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Send your address corrections to the Zen Bow Subscriptions Desk at the above address or email [email protected]. relationships Zen Bow : Relationships volume xxxvi · number 4 · 2013-14 Zen Practice as Relationship Work by Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede 3 Living With Me by Allen Broadman 9 Finding Our Way : Marriage and the Precepts by Susan Rakow 11 A Real and Intimate Relationship by Dale Goldstein 14 Parting Ways by Jane Xhilone 18 Relationship : A Losing Proposition by Allan Whiteman 21 From Indra’s Net Earth Vigil · Buddha’s Birthday Celebration 27 copyright © 2014 rochester zen center co-editors : Donna Kowal & Brenda Reeb ❖ image editor : Tom Kowal cover : Danne Eriksson proofreading : Chris Pulleyn The views expressed in Zen Bow are those of the individual contributors alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Rochester Zen Center, its members, or staff. Andy Stern Zen Practice as Relationship Work roshi bodhin kjolhede When 20-year-old Sonja (now Sunya) Kjolhede When we take up a Zen concentration prac- was working on Mu in 1970, it was the pre-emi- tice, such as the breath or a koan, we enter a nent relationship in her life. She was so engaged relationship. It is a relationship like no other with Mu that she would sometimes find herself because no ‘other’ is involved. Yet daily medita- making it stand in for the love object in song tion will clarify and enrich all our ‘other’ rela- lyrics she was hearing. In popular songs on the tionships—with spouses, partners of every kind, radio and in department stores she would hear friends, co-workers, family members, neighbors, ‘I love you … ,’ ‘I want you … ,’ ‘I long for you and teachers and students. It has this alchemi- … ,’ and in her mind it became directed to Mu. cal power because in meditation we are engag- After several 7-day sesshins she consummated ing the basic issues at the root of all self / other her relationship with Mu, and as a Zen teacher dynamics. It’s not surprising that the rewards for the past twenty years she has been spurring we realize in meditation will be reflected in our on others to do the same. (Sunya-sensei, one of other relationships. my sisters, is co-teacher at the Windhorse Zen The work involved in a breath or koan prac- Community, located near Asheville, nc.) tice demands above all that we reach unity with 3 the practice—or rather, that we see that we’ve the transition from hearing about meditation to never been apart from the breath or from the es- practicing it—from reading, say, an online pro- sence of the koan. So it is, too, with our partner file to making it a face-to-face experience. in a romantic relationship. Although all rela- Now, how does a seeker know whether the tionships require enough harmony for the par- Dharma, in particular, is a good match for him ties to relate, in romantic ones the element of or her ? At his introductory workshops, Roshi unity is most highlighted. Without a sense of Kapleau used to tell the story of a young man oneness, love can’t get started. who went to a rabbi and asked, ‘How do I find Zen practice is the practice of intimacy itself. the right woman for me ?’ The rabbi paused, and Over time we discover that to experience the then replied, ‘It is more important to be the right world unmediated by thoughts is to experience one than to find the right one.’ our indissoluble oneness with it. Hakuin cried If our affinity with the Dharma is ripe, we’ll out, ‘I am the sun and the moon and the stars find it. But then are we ready to engage with this and the wide, wide earth.’ And it all begins with new partner in a way that is more than casual ? our work with the breath, with Mu, or with any It depends on how unsatisfied our earlier dalli- koan. ances have left us. Some people enjoy a variety Long before finding Zen, we are in the mar- of partners too much to settle down. They love ket for intimacy. To be human is to long for novelty, sometimes for many years at a stretch. connection, even if some of us show the oppo- Such dabblers would do well to consider the site inclination. This reaching for connection is warning implicit in these words from the In- our True Nature seeking to know itself, turn- dian tradition : ‘If there is water ten feet below ing away from the illusion of separateness. Most ground, you can drill all the wells you want that people, it seems, respond to this call the only are nine feet deep and you’ll never hit water.’ way they know—by seeking a partner, or at least Whether a seeker is exposed to the Dharma conceiving of the ‘other’ as a woman or man. at a Zen center or through personal reading, it’s Fortunate are they who recognize that relation- the tenor of the tradition she’s responding to at ships are most likely to thrive when grounded in first. This means the body of forms—the out- the self-understanding acquired through medi- ward structure, the vocabulary—and the style, tation. Without this foundation, every partner- or ‘wind of the house,’ as the Japanese say. If ship sits on the fault line where self-concept and these ‘relations’ don’t rub us the wrong way, we other-concept meet. This face-off then gives may take the next step. We’ve met the family, rise to projections and false perceptions of every and though the initial practice we’re given by an kind. instructor is not of our choosing, we’re willing to In working on our particular practice we are meet with it over coffee a few times. We shake really working on ourself, with the self. This hands with it, and what happens next no one is the quintessential relationship, so it’s bound can predict. to reflect the dynamics of a loving relationship It would push the ‘partnership’ metaphor too with another. far to suggest that this new practice could get It’s rare to initiate a new practice relation- one’s heart racing the way a budding romantic ship blindly ; most of us read about it first, if relationship can. After all, it’s like an opening only on the Internet. We come to practice hav- assignment, the standard first step in Zen. The ing already done some window-shopping with instructor is a matchmaker of sorts, and what the mind-body methods that are out there (a comes of this pairing depends on our ability to kind of spiritual version of scanning online dat- focus. The more attention we can bring to the ing sites). We know that something is missing breath, the more interesting this new partner in our life, and we want relief. We’re ready for becomes. It’s really all in our hands. an awareness relationship. The test comes with As with any relationship, we come to practice 4 toting our share of baggage. But unlike in other Soon enough into our work on Mu, we find relationships, our partner in this practice, the that it seems to have a mind of its own. We breath or koan, brings no baggage of its own to want simply to merge with it, but it remains the relationship. The sitter has only his own en- apart. We mentally grasp at it, thinking that if cumbrances to deal with. Yet how complicated we just try harder, it will be ours. Still it eludes we make this relationship ! us. Unable to have our way with Mu, we become Those without experience in meditation may frustrated. Why should this be so hard, when we imagine that it lifts us to ‘higher’ states—to the sense that this new partner, as the matchmaker bright, pure realm of the spirit. And it does, had told us, is essentially our own self ? eventually, but usually not until we’ve passed Koans were devised, in ancient China, as the through the fear, pride, frustration, and other most direct route to Awakening, and only when shadows cast by the self.