Home Again Home Again Jiggity-jig

This past Monday, we arrived at JFK at 5:50 am. Our wonderful friends Rob & Lisa picked us up at the airport and made us a yummy breakfast. If they hadn’t helped us out, we’d still be trying to figure out how to get from JFK to Connecticut and home. Thank you, Rob & Lisa!

Then, with only a few hours sleep, we drove home by mid afternoon. I was so happy to see the Catskill Mountains. I love where I live. Everything looked fresh and new to me, including the dusting of snow that was on our deck when we got home. Less welcoming was the freezing rain that greeted us on Tuesday morning. After a month of clear blue skies and warm temperatures, freezing rain was a bit of a shocker.

So now we’re back at work, entering into the next stage of our lives here at Shalom Mountain. I’m working on the brochure and Alistair is working on maintenance things. There’s always lots to do around here. It’s the cool season now, so I’m firing up the wood stove and feeling grateful for all the wood that Alistair chopped and I stacked back in the summer.

It’s now a time for integration. In our morning meditation, Alistair and I are discovering how much we miss the sangha at Kanzeon. When we meditated together as a dharma community, we created a collective samadhi wave that we all rode upon, making my meditations less distracted and deeper. Meditation with Roshi was a treat because I piggy backed on his samadhi, making my meditations seamless and profound. Now Alistair and I have to do it on our own and I miss the support of the sangha and our teacher.

We’re also learning what it means to speak to people about our Big Mind experience and to say what is true for us. We have been through an experience that has been life changing. Since I know Roshi and the Big Mind process to be the real thing, I also want to let other people know. I’m learning how to speak of this, simply and directly. I’m also feeling my self-consciousness of speaking about this, simply and directly. I keep making the mistake of thinking that people want me to entertain them with my stories, rather than speaking clearly from my heart.

I’m also discovering that my time at Kanzeon opened me quite deeply. This discovery surprises me because there were many times when I felt very, very ordinary. I kept expecting to feel all swoopy as I do on the Sunday morning of a Shalom Retreat. I did, sometimes, but often not. I think that this is one of the beauties of Roshi’s teachings. I was gradually opened and altered in a very profound way but without all the hoopla. Roshi might say that I am manifesting Maha Vairocana Buddha – the cosmic Buddha that gives birth to Buddhas. I’d say that I was learning to let Buddha out and doing it so slowly that I hardly noticed the shift in myself. That’s why I feel altered but quite ordinary. My ego never even had a chance to feel frightened.

Returning home is bringing home to me the absolute necessity as well as the inevitability of accepting my life just the way it is. No bells, no whistles, just radical acceptance and responsibility. I feel like water that is being poured into sand. I just pour out and absorb. This is very different from feeling fatalistic. I can hear my teacher’s voice inside me saying, “this is a quality of the Non-Seeking, Non-Grasping Mind; it is one of great faith and great trust.”

Almost Home

I can hardly believe that in a few days that I’ll be climbing on board a Jet Blue to return home.

On the other hand, I’m very ready to go home. It’s been an incredible experience and I’m also looking forward to firing up the wood stove and sleeping in my own bed in our beloved Quonset Hut. It’s going to be great.

Being with Roshi and the Big Mind process and group has been an experience of a lifetime. Many people come here year after year to be with Roshi and do the Big Mind process. I could just become one of those folks.

At the end of first week, I asked Roshi to become my teacher. It took me about that long to decide that he really is a highly realized being, maybe even enlightened (whatever that means -- nowadays I'm considering it as the fully integrated human being). Genpo Roshi’s the real deal.

I surprised myself because I am habitually very cautious, I hang back so much, checking things out to make sure it’s safe. But I came here with that question in mind, wondering in advance you might say. The spiritual peak experience I had about 2 years ago had set me on a path of opening up and I was finally beginning to understand the value of having a teacher (thanks to Sogyal Rinpoche). But there are a lot of wackos masquerading as enlightened teachers out there. So how do you determine who’s for real and who isn’t? It’s not easy.

But I was blown away by Roshi. He’s charismatic but he isn’t out to impress you. He’s the most masculine presence that I’ve ever met and I think that this was a big factor for me. I’ve done so much healing around my father in these past years, primarily through my relationship with Alistair and the alchemical retort that is Shalom community. Especially since moving to Shalom Mountain, I have discovered the very real river of love that I possess for my father. It had been blocked for so very long that I wasn’t even sure whether or not I possessed any. To find it not only was a joy but a total surprise.

So now I feel ready to enter into a relationship with a teacher. It’s an important part of the spiritual path and it means both to surrender and to submit. Surrender is the feminine principle, receptive, open. Submission is the masculine principle, active and penetrating. Both of them scare the bejesus out of me which is yet another layer of my conditioning as my father’s child. So becoming Roshi’s student is the right thing at the right time for me.

So these past 3 weeks have been a new journey for me to discover what this all means. In speaking with many of his students here, they have repeatedly told me that this kind of wondering IS the relationship. It never really ends and it's constantly changing. It's very intimate.

The other thing that I’m learning here is that through the compassion and kindness of the teacher, through direction transmission, I may have the nature of my mind revealed to me. Those are just words to me right now but they are filled with a kind of longing and hope as well.

I do know that I have sat next to Roshi during Zazen and that my meditation has been strengthened and carried along by the depth of his Samadhi (meditative state). I had only read about that kind of state experience before but now I have experienced it for myself. As far as I’m concerned, it’s totally true.

I absolutely have no regrets. Just a lot of curiosity as to what the hell this relationship is supposed to look like. I already have some hazy plans as to when to see Roshi next time. We might come back here next April for 2 weeks. If I do, then I will do a joining ceremony which in Zen is called Jukai; the Tibetans call it Taking Refuge. I have considered doing this for years, as a way of formalizing my Buddhist leanings. But I had never felt connected to any particularly sangha (community) before now. Roshi’s also coming to the east coast in the spring (NYC, Kripalu, D.C.) and I’ll also probably go there. It’s a tad closer than Salt Lake City.

Another thing that I am learning is that, if nothing else, the one thing that the student needs to do is to increasingly open herself to the teacher. This will be a very great challenge for me. Especially with a teacher who is so very masculine. Maybe even because he is so. As I transform, soften and open in response to this new relationship, the relationship will also deepen, and so will my spiritual experience. Not seeing Roshi very often appears to be an obstacle but perhaps it will also the catalyst. We’ll see. I’ll let you know.

In other news, this past week each one of us had to facilitate a group of 20 in the Big Mind process. Each one of us was rated and then ranked in the overall group. The results were announced today and I placed in the top 20! I outranked many long time students of Roshi’s who have had years of Zen and koan study and training. So go figure.

Of course, I am very pleased about all of this. But it’s laughable too because I was SO scared at the time. I’m amazed that my fear didn’t screw me up. Or perhaps because I knew that I was profoundly frightened that I was able to let the fear just be. But afterwards, as the fear left and the group was over, I felt waves of shame pour through me. Hmmm….what do you think? Do you think there’s a mat trip in there somewhere???

So Alistair and I will be bringing all of this home to Shalom. We already have two dates scheduled to do the Big Mind process at home. Because of trademark restrictions, we can’t use the words Big Mind but we can facilitate the process. And we sure will. We have a date in February and one in August and we’ve titled the retreat Opening to Oneness. We will be combining Big Mind process with Shalom process and we are very excited as to what will emerge in this marriage of processes.

I'll probably write once more before leaving, or upon returning home. Read ya then.

I’m a Bitch

I'm a bitch, I'm a lover
I'm a child, I'm a mother
I'm a sinner, I'm a saint
I do not feel ashamed
I'm your hell, I'm your dream
I'm nothing in between
You know you wouldn't want it any other way
Meredith Brooks

Now, come on, all of you who know me well know that’s true. I can be a bitch. For those of you who don’t know me that well, just wait awhile. She’s bound to turn up sooner or later.

Roshi’s still into delving into disowned voices, most of them his. Today he started out with the Voice of Passion. But it was putting everyone to sleep, me included. So then he switched to the Voice of the Asshole and all hell broke loose. There was lots of jeering, Assholes saying pissy things to each other, even a smatter of philosophizing that only received sniggering. The women couldn’t relate to the word Asshole, so Bitch was substituted – that worked better for me too.

Roshi admitted that this voice is disowned in him and he’s trying to understand this part of himself better. The group mostly struggled with the aggression that seems built into the Asshole – why would you consciously want to be that aggressive? Some guys tried to say that the Asshole was the voice of male compassion. That was roundly booed down.

On the way to dinner, me with 4 other guys, we talked about being an Asshole unconsciously versus consciously. Some of us said that it’s really a primitive power that’s helpful and necessary for survival, when under attack, or at war (my personal favorite). Others thought that the Asshole only had a negative, unconscious side to it and couldn’t see anything positive about it at all, never mind conscious. I’m not so sure about that, but I couldn’t come up with a positive side either. I agree that if you’re consciously an Asshole, that’s pretty direct and mean. But still, there’s got to be something positive – it only makes sense. Every negative has a positive.

As we were talking over dinner, three of the guys turned into assholes right before my very eyes as they were teasing the fourth guy. The one being teased is young, 24 years old, and has just recently moved here to become enlightened. He says he’ll stay here the rest of his life until that happens. Talking to him was like talking to a newlywed who just won’t believe that his soon-to-be-spouse will one day surely turn into a three-headed purple monster at some point in the relationship. He just can’t hear it because that’s not the stage he’s at; he’s in the in-love stage that gets only the positive projection. As they say, the intended only pees (never pisses!) perfume. Still, these three assholes had a field day with him. But oh no, they weren’t conscious! But they were definitely having a lot of fun being assholes. It was fascinating.

As for me, I also shy away from considering that being a bitch consciously has a positive aspect to it. Even so, it’s just got to be there. When words like fag, dyke and queer – historically reviled words -- have been redeemed, why not Asshole and Bitch? Still, it’s an awful lot of fun just to be a bitch, to have it encouraged and loved, and enjoy it for what it is. When it’s unconscious though, which I admit is most of the time for me, everyone else can see it but me. That’s the very definition of unconscious. And I’m sure many of you have seen it in me lots of times. Poor Alistair gets the brunt of it, that’s for sure. But then hey, that’s what marriage partners are for – working out your projective bullshit. Making it conscious, holding it with awareness (aka Big Mind) and love (aka Big Heart), can keep the damage to a minimum. Heck, maybe my bitch can even be celebrated.

I have to admit something else. Before coming here, I knew that Shalom Mountain does really good shadow work. Owning something like your asshole or your bitch is almost routine. But after being here this past month and seeing Roshi plow through disowned voice after disowned voice, I want to state that the shadow work that’s done at Shalom Mountain is absolutely incredible. Big Mind can learn a thing or two from it.

Time's Precious

It’s day 3 of the final week at Big Mind. Sitting in meditation last night, I could feel the preciousness of the moment. And of all the moments that are coming down the pipe this week. It won’t be long now until we’re on the red eye flight back to JFK on Sunday. But until then, there is a whole lifetime to be lived in this week.

The first week we gelled as a group, all of us grooving on each other’s company. The second week Roshi started teaching basic Zen a la Big Mind process, which is a whole other experience, far more interactive. Last week we started learning more about facilitation skills and practicing in mid-size group. This week we’re doing Big Mind facilitation in larger groups. We’ll be evaluated on a numeric scale based on a 25 minute session where we have to cruise through 4 voices in rapid succession. Then we’ll be ranked and the results will be posted for community viewing. The Competitor voices are starting to show up. I’ve often found competition distasteful, which has resulted in my own lagging development in this area. So I’m learning to love my Competitor voice and appreciate the way she straightens up my spine.

Roshi’s been working us hard these past 4 weeks doing shadow work. His personal passion right now is to discover disowned voices, allow them to speak and then to integrate them. Most often he uses the triangle model, a recent invention of his, to align the dualistic voice (usually the disowned voice) with wisdom and compassion. Often, when that happens, the apex voice (the integrated voice) manifests as a transcendent voice. Not always, but frequently.

Last night we worked on the voices of The Doer, The Non-Doer (or Non-Doing) and the apex or integrated voice of The Doer & The Non-Doer. It was a wonderful experience for me. I learned that when I just do, then there is a joy and a passion that flows naturally from the doing. The “what” of the doing isn’t as important as the sheer joy of just doing. Where I get stuck is by insisting that doing be partnered with meaning. I absolutely can’t stand doing without meaning; in fact, I find it stupid and painful. For me that just leads to the insanity of working like crazy for no apparent reason. I’m talking about the kind of working that verges on workaholism as addiction. It’s an addiction that keeps me from living my life fully and prevents me from touching into the parts in me that are painful or difficult. While I'm not crazy about pain, I am committed to seeing things (myself) clearly.

For me, The Non-Doer is much closer in feeling to Being. The Non-Doer is essential for me because it is the place from which I re-fuel, the source of energy for Doing. I can also tell when Non-Doing veers into laziness or can feel the resulting energy drain and lethargy. But when I’m in Non-Doing, I feel refreshed and rejuvenated, even joyful.

Last night, when I put those 2 voices together and spoke from the apex, I discovered that the Non-Doer is the source of power, creativity, energy and direction for the Doer. Even more so, the Non-Doer offers the Doer confidence and wisdom. But meaning? Not sure where that comes from as yet. I’ll have to sit with these voices a bit longer and see what comes up.

This Saturday Roshi will finish the training with a teaching on Tantric Zen and it will be a transmission. Before arriving here, I was really mystified about transmission, not having a clue what it's all about, feeling that it was rather mysterious. After these weeks with Roshi, I believe I have received transmission several times over. And so have most of us who have experienced the transcendent on the Sunday morning of a Shalom Retreat. As I understand it now, transmission is Roshi’s capacity to hold – and my capacity to receive and hold – the energy of the transcendent, the non-dual state, without returning to a dualistic state prematurely. Alistair calls this feeling “swoopy”, especially when referring to being in love. In Roshi’s presence, I am learning to call this a new perspective that aligns me with wisdom and compassion.

I’m ready to go home. Looking forward to it yet not wanting to “be there” until I’m there. I’m still got being to do here. Time is precious.

With love from,
The Dual-ble Girl

“It’s All Gorgeous” *

This past weekend, our good friend Joyce Harvey-Morgan joined us in Utah. We hopped in her car and headed south to Moab which is smack dab in the desert. It has two national parks right beside it: Arches National Park and Canyonlands. There have been many times here that I thought “it doesn’t get better than this”. The past 24 hours topped that. (Roshi’s going to have to work very hard to top this!)

Many people have told me of these experiences in the desert. Nothing prepared me for the wonderful beauty of it. The fact that we only did the usual tourist hikes didn’t trivialize the incredible experience of all of it. After looking at the photos I took, I realized that the shots can’t express the magnificence and magnitude of it all. Only have the 360 degree experience can do that.

Even so, paltry digital photos will have to do. See the slideshow at left for a sample; click on the static image to see larger photos.

Arches National Park and Canyonlands couldn’t be more different. And they are within the kissing distance of 30 miles of each other. Arches consists of a relatively flatland with this soaring towers and naturally formed stone arches (apparently a hole in the rock wall has to be 3 feet big before it’s officially called an arch). One of the arches, Delicate Arch, is particularly famous and graces Utah’s license plates.

Canyonlands is the beginning of the series of canyons that moves southwards and eastwards into Colorado, and turns into the Grand Canyon. We went to Dead Horse Point and walked the rim, an easy hike of 6 miles all along the rim of the canyon. The views were extraordinary into the canyon 2000 feet below. The canyon walls revealed 7 layers of earth, representing 275 million years of the earth’s history in that area. The Grand Canyon exposes 2 billion years of geological history.

Alistair and Joyce kept teasing me because I frequently asked “how long do you think it took to create [the arch, the boulder, the pinon tree, the river bed, etc., etc.]. I was rather fixed on time because I loved putting me (and humankind) into perspective. But instead of feeling insignificant, I felt like I was a part of all of it. And I absolutely loved knowing that when my bones are nothing but dust that this beautiful, spectacular, wind and cloud swept panorama will still exist. That’s if we don’t completely blow up the environment and ourselves before that.

And what a place to experience the non-dual! When we first arrived, we took an easy 1 mile hike down a canyon with towering walls, called Park Avenue. I tried to take in my surroundings, the likes of which I had never seen before, and it was altogether too much. Too much sensory input, too much to hold all at once. Reminded me of the first time that I walked into Toys R Us and had a near sensory meltdown. This was much bigger. I think that’s why, in part, it’s hard for us to live outside of dualism – it’s too big to hold. Or rather, we’ve progressively and systematically shut ourselves down to the nondual as we grow up, so that we can just manage to get along without blowing our circuits on a daily basis. And then, eventually, we have to re-learn how to shift back into the non-dual, intentionally and with focused awareness. It’s definitely do-able.

That’s it for today. The home stretch of the final week is already happening. The more hard core facilitation practice is happening and everyone is bring on board the Healthy Competitor. Bring it on!

* This is a direct quote from a guy who, after a 2 minute walk to the rim & back, was heading back to his RV with is generator and TV. He ought to know!

Boredom as The Way

Zen is an intensely first person practice. Sitting on the cushion, over and over again, referring back to the self. Or, to be more accurate, the No-Self.

Being aware of being bored these past few days has opened many doors for me. I’ve been having great conversations with folks about boredom and being bored and I’m discovering that many people are having a similar experience. So at one level, the experience of boredom is part of the overall retreat experience. It’s a collective hitting the wall and going deeper.

I’ve been having feelings of “is this all there is” and then grudgingly coming to accept that this is it, this is my life. I am the common denominator wherever I go. I am the meaning maker of my life. I am the one who experiences joy, anger, pain and everything around and beyond that. I bring the world into existence every day.

But it isn’t even I. It’s the awareness behind the ego-I. In a recent teaching, Roshi was using the metaphor of a tea cup for us/the ego. As the metaphor progressed and morphed inside me I could feel it turning into a teacup with no bottom, immersed in the flow of the ocean, just becoming a conduit for awareness. That’s where boredom is taking me. It’s becoming the path. This doesn’t feel like a terribly exciting discovery, actually. But it does feel like a huge relief to see clearly.

The state of non-dualism is becoming a familiar place to me. What’s more, I’m finally learning language for it. At Shalom and on retreat, we’re in a non-dual state often, mostly accessed through the heart. But there’s a tendency to treat it like, poof! surprise! we’re here! and no one really can tell us how we got there exactly (although there definitely are methods) and we mostly language the experience as God appearing.

Here, I am dropping myself into a non-dual state for hours every day. It’s starting to become a familiar feeling that doesn’t have any of the poof! feeling to it at all. At first, I feel a huge sense of relief simply to be in the non-dual state. It’s not like any of the screwed up parts of my life have disappeared, but I am in a larger, expansive state that holds everything – including my screwed up parts. Only in non-dual, it’s all really okay just as it is. I don’t even feel the need to do anything about it, because it has its own perfection, it just IS. But as I continue in the non-dual state, this “it’s all okay” feeling begins to feel like radical indifference. And that’s very uncomfortable because (once again!) I’ve got this concept that I’m supposed to feel loving all the time. I believe that this is the ground giving rise to my boredom, even disappointment. Paradoxically, the non-dual Big Mind state is offering me a profound sense of responsibility in a state of being where there are no rules.

Moving into Big Heart, which is just as big as Big Mind but is the feeling aspect of it, feels like a relief. Whew, all of a sudden I care again. In Big Mind there’s no need to do anything at all, just be. Big Heart moves me back into the world and action once again. But one isn’t better than the other. They’re literally the yin and the yang of one particular state of being. Big Heart is the state of Kanzeon, Kuan Yin. Big Mind is the Buddha just sitting there. But for me to choose one over the other is just insanity, because that would be to deny a very important part of myself.

To switch gears here, Alistair and I have a fun weekend lined up. Joyce Harvey-Morgan is driving in from her home town of Boise, Idaho to join us for the weekend. We’re going to head out to the desert near Moab – maybe go to Bryce or Arches National parks. It’s been almost 70F lately and down to around freezing at night. I hear that the desert has even wilder temperature swings than that. So I’d better bring my woolies.

I’d like to close with a wonderful quote that Jim Hession posted to the blog today (thank you, Jim!) – it’s a good touch stone:

"The great affair, the love affair with life, is to live as variously as possible, to groom one's curiosity like a high-spirited thoroughbred, climb aboard, and gallop over the thick, sun-struck hills every day."

The Voice of Boring ..... zzzzzzzzz

I really love writing for this blog. I want to thank everyone who’s been tagging along and sending me wonderful comments, sharing your experiences with me. I also want to specially thank Gerry Rumold for loaning us the laptop we’re using for big chunks of time every day. It’s been a huge gift. Thank you!

This week we’re moving into the more serious space of actually doing facilitation with one another in small groups of 10. This has intensified the whole experience for me, even while I'm beginning to feel the excitement of the "project" of Big Mind wear off.

I'm starting to feel pretty ordinary being here as I settle into the routines more deeply: wake up, meditation, breakfast, work hour, free hour, teaching & practice, lunch, free time, afternoon with Roshi, dinner, zazen or teaching

I'm bored. I started feeling bored a few days ago. On top of it all, feeling bored catapults me into worrying about not being engaged in the process. I feel sleepy during meditation and I yawn even when Roshi’s facilitating. It’s really true what they say: wherever you go, there you are. I think I’m coming face to face with myself. I bore myself.

This afternoon, Roshi facilitated the Voice of the Sexual Pervert again. A collective groan went through the group. I interpreted the groan as “oh no, can’t we move on from this, we’re bored with this one by now”. Alistair interpreted it as “oh, no, not again, we’re uncomfortable.” I guess I know what I was projecting.

Still, my boredom made the afternoon stretch into an eternity. Every time I thought Roshi was finished with the voice, he’d just start into another aspect of it. Then I spent some time feeling guilty that I was bored. All the reasons started colliding in my head: I’ve come from across the country to be here, I moved my life around just to be here for a month, not to mention spending a lot of money on this training, etc., etc. Being bored just doesn’t fit in with my idea of how I should be: an industrious, attentive, good little Zen student. All bright-eyed with enthusiasm, sharing frequently and openly in the group. But that’s just not my reality.

But isn’t that what Zen is all about? Not having preferences of one thing over another? (Or is that just another idea I’m trying to shoehorn myself into, one that fits in with my particular view?) Zen is definitely not about moralizing one way or the other. But that one flies in the face of my recovering fundamentalist Christian background, one that preferences good over evil. Or at the very least, good behavior is supposed to reward me better than if I am bored. Gratefully, in a conversation with one of the monks this evening, he validated me, saying that it’s okay for me to be bored. That maybe this voice is fairly integrated in me. That makes sense to me. Maybe that’s why doing corn starch massage at retreats bores me stupid. Been there, done that. I don’t even need the t-shirt. I’d rather wash my hair.

Deeper down though, what I secretly fear is that I’m missing out on something if I’m busy being bored. For instance, I’m admittedly attached to awakening. What if I miss the moment of awakening just because I’m bored?

On the other hand, what if I just give myself a break and admit that yes, every single moment of my life is precious and awakening can happen at any moment. Even when I’m not looking. Even when I’m bored. Maybe even because I’m bored. Now wouldn't that be a trip? That makes me laugh!

The Third Party Rule

Alistair and I had Date Night the other night. (Let me tell you, it’s not an easy thing to do with a houseful of people and the bathroom right next to ours. I found myself wishing for the privacy of our beloved Quonset Hut where we can make noise.) We usually start out with a check in, letting go of anything hanging on from the day, including any pesky resentful niggles. We try let go of anything that might come between us. What we want is intimacy with each other.

Awhile back, Alistair and I came up with only one hard and fast rule for date night, which is the Third Party Rule. We discovered that when we’re together in intimate space and we wind up talking about someone else, then the intimacy and the positive energy between us drops like a stone. After invoking the Third Party Rule, we also notice that the intimacy gets more intense and more pleasurable. The trick is to catch myself doing it, because talking about also feels pleasurable. Some call that negative pleasure; I call it dishing.

To use the 3-2-1 of Ken Wilber (3rd person, 2nd person, 1st person) -- a very handy guide -- talking about (3rd person) something or someone else rather than from myself (1st person) is an energy killer. Intimacy goes down the toilet and I’m engaged in something else. Instead of intimacy (just another word for process) opening up between me and you, it starts to close down.

I’ve noticed this seems true for the Big Mind process too. When we speak as the Voices (1st person), the power of the process increases dramatically and I’m right inside it. “I statements” are pretty much the name of the game. Just the opposite is also true. When I don’t speak as the voice, instead I’m offering an opinion, a tasty piece of scholarship, debating with another person, I’m talking about something (3rd person). If other people do this too, then the group starts to fray at the edges. We start to look more like a bunch of chickens scratching around competing for their feed. It’s fun but not terribly intimate.

Last Friday, Diane did a bit of superb facilitation. (Now I’m speaking about, so let’s see how I do.) The group started to debate, opine and pontificate on the subject of Buddhism. The group cohesion was starting to come apart. Diane (who is an extremely gifted facilitator and hangs out mostly in the emotional subtle energy realms), stopped the action. She named it and then asked to speak to the Voice of Complete Peace. Click! the group came back together. Then she asked each person to offer their perspective -- just one -- on what they know about Buddhism. What emerged was an incredibly moving sharing of each person’s intimate experience of Buddhism. Speaking from the non-dual state brought clarity and intimacy to us again. Not to mention less squabbling.

When I’m in a non-dual state, it’s hard for me to speak and put language to what I’m experiencing. This is a VERY familiar, and frustrating, feeling for me. It happens most often when I’m hanging out with the mystics at home. Diane’s skilled teaching is helping me to put language to the non-dual experience and to see it less as magical and more as ordinary. It is state that is easily accessible to me and I have definite feelings that go along with it that I can express in words. Some good words include bliss, everything’s okay, I AM, vastness, deep space, peaceful, no boundaries.

But even the non-dual has positive and negative aspects. The positive side is bliss, the cessation of all my disturbing feelings like anger, jealousy, fear, etc. It’s just IS-ness and so it seems almost silly to say anything more. The negative side is a kind of lethargy, apathy, dullness. What’s the use of doing or saying anything since in the ultimate reality of all things it doesn’t really matter?

Roshi is helping me to move beyond the non-dual, to the apex position that both integrates AND transcends the dual and the non-dual. From the apex, I have the flexibility and wisdom of acting, feeling and choosing the dual and/or the non-dual. Roshi encourages me to move past the non-dual as soon as I’ve got a taste of it because it can be highly addictive. And it’s just another way to get stuck.

Sitting in the apex position gives me the maximum flexibility, allowing for all my feelings, allowing me to act and express verbally, as well having the hawk’s eye view of Oneness. I am intimate with myself, Alistair and others.

the Path of the Human Being - Part 2 - the 5 Stages

1. -- AWAKENING

Here we experience an opening, kensho (Japanese word for awakening). This might happen only once or repeatedly. Here we catch perhaps a glimpse, or an even more clear experience of our true self, that life as we know it is not exactly as it appears. But instead, we have a profound realization, a knowing of the inarguable truth that we are The Way. But as time goes on, we discover that we are no longer in the state of awakening, that it is no longer an immediate felt sense state of being. Instead the experience of awakening fades into a memory that we find ourselves constantly referring back to. After this, we are possessed by a strong desire to make this a 24/7 experience and we set out on a spiritual path to make this spiritual state a permanent way of being. But yet we’re firmly removed from the experience. This presents dangers for those of us who teach spirituality because we’re teaching about awakening in the 3rd person rather than having a 1st person experience of it while teaching. We begin to fake it until we hopefully make it.

2. -- SURRENDER AND SUBMISSION

This is a lengthy process of letting go of old concepts, beliefs and opinions; the ways in which we think it ought to be, should be, might be, rather than relating directly to a felt lived sense and relating to that. In the course of this path, we may submit and surrender to a teaching or a spiritual path. We receive many new teachings and gather new ideas and concepts. But as we aspire to be truly spiritual people, good people, we begin to disown all the qualities that we consider to be unspiritual. For instance, really spiritual people don’t get angry, aren’t egotistical, aren’t depressed, etc., and so we disown these qualities and relegate them to the shadow. We’ve become even more distorted and one-sided as we try to return to the awakened experience and to be “spiritual”. Shadow work becomes more important than ever during this stage. Roshi says that the majority of us are in stuck in this stage, and that it can take many years to move through and beyond it.


Stage 3 – GREAT DEATH & GREAT LIBERATION

Any doubt about who you are is completely gone. This stage is also called Supreme Enlightenment. All concepts are entirely gone and we are living in direct contact with reality. This is also called Buddha Mind or the absolute. We feel that we have entirely been successful in eliminating the self or the ego. It feels incredibly free and a tremendous relief; but it is just another trap. We might find ourselves saying things like “I don’t feel anger or pain anymore”. But this is because now we’ve completely and thoroughly disowned the egoic self. To others, we come across as impersonal and condescending but we don’t see this. Very few people make it beyond this stage because the pseudo peacefulness is highly addictive. If we can see the trap of it, we must consciously choose to give it up.

Stage 4 – FALL FROM GRACE

This is an experience of great disillusionment. The ego comes back in full force with all its disowned emotions. But because we thought ego was gone long ago, all our filters are also gone and we have nothing to protect us from feeling the full experience of all of our emotions. What’s even more painful is that we not only do we feel our own emotions, but we also feel every one else’s. It is a time of deep despair where everything seems pointless. At this stage, the task is to completely own all our feelings, positive and negative, and to consciously choose to feel them and not disown them yet again. This is where we can work with the emotions in a tantric manner.

5. -- THE HUMAN BEING

This is the stage where we consciously choose to be a human being and to embrace the ego as an important aspect and embrace it consciously and completely. This is where we fully integrate as being human. Here we have the ultimate flexibility, to feel, to own and to experience the entire spectrum of human emotions. Very few people make it to here. It could take years or even lifetimes to accomplish.


All of this reminds me of one of my favorite stories about Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Notorious for showing up late at his own lectures, he strode into one gathering, already speaking as he entered the room. He said that the spiritual path is a very arduous one. If you haven’t begun as yet, you might want to reconsider. But if you have already begun, it’s best to finish.

The Path of the Human Being - Part 1

I’m going to try to convey the teaching that Roshi gave last weekend. It’s a brilliant bit of dharma teaching that I think some folks might enjoy. But because it’s somewhat long, this will be a multiple posting. I’m going to try to condense it without losing the flavor of it. So I ask for your patience.

What must be understood is that first and foremost, Roshi is a Zen Master, and as such, his major interest is in transmitting the dharma and finding ways to make it accessible. That is why he is so invested in the Big Mind process. Big Mind looks and sounds like a voice dialogue tool. But that’s where the similarities end. Big Mind is a process to both teach the dharma AND to give people direct experience of the dharma. In the hands of a skilled facilitator, the Big Mind process has the power to awaken us.

Another important point to keep in mind is that the range of voices generally fall into 2 categories: dualistic and transcendent. Traditional voice dialogue primarily works with the dualistic voices, the psychological identities that we are more familiar with and work with during a mat trip, e.g., the victim, the controller, the protector, the damaged self, the innocent child, etc.

When working with the dualistic voices we discover that we are actually engaged in is a process of shadow work, integrating our disowned voices. We also discover that we are using our own life force to suppress and disown these voices because they’re too painful, too uncomfortable. So freeing and owning these voices releases vital life force energy that becomes available to us. This, in an of itself, is extremely healing, allowing us to live more freely in our lives and the world. All of us have had a taste of this freedom on the mat.

But when we switch to the transcendent voices, here’s a whole different ball game. We are then engaged in a process of awakening these voices within us. They are not disowned, they simply have never been opened up before and have lain dormant. That’s where it gets really exciting. Quite literally, the Big Mind process is a practice of enlightenment, helping to fast track us through these stages.

That last sentence probably sounds very big.

I’m learning all kinds of things as to what enlightenment is. It’s been refreshing to be part of a group that speak of it so openly and candidly, as something completely achievable rather than something magical.

Simply put, enlightenment is an experience of awakening that can happen quite out of the blue. One day you’re walking down the street just minding your own business, and then WHAM! you suddenly discover that you’re not who you thought you were. Such an experience can feel ecstatic or scary. But your sense of self has irrevocably expanded beyond what you now know to be a very contracted perspective of self. But we don’t have to rely on the unpredictable to wake up. We can also intentionally court it through spiritual practices such as sex, shamanism, meditation, extreme sports, asceticism, sensory deprivation, nature and certain drugs. Or Big Mind.

Our first experience of enlightenment is as a state of being. By definition, a state is an experience of something that is at first very immediate but fades away in time and becomes a memory. We find ourselves consistently referring back to to the memory of the experience. As the experience turns into a memory, many of us will set off on a spiritual path in an attempt to regain it, hopefully permanently. For most of us, this is the stage in which we find ourselves, and it can take many years to move through it, as long as 10-40 years!

Although these are called stages, they are not linear, although they are fairly sequential. Each person reading this will likely discover that s/he knows something about each one of these stages. That is because we have had a state experience of that particular stage, not necessarily have experienced that stage fully and have completed with it. And we can have experiences of one or more of these stages at the same time.

For those who want to have an experience of these teachings, I recommend purchasing and watching Genpo Roshi’s DVD of the same name. But nothing compares to being with Roshi as he takes the entire group through the experience of the teaching through the Big Mind process.

Tomorrow: the 5 stages of the Path of the Human Being

Gratitude

I look forward to reading Pat’s posts. They are so fresh and free-flowing- so immediate. A couple of times now I’ve sat down with the intention of producing something deep and insightful, but no luck. The harder I try the less that comes out. I know this place well from my time at school and even when writing retreat blurbs for the Shalom brochure - hours and hours of fiddling with words, willing myself to be creative. It’s torture.

One thing that is definitely not torture for me these days is meditation. We sit for an hour in the morning and sometimes for a couple more in the evening. Zen is all about letting go of the thinking mind and focusing on direct experience. The Japanese Zen term for this is shikantaza – “just sitting”. Not as easy as it sounds because the thinking mind never stops. “OK, I’m going to do nothing but just be here. No wait, wasn’t that a thought? I’m supposed to just sit, not think. OK, just try harder. That’s it. Now I’ve got it! Hold on, I just did it again. How about now?” And on and on.

In Big Mind, we work with some of the “10,000 faces" (voices) of the self by giving them a name and getting to know them. Not by thinking about them, but by being them. So now I sit in meditation and play at embodying whatever voices show up. It has transformed my practice.

Tonight I start with the voice of gratitude and think about the way that Terry, Shawn and Victoria have stepped forward, doing their part to make sure that Shalom Mountain continues. And suddenly, I’m there. My chest swells up and tears of gratitude pour down my face. For a moment, I find myself thinking, “What if I completely lose it here?” And then the thought drops away and I return to just being gratitude.

How fortunate I am to be here and doing this with Pat; to be discovering my own true nature; to witness others from around the world doing the same, all of us feeling the imperative of bringing our newfound discoveries to a world that so desperately needs it. To have the opportunity to experience this thing we call “precious human birth”.

The final bell rings. We bow to each other as the timekeeper recites the closing chant:

Let me respectfully remind you
Life and Death are of supreme importance.
Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost
Let us Awaken, Awaken
Take heed
Do not squander your life.

And we get to do it again tomorrow morning. It doesn’t get any better than this.

Hitting the Wall

It’s been a little over a week since we’ve been here and I’m starting to feel the usual retreat fatigue. I’ve got a cold and I had a fever last night (can I fish for some sympathy out there???? ). Alistair slept on the sofa in the living room in the early morning hours because of my congested snoring. This morning I decided to rest a bit longer and skip the Sunday morning talk, only to discover that the sangha house plays host to a Buddhist version of Sunday school. There were kids everywhere, running, yelling, crying, etc. Not much rest for this girl.

The Big Mind process has been running a lot of energy through this body of mine. It seems that I’m both clearing and breaking down. The best illustration of this was during the afternoon’s session when I kept slipping back and forth from the elation of I’m getting it to the despair of I ain’t fucking getting it. I kept falling in and out of the slip stream of the experience as it was unfolding. Honestly, sometimes I’d be listening to the conversation between Roshi and someone else and I’d swear that I was stoned -- but I wasn’t. It was just that kind of expansive, we’re-in-the-experience-here-but-there-really-isn’t-a-word-or-name-for-it-and-we-can’t-know-it-but-just-be-in-it kind of experience. As my dear friend Sharon Brain wrote to me recently, she wondered if pretty soon I wouldn’t be able to write any words other than IS-NESS. She could be right.

So it seems that having a cold is both breaking down my resistance as well as messing with my head. If I can only let go and hang out with it I might really “get” it. (The Voice of My Teacher says: there’s nothing to KNOW - it's unknowable.) I do know that when I let go, I feel soft.

In a few days I’ll write more about Roshi’s teaching on The Path of the Human Being that he did on Saturday afternoon. It was out of this world. His brilliance seems to come from the way he beautifully uses the Big Mind process to illustrate AND give an experience of Zen teachings. It’s absolutely incredible.

10,000 Voices

I've finally found the camera cable and I've discovered how to create and embed a slideshow for you here. After I did so, I realized that I've been so immersed in life between the sangha house and the zendo, that I don't have many pictures! But it's a start. I'll take more and post them later. In the meantime, I'm rather pleased with myself to have discovered how to do this. This can have all kinds of great possibilities for the Shalom Mountain website that I maintain.

Today was a great day with Roshi and crew. Today Diane taught us how to use Big Mind during our individual meditations. Alistair has already been doing this, so I decided to give it a try tonight during our meditation which was 1.5 hours long. Both Roshi and Diane keep emphasizing that if we want to learn how to facilitate Big Mind (and I do) that we/I need to learn these voices within myself very, very well. So the trick -- if that's what you call it -- is to do Big Mind dialogue with yourself, playing both the facilitator and the voices. Well, it was an incredible experience. I talked to a whole slew of voices, some of whom were very vocal, and others timid, more emergent. I discovered those who were allies to one another, those who were saboteurs. I also knew when I had a transformative conversation with some particular voice, because my body responded with released energy in the form of heat and sweating. And no, they're not hot flashes! -- remember, the zendo's cold.

This coming weekend Roshi's offering a workshop called The Path of the Human Being. To Roshi, the truly transcendent being is the human being, not the Christian transcendent perfection dream that I used to know as a former born again Christian. So I'm more than a little intrigued.

I've put the slideshow on the left hand side bar. I'm adding pictures to it regularly now.

The Roshi Rides a Harley

Very cool. Every afternoon Genpo Roshi roars in on his Harley motorcycle to teach. Then he walks into the zendo in black t-shirt, black sweater, jeans ripped at the knees and black motorcycle boots. How cool – and sexy -- is that. I just realized that he, and Diane Hamilton, are the only ones who wear shoes in the zendo. (I guess enlightenment has its privileges.)

Yesterday afternoon began with a bang. Even after 2 days of listening to the Voice of the Boaster, the group wasn’t finished as there were at least 20 or so people yet to speak. And I was steeling myself to face yet another afternoon of listening to 10-20 minute long soliloquies by the Boaster. Mercifully, Roshi cut the Boaster short and moved on by asking us to speak as another voice.

The voice he asked for sent freaking out waves through the group. He asked to speak to the Sexual Pervert. I laughed out loud. As a long time leader of erotic retreats, this is one of my favorite subjects, the topic of many a meal conversation. It used to be my karma that no matter who I was with, within 10 minutes we’d be talking about sex, sexual histories, sexual preferences, sexual scary places. So I was really interested to see how this would all evolve. I was also curious to see what points of further resistance I might have to speaking in this voice.

First Roshi explained that he wasn’t asking us to speak about our sexual perversions per se, it’s just that through using this name repeatedly he’s found that the word “perversion” carries a very big energetic and emotional charge. And that this charge acts as a suppressor of the life force energy behind it. At Shalom we frequently speak about how our culture has a deep and painful split between sexuality and spirituality. Roshi added to this subject by saying that when we came into incarnation, integral to the process of incarnation was the creation of this split. Part of the little game of forgetting that we play with ourselves in our search to rejoin with our true nature, oneness, unity, or whatever similar term you care to use. This is a very Zen-like reflection, which is always turning us from a subject-object relationship to a subject without an object relationship. Far from theoretical, it is the repeated experience of union.

Before people could speak with the voice of the Sexual Pervert, the Voice of Fear made a big showing. In fact, Fear almost became the voice of the afternoon, that’s how much it needed to speak on the subject. What I heard was that if the Sexual Pervert were allowed to speak, then its small-s self, the personality, might act out without any limitations. That made the whole prospect very dangerous. Others, myself included, were afraid of being judged for their sexual acts or even for expressing that they liked sex – that was me. The Voice of Fear made for a very high and intense energetic in the room.

When Fear had said enough, the Voice of the Sexual Pervert began to speak. Very hesitant at first, still wary, there were several painful experiences that were revealed and held in honor. Eventually, when the experiences were expressed and opened up, the voice gained in strength until there was much laughter and kundalini experiences happening throughout the room. All the trapped energy was being released and people were enjoying themselves, the movement of the sexual energy through their bodies, and the relief of being able to speak aloud and be witnessed.

Sound familiar? Very Shalom-like.

Then in one very dramatic moment, I witnessed Roshi in his most masculine aspect as he worked with a man to release him from the bind of a parental figure. Shouting at him in one powerful burst, “NOW!”, the man freed himself from the parental figure with an incredibly powerful samurai-like act. It was like witnessing a seated mat trip.

I am quickly coming to admire Roshi. At Shalom I live with two of the most incredible and loving active listeners that I know – Joy & Lawrence. In Roshi I have met someone equally skilled and compassionate. When I watch him and feel into him, he feels as open as the air all around us – no resistance at all. He receives and affirms through his very being. Yet, when needed, he has that powerful and decisive masculine presence that cuts like a knife. Throughout, I sense an incredible depth of compassion in him. It is not personal, though; he’s not our friend. He is a beacon and teacher for those of us who wish to awaken. Quite literally, he wants our liberation.

I’ll end here by quoting a chant that we do at the end of evening zazen.

Sentient beings are numberless, I vow to save them.
Desires are inexhaustible, I vow to put an end to them.
The Dharmas are boundless, I vow to master them.
The Buddha Way is unsurpassable, I vow to attain it.

Of Big Mind and Cold Butts

I think that Alistair’s Muse is still jet lagged, so I wanted to write a bit more.

The morning is dark and chilly as I make my way from the sangha house to the zendo. The houses are right next door to each other; the path is a series of stones set into the front garden to avoid the extra few steps to the sidewalk and back again. In this short path I already feel a tranquility in the setting. But because it’s cold AND dark, I’m feeling grumpy. The cold doesn’t lessen by entering the zendo. That’s because it’s not heated. Ever. So I start practicing letting go of expectations, repeating to myself “be content with whatever arises”. Great practice but I’m still freezing my ass off.

I go up the stairs into the darkened zendo. There is nothing but a single candle on the altar, giving soft light to the space. There are several people already there, seated on their cushions. Some of them are civilians like me while others are monks dressed in traditional robes. But all of them are sitting still and the pervasive air is one of deep focus. But if they're like me, they're listening to an endless internal chatter like snow on TV.

I bow to the altar, I bow to my meditation bench and bow to my companions before I seat myself. As I sit down, I notice that the window behind me is open. I silently curse and let go once again. There’s a lot of letting go in this business, it seems. And I’m still freezing my ass off.

As we sit, the light outside the windows brightens as night transforms into day. The metaphor isn’t lost on me.

Yesterday afternoon, after much anticipation, we finally met The Big Man – Genpo Roshi. Not one for preliminaries, he launched into one of the voices of the Big Mind process. He asked us each one of us in turn to come up to the front and speak with the voice of The Boaster. All of us newbies have been asked to sit at the front, and so we spoke right away. What came out was almost exactly like telling our stories at a Shalom Retreat. People spoke of all the glorious as well as the painful places in their life. Only this time, they spoke of the painful places with pride and a sense of accomplishment. Some people bragged outrageously. Some people told their story quite simply, giving themselves permission to boast about important parts in their life for the first time. It was great community building.

And there are remarkable people here. Many of whom speak with the same voice as I hear at Shalom very often, about how this process – and, often, Genpo Roshi – has changed their lives. Many feel that the practice and the zendo are home.

There’s the monk who came to Kanzeon at a time when he was ready to kill himself. Now he is still a monk but has left the monastery to marry and have a child, the which has equally completely changed his life. Now he calls himself the greatest bodhisattva ever.

There’s the woman who was named several times over as THE extreme skier in North America. Now she runs a ski instruction school informed by zen. It’s already received rave reviews in the major ski magazines.

There’s the man who had a peak experience in the Himalayas and is here to try to understand what happened to him.

There’s the man whose awakening caused his life to fall apart. He’s excited by having the tool of Big Mind to help others to awaken.

There’s the woman who is a life coach and exhausted from giving to others and struggling to know her own boundaries, and hoping that Big Mind might help.

There’s the MTF who is as brilliant as Ken Wilber and with a new body.

Last night, a woman sitting next to me in zazen passed out and several of us helped her out of the zendo and into the helping hands of paramedics.

People’s lives are front and center in this process of awakening. I am quickly learning that it is, as Roshi says, the path of the human being. He says that our ordinary mind is our awakened mind, we just don’t recognize it. That makes my conceptual mind (not to be confused with the thinking mind) screech like a banshee, yet my body feels a profound sense of relief.

And me? I’m here to keep waking up. I, too, am excited to find a tool that gives people an experience of awakening. I've been crying with gratitude to find something so easy yet profound, that comes seated in a solid foundation of a practice and lineage.

I am considering taking refuge by the end of our time here, and coming back on a regular basis to study with Roshi. I am coming to a knowing that Roshi is my teacher, something that I’ve shyly suspected for a few months now. I am going to have a conversation with him so that I can look directly into his eyes, see the clarity of him, and feel him with my entire being.

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.

Heading to Big Mind Soon

So, here we are. T minus 3 weeks.

We're going to Salt Lake City, Utah.

What's in Salt Lake City?

Genpo Roshi and the Big Mind (Big Heart) process.

Roshi is located at Kanzeon, which is a Zen monastery. Roshi himself is a Zen Master.

About a year ago, Tom Goddard brought the Big Mind process to Shalom Mountain, where he offered it at the Men's Gathering in Sept. 06. During this time, Alistair had been getting more deeply involved with the work of Ken Wilber, who is kinda brilliant if I may say so. He's doing some major work for the planet, that's for sure.

Then Alistair and I ordered the Integrated Life Practice kit, which is a personal practice that covers all the important areas of your life -- physical, mental, emotional, shadow work, spiritual -- and a few more that I can't remember! Although we weren't terribly successful in "integrating the integral" model to our life here at the Mountain, there was something else that came with the kit that really caught my attention. That little something was a DVD of Roshi facilitating the Big Mind process for 3 hours.

So one night, while Alistair was off doing something else, I watched it by myself. It completely blew me away. I saw in front of my very eyes an incredibly skilled master at calling up the transcendent voices within me/us. Not only that, he was a consummate active listener: hearing, seeing, honoring. He affirmed everything that came out of everyone's mouth. And this encouraged all the voices to continue to show up, to say who they are, what they do, how they feel. If any resistance came up, Roshi dealt with it with a quality of completely openness and patience.

I just knew that I had to show this to Alistair. In turn, he was completely blown away by Roshi. And that all resulted in us being here with a flight reservation for Salt Lake City, and acceptance into the Big Mind training program.

Then last night we listened to Roshi's latest CD of Big Mind. In what is now becoming a frequent experience, we were again totally blown away. In what seems like a relatively brief time to me, Roshi has managed to both simplify and make elegant this process of transcendence, this process of awakening. He's now managed to accomplish in 15 minutes what he did previously in his DVD of 3 hours. As the process of transcendence is awakening and growing within him on a daily basis, it is increasing both in breadth, depth and clarity. My hope is that as Alistair and I continue to immerse ourselves in this process, that Big Mind will become a stronger and more consistent presence within us, speaking through us on a consistent basis.

Once you've seen or participated in the Big Mind process, you are likely going to ask: can it be this simple? Unequivocally and without hesitation, I say: yes. Big Mind/Big Heart exists within us already. It is the larger S-self that we speak of so frequently. And it is only a moment away, and just for the asking. And we no longer need anyone else to hold the S-self for us besides ourselves!

Introduction to Big Mind by Genpo Roshi

Because Big Mind is actually a process of emerging consciousness, what you are about to view represents Big Mind's youth. For something more current, check out Roshi's latest book and CD that accompanies it.