Conversations with a Sage

The Encounter   |   Audrey Lin  |   June 5, 2011, 9:41 pm


In reading essays on Master Hua’s life, I came across this quote:

“The Master was always open, direct, and totally honest with everyone in every situation. He treated everyone equally, from the President of the United States to little children.”

It makes me reflect: Am I honest? Do I say what I mean? Well, I try. Yet, I often notice how strands of my ego color and shade the meanings and intentions behind my words.

It made me smile. Mainly because that type of direct, open honesty can be hard to come by these days. It makes me reflect: Am I honest? Do I say what I mean? Well, I try. Yet, I often notice how strands of my ego color and shade the meanings and intentions behind my words. My limited worldview, or my own insecurities, fears, and doubts, can cause me to over or under-compensate my speech and acts so that they will come across in the way I want. Already, this type of thinking is a kind of performance. I am composing and filtering my thoughts and acts to create an image of who I want to be. Why? Read More …

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Stopping the Violence, from the Inside Out

The Monastery  |  The Scene  |  The Tribe   |   James Roberts  |   June 2, 2011, 6:04 pm


Bestow kindness and aid the poor, so that they can be at peace.
When you witness people killing, have thoughts of compassion.
– The Shramanera Vinaya

I’ve been noticing…. One is that people seem to always have some kind of interpersonal conflict going on, and a second is that there’s always news of violence and disasters happening in the world.

Last week I visited the Bay Area for a few days to catch up with some old friends. Visiting the “normal” world generally presents me with a lot of drama (also known as news) that I don’t really have to think about while going about my routine at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas. Having been at CTTB now for about six months, I’ve been noticing some trends about my visits to the outside world. One is that people seem to always have some kind of interpersonal conflict going on, and a second is that there’s always news of violence and disasters happening in the world.

Neither of these things would seem that strange to someone reading this “from the outside.” I sometimes wonder if anyone could understand how peculiar these two things seem to someone who’s been living in a monastery for six months. But it really makes me think: what’s going on in the world, and what’s different here at CTTB?

I think I’m getting at a question that’s very important to Buddhist practice. The question might be something like: what’s the connection between symbolic violence and the open, compassionate space of Buddhist practice? Read More …

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Seize the Day!

The Tribe   |   Audrey Lin  |   May 31, 2011, 4:29 pm

For many students, Spring Break is a time to unwind. It’s a chance to relax, and enjoy a week away from school, teachers, and structure. But for several of the students here, it was a chance to roll up their sleeves, dive into a different country, culture, and language, and “seize the day!” as high school junior Alisha put it.

After spending months learning about global poverty, the disparity of resources, and environmental issues from textbooks, we decided it was time to step outside the classroom and learn by doing. So, this past April, students and teachers from the Developing Virtue Secondary School embarked on a service trip to Mexico over spring break. With the help of Corazon, a friendly and passionate nonprofit that really embodies its name (“heart” in Spanish), we had the chance to complete two drywall construction projects, run a Spring Break Camp for the local children, and engage in a cultural exchange.

But beyond all that, it was a chance to break out of our boundaries. To step out of our schedules, routines, and selves, to see life in a different context. Open our eyes to a new perspective. Roosters greeted us in the mornings. Stars dazzled over our dreams at night. Children aged 3 to 17 laughed with us in Spanish-English-Chinese. Amidst the mountains and rural countryside near Tecarte, Mexico, our hearts changed.

See our experience:

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Anatomy of an Attachment

The Mind  |  The Tribe   |   Alexandra Gross  |   May 26, 2011, 4:30 pm


The hardest thing I have ever done is to teach high school for one semester. In the grand scheme of things, I realize how ridiculously lucky this makes me. But I have to admit it’s true; I’ve never struggled or suffered so much as I did in that endless five month stretch in the classroom.

Within a week, I was completely overwhelmed, frantic all the time, and so stressed and exhausted trying to get through each day and prepare for the next that I had no chance to process what was going on.

I started out knowing that teaching would be an intense and difficult job, but I felt I was up for the challenge. Within a week, I was completely overwhelmed, frantic all the time, and so stressed and exhausted trying to get through each day and prepare for the next that I had no chance to process what was going on. It was like someone pulled the rug out from underneath me, and I couldn’t get back up.

When my contract finally ended and the teacher I’d been covering for returned from maternity leave, I felt the greatest relief of my life. But the experience had really knocked me off balance. It had shaken my sense of self at a deep level, and I knew that I needed to spend some time trying to understand what that was about. Read More …

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Rooted in Confidence and Stillness

The Mind  |  The Scene  |  The Tribe   |   Douglas Powers  |   May 22, 2011, 5:15 pm


There is hope!

There is a place of inner confidence from which we can see what’s going on. This isn’t the false bravado of ego that represents an over-compensation for not knowing. Nor is it the misguided sense of certainty through which we set up an external symbol and to which we give up our own sense of inherent wisdom. This misguided reliance on ego and fetish projections is based on a lack of confidence grounded in fear—a fear that our own process of experience is not up to the task of living. Such fear drives us to attach to limited identities, and in turn, tries to force experience into conformity with our limited projections and expectations.

If we are honest, there has been a constant dissatisfaction and low-to-high grade sense of suffering that continually intrudes on our hyperactive attention to threat.

But how are we to uncover and manifest this confidence? Obviously, we must deconstruct our limited frame of reference, through which we are currently interpreting our perception, emotions and thoughts. This process will be painful and disconcerting. We have relied on this structure of interpretation to keep us deluded and safe from what is really going on. It has never worked completely.

If we are honest, there has been a constant dissatisfaction and low-to-high grade sense of suffering that continually intrudes on our hyperactive attention to threat. It is clear that the modern sense of identity (grounded in lack which drives our need to enjoy and accumulate at every moment) is based on this pervasive sense of fear and threat. To face the ground of the threat, we need to get rid of the mechanism that we hold onto so tightly. It is exceedingly difficult and counter intuitive — a psychologically contradictory task. Read More …

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When Hit by a Tsunami Inside

The Encounter  |  The Mind  |  The Monastery   |   Audrey Lin  |   May 18, 2011, 3:56 pm

September 29, 1977

Feelings that can’t be described, only felt: the steam-fire energy sometimes crescendos past my control. If I can turn it (like a stampede of cattle) and slowly and quietly gather it in, “everything is okay.” It passes. This is called “Waiting out the fire.” If I can’t, all hell breaks loose.

Very subtle, but very potent is this internal work. An example of how the inside work can shoot out: walking back to the car before lunch I think up a dust storm, “Should we park here, or there, there or here? Should I drive and find water, or not?” The fire is starting to leak out. “Look at yourself, Heng Ch’au! You are scattered and rambling like a scared hen.” But, I can’t seem to find the throttle—the brakes fail. “Should I recite my precepts, or sit in Ch’an? Cook or sew?” It’s building—“Slow down,” I try to reason, “Slow down or you’re going to pop.”

…. I think, “this is impossible! I can’t walk this electric tight rope! I can’t handle the intense cultivation, no talking, the press, and all manner of people. Cook, clean, the blazing heat, the aches and pains. No time to shave or wash up, falling asleep while standing up. Take care of collapsing car, collapsing clothes, thieves, religious zealots out to convert us, and cars and trucks trying to run us over (last weekend, three in one hour), the police, no camping laws,” and on and on, feeling sorry for myself and frustrated. Do I laugh or cry?….

Bing! Lunch is over. “But I’m still hungry! I didn’t have time to… Arrg!” I can’t chew on the right side of my mouth because of an exposed nerve, and the left is still sore from the lemon. My back is a mess and.…

“Congratulations,” smiles Heng Sure, “You are on the cultivator’s edge.”

— Heng Ch’au, from the bowing journals¹

[Audrey] The past few weeks have found me in the frenzy of a storm. Hit hard by the crashing waves of doubt and restless worry, a heaviness has come over me that I’ve never known before. Read More …

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Silly Love Song

The Mind  |  The Tribe   |   Franklyn Wu  |   May 15, 2011, 3:51 pm


If one accepts the postulate that popular “love songs” reflect the attitudes of target audience toward relationship, then we can learn much in this area from Bruno Mars’ “Marry You”. Mars, in mid-20’s himself, is a Grammy-winning song-writer and performer who has written hit singles for Cee Lo Green (“Forget You!”), K’naan (“Waving Flag”), Flo Rida (featuring Ke$ha; “Right Round”), Travis McCoy (“Billionaire”), and B.o.B. (“Nothin’ on You”). Mars enjoyed success on his debut album “Doo-Wops & Hooligans”; two singles “Just The Way You Are” and “Grenade” topped charts and the album received positive reviews from music critics.

The song “Marry You” is from the debut album. The cast of popular TV show Glee performed a cover for the song in the show, as the wedding march for the wedding ceremony of two secondary characters. At a quick “glance” (or whatever the audio equivalent of glance is), “Marry You” fits in the genre well as a love song that folks play at wedding: it is bright and cheerful, has a rhythm that encourages dancing and nice (perhaps even addictive) melodies that is consistent with other works from Mars, and creates an atmosphere of an outdoor evening party in the summer. However, upon closer inspection, “Marry You” is a significant departure from traditional love song, and one that does not necessary inspire feelings of commitment, responsibility, or even love and care–qualities that one might look for in a marriage. Read More …

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Sounds from a Dream

The Mind  |  The Monastery   |   James Roberts  |   May 13, 2011, 4:30 pm

Forty-eight days after my stepfather passed away, I had a dream. In the dream I am in the house I grew up in, the house where my mother still lives. My mother and two of my uncles are there, and also several people from the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas. People are standing around the living room and the kitchen, in circles chatting. It’s some kind of social gathering. I notice that there’s a conversation about death; someone is dying, someone that I know. At first I’m upset that no one told me.

“Why is this happening? Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

“We didn’t want to upset you,” they say. Read More …

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