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The Holy Life, Farts & All

The Holy Life, Farts & All

Last updated on: March 27, 2022 at 8:49 am by James Ford

The Holy Life, Farts & All 2022-03-27T08:49:07-07:00 James Ford

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The Holy Life, Farts & All

Mo Myokan Weinhardt

Senior Dharma Teacher

Empty Moon Zen

I’ll begin with a story: One day, the venerable Ananda, the Buddha’s first cousin and beloved attendant, sat by the Buddha’s side beholding all that was before them. Ananda said to the Blessed One, “This is half of the holy life, lord: admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie.”The Buddha replied, “Don’t say that, Ananda. Don’t say that. Admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie is actually the whole of the holy life. When one has admirable people as friends, companions, & colleagues, they can be expected to develop & pursue the noble eightfold path” — the path leading to the release from suffering.

From the Buddha’s perspective, spiritual friendship is the whole of the holy life. What are the implications of this?

First off, I want to take a moment to tease myself about the images that come to mind when I hear the word “holy.” It has no doubt been shaped by many Christian influences — the word can evoke images of angels, halos, priests, monks, & nuns in prayer, the clouds parting and a beam of sunlight shining down upon a particularly pious person… It’s interesting to notice how foreign it can feel to me to even consider my own life as holy.

I mean, come on — I like to swear. I fart. I am not “pure.” I can have mean and sometimes violent thoughts. Mother Teresa, I ain’t.

But in writing this talk and reflecting on the automatic associations I have with the word, my understanding of “the holy life” shifted. To me, all life is sacred. It is also messy and painful. Perhaps living a holy life is more about a commitment to trying to recognize and remember the sacredness, the emptiness, the Buddha nature that pervades the whole universe, existing right here and now — in ourselves and all beings. And of course, falling short, again and again. And then returning, again and again, to that commitment.

From this perspective, it’s easier for me to think that yeah, maybe this very Mo, this very life, as messy and imperfect as it might be — as many mistakes as I make — maybe this is a holy life, farts and all.

And maintaining this aspiration and commitment to living in an upright and compassionate way definitely requires help. No one else can do it for us, but we also can’t do it alone.

According to the Buddha, spiritual friendship is the whole of the holy life. Friendships like these are regularly seen in sanghas. Sangha is a Sanskrit term that means community, and originally referred to the Buddha’s ordained followers. In fact, the Sutra of the Wheel of Dharma tells us that after the Buddha’s enlightenment, his very first public teaching about the four noble truths was to 5 former friends — ascetics he had studied alongside for many years, who then became the first Buddhist monks and members of the first sangha.

As Buddhism has spread to the west, the word sangha has evolved to refer to Buddhist communities as a whole, lay and ordained alike. Fellow walkers of The Way, now with vastly more householders, forming communities of spiritual friends.

This is where we can find people who are learning and studying and practicing the Buddha’s teachings — people who have perhaps clarified some things in their lives, who continually seek a deeper and more intimate understanding, and who can help guide others.

Fellow walkers of The Way who make compassion and ethical living an active and intentional practice.

And while this can sound somewhat ideal, much like my original associations with the word holy, do not be fooled — every sangha filled with great people is still very much human, still 100% subject to grappling with greed, anger, ignorance, distraction, ego, miscommunication, and mistakes. Good people who can still fuck up and hurt each other.

And it is for this very reason that I believe the Buddha’s words to be true: Admirable friendship, companionship, and camaraderie is actually the whole of the holy life. Because it’s not just about our relationships when things seem to be going well — importantly, critically, it’s also about how we navigate conflict and difficulty.

I used to collect rocks growing up, and one year I got a rock tumbler as a birthday gift. It was this small drum-like bucket that I put some of the stones I’d collected into; added a bit of water, closed the bucket, turned on the little motor, and the tumbler would turn the drum round and round, knocking the rocks into each other over and over again. In time, the rocks eventually became smoother and more polished; they were still very much the same ‘ol rocks, but through the process different qualities were brought forth. This was only possible because they tumbled together, knocking into one another and helping to smooth out each other’s rough edges.

I did not grow up with a strong understanding of community. While I was very close with my immediate family, we lived over 500 miles away from our nearest relatives; 800 miles away from my nearest grandparents; and almost 1,200 miles from my nearest cousins. I had friends in my neighborhood, but there was no real sense of community. I went to an Episcopal church and Sunday school as a child, but there was no strong sense of community there either — it was just something my parents made us do on Sundays until middle school, when they got divorced. The closest experience I had to feeling like part of a community back then was at my high school.

Thankfully I learned about Buddhism during these years, and met people who claimed to be “Buddhist,” but really Zen was just conceptual at the time. Lots of fascinating ideas, but it was definitely not a verb — not something I understood or knew how to do. It wasn’t until I met Tom our freshman year of college (and who is now my husband, also a senior dharma teacher in Empty Moon), that I first encountered an authentic practitioner who studied and sat zazen. I didn’t at all understand the scope or importance at the time, but among many other things, meeting Tom completely altered the course of my spiritual life. He’s the one who really introduced me to the Buddhadharma and Zen practice — one of many things I am endlessly grateful to him for.

So to become a Zen Buddhist, one must receive and uphold the precepts, and take refuge in the three jewels: Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. Tom really introduced me to the first two, and of these three jewels, I came to sangha last — many years later.

I want to pause here and unpack what it means to take refuge for a moment.

Taking refuge means to find a place of shelter and protection from some kind of danger. In Zen, we seek refuge from the many passions that jerk us around; from our cravings and aversions; from feeling distressed, broken, fearful — from suffering at large. We seek shelter from the wheel of samsara, the endless cycle of death and rebirth.

But how can we find any measure of safety and security in this inherently unsafe and unstable world? What solid ground is there to be found?

You might recognize this from chanting The Three Refuges: “Buddham Saranam Gacchâmi,” which means “I take refuge in Buddha.” The literal translation of those Pali words is not “I take refuge in Buddha” however — the literal translation is, “I will undertake to find my home in the Buddha.”

To take refuge in Buddha is to accept that we can realize and awaken to our true buddha-nature, just as the man Siddhartha Gautama did. Buddha was not his name, after all; it was a title he received after his enlightenment, meaning “One who is awake” or “the Awakened One.”

Taking refuge in Buddha means we will undertake to find our home in Awakening.

To take refuge in the Dharma is to undertake finding our home in the teachings — the Four Noble Truths, and practicing the Eightfold Path. It’s a commitment to seeing things as they really are, an intricate web of connections beyond all concepts of Self and Other; an awakened way of seeing the world that leads us out of suffering and to the opening of the heart.

And taking refuge in Sangha, the jewel that I came to last? Here, we undertake to find our home among spiritual friends. Here, we vow to look for and offer support, inspiration, and guidance among those who practice the Eightfold Path — fellow walkers of The Way.

When we practice living our lives like this — an aspirational way of living that we are sure to fail in, again and again — what we’re really saying is, “I promise to do all I can to uphold and embody these teachings, to live with an open heart.”

Tom was my first true spiritual friend in Zen, and for many years I studied and practiced with few others. My spiritual life was very much a personal practice, not one that I wanted to share with a wider community.

Years later this completely changed when I was introduced first to the Zen Peacemakers, then to the Boundless Way sangha (where we first met James, Jan, and Ed), and now these past 6 years with Empty Moon, meeting Janine and Chris, and practicing with all of you in this vibrant sangha. These communities have had a profound impact on my life, shaking the ground of a practice that at first I’d held quite close to my chest.

In a way, discovering the jewel of Sangha has been like moving into technicolor — the experience of regularly sitting zazen with other people; having interviews with teachers; engaging in koan practice; participating in precept and study groups; learning how to chant and do kinhin; the humbling experience of learning how to bow; finding opportunities to contribute and learning to receive (not easy); joining and serving in retreats, both in-person and virtual; and above all, forming friendships with other beautifully flawed practitioners.

I’ve been continually gobsmacked by the ways that Sangha breathes life into the other jewels, Buddha and Dharma. This has brought a wholeness to my practice that I didn’t even know I was missing in those early years. And not because it’s all sunshine and lollipops — even among spiritual friends, people are still people: they can be as encouraging and inspiring as they are frustrating and disappointing. But that’s part of our agreement as a community — to lean into discomfort and difficulty together, and to support each other in our mutual aspiration and commitment to living in an upright and compassionate way.

Practicing together, in this community of spiritual friends, is precious. And pretty incredible that we’ve achieved this while anchoring ourselves as a primarily virtual community these past couple of years. Each one of us contributes to the life of our sangha in a meaningful way. We are mirrors, encouraging and challenging each other, always aiming to deepen our practice and our intimacy with just this — even when just this ain’t so pretty. We explore what it means to be human together, returning again and again to curiosity, compassion, and to our breath.

No one else can do this for us, yet we cannot do it alone. Please, reflect on the implications of this; do not take it, or each other, for granted. Together, we seek to find the perfection of the wise heart. We make our way through this one continuous mistake, tumbling together and smoothing out each other’s rough edges, while navigating the many passions that jerk us around. Together, we practice.

Our sangha, our spiritual friendships — it is here that we find not half, but the whole of this sacred and holy life, farts and all — where we undertake to find our home in Awakening. How can we be anything but grateful?

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