Social Action, Part One

With palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,



The workshop went very well, although I was exhausted by afternoon. It is a considerable amount of work to organize, market, and conduct a workshop. I am not as young as I used to be  and it shows.



We had a reasonably good attendance and wonderful participation by those who did. People shared very challenging stories from their past. We sat in mindful silence, practiced deep listening meditation, eating meditation, and writing meditation. Toward the afternoon, we practiced yoga and T’ai Chi Chih. My Teacher, Hogaku-roshi acted as the summation guide.



I would like our Order to do more of these in various parts of the country. We are looking to do one in Northern California in September. Survivors of violence need a little space and recognition of their suffering.



As I listened to people speak, I heard the voices of the perpetrators through the survivor’s mouths: “I am going to f*** you and if you tell anyone, I will hunt you down.” I marveled at the woman attending with still fresh stab wounds made be her ‘boyfriend.’ The subtext of violence is fear and control, it is about domination and subjugation...and it depends on our silence.



People who believe they have the right to harm others need to be addressed. People who believe they are somehow better than others by virtue of gender or race or class, and therefore have a right to control or speak for others, need to be addressed.



I remember a time in South Carolina where I was a social worker in a rural community. A White farmer and a Black share-cropper were having a fight. The White farmer was angry that the Black sharecropper had a voice. He felt the sharecropper owed him deferential silence, after all, he “gave him everything he needed.” This, in a place that religiously insisted it was their right to keep “Whites Only” restaurants, restrooms, and water fountains. He actually told me, “Why that boy, he don’t need to vote, its what wrong with this country.” The “boy” was twenty years his senior and a veteran of WW II.



In the face of such nonsense, we are wrong to remain silent as our silence supports the aggressor.



Next, “what would Buddha do?”

When not sleeping, make ink, use brush, and create a world.

Heaven

With palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,



The other day I saw a book, one of the “Left Behind” series. Good grief.

There is no one left behind.

I recall my visceral yucky feeling when I first encountered this series of books. I listened to interviews of the author. I was not a happy camper. Actually, at the time, I was quite annoyed. In the world of religion, beliefs such as those espoused by fundamentalists are the most toxic. Fundies completely and deliberately misread text, stand on that misrepresentation, and live with their eyes closed in a world of horror, which they themselves have created and want to thrust on others. I pity them.

Life is deeply and completely organic. It is total, seamless, metabolic process. The “I” that “I AM” is just “memory me”. It has no independent reality apart from the organic processes that enable it to exist. Left behind? Say what?

This reminds me of a conversation we were having at PrayerWorks this week. Someone brought up heaven, what did we think? I thought, hmmm, a place, which no one has ever been to and returned from, what can anyone say? Yet there are those who speak with absolute authority on the subject. Any discussion of heaven is actually a discussion of life after death. And on this, we must remain silent or risk speaking nonsense. What we can examine is our need to hold on to an “I,” a “me” that somehow (and for some reason) “lives” on after death. What’s that about?

I suspect it has something to do with fear of extinction or permanent loss of consciousness. Our practice helps with this, as our practice is to open our grip on such notions in order to let them go. I gave up my “I” in fits and starts: slowly over the years since facing directly my own mortality in combat and subsequently, on the cushion, but more directly and quickly with my diagnosis of a prematurely aging brain. Facing death regularly in its variegated forms will do this. The process exposes concepts for the chimera they are, as we, moment to moment, experience actual life, as it is, directly.

Left behind? I insist! It is where the people are.

Be well.

Everyday Practice

With palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,



Practice must be disciplined in order to be of help to us. When we do things as we feel like doing them or when we think we have time to do them, we give too much power to either our feelings or external events. A disciplined spiritual practice is a practice that assists the growing of the dharma from the inside out.



This self-discipline is something we moderns do not seem to want to hear about as regards ourselves. Yet, I often hear it is discipline that is most needed among others. We all have excuses, don’t we?



We practice according to a schedule. Adherence to that schedule is important, not for the schedule, but for us. Within a schedule of practice there is, paradoxically, great freedom. It is rather like being set free on a playpen. The borders of the pen keep us together, so to speak, and on task: it is a playpen, after all. Yet within those borders we can be open and explore.



Scheduled practice is only one side of a disciplined spiritual practice, however. The other side is the side of mindfulness. Are we disciplined in our willingness and effort to stay mindful through the day? Do we appreciate the feel of the keys as we type or they clicking sound they make? Do we recognize the many lives that brought us the keyboard or the monitor that allows us to be connected as we are?



Every moment buddha is every moment awareness. Create a practice schedule for yourself, but don’t forget that practice is every moment and everything. Stick to it. Let me know how it goes.



A bow to each of you.

Notes for the Day

With palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,



This morning a short bicycle ride to Sagecrest Park for zazen at 7:00 is followed by Tai Chi Chih class at Mountainview Regional Medical Center, and then by Prayerworks at Cyrille Kane’s residence. A break for marketing the weekend workshop will be followed by a meeting with Dalene Fuller Rogers this evening.



I feel up to this day because I got a good night’s sleep last night. Its amazing what a few hours of sleep will do!



Yesterday we took Suki to the vet as she has developed a bit of Kennel cough. A half hour wait got us a few pills and instructions to use Robitussen.  Suki is happy.



Also yesterday I saw my psychiatrist who gave me a journal with tons of articles about recent work with gunshot wounds to the head. He thinks there might be something modern medicine can do about my degenerating brain. Medicine Man, he! Still, I will look at them.



The world is a place we live in. We should be at home in it, but this means we should be taking good care of it, not abusing it. Our bodies, likewise: I know I sometimes push myself too far. And like Nature does for the world, so too it will do for my body and will tell me in no uncertain terms, “Back off!”



Time to dress for zazen. A bow to each of you.

Mokusho Zen, Part Six

With palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,



There are birds. I hear them as they speak. Their sound is my sound: one. Where are they?



What a nonsensical question! In a formless field of emptiness, there is no “where”: “they” and “me” do not exist independently.



I eat my morning toast with all beings:

You eat your eggs and bacon with all beings.

Sun, moon stars, wind and rain;

Trucks, roads, refineries, sales clerks, cooks, and dishwashers;

Pigs, farmers, chickens, worms, ladybugs, ants, and bacteria;

Everything is here now with us as we enjoy this moment together.



When we practice Mokusho Zen, which is to say, living awake in the everyday, every moment world, we reside in this field free and easy, and live for the benefit of all beings.



Be well.

KRWG: Dalene Fuller Rogers and Harvey Daiho Hilbert Roshi (2010-06-11)

KRWG: Dalene Fuller Rogers and Harvey Daiho Hilbert Roshi (2010-06-11)