Selections
from the Cypress Tree Zen Newsletter, Winter 2000Selections
from the Cypress Tree Zen Newsletter, Winter 2000
In
setting up a local group, the most important issue is not the mailing
list or where you meet or providing a newsletter. Neither is it
whether or how you pay for a classified ad to advertise or how to get
public service announcements on your events in the local media or
whether to have child care or even how much to charge or who cooks if
you have a retreat (although all these things are important). The
most important thing is the quality of your practice -- can you
consistently be there week after week even when only two or three
people, including yourself, show up? Can you provide a dynamic (more
or less), clear (not always but most of the time) energetic example
of what this practice will develop in somebody who really does it?
You will be judged constantly and far more by your whole demeanor,
body language and tone of voice than by any wonderful speech you
might give. And newcomers will sometimes judge all of zen by you as
the local representative. Can you provide effective leadership and
sound teaching and handle the time involved? Not to mention the
inevitable hassles and setbacks. Can you do an equally good job on
the nights when you really don't feel like doing it as well as on the
other nights? How will you feel when somebody who has practiced for a
while and seems to be committed suddenly claims that you're an
egotistical self centered fraud and stomps off for good? As Bobby
Rhodes once commented "People are always digging their own holes,
falling in and then blaming the organization for the fall."
Keeping a local group going is giving equally, being there for whoever comes in the door -- the ones you like and the ones you might not care for. It's giving your time and energy in an effort to help them deal with their situation. That's all it is--giving without expecting anything back. It's trying to help someone who, underneath their calm exterior, is often hurting in some private way that you may or may not ever know. And maybe sometimes you do start to feel a bit pleased with yourself--maybe the person who got mad wasn't 100% wrong after all. Can you see this when it happens and let go of it? When someone comes in hoping for help, it's not appropriate to turn that help into some sort of private ego gratification. Most of the people with whom you make this effort will come once or a few times and then won't be back no matter how hard you try. Or they'll be very enthusiastic for months and then quit altogether. If your energy is a function of how big the group is each week, sooner or later that will be a problem.
Spiritual practice involves giving without being overly concerned about what you get back as a reward personally. Setting up a group especially involves giving without asking "What do I get back?"--so, are you comfortable with that yet?
Nobody makes you a dharma teacher or a zen master or a teacher of anything. You become a teacher by teaching, by doing the practice until it is you. It is practice without any goal of becoming anything. It is simply not necessary to want it -- it just happens automatically when practice is clear and consistent. So long as there is still wanting anything, struggling to get something, then practice is not yet fully developed. If that's the case, don't try to force it, just stay focused on What is this? and keep trying. Eventually the teacher appears in you. Maybe someday somebody with formal authority will notice and acknowledge the transformation in some formal way or maybe nobody ever will - that's not important either way.
And MOST IMPORTANT, find a sustainable level of effort that you can maintain over the long haul. Don't make it too easy but don't decide that it's up to you personally to save the world in some literal way and then burn out in a few years when it doesn't seem to be working. Saving all sentient beings is after all a remarkable process. Don't forget to enjoy it along the way.
Already blown your resolutions for the new millennium?
Not to worry. Technically speaking, in spite of all the
media hype, it is not yet the 21st Century or the third
millennium. According to the calendar experts, we won't
officially cross that threshold until January 1, 2001. So,
what to do during the much ballyhooed Y2K, the predawn of
the coming new age? Two words come to mind, shaping motivation. Sunrise on Fiji, January 1, 2000
In 1999, the CNN show Perspectives aired a documentary by Pulitzer Prize winning photographer David Turnley, who had been allowed to shadow the Dalai Lama for a week, recording his activities with photographs and videotape -- an intriguing peek at the mundane daily life of this spiritual leader.
He begins his day early, rising at 3:30 AM for six hours of meditation. One morning, during breakfast, Turnley asked him, "What is the first thing you think about when you wake up in the morning?" "Shaping motivation," His Holiness muttered between bites of food, dismissing any further explanation with an indication that this was a time to eat, not talk.
Shaping motivation resonated with me, even without the explanation, both the simplicity of the thought and the obvious sensibility of shaping one's inner world before tackling the events of one's day -- or life. Many of us may understand the importance of creating a reasonable degree of organization and structure for our external activities, but what about our inner lives?
How many of us take time to prepare our minds and emotions for the activities of daily life? Most of us, I suspect, drag our thoughts and feelings into each day, unprepared and disarrayed -- sometimes, perhaps, even kicking and screaming.
The thought of shaping motivation so struck me that I decided to make that my Y2K theme and I invite you to do the same. Instead of jotting down a new list of well-intended resolutions for this year or the next, spend a few moments every day considering your inner life (don't know mind is a good place to start) and how best to shape it to meet the demands of our rapidly changing world and society.
All the millennial hoopla aside, humanity is entering a new age and a new stage of development. Whether or not this will prove to be an era of enlightenment remains to be seen, but what will matter in the long run won't be our accom-plishments or our achievements, but a preponderance of minds clear, quiet, focused and ready to greet the dawn.
Contemplate thy powers, contemplate thy wants and thy
connections;
so shalt thou discover the duties of life, and be directed in all thy
ways.
--attributed to Akhenaton (1375 B.C.)