Paramitas

With palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,



The precepts are a mainstay of our conversation as Zen Buddhists. The manifest themselves as a deep and abiding aspect of our humanity, I believe. They are not written in stone as were the Ten Commandments, but rather are living aspects of our True Nature as human beings. They begin with generosity. The Buddha taught this by simply standing with a bowl in front of homes. The dana bowl has become a symbol of this paramita as its presence touches our heart and opens it.

Precept Paramita is our innate Buddha Heart/Mind arising and opening in the world. It is our moral center. As we wrap ourselves in the robe of liberation, whether figuratively or literally, we step forward with the Heart of deep compassion and care. Morality is the heart of ethics and ethics is right conduct among beings.

Precept Forbearance, often thought of as patience, is the quality of standing in the stream with a solid heart. We know things change, we bear witness to this change by being upright in its midst. We are in no hurry to make things happen, while we mindfully engage in change itself. We are standing buddhas.

Precept Perseverance is the manifestation of concentrated energy in the direction of practice realization in any arena of life. We practice to persevere in the face of hardship. We sometimes refer to this precept as diligence because it is with a diligent heart/mind that we set ourselves on the path and continue taking one step at a time even as the path becomes a challenge. Life is like that.

Precept Zazen is our practice of living life awake. It is the upright practice of being in the world with an attitude of open heart, open mind, wrapped in complete awareness. It is the aim and being of our life.

Precept Prajna is that which we see in the completeness of the universe. It is the embodiment of the cosmos. We practice this paramita by manifesting great faith in the cosmos as we unfold with it each day. It requires perspective. This is gained by reflection through time.



When we live allowing these perfections to manifest themselves in the universe, we are timeless buddhas. We are stillness in motion. Be well.



Note:

We will host Zen Discussion at 4:00 PM today followed by Zazen at 5:15 and Gathering Meal at 6:00 PM all at CMZT. Please join us.

Thanks to Sangha Members Tamra and Shelley, we have found a large, affordable, monastic residence in Old Mesilla. We will be moving in on the week after July 1st. The Order’s Temple will relocate there, as well, and we will attempt to find ways to be released from the lease on the current building. This move will allow us to consolidate our expenses and live more appropriately as monks. We will not need to use automobiles except to grocery shop and the like and will likely use our bicycles to get around town. The building is walled, with a gate. It has several large rooms, and will accommodate Zazenkai and Sesshin and the possibility of a small residential training program. We will provide more information as we are able.

Dana

With respect,




I must practice begging this evening. It is our custom to ask for dana, which is to invite those in front of us to touch their own generous heart and make an offering to the Order. This money goes toward supportingthe Temple building, offseting the costs of communication, and helps to supply us with incense, candles, coffee, tea, and all manner of consumables. We have a beautiful wooden bowl on the foyer alter. We also have a donation button on our Order's website at http://clearmindzen.org. Please consider offering a donation to our Order. We are a New Mexico Non-profit corporation established to offer Zen Buddhist service.



It is traditional that the begging monk recite the Hanya Shin Gyo while doing this practice. Since I cannot do this for you here, I am sending you the text:



m m m Ma-ka Han-ya Har-a-mita Shin Gyo



KAN JI ZAI BO SATSU GYO JIN HAN NYA HA RA MI TA JI



SHO KEN GO m ON KAI KU DO ISSAI KU YAKU. SHA RI SHI SHIKI FU



I KU KU FU I SHIKI SHIKI SOKU ZE KU KU SOKU ZE SHIKI JU SO



GYO SHIKI YAKU BU NYO ZE SHA RI SHI ZE SHO HO KU SO FU



SHO FU METSU FU KU FU JO FU ZO FU GEN ZE KO KU CHU MU



SHIKI MU JU SO GYO SHIKI MU GEN NI BI ZETS SHIN NI MU SHIKI



SHO – KO - MI SOKU HO – MU GEN KAI NAI SHI MU I SHIKI KAI MU



MU MYO - YAKU MU MU MYO – JIN NAI SHI MU RO - SHI YAKU MU



RO - SHI JIN MU KU SHU METSU DO MU CHI YAKU MU TOKU I MU



SHO TOK'KO, BO DAI SAT - TA E HAN - NYA HA RA MI TA KO, m



SHIN - MU KEI GE MU KEI GE KO MU U KU FU ON RI IS-SAI TEN DO -



MU SO - KU GYO - NE HAN. SAN ZE SHO BUTSU E HAN - NYA HA RA MI TA KO, m



TOKU A NOKU TA RA SAN – MYAKU SAN – BO DAI KO CHI



HAN – NYA HA RA MI TA ZE DAI SHIN SHU ZE DAI MYO SHU ZE MU JO



SHU ZE MU TO DO SHU NO JO ISSAI KU SHIN JITSU FU KO KO



SETSU HAN - MYA HA RA MI TA SHU SOKU SETSU SHU WATSU. GYA TE,



% GYA TE, HA RA GYA TE, % HARA SO- GYA TE BO DHI SO WA KA. HAN-NYA SHIN GYO.

Zazen

With palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,



When practicing Zazen, sit upright. I have taught this from the beginning just as all teachers before me have done. What does it mean, though, to sit upright?



Spine upright, crown of head touching ceiling, bottom touching the floor, shoulders open, chest open, chin tucked and, as Master Dogen used to say, “eyes horizontal, nose vertical!” This is our position, the position of all buddhas. But these instructions are also a metaphor for our attitude toward living our lives, and this is the most important point: serene and unmoving, we take each step making ourselves in the world.



We cannot think that we are practicing Zazen part-time or at home or at a Zendo. We cannot “think” we are practicing Zazen. Our practice is ontological, that is to say, it is “being.” Zazen is not separate from our moment to moment life. Zazen is complete, unexcelled, mindfulness: always aware, always present, always taking a step with deliberateness. This is our practice.



How many of us sleepwalk through our day? How many intoxicate ourselves with television, radio, CDs, DVD’s, Internet? Tombstones for eyes, hardly alive, we stumble through a day and wonder at night where the time went. I am as guilty as any of you. My one saving grace, so to speak, is my dogged diligence in noticing and bringing myself back to the world as it is. I make this paramita my first and last. When we are Zen practitioners this is our work. It is a work that has no start time and no end time. It is our life.



Be well.

More Stages

With palms together,


Good Afternoon Everyone,



We were talking about the Ten Ox-herding pictures. Stage Two is “Discovering the Footprints.” The traces cannot be “hidden.” It is, after all, as plain as the nose on our face. What are these traces? How can our True Self be seen? I think, sometimes, the Ox can be like a bull in the proverbial China Shop. At other times, it is like the disappearing Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland. *grin* Everywhere and nowhere, we are what we are, always will be, always have been. Our true self is that which never changes, does not belong to us, yet never parts from us. How can we not see its traces?



Stage Three is “Perceiving the Ox.” There is it, the ass sticking out from behind the tree. Who can see its face? When we look for a face we will never see it, all we will ever see are faces we can imagine: these are not the true face, the face of our true self, but rather, our imagination running wild. So pretty, yet so untrue. Someone got a match?



The thing about these two pictures is they tell you all you really need to know. The Ox is right here, no need to LOOK. Its traces are everywhere because it is everywhere. Where is the one place where your true self is not?



Erewhon.



Be well.

Buddha

With palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,



A monk asks in all earnestness, “What is Buddha?” The Master answers, “Shit on a stick!”



If you think about this, you will go down the path to delusion. So, be careful. Only in your mind is the smell, feel, or judgment regarding shit.



This koan asks us to see how we set things up, make shiny things in our minds, and fail then to see them clearly. Buddha is often shiny and golden. He is often calm and serene. He is always clean and well polished. Yet this, then, is only a clean and shiny Buddha. And if the Buddha is covered in puss? Or being eaten by worms and maggots? This, then, is a worm and maggot eaten Buddha. Are they the same or different?



What makes a Buddha Buddha? Is it the shine, the gold, the purity? Or do these exist in our mind as Buddha attributes?



Perhaps rather than asking “What is Buddha?” We might better ask, “Where is Buddha?” As Buddha is a figment of our imagination and thus a defilement itself.



Cut through thoughts like this and you will meet buddha.



Be well.



Tonight: Zazen at 7:00 PM, Comparative Religion at 7:30 PM.

Zazen

With palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,



The other day in our Zen Discussion Group someone let slip that they did not think shikantaza was the essential method of practicing Zazen in the Soto School. This person was incorrect. I sense her error is based in the fact that the terms “Zazen” and “shikantaza” seem different, and indeed, are seemingly taught differently, but in the end, this is not so. They are one in the same.

The Soto tradition, founded in Japan by Master Dogen, was founded upon the practice of Zazen and its essence is the practice of what is referred to as “Silent Illumination.” Whenever Dogen refers to Zazen, he is referring to shikantaza.

So, why the confusion? I think it is because of how Zazen is taught. Introductions to the practice often include breath watching and/or breath counting, and while one is sitting quietly while doing this, one is not in the posture of Zazen , properly understood.

As Taigon Leighton points out in his introduction to The Art of Just Sitting, “The specific practice of shikantaza was first articulated in the Soto Zen lineage by the Chinese master, Hongzhi Zhengjue in his “Cultivating the Empty Field” where he wrote, “ A person of the Way fundamentally does not dwell anywhere.” This is to say, we do not place our attention on anything at all, not the breath nor on the wall in front of us. We just sit not thinking. It is in this practice of whole heartedly sitting that we are awake.

Master Nishijima, in his “To Meet the Real Dragon,” quotes Master Dogen saying the following:

“Zazen is not training to attain enlightenment. It is just the pleasant gate to the Dharma. It is the practice and experience of the perfectly realized truth.” And later, “Just sitting in quietness was the realization of the Truth itself. It was enlightenment itself. To sit sincerely in Zazen was the realization of the state beyond body and mind.”

When Dogen wrote his three most famous fascicles, Bendowa, Genjokoan, and Fukanzazenji, her was referring to shikantaza as Zazen. Zazen and shikantaza are one in the same as is Zazen and realization.

This is what the Soto School teaches and what it practices.

Some of us just cannot resist deconstructing our experience and claiming a place along the way to Complete Unexcelled Awakening. We use methods of the Theravaden school to gauge our “progress” Even Daido Loori fell prey to this by utilizing the Ten Ox-Herding pictures as the foundation of a sort of stage theory of Zen. Just because we “need” to “know” where we are, does not mean we should attempt to get a grade for ourselves. This need is the deluded mind seeking an escape. This is not the way of Soto Zen. It is not the way of Clear Mind Zen.



Nishijima writes, “Master Nyojo told him (Student Dogen) not to be concerned about attaining enlightenment. Rather, he should ‘just sit,’ and in sitting find the essence of Buddhism itself…Nyojo did not promote the study of koans, the counting of breaths or other methods of focusing the mind. He stressed the simple activity of just sitting, and he urged his disciples to find the meaning of practice in practice itself.”

Do not deconstruct your seated practice. Such a practice eviscerates the living and thus, examines, the dead. Just sit. Nothing special. Nothing miraculous.

Be well,

The Rascal

With palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,



Zazen is the practice of seated meditation, we say, yet it is far more than that. Zazen is a state of being. What are the ontological elements? Steadiness, serenity, surrender, alertness, openness, in short, a state of being that is upright and aware.

We exist naturally in this state of being until we are encumbered by thoughts and feelings. We collect thoughts and feelings and store them for daily reference. They form a sort of vetting process for us. A process which, in truth, actually becomes a veil clouding our ability to see clearly.

My Clouds:

Growing up in poor in Miami, in a household headed by an addict and a co-dependent partner, I saw what other people had and I dearly wanted it. The good life, the life of leisure and fun. I saw in base relief, then, my poverty. Television helped with this, as well. It framed the world and taught me to turn my wants into needs. I had hope.

I saw, eventually, though, that the rich were rich and the poor were poor and never truly will the two actually come together. When they do, it is carefully orchestrated by handlers, as in the case of Movie and Rock Stars. The rich remain rich, the new-rich remain on the outside looking in, and everyone works to maintain the status quo in the hope that no one will notice. Meanwhile we at the bottom continue to bus the tables and wait on others. Still, I thought, I can beat this.

Great Doubt arises.

My hope, my sense of moving up in the world, seemed exposed as a childhood dream by the war. There were those who fought and those at home who fought to find ways out of the draft. Patriotism and trust in government was wrecked by Vietnam and that Dirty Tricks Master, Tricky Dick Nixon. This man, posing as a Quaker, carpet bombed Hanoi and relentlessly assaulted those who opposed the war. White hats were just a costume to hide the evil men do. These were like the swift strikes of a kyosaku. Wake up!

At home, the VFW told me they didn’t want “cry baby” Vietnam Vets in their organization. I was partially paralyzed, retired from the Army at 19, and often spent hours at a Royal Castle hamburger joint. One night, sipping coffee, I remember a police officer coming in and giving me the third degree. What am I doing there? I think, “What else does a kid retired at 19 do?” I caused suspicion, I suppose. Wake up!



Great Determination arises.

When confronted with doubt some of us collapse. Too bad. Life offers us whacks of the kyosaku to give us great doubt. Contrary to what we sometimes think, it’s not a test, in fact, it’s the real thing. Bad things do happen to good people. Life is not fair. Societies are not structured equally. Some of us have to walk to work…if we have a job to go to. Some of us have to make a choice between food and medicine. It’s all very sad, but it’s all life as it is.



I chose not to collapse. I get a GED. I go to college. I get married. I get a job. Life happens. Somewhere within me is a stubborn rascal. I am not going to go quietly into the night. One foot in front of the other. Washing dishes, baking pies, waiting on tables, taking crap from all sorts of idiots, I earn my keep.

Eventually, I get a Ph.D., start a business, and become successful. But who am I?



I have learned not to trust anything but my true self. What I have also learned is that “my” true self is “our” true self, the cosmos. A Ph.D., a successful business, and a life in service to others through that business, was not enough. The backward step demanded to be taken.



Great Faith arises.

When living fully awake, or when living asleep, life is what it is: a great metabolic process with no beginning and no end. In either case there is no difference. What differs is how we relate to it. To fully appreciate our lives we must surrender ourselves to the fullness of the universe itself. We must take that step off the cliff of doubt. Or jump off the pole of awakened being to make ourselves in the world. This takes faith, not courage. Faith that things are what they are, and unfold as they will, and that through it all we are what we are: human beings making choices.



In those choices our true self arises. In this there are no excuses. We are what we do, not what we would like to do, think we are, or try to be. I believe words like “try” “think” “want” are contemporary profanity because they, in fact, profane us. They are the words we use to deceive ourselves and others.



The Mantra of the Upright.

Get out of thought; get into action. Don’t try, do.



Be well.