With palms together,
Good Morning All,
It is the morning of December 7th, a day that Roosevelt said would "live in infamy." The Japanese attacked our base in Hawaii decimating our navy and bringing us into a World War. It was a devastating attack and what most of us don't know, preceded arguably the most important Zen Buddhist holiday of the calendar year, "Rohatsu," the celebration of the enlightenment of Siddhartha to become, "the Buddha."
Our guy sat outside under a tree, swearing he wouldn't get up until he found the way to end suffering. So he sat there, and sat there, and sat there some more. One morning, traditionally in our calendar, December 8th, he saw the "morning star." But he saw far, far more than that: he saw everything in every time, in every place, all at once, and realized he and all of that were one. He had achieved anuttara samyak sambodhi" or in English, "complete unexcelled awakening."
As the Great Wisdom Heart Sutra says, "with no hindrance in the mind, no hindrance no fear. Far beyond delusive thinking they (we) achieve complete awakening." So Buddha at that moment deeply understood the relationship between pain and suffering, freedom and imprisonment, and the great oneness of everything.
So what might that mean to us today? The same as it was yesterday and the day before, and the century before that.
Master Dogen Zenji in the 13th century taught that when we practice shikantaza, whole heartedly sitting hitting the mark, we are in a state of "practice realization." Mind and body fall away. What is left? Everything all at once. There is no me, no you, no wall, no cushion while in the very same moment there is me, you, wall, cushion, and sitting. It just that in that state the small "self" has awakened to, and become, the Big Self.
Masters throughout the centuries have asked us to then "take our cushions with us" as we leave the Zendo. In other words, live in that place, the place of birth and death and no birth and death; the place of suffering and no suffering. When there is no duality there is no suffering, yet non-duality contains duality. One cannot be without the other.
I experience pain everyday, often in every moment. I see myself aging and my body beginning to fail. Yet it is only when I want to chase away the pain do I suffer. So, suffering is in a relationship with pain; a relationship to the desire to be free of pain.
Good Morning All,
It is the morning of December 7th, a day that Roosevelt said would "live in infamy." The Japanese attacked our base in Hawaii decimating our navy and bringing us into a World War. It was a devastating attack and what most of us don't know, preceded arguably the most important Zen Buddhist holiday of the calendar year, "Rohatsu," the celebration of the enlightenment of Siddhartha to become, "the Buddha."
Our guy sat outside under a tree, swearing he wouldn't get up until he found the way to end suffering. So he sat there, and sat there, and sat there some more. One morning, traditionally in our calendar, December 8th, he saw the "morning star." But he saw far, far more than that: he saw everything in every time, in every place, all at once, and realized he and all of that were one. He had achieved anuttara samyak sambodhi" or in English, "complete unexcelled awakening."
As the Great Wisdom Heart Sutra says, "with no hindrance in the mind, no hindrance no fear. Far beyond delusive thinking they (we) achieve complete awakening." So Buddha at that moment deeply understood the relationship between pain and suffering, freedom and imprisonment, and the great oneness of everything.
So what might that mean to us today? The same as it was yesterday and the day before, and the century before that.
Master Dogen Zenji in the 13th century taught that when we practice shikantaza, whole heartedly sitting hitting the mark, we are in a state of "practice realization." Mind and body fall away. What is left? Everything all at once. There is no me, no you, no wall, no cushion while in the very same moment there is me, you, wall, cushion, and sitting. It just that in that state the small "self" has awakened to, and become, the Big Self.
Masters throughout the centuries have asked us to then "take our cushions with us" as we leave the Zendo. In other words, live in that place, the place of birth and death and no birth and death; the place of suffering and no suffering. When there is no duality there is no suffering, yet non-duality contains duality. One cannot be without the other.
I experience pain everyday, often in every moment. I see myself aging and my body beginning to fail. Yet it is only when I want to chase away the pain do I suffer. So, suffering is in a relationship with pain; a relationship to the desire to be free of pain.
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