With palms together,
Good Afternoon Everyone,
This morning we clicked on Robbie the Robot to sweep the floors. As Robbie was doing his (or is it, her(?) thing, I went down to the hundred year dam and did a speed workout through the grove beside it. Ended up doing two miles with 4 x 0.10 mile repeats. We then went to the audiologist and My Little Honey was fitted with new hearing aids! She now notices every sound including our kiss (she just left to have lunch with the ladies).
I am busily preparing for our Temple book club this Sunday. It is my turn to lead the discussion and I selected a book by Rabbi Karyn Kedar entitled, God Whispers: stories of the soul, lessons of the heart. The book is a collection of her reflections as a rabbi working with people. Its the sort of thing I write, actually. Stories of real life used as lessons for myself and perhaps others.
Writing is a great way to clarify. The act of putting words on paper...or in this case, a computer screen...is an act of simultaneous creation and organization. One must put thoughts together so they make sense and at the same time are both interesting and challenging for the reader. I sometimes wonder if I ever make sense. Maybe making sense is not optimal, I don't know. Rabbi Kedar suggests at one point that we must "expand our boundaries". By this she means we should not let artificial limits cut off our choices. I thought of comedian George Carlin as I re-read through that section recently. Carlin had a way of seeing outside the box that made the box itself an exemplar of our limits. He used this skill to great advantage as he just went right through the limits.
However, we cannot always do this and pushing limits must be intelligent and purposeful. Too often people act out just because they can, setting aside the question of whether they should or not. Not good enough. Civilization suffers. Still, we must get out of our habits of thinking, feeling, and seeing, as only then are truly new possibilities open to us.
Well, I now have to clean the bamboo flooring with wood cleaner...an easy job, and then get back to my book.
Be well.
Organ Mountain Zen
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
Life Itself is the Verb
With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
When we say, "Just this!" we point to the field of deep interdependence and oneness. Just this, the moment we see clearly, the moment the point is understood as both one and many, where near and far, birth and death, fall away, is also the moment to get off our butts and do something.
Awakening is just to open one's eyes; living is to be alive with those eyes open.
As living beings awake to the true nature of reality, we see what is to be done and we do it. There is no real room for should, would, or could. Oneness is seamless. No subject; no object: life itself is the verb.
If we want to live in peace, we just live in peace. Inner and outer are one. No separation. Separation is illusion. A mind at peace with doing is at peace, period.
One might say, but what if killing needs to be done? What if people are causing harm? An awakened person addresses such people with compassion, understanding such people are acting out of an interest to be free from suffering. They are taking short-cuts and creating suffering in the process. We model a peaceful, non-violent, and compassionate way. We know that as we are non-violent, the world is offered the gift of non-violence. It is very important to take a long view of this. In the short term many non-violent people may suffer at the hands of violent folk, but we see a trend, an evolution of sensibility and ethics, if you will, that points in the direction of enlightened living.
While we know something may be harmful, we may not yet be ready to stop doing it...but we do know better! This knowing is a seed that can be watered. As a global human culture, we are moving quickly together...some, especially the fundamentalist and conservative, kicking and screaming, into a progressive future, but we are evolving.
Be well.
Good Morning Everyone,
When we say, "Just this!" we point to the field of deep interdependence and oneness. Just this, the moment we see clearly, the moment the point is understood as both one and many, where near and far, birth and death, fall away, is also the moment to get off our butts and do something.
Awakening is just to open one's eyes; living is to be alive with those eyes open.
As living beings awake to the true nature of reality, we see what is to be done and we do it. There is no real room for should, would, or could. Oneness is seamless. No subject; no object: life itself is the verb.
If we want to live in peace, we just live in peace. Inner and outer are one. No separation. Separation is illusion. A mind at peace with doing is at peace, period.
One might say, but what if killing needs to be done? What if people are causing harm? An awakened person addresses such people with compassion, understanding such people are acting out of an interest to be free from suffering. They are taking short-cuts and creating suffering in the process. We model a peaceful, non-violent, and compassionate way. We know that as we are non-violent, the world is offered the gift of non-violence. It is very important to take a long view of this. In the short term many non-violent people may suffer at the hands of violent folk, but we see a trend, an evolution of sensibility and ethics, if you will, that points in the direction of enlightened living.
While we know something may be harmful, we may not yet be ready to stop doing it...but we do know better! This knowing is a seed that can be watered. As a global human culture, we are moving quickly together...some, especially the fundamentalist and conservative, kicking and screaming, into a progressive future, but we are evolving.
Be well.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Transitions
With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
Last night we attended our synagogue's annual Gala. It was our first...we are not really fancy party people...but, after last night, I can tell you, it will not be our last. Moreover, since I am now a board member, a page must be turned and I will have to do things I'm not necessarily comfortable with. This event is a fundraiser for the Temple and contributes mightily to our annual budget. Tickets are pricey and there is a large silent auction of donated gifts.
As we arrived, the wind was blowing very badly. The event was to be held outside under two large tents with the auction held inside. We have been having days of clear skies and triple digit temps so we anticipated being baked as we ate and danced and bid on gifts. Not so. Instead, the sky decided to develop massive clouds, thunder and lightening and, of all things, rain. Everyone in their finery were either windblown or rained on...so we hustled inside, moved the sanctuary chairs and brought in the tables from the tents! It was a close fit, but actually rather intimate.
After eating tons of delicious hors dourves, and great entrees, bidding, and great conversation, the rains let up (as did the lightening), so the band set up and we all went outside to dance under the stars. Judy and I went home around nine...I can't stay up much past that...and so we didn't see if we were successful on our bids. We'll see.
Anyway, I was thinking about turning pages. How difficult it is to move on from a past place to a new, uncharted place. One of the more challenging points in life to transition is from one role to another, such as in retirement or in a change of professions. I have gone from being a religious leader in my own right to a participant with no real expertise. To move from leader to member can be a challenge as we are used to being looked to, used to taking charge, and used to having answers. As a plain congregant, the situation is much different. I go to Temple and am often lost in the Hebrew, the liturgy, as it moved from one point to another. When to stand, when to sit, when to bow, when to rise up on our heels...a myriad of subtle and sometimes not so subtle liturgical events.
In Zen Centers the word is hushed silence, a turning inward, and long periods of sitting zazen. There I am "Roshi," a Zen Master. In synagogue, I am just Harvey, and the word is loud, with song, and in what amounts to a very strange and foreign language. I go from silence to making joyful noises to the Lord; I go from knowing myself as no self to knowing nothing and learning each day. I go from standing in front to sitting as close to the back as possible.
But here's the thing: the page is turned.
I must learn how to be a simple congregant. I must learn how to approach the daily life of a Jew as a simple Jew. Now, the good news is that this is exactly what Zen teaches us. To approach our lives in the most plain and simple and direct way possible. As I have been, and continue to be, a willing student of Zen; so to I will now be a willing student of Judaism and congregational membership.
As I open my zendo to others when our new home is completed, I will be a better Zen teacher as I will truly have nothing to teach.
Be well.
Good Morning Everyone,
Last night we attended our synagogue's annual Gala. It was our first...we are not really fancy party people...but, after last night, I can tell you, it will not be our last. Moreover, since I am now a board member, a page must be turned and I will have to do things I'm not necessarily comfortable with. This event is a fundraiser for the Temple and contributes mightily to our annual budget. Tickets are pricey and there is a large silent auction of donated gifts.
As we arrived, the wind was blowing very badly. The event was to be held outside under two large tents with the auction held inside. We have been having days of clear skies and triple digit temps so we anticipated being baked as we ate and danced and bid on gifts. Not so. Instead, the sky decided to develop massive clouds, thunder and lightening and, of all things, rain. Everyone in their finery were either windblown or rained on...so we hustled inside, moved the sanctuary chairs and brought in the tables from the tents! It was a close fit, but actually rather intimate.
After eating tons of delicious hors dourves, and great entrees, bidding, and great conversation, the rains let up (as did the lightening), so the band set up and we all went outside to dance under the stars. Judy and I went home around nine...I can't stay up much past that...and so we didn't see if we were successful on our bids. We'll see.
Anyway, I was thinking about turning pages. How difficult it is to move on from a past place to a new, uncharted place. One of the more challenging points in life to transition is from one role to another, such as in retirement or in a change of professions. I have gone from being a religious leader in my own right to a participant with no real expertise. To move from leader to member can be a challenge as we are used to being looked to, used to taking charge, and used to having answers. As a plain congregant, the situation is much different. I go to Temple and am often lost in the Hebrew, the liturgy, as it moved from one point to another. When to stand, when to sit, when to bow, when to rise up on our heels...a myriad of subtle and sometimes not so subtle liturgical events.
In Zen Centers the word is hushed silence, a turning inward, and long periods of sitting zazen. There I am "Roshi," a Zen Master. In synagogue, I am just Harvey, and the word is loud, with song, and in what amounts to a very strange and foreign language. I go from silence to making joyful noises to the Lord; I go from knowing myself as no self to knowing nothing and learning each day. I go from standing in front to sitting as close to the back as possible.
But here's the thing: the page is turned.
I must learn how to be a simple congregant. I must learn how to approach the daily life of a Jew as a simple Jew. Now, the good news is that this is exactly what Zen teaches us. To approach our lives in the most plain and simple and direct way possible. As I have been, and continue to be, a willing student of Zen; so to I will now be a willing student of Judaism and congregational membership.
As I open my zendo to others when our new home is completed, I will be a better Zen teacher as I will truly have nothing to teach.
Be well.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Mindfulness
With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
To practice Clear Mind Zen is to practice with an open mind. Our mind should be so open that its like a room with large, open windows on each side. Nothing resides in this room. Whatever enters this room enters without being spun around, redressed, or otherwise altered. What is there is brief and pure and free to leave.
I am reading a book recommended by Rabbi Citrin entitled, Your Word is Fire. Its a collection of teachings from Hasidic masters of contemplative prayer. Usually, in our modern, superficial, sense prayer is considered a plea or supplication to God who we imagine might be listening. Rife with anthropomorphic simile, this understanding nearly always reflects, then forces, a concept of God as a "being".
Chasidic masters, like Zen masters, are masters of Emptiness. Prayer is a practice that allows heart/mind (in Zen, shin) to open and be filled with no-thing. Prayer becomes a dynamic process of joining the entire universe as it is, directly. This entire universe, as it is, is God.
Prayerbooks, liturgy, chanting...all are pathways to openness. Invitations to enter the empty room with its expansive, open windows. We read the prayerbook, go through a daily liturgy, and chant our way into emptiness: a total union between everything and us. We must see them, as Buddha saw practice, boats to the other shore. They are tools.
Yet, tools with a rub. The rub is that we never leave one shore for the other. The other shore is this shore: the tools are both a means and end. Practicing zazen is practice enlightenment. Prayer is direct and complete communion with the Universe.
In Judaism, prayer functions as a daily set of pathways, as well. We get up in the morning, thank God for returning our soul, we express our mindful awareness that we have a body and that all its tubes are working. we prepare to pray, we recite our statement regarding the oneness of God, we recite blessings, we ask for healing for those who are ill, we bless God when thinking of those who have experienced death. Throughout the day we are asked to be mindful of everything: flowers, trees, bread, fruit, the sights of life, good news, bad news, you know, the whole enchilada. In short, we move from a focus on ourselves to a focus of the entire universe as our domain in partnership with the Universal. We have work to do!
In Zen, it is exactly the same. We recite blessings upon waking and going to sleep. We are asked to be mindfull of the many hands and many lives that bring us our food. We are enjoined to recite the Wisdom Heart Sutra, a sutra expressing the core understandings of Zen: everything comes and goes, nothing lasts forever, and that we have a part to play in daily life and that part is to live mindfully. We recite the Four Great Vows of the Bodhisattva and take refuge in the Three Treasures, the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. We move from the contemplative cushion to contemplative social action, an action demanding we help all beings throughout time.
My sense is that every religious tradition has this oceanic movement from the particular to the universal. We each come to understand we are both wave and water. It is our life to practice Zen, whether it is Zen Buddhism, Zen Christianity, Zen Islam, or Zen Judaism: the key practice is the practice of mindfulness.
Be well.
PS: We have received two additional donations, one for $50.00 and another for $20.00! Thank you both!
Items we will need are: mokugyo (about $150.00; large gong on cushion (about $140.00); small bell on cushion (about $50.00), and a statue of Manjusri (about $50.00).
Good Morning Everyone,
To practice Clear Mind Zen is to practice with an open mind. Our mind should be so open that its like a room with large, open windows on each side. Nothing resides in this room. Whatever enters this room enters without being spun around, redressed, or otherwise altered. What is there is brief and pure and free to leave.
I am reading a book recommended by Rabbi Citrin entitled, Your Word is Fire. Its a collection of teachings from Hasidic masters of contemplative prayer. Usually, in our modern, superficial, sense prayer is considered a plea or supplication to God who we imagine might be listening. Rife with anthropomorphic simile, this understanding nearly always reflects, then forces, a concept of God as a "being".
Chasidic masters, like Zen masters, are masters of Emptiness. Prayer is a practice that allows heart/mind (in Zen, shin) to open and be filled with no-thing. Prayer becomes a dynamic process of joining the entire universe as it is, directly. This entire universe, as it is, is God.
Prayerbooks, liturgy, chanting...all are pathways to openness. Invitations to enter the empty room with its expansive, open windows. We read the prayerbook, go through a daily liturgy, and chant our way into emptiness: a total union between everything and us. We must see them, as Buddha saw practice, boats to the other shore. They are tools.
Yet, tools with a rub. The rub is that we never leave one shore for the other. The other shore is this shore: the tools are both a means and end. Practicing zazen is practice enlightenment. Prayer is direct and complete communion with the Universe.
In Judaism, prayer functions as a daily set of pathways, as well. We get up in the morning, thank God for returning our soul, we express our mindful awareness that we have a body and that all its tubes are working. we prepare to pray, we recite our statement regarding the oneness of God, we recite blessings, we ask for healing for those who are ill, we bless God when thinking of those who have experienced death. Throughout the day we are asked to be mindful of everything: flowers, trees, bread, fruit, the sights of life, good news, bad news, you know, the whole enchilada. In short, we move from a focus on ourselves to a focus of the entire universe as our domain in partnership with the Universal. We have work to do!
In Zen, it is exactly the same. We recite blessings upon waking and going to sleep. We are asked to be mindfull of the many hands and many lives that bring us our food. We are enjoined to recite the Wisdom Heart Sutra, a sutra expressing the core understandings of Zen: everything comes and goes, nothing lasts forever, and that we have a part to play in daily life and that part is to live mindfully. We recite the Four Great Vows of the Bodhisattva and take refuge in the Three Treasures, the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. We move from the contemplative cushion to contemplative social action, an action demanding we help all beings throughout time.
My sense is that every religious tradition has this oceanic movement from the particular to the universal. We each come to understand we are both wave and water. It is our life to practice Zen, whether it is Zen Buddhism, Zen Christianity, Zen Islam, or Zen Judaism: the key practice is the practice of mindfulness.
Be well.
PS: We have received two additional donations, one for $50.00 and another for $20.00! Thank you both!
Items we will need are: mokugyo (about $150.00; large gong on cushion (about $140.00); small bell on cushion (about $50.00), and a statue of Manjusri (about $50.00).
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Between This and That
With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
My open windows reveal a cool morning breeze. I set my floor fan to pull that cool air into the living room. We have had temperatures above 105 for days now. The day before yesterday I am told we were at 109 in some parts of Las Cruces.
All this heat reminds me of the story suggesting there is no hot or cold. Of course, its true. Hot and cold are words referring to concepts we construct based on a temperature normed by the earth and its relative distance from the sun and our particular body's capacity to exist within that range. In an Absolute sense, however, there is no hot or cold; these concepts exist in the Relative world, the world in which we live.
An awakened being experiences hot and cold as they are and not as that being wishes them to be. When we experience heat as it is, heat, per se, ceases to exist. There is just the experience of perspiration, burning skin, etc. Even these are a problem if we focus our attention on them and the relativity of their existence. To just experience is to just experience: no words added, no concepts added, no desires to change what is (or I suffer) added. Of course, within this frame of reference we also pay attention and act. We perspire so we drink water and turn on a fan or get under the shade of a tree. We experience just drinking water, turning on a fan, or getting under a tree. We experience these as they are.
Do not become too attached to this or that. Thinking life events, people, or conditions should be a certain way brings suffering upon us. Instead, just exist within your life as it is, gently adding or subtracting, making daily adjustments and living out those adjustments as they are. In this way we turn toward Buddha-dharma. In this way we live the Middle Way.
Be well.
PS. This morning I was greeted with a notice that someone donated $50.00 to Clear Mind Zen. What a wonderfully generous gift! Thank you!!!
Good Morning Everyone,
My open windows reveal a cool morning breeze. I set my floor fan to pull that cool air into the living room. We have had temperatures above 105 for days now. The day before yesterday I am told we were at 109 in some parts of Las Cruces.
All this heat reminds me of the story suggesting there is no hot or cold. Of course, its true. Hot and cold are words referring to concepts we construct based on a temperature normed by the earth and its relative distance from the sun and our particular body's capacity to exist within that range. In an Absolute sense, however, there is no hot or cold; these concepts exist in the Relative world, the world in which we live.
An awakened being experiences hot and cold as they are and not as that being wishes them to be. When we experience heat as it is, heat, per se, ceases to exist. There is just the experience of perspiration, burning skin, etc. Even these are a problem if we focus our attention on them and the relativity of their existence. To just experience is to just experience: no words added, no concepts added, no desires to change what is (or I suffer) added. Of course, within this frame of reference we also pay attention and act. We perspire so we drink water and turn on a fan or get under the shade of a tree. We experience just drinking water, turning on a fan, or getting under a tree. We experience these as they are.
Do not become too attached to this or that. Thinking life events, people, or conditions should be a certain way brings suffering upon us. Instead, just exist within your life as it is, gently adding or subtracting, making daily adjustments and living out those adjustments as they are. In this way we turn toward Buddha-dharma. In this way we live the Middle Way.
Be well.
PS. This morning I was greeted with a notice that someone donated $50.00 to Clear Mind Zen. What a wonderfully generous gift! Thank you!!!
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Moments
With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
There are some moments we would wish lasted forever. A grandchild's smile, the delight in our partner's eyes, or just a soothing moment in quiet peace. Yet, as we know, nothing lasts forever and our desire to hold on to moments does, indeed, produce suffering. So, what are we to do?
Relax. Have faith. Moments, while moments, are always moments. Life has a way, when we are open and accepting, to offer us moment after moment of wonder and delight. By setting aside our need to control a moment or have a certain kind of moment, we surrender to the actual moment, as it is.
These are the most delicious of moments as they are often completely unexpected.
Let yourself be surprised by your life.
Be well.
Good Morning Everyone,
There are some moments we would wish lasted forever. A grandchild's smile, the delight in our partner's eyes, or just a soothing moment in quiet peace. Yet, as we know, nothing lasts forever and our desire to hold on to moments does, indeed, produce suffering. So, what are we to do?
Relax. Have faith. Moments, while moments, are always moments. Life has a way, when we are open and accepting, to offer us moment after moment of wonder and delight. By setting aside our need to control a moment or have a certain kind of moment, we surrender to the actual moment, as it is.
These are the most delicious of moments as they are often completely unexpected.
Let yourself be surprised by your life.
Be well.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Meditation
With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
Someone suggested the topic, meditation, as a thread for the Zen Living list. Interesting. Zen living is about contemplative living. Every post is about meditation in the largest sense of the word. My sense is the writer wanted to focus more on seated meditation, our practice of zazen.
Zazen is nothing special. Zazen requires us to select a time and place. It requires us to be willing to gather our mind and body together on a cushion facing a wall in that time and place. It requires us to place our hands together in the cosmic mudra and our attention on our breath, in that time and place. It requires us to sit there for a predetermined period of time. All of this means, of course, that zazen requires us to face ourselves completely; alone and, essentially, naked. We sit stripped of our distractions: no radio, no CD, no television, no book, no eating, no gum chewing, no magazine, no talking, no drugging, no drinking, no getting sticky. Just sit.
On that cushion, everything about us is exposed. We experience our distractibility, our lack of patience, our lack of vigilance, and worse, our actual lives. No mind candy allowed. Just sit. Just paying complete attention to nothing.
Many say they cannot do this. They say they need music or bells, chanting or some other distraction from the work at hand. Yes, we are a culture enculturated to need distraction. This is why we need to practice zazen. Zazen teaches us, over time, that we are enough as we are. What a wonderful lesson!
Be well.
Good Morning Everyone,
Someone suggested the topic, meditation, as a thread for the Zen Living list. Interesting. Zen living is about contemplative living. Every post is about meditation in the largest sense of the word. My sense is the writer wanted to focus more on seated meditation, our practice of zazen.
Zazen is nothing special. Zazen requires us to select a time and place. It requires us to be willing to gather our mind and body together on a cushion facing a wall in that time and place. It requires us to place our hands together in the cosmic mudra and our attention on our breath, in that time and place. It requires us to sit there for a predetermined period of time. All of this means, of course, that zazen requires us to face ourselves completely; alone and, essentially, naked. We sit stripped of our distractions: no radio, no CD, no television, no book, no eating, no gum chewing, no magazine, no talking, no drugging, no drinking, no getting sticky. Just sit.
On that cushion, everything about us is exposed. We experience our distractibility, our lack of patience, our lack of vigilance, and worse, our actual lives. No mind candy allowed. Just sit. Just paying complete attention to nothing.
Many say they cannot do this. They say they need music or bells, chanting or some other distraction from the work at hand. Yes, we are a culture enculturated to need distraction. This is why we need to practice zazen. Zazen teaches us, over time, that we are enough as we are. What a wonderful lesson!
Be well.
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