Word of the week: chiden (pronounced chee-den). Not sure what it means in Japanese, but my new Zen Center cohort, Akiva, and I, both think it has something to do with 'chi', which is energy. What it means for me as a resident is "chores". Here in the Zen Center, everyone is given three different chores - a house chore, a floor chore, and a temple chore. "Chiden" is the word they use. This is different from our daily soji, which is when we all line up after service every morning, before breakfast, and get a chore from our work leader, R, to do for 15 minutes silently. It doesn't matter if we finish the assigned task. The idea is to not so much focus on the work, but the working. Whether it's scrubbing toilets or dusting the altar, it's the working - the ing factor - that helps with the mindfulness.
But back to chiden. Both my temple and house chidens happen to fall on the same day, Friday. And they both happen to contrast the very esssence of life in the Zen Center. Or maybe not. Depends on how you choose to interpret it. My assigned house chiden is to take care of the dining room flowers. Every Friday, someone goes to the market and buys a bunch of fresh flowers. I mean, like five buckets worth. They leave them outside in the courtyard for our flower person, C (a very sweet woman - the first woman I met the first time I arrived here in March for a week as a guest student), and she takes out the flowers she wants me to use for the dining room. The rest are for her to use throughout the entire Zen Center, especially the altars.
I wouldn't say that I am a brown thumb, but I also wouldn't call myself Martha Stewart. I enjoy working outdoors. But making flower arrangements for the Zen Center is a little, um, intimidating. What if I do it wrong? What if it looks ugly? Will that affect the people's moods when they're eating? And, in turn, will that affect the tone of the entire Center? And what about our guests who eat in the dining room? I mean, the San Francisco Zen Center is the largest western Zen Center in the - well - West. I mean, the western hemisphere, not the west coast. It's the first one of it's kind that started in 1970 by Suziki Roshi and a few of his followers, who are now Zen priests, writers, Buddhist bishops, dharma teachers, and other significant stuff like that. Some pretty important stuff. And they all eat in the dining room. The dining room that has tables that have flowers on them. And now, I'm responsible for those flowers.
It was so nice working outside. My day job is in the front office. All day long, I'm aswering the phone, the door, fielding calls - constantly interacting with people. I enjoy this job. I'm a people person, so I'm right for the job. But it was so refreshing and soothing to work with flowers for just that one half hour on Friday. R, the work leader, showed me where all of the flowers were, and C, gave me permission to use some flowers that weren't selected for the dining room bucket. Yellow seemed to be the color I was drawn to that day. Now, everyone who eats in the Zen Center will be drawn to yellow all week! But I was also drawn to the lilacs. The dining room has one table that is designated for people who do not want to talk during their meal. I've only used it once. No, wait, twice. Once, by accident, once not. The one time I used it by accident was when I was a guest student. I sat down and started chatting away with everyone. One person ignored me, another glared at me, and another picked up the sign that reads, oh-so-clearly, this table is for people who do not wish to talk during their meal. Needless to say, that was my cue to exuent and find myself a table of chatterboxes, which I did, immediately. But I recently chose to eat dinner at the silent table one evening after I had a very intense experience during zazen. I don't want to get into any details about my experience during zazen, but it felt very safe to sit in silence, knowing that I didn't need to keep my guard up. And the unspoken silence shared between myself and the others at the table spoke volumes.
When I was putting together the flower vases for the tables, I made the arrangement for the silent table different from the rest. (All of the other long tables have two matching smaller vases with matching arrangements in them). I took the lilacs, taller than any of the other flowers in the room, and placed them in the vase for the silent table. I thought it would be nice for people who may be dealing with some more intensity during their meal to be provided with the strength of the lilacs. Something that stnads out a little more than the other flowers.
That night, I had my temple chiden. This task requires a similar focus, though it certainly does not maintain the levity of fresh flowers. I am responsible for cleaning the incense bowls and the kobakos on the altar in the Buddha Hall. The Buddha Hall is where we have our services and dharma talks. It is not where we meditate (that room is the zendo). I also need to clean the altar at the end of the hallway, which is the one that is used to light the incense for the ceremonies that take place in the Buddha Hall. It is an honorable job, of which I and a few other elites were selected, not because of our devotion to the altar, but because, as Shundo, the Ino (the person incharge of the altars), said so eloquently, in his quaint little British accent, "you're the obsessives".
"If you're an obsessive, which you are, you're perfect for this job because it requires detail."
He was right. Within moments of his training, I noticed a spot on the altar that he missed while dusting it. It took everything in my power to sit still for the next five minutes while he was showing us how to clean the incense bowls, and not grab the duster out of his hand to wipe the area where the ash remained on the altar. Alas, when he asked if we had any questions, I told him I wanted the duster, "please", so I could finish sweeping the altar. My cohorts, empatheticaclly laughed as he nodded, a calm confirming nod.
"I knew I chose the correct people for this job." He said, proudly.
The altar chiden is fascinating. If you are the type of person who plucks your chin hairs on a regular basis, then you would appreciate this job. A stick of incense is lit by the jiko before entering the Buddha Hall, and then presented to the Doshi (the priest who is leading the ceremony). The Doshi receives the incense from the jiko, places it against his/her forehead (third eye), then places it into the incense bowl, which is filled with ash. The bowl is small, like the size of an average ceral bowl. It is filled with ash from all of the incense from that year. They don't throw out the ash. Nor the incense sticks. There is always about two inches left of the incense stick that burns out when it hits the ash. The Zen Center saves all of the remaining incense sticks and burns them in a bonfire every New Year's Eve. So my job is to sift through the incense bowls with a fork and pull out the tiny remnants of incense sticks, then place them in the jar that we burn on New Year's Eve. Again, details. Facial hair pluckers unite. Your calling awaits you.
In addition to cleaning out the incense bowls, I am also responsible for cleaning out the kobakos, which is a square set of bowls: one bowl holds the small rectangular piece of charcoal for the ceremony, the other bowl is incense chips, also used for ceremonies. The bowl with the charcoal is filled with hardened ash. The challenge is to flatten it neatly enough so that it looks untouched. We have a tool for this, but the tool does not share the precise measurements of the bowl itself. Hence, it is a challenge to flatten it evenly, and leaving no lines. Needless to say, I spent a good ten minutes on that task alone the first time I did it. It has become my new mission to flatten the kobako flawlessly, which I suspect I will never be able to do, but the hope is strong.
Hope is a topic we discussed in one of my classes this week. Our teacher was challenging us on the idea that hope is perhaps not all that significant. Do we need hope? We discussed a chapter from Pema Chodron's Book When Things Fall Apart. Interestingly, the Tibetan word for hope is the same as their word for fear. One cannot live without the other? Two sides of the same coin? Hope/fear? Flowers/Ash?
This week, the Zen Center hosted a book reading as part of the Nothing is Hidden Series. The psychologist, Dacher Keltner, wrote a book, The Compassionate Instinct. He is the director of The Greater Good Science Center and teaches at Cal Berkeley. He researches human behavior, tying in the pysiological responses to human behavior, focusing on compassion. It was fascinating and inspiring to hear him talk about how human's are tuned in to compassion.
Conversely, today was Harvey Milk Day (May 22) here in California. It's the first year this day has been celebrated, so I was kind of expecting there to be some big events to take place here in San Francisco. There weren't and I found this to be disappointing. Still, I walked down to the Castro. It turns out there was a grand opening for a street plaza, so there were some politicians there. And one, a city supervisor, Bevan Dufty, talked about Harvey Milk. He said that the next big project for the neighborhood will be dedicated to Harvey Milk.
Harvey Milk was a city councilman in San Francisco back in the 1970's. He was an out gay man. The city adored him. He was tragically murdered by a fellow councilman, along with Mayor Musconey. The man who killed Milk got away with the murder, based on a ridiculous case now known as the "twinkie defense". He apparently was hopped up on sugar and sleep deprived the morning he murdered Milk and Musconey. The murderer ended up killing himself a few years later. It's a sad, brutal story.
As I was walking along the Castro today, watching gay men holding hands, walking arm-in-arm, I thought to myself that this is what Harvey Milk stood for. He was such a happy, loving guy. And such a dedicated public servant. Seeing out gay men and women displaying public affection, running for political office, speaking up for their civil rights is a byproduct of Milk's hard work. Apparently, his ashes are buried in front of his former camera store in the Castro.
Dogen, the great 13th Century Zen Master, has one famous koan where he talks about how "firewood is firewood" and "ashes are ashes" after the firewood burns to ashes. It's a complex notion, separating the two objects, especially when Zen is all about "connection" and "no subject-objects". But, basically, Dogen's point is things change. For better, for worse. And, of course, it's how willing we are to accept those changes that ultimately gauges how we approach life. Are we trimming flowers or are we sifting through ash?
I don't know about you, but I'm doing both. Every Friday.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
A Roo Awakening: Week Two in the Zen Center
The word of the week is Roo. Many Japanese words end in the letter "o", so it should come as no surprise that my word of the week ends in the letter "o". However, in this case, the word, "Roo", is not a Japanese word that signifies a ritual or role in Zen Buddhism. The word Roo is actually a name of a new someone special in my life. Roo is my new pet fish; a Beta fish, to be precise. (Beta, according to the purists, should be pronounced Bett-a, not bait-a, which everyone apparently does). As you can see, I'm a new fan of this species. For a variety of reasons. The biggest reason is that it feels good to have a roommate, particularly a low-maintenance roommate. He never invades my space, never snores, never dominates the conversation, and I'm convinced that if he had the capacity to take messages, he would do so with grace and articulation.
And he's beautiful, in that worn, charming sort of way.
Every morning at the Zen Center, at precisely 9 a.m., we have our morning work meeting. Everyone in the center stands in a large circle in the dining room, and our affable, hard working work leader, R, runs the meeting. People can make announcements during this meeting. One resident Zen priest, K, announced that she will be transitioning out of the Zen Center into Tassajara this week. (Tassajara is the Zen Center's secluded rural monastary in the Los Padres National Forest, near Big Sur. Check out the SFZC website for more info). Anyhow, K announced that she needs to find a new home for her fish, whom she took on when a previous resident also had to transition out of the Zen Center. Still mourning over having to foster out my dog, Sadie for this year, I told K to let me know if nobody else volunteered. Two days later, I helped K move Roo into my room.
Before I even met Roo, I read the directions on how to take care of him. The woman who is training me for the front office job, R, a very sweet woman who has her hand and heart on the pulse of every living organism in the monastary, gave me the directions. Among some of the more typical directives such as when and what to feed Roo, the directions also included that Roo likes chanting and snails. (I have since learned that he also likes Jazz music, pre-1964 specifically. A fish with taste. Nice). The directives mentioned a fish shop "on Filmore Street where the guy will give you free snails." Needless to say, my Saturday free time was spent taking a rather long, healthy walk down to the Aqua Forest Aquarium, on Filmore and Geary.
I only had Roo for two days before going to the fish shop, and I was so busy, I had little time to do research on Beta fish. One interesting fact I did learn, however, is that the male Beta fish, in order to impress the female, makes "bubble nests" to protect the future eggs his future mate will lay after he has future sex with her. Apparently, the female Beta seeks virile "bubble nest builders" before she makes her final decision as to whom she will "give herself to", so to speak.
I went for a run in Buena Vista Park prior to going to the store, so by the time I got to the shop, a had a flurry of questions for the store clerk on the intricacies of taking care of a Beta fish a well as inquiring about getting free snails. I think the clerk didn't know what to make of me with all of my questions. Moreso, I think I was blowing any opportunity he had with this hot looking young blonde woman who was in the store. Here she was, this female Beta who he clearly wanted to make a bubble nest for, and there I was, this middle-aged lesbian, sweating in my running clothes, exhausting him with endless questions about the Beta fish, demanding free snails. Poor kid. Whate ever bubbles he was blowing to the top of his aquatic surface to impress the female Beta were getting completely popped by me with every ridiculous question I had for him, including my query about maybe finding a companion for Roo.
"I'm thinking of getting another fish. You know, to keep him company."
The clerk politely walked me over to a large tank and showed me the plethora of different types of fishes that could, a) survive in a filter-free tank (Betas thrive in filterless tanks), and, b) survive in a tank with a Beta.
"Whaddya mean survive with a Beta?"
It was then I learned that the Beta fish is also known as the Siamese Fighting Fish. Apparently, male Betas are extremely aggressive. Putting two in a tank will quickly lead to the death of one of them. Even a female Beta needs to be monitored when she is with a male Beta, and the sole purpose of that meeting is - you guessed it - mating time. Float and deliver. When the deed is done, it's time to separate them. But smaller, more agile fish with smaller fins "are more likely to survive in a tank with a Beta", according to the clerk.
"The smaller the fish, the smaller the fins, which means the Beta won't be able to get to them as quickly as if it were a fish with large fins." He said, drinking what I guessed to be his fourth cup of coffee of the day.
As he began to get into the intricate reasons why certain fishes wouldn't "do well" in Roo's bowl, I was inclined to tell the guy that I'm looking for a companion for Roo, not a gimp. Due to the large coffee intake this clerk had that day, I was having kind of a tough time following him as he was maneuvering about the store, fidgeting, shuffling, and flapping arbitrarily, speaking just as quickly and sporadically. It occurred to me later that he was working there for a reason: he's a fish. I wouldn't go as far a saying he's a Beta fish because he didn't appear to have that killer insinct, but he certainly couldn't keep still. And he certainly made the effort to build that bubble nest for that cute blonde. I'm picturing him now in a fish tank, a mini version of him, including the horned rim glasses and black plastic hoop eaarings, swimming around the tank, darting in and out of the little secret nooks of the aquarium, smart enough to know how to stay out of the Beta's range, but playful enough to know how to goad the master of the tank.
I ended up buying a light for Roo's tank, for me more than for Roo. The light shines nicely over his tank and I'm able to see him darting around at night. I also bought him, aptly, a Laughing Buddha for his tank. It stands at the bottom of the tank, Buddha's arms stretching in the air, a beautiful smile emenating from him, like a loveable teddy bear for Roo. Roo digs it. He darted down there within moments of me placing it in the tank, and sort of hovered near it for a few seconds. I took that as an acknowedgment of gratitude from him. If he could talk, I think he would have said, "I know this Buddha fellow quite well. My two previous owners are always referring to him..."
My heart definitely feels lighter this week, and I think Roo plays a small part in that. The daily routine can be pretty intense, so to walk into my room for a few minutes and feed Roo, a small piece of fish food at a time (smaller than a grain of rice) brings me a simple sense of joy. Betas are anabantoids, which means they can breathe atmospheric air due to a unique organ called the labyrinth. Thus, Roo pops up to the surface often, especially when I feed him. And he looks adorable when he opens his little mouth for the food. It would be cool to see Roo make a bubble nest, but I don't expect him to try to impress this middle-aged Beta lesbian.
Another cool thing about Beta males is they will care for the eggs in the bubble nest. You will see them taking the eggs into their mouths where they clean them with special natural chemicals in their mouths. Two days after spawning, the chemicals in their mouths change and dissolve the outer layer of the eggs to release the fry. Just knowing that Roo, this tiny little being, in this 4-gallon tank in my room, is capable of that, expands my mind just enough for me to pause when I'm observing him. Nature is so intricate, powerful, beautiful, and complex. But i's also just nice to have something to take care of.
For some reason, Roo makes me think of one of my favorite Beatles songs, Octupus's Garden. I like the lyrics, "I'd like to be under the sea in an octupus's garden with you..." I like the simplicity and playfulness of the lyrics. Maybe I'm thinking of the image of a garden because I spent today at Green Gulch, the Zen Center's organic farm and other rural monastary, in Marin. There was a ceremony and birthday party today for Buddha. A few of us went on a field trip to Green Gulch. I was pretty tired after, and a little disgruntled, admittedly, that I needed to finish writing this blog post before going to bed. So, to get into a better mood, I broke out the iPod and found some Beatles tunes.
How to get into a good mood: when all else fails, play a Beatles' album. I mean, we all have our personal preferences. Mine is Springsteen. But the Beatles wrote about one universal theme, consisently: love. I mean, just go to Vegas and watch the performance, Love. The Beatles have at least 365 songs, and all of them have the word "Love" in it. One of my favorites is from the song, Because:
love is old, love is new;
love is old, love is you.
Today, the lyrics have a slight modification:
love is old, love is new;
love is old, love is Roo.
Sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betta
http://www.betafacts.com/betafishmating.php
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/beatles/albums.html
And he's beautiful, in that worn, charming sort of way.
Every morning at the Zen Center, at precisely 9 a.m., we have our morning work meeting. Everyone in the center stands in a large circle in the dining room, and our affable, hard working work leader, R, runs the meeting. People can make announcements during this meeting. One resident Zen priest, K, announced that she will be transitioning out of the Zen Center into Tassajara this week. (Tassajara is the Zen Center's secluded rural monastary in the Los Padres National Forest, near Big Sur. Check out the SFZC website for more info). Anyhow, K announced that she needs to find a new home for her fish, whom she took on when a previous resident also had to transition out of the Zen Center. Still mourning over having to foster out my dog, Sadie for this year, I told K to let me know if nobody else volunteered. Two days later, I helped K move Roo into my room.
Before I even met Roo, I read the directions on how to take care of him. The woman who is training me for the front office job, R, a very sweet woman who has her hand and heart on the pulse of every living organism in the monastary, gave me the directions. Among some of the more typical directives such as when and what to feed Roo, the directions also included that Roo likes chanting and snails. (I have since learned that he also likes Jazz music, pre-1964 specifically. A fish with taste. Nice). The directives mentioned a fish shop "on Filmore Street where the guy will give you free snails." Needless to say, my Saturday free time was spent taking a rather long, healthy walk down to the Aqua Forest Aquarium, on Filmore and Geary.
I only had Roo for two days before going to the fish shop, and I was so busy, I had little time to do research on Beta fish. One interesting fact I did learn, however, is that the male Beta fish, in order to impress the female, makes "bubble nests" to protect the future eggs his future mate will lay after he has future sex with her. Apparently, the female Beta seeks virile "bubble nest builders" before she makes her final decision as to whom she will "give herself to", so to speak.
I went for a run in Buena Vista Park prior to going to the store, so by the time I got to the shop, a had a flurry of questions for the store clerk on the intricacies of taking care of a Beta fish a well as inquiring about getting free snails. I think the clerk didn't know what to make of me with all of my questions. Moreso, I think I was blowing any opportunity he had with this hot looking young blonde woman who was in the store. Here she was, this female Beta who he clearly wanted to make a bubble nest for, and there I was, this middle-aged lesbian, sweating in my running clothes, exhausting him with endless questions about the Beta fish, demanding free snails. Poor kid. Whate ever bubbles he was blowing to the top of his aquatic surface to impress the female Beta were getting completely popped by me with every ridiculous question I had for him, including my query about maybe finding a companion for Roo.
"I'm thinking of getting another fish. You know, to keep him company."
The clerk politely walked me over to a large tank and showed me the plethora of different types of fishes that could, a) survive in a filter-free tank (Betas thrive in filterless tanks), and, b) survive in a tank with a Beta.
"Whaddya mean survive with a Beta?"
It was then I learned that the Beta fish is also known as the Siamese Fighting Fish. Apparently, male Betas are extremely aggressive. Putting two in a tank will quickly lead to the death of one of them. Even a female Beta needs to be monitored when she is with a male Beta, and the sole purpose of that meeting is - you guessed it - mating time. Float and deliver. When the deed is done, it's time to separate them. But smaller, more agile fish with smaller fins "are more likely to survive in a tank with a Beta", according to the clerk.
"The smaller the fish, the smaller the fins, which means the Beta won't be able to get to them as quickly as if it were a fish with large fins." He said, drinking what I guessed to be his fourth cup of coffee of the day.
As he began to get into the intricate reasons why certain fishes wouldn't "do well" in Roo's bowl, I was inclined to tell the guy that I'm looking for a companion for Roo, not a gimp. Due to the large coffee intake this clerk had that day, I was having kind of a tough time following him as he was maneuvering about the store, fidgeting, shuffling, and flapping arbitrarily, speaking just as quickly and sporadically. It occurred to me later that he was working there for a reason: he's a fish. I wouldn't go as far a saying he's a Beta fish because he didn't appear to have that killer insinct, but he certainly couldn't keep still. And he certainly made the effort to build that bubble nest for that cute blonde. I'm picturing him now in a fish tank, a mini version of him, including the horned rim glasses and black plastic hoop eaarings, swimming around the tank, darting in and out of the little secret nooks of the aquarium, smart enough to know how to stay out of the Beta's range, but playful enough to know how to goad the master of the tank.
I ended up buying a light for Roo's tank, for me more than for Roo. The light shines nicely over his tank and I'm able to see him darting around at night. I also bought him, aptly, a Laughing Buddha for his tank. It stands at the bottom of the tank, Buddha's arms stretching in the air, a beautiful smile emenating from him, like a loveable teddy bear for Roo. Roo digs it. He darted down there within moments of me placing it in the tank, and sort of hovered near it for a few seconds. I took that as an acknowedgment of gratitude from him. If he could talk, I think he would have said, "I know this Buddha fellow quite well. My two previous owners are always referring to him..."
My heart definitely feels lighter this week, and I think Roo plays a small part in that. The daily routine can be pretty intense, so to walk into my room for a few minutes and feed Roo, a small piece of fish food at a time (smaller than a grain of rice) brings me a simple sense of joy. Betas are anabantoids, which means they can breathe atmospheric air due to a unique organ called the labyrinth. Thus, Roo pops up to the surface often, especially when I feed him. And he looks adorable when he opens his little mouth for the food. It would be cool to see Roo make a bubble nest, but I don't expect him to try to impress this middle-aged Beta lesbian.
Another cool thing about Beta males is they will care for the eggs in the bubble nest. You will see them taking the eggs into their mouths where they clean them with special natural chemicals in their mouths. Two days after spawning, the chemicals in their mouths change and dissolve the outer layer of the eggs to release the fry. Just knowing that Roo, this tiny little being, in this 4-gallon tank in my room, is capable of that, expands my mind just enough for me to pause when I'm observing him. Nature is so intricate, powerful, beautiful, and complex. But i's also just nice to have something to take care of.
For some reason, Roo makes me think of one of my favorite Beatles songs, Octupus's Garden. I like the lyrics, "I'd like to be under the sea in an octupus's garden with you..." I like the simplicity and playfulness of the lyrics. Maybe I'm thinking of the image of a garden because I spent today at Green Gulch, the Zen Center's organic farm and other rural monastary, in Marin. There was a ceremony and birthday party today for Buddha. A few of us went on a field trip to Green Gulch. I was pretty tired after, and a little disgruntled, admittedly, that I needed to finish writing this blog post before going to bed. So, to get into a better mood, I broke out the iPod and found some Beatles tunes.
How to get into a good mood: when all else fails, play a Beatles' album. I mean, we all have our personal preferences. Mine is Springsteen. But the Beatles wrote about one universal theme, consisently: love. I mean, just go to Vegas and watch the performance, Love. The Beatles have at least 365 songs, and all of them have the word "Love" in it. One of my favorites is from the song, Because:
love is old, love is new;
love is old, love is you.
Today, the lyrics have a slight modification:
love is old, love is new;
love is old, love is Roo.
Sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betta
http://www.betafacts.com/betafishmating.php
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/beatles/albums.html
Monday, May 10, 2010
Oryoki: Week One in the Zen Center
Mother's Day, 2010. For years after my mother died, I had a difficult time on Mother's Day. But then, I have learned over the years, that the passing of a loved one becomes something you learn to live with. And all of the painful memories seem to fade away while the positive memories remain in my heart. This week, however, some painful memories popped up, which is no surprise considering all of the changes I have been going through. It's all part of the process, part of my midlife crisis, I suppose.
I officially moved into the San Francisco Zen Center this past Thursday, May 6th. I arrived around 7pm, exhausted from a very busy week of moving out of my mountain community, but, moreso, leaving my dog, Sadie, with her foster parents in New Mexico. Yes, I did it. It was one of the most heart wrenching moments of my adult life, walking out of that back yard in Albuquerque as I watched her follow her new foster mom, TJ, across the yard, her beautiful brown eyes fixated on the frisbee that TJ was holding. TJ's partner, my friend, Kathi (who is also on my "Femme Advisory Board", but that's for another time), graciously escorted me out of the yard, assuring me that she and TJ are merely the foster parents. and that I am Sadie's mother. We agreed on a year.
"It's only for a year, Caren." Said Kathi, in a very reassuring voice.
It turns out that Kathi and TJ have had their "dogological clock" ticking away. Sadie arrived for them just in the nick of time. I hear that Sadie is adjusting just fine. I, on the other hand, cried for forty miles, and then for the next thousand miles intermittently. And my heart has ached for Sadie every day since I said goodbye to her. But time in the Zen Center should change that. Starting tomorrow, my life will get very busy, and, hopefully, be filled with meaning. Enough meaning so that I may justify my separation from Sadie.
Saturday was the first official day of this six-week practice period at the City Center. It was an all-day session, which means you are basically in zazen all day. Zazen simply means "sitting meditation". The day began at 5:00 a.m. and ended at 7:30pm. It's not like we sat there in the zendo (meditation room) all day, uninterrupted and fasting. There was a dharma talk in the morning, and soshi (chores) and a short break were in the afternoon. Overall, it was a powerful experience for me. Very intense. What made it intense for me were the meals.
During all-day sittings, rather than eating in the dining room, we instead have oryoki. The word "oryoki", literally means "just enough" in Japanese. The dinner bowl has been very symbolic since even before Buddha's time. A new monk used to receive his robe and bowl; the robe symbolizing protection from the elements, and the bowl symbolizing nourishment. Ascetic monks (this is pre-Buddha) actually went around with their bowls, begging for food. It was an opportunity for the ascetics to practice humility, but also an opportunity for the people who gave the food to the ascetics to earn karma "points".
The oryoki set became a part of the Soto-Zen Culture in the 13th Century. Soto Zen Buddhism is simply one of the three Japanese sects of Buddhism. It was introduced to a teacher in the 13th century, Dogen, who went to China and learned about how they practice Buddhism (which started in the 9th Century in China). Being an efficient culture that Japan is, oryoki was developed as a way to save time and energy during meal time in the monastaries. Every monk had his own oryoki set, which consists of three bowls: small, medium, and large; a spoon, chopsticks, a cleaning utensil, a cleaning towel, a cloth place mat, and a napkin. Everything gets folded up in the placemat, and ties in a bow shaped like a lotus. (A lotus is a common symbol in Buddhism). The idea is to not have to get up from zazen, and to maintain the silence. The pratitioners (the people who are practicing the zazen) remain seated in their spots and set up their oryoki sets while the servers quietly serve the food. When the meal is over, the practitioners then proceed to clean their bowls with the cleaning utensil, small dish cloth, and hot water that has been served to them. When done cleaning their bowls, the practitioners then place the bowls inside of each other, return the utensils to its cloth holder, fold up the bowls with the cloth placemat, tie it up with that lotus bow, and place it behind them, ready now for it next meal. This is where my life became hell for a few moments.
Although I respect this rutual that has been around for seven hundred years, it didn't agree with me. The entire ritual takes 45-50 minutes, of which only 5-10 minutes is actually dedicated to the actual eating part. I learned that I do not like being rushed during my meal time, never mind the underlying anxiety of setting up the bowls in silence, as I neurotically agonized over the notion that I may spill my soup, and thus, cause a resounding echo drumming across the zendo. When I say that this ritual did not agree with me, I mean it did not agree with me.
I literally almost vomited at the end of my meal time. I was feeling rushed to eat all of my food. I flew through the grits, which were in the large bowl (known as the Buddha bowl). I requested only a miniscule amount for the middle bowl meal (a type of lentil soup), and just a small amount of the smallest bowl meal, which was a mix of shredded carrots, cabbage, and ginger. I realized that something key was missing in my meal - a beverage. I'm what you call a "washer", meaning I need my token beverage to aid me in washing down certain foods. It's a childhood thing, which, I apparently never outgrew. The grits went down easily. Soup, no problem. But shredded carrots, cabbage, and ginger? Need some help there. I'm sensitive to certain textures, and my body was definitely not taking down the shredded food. I chewed endlessly, talking myself into believing that I can swallow this food. Come on, Caren, you're a grown woman. You're not a kid anymore. You're not being threatened to go to bed without dessert if you don't lick your plate clean... All of that inner child ramblings led to one thing - the gag reflex. I haven't had that sensation in years. But there I was, feeling all of that shredded carrot, cabbage, and ginger, tossed around in my mouth, refusing to go down my throat. Slowly, oh so slowly, I continued to chew. And chew. And chew. Until I swallowed the food. By the time I was done swallowing that mouthful of food, I had tears in my eyes. Not from the emotional aspect, but from the physiological aspect of resisting to swallow.
By the time I was done with swallowing that food, the meal was ending. There was no way I was going to be able to finish that carrot dish, without there being consequences, which would have grossed out my neighbor practitioners, the servers, and, eventually, everyone in the zendo. The smell of my vomit wafting across the zendo would have been an instant opportunity for my fellow practitioners to practice compassion. So I broke the code. I gestured for the shido (the person in charge of the servers, sort of the maitre-de of oryoki), and I whispered to him that I could not finish this carrot dish, which meant that I could not clean my dish, which meant that I could not place my bowls inside of each other and fold them up neatly in the lotus bow. I asked him, trying to sound calm and gracious, what people normally do under these circumstances. He graciously started to say, "Well, normally..." then he caught himself, I'm guessing because of the look of both terror and defeat in my face, and he said softly and kindly said, "I'll take it for you." He took the bowl of shredded carrots, cabbage, and ginger, which by then had become this evil symbol of my childhood, and I felt instant relief. I never saw that bowl again. Nor do I ever want to see it again.
Later that morning, during meditation, as the weight of this experience sat heavily in my heart, I had a painful childhood image return to my heart. And I do say heart, becaue for the first time in years, I felt the pain of this memory.
Dinner time was a stressful time for my family while I was growing up. So stressful, in fact, that when any of my brothers and I bring it up today, we shrug it off with the rolling of the eyes, the cringing of the face, and the shared gratitude that we survived that battle. I've heard that Irish-American families handle their feelings with humor. Indeed, my brothers and I laugh at the anxiety of our childhood dinners, but only because it is the easier way to cope with the memories.
But the truth is that dinner time represented the ultimate power struggle between my parents, with the dinner table becoming the symbolic battlefield of their emotional turbulence. Looking back, I can clearly see now that my parents both felt that they had no "down time" at the end of their work days. My father wasn't about to step one foot into the kitchen to help out because that's not how he was raised. My mother, who resented having to cook after having worked all day, was not shy about sharing her resentment with all of us. The symphonic clanging of pots and pans from the kitchen permeated the house, while my father would simply rise from his infamous orange lazy chair (my mother called it his "Archie Bunker" chair) and turn up the volume of his favorite news station. Then, 6:30pm would arrive. Dinner was ready. Like clock work. But something else happened at 6:30pm every night. The sporting news. And my father is a sports fanatic. It has been his salvation since he was a child.
My mother would announce "Dinner!", and my father would say, "In a couple of minutes." And the games would begin. The symphonic clanging of the pots became a cacophony as the sports newscaster's voice increased in volume. My brothers and I would sit at the table, waiting for the next move of our parents. Inevitably, around 6:40pm, my father would take his seat, the food now getting cold, and he would mumble something under his breath about my mother being "so goddamned impatient", while my mother would retort with slopping a spoonful of mashed potatoes onto her plate, mumbling, "goddamned sporting news, you love sports more then you love your own family".
"That's not true." He would say. "Pass the salt please."
"It's true." She would say, angry and exhausted.
Eventually, one of my brothers would say something to change the subject. They were smart like that. I, on the other hand, was a wimp. By the time everyone started to eat, I was too anxious to eat my food. (It took years of therapy for me to figure this out - to make this connection). My parents would scold me endlessly, threatening to send me to bed without dessert, without my favorite TV show, without going back outside to play baseball, without anything they could use as leverage to get me to eat. The only way I could take down my food was to wash it down with my milk. Hence, my "washing" career began.
While sitting in the zendo after my shredded carrots were taken away, during meditation, an image popped up for me from my childhood. One night, during dinner, my mother finally lost it. Looking back, I can see that she struggled with depression and maybe even bipolar. She did not respond well to stress. So, in a moment of complete abandon, and what I would today call tragic suffering, my mother went after my father with a steak knife. She grabbed the knife and went straight for his heart. I remember this so vividly because I sat next to my father. My father quickly deflected my mother, grabbed her wrists, stood up, stood her up, and pushed her towards the counter, pinned her against the counter, and squeezed her wrist until she let go of the steak knife. I remember feeling breathless in that moment, thinking that one of my parents was going to die. But no one died.
I don't remember anything after that. Did they return to their seats and return to eating dinner while my three older brothers and I sat on in awe, speechless? Or did she leave the kitchen, and find solace in her bedroom, which she often did, quietly crying, too proud to show this side to her children?
For years, I forgot about this. Then, while I was in therapy, the memory returned. I processed it in therapy and learned how to "feel the feelings" and "nurture" my "inner child". Based on the suggestion of my therapist, I eventually asked one of my brothers if he remembered that moment. He validated that it did happen. He simpy said, "Yes, that happened." We never dicussed it again. I only thought of it a few more times after that, but it was an intellectual memory, not an emotional memory. Until oryoki.
When it came up for me recently, the pain I felt wasn't the pain I felt as a child. The pain I felt was for my mother and father. Neither of them had the coping skills to handle their marriage. They came from a generation where both genders had specific roles, yet their marriage "grew up" in a generation that saw drastic changes in gender roles. They both did the best the could with what they had. And what they had was very little. Conversely, they had something that many couples did not -an undying love for one another; a love that ultimately brought them closer together when my mother was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of 49, and died only one year later.
My father has remarried a wonderful woman who keeps him on his toes. She works, he is retired. She has his daily list of chores and errands waiting for him every morning, which he peruses while drinking his Dunkin Donuts coffee. He now cooks and cleans, and shares the household duties. Very impressive for a 76 year- old man. Turns out you can teach an old dog new tricks. And he has a plethora of sporting news shows to now watch with the advent of cable television. He even has earphones (his hearing has worsened over the years), so his wife doesn't have to be burdened with the loud voices of sportscasters.
I guess it's no coincidence that all of this came up on Mother's Day weekend. I'm not a mother. Sadie, my dog, is as close as it gets for me. Having had to leave her felt terrible. I thought of a recent New York Times article I read where parents in Haiti are actually giving their children to orphanages because they cannot provide for their own children. How terrible that must be. I couldn't imagine. My mother may not have had the coping skills for parentood, but her love and devotion to her children was steadfast.
I like to think that my mother was in the zendo with me yesterday when I mustered up the humilty and strength to request that my shredded carrot dish be taken from me. When I spoke up for myself. After all, it was oryoki.
I had had just enough.
I officially moved into the San Francisco Zen Center this past Thursday, May 6th. I arrived around 7pm, exhausted from a very busy week of moving out of my mountain community, but, moreso, leaving my dog, Sadie, with her foster parents in New Mexico. Yes, I did it. It was one of the most heart wrenching moments of my adult life, walking out of that back yard in Albuquerque as I watched her follow her new foster mom, TJ, across the yard, her beautiful brown eyes fixated on the frisbee that TJ was holding. TJ's partner, my friend, Kathi (who is also on my "Femme Advisory Board", but that's for another time), graciously escorted me out of the yard, assuring me that she and TJ are merely the foster parents. and that I am Sadie's mother. We agreed on a year.
"It's only for a year, Caren." Said Kathi, in a very reassuring voice.
It turns out that Kathi and TJ have had their "dogological clock" ticking away. Sadie arrived for them just in the nick of time. I hear that Sadie is adjusting just fine. I, on the other hand, cried for forty miles, and then for the next thousand miles intermittently. And my heart has ached for Sadie every day since I said goodbye to her. But time in the Zen Center should change that. Starting tomorrow, my life will get very busy, and, hopefully, be filled with meaning. Enough meaning so that I may justify my separation from Sadie.
Saturday was the first official day of this six-week practice period at the City Center. It was an all-day session, which means you are basically in zazen all day. Zazen simply means "sitting meditation". The day began at 5:00 a.m. and ended at 7:30pm. It's not like we sat there in the zendo (meditation room) all day, uninterrupted and fasting. There was a dharma talk in the morning, and soshi (chores) and a short break were in the afternoon. Overall, it was a powerful experience for me. Very intense. What made it intense for me were the meals.
During all-day sittings, rather than eating in the dining room, we instead have oryoki. The word "oryoki", literally means "just enough" in Japanese. The dinner bowl has been very symbolic since even before Buddha's time. A new monk used to receive his robe and bowl; the robe symbolizing protection from the elements, and the bowl symbolizing nourishment. Ascetic monks (this is pre-Buddha) actually went around with their bowls, begging for food. It was an opportunity for the ascetics to practice humility, but also an opportunity for the people who gave the food to the ascetics to earn karma "points".
The oryoki set became a part of the Soto-Zen Culture in the 13th Century. Soto Zen Buddhism is simply one of the three Japanese sects of Buddhism. It was introduced to a teacher in the 13th century, Dogen, who went to China and learned about how they practice Buddhism (which started in the 9th Century in China). Being an efficient culture that Japan is, oryoki was developed as a way to save time and energy during meal time in the monastaries. Every monk had his own oryoki set, which consists of three bowls: small, medium, and large; a spoon, chopsticks, a cleaning utensil, a cleaning towel, a cloth place mat, and a napkin. Everything gets folded up in the placemat, and ties in a bow shaped like a lotus. (A lotus is a common symbol in Buddhism). The idea is to not have to get up from zazen, and to maintain the silence. The pratitioners (the people who are practicing the zazen) remain seated in their spots and set up their oryoki sets while the servers quietly serve the food. When the meal is over, the practitioners then proceed to clean their bowls with the cleaning utensil, small dish cloth, and hot water that has been served to them. When done cleaning their bowls, the practitioners then place the bowls inside of each other, return the utensils to its cloth holder, fold up the bowls with the cloth placemat, tie it up with that lotus bow, and place it behind them, ready now for it next meal. This is where my life became hell for a few moments.
Although I respect this rutual that has been around for seven hundred years, it didn't agree with me. The entire ritual takes 45-50 minutes, of which only 5-10 minutes is actually dedicated to the actual eating part. I learned that I do not like being rushed during my meal time, never mind the underlying anxiety of setting up the bowls in silence, as I neurotically agonized over the notion that I may spill my soup, and thus, cause a resounding echo drumming across the zendo. When I say that this ritual did not agree with me, I mean it did not agree with me.
I literally almost vomited at the end of my meal time. I was feeling rushed to eat all of my food. I flew through the grits, which were in the large bowl (known as the Buddha bowl). I requested only a miniscule amount for the middle bowl meal (a type of lentil soup), and just a small amount of the smallest bowl meal, which was a mix of shredded carrots, cabbage, and ginger. I realized that something key was missing in my meal - a beverage. I'm what you call a "washer", meaning I need my token beverage to aid me in washing down certain foods. It's a childhood thing, which, I apparently never outgrew. The grits went down easily. Soup, no problem. But shredded carrots, cabbage, and ginger? Need some help there. I'm sensitive to certain textures, and my body was definitely not taking down the shredded food. I chewed endlessly, talking myself into believing that I can swallow this food. Come on, Caren, you're a grown woman. You're not a kid anymore. You're not being threatened to go to bed without dessert if you don't lick your plate clean... All of that inner child ramblings led to one thing - the gag reflex. I haven't had that sensation in years. But there I was, feeling all of that shredded carrot, cabbage, and ginger, tossed around in my mouth, refusing to go down my throat. Slowly, oh so slowly, I continued to chew. And chew. And chew. Until I swallowed the food. By the time I was done swallowing that mouthful of food, I had tears in my eyes. Not from the emotional aspect, but from the physiological aspect of resisting to swallow.
By the time I was done with swallowing that food, the meal was ending. There was no way I was going to be able to finish that carrot dish, without there being consequences, which would have grossed out my neighbor practitioners, the servers, and, eventually, everyone in the zendo. The smell of my vomit wafting across the zendo would have been an instant opportunity for my fellow practitioners to practice compassion. So I broke the code. I gestured for the shido (the person in charge of the servers, sort of the maitre-de of oryoki), and I whispered to him that I could not finish this carrot dish, which meant that I could not clean my dish, which meant that I could not place my bowls inside of each other and fold them up neatly in the lotus bow. I asked him, trying to sound calm and gracious, what people normally do under these circumstances. He graciously started to say, "Well, normally..." then he caught himself, I'm guessing because of the look of both terror and defeat in my face, and he said softly and kindly said, "I'll take it for you." He took the bowl of shredded carrots, cabbage, and ginger, which by then had become this evil symbol of my childhood, and I felt instant relief. I never saw that bowl again. Nor do I ever want to see it again.
Later that morning, during meditation, as the weight of this experience sat heavily in my heart, I had a painful childhood image return to my heart. And I do say heart, becaue for the first time in years, I felt the pain of this memory.
Dinner time was a stressful time for my family while I was growing up. So stressful, in fact, that when any of my brothers and I bring it up today, we shrug it off with the rolling of the eyes, the cringing of the face, and the shared gratitude that we survived that battle. I've heard that Irish-American families handle their feelings with humor. Indeed, my brothers and I laugh at the anxiety of our childhood dinners, but only because it is the easier way to cope with the memories.
But the truth is that dinner time represented the ultimate power struggle between my parents, with the dinner table becoming the symbolic battlefield of their emotional turbulence. Looking back, I can clearly see now that my parents both felt that they had no "down time" at the end of their work days. My father wasn't about to step one foot into the kitchen to help out because that's not how he was raised. My mother, who resented having to cook after having worked all day, was not shy about sharing her resentment with all of us. The symphonic clanging of pots and pans from the kitchen permeated the house, while my father would simply rise from his infamous orange lazy chair (my mother called it his "Archie Bunker" chair) and turn up the volume of his favorite news station. Then, 6:30pm would arrive. Dinner was ready. Like clock work. But something else happened at 6:30pm every night. The sporting news. And my father is a sports fanatic. It has been his salvation since he was a child.
My mother would announce "Dinner!", and my father would say, "In a couple of minutes." And the games would begin. The symphonic clanging of the pots became a cacophony as the sports newscaster's voice increased in volume. My brothers and I would sit at the table, waiting for the next move of our parents. Inevitably, around 6:40pm, my father would take his seat, the food now getting cold, and he would mumble something under his breath about my mother being "so goddamned impatient", while my mother would retort with slopping a spoonful of mashed potatoes onto her plate, mumbling, "goddamned sporting news, you love sports more then you love your own family".
"That's not true." He would say. "Pass the salt please."
"It's true." She would say, angry and exhausted.
Eventually, one of my brothers would say something to change the subject. They were smart like that. I, on the other hand, was a wimp. By the time everyone started to eat, I was too anxious to eat my food. (It took years of therapy for me to figure this out - to make this connection). My parents would scold me endlessly, threatening to send me to bed without dessert, without my favorite TV show, without going back outside to play baseball, without anything they could use as leverage to get me to eat. The only way I could take down my food was to wash it down with my milk. Hence, my "washing" career began.
While sitting in the zendo after my shredded carrots were taken away, during meditation, an image popped up for me from my childhood. One night, during dinner, my mother finally lost it. Looking back, I can see that she struggled with depression and maybe even bipolar. She did not respond well to stress. So, in a moment of complete abandon, and what I would today call tragic suffering, my mother went after my father with a steak knife. She grabbed the knife and went straight for his heart. I remember this so vividly because I sat next to my father. My father quickly deflected my mother, grabbed her wrists, stood up, stood her up, and pushed her towards the counter, pinned her against the counter, and squeezed her wrist until she let go of the steak knife. I remember feeling breathless in that moment, thinking that one of my parents was going to die. But no one died.
I don't remember anything after that. Did they return to their seats and return to eating dinner while my three older brothers and I sat on in awe, speechless? Or did she leave the kitchen, and find solace in her bedroom, which she often did, quietly crying, too proud to show this side to her children?
For years, I forgot about this. Then, while I was in therapy, the memory returned. I processed it in therapy and learned how to "feel the feelings" and "nurture" my "inner child". Based on the suggestion of my therapist, I eventually asked one of my brothers if he remembered that moment. He validated that it did happen. He simpy said, "Yes, that happened." We never dicussed it again. I only thought of it a few more times after that, but it was an intellectual memory, not an emotional memory. Until oryoki.
When it came up for me recently, the pain I felt wasn't the pain I felt as a child. The pain I felt was for my mother and father. Neither of them had the coping skills to handle their marriage. They came from a generation where both genders had specific roles, yet their marriage "grew up" in a generation that saw drastic changes in gender roles. They both did the best the could with what they had. And what they had was very little. Conversely, they had something that many couples did not -an undying love for one another; a love that ultimately brought them closer together when my mother was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of 49, and died only one year later.
My father has remarried a wonderful woman who keeps him on his toes. She works, he is retired. She has his daily list of chores and errands waiting for him every morning, which he peruses while drinking his Dunkin Donuts coffee. He now cooks and cleans, and shares the household duties. Very impressive for a 76 year- old man. Turns out you can teach an old dog new tricks. And he has a plethora of sporting news shows to now watch with the advent of cable television. He even has earphones (his hearing has worsened over the years), so his wife doesn't have to be burdened with the loud voices of sportscasters.
I guess it's no coincidence that all of this came up on Mother's Day weekend. I'm not a mother. Sadie, my dog, is as close as it gets for me. Having had to leave her felt terrible. I thought of a recent New York Times article I read where parents in Haiti are actually giving their children to orphanages because they cannot provide for their own children. How terrible that must be. I couldn't imagine. My mother may not have had the coping skills for parentood, but her love and devotion to her children was steadfast.
I like to think that my mother was in the zendo with me yesterday when I mustered up the humilty and strength to request that my shredded carrot dish be taken from me. When I spoke up for myself. After all, it was oryoki.
I had had just enough.
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