In the Still of the Night

With palms together,

Good Morning Everyone,

There are nights while, when sitting still, the universe reveals itself. It seems to whisper in the stillness as if its breath comes from the lips of God.  On such nights I am comforted by such fancy thoughts, knowing full well the universe and the breeze are just the universe and the breeze. Still, the comfort comes.

I listened to a rant by Bill Maher earlier about the story of Noah.  Bill was beside himself.  He cannot believe human beings actually believe this story and take it as the literal truth.  Frankly, neither can I.  However, Bill nearly always misses the point, blinded as he is by his hatred of religion as he understands it. I admit, if my understanding of God and religion were as shallow and superficially fundamentalist as his, I would hate them as well. The thing is, God is a concept (pardon me John), But what that concept hides is something else again. 

To offer an example:  I am Harvey, yet “Harvey” is a concept.  What is Harvey is far more or less than the concept “Harvey.” It would be a mistake to think that Harvey, in the concrete, empirical sense, is Harvey in the metaphysical sense.  One is a finger pointing to the other. What we need is to understand one is not the other.

Sitting outside under the stars in the middle of the night allows for something to emerge.  What shall we call it?  Rudolf Otto called it the mysterium tremendous in his seminal book, The Idea of the Holy. We can touch this only when we have released our own protective coverings.  When “body/mind fall away.” And when this actually happens?  Words fail us: not even the moon is the moon anymore.

When I listen to Bill, or any other fundamentalist, I feel for them because I know their ownership of their ideas is locked up tight and as such they will never truly be alive…or awake. Instead they will self-righteously miss the poetry as the universe itself recites.

Here’s a link to his rant: Bill

Be well

Eyes

With palms together,

Good Morning Everyone,

It is a Saturday morning and I have been awake since about 2:30 or so.  Funny how that works: the earlier I wake, the earlier I fall asleep at night, the earlier I wake…and so on.  I was playing chess online with a friend in California through the early morning.  She won.  This is good.  She really needed to win.  

Sometimes we need something good to happen, something to help us along in feeling the world is a good place. Now I’m not suggesting that winning a game of chess in the middle of the night is such a thing, but it helps.  Yet, here’s the thing: when we feel as though the world around us sucks (and often there is ample personal evidence this is so) it is also true that the world around us is everything but sucky.  New born babies, freshly blooming flowers, stories of children doing incredible things, and the countless random acts of kindness that become visible when we have eyes to see.

And that’s the key, isn’t it? To get eyes that can see.  What are eyes that can see?  Eyes without filters, eyes that see clearly, that reflect exactly and only what is there.  But there’s more.  These eyes must not be attached to a self.  They are the eyes of a buddha.

May our eyes open today. 

Be well  

Roshi's New Book!

Living Zen, the Diary of an American Zen Priest, is now available on Amazon.com in paperback!

Please give it a view and review at Amazon.com!  Click here.


Thank you very much!
Gassho

Amazon Rules!

Apparently Amazon.com has taken it upon itself to lower the asking price of my book!  It lists at $16.95 and they are selling it much cheaper!  Enjoy!

My Book is now available on Kindle

Hello All,

My book is now available for Kindle download.    

It is priced at $9.95

 Be well!

My book is now available!

With respect, 

My book, "Living Zen: the Diary of an American Zen Priest," is now available for purchase.  Just go to Amazon.com and type in my name, "Harvey Daiho Hilbert" or the book title.  I am pleased with it and am thankful to both students Heather and Tucker for their very generous assistance copy editing the text.  Best wishes, Daiho

Musings

With palms together,

Good Morning Everyone,

Someone reminded me yesterday that I promised a flood of email teachings after receiving my MacBook Pro for my birthday.  No flood is coming.  I have, however, been working on my book, “Living Zen: the Diary of an American Zen Priest,” and it should be ready for distribution in a week.  I have a “proof” copy in my hands and will tell you that it looks good.  Its hefty, weighing in at 410 pages, and I’m told it is an interesting read.  

The book is an edited collection of my writing from the year 2007.  It includes my understanding of my life at that time and how my life and Zen became one. There are teachings on a variety of issues, the Diamond sutra, the Paramitas, Zazen, etc., but more importantly for me, anyway, is that they reflect my reflection on how Zen offers us teachings regarding ourselves as we interact with the world.  

Zen is not a thing.  It is life itself.  Life lived awake and direct.  From a Zen point of view, everything is a teacher, a source of awakening.  How we live, where our mind is in any given moment, is all there is: it is this that we practice.  All the rest, the robes, bells, altars, incense, all of it is just an invitation to enter the stream. 

I’ve found many of us reject these invitations.  And with good reason.  The objects and rituals are not the thing so attachment to them is just as serious a mistake as attachment to mu, perhaps an even larger mistake.  Attachment to forms make us impostors. Consider that.  

For those who reject the invitations, may I ask you to reconsider.  For those who accept the invitations, may I ask you to reconsider, as well. I ask you, by way of invitation, to just live.

Gassho

PS, we will meet in the zendo this evening at 6:30 for Study.  Please remember to bring your book.  I think it is time to wrap up this text and choose another.