With palms together,
Good Morning All,
Zen always has a person by the hair, short or otherwise, and yanks them about. Everything is relative to everything else, form has no substance, everything is in flux, we teach; yet 'no substance' takes form, in the flux there is some 'thing' and there is an absolute. In Zen, context and method are everything.
To say something, anything, is always incorrect because words are pale pictures of actual experience. We say behavior reveals our understanding. Much like a flower reveals the soil.
People can catch themselves on hooks of their own making. Waving in the wind as a fish flopping about out of water, we create much ado with our words. And so our great ancestors often cite: silence is thunder.
On the other hand, words are one of the major conveyances of our thoughts and feelings. Silence may speak volumes but is always open to complete misunderstanding. Of course a true Master could care less and would only see this misadventure as a teaching opportunity.
Care should always be taken with our speech and we should never be so certain about the truth we think we possess. Sometimes silence is thunder, sometimes its just an invitation. When we understand form is emptiness we should immediately understand emptiness is form. The relative only makes sense in the backdrop of an absolute.
Be well.
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Friday, October 20, 2006
Picky, picky, picky
With palms together,
Good Morning All,
This morning at Zen Center I was accompanied by one other: faithful Zen To. We sat together and were witness to wonderful birdsong. The Zen Center was chilly. It is cool. And after our incense offering I made pancakes and eggs with hot coffee.
My griddle was a tad too hot and I forgot to put some oil under the eggs, but other than that, the food was perfect.
In Zen we have a saying that we should accept what is offered. Of course, we are not to take what is not offered either. Both of these suggest we set ourselves, desires, tastes, and other discrimination's aside.
So when the pancakes are a bit dark and hard and the eggs aren't exactly over medium, well, we eat and enjoy and thank the many lives and hands that brought us the food.
I struggle with this on occasion, picky eater that I am. I don't want a lot of fat and sugar in my diet. With so many people starving to death in our world, how can I be so picky? On the other hand, I prefer vegetables and fruits, love nuts and cheese, and eat cherry tomatoes like candy. Still, I rarely make demands on wait staff, complain about my food (except to My Little Honey), and otherwise allow my feelings to rule my life.
Please consider making a generous offering to your local food pantry today. And in the process, remind yourself there are millions of others who cannot afford to pick and choose.
Be well.
Good Morning All,
This morning at Zen Center I was accompanied by one other: faithful Zen To. We sat together and were witness to wonderful birdsong. The Zen Center was chilly. It is cool. And after our incense offering I made pancakes and eggs with hot coffee.
My griddle was a tad too hot and I forgot to put some oil under the eggs, but other than that, the food was perfect.
In Zen we have a saying that we should accept what is offered. Of course, we are not to take what is not offered either. Both of these suggest we set ourselves, desires, tastes, and other discrimination's aside.
So when the pancakes are a bit dark and hard and the eggs aren't exactly over medium, well, we eat and enjoy and thank the many lives and hands that brought us the food.
I struggle with this on occasion, picky eater that I am. I don't want a lot of fat and sugar in my diet. With so many people starving to death in our world, how can I be so picky? On the other hand, I prefer vegetables and fruits, love nuts and cheese, and eat cherry tomatoes like candy. Still, I rarely make demands on wait staff, complain about my food (except to My Little Honey), and otherwise allow my feelings to rule my life.
Please consider making a generous offering to your local food pantry today. And in the process, remind yourself there are millions of others who cannot afford to pick and choose.
Be well.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Humanity in the Balance
With palms together,
Good Morning All,
Last evening instead of zazen, I attended a screening of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth." Please do yourself a favor and click on the link below to this film's website. Clearly we are facing some serious problems environmentally. No amount of partisan bickering or special interest crap will save us from what the earth itself will do to us if we do not become wiser.
This was my second time through this film. I was struck with Mr. Gore's humanity. I was taken once again with his ability to set out the facts, undeniable facts, regarding our climate change. I was reminded, childishly I suppose, of the beginning scenes of Superman when Superman's father is trying to convince his government that there is an impending crisis.
Then the thought struck me like a thunderclap: its futile. Mr. Gore named his first book, "Earth in the Balance." I have a copy of it. But I think it is misstated. More accurate would be, "Humanity in the Balance." The earth isn't going anywhere and as the film powerfully points out, has its own natural ways of correcting things.We keep thinking in human terms. The earth will have its way and regardless of how special we think we are, it will recover its balance and that it that. The earth measures its time in millenia. A few hundred thousand years, waves and waves of change, and everything is back on track, sans humanity.
So, maybe that Christian text, Revelations, is on target, perhaps we will end in flames, the flames of a global warming of our own making.
http://www.climatecrisis.net/
Be well.
Good Morning All,
Last evening instead of zazen, I attended a screening of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth." Please do yourself a favor and click on the link below to this film's website. Clearly we are facing some serious problems environmentally. No amount of partisan bickering or special interest crap will save us from what the earth itself will do to us if we do not become wiser.
This was my second time through this film. I was struck with Mr. Gore's humanity. I was taken once again with his ability to set out the facts, undeniable facts, regarding our climate change. I was reminded, childishly I suppose, of the beginning scenes of Superman when Superman's father is trying to convince his government that there is an impending crisis.
Then the thought struck me like a thunderclap: its futile. Mr. Gore named his first book, "Earth in the Balance." I have a copy of it. But I think it is misstated. More accurate would be, "Humanity in the Balance." The earth isn't going anywhere and as the film powerfully points out, has its own natural ways of correcting things.We keep thinking in human terms. The earth will have its way and regardless of how special we think we are, it will recover its balance and that it that. The earth measures its time in millenia. A few hundred thousand years, waves and waves of change, and everything is back on track, sans humanity.
So, maybe that Christian text, Revelations, is on target, perhaps we will end in flames, the flames of a global warming of our own making.
http://www.climatecrisis.net/
Be well.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Cease Doing Evil
With palms together,
Good Morning All,
The first of the Three Pure Precepts is "Cease doing evil." Not so simple in today's world. What, after all, is evil? Evil conjures up all sorts of things, the least of which is Halloween masks or Tales From the Crypt. Evil is something we too often see as very specific. War. Violence. Cruelty. Evil has a face we believe and more, a face we are all apt to both see and agree upon.
I'm not so sure. I suspect the true face of evil is much more subtle and difficult to see.
Evil causes harm, it erodes life, kills, causes us to suffer. But, then, so does good. Choosing even in the affirmative always negates something. Perhaps it isn't the actual choice so much as choice itself? To choose one person over another for a transplant. One country over another for our aid. One battle instead of another. Or not to fight at all. So what is evil? That which causes harm? Everyday we cause harm. Is it a matter of scale? Or intent? Or consequence?
Is it enough to be aware? Enough to translate that awareness into some sort of action?
I don't know.
I think my questions are important, terribly important. I think we do not think about them nearly enough and should talk about them often. We certainly don't pay much attention to them as we live out our daily lives. But, on the other hand, that's why we practice zazen, isn't it? To raise our level of awareness? To get mind, body, and environment in sync and on the same page?
I hope so.
I really do.
Be well.
Good Morning All,
The first of the Three Pure Precepts is "Cease doing evil." Not so simple in today's world. What, after all, is evil? Evil conjures up all sorts of things, the least of which is Halloween masks or Tales From the Crypt. Evil is something we too often see as very specific. War. Violence. Cruelty. Evil has a face we believe and more, a face we are all apt to both see and agree upon.
I'm not so sure. I suspect the true face of evil is much more subtle and difficult to see.
Evil causes harm, it erodes life, kills, causes us to suffer. But, then, so does good. Choosing even in the affirmative always negates something. Perhaps it isn't the actual choice so much as choice itself? To choose one person over another for a transplant. One country over another for our aid. One battle instead of another. Or not to fight at all. So what is evil? That which causes harm? Everyday we cause harm. Is it a matter of scale? Or intent? Or consequence?
Is it enough to be aware? Enough to translate that awareness into some sort of action?
I don't know.
I think my questions are important, terribly important. I think we do not think about them nearly enough and should talk about them often. We certainly don't pay much attention to them as we live out our daily lives. But, on the other hand, that's why we practice zazen, isn't it? To raise our level of awareness? To get mind, body, and environment in sync and on the same page?
I hope so.
I really do.
Be well.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
What It Is
With palms together,
Good Morning All,
When we truly understand everything is relative to everything, then we see nothing is anything more or less than anything else. And when we stand on a single point, everything is relative to it. Where do we stand?
I prefer not to. But, unlike that fictional schrivener, Bartleby, I will be what is there to do.
Its taken a long time to get to this place. I highly recommend it. The mountains are what they are; the rivers and, in my case, the desert, is what it is. And then it is not. Being comfortable with the flow of process is key to our survival and ability to see clearly. Those looking for solid ground, even for an instant are consumed by the rivers that run through them.
Be well.
Rev. Harvey So Daiho Hilbert, Ph.D. May All Beings Be Free From Suffering
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Monday, October 16, 2006
Sangha
With palms together,
Good Morning All,
Sangha, the last of the Three Treasures, is most likely the most challenging for us in the United States. Not only are we an ego-centric and ethnocentric lot, but we have so little sense of real community. If we sit zazen and the self does, indeed, fall away, what do we have to support us? Our Lexus? Our salary? Our favorite television show?
We are not a people that puts ourselves out for the sake of the group. In fact, I suspect, we compete with and against the group in order to gain advantage in our hierarchical position within the group. Oh my.
And so, what is Sangha?
Typically we think of Sangha as a "community" of like minded individuals who have gathered together for mutual support in their practice. In olden times it was a gathering of monks. Today, its about anyone even to the vastness of all sentient beings. Way too large for me, that is. I like to know my group. I like to see them, smell them, touch them. I like to know they are human beings. That they eat, fart, and make mistakes. I like to know that they are willing to grow, to suck it up, to change. Its important that they be present when I am in need, and I am present when they are in need. Yet this cannot happen when we do not share.
Is it so challenging to unzip and step out of the jackets of our everyday existence? Is it so difficult to be known? To be vulnerable?
I suppose today it is and thus the challenge of Sangha. To take refuge in this treasure is one of the most difficult as it requires a level of trust that we don't ordinarily allow ourselves to have. Sometimes it will be abused. Sometimes there will be no one there to catch us as we fall and we will strike the floor. This should not matter. We are what we choose to be, regardless of the behavior of others.
To make Sangha work we must be Sangha from the inside out.
Consider this when you engage with someone or not engage with someone. In the end it is only your heart that matters, knowing that your heart is the heart of being.
Be well.
Good Morning All,
Sangha, the last of the Three Treasures, is most likely the most challenging for us in the United States. Not only are we an ego-centric and ethnocentric lot, but we have so little sense of real community. If we sit zazen and the self does, indeed, fall away, what do we have to support us? Our Lexus? Our salary? Our favorite television show?
We are not a people that puts ourselves out for the sake of the group. In fact, I suspect, we compete with and against the group in order to gain advantage in our hierarchical position within the group. Oh my.
And so, what is Sangha?
Typically we think of Sangha as a "community" of like minded individuals who have gathered together for mutual support in their practice. In olden times it was a gathering of monks. Today, its about anyone even to the vastness of all sentient beings. Way too large for me, that is. I like to know my group. I like to see them, smell them, touch them. I like to know they are human beings. That they eat, fart, and make mistakes. I like to know that they are willing to grow, to suck it up, to change. Its important that they be present when I am in need, and I am present when they are in need. Yet this cannot happen when we do not share.
Is it so challenging to unzip and step out of the jackets of our everyday existence? Is it so difficult to be known? To be vulnerable?
I suppose today it is and thus the challenge of Sangha. To take refuge in this treasure is one of the most difficult as it requires a level of trust that we don't ordinarily allow ourselves to have. Sometimes it will be abused. Sometimes there will be no one there to catch us as we fall and we will strike the floor. This should not matter. We are what we choose to be, regardless of the behavior of others.
To make Sangha work we must be Sangha from the inside out.
Consider this when you engage with someone or not engage with someone. In the end it is only your heart that matters, knowing that your heart is the heart of being.
Be well.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
The So What Practice of Zen
With palms together,
Good Morning All,
We have all heard the phrase, "no time like the present." In Zen this is considered a daily mantra. Past and future are creations of mind. Yet we must be careful not to make the present moment a creation as well.
We live in the present by living directly, mindfully, and without the craziness that comes with discrimination. Here in this moment, there are plastic keys. Fingers. Electricity. Light. Yet, as soon as I name these, they are not it at all. Now they are my language applied to the phenomenon. What is light before we call it light? What is plastic, finger? before the two meet?
Who cares.
When the light is on, appreciate it. When it is time to write, write; time to clean, clean. This is the "so what" practice of Zen.
Living in the past, we are dead. Living in the future, not yet born. The present is not a theory. It is what it is: appreciate it.
Be well.
Good Morning All,
We have all heard the phrase, "no time like the present." In Zen this is considered a daily mantra. Past and future are creations of mind. Yet we must be careful not to make the present moment a creation as well.
We live in the present by living directly, mindfully, and without the craziness that comes with discrimination. Here in this moment, there are plastic keys. Fingers. Electricity. Light. Yet, as soon as I name these, they are not it at all. Now they are my language applied to the phenomenon. What is light before we call it light? What is plastic, finger? before the two meet?
Who cares.
When the light is on, appreciate it. When it is time to write, write; time to clean, clean. This is the "so what" practice of Zen.
Living in the past, we are dead. Living in the future, not yet born. The present is not a theory. It is what it is: appreciate it.
Be well.
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