A Sense of Doubt blog post #3731 - Dharma Rain Zen Center of Portland
In early April, I attended two events at the Dharma Rain Zen Center in Portland. It had been on my list of places to visit since I met Sallie Tisdale and hosted her for our Northwest Voices program at Lower Columbia College as she teaches there.
For those who do not know me, I am in graduate school for a Masters in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, and this multicultural class was one of my two classes this quarter that just ended Sunday 5/4.
I may have made errors in how I referred to things in my description of the spaces at Dharma Rain. If so, and someone more learned than I spots those errors, please leave me a comment, and I will fix them. Out of expedience when writing the project -- which I worked on for two weeks and all day the day it was due and the day before -- I did not fact check that the thing I called a prayer shrine is indeed called
a prayer shrine.
Description of Dharma Rain Zen Center Experience
I was nervous. I am always nervous going new places, especially
alone. I am an introvert at heart, though I often have to mask as an extravert.
I am glad I checked the website again ahead of time as the
co-hort group for “Zen and the Art of Psychotherapy” was in the library
building and not the main temple, which they call the “Sodo.”
I was early, so I had time to sit in my car for a few minutes
and respond to texts while I watched people garden on the sprawling grounds of
the center.
It had rained the night before, and though cloudy with partial
sun, the day was cool, quiet, and tranquil, much like the waking world is just
after a heavy rain fall.
I waited until I saw someone go into the library building and
followed. I forgot about the removal of shoes but shouldn’t have as it is a
practice in my wife’s culture as well. I doffed my shoes and had a look around.
Quite a collection of texts in this library, neatly arranged, along with
Buddhist decor and what might be called shrines. I chose a seat and settled in
as more people gathered.
Once we were all assembled, there were nine people (including
me) and four of us were new, first-timers. They opened the meeting with an
invocation about unconditional love, and then we did introductions. There was
another grad student as well, so I was hardly unique. We were asked to share
our backgrounds, and several practiced DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) as it
draws heavily on Zen Buddhism as I was told does REBT (Rational Emotive
Behavior Therapy). The topic for the day was suffering, and there had been an
article distributed ahead of time but no copies had been made for new-comers. I
added my name and email to a mailing list, and given how much encouragement I
received, I may return for the next session in two weeks. One of the members
shared about surgery he was facing in two days, which related to the article
very directly as I gathered he was the one who had chosen it.
Everyone shared reactions and experiences. I learned that
suffering is a core concept to Buddhist beliefs as an element in three of the
four Noble Truths: Dukkha (the truth of suffering), Samudaya (the truth of the
origin of suffering), Nirodha (the truth of the cessation of suffering), Magga
(the truth of the path) (Oakes, 2018). Another new attendee discussed his work
with incarcerated men in relation to suffering. One of the other newbies
discussed the suffering she sees daily in her work as a CNA at a nursing home
that specializes in dementia, Alzheimer’s, etc. Everyone shared something. I
have a tendency to talk too much, so often in these kinds of places and events,
I hold back for a long time and listen, allowing others to chime in who may not
have done so if I jumped in to talk as soon as someone else finished. Since
women outnumbered the men in the room 6-3, I felt it was even more important to
be calm and to listen because of the common silencing of women or the reticence
of women to speak when men are dominating the conversation. After people spoke,
we bowed with our hands together in front of us, which is a way to honor others
in this culture. There was also a closing chant of some kind, after which I had
conversations with several people who strongly encouraged me to come back next
month.
I had a two hour break before the next event, so I went to a
nearby Hawaiian restaurant (Ohana) that I like and read/wrote poetry,
contemplating what I had experienced. Like many other experiences I have had in
Portland, OR, there was this sense of commonality, of like-minded people, who
all belong to the same club, even when there’s no obvious name for the club.
The sense of belonging I have felt in Portland is nothing like the fellowship
and solidarity I felt in Kalamazoo, MI during all of my years there. It’s very
special here.
I
returned and arrived early for the “Introduction to Zen Buddhism” session. The
meditation hall is a large rectangular room with a vaulted, peaked ceiling and
skylights. A gorgeous wooden floor, polished and cleaned, was covered with an
assortment of mats, cushions, and chairs. High windows lined the long walls of
the rectangle providing shaded light due to the overhangs outside. We gathered
in the front of the room nearest the entry which branched into other meeting
areas and facilities to the right of the entrance. Opposite our meeting area a
circle of mats and a zoom-connected large monitor were two doors in between different
prayer shrines at the other end of the room.
My greatest takeaway from this session is that even with a
fairly high cushion, I cannot sit cross-legged on the floor (no way in lotus
position) for two hours. I was happy when a guy in his twenties had to move to
a chair thirty minutes before I did. Two people attended via Zoom, and there
were seven in-person attendees, including myself but not Randall (who makes
eight).
Mostly
we talked about Zen and learned from Randall, who led the session. He described
the workings of the Dharma Rain center and its various workshops and programs
as well as the weekly Sunday services, which he encouraged us to attend. He
fought against being the only one who spoke for two hours and kept drawing us
out to share and ask questions.
Though he spent a great deal of time describing zazen, which is
a seated form of meditation, he spent more time on what he finds most valuable
about his experience, which is sangha, the community of Buddhist practitioners.
Sangha is one of the Three Jewels of Buddhism: the Buddha (the teacher), the
dharma (teachings), and sangha (community)(Three Jewels, 2024). In developing
our own sangha for this session, everyone shared reasons for attending, experiences
in their own practice so far, and anything else they wanted to share in
relation to the ongoing discussion.
We only meditated for about five minutes of the two hours. We
were encouraged to meditate with our eyes open, but Randall did not instruct us
on what to stare at. I tried to fix on a point on the wall across the room, but
as we discussed our experiences after, he told me to focus on a spot on the
floor. He had encouraged us to be like a pipe held vertically with water
running through it. The water represents our thoughts, which will come, but
that we should let them pass through. I feel I did all right with this practice
as I meditate from time to time on my own and in my own way. It helped to be
given permission to have the thoughts and how to let them pass through rather
than fighting against them.
This method of meditation is specifically the Soto Zen form of
zazen, primarily practiced as Shikantaza, which does not employ a specific
object or anchor. Randall explained that the goal is simply to sit, observe
thoughts and feelings without judgement, and to be present in the moment. He
explained that there is no goal to this form of meditation other than the
sitting and being present, allowing thoughts and feelings to rise and pass
through without clinging to them. In preparing us, Randall described posture in
the very stable form of the lotus position, also known as Padmasana, with
folded hands, open eyes (gaze down, as I learned), and just normal breathing.
For those who were accustomed to focus on deep breathing at the start of a
meditation session, Randall explained that the natural breathing is part of the
practice so as not to force an atypical mode of breathing that would distract
from the goalless practice of Soto Zen zazen. Though anything goes, really, he
explained and if deep breathing helps, he encouraged people to do that.
Randall recommended two books, which I purchased shortly after
the Saturday session: Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind: Informal Talks on Zen
Meditation and Practice by Shunryu Suzuki from 1970, though 50th
anniversary edition was published in 2020, and No Mud, No Lotus: the Art of
Transforming Suffering by Thich Nhat Hanh from 2014. I already owned An
Introduction to Zen Buddhism by D.T.
Suzuki because of its introduction by C.G. Jung and my identification as a
Jungian. Though owning Suzuki’s 1964 introduction for decades, I had only read
small parts of it over the years, never the whole thing. Now that there is an
unabridged audio book, I am listening, and I am almost done with it. I will
listen to audio versions of the other two in the near future, though I could
not get through them before this paper was due given when I bought them. I
showed Randall the Suzuki introduction, and he said it would go well with the
other two and that he had read it, too.
Overall, the experience on Saturday April Fifth at the Dharma
Rain Zen Center of Portland, OR was edifying, exciting, and fulfilling. Despite
fears and fighting against judgment, I was inspired and calmed. The Dharma Rain
Zen Center is a very calming and serene environment.
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- Days ago: MOM = 3596 days ago & DAD = 251 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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