the night storm companion

its midnight blackness is almost dark enough to match the mood

falling rain raindrops are almost enough to mask the tears

the flashing of lightning and the crashing of thunder mock the need to lash out at anything that moves

the cool breeze that almost relieves the red heat of rage carries the bittersweet memories of other lights that have vanished into the night

the thunderstorm dwindles and to a fresh smell that is almost the fickle promise of a new day

The white heat of raging thought reflected in a single tear is not enough to stem the black velvet tide that engulfs all desire

the passing storm is only a brief familiar comfort allowing a slight catch of breath before the rising of the mourning sun

A funeral talk.

It is in times like these we stop to contemplate the great matter of life and death. Everything that is born also dies. As we say in my tradition right there in birth is death. When life is created, that life's eventual end is also created, when a relationship with another person is begun, its end is also created. All of us hope that between the beginning and the end there will a full life to fulfill the promise of the potentials that arise with each new thing.

The old masters of Buddhism sometimes ask the Koan (puzzle) what was your face before your parents were born? In the eastern cultures “face” does not mean just your eyes nose and mouth, it means the essence of who you are, including concepts of honor, bravery, honesty, attitude, and all the sorts of traits that go into making up what we think of as a person. Inherent in this question is the idea that who you are is beginning to be shaped before your parents are born. In our time and place we even say we want to know about our ancestry to get to know how we came to be who and where we are. It is not a great leap to move from “what was your face before your parents were born?” to what of your life carries on after our life here on earth comes to an end? A more modern way of saying this is that people live on in the legacy they leave. Those forces that started to shape our world and ourselves that began before our parents were born continue on after our grandchildren create our great grandchildren. The things that really matter about our lives, what we do in this world, have seeds that exist before our birth and flowers that bloom long after our death.

When I was reading the nice words Maj wrote about her mother Marian loving and tending flowers, it took me back to memories of my mother and her love of flowers and how she passed on that love to me, patiently teaching me about the smell of the clover, and the brown pollen one can get all over themselves from tiger lilies. We worked in the garden growing flowers and vegetables that never seemed to be allowed to grow to their full potential before children's hands picked them. Part of Saturday morning before I sat down to write this I spent teaching my Grandchildren about violets and tulips and dandelions. I am sure when my mother shared with me her love of flowers and nature, she was not thinking about the fact that years after her death, that love would be passed on to yet another generation, and that part of her that was this love would live on to brighten the lives of descendants she would not live to know. To this day I cannot see a clover without recalling my mother laying on the grass looking for another of the four leaf clovers she used to find so frequently in the lawn, and that eluded me in many hours of childhood searching of that same patch of lawn. Perhaps not all of my mother is to be found in a patch of clover, but you will never convince me that part of her is is not there as surely as part of her looks back at me in my grandchild's eyes.

I read once in some place or another.(like Marian I am a voracious reader) that there is in each of us an atom that was once in ever other human being that ever lived. This idea stuck in my head as I was at the time learning to see that not as much as I thought separated me from every other person. It sort of helped me to be more generous in my thoughts when I realized that part of what had been me was in every person I met, and would meet. Maybe at a time like this, it would help to begin to look for the atom of what was Marian in each person we meet.

The reality of my Mother was not all flowers and love however, and sometimes some parts of her legacy were not as pleasant for me to deal with. There was the part that was easily hurt, and quick to remember each slight. The part that would often recall for any who would listen each thing anyone else had ever done wrong. This is a part of my mother's legacy I do not wish to pass, and bless her heart, my mother would not wish to have passed on. Part of my life's work is to work with this legacy and heal the broken parts, and spread the parts that are whole and healing. I sort of feel I am healing my mother as I heal myself.

It occurs to me that in this way my mother is still growing and changing as each of us who were touched by her life grow and change. I am quite sure the same is true of Marian as well.

As I grow older and I begin to understand the answer to what my face was before my parents were born I find the more important question becomes “What will be your face after your great grandchildren die?”

Just like we have no control over the circumstances of our Grandparent's birth we really have no control over what happens after we leave this life. What we can control is what we do in this life. All of us are planting seeds whether we know it or not. Seeds that will flower sometimes long after we are gone. The truth is all we can do is plant the best we can, and hope that seeds grow on fertile ground.

do not seek an easy practice

Dear Readers,

I am going to have to ask some of you who have been around for a while to forgive me for repeating myself again and again...but I think it is time for another crack at post number 3. (sometimes I feel there are maybe five posts I just write over andover.....(1: get a teacher 2: yes you really need to bring this into your real life...and on and on a few more numbers.)

We seem to think there is a shortcut...that all we need do is to think the right thoughts, see the right things or even feel the right things......and poof.....so if we read enough books by Thich Nat Hanh or the Dalai Lama then we can be just like them. But Thich Nat Hanh's practice was tempered in a real war zone with grenades and bullets, and the Dalai Lama was driven from his country that he was responsible for and watched those friends under his protection tortured and killed.

Those who pretend to walk around as holy as the Dalai Lama and have not had their practice tested as deep and as hard have no idea whether or not they could respond like he or Thay did to their life practice. The fact is ....none of us knows what will hold up when push comes to
shove...we can only hope we will have the strength to stand as these men have. They have what some of us call "street cred"(cred is short for credibility)......they have proved themselves in the toughest going......and we simply have not. Even though what the Dalai Lama faces in his daily life now seems like a piece of cake compared to what happened earlier...it only seems so relatively. Without the hard stuff that went before...this is still the hardest thing we know....and if the hardest thing we know is living in the richest (or one of the richest) countries in the world ...then that is really not so hard after all.....no wonder it seems difficult to have to deal with a flat tire in rush hour...it is the worst thing to happen to us in ages.

When we have a practice that does not work even in the mildest of conditions to keep us on a stable footing on the path......then we lack "street cred".

The native American elder who I used to work with always says "If your religion does not grow corn...then it is useless". If when you are depressed and looking at that bottle of wine...or when your friends are over and you have a hard time saying no...and you wind up drunk on the
floor and in some trouble...then you lack the "street cred"....your religion does not work for you when the going gets rough...and what you are offering to others is a fraud. The problem is ...the only way to know if your way works when the going gets tough is to actually practice in some tough places. This does not mean that we need to deliberately seek out difficult things....life has a way of handing us difficult things to deal with even in the nicest of places. What we need to
understand though......is when we talk about how abused we were as a child..........we are not going to have much street cred with some 12 year old girl who has had her clitoris cut off and has been a sex slave for 6 years already in some third world country....so we have to also
take a look at our credibility when we speak. We have to gain an understanding about the depth of our own practice and seek our own level and not try to preach to those who will not believe we have any credibility to speak to them.

The thing is......the more we have suffered, the more credibility we have when we talk about how to relieve suffering. The Dalai Lama and Thich Nat Hanh have a whole lot of street cred.....almost anyone wants to have the results of their practice....but no one wants to have to go through what they did to get it.....the problem is ....you cannot borrow someone else's credibility ...it is not yours to share or offer....you can only offer your own....and if what you have does not work in a warm apartment on a gloomy day....it does not have much credibility to a pregnant child in a planned parenthood clinic....no matter if you borrowed one of Thay's books to hand out ....or the latest wisdom from the Dalai Lama. I doubt even Thay would hand out one of his books in that situation ...even though he has more right to do so than we do.....he would probably sit down and hold a hand and stay till no one needed to hold a hand any longer. If he said anything it would probably be words of comfort....spoken in his own words directly to the heart of the person who's hand he holds.

So .......when push comes to shove ...and we are calm...and able to pass through it without getting stuck....then we gain a little credibility....and we then can help others through that particular situation.....because it is not the way that fails if we cannot ...it is
us.....and no matter how well we negotiated the last trial...we still have no idea how well we will negotiate the next one....and we must, if we wish to lead others through it...inspire confidence in those we wish to lead. I do have faith through my practice that this way works in some
pretty tough times..........so...if you want one way that works......this is one.

I have had too good karma to have passed a test in a battle...or to have starved in a third world country.....I cannot really speak to post traumatic stress syndrome, or slavery, or even imprisonment. (though in my naivety I have tried in the past). This stuff we end up dealing with
here is basically a kindergarten practice.....I do not aspire to be the Dalai Lama because I do not wish to be tested as deep and hard as he was....I am fine with being a kindergarten teacher. I will never be great as these men because my karma is too good......a thing I am thankful for every day.

I was raised in a violent and abusive family situation...my father drank all the time and beat my mother almost as frequently; we were physically abused. Yet I lived in a free country in a warm house, with clothes to wear and an education for free within walking distance ........Compared to some in the world....this would have been the best childhood they could imagine.

It is not a surprise to me that compared to Thich Nat Hanh...I lack a little street cred.........to some it seems a surprise to them that they do.

So...I do not care what you think ....I only care if you can walk your path through a little difficulty.....because compared to some..if you have a computer and access to electricity your difficulty is going to be little compared to theirs. If you cannot handle an email list, you
cannot handle life, and if you cannot handle life, you have no business in other people's business. So now you "have seen the light"......how about you go about and get a little street cred before you try and thrill an audience that has seen the same show before....before you comeon here and try to sound like the Dalai Lama ...how about you demonstrate a little bit of his actual practice?....otherwise you come off as an actor playing a part.......like a con....a liar.......dishonest. If you do not talk about moon being moon with your homies...do not put it on here for us....it just sounds fake because it is.

If all you can really talk about is how you could stub your toe and continue walking the path...then talk about that...and those who might stub their toes will benefit.....and you will have the benefit of sounding and being authentically what you are.

No..... I do not sound like a Japanese Zen master....I do not talk like the Dalai Lama...nor Thich Nat Hanh.......I never will........if you are looking for that....go someplace else...if you feel that is lacking here fine...but if you are going to say something say something honest...do
not borrow Thay's wisdom or the words of the Dalai Lama. Perhaps it would be better if you go off and develop a practice as tried and tested as Thay's and then bring your own wisdom here.....then we would honor it.........In case you have not noticed......we only pick on those who
try and come off like the Dalai Lama is their younger spiritual sibling after they have had a whole five minutes of insight, and little or no actual practice.

Interesting isn't it? Thich Nat Hanh had a teacher..the Dalai Lama had a teacher, Dogen, Bodhidarma, Nagarajuna and Ananda had a teacher....the Sixth Patriarch had a teacher....and for those in the know (a little esoteric secret here) even Shakyamuni had a teacher....he is the Sixth
name on my lineage chart....not the first.....seems a little bit....well ....arrogant to think we can get it by reading a book and pondering a bit on our own doesn't it?

All right...this got longer than I had planned it to....and maybe a bit of post #1 and post #2 got worked in there as well.....but I guess it is what it is. It took pretty much all my free time today to get this whipped into some sort of shape....the grandson was needy today.......what an honor to be the one who can offer comfort in a time of difficulty.....makes passing through a bit of difficulty yourself seem like a small price to pay.

Be Well

Fudo

a little brad warner

Here is a quote from an article by Brad Warner on the common ground
website. http://commongroundmag.com/2007/06/tunein0706.html for the
full article.

"
"Nobody's tricked you, you moron," they'd say. "You know what the
truth is. Stop being such a bonehead, and take an honest look at
yourself." Gensa didn't need a Learned Zen Master to tell him he was
in pain when he stubbed his toe that day. And you don't need anyone to
tell you what your life really is either. You sure as heck don't need
me. I cannot possibly tell you anything you don't already know. You
probably agree, since, if you're like most people, you think I'm an
idiot. But you probably also think that somewhere out there in the
land where books are written is someone way cooler and tons more
spiritually advanced than me who can tell you something you don't
already know. Keep right on looking. The publishing industry loves you."

Brad is recounting the tale of Gensa, a monk who gets all upset and is
ready to leave the fricking temple when he stubs his toe on the way
out the gate....and finally understands that he has been deluding
himself that his body is just an illusion, and there is only one who
can delude him...and he will no longer be able to do that anymore.

I just thought I might share this ...for those of you who think the
word moron is not something a Zen priest should say....That no kind of
Buddhist monk would talk like I do.....not only does Brad say it....he
says his teacher's said it to him.

Maybe some of us can fool ourselves into thinking that all Buddhist
monks are sweet and tender, loving teachers who wrap their arms
tenderly around everyone who shows up at the gate.....Here is just a
little point to who is really deluding who.

Many people come here and think that because they fool themeselves,
they can fool me, and all the rest of the rest of the list.

All I ask is that you come here in honesty...and do not ask questions
intended to decieve, muddy the water, or keep yourself in your
delusion because you can delude yourself into thinking you can blame
someone or something else for your misery.

Do not come here and ask questions like "If a man has no teacher, no
sangha, and by chance wakes up, is it not right that he should seek
confirmation from the sources available to him?" ...who exactly do you
think you are fooling? No one really honestly talks like that. The
language is designed to deceive.

Being real and honest.....that is one mark. "I just can't be deceived
by others." and the corollary....I no longer wish to decieve myself
nor others.

Sorry...but anyone with a true awakening would run not walk to the
nearest person who might be able to confirm, and present themselves as
honestly and fully as they could. The internet would leave too much
room for even accidental deception. It could never be sufficent. So
then answer is in the question. A man who by chance wakes up..would
not be without teacher nor sangha for long. Ergo....no teacher no
sangha...no demonstration of awakening...ergo no realized awakening
(awakening made real...realization). All that has been demonstrated by
chance is a dream of realization...and the dream is not enough.

Perhaps we might look to the Sixth patriarch...who awakened (perhaps
by chance) to a monk's chanting of the Diamond sutra. He left as soon
as he could to find a teacher and a temple to practice in. When he was
not found suitible to practice with the real monks...he cut bamboo in
the garden just to be near the teacher and the temple, when it came
time to pick the teacher's successor....it was his poem that won the
robe...and he had to sneak off in the dark so as not to cause the
"real monks" to murder him in their jealousy. Even so they gave chase
and could not find him. In the story there is never a hint that there
is something wrong with the system......the sixth patriarch could not
be deceived. His teacher could not be deceived...certainly not by others.

Be Well

Fudo

something little you could do

For those of us who are frustrated and angry with our government for some of the things that have been
going...or for Washington as a whole........a congress that debates instead of acts....a president who does
not feel the need to lead....those of us who feel disenfranchised and unheard I propose a way to be heard.

Let us do a little thing. Let us go to the funeral of those who live in our town, or near our town who are killed
in the undeclared war in Iraq, let us go to the funeral of anyone killed in the war on terror that we are able to
attend....the government and the media are not interested in us seeing the flag draped caskets. Perhaps...if say a
hundred or so too many to get into the church show up at a funeral..there will at least be local coverage of the event.
If more manage to show up......so much the better......but what would be the effect on our senators and representatives
if they had to hold soldier's funerals in sports stadiums and hire off duty police to direct traffic?...if downtown got
shutdown due to traffic? Could your school flunk you for missing class to attend a funeral?....what would happen to an employer
who was not patriotic enough to let his or her employees attend funerals of fallen soldiers? Who could accuse you of not
supporting the troops, or not being patriotic....come ...wave a flag if you wish.....could your senator or representative afford to be less patriotic
than a few lefties?.....could anyone fault you for wanting to honor those who died in your name?..could others be shamed into taking care
of the injured....if we lined up at the hospitals to watch the ambulances roll in?

We could, of course, all put a dollar in an offering basked for the family of the deceased. We could volunteer at the hospitals until they could not
help to change something do deal with the lines of volunteers that snaked for blocks around rehab hospitals. There are many more things we could
do...but we could start here....just go to a funereal.....one.........

So now ...do not tell me you are helpless..do not tell me you have no idea what you can do. Now that the idea has been shared........the rest is up to you.

I am a child of the 60s and 70s...I remember when a rag tag small group of students demonstrated on my campus...the ruckus in the press was weeks in the debate.......
what more effect could mothers and grandmothers, vets and bank tellers, grandfathers and fathers have?......what issue can all of us come together on if it is not that those who have died or
sacrificed loved ones or body parts in our name deserve our respect?

Be Well

Fudo

on western Zen, and Buddhism as a whole

One of the difficulties of transmitting a way across cultures, is that there are things that do not transfer. We westerners are terribly myopic...what happens here and what we think about it is all that is important....we wandered into a recent war because we could not see beyond our own borders to what would happen if we set off alone to persue something most of the rest of the world found abhorent.

There are Buddhists in the world today who do still think the medical professions are indeed not right livelihood. There are more Buddhists in the world who feel the highest ranking woman should bow to the lowest ranking man than there are who think there should be equality between the sexes...My fellow monks in Japan could not comprehend the fact that there were women in the west who wanted to be nuns....Japanese nuns tend to be orphans who are raised by a temple...few women in Japan would seek to be a priest or a monk...and they certainly would not be encouraged by the Zen community to seek such an ill fitting path...In Japan the group is more important than an individual to this day..the group just looks funny if female forms are underneath the robes...there is a small minority that feels differently ..but this is still the prevailing attitude..... There are probably as many Buddhists in the world today who still think it is impossible to be enlightened while in a female body as there are who think the sex of one's body does not matter......these are the facts........pretending they are not true because we do not see them does not make them go away...

This being said, not every so called "good" solution we in the west have attempted is in fact an improvement. Some of the quaint things we have discarded have in fact been part of the baby that has been discarded with the bathwater.

Saying the sex of the body does not matter does nothing about adapting methods and teachings that have primarily been for one sex to the new way.......there is not a lot about how to handle sexuality in the sangha (an issue the Buddha tried hard to avoid)in what has been brought to this shore.... and not addressing this in the new way will lead to a whole new set problems as we move forward.......witness all the problems of a sexual nature that have occured here in the west...that just do not seem to be that much of an issue in Japan........should men and women practice together an how is not a question that can really be anwered by "of course" without developing some kind of definintions of what is appropriate and how to actually bring this "of course" into a real functioning sangha.

One of the teachings I was exposed to in Japan was about begging and offerings......there is a basic teaching in Buddhism from the first about begging....which was dismissed as "difficult" in America for example.....since the practice is fairly unpleasant for the monk...no one really tries to hard to find a way to incorporate this practice in the west.....and many excuses as to why it cannot be done are offered.....there are things you learn while begging..especially if you are taught to beg in the traditional Buddist way...that you stop at every house..not just the rich or likely to respond ones...that you accept every offering.....nothing is spurned....if you are given a shot of saki..you knock it back...sometimes this is a source of entertainment for some less than respectful people in Japan..to force the monk to compromise the vow not to drink intoxicants and to throw them into conflict with the precepts and the practice about drink....but when the shot is just swallowed a lesson is presented to all who are there. It also breeds a less....well rigid and less easy to understand and interpret view of the precepts...In begging we are taught to sacrifice our honor, our face, our pride, our expectations and our beliefs for what is considered a greater good...there is no such training in most of the Sanghas I have visited in the west. No one wants to go begging....it is intersting to me that when I found a way to actually go begging in America...my experience of begging was virtually the same...about as many of the people gave..about the same average amount..about as many drove me away, about as many taunted me...about as many appreciated what I was doing ...and about as many were led to approach me and ask about what was going on....in spite of all the logic offered as to why we could not do this practice in America....I found it not all that hard to accomplish...when I wanted to.

In the west we practice according to our preference...and style triumphs over substance. I do not know how you become egoless doing exactly as your ego wishes you to do......in Japan we did things we did not want to do at all....all the time....and it was good for us...and we learned we did not need to indulge our egos in every moment....I am waiting to see this idea transfer to the west...so far the effort seems feeble, and the way more about feeding our ego rather than slowly starving it.

It seems to me this is the very baby of Zen.....and it has been tossed with the bathwater. Perhaps it is time to look again beyond the front door of our countries borders, and see if the baby on the ground there is still alive enough to bring back into our lives.

Maybe it would be better to examine some of the conflicts and resolve them to pretend they do not exist. One of the practical problems presented in the modern world presents itself in choices I am offered right now...I have two teachers who have offered to transmit teacher's robes to me...One is respected in Japan, but has problems with many here in America. One is a man and one is a woman. One is fairly well respected in a tiny community in the West, but will never be respected by the establishment in Japan. One is condsidered a respectible member of a long and well established lineage....one is considered a less than desireable member of an old lineage. One would be an international bridge to help bring the old ways to the west..and in the short term an advantage to the idea of planting the dharma in a wide way in the west...one I think really has it...and is going to plant deep the roots...that will take generations to earn respect, and likely be leader of a very small group for a very long time...and if they ever gain notice..it will be long after they are dead..

Interestingly ...both have begged with a bowl....for hours in hot robes and straw sandals...in the hot sun....in tropical humidity.

I have recieved the precepts in two lineages....now I can choose which shade my teacher's robes will be......"once basic approaches are determined...then there are guiding rules"....I am a metaphor for Zen in the west....we too have yet to determine our basic approach....I am grieved that many seem to be choosing an approach that indulges ego in order to raise the funds necessary to earn a living in the west. An approach that feeds the ego, rather than working to bring it under our control, one where style triumphs over substance, and one where only offerings of sufficent quality and quantity are acceptible.

Be Well

Fudo

keeping promises and the precepts

Recently I was exposed to someone preparing to take the precepts for the first time....in their excitement
and enthusiasm of the impending event...and after a long preparation the person in an excess of
that enthusiasm chose to share their insight into the majesty of the precepts.

Now I do not know how it works in other places with other people, but when I say I have transmitted
the precepts to another person......I do not mean that I have given them a list of several instructions on
how to live their life.....I mean that the person in question has at least demonstrated a basic understanding
of the nature of the vows that they are taking.

I can understand the precepts being offered in the hope that the person in question will come to some sort of
understanding at some possible future date.......but I feel that is like asking a person in the court of law to swear
they will tell the truth and nothing but the truth someday.

In case you have not figured it out...the precepts are a koan. They are impossible to keep. Much effort is
spent in trying to rationalize all this out...but like all koans.....the effort is futile....by the time you pull the first precept
out of memory and dust it off...the moment to act according to its guidelines is already passed. "do not kill"...you have to
kill....if you do not kill something else...you will kill yourself.

Chase your tail on that one for as long as you wish.....but it ends up throwing you back into life as it is...completely.
In order to keep this simple precept, you have to leap beyond it ....and just kill killing. Before I can transmit the precepts
to you, you have to kill the precepts. This has been said many ways one famous one....."if you see the Buddha walking down the
road, kill him"....how can you reconcile that one with do not kill?

I do not know about other teachers, but I will not transmit the precepts to anyone who thinks ....that eating vegetables is living according to
the precepts. Or that not going to war is living according to the precepts...or that it is impossible to be a butcher, or a farmer , or even a gardener
while still being living according to the precepts....or that kind speech has to be quiet or pleasing to the ears.

Every time someone tries to pull the precepts on me....I wonder who transmitted the precepts to them..........as for me?....Shoken Winecoff Roshi...and Narasaki
Tsugen Roshi. Someday I would like to find someone to transmit what I was offered to...it is sort of an obligation.......so I poke about ....waving a stick....
looking for someone whom I can seal as having glimpsed the koan....or at the very least...understands that the vows are impossible to keep, and that they have just been handed
a koan that will never be completely solved.

Be Well

Fudo