Practice

With palms together,

Good Morning Everyone,

There is a cold front moving through the desert. Yet the sun warms the air quickly. Just so, sitting facing the wall.

Zazen is a burning practice. It melts away the self. And as it does, all things become cool springs, welcomed, often devoured as they arise.

We simply eat.

To sit Zazen on a regular basis is to stregnthen our effort. It is a practice of the Excellences and the Eightfold Noble Path all rolled into one cucumber sitting upright on a bed of lettuce.

We simply eat.

Soon it is time to rise. Just as when we fill our bellies at the table, we should rise slowly. We should continue holding our mind in everpresent stillness, a sort of stillness in motion, that takes us through our day, concluding once again on the great cushion.

Please enjoy the warmth and the practice it yields.

Smiling

With palms together,

Good Morning Everyone,

Smiling is very good practice. Even when we are sad, we should make an effort to smile. Our world has enough pain and suffering, frowns and crying faces. Our practice is to add joy to the universe and we do this with a simple smile.

Each day practice smiling. Each day behave as if you are a smiling buddha. In reality, you are, regardless of how you feel that day. When you take on the smile, the universe smiles with you, even if it is in a lot of pain.

The dog barks: smile. The postman brings a bill and you have little money: smile. Someone treats you with disrespect: smile.

Such practice displaces bad feeling. New, good feeling then has an opportunity to grow. Pie in the sky, you say? Hmmm. I like pie.

Be well,

Ten Ox-Herding Pictures: Stage Four

Ten ox-herding pictures
Verses Composed by KAKUAN Zenji

Stage 4
Seizing the ox

Introduction
For a long time he has been living in obscurity in the countryside;
today you have met him.
Because he enjoys his former situation so much, it is difficult to
drive him out.
He cannot stop loving the fragrant grasses;
his stubborn will is still strong and a wild spirit remains.
If you wish to make him pure and obedient, you must apply the whip.

Verse
You have exhausted all your faculties to take hold of him.
Because his spirit is strong and his strength abundant,
it is difficult to rid him of his habits.
Sometimes he goes to the top of the high plain.
Other times he resides in clouds and smoke.

So Daiho:

Orgasm is like that, so is riding as motorcycle at 90 mph without the headlights at midnight.

We sit in silence and in a moment everything is nothing.
Our eyes flicker.
Pulses are just pulses.

Impulse and impatience are the great teachers subverting themselves.
In the end, we must grab them by their short hairs and speak.
Enough!

Morning Donut

With palms together,

Good Evening Sangha,

We are returned from Mexico. At the border we were asked to pull around the back of the Inspection Station and exit the truck. Then this rather massive machine was driven past our truck. Apparently, it was a large X-ray machine that scanned the truck for illegals or whatever.

Another couple was standing next to us. There was a baby in a carrier sitting on the pavement next to them. We took a peek to see a most beautiful little baby girl with lovely dark eyes and black hair.

Once the Very Large Machine passed us, we were let go. About a few miles up the road we were stopped once again and inspected. A nuisance, but I suppose it is necessary to keep us safe from all those dangerous migrant laborers.

Entering the dentist's office we were confronted by the heavy antiseptic scent of cleanser. The office was just openning and the cleaning crew was just wrapping up. The receptionist who doubles as a dental technician wanted a donut. Fortunately there was a bakery across the street. I walked over and bought four donuts. The technician was very pleased.

My Little Honey's mouth is now full of brand new crowns...lots of them. She is delighted. I am delighted. We ate none of the donuts.

Sometimes it is just taking care of the business of taking care of ourselves that is the most wonderful thing we can do. Other than, perhaps, reading a few of Master Dogen's essays from the Shobogenzo in a dentist's office on a dirt road in a small Mexican border town. And I suspect that was my morning donut in itself.

Be well

Ten ox-herding pictures : stage three

STAGE 3
CATCHING SIGHT OF THE OX

Introduction
If you attain by way of sounds,
you will encounter the source of all seeing.
The six sense organs are each no different from this;
in all actions, the head is revealed.
It is like the salty taste of the water,
the binder in the paint.
Raise your eyebrows,
and this is nothing other than THAT itself.

Verse
The bush warbler sings on the branch.
The sun is warm, the breeze gentle,
and the willows on the riverbank are green.
There is no place you can escape from him.
That majestic head and horns could never be painted in a picture.

So Daiho:

In all of the women, books and chess, there was still something missing yet demanding to be found. I often found myself sitting on one of the keys waiting for the sun to come up. Fascinated with morning light. Angry. Hurt. Wanting o blame G-d, men, and country.

Such wounds as the wounds of war are forever open.

The sea was rolling in and out. The jobs came and went. So did the wives. Is this all there is?

No. A shadow.

I met a man named Bernie Schmidt. He was a loud man. He was a strong man. He taught me a few things. He taught me about shouting and learning and studying and not taking second best. He taught me compassion did not mean making excuses. He taught me to love without so much concern for white bread notions of normal. He made 'joyful noises unto the lord!" But was not a religious man. He offered me a copy of Walden and a copy of The Way of Zen.

Not too long ago my friend of nearly forty years died.

The shadow stirs.

Be well,

Ten Ox-Herding Pictures, One and Two

Anu, a friend from Africa, recently asked us to discuss the Ten Ox-Herding Pictures on our Zen Living Yahoo Group. I am posting each stage and my response here in my blog.

Anu writes: It appears that all that is known about the author of the verses to the ten ox-herding pictures, master kakuan shion, is that he was a disciple of daizui genjo [1065-1135] and the twelfth in the line of master rinzai. His dates of birth and death as well as other information are unclear.

Stage 1 :Seeking the oxIncessantly you brush aside thick grasses in pursuit;The waters are wide, the mountains far,and the path leads on without end.Sapped of strength, exhausted in spirits,knowing no longer where to search,You only hear the sound of the evening cicadaschirping in the maple trees.

So Daiho:
May 29th, 1966. The Central Highlands of Vietnam, near the Camnbodian border. It is night. Very dark. The jungle is quite wet. I have just been in a fire fight with a whole lot of North Vietnamese solders. They have us surrounded.

I feel my head. There is a hole in it. I am terrified. Gunfire and grenades build this fear.

I hear the screaming of the dead and dying. I am tired, but cannot go to sleep. I fear I might not wake up. I look to the sky, what I can see of it through the dark canopy of trees. It is a black hole in the universe. I ask G-d to save me.

No answer.

In the morning the few of us who survived being overrun are medevac'd out. I leave Vietnam unable to use the left side oif my body. I am 19 and a high school droip out with a GED.

What's my next step?

Stage Two:

Anu writes:

He has understood the meaning of the sutras and knows about the tracks through the teachings. It is clear to him that all vessels are made of gold, and he knows that the myriad things are himself. But if he cannot distinguish between right and wrong, how can he separate the true from the false? As he has not yet entered this gate, he can be said to have merely seen the tracks. Btw, background to the introduction . . .To each of the ten pictures of the Ten Ox-herding Pictures Master Kakuan has first put a "Verse", and at the end his disciple, Jion (some say Kakuan himself, others say the friend of Kakuan) is said to have put a "General Introduction" to the entire work as well as a "Brief Introduction" to each one of the Verses.

Stage 2 :FINDING THE TRACKS At the waters edge, under the trees - hoofmarks are numerous.Balmy grasses grow abundantly - can you see them or not?Even if you go deeper and deeper into the mountains,How could his nostrils, well compassing the heavens,hide him at all?

So Daiho:

So, at 19 on the streets of Miami with a "Retirement" certificate from the US Army and a body that only half worked, I set out to discover life. Here's the thing: trauma disrupts cognitive and emotional processes. Those of us who have experienced such things, 'know the sutras' but are suddenly on their outside looking in. There is a crack in that cosmic egg that has nurtured us and kept us asleep for so long and now the brilliant light of day is streaming down and we squeeze our eyes, not knowing which way to turn.

I attend peace rallies. I attend college. I sleep with women. I drink. I ride a motorcycle. I read books. I learn to play chess at a chess club. I find jobs and lose jobs. The tracks are everywhere. I have found myself in a world without G-d. A world rushing faster and faster and I am on the outside looking in. Do I really want to go there?
Be well,

Monday

With palms together,

Good Morning Everyone!

Over the weekend we had many wonderful things happen. Saturday I spent the day in meditation at the Zen Center. Sunday I did meditation at Zen Center on Sunday morning. And in the afternoon we were given a welcome to Las Cruces party at a friend's home.

We are settling into our community here. It is very different from our life in the mountains. I am finding myself struggling a little to get into a routine. I love routine. Routine grounds me. I take great comfort in it.

Here in the city, there are so many competing interests: bookstores, movies, grocery stores, the Zen Center, the Temple Beth El, friends, theatre. I want to run. I want to workout. I want to get more involved in the local peace movement. I want to be inservice to others.

And there it is: I.

For a moment, relaxing would be a good thing. Taking a nice deep breath. Noticing the beauty and wonder of this very moment, of this very edge. There is nothing to do but to take the next step and take it fully.

My faith is that when "I" do this, "I" will lose its much of its power to lead me around by the nose. Values have an opportunity then to arise and be my guide. So, there at the intersection of Is and Ought are my values: compassion and service, health and fitness, community and family.

Be well