Wasp Nests and Zen Groups

Last updated on: January 18, 2009 at 3:48 pm by Dosho Port

Wasp Nests and Zen Groups 2009-01-18T15:48:00-06:00 Dosho Port

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I think we might just be getting somewhere on this blog – not sure where exactly but its got my interest and it seems promising. People speaking their minds and hearts is a good thing, imv.

During our last sesshin, as usual, following afternoon zazen we intoned the Great Compassion Dharani and the chant leader sang (in part):

May our dharma community and all communities realize

The Buddha Way in peace and harmony together.

For the first time, I felt deeply that “our dharma community” included the people who read this blog and especially those I’ve gotten to know through their comments.

Granted, “peace and harmony” can sometimes be like striking a wasp nest with a ball. As mama p. pointed out in her comment to the comments to the “Sheep, Wild Fox, and Zen Groups” post:

Sometimes I think it is designed to be inharmonious, simply because it’s reflections of the whole of human existence, of mind itself: joy, fear, pain, exultation, happiness, loss, confusion…etc, etc, etc. The precepts are nice, but I have rather given up on a living ideal.

Here are a few things I learned from my last post and the comments. First, some readers really don’t like animal metaphors, grouping people, “profiling,” or stages. I’m not that type. I have long been interested in such undertakings (Myers Briggs, Ten Oxherding Pictures, the stages I write about in the book, etc.). I often find these helpful when I’m not taking them real seriously. I do understand that some people find them offensive, especially those types … (just kidding…).

Second, some things I say sound like “resentful aggression,” for example, when none is felt. Not that I don’t sometimes experience such but I really wasn’t feeling either or both while writing the post – just ruminating on Zen group dynamics based on what I’ve seen. I thought I was pretty kind to sheep, after all. And holy sheep-shit, I’ve been a sheep and a fox and a pig and a clown, etc., and I suspect that most everyone is some of the time (like Uku said). And like I also said, I hope that some people might find the reflections helpful.

Third, I was protective of Mike Cross. I relate to what I know about his experience and I think I understand something about his perspective (btw, thanks Anonymous for your last comment).

And, yes, I’m a work in progress and sometimes a complete mess. Nothing here is definitive. Nothing. I mean that definitively.

Really, and quite obviously, what I throw out there is offered so that it might be tested from the reader’s seat. And it’s really cool when that happens.

Okay. Now blog reader beware:

You might find more of such buzzing here. This is one of my creative endeavors. I’m blogging, as I said, to play with ideas, mostly about Soto Zen practice, and see how they strike a variety of people. The medium itself invites a certain roughness, don’t you think?

So although I often find the comments helpful and important and I do consider what people have to say, that isn’t the only factor by any means in determining what I put out there.

Just so you know.

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Sheep and Wild Fox in Zen Groups

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