Visitors

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

This weekend was a beautiful one. Two of my wife's friends from graduate school (class of 1966) visited. It was the first they've seen each other since that time. They used to drive to their field placements in Akron together from the Cleveland area a couple of days a week. All three got married, had children, and then lived out their lives. Now, over forty years later, thanks to the Internet, they have reconnected. Its as if the intervening forty odd years did not exist. It was fascinating to witness.

Much older, grayer, and wizened, these three students, now Masters, came face to face with a sort of timelessness and a shared construction of reality with a few cracks. "Remember? Don't remember?" As each sought common ground, they each differentiated with the expectation of inclusion.

I admire My Little Honey and her two friends. This took courage. Clearly, people can and do care deeply for one another, and the constructions we call memories, can form a sort of knitting that holds each together.

Being in the moment, appropriate is the moment, and each moment's condition demands its own attention and authenticity. Letting expectations drop away like so many bags at a train station, we learn to recognize there is wisdom in letting go of those worn too thin.

Time to create a new story. Perhaps. But this time we should know: our stories don't define us; how tightly or loosely we clutch them does.

This is the Zen of Now.

Be well.

Life Bites

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,


Zen is neither mine nor yours. Awareness is neither mine nor yours. This moment is neither mine nor yours. Awakening is neither mine nor yours. Mine and yours have no place in the world of Zen. Even place itself does not exist. Mine and yours are convenient fictions we live by. We give them legal sanction, moral sanction, and sometimes even spiritual sanction. So: Everything is no thing.

Yet, a mosquito has bitten the back of my knee and it itches. At 4:30 AM Tripper barks and Judy grumbles. Our water is hard and leaves a residue on our glasses. No thing is everything.

We can say these do not exist, that mine and yours, like I and Thou, are based on constructions of a mind created through a neural net. But we live within this net. When our net collapses: so collapses mine and yours. So collapses mosquito, bite, itch, dishes, Tripper's bark. So collapses I and Thou.

Zen is living in both with full awareness of both and acting accordingly.

Be well.

Where Are You?

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

Going out into the world, going inside, good grief! Enough going. I practice not-going. Practicing not-going is to practice Zen. Everything is here now: no path, no attainment, no 'other shore'.

Of course, sometimes "I" "go", as in playing iPhone games, wandering around looking at things, diving into Torah or the Sutras, etc., yet, this is just the shift of an eye, isn't it. One "eye" says "this is relative to that", suggesting two. Another "Eye" says "this and that are one and seeing a 'this' and a 'that' is a delusion, a mortal mind-trick". The Infinite is constantly demanding of us, "Where are you?!"

Watch out for shifty eyes.

Practice not-going and witness an eternal Eye.

Be well.

Suffering

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

Last night son Jacob invited us to dinner at his condo. He prepared a wonderful dinner, bread, arugula and butter lettuce salad, and sole, all prepared exquisitely. The condo was spotless, extremely well appointed, and very comfortable. I was out of my comfort zone.

Fidgeting, I played a game of "paper toss" followed it by winning a chess game on my iPhone. I wandered around looking at his pictures and books. My Little Honey and Jacob talked and talked.

The other night we had dinner at a friend's. At the dinner table, I checked my email on my iPhone. One of my friends asked me to please put my iPhone away. Interesting. She was right, of course, and others have made comments about my inattentiveness at functions. If its not the iPhone, its wandering, if not wandering, its meditating. Something has changed.

It wasn't all that long ago that I wouldn't be caught dead owning and using a cell phone, when people commented that I was so 'alive' and it was a challenge to pull me away from people. For all my talk of being in the moment, being mindful, and being compassionate, I am very far away.

Maybe its a phase. Maybe I am adapting. Maybe its all the drugs I have to take. Maybe I am bored. Maybe, maybe, maybe. I wish I knew. I read last night about a couple of rabbis. One asks, "Who am I?" The other replies, "Who is asking?"

What I know is this: I practice.

The Buddha taught:

Whoever sees suffering, sees the making of suffering, the ending of suffering, and the path that leads to the end of suffering.

Whoever sees the making of suffering, sees suffering, the end of suffering, and the path.

Whoever sees the end of suffering, sees suffering, the making of suffering, and the path.

Whoever sees the the path that leads to the end of suffering, sees suffering, the making of suffering, and the end of suffering.

(the First Turning of the Wheel of Dharma sutra).

Be well.

Zen is Eternal Life

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

Dishes. They wait each morning for my hands. Lately, I have taken to washing them by hand. Hot soapy water feels like silk. Cold rinse water is a relief to the heat. And the drying cloth sooths both dish and skin. Each dish a family member. Each spoon a reminder of the sweetness added to My Little Honey's coffee. Leaning over the sink, I untuck my hips and spine, reaching upward, I feel the gentle tug in my hamstrings. Feet planted. The saltillo tile cools my heels.

Zen in the kitchen.

Shortly, Zen in the Zendo where incense waifs through the air, I will hear the candles burn, and the walls will become mirrors for this ancient, eternal soul. My back will arc a bit; I will slump a bit. Patterns will form on the wall, movies will play in my head. Some student will adjust posture, and as with a dish in the kitchen, I will be made present again.

Zen in the Zendo.

As Master Kennett wrote, "Zen is eternal life."

Be well.

Silence

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

This morning I will miss streetZen as I have an obligation that takes me away at that time. Life is like that. Things happen and we meet them along the way. Do we meet them with grace? In this particular case, yes. However, sometimes receiving and enfolding challenges in silence is all we can muster. Grace? I doubt it. But not resistance either. In such moments we easily assess where our hearts are. Although we know they are the hearts of a buddha, they beat alone. Inside this butsudan of a body, the chamber offers light and moisture. The echo of buddha may seem hollow. But it is the pervasive silence that is the matter. Let it become warm in the glow of the candlelight and open to enfold the world.

Be well.

Compassion Fatigue

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

Yesterday I wrote a very long note on compassion fatigue. I did not post it. Too long. Too technical. Here's the skinny. When we care, we open our hearts, when we open our hearts, suffering enters. Unless we release it, not keeping it as our own, we too, will suffer. As suffering caretaker's we have great potential to harm those we care for, so it is imperative that we care for ourselves first.

What suffering is mine? What suffering is yours? Our buddha-nature is one, all is one, wherefore, yours, mine?

A few points:

In a Big Mind Universe, all is One, yet, I hurt, you hurt. The fact that we both hurt is our oneness. The hurt I experience is mine to deal with. The hurt you experience is yours. We share the experience, then, of recovery from suffering. Keeping the ownership of suffering clear is essential.

When I am with you and your suffering, I am with you and "your" suffering. Keep it clear.

The suffering I experience in the presence of your suffering is "my" suffering. Keep it clear.

We share "suffering" .

We share "compassion".

As caretaking human beings we must address our own suffering.

We practice zazen. We practice kinhin. We practice an open heart in all that we do.

The breeze enters, the breeze leaves.

We must be willing to release our grip.

Be well.