Zen Person

Zen Lessons 2025 4 23

Sprung! watercolor on paper, 2025.

Spring in a bamboo grove,
damp air, the fibers squeal.

Gunshots in the early dawn,
the stalks grow another half yard.

A thousand years of roots,
even war in winter can't knock you back.

The bleak starving summer
feeds you dust, yet you droop only a little.

Morning and evening, you shelter little birds,
who sense the hawk above, and hear the dove beside them.

In southern China the bamboo grows so fast each Spring that the membranes sealing off each section of the stalk pop explosively as the older, woodier sections squeal with new growth. To be honest, I’ve only heard the squeals. But bamboo is useful, raucous, difficult to manage, almost indestructible, and serene. It is like true Zen practice.

It is also super invasive, so I will be turning to willow as my primary metaphor, ha ha.

(-)

The other day I joined a cohort of folks from the Brooklyn Zen Center for a “sewing retreat”. It was the introduction to the long process of sewing the rakusu, the brownish panel of fabric that hangs from your neck and over your chest that is very typical of Japanese Zen.

For a couple years now I have been studying regularly with Doralee Grindler Katonah to stabilize my Zen practice after leaving my former Buddhist order. Several months ago I began precept training with Charlie Korin Pokorny, a teacher at the Brooklyn Zen Center. And now, I am readying myself to sew with Sarah Dojin Emerson. I feel very supported on this part of the path.

(-)

I am grateful that the Soto Zen tradition, which emphasizes meditation somewhat more than Shim Gum Do does, gets us started on this path by having us do something with our hands. After years of sword forms and sword performance being the primary expression of Zen, making something to wear feels right. Sewing is so down to earth, so everyday. I now am noticing the stitching of my clothing and feel a little bad having taken it all for granted. All this work that went into my clothing and I’ve barely noticed it at all. This is living in dreamland!

For two years now my expression of Zen has been my writing, painting, gardening, family, clinical work, Zen Sword, and of course, meditation. I try to take nothing for granted in those realms… and when I find myself doing so, I am a little ashamed and feel the need to do much better, to be more aware and receptive, and to be gentle.

(-)

When my teacher Chang Sik Kim died it was obvious to all who cared to see that the order was in no shape to continue without serious reforms. It was also clear to me that I would have no role to play in those needed changes, so I wrote out the concerns I had about ethical practices, financial management, and care for the legacy of our teacher. This was not received by the abbot in the spirit I had distantly hoped for and my teaching credentials were immediately revoked. I subsequently resigned. I expected all this. Nevertheless, my heart hurt. I did not know what my next steps should be. In a sense, I was homeless. Which is why I sought out Doralee as a teacher.

(-)

A grey winter heron
lost her mate in the winter storm

Spring has softened the creek banks
with green shoots

Crayfish and trout fry dart among the rocks.
caddis hatch and flit in the sunlight.

She flies low along the stream
wide-winged and silent.

Her silence is a form of fasting
as she seeks her new home.

(-)

For the next few weeks I am going to try to articulate two matters: an exploration of the early and halting first 15 years of my practice, that is, the period previous to my teaching formally; and I would like to relate these experiences to the way in which Community Zen can support the mental health work at Counseling Confidence and the Experience Studio.

I hope my experiences prove helpful to any of you on such a path. It is a crooked one, but it goes many places.