This is a post I started in July. have been fond of saying that the pandemic has hastened the possibilities for change in soto zen practice.
I feel obligated to attend zoom stuff but over time my resistance to it is greater.
Firewood becomes ash... but...
Hey. Zen practice involves awareness of this body and mind, time/history, and boundaries.
The Genjo Koan… firewood becomes ash and does not become firewood again.
This is a post about my exhaustion with talking about DEIA. My years working with NIH were instructive for me. My psychology colleagues were especially helpful…. they cautioned us to anticipate the effects of diversity trainings and posturing about diversity. I think of them these days…. and our conversations back in 2012 and on. Dogen counsels for dependent co-origination and warns against a simplistic view of past, present and future. Understanding time and history as a becoming, an unfolding is so important for understanding a racial formation.
The committee of scholars and advisors to NIH never settled (in my time with them) on diversity trainings of any kind. That was perhaps disappointing for many. But there is a wisdom in this,. Do not pee in the pool, because you change the water.