"Dot, an ordinary life" shows limits of Zen -- and meditation

Yesterday my wife and I watched "Dot" at the Salem Film Festival. It's a documentary about an extraordinary 82 year old woman from Ashland, Oregon who believably claims that her life is ordinary. From the film's web site:

Dot Fisher-Smith is a mystical masterful artist, a war resister, an environmental activist, a community presence, a jailbird.

As a great-grandmother, she chained her neck to a log truck to protest salvage logging of old-growth forest.

Yet she calls herself a mistaken Buddha and her own life ordinary.

This moving documentary is an intimate portrait of life and death through the eyes of 82-year-old Dot.

I really liked the film.

You could do a lot worse with a $20 entertainment budget than buy a DVD of "Dot," invite some friends over, open a bottle of wine, spend a couple of hours watching the flick, then discuss people's reactions to it. (I bought a DVD myself with this in mind, right after viewing the film.)

There's a lot of lessons about spirituality in "Dot."

Around the 30 minute mark, Dot speaks about a commitment to Zen practice which was one of the reasons she moved from a home in the Ashland countryside to the city itself -- so she could be closer to the town's Zen center.

"Discipline," her Zen teacher told her, "makes you strong." His analogy was that discipline was like putting a snake in a bamboo tube. 

One of my favorite parts of the film shows Dot bowing respectfully before a singing bowl on the floor of her home, while some other women look on. She strikes the bowl, eliciting a pure Zen'ish tone. She bows traditionally again.

Then...

She yells, "blow it all to hell" while waving her arms. The women laugh. "Come out of the bamboo tube," Dot says. "The bamboo tube of discipline where everything is squirming... and, no, I hate it!...I don't want to do this discipline!"

(You've got to see the film to get the whole message of this scene; Dot's expressive body language speaks as loud as her words.)

Eventually Dot was made the head honcho of the Zen center's meditation hall, a duty she performed for two years. Her snake burst the bamboo tube, though, while on a trip to Tibet. Dot speaks of realizing there wasn't any more need for Zen practice.

She was hiking along at 17,000 feet. Followed by 18,000 feet. She was putting one foot after the other. She was there, doing what she was doing. What else was there to do? Thus ended her formal Zen practice.

Today George, a frequent visitor to this blog, left a comment on a recent post that posed some excellent questions. 

Brian, on the issue of meditation, you've been doing it for quite a while. If you had never meditated for a day in your life, would it have made any difference to your understanding of:

1. the universe?
2. yourself?
3. your peace of mind? or
4. any kind of unexplained experience including an awareness of lights, sounds, god, spirit, the tao, nonduality, oneness, or transcendental spheres of existence?

Yes. No. I don't know. Each of those answers sounds about right. George, here's a down payment on a response to what you asked.

Because "Dot" was being shown at a film festival, both Dot Fisher-Smith and the filmmaker, Patricia Somers, were in the theatre. They walked down in front of the screen after the applause ended and the lights came on.

I got to ask a question of Dot, who was as feistily/energetically engaging in person as in the film.

"Dot," I said (more or less), "it seems that after engaging in formal Zen practice for a while, you gave it up. I've meditated every day for most of my life, so I'm curious about whether you currently do any sort of organized meditation. Or is simply living life your meditation, being mindful of what is present at each moment?"

Dot told me that she'd been involved with Zen for about thirty years. And no, she doesn't feel any need now to meditate. Looking at me, she said "All there is... like this," pointing a finger in my direction. 

Yeah, I got it. At least, I feel like I got it.

There Dot and I were, two people in a theatre filled with quite a few other people, having an interchange. We'd never met before; we may never meet again; but at that moment we were doing something together, and that's all that mattered. 

No philosophy required. No religion required. No spiritual discipline required. No big Meaning of Life interpretation required. 

Today I got up, made a pot of coffee, poured myself a cup, picked up the Oregonian sports page, and, per usual, went into my meditation area for some morning quiet time -- reading and meditating. For many years I meditated for several hours a day. Now, it's twenty minutes or so.

I don't feel that all that time I spent in closed-eyes contemplation was wasted, not at all. Yet I also don't feel that it gave me any great insights into the nature of the cosmos, or of myself. It just was something I did for about thirty years, about the same length of time Dot was into Zen.

I'm also coming to the realization that ordinary everyday life is -- duh -- what life is all about. Doesn't seem like something so obvious should take thirty-plus years to realize. Which is why I liked what Dot says near the end of the film so much.

"What is Buddha? In the Blue Cliff record, it's like... shit on a stick. So I can say that. Yeah, I'm the Buddha way. Life is one big mistake. And I'm doing that. I'm a mistaken Buddha, a Buddha who makes mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. I'm human."

(Here's a newspaper story about Dot and the film.)

Comments

[George]

From what you are saying, it seems to me that one's time is better spent simply living life rather than meditating. Not quite sure what benefits you have derived from meditation as opposed to thinking, reading or even sleeping, but of meditation is none of these.

[Blogger Brian]

George, meditation was a discipline for me. There's some value in sticking with a disciplined practice, but as Dot found, eventually the practice becomes unduly constraining. Meditation also has positive brain effects.

The way I see things now, meditation can be a form of mental exercise. But just as the reason I work out at an athletic club three times a week for over an hour is mostly so I can enjoy physical activities outside of the club, so am I coming to look upon meditation as an "exercise" that helps keep my brain/mind stronger so I can better enjoy everyday life.

[Roger]

Brian,

Could you explain further, how your meditation helps keep your brain/mind stronger? Sounds interesting, however could it be more of a 'clearing/calming' effect?
Roger

[Blogger Brian]

Roger, here's links to a couple of blog posts about how meditation rewires and strengthens the brain:

http://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2007/01/meditation_teac.html

http://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2005/11/meditation_stre.html

[Roger]

Brian,

Thanks for the reference.

I noticed this,

"I’ve spent over 20,000 hours in meditation (though if you subtract the time I spent dozing or letting my mind ramble, it’d likely be closer to 2,000; maybe less). So it’s nice to know that researchers are finding that all that sitting in a dark place with my eyes closed, mostly repeating a mantra, probably has altered the structure and function of my brain for the better."

"After putting the Buddhist monks through their meditation paces in a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine, neuroscientist Richard Davidson considers this to be a viable hypothesis: “That we can think of emotions, moods and states such as compassion as trainable mental skills.”

---I wonder what Dot Fisher-Smith would think of those statements? From your post, it would possibly appear that she has given up on Zen practices and meditation.

I can see how we can think of emotions, moods and states such as compassion as trainable mental skills. However, how does meditation practice(of any kind) engage in this training?

[George]

Brian,

You say there is value in meditation, but its still not clear from your answer what that value is, and thus I am not sure if its really clear to you either.

Are you merely doing something out of habit? A conditioned remnant from your past search for the kind of mystical experience that you feel one day might still occur, and that it cannot hurt to continue to do so, and can justify it rationally to yourself with some tentative neuroscience findings.

However, what neuroscience may or may not say about meditation (not sure its clear what aspects it improves or how) - is largely irrelevant as opposed to how you personally experience the value of meditation.

You say the value to yourself is disciplined practice, but this could be achieved from any habitual activity - physical exercise, reading, puzzles, etc. In fact, with all these activities you can actually see changes in yourself. But with your meditative practice, its not clear what changes you have noticed, especially since you have always meditated. Do you feel certain benefits when you do more or less mediation and in what way?

Just as Dot grew to find meditation too constraining, is this not the inevitable outcome of any disciplined practice that yields minimal personal value? Its simply not worth the effort?

[Blogger Brian]

George, as usual you ask some good questions. Yes, meditation has become a habit for me after so many years -- over forty. Occasionally I go a day without meditating (rarely, usually when traveling) and I feel sort of off-center.

But you're right: there are other ways to concentrate, to train the mind, to practice mindfulness. "Meditation" isn't separate from everyday life, that's for sure.

I do believe, though, that there are some pluses to devoting some time every day to some form of sitting meditation. As noted before, I've come to look upon this as exercise for the brain, similar to how I go to an athletic club three times a week and exercise my body.

That said, I readily admit that meditation has become a habit, albeit a healthy one, in my opinion. I enjoy sitting on my cushion, closing my eyes, and becoming attentive to what is happening within my mind/brain.

Sure, we can do this while going about our daily activities, but then the outside world is more mixed up with the inside world. For me, and I'm not saying this should be true of anybody else, meditation is an interesting and pleasurable way of both learning more about how my mind works, and training it to behave in a certain fashion.

[Scott]

Years ago when I became interested in Buddhism, I fell in love with Buddha's directive to "make a proper investigation first." This is a far cry from, "Trust me, I'm a Buddha."

According to Buddha's own teaching, any dharma may become an obstacle. Delight in the dharma--in teachings, rituals, rules-- is not virtuous, though it's better than delight in some things. Dot appears to me to be someone who got the point, and left her raft by the shore instead of lugging it up the hill.

By far my favorite observations on the purpose of samadhi meditation is by Buddhadasa Bhikku in "Handbook for Mankind":

"The second aspect of the threefold training is concentration (Samadhi). This consists in constraining the mind to remain in the condition most conducive to success in whatever he wishes to achieve. Just what is concentration? No doubt most of you have always understood concentration as implying a completely tranquil mind, as steady and unmoving as a log of wood. But merely these two characteristics of being tranquil and steady are not the real meaning of Concentration. The basis for this statement is an utterance of the Buddha. He described the concentrated mind as fit for work (kammaniya), in a suitable condition for doing its job. Fit for work is the very best way to describe the properly concentrated mind."

A mind fit for work. It's just one part of a happy life, but this is more important and helpful in my estimation than any kind of "experience" that may be gained from meditation, although there are many such experiences to be had. Seeking them out is not a spiritual path, however, in itself, in my opinion.

(http://www.buddhanet.net/budasa2.htm is the link to an online copy of Handbook for Mankind.)