With palms together,
Good Morning All,
Today is a good day to spend in meditation. Or in mindfulness. As my finger touches each key, I am aware that each finger is touching a key. I am aware of the muscle movement in my forearm as my fingers extend and contract, aware of the thoughts arising and falling, being recorded on the electronic page of this computer soon to be presented to you.
When we are mindful, we are aware of the things themselves, but also aware that these things come and go. On the one hand we say they are ours, like "my thoughts" but on the other, we notice that thoughts simply are thoughts and they arise and they fall away. A notion of ownership, in a sense, becomes meaningless. In another sense they are quite meaningful, as they originate from our brain, and our brain originates from its connections with all of the other subsystems created by our genetics, even these are connected and originate through interactions with other systems. When we are mindful we are aware that when we eat, we eat ourselves. We we touch our partners or a stranger, we touch ourselves. And so we do so with care.
This is a difficult practice and though I try, I often fail at achieving it. The world seems to exist outside of us and can easily crash in bursting this little Buddha Bubble I've just created. Or has it? You know, stress is just another feeling. Loss, love, anger, just feelings. They roll toward us like ocean waves. sometimes we resist them, sometimes we embrace them, sometimes we just let go and go with their flow.
Where is it written that everything should be peaches and cream and that we should be as smooth as the cream flowing over the peaches? Aware of the peaches, I am also aware of the rocks and the nails, and the sting of angry, hurtful words.
Our practice is to take this awareness and use it.
Be well.
Saturday, November 4, 2006
Friday, November 3, 2006
Zazenkai
With palms together,
Good Morning All,
Tomorrow we will practice zazen throughout the day. It is Zazenkai day at Zen Center. I look forward to this opportunity to practice with you. If you are not within distance of Zen Center or are otherwise occupied with matters of consequence, please practice mindfulness through your day.
Each day the sun comes up, we are offered the opportunity to become a buddha. Yet these days are numbered. It is up to you not to waste your time.
This means in each act, each breath, of each moment, we are to make ourselves aware of each act, each breath, and each moment. This is attention. It requires practice. When we practice all things change, they come alive. The colors are brighter, the textures are more vibrant, because our senses are keener. We use our attention to open ourselves to the universe.
This is a very good thing.
Team Zen:
Rev. Harvey So Daiho Hilbert, Ph.D. May All Beings Be Free From Suffering
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Thursday, November 2, 2006
Our Teachers
With palms together,
Good Morning All,
Through the smallest things in our life do we create ourselves. The way we touch something, the way we treat our friends, strangers, the cashier in the grocery store. Each point of contact with the world around us is a manifestation of our realization. Want to be a buddha, be a Buddha. It is really that simple.
This requires a willingness to be thoughtful and mindful. It also requires a willingness to surrender our ego and to see our Teacher in everything from the highest to the lowest, because in truth, there is no highest, no lowest, and every single thing is buddha.
This is so challenging in a busy world. We feel we must multitask and thus, by definition, live mindlessly on a sort of contemporary auto-pilot. such a life leads to callous disregard for what is before us. Things, people, animals become means to ends. We do not have the time to see them for the Teachers they are.
I invite you each to stop. Create a small amount of time in your busy lives to be still. Practice zazen.
Be well.
Good Morning All,
Through the smallest things in our life do we create ourselves. The way we touch something, the way we treat our friends, strangers, the cashier in the grocery store. Each point of contact with the world around us is a manifestation of our realization. Want to be a buddha, be a Buddha. It is really that simple.
This requires a willingness to be thoughtful and mindful. It also requires a willingness to surrender our ego and to see our Teacher in everything from the highest to the lowest, because in truth, there is no highest, no lowest, and every single thing is buddha.
This is so challenging in a busy world. We feel we must multitask and thus, by definition, live mindlessly on a sort of contemporary auto-pilot. such a life leads to callous disregard for what is before us. Things, people, animals become means to ends. We do not have the time to see them for the Teachers they are.
I invite you each to stop. Create a small amount of time in your busy lives to be still. Practice zazen.
Be well.
Wednesday, November 1, 2006
Just Sitting
With palms together,
Good Morning All,
Zazen was good this morning. It is always good to sit still and become yourself. Someone wrote to me and asked what to do in the "sadness phase" of meditation. I am uncertain as to what she meant, but I suspect when she is quiet, sadness emerges from the shadows.
One of the most challenging aspects of zazen is just this. When we sit quietly in stillness, all of our typical distractions are taken away from us. Movement, chewing gum, smoking, drinking, eating, talking, everything is just gone. These things provide cover for the other things that haunt us. So when they are not there, no cover, and bam! There they are, those pesky feelings or thoughts or memories. And we are there to witness them.
OK. So, what's the problem? They are just thoughts, just feelings, just memories. They have no power of their own. They are chimera. It is when we take them and build on them and wish they weren't there or were there more often or whatever that we begin to go crazy.
Zazen is simply about experience. We do not judge the experience. We do not move from it or to it. We just experience. We learn from this experience over time that everything has a life of its own so to speak. Things rise and things fall, just as our breath comes and goes. When we are with the coming and going, no problem; when we resist it, big problem.
As for me, I am just a simple person on a cushion who enjoys being still. Then again, maybe not.
Be well.
Good Morning All,
Zazen was good this morning. It is always good to sit still and become yourself. Someone wrote to me and asked what to do in the "sadness phase" of meditation. I am uncertain as to what she meant, but I suspect when she is quiet, sadness emerges from the shadows.
One of the most challenging aspects of zazen is just this. When we sit quietly in stillness, all of our typical distractions are taken away from us. Movement, chewing gum, smoking, drinking, eating, talking, everything is just gone. These things provide cover for the other things that haunt us. So when they are not there, no cover, and bam! There they are, those pesky feelings or thoughts or memories. And we are there to witness them.
OK. So, what's the problem? They are just thoughts, just feelings, just memories. They have no power of their own. They are chimera. It is when we take them and build on them and wish they weren't there or were there more often or whatever that we begin to go crazy.
Zazen is simply about experience. We do not judge the experience. We do not move from it or to it. We just experience. We learn from this experience over time that everything has a life of its own so to speak. Things rise and things fall, just as our breath comes and goes. When we are with the coming and going, no problem; when we resist it, big problem.
As for me, I am just a simple person on a cushion who enjoys being still. Then again, maybe not.
Be well.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Living
With palms together,
Good Morning All,
Mindful living is tiresome. It takes work and exposes us to pain. Most of us cannot live this way and take something. We take a drink, or a hit on a funny looking cigarette, or a cigarette itself. Others, wonder with our bodies, lusting after this delight or that. Some of us hide in our thoughts. Still others fall deeply in love with ourselves and spend hours preening. It all comes to the same thing, increased suffering.
While mindful living takes constant effort and attention, it is the only way to truly appreciate our lives. Exposed to pain? So what else is new, we suffer pain, just as we suffer joy. Wanting one to stay and the other to flee is pointless: they both come and go like waves on the surface of a pond. Change your relationship to the waves, regardless of what we call them, and they disappear as waves.
Takes effort? Of course. Takes attention? Yeppers. So what else do you have to do with your life but live it?
Be well.
Rev. Harvey So Daiho Hilbert, Ph.D. May All Beings Be Free From Suffering
On the web at:
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Monday, October 30, 2006
Appearances
With palms together,
Good Evening All,
Please accept my apologies for such a late message. Today was a very nice day. The sun was bright and the sky, clear. The air was crisp in the morning; warmed in the afternoon, and chilled again this evening. I now sit in my zendo with my pups sleeping nearby. The incense is burning and my small candle is lit. Shortly I will sit down on my zafu and begin my practice.
A reader, Jeff, posted a note on one of my blogs. He cited two postings that seemed to contradict each other:
"If you need to believe in something go somewhere else. Zen is not about belief, if fact it is anti-belief." - posted by So Daiho Hilbert on Oct 29 2006
"As a religious or philosophical person, we must take our belief, faith, our practices, if they are authentic, out into the world. We must stand for the good against evil. Good and evil are not amorphous concepts. They are practical and political realities.- posted by So Daiho Hilbert on Jun 30 2006
I am deeply flattered by this posting as it clearly suggests Jeff is a serious student who is paying attention to my blatherings. As in all things, Zen or otherwise, two sides of any coin never touch but are deeply connected. I say on one hand, belief is an obstacle, and on the other hand suggest people of principle are believers. I believe wholeheartedly that both are true.
We must have faith in our practice, in what he Buddha has taught us, and our experience confirms, and at the same time, remain skeptical not only other people's views, but of our senses and our perceptions, as well. When we look deeply into our own nature and see what is there, there is nothing to fear and nothing to stand against. As Uchiyama-roshi says, we must "open the hand of thought," to which I add, all of life unfolds.
Be well.
Good Evening All,
Please accept my apologies for such a late message. Today was a very nice day. The sun was bright and the sky, clear. The air was crisp in the morning; warmed in the afternoon, and chilled again this evening. I now sit in my zendo with my pups sleeping nearby. The incense is burning and my small candle is lit. Shortly I will sit down on my zafu and begin my practice.
A reader, Jeff, posted a note on one of my blogs. He cited two postings that seemed to contradict each other:
"If you need to believe in something go somewhere else. Zen is not about belief, if fact it is anti-belief." - posted by So Daiho Hilbert on Oct 29 2006
"As a religious or philosophical person, we must take our belief, faith, our practices, if they are authentic, out into the world. We must stand for the good against evil. Good and evil are not amorphous concepts. They are practical and political realities.- posted by So Daiho Hilbert on Jun 30 2006
I am deeply flattered by this posting as it clearly suggests Jeff is a serious student who is paying attention to my blatherings. As in all things, Zen or otherwise, two sides of any coin never touch but are deeply connected. I say on one hand, belief is an obstacle, and on the other hand suggest people of principle are believers. I believe wholeheartedly that both are true.
A believer has no need of a light, believing he already possesses the truth. Yet, in truth, only when we turn the light of day toward something does the thing itself become clear.
We must have faith in our practice, in what he Buddha has taught us, and our experience confirms, and at the same time, remain skeptical not only other people's views, but of our senses and our perceptions, as well. When we look deeply into our own nature and see what is there, there is nothing to fear and nothing to stand against. As Uchiyama-roshi says, we must "open the hand of thought," to which I add, all of life unfolds.
Be well.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Freedom
With palms together,
Good Morning All,
If you need to believe in something go somewhere else. Zen is not about belief, if fact it is anti-belief. Zen is an experiential thing, call it a practice or a philosophy, or a religion if you will, it is fundamentally an orientation in action.
Beliefs are a hindrance to our experience because, like pillows on our bed, they create a soft comfort zone for our minds to rest. Resting gets us only resting. Moreover, we all too often mistake our "belief" for the thing itself, that thing being an awakened life.
What does it mean then, to live an awakened life?
The cat purrs. The dog runs. I pour coffee. My heart-mind hurts. I love my wife. We make breakfast. Get it?
An awakened life is right in front of your nose.
When we live in the promise or thought of tomorrow, whether it be alive or dead in heaven or Nirvana, we are already in hell. Hell is the striving for something we already possess not being aware that we possess it. So, like the fingers in the Chinese puzzle, relax your grasp and you are free.
Be well.
Good Morning All,
If you need to believe in something go somewhere else. Zen is not about belief, if fact it is anti-belief. Zen is an experiential thing, call it a practice or a philosophy, or a religion if you will, it is fundamentally an orientation in action.
Beliefs are a hindrance to our experience because, like pillows on our bed, they create a soft comfort zone for our minds to rest. Resting gets us only resting. Moreover, we all too often mistake our "belief" for the thing itself, that thing being an awakened life.
What does it mean then, to live an awakened life?
The cat purrs. The dog runs. I pour coffee. My heart-mind hurts. I love my wife. We make breakfast. Get it?
An awakened life is right in front of your nose.
When we live in the promise or thought of tomorrow, whether it be alive or dead in heaven or Nirvana, we are already in hell. Hell is the striving for something we already possess not being aware that we possess it. So, like the fingers in the Chinese puzzle, relax your grasp and you are free.
Be well.
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