With palms together, Here is a link to Clear Mind Zen's online store. More products to come. All proceeds will go to Zen Center in support of our work to toward the Three Pure Precepts.
http://www.cafepress.com/sodaiho
Be well.
Organ Mountain Zen
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Clear Mind Zen
With palms together,
Good Morning All,
Over the last few weeks I have been working out a basic sketch of Clear Mind Zen. This includes a simple mission statement, statement of definition, membership to the Order, requirements for various levels of commitment, e.g. Refuge Enterer, Precept Holder, Disciple, Dharma Teacher, or Priest. I also created a category for our Virtual Sangha for those of you who wish a formal teaching relationship with me.
Over the next few days I will place materials related to this on our Zen Living Yahoogroups homepage in the "files" section.
If you are interested in this material and can't wait for the files to be up loaded, email me and I will forward them to you as an attachment. They are written in Word. As is always the case, these are and will be 'works in progress.'
I envision this Zen Living list as a worldwide Socially Engaged Zen group. I will be posting materials over time to encourage and support your practice in this world to fulfill the Three Pure Precepts. We have called this effort, "Share the Bloom" in the past and I like this notion.
Lastly, I am building an online store with the help of cafe press. This store will sell t-shirts, buttons, caps, books, and other items related to Clear Mind Zen, its practice and mission. If you should have ideas for items, bumper stickers, etc., please forward them to me.
Be well.
Good Morning All,
Over the last few weeks I have been working out a basic sketch of Clear Mind Zen. This includes a simple mission statement, statement of definition, membership to the Order, requirements for various levels of commitment, e.g. Refuge Enterer, Precept Holder, Disciple, Dharma Teacher, or Priest. I also created a category for our Virtual Sangha for those of you who wish a formal teaching relationship with me.
Over the next few days I will place materials related to this on our Zen Living Yahoogroups homepage in the "files" section.
If you are interested in this material and can't wait for the files to be up loaded, email me and I will forward them to you as an attachment. They are written in Word. As is always the case, these are and will be 'works in progress.'
I envision this Zen Living list as a worldwide Socially Engaged Zen group. I will be posting materials over time to encourage and support your practice in this world to fulfill the Three Pure Precepts. We have called this effort, "Share the Bloom" in the past and I like this notion.
Lastly, I am building an online store with the help of cafe press. This store will sell t-shirts, buttons, caps, books, and other items related to Clear Mind Zen, its practice and mission. If you should have ideas for items, bumper stickers, etc., please forward them to me.
Be well.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Six of One
With palms together,
Good Morning All,
Wisdom requires meditative living, meditative living requires diligence, diligence requires patience, patience requires a moral sensibility, a moral sensibility reguires generosity.
The paramitas are one.
Let's suppose that you were to spend one day a week on each paramita, with one day off for good behavior. That's not so difficult. Get up in the morning, read something relatingto the paramita of the day, sit Zazen with that paramita in mind. Drive to work with that paramita, enacting it as you can, seeing where it fits or doesn't fit, how it can be applied or not, and so on.
If you spent that entire day examining it as it applies to your actual life, then at the end of a year you will have spent 52 days developing each of these excellences in your life. Fifty-two days of generosity, of morality, of patience, of diligence, of meditation, and of wisdom.
What a year, what a person.
Be well.
Good Morning All,
Wisdom requires meditative living, meditative living requires diligence, diligence requires patience, patience requires a moral sensibility, a moral sensibility reguires generosity.
The paramitas are one.
Let's suppose that you were to spend one day a week on each paramita, with one day off for good behavior. That's not so difficult. Get up in the morning, read something relatingto the paramita of the day, sit Zazen with that paramita in mind. Drive to work with that paramita, enacting it as you can, seeing where it fits or doesn't fit, how it can be applied or not, and so on.
If you spent that entire day examining it as it applies to your actual life, then at the end of a year you will have spent 52 days developing each of these excellences in your life. Fifty-two days of generosity, of morality, of patience, of diligence, of meditation, and of wisdom.
What a year, what a person.
Be well.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
That Old Tree
With palms together,
Good Morning All,
O Shariputra, remember, Dharma is fundamentally emptiness, no birth, no death. Nothing is pure, nothing is defiled. Nothing can increase, nothing can decrease. Hence: in emptiness, no form, no feeling no thought, no impulse, no consciousness; no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind; no seeing, no hearing, no smelling, no tasting, no touching, no thinking, no realm of sight, no realm of thought, no ignorance and no end of ignorance, no old age and death and no end to old age and death. No suffering, no craving, no extinction, no path, no wisdom, no attainment.
This scriptural teaching from the Great Heart of Wisdom Sutra, suggests all of the things we believe are real are just concepts created in our minds. They have no meaning apart from that meaning we apply,. We must be careful, therefore in our application of, and wedding to, this meaning. We must see it for what it is, a convenience, a shorthand, a tool, but most of all, an invention.
When we can move freely from form to no form, realizing birth and death are artificial constructs, living with both purity and impurity as places upon a single plane of existence, then we are truly free.
Clinging to any one of these concepts becomes a knife that cleaves the universe in two.
If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?
Sound is audible, sound is a name for something audible. For audible to be, there must be ears to hear. For name to be, there must be a mind to both name and recognize name. No sense organs, no sense.
So, does a tree falling in the forest make a sound?
Be well.
Good Morning All,
O Shariputra, remember, Dharma is fundamentally emptiness, no birth, no death. Nothing is pure, nothing is defiled. Nothing can increase, nothing can decrease. Hence: in emptiness, no form, no feeling no thought, no impulse, no consciousness; no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind; no seeing, no hearing, no smelling, no tasting, no touching, no thinking, no realm of sight, no realm of thought, no ignorance and no end of ignorance, no old age and death and no end to old age and death. No suffering, no craving, no extinction, no path, no wisdom, no attainment.
This scriptural teaching from the Great Heart of Wisdom Sutra, suggests all of the things we believe are real are just concepts created in our minds. They have no meaning apart from that meaning we apply,. We must be careful, therefore in our application of, and wedding to, this meaning. We must see it for what it is, a convenience, a shorthand, a tool, but most of all, an invention.
When we can move freely from form to no form, realizing birth and death are artificial constructs, living with both purity and impurity as places upon a single plane of existence, then we are truly free.
Clinging to any one of these concepts becomes a knife that cleaves the universe in two.
If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?
Sound is audible, sound is a name for something audible. For audible to be, there must be ears to hear. For name to be, there must be a mind to both name and recognize name. No sense organs, no sense.
So, does a tree falling in the forest make a sound?
Be well.
Monday, June 12, 2006
Wrestling with Whatever
With palms together,
Good Morning All,
What are we here for? Why do we exist? Is there indeed a purpose to our existence?
Thinking like this leads us to the sky.
Such questions.
Who knows. Who cares!
We are here. That's what matters. Or does it?
Thinking like this leads us to the earth.
What matters even more?
What happens when earth and sky come together.
Philosophy and religion have always grappled with such things, as has mythology. Sky beings, lofty, wise, untouched and untouchable on one hand; earth beings, crude, dirty, and wet on the other hand.
For philosophy, these were points of departure. The original mind conceiving and then laying out conception: maybe Hegelian, maybe Epicurean. Yet, in literature and mythology, including the stories of the bible, Zen, we see these two wrestling.
The Epic of Gilgamesh, that five thousand year old Babylonian drama, casts Gilgamesh the light prince engaging Enkidu the earth demon. Jacob wrestles with God. Beowulf wrestles with Grendel, Buddha wrestles with Mara. In all of these, it is the wrestling that matters.
Nothing is clear cut. Nothing is one way or the other. The universe is a sloppy, wet, muddy affair. Yet there are rocks to climb on so that we may dry off and rest for a bit. One such rock might be your church or mosque, yet another, your cushion. In any event the real wrestling resides within.
Cherish it.
Be well.
Good Morning All,
What are we here for? Why do we exist? Is there indeed a purpose to our existence?
Thinking like this leads us to the sky.
Such questions.
Who knows. Who cares!
We are here. That's what matters. Or does it?
Thinking like this leads us to the earth.
What matters even more?
What happens when earth and sky come together.
Philosophy and religion have always grappled with such things, as has mythology. Sky beings, lofty, wise, untouched and untouchable on one hand; earth beings, crude, dirty, and wet on the other hand.
For philosophy, these were points of departure. The original mind conceiving and then laying out conception: maybe Hegelian, maybe Epicurean. Yet, in literature and mythology, including the stories of the bible, Zen, we see these two wrestling.
The Epic of Gilgamesh, that five thousand year old Babylonian drama, casts Gilgamesh the light prince engaging Enkidu the earth demon. Jacob wrestles with God. Beowulf wrestles with Grendel, Buddha wrestles with Mara. In all of these, it is the wrestling that matters.
Nothing is clear cut. Nothing is one way or the other. The universe is a sloppy, wet, muddy affair. Yet there are rocks to climb on so that we may dry off and rest for a bit. One such rock might be your church or mosque, yet another, your cushion. In any event the real wrestling resides within.
Cherish it.
Be well.
Sunday, June 11, 2006
While the Sun Rises
With palms together,
Good Morning Sangha,
In the morning news I read about a kitty that tree'd a bear, the beheading of three people in Iraq, that Lindsay Lohan doesn't want to be seen as a "party girl", and that three prisoners of America, held without charges or hope of a trial, just hung themselves in prison. The kitty wins.
I, on the other hand, will sit Zazen while the sun rises over the mountains.
Be well.
Good Morning Sangha,
In the morning news I read about a kitty that tree'd a bear, the beheading of three people in Iraq, that Lindsay Lohan doesn't want to be seen as a "party girl", and that three prisoners of America, held without charges or hope of a trial, just hung themselves in prison. The kitty wins.
I, on the other hand, will sit Zazen while the sun rises over the mountains.
Be well.
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Passion
With palms together,
Good Morning All,
Is there a fire in your life? A passion that draws you, demands that you wake and get out of bed? Is it raging? Is it smoldering? How do you recognize it? How do you feel about it? What do you do with it?
Is this fire a good thing or a bad thing?
These are life questions, imortant to both our happiness and our quality of life. As Viktor Frankl pointed out years ago, we cannot exist as human beings without meaning in our lives. Yet, is meaning and our search for it, the same as this fire?
Most of us live with something we feel passionate about, if only our spouse or children (not to suggest these are small things). Some of us are fortunatre to work in fields we feel passionate about. In such cases work is not work, but life itself. Others feel passionate about the world and its condition. We live to repair it, to bring it to life, to heal it, to make the world a better place.
In whatever context this passion arises, it must be balanced. Tempering our passions is like temporing steel. We fold the steel over and over, pounding it, folding it, pounding it, folding it, until the moment it becomes a fine blade. With each folding the steel must rest. There is a time for heat, a time for pounding, a time for folding, and a time for rest. So too with what we love.
It would be a good practice for each of us to address the questions at the top of this post then ask ourselves how we balance and integrate these into our lives.
Be well.
Good Morning All,
Is there a fire in your life? A passion that draws you, demands that you wake and get out of bed? Is it raging? Is it smoldering? How do you recognize it? How do you feel about it? What do you do with it?
Is this fire a good thing or a bad thing?
These are life questions, imortant to both our happiness and our quality of life. As Viktor Frankl pointed out years ago, we cannot exist as human beings without meaning in our lives. Yet, is meaning and our search for it, the same as this fire?
Most of us live with something we feel passionate about, if only our spouse or children (not to suggest these are small things). Some of us are fortunatre to work in fields we feel passionate about. In such cases work is not work, but life itself. Others feel passionate about the world and its condition. We live to repair it, to bring it to life, to heal it, to make the world a better place.
In whatever context this passion arises, it must be balanced. Tempering our passions is like temporing steel. We fold the steel over and over, pounding it, folding it, pounding it, folding it, until the moment it becomes a fine blade. With each folding the steel must rest. There is a time for heat, a time for pounding, a time for folding, and a time for rest. So too with what we love.
It would be a good practice for each of us to address the questions at the top of this post then ask ourselves how we balance and integrate these into our lives.
Be well.
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