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Personal Statement
Jitsudo
“As a Santero, my carving is my prayer, and my prayer is that everyone’s work could be their prayer.” My Uncle Eulogio Ortega, Santero (or carver of Saints) in northern New Mexico said this to me years ago. What an inspiring man to be related to! My family heritage – Spanish Mexican, Sephardic Jew and Yaqui Indian - created a powerful foundation for the Buddhist lineage that I inherited, and both are integral to my search for the True Way. The Buddhist name given to me is Jitsudo, or True Way. Writer Peter Muryo Matthiessen, one of my Dharma brothers, when asked what his Dharma name Muryo meant, translated it and then laughingly added; “But they always give us names we can never live up to!”
I am ill because of wounds to the soul,
to the deep emotional self
and the wounds to the soul take a long, long time,
only time can help
and patience, and a certain difficult repentance,
long, difficult repentance, realization of life’s mistake,
and the
freeing oneself
from the endless repetition of the mistake
which mankind at large has chosen to sanctify.
D. H. Lawrence
In 2002, after an intensive career as Vice Abbot of Zen Mountain Center in California, and Abbot of Hidden Mountain Zen Center in New Mexico, I committed a kind of professional suicide, having an affair with an older student. As it had been an issue for me before, and as the American Zen and Catholic communities to which I feel connected don’t have very good track records with sexual misconduct, I went into a long-term retreat to examine my life deeply, to study the self. For the next several years I worked very hard, doing Vipassana and Tibetan practices alongside Zen, and looking at my karma with the help of a Vipassana teacher, the writings of the Dalai Lama, an excellent therapist who specializes in working with clergy, my wife’s loyalty and love in the face of adversity, and even the Saint Francis Prayer.
“It is precisely our moral mistakes, much more than our moral victories, which deepen our sense of what ethical conduct is.” These words from the Dalai Lama gave me courage in the long struggle to face my self and to forgive myself. I have been staying with these things on a daily basis like a Zen practice, like one would do a Zen practice. And I am slowly realizing the necessity for this kind of struggle in one’s life in order to make a quantum leap.
Now I find myself, ironically, at a high point in my life. I started teaching again formally last November, with the advent of giving Tokudo to one of my senior students. I’ve been practicing with people privately, mostly with students who practiced with me before, who went through my difficulties with me. I’ve enjoyed working on a one to one basis in private retreats as well as doing retreats with very few people – even two or three – though five to eight seems to be optimal. In some ways it’s more difficult than working in a large group. Obviously we aren’t able to do a lot of ceremony and we can’t conduct formal meals yet. But it is more intimate, it’s easier to stick to no unnecessary talking, and it often allows us to sit more. Working this way, what I have finally been able to achieve is balance in all aspects of my life.
I think that in Zen, and even in other Buddhist traditions in this country, we are not spending enough time on the Six Paramitas and the Precepts, or on really looking deeply into ones’ own karma day to day. There tends to be an emphasis on the 5th and 6th Paramitas – meditation and wisdom, or realization. Giving, morality, patience and effort are all skimmed over! I’m working with others on integrating all of the Paramitas into my practice more completely, and on training the mind to take on others’ problems and shortcomings, especially if they parallel with our own. Doing this kind of work opens our heart, satisfies our needs, and helps us serve others.
Alfred Jitsudo Ancheta, February 2007
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