Larkin - Stumbling Toward Enlightenment

Copyright 1997, 2009 by Geri Larkin

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except brief excerpts for the purpose of review, without written permission of the publisher.

Celestial Arts
an imprint of Ten Speed Press
PO Box 7123
Berkeley, California 94707
www.tenspeed.com

Distributed in Australia by Simon and Schuster Australia, in Canada by Ten Speed Press Canada, in New Zealand by Southern Publishers Group, in South Africa by Real Books, and in the United Kingdom and Europe by Publishers Group UK.

Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint excerpts from The Dhammapada: The Sayings of the Buddha by Thomas Byrom, translator, copyright 1976 by Thomas Byrom. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Larkin, Geri.
Stumbling toward enlightenment / Geri Larkin.
p. cm.
Previously published: 1997.
Summary: A collection of Buddhist wisdom from a Western beginners
perspectiveProvided by publisher.
eISBN: 978-0-307-80813-4
1. Religious lifeBuddhism. 2. Larkin, Geri. I. Title.

BQ5410.L37 2009
294.3927092dc22
[B]

2008040809

v3.1

This book is dedicated to my teachers
Venerable Samu Sunim and Reverend Sukha Linda Murray.
Without their faith and hard work
I would be somebody.

And to Karen Aldridge
because she has more courage and more tenacity
that anyone else I know.

Contents

When I wrote Stumbling Toward Enlightenment ten years ago, I was a young woman yearning for enlightenment. My surroundings: the Midwest with all its seasons; living the good life, thanks to management consulting; a daughter moving into her teens; a son moving into alcoholism; a boyfriend too hunky to be sure about; a Zen temple three minutes away. I was greedy for world peace, happiness, and stability. I was frustrated that a book like Stumbling didnt exist for people like me who were relatively new to Buddhism. So I wrote one myself. I can still picture that young me sitting at a tiny kitchen table, pen in hand, filling notebooks with chapters.

Since then Ive given up my youth and the boyfriend. My daughter is now grown up and happy. My son has been clean for eight years. I have a granddaughter who makes my heart sing. The Midwest has given way to the Northwest, with its oceans, mountains, trees, and rain. Im happier than I ever could have imagined a person could be. Even on the toughest days, Im happy. All because of Zen.

Zen Buddhism provided a spiritual path where I could stumble my way through all the losses life brings with a sense of humor and a fair amount of grace. It provided a vehicle for discovering my true self.

Each day presents us with moments that can be hilarious and heartbreaking. I wrote Stumbling to help you find ways out of your own melodramas, so you can take on the roller coaster called life with an open heart. This acceptance beats ignoring, denying, and numbing out any day.

Im still greedy. I want people to stop hurting each other and the planet. I want women to be safe and men to feel loved. I want my puppy to stop chasing squirrels. There is work yet to be done.

Wonderful.

I wish you luck on your spiritual path, whatever it is. Since you are already Buddha, your job is simply to keep shedding layers that are hiding that truth. It is hard work that is worth doing.

So, my good friend, until the next time, I am yours, truly.

Geri Larkin

Eugene, Oregon

Each of us has a yearning for the divine. When we decide to do something about this yearningsuch as going back to church, or finally starting to pay attention in church, or shifting our work so it better matches our deepest values, or even reading about spiritual topicswe have, whether we are fully conscious of it or not, embarked on a spiritual path.

When we enter this path, most of us believe that it will be a pretty straight road, not necessarily easy, but at least straight. For most of us, however, the reality is that spiritual growth is like learning to walk. We stand up, fall, stand up, fall, take a step, fall, take a couple of steps, fall, walk a little better, wobble a bit, fall, run, walk, and finally, eventually fly. Sometimes we slide backward after every step forward. And sometimes we find ourselves trapped headfirst in a bush by the roadside, blocked by a boulder in the middle of the path, stuck until we can figure our way through. Its never a straight line.

Stumbling Toward Enlightenment is my promise to stand right beside you, wobbling right along, sharing the teachings that have helped us and so many others walk a little straighter, fly a little sooner. My anchor is The Dhammapada, perhaps the best known collection of the Buddhas teachings. Made up of twenty-six chapters, The Dhammapada offers up the core themes of mindfulness and loving kindness in teachings that range from the implications of the choices we make to guidelines for tasting happiness in the midst of everyday dreariness, or what I like to call accessible Zen.

Building from the teachings of The Dhammapada, this book offers stories and guidance for people who are starting to explore their spirituality more deeply and want to taste Buddhism without feeling obligated to know its history and constructs. There are lessons related to the impact of the choices we make in our lives; the importance of being aware; the dangers of grasping at pleasures; and the components of real wisdom.

The style is painfully honest (for me anyway), earthy, and maybe even a bit scrappy. Real life stories, sprinkled with dharma wisdom from ancient Zen masters, illustrate the teachings. My goal is simple: to encourage each of you to enter your own spiritual forest, head held high, or to travel further into the one you have chosen, leaving fear behind.

This book grew out of requests for written copies of the dharma talks I gave at the Ann Arbor Zen Buddhist Temple and the Chicago Zen Buddhist Temple in 1995 and 1996. So regularly would people approach me after the talks and ask for a copy of my notes, which were at best illegible, and at worst utterly unrelated to what I had spoken about, that I finally decided to get them down on paper in a reasonably organized and, hopefully, useful way. Have fun with them.

Here are my thank-yous: To Alan Richter, who introduced me to Andrea Pedolsky, who introduced me to David Hinds and Veronica Randall at Celestial Arts. Full-bodied Bodhisattvas, I say. To Buddha who started this ball of doubt rolling in the first place, and to my mother who didnt need to be convinced, after all, that I had fallen into the hands of a cult. The biggest thank-you of all goes to you, the reader, for your open admission of your spiritual side and the courage you have shown in considering that there might be more that you can do. There is.