Kat Druid
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I loved the feeling of giving instructions. I loved passing along what I have received, and I loved sharing my meditation practice with my fellow sangha member. In my instruction, I was a little uncertain about managing the time for someone else, and I was happy that my timer worked and that the bell I used to start and end the practice was clearly audible. I was a little uncertain about remembering all the points of the basic posture instruction and the body map, but I just got in the position, and then described what I was doing from the bottom up: easy peasy! 🙂 I was happy that I remembered to give instructions to support my understanding that thoughts are not the enemy – the brain thinks! It’s what the brain does. I love the idea of tethering the mind to the breath, and I remembered to say that, reminding me that the focus on the breath keeps me present, awake, and safe.
Loved your essay, Virginia ~ I especially loved the lineage with the wild things: the birds. Yes, birds are so much a part of my life, my meditation, and my heart. The other day, I meditated looking out at my backyard forest and the birds that were flying all around, I loved becoming one with that environment and letting their flight patterns turn into a gorgeous kaleidoscope for me. I also love the forest trees and all the foxes and deer and turtles that live there. That lineage of life makes me feel so happy to be alive.
Thank you, Stina~ I really enjoyed your essay – it touched my heart. I am a mother of two (now grown) children, and I remember how hard it was to find a moment to myself to meditate (or anything else!). I also liked your pointed reference to the Buddha leaving his child. I always worried about that, too: how could he do that? I think it’s in the book, Siddhartha (or maybe it’s another book – I can’t remember!), that the child one day comes to the Buddha to confront his father, and (as I remember it) the Buddha simply laughs. To me, it’s like a koan: I can’t understand the Buddha’s response using my worldly logic. When I read that book as a young college student, I remember wondering if I could ever be that detached from the structures of the world. I watch myself as a mother, and I notice where I fall into the role…maybe too far. Now that my kids are grown, they brush my “mothering” aside, and I am grateful to keep letting go. I love my self-reliant children, and I also deeply enjoy our family as a love community more than I ever knew I would. Thanks again.
I am a long-time practitioner and teacher of Yang-style Taiji Quan (also spelled Taichi Ch’uan), a Chinese moving meditation and martial art often described as “the way of water.”
When I first began teaching Taiji at the local Recreation Center, the Center’s Fitness Director told me she was eager to expand their Taiji offerings. She mentioned that there was already a Taiji class on the schedule and asked me to attend at least one session and let her know whether the instructor was teaching “real Taiji.” In hindsight, that request felt like a setup.
I attended the class expecting to encounter a form of Taiji I would recognize. Over the years, I have been exposed to many styles of Taiji, through different teachers and practices in both China and across the United States. I know that there are four main families that developed Taiji, and there are ancillary practices, such as the Sword, Saber, 5 Animals, etc. What I encountered, however, was unlike any Taiji class I had previously experienced. The instructor explained that she taught according to how she felt that day, allowing her mood to determine the content of the class.
Afterward, I asked her about the lineage of her teaching. She named a source that was not associated with any of the four traditional families who developed and transmitted Taiji in China. As a Chinese speaker, I was further surprised that the name she used did not even appear to be Chinese, at least as far as I could recognize.
The class itself was very popular. In many ways, it felt like a high-energy movement class—something like Zumba—with a few Taiji terms sprinkled in. I actually enjoyed it. Still, I could not, in good conscience, report to the Fitness Director that the class represented Taiji as I understand and practice it.
For me, lineage matters. Taiji was developed and preserved through four families, and if one is not teaching from one of those lineages, I do not believe it is appropriate to claim that one is teaching Taiji. I have always held the lineage of my own practice in high regard. I know I will never be as accomplished as the Yang family originators of my form, including their son Yang Chengfu, who taught Cheng Man-ch’ing. Cheng Man-ch’ing, in turn, shortened the form, brought it to America, and taught my teachers, who taught me.
In my own Taiji classes at the Recreation Center, I share a brief history of this lineage with my students. It is important to me that students understand, as I was taught, that the form and practice I teach are part of an ancient practice, standardized, time-tested, and effective. While individual understanding deepens over time, the form itself does not change.
I am deeply grateful to my teachers and to the lineage that has made this practice available to me. The Taiji I practice is simple, but not easy. It requires discipline—both to learn and to apply in daily life. I am thankful for the generosity of this lineage in sharing Taiji with people in America and around the world. It has made my life more livable.
Resonated with you this week. I, too, know that feeling of taking up my space – being neither too small or too large, just being true to my own self.
Thanks, Liana, for your essay. I decided to reply because you said you wanted to ask questions of a real Nihilist, and I felt the same. My 26 year old daughter embraces nihilism, and as I was contemplating this week’s exercise, I asked her to read this week’s reading assignment. She said she believes our minds continue but fragmented after death, not captured within a neat package anymore…like a wave returning to the ocean. She said she thinks our existence is random, but can be very much enjoyed and used for good. I don’t know if her thoughts are similar to or different from other nihilists, but I thought I would share some of what she shared with me. Hoping it might shed some light for you, as it did for me. 🙂
Thank you for sharing your contemplation and experience.
I appreciate you looking deeply and finding where both extremes have touched your life.
I love your description of “letting go”. Like you, letting go has helped me find the spaciousness to experience a release from old ideas and fears. I guess letting go is a place where we embrace the joy of groundlessness.After contemplating the two extremes of nihilism and eternalism today, I can see that I have often lived like a ball in a frantic pinball machine—bouncing wildly between the two, lights flashing and bells ringing—desperately trying to figure out how to play this game of life.
In school and at work, this back-and-forth is especially clear. My belief in meritocracy led me to think that if I worked hard enough—really, really hard—and did everything “right,” I would eventually attain a kind of student or worker perfection. I imagined becoming a hero of sorts, rewarded with lasting success and deep satisfaction. But when that satisfaction failed to materialize, or when I saw others achieving success with far less effort, or when my own hard work simply did not lead where I had planned, I swung to the opposite extreme. I would ask myself, In my attempt to climb the ladder of success, do I even have my ladder against the right wall? From there, it was easy to collapse into the belief that my struggle meant nothing, led to nothing, and achieved nothing.
I can see the same pattern in my marriage, my relationship to exercise, and really in all areas of my life. What feels most interesting to me now, though, are the moments when something entirely different entered the frame.
A few times—during brushes with death, periods of profound bleakness, or moments when my life was utterly upended—something unexpected happened. Long before I encountered Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s language of “groundlessness,” I was already describing it to myself: The ground is shifting sand. Everything I believed in was a fantasy. There is nothing to hold on to. I have been experiencing something similar over the past year as I struggle with the chaos of the political landscape in my country.
During those earlier moments, I allowed myself to stay with the discomfort of letting go. I let my house of cards collapse. And in those suspended moments—when everything felt up in the air—I experienced something like Jonathan Livingston Seagull discovering flight while attempting a loop-de-loop. These were among the most significant moments of my life. I was certain I would die, wither, or crash painfully. Instead, I found no death, no loss, no decay. I found something entirely new.
It is difficult to describe, but those moments led to more life, more awareness, and more open-heartedness than I had ever known before.
One reason I am taking this course now is to create space for a similar transformation to become possible again—this time in relation to my upside-down feelings about the political situation in my country. I have already bounced between eternalism and nihilism around this issue, and I feel ready to let go. I want this dark trouble to yield something new and good.
Wow – thank you, Colin~ I really resonated with the idea of our discovery processes being like looking for buried treasure: yes! That’s how it feels to me, and it’s a great metaphor. I also really like what you said about encouraging others by being a living example: oh, yeah! Your language really spoke to me and helped me to understand and feel what you were saying.
Hi, my name is Kat. I still remember the first time I heard the word “Buddhism” in a Global Religions class at my Catholic school. Something about it stuck. The word lodged itself in my mind and never really left.
In college, I followed that pull. I studied Buddhism, Tai Chi, and Chinese language, earned a degree in East Asian Studies, and began meditating at 18. It felt less like a choice and more like a calling.
In the 1980s, I had the opportunity to travel to Tibet, which was especially meaningful because I had fallen in love with Vajrayana Buddhism and the teachings of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. When I was 24, I went on a vision quest and spent seven days alone in the woods, learning how to meditate with nature under the guidance of John P. Milton, an ecologist and meditation teacher.
From 2001 to 2016, I studied mindfulness meditation with ThĂch Nhất Hạnh’s niece at the Mindfulness Practice Center of Fairfax. For the past ten years, I’ve continued my practice on my own.
This introduction is probably long enough, but I’ll end by saying how genuinely excited I am to be here with all of you and to share in the discoveries we’ll make along the way.
Here’s my contact details: Katdruid8@gmail.com, 703-624-9251
Thank you for your write-up. I feel for your grief and body disconnection – I know those feelings. I was so happy for you that you were able to stay with yourself, help yourself through the moment today, and come back to the breath. I liked that you said, “I got the sense that I had acted as a guide to myself (or, my hunger or grief)”, because during this course and going through a discovery process, we all will have to guide ourselves through what comes up.
I have had the opportunity to support people’s discovery through experiential learning, and, upon reflection today, I have to say that it always feels like I am some kind of a “sherpa”, guiding the other person through the Himalayas. The path is always a little different each time and with each person, but I know from my own experience where some of the pitfalls are and where they may be straying off the path.
Here are some of the primary tools I have used to support other people’s discovery:
1. My Own Self-Discovery – having walked the path myself multiple times, I can share my experience, what it was like for me, what I learned, and what I do.
2. Path/Structure – there is a proven path or structure that works, and I must hold to that path, clarifying it for the other person, answering questions about it, and resting on what I know – this is the path that worked for me and thousands of others.
3. Presence – being present and available to the other person (without falling into their challenges); being aware and paying attention to what is actually happening. Continuously keep coming back, both physically, by being present to the other person (as appropriate), and spiritually, by reminding them of the path/structure that works.
4. Listening/Being Open-Hearted – being absorbed in hearing the other person, noticing what the other person is talking/asking about, trying to get an understanding of what the other person is going through, and trying to see/hear/grasp deeply what is really going on for the other person (underneath the words). Also, being patient and having a good attitude, even in the face of their doubts, fears, and confusions.
5. Responding to Questions – using the structure and the real experience that I have gathered, and that has been shared with me from my teachers’ and my colleagues’ experience to provide answers.