Mindful for What?

With palms together,  we often talk about and teach mindfulness, about being present. But, what we often fail to talk about is the “so what” of it all. So, we are “present” and we are “mindful” and we might then ask ourselves, “ of what or for what?” 

In Jewish tradition there is something called tikun olam, the admonishment to heal the world. In Zen, we have the Third Pure Precept to bring about abundant good for all beings. I fear many of those who “practice” mindfulness fail, deeply fail, to take that next step off the proverbial hundred foot pole and instead just sit there with our thumb up our asses. 

This is a failure of Zen Buddhism. If we take the time to be present with the birds in our yard, we must take the time to feed them. It we take the time to be mindful of the violence, greed, and hate in our world, we must take action to bring peace, charity, and love into the world around us. Otherwise we are simply hypocrites or worse, no better than statues sitting on a cushion. 

May your day not be idle. 

🙏🙏🙏 

Morning Zen

 

Morning Zen is like morning light. While it is dark outside, I feel the light within. In the black robe, It is time for me to greet the dawn.  Reciting the Verse of Repentance, The Three Refuges, and the Wisdom Heart Sutra, I set myself upright and set my intention for the day as I begin to practice zazen.  Master Dogen says when we study the Buddha Way, we study ourselves and in that study mind and body fall away. When this happens, he say, we are enlightened by the myriad things. And so it goes; day buy day, hour by hour, minute by minute, moment by moment.

Be well, be free

Daiho

Peace

 

Awake on the right side of the grass this morning. It’s always refreshing to see the sun and hear the birds. The air is cool today. The morning espresso was more than usually welcome. I cancelled our morning Zen Service this morning in deference to the Christian holiday of Easter.  Easter, like Passover, is a holiday of hope, a hope for peace, and yet here we are still warring with one another both figuratively and actually. Will we ever learn to stop using violence and hate speech to address our differences and conflicts? Given the history of humanity, I somehow doubt it. This saddens me greatly.

War and threats of war rarely, if ever, are useful. Instead, they widen differences, create fear and rationales for further conflict. It seems to me, those who consider themselves to be followers of Jesus ought to beat their swords into plows, sowing seeds of understanding, love, and peace.  After nearly eighty years of life and witness to war and threats of war, I should be far more pessimistic than I am. Instead, I am hopeful, hopeful that the Christ, the Buddha, will rise in the hearts of our civilizations and open the skies to let the sunshine of peace shine in. 

May we each find our way,

Daiho

Discipline

 

Once again at 4:00 AM, I woke up this morning and sat zazen outside with the moon and stars. I am so very grateful for this opportunity each morning as I have no idea how many such mornings I have left in my life. Then at 6:00 AM, I sat a morning Zen service with a small group of Zensters.  These are moments that offer an opportunity to set my intention for the day to come, explore my place in this vast universe, and remind me indeed of the universe’s vastness. There is nothing like sitting out in the open under the stars.

                I remember early mornings back in the late sixties when I sat under a willow tree in my backyard in Miami Florida. I sat with mosquitoes and “no see ‘ums” trying to maintain my posture and stillness. And then years later sitting in my meadow in the mountains of southern New Mexico and on the streets of Las Cruces… it took quite an effort on my part, believe me. But there I sat and I think that discipline has served me well over the decades of practice.  

                I’m not sure what “served me well” actually means I just know that I can sit nearly anywhere at anytime and remain in stillness. Maybe that’s enough. Try it, you might like it!

Daiho

Morning Light

 

Good morning all,

When my son was a baby, I used to chant him awake with this:

The birds are up

The flowers and the trees are up

It’s upsy wupsy time!

And so here I am in the morning after having sat outside with my flowers, trees and birds considering my day. I will give a Dharma talk on Zoom this morning, I will go to the store for a new garden hose, I will read some but mostly enjoy the company of my family.  For me, mornings are always special because I survived the night. There was a time a few decades ago when I wasn’t so certain. I had been shot in the head, lying in combat, doing what I could to stay awake till morning.  Such moments seem indelible. Painful, yet so special as they remind me to be ever so grateful for each morning to enjoy my life and to be of service to others.

May each of you find gratitude in your life and may you each find ways to be in service to others.

Be well,

Daiho

Butterfly

 

Yesterday I saw my first butterfly of the season. It was beautiful.  While our world certainly has ugliness, it is also filled with beauty. When I worked on the Navajo reservation, the People often talked about walking in beauty or following the Beauty way. I saw this as much like our Buddhist principle of walking the Buddha way, a way of mindful attention. A morning butterfly is such a reminder.

Be well,

Samu

 

March 18, 2026

                This morning I will be working as best I can in my backyard garden and bird sanctuary.  There is much to do: planting flowers and a couple vegetables, feeding the birds, watering, fertilizing the rose bushes, and spraying to prevent bugs. I don’t know whether I will finish everything or not, but it really doesn’t matter. What matters is doing, not getting done.  This is how we approach “samu,” or how we understand work as meditation.

                Everything should be done with mindful attention. I will prepare the soil for planting, tilling it, adding a bit of fertilizer, adding water, etc. I will carefully fill the bird feeders, add water to the bird bath, and re-positioning them on their hangers.  Resting between each task and not attending too much to the time, but rather fully enjoying being with each task as it arises.  This is what is meant by being Zen, rather than doing Zen, an important distinction.

                Practicing Zen is practicing in life itself. It is not separate. When we live with attention to the life we are living as we actually live it we are practicing Zen.  A cumbersome sentence, I know, yet too often we forget that Zen is much larger than that practiced in a Zendo.  People often say they are practicing “Buddhism” and don’t understand there is no such thing as “Buddhism.”  There is, however, the “Buddha Way.”  The Buddha Way is life itself, which is why Kennet Roshi referred to her book as “Zen is Eternal Life.”  True Zen is not a philosophy, it is not a religion, it is not a way of life, but rather,  a way of being.

                Now it is time for me to go outdoors. Be well, be alive, be present.

Daiho