Ox Herding

Honest Scrap

Over the past few weeks, several bloggers have tagged Ox Herding for the "Honest Scrap" award. Thank you for your kindness! (I think it's kindness!)

The standard text that comes with the award reads:

This award is bestowed upon a fellow blogger whose blog content or design is, in the giver’s opinion, brilliant. This award is about bloggers who post from their heart, who oftentimes put their heart on display as they write from the depths of their soul.”

The recipient needs to speak or brag of receiving the award, name 7 blogs they find awesome and then list 10 honest things about themselves.

7 Wonderful Blogs
Many blogs I read have already been tagged for an Honest Scrap award. Here are Buddhist-based blogs that I think are incredible and which (I believe) have not received the honor. In alphabetical order:

1. A Sacred Friendship:  Personal, deep and kind.

2. Aging As A Spiritual Practice:  It comes. What will we do?

3. Dangerous Harvests:  Literate and engaged.

4. Flatbed Sutra:  A stunning work.

5. Mountain Practice:  A different kind of walking.

6. Puerhan:  Joy in every post.

7. Somewhere in Dhamma:  Real people in a real place.

10 Honest Things About Me That You May Not Have Known

1. I'm an Eagle Scout.

2. In the 1980s and 1990s, I spent real money on Georgio Armani clothing. Suits, jackets, sweaters, slacks, shirts, ties, shoes. Real money. Most of these beautiful garments haven't been worn in years.

3. I have the "world's largest" collection of postcards of Italian Renaissance portraiture. It's a big stack. What on earth am I going to do with these?

4. I was a very aggressive rock climber for 25 years until my daughter was born, at which point I stopped cold. I don't miss it.

5. I completed the better part of a dissertation for a PhD in Philosophy. Then I decided to become a professional modern dancer - which over the long haul has proven more useful than any PhD.

6. I'm mostly retired. Which is not as boring as it might sound - there's always software. Our little team has produced a few darned good products. Check out:

iFlush for the iPhone
TwittyLinks for Twitter Users

7. I have traveled long distances to see specific works of art (for example, to see Paolo Uccello's The Hunt in the Forest at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England).

8. During my longest solo retreat, a lot of genuinely weird stuff happened. Like the skunk that sprayed under the cabin every morning at 4:30 a.m. when I'd start chanting. Even weirder stuff stank up my mind. Who woulda thought that incense permeated my little corner of the universe?!?

9. I'm at the age when the body no longer cooperates. I'll never again run after a frisbee.

10. I really enjoy a well-made cup of coffee. Yet another reason to live in Seattle.

So there are 10 sentences in a row that begin with "I." May that never occur again!

Mistrust, Indebtedness and Hospitality

I encourage you to check out this wonderful post on ThinkBuddha.org. It contains this kicker line:  There is no straightening of accounts in which we can suddenly see ourselves as being separate and free.

Courage

The English word courage derives (through French) from the Latin cor, or "heart." To have courage is to have heart. In its earliest English usage, courage denoted the ability to feel deeply, to feel life in the heart.

Of course, we also say that the heart is the seat of love. So it's not a stretch to see that to have courage is to love - fearlessly and without reserve.

That sounds great in the abstract, but perhaps it's not so great when we struggle in life. How can we find the courage to love when things aren't going the way we want?

Zen Master Seung Sahn said that Great Courage, "means bringing all your energy to one point. It is like a cat hunting a mouse. The mouse has retreated into its hole, but the cat waits outside for hours on end without the slightest movement. It is totally concentrated on the mouse hole. This is Zen mind cutting off all thinking and directing all energy to one point."

Lately, I feel more like a Cowardly Lion, not a hungry cat.

Photo by Justin Woo

Truth

In a recent comment on an Ox Herding post, Molly asked:

Should we be fully honest with people we are close to who are not being true to themselves (I am thinking specifically of my sister). There is a lot I've never said to her which I wonder sometimes if I should . . . the silence is easier on the surface.

Molly's question arises from the intent to examine life without flinching. And that's the point of Buddhist practice - to examine the many ways in which habitual behaviors impede our ability to love this world.

What does it take to love? I explore this daily with Susann, confronting the reality that I frequently withhold the truth from her.

I might rationalize this withholding. Or simply be unaware of it.

But one thing is clear - I withhold to protect cherished images of myself and her. Thus, the withholding has nothing to do with Susann (who, of course, is as flawed as any of us), only with me.

Lately, I've begun to expose the truth of my experience in (more or less) real time. This requires me to pay attention to my own mind and to "out" whatever appears in that dark place. (Thank goodness for practice!)

Curiously, nothing I say has surprised Susann. I can tell her that I hate her and she already knows. I can tell her that I love her and she already knows.

My best efforts to remain hidden are so shabby and ineffectual that nothing comes as a surprise.

At the beginning, I thought I needed to be forthcoming for Susann's benefit, to make it possible for her to love me.

But now I realize that I need to be forthcoming so that I can love.

That's the power of the truth - it allows us to love.

If we wish to love this world, we must live as a truthful person.

The truth includes our darkest flaws, feelings, and fantasies. When we bring them into the light, we can see them for the pitiful things they are. That is love.

Photo by Ma Gali

Krishnamurti: Be Attentive

My teacher over the last three years trained directly with J. Krishnamurti. As a result, I've learned a little about Krishnamurti's views of love and truth (without taking the time to read his books).

Yesterday, I stopped by the neighborhood used bookstore to look at Buddhist books. Tucked into the shelf was a small Krishnamurti volume. I opened it randomly and came to this passage:

Have you ever looked at your wife without the image that you have about her, the image that you have put together over thirty or so years?

You have an image about her and she has an image about you; these images have relationship; you and she do not have relationship.

These images come into being when you are not attentive in your relationship - it is inattention that breeds images.

Can you look at your wife without condemning, evaluating, saying she is right, she is wrong, just observe without bringing in your prejudices?

Then you will see there is a totally different kind of action that comes from that observation.

Since this book, The Flight of the Eagle, was priced at $2.25, I splurged. And have spent the last 24 hours stewing on this passage.

Krishnamurti calls upon us to pay attention so that we can avoid falling into what Zen teachers call "opposites world" - the world of separation, distinction, love and hate.

As I give this sort of attention to my own mind, I can see how conflict arises because of what I call "storytelling" - which is just another way of saying that I get upset when I don't get what I want.

Usually what I want is a fantasy about how my relationships should be. My fantasies about Susann and my relationship to her - the images to which Krishnamurti refers - serve as barriers to intimacy with the truth.

The real work of Buddhist practice, as I see it, is to unfold and undo the images and storytelling. In those moments when I can do this, love appears. Real love, based on how things actually are.

Photo by Roxana

If I Didn't Have You . . .

. . . someone else would do.

Is that true?

What is the basis of genuine human relationship? Is it based on our "like" or "love" of the other person? Or does it arise from another source?

What does it take for us to remain in responsible relationship with other people?

Tim Minchin has something to say about this. And maybe it's true. Or, at least, falls within a bell curve.

The Mystery of Love

Lately I've been reading mystery novels set in Philadelphia by the wonderful writer, William Lashner. In Fatal Flaw, he riffs on the word love, and the depth of our understanding of this experience:

What are we looking at when we are looking at love? Eskimos have like six billion words for snow because they understand snow. Don't ever try to snow an Eskimo. But for six billion different permutations of emotional attachment we have just one word. Why? Because we don't have a clue.

This caught my eye because lately Susann and I have been exploring what it means to be "in love." The experience clearly has nothing to do with hormone-driven activity.

Instead, genuine love involves the commitment to show up for one another in a responsible way, moment after moment. I find it hard to do.

And I don't have a word for it.

Photo by Yamanaka Tamaki

Manipulation

My teacher said today, "Manipulation of perception is the worst kind of violence."

You might join me in considering:

• In what ways do I manipulate others' perceptions of me?
• Can I perceive the suffering this produces? 
• Why don't I care? 

Cruel To Be Kind

One of the characteristic teachings of Buddhism concerns loving-kindness, or metta. When we cultivate this quality, we can offer genuine kindness to anyone we encounter.

However, we humans have strong emotions that go beyond kindness. We experience anger, outrage and many other powerful feeling-states. Might we harness these feelings in the service of others? Can we make room for loving-anger?

Zen Master Seung Sahn taught that there were four types of anger. At one extreme is "attached anger," the burning rage that seeks only to destroy. I know attached anger all too well. You probably know it, too.

This rage arises from intense attachment to my view. And it wreaks havoc on everyone around us.

But Zen Master Seung Sahn also described "love anger," the anger that only cares for the well-being of another. For many, loving-anger emerges only after a period of sincere meditation and examination of our mind-habits.

Because loving-anger harnesses the enormous power of rage, it may appear sometimes as intense confrontation. But genuine loving-anger contains no trace of self-interest -- only the aspiration to benefit others.

As you think about your own feelings of kindness and rage, you might consider:

1. Are there situations where kindness has worsened a situation?

2. What would be required to transform rage into loving-anger?

Cruel to Be Kind by Nick Lowe

Hooked!

For the last year I've been an active participant on Yahoo! Answers, answering questions about Buddhism and Zen under the avatar name of P'ang. It's been rewarding because many of those asking questions are seriously seeking a path and, in a few instances, I've been able to help.

At the same time, my answers occasionally irritate a few of the other thoughtful people who also respond to questions. Sometimes these fellow responders throw barbs my way . . . and I've always ignored them. Kept my mouth closed.

However last weekend, I took the bait.

Hook, line, and sinker.

My restless ego got the upper hand and I directly addressed one of the barbs in a public answer. To justify this, I told myself that maybe I could "hit" my cohort's mind in a way that would create a new understanding. But it just infuriated him and resulted in an even stronger response.

That's how war gets started, isn't it? I had to be right. And I wouldn't be denied.

And so I shat on myself.

Last night I heard an old Zen saying (new to me). It goes like this: If you have a piece of shit on your nose, everything you get close to will smell like shit.

Lesson learned. When I smell shit, it's my own. Better clean myself.

And what about you?

1. In what situations do you smell shit? What do you do when that lovely aroma appears?

2. How do you start wars? Do you do it every day? With the same people?

3. What would it take to clean your nose? How can you stop the war?

Here's the question in question.
Dog photo by Mark Watson.
Hook photo by Janerc