The Difficulty

With palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,



This morning I woke to thoughts of my painting, “Summer.” I could see the color and minimal brush strokes. I wanted a hazy sort of summer day. I went into the studio and just painted. There are times when things flow. This was one of them. While I titled the painting “Summer” my partner thought it could as easily be “Mountains” in which case, the other day’s post about moving mountains fits nicely.



Our first Tuesday evening Yoga session went well. We had four including me, but excluding Soku Shin (she was home not feeling well). We went through a short list of asanas and were done in about thirty minutes, concluding with a very relaxing savasana.



This was much needed after a difficult discussion regarding Zazen from the fukanzazengi. It is so hard to communicate the gestalt of Zazen. When Dogen says Zazen has nothing to do with sitting or walking, it becomes an invitation to see the Buddha’s dialectic at play. It’s like saying painting has nothing to do with paint, brush, canvas, or subject.



Do these things make painting? No. Does the action with them make painting? Not exactly. Painting is that, to be sure, but it is also so much more than that. What is this “larger” painting? Just so, show me the global Zazen! We sat down together, faced the wall, and opened our grasp.



Be well.



PS. Today at the Temple we will do Yoga at 3:00 PM, Tai Chi Chih at 6:00 PM, and Zazen at 7:00 PM. I look forward to seeing you there if you can make it.

Moving Mountains

With palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,



Student Shoji and I have been studying the Diamond Sutra using Red Pine’s most excellent translation and commentary. We are approaching Chapter 5 this week. Shoji lives in California and I am in New Mexico and through the marvel of Skype video, we have wonderful talks each week.



We have learned in the previous chapters that in order to liberate others the Buddha taught we must do so without “being attached” to any part of the process or any actors involved, including ourselves. In chapter five, the Buddha is concerned that we might become attached to the liberated body of buddha. He offers the following:



“…the Buddha told the venerable Subhuti, “Since the possession of attributes is an illusion, Subhuti, and no possession of attributes is no illusion, by means of attributes that are no attributes the Tathagata can, indeed, be seen.” P. 107



On the same page, Pine argues: “To see that an entity is no entity is not enough.” In other words, to see that form is emptiness is only the first part of the dialectic of the Buddha’s teaching. Emptiness is not empty, it is also form, so we must take another step. Pine uses the famous Ch’ing-yuan explanation: “When I first began my practice, the mountains and rivers were simply mountains and rivers. After I advanced in my practice, the mountains and rivers were no longer mountains and rivers. But when I reached the end of my practice, the mountains and rivers were simply mountains and rivers again.” P. 108



What does this teaching mean? Perhaps it means that Buddhas are free and easy in the marketplace, unencumbered by their form, yet living within their form.



From my point of view it is an antidote to quietism. Residing in emptiness is not the Buddha Way. We must get up and do something. The world is suffering how can we simply witness it? Knowing that suffering is a part of the great cycle of birth and death, knowing that everything changes and is therefore empty, is no excuse for sitting still. If it were, the Buddha would have passed into oblivion having never taught a thing.



The attributes of a buddha are no attributes, they are empty. Because they are empty, they are the attributes of a buddha. Mountains can be mountains only because they are not “mountains.” These mountains move.



Be well.

A Day

With palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,



Another day born into to make a difference. Our lives provide us with millions of moments to care, love, and nourish others. With each word, gesture, or look, we touch another. So each morning offers a world of opportunities. Most often we do not accept them, choosing instead to sleepwalk. In such times age becomes a bell of mindfulness.



As we age it seems an edge, call it urgency, appears. Facing our inevitable end we see what we missed, touch what really needs to be done, and in the process, realize how much of our time we waste. In this moment, I choose to let go my grasp and fall into the world’s arms knowing with certainty it will love me for it and I are not two, but one.



My birthday is always followed by Valentine’s Day and it has just occurred to me at 64 that birth and death are so deeply interconnected through love. In love, birth and death are rendered unimportant: they drop away, surrendering to the touch of the moment.



May our breath offer life, our touch heal, and our hearts join. There is only now.



Be well.

Moving

With palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,



Haven’t done much Zen thinking lately (a contradiction in terms, I know), but we have been doing a bunch of Zen Living. Moving allows for an opportunity to be deliberate and mindful, selecting this or that, new paint, curtains or blinds, sorting items, and so on.



I had been living at the Temple, then partially moved into my partner’s apartment, now fully moved in together in a place new to both of us. With this came considerations of space, how we would manage together, and, ultimately, how this change affects my Temple time management.



I will be moving much of my library to the new apartment as I tend to write in the mornings and access to my library is important in that process. Our Temple hours will continue to be afternoons and evenings as that is when most visitors tend to come. I think we will open at 2:00 PM and close at 8:30 PM Monday through Thursday, and 2:00 PM to 6:00 PM on Fridays with our regular Sunday Zazen period being from 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM.



Today at CMZT 9:00 AM Zazen and in the afternoon we will host an Open House at our new apartment from 1:00 PM to 6:00 PM. Please consider dropping by. Call me for address and directions at 680-6680.



Be well

The Chain

With palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,



Yesterday’s Zen Group discussion was interesting less for its content than for the challenges of what the content points to. We addressed the 12 Links in the Chain of Dependent Origination, a necessary step to grasping the Four Noble Truths, Karma, and all the rest of the early teachings of the Buddha. I think the whole point of the thing can be summarized as the Buddha himself did: this is because that is. Should we really care about what gives rise to what, especially when we realize everything is empty of permanence, is one, and is seamless?



The most important point in this teaching is that everything is conditioned and at the very same time conditioning. Nothing conditioned is static, nothing conditioned is, at root, a noun. Once again, when we look deeply into anything we can see everything else.



Our food, for example, is not just our food, but our food, as well as, the many hands and many lives that brought our food into existence. On a macro level, the entire universe and all of time is in our food. So what? In my view, the so what is unification.



The source of our cross cultural, cross religious, “Golden Rule” is in our realization of our unified, interdependent existence. Hence, the importance of compassion, care, tenderness, and love and the avoidance of behavior that is toxic to life on the one hand, and behavior derived from being “born,” which is to say, separated, on the other hand. From this separation, all of the dependent “links” in the chain arise. Realize this and the chain collapses.



Zen practice, then, is the practice of birthless and deathless being.



Be well.

Touch the Earth

With palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,

A few years ago I worked with a Road Chief in Gallup, NM. He was an amazing man and we worked well together. He introduced me to many Navajo traditions, opened my heart to the People, and taught me a lot about myself. We built a sweat lodge together in Window Rock from tress he cut down on Mt. Taylor, one of the sacred mountains of the People. In the process he gave me a Navajo name, “Two Fires” which has always been a symbols, I fear, of my life.



Being in touch with the Earth and its natural cycles is incredibly important. Civilization seems to be defined by the amount of distraction and the degree of separation we place between us and the natural world.



I’ve noticed since leaving my work with Navajo to eventually living in the mountains, to leaving the mountains to live in Las Cruces, I have been gradually losing my connection with the natural world and its rhythms. What I have not lost is my sense of this connection’s importance.



Each morning when I step out into the world, I deliberately open myself the its face. Cold, wet, dry or hot, there it is. I notice the change in the grasses in the desert as we hike or jog through trails. Each evening I try to get a glimpse of the sky, feel the air as it changes when the sun sets and we are presented with the awesome gift of our Southwestern sunsets.



Waking up is nothing more than opening ourselves to each and every sense organ and allowing it to have its place in our heart/mind. Unadulterated, pure, present. My advice? Take a breath and go in its direction.



Be well.

Seeking

With palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,



Loori-roshi, in his commentary on Case Number 9 of Master Dogen’s Shingi Shobogenzo, says, “Mountains and rivers cannot be seen in a mirror. If you go to a mirror to see them, you make one reality into two things. Just let mountains be mountains and rivers be rivers. Each thing perfect and complete, abides in its own dharma state.” He adds, “…when you really see, you go blind, when you really hear, you go deaf.”



What is meant by this teaching?



When I look for something as something specific, I am looking for an idea of it (looking in a mirror), therefore, I will never see it for what it is. When I listen for something specific (looking in a mirror), I will never hear it as it is.



So to truly see is to not see what we are looking for, thus we are blind to the concept of that being seen and are actually seeing what is there in front of us.



Mountains and rivers are to be experienced to be realized.



When we come to Zen for Zen we will never find it. When we come to Zen and are Zen, everything is Zen.



Be well.