Organ Mountain Zen



Saturday, November 5, 2011

Zazenkai

Good Morning Everyone,


Today we will practice wholeheartedly throughout the day. This Zazenkai should not be any different from any other day. The life of a bodhisattva is a life of living Zazen. We live our lives in practice. This means we live in the Great Outdoors, life outside the box of filtered perception. Open your heart/mind, take a breath, and thoroughly enjoy this actual moment: it is the universe itself. Be well.

Friday, November 4, 2011

Crap

Good Morning Everyone,


(Warning: rant follows)



So, we get a call from Jerry at the Mountain Music store. He has a drum set I can buy for $250.00, “Come look at it.” We do. It is delightful. A bass drum, chain foot pedal, snare drum, floor tom, and a mounted tom. It includes a floor cymbal with stand, a hi-hat stand with cymbals, and a drummer’s seat. They are made by “Peace” percussions so “Peace” is writ large across the front of the bass. We say they are beautiful. He says, “Take them.” Adding, “Pay me when you can.”



There is something about Vietnam veterans, combat vets in particular. He says we are “brothers.” I feel this. The man was a door gunner. One of the more brutal jobs in Vietnam. I was a grunt. Brutal enough. I cannot put my finger on the what of it, but what I felt was a deep connection with someone I didn’t know, but knew a whole lot about.



Combat vets are a little loosey goosey we might say. We do not abide by manuals well, nor do we appreciate crap. It is said that combat vets have finely developed crap detectors and this is one thing that makes us a challenge to live in society with.



What I have noticed is that taking vows to become a priest has forced me to look at these things. I try to look at the reason for the crap people throw out there. I try to find a way to be compassionate. Sometimes I am successful, sometimes I am not. I think more importantly, not challenging crap for being crap is not compassionate at all. It simply enables people to continue in their crap.

Crap in combat gets you killed. Crap in civilian life gets you promotions by those pinheads who either cannot see it for the crap that it is or are for their own crap reasons unwilling to call a spade a spade..



Setting aside the priestly priesthood mantel for a moment to be a tad more authentic, as a people, I think we have suckered ourselves into a pit of self-serving despair here in the United States. Corporations haven’t “stolen” anything we haven’t joyfully given to them in the hope that our egos, our own bank accounts, and our status in the neighborhood would be satisfied. We are a sick, debilitated, anemic society who seems to have lost our will to say “No!” to our need for more and more things, more comfort, more fast food, more convenience, cars that consume more gas than necessary, more and more, more and more, and those awful corporations have been ever so willing to lend us the money to buy them. Meanwhile we ourselves actually produce less and less.



We don’t work hard in school. We are a nation with one of the highest rates of functional illiteracy. We are a nation that cannot write. We have trouble putting three words together cogently. We do not think critically. We lead with our “feelings.” And we make excuses for everything under the sun…or blame the Democrats or the Republicans or other nations (when other nations are simply rising to fill the vacuum our unwillingness to work has left behind).



Frankly, I do not have any answers. I think, however, like combat tends to clear a person’s mind, so too, hard times. Maybe this era of reduced credit, fear, and collapsing greed will get the slugs moving. Maybe we will wake-up to the fact that if we want less greed we must say no to greed. We must work hard. We must not accept excuses from ourselves or others. And most importantly, we must start to actually think. This requires a few easy but challenging actions. First, turn off the T.V. Second, begin to teach yourself to really read, not just skim, a book. Third, know that you are the only person in your life that can actually change your life. Fourth, make a training plan for change and stick to it. Fifth, look at your local community college, take a class. For goodness’ sake, educate yourselves. And sixth, forget your comfort. It is the soma of the 21st century. (If you do not know what “soma” is, it means you have not read a classic of our literature and you really need to get yourself to a library.)

Our nation is failing because we are failing as individuals and communities. We are too often taking the easy way out of “blame” and “finger pointing.”



Be well.



Thursday, November 3, 2011

Bodhisattvas are Everywhere

Good Morning Everyone,


Yesterday for the first time in more than 40 years I picked up a pair of drum sticks. It was a moment that terrified me on the one hand and made my heart feel warm, on the other hand. It seems I used to be a drummer in my teens, but being shot in the head changes everything. Anyway, we found ourselves at Mountain Music, a small used musical instrument shop in Las Cruces. There we met a Vietnam vet named Jerry. As we walked through the pulled high drums, I pulled a pair of old, used drumsticks from a cowboy boot and clutched one in my atrophied left hand holding it firmly on a snare drum. Some old folks were jamming with guitars in a corner and I quietly kept the beat with them. Jerry must have approved as he gave me the pair of drumsticks as we began to leave the store. Maybe I will duct tape the stick into my hand. Maybe I will just do what I can. Jerry promised to find me a used drum set we could afford. Bodhisattvas of compassion are everywhere. Be well

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

News for 11/2/11

With respect, Good Morning Everyone,




Our water has been turned off at the temple due to our landload not paying the water bill :( So, we will not be open today. We will check on the water's status later today and let you know what's up.



We have created an online Blog Radio talkshow called "Zen Living" and our first "episode" is schduled for 1:00 PM MT. We will talk about Zen 101. The show is only 15 minutes long as we are not purchasing a "premium" account. We are setting up this show to repeat weekly at the same time. People can call in and we will send out information on Monday morning about how to do that.



Other news, we will represent our Order at a local interfaith religious conference tomorrow evening at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Cathedral from 6:00 PM to 7:30 PM in support of an effort to stop the flood of foreclosures in our area.



It was good to see everyone last night at Zen 101! Thank you so much for coming and we look forward to seeing you next week. Don't forget about Zazenkai this Saturday at 9:00! If you haven't registered and still wish to attend, please email us ASAP.



Yours,

Monday, October 31, 2011

Moments

With palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,



Goodness, it is Halloween already. I cannot believe how quickly time seems to be passing. It seems as we age this is what happens. I remember as a child I could not wait for “X” and it seemed as though time was like a pole I had to climb and as I put one hand in front of another, it stretched on up just out of reach. Today, for me, that pole seems greased and slippery and I am sliding down far too quickly. I am confessing here that I do not want to get to the bottom of that pole. Why?

It is not that I fear the end of the pole. The pole never really ends. Its more that I want to slow the fall and live as fully as possible along every inch of the way. When time slips by it means I have not been awake to the experience of each moment. That is the problem with reverie, isn’t it? When holding on to the past or seeking the future we fail the moment. Moments are far too precious to not experience.

So, today, I vow to wake up to each and every moment.

Be well.

Training Plan: Arms and Shoulders weight workout, a two mile easy run, yoga this evening, and Zazen at 9:30 AM.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Day of the Dead

With palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,

Our dogs are playing with their “Big Dog Bones” and enjoying the cold morning air here in the desert. We have not yet turned on the heat in the house. It seems, like the dogs, we both enjoy the chill. Yesterday we hung out in the plaza with the Day of the Dead memorials. We were going to set up an altar but at the last minute changed our minds. We will set up an altar next year with Jizo Bodhisattva leading the way.

Jizo is a wonderful bodhisattva. He represents that aspect of us which protects and nurtures expectant mothers, children who died as a result of miscarriage, abandonment and abuse, as well as travelers and firemen. He is the bodhisattva who vows never to enter nirvana until all “hell-beings” are awakened and set free.

I think it is important to recognize that the Hell Realms and the Hungry Ghosts are just us in this place at this moment if we are grasping for, and attaching to, any ideas of gain, self, and awakening. To free ourselves we simply open that hand of thought and let our heart/minds open.

Be well.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Spinning

With palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,



The sun is not yet awake in this part of the world, although I have faith that the burning globe will seem to rise over the mountains in the east and spread its warmth out over all of us. Our perception is simply not to be trusted. We think the earth is spinning around the sun and the sun is spinning around in the galaxy and the galaxy is spinning around in the universe, but that spinning itself is just a result of our perception, which is to say, how our brain functions. Spinning is an artifact of our perception. It only is because we see one “thing” in relation to another “thing,” that we see “movement ” at all. Thus, sitting in my chair writing to you I feel stationary, and on this morning’s walk, I will feel I am moving. Yet, I know this is not the case. Movement and lack of movement are in my mind’s eye. So, while we often say everything changes, because of this, we can just as easily say nothing changes. In the relative world, everything is in motion; in the absolute world, there is no motion.

Just now, I hear a rooster crow.

Be well.