ango continued.

Well it has been a while though time seems to flow together in ango where most days are pretty much the same. Several folks came by to practice with us for a week and it was good to have some numbers to help split up the work.It was good to reconnect with some dharma sisters and to meet some I had not met before. all in all it was a good week. We are back to 5 these days so onward and upward we go. Having a picnic at a sister temple this afternoon as they are ground breaking for a new building at their retreat center. We are meeting up with some folks who have been doing a week long retreat. I imagine there will be some old friends in that group too.I am attempting to just roll with the ango and sort of float through the days. The more I learn the less I know.....good thing that I know very little any more. Well the picnic got rained out so we had the picnic here and it just so happened that some old friends stopped by and we had a great time. Evening off so that is good and there is a public sitting in the morning so schedule is revised as it is every Sunday. Just looked at the calendar which was a mistake six more weeks seems like a long time but I guess it is just taking it one day at a time. One day is not so hard to handle.One more day tomorrow and soon enough the days will be over.

ango cont.

Been in Ango for a few days and already one participant has left. This was my fist full day as doan the one who rings all the bells for services and zazen. I am really sorry to see the one who left gone as he was one I felt I could depend on to hold up his end of the the practice. This practice is pretty hard for people in this country. Not only is is difficult to find the time to take a couple months off, but the practice itself is not easy and it is not what people in the West expect it to be. I do not know what it was that required my new friend to leave but I wish him well on his endeavors. I slept well last night and am still a bit tired today but I am dragging my old broken carcass through the day in spite of the difficulties. It may end up with just my teacher and I before we are done, it remains to be seen. I am not even sure I can stick it out though this is much easier than an Ango in Japan. This place is like the Hilton when compared with Shogoji. We have electric lights, and a kitchen to cook in. Geothermal head and air conditioning. It has rained her for 5 days so that at least makes it feel a little like the rainy season in Japan.Almost noon and time for formal oryoki lunch. The day is already mostly over. The hard part is over and the loving part begins.

sesshin is overand the Ango begins

I made it through sesshin although not without a few bumps. I missed the Shoten's wake up bell this morning so I slept through the first period of zazen. now monks are supposed to be attentive and things are complicated by the white noise from my cpap machine but the Shoten's job is to send signals and the signals are supposed to be as clear as one can make them.I noticed this when I could barely hear the bonsho over the airconditioner vent right over my head. Signs and signals are not for the attentive. The attentive do not need signs or signals. One should not be like a sign painter that paints beautiful signs that no one can read. If one is ringing a bell to signal people to do things one should be more concerned with sending the signal than how beautifully the bell rings. I think this in important lesson. If one is teaching or showing the way one should be clear. Shoken's name means clear manifestation. I think the clear part is vital. A pretty lecture full off frills is less important then a clear one.A clear message of love is more important than a pretty one that leaves the receiver wondering "what was that?"

Sesshin

People begin to arrive for the sesshin that will open the Ango. Look like a core group of five that will be here for the whole ango and about 15 registered for the weekend sesshin. looks like it will be a good group. I am struggling a bit to keep up with the easy schedule before everything starts. I will see how I will hold up to the more rigorous schedule to come. I am sitting in a chair which makes 40 minute zazen periods pretty much a rest time. I am surprised how much more focused I am after meditating through surgery recovery. It seems just being is more natural to me now than it was in my younger days. love the birds and even the noisy cows after my time in the desert SW. I am just soaking in all the green and spending as much time as I can forest bathing.The practice is returning gradually to my memory after 19 years away from the temple it takes a while to recover all the details.It is comforting in its familiarity though and I am getting harmonized with the flow of the days.

I have arrived at Ruymonji for summer ango. I loved the thunderstorm on the evening I arrived. Ryumonji could not have prepared a better welcome for me if they had a hundred years to plan for my arrival. It has been a busy time as we prepare for the arrival of guests for the sesshin that opens the Ango. There has also been a party for the birthday of the Abbot. There was a potluck in town with great food and a large carrot cake.Doing lots of dishes and I am enjoying the morning service so far.
Getting up early does not seem to be a problem so far, but I assume that will change as the sleep hours are reduced and the daily activities increase. Put on the full robes yesterday for the first time in years. This morning I managed to get tied up in my okesa as I tried to put it on in the sodo. The first arrival for the ango is due any moment. I am settling my bottom in the saddle and getting ready to ride.

huh?

The Monks chanted well
But the enshrined Buddha
Remains unmoved.

Why?

Here is my bottom line. Why do we need to get the government to demand we live our principles? If you want the minimum wage to be 15 dollars do you pay your employees a minimum of 15 bucks or are you waiting till the government tells you you must? How much do you pay your yard guy and your babysitter? How about we patronize businesses that pay all their employees over 15 dollars when we can? How about we avoid those who do not when we have an alternative?Let us encourage businesses to pay a living wage by supporting them when they do? You believe healthcare is a right? How about donating to planned parenthood and other charitable hospitals that do not charge their patients (St. Jude's etc.)? Is there a place for our churches,temples, and civic groups here? Let's keep donating til our hospitals can take care of everyone who is sick and in need? No hospital in your area that takes care of all the sick? time to organize and create one. Do we need the government to take our money and force us to live our principles or can we individually and together be agents of the change we seek?

losing one's self

stepping into the Buddha's sandals
slipping on Kwan Yin's stockings
six of one,half a dozen

fudo's last will and testement

Send me off with chocolate and pistachio nuts. Do not fill your eyes with tears. I am still with you. You have always been the better part of me. Place some of me in your favorite places because that is where I want to be. Your joy has always been my joy. Do not canonize me for I was no saint. When I am remembered I wish to be remembered as I was with all the faults right out there for all to see. I will need a cracked stone to lie under(only a metaphor do not waste time on looking for a flawed headstone} my favorite place was Ryumonji. You all know the drill. I have loved you all as well as I could and I will love you forever. I approve of every choice you make and will make but please do not choose to stop your life because I am gone. Please try and ring as much joy and as much good as you can out of each moment. This is how I tried to live. You all have been and continue to be my pride and joy, own this and carry it forward as you journey on. When it is time for me to go let me go. I do not wish to fight on under even greater challenges than I have now. If I can be restored to the life I have now, then okay I will fight to recover, but I do not think there will be much left to fight with if I am much diminished from here. So pretty much if the Doctors say but...then let me go. There is a distinct possibility with my health and family history that my mind might fail before my body does. I do not wish to take medications to preserve a body who's mind is gone. I have no assets other than you all to speak of or any specific desire for what goes to whom. Let things go to those that wish them, and send the rest to the thrift store of your choice. Please love and take care of each other as you are the things I loved most the world. I have lived the life I wanted to and lived it as fiercely as I could. I have made my peace with it in the end. Be Well, Fudo Michael Koppang.

The Mystery of Zen

The people I meet in America who have some idea of zen seem to think it is some deep difficult, mystical thing. Either that or they think is is some aesthetic idea or principle that includes things plain and natural as in Zen decorating. Zen is deep. It is anything but mystical. Most of all it is not complicated at all. What makes it difficult is that we are trying to understand the teachings that are hundreds if not thousands of years old and from a culture that could not be more different from our own. We lack the context in order understand what is being said. I will attempt to open up the mystery of zen and zazen buy pulling aside the curtain and showing how the trick is done in simple English that those who have grown up in the west can understand. Nearly everyone's mother or father has taught them zen but they did not know it." If you find yourself in a hole the first thing to do is stop digging." If that had be quoted by Dogen Zenji we would all be oohing and awwing over the deep and clear understanding of the Master. The problem. of course, is that we do not know how to stop digging even if we figure out we are in a hole. The hole is metaphorical. It would be true if the hole were in fact a hole in the ground, but the aphorism is as true if the hole is one cannot stop running around with more to do than could ever be possible, or cannot stop feeling depressed, or gambling or drugs or debt are the problem. In the old days they spoke about the great suffering of old age, disease and death. The Buddha spoke of suffering, unending suffering was the hole he used as an example. So now we have understood that we are in a hole, what then do we do about it? The old bald guys figured out a solution. It is just to stop. Stop digging. Sit down. Stop. When I tell people this they immediately say "What then?". Do I count my breaths? Label each thought? Recite Mantras?. What the hell does think about not thinking mean?" We seek to understand but there is nothing to understand and no understanding. My teachers gave no instruction other than to sit down. Just sit there. Stop digging. Nothing else is necessary. If you are in a hole when you sit down you will be surrounded by hole, but you have stopped creating more hole. You mind will play games, you might pretend you are not really in a hole, but the hole remains. You might start thinking about pretty much anything but sooner or later the fact that you are in a hole will be inescapable and you will begin to get hungry or need to go to the bathroom so you begin to look for a way out. When the way becomes clear, move on the way. There is nothing more to it than that. Just sit. Just stop digging. This is such a universal prescription that I doubt anyone in the world has not heard it. It is not the exclusive property of zen, Zen does not own the copyright. It is simply the essential nature of zazen. The next great zen teacher of today is the person who made the Nike shoe ad slogan "just do it." Now that you can see a way forward, just do it. Just go forward. Ooops lost the way? Another hole? Just stop digging, just sit. The path is that way? Just do it. Soon as this moment is taken care of the magic of Zen begins to work on your life. The holes get shallower, the path easier and more clear. Soon there is little digging, little stopping and just less effort in getting through the day. It might take a while but as the days get easier, There might be a little energy left for dancing on the way. This is not some magic that removes all obstacles or pitfalls from your path. My path has led me through a disabling disease that ravaged my body, a diagnosis and intervention that arrived just steps before the grim reaper. I have a legacies from this devastating disease that will limit my physical ability for the rest of my life. I passed through all this with barely a bump in the road because I just did what was clearly the path forward. Without the gnashing of teeth, the wailing of "why me?", the where will I get the energy? and what about the money for all this? I just did it. I had the amazing support of others. I am foolish enough to think that making a valiant effort to take care of each moment up until I needed taking care of helped assure that there were people and resources there when I needed them. The ancients talk about the inexhaustible energy of the Bodhisattva. A fancy way of saying if one does not waste energy on digging a bunch of holes, there is energy enough for all that rises on the path. Even if the mountain seems impossible to climb, take a few steps, sit and rest and then take a few more and sooner or later the mountain has been climbed. Be Well, Reverend Fudo Michael Koppang

variations on a theme

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catching a moment
in flowery language
poets are liars

Passages

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A cherry petal floats down
on a warm spring breeze
morning breaks the brand new day


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On Bowing at strange altars

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Whether we know it or not,
All altars are created out of the same need.

Whether we know it or not,
All altars express the same desire.

Whether we know it or not,
All altars ask the same question.

Whether we know it or not,
All altars honor the same mystery.


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On Bullying

Sometimes I wonder how those who depend on the school system to protect them and their children are going to survive in the world when the kids get out of school. There is no shortage of those who will pick on the weak and vulnerable anywhere.

Either you teach your children how to deal with bullies or leave them vulnerable, there are always bullies and will always be bullies. If I remember my misspent youth correctly, it was not that difficult to outsmart most bullies and a little self defense skill went a long way when all else failed.

The system cannot and will not protect you. Wake up and learn to protect yourself.

It is your mind, do not let it be influenced by inferior minds. Cyber bullying is pretend bullying. Just click close and they are gone. see rule one below. A threat on email or in a text is a like a threatening phone call: report it to those who can deal with it appropriately.

The way I was taught was:

1: avoid a bully if you can. Outsmart, out last, out run. Find a safe place when possible. If someone does something illegal, use legal remedies.

2: fight if you have to, but only if you have to.

3: fight to win if you have to fight, because you do not have to win, but you have to make them respect you or you will be a victim the rest of your life.

4: Protect your brothers and sisters (everyone) from those who are bigger than they are. Stand up for those who are picked on when you can. This includes helping them avoid difficulty when it can be avoided.(see rule one).Be a safe place for others when you can.

corollary 1: learn to defend yourself to the best of your ability before you need to because you are going to need to. Besides people who seem confident of their ability to defend themselves do not find themselves victimized nearly so often as people who appear more vulnerable. Most bullies pick the easiest targets. Just do not be the easiest target.

corollary 2: If you are going to die anyway it is better to go down fighting and make the aggressor pay what you can than to slink off and kill yourself or your teacher because you feel helpless and picked on and powerless.

There are times to be the peace you desire, and times to fight like hell for a life worth living. If you are left feeling like the only option is to kill yourself, the time to fight has long passed.

It is not a kindness to leave our children feeling helpless,picked on and powerless. We are the adults, it is our job to see our children are not left with no option but to be victimized.

Variations on a theme (poems in praise of fat bottomed girls)

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"the dancer"

when she takes one step
long the sweet half seconds be
while her ass takes three


"an ass man's lament"

life is so unfair
she can win the argument
by stomping away



"an ass man's lament #2"

poor sad old Japan
after three months of searching
not one decent ass


"there is no chivalry"

we open the door
so we can look at her ass
as it jiggles by



"tough choices"

I may choose to stay
so I can watch her her bottom
as she walks away




"life lesson"

it's best to bunk with
a woman who has stuff to
fill up her trunk with




kinhin (a blissful distraction)

Walk the zendo round
following her bouncing butt
a perfect moment



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Re: Brad Warner's post: MAD Non-Conformists and More Bitching About Internet Zen

I would have liked to have seen how your teacher would have reacted to being clicked off when you did not like his response. Not to mention it is hard to pretend to be something you are not while sitting in a room together all day. Pretending you are something you are not is easy on the internet. If you are fooling yourself as to how great you are it is nearly impossible to do that for a whole day in a room together, yet it can go on for years on the internet where relief is just a click away. Which is why many internet zen people never set foot in a real zendo as their being a legend in their own mind would be over in a few minutes. .

In real life your ears have to burn long enough to get your shoes on and boogy your ass out the door.This is an experience one tends to remember. On the internet one can click off and be out of there in a split second, and never look back.

Recently I got invited by an internet group to submit a lecture on a precept for them to study as they were returning to the basic teachings of Zen. They told of all the wonderful teachers that would be taking their turn with me as if this showed how honored I should be that they asked me. This is a group that had previously moderated my posts because they did not like what I had to say, or more specifically my using words like shit and bull crap which went against their understanding of right speech. Evidently I was not nice enough for them back then but they still wanted a lecture now, go figure .

I responded to their request by saying that I had not thought about the precepts in years and yet another reading of someone else's wisdom about the precepts had nothing to do with the basic teachings of zen as I had been taught. I mean come on.. If one googled the precepts one probably could spend the rest of one's life reading about what people thought about them, and would never have to survive a single moment of actually living them. Another lecture on the precepts is probably as needed as another oil spill in the gulf. If one has to take the time to think about how they should respond according to the precepts they are lost before they start.

My teacher does not lecture on the precepts, once in a great while he will read one of his teacher's lectures to an intro group. For those of us who practice with him he demonstrates how to live in the precepts by how he gets up in the morning, how he eats, how he sleeps, how he chops wood and how he rolls up his sleeves and carries the shit bucket from the latrines down the mountain to spread on the temple garden before heading up to the Buddha Hall to lead noon service. Not one of these essential teachings could be gotten from the internet. There is something about holding up one end of a pole bearing a shit bucket that requires one to really completely step in harmony with the Buddha on the other end. Either you learn to do it or you get shit on your shoes and probably the Buddha's as well. This was for me the essential teaching of Zen. To bad some miss this kind of experience. I know I would not trade a minute of it for years of typing questions and reading answers on the internet.

Sure an Internet practice is an easy way to practice, but I was taught not to seek an easy practice. Nothing ventured nothing gained.

All your points were great in this post. Here is my bitch about the same topic.

Good Friday message to a Christian who does not like his religion being suppressed::

"Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me."

"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'

"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'

"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'

The Republicans did not take care of Jesus' health care needs.

They were in power for eight years and ignored his illness. Not one voted to get their lord his needed tests or surgery. Not one voted to give him what he needed to live another day, but they love him more than anything except their house or their car, and by God they are not going to pay higher taxes to see that Jesus does not die from illness.

They voted to have someone else give their elderly Lord some medicine sometimes and did not vote any money to do so. They voted to have our children pay for Jesus's medicine. They voted to cut their own taxes to make sure they would not have to pay for it.

They thought he would not deserve to live because he could not afford healthcare. It is just the market, not their doing.

When Christians live their religion I respect them. When they do not, I do not. Put up or shut up. I get so sick of "Christians" worrying about others sinful behavior and not looking at their own.... I think Jesus said something about that as well....something about a mote in another's eye and a log in your own.

Have a great" My Lord has died" day. You kill him everyday with your policies and practices. For those on the right, everyday is Good Friday.

Please by all means, become a follower of Christ. I will love you for it.

Fudo's blessing

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May you see your self reflected in a smile,
hear your self reflected in a laugh,
and find yourself in someone's arms.


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the night storm companion

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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 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


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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.