With palms together,
Good Afternoon All,
Me, Me, Me…You know Its All About Me!
Self and Zen, Part Four
As we grow, contact with other beings informs us of their traces. Social organizations, schools, families, friendship, and the like, touch us and leave traces we, in turn, organize. Some of these traces we bury, cover over, or put on that proverbial back burner, etc. Our Memory Me “self,” as an aggregate, organizes itself as an executive system, judicial system, and playground and develops a mission over time to aggrandize. This mission often comes into conflict with those other memory traces such as compassion, generosity, and patience.
Our practice is to face ourselves, which becomes a giant deconstructing activity. In doing so, these aggregates of memory begin to expose themselves for what they are. Ideas make themselves known as ideas, concepts as concepts, and what was hidden opens sometimes like a flower, sometimes like a flash of lightening with thunder, and sometimes like a deep pit.
At such a point, our understanding of ourselves presents challenges. For one, as we notice the things we are, we recoil. There often is a dissonance.
“I am not greedy.” “I am not prejudiced.” “I am not a fake.” “Oh, I hate what I have become.” “If I am nothing but a collection of self aware memories of past moments, then what is this I AM now?” “What, no now either?”
It is at this point, I sense, we either pull away from our practice or take that backward step more deeply and embrace it as the core reality of our lives. Fear is a powerful thing, however and self-awareness can be very stubborn and stingy. Our need to hold on to our self-absorbed flights of fancy is a precise practice point.
Just as we breathe in and breathe out, opening and closing and opening, so too we can let go of the “our” that is the grip on Memory Me. Fffffft!
And so, what is buddha nature and is it just as real as Memory Me?
Tomorrow.
Organ Mountain Zen
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Time for Eternity
Time for Eternity
When Kannon
sprang a leak (oh shit),
All hell broke loose
And mountins
Sat down and refused to walk. (Them sleepy son's a bitches...)
The dam was damned
and people
Everywhere
Closed their eyes
only to feel their toes
in the mud.
Good grief,
what is that popping sound?
7-up and cherry ice cream, so wa ka!
When Kannon
sprang a leak (oh shit),
All hell broke loose
And mountins
Sat down and refused to walk. (Them sleepy son's a bitches...)
The dam was damned
and people
Everywhere
Closed their eyes
only to feel their toes
in the mud.
Good grief,
what is that popping sound?
7-up and cherry ice cream, so wa ka!
Memory Me, Part Three of Self and Zen
With palms together,
Memory Me
Part Three of Self and Zen
My “self, then, is but a memory. This memory has awareness of itself and seeks to retain itself. The I AM seeking behavior of my body is purely a function of my brain. No brain, no self, no I AM. The most important point here is that the true nature of “self” is memory. Memory is never present moment. Memory is always a reflection.
Brain and memory work together, are one, but give the illusion of separateness. Memory is trace brain activity: footsteps in the sand. Memory is self, “I” is memory’s awareness of itself. This “awareness” gives labels to what it perceives through brain as parts. In the first and last, however, no actual “parts”” exist as parts from a whole.
Memory Me, that is, my “self” develops over time and through interactions of our sense organs. This development actually affects the physical structure of our brain. Brain and memory, recall, are one, not two. Interactive processes give rise, then, to shape. Use our brain one way, one shape develops. Use our brain in another way, another shape develops. These shapes are living, dynamic processes that have requirements for continued existence and growth.
These requirements take on a life of their own. Freud may have called them impulses. They are our “I Want” or “I Need” aspects of consciousness. Through interaction with parents, family, friends, teachers, and all other beings, we learn our requirements ar need boundaries and limits. Sometimes our needs and wants exceed the group’s expectations or norms. We are given messages that indicate we have run a red light. Our memories of these messages serve as monitors attempting to curtail our impulses. What we eventually come to call “ego” then acts as a director of operations. All three, “”I Want,” “I Shouldn’t” and “Director” are self-aware manifestations of Memory Me.
All are traces of sensory data stored in a brain that changes according to the needs of those traces. We, then, exist both because of and for the sake of these traces.
Zen practice burns away the gloss of those traces, exposes them for the transitory chimera they are, but does not deny their existence as they are. Memory Me is real and not real at once.
Memory Me has needs and like most organizations forgets its function and becomes quite self-serving. This will be the topic for tomorrow.
Memory Me
Part Three of Self and Zen
My “self, then, is but a memory. This memory has awareness of itself and seeks to retain itself. The I AM seeking behavior of my body is purely a function of my brain. No brain, no self, no I AM. The most important point here is that the true nature of “self” is memory. Memory is never present moment. Memory is always a reflection.
Brain and memory work together, are one, but give the illusion of separateness. Memory is trace brain activity: footsteps in the sand. Memory is self, “I” is memory’s awareness of itself. This “awareness” gives labels to what it perceives through brain as parts. In the first and last, however, no actual “parts”” exist as parts from a whole.
Memory Me, that is, my “self” develops over time and through interactions of our sense organs. This development actually affects the physical structure of our brain. Brain and memory, recall, are one, not two. Interactive processes give rise, then, to shape. Use our brain one way, one shape develops. Use our brain in another way, another shape develops. These shapes are living, dynamic processes that have requirements for continued existence and growth.
These requirements take on a life of their own. Freud may have called them impulses. They are our “I Want” or “I Need” aspects of consciousness. Through interaction with parents, family, friends, teachers, and all other beings, we learn our requirements ar need boundaries and limits. Sometimes our needs and wants exceed the group’s expectations or norms. We are given messages that indicate we have run a red light. Our memories of these messages serve as monitors attempting to curtail our impulses. What we eventually come to call “ego” then acts as a director of operations. All three, “”I Want,” “I Shouldn’t” and “Director” are self-aware manifestations of Memory Me.
All are traces of sensory data stored in a brain that changes according to the needs of those traces. We, then, exist both because of and for the sake of these traces.
Zen practice burns away the gloss of those traces, exposes them for the transitory chimera they are, but does not deny their existence as they are. Memory Me is real and not real at once.
Memory Me has needs and like most organizations forgets its function and becomes quite self-serving. This will be the topic for tomorrow.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Self and Zen, Part Two
The Zen of Getting Naked or Where Did I Go?
Part Two in a series, Self and Zen
Self is an “I Am” a couplet. Subject and object in dynamic process with its environment. If we stand in front of a mirror and ask ourselves, “what’s this?” We reveal ourselves. We point to this or that: this is what I am, that is what I am. “I” am tall, short, fat, skinny, handsome, and ugly. “I” am a father, lover, monk, son, doctor, scholar, helper, soldier, friend, killer, and healer. “I” am weird, normal, and strange. I am hot, cold, passionate, or sterile. I am mad, glad, sad, or scared.
Sitting down on a cushion, I face the wall. There, in that still moment, the I AM no longer is. The sound of the ceiling fan, the birdsong, perhaps a pattern forming in the texturing of the walls, these come and go. I am this? I am that? Good zazen. Bad zazen. Short breath, shallow breath, tight chest, loose shoulders, each of these sensations, thoughts, or feelings come and go: falling away like leaves from a winter tree.
So, when, I Am? In front of the mirror? On the cushion? Naked? Dressed? When?
Perhaps the mirror is best understood as the universe around us. In this way, the “I AM” is dependent. I am nothing if not in relationship.
Part Two in a series, Self and Zen
Self is an “I Am” a couplet. Subject and object in dynamic process with its environment. If we stand in front of a mirror and ask ourselves, “what’s this?” We reveal ourselves. We point to this or that: this is what I am, that is what I am. “I” am tall, short, fat, skinny, handsome, and ugly. “I” am a father, lover, monk, son, doctor, scholar, helper, soldier, friend, killer, and healer. “I” am weird, normal, and strange. I am hot, cold, passionate, or sterile. I am mad, glad, sad, or scared.
Sitting down on a cushion, I face the wall. There, in that still moment, the I AM no longer is. The sound of the ceiling fan, the birdsong, perhaps a pattern forming in the texturing of the walls, these come and go. I am this? I am that? Good zazen. Bad zazen. Short breath, shallow breath, tight chest, loose shoulders, each of these sensations, thoughts, or feelings come and go: falling away like leaves from a winter tree.
So, when, I Am? In front of the mirror? On the cushion? Naked? Dressed? When?
Perhaps the mirror is best understood as the universe around us. In this way, the “I AM” is dependent. I am nothing if not in relationship.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Shukke
With Palms Together,
Good Morning Everyone,
A discussion on Facebook and a confluence of intersecting lines has opened me to seriously looking at this topic: Shukke. Shukke means home leaving.
Zen embraces nothing, but holds a strong, sometimes overwhelming, sense of personal responsibility for all who practice it in earnest. My responsibilities as a monk are to Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha; to the work of my Order; and to my students and disciples. To use a Zen phrase, I have left family life. This is a challenge and a mystery to me, but most of all to those around me.
This Home Leaving has been going on for awhile in fits and starts and I have actually made quite a mess of it. There are few manuals on the sort of Zen priesthood I am leading. A lay priesthood, a path without borders and walls. It has been complicated by my own need to hold on to the past, to friends, and to family. It was complicated by my desire to be in relationship with everything: Judaism, Zen, Friends, Family, everything. These competing needs made it difficult on everyone, I think, and moreover, was confusing.
I find my Zen is strong and fully able to sustain me. I am grateful to everything that supports my practice and that enables me to walk in the way. I find myself today to be right where I need to be: dead center of the question, “What’s this?”
I put myself “out there” in such forums as Facebook, Tricycle, and YahooGroups not as a friend or to stay in touch with family members, but rather, to teach. It is what I am. Stumbling over, and through life’s processes are all a part of it. None of us gets a free pass or an instruction manual. Along the way, my mess has been yours, my friends, and my family’s. I apologize.
I wear the Buddha robe. I shave my head. I walk in my own authority.
Be well.
Good Morning Everyone,
A discussion on Facebook and a confluence of intersecting lines has opened me to seriously looking at this topic: Shukke. Shukke means home leaving.
Zen embraces nothing, but holds a strong, sometimes overwhelming, sense of personal responsibility for all who practice it in earnest. My responsibilities as a monk are to Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha; to the work of my Order; and to my students and disciples. To use a Zen phrase, I have left family life. This is a challenge and a mystery to me, but most of all to those around me.
This Home Leaving has been going on for awhile in fits and starts and I have actually made quite a mess of it. There are few manuals on the sort of Zen priesthood I am leading. A lay priesthood, a path without borders and walls. It has been complicated by my own need to hold on to the past, to friends, and to family. It was complicated by my desire to be in relationship with everything: Judaism, Zen, Friends, Family, everything. These competing needs made it difficult on everyone, I think, and moreover, was confusing.
I find my Zen is strong and fully able to sustain me. I am grateful to everything that supports my practice and that enables me to walk in the way. I find myself today to be right where I need to be: dead center of the question, “What’s this?”
I put myself “out there” in such forums as Facebook, Tricycle, and YahooGroups not as a friend or to stay in touch with family members, but rather, to teach. It is what I am. Stumbling over, and through life’s processes are all a part of it. None of us gets a free pass or an instruction manual. Along the way, my mess has been yours, my friends, and my family’s. I apologize.
I wear the Buddha robe. I shave my head. I walk in my own authority.
Be well.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
From the Ground Up
With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
First, thank you Dai Shugyo and Colette for sitting with me yesterday and for watching the film, and for helping with the bookcases. (Late last night I finished the first one and built a second one: one more to go!))
Second, thank you Bobby,Kankin Byrd, for being on Skype last night. I really needed a friend to talk with.
My student, Dai Shugyo, asked yesterday if it was something priests did, this sudden going into Zazenkai. I answered yes.
We used to have a Zazenkai scheduled once a month. I still think it is a good idea, and even a better, a good practice. One thing that happens over time with contemplative practice is that we become far more in touch with the deep, rolling, tides within us. Small shifts open wide.
I notice I am becoming very much more reclusive of late. It is importabt for me to pay attention to this, honor it, and practice with it.
I believe part of it is that I am now alone and need to be alone. In this space I find my heart/mind and allow it to express itself to me. Sometimes a whisper, other times a shout, this heart/mind is becoming my constant companion.
Throughout the day and night, I take a breath and open myself. Feelings and thoughts come and go, as do the bodily sensations that are a part of the everyday experience of living.
Zazenkai offers a short opportunity to pay attention longer and reside in the subtlties in such moments.
And the point? There is no point. It is said:
Spring comes
and the grass
grows by itself.
I choose to be
its witness.
Be well.
Rev. Harvey Daiho Hilbert-Roshi
Order of Clear Mind Zen
Clear Mind Zen Temple
Our Order's Store
Telephone: 575-680-6680
See Roshi's personal Calendar
Good Morning Everyone,
First, thank you Dai Shugyo and Colette for sitting with me yesterday and for watching the film, and for helping with the bookcases. (Late last night I finished the first one and built a second one: one more to go!))
Second, thank you Bobby,Kankin Byrd, for being on Skype last night. I really needed a friend to talk with.
My student, Dai Shugyo, asked yesterday if it was something priests did, this sudden going into Zazenkai. I answered yes.
We used to have a Zazenkai scheduled once a month. I still think it is a good idea, and even a better, a good practice. One thing that happens over time with contemplative practice is that we become far more in touch with the deep, rolling, tides within us. Small shifts open wide.
I notice I am becoming very much more reclusive of late. It is importabt for me to pay attention to this, honor it, and practice with it.
I believe part of it is that I am now alone and need to be alone. In this space I find my heart/mind and allow it to express itself to me. Sometimes a whisper, other times a shout, this heart/mind is becoming my constant companion.
Throughout the day and night, I take a breath and open myself. Feelings and thoughts come and go, as do the bodily sensations that are a part of the everyday experience of living.
Zazenkai offers a short opportunity to pay attention longer and reside in the subtlties in such moments.
And the point? There is no point. It is said:
Spring comes
and the grass
grows by itself.
I choose to be
its witness.
Be well.
Rev. Harvey Daiho Hilbert-Roshi
Order of Clear Mind Zen
Clear Mind Zen Temple
Our Order's Store
Telephone: 575-680-6680
See Roshi's personal Calendar
HHeart Sutra, Last Section
Therefore know that this wisdom beyond wisdom is the greatest Dharani, the brightest Dharani, the highest Dharani, the peerless Dharani. It completely ends all suffering. Know this as truth and do not doubt. So set forth this profound wisdom Dharani. Set forth this Dharani and declare: Gone, gone, gone to the other shore, attained the other shore, to beyond the other shore, having never left.
A Dharani is a chant, a brief scripture with particular power and elegance. It is often a core teaching that, according to Kennett-roshi, can “encourage a religious attitude of mind, such as compassion, gratitude, or faith” (see Zen is Eternal Life, Kennett-roshi, 1999, p.308).
The Heart Sutra itself is a Dharani that teaches us how to live in a way that allows us to transcend suffering by asking us to look deeply into our true nature, seeing the deep interdependence of all things, and the impermanent nature of the universe. When we live in this way, there can be no suffering.
It is interesting that the sutra asks us not to doubt, when the Buddha himself asks to doubt everything. The point here is not the words, my friends. Scripture is just ink on paper. It is essentially meaningless. Life is our practice and our practice is our teacher. The point is to discover its truth ourselves in our daily lives. When we set forth this Dharani, that is, walk our lives deliberately and sit on our cushions deliberately, with meaningful, purposeful and compassionate effort, keeping the teachings of this sutra as still points in our hearts, we can do nothing but be Buddhas.
When we do get to the other shore, a euphemism for awakening, we find that we were always there. There is no other shore. This shore? That shore? No matter: all shores are one. Indeed, all shores are empty.
With palms together,
Be well.
Bibliography
Conze, Edward, Buddhist Wisdom: The Diamond Sutra and The Heart Sutra, Vintage Press, 2001
Glassman-roshi, Bernie, The Infinite Circle: Teaching in Zen, Shambala Press, 2002
Gyatso, Tenzin (His Holiness, the Dalai Lama), Essence of the Heart Sutra, Wisdom Press, 2002
Hasegawa, Seikan, The Cave of Poison Grass: Essays on the Hannya Sutra, Great Ocean Publishers, 1975
Pine, Red, The Heart Sutra: The Womb of Buddhas, Shoemaker and Hoard, 2004
Hahn, Thich Nhat, The Heart of Understanding: Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra, Parallax Press, 1988
A Dharani is a chant, a brief scripture with particular power and elegance. It is often a core teaching that, according to Kennett-roshi, can “encourage a religious attitude of mind, such as compassion, gratitude, or faith” (see Zen is Eternal Life, Kennett-roshi, 1999, p.308).
The Heart Sutra itself is a Dharani that teaches us how to live in a way that allows us to transcend suffering by asking us to look deeply into our true nature, seeing the deep interdependence of all things, and the impermanent nature of the universe. When we live in this way, there can be no suffering.
It is interesting that the sutra asks us not to doubt, when the Buddha himself asks to doubt everything. The point here is not the words, my friends. Scripture is just ink on paper. It is essentially meaningless. Life is our practice and our practice is our teacher. The point is to discover its truth ourselves in our daily lives. When we set forth this Dharani, that is, walk our lives deliberately and sit on our cushions deliberately, with meaningful, purposeful and compassionate effort, keeping the teachings of this sutra as still points in our hearts, we can do nothing but be Buddhas.
When we do get to the other shore, a euphemism for awakening, we find that we were always there. There is no other shore. This shore? That shore? No matter: all shores are one. Indeed, all shores are empty.
With palms together,
Be well.
Bibliography
Conze, Edward, Buddhist Wisdom: The Diamond Sutra and The Heart Sutra, Vintage Press, 2001
Glassman-roshi, Bernie, The Infinite Circle: Teaching in Zen, Shambala Press, 2002
Gyatso, Tenzin (His Holiness, the Dalai Lama), Essence of the Heart Sutra, Wisdom Press, 2002
Hasegawa, Seikan, The Cave of Poison Grass: Essays on the Hannya Sutra, Great Ocean Publishers, 1975
Pine, Red, The Heart Sutra: The Womb of Buddhas, Shoemaker and Hoard, 2004
Hahn, Thich Nhat, The Heart of Understanding: Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra, Parallax Press, 1988
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)