With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
As you probably are already aware, this is the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War. Thousands dead and wounded, billions spent, and a mortgage that will last for several decades in terms of treatment for permanent veteran disabilities, family disruptions, and economic chaos.
Please pray for an end to this disaster, a speedy delivery of our troops home, and a peaceful future.
Also during your prayers, keep in mind the religious and ethnic freedom of our Tibetan brothers and sisters, as well as oppressed people everywhere.
Spring is coming to our hemisphere, let it bring signs of hope through our behavior.
Be well.
Organ Mountain Zen
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Good News
Good Morning Everyone,
The morning air is wonderful: cool, but not cold, with a slight early morning breeze gently moving the blinds so that they perform like wind instruments in an orchestra. I am sitting on the sofa with Tripper and some coffee, listening to these and other dawn sounds. There were times in my life when I would wish to be carried away by the wind, but no longer. At this place in my life, I would prefer to just reside and appreciate whatever presents itself. Gentle breeze or storm, each should be equally welcome as they are only gentle or stormy as we apply the notions.
This is the practice and we are never always in its embrace.
There are times when we wish just to be left alone to reside peacefully in our thoughts. There are times when we are less able to be pliant or even simply present. We practice to make these moments less frequent and more brief in duration. Just so, we practice Zen as life.
Yesterday we finally leased our vacant condo! A great relief and welcome cash to our strained budget. We also made preparations for My Little Honey's book-signing today. A lot of flurry and if I were wearing robes yesterday, they would have been a-flapping. But I wasn't always present, not always joyful or appreciative of the day's events as they unfolded. I had my own agenda tucked into the recesses of my mind: sit, play chess, enjoy the day, take a walk in the desert...you know, that sort of thing.
So while the morning was filled with such delights as Talmud study, Morning Services, a nice lunch; the afternoon, after leasing the condo out furnished, was full of shopping and going and preparing and discussing, none of which I am particularly good at.
The good news is that the tensions are very short in duration and far less frequent than they were historically. Why? Practice. It is good to be a work in progress, let us continue to be in progress through infinity.
Be well.
_______________________
For those on the Zen Living List: It is delightful to see such excellent interaction on the list. Awareness is essential, coupled with a willingness to not press the SEND key in the heat of a moment, but rather, to take a few breaths, step away from your work, then come back later with a refreshed perspective.
The morning air is wonderful: cool, but not cold, with a slight early morning breeze gently moving the blinds so that they perform like wind instruments in an orchestra. I am sitting on the sofa with Tripper and some coffee, listening to these and other dawn sounds. There were times in my life when I would wish to be carried away by the wind, but no longer. At this place in my life, I would prefer to just reside and appreciate whatever presents itself. Gentle breeze or storm, each should be equally welcome as they are only gentle or stormy as we apply the notions.
This is the practice and we are never always in its embrace.
There are times when we wish just to be left alone to reside peacefully in our thoughts. There are times when we are less able to be pliant or even simply present. We practice to make these moments less frequent and more brief in duration. Just so, we practice Zen as life.
Yesterday we finally leased our vacant condo! A great relief and welcome cash to our strained budget. We also made preparations for My Little Honey's book-signing today. A lot of flurry and if I were wearing robes yesterday, they would have been a-flapping. But I wasn't always present, not always joyful or appreciative of the day's events as they unfolded. I had my own agenda tucked into the recesses of my mind: sit, play chess, enjoy the day, take a walk in the desert...you know, that sort of thing.
So while the morning was filled with such delights as Talmud study, Morning Services, a nice lunch; the afternoon, after leasing the condo out furnished, was full of shopping and going and preparing and discussing, none of which I am particularly good at.
The good news is that the tensions are very short in duration and far less frequent than they were historically. Why? Practice. It is good to be a work in progress, let us continue to be in progress through infinity.
Be well.
_______________________
For those on the Zen Living List: It is delightful to see such excellent interaction on the list. Awareness is essential, coupled with a willingness to not press the SEND key in the heat of a moment, but rather, to take a few breaths, step away from your work, then come back later with a refreshed perspective.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
What's Important
Good Morning Everyone,
Question: What is the most important thing to do? Answer: Not live as if this is more important than that.
When living a Zen life, we live with everything as it is. So, in this moment, the most important thing are the keys on my keyboard as my fingers touch them while writing to you.
There are many "also importants" such as Pete-kitty resting on the arm of the sofa as I type, the sound of the morning dove's outside, and the pleasurable thought of My Little Honey nestled in our bed sleeping just now. But, the most important thing is always the thing we are doing. What we are doing is our life.
More important, less important; more valuable, less valuable: these judgements get in the way of actual living. They also get in the way of our appreciating our life and the lives around us.
Practice to appreciate what is there before you.
Be well.
Question: What is the most important thing to do? Answer: Not live as if this is more important than that.
When living a Zen life, we live with everything as it is. So, in this moment, the most important thing are the keys on my keyboard as my fingers touch them while writing to you.
There are many "also importants" such as Pete-kitty resting on the arm of the sofa as I type, the sound of the morning dove's outside, and the pleasurable thought of My Little Honey nestled in our bed sleeping just now. But, the most important thing is always the thing we are doing. What we are doing is our life.
More important, less important; more valuable, less valuable: these judgements get in the way of actual living. They also get in the way of our appreciating our life and the lives around us.
Practice to appreciate what is there before you.
Be well.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Zazen
Good Morning Everyone,
One should not sit without a time keeper. If not in a Zendo with a timekeeper, use a timer. I use my wrist watch alarms. Each period is 25 minutes. You can use less or more, but to sit without a time limit allows for Sloppy Zen. Sloppy Zen is Zen without discipline. Sloppy Zen is anything goes Zen.
Last night at Zen Judaism, a participant talked about his experience of "seeing the light" by which I believe he meant, slipping into a deeply relaxed state where time essentially stopped. This is one type of meditation practice, but it is not zazen. If our aim in our practice is to relax, allow stress to dissipate from our mind-mind, then this "seeing the light" meditation is useful. If our aim, however, is to be present regardless of environmental or internal factors and without getting stuck on them or by them, this is not effective practice.
Zazen, Shikantaza Zen, is the Zen of the Buddhas and ancestors. It is what Master Dogen calls "practice realization" and goes beyond just sitting on a cushion.
To practice shikantaza, just sit with an open mind, a mind that refuses to grasp or seek.
A timer is essential because we cannot be thinking about when to stop. Our practice period is predetermined.
Please enjoy this practice.
Be well.
Workout Note: This morning I did a short one mile walk/jog with Katie, then did six hill repeats. getting my heart-rate to 90% of its max on two and 80% on four of the repeats. My Left Foot was not behaving and I neglected to wear my brace --- a not so good combination. Anyway, at home I did: two sets of twenty push-ups, three sets of bent dumbbell rows, and three sets of dead lifts.
One should not sit without a time keeper. If not in a Zendo with a timekeeper, use a timer. I use my wrist watch alarms. Each period is 25 minutes. You can use less or more, but to sit without a time limit allows for Sloppy Zen. Sloppy Zen is Zen without discipline. Sloppy Zen is anything goes Zen.
Last night at Zen Judaism, a participant talked about his experience of "seeing the light" by which I believe he meant, slipping into a deeply relaxed state where time essentially stopped. This is one type of meditation practice, but it is not zazen. If our aim in our practice is to relax, allow stress to dissipate from our mind-mind, then this "seeing the light" meditation is useful. If our aim, however, is to be present regardless of environmental or internal factors and without getting stuck on them or by them, this is not effective practice.
Zazen, Shikantaza Zen, is the Zen of the Buddhas and ancestors. It is what Master Dogen calls "practice realization" and goes beyond just sitting on a cushion.
To practice shikantaza, just sit with an open mind, a mind that refuses to grasp or seek.
A timer is essential because we cannot be thinking about when to stop. Our practice period is predetermined.
Please enjoy this practice.
Be well.
Workout Note: This morning I did a short one mile walk/jog with Katie, then did six hill repeats. getting my heart-rate to 90% of its max on two and 80% on four of the repeats. My Left Foot was not behaving and I neglected to wear my brace --- a not so good combination. Anyway, at home I did: two sets of twenty push-ups, three sets of bent dumbbell rows, and three sets of dead lifts.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
What's This?
Good Morning Everyone,
Monotheism, the belief in one God, is a ubiquitous belief in the West. I said in an earlier post that it was a cultural belief and, as such, forms part of the sociologic fabric of our lives. Yet, we rarely address this belief. Its rather like a "fact" held, but without a serious discussion of the fact's perimeters. There is a cultural assumption that we all "know" what "one God" means. Yet, in truth, we do not.
God is so diversely understood as to render any one understanding of Him/Her/It virtually meaningless in terms of consensus. This is partly due, I think, to the fact that we assume so often we each "know" what the other means when we refer to God, but also I think, to a real unwillingness to explore the topic. We prefer, in a sense, the anthropomorphized version of God so deeply ingrained in our consciousness and pervasive in our religious literature.
Zen demands us to ask, "what's this" at every turn in our conscious life. So when a contemplative student of whatever faith tradition approaches God in whatever context, he or she must first address the question, "what's this" before he or she can go any further.
So, what is God?
You see, immediately we are cast in a different dimension of understanding. No longer are the "he's and she's" of God appropriate.
I suspect God is a meta-label for what is infinitely out of our cognitive grasp. We might in the new age say God is universal energy, the stuff of life, but this would exclude God from matter. We might say, God is infinite love, but then we must understand love on such a cosmic level that the individual must be essentially meaningless, and therefore, the very word is rendered meaningless itself.
Historically, God was understood as either transcendent or immanent, that is, wholly other or completely present. Some might say God is both simultaneously.
Buddha argued that the very question was not helpful. He argued that the existence, non-existence, or shape and form of God was ultimately unknowable, and therefore a distraction from the Great Way.
When we understand God to be the absolute of Big Mind and the Relative of Small Mind, in the Zen context of understanding Non-duality and Duality, we get a somewhat different picture, however.
Letting go our grasp, opening our mind's eye to see the universe as it is, rather than as we would wish it to be, or as we think it is, takes us right to the question, what's this?
It is not the answer so much that is important, its not even the actual question, per se, but what is most important is our attitude toward our life and to the universe around us.
This leads us ultimately to the fact that we cannot really know God in the cognitive sense, but rather only in the experiential sense. We can know God through our experience of opening the hand of thought as Uchiyama-roshi elegantly phrases it. What we "know" is not a concept, not a static positivistic label, but rather, the universe itself. open and immediately present in our lives.
Be well.
Monotheism, the belief in one God, is a ubiquitous belief in the West. I said in an earlier post that it was a cultural belief and, as such, forms part of the sociologic fabric of our lives. Yet, we rarely address this belief. Its rather like a "fact" held, but without a serious discussion of the fact's perimeters. There is a cultural assumption that we all "know" what "one God" means. Yet, in truth, we do not.
God is so diversely understood as to render any one understanding of Him/Her/It virtually meaningless in terms of consensus. This is partly due, I think, to the fact that we assume so often we each "know" what the other means when we refer to God, but also I think, to a real unwillingness to explore the topic. We prefer, in a sense, the anthropomorphized version of God so deeply ingrained in our consciousness and pervasive in our religious literature.
Zen demands us to ask, "what's this" at every turn in our conscious life. So when a contemplative student of whatever faith tradition approaches God in whatever context, he or she must first address the question, "what's this" before he or she can go any further.
So, what is God?
You see, immediately we are cast in a different dimension of understanding. No longer are the "he's and she's" of God appropriate.
I suspect God is a meta-label for what is infinitely out of our cognitive grasp. We might in the new age say God is universal energy, the stuff of life, but this would exclude God from matter. We might say, God is infinite love, but then we must understand love on such a cosmic level that the individual must be essentially meaningless, and therefore, the very word is rendered meaningless itself.
Historically, God was understood as either transcendent or immanent, that is, wholly other or completely present. Some might say God is both simultaneously.
Buddha argued that the very question was not helpful. He argued that the existence, non-existence, or shape and form of God was ultimately unknowable, and therefore a distraction from the Great Way.
When we understand God to be the absolute of Big Mind and the Relative of Small Mind, in the Zen context of understanding Non-duality and Duality, we get a somewhat different picture, however.
Letting go our grasp, opening our mind's eye to see the universe as it is, rather than as we would wish it to be, or as we think it is, takes us right to the question, what's this?
It is not the answer so much that is important, its not even the actual question, per se, but what is most important is our attitude toward our life and to the universe around us.
This leads us ultimately to the fact that we cannot really know God in the cognitive sense, but rather only in the experiential sense. We can know God through our experience of opening the hand of thought as Uchiyama-roshi elegantly phrases it. What we "know" is not a concept, not a static positivistic label, but rather, the universe itself. open and immediately present in our lives.
Be well.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Hiking and Sitting: Zen Training
Good Morning Everyone,
This morning I will be hiking with a new friend who is here in the condo complex for a short time, as he lives in the Virgin Islands. The weather is cooperating, I think. Its supposed to be sunny with a high near 70 today. Currently, its 43 degrees outside. Delightful for a morning hike through the desert.
Some people enjoy company on their runs. While I will enjoy this man's company for a hike this morning, I confess, I do not enjoy company during training runs, in particular. While I welcome an occasional training partner, like my friend Katie, I would rather be alone on distance runs. Part of the reason for this is the value of concentration during training. Its one of the reasons silence is thunder during meditation retreats.
Training is a relationship with interior awareness and experience of a challenge. We say we will run hills, a set of four, six, eight, or ten hill repeats. Or we set out to do speed repeats. Or a long slow run to increase endurance. Each of these sets our interior world against an exterior challenge of mind, body, and spirit.
Just so, sesshin, the Zen practice of secluded, extended, silent meditation.
In each experience we are required to come to terms with ourselves as we approach and touch our limits. Sometimes we move past these limits by simply dissociating from our internal discomfort, we distract ourselves with mental tricks, jokes, etc., but this is not really a good way, in my opinion, as it takes us out of touch with what is actually going on and, in physical training, this can lead to injury.
The best approach is the Zen approach: complete presence with perseverance.
So, this morning, as I walk in the desert with my new friend, I will be aware that my attention is being divided between my footsteps and my mouth; between my body and our need to interact. In such a case, training becomes secondary as relationship becomes primary, and through this, enjoyment of the experience is made possible. This is what happens when I walk with My Little Honey, which I thoroughly enjoy.
I have not trained with Katie for a couple of weeks now. I miss going out with her. Maybe, if she reads this, she will go out with me on Thursday morning to run some hills.
Be well.
This morning I will be hiking with a new friend who is here in the condo complex for a short time, as he lives in the Virgin Islands. The weather is cooperating, I think. Its supposed to be sunny with a high near 70 today. Currently, its 43 degrees outside. Delightful for a morning hike through the desert.
Some people enjoy company on their runs. While I will enjoy this man's company for a hike this morning, I confess, I do not enjoy company during training runs, in particular. While I welcome an occasional training partner, like my friend Katie, I would rather be alone on distance runs. Part of the reason for this is the value of concentration during training. Its one of the reasons silence is thunder during meditation retreats.
Training is a relationship with interior awareness and experience of a challenge. We say we will run hills, a set of four, six, eight, or ten hill repeats. Or we set out to do speed repeats. Or a long slow run to increase endurance. Each of these sets our interior world against an exterior challenge of mind, body, and spirit.
Just so, sesshin, the Zen practice of secluded, extended, silent meditation.
In each experience we are required to come to terms with ourselves as we approach and touch our limits. Sometimes we move past these limits by simply dissociating from our internal discomfort, we distract ourselves with mental tricks, jokes, etc., but this is not really a good way, in my opinion, as it takes us out of touch with what is actually going on and, in physical training, this can lead to injury.
The best approach is the Zen approach: complete presence with perseverance.
So, this morning, as I walk in the desert with my new friend, I will be aware that my attention is being divided between my footsteps and my mouth; between my body and our need to interact. In such a case, training becomes secondary as relationship becomes primary, and through this, enjoyment of the experience is made possible. This is what happens when I walk with My Little Honey, which I thoroughly enjoy.
I have not trained with Katie for a couple of weeks now. I miss going out with her. Maybe, if she reads this, she will go out with me on Thursday morning to run some hills.
Be well.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Being One
With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
Yesterday I talked with a Zen student of mine on the telephone, I also received emails from several other students, each asked if I were OK. It seems of late I have not been posting as regularly as I have in the past and my students have detected a shift in my tone. They are good students! They will make good priests in the Zen tradition.
I have not posted as often because I have less to say just now. Not being affiliated with the local Zen Center I founded has left me as a fish out of water, one might say. One of the things I have done, then, is I dove into the Jewish pool at Temple Beth El here in Las Cruces. I study Talmud there once a week, attend a weekly discussion group, a weekly breakfast with the boys, and offer meditation once a week there. I even joined the Mensch Club. This, in addition to weekly Shabbot services on Friday night. My reading, outside of a renewed study of Uchiyama's "How To Cook Your Life", has been also in Judaism. I am preparing to teach a class in Jewish History to begin the first week of April. I will also offer two sections (one introductory, one advanced) on Jewish Spirituality at the Academy. I am reading Martin Buber's book, "The Ten Rungs and the Way of Man", as well as several other books cast about my bedroom and study. Of course, my study of Hebrew is continuing.
Why?
Well, for one thing, we all need a practice group. Judaism, like Zen, requires a sangha, a community of practitioners. Judaism, like Zen is a practice, but with a vast history and many possible ways of understanding relationship to both the Infinite and the world. It can approach this idealistically or in the contemplative traditions of Jewish mysticism, non-idealistically. Without a Zen Center, my Jewish history and identity offered me support.
Most importantly, however, is this: Zen in America is not a religion. Its institutions are not well developed as community based centers. Zen communities, as I have found them, are not as family focused, and Zen Centers focus their attention on individual needs of members rather than the communal needs of the group and larger societal system.
We are a nation of cultural, if not religious, monotheists. Zen to thrive, must encounter this fact in ways that enhance the cultural monotheism, rather than fight against it.
While it is true, Zen does not have a "God" nor do we Zen practitioners "worship" in the same sense as the monotheistic faiths do, it is equally true that the more spiritually centered and contemplative branches of the monotheistic faiths share more in common with Zen than they do their own non-contemplative brethren
My sense is that Zen can be a serious teacher for us all. It can offer a real wake-up potential to those who sleepwalk through their days, dutifully going to work or church or synagogue on weekends. But to do so, Zen must enter these faiths and assume a role within them.
Personally I am fortunate to have a local congregation that is open, a congregation of learners, as Rabbi Emeritus Kane has pointed out, who are willing to learn with me.
As a result I will be a better Jew, a better Zen Master, and certainly a far better integrated human being. Another result will be a more American Zen tradition.
Be well.
Good Morning Everyone,
Yesterday I talked with a Zen student of mine on the telephone, I also received emails from several other students, each asked if I were OK. It seems of late I have not been posting as regularly as I have in the past and my students have detected a shift in my tone. They are good students! They will make good priests in the Zen tradition.
I have not posted as often because I have less to say just now. Not being affiliated with the local Zen Center I founded has left me as a fish out of water, one might say. One of the things I have done, then, is I dove into the Jewish pool at Temple Beth El here in Las Cruces. I study Talmud there once a week, attend a weekly discussion group, a weekly breakfast with the boys, and offer meditation once a week there. I even joined the Mensch Club. This, in addition to weekly Shabbot services on Friday night. My reading, outside of a renewed study of Uchiyama's "How To Cook Your Life", has been also in Judaism. I am preparing to teach a class in Jewish History to begin the first week of April. I will also offer two sections (one introductory, one advanced) on Jewish Spirituality at the Academy. I am reading Martin Buber's book, "The Ten Rungs and the Way of Man", as well as several other books cast about my bedroom and study. Of course, my study of Hebrew is continuing.
Why?
Well, for one thing, we all need a practice group. Judaism, like Zen, requires a sangha, a community of practitioners. Judaism, like Zen is a practice, but with a vast history and many possible ways of understanding relationship to both the Infinite and the world. It can approach this idealistically or in the contemplative traditions of Jewish mysticism, non-idealistically. Without a Zen Center, my Jewish history and identity offered me support.
Most importantly, however, is this: Zen in America is not a religion. Its institutions are not well developed as community based centers. Zen communities, as I have found them, are not as family focused, and Zen Centers focus their attention on individual needs of members rather than the communal needs of the group and larger societal system.
We are a nation of cultural, if not religious, monotheists. Zen to thrive, must encounter this fact in ways that enhance the cultural monotheism, rather than fight against it.
While it is true, Zen does not have a "God" nor do we Zen practitioners "worship" in the same sense as the monotheistic faiths do, it is equally true that the more spiritually centered and contemplative branches of the monotheistic faiths share more in common with Zen than they do their own non-contemplative brethren
My sense is that Zen can be a serious teacher for us all. It can offer a real wake-up potential to those who sleepwalk through their days, dutifully going to work or church or synagogue on weekends. But to do so, Zen must enter these faiths and assume a role within them.
Personally I am fortunate to have a local congregation that is open, a congregation of learners, as Rabbi Emeritus Kane has pointed out, who are willing to learn with me.
As a result I will be a better Jew, a better Zen Master, and certainly a far better integrated human being. Another result will be a more American Zen tradition.
Be well.
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