Wake Up

by Bonnie Myotai Treace

  So, you sit down, ten minutes, or half an hour, maybe several short periods, maybe morning, then morning and evening. The sitting body will let you know when it requires a bathroom break or a stretch. You find some days there is a good deal of mental activity to notice, many thoughts coming and going. Other days are quieter, or even groggy. One day your shoulder aches a bit, and instead of shifting, you see that it’s okay, no harm done by sitting through it. Another morning, you’re getting a cold and shorten the period, sensing you need more sleep to get well. There’s the month when your foot is in a cast from tripping in the parking lot, so you sit in a chair instead of on your favored pillow. Your seated meditation becomes something you just show up for, not unlike brushing your teeth. It’s not a big deal, but part of how you live in a healthy way.

  Still, at some point it is time to stand up: At once, you’re at a threshold. How will practice walk with you into your day? How can some of this inner stillness be found when we’re engaged in the “ten thousand things”? Years ago, I developed a series of inner chants called the Seven Thresholds to help my students mark these liminal moments with a mind of practice. We’ll explore them in this and the next chapter.

  Try this first one: It can be a “first thought of the day” or used following morning meditation. Repeat silently three times:

  This day of being blessed by blessing being honored by honoring being love by loving, I awaken.

  —from the Seven Thresholds

  Mindful Walking

  What makes walking into a practice is one shift: It is not about going somewhere; it is about being somewhere. Just be in the step, not down the road or off in the clouds. And when your attention wanders or becomes attached to a destination: notice. Then gently bring your attention back.

  Walking meditation is one of the most natural practices we can develop—it will help us feel calmer, more connected to place, and generally more aware. When it’s done in a meditation hall with others (this is called kinhin), instructions are given that guide everyone on how to walk in harmony with one another. Kinhin in the meditation hall quietly bonds the group. It also prevents the meditative state from becoming associated with only one position (and it gives the knees a little break).

  Walking practice also connects us to our life. How many times have you trekked for some distance, only to realize you didn’t notice anything at all about the journey? You missed the store, the bird, the cloud. You didn’t hear the music, didn’t register the rain. Thoreau bemoaned this, and called us to let our feet awaken the world a bit:

  I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit.

  —Henry David Thoreau, Walking

  Just as seated Zen is sometimes called “the noble posture,” walking Zen also has a sense of ease and dignity, as if you were a king or queen slowly meandering on a royal stroll. Thoreau might have called this sauntering. At home, you only need a short hallway, and there won’t be as many distractions as there are outside.

  You can, however, make walking a practice whenever it’s time to head down the street, or to and from the subway or your car. Sometimes I suggest this as stealth kinhin. No one needs to know you’re “doing a practice”—just walk and stay in the moment. (Remember, though, that it’s good not to “walk around like zombies,” in some exaggeratedly slow manner while out in public!) Just relax, enjoy walking for its own sake, and instead of the habitual planning and thinking—actually feel the sensation of your foot hitting the ground.

  When you find your thoughts have wandered and you’re a million miles away, exhale and let go, and see if you can return to the sensation happening at that moment, with your step bringing you back to exactly and perfectly here.

  IN EACH STEP

  One way to integrate your practice into your life is to practice the transitions from one posture to another. If you’ve been doing seated practice, for instance, when it is time to stand up, do your best to stay in the meditative mind-set. Get up gently, getting your feet under you solidly, without engaging a lot of interior dialogue. Bow to your seat, allowing gratitude for the opportunity to meditate to express itself.

  Select a quiet place where you can walk at ease, indoors or out. You only need to be able to take somewhere between ten and thirty paces, and then turn and come back to where you started, making that circle for ten or so minutes. Let your hands rest easily, held at your waist. (The left hand creates a fist with the thumb tucked inside, and the right hand covers the left hand. Be sure to keep your shoulders relaxed.)

  Feel the ground through the bottoms of your feet, as well as the other somatic sensations that come along with a standing posture. Keeping your eyes lowered a bit, take small, slow steps. It can help to link the walking to the breath: inhale, exhale, move one foot forward half the length of the other foot, repeat. After a few minutes of establishing your concentration with slow walking, you can speed it up to a normal walking pace.

  As with the breath in sitting, your attention will wander away many times. As soon as you notice this, return attention to the feel of the next step. In meditation halls, walking meditation happens for about ten minutes in between longer sitting periods. (This is also the time people leave to use the bathroom if they need to.) At home, you may want to do likewise, putting a five- to ten-minute walk between thirty-minute periods of meditation. When you’re ready to sit down again, bow to your seat and reestablish your sitting posture.

  Mindful Eating

  In a Zen monastery, at least one meal a day is served and received in a ceremony called oryoki. The meal is taken in the meditation hall, largely in silence, with each student using a shiny set of black nested bowls. (One of my teachers who’d been in the Navy called these the Zen Mess Kit.) It’s actually one of the more elaborate ceremonies in Zen training, with drumrolls, the striking of clappers, and an offering taken slowly up to an altar. It’s almost as if, even in ancient times, it was clear that it can take a big bang of the “mindfulness drum” to slow down and recognize that each meal we’re taking part in is a miracle of sorts.

  Oryoki means just the right amount. The instruction is to not eat so much that your meditation becomes groggy, yet enough to remain healthy. There are a few chants that are part of the ceremony, calling attention to all those who worked on our behalf so that we can receive food in our bowls. There is a moment when everyone together chants a vow to keep that kindness going forward.

  One of my Zen friends, teacher Jan Bays, commented beautifully:

  When we are able to fully appreciate the basic activities of eating and drinking, we discover an ancient secret, the secret of how to become content and at ease. . . . I didn’t understand “right amount” very well until I began practicing mindful eating. I saw that mindful eating is ethical action. It is ethical action toward our self, toward all the beings who bring us our food, and toward all those who are hungry in the rest of the world.

  —Jan Bays, Mindful Eating: A Guide to Rediscovering a Healthy and Joyful Relationship with Food

  Getting tuned into “just the right amount” is a practice, both in the meditation hall and more generally as we study our habits around hunger, satisfaction, greed, and self-absorption.

  Mindful Working

  We can practice our livelihood in any number of ways. We can see it as just doing a job, rounding up the money we need, or a way to pass the time and not be bored. We may be so passionate about our work that the rest of our lives dims in importance. But work can also be seen in a different light altogether—as a fundamentally sacred activity. This is why Layman P’ang (who often appears in koan collections) once said, “Isn’t it wonderful? Isn’t it marvelous? I chop wood and carry water.”

  In order to shine that light on work, practice involves examining our habits, the ways we approach things. It’s like the old story of the three masons working on a cathedral: Asked what he was doing, the first mason muttered, “I’m hammering this stupid rock, and I can’t wait ’ti
l 5 when I can go home.” The second mason, asked the same question, sighed with overwhelming boredom and said, “Well, I’m molding this block of rock so that it can be used with others to construct a wall. It’s not bad work, but it’s just the same exact thing, day after day.” The third, with a lively spark in his eye, responded, “Well, kind sir, as you can see, I am building a Sacred Temple!”

  So, how we see a thing can actually change what that thing is. But how do we make every day a “Bring Your Practice to Work Day” and manifest this transformative potential? First, do your best to find work that does no harm. It can also help to begin each day with another of the Seven Thresholds, recited internally a time or three:

  Not knowing the full outcome of my effort I will be generous, resilient, and creative in my service And work to benefit life and relieve suffering

  —from the Seven Thresholds

  Let arriving at your desk or place behind the counter begin with this small, still-the-mind pause. Breathe. Then, as you take up whatever “ax and pail” you use to chop the wood and carry the water of your tasks, both you and they are transformed. Our job description does not define our real work, which is much deeper. We are here to make a place that awakens, a Sacred Temple, gesture by gesture. And when we find we’ve done something else . . . to acknowledge that, and begin again.

  MEALS AS MEDITATION

  Here are two practices for stealth oryoki, ways of receiving a meal in daily life in an awakened way, one for when eating out at a restaurant and one for when at home.

  Recite aloud or silently:

  The undivided life of all beings

  I vow to taste, appreciate, and continue it

  with wisdom and compassion

  —from the Seven Thresholds

  Restaurant Practice

  1.After reciting the chant to yourself, do a quick inner-outer scan:

  •Notice your basic hunger and thirst level; remember when you last ate or drank water.

  •Note what activities (energy demands) you’ve been engaged in and will be moving into after the meal.

  •Acknowledge whether anything emotionally challenging might impact how you interpret what nourishment you need.

  •Read the room: Is it calm or frenzied?

  2.When your waitstaff arrives, register that they are helping you and will bring you, literally, the gift of life.

  •None of us earn this; not everyone receives it, even when they need it.

  •Tell them clearly, with consideration for their service, what you would like for your meal.

  3.When your food arrives, say thank you.

  •Say this genuinely to whomever brings your meal.

  •Let thankfulness spread in your mind and body. So many things and people have given of themselves to bring this to you. The sun shone; the rain fell; the farmer labored; the trucker trekked; the grocer, baker, and cook did their work. Without your earning any of it, all of it is in your bowl, fills your cup, will feed your cells, give you strength, and become whatever you create. Time to notice.

  4.Taste and enjoy. Make the quiet promise again to continue the generosity you’ve received. (Beginning with a good tip is nice!)

  Home Practice

  1.Designate one special bowl that you’ll use for meals when you are doing stealth oryoki. I give each of my students a beautiful wooden Just-the-Right-Amount bowl wrapped in a cloth for this purpose. The purpose of having a designated “practice bowl” is just to stop the flow of habit a bit; it functions to remind us to pay attention. (See Resources if you’d like to receive a bowl from Hermitage Heart.)

  2.Recite the Inner Meal chant to yourself.

  3.Prepare your food mindfully; let your senses awaken to smells, tastes, textures, colors. Slow down; cook in silence hearing the sounds of chopping, sizzling, etc.

  4.Prepare your mind by calling to presence all the beings that contributed to your receiving this food. Go wide. . . .

  5.Eat silently. Allow yourself to just eat, not make a lot of internal commentary. (If you don’t live alone, you can also practice “stealth oryoki”: Use your designated bowl, and include the company at the table in your practice of gratitude by engaging with them in loving, attentive conversation. You can also explain to your kids that sometimes when you want to eat quietly and really taste your food, you use your Just-the-Right-Amount bowl and it helps the food taste even better. Sometimes they will want a special bowl for themselves, too.)

  6.When you’re done, mindfully clean your bowl.

  Mindful Moving

  When Siddhartha Gautama was early on in his search, he tried various practices of extreme physical denial: He excelled at the yogic disciplines, fasting for long periods, not sleeping, etc. He became “the skinniest of the skinny,” fasting longer and more severely than anyone else. But he found that not only did none of these disciplines ultimately serve the purpose of awakening, they were completely wrongheaded. A pivotal moment in the telling of the Buddha’s story is when he accepted sweet milk from a kind woman, Sujata, and recovered his strength. (Perhaps a woman-honoring retelling of this story is due, one that credits her with a body-wise spiritual teaching, served up alongside his dipper of milk.)

  All to say: The Buddha realized that our physical bodies are the location of our practice and awakening. If we’re not respecting the wisdom of our bodies, we’re outside of wisdom. In Zen practice, we are taught to neither deny our sensations nor to make a particularly big deal of them. Zazen does this when it asks that we embody stillness, letting the attention settle along with the nervous system. Even as deep meditative states develop, during which all self-consciousness is released and “body and mind fall away,” students will eventually need to get their feet back under them and walk about in the world. It helps to set up some ways to rejuvenate your practice throughout the day, as the sweet milk Sujata served up did. Here’s one way that wakes up gratitude (and also reminds you to stay hydrated and healthy!).

  Repeat silently as you drink each of 4 to 5 glasses of water during the day:

  One taste, one life this ordinary tap water impossible to earn

  —from the Seven Thresholds

  Body practice includes not only mindful exercise, but also our encounter with the various, often difficult, sensations of old age, sickness, and dying. My students with chronic illness, those who are differently abled, and home-bound elders have some of the deepest and most profound body practices. They teach me about the unstoppable, and the exquisitely ordinary, again and again.

  ONE JOB

  There are many of us who feel that our shared work right now is brought into clear focus by the gravest crisis ever to face the human race: the disruption of our planetary climate and the threats posed by that to civilization and sentient life. Regardless of profession, stage of life, or age, we all have this one job. According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the next ten years or so will determine everything, and there is already no way to avoid the consequences of not having done the work earlier. Entire countries and communities are suffering; inaction means ever more dire and widespread destruction.

  To practice this work requires showing up, as all work does. To practice this work requires that we acknowledge failure, grieve honestly, and build resilience. On any given day, our work will be thunderously inadequate. We may hunger for distraction, fall into anger, forget what is at stake.

  So how do we find our individual practice in this monumental work?

  Start. Do at least one thing every day that brings the truth of “addressing climate disruption is my work” into active expression.

  Company presidents will have different tasks than adolescents. Journalists will do what retired elders can’t do, and vice versa. Your “one thing” may become many things . . . or morph into another unanticipated thing altogether.

  But do one thing.

  A Few Ideas for Getting Started

  •Speak out for change and vote for climate-informed representation; reduc
e and reuse before recycling; green your commute (public transit, biking, car sharing, flying only when absolutely required); review and reduce home energy use (use cold water to wash clothes, winterize, unplug); eat meat-free and don’t waste; divest from fossil fuels (work to change how your workplace, pension, or university invests); arrange to offset your own carbon use through the UN’s climateneutral.now.org.

  •When you forget, and notice, just start again. I’ve often noted, “It’s amazing how long it takes to do something when you never get started!” Keep starting. That’s the magic.

  •Use your rage—whether in reaction to social injustice, to our leaders’ insanity, or to those who threaten or harm us. Rage is a powerful energy that, with diligent practice, can become transformed into fierce compassion. When you find your emotions rising, don’t deny them, but recognize that they are inviting you to get creative, to use your imagination and intelligence on behalf of life. Let that energy challenge you to find ways to serve, protect, and create new possibilities.

  Resting Meditation

  We are a chronically exhausted culture. Ask just about anyone, and they’ll be able to recount how few hours of sleep they’re getting, how frenzied their schedule is, how overwhelmed they are with the complexity of their lives and the enormity of issues at play in the world.

  There has always been what the Buddha diagnosed as “the fundamental unsatisfactoriness of conditioned existence” (dukkha, the First Noble Truth). But now there are increasingly well-crafted technologies designed specifically to shift our attention toward wildly tempting pits of distraction. Each promises deliverance from loneliness and lack; all fail to deliver on the promise. Still, we’re up late searching the web, mindlessly, looking for likes, looking for anything that answers the question we can barely express. We have access to more entertainment and information than any generation in history. Parents often have less support than ever in the demanding work of making human beings; the village, if there at all, is busy with its own agendas. And workplaces have increasingly little emphasis on the rights that guarantee a living wage or decent hours.