Dancing Three Natures
Getting Too Dizzy Lately?
Sometimes I lose my focus on what my life is about. And it seems as though there are lots of opportunities to shift my focus, taking my mind down twisted dizzying paths and conjuring up stuff that’s not actually there. Or making me feel anxious, afraid, and maybe resolute.
Avalokiteśvara - San Francisco Zen Center, photo courtesy of the authorSo what are we focusing on? Contemplating? The projected thoughts of “what if?” Or the memories of “what isn’t?” Or the internal scream of, “This isn’t what I thought it would be! This isn’t how it’s supposed to be!”?
Spinning Around Endlessly
Recently I had experiences where I imagined it was going to be a certain way, providing certain lovely outcomes. I was seriously ready to have my projections materialize right now. I’d been thinking about them and living with them for months.
One was a talk I was going to give: My session proposal had been accepted! And I remembered the way the event was organized last time. The place was packed, over 150 attendees, and one of the keynote speakers was African American. There were plenty of concurrent sessions, even though there were only a couple of African Americans in attendance. I was thinking that maybe this event would be a point in time when I would finally be recognized for my contributions. ‘Yay!!’ I felt all inside. I’ll be famous! As it turned out, the event was organized differently than last time. In order for participants to attend my concurrent session, they had to drive 30 minutes away from the main event space! And only one other session was being held where my was, and it was also offered by an African American. So guess what? There were three people in attendance at the sessions. No, they weren’t African American. Ugh. Not that I wanted particular people there. I just wanted some people, not three.
And another experience was an opportunity I was both hot and cold on, after having been invited to put my name into a hat. You know, the one your ego is telling you to go for, and at the same time your gut is saying ‘are you insane? Don’t you remember what happened last time?’ My response: ‘Well, maybe this time it'll be different!’ As it turned out, the organization’s dysfunction showed up real quick, slapping me upside the head, to see it as it is. That helped me remember what it was like last time. Luckily, the invitation didn’t bear fruit, as the role was “put on hold for budget reasons.”
These two situations just disappeared, just as they had arisen. I was very disappointed at my chasing clouds in the sky, and once again being distracted from my focus by my external seeking for affirmation, fame, and fortune “out there.”
Family and Friends: Estranged… Transitioned…
At the same time, people in my life, defined culturally as “my peeps,” weren’t supportive at all. They have very rarely asked me (okay never) “How are you? What’s happening with you?” Some are ghosting, others are gaslighting, and still others are non responsive or communicative, unless they want something. Why do I have these kinds of family in my life? Karma? They’ve been with me for years, in different forms. Attempts to build some kind of healthy relationship with each of them, well, wasn’t working, hadn’t worked. I’ve discovered a deep letting go, a “not wanting” anything from any of them, “not taking what’s not given” from them. And seeing them, compassionately with wisdom just as they are. After doing a little reading and research, I found that there are millions of people in similar situations–estranged–with family, and its prevalence can differ when based on gender and ethnicity. Most black folks won’t talk about it, and they won’t confess it on a survey either.
Then a friend transitioned suddenly at the end of last year their family was filled with grief. They spewed blame onto the deceased for having transitioned due to poor choices, but no one took blame individually. “I tried to tell him,” they said. They expressed deep remorse, true, from feelings of guilt. Wondered “why” this happened. My friend, who was 57, was estranged from family in a very un–estranged way, never visiting them but not cutting all contact, just being monosyllabic when responding to any of their questions, never assertive in initiating texting them, declining holiday invites, never sending birthday greetings. You know what I’m saying. It didn’t seem to bother her because she had a whole life her family didn’t even know about. One filled with loving and supportive friends and coworkers, while the family believed and told anyone who would listen, she was an embarrassment in her career, marriage status, and social skills.
Add to this what’s happening to people–family and friends–in our world due to policy changes based in greed, hate, and delusion, and I find myself very sad.
Seeing Clearly without Spinning
These experiences led me to wonder: Can we ever see anything as it truly is? People as they truly are? Or are we always seeing through our distortions? Our self centeredness? Denial?
As I reflected on these experiences, I felt the total helplessness of my deluded-ness, as I realized I look “out there” for everything pleasurable so I can feel good. Get something, attain something. Escape something. That’s how I was socialized, and that’s how many of us are taught in our societies and families. As Kosho Uchiyama writes in Opening the Hand of Thought, “You will never be able to resolve the uneasiness in your life by drifting around seeking things outside yourself.” The solution he says, is what I tried: to let go of wanting anything from “out there” since they’re just “mental secretions.” But as I attempted to do this, I felt deep sadness in the core of my belly. Why? Because I realized how much of a grip my grasping on getting things—being defined by what’s outside—has on me. A couple of times I wanted to cry but couldn’t. Even if I did cry, who would hear me?
In Soto Zen Buddhism, it’s possible to call on (cry out to) the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara who hears everyone’s cries. It’s also possible to take refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. But neither of these didn’t seem to soothe at all. Once I even had the child-like internal scream “Daddy??? Where are you?” He’d transitioned more than 50 years ago. But he’s still here, right? I realize that I am grieving. Are you?
In this state, what is the focus of my life?
As has been said, everything is impermanent. Things change constantly whether perceived or not. Also, nothing has its own inherent being, and therefore Buddhists consider everything as empty: Nothing comes about by itself, but rather by what we call dependent co-arising. Which means, my life depends on yours and your life depends on mine. Yes, I wanted to spend more time with Dad, Yes, I wanted to have a functional and loving family. Yes, I wanted to be able to enjoy opportunities, and yes, I wanted to live in a society that values all people. I am not getting any of those wants as I imagined them, or as they say, as I imputed them as objects in my perception. But the feelings are real, the grief is real. It’s also not real. With that awareness then, what is my focus? First I have to know that “I want" is a symptom of living, believing I’m separate. Yet, I must recognize that I am human with three natures: imputed (I see with a self-oriented filter), other-dependent (I realize I’m not separate), and established (I see things as they are).1 Uchiyama tells us “when we let go of everything, we do not create artificial attachments and connections.”
While I can’t just say my ego is driving me to cling, to attach, to want, I must say my ego is driving me to focus on what’s not so skillful, AND I grieve the loss of what I thought was happening AND still practice realization. As my Soto Zen teacher, Abbot Jiryu Rutschland-Byler, (and those before him) says, everything is included, good, bad, indifferent. We live in duality and nonduality, we live as humans who have both realized Buddha Nature and unrealized Buddha Nature. According to Domyo (May 13, 2022 Buddhist Teachings), Buddha Nature describes “our essential nature as naturally tending toward awakening, or as being fundamentally awake and complete from the beginning.” It’s fluid. Dancing. The waltz of three natures is active all the time, imputed, other-dependent, and established. One two three, one two three. Embraced, moving, twirling. Being focused is key to not getting dizzy from the swirl of self’s interpretations. But what do I focus on to keep from getting dizzy?
Buddha Statue and seated disciples, Truc Lam Bao Chi Buddhist Temple, Lawrenceville, Georgia photo courtesy the authorSpotting
In doing turns in dance, the key to focusing, that is, not getting dizzy, is to spot something on the wall, like a picture or a light switch, anything that isn’t moving, and is at eye level. Spotting is keeping my focus as I’m turning, and then snapping my head around at the last minute to continue to see the same spot. Done well, the turn is generally beautiful and the dancer can make multiple turns in one continuous spin. Go ahead and try it. Stand up, find something at eye level that you can focus on. Then, turn your body by making small steps with your feet in a clockwise direction but don’t move or tilt your head. Focus on something on a wall or something that’s stationary at eye level out your window or whatever. When you can’t leave your head in that position as your feet turn the rest of your body, quickly turn your head and find the spot you were focused on, as your feet bring the rest of your body 360 degrees. (Here’s a short video demo of spotting from YouTube.)
Note that it’s only the mind that gets dizzy when we’re not spotting during a turn!
Like spotting in a turn, focused on the same place on a wall or what have you, I can focus on the fact that all beings have Buddha Nature no matter how they appear to me, or what’s going on in the visible or invisible worlds. That is, we’re doing our best, but we forget the massive jewel of Buddha Nature, and the opportunity to realize it, that we possess in this life. The great opportunity to be free. I think my focus is to remember that, and to help others remember that.
So, when I can remember to, and I’ll admit in the midst of a turn, it’s easy to forget, I spot Buddha Nature, focus on it, with turns in impermanence that constantly arise.
Zazen and Focus
Focusing on Buddha Nature as much as possible allows me to be helpful to others, as well as feel everyone’s depths of the grief of their suffering, real or imagined. This focus comes with Zazen, or Zen meditation, where I am encouraged to forget myself, understand who I really am, remember the focus, and be of help to all beings.
Naturally subject to ignorance and grasping for “out there,” that is, not realizing or knowing Buddha Nature, or duality, that is, always comparing good and bad, right and wrong, life and death, and the suffering that arises from them, at some point I finally remember. Keep my eye on Buddha Nature as I turn. As the space “out there” seems to turn me. How to do that? Let everything arise as it does. Realize my small mind is conditioned, dizzy, and what I see isn’t a total view of anything, but that my Buddha Nature is always there, stable in emptiness. It’s able to see things clearly as they are. The Buddha Nature “spot” is what I can focus on, and return to. Knowing that I can’t escape my life, that the gift of life is essentially the way to realize Buddhahood, and myriad things–disappointments, happiness, grief, sadness, change–arise to help me remember. What I see externally is not what might actually be there, I’m seeing with a lens or two, a filter, a learned identity. I’m deluded though I’m maybe not aware of it, I’m also free, dancing three natures in the dependently arising world.
And then, I let that go too.
Carla Stalling Walter’s soon to be released Dance Meditation and Zen for the Black Cancer Patient can be preordered. Please visit her website for more information.
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1For more information on the three natures, please check out Making Sense of Mind Only: Why Yogacara Buddhism Matters November 7, 2023 by William S. Waldron.
