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Posts Tagged ‘norman fischer’

182. The practice of not-knowing

Posted in 1, tagged , , , , on 8 December 2016| Leave a Comment »

gwen-ifill-the-dalai-lama“My job as a reporter,” the late Gwen Ifill once remarked, “is not to know what I think.” Humble in spirit but incisive in content, that remark calls to mind two essential stories from the Zen tradition.

In the first, a learned university professor pays a visit to Nan-in, a renowned Zen master of the Meiji period (1868-1912), with the intention of learning more about Zen. The two men meet for tea.

Eager to impress his host, the professor holds forth at great length, demonstrating his extensive knowledge of Buddhism and expounding his personal views. Meanwhile, Nan-in pours tea into the professor’s cup. When he has filled it to the brim, he continues to pour, spilling tea all over the table.

For a time the professor ignores this distraction, but when he can bear it no longer, he exclaims, “The cup is overfull! No more will go in!”

“Like this cup,” Nan-in replies, “you are full of your opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?” (more…)

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173. One particular action

Posted in 1, neuroscience, Zen, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on 16 March 2016| 2 Comments »

800px-Norman_Fischer_3

Zoketsu Norman Fischer

“Why do we like being Irish?” asks the Irish poet Louis MacNeice (1907-1963) in his poem Autumn Journal (1939). In subsequent lines, he answers his own question:

Partly because

      It gives us a hold on the sentimental English

As members of a world that never was,

      Baptized with fairy water;

And partly because Ireland is small enough

     To be still thought of with a family feeling,

And because the waves are rough

     That split her from a more commercial culture;

And because one feels that here at least one can

     Do local work which is not at the world’s mercy

And that on this tiny stage with luck a man

     Might see the end of one particular action.

Because Ireland is a relatively small country, and because in MacNeice’s time families tended to stay put for as long as economic conditions allowed, Irish people could reasonably hope to see the “end”–the consequences as well as the completion–of any particular action. (more…)

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167. Give it all away

Posted in 1, meditation, Zen, tagged , , , , , , , on 2 December 2015| Leave a Comment »

Shinge Roshi, Abbot, Dai Bosatsu Zendo and the Zen Center of Syracuse

Shinge Roko Sherry Chayat Roshi, Abbot,
Dai Bosatsu Zendo and the Zen Center of Syracuse

The practice of Zen contemplation, Zen teachings tell us, is the “action of non-action,” grounded in silent awareness. At the same time, the “non-action” of Zen is best described in active verbs. In her essay “What is Zen?” Shinge Roko Sherry Chayat Roshi offers this description:

What is Zen? Stop now. Stop trying to get an intellectual lock on something that is vast and boundless, far more than the rational mind can grasp. Just breathe in with full awareness. Taste the breath. Appreciate it fully. Now breathe out, slowly, with equal appreciation. Give it all away; hold onto nothing. Breathe in with gratitude; breathe out with love. Receiving and offering–this is what we are doing each time we inhale and exhale. To do so with conscious awareness, on a regular basis, is the transformative practice we call Zen.

It would be difficult to find a more lucid or concrete description of Zen practice. Follow Shinge Roshi’s instructions, and you will not go wrong. Yet, for all its clarity, this description is at one point ambiguous. “Hold onto nothing,” Shinge Roshi advises. “Give it all away.” But what is the antecedent, a grammarian might inquire, of the pronoun “it”? What, besides our breath, are we giving away? (more…)

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156. The Book of Janet

Posted in 1, tagged , , , , , , on 4 February 2015| 3 Comments »

730px-Old_book_gathering_2I have a friend by the name of Janet, who regularly consults what I call the Book of Janet, especially when she’s feeling blue or vexed or insecure. If she makes some trivial error, like misplacing her car keys, the Book of Janet reminds her that she is not well-organized. If she enters a competition and receives a letter of rejection, the Book of Janet informs her that her work is not all that good. And if she’s feeling less than beautiful on any given morning, the Book of Janet confirms her worst fears. On all three counts, the Book of Janet is wide of the mark. It is out of touch with the present reality. Unfortunately, that makes little difference to Janet, who swears by her Book as if it were her Bible. (more…)

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150. Let’s not go there

Posted in 1, tagged , , , , , , , , on 13 August 2014| 2 Comments »

Amish_-_On_the_way_to_school_by_Gadjoboy-cropIn his poignant essay “The Old Order,” the Irish-American writer James Silas Rogers recalls his conversation on an Amtrak train with a young Amish man named Johann, who was crossing Wisconsin with his extended family. Curious about Amish faith and belief, Rogers inquired as to the significance of Johann’s distinctive attire: his plain shirt, suspenders, and broadfall trousers. “People ask us,” Johann replied, “if we think that wearing these clothes will get us into heaven. We absolutely do not. . . . But I do know that if I wear these clothes, it will keep me out of places where I should not go.”*

Reading Johann’s explanation, I was reminded of formal Zen practice, which also employs special clothes to remind practitioners of their moral commitments. In Japanese Zen, one of the most conspicuous of those clothes is the rakusu, a bib-like garment worn (and often hand-sewn) by those who have “taken the precepts,” which is to say, have publicly affirmed a set of ethical guidelines. Known as the “jukai precepts,” those guidelines differ from sect to sect, but in essence they enjoin the Zen disciple to refrain from harmful behaviors, particularly killing, stealing, engaging in false or injurious speech, using sexuality in hurtful ways, and abusing intoxicants. The unadorned rakusu, viewed as a miniature monastic robe and inscribed on the back with its wearer’s “dharma name,” signifies a commitment to that fundamental code of conduct. (more…)

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145. Well-met in Belfast

Posted in 1, tagged , , , , , , , on 19 March 2014| 1 Comment »

The Crown Bar Belfast, Northern Ireland

The Crown Bar
Belfast, Northern Ireland

“For Ben Howard, well met in Belfast, July, 2004.”

So wrote a gentlemanly Irish poet, whose work I had long admired, in the flyleaf of his most recent book. At the time, he and I were having lunch in the upstairs dining room of the Crown Liquor Saloon, a storied old pub in the heart of Belfast, Northern Ireland. I had come up on the train from Dublin to meet him.

Of the many inscriptions I have acquired over the years, few have proved as memorable as the one above, partly because the poet’s chosen phrase, faintly archaic but resonantly apt, sorted well with the Crown’s Victorian decor–its ornate tin ceilings, stained-glass windows, and dark-paneled “snugs.” Regrettably, “well-met” is no longer current in North America, either as a description or a greeting. Once the equivalent of “Nice to have met you,” that old-fashioned phrase evokes a singular event: two people meeting, in the fullness of human relationship, at a particular place and time. (more…)

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132. This precious human birth

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on 26 June 2013| 8 Comments »

Allegra Rose Howard, three days oldOn Friday, June 14, my granddaughter, Allegra Rose Howard, arrived in the world, weighing eight pounds and twelve ounces. As I reflect on that glad event, I am reminded of a phrase from Tibetan Buddhist teachings.

The phrase is this precious human birth. Its source is the Chiggala Sutra, where the Buddha speaks of the chances of being born a human being. Those chances, he observes, are infinitesimally small. They are analogous to those of a blind tortoise swimming in an ocean as large as the planet, where an ox’s yoke is afloat on the waves. Every one hundred years, the tortoise surfaces. The chances of being born human are no better than those of the tortoise surfacing with his head in the yoke. Human birth is extremely rare and therefore most precious.

In the lojong system of mind training practiced by Tibetan Buddhists, phrases such as this precious human birth are known as “slogans.” Contemplated and absorbed during sitting meditation, they are subsequently applied to everyday life. As the Zen teacher Norman Fischer explains, the best way to work with a lojong slogan is to develop it “as an almost physical object, a feeling in your belly or heart.” Once the slogan has embedded itself, you can work with it throughout the day, until it becomes “part of your mind—your own thought, a theme for daily living.”* (more…)

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113. True Equanimity

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on 5 September 2012| 2 Comments »

One morning earlier this summer, I found myself standing atop an unstable blue object known as a BOSU Ball. Invented by David Weck in 1999, the BOSU Balance Trainer is an inflatable rubber hemisphere attached to a rigid platform. The central component of a “mindful approach to exercise,”[1] the BOSU Ball is designed to improve the body’s  sense of balance while strengthening its stabilizing muscles. I was standing on the BOSU Ball because I’d been having knee pain, and our family doctor had recommended physical therapy. In turn, the affable but exacting physical therapist with whom I was working had prescribed the BOSU Ball. “Don’t fall off,” he cheerfully warned, having just assigned me thirty squats. Miraculously, I managed to comply.

In a manner analogous to that of the BOSU Ball, Zen practice also aims to strengthen our sense of balance, physical and emotional. In Zen teachings, the capacity to maintain one’s equilibrium, especially under stressful, uncertain, and unstable conditions, is known as equanimity, a translation of the Sanskrit word upeksha. The traditional posture of sitting meditation—knees down, back erect, head balanced on the spine—supports the cultivation of upeksha, as does the practice of walking meditation, which trains the practitioner to walk with dignity and steady awareness. But these forms and practices, however essential to Zen discipline, are but the outward expressions of an inner poise. And at the heart of that inner poise is a balanced, inclusive way of experiencing the world. (more…)

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109. The Cliché Monster

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on 27 June 2012| 5 Comments »

For many years I taught courses in imaginative writing to college students, and when it came time to read their work, I kept three tools of the trade close at hand.

One was a fine-point pen, with which I corrected errors of grammar and usage. Another was a mechanical pencil, with which I made marginal comments. And the third was a small rubber stamp, which fit neatly into its circular ink pad. A relic of my son’s childhood, the stamp produced a miniature image of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, complete with oversized head, upraised tail, and greedy-looking paws. At once fierce and benign in aspect, this creature was known as the Cliché Monster, and whenever a cliché appeared in a student’s essay, poem, or story, he too would appear, poised to devour the offending phrase. “Don’t feed him,” I warned the students, “or he’ll come back for more.” (more…)

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89. A life’s work

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on 25 August 2011| 2 Comments »

Path of stone over water, Nanjing, South of China

If you have ever sung in a choir, you know that certain disciplines apply. You must sit up straight at the edge of your chair. You must breathe from the diaphragm. And you must open your mouth more widely than you otherwise would—widely enough to accommodate three fingers. Although these principles are simple, it is easy to forget them, especially if your mind is elsewhere.

Such was the case one morning in 1961, when I and other members of the Clinton High School A Cappella Choir sat upright at the edge of our chairs, rehearsing Michael Pretorius’s beautiful carol “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming.” Leading us was our director, John De Haan, a tall, ruggedly-built man with a gentle but commanding presence. Glancing in my direction, he noticed my half-open mouth. “Open your mouth, Ben,” he said, quietly but firmly, in his deep bass voice. “This is my life’s work.” (more…)

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