Being One and Many

A thousand times at least I asked my Guru to give Nothingness a name. Then I gave up. What name can you give to the source from which all names have sprung? –Lal Ded

Language has a trickster quality. At one moment it limits. We find ourselves hard pressed to find the word that captures a feeling, mind state or emotion. Other times, a single word can invoke so many meanings and associations that we are left with a number of mind tangents or in a conversation with people who have very different images in their hearts.

For example—the other day I was working with a colleague to come up with a name for an event that we are collaborating on. They wanted to use the word “vessel”, I said it reminded me of deep sea submarines, they said they thought of a cup or chalice, another friend said they immediately thought of blood flowing through their veins.

Needless to say, we scrapped vessel.

But, how often does this happen?

One of my favorite books as a college student was The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera (who is a Czech writer and somehow captures something I know so deeply in my bones growing up in a large close knit Catholic extended family with Czech ancestry). In the book he defines words according to the different characters, which opens up a reflection on how a single word also contains personal meaning based on our histories. 

We all have experience with hearing a word, and an image appears in our mind, and suddenly we are in a scene from 10 years ago—smelling the ocean, filled with longing for a lost love or time of connection—or something else.

Given our wide range of life experience and associations, how is it that we are able to communicate at all?

In spiritual practice, we play the trickster, using language we point beyond concepts to a truth outside of our shared vernacular— a secret language of the innermost heart.

Yet, the words themselves can act as traps. We say one thing, and the other side isn’t expressed. Our words amount to an incomplete teaching, a partial truth. 

As practitioners on this path of freedom—we learn to liberate language. To hear beyond the words. 

To—at times—forget words. 

Deviating from conventional conceptualizations — playing in pure potentiality. 

If a tree wasn’t a tree, what would you call it?

If love wasn’t called love, how would you name it?

What is the sound you would give to oneness? 

How would you capture Nothingness?

Don’t tell me about it, my teacher would say in sanzen, show me!

…

For the month of September my dharma talks/podcasts will be exploring the relationship between the oneness and the many, or sameness and difference. We will be using the Zen poem by Shitou called the Sandokai, which is translated as the Harmony of Difference and Sameness or the Identity of Relative and Absolute. This podcast introduces the poem and some other teachings from Shitou, just to give you a flavor for his teaching style. On Monday Sept 16, I plan to zoom out and explore the ways sameness + difference show up in our lives + practice, exploring how we can practice integrating the teaching of one + many in our relational lives.

Another theme I have been reflecting on lately, and this very much is part the exploration of oneness and many—is the relationship between Spirit and Soul in dharma practice. Almost every retreat I have led in a Zen context, someone asks at some point, where is the joy? And while I have found great joy in simply sitting in the stripped down style of a Zen sesshin. I also know that Joy, Beauty, Art, Wonderment and Ecstasy are potent elements to the unfolding and embodiment of dharma in our lives.

Jogen and I have been envisioning a practice space that is both committed to the spiritual practice of waking up, while also exploring together elements of soul work. 

I am excited to introduce……

sky + rose: an emergent, on-line contemplative community braiding Spirit and Soul

Meets monthly on Sundays from 10:30A PT - 12:30P PT / 1:30P ET - 3:30P ET

Join us for our first practice session : The Ritual of Liminality

Sunday October 27

Spirit (sky): indestructible stillness-openness, clarity, perfection beyond the mind’s capacity to grasp or reconcile, the felt unity of all this multiplicity, the cosmos in your cup of coffee. Unstoppable, ever-graceful flow.

Soul (rose): everything alive as Beauty. Art in the everyday quirks, cares, agonies and curiosities. Tending the need to create, relate, build and destroy. Reconciling Psyche’s movement towards wholeness. Answering the call to heal the meanness and alienation that fractures our worlds. Putting on the Altar the dark places and shining light in the shadowy corners of our very human hearts. The love and meaning for the flowers popping up in the cracks.

This is a place for kisei and jogen to weave in practices and explorations of Soul Work that are typically not highlighted in the Buddhist tradition but that have nonetheless been sources of vitality, expansion and joy. 

Here we ask together: What if we lived as if Love were the point?

We will:

* Create a practice ethos of radical non-duality, a commitment to see into the dream of the self. Grounding in dharma practices of stillness, inquiry and openness.

* Center parts work practices to explore the fluidity, span and dream of who we are - somebody, nobody, everybody.

* Do interpersonal and group meditation practices of seeing, being and awakening.

* Directly explore emotional embodiment & shadow work

* Include Beauty, Art & Wonderment as core practice elements

We initiate Sky & Rose as an experiment in embracing Spirit and Soul simultaneously, together imagining and practicing collective liberation, playfulness and spaciousness in this time of deep adaptation.

We will begin with monthly 2 hour online sessions on Sundays. Each month we will have a different theme.

The schedule for a session can be found below. We ask each person to commit to coming for the entire session.

Opening—Sacred Invocation (10 min)

Meditation/Universe Somatic (45 min)

Group Shadow Work / Relational Practices (1hr)

Closing Dedication 

….

I’m Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, budding Astrologer and Artist. In my Spiritual Counseling Practice, I practice at the confluence of spirituality and psychology, integrating mind, body and spirit. I am trained in Internal Family Systems (IFS), Dream Work, Hakomi (Somatic Therapy) and Mindful Eating.

I also lead a weekly online meditation group through the Zen Community of Oregon and am leading a class series on the Zen Bodhisattva Precepts this Fall. Also if you are interested in workshopping your meditation practice join me in collaboration with Pause Meditation for a 5-week online class series called Beyond Mindfulness. More information can be found below.

Monday Night Meditation + Dharma

Every Monday 6P PT / 9P ET

Join me on zoom for 40 minutes of meditation and a dharma talk. We are currently exploring the freedom, spontaneity and love of our original nature through the teachings of the Zen koan tradition. Koans invite us into the mythos of practice awakening, gifting us with the ordinary images of our lives, they help awaken us to the wonder, intimacy and compassion of life as it is!

All are welcome to join. Drop in any time.

Zoom Link for Monday Night

Living the Questions: 16 Bodhisattva Precepts Class Series

Be patient with all that is unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves. Do not seek the answers, which can not be given to you, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. And perhaps you will then gradually…find yourself living the answer. — Rilke

Far from being a set of rules or doctrine that we must follow, the Bodhisattva precepts act as koans, inquiries that we are empowered to take into our life. They ask us to consider, what does love look like in this situation? In this relationship, how do I work with my anger? Who is it who wants to gossip, or inflate one’s self? How can I show up authentically in the world?

With the final five grave precepts, pure precepts and refuges as our guide we will explore the heart of what it means for each one of us to live a life of integrity and love. We will explore how each precept touches the personal, interpersonal, global and secret dimensions of our living.

Beyond Mindfulness: Deepening Your Meditation Practice Class Series

This workshop style course is designed to provide a map of the meditation path as well as:

* Introduce you to the five main styles of meditation (calm-abiding, concentration, heart-based practices, inquiry and open-awareness)

* Help you understand the intention of each method and how to practice it

* Help you understand how the various methods and techniques fit together and support each other

* Provide a fun, non-judgmental learning environment where you can try things out, ask questions and explore

* Give you the opportunity to work with a teacher with an extensive background in various meditation techniques

I currently live in Columbus, Ohio with my partner Patrick Kennyo Dunn, we facilitate an in-person meditation gathering every Wednesday from 7P - 8:30P at ILLIO in Clintonville through Mud Lotus Sangha. If you happen to be in Columbus, feel free to stop by. We have weekly meditation gatherings, and are offering a day of meditation in October.

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