Culture

With palms together,

Good Morning Everyone,



The sky is wet this morning. I sit in the Zendo with my mini notebook and coffee waiting for any early morning students. Wednesday morning I open my Zendo to the public for practice. Not the “public” at large, mind you, but to my small sangha here in Las Cruces.



My morning practice actually starts late. 6:30 AM is nearly midday at some practice centers, but we are Americans and this is not a practice center, but my home. We are not affiliated with Soto Shu in Japan, nor do we wish to be. We are our own Order here in the United States.



Rev. Soyu Matsuoka-roshi , my Dharma Grandfather, did not bother to register most of his disciples with Soto Shu. He actually did what other Japanese Zen Teachers said should be done, let the Japanese recede and allow our own cultural elements to arise to be integrated. Sensei, according to my Teacher, taught his heirs to be open to the Americanization of Zen. Later developments have created an impulse to re-align with Soto Shu and many centers now eschew a more relaxed Center practice, in favor of the far more stylized Japanese monastic style. Most people attending such centers believe there is a “right” way and this way is the Japanese way.



I strongly disagree. Right is not external or culturally specific. Right is internal, an orientation of mind, body, and environment. Zen is not about the bells and whistles, the robes, or whether we bow at this word or that. Although these are important to the order and flow of a service composed of a variety of people, it is not Zen, per se.



Practice should consider environment. It is in an environmental, cultural context, that meanings arise and make sense. When we vow to cease doing evil, we understand evil in a cultural context, doing good also in such a context, and clearly creating conditions for addressing the cries of the world is a cultural phenomenon. We reside in an environment that is specific to us. Zen practice attempts to crack these wide open. Bringing in a foreign culture can lead to a false sense of specialness. And works against this necessity. Teachers who use choppy English can be perceived as somehow more esoteric, mystical, or “enlightened”. Koromos are more “elegant” and high class than scrubs or jeans and a t-shirt.



The Order I have established is less about form than about mindful, compassionate presence. Although form is important, (it does, after all provide the container), it is not the thing itself. I am more inclined to celebrate the use of a hammer than reside placidly in specialness.

Be well,

When the Ceiling is the Ground

With palms together,

Good Morning Everyone,



If we lay down on the floor and look up, we get an entirely different view of our environment. Furnishing seem larger, their undersides are exposed, the ceiling seems like the floor with lights sprouting up from it. We are resting in the sky.



I do this often, lay on the floor, and it is both refreshing as a reminder of the power of perspective, and as a healing for my body.



Take an opportunity and lay down on the floor, better if outside, perceive the sky, the ceiling, the underside of things. Experience the Earth supporting you. Be thankful.



Be well.

At this moment...

With palms together,

Good Morning Everyone,



At this moment,

I woke from a dream

and can no longer see

heaven.

The ladder has lifted.

Or maybe was never there.

(We can never be sure.)

The voice is silent:

I am left to sit alone

In its echo.

This is the ground

of being itself

and I sit upon it

with no fear.



Be well.

Entering the Way

With palms together,

Good Morning Everyone,



The language of the spirit is not to be assigned the particular, but must remain in the universal. This means matters of spirit are not masculine or feminine. They are not Jewish or Christian, Muslim or Buddhist. Spiritual is by definition of everything and therefore completely universal. In a very real way, taking up the path of spiritual journey requires a shift in orientation away from the particular. It requires leaving home.



Assignment of gender or ethnicity or religion or social class of anything leads to separation.separation to valuation, valuation to discrimination, discrimination to suffering. Assignment leads to being stuck in a view and considering that view reality.



Reality is none of that and a true Bodhisattva Warrior lives without the assignment of, and alignment of, labels, classes, categories, or hierarchies. A Zen Buddhist is not a Zen Buddhist, but a being connected with the universe assisting others to realize that same connection. We wear our robe not to separate, but to unite.



The literal robe is just pieces of cloth sewn together as peoples are sewn together. Yet, it is, itself, just pieces of cloth. The true robe is the formless field of benefaction residing in non-duality and the non-assignment of linguistic categories.



Our practice is to drop away, drop away, in order to allow the Universal room to bloom within us.



Be well.

Drop Away, Drop Away

With palms together,

Good Morning Everyone,



It is a cool morning with water in the air. A beautiful dark sky. Awake!



Student Kate told me she had practiced "Dropping Away Zen" at Tassajara during a summer retreat. She wondered about instruction regarding attention to the breath.
which she has heard from me.



We Westerners are not oriented correctly for Zen practice. We are pragmatists. We seek outcomes, think linearly, use the scientific method and so on. We want results. Zen practice is both means and end together. There is no "end" that already is not present. Very challenging to those who want, as being is seemingly just not enough.



When I give instruction for practice, it is stepwise. It is like the liturgy in Judaism. There are opening practices which orient oneself, then there is the practice itself, i.e., union with the Infinite.. Attention to breath, breath counting, are means of orientation. Orientation is my aim.



Thus, my aim is how I am oriented, my goal, on the other hand, is to what I am seeking. There is a vast difference. A goal is outside of reality. It is a thought even if it is about something concrete, and sets an expectation. An aim is an internal orientation in the goal's direction. To have an excellent aim is to already be the goal. This is shikantaza.



We cannot sit and think drop away self. We sit and the self drops away of its own accord in its own time, once body, mind, and environment are in accord, that is, oriented.



Attention to breath is a warm-up, counting is a warm-up. Once warmed-up, once oriented, relax the count, open the grip of thought, and be without being.



Be well.

Lost

With palms together,

Good Morning All,



Being lost. Feeling as if there is nothing familiar --- or that the familiar is slipping away and cannot be grasped ---, this is in the pit of our stomach yuk. We avoid such places. We want desperately for solid ground. Its only natural.



However, all is not lost, ever. We are. We are not individuals. New does not happen without a dropping away of old. And creation is always on-going. Far from nihilism, Zen resides in eternal change.



Any effort to open our eyes when lost will reveal new wonders. Lost just means we feel the loss of our cradle. Step out. Stand up. Be alive.



Be well.

Change

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

Our lives are full of mysteries and we organize them into what makes sense and what does not, what we accept and what we do not, what we fear, love, hate, and just plain will not admit to. Its all very natural. Its all very challenging. So, we pretend or hope or pray. And one day it all comes crashing down. The paradigm no longer tolerates the cracks.

The world took a long time to accept the planet was not flat...some still believe it to be so. The new paradigm takes time to settle in, to gain acceptance, and for us to throw off the old.

We have a view of things, perhaps from childhood, perhaps from an experience so penetrating that its memory always remains fresh, or perhaps from a social convention: what to do when this view no longer works?

As John Bingham is fond of saying regarding running, "There's No Need for Speed". Patience is a necessary partner in this process, as are all the other paramitas. A wise person does not rush in to change the world. Nor does he tarry along the way. Nor does he throw the baby out with the bathwater. We rarely know what the change needs to be, what direction it should take, or how far it should go.

Life offers us many opportunities to address change, as change is like the elephant in the room no one seems willing to seriously address. Religious views change, social practices and norms change, our essential understanding of ourselves changes. all the while we hold on, put off, deny, or otherwise fail to deal.

An open heart, an open mind, and a compassionate hand go a long way in this process Change is difficult, not changing in the face of a need for change can be tragic.

We waddle on.

Be well