No Room for Self Centeredness

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

If you want to live an authentic life, you must be willing to live completely. This means living with your mind, heart, body, and environment so thoroughly integrated that there is only one. By environment, I include Big Mind, the Absolute, i.e., God.

In Judaism we practice Hitbodedut in order to experience Ruach HaKodesh, the spirit of God, which, like Big Mind, is everything. In order to experience this we must open our hearts and minds in stillness. This is the equivalent of zazen.

There is a real resistance to opening. Its as if somehow if we open ourselves we will either disappear or be injured. So we try, but retain that last bit of wall to protect us.

Such protection is the self holding onto Self. It prevents us from joining the Universal.

When we practice, we should therefore reduce the threat.

In Zen we do this by reciting the san ge mon, the prayer of repentance, and the Three Refuges, san ki rai mon. In these verses we acknowledge our sins, their source, and let them go, while also affirming our willingness to reside in Buddha (Awakened State), Buddha-Nature (Dharma, Reality), and a Sangha (Community of spiritually minded human beings).

In Judaism, we do some of the same sort of thing, though more extensively. In the daily liturgy, we thank the Absolute for pretty much everything, we bless His name, we speak about our gratitude for all the things in the world and in our lives, and we ask for healing for those in need.

All of these are an attempt to make it not only OK to let down our small and large walls, but to make letting go of small self desirable. There is no room in Zen or Judaism for self centeredness, selfish wants, or a separation from the Infinite.

When we are not separate from the Infinite, both Self and Non-Self are understood in their proper relationship. They are the same stuff, but operationalized differently. Riding the bike is being one with the bike, whilst simultaneously riding the bike, enjoying the scenery, the effort, and all other aspects of the activity. Its this simultaneity that is key.

Be well..

Renewal

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

Waking up in the morning, I am aware of just how precious a new day is: it should not be taken for granted.

We can chose to just get through it, doing what we do to take care of ourselves. We can chose to do something for the world, to make it a better place . We can chose to live as if each moment were a blessing in itself.

So, what will I do with this day? What will you do with this day?

Often, the thing that renews the world renews you. Maybe that's a good place to start.

Be well.

Get the Ball Rolling!

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

This morning I plan to go for a run of sorts with my friend, Katie. It will be a desert trail run and I'm looking forward to it. I have not been training as hard as I should of late, so maybe today I'll be able to kick it a bit. Maybe a few hill repeats are in order.

Consistency is vital. Habit energy is the strongest sort of human energy, I think. Like the proverbial ball rolling is hard to stop, so too, its hard to get rolling again. Best to just roll, because once "on a roll" its easy to continue to do so.

I've noticed our chief enemy to consistency is our Small Mind. It wishes to take us away from the Big Mind "roll". We might say to ourselves, "Aw, I don't feel like it" or "I just can't get myself out there today...my ______________ hurts."

Just Small Mind at work. Kick it. Get into that Big Mind space, expansive, open, inclusive. positive.

We should do this with everything: physical training, zazen, prayer, compassion, relationship building and relationship maintenance. Everything.

Another way of saying this is to let the self fall away to be enlightened by the myriad things.

Be well.

Being One With the Universe

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

On this Passover, a note on liberation:

There is an old joke about the Buddhist monk who says to the hot dog vendor, "Make me one with everything!"

We smile and dismiss the phrase as ubiquitous pablum.

To be one with something means being without self and being without self is more than counter-intuitive, it seems impossible. Yet, we are without self everyday. When we ride a bicycle, read, work, play, anytime we are so immersed and involved in an activity that we forget ourself in that activity, we are one with that activity and essentially, without self. In such moments time ceases to exist. There is just the moment. Zen practice aims to teach us to be in this singular, non-dualistic state at all times.

We sit down on a cushion, bring our attention to our breath, and join the universe. We open the hand of thought that connects us to ourself, and there we are: one.

When we are one with the universe, everything we do is the universe.

For Christian Zen practitioners, Jewish Zen practitioners, and Muslim Zen practitioners, it is the same. Prayer becomes an activity of joining the Universe. Life as a Christian, Jew, Muslim, becomes an act of unification with the Absolute.

When we approach something, say a salad, with the attitude of "this is precious, this is the Universe" and we do so without a reference to "I" we are dropping away the self and are being one with the salad. The salad becomes something it always was but that we didn't recognize, and that is, it becomes a gateway to the Infinite.

This is so of everything. Everything.

So, the next time you sip some coffee of tea, know you and the Infinite are One.

Be well.

One

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

My dreams are worrisome. I keep dreaming of Zen services, chanting sutras, inviting bells to ring, gracefully offering incense, and I wake. It has been several months now since I left the Zen Center. I feel as though something is slipping away. Perhaps this separation is an opening of my hand of thought. Perhaps I am fading away. Perhaps my dreams are a closing of that hand, grasping for what was. Better to let it go.

At Temple last night I felt alone, very alone. My Little Honey and I had been suffering one of our moments of disagreement, I had had a runny nose, I took an antihistamine with my evening meds, and within an hour felt the heaviness of sleep pressing against me. My friends asked if I was OK. My Little Honey asked if I was OK. I was OK. I was just alone in my own little head.

I practiced zazen during part of the service. It is always a good thing for me to be still and place my attention on the present moment. It points the way, as it were.

There it was, a sort of emptiness. Nothing fixed, everything in motion. Coming and going, coming and going. Standing, sitting, chanting, praying.

In the Sefer Yetzirah (the Kabbalist' Book of Creation), is says that God created the universe through His words He made emptiness because before the first word, He was One and everything was filled with Him. Likewise, we create with our speech. This creation is the heart and beginning of duality, as before creation there is just One and one without two or three is meaningless. With the speaking of One there is the other. We really need the other.

In Zen we call this Big Mind and Small Mind, the Absolute and the Relative: two interdependent truths. To reside in Big Mind alone is to reside in Nothingness, no form whatever. This is a blissful sickness, like being stuck in peace. Sooner or later we need change.

So it was in the beginning, the Absolute needed the Relative in order to be the Absolute. Its important to see that both are one in the same. One resides within the other. So, while we have the potential for oneness, so too we have the potential for duality. In the One is all, in the all is One.

As for me, I don't know who I am anymore: Jew, Zen priest, husband, father, disabled vet, therapist, friend, none of the above: and with that am completely liberated. A good thing.

Be well.

Be Still

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

This morning's air is delicious! Cool, fresh, and still. I know that by this afternoon it will turn into the winds common in our spring here in New Mexico. For now, in this moment, though, it is still.

One of the things I so appreciate about morning is its stillness. I hear some birds singing along with the occasional coo and hoot of desert birds. Its a wonderful thing. Most of our neighbors are retired and so we don't have the ruckus of cars starting for the morning drive to work. We are left with just the sound remaining in a world that lacks busy-ness.

Yesterday was PrayerWorks, a monthly luncheon event hosted by Rabbi Kane's wife, Cyrille. It is a really positive experience to gather together asking for the healing of others. So often we go through our day without much thought for the well-being of our friends, the well-being of our community, so self-absorbed we can become. A deliberate practice of gathering together, reflecting on inspirational readings, and asking the Infinite for the blessing of healing, helps us to reapportion our lives according to the needs of others.

When we decide to commit to a disciplined spiritual practice that includes at its base a commitment to look outside of ourselves to the world around us, we are committing to a life of healing. Paradoxically, we heal. Life is like that, you know, but we must first make the commitment, be still, and open our hearts to the universe.

May your day be a day of joy and goodwill.

Be well.

The Way of Man

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,


According to Hasidism, the very qualities which make
us what we are constitute our special approach to God and
our potential use for Him. There is nothing so crass or base
that it cannot become material for hallowing. “The profane,”
for Hasidism, “is only a designation for the not-yet-hallowed.”
Hallowing transforms the “evil urges” by confronting them
with holiness and making them responsible toward what is
holy.

Maurice Friedman in his forward to Buber's Way of Man


When I was a therapist, I would often suggest to my clients, now that you are aware of the problem, it is your responsibility to engage it. So often we go about in life believing that past issues are the cause of our current suffering. This is really like sleep walking. Yet, once awake, we must behave differently. We must be awake to the present moment and this moment's opportunities to live.

Martin Buber wrote a wonderful little book called "The way of Man" (its available as a pdf file here: http://www.pendlehill.org/resources/files/pdf%20files/php106.pdf. ). In it he relates a story of a Rebbe who was arrested. The jailer approaches him while he is deep in meditation. After a few questions, the Rebbe asks:

“How are we to understand that God, the all-knowing said to Adam:
‘Where art thou?’” “Do you believe,” answered the rav, “that the Scriptures
are eternal and that every era, every generation and every man is included in them?”
“I believe this,” said the other. “Well then,” said the zaddik,3 “in every era, God calls
to every man: ‘Where are you in your world? So many years and days of those allotted to you have passed, and how far have you gotten in your world?’ God says something like
this: ‘You have lived forty-six years. How far along are you?’”

Every day we are presented with this question, where am I. Or to put it in more present terms, what am I. To answer this question is an invitation to look deeply into one's self. What has happened to me? What have I done? Failed to do? etc. But the important this isn't the self recrimination, but the willingness to "turn" as Buber refers to it. Turn from the recrimination, the self absorption, to the light of day. Turn to the world, what now needs to be done to make this world a better place?

when we are involved, sometimes deeply involved, in self recrimination, shame, and other self-focused feelings and thoughts, we are lost to our true self, our true beauty and joy.

Later, in the end of his book, Buber makes the point that while we search the world over for ways to get out of our responsibility, even to places like heaven or nirvana, the Hasid "invert" the order and says, "For it is here, where we stand, that we should try to make shine the light of the hidden divine life."

Our true self, our Buddha nature, is always present, even in the muck of a muddy swamp. So the world asks, "where are you?"

Be well