September 8, 2009
- Ango -
So I promised a breakdown of the Ango training I’ve signed myself up for, and, seeing as I have this entire evening to myself, I thought I’d write something up.
Ango translates as “peaceful dwelling”, and although it is a tradition within the Zen line of Buddhism, it can be traced all the way back to the Buddha and his sangha. In India at the time, spiritual seekers would give up the homelife with a ceremonial shaving of the head and donning of a monk’s robes. They would wander the countryside begging for alms (readily given out of respect for their search, which makes me rather jealous…), and the Buddha was no exception. Before he came to realization, he wandered around the countryside, visiting various people, religious sites, and spiritual schools, on a permanent pilgrimage of sorts. And after his realization, he continued to wander and encouraged his sagha to do so as well (often separately, alone or in small groups)
The problem with this is that India has some pretty intense weather during the summer and winters. The monsoons blow in and it becomes dangerous to be alone out in the wilds. At those times, the Buddha’s sangha would gather and practice together. This was what become know as Ango, both a peaceful dwelling away from the rains, and a peaceful dwelling in the shared practice of the dharma.
Given that many people in America travel during the summer and winter months, we’ve moved our Ango periods to the spring and fall. Change in practice is complimented by the change of the seasons, and it’s easier for everyone to stay involved. During Ango, we are encouraged to intensify all aspects of our practice, from body practice, to art practice, to meditation, to academic study, etc etc…
And so I’ve decided to get as much out of this as possible, by diving into it head first. The plan right now is as follows:
- meditation: 30 minutes every morning, without fail. Longer if possible. Chanting of the Tara Mantra before every mediation and the Prajna Paramita Heart Sutra afterwords.
- body practice: 30 minutes of Chi Kung every day, at least one yoga class and at least one trip to the gym every week.
- I am also taking a 6 week refresher course in the style Chi Kung I learned earlier this year with a great teacher here in the city. Didn’t find out about the class until a day or two before it was starting, but I luckily still managed to get in.
- art practice: the assignment given by the monastery is to sit intimately with something repeatedly throughout the 90 days, and watch our relationship with develop as our practice does. I decided to sit and contemplate the sun, so I’m writing a short piece every day attempting to capture that feeling of intimacy with the sun. If the results are worth posting, I’ll share them here once the Ango’s over.
- academic study: I’m attending a program at the temple here in Brooklyn where we are studying a biography of the historical Buddha, and studying various Pali texts relating to the Buddha’s spiritual quest, enlightenment, and teaching. On top of that, I’m also reading Zen Mind Beginner’s Mind, Karen Armstrong’s Buddha, Zen and the Art of Archery, and Lord of Light (thanks to a reminder from Mahasamatman himself…).
- One day long meditation intensive at the temple (this Saturday) and another full week sesshin towards the end of November.
- A Chi Kung retreat with Ken Cohen in October (chi kung and shamanism? fuck yeah!)
- A “somatic body” meditation retreat with Reggie Ray later this month.
- A talk by Thich Nhat Hanh in October
So yes, it looks like I will be pretty damn busy from now until the end of November. So far, I’m managing to hold up my end of the bargain, and strangely enough, I seem to have more time and energy than I did before… Who would have thought that action would lead to more action?
I will keep you posted on my progress (if there’s anything worth reporting) as things go along. Be well, and strong practice to you all.
> I seem to have more time and energy than I did before
That’ll be the chi kung. As my teacher put it, ‘Western exercize, you exercize and you get tired. Chinese exercize, you exercize and you have more energy afterwards’ :-)
Comment by speedbird — September 9, 2009 @ 7:36 am
I completely agree. This Chi Kung stuff is really doing it for me. Wish I’d picked it up years ago!
Didn’t know you practiced, speedbird, though I should have guessed from your comments on my previous chi kung post. That’s awesome! What style did you learn? I’m trying to get a sense of what’s out there, and there always seems to be more styles, subtle variations I hadn’t been aware of.
Comment by Ian — September 9, 2009 @ 8:12 am
I don’t practice enough, only on special occasions these days which is kind of missing the point. I used to take Tai Chi lessons a couple of years back, and Chi Kung was our warm-up. I can’t remember what style we did, except that I got as far as knowing the LH and RH forms and the first half of 42-step-sword-form (which is apparently an amalgamation of all styles for international competition purposes) before I decided to take a break. Sword form was really cool, never got to do enough of it.
Comment by speedbird — September 10, 2009 @ 2:32 am
Sword form and Tai Chi sounds cool. Perhaps I will push on to that once I feel more established in the Chi Kung practices.
But man, I can’t get enough Chi Kung! It makes me feel like I’m floating everywhere I go. Course, last Monday I overdid it and ended up with a bit of a headache, but that’s how you learn I guess. I checked with my teacher about that, and he says, at least with his style, that it’s best to do only about 15~20 minutes morning and evening.
Anyway, it’s doing really really good things for me. I am expecting things to probably plateau at some point, but hopefully not anytime soon though. And it complements the Zen meditation pretty perfectly as well.
Comment by Ian — September 10, 2009 @ 3:21 pm
I suppose ‘Chi’ is ‘energy’ and the Tai and the Kung are what you do with it. There always seemed to be an ‘energy gathering’ aspect to Chi Kung. And at the end you’d clasp your hands over your Dan Tien and put it all away in a safe place. When it was ‘right’ I always felt like I’d woken up from a really good sleep afterwards. There’s definitely some altered states involved when you’re standing with your hands over your head like that.
Comment by speedbird — September 10, 2009 @ 5:49 pm
I must have mentioned what my teacher said about T’ai Chi…?
‘Martial arts is like owning a car, and learning to drive it fast so you can hit someone with it.
T’ai Chi is like /not hitting someone with a fast car/’
Comment by speedbird — September 10, 2009 @ 5:58 pm
Yeah, Chi is definitely energy, as in Life Force (Ki in Japanese). And Kung is the same as in Kung Fu, which apparently means “merit”/”achievement”. So Chi Kung would be “achieving energy”.
I can definitely identify with the feeling of “just waking up”. It happens fairly often when I work with a teacher, but I am much more up and down when I practice on my own. I think I need to build some momentum first, so to speak.
This is really great, I will have to remember this.
Comment by Ian — September 11, 2009 @ 9:05 am
See also:
The Chinese character for qi in qigong means air in Chinese. Gong means discipline or skill, so qigong is therefore breath or energy skill.
Comment by Ian — September 11, 2009 @ 9:13 am
Ian, thank you for posting this information. The need to bring myself closer to my spiritual core and an awareness of my needs beyond my impulsive physical and mental desires has been building over the past few years. I feel like it’s reached a head just recently.
The one of the things that’s kept me from making a whole-hearted effort has been a lack of organization. The way you broke down your schedule really helps me to get a good idea of how I should be approaching my spiritual health.
Thank you so much for all of the resources and links, and also for being willing to share so many intimate details of your practice. It’s very motivating and inspiring to know not only what your dedication can do for you, but also how to go about achieving those results.
Comment by sam — September 13, 2009 @ 1:05 pm
Hey, thank you Sam for taking the time to say that. I know exactly what you mean by “reached a head”; this Ango training is kind of the culmination of my feeling that exact same thing. Good luck with your search, and keep us up to date on it, eh? :)
I figure I want this site to be a record of what I’m doing, both for other people to find and for myself as a sort of journal. In both cases, I think the “intimate details” are kind of a requirement. I don’t always like it, but I thought that it’d probably be more helpful that way. Plus, putting this all up in public kind of pushes me not to give up. The Buddha said (or so I’ve heard) that the only mistakes on the path are not starting and giving up too soon. So I’m using imaginary internet peer pressure to keep myself going!
I am leaning that the basic organizational program is something like:
- intent followed by action,
- the experiencing of the problems that arise when that action is taken,
- following through on the original intent, while also checking back to make sure it isn’t now pointing you to a different course of action.
- If it is pointing you to something else, then that’s something to be figured out there. What did you think you were doing, what changed, and why did it change? I’ve learned some surprising stuff about myself by examining things in that way…
But what really got me started was a basic meditation practice. If you’re not already doing something along those lines, even just 15~30 minutes a day, I highly recommend it. With that kind of inquiry, the rest of the stuff kind of comes up as is best suited for you.
Comment by Ian — September 14, 2009 @ 11:15 am