Getting to Know You

With palms together,

The world is such an interesting place. Over the last two days two close friends and I rode our Harley’s from Las Cruces to Salado, Texas, a distance of 672 miles.  Throughout the ride we were greeted warmly by interested locals at gas stations and restaurants.  Its always curious to me how that works.  We stop.  People turn their heads at the sounds of the bikes.  They see bikers with “cuts” and, while one might think they’d be intimidated, they often are just as likely, if not more likely, to ask us where we are going and where we are from.  A smile here goes a very long way.  Soon we are in a greart conversation about travel, motorcycles or veteran issues. American can be a great country.  We have great people.  All that seems necessary is a warm smile and willingness to talk and tell stories.

The ride, sometimes on the Interstate, sometimes on the back roads through the Texas hill country, is beautiful.  We see a nation on the move: business, vacation, or just “Sunday” drives, and all the while yielding a willingness to engage and get to know each other.  We stopped at a “parking spece” off I-10.  We were soon joined by a family we had seen together at a gas station a few miles back.  The children were fascinated by locusts that seemed to live there.  We talked about them. How hard is that?

Yet, in the cities, such things are much more private affairs.  Too bad it seems to me, as when we do talk with one another we find common ground and mutual interests.  All it talks is a warm smile and the courage to take the risk of introducing oneself to total strangers.

I look forward to getting back on the road again, but not before getting to know the fine folk in Salado.

May we each enjoy the company of one another!

Be well,

Daiho

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Two Truths

With palms together, 

Buddhism teaches there are two truths: the relative and the absolute. One is particular the other relative. We live in both. 

When aware of the relative, we are each separate beings living on a particular planet in a particular solar system. When aware of the absolute, there is no us, no planet, no solar system: nothing is separate, all is one. Both “inter-are.” 

What does this have to do with anything at all? Everything. Derived from the absolute, our morality guides us. Our oneness teaches us to do no harm. Our relative enables us to live and survive. I am drinking a cup of coffee, and in doing so I am drinking the beans grown in Guatemala or Brazil; I am enabled to do this as a result of the many lives and many hands that brought this coffee into existence and to my table. 

When in the absolute all of this is clear and yet dissolves. When in the relative it is important to honor those hands and lives for they have provided us. 

One might say living in the absolute is living in awakening. One might further say that living in the relative is living in delusion. Both would be true, yet, these distinctions themselves are meaningless. Our teaching is to live without attaching to either, but instead accepting both as the true nature of our reality. 

This is what it means to “float like a duck.” The storm comes and we float. The storm resolves and we float. We know there is no storm and there is no calm. There is just this, what’s in your moment right now. 

So allow the storm, but don’t be guided by it; allow the calm, but don’t be deceived by it. This is the Great Way.

Gassho

Morning

with palms together,

Good morning all,

We teach “spring comes and the grass grows by itself.” Yet, the meaning of this phrase can elude us. One reading is the world to s what it is and it will be what it will be. We may gut inner from this a “hands off” approach, yet this is not so. The phrase is descriptive, not prescriptive.
As we confront the ills of the world, as we hear the cries of the world, we are obligated by our vows and more, our common decency and compassion, to act.

When we do, we are practicing engaged Zen.

What is that s thing we call “engaged Zen”?

Simply, it is the practice of healing a wound, correcting a wrong, or as Judaism refers to it, “tekun olam” repairing the world. We are partners in our creation . We share responsibility with all others to do what we can to make the world a better place.

So, while the grass may grow by itself, our world needs our assistance.

Be happy.

Matsuoka Roshi

Matsuoka Roshi, who was referred to by his students simply as “sensei,” was quite a guy. My teacher, Ken Hogaku Mcguire Roshi, often told stories about him.  A quiet man truly dedicated to spreading the Dharma throughout the United States, Matsuoka Roshi gave talks wherever he was asked: schools, karate dojo’s, anywhere and everywhere. Some of his early documents showed that he had developed Zen Centers in several states. He was once featured in “Black Belt” magazine as offering the practice of Zen as an adjunct to karate practice.

Matsuoka Roshi ‘s legacy has been tarnished by gossip and false stories, a clear violation of the seventh grave precept.  It’s a shame that in a world purported to be a world based on the moral and ethical teachings of the Buddha such would be the case.

I ask now that any author, blog writer,  and/or Zen Teacher who has passed these unsubstantiated stories along print retractions and offer apologies.  Matsuoka was a pioneer of Zen in America and deserves recognition as such. His Dharma heirs ought be recognized as true Zen disciples and authentic Zen teachers, as in the ancient tradition of the Buddha Way, mind to mind transmission.

May his memory be for a blessing.

Yours in the dharma,

Daiho

Engaged practice

Engaged practice often takes forms we do not recognize.  We too often believe it must be writ large like the brave man halting a tank in a Chinese Square or those who call out politicians in public places. But I believe engaged practice ought be an everyday experience like honoring the food we eat or responding to a friend in need. 

Engaged practice is nothing more or less than everyday practice since the everyday is the only day we have and how we manifest ourselves in it brings about the Dharma.  

Remember, in the Absolute there is nothing that is sacred or profane, pure or impure.  There is just this that is in front of you right now. In its most true state it is nothing but the universe itself. 

Today I blessed Bikes and bikers. So? Treating bikers whether they are 1%ers or weekend warriors to respect and offering them a blessing is no more or less sacred than eating French Fries or sipping fine wine, meditating at Eiheiji or on a bus stop bench.  What matters most, I believe, is doing. 

Let us each commit to doing, which is to say, engaging the world with deep compassion and a desire to free all beings from suffering. It’s the least we can do. 

Blessings to each of my readers, 

Daiho 

Inspiration

Yesterday I spent some time talking with two friends at Milagros coffee shop. Our discussion rambled a bit, as discussions often do, but settled on a most interesting challenge: is it possible for a speaker in a school to be inspiring without emotional investment? And is such investment manipulative? What role does inspiration have in education anyway?

It seems to me inspiration comes from and through a speakers life. And what our young ones (and elders) need is a sense of inspiration. I don’t seem to care much if the speech is emotionally charged and will manipulate, what I care about is motivation. Getting us to look into something, dig deeply into it, requires motivation and motivation is often gained through inspiration.

The concern was that our audience may not have the cognitive skills to take apart and critically examine what’s being presented and also that the speaker may not have done the same and as a result, allows biases to enter without examination, save, in afterthoughts.

So, do we require inspiration to aid our motivation? Should a highly controversial speaker be turned away due to toxic language or ideas? Do we have the critical skills to examine a speakers words?

Given our current political situation, I’m inclined to say we don’t.  So where does that put us?

Yours,