Genpo Ox Herds all the way to Super Freak

Hey yall! My little trauma fest has ended (for those who commented, thanks so much for the support--it means a lot) and The AQALuscious One is back in her usual fine form!

Saturday morning I drove to Kanzeon for Genpo Roshi's Zen Ox Herding workshop. Upon entering the zendo and noticing rows of chairs rather than the usual array of zafus, my mind turned instantly from mundane concerns and the thought arose, "Dammit! A perfectly good outfit wasted on the expectation of sitting on the floor!" (I'd worn jeans and a sweater when I'd rather have opted for an ensemble befitting my fabulous fashion sense.)

The workshop was AMAZING. Rather than providing opaque conceptual elaborations, Genpo rendered transparent the stages of enlightenment as portrayed through the ox herding images by directly engaging the participants in different exercises (drawn from the voice dialogue he incorporoates into his Big Mind process) turning their attention to the immediacy of their present awareness.

There were quite a few new people in attendance and Genpo made a particular effort to ensure he didn't lose anybody. With about an hour and a half to go, he inquired of a newcomer seated in the front row about her immediate experience, and she responded that she suspected that "all of this is pointless. There's no meaning in life, there's no reason for being here, and I really get the idea that everybody--including all of you--are full of shit and parroting stuff from a philosophy book."

Genpo immediately hooked in and asked with an undercurrent of humor, "Ah, am I speaking to the Pessimist?" After having a lengthy dialogue with the Pessimist, he called out the Cynic (who he called the Pessimist's "kissing cousin") and invited a thorough airing of it's grievances. He then asked to speak to Great Doubt, which he engaged with an intensity even exceeding the previous voices. I noticed his Presence, his absolute non-resistance--never wavered. Not once did he attempt to talk the voices out of their respective positions, nor did he make the slightest attempt toward pushing the self to disidentify with them. On the contrary, he affirmed and validated the voices through reflective listening and inquiry, pushing not for disidentification but for full ownership of the perspectives belonging to pessimism, cynicism, and doubt. He even went so far as to own similar experiences in himself and praised the voices for their perspectives, explicitly stating that he believed they were worthy of more respect from the self than they were accustomed to receiving. (The participant, without intending to be, was delightfully, charmingly comedic, and her humored flowered with every passing minute.)

After fully entertaining these voices, he asked to speak to Big Mind, and in a series of masterful pointing out instructions (accomplished through inquiry) which in no way negated the previously expressed perspective, he succeeded in revealing the Source and Suchness of the these perspectives. In a final stroke of brilliance, he brought the exercise full circle by laying bare the utter point-less-ness of Big Mind, demonstrating that it is not any point, but the Ground of all points and all perspectives. (After class, it turned out that the pessimistic participant paid her monthly dues and became an official Kanzeon member, and me, well, I hooked up Sensei with Saul Williams, since he's got a major soft spot for hip-hop.)

Saturday marked the end of a month long sesshin and there were people from all over the world in attendance. In celebration, a party was announced at Diane Hamilton's house. (Diane is Genpo's senior student, right hand woman, and is closely aligned with the integral psychology domain of I-I.)

The sangha was swingin'! It's not everyday that you see Genpo grooving with his dog to Super Freak, or Diane gyrating on a table, standing on her head, leading group prostrations, or conducting a seance from her bedroom. (I shit you not!) The live band had everybody singing to Brown Eyed Girl, Pretty Woman, and old Dillan songs. There was bellydancing in the back room, a tango performance by two women, and as the night wore on, kissing all around. The shindig was potluck and the dining room table was turned into a smorgasbord, and from the dozens of bottles on the kitchen counter, it was obvious that just about everybody had made a run to the state liquor store.

One guy in particular had overindulged, and expressed with all the earnestness his intoxicated self could muster that I was a manifestation of sky, and that until that night he had seen the sky but never I Am The Sky (I was wearing a sky-blue, fleece jacket, and found his confession both humorous and endearing.) I don't drink and by the night's end I commented to Genpo that I was fairly certain I was the only one not thoroughly inebriated.

Doen Sensei, Vice Abbot of Kanzeon has said he doesn't like gloomy sanghas, that he doesn't like centers where the teacher projects an air of inaccesibility. After Saturday's shindig and jitterbugging with Genpo (and every other member there), it's clear that the danger of this at Kanzeon is right up there with Dubya publicly declaring his sympathies with Satanism. =)