Three

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,


Yesterday I did walking meditation at Veteran’s Park. I walked around the grassy field, then up the walkway to the flagpoles, around the crescent wall with names of those who served from New Mexico. A man was standing there. He pointed to his name. I welcomed him home and we continued walking in different directions.

Walking back down toward the rotunda, I saw a wonderful sight. A man had come onto the grassy field and was flying a model plane, but it had no motor. It was radio controlled and I watched with childlike delight as he maneuvered the plane to rise and fall, eventually landing it softly at his feet. He wanted to make his plane fly higher.

I returned to the rotunda and stood like a tree.

Three men, three universes: one.

When the question is common
The answer is also common.
When the question is sand in a bowl of boiled rice
The answer is a stick in the soft mud.
Case 31 Joshu Investigates, trans by Nyogen Senzaki
Be well.

unMasking

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

It is a good morning this morning. Zazen went well, and few wonderful breaths centering myself and being with the sounds of the world around me.


Yesterday several of us went to the Both Sides/No Sides Zendo in El Paso. We sat with the Sangha and I offered a teaching on Kie Sanbo, receiving the three refuges. This was followed by a ceremony bringing Soku Shin into the Order. I am always delighted to offer such opportunities. It was a beautiful ceremony.



The thing about precepts is they are from the inside out. We are all buddhas in disguise. We wear the masks of duality. A Zen Teacher’s job is to help the student see the face under the mask and work with a Sangha to make it possible for the student to live without it.


Living in a world of duality with greed and hatred as partners is toxic to the heart. These three poisons make evil possible, even acceptable to some. Yet, in truth, duality is a delusion and once its mask is removed, we are free. Generosity and compassion become our medicines and we apply them in ways unique and specific to the individual.


Sometimes what is required looks nothing like generosity or compassion, yet, when the aim is true, the arrow hits the mark, and the suffering person is relieved. Of course, this relief is not always what the person expects or even understands as relief. No matter, the important work is being done.


Be well.

Commitments

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

There are Four Noble Truths in Buddha’s Teaching. Simply put, these are: suffering is; it is caused by investing one’s self in something that lacks any permanence; it can be stopped; and we stop it by waking up. There are eight aspects to an awakened heart/mind. Buddha called these the Eightfold Noble Path. Path is important as it points to process, a walk along the way. Yet as we might eventually (and rightly) come to, one is always a diamond just waiting to undress and expose one’s facets. Therefore, the process is not the thing, but rather the undressing of the thing. Mindful Practice is our process.

These eight aspects have to do with our practical lives: Awakened Understanding, Thought, Action, Speech, Livelihood, Effort, Mindfulness, and Concentration. The usual translation is “Right” or “Correct” but I see these as more a sense of true, not in the true/false way, but in the trueness of a line or a weight. There is a quality of internal and external consonance involved. This comes from a clear mind.

Recent events in my life have sorely tested my understanding of the clarity of my mind. What am I doing? Why am I doing it? Is this so? These are my mantra-like questions.

Here are the answers arising from my heart: I am committing to a life as a being in fulltime service to others. This may take on the clothing of a priest, a monk, or a simple person acting out loving-kindness. However, these are just the clothes and we should be kind to those who confuse the two. I am doing this because I have no choice. The suffering of the world, because of war and violence rings too loudly in my ears not to respond. It is so.

I have spent decades taking care of self, family, and being in service as a therapist. It is time to complete the process by shifting my attention to the others as a bodhisattva.
I have created a separate account for the Order of Clear Mind Zen. I will move as quickly as possible making the Order a NM State Non-Profit Corporation so that donations will be, without question, tax-deductable. I have decided to place my share of marital assets in a trust for my three children.

Be well.

Survival

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

Sitting in a Starbucks, I am joining America. Bold coffee, cheese Danish, and notebook at the ready! My AT & T account is closed! iPhone tragedy, I guessed. Small wave of “Not Able to Connect” panic arises.

I sit with this. Take a breath, sip my coffee, and explore the options available: no credit cards, little cash, and a willingness to engage. All systems are a go. I realize I have Qwest service at home. Aha! So I call them, conference with my estranged partner to get secret data, and soon a “Mike” comes on the line giving me my precious three digit access code!

Zip, zip, as one handed fingers type, and here I am, back with you.

Yesterday I spoke with my friend Claude Anshin. His voice was reassuring. We are brothers. It is good to have a strong shoulder to rest on and a willingness to do so. Our practice is to awaken to the empty reality of an “I” and realize the vast, though equally empty, interdependence of “us.” How can we survive if we are not open?

Our lives depend on it.

Be well.

A Kiss

With palms together,

Good Morning Everyone,



Life is good: even on sleepless nights it's whisper is a refreshing kiss of the Infinite.I sleep on the floor next to my altar in a sleeping bag. Next to me is my connection to you.



Overnight I had a conversation with my senior disciple, Rev. Bussho. I wrote to my friend. Anshin who I will be visiting on retreat next month. In each case my fingers were guided by my love for them.



Such a gift, friends. Through each other we make our lives eternal.



The Sandokai says,



"Each of the myriad things has its merit,

expressed according to its function and place.

Existing phenomonally like a box and cover joining;

according with principle like an arrow points to meeting."


According to friend Greg, the First Commandment is, "You shall survive." One cradles the other in infinite direction and embrace.



Forward and backward are a delusion which when extinguished offers us the present.



Be well.

Know Nothing

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

Case One of the Blue Cliff Record tells the story of Master Bodhidharma’s interaction with Emperor Wu-tei. “What is the first principle of the holy teaching?” the Emperor asks. To which Bodhidharma answers, “In the boundless universe there exists nothing to be called ‘holy’.”
“Then whom am I facing?” (Are not you a holy man?), the Emperor asks. Bodhidharma replied, “I know not.”

Sacred and profane are not separate. They are not one. They are mere concepts, like so many leaves scattered on the porch by the wind through branches of aged trees approaching winter. What is this? Meaningless. Who am I? Meaningless.

There is no answer that does not harm us. Master Bodhidharma might have better taught by walking away in silence.

Yet, in doing so we recognize such a teaching would offend our Western sensibilities. We so deeply live in a rationalized, empiricized, dualized interior world that we cannot hear the knock at the door. We cannot perceive the teaching.

My answer? Be still even when running. Pay attention to the whispers in the trees, the whirl of the drier, the sounds of the office, the feeling of your heart beating. There are no words, just life. And if it were water, we need but dive right in.

Be well.

The Great Banana

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

My best guess is that “life,” the “Infinite,” Buddha Mind,” wants nothing from us except that we live. “Consciousness,” “Higher Power,” or Great Banana is nothing more than a reflection of ourselves, and everything else collectively, looking back at us. It has no separate existence, therefore, no separate wants, desires, intentions, plans, or power. It is, as we are, life itself.

So, son Jacob, his partner Lynda, and I were talking yesterday about the practice of releasing one’s grip and turning oneself “over” to a “Higher Power” and how challenging or desirable this practice is. Jacob sees this as conceiving of “the Infinite” as a puppet master sort, much like the God of Job. These three issues emerged: a “Universal” separate from us, a “Universal” that has intent, and the challenge of letting go.

A Zenster perspective might be that the first is meaningless as we discover from our deepest practice that any ultimate reality is One. Our continued deepest practice might reveal that, as One, we are therefore one with all of life and more: all of life is teleological, which is to say, lives with the intent to perform its function. This renders the last as completely acceptable and points to the Heart Sutra’s statement, “no hindrance of the mind, therefore no fear.” Letting go in such a context means nothing more or less than relaxing into the vast processes of life itself.

This does not mean that we do not avoid a rock in the road while driving, nor does it mean we meet a wave with resistance. When driving, we naturally avoid the rock and at the beach, we learn to naturally roll with a wave…or step away from its path or enter it seamlessly.

At root, then, our resistance to letting go is in direct proportion to our trust in life itself. What happens when the Great Banana splits?

We eat it.

Be well.