From Life Overviews to Integrate

3/8/16 – When I first moved to the Zen Center I was intent on pouring all my energies into formal zen practice. But then for much of my adult life my goal became to balance formal zen practice, family, and career.

The strongest influence on shifting my goal FROM pursuing formal zen practice above all else TO  living an integrated balanced life was the six years I simultaneously lived and practiced with Maezumi Roshi at ZCLA and was in therapy with Pat Sutton, from June 1973 to May 1979.

It was in the that  context that Roshi told me in May of 1974 (to paraphrase) “I don’t want you to sit this Ango (3-month intensive practice period). Your practice is to get a full time job as soon as you can and to keep it as long as you can. You need to be able to take care of yourself in this world”. That very directive assignment from my spiritual teacher pried me out of the zendo for the summer and set a course for the rest of my life.

This elevated the Livelihood strand  to parity with Spirituality. The Relationship dimension, in addition to the ongoing therapy group, was enabled by something that happened in 1976, the year before I met Mary, while writing my Antioch portfolio. In that entire nine month experience I was only assigned one specific book to read.

The evaluator for my “Independent Reading in Buddhism and Psychotherapy”, Ron Sharrin, thought it would be important for me to read Puer Aeternus by Annamarie Von Franz, subtitled “A Psychological Study of the Adult Struggle With the Paradise of Childhood”. He was right. $relationship.

Not long after that I  started the decades long work with my Geodex and a three circle Venn diagram with Family, Work, and Spirituality as the elements to integrate and harmonize.  With the addition of Study and Social Action, that evolved into the five aspect mandala I am using as the Strands dimension in this site.