Zen at War, War in Zen

Any discussion on this blog about the relationship between Zen and war would immediately call into question the title of this blog: "Jewish Samurai." I have never really explained the meaning behind it and I don't intend to.

Sufficed to say, identities like "Jewish" and "Samurai," and even "Zen" are problematic because none of these points directly at our true nature. Our true nature, whatever it is or isn't, cannot be touched by words.

Nevertheless, I do not wish to deny my Jewish upbringing and the karmic causes and conditions which arose from that experience. Nor do I wish to deny the history of the Samurai's (and other forms of militant nationalism) influence on Japanese Zen which unfortunately found expression in World War II. Ultimately, as my ancestors were being killed in the camps of Europe, many leaders within the Zen community were complicit in the rhetoric which enabled the war. Worse still, they twisted the Zen teachings to make the act of war look like the ultimate path for self-realization.

It is said in our circles with excessive pride and self-congratulation that there has never been a Buddhist war. Not necessarily so.

The most comprehensive treatment of this issue can be found in Brian Victoria's excellent Zen at War and this is the most subtly helpful book I've read since Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. If we want to practice the Zen way, we must not look away at anything... especially shadow aspects.

When I sit with this issue, I think the most disturbing and challenging manifestation of this history is found in Sogaku Roshi's and Yasutani Roshi's views--two very prominent Japanese Zen masters whose teachings had a profound affect on the development of Zen in America. They were also rabid warmongers.

Here are some examples of what they said during the war:

• "[If ordered to] march: tramp tramp, or shoot: bang, bang. This is the manifestation of the highest Wisdom. The unity of Zen and war of which I speak extends to the farthest reaches of the holy war [the Japanese invasion of China]." (--Daiun Sogaku Harada, 1939)
  

• "[The Spirit of Japan] is the essence of the Truth. The Japanese people are a chosen people whose mission is to control the world. The sword that kills is also the sword that gives life. Comments opposing the war are the foolish opinions of those who can only see one aspect of things and not the whole."(--Hakuun Yasutani, date unknown)

• "[Battlefield loyalty, marching and shooting is the] highest wisdom of enlightenment." [This is] "combat zazen, the king of meditation." (--Hakuun Yasutani, date unknown)

On the one hand, this is not Zen. Plain and simple.

On the other hand, this is Zen. Not so plain and simple.

Perhaps the most delicate idea I'll put foreword here is that I think what they said during the period has a kernel of internal consistency with Zen ways... Of course, their teachings' nationalist application was misguided in the extreme and utterly lacking compassion.

The Buddhist way has been exemplified time and again (most recently in Vietnam and Tibet) as a path of non-violence. In the end of the day, the Buddha's objective can be summed up as: "the cessation of suffering." As such, the Japanese roshis rather should have sat, meditated, and allowed themselves to be shot by the emperor for being anti-war, than generate more suffering in the world.

But underneath these teachers' political wrongheadedness, I do detect a "great zeal" (essential for practice along with "great faith" and "great doubt") which contemporary students might reject wholecloth at our peril in favor of an overly-tame Zen. Maybe.

How this form of "great zeal" finds expression in practice is a koan.

Well, for one thing, as a Western student, I'm deeply indebted to zealous Japanese teachings of forbearance (bordering on soldierly discipline). Despite their apparent lack of compassion, the Samurai were undeniably concentrated and devoted. This spirit is immensely helpful in and out of the zendo.

And, I must admit, my practice gets considerable "mileage" when I learn from Japanese "martial" disciplines like Aikido. It is just the nature of this activity to be a radically conducive field for cultivating mushin (no mind), shoshin (beginner mind), and fudoshin (equanimity mind).

Zen is a perspective which extends to all activity. Indeed, Zen is activity. But it is not nihilistic. All activity is interconnected with all beings. In this there is radical freedom and radical responsibility. This paradox is Zen. We can never have an un-Zen moment.

So, with this in mind, one can detect the whiff of the dharma hovering about these serious "mistakes" of the Japanese roshis (no less than the surprising degree and number of sexual scandals in American Zen). By swinging off so thoroughly to the extremes, they show us the Middle Way. And, indeed, I'm writing this post in the spirit of looking for equilibrium having benefited from their karma.

Zen mistakes are fertile ground for recuperative teachings. Recuperative teachings are possible when we study the self. Awakening to this realization is the practice of Zen.

I think this is a strength of the tradition. We're forever balancing, not denying.

In the end of the day, the Soto sect did issue a very strong "Statement of Repentance" in 1992 about the war. And American Zen institutions have dealt directly with the question of sexual misconduct. Neither issue has been solved at all because balance is never achieved. But I think there is wholehearted effort being made.

Apropos, I was struck by something that Karen Maezen Miller said in an interview about her book Momma Zen: Walking the Crooked Path of Motherhood.

She was asked:

How does your training affect the way you deal with the inevitable meltdown moments of parenting? Can you tell us about a not-so-Zen moment and what you learned from it?

She answered:

Most people think Zen is some kind of altered state; something way different than ordinary. But zen is always exactly you: where you are and as you are. So none of us ever has a not-so-Zen moment. It’s just that some moments aren’t very pretty. When that happens, when I lose it (and I lose it all the time), my meditation training helps me to see it! Namely, I can see that I’m slamming doors, screaming, throwing stuffed animals, scaring small children and making a menace of myself. And once I see it, I know the way to recover. Just stop doing that stuff and apologize. I don’t get into trouble any less than anyone else; I just might get out of it a little quicker.

WELCOME BACK, GRACE!

Dear Grace,

I wanted to express the happiness I felt when I found out you had returned to the zendo.

I also wanted to share my heartfelt gratitude to be able to follow your progress in a most unique way: the SFZC podcasts. Over the past year, Fu and many others have incorporated their love for you into their dharma talks.

Actually, their love was the driving engine of their talks. And this was so palpable and moving... even through the distant medium of an iPod. In particular, I can only imagine how the force of Fu's heart was received up close. I have no doubt that it was as great a help to the sangha's practice as it was to mine.

In this way, the events of your life have literally become teachings.

May you be happy and healthy and may you continue to be a refuge for such profoundly inspiring people.

Deep Gassho!

Kafka On The Introvert's Dilemma

I just read Kafka (excerpted below) on the challenge of solitary living. Ouch.

"Summary of all the arguments for and against my marriage"
(--from Kafka's diary, c. 1912)

1. Inability to endure life alone, which does not imply inability to live, quite the contrary, it is even improbable that I know how to live with anyone, but I am incapable, alone, of bearing the assault of my own life, the demands of my own person, the attacks of time and old age, the vague pressure of the desire to write, sleeplessness, the nearness of insanity—I cannot bear all this alone. I naturally add a “perhaps” to this. The connection with F. will give my existence more strength to resist.

2. Everything immediately gives me pause. Every joke in the comic paper, what I remember about Flaubert and Grillparzer, the sight of the nightshirts on my parents' beds, laid out for the night, Max’s marriage. Yesterday my sister said, “All the married people (that we know) are happy, I don't understand it,” this remark too gave me pause, I became afraid again.

3. I must be alone a great deal. What I accomplished was only the result of being alone.

4. I hate everything that does not relate to literature, conversations bore me (even if they relate to literature), to visit people bores me, the sorrows and joys of my relatives bore me to my soul. Conversations take the importance, the seriousness, the truth of everything I think.

5. The fear of the connection, of passing into the other. Then I'll never be alone again.

6. In the past, especially, the person I am in the company of my sisters has been entirely different from the person I am in the company of other people. Fearless, powerful, surprising, moved as I otherwise am only when I write. If through the intermediation of my wife I could be like that in the presence of everyone! But then would it not be at the expense of my writing? Not that, not that!

7. Alone, I could perhaps some day really give up my job. Married, it will never be possible.

This Blog's One Year Anniversary

Zen is a tricky business. One finds that there is a diminishing desire to write too much.

Rather than commemorating one year of blogging about "spiritual progress" with platitudes, I thought I'd post some videos about going up and towards mountains.





PS "The only Zen you find on mountains is the Zen you bring up there."

The Zen of Leonard Cohen

The following quotes were excerpted from Shambhala Sun in an interview they did with Leonard Cohen (otherwise knows as "Jikan" [i.e., Silent One] - his Dharma name) at Mount Baldy Zen Center, which, if I may say, sounds like the most rigorous Zen training to be had (they're Rinzai-shu) at any monastery in the Western Hemisphere. Leave it to badass Leonard Cohen to go at it hard-core. Gassho to the end of love.

This "connection—the unavoidable presence of the Other—has driven us to religion," he says, explaining why he thinks "the great religion is the great work of art." We "form ourselves around these problems," he goes on. "These problems exist prior to us, and we gather ourselves, almost molecularly, we gather ourselves around these perplexities. And that’s what a human is: a gathering around a perplexity."

"In the zendo," he tells me, not unhappily, "all of this disappears." ("This" referring, I think, to his name, his past, the life he carries around within him.) "You don’t notice if this woman’s beautiful or ugly. If that man smells or doesn’t smell. Whoever you’re sitting next to, you just see their pain. And when you’re sitting, you feel nothing but the pain. And sometimes it goes, and then it’s back again. And you can’t think of anything else. Just the pain." He pauses (and the chanteur/enchanteur slips out again). "And, of course, it’s the same with other kinds of pain, like broken hearts."

On Zen students:

"Everyone here is fucked up and desperate," he says brightly. "That’s why they’re here. You don’t come to a place like this unless you’re desperate."

In exultation, one Zen student proclaimed zazen to be "Better than drugs!"

"Secretly," he told me cheerily, "the sin of pride as it’s manifested here is that we feel we’re like the marines of the spiritual world: tougher, more reckless, more daring, more brave."

"There’s a bias against religious virtue here," he assures me, grinning one morning, as bells toll outside and I smell sweet incense in the air and hear clappers knocking in the distance, "and it’s very appealing. So you never have the feeling that it’s Sunday school. And you never have the feeling that you’re abandoning some cavalier life, or getting into some goody-goody enterprise. Not at all. Not at all." When a Buddhist magazine recently asked Cohen to conduct an interview with Sasaki, he gladly agreed, provided they could talk about "wine, women, and money." And to be sure, we’ve hardly been introduced before the disarming sinner-songwriter is using "pussy" and "shunyata" in the same sentence.

"What would I be doing? Finding new drugs, buying more expensive wine? I don’t know. This seems to me the most luxurious and sumptuous response to the emptiness of my own existence. "I think that’s the real deep entertainment," he concludes. "Religion. Real profound and voluptuous and delicious entertainment. The real feast that is available to us is within this activity. Nothing touches it." He smiles his godfatherly smile. "Except if you’re courtin’. If you’re young, the hormonal thrust has its own excitement."

Walking Through Adrienne Rich's Dharma Gate

"Prospective Immigrants Please Note"

by Adrienne Rich

Either you will
go through this door
or you will not go through.

If you go through
there is always the risk
of remembering your name.

Things look at you doubly
and you must look back
and let them happen.

If you do not go through
it is possible
to live worthily

to maintain your attitudes
to hold your position
to die bravely

but much will blind you,
much will evade you,
at what cost who knows?

The door itself
makes no promises.
It is only a door.

Enlightenment Therapy

Chip Brown of The New York Times has written a feature story on a Zen monk's encounter with psychoanalysis. The article is very compelling in its portrait of a wounded man seeking redemption.


Here's the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/magazine/26zen-t.html

As a practitioner, I have some disagreements with the portrayal of Zen in this piece. Zen comes off as a philosophy which is opposed to self-analysis. How strange. In Zen we rigorously study the self in order to forget the self. We do not forget the self as some kind of escape. That would be psychological repression which is in no way consonant with Buddhadharma.

On the other hand, I think that too much authority is granted by the author to the interpretive strategies of psychoanalysis. Chip Brown's writing seems a little seduced by Dr. Jeffrey Rubin's [the analyst] admittedly dazzling acumen. But Dr. Rubin's insights may not be necessarily so... The interpersonal subjectivity between analyst and patient can be of great help or it may muddy the true nature of things because people's opinions (read: ego) are competing for acceptance.

In the end, the clarifying factor is meditation. This (perhaps unfortunately) can only be done for oneself. After the therapy session's conclusion we must be our own therapists.

Nevertheless, the article can really raise awareness of how difficult the private lives of Zen practitioners may indeed be. Too often I project that the roshis I know are living free from suffering. It's a silly idea, really. They're perfectly human. But when you see them in the robes, comporting themselves with heartbracing dignity and stillness, the mind makes assumptions.

Awake people are awake, that is all.

So, much love and thanks go out to Chip Brown, Dr. Jeffrey Rubin and Prof. Louis Mitsunen Nordstrom for their intervention.

Some Thoughts On Ego Psychology And No-Self

I have a friend who is training to become a social worker. We're currently having a discussion about integrating spirituality and clinical work. I think of this as one of the last taboos, in a way. I guess there is much to say and none of it is all that helpful.

But I'll point at the moon.

On the one hand, there is clearly no conflict between mindfulness practice and cognitive restructuring techniques or stress reduction. Very few psychologists would object to integrating the techniques of basic meditation and awareness training.

I think the "problem" arises at a deeper level; namely, the ego. Contemporary Western clinical practices are dependent on the theoretical existence of this "thing" called the ego. The therapist approaches the client as a secular independent unit. The assumption is that the client's ego has basic reality testing, judgment, impulse control, defensive functions, and thought processes. Basically, the client has an identity. That identity is unique and irreducibly individual.

In many spiritual practices (certainly in Zen) one never has a true relationship with the ego because it's not really there! At the center of your being is nothing, an absence, a void. No self. This emptiness is infinite and transpersonal. Your potential--for happiness, among other things--is limitless because there is literally no duality between you and the universe. This is always and already so. Our task is to awaken to this.

Buddhism is uncompromising on this point. Any progress along the spiritual path ultimately has to deal with the question: "Who Am I?" If one meditates for long enough, invariably, everybody sees the same thing, basically: "I'm not there!" Ironically, when people "get it" they tend to become well adjusted and compassionate.

So integrating these two approaches to the self is a challenge as the therapist would have to reevaluate all their assumptions--starting with the idea that there are two independent people in a clinical setting. Maybe there aren't. What if the other person, quite literally, is you? This completely decenters the implied power relationship between therapist and client. In this way, there is only intimacy. What does this do to clinical etiquette and transference?

And then there's "ego identity." What to do with it? Strengthen it or collapse it? Acknowledge that it's a useful fiction when there's awareness? Or show how it's a delusion which stands in the client's way?

Obviously, the therapist can use a multi-modal approach which incorporates some techniques for mindfulness. But, in the end, if the jumping off point is still ego-based, I think it's difficult to work with the client beyond developing greater self-understanding and coping skills (which is no small thing!).

So an "egoless psychology" seems to be a final frontier of sorts. Many beautiful minds are exploring this now. Here are a few: Barry Magid, David Loy, Jack Kornfield, Ken Wilbur, Stanislav Grof, Daniel Goleman, and, of course, Thich Nhat Hahn.

Great Faith/Great Doubt and Nowhere to Stand

In mind training, koan-study is about contradiction, about cultivating a love for holding paradox. The little kensho pearls that get generated by the "bump-and-grind" of two opposing truth-like concepts are beautiful and helpful. But after some time, most everyone becomes a little malcontent with the wabi-sabi preciousness of koans. Like many things Japanese, there can be an over-valuing of the clever, the pretty, and the smug.

In general, students naturally and, I think, correctly want more. And here is where the great doubt of "nowhere to stand" usually gets introduced by the roshis.

I'll give an example. A few weeks ago, my teacher threw this curve at me:

Sensei said: "Is there a teaching no master ever taught before?"

I said something clever but sincere, like: "Yes, this morning I noticed that the zendo's bell needs to be fixed."

--OK, not bad. A little moment of counter-intuition contradiction. I was pleased for a second, then--

Sensei repeated: "Is there a teaching no master ever taught before?"

Me: "Um, I don't know?"

Sensei: "I'll give you a hint: there is doubt here."

Me: "What doubt?"

Sensei: "You should ask me if I, personally, believe my own question to be any good? Does my own koan help me or you at all? This is the practice."

-----------

I find what he is saying to be very compelling. He seemed to be pointing away from the origami-esque self-canceling of koans.

In fact, there are a number of people whom I’ve met who refuse to participate in koans. One such woman said to me: "Koans are like giving out pictures of bread to stop hunger."

Ultimately, this is all very moving to me. I feel like this woman and my teacher are really practicing “great doubt,” even if they lose some of the ground of their tradition.

After all, this is a practice of flexibility. In the Dhammapada, the Buddha is not shy about describing "swans that take flight towards heaven" in divine terms. And like a divine swan alighted, in flight we have nowhere to stand.

Doubting Morgan Freeman

In most religions, the need for faith is often bandied about. In Zen, not so much. Often, my teachers discuss the need for "great doubt." It is said: "At the bottom of great doubt lies great awakening. If you doubt fully, you will awaken fully." 

This is a very honest but torturous route. Doubt reveals that faith can be helpful or it can give us Santa Clause. However, that species of doubt is just the surface. The Zen masters want us to go on a real mind bender; to the kind of dark forests where all our ideas live. If we are already dwelling inside this forest then we are asked to sit. We sit to to observe these phenomena with the great doubt of a scientist. 

But this requires engaged teachers, learned skill, and found community.
 
With these, doubting may reveal that there are ultimately no differences, only different moments. In the end, we have all had each other's experiences. And the experience of doubt is closely related to heartbreak and compassion, in the fissure of which I may understand your karma in a very personal way because my moments are contiguous with yours. I may share a border with your experience of doubting. In this way, humility. Simplicity. Intimacy.

Recently, I've been thinking about the choice of existence as described in The Shawshank Redemption. For many people, this film was a teaching. For example, there is the famous moment when Red, the narrator as played by Morgan Freeman, says: "Get busy living, or get busy dying." Obviously, he is recommending that we get busy living.

But perhaps this is wrong?

I think we can all say that we have gotten busy and lived. In fact, in these times, we have "lived" faster and more intensely than most. And each time, as it happens, after we have gotten busy, there is a fall. So perhaps it's time that we got busy living and dying. Or, rather, being aware that our life is living us and not the other way around...

All things rise and pass away. We do not know this through faith. We know this through direct experience. And so we need great doubt. We need the direct experience of greatly doubting the permanence of things, not great faith in mantras for living an idea of life. In this way we may move away from the seductive naivety of The Shawshank Redemption, with it's title implying that there is something which needs redemption in the first place.

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there." (-Rumi)

Kundalini Yoga: The Yoga of Awareness

Caution: the following is a little technical. Yoga is meant to be experienced, not explained. Jnana (intellectual understanding) may be one of the ways pointing towards enlightenment. But it is nothing without accompanying practice.

I was recently asked if Kundalini Yoga can remove samskaras. Samskaras are the mental formations we might call "personality traits" in the West. Some traits are undesirable, particularly habits of thought. Can Kundalini Yoga help to shed this kind of karma?

What I'm in the process of learning is that when exploring Kundalini Yoga (I'll shorten it to KY) by way of Jnana, there are two perspectives which need to be discussed: one point-of-view is that of Sikh Dharma, the other is more holistic.

KY's natural history runs through the Raja tradition of India, but today it is primarily interpreted by the Sikhs (in particular, Yogi Bhajan, who broke with tradition by teaching KY in America starting in the '60's).

The Sikhs have always had a kind of democratic impulse and they believe Kundalini raising technologies is everyone's birthright, not just the Raj. However, that means that a lot of KY theory has been sifted through the filter of Sikhism. In the process, its classical roots have been somewhat appropriated or transfigured on behalf of religious devotion (bakhti).

The second perspective that a lot of teachers embrace is more expansive than orthodox Sikhism. I can say with some confidence that KY practitioners keep coming back to the studio because the primary benefit is: awareness. I think if we see KY through the lens of "awareness training" then a lot of things start to make sense.

The huge emphasis in KY on meditation, breath, and rigorous movement catapult the mind (very quickly) into unordinary states. In order to do this, there are some pretty significant departures from classical yoga built into the current practice. This is especially true of the asanas. For example, a single KY asana may include and collapse up to three classical poses--it telescopes them by emphasizing movement and flow in (tri)angles. By classical standards, asana accuracy is sometimes sacrificed for efficacy.

This is especially true when it comes to KY's emphasis on the endocrine and nervous systems. In particular, KY hyper-stimulates the parasympathetic system while sending a lot of oxygen into the midbrain. Some believe that this triggers the Pineal Gland which may release elevated amounts of D.M.T. (sometimes called "the spirit molecule").

Whatever the internal mechanism, I can tell you that my mindfulness consistently goes way up during practice. Personally, I find that in contrast to other forms of yoga, the mind on KY looks at itself in a very reflective way. I have a friend who calls KY: Postmodern Yoga... because the mind becomes so aware of its own mechanisms.

So... to approach an answer to the question of samskara, I can discuss the Sikh explanation and also have a go at a more intuitive approach.

The Sikhs believe that there are specific times of the day when the self passes through a kind of twilight zone. During these periods, samskaras are most vulnerable to change. These times are called "Amrit Vela" (ambrosial hours)--they are between 4AM and 7AM and 4PM and 7PM. The Sikhs believe that it is then that our minds are in tune with "Ava Gavan" (a transient stage trending towards Nirvana) and if we do yoga with mantra recitation during this time, then "Guru" (the inner teacher, not an external teacher) will recognize the natural balance of the tattvas (aspects of reality) and correct the imbalances caused by samskaras. In this view, karma actually shapes the five tattvas: fire (anger), air (attachment), earth (greed), and ether (pride). Yoga, then, acts to balance karma/tattva by activating "Guru," the primal spiritual intelligence of every being.

Personally, I find this explanation dissatisfying because it requires faith in a cosmology. Though, it is worth saying that many, many cultures believe in an almost identical narrative. The 4AM to 7AM window is especially cherished in Tai Chi and Sufi practices.

But I'm much more enthusiastic about applying Buddhist philosophy here.

Virtually every Eastern discipline, stemming from a Vedic tradition, agrees that "volitional arisings" or "form-created-by-mind" is at the root of suffering and samskara. But there is significant disagreement about what causes the arising of these conditions. In Buddhism there is a total evacuation of metaphysics in favor of a psychological approach.

According to this view, in the beginning of everything there is avija or "ignorance" (not God, or the Word).

Here is a list (more of a feedback loop, really) of the 12 Nidanas. The Nidanas describe the contingent process of how we accumulate dukkha (suffering, stuck mind).


Ignorance
↓
Formations
↓
Consciousness
↓
Mind & Body
↓
Six Sense Bases
↓
Contact
↓
Feeling
↓
Craving
↓
Clinging
↓
Becoming
↓
Birth
↓
Old Age & Death


The Buddha believed that these contingent conditions arose because of ignorance of the relationship between form, consciousness, feeling, perception, and, finally, formation. This is how samskaras arise.

Kudalini Yoga has the ability to drive a wedge into the ignorance cycle.

The unique emphasis in KY on pranotthana or intensified and repeated movement of the six senses forces the mind to discern the difference between bodily pain (unavoidable) and mental suffering (optional). We realize that physical/mental formations do not need to cause changes in consciousness. The difference between "contact" and "feeling" is highlighted by the fact that we practice KY with our eyes closed. Lots of mantra and meditation are also utilized to enunciate this kind of awareness.

We also put emphasis on the body locks (bhandas) in KY. In fact, mulbhand (root lock), is applied pretty much throughout. Pranayam (breath) dynamics aside, the bhandas have the effect of putting clinging into your conscious control. Very quickly, then, one learns to skillfully uncling through this process. Impermanence becomes very literal.

Finally, breath control is the crown jewel of the practice. We practice something called "Breath of Fire" endlessly. This preps us for stopping the breath. This is said to cause mahanidra (the temporary death of the great nerve). Basically, this is as close to death as one can get. No breath. This is the most important stage in undoing samskaras. If we can master our striving and our clinging to our lives then wisdom may follow.

"Not Existence": The Zen of Ingmar Bergman

Enlightenment as an Empty Shoe

I've been speaking with a number of people about transparency and clarity. These days, our intuition is operating at such a peak level (and rising) that individual deception--self or otherwise--is just a waste of time.

Of course, the embarrassment of full disclosure is also a necessary and natural result of these times. As we realize that we are the masters--that there are no more gurus, no more geniuses--well, there's bound to be blushing at just how collaborative we've become.

For a beautiful enunciation of this feeling, please read:

Is Einstein the Last Great Genius?

http://www.livescience.com/culture/081205-science-genius-einstein.html

No more secrets.

I'll give two examples of this collaboration as I see it. These are ancient in precedent and modern in expression:

1) In my yoga studio, we're seeing more and more foot related injuries from people who live in urban ares. It's really sad but it's also a literal opportunity for satori.

The Buddha (who probably never wore shoes after the age of 29) once described enlightenment in this way: when you're an adult, you put on sensible shoes, and, inevitably, a small stone gets stuck inside. At first it hurts, it really hurts. But after a while you get used to it. You come to expect the pain. One day, the stone falls clear out of the shoe and you are in a state of bliss. You say, "I never knew!"

Enlightenment!

These days, cosmic consciousness isn't achieved cosmically so much. Now, it's manifested more prosaically and, I believe, honestly. Just clean house (and sneakers). Let emptiness do the rest.

Today, in Zen and Kundalini Yoga and everything, people's higher minds are investigating so fast that all we have to do--our entire responsibility--is just to help people take off their shoes. But just their shoes... the rest they must do.

2) In Japan, you can see how important it is to people to be of physical assistance to each other. There are these really amazing "wrathful bodhisattva" guarding the Buddhist monasteries. Their responsibility is to protect the meditators inside and adventurers outside. They're incredibly loyal lions and their hearts never give out... but their backs and feet can become very tired and strained.

Every morning (very, very early), the monks convene with local businessmen on their way to the Nikkei. Together, they tie red and pink ribbons around the lions as signs of love and gratitude for their compassion. Also, it is said that the purpose of the ribbon is to support the lions' backs and feet. They're very old. The monks call this give-and-take "karma yoga" or the practice of taking care of those who take care of us. And so it goes. Everybody and everything is gathered into a reciprocal state of equality and mutual support.

This is the ideal. Bodhisattvas taking care of bodhisattvas. I mean, here are human beings taking care of statues for goodness' sake! You can imagine, then, how loving the practice makes them towards living, breathing things.

Mãĩ tumse pyār kartā hū

A Moment of Zen Noir

I don't know, I found this trailer almost impossibly sad. But very funny.

Enlightenment in the space and time of a gunshot. 

Then there's this clip in which a monk says: "You going to freak out, or eat the orange?"

Seeking A Path Beyond Thought. But How?

I recently got this e-mail from a close friend of mine in New York:

On the whole, I'm a firm believer in meditation, yoga, mindful living and the like. But of late I haven't been living that way. Mindful living is just that and it was getting very emotionally exhausting to basically be thinking all day. Don't get me wrong, I still do breathing, but I've taken a meditation hiatus... I'm trying to follow the whole "go with the flow" philosophy, but every so often the other side of my brain pops in and starts making trouble.

Trust me, I've been there--the thinking flooding in during meditation. Frustrating.

At those times, it seems like meditation is actually conspiring to create its own worst nightmare: more thought.

People usually abandon meditation at this stage. But they risk not realizing that the massive and exhausting inner noise is the ego's last gasp attempt to keep its integrity. It always--hear me--always gets better under these battle conditions. It is here that the mind is about to make a leap. Let it. Keep working.

Actually, at this stage, mind has already made the jump.

The Zen Masters teach us that we are already enlightened! We just don't recognize this.

At first blush, this may look like a typical religious tautology. But it's not circular thinking. I can report this is so from repeated experiments. The result: all training becomes redundant when you get the flash of insight. This is "Beginner's Mind."

OK. Fine. But how to do this?

Imagine your happiness as always with you, already smiling under your conscious mind. I'm guessing that we all trend towards desiring help from the outside. Especially when we want in to "the zone."

I'm not sure, but if most people see life this way, I think they are partially correct. While everybody (everybody) in our life are wrathful Bodhisattva (literally: compassionate warriors), helping us to slice away at our delusions of mind, they cannot ultimately go to war for us.

And so sadness always follows peak experience because at some level the drug of outside help wears off.

However, when we encounter that favorite helping other again, we naturally give ourselves permission to enjoy ourselves with them. This unconsciously cements the mistaken understanding that they are meeting our needs.

No. Primarily, we make ourselves happy. Mind is fully responsible for this state. But we've been conditioned to interpret the source of that happiness as external. It's not.

The ego has a great deal of trouble with this cognitive shift. And it even seems somehow ungrateful not to acknowledge external sources of joy.

And, indeed, it would be incredibly selfish if one remained stuck in a solipsistic framework wherein we were totally obsessed about our own inner worlds.

However, I cannot overstate how valuable it may be as an exercise to vigorously work out just how much mind creates our external reality.

Once you enter meditation from this vector--and, if possible, remain inside this angle of approach--I suspect you will better know what you already know.

However, if you would like some "outside" assistance in this process from a guided point of view, please watch the video below. It is the first in an eleven part series on "Facilitating Big Mind" (all the lectures are on youtube). The workshop is led by Genpo Roshi.

Despite very valid criticisms of this method, I believe this is a powerful adjunct to zazen.

If you wish to go through the process, it is advisable to set aside about 90 minutes for uninterrupted engagement with the material.

Celibacy: A Zen Perspective

Recently, a question was sent to me by a friend:

"I'm thinking about this celibacy thing for you... why would you elect to adopt the monastic aspect of this? It would seem to me that a family and a spiritual life of this sort are not antagonistic to each other... Just curious how a young guy like you could be thinking of this..."

Well said, right? It's a classic question.

I answer in this way, hopefully without apology:

As I learn more about integration as a core gesture, the more I'm becoming convinced that compartmentalization while training is important. At present, my life is overdetermined. My mind is underdeveloped.

In other words, when I am really learning to do something different, I think it is best to mindfully devote my resources to that practice. Afterwords, after all the pieces have been disassembled rigorously, only then can I put them together as a free functioning, fully integrated unit.

The key here is: free functioning--and the choice to be so.

In Christianity (and I dare say some Jewish streams of thought), monastic tradition is driven by competitive suffering. Deprivation is seen to be somehow transportive. In that model we might say: pain = progress.

In the Zen model, the spiritual economy works very differently: we simplify. And then we simplify some more. We even simplify our attachments to Buddhism. This is a bottomless process. The goal is complete receptivity. Total presence, total non-judgement.

Why be so present?

--here's the Buddha's thesis--

MAXIMUM HAPPINESS.

And, ideally, maximum sustainable happiness for the maximum number of beings.

Now, sex is unquestionably one of the greatest pleasures. It is clearly part of life's best. Everybody (laypersons) should be having responsible, non-harmful sex according to Buddhism! It's natural!

The only problem I can see is not with sex. I think the world has had quite enough of sex bashing.

The problem is with unskilled mind. In the Western mode of desire, our minds do not realize that pleasure may not facilitate happiness. Not sustainably.

So what if it's not sustainable? Nothing is.

Yes, but what if confusing pleasure with happiness makes happiness somewhat unavailable?

I'll provide some examples of this which I used earlier in this blog:

• Things we do which we say "make us happy" are said to do so because they function as a "relief" from a prior state. For example, after work, we might go golfing. Perhaps the day at the office did not make us happy.

• However, after sufficient time, happy at the links, we need relief from the golfing as well. Every golfer has to and wants to call it a day after a point. In fact, it would make them unhappy to continue.

• One could imagine a version of Sisyphus' hell as a never ending golf tournament, caddying one's irons from hole to hole. Indefinitely.

• The same could be said of any thing outside ourselves which provokes a "happy" state of mind.

• For example, I might say: Pizza makes me happy. So, theoretically, the more pizza I eat, the happier I'll be. But after two or three slices... a fourth, let alone a fifth becomes nauseating. The effort will not repay itself.
  
  
• Even more precariously, we can harm ourselves and others in an endless cycle of trying to get at happiness.

Is there another happiness? One which you couldn't give or get enough of when you were a child and--hopefully--when you are an adult? One which will not tend to burn you or itself out, even though it requires sustained effort?

I think so. And it's always, already inside. It is not an external sublime. Personally, I never get tired of this form of pleasure/happiness. What it is exactly, for you, I cannot tell. But it's there.

Find it. But find it with precision. Celibacy is only one path towards assisting this exploration and it is not explicitly recommended by the masters. In particular, the Japanese Zen teachers are suspicious of the righteousness and seperationist biases of celibate practice.

I am mindful of this. However, I have found that it can dissolve desirous attachment. With reduced attachment, the mind can live in an empty space and flow towards openness.

Emptiness allows for the realization that all energy is just energy. Ki is Ki. Therefore, if I'm of an intention to direct my energy towards any part of my body--this can be accomplished when there is emptiness or "mushin" (lit: "mind like water").

In Karate, we put our hands through blocks in this manner. In Kundalini Yoga, we utilize tantra to refine our postures and perspectives. In Aikido and Zazen, we become observers of the wind and change. The list of conduits is extensive... And for those practicing sexuality, it goes without saying that energy can be accessed and channeled most directly through this powerful discipline.

In this way--and somewhat ironically--celibacy becomes a very sexual process. It is a sexuality of silence. If the silence can be improved upon, we should speak, if not, we should not speak.

But none of these words should be taken on faith. This is a matter of personal intuition.

According this way, Zen never, ever suggests renouncing sex unless your experience validates that without it you may refine your life and your senses. All things, in Zen and life, must be researched and tested.

As we say: "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." Nothing is sacred, all is subject to inquiry.

In my case, my psychological makeup is so challenging that I think the monastic path can be most helpful is assisting me to find the middle way. However, this is a deeply subjective and not prescriptive view of the world.

To sum up then, even indefinite celibacy is non-definite. "Everything changes."

Is this hedging my bet?

I don't think so. And if it is, then celibacy is not ideal because it is somehow facilitating delusion.

If, however, my celibacy is clear-eyed, then I may view the monastic life as a model for progressive training. And, in practice, the monastic energetic commitment is so hard-core, that discipline quickly becomes second nature.

But having integrated the lesson of "everything changes," I know that discipline itself changes. In this way, we must meet our lives moment-to-moment, in the spirit of genuine scientific inquiry.

On some level, this also means I affirm or reject my experimental celibacy every day. But no matter what my daily conclusions, I do not act on swaying mind. I merely observe its fluctuations.

As Dalai Lama, Kundun says: "if science proves an aspect of Buddhism incorrect, then we have an obligation to render that aspect of Buddhism obsolete." Similarly, if I determine my path is incorrect, it will be corrected.

But for now, for today, it is most appropriate, I think.

Ask "Zen Cat"

http://www.movingsky.co.uk/zenCat/

Click on the above link for a fascinating discussion with Zen Cat, a new technology which allows you to interact with a "virtual personality"--in this case, your statements and questions will be met with specific replies in the tone and cognitive perspectives of a Zen Master. Actually, a cat who thinks he's a Zen Master. No, really, a programmer's impersonation of a cat impersonating a Zen Master.

You see the possibilities.

Enjoy. Or. Do not Enjoy.

P.S. Below you'll see a photo which describes two of our more prominent minds: the monkey mind and the dove mind. For those practicing Zen, please remember that it is important to integrate the chattering monkey mind, not to "annihilate" it.

The Angels From America Spoke: YES WE CAN!!!

CONGRATULATIONS AMERICA!!! CONGRATULATIONS WORLD!!!

LOOK UP, LOOK UP!!!

It's not very Zen of me, but I cannot contain my happiness! I don't remember the last time I felt so utterly hopeful!

It's been a long time coming...

To be on the East side of Earth for this wonderful day is humbling. The day belongs to every person around the world who said NO to fear! Around me, I meet people who feel planetary today.

To quote my teacher, Tony Kushner:

"The great work begins!"

All forms of theatre, all action can be theurgic ways of repairing the self, the nations, the world.

Do lots of yoga, meditation, eat well, die anyway--but love the people in your life with ferocity and unconditional kindness.

"To do this, every Kabbalist on earth would sell his right nut." (Rabbi Chemelwitz, Act 5, Scene 6, ANGELS IN AMERICA)

The time is now.

Zen and the Art of Therapy

I was recently asked by a friend who works in the field of Mental Hygiene (a strange phrase, don't you think?) how I would apply the Zen concept of "skilled love" to her practice.

I assumed my teachers would suggest that I should answer the question as honestly as possible--i.e., with: "I don't know."

However, when I asked Sensei for help in addressing this, he insisted that I struggle towards an answer.

Right. So here goes:

The principle of "skilled love" is closely related to the Buddhist concept of non-attachment. However, the tough-mindedness which attracted me to Zen in the first place sees non-attachment as impossible without an understanding of compassion.

Compassion is this, simply:

You are not your ego.

You are not your thoughts.

You are not the sum of your memories.

Neither is anyone else.

However, Zen cannot tell you what you are (and, no, I'm not going to say we're Nothing or neti-neti, because I don't have a black belt in that type of thinking yet).

Before I understood this, I was lost in thought. Since I fully identified with my thoughts, I was attached to each. As a result, depression, anxiety, and suffering were inevitable.

Here's what changed: as (perhaps) opposed to New Age-thinking, which advocates increasing love of the self, I chose to turn my love of "me" off. That's very tough. It's unbelievably shattering to REALLY grasp that all my problems are self-generated. That I was making the self up--out of memory. Not here, not now.

Nevertheless, here's the bottom line: it's been a very long time since I've been emotionally overwhelmed and it's extremely unlikely that I will be again--in fact, it's technically impossible--if there continues to be centered observation of the ego, as opposed to living inside of ego. But I know as surely as I'm going to die, that if I were to take an extended trip back to a lack of mental discipline, relapse into the usual would be unavoidable.

So, one needs skills of mind.

And at the top of the list is the need for "skilled love." In fact, this love is so tough-minded, it initially doesn't feel like love.

Why?

Because it isn't love. Not in the usual sense. But after practice, it's much more fun.

The most accessible example of this might be: drumming.

Here are the phases of drumming, as I understand them:

1) Drum is tuned. Focus is on the instrument, but attention is still not fully present.

2) Tuning up and finding the rhythm. I dare any drummer, no matter how experienced, to attempt drumming and thinking at the same time while they're warming up.

3) Skilled love. Drumming is a little mechanical without dedication. So you let go.

Letting go actually means letting go. Muscular tension, then, is redundant, unnecessary to playing. But so is attachment to the music. In the skilled love phase, you could stop just as surely as you could continue. The choice is your own. Karma.

Here's where something weird happens. Right about then, when skill on the drum mixes with devotion and choice--thought returns. In fact, you can carry on a perfectly coherent (actually, amazing) conversation while your hands are doing the walking.

This experience is duplicated in the practice of yoga and martial arts. Our teachers refuse to engage us in talk until we're immersed in the zone. Then the conversation flows.

Do enough of this, repeat, and something shifts.

So, how does this apply to the therapeutic session?

I think "the zone" can be accomplished in Western therapy if we wouldn't overburden it with all the expectations it currently has to bear.

Right about now, therapy is trying to compensate for an increasing lack of meaningful companionship. The therapist is paid to stand in as confidant.

I think it's great that this service is available. The only problem I can see is that the analysand can spend the entire therapy session getting warmed up.

Since the client "needs to talk," and that's probably a good thing, this implies a Zen-like responsibility for the therapist.

I would say it can work something like this: skilled love never, ever means "working on someone else." The most emotionally moving gift, I believe, that you can give someone, is to work on (getting off) your self in their presence. By doing this, something dramatic can happen in the room. We change and we don't know why--but we certainly don't feel controlled--in the company of someone who is always centering themselves.

How does that make you feel?

P.S.No jokes about "work on (getting off) your self in their presence," please. Too easy.

Pure Theatre Geekery: "'Charlie Rose' by Samuel Beckett"

"'Charlie Rose' by Samuel Beckett"



Very reminiscent of Ohio Impromptu. You can watch it here as performed by Jeremy Irons and... Jeremy Irons.

Elsewhere. It's better.

Another traumatic day in economics. 

Consider: on 9/11 while our attention was focused elsewhere, the birds sang in Central Park.

Taxi To The Dark Side... and back again.

Change is said to come from within. But without outside help it's almost impossible. 

But even with help, change tends to tango, lockstep, with one of the roughest depressions a person can go through; namely, dislocation of identity. Add geographical relocation to the mix and many international travelers, including this one, get messed up by an inevitability: that unfortunately and naturally, pain is to be expected when shifting gears to a radically different position of being in the world.

I can only imagine how difficult it is has been for everyone who has helped me through life to balance judicious intervention and skilled restraint. In Japan and Buddhism generaly, they call that role: "Bodhisattva" (lit. Compassionate Warrior). 

I am glad that the use of the word "warrior," in this context, has no New Age connotations in tow (Bodhisattva, is a sanskrit word [बोधिसत्त्व] in use since at least the 5th Century B.C.E.)... in fact, my teachers in Zen--they who almost never reveal frustration--do become testy when a student begins to fetishize "the warrior". Their concern is that New Age-y thinking is selfish. In overemphasizing the self, New Age doesn't actualize personal growth. Instead, my teachers suggest that focus on the other is really the only way to achieve sustainable happiness.

Love (esp. skilled love) IS the answer. And skilled love absolutely requires expression outside the ego's limits. Before, that was just words. Now, it's just evident.

In this vein, I want to share a kind of "truth" which I've begun to learn at a core level:

What is happening is just what is happening.

Shakespeare/Hamlet said: "Nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." And the frustrating simplicity of the statement belies how a person really doesn't need a whole lot more self-knowledge than this. However, beginning that kind of ego-mastery of no judgement (not ethical relativism), is probably only possible though radical rethinking. And the rethinking often means confronting your most sacred values--whatever they may be.

I'll give a personal example: last night I saw "Taxi to the Dark Side". If you haven't seen it, I do recommend it as the direction seems very tough-minded and organized. Nevertheless, because of its unflinching stare at torture, it's likely to cause your mind and heart to hurt. Sometimes, it (actually, not "it;" rather: me) brought me to sorrow and shame.

But, then, as I was watching the interviews with the convicted American soldiers, I became aware of a fatal relationship implicit in how I saw them. Specifically, I was apprehending the soldiers as my soldiers, my representatives. I was so ego-attached to an idea of who they were and the fear that they might be my echo, that I almost failed to actually look at the screen and see them. 

So I looked.

The truth is, when you actually see a person, you realize that you have no idea--or, at least, I didn't--who they really are. The soldiers were irreducibly complicated and singular. I had no reliable framework in which I could successfully judge them. 

This isn't a mental leap, it's a gut reaction, thank goodness. 

And I was even able to forgive them. They didn't need my forgiveness--but I did. The forgiveness process is almost indescribable... when it works, it works--in this way, I learn from their actions and the learning isn't driven by shame. 

Wow. Personal responsibility need not be instructed and learned by way of guilt? Who knew?

OK, so how does this translate into skilled love? One of my sparring partners is an Israeli soldier with whom it has been difficult for me to practice good Aikido. Why? I think I hate her guts. For the following reason: she's a member of the infamous Israeli border police, a group tasked with patrolling the "security fence" and maintaining the Palestinian checkpoints. As an organization, let's just say they aren't renowned for being compassionate warriors.

But, really, how the hell do I know?

In fact, for all I know, this woman might be amazingly thoughtful at her job--and even if she isn't, it doesn't matter.

In the dojo, she's just there, then. Real and standing.

For some reason, this actually occurred to me in the moment as I was opposing her on the mat. We practiced very good Aikido today. She even saved me from a nasty potential fall which probably would have dislocated my shoulder. Thanks, therefore, is due to the interviews with the Abu Ghraib soldiers. 

Look closer.

Change is impossible without help from an other. 

I didn't get it. 

Now... it's working out.

"More Life"

To quote Kushner's "Angels in America": More life.

I'm on my way to the synagogue right now so I must be brief but I wanted to wish you a new year of profound happiness--even if you do not formally observe this day as a new year's beginning.

I was just thinking how lucky I am to be able to celebrate two new years (today and Jan. 1st) in every year... so too, I thought it would be neat to share the idea of beginning again whenever you wish to do so.

The more I study Aikido and Zen, the more a stream of clarity regarding beginnings becomes evident: that beginnings are far more preferable than is mastery. A beginning's purity and enthusiasm are difficult to retain. I find that in endless practice situations in the dojo, I am most happy when I forget the clock and fall into a new technique as just that: new. Without (ideally) the terror of "the blank page" staring up at me.

And, so, I think writing and falling (we spend most of our training time learning how to fall) are honeymooning love interests beginning again and again...

Again, more renaissance, and, again, love and, again, more life.

A Highdea: How To Do Kundalini Meditation By Being Your Own Warp Core

Right. So this came to me as I was sitting in meditation in Yoga class. It seemed terribly profound at the time.

For those of you who ever watched Star Trek (great to watch when you're growing up... but why, oh why, is it so lame?) there's a key image which you can use when trying to draw energy up from the ground and down from the sky--the warp core.
Yeah.




ANIMATED INTRO ON HOW TO DRAW ENERGY UP AND DOWN DURING YOUR MEDITATION:

Srugim or Sex and the Holy City

I'm in Israel for this leg of my studies before my scheduled junket to Japan for intense training in Zen. While I'm here, I live in the old Jerusalem neighborhood of Katamon--this place is famous for its singles scene. Recently, Katamon (or "the botz" or "swamp" as its singles wryly and only half-affectionately call the place) came to national attention as it was featured in the new Israeli TV show "Srugim," a soapy but poignant Israeli pop-intervention. Srugim dramatizes the lives of young, "Modern-Orthodox" singles adrift. Modern-Orthodoxy means many things to many people, but as a movement it tries to live in the space between the real world and real ritual (the "liminal space" as my teachers say). Watching "Srugim" is fascinating... Once, I was one of these people. Now, I'm just me/and them/and everybody else.

"On the beach on Shabbat (the Jewish sabbath)":

How the Ego works

One day, a priest was passing by the office of his bishop. He heard the bishop praying with the these words: "I am nothing. I am nothing."

The priest was inspired. He went into his own office and began to pray: "I am nothing. I am nothing."

The janitor passed by the priest's office and heard the prayer. The janitor was inspired. He walked down the hall repeating: "I am nothing. I am nothing." 

The priest heard the janitor praying and said to himself: "who the hell does he think he is?"

David Mamet on Budo/David Mamet on Acting

Sensei recently encouraged us to watch David Mamet's Redbelt. Mamet's style of writing--he has a purple belt in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu--relies on leveraging the unstoppable inertia of inevitability. 

This is the essence of praxis in tragedy.

The incomparably enigmatic Chiwetel Ejiofor play's Mamet's protaganist, Mike Terry. Terry, nearly a saint in this film, embodies Mamet's broader philosophy. As he says:

"Everything has a force. Embrace it or deflect it. Why oppose it? Just turn to the side."

One can hear the ring of truth about this idea, no?

Mamet takes this exact approach to theatre in his famous book True and False in Acting: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor. In this text, he embraces Sanford Meisner's brilliant and economic epiphany: that acting is SIMPLY about practicing "the reality of (not) doing." In other words, acting is not doing anything until someone or something makes you do it.

As Mamet writes: “Preoccupation with effect is preoccupation with the self, and not only is it joyless, it’s a waste of time.”

Just take the heat off yourself by putting all your attention on the other. It works.

Iaido and the Aleph-Bet: Workshop Every Wed.

Q: What do Samurai culture and the Aleph-Bet have in common?

A: Explore the question. Join us for a free workshop that will introduce the Ancient Japanese sword art of Iaidō and Otiyot Chayot, a system of movement inspired by Kabbalah, T’ai Chi and the Aleph-Bet.

Through Iaidō, we will use our bodies and our “swords”* to become living calligraphy of the Hebrew letters.

The goal: to find a state of flow and no mind.

Details:

Where: South East corner of Gan Sacher, Jerusalem

When: Every Wednesday (18:00 - 19:30)

Clothing: loose, comfortable clothing

* “Swords”: Please visit your local hardware store and purchase a wooden stick, approximately 60 cm in length. Alternatively, if you would like to continue studying this art, purchase of a bokken (a traditional wooden practice sword) is recommended.

To RSVP or for more information, please e-mail: akiva@republictheater.org

Budo for Peace: changing the perception of Oyev (enemy) into the Ohev (beloved)

Budo for Peace (BFP) brings together young people from conflict areas in the Middle East to learn and practice traditional Japanese budo (martial arts) in order to learn its values and apply them toward breaking down fear and building trust between peoples. Through martial arts training and understanding of traditional Japanese budo values – including respect, harmony and self-control – the youth enrolled in our program are taught to convert both internal and external conflict into harmonious behavior.

For more information, please visit: http://www.budoforpeace.org

Aikido and Anne of Green Gables?!?

Like many children of the '80's, I grew up watching PBS' Anne of Green Gables.

Then adulthood, quarter life crisis (actually crises), and cynicism.

But life travels in circles and, if we're lucky, spirals.

I feel lucky.

Like many in their late-twenties, living in NYC, I wanted so much more. And when I was ready, teachers appeared in all things. I fall in love at least twice a day now.

I think a good indicator for spiritual or self-aware progress can be found when you brush (not trip) against your own past as you're moving forward, take note of it, and keep moving. Wallowing in nostalgia is not of-the-moment. But deja-vu is. It propels you progressively, urgently, and, of course, uncannily.

For those so inclined, I recommend reading Jacques Lacan's framing of this idea. He calls it: meconnaisance.

When you train hard, the soft emerges. And this is how, twenty+ years after childhood, Anne Shirley returns. As you may know, the Anne of GG series has a cult-like following in Japan. Many have speculated as to why. They've suggested that it represents a desire for a Japan that never was. Perhaps. Whatever the reason, I found the following article on the Aikido Journal site (see: http://www.aikidojournal.com/?id=3432). It is written by Nev Sagiba Sensei. In it he describes what is, I think, the ideal human-animal: rigorously disciplined in mind and body and, as a result, surprisingly gentle in spirit.

And so today, as Coney Island's Astroland officially closes its doors forever, new ones open. Here's an example:

Advantage and Disadvantage - Life Navigation Skills

Pursuing the path of Aikido over many years has taught me the simple revelation made by a friend a long time ago, on a beach watching the rising sun: “To every advantage, there is a disadvantage; to every disadvantage there is an advantage. Each carries inside of it the seed of its opposite.”

This is the secret of navigating life, indeed the very cosmos itself. Ukemi.

I have a friend, a very hard stylist who never stayed with Aikido long enough to truly extract its benefits, who jeers at the Koryu or Kobudo arts’ methodology; the old style where the master takes the uke role. He claims, “Yeah, they practice losing so they can get good at it.” I’m not sure what he bases this on but, since he talks a lot and no longer practices, I can only deduce that it’s just plain ignorance arrived at because of academic theorizing and lack of practice. A bad combination indeed.

Can we really agree with this view in the face of the fact the old masters came from generations of battle-hardened warriors often going back thousands of years into old China and India? Their methods obviously have purpose, discovered in the wisdom of ages of experience.

My experience over my few years of variegated training differs considerably from that of my friend and I have consistently observed the very opposite to his view. I concur with the Kobudo view. I have found that the sport ‘martial artists’, the few freaks who survive this hard game invariably get killed or turn out to be cowards in the street, the field and any real emergency. In tending to be self-centered about winning they walk into their own darkness and fail. Repeatedly I’ve witnessed this. Big, tough, macho pussies they turn out to be, only capable of generally pushing their weight around when no real risk exists.

Conversely, the gentle, non-competitive people who train quietly and treat everyone with respect generally turn out to be fearless warriors in all manner of high-risk situations. And then they resume their creative service to society bearing their own burden as if nothing happened. You generally would not pick them as being out of the ordinary.

Again and again and again I have seen this trend until it began to speak to me. I asked the question: Why? I have no answers, but I have developed a theory, the theory of Ukemi and Kaeshi.

When you practice to both “win” and “lose” till these two impostors become irrelevant, another dimension of consciousness begins to appear; a different paradigm or way of viewing existence which enables us to navigate instead of blunderbuss through life, with entirely different results.

Because you understand both, you fear neither, and therefore it becomes possible to take charge and win at every point.

Remember the days when trainees of some arts knew no groundwork. Nor how to fall safely, and if felled, made the decision to imagine they had lost. A mere fall was considered a loss in their minds and at that point they gave up trying. Man, the ground is your ally and just the beginning whether you stay there or not! And you GET UP AGAIN.

A Budo acquaintance I share information with, often confesses that he has “lost” as many fights as he has won. Since he refers to crime fighting he’s referring to the real thing, not sport. Whilst I appreciate his candor, I keep having to tell him that he has lost none. He does not seem to get it and I have to keep repeating it: “If you lost you would be dead!” Mere bruises, pain and injuries do not constitute loss, they indicate you are alive. “What did you do?” I ask. He replies: “I got up and got on with life.” I rest my case. You won. The rest is mere details.

Life navigation is determined by attitudes. The practice of Aikido in particular, delineates those attitudes.

I was on the phone not long ago talking business with another friend, a hardened Budoka, now a successful business entrepreneur with some severe past street experience. He suddenly, mid-conversation told me: “I have to go. I’m closing shop, ‘Anne of Green Gables’ is on.” And hung up the phone.

What??? ‘What’s is the world coming to?’, I thought. But I became intrigued. I recalled that my ex and her daughters used to watch it and I then, being younger and more task-oriented, basically ignored it as “girlie stuff.” Now, this toughened, street hardened warrior closed shop to watch “Anne of Green Gables”? Well, most of my life has been surreal in one way or another, so, whilst surprised I quickly adapted; but my intrigue got the better of me and so I decided to close shop as well and put the TV on and watch “Anne of Green Gables!” What was it a street hardened fighter was getting out of watching this? So much so that I ended up getting the complete series and er.. studying it.

No leaping of tall buildings. Just human circumstance. A bit too close to home for comfort. And the nostalgia of a seeming better past is always a hook. Romantic, idealized and unrealistic pasts are always an escape from now. But there are some bits of gold in the story that do apply to real life.

The way the character, a girl, heroically navigates a potentially miserable life turning everything her way, was pure Aikido life navigation. Portraying the highest, the best, the possible of human potential, never staying down for long, bringing value to the world instead of only taking and expecting. Strong where necessary, but mostly dynamically kind and staunchly compassionate in the face of spite, anger, hard-heartedness, envy, betrayal and a host of miseries. Making friends of possible enemies and never taking no for an answer when it came to integrity.

It caused me to reflect on my past life. Despite my high and noble ideals.. well.. it makes me look like a bull in a china shop with a blindfold; or a steam roller in high gear, though I did not realise it at the time.

Looking back, of necessity I too fought life more than necessary at times, instead of appropriately yielding to least some circumstances. I hope I can learn to do better as I grow. It taught me also that for the vast most of us, when we behave like idiots, we know no better and that’s why we stumble blindly, clumsily and arrogantly through a life riddled with errors and learning mostly the hard way. It brought up considerable feeling of forgiveness for others in this plight, not possible many years ago in the thick of battle.

I have known people in life who in many ways resemble this Anne character, not a Pollyanna but a dynamic spiritual warrior, yet with heart. What made them different? An ATTITUDE and a CHOICE to remain positive despite the challenges and to CONVERT THE DISADVANTAGES INTO ADVANTAGES. PURE AIKIDO.

Er.. it makes my expertise on the mat and other battles pale into insignificance. I’m the student; they and the character of Anne are the masters of Aikido. Guys with a hakama… nothing much.

What enables such an attitude earlier in life in some more than others, the slow learners like me?

I don’t know, but I found these passages which I’ll share:

From Rudyard Kipling:

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master,
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

—Rudyard Kipling

And from the Mahabarata and the Bhagavad Gita:

”..Realize that pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat, are all one and the same: then go into battle..”

Another translation:

“…Treating pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat alike, engage yourself in your duty..”

In other words: Get over it. Grow up. Do something about your attitude. Get on with the business of being human, creating and serving all life, and sure, be a good fighter as well, just in case you need it, but make better things than mere fighting, your primary focus.

And if you have to, when there is no alternate choice, then fight if you have to.

As the Founder of Aikido stated: “Leave everything in the hands of the Universe.. Live life creatively and to the fullest… Love all life… True Budo is an expression of God’s love… It requires no more weapons than your heart… Regardless of circumstance, hold an attitude where everything can be converted to advantage, no matter what… true victory is victory within yourself, everything else then follows…”

Nev Sagiba
aikiblue.com