Moved

I will keep this blog as long has I must, but you should know it has moved to globalized scholar. Sphere: Related Content

Receiving the dharma name

i'll have more to say about receiving a dharma name after it happens, i'm sure. my head is still swimming from the meditation retreat this past weekend. Zen Master Jeff Shore provided instruction on the ox herding pictures, which you learn about when you develop a meditation practice. the pictures represent the various stages that a practioner will progress through en route to enlightenment. his lessons were helpful, and i shall return to them once i've had time to process.

i want to write a little about receiving the dharma name this coming saturday. i came to practice through recovery. it is advisable that once you leave something as pervasive as a reliance on drugs and alcohol behind, you must understand that you cannot live by your own will. i'll sidestep the larger philosophical argument about the will to power because it's truly not helpful here. and when you live a spiritual existence, as jeff shore indicates, you cannot live entirely by your own devices.

i have always looked for the answer that would help me feel whole. i have always felt like other people knew things that i didn't. the truth is that most people didn't have an answer that i lacked. some were full of bull. others simply knew what i am now struggling with - there is no balance, no stability. the only way to begin a spiritual path is to understand this fact and to trust. trust that the spiritual path you have chosen provides a method for dealing with this instability.

in buddhism, the answer is so simple that it continues to elude me in painful fashion. just when i think i have it, i don't. it's incredibly frustrating for the western mind. at what point do i find myself? my ego is simply a construction that provides a method for adapting to and surviving in this world in which we live. and that construction will vary from culture to culture. my buddha nature never changes. and we all have one. we are all buddhas. unfortunately, this construction - my ego - has superceded my buddha nature. like the ivy that grows all over everything here in pennsylvania, my ego has covered over my buddha nature. suffering arises from my ego attaching to states of mind that serve my ego. this suffering dissipates when i begin to understand this.

so i have been meditating for over a year. i began prior to recovery, but like most delusions, the spiritual bliss dissolved fairly quickly. because my committment to the sangha and development of spiritual practice is valued, the sangha will provide me with a new name on saturday. this name will be won hae-sang. won means ultimate truth, and hae-sang means star of wisdom. as i develop my practice, i will serve as a star of wisdom for the world, providing balance especially in my scholarly endeavors.

my american mind is screaming in absolute terror. my buddha replies, "there is no absolute terror, so there is no need to scream." when i wonder what it would be like to be enlightened, i look at people like the Dalai Lama and Eckert Tolle. these human beings have used their wisdom in a manner befitting stars of wisdom. i am grateful for the name, for the opportunity to change, for the friends whom i have made, and for my life. i hope to shine brightly, remembering the Lojong slogan, "Abandon all hope of fruition." Sphere: Related Content

as happy as i want to be...

it's been warm in philly, finally, i guess. the weather has been unseasonably cool this summer. i decided to hike again. it was difficult to get up this morning. i've been having some funky dreams. i suppose my mind is cycling through some junk because it's been a menagerie of people who have passed through my life, weird situations that i never to be in, and other pictures of weirdness. i'm just a little too entertained by what's going on to wake up. but i did. and i was out of the house by 8:30 a.m., which is good for me.

as i walked, i thought about my last post. one of the main purposes of the post was to explain my catharsis about being happy. however, the post took another direction. i felt somehow dissatisfied with this. i've received different signals that most people weather difficulties when they adjust their thinking. listening to npr the other day, i heard an interview with barbara bradley hagarty talking about the science of spirituality. while i think she wanted listeners to read and determine their own beliefs, she spoke about people whose spiritual experiences were simply too uncanny. one woman spoke about how she thought about her illness, and rather than viewing it as an obstacle, she viewed the illness as a learning experience. click here to listen to the story.

this story wasn't the only place i heard this message. when i spoke with rev. minju, she also indicated that we have a choice. we have a choice about how we think about the situations in which we find ourselves. we can choose to think that everything in our lives is happening to us, resisting and fighting it. or we can choose to accept it, and to think positively about it. her words echo what you hear when you work on your sobriety, a quote by Abraham Lincoln: "Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be."

my week ended with a dharma talk on Saturday morning. meditation practice helps you to adjust your thinking about life. the woman who gave the talk compared meditation to taking a vacation. practicing stillness provides us with a way to calm our thoughts. when we calm our thoughts, we begin to see with clarity. she used the example of the oak tree. if we imagine an acorn that falls into a clearing, we might also imagine that it grows to be a sapling, with growing leaves and roots. but as the sapling grows, weeds and other trees might also move into the clearing and compete with the sapling. they might also deprive the sapling of necessary nutrients. but the sapling doesn't complain. it doesn't feel threatened. it simply continues in its silence.

so i continue in mine. this week will be busy. i will go to the temple on tuesday to listen to a master speak. on friday and saturday, i will attend my first meditation retreat, conducted by jeff shore. on the 29th, i will receive a dharma name from won buddhism. while these are perks of attending such a great sangha, the stillness that i find in meditating has helped me tremendously. Sphere: Related Content

hiking in the rain

i was going to begin this post with the quote, "life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass; it's about dancing in the rain." However, in the search to find the author, i realized how overused it is. overused or not, though, it reflects what i have learned over the past couple of days.

my life has been difficult this year. there is no doubt about it. but i have been reminded several times that it doesn't matter what life throws at me. what matters is how i respond. and in the face of making a couple of difficult decisions, i chose this morning to take a hike through Wissahickon Park. Wissahickon is part of a larger park system in Philadelphia called Fairmont Park. Those with even a passing familiarity with Philadelphia should know it. It's either a reminder that large urban centers can preserve parcels of land for green space, or for it's more notorious reputation as a place where young women shouldn't go alone. And of course, without knowing recent news of attacks occurring in the park, i went alone.

i am always surprised when the universe reminds me of why i need hikes like this. in order to start my hike, i needed to make it across a bustling thoroughfare, Bells Mill Road. It's difficult because you can't necessarily see the oncoming traffic in the right lane until it whips around the corner. as i waited for an opportunity to cross, cars on one side stopped but as i waited for traffic in the other lane, a women who decided to whiz by saw me and proceeded to slam on her brakes. i wasn't in her lane, mind you. i was in the other lane. she stopped because she saw me in the corner of her eye and clearly wasn't paying attention to anything but her own universe. she proceeded to roll down her window and bitch me out for not crossing the bridge - with no shoulders - to cross at the stop signs.
i had a little trouble letting this situation go at the beginning of the hike. i was frustrated with this woman. i hadn't walked in front of her car, she hadn't been harmed, and clearly she flew of the handle. it eventually passed but i realized as i was walking back to the car something i hadn't realized at the time of the incident. the crosswalk. i hadn't been paying attention either. i was simply wanting to cross the street; i hadn't noticed the worn white paint on the road. the yellow signs, however, should have stuck out to me. both the driver and myself were not in the present moment.

once i shook the incident, the hike was great. the ground wasn't too soft. the Wissahickon creek murmured beside the path. as the hiking trail cut away in a different direction, the murmuring subsided, and the rain pelting the leaves of the dense canopy of trees remained. at a number of places were tiny creeks where the water had carved a path. and my mind really kept returning to the ideas of change and impermanence.

impermanence. trees grow, they live, and they die. in several areas, fallen trees remain. often across the path. sometimes across the small creeks that flowed next to the path. sometimes just off in the distance. and i could make speculations as to why those trees perished. the important note is that they have a cycle. just as ideas have a cycle. sometimes they are present as my mind functions, but my thinking can continue even with the obstruction. sometimes i have to step over them, as they obscure the path ahead. and seeing them in the distance, far from the trail, i am reminded that while they are not what they once were, they remain a part of the landscape. each time i hike, though, i observe them as being. just as i should with thoughts.

it is difficult to explain to others who do not have a meditation practice why it's important NOT to label or describe. when i reflect upon the past year, it's easy for me to let the story play on and on in my head. i review all those situations where i felt powerless or cheated. all of the emotions return and i revel in those emotions like a pig rolls around in mud. and i take those emotions and those thoughts, and begin to place them into neat jars that are clearly labeled. but in the Buddhist tradition, we do not do that. we begin to observe these emotions, thoughts. rather than thinking about them, i simply learn to watch them as they rise and fall. like a tree, each thought, each emotion has a cycle.

as a meditation practitioner new to the path, i began to understand that i had been using breath awareness to bypass much of my emotional baggage. rather than letting it in, i simply pushed it to the side. my tendency has been to take the situation apart, as i mentioned above. to analyze. to categorize. and that's really not what Buddhist meditation is all about. it's about acceptance. i sat down the one of the ministers of the temple, and explained what was going on. and she told me a story.

when she began her practice, she was much like me. she wanted to analyze and label. she had a complicated process. but one of her teachers simplified it for her. the master related her actions to finding a book in a dark room. you try to remember where things are so you don't trip; you pull down books to find the book you are looking for. you go through a lot of trouble to find a book in this dark room when all you really need to do is turn on a light.

it's so simple that i can't wrap my mind around it. as emotions and thoughts arise, i should just let them in. eventually through this process, my understanding of my own mind will be that these emotions and thoughts will arise less often. as i understand my true Buddha nature, i will behave differently. i will also learn to understand that these emotions brought about by memories are not real. they are simply residual, left over from a situation that has passed.

a tall order indeed. as i proceed with my practice, i will keep these things in mind. i have been changing with the meditation practice; my reactions to situations are much different than they once were. i'm kind of stubborn, so i have to hear things over and over again. it's like the hiking trail today, though. once i know and understand it, i will benefit more. what a glorious realization to have! Sphere: Related Content

musings, et. al.

i haven't written for a while. i've been trying to figure out some things in life. some deal with school, some deal with being sober, and some deal with family. with the advice of a friend, i have begun simply to write short snippets here and there. with the advice of another friend, i have been trying to breathe life into ideas about what types of activities make me happy. she told me to make a list of four things.

the list reads like a ridiculous bucket list, only i know there are more things than just these to do before i die. these are things that i can do that have nothing to do with academics or teaching. nothing to do with family. these are things that might bring joy to my life, to help me feel connected to my emotions, to help me find balance. i've been at a disadvantage financially, so the going is slow. but today i took a small step.

i went to fort washington state park, meandered down one of its hiking trails and took some pictures. nothing big. just enough to see what the trails were like and to get out of the house for a little while. i needed time to process some things. the same friend who suggested i just needed to write also instructed me to read A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf.

it's getting late, and i will write more later. but one thing jumped out at me as I read the first chapter: "One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well" (p. 19). i have struggled the past few months with money, filling out applications and wondering about how all of this adventure in education will turn out in the end. these hardships are not only about money, though. i have struggled to find my way, almost like a salmon swimming upstream to spawn. the road to self-discovery is an important one, i feel. however, the small catharses along the way are painful sometimes.

it is difficult - to say the least - to hold onto resentment about realizing myself as ill-equipped when I reflect upon what the legacy was. if poor, women's work involved telephone operator, waitress, or sales girl at a department store. maybe factory work. domestic help. if you showed promise or if you came from "good breeding", your prospects were only slightly better. and in the ambiguity of the role, the women in my family settled nicely into their expected roles. they did so often with disdain or acting out; yet they remained seated and quiet. so why am i to hate these decisions, when i lack so much of the context in which they were made? and why did so much confusion cloud their decisions about me, i can probably guess. has not the circle come round and am i not now positioned to become what i always wanted to be?

albert bandura theorizes that human beings learn in many different ways. and one of these ways involves vicarious learning. without expounding too much upon his ideas, i will simply leave you with this thought: what we know of the world often comes from watching how others behave in certain situations, contexts, and relationships. as a result, we can learn in situations in which a word is never uttered. the simple brevity of action leads us to understand all we need to know, for better or worse. Sphere: Related Content

because i should be sleeping, meditating, or doing something else...

besides reading, i've spent a great deal of my time lately thinking. and not the comfortable thinking. it's been very fuzzy, very "i feel uncomfortable with the ambiguity" thinking. this state of mind partially relates to my school work. for detailed descriptions of my readings click here. the long and the short of it: i'm thinking about who i am and where i am situated in the world.

as a buddhist i suppose i should simply be. but many have told me the road to englightenment and ultimately buddhahood is paved with bumps and pitfalls. the road resembles America's infrastructure: it hasn't been tended to in quite some time, and maintenance now will cost more than if it had been maintained properly. but this maintenance, however painful, is absolutely necessary.

part of these thoughts that have occupied my mind for sometime include childhood memories, memories of my parents, and memories of coming out. some of my childhood memories are pleasant, and some are not. and i will no doubt write more in the future. it's the coming out part that bothers me at present. while bothers implies irritation, i alluded to my feelings in the paragraph above. i am irritated but not by these memories. the resultant fuzzy ambiguity is what is bothering me.

i have grown up with many, many people who mitigated my experience, or the experience of gays and lesbians in general. The most innocuous example would be telling me directly or indirectly that dating in the glbt community is JUST LIKE straight dating. And for a long time, i bought these ideas hook, line, and sinker. i didn't buy them because i believed them. no, far from it. i bought them because it was easier to do so. trying to convince people became too much of an uphill battle.

coupled with that fight, you had me and my ill-fitting social skills. my first reaction was always anger. and i'm not sure if i wanted to address the issue, i knew how without chucking a large piece of furniture. it's easier to break things; they can be replaced. people, well, that thought speaks for itself. even if i had the voice, i had no idea how to use it properly. without turning myself into a pathology too much, i was basically a primal scream and fit of rage. and i didn't know how to change that.

what i know now saves my life on a daily basis. because i have begun to identify when to speak and when to hold my tongue. i'm not perfect, but i am getting there. when i speak, it's because i know i can say what i need to in a manner befitting the context. when i hold my tongue, it's because i now understand it's better to happy than right. it's a situation where screaming just won't change anything. i believe, for example, that when the Civil Rights Movement successfully guided this country to codify freedom and equality for Blacks, the organizers did not think the battle was won. They understood the much more difficult feat would be finding respect in a system that privileges white males over all others. i do not believe overturning Prop 8 or passing legislation will make people respect us more. but it is a faulty assumption many of my gay students make.

my gay students are so open that it would be impossible to shove them back into the closet. and they are happy to be out. but much like viewing the spectable surrounding Ellen's outing, my feelings about their outness in relation to my closetedness revert simply to fear and anxiety. i become tongue tied. i feel shame for not living at the same level of outness. it is through this shame i begin to become painfully aware how much i have simply dismissed or repressed for the sake of not rocking the boat.

gay dating is not like heterosexual dating. the relationships are not the same. the problems are not the same. i'm not sure how a straight person could begin to draw this conclusion without walking in my shoes. we grow up watching straight couples on television, straight couples privileged in school, privileged in every aspect of society. and when it comes to me learning about other lesbians, what works and what doesn't, my partners and i, my friends and i, the glbt community begins to imagine this for itself, ourselves, myself. we must come out every time we meet someone new. and we must wonder in our minds if we are safe in doing so.

i have also been outted in a very different way, and the situation itself did not feel safe at all. i recently came face to face with what it means to be a woman. and it was a similar situation. a situation arose where someone said something inappropriate. and i somehow managed to keep my cool. but the situation disturbed him greatly. he inquired if he was in a safe space, if he could not speak his mind. but his subtext was very much: i can't say those things HERE any more, meaning he spoke them somewhere else with no blowback. the situation was resolved but not before i watched the situation and how i acted reconstructed in front of me without having the voice to initiate change.

voice is important here because there are many ways to stifle the voice of human being; marginalized people know this all too well. two of these methods have become crystal clear lately. as a youngster, i was discouraged from voicing my opinion. this discouragement came in the form of physical or mental coercion. as both a female and a lesbian, these were powerful lessons to learn. the second method that was all too effective included public humiliation. for some time i have thought about my coming out story for many reasons, and one of them was the fact that my first coming out story was traumatic for me.

i told three of my friends when i was in the seventh grade (at a Catholic school in Oklahoma, a predominantly Southern Baptist state) that i had fantasies about girls. "i think i'm gay" was my phrase. the subject beyond this phrase was not brought up again. not by my friends, my teachers, my family, nobody. but slowly kids in my class began to recede. slowly, gradually so that my ring of friends was tremendously small. i became depressed. i had difficulty getting out of bed. i remember going with my family to a reunion and i stayed in my room for a large portion of that. it never occurred to me that i was suffering from depression.

but the method that silenced my voice also spoke to and about my affective states. my justifiable anger was rage; my depression was self pity; my feelings of worthlessness were just stupid. nobody attempted to find the root. i just received criticism. or at least that's how i remember it now. so i began spending a lot of time alone. i would take long walks. i spent time down at a record store on cherry street. i had a walkman, and i had earphones to block out the outside. i climbed into my head and started on a path of self-indulgence and disconnectedness that has been difficult to turn around.

i also spent time at the local waterpark. i would go for a little bit each week. just to swim or do whatever. sometimes people would talk to me. sometimes people would not. sometimes they would sit, giggle, and point. they did not try to hide their scorn or contempt. nor did i try to hide mine. i would just flip them off. but one day, the laughter and scorn from afar actually turned into confrontation. a group of kids from school - this was summer break, and up to this point, i had had a lot of friends - began teasing me. just a couple. simply mocking me for being alone.

"so you don't have any friends?"

"how sad is that?"

"are you going to cry?"

i would assume it took the form of bullying that many parents are shocked and saddened to see on the Internet or at their kids' schools. but the mockery precipitated into a much more serious situation. before i knew it, there were 10 to 15 kids and they were calling me a dyke. calling me ugly. calling me pathetic. sick. disgusting. throwing things. pushing me. all the way through the park. all the way out the exit.

when i visit the idea of coming out, whether i want to or not, i inevitably come back to this situation. i remember attending meetings of the glbt group at oklahoma state, and one of the meetings involved the members telling their coming out stories. i don't remember saying anything at all. and listening to each story made my heart break a little more. not because i felt overwhelmed with happiness for my community members. i felt sadness because my story did not resemble theirs.

we can talk about the similarities for all of us, and the coming out story is one of those. however, we must constantly remind ourselves that not everybody came out, is out, and feels happy and comfortable in their own skins. quite the contrary. the most unfortunate thing that i find among younger gays and lesbians is their lack of compassion for those who have not ascended to the same level of comfort and security in their own person. in speaking for our community, we must account for this difference. it is the one thing that can truly provide a safe space, to enable those with no voice to speak and provide an example for those who cannot speak when those of us who have gained a voice speak to the world. Sphere: Related Content

finding refuge in home

so today i was able to meet the new reverands who have been rotated into the glenside temple. i was sad when i heard the reverand with whom i felt a strong connection was leaving. but i guess the situation provided experience and understanding about detachment. it is probably a wise thing to rotate ministers, especially in the united states where we tend to attach to everything.

the new minister and i did not have a chance to speak directly. i had some errands to do, and i have a great deal of reading. she was busy chatting with other members of the sangha, and i felt like i would be able to speak with her another time. but i thoroughly enjoyed her dharma talk today.

she rotated into the glenside temple from houston, texas. i am excited to get her impressions on texas. so often transplants in texas have interesting reactions to their environments, including the people. one friend of mine told me that texans believe they reside in a whole other country. they are typically a strong-willed, obstinate bunch. i think that's why i have an affinity for them. so she lived in texas, before trading places with my first meditation teacher, rev. sa. i do hope rev. sa has a safe journey to her new home.

which was oddly enough the topic of the first dharma talk. the reverand openly admitted she was nervous, even though many of the sangha members remember her from the won institute. sometimes old things seem like new things when we are placed in front of strangers. anyway, she talked about hurricane ike. as ministers, they leave the comfort of their home to build anew. entering into priesthood provides a new home. she said as the storm approached, she thought it safest to remain at the temple. she was afraid, but considered the temple her "home" - a place where she could find refuge. it was only then she realized her home was not made of walls, did not have the won symbol, the circle, was not something that could be destroyed by winds.

her home, her true home, was her buddha nature. she discovered to overcome her fear, to find safety from the storm, she needed to turn inward to find refuge. i thought of times when i had watched the news or read newspaper articles about unfortunate oklahomans who had lost their homes or loved ones to tornado. or those in missouri who had lost their homes to the raging waters of the missouri river as the levies broke. some just shake their heads, cry, and talk about losing everything. there are those, though, who typically feel relief. they might have lost their homes, but they are alive. and as such, they feel gratitude. these curious creatures understand that what is lost materially can simply be rebuilt. they feel no attachment to material objects, and simply understand one simple axiom. everything will be okay. typically where i come from, those who understand this place their faith in a power greater than themselves.

if i understand, the new reverand understands that feelings of fear are like the material of the temple, like trees, birds, and even whining cats. they change. they have a life. they eventually pass away. her refuge, though, was something that is eternal. rather than placing faith in her mind, she placed her faith in no mind.

i thought a lot about what she said. this week has been difficult for many reasons. i have a great deal to read for my comps; i haven't heard back from the newspapers at which i hope to continue an ethnography; i am worried about passing my exams, of speaking at MIT in April, of finding summer employment. i am angry because i feel slighted and looked over as other phd students receive classes to teach. my feelings of fear, jealousy, worry, etc. all have lives of their own. they come into existence, and then they pass away.

this week in feeling these feelings - rather than remaining mindful and letting them pass away - i played in them. Entertaining them with different endings, giving them power as i allowed them to play and replay. what i should have done was recognize their existence and let them pass, awaiting a time when i could sit quietly and understand them. it was a difficult week because my ego had a field day, and i made it more difficult than it needed to be. next time, i will remain both present and mindful, knowing i have a much greater shelter from these transient, emotional storms. Sphere: Related Content