Authenticity

With palms together,

 

 

Zen is neither Japanese or American, Chinese or German, Zen is just Zen.

 

We should leave all such distinctions aside. We are about practice.  We practice to discover our true nature. We practice to be buddhas. 

 

When we come to Zen, however, a Teacher and his or her Zen Center practices with a set of clothes, a language, and a set of customs, if you will.  It is these clothes , languages, and the assumptions that go with them that create "American Zen" or Japanese Zen" or some other "Zen." 

 

When I say we are severing our ties with Soto Shu, I mean that we are setting out on our own, walking in our own authority, and not being tied emotionally, financially, or in any other way, to Soto.

 

My Teacher's Teacher (my dharma grandfather) Matsuoka-roshi was a Soto Zen Bishop.  He was sent to America to establish Zen Centers and bring the dharma here to the US.  He was assigned here by Sojiji, a training center in Japan.   He was a poor monk, not clever or sophisticated with money.  While he managed to establish several Zen Centers on both coasts, he took very little money and had little to share with Sojiji.  Now Japanese Zen is all about authority, control, and money. If Matsuoka sent the money everything was fine.  When Matsuoka could not send the money, things were not fine.

 

Our model here in the US is his. We make little money from the dharma, ceremonies, ordinations. We modify our ceremonies to fit our neighborhoods and the cultures we exist in.  This is classic Zen Buddhism. Adapting, changing, growing: a dymamic , living, force. Soto training centers such as Sojiji seem to be bent on continuing their existance for the purpose of regulating and authenticating (for a fee, of course) Zen.

 

Humbug.

 

Want to know Zen?  Sit on a cushion and face a wall. With practice comes clear mind, with clear mind comes clear thinking and all of the other paths of our way.

 

So here we are in a New Year.  Let us rejoice in our own authority!

 

Be well,

May All Beings Be Free From Suffering

So Daiho-roshi
On the web at http://www.daihoji.org/ and http://daihoji.blogspot.com/

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Clear Mind Zen

With palms together,

Good Evening All,

Today I met with the priests that comprise most of the Board of Daibutsuji. We discussed many things, schedules, sangha needs, etc. But most importantly, we agreed to establish our own school of Zen Buddhism in America, severing our links to Sotoshu in Japan.

Our school will be called, "Clear Mind" and our focus will be on the development of Zen as an everyday practice. Our hope is to redefine religion from its western sense of worship of a diety to a sacralization of daily life.

We will practice from a Soto tradition, but not be limited to it.

Zen in America must become a uniquely American experience and practice. To do so means we must leave Japan to the Japanese and walk our own path.

I look forward to this experience and would appreciate your thoughts.

Be well,

May All Beings Be Free From Suffering

So Daiho-roshi
On the web at http://www.daihoji.org/ and http://daihoji.blogspot.com/

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City Life

With palms together,

Good Morning All,

It is a sunny morning here in the desert southwest. Morning zazen is done. A breakfast of noodle kugel and sour cream is done. The dogs have been out. Shortly we will walk over to the gym and lift weights, run, and walk on the treadmill. Then it will be time to return some things, eat lunch, pick-up some groceries and come home.

Life in the city is so much different from life at the Refuge.

Last night we had guests for dinner. The night before we had guests for dinner. We rarely had guests at the Refuge: too difficult to access.

At the Refuge we planned our trips to the store as a trip to the store was a trip to town and was a trip of six hours or more. Here in the city there are many jewels to attract the eye of desire: books, household things, people. At the Refuge, the jewels were just there, like a breath: the trees, the sun, the animals, the silence.

It is rather like living in Big Mind and Little Mind. We must se them as essentially the same. Navigating freely without trepidation, we center ourselves through our practice of zazen and through the practice of daily ritual. Things here, people there, vast emptiness everywhere. When we are non-attached, non-invested, and are willing to embrace life on its own terms, then we are free.

Non-attachment does not mean non-caring. Non-attachment does not mean a lack of choice and discrenment. Values are buddha-nature, they arise through our actions. Non-attachment means acceptance that this is and that is. We engage to assist when assistance is required. We engage to love. We engage to nurture. We disengage to love. We disengage to nurture. All part of the natural processes of life itself.

I hope each of you is well.

A deep bow,

Routine

With palms together,

Good Morning All,

This morning as I opened my eyes the desert sun was rather high. I vowed to see with clear eyes and reduce violence, then got out of bed to make the coffee, walk the dogs --- who were very patient --- and begin my day.

There is something very beautiful about routine. Routines, everyday rituals, are the hangers and organizers of our everyday. In one sense they make everyday events special. In another sense we recognize their everydayness.

When we are young we want to press against the everyday, breaking it, no smashing it, on the ground of change. Our goal is to experience our limits and push them. Not bad. We expand our minds and bodies. We grow stretching toward the light of day.

As we age, we shift our gears little by little, wanting to have a break. We begin to view change as a threat sometimes or at the least an inconvenience. We begin to delight in the common. We take comfort in the sameness of daily routine.

As we age more, we look back. Sometimes wanting not to let go of that youthful vigor and excitement we once were possessed by. At other times we welcome this opportunity to review. Review deepens our understanding. It contextualizes the processes of life. Blessed perspective.

In each of these times, our orientation is seemingly different. Zen teaches us that they are the same, however, and it is our effort to grip something tightly that is problematic and in the processes disallows us the moment and all that it has to offer us.

When we rise, at whatever age, and vow to see things clearly, that is enough. For then we are seeing without lusting, seeing for seeing itself. It is in this moment that we are truly free.

Practice.

A deep bow,

Pause and Be Still

With palms together,

Good Evening Everyone,

In the middle of everything it is important to pause and be still. This morning I woke aware that today would be a full, but delightful day. We cleaned, started the afternoon meal, and put the finishing touches on things. I left for the Zen Center in my robes. It was a beautiful morning. Rev. Dai Shin had tea water ready, as well as the alter. She and I talked a bit and then sat in silence in the zendo.

As I sat, I was aware of the stillness enfolding me. The wall, so white, opened and there I was, just there. Two priests doing what priests do all over the globe. Afterwards, we bowed to each other and left the zendo.

Returning home, I vacuumed as Judy finished the dinner preparations. The rest of the day was spent with friends visiting from El Paso. We had a wonderful afternoon meal. Great conversation, lots of laughter. and planning for other adventures together. The day concluded with Hanukkah candles and a gift to each other.

There was a sort of seamless elegance to the day today. Zazen was there, a part of the day, like taking out the trash or making the bed or preparing and eating a meal. Elements. Independently nothing special, but woven together becoming a meaningful tapestry.

This is enough.

Be well,

Just Be

With palms together,

Good Morning Everyone,

The recent comments regarding reducing violence have been floating around my mind over the last several days. This is neither good nor bad. When we have something on our minds, in one sense, means that we are paying attention to something. Yet, in another sense means we are being distracted by thought and, therefore, not seeing clearly.

Thinking about reducing violence and being peace will not make it happen, just as thinking about enlightenment will not bring it to your mind.

Practice realization, as Master Dogen points out, is just practice. One thing already containing the other, but (in a very special sense) in motion. There is no thinking about peace. There is just peace. There is no thinking about reducing or eliminating violence, there is just being the elimination of violence, period.

We accomplish this through being these things.

Just as in any other aspect of our practice, right understanding provides a clear framework for all that follows. Clear mind is right understanding. From clear mind comes right thought, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and meditation.

To be "right" means to be from the center: direct expressions of buddha-nature. This is non-equivocating compassion.

So, when we set out to bring about peace, we are already mistaken. Just as polishing a tile will not make a mirror. Just as sitting zazen will not make a buddha. We are buddha from the beginning.

Do not set out. Just be.

A deep bow to each of you.

The Clear World

With palms together,

Good Morning All,

In the clear world of nothing added, I taste sugar. I taste salt. I taste hot. I taste cold. I do not taste the words. The words are something added. So, when these things come to my tongue and are just there. I am in the clear world of nothing added. I am experience without the "I am." If I say, " I like sweet!" Or "how awful, soooo sour!" I am in the world of something added, and no longer in the experience.

It is our practice to stay as much as possible in one world and not the other. Our world is the world of the direct and present. The other is the world of expectation, valuation, discrimination. One is non-dualistic where everything is one. the other has an "I" separating ourselves from our experience.

At the same time it is also very important to recongnize and understand that both worlds are one and there is no two. The world of nothing added is pure, direct, "thus." The world of something added is the world of valuation. Big mind, small mind: Emptiness and form, form and emptiness. Like our breath, these things open and close, rise and fall in a rhythm all their own.

Our practice is to join this rhythm. Feel this rhythm. Accept this rhythm.

This is a serious practice, the practice of living in the clear world of nothind added. It is difficult because the mind is a tricky, very quick, little rascal. It is untrained and unwilling to be trained. It resists training. It runs from training! It shouts. It cries. It demands. Its a two year old baby on a tantrum. It wants to have a purpose: and its purpose is to think.

Training our minds to live in both worlds as one without hindrance is our practice. and is very simple. It is just to taste the sweet. Just to taste the sour. It is also to recognize a thought is just a thought, and a feeling is just a feeling. How hard is that?
Open your month and taste. Open your eyes and see.

It is enough.