Appreciation

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

Over the next three mornings we will host a garage sale at our home. Goodness. I don't look forward to this process. My Little Honey, however, has been working diligently to make this happen. She does so much for me and for "us". I pale in comparison, not that we should make comparisons.

Appreciation for those who are close to me and who love me is not a difficult challenge for me, expressing it is. I am awkward with warm, fuzzy expressions, choosing almost always to be silent when I feel overwhelmed by the help and love of others. The problem is, of course, that people need to feel appreciated and struggle when they are not.

For me, I think the issue involved is vulnerability to emotion. I feel vulnerable when I express a soft, warm, and fuzzy feeling. When I express gratitude to another human being its as though I must put up my guard. Their goodness opens me up to feelings.

Lately especially, I have noticed a rise in my anxiety. Vulnerability is problematic. Yet here it is: life.

Recognizing and being willing to express appreciation to those who care for us is critical to healthy relationships. I find it easy to appreciate the earth, the grocery store, farmers, cooks, and gas stations. I am working on expressing my appreciation to my family.

May this note be a first step.

Be well.

Recovery

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

If we say we have the potential to be or that we strive to be, in effect we are saying we are becoming. These are the pleas of buddhas hooked on dualism. There is no becoming, no trying. These are the drugs of Small Mind. Quit! Get clean! Sober up!

What is left?

Everything as it is. No striving, no separation. Not perfect? What is perfection but a creation of a dualistic mind seeking non-dualism?

What is left?

Doing. Being. Buddha Nature.

The Six Perfections aren't goals; they are our reality. Trying to be our reality denies us that reality. Becoming is an obstacle to being.

The Infinite teaches us to be awake. Every stone in the road. Every sudden noise. Every rainbow. Every thunderclap. Every Other. A cacophony of mindfulness bells being invited to ring. We have but to listen.

Be well.

Always

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

The day, for me, is in full bloom, although it is overcast and the sun has barely shown itself. Rising early, getting things done, we appreciate moments to stop and just be present. I managed to do a 2 mile fast walk, a half mile run, and another 1.5 mile slow walk in the park this morning. Some time was spent with Jacob and My Little Honey, some Cheerios, and now here I am talking to you.

Today I will prepare for a lecture on "Kadosh" or Holiness. I will be presenting this lecture at Temple Beth El on Wednesday morning at 9:00 AM. Kadosh means many things, and holiness is not always the best way to understand it. As a contemplative Jewish practitioner and Zen Master, I practice to realize with, more often than not, what we call mochin d'gadlut, or "spacious mind". In Zen, the equivalent is "Big Mind". (A close friend and Social Work professor used to call this "Divergent Mind".) This is to say realizing the Infinite in me and the Infinite in you are One. Just so, the Infinite in me is the same as the Infinite in my coffee mug, or my carpet, or my dog. We are all one stuff manifesting is infinite process: one vast cosmic system.

To be holy is to be awake to this and to behave its truth. The commandments and stories in the Torah are fingers pointing to this Always Was/Always Am/Always Will Be moon. Just so, the sutras, the practices, and all the myriad dharma gates.

When we approach our moment to moment life this way, everything is divine avodah, everything is blessing, and everything is buddha-nature. The teaching? Touch your life in each of its moments with reverence.

Stop

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

Please take a moment
Just now...
Stop,
Listen,
Pay attention:

Crickets chirp
Dishwasher swishes
Cool morning air glides across my shoulders
My alarm says its time to dress for a run.


Be well,
Zazen at 9:00 AM Clear Mind Zendo.

Feathers

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
The time is 4:56. I have been sitting in my small zendo for a half hour, with the exception of the time it took to get the coffee pot going. In another half hour I will get up from this cushion and go for a walk/run, then clean the kitchen, then go to streetZen, then go to services at Temple Beth -El. This afternoon, I need to prep my classes for Sunday's Academy. And this evening a special havdalah service at White Sands National Park.

All are just one thing in front of another. Some may happen, some may not: no worries.

Some of you wrote to me about my equanimity. Thank you. This duck has mastered floating a long time ago. Yet, still occasionally he gets his feathers all a-fluff. Like any bird, though, in the blink of an eye, all feathers are back in place.

When our feathers are in place, our mind follows.

Be well.



Harvey So Daiho Hilbert-roshi
On the web at: http://www.clearmindzen.org
Telephone: 575-405-8522

Equanimity

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

"The truth of my experience," reports Joan Halifax, Roshi, "is that the tender balance of equanimity can be easily lost."

And so it is. For sometime now I have felt a disturbance of my own equanimity. Some call it anxiety. Or stress. Or being out of balance. Life feels like it is about stepping up and down on the point of a pin. We need to be steady, trusting, caring, and careful.

Our Zen practice helps us develop this skill. We sit with whatever comes up, residing calmly in its midst.

I like to think of it as being like a duck floating in a pond. Serene, the duck floats smiling in the sun and shade. Then dark clouds. Wind. Water rises and falls. If we have equanimity, we continue to float, rising and falling with the wind and water. If we don't, we rock, we feel fear, we worry, and maybe we even argue with the storm.

This ability to stay present in the midst of turmoil, emotional hurt, sadness, fear or anger, is a function of faith in the impermanence of all things. If we can reside in it, release our feelings in it, and have faith in the very moment we are in, no problem.

In fact, for a duck who resides in equanimity, there is no storm in the midst of a storm. Storm exists only outside of itself, in relation to something else, like placid wind.

Halifax-roshi presents a meditation: "All beings are owners of their karma. Their happiness and unhappiness depend on their actions, not on my wishes for them."

I take this to mean that I both create and assign meaning to my own reality. Know this: we all lose our footing, no one is exempt. Disturbed? Rocking about on the lake? Take a breath. Change the reality and expectation, shift the meaning, move the focus off the disturbance and onto a response to it.

So, I float today. I do my fast walk, my grocery shopping, my laundry, my dishes, and I type this note to you. Zen is a beautiful thing.

Be well.

Quotes from Halifax, Joan, "Being with Dying", 2008.

The Mean Time

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

Nearly every morning when I sit down to write to you the phrase, "In the meantime..." pops into my mind. I have, thus far, avoided beginning a post with this phrase (or so I believe). This morning I think the reason is, that everything is in "the mean time". The mean time is what time exists between the shadow of the past and the hope of the future, both mental constructs ready, willing, and able to be changed. What is left is just this, the mean time.

In the mean time, my fingers lightly, sometimes not so lightly, press the keys on my rather ancient Dell. My heart is your heart. My mind is your mind. The cool breeze of the desert night slips through the screen door as the sound of the dishwasher bounces around the house. The mean time.

Student Aijin Song wrote on her Facebook wall asking why we must assign meaning to things as everything comes and goes. I replied, "But we do: a koan." Not so helpful, I suppose, yet it is the secret to our way. Contemplative practitioners notice the dance: we dance and don't dance at one and the same time. This is to say, 'live in the mean time.'

Be well.