As my teaching style has developed in recent years, I have evolved a way of offering the dharma in a form I call Inquiry Groups.  This general way of teaching is not new of course, and there are many versions of spiritual inquiry or satsang offered by many teachers from a variety of traditions, each reflective of their own experience, insight, and particular talent in sharing the dharma.  Recently, I came across a short piece adapted from the forthcoming book by Jack Kornfield, The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology (Bantam Books, April 2008) which resonates so closely with my perspective that I thought I might share it here.  This piece was printed in the Fall 2007 edition of Inquiring Mind (a semi-annual journal of the vipassana community).

On any day of the week, I encounter students from all ages arriving at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, where I work.  They each come with their problems and their genuine search for happiness.  To my eye, the students entering Spirit Rock are not very different from the stream of visitors who came to the forest monastery where I trained in Thailand.  Every day, Ajahn Chah would sit on a wooden bench at the edge of a clearing by his forest hut and receive them – a rice farmer whose son had died, a devout old nun, a semi-corrupt government official.  As a young monk in the monastery, I found myself marveling at the range of questions and human problems addressed by Ajahn Chah.  It was like watching a master psychologist at work.  Ajahn Chah made no distinction between worldly and spiritual problems.  To him, anxiety, trauma, financial difficulties, physical difficulties, meditative struggles, ethical dilemmas and community conflict were all forms of suffering amenable to the medicine of Buddhist teachings.  Ajahn Chah and other Buddhist masters like him are practitioners of a living psychology: one of the oldest and most well-developed systems of healing and understanding on the face of the earth. (p. 4)

No matter what the tradition of the teacher and no matter who the students are, they eventually meet in exactly the same space – human intimacy.  You can call the encounter spiritual or psychological.  You might take on a role in this meeting as a teacher or therapist, student or client.  You might look for a spiritual friend you can hang out with or a guru to follow.  You might think of the relationship as very ordinary and friendly or quite special and challenging. But in the end, one person meets another person in this tender, vulnerable place. Most people come to such a meeting because they are yearning for the guidance that real wisdom can provide or the healing balm of true compassion.  So to hear about an old monk making himself so available, meeting whoever and whatever arrives, reminds me of sitting in the Inquiry Groups receiving who ever comes forward. 

In the Zen tradition in which I trained, this relationship is called “guest and host.”  If the meeting was real, immediate, and intimate, one could never really know who would be the host and who would be the guest; who would end up being the teacher and who would be the student.  It is the same in the Inquiry Groups.  I may be the one in the front of the room, “sitting on a wooden bench at the edge of a clearing… receiving them,” but this is just a function.  Making that function into a solid thing is a fiction. I am not merely “a teacher” or defined by any role or title.  I am an impermanent responsive function.  Participants in these groups are able to see that whatever wisdom emerges, comes mostly from the people asking their questions. Any real nourishment available in the time spent together comes through the presence in the relational connection, not from the words.  This gift can only appear between two people as they meet openly and honestly.  This is where truth shows itself most clearly and where emptiness dances most freely.  That meeting and that space can be called love.

“HOPE IS CRUEL” by Flint Sparks From the Spring 2007 edition of “Just This,” the journal of the Austin Zen Center. Once, in a psychotherapy training session with John Gladfelter, my primary therapist, mentor, and first real dharma teacher, someone asked a poignant question about their life and what they could hope for in their process of transformation. John sat silently for a moment before responding. Then he said simply, “Hope is cruel.” This came as a bit of a shock. Most of us bring ourselves to a therapist, spiritual director, priest, or practice during times when we feel we’ve lost hope. We’re searching for comfort and hope provides the possibility for comfort. So what could this surprising response mean? I also remember a dialogue between a young student of Buddhism and the great Tibetan teacher Trungpa Rinpoche. In this case, Trungpa reportedly said something like, “To practice is to walk the path between hope and despair, straight into the face of uncertainty.” I believe he wasn’t only suggesting that there’s no solace in hope, but that we can’t hide in despair either. Instead, we’re apparently being asked to reside in not-knowing, impermanence, and the ever-changing reality of existence. The invitation is to stop in this shimmering, uncertain Now. These aren’t the kinds of teachings that generally bring people merrily to the zendo. They’re the kind that give Zen the reputation of being too hard or too cold. Yet, these teachings are essential if we’re to see the truth of our existence and wake up out of what Joko Beck calls “the self-centered dream.” In Everyday Zen, Joko writes, “Intelligent practice always deals with just one thing, the fear at the base of human existence, the fear that I am not.” She’s making a rather strong statement: intelligent practice always deals with this one thing; the deep fear that resides at the very base of human existence - the fear that “I am not.” We often think that the fear of death is the core human anxiety, but actually it’s the fear that I don’t exist right now; that all of this isn’t real somehow. Joko continues: “And of course, I am not. But the last thing I want to know is that. I am impermanence itself in a rapidly changing human form that appears solid.” In those few brief sentences she’s reminding us of the three marks of existence: we’re impermanent, with no independently existing self, navigating an unsatisfying world. Further on she says, “I fear to see what I am, an ever-changing energy field. I don’t want to be that. So good practice is about fear. Fear takes the form of constantly thinking, speculating, analyzing, fantasizing. With all the activity we create a cloudy cover to keep ourselves safe in a make believe practice. True practice is not safe. It’s anything but safe.” How does one navigate the transition from living in fear, resisting the fact that we don’t know who we are, to dropping the barriers to clear seeing in order to live with freedom and ease? This is a fundamental question of practice and these very potent and surprising statements by these different teachers all point to a common key. In order to unlock the gate to freedom from suffering, we have to face our addiction to hope. We must loosen our grip on safety and ease, which is only possible within the loving, supportive environment of sangha. This loving container is the context for moving toward uncertainty. In Christianity, facing these difficult teachings often ushers in what St. John of the Cross called the Dark Night of the Soul. In Zen, we call it the Great Doubt. What usually starts out as a romanticized possibility for a spiritual solution to life turns out to be more challenging than we thought. Even if we have an initial shift, a kensho or opening, this surge of freedom and joy can’t be sustained if we don’t continue to mature and ripen in practice. The problem is that the ego will take the “high” of a kensho and cling to it as the next form of hope. The reality is that such an opening initiates the longer and more arduous part of the path. It doesn’t signify its end. Stephen Mitchell, a wonderful translator, once said “It’s not that hard to get enlightened. What’s difficult is to keep giving up our sense of the world so that the world can come to us on its own terms with its vast, pitiless, loving intelligence.” The opening isn’t that hard. It’s living our way into the opening that takes time and work, usually with a teacher who’s been down the road and can help us. In doing so, we can face this “vast, pitiless, loving intelligence,” but also find gratitude without an object. As I’ve endeavored to move through these universal obstacles and make my way along this same path, I’ve been blessed by an enormous amount of love and support. I feel a lot of gratitude and, in turn, I’ve offered myself to many of you as you’ve struggled and celebrated movement along your path. Recently, as I’ve shifted my role within the sangha, dropping much of my identity as a leader, teacher, and priest, I’ve been shaken deeply. As I’ve reflected on this shift and the disorientation that’s followed, I reread some of Jack Kornfield’s book, A Path with Heart. Reading as a beginner, yet again, I ran across the following statement and was stunned to see myself reflected in the words: “After we abandon our spiritual identity the meditation leads us through a total dissolution of self, through the dark night like death itself. To enter this consciously challenges all we know of our identity, yet it is the path to freedom.” The loss I’ve experienced in this dissolution is deeper than disappointment. No one can really prepare us for this. This place is not depression, because it’s not simply psychological or merely a triggering of conditioning. It’s not that conditioning isn’t triggered, or that psychological content doesn’t move, but the Great Doubt, the Dark Night isn’t fundamentally psychological. This shift isn’t about being frustrated or disappointed that things aren’t going your way. This is about a core resistance to meeting life as it is. I heard a definition recently, a mathematical equation offered by Shinzen Young: suffering = pain x resistance. Without resistance it’s just pain, plus pain, plus the next thing. Life unfolding as it will. Suffering is pain multiplied by the resistance. If you feel some of this deep dropping of identity too soon in practice, the likelihood is that you’ll just leave practice. You’ll trigger too much resistance. This is something that I’m reminded of over and over. Traditionally, one of the important functions of the teacher is to help students as they stumble and fall, as they face the fears that arise, allowing the letting go of false hopes, and fending off a slide into despair. However, I also think that this is too big of a job for the teacher alone. Without a good bit of love and support, you simply can’t tolerate this undoing. You have to know you are being held, and I don’t mean coddled and protected. This is the only way we can keep going. And when the time is appropriate, we come to know that there’s actually nowhere to go, no place to hide, no turning back, and we meet a kind of despair. Jack Kornfield writes: “Traditionally the dark night arises only after we have had some initial spiritual opening. In the first flush of practice, joy, clarity, love and a sense of the sacred can arise. And with them we experience a great excitement at our spiritual progress. However these things will inevitably pass away. It is as if they arise for us as initial gifts but then we discover how much discipline and surrender are required to remain in these realms.” And this is the entry into the long, long mission. This is what our forms are for, to offer a container in practice to hold us as we transform. This is what a thousand years of Zen has been cultivated to sustain and support. Now, in the West, we are allowing this great tradition to find its fullest expression. It’s done so over and over in every culture it’s moved into, and we hope not to loose any of its transformative power, its truth, or its heart. Kornfield goes further: “Everything seems to be dissolving. We sense the dissolution of life, moment to moment. Now the dark night deepens. As our outer and inner worlds dissolve we lose our sense of reference. There arises a great sense of unease and fear leading many students into a realm of fear and terror.” This is the stuff we don’t talk about much because it’s not very popular. This is also why we have to cultivate real intimacy as spiritual friends, so we can tolerate these kinds of challenges and use the energy released through these dissolutions to guide us toward freedom and away from despair. This is unavoidable and everyone experiences it differently but this is where we have the possibility of waking rather than running. Basically we give up on trying to redirect life or avoid what we dislike. Oddly, in choosing reality, we have to include the suffering. This triggers some of the most difficult forms of resistance I’ve faced so far — the resistance to allowing things to be as they are. This is often why we need each other, in order to help bring us back to “things as it is,” as much as we may hate it. At this point you can’t count on anything that previously gave you hope. All you’re left with is the present — with “just this’ — no fancy edges. Dogen said, “When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point.” It’s not as if Dogen is suggesting we’re home, once and for all. When there’s nothing left except the present moment, when you give up all the ideas about yourself and all the roles that gave you an identity, practice can occur. He says, “When you find your way at this moment practice occurs, actualizing a fundament point. For the place, the way is neither large nor small, neither yours nor others. The place, the way is not carried over from the past nor is it arising now. Here is the place, here the way unfolds.” This is the gateway to freedom, with no self, no experiencer, no witness. Everything has fallen away. And you don’t get some new, improved identity as a replacement. Dogen continues his relentless teaching. “Do not suppose that what you realize becomes your knowledge and is grasped by your conscious. Although actualized immediately the inconceivable may not be apparent. Its appearance is beyond your knowledge.” In the final picture of the Ox Herding series, the student returns to the world with “gift bestowing hands.” Ordinary. Nothing special. Ready to serve. There’s nothing left from a conventional perspective, and everything available from the awakened perspective. We’ve emptied ourselves, yet we’re full. And so we choose to come back, over and over to this moment and this life. We let go of the absolute, we let go of our kensho, we let go of the spaciousness, and we let go of the resistance. We let go of it all. After practicing with some dedication, possibly opening to glimpses of the absolute, we land right back in the middle of our lives. And we have the opportunity to emerge as what Genpo Roshi calls the “integrated free functioning human being.” You’re now free to move back and forth between the relative and absolute. There’s no difference. All perspectives are available. You’re not stuck in any one perspective. You don’t try to find the right perspective, which becomes “the point” of your life. There isn’t one point. You’re free. And then you can experience the love that won’t leave anything out, or anyone behind. The love that does surpass all understanding. A final quote from Genpo Roshi: “Some spiritual paths seem to end at the top of the mountain and perhaps some people manage to stay there. But the Zen path is the path of the Bodhisattva, or the path of the human being. After realization we knowingly choose to return to being human.” We didn’t really have a choice before practice because we were stuck in duality, in the realm of suffering. After we’ve traveled the entire cycle, or spiral, we can make a conscious choice to reside as an ordinary human being. A Bodhisattva is someone who’s awakened yet chooses to return to the world to help others. How many people can you reach from the top of the mountain? To meet others, you have to get down to earth, into the mud. That’s where the Bodhisattva can make a difference. We say in the precepts ceremony, “we live like a cloud in an endless sky, like a lotus in muddy water.” We don’t transcend and take up residence in heaven, nor are we stuck only in the mud. We actually are both. As this spacious mind of awakening, grounded in everyday-ness, we move beyond hope and despair, face uncertainty, and, from an ordinary perspective, we are guaranteed to lose everything. We begin to see, however, that in the bargain we gain the whole world. This world. Not another one.

This is basically the morning reflection I gave during this morning's sitting at the recent Leadership Pilgrimage [http://www.seton.net/locations/cove/]. I was urging the participants to see that they are no different from anyone else, and that they are completely capable of awakening to what every other person has realized throughout history. You are what you are seeking! Flint As we sample teachings form many of the great Wisdom Traditions, have you ever asked yourself, “Where does the wisdom come from? What is the source of these incredible teachings? What is the wellspring from which all of this flows?” It comes from just this – sitting in silence, stillness, and receptivity – having stopped – waiting; but a waiting that is not passive and barren, but a stopping and waiting that is spacious, attentive, and receptive to everything; a profound readiness. Despite the often-dramatic stories of the lives of these teachers of the past, you are doing exactly what they did, meeting exactly what they met, in the silence and stillness. And do you also wonder what kinds of people these sages and saints were? They were people exactly like you. Not similar - exactly. Human - both vulnerable and resilient - subject to birth and death. You have everything you need to realize what they realized. You have a body, a mind, relationships, and the weight of conditioning to wrestle with just like they did. All the ingredients are present. These ingredients have always been present and they will remain present for the rest of your life. They will never leave you and have never been apart from you from the very beginning. You can rely on this. The actual reality of your circumstances is much more reliable than anything you think about your circumstances. Use the reality of each moment as your teacher. Your ideas and ideals may very well be disappointed, but you will never be failed. By sitting here this morning you have made a choice – you have taken your seat - and that decision to sit in silence and stillness, will generate a response – you will be met in some way – in ways that will, at times, be obvious and in other ways which will be less obvious, but which will move you nonetheless. The responses you receive may appear supportive or obstructive, entangling or releasing, but you can’t know their meaning all at once. You have to see it through, and that seeing through sometimes looks dark and fearful, and sometimes bright and encouraging. The central choice made by the teachers of the past, and the choice available to you, is whether you will continue under all conditions – the very definitions of practice – the one thing you do under all conditions, as the great Zen teacher Katagiri Roshi used to say. If you think you are not like our ancestors, and you lack something – that is an interesting and problematic dream. If you think you are special and elevated with this realization – that is another interesting and equally deluded dream. This same reminder is echoed in Dogen’s Eihei Koso Hotsuganmom: "Before buddhas were enlightened, they were the same as we. Enlightened people of today are exactly as those of old." The Buddha was very disappointing to those interested in theology. He didn’t give us anything to believe in, nor offer metaphysics to explain the universe. He was only interested in one thing – suffering. His insights and practices were in response to this concern – how is suffering caused and how can it be ended? His first teachings were about what he discovered regarding suffering and his final teachings were a reminder that each person can have the same insights and the same freedom as he. Each person only needs to make the choice to practice and discover these things for themselves. Here is a contemporary and poetic translation of the first teachings of the Buddha – the Four Noble Truths – first used by Joko Beck at the San Diego Zen Center and still used at Ordinary Mind in Austin. Caught in the self-centered dream, only suffering. Holding to self-centered thoughts, exactly the dream. Each moment, life as it is, the only teacher. Being just this moment, compassion’s way. We can actually wake up from the self-centered dream just as our ancestors did. We can come to note the ways in which we cling to the dream as if it were reality in the same way that they did. We can turn to meet each moment as a never-ending source of wisdom, and in the relaxation of conditioning, allow compassion to flow. This is the human possibility – maybe the human responsibility.

Here is a beautiful reflection offered by Peg Syverson (see her Zaadz profile), during our recent intensive at Ordinary Mind Zendo. This is the same intensice in which I offered the reflection on "Vast Liberation." Our practice is the art of the possible. As Flint pointed out in his talk, that does not mean possible as in "someday maybe I will become enlightened": rather, it is the art of discovering what is possible in this moment: what it is possible to be, do, say, or experience that contributes to the overall wholeness quotient of you and everyone you know, every other being. The expression of that which is moving through you unhindered and unbound. That means if it is a moment of grief, a moment suffused with anger or impatience, a moment immersed in melting love, a moment of boredom, a moment of confusion, a moment of conflict, disturbance, serenity or even bliss: what is possible? Our practice is the practice of becoming sublime artists of the possible, sculpting experience, composing the music, crafting the poetry of this very moment. The wonderful thing about this practice is that you do not need to be "good" at anything, you do not need to worry about mistakes or lapses, because in the very next moment, a fresh canvas presents itself, a fresh audience appears, an in-breath is followed by an out-breath. And as we immerse ourselves in the wonder of this ongoing creation of our lives, the texture of the fabric and its impeccable design begins to reveal itself as a profound and incredibly rich pattern, a pattern woven of people, places, activities, processes, events, emotions, ideas, and relationships. And we begin to discover that this magnificent work of art we are somehow manifesting is so much vaster than we could ever have imagined. In this moment of recognition, we can realize our always already present awakened being. How can we not be grateful, even to those who have opposed us, even to those who fear us, even to our own selves, for the experience of being artists of the possible. Bodhisattva's Vow is not just a kind of boy scout oath to save all beings; a very nice homily for a sanctimonious life. Do you really understand the lines in it that sound so mystical, the lines that sound like someone who has been dropping some serious acid? When you really recognize the shift from judgment to appreciation without exception: Then on each moment’s flash of our thought there will grow a lotus flower and on each lotus flower will be revealed perfection, unceasingly manifest as our life, just as it is, right here and right now. This is not simply a metaphorical expression, it is a direct stroke of the master's brush, leaping off the page, through your ears, into your mind and heart. You don't even know what it means, because it is not comprehensible to the one who knows. “The meaning is not in the words, yet it responds to the inquiring impulse.” This line from the Jewel Mirror Samadhi perfectly captures the spirit in which Flint and I meet each of you again and again, in practice discussion, in inquiry groups, in our talks and the lives we live. It is a privilege to have this opportunity. Today, as I have been meeting with you in our practice discussions, over and over the word gratitude has been expressed, so I know this is on your minds as well. For the artist, life makes no mistakes: the jazz note that seems in error is repeated, woven into a new melody, the smear of paint becomes a window into another universe, the stumble in the dance reveals the vulnerability that is pure grace. We are exploding through our lives, the materials we are working with are volatile, ever changing, remarkable in their variety and potential. They are living materials, with the power to heal, to wound us to the core, to stun us into awe. They are not things we interact with, to push or pare or scrape away. The medium in which we fully express the life pouring through us is relation; it is what is always arising in the experience of what is: which is each other, the work we are engaged in, the environment that is so tenderly sustaining our fragile lives. And as artists, we recognize there is a craft to learn, a lifelong teaching and learning process that captivates us with its brilliant light. At every moment, we are working, not for fame or glory or wealth, but for the complete expression of that which we truly are. Don't hold back. Please, sit with this understanding, in curiosity and delight. Or in whatever is arising right now, in this awareness we are sharing. What is possible in "just a weekend?" What is truly possible? I think it is safe to say that neither Flint nor I believe that many years of dedicated practice are required to fully awaken right in this moment, nor some special technique, perfect teacher, or ideal spiritual community. I had a colleague, an expert on reading, who used to say, children don't learn to read. They can't read, and then they can. There are many ways that might happen, but it is ultimately binary: unable to read/able to read. This is the shift Flint was talking about when he mentioned stereograms. It is our funny, effortless, falling away shift when we let the life flowing through us freely express itself in our unique manifestation of body, mind, heart, and relationality. It is who we are, minus the believed stories that we tell ourselves, about ourselves, about the world, about everyone else. Can that really be enough? Well, what kind of artist are you? Do you want to make little, tentative dabs of the brush with safe, erasable colors? Do you really want to try to plan out the whole canvas in comfortable detail? Don't you want to work on this big masterpiece together? You recall the eko (dedication) in our morning service: Life and death are of supreme importance Time swiftly passes by, and with it our only chance Each of us must strive to awaken Be aware, Do not squander our life! Our life; the life; life itself, melody, harmony, dissonance, counterpoint, the only thing we can't do is stop the music. The eko urges us to plunge into our practice and our lives wholeheartedly, but you notice it is not a singular effort: it is our chance, our life... Can we be brave enough to meet this challenge, every moment a new, fresh canvas waiting for our colors, a silent instrument waiting for our touch? Waiting to resonate with the life that is within us?

As I begin to type this entry, I am in the midst of an intensive retreat at the Ordinary Mind Zendo in Austin, Texas [ordinarymindaustin@googlegroups.com], This afternoon we took a break from sitting and gathered in a period of group inquiry. I began this period with a reflection - a story I heard from my ordination teacher, Zenkei Blanche Hartman, former Abbott of the San Francisco Zen Center. As we were sewing robes for priest ordination one day, she told me about her sewing teacher Joshin-san, a delightful and very dedicated woman who carried forth a very particular sewing style used in the preparation of Soto Zen priestly garments. The kesa is the most formal of the robes - a patchwork garment like the one supposedly worn by the Buddha and his monks, made originally from old discarded cloth gathered at the village dump or shards of wrapping left behind at cremation sites. Today we simply cut up perfectly good cloth and sew it back together in a prescribed manner handed down through the generations. Over these centuries, some of the ceremonial robes, especially in China and Japan, were quite elaborate and beautiful, made of the best silks and embroidery. Apparently, a Japanese gentleman had a stunning collection of these antique robes and had preserved them at great expense. As a master of sewing the kesa, Joshin-san was taken one day to view this collection. Rather than being awed by the brilliant pieces, she was horrified. Blanche said that apparently she said something like, “Every robe is the complete body of the Buddha. Why would you want to have more than one?” Her devotional understanding of what these robes represented was vast and deep. We may not understand this particular sentiment, and most of us do not wear these formal robes, but nonetheless we still recite the “robe chant” as part of our ritual of remembering what it is like to step into the container of an intensive retreat. We may not wrap ourselves in the literal cloth, but we do wrap ourselves in the tradition. Here is one translation of the traditional chant: Vast is the robe of liberation, A formless field of benefaction; Wearing the universal teaching, I realize the one true nature, Thus harmonizing all being. “Vast is the robe of liberation.” What is vast is liberation – not suffering. What we step into and wrap ourselves in is this vast reality, “A formless field of benefaction.” Without form and substance, and yet pervading everything and everyone, we can begin to awaken in and as this buoyant beneficence. Can we really begin with this realization, that liberation is a vast gift? At the beginning of the precepts ceremony in Soto Zen there is a completely revolutionary statement that reflects this same reality. It is often either simply overlooked or misunderstood. It says, “In faith that we are Buddha, we enter Buddha’s Way.” The entry into the Way of freedom is faith that we are already Buddha? This is the starting point? Most often people suppose that we enter Buddha’s way in order to practice so that one day we, too, will be a Buddha. However, the actual statement of our ancestors is clear: “in faith that we are Buddha, we enter Buddha’s Way.” This is the starting place. Here the way unfolds. “Vast is the robe of liberation, a formless field of benefaction.” The chant goes further to suggest that as we try on these teachings and begin to resonate with them, we recognize that they are not distant goals to achieve or theologies to believe in. The teachings are descriptions of who and what we truly are. “Wearing the universal teachings, I realize the one true nature.” I love the physical metaphor of “trying on.” We wear the teachings. We put them on. We embody them. It does not say, “Understanding the universal teachings,” it says, “Wearing the universal teachings.” There is a profound difference between these two messages. The difference points to the difference between a personal gain of the ego and something beneficial to all beings. “Harmonizing all being,” does not mean that we make our way through the world harmonizing by our individual, personal efforts. It suggests that we can actually become harmony. Once again, it is not something we can do. The personal ego cannot harmonize all being. However, as the individual self relaxes as the center of activity, harmony begins to move simply and easily as our natural state. This is who we are

These last few weeks of inquiry have been deeply touching. This is the reason for my using "love" in the title. It has been amazing to simply open the space for silence and then to meet the tender hearted honesty and bold courage of the people who have come forward to share their practice questions. Today I spoke very briefly about the unmanifest and the manifest; how our lives in all of their manifest complexity are complete expressions of the unmanifest, the One expression in all of its many forms. As they used to say in Sunday School, we are "the word made flesh." In the questioning it became clear that no matter what the struggle, what the personal story, the unmanifest - awareness itself - never abandons us. How could it? It is that which we truly are and is always, already present. Each person, through their willingness to be intimate with their experience, brought wisdom to the group. Dogen was very succinct when he said that the mind of awakening was "intimacy with all things." The stories were about addictions, compulsive behaviors, fears, attachments, trust, and faith. Human stories. What emerged in the inquiry was this amazing stream of teachings about how relaxing the fight with reality opens the door to freedom; how each supposed "problem" is the path to liberation; and how awareness - the unamnifest - is always awake to what is actually happening. When we are caught with the story (the manifest) we miss the vast spaciousness of the freedom (the unmanifest). As David Whyte so eloquently says in his poem "Faces at Braga," [reflcting on the work of wood carvers, delicatley fashioning the faces of Bodhisattvas in a Tibetan cave] - If only we knew as the carver knew, how the flaws in the wood led his searching chisel to the very core, we would smile too and not need faces immobilized by fear and the weight of things undone. When we fight with our failing we ignore the entrance to the shrine itself and wrestle with the guardian, fierce figure on the side of good. This is the amazing thing about the inquiry groups - as people no longer "fight with their failings" but open to what is moving, what moves is liberated energy, freed from the contraction the fear, borne along by the mutual care and love of radical acceptance - the unmanifest in action. Flint

Dear Friends, It has been clear to me for a long time that whenever any of us come together to sit in meditation, study, share our questions, or play, that something happens which opens a space in which amazing things can happen. This was highlighted this past Tuesday evening as we sat in silence, reflected on the story I read about a very ordinary woman (the embodiment of spirit herself, denying that she had ever had a spiritual experience), and then opened the space for people to come forward to meet in the intimacy which invites awakening. An immense and loving presence unfolded. This is not something that I do or that any one person in the group makes happen. These things move between us and among the group memmbers, born out of our most heart-felt intention and supported through our naked willingness to care for each other in the most direct and simple ways - to be open, and still, and willing for each person to be fully themselves. In that space, the contractions of conditioning begin to relax and the brillance of the Truth of who and what we are shines through. the complete truth is always there, of course, and is never tainted nor destroyed, but is is not always seen or appreciated fully. We become the mirrors which reflect this perfection and wholeness which is beyond and prior to our personal feelings or thoughts. The natural freedom we see in simple looking and listening is the freedom most of us think we have to work hard to achieve or create. It can't be created and there is nothing to achieve. It is who you are! Please join us as we awaken to this truth. Flint