Big Mind Begins

So here we are. Day 2 of our Big Mind/Big Heart adventure. (As soon as I find the camera cable, and figure out how to post photos, I’ll put a few up here to share with you.)

We arrived late afternoon on Thursday, to discover a city ringed with the foothills of the Rockies. I looked at them, reminding myself that these are what the Catskill Mountains looked like millions of years ago. (You could call it long term impermanence. ) The city itself lies cradled in a bowl in the center of this ring of mountains. It’s very beautiful and I find myself with a longing to hike into them to see the whole city from a large panoramic perspective. Maybe I'll do that later when I've experienced Big Mind a bit more. Or maybe when we meet up with Joyce Harvey-Morgan who’ll be driving down from Boise to visit with us in a few weeks.

Jody Hunt picked us up from the airport and drove us to the monastery. Except it isn’t a monastery, at least not as I fantasized about it. The "monastery" is a group of buildings in an older part of town. The grouping consists of 2 large, old houses and 2 red brick apartment buildings. So much for my fantasy of living in traditional Zen digs. But apparently that’s the hallmark of Genpo Roshi. Picasso was once reputed to have made a scathing remark about another painter, “He looks modern but he smells of the museums.” Well, Roshi is just the opposite. He’s no lover of tradition unless it allows the living breathing dharma to emerge. In Shalom speak, he’s saying a big yes to process and will pass over the aspects of tradition that might hinder process in its opening. Yet he is entirely in favor of tradition when it lends a solid foundation and grounding that serves in the further opening of process. Roshi’s a big process guy. That's what Big Mind is, it's process.

So on Friday, we spent the day being tourists in this town that Joseph Smith founded. Until yesterday, I knew next to nothing about Mormonism. Today I know slightly more and I am both impressed and perplexed at the story of Joseph Smith, the Angel Moroni and the founding of Zion (aka Salt Lake City). It’s a story that is inextricably tied to the beginnings of the United States, a wry mixture of freedom of religious expression, new age-liked channeling, Protestant Puritanism, good ol’ capitalism, added to the history of how the west was opened. Like the ancient Hebrews, Salt Lake City was (is?) Zion to the pioneering Mormons. Today, I’m told that Mormons who live outside of the city want to redeem it from its current faltering and evil ways. The times they are a’changin', I guess.

Enter today, when Diane Hamilton facilitated 5 hours of Big Mind with us. Imagine about 50 people seated in a renovated room at the top of an old house. That’s the zendo. It’s an open concept space, swept clean of furniture and adornment. Simple, spacious -- I can breathe in there.

Anyway, back to these folks. They come from all over. There are people from Holland, France, Norway, Australia, Spain, Malta, Poland, England, Canada, Chile as well as from all of the United States. Just like at Shalom, there will be folks coming and going here all the time over these next 4 weeks. Living at Shalom has been a good training ground for me in learning to swim in the waves of people, like blood whooshing into and out from the heart.

Back to the Big Mind process. “Even a mere glimpse of non-dual reality leaves a profound imprint on one’s mind and heart stream.” (Henny Fenner) That says it all for me. It was a profound experience of dualistic voices progressively moving into the transcendent voices. Which in turn led us around to the divine inspired simplicity and ordinariness of living as a full human being (the Unique Self) – a voice that included and transcended the small-s Self and Big Mind. When we got to that voice, I just sat there, blinking, feeling very emotionally moved, taking in the realization, knowing that I was having it in a body. And feeling the blessing and sheer awe of the isness of being human. (I know that I don’t ever have to be embarrassed about being human again.)

So this is what I have to look forward to: 4 weeks of immersion in the Big Mind process, reminding myself over and over again of the divine reality of being human, with a loving heart and a willingness to know and integrate all of my vastness in flesh.

I’ve enjoyed writing this first post. I think -- if the Muse is with him -- that my Philosopher Husband might write about how Shalom process and Big Mind process, Mormonism and Zen, relate to one another. I'm looking forward to reading it myself.