Repairing the World

With palms together,
Good Morning All,

Last evening at a meeting someone said they did not want politics in their house of worship. They argued that they come to Temple for refuge and that there were plenty of groups and activities "out there" who would gladly accept our help, why bring the these issues into the Temple? She was referring to the Jewish Temple.

I have heard this argument in Zen Centers as well. And I am sure they are voiced in Christian churches, and Mosques, and wherever people gather together to connect to the Universe. Yet, in every major religion, there will come a time in its practice where it must move from the inside out.

Christianity has a strong missionary thrust, sometimes to my dismay, Judaism has a very long history of holding that they have a partnership with God to "repair the world," that is, to act as co-creators, finishing the work of creation. Buddhism has a very strong social and ethical commitment and recognizes that we ourselves create evil, as well as good, and therefore must act to support the choice for good.

Most of the people who want to keep politics out of the sanctuary are really saying that they need a sanctuary, free from strife and division. They seek a place without acrimony and negative, derisive, emotion. And for his, I can agree. But if we leave it there, we are failing these individuals. Our practice community, our Sangha, is a microcosm of the world itself. We practice within it, bringing to it all of what we are, our hopes, fears and dreams, as well as our prejudices and delusions. Chief among these is the notion that there is somehow an inside and and outside, a us and a them.

One of the tests of authentic practice is how consistently syntonic it is. We say we vow to stop doing evil, to do good, and to bring about good in the world (and every faith tradition has vows or prayers similar to these concise vows), but the test is how much they are expressions of ourselves.

As a religious or philosophical person, we must take our belief, faith, our practices, if they are authentic, out into the world. We must stand for the good against evil. Good and evil are not amorphous concepts. They are practical and political realities.

It takes a certain faith to accomplish this. Sometimes we must pretend, so to speak, talking the talk until our walk is more firm and centered. This takes time and commitment to the faith and values of our tradition. It also takes great strength and courage, but most of all it takes a great and growing love for the world.

Be well.

Weebles

With palms together,
Good Morning All,

If we could see around corners, we would never get hit. But we cannot see around corners, so we must be cautious. I wonder.

When we are one with the universe, where is a corner?

Caution is like a weeble, tilting to and fro, but never actually getting anywhere.

A True Master understands there is no birth and death, just this. A True Master is the Buddha inside and out. The Infinite and Finite are one and without a blink of an eye. A True Master is both giver and receiver at once and at the same moment. A True Master is both love and hate, peace and war, all residing in serene reflection.

We call this authority, and being one with it, we call manifest Buddha.

Be well.

One Born Every Minute

With palms together,
Good Morning All,

We have all heard the phrase,"there's one born every minute!" This "one" typically refers to a sucker, a hapless, gullible person, who is easily taken advantage of. None of us want to be seen by others as such a one. We are all too smart or too sophisticated, too sharp, or too quick and nimble to be "taken" by the con artists of the world.

When we divide our fellow man like this, into the gullible and the nimble & quick, where is charity? Where is compassion? Where is loving-kindness?

There is no room for these qualities, as they become marks of the hapless ones.

Interesting isn't it, how our intelligent, high tech, and efficient society has recast discrimination? A discriminating mind now is highly valued, protected, and to be therefore cultivated.

So, today, the "one" more appropriately should be thought of as a "critic."

Yes, there is one born every minute.

Be well.

Does the Fan Disturb the Air?

With palms together,
Good Morning All,

The windows are open and the ceiling fans are slowly turning. The morning air here is cool. The sound of the fan against the still morning air is soft. I wonder about the stillness of zazen.

Someone asked last night, "Can we go deeper?"

Such an interesting question. Zazen as a practice of plumbing the depths, or of mining the earth for its riches. I suppose, but what is deeper? What is behind the question?

We sit zazen for a variety of reasons, all of us. We sit with a variety of intentions, as many as there are sitting buddhas, I am sure. Yet, on this meditation cushion and in this stillness, we seem to settle, some may say 'sink', deeper and deeper into the stillness. So, it often seems as though we are, indeed, 'going deeper.'

I wonder though if it could not be understood slightly differently, that instead of going deeper we are just shedding the many layers we use to clothe our 'self' and in the shedding, come ever closer to seeing ourselves as the universe itself.

Can we go deeper? We are vast emptiness itself, we just need to stop isolating ourselves with wrappings of identity.

Be well.

Splash!

With palms together,
Good Morning All,

In Zen we see heart, mind, and body as one, indeed, all of the universe is this body. Nice thought, a great truth, but thoughts about truth are not the experience of truth. To experience this truth we must stop behaving as if we are separate.

How does one behave as if one is not separate?

This is the point of so many Zen stories and koans. Each story, each koan, points us at something. It asks us to understand by getting into the story and in order to get into the story, we must become the story.

Yet, here we are again, how does one become the story? or the koan?

Just how does one "drop away"?

I once had an art teacher who was into empathy. She had use drawing old weird leaves. We were told to "feel the leaf," "become the leaf," and so on. I thought she was nuts. So I sat there, good student that I was, and drew the leaf. We were taught to draw by keeping our eye on the object and not on the paper and ink. Staying on the object, following its line this way and that, to the point that there was only the line: no eye, no hand, no pen, no...ahhh.

It is counter-intuitive. To let the self drop away means to practice joining non-self. To think non-thinking means to practice non-thinking. Following the lines until we attain there are no lines and no one to follow them.

Its like jumping into a pool.

Be well.

Inside-Out Zen

With palms together,
Good Morning All,

There can be a serious precision to our practice that gets in the way of awakening, as well as compassionate living. Some people become so caught in the net of this and that, the 2 centimeters of difference, that they fail to see the Buddha's face.

One of the truths of monastic practice is that life in a group can be a real challenge to serenity, but then we all know that don't we? It is easy to be a Buddha alone and undisturbed by the ticking of the clock or the needs of a baby. Some practitioners, especally those who revere monastic practice, view the exactitude of ritual as very important. Order on the outside rules.

Another finger pointing.

What is important is the inside out. I like inside-out Zen. Our precision is from the inside. That is to say, our internal to external correspondance to the Buddha and his attributes are the thing most important. But then, how do we get there?

On the one hand we can say that ritualized practice, the forms, so to speak, offer us a vessel within which we train ourselves. This is outside-in Zen. On the other hand, our zazen of mind and body, establishing from the inside the strength and discipline to sit upright, is inside-out Zen.

Of course, at some point along the way, we attain there is little difference. Inside and outside are the same.

Do not be so critical with yourself.

Be well.

Just Another Day

With palms together,
Good Morning All,

This morning I slipped out of bed a little early to get a head start on the dishes. My Little Honey co-hosted the Oneg at the synagogue last night. She had spent the day in the kitchen making kugel and deviled eggs, cutting cheese into cubes and so on. There were a few things piled up in the sink. I made coffee, washed the pots and pans that would not fit into the dishwasher (those are amazing devices...we don't have one at the Refuge), and did my morning Zazen.

My Little Honey has just emerged from her sleep. I hear her yawning in the living room as she sips coffee and leaves me to this task.

I am remembering times in our earlier married life when I would resent her sleeping in, then sipping coffee as I "worked" to "clean up her mess."

These are the themes of wounded children. Children who never seemed to get the sort of love or acceptance they needed and then as adults seek it with a vengeance. Its that old hurt puppy syndrome of sorts.

There are moments when these feelings emerge today, but they are much less a roar than a whimper and I often see them for what they are, my emotional garbage, not hers.

What is this that has happened and what was its cause?

Who knows. A million things. Time has passed. Meditation has occur ed. Therapy. Hours of conversation and argument. Tenacity. A deep love for each other and commitment to stay in the boat together. Children now grown and having their own children. Lots of things. And none of them are discreet and separate from the other. Life is not like that. Life is a mess and you deal with it.

Today should be a day of peace, joy, and loving-kindness and so it will be. But then, the next step, make this day a model for all others.

Be well.