Lotus and Lily Field Notes

As you may have surmised if you’ve been following this blog, I am taking a break.  V and I went to Hawaii for 11 days last month, and one of the things that became very clear to me is that I need to get seriously unplugged for a while.  It’s one of those things that your soul just knows, from time to time.  I wanted a few weeks in that state to validate that my soul cry was accurate, and from what I can tell, it is.  So I need to let go, all the way, of this venue.  For how long, I don’t know.
My Buddhist-Christian journey continues, and the life of Lotus and Lily, which interweaves the life of this blog, goes on as well.  The time may come soon when it will be appropriate to introduce other voices here.  That’s not certain either; it’s part of the process of discernment.

So I will continue to chant and study Buddhism and work (yes, I am still online there!).  And in the course of time, perhaps, come back here and continue to explore this form of sharing.  Just not now, not yet.

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For some obscure reason (as my colleague Karl-Heinz Finken used to say) I have been tripping on classic English literature lately. First it was Dickens’ Oliver Twist (which I just adored); now it’s on to an even nuttier chestnut, Ivanhoe.  Something about the leisurely periods and formal set-pieces just completely knocks me out.  Probably the same twisted gene that makes me love Gregorian chant and medieval saints’ tales.

But there may be more to it than that.  In the wonderful scene between Ivanhoe and Rebecca that I just read, the debate is about the merit of glorious chivalric endeavor.  Translate that set of issues to contemporary struggles we all face about ambition versus heart, and it’s really quite relevant.  She says,

“Glory?” continued Rebecca; “alas, is the rusted mail which hangs as a hatchment over the champion’s dim and mouldering tomb — is the defaced sculpture of the inscription which the ignorant monk can hardly read to the enquiring pilgrim — are these sufficient rewards for the sacrifice of every kindly affection, for a life spent miserably that ye may make others miserable? Or is there such virtue in the rude rhymes of a wandering bard, that domestic love, kindly affection, peace and happiness, are so wildly bartered, to become the hero of those ballads which vagabond minstrels sing to drunken churls over their evening ale?”

I ponder this as I witness the explosion of increasingly amped up plugged-in-ness that surrounds me every day.  Technology is the new glory.  “Kindly affection, peace and happiness” seem entirely quaint, entirely old-fashioned, and yet I think we are starving to death together without them.

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I just posted a wonderful set of links to Buddhist-Christian resources compiled by the intrepid Victoria Scarlett of Seattle’s Lotus & Lily group.  Really great stuff there, well worth digging into.  It includes practice groups, ideas, research, and much, much more.  Thanks Victoria!

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I had a nice comment on my post about the Blogisattva Awards from Tom at Blogisattva:

1. The blog I contribute to at work is part of the ferociously interbloggish “biblioblogosphere” (librarian bloggers).  I find myself intermittently getting pulled into the “chattering classes” mentality (honestly, at times it feels just exactly like high school)–but at the same time the conversations there are often wonderfully rich and powerful.  Honestly I think it helps that librarians write about issues related to running libraries–profound issues of information and its uses in a free society, but perhaps not quite as fraught, or divisive, or insular as religion and spirituality can be.  In librarianship, collaboration is the Name of the Game.  As in any online community, the library blog world goes through predictable patterns of extremely valuable interchange and silly emotional turf wars.  Hmm, sort of like any congregation.  Although perhaps peculiarly like a congregation composed entirely of the quasi-narcissistic, emotional and expressive people who write blogs (I should know, I’m one of them).  On balance, though, the reach and potency of the library blogging community is quite extraordinary, and in my opinion something to aspire to (to dip your toe in this pool, I suggest starting with Librarian in Black, one of my favorites–she will lead you into many wonderful lands).
2. I started working on that blog before I launched this one.  When I started here, I assumed I would, fairly easily, connect up with what Tom nicely describes as a “blogging congregation” (blog-gregation?)  For a variety of reasons this critical mass has not yet formed in my particular space.  The Buddhist-Christian dual-practice nature of this blog seems to me to have a lot to do with it: it’s just not that comfortable for a lot of people to hang out in the spaces in-between.  A good blog-gregation has a commonality of purpose and perspective that allows for connections to multiply.  It may be that there aren’t quite enough explicitly Buddhist-Christian bloggers, or maybe not enough Buddhist-Christians, to sustain such a social network of people who communicate in this way.  There are a lot of good Christian blogs and a lot of good Buddhist blogs (some are listed on the side-bar here): and just as in real life being a Buddhist-Christian doesn’t necessarily make you all that welcome in either community.
3. I think it’s hard to predict what a critical mass of mutually-referential Buddhist bloggers (never mind Buddhist-Christian bloggers) might accomplish.  It’s an odd and unpredictable medium.  I think a lot of blogging (good blogging and not-so-good) is driven by ego: the drive for recognition, the need to build up one’s traffic and one’s reputation.  So what would happen in a community of bloggers who are very explicitly exploring liberation from the bounds of the ego?  Does the whole thing collapse (sort of like many past Buddhist empires, which mostly fell apart in the face of the obvious self-contradiction of such a notion)?  Or does some lovely, graceful and totally unique dance of collaboration begin to emerge?  Can we model the working of the dharma, and the building of a healthy sangha, in this space?
4. One meta-comment on these thoughts: this is a longer post than I’ve written in some time.  When a blogger says to another blogger: “I’d love to hear your comments on X”, it’s sure to stimulate more thinking, more writing, and more sharing.  Thanks Tom!  And I can’t close this without acknowledging the terrific and dedicated Wulfila, who behaves just like a good blog-friend should (he’s a much more faithful reader of my blog than I am of his).  May more connections of this kind develop!

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I have been getting all riled up the last week or so, thinking about the first anniversary of this blog, when in fact it’s been almost 13 months.  Innocuous beginnings captured here.  However, time being a construct within the context of relative reality, it’s still worth an about-this-blog muse.  There are a few things I’ve learned since I started, about blogging and about myself:

1. It’s fun!  There have been many times in the last year+ when it’s been just wonderful to sit down and confide in, share thoughts with, spin ideas to, and occasionally whine at this little box on my screen.
2. It is certainly hard to keep up, especially in a meaningful way, especially when the carefully nurtured balance of my multi-faceted life is challenged by one or another form of intensity.  Looking at that list of Blogisattva award candidates (and other excellent blogs I read, including those on this blog’s list of links) I’m struck by how many are authored by academics or students or others who have full-time religion-spirituality oriented gigs.  Don’t get me wrong, I am generally very happy not to be embroiled in “the life,” as we might as well call it.  But one of the consequences of being a tiller-of-the-soil as well as a spouter-off-about-the-inner-life is that there is often just less in the well at the end of the day than I’d like there to be.
3. I thought this medium was somehow going to start providing seeds for lengthier and more thoughtful pieces of writing (you know, articles, books, encyclopedias…).   In part because of #2 above, in part because of the way I’m blogging, and in part because of the nature of the medium, this has proven less true than I’d hoped.  I am a little frustrated about this, a little resigned, but fortunately still curious and open to whatever possibilities might yet unfold.  The plain truth, so far, is that thoughtful sustained writing takes even more time than I have to devote to the fragmentary sketches I post here.
4. I am also puzzled by the question of audience and readership.  For a long time I paid absolutely no attention to who and how many my readers are; a few months ago I took the plunge and enabled Google Analytics.  That gave me some information that I have acted on to some extent, and ignored to some extent.  I can’t say thinking about this doesn’t make a difference, but as yet I don’t believe it’s pushed me in any particular direction.  Nor has my resolution to “blog better.”  This has, like most resolutions, built up a certain back pressure of expectation without any particular tangible results.

The upshot is that I am very much still finding my way, hoping to find a useful music here, but meanwhile just continuing to bang away on randomly chosen pots and pans, hating the cacophony much of the time, thinking sometimes that maybe it sounds a bit like music, and hoping that at least those who stumble across this venue will at least think I’m attempting to cook up something worth eating.

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I just stumbled across the candidates for the Blogisattva Awards (maybe not the most felicitous name)–a good list of Buddhist blogs, only some of which I have seen before.  Good stuff.

In particular this interview with Jeff Wilson of the Unitarian Universalist Buddhist Fellowship was a nice discovery.  Kinda-sorta Buddhist-Christian, but not really.  It sounds like a really good group, but…maybe just a hair too post-Christian to scratch my own itch.

Anyway, it’s great to see the blogosphere, Buddhist-style, is really heating up.  Critical mass in these matters can make a huge difference, and it looks like the community is starting to get there.

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Last night I saw the outstanding film about Leonard Cohen, I’m Your Man.  In addition to many other delights in this combination documentary/tribute concert (the inimitable Antony Hegarty’s version of “If It Be Your Will” for one, and the incredible Rufus Wainwright and his equally incredible sister Martha on several numbers, including the almost-but-not-quite overdone “Hallelujah”), there was a beautiful excursion into Buddhist territory, with Cohen saying of his zen roshi (I’m paraphrasing), “He cares for me.  No, that’s not it: he *doesn’t* care for me.”  A brilliant description of what the teacher is for: not to take care of our limited conception of ourself, but to help us see beyond it.

I have never had much of a handle on Leonard Cohen or his music or his poetry; after watching this film I am dazzled by the grace and wit and clarity he projects in his work and his person.  Very, very pleasing stuff.  Sometimes you witness a genius at work and you just want to give up; Cohen seems to inspire the opposite feeling: I really can write, I really can find a way to express the churning yearning–even in pop songs, if it comes to that.  Thank you Leonard!  And thank you Lian Lunson for making this gorgeous and inspiring film!

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Over on the Christian-Buddhist Yahoo group there’s a nice little conversation going on between a couple of grad students discussing their study plans.  Nice to hear that the Catholic University of America has a Comparative Theology degree; though this stuff is a bit dense for me (or maybe I’m a bit dense for it) to me it’s a good sign that it’s happening.  Encouraging.

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Having some technical problems with posting.  I have now lost a couple of posts in a row.  Chant retreat-CD-library conference-piles and piles of life make it seem a bit to hard to try again for anything serious, not now.  Soon, I hope.

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Wulfila has tagged me to “list a few of the most important works of contemporary theology (1981-2006).”

Ever since my somewhat miserable sojourn at Berkeley’s Graduate Theological Union more than two decades ago I have shied away from formal theology. I had too many experiences of trying to plow through Moltmann or Kung and feeling utterly disconnected from the discourse. At the root for me that disconnect comes from these authors’ common presumptions of the reader’s shared passionate commitment to the church. Whatever else I may have in relation to Christianity, I don’t have that.
But here are the books on the shelf that might, in the loosest possible definition, pass for “theology” that have managed to ring my chimes over the past few years.
Medieval Christian mysticism: sorry, that’s about the only form of theology that interests me:
Bernard McGinn, The Presence of God: A History of Western Mysticism
You don’t have to buy the theology to be entranced by the completeness of the medieval vision of God. McGinn is a master.
Stephen Chase (editor), Angelic spirituality : medieval perspectives on the ways of angels
OK, I’m very entranced by this at the moment, and maybe it will fade. But it’s a beautiful book.
One nice book on liturgics:
Bernhard Lang, Sacred Games
Haven’t dipped into it for a while, but it’s fascinating and expansive. Probably the closest thing to real live “contemporary theology” that I’ve read for a good long time.
Three books on what might be called “New Age” theology:

Wouter Hanegraaf, New Age religion and Western culture : esotericism in the mirror of secular thought
A great, great book. Is it theology? It certainly speaks to many, many of the concerns of the contemporary world, and explains a great deal about the maelstrom that surrounds Christianity (though not addressing Christianity itself)
Ken Wilber, Sex & Spirit
I love Ken Wilber. He creates beautiful structures of thought.
Andrew Harvey, The Direct Path
I just adore Andrew Harvey because of the way he honestly weaves his own path into his ideas. And is unashamedly unaffiliated, which I find truly inspiring.
Two books related to Buddhism:Rick Fields, How the Swans Came to the Lake
A history, not a theology, but a very fine book nevertheless on what Buddhism means in contemporary America. There are many books on this topic but this was the first one I read and so is dear to my heart.
John Keenan, The Gospel of Mark: a Mahayana Interpretation
I’ve written about it a lot hear; it certainly belongs on my list.

And as I think of people I can tag who might be remotely interested in this game, there’s only one that comes to mind: Jon. Geez, my blogosphere circle is too darned narrow!

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This weekend is the Center for Sacred Art Gregorian chant retreat. We’re going to be singing chants for St. Michael and the angels, and it should be pretty amazing. After four years of Mary retreats, it will be quite an energetic shift–I’m really curious to see what happens.

In preparing I came across the following devotional framework from the high middle ages. It reminds me of Tibetan Buddhist moral/devotional frameworks I’ve come across (sometimes I call Buddhism the “five thises and six thats religion”). This one is very nice–definitely medieval (I toned “mortification” down to “opening the heart”–call me we a lily-livered liberal) but really very inspiring and compact. See what you think…

The Six Wings of the Cherubim (12^th century)

The first wing is confession.
The first feather of this wing is truth.
The second feather is integrity which prevents the disfigurement or division of truth.
The third feather is endurance, since confession ought to be steadfast and morally strong.
The fourth feather is humility, which excludes the character of pride.
The fifth feather is simplicity. Simplicity calls one to account for lack of endurance, ignorance and evil while defending nothing, excusing nothing, and degrading nothing.

The second wing is satisfaction, the worthy reproach and correction of sins.
The first feather of this wing is the complete renunciation of sin.
The second feather of this wing is the streaming forth of tears.
The third feather is the opening of the heart.
The fourth feather is the bestowing of alms.
The fifth feather is prayerful devotion.

The third wing represents purification of the flesh.
The first feather of this wing is the eye of virtue.
The second feather is purity of hearing.
The third feather is scent of modesty.
The fourth feather is temperate taste.
The fifth feather is holy touch.

The fourth wing is purity of mind.
The first feather of this wing is a sincere and upright disposition of mind.
The second feather is the delight of the mind in the Lord.
The third feather is well-ordered and elegant thinking.
The fourth feather is a holy will.
The fifth feather is simple and pure intention.

The fifth wing is love of neighbor.
The first feather is avoiding injury to others either by word or by deed.
The second feather is to do good in every word and deed.
The third feather is to avoid feeling so burdened that you are no longer of any value to them.
The fourth feather is to lay aside the soul for the sake of a brother or sister.
The fifth feather is to persevere in all these forms of love.

The sixth wing is the love of God.
Whoever longs for and strives after nothing other than God has the first of these feathers.
Whoever distributes this love actively among brothers, sisters, and the world for the sake of God has the second of these feathers.
Those who, for God’s sake, reserve nothing for themselves but relinquish all things in God’s name, these people have the third of these feathers.
Those who deny themselves for God alone, these people have the fourth feather.
Whoever perseveres in all these things has the fifth feather.

These are the wings of which the psalmist said, “Hide me under the shadow of your wings, from the face of the wicket who assail me.” And who said “I will take hope in the shadow of your wings until the injustice has passed.” These are the feathers of which the psalmist also said, “Who will give me feathers like a dove, that I might fly away and be at rest?” “That I might fly away,” the psalmist said, abandoning the earth, striving passionately after heaven, and delighting in the eternal blessing, the true freedom of peace. Amen.

From Angelic Spirituality (Paulist Press 2002)

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I have been an occasional listener to and admirer of the radio show This American Life.  The other day while listening I heard that they have archives of the entire 10 years of the show on their site–which they do.  You can stream portions of shows (anywhere from 10 to 45 minutes of the entire show, which is an hour); full shows are available for .95 from iTunes.

I have always especially enjoyed the show’s tales of faith and public life, so it was great to sample some of the recent shows on that topic that I haven’t heard.  One in particular, from their 2005 archive, called “Heretics”, is about Reverend Carlton Pearson, a very successful charismatic (both senses) evangelical leader and protege of televangelist Oral Roberts who suddenly realized one day the he couldn’t believe in hell.  It’s a moving, powerful story of trusting experience, and the doors that opens as well as the hardships it creates.

At the root of his realization was an intuition of compassion, the recognition that it was not a loving God but a vengeful humanity that was responsible for both the idea of hell and for its experience here on earth, in the form of human suffering, by too many people.
Pentecostalism is just two ticks away from what I grew up with (same theology, just less lively music and carrying on).  I loved hearing this story of courage and cutting through the delusive but extremely powerful group-think of his co-religionists.  Thrilling!  I’m putting him on the hero list with Krishamurti, Bob Dylan and others who make it their business to follow their truth even when it makes life uncomfortable.
And the good bishop even has a MySpace page…

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My workplace continues to place great demands on me these days, of the sort that haven’t left me a lot of creative room for explorations on the outside.  I ended up spending a good part of yesterday writing jokey limericks for each of my 15 colleagues here in Seattle.  It was a labor of love, immensely satisfying, though of an entirely topical and insular nature: they won’t make any sense to anyone outside our walls.  And in fact I do feel grateful to this little cadre of smart, committed, and savvy people I work with–so that felt like time well spent in a twisted sort of appreciation.
What work has been these days is a place that demands continuous open receptivity to the reality of each moment, and therefore blissful in a very precise sense.  I come in each day expecting my brain to be twisted into an absolute pretzel, and it rarely disappoints.  In this situation the worst thing you can do is expect things to be a particular way: they won’t be.  What’s rather cool is being able to see into the nature of this circumstance with clarity and, what is more important, acceptance.  That allows for a sort of tantric transformation that unveils the energy beneath each situation and allows it to be experienced as perfect and complete just as it is.

I’ve had the crazy thought lately to start a meditation group among my co-workers.  Risky, exciting, problematic (hmm, where would we meet?  hmm, would that be divisive?).  But every day the reality that the workplace is a sacred field is becoming clearer.  Who knows where it will end?  Who needs to know?

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When I was nine years old and we had a house full of aunts and uncles and cousins I was consigned to sleeping on the sofa…in the living room…with the Christmas tree and all its attendant presents.  Nine years old is probably the height of Christmas-lust, so as you can imagine I had great difficulty in going to sleep.  Hour after hour dragged by, and haunted by the twinkling lights on the tree, the midnight hush of expectation, the glittering ribbons on all those gifts (so many of them, so many of them surely intended for me) my own longing began to taste metallic and bitter in my mouth.  Finally, at about 2 or 3 in the morning, I gave in and broke open one of my stocking stuffers.   I was so strung out, exhausted, and guilty that in attempting to open the gift I discovered, a groovy late-sixties-style mobile, I caused it to become hopelessly twisted up in itself–it never did recover.  I’m not sure I ever quite recovered either.  Maybe that’s one of the experiences that ultimately let me to Buddhism.  That night I certainly did experience, most vividly, the organic relationship between desire and suffering.

I think the Christmas season is a rich opportunity for reflection on these sorts of dynamics: not what actually happens, but what we expect to happen, and how we relate to the fulfillment or disappointment or utter subversion of those expectations.

For me the holidays continue to twinkle like the mocking tree lights during that long, long Christmas night.  To be present to the twinkling, to notice the surge of hopeful expectation, and to notice what actually happens–that sounds like a very good Christmas wish…

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A nice post from Jon at The Wild Things of God about Buddha Day, which is December 8–same day as the Immaculate Conception.  He concludes:

May all of us be inspired to follow the examples of Mary and the Buddha who in their different ways both brought the light of the world into the world.

Now that is an inspired thought.  There are a kazillion books comparing Buddha and Jesus–interesting, but not always that successful, in part I think because there is such a fundamental disjunction between Buddha as Enlightened One and Jesus as Light.  But Mary–ah, Mary is very much like the Buddha.  Very different stories, but as Jon suggests both of their roles were to recognize something fundamental about reality and bear witness to it.  Both were, in some fundamental way, like us, however transformed or special their presence became as a result of their encounter with Reality.

We can make Jesus into our Brother–that does work for many people–but it kind of twists the tradition away from its self-identified core, and that always makes me a bit uneasy.  What I just adore about Mary is the spaciousness around her.  Sure, there are plenty of dogmatic assertions about her, but she’s bigger than that, and has not, I would argue, become the captive of theology that her Divine Son has become.

It’s a similar spacious place that the Buddha occupies: they both seem to say, “Don’t look at me, look at what came through me.  *There* is the key to your salvation.”
I’m going to pay a little more attention the next time December 8th rolls around.  Thanks, Jon!

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The ever erudite Will Buckingham at ThinkBuddha.org writes about Buddhist Inclusivism by Kristen Kilbinger, which critiques the notions of exclusivism (my way is right) and pluralism (all ways lead to the same result) in favor of an approach that recognizes that paths may be different–and goals may be different too. The book sounds fascinating, but as usual I am most amazed by Buckingham’s clarity and erudition. OK, jealous might be the afflicted form of what I’m feeling. But trying to loosen up a bit.

He concludes the post with:

What if we were to give up on the idea “I am”? To see that we are thoroughly conditioned, to see that we have no substantial self, and to give up on the idea that we are Buddhists, atheists, Marxists, Christians, Jews? Then might it not be possible to experience Nibbana – the extinguishment of the heat of our struggles and our rivalries – here and now?

Because such Nibbana is not, I think, a religious goal at all. It has nothing to do with religion. It has nothing to do with being a Buddhist. As long as you think you are a Buddhist, it is impossible. It is, instead, the ordinary peace for which our poor human hearts ache.

Nice!

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Just back from my Nalandabodhi discussion group tonight on Penetrating Wisdom.  We were talking about the Five Wisdoms, which, while it might be an excellent name for a fifties doo-wop group, is actually a set of teachings about the spontaneous arising of insight from the ground of pure being.  Five wisdoms, five poisons, five buddhas: they all emerge from the same sources and manifest differently only because of the degree of relative clarity or confusion with which they are held.  So:

The wisdom of mirror-like clarity is one form: the poison of anger and aggression is another form–they both arise from the same energy and differ only because one is spontaneous and fluid and the other is fixed and dualistic and attached.  This makes a lot of sense in my recent experience: I was so exercised during a meeting today that I was pounding a table with my fist so loud that it resonated through our entire office suite.  Why?  I had this vividly clear, picture-perfect image of how things *should be*, but was clinging too tightly to that, was not able to be present to the whole of the fluid and dynamic situation, and the outcome was an angry outburst, which in fact did prevent me from grasping the totality of what was going on (ok, yes, some element of boneheadedness, but also a lack of clear communication and attentiveness from many of the parties involved, including Yours Samsarically Truly).
And the same applies to the other wisdoms/poisons: pure awareness/ignorance, equanimity/pride, discrimination/passion, and compassion/jealousy.

Out of this dance of experience we have the choice to reside within rigid and narrow emotional ghettos, or to dance freely in the endless play of manifesting energies.

This kind of evaluation of emotional experience is so rich and meaningful–after many months of analytical, intellectually rigorous philosophical work in my studies of Buddhism it is like the moment in the Wizard of Oz when the landscape turns to color.  Ding dong!

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I just got a cool calendar from the Jizos for Peace project, a wonderful collaborative activity in which thousands of people created images of Jizo Bodhisattva, which the folks at Great Vow Zen Monastery near Portland, OR, then took to Japan last year.  It reminds me of how some of us at Lotus & Lily were privileged to create and send in a few Jizo panels (chanting the mantra “om ka ka kabi san ma e sowa ka”).  The project is over but I love the scale of it, the creativity of it, and the wonderful art that resulted.  Lots more pix here.

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I’m learning about dzogchen these days, a set of Tibetan Buddhist teachings somewhat akin to Zen, that emphasize the notion that all phenomena are empty and luminous. I’ve heard “empty and luminous” quite a bit in my Tibetan dharma journey, but I had an insight the other day that I’ve found helpful: it’s as though our ordinary-mind experience is a thick dark raincloud–it seems very solid and forbidding and inevitable. But the sun is shining behind it, turning the edges of the cloud into a fiery luminous gold. So any experience, however impacted or emotionally fraught, contains within it this lumininosity.

This image has been particularly helpful the last few weeks as my day job starts to ramp up in intensity, becoming much more demanding than it has since I started there three-1/2 years ago. We just got a bunch of new funding and more on the way, we’re hiring new staff, and my role is already starting to become much more business- and leadership-oriented than it’s been. I have to go back 8 or 10 years to recall a time when I found myself in such a position, at my previous job (in the software business). In fact it was in conjunction with that last management role that I discovered a degree of suffering that first started thinking seriously about the dharma.

I’m feeling pretty good about this workplace shift, and one of the main reasons I feel OK is that I now have so many useful Buddhist tools with which to disassemble and think more usefully about day-to-day challenges. Empty and luminous, like the sun illuminating a dark cloud.

Of course, other things are different too: I’m working for a non-profit that’s doing good work (it’s all about libraries), and I really enjoy and respect the people I work with and for. Those do make a big difference. But pressure is pressure, and I’m feeling it more already, and Buddhadharma is not just a nice thing to have in my pocket–it’s essential.

And there are also interesting insights to be gleaned from thinking about the Buddha’s teachings in the context of business doings. One further reflection has to do with the way business planning is all about a presumption of *knowing* –knowing what you’re going to sell, who’s going to buy it, what will happen next month or next quarter.  Our whole business way of thinking (whether profit or not-for-profit) is built on this model of certainty.  We probably couldn’t function without it.  But it’s helpful to remember (especially when the stress gets high) that it’s all not only luminous but also empty.  There’s a profound unknowing, beyond conceptual thought, that lurks in the heart of the most carefully cultivated business plan.

Sometimes I wish I had more time to be a scholar, or a thinker.  Being immersed in worldly pursuits limits the possibility of realizing some of those dreams I’ve had for a long time.

But within the deep dark clouds of mundane activity, something is shining…

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Wulfila the Lonely Goth riffs on my recent post about lineage and authenticity in Christianity and Buddhism.

I strongly believe in spiritual lineages, perhaps as necessary “empowerments” to certain kinds of ritual more than anything else….It’s just that in terms of real spiritual authenticity, the authority with which such lineages are typically invested is more likely to destroy the things they are attempting to accomplish than contribute meaningfully to attaining them. Maybe the only compelling authority is the kind that turns itself upside down, becoming its own parody.

I’m reminded of Tom Robbins’ passage in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues about whooping cranes who cling to their migration paths despite the encroachment of civilization and how every institution worth its salt has its own demise built into it. Or the story I heard from Wayne Teasdale once about two Tibetan lamas discussing their situation after the Chinese invasion. They’d lost everything: students, social status, the authority conferred on them by centuries of tradition. The first one said, “well, what do we do now?” To which the second replied, “I guess we’ll have to stand on our own two feet.”
I hear in Wulfila some disappointment in his experience of Tibetan Buddhism, and I’ve shared some that experience in the past: in that world it’s very easy to get mixed up in the snarl of lineages and philosophical schools and exquisite, very pretty rituals, and lose the point. I guess I feel very lucky and more than lucky to have hit upon a pretty healthy center with a healthy teacher. But if you talked to me a couple of years ago (and who knows? maybe if you talk to me a couple of years from now) I would say “lineage? feh!”

This tradition/authenticity thing feels very much like the Buddhist/Christian razor’s edge I live on: the right answer is not on one side or the other. We need tradition; we need authenticity–despite the fact they have every appearance of being mutually exclusive.

Sitting last night in St. Mark’s in Seattle listening to “O” antiphons service, it all came back to me again: five years ago last Easter I was anointed with oil in that very space by Bishop Vincent Warner as part of my confirmation. I felt at the time the lineage behind the action, the centuries through which that touch had been passed down from bishop to bishop, and ultimately to me. I still feel grounded by the experience; it’s still important to me–maybe not so much in a philosophical or wisdom sense, but in some other elusive, but very real and important way.
I come back once again to my favorite Zen story, from the Blue Cliff Record: “It is not a matter of knowing or not knowing. Knowing is just a delusion. But not knowing is just vacancy. When you reach the true way, beyond doubt, it is vast and open as all of space.”  Knowing (aka being in the lineage) is delusion; not knowing (aka being outside the lineage) is just vacancy.

So there it is: there’s no escape. Whether or not you’ve been touched by some bishop or empowered by some rinpoche, you’re going to have to stand on your own two feet.

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