Happy New Year from Joan Sutherland
As I send you warmest wishes for the new
year and look forward to seeing you again in February, in some ways it's hard
to imagine that more than a year has passed since we were last together. You've
been much in my thoughts, and it's been great to hear news of you from David
Weinstein and John Tarrant.
Most of all, I want to
offer my thanks in many directions. I'm very grateful to David for so capably
acting as the holding teacher this past year, and I'm delighted we'll all be
working together in various ways in the coming year. I'm grateful too to John
for teaching during sesshin while I was gone, and I hope you've enjoyed all the
flavors of PZI dharma you've been experiencing. And to all of you, thank you
for the gracious way you accommodated my need to take some time off; it has
been deeply healing and renewing, and the events since September 11 have
strengthened my belief in the importance of our practice, as individuals and as
communities.
So much loss and courage and fear and
kindness and confusion these past months--so much life; so much need, this
holiday season, for the benedictions and mercies life provides in order that we
might go on bearing being alive. May each of our hearts contain peace, may our
minds hold generosity. I'm glad I'll be walking in starlit snow again soon.
*************
SAFETY
On a Monday evening after zazen, a
newcomer asked some good questions about sesshin. In response to one of the
questions, someone said something like, “When you sit for long stretches, stuff
comes up, and sesshin is a safe place to let that happen.” Since then, I’ve
felt that response riding around in me like a koan. Is that so?
In a sense, deep practice is inherently unsafe.
Some of our most tightly held beliefs and opinions---about ourselves, our
lives, our world---are challenged by our practice, and that can be frightening,
even destabilizing. We shed layers of psychological armor, and are left
vulnerable. Can we count on it that nothing scary will happen to us? That no
one will bump up against our tender spots and hurt us? No.
At the same time,
I found myself agreeing wholeheartedly that sesshin is a safe place. We are
surrounded by others undertaking the same difficult work (or deep play) in a
climate of mutual encouragement. We have the support of a teacher, who is
paying close attention to us and whose insight and experience are available to
us. As time goes on, we might also notice that the rocks, trees and grasses
hold us in their benign regard---their way of cheering us on. Even at my most
difficult retreat so far, when I lay awake most of one night shaking and wept
most of the next day, I was aware of help coming from the little stones and the
curly buffalo grass in the field outside; from the calm frankness of the
teacher; and from my sitting neighbor, who slipped her white card back under
her mat, giving up her interview so I’d be sure to get one. I left that retreat
feeling shattered; but on the long Greyhound bus ride home that New Year’s Eve,
an unusual young man showed such natural kindness to some needy children, he
transformed the whole busload of strangers. It was a magic ride that renewed my
faith and changed my practice and me.
These days, with most of us feeling less safe than we once did, it
seems, paradoxically, more important than ever to take up this unsafe path of
waking up. This doesn’t mean we should abandon all common sense. When I
returned to college after dropping out for a year, in 1969, my friends sent me
off with a tab of LSD to try. I kept it in my freezer, waiting for a time that
would feel safe enough for trying it; and at the end of the year, when I moved
out of my apartment, I chipped it out of the ice and threw it away. There
wasn’t a time that felt “safe enough,” and my guess is that for me, at that
time of my life, not trying LSD was a smart move. Since then, however, my
practice has sometimes been cramped by my reluctance to take risks. No one can
tell someone else what is an acceptable level for safety for that person. Each
of us has to trust our own practice. We’ll experiment, sometimes taking “too
much” risk, sometimes “too little”. And fundamentally, who is the little judge
who says what was too much, and what was too little? Just the sight of a dry
leaf twirling in the wind has the power to sweep away all those stale
judgments.
During Monday
evening discussion, someone pointed out that it’s said the real Master is the
one who says hardly anything. There was an awkward little silence, as if some
of us were thinking, “Oops, have I been showing my unenlightened state? Is my
slip showing?” If so, lucky none of us is a Master, then! We can play along
together, responding to each other’s questions as best we can, and trusting
that even with our mistakes, our “wrong” responses, we are helping each other
along the path. There’s no guarantee of safety, but plenty of good
companionship. A world full of not-so-safe beings needs our right and our wrong
responses, our too-daring and our not-so-daring practice. We offer them with
gratitude for the joy that runs throughout.
Sarah of
S.M.S.
*******************
Synopsis of Steering Meeting
On
December 14, the steering committee had a conference call with our Holding
Teacher Joan Sutherland Roshi, welcoming her back. She expressed a desire for us to have a continuing relationship
with David Weinstein, whom we have named Teacher for S.M.S. She said that if some member wish to do
Jukai in July, she would be glad to have conference calls with us during the
training period. She will also confer
with the Steering Committee chair before each meeting, as well as have a
quarterly conference call with us. She
will give a public talk on the CC campus February 12, prior to sesshin, which
will be February 13-17. Joan will also
be available for phone conferences with students.
In addition to the above events, the
following schedule was established: Introduction to Zen by Sarah: January 24 and 31, February 7, 21, and 28;
and March 7; Taking refuge in Sangha
during times of world turmoil: January
3; Calligraphy with Randy, January
10; half-day sit, January 19; New Year’s Eve party December 31 (see separate mailing for
details); Going away party for David
Sligar, possibly January 14; talk on
non-violence: at Shove January 21,
preceded by an abbreviated sit at 6:15.
The next Steering Committee meeting will
be January 11. All are invited.
*****************
