To Live Deliberately

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

Thoreau went to the woods to live deliberately, I went on retreat for the same reason. There is something special and different about going on a residential retreat. You get a taste of what it might be like to live monastically. You sleep, eat, bathe, go to the bathroom all in a retreat setting. You go to sleep on retreat and awaken on retreat. Every year (since 2009) I go on a multi-day retreat for Rohatsu, the commemoration of Buddha's enlightenment. I've been home for about two weeks now and I thought it might be nice to share a little bit about what that experience is like, for me at least.

So, why did I fly to Atlanta in 2009? Why did I take a week off that year and then at least a day off in 2010 and this year in order to spend multiple days sitting on a round cushion, in silence facing the wall? It's hard to describe to someone who has never meditated but two things you find as you sit is that 1) the longer you can sit the better and 2) it's hard to sit for long sessions (many hours) on your own. The "container" of the regular retreat schedule (sit, walk, sit, walk, service, breakfast, break, sit, walk, repeat with maybe a dharma talk in there for 3-7 days or so) helps to support your meditation practice like nothing else. Having that regular schedule and spending your entire day and night at the zen center in general silence allows you to get deeper into meditation than is typically possible outside of that retreat setting. This year, I went on retreat to live deliberately for the same reasons that Thoreau went to Walden Pond. I wanted to move through my life, waking, sitting and eating mindfully, as free from distraction as possible, in order to connect with what it means to be alive. In brief, that's why I went. That's why I take the time off work and why I bought a plane ticket back in 2009.

Once you commit to something like a 3 or 7 day retreat, what is it like when you get there? It takes a little while to settle and get used to the simple life at the center. For me, the first time around especially, I had to get accustomed to living in cumminity with 5 or 6 new people. On retreat everyone has a job and we all have to help each other to keep both in the practical sense (keeping the dishes washed and the bathrooms clean) and in a spiritual sense by maintaining the silence and honoring the practice. Being a rather independent person, it took me a day or so to get used to people cleaning up behind me (make sure you mark your tea cup if you plan to use it again! On a zen retreat, if someone finds a mug, they'll wash it) or I'd bristle when someone would greet me as I tried to maintain silence. I've definitely loosened-up around these things since then but it did take a little getting used to for me. The other thing you'll notice during the start of a retreat (especially if you're new to extended meditation) is the pain. The pain in your legs and back may seem terrible at first but with time on the cushion, your relationship with that pain will shift and soon the pain simply won't be a problem. This can be a blessing and a curse because once the pain is no longer an issue, your mind takes over and that may be (probably will be) much more difficult.

As the retreat goes on, as you learn oryoki, learn how to keep the silence, something starts to shift. I can only speak for myself but I've found that, on retreat, once I've removed all the distractions of life, I'm able to find that elusive sense of contentment in the simplicity. I'm able to connect with that sense of happiness that is always available once you strip away the distractions of life (and yes, this includes work and TV and family and loved ones). Without all of the trappings of life, without all those things we hold on to, what is there? What's underneath? Living your days on retreat allows you to experience what's there all the time. It may not be all contentment and happiness. Maybe you'll find deep rooted neuroses or fears that you've tried to hide in normal life. On retreat, you start to get to know yourself a bit better, warts and all. I've found myself falling into dark, mean mental places on retreat... even as my outer expression remained peaceful and meditative.

I think this has already gone on a little too long but I just wanted to try and express a little part of what's like on a residential retreat and to encourage anyone who may read this to try it, at least once in your life.

Quitting

A few weeks ago, I heard a Freakonomics Radio podcast about quitting. Specifically the upside of quitting. Quitting is something I've struggled against all my life. Some people seem really good at quitting. If they don't like something, whether it be a hobby or a job, they just quit. Not me. I tend to stick with something I don't like doing way past the point when the "sunk cost" becomes unreasonable. You could call it commitment, you could call it tenaciousness or you could even call it stubbornness. Whatever it is, I just don't like to quit. I know I'm not the only one. Our culture teaches us that "a winner never quits and a quitter never wins." The culture conditions us to "stick with it", even when it becomes clear that whatever "it" is, "it" is no longer working for us.

So, in the spirit of practice, I've decided to quit this little experiment a bit early. Rohatsu is coming up soon so I'll be on retreat and unable to post. Rather than trying to find some trick to make sure posts go up on the day's I'm on retreat or sneaking a post or two using the iPhone, I've decided to simply quit and leave it here.

I like to think that everything in life can teach us a lesson, if we're open and willing to learn. I think I've learned my lesson from this little blog-a-day experiment and so I'm willing and able to walk away happily, without regret. I'll continue to blog when I feel inspired to do so; I've got a few drafts in the works that I hope to finish up. But for now, I think it'll be nice to remove my little "reminder" to post everyday. It was fun but it's time to move on.

Tea

They say that Bodhidharma spent nine years in meditation, gazing at the wall. Seven years in, he is said to have fallen asleep. Angry with himself, he cut off his own eyelids so that he could never fall asleep again. As his eyelids hit the ground, the first tea plants sprung up; "and thereafter tea would provide a stimulant to help keep Chan [or Zen] students awake during meditation." [1]

Of course this is all just a legend but as it turns out, I was first introduced to tea during Zen retreats. Sure, I'd had some Lipton tea as a youngster and I used to chug down cans Diet Brisk at summer camp but generally I thought I didn't like tea. As it turns out, there was an entire world of tea out there that I knew nothing about and my perception that I "didn't like tea" was simply short-sighted. So for me it started with green bagged tea served during retreat breaks and eventually I was introduced to full leaf tea by a coworker and my interest has sprung from there. There are a group of us now, at the office, who enjoy and share tea with one and other. We've all got our filter(s) and mugs of choice, we each have our favorites and the ones we just "don't care for" and we're always happy to share a sample with one and other.

Some may call me a "tea snob" but really I take a very chill, open minded approach to tea. The thing is, tea is something I thoroughly enjoy. In fact I really don't see any down side to tea, it's both enjoyable and healthy, what more can you ask? My approach to tea is simple: sample as many varieties of tea as you can, find what you like, buy it... then sample more. I've got a lot of tea stocked, some loose leaf, some bagged, some black, some green, some white, some oolong and some herbal infusions that aren't even tea at all. I've got a little bit of yerba mate, a little bit of chai and a little bit of rooibos but I'm always open to try a new variety. As it turns out Seattle - and the Northwest in general, I had great tea in Portland - has quite the tea culture. For me, the Northwest Tea Festival was a fantastic experience. Not only could I sample tea from a wide range of vendors but I also got to experience a Chinese tea tasting for the first time. Needless to say, I came home from the festival with my reusable shopping bag full of tea.

It's really the season of tea right now. On these cold, rainy, dark days, it's quite the joy to hold a warm cup in your hands and sip the tea of your choice. I don't care if it's just regular old Lipton or the finest organic pu-erh from China, as long as you enjoy the tea you're drinking, I'm all for it. In fact, I think I'm going to put my kettle on and have some good old Sleepy Time, right now.

"In All Activities, Train with Slogans" - The Food Rules Edition

I happen to be a big fan of Michael Pollan. His work helped me to look past the ideas of "nutritionism" (that our food is just a combination of macro- and micro-nutrients) so widely pawned in our society and to recognize the importance of food quality. I was first introduced to Pollan in the documentary Food Inc. That movie inspired me to start taking a closer look at what I was eating: what is food really? Where does it come from? What sort of food do I want to eat? What sorts of foods (or food like substances) don't I want to eat? Sure, if you want to lose weight, there are a myriad of methods out there that will work. You can take your pick of low carb, low fat or low calorie and each one will work if you truly commit to it (and yes, endure some difficulty along the way) for a period of time. But after you lose the weight you may find yourself looking beyond simple macronutrient ratios (low carb, low fat) and calorie counting (low calorie) and asking yourself what food is all about. I know I did, I found myself eating a low-carb breakfast bar one morning and realizing that it wasn't really food. It all sort of hit me all of a sudden and I was inspired to change my diet to be more based on whole foods.

I went on to listen to various interviews and lectures given by Pollan and to read some of his written works including Omnivore's Delimma. In his famous New York Times article: "Unhappy Meals" Pollan lays out the philosophy that would later develop into two books: "In Defense of Food" and it's smaller, purse-sized companion: "Food Rules."

Pollan's basic philosophy is deceptively simple: "Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants." Food Rules then goes on to expand these three broad rules into smaller tips (slogans if you will) for eating. On this morning before Thanksgiving, I thought it might be a good idea for me to pull out my copy of Food Rules before heading out this afternoon for Thanksgiving dinner. I'd like to share a few of my favorites and to highly recommend this book to anyone interested in eating a diet based on whole foods, rather than processed food like substances. A few tips:

From "Eat Food"
"Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food."
"Avoid food products containing ingredients that no ordinary human would keep in the pantry."
This is one of my favorites: "Avoid food products that make health claims." When was the last time you saw a health claim on a vegetable?

From "Not Too Much"
This one may be tough for people: "Pay more, eat less." Sometimes the best, healthiest stuff costs a premium... I'm looking at you, grass-fed beef.
This one is for Thanksgiving: "Stop eating before you're full." To quote the book on this one: "The Japanese have a saying - hara hachi bu - counseling people to stop eating when they are 80% full." This one can take a little work, especially when there's tons of food around but I've found that I feel much better when I'm able to remember "hara hachi bu."

From "Mostly Plants" (aka: "What Should I Eat?")
"Eat animals that have themselves eaten well," To me this one means eat animals that have eaten the diet they evolved to eat. For fish, that means whatever they get in the wild, for chickens it's rutting around for seeds and grass and for cows it's grass.
"Sweeten and salt your food yourself."
And this one is really good: "Eat all the junk food you want... as long as you cook it yourself." Back in the day, having cookies or cake was a rare thing because you had to bake them yourself and anyone who has ever made cookies or cake from scratch (as I have) will tell you it's not a short or easy process; not something you'd want to do daily unless you were being paid for it. Now you can go to the store and buy 2 dozen cookies for $2.99, eat them all in a sitting and then go back for more.
Okay one more: "Regard nontraditional foods with skepticism." To me, that's a great starting point. He's not saying to never eat nontraditional foods but they do have to meet some higher bar. To quote the section for this one: "Innovation is always interesting, but when it comes to food, it pays to approach new creations with caution... It might represent an evolutionary improvement but chances are it doesn't."

So that's all I'll throw on here for today. I've shared 9 good ones but there are 64 total in the book, one per page so they're easy to skim through at the grocery store or at home. I recommend this book to just about everyone because it boils things down to nice simple phrases that are easily understood and recalled. They become easy little tips to help us navigate the bounty in front of us.

So, have a happy Thanksgiving but just remember: "hara hachi bu."

That Token Post

It's the day before Thanksgiving in the United States. I suppose I should be expected to write that token post. Maybe I should title it: "What I'm Thankful For This Year." It would be just like what we used to do in elementary school, a nice little tidy list to help make me feel good about my life. But that just doesn't seem quite right to me.

I visited the grocery store earlier today, as I often do mid-week when I realize I need a few things. Needless to say, the store was a much more popular place tonight than your typical Wednesday. It struck me, as I sat in the car, watching everyone scurry around in the rain, that tomorrow is just an agreement. We've all agreed that tomorrow is a special day, a day to connect with friends and family and reflect on what we're grateful for once again. But what if we didn't need a day to get together like this? What if we could be grateful for whatever comes our way, every day? There are people like this. I've met them. There are those who live each day mindfully, aware of and in thanks for everything around them. I'm sure they enjoy Thanksgiving as much as the next person but they also wake up each day and look at a flower, thankful for it's fleeting beauty.

This is part of what it means to be a mature human being. It's okay for kids to have fun listing off the things they're grateful for but I think that at some point, we start to realize that there isn't anything in this life that we aren't grateful for. As we grow older, we come to realize that we aren't separate from this world. We're completely supported by this world and every creature in it. Nothing we have is our own and so, eventually, you just have to bow down in thanks for everything you think is yours.

So, while of course I do love Thanksgiving and I actually think it's one of the few (maybe the only) truly good holidays we still have in this country, I think it should just serve as a reminder, a yearly "mindfulness bell." While the corporations have certainly tried, they can't quite commercialize Thanksgiving. How could they? How can you monetize the humble activity of giving thanks? Instead they focus on the rabid gorging of food and drink that typically occurs on the last Thursday in November and they've done a decent job of making money off this holiday. But I would urge anyone reading this to recall what this day is all about and to recall that tomorrow is no different from any other day. Will you take a moment next Monday to express your gratitude for this wonderful life?

Rehabilitation

I think I've written about injuries before... probably in my running days but I sort of like to just start up a new post without digging through my own archives. So, if any of this is repeated, so be it. I hurt my leg last week. I'm not exactly sure how but capoeira isn't all that easy on the knees and with the weather getting colder, injuries can happen if you're not careful and they can really sneak up on you. I'd felt the old familiar pain on the outside of my leg mid-last week and then Saturday, during morning yoga, something just kinda "cracked" a bit and I just knew, it didn't feel right.

I put myself on the DL and switched into "rehabilitation" mode. For me, physical training doesn't stop because of injury, it just changes. I've switched from working on my kicks and ginga to working the muscles and tendons in my leg with the goal to strengthen them and get them more flexible. Since I've had this injury before, I learned a bunch of physical therapy exercises from an actual Physical Therapist (PT) almost two years ago. So I didn't just make up some exercises to do, I've dusted those off and started working on them again. It isn't nearly as fun as playing in the roda but it's crucial work if I want to get back into it. I've also switched focus to the upper body and I can still work on some capoeira techniques that put less pressure on the knees and rely on the upper body.

I just finished a class on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. To be frank, I didn't feel that I learned a lot from the class. Sure I learned a few tips here or there but I guess I've just had an attitude of self-cultivation for so long that I sometimes forget that I'm not "normal" and actually a lot of people don't think about these sorts of techniques on a regular basis. Not to toot my own horn too much but most of the material covered in the class is just my normal way of operating. I only bring it up here because the 7th Habit is called "sharpen the saw." It's about continuous improvement. It's about taking dedicated time every week to work on self-cultivation. Covey breaks this down into four dimensions: physical, mental, spiritual and social/emotional. I liked to see them stress physical fitness right up there with mental, spiritual and social/emotional fitness. People have been known to neglect all four of these dimensions but for some reason the physical dimension seems to get dropped off the most, at least in my experience. People will read books and articles to keep their mind sharp, they'll keep praying to strengthen their spirit and they'll keep their relationships in line but their fitness and nutrition will be completely neglected until they get sick. At some point, your body just won't take it anymore. Maybe it'll be type 2 diabetes, maybe it'll be a heart attack but you can only neglect the physical for so long.

It would probably be easy for me to kick back, this week of Thanksgiving and just say: "I hurt my leg, I'm not going to workout" and then maybe I'd say: "It's Thanksgiving, I'll just quit watching my nutrition." I actually don't think that would be easy for me. I eat right and exercise because those actions support the life I want to live. The idea of quitting, in my mind, just leads down a road that goes to a place I don't want to go. I like being able to play capoeira and go on long hikes whenever I want. If I quit training, it would only be a matter of time before I wouldn't be able to do those things anymore. To me, working through my injury is just part of my training. I don't even really get too depressed about it any more. I know that by doing my physical therapy exercises, I'm working to get myself back up to 100%. The PT is a road that leads to I place that I want to go.  I suppose this is why Covey included physical fitness in his 7 Habits. A habit is something you keep doing, again and again... eventually without thinking. We often talk about bad habits but each one of the 7 Habits is meant to make your life better in some way. I think Habit 7 is key to this... that's certainly what I learned in the class and what I've seen in my own life.

Home

We've come to that time of the year when people from all over the country get on the road, headed for that place they call "home." It seems to be a proud tradition in the U.S., we even have songs about it. But, as is often the case, I find myself reflecting on what "home" really is and what the concept really means. Some say "home is where the heart is" and that's a perfectly fine sentiment but in a practical sense, your heart is in your chest. Okay, I'm joking. I understand the saying. Home is where you're emotional connections are. To use circular logic, home is where you *feel* like home. But, wouldn't it be nice to feel at home where ever you are, no matter your circumstances? This has been an aspiration of mine for years, to move through my life, feeling comfortable, capable, at home with whatever comes up.

I remember in my Special Training days, the Tai Chi practitioners would say that a "Tai Chi person feels at home where ever they are." They'd point out that Tai Chi was developed by farmers who would practice at home in their fields, rather than warriors who set out to conquer some distant land. To them, Tai Chi was a home-based practice that helped them feel at home where ever they went. I liked that idea immediately and it's stuck with me ever since. I had to admit, those Tai Chi people did seem more "centered," more "at home" than your average person. I've trained in Tai Chi myself and it does teach you how to move from your center. It also stresses the connection between the breath and the body as a whole, something I've also practiced with in yoga and in seated meditation, when no movement is involved. For me, learning to connect with my breath has helped bring me a bit closer to feeling "at home" where ever I go.

I think as you practice and get to know yourself better, you begin to feel more self-confident and at ease with any situation that arises. We recently had a guest Dharma talk by Koshin Christopher Cain from the Puget Sound Zen Center, a Rinzai Zen Sangha and he read a bit from the Record of Rinzai. Being a Soto Zen practitioner (largely by accident really) myself, I'd never read from the Record of Rinzai but after he brought it up I found myself curious so I found a freely available download copy and began to read it. There are several statements in the Record that discuss the whole issue of having confidence in oneself and recognizing that we're all no different from the Buddhas and ancestors. One of these statements speaks to this issue of being "at home" where ever you go and I wanted to reference it here. I think it may actually be more confusing to quote the line directly (this is Zen after all) so I'll paraphrase. It comes from part 11c if you're following along. In this line, Master Rinzai states that when you have come to fully know yourself, where ever you are is home. And so, I think this is one of my "goals" for practice: to get to know myself better through meditation and daily life practice in order to feel at peace and truly at home in this world.