Going Deep
Speaking on the Lineage of Embodiment panel, hosted by The Embodiment Institute
The past few months have been busy with book writing, Zen training, travel, and work. So now, given how much time has passed since my last newsletter, I have a long list of subjects I want to write about and share with you! To kick things off, below are some reflections on a virtual speaking event I participated in recently, hosted by The Embodiment Institute and addressing some of the cultural roots of spirituality and Wellness today.
First, a word about The Embodiment Institute (TEI). Both of TEI's founders, Prentis Hemphill and Kasha Ho, have spent some time training at Chozen-ji and have deep roots in Hawaii. Through TEI, they address the creation of positive change through both external means like policy and protest, but also internal means, addressing our emotions, our bodies, and our spirits. I see them at the forefront of what's called the healing justice movement, which, in just a few words, seeks to make the deepest understanding of 'Wellness' equitable and available to all.
Today, that movement is maturing beyond focusing on just access and is interrogating Wellness itself. Specifically, folks are acknowledging the roles of cultural appropriation, erasure, and colonization in things like Yoga, Mindfulness, somatics, and even Buddhism. They're starting to ask if we can work deeply towards self transformation in ways that feel more complete, perhaps by filling in the deep gouges left over from languages and practices being banned and whole peoples being decimated. Or, they're exploring whether they can find a spiritual home in a tradition that was spared such violence in the first place.
I shared space on the TEI panel with two others: Mark Anthony Johnson, a community organizer and a licensed acupuncturist, and Nazbah Tom, who is a Diné, or Navajo, somatics practitioner with a background in theater/drama and psychotherapy. It was clear that we all shared the understanding that our spiritual and self-development practices have deep roots. And also that—because of the impacts of cultural appropriation, erasure, and colonization—this depth can feel elusive.
Our spiritual and self-development practices have deep roots. But—because of the impacts of cultural appropriation, erasure, and colonization—this depth can feel elusive.
At one point, we spoke about how it feels like the best that many people can do is to cobble together bits of knowledge—this bit of it held over here by one relative or teacher, that bit over there with another. Illustrating this, Nazbah recounted how they learned the methods of killing and butchering game that were integral to Diné daily life and informed a Diné understanding of the world, and which historically had been passed down generation to generation. Along with a sibling and a cousin, Nazbah brought together disparate parts of a complete method as best they could.
But, "With all of us together," they said, "we were like only one Mom."
To understand the full range of what wisdom can look like—what it can look like within each of us—it helps to spend time with many different people who have trained deeply and hard, forging themselves in the fire of shugyo, a Japanese word that cannot be directly translated in English but points to the deepest possible spiritual training. And there simply aren't that many people who've done that. Like in Nazbah’s story, depth of knowledge is not spread across today’s generation in the way that it was in the past. By knitting things back together today and trying to stem the loss, Nazbah is trying to make sure that subsequent generations will not be even worse off.
If it used to be that such spiritual depth could be accessed in the natural rhythms of life, immersed in one's culture and traditions in the same way that it was for Nazbah's ancestors, then many of us today could say we are only skimming the surface. It can be like we're stuck on the surface of the ocean wearing a life preserver, unable to submerge ourselves no matter how hard we kick down.
Many of us today could say we feel like we are only skimming the surface. It can be like we're stuck on the surface of the ocean wearing a life preserver, unable to submerge ourselves no matter how hard we kick down.
My hope is that, as we examine more of the spiritual methods we employ and what healing justice really means, a renewed emphasis will be placed on the importance of going deep into just one spiritual tradition—and the level of individual commitment to spiritual training that makes it possible. This is something that I’ve learned living and training at Chozen-ji in a Zen tradition that has been unbroken and where many people find they can just keep training and training for a lifetime, blissfully unaware of the many other kinds of spiritual methods and schools out there.
The immersion that comes from such historical, geographic, and cultural specificity makes it easier to go deep. Part of it is just a straightforward concentration of people who see the value of spiritual training and who have committed their lives to it in some way. They know that, to explore the depths, we have to unclip ourselves from our life preservers, letting go of what tethers us to regular life. They show us that it is possible and that to do it, we need courage and determination. We must be willing to stand apart and alone, forging our spirits under tremendous pressure and sometimes feeling lost in darkness. We have to be willing to allow a steady course of training to accumulate over time until the insight we gain is indelible.
To explore those depths, we have to unclip ourselves from those life preservers, letting go of what tethers us to regular life—willing to stand apart and alone, to allow a steady course of training to accumulate over time until the insight we gain is utterly indelible.
And then, finally, after plenty of time, we might be ready to re-emerge, coming to the surface and venturing to the marketplace on the shore. There, we can bear the treasures from the deep we’ve gathered, sharing them for all the people who are still caught in the grind of daily life but who yearn to understand who they are, why they're here, and if there isn't much more to this one, precious human life.
This is wonderful, thank you.