Beyond Zen: Toward Sovereign Practice

*transcript generated by AI

All right, good morning, everybody.

Morning.

Let’s see.

So nice to practice with you and then I get to see you again.

And a little bit too, right because we kick off our, our john a training period today.

So, that’s very exciting.

I think that’s something that is worth discussing today is, is john has some relationship to our formals and practice that we’re doing here since the john a training is not necessarily a part of formal Zen practice.

Another topic that was already mentioned is the, the way that the open doors and suture book is evolving and even if it’s called open doors and really maybe it’s living refuge Zen or something like that.

When open doors and is like the sanctuary of a practice community that practices this living refuge Zen that’s emerging.

So there’s definitely a lot we could talk about those veins.

Both those sound entertaining enough for this morning, or does anyone put something else on the table.

Yes.

Mr.

Thank you for the spontaneous, letting me lead that you go.

What me, me.

Okay.

And then I remember, I don’t want to think it.

I don’t know, probably a year ago that I that I let you go on in English, so usually I do, but I did it in German, so like, oh, oh, oh, oh well.

You did pretty well.

So thank you for leading that allowed me to get a little bit more deeply into my own practice, which I deeply appreciate the opportunity to do some of the brocades are quite complex.

By the time you do all the subtle body mechanics the breath and the visualization, so not having to speak through it gave me a chance to feel into them again in a way that I, I don’t typically get to feel into them right before I sit.

Unless I do it myself but I usually don’t have an hour and a half to sit.

So then it’s like, so thank you.

Yeah, yeah, I would appreciate to alternate here and just do it more often.

So, I love to, to, to lead this, this practice.

Yeah.

Robin.

Cool.

You can do that.

Amazing.

That’s great.

The frozen speck.

The icy wind blew open my door, so I would prefer not to sit with the freezing wind blowing into the dojo.

Yeah, so your other two topics are amazing.

For me, I don’t know about Mitra.

Yeah, yeah, both of those topics sound delicious and very curious about both of them or, or I should say I’m.

I love the changes in the suture book so any discussion of like how that’s evolving and moving is like really exciting.

And then also then how the other practices tie into formal Zen training which is something that I was partially sitting with, with the genres and then because I’m working on Tarot, Tarot was there and it was like, okay, like, there was this step, this moment of like, Oh, yeah, this is Zen, I’m supposed to Zen, concentration, like, like, this is not where I’m at.

And then it’s like, well, what gives a fuck this is my practice and this is what I’m doing.

So, anyway, yeah, how it how it all ties together works.

You know, I think we each as our individual selves have our way of doing that.

But how does it work formally?

Interesting.

I appreciate that next level of the inquiry right and broadening it out once broadening it out one step further, which is a question that I constantly work with too.

So maybe we’ll get into that too.

I think.

Let’s, let’s start with the suture book, a little bit.

And we’ll just kind of take it organically from there.

But in terms of suture book, I’m just going to discuss Atatipa through the Three Refuges, because that’s plenty, and I’d like to leave room for Jhanas and stuff too.

So the first big change we noticed from the inherited suture book, which for those coming to this Dharma talk in the future who might not know, this practice evolved from Hollow Bones Zen.

And Hollow Bones Zen suture book was developed by Junpo Dennis Kelly and his practice community.

It got locked in, I think, pretty early.

But, you know, it was something that was revised a few times from what I understand, but was pretty locked in by the early 2000s.

It was a suture book format that evolved from Daibosatsu Zendo.

And so we’re kind of continuing on in that lineage in so far as we are, I would say that formally we’re broken from that lineage, you know, and like, I wouldn’t say we’re continuing necessarily in that lineage, mostly for political reasons.

The people who know Junpo and know me are kind of like the people who are formally continuing his lineage or continuing aspects of it that they told him they would continue.

And I would be the marrow, I would be taking in the depth practice and continuing the spirit of his practice, which is a nice thing to have reflected back to me from people who know enough to be able to say that in a way that I trust as being well informed.

So with that, the first thing I changed in the suture book is the Atadipa.

So in the HoloBones version, it starts with a call and response, you are this light, and then a version of it that has no naming, no pronouns, pure selfless awareness, rely upon selfless awareness, do not rely upon concepts of self and other.

And then it goes into response where the community chants it together with an I structure, I am this light.

Okay, well, that’s all fine and good.

That’s a certain way of doing things.

But one of the things that I thought was really important is to recognize that we are this light, to bring interpenetration as a co-created reality.

We co-create this reality, we are this light, our intersubjective experience is the manifestation of consciousness.

And so while Atadipa comes from a story where Buddha was telling his practitioners to be a lamp unto themselves, I don’t think it’s possible to place ourselves as a lamp without understanding that we’re in community.

And so yes, I am a lamp unto myself and I will illumine myself, but the purpose of that and the way that I know myself well enough to know whether or not I am a lamp is to know myself in community.

So I can’t be, there is no reliance on selfless awareness without also understanding that we are interpenetrated and interconnected.

So we just do it once, there’s no call and response, there’s no persona dramatis sitting in the center of the circle, holding this authoritarian role, calling and responding, it’s just in community, we say that this is what we are.

The next thing you’ll notice is that I took out the hollow bones mission statement.

We are a sacred order, bringing to being a harmonious and loving world into the practice of meditative, compassionate awareness and mindful stewardship is a lovely mission statement, but I feel like it created a certain, for me it created an energy in the wrong direction.

Of separation.

We are a sacred order, bringing to being, right, we are a sacred order, not everyone else, we are, which also created an in-group persona, which hollow bones has been accused of being very cult-like.

And part of the cult-like quality of that is this kind of like spiritual elitism of practicing this refined form of Zen that engages emotional maturity and, and then the Jumbo was very charismatic.

And so I was just kind of wanted to take a break from that we might come up with a mission statement I think that manages to be more individual while being interpenetrating in the future at some point.

So, because we are named do have a common goal in this practice which is to be a living refuge.

But for anyway the mission statement dropped off when I was remaking the sutra book at this point.

And then we use the same purification, because it’s beautiful and it’s something that everyone should be doing every day is some form of purification practice confessing and coming into discipline on resolving what we’ve recognized as our greed anger and ignorance.

Right, so that’s still very important.

I was kind of preamble, just to get us to the three upper refuges which was the main topic but is there any reflections on on the Alta Dipa mission statement and purification.

I would say the Alta Dipa I just, I just let it sit there for the mission statement.

When I translated the sutra book into a German version for Smiling Hearts Zen.

Then I found that, yeah, there’s this, we are some elite, and no other can do this, and you only can do this when you are here in this group of whatever.

And also, this was the most, I can say, was the most resistance probably also from participants who have no idea of, of such a practice like wow, what’s that, everything else like okay, why not but but this, this has some resistance, I still have it in there.

A little bit different, but I still have it.

Because I also see some kind of, I reframed it at least in my mind, and tell everybody else who’s practicing with me that this is not, this we doesn’t mean it’s just this little group of people.

Like, this we points to all practitioners who do something like that, doing Zen practice or doing any Buddhist practice or doing probably any religious practice who is creating something good in the world.

So, and in that case, it sounds different for me.

Sure.

It’s definitely one of the options for, for working with it in the post-Junpo world.

Origin story that came out of mankind project, and it was part of creating internal coherence and adhering to some mankind project principles about giving men purpose.

And so it, you know, historically, is not a universal week.

Yeah, and adjusting it to be a universal we is fine.

Right, and saying everyone who practice meditative compassionate awareness and mindful stewardship is, is the sacred order, right, we can do that.

So, definitely feel free to play with.

And I, I have objection to using a different organization’s mission statement.

Glad to have it out of there.

It’s part of the clarity that we have, and we’ve been discussing walls engine has been on sabbatical, is that we’re very clear in the fact that we are not part of hollow bones.

And so I think essentially is still reconciling her relationship and understanding these types of know you’re good.

You’re done.

So when I, when I did it, I wasn’t this in this in the middle of things, but after I did the retreat and came back and whatever so since autumn.

I’m out of this.

Oh, good.

Good in the sense of clarity, not good in the sense of value judgment about your decision.

No, exactly.

It’s just, it’s just a clarity and I still have, I still see value in the time that I was there.

So, it’s not that it wasn’t but it’s good to say, this is, this is what it was and this is what it’s now.

And that’s my mom.

Beautiful.

So, the next thing that came up was the three refuges right I take refuge in the absolute purity of this awakened mind I take refuge in this practice of pure selfless awareness wisdom compassion and skillful means you’ll notice that these two are the same.

So the big change comes in the refuge of sangha.

Okay.

And there’s two things happening here.

One is that the first two refuges are already framed in the secret meaning of the refuges.

They’re not framed in the historical teaching, where we’re taking refuge in the in the Buddha as a historical devotional figure.

We’re not taking refuge in the Dharma as the historical Buddhist teachings so we’re already have two refuges that are framed in the secret meaning.

So, it was for me it was a point of consistency, do I do I move those refuges to match the refuge of sangha and being more of an outer meaning.

Or do I move them all to kind of an inner meaning that’s kind of like in between or do I move them all to secret meeting, so that was kind of the first question, and I decided that the secret meaning was most resonant with me.

So then we take the hollow bones.

I take refuge in the truth of what I take refuge in this awakening community, and our realization and the truth of the interconnection interpenetration and interdependency of all sentient and in sentient beings.

Well, so this is already incoherent, because it’s not a secret meaning, it’s kind of like half secret half not secret half secret half outer half secret half inner half outer I don’t know it’s just kind of weird.

And then it very much creates the energy of this awakening community.

And for me the refuge of sangha is not refuge in human relationships, because human relationships are one of the things that drives us to practice.

So it’s a deeply confusing to people to say that we take refuge in a set of human relationships, because we, that’s not what the refuge is.

Now in not not non dual Mahayana ecstatic tantric practice which is where we’re at, you know, if we want to take refuge in a cloister of monastic individuals who are renunciate and committed to following the Vinaya and stuff like that.

Well then we’re in the outer meaning and that makes sense but none of us are doing that.

So the sangha that we end up taking refuge in is the cult of personality that Jimbo created, which is the sacred order.

And so for me, those things both tied into that kind of exclusionary spiritual elitism and just pointing us in the wrong direction of of human relationships, and then this icky Midwestern Protestant failure to hold people accountable when they fuck up, you know, because it’s between them and God, you know, well, it’s between them and God, my job is to forgive and get along.

Right, and it’s like no fuck that our job is to hold people accountable as good spiritual friends.

And so anything went so taking that out.

What was left well what was left was the secret meaning the secret meaning of sangha is interpenetration and interpenetration isn’t just about beings sentient or insentient, which I think can be confusing conceptually, because not every Westerner feels like nature is a being.

Right.

A lot of people come to practice with it separated.

And also, that’s kind of whatever, because really what we’re talking about is form and formlessness the interpenetration of the immaterial and the material.

And so that’s how it became, I take refuge in the truth of the interpenetration interconnection and interdependency of all that is manifest material and all that isn’t formless immaterial.

And now we get away from sticky human relationships we get away from any cult like language we get away from any incoherence between secret inner outer meanings of the refuges.

And, and here we are.

So that’s the rationale into how it became what it is.

Not that I actually disagree.

Point of agreement, that’s fun.

I guess that all that is includes sticky human relationships includes the, you know, the natural world it’s, you know, it’s, I like this statement because it is inclusive of all that is not only the sticky human relationships.

And importantly, we’re not taking refuge in the sticky human relationships, we’re taking refuge in the truth of the interconnection interpenetration interdependency.

Right.

Yeah, kind of flip the order.

Yeah.

I hadn’t recognized that there was an inner and an outer like that the refugees, the refuge at different levels of meaning, so to say.

So now when you say like, yeah, indeed, that’s it.

Yeah, now I see.

Before this explanation I was like, ah, okay.

Good.

Well, there’s always room to improve.

Yeah, I think the Vajrayana tradition is very good at like laying these things out very clearly.

Here’s the first turning meaning here’s the second turning meaning here’s the third turning meaning, like and they just, or here’s the outer here’s the inner here’s the secret, right.

So when we’re looking for really kind of scholarly rigorous analysis of the Buddha Dharma, especially in the context of the evolution of thought over time, I find that the Vajrayana teachers tend to be the most like articulate for this type of expression.

Yeah.

About the this part of this future book before we potentially jump on to the Jhana train or anything else.

The only thing that comes to my mind is that your translation training was weaving the way, and also some influences on the new way of seeing the sutra book, I guess.

Oh, yeah.

And this is I think maybe part of the Jhana conversation too, it’s like, what are we really, right.

I’ve been reflecting on that a lot, because part of, I received an inspiration that it’s time to collapse all of all of what I do into a single organization, which I think is, in one sense potentially very challenging, but another sense, not challenging at all.

So anyway, but it is part of this broader question of how do all of these things interrelate.

Right, because if we’re just doing non dual Mahayana Buddhism.

Well, that’s a pretty big category we can sneak in a lot of stuff.

But if we want to allow there to be a non dual Mahayana Buddhism that isn’t syncretized, and, you know, perverted from that perspective, then it’s important to understand all the things we do that aren’t that.

Right.

And that’s one of the reasons I refuse to say what our practice that our practices Rinzai.

I’ve been really adamant about that for a long time, because there is a Rinzai Zen that is very specific and they’re doing something that freeze.

So, you know, so it’s kind of like okay what are we really doing.

And when we look at Jhana training.

It’s kind of, you don’t really see it in Zen.

Now, Zen practice will generally produce the Jhanic states.

But they aren’t taught as such.

And one of the things that that does is that it allows practitioners to be lost in their meditation.

Because you can think that you’re sitting Zazen, but actually just be daydreaming, or sleeping, or check, you know, going into trance, or any of these things right which is not truly Zazen.

But then again, what is truly Zazen, this is very difficult to identify because, you know, the Soto sitting method is concentration on posture and breath, and then to just allow, right, an open awareness practice.

So that and that’s a branch of Zen and then you have the Rinzai branch of Zen which is a concentration practice.

And that was organized around Koan because the whole idea was to gain insight it was concentration to enter into absorption with reality in a way that yields liberating insight.

Right, so that’s how Rinzai moves people toward Buddhahood, in a certain way.

Well, the lineage that we inherited stripped out most of the Koan work.

Right, and started focusing on our life as our Koan.

Our life as our Koan.

Well, that’s so big and broad, and it’s very interesting, right.

Jumpo was a yogi and had a deep monastic training so for him concentration meditation was held in a more yogic concept, Dharana Dhyana Samadhi.

He used the eight limbs of Ashtanga and the yogic language to point to what we were doing in meditation.

Well, that’s much closer to Jhana training.

Right.

So then it’s like, well, if we honor the fact that Jumpo was a yogi, and he used Dharana Dhyana Samadhi language to describe his meditation practice, and he took out the Koan structure.

Well then, why not use something that the Buddha actually used for his liberating insight.

Well, what did he do?

He went through all of the states of consciousness that were available to him, all the way up to turning his relative mind completely off.

So that he could realize that any mental state was a form of rebirth, and there was no final liberation.

In which case, all that we are is living our life.

All we are is showing up in wisdom compassion and skillful means, which means we’re fully detached, and in our full fully detached state we recognize that everything is interdependent.

It’s just, it’s just karma unfolding.

And then we become active agents in the production of positive karma for ourselves and others.

Because that’s it, that’s all life is the purpose of life is to live it well.

And so, dhyana practice and tarot practice is something very similar just from a different cultural context, is about becoming very intimate with our different types of mental states, and then being able to manipulate our mental states so that we can be skillful.

And eventually, hopefully, realize a couple things.

One is to actually see through the way that we work, so that we are no longer bound by the mechanisms of the way we work, but we start to operate the machinery of how we work.

Right, the dhyanas can do that, which is where core training came from.

And then the other big thing is that like, when you, when you discipline your attention to this degree, and you go through such training, it just fundamentally changes the way that you work.

If you can effortlessly hold your concentration on wherever you place your concentration, then you can never be disturbed.

Because when something comes up and grabs your attention, you have the power to say, No, I don’t want to focus on that.

Or you have the power to penetrate through whatever that is, see how it’s working and adjust your karma accordingly.

Right.

And so the dhyanas are deeply liberating, not because any of the states are liberating, but because of the way they train our consciousness and train our relationship to our own consciousness.

So, you know, there’s preamble, but I’ve already talked a lot and we’ve got 10 minutes left so I’ll turn it over to discussion.

I guess where, where I’ve been in my practice is recognizing that I’m continually adding skills to my toolbox.

So at any given sit, you know, whatever’s going on in my life, or just, you know, where I’m at, that sit, like, what tools do I need to put into place to have this be a worthwhile sit.

To have it be, you know, to align and have insight, which then I can take back out into my life, which is incredible to be able to have new tools, other than, you know, this, you know, continuing to hit that nail with a wrench, you know, it’s just.

So, then my question becomes, where, where do we put the divide?

Where do we, and is that divide necessary?

If we are practicing as a community, if we are practicing Zen, if we are practicing Mahayana, blah, blah, blah.

Like, when we sit down and practice together, do we have a responsibility for our internal practice of following the same process, following the same, like, whether it be, you know, Jhanas, if we’re working on Jhanas together, or if we’re, when we’re sitting in Zazen, you know, do we have a commitment to practicing Zazen, like, as it is formally introduced?

Like, it all, it becomes kind of vague and wishy-washy for me, and then I just do my own thing, and, which is what I always do anyway, and then I feel like there may be a lack of accountability.

So that, somewhere there’s a question in there.

I think I hear it.

I think I hear it.

And it’s a really critical question.

And it’s, I mean, the answer in it is, I think, the inspiration to put everything under one banner.

Because it’s kind of like, when we’re here, especially this group, who’s done Jhanas, who’s done Tarot, who’s done core training, who’s done all this stuff, we’re not really doing Zen anymore.

Because we’re practicing sovereignty and somatic coherence and integrity with the unfolding of being-becoming.

And that’s fundamentally different than the objective of Buddhism.

And so, I think it’s important that we acknowledge that.

And then we allow a container to emerge that actually allows us to formally practice that new thing together.

You know?

And then we don’t have to feel like we’re in silos.

If we’re here and we want to talk weaving the way, we talk weaving the way.

If we’re here and we want to talk Tarot, we talk Tarot.

Because it’s all part of our toolkit in this practice of sovereignty.

Which, again, is fundamentally different than the ideals of Buddha, right?

Buddha is someone who has seen through the nature of reality for the purpose of liberation from suffering.

And believes that to liberate others from suffering, they need to see through the nature of reality.

And that’s kind of it.

We’re resolving our ignorance so that we can end our suffering.

Buddhism, as a framework, doesn’t really have…

It kind of gets into it when you say, like, this is on behalf of others.

I’m doing this in service to others.

Right?

And we turn into, like, now we teach other people how to see through their ignorance so that they can be free from their suffering.

Then it has some directionality in it.

But it’s not anywhere near the type of directionality that we’re talking about with sovereignty, where we’re really saying being becoming.

You know, Buddha is really about a being process.

And then becoming is just left to be as it will, because we believe that, or Buddhists believe that if you are being to the depth of being that a Buddha is being, then the becoming process will take care of itself.

History has shown that people who have been widely regarded as Buddha-like or Buddha-adjacent were highly realized did not become in a way that was Buddha-like.

And that’s part of why we exist as a rejection of that fundamental idea of Buddhism.

And now it’s gone to a whole nother level about, well, no, we have a being, we have a set of being practices, and we take those very, very seriously, because that’s critical.

Yin action, we must be before we become.

Otherwise, our becoming is fundamentally flawed, because we’re putting a head on top of our head.

We haven’t truly seen through, so we’re fundamentally confused, so we must be first.

But that becoming is something that we are very active participants in.

This is not something that will just unfold spontaneously.

And we can become totally sideways if we listen to the wrong voice.

And this is where a lot of the Catholic teaching and the tarot and stuff becomes so important, because you have a responsibility to discern the quality of the spirit that is moving you.

In Catholic teaching, you’re moved by Satan or you’re moved by God.

And the opposer is fucking tricky.

And it can make you think you’re doing something really good, but it might take you in a direction that’s not quite your actual true purpose.

Even though it’s something really good.

Like you can say, you’re really tired, you should sleep.

Or it can say, you’re really tired, you should still meditate.

Both of those things sound really good, but one of them is aligned with your true purpose and will, and one of them is not.

And your true purpose and will in our cosmology is God’s true purpose and will.

Is the one stream of unfolding being becoming that is not tangled.

So in weaving the way terms, it’s just that somatic coherence, that true integrity from the ground of being all the way up through our thoughts, words and actions.

Again, fundamentally different than the Buddhist perspective.

So why not name that?

And just when you showed with your hand this alignment of everything, that brings me back again to the Jhāna practice, where it says you need this alignment, this like inner coherence, stability, whatever, to be so that it’s possible to enter any Jhāna state.

So here it comes back.

Yeah, exactly.

Because when we’re, when we’re up here, right, and we especially ill will and restlessness, these are kind of the two, the two things that pull us out of our center most is some sort of resentment, resistance, depression, or anxiety, discontentment.

Right.

And, and so, if these are going on, we’ve got so much static, that there’s no way we can go down and into truly be.

It’s like, this is why I always do that.

Being becoming are like, they’re not.

But then I mean, it’s learning Tarot, that’s like where the static is, where, where am I at in the static?

What path am I taking to get back?

Exactly.

I can choose which route I want to take, which way is more expedient and which way may give you more information.

And which is the harmonizing force, right?

If I know that I’m inhabiting over inhabiting this Sephira, right, well, then I can use this Sephira, I can, I can intentionally take this path to this Sephira as the harmonizing quality, right?

Precise.

I think you were about to say something, and then we should probably.

I had a thought.

I know it’s gone.

So it is.

Well, let’s go ahead and do our closing check in, and we can come back in an hour for our, our Donna training.

I’ll start by just saying thank you so much for letting me take so much of the space to kind of articulate all of these things.

And I appreciate the feedback and reflections and discussion that ensued by it.

Very energized and deeply grateful to both of you.

Much love.

Thank you.

Much gratitude and love.

I’m going to go fly around like a nut, so I can join you later.

Thank you.

Lovely discussion.

Wonderful new insights.

And I’m very curious where this journey goes.

I’m in.

See you in a little bit.