Earth Dreams: Zen Buddhism and the Soul of the World Hidden in the Shadows
A couple weeks ago I heard a sound near our back screendoor, as if an animal were wrestling with a large bag of cat food. I assumed my cat Sasha was trying to break into her bag of treats, and noted the sound but didn’t respond right away.
A few minutes later, the sound long faded, I went to check on Sasha to see how far she got with trying to claw her way into her treat bag. As I approached the backdoor I did not find Sasha, nor a clawed open bag of treats. Our screen door was open to the size of Sasha, outside her large bag of cat food lay open on the porch stairs. As I stood, stunned at the sight of a catless night—Sasha whipped around the backyard chasing something that remained in the shadows, her tail puffed out to the size of a racoon’s tail.
I have been thinking about wanting. Hunger. The pull of a certain kind of desire to grasp for, reach out for…something else. This energy often creeps up the stairs of my body from somewhere in the dark and before I even realize it my hand is holding my phone, or reading news headlines, or I’m fixing myself a snack or another cup of coffee.
This time of year wanting seems heightened.
Something about the seasons turning deeper into autumn. Trees shedding leaves as the sun looms lower in the fading day-lit sky.
The animal in us is preparing to hibernate. The hungry heart is trying to find nourishment.
The pull to nourish, to find safety— in the midst of an uncertain world heightened by a polarizing election, on-going war and climate instability—is completely natural. Our bodies and nervous systems seek balance.
Yet what is nourishing? What is safety when the ground appears to be constantly moving?
Who is the one whose hand slips up from the shadows, then vanishes back into hiding, as spirals of shame circle?
You just wasted an hour scrolling. I can’t believe you ate that. Wow, you pressed snooze again?
You’re worthless. Unloveable. Unfit for human consumption.
The shame says…
When I lived at Great Vow Zen Monastery we had a practice of singing to the hungry heart. Calling to this part of us, this part of others and our world. And instead of shunning it or throwing shade on it or blaming and shaming it—we would invite a spirit of welcome, acceptance, love and understanding.
The chant is called the Kanromon and was written together with Krishna Das and Bernie Glassman. Here are the words, if you would like to sing it too.
Calling all you hungry hearts.
Everywhere through endless time.
You who wander, you who thirst.
I offer you this bodhi mind.
Calling all you hungry spirits.
All the lost and the left behind.
Calling all you hungry hearts.
Everywhere through endless time.
Gather round and share this meal.
Your joy and your sorrow, I make it mine.
It is part of a ceremony for the hungry heart, called the gate of sweet nectar. A version of this ceremony is part of the daily liturgy at Soto Zen Monasteries in Japan.
It is one of the songs from our liturgy that I brought into my practice outside of the monastery walls. I sing it on walks through town, sometimes before I eat a meal, to my cat and before my altar with a stick of incense as my heart opens to the size of the world.
It is a song of offering. It is a song of deep love. It's a song that lets me be lost—a song that speaks to those in the shadows. It has the power to save a ghost. To make the lonely, smile. It empowers us to hug our demons, and face the unpredictability of life in human flesh.
This week I had the opportunity to facilitate and participate in three practice communities where we gathered together to welcome the hungry heart. The gatherings were simple. We sat in loving awareness and invited our hungry hearts to the table of our lives. And, through our collective attention, love and understanding the hungry part was given space to tell + show what it wants and needs, and then experience a deeper form of nourishment.
The nourishment of compassionate attention and collective witnessing is powerful. When parts of us are hidden in shame, they often feel like they are the only ones who feel this way. Or that they are fundamentally wrong, or unloveable, or unworthy.
To integrate the hungry heart into our lives, to invite them into the light of awareness— is healing. It's like reclaiming a piece of our nature. For in that invitation, transformation starts to happen, true nourishment becomes possible.
As we head into election week, I feel it's important to remember my vows to myself and this world.
I vow to create sacred spaces in this violent and beautiful world where we:
* Center healing
* Remember our true nature
* Challenge our assumptions
* Turn towards the shadow
* And live as if love were the point
What are your vows? How do you intend to show up in this unpredictable, precarious, ever-changing experience we call human life, or the world, or america?
Current Offerings
Spiritual Counseling — I practice at the confluence of spirituality and psychology, integrating mind, body and spirit. Spiritual Counseling can help you:
* Companion Grief + Loss
* Clarify Life Purpose
* Heal Relational Conflict + Inner Conflict
* Work with Shadow Material
* Heal your relationship with Eating, Food or Body Image
* Spiritual Emergence
* Integrate Psychedelic or Mystical Experiences
* Move Through Creative Blocks, Career Impasses and Burnout
In addition to my Zen training, I am trained in Buddhist Psychology, Internal Family Systems (IFS), Dream Work, Hakomi (Somatic Therapy), Process Art and Mindful Eating. My approach also has a deep Jungian influence.
Astrology— I am starting to offer astrology readings. I have found astrology to be a helpful map for connecting to the more mythic unfolding of life. It can help us honor our gifts, navigate challenges, get perspective and connect with planetary allies. It can also offer guidance on the questions that arise in our lives and aid us in stepping more fully into our wholeness. I am currently offering the following types of readings
Great Work of Your Life Reading
Monday Night Meditation + Dharma
Every Monday 6P PT / 9P ET
Join me on zoom for 40 minutes of meditation and a dharma talk. We are currently exploring a text called The Eight Realizations of Great Beings, which gives us an opportunity to practice inquiry and embodying love as we discover our Awakened Nature together.
This event is hosted by the Zen Community of Oregon. All are welcome to join. Drop in any time.
What is it? An experiment in the impossible task of excluding nothing and loving everything. An alchemy of play, presence and wandering into the shadows, you could say.
Sky & Rose is a practice container that will:
* Center group parts work practices to explore the fluidity, span and dream of who we are - somebody, nobody, everybody. You will be invited to express yourself vocally and physically, engage your imagination and play outside habituation.
* Do interpersonal and group meditation practices of seeing, being and awakening.
* Directly explore emotional embodiment & shadow work
* Include Beauty, Art & Wonderment as core practice elements
Through rituals of imagination, meditation technologies and co-created fields of intentional play, we can slip out, for a time, of confining identities defined by our histories, culture and comfort.
Delivered by these practices, we can begin to inhabit perspectives and modes of being that stretch our sense of the possible and refresh our sense of the everyday.
You might find yourself wearing Luminosities face or inhabiting Laughter’s chest. Together we might try out Venus’s view of the very life we live or we might make space to feel Chaos's dance and shake off some rigidity.
All of these are just examples of where our wondering and feeling into places of vitality and expansion may take us.
We will rebel against the quotidian and respect ourselves too much to only have crumbs of the sacred!
It was also be a time to work together with the challenges to living heart forward with sanity and presence within this hyper-fractured funhouse/madhouse world.
Sky and Rose is a place for Jogen and i to invite you into practices and explorations of 'soul work' that are not part of the Buddhist tradition but that have nonetheless been sources of growth and joy for us. Our influences in this include Paratheatre, IFS and Voice Dialogue, Hakomi, Process Work, Butoh, Jungian dream work and more.
We initiate Sky & Rose as an experiment in embracing Spirit and Soul simultaneously, together imagining and practicing interpersonal liberation, playfulness and spaciousness in this time of deep adaptation.
Meets monthly on Sundays from 10:30A PT - 12:30P PT / 1:30P ET - 3:30P ET
Next Session is on Dec 1
I’m Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, budding Astrologer and Artist. I currently live in Columbus, Ohio with my partner Patrick Kennyo Dunn, we facilitate an in-person meditation gathering every Wednesday from 7P - 8:30P at ILLIO in Clintonville through Mud Lotus Sangha. If you happen to be in Columbus, feel free to stop by. We have weekly meditation gatherings and monthly Saturday offerings as well.
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