Zendo News

With respect to all,

Good Morning Everyone,



We have excellent news regarding our Zendo. Jane Grider has agreed to rent the entryway room. This will reduce our portion of the rent to $370.00 per month. I believe this is quite managable and will allow us toi keep our Zendo open. The landlord has agreed to a month to month lease. I am very happy that this has happened, as I am sure you are as well. I look forward to practicing with you in the future.



We will need a little help moving the tan and butsudan out of the room. We also need to clean out/sort out the closet. Perhaps this coming Sunday?



I am sorry I have not been writing to you very much of late. Worse, I have missed several dokusan appointments through my lack of attention. So many things are happening that have taken so much of my time, energy, and attention. A very long and incredibly painful year of spinal issues topped the list for awhile and going through a rather long and costly divorce has been a terror. Kathryn and I were married, and we are now cleaning and painting our home in Sonoma Ranch so that we can move there toward the end of the month, beginning of June, and of course, worry over the Zendo. This has been both a stressful and joyous experience.



The one thing I can say about my practice over this past year is that it has proven itself. There was a time in my life where the stressors mentioned above would have sent me into combat mode and I would have been quite literally destructive. As it stands now, the worst of it has been cigars, a bad thing which I am working very hard to no longer indulge. Anger and hurt come and go, replaced easily by love, joy, and a sense of contentment: feelings are like that, aren't they? Mindfulness of my body in motion, my mind in motion, and my environment in motion with the "me" that is "not me" bearing witness to it all has been quite a change from the horrid feelings that used to attach to my heart turning it black, or at least shades of steel gray.



As we conclude this transition from one home to another, maintaing the Zendo and our street practice, I hope to offer more teaching on my blog and through this list, as well as in person at the Zendo.



This afternoon we practice at the City of Hope at 1:30 in the library. This evening we practice at 7:00 PM in the Zendo and tomorrow morning at 9:00 AM at Veteran's Park on Roadrunner Blvd. Please consider joining us. And if not, consider coming to the Zendo for Sunday morning Zazen at 10:00 AM



Be well.

God

With palms together,


Good Morning All,



This morning I woke at 4:30 AM and sat outside under the stars. It is a lovely morning with a slight chill in the air and a clear sky. It occurs to me that I have not written to you for awhile. So, this morning as I sat I remembered that last night Shukke Shin and I were talking and the topic of God came up. So many of us struggle with our understanding of God, some reject the existence of a deity, others assume He or She or It exists, but quickly forget about it in everyday life, dismissing God as meaningless in daily life. In Zen, while we might argue that each of us must come to our own understanding or not, it is our practice that is most important. .

To quote John Lennon from his song “God” he says, “God is a concept by which we measure our pain.” He goes on to list all the things he doesn’t believe in and concludes: “The dream is over.” We each must encounter our ideas, dreams, and our lives. Some of us frame our lives around our ideas, others allow our ideas to arise from our lives. In Buddhism, it is our direct encounter with our daily life that informs our ideas and through our practice we see the deep truth that everything changes so, naturally, our ideas about the universe, God, and everything else, must change as well. It is the realization that the dream is over that is actually the starting point to genuine spiritual growth.

God is a concept when we begin with an idea of God. When we begin with direct experience of the everyday world, God can become a label for our experience of that world. A label for an experience is not a concept, but rather, a linguistic expression of our experience. We say; if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him! I say, if we have an idea of God and we wish to meet God, we must first kill our idea of God.

Over the years I have come into intimate contact with many understandings of God. I’ve come to dislike the word itself as I believe it carries with it so much conceptual garbage, so many conceptual filters, that it hinders our true appreciation for what “God” might actually be. It is here that genuine “don’t know” mind becomes essential. To quote Zen Master Seung Sahn, “Only Don’t Know.”

Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote an excellent little book entitled, “God was in this place & I, i did not know.” In this text he takes us through several understandings of Jacob waking from his dream. He says early on, “The trick is to pay attention to what is going on around you long enough to behold the miracle without falling asleep.” One of his points, then, is that we are always in the midst of the Absolute, but are asleep.

The teachings in the Torah about God have to do with the words we use. The Torah reveals a constantly changing understanding of God as revealed in the names the Torah uses for God. This is often missed in English translations of the Hebrew Scriptures. When Moses faces the burning bush, for example, God says “Tell them “I Am” sent you. Jewish theologians and mystics have pondered this name, essentially an unpronounceable verb, for millennia. The Torah offers us a koan: God is not God, the noun, the being, but God is “I am that I Am, I will be that which I will be,” an eternally changing, ever-present reality. The kabbalists offer a tree of sorts with each “sefirot” or facet interconnected to the other where the Absolute or “Ein Sof” is understood to be unknowable “emptiness.” So, those on a path to meet God, like those of us on the path to enlightenment, must grapple with the koan, “If God is ever-changing and everywhere, is both relative and absolute, and unknowable, how do I realize it?” Here, as with Zen, we must recognize the essential difference between “understand” and “realize.” Understanding God or Enlightenment places us in the world of ideas and concepts; realization places us in the experience itself: that place without words. The moment we put a word to it, we kill it.

Realization is not insight. It is not a flash with associated thoughts and feelings. It is a direct pre-verbal experience like the moment lightening strikes nearby and before we “realize” that it did. Yet, we are human beings with brains, are we not? Thus, we cannot remain pre-verbal. Like Jacob waking from his dream with the direct insight that wherever he is, there is God, indeed, that he and God are not two, but one, so too we may experience the early morning sky realizing the Absolute and Relative are one and “I” am” is all there is. Be it.





It’s that time of month when I ask for your support of our Zendo. Please, if you have not already, offer your dues and dana so that we might pay our rent. Your assistance is deeply appreciated. Go to our website at http://clearmindzen.org and use the PayPal button or better, drop by the Zendo in person. We would love to see you!

Sequester Values

With Palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,



Our government does not care about the people it serves or the people who serve it. A story on the Huffington Post helped me see this more clearly. Apparently, Congress decided rather quickly to lift sequester restrictions on programs assisting our nation’s airline traffic, but did nothing to ease the constraints being imposed on programs that actually save lives such as Meals on Wheels, Medicare, and support services for our military, among a host of others.



This, it seems to me, is a class issue, and because it is so, should involve the conscience of those in all faith traditions, including Zen Buddhism Programs that help our poor, our retired, and those least able to mobilize and advocate, have been set aside, and the one program that assists those who are in a position to afford to fly from one place to another is granted a lessoning of restrictions. This is outrageous. Since when is it a priority over life itself to fly?



I grant that air travel is a necessity from an economic standpoint. People traveling from one point to another are often contributing to our economic well-being as a nation, but the sequester does not prevent air travel, it simply slowed it down. No one likes to wait in lines, but perhaps waiting in line offers an opportunity to think about our spending priorities. Apparently, we dislike such considerations. I also grant that I no longer am willing to fly, refusing to offer myself up to draconian TSA measures that invade my privacy without warrant. But, even if all of a sudden the TSA were to disappear, I still would not fly, preferring instead to ride my Harley Davidson from point to point enjoying the resultant intimacy with our country. It seems to me that our health and quality of life issues are far more important than whether we wait in line for flights to other places. From a Zen Buddhist point of view, we have an obligation to not kill and through its positive, care for, protect, and nurture life. I do not see saving time in a line at an airport as in any way connected to this precept. Apparently our Congress thinks otherwise. I think this is a disgrace.



Zen practice is nothing if it does not engage us in the world around us. Our precepts are a guide to living a morally up-right life and the foundation of this is ahimsa, do no harm. Valuing airline wait times over people’s lives does harm. Perhaps this sequester has a value in that it forces us, as it has me, to look deeply at what really matters. May all beings be free from suffering.

Kesa in the Morning

With palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,



Let's see, the sun came up this morning in a glorious burst over the Organ Mountains. I witnessed the gradual lightening of the night sky, then, with a sudden burst, there it was, the sun. I never seem to tire of this display of natural power. It evokes a sense of humility in my nature and hope in my heart.



Today in the Zendo I will speak about the verse of the kesa. This is a wonderful symbol, like the sun, it evokes a sense of humility and hope. I am deeply humbled by the fact that since Master Dogen's time in the 13th century to the present; we have raised the kesa to our heads and opening it, wrapped ourselves in its 'field of benefaction.'



The verse Okumura-roshi uses differs slightly to the one commonly accepted among sanghas in the Soto school. It says, "Wearing the Tathagatha's teaching we vow to save all beings," whereas we use the word, "free" rather than "save." We might think this a minor detail, but I don't think so in the context of a Judeo-Christian society where "save" has fundamentally different meanings than "free." In either case, we cannot free or save anyone but ourselves. Yet, from an Absolute Mind, there is no self or other and freedom, salvation, and servitude and suffering are all part of the whole.



In the end, I prefer "free" to "save" as I believe this is closer to the original meaning and certainly closer to what is possible for each of us. We can work toward freeing ourselves from the jailor that is our ego. This is what the Buddha himself did, and since he was human and we are human, through our practice this becomes a reality according to Master Dogen.



To free ourselves we simply sit down and shut up. In the silence of our upright posture thoughts, feelings and assumptions fall away as we settle into our breath. It is all quite natural. Our world does this in every second: it simply unfolds itself just as the sun rises and brings light into the world.



Please consider this practice. Unfold your kesa (symbolic, metaphoric, or tangible) and wrap yourself in the Buddha's teaching, a teaching of deep love and compassion, a teaching of awakening.

Be well.



Local Note: We will practice Zazen in the Zendo at 10:00 AM. Please consider joining us.

Bodhisattva Reminders

With Palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,



Awake at 3:45 AM I painted, read the news, and found myself crying. What evoked such a reaction in me was the story of soldiers with fatigues and 40 pound packs marching the Boston marathon only to race to assist victims in the aftermath of the bombings. I have done a marathon and a score of half marathons, and I can tell you at the end of 26.2 miles even under the best conditions, a body is thoroughly exhausted, yet these soldiers leapt into action without knowing if another explosion was imminent and assisted victims. This is selfless service. To me, this is the best of the bodhisattva ideal made manifest before our eyes.



So, this morning at 9:00 AM when I take my seat to practice zazen at the Veteran’s Memorial on Roadrunner Parkway, I will keep these soldiers and others in my mind’s eye. It’s not that soldiers are the ideal: millions of others from all walks of life typify selfless service on a daily basis, it’s that these soldiers and scores of others did not hesitate and were caught in the act by our media. And there they were, residing in my heart. They are a blessing in the universe and I bow to them.



We all need reminders that our world is filled with caring and compassionate beings. We too easily forget this, I think, in the flood of awful events that seem to happen moment to moment on our planet. Yet for every destructive, violent act, there are countless acts of loving kindness. We should keep these in mind as a context when we read the news through the day. I am thankful for the reminders these soldiers provide. May they evoke the bodhisattva ideal in each of us.



Be well,

Reality, Part Two: Boston

With palms together,


I bow to each reader,



This evening let us each offer incense and a recitation of the Heart Sutra on behalf of those injured in Boston this afternoon. Such events are unimaginable and unconscionable. Yet, we live in a time when events like this occur around the globe.



We are all asking questions, seeking answers, and needing someone or some group to blame. For me, I know blame is a tricky thing as it keeps me away from the event itself. Surviving trauma is like that : we want to make sense of the irrational. Don’t try.



We already know what we need to know. We just need to look deeply into our own hearts. We are human beings who love and hate, seek justice often with revenge, and want punishment for those responsible for hurting us.



Turn to your faith tradition and its practices. Notice the love and compassion we feel for those hurt and for those who so quickly aided the injured. So, while the world is a place with danger and outrageous acts, it is also a place of great love and self sacrifice.



May we each be a blessing in this universe of ours,



Yours

Daiho

Reality

With Palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,



I am wondering about what some might call "Ultimate Reality" as opposed, I presume, to an "ordinary reality" or simply, reality itself. I suggest anyone that posits an "ultimate reality" is, in my opinion, deluded as such a person has, perforce, mentally and spiritually divided reality.



While it is true that in Zen we have an Absolute and Relative, it is equally true that when penetrated these are realized as one. When understood as two, this understanding is also deluded. We don't move toward "the Ultimate" we realize that "the Ultimate" and the ordinary are one and both are simply a fiction created by a brain that quite naturally perceives itself as separate from the world around it. So, we might ask, what is “reality” before our brain senses the world around us? Yes, what was your face, the face you had before your father and mother were born?



We might say, “nothing.” Literally, “no thing” as thingness is an attribution of cognition. Our original face, that which is neither born nor unborn is the essential all, the “ultimate reality” of that which is before perception, but this is intellectual. We cannot say what ultimate reality is without killing it and revealing our relative mind at work. We must, as the old koan suggests, show it.



When I paint, draw, ride my Harley, bow, pour coffee, and otherwise mindfully live out my life, I am living out ultimate reality. If I think about these activities as I do them, I am lost from that reality, I am in the relative reality of dualism. Moreover, if I practice mindfulness, per se, I am equally lost. I must simply do, completely and wholeheartedly without separating myself from that which is. Very tricky and on an on-going basis, impossible as my brain won’t allow it.



I am extremely wary of those claiming “Big Mind,” “Enlightenment,” or any other such esoteric hype. As any such claim creates the dualism, “I am “X.” We seem attracted to such guru types, however, and I believe this is in part due to two motives: our need for evidence of the success of our practice and, more often, our steadfast refusal to realize the everyday is what it is and realizing this, penetrating this, is this elusive “ultimate reality.”



Seeking after enlightenment takes us away from awakening. Attaching to enlightenment kills enlightenment. Our practice is to be free and easy, open and non-grasping, fluid and vulnerable, in touch, but not holding. Don’t let those enlightened masters dupe you: live out your life awake by simply and deeply appreciating your life.



Be well.



Local Note

This week at the Clear Mind Zen: Monday at 4:30 PM Zazen in the park in front of City Hall, Wednesday morning at 6:45 AM zazen in the zendo and at 5:00 PM zazen in front of the Federal Building, Thursday at 1:00 PM zazen at the City of Hope and at 7:00 PM zazen in the Zendo, Friday at 9:00 AM zazen at Veteran’s Park on Roadrunner and Sunday zazen at 10:00 at the Zendo.