With palms together,
Good Morning Sangha,
This morning I lit sticks of incense and said a prayer for all of those in the world who were suffering. It seems from the morning's news, there's a lot of that going around. Mudslides, wars, violence against individuals, communities, and religious buildings. I take a breath and sit down on my cushion, turn and face the wall. My hands rest gently in the cosmic mudra, left hand cradled in the right, thumbs lightly touching. I feel the presense of the universe wrap me like a blanket, creating a nest of safety and security. This, however, is not Zazen. It is just a good feeling.
It takes work to move against this, to press out the warmth, to lift off the blanket and open myself to the larger processes of life and death. To be one with the universe means some very challenging things. It means we do not hide from the suffering of others. It means we do not have the luxury of being overwhelmed by the global nature of the task or its seeming futility. It means we have an obligation to behave just now, right here, in this moment and perhaps exceeding our capacity. It means we must open our eyes and experience the universe as it is, rather than as some sugar coated pill we would like it to be. I have heard it said that science discovers and describes what is, and religion discovers and describes what ought to be. Where is the bridge?
Look in the mirror.
Be well.
Organ Mountain Zen
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Healthy Day
With palms together,
Good Morning Sangha,
This morning is a beautiful morning here in southern New Mexico. The sky is blue with just a hint of a cloud or two, the air is cool and the sun is getting ready to make its short winter journey across the sky. I have had some coffee. My Little Honey made the coffee and took out the dogs. So, I am left to compose this short message.
Today I would invite you to take one small step to improve your health. Eat a little less, choose a piece of fruit instead of a cookie. Park far away from the store entrance and walk to the store. Take a multavitimin. Drink a small glass of V-8 juice. Snack on almonds or walnuts, a small handfullk will do. Choose not to eat meat today. Talk to a friend about something personal. Sit Zazen. If you add or two of these daily you will begin to follow a program shown to prevent or reverse heart disease.
Now I must *run* to meet the Rabbi for breakfast at the Bountiful.
Be well.
On this day in history: 1940 - Five-year-old Tenzin Gyatso was enthroned as the 14th Dalai Lama in Lhasa, Tibet.
Good Morning Sangha,
This morning is a beautiful morning here in southern New Mexico. The sky is blue with just a hint of a cloud or two, the air is cool and the sun is getting ready to make its short winter journey across the sky. I have had some coffee. My Little Honey made the coffee and took out the dogs. So, I am left to compose this short message.
Today I would invite you to take one small step to improve your health. Eat a little less, choose a piece of fruit instead of a cookie. Park far away from the store entrance and walk to the store. Take a multavitimin. Drink a small glass of V-8 juice. Snack on almonds or walnuts, a small handfullk will do. Choose not to eat meat today. Talk to a friend about something personal. Sit Zazen. If you add or two of these daily you will begin to follow a program shown to prevent or reverse heart disease.
Now I must *run* to meet the Rabbi for breakfast at the Bountiful.
Be well.
On this day in history: 1940 - Five-year-old Tenzin Gyatso was enthroned as the 14th Dalai Lama in Lhasa, Tibet.
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Crime
With palms together,
Good Evening Sangha,
For those of you who are thinking about commiting a crime tonight, please re-consider. Violence against people and property is never a good idea. Health and well-being are precious and cannot be replaced. Property comes and goes and never brings us the satisafaction we imagine it will. For those of you who will be victims of crime tonight, before you seek an eye for an eye, ask yourself if you want the world to be blind.
I have both commited crime and been a victim of crime. In my life I have stolen, lied, cheated and killed. I have also been robbed and assaulted. I have been shot. I have been molested. Being on both sides of the highway is a challenge sometimes, but it certainly gives one some perspective on behavior. I know when I was a kid and stole from stores, it felt good and I was able to get candy, chips, sodas and cigarettes. I wish I had never stolen, especially the cigarettes.I have lied. I have told people things that were not true in order (I think) to protect myself from loss or disapproval or some other imagined thing. I have cheated, inflated my income or deflated my income depending on the paperwork. I have killed people in combat, one was a friend who got in the line of fire. An awful tragedy which tore my heart in half and caused me to lose faith in myself. As a victim, I've been robbed several times; house broken into, things taken. I was assaulted by a friend, held at knifepoint, and another time punched. When I was younger, as a child skipping school, I was sexually propositioned by a man in a public restroom. As a young adult, I was sexually assaulted by a man. Oh my, the list is long.
Today I see that these things, awful as they might be, are no longer real. They exist only in my memory, a memory now being assaulted by a disease related to my combat experience. I am comfortable with this. I have seen clearly the nature of the universe. All things come and go. What is important is the process.
A priest now, I have taken solemn vows to be with all beings in their suffering as long as it takes to bring all beings out of suffering. An infinite task and one not to be taken lightly. Tonight there are people in harm's way, soldiers, poor people, starving people, people deathly ill. Tonight there are people who are going to die and there are people who are going to be born. It is our work to make this planet both a safer place and a better place for people to live. There is enough suffering, we need not add to it with our selfishness and our self-centered needs.
When we take up the practice of Zen we enter into this vast stream, this eternal process of life and as we enter we open our eyes. It takes great courage to do this and to also stay in the stream.
What will you do tomorrow?
Be well.
Good Evening Sangha,
For those of you who are thinking about commiting a crime tonight, please re-consider. Violence against people and property is never a good idea. Health and well-being are precious and cannot be replaced. Property comes and goes and never brings us the satisafaction we imagine it will. For those of you who will be victims of crime tonight, before you seek an eye for an eye, ask yourself if you want the world to be blind.
I have both commited crime and been a victim of crime. In my life I have stolen, lied, cheated and killed. I have also been robbed and assaulted. I have been shot. I have been molested. Being on both sides of the highway is a challenge sometimes, but it certainly gives one some perspective on behavior. I know when I was a kid and stole from stores, it felt good and I was able to get candy, chips, sodas and cigarettes. I wish I had never stolen, especially the cigarettes.I have lied. I have told people things that were not true in order (I think) to protect myself from loss or disapproval or some other imagined thing. I have cheated, inflated my income or deflated my income depending on the paperwork. I have killed people in combat, one was a friend who got in the line of fire. An awful tragedy which tore my heart in half and caused me to lose faith in myself. As a victim, I've been robbed several times; house broken into, things taken. I was assaulted by a friend, held at knifepoint, and another time punched. When I was younger, as a child skipping school, I was sexually propositioned by a man in a public restroom. As a young adult, I was sexually assaulted by a man. Oh my, the list is long.
Today I see that these things, awful as they might be, are no longer real. They exist only in my memory, a memory now being assaulted by a disease related to my combat experience. I am comfortable with this. I have seen clearly the nature of the universe. All things come and go. What is important is the process.
A priest now, I have taken solemn vows to be with all beings in their suffering as long as it takes to bring all beings out of suffering. An infinite task and one not to be taken lightly. Tonight there are people in harm's way, soldiers, poor people, starving people, people deathly ill. Tonight there are people who are going to die and there are people who are going to be born. It is our work to make this planet both a safer place and a better place for people to live. There is enough suffering, we need not add to it with our selfishness and our self-centered needs.
When we take up the practice of Zen we enter into this vast stream, this eternal process of life and as we enter we open our eyes. It takes great courage to do this and to also stay in the stream.
What will you do tomorrow?
Be well.
Emptiness
With palms together,
Good Morning Sangha,
So sorry for the delay in posting my morning message to you. I experienced some computer problems, but have them fixed at least temporarily. I have a very old laptop and its rather cranky.
This morning I would like to talk about emptiness. It seems we are often confused by this term. Shunyata simply means empty of something. It does not mean non-existence. So when we see ourselves as "empty," we see we are without a fixed self, a self that doies not change. Shunyata points to our interdependence for existence in both time and space. We are, in fact, a matrix that is infinate. It is just a matter of perspective that allows us to "see" a collection of molecules we call a "body" and a great interlocking chain of events (or causes) that allow us to become consciousness of a "self."
So, when we pinch ourselves we hurt, yet we "know" this pain is "empty" of an independent and permanent existance, just as are our bodies, minds, and feelings. We still feel pain. We still exist in the world and are responsible for our actions and the actions of others.
We cannot use "emptiness" and "no-self" as a quiet excuse to do nothing.
Be well.
Good Morning Sangha,
So sorry for the delay in posting my morning message to you. I experienced some computer problems, but have them fixed at least temporarily. I have a very old laptop and its rather cranky.
This morning I would like to talk about emptiness. It seems we are often confused by this term. Shunyata simply means empty of something. It does not mean non-existence. So when we see ourselves as "empty," we see we are without a fixed self, a self that doies not change. Shunyata points to our interdependence for existence in both time and space. We are, in fact, a matrix that is infinate. It is just a matter of perspective that allows us to "see" a collection of molecules we call a "body" and a great interlocking chain of events (or causes) that allow us to become consciousness of a "self."
So, when we pinch ourselves we hurt, yet we "know" this pain is "empty" of an independent and permanent existance, just as are our bodies, minds, and feelings. We still feel pain. We still exist in the world and are responsible for our actions and the actions of others.
We cannot use "emptiness" and "no-self" as a quiet excuse to do nothing.
Be well.
Monday, February 20, 2006
So you want to learn Zen!
With palms together,
Good evening Sangha,
When we first consider Zen, what are we considering? What do we see in this Zen? Why are looking in the first place? What does it all mean?
Typically, westerners are curious. Maybe they heard meditation is good for them. Maybe they want to become better people. Maybe they feel stressed and have been told meditation is a stress management tool. Perhaps they have not had so good experiences in their Church or Synagogue. Maybe they read a book or two, possibly by Alan Watts, D. T. Suzuki, Phillip Kapleau-roshi or Shunryu Suzuki-roshi. Whatever. They come to Zen to meet a need.
Then they find themselves in a Zen Center. In the Center they are greeted by bald headed guys in black robes wearing brown or black bibs. What's up with that? They are asked not to talk much. Not to read much. Not to do anything loud. Then they are asked to stand, bow, put their hands together as if they were praying. There are statues, incense, bells. They are asked to chant in a foreign language. They are asked to sit on a cushion facing a wall for an awfully long time, stand and walk in an odd sort of way, in a circle, going no where, just to get back to their cushion and sit down with pained knees facing the wall again. Moving is frowned upon. they are asked not to scratch themselves unless necessary. Oh yeah, this is the path to stress reduction.
Zen is all and none of the above.
Zen is about discipline. It is about self-discovery. It is about moral behavior. It is about developing the ability and willingness tro be compassionate, kind, forgiving, inclusive, non-judgemental. And somewhere in that mix, Zen is boring.
We sit with our legs folded facing a wall doing nothing. We are asked to place our attention on our breath, or our "hara," or no where at all. So, we just sit there. We want to move. We want someone to teach us something and by this I mean. tell us something, you know, TALK to us! Mention a book, an idea, something! But instead, we just sit there. We think. We feel. We wonder just what in the hell ever got into us.
Sometime or other a bell is "invited" to ring and we are finally allowed to get up. Only to sit down again and listern to some "Teacher" as he or she talks to us. Now this is more like it! Language, words, ideas! Great! Then he says, forget everything I have said. Say what?
Of course none of this makes any sense.
It doesn't. It isn't supposed to. The whole affair is intended to get you out of your mind. Zen is about experience, not thought. We often confuse the two. As if thinking about riding a bike is the same as actually riding the bike. There is no substitute for the sheer act of sitting down and quietly doing nothing. This doing nothing is, it turns out, quite a dynamic process. It involves our bodies, minds, and feelings. It involves history. It involves our desires, our intentions, our worst fears. And there is no where to go to get away from any of them. No where.
Be well.
Good evening Sangha,
When we first consider Zen, what are we considering? What do we see in this Zen? Why are looking in the first place? What does it all mean?
Typically, westerners are curious. Maybe they heard meditation is good for them. Maybe they want to become better people. Maybe they feel stressed and have been told meditation is a stress management tool. Perhaps they have not had so good experiences in their Church or Synagogue. Maybe they read a book or two, possibly by Alan Watts, D. T. Suzuki, Phillip Kapleau-roshi or Shunryu Suzuki-roshi. Whatever. They come to Zen to meet a need.
Then they find themselves in a Zen Center. In the Center they are greeted by bald headed guys in black robes wearing brown or black bibs. What's up with that? They are asked not to talk much. Not to read much. Not to do anything loud. Then they are asked to stand, bow, put their hands together as if they were praying. There are statues, incense, bells. They are asked to chant in a foreign language. They are asked to sit on a cushion facing a wall for an awfully long time, stand and walk in an odd sort of way, in a circle, going no where, just to get back to their cushion and sit down with pained knees facing the wall again. Moving is frowned upon. they are asked not to scratch themselves unless necessary. Oh yeah, this is the path to stress reduction.
Zen is all and none of the above.
Zen is about discipline. It is about self-discovery. It is about moral behavior. It is about developing the ability and willingness tro be compassionate, kind, forgiving, inclusive, non-judgemental. And somewhere in that mix, Zen is boring.
We sit with our legs folded facing a wall doing nothing. We are asked to place our attention on our breath, or our "hara," or no where at all. So, we just sit there. We want to move. We want someone to teach us something and by this I mean. tell us something, you know, TALK to us! Mention a book, an idea, something! But instead, we just sit there. We think. We feel. We wonder just what in the hell ever got into us.
Sometime or other a bell is "invited" to ring and we are finally allowed to get up. Only to sit down again and listern to some "Teacher" as he or she talks to us. Now this is more like it! Language, words, ideas! Great! Then he says, forget everything I have said. Say what?
Of course none of this makes any sense.
It doesn't. It isn't supposed to. The whole affair is intended to get you out of your mind. Zen is about experience, not thought. We often confuse the two. As if thinking about riding a bike is the same as actually riding the bike. There is no substitute for the sheer act of sitting down and quietly doing nothing. This doing nothing is, it turns out, quite a dynamic process. It involves our bodies, minds, and feelings. It involves history. It involves our desires, our intentions, our worst fears. And there is no where to go to get away from any of them. No where.
Be well.
Friday, February 17, 2006
A Wise Life
With palms together,
Good Morning Sangha,
The other day at the weekly Peace Vigil, I offered my support to a Quaker woman who was standing there with a sign. We talked about Mr. Fox, a Quaker Peace Worker who was taken hostage in Iraq a few months ago. She spoke of him clearly in matter of fact sentances. I saw only a few hints of admiration in the corners of her eyes.
Violence against people is such a horrible thing. It is irrational. It is hurtful. It creates pain and suffering.
Not too many years ago, some men broke into my daughter's home and raped her.
When I was younger a friend of my brother's lost his mind in our apartment in Miami. He took a large knife, raving, he huddled us together, turned on a stereo and waited for my brother to transform himself into the devil. He promised at that hour to kill him.
In the jungle in Vietnam I killed several men. One was a friend lost in the middle of a nighttime firefight.
When I was younger still a raging father, a medic in the south pacific during World War II, assaulted my mother and my brother in an alcoholic fit of frustration and anger.
Violence does nothing but scar the heart. We spend the rest of our lives attempting to make sense out of non-sense. Such things cause us to examine our relationship with God and Man. They demand a question of our values and moral compass. Trauma has that effect.
The thing is, we are each anger. We are each frustration. We are each misunderstood, suffering beings, feeling pain. When we lack the tools to deal with the pain we resort to the quick fixes: lashing out, screaming, hitting. All vain attempts to control the pain, stop the hurt, and protect ourselves. Every juvenille protective step is cause more more pain and suffering.
Until we learn to accept and surrender our need to control, we will continue this cycle of pain and suffering. Harm stops when we refuse to harm. In the refusal, we gain control. In the understanding we gain wisdom. A wise life is a benefit to all.
Be well.
Good Morning Sangha,
The other day at the weekly Peace Vigil, I offered my support to a Quaker woman who was standing there with a sign. We talked about Mr. Fox, a Quaker Peace Worker who was taken hostage in Iraq a few months ago. She spoke of him clearly in matter of fact sentances. I saw only a few hints of admiration in the corners of her eyes.
Violence against people is such a horrible thing. It is irrational. It is hurtful. It creates pain and suffering.
Not too many years ago, some men broke into my daughter's home and raped her.
When I was younger a friend of my brother's lost his mind in our apartment in Miami. He took a large knife, raving, he huddled us together, turned on a stereo and waited for my brother to transform himself into the devil. He promised at that hour to kill him.
In the jungle in Vietnam I killed several men. One was a friend lost in the middle of a nighttime firefight.
When I was younger still a raging father, a medic in the south pacific during World War II, assaulted my mother and my brother in an alcoholic fit of frustration and anger.
Violence does nothing but scar the heart. We spend the rest of our lives attempting to make sense out of non-sense. Such things cause us to examine our relationship with God and Man. They demand a question of our values and moral compass. Trauma has that effect.
The thing is, we are each anger. We are each frustration. We are each misunderstood, suffering beings, feeling pain. When we lack the tools to deal with the pain we resort to the quick fixes: lashing out, screaming, hitting. All vain attempts to control the pain, stop the hurt, and protect ourselves. Every juvenille protective step is cause more more pain and suffering.
Until we learn to accept and surrender our need to control, we will continue this cycle of pain and suffering. Harm stops when we refuse to harm. In the refusal, we gain control. In the understanding we gain wisdom. A wise life is a benefit to all.
Be well.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)