The Way of It

I want to tell you about a retreat I am putting together together with my dear friends at BKI in the San Francisco Bay area on December 12-14th. It is called The Work and Silence and it combines periods of sitting meditation with doing The Work with a partner. Silence will be observed between sessions throughout the entire retreat. It will be a weekend of silence, stillness, deep listening and open ended inquiry.

The retreat will take place at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center, 40 minutes north of the San Francisco Airport, in a valley that opens out onto the Pacific Ocean. It is a beautiful venue with hiking trails that lead to the shores of Muir Beach in only a few minutes. Green Gulch hosts a community of Buddhist practitioners that year round devote themselves to the study and practice of Zen as they care for an organic farm and garden, a guest house and a conference center.

We held this retreat for the first time at Green Gulch in March 2008 and it was a beautiful, intimate experience. I learned a lot and look forward to seeing as many of you as possible there. If this interests you, I strongly invite you to consider attending. Scholarships will be available.

Why would I want it to stop

and miss the lessons it brings?

Coming back to life

having never died

it is the strangest thing.

It is all of course a lie

yet a complete delight

Even when it does not appear to be so.

It really is the strangest thing.

The highest level is to be level with everyone.

The trust that has been placed on me by my teachers

I shall not defraud

Sometimes I tell my story to stay identified.

Sometimes I tell my story to free myself from it.

Can I tell the difference?

I want to tell you about a new retreat Mollie Shea and myself are putting together in the San Francisco Bay area on March 21-23rd. It is called The Work and Silence and it combines periods of sitting meditation with doing The Work with a partner. Silence will be observed between sessions throughout the entire retreat. It will be a weekend of silence, stillness, deep listening and open ended inquiry.

The retreat will take place at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center, 40 minutes north of the San Francisco Airport, in a valley that opens out onto the Pacific Ocean. It is a beautiful venue with hiking trails that lead to the shores of Muir Beach in only a few minutes. Green Gulch hosts a community of Buddhist practitioners that year round devote themselves to the study and practice of Zen as they care for an organic farm and garden, a guest house and a conference center.

I am truly looking forward to this new inner adventure!

Caught in a self-centered dream, only suffering.

Holding to self-centered thoughts, exactly the dream.

Each moment, life as it is, the only teacher.

Being just this moment, compassion’s way.

-From the Ordinary Mind Zen school chant book

A few Sundays ago as I was taking a shower I had the courage to admit to myself the unadmittable: that I still loved my drama. I have been reading over the last few months in several of Adyashanti’s writings about the fact that the reason that we humans still identify with the notion of a separate Me is that we think it is fun to be a Me. If we didn’t think there were any benefits, why would we do it? And if we did not identify, how could we suffer? So to the extent that I still feel entangled in my life I can open my eyes and, well, begin to take inventory of all the benefits I think being a Me brings.

And the insights I got from this kind of honesty to myself are too numerous to count and even to describe, although I will try my best.

• I found a freedom that was at the same time deep and very ordinary, that simply comes from the realization that it is okay that I love my drama, when I do, because that’s what is.
• Loving what is, no matter what it is, does not take me to the land of the metaphysical fairies, it brings me to now, now, now. Where else would anyone think it was going to take me? It’s all reentry, all the time. And this is the best news.
• I notice an ease to deal with the “curveballs” in life that I fall in love with more and more with with each day that passes by.
• I am more loving and accepting to myself than before. I don’t have to wait to be “enlightened” to really love and admire the way I live. I can be more loving and accepting of it now instead. And whatever parts I don’t love yet, I can love and accept that I’m not there yet. It REALLY is okay.
• My favorite way of saying it, for now: I still have problems. It’s just not a problem that I still have problems. I don’t need to be problem free to be happy or at least to be at ease with the conditions in my life, or at least to have the integrity to be present with my suffering, when it comes. And sometimes it does.
• Further, I see the advantages of still “having problems.” Judging from all I’ve learned from my old problems, and knowing the value of those lessons, wow, I can’t imagine what good could come from what is left of my problems. So I look forward to them. They are welcome here. Not because I’m masochistic, but because, well, they may come anyways. I am open to the wonders they bring. In the end it becomes difficult to call them problems anymore, and I notice that I still do, sometimes. I’m working on it.
• The real end is that I don’t care much anymore about whether there is an end or not, because either way, I know how to deal with what comes. And even if I forget how to deal with it, I’m never too far from Home. Not far at all.
• And that, as far as I can see, is the real freedom, the one that is independent from conditions. It’s what’s meant in Buddhism by the expression “Samsara is Nirvana,” as far as I can see.

But, please, don’t take it from me: I may just be full of hot air. That could be as true, or truer :).