Medicine

The Buddha taught a method for keeping stress out of our lives. Until the summer my job and home life was laden with such stress, so I practised a lot, and hey, it worked - potential stress was often nipped in the bud and present stress was generally dissolved. I was less stressed when I remembered to practise than when I did not. Result!

But here's my dilemma. My home life has become easier, owing to a change in my wife's professional situation, and my own job has recently improved, owing to a little down-shifting I arranged - so in my life as a whole, much less stress arises. Feeling thus healthier, I am taking my Zen "medicine" less regularly. Yet I still think of myself as a Buddhist, and Buddhists practise regularly,  right?

Ok, everything changes, so these good times cannot last. I know that. But in the meantime, what should a Buddhist do when his life is going well?

Walk On!

I remember a scene from an old Popeye cartoon, back when they made feature length cartoon for the theaters (15-30 minutes). In this scene, Popeye was chasing a mysterious creature that started up some stairs that were simply floating in the sky.

Going up the stairs Popeye noticed that as he went to the next stair the stair he just stepped from had vanished. He was now high in the air and there was no turning back, even the stair he was on was dissolving, his only choice was to move forward.

This is the nature of time, there is only the step you are standing on (which is dissolving) and the next one you will take, everything else is an illusion.

We cannot go back, nor can we stand still, our only choice is to take the next step.

Fun

Is Zen supposed to be fun?

Anger

How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it?--Marcus Aurelius

So much of our suffering is generated by our own anger. Not just the anger of rage, but the slow simmering anger generated by jealousy, resentment, aggravation and judgment. Anger is purely a product of the mind, no one makes you angry, it is all your own. What purpose does it serve to be angry?

Letting go of anger, how simple it is to free ourselves of so much suffering.

To master our anger is to master our lives.

“Anger will never disappear so long as thoughts of resentment are cherished in the mind. Anger will disappear just as soon as thoughts of resentment are forgotten.”
--Siddhartha Gautama

Life

My wife asked me an interesting question the other day - "How does your Zen practice affect your real life?"

Putting aside any Zennish navel-gazing about the meaning of "real" - I think we all know what she meant by the word - it is a fundamental question. No point doing it unless it has some positive affect.

To be honest, she asked because my job has been difficult for a while and so I've very much not been floating around smiling serenely like the Dalai Lama. Thus the only honest answer I could give was, "It makes me less of an arse than I would be without it."


What about you? How does your Zen practice affect your real life?

Who is Your Master?

Who is your master?
Who makes you suffer the torment of the world?
Who has imprisoned you with their thoughts or words?
Who is Mara and why does he sit under the Bodhi Tree?

What is a Buddha?

A question has arisen in a koan exchange in which I've been participating. It's a question I've asked without necessarily knowing the answer! I'd be interested in what you people think - and so, doubtless, would be my koan combat partner! Here it is:-



If I let go of perfection, am I a Buddha?

Practice as an Attachment

My spiritual journey has been a very diverse endeavor. I remember when I decided to return to practicing Zen beyond just zazen, I searched for a sangha in my local community and found a Zen center. I was thrilled and contacted them right away. I was informed I would need to attend a mandatory class before I would be able to attend and sit with the group. Thinking that was for people unfamiliar with zazen, I let them know I had been practicing meditation for a minimum of 20 years. “It doesn’t matter. You have to come to the class, and we aren’t doing another class for a couple of months.” I wondered what could be so incredibly critical about sitting as to require such deep instruction. Had I crossed into the Twilight Zone of Buddhism? I wondered. Through the years I have heard similar stories from many frustrated zenners. “I was so panicked about making sure I was doing everything just right that I couldn’t meditate!”

I also remember the time when I was doing my chaplain training in a hospital in central Texas and was called for a “Buddhist consult.” It turned out to be a pregnant woman who was about to have a C-section. She was concerned because of the precept that “forbids clouding one’s mind,” and she was concerned that she would be “violating the precept” if she allowed herself to receive spinal anesthesia.

An attachment is more than an addiction, more than an unhealthy connection. It is anything that inhibits our growth and progression. When one is more concerned about bowing correctly, if they’ve faced the correct direction, if they’re in the correct order of entry than they are about being fully immersed in the moment, in zazen or kinhin, than I would call that an attachment. Something the Bible summed up nicely as choking on gnats.

There can be too much of an attachment to the cultural trappings of the practice of Buddhism. The Buddha, before his enlightenment, shaved his head as a symbol of releasing himself from worldliness and attachments. Today some question why a monk doesn’t shave their head. Some quibble that we are “watering Zen down” when someone dares wear a robe of a color other than black. Others are so firmly attached to the concepts of lineage and dharma heirdom that they lose sight of the key components of Buddhist practice: Compassion and wisdom.

When Siddhartha Gautama sat beneath the bodhi tree, I highly doubt he worried about if he bowed to the earth appropriately. He extricated himself from all that he possibly could and opened himself to this breath, this second, until he discovered how to unshackle all sentient beings from suffering. If we look at the Eightfold Noble Path, we do not find instructions on the incense ceremony, on prostrations, on the correct pattern for walking into the dojo. Practices, ceremonies, etc., are tools. They can help us focus, help us settle into a special space, but when we place them above or equal to all other things, we tighten that which binds us to samsara. This moment, this breath. This is truly all that matters.

Ishu Kinshu

Doubt

Harry has asked if someone with Dojin Roku posting rights can post a question on his behalf. As he's just agreed to give the dharma talk in our winter sesshin - if you're in England on December 19th, feel free to join us! - I do owe him one, so here's his question:

What is the place of DOUBT in Buddhist practice?

If it was good enough for Him...

Master,

The Buddha left his wife and son in order to search for enlightenment.
I have a wife and son. Should I do likewise?

What does Zen teach about God?

I get asked this question a LOT, along with "Do you believe in God?"

Zen is the art of being totally immersed in the moment. This second, this breath is all we have. Everything else is illusion. In Zen we attempt to strip away all the fluff, all the unnecessary wrappings that hold us back from full awakening. So what many will call my overly simplistic response is: "We don't worry about things like that." If you knew for a matter of fact, with every cell of your body that God did not exist, would you change the way you live? So far everyone I have asked have said no. Then? The Buddha taught that all sentient beings have everything they need within them. When we seek externally, we hold ourselves back.

Developing compassion to the point where all our thoughts, deeds, actions, our very essence are ruled by compassion and wisdom is the utmost expression of our buddha nature. So I would say if someone's answer to the question above was "Yes," they have more work for the cushion, and that it is more important than the other existential questions we can become bogged down with.

Ishu Kinshu

Finding a standpoint

I was talking to a dharma friend today. She guessed we were almost in the same standpoint regarding buddhism.

I immediately asked myself where my standplace was. When I first contacted the Boundless Way school I was making a slow attempt of transition from theravada to chan/zen. I didn't know if I would succeed and through this time I've been strongly based on the teachings of the Pali Canon. With time I've learnt to discuss, question and defend certain viewpoints, creating in this way a kind of identity, which as with all sense of identity is subject to decay and death.

Some place in the process I feel like I lost contact with something essential. Something I can only get in contact through abandoning what I've learnt, what I have, what I am... standing alone, naked and in silence, shading light into it until it reveals itself, wandering along, finding no standpoint, just as leaves do not say "my true nature is green" or "my true nature is yellow" in this boundless empty field.

It has nothing to do with buddhism or any other -ism. Becoming proficient in defending a certain view has nothing to do with it either. If it had, it would be like setting boundaries to the boundless. It cannot be done, no matter how hard one tries.

Seeking a home, seeking a refuge I was worried about where my standpoint was and thus my mouth was dry like a desert. My feet treading the boundless way, the sky as the limits of my head, where could worry find a standpoint?

Do not squander your life!

To end our evening practice at Open Gate,
we recite the following gatha:

Let me respectfully remind you,
Life and death are of supreme importance,
Time passes swiftly and opportunity is lost.
Each of us should strive to awaken,
Awaken, take heed! Do not squander your life.

What exactly does it mean to awaken?
How do we know when we are awakened?
How do we know when someone else is awakened?
Despite all our years of practice;
If we never see ourselves as being awakened,
have we simply "squandered" our lives?

Karmic Ripples

Someone who came to zazen last night said something that has bearing on the last post about service - and also on the debate we had some months ago about missionary activity.

To recap  that debate, some thought you should meditate lots yourself so you become deeply fine and that this would both set an example to others and make one better company for the rest of the planet; others (a minority on this blog) felt part of the Bodhisattva path lay in sharing those techniques with anyone who showed even the slightest willingness to listen. Spiritual hermits v Buddha's Witnesses.

Last night a lady came to meditate who hadn't sat with the group for three years. Three years ago I put on my Buddha's Witnesses hat and did a leaflet drop of the neighbourhood. She took a zazen lesson, sat a couple of times with the group, then disappeared. A-ha! Kaishin clearly a rubbish meditation teacher! He should not be teaching but still should be sitting on his own, perfecting himself!

Yeah, true about me not being up there with the Dalai Lama. BUT...
What happened is she met at zazen a vipassaana practitioner, who gave her a leaflet. Now, despite my limitations as a teacher, the taste she got of the fruits of meditation was enough to make her want more, so she took up the leaflet's offer of a free 10 day retreat. Three years on and she's been there more than once and meditation is the rock upon which her life is founded.

So you don't have to be able to levitate before you teach people to meditate. Clearly I have flaws as a teacher and/or zendo leader, or she'd have stayed with "my" group. However, the karmic fruit of introducing her to the meditation scene was very great. Just think - if I'd been terribly modest and NOT posted those "come and learn" leaflets, if I'd worried whether I was yet perfect enough - that positive change in her life wouldn't have happened.

So if you're not dipping your toe in the lake for fear you're not pure enough, think about the wonderful karmic ripples you could be setting in motion...but are not.

At your service . . .

"We must be the change we wish to see in the world"

-Gandhi

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

-Margaret Mead


Many Buddhists are under the impression that they are making the world a better place through their Buddhist practice. If these people were formerly spending their time looting, raping, and pillaging, and their practice has helped them to stop doing these things, then they are right. Otherwise, their practice is, in all likelihood, only helping to maintain the status quo. But keeping the world from becoming a worse place is not the same thing as making it a better place.

While using Buddhist practice to calm and center yourself is a good place to start, truly improving the world requires moving beyond the meditation cushion, beyond the zendo or temple, and actively engaging in a life of service. The Buddha himself recognized this when, after his enlightenment, he passed up the chance to live a peaceful, reclusive life and decided instead to spread peace by helping others to wake up as well. He spent the bulk of his life in service as a teacher, counselor, and advisor, and the fruits of this service are still evident 2600 years later.

So, I challenge you to serve. Move beyond the mere intellectual understanding that we are all connected into an active realization of this fact. Pick up trash in the streets and parks. Buy a homeless person a meal. Teach meditation to prisoners. The possibilities are endless - but you have to start somewhere. In time, you may even find that an hour of service can be a more effective practice than 10 hours spent in meditation.

Be the change.

What will you do?

Gutei's Finger

There's a koan I've been struggling with - and I'm struggling with it not for the first time, either! I do some koan exchange, so I know I'm not the only person who finds this one rather challenging. I'd thus be grateful if as many of you as possible could suggest what you think we're supposed to learn from the koan of Gutei's finger. Here's the koan:

Gutei raised his finger whenever he was asked a question about Zen. A boy attendant began to imitate him in this way. When anyone asked the boy what his master had preached about, the boy would raise his finger.

Gutei heard about the boy's mischief. He seized him and cut off his finger. The boy cried and ran away. Gutei called and stopped him. When the boy turned his head to Gutei, Gutei raised up his own finger. In that instant the boy was enlightened.

When Gutei was about to pass from this world he gathered his monks around him. `I attained my finger-Zen,' he said, `from my teacher Tenryu, and in my whole life I could not exhaust it.' Then he passed away.

So please tell me - what's that all about?

First there is a Mountain, then there is No Mountain, then there is…

A couple posts back, I quoted the Dharmapada and asked if anyone actually believed that we create the world with our thoughts. I was surprised when the only response was a cleaver “set up” from Kaishin, whereby he introduced a scenario where he would be struck in the head by a meteorite. Was this meteorite his doing? Or was being struck in the head just his Karma for being such a smart-aleck?

But since that time this whole issue has arisen under a completely different posting and under another topic, Karma. Harry and I have had some wonderful commentary bouncing back and forth and I realized that this is just too heady of a subject to not be resurrected.

According to the Dharmapada the Buddha stated:

“We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.”

Did the Buddha actually mean that we create the world with our thoughts? Or was he just speaking metaphorically? Do our thoughts actually manifest physically in the world? Even those we do not act upon? What about volition? Can we plead not guilty, just because we meant no harm? And what does this have to do with Karma?

A Hard Question

This dilapidated man sits with his cardboard sign on the edge of a busy corner. Dirt and rain and car exhaust all in a dark marbled pattern on his face, his beard a matted mess. I find I can never avoid making eye contact with these folks, year in and year out, this country and in others - Spain and Ecuador, India and China, Bolivia, Peru.... And in eye contact there is connection, always. And then my unknowing and hesitation, questions about my being in relation to theirs, my action in relation to their being.

This being human is complicated sometimes.

Bodhisattva,

What is right speech?

What is right action?

A Simple Question

It's a small question, but it'll be interesting to see the range of replies. References to flax and plum trees are forbidden. So, to you,

What is Zen?

The temple bell echoes across the valley

I received the task of listening to the echoes of the temple bell. Difficult when there is no valley here, and no bell either. But I sit down and listen.

Listening, sounds appear, perception is refined. Listening changes as so do echoes: there is the humming of the heating system; or my daughter breathing deeply as she falls asleep; or a passing car out there in the far distance; or the church bell...

What is the source of these sounds?

The listened is seen.

Not with the eyes.

Without warning, not predicting it, another temple bell echoes across the valley: the breathing process. This is not heard, but rather felt. Breathing in and out is the bell echoing; the body is the valley. The echoing is seen moving up and down the valley, in and out, deeper and deeper.

The body is the bell

struck by the breathing

its sound is totally empty

But, what is the source of this sound?

There is only one bell in the temple. It fills the whole universe. It sounds, vibrates and echoes in itself: heating system, breathing in and out, daughter sleeping, body feeling, passing car... all this just echoing across the valley, which is a bell, echoing across the valley, which...

what is the source of this sound?

The emperor stays in palace. 

The general goes beyond the frontiers.

---

The picture is borrowed from The Boundless Mind Zen website