With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
This morning was a challenge! I woke late, did a short, fast bicep/triceps workout, practiced zazen, and talked with K. Then off for a walk in Pioneer Women’s Park before zazen at 9:00. Walking, or should I say stumbling, around my futon, I jammed my thigh into the wooden edge. Pain. Then off to the park. Suki was a madwoman dog. Running hard after every bird, every leaf, everything that remotely looked like fun to chase. We did our lap of the park and I discovered my keys were not where I usually put them and I had forgotten my cell phone in the pain of a bruised thigh. So, another lap of the park to look for a mess of keys. No luck.
All the while I am practicing: notice the anger, notice the panic, notice the grief over the loss of my balance and memory. Notice the beautiful sky, overcast and pregnant with rain. Notice and take another step, and another.
At the car, I looked once again in my shoulder bag. Good grief. There they were in a pocket I never use for keys!
Starting the car and driving back to the Temple I felt deep relief and a sense of gratefulness for the practice of Zen. While Suki took up residence on a zabuton in the zendo, I lit a stick of incense and bowed deeply.
Be well.
Organ Mountain Zen
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Conditions
With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
The morning sky was delightful. Tiny ribbons of clouds were illuminated against the stars by dawn’s light. Apparently, it rained sometime through the night as I stepped into a mud puddle and felt the goo of the earth come up between my toes. Suki and I both enjoyed this.
As a child growing up in Miami Florida, I rarely wore more than a pair of cut-off shorts: no shoes, no socks, no shirt. My feet could handle the roughest pebbles and the hottest pavement. It is all a matter of conditioning. Just as my feet became conditioned to the conditions by the conditions,, they also became unconditioned when the conditions for conditioning were not present. (Such a sentence!)
So it is with everything. When the conditions are correct for something to arise, it arises. When the conditions are no longer correct, the conditioned thing falls away. This is the core teaching of dependant co-arising.
We human beings have an advantage of sorts. We can see this process happen; note its sequence and change its course. Want to become more fit? You know the conditions for fitness to arise, do them. Want to be healthier? Do the things necessary to create the conditions for a healthy life. Want peace? Create the conditions for peace to arise.
Our science is getting to a place where we may be able to alter all sorts of conditions, changing life expectancy, making us smarter, changing the face of the environment, making food and water more plentiful, and so on. Yet, these things require a degree of wisdom I do not believe we yet possess. Wisdom requires the ability to see and think with a systems eye. Specialization is an anathema to wisdom. Specialists are smart, but not always wise. Wisdom requires contemplation, a deep prajna, as the sutra teaches us.
Our world moves very fast, our specialization increases the sharpness of its point, and we are more and more in the dark. So, while we can see on an individual level what we as individuals must do, it is very challenging to get whole societies to look at themselves and their relationship to the whole.
The message of this post, I think, is that engaged Buddhists must model casting a wide eye. Our cushion is only square one. What is square two, three, four, and five?
Be well.
Good Morning Everyone,
The morning sky was delightful. Tiny ribbons of clouds were illuminated against the stars by dawn’s light. Apparently, it rained sometime through the night as I stepped into a mud puddle and felt the goo of the earth come up between my toes. Suki and I both enjoyed this.
As a child growing up in Miami Florida, I rarely wore more than a pair of cut-off shorts: no shoes, no socks, no shirt. My feet could handle the roughest pebbles and the hottest pavement. It is all a matter of conditioning. Just as my feet became conditioned to the conditions by the conditions,, they also became unconditioned when the conditions for conditioning were not present. (Such a sentence!)
So it is with everything. When the conditions are correct for something to arise, it arises. When the conditions are no longer correct, the conditioned thing falls away. This is the core teaching of dependant co-arising.
We human beings have an advantage of sorts. We can see this process happen; note its sequence and change its course. Want to become more fit? You know the conditions for fitness to arise, do them. Want to be healthier? Do the things necessary to create the conditions for a healthy life. Want peace? Create the conditions for peace to arise.
Our science is getting to a place where we may be able to alter all sorts of conditions, changing life expectancy, making us smarter, changing the face of the environment, making food and water more plentiful, and so on. Yet, these things require a degree of wisdom I do not believe we yet possess. Wisdom requires the ability to see and think with a systems eye. Specialization is an anathema to wisdom. Specialists are smart, but not always wise. Wisdom requires contemplation, a deep prajna, as the sutra teaches us.
Our world moves very fast, our specialization increases the sharpness of its point, and we are more and more in the dark. So, while we can see on an individual level what we as individuals must do, it is very challenging to get whole societies to look at themselves and their relationship to the whole.
The message of this post, I think, is that engaged Buddhists must model casting a wide eye. Our cushion is only square one. What is square two, three, four, and five?
Be well.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Peace
With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
This morning was another early riser. I am now sipping coffee after washing dishes and putting some things away. I read my morning email, but have not, as yet, replied. Some silence and reflection first.
Today is a busy day: son Jason will complete the condo move (two pieces of furniture and a mattress) while I lead morning services at the Temple and this evening I will facilitate a roundtable discussion on the meaning of peace at the First Presbyterian Church on Boutz Road here in Las Cruces. This will be followed by an interfaith musical celebration for peace.
In preparing a bit for the discussion this evening I took a look at two sources: the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and Thich Nhat Hahn’s text, Creating True Peace. Nhat Hahn is an excellent role model for peaceful living: reflective, thoughtful, compassionate, and willing to look deeply into situations to see their true nature. The OED points out that peace has a plethora of meanings and applications. Most of them are about “freedom from” something. The OED offers six domains, all but one derived from a sense of freedom from something. The first five relate to freedom from hostilities, disorder, and disturbance. The last is phrased as an absence of noise, movement, or activity. Offered up a quote from Harriet Beecher Stowe, “The greatest destroyer of domestic peace is discourtesy.”
The thing about peace is that while most of us want it, few can agree on it. I believe this is due to one simple fact: peace is defined as freedom from disturbance, including mental, emotional, and spiritual disturbance. We human beings have a hard time with this. What other people think, feel, believe, and do, disturbs us. The thing is, we blame them for our disturbance.
As a therapist, I would so often hear things like, “she makes me so mad!” or “he drives me crazy!” When the truth is, no one came make us anything: we make ourselves, which is to say, we disturb ourselves. No one likes to hear that. We all want to hold someone or something responsible for our distress. Anyone or anything but ourselves and our own situation.
When I was 19 I was a killer, literally. I hated my enemy, the Viet Cong, the People’s Army of Viet Nam, the RPGs, the punji stakes, and the children selling their mothers and sisters, and did my best to destroy them all. Their very being disturbed me. I did not understand they were me and I was them. Then, after being shot and returning home, the definition of the moral situation changed. In the mid eighties, I returned to Viet Nam and met my enemy. We sat across tables and threw back shots of cheap Russian vodka. We exchanged pictures of our families. I experienced their poverty and their pride. It was a humbling experience. My heart was opening.
Peace, then, to become manifest, requires us to hold ourselves responsible for our own tranquility. The Zen way is the way of serene reflection. It is the way of making a space between perception, thought, feeling, and behavior and residing there. It is the way of seeing the deep, interconnected nature of all things in all places and all times.
To be peace I must just be peace and allowing all disturbances the freedom to fall away. As student Shoji pointed out, the thing is in the doing, not the thinking.
Be well.
Good Morning Everyone,
This morning was another early riser. I am now sipping coffee after washing dishes and putting some things away. I read my morning email, but have not, as yet, replied. Some silence and reflection first.
Today is a busy day: son Jason will complete the condo move (two pieces of furniture and a mattress) while I lead morning services at the Temple and this evening I will facilitate a roundtable discussion on the meaning of peace at the First Presbyterian Church on Boutz Road here in Las Cruces. This will be followed by an interfaith musical celebration for peace.
In preparing a bit for the discussion this evening I took a look at two sources: the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and Thich Nhat Hahn’s text, Creating True Peace. Nhat Hahn is an excellent role model for peaceful living: reflective, thoughtful, compassionate, and willing to look deeply into situations to see their true nature. The OED points out that peace has a plethora of meanings and applications. Most of them are about “freedom from” something. The OED offers six domains, all but one derived from a sense of freedom from something. The first five relate to freedom from hostilities, disorder, and disturbance. The last is phrased as an absence of noise, movement, or activity. Offered up a quote from Harriet Beecher Stowe, “The greatest destroyer of domestic peace is discourtesy.”
The thing about peace is that while most of us want it, few can agree on it. I believe this is due to one simple fact: peace is defined as freedom from disturbance, including mental, emotional, and spiritual disturbance. We human beings have a hard time with this. What other people think, feel, believe, and do, disturbs us. The thing is, we blame them for our disturbance.
As a therapist, I would so often hear things like, “she makes me so mad!” or “he drives me crazy!” When the truth is, no one came make us anything: we make ourselves, which is to say, we disturb ourselves. No one likes to hear that. We all want to hold someone or something responsible for our distress. Anyone or anything but ourselves and our own situation.
When I was 19 I was a killer, literally. I hated my enemy, the Viet Cong, the People’s Army of Viet Nam, the RPGs, the punji stakes, and the children selling their mothers and sisters, and did my best to destroy them all. Their very being disturbed me. I did not understand they were me and I was them. Then, after being shot and returning home, the definition of the moral situation changed. In the mid eighties, I returned to Viet Nam and met my enemy. We sat across tables and threw back shots of cheap Russian vodka. We exchanged pictures of our families. I experienced their poverty and their pride. It was a humbling experience. My heart was opening.
Peace, then, to become manifest, requires us to hold ourselves responsible for our own tranquility. The Zen way is the way of serene reflection. It is the way of making a space between perception, thought, feeling, and behavior and residing there. It is the way of seeing the deep, interconnected nature of all things in all places and all times.
To be peace I must just be peace and allowing all disturbances the freedom to fall away. As student Shoji pointed out, the thing is in the doing, not the thinking.
Be well.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Its a Wide World
With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
Today at CMZT:
7:00 AM Zazen, 2:00 PM Zazen, 4:30 PM Yoga with Susie Citrin, 7:00 PM Zazen
This morning I opened my eyes and stepped outside to see a clear sky. The stars are so beautiful in the early morning and the air, even in town feels so much fresher. I made my coffee, washed the dishes, walked Suki, replied to K, and am now writing to you.
There has been considerable response to my last post. Thank you each for weighing in. Most everyone wants me to continue as I have. Perhaps that will be the case, but I will remain mindful of some of the pitfalls and will try my best to keep a proper decorum fitting a Zen monk.
Yesterday I met with my Teacher, Hogaku Shozen McGuire. He had come to the Temple to install some partitions he had built for us. In the process we outlined additional work that needs to be done in order to complete the Temple. Here is a list:
Shelving in Office
Altar platform with railings
Raised platforms (tan) along both sides of the Zendo
Shoebox in the foyer
He is building all of this for the cost of materials. Of course, we are spacing the work out over a few months so that we can raise the money.
We also talked about my Manners post. He agrees I have been lax. He is what is referred to these days as “old school.” He takes his lead from the way it is done in monastic Japan. Trying to find a lay practice that suits the 21st century is a challenge. I see myself in a hybrid sort of situation. A monk in a temple which is a lay practice center. It doesn’t stop there, we are also in a period of human history unparalleled in terms of the instant and far reaching interconnectedness of the species. In this context, what is the role of a practice center? A temple? A priest or monk? Our interconnectivity does not require a computer on a desk; data streams on hand-held devices (no longer cell phones) means we are in touch around the globe in real time anytime.
A teacher must be aware that old models may fit in one way, but not in most others. Sure, monasteries will continue to exist, but we now have the capacity to make monasteries without walls or borders. The entire planet is our practice center and all of humanity our sangha. How cool is that.
Be well.
Good Morning Everyone,
Today at CMZT:
7:00 AM Zazen, 2:00 PM Zazen, 4:30 PM Yoga with Susie Citrin, 7:00 PM Zazen
This morning I opened my eyes and stepped outside to see a clear sky. The stars are so beautiful in the early morning and the air, even in town feels so much fresher. I made my coffee, washed the dishes, walked Suki, replied to K, and am now writing to you.
There has been considerable response to my last post. Thank you each for weighing in. Most everyone wants me to continue as I have. Perhaps that will be the case, but I will remain mindful of some of the pitfalls and will try my best to keep a proper decorum fitting a Zen monk.
Yesterday I met with my Teacher, Hogaku Shozen McGuire. He had come to the Temple to install some partitions he had built for us. In the process we outlined additional work that needs to be done in order to complete the Temple. Here is a list:
Shelving in Office
Altar platform with railings
Raised platforms (tan) along both sides of the Zendo
Shoebox in the foyer
He is building all of this for the cost of materials. Of course, we are spacing the work out over a few months so that we can raise the money.
We also talked about my Manners post. He agrees I have been lax. He is what is referred to these days as “old school.” He takes his lead from the way it is done in monastic Japan. Trying to find a lay practice that suits the 21st century is a challenge. I see myself in a hybrid sort of situation. A monk in a temple which is a lay practice center. It doesn’t stop there, we are also in a period of human history unparalleled in terms of the instant and far reaching interconnectedness of the species. In this context, what is the role of a practice center? A temple? A priest or monk? Our interconnectivity does not require a computer on a desk; data streams on hand-held devices (no longer cell phones) means we are in touch around the globe in real time anytime.
A teacher must be aware that old models may fit in one way, but not in most others. Sure, monasteries will continue to exist, but we now have the capacity to make monasteries without walls or borders. The entire planet is our practice center and all of humanity our sangha. How cool is that.
Be well.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Today at CMZT
Good Morning Everyone,
My apologies for the confusion yesterday. Today I know what day it is! Its Wednesday!
So, today:
7:00 AM Zazen in Zendo
9:00 AM Zazen in Zendo
2:00 PM Zazen in Zendo
4:00 PM T'ai Chih Chih in Zendo
7:00 PM Zazen in Zendo
I am also seeking helpers to finish my move out of the Condo. I need to move clothes, kitchen remainders, and various small odds and ends. I would like to do this Saturday. Can anyone assist me?
Lastly, Ken-roshi will be in the zendo this morning completing the installation of two partitions. These will create a foyer at both entrances to the Zendo.
Rev. Harvey Daiho Hilbert-roshi
Order of Clear Mind Zen
Telephone: 575-680-6680
My apologies for the confusion yesterday. Today I know what day it is! Its Wednesday!
So, today:
7:00 AM Zazen in Zendo
9:00 AM Zazen in Zendo
2:00 PM Zazen in Zendo
4:00 PM T'ai Chih Chih in Zendo
7:00 PM Zazen in Zendo
I am also seeking helpers to finish my move out of the Condo. I need to move clothes, kitchen remainders, and various small odds and ends. I would like to do this Saturday. Can anyone assist me?
Lastly, Ken-roshi will be in the zendo this morning completing the installation of two partitions. These will create a foyer at both entrances to the Zendo.
Rev. Harvey Daiho Hilbert-roshi
Order of Clear Mind Zen
Telephone: 575-680-6680
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Teaching
With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
Please Note: Today at Clear Mind Zen Temple: 7:00 AM Zazen, 9:00 AM Zazen, 2:00 PM Zazen, 4:00 PM Tai Chi Chih, 7:00 PM Zazen.
From Uchiyama’s translation of Tenzo Kyokun, “What are the characters? 1,2,3,4,5. What is the practice? There is nothing in the world that is hidden.”
Here in as succinct a fashion as was ever written is the definition of Zen as life. Everything is Zen; nothing is hidden. In whatever you do, wherever you are: that is it.
On the one hand, we make a big mistake separating this from that, teaching from learning, teacher from student, zendo from kitchen, and so on. We add meaning to these words; we conceptualize them, and in so doing, take ourselves away from our experience of life itself.
On the other hand, teachers have an obligation to teach. Teachers are, monks are, doctors and attorneys are, sanctioned by both their sanctioning bodies and the public, to be somehow separate from their students, patients, and clients. This separation, while artificial, is powerful and, as a result, can lead to serious issues in understanding.
If we do not know each other, communication will be compromised. We get to know each other through sharing. Sharing involves a degree of self-disclosure. The moment you meet a religious leader who will not share something of himself, or who cannot seem to be an actual human being in your presence, run. Indiscriminate sharing is also a problem. Be wary if the sharing does not bear on the teaching.
Be well.
Good Morning Everyone,
Please Note: Today at Clear Mind Zen Temple: 7:00 AM Zazen, 9:00 AM Zazen, 2:00 PM Zazen, 4:00 PM Tai Chi Chih, 7:00 PM Zazen.
From Uchiyama’s translation of Tenzo Kyokun, “What are the characters? 1,2,3,4,5. What is the practice? There is nothing in the world that is hidden.”
Here in as succinct a fashion as was ever written is the definition of Zen as life. Everything is Zen; nothing is hidden. In whatever you do, wherever you are: that is it.
On the one hand, we make a big mistake separating this from that, teaching from learning, teacher from student, zendo from kitchen, and so on. We add meaning to these words; we conceptualize them, and in so doing, take ourselves away from our experience of life itself.
On the other hand, teachers have an obligation to teach. Teachers are, monks are, doctors and attorneys are, sanctioned by both their sanctioning bodies and the public, to be somehow separate from their students, patients, and clients. This separation, while artificial, is powerful and, as a result, can lead to serious issues in understanding.
If we do not know each other, communication will be compromised. We get to know each other through sharing. Sharing involves a degree of self-disclosure. The moment you meet a religious leader who will not share something of himself, or who cannot seem to be an actual human being in your presence, run. Indiscriminate sharing is also a problem. Be wary if the sharing does not bear on the teaching.
Be well.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Awake!
With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
The practice of Zen is difficult. It is not for everyone. Zazen requires discipline, as does koan work, samu, oryoki, and kinhin. A Zen life is a life of dedicated and committed practice. We rise in the morning with an aim in mind: wake-up! We sit with this, we walk with this, we eat this, we work this. Wake up!
Yes, of course, but what, exactly, does “wake-up!” mean?
Have you ever had the experience of lightening striking near you? Or an experience of dozing off and suddenly being startled as you woke? The instant you were brought to presence, that is awake. The instant afterwards, not awake.
What is it about these experiences? The main thing is the sharp dropping away of everything but your senses: no thought at all, just pure perception, clear, unimpeded, and flawless.
While we cannot live in this state we can approximate it by paying attention.
The Buddha taught this method in a number of sutras, but primarily in The Four Establishments of Mindfulness. This sutra has us placing our complete attention on exactly what it is we are doing in each moment, with each posture, and with each gesture.
There is a copy of the sutra here, at this website:
http://www.buddhistedu.org/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=55:discourse-on-the-four-establishments-of-mindfulness&catid=16:class-lessons&Itemid=41
Be well
Good Morning Everyone,
The practice of Zen is difficult. It is not for everyone. Zazen requires discipline, as does koan work, samu, oryoki, and kinhin. A Zen life is a life of dedicated and committed practice. We rise in the morning with an aim in mind: wake-up! We sit with this, we walk with this, we eat this, we work this. Wake up!
Yes, of course, but what, exactly, does “wake-up!” mean?
Have you ever had the experience of lightening striking near you? Or an experience of dozing off and suddenly being startled as you woke? The instant you were brought to presence, that is awake. The instant afterwards, not awake.
What is it about these experiences? The main thing is the sharp dropping away of everything but your senses: no thought at all, just pure perception, clear, unimpeded, and flawless.
While we cannot live in this state we can approximate it by paying attention.
The Buddha taught this method in a number of sutras, but primarily in The Four Establishments of Mindfulness. This sutra has us placing our complete attention on exactly what it is we are doing in each moment, with each posture, and with each gesture.
There is a copy of the sutra here, at this website:
http://www.buddhistedu.org/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=55:discourse-on-the-four-establishments-of-mindfulness&catid=16:class-lessons&Itemid=41
Be well
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