Tinicum Art and Science
Spring, 2015
THE TAS TIMES
TINICUM ART AND SCIENCE.ORG
In this Issue
!
From Buffy’s
Kitchen
Upcoming Events
Coffee House
Photos
Swing Dance
Photo
Poems by:
Leonard Cohen
&
William
Shakespeare
Letter from the
Principal
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Tinicum Art and Science
Upcoming Events
!
Graduation will be held
this year Thursday, June
11th at 6:00 PM
Spring, 2015
From Buffy’s Kitchen
!
Spring Easy Endive/Watercress Salad
2 spearheads of endive cut crosswise 1/2" sections!
!
1 cucumber peeled in stripes, cut in half lengthwise & sliced
thinly on the diagonal (scoop out seeds of cucumbers: optional)!
We will have a potluck
celebration at 4:30 for
anyone who would like
to come and share a
meal. The ceremony
will begin at 6:00.
1 package/bunch of watercress leaves!
!
A canoe and kayak
paddling trip on the
Giving Pond is
scheduled for Friday,
June 19th. Graduates
are welcome
and encoraged
to join us for that
activity.
2-3 scallions sliced on diagonal!
Seasonings:
Lime juice or coconut vinegar!
Extra virgin olive oil!
Crazy Jane's seasoned salt (or any other type of seasoned salt
mixture)!
Fresh ground pepper!
Mix & toss together in a bowl, sprinkle the greens with
seasonings dressing lightly.!
Eat with your favorite chopsticks & wooden bowl outside while
the buds begin to bloom.!
!
Friday, June 19th
is the final day of
school
!
Have a healthy and
happy summer!!!
!
!
!
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Tinicum Art and Science
Spring, 2015
TAS Anuual
Fundraiser and Coffee House
Casey and Penny setting up the silent auction
Alison Gillespie and friends performing
Steffi, Julia and others mingling
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Tinicum Art and Science
Spring, 2015
TAS Staff and Students (and Emmett) at Swing Dance Class
!
Dance Me to the End of Love
by Leonard Cohen
!
Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love !
!
!
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Tinicum Art and Science
Spring, 2015
Spring
By William Shakespeare
!
When daisies pied and violets blue
And lady-smocks all silver-white
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men; for thus sings he,
Cuckoo;
Cuckoo, cuckoo: Oh word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!
!
When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are plowmen’s clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer smocks,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men; for thus sings he,
Cuckoo;
Cuckoo, cuckoo: Oh word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!
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Tinicum Art and Science
Spring, 2015
"Sometimes the ox charges up the mountain,
sometimes it disappears into the mist”
!
Peter Ryan (Principal)
The Ten Ox Herding Pictures are a series that illustrate the spiritual path of a Zen practitioner. All
ten hang in the TAS foyer, but for most of us only the first five or six have direct relevance to daily
life. The first shows a person holding a leash or tether, looking around. The second, a set of
footprints... the ox is here somewhere. The third, a glimpse of the ox's rear end. The fourth, the seeker
yanking and pulling, having secured the restless, suspicious, unconvinced ox. The fifth, he has tamed
the bull.
!
The sixth, he is riding the beast homeward. The ox is our mind.
Let me offer a little context for this idealization of a sometimes long, arduous process. In the very
early centuries of Buddhism coming to China, let's say 200 c.e. to about 550 c.e., hundreds of
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Spring, 2015
Chinese translators and early practitioners sought to reconcile the vast number of Indian Buddhist
texts with their own culture and language. Linguistically speaking, Sanskrit and Pali, the original
languages of Buddhism, are very different from Chinese. Additionally, the great spiritual and social
traditions of China, Confucianism, the diverse folk religions, and Daoism, all had their own spiritual
paths and specialized terms. These would be adapted to make the Indian terms comprehensible to
everyday people. Well understood and flexible terms like dao, a footpath, developed rich associations:
the community of Buddhist practitioners, the path of one's life, the Buddha's teachings, the letting go
of attachment and self, of responding to the world as it arises. All this draws off of native Daoist
philosophy, but was transformed by Buddhist teachings about how suffering can be let go of in this
world and certain techniques to achieve this.
!
!
The Chinese way was about living in this world as it is, not escaping it. This was a big shift.
The Ox-Herding Pictures offer a step by step guide on this path. They were developed many
centuries later, a millennia after the early texts were translated and absorbed, and a couple centuries
after Chan (Jap. Zen) emerged as the dominant type of Buddhist practice. By using an ox, these
pictures evoke everyday concerns; by illustrating stages, they reflect a middle period Buddhist worry
about how to help people recognize and mark progress. In some ways, the belts associated with
martial arts teaching reflect this need.
!
But there is another layer to all this. Chinese Buddhism, Chan in particular, has a vigorous
tradition of instant enlightenment, where suddenly and vividly one experiences the self and the mind
as having no permanent reality. Stages and teachers are unnecessary; they may even get in the way.
This is hinted at in each picture, as each is a revelation of its own. In the later pictures, the ox is no
longer a concern whatsoever; any person who gets this is a buddha. This possibility is inherent for all
beings, and this is the basis for compassion. The path hinted at in these pictures is never traveled
alone.
***
In the West, particularly in America, we tend to see ourselves as being the same as our mind, and
that mind as more or less an expression of the brain. We tend to see our mind as having a separate
reality from our bodies, and that mind as our "true" selves. This is very much like the "soul", which is
considered separate and more real than the body, an idea that goes deep, deep, deep into the Western
tradition: Christianity, and before that, Plato and Pythagoras, and the early Persians.
!
But we also see our mind as mostly emotion and intellect, since that is what we directly
experience. We have come to believe that these arise specifically from the brain. And somehow we
take this great leap, which seems so natural to us 21st century Americans, that when something is
"wrong" with my brain, something is "wrong" with me. Hello, modern psychology and modern
education.
!
Supposedly, we go to school to cultivate this mind. Since the intellect is the key to success, we
emphasize skills and knowledge on the way to mastery. We also suppress the emotions and
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Tinicum Art and Science
Spring, 2015
perceptions that get in the way of that process. We focus on "brain problems" as the source of those
troublesome emotions and perceptions.
!
Let's take a step back. The liver and kidneys clean out the body's fluids, the small intestine extracts
nutrients. What does the brain do? The brain reaches out, through the senses, to the environment and
other beings, and changes subtly in response. It also reaches inward, through awareness, to memory,
sensation, and expectations, and changes as well. Some beings are more dynamic in this respect than
others, and a few such as humans, elephants, some primates and birds, and porpoises, seem especially
so.
Mind is not the same as brain. It doesn't exist anywhere in particular, but rather arises within a
relationship. It could be a "reaching out" relationship, it could be a "reaching in" relationship. But
mind arises right here. It isn't a thing, no matter how vividly we experience it. It is phenomenon, and
it is always changing. Just as everything is.
!
Therefore, mind doesn't exist anywhere. It arises in the moment. This is why concentration
practice, such as breathing in meditation, or mind-training Shim Gum Do forms, or holding a single
asana in yoga, is so important. When the interaction changes, the mind changes. We can sense this
change, and this sensing is a kind of intimacy, a deep awareness of what is actually happening as we
live.
Everything else is a dream.
***
Back to the ox. Isn't this a wonderful image for the mind as we glimpse it, struggle with it, and
long to master it? How can such a massively strong creature be so passive? How can such a gigantic
presence suddenly vanish into the mist? How can such a helpful being- dragging my plow, hauling my
cart, helping us feed ourselves- be so horribly stubborn? How such a gentle animal suddenly cause
such havoc and harm?
For all that describes the mind, and it is an understandable shortcut to try to blame it on a poorly
functioning brain. Yet this is normal, this is how minds seem before awareness is cultivated. And the
process is a little different for each one of us.
So the oxherding pictures are the very sketchy, tentative, difficult beginning of seeing the mind.
We start to notice that there is something going on here that we don't quite understand. This is why
rituals, a community, a schedule, and discipline are so important, even if we only haltingly meet
those expectations. These give us something a little more firm to bounce off of, a way to glimpse the
ox as it is doing all those inexplicable ox-things.
!
The ox charges up the mountain, or tears up the rice patty, or disappears into the mist. Perhaps
worse, it looms there unbudging, munching grass. Sometimes we are so strange and so elusive to
ourselves. "What did I just say? Why did I just do that?" There is a moment of doubt there, but also a
moment of genuine clarity.
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Tinicum Art and Science
Spring, 2015
"Wow. What the heck was I thinking? What was I feeling just there?" That doubt is a glimpse of
you being slightly different than how you usually experience yourself. At that moment, how do you
start to work with this massive ox, this great unpredictable animal?
!
This is what we do: sit meditation, train Shim Gum Do, practice yoga, do chores, notice our inner
experience as we related to teachers and peers and students... all this is the beginning of seeing that I
am not quite what I think I am.
!
There is a kind of doubt that just halts you. It can be a good feeling, a "not understanding", being
non-plussed, gobsmacked, awed, in wonderment. Amazed. As if you were standing at the edge of the
ocean and suddenly feeling in your guts how vast it truly is.
!
Now think about if you were to experience your life as something as vast, formidable, mysterious
as the ocean, as something you can't fully know or completely define or label? How would you get to
know this? You'd begin to push and prod, and test, and yank, and yell, shout and hit, and struggle.
You'd test and experiment and take huge chances trying to understand. You might become kind of
fearless and very willing to make a lot of mistakes.
!
This recognition of the self is really the beginning of struggling with the ox- taking it for what it is
that each one of us here is a vast, complex and powerful entity capable of great good and great harm,
often without realizing it.
!
Getting to know yourself well and getting to know your mind is what you have to do. You are
responsible for this being who is creating all this good and creating all this havoc and until you wake
up to it, things are going to happen to you that seem to come out of nowhere. Worse, you will have no
inner process for dealing with much of it.
!
At that moment, our first reaction is to blame other people, even though it is arising from you. This
is a warning, right here. At this moment, the ox has disappeared into the mists. Another opportunity to
see this self, to feel it and sense it, to really wrestle with it, has just passed us by. How? By putting the
responsibility on someone else. But wait...
!
Right then, even as the ox disappears, we see what is happening. We feel it. And the ox wanders
back.
A little kindness, a little determination, a big laugh at ourselves, and we can get back to living.
There was a farmer who didn't know he was a Zen Master. Someone asked, "How is that ox so well
trained?"
!
"Well, he just eats the grass where there is grass. And if he heads over to the neighbor's place, I just
gently nudge him back."
!
That's all.
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