We had a winter that seemed to qualify as such. Spring, however, is transitional, even more so than fall, which we judge by color. "Oh there is no spring anymore!" someone always asserts. What is spring then? It is not reduced to a single characteristic, is not snow, or foliage, or broiling days.
It is enough rain to keep us through the drier summers, enough heat to move our gardens, cool air well into April so our spinach doesn't bolt. It is a hatching and birthing season. Trout and Baseball season. A calendar season, as when the sun rises due east and sets due west, and a time of strong but balanced forces. For the ancient Chinese philosopher, whose source is the I Ching, it is when thunder comes out of the ground. It is called Chen, the Arousing.
A singular moment of Spring is when I can perceive upon the wooded hills around us the faintest, but deepening, blush of red and pink buds.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Friday, March 20, 2009
Poetry Friday, Medieval China Edition
In 1125 c.e. A vast storm began to gather over the glories of Sung China. The Jurchen peoples, expanding out of Manchuria, were breaking the Sung's hold on its northern territories. In 1127 they overwhelmed the emperor's forces at Kaifeng, the capital (where I was married, by the way, 869 years later), forcing them south.
Lu Yu, self-nicknamed Fang (fang: "the wild old man") was born around this time, in a small boat tethered to banks of the Huai, the traditional boundary between northern and southern China, parallel to and between the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers. His life would be long- 82 years- and would see the gathering of an even greater force than the Jurchen, the Mongols, who would destroy the Jin and eventually overwhelm the Sung.
His life would also meld the two great philosophical traditions of Chinese philosophy: the engaged, rational, urbane Confucian and the ironic, wholly untamed Daoist. He was a brilliant writer early in life, but never passed the crucial civil service exam, a stilted and complex literary test which guaranteed a place in the Chinese world. He was a patriot, and deeply critical of the government's weak response to the Jurchen threat. He would often disappear to his hermit retreat in the West, far from the turmoil and failure that forever shadowed him.
His poetry is dense with qualities utterly untranslatable to English. Keep in mind that the tones (or pitch direction) of each word in the Chinese is distinct and patterned, and each pair of lines can mirror each other in this way. Another thing is that many Chinese words sound very, very similar, allowing for a richness of punning impossible in our language. And lastly, the words are actually dense, abstract, visual designs that also constantly pun and comment on each other.
What follows are translations by David M. Gordon.
"Crossing Spirit-Rock's Three Peaks"
On that crag meet horse?
Shocked hell out of old crock.
Shu Range or Wu Crests,
the same washed clean abyss.
From ground up, blue green,
five thousand fathoms:
I'll cram that vast peak
into this flea-sized poem.
Where the above poem signals the light spirit of the hermit out west, this poem expresses the disappointment of the exhausted and duty-bound Confucian:
"New Spring'
I'm at age's rim:
three years ill,
and new king's first
ten day's overcast;
drooping fence,
a dried vine ties up,
and ruined wall
overrun with green moss.
Grief for own land,
labor, alone, tears-
to lull Huns,
warrior bends heart's will.
I'm disjoined from my
kids' world-
how make them
a white-haired song?
Lu Yu, self-nicknamed Fang (fang: "the wild old man") was born around this time, in a small boat tethered to banks of the Huai, the traditional boundary between northern and southern China, parallel to and between the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers. His life would be long- 82 years- and would see the gathering of an even greater force than the Jurchen, the Mongols, who would destroy the Jin and eventually overwhelm the Sung.
His life would also meld the two great philosophical traditions of Chinese philosophy: the engaged, rational, urbane Confucian and the ironic, wholly untamed Daoist. He was a brilliant writer early in life, but never passed the crucial civil service exam, a stilted and complex literary test which guaranteed a place in the Chinese world. He was a patriot, and deeply critical of the government's weak response to the Jurchen threat. He would often disappear to his hermit retreat in the West, far from the turmoil and failure that forever shadowed him.
His poetry is dense with qualities utterly untranslatable to English. Keep in mind that the tones (or pitch direction) of each word in the Chinese is distinct and patterned, and each pair of lines can mirror each other in this way. Another thing is that many Chinese words sound very, very similar, allowing for a richness of punning impossible in our language. And lastly, the words are actually dense, abstract, visual designs that also constantly pun and comment on each other.
What follows are translations by David M. Gordon.
"Crossing Spirit-Rock's Three Peaks"
On that crag meet horse?
Shocked hell out of old crock.
Shu Range or Wu Crests,
the same washed clean abyss.
From ground up, blue green,
five thousand fathoms:
I'll cram that vast peak
into this flea-sized poem.
Where the above poem signals the light spirit of the hermit out west, this poem expresses the disappointment of the exhausted and duty-bound Confucian:
"New Spring'
I'm at age's rim:
three years ill,
and new king's first
ten day's overcast;
drooping fence,
a dried vine ties up,
and ruined wall
overrun with green moss.
Grief for own land,
labor, alone, tears-
to lull Huns,
warrior bends heart's will.
I'm disjoined from my
kids' world-
how make them
a white-haired song?
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Why Struggle?
I usually find meditation more difficult when I have more time to myself. A routine, apparently is crucial- if I know I have only that 30 minutes to sit, it is then or never. But perhaps this isn't the case at all. Perhaps, just perhaps, I am just impossible.
There is a "map" to deepening one's practice in Zen, one's teacher and tradition. In Shim Gum Do, the map is seemingly straight forward. Learn the sword or karate forms, observe your mind (your mood, concentration, resistance, fear, judgment) while doing them, and bring those observations into everyday life. While doing the dishes, pay attention, know when you are thinking elsewhere, and come back to the dishes. Everyday practice. This is what distinguishes Chinese from Indian Buddhism, and was what Dogen brought back with him to Japan.
Sitting zazen is important to me. But, I fear, I am no good at it. I can sit for extended periods- especially on retreat- but my mind scrambles all over the cage it has made for itself. Rarely do I get up from my morning practice and think, "that was pretty good". But the judgment on one's practice is one of the layers to peel back. Who is judging, why the need to judge? Am I hedging? Am I really doing what I think I am doing? When I am with my children, am I fully with them?
Yet there are echoes throughout my day that something has shifted. Sitting with noticably better focus in the morning has no relationship to my state of mind for the rest of the day. I have observed that my mood, effectiveness, gentleness, insight over the course of a day have no apparent relationship to how focused my morning practice was. If I wanted a "good" day, sitting every morning is not the way to get one.
What has changed is that my ability to concentrate has improved. The last time that happened was while training intensively for my second black belt in sword. I am also somewhat less affected by other people's moods, more so than can be explained by the long journey from 43 to 43 and a half.
It is not often a sports commentator makes much sense to me. I even dreamt last night of a particularly inane exchange between a sports writer and a ball player: boring question, vague and predictable answer. But during a rain delay last night one commentator was talking about his playing time in the majors, and how the best coaches were usually players who weren't Major League sucesses. Why? They struggled consciously, nothing came easy. They had to analyze their game, and everyone else's, in order to find a fingerhold to keep them in the big leagues. A brilliant athlete is often so intuitive, and certain elements of the game so easy for so long, that he or she can't explain it. How do you throw such an effective slider? Well, I just kind of zing it in there. Thanks, man. That'll help me keep my job.
The struggle is the practice. We don't sit to get something, we sit to sit. It is a workshop. It reminds me a bit of, well, Practice...play your instrument, learn your lines and stage directions, comb through the data systematically, mix your paints, then do what you do without a trace of self-consciousness. Do your practice, and then take it out into the world.
There is a "map" to deepening one's practice in Zen, one's teacher and tradition. In Shim Gum Do, the map is seemingly straight forward. Learn the sword or karate forms, observe your mind (your mood, concentration, resistance, fear, judgment) while doing them, and bring those observations into everyday life. While doing the dishes, pay attention, know when you are thinking elsewhere, and come back to the dishes. Everyday practice. This is what distinguishes Chinese from Indian Buddhism, and was what Dogen brought back with him to Japan.
Sitting zazen is important to me. But, I fear, I am no good at it. I can sit for extended periods- especially on retreat- but my mind scrambles all over the cage it has made for itself. Rarely do I get up from my morning practice and think, "that was pretty good". But the judgment on one's practice is one of the layers to peel back. Who is judging, why the need to judge? Am I hedging? Am I really doing what I think I am doing? When I am with my children, am I fully with them?
Yet there are echoes throughout my day that something has shifted. Sitting with noticably better focus in the morning has no relationship to my state of mind for the rest of the day. I have observed that my mood, effectiveness, gentleness, insight over the course of a day have no apparent relationship to how focused my morning practice was. If I wanted a "good" day, sitting every morning is not the way to get one.
What has changed is that my ability to concentrate has improved. The last time that happened was while training intensively for my second black belt in sword. I am also somewhat less affected by other people's moods, more so than can be explained by the long journey from 43 to 43 and a half.
It is not often a sports commentator makes much sense to me. I even dreamt last night of a particularly inane exchange between a sports writer and a ball player: boring question, vague and predictable answer. But during a rain delay last night one commentator was talking about his playing time in the majors, and how the best coaches were usually players who weren't Major League sucesses. Why? They struggled consciously, nothing came easy. They had to analyze their game, and everyone else's, in order to find a fingerhold to keep them in the big leagues. A brilliant athlete is often so intuitive, and certain elements of the game so easy for so long, that he or she can't explain it. How do you throw such an effective slider? Well, I just kind of zing it in there. Thanks, man. That'll help me keep my job.
The struggle is the practice. We don't sit to get something, we sit to sit. It is a workshop. It reminds me a bit of, well, Practice...play your instrument, learn your lines and stage directions, comb through the data systematically, mix your paints, then do what you do without a trace of self-consciousness. Do your practice, and then take it out into the world.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Morning All, vacation edition...
Today is the day I have 6 uninterrupted hours to work. I must use it well. While I attempt that, please mull over this very provisional version of a "teaching matrix" for TAS, based on (stolen from!) Zen Mountain Monastery's:
Body: Each student is required to take 120 hours of yoga or martial arts, as well as 120 additional hours of physical education. All students have opportunities to help prepare and cook our daily lunches, which are varied and highly nutritious.
Arts: Our visual arts program develops basic skills and use of materials as well as a deep awareness of the creative process as a mode of self knowledge. More advanced classes develop technique in various media. The music program provides basic instruction in singing, guitar, composition, and performance, and develops the ability to create instruments as well as to compose and share musical ideas.
Academics: The TAS program is based on the assumption that the traditional liberal arts of history, natural science, mathematics, written and verbal communication, and languages are best taught in small, high supportive classes that move at the student’s individual pace. Older students contribute a great deal to the shaping of their own course of study. Each student is required to pass a course on basic writing skills and an advanced class on research projects. All students complete a senior project.
note to seniors: although a total of 72 credit hours are required to graduate, all seniors have a separate requirement to complete at least 18 credit hours for their senior year, regardless of their credit status.
Teacher: The teacher-student relationship is the most important relationship at TAS; it is the axis that the school experience turns on. By the end of the sophomore year each student is expected to have developed a close, cooperative, working relationship with at least one member of the TAS faculty. This faculty member provides the stability and mentoring needed to develop a plan for graduation as well as for yearly goals and the day to day support every young person requires. This teacher is also in frequent communication with the student’s family.
Meditation/mindfulness: All students are instructed in the basic skill of meditation, which is the foundation for self-awareness. Meditation and mindfulness has been clearly demonstrated to help with problems of attention, depression, anger, and relationships. The ability to choose the object of one’s attention is probably the most important cognitive skill a person can develop.
TAS will be developing a contemplative education program for interested students. It will include retreats in school and away from it, as well as support for mindfulness practice throughout certain school days.
Social Justice: All students are required to commit to community service through any of the following programs: elder outreach, established local programs, and TAS’s “Books Through Bars” which collects and distributes books to prisoners around the country.
Ritual: TAS has three major events during the school year- the fall opening ceremony, the winter coffee house, and graduation. All older students are expected to attend each and fully participate. Each school day opens with a period of meditation and closes with a brief ceremony which requires quiet attentiveness. At midday, just before lunch, all activity in the school ceases for a moment of silence and gratefulness.
Work: All students perform chores in the kitchen throughout the week. In the Spring and Fall the vegetable and flower gardens require constant attention, as do the grounds. Friday is when we clean the entire building. All students learn how to clean a kitchen and bathroom thoroughly.
Occasionally, the school will have periods of silent cleaning.
Body: Each student is required to take 120 hours of yoga or martial arts, as well as 120 additional hours of physical education. All students have opportunities to help prepare and cook our daily lunches, which are varied and highly nutritious.
Arts: Our visual arts program develops basic skills and use of materials as well as a deep awareness of the creative process as a mode of self knowledge. More advanced classes develop technique in various media. The music program provides basic instruction in singing, guitar, composition, and performance, and develops the ability to create instruments as well as to compose and share musical ideas.
Academics: The TAS program is based on the assumption that the traditional liberal arts of history, natural science, mathematics, written and verbal communication, and languages are best taught in small, high supportive classes that move at the student’s individual pace. Older students contribute a great deal to the shaping of their own course of study. Each student is required to pass a course on basic writing skills and an advanced class on research projects. All students complete a senior project.
note to seniors: although a total of 72 credit hours are required to graduate, all seniors have a separate requirement to complete at least 18 credit hours for their senior year, regardless of their credit status.
Teacher: The teacher-student relationship is the most important relationship at TAS; it is the axis that the school experience turns on. By the end of the sophomore year each student is expected to have developed a close, cooperative, working relationship with at least one member of the TAS faculty. This faculty member provides the stability and mentoring needed to develop a plan for graduation as well as for yearly goals and the day to day support every young person requires. This teacher is also in frequent communication with the student’s family.
Meditation/mindfulness: All students are instructed in the basic skill of meditation, which is the foundation for self-awareness. Meditation and mindfulness has been clearly demonstrated to help with problems of attention, depression, anger, and relationships. The ability to choose the object of one’s attention is probably the most important cognitive skill a person can develop.
TAS will be developing a contemplative education program for interested students. It will include retreats in school and away from it, as well as support for mindfulness practice throughout certain school days.
Social Justice: All students are required to commit to community service through any of the following programs: elder outreach, established local programs, and TAS’s “Books Through Bars” which collects and distributes books to prisoners around the country.
Ritual: TAS has three major events during the school year- the fall opening ceremony, the winter coffee house, and graduation. All older students are expected to attend each and fully participate. Each school day opens with a period of meditation and closes with a brief ceremony which requires quiet attentiveness. At midday, just before lunch, all activity in the school ceases for a moment of silence and gratefulness.
Work: All students perform chores in the kitchen throughout the week. In the Spring and Fall the vegetable and flower gardens require constant attention, as do the grounds. Friday is when we clean the entire building. All students learn how to clean a kitchen and bathroom thoroughly.
Occasionally, the school will have periods of silent cleaning.
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