Seeking Enlightenment is No Hindrance

There's this perennial debate among Zensters about whether Buddhist teachings should reference enlightenment (sometimes called kensho, awakening, or realization), and whether the term points to anything "real."

This debate goes back to ancient times when some suggested that seeking is a delusion, and others suggested that seeking is essential.

Nowadays, some argue that the notion of enlightenment is problematic because it is the basis of hierarchies (teachers are "enlightened" while students are "not"), and these hierarchies result in abuses. Also, some, particularly from the Soto tradition, suggest that the notion of enlightenment is problematic because it suggests a particular state of mind that exists in opposition to other states of mind, creating dualistic notions. Therefore, anyone using the term is actually deluded. Third, they say that this notion of enlightenment causes striving, which is counterproductive. Finally, some suggest that awakening itself is makyo -- a temporary illusion generated by demons that comes and goes like everything else.

Others, like Dosho Port, defend kensho, citing Buddha himself who, as the story goes, was enlightened and "together with all beings attained the way." (James Ford, my first teacher, lovingly tells that tale here.)

I am a Soto priest in Boundless Way Zen and have practiced in the trackless land of shikantaza for many years. We take the Buddha seat, "sit down, shut up, and pay attention," as James is fond of saying. There is a kind of faith and recognition in this practice that whatever life offers is exactly the Way. In this practice, we find the wisdom of no escape, an openness to whatever is as the very dharma we seek.

Still, we make the effort of joining sangha-mates for intensive practice periods. We put on our robes at the sound of the bell, offer incense to the Buddha, and follow highly choreographed forms. To leave home and practice like this requires great commitment and suggests that even though lying around eating bon bons is also the Way, doing so is unlikely to help us realize it.

Many of our Soto practices are based on the teachings of Japanese Zen master Dogen. In the early years of his practice, Dogen's driving hwadu was, in short, why practice? "If everything already has Buddha nature, and if we are therefore already enlightened, why should we practice at all?"

But Dogen did not then take this intellectual notion that we are already enlightened as an excuse to avoid seeking the truth. Dogen went on a quest, crossing the sea to find a teacher in China who could help him resolve this troubling matter. He traveled the lands meeting master after master and was not satisfied till he had his own enlightenment experience. The story goes something like this:

"Dogen studied with Master Rujing. One evening during the intensive summer training, in the first year of Pao-chang, 1225, Rujing shouted at a disciple, 'When you study under a master, you must drop the body and mind. What is the use of single-minded intense sleeping?' Sitting right beside this monastic, Dogen suddenly attained great enlightenment. Immediately, he went up to the abbot’s room and burned incense. Rujing said, 'Why are you burning incense?' Dogen said, 'Body and mind have been dropped off.' Rujing said, 'Body and mind dropped off. The dropped-off body and mind.' Dogen said, 'This may only be a temporary ability. Please don’t approve me arbitrarily.' Rujing said, 'I am not.' Dogen said, 'What is that which isn’t given arbitrary approval?' Rujing said, 'Body and mind dropped off.' Dogen bowed. Rujing said, 'The dropping off is dropped.'"

It is essential to note Dogen's sense of purpose, his sense of release, his checking with his teacher to confirm his enlightenment, and finally Rujing's encouragement that Dogen let go even of the notion that body and mind dropped off.

This enlightenment experience was transformative for Dogen. Dogen could not comprehend the truth of the dharma until he saw it for himself. Faking it based on some intellectual claim is no substitute.

Dogen subsequently returned to Japan where he assumed a teaching position and began to write. In his Genjokoan, Dogen writes, "If you say that you do not need to fan yourself because the nature of wind is permanent and you can have wind without fanning, you will understand neither permanence nor the nature of wind." We should not say that we do not need to fan ourselves (or practice) or we will not understand the living dharma. He continues, "The nature of wind is permanent; because of that, the wind of the Buddha’s house brings forth the gold of the earth and makes fragrant the cream of the long river." The gold of the earth and fragrance of the cream of the long river are already thus. And, there is no gap between the wind of the Buddha's house and the wind from a fan. Fanning is no hindrance to the wind.

The founder of Soto wrote about enlightenment extensively (e.g. "Enlightenment is like the moon reflected in the water"*). Still, I appreciate the cautions offered by those who speak against using the term. As for how the term contributes to hierarchies, there is truth to this, and hierarchies have their shadows that we must recognize. But in throwing out teachers, we would throw out the baby with the bathwater. I am deeply indebted to my teachers and could never repay them for their guidance and wisdom in helping cultivate compassion and cut through delusions. Still, we must learn from abuses in the past. We have seen again and again that even teachers with deep insight stray and cause harm. In fact, one of my teachers suffered at the hands of her first teacher who had some insight into the great matter. She had to leave him to find another teacher. So what can we learn? First, my teacher abandoned the abuser, not the dharma. We do not need to throw out the dharma because some fail to live up to it. Second, we can recognize that enlightenment does not mean perfection of character. In fact, enlightenment never means what we think it means. Regardless of spiritual insight, we need the container of the precepts to guide us. Third, we need structures in our sanghas such as clear ethical guidelines, means for students to air complaints, and real accountability to help prevent future abuses.

Now, what to make of the argument that we should abandon the notion of enlightenment because it creates dualistic notions? Actually, any teaching is dualistic. The moment we open our mouths we are in the realm of dualistic thinking. This doesn't mean we abandon the dharma. The dharma helps us see how yin depends on yang, how enlightenment depends upon delusion, how emptiness depends upon form, and how all of these notions collapse. In practicing with thinking, we gain our freedom as we see that even dualistic thinking is another dharma gate. Duality is no hindrance to nonduality.

Another complaint is that notions of enlightenment lead to striving. I would suggest that striving is not so bad. It can even be good! It depends what we are striving for. For me, practice sometimes feels like swimming upstream. Our conditioned habit minds are strong. So often we unconsciously long to get through this moment so we can get to the next one, which we often imagine will be better. We are conditioned to feel dissatisfied by endless TV commercials that tell us life would be better if only we owned this or that product. We can also be possessed by our judgments of right and wrong, so much so that we are blind to the people in front of us, so much so that we even kill one another. We get caught up in conceptual maps of reality, like a driver who imagines that looking at Google Maps is the same as watching the road. One reason we get so caught in our conceptual maps is because we are taught in schools to value "knowing" above all else. When we do not know something conceptually, we are labeled as failures. We desperately want to avoid that shame. Point is, if someone suggests that there is no reason to awaken, I would be concerned that a touch of hubris may have slipped into that person's view of themselves. All we need to do is pay attention for a few moments and we realize that "delusions are endless" and we do get swept along. So we "vow to end them." This doesn't mean we cut off thinking. We practice seeing our delusions clearly. This we call waking up! It requires intentionality.

Terms like awakening, enlightenment, and emptiness which convey something beyond conception help us realize that though our proud brains wish it were otherwise, our conceptual maps cannot "know" immeasurable reality. Sometimes we catch a glimpse of the "intimacy" toward which all this language points, and it make our eyes water. A pebble strikes a stalk of bamboo. A bird sings in our heart. A flash of lightning in a summer cloud. And with that opening, we begin to trust something that includes yet extends beyond words, that includes yet extends beyond striving. And in this boundless intimacy, language and striving are no hindrance at all.

As for the question of whether kensho is makyo, Dosho puts it this way: "If you think kenshō is makyō, you might consider the possibility that this thought itself is makyō."

My encouragement: if you are curious, follow that curiosity. Find a sangha with an authorized Zen teacher. Draw on all the "technologies of awakening" available to you. And go ahead and seek the truth. "Bind grasses to build a hut, and don't give up!"*


* Dogen's "Genjokoan"
**Shitou Xiqian's "Song of the Grass-Roof Hermitage"

Transforming the Three Poisons through our Bodhisattva Vow

Our children's future is at risk due to climate change, but in the United States, we seem to lack the political and personal will to address this very real threat. Why? And how can we address this intransigence?

Buddha's teachings offers three reasons why we are not taking action: greed, ignorance, and aversion. The dharma also offers a path to transform these three poisons into generosity, wisdom, and loving care. This path begins with our bodhisattva vow. Though we cannot know whether we will ultimately be successful, we can take responsibility for our own actions and live a life with integrity. It just might be contagious. And it just might save our planet for generations to come. 

The Three Poisons

Plastics fill the bellies of whales. Run-off from factory farms pollutes our waters. And most harmfully, the burning of fossil fuels harms our health (especially for those who can't afford to live further from power plants) and releases CO2 which blankets the atmosphere, trapping in warmth and causing climate change. There is near scientific consensus that climate change magnifies powerful storms, floods, heat waves, and droughts and raises sea levels by melting the polar ice caps, all of which contribute to refugee crises (the world's most vulnerable populations will suffer most), civil war, and the mass extinctions of species. We are at risk of collapsing our earth's ecosystem. Even if there is only a fifty percent chance of the more dire predictions coming true, we are playing Russian roulette with human civilization. Yet US national policy actively undermines efforts to combat pollution and the climate crisis. Why? 

Buddha understood human nature. He said that we suffer from 3 poisons: greed, ignorance, and aversion. All three are leading us headlong into harm. For example, ExxonMobil knew back in the seventies that greenhouse gases were a problem. Motivated by greed, they undermined climate science in order to maintain profits. Through their propaganda, Americans were kept ignorant about climate change for years. In fact, nearly a third of Americans, despite clear evidence, still believe climate change is a "hoax." 

In the US we are also caught up in acquisitiveness, another form of greed. As Christian theologian Sallie McFague says, "We human beings are so embedded in the culture of consumerism that being asked to consume less makes us almost gasp. And we do; we stop for a moment, and then we get back in our cars and our airplanes, and continue on." In fact, 70 percent of Americans would not even pay $10 per month to combat global warming. 

What is perplexing is that even though a majority of us now comprehend the devastating significance of climate change, few of us are willing to make sacrifices to address the issue, but we may misunderstand what is required. According to the NY TImes, “The main reason people reject the science of climate change is because they reject what they perceive to be the solutions: total government control, loss of personal liberties, destruction of the economy." We are ignorant of the alternatives.

Aversion to taking action may be the subtlest sticking point preventing Americans from dealing with climate change. The challenge sometimes seems overwhelming. Perhaps we just think the odds are stacked against us and can't imagine any way through, so we give up. It can seem like my actions make no difference in the face of powerful energy lobbyists. It is disheartening watching environmental regulations being overturned at this critical moment in history. Given the political challenges, it is common even for self-proclaimed environmentalists to slip into forgetfulness or resignation. 

We may also be averse to taking personal risks. We may recognize that life on this planet is in jeopardy but feel hesitant to risk being called "alarmist." Thirty years ago, I wrote an email to friends asking for support in an environmental cause. One "replied all" with a scathing (and brilliantly funny) satire about tree hugging teachers. Nobody defended my appeal. I didn't write to that bunch of friends about the environment again.

But maybe the biggest challenge is that we are averse to doing the work of writing legislators, protesting, or even switching to renewably sourced electricity. After all, by the time the climate crisis really hits the planet, many of us will be dead and gone. Why make sacrifices now if we won't get to enjoy the benefits?

The Importance of Vow

Due to the power of the three poisons, awareness of the developing climate crisis is apparently not enough to inspire us to take dramatic action. We need some call of the heart that helps us transcend greed, ignorance, and aversion. 

In Buddhism, our bodhisattva vow is to save all beings. When we first take this vow, we may do so  out of self-interest. After all, what goes around, comes around. We drink the water and breathe the air. If we pollute them, we personally suffer. If we keep them clean, we suffer from fewer diseases. 

But given the long-term projections involved in climate change, our motive needs to be greater than self-benefit. The Bodhisattva vow to save all beings transcends the desire for personal gain. The bodhisattva vow expands our circle of concern from limited self-centeredness to an infinite circumference that includes all beings throughout space and time. This commitment to save all beings, including our children's children, transforms greed into generosity and aversion into loving care.

In living for something bigger than what we think of as ourselves, we also learn a deeper truth. In caring for all beings, we awaken to the wisdom that we are "empty" of separate, fixed selves. We are not separate from the earth, sky, and rain. Indeed, we eat the food of the earth, breathe the air of the sky, and drink the rain. To care for the environment is like our left hand scratching our right. There is actually no gap between us and the environment. We are part of nature, and nature is in us, so we love and protect it. We love the way the bird sings in our own heart. The vow to save all beings is an expression of boundless intimacy with all beings and reflects the transformation of ignorance into wisdom.

Sometimes it makes us feel worse as we face into great challenges. But our bodhisattva vow to save all beings throughout space and time transforms our self-centeredness into a vast love that inspires us to do whatever we can.

Together Action

Environmental activism is an essential priority. If our environment renders life unsustainable, nothing else will matter. I am inspired by Greta Thunberg and many of her generation. Greta has exhibited the three virtues of generosity, wisdom, and loving care. Having learned about climate change, Greta stopped going to school in order to protest global warming. Driven by her vow to save future generations, Greta made significant personal sacrifices. Greta shows us that where there is will, there are ways to engage.

Most of us already know what we should do. Think globally; act locally. Insulate our homes, reduce fuel consumption, eat less meat, and waste less food and material goods (including plastic). We can also make donations to organizations fighting against climate change and for environmental justice, and we can join local protests and coalitions. And if we hope to save future generations, we must also support national and local representatives who will shift our energy production from fossil fuels to renewables, leading to a new clean-energy future, improved standard of living, and better local jobs and local economy. 

We cannot know in advance what the outcome of our actions will be. But in caring for something greater than ourselves, we manifest our boundless true nature, and this is of immeasurable value. 

It begins with our earnest vow to save all beings. Whether you have never made this vow or have made it a thousand times, you can take this bodhisattva vow right now. Consider repeating this every day: "I vow to save all beings throughout space and time." Let this vow touch your heart where all beings reside, and it will renewably energize our transformation. 

Meditating with Feng-hsueh

Let's play with a koan. 

Case 24 in the Gateless Barrier reads:

A monk asked Feng-hsueh: "Speech and silence are concerned with equality and differentiation. How can I transcend equality and differentiation?"

Feng-hsueh replied: "I always think of Chiang-nan in March. Partridges chirp among the many fragrant flowers."

Upon first reading such a koan, one might find it quite impenetrable. How do we even engage? How do we enter this conversation? 

To begin, it helps to have a sense of what the monk is asking. 

What matters here is not some historical question about the monk's intentions. What matters is what comes alive for you as you ponder his question. With that, here are some possibilities.... 

The monk seems encumbered by the way speech and silence are concerned with equality and differentiation. What exactly does this monk hope to transcend?

Equality here may refer to the oneness of all things, as "all things by nature are Buddha." 

Differentiation is what allows us to tell a poisonous weed from a cucumber. 

So the monk might be saying, “if all things are different, how are they also one?” It is not infrequent that philosophers are frustrated by this logical contradiction.

Or it may be that the monk has seen that all things are one and two, but he has not yet seen that they are also neither one nor two. “I see the oneness of reality in which self and other fall away. And I see that things are separate entities as well — that there is you, and there is me, and we are not the same. I fall into one perspective, then the other. How can I stop the pendulum?”

Other possibilities regarding the monk's quandary can be found in different translations of the koan. One translation goes like this: "Both speech and silence are concerned with ri (subjectivity) and mi (objectivity). How can we transcend them?" So the monk may be asking, "I have my own separate consciousness, yet there is also an objective reality 'out there.' How can I transcend this duality? How can subject and object be one?"

Perhaps you have other ways that his question comes alive for you? 

It is worth spending some time inquiring into the aliveness of the monk's presentation. The monk is not asking a question just to be playful. He sees that his life depends on finding his way through this thicket. 

A synthesizing, perhaps more fundamental way of hearing his question is this: "Help me! I am lost in dualistic thinking! Show me Nirvana!"

Feng-hsueh responds with cutting directness, I always think of Chiang-nan in March. Partridges chirp among the many fragrant flowers.

If his answer is not immediately apparent, this case has a gift to offer you. 

You might try sitting. Be upright, still, and silent. Pay attention. 

Take your time. 

Then, let the monk's question penetrate you. How can I transcend equality and differentiation? What is he really asking? 

Once the question is alive for you, once you feel the fire in it, let Feng-hsueh’s response fall like a gentle rain. Let his answer float in the atmosphere. Let the koan clarify the great matter.

Even when you leave the cushion, allow Feng-hsueh's words to walk with you. 


Partridges chirp among the many fragrant flowers.

As things become clear, consider visiting a Zen teacher who is authorized to teach koans. 

This is worth sharing.

Acceptance of the Five Remembrances

After an athletic, 51 year-old friend had heart surgery and a stroke, and after another close friend passed out potentially due to a heart issue and fell down the stairs causing a severe concussion and back injury, I decided that maybe I should address the heart thumps I've felt with increasing frequency over the last year.

I called the doctor, who surprised me by taking my condition seriously and telling me to stop doing vigorous exercise till we sort this out. I had been training for a half marathon. After hearing this advice, I skipped the race.

I have been an athlete my whole life. As a child, I would sprint barefoot through the grass just for the joy. (I can still feel the soft, wet blades of grass between my toes!) In middle school, I played soccer for a team that won the State championships. As a high school student, I lettered in swimming and track. In college, I won national championships in rowing, then trained for the national team and won elite nationals and the Canadian Henley. A few years later, I ran the Boston Marathon in under 3 hours. Training has been a great joy and has generated pride in my healthy body.

Perhaps you have heard the Buddhist teaching of "anatman" -- no self. This was Buddha's response to the Hindu teaching of Atman, or true self, which some Hindu practitioners sought through meditation. According to Buddha, there is no separate, fixed, unchanging self. This does not mean there are no senses of self, but that they are changing, ephemeral, without fixed substance, and made of non-self elements. My sense of self as a competitive athlete depended on my being able to train hard and race. There was never anything permanent or intrinsic about it.

When I realized I had to give up competing (at least for now), I watched the athlete in me cry out, "Don't abandon me!" A part of me was reluctant to accept my present condition and wanted to protect this sense of myself.

In Boundless Way Zen, we chant "The Five Remembrances" every time we gather together. The first four are that I am: of the nature to grow old, get sick, die, and lose everyone and everything I love. The last is that my deeds are my companions, and I am their beneficiary. These remembrances are found in a sermon of the Buddha called the Upajjhatthana Sutta, an early Pali text.

The first three remembrances, that we are all of the nature to grow old, to get sick, and to die, were what Buddha learned when he left his sheltered palace life for the first time. Buddha was motivated by recognition of these facts to overcome the accompanying suffering, so he left his palace to practice.

For Buddha, to overcome suffering did not ultimately mean what we might imagine. It did not mean that these truths no longer affect us. It means that we can turn toward these truths and accept them. So Buddha taught that we should remind ourselves every day of impermanence as a skillful means to allow us to accept our changing nature. Otherwise, we are prone to move into protectiveness and denial, which cause far greater suffering. After all, that which we run from controls us.

Acceptance

To "overcome" suffering is not to defeat circumstances but to acknowledge them. There is something about acceptance that transforms the heart. Shundo Aoyama writes that "True happiness means no matter what happens, it’s all right. If you become ill, just be ill. When it’s time to die, just die.... To face any situation and accept it with open arms molds the attitude enabling you to see that a wonderful way of living is possible. This is indeed something of consequence. As soon as this attitude is achieved, you have reached paradise, anytime, anywhere, and in any circumstances. Once this idea is accepted, spring must be everywhere" (adapted from Zen Seeds).

For me, this attitude of acceptance is not a change in how I think. In fact, my initial reaction to the news that I should stop training was not pure acceptance. It was the opposite! But I could bear witness even to my resistance and accept it as just thoughts and feelings, as just a sense of self crying out. It was like a light show, or like a dog barking in the neighbor's yard.

Time will tell, but I may not be able to compete anymore. And I am getting older anyway. I was already starting to slow down. But acceptance makes a new way of living possible. 

When we bear witness to the "full catastrophe," when we open our hearts to things as they are (including our reactions), the world offers itself to us as a sacred presence. Like Zorba the Greek, we can dance on the beach with tears on our cheeks. 

For the last week, rather than training as an athlete, I have taken gentle walks in the woods as the spring arrives. My deeds are my companions. I have appreciated slowing down. There are big, red buds on the trees that are just opening, and shoots topped by violet flowers sprout from the mud. Rather than running past them, I pause. I hear the birds chattering away with one another. Fields are greening, and water rushes past me down the hillside after the rain.

*Further testing has revealed that I am heart-healthy, but the lesson remains.

Empathy and Compassion

Empathy

When we feel empathy, we vicariously and imaginatively enter someone else's experience and emotions. It opens us beyond our self-centeredness. It widens my sense of reality, and it helps me consider issues from different points of view. If both people in a relationship are empathetic with one another, empathy helps us come to a deeper understanding of one another. If we are arguing, maybe we can come to a compromise and find a way forward that meets both of our needs.

But research into empathy also suggests that empathy can lead to increased bias. This is because we tend to identify through empathy with those closest to us and with those most like us, then take one side in an argument, ignoring the "other side's" perspective. This can happen in interactions ranging from world affairs to our own children, where we pit ourselves against others for the sake of the one with whom we most empathize. This can lead to policies that are unfair, privileging those most like us, and even neglecting others' rights.

When arguments are fueled by "extreme empathy," which I would describe as a form of identification that decreases our capacity to hear different perspectives, it can be nearly impossible to see the humanity of those with whom we disagree. We get so caught up in defending our own views that we shut out anyone who thinks otherwise. This often happens through dismissive judgments of other people's character.

I have seen good friends disassociate from one another because they empathized quite lovingly with different people. One friend might empathize most with the working class who have suffered from technological advances, globalization, opiate addiction, and a sense of betrayal by corporate owners and government representatives. Another friend might empathize most with the plight of people of color who suffer from the legacy of slavery and hundreds of years of systemic racism, right to this day. While there can be overlap in these concerns, what can happen is that each person, whose heart is in the right place, might prioritize one group over another, dismissing the unique concerns of the other group. Empathy with one or the other can fuel escalating competitiveness, all in the name of love and justice.

Or it can simply lead to neglect of those with whom we least relate.

Compassion

In Mahayana Buddhism, our call is not to repress our empathy but to cultivate a wider circle of concern. Avalokiteshvara is the bodhisattva of compassion. (S)he hears the cries not just of one side or another in a conflict but "hears the cries of the world." 

Avalokiteshvara embodies the mantra, "there but for the grace of God go I." Were I born into the exact same circumstances -- the same body and mind, the same upbringing, and the same causes and conditions affecting me -- then I would embody the other person's perspective. This does not mean that people have no personal responsibility for our views and actions. But without being touched by some sort of opening encounter, it is very hard to open beyond our conditioned perspective. Can we recognize that the person with a different view also has reasons for feeling as they do?

Mahayana Buddhism calls us to open beyond our conditioned, limited perspective to hear all the cries of the world. This is an incredible challenge, given the power of self-centeredness and given the power of empathy. We have a strong tendency to empathize with those ideologically closest to us and to polarize against those at a greater distance.

What would it look like to expand our circle of concern to hold all beings in our hearts? Perhaps our fear is that we will then abandon our values. But my experience is that this is not what happens. Compassion for all beings does not render one's sense of right and wrong meaningless. One can still take a stand for the sake of non-harm. And one can still advocate for those who suffer injustices. Empathy for those who suffer is not erased by compassion for all beings. But we can gain a wider, more inclusive circle of concern.

Compassion opens us beyond identification with one side's feelings. Compassion opens our hearts to the plight of all beings and allows us to care even for those with whom we disagree. If we can open to the possibility that we don't actually already know everything, by listening, we can develop a greater understanding of the motives of people with whom we'd disagreed, and perhaps we can find ways to address the needs of everyone involved. Rarely is it actually a zero-sum game in the way that politicization tends to suggest. Rarely is it true that we must meet one person's needs or the other's. We can address both the poverty of the white working class and the unique, systemic injustices of racism, and to set these two up as oppositional is a success of limited empathy, but a failure of compassion.

True compassion is challenging. In my experience, it is very hard to have compassion for people with whom I disagree or toward whom I feel revulsion. Arno Michaelis is the founder of one of largest white supremacist groups in the world. He admits to severely beating people because of the color of their skin. He said that when he was called a racist, his hatred only grew, and he reacted with greater intensity, becoming even more violent. The confrontational approach failed with him again and again. But when he was met with compassion, he softened. He tells the following story of how compassion began to transform him: "One time I was greeted by a black lady at a McDonald’s cash register with a smile as warm and unconditional as the sun. When she noticed the swastika tattoo on my finger, she said...: ‘I know that’s not who you are.'" He described himself as "powerless against such compassion." Michaelis went on to found a group called "Life After Hate" which, through compassionate witness rather than harsh judgment, helps people abandon white supremacist groups and find a healing path.

Compassion “as warm and unconditional as the sun” does not mean abandoning our sense of right and wrong. In fact we can take strong stands against those with whom we disagree. We do not even have to empathize with them. Compassion also does not mean remaining in abusive relationships. There will be times when we will just need to protect ourselves and those we love. We will probably not be capable of unconditional compassion all the time in part depending on our own situation and identity. But when possible, practicing unconditional compassion means not “writing off” those with whom we disagree. Instead, we listen and treat them with dignity, then we offer our own view. “I know that’s not who you are.”

One recent study examined a new approach to canvassing. The canvassers, advocates for transgender rights, [didn't] judge others or their opinions or "try to build rational arguments for why someone should think one way or another." Instead, they listened respectfully to the opinions of those they met. One canvasser said, "There's something special about caring about why [people] feel the way they do. You can connect to their values in that way.'"  Canvassers then shared some stories of their own. This form of canvassing reportedly had a more positive and longer term impact than traditional forms of canvassing. Compassion works. 

Save all beings

Buddhist practice is meant to challenge us to open our hearts. Can we remain open to all beings even as we advocate for justice and kindness in the world? In such polarized times, this is no easy task. I am not always able to live up to this teaching. But the teachings are meant to awaken us to what we do so that we can atone and vow to do better. Perhaps practicing compassion for all beings can increase our own equanimity and contribute to a more civil society.

Our bodhisattva vow is not to save some beings but to save all beings. It may be worth reflecting on those we have shut out of our hearts. 

The root of the word, heal, literally means "to make whole." When we divide the world into inherently "good" and "bad" people, the divisions we make in our own heart-minds manifest in the world. In allowing all beings to reside in our hearts, we heal ourselves. If we can stay in respectful relationship with those with whom we disagree, perhaps we increase the possibility for healing in the world.

Who Lives, Who Dies?

I sit on the deck behind my house this early spring day. A distant bird's chirp sounds like drops of water falling into a pool. The whoosh of distant traffic travels through the space of my heart. The adjacent fir tree's branches lift and dive in the wind, needles whispering, then settle into stillness.

"Who, who?" asks the mourning dove in a nearby maple tree. Though its branches are bare, I cannot find the source of this descending note.

The sun illuminates streaming gray clouds, turning them silver, warms my face, then tucks behind a bank of dark clouds. 

A dog's bright bark cuts through everything.

Somehow each element is distinct, yet vanishes into this edgeless world where beginnings and endings no longer matter. 

Who lives, who dies, in this eternal vastness? 

"Who? Who?"

What Happens if we Don't Turn Away?

I woke at 4 AM, and darkness took hold of me.

With dawn still hours away and my wife breathing softly next to me, it struck me that I had been with her for nearly six years. As a child, six years was a lifetime! Why was time slipping away so quickly now?

I wondered if perhaps I was no longer cataloguing memories in the same way as I did as a child. Then, each day included firsts -- a first touch of snow on the tongue, a first bash of my head into a cabinet -- whatever it was, it struck me with awe and wonder. Do memories no longer generate a narrative in the same way? Is that why time seems to disappear?

Then, from those mystical waters between waking and dreaming, a vague sense of dread arose as I peered into the dark. An unrecognized thought circled in murky water till it rose and took shape in whispered words. Could this be the early stage of Alzheimer's, when time no longer forms a story? This must be what my mother felt as her mind slipped with the rainwater down the sloped roof. Would that be my fate too? Are you already with me, death, stealing one memory at a time?

In the nighttime, the shadows come alive. Ghosts of people we loved and lost take shape as our own fears. Shadowy anxieties gather in our bedrooms, and they see right through us as we try to make them out in the dark.

It's tempting at such times to distract ourselves, go get a cup of tea, perhaps grab our phones to scan a newsfeed. But what happens if we don't turn away? This is Dogen's notion, ippo-gujin - translated as "studying one dharma to the very end" (here), or becoming one with "the total exertion of a single dharma" (here). This is the path of integration rather than escape; we meet each visitor as a sacred guest. 

I breathed. I did not put on my daylight armor. And the flutterings of my heart met advancing images from former lives. My mind's eye adjusted, and memories gathered in a procession of loosely associated griefs.

My mother and father now a few years gone were the first visitations. I let these incorporeal beings enter me, and sadness rose like tidewater. 

Then a stream of memories washed through me  -- memories of people I'd loved and lost. A dear high school friend. Two family constellations. So many of life's precious moments now evaporated. 

This is what I had feared  --  my own grief. Yet allowing tears to form was so fulfilling, so touchingly sweet.

I was not destroyed by these visitations. Welcoming whatever arises is often the greatest relief. Sometimes our fears just need to confess themselves.

Gradually, the rain slowed to a drizzle on the roof. The ghosts, finally recognized, dissolved into the air. I once again heard the sweet quiet breathing of my wife. And new tears formed in my eyes for she who was with me. As I drifted back to sleep, the early liquid song of a tiny bird poured into the hollow of my ear. "Just this," she sang again and again, accompanying me into a dream.

*Special thanks to Zach Horvitz for the pointer to Dogen's term.