spirituality

Couple Brings Zen to Toledo

I would encourage any Toledoans in my readership to check out this article by Blade Religion Editor David Yonke.

And not just because I’m quoted in it, either:

Diana Schnuth, 31, of Toledo, said she was raised in a Christian home but came to the realization that “I no longer believed what I was raised to believe.”

She found that practicing Zen gives her a peaceful feeling. “I always come home from here feeling a lot better than when I arrived,” she said.

Even though Mr. Yonke had a digital recorder with him, I think I might have been paraphrased or misunderstood rather than directly quoted. I don’t think I would use the word “arrived” in informal conversation. I could be wrong, though — I *was* trying not to disgrace the sangha by saying something stupid.

I also know that I purposely did not identify the religion in which I was raised, not even to call it “Christian.” I recall saying that I was raised in a “religious manner,” but studiously avoided saying that I was a Mormon. The last thing I need is to have the missionaries knocking on my front door, trying to get me back to church.

Those minor issues aside, I thought the article was well-written, and I learned a lot about my Sensei between reading this article and Wednesday’s article in the City Paper. The publicity definitely helped boost the attendance at yesterday’s workshop on beginning meditation, as many people said that they had read about us in the newspaper.

Zen meditation can dovetail with your personal beliefs if you let it, since Zen itself has no mythology or belief system behind it, as Sensei pointed out. If you’re interested, even just vaguely, I’d encourage you to find a sangha near you and check it out. It can be a little weird the first couple of times you attend a zazenkai, but that doesn’t last long, and the inner stillness and acceptance of yourself and the world is well worth it, in my opinion.

spirituality 1 Comment

Calm, Cool and Collected

Attended Eric’s wedding reception in Columbus (photos to come) on Saturday. 2+ hour drive each way, but worth it for the multiple-course meal at Brio. Not to mention the adult contemporary pre-dinner musician. Hearing live covers of massive amounts of Jim Croce, Barry Manilow, Elton John and others was totally classic. Tells you how much of a goober I am that I could name title and artist for most of his repertoire, though.

Seriously, though, the food was the highlight of the evening. That, plus seeing Eric (whom I hadn’t seen since we moved into our house in spring 2004) and meeting his wife (whom I’d only ever talked to via blog comments). Even though we were the only people representing BG, and we didn’t know anyone there except Eric, we still enjoyed ourselves. And we enjoyed the yummy spice cake. Major kudos for having a cake that was neither white nor chocolate.

Sunday afternoon was a seminar on the basics of Zen meditation. We discussed our respective reasons for attending the seminar, learned about proper posture and options for sitting positions, and did a few brief sessions of zazen (seated meditation) and kinhin (walking meditation).

After both of these weekend events, I’m feeling refreshed and revived. Calm and alert. I think that, if I can maintain a daily zazen practice (and remember that I really do have friends, and keep in touch with them in a meaningful way), I’ll be able to keep this stillness in reserve for when I need it.

ruminations

Annoyance

I am starting to get seriously annoyed with myself for allowing myself to feel all pissy and depressed for no good reason. I let little things get under my skin. I let things harsh my mellow in a bad way. And I let other people’s negative attitudes affect me more than necessary.

Part of this is definitely, without a doubt, the connection between mind and body. Effed up sleep habits, eating habits, schedules — all are really taking their toll. And these are all fixable things. It’s just a matter of making myself do things just because, instead of ‘because I have to go to work’ or ‘because I have a deadline.’ How about ‘because I’ll feel like shit later if I don’t’?

I also feel like I tend to wallow in my depression / funk when I get in these moods. It’s like I take some perverse pleasure in feeling downtrodden or something. WTF? That went out of style back when I was 17. Righteously oppressed and darkly-mooded teenagers are to be expected; depressed grown-ups get handed a pile of Prozac and told to suck it up. Not that I’m clinically depressed (not diagnosed, anyway), and not like I’d be particularly comfortable with taking medication that alters the chemicals in my brain. The Pill screwed me up bad enough; who would I be after taking anti-depressants?

Point being, I’m kind of seeing myself from the outside in, while still being all funky. I need to fucking shake this thing.

Maybe tomorrow’s wedding reception or next week’s second interview downtown (OMG!) will cheer me up.

Update: Oh, that’s fantastic. Owens got my BG transcripts, sure, but one of the two programming classes I wanted to take in January (co-requisites, so it’s both or neither) is now full. Unless I plan to be unemployed until March, in which case I could take either the MW 10am-11:50am class or the TR noon-1:50pm class.

*insert tantrum here*

podcasting

Volunteering Again

I had a slightly spontaneous (but not entirely unexpected) meeting with Sensei this afternoon. He called around noonish asking for some help with the podcast he wanted to start — mainly, where to start. So, we met at the dojo (a five-minute drive for me), drove over to Starbucks (another five-minute drive or so), and talked about podcasting over coffee. (By the way? If you’re into corporate coffee, the Pumpkin Spice Latte is delish.)

After an hour of discussion, mainly about what podcasts are and how to create them and what we want to do with ours, I went home with his new H2 recorder, a CD of original music, a password or two, and some other vital info.

This is the result.

I spent two hours on the editing and tweaking of the files (which will get progressively easier as I (we) learn the appropriate level settings for the recorder), and I spent considerably longer than that setting up the domain name and the libsyn account.

Now, I know I don’t need anything else on my plate right now, especially since I’m a.) job-hunting and b.) revamping the drum corps website. Oh, yeah, and c.) planning to do NaNoWriMo in a week. But, really, I could streamline this to a one-hour operation after zen on Wednesday nights. Aaron suggested I barter for a discount on my aikido, but Sensei suggested that this could be what I contribute to the sangha (zen community). I don’t want to get sucked into more than I should, but I know that my talents are best used, rather than left to languish. Plus, like I said before, I like to feel… not so much important, but needed, I guess.

We’ll see how this pans out. I want to be helpful, but I know that sometimes that translates to being used, depending on who I’m “helping.” I may have to cut some other projects free soon to make room for this one.

aikido

Aikido for Wednesday 10/24

When I read on the dojo blog that we would be focusing on weapons training leading up to the weapons seminar in mid-November, I thought that maybe this class would be a little less strenuous than the previous week’s keiko. After all, it wouldn’t be an entire hour of standing up and being thrown down. Right?

I had no idea how wrong I was.

We separated into ranks, with the mukyu and some new rokyu perfecting a basic solo exercise while the higher ranks faced off with one another. Basically, we faced the walls, chose a knot in the wood as our opponent, and swung the bokken diagonally up, behind / over our heads, and diagonally down the other side, attacking our chosen knot. Very basic form, just getting used to how the weapon should feel and where the energy should go. It was a very powerful feeling, though, once I got the hang of how low my stance should be, where my weight should stay, how my center was supposed to drive the movement, that sort of thing.

Then the cardio kicked in, along with the arm fatigue. And the wrist funkiness. Holy crow, what a workout. My hand and arms are still weak and shaky (to my embarrassment in Zen practice later).

Then we did the usual throwing and rolling. I actually started being almost comfortable with my lame bastard forward rolls, with the occasional flub. At one point during that exercise, one of last week’s scabbed-over mat burns on the top of my foot started bleeding, and I had to take a breather to hit the first aid kit.

After the rolling, we worked on everybody’s favorite, irimi nage, except this time uke begins with a wrist grab before running around behind nage to (try to) grab his other wrist. Nage then ducks under uke’s arm and performs the irimi nage I know and love.

A note: I love working with Rich-sempai. He’s one of those who is always smiling, always seems to be enjoying himself, but won’t half-ass the technique. If I’m supposed to be moving him and driving him to the floor, he’s not going to just flop down and say I did it right. He’s going to require me to put the energy into the movement and feel how it’s supposed to go. He’s also good at subtly indicating which way the energy should be going, if I’m unsure about a technique. I always learn a lot when I pair up with Rich.

After Sensei told us to switch partners, I had to sit out a round. I was just so exhausted, and my legs were jelly. We wrapped up with a suwari-waza (kneeling) tenshi technique that I didn’t know, and I watched another mukyu work with Amy-sempai’s brother until class was over.

So, in a nutshell, this class kicked my ass in a very serious and cardio-based way.

After keiko was zen practice. In the zendo, I saw that Sensei’s H2 digital recorder had come in, and I casually wandered over to see it. Apparently, my interest in and knowledge of the existence of the device projected my ability to fake my way through operating audio electronics. I’m cool with that; I actually kind of wanted to play with it, anyway. I ended up being the designated recording engineer for the evening, which was fun. I’m curious to see how our first attempt worked, since I didn’t want to sully the earbuds with my personal funk, and I didn’t let Sensei know that I’d figured out how to work the playback feature.

We ended up recording Teisho and our Dharma Discussion afterward. I hope they came out OK. I’m anxious to help them get a podcast going, and to help edit if necessary. I’m all about the new media revolution. I’m also all about feeling important, to be honest, which is kind of contrary to the zen-ness (a.k.a. “Buddha Nature”) I’m trying to discover in myself.

I also discovered something else about myself tonight: when the other party in a conversation is very calm and accepting and doesn’t offer much feedback about what I’m saying, I don’t know how to continue. I’m used to people giving me cues as to what they think about the topic, even if it’s just boredom or disinterest. But this attentive calmness is disconcerting to me. I’m not sure how to react to it, since I do not yet possess this calmness. I’ve never been good at conversation, honestly, but I’ve gotten good at faking it over the years. This reaction of calmness and acceptance is something I haven’t learned how to react to, and it makes me feel all bumbly and teenaged again.

Next week, Sensei will not be at the dojo on Wednesday, so I think I’m going to attend Monday’s keiko instead. Sure, an hour and a half of aikido will well and truly kick my ass, but I think I’d rather attend a class run by Sensei than one of the senior students. No offense, guys.