Watch this: My talk on "The Light is Always With You"

Confession

With palms together,
Good Day All,
As we suffer through our nation's nightmare of division, conflict, and dashed dreams. I believe it is critical to release the reins of True Belief. Those of us who feel strongly about the state of our nation, if not the world, live on both sides of this great divide. As we reinforce our positions with facts and figures, we do so without due regard for our nation as a whole.
Which one of us actually thinks about the greater good?  Which one of us could articulate what the good may be?  And do so without denigrating the "other side"?
One of the ten grave precepts is not to elivate ourselves at the expense of others. In this climate it seems to me that violating this precpt is both common and accepted, much like the changing motres of our society.  I confess I am as guilty as the next guy in posting items that denigrate Mr Trump and his followers.  I do so out of a need to help people understand what I believe to be "the error of their ways." How presumptive asnd arrogent, I am.  As are most of us today in these United States.
We say, in the Buddha Way, there are three poisons: greed, hatred, and delusion, and that these can be met with generosity, love, and wisdom. Today we have allowed ourselves to become prey to these three toxic characteristics.  How unfortunate.
Giving when we have so little ourselves, loving those who hate us, and developing wisdom to replace the dualities of delusion, is seriously difficult.  Yet practice we must if we are to ever hope to return our nation to sanity. A major aspect of this practice is to learn to see a much bigger picture which includes those we may disagree with
Our nation is in our hands; let us use them to build rather than destroy.
Daiho

Announcement

Announcement: I will offer two introductory classes on Zen Buddhism, one in our Zendo in Las Cruces, the other online. I am calling the class “Zen 101.”  The class will consist of eight one hour sessions followed by a 25 minute period of Zazen. If you are interested in taking this class please contact me by email at daihoroshi@gmail.com

Woke

Let's talk about this:
from Dictionary.com
"What does woke mean?"
"Woke means being conscious of racial discrimination in society and other forms of oppression and injustice. In mainstream use, woke can also more generally describe someone or something as being "with it.""
A term now popular amongst our social justice warriors, "woke" is a word that separates those awake to social justice and racism from those who, they may claim, are not.  My sense is this sort of thing does more harm than good as it is just another form of prejudicial discrimination. 
If someone does not shasre our view of what social justice is we can simply dismiss him or her as not "woke."  Yet, he or she may very well be aware of social justice and believe differently than we as to how to address it.  Or quite possibly we don't like his or her way. So, if we are not on the same page, define things in the same way, then, I suspect we are not "woke." 
Does this division help us in any way at all?
Daiho

Acceptance

With palms together,

Let's see, this morning I must have some scans done.  This afternoon someone's coming to check our water softener and someone else will deliver a walker. Yes, I need a walker.  It seems my ability to walk is compromised a bit. Getting old ain't for sissies they say, but the hard part is acceptance in the face of facts. 
Acceptance that everything is change, that nothing, absolutely nothing remains the same is both a Buddhist principle, but also simply a fact of life. It is the essence of the Second of the Buddha's Four Noble Truths, that the cause of our suffering is "attachment," or as I like to think of it, "investment."  The more we asre inversted in keeping something, the more we suffer, why? Because everything changes. Yet, the Buddha offered hope. The Third Noble Truth is that there is a way to end suffering and that way is the Eightfold Noble Path.
I'm not going to name the eight folds, but will say their essence is "the Middle Way."  And what is that?  Easy, sort of. Not falling prey to extremes. Knowing something we value will change and accepting that truth is a mature and wise view: it allows us to love with an open hand. Hold on, but not too tight.
AA has a phrase, "Let go, let God."  I would say, let go and allow your true nature to guide you. What is that?  Practice to find out.
Be well,
Daiho

Being Present

Enjoying my lunch reading about time. An old looking man came up to me, sat down, and said I looked like a peaceful person. Telling me he was from New York City and he was “seriously f*cked up.”

I listened to his lament...too much drinking, too many marriages, and on and on. He wanted to know how to be at peace. I said, that’s within him. He asked what to do . I said nothing, just stop beating himself with a stick. He said he couldn’t do that. So I said get rid of the stick and use a feather.

He smiled, got up and walked away.

Conversation

With palms together,
Good Afternoon Everyone,
It is late afternoon here in Las Cruces, New Mexico.  Our sky is sunny and its about 70 degrees F. A good day to be outside.  So, this morning after working some on our "water feature" I rode my Harley down to the Farmers Market and sat with my friend Randy Harris. We talked, once again, about time. A few others joined in.  It is fascinating how hungry people seem to be for a good conversation.
After returning home I finished our water feature and talked with my neighbor Luis. Luis will be moving soon; I will miss him.  He is from Venezuela, and sharp as a tack and filled with kindness and generosity.  We often talk over the stone wall that separates our yards.
Good conversation is easy.  One has simply to be open and inviting, listen, and respond as a human being. This seems so difficult today for most of us, I think.  It seems hard  just to get past the weather or sports or some other innocuous subject. What I have found though is if I introduce a topic that requires some reflection I either get an enthusiastic reponse or vacant eyes.
It has been said that a Master listens and speaks little.  I believe, however, that one must share oneself in a conversation.  Knowing we are each human beings with our own stories, shortcomings and virtues tends to disarm and encourage a degree of reciprocity.
Let us each not be afraid to talk to people; they are, afterall, everywhere! 
Be well,
Daiho

Change

With palms together,
Good Morning All,
Sometimes change, a constant in our lives, is a challenge. Hell, most of the time it is. Yet, because it is a constant, it is something we must deal with.  The Buddha taught life is suffering, but only because life is change; and we resist change since we are so invested in keeping it the same.
The Buddha taught us the following:
"I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.
I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health.
I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.
All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change...
My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions... "
So, in the face of these truths how do we live?
The essential nature of these five remembrances is change. To live with change is not easy.  We must be willing to loosen the grip of our attachments to things. It is that grip that is our suffering.  Perhaps one way is to re-frame change away from loss to gift.  We we let go of one thing, another arises: closing one door allows for the opening of another and in each a change occurs.  We might call it transformative.
Change then, allows us to grow, to transform our lives into something new and different and, hopefully, better.  So, let us not fear change or deny it, but rather, let us welcome it and embrace it as a necessary aspect of the f;low of life.
Be well.
Daiho

About Zen

Zen is only one thing: complete attention.  Typically, we go through our day half asleep, on autopilot, as it were.   We are thinking about something, what we are doing, what we will do next, what we didn’t do.  We feel anxious, happy, or sad. Yet, we rarely have any real sense of it or ourselves because we are simply not paying attention.  We are seeing our thoughts or our feelings or our behavior, but we are not seeing clearly, directly, what is actually there:  Past and future take us away from the present.

Zen is a practice that invites us to exist in this present moment and this moment only. We say, when washing the dishes, just wash the dishes.  This is meditation and meditation is awakened living.

Zen means meditation.  Zazen means seated meditation. However, this tells us nothing of importance.  We each have some idea of what meditation is, some of us have practiced some form of meditation, and know that it is only in the practice that we come to know it.

Zen is a Buddhist practice.  Zen is Buddhism in its most pure form.  Practicing Zen is practicing the Buddha’s Way; it is in effect, being a buddha right here, right now.

You do not have to be a Buddhist to be a buddha.  Nevertheless, practicing Zen and being buddha are one in the same.

There are some things about Zen Buddhism you should know about.  Our practice is about arousing the thought of awakening, of opening our eyes.  Although we arouse the thought, we should not pursue it.  We arouse the thought and, like all thoughts and feelings, let it go.

As we let go of thoughts, one after another, feelings, one after another, something begins to happen.  We realize we are being still, yet not completely so.  Our mind continues, our heart continues, our body continues, but we reside in serene reflection, like the water of a pond. From this space, our understanding of the universe and ourselves unfolds. Our realization of ourselves as a complete universe begins to be experienced. We begin to see our Way.

To accept Zen Buddhism as a philosophy, one only need read a few of the thousands of books about it, become familiar with Oriental thinking and concepts, and understand it as one view among many regarding the nature of man and the universe. To accept Zen Buddhism as a religion means to do the above, but with a sense of faith that there are truths applicable to us in the philosophy, and then to adopt the practices of Zen.  To come to Zen Buddhism as a practice is the way of a buddha.  To do this means letting go of thoughts, concepts, philosophy, all of the religion of ideas, and to look deeply into one’s self, so deeply that in the looking, the self itself, becomes meaningless. So, in both the beginning and the end, the most important thing is to practice. Everything else is window dressing.  We now arrive at the critical questions: what does it mean to practice Zen?  How do we “do” Zen?  To address these, we pursue other questions such as what is your life?  Where have you been?  Where are you going? And most importantly, who are you?

These questions will inevitably arise as you practice.  Sitting quietly, all things eventually come up and present themselves.  To sit Zazen means to sit in a chair or on a cushion in a certain way, with a certain attitude.  This attitude is everything.  It is an attitude that is true. The form of us changes moment to moment, while our essence is unchanging change.

Paradigm Shifts

With palms together,
Good Afternoon All,

This afternoon I spent an hour and a half at Milagros Cafe sipping green tea and discussing time with my "Great Conversations" co-conspirator, Randy Harris.  As my fellow Zen Teacher, Judy Roitman, pointed out, "It's complicated."

Together we are reading the book, "The Order of Time" by Carlo Rovelli.  It is a wonderfully challenging text discussing time from a physics perspective. The book challenges our understanding of time, and it is that fact that I deem most important.

Its the challenge in thinking that is of utmost importance. Far too often, it seems to me, we are prone to go with our assumptions and core beliefs, those traits and characteristics we grew up with and believe to be true.

Such beliefs when shared within a population become a "paradigm," a model for understanding a particular thing. Paradigms explain the world around us, often explain our behavior, and certainly guide us if in the darkness of unknowing.  The problem is this: change happens.
Paradigms shift as a result  As new knowledge comes to light a  paradigm expands to include it. At some point in the effort to integrate the change, the paradigm collapses as the new knowledge simply cannot be incorporated. 

Imagine a round hole and a small square peg. As long as the peg remains smaller than the round hole, it will slip into it. Now, lets suppose the square peg begins to become larger.  At some point that peg just will not go in the round hole. What happens?  We must find another hole that will accept the peg. More often than not, some begin to see this development as it occurs and sound the alarm.  The Earth is not flat and is not the center of the universe.

In past posts I have been talking about a paradigmatic shift regarding values. But more precisely its about language and the meanings of values. Robert Pirsig in his masterful work,
"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" addresses a dichotomy of values, those considered "classical" and those he considered "romantic." One was more convergent and one more divergent; one was of a scientific bent, the other more artistic. These values clash in some ways, but he thought something, a value, could act as a bridge to bring them together. The was the concept of quality.
I am suggesting that, while this may be so, an underlying problem is that values in all three areas are shifting. It's as though the ground beneath them is collapsing. The words used to identify values are changing so that a word no longer means what we might believe it to mean.  What this may suggest is that, while we believe we are communicating, we are, in fact, not, leading us to ever increasing confict at best and isolation at worst.

In future sections I will attempt to explore the values involved, the shift and potential consequences of this dialectic.  Thank you for reading this introduction.

Yours,
Daiho

Shift

Gassho,

We are living in a time of radical change.  The dominant paradigm regarding societal structures no longer seem viable. We are faced with technological changes that are effectively changing how we think, what we perceive, and how we perceive. The shift from analog to digital thinking has a profound effect on this. It’s an evolutionary outcome of our cognitive and technological growth, as well as our moral development. 

Traditional conflict theory has lost its ground.  People are more interested in collaboration than dominance. We want all of us to grow and thrive with no one left behind. Cooperative models seem the most viable and, I believe the so-called “information highway “ is one of the major vehicles enabling or perhaps even driving this change.  Knowledge is gained and shared, different social models are out there to be examined and experimented with, and we each can access this knowledge with a few clicks on our various devices. 

People respond to these changes in differing ways. Conservatives wish to hold on to past models, progressives accept and often wish to enable this change.

The evolutionary model of social change has its appeal. It can absorb the conflict model as the energy for change, yet remain in the larger context as a flowing stream. The water engages the rock and subtly changes it giving rise to sand. Different from water; different from rock.

We are at a point where the rock is becoming sand.

Lots of rocks resist the water. Some rocks look forward to being sand. Others are along for the process, swept up in it and passively witnessing it.

Our nature is change. Like it or not, it’s what we do. The evolution of our planet demands compliance to change. Resistance is futile.  Acceptance is life. 

When we talk about happiness we should be talking about our relationship to change.  The species that lives with the flow is happy. Those who resist the flow are not. This doesn’t mean we are to be victims in the process, far from it. What it means is we are awake in the process, engaging the process and doing what we can to go in the direction of our survival .  

There’s a phrase I like but rarely use: being in  concert. When we are in concert there’s a synthesis, a collaboration. It is this collaboration that I believe is our salvation as a species, as nations and as communities.

An evolutionary model asks us to look at the largest picture possible. As we do that our small issues recede and we can find ways to be together in reasonable harmony.

Be well, Daiho Hilbert

Zen?

Gassho Y'all,

This morning over coffee Shukke and I talked about Zen, what it is exactly.  Many folks including renowned teachers answer the question talking about zazen and other forms. And while that is satisfactory, I find it leads many to believe the forms are the practice, but the forms, dear readers, are not Zen, they are practice to be Zen.  And in that practice, our eyes open. But do not mistake:  practice apart from life, seen as separate from lived experience, is a duality.

Life, with a mind that is present, is Zen: nothing special. As we sip our coffee, do our dishes, put one foot in front of another, and do so fully and completely, that is Zen.
Bowing practice, eating practice, walking and sitting practice, these are both Zen (when done with eyes open) and the practice that gets us there. How do we open our hearts if we fear touching it? How do wechange our response in situations if we are iunaware of the need?

Zen "practice," then,  is a gate and the field beyond when we
realize the dualities within us and begin to let them fall away.

is life meaningful?

With palms together,

The question arises what really matters? Does our life really matter or is it something about our life? Life itself is just a metabolic process:all living things do it, nothing special. Yet, we cling to it as if “our life depended on it!”

Freud talked about two drives, Thanatos and Eros, death and love (perhaps more directly life itself). All living things strive to continue to live, but with us, with a self-awareness that asks why, why do we hold on to living so tightly? We are set apart from other life.

We strive always to take that next breath, discover that next image taste or smell. And in the struggle we question.  Questions give rise to meaning—- or at least they send us down the path to discover meaning. Our journey however doesn’t end: it’s a perpetual journey where one step never suffices and one breath rarely stands alone. We continue to ask and we continue to breathe.

Perhaps one way to address the question is to simply assume there is no ultimate answer save the process of questioning. Or should we consider it living where it seems to me living is apart from life. Life is just life,  but living is doing something with that life and for us that something is to question, is to assign meaning to that which we perceive or think about.

Somethings just come and go, don’t they? Nothing but the passing of thought on the breath. Some other things stop us dead. What’s this? We ask. What’s this indeed.

It’s not the object of the question that’s actually meaningful, it seems to me, it’s the fact that it stops us in our tracks.

It turns out, ours is to reason why!

A Disciple visits Eiheiji...

From Sensei Shukke’s  Disciple Derek:


This past June, Oscar and I traveled to Japan where I was fortunate enough to participate in an International Zen Workshop Sesshin at Daihonzan Eiheiji. While these workshops are usually comprised of either all Japanese or non-Japanese participants, the monks decided to experiment with a mixed group of both during this particular sesshin.  There were eighteen participants total with nine women and nine men with a little more than half of the participants being Japanese.  The non-Japanese participants came from Chile, France, Singapore, Israel, Bulgaria, and the U.S.

Coming by train and then bus from Kanazawa, Oscar and I got to Eiheiji around noon.  After dropping me off at the monastery Oscar had the next three days to explore Kanazawa on his own.  Once all the participants checked in, we were divided into two lines by gender and shown our rooms on the fourth floor of the Kichijokaku (Guest Hall).  Each group shared a large tatami room complete with futons and storage for our belongings.  After dropping off our things we were ushered into an adjacent classroom that functioned as our general meeting space for orientation, dharma talks/lectures, instruction, and stretching.  Two rows of long tables were placed along each side of the room facing one another (women on one side, men on the other).  At each place setting was a name tag, large envelope, two small pieces of paper, and pens.  Once Rev. Yokoyama and Rev. Kojima finished introductions we were told to place all of our belonging into the envelope and mark the outside with our name and country of origin. These were going to be kept in a secure location to limit



ays or so I was excited to be at Eiheiji but was also extremely self-conscious about my every move.  I wanted to make sure I was "doing it right."  Luckily the majority of the forms and etiquette we were asked to follow were the same ones we practice in our sangha and in other sanghas in the U.S.  Zazen with the group was very strong.  All but one participant were dedicated Soto practitioners with much sitting experience.  Our collective focus was really quite harmonizing.  That is except for when we were trying to eat!  Oryoki is such a difficult practice even for Japanese practitioners.  During the first meal, after we had been served and began to eat, I tried eating as mindfully as possible.  Take a bite, put the chopsticks diagonally across the middle bowl to chew a large bit, sit with cosmic mudra, take another bit, chew, repeat.  Nearly halfway through my meal I looked around and notice the teachers were finished, all of the women were finished, and all the men except for me and the guy to my left (who had about two bites left) were finished.  My god. Sweat started pouring from everywhere and my chopsticks were shaking as I tried to finish eating as quickly and elegantly as possible.  Mindful eating is a bit different at Eiheiji than what I was used to.  From that meal on I was very strategic about how much food I took to make sure I wasn't last again.  Soup is easy to eat quickly–just gulp it down.  Rice and the pickled daikon radish they served with every meal takes awhile so only take a bit of that.  Eat the most difficult things first and take very large bites.  Be mindful of how fast others are eating to try and finish together as a group.  By the second day of eating all of our meals in the zendo I finally experience how oryoki really is a continuation of our zazen.  As soon as we moved from the classroom to the zendo and began eating after sitting the energy was so different.  Everyone, while still fumbling a bit and needing some gentle procedural reminders from the monks seemed much more grounded in the practice of oryoki.  Although I still don't enjoy oryoki I have a much deeper appreciation for it.  We should more consciously incorporate into our regular practice.

Dogen Zenji wrote in Fukanzazengi, "The way is originally perfect and all-pervading...It is never apart from this very place; what is the use of traveling around to practice?"  This line stood out to me during discussion.  Why was I here at Eiheiji?  Is there something that different that required me to travel so far?  Is Eiheiji, or even Japan for that matter, the only place to experience "authentic" zen practice?  Not really.  The impeccable robes, centuries old buildings, beautiful scenery, and history of Eiheiji is really something and if you can go then make sure to go.  But if you never make it, don't worry.  Dogen's teaching really have taken root in the West.  Sure, the packaging might look a little different in American zen centers or monasteries and we might not have all the fancy choreography or the same number of monks but the core teachings of the Way are here, they're everywhere.  As Dogen said, "The way is originally perfect and all-pervading."  The truth is beyond Japan or America.  It's beyond Buddhism or some other religion.  I'm so grateful to have had this experience at Eiheiji.  Again, seeing and doing things how they're practiced at Eiheiji was something else and make sure to go if you can.  Just be careful about getting caught up in the accoutrement of Japanese monasticism, you might miss something a bit deeper.

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

Go here for six videos on The Zen of Trauma

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,

Truth

With palms together,

“The Roshi makes shitty coffee.” a poem by a Zen student and gift to me.

Sometimes our truth is simple and straightforward. Not always so. Sometimes our truth is muddy, lurking in the muck of a swamp. We don’t always have the clarity of the student poet, but we always have a direction we must follow, even if it’s through the mud.

Zen practice is the practice of taking a step with the deliberation of an arrow speeding to its target. Equivocate not, just do. So too, our truth: it’s always with us, but it’s up to us to have it see the light of day. There is a time for silence, a time for speech, and a time for action. Prajna is knowing which is which.

Gassho