Travis Eneix

Well, I finally did it. After years of knowing about the Universal Life Church, and there offering of ordination to anyone who cared to claim it, I finally took the plunge. I do not have a full grip on why I vacillated for so long. There has got to be some issues around early experiences with the Christian church, and all the rightfully deserved bad press Catholicism in general has received, and pulled on itself, over the centuries. But, recently I have come across some glowing examples of deeply contemplative threads running through Christianity. And, although my heart is with the Buddha and the self-inquiry of Ramana Maharshi I daily have more and more respect for the few brave souls who comprise the tradition of Christian mysticism. Father Thomas Keating leaps to mind as a glowing example, as well as a man who practices at my dojo.

On a random web search, for a completely different subject I came across the Buddhist sub-section of ulcseminary.org. Before I was fully conscious of what I was doing, I found myself with a certification of ordination.

I am now feeling good about being a Minister in the Universal Life Church.

From the church’s site -

“The Universal Life Church will ordain anyone who asks, regardless of their belief system, age, race, gender or orientation. We believe that ordination is a right and we will assist anyone in exercising that right.

The ULC has two tenets: the absolute right of freedom of religion and to do that, which is right. Anything else within the law is allowed.

The Universal Life Church is here to support your relationship with your God, Gods or with your lack of belief in any higher force and recognizes that each person must walk his or her own path. You are free to walk your path, as long as it does not infringe on the rights of others and you have our support here at the Universal Life Church Seminary to do so. ”

Cheers!

If you haven’t heard about blog carnivals, you should check them out.  Built around focused themes, they are a traveling hosted affair featuring contributed content from around the blogosphere.  I periodically make contributions, and I made it into the most recent edition of the Meditation, Yoga & Spiritual Growth Carnival.  There are a ton of great articles in there.  I highly recommend checking it out.

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving!

It’s National Novel Writing Month, and I just eeked across the half way mark this morning. I’m a tad behind, but this weeks pep talk from the NaNoWriMo admins came from Neil Gaiman, and it put me back in good spirits. I was thinking about that while teaching Aikido this morning.

There’s a saying in Hollywood in the film making industry, “You have ten bad movie in you, now go make them.”

There’s a similar adage amongst writers, “You have 500,000 bad words in you, now go write them.”

I’d like to introduce the following adage to the Aikidoist world, “You have 100,000 bad techniques in you, now go do them.”

In an average hour long class I would guesstimate that I get through about 100 techniques. With taking three classes a week (in addition to the three I teach), that puts me at 300 techniques. Fifty two weeks a year comes to 15,600 techniques. So, after 6.4 years I should have gotten through my bad techniques and gotten into some good ones. Hmmmm, looking back from just over 11 years on that mat, I’d say that’s not too far off.

This is kind of the reverse of the old axiom, “Practice make perfect.” Instead it’s more akin to, “Repetition makes less not-perfect.” Being good at anything takes time and effort, and to have a goal to shoot for is incredibly useful. When writing into a void it is easy to get discouraged, thinking when will I ever get any good at this? With a target number of words, the edge is taken off the long hours of writing crap. So far, I am just about 175,000 words in. Another couple of years and I might actually be decent.

I would like to indulge your imagination for a moment, with your kind permission. See a tall mountain, lightly capped with snow, its peak above the cloud line on a bright cloudless day. See the very tip, a jagged platform of rock stabbing heavenwards from the bowels of the Earth. See, balanced on that tip, me singing the praises of the Big Mind process.

A bit much, yeah maybe. But, seriously, the Big Mind process as discovered by Genpo Roshi is, in Ken Wilber’s words, “Let me state this as strongly as I can: the Big Mind Process is arguably the most important and original discovery in the last two centuries of Buddhism.”

Some have called the discovery of this process the fourth turning of the Dharma wheel. I am no Buddhist scholar, but I would not hesitate to take that claim seriously.

So, what is it? Put simply it is a blending of the current leading edge of techniques from the contemplative East, and the rational West. It combines the 30 years of dedicated Zen Koan study and mastery of Genpo Roshi with the Voice Dialogue technique of psychotherapy founded by Hal and Sidra Stone. Voice Dialogue is a therapeutic modality where the various aspects of personality, or voices, that each of us is capable of taking are invited to speak. What Hal and Sidra Stone discovered was that by acknowledging these voices and identifying oneself as them, a great deal of work could be done on integrating those voices, especially the disowned shadow elements of one’s psyche.

What Genpo Roshi discovered was that one could choose to call forth directly the non-dualistic as well as dualistic voices of the mind, and ultimately the integrative voices as well. A facilitator might start with the voice of the Controller, move to the Skeptic, the Damaged Self, then to the Seeking Mind. Then you could cross over into the non-dualistic minds such as the Non-Seeking Mind, the Master, and, of course, the Big Mind. Finally you could call on the integrated minds, such as Big Mind/Big Heart, Fully Free Functioning Human Being, and the Ordinary Mind Way.

Genpo Roshi uses this modality in his Zen talks and Koan studies, and always begins with the dualistic minds to the non-dualistic minds and finally to the integrated mind which he often calls The Apex. In this way he builds a triangle of realization where you have the dualistic as one side of the base, the non-dualistic as the other, and finally the apex which transcends and includes both.

The process really is as simple as asking to talk to a certain voice, and answering in the affirmative, naming yourself as that voice. To get an idea I highly recommend watching the YouTube series which begins here.

This method is also very valuable for meditation. The simple process is to center yourself, like you would for Zen sitting, centered, relaxed, and breathing evenly. Then, in the roll of Facilitator, ask to talk to the Non-Seeking Non-Grasping Mind, “May I please talk to the Non-Seeking Non-Grasping Mind?” Then, answer back as that mind, “Yes, I am the Non-Seeking Non-Grasping Mind.” Then you simply sit as that non-dualistic mind for the duration of your meditation.

As a testimony to the efficacy of this method I offer this: I was meditating a week back. My mind still, like a placid pond, reflecting all or nothing equally. Free of concerns, free of desires. Then, unbidden I moved up to the apex and saw the meaning of the Middle Way. Until that point I had understood that the Middle Way of the Dharma was a razors edge poised tenuously between complete indulgence and total restraint, worldliness and aestheticism. I saw the Middle Way as a balancing act, of infinite difficulty with the Buddha waiting at the end poised like some mad tight rope walker. But, that was wrong. That is not what the Buddha meant at all. Not even close. The Middle Way transcends, and includes all methods. The Middle Way is inescapable, we have never moved from it, and will never be anywhere but on it. It stretches from one end of the cosmos to the other, and beyond. It spans every second from the beginningless start of time, past the end of infinity. I have never been off the Middle Way, never stepped onto it. It is my home, and is the home of every other being that exists, ever has, and ever will. All of creation is on the Middle Way, and dwarfed by it.

Two days after this amazingly simplistic and silly realization, I was enjoying my morning cereal and watching one of Genpo Roshi’s talks on my iPod. I had not seen it before. In it, Genpo talks about the Middle Way as the Apex, and that people mistakenly believe that the Middle Way is a thin line to walk, and that that is not what the Buddha meant at all. He said that the Middle Way encompasses everything.

I did not take this as a sign that I was right, or a validation of my realization, but instead I take it as simply this - The Big Mind process leads one in an highly effective manner and at speed to the only conclusions that the Dharma embodies. It is a blend of the best that the East and West have to offer, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

You can find Genpo Roshi’s book here.