Eight Realizations of Great Beings (VI): Practicing the Pandemic
Photo by Alexandre Chambon
In this mondo Zuisei introduces the Sixth Realization of Great Beings through the sangha’s reflections on their lived experiences of the past year. This realization turns to equanimity and generosity in the midst of poverty—poverty of mind and spirit that creates our sense of lack
During the pandemic, have you experienced a feeling of listlessness, Zuisei asks. Or something else? What have you turned to for comfort, stability, relief?
This talk was given by Zuisei Goddard. See below for transcript.
Transcript
Transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
Hello, everyone. I think people may be getting tired of the Eight Realizations. I confess that I'm getting a little tired, but I didn't want to just bail. Or maybe people are getting tired of me. That's possible. I get tired of me. I have been kind of tired of myself recently, [laughing] so maybe that’s it. Though I also know that some people are moving, their schedules are changing, it’s summer…
I’m always touched when people let me know that they're not going to be here, more than anything because they give me a little bit of a window into their lives. Parents ailing, kids going to college, the vacations they’re taking, etc. I very much appreciate being able to share your lives just a little bit.
So, the Sixth Realization is “the awareness that poverty creates hatred and anger, which creates a vicious cycle of negative thoughts and actions.” The commentary says: “When practicing generosity, bodhisattvas consider everyone—friends and enemies alike—to be equal. They do not condemn anyone’s past wrongdoings or hate even those presently causing harm.” So, it’s talking about really seeing all beings and regarding them equally, regardless of what they have done, regardless of their actions. However, I wanted to talk about this differently because I realized that I haven't really spoken very much about what has happened this past year in terms of the pandemic and what effect it's had and will continue to have on us for some time—the effects that these different ways of relating to one another have had on us.
I did mention, at some point, reading some articles in the New York Times that actually had me feeling a little vindicated. They were doing interviews about all sorts of people’s experiences of moving through the pandemic. People were speaking of sitting staring at the wall or out the window for an hour or two and having a sense of listlessness. One article called it “languishing.” It’s not laziness, and it's not depression exactly, but it's this sense of really needing to rile yourself up to do anything.
I was speaking to my roommate earlier, and she was saying how she's finding it difficult to find enthusiasm for her job, which she normally really loves and feels very dedicated to. I think some of this is due to the hours we’re spending on Zoom and the repetition of these kinds of interactions. I've talked about it in terms of this gathering and doing talks on Zoom. It’s challenging, after spending all day on Zoom for our work, to then meet again virtually in order to practice and discuss some of these dharma subjects.
If you remember, the Third Realization said, “The human mind is always searching outside itself and never feels fulfilled.” I was thinking of this awareness in terms of poverty and a mind and heart that feel impoverished. We've talked about it in terms of approaching life from a sense of abundance, as opposed to a sense of lack. So I don’t want to repeat that particular teaching, but I do want to focus on this feeling of languishing and feeling depleted. I've wondered, personally, would I be feeling the way I'm feeling physically if it wasn't for the pandemic. What would be different?
Take procrastination, for example. I think all of us have procrastinated at some point. I'm not a procrastinator, but I've really had to work with it during this time. This sense of needing to rouse my enthusiasm for stuff that I normally love to do.
I am keeping this intentionally vague. I have some notes, but I wanted to hear from you. What has your experience been? Have you struggled? If you haven't struggled, great, then let us know so that we can benefit from that too. These are some of the things that I’ve been thinking of these last few days. Let me leave it here, and ask If any of you have anything to say. If not, I'll plow ahead—no, I won't plow ahead. I'll just move ahead.
Speaker 1: I'm in Salt Lake City and the pandemic came in my second year of retirement. Living alone was very difficult even though I'm someone that doesn't mind being alone. The sangha that I sit with and am part of here in Utah, we've been doing a ton of Zooming. All in all, that actually has worked out fine. However, a number of us got together a couple weeks ago after a year of not being in close proximity, and it was very strange. I have felt a shift in my relationships that's not necessarily good from the point of distance, the physical distance. This has been a hard year. Here in Utah there are a lot of people who are not wearing masks. I don't know what the real risks are in any given situation. I'm immunized, but I still feel that divisiveness within our country. I don't know how much attention to pay to politics and other people's belief systems and stances. That's been my perspective.
Zuisei: You said that you feel the way you relate has changed, and not in a good way. Can you say something more about that? How has it changed?
Speaker 1: We used to get together in one person's home every Tuesday evening. Zooming has allowed us to gather with a number of sangha members who live in Germany, Baltimore, and California, so that’s been really nice to see the little faces in the Hollywood Squares. I know that there are lots of different flavors of sanghas. I've come to appreciate that, but it was a long, hard year. Very few folks reached out and touched base with each other. I was deeply disappointed in that, but it's the reality.
Zuisei: I think what you're saying in terms of how this could change how we're relating in person— that's real. I'm beginning to read articles about the vaccinated and not-vaccinated and the discrimination of one or the other. There is divisiveness, as you mentioned, and there's only going to be more of that, I believe. We're in a very unprecedented time, a very challenging time that I think will continue to be so for some time.
That’s part of what I was thinking about with the workshop on loneliness. One part is feeling lonely as we normally do at some point or another in our lives. The other part is what's happening now. There’s a particular kind of loneliness or isolation that many of us are feeling.
Speaker 2: Hello. I've been one of the luckier people. I've been able to work in person for most of the pandemic, being a physical therapist. I did close and work online for about a month a year ago.
Zuisei: But how did you work online?
Speaker 2: I do a lot of body mechanics training and exercise with people. I closed because I had been exposed, but I had been in an N95 mask, so I didn't get COVID, but I still closed my shop for a couple of weeks. I kept about five patients who were post-surgical or needed more help. I knew they needed to keep seeing someone so we Zoomed. It was a different app, but it worked out.
My son, who was a senior in high school when everything hit, was very isolated. Luckily, he was taking college courses. He had a lot to do online, and it kept him active. His whole first year of college has been so different. He's just coming out of it. I feel like he's finally experiencing getting to hang out with people like I did in high school. My senior year was more relaxed. It's so strange for him. He's telling me he wants to see a psychologist because he's having a lot of self-doubt. I'm, you know, giving him books on Buddhism. [chuckles] Anyway, it was much harder for him being in isolation than it was for me. Now, in the past month, being able to go out I have seen a real shift. Since mid-April with so many people vaccinated in New York there's been a real shift. It's wonderful. I can see people starting to lighten up because of the vaccine. I'm still in a mask at work because I am a healthcare worker. I have a handful of people who aren't vaccinated, and we have these discussions. I try to be respectful about where they're coming from. There are going to be people with whatever health conditions who can't get vaccinated. I really think we're coming out of it in New York, at least. It has been quite a year.
Speaker 3: I think I learned a lot about myself through this time. As the last year and a few months progressed, I had thought about some things, and then had to question them, and then had to rethink them. I do feel like I approached this time as a time for self-reflection.
Responding to your question, Zuisei, the last few months I've been really focused on death. Some of that has to do with my mother's progression into dementia. She's very healthy otherwise, so she's not on her deathbed, but maybe that has something to do with it. The feeling that I have taken around death is one in which I have a bit of comfort. I want to say comfort, but maybe in the last year and a few months I've kind of given up a little bit on being vibrant in terms of living this life. There's been so little that we've been able to do, so maybe it has been more of a settling. I even had a dream the other night in which I died. It was a situation where I was drowning. I was underwater in a house that was filling up with water. I knew I wasn't getting out. My attitude in my dream was: all right, which is an odd attitude to have toward death. It wasn't fear or even a nice feeling. It was really just all right. I wish I could be more specific, and I wish there was something useful in this, but it was right there for me when you asked that question. I thought I would share.
Zuisei: You used the word, “settling.” I can relate to that. I was telling my father, “I don't know if I'm just feeling more confident or I'm just not feeling worried about health or work or whatever because I just don't have the energy to worry.” He said, “That doesn't sound so good.” But I feel that settling. It’s a good way of describing it—or “releasing.” If it borders on resignation, that might be more problematic. I'll keep watching it. But I know I don't have the time or energy to worry about things that aren't actually crucial. Given everything that's going on, I can't be worrying about stuff that's not crucial.
Speaker 4: This might be an urban legend, but during the Great Depression, people who were already poor weren’t so impacted. To hear people talk about The Depression on the Navajo Nation, the Navajo Indian reservation, people were like, what Depression? I think it depends on where your starting point is. I have enjoyed this pandemic so much. I was a waitress at Olive Garden when this started. When we were told we couldn’t come back to work— hallelujah!
I was a waitress at Olive Garden for ten years. I was so in the grind, the grind, the grind, and I had settled for the grind. I barely ever came up above water to breathe because I am a single mom. I waitress, pay rent, try not to lose my cool with my kid blah, blah, pay rent. And suddenly, people were paying me not to go to work. This goes back to the poverty thing. I remember Zuisei, you had written something about the decolonization of the mind during the pandemic. That really resonated with me. Specifically you were talking about the decolonization of time. I remember being on the reservation where there were no cell phones. Things were not efficient. Inefficient, I guess. There's a better word for it.
Zuisei: Bureaucracy?
Speaker 4: Yeah, but it's inefficient. I remember standing in line on the reservation, waiting for the one cashier. We were all just standing there, waiting. We literally had nowhere else to go. There was no big rush. I felt that way here in New York City during the pandemic. I never thought I could have the reservation “experience” here in New York City. I remember standing in line here waiting for the Post Office. There was a huge line, and I stood there for an hour to buy a stamp or some ridiculous task. Nobody had anywhere else to go. I feel like telling people to just stay home and just zoom. That sense of poverty has been very good. I think it's been very good for people to have to pare down their world, to not have anywhere else to go or anything else to do. I've rearranged my apartment so much. That's how I survived the pandemic. I've rearranged it like every week or two. [laughing] Anyhow, I finally found the perfect furniture arrangement for my apartment, and I'm so happy.
Zuisei: Yes, whatever helps, right? When I was in Mexico I was struck by this one house. It’s modern and the particular style of architecture is very big, plain walls. When I was there in the fall, every wall was painted a primary color— bright blue, bright yellow, bright red. It was more or less an attractive house. Then, when I returned this winter, they had painted the whole thing lilac, and I thought to myself, Okay, this is what they're doing to get through the pandemic.
Speaker 5: The pandemic has been very humbling for me in a lot of ways because I assumed that my experience would have been like Jitsuko's. By nature I enjoy my own company and find other people sort of bothersome. But it hasn't been that way at all. I really have had it with the particular type of poverty of human interaction that the pandemic has presented in my life. I'm so grateful for this sangha. I'm also feeling like I want to sit with people in person. When I moved to North Oakland a year and a half ago, I was like— oh, the Berkeley Zen Center is right there. We’ve got Buddhists over here—I'm gonna be all sangha-ed. It's gonna be amazing. The Center is a ten-minute walk from my apartment, and I've been there a total of zero times.
The other day I was walking down the street not really thinking too much about where I was going, just walking around. There was a house with tons of free furniture in front of it. I like free things, so I was looking at them, when this man opened the door. He said, “Please take anything that you want.” I looked at his face, then he closed the door. I backed up. I was at the Berkeley Zen Center. That was the abbot. I know his face from the website. I wanted to throw myself on his steps and say, please, open the zendo, we want to sit.
It's been very humbling in terms of meeting my own limit on lack of in-person interaction, which I met very quickly. More profoundly, perhaps for me, it's been very humbling to see how long it's taken me—how many times I've had to remind myself that I'm not the only one having this experience. It's like the most ridiculous thing to have to constantly remind myself of the lack of specialness of my situation. It took me a very long time to realize, and I forget over and over and over again—well, obviously, everybody isn't having the same experience, but many people are. My current practice is trying to use those moments and feelings of isolation, suffering, and loneliness to remind myself of all the other people's experience. My experience of being separate is an illusion. How many opportunities have I had for that practice recently? It's very humbling to see how I forget, constantly, constantly. It's an everyday reminder that I'm not the only one feeling this. It’s so silly.
Zuisei: I don't think it's silly. It's human. I recently did a short audio for the loneliness workshop. She asked me a couple of questions, and one of them was, do Buddhists get lonely? I was thinking back on that John Wellwood quote which I really like. You can think of this process as a parallel process of, as he called it, “growing up, and then waking up.” There is the process of both waking up to your buddha nature and waking up to the fact that we inter-are. This sense of isolation is really an illusion. When you're able to touch and stand on the ground of being, that's what you feel. But then, there's still the fact that you're sitting in your apartment doing Zoom, as opposed to hanging out with friends. There’s just feeling your own aloneness, your own loneliness, in your day-to-day interactions. How do you bridge those two? In terms of bridging absolute and relative, it doesn't happen automatically. There is a process of translation that needs to be done very deliberately. That's why all the skillful means help us to remember, make real, or remind us of the aliveness of that truth and the impossibility of our loneliness. It's not an automatic thing, because we are such relational beings. It’s built into us. As someone pointed out, there are some people who have really loved the pandemic and who are not looking forward to interacting as they did or felt they had to before. Then for many, many others, it’s been a real challenge.
Speaker 6: I've so resonated with everything that has been said. Lately, as the weather's been beautiful and we're going out and everything, I've felt a real sense of disorientation. I haven't felt “Oh, my gosh, I'm dying to go to a restaurant.” I do have a longing to be in a physical sangha, but the pandemic had a profound psychological impact on me and my family. It led to a kind of seclusion that was very beneficial in some ways, and also very detrimental. Both my son, who is eighteen, and I had surgery during the pandemic. I was in a hospital and no one could visit me for two weeks. As someone else was saying, I had a very real death contemplation. It was a serious surgery. Afterward, when I came home, I felt—this is gonna sound very paradoxical—I felt this liberation because of renunciation. There wasn't the distraction of choice. I was eating very simply. It was almost like the experience of being a monastic. I never had such clarity as during that period about what was distraction, what was hindrance. I was able to write things and focus.
Then, the negative aspect of the pandemic, samsara, came into my little spiritual idyll. The "high" of reunification vanished because my son was suffering with this undiagnosed head condition. It was extremely difficult for him. Some else was talking about her son and his sense of isolation as a senior during the pandemic. My son had his graduation on Zoom, then had to take medical leave and be home with his parents. Psychologically emerging from this, there's some trust. We have a heightened sense of our need for each other and our interdependence.
There's also reckoning with race and the tremendously traumatic political events in the U.S. All that, combined with who's vaccinated and who's not—that trust is going to take a long time. We don't know how we have changed. There are people walking around with invisible wounds and mental health issues. I would include myself in that. I have suffered from a lot of anxiety. I'm going back into the classroom as a teacher. I think one of the first things that I’m going to do is to do what you did Zuisei, which is to ask people how they experienced it. I will be confronted with people and I don't know how they got through the war. What did they lose? Did they love it? I don't know if that's making any sense, but there's been a kind of disorientation. We're reentering but it's not normal. I don't want to go back to the level of busy-ness and distraction that I had. I don't want to consume social media or things as frenetically as I was. I'm grateful for the discernment that it brought to us, this space of seclusion. Anyway, thank you for letting me roam around. Everything everyone has said resonated with me, even though they were all wildly different aspects.
Zuisei: When we think of some of the tools, the upaya to navigate any difficult time, but certainly this time, tThere’s self-forgiveness for not being as enthusiastic in your life as at other times. There’s compassion for yourself, which is really having a greater acceptance for yourself and your present circumstances in kindness. That settling that someone referred to is a kind of acknowledgment: well, this is the way things are and this is the way that I am in things at the moment. So, beginning with acceptance and forgiveness, if it's necessary, to make space for what is so that we can actually work with it. Then we can deal with it, skillfully. Mindfulness and awareness are part of that investigation, really asking and questioning what is and why it is as it is.
There's a practice called retracing, where you look at a difficult emotion, let's say, and then you slowly and with deliberate awareness, trace your way back to its source. So if it's anxiety, trace it to what is leading to that anxiety. What kind of thoughts, what kind of emotions, what kind of fears?
Trying to get to some of these questions is hard to do on Zoom. I want to give everyone a chance to speak, but I’d also like to get as specific as possible. So often when we're looking at ourselves, we think that we know who we are. Of course, we’ve lived with ourselves for so long that so much of this we just gloss over. For me, part of what is important is honing in on as much as I can in each of these questions. That is what is actually going to tell me what is going on with me, so that I don't assume any of it. That takes time, persistence, and the willingness to keep asking when an answer doesn't come immediately, doesn't come so readily. I think it’s a process that requires a lot of patience.
I've spoken about this in the context of liturgy and motivation following action. This means taking an action even when you don’t feel like it, then letting yourself catch up. So much of practice, daily practice, is doing things that sometimes we don't feel like doing. Sometimes we're not sure if they're really working, but we do them anyway because we’re committed. We trust that there's something in that process that will benefit us. Also, you never really know, right? Maybe you do something, you do something, you do something, and you can be doing it mindlessly or automatically, and then, voom!, something shifts, and it’s like you've never been there before.
Once, during sesshin I was doing oryoki, and I had a bite of cantaloupe and suddenly realized I’d never tasted cantaloupe before. I'd never tasted most of the food that I'd eaten over the years. But in that moment I was fully there and this juicy sweetness just exploded in my mouth. I was actually there for it. I was open, and I was ready.
Speaker 7: Thank you everybody, but specifically to the two moms for your sons. I'm a high school teacher. I've been teaching in New York City for ten years, including the classes of 2020 and 20‘21. To have kids’ senior year of high school as disrupted as it was and then the transition year to be so challenging... My heart goes out to you and your children. I'm thinking about how COVID has been. I personally don’t have enough distance from it yet to really answer that question for myself. So hopefully once the summer kicks in and I get a little bit of time to catch my breath, I’ll have more eloquent thoughts on it.
Zuisei: Thank you everyone. Thank you, always, for your practice and your commitment. This has definitely been a very challenging time, but this is exactly why we practice. Thank you for being here.