#23 MINNESOTA NICE

The group for Sunday service at the Minnesota Zen Center was pretty large, about 70 persons, so the place is popular.   The group was very nice; although one of the members mentioned his intense hatred for others who don't call him back,  a passing thing we all do in one form or another, and that was refreshing.  

We launched right in to a 40 minute meditation without instruction; which can also be refreshing;  after all it's you and your mind, and so you might as well look at whatever is there without frills or even a guide.  As my favorite band sings "If you should stand, then who's to guide you?  If I knew the way, I would take you home."

Following the sit, guiding teacher Ted O'Toole gave a dharma talk on the subject of impediments to accepting love and compassion.  Don't we often exclude ourselves from care and concern, thinking perhaps "If I am hard on myself, I am putting others first," or out of some shame.   "We are not," said Ted, "defined by our worst characteristic/action/past."    Also, Ted noted that from a Buddhist perspective, we are always interconnected, and that this is not a philosophy, but a practice. 

Deep compassion is required, and perhaps compassion is the result of opening up to the fact that nothing exists independently. Ted led us in a Metta practice for all beings, including ourselves, urging us to feel the unconditional love we feel for and from grandma or pets or a friend with whom our relationship has not been too complicated.  

"Wear down the old story with a new story.  Take your place in the universe where you belong with all others."   Ted also referenced the poem below, a request by Thich Nhat Hanh that I personally cannot bear to fulfill: 

Poem: Please Call Me By My True Names
Autumn 2004

By Thich Nhat Hanh

Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow— even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving to be a bud on a Spring branch, to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings, learning to sing in my new nest, to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower, to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry, to fear and to hope. The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that is alive.

I am a mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river. And I am the bird that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

I am a frog swimming happily in the clear water of a pond. And I am the grass-snake that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, my legs as thin as bamboo sticks. And I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat, who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate.  And I am also the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my hands. And I am the man who has to pay his “debt of blood” to my people dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.

My joy is like Spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth. My pain is like a river of tears, so vast it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names, so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once, so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names, so I can wake up and the door of my heart could be left open, the door of compassion.