Intensive practice

One of the side benefits of being the VZC Registrar is that when sending out announcements of upcoming courses I get to reflect on my own experiences in those courses and appreciate what they opened up for me in practice.

With a new Intensive Preparation course starting on Feb 19 & 26th I am reminded of experiences with the one-day and five-day intensives offered by the Victoria Zen Centre, as the intensive prep course is a prerequisite for this type of intensive practice.

Mostly when I've talked with other people about intensive practice I've talked about the difficulties. Sitting for long periods of time is physically demanding and the form of practice also removes the distractions that mask unpleasant memories and feelings that come up from time to time. Having to experience all that stuff is tough.

A pointed comment by Ven. Eshu about this reminded me that it is in some ways easier to talk about the difficulties of intensive practice because it is tangible and concrete. Most people, even those who haven't done intensive Zen practice, can relate to "my legs hurt" or "it was hard to relive memories of crappy stuff that happened when I was a kid".

But there is so much going on in intensive practice that is really amazing too, I've just found it hard to put words to that. In the one-days there is the beauty of watching the sun come up and go down together, of eating together and experiencing the Sooke zendo really fully and deeply. In the five-day practice (sesshin) there is the residential component, 13 people living together in close quarters for 5 1/2 days with little sleep, all breathing together for 18 hours a day and working so hard in various ways (cooking, teaching, cleaning, serving tea, correcting form, leading chants, supervising zendo officers) to create the sesshin for each other. The depth of relationships with other people in the sangha who have shared intensive practice is a very special thing, unlike any other community I've ever experienced. And there are the hilarious things that happen in residential practice (who knew that dropping a bell could make it ring?).

There are also the things that happen before and after intensive practice from the powerfully transformative nature of intensive practice -- little and big shifts in everyday life. Those are much harder to express, but I was reminded at the Dana meeting last week how significantly different my life is now compared to pre-intensive practice. I'm actually here to enjoy my life instead of being completely entangled in thinking about the past and worrying about the future, which is a gift not to be taken lightly. And even though things aren't always easy there is so much more resilience, humour, and determination than was there before to get back up after falling down.

Although I'm not planning to re-engage with intensive practice in the immediate future, it is a very special component of what the VZC offers and I hope anyone thinking about it will go for it, to experience it for yourself and see what it is like!

Appreciating 'Other'

Since a friend gave me a Karen Armstrong book, I’ve found a feast of other books and talks by her, including a recent interview by Jian Ghomeshi on the CBC radio show Q:

Jian Ghomeshi interview: Click on Jan 17/2011 and start listening 51 minutes into the show.

Karen Armstrong’s winning talk on TED or actually here

Karen Armstrong speaking about the charter for compassion

The charter spoken on youtube

One year anniversary of the charter

Let me know what you think. Is any of this useful in your life, and how would you put it to work?

Soshin

Talking about sexual misconduct

I’ve recently been following the letters on Sweeping Zen about Abbot Eido Shimano’s sexual misconduct over the last 45 years (many people have been silent about this and other cases for a long time). A lot of attention is going to the issue of his misconduct and how his organization, the Zen Studies Society in New York, will be dealing with it.

While many teachers and abbots are rightly concerned about how Shimano is dealt with, and how those harmed by his behaviour can begin the healing process, it seems to me that individual sanghas could take this opportunity to talk about sexual violence, the abuse of the teacher/student relationship, and what it would take to never have this happen again.

I’m not condoning what Shimano did at all, but changing our culture of shame and secrecy would help empower the potential victims of this kind of abuse. If we create a sex-positive environment people might more clearly see when they are in danger of being abused or being abusive.

One of the really useful articles I’ve run into recently on this subject is ‘Real Sex Education’ by Cara Kulwicki (in an anthology Yes Means Yes! Visions of Sexual Power & a World Without Rape). According to Kulwicki the goal of real sex education is to teach people that sex should be “consensual and pleasurable”, and that we need to move from thinking ‘no means no’ to ‘yes means yes’. In other words we need to teach that “sex when someone doesn’t openly and enthusiastically want it is wrong.”

I hope you’ll read the article and then post a response here. What do you think? How does this apply to you and to our sangha if at all? How do you think we should break the silence?

Soshin