With palms together
Good Morning Everyone,
If I want to build a sangha, I do not look for Zen Buddhists or even Buddhists for that matter. That would be a big mistake as I would be likely to collect a motley crew of people with all sorts of ideas about Zen.
No. First, I wouldn’t look period. I would find a place and set a time, and then I would just sit. Second, I would welcome whoever came to sit with me. The key is openness and keeping our eye on the ball: practice. I might post a flier or two. I would ask my friends. I would first and last, however, practice.
People too often set out with ideas in mind. This is not the Zen way. We do not chase ideas. We practice zazen.
Training is important when we get past just sitting. Instruction is important before and during our zazen. We never get past just sitting. Training in the forms is an issue for Zen Temples and Practice Centers. Important, yes, but not essential.
What is essential first is that we understand what we are doing and second, our limitations. We are practicing zazen. Instruction on this practice is readily available and quite simple. Its practice is difficult. We should be careful not to allow the fact that we do not have a sangha, room, or building to take us away from our practice. We always have a park or a tree or a sidewalk or some other public space we can just sit in. Kinhin can be practiced pretty much anywhere and at anytime. And mindfulness practice becomes a deeply ingrained way of life.
Let the labels go. Zen Buddhists? Not necessarily. People willing to sit down with us and take the backward step? Yes! Compassionate hearts? Yes! Diligent hearts? Yes!
It is the practice that is essential, nothing else.
Be well.
Organ Mountain Zen
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Monday, September 27, 2010
The Deep End
With palms together
Good Morning Everyone,
Stepping off into the deep end of the pool requires a few things. Courage, faith, and a certain foolhardiness, as well as a sense of centered acceptance of life as it presents itself. We must have faith in our ability to swim without aid of the pool bottom. We must have the courage to test that faith. We must be reckless enough to take the chance itself. Lastly, but I think most importantly, we must know our center intimately enough to know that regardless of any possible outcome, including drowning, we will be serene in the process. Serenity in this case, is a palpable acceptance of what is.
So if we are swimming, serene. If we are fearful, serene. If we are drowning, serene. We must use the word, centered, here to help us make sense of what I am calling serene. It isn’t that we are not struggling to stay afloat if something happens and we have begun to drown. We are struggling. But we are struggling knowing we are struggling and being completely with that struggling. When we are one with something that thing no longer exists opposed to us, but is us.
Recently I felt incredibly lonely. It was a day where I spoke to no one, saw no one, and even was prevented from doing computer work by the fact that I was going through a thorough scan of my computer, a process that took nearly four hours. During that time I faced myself quite directly. I saw the risks I have taken clearly. Family and friends are not what they were. I have changed my relationship to them. They rarely call and, to be honest, I rarely call them. It’s just not the same.
So, I sat at my desk in my little study/bedroom and experienced deep loneliness. It was my deep end of the pool. I went through self-pity, deep questioning of my motives, and a variety of feelings from fear and anger to hurt and sadness. In the end, I discovered I am OK. Here I am in this moment writing to you and offering something, I don’t know what.
I am a monk. I practice zazen. This is my new pool and my new stroke. Be well.
Good Morning Everyone,
Stepping off into the deep end of the pool requires a few things. Courage, faith, and a certain foolhardiness, as well as a sense of centered acceptance of life as it presents itself. We must have faith in our ability to swim without aid of the pool bottom. We must have the courage to test that faith. We must be reckless enough to take the chance itself. Lastly, but I think most importantly, we must know our center intimately enough to know that regardless of any possible outcome, including drowning, we will be serene in the process. Serenity in this case, is a palpable acceptance of what is.
So if we are swimming, serene. If we are fearful, serene. If we are drowning, serene. We must use the word, centered, here to help us make sense of what I am calling serene. It isn’t that we are not struggling to stay afloat if something happens and we have begun to drown. We are struggling. But we are struggling knowing we are struggling and being completely with that struggling. When we are one with something that thing no longer exists opposed to us, but is us.
Recently I felt incredibly lonely. It was a day where I spoke to no one, saw no one, and even was prevented from doing computer work by the fact that I was going through a thorough scan of my computer, a process that took nearly four hours. During that time I faced myself quite directly. I saw the risks I have taken clearly. Family and friends are not what they were. I have changed my relationship to them. They rarely call and, to be honest, I rarely call them. It’s just not the same.
So, I sat at my desk in my little study/bedroom and experienced deep loneliness. It was my deep end of the pool. I went through self-pity, deep questioning of my motives, and a variety of feelings from fear and anger to hurt and sadness. In the end, I discovered I am OK. Here I am in this moment writing to you and offering something, I don’t know what.
I am a monk. I practice zazen. This is my new pool and my new stroke. Be well.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Time
With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
This morning I am inspired by student Shoji’s work on Uji, a piece written by Master Dogen in the 13th century. Uji is a koan of sorts and relates time and being.
He concludes in a piece he is writing, A blade of grass that will eventually grow on a mountain that does not yet exist is here, always was and always will be. Likewise, a leaf that grew and decomposed millions of years ago is here, always was and always will be. After all, where is there to go if everything and everytime is now - is this present moment?
Zen asks us to experience all points, all relationships, all time as one, and, as Alan Watts once said: we are it. Conversely, for time to be time it must have points in space related to each other. And these points must be observed by an observer. In Samadhi: no points, no relationships, no observers, no time.
Separation from the observed is an illusion, therefore, observer and observed is an illusion, past, present and future is an illusion. There is no mountain then or now, no leaf then or now, there is no then or now, period.
And yet, we remember past and we see potential future. And if a mountain is before us we must climb it. I think much like the relationship between classical physics and quantum theory, we must ask ourselves at what point on the continuum of awareness does one give way to the other and is there something that holds them together?
Good Morning Everyone,
This morning I am inspired by student Shoji’s work on Uji, a piece written by Master Dogen in the 13th century. Uji is a koan of sorts and relates time and being.
He concludes in a piece he is writing, A blade of grass that will eventually grow on a mountain that does not yet exist is here, always was and always will be. Likewise, a leaf that grew and decomposed millions of years ago is here, always was and always will be. After all, where is there to go if everything and everytime is now - is this present moment?
Zen asks us to experience all points, all relationships, all time as one, and, as Alan Watts once said: we are it. Conversely, for time to be time it must have points in space related to each other. And these points must be observed by an observer. In Samadhi: no points, no relationships, no observers, no time.
Separation from the observed is an illusion, therefore, observer and observed is an illusion, past, present and future is an illusion. There is no mountain then or now, no leaf then or now, there is no then or now, period.
And yet, we remember past and we see potential future. And if a mountain is before us we must climb it. I think much like the relationship between classical physics and quantum theory, we must ask ourselves at what point on the continuum of awareness does one give way to the other and is there something that holds them together?
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Practicing Together
With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
Last night student Luisa sat with me at the 7:00 PM zazen period. This morning student Mu Shin sat with me at the 7:00 AM period. Suki stayed in her bed. It is good to sit with others. There is something about the energy of people practicing together that supports us in our own individual practice. After Mu Shin left, I sipped coffee, then welcomed Teacher Ken Hogaku-roshi into our Temple where he set about completing a construction job in the zendo. I took Suki to Pioneer women’s Park and we walked our single loop. It had rained last night and there were huge puddles for Suki to play in. She was a joyful mess by the end of our walk.
Sangha is key to successful practice. Successful practice is any practice that is done in mindfulness both in a zendo and out. Practice within a sangha is a means of learning to be mindful of others and our relational interactions. It requires us to get out of ourselves, to open our hearts, and practice generosity of spirit.
We do not always want to go to a temple, center, or park to practice. It is so much easier to just sit down in our room and practice there. We can be lazy buddhas. This is not the way. True practice requires the discipline of going to a group for practice. Then when we say, “I take refuge in the sangha.” we mean it. At a practice center we experience renunciation of self and open ourselves to the energy of others.
We practice at Clear Mind Zen Temple at 7:00 AM, 2:00 PM, and 7:00 PM Monday through Friday, at 9:00 AM on Wednesday, and at 9:00 AM on Sunday. In addition, we sit in the park at 9:00 on Monday and Friday. We also provide two forms of contemplative practices in motion: T’ai Chi Chih at 4::00 PM on Wednesday and Gentle Yoga at 4:30 on Thursday.
Why not join us?
Be well.
Good Morning Everyone,
Last night student Luisa sat with me at the 7:00 PM zazen period. This morning student Mu Shin sat with me at the 7:00 AM period. Suki stayed in her bed. It is good to sit with others. There is something about the energy of people practicing together that supports us in our own individual practice. After Mu Shin left, I sipped coffee, then welcomed Teacher Ken Hogaku-roshi into our Temple where he set about completing a construction job in the zendo. I took Suki to Pioneer women’s Park and we walked our single loop. It had rained last night and there were huge puddles for Suki to play in. She was a joyful mess by the end of our walk.
Sangha is key to successful practice. Successful practice is any practice that is done in mindfulness both in a zendo and out. Practice within a sangha is a means of learning to be mindful of others and our relational interactions. It requires us to get out of ourselves, to open our hearts, and practice generosity of spirit.
We do not always want to go to a temple, center, or park to practice. It is so much easier to just sit down in our room and practice there. We can be lazy buddhas. This is not the way. True practice requires the discipline of going to a group for practice. Then when we say, “I take refuge in the sangha.” we mean it. At a practice center we experience renunciation of self and open ourselves to the energy of others.
We practice at Clear Mind Zen Temple at 7:00 AM, 2:00 PM, and 7:00 PM Monday through Friday, at 9:00 AM on Wednesday, and at 9:00 AM on Sunday. In addition, we sit in the park at 9:00 on Monday and Friday. We also provide two forms of contemplative practices in motion: T’ai Chi Chih at 4::00 PM on Wednesday and Gentle Yoga at 4:30 on Thursday.
Why not join us?
Be well.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
An Unexpected Practice
With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
This morning was a challenge! I woke late, did a short, fast bicep/triceps workout, practiced zazen, and talked with K. Then off for a walk in Pioneer Women’s Park before zazen at 9:00. Walking, or should I say stumbling, around my futon, I jammed my thigh into the wooden edge. Pain. Then off to the park. Suki was a madwoman dog. Running hard after every bird, every leaf, everything that remotely looked like fun to chase. We did our lap of the park and I discovered my keys were not where I usually put them and I had forgotten my cell phone in the pain of a bruised thigh. So, another lap of the park to look for a mess of keys. No luck.
All the while I am practicing: notice the anger, notice the panic, notice the grief over the loss of my balance and memory. Notice the beautiful sky, overcast and pregnant with rain. Notice and take another step, and another.
At the car, I looked once again in my shoulder bag. Good grief. There they were in a pocket I never use for keys!
Starting the car and driving back to the Temple I felt deep relief and a sense of gratefulness for the practice of Zen. While Suki took up residence on a zabuton in the zendo, I lit a stick of incense and bowed deeply.
Be well.
Good Morning Everyone,
This morning was a challenge! I woke late, did a short, fast bicep/triceps workout, practiced zazen, and talked with K. Then off for a walk in Pioneer Women’s Park before zazen at 9:00. Walking, or should I say stumbling, around my futon, I jammed my thigh into the wooden edge. Pain. Then off to the park. Suki was a madwoman dog. Running hard after every bird, every leaf, everything that remotely looked like fun to chase. We did our lap of the park and I discovered my keys were not where I usually put them and I had forgotten my cell phone in the pain of a bruised thigh. So, another lap of the park to look for a mess of keys. No luck.
All the while I am practicing: notice the anger, notice the panic, notice the grief over the loss of my balance and memory. Notice the beautiful sky, overcast and pregnant with rain. Notice and take another step, and another.
At the car, I looked once again in my shoulder bag. Good grief. There they were in a pocket I never use for keys!
Starting the car and driving back to the Temple I felt deep relief and a sense of gratefulness for the practice of Zen. While Suki took up residence on a zabuton in the zendo, I lit a stick of incense and bowed deeply.
Be well.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Conditions
With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
The morning sky was delightful. Tiny ribbons of clouds were illuminated against the stars by dawn’s light. Apparently, it rained sometime through the night as I stepped into a mud puddle and felt the goo of the earth come up between my toes. Suki and I both enjoyed this.
As a child growing up in Miami Florida, I rarely wore more than a pair of cut-off shorts: no shoes, no socks, no shirt. My feet could handle the roughest pebbles and the hottest pavement. It is all a matter of conditioning. Just as my feet became conditioned to the conditions by the conditions,, they also became unconditioned when the conditions for conditioning were not present. (Such a sentence!)
So it is with everything. When the conditions are correct for something to arise, it arises. When the conditions are no longer correct, the conditioned thing falls away. This is the core teaching of dependant co-arising.
We human beings have an advantage of sorts. We can see this process happen; note its sequence and change its course. Want to become more fit? You know the conditions for fitness to arise, do them. Want to be healthier? Do the things necessary to create the conditions for a healthy life. Want peace? Create the conditions for peace to arise.
Our science is getting to a place where we may be able to alter all sorts of conditions, changing life expectancy, making us smarter, changing the face of the environment, making food and water more plentiful, and so on. Yet, these things require a degree of wisdom I do not believe we yet possess. Wisdom requires the ability to see and think with a systems eye. Specialization is an anathema to wisdom. Specialists are smart, but not always wise. Wisdom requires contemplation, a deep prajna, as the sutra teaches us.
Our world moves very fast, our specialization increases the sharpness of its point, and we are more and more in the dark. So, while we can see on an individual level what we as individuals must do, it is very challenging to get whole societies to look at themselves and their relationship to the whole.
The message of this post, I think, is that engaged Buddhists must model casting a wide eye. Our cushion is only square one. What is square two, three, four, and five?
Be well.
Good Morning Everyone,
The morning sky was delightful. Tiny ribbons of clouds were illuminated against the stars by dawn’s light. Apparently, it rained sometime through the night as I stepped into a mud puddle and felt the goo of the earth come up between my toes. Suki and I both enjoyed this.
As a child growing up in Miami Florida, I rarely wore more than a pair of cut-off shorts: no shoes, no socks, no shirt. My feet could handle the roughest pebbles and the hottest pavement. It is all a matter of conditioning. Just as my feet became conditioned to the conditions by the conditions,, they also became unconditioned when the conditions for conditioning were not present. (Such a sentence!)
So it is with everything. When the conditions are correct for something to arise, it arises. When the conditions are no longer correct, the conditioned thing falls away. This is the core teaching of dependant co-arising.
We human beings have an advantage of sorts. We can see this process happen; note its sequence and change its course. Want to become more fit? You know the conditions for fitness to arise, do them. Want to be healthier? Do the things necessary to create the conditions for a healthy life. Want peace? Create the conditions for peace to arise.
Our science is getting to a place where we may be able to alter all sorts of conditions, changing life expectancy, making us smarter, changing the face of the environment, making food and water more plentiful, and so on. Yet, these things require a degree of wisdom I do not believe we yet possess. Wisdom requires the ability to see and think with a systems eye. Specialization is an anathema to wisdom. Specialists are smart, but not always wise. Wisdom requires contemplation, a deep prajna, as the sutra teaches us.
Our world moves very fast, our specialization increases the sharpness of its point, and we are more and more in the dark. So, while we can see on an individual level what we as individuals must do, it is very challenging to get whole societies to look at themselves and their relationship to the whole.
The message of this post, I think, is that engaged Buddhists must model casting a wide eye. Our cushion is only square one. What is square two, three, four, and five?
Be well.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Peace
With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
This morning was another early riser. I am now sipping coffee after washing dishes and putting some things away. I read my morning email, but have not, as yet, replied. Some silence and reflection first.
Today is a busy day: son Jason will complete the condo move (two pieces of furniture and a mattress) while I lead morning services at the Temple and this evening I will facilitate a roundtable discussion on the meaning of peace at the First Presbyterian Church on Boutz Road here in Las Cruces. This will be followed by an interfaith musical celebration for peace.
In preparing a bit for the discussion this evening I took a look at two sources: the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and Thich Nhat Hahn’s text, Creating True Peace. Nhat Hahn is an excellent role model for peaceful living: reflective, thoughtful, compassionate, and willing to look deeply into situations to see their true nature. The OED points out that peace has a plethora of meanings and applications. Most of them are about “freedom from” something. The OED offers six domains, all but one derived from a sense of freedom from something. The first five relate to freedom from hostilities, disorder, and disturbance. The last is phrased as an absence of noise, movement, or activity. Offered up a quote from Harriet Beecher Stowe, “The greatest destroyer of domestic peace is discourtesy.”
The thing about peace is that while most of us want it, few can agree on it. I believe this is due to one simple fact: peace is defined as freedom from disturbance, including mental, emotional, and spiritual disturbance. We human beings have a hard time with this. What other people think, feel, believe, and do, disturbs us. The thing is, we blame them for our disturbance.
As a therapist, I would so often hear things like, “she makes me so mad!” or “he drives me crazy!” When the truth is, no one came make us anything: we make ourselves, which is to say, we disturb ourselves. No one likes to hear that. We all want to hold someone or something responsible for our distress. Anyone or anything but ourselves and our own situation.
When I was 19 I was a killer, literally. I hated my enemy, the Viet Cong, the People’s Army of Viet Nam, the RPGs, the punji stakes, and the children selling their mothers and sisters, and did my best to destroy them all. Their very being disturbed me. I did not understand they were me and I was them. Then, after being shot and returning home, the definition of the moral situation changed. In the mid eighties, I returned to Viet Nam and met my enemy. We sat across tables and threw back shots of cheap Russian vodka. We exchanged pictures of our families. I experienced their poverty and their pride. It was a humbling experience. My heart was opening.
Peace, then, to become manifest, requires us to hold ourselves responsible for our own tranquility. The Zen way is the way of serene reflection. It is the way of making a space between perception, thought, feeling, and behavior and residing there. It is the way of seeing the deep, interconnected nature of all things in all places and all times.
To be peace I must just be peace and allowing all disturbances the freedom to fall away. As student Shoji pointed out, the thing is in the doing, not the thinking.
Be well.
Good Morning Everyone,
This morning was another early riser. I am now sipping coffee after washing dishes and putting some things away. I read my morning email, but have not, as yet, replied. Some silence and reflection first.
Today is a busy day: son Jason will complete the condo move (two pieces of furniture and a mattress) while I lead morning services at the Temple and this evening I will facilitate a roundtable discussion on the meaning of peace at the First Presbyterian Church on Boutz Road here in Las Cruces. This will be followed by an interfaith musical celebration for peace.
In preparing a bit for the discussion this evening I took a look at two sources: the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and Thich Nhat Hahn’s text, Creating True Peace. Nhat Hahn is an excellent role model for peaceful living: reflective, thoughtful, compassionate, and willing to look deeply into situations to see their true nature. The OED points out that peace has a plethora of meanings and applications. Most of them are about “freedom from” something. The OED offers six domains, all but one derived from a sense of freedom from something. The first five relate to freedom from hostilities, disorder, and disturbance. The last is phrased as an absence of noise, movement, or activity. Offered up a quote from Harriet Beecher Stowe, “The greatest destroyer of domestic peace is discourtesy.”
The thing about peace is that while most of us want it, few can agree on it. I believe this is due to one simple fact: peace is defined as freedom from disturbance, including mental, emotional, and spiritual disturbance. We human beings have a hard time with this. What other people think, feel, believe, and do, disturbs us. The thing is, we blame them for our disturbance.
As a therapist, I would so often hear things like, “she makes me so mad!” or “he drives me crazy!” When the truth is, no one came make us anything: we make ourselves, which is to say, we disturb ourselves. No one likes to hear that. We all want to hold someone or something responsible for our distress. Anyone or anything but ourselves and our own situation.
When I was 19 I was a killer, literally. I hated my enemy, the Viet Cong, the People’s Army of Viet Nam, the RPGs, the punji stakes, and the children selling their mothers and sisters, and did my best to destroy them all. Their very being disturbed me. I did not understand they were me and I was them. Then, after being shot and returning home, the definition of the moral situation changed. In the mid eighties, I returned to Viet Nam and met my enemy. We sat across tables and threw back shots of cheap Russian vodka. We exchanged pictures of our families. I experienced their poverty and their pride. It was a humbling experience. My heart was opening.
Peace, then, to become manifest, requires us to hold ourselves responsible for our own tranquility. The Zen way is the way of serene reflection. It is the way of making a space between perception, thought, feeling, and behavior and residing there. It is the way of seeing the deep, interconnected nature of all things in all places and all times.
To be peace I must just be peace and allowing all disturbances the freedom to fall away. As student Shoji pointed out, the thing is in the doing, not the thinking.
Be well.
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