Practice, Part Two

Practice, Part Two

From a Zen point of view there is only practice. Everything is practice. Every breath, every taste, touch, sound, and thought is practice when properly understood.

What does "properly understood" mean? That's the great question, the question answered only in our practice itself. We sit down. We shut up. We listen with all of our senses. As we do so, its as if we are on an escalator. As we rise, we drop away parts of our mind and body, we drop away the escalator. We drop away up and down, right or left. "We" drop away.

What is left is the gate itself: proper understanding or what is sometimes referred to as "Right Understanding." The full integration of body, heart, mind, and environment. We might call this oneness itself.

In this place of proper understanding our eyes are open, as is our heart and mind. It becomes possible for the other elements of the Eightfold Path to manifest. Without proper understanding we are adrift in a boat without an oar or rudder. When we step outside of our practice we view the world in parts, there is you and me, inside and outside, up and down.

Yet, as a continuing result of our practice we begin to appreciate the world around us much more deeply and certainly more directly.

Practice, Part One

Part One

With palms together,

Good Evening Everyone,

Tonight I sip a glass of wine, cheap red wine, and consider my life. I believe it is a function of being an elder, to sit idly by witnessing the stars, the sun and moon, the clouds and the breeze, and (for me) most of all, the night. My pet words are "morning light." I have used them to inspire not a few poems, an unfinished novel, and the hope that arrises with the dawn.

The practice of Zen is the practice of life itself. To sit still, if only for a few moments in the middle of a breath, and any chaos, thoughts or feelings that swirl around you and you respond like a duck floating on water, that is Zen. We too often think Zen is other worldly. It is not. It is as down home as Mom's Apple Pie or Judge Judy setting the entitled straight.

I have practiced most of my entire life. Sitting formally, chanting, lighting incense, bowing, shaving my head, (all well and good) but not so much Zen. Yet, at the same time, it is exactly Zen.

And the teachers of Zen? Most of the senior teachers I know are, indeed, senior. They either write or don't write, converse or don't converse. They are neither themselves nor their teacher. As a result, they are truly nobody. Perhaps a footnote to some, an angel to others and possibly an antagonist to most. It is one of our roles, after-all, to bring discomfort to the complacent; to jar our minds to the point where we lose our minds, all the while, bring us to life free once again in an all too structured and sleepy village.

End Part One

Empty

Good Afternoon All,

My study group is tackling the most central sutra of Zen Buddhism, The Great Heart of Wisdom Sutra. The sutra is the core teaching of Zen. Its about "no" and suggests how we understand "no" may set us free. Free, but from what? Well, now, that's an interesting question. In a way, free from the constraints of mind. In another way, free from our history, our beliefs, and ultimately, free from ourselves.

The sutra alleges that pretty much everything is "empty." Even the quest for enlightenment is "empty." Now, this "emptiness" is quite something. It does not mean "empty" as in my cup is empty of tea. This emptiness is about the relative or "conditioned" nature of existence. All things, everything, exists because the conditions for their existence are present. When these "conditions no longer exist, the thing falls away and returns to the source. Because something has no "permanence" that very thing is "empty." What does any of this mean to us in our everyday lives?

Be careful about what you lean on.

Gassho

Matsuoka-roshi Chanting Hannya Shin Gyo

Here is a link to a YouTube file of Matsuoka-roshi chanting the Hannya Shin Gyo

Being

Good Morning All,

Back in the 60's ands 70's, "Becoming" was a popular notion.  It felt as if we all were given the opportunity to be re-born into a state of freedom.  This freedom was intoxicating.  It was delicious. We felt free to explore our personal identity, meaning, and ultimate purpose.  We explored our sexuality, our politics, our drugs, our religion and its spirituality.  We explored music, dance, and art. It was a scary era in a sense, as we had no idea what the consequences of an unbridled freedom may mean.

I discovered Zen in this mix, being introduced to it through martial arts and "The Way of Zen" by Alan Watts.  Through karate i learned of Bodhidharma and the Shaolin temple.  I learned about "mind like water."  What truly fascinated me, though, was sitting zazen under a willow tree and in public parks.  I often sat in the gardens of "Vizcaya" in Coconut Grove.  It was a beautiful time, a time filled with hope and anxiety.

I read about a philosophical conflict between "being" and "becoming." Like freedom and determination, I thought there ought to be no reason the two might not be two sides of the same coin, much like samsara and nirvana. What I have come to over the years is this:  becoming is like wishful thinking, a delusion; being is all there is.

It appears we are becoming only because we remember prior states.  But in truth, each moment is complete as it is. While life may appear to be a string of frames that when looked at together form a movie, We ought not forget each frame is the entire universe within it. The memory of frames make us believe there was a yesterday and, hence, a tomorrow.  So many of us are stuck in one or the other, so much so, that we diminish the value of this precise frame, the frame of now.

Instead, might we look more deeply into this present moment frame, this frame of being.  May we each in this moment the freedom of our true nature.

Gassho

Kill the Children...

With respect to all,

Killing or torturing children is, apparently, a popular pass time in the United States. It is not new, having a very long history in factories, sweatshops, and homes. The first case of child abuse was prosecuted using cruelty to animals as a legal basis because there were no laws protecting children in the US at the time. Today we have children kept in chains, forced starvation, and, of course, used as targets for deranged people with guns.

So we argue that we should ban guns. Seems simple. Yet misses the most important issue: why do people want to harm children in the first place? The history, breadth and depth of child abuse and neglect, should teach us that any weapon will do. It feels right to ban the weapon. It feels as though we are "doing something" about killing innocents. But violence is not about the weapon, its about violence. And we in the United States, are obsessed with violence. We don't go to a movie unless there is an incredible amount of gratuitous violence, we support corporal punishment, and we give up parenting because its too hard (or because to parent means we are not our child's friend).

We Americans often miss the mark as we too often want simple, direct, and sexy answers. War is sexy, lets not negotiate or mediate, lets "bomb them back into the stone age." We use bumper sticker logic, "Spare the rod, spoil the child," Someone shoots someone take away their gun. Right, problem solved. Not even close.

Unless and until we are willing to look at root causes, consider less sexy, but more appropriate and effective measures, we will suffer the consequences. How hard is that? Very.

Yours, Daiho Hilbert