Session Resources

Trudy provided two articles that explore the practice of Ho’oponopono for anyone curious to learn more about this healing practice.

Dr. Hew Len Clears Out A Criminally Insane Ward Without Therapy – Using Ho’oponopono

Ho’oponopono: “To Make Things Right”

Reflection from Ryan - 

One of the ways that I have been thinking about patience is as a practice of Letting Be and Being With, which feels consistent with Norman Fischer's exploration of anger in The World Could Be Otherwise.  He posits that anger is an inevitable human experience and that spiritual ideas of denying anger or demonizing anger actually miss the point that anger can be fertile ground for the practice of patience and for the expression of our vow.  These possibilities are only realized when we slow down, inhibit the impulsive activity that might reactively arise from anger, and take the time to study and be with our anger.  Suppression of any feeling is ineffective at best and can be damaging to both the one suppressing it and often to their relationships with others who might feel the impact of emotions coming out sideways.  If we let anger be part of our experience, neither celebrating it nor villainizing it, and instead be with it, we can transform anger and anger can transform us.  Sitting with our anger, allowing the anger to move through us during our pause in activity, we can introduce our anger to our vow to embody love in the world and then see where the conversation between our emotion and our vow begins to point us, likely in the direction of where we may need to take skillful action.

The Paramita of Patience is the quality that we embody when right action is not clear or when the path to skillful activity is clouded by the intensity of our emotions.  When we do not know what to do or when we have a clear sense that we would be acting out of impulse or reaction, patience is the quality that we are called to embody - to be with and to bear witness to what is arising within us and around us without acting out of haste in response.  Patience then might be described as abiding in the face of discomfort, uncertainty, or reactivity, it is what we are called towards when there is nothing to do but be with, not as a form of passivity or rather as an active form of presence and attention in the midst of not doing.  By embodying patience in these moments of uncertainty, we will be more likely to engage from a place of clarified intention and skillfulness when the moment feels right to shift from being with to active engagement.    

To me, this points us in the direction of the relationship between the first three/four Paramitas:  

Generosity comes first as a form of right view, a recognition of the inherent nature of the universe as love and generosity expressed as interdependence and the connectedness of all things. 

Ethical conduct naturally flows from a recognition of interdependence as as we choose activity that is harmonizing, that participates in that flow and does not disrupt it.  We might call that harmonizing conduct love. 

Naturally, then generosity and ethical conduct flow into the qualities of patience and diligence, perhaps patience as the quality that we are called to embody when there is nothing to do, but bear it and diligence is the quality that we are called to embody, when we are in the midst of doing and we become discouraged and need to persist with our efforts. 

Reflection from Becky - 

Perhaps the dance of patience and vow is found illustrated in a seed.  An innate quality of living and being lived for the benefit of all beings that manifests with the right timing and conditions.  The potential energy rests effortlessly for the right time to manifest, but also needs to be taken care of so that it doesn’t dry out or rot or get buried too deeply.  As a gardener I have worked with this image over the past month, and I get a deep sense of abiding.  No rush, no holding back, just energetic presence and a great capacity. 

When something is unachievable in this lifetime and yet worthy of a lifetime of effort, such as ending violence, discrimination, starvation, or poverty we have to keep coming to our edge of profound limitation as a single human life.  However, if we stay engaged, continue to avow greed, hatred, and delusion, and see this limitation, something transforms.  We can step into relationship with big mind and deep time, and respond to life as it presents itself to us.  This meeting of our limited self and the limitless requires uprightness, energetic abiding, and a full inhabitance of our life.  This is perhaps what Tomke Zongpo is talking about when he encourages us to cultivate patience rather than being patient.

From this place, anger can be an invaluable teacher, rather than a source of pain or shame.  Anger wakes up the body, heart, and mind to a desire for something to be different.  As Norman Fischer talks about, we can practice being patient with our anger, fully avowing and turning toward it.  In this way, anger and patience are not opposite states, but deeply connected.  Our anger is the ground from which we cultivate patience, and when we practice patience we can learn deeply from the messenger of our anger.  In this world that is on fire, can we turn towards the heat of our own hatred for the way things are and start there?  Can we use this practice to truly be with our own limitations in the midst of all this suffering, and still meet life in each moment?  Can we remember what we are, so that our actions make good sense in a world of limitless interconnection? 

Writing a Pantoum

Here is the invitation: Respond to the following eight prompts, with a single line each. Don’t think too hard about it, its an invitation to joy as well as effort..

Try to make each line of roughly equal length, and certainly each line should be no wider than a page. 

1. What right now is the feeling of joy

2. What right now is the feeling of effort

3. How do you feel this in your body

4. In one sentence describe something that for you is joyful effort

5. How do you experience this

6. What would you want someone else to know about this

7. Describe an image that seems to capture this in some way

8. What does this mean to you

Then arrange the 8 lines in the following order (each line is repeated, so this will turn into a 16-line poem). 

This form is called a Pantoum, and if you are willing you can share it in the comments, or if we have time we can read a few.

1

2

3

4

2

5

4

6

5

7

6

8

7

3

8

1

Before: “Let’s begin by noticing the energy that’s already here — not something we need to create, but something we can contact. Feel your feet on the ground, the weight, the aliveness.

Begin to sway gently or move in whatever way feels natural—exploring the rhythm of breath and gravity.

Let the movement grow as curiosity grows. What does effort feel like when it’s joyful, not forced?”

Afterward:

“What did you notice?" and "When I give myself permission to listen to my body, I feel…”

Art has a way of inviting our creativity, imagination, and inspiration. And, it can also bring up judgement, self criticism, and achieving mind. As you’re working with this prompt, practice shifting effort from producing something, to the effort to engage with whatever comes up for you. For the next five minutes sit in front of a mirror and draw a self portrait including yourself and your surroundings. After five minutes, no matter where you are with your drawing, stop and practice a few minutes of zazen. Notice if you feel the urge to complete or correct anything, if there is still part of your mind concentrated on the effort of drawing, and notice this shift to not-doing. Then looking at your picture, and reflect on what came up for you during this process.  

The Interdependent Flow of the First Four Pāramitās

(Ryan's reflections on the relational flow between Generosity, Ethical Conduct, Patience, and Diligence)

The Pāramitās are not a mere list of virtues, but a powerful, interconnected flow—a path that moves from profound realization (recognition of things as it is) into sustained action.

1. Generosity (Daˉna): The Foundation of Insight

We begin with Generosity because it is, fundamentally, an act of Recognition.

• It is the realization of the universe's inherent nature as one great expression of Interdependence and Love. We are not separate; we are all connected, participating in a boundless flow of giving and receiving.

• Generosity is the insight (right view) that grounds our existence and opens us to freedom.

2. Ethical Conduct (Sıˉla): The Embodiment of Harmony

From this insight, Ethical Conduct naturally and immediately flows.

• Once we recognize the unity of all things, Sıˉla becomes our commitment to Harmonious Activity.

• We choose actions that participate in that universal flow of love, rather than those that disrupt it. Our conduct becomes a practical affirmation of the interdependence we have recognized.

• Ethical Conduct is the practical application of the insight, it is life according with life, life according with reality.

3. Patience (Kṣaˉnti) and Diligence (Vıˉrya): The Sustaining Energy

These first two qualities—insight and harmonious action—naturally require the energy to sustain them. This is where Patience and Diligence serve as the two wings of our effort:

• Patience (Kṣaˉnti) is the quality of Constancy we embody when action is impossible or the way forward is not yet clear. In the face of hardship, confusion, or waiting, it is the ability to abide with the moment, maintaining our inner harmony when external events are beyond our control.

• Diligence (Vıˉrya) is the quality of Joyful Effort we embody when we are actively engaged but feel discouraged, exhausted, or tempted to give up on our vow. It is the energetic persistence that allows us to find delight in the very act of living out our commitment and participating in the flow of generosity and love.  Joyful Effort is sustained by love in service of our vow.

The Three Forms of Laziness 

A Reflection on the relationship between laziness and vitality by Jessica

Shantideva and Dzigar Kongtrul describe three kinds of laziness that obscure this natural vitality:

1. The Laziness of Yearning for Idleness (jéluk gi lélo)
   
   

2. The Laziness of Attachment to Distraction (jawa ngenshen gyi lélo)
   
   

3. The Laziness of Self-Disparagement (daknyi nyépé lélo)
   
   

These are not moral failings; they are misunderstandings of energy — ways we resist what is, and what wants to happen.

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The Laziness of Yearning for Idleness

This first kind of laziness is the heaviness that pulls us toward dullness, comfort, or escape.
Kongtrul says we cling to the anesthesia of idleness —, the fantasy of “rest” that keeps us numb.

This laziness is about our relationship to pressure.
Whenever we move toward something meaningful — creativity, love, meditation — we feel the tension of aspiration. Diligence doesn’t avoid pressure; it learns to welcome it.

The difference between stagnation and growth, he says, lies in our willingness to meet pressure with curiosity rather than avoidance.

Diligence is not a grind; it is a dance with resistance.

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The Laziness of Attachment to Distraction

The second kind of laziness, jawa ngenshen gyi lélo, is the laziness of being busy.
It hides in activity — the restlessness that fills our days with small tasks. Being busy all of the time keeps us from truly attending to, and enjoying Life as It Is.

Kongtrul calls these activities meaningless occupations that sedate our deeper callings.
They are not evil, only anesthetic: small hits of comfort that distract from what matters.

He compares this to rearranging the furniture while the house is on fire.
Impermanence stares us in the face, yet we spend our lives lulled by the familiar.

The antidote is not guilt but perspective.
Contemplating the brevity of life can awaken us from distraction.
“What truly matters now?”
This simple thought can restore vitality and re-align effort with meaning.

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The Laziness of Self-Disparagement and the One-Down Position

In Diligence, Dzigar Kongtrul describes the third form of laziness as a subtle refusal of vitality — the habit of using low self-esteem to avoid the risk of awakening.

Terry Real’s Relationship Grid offers a parallel view from the realm of human connection.
He maps the emotional terrain of relationships along two axes:

• Vertical — the movement between grandiosity (one-up) and shame (one-down).
  
  

• Horizontal — the movement between walled-off (love-avoidant) and boundaryless (love-dependent).
  
  

When we fall into self-disparagement, we move into the one-down quadrant — the realm of shame, resignation, withdrawal, and depression.
From here, energy collapses inward.

The very vitality that virya calls forth gets trapped beneath a sense of unworthiness.

Seen this way, the laziness of self-disparagement is not moral failure — it’s a protective strategy.
We retreat from the possibility of failure by pre-emptively deciding we are not capable.
But, as both Kongtrul and Real remind us, this collapse is still centered on self.
Whether we inflate (“one-up”) or deflate (“one-down”), we remain caught in the gravity of I, me, and mine.

The practice is to come back to the center of the grid — to health — where humility and worthiness coexist.
From this center, diligence arises naturally.
We are neither grandiose nor ashamed; we are simply willing.
This middle space mirrors what the Buddha called right effort: energy guided by wisdom and compassion rather than self-judgment.

“To get out,” Kongtrul writes, “we must go in.”
— Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, Diligence

When we go in — when we meet our shame with curiosity and warmth — the downward pull releases.
The one-down self begins to soften, and the energy of virya starts to flow again.
This movement from collapse back toward aliveness is diligence in action.

From a Hakomi perspective, this is the moment of non-egocentric nourishment:
when we recognize our shared humanity rather than fixating on our personal inadequacy.
We discover that effort itself can be love — the willingness to meet even our own suffering with presence.

The antidote to self-disparagement is confidence — not arrogance, but trust.
Trust in the teachings.
Trust in the lineage of those who’ve walked before us.
Trust in the part of ourselves that already knows the way.

Confidence also grows through practice.
No one is born knowing how to meditate, love wisely, or act compassionately. We learn by showing up, again and again.

Over time, diligence transforms from strain into joy, from striving into nourishment.
Confidence, in this sense, is faith in the process itself — the quiet remebering of who we are.

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4. Practicing Virya: The Nourishment of Loving Presence

Hakomi calls this non-egocentric nourishment — a profound satisfaction that arises not from achievement but from presence.

We can feel this shift when we release the anxious “need to know” or “need to fix” and instead open to curiosity and appreciation.

• Egocentric nourishment depends on performance: I did well, I helped, I succeeded.
  
  

• Non-egocentric nourishment arises when we simply witness the humanity before us — a friend’s courage, a stranger’s kindness.
  
  

The nourishment comes not from what we do, but from what we allow ourselves to be inspired by. We are replenished by connection itself.

In these moments, Virya Paramita becomes embodied.
We discover that joy is not the reward for effort — it is the source of it.

When we meet the world with this loving presence, the boundaries between giver and receiver dissolve.
Joyful effort becomes the most natural expression of the awakened heart.

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Reflection

• Where does my energy naturally want to move today?
  
  

• What does diligence feel like in my body — not as striving, but as aliveness?
  
  

• What small act of appreciation could renew me right now?
  
  

Through these reflections, we touch the essence of Virya Paramita:
A joy that is self-renewing, rooted in connection, and endlessly nourished by the simple act of being fully alive.

Reflect on the Rumi Poem:

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty

and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study

and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.

There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

— Rumi

Prompt 1 - Consider 5-7 words that might be reflective of your Zazen Practice, what you do or what you are typically aware of or attending to as you enter into Zazen Practice.  Take time to reflect on those words, lovingly connecting with the habits of practice.  

Prompt 2 - Consider David Whyte's line from the poem Everything is Waiting for You - "Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity. "  Consider the ways in which you can think of something that is familiar to you, perhaps that invokes joy, such as a musical instrument, and write with attention and alertness about this item or this activity with which you may be so familiar that it loses its vitality.  Write on what you become aware of through that consideration or study.