Seeing Through Whiteness: Hosting Lama Rod Owens of Radical Dharma

Photo courtesy of Kathryn Kendall.

I’ve been in countless spaces that are primarily white. I’ve also been in spaces that are primarily non-white. What stood out about hosting Rod was being in a mixed space in which People of Color were the primary mic holders.

In practice, it’s often the case that that we become aware of something in its absence – or in a contrast of some sort. For example, I might notice that there’s a shift in my experience when, upon reflection, I realize that at one point in time, perhaps before practice, I might have had a different reaction to a particular event.

Many white folks, myself included, find it deeply sobering to be in spaces that are not seeped in and dominated by whiteness. We become aware of qualities of whiteness in their absence. For me, this was one such time.

What we are unconscious to silently governs us. If we can’t see structures of oppression clearly, we cannot let them go. Thank you Rod, not only for your inspiring and wise teachings, but for being part of Presence Collective.

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu. Sanskrit for “May all beings everywhere be happy and free, and may the thoughts, words, and actions of my own life contribute in some way to that happiness and to that freedom for all.”

Stay tuned. I’m honored to be collaborating with Rev. angel Kyodo williams for the Fall Urban Retreat November 16-18. Save the dates! 

Photos courtesy of Kathryn Kendall.

The Luminosity of All Things

In my friend’s New York City apartment. Tea to my right. A book splayed open on the window sill. Empty pizza boxes on the kitchen counter. Children enjoying their weekly screen time in the next room.

In this moment, it’s impossible to miss the luminosity within all of it. The sirens, the pings of a phone receiving texts, the faint chirps of spring birds wafting through a cracked window. All of it alive in the same way. All of it given life, given existence, through the same life force.

Yesterday, the retreat I was attending ended. My commitment is to attend two retreats a year to nourish my practice. Given how often I’m in the teacher’s seat, this commitment is about supporting others’ practice as well.

We can only offer what arises out of our direct experience. Otherwise all that’s being offered are flimsy ideas. Shells of experience rather than the heart of it.

And that’s the power of retreat, isn’t it? We always have access to the same direct experience of the luminosity of all things. And on retreat the consciousness that can sometimes appear to live in the background of all experience comes to the foreground. That is the gift of retreat. We remember.

We are all conditioned to get caught up in the content of our lives. To focus our attention on what we are aware of, rather than the awareness itself. In that habit, what’s most primary seems to drop to the background of our experience.

Like walking through the streets of New York City, brushing against scurrying people, and seeing lots of separate bodies. Rather than moving through space experiencing the same blood, flowing. The same breath, breathing.

Here. There. Everywhere. All beings animated by the same thing – which is not a separate ‘thing’ at all. All of it here. All of it now. All of it shared.

When we feel as though we’ve lost touch with what’s most primary, we suffer. We long to feel peaceful and while that longing pulls at us, we get confused about which direction to go.

We are habituated to move outward into the objects of our experience for fulfillment. To find that peace that we long for. We focus on the objects while the luminosity of the objects appears to fall to the background and gets lost in the noise of our experience.

We forget the shared blood. We only see the separate bodies. We long for another body while forgetting that we’re the same body. The same blood. We become the current in the sea seeking the ocean.

So this morning I’m singing the praises of retreat. The heart’s arms extended in hallelujah, gratitude abounds. Awareness shines at the forefront of all experience.

What is more important than remembering what’s most important?

Retreats remind us. They wipe the glasses clean – the ones we’ve forgotten we’re even wearing. In seeing clearly, the satisfaction of what’s most primary, the inherent fulfillment of our shared being, is illuminated. The light of our shared being shines through the pores of all things. Ever present luminous awareness flooding everything that is.

In the name of remembering what’s most important to you – in the name of your greatest longing and the fulfillment of that longing, I hope you’ll give yourself the gift of remembrance. The gift of receiving. I hope you’ll give yourself the gift of retreat. We’re offering two this summer. All are welcome.

In this glorious existence in which the light of Awareness animates all things, everyone, everything, is infinitely welcome. Awareness does not discriminate. Retreat is simply one microcosm of that open embrace that is always in the backdrop of our experience, ready to come to the foreground as we are willing. As we are open to remembering.

You are invited to join us:

Resting as the Stillness of Being

The Bridge to Happiness

Koans of Our Lives

"In Zen we have techniques called Koans—riddles or paradoxes to be meditated on, which are designed to help the practitioner experience things as they are prior to labeling, to experience our selves before we developed a name, a self-perception, and a story. Each label, each story, separates us from What Is, and creates duality where in truth, all is One.” —Bernie Glassman

Well said, Bernie. Well said.

Story, in the way that Bernie references it, can indeed be a separating device. Here’s what’s been piquing my interest:

When we don’t bring awareness to what the story is, when we say that all that matters is focusing on the truth of oneness, we miss an important aspect of the koan.

For just as it is true that we are all one, it is true that when we are identified with the conditioned mind, when our stories feel real to us, that that’s the realm where suffering exists. To deny this realm is like denying the reality of a nightmare to a child who has just woken in a pool of sweat.

Would we say to them, “What you are experiencing isn’t real. Get over it?” Of course we wouldn’t

The power of the koan doesn’t simply lie in abiding in the absolute. Resting in it. Knowing ourselves as it. The power lies there, along with clarity about what can (appear to) stand in the way. Simultaneously awake in the direct experience of our true nature, while simultaneously awake to illusion.

In the non-dual recognition of oneness, it is clear that nothing is left outside this reality. Reality and illusion, both comprised of the same reality.

In spiritual circles, there is too often an obsession with ‘the absolute’—as if the illusions created by our conditioned stories aren’t worth attending to since they are ‘just illusions’ in that realm. Meanwhile, a lack of attention to the processes of the conditioned mind wreak havoc on the relative plane. The plane that, for many of us, can feel most real.

I experienced this recently with someone that I know well. Talk of ‘a larger reality,’ with no recognition of the conditioned processes that  keep a fiercely defended ego structure in place. So while there was lip service to ‘what’s beyond’, there was no clarity about the ego structure that kicks and screams and fights for its life.

There isn’t freedom there. There can’t be.

Having clarity about conditioned processes, or our stories, is like understanding our own nightmare so intimately that there’s nothing left of it to haunt us. We know what the boogie man looks like. We know how he moves. When know when he comes out at night and, most importantly, we know that we cannot be harmed by him. We’ve done the experiment within ourselves.

We cannot be harmed by him because he isn’t outside the absolute. He isn’t born of some separate substance that can threaten our true nature. In this lived and direct experience lives fearlessness.

Without bringing awareness to conditioned processes, fear thrives. It’s scary not to know when this boogie man is coming—this figure that feels deeply real to us when we are identified with the mind of limitation. It’s scary (to the ego, to that which perceives itself as separate from life) not to know how he will move or what he is capable of.

It is only through a practice of clear seeing that the movement of this boogie man, of our conditioned processes, become so completely known and intimate that they lose all power. In this repetitive process of seeing, again and again, nightmares become translucent. It is then that the nature of the illusion is freed to shine through. It is then that we recognize the reality of the illusion as consciousness itself.

If we overlook this, we are creating a divide between the relative and the absolute that, in actuality, doesn’t exist.

A true koan invites us into the recognition of this truth—and we don’t need to look to ancient texts to find them. Koans are right here arising in our every day lives. It’s these koans, these stories that hook us, these processes of the conditioned mind, that hold a key to our awakening.

The circumstances of our own lives provide the lessons for our liberation. And through practice, our stories become transparent, worn out, leaving What Is to illuminate the Universe—as it naturally does.

I’m delighted that soon I’ll be exploring these themes more fully on the upcoming retreat with Suniti Dernovsek: Koans of Our Bodies, Koans of Our Lives. We still have a few spots left. You are invited to join us.