September 14

With palms together,

Good Morning Everyone,





Our Zen 101 group is going strong. It is so good to see such an interest in not only understanding Zen, but actually practicing it. We sit for an hour from 6:00 PM to 7:00, then hold a discussion based on a text selection. This week it was on Clouds and Water, the priest’s track in Zen. Next week we will talk about a lay track.



These distinctions are somewhat fuzzy here in the United States as most Zen priests are actually lay priests and not monastics. As in anything Zen, distinctions such as “monastic” and “lay” are more a thing of the mind than anything else. A priest who goes into sesshin or Zazenkai is a monastic. A priest can form relationships, even marry and have children, but in the Zen world, a priest has by vows, shifted priorities.



What is most central in a priest’s life is the condition of conditioned things: the universe itself. According to tradition, a priest takes vows leading to stability, service, simplicity, selflessness, and the accomplishment of the Buddha’s Way. Priests frame these and understand these in an array of ways. My friend Claude Anshin for instance, assumed vows of poverty and chastity, he only eats one meal a day and does not drink, smoke, or eat meat. He owns nothing and lives off of the donations to his foundation.



Other priests might have a home and a job, children, a wife or husband, and credit cards. In both cases distinctions should not be made as to which is “more religious” than the other. Both priests have made commitments, have obligations, and go about their lives in service to the dharma.



What is true in each case is a shift in focus and priority in the priest’s life from relationship, per se, to dharma and sangha.



Be well

In the details

With palms together,

Good Morning Everyone,



The morning air is much cooler now that we are entering September. We have turned off the air conditioners and opened the windows. It is a good thing to feel fresh air, but along with it comes teaser sounds which trigger both of our dogs to bark. So, we have fresh air and barking dogs. All is right in the world.



All day yesterday I worked on my painting, details for sesshin, the WebPages, and various other small tasks. I spoke over Skype with my disciples Rev. Kankin and Rev. KoMyo. In the first case we talked about our everyday practice, in the second case, preparations for the coming sesshin. Soku Shin was away most of the day taking care of business of a different sort.



Everyday practice is every moment practice. It involves realizing that each and everything we do, we should do with stillness of mind, what I will call “deep posture.” To do this we must give up our attachment to one form of practice over another. To do that we must realize Zazen is not about the “superficial posture,” the “picture” of our practice as seated buddhas. Formal Zazen is a method of getting our mind and body oriented to the environment in such a way that all fall away leaving only presence. It is this “deep posture” or “presence” that can be opened in each moment regardless of our superficial posture.



We carry this Deep Posture with us everywhere. We are born with it and have the capacity to access it in each and every breath. When painting, just be in the paint, in the canvas, in the manifestation of the painting. When writing, just write, completely and fully expressing what you are. When walking, just walk. Walk completely, fully, touching the earth with your heart. This is not special. It is every day.



Do this and the details of our lives become like the jewels of Indra’s Net.



Be well.

September 12

With palms together,

Good Morning Everyone,



Yesterday was September 11th, 2011, a day of its own accord. Today is September 12, also a day of its own accord. Let’s practice to stay in each day and live it, not another. I wrote on my “status” bar on Facebook, “When tears are our measure, rage soon follows. Zen living is not about tears or jeers, but rather, it is about not holding on to them. “



The measure of a Zen Center or a Teacher is not whether or not we are moved emotionally, but rather that we are taught to experience a feeling and let go of it before we turn it into something. Zen is not about feeling warm and fuzzy, it’s not about feeling special or serene or anything else. What Zen is about is direct experience of what is without grasping it, clutching it, or valuing it.



Yesterday our nation seemed emotionally captured by the violence perpetrated by a few tortured individuals. Our media (to their shame) flooded us for weeks with images of terror, sadness, and heroics. We (to our shame) seem to have become a nation of vicarious bottom feeders, who, having engorged ourselves and reveled in the emotion, today feel quite spent.



I read comments on a few Zen Teachers sites and see a host of sappy sentiment. Those teachers ought get out their sticks, CRACK!: Wake up! Where are you? When are you? Do you smell the air? Can you feel your feet? Do you hear that birdsong or that car’s tires rolling on the pavement? To use “The Little Prince"’s words, these are “matters of consequence.”



Care must be taken around memorials, as with memories from the past. They conjure up emotions which often run amok. Feel, but let go. Do not value the feeling. Do not treasure it, hold it, or otherwise keep it, as it will turn on you. Remember, the first and last principal of Zen is to be here now.,



Be well.

September 10

With palms together,




Good Morning Everyone,







This morning, the morning of our day “off,” we both woke early and slipped into the studio to paint. Painting has become both a morning and evening meditation. This morning I had one spot lit and painted nearly in the dark. Color feels rich, but muted, in the dim light, but then when day emerges, the colors tend to pop out and say, “Good Morning!”







Last night our monitor burnt out for our DVD player. I am noticing things are breaking down: car, DVD screen, me. Soku Shin and I talked quietly in the dim light as I put paint on canvas. “What is it?” she asks, indicating in no uncertain terms that she reads me like a book. I tell her I am anticipating more paralysis, more diminishment of competency. The pain in my legs is getting unbearable at times. My left arm is more and more showing the effects of my aging brain. I can no longer walk quietly. I can no longer hold my left hand out without greater weakness. The fingers do not close as they used to and my grip is poor. Shoe tying takes much more concentration and effort, as does tying my robes. I wonder how this will unfold and more, how I will deal with these losses as they begin to take more and more out of me.







A few years ago I was diagnosed with prematurely aging brain syndrome and realized I was heading toward a complete re-paralysis of my left side. At first the docs thought it was Alzheimer’s Disease and I worked out the scenario of losing my memory, thus myself. This thing is a little different and no one could tell me how it would unfold. So I am left, as we all are, knowing our capacity is diminishing, but not knowing which way it will manifest next.







Someone in Office Max yesterday noticed my foot drag and, coming up behind me, said with a smile, “I’ll race you to the front!” Funny. I smiled. She later apologized and said she hoped she didn’t “offend me.” The fact that I walk like a drunken sailor has demanded that I slow down.







This is just fine. Our practice is to deal with what is in an upright and direct manner. We will do what we will do and (just now) it seems that task is to take the dogs for a walk. (Oh, that reminds me, we have a new addition from the shelter in our family. Soku Shin adopted “Binky” the day before yesterday. Binky is a tiny poodle mix of some sort. Soft and cuddly, she fits right into Soku Shin’s arm.)







Life is good.







Be well.







You may see my artwork by going to clearmindzen.org and clicking on "Daiho's Art"

JMJM

With palms together,

Good Evening Everyone,

On the Zen Living list, Ch’an Master Jue Miao Jing Ming , asked me a question the other day. “Dear Sensei, Do you consider Zen a Mahayana practice? If so, what does Mahayana actually do?”



While Zen is within the Mahayana tradition, it is not a Mahayana practice as I understand it. Student Rev. Shoji and I were discussing this question today and Rev. Shoji brought up an interesting distinction. He argued that Mahayana Buddhists aim at the Bodhisattva ideal to free all beings before they, themselves, enter nirvana. He points out that from a Zen point of view, self and other are one, therefore there is no one, but oneself, to free.



Zen Master Seung Sahn argues in his Compass, that both Theravadan and Mahayane traditions have “roads,” but that Zen has not only no road, but no map, as well. The practice is practice realization as one. Path and destination are not two.



These beg the question, however, “What does Mahayana actually do?”



Mahayana does nothing. Mahayana is just a word. And we can see from the question that such things as words and concepts can create a hindrance. We could ask a better question, “What is Mahayana practice and what does it do?” The aim of the practice is to free beings, but how?



Again, Master Sahn offers the Six Paramitas as “practice guides.” They are rather like the manifest value in the nexus between idea and behavior, rather like the term “Quality” as used in Pirsig’s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.” A Mahayana practitioner practices to make manifest the six aspects of our true nature in the hope that to do so will free suffering beings.



A Zen practitioner, however realizes practice and life are one, that everything is already free, perfect as it is, but that we jail ourselves with our thoughts. A Zen practitioner notices and ceases all grasping: no attachment to ideas, desires, things, feelings, etc.

A Zen practitioner is free and easy in the everyday world. His mind is free and his heart limitless. He recognizes all beings are likewise like this.



Be well.

August 29

With palms together,

Good Morning Everyone,



Yesterday was a wonderful day. Soku Shin entered the Order as a Novitiate Priest, the service and ceremony was extremely well attended (Soku Shin and I had to sit Zazen in the outer room!). We then went to lunch at the Village Inn and after that several folks came to the residence for coffee. The last person left at about 4ish and we were plain tuckered out. We watched a few episodes of “Saving Grace” on our DVD player (we do not have a TV) and sipped some wine.



Sometimes certain events just find a place in your heart, you know. Unsui and Shukke Tokudo are such moments. These are ceremonies where one takes lifelong vows, a very serious commitment. Soku Shin mentioned to me that speaking these vows aloud in a public ceremony was very moving. It is, indeed. To enter the priesthood is to leave service to the self and travel a path of service to the universe. All personal things must drop away. One must open one’s heart and take residence in the suffering of others.



In the “Saving Grace” episode we watched there was a father who dowsed his child with gasoline and lit him on fire. The father was vilified by all but “Earl,” the angel. My heart was with the child, with Grace, with all the officers enraged by the father’s despicable act, but it was also with the father who was suffering greatly himself. I think we gain the ability to be in the suffering of others through our practice and experience of actually working with those in great pain. One without the other is both hollow and shallow.



The danger of working with the suffering of others without practice is that we will tend to build walls around our heart, begin to hate those who inflict suffering, and in this, attempt to protect ourselves. No one wants to think fathers are capable of such atrocities. In truth, however, we are all capable under the right circumstances. Our practice allows us to see this by penetrating the delusion of duality.



Being one with the universe has significant implications.



Be well.

August 27

With palms together,

Good Morning Everyone,



Was awake last night after a few hours’ sleep. I finished a painting I am calling “Eden,” wrote a few quick email replies, and took down my copy of “Realizing the Genjo Koan” translation and commentary by Okamura-roshi. This text is very important as it addresses everyday life as an awakening and awakened person. I say both because we are actualizing both in each and every moment. As Okamura points out, “We are both universal and individual, and this universality and individuality are not two separate aspects of our being: each of them is absolute. One hand is 100% hand. Five fingers are 100% five fingers.”



I write about this fundamental aspect of Zen frequently. It is essential that we realize the truth of holding these two apparently contradictory views simultaneously. Because to not do so allows for sleepwalking on the one hand and quietism on the other hand.



If we are stuck in “five fingers” which is to say, individuality, we are in a dualism that allows for all manner of egoistic and narcissistic evil to arise. If we are stuck in “hand” then everything is one and nothing really matters as whatever is, is, and we should not attach to anything.



Living interdependence and deep interconnection means we live with five fingers knowing they are hand and live with hand knowing it is five fingers. Grasping one is at the expense of the other. In our Zen we practice to let go of all grasping.



Just because we do not grasp does not mean we do not engage. We engage without investment of self. My well-being is not dependent on the outcome of my practice or something I am working on. If I am practicing to end war and war continues, I do not stop practicing ending war. This is so because on a very deep level, as I practice to end war, war is ended, regardless of whether or not war continues. Just as our hand is a hand and simultaneously five individual fingers, so practice and realization are one and not one at the same time. Or to use Dogen’s phrase, “The depth is the same as the height.” We make the universe we reside in.



Be well.