When at the Top of the Mountain, Don't Shout!

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

When we see clearly through to the Absolute, so what? We realize emptiness, and? Our way is the highway. We don't stop at the top of the mountain. When we see clearly, friends, we see our work.

Agent wrote on Zen Living:

To see something as neededIs not to see something as it isBut it is to add our desire onto itThus, we see our desires as they are, too.


There are ten stages on the famous ox-herding pictures. At some point after seeing realizing the Way, the ox-herder returns to the village. He is "free and easy" in the market place. What do you think he does there? What is his function there?


When the baby cries, what do you do? when to dog needs water, what do you do? Our bodhisattva vow has us responding to the cries of the world; it is not we who cry. We simply care. This is our buddha-heart.

Be well.

Questions

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

Zen is about all existence in all times. When we thoroughly experience the present moment as it clearly is, we experience all moments. We are karma unfolding and each moment, its flower. Not all flowers are nice. All flowers are nice. Flowers are just flowers. Moments are just moments. Our karma is to see clearly. You have come to Zen Living, a communication branch of Clear Mind Zen.

As I open my eyes, the world is created. Like an artist, I add this shade or hue to that flower. While this flower sits in the shade or wilts. My dog barks to disturb me or to talk to me or to simply bark. It is me who makes meaning.

When we see clearly, we see things as they are. Master Seung Sahn says this means we see function. We see what is needed. Water the flower, dead-head the flower, walk the dog, pet the dog. And so on. The world we create is not about us and our needs, although we would like it to be. Rather, it is about calling us to action.

The action we employ is a reflection of our perception: is it about "me" or "you" or neither? Is it about the world as it is? Is it about our relative state of awakened being?

To sit zazen is to address these questions. To walk kinhin is to address these questions. To practice samu is to address these questions. To eat mindfully is to address these questions.

Forget your answers.

Be well.

Put a Little Zen in Your Life

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

Mastering your mind is the aim of Zen practice. What does this mean? It means many things on many levels. Not just one thing. Yesterday I suggested sitting with scissors. Yes. Sit zazen, as a thought arises cut it loose. As a feeling arises cut it loose. We practice not thinking. Thinking is the act of putting one thought together with another thought and another and soon we've constructed a thinking reality in which we reside. This thinking reality excludes the actual reality of our lives. If you want to live in a movie, be my guest, stay asleep. Sometime something will whack you upside the head.

Mastering mind also means knowing/experiencing proper relationship of mind to mind. This is a bit more challenging. In Zen we talk about "mind to mind" transmission. Mind to mind is one mind, experience one mind. We do this by beginning outside of our self. When we open our eyes, do we say "I see you"? Or do we say nothing and simply experience the whole? Our starting point is harmony.

We practice to experience the other as our self and our self as the other to the point that self and other are one and the individual words become hindrances. No mind. This is the relationship side of our practice.

If you say, 'but what about me?' you are lost. Let that be your danger flag. Your early warning device. From Zen practice, there is no "me". No "you" There is only awareness.

We function within this awareness. Experience within awareness requires this. Experience within awareness requires that.

When we function in this way we see Big Mind in operation. But caution! The moment you think, "Big Mind", it disappears.

Be well.

Sitting with Scissors

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

There were five of us last night who braved the chilled evening air to come to the Temple for meditation. It was very good to see Rachel there, and Sam KoKyo, and Patrick, and Colette. We sat in silence and felt the chill in the Temple sanctuary...not as cold as some evenings when I sat streetZen at the Veteran's Park rotunda, but enough to let one know there was little heat.

As we sit, we experience. This is the important thing. We experience without attaching to or investing in, the experience. We experience without desiring to get away from the experience. We just sit with scissors cutting thoughts and letting them float away. Soon, there is no need for scissors.

I am very happy we had an opportunity to practice together.

I read Sam KoKoyo wishes to give me thirty whacks if I say anything. Sipping my coffee, I smile.

I read Dave KoMyo offers me a teaching from His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, and offers as well a fond memory of my friend, Ken.

I read Wen and am taken back to long conversations with Tex Anderson, a Navajo Road Chief on the reservation.

With intimacy comes responsibility to be open and reception to the other. Student KoKyo and I discussed some of this yesterday in dokusan. It all depends on our starting point. When we open our eyes, whose eyes do we see with?

Be well.

Intimacy

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

The sun rises over the Organ mountains as I sit in the comfort of my Zendo. I have recently switched back to sandalwood incense. I had been using cedar. Sandalwood is the incense my Teacher uses in his Zendo. I think I am yearning for connection.

My Little Honey and I had a talk about this last night. Connection is so important, yet a challenge for many, including myself. By connection I don't mean the superficial, acquaintance level. I mean a deeper, much more intimate level. And yet, when I consider any deep connection but with the Infinite in the privacy of the Zendo, I feel anxious and vulnerable. Such a struggle.

My response is to become defensive. I talk. I turn the conversation away. I leave.

Years of practice has helped me "see" these things. And I have adapted in some cases. I rarely use intense anger to frighten people away. Nor do I use the sort of intellectually arrogance sarcasm that was present in my grad school days.

My technique is much more sophisticated now. Yet, it leads to the very same place. A lack of real, sustaining, connection to others who are close to me and very important to me.

Preparing for this class I am teaching at the Academy has made some of this very clear. I am using my journal much more efficiently and purposefully.

So, the good part about Zen practice is that it gets us close to the truth of ourselves, but there is a shortcoming, I think, in how we teach Zen in the US, since it is taught outside of a monastic community. This shortcoming has to do with intimacy.

Many of us who come to Zen experience this and its just fine because it is what we want. Yet, that want is a real block to our growth as human beings.

What do you think?

Be well.

Impossible Expectations

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

Impossible expectations are always a source of suffering. Over the last few weeks we have witnessed a war in Gaza. Hamas rockets for years were met with an overwhelming assault by Israel. Hamas places rocket launchers near hospitals and schools then claims Israel commits war crimes when it attacks those launching sites. Israel yesterday ceased fire, unilaterally. Hamas keeps up its rocket attacks. Hamas says it will do so until Israel leaves Gaza. Israel says it will leave Gaza when Hamas stops firing rockets over its borders.

My heart suffers at the pain on both sides.

Hamas says it will not stop fighting with Israel until Israel goes away. Its hate is deep and unrelenting. Hamas suffers. Hamas teaches its children to be joyful when Israelis die. Israelis teach children to be sad when any life is taken. Yet, when faced with a gun pointed at you and an enemy willing to kill you with it, somehow you must survive.

The question is how.

My prayers go out to all those who suffer in such circumstances. Both the ones with the guns and bombs and the ones who are the targets of the guns and bombs. We are all human beings. May both sides relent, seek peace, and find ways to embrace each other. an impossible expectation? Perhaps, But a righteous aim.

So, we work and pray for peace and compassionate living knowing that any expectation that such will be the case will lead to suffering. This is the heart of Buddhist practice.

Be well.

PS. I just read Hamas ordered a ceasefire! Good news!

Danger, Zen Ahead!

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

We each are stuck if we believe we have "a path" to walk. There is no path. When we envision "path" we envision and to do so creates an illusion at best and an ideal at worst.

Yet, each us us will speak of our path.


What if the path is not really a path at all, but just being still? I don't mean not moving. I mean inner stillness, inner receptivity.

Path suggests a beginning point and an end point somewhere on the horizon. Zen has no horizon save that which is here right now. There is no where to go.

Few of us believe this. It is beyond our willingness to accept. There must be something better! So, off we trot to find it.

Heaven, Nirvana, Enlightenment. ..all very dangerous words and concepts, you see. To be there is to be in hell.

So, you want ice cream? Ice cream would make you happy? Live in ice cream, live in that happiness. Now stay there forever. How happy then?

It is not our nature to remain in happiness, it is not happiness' nature to remain period.

Everything comes and goes, when we attain this, no path arises.

Be well.