Category: Long Thought

A longer thought.

Preparing to Take the Precepts

I’ll be taking the Five Grave Precepts this coming October. I worked up the nerve to ask my teacher Hogen this weekend (after a bit of prodding from Sherri). After asking why I would like to take the precepts and considering my response, Hogen said he’d be happy to give me the Precepts.

A bit of background is necessary here for non-Buddhist readers. The five grave precepts of Buddhism are as follows:

  1. I will be mindful and reverential with all life, I will not be violent nor will I kill.
  2. I will respect the property of others, I will not steal.
  3. I will be conscious and loving in my relationships, I will not give way to lust.
  4. I will honor honesty and truth, I will not deceive.
  5. I will exercise proper care of my body and mind, I will not be gluttonous nor abuse intoxicants.

During the Precepts Ceremony you state your intention to whole-heartedly abide by the above precepts. You do this publicly in front of your teacher, your parents (when they can be present) and the Sangha (Buddhist community). The Precepts Ceremony is a pretty big deal. It serves as one’s first major commitment to Buddhist spiritual and ethical practice. In addition, it’s the first step towards receiving and becoming part of the thousands-year-old Buddhist lineage. This is why it was necessary I ask permission to receive the precepts. They aren’t simply available for the taking. A teacher must evaluate his student and determine if he or she is ready to receive the precepts.

I should take the opportunity to distinguish the Five Precepts ceremony from that of Jukai. Jukai is the ceremony in which one receives the 16 Lay Precepts and formally becomes a Buddhist (complete with dharma name). The Jukai and Five Precepts ceremonies are very similar and often occur at the same time (in receiving Jukai you also re-take the Five Grave Precepts). But Jukai is more extensive and more significant. I’ll write more on this topic at another time (either when Sherri takes Jukai this fall, or when I’m closer to taking it myself).

Now that I have permission to receive the Precepts, I have a number of tasks to complete over the next six months. The first is to really study and sit with the Five Precepts. Part of this study includes writing a brief statement about what each precepts means to me. Another part of this study requirement is to participate in dicussion groups about the Five Precepts.

The next requirement is to hand sew my wagessa. A wagessa is a thin strip of fabric symbolizing the kesa. The kesa is the “bib”-like outer robe worn by Zen priests. Lay people who have taken Jukai wear something similar, called a Rakusu. Both the wagessa and kesa symbolize the original robs worn by Buddha. I will sew my wagessa and then turn it into my teachers who will present it to me during the Precept ceremony. Afterward, I’ll wear it during zazen and other Sangha functions.

And the final requirement is to attend a Beginner’s Mind Retreat at Great Vow Zen Monastery. A Beginner’s Mind retreat is a weekend retreat that serves as an introduction to Sesshin practice. A sesshin is a period of intense meditation that usually takes place over 5 to 10 days and includes 8 to 10 hours of zazen each day. Sesshin practice is essential to Zen Buddism. The idea behind sesshin is that it takes a signifcant amount of sustained, continuous meditation in order to quiet the mind sufficiently to experience deep awakeing. Sesshin also includes work practice, dharma talks, breath practice through chanting and is typically conducted in noble silence.

Taking the Precepts is not a requirement for studying Zen, having a skillful meditation practice or even participating in a Buddhist community. I could do all of those thing without taking the Precepts. So why am I doing it?

I’m taking the Precepts specifically to uphold, affirm and support my practice. In Buddhism, there is something called the Three Treasures: the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. The Buddha is, of course, the original Buddha, but also represents that each of us has it within us to be a Buddha, to be an enlightened being free of suffering. The Dharma is the whole body of Buddhist teaching from the Buddha and subsquent great teachers. And the Sangha the community of practicing Buddhists. It’s essential to Buddhist practice to take refuge in, up hold and seek guidance in these three things.

Taking the precepts, for me, is a way of taking refuge in these three treasures. By taking the precepts I’m taking refuge in and showing respect for the all three of the treasures. For the Buddha by recognizing my own buddha nature and attempting to obide by the ethical guidelines inherent in this nature. For the Dharma by recognizing the dignity and being humbled by the tremendous lineage and teachers offered to me during the ceremony. And to the Sangha by publicly stating to my own Sangha that I will be an ethical member of that community.

In short, I see taking the precepts as an essential next step in my spiritual development.

I’ll keep writing here about my process in working with the Five Grave Precepts and my experiences with the Beginner’s Mind retreat (which should happen mid-June, just before my 29th birthday).

Deciding to Work with My Inner Critic

I was talking with my mom this weekend about how I feel a great amount of anxiety after leading a group or even just socializing in a group setting. In these situations I don’t feel any anxiety at the time, while I’m with the group. Things are usually going well and I’m usually having a good time. The anxiety comes later, after I’ve returned home and usually when I’m settling down to sleep.

It’s during this quiet time that my inner critic starts to shout: “What have you done? You’ve given too much of yourself away.” Then a feeling of dread flows down my body and tightens in my stomach. It feels awful and makes it difficult to fall asleep. Recently I’ve been able to cope with these feelings rather well, at least compared to how I handled such anxiety in years past. I’ve become more adept at focusing on my body and noticing where it feels tension. I breathe and follow that breath in and out of my body. Eventually I’m able to fall sleep.

But I’d like to find the source of these feelings and eliminate them, or at least learn how to work with them better. I’d like to feel confident of the value I bring to a group and not feel anxious just being me and being fully present.

What really surprised me in talking with my mother about my experience is when she said she experienced something similar in the first years after she left my father. She described some of the thoughts that would come to her mind and I realized they were the same thoughts that my inner critic speaks to me. Things all along the lines of “don’t reveal too much about yourself” and “don’t tell anybody anything they don’t absolutely need to know.”

I shuddered a bit. These are all the words of my father, who drilled into us at every opportunity that we should keep our cards close to chest, never let anybody in, never foster community, etc. My father is not a well man. He fits the profile of an individual with Anti-Social Personality Disorder. He feared healthy socialization and actively dissuaded us from it and sometimes punished us for it.

So it’s no wonder that I experience anxiety when around social groups. I was already aware that I have a strong inner critic. What I realized in talking with my mother is the extent to which I often don’t perceive the presence of my inner critic. It’s more pervasive than I thought. For example, I know that I often get headaches. But yet, there will be days where I suddenly realize I’ve had a headache for the past several hours. The pain, for whatever reason, in these cases becomes a kind of background noise, casuing suffering yet going undetected.

So I’ve decided I’d like to get better at detecting and then working with my inner critic. I want to realize sooner when it’s giving me a headache.

My Zen Community runs a weekend workshop at least once a year, if not twice, on working with the inner critic. I have known about the workshop for sometime, but have found one excuse or another for not attending. One happens to be coming up and after this week’s conversation with my mother, I registered for it.

The retreat is in about six weeks. I’m both looking forward to it and not. I’m excited about learning some new tools to healing this aspect of myself. I also am anxious about staying at the monastery for the first time and about having to reveal and be present as myself in front of a group. All in all, I think it will be a good experience.

I’ll be sure to post here about my expereinces after the workshop.

The Evening News

I’m very thankful to not be a famous person. I’m able to move about with relative anonymity. The messy details of my personal life, with all its mistakes and wonders are private and I’m able to share them by choice. I can’t imagine the kind of pressure it creates for those who do not have this choice.

There is a notable exception to this, however. It’s the news coverage of my father’s murder-for-hire plot, his subsequent arrest and resulting prison sentence. News of his arrest appeared in the local Sacramento newspaper and the evening news. Some months later, after his sentencing, the evening news in the Bay Area, where I was living at the time, did an extended story, complete with undercover video footage that I hadn’t previously known even existed.

When I first found out about the story I was very angry. I felt violated. Here they were broadcasting footage of our family’s shop (part of the undercover footage; my father had conversations with the under cover “hitman” there). Once my initial anger subsided I realized that they were trying to make a decent point: that crimes of the sort my father committed (solicitation of murder) do not carry a strong enough penalty in California. So I was left with just a strangeness and an uneasiness. I haven’t watched the video in a while. I used to watch it when I would find myself missing or otherwise thinking about my father. It’s actually the most recent thing I have connecting me to him, as strange as that sounds. I can’t recall the last conversation we had. It was probably some time in 2000, at the latest. I did go to his arraignment, but we did not speak. It is so very odd to see your father in an orange prison jumpber and shakles.

Last week it came to my attenion that the local evening news in Sacramento had run another story about my father. It’s shorter than the previous news segment, but nevertheless unnerved me in the same way. I can’t quite figure out why such a piece of information is news worthy. Over the years I’ve tried to distance myself (both figuratively and litterally) from the chaos and violence that my father brought upon me and the rest of my family. But yet I can’t escape it entirely, because at any time some tv news station might decide to do another story on it. Or I’ll have a flashback. Or a memory will resurface. Or someone will issue a turn of phase in a stern voice and it will remind me of my father, and of being a frightened child.

When I watched the most recent news clip, I found myself asking the same set of “why” and “how” questions. How could my parent do something so wicked, so contrary to life as to want my other parent murdered? Why does a tv news reported get an opportunity to speak to my father when I do not? The list goes on and on.

What I’m realizing it that I’m never going to know the answers to those questions. They are unanserable. And in actually, I’m asking those questions as a way to re-invent the past, to change what cannot be changed. Asking those questions keeps me out of the present moment.

So wait I’m going to from now on when those questions start spinning around in my head is sit and focus on my body. I’ll concentrate on how it’s feeling in the present moment. I’ll follow my breath. I’ll notice any spots of tension. I’ll notice what kinds of feelings come up. And I’ll stop trying to answer those unanswerable questions.

A Shossan

Last night at the Dharma center, as part of our Ango, our teacher held a Shossan. A shossan is a like sanzen (private interview with the teacher), except that it is it conducted in front of the entire sangha. Those who wanted to participate, lined up and each asked our teacher a question.

Some questions produced simple answers, and some questions became a brief dialog between teacher and student. For example, some asked “How can I become more generous?” and our teacher answered simply, “Give.” The sangha chuckled at this. Our teacher followed up his answer by reminding us that we have many things to give. Our clear presence, for example. Not every gift has to be matarial in nature. And, in fact, the best gifts often aren’t.

Another person, who is the teen-aged son of one of our members asked what is meant by the idea in Buddhism that there is no self. Teacher proceeded to ask the young man who he was. The young man hesitated, clearly not knowing how to answer. The teacher asked him a prompting question: “what is your name?” The young man responded, and then offered a few additional biographical details. The teacher then pointed out that all those facts: name, age, grade-level, are all impermanent. That all the ideas we have about what makes the self are changeable, fluid. He liked it to a wave in the ocean. The wave isn’t a thing all by itself, it’s what we call the effect of energy upon water to create motion.

I found the shossan tremendously moving. I was honored that my fellow practitioners were willing to share their practice so openly. And I was moved by the words of my teacher.

I have not been practicing Zen for very long. I first sat with my sangha in April when my beloved took the Five Precepts and then started sitting regularly around mid-June.  But I didn’t get it then. Only now, I think, am I just starting to understand the depth of what it is to practice in a community. The supportive energy is amazing. I can feel its benefit in nearly every aspect of my life and it only encourages me to further my practice.

My Ango Commitment

About a week ago my sangha entered what’s known as Ango. Ango translates to “peaceful dwelling” and is a period of intensified practice. It is an old tradition that was practiced during the time of Shakyamuni Buddha. Monks would come together during the monsoon season to deepen and intensive their practice. Our Ango is six weeks long and begins during the start of Portland’s rainy season (or, I should say, Portland’s more-rainy season).

Members who wanted to participate in Ango each completed an Ango commitment form. Basically this was a sheet of paper on which had different ideas of how one could intensify her practice and space to elucidate how you would intensify your practice. Participants turned in these forms for review by the teacher. During the Ango opening ceremony our shusso (head of zendo) read the names of all those participating in Ango.

My Ango commitment is the following:

  • start a daily sitting practice
  • attend a sanzen
  • maintain mindfulness practice, specifically when exercising and with regard to the cleanliness of my apartment
  • read The Heart of Being, John Daido Loori’s book about the precepts.
  • start a daily writing practice

So far I’ve been doing fairly well. I’ve sat nearly daily. I attended my first sanzen. I’ve been working on being mindful when exercising (not listening to music, watching tv), and have been keeping the apartment fairly tidy. I’ve had the most trouble, however, with establishing a daily writing practice. For the most part I have things to write about, but I’ll feel tired or worn out or simply want to do something else.