Buddhist Approaches to Desire

Buddhists recognize that the struggles of life we often get immersed in cause us to forget the truly awesome thing life is. They see the cause of our forgetting is our attachment to things while simultaneously trying to nail life down. They chose to renounce the clinging that causes misery in order to rediscover the bliss of letting go.

They follow the threads of desire that can reveal our basic awareness that in the letting go of attachment we discover freedom and the appreciation of life that results in loving-kindness. With loving kindness in our hearts compassion becomes the manifestation of our actions.

Tantric meditation that is practiced either as a contemplation or in the form of action, karma yoga, employs all our senses. We rediscover the beauty and majesty of smell, taste, sounds, sight and touch sensations that color our world. Combining all of these senses in images of radiant energy, symbolized in human form so we can relate to them better, the mind observes the attractions or repulsions in their ever shifting and ephemeral nature.

Consciousness has three aspects. There is an organ, say a nose, there is an object, perhaps a rose and there is an interaction we call smell. Knowing these three reveals the nature of experience.  

Using the duality of male and female as a metaphor for consciousness’s ability to perceive events we experience how desire can trigger clinging. If I am the male (organ) and she is the female (object) then the interaction is consciousness of gender. Consciousness of gender is an example of our sixth sense, mind.

The Four Stages of Tantric Practice

Traditionally tantrikas depict four stages in the process of desire represented by the male/female dance. In mapping this dance we also unveil the 9 emotions associated with the being that liberates themselves of attachment even while engaging in desire.

Stage one, Action Yoga, is the smile. Girl looks at boy, boy looks at girl and they smile. A smile is an invitation and an invitation opens the door of desire. Every woman knows a smile is an invitation and every man hopes his smile will be returned. However, a smile is distant. There is still a lot of room between them and us.

The second stage is called Relating Tantra and is traditionally depicted as the couple holding hands. The stakes have risen. It takes more commitment, more trust, greater investment and thus more to lose in this stage. Relationship is now on the table so therefore are our hopes and fears. Hopes and fears are rooted in habits and habits are rooted in attachments.

The third stage, Joining Tantra, is kissing and making out. We don’t do this with strangers. Intimacy, if it is going to happen, opens us to greater vulnerability and defenselessness. This degree of relationship gets under our skin as it were. We can be hurt and our core attachments are revealed. Because of this, not clinging here is a far bigger challenge than not clinging at Action tantra.

Lastly with Union Tantra (Anuttara Yoga) we are in full and complete contact that is symbolically depicted as sexual union. We are wide open to experience and not trying to hold on to it or its objects even for an instance but we are also fully committed and fully engaged. 

The path of tantra then is one of gradually revealing and uncovering ever deeper layers of attachment and clinging that we let go of. In union self and other disappear and we enter a liminal bliss and clarity untrammeled by separation and protectionism. In a sense we are no longer there – what Buddhists call no-self.

In meditation or karma yoga (meditation in action) we visualize this symbolic process enjoining our senses and desires to observe where we get attached (or repulsed) because of clinging to the most fundamental of desires. 

Our most fundamental desire, like Narcissus who fell in love with his own image and drowned, is our sense of self. The suffering comes as our need to defend or promote this ‘lover’ of ourselves is rooted in attachment and clinging and thus in essence is the source of all our woe.

Tantra gives us the tool to learn to love without attachment, engage without clinging to agenda, experience without trying to hang on, to live without regret or sorrow, and, in the end, to die smiling.

The Stages of Our Evolutionary Journey

Integral Evolution is a dynamic tapestry woven from several essential threads that Ken Wilber offered and others have expanded:

• Waking Up: It begins with a shift from the external to the internal—a transition that calls us to explore altered states of consciousness through meditation. Yet, awakening is not merely about blissful retreat; it is about inviting these inner experiences to enliven our everyday lives and support us to be of true service in this world.
• Growing Up: Our journey unfolds along developmental lines—from the raw, instinctual stages of infancy to the nuanced, mature expressions of self and morality. Each stage of growth, from the impulsive to the reflective, challenges us to overcome our old patterns and embrace higher levels of understanding.
• Cleaning Up: Integral work involves facing our shadows, the unhealed wounds of our past that still dictate our responses. By doing the deep, often painful work of shadow integration, we clear the way for genuine transformation.
• Showing Up & Opening Up: True evolution demands that we share our insights with the world. Whether it’s stepping into community practices or exploring multiple intelligences—kinesthetic, ecological, aesthetic—we learn that vulnerability and authenticity pave the way for collective healing.
• F*cking Up: Yes, mistakes are inevitable. But each failure is a call to learn, to recalibrate, and to keep moving forward. In embracing our errors, we learn how to learn, and foster the resilience that is essential for real growth.

Beyond the Cushion: A Collaborative Quest for Transformation

Many of us have experienced the paradox of profound inner realizations that seem to vanish when we return to daily life. Meditation is not a magical escape or a painkiller; it is a tool for bringing the radiant insights of the cushion into the messy, beautiful reality of the world. When we allow our inner awakening to inform every action—whether in our personal relationships or our collective endeavors—we start to see that the spiritual and the material are, in fact, one and the same.

Integral Evolution is not a solitary endeavor. It is a co-creation—a vibrant, evolving sangha where each member contributes to the collective energy. At Planet Dharma and Clear Sky we’ve built a community rich in lived experience. Together, we experiment, challenge, and support one another, creating a field of transformation that ripples outward. This collaborative spirit is especially vital in these turbulent times, where humanity stands at a crossroads and the need for new ways of living has never been more urgent.

The Call to Collective Awakening

As we navigate the challenges of our planetary history and the reality that we face together today as an Earth, Integral Evolution offers not only a personal path to awakening but also a blueprint for collective renewal. It reminds us that our individual transformation has the power to raise the bar for all beings, igniting a joyful, compassionate, and wise community. Through discipline, perseverance, and the willingness to let go of old attachments, we set in motion a process that is as profound as it is necessary.

When enough awakened beings come together it creates a powerful vortex of energy—a blessed Buddha field. Those who enter can feel that something is profoundly different. The bar is raised and people meet that bar. It’s a joyful bar, a wise bar, a compassionate bar.

In embracing Integral Evolution, we answer a deep, resounding question: How can we make our inner light shine brightly enough to transform the world around us?

May your quest be joyful, and push the edges of what is known. Welcome to the adventure of Integral Evolution.

I’ve been reflecting on Mastery recently, since our guru Qapel passed away in October 2024: I consider him a great Spiritual Master. What does that mean, exactly? Moreover, I also committed to continuing his legacy. So how does one become a Master? 

 

– Catherine Pawasarat Sensei

Master Pieces

This may have been clearer a hundred years ago, when the apprentice-journeyman-master system was more common.

While driving through Anthering, Germany, Qapel and I stayed at a beautiful “bio-hotel” that had once been a forge. The elder owner had insightfully transformed the forge workshop into a workshop space and kept the main elements of the forge as a museum. It was fascinating to learn about the role of this important craft. Her tour and explanation culminated when she showed us the complex work the smith had created to become certified as a master. “This was his Master Piece,” she explained.

I didn’t realize masterpieces had a formal role! But, of course they did, for most of human history. 

What, then, is your Master Piece? How are you demonstrating the mastery of your life’s work? Saturn’s location in our natal astrological charts reveals where mastery awaits us, and gives us clues about the journey there.  

Capricorn, the goat, rules Saturn, and like goats, Saturn and Capricorn can ascend to heights that no one else would even consider trying to climb. (And, by the way, Capricorn was Qapel’s rising sign.) Saturn and Capricorn help us better understand this critical part of our spiritual journey and our purpose for being on the planet at this particular time. What are you here to Master?

Crazy goats on cliffs by Joel Sartore

Transcending our charts

I studied transpersonal astrology in the early 1990s in Kyoto, and my teacher was a student of Osho. This kind of astrology draws on Western archetypes and the work of Carl Jung to help us work with our personal patterns as demonstrated by our natal charts. An astrological chart shows the mandala the solar system was in at the time and place of one’s birth: our unique cosmic matrix.  We use the chart to understand the self so that we may transcend it.

Each astrological constellation is an archetypal pattern with many possible manifestations. Due to conditioning, we get stuck in a narrow range. AstroDharma helps us identify the energies involved and add space to the configuration. It’s not that you’re an uncommunicative, secretive person, for example; it’s more that your chart has Mercury in Scorpio. Mercury in Scorpio can show up as uncommunicative and secretive. It can also show up in other ways, such as communicating about things lurking below the surface that the average person may not feel comfortable with. With this process, we can go from having “problems communicating” to realizing we may be well suited for work in therapy or shadow integration. 

In short, AstroDharma can present us with a range of potential manifestations for our natural inclinations. We then get to choose how we’d like to manifest, and we undertake that work. By the way, Saturn also rules work. 

Because this is AstroDharma, we leverage all our insights and efforts towards our bodhisattva vow: awakening for the benefit of all beings. It’s a powerful combination.

 Saturn at the threshold

As we know, external mastery and internal mastery are very different. As spiritual practitioners, we are very interested in mastering our own mind states. Can we maintain a clear, calm, and loving state through all life’s inevitable ups and downs?  

To do this, we need to give up the shadow side of Saturn: blame. We can’t blame other people, or “the system” for how we feel, or for what’s happening to us. If we think someone is doing us wrong or oppressing us, we’re projecting our shadow Saturn onto them. 

But if we experience Saturn in this way, we are keeping ourselves immature, refusing to cross the threshold of our Hero’s Journey. More mundanely, we’re putting someone or something else into a disciplinarian parent-type role. 

This, by nature, puts us in a child role. It also indicates that that we are projecting our inner authority onto others. This is normal behaviour, but it is helpful to recognize since integrating all our authority issues brings us closer to mastery. 

That’s how we become an authority, a master. This Saturnian path has been the same for all masters throughout time and space. Focusing on Saturn and using AstroDharma helps us achieve mastery for the benefit of all beings. For me, it’s also a way to pay forward all of the precious benefits I’ve received through the generous training by and our late guru, Qapel.

Inspired? If this blog has resonated for you, you can sign up to our mailing list and receive some free AstroDharma resources lower down the page.  And if it has inspired you to go further and do work on this vital topic, Catherine Sensei will be teaching a weekend retreat (onsite at Clear Sky and online) March 21-23 – registration deadline March 16: Dharma in the Stars: Integrating Saturn

Free AstroDharma Resources 

In this great journey of evolution, what is coming next? Many of us sense we are on the edge of something totally new. On the one hand, it seems society and consciousness are fracturing. Many people feel the angst of it. The Earth’s health is on a dire trajectory. We focus on what’s going wrong and many young people feel there’s no hope. But on the other hand, we are witnessing new buds of a more global and planetary consciousness. We don’t know what it looks like yet, or what it is. We can’t see it at this time because it’s still forming, though we see early buds of developing conscious communities.

But understanding that we are evolving into something unified gives us a vision of a future worth living.

Where is Evolution going?

Let’s consider the arc of evolution as we know it. We can see evolution as a journey of ever more complexity and collaboration. Our “Last Universal Common Ancestor” (LUCA) led to bacteria and archaea some 3.9 billion years ago. Single-celled organisms like bacteria — and that infamous eukaryote — complexified; later we got algae, sponges, plants, and so on, all the way down to us. Cells joined together to form more complex organs — livers, kidneys, lungs. Eventually, after a long process, you have a chimpanzee. Then, a human being.

It takes many cells working together to create a being. Each little cell isn’t fighting against another to have its piece of turf or to tell other cells what to do. They aren’t concerned about how they compare to each other. They work together. All cells and the organs and formations they create serve the bigger organism: the body. The liver is not in service of the liver, the liver is in service of the whole body.

What we are beginning to see now is human beings who work together in the way cells work together to form something totally new and more complex. Collectively we are creating a new “body” — the body of whatever we are when we all come together. The idea is that we will be conscious, aware “bacteria.” We will be the conscious, aware “cells” in the organism of a bigger body of Mind. That will be the future of humanity.

Facing the Challenges Together

As they say in Integral Spirituality, the process is to include and transcend. Nature always includes and transcends what has gone before, building on previous systems and incorporating them into new, more complex ones. Our job now is to include all our humanity, even as we transcend humanity, which will probably incorporate AI and other technology.

We have to go step by step. We can’t read Dostoyevsky before we learn the alphabet. This emergent process will take hundreds of years. Our teacher, Namgyal Rinpoche, sometimes said that when we trip, we fall forward. If we are not tripping, we’re not growing.

It may seem like a wild tumultuous wave, but nevertheless the momentum is forward. This unifying emergence is what’s happening, whether we like it or not, or choose it or not. It is consciousness growing and evolving to a new form.

Each of us has a part to play. We each have our responsibility. Our primary responsibility is to make sure we’re contributing to and supporting this emergence. We can either fight it, trying to keep the illusory sense of our independence. Or we can join and say, Okay, how can I be responsible to help this emerging unity? You still get to be you. Nothing’s lost there except you’re now in a cooperative relationship with the emergent greater form, rather than in some sort of competition or rebellion. And that makes our duty compassion and understanding.

We’ll find freedom in this bigger view. Consciously understanding that something greater is growing, we won’t get so bent out of shape that we don’t get to control the whole show. The great orchestra of consciousness is playing, and we get to play our part. While we may be violins or flutes, nature is the conductor. The real challenge is, we don’t know which song is playing. And the conductor doesn’t know either. When we’re truly present in the moment, we don’t ever know the song. We just know the present note, we just know we’re playing music, based on billions of years of mystery’s evolution.

And don’t worry; don’t carry the responsibility too much. Because you don’t have a choice, and you’re not in control. This life is evolving.

What does your mind follow? Your stories, your job? Your relationship? What you want to eat next? Transient feelings of crabbiness, anger, or fear?

Has your mind ever followed a person? Trained on a mindstream? Like a dog on a scent?

When I came into this Dharma lineage about 18 years ago, Qapel (then Doug Sensei) was the principal Teacher. Catherine Sensei was not teaching formally.

In our Dharma tradition, the relationship with one’s Teacher, guru, or spiritual mentor is of upmost importance. To me, they’re like the red tugboats that I watched in Wellington’s stormy harbour as a child—a trusty guide through the heavy seas of one’s conditioning and pain.

Over the past decade, there has been a shift. Catherine Sensei evolved into a teacher; my Teacher. I could not have imagined how enriching, challenging and always surprising the journey with her has been.

And this summer, I received a precious gift. In July, I travelled across the globe from Clear Sky in Canada to be an attendant to Catherine Sensei in Kyoto, Japan. It was time for the Gion Matsuri festival, which she has been documenting and writing about for 30 years.

I observed Sensei being Dharma attendant, consort, and Teacher over many years. Her role as Gion Matsuri researcher, writer, and community member, however, has been mysterious, in a different way. This would be the first time I’d witness it.

I met Sensei at the airport in Tokyo, where we got straight into a Shinkansen bullet train to Kyoto and into Gion Matsuri mode. She was a powerhouse, right off the tarmac.

Riding her elegant coattails, I entered a new realm with her. For 1,150 years—since the year 869, a year of terrible epidemic—people have come together in the height of the summer, July, to ward off “evil spirits,” disease, and pestilence, and to nurture the wholesome and positive, a.k.a., health—spiritual and physical. And here we were, in 2023, about to continue that process and practice.

In the heart of downtown Kyoto, Sensei and I entered the quaint AirBnB she’d booked us, a traditional style ‘machiya’ house complete with tatami grass mat rooms and sliding paper doors. If you aren’t familiar with this, think Memoirs of a Geisha—ish!

My alarm rings at 6am. I wake in the small wood-and-plaster tatami room, next to Sensei’s through the paper-thin sliding walls. The ceiling slopes low. I hit my head a couple of times. It is cute, like an attic, and I feel I am tucked away in a cocoon, sensing Sensei through the walls, hearing her wake up, stir, move about, rest, sleep.

By now, a typical day, Sensei is up, meditating, stretching, preparing. I would creep down the creaking stairs to the small Japanese washroom, trying not to disturb her, focused on washing off the residual sweat from the hot summer night previous.

Typically bleary eyed in the mornings, proud of myself for being on! so early; yet, noticing where I was still cutting it close, getting the camera gear ready just in time to get out the 7am door… How can I do better? Sensei shares: She needs me to be even sharper. On top of time management, helping her with the clock schedule we set, sharp sharp sharp—Saturn Saturn Saturn—to achieve our intentions for the day.

Out we go, into the morning, not yet breaking the night’s fast. It is peaceful, humid, warm on the Kyoto streets, as if the city itself was yawning, preparing for the soon to be searingly hot day with a sleepy smile.

A tripod and camera drape over my shoulder and a rather heavy baby-pink camera bag rides my back. It is baby-pink to challenge my serious sensibilities of coolness. I wouldn’t have been caught dead with a baby-pink backpack 20 years ago. Now, I enjoy how the pastel rosiness surprises me as I look at it.

Sharpening includes the clothing.

I can be more than the black-wearing queer punk anarchist stereotype of my youth. First thing after arriving in Japan, I shopped for presentable summer clothes—another years-long area of growth Sensei has beckoned me into. No more black! More colour! I feel fresher, more cohesive. More confident, and a better support for her as we navigate Japanese society. Presentation matters. Form matters! A theme of our time, in a formful Kyoto.

At some point, I lean against a wall, and get black tar on my brand new white jeans…

We wind our way through the narrow streets, cicadas chirping, to the first Gion Festival float of the morning. I am focusing on keeping my radar on the Lama, like a field of awareness. Keeping in step with her field, looking over at her out the corner of my eye. Sensei walks confidently, often quietly and with a focused brow. Sometimes she turns to me and shares a history of this or that particular traditional storefront, or points out, Look: The beauty of a green lotus pad, sensitively present in a miniature pot pond, on the concrete pad at the foot of a concrete apartment building. We pause for a moment together in appreciation, exchange a chuckle at the contrast from Canada’s cowboy aesthetic.

We arrive upon a float, a ‘yamaboko,’ in action. Community members assemble it. Men of all ages, muscles bared, wind handmade ropes around solid wood beams, placed together like a jigsaw. They do it as it has been done by other men, for centuries. Every year.

We stop twenty feet away from the towering structure and I set up the camera while Sensei takes in the surroundings. She says hello to some smiling old acquaintances, some who helped her with her research and book. She’s reintroducing the importance of the festival’s spiritual foundations, and the community of people who have kept it going for more than a millennia. I tuck the wireless mic into a fold in Sensei’s beautiful white linen kimono, the crisp weave and texture securing me to the material world. There are no lights, but camera and action happen next.

Sensei speaks, eyes smiling. “Hi, we are at Hōka Boko. Hōka means Buddhist itinerant monk; the type who would wander around the countryside giving spontaneous teachings. They were homeless, or at least we think they were. Sometimes they were very highly realised beings and sometimes they were sheisters who were trying to get people to think they were monks so they could collect money. So, it’s very interesting that this float neighborhood adopted these homeless monks as their theme.”

That’s a take! I am nervous, hoping the sound and camera angle will turn out. I don’t want Sensei to have to repeat herself.

Eating with Sensei is meditation. I practise slowing my eating, watching habitual awkwardness and the impulse to fill the space with speech; I watch it arise, and pass away. I settle into the awareness of taste, texture, sensation and at the same time, the Teacher in front of me, who demonstrates graceful equanimity and enjoyment. Two people, their digestive systems doing their thing. Simple silence and sometimes words bubbling up from the source. We share about what we observed that morning, how we had felt, things we wondered. Sensei would check in on me, “How are you doing?”

On most days, good. Or great! On other days, nervous. Or emotional. Sometimes angry. Sometimes sad. Or scared. Old wounds, rubbing up against the rhythmic sandpaper of one’s Teacher’s penetrating mind.

In the path of this mind, our deepest fears, subtle and evaded in a myriad of ways. A dance, a fight, a non-negotiable negotiation on trust…

Some of my most painful moments in the Dharma have been with Sensei. I have felt she didn’t understand me, that she misunderstood me, behaved harshly with me. Much changed in the past couple of years, for the better; I had seen and admitted a lot of patterns I hadn’t clearly acknowledged before. Tried to apologise for my bullheadedness, aggression. We had some heart-to-hearts. But coming to Japan, it was a little rosy, a little too good to be true, a little too easy. Anything spiritually bypassed surely could not remain that way this trip.

Of all things that unearthed the old bones, it was a shopping expedition to the grocery store, a small communication lapse that triggered the storm of baggage clearing. Sensei wanted to meet a friend, so I said I’d go ahead, pick up some groceries, something for lunch. It had felt like a loose arrangement… I wandered around the grocery store awestruck by the smells, colours, tastes, picking out ingredients to cook for future dinners. I also picked up a box of sushi for our lunch. By the time I got back from the store, it had been an hour and a half since I’d left her.

Inside the entranceway of our machiya house, Sensei appeared in the clearing. “Did you get lost?” she asked. Something was in her eyes. I said… “No? Daimaru was just up the road.”

“You’ve been gone for hours.”

I tried to explain that I had been shopping with her in mind, to buy the best organic food, for her…

Yes, but you got so caught up in your need to make me the best organic dinner, you forgot to think that I might be hungry! You forgot to think about my well-being, here, today.

Inside, confusion, storm. It was true, my mind had wandered off, off from ‘sharp’ and attentive.

We moved further into the house. We got into older conversations that hadn’t gone anywhere in the past. She asked if I knew the impact I had on other people—did I know how my actions hurt others? I asked her if she’d felt hurt by me in the past. She said, what do you think? The answer was, yes. Numb, chest aching, I said, well, I have felt hurt by you, too. We sat in that silence. Tears like water slowly massaged out of a stone. The pain in the heart moved.

Not long after our intense conversation, something switched. I just stopped. Dropped the need to protect, of trying to coordinate myself around her as though always for an incoming attack. Or to appease, and garner, love. Exhausted by that swordplay, the mind shifted to: Okay. How can I help? What does she need? I careened like a spaceship travelling to new coordinates on the galactic starmap. Hyperspace.

And I saw that she is in one hell of a difficult position. What do I mean by that?

Imagine this. You are trying to help someone stuck in a maze, a castle of projection, a hall of mirrors. You have clarity, having already made the journey through it yourself. Yet, in the world of human form, physicality, conceptions, you are also all the time something of a mirage to this person. A mirage of their memories, hurts, previous perceptions. Why should I trust you? is the constant question on their mind, as you try to point out the stone wall they keep walking into, but can’t see.

This is a difficult position, particularly for women Teachers at this time in history. If I have learned anything from having a female Teacher and a diverse sangha, it is that my ping-pong ball reactions set off, bouncing in all directions with every contact made between us. Some ping-pong balls are more obvious and some are less conscious; some are painted bright yellow, and some are like ghosts.

So, when it comes to my interactions with women in leadership, a certain set of ping pong balls get set off. Do you know what I’m talking about? As spiritual practitioners, we can think we’re well beyond commonplace gender bias—of course I’m not a misogynist, I’m a holy, woke, feminist spiritual seeker! But, dear friends, after 18 years of yearly, long meditation retreats, and constant training in the Dharma with very awake Teachers, I am of the opinion that there are places in my consciousness that are thick like mud, and that the filters we wear run very deep, for decades!

But we learn! (See also Women in Buddhism). The great boon of the seeking human consciousness. After the heart realises what it did not know and how it continued to act in ignorance, it can sing a mournful song as an offering, then turn it to a joyful one; the eyes look up, brighter. There is power in awareness, acceptance, letting go. Knowing what is, what has been, the ways we suffer, cannot be dismissed – as it is all making up the walls of the castle on which we are (a)mazing our way through – from which we stand upon to obtain a mightier view.

Sensei is Sensei. Just her. Who she is. A wise being, cloaked in a caucasian mid-Western American woman’s body, and all the projections we apply to it, trying to help. And I am who I am. With my set of lenses, biases, hurts, looking at her as clearly as I can. Yes, she is direct, intense, concentrated, and highly principled. Demanding of her students. Also caring, thoughtful, methodical, and inquisitive. And in me, some traits trigger physiological fears, while others open my mind to new ways of looking. There will always be projection with Teachers, because humans are projection machines. So the best I hope to do as a student of consciousness is to love and appreciate my Teacher for her service, her wisdom, her talents, the spiritual work she has done. And, to have compassion for all involved in the messy game of waking up. As Qapel and Sensei said about Vajrayana teaching in a recent meditation retreat on the 12 Manjushris: Not everything works out perfectly. Teachers make mistakes, too. But if you have faith that you’ll unfold no matter what happens, you will. If you think you’re going to get hurt, you will. As the Zen saying goes: six times fall down, seven times stand up.

Back to the room—sitting on the tatami, on the floor. The storm passed. We moved on.

One day, after our morning filming, Sensei looks up from her natto and congee breakfast and says, “I’m going to take you somewhere special.” We catch the subway, then a taxi, and soon we are at Daitokuji, Kyoto’s historical Rinzai Zen monastery. The hairs on my body stand up, in salute! Over the past three years, I had earnestly attended Qapel and Sensei’s Zen and Chan courses and retreats. Some of the illustrious and eccentric figures they had spoken of— such as Ikkyū—had walked, practised, and recorded their famous koans in this very place!

Walking through the cedar entrance gates, I follow Sensei again, my meditation beacon, tuned in with her body, her posture, her pace, her gait. Silencing my mind when necessary, responding to her inquiries, asking questions of her as they arise. She leads us through the broad, pebble sculpted walkways to Zuihoin, a sub-temple built in 1535. We have an appointment with her friend, the abbott there. The attendant, an earnest faced young Japanese-American whose mother, a tea ceremony teacher, has sent him there to learn, shows us to the tea room to wait.

I am tight with self-inflicted pressure. Sensei mentions we are actually at the historical birthplace of the tea ceremony tradition. No big deal! My body remembers the exacting postures of the formal tea ceremony I’d once attended in Tokyo. What will this master abbot be like? I wonder. Will I stumble on the formalities of the ritual? Will I forget to turn my tea bowl in the right direction? How to not make a fool of myself, not embarrass Sensei?

Well, I needn’t have worried, because in comes the abbott, looking like a good friend you might visit the beach with. He is glad to see Sensei. They have known each other a long time. He starts to prepare our matcha green tea by heating a kettle of water over hot coals. His father, the former abbott, comes by at one point. Also Sensei’s old friend, head shaved with a broad chested energy and shining cheeks, he gives a hearty greeting, “Konnichiwa!” though Sensei shares that as he has grown older, he doesn’t remember her as clearly. His son speaks to Sensei about how that transition has been for them all. My ears and brain perch attentively trying to follow the conversation with my very limited high school Japanese.

The younger abbott serves us tea. It is informal! I don’t have to sit on my feet until they go numb! He encourages us to get comfortable. I look over at Sensei, trying to follow her lead. I nod and smile, repeatedly, as I can’t find many words in Japanese. For today, “Thank you, hello, I work as an acupuncturist,” and “She’s my meditation teacher,” will have to suffice.

We enjoy two cups of matcha, each served in a one of a kind bowl. I soon learn that these we are using today are Shigaraki ceramics, renowned as one of Japan’s six ancient kilns. With a rough-hewn texture, they feel like I’m drinking out of the earth itself. Alongside the tea, we taste the intense flavours of sweet, then salty, first with a delicate sweet bean dessert, a sailboat on a summer lake, and then some temple-made fermented black soybeans, sharp like an axe slicing winter kindling. When our gentle time together in this tatami room comes to a close, the abbott farewells us and we move on to visit the Zuihoin zen garden.

I follow Sensei around the building, the skin of our bare feet kissing the dark wood floors, smooth from centuries of foot service. As we turn the corner, a Zen rock garden comes into view. There is no one there but us, and we find a seat under the roof’s wooden eaves.

Looking out over the grey pebbles that curve, precisely raked into an ocean, lapping up against the landmass of moss covered rocks, I feel swept away. Swept into the ocean.

It moves, pulsates. I can hear the sea, the shore. I can hear life, alive! I have seen plenty of rock gardens prior to this… but never really saw, never really heard, felt. Form. It is alive!

I weep, part of the ocean. Alive. The joy.

Sensei stands slowly. I follow her into the meditation hall next to the zen garden. She shows me the ancient paintings, black ink on the washi paper walls, some faded, some slightly torn. Tears come, the waters moved. I cry and cry from the feeling of the room. All the people who meditated here, who cared for it, painted it, practised, prayed, grappled with koans, dedicated themselves to awakening… I feel them in the air, in the walls. My heart drops, sinks into the past, swims with the Dharma ancestors, appreciates, feels thankful for. What we put our energy and care into can carry through the ages.

Sensei and I meditate here a while. Silence, stillness. Form, emptiness. History. Compassion.

With gratitude to Sensei, Qapel, Namgyal Rinpoche, lineage, to transmission, to the power of sangha, the teachings of awakening, and the awakening that dwells in all beings.

At some point, the Teacher’s presence and steadfastness allows the student’s guarded heart to have the confidence to surrender. At that time, you are flooded, overflowing. With what? With life? That is transmission. It is a transmission of the oceanic heart. That is the beauty of Guru Yoga.

And a precious thing.

Glimmerings of a Botanical Life

Meditating on the Star Tarot Card

Following Qapel and Catherine Sensei’s wonderful course on the Kabbalah, I ‘blind picked’ a card from the major arcana of the Tarot to study for the next year…. The Star!

Prompted by a shamanic/tarot/buddhist friend, I set out one evening to find a suitable pool in nature (preferably surrounded by sparse vegetation, with a tree and an ibis) where I would be able to enact and embody the card: a naked woman is poised with one knee on the ground, the other foot is resting on the surface of the pool; she’s pouring water by star light, using two earthenware jugs.

After a short walk from my home I found what felt to be the perfect place amongst open woodland and heathland, so continued westwards enjoying the evening sounds and smells.

Following an unfamiliar track I came upon a vibrant aspen fluttering and whispering its leafy song in the dying light. Pausing to savour the moment I looked down and to my great surprise and joy spied a colony of the most beautiful star shaped white flowers – a species that I had never seen before. Though small they exuded an exceptional purity and calm.

The European Starflower & Robin Cowe

Later at home I identified the plants as Chickweed Wintergreen or European Starflower which, it turns out, is very rare in the South of Scotland and was last recorded at this particular site in 1866. The discovery led me to contact Robin Cowe, the botanical recorder for Berwickshire, who, the very next day, came over on his bicycle to meet me (for the first time) and marvel at the plants.

An Interview with a Mighty Meditator

Advice and discoveries from six years of monthly retreats

Q: You’re a mighty-meditator! I heard you just finished your sixth annual one month retreat.  How has your experience evolved over six years?

Yes I did complete my sixth year of one month solo retreats in Clear Sky’s amazing meditation cabins.  They are marvelous venues to retreat in. I owe a deep debt of gratitude to my teachers for the guidance and teachings over those six years and especially want to thank Sensei for once again leading the charge and showing me it is possible to step away from outer life for a month each year. It is possible, deeply rewarding and essential for real health.

Over the years my experience has changed in that I am experimenting with the different seasons and seeing what that brings to the inner-outer world dance. I have more confidence in doing the work by myself based on 20 plus years of group retreats with my Teachers and sangha. I started participating in month-long group Teacher-lead retreats in 2006. I find that now the difference between being in retreat and being in the world is much less different than it used to be. Both the logistics and mind states of moving into and out of retreat are smoother and more easeful. Plus I now know how many and what kinds of outfits to pack!

Q: If you could playfully sum each year’s retreat up in 3 words, how would you?

Year 1: What…?

Year 2: Ok, this is hard work.

Year 3: Just do the practice. No matter what, just do the practice

Year 4: Do the practice. Trust the practice.

Year 5: Hmmmm. Kind of odd, this thing we call reality.

Year 6: Huh. What the… Relax.

Q: How has your relationship to meditation changed over the past six years of retreat work?

Over the years meditation has become a trusted, reliable and very close friend. While it used to be something I would visit, like perhaps a family reunion (although I never actually been to one of those), and which might be painful and awkward at first, now it is always with me and the body settles into long periods of sitting meditation with much less resistance.

Perhaps I can describe it now as a sweet lover, a fresh and warm spring morning after a rain, a welcome drink of water on a hot dusty day when I am thirsty, and the clear eyes of a wise being, crinkled with laughter, tinged with fiercely threatening sparks and unbounded depths. My life is better, across the board, for this relationship with meditation.

Q: What advice do you have for sangha seeking to undertake an extended retreat at Clear Sky?

Definitely do it!  We have one precious life and it goes by quickly! I have never regretted taking time to do this kind of extended retreat work and there’s nothing quite like it. Get all your personal effects in order well in advance and plan to not be in contact with loved ones until a couple days after your retreat ends.

Start packing early and revise as needed in the weeks and days leading up to it. Check in with your teacher(s) well in advance to see if they suggest a practice for you and then gather the materials or supplies you will need. Clear Sky teachers and residents will support you very well with food, water, bedding, meditation cushions, linens, and washing facilities. Bring your own toiletries and torch, timepiece, and meditation materials.  Read the CS website for FAQ.

Be prepared to be tired and that you may sleep a lot in the first few days of retreat. No problem, a good chance for the body to regenerate and catch up.

—

Maureen Smith is Clear Sky Center‘s Retreat and Land Manager. She teaches and guides at Clear Sky and with Alive Mindfully and works as a counsellor and Imago therapist in Cranbrook BC. 

An Episode from our Podcast – True Happiness: Awakening Through Meditation

Hear from Qapel and Catherine about the path of meditation on the Dharma if You Dare Podcast: True Happiness – Awakening through Meditation.