many of us today are over stretched, trying to balance too much. We talk a lot about Peace with a capital P but too often it's out there, somewhere over the horizon, something to get to in the future someday. When things don't work out in accordance with our desires, we move on, changing partners, changing jobs, trading in whatever isn't right for a new model. It's always easier to keep moving than to stop and face the fundamental questions. Who am I? What is really happening here?
Zen means to sit with an open heart, asking: Who am I? What am I ? What is it to be human? What is our relationship to this shining universe? We look into these questions in stillness until they are resolved intuitively, not analytically, and then use what arises to live in clarity, to act with compassion toward all beings. Like all major spiritual traditions, Zen deals with the fundamental questions of suffering, life and death - What is it to lead a harmonious life?
Formal
meditation practice has evolved over centuries to train us in
awareness and stillness, in letting the mind reach a place of
clarity. We let it rest quietly when it doesn't have a specific job,
rather than chatter compulsively to itself, endlessly raking through
its collection of possessions, desires, likes and dislikes, plans and
memories.
Awareness arises from the intuitive spontaneous side of the human mind; in formal meditation, we learn to be still and allow the neglected intuitive forms of consciousness to operate. Eventually, we may experience the interconnectedness and simultaneously the differentiation of this world - we experience God or Tao or Emptiness or whatever inadequate inaccurate label you want to give it. Practice can dissolve our ignorance and the confusion and pain that ignorance inevitably brings. And once it's gone, then happiness and peace are simply there.
And meditation is not just something we do at a retreat, some kind of self centered spiritual hobby. It's also about bringing the focused attention that we learn there to every other activity - to working, to caring for children, to driving a car down the road - that arises in our lives. In America, for one of the few times in its long history, Zen practice is almost entirely a lay affair. Except for a very few monks and nuns, it's a matter of people trying to combine work, family and spiritual growth. Instead of the traditional monastic lifestyle, the circumstances of our own individual lives provide the raw material for spiritual growth. They're what we have to work with in our quests for spiritual meaning.
Gradually, the enormous energy that we waste in each instant as a result of our confusion is slowly freed and available to us, and as a result we inevitably begin to act with more wisdom, more compassion, less pain than we did before.
The monastic practice forms are designed to realize the intense focus and energy that is inherent within each of us and we preserve and use those techniques in formal retreats. But how to apply what we learn in retreats, what to do with it - that we learn after we come home again. A way of living that had its origins in Asian monasteries over 1,000 years ago, Zen is still relevant today because it helps us to maintain a viable balance between our personal needs, our family and career obligations , and the deep need to understand our role in a vast and starry universe.
Zen And
Taoism in Practice
by Konrad Plendl, CTZG Webmaster
In traditional Far Eastern societies there is considerable overlap between religious practices. Confucianism, Shintoism, Buddhism, Taoism and other Eastern belief systems do not demand exclusivity. Recently, my own spiritual path has led me to both Zen Buddhist and Taoist practices. It could be said that Zen meditation is for the mind and the Taoist exercise system of T'ai Ch'i is for the body, but this is an over simplification. Although it is not emphasized in the Kwan Um Zen School, there are many types of Buddhist practices which emphasize physical as well as spiritual practice. The well known Shaolin Temple System of China is one example. In Shaolin Kung Fu, Buddhist and Taoist philosophy is combined with martial arts training. My own combination of Zen and Taoist practices occurred almost by accident. Through the Zen Group and class that I was taking on Buddhist Philosophy, I met my T'ai Ch'i teacher, Alannah, and have been taking classes from her for about a year.
Buddhism and Taoism may seem similar to each other when compared with Western religious systems. Neither has a creator God who controls all aspects of our lives. There is no beginning or end to the world, life is lived in the present moment. The philosophical systems of Buddhism and Taoism teach that logical discourse is limited in any metaphysical description of reality. However, there are many ways in which the two systems differ. According to the Heart Sutra, "That which is form is emptiness, that which is emptiness form." No object or concept has its own self-nature. Everything is interconnected on an ontological level. In contrast, the Taoists believe that form is the complement of emptiness. According to the Taoist teacher Lao Tzu: "Shape clay into a vessel; It is the space within that makes it useful. Cut doors and windows for a room; It is the holes which make it useful." Form works because of emptiness, emptiness works because of form. All the forces of nature, not only form and emptiness, exist in complementary pairs of yin and yang: Heaven and Earth, dark and light, hard and soft . . .
The concepts of yin and yang are put into action in the practice of T'ai Ch'i. Although it is a gentle and slow exercise, the same motions can become aggressive when done quickly in the martial arts. I leads chi which leads li. The intent leads the life force which leads action. Mind controls the motion of the body. In contrast Zen teaches that one should act without analysis and hesitation. Zen Master Seung Sahn teaches, "Red comes red, white comes white." Perception and action without intention.
Zen meditation seeks to clear the mind. Sit, watch the breath, and repeat a simple phrase in your head. Taoist meditation practices are more complex. The inner circulation of chi (life force) is followed through its micro-cosmic orbit. Up the spine to the head and down the front in a cycle, concentrating on different points along this path. This not only calms the mind, by giving it something to focus on, it also makes one aware of the inner working of the life force and body.
Zen and Taoist meditation complement each other like yin and yang. While sitting in Zen meditation one can follow the micro-cosmic orbit. This can help to focus the mind on the present. While practiceing T'ai Ch'i meditation, one can clear the mind using Zen techniques. The concentration gained through Zen helps in T'ai Ch'i exercises where complex motions have to be carried out in exact detail.
As I follow my own spiritual path, Zen and Taoism philosophies give me insight into how the world is. They are also useful tools that give me the energy and openness that I need to do my work in the world.