The Challenge

With palms together


Good Morning Everyone,



Last night was a delight at the Temple; two people came, new to us, and attended the Zen 101 group and then sat with us. This couple has been a part of an interfaith discussion group for some years now. I attended a meeting of that group a few months ago with my Teacher and close friend Soku Shin.



It is always good to see new people come to the Temple and begin to learn something about Zen as it is actually practiced. We get so much of what we know from books, movies, TV, and the Internet, rarely actually experiencing the thing itself.



Master Dogen says, “You must…abandon a practice based on intellectual understanding, running after words, and clinging to the letter. You must turn and direct your light inward to illuminate your true nature.” (Fukanzazengi)



Most of us today fail in this abandonment, so easy it is to believe we know through our mind’s eye, rather than through the Dharma Eye of practice. Knowing is not realization, just as eating is not digestion. To realize, we must set aside knowing and allow realization to come out. Our True Nature is there, inside, deep, serene, and always present. We must but turn our self inward to see it. But, to experience it, we must let go of everything we think we know. This is our challenge and greatest obstacle in practice.



Meet the challenge.



Be well.

Consequences

With palms together


Good Morning Everyone,



The events of this past week as well as discussions in our groups at temple lead me to ask, is it possible to speak without creating some form of duality? No, but! It is silly to think that we should live without duality. If I ask you to care about this or that, I am creating a dualism on several levels. So? Do we not live in a relative world? Forget the relative at your peril, my friends.



We are our actions and we are responsible for our actions, and just as we are interconnected with all things and interdependent with all things, we are also, therefore, responsible for the actions of others as well. This is a challenging notion in this era of Me. if I am one with everything, then everything is one with me. I and Other are One My responsibility is both personal and social.



Our speech is an aspect of our behavior. We should be aware of how it affects people and know that if we yell “Fire!” in a crowded room with minimal egress, we are responsible for the consequences. We cannot say, well those poor folk who were crushed at the door should not have panicked or should have known there was no fire or some other excuse to get us off the hook.



Likewise if I keep saying liberals are treasonous as Ann Coulter repeatedly does, or that we should “target” those we don’t like and “eliminate” them, as many political operatives might say, we cannot escape some degree of responsibility if someone takes adverse action against those we have demonized.



It is our responsibility to address this now in a clear voice. Violence, both physical and emotional, through body, speech or mind, is not acceptable. We must practice the Eightfold Noble Path not just spout it. As a reminder, this path includes: Right Understanding, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Effort, Right Livelihood, Right Concentration and Right Mindfulness.



Now, go do the right thing.



Be well.

Arizona

With palms together,




The comments in the comments sections of the news stories regarding the Arizona shootings make me feel as sick as the actual shootings. Liberal loonies, Right wing fascists, Dumb this, Stupid that, each polarized side blaming the other and, in the process, ratcheting up the already high emotion. Are liberals to blame? Are conservatives accountable? Can we actually talk to one another these days?



Violence and threats of violence seem to be part of the political landscape at this point. Packages are igniting, rocks thrown, bullets fired, all over what? How to be a better society? I think not. We live in (and support) a culture of violence in both word and deed. We should not be surprised by recent events.



Our media share a lot of responsibility in the current situation. Television networks like Fox News and MSNBC, conservative radio programs like Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage, liberal commentators on Air America, commentators who use sarcasm and poison to get position and ratings, all share in this. Yet, we can hear it now: “We can’t be responsible for ‘nut cases.’ “ No? Why not? Every media outlet knows ‘nut cases’ are out there and the media mentioned plays to them. It’s like saying we poured gasoline on a tinderbox and jumped up and down regarding the tinderbox itself and then said, “We have no responsibility” in the lighting of the match that sends it into flames. Right.



If we are to remain a civilized world (and this status is, at this point, questionable) we must be willing to listen to each other and get to the source of each other’s point of view. I fear at this stage of the process, the political landscape, which is to say, the landscape of every one of us, has been stained with hate. It is very challenging to be in the presence of those who dislike or hate us. Even more challenging to be willing to listen to their point of view with an open heart/mind.



Both Left and Right need to be less left or right and more for the common good. Precious little of that is evident these days. Yet, under it all, moral conscience is the fuel. We want to be a better society and have been de-railed by those who would rather have hot tempers gain ratings than cool heads solving problems. Maybe it is time to sit down together and shut up. Maybe it is time to listen and allow ourselves to care with compassion.

Be well



Rev. Dr. Harvey Daiho Hilbert

Abbot, Clear Mind Zen Temple

Las Cruces, NM

Gain

With palms together


Good Morning Everyone,



Mushotoku. This is something we all need to practice. It means practicing with no aim at all. It is, as Phillipe Coupey says, the philosophical essence of Soto Zen. What does it mean to practice with no aim, no idea of gaining anything, not even satori? It means releasing oneself from ideas.



We practice to practice and practice is all there is. In everyday life our practice is to be awake and present to everything: the feel of water on our hands as we wash them; the feel of toilet paper; the scent of the person we are sitting next to. Nothing escapes our attention and nothing sticks.



We might take issue with this. We might want more. We might come to this practice to become better people, healthier people, less troubled, less angry, or less stressed, but these will act as stains on our practice. Our want needs to drop away.



This practice begins and ends with you. In the beginning it is the small you, the “small mind” of your existence. In the end, it is the big you, the “Big Mind” of the universal that is present.



What was your face, the face you had before your father and mother were born? Is it possible to harm this face? Is it possible to kill this face? To abuse this face?



Hopefully a whisper in your ear: “No.”



Be well.

Awareness

With palms together




Good Morning Everyone,







Our Zen 101 group is doing well. Last night we discussed the passages of the Fukanzazengi that relate to the Buddha and Bodhidharma and how it was that they practiced Zazen. There is a Japanese word, Kakusoku, which refers to maintaining awareness. In Zazen, it is the effort of practicing not-thinking.







We sit with no particular aim in mind. We sit just to sit. Naturally, the world rushes to us in the form of sensations, thoughts, and feelings. We need to move. We need to check on something. Our body is not cooperating. Judgments arise: this is stupid, I hate zazen! What, is the timekeeper asleep?







Kakusoku means we notice and return to this moment, as it is, letting everything we are thinking, feeling, or otherwise sensing, fall away. Letting without deliberation. Letting in the sense of allowing. The reality of our world is that everything changes. Kakusoku is our actual experience of this.







The TV commercial asking “What’s in your wallet,” might be adapted here to “What’s in your mind?”







Or as I often say to myself, “What’s this?” with no expectation of following my answer except to ask again and again, "What's this?"







Be well.

prelude

With palms together




Good Morning Everyone,







Already it is a lovely morning. The temperature is a reasonable 32 degrees with signs that it will rise into the 50s. The sky is a clear blue. The sun is beginning to peak over the mountains. I have my running clothes laid out and ready. The coffee just finished being made. All is right here in the Mesilla Valley.







Zen is like that. Everything is itself. No pretense. Pretense is an anathema to true Zen. The coffee is made. A Zen teaching. The sun is in the sky. A Zen teaching. And the teaching itself? Life is to be lived and experienced directly. We do not shy away from this or that; this or that is our life.



So, time for a run. Let's do it!







Be well.

Practice

With palms together


Good Morning Everyone,



Yesterday afternoon after Zen services, Soku Shin, Suki, and I went for a desert hike. We ended up doing 4.2 miles over often very rough terrain. It was very good getting out and doing something physical. I have missed the awareness that comes with it: the air was crisp, the sun was high, and the sky very blue. A wonderful combo for a hike.



At the Temple I addressed that part of the Master Dogen’s Genjokoan that speaks to the study of the Buddha Way, the part that says, “To study the Buddha Way is to study the self” and “to study the self is to let the self fall away.” “To let the self fall away is to be realized by the myriad things.” So, the Buddha way is a selfless way, a way leading to unification with all things. And when we are unified? Does the we of We continue to be? Or is there just the all of All, leaving All empty, as well? I think it is so.



Long distance running, bicycling, entering a koan, becoming one with the mountains: such unifications leave no two. But no two means no one. And so? Dogen says a trace is left, emerging from our falling away. Awakening is a teaser, if you will, like a movie trailer, or the spots on the TV wetting your appetite for the next show. One cannot be without two; non-duality demands duality.



Good grief, when I talk like this I get a headache. Or I want to tape my mouth shut. It’s all so meaningless. What is meaningful? The sitting itself. The living itself. The doing, it’s the doing, that is important and meaningful, not the talking about the doing.



We manifest through our practice. So, for those who don’t sit, who don’t have the discipline to practice get a grip. Do what you do! Regardless of what comes up, be there. It’s our life.



Now that I have said this, I am saying I am also saying I am back in the training saddle.



Obligatory Running Note (ORN): 7/10ths mile at o’dark-thirty in the freezing cold of the New Mexico desert air.



Be well.