Unification Rag

Good Morning All,




Last night was an exercise in practice. I had been working on a new painting and almost had it when I just could not go on… Kathryn and I did what we do and finally went to bed. All of a sudden at 2:30 AM, Suki and Binky were jumping up and down wanting desperately to go out. So, out we went. Cold and wet and dark they were in 7th Puppy Heaven. I, on the other hand, was in the Hell Realms.



After they did what they do, we came in and slipped into the studio where my work was waiting. A stroke here, a stroke there and the painting was painting itself. Meanwhile Suki and Binky were sound asleep on the sofa. So it goes.



At 7:30 we are now up, it is late, I finished the painting, am sipping my coffee, and am about to take the Pups out for a walk before going to the Zendo. Such is life. Hell and Heaven are simply the names we give to the relationships before us. When opposed to it: hell. When entering it: heaven. May we all practice the unification rag.



Be well.

Big Brother Actually Wears A Smiley Face

Good Morning All,


Big Brother Actually Wears A Smiley Face



If I were a member of the elite, I would not want to make sweeping changes to meet my needs, nor would I make changes dark and frightening. I would make them slow and nearly imperceptible, a little at a time, and always with your best interests on my face. I would make my needs your needs. I would make your fears my fears.



You might then say, “Oh, it’s not so bad.” Or you might defend me saying, “We really need to protect ourselves from ‘X’ so if we do ‘Y’ it won’t be as bad as ‘Z’.” Yes, and I would frame all the tiny little ‘Ys’ as nearly harmless and put little happy faces on them all. Much like using Happy Meals® with toys to make fast food not only OK, but downright desirable and affordable.



Yes, if I were an elite, I would be smiling pretty broadly as I go to the bank with bags of money noticing how everyone seems to be thinking maybe sometime it will be their turn to do the same, all the while knowing I have imperceptibly created conditions making this nearly impossible. All the while helping everyone else feel I am the champion of their moral point of view. Even God will be on our side.



We are all equal, right? And, as Mr. Orwell once had it, some animals are more equal than others. Oh, and any attempt to change the hierarchy will be considered treason and the best part? Most of you will happily agree with me.



Be well

Brad Warner

Good Morning All,


We are excited! Brad Warner has agreed to come to Las Cruces to spend some time with us. I spoke with him the other day and we agreed he will do a talk in El Paso, Deming, and Las Cruces. We will host him at our residence. The dates are March 9th through the 11th.

For those uniformed, Brad Warner received dharma transmission from Nishijima roshi in Japan while he lived, studied, and worked there. Brad has written four books: Hardcore Zen, Sit Down and Shut Up, Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate, and Sin, Sex, and Zen. He has also edited with Nishijima-roshi a translation and commentary of the Fundamental Wisdom of the Way by Nagarjuna. He hosts the blog, Hardcore Zen, and is featured in an interview in this month’s Tricycle magazine. Brad is always refreshing.

We would like this visit to be a practice driven event and not just a public talk. So, each center, we are asking that we coordinate a practice period with a dharma talk by Brad Warner. In addition, we will offer a public presentation in each of the three cities, so look for possible venues.

Our hope is that the various centers in our area will assist us in defraying the costs arising from this effort.

We will, of course, be happy to receive any financial support you may be able to offer. We have agreed to fly him here from Akron, host him, and return him intact with Dana in hand.

I look forward to hearing from you. Be well.

Post Script

It is with a relief that I report our friend Gene survived his brain surgery yesterday. We had sat Zazen for several hours and chanted the Great Compassionate Dharani, the Kannon Sutra, the Life Span of the Tathagata, and the Heart of Wisdom Sutra, as part of our vigil. It is a good thing for a small community to come together in mutual support of each other. Our best to Gene and his wife Anna as they work together to live deeply in the days to come. To paraphrase an old teaching, “life is short, don’t waste time!”

Patience

Good Morning All,



This morning I am ashamed to say that I lost my patience with someone on the Tricycle Community last night. I spent a good deal of time after I deleted both his and my comments thinking about what had happened. My conclusion is that I didn’t exercise good judgment and that I let the fever of concern regarding the political issues of the day cloud my heart/mind. In the end, the man referred to me as a “pathetic old man.” This sort of stuck. I rather think he was right-on.

In any event, I happened to have a review copy of a new book sent to me by Tarcher/Penguin entitled, “Patience: the Art of Peaceful Living,” by Allan Lokos.($14.95, paperback). So, I began reading. The book is an excellent study on the practice of patience, something I am apparently not as good at as I had assumed.

Lokos says, “…the development of genuine patience requires introspection over time so that we can come to the root causes of our impatience” (p. 21). Yes, agreed. So, I began to consider this as I both, sat at my desk, and stood glaring at my easel (which had a fresh canvas on it). Earlier in the text Lokos points out the connection between anger and impatience citing none other than Shantideva, the 8th century Buddhist teacher. And I was angry.

The thing is, I seem to expect so much of people and when my expectations aren’t met or when people are thoughtless or rude, I go to that place I went as a young soldier. I remind myself then of the Arlo Guthrie rant in Alice’s Restaurant, “I wanna kill…” So, here I am, an old fart, some sort of Zen teacher, and off I go. Ridiculous.

The good news is, I do in fact catch my errant self in short order and bring myself back to a degree of equanimity. The bad news is, once the anger cat is out of the bag, its out.

I think though, this is a good thing as we are each human beings and as such we must notice that we are easily caught in our own crap. How would we know if we were full of it if we didn’t let it out from time to time?


Be well.

The Sand

Good Morning Y'all,








It is 0'Dark-Thirty here in New Mexico and we are awake sipping coffee and reading the news. I see that our Senate passed legislation allowing the US Military to arrest and indefinately detain US citizens without trial. Is it time to pull our heads out of ther friggin' sand yet?







I wrote a letter to our President and to my senator for all the good it will do. There is just something wrong with this legislatiuon and the irony is it was signed on the annual celebration of the signing of the Bill of Rights to our Constitution.







Here's the thing, suppose we gave another war. Suppose we are in severe economoc hardship. Lots of people out of work with little real hope. Suppose we have a population who cannot read much more than the instructions on how to operate a video game or turn on a big screen TV and who is mesmerized by the fundies in Black & White Churches who support capitalism to the brink. But their congregants can no longer afford to shop even at Wal-Mart. Now, suppose there are a few of us who really are unhappy with having another war. So we demonstrate at military bases, in front of federal buildings, etc. Now suppose Fox News decides to call us terrorists. In dark times without the benefit of civil rights protections seriously bad things can happen. It doesn't take long for fear to whip things into motion and out of control.







I fear for us as our world begins to crumble and governments respond by strengthening the powers of the military. It is exactly the wrong way to go.







Please write to president Obama and ask him not to sign this legislation.







Yours,

The Self: is it real?

With respect to all,


a preliminary exploration:


I have heard Buddhists argue there is no “self.” They argue that mental activity and the constructs derived thereby are an "illusion.” Not so. They confuse the Sanskrit Anatman, translated as “no-self” with no self, as is understood in contemporary English, but in fact these are two different things. The Buddha’s teaching on Anatman was directed at dispelling the idea that there was an independent “self,” or “soul” that might transmigrate. It was the springboard for his discussions of dependent co-arising, that frame that says everything is deeply interconnected and inter-dependent. He also tried to separate the material from the ideal, which is to say that our idea of something is our idea of something and that we ought not confuse the idea of something with the thing itself. But to say this does not deny the existence of the idea, only that idea and material are separate. So, if we say the self is an aggregate and it is impermanent, we are not saying it has no existence unless we are most narrowly defining “existence” as being in the realm of the material alone. To say that nothing exists independently, does not mean that an aggregate does not exist. Just so, to say that something is impermanent does not mean that it does not exist, only that its existence is in a constant state of change.

Just as energy can be measured, but has no form, so too, mental activity, thoughts, feelings, and, yes, the self has no form, but can be measured.

On an empirical level, thoughts and feelings exist as electro-chemical phenomena and can be mapped on brain scans. Just like we cannot see electricity, but can still feel its effects, so too, this aggregate we call the “self” as a construct has depth and can be grounded by empirical referents.

An illusion is, according to the OED, “the action of deceiving…an act of deception.” We tend to think that because something is not material it is not real, so we lead ourselves to believe that because thoughts, and the resultantant constructs of thoughts, are not material, they do not exist. This is a deception. We cannot see electricity. We do not even know what it actually is, but we would be deceiving ourselves if we thought that it did not exist as a result. Just stick your finger in an exposed light socket with current flowing. While I do not recommend this test, you will be shocked to find out that this immaterial, invisible, impermanent energy exists. Just so, the pain of someone saying something hurtful about us is no deception. We can measure its effects on our self esteem and self concept. So, while it has no material form, it does exist as a construct of thought and has a very real impact upon us.

Shunyata

There are people who when reading about Zen make the mistake of believing “emptiness” is “empty,” as a cup without coffee might be “empty.” This is an error. Empty is the English word chosen for some very strange reason to translate “shunyata.” From the Sanskrit sunya, shunyata has three levels of meaning which focus on appearance, impermanence, and according to Conze, liberation from the world around us. The basic thrust is that when we practice we begin to see all things manifest in relation to all other things and that nothing has an independent existence separate from other things. To be “empty” something, therefore, must be, even if it is an aggregate and constantly changing.

Grasping

This is the crux of the matter. When we see through the veil of delusion to the essential non-dualistic reality of all existence, we realize just how powerful the Buddha’s teaching on the cause of suffering is. He saw that our insidious, ubiquitous, and subtle grasping is at the root of all of our suffering. How can we hold tight to the flowing stream? How can we wish with all of our might that our loved ones will not get sick or die? The essential nature of everything is twofold: it is inseparable from everything else and it is always changing. So, while we have a self, as does our loved ones, these manifestations are conditioned and are constantly changing. Attempting to hold someone or something in a form that is static and unchanging is derived from a poison we call greed.

The wonderful aspect of this is that we are all the same stuff. With practice we find that it is the operation of our mind and linguistic necessity, that create the conditions that separate us and cause us much suffering. Once we pierce this veil and see our true nature, words like you and me, we, us, them, are understood from a different starting point, the starting point of the Absolute.



If I am ocean, and a wave is formed from me, until that wave realizes its true home it will fear the shore. But once it realizes it is ocean, what is left to fear? Once this is realized, however, waves will talk to waves, they will need the convention of a language that is dualistic and deceptive. It is our practice, friends, that helps us maintain the clarity.



Be well.

Outside Lessons

Good Morning All,


The sky is gray, overcast with wet clouds hung low and the air is cold and damp. I do not really want to go outside, but the dogs think otherwise. For them, weather is never really a factor (other than snow, which they initially love, but which quickly turns to serious discomfort as their feet get cold). Rain and damp mist? No problem! The scents abound for their noses to enjoy. What do they care if the humans they are walking are miserable as they follow along behind them? So, in a little bit we will tether them to our hands and go out the door for them to play. Oh joy.

I am happy that we have our dogs, Suki and Binky. They demand that we live. Their walks are important to them and to us as they force us to get a grip, get dressed, and go out even if we don’t feel like it or that it might be unpleasant to do so. And, you know what? it is almost always a very good thing. Along the way we begin to feel better, more alive, more awake, more….present in the actual world. As Zen practitioners, however, we do not have something demanding that we get our butts to the Zendo to practice. This has to come from within each of us. The arousal of the thought of enlightenment just isn’t enough in today’s world.

This is unfortunate as our practice enables us to live more full and joyful lives. It allows us to shed the weight of our thoughts and feelings and helps us get in touch with the truth of our existence. Almost always, I feel better, stronger, more alert, more peaceful, and more engaged with the world when I practice Zazen. I am always happier with myself for getting past the negative thinking about going out in the cold to get to the Zendo to practice, just as I feel better after having walked the dogs.

Today and through Friday we will practice at 10:00 AM. Thursday we will also practice at 6:00 PM and on Sunday at 10:00 AM. We hope to see you there. Be well.