With respect,
Thank you very much Kobutsu for both sharing this insightful and powerful piece of writing, but also for the person you are. Thank you also for taking the time to call me, it is always a moment pregnant with the possibility of awakening to speak with you. Reading this piece reminded me so much of my ten years of work in child protective services, work as much for myself as for the children and families I was asked to work with. How to feel compassion for a perpetrator of sexual violence on a small child? How to understand a family system that produces and allows such behavior?
Such work changes us and also, I think, invites us to examine deeply, the phrases and jargon we Zennists drape ourselves with. Buddha nature is nature and nature is the universe: not all sweetness and light. Stars collide, civilizations brutalize one another, and individuals eat each other for lunch. All dharmas. Life unfolds.
Releasing ourselves from the grip of our thoughts and feelings about such things to just enter the situation is, I suspect, the best approach. When beings suffer we are there, not to help as your quote suggests, but to liberate.
Here's the thing, it seems to me we all live in cages. We all use our situation and condition to justify our behavior regardless of that behavior's morality. To free ourselves from the cage is to free ourselves from the whole structure: ego, id, and super-ego, on the individual level, but also from macro social structures, as well. We brutalize ourselves daily with our ideas, our values, and our economicic systems. A cage by another other name is still a cage.
To use the logic of the Buddha in his Diamond Sutra, to free ourselves from Dharma labels, such as being Zen practitioners, we must realize we are not Zen practioners. Because of this we are Zen ptractitioners. So, what does this mean? It means to me, just do what is in front of you to do.
Be well.
Daiho
"You need not enter a monastery, but make a monastery of your heart."
Soyu Matsuoka
Harvey Daiho Hilbert
Order of Clear Mind Zen
Telephone: 575-680-6680
--- On Thu, 3/24/11, Kobutsu Malonewrote:
From: Kobutsu Malone
Subject: Re: Greetings
To: "Harvey Daiho Hilbert"
Date: Thursday, March 24, 2011, 5:13 PM
http://www.engaged-zen.org/articles/Kobutsu-Paradox.html
On Mar 24, 2011, at 7:01 PM, Harvey Daiho Hilbert wrote:
With palms together,
Kobutsu, I hope you are well. I am writing to ask if you would offer a few words/insights to one of my students who has expressed an interest in prison work. He is a very bright, engaged scientist, who also holds a 3rd degree black belt, and will become a novice priest in April.
Again, I hope you are well. I look forward to hearing from you soon.
In gassho,
Daiho
"You need not enter a monastery, but make a monastery of your heart."
Soyu Matsuoka
Harvey Daiho Hilbert
Order of Clear Mind Zen
Telephone: 575-680-6680
Thank you very much Kobutsu for both sharing this insightful and powerful piece of writing, but also for the person you are. Thank you also for taking the time to call me, it is always a moment pregnant with the possibility of awakening to speak with you. Reading this piece reminded me so much of my ten years of work in child protective services, work as much for myself as for the children and families I was asked to work with. How to feel compassion for a perpetrator of sexual violence on a small child? How to understand a family system that produces and allows such behavior?
Such work changes us and also, I think, invites us to examine deeply, the phrases and jargon we Zennists drape ourselves with. Buddha nature is nature and nature is the universe: not all sweetness and light. Stars collide, civilizations brutalize one another, and individuals eat each other for lunch. All dharmas. Life unfolds.
Releasing ourselves from the grip of our thoughts and feelings about such things to just enter the situation is, I suspect, the best approach. When beings suffer we are there, not to help as your quote suggests, but to liberate.
Here's the thing, it seems to me we all live in cages. We all use our situation and condition to justify our behavior regardless of that behavior's morality. To free ourselves from the cage is to free ourselves from the whole structure: ego, id, and super-ego, on the individual level, but also from macro social structures, as well. We brutalize ourselves daily with our ideas, our values, and our economicic systems. A cage by another other name is still a cage.
To use the logic of the Buddha in his Diamond Sutra, to free ourselves from Dharma labels, such as being Zen practitioners, we must realize we are not Zen practioners. Because of this we are Zen ptractitioners. So, what does this mean? It means to me, just do what is in front of you to do.
Be well.
Daiho
"You need not enter a monastery, but make a monastery of your heart."
Soyu Matsuoka
Harvey Daiho Hilbert
Order of Clear Mind Zen
Telephone: 575-680-6680
--- On Thu, 3/24/11, Kobutsu Malone
From: Kobutsu Malone
Subject: Re: Greetings
To: "Harvey Daiho Hilbert"
Date: Thursday, March 24, 2011, 5:13 PM
http://www.engaged-zen.org/articles/Kobutsu-Paradox.html
On Mar 24, 2011, at 7:01 PM, Harvey Daiho Hilbert wrote:
With palms together,
Kobutsu, I hope you are well. I am writing to ask if you would offer a few words/insights to one of my students who has expressed an interest in prison work. He is a very bright, engaged scientist, who also holds a 3rd degree black belt, and will become a novice priest in April.
Again, I hope you are well. I look forward to hearing from you soon.
In gassho,
Daiho
"You need not enter a monastery, but make a monastery of your heart."
Soyu Matsuoka
Harvey Daiho Hilbert
Order of Clear Mind Zen
Telephone: 575-680-6680
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