War, What is it Good For?

With palms together,

I listened to the news last night. Honestly, I wish we would stop this fighting. I do not understand the need to do such harm.

People have dehumanized and demonized each other there for so long I fear it will take centuries of work to repair the damage.

I am embarrassed for us in the United States. I believe and believed since before he Iraq War began, this was a very bad idea. We had bad information, were impatient, were quick to rattle the sabres and were itching for a fight. Cooler heads needed to prevail, wisdom went out the window, and savagery was sucked into the vacuum.

The Iraqi people have suffered. We have suffered. The entire world is suffering. And in this suffering, hate brews, distrust and suspicion have become the foundation of communication.

We can put our heads in the sand, pretend its just not hapening, keep ourselves 'above it all' but there it is, in the air, in the food we eat, the prices we pay for that food, and in our language, our children's eyes, and our own hearts. Better we face it squarely, though we as a people are loath to do so, and engage in a process of reconcilliation. We must stop fighting. We must provide aid. We must stand down the arms and regain our moral compass.

Not only we, but the entire world would feel better if we did. It is important that your voice be heard. Write to your representatives, to the local newspapers, stand with us at peace vigils, your silence is often mistaken for agreement or apathy.

Be well.

As You Are

With palms together,
Good Morning All,

The sun is just now peaking out over the building next door to my Zendo window. I feel its heat on my face. There is something so reassuring about the sun rising in the morning. I have written about this before. For me it signals that I can relax. I've made it through the night.

For many of us, going to sleep does not mean we will for certain wake up again. Coming to sleep with this attitude is only possible when we are at peace with this moment. We must be willing to say and believe completely, this is enough. I have such an understanding, but it was not always so. Striving and desiring, craving for another day to make my mark, to do something wonderful, or to avaid a mistake, fix a problem, these were feelings that got in the way of rest.

With life, however, our true sphere of influence is revealed. It begins and ends in our own skin. Our true task is to master that sphere. With this realization, the wonder of a simple breath takes on incredible significance. The beauty of sitting at a desk or walking down a corridor or listening to a talk or building something or unpacking something becomes the beginning and the end: it is, in itself, fully and completely sufficient.

I am learning to feel what is there. The plastic keys of this computer, its casing as I rest my fingers and palms between words and thoughts, are each complete moments in them selves worthy of both recognition and respect. To do this well means recognizing the slippery slope of mental travel and letting the slope be by itself.

Be well.

The Morning News

With palms together,
Good Morning All,

When the morning news contains stories about discovering severed heads in fruit baskets for a second time one must begin to wonder about the civilization which produces such things. War teaches us many things, one very important lesson is that we are none exempt from the world. Each of us has the capacity to do great harm to others when the conditions are right arise. Allegations of war crimes, torture, the severe blurring of the lines between the "good guys" and the "bad guys" should teach us that such lines are never real they are always subject to being shifted. Good and bad are but points of view and are conditioned by perspective.

My fear is that we will become more and more numb to the awfulness of these behaviors. It is easy to adapt, we do it all the time. Lowering our expectations, we don't work as hard for a better grade or a higher standard of living or a safer neighborhood, and by extension, a safer world.

One side justifies their behavior by pointing out what the other side has done or threatens to do. The end of course, as Gandhi pointed out, is the whole world will be blind. Fingers, meanwhile, point everywhere.

We must resist this murderous mentality, as well as a sense of hopelessness and powerlessness enveloping our world. Each of us has the capacity to be a buddha, to stop creating evil, to create good, and to create conditions for good to arise for all.

What's your next step? What would create conditions for good to emerge? Your answer is your future.

Be well.

Facing a Day, Facing Yourself

With palms together,
Good Morning Sangha,

Monday morning. Its a beautiful day. Many of us approach Monday as if we were climbing a mountain with sacks of rocks on our backs. Working at jobs that seem to work against us, our sense of accomplishment and personal worth challenged, we feel disheartened and even disconnected.

Others go to work with a sense of hope and joy, embracing their work, making it a part of them and their experience in the world. They have a sense of personal power and control, a sort of personal authority that enables real authenticity to develop.

What are the differences between these people?

Is it the work itself? Their peers? Their employers or supervisors? Is it something in the water?

So many variables. Yet, one major variable comes to mind: Right Understanding. Right Understanding is a sort of synchronicity, an orientation of compass, map, and traveler. Once oriented, it is possible to make sense of where we are, what direction to go, what degree of effort it will take, how much of what needs to be said, and so forth. People living without Right Understanding are like travelers at war with their compasses and maps.

As in each of the Eightfold Noble Paths, "Right" refers to "true, perfect, same." Understood as we are using the word here, then, we orient our selves with our compass and our map, making them "true." True here means many things, but mostly it means "the same." That is to say, when we become one with our activity, like an arrow flying true to its mark, where arrow and mark are, in truth one, then we are living within Right Understanding.

Who are you? What is your compass? What is your map? How are you not one?

Be well.

Where's Buddha?

With palms together,
Good Morning Sangha,

Yesterday I was re-reading a tiny little book bu Senzaki. He was a Japanese monk who came to America before there was much in the way of Zen here. He was a wanderer, not affiliated with a home temple, and despised what he called "Cathedral Zen." Cathedral Zen is the Zen of large Temples, rich patrons, and lavish pomp and circumstance. There is a tendency to move in this direction among American Zen Centers.

Americans like their Churches, Synagogues and Mosques to be large and ostentatious. We have the idea that if it is large and rich it must be doing something right and everyone wants to hang on to a winner. Yet even when full these places are empty. Something essential is missing.

True Zen begins as a temple of one and works its way out. True Zen is free. It is the color of the grass, the feel of the sand, the taste of a cold cucumber on a hot summer day. It has nothing to do with robes and bells, priests and laymen. We put on a robe, shave our head, sit Zazen because we are buddhas, not to become like buddhas.

Today be the buddha you are in everything you do. How is that possible? Be yourself.

Be well.

What Do You See?

With palms together,
Good Morning Sangha,

Today I will drive up to the Refuge. I look forward to this drive, as well as to getting there. The drive across the desert from the city is really beautiful. The desert can be very subtle. The colors are so muted and because the sky is so large and unimpeded, a very different scale of relative size is present. People coming here for the first time often just see vast expanses of brown. I know I did. But then, as time goes by and our senses acclimate to the place, we begin to really "see" the desert for the first time.

Such is life. We often see in gross terms and only later see the details and nuances that enrich our lives. It is our practice to make the distance between the gross and the subtle non-existent.

Be well.

Bearing Witness

With palms together,
Good Morning Sangha,

Bearing witness is a challenging practice. Many do not wish to see witnesses, few wish to be reminded of things past. Witnesses become our consciences and how many of us truly appreciate that voice in our ear? We assign motives to the witnesses, we can even grow to despise them. We confuse the witness with the event itself and akin to the messinger, want to kill the witness.

To bear witness under these conditions becomes a strength building practice and an important practice in itself.

Yesterday at the weekly Peace Vigil, I sat quietly on my cushion on the sidewalk. The sun was very hot and my robes offered protection from the burning rays, but also allowed the air under them to heat. Zen priest sauna.

I listened as the birds chatter in the trees of the courthouse courtyard. I listened to someone tell the story that earlier in the war, counter-protesters were across the street. One person set up a sign a few blocks away that read, "Terrorists Ahead, Fire at Will!"

The witness, in the end, must simply be present. Rather like being with a very sick person or someone who is dying. We are just present and that presence is, in itself, healing.

In this presence, however, our inclination is to want to 'do something' as if our mere presence as a witness is not enough. Resist this temptation. Listen to your mind as you are sitting as witness. Watch the mental flow, the feelings arise and fall, give them nothing.

When we witness this way we are most effective. We are just peace. We are just compassion. Nothing else.

Be well.