Both Sides/No Sides

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,


Today is a wonderful day. The sun has not risen yet, but the eastern sky is pregnant. This morning several Order members will drive to El Paso to the Both Sides No Sides Zen Sangha. Also meeting there will be my Teacher, Hogaku-roshi, his wife, Shin Getsu-roshi, and several of my priest disciples. It is always a delight to have everyone come together, but doubly so for such an occasion as Shukke Tokudo, priest ordination.


In ancient times, priests were required to leave home in order to enter the Way. It was believed, and so Master Dogen taught, that the duties of a householder precluded the aims of a priest. Renunciation of all worldly things, including family was understood to be necessary.

Today, we do not necessarily hold that view in the Zen world. Although some monastic centers such as Shasta Abbey (Order of Buddhist Contemplatives) does require celibacy and priests are not allowed to be married.

The Order of Clear Mind Zen takes the position that householding is just as clear a dharma gate as monastic life, or the challenges of celibacy, or those of he life of a wandering Buddhist. It is the attitude one takes toward any given moment that allows the Dharma to emerge.

An attitude of “Don’t Know” and “Just Go Straight” as Master Seung Sahn was fond of using, is essential and possible within home life. In fact, I would argue that home life is an incredibly powerful Zen practice arena.

Still, there is something to be said for waiting until we have a few years under our proverbial belts. Elders are not always so prone to so eagerly jump into change, often have the wisdom only a long view can provide, and have often mastered a degree of patience those younger students do not share.

In the case of today’s ordination, Student Hen Shin, has waited, churned, and stewed with Zen for many years. I have churned and stewed with him. Hen Shin is a remarkable poet (Goggle Bobby Byrd) and a man with an incredible social conscience. Together, he and his student, John, built the Both sides/No Sides Zen community which bridges both the US and Mexican communities in the El Paso/Juarez area. I am indeed blessed to call this man my friend.

Be well.

Bones

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

The morning air is chilly again and my bones ache as I roll over in my sleeping bag bed in my empty room. I wait eagerly for summer as my body feels so much better when it is warm and sweaty.

There is an old koan that talks about no hot, no cold. When we are in a centered place, the place of prajna paramita, a place of just this breath with no discernment, there is, indeed, no hot or cold. Yet, this place also has hot and cold: So, when hot, get cooler; when cold, get warmer. The truth of Zen is that both are true simultaneously. The Absolute Truth contains the Relative Truth and the Relative Truth contains the Absolute Truth.

So what?

When my bones ache, I take an anti-inflammatory pill. I do so without judgment, discernment, or second-guessing. To live this way is to live at one. At the top of the hundred-foot pole we step out in complete faith.

Be well.

Gyate

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

Yesterday I visited a Nursing Home to arrange visits and transportation to services at Temple Beth El. The person I was visiting sat in his wheelchair slumped facing his bed. He was still, as if in deep meditation, and indeed, had studied with Senzaki roshi years ago in California. We talked for a little while, or what passed for talking, mostly him asking me the same questions and I answering the same answers. Every once in awhile he will say with fire in his eyes, “Zen!”

I practice kinhin through the halls on the way out of the home whispering to myself, “Gya te, gya te, hara gya te, hara so gya te, Bodhi so waka!”

Be well.

Teacher?

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

Well, two seders and I am still alive. First night a Jewish/Buddhist seder, second night with close long time friends. I guess the question is am I free from bondage?

A friend in the Tricycle Community has asked about that. He wonders if I am not too attached to my robes, title, and well, I suspect he thinks I am full of myself. He wonders whether people would respond to me any differently if I did not hide behind these masks: if I were just plain Harvey.

I don’t know. What I do know is that I am told various things by various people about myself. Some are not so pleasant. Some are quite pleasant. In either case, I work on not allowing them to stick. Teflon Zen.

It is a difficult question, though. Most of my adult life I have been a person with some degree of authority: a man with a gun hunting other men in combat, a child protective services social worker and supervisor, a supervisor of mental health services in a school system, a Ph.D. psychotherapist, a director at a psychiatric hospital, and finally a Zen Teacher. I am quite “used” to being in and using authority.

My sense, though, is that I wield it with a considerable degree of humility. I reveal too much of myself at times, I listen to crap being dumped on me sometimes, and I care deeply about those who do the dumping, as well as the world in and around me. Robes and the like are just part of the trade. They are my personal history that goes with my kechimyaku (Zen Bloodline) and Shukke Tokudo (Home Leaving Priest Ordination).

Forget the robes, the title, and the like: just cloth and words. Forget my teaching, as well. These are my words, put on my experience: not your words, put on your experience. Above all do not confuse the two.

Be well.

The Cure for Crap

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

In silence
Wisdom emerges:
The whisper
Of myriad things.

This whisper can only be heard in the deep stillness of our true nature. Swept to the corners of our lives by the broom of busy-ness, it is often banished there as a relic of the past. We moderns can be so full of crap we cannot hear.

Be well

Empty Bowls 2

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

Empty bowls are an opportunity; full bowls are an opportunity. Being generous is an opportunity; being self-sufficient is an opportunity. Lessons can be learned from everything in every time and condition, provided there is space for learning to take place. We create this space through our very deliberate practice of zazen.

Judgments about conditions do nothing to address conditions. To fill a bowl does not diminish it and leaving it empty does not enhance it. However, practicing generosity, compassion, and love does nurture us and our world, whereas, practicing greed, heartlessness, and hate diminishes our interdependence and connectivity.

Practice Prajna Paramita.

Be well.

Empty Bowls

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

When things remain the same they rot: in this case, tomatoes sitting on my counter. Tops red; bottoms black, I offered them to the birds this morning. So, from a certain point of view everything has its value and nothing is trash.

There are people who argue that some people have no value. They argue from a certain point of view, certain groups are a drain on society, that they are a lazy, shiftless, and morally deficient lot. Like empty bowls, they gather dust and are often in the way They argue that providing basic needs enables such people to remain a drain. Perhaps this is so.

Yet, from another point of view, a compassionate point of view, an empty bowl is an invitation to make an offering.

If we begin without assumptions (always a good idea), we might be more able to see what needs to be offered and be more willing to make the offering. Empty bowls are always empty for a reason, but they remain empty until an offering is made. It is in this that an empty bowl has value.

Be well.