Ahimsa

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
Morning and my body do not seem to be in accord today. I am awake before it is time and my head is rebelling with a dull thud. Muscles ache, tendons argue, and coffee feels like medicine rather than the delight that it usually is. Still, the day is here and I am grateful to rise to meet it.
One of the key precepts in contemplative life is ahimsa, do no harm. The precepts themselves seem to flow from this central notion. I would rather understand this practice in its affirmative: I vow to nurture life.
When I do this, precepts such as ‘do not kill’ are recast as “support and nurture life”, and “do not steal” as “”affirm the integrity of others”. When I attempt to live in this way, my aim is to practice living my life as a healer. The tools I possess reside in my heart/mind and are expressed through my body and speech.
Refraining from something is passive. It is far too easy to relax into a sort of quietism I can ill afford as a Bodhisattva. So, today I vow to support and nurture life in each thing I do.

Be well.

My Face

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

Stepping out of the light of the known, approaching the edge, what is my face? The edge between the known and the unknown is the true heart of darkness, At this edge I experience what at first feels like fear, but when I open my eyes! Awe.
In this place, I realize there is no true darkness because darkness is only a doorway to the light of my True Nature. What is my face?

Be well

Seeds

With palms together,

Good Evening Everyone,

This day was a long one. I just returned from El Paso where I sat with the No Sides/Both Sides Zen Sangha, a border community. Two Zensters were from Juarez one of whom, Susanna, used to come to Zen Center to sit with me. It was very good to see her again.

I will be ordaining Bobby Byrd, one of the founders of that Zendo, the first week or April at Hanamatsuri Bobby and I go back a few years now and it is good to see him take this step.

Afterwards, we had dinner, Bobby, John Fortunato, and me. It was good to meet with these two Zensters. Three old farts sitting in a Middle Eastern Café in El Paso Texas talking Zen, Christianity, and Judaism: who da thunk it?

The seeds are being planted. May the flowers bloom.

Be well.

A reminderr: there are no Sunday Zen Services at my personal Zendo until further notice.

Ocean

With palms together,
Good Evening Everyone,

Is eternal life, that is, the practice and realization of Zen, simply the absence of an I? No drop of water is independent from an ocean. At various times we are drops, whole waves, and even the ocean in its entirety. Our practice is to be at ease attaining one in the same.

Be well.

The Student and the Teacher

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
The night sky invites my eye. I am sitting at my dining room table next to the picture window. When I turn off the lights, it is as though I am sitting in a planetarium. There is such beauty in the early morning. The sound of the heating system, or the boys padding around on the tile floor, or the crunch of somebody nibbling at the dog food I just put down: these are the sounds moving through the darkness.
It is good to have this time. I face a very busy day today, as Wednesdays typically are for me. Gentle time to be aware, unhurried, and unfolding is precious. Such moments are true teachers.
The lessons involve the mysteries of our personal connection to that which is hidden. How we face these mysteries is important. With open or closed eyes? With open or closed ears? With open or closed heart?
Be still and pay attention I whisper to myself.
Be well,

Swimming in Everything

With palms together,

Good Morning Everyone,



This morning I will drive over to Temple Beth El and do what I am calling Contemplative Practices there. Beginning Monday I will do this daily on weekdays at 7:00 AM. Contemplative Practices are Morning Prayers, Meditation, and Yoga. Each to be done mindfully, slowly, and with the aim of developing gratitude, compassion, and patience for the day.



For me, Zen practice is a universal componant to all contemplative practices. Zen in stillness (seated practice), and Zen in motion (eating, walking, yoga, weghts, tai chi, work, etc.), are all one in the same thing: mindful living



When we live mindfully: we are living with an open heart, open to the Infinite. Whether we call this the Infinite, Big Mind, Buddha Nature, Christ, God, a Highr Power, or simply the Highest Good, is irrelevant. In fact, what we call it can be problematic if the term we use denotes a static conception or image because of our natural inclination to grasp such a thin and hold onto it.



So, it is a challenge to live without nouns! Life as continuous, never-ending process, has nothing stable upon which to stand. This lack of firm foundation is very scary. Yet, like being underwater in a pool, our environment completely surrounds us and as we relax into it we join it. Pure freedom, yes, but most importantly, we are in a position to taste life as it is, rather than as we think it is.



Be well.

Forest

With palms together,

Good Morning Everyone,



Last night I was working on a paper concluding a course of study in Judaism and I found myself just writing as I do in my blogs. It is a mistake I think to try to consider a religious point of view as one thing or another.


The practice is to just be.



So, in the middle of writing, I composed this:



The Infinite does not speak to me,
It whispers, kisses, and hovers.
It rises thrugh my fingers
with each touch of a key
on my keyboard
like fingers touching a mirror.
there It is,..
Tactile dialogue
as words pirouette.


I think I like being lost in the wilderness of a forest where nothing has a name and everything is just there before me. It makes every touch count.

Be well.