This quote, from Marika, quoting Dean Young, a letter to his nephew:

"There will be nights crossing bridges you don't know the name of when some unspeakable beauty envelopes you. There will be nights looking from windows upon the staggered lights of some town when some unspeakable sadness envelopes you. There will be people you love who you can no longer find your way to. There will be new discoveries, new clouds that resemble strange and terrible things, tangerines and hangovers, and long, long telephone calls made of almost entirely silence. There will be enormous pains and small pains that are almost pleasurable. There will be haiku that suddenly make sense, and the feeling that something has been taken from you, and songs, always songs. So don't worry about missing life, it's like missing the sky, you can't, you'll always be under it and in it and sometimes high in it, but often just on the ground, moving from thing to do to, needing, crying, making people laugh, although it's hard to tell what they're laughing about because it seems you were just talking about how terrible life is."

Camera!  Why do I always forget it.

What a day today.  We met at 12 at the Wind-in-Grass meditation hall on Carolina St.  It was sunny, and warm and we kept the windows open until a gardener across the street decided it would be a good day to chainsaw down a tree.  Even then it was the fumes, not the noise, that changed our minds. 

But that is all another thing.  We welcomed the group- 20 of us- and breifly introduced the program.  It was a day of meditation, and movement.  David made some opening remarks about Zen and movement.  How Zen had traditionally ignored the body and its moving.  His initial instruction, as he recalled it was "sit still and shut up".  But not today.  Today we would move through seated, yoga and somatic therapy meditations, and notice how each was a reflection of the other and yet calling in different voices.  We then all sat, while David introduced the koan:

"In the middle of heaven and earth, in the midst of the cosmos, there is one treasure, hidden in the body.  It carries a lamp into the meditation hall.  It places the three story gate on the lamp."

After we sat with this koan, we discussed what we had noticed.  David asked us to introduce ourselves, then encouraged us "now, what did you notice?  And when you answer, answer knowing you are merely saying your name.  Your response is as special and unique to you as your name."  So we noticed the chainsaw, and our anger at its disruption, and the warmth and hope of possibility that this body was a treasure and the simplicity of the acceptance that something as mundane as carrying the lamp was right and true and at the center of the universe.  We noticed the breath, and the stillness, and the fire beneath the gate.  The transformation of body spirit and mind in the triple gate. 

We took a short break, had tea, then piled the cushions and lay out our yoga mats.  Blair Bodie, an SF yoga instructor, lead us through a routine.  I don't routinely do yoga, so I cannot tell you what we were doing.  I can tell you she was lovely and gentle and urged us to follow at our own pace, though she set a tough course.  We breathed together and creaked and moved.  I loved it being a community practice, with grey hair and brown, limber legs and stiff, novices and masters all moving together.  After we moved for an house, we lay still, and enjoyed the silence.  In the silnece, David recited again the koan.

We pulled the cushions in and discussed what had happened.  Where is the koan? 

Everyone was glowing.  Some with warmth, some with youth, some with the tingle of breathing wholeness. Some noticed how the glow the the lamp filled the whole universe, and some how the yoga had moved them out of their head.  Some noticed how their yoga was like their zazen- filed with avoidance and discomfort and a desire to get to a clear open place. 

We talked for a while.  I cannot do justice to the heartfelt admissions and observations, so I will not try.  We served lunch.  Sara G had made us kale with pumpkin seeds, rice and squash soup with goat cheese.  Leah had brought fruit and cheese and bread and nuts and there was tea and water and dessert.  We ate together and it got loud and friendly.

After lunch, we rejoined and spread wide our circle of cushions.  Ariel Howland, who works in a local somatic therapy clinic, explained briefly the background to authentic movement.  It was an expression of the subconscious, made conscious.   We were invited to notice how we thought we wanted to move, and how we actually moved.  Half the group stood with their eyes closed. They were invited to move, to follow that closest instinct and find the movement that it called for.  The other half witnessed, watching and making sure that they didn't collide with anything.  The group moved, they walked, and crawled and hunched, and rolled, and meowed and wallowed and turned and tapped and stomped.  After 15 minutes we were invited to write, or draw, what had come up, then we shared.  Then the groups reversed and the witnesses moved and the movers watched. And we talked.

After a short break, we all sat again with the koan.  Then discussed.  Everyone had opened, and settled.  We talked openly about the day, about how movement.

It was a wonderful day.  It was one of those days when your space in the middle of the cosmos was self evident and all the rest was play and safe and interesting.  

Thank you everyone who came and poured yourself into the movement and the meditation.  Thank you David, Blair, Ariel, Sara and Dan. 

Yesterday's game was a focus on awareness.

Sometime ago, one of our members asked a teacher, jokingly, "I want to learn to levitate.  Can you teach me that?"  The teacher replied "Sure, but the more difficult thing is figuring out, who is doing the flying". 

Zen, maybe meditation, is followed by stories of somewhat extraordinary abilities.  The ability to go without sleep, drying blankets by increasing body heat, reading minds.  My personal take is, yes, neat, but so what?  They are lovely fireworks, but I don't see that they are anything really more than phenomena like hunger pains or goose bumps. 

That said, one noted common affect of meditation is an improved memory.  Why is that?

I think its because we are being more aware of what is going on inside and around us.  We are more open adn curious and spend more time with the thing or feeling in an appreciative relationship.  Memory is a fucntion of awareness.  When people say they forgot something, its because they really never remembered in the first place.  Our minds are built to filter out the banal, the ordinary and the common. 

With meditation, fewer moments or things are ordinary.  They become notable, special and worthy of our attention.  We remember better, because we are aware of things, our feelings, the curve in a hillside, the sound of wind in grass, perhaps for the first time. 

We played a game with those memories. 

First, I gave a list of 10 random objects.  I asked if anyone could repeat them.  Then I did.  I showed them how, by relating them to one another, you could recall them.  We went around the room.  Once they had heard my relational stories, they could recall 6 or more.  We discussed how by relating objects to one another you could recall them.

So then I rang the bell.  We sat and I slowly spoke out 12 traits, abstract characteristics, not objects, and asked everyone to create their own framework for remembering them.  The stories people created were wonderful.  Waiters becoming priest and swimming across lakes.  Frog courtiers, and queens and pearls spilling over floors.  Tall clipper ships and days at sea and in the sun. 

So that was that.  The closing talk was asking the group to notice how the game demonstrates how the human mind works.  By creatice a lattice out of a story, we can hold information together and recall it.  We use these stories as tools.  They help is remember and navigate.  But the game also showed how they are just stories.  Before they were knitted together, they did not exist, but after we spun them, we accorded meaning to them.  Days after, I can still remember the stories and plots.  And in that way, the fantastic story telling machine that is the human mind, that allows us to track animals, or prepare for storm seasons, can create stories that we cannot let go of.  The information, after all, is not really related.  It just is.  But our stories are powerful things. 

So, lately I have been interested in the concept of getting lost.  It all started when a friend of mine and I were skyping and I was lecturing her on having no direction in her life.  She said that some people just wander, and I responded that she was not wandering, she was steering away.  Then I got this idea, that she was only lost because she thought there was somewhere to be.  Do any of us really know where we are going?

Zen seems to me like a path with no goal, but the path.  You can only be lost by thinking you know where you are going.  Life I guess is like that too.

My second deepest fear growing up, was, and is, getting lost.  This plays out in dreams where I cannot get home, or anyplace familiar.  It plays out in the rage born of fear in getting misplaced in my car.  It gnaws like a hungry animal at my insides when I am disoriented in life.  And yet, when I look at it all, the found I want to be is a complete mirage.  I want to believe that there is a better place to be, and that I need to get there.  That there is a right and a wrong and a good and bad, and that I know them and can steer to them.  I want to hope there is a right job for me, and a dream girl/soul mate, and that the decisions I make are correct and I am steering toward something of virtue and superiority, even if only by my standards. 

But as we?  Aren't we happier if we acknowledge that we are lost, and there is no getting found, accept to find ourselves in this moment.  There is no path, no direction, but walking in the dark and accepting the stumbles, wet and stones.  I don't know.  That sounds good, but how does it feel?

Maybe I will make a game about that.  Because I want to know how it feels to be lost and to let go and fall into lost.  And frankly, after all these years, its terrifying. 

Last night Chris Wilson asked us to sit with the Koan "This very body, the Buddha", but in this form "Is my body the Buddha?".  With 5 minutes of sitting left, Chris asked into the room, "Please try answering that question 'Yes!'.  Now please try answering that question 'No!'". 

It being community night, we then enjoyed tea and cookies thanks to Marika, then set into the conversation.

several people noticed the expansiveness of answering yes.  How it made them feel free, and hopeful.  One person noted how it asked her to leave this skin bag behind and to think of herself in a larger sense.  Others noted how answering No, felt familiar, and suited, even though it was disappointing. 

Others talked about how they finally connected with this koan, and that for moments they were lighted of their body, and hopeful that this meant they too were the buddha.  They also mentioned that the word Buddha, was mired in religious overtones for them. 

Someone else noticed how, with her foot falling asleep, it was hard to connect with "yes", or "no".  Someone else still wondered how he could be the buddha iwth the pain in his face and body. 

After the conversation, we stood and Chris walked us through a  beginning Qigong exercise.  We stood and moved energy from our feet through our hearts.  I found it really relaxing, as I always do when I am asked to move slowly and notice my movements.  It feels good and grounding. 

After the meeting, 8 of the 14 of us headed down to Connecticut Yankee.  It was, uncharastically, still about 70 out. and we drank and ate outside on the patio. 

Actually, last Wednesday, we went in a completely different direction, sitting with the koan "This very body, the body of buddha". 

Frankly, I thought, "well, this is a short koan, and right there in the middle of the thing (not spatially), is this Buddha.  I don't know a damn thing about what I am supposed to think about the Buddha, I only know what I think about the Buddha.  Well, I wonder if that is what other people understand when they hear "Buddha"".  So the short game we played was simply that- What does this mean to you, this word "Buddha"? 

Because, well, frankly, its important to see what we are all bringing to the cushion.  Just like we settle down onto the cusion and feel our legs and back, its important to notice the mental conditions we bring.

So we talked.

People discussed how they pushed Buddha as a religious symbol out of their minds; some noticed how they just put that aside.  Others still mentioned how the golden Buddha was a notion they liked to avoid, and just leave.  Others still noted how they longed to sit as still and well and look content. 

I did a poor job of remembering all the discussion, but it seemed important to talk about it. 

"Layman Pang, a basket maker, stumbled and fell into a ditch. Seeing this, his daughter, without another thought, lept into the ditch. "What are you doing?' "I'm helping daddy!'...'Well then daughter, its a good thing no one say you'"

WiG is sitting with this this week.  Last week, we played a very small game.  We sat, and as people sat, the koan was spoken into the room.  People were encouraged to notice thoughts, and sensations, and anything entering into their awareness, and then to climb into the ditch with it. 

comments from John Tarrant: http://zenosaurus.blogspot.com/

Wednesday night we worked with Yumen's koan:

Yunmen said, “In the center of the cosmos, inside heaven and earth, there is one treasure, hidden in the body. It picks up a lantern and goes into the meditation hall. It brings the great three arched entrance gate and puts it on top of the lantern.”


We sat, and the koan was spoken into the room. 

After walking meditation, we sat and we went around the room, asked to put ourselves into the room by naming a part of our bodies that hurt . Just that.  With the notion of exploring the myth that awakening occurs in the mind.  That we sit and strive in spite of our bodies.

Lower back pain...flat feet...face and head pain...grey hair...tights shoulder...aching hips...bouncing hearts...shaking hands....broken thumbs...headaches...tired...bad knees...

Then we stood.  We were asked to squat slightly as we began our second meditation.  Just notice the burn in the legs and sit when it was time to sit. 

Then we talked about the koan.  About placing the gate on top of the lantern.  We talked about the light, and finding it, the joy of being at the center of the cosmos.

Frankly, I don't know how it touched people.  It touched me to hear that we were not golden buddhas, perfect and painless, but human buddhas, beat up getting to the finish line.  We find our awakening not in spite of our aches and pains and aging and death, but because of it. 

Wednesday night was community night, and we had a good deal of community there to practice.

To preface the game for the evening, the koan Layman Pang's Daughter, was spoken into the room:

Layman Pang was a basket maker.  One day, after work, as he was gathering his baskets from the bridge where he sold them, he slipped and rolled down into a ditch, where he lay. 

His daughter, seeing this, immediately leap into the ditch and lay beside him

"what are you doing?" inquired Pang

"I am helping Daddy", she replied

"Well then" he finished "Its a good thing no one saw you". 

I have always found that koan wonderfully kind and compassionate. 

We walked, then had tea.  After tea, I asked each person to, one at a time, turn to their left and tell that person a flaw they perceived in their meditation.  Busy head, tight muscles, no focus, sleeping feet, whatever.  The receiver was asked to give them some heartfelt advice.  Find time to do a relaxing mediation, don't worry about it, focus on a ball of light, let things go in the river, use a bench. 

Once we had gone around the room,  the bell was rung and we sat for 5 minutes.  This time, people were asked to sit with the other person's perceived shortcoming. 

Once we had done that, we shared how it was to have someone hold your flaw, to hold someone's flaw, did we feel closer to the person after giving advice, or lying in the ditch with them. 

You know, experiments and games and all are great, but sometimes the best thing to do is just let the meditation be itself.  Tonight was one such night.

PZI is in sesshin, retreat, up in Santa Rosa. Some of the members of Wind in Grass joined them.  But many of us were in the Bay area too, and we had a rather nicely full house Wednesday night.

Teacher David Weinstein, who usually would have offered interviews tonight, was leading the sesshin with John Tarrant, and it just wasn't the right energy to try to replace that.  Instead, we sat...inviting the group to sit shikentaza, or hell, just any type of meditation that appealed for the first period.  Then we walked, then we had tea.  Licorice.  Again.  Its a favorite.  But I digress.

We talked, and the conversation unexpectedly blossomed into a discussion of how we each work with koans, and whether that is ok, and whether one can really not work on a koan, and what other things and toys we like to play with when we sit.  We discussed how some of us, most of us, use some crutch to still the mind before turning to a koan.  A breathing meditation, concentration on a warm ball, a river, a conveyor belt carrying away thoughts.  Etc.  We talked about what came next.  For some of us, deeper emotion and attention to thoughts.  For others, a long stillness.  For others, not much change.  We noticed that sometimes working with a koan made use feel like we had to do something.  That just doing what we did was not enough.  And we noticed how some koans call for different responses- hearing it like a mantra, noticing emotions, seeing it visually, etc. 

Then we sat with the koan "Stop the War".  For many, most, it was the first time they had heard the koan.  For many it seemed to call to them, to invite tolerance.  To spurn action.  For some it was a word, written inside their minds.  For others, it was song lyrics. 

It was a great night, with a lot of commraderie.  Next week, community night.  We will sit then go to the bottom of the hill.  Its a club.  Loud music for the still soul.