A Continuum

Good Evening All,

Up late waiting on the moon to come into view. Telescope is ready. There is nothing that humbles a person more than to be in the presence of the solar system, gateway to our universe. Such presence offers us an opportunity to put ourselves in a greater perspective than the one we tend to hold in our day-to-day existence.

The moon seemed to fascinate Master Dogen. He used its presence often in presenting his understanding and is depicted gazing at the moon in the artwork about him.

It never ceases to amaze me how great the discoveries in the past were uncovered with the most simple tools, perhaps even without any tools at all, save the human mind. Our reliance on devices diminishes our senses instead of enhancing them. I was reminded of this earlier today when I needed to put down my wife's phone number and I had to look it up on my phone. As such reliance increases so our reliance on our own senses decreases.

So, I often look through the telescope to see what I can see in the outward universe and sometimes with my microscope look deeply in the other direction. In either case I am both there and not there residing somewhere in the continuum of space.

Gassho

Heart Sutra

Heart Sutra

3:14 Watch later                  

Eternal Life

Zen is eternal life says Kennet-Roshi. Now why would she say that? To realize the truth of her statement one must practice to see a much larger picture of life and death. Master Dogen says this is the most important practice for practitioners. Why? 

To realize the truth of life and death is to realize there is no life and death and yet there is life and death. Wherefore? 

The subject and object, the past present and future, are not separate, but are one. In such a case, what is life and death? 

This question should resonate in your consciousness night and day. 

Gassho

On Teachers

Rev.  Jundo Cohen-roshi has offered several talks on his cancer.  In the process he wrote about Zen Teachers and the challenges to being accepted by the AZTA.  I recorded a response:

On Teachers

Nothing? Part One.

We are taught, 'All dharmas are empty.' This sort of statement, along with the negations in the Great Heart of Wisdom Sutra must be very confusing to newcomers to Zen. As well they ought be. What could the Buddhas mean when they say, "No birth, no death..."? The language used doesn't help make the dharmas understandable at all, yet we recite these words on a daily basis with great confidence that they are true. Let's talk briefly about this.

The word that gives rise to the confusion is "empty." For English speakers the word means without content. The cup is empty means there is nothing in it. In a way that's one way of understanding the word as used in the sutra. But in a specific way. If the cup is empty it has no meaning as a "cup." But to get to what "empty" means to Zensters we must go a little farther. 

Technically, "empty" means without independent existence. From a Buddhist perspective all things are "conditional," meaning, as Buddha said, "this is because that is." In other words everything comes about due to the conditions for which they are able to come about. All things are connected, or better, interconnected. So to say life and death are empty is to say life is conditional, as is death. 

Now to the "No birth, no death..." stuff. In the Zen Buddhist world, in the world of so-called "Big Mind," everything is one with no separations. My body is your body is the chair, and in my case right now, my MacBook Pro."
From such a vantage point there could be no birth or death as these "concepts" would be meaningless, just as, if everything were one, one would cease to exist because its existence is dependent on "two." 

This flies in the face of the empirical world, however. From an empiricist's vantage point, all things are separate: this tool versus that tool; this person or that person. This understanding is what we call "Small Mind" or the mind that exists in the relative world. But Zen practice teaches us that both "minds" inter-are. They are not separate. The separation is a delusion.

More to come in Part Two

Pain and Suffering Part Two

Pain and Suffering Part Two

With palms together,
Good Evening All,

Its a chilly 34 degrees this evening here in southern New Mexico. When its cold my body wants to recede into itself.  I argue with it but to no avail.  My body has a mind of its own.  One of the things about aging is this: our minds and bodies assert themselves with both vigor and authority.  I want to run.  My feet, legs, lungs, and mind rebels: "No!" So I no longer run. Simple?

No, since as a result I suffer. Why?  Because I want to run.  I want to walk without pain.  I want, I want, I want....But I can't. Here's the thing, suffering is not pain.  Suffering is our relationship with pain.  Pain is pain, that's all.  Of course pain is painful, duh!  Suffering, on the other hand, is a result of our desire not to be in pain.  Just so, we suffer when we cherish something, not wanting it to change, but it changes despite our desire.

The Buddha Way is simple: change your relationship to the thing you desire. Let your desire fall away.  Its not that we come to a place of not caring, it is, instead, coming to a place of honest reflection and acceptance of the nature of things as they are.  We are of the nature to suffer because we don't accept the truth of our nature.  And that nature is change. Change is not unique to us. The one constant in this universe is just that: change.

What I could do ten years ago I cannot do today. I suffer when I hold onto the belief I ought be able to do those things. That belief is unrealistic and flies in the face of that one constant: everything changes. So suffering ends when we authentically come to terms with our realities. This doesn't mean our pain will end, to the contrary, we may actually feel more pain because we are now looking at it directly. Yet, because this is so, it becomes possible to watch our pain and look deeply at it.

Robert Bly, the poet, once wrote, "If you don't like the mud you're in, change it." My wife has helped me a great deal. She has, in no uncertain terms, pointed out my suffering, as well as the fact that my suffering affects others, but in particular, her. We are not just living for ourselves, are we?  Our old mud leaves its tracks and traces and on occasion dirties up our home. To put an end to our suffering we must give it up.  Some of us like our old mud, though. So we keep it and suffer all the more as a result.  Crazy? I don't know. We are comfortable being what we know. My advice? Get uncomfortable.  Practice being silent in the face of change.Lastly, find ways to embrace and value change. As it is change which allows life to exist.
Be well

Pain and Suffering, Part One

With palms together,
Good Morning All,

It is the morning of December 7th, a day that Roosevelt said would "live in infamy."  The Japanese attacked our base in Hawaii decimating our navy and bringing us into a World War.  It was a devastating attack and what most of us don't know, preceded arguably the most important Zen Buddhist holiday of the calendar year, "Rohatsu," the celebration of the enlightenment of Siddhartha to become, "the Buddha."

Our guy sat outside under a tree, swearing he wouldn't get up until he found the way to end suffering. So he sat there, and sat there, and sat there some more.  One morning, traditionally in our calendar, December 8th, he saw the "morning star."  But he saw far, far more than that:  he saw everything in every time, in every place, all at once, and realized he and all of that were one. He had achieved anuttara samyak sambodhi" or in English,  "complete unexcelled awakening."

As the Great Wisdom Heart Sutra says, "with no hindrance in the mind, no hindrance no fear.  Far beyond delusive thinking they (we) achieve complete awakening." So Buddha at that moment deeply understood the relationship between pain and suffering, freedom and imprisonment, and the great oneness of everything.

So what might that mean to us today? The same as it was yesterday and the day before, and the century before that.

Master Dogen Zenji in the 13th century taught that when we practice shikantaza, whole heartedly sitting hitting the mark, we are in a state of "practice realization."  Mind and body fall away. What is left?  Everything all at once.  There is no me, no you, no wall, no cushion while in the very same moment there is me, you, wall, cushion, and sitting.  It just that in that state the small "self" has awakened to, and become, the Big Self.

Masters throughout the centuries have asked us to then "take our cushions with us" as we leave the Zendo.  In other words, live in that place, the place of birth and death and no birth and death; the place of suffering and no suffering. When there is no duality there is no suffering, yet non-duality contains duality.  One cannot be without the other.

I experience pain everyday, often in every moment.  I see myself aging and my body beginning to fail.  Yet it is only when I want to chase away the pain do I suffer. So, suffering is in a relationship with pain; a relationship to the desire to be free of pain.