This Week

With palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,



As most of you know, I have taken up residence at our Temple for retreat. My practice schedule is Zazen M-F at 7:00 AM, 1:00 PM, and 7:00 PM, Sunday at 10:00 AM. We conduct our weekly Zen Study Group on Thursday evening at 6:00 PM. On Wednesday we do park practice at the city hall on Main Street at 9:00 AM and practice with the elders at Golden Mesa retirement community at 10:30. If you intend to practice with me during the daily morning and afternoon periods, please email or call in advance as it is possible I will have other commitments at those times.



Temple practice requires a commitment to moment to moment practice. I am alone most of the time. I often sit through the day, mixing sitting with study. Occasionally, I will sit on the stoop and just watch the sky. This morning I did that and watched the moon as it appeared behind some lovely white clouds.



I am cooking and washing dishes for one. Each time I wash the dishes I think of Master Dogen and his use of Tenzo as an exemplar of everyday practice. Cooking and washing are everyday activities, as is Zazen, watching the moon, or study. In a very real way, all activities are our Zazen practice when done in Big Mind. And when done this way, even Zazen falls away. We are simply living with our Dharma Eye open.



I hope that some of you take advantage of our practice times and visit the Zendo. In the meantime, be well.

Labor Day, Not!

With palms together,

This is Labor Day and I think we have forgotten its meaning.  Contrary to the comments back that I receive in passing about this weekend being a long weekend, it is in fact  meant to honor those who actually labor to earn a living. Labor is a word we tend not to apply to ourselves.  Labor conjures up images of factory workers, construction workers, and laborers, not management-level desk jockeys, bean counters and pencil pushers. Labor Day honors those who actually work for a living. And most of us really don't have much of a clue as to what that really means. 

My father was a house painter most of his life and a maintenance man in a hospital in his later years.  I remember him coming home with overalls covered in paint spatter.  My brother was a refrigeration man.  And I spent a good part of my early adult life as a dishwasher, short order cook and pie maker, before I "moved up" into management, graduated late in life from college, and went on to become a psychotherapist.

From my experience, labor requires sweat.  Labor requires the ability to get a job done often under awful circumstances and keep our mouths shut in the process.  It requires us to be deferential and socially appropriate when those "above us" don't give us much more than the time of day...that is, if they actually see us at all. Yet here we are celebrating "Labor" while most of those who actually labor must labor on this day while those who don't labor enjoy a back yard Bar-B-Que.

What would actually honor those who labor would be for us who don't labor to labor for one day in their place.  Never happen.

Be well.

Creativity

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

Yesterday I had the most wonderful experience of presenting a teisho to an Advanced Art Class at a local high school which specializes in teaching the creative arts.  The students in attendance were bright, intensely curious, and described as "risk takers" by their art teachers.  I was grateful for the opportunity to meet them and learn from them.  Its this sort of thing, as well as today's opportunity to marry a couple, that makes the Zen priesthood so rewarding. 

I spoke to them about taking on and developing a creative mind that arises from the Zen Peacemaker Precept, "Not Knowing."  When we approach a canvas, sketch pad, or writing paper with a "Not Know" mind everything is possible.  Just so, life itself. 

Such a mind can be developed through our practice, but also through the surprises that life itself offers us.  When we are surprised by something our mind feels open and fresh. We might feel anxiety and, as uncomfortable for some of that anxiety is, it can serve us to remain alert. Being alert is akin to mindfulness. When we are mindful things are able to present themselves as they are. It is here that creativity can blossom. 

In college some years ago I had an art professor insist that we feel the things we attempted to draw.  At the time, my mind was closed.  I was clearly unable to feel the leaves of the plant in my still life.  This inability made the drawing dead. That I now can touch a leaf with my heart opens me to seeing a leaf without seeing a leaf.  A leaf is an image in my mind, it is not the leaf's true nature.

Let us practice to see clearly.

Be well.

Changes

With respect,

It would appear I am facing yet another major change in my life. Kathryn and I have decided we will no longer live together. I am moving back into the Temple and will take it as my residence. This will mean some reconfiguration of the space, but is possible. I do not want much space and do not need most of the things I have collected.

Its odd how these things unfold. In this case it was a rather sudden and deeply disturbing change. I do not wish to share the details, but suffice to say, it was necessary.

I will share more as I am able and the situation allows.

Be well.

On a Friday Morning

With palms together,
Good Morning All,

This morning we spent quite a bit of time cleaning and organizing the residence.  Clearly I am limited in my abilityand capacity, but Rev. Soku Shin seems to have inhereted genes from the Energizer Bunny.  I did manage to organize the studio/study and re-organize the courtyard funishings.  But this pales in comparison to Ms. Bunny. 

This, as well as some discussions with my physical therapists have taken me aback.  It is becoming quite clear that I will not recover to a state similar to that before I began experiencing leg pain.  I will likely not run again, hike, or even walk very far.  For someone who identified himself as physically active, a marathoner, and so on, this is a challenging reqality.

Yet, every loss has the potential to be a teacher.  Every moment, an oppoprtunity to rebirth myself.  Closing one door, we often say, opens another.  So, here I am with doors closing and other doors opening. The Zen of the Every Moment lies in this: the very existential view that our remaking ourselves moment to moment demands our adaptaion to impermanence.


Yesterday no longer exists, tomorrow is simply a fantasy: it is in the eternal now that we reside.  May we each live as fully as possible.

Be well.

Clouded Sky

With palms together


Good Morning Everyone,



This morning I woke at 3:45 AM. I fell asleep at 9:00 PM. So I managed to get a bit over 6 hours of sleep. Anyway, I went outside into the courtyard and sat looking at a solitary star (which, I am certain, was a planet). There were no other visible stars as the sky was filled with clouds masking them. The stars of the night sky were there to be sure, but I just could not see them. Our everyday life is like this. The universe we create with our mind is like the clouds hiding the stars. Remove the clouds and the actual sky appears.

No Hot, No Cold?

With palms together


Good Morning Everyone,



The sun just rose over the Organ Mountains, offering both brilliant light and searing summer heat. We in Las Cruces are desert dwellers. Our environment is typically hot and dry. We are now, however, on the back side of the rainy season, although not much rain has come our way, still, the air is wet and the heat creates a sauna within which we sweat. Those of us with refrigerated air are prone to stay inside; those with swamp coolers, well, let’s just say swamp coolers are not at all effective in humidity. People who live with swamp coolers in a humid environment suffer. Yet, refrigerated air also brings suffering. When we stay inside and our bodies adapt, our ability to go out of doors is compromised. As with Old Tozan in Case 43 of the Blue Cliff Record, “How do we escape heat or cold?”

In either direction, there is suffering. Life is like this, with every in-breath there is birth and the construction of our world, with every out-breath there is death and the destruction of our world. How can we escape it? This question reminds me of another koan, Case 83, “The ancient Buddhas and the pillar merge --- what level of mental activity is this?

Yesterday morning I sat in the courtyard witnessing the sun rising over the mountains. I began to sweat. I felt my body giving up its water. And then, I saw the sun in a sweat drop. The sun was -- and was not-- in the sweat drop. There was heat and not heat at the same time. Heat and cold are words we use, they point to something we add to a given moment, just as by suffering we mean: things are not the way we think they should be.

Can we enter a stone pillar? Can we abide in heat or cold without being hot or cold? Can we encounter our daily life as it presents itself and appreciate it fully?

Of course we can, but will we?

Only our practice knows.



Be well.