February 24 1999
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My last letter was mostly written after three weeks here. I imagine that this one will be sent out some time after eight weeks, the sixty percent mark. Each day's sunlight is getting longer, the weather is getting warmer (sometimes I am even hot). My first week here dragged forever, but now it is another day before I know it (similarly to how, in running, the first time I run a new route it seems to last for weeks, but after running the route fifty times, it goes from starting out to finishing up without much in between).
Tonight we have a special event: a skit/poetry night. I am jumping in and doing a short skit dramatizing the Buddha as a customer service representative responding to a complaint about a credit card overcharge by saying things like, "the cause of your suffering is your clinging to the illusion of separate selfhood", and the like. I'll see how much mirth and merriment arises. Despite continued efforts to focus on my own inner work and not to prioritize making friendships I am here for a quarter of a year, and do seem to keep trying to figure out the social thing here (as if I ever have figured it out anywhere else). The social thing here, for me, is sometimes satisfying, but rarely with much stability or depth. Many people are weird here, compared with what I'm used to ... or maybe I'm weird here ... or maybe socializing is weird here. On that note, we are under such pressure and in such tight proximity all day every day, that, despite the Buddha-style chilling out, many people seem to report some community-living-themed irritation is present for them. I, for example, have had several rootin' tootin' showdowns with people, but, pleasantly, the episodes seem to have mostly resolved themselves with some good old-fashioned "sharing."
I didn't come here to make friends, however, I feel like I already have plenty (and you just may be one of them) -- for example, when Rich tells me about Community events, I usually have a feeling of missing out. What I did come here for, it seems clear to me, is meditation, learning from the teacher Tenshin Reb Anderson, and studying/reading.
Meditation continues to be the bomb. I often feel high during and after it, just myself with notably more integration and feeling of unconstricted freedom than normal life seems to bring. Our first month had ten days of all-day meditation, but this second month has had none, instead having days with three hour work periods in the afternoon and other non- sitting-on-a-cushion-facing-a-wall events. The incipient last month, however, has both a four-day and a seven-day Sesshin (Japanese for "cultivating the heart/mind" -- a day of all-day meditation) scheduled. So, soon, we look to be getting down with the hard-core get down once again.
In the teacher partition of the monastery hard drive, six days ago, Tenshin Roshi left for two weeks to run a Sesshin in Vancouver, and I feel the absence; his teachings give a large part of the value and meaning to my being here. He seems generally relatively impersonal and unemotional in his dealings with me and other students, and, for a while, I was thinking to myself, "y'know, after five years of studying with him, I don't believe in the myth of Reb anymore." But, continuing to go to his lectures and having a long talk with him about how best to learn from him, I have come to the opinion that he is a deeply realized (ie: enlightened, mentally and spiritually healthy, not-fucked-up) being.
He continues to kick down powerhouse teachings: he said, for example, that whatever a person says to you -- "I love you" or "I hate you" or anything in between -- it's all a joke, and that what's important is to see that, really, nothing but love arises from all beings to all other beings constantly (this is a difficult one to get, I think, but satisfying when gotten - it means dealing with people on the level of their souls, not their personalities). He also recommends having a mind like a wall, letting what is seen just be what is seen without manipulation by the mind, merely saying, "oh" and "is that so?" to things as the arise internally and externally, rather than having a mind like a cocktail party (ie: anxiously trying to figure out who is the best person to talk to, how long to talk with them before moving on, what people are saying about me, etc.). He suggests giving yourself the space to be yourself fully, and if other people don't give you the same allowing space, to give them the space to be that non-accepting person fully. These are teachings that ... well ... I just plain like. Is that so wrong?
Different subject: every morning, we chant a list of a lineage of about ninety teachers, from mythical pre-historical Buddhas before "The Buddha," to the Japanese priest Shenryu Suzuki who founded the S.F. Zen Center. I used to have both respect/awe and pity/contempt for non-priest commoners who chanted the list from memory. Did they really take the time to memorize such an otherwise useless document? But now I can chant about a third of the list before needing to open the chant book. What does this signify?
Same subject: three years ago (or ten years ago, for that matter), I used to understand, believe in and live Buddhism completely. Now, I understand, believe in and live Buddhism ten times as much as I did then, and it would appear that I barely understand, believe in or live Buddhism.
For example: the Buddha is reputed to have determined that human suffering comes from three psychological factors called "klesas" or "poisons." The first is attachment/addiction/craving/neediness/greed (examples being a compulsion to get high or drink or eat or watch TV, needing love, an irresistible desire to be distracted or entertained, holding on to a soul draining job because of the rewards of money security and comfort). The second is aversion/not dealing/closing up/avoiding/hatred (examples being tightening shoulders around ears when it's cold, avoiding a friend when there is an issue to work out, staying in a shower for a long time because it's cold in the house, not having a relationship for five years, going to work late because you hate your job). The third klesa, the one that the Buddha thought was at the root of the other two, is unconsciousness/delusion/not being present/being overly subjective (examples: obsessing on plans or memories rather than "being here now," mistaking an image of other people for who they really are, not really listening to people or paying attention to what's happening, thinking that things will always be as they've always been so far, not really seeing the consequence of choices, and, most fundamentally, feeling like a separate entity from the rest of the universe). What I find is that the more I clear out the last klesa and get present to what seems to be going on in me, the more clearly I notice all three of them, and the more I get to stop cultivating then and continue to work on being more stable and present.
Despite all that unprecedented astounding progress, I'm still regularly unhappy to be here and fantasize bolting. A friend of mine decided last week that her life would be better if she returned to Oakland, and so she up and did so. For me today, the main culprits of dissatisfaction today are perceiving myself to be surrounded by relatively disinterested strangers, feeling like I could make better use of my time if I scheduled it myself, and longing for the comforts of normal life. Also, I came here knowing that thirteen weeks was much longer than I wanted to be gone from S.F. doing Buddhism right now.
I know however, the value of sticking with the things that I commit myself to, and that's what I'm going to do. There are even times when I feel all chill, focused, and stabilized and wish that I was committed to be here longer. I also trust the temple director, Leslie James, who said to me, during a teacher interview, that being here works constructively on levels that we are often not aware of and which only become clear later. And, I respect people in my life when y'all step out of what is comfortable, familiar, predictable, supportive and reinforcing and move towards something difficult, unknown and untamed but intriguing; I respect myself right now for the same thing.
* A real live Japanese Zen priest sits in the assigned seat next to mine in the meditation hall. He usually seems to get to his seat early, in his crisp, perfectly ironed robes, and he sits statue-like still for the entire period (except when he is dreaming of boxing -- when one dozes off on a meditation cushion, one's head often jerks forward and back like a boxer being punched).
* The air is so clear here, at night the stars and planets are right there.
* I eat one to three peanut butter-and-banana sandwiches a day here. This daily choice arises because of various causes and conditions, among them being that I am usually hungry after the limited portions of the formal meals, and bread, condiments, and fruits are among the foods available in the afternoon for snacking on.
* We have so little time off here, I value the time that I do have and usually put it to good use. As my dad used to say, if you want something done, give it to a busy person to do.
* I plan to purchase a car when I get back. The funky, personalized, aesthetically pleasing choice would be a ten-year-old BMW 525 or 325, but the prudent and more likely choice is a two-year-old Camry, Jetta or Protege. I have also been pondering whether to take classes in SAS and SQL when I get back, and build on my for years of experience there, or head towards where the bigger bank seems to be, and take classes in C++, Java or Visual Basic.
* No one read my first email and asked what a washboard is used for. They are used for scrubbing against ornery stains on clothes.
Adios, Amoebas. I wish y'all happiness.