zenjones

In my meditation group we are studying the being kindness meditation in Ezra Bayda’s book, Zen Heart. Ezra is my teacher, has been my teacher for eight years. He is a very good teacher.

Before Ezra was my teacher, I lived in Boston and read daily in Joko Beck’s two books, Nothing Special and Everyday Zen. These books, especially Nothing Special, spoke to me in ways that no other had. Every statement rang true, and I felt that for the first time in my life I had found a practice that overlaid perfectly my own spiritual thoughts and beliefs.

I never found a meditation group in Boston, but when I moved to northern California, I wrote Joko Beck to ask if she knew of a teacher up here. She put me in contact with Ezra, and I began regular sitting with the Santa Rosa Zen Group. We meet weekly on Wednesday evenings, and twice a month for longer sittings. It is a lovely group of people, all of us supporting each other in our practice.

I also attended sesshins at the Zen Center San Diego. For the first few years, Joko Beck was still there, and I had daisan with her. At first they were just as I imagined they would be, very helpful to my practice. But as time went on, Joko did not seem so sharp, and she made suggestions I believed were inappropriate and frankly antithetical to her own earlier teachings. Sadly, I realized that she could no longer be my teacher. But happily there was Ezra, a wonderful teacher. While his teachings were not exactly Joko’s, they were close enough for me.

Except when it comes to the Being-Kindness or Loving-Kindness Meditations. I struggle with this. I try and I try. I give up for a while, but my teacher says, try again, and so I do.

And then this morning, I read in the book this line: “Allow any warmth that may be present in the heart region to extend on the out-breath to your whole body, your being. If there is no warmth, no Being Kindness to extend, simply notice this…”

This makes me feel a little nauseous.

In my practice, there is no fantasy, no pretend. I have never been able to buy into any religion because I am constitutionally unable to pretend there is something (a god, a ghost, a fate) that does not exist. I loved my Zen practice because we bowed to life as it is, not as some storyteller in the past thought would be nice.

And now this teacher wants to change all that, to take away that reality-based practice for a little woo-woo.

There cannot be any warmth in the heart region. Unless you have a rash on your chest, or some other exterior heat source, you simply cannot feel anything in your heart region. So they are figments of your imagination. That your teacher is brainwashing you into having.

And then, even worse, Ezra conflates this warmth with Being Kindness. If you do not have this (pretend) warmth then you do not have Being Kindness.

If you are unwilling to accept this ridiculous notion of a warm sensation in your heart, you cannot experience Being Kindness.

TYVM, Ezra.