Zen Teaching Schedule– Paul Schubert (Updated 4/8/0

Home Groups

Zen at Xavier Mondays 7:00 p.m. St. Francis Xavier, 55 W. 15th St., New York

(Peggy/Paul Schubert, schubertnyc@gmail.com)

City Tiger Zendo

Wednesdays 7:00 p.m. All Souls Unitarian Church, Lexington Avenue/80th St., NYC (Peggy/Paul Schubert, schubertnyc@gmail.com)

Visiting Teacher–Regularly Scheduled

White Plains
Last Tuesday of the month (April 29, May 27)
Tuesday 7:30 p.m. White Plains Interfaith Zen at St. Bartholomew’s Church, White Plains, NY (whiteplainszen.tripod.com; Russ Michel 914-403-3623)

Fordham at Lincoln Center (May 6)
First Tuesday of the month
Tuesday 6:00 p.m. Fordham University at Lincoln Center, The Chapel (Room 221), 60th St. and Ninth Avenue, Manhattan (Sheila Ross: sross@fordham.edu)

Manhasset (April 16, May 21)
Third Wednesday of the Month
Wednesday 7:30 p.m. Inisfada Interfaith Zen Center, St. Ignatius Retreat House, Manhasset, NY (Anne McNeill 516-294-3156.)

Union Theological Seminary

Sunday April 27

7pm
Lampman Chapel
Broadway at 121^st St.

Community Church of New York (Unitarian Church)
Sunday May 18 1pm
Buddhist Explorers Group
28 E 35^th St
New York

Scheduled Visits:

Morning Star Zendo, Jersey City, NJ

Saturday April 12 9:00am

Ridgewood, New Jersey
Monday
Monday 7:45 p.m. 113 Cottage Pl. (Unitarian Church)
Ridgewood, NJ (Carl Viggiani 914-428-8506)

Lighting can jolt our reality

Lightning strikes in a moment with force and sound.  Then it is over and there is no way to hold on to it.

What is the source of lightning?  Where does it come from?  Why does it jump from clouds?  A meteorologist can give an answer.  “It’s due to a combination of air currents in the clouds, ice particle colliding, and temperature changes.”  Sounds reasonable—but it does not get to the crux of the matter.  It is just an explanation.  But still we listen to the words and repeat them often enough to believe them to be the fact.  The words don’t reveal where the lightning comes from, or even what it is.   The fact is that no one knows where lightning comes from.

Our life is like this.  We shine brightly for the moment.  We can have stories about where we come from, whether it is the birth of an individual or the birth of the universe.  But these words are just explanations also.  Again, no one knows.  We just say it.  We are just here.

But we have been given the gift to be born humans—to have the capability to raise questions that go directly to our nature–Who am I?  Why? What? 

But more, we are fortunate to have the time and opportunity to explore, not explain, these questions.  The time is now.  The opportunity is our practice.  Zazen, quieting the mind and bringing attention back to the moment, is at the heart of the practice.  This practice begins to loosen the attachment to words and explanations.  It allows us to raise the energy needed for transformation and to have an active insight into our nature.

Active insight expresses itself directly and usefully in all of our activities — work, taking care of others, cleaning, eating.

This is the opportunity and time.  It is ours to make the most of it.

Most students give away a half a letter grade by not showing all that they know on tests, particularly those requiring problem solving skills.  It’s worth a few minutes to improve the strategy to do well.  Here are some suggestions.

Just pick one or two that is appropriate for you to keep in mind.

Take a deep breath before beginning in order to calm your mind. Racing forward in the first few minutes can lead to careless errors that are difficult to identify and correct.

Preview the test before you answer anything. This gets you thinking about the material. Make sure to note the point value of each question. Quickly estimate how much time you should allow for each section according to the point value. This preview should only take a minute or two.

Read the directions Never assume that you know what the directions say.

Underline with a pencil what you are asked to do. This will force you to focus on the answer.

Keep track of the time and progress during the test.

Answer the easy questions first. This will give you the confidence and momentum to get through the rest of the test. You are sure these answers are correct.

Go back to the difficult questions. While looking over the test and doing the easy questions, your subconscious mind will have been working on the answers to the harder ones. For problems with multiple parts (i.e. a, b,c,d), and use the earlier sections for hints to solve the later parts.

Answer all questions.  

Avoid careless errors—Think before you start writing.  When the writing starts on the wrong track, it is very difficult and time consuming to rethink the problem and start over.

Review the test carefully, especially the easy questions.

Use all of the time allotted for the test.

Show all your work (especially when partial credit is awarded) and write as legibly as possible.

This open-ended story appears in many forms. In the published versions, the teacher is Nan-in and the monk Tenno.

The monk had been summoned to see the Zen teacher. It was the custom in the monastery for the teacher to meet individually with the monks in order to test their understanding. The monk had worked with the master for 10 years; He had worked hard, both in mindfulness and reading. Possible questions and scenarios of questions that may come from the teacher raced through his head. He was ready for them all.

The day was rainy, but his spirits were high. At the appointed time, he walked over to the abbot’s quarters. The master immediately asked: “When you entered the building, did you put your shoes to the right of your umbrella or to the left”? The monk hesitated; he wasn’t sure. He had just done taken his shoes off moments earlier. Before he could consider further, the master ended the interview; he had not been aware; The monk remained with his teacher for another 10 years.

Comments:

Scenarios racing through the mind lead nowhere. Yet, the habit of this mental activity seems to be the way to prepare. The reality always seems to be different from the scenarios.

At first look, inventing scenarios seems like more useful than developing awareness. The scenarios fill the mind and block the reality. With awareness, there is room for spontaneity and creativity.

In this story, it is a rare event that the monk saw his own confusion for himself and then did something about it.

The ritual of the employee performance appraisal brings with it anxiety and surprise. Sooner or later, almost everyone receives a review that is disappointing and confusing. The immediate reaction to the situation, the accuracy of the subsequent analysis, and follow-up actions can have a major impact on your future performance, evaluations, and compensation. Just in case a bad review comes your way, consider the points below

1. Immediate actions–Getting the bad news

It is not pleasant to hear that performance and contributions have been below standard. However, the immediate reactions are crucial to both understanding and later resolving the performance issues.

First, recognize that the decisions have been made and reviewed with higher levels of management. The decisions will not be reversed, particularly at a review meeting. It is a losing strategy to argue for a change at this time.

Similarly, expressions of hostility and anger are also inappropriate. These emotions tend to make the supervisor defensive, harden negative positions, and “confirm” that the low rating was deserved. Disappointment and frustration can be appropriately expressed. Actually, it is important to inject the right amount of tension into this type of discussion. This meeting should not be easy on anyone.

Two important responses

Listen carefully to the comments of the supervisor. Do not accept vagueness or clichés. Ask detailed questions to clarify the situation. Take notes. This information will be important to really understanding the situation.

Also, take the initiative to establish a follow-up meeting to occur after you have digested the news and have developed some plan to take action.

2. Analysis–Understanding the Situation

Keep in mind that everyone in an organization has their own agenda. Particularly at a performance review meeting, comments can not be automatically taken at face value. An analysis is necessary.

Review your notes and supplement it with other input, particularly the comments of trusted co-workers. Often, the spontaneous comments made by a supervisor in response to a question provide the most revealing information. Weigh all of the information against the scenarios listed below to refine your perspective on the situation:

—7 Scenarios for a Poor Performance Review

Chronic Absolute Underperformance

This possibility for a poor evaluation is difficult to accept, but it is important to look into it fully. It is not sufficient to accept management’s comments. You need to find some trusted people with whom you have worked with and ask for their frank input.

If, in fact, the objective evidence does suggest that your work does not measure up, then it will be a downhill slide until corrective steps are taken. True underperformance is tough to own. However once it is recognized, the next step is to decide whether you are willing and able to make required changes. Sometimes it is just not possible. Alternatively, there may be some other situation you can transfer into where you can excel.

Chronic underperformance is not generally an emergency requiring a rash action; there is time to consider alternatives and take constructive action. However, over a longer time frame, it is unstable to remain in a position where your contributions do not measure up to the norm.

One-Time Project Failure

Not every major project works out according to the objective. Time and conditions have their way of disrupting the best plans and actions. If this happened in your work for the review period, accept the result and have confidence in your ability to return to a high level of performance. However, a run of bad luck begs for another explanation. This is no place to hide.

Valuing Different Activities

From the meeting discussion, there should be a good idea of what was rewarded. Compare this with what you actually accomplished. Sometimes the two are different. Of all of the things that you do in your job, the supervisor is most concerned with approximately 20% of your work. Know what that 20% is! These activities carry the most weight. Check to be sure that your crucial priorities are the same as the supervisors.

Not Trusted by Management

Performance can be fine, but if, for rational or irrational reasons, you are not trusted, the performance review may be their opportunity to send the message. In this case, working harder to improve performance will have no consequence. Once trust is lost, it is difficult to regain and then only at a great cost. The choices are either accept the situation and wait for current management to move on or to find a new situation in which this bias is not against you.

Relative Underperformance

Most organizations, whether they admit it or not, use a forced ranking system. Similar employees are grouped together, ranked from first to last, and reward appropriately. In this system, it is the relative performance that is measured. The superstars come out on top, with the star performers below them.

The argument that you a star in a group of superstars gets you nowhere. Just accept the situation as a short term loss. If you really are a star, just do good work and your light will be seen, either in this group or in a different setting.

Arbitrary Positioning

A cousin of relative underperformance. In some organizations with uniformly strong employees, misguided management may choose to rotate people to the top or bottom over a period of time in order to keep everyone relatively happy. Is it your turn? No one will confirm this to you.

Easy Mark

As noted previously, in a stack rank system, some individual have to come out at the bottom. Weak managers occasionally select the person, other things being equal, they can most easily assign it to. That is why it is important to keep some tension in the meeting. It may have happened this time, but already you need to lay the ground work so that it doesn’t happen again.

3. Strive for a Balanced Response

No matter what your analysis and conclusions are, do not do anything rash. Actions taken in anger or haste invariably lead to a poor outcome for the individual. On the other hand, a bad performance review cannot be accepted without a response. Use your resources—the information that management has stated, comments from trusted co-workers, the list of scenarios above, and your own intuitive ideas in order to do begin to change the situation.

Then, a poor evaluation is just a temporary set-back and a wake-up call to both fully understand the situation and take control of it.

Others on this topic: Struggling to Give a Good Performance Review Maintaining Credibility

Employee Performance Appraisals Ranking Methods –Lessons from Arrows Paradox

It is not a popular idea these days to do a task without a specific reward or compensation. There is nothing wrong with that. People need to be compensated for their effort.

The possibility for an outcome beyond imagination or expectation is often overlooked, yet experience shows that such results happens all of the time.

It is often not recognized that the approach to doing the activity can have a major effect on an unlikely positive outcome. There are many different attitudes towards performing any activity. The trick is to harness as much energy into the activity as possible. Nature is a guide here.

Nature just operates according to its own truth. Watch the rain for example. It falls from the sky, wets things, and in doing so, nourishes them, and allows them to grow. Then the rain moves to the lowest position, disappearing into the ground, just to repeat the cycle. The occurrence of the rain has effects, usually positive, but at times negative. However, the rain takes no note of these effects, does not compliment itself on the result, or wait for a reward; it simply and directly continues the cycle. There is only direct activity

Our activities can be just as direct as those of nature. This is true for all activities—projects at work, at home doing the laundry, driving, playing with children,

Actions are often not direct however–there is scheming to be done, ambitions to be achieved, goals to be met, expectations to be fulfilled, and frustrations to be vented. Scheming, ambitions, expectations, and frustrations have their place in the human activities. However, they dilute the energy available for the activity itself and dull the potential for unexpected positive results. The mind sticks, the energy is compromised, and there is a loss of creativity.

Typical of the distractions are the internal conversations that begin with questions and lead to an on-going story that runs at the same time as the activity. For example:

“Why am I doing this?

“What am I going to get out of this?”

“How will this help me?

“Will this project ever work?”

“What is for dinner?”

Instead of allowing these distractions to grow, simply acknowledge them, allow them to drop off, and return attention fully to the primary task at hand.

This approach to an activity takes discipline and an effort. It means becoming aware of and suspending the normal processes of mind activities of mind. Repetition and practice may be needed.

Then, there are the consequences of the activity. In the ordinary perspective, there are planned results to be obtained. Sometimes things work out according to our plan, but on occasion things just go in their own direction. From a different perspective, the consequences are the due to time and conditions beyond planning and rational control.

The approach of bringing full attention is simply to harness our own energy so that the effects are more likely to be creative and useful.

This story, “The Prince who became a Cuckoo: A Tale of Liberation” (by Lo-Dro, translated by Geshe Wangyal, (1982) is long out of print in English. It is a well known tale, evidently from Tibet. However, even in its bare bones summary, it raises some open-ended questions:

The prince, as heir to the throne, was provided with many opportunities to prepare himself to rule. Together with a friend, he practiced the mystical arts. They both developed the ability to transfer their minds to other bodies. His friend was deceitful and saw the possibility of taking power. Using the mind transfer method, he tricked the prince into taking the body of a cuckoo bird. Then, he trapped the prince inside the body with no hope of his escape. The friend then took the body of the prince and assumed the position in the court. The real prince, now locked into the cuckoo body, discovered that he was able to communicate with both the animals of the forest and humans. He accepted his situation and remained in the forest to teach them the truth of the Buddha.

Comments:

In this “Tale of Liberation”, what is liberated? Many would say that to have a regal position such as a prince (or a CEO) would be the means to freedom as expressed in the everyday terms of power and wealth. But, the spirit of the prince is now independent of the body or situation, and is free to express itself fully– in this case as helping others attain their own freedom.

As the prince-cuckoo shows, many situations are not of choice or control. Life moves on. But to be unaffected by our position and put full energy into the moment is to be in accord with nature.

The call of the bird has the potential to call one’s attention back from distractions to the here and now. It can be a call of awakening. Or the call may be a reminder of the magnitude of mystery, of how little is known. At other times, it may be dismissed as a sound of a bird, or not heard at all.

For people who believe their current perspective is sufficient, there is no incentive to dig deeper. Their ideas remain static. However, new ideas and insights are always arising. The simplest approach, especially when the new ideas have opposing elements to the current perspective, is to ignore the ideas or push them aside. However, something is lost and, ultimately, success will be limited.

There are several methods that use opposing ideas in order to achieve more innovative results. One is the Dialectic Method (Thesis –> Antithesis–> Synthesis), which was previously discussed (see Digging Deeper for Ideas—Stealing from Hegel).

Syncretism is another antidote to simplistic solutions. Syncretism is the attempted reconciliation of contradictory ideas or principles. The result may preserve the differences, using opposing elements as appropriate. Thus, the resolution may not be an unambiguous statement, but a fragile system that simply works better than the ones that served as the foundation.

The process holds fewer certainties, but more opportunity for innovation. Syncretic solutions are not merely looking for compromise on the common elements, but using the opposing elements and building bridges to them. Internal contradictions are permitted.

In references, the syncretic process is usually described for large issues that evolve historically over time. As a consequence, the underlying principles are not often considered for resolving conflicting ideas at work or at home.

Below, two examples of global scale syncretic issues are briefly described in order to give a flavor the applications. Then, a method to use the concepts of the syncretic approach to analyze everyday problems is outlined.

Two Classic Examples

(1) In the area of world political systems, a static idea is that the American model of democracy is the best system to be exported to other countries. This transition is “accomplished” by sending experts to teach the people about democracy and hold elections. The results of this naive belief are obvious.

The static approach neglects the fact that people in these countries have lived for centuries in different cultural conditions opposed to democracy. A new government must also reconcile the opposing elements of the cultural heritage with the principles of freedom. For example, India has a participatory democracy, but the political process is different from America since the major parties represent traditional religious faiths. It works in its own way.

(2) There are syncretic possibilities for the practice of medicine on the global scale. Western and Chinese medicine each have demonstrated strengths. However, there are significant differences. Their descriptions of the functions of the body are in non-reconcilable concepts. Also, Western medicines are relatively recent, developed in the laboratory, and evaluated in defined clinical studies. Chinese treatments, such as acupuncture and herbs, evolved over centuries by observation and experience.

Currently, the two disciplines are practiced separately. However, the current approach to medicine will change as information and expertise in both disciplines becomes more common. What form will medicine will take, particularly in developing countries, remains to be seen. From a static view, the western standards could be retroactively enforced on the Chinese methods. However a syncretic approach, which allows contradictions and preserves the differences of the two disciplines, seems to hold most benefit for patients.

Playing With Syncretism—Application to Everyday Problems

The principles can be applied to problems which routinely arise and can lead to better solutions.

One method to take advantage of these differences is to analyze the opposing ideas with a set of questions based on sycretism.

—-Why does each approach have merit?

—-What do the two approaches have in common?

—-What are the specific non-reconcilable elements of each approach?

—-Under what circumstances does each opposing element provide an advantage?

—-How can the advantages of both opposing elements be preserved, even in a fragile structure?

—-Do the new proposals preserve the advantages ?

Such questions are rarely asked since there is a bias to force a solution.

Working with these questions requires both a re-examination of one’s preferred approach as well as considering the problem using a different framework. However, without really much use of time or energy, a different, perhaps better, result can be obtained.

A young monk went to a private instructional talk with his Zen teacher. The teacher and monk sat, on the floor, directly across from each other. After they sat in silence for several minutes, the monk asked “What do you see?” The teacher replied: “I see a buddha.” Silence again for several minutes, then the teacher asked: “What do you see?” The monk gave a quick response: “ I see a useless bag of bones.” The teacher said nothing, but placed his palms together and made a deep bow to the monk. The period was over and the monk left.

The monk was exultant. He had bested his teacher in a one-to-one exchange. He could not contain his excitement. Later, in the day, while working in the kitchen with a senior monk, he retold the story of the exchange in a triumphant tone. It was a sign of his progress on the path.

The senior monk simply smiled: “No, it was the teacher who has taken you. When he spoke, he showed what was in his mind, and when you replied, you revealed what was in yours!” The young monk had no further response.

Comment:

Our everyday experience suggests that there is an objective world, with distinct objects, an inside and an outside.

The teacher suggests that everything that is seen or experienced is our own life. The possibility is shown to the young monk for the first time. Then, there is no inside or outside, or even an objective world.

The teacher’s response comes to each person. “How do we experience the world? How can that experience be refined”. It is a crucial question, driving to the heart of the matter.

As with all open ended stories, each individual has a unique response.

Each person who begins a meditation practice does so for their own personal reasons. However, for those who pursue it in a serious way, the direction of meditation is to deepen awareness so that the individual can be fully present and respond appropriately to the experience of the present moment.

Meditation methods of various traditions are similar, but may emphasize different techniques. In Zen Meditation, for example, there is emphasis on a still body posture, attention on the breath, and an awareness of the activity of the mind. As thoughts and distractions arise during the meditation period, these are acknowledged, released, and the attention returned to the breath. This simple but difficult practice has had profound affects on lives of people since well before the time of the Buddha, over 2500 years ago.

In a recently published article, “Mental Training Affects Resource Use” (Synopsis, Full Article), Richard Davidson et al. at the University of Wisconsin demonstrated the effects of meditation on attention by the western scientific method. Below is an excerpt from the Author Summary:

Meditation includes the mental training of attention. One of the major limitations of the attentional system concerns the ability to process two stimuli. When the second (stimuli) is presented within a half second of the first one in a rapid sequence of events, it is often not detected. (Missing the second stimuli) is thought to result from competition between stimuli for limited attentional resources.

We measured the effects of intense meditation on performance. We found that three months of intensive meditation enabled practioners to more often detect the second target with no compromise in their ability to detect the first target.

These findings demonstrate that meditative training can improve performance on a task that requires trained attention abilities.

The paper describes both measurements of electrical charges in the brain as well as a detailed mathematical analysis. These results may help the understanding of the physical function of the brain and be an advance in the neurosciences. In a related newspaper article (NY Times 5/8/07), the author said that this was the first study to examine how mediation affects attention.

Perhaps it was the first study, but countless people who have meditated have seen such beneficial changes in their own lives by direct experience. There is a tendency to give formal studies more weight than one’s own experience. However, if such studies encourage people to try the practice for themselves, they have a larger impact than to the science

Western Perspective: Finally, it is important to be aware of bias of our Western culture. These findings document by western methods the benefits that have been previously known to much of the world. There are many examples of methods that work in the world, that have not yet been documented in the western sense. One example is Chinese Medicine (see Common Sense, Carpal Tunnel Treatment Options and Acupuncture ). The important point is to recognize the bias and use information and judgment in considering these methods.