With palms together,
Good Morning All,
The Buddha said: Hatreds do not ever cease in this world by hating, but by not hating; this is an eternal truth.
And how easy is that!
This is a core practice. We know that thoughts of ill will arise. We see this every day, indeed, we experience this every day. Zazen teaches us that these thoughts and their concommitant feelings come, but also go. Zazen teaches us that by residing in stillness, even while in motion, we do not enact ill will.
The Buddha is stating a behavioral truth here. We can change our heart by changing our behavior. If we choose not to enact hate, we will reduce and eventually elimiate hate from our minds and hearts. Just so, if we decide nor to swear, swearing will becomeless a habit of mind and heart.
The eternal truth here is that mind, heart, and body are one.
Replace hate with love and there's a possibility that its good medicine will heal the world, one being at a time.
Be well.
Organ Mountain Zen
Monday, June 19, 2006
Sunday, June 18, 2006
An Edge
With palms together,
Good Morning All,
As we live out our lives, many of us have the propensity to live on the darker edges of things. As residents of the edge we see the contrasts between light and dark. We taste delight and revulsion. We are right there on that edge!
Some are energized in a morose sort of way while there. Others become lethargic and nihilistic: nothing matters.
This edge can be a real blessing or a source of true torture.
It is a place without a future. It flails the past. It makes the present a dark stew.
Those who see clearly the truth of life and death are tempted to accept this edge and make it home. Wrapping themselves in their robes of futility and acceptance they rot like the corpses they are.
The others with clouded minds dance like moths on the tip of the flame. Exquisite.
Followers of the Great Way, though, step off the edge. They have faith in the universe and know their way is not to sit on the edge, but to walk in the world doing what needs to be done. Hungry person? Feed him. Cold person? Give him a blanket. Glass breaks on the floor? Sweep it up. Dog wants out? Take him out.
When your moral conscience is in your body, there is no question.
Be well.
Good Morning All,
As we live out our lives, many of us have the propensity to live on the darker edges of things. As residents of the edge we see the contrasts between light and dark. We taste delight and revulsion. We are right there on that edge!
Some are energized in a morose sort of way while there. Others become lethargic and nihilistic: nothing matters.
This edge can be a real blessing or a source of true torture.
It is a place without a future. It flails the past. It makes the present a dark stew.
Those who see clearly the truth of life and death are tempted to accept this edge and make it home. Wrapping themselves in their robes of futility and acceptance they rot like the corpses they are.
The others with clouded minds dance like moths on the tip of the flame. Exquisite.
Followers of the Great Way, though, step off the edge. They have faith in the universe and know their way is not to sit on the edge, but to walk in the world doing what needs to be done. Hungry person? Feed him. Cold person? Give him a blanket. Glass breaks on the floor? Sweep it up. Dog wants out? Take him out.
When your moral conscience is in your body, there is no question.
Be well.
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Making the Coffee
With palms together,
Good Morning All,
The desert air is cool this morning, a mere 70 degrees. I am sitting here under the ceiling fan enjoying the air flow over my shoulders. The orchid on my desk is amazing, beautiful yellow backgrounds splashed with magenta. Both dogs are sleeping and Pete-kitty is rolled up in a small ball near My Little Honey's pillow.
The most wonderous things are present if we stop to appreciate them. This stopping requires of us a willingness to just be there. We are not to disturb. We are not to enter. We are present.
When we are present, we experience being in the cool, in the air, in the presence of the universe. Its the difference of being in the flow as opposed to being against the flow.
Yet, here's the thing. When your little honey gets up and asks where's the coffee is, you don't get defensive, you don't get wrinkled, instead, you walk into the kitchen and make the coffee.
Seamless.
Be well.
Good Morning All,
The desert air is cool this morning, a mere 70 degrees. I am sitting here under the ceiling fan enjoying the air flow over my shoulders. The orchid on my desk is amazing, beautiful yellow backgrounds splashed with magenta. Both dogs are sleeping and Pete-kitty is rolled up in a small ball near My Little Honey's pillow.
The most wonderous things are present if we stop to appreciate them. This stopping requires of us a willingness to just be there. We are not to disturb. We are not to enter. We are present.
When we are present, we experience being in the cool, in the air, in the presence of the universe. Its the difference of being in the flow as opposed to being against the flow.
Yet, here's the thing. When your little honey gets up and asks where's the coffee is, you don't get defensive, you don't get wrinkled, instead, you walk into the kitchen and make the coffee.
Seamless.
Be well.
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Cafe Press Shop
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.
http://www.cafepress.com/sodaiho
Be well.
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.
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