The Sukkah, a Place for Dwelling-In | Peace Begins with Me

 

אַךְ בַּחֲמִשָּׁה עָשָׂר יוֹם לַחֹדֶשׁ הַשְּׁבִיעִי בְּאׇסְפְּכֶם אֶת־תְּבוּאַת הָאָרֶץ תָּחֹגּוּ אֶת־חַג־יְהֹוָה שִׁבְעַת יָמִים בַּיּוֹם הָרִאשׁוֹן שַׁבָּתוֹן וּבַיּוֹם הַשְּׁמִינִי שַׁבָּתוֹן׃

Mark, on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the yield of your land, you shall observe the festival of the Giver-of-Life for seven days: a complete rest on the first day, and a complete rest on the eighth day.

בַּסֻּכֹּת תֵּשְׁבוּ שִׁבְעַת יָמִים כׇּל־הָאֶזְרָח בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל יֵשְׁבוּ בַּסֻּכֹּת׃

You shall live in booths seven days; all natives living in Israel shall live in booths.

Leviticus 23:39, 42

 

The word sukkah in Torah refers to temporary dwelling-shelters. Torah instructs the refugees from slavery, still searching for their own land, to assemble these "booths" before the seventh full moon of the year. Each household is to dwell in a sukkah for seven days each year after Yom Kippur in the wilderness and when they settle in the land.

What is sheltered in a sukkah? Not the physical body. Sukkot (plural of sukkah)  aren't physical shelters. The instructions are very specific to build temporary huts open to the sky, the rain and the wind. The sukkah and it's rituals are meant to open us to the elements, to expose us to them and to call in their power. Can we make them our allies, even as they take us to our edges and shake our foundations?

In Jewish prayer and liturgy the sukkah is a place where peace is sheltered. We long for sheltering so we can dwell in peace. How do we create an experience of peace in an open air shelter? Where does peace come from? The starting point in spiritual and inner work in within oneself. How do I bring compassion and empathy to myself for what I am experiencing, feeling and thinking. What will help me sit in peace? We can use the time of sitting (in a sukkah, a zendo or anywhere) to call in the exiled parts of ourselves and the humanity of others whom we have exiled. This is the meaning of sitting in peace.

There is a practice in Nonviolent Communication that works to shift us to peace by transforming images we hold of parts of ourselves or others as enemy.  I ask myself, who am I holding in my mind as an enemy? The part of me that feels confused or depleted? My neighbor who didn’t wave to me this morning? The people who say that you will be fired from your job if you don’t get the vaccination? The people who don’t get the vaccination and don't tell me? The people who killed and maimed beloveds from your tribe or your eco region?

Whoever it is, the sukkah is a place to transform the idea of enemy into something else. Only in that way can we dwell in peace and experience the joy that feels safe and uninhibited to enjoy. See below for a practice we can do in the sukkah (or anywhere) of transforming enemy images.

About 10 years ago I was invited to a Palestinian school in East Jerusalem to talk about Nonviolent Communication. When I walked in, I saw that all the students were wearing royal Blue T-shirts with large writing in English that said, peace begins with me. These students were studying how to be peacemakers in their community. How to bring peace to disputes within their own families and communities and also between Palestinians and Israelis.

In Nonviolent Communication we do a journaling practice called “transformation of enemy image“ work. Rather than define or label someone, or a part of yourself,  as an enemy, we reflect on exactly what is it that someone is doing that is making life less than wonderful for us. We then try to understand what basic human need they are trying to meet when they do something that is causing us harm or violence or displeasure.

When we understand deeply the suffering they are trying to relieve by doing what they do, our hearts can open and we begin to get curious about other ways for them to alleviate their suffering. We look for ways to address our suffering and the suffering of others. When we can partner to do that, we can dwell in peace. When we partner to do that, we empower ourselves and our partners in peace.

The Sukkah: A Place to Meditate on Impermanence

וְחַגֹּתֶם אֹתוֹ חַג לַיהֹוָה שִׁבְעַת יָמִים בַּשָּׁנָה חֻקַּת עוֹלָם לְדֹרֹתֵיכֶם בַּחֹדֶשׁ הַשְּׁבִיעִי תָּחֹגּוּ אֹתוֹ׃

You shall observe it as a festival of the Eternal Presence for seven days in the year; you shall observe it in the seventh month as a law for all time, throughout the ages.

Leviticus 23:41

Sukkot is a pilgrimage festival. We go out from place and time to accomplish something spiritually productive.  From place, we go on pilgrimage and dwell in temporary shelters. From time, we follow a holiday celebrated as a lunar New Year in a month designated as the seventh. We are not in time or space as we know it.

Sukkot is challenging us to find joy and meaning in the uncertainty and impermanence of our days. When we sit in, or actually move into this temporary shelter, open to the sky and the elements, we have the opportunity to reflect deeply on our habitual refuges.

Buddhism and Hassidism both connect impermanence and joy as paths to peace and freedom.

How do we bring together impermanence and joy? Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh suggests taking refuge in the present moment, which is so impermanent that it doesn't even exist as you're thinking, speaking or writing about it!

And yet really taking refuge in the present moment means touching a moment of complete freedom. Freedom from regrets about the past, planning or fretting about the future, from fretting about the guilt that comes up when you let go of fretting. Freedom from the inner (and outer) voices that say, you should be thinking about all the suffering in the world and doing something about it. Not sitting in a sukkah. Not just being.

When we dwell fully in the present moment we are giving ourselves an opportunity to find a new baseline, to get to know in the body the experience of being free and fully relaxed. I experienced this relaxation once when I was walking down a path at Plum Village, Thich Nhat Hanh's practice center in France.  I was walking in a deep sense of stillness. I was moving in space, not pulled ahead or behind. I was walking and I felt completely relaxed and settled. The practice of just sitting in an open air temporary sukkah is an opportunity to access this inner refuge of safety and stillness.

The practices associated with Sukkot have developed over millenia. The kabbalists of the "middle ages" added the practice of sitting with our spiritual ancestors, making them our Ushpizin, guests in the sukkah. This is an opportunity to heal ancestral trauma and healing anything left over for us to heal with our  ancestors.  We can take some time to do this every day, for seven days, in the sukkah. To sit and feel the presence of our ancestors, to create safety and understanding with them.

This experience of safety, of being protected and held, is what we want the baseline experience of children in the world to be. A sense that the world is friendly, that you are cared for and loved, without any effort. It's OK to just sit and do nothing. It's wonderful to just sit with your imagination. Sitting in the sukkah reminds and inspires us to create a world where no matter where we sit, no matter how permanent our refuge is, we can self regulate in this moment. This is the time to embody joy and allow healing.

Mindfulness Practices in the Sukkah

וּלְקַחְתֶּם לָכֶם בַּיּוֹם הָרִאשׁוֹן פְּרִי עֵץ הָדָר כַּפֹּת תְּמָרִים וַעֲנַף עֵץ־עָבֹת וְעַרְבֵי־נָחַל וּשְׂמַחְתֶּם לִפְנֵי יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם שִׁבְעַת יָמִים׃

On the first day you shall take the product of the hadar tree, branches of palm trees, boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook, and rejoice for seven days before the Giver of Life Who flows Through You.

Leviticus 23:41

One mindfulness practice we do in the sukkah is a mystical embodied ritual when we grasp the four species of trees and call in the energies of the six directions.

I was introduced to this sadhana, spiritual practice, of the sukkah, by Rabbi Jonathan Kligler of the Woodstock Jewish Congregation in New York. A few days after Yom Kippur, we gathered in the sukkah, held in fragrant air and blazing autumn leaves of the Catskill Mountains. We took turns gathering the four species and turning with them to acknowledge each of the six directions. North, south, east, west, above, below. We call in the energies of all the directions to protect us, shelter us, as we release our images of enemy.

Hassidic Jewish thought replaces the animal sacrifices in the original Sukkot festival with prayers and practices to spiritually elevate the human being. The four species of trees (arba minim) Torah instructs us to cover and gather into the sukkah grew to correspond to four exiles that befall us when we lose our capacity to gladden our hearts and access joy. The hadar tree, for example, corresponds to the exile of separation from others, a separation that Hassidic teachers link to violence:

The hadar tree [traditionally translated as a myrtle tree] corresponds to the act of murder. The explanation of this is as follows: the ultimate cause of murder is jealousy; one man is jealous of another because he views him as an entirely separate being from himself. He hates his rival if he feels that he has advantages of which he is deprived.… However, if we can learn to view our fellow human as an extension of ourselves, then we will find that jealousy and it's natural successor, bloodshed, have no place in our hearts. After all, a persons left arm does not get jealous if his right arm is stronger or more beautifully adorned."

— From the Shem Mishmuel, Rabbi of Sochaczev, Poland (1855-1927).

Sitting together, or meditating alone in the sukkah, we can reflect on our interconnectedness, how we are all "extensions of one another."  This is another door to creating a shelter of peace for ourselves and the world.

Transformation of “Enemy Images” as a Way of Dwelling Peacefully

• Think of someone who has let you down or did something that you feel scared, angry, disappointed or irritated about. 
  • Now imagine them asking you to do something connected to how you already feel in relation to them. How does your body respond? What thoughts and feelings do you have? Is there an “enemy image” of them?
• In pairs or self journalling: talk/write about “enemy images” you have of this person or people –what are they, where do they come from, how do they affect you?  Images from TV, movies, news media? Memories or triggers from your past? Then apply this to the person you thought of.
• Now imagine if instead of an “enemy image” you stayed present with that person and focused on your present feelings and needs? When you think of them now, how do you feel? What do you need to feel at peace with them in this moment?
  • Can you feel curious abut them? Their history, their story, their suffering that leads them to act as they do?
  • This list of feelings may be helpful
  • This list of needs may be helpful
  • Can you sense into your own feelings and needs and theirs? Is there a peaceful meeting ground? A place to dwell peacefully with them?

As you go through the week, pay attention to when you become automatically agitated. Can you identify the thoughts, ideas and concepts you already had about that person or ”people like them”?

 

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LONG LIVE IMPERMANENCE!!!

Excerpts from a talk by Thich Nhat Hanh

The Buddha taught that everything is impermanent- flowers, tables, mountains, political regimes, bodies, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. We cannot find anything that is permanent. Flowers decompose, but knowing this does not prevent us from loving flowers. In fact, we are able to love them more because we know how to treasure them while they are still alive. If we learn to look at a flower in a way that impermanence is revealed to us, when it dies, we will not suffer. Impermanence is more than an idea. It is a practice to help us touch reality.

When we study impermanence, we have to ask, “Is there anything in this teaching that has to do with my daily life, my daily difficulties, my suffering?” If we see impermanence as merely a philosophy, it is not the Buddha’s teaching. Every time we look or listen, the object of our perception can reveal to us the nature of impermanence. We have to nourish our insight into impermanence all day long.

When we look deeply into impermanence, we see that things change because causes and conditions change. When we look deeply into non-self, we see that the existence of every single thing is possible only because of the existence of everything else. We see everything else is the cause and condition for its existence. We see that everything else is in it.

From the point of view of time, we say “impermanence”, and from the point of view of space, we say “non-self”. Things cannot remain themselves for two consecutive moments, therefore, there is nothing that can be called a permanent “self”. Before you entered this room, you were different physically and mentally. Looking deeply at impermanence, you see non-self. Looking deeply at non-self, you see impermanence. We can say, “I can accept impermanence, but non-self is too difficult”. They are the same.

Understanding impermanence can give us confidence, peace, and joy. Impermanence does not necessarily lead us to suffering. Without impermanence, life could not be. Without impermanence, your daughter could not grow into a beautiful young lady. Without impermanence, oppressive political regimes would never change. We think impermanence makes us suffer. The Buddha gave the example of a dog that was hit by a stone and got angry at the stone. It is not impermanence that makes us suffer. What makes us suffer is wanting things to be permanent when they are not.

We need to learn to appreciate the value of impermanence. If we are in good health and are aware of impermanence, we will take good care of ourselves. When we know that the person we love is impermanent, we will cherish our beloved all the more. Impermanence teaches us to respect and value every moment and all the precious things around us and inside of us. When we practice mindfulness of impermanence, we become fresher and more loving.

Looking deeply can become a way of life. We can practice conscious breathing to help us be in touch with things and to look deeply at their impermanent nature. This practice will keep us from complaining that everything is impermanent and therefore not worth living for. Impermanence is what makes transformation possible. We should learn to say, “Long live impermanence”. Thanks to impermanence, we can change sufferings into joy.

If we practice the art of mindful living, when things change, we won’t have any regrets. We can smile, because we have done our best to enjoy every moment of our life and to make others happy. When you get into an argument with someone you love, please close your eyes and visualize yourselves three hundred years from now. When you open your eyes, you will only want to take each other in your arms and acknowledge how precious each of you is. The teaching of impermanence helps us appreciate fully what is there, without attachment or forgetfulness.

We have to nourish our insight into impermanence every day. If we do, we will live more deeply, suffer less, and enjoy life more. Living deeply, we will touch the foundation of reality, nirvana, the world of no-birth and no-death. Touching impermanence deeply, we touch the world beyond permanence and impermanence. We touch the ground of being and see that which we have called being and non-being are just notions. Nothing is ever lost. Nothing is ever gained.