Good Night and Good Luck

With palms together,
Good Morning Sangha,

Yesterday we watched "Good Night and Good Luck" a film about Edward R. Murrow and the McCarthy era in the United States. It was well worth watching and I am glad we bought it so we can watch it again a few times over. George Clooney did a wonderful job. It is an eloquent film.

The film is quite a reminder of things. A reminder that fear can drive us to the brink of willingly giving up our freedoms and responsibilities in order to feel safe. A reminder that such fear can be very easily exploited. And a reminder that keeping vigilant and courageous has its costs.

Of course, we don't need to be reminded. We are in a similar era. Our fear and safely needs are being exploited on a daily basis. In this din of warnings, people tend to cower, acquiesce to the powers that be in order to be assured of their safety. While safety is not such a bad thing, being safe at the price of freedom is.

We must be diligent in two directions simultaneously. We must be witness to the erosion of our freedoms and to the threat to our lives. Indeed, there are those in this world who would kill us, so afraid they are of change. Yet to become them is not progression but regression. In order to be safe and free, we must be without hindrance.

How to be without hindrance? Practice Zazen.

Be well.

Three Years

With palms together,
Good Morning Sangha,


Please take a few minutes today and consider peace. This is the third anniversary of our invasion of Iraq. Peace happens when we become peace. To become peace means to become complete within ourselves and others. Our practice, Zazen, Kinhin, Samu, Oryoki: all are peacemaking practices. They are practices that teach us serenity in a flood of world activity.

When we sit, we sit. When we walk, we walk. When we work, we work. When we eat, we eat. Nothing special. Nothing added. We are serene reflection in motion.

To be at war is to be at conflict and to be angry, greedy, and deluded. Who wishes to walk that path?

Today, please take a small sign that simply reads "Peace." Go outside and stand.

Be well.

One Way or the Other?

With palms together,
Good Morning Sangha,

Jeff, a faithful reader of my blog, quotes Warner-sensei and asks a question:

Society is offering us two options both of which are completely wrong. The hawks are wrong and the doves are wrong because both sides only want to see more conflict, more wars, more suffering. What's wrong with the hawks is far too clear to bother stating. But the doves cannot be happy unless there are hawks for them to fight against. The "peace movement" is only happy when there are wars to protest. They don't have the slightest interest in peace. ~ Brad Warner

http://homepage.mac.com/
doubtboy/rootsofwar.html

So, Do you understand what he is talking about here? I'm not sure I get it..

___

Warner-sensei is pointing out a deep truth here in a way common among classical Zen Teachers. The truth is in neither one position or another, but in the fact that suffering arises when we cling to one position or another. True happiness comes when we cease seeking and begin experiencing. This is why we should not "fight" against war, poverty, racism or any other injustice. Our practice is to be.

When we are peace, compassion, wisdom, with no "I" involved, then what? No struggle. Zen Buddhism, in the "engaged" sense, is just so. We don't say we do, we do. We don't fight, we become. We are witnesses and participants in the world. We witness violence and participate in peace.

All of the true non-violence teachers understand this: do not strike back, yet do not yield in the heart/mind. Our bodies will break, as Gandhi points out, and they will have our broken bodies, but they will not have us.

Conflicts in absolutes are always understood by seeing the absolutes as relative.

Be well.

Peace

With palms Together,
Good Morning Sangha,

This weekend will mark the third anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war. We will mark this with peace vigils throught the US. In our area, there are vigils planned in different locations:

In Las Cruces: 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM in the parking lot across from the Federal Courthouse.

In El Paso: 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM, at the San Jacinto Plaza, Mesa/Oregon and Main/Mills Sts.,Downtown El Paso. Contact Merlyn or Joe at <jheyman@elp.rr.com> for more information.

Peace does not come without effort. Peace is an active process. We must deliberately put down arms, we must deliberately attempt to find other ways to solve conflicts, address grievences, and correct wrongs. Adding violence just adds violence. It resolves nothing. Our government will continue to misbehave until we make it unacceptable by moral authority, electoral process, public opinion, and the weight of our votes.

I am not naive. I do not believe standing around on a corner will stop a war. But what I do believe is that standing around on a corner with simple signs of consciience will begin to create conditions for alternative views in people. We must stand as witnesses. The majority must not be silent. Every day soldiers and civilians in the war-torn parts of this world are suffering and dying without a voice saying enough. We can stand for an hour as a voice to help in some small way bring them home. And if we don't have the time, there is something clearly wrong with our priorities.

Be well.

Encouraging Zazen

With palms together,
Good Morning Sangha,

Zazen can be the foundation of our life. When we make it so, it is the ground we walk on, the support we have through the day, our greatest teacher, our stalwart companion. . What is it about this practice that makes it so?

Deciding to take a seat, gather oneself together, enfold one's hands to complete a circle, and place our attention on witnessing only, enables us.

It enables us to settle down. It enables us to pay attention to the inner workings of our lives. It enables us to see the interaction between the inner and outer workings of the universe. All without having to do anything about anything.

Over time a certain deep and abiding trust develops from this practice. A trust in the universal processes of living and dying. We learn that we can let go and everything will still exist. Me and you cease to have real meaning. We see that we create meaning, and in so doing we create our suffering.

All of these rise and fall in our awareness, and still we don't engage them. Our job is to simply witness.

I encourage each of you to take up this practice. Make this practice a model for living.
Any moment will do. Just pay attention. At some point, decide to sit more formally. Find a time, find a place. Sit down and practice Zazen.In that moment, know that peace is not only possible, but a reality.

Be well.

RE: [Zen] Book Summary: "Anger - Wisdom for Cooling the Flames" Thich Nhat Hanh

With palms together,
Good Morning Sangha,

I wrote a short reply to a threaed on a email list I am on. I thought I would share it to this blog:


This is a most interesting thread, I feel. TNH's work is so large. He speaks so clearly and so directly and with great passion and compassion. I have divided his work into two piles: practice tips and sutra commentaries. The latter are most interesting and valuable, IMHO. The former, depending on their publishing date are useful to not useful: earlier work being much more useful, later work being more "fluff" as you say.

Here is the thing, though. It seems that fluff can be a good thing. At least to me at times. It reminds me that my critical mind should be more compassionate. It teaches me that simple is sometimes far more clear and helpful than complex walnut cracking koans. So, useful is such a relative term. There is a place in my world for both.

When angry, or deeply hurt, it does not help much to offer softness and tenderness. We seem to want others to share our anger, justify it, and nurse it. THN will not do this. Instead, he is simply there. For good or ill, like him or not, he is simply there. We can rant. He will listen. We can rave. He will listen. At some point when we are spent, he will hold our hand.

If it weren't for the fact that he has suffered so much, like HHDL, and still maintains himself deeply in compassion, I would say he is just plain silly. Unacceptable to the modern temper. Yet, there he is. A monk who has witnessed and survived horrors and still loves deeply.

In my book, there is something to be learned from this. Maybe that something is that a little fluff tends to soften up our harder edges.

Be well.


Bill Smart <BillSmart@HHS1963.org> wrote:

On Monday, March 13 dkotschessa posted:

>Short review:
>This book, while it contains many gems that have been extremely
>helpful to me, is going to be very hard for some people to read.
>
>By all accounts Thich Nhaht Hahn is a beloved teacher with a
>profoundly peaceful presence that effects those he comes in contact
>with. Unfortunately, when put to text it, specifically in this book,
>what results is a fluffy and almost embarrassing tone to read. The
>self-help gurus of previous decades come to mind, which were embodied
>by Saturday Night Live's Stuart Smalley.
>
>Yet the information has been invaluable in my life. So that it is
>not wasted, I put together a book summary for my own reflection so
>that I needn't endure the entire book again. What follows is that
>summary so others might benefit. [...balance of a long and informative
review >snipped...]

Thank you for your posting and review of Thich Nhaht Hahn's book on
managing anger.

I was especially impressed by your courage in stating the plain fact that
the writing style was 'fluffy' and reminiscence of the late-1990's
'self-help' gurus. I have not read this book by TNH and don't intend to. I
have read two of his previous books and had the same underwhelming
impression that you had, at least in part. At least you found some gems
under the fluff that you were able to apply. That's very good.

Although I know I come across in this forum as an 'anti-book' person (and I
am to a great extent), I have just finished reading three very good books
that I would recommend to anyone:
- THE ZEN TEACHINGS OF MASTER LIN-CHI translated by Burton Watson
- THE ZEN TEACHING OF BODHIDHARMA translated by Red Pine
- MOON IN A DEWDROP - Writings of Zen Master Dogen edited by Kazuaki
Tanahashi

These books are definitely not "fluff' and all contain what I consider very
fruitful insights into zen practice. I can easily post a review of these
books and sum up their total message in one word: Zazen! (Or maybe that's
two words in Japanese - 'Sit Zen')

I will however quote one passage from MOON IN A DEWDROP from the chapter
Face-To-Face Transmission written in the year 1243:

"If you do not realize the fruit at this moment, when will you realize it?
If you do not cut off delusion at this moment, when will you cut it off? If
you do not become a buddha at this moment, when will you? If you do not sit
as a buddha at this moment, when will you practice as a buddha?"

Any questions?

Gassho...Bill!

Leaving Home

With palms together,
Good Morning Sangha,

This morning there are clouds in the sky over the desert. Yesterday was another windy day. My hope is that this afternoon will be beautiful and sunny with a clear sky, but if it isn't, well it will be beautiful as it is and I will appreciate it.

Each day offers itself to us as a partner in our experience in this process of life. Our practice is to be open to this process and receive its teachings.

What does this really mean?

Partly it is about leaving home. This means leaving what we believe we know at our bed as we rise and enter the day. If we go through our day knowing then what are we learning? What sort of room is there in our heads for something new and different?

Leaving home is scary. It requires courage and faith. Courage to face things without a shield, faith that what we receive will not harm us.

We are life's students. Adult learners who have immense capacity for both enlightenment and delusion. One requires a shedding of self, the other grasps the self. When we shed our self: our assumptions, our beliefs, even our self-proclaimed values, we are truely open to learning by direct experience.

So, today, please practice this sort of openness. Have faith that the process is what it is and in the end you are one with it. Have courage to be there, present in each moment. A buddha.

Be well.