Saturday Morning Dharma Practice:
Join us Saturday mornings at 10am to 1130 for our group Dharma Practice. Centering around sitting meditation, sutra readings, chanting, and a brief Dharma talk. Afterward, stick around for fellowship & conversation over tea in the hermitage! Families & children welcome.
Weekday Morning Jwaseon Practice:
Monday-Friday 7am-8am
Start your day off with us! Join us weekday mornings for chanting & sitting meditation in the Baltimore Zen Center's Dharma Hall. Yogic exercise sessions take place before sitting on Monday, Wednesday, & Friday, to help prepare your body for meditation & the day ahead.
Dharma Class:
Tuesday evenings, 7pm-9pm
Join us in the hermitage every Tuesday night for an evening of sitting meditation, chanting, & discussion over tea (and cookies if we're lucky). We encourage those who've never practiced with us before to come to this class with an open mind & a handful of questions! Experienced practitioners are also welcome.
Special Events!
Iron Wheel Boxing Seminar
Saturday, June 20th, 10am-4pm
Based in ancient means combined with modern methods, Cheolryun Gwonbeop is in one sense a brutal, hard-hitting system of fighting, while at the same time being a vital, life-affirming spiritual practice. Cheolryun Gwonbeop is known in English as Iron Wheel Boxing, and is considered the next generation in a deep legacy of Buddhist fighting arts, drawing from Korean warrior monks like Samyungdang, who helped liberate Korea from the Japanese samurai of Hideyoshi during the Imjin War.
This is the first seminar in Iron Wheel Boxing to be hosted at the Baltimore Zen Center that is open to the public. Classes will be lead by JB MuSsang Jaeger. MuSsang is the first American to be licensed to teach IWB by his teacher, the Venerable Pohwa-seunim, of the Blue Mountain Sangha.
This weekend seminar aims to provide a complete introduction to the foundation of Iron Wheel Boxing.
The first part of the session will cover basic stance work, power generation drills, and footwork patterns for striking & throwing, as well as standing & sitting meditations.
Saturday's second session will introduce attendees to Iron Wheel's first section of combative techniques, known as Sumigwon. Sumigwon offers the practitioner of Iron Wheel a multitude of combative concepts derived from evasions such as Ryusu (Flowing Water) to intercepting strikes known as Cheolta.
There will also be discussion on how Sumigwon & martial arts in general integrate into a meditative lifestyle practice.
The seminar is open to practitioners of any martial art as well as those with no martial art experience.
Please RSVP at jaeger@baltimorezen.org
Suggested Donation: $40
June Half-Day Sit
Saturday, June 27th, 9am-12pm
Coming off of May's amazing retreat, we're looking forward to practicing with you again!
Half-Day Sits are great times for beginners to really dig in to their practice with the rest of the sangha. It's also a great time for experienced practitioners to continue moving forward. It's a great way to kick off the weekend and move into the next week.
The retreat will begin with a short Dharma talk & instructional. Each sitting meditation session will be 30 minutes long and separated by 10 minutes of walking meditation. Before the final sitting session, we will perform the 108 prostrations, an incredible practice, useful for centering both body & mind. The sit will be followed up with a brief Dharma talk & discussion session over a light lunch & traditional tea.
Please RSVP at contact@baltimorezen.org
Suggested donation: $20
Four Truths & Eight Steps
Saturday, June 27, 2009
The foundation of our practice comes from Buddha's core teachings, known as the Four Noble Truths & the Eightfold Path.
The Four Noble Truths are the observations that the Buddha made about the world around him, its nature, and its affect on us and how we relate to it. There is suffering in life, our suffering is brought about by our cravings, there is freedom from this suffering, and we can find freedom by following the Eightfold Path of wisdom, conduct, & meditation.
During this introduction class, we'll discuss how the Buddha's observations can be seen in our own lives, and how we can begin to practice the Eightfold Path.
This class is the perfect opportunity for those just beginning their Zen practice. It covers the fundamentals upon which our practice rests. For those who attend the morning Half-Day Sit, this continuation will allow you to reflect on how your meditation practice can apply to what you do in daily life, transforming your life to one complete practice.
For those not attending the Half-Day Sit, this is still a wonderful introduction to the fundamentals of what we practice at the Baltimore Zen Center.
Suggested Donation: $20
Hope to see you soon!
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Are You and I different? A Call for Help.
Who am I?
I am no one... but even less than that. Whatever your race, color, creed, sex, social status, background, religion, or any other circumstances, I am not different than you... nor am I the same.
In an instant, though, I am the father of my son and daughter. I am the husband of my wife, my younger brothers' older brother, and my mother's son. I am my teacher's student and I am my students' teacher. I am the fellow driving too slowly in front of you when you have somewhere to go, and I am the fellow behind you, giving you distance because I see you are lost. You are things like this as well, and in this sense we are different; but, what of that part of me that writes this piece and the part of you that is reading it? Are these different?
You see the beautiful flowers bloom, think to last year's happy camping trip with friends and family, and celebrate the arrival of spring. Next to you, I see the same flowers and am reminded of the floral wreath at a loved one's funeral, and I am saddened. How can this be? Are the flowers that you and I see not precisely the same? Or are they? Where exactly do we see the flowers? Are you and I seeing the true flowers, as they truly are, or are we seeing something different? And what is doing this seeing anyway?
What comes attached with every perception when we are not aware? What do we actually see when we shed those attachments, filters, preconceptions, and so forth? And why would we want to?
Know this: Even in the most dire circumstances, there is solace to be found in learning to see clearly and knowing precisely who you are...
Who am I?
I am a man who recently turned 40. I am a man who learned that his son has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a disease that, statistically speaking, will cripple and kill him before he reaches my age. I am a man who, not four months after this diagnosis, was laid off from his job. Knowing that our lives would necessarily change to accommodate the future, I am a person struggling to find a way to earn a living that allows me increased time with my kids. Searching with aged skills and pricey experience, I am a person who had no luck as the economy crashed around me. Once filled with pride, now almost penniless, I am a person who nearly fell to pieces admitting to myself that, without insurance, I could not take my son for a visit to the muscular dystrophy clinic had it not been for the Muscular Dystrophy Association's charity to help those in need. I am a man failing his wife and children, sometimes unable to meet the bills, wondering if life will crash around us and sometimes even if I will still have them on the other side of this disaster.
But I am not just that.
In the same period, I found the Baltimore Zen Center through a website and I paid an unannounced visit on a night scheduled for beginners, I found the address, a little, nondescript 1950's-style bungalow home down the block from a fancy church. With serious trepidation, I wandered outside the place looking for signs of life before going through the gate to the back entrance. Rather than getting back into my car and leaving, I walked up to the door and knocked...
My life has not been the same since.
A smallish Korean man with a shaved head answered the door. I asked him if this was the right place for the Zen beginner's class. He invited me in, asked me to take off my shoes, and led me to a cushion at a low table in one of the house's four defined rooms. He prepared tea for me and said, “I am Sunim.” It was another meeting or two later, I am sure, before I knew that the term “Sunim” was simply an unassuming Korean title for “monk.”
A few other students showed as well. We made introductions and continued. Sunim invited people to discuss their days, leading to friendly banter, but as the next round of tea was prepared, the conversation was led to the teaching. Look how, in our daily lives, we lost track of seeing things as they are. Look how we became paralyzed by situations and experienced different frustrations chasing after this and avoiding that. We heard a story or two---koans---describing interactions between masters and students, or even between masters and masters, which were relevant to the lesson of the day, and we engaged in intensely frustrating question and answer sessions---”koan exchanges”---to test our own understanding and to explore the way.
I was lost---and I was skeptical---but I did have the undefinable sense that I was in the right place, that this was important work for me, and that this was the precise time to accomplish this work. I knew clearly that if I could not straighten our my own self, I would not be able to survive the ordeals that would come to our family by virtue of my son's disease---or anything else. I needed to be able to help my wife through the devastation. I would need to help guide my son through his ordeals as his life deviates further and further from those of “ordinary” children. I would need to see clearly my daughter's position, to ensure that she will not lose herself as the family dynamic would inevitably change. It simply had to be done, and it had to be done now.
While simultaneously staving off our financial destruction and working to keep the family strong as news of my son's “verdict” spread, I gave the rest of my time to Zen practice with this monk. At the peek intensity, I would sit with him in meditation from 4-8 in the morning and then sometimes again in the evening, attending every class I could in between, often with occasional emails exchanged in between. If I was there in the evening, he would feed me. If I was there by day, he would prepare me tea. In exchange, he asked for nothing. When I had a few dollars to spare, I would put them in the donation box; ultimately, though, I know it was my sincere practice that is what is important---as well as my natural want to share and strengthen the practice with others who have the inclination.
Who are you?
How do you see my son? Do you see a short life of devastating physical decline? Do you see a family's suffering and lost expectations for a normal life?
How did you see the flower?
What have you attached to this seeing?
You are not the same as me, my son, my daughter, or my wife; but are you really different either?
I have seen in the news more than once recently that families have been found dead in apparent “murder-suicides.” With difficult times, families crumble, losing everything. Falling into despair, they see no alternative. We read about it only when it is too late. How is it that they saw this as the only path out of their suffering? Is there not another?
Fundamentally, this is the purpose of Zen, and this is the mission of the Baltimore Zen Center. We work to end suffering and to find our freedom in every moment, and the time for this work is now.
It is very rare that we make a plea for support, but this is such a time. The Baltimore Zen Center has sat quietly, helping people like you and me to find our way. For a few of us, the practice of helping others is quickly becoming an extension of our own personal Zen practice. Toward that end, we need your help to extend our reach and to support our work. The Center itself has been, in a sense, in deep meditation, very still, contemplating its own place and path. Though still in regular contact, our monk has been away for awhile, serving his master at HwaGyeSa Temple in Seoul, Korea, and the reigns of the operation are in the hands of the sangha---the community. But, as the current handful of students awaken and learn to steer, though, so does the Center awaken again.
Each of us comes to the practice with our own circumstances, talents and abilities. We also come with our own needs. As we begin to see clearly, as the the truth about what keeps us as separate emerges, we see ourselves not only as the individuals that we are, but more importantly as parts or expressions of a larger whole. From moment to moment, we become the hands and feet, the eyes and ears, and the one mind of this body, and we rely on the generosity of those we serve to provide the air and the food that supports this body in its work.
In the coming posts, we hope to include pieces of our larger vision, and we hope that in many cases our vision will merge with your own and that our vision will evolve as more members are involved and bring their abilities. We hope to take the necessary steps, such as including donation buttons on this page, to enable your generosity. In the meantime, though, I take no personal pride in noting that in addition to my own personal situation, we have two full-time resident practitioners with unusual circumstances exacerbated by the economy who are also doing what they can for the center and who do need our support in this mission.
Just ask...
Would you like to learn more about Zen, our work, or about us? Do you or someone you know need help? Are you in a position to help and would like to know how to donate to our non-profit organization?
Please, contact us at anytime at contact@BaltimoreZen.org to learn more about us, to learn how to donate, or to begin your own journey. Let us help you find who you are and what precisely is the difference between you and me.
Yours in Dharma,
Joe McParland
I am no one... but even less than that. Whatever your race, color, creed, sex, social status, background, religion, or any other circumstances, I am not different than you... nor am I the same.
In an instant, though, I am the father of my son and daughter. I am the husband of my wife, my younger brothers' older brother, and my mother's son. I am my teacher's student and I am my students' teacher. I am the fellow driving too slowly in front of you when you have somewhere to go, and I am the fellow behind you, giving you distance because I see you are lost. You are things like this as well, and in this sense we are different; but, what of that part of me that writes this piece and the part of you that is reading it? Are these different?
You see the beautiful flowers bloom, think to last year's happy camping trip with friends and family, and celebrate the arrival of spring. Next to you, I see the same flowers and am reminded of the floral wreath at a loved one's funeral, and I am saddened. How can this be? Are the flowers that you and I see not precisely the same? Or are they? Where exactly do we see the flowers? Are you and I seeing the true flowers, as they truly are, or are we seeing something different? And what is doing this seeing anyway?
What comes attached with every perception when we are not aware? What do we actually see when we shed those attachments, filters, preconceptions, and so forth? And why would we want to?
Know this: Even in the most dire circumstances, there is solace to be found in learning to see clearly and knowing precisely who you are...
Who am I?
I am a man who recently turned 40. I am a man who learned that his son has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a disease that, statistically speaking, will cripple and kill him before he reaches my age. I am a man who, not four months after this diagnosis, was laid off from his job. Knowing that our lives would necessarily change to accommodate the future, I am a person struggling to find a way to earn a living that allows me increased time with my kids. Searching with aged skills and pricey experience, I am a person who had no luck as the economy crashed around me. Once filled with pride, now almost penniless, I am a person who nearly fell to pieces admitting to myself that, without insurance, I could not take my son for a visit to the muscular dystrophy clinic had it not been for the Muscular Dystrophy Association's charity to help those in need. I am a man failing his wife and children, sometimes unable to meet the bills, wondering if life will crash around us and sometimes even if I will still have them on the other side of this disaster.
But I am not just that.
In the same period, I found the Baltimore Zen Center through a website and I paid an unannounced visit on a night scheduled for beginners, I found the address, a little, nondescript 1950's-style bungalow home down the block from a fancy church. With serious trepidation, I wandered outside the place looking for signs of life before going through the gate to the back entrance. Rather than getting back into my car and leaving, I walked up to the door and knocked...
My life has not been the same since.
A smallish Korean man with a shaved head answered the door. I asked him if this was the right place for the Zen beginner's class. He invited me in, asked me to take off my shoes, and led me to a cushion at a low table in one of the house's four defined rooms. He prepared tea for me and said, “I am Sunim.” It was another meeting or two later, I am sure, before I knew that the term “Sunim” was simply an unassuming Korean title for “monk.”
A few other students showed as well. We made introductions and continued. Sunim invited people to discuss their days, leading to friendly banter, but as the next round of tea was prepared, the conversation was led to the teaching. Look how, in our daily lives, we lost track of seeing things as they are. Look how we became paralyzed by situations and experienced different frustrations chasing after this and avoiding that. We heard a story or two---koans---describing interactions between masters and students, or even between masters and masters, which were relevant to the lesson of the day, and we engaged in intensely frustrating question and answer sessions---”koan exchanges”---to test our own understanding and to explore the way.
I was lost---and I was skeptical---but I did have the undefinable sense that I was in the right place, that this was important work for me, and that this was the precise time to accomplish this work. I knew clearly that if I could not straighten our my own self, I would not be able to survive the ordeals that would come to our family by virtue of my son's disease---or anything else. I needed to be able to help my wife through the devastation. I would need to help guide my son through his ordeals as his life deviates further and further from those of “ordinary” children. I would need to see clearly my daughter's position, to ensure that she will not lose herself as the family dynamic would inevitably change. It simply had to be done, and it had to be done now.
While simultaneously staving off our financial destruction and working to keep the family strong as news of my son's “verdict” spread, I gave the rest of my time to Zen practice with this monk. At the peek intensity, I would sit with him in meditation from 4-8 in the morning and then sometimes again in the evening, attending every class I could in between, often with occasional emails exchanged in between. If I was there in the evening, he would feed me. If I was there by day, he would prepare me tea. In exchange, he asked for nothing. When I had a few dollars to spare, I would put them in the donation box; ultimately, though, I know it was my sincere practice that is what is important---as well as my natural want to share and strengthen the practice with others who have the inclination.
Who are you?
How do you see my son? Do you see a short life of devastating physical decline? Do you see a family's suffering and lost expectations for a normal life?
How did you see the flower?
What have you attached to this seeing?
You are not the same as me, my son, my daughter, or my wife; but are you really different either?
I have seen in the news more than once recently that families have been found dead in apparent “murder-suicides.” With difficult times, families crumble, losing everything. Falling into despair, they see no alternative. We read about it only when it is too late. How is it that they saw this as the only path out of their suffering? Is there not another?
Fundamentally, this is the purpose of Zen, and this is the mission of the Baltimore Zen Center. We work to end suffering and to find our freedom in every moment, and the time for this work is now.
It is very rare that we make a plea for support, but this is such a time. The Baltimore Zen Center has sat quietly, helping people like you and me to find our way. For a few of us, the practice of helping others is quickly becoming an extension of our own personal Zen practice. Toward that end, we need your help to extend our reach and to support our work. The Center itself has been, in a sense, in deep meditation, very still, contemplating its own place and path. Though still in regular contact, our monk has been away for awhile, serving his master at HwaGyeSa Temple in Seoul, Korea, and the reigns of the operation are in the hands of the sangha---the community. But, as the current handful of students awaken and learn to steer, though, so does the Center awaken again.
Each of us comes to the practice with our own circumstances, talents and abilities. We also come with our own needs. As we begin to see clearly, as the the truth about what keeps us as separate emerges, we see ourselves not only as the individuals that we are, but more importantly as parts or expressions of a larger whole. From moment to moment, we become the hands and feet, the eyes and ears, and the one mind of this body, and we rely on the generosity of those we serve to provide the air and the food that supports this body in its work.
In the coming posts, we hope to include pieces of our larger vision, and we hope that in many cases our vision will merge with your own and that our vision will evolve as more members are involved and bring their abilities. We hope to take the necessary steps, such as including donation buttons on this page, to enable your generosity. In the meantime, though, I take no personal pride in noting that in addition to my own personal situation, we have two full-time resident practitioners with unusual circumstances exacerbated by the economy who are also doing what they can for the center and who do need our support in this mission.
Just ask...
Would you like to learn more about Zen, our work, or about us? Do you or someone you know need help? Are you in a position to help and would like to know how to donate to our non-profit organization?
Please, contact us at anytime at contact@BaltimoreZen.org to learn more about us, to learn how to donate, or to begin your own journey. Let us help you find who you are and what precisely is the difference between you and me.
Yours in Dharma,
Joe McParland
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
The High Road
The Case
Tricycle Magazine today, via Twitter, pointed followers to responses by Genpo Roshi and others to a question by Gweneth Paltrow on her own blog.
Please do read the selection for yourself, but, for expediency, here is a synopsis: Ms. Paltrow discovered that a supposed-friend was intent on doing her harm. Ms. Paltrow restrained herself from fighting back, taking the High Road. Later, Ms. Paltrow was retrospectively saddened in feeling delight in finding that some misfortune had befallen the supposed friend. She solicited the opinions of several well-known sages for advice.
The question posed to the sages may well have been somewhat divorced from Ms. Paltrow's situation---it is not clear from the presentation; however, reading through the responses, I am curious: Do even these celebrity gurus have an image to uphold?
Perhaps one would have to ask an ordinary student of Zen to hear this answer:
Discussion
We do not have perfect sight into Ms. Paltrow's situation. Consider, for instance, that we do not know if the former friend is acting clearly and with a just cause---we only have Ms. Paltrow's limited account, which is hardly a full description of what led everyone to this moment. All we do know is what we are told: In choosing the High Road, Ms. Paltrow experienced personal grief; and, when her former friend experienced misfortune, Ms. Paltrow felt pleasure and subsequent shame in feeling that pleasure.
The situation itself---all of the players, all of their individual tendencies, all of what went into bringing the pieces together, and all of the momentum the situation has---is as good a definition of karma as any. This is not to say that bad things happen because you were bad in the past, for instance; consider instead the example that I spotted Tricycle Magazine's citation, followed the link, examined the situation, and was inspired to comment, and you were inclined to read my commentary. Who knows how we came to this point? Yet, here we are. This is karma too.
When karma is such that you are being attacked, however it is presented, there can be a powerful stimulus to respond, and this often inspires quite an instinctual response. Sometimes there is time for a strategically considered (or perhaps spiritually considered) response, and sometimes there is not. When you make this response, though, are you awake? If so, then toward what end to you construct your response?
Let's consider a Low Road response: After being punched in the nose repeatedly, hopefully one learns to avoid the punch. This avoiding may manifest itself in any number of presentations, from avoiding all potentially similar situations in which a punch might be thrown, blocking the punch, ducking and weaving, or perhaps even striking the other person first. It's even possible that being hit by the punch is right depending upon the situation. All of these options are available, but do we believe that one option is right for every encounter? If we do, then more likely than not, our responses are preconditioned and instinctual. In such a case, the outcome is essentially predestined. The karmic cycle thus continues.
Now let's consider the High Road, a response rooted in intellectual or spiritual consideration. We read the scriptures, listen to the gurus, meditate and pray, determine our roles and responsibilities in society, and eventually we decide for ourselves that the High Road is the right path. What have we done? We may have once again preconditioned our response. If in the moment we only have the preconditioned instinctual response, the outcome is again essentially predestined. The karmic cycle thus continues.
You are who you are---perhaps like that fellow who said "I am who am"---but above this are years of conditioning: assumptions, memories, beliefs, and so forth. Absent practice, all of these layers affect how you experience life. Absent practice, all of these layers affect your responses to stimuli as well. Then what is the practice that frees us from this pre-programmed life? In some sense, it is nothing more than the continual exercise of Free Will in every situation. But this is often not trivial. Seeing how you have limited yourself with nothing but thoughts and beliefs and then freeing yourself from them can take serious effort---again, depending upon your karma.
So, what are this Low Road and this High Road anyway? Where do you see them? Who built them? Are you standing firmly on one or the other? Which one have you chosen?
The High Road and the Low Road: are they the same or different? If you asked me, I would answer as one of our old masters did when presented with a similar question: “When the partridge is cold, it climbs to the top of the tree; when the duck is cold, it plunges underwater.”
Now tell me: are you cold?
Tricycle Magazine today, via Twitter, pointed followers to responses by Genpo Roshi and others to a question by Gweneth Paltrow on her own blog.
Please do read the selection for yourself, but, for expediency, here is a synopsis: Ms. Paltrow discovered that a supposed-friend was intent on doing her harm. Ms. Paltrow restrained herself from fighting back, taking the High Road. Later, Ms. Paltrow was retrospectively saddened in feeling delight in finding that some misfortune had befallen the supposed friend. She solicited the opinions of several well-known sages for advice.
The question posed to the sages may well have been somewhat divorced from Ms. Paltrow's situation---it is not clear from the presentation; however, reading through the responses, I am curious: Do even these celebrity gurus have an image to uphold?
Perhaps one would have to ask an ordinary student of Zen to hear this answer:
Sometimes, a punch in the nose is the correct response.
Discussion
We do not have perfect sight into Ms. Paltrow's situation. Consider, for instance, that we do not know if the former friend is acting clearly and with a just cause---we only have Ms. Paltrow's limited account, which is hardly a full description of what led everyone to this moment. All we do know is what we are told: In choosing the High Road, Ms. Paltrow experienced personal grief; and, when her former friend experienced misfortune, Ms. Paltrow felt pleasure and subsequent shame in feeling that pleasure.
The situation itself---all of the players, all of their individual tendencies, all of what went into bringing the pieces together, and all of the momentum the situation has---is as good a definition of karma as any. This is not to say that bad things happen because you were bad in the past, for instance; consider instead the example that I spotted Tricycle Magazine's citation, followed the link, examined the situation, and was inspired to comment, and you were inclined to read my commentary. Who knows how we came to this point? Yet, here we are. This is karma too.
When karma is such that you are being attacked, however it is presented, there can be a powerful stimulus to respond, and this often inspires quite an instinctual response. Sometimes there is time for a strategically considered (or perhaps spiritually considered) response, and sometimes there is not. When you make this response, though, are you awake? If so, then toward what end to you construct your response?
Let's consider a Low Road response: After being punched in the nose repeatedly, hopefully one learns to avoid the punch. This avoiding may manifest itself in any number of presentations, from avoiding all potentially similar situations in which a punch might be thrown, blocking the punch, ducking and weaving, or perhaps even striking the other person first. It's even possible that being hit by the punch is right depending upon the situation. All of these options are available, but do we believe that one option is right for every encounter? If we do, then more likely than not, our responses are preconditioned and instinctual. In such a case, the outcome is essentially predestined. The karmic cycle thus continues.
Now let's consider the High Road, a response rooted in intellectual or spiritual consideration. We read the scriptures, listen to the gurus, meditate and pray, determine our roles and responsibilities in society, and eventually we decide for ourselves that the High Road is the right path. What have we done? We may have once again preconditioned our response. If in the moment we only have the preconditioned instinctual response, the outcome is again essentially predestined. The karmic cycle thus continues.
You are who you are---perhaps like that fellow who said "I am who am"---but above this are years of conditioning: assumptions, memories, beliefs, and so forth. Absent practice, all of these layers affect how you experience life. Absent practice, all of these layers affect your responses to stimuli as well. Then what is the practice that frees us from this pre-programmed life? In some sense, it is nothing more than the continual exercise of Free Will in every situation. But this is often not trivial. Seeing how you have limited yourself with nothing but thoughts and beliefs and then freeing yourself from them can take serious effort---again, depending upon your karma.
So, what are this Low Road and this High Road anyway? Where do you see them? Who built them? Are you standing firmly on one or the other? Which one have you chosen?
The High Road and the Low Road: are they the same or different? If you asked me, I would answer as one of our old masters did when presented with a similar question: “When the partridge is cold, it climbs to the top of the tree; when the duck is cold, it plunges underwater.”
Now tell me: are you cold?
Friday, May 1, 2009
Aikido, Zen, and the Clear Response
The Case
An Aikido teacher is giving a mid-level student the opportunity to practice teaching. Toward that end, he asks a beginner to work beneath the mid-level student. During the course of the class, the beginning student sees his peers practicing with the black belts elsewhere on the mats and begins to grow irritable. He is a beginner in Aikido, but, with a few years of other arts under his belt, he is not a beginner in the martial arts in general; why should he be put in this position and denied the superior training?
At the end of the session, a senior student cordially asks how the beginner enjoyed the class. The student responded from the heart, honestly and spontaneously, that he thought the class was a waste of his time and his money, that he was not paying to be instructed by a mid-level student while others had one-on-one interaction with black belt students.
Later, the student wondered if his honest response was correct. During the next class, the student got the sense that the instructor was giving him the cold shoulder. He suspects that word got back to the instructor and that she was responding badly to his remark...
[Case is taken from a posting to AikiWeb, a source of Aikido discussion.]
Takemusu and the Clear Response
Aikido and Patriarchal Zen are both intently focused upon connecting the practitioner with his "center," the solid, immovable, relaxed core of his very being. A result of this connection is finding a spontaneous, perfectly clear, and appropriate response to your every situation. In Aikido, this is takemusu, the clear martial response to an attack on your body; in Zen, this is the clear response to a koan attacking your mind. The response of either is called appropriate in that it is crafted to restore harmony, or "original mind." But until these responses are understood, they are often severely misunderstood: Responses may seem well-formed and appropriate when in fact they seriously miss the mark. In Zen, some label this "monkey Zen"---imitating the form demonstrated by Zen masters without comprehending the essence; in Aikido, the difference between martial "dancing" and combat is easily felt, but not necessarily easily seen.
In the cited case, the student knows that his response was honest and appropriate. How then could the matter remain unsettled? How then could he question the situation after the fact or have regret?
In fact, the student's answer was an honest, pure reflection of his state of mind---his every word, action, and subsequent wonder were certainly a pure expression of that state---but was his answer from his center? Was the source of the answer beneath his calm, undefiled mind, or was the source of his answer his resonant resentment with his situation in class? Would we be more likely to characterize his answer as a response or as a reaction? Lastly, did his answer ultimately quell the situation, or did it exacerbate the situation?
Operating purely and spontaneously from the heart, or "being true to oneself," may make for great novels and movies, but it is not necessarily enlightened action; in fact, it may be the height of delusion. Believing the action to be enlightened or pure and clinging to the delusive state often only exacerbates the situation.
Working through these obstacles and tendencies is ultimately a matter of practice. Training can be long and arduous, and we do stumble, but practice is the place for this.
An Aikido teacher is giving a mid-level student the opportunity to practice teaching. Toward that end, he asks a beginner to work beneath the mid-level student. During the course of the class, the beginning student sees his peers practicing with the black belts elsewhere on the mats and begins to grow irritable. He is a beginner in Aikido, but, with a few years of other arts under his belt, he is not a beginner in the martial arts in general; why should he be put in this position and denied the superior training?At the end of the session, a senior student cordially asks how the beginner enjoyed the class. The student responded from the heart, honestly and spontaneously, that he thought the class was a waste of his time and his money, that he was not paying to be instructed by a mid-level student while others had one-on-one interaction with black belt students.
Later, the student wondered if his honest response was correct. During the next class, the student got the sense that the instructor was giving him the cold shoulder. He suspects that word got back to the instructor and that she was responding badly to his remark...
[Case is taken from a posting to AikiWeb, a source of Aikido discussion.]
Takemusu and the Clear Response
Aikido and Patriarchal Zen are both intently focused upon connecting the practitioner with his "center," the solid, immovable, relaxed core of his very being. A result of this connection is finding a spontaneous, perfectly clear, and appropriate response to your every situation. In Aikido, this is takemusu, the clear martial response to an attack on your body; in Zen, this is the clear response to a koan attacking your mind. The response of either is called appropriate in that it is crafted to restore harmony, or "original mind." But until these responses are understood, they are often severely misunderstood: Responses may seem well-formed and appropriate when in fact they seriously miss the mark. In Zen, some label this "monkey Zen"---imitating the form demonstrated by Zen masters without comprehending the essence; in Aikido, the difference between martial "dancing" and combat is easily felt, but not necessarily easily seen.In the cited case, the student knows that his response was honest and appropriate. How then could the matter remain unsettled? How then could he question the situation after the fact or have regret?
In fact, the student's answer was an honest, pure reflection of his state of mind---his every word, action, and subsequent wonder were certainly a pure expression of that state---but was his answer from his center? Was the source of the answer beneath his calm, undefiled mind, or was the source of his answer his resonant resentment with his situation in class? Would we be more likely to characterize his answer as a response or as a reaction? Lastly, did his answer ultimately quell the situation, or did it exacerbate the situation?
Operating purely and spontaneously from the heart, or "being true to oneself," may make for great novels and movies, but it is not necessarily enlightened action; in fact, it may be the height of delusion. Believing the action to be enlightened or pure and clinging to the delusive state often only exacerbates the situation.
Working through these obstacles and tendencies is ultimately a matter of practice. Training can be long and arduous, and we do stumble, but practice is the place for this.
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