There's Nothing to Do!

Good Morning Everyone,

"There's no where to go!" "There's no thing to do!" Any parent or couple married longer than a couple of years has heard these laments. These are the words of boredom. I occasionally feel bored myself. Yet, rather than dive into whine, I prefer to experience myself in the state of boredom. What does it really feel like?

There is the sense of being trapped, the sense of numbness, the sense of pure flatness, or the sense of restless despair that sometimes masks itself as boredom. We often lack the language to deal with such states and feelings, as dealing requires a naming of sorts, a dialogue -- even if it is just interior dialogue.

More importantly, though, is the need to be aware What is it? What is it!

Too quickly we rush to answer our feelings: we rush to label or we rush to solution. Delay here is a wonderful strategy. Feel. Be the feeling. Experience yourself as uncomfortable as it might at first be.

In the process, we learn a few things. First we learn we are not really slave to our impulses. second, we learn that being bored, or flat, or even trapped, is not all that bad. Third, we can learn that such feelings are more a result of our thoughts about a situation than any actual reflection of that situation.

We would not learn these things without being still.

Stillness is a great teacher.

Be well.




Harvey Sodaiho Hilbert-roshi
Clear Mind Zen
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Two Fires, One Flame

Good Morning Everyone,

This morning I sit at my desk in my little home Zendo surrounded by relics. On one wall are three enclosed bookcases. In the bookcases are large sections of books related to Zen on one side and Judaism on the other. Under the enclosed cases are various framed photographs, various menorahs, my begging bowl, a ceramic bearded Jew with a talit over his shoulders, a seated buddha kitty statue, and a brush set for calligraphy.

On another wall, a silk painting of a Hanoi street I bought in Vietnam.. Across from it is a photograph I took of a Vietnamese village in the central highlands of Vietnam. My desk sits under it crowded with several potted plants, my laptop, and the books and notebooks that are in my present moment.

Then there is my small rough-hewn wooden alter table. On it a statue of Buddha, a statue of Jizo bodhisattva, a water offering, an incense offering and a candle. Mt cushion sits in front of it, inviting me daily to practice.

All of these are true relics as they offer glimpses into what was. Other moments no longer present, yet are capable of being re-animated by my mind. Books reveal the footsteps of others; notebooks map our current path, and at bottom, there in the silt, nothing but the present. So, I wonder on one side of my mind at times who I am, read the relics, then note what I have now become, while on the other, I dismiss the thought entirely on my cushion in favor of just being. There really is a reason why my Navajo medicine man friend named me "Two Fires".

When we label ourselves we kill our true nature; without a label we are forever in the eternal now. I believe my name should really be "Two Fires, One Flame".

Be well.



Harvey Sodaiho Hilbert-roshi
Clear Mind Zen
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Being Everything

Good Morning Everyone,

 

Someone on a blog this morning suggested I was rather narrow in my themes.  I thought it a curious perspective.  Admittedly, I write mostly about religious/spiritual themes, but I try to talk about them in a very wide spectrum of applications, anywhere from teacups to space-time relativity.  In any event, the comment gave me pause and I reflected for a bit on it.

 

Most of us tend to compartmentalize our lives: this is religion, that is cooking, this other thing is sports, and over here is work.  My consistent point of view is that this is not only false, but spiritually dangerous. Its part of the reductionism that was epidemic in the 19th and 20th centuries.  It even has lead scientists to try to find a God spot in our brains, for goodness sake.

 

Spiritual life is a whole life.  Its about seeing everything as our life, our breath, and our intimate connection to everything else. We are not separate, but completely one.  When we talk about being a Christian, or a Jew, or a Muslim, or a Buddhist, we should keep in mind that these are just labels for paths to the same thing: actualization with and as the Infinite.

 

I don't like clubs, especially exclusive clubs.  Although it wasn't always so, I practice inclusiveness as much as possible.  It is important for us to realize we create our own issues when we treat a stranger as somehow different from ourselves.  This acceptance of everything, however, is not permission to be crazy or hurtful or to tolerate such things in others. Part of a disciplined spiritual practice is learning to say no, at least as easily as we say yes.

 

When we practice meditation, we are creating a space for this oneness to be seen through the very discipline of acceptance without attachment or avoidance.  As we sit quietly, thoughts arise, feelings emerge, and we might want to follow them.  We gently notice them and return to being present.  We begin to see everything appears related to everything else: thoughts relate to other thoughts, feelings relate to other feelings, and all of these relate to each other.  It is a perfect storm and we are its eye.

 

Be well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rev. Dr. So Daiho Hilbert-roshi 

Clear Mind Zen

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Rev. Dr. So Daiho Hilbert-roshi
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Enter the Storm

Good Morning Everyone,

 

For one who is one with the storm, there is no storm. Separating ourselves from the storm, resisting it, makes the storm strong.  If we practice relaxing into the storm, peace. We oppose it, become an oak tree, unbending, rigid, we will be uprooted. Not resisting the storm we are like a palm tree in a hurricane, bending and yielding to the wind, we become the wind itself: storm and we are one, no problem. 

 

Do storms cause damage?  Of course.  Should we not prepare for them?  Of course.  But our attitude and willingness to be present determines both the extent of the damage and most importantly, our experience of the storm itself.

 

Zen teaches us to be free and easy in the marketplace.  Open and accepting of difference, we become adaptive, we struggle less, we are interested in the world around us for itself as opposed to its use-value.

 

There is an old Daoist concept of going to the low places. By this is meant relaxing into the world around us, like water does, forming still pools at the lowest places of any environment, not resisting gravity, but going with it.  We yield to the rocks, wash around the trees and leaves, and flow to create pools in shady coves.

 

When we live life like this we live in serene reflection meditation.

 

Be soft, be yielding, be peace, be well.. 

 

 

 

 

 

Rev. Dr. So Daiho Hilbert-roshi 

Clear Mind Zen

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Faith

Good Morning Everyone,

We should have faith in our practice. As we sit in serene reflection meditation or manifest the precepts through mindful living, we trust that the fruit of these practices is actually in the practices themselves. Each time we recite a mantra, a sutra, or a prayer, we affirm our faith in our practice on the one hand, but actually manifest it, on the other hand. This is ' instant Zen.'

People new to Zen sometimes have the understanding that they came to Zen for their health, to reduce stress, or to learn to manage their lives better. These may be accomplished through our practices, we think, eventually, but it takes a skillful and open eye to see that they take place immediately. It requires faith on the one hand and a great deal of diligence on the other hand. Yet if we relax into the practice, let go of the worry, and forget the search itself, we see that it is right there before us.

When I place my palms together, bow, and then look directly at the person in front of me, I am revealing both my faith and my knowledge that each person holds Buddha's heart. The person may not behave in a way we typically understand as being Buddhist, but any behavior is one or another side of the dharma. .

I encourage each of you to take up the practice of Zen, whether you are a Buddhist, a Catholic, a Baptist, a Muslim, or a Wiccan, it really doesn't matter: each path is an aspect of the Infinite.
_________

Tripper is nestled in on my side as I sit writing. He is a cockapoo, one of those terribly cute "designer" breeds being created of late. He looks for all the world like a small "Benji" and behaves in the most loving and energetic way I've ever, in my sixty years, seen a dog behave. This morning after Talmud Torah, after Brunch at the Clubhouse, after sitting streetZen at the Environmental Center, Tripper goes to the beauty shop to get beautified. He really, really needs it.

____________

May you each be a blessing in the universe.







Rev. Dr. So Daiho Hilbert-roshi
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Making Life

Good Morning Everyone,

 

It is cold enough outside that our heater clicked on this morning sending warmth throughout the condo. I have mixed feelings about this as heat costs and money is in short supply. Our refuge in the mountains was a bit simpler though more difficult.  We chopped wood for the stove, built a fire and in an hour or two the house began to warm.  The differences, aside from the obvious, were in the deliberate nature of life. Living wasn't automatic. 

 

If we wanted clean dishes, we washed them by hand with water collected from our roof and pumped up to a tank on the hill behind the refuge so gravity would send it back into the house. If we wanted to cook, we made a fire and waited for the cookstove to get hot enough to cook. When we needed something from the store, it was a day trip.  Nothing happened on its own.  We were intimately involved with living.

 

Here in the city, we live much more in our heads as our bodies do very little and are, comparatively,  far less involved. For myself, I miss the deliberate and intimate life the refuge afforded me. It was harder, to be sure, and I don't really believe I should go back to it full time, but I still yearn for that connection with life itself.

 

To make such a connection we must make it.  Jews have a way of phrasing things that says this.  We "make Shabbos"  we "make a blessing"  and so on.  Or, as my grandfather used to say, he was going to "make water" when he went to the bathroom.

 

What these mean is that we create our connection through our activity by being conscious of the activity as we do it.  We are partners with the Absolute in our own creation. Life is never singular.

 

If you want a spiritual life you must make your life spiritual and to do this you must become intimate and deliberate in its making. 

 

Be well.

 

   

 

Rev. Dr. So Daiho Hilbert-roshi 

Clear Mind Zen

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