Farm Fresh February 2021: Let the Beauty We Love, Be What We Do

Farm Fresh News - February 2021

In this issue:

The Meditators
Let the Beauty We Love, Be What We Do - my latest music recording
Farm History - Praise and Blame. teachings from the Buddhist Tradition

Dear Friends,

Above: The Meditators, a painting by one of The Farm's second generation, Melissa Meltzer English. A copy of the original now hangs as a mural on a wall of Farm Foods, a food production facility near The Farm Store.

For the first several years after the arrival in Tennessee, early Sunday morning, the community would gather before dawn for an hour-long meditation, ending with an Om. The Om would begin with the emergence of the sun as it came into view above the treeline and ended when it had fully risen above the trees on the horizon. This taste of magic in the moment really got my attention.

After some years, the meditation shifted to later in the morning, starting at 10 AM. By the mid-70s we were mostly living in large communal households made up of several families and lots of kids. Starting later gave us all time to get the "kid-herd" up, dressed and fed. Each Sunday, a different set of parents would stay home and babysit so that the rest of us could go to Services. So many lifetimes ago!

Peace,
Douglas

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"Let the Beauty we love, be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground." These words come from the last lines in a poem by Jalal al-Din Rumi. I learned this melody on a porch at the Ozark Sufi Camp, a wonderful gathering of good energy. The Ozark Camp is where I discovered Zikr and dove head first into Dances of Universal Peace. This song resonated strongly with my dance and kirtan sangha here in The Farm Community, and we sing it together almost every time we gather for music. The words are such a clear statement of intention and purpose, a guiding light on the spiritual path. Click here to listen to my recording and watch the video, featuring images from my trip to Turkey September 2019, with Dances of Universal Peace

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Farm History - Praise and Blame

One of the most powerful Buddhist teachings that resonated in the early days of the community was about Praise and Blame. The topic was recently revisited and explored in an online forum of members and former members. Below, I share some of my own reflections on this teaching, along with comments from some of my friends.

I personally remember that Stephen Gaskin, The Farm's founder, described how a parent or an adult with authority may use blame when "disciplining" a child, such when a kid accidentally spills their milk, and the adult says with a bit too much emphasis, “Look at what you did!!!”

Adding extra layer of guilt and shame does not serve the child, teaching them to be more careful or responsible. It can also come across as anger and intimidation from someone much larger and more powerful than they are.

You could build on this teaching to better understand how people also used blame to be belittle another person or to exert power. The teaching helped open our eyes to the subtle ways people sometimes manipulate each other with blame, behavior we came to recognize when working out how to live with each other in community.

On the other hand, praise can also be a form of manipulation. In the Western world we call this, “to sweet talk” someone, or more crudely, to "kiss ass.”

I interpreted these teachings as a way to understand energy relationships. Since everything is energy, and attention is energy, energy in balance would be encouragement and appreciation, or criticism without blame, but these energies can also become out balance and unhealthy.

Although we came to the community with high ideals, the reality was that we were also human beings with our own host of shortcomings. In retrospect, those with more power sometimes used some form of Blame as an instrument to solidify their position. A reluctance to praise a child for doing good work was felt by some to give them self-esteem issues later in life.

My friend Tomas described it this way, “I think that many of the mistakes, as well as the positive ways we treated each other, came from how we were raised. Stephen and Ina May (Gaskin) were as flawed as the rest of us. Psychedelics gave us a new vision on how we ought to relate, but it was very difficult to figure out how to live with each other. When the options weren't clear, we (often) resorted to how we were raised.”

Regardless, the Truth of the teaching remains, and it plays out in any number of ways in our lives. Below, some more comments from The Farm Forum:

"There is a fine, difficult to navigate line between engaging in the praise/blame continuum and simple feedback. The difference is the motivation of the person giving the feedback (often unconscious) and sometimes (one has to consider) the actual words used. I learned a lot about that on The Farm and my understanding evolved when I became a teacher, post-Farm. Using praise or blame to try to get people to behave the way we want them to is manipulative. In the case of working with children, it also subliminally teaches them to please others rather than think for themselves. Counter-productive to a good education. I wrote a book about that, The Power of Our Words, for teachers."

"I have found that creating a culture of praise is advantageous in all organizations in its ability to encourage excellence and teamwork and I recommend it."

"I believe the idea was recognizing each other’s shortcomings or attributes without attacking or heaping glory. Just pointing things out unemotionally."

“As it turned out, for me this matter of praise and blame and one's quest to not be too influenced by it, came to play a big part in my post-Farm professional life. I joined up with some other former members to create one of the first online communities. It was high profile the whole time and part of my daily reality was some version of one person saying "you're great" and some other saying "you suck." I often pondered with a kind of gratitude for having had at least some training in how not to get carried away by it."

My Farm friend, Lewis BrightHeart Headrick, after leaving the community, went on to become a Buddhist practitioner and priest. He shared this story:

Su Dongpo (蘇東坡) was an avid student of Buddhist teachings and a distinguished and mischievous poet. He was quick-witted and humorous; as a Zen Buddhism follower he was very serious and self-disciplined. He often discussed Buddhism with his good friend, Zen Master Fo Yin (佛印禪師). The two lived across the river from one another.

Following is an interesting and famous story about him and Zen Master Fo Yin.

One day, Su Dongpo felt inspired and wrote the following poem :

稽首天中天，(Qǐshǒu tiān zhōng tiān), I bow my head to the heaven within heaven,

毫光照大千；(Háo guāngzhào dàqiān); Hairline rays illuminating the universe,

八風吹不動，(Bā fēngchuī bùdòng), The eight winds cannot move me,

端坐紫金蓮。(Duān zuò zǐjīn lián). Sitting still upon the purple golden lotus.

The "eight winds" (八風) in the poem referred to praise (稱), ridicule (譏), honor (譽), disgrace (毀), gain (得), loss (失), pleasure (樂) and misery (苦) – interpersonal forces of the material world that drive and influence the hearts of men. Su Dongpo was saying that he has attained a higher level of spirituality, where these forces no longer affect him.

Impressed by himself, Su Dongpo sent a servant to hand-carry this poem to Fo Yin. He was sure that his friend would be equally impressed. When Fo Yin read the poem, he immediately saw that it was both a tribute to the Buddha and a declaration of spiritual refinement. Smiling, the Zen Master wrote "fart" on the manuscript and had it returned to Su Dongpo.

Su Dongpo was expecting compliments and a seal of approval. When he saw "fart" written on the manuscript, he was shocked . He burst into anger: "How dare he insult me like this ? Why that lousy old monk ! He's got a lot of explaining to do !"

Full of indignation, he rushed out of his house and ordered a boat to ferry him to the other shore as quickly as possible. He wanted to find Fo Yin and demand an apology. However, Fo Yin’s door was closed. On the door was a piece of paper, for Su Dongpo. The paper had following two lines :

八風吹不動，The eight winds cannot move me,

一屁彈過江。One fart blows me across the river.

This stopped Su Dongpo cold. Fo Yin had anticipated this hot-headed visit. Su Dongpo's anger suddenly drained away as he understood his friend's meaning. If he really was a man of spiritual refinement, completely unaffected by the eight winds, then how could he be so easily provoked?

With a few strokes of the pen and minimal effort, Fo Yin showed that Su Dongpo was in fact not as spiritually advanced as he claimed to be. Ashamed but wiser, Su Dongpo departed quietly.

This event proved to be a turning point in Su Dongpo's spiritual development. From that point on, he became a man of humility, and not merely someone who boasted of possessing the virtue.

*Thanks Bob Kenneth <- Zen Dialogue

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Peace,

Douglas

Douglas@thefarmcommunity.com