Man. I'm listening to some dude give an explanation of a "Zen style walking meditation." He's telling folks that when you move one foot forward this represents that foot coming into fullness, while the foot behind is in emptiness, and then the other foot comes forward from emptiness into fullness, and so on. Where do people get this garbage? Kinhin, a.k.a. "Zen style walking meditation," is how you get your circulation back into your legs after sitting. That's it. Feet moving into fullness? Give me a break!
The church next door is having a big celebration of same-sex marriage to-do today. In conjunction with that I heard some passerby say that the number one supporters of same-sex marriage are the Buddhists, number two are the Catholics. His friend replied, "I understand about the Buddhists. But why the Catholics?"
Everyone around here seems to like to think of Buddhism as equivalent to comfortable socio-political liberalism. But the Dalai Lama is a stronger critic of homosexuality than the Pope. Me, I don't really care who anybody marries or screws. I'd officiate a same-sex union as quickly as a heterosexual one (i.e. once in a blue moon and only if I knew the people very well). But the idea that all Buddhists would, of course, support same-sex marriage is a narrow minded and confused fantasy. This November there'll even be Buddhists out there voting for — gasp! — John McCain! Deal with it. It's a real shame how so many American Buddhist organizations marginalize or even exclude people of certain political views. It's no better when liberals do this than it is when conservatives do.
Whatever.
For those of you who like that sort of thing, Sue Slater, a New Zealander who lives in Japan and attends the retreats I lead each Fall at Tokei-in temple in Shizuoka, posted some videos of my talks there on YouTube. My Internet connection is so lousy I can't get so much as a single second of one of these videos to play. So I have no idea in the world what they're like. I look dorky as usual in the stills. The talks probably suck ass. But if you're into looking at me talking, there you go.
I've been thinking hard about what needs done at the weekly Zazen things I host in Santa Monica. Seems a lot of people were confused when I said I wouldn't do "Dharma Talks" for a while. That doesn't mean I won't talk or that we just Zen away until it's time to go. I'm just starting to doubt the efficacy of me being the featured entertainer of the morning. The focus is getting to be too much on everyone staring at me waiting for Words of Wisdom that will never come than on the practice. One of the guys who attends regularly wanted me to start doing this stuff 3 or 4 times a week! Gak! I hate being stared at. It's hard work. My typical Saturday involves me collapsing into a heap as soon as everyone leaves. No wonder Brittany Spears went crazy.
Anyway. I'm trying to continue the non-monastic Zen tradition I received from my teachers. I've been watching some of what's happened to the folks suddenly forced out of Tassajara by the fires. Many of them are having great difficulty finding ways to practice in the "surface world" (that's a term I coined, sometimes when you're there it feels like being in a Zen submarine). Monastic practice is a beautiful thing. Long may it survive! Go try some monastic Zen practice! Brad sez: "Monastic practice = good." Got it? (Can you believe people actually quote me sometimes? Then again, I often quote Curly Howard of the Three Stooges.)
But monastic practice is also extremely fragile. The road into Tassajara is a single lane 15 miles long through steep unpaved slopes. You reach the beginning of this road after traveling almost an hour from the nearest town. In order to qualify for a practice period you have to spend the first 5 days in non-stop Zazen from 5 AM till 9 at night with breaks only to use the toilet and eat. It's called tangaryo, and I've never done it nor do I have any intention of doing it. Nobody's there who doesn't really, really want to be. There are strict rules about how to conduct yourself in the valley in order to maximize the effectiveness of practice. Even making unnecessary eye contact is frowned upon.
The rest of the world does not operate by these rules. The practice I learned was based on how to lead a Zen life while continuously dealing with people who were not now and would never become practitioners. As tough as tangaryo is, sitting day after day through business meetings wherein you are the only one who knows exactly how silly the whole thing really is — yet still being a meaningful and situationally appropriate contributor to said meetings is also tough Zen practice.
It's hard to teach this stuff because there are no rules at all and no techniques. Every situation in a monastery is clearly defined. There are explicit rules to govern all social inteactions. The situations we face in life are not like that at all. It's this wild and wooly kind of practice that people like my teachers tried to impart. I have no idea how to do this.
But in terms of the whole Dharma Talks deal, I just felt like me sitting up in front of a bunch of people telling them about my supposed insights into some koan wasn't getting it. It's fun to know the koans. But there are a mountain of books, some good, most awful, that can tell you all you need to know about those. It's something else that's necessary here and now.
