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Friday, July 5, 2013

On being a victim.

I have spent, all totaled, three or four years at Tassajara Zen Monastery   The location of the monastery is roughly east of Big Sur in a strikingly remote mountain valley.  Residents spend the winter following a traditional Zen schedule, and in the summer it is open to guests.  Until two years ago, I had never been there as a guest.  Now I get a monthly update about the summer programs, reminding me that it is a wonderful place to visit.  I started to read their most recent beautifully written email, but I could not get past the third sentence.  It want like this:

"Perhaps the greatest treasure you find when you visit Tassajara is the luxury of time.  Time to reconnect with your joy and your fundamental goodness.  On our retreats the movement loosens your body ..."

Of note, is that Tassarara has several retreats focusing on Yoga, and they have a beautiful new building perfect for such retreats.

I do not doubt for a moment that these retreats lossen the body.  And if Tassajara was simply a for-profit retreat center, I would have no problem with this at all.  But as Buddhists, we have some commitment towards orienting ourselves to the truth, and toward taking responsibility 

Imagine a poor fellow, who every day comes home after work to find one of his curtains terribly wrinkled.  It happens every day.  He spends about an hour with the fabric every evening: shaking it out, pressing it, stretching it, ironing it.  Finally, when he's done, it quite nice.  The next day he tosses it in the corner and goes to work.  It may sound that there is no improvement being made, in fact there is.  He is betting better at the shaking and pressing and each day its a little bit smoother and wrinkle free than the previous day.  And when he gets home and picks it up off the floor it's a bit less winkled than the day before.  He's thinking about going on a retreat, with his curtain fabric, to do some intensive pressing and stretching.

Should a Buddhist feel responsible for suggesting this fellow hang his curtain on a curtain rod?  I'm not a Buddhist teacher, so I can't say.  My personal opinion is that we are all responsible for everything.

What is the truth here?  The truth is that we are supporting a notion of victimhood: supporting the poor modern men and women, forced to deal with stress of their jobs and family, their uncomfortable chairs and their defective bodies, all the time being dragged down by the unrelenting force of gravity.  It is an obvious conclusion that they will have a body that will need to be loosened.

This is victimhood.  To offer yoga classes only supports this notion of victimhood and perpetuates ignorance.  Instead of addressing the root cause of this tension we allow the cycle of suffering to continue.  By focusing on yoga, we ignore an opportunity to learn how to live a life free from the habit of creating tension.

How to we recommit to our intention to alleviate suffering?  It is well known that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  Lessons in the Alexander Technique have been shown to be dramatically effective in helping with chronic pain - in only 12 to 24 lessons!  Unlike yoga, the Alexander Technique is completely safe.  It teaches how play in gravity, how to go 'up' even in poor chairs, how to respond in a more thoughtful way to difficult family and work situations.  It shows us how to take responsibility for our lives and drop off all hints of victimhood.



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