With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
Awake, I make coffee, let the dogs out, and open my notebook. Below me, under the table, I hear chewing. I check. Good grief, Suki has just chewed up a toy plastic knife! There are pieces everywhere. I pull a tidbit from her mouth and pick up the rest. It is what we do.
Student Shoji paraphrased a teaching yesterday. He said, “when everything is One, what is there to talk about?” This is a very important question as it points us in the direction of our aim. It is kindred to Dogen Zenji’s question raised in the Bendowa, if we are already enlightened, then why practice?
In Zen, our chief question is function. This function is within a context. What am I to do always depends on a context of relationship within a context of buddhahood. How am I to manifest my True Nature knowing that every act is a manifestation of that nature.
First, we must forget we are buddhas. To act with that knowledge is to act with a conceptualization of buddhahood and such an act would, as a result, be inauthentic. Second, we must act without hesitation. Form and function are one, yet not without practice. Without practice, to act “without hesitation” is to act out of self.
All of this gets us to Dogen’s teaching in the Genjo koan,
“To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study oneself is to forget oneself. To forget oneself is to be enlightened by the myriad dharmas. To be enlightened by the myriad dharmas is to bring about the dropping away of body and mind of both oneself and others. The traces of enlightenment come to an end, and this traceless enlightenment is continued endlessly.”
Be well.
Organ Mountain Zen
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Zen
With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
It is 7:30 and I feel as though I am playing hooky. Condo Zendo practice has been canceled for this week. Staying at the Ex's house has truly disrupted my routine. Or should I say, changed it. I woke up this morning, made the coffee, and took care of the dogs. From there I wandered into the garage where I prepared the wood for our Zen Temple sign. I think it will only say, "Zen" on it. But in practicing yesterday, I discovered I needed a different brush. So, I water sealed the wood, cut strips with which I will frame it, and now the pieces await the brush.
Meanwhile, Trip and Suki are enjoying the yard, especially the underground "drip" system which Suki seems to want to dig up. They are both soaked.
What is the Zen of this? It is every moment practice. Noticing, doing what can be done, and letting go of the rest.
Be well.
Good Morning Everyone,
It is 7:30 and I feel as though I am playing hooky. Condo Zendo practice has been canceled for this week. Staying at the Ex's house has truly disrupted my routine. Or should I say, changed it. I woke up this morning, made the coffee, and took care of the dogs. From there I wandered into the garage where I prepared the wood for our Zen Temple sign. I think it will only say, "Zen" on it. But in practicing yesterday, I discovered I needed a different brush. So, I water sealed the wood, cut strips with which I will frame it, and now the pieces await the brush.
Meanwhile, Trip and Suki are enjoying the yard, especially the underground "drip" system which Suki seems to want to dig up. They are both soaked.
What is the Zen of this? It is every moment practice. Noticing, doing what can be done, and letting go of the rest.
Be well.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
2 of 4
With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
Delusions are inexhaustible I vow to end them.
This morning I woke thinking I should write to you, as I have not been doing so for a few days. Life has a way of getting in the way of plans. I am at my ex’s house dog sitting. It is a bit of a challenge top be here, but I do enjoy the dogs very much and being here is giving me an opportunity to experience the changes in my life.
We move into Clear Mind Zen Temple this Sunday. I am very much looking forward to this move. I know with each move in the past I have said it will be my last, but I know better now. Everything changes. Everything.
Dharma gates are boundless I vow to enter them.
Our practice is to be with those changes as they come. Sometimes they come like little ripples. Other times, they are like tidal waves. I am beginning to think the really serious ones are the ripples. Unless we are awake, we do not experience the ripples. They are there, however, silently and gently transforming both our environment and us until one day, small is large and we cannot fail to see it. Because it is so, we were not party to the change process, but there we are, in its consequence.
Be well.
Good Morning Everyone,
Delusions are inexhaustible I vow to end them.
This morning I woke thinking I should write to you, as I have not been doing so for a few days. Life has a way of getting in the way of plans. I am at my ex’s house dog sitting. It is a bit of a challenge top be here, but I do enjoy the dogs very much and being here is giving me an opportunity to experience the changes in my life.
We move into Clear Mind Zen Temple this Sunday. I am very much looking forward to this move. I know with each move in the past I have said it will be my last, but I know better now. Everything changes. Everything.
Dharma gates are boundless I vow to enter them.
Our practice is to be with those changes as they come. Sometimes they come like little ripples. Other times, they are like tidal waves. I am beginning to think the really serious ones are the ripples. Unless we are awake, we do not experience the ripples. They are there, however, silently and gently transforming both our environment and us until one day, small is large and we cannot fail to see it. Because it is so, we were not party to the change process, but there we are, in its consequence.
Be well.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Zazenkai
For tomorrow:
Clear Mind Zen Temple
Zazenkai Schedule
Stacking our bones upright on the flat earth, We each dig a cave in space...
Master Tendo Nyojo, Teacher of Dogen Zenji
Zazenkai is a daylong opportunity to practice Zazen. It is a period of intense introspection. We will observe Mindful Silence throughout the day. This means we ask talking of any kind be kept to an absolute minimum and should only be done when asking for or receiving instruction. Zazen periods are 25 minutes with Kinhin in between.
7:00 10:00 Opening Service: Zazen
10:00 11:00 Samu
11:00 12:00 Zazen
12:00 01:00 Oryoki
01:00 01:30 Break
01:30- 2:00 Zazen
02:00 04:00 Film and discussion
04:00- 04:30 Closing services.
Clear Mind Zen Temple
Zazenkai Schedule
Stacking our bones upright on the flat earth, We each dig a cave in space...
Master Tendo Nyojo, Teacher of Dogen Zenji
Zazenkai is a daylong opportunity to practice Zazen. It is a period of intense introspection. We will observe Mindful Silence throughout the day. This means we ask talking of any kind be kept to an absolute minimum and should only be done when asking for or receiving instruction. Zazen periods are 25 minutes with Kinhin in between.
7:00 10:00 Opening Service: Zazen
10:00 11:00 Samu
11:00 12:00 Zazen
12:00 01:00 Oryoki
01:00 01:30 Break
01:30- 2:00 Zazen
02:00 04:00 Film and discussion
04:00- 04:30 Closing services.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
The Dog
With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
It is 4:30 AM. I just took Suki out and am settling in to write. The morning air is delicious. I would love to sit outside to compose this message, but I am afraid Suki would be a maniac with the rabbits and birds.
Suki lives in Buddha-nature. It is direct living, living that is in actualized contact with function viz a viz the world around her. For Suki it is automatic; for human beings it must be a choice. We choose to live deliberately or not. We choose to keep our eyes shut or open then. We choose to open our heart/mind or not.
Some may argue that eyes shut or open is duality. It is. Asleep or awake is duality? Yes. Dogen Zenji says the following in the Genjo-koan: “When all dharmas are the Buddha-dharma there are delusion and enlightenment… When the myriad dharmas are all without self, there is no delusion, no realization…” Yusatani comments, “”It’s the relative position that has the absolute position as its ground. In other words it’s the relative in the midst of the absolute.” Duality and non-duality are the same, just as we in the Mahayana tradition say nirvana and samsara are the same. A whole awake to itself cannot be divided: its every facet will be awake to its wholeness.
Our practice is to live seamlessly. Thoughts and feelings, mind and heart, do not respond to the environment; they are the environment. When we practice and our body/mind falls away, the shell that seems to separate us from the universe falls away. We are water in an ocean of water, aware we are water in the ocean of water. As we come to be a wave, are we not still water in water? Even so, waves are waves and have their function. So too, we. What is wave? What is water? What was our face before our father and mother were born?
This face is no face at all. Just walk the dog.
Be well.
Good Morning Everyone,
It is 4:30 AM. I just took Suki out and am settling in to write. The morning air is delicious. I would love to sit outside to compose this message, but I am afraid Suki would be a maniac with the rabbits and birds.
Suki lives in Buddha-nature. It is direct living, living that is in actualized contact with function viz a viz the world around her. For Suki it is automatic; for human beings it must be a choice. We choose to live deliberately or not. We choose to keep our eyes shut or open then. We choose to open our heart/mind or not.
Some may argue that eyes shut or open is duality. It is. Asleep or awake is duality? Yes. Dogen Zenji says the following in the Genjo-koan: “When all dharmas are the Buddha-dharma there are delusion and enlightenment… When the myriad dharmas are all without self, there is no delusion, no realization…” Yusatani comments, “”It’s the relative position that has the absolute position as its ground. In other words it’s the relative in the midst of the absolute.” Duality and non-duality are the same, just as we in the Mahayana tradition say nirvana and samsara are the same. A whole awake to itself cannot be divided: its every facet will be awake to its wholeness.
Our practice is to live seamlessly. Thoughts and feelings, mind and heart, do not respond to the environment; they are the environment. When we practice and our body/mind falls away, the shell that seems to separate us from the universe falls away. We are water in an ocean of water, aware we are water in the ocean of water. As we come to be a wave, are we not still water in water? Even so, waves are waves and have their function. So too, we. What is wave? What is water? What was our face before our father and mother were born?
This face is no face at all. Just walk the dog.
Be well.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Forms
With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
Last night we nearly had a full house for evening Zazen. There were four of us facing the wall. In my small Zendo, this is a considerable number. After practice, Rev. Kajo served tea and I told the story of the Buddha’s enlightenment.
It is quite a story, you know: Leaving his family, seeking a cure for suffering, finding it, then wandering around the countryside through cities and villages, practicing and teaching the Way. Recently, on my Tricycle.com’s community page, a friend and I came to be on “the same page.” This page has to do with emptiness on the one hand, and teaching on the other. He comes at things as a Daoist: that which can be spoken is not the Dao. I find him delightfully challenging, especially since I came to Zen through a Daoist POV (one of my very early online IDs was Taoist).
In my opinion, the Buddha never taught anything but method. He declined comment on the philosophic arguments of the day. His sutras are about how to practice, thus how to live, because from his POV they were the same. He was the ultimate pragmatist. While it is true that he did establish rules and guidelines for the Sangha, understand these rules are about how to live, they are not forms to be mindlessly revered or taught as dogma.
The trouble is, as forms develop they often become replacements for the aim of the forms themselves(awakening). Dogen Zenji was somewhat guilty of this, becoming quite dogmatic in his assertions regarding Zazen as practice realization. In some ways, his teaching de-mystified the enlightenment experience. He took the magic out of it. Just sit down, take up the Buddha’s posture, and there you are.
I believe this is so, as I experience its truth each moment. Yet, it takes much practice to understand what Dogen was actually saying. An unpracticed understanding misses the mark and is rather like sliding stones along the surface of the pond.
Our forms should be contemporaneous, not mindless repetitions of the past. Forms have a context, indeed they are a context, for practice. It is the practice, friends, that is the point not the derivatives.
Be well.
Good Morning Everyone,
Last night we nearly had a full house for evening Zazen. There were four of us facing the wall. In my small Zendo, this is a considerable number. After practice, Rev. Kajo served tea and I told the story of the Buddha’s enlightenment.
It is quite a story, you know: Leaving his family, seeking a cure for suffering, finding it, then wandering around the countryside through cities and villages, practicing and teaching the Way. Recently, on my Tricycle.com’s community page, a friend and I came to be on “the same page.” This page has to do with emptiness on the one hand, and teaching on the other. He comes at things as a Daoist: that which can be spoken is not the Dao. I find him delightfully challenging, especially since I came to Zen through a Daoist POV (one of my very early online IDs was Taoist).
In my opinion, the Buddha never taught anything but method. He declined comment on the philosophic arguments of the day. His sutras are about how to practice, thus how to live, because from his POV they were the same. He was the ultimate pragmatist. While it is true that he did establish rules and guidelines for the Sangha, understand these rules are about how to live, they are not forms to be mindlessly revered or taught as dogma.
The trouble is, as forms develop they often become replacements for the aim of the forms themselves(awakening). Dogen Zenji was somewhat guilty of this, becoming quite dogmatic in his assertions regarding Zazen as practice realization. In some ways, his teaching de-mystified the enlightenment experience. He took the magic out of it. Just sit down, take up the Buddha’s posture, and there you are.
I believe this is so, as I experience its truth each moment. Yet, it takes much practice to understand what Dogen was actually saying. An unpracticed understanding misses the mark and is rather like sliding stones along the surface of the pond.
Our forms should be contemporaneous, not mindless repetitions of the past. Forms have a context, indeed they are a context, for practice. It is the practice, friends, that is the point not the derivatives.
Be well.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Zazen
With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
Last night before evening practice period, I opened all of the windows and shut off the air conditioning system. Suki enjoyed barking at every passerby and soon enough she required the blinds to be drawn. When the one student arrived for Zazen, the Zendo was in its own energy: warm, soft, and inviting,
Candlelight and incense are quite a potent combination. When our bodhi mind has been aroused, a place like a Zendo is a marvelous place to come in order to let go and manifest our true self. Each aspect of the wall in front of us opens, blooms, and begs to be filled with ideas, memories, and feelings. Yet we simply witness.
Students just coming to practice seem either lost in this open expanse or frightened. Those who are lost, seek shelter in the forms. Forms offer a container or a ground, something they can sit with. Those who are frightened seek shelter in their ideas and pick up books, books, and more books.
I steadfastly invite everyone who comes to our center to sit. Practice is the ground upon which everything is planted. Nothing grows without its soil, sun, water, and fertilizer.
Serene reflection meditation is available to you. Just put your palms together, face a wall, sit upright, and remain fully present.
Be well.,
Good Morning Everyone,
Last night before evening practice period, I opened all of the windows and shut off the air conditioning system. Suki enjoyed barking at every passerby and soon enough she required the blinds to be drawn. When the one student arrived for Zazen, the Zendo was in its own energy: warm, soft, and inviting,
Candlelight and incense are quite a potent combination. When our bodhi mind has been aroused, a place like a Zendo is a marvelous place to come in order to let go and manifest our true self. Each aspect of the wall in front of us opens, blooms, and begs to be filled with ideas, memories, and feelings. Yet we simply witness.
Students just coming to practice seem either lost in this open expanse or frightened. Those who are lost, seek shelter in the forms. Forms offer a container or a ground, something they can sit with. Those who are frightened seek shelter in their ideas and pick up books, books, and more books.
I steadfastly invite everyone who comes to our center to sit. Practice is the ground upon which everything is planted. Nothing grows without its soil, sun, water, and fertilizer.
Serene reflection meditation is available to you. Just put your palms together, face a wall, sit upright, and remain fully present.
Be well.,
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