Gasshō,
This is longer than usual—you might want to get a cup of tea.

On Monks, Process Mapping, Email Classes, Loans, and Laptops

Monks
On Sunday, June 11, we hosted an Open House at the Zen Monastery Peace Center. With three weeks of the building retreat behind us, we were eager to have folks from the larger community come by to meditate, participate in a group discussion, and then tour our ever-expanding collection of sustainability projects. We had seventy people in a meditation hall that is crowded with forty! It was great.

Walking around as docent for my tour group of ten or so, I got to see the place through the eyes of those viewing it for the first time. One woman had not been on the property for eighteen years, long before the buildings, the courtyard, the pond, the gardens—any of it—existed. The last time she was there, the Zen Monastery Peace Center consisted of one huge army tent that was used for cooking, dining, and meditating. She was stunned at all that has been accomplished. Me too.

As I looked around at the building and porches and courtyard full of people talking quietly, eating scones and drinking tea, I realized, once again, what a truly extraordinary gift to this world the monks are. Yes, the grounds are beautiful. Yes, the building is stunning. But the monks are the magic.

I get a lot of credit for this practice. And, while it’s true I’ve practiced diligently since that glorious day so many years ago when I learned for the first time that it is possible, in one’s own lifetime, to end suffering, I am only one small part of what goes on in this practice. I am one small part of the wisdom, love, and compassion people find when they pick up one of our books or come to a workshop or retreat. It’s the monks who are here all day, every day, Sundays and holidays included, making sure each of us who choose to avail ourselves of it has a spiritual home. We all do our part. Neighbors, friends, family, Sangha near and far, all of us offering the support and care we can. We’re all essential pieces in the whole. And today I want to offer a particular acknowledgement and make a deep bow to seven wise, kind, compassionate, extraordinarily dedicated and hard-working individuals: the monks.

Process Mapping
During my visit to Integral Yoga Institute in New York I was asked about Process Mapping and agreed to write up some directions for mapping. Here goes:

1. Get the largest piece of paper you can manage and/or commit one wall in your domicile to the project.

2. Get supplies based on your desire to be creative. At a minimum you will need some post-its, a pen, and probably some tape for when the post-it glue gives out. Beyond these basics you may choose to have colored pens, different color or size post-its, highlighters—all is possible.

3. You can begin anywhere, with a big issue like changing jobs or leaving a relationship, or something as seemingly minor as resistance to dishwashing.

4. Tune in to where you are with the issue. (Let’s go with dishwashing.) Perhaps you walk into the kitchen, see the pile of dishes, feel your stomach clench, your heart fall, and your energy collapse. Map that. Take each of those reactions (walk into kitchen, see the dishes, stomach clenches, heart falls, energy collapses) and put each on a post-it. Just a brief jotting to remind you of the reaction. You might decide to do behaviors in one color, thoughts in another, and feelings in yet another, or you might just go with basic yellow post-its and a blue ink pen!

5. Since the reactions described above are a sequence, you will want to place them sequentially on your piece of paper or wall. The next time you have the encounter with the sink full of dirty dishes, you might watch the previously described sequence, and then notice the voices that come in to tell you what all this means and who/what you are for having this issue. You jot those down and put them on your map.

6. As you’re getting clearer with your dish issue, you will begin to notice things like a fleeting inspiration to go clean up the kitchen. Very likely you will soon notice the voice that talks you out of acting on that inspiration. Put those on post-its and get them on the map.

7. The next thing you might see is the part of you who really wants a clean kitchen. Put that person on the map and begin to look for the sensations, emotions, and thoughts associated with that part of you.

8. Keep going in this way until every nuance of your relationship with kitchens, dishes, and cleaning is somewhere on your map. There will be lots of voices, all kinds of emotions, beliefs, memories, resolutions, and beatings.

In the beginning each life issue seems to require its own map. Soon, because this is process mapping, you will begin to see patterns. As the book title suggests, “How you do anything is how you do everything.” Yes, in fact, the same voices, beliefs, assumptions, and projections show up in my housekeeping, relationships with people, money, and work, and in how I drive! Yep, I’m “me” all over the place. 

The benefits of process mapping are many and big. Writing down what is going on gets it out of the head and gives a much-needed distance from what lives in the darkness of a conditioned mind, never seeing the light of day. To know what’s going on, we have to pay attention. We have to watch the thoughts and emotions and behaviors to see what they are. This can greatly increase our present moment awareness and help us to step back and disidentify from our conditioned orientation to life. Instead of going through life in intimate relationship with the voices of conditioning, looking to them for guidance, believing their assessment of us, others, and life in general, we now are able to watch them, from a place of conscious, compassionate awareness as they do what they do. As we watch, as we see through the process, the power conditioning has over us begins to fall away.

Email Class
I’ve had some feedback I’d like to share with you and ask your feedback on. The information I got during and after Dismantling the Ego, the yearlong email class, was that it was life changing. (You can read some of the comments at LivingCompassion.org) Many participants said they couldn’t wait for the next one to begin, would tell all their friends, and so forth. The response to the announcement of the second yearlong class was, as they say, a thundering silence. I found this puzzling until I began hearing from people that it’s not a year-long email class they’re not responding to, it’s the subject: service. Service is not sexy—but it is scary.

It has occurred to me that perhaps people are right in their projections that going from Dismantling the Ego to Service in one short year of classes is a bit of a leap. Maybe we need some steps in between. Perhaps we could all benefit from getting the individual life to a place of greater fulfillment before we try to explore the practice opportunity that is service. Does that seem so? If that is the case, I would offer as an alternate possibility, “How to Have the Life You Want.”

I would very much appreciate hearing from those of you who have an opinion. Feedback on everything from topic to format to resistance would be gratefully received.

Laptops and Loans
All of which brings us to laptops and loans. In my last communication I asked people for new or nearly new laptops for our spiffy, sustainability offices and received two! Thank you very much. And, we received our first offer of a loan to help purchase the Peace Center in Assisi, Italy—$250,000.00! We are one-quarter of the way there. More heart-felt thank yous. If this inspires you to give a laptop or make a loan, let’s talk.

This has been a big month, as all are, I suppose. There is so much to be grateful for and so much gratitude for it all.

In gasshō,
Cheri

 

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