This blog hosts articles contributed by members of the Chicago Zen Center. For news about events at the Center and in Chicago, please visit our Monkey Mind
by Barth and Kristin Wright
Introduction
In way of introduction it seems necessary to present our situation and us. My wife, Kristin, and I had our first few visits to the Chicago Zen Center, accompanied by 3 sessions of dokusan, in August and early September of 1999. We shortly thereafter left for the Iwokrama Rainforest Reserve in Guyana, South America to begin 13 months of research on primates for our dissertations. We are both currently in graduate school, she at Northwestern Medical school, and I at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I am now working at Northwestern as well, which means no long commutes to the Center. We have luckily received a number of taped teishos from Sevan Sensei, and have had the opportunity to contact him every couple of months via snail and e-mail. We have recently become members of the Center. At first blush this article might appear to be a discussion of the unique struggle which we have had to undertake in order to hold fast to our pledge to follow the Zen path and practice the Buddha’s and the Patriarch’s teachings. In actuality, our experience here has shown us how every day one can devise reasons for not sitting, for not practicing, for not holding fast to inquiry into this “Great Matter”, no matter the setting.
The Setting
We basically live in the rainforest. We are sheltered from rain in two ways. Our “bedroom” is in a raised wooden platform, with a thatch roof, where our hammocks (a.k.a. beds) are slung. By hammock, I’m not talking about dad’s net number in the back yard. The one that looks like a fishing net with sticks stuck in the end. These have no sticks and are beautifully woven. If you’re lucky you have gotten your hands on one made by Arawak, Macushi, or Wapashana peoples. They are surrounded by a box net that has sleeves on the end to permit the passage of the hammock ropes. The “kitchen” is under a wooden frame, which is draped by tarpaulins (or “pole-ins” in Creolese). The “lab” is built the same as the “kitchen”. Our bathroom is divided in two: a latrine, which becomes terrifyingly full of water during the wet season and our “shower”, which is behind a “pole-in” on wooden stakes. Water for bathing, cooking, and drinking is supplied from a spring. Thus, one of our primary morning activities is hauling water (although we are heartily sorry for the pigs, our deepest thanks to Canada for sending pickled pig parts to Guyana in large plastic buckets. The buckets, luckily not the meat, keep our camp operational.)
Studying Monkeys
Our days are primarily spent trodding 25+ km of trails which we had cut in the forest around camp. We could have had a nearly infinite number cut if we wished, due to the shocking vastness of Guyana’s rainforest. It is wonderfully intact, 80% of the country is forested, and not as threatened as Brazil’s forests due to its lower productivity. When monkeys are found we collect data on feeding and positional behavior, I on the former, and Kristin on the latter. The pristine nature of the forest provides the opportunity to see a vast array of animals as well. These include jaguar, ocelot, giant river otters, macaws, toucans, tapir, peccaries, and our mammals of choice, weeper capuchins, red howling monkeys, black spider monkeys, and white-faced sakis. It has also provided us the opportunity to be visited in camp by more than 40 poisonous snakes!
“The Rest of the Story”
You may be saying, “This is all well and good, but this isn’t a natural history article.”… So, for the rest of the story…
The intensity of this situation, and the sheer volume of change, has provided ample opportunity to test our faith, doubt, and determination. It has proven a testing ground, of sorts, to evaluate the level of compulsion we have to follow the Zen path. It has also produced some amazing internal dialogue (talk about “monkey mind”!) which we have had to beat back with these three ingredients. But it has also revealed, by comparison, how all new situations, and old for that matter, provide an ample number of obstacles to practice. The development, through our various births until practice, of our ego produces these dialogues. It is always a matter of facing the “reality” created by our ego and overcoming it.
A Dialogue in the Forest
The following, though written in one voice, is a conglomerate of dialogues which both Kristin and I have faced for the past 10 months:
Deeper Understanding
We’ve come to realize that this italicized voice is in all of us, although it is not, at its core, really a voice at all, but a mental manifestation of the cycle of faith-driving doubt-driving determination-driving faith…our hidden Buddha-nature. Luckily, this “voice” produced the inner discord or tension which pushed us in this lifetime to the Zen Center. It also pushes us (the entire Sangha) to work past daily problems, it pushes us to be kind, it pushes us in sesshin to stay on the mat, and it pushes us to make the leap to enlightenment.
At this point in my practice, and Kristin’s practice, it is only seen as a voice, that little cartoon angel that sits on one shoulder, arguing against the cartoon devil. But given cultivation of this voice through further training, it will become a profound thunderous silence, where all voices become no voice, words have no meaning, and the Rainforest is just the rainforest.
Introduction
In way of introduction it seems necessary to present our situation and us. My wife, Kristin, and I had our first few visits to the Chicago Zen Center, accompanied by 3 sessions of dokusan, in August and early September of 1999. We shortly thereafter left for the Iwokrama Rainforest Reserve in Guyana, South America to begin 13 months of research on primates for our dissertations. We are both currently in graduate school, she at Northwestern Medical school, and I at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I am now working at Northwestern as well, which means no long commutes to the Center. We have luckily received a number of taped teishos from Sevan Sensei, and have had the opportunity to contact him every couple of months via snail and e-mail. We have recently become members of the Center. At first blush this article might appear to be a discussion of the unique struggle which we have had to undertake in order to hold fast to our pledge to follow the Zen path and practice the Buddha’s and the Patriarch’s teachings. In actuality, our experience here has shown us how every day one can devise reasons for not sitting, for not practicing, for not holding fast to inquiry into this “Great Matter”, no matter the setting.
The Setting
We basically live in the rainforest. We are sheltered from rain in two ways. Our “bedroom” is in a raised wooden platform, with a thatch roof, where our hammocks (a.k.a. beds) are slung. By hammock, I’m not talking about dad’s net number in the back yard. The one that looks like a fishing net with sticks stuck in the end. These have no sticks and are beautifully woven. If you’re lucky you have gotten your hands on one made by Arawak, Macushi, or Wapashana peoples. They are surrounded by a box net that has sleeves on the end to permit the passage of the hammock ropes. The “kitchen” is under a wooden frame, which is draped by tarpaulins (or “pole-ins” in Creolese). The “lab” is built the same as the “kitchen”. Our bathroom is divided in two: a latrine, which becomes terrifyingly full of water during the wet season and our “shower”, which is behind a “pole-in” on wooden stakes. Water for bathing, cooking, and drinking is supplied from a spring. Thus, one of our primary morning activities is hauling water (although we are heartily sorry for the pigs, our deepest thanks to Canada for sending pickled pig parts to Guyana in large plastic buckets. The buckets, luckily not the meat, keep our camp operational.)
Studying Monkeys
Our days are primarily spent trodding 25+ km of trails which we had cut in the forest around camp. We could have had a nearly infinite number cut if we wished, due to the shocking vastness of Guyana’s rainforest. It is wonderfully intact, 80% of the country is forested, and not as threatened as Brazil’s forests due to its lower productivity. When monkeys are found we collect data on feeding and positional behavior, I on the former, and Kristin on the latter. The pristine nature of the forest provides the opportunity to see a vast array of animals as well. These include jaguar, ocelot, giant river otters, macaws, toucans, tapir, peccaries, and our mammals of choice, weeper capuchins, red howling monkeys, black spider monkeys, and white-faced sakis. It has also provided us the opportunity to be visited in camp by more than 40 poisonous snakes!
“The Rest of the Story”
You may be saying, “This is all well and good, but this isn’t a natural history article.”… So, for the rest of the story…
The intensity of this situation, and the sheer volume of change, has provided ample opportunity to test our faith, doubt, and determination. It has proven a testing ground, of sorts, to evaluate the level of compulsion we have to follow the Zen path. It has also produced some amazing internal dialogue (talk about “monkey mind”!) which we have had to beat back with these three ingredients. But it has also revealed, by comparison, how all new situations, and old for that matter, provide an ample number of obstacles to practice. The development, through our various births until practice, of our ego produces these dialogues. It is always a matter of facing the “reality” created by our ego and overcoming it.
A Dialogue in the Forest
The following, though written in one voice, is a conglomerate of dialogues which both Kristin and I have faced for the past 10 months:
5:15am:For the first 6 months, the unitalicized voice won most of the time, but the italicized voice was doggedly persistent and forced us to set aside time to make changes. We lowered our hammocks so we could sit in a net (sounds strange, but it is just like sitting in a chair [not our preferred posture] if it is low enough for your feet to touch the ground and you sit sideways). It also made us set aside time to listen to the taped teishos, and of greatest importance, it has us sitting consistently.
“Man, cold last night. Gotta get up and move. That kind of cold really stiffens me up, not to mention having this banana back from sleeping in a hammock. Tough on posture.”
“Oh, quit it! Just sit!”
6:45am (after not sitting):
“There are the monkeys, weeper capuchins this time”. Oh man, they’re going to run us ragged today. I’m gonna need some rest tonight. And what is with this heat! Wow, they aren’t kidding when they say it’s not the heat it’s the humidity! I’ve never sweated like this!”
“Wait, you weren’t thinking any of this a minute ago. You were just following monkeys. Shut up this useless banter and just sit!”
“Just sit you say! Well, let’s throw in the fact that Kristin has a fever and diarrhea, probably amoebic dysentery! We’ve been so stressed about not finding monkeys lately, that we haven’t had a civil word in days! Every night there is a new “deadly” snake in camp! We have no good place to sit! If we sit out of a net, bugs molest us! Our cook is having one of her grumpy weeks and refuses to keep things sanitary! The equipment for testing fruit is on the fritz and must be sent to Hong Kong, and what about…”
“Hold on! Let’s turn to Zen a second… What is creating all this? Your attachment to you! Your amazingly powerful drive for comfort in all circumstances. But what brought you to the Center in the first place?”
“Well, my karma.”
“Yeah, O.K., but what specifically? Feeling like this! It’s not the rainforest, it’s you! Your attachment to you! No you, none of this crap. How to get rid of you, you ask… sit! Sit! SIT!”
Deeper Understanding
We’ve come to realize that this italicized voice is in all of us, although it is not, at its core, really a voice at all, but a mental manifestation of the cycle of faith-driving doubt-driving determination-driving faith…our hidden Buddha-nature. Luckily, this “voice” produced the inner discord or tension which pushed us in this lifetime to the Zen Center. It also pushes us (the entire Sangha) to work past daily problems, it pushes us to be kind, it pushes us in sesshin to stay on the mat, and it pushes us to make the leap to enlightenment.
At this point in my practice, and Kristin’s practice, it is only seen as a voice, that little cartoon angel that sits on one shoulder, arguing against the cartoon devil. But given cultivation of this voice through further training, it will become a profound thunderous silence, where all voices become no voice, words have no meaning, and the Rainforest is just the rainforest.
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