Fear?

Dear J,

I suppose one could approach learning to dance by attempting never to make a misstep. I find this approach usually leaves me standing on the edge of the dance floor watching the wall flowers on the other side of the floor.

I find that when I step out and try to put my feet in the correct place, dancing becomes a lot more fun...and when the first part of the dancing (asking a partner to dance) is performed correctly (or even sometimes rather poorly) it has a much greater chance of success then never stepping out to dance at all...so I just throw caution and my ego into the wind...and step out and do the best I can...sometimes it is enough, but it is always more then never stepping out at all. I have even been known to transform a wallflower into a dancer with a poorly mumbled cliche, or the oldest line the the book. I am always surprised at how well a wallflower can catch even a poorly tossed line.

It has been my experience that even a poorly tossed line, mumbled in an unclear voice, can turn a sick person into a poet, or a dying man into a philosopher. It can make a sick room into a ball room, and a hospice into a party for two.

The dance is always performed by dancers, those standing about with their hands in their pockets never get to dance..........there is a reason to be sad, and a reason to get out there and dance with the first person you see standing about with their hands in their pockets. What could be a more joyous thing than making dancers out of a couple of wallflowers?

I encourage to you to dance. ....thats it......... tap your feet...come on now......move your knees....hands up......there you go!!!.....you can't look any sillier then I do....now dance.

Be Well

Fudo

On Thumpers

It matters not to me what holy writing a thumper thumps.

The problem with cutting a pasting little snippets of holy writings (the Koran, the Bible, the Sutras or the Torah) is that they can and have been used to justify any action the person chooses to be doing. They make every action righteous. Thumping clippings from the Bible made Apartheid and the Holocaust righteous, Thumping the Koran made flying airplanes into buildings righteous, Thumping the Sutras made the rape of China and the Aum terrorisms righteous.

Apartheid arose in the mind before the structures were built in society to reinforce it, just like a temple is built when it arises in the mind. Apartheid arose from the thought that others are beneath you and the Bible was used to justify it.......obviously such an idea can be ennobled from the Sutra's as well.

The problem with lifting little sections of the holy writings to justify your position is that pretty much anything can be justified in such a manner. If you read the whole Bible, you get a different idea than from "an eye for an eye"....or if you read the whole section that describes homosexuality as a sin...you would also not eat pork, or shrimp or lobster, your wife would be your property, and jerking off as much of a sin as ......well never mind..... and almost any male (and most females) are right there in sin with every gay or lesbian. The point being that the thumper is using the writings to justify their position. They do not care if that position is consistent with the rest of the writings, They are not looking for the way , they are only looking to justify their way. Thumpers are are dangerous. When they are alone they are even more scary, because there is no check at all on how crazy they can become...there is nowhere for them to get a sanity check....but then again..a thumper does not thump to have their ideas tested in crucible of a discussion, they thump to justify their position, their reality, created by their ideas. When challenged a thumper has nothing to say....all they can do it thump some more, and use some stolen wisdom to try and justify their own position, because by nature, a thumper has no wisdom of their own.

Before we get all holier then thou and pat ourselves on the back, we are all thumpers at times too, just like we all are pretentious sometimes too. A wise person recognizes this tendency in themselves, and works to minimize it in themselves rather then maximize the danger to themselves and others. A wise person gets a sanity check from those around them from time to time, just to make sure they have not wandered too far afield.

Before we get too down on ourselves for our tendency to wander off the path all too easily, let us remember that all do this sometimes as well. We also are sometimes wise, and sometimes noble as well. There is nothing that arises in any person, be that nobility or ignorance, that does not arise in us as well. To pretend otherwise is just lying to ourselves. Every decent Zen teacher I have ever met has someone they respect to check themselves with so they do not wander off too far afield in their life. Power corrupts, a wise man or woman gets a check on this corruption from time to time.

Wisdom is not ignoring anything...ignoring anything is ignorance. Ignoring it in others is not kind, ignoring it in ourselves is dangerous.

English is a tough language...there is no pronoun for the you that is me, and the me that is you, because it is really different then "us". Us is more our separate beings gathered together. The big "I" includes you and the big "you" includes me. When anyone calls anyone on anything, they are indeed calling themselves on it at the same time...there is nothing we dislike more in others, then what we dislike in ourselves. Ask anyone who has lived with a former smoker, a former drinker, a former addict, a former intellectual, a former anything.

The point here is ..no one is beneath us...they are exactly us. No matter how much we huff or stomp away, or use the sutras to justify our position, the basic point of the whole thing (any holy writing) has been missed the moment we think we can leave. The moment the thought arises that there is indeed a they that is not us, that can be left, we are lost. One of the basic points of Jesus' teaching was that he was exactly the beggar you treated poorly, he is exactly the "homo" or the "terrorist" you deny basic human rights to. (oh wait..we already did that to him didn't we??? wow...Deja Vu all over again.....) He is exactly the "least of my brothers "(what ever you do to the least.... you do him...exactly).....hmmm a most Buddhist of teachings........None of us is alone in missing these teachings, most of us miss them most of the time. Whatever we do to anyone, we do at the same time to Buddha, Jesus, Mohamed, Bahula, Moses, Shiva, Zeus, The goddess, the green man, to Hitler, Pol Pot, the republicans and the democrats.


Be Well

Fudo

Dogen Zen and the time Zen was pure

I appreciate the motives that make people strive to recreate a Zen that is pure like it was in Dogen's time. I think it is a little naive to think that only now, only here has a similar effort been made. I know that in Japan I heard the same sort of talk from "noble" efforts being made to return the practice to what is was before it got polluted.....by having to pay for temples, and having been "institutionalized". I am sure one find the same movements in Tibetan Buddhism, even in the Catholic church......there is nothing new or unique about such efforts....it is only our ego that thinks that this time..when we do it ...will it be successful. Dogen was a revolutionary as well.....history shows us the problem with revolutions is that they inevitably become what they revolted against, or they die before they have the opportunity to. The structures exist for a reason...the Modern Soto Shu is there for a reason, it did not become what it is because everyone in it it is corrupt, it became what is because there was a Soto-shu shaped hole in the universes that needed filling. There are more reformers in Japan than there are in New Mexico, or Texas, or Minnesota.....all wanting to go back to the time when things were pure....the problem is ....there never was a time when things were pure.

The Zen we think of as "Dogen Zen" never existed...even in Dogen's time. There was no group of more noble than other monks huddled in a small group by a fire somewhere..or in a shack...aspiring to a "true" practice...well there was...but they had the same problems that we have today..and only stayed by the fire long enough to find a noble sponser....problems like who is going to pay for the shack?...and where are we going to get food?..How are we going to exist in this time and place? Who is going to cook lunch so we can eat? The lotus only bloomed in muddy water. If one stops by to visit Eihieji today one can still see the monuments to the ones who paid for the building of the temple. Those rich guys ...or rich family......in Old Japan..you know..the nobles?...the ones who paid for everything?...the ones you had to sell on the idea that building a temple was a good place to spend their money?...the ones who in their grief tried to assure a place in nirvana for themselves and their children, while they were busy lopping of the heads of peasants, and killing themselves with swords? No smart temple priest these days caters to a single donor....because that means the donor wants to be in charge...I am sure things were different in Dogen's day when single donors were all that was available. Not to mention, picking the right donor....because If your donor got his head lopped off.....well unless you were politic enough you were out of the temple when the new noble moved in, replaced by the priest who played the game better than you did, or at least was luckier than you at the track where priests picked out which horse to bet their life and practice on. If you were out...so was all that you carefully tended, and your noble flock of underlings either went with you into obscurity , found a new rich person who wanted to be assured of nirvana, or bowed to the new order.

Well what about Ancient China during the flowering of Buddhism in China?.....as bad or worse.

Well then let us go back to when it all was new.....the time of the living Buddha were a perfect group of Arhats with shining halos about their heads sat in gardens and ate rice begged from the people on the street......No muddy water there...not if we ignore the fact that even if Buddha was liberal enough to let low caste males into his sangha...even he could not bend enough to let women in....until and unless it was understood that the highest ranked woman must bow to the lowest rank man (as the lowest ranked man I can tell you that this idea is not dead in some parts of the world.) The we have the rules about not having sex with trees. Buddha only made the rules as they were needed....so we must have had a least one tree fucker mucking up the picture. Then of course, there was Ananda. He had memorized every word of the Buddha, before he played his robes and position into the bed of every woman he could....maybe all those women who were bowing at his feet in the morning, had a little trouble not bowing at night. I am sure there were volunteers(this too is as old as time), some more voluntary then others. Yet none of this was cause for Ananda to be removed from the sangha....that was reserved for those who planned the coup. Ooops....politics in the original Sangha? You are kidding right?

So where is this perfection that we are going to go back to?.where is the mud that is purer than this mud?....The Lotus has always bloomed in muddy water. Perhaps our efforts would be better spent blooming where we are planted, rather than chasing after the myth of a more noble time.

How do we get rid of our anger?

Many people come to the practice of Zen or to any religion for that matter because of a profound feeling that something is wrong. There is something wrong with "them"....the is something wrong with "us"...therefore what "is" needs to be fixed.....more so for what is "wrong" with others over what is "misunderstood" about ourselves.
But the essential feeling of "wrongness" in ourselves is what motivates most practice...we practice to fix what is "wrong" with us so we can fix what is "wrong" with the world and everyone else. There is something wrong with us because we feel anger....there is something wrong with him because he is angry......anger, sadness and suffering are essential to our being, someone once said that "all life is suffering". This sense of wrongness is not "wrong" because it drives us to seek something better, or at least it can....it drives us to seek a solution, it forces us to begin to heal...like the swelling of a bruised ankle and the pain that keeps us off our feet for a while or lets us know when we are hurting ourselves more. Pain is not "bad"in its essential nature, anger is not "bad" by its nature. Anger is natural, it is neither good nor bad by its nature. So getting rid of anger is not the goal, anger has a purpose and a function.


I remember a developmentally disabled kid who was not under my direct care, but in the area where I worked. He used to pull down his pants all the time. His well meaning care takers decided to put a lock on his belt so he could not remove his pants. It kept him from removing his pants, even in the bathroom, which lead to some unfortunate problems that had not existed before......the problem was not that taking off your pants is bad, it is that there are appropriate places to do so and to not do so.....it was a matter of discrimination...rather than teaching the kid discrimination, they made the problem worse.

As the writer of "The Merging of Difference and Unity" tells us "all things have their function, it is a matter of use in the appropriate situation". Well what can be the purpose of anger?......as you have noted anger usually results from hurt or fear. Fear most often results from an experience of hurt...as all have noted, an animal with no experience with humans does not fear them. Hurt gives rise to fear which gives rise to anger. Anger functions properly to protect us (and those we care about) from hurt.

What then does anger tell us if we listen?...it tells us there is an unhealed hurt existing somewhere...there is a fear there that needs to be addressed. Now should we fear crossing a busy street?.....yes a certain amount of fear is healthy, and anger is a natural response to a driver speeding down the street where your children are playing. One should not try and eliminate anger, or leave anger somewhere.


Just dropping anger like a rock is no more of an answer than taking drugs so you can continue to walk on an injured ankle. What ever triggered your anger will continue to trigger your anger whenever it arises. One could address the anger by many dysfunctional methods ..the ones we often choose..we can suppress it, we can kill our children so we no longer fear so tremendously for them in an increasingly hostile world, we can shoot the driver and stop the car. Shooting the driver or the kids does not work either..there are always more children and more drivers, and no end here to our anger.

Or we can sit down with our anger, and use it as a tool to probe where we are hurt....I fear for my children, that is where this anger arises, what then can I do that is best for myself and all beings to protect my children?....well what about forbidding them to cross the street or go anywhere near the street? nah that will not work in the real world...What about sitting around working on my anger? darn that does not work either..it just keeps popping up........what about knowing they are not "my" children and when I think about them I get angry, so I should just forget about them? nah that really does not work either..........what about lowering the speed limit, having the city put up warning signs,increase enforcement, or put in speed bumps?...well one or all of these might be effective... maybe I should work towards a truly effective method to reduce my fear, and in doing so I will reduce my anger..and by the way my neighbor is angry about that too, and of course I might save a child in the process, not to mention the life of a driver which would be ruined by his carelessness should he ever hit a kid. Now I have used my anger to reduce anger in myself and my neighbor, protected both the driver and the children....who could possibly say the anger that motivated this action was bad?

Sometimes the fear that makes us angry is not even rational...my elder daughter is afraid of worms.....wave a worm at her and she becomes angry. Forbidding worms in her presence is not a practical solution...as long as she fears worms ...worms will make her angry. What needs to be healed here is not her anger, but the fear of worms...she is not willing to work on this right now.....but should her anger ever become her concern, the way to fix it is to fix the irrational fear of worms. If we fear men for example for some happening in our past, or fear intimacy, or fear anything, we have a hurt that needs healing. Our anger points to these injuries. Some fear is rational...if it is rational, then find realistic ways to protect yourself (or others) and reduce the fear when it results in anger, if the fear arises from a real hurt that needs healing, get the help we need to heal the hurt, if the fear is irrational there are ways to fix that as well.

Anger is a poison, but like a poison it can be used for both good and evil. Most medicines are poisonous in some dosage. It is a matter of use in the appropriate situation. It is only when we spread it around with no thought, no control, no discrimination that anger poisons everything.

All things have their function, even anger.

Now we shall move from the realm of psychology to Buddhism. Much of our fear comes from incorrect understandings...where Buddhism comes into play is where fear stems from the feeling that "we" are separate from them. We are alone, we are something more than a pile of skandhas..... When anger is directed at "them" then it is not being used appropriately. When Zen directs us to look at what is, then we reduce great amounts of fear, and thus great amounts of anger. When we look at what really is we become not angry at the driver for driving too fast, but ourselves for not calling the street department or whomever is responsible for taking care of speed bumps, perhaps we will even get up off our cushion and make a few calls. (or write a few posts).

When we sit down to let everything go, the last little thing that identifies ourselves to ourselves, the last thing we have to know so we can forget is our own hurts...they are what at the most basic level identify us to ourselves. since the last thing we let go of is "our" pain the last thing we really let go of is "our" anger. Often during the process our practice even makes us more angry, as we bring forth the last of our hurts to be let go, we bring forth more and more essential anger. It is a part of the process, neither to embraced nor shunned, just is....neither good nor bad. (remember the warning that not everything that comes up is pleasant?) Sometimes the fear at this point get so great that one avoids sitting, this is one more place where a teacher who knows what is going on can come and help one through this part of the process. It is also a part of the teacher's role to be the thing there for the student to be angry at, to give the student a place to put the anger, while the surprised student learns to deal with what is happening.

Buddhism offers us the eightfold path, not as a cudgel to beat others who are wrong with, but as a well marked path to end suffering (note: not "our" suffering). Every Buddhist is on the path, some in comfy places, some in not...no one has finished the path while they are alive, nor should anyone be expected to act like they have.

So anger is not something we need to get rid of, it is not wrong to be angry, being angry is just being angry. Now what will you do with your anger? Will you use it or will it use you? It is a matter of use in the appropriate situation.

Be Well
Fudo

What about zen practice and relationships?

It is much easier to love all mankind then it is to love any particular man or woman.

It is much easier to be in love with our fantasy of what mankind is than to have to love a man or woman as he or she is. .....really loving mankind is in fact loving each man and woman as we love the Buddha (or what we imagine the Buddha to be).

It is possible to abuse a meditation practice to the detriment of relationships. It is possible to leave our significant others behind in our quest for an individual enlightenment. It is one aspect of any Mahayana practice (and Zen is a Mahayana school) to vow not to enter Nirvana until everyone else has entered first. It is my contention that a good place to start is where you are. One should be more concerned with loving care for one's significant other, child or parent then one is with themselves and their individual practice of meditation. One should not sacrifice one moment more to meditation than one needs to get by while failing to attend to our families  needs and our responsibilities to those who depend on us, or take care of us.

I have seen many Zen students caught up in the zeal that results from seeing changes in themselves that they forget that it is not really about themselves. It is in fact impossible to forget yourself when all you think about is yourself. There is a big difference between knowing
yourself, and only thinking about yourself. Yes we need to study ourselves to forget ourselves, but only thinking of ourselves will never lead us to forgetting ourselves.

If the changes from your meditation practice do not result in you becoming a better father, mother, son or daughter, partner, employee or boss, or a better Zen teacher if that is your choice of path then your practice is a worthless dead end. It is after all, all about seeing others go ahead in the Zen schools, not about running ahead yourself. It is about where you are right now, not where you should be, or will be if only. It is not about seeing the man who became filled with road rage and wound up causing the death of others as separate from us, as different from us, (thank whoever that we are not in jail with such a bail like that for a reason like that...after all if we had been formed by the forces that shapedthat man We would have done so much better), but rather it is seeing this person as a fellow suffering being, and taking what steps we can right around us to relieve the suffering of those around us who might end up as strung out and frustrated as this man if we do not carefully attend what is going on with them.

Yes we might need to sit down and get calm where we are right now, but we should not spend one minute more in such a practice than we need to be able to stand up and take care of all that is around us, including family, friends, fellow workers, bosses and employees.

Happy New Year,

Fudo

I read Zen is not big on compassionate action..but you seem to be at least somewhat in favor....what is going on?

Dear K,

Reading again huh? That can be dangerous. It leads to expectations which leads to ........all kinds of distractions.

I guess I can see where one might think that Zen is not much for compassionate action. One might say that there is a koan in there somewhere....because perhaps to some the definition of what sort of action is truly compassionate might differ.

In many religions there are apparent conflicts when people try to act in real life on some vague philosophy or set of moral principles. There are also those who talk the talk but do not walk the walk. We have such people in Zen too. This is why we are less concerned with what kind of talk you can talk....and more concerned by the kind of walk you walk.

If one sees the ultimate goal of life is to become enlightened, the what might be considered compassionate is something that has in the past proved effective as a means to that end.

In Zen this is a set of activities that includes sitting meditation. If death is seen as a part of the process of living, just keeping people alive may not have the same emphasis as say sitting meditation. If keeping your focus on just this moment is effective towards what is seen as the desired end, then telling someone to just be hungry might be sometimes seen as compassionate. Of course some people miss the idea that in order to have a spiritual life you must first have a life..(thank you Thomas Merton). Some in Zen see just sitting your own meditation as the ultimate bodhisatva action. In order to assist others in their enlightenment you must first be enlightened yourself (other wise how do you know what is truly effective?). Sitting down to do zazen (and don't get me started and what zazen is....even Dai Kai and I who are students of the same teacher ..or were...seem to disagree and what zazen is.....) is to some the be all and end all of all that needs to be taught and all that needs to be done by a compassionate person...in fact some say that is all that can really be done.

There are very few people who have had the opportunity to study in Japan. I am one of the fortunate few. Seeing what Zen is there, and what the perceptions of what Zen is here, is most startling. In a temple in Japan all zazen is dropped if something needs to be done for the Sangha. People find much fault with the "funeral" industry that many see as all that Zen is in Japan any longer, but they forget that helping the grieving was something that needed to be done and no one else was doing it. After WW2 there were many widows with children, and an acute shortage of child care facilities for single parents. Many Zen temples to this day have a day care facility on the grounds......where priests attend to the needs of young children and their parents.

When I was in Japan I asked Narasaki Tsugen Roshi (a fairly famous Zen Teacher and Painter) to paint something on my book cover. I must admit I was a bit disappointed when he painted a quick picture of an abbot's stick, and then wrote "what ever is in front of you is your practice". Time has brought me the eyes to appreciate the teaching.

One can talk about Zen practice as if how you sit, how often you sit, or when and where you sit meditation is the practice. This is not what Tsugen Roshi was pointing to. In Japan if the monks are sitting and a visitor arrives, one monk who's job it is to take care of guests..jumps up from his zazen and goes to make tea and welcome the guest.....(temples are tourist attractions in Japan..there are frequent guests.)....after all the guests questions are answered, and all that they can see that the wish to see has been shown....and all their needs attended to, the monk returns to the schedule of activities with his or her fellow monks....such a receptions would be rare if you happened into an American Zen Center during a meditation period. If you are sitting meditation, and a guest arrives in front of you...your practice is to take care of the guest. If you are engaged in the schedule in the monastery, and a typhoon hits your community, you go and help rescue the survivors, and bury the dead.

Now we come to the hard part........you do not need to go looking for typhoons and guests. Perhaps they are someone else's practice right now. What is here now arising in front of you is your practice. In my case trying to teach a six year old some values for her life is my practice. Children without food in the world might be someone else's practice but in my case my five year old (last year) asked what she could do for other children who did not have food after seeing something on TV about hungry children....She made some crafts and donated over $300 to the heifer project last year...she gave a little more to Oprah's angel network where the children in question were shown. I did not go looking for do gooder projects to ease my mind while I lived what in most countries would be a life of luxury (even though I am well below the poverty line in this country). It arose in front of me as something that needed to be done...it became my practice for that moment. I should completely attend to this task that arises before me in this moment to the best of my ability. This is Tsugen's message. This is the real Zen practice that he was speaking of...it might not even involve sitting meditation....lol.

If you are married, then your marriage is arising before you..it is your practice. If you are a parent, then that is arising in front of you and that is your practice. One should not sit in the the temple in New Orleans calmly meditating as the storm blows, and the sewage rises all around you ..not just in front of you. If it is your job to build levees against some future threat...that is your practice too...if as a husband wife or parent, this moment requires planning for the next moments then that planning too is your practice.

Tsugen's message was that there is enough right in front of you....you need not hurry down to the bookstore to seek a practice. Nor travel off to far away places (unless you are told you will need to by your teacher so you can get some old bald guy to write on your book cover a mesaage you will need to share years later.......oh I guess that is part of my job....and what arose before me then and now.)

Sometimes even typing long messages in a manner that is antithetical to Zen is my Zen practice........there is another koan...they just keep popping up. Sometimes heading off to a nice Christian group to package food for starving children (the most effective program in the area) is my Zen practice. Sometimes wrapping presents to help a Sheriff help my child to put smiles on other kids faces is my Zen practice...even if it has nothing to do with Zen, it has everything to do with Zen.......Zen is famously full of such paradox. If you are going to fool around with Zen you better get used to it.


Be Well

Fudo

Not knowing?..What if you feel you know in a social or political situation?

It is my contention that if you "feel you know"...this is the same as acting like you know when you really don't.
In this day and age many confuse feelings with knowledge and opinion with fact....all one need to do is watch cable news correspondents interview each other when there is nothing to say to see how opinion and impression are confused with knowledge in this day and age.

In politics....all is opinion....and opinion formed without direct knowledge or experience...none of us know.....what happened in New Orleans....unless we were there....and then the most we could have was an impression of a small portion of what happened. Yet in this country we must act (vote) or not act based only on our limited understanding. It is only when we mistake our limited understanding or feelings for fact, and act as those things were fact, that we screw up royally. The best we can have in any political or social situation is partial knowledge. We cannot know..no matter how much we "feel' we know. It is when we tighten down and no longer think about something we "know" that we tighten down our thinking and "we" know better than "they"...and it is in such ideas that war (or any conflict) begins. "We" cannot fight with ourselves...."we" can only fight with "them".

I know many people who feel that abortion is wrong. They voted for President Bush because he was "Pro Life"...now they are very frustrated with him because even though he has a majority in both houses he has not passed any "pro life" legislation. They felt he was good for their cause.....he said he was for their cause...just as rabidly has they seemed to be.....yet nothing has been done. What could have been done?...there opinions differ of course...and what would effectivly reduce the number of abortions assuming that such a thing could be done?....no one really knows. I know literally no one who is pro abortion...all agree it is at best a terrible solution to a difficult problem...but it is as old as sex and reproduction. I find nothing more amusing then men with opinions about abortion.....men do not even have to know there is anything to abort unless women choose to tell them...there is nothing a man can do to control abortion...short of restraint....and then only on an individual basis....(I suppose we could tie all women down permanently so they cannot have access to a coat hanger or a crochet hook..but even the most pro life voter would not go for that one). Perhaps this idea of "gaining control" is behind men's obsession with abortion..but the truth is ......it never has been nor never will be something men can control. Yet it drives political choices in this country....President Bush is president largely because of people's (men's most particularly) feelings about abortion. Interesting isn't it? The one thing we do know about abortion is that it has always been around.....we can guess it always will be around....how we "feel" about that .....well that is what becomes politics......politics is about feelings...not about knowledge. When we mistake feelings for knowledge....then we tighten and become smaller...when we can seperate what we know..from what we feel...we can begin to open up and become more tolerant of others.

In any social situation we can at best know only half of what is going on. If there are more than two ...we know even less.

Yet we must act in social and political situations. If we act in a closed foregone conclusion manner out of "knowledge we feel we have"...we act differently than if we act because we must act even out of our profound ignorance.

The truth of our lives is that we are all profoundly ignorant in most situations...when we know this and act accordingly we act in a kinder more open and more tolerant manner. When we can be compassionate to ourselves about the profoundly true state of our own ignorance, we become more compassionate to others who act out of their own profound state of ignorance. When we are aware of our own ignorance, it ceases to poison our every activity....(ignorance is one of the three poisons Buddha spoke about.) Often there is little we can do about our ignorance...all we really can do is apply the antidote to the poison so it does not infect our every breath. We can only not know.(that which we cannot know)

The antidote to ignorance is not to ignore even more...... the antidote to ignorance is to know it is the the essential truth of our lives, and to act out of the knowledge of this essential truth...in essence perhaps the only one thing we can truly know. If you act out of the compassion that arises from knowing this essential truth....then the world will indeed become a better place....not matter how you vote, or how you choose to act in this particular social situation.

So do not strive for a knowledge that you cannot have. Do not spend your time seeking that which cannot be. There is no knowing enough...there is no final knowledge. There is not really any permanent knowing...at best we can remember at this time how little we really can know...and act out of that intimate knowledge (when we can remember it )....and liberally apply the antidote to the poison of ignorance in our every breath.

This is why I say do not read books......this is why a Zen blog like this is really the antithesis of Zen. No knowledge you might gain from a book, or from a list or a blog will do you or the world one whiff of good until you begin to apply the antidote to your own ignorance in the world about you. No amount of seeking, nor amount of reading will give you anything but the ultimate ignorance you already own. ....do not read...do not rethink...do not solve...do not philosophize.......only don't know...and solutions appear.

"Between the sharp and dull witted there is no distinction".....Eihei Dogen.

Be Well,

Fudo the ignorant.

Those who were left Behind

I have been watching the news coverage of the disasters that were started by Hurricane Katrina.

I must admit that as I watched the confused responses that the government made I was very angry with certain political officials who had diverted funds, or moved departments around,or played golf or a guitar while New Orleans drowned. I was angry at those officials who left so many people behind.

There was talk of those who did not go, to those who could not go....and how no one seemed to care. At first I was angry at those who left these people behind....then after a few days of cursing the administration I realized that these people that were still in New Orleans had not just been left behind in the last few days by a callous government administration. These people had been left behind a long time ago....they had been left behind as children when they entered school, they had been left behind when there was training for good jobs, they were left behind when they were too old or too ill to be of use to us..they were indeed left behind by a callous administration but they had been left behind by all of us long before there was a storm in the gulf.

Many of us speak about the rising tide that lifts all boats, but we forget not all of us have boats. If we are going to mouth such cliches it is incumbent on us to make sure each and every person has if not a boat of their own,at least a berth on a boat somewhere.

While it is nothing but a crying shame that it took so long for the government to respond to this crisis, (I know it makes me comfortable that the government could respond so well to a crisis they did have five days notice of), it is even more of a crying shame that in the richest country in the world there were people without the means to even get out of the way of an oncoming blow. We have people in the country who we have left without the ability to even duck. They were not left behind in the last years or months ...they were left behind decades ago. They were left behind by Buddhists as well as Evangelical Christians, they were left behind by liberals as well as conservatives, they were left behind by women as well as men...they were left behind without a backward glance by each and every one of us long long ago.

I know it is naive to believe we can end poverty....but poverty is a relative thing.....there need not be people in the richest country in the world who do not have a way to leave if disaster is coming with five days notice. The poor will always be with us a wise man once said, it is also true the foolish will always be with us. Some will be too foolish to leave property in order to protect their lives, but I must point out that too is the result of a culture that says you are what you own, what you can consume is all that matters, and a man is a person who wears the latest fashion, not a person who makes good sound decisions for himself and his family and friends. A woman is someone who looks good floating face down in the muck, not someone with sense enough to move her children to high ground when the water is rising. The poor should be given drugs to keep them quiet so we do not have to think about leaving them behind rather than helping them to have some minimum standard of living ..it is ok for insurance companies to rip them off, credit card companies to loot them, rental agencies to overcharge for very little, and now even their ability to insure a car so they could drive out of New Orleans is based on how long it has been since they payed their Visa card who so generously offer credit at 30% plus interest and of course very reasonable late fees and other charges.....then if they could buy a car and insure it ...the police are 10 times more likely to stop them and ticket them in an old car that they can afford than those a new one.....and Us?... We are just glad that these things happen to "those people".... The poor in California payed for the energy rip offs of Enron to a much greater degree than those who were rich.....we hear often about the poor people who lost their pensions when Enron failed....but not a whit about the poor who had to pay the power bills ...and that made them late on their credit cards, and that made them not be able to get a decent place to live...or even a way to get to work. Shame on us....shame on all of us...all of us who were just glad that it was not happening to us ......yet. In our rush to take care of us and those we consider ours, we have left innocent children and babies behind to drown. We have left the old and ill behind to rot in their wheelchairs. Shame on us.... Shame on all of us.

The problem for us should not be that in these days of disaster we cannot ignore the cries of children who have lost their mothers, or mothers who have lost sight of children the rest of us lost sight of long ago. We should not have to seek who to be blaming for those that were left behind. There should not have been one person left behind...not this week, not last, not in the decades and years before this disaster hit.


As Buddhists we vow to save all beings....the vow is not to move forward faster than the slowest one....to be the last to enter, not the first. We should not be righteous in our anger......the failure is in each and every one of our hearts.

Be Well

Fudo

Our mind and our perceptions

The mind can effect how we percieve this moment. Here is a personal story from my pre-zen days.


My eldest daughter was about eight at the time...we had a cat that had had kittens..we told here she could keep ONE...she selected the littlestone...it was cute....she had a kind heart and always was for the underdog...shortly after all the others had found a home the little
kitten sickened and died....she cried like only an eight year old girlcan when she is devastated. Circumstance required we go to off to an activity that was work for me and play for her. As soon as she was down to the sniffling phase we left home and headed off.....I could see
trouble coming as I saw a dead cat ahead on the road. My daughter said "look Dad there is a poor dead squirrel!"....on the return trip the dead animal was still a cat for me and a squirrel for her. It remained on the road for several trips...it was always a squirrel for her and a cat for
me...It was a life shaping experience for me....a direct point to the power of the mind to shape perception....for her it was just another poor dead squirrel..one among thousands she has seen.

From this moment forward I knew that what we perceive does often does not bear much relation to what is...especially if we come to it with unfinished business from the moments before. I worked with mentally ill people who had all kinds of what I thought of as misperceptions....they
just did not tally with consensus reality. From this moment forward I had a glimpse into the lying nature of perception....the power of the mind to shape the reality in which we live. I had some greater understanding of the effects of hallucinations and their effects on the
mental stability of an individual. I found a key that allowed me to talk to the mentally ill as if the voices (which for them were real) were in fact real for me too....and much progress was made....for both the patient and myself.

When I came to Zen, perhaps "only don't know" was easier for me....because I already understood that perceptions and the mind could lie so strongly we ourselves (the little voice in our head) would not even know about the lie. There is little faith in the words of a known
liar. I still did not know how to come to the moment without all the stuff I was dragging with me, and I still did not know how to live when we really don't know....but the first was already present when I came to sitting.

This is I suppose one of the reasons that "take care of this moment" is so important...even if it sounds so simple and logical...be responsible...finish your business...do not try and short circuit those things that will not let your mind settle...let them come up and go...if
they do not go...take care of what ails you...get rid of all that baggage so you can come to the moment free of all that crap as soon possible.....until you can .....you really are just stuck with the mind that is polluted by all that history of misperception. Trying to drive a
polluted mind into the moment by forcing it to focus on breathing or forcing it to gaze at your navel can only be momentarily successful. It is giving aspirin to a cancer patient. Sit..see what comes up and what goes away if you do not attend to it...if something keeps coming up....and you can't let go of it....then here is something that needs your attention....fix it..or fix your understanding of it....or let go of your knowing about it.....if it is doubted it will not have the power to force its way into your consciousness uninvited.

At the time of that drive I was sure that I was right.... it was a cat.....and that my daughter was wrong due to the fact that she could just not stand to see another dead cat at the time...these days I wonder which of us, if either, got the correct take on that drive to town.

Be Well

Fudo

What about studying books for understanding?

If the goal is to be as open as possible to each moment, then understanding of any sort is a hindrance....it is of course a necessary evil...we have to have some little understanding of what is going on in order to function in our life.. I just to not believe catering to it or creating more understanding is the answer...I would prefer to see people deconstructing understanding. Dropping understanding as a goal, leaving the fine intellectual constructions (which by the way are all by their very nature false or at best only partially true)to cease building them and then to actively tear them down and leave all this as rubble ....to not have understanding as a goal, but to understand that to live each moment is the goal, and understanding is in the way, we need some...but let us keep as little as might be necessary rather than fill our headsso our whole life is lived in some book or fantasy world we create.

The problem is in the givens.....given smaller government is better...why have social service?....I understand smaller government is usually better..but wait...the understanding blinds me to the needs of my fellow citizens and our responsibilities to them. Given we should not kill.....well we should be vegetarian...but what if someone has prepared a meal with meat?....should we let the already dead cow go to waste?....what amount of understanding is going to bring us to each varied moment in our lives with all our resource present? (in what ever condition they are in) ..I am sorry ....each thing we grasp limits us...let us just put down the givens and the shoulds and be where we are.


This being said...some understanding is necessary. If someone gets this idea then how does one go about getting the little understanding they need to get through this life?....the best way they can. Having a teacher is the best way. One should try and do that if they can. Second best is sitting with a group without a teacher and last of all if they have no way (and I mean really no way...not just an excuse for not doing it) then reading a book would be a distant third. I remember when someone wrote to me of the impossibility of finding a group or a teacher...first this had to become possible before they could do it..the understanding that no one was about
was keeping them from seeing the resources that they could bring to hand. The first two ways of gaining understanding will bring you into the reality of your life ..the third takes you out of it ....if one must study, study with your whole being what is there in front of you where as Tsugen Roshi told me .......your practice is. Everyone's practice is what is in front of them. This kind of study is more zen then any book review or book reading.

The Soto shu does not give endless lectures on how to do zazen..a quick pointer and then you are stuck right there with a wall and a lot of time....eventually one does wake up to notice the time slowly passing..inside and outside.....the Soto Shu does not believe in giving you an understanding of what zazen is that you must later forget about....it leaves you to build what ever understanding you need to get through the period of zazen......and hopefully there will less to tear later when one learns to be here now.

I am inclined to read...reading is a great pleasure that takes me away..it is a great escape...I love it....but my goal is not to escape...it is to enter fully and go through since once I enter fully there is no real need to escape. Too many are looking for a cure for this moment....a fix for what ails them...but right here and right now life is being lived..the only life I have...I do not wish to miss a moment of it...good or bad, happy or sad.


I know people will read and people have a need to understand....perhaps when they sit long enough they will get that understanding is highly overrated. It is impossible for a finite conscious mind to grasp this infinite moment..we are blind and crippled..this is the reality of our lives....but even blind and crippled with no real understanding we can still grow and be life. We can even do it joyously and fully once we get that no real understanding is possible....when we give up trying to do the impossible...we are much less frustrated, angry and upset. When a terrorist bomb blows up and we get frightened and angry it is because
the bomb shattered our delusion that we understood the way London works..we lived in London....we got on the tube every morning and we came home on the tube at night..there were some frustrating things about it..but we knew how they worked and we knew what to expect...then BOOOM..our partial understanding is shattered and we are left with anger that this was not the way it was supposed to be today...but the reality is..this was the way it was going to be today....and it was only the comfort of our misunderstanding that was shattered for those of us not present for the attacks. We thought it could not happen here to day....When our partner leaves us because our understanding of our relationship did not include their understanding of our relationship our illusions are shattered our understanding f our relationship is shattered. There is no way for one person in a relationship to "understand" the whole relationship because they only have access to a part of the information...This is true for every where we are....Fear, anger, frustration....These things fade from our lives once the answer to why? becomes because this is what is.

Rather than study a book with your mind, study what is with all that you are.

Be Well

Fudo

on anger and terrorism

S. wrote

>Fudo, I would also like to hear how you have been taught to deal
>with anger. It's something that has particularly hit me since the
>London bombs (even though I'm 200 miles from London). Lots of angry
>thoughts that I am ashamed of came to the surface -I never even >knew
>I harboured anger like that. The only way I could avoid them has >been
>not to listen to the news. I know, though, that avoiding these
>thoughts is not the answer - How does one actually get rid of them >so
>that they're not there to rise up again? I have tried to live a
>loving life, thinking the best of others, but sometimes it all >seems
>to break down and I find a dark and ugly underside to my character
>that I would like to be rid of. Any ideas?


Do not seek to be a Buddha....do not judge yourself against a standard of perfection......

Be what you are where you are ...it is all you really can do. Sit with your angry perhaps racist thoughts.....do not try and suppress them....deal with them.....look at them .....see what they are for what they are...... fear......are you afraid for yourself? for your loved ones? for your very culture?....good ....you should be.....only from that fear that makes you angry can you really act to change the causal factors of the fear....Do you see a terrorist in every seat on the tube?....good ...there might be one....this is the reality of your life.....it is the reality of my life too.....now how do live when we are not assured of another moment of our life or the lives of our loved ones? We make sure we live each moment of the life we do have...the reality of all our lives is that we do not know whether there will be another breath or not. Being awake to that idea is not such a bad thing. Live each moment as if it is your last, speak to each person as if it is the last time you will see them, kiss your wife as if this is the last time you will have to do it....do this and in a short time you will be thanking the terrorists for enriching your life. You are not a guaranteed number of days.....perhaps it is time you stopped acting like it....pretending there is no rush ..that it can be done tomorrow. If it is important to you you had better get about it...it is the reality of your life. The terrorists remind us of our fear...they play upon our fear.......fix the fear...and there is nothing they can do to you. What are we afraid of?...we are afraid we will die with things left undone.....words left
unspoken......that our life will have counterd for nothing.....turn the terrorists act into a benefit for yourself and all those you touch...and you will horrify them beyond belief ......this is what will ultimately defeat the terrorists.......when we feed their children in genuine gratitude for their making our life and the lives of all those around better.

There is an old saying that your enemies are your best friends........ perhaps there might be some truth there.

Be Well

Fudo

growing corn *to those caring for an ill loved one*

My old Native American friend used to say a religion that did not grow
corn was useless. By this he meant a way that did not feed you when you
were hungry was not worth practicing.

There are many ways which will nourish the spirit when times are good,
but if the way does not help when times are difficult then it is not
worth playing with when times are good.

It is my contention that the "there is no you" philosophical woo woo
zen ...really does no good when your husband or wife is ill, perhaps not
to get better. I do not believe handing you a sutra book is enough.

I do think that focusing on this moment with your loved one does "grow
corn". Understanding the nature of impermanence does grow corn. Having a
real life understanding of the nature of pain, and of suffering does
grown corn.

I know that when my father-in-law was suffering, eventually fatally,
from congestive heart failure, my wife found the way did grow corn. She
was able to look at what was happening with an eye of patience with
suffering. She was able to be aware that this was the moment that she
had to fix all the problems with her relationship with her father. She
even tried to get her sister to finish all the business that was left
before he was gone. Her sister chose to believe that there was plenty of
time. I remember the day Anjin backed her father into a corner and told
him she wanted him to tell her he loved her. He gave the typical
father's response "You have to know I love you". She said "I know but I
still need to hear you say it." He paused for a moment then said the
short sentence that put so many doubts to rest and comforts her to this
day...it was something she needed to hear.

Death and illness are a part of life. There are things that need to be
taken care of, and responsibilities that need to be discharged. What
sounded so easy in the beginning...the in sickness and in health
part.... is not so easy when its reality rears its ugly head. If you can
stay in the moment even though this moment appears to be heart breaking,
I can say with confidence that what it will be is heart healing. If you
take care of this moment, with compassion and dignity both for yourself
and for your loved one, it will be a source of great comfort in the
years to come.

No one wants to see a loved one suffer. No one wants to be handed a
great challenge. We all want an easy practice with nothing but warm
walks on the beach. The reality of a real relationship is that it is not
all walks on the beach. I, for one, would not wish to sacrifice a real
relationship for the dream of what could not possibly be.

Please, do not sacrifice one minute of this, Even though this is not
what you would have wished for. When it is over, you will be glad you
were there through as much of it as you could take.

Remember not to beat yourself up for not being the perfect caregiver,
you are what you are...be what you are in this place and moment...even
if what you are is clumsy and bungling. Remember your spouse loves you
for what you are. Rest when you need to rest. Take a break when you need
a break. (eat when you are hungry sleep when you are tired is the old
zen axiom).

There are no real lessons learned when nothing difficult is happening.
This is a time of great challenge and growth, both for you and your
loved ones. No real compassion is developed until you are challenged to
be compassionate. No real strength is developed until our strength is
challenged. No real courage is required until there is something to
fear.

When my mother passed after decades of senile dementia, some of us were
glad her suffering was over. One of my brothers wanted his mother alive
even though she could not feed herself or would not want to live with no
ability to string two thoughts together. 5 of the six of us came back
for the funeral ....one did not. He was one of us who was glad her
suffering was finally over yet he could not face the idea of a funeral
for his mother. ....funny ... he was always like this...he did not come
home for our father's funeral either. He did not come to see her in the
home, he could not see her like that. He is not good with death, or
illness....even though as a former Marine Captain who served in a couple
of wars he is probably more familiar with them than most of the rest of
us. I am sure he has attended more funerals and dealt with more death
than any of us. When it was this personal and intimate.....it was too
much. We understood. It is who he is. He should have been nothing else
on that day. We love him for who he is, not for what we would like him
to be.

Be who you are in this and all moments and the regrets and the suffering
will be as small as they can be, both for yourself and for your loved
one. If you can do this, the way will grow corn.

Be Well

Fudo

A little peace and quiet

One of the things that drives people to the practice of Zen is a desire
for a little peace and quiet. Just add a little here somewhere to my
life. We all would like a little peace, a little break ...some moments
of calm in this storm tossed life. Please..just a little peace and quiet
is all I am asking for. Just let me sit down here for a little break,
and then I can go back to my life a little refreshed.

The problem is peace is just a relative thing. In order for there to be
this peace, there has to be a conflict for it to be relative to. We
cannot create peace all by itself. The moment we begin seeking peace, we
define where we are as conflict.

I remember when I was taking some training in crisis management. The
instructor asked "when does something become an emergency?"...the answer
was when we define it as an emergency. When we begin to seek peace we
have declared where we are to be a conflict. A conflict takes two sides
or positions to happen. The way out of a conflict is for one of us to
refuse to see it as conflict. We must be peace. We cannot get peace
granted to us by another.

The idea of peace arises in the same instant the idea of conflict
arises, because they are only relative states, they only exist in
relation to each other. The opposite of war is peace. If we wish to have
an end to conflict we also end peace.

The way to find what we truly seek, which is an end to conflict is not
to seek peace. It is to find what truly is....and what truly is is
neither peace nor conflict until we bring these ideas to it. We need to
stop thinking in terms of peace and war and conflict and detante. We
need to understand that there is no peace without war.

Also we need to understand the nature of our life. Everything that lives
grows, everything that grows conflicts. The grass is at war with the
weeds the weeds contend with each other for the space to grow. The food
we eat is finessed from some starving child in India. (either by our
government or theirs). Capitalism is conflict by its very nature. The
argument is that it is better for children to die in Iraq then it is for
children to die here.....conflict. One of the results of peace is
stagnation. Death. We must kill at least a plant to survive.

So rather than seeking the elusive dream of peace, better to seek a way
to be at ease in the midst of conflict.

So instead of seeking peace, perhaps what we need to seek is an end to
our suffering from what is an essential part of our life. (death too is
an essential part of our life). So how do we end our suffering? ..Did
the Buddha suggest we ask everyone else to stop conflict to end our
suffering from war?...No. Did he suggest we march on Washington asking
our government to give us peace?.....No...Did he suggest we ask others
to please leave us alone?...No.....He suggested we look inside for the
end to our suffering. He suggested the way to end our suffering from all
this conflict around us was the eightfold path. I have already spoken
about one simple way to bring the eightfold path into the reality of our
lives, that is to sit. It is my suggestion that if one is suffering
from the actions of another, or the condition of another, one finds
their way to the eightfold path. One place easy to find the beginning of
this path is the nearest chair. Once your feet have found the path that
is right there where you are, then one can step out on the path as it
appears before you. When you are on the path, suffering ceases. This is
not to say that the world around changes to peace and light. This does
not mean no one is sick or no one dies. It simply means when you do the
right thing as defined in the eightfold path you do not suffer.
Suffering arises from wrong thinking, wrong action, wrong livelihood
etc. I would suggest blaming others for our suffering is wrong thinking.
I would suggest that railing at life for our misery is wrong thinking
and wrong action.

I think those who think Buddhism or zazen is an escape from our
responsibility for the way we are are wrong. I think Buddhism is the
most responsible way there is. The first step to ending our suffering is
to acknowledge that our suffering is in fact our fault. It arises from
our wrong action our distraction, our ignorance. There is no one else
to blame here, and no one else to save us. There is nothing I can do to
end another's suffering other then show them a way to find the path.
Then they must either walk the eightfold path themselves, or suffer. I
cannot drive them to the path, I cannot force them to the path, nor can
I suffer over long for their failure to even look for the way to end
their suffering. In the end it is our suffering and our pain that
defines us. When we give up our suffering we have to give up our
definition of ourselves as suffering beings. Some of us are not ready to
make that step yet. This is a sad truth. Yet even here when our
compassionate heart is breaking, it is not right thinking to wish for
different way. This is the way, the reality of our lives is where we
have to live our lives. There is no other choice. It is not right
thinking to keep looking for a way out, when the only way out is
through.

Be Well

Fudo

A lovely question

> Hi, so what is the difference between mowing the lawn by a zen
> practitioner that wants to do it the best possible way and a non zen
> practitioner that wants to mow the lawn in the best possible way?


What a lovely question!....let me take a shot at an answer.


If in watching the two people mow, you could tell a difference then the
Zen practitioner still has a ways to go in his or her practice.

If the Zen practitioner saw himself or herself as one iota different
than the non Zen practitioner then the Zen practitioner still has a ways
to go in his or her practice.

If the Zen practitioner thought there should be something ....better or
different about how he or she mowed the lawn then that Zen practitioner
still has a ways to go in his practice.

If the Zen practitioner thought years of practice should make them
better at mowing the lawn or tending the garden than a gardener who took
pride in his or her work, the Zen practitioner's practice has utterly
failed.

Zen is nothing special, nothing extra, it gives you nothing, adds
nothing, takes away nothing. It should leave no trace. If the way the
lawn is mowed stinks of Zen, then a trace is left, and the practitioner
needs to mow another lawn.

If I was looking for a difference. I would look for the smile. If the
smile of the Zen practitioner was exactly the same as the gardener who
loved his or her work I would smile. The real difference would not
easily seen. It was in the fact that the Zen practitioner was only a
gardener for a few moments, and the gardener might be a gardener all his
or her life. I would expect that the Zen practitioner would go on to do
dishes just like person who loves doing dishes....and then go on to
eating just like a gourmet, cooking like a person who loves to cook,
and being a father or mother like a person who loves being a parent, and
always the smile would be the exactly the same. Exactly like someone who
loves exactly whatever they are doing.

Now I can hear people saying...but a person who loves to garden,doesn't
always smile, sometimes they get angry when a deer eats a plant,
sometimes they are sad because a well loved plant is dying. Sometimes
love is not enough and things go wrong or fail sometimes gardening can
be frustrating, sometimes a gardener might even use foul
language........ Exactly. The Zen practitioner would be exactly like a
person who loved gardening when they garden, exactly like someone who
loves being a parent while parenting, and exactly like a person who
loves to cook when they cook.(maybe even exactly like a person who loves
to argue on a list when they are arguing on a list).... Not different,
not separate, no mark, no trace..exactly the same. You would observe no
difference, unless you look long and deep and over time, and cannot
detect a difference no matter what the activity is. If the Zen
practitioner is a master, you might not even notice why or even if the
person seems special. All you will know is that you like to be near
them, and that things just seem to work out better when they are around,
maybe somethings make more sense. If you are lucky you will catch a
little of the disease, and then Each moment becomes loved like it is the
thing we love most. Each activity is treasured because right there is
where everything that is is.

right view?

c wrote:
> So is imperative to obtain right view otherwise is impossible to see
> the advantage of zen.
> The question is,does perfect understanding of this come with zazen
> and the practice of the paramitas and where does it fit
> enlightenment in all this?

This is a beginning, Right view?....where have I heard that
before??....ah yes..the eight fold path..right view, right speech, right
resolve, right action, right livelihood,right mindfulness, and right
concentration.

It would seem that there are wheels within wheels here..that each
one...take right view for example..... involves the application of all
the other folds of the path. The same can be said of right speech and
all the other folds.

The activity of Zazen is one activity that includes all the folds of
the path. If you just sit still, all the path is unfolding right as you
sit. All we need do is to let it unfold. Zazen is one easy way to
include the fourth noble truth in our lives. One easy way to bring the
eightfold path into the reality of our lives.

If one just sits down to see what is there right now, right view
unfolds. If one keeps silence right speech unfolds. If one keeps his or
her contract with themselves to sit for a certain time, right there
right resolve unfolds. Sitting with the intent to manifest the path in
our lives is right action. Adding a practice of Buddhism to our lives is
right there a right livelihood, opening ourselves to everything that is
is right mindfulness, and of course right concentration is made manifest
when we actually do this.

Zazen is the enlightenment of the Buddha made manifest right here right
now.

Zazen is not to develop perfect understanding. Perfect understanding is
an activity like zazen. From the first moment you sit down, perfect
understanding is beginning to be added to the reality of your life.

The differences in the schools are only the entry gate they have chosen
to offer. One can enter the path through concentration, or by engaging
all your time in right livelihood, or by constantly watching your
speech...since each of these folds has the wheel of all the others
folded into it.

Zazen is the gate that the Zen school offers. We like to think of it as
the perfect gate, because as soon as you sit...all the folds are
actually made manifest right there in your life. Dogen calls it the
universal prescription..the one that works for everyone. We all like to
think our way is the best way, but no one way is the only way. When I
meet someone else with a different way I am reminded of the shopkeeper
who when asked what was the best thing in his shop responded "each thing
is best." I guess whatever works best for you is the best way for you.
This is the best way I have found for me.

I once had an encounter with a monk from another tradition. He was
telling me that Zen was not the best way, the way he practiced was the
best way and there was a long list of reasons why his way was best. I
chuckled and agreed his way was best, but I thought always taking only
the best way for yourself was selfish, so I was going to be happy
practicing the second best way. I remain happy practicing the second
best way.

Be Well

Fudo

teachings from no teacher *lessons from life (poems)

"what me defensive?"

The best defense,
Is a good offense,
but no invulnerable fortress,
Needs defending.



"When the arrow hits the mark"

One way to tell
when the weakness is found
is to listen for
The scream of denial.



"on the deceit of deceit"

The most deceived
By the deceitful
Is the deceitful.




"the beauty of the eightfold path"


Every criminal thinks
their crime is perfect
Every criminal forever fears
It was not.

Some little poetry

Here are some little poems, some of which were written while practising in Japan.



"Daikon"

Three ways a meal,
Three meals a day,
Seven days a week.


"Zen"

Putting on black robes
In the dark
Every day


"Mountains"

It is difficult
To see there is no mountain
While you are climbing it



"Mountains"

One sees the mountain
One sees there is no mountain
Which is the greater fool?



"Untitled"

This soap bubble world
Is driven by the wind
onto the spear sharp grass



"conditions"

The fire in the belly
The embers in the grass
live only so long as conditions permit



"Winter"

Dry and brittle
like raspberries in the winter
I too await the coming of spring.


"to one who is intoxicated"

Smell the rain
my Drunken friend
tomorrow's pain
will never end.


"untitled "

Speak to me not
in the icy blue words
of old ashes
tenderly laid so long ago
beneath the cold black stone
Sing to me instead
the symphony you have heard
in a flash of lightening
or tell me what you know
of the smell
of the coming rain

Ringing True

When I hear the phrase that describes something as "ringing true" I always think of the Bonsho (large temple bell) at Shogoji Temple in Japan. It hung in a bell tower and was rung with a log suspended from ropes attached to a crossbeam on the bell tower. It took both hands to pull the log back, and one had to time the strike so the bell was returning towards the log as it swayed from each strike. If you did not time the strike correctly, or use enough force the bell would give off a discordant clunk. If you made the perfect strike, the bell would send a beautiful peal rolling down the mountain. At certain times of day the bell was sounded either 9 or 18 times.

The whole time I was there only one Monk sounded the bell perfectly 18 strikes in a row. It was not for lack of trying. Each day there were 2 times a day the bell was sounded 18 times in a row...so for over 60 days and two attempts a day only one time did the bell sound well struck all 18 times. That is less than one in 120 attempts. It sure points out the difficulty of the task. One had to be present and pay attention only to the swinging of the bell and carefully yet firmly pull back on the log and swing it forward in the correct time 18 times in a row. There was also a pattern in that the 9th and 17th ring were supposed to be softer, and the 18th ring was supposed to sound right after the 17th. These softer rings were signals to other monks to begin to perform other tasks. If the bell ringers strikes rang true, or at least in the proper pattern the correct signals would be sent to the other monks working around the temple, and every thing would flow smoothly. If the bell was struck in a discordant manner those monks sitting Zazen might be distracted. (everything in the monastery was supposed to support a smooth and harmonious atmosphere for Zazen). There were also the full bows between each ring to complicate the task.

Each day one of the monks would be assigned to ring the temple bell. We would try our best to send only peals that rang true rolling down the mountain and day after day we would fail. We got so into creating this harmonious atmosphere that people tried to walk silently, and tried not to bump each other in the narrow passage ways.

All our efforts toward making this quiet and harmonious atmosphere would be shattered each day as the loudspeaker system for the village below the Temple would crank up with loud announcements each evening during the second period of Zazen. A nice scratchy voice would chat for a while in Japanese.... I never was clued into what was said. Then came the day the shotgun shells for the scarecrows in the rice paddies started going off at frequent random times throughout the day.

All this happened without a twitch in the effort to create a harmonious atmosphere. Somehow it all worked together...perhaps because it all was authentic. It all rang true.....even those discordant crashes of the bell.....even though the Monk missed the mark, he or she was what they authentically were...just a student monk doing his or her best at a nearly impossible task. ...I will always remember that one day, when every peal rang true and one student mastered that cantankerous bell.


a bell

well struck

rings true.


Be Well

Fudo

Karma goes to sleep

Last night as my wife Barbara was putting our three-year-old daughter
Karma to bed I was reading a stack of emails that had piled up in my
inbox. My computer is just on the other side of the wall from my
daughter's room. I could hear the frustration in my wife's voice
building and the anguish in my daughter's voice increasing as the one,
knowing her daughter was exhausted, and the other, knowing sleep was
not coming, battled in one of the oldest conflicts known to humankind.

I rolled my eyes as I left the computer and go help out. I entered the
fray as a neutral observer and soon found myself comforting an upset
Karma as Barbara set about the tasks that were demanding her time at
the same time as our child was also demanding her attention.

After Karma's breathless explanation that she was just not tired and
could not go to sleep we began to exchange various ideas about such
wonderful things as princesses and handsome princes, monsters and evil
stepmothers and such things as three-year-old girls build obsessions
around. .She began to calm down. Soon our exchanges became quieter
until they faded
into a silent reverie. Hers, I am sure, was of fairy godmothers and
fancy balls . . . mine was of the wonders of a-three-year old mind.

Then I felt it . . . the death grip on the lapel of my samue jacket.
The desperate grip of a three-year-old on a storm-tossed bed. Denied
the usual comfort of her mother, here was the other familiar thing,
the other rock, she could hold onto and hold on she did. I sat there -
who knows how long? - until her breathing smoothed and her fingers
could be gently peeled off. I moved off the pile of sharp-edged toys
I'd not noticed were under me.

As I slowly backed out of my daughter's now quiet room I finally
understood. This was what it was all about. Just to be there in
everyday life, even with something that was not what I thought I
wanted to be doing. There is where true treasures are found.. I
remembered the roll of my eyes as I left my computer. Silly me. .
.resistance to receiving the greatest treasure of all. One I could
have missed for a discussion of copyright issues or someone's
expressions of their opinions on oneness.

I cannot even imagine the number of moments like these I missed with
our first daughter for things I was convinced were more important.
Tonight, if I had given in to my own desires, the opportunity would
have gone in an instant. Vanished in a flash. And I would have gone on
secure in my rightness, focused on my issues, never having the least
idea of what I had missed.

a birthday celebration

53 years standing in the cold north wind

even the marrow is chilled to ice

no shaded grave could be more frigid

what is this warm breath that clouds the mirror?