Posts Tagged ‘Zen’

your proof

June 27th, 2011    -    16 Comments

Zen is to deal with this very life – here now – as one’s own.  We have to face the fact of this now, this here and this oneself.  That’s what each of us is facing. That is the path. That is the Way. – Maezumi Roshi

When people bring me their stories of pain and despair; when they are broken-hearted and lonely; when I hear their panic and fear, their sobs and gasping breath, what can I say? What can I do? There is nothing I can say; no way to fix it. When people bring me their disbelief, their last hope, their rage, I can only meet it with a nod. Yes! Yes! You are right! It is true! You are not dreaming this, you are wide awake! How I wish it weren’t so, this time. How I wish for the things we all wish for.

Like you, I wish I could go back in time and undo every disaster, every accident, every tough break and piece of bad news. I want your life to once again be just as you thought it was or as you hoped it would be. I want it desperately, but I have nothing to offer you except this.

You’ll always reach the end of how you thought your life would go. You’ll reach it many, many times. What looks like the low point is also the high point. What looks like the end is always the beginning . Finding faith may seem impossible in your darkest times, but like the earth’s eternal orbit and the sun’s ceaseless shine, impossible things happen all the time. You may be lost right now, but after days, months, even years in the wilderness, you will be found alive. Completely, joyously, miraculously alive. This right here is your proof.

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something amazing in the space

June 2nd, 2011    -    13 Comments

Reprinted from the Summer 2011 issue of Buddhadharma magazine.

I’m sitting in what I call the “mommy pit” at the gymnastics studio, the fenced sideline from which I’ve watched my daughter explore the potential of her human form over the last five years. She does a triple back handspring, vaulting backward in three blind spirals until she plants her feet in the unmistakable thwack of a solid landing, raising her arms in a completion salute.

Her teacher stands with arms crossed, her response inscrutable. Is that a slight smile? A frown? A nod? Is that encouragement? Criticism? Recognition? Who can tell?

“Again,” she instructs, and my daughter flips across the floor.

I’m thinking about teachers and what they empower in us, and how different that is from a teaching itself. I’m thinking about this because of the choice it presents to us in our own lives, and because of the crossroads we face in the propagation of American Buddhism.

What do teachers do? And given how difficult Buddhist teachers can be to locate, trust, understand, accept, admire, and follow, are they even necessary? It’s my guess that most Buddhists don’t think so, since by their own admission, so many are “unaffiliated,” unable, unwilling, or unconvinced they need to seek a teacher.

The justifications to dismiss the role of teachers and sanghas are compelling. Justifications always are. It’s inconvenient, for one. You might have to travel. Teachers are few and far between. It takes time. You have to meet other people. You might not like them. It’s frightening. Looks cultlike. And what if you get the wrong one? Besides, we live in the virtual age, when Buddhist information, discussion, and so-called communities proliferate on the web. Shouldn’t we advance the dharma into modernity? Who needs to meet face-to-face when you have Skype?

Once again I glance at the gym teacher standing among her charges. A handspring isn’t something I do, or can teach my daughter to do. What was it that turned her timidity into trust, her fear into freeform flight? A firm touch to her knees? A hand on her back? The sheer persistence of practice? A grin? A shout? The company of her teammates, who amplify her effort with the energy of their own? Perhaps all of that, plus the teacher’s steadfast reassurance that my daughter could do what she didn’t believe she could: go beyond her limits. read more

don’t eat the label

May 29th, 2011    -    16 Comments

The journey of our lives is remarkably universal and predictable. That’s why we can share experiences, insights and sentiments, and that’s how we can empathize with one another. And so it is guaranteed that, after a pinprick of recognition, a flicker of awareness, someone will turn to me and ask what they should read next.

I would like to say, “Nothing” but that is neither kind nor practical. Of course we read, and we want to read, accustomed as we are to thinking that what is in a book will guide and shape us, will lead us to some deeper understanding, some culminating truth, and maybe even save us a step. Nothing you read in a book will give you that, although reading is itself a worthwhile pastime. Reading a good book is like gazing onto a field of flowers, or the sky, or the sea, or the sand, or a cornfield, or the parking lot at Wal-Mart on a Sunday afternoon. Gazing at any of those things will deliver you to a deeper recognition and appreciation of yourself and your world without informing you of one thing, except to stay away from Wal-Mart on a Sunday afternoon.

Information, least of all about the nature of your life, is vastly overrated and might even be harmful. Information about Zen, and Buddhism for that matter, is rather useless, although many will gorge themselves on it, as if eating the label on a can of soup can give them a taste of Tomato Bisque. Zen is the actual, living experience of your life. No one has yet documented the life that only you can live. The practice of Zen requires that you intimately experience your life, and not restrict yourself to reading about it. Almost nothing in your experience will match the anticipation, fear, and misconceptions that are stirred up by accumulating knowledge about this or that. read more

to the teachers

May 18th, 2011    -    79 Comments

Perhaps you’ve noticed I don’t write much about motherhood any more. Our children do an excellent job of being consistently, rather stubbornly, exactly who they are, and once we acknowledge that, our only job as mothers is to keep acknowledging it over and over. Or not. The not is what causes the difficulty.

Perhaps you’ve noticed I don’t write much about marriage any more. Our partners do an excellent job of being consistently, rather stubbornly, who we aren’t, and once we accept that, our job is to keep accepting it over and over. Or not. The not is what causes the difficulty.

At one time in my life, motherhood brought to me my most urgent and incomprehensible lessons. At other times, my marriage did. But by itself, over time, sure as day to night to day, in a continuous and miraculous transformation, a daughter becomes a mother and a woman becomes a wife. When that transition is complete, there’s not much to say about it, not much I can tell you, since you will have to make that passage on your own. Or not.

What is most interesting to me now is another transition, perhaps the last for me, and the greatest of all. It is the transition from the student to the teacher. In whatever form it takes, whatever time it travels, this is the longest lesson we undertake, because it is the lesson in how we live, how we give, how we grow, and how we know. read more

saying service

May 9th, 2011    -    25 Comments

Too many people are hurting to keep this to myself. If you need me to say a service for you or someone you care for, please add the name in the comments below. To see the syllabic transliteration of the chant I say in this video, click this link.

 

my eyes are brown

April 3rd, 2011    -    11 Comments

My mother had brown eyes. My father had blue eyes. My eyes are brown. I hope you appreciate this fact, because it is a way to appreciate your life.

I’m always honored when someone contacts me through this site, or any other of our so-called social media, and asks how to take up the study of Zen Buddhism with me. I also realize that they will be slightly dismayed by my response, since we can seem to get so far these days by going nowhere at all, just flicking our fingers and thumbs across a pad.

I happen to belong to a Zen lineage that spans 81 generations of ancestors each of whom transmitted the teaching one-on-one, in person, to his or her successors. What kind of teacher would I be if I didn’t believe in the teaching I’ve been shown or the lineage to which I belong?

There are many who don’t experience the truth as I do, and so there are those who offer long-distance study. That is fine, up to a point. But the point of departure is the fundamental point of the practice: to penetrate the illusion of duality – separation – and experience the one mind. To do that, you have to meet the teacher eye-to-eye. When the student comes together with the teacher, as conditions are right, wisdom arises by itself: the way grass grows with rain and flowers bloom to face the sun. You may have already experienced what I’m talking about, although none of us can quite express it in words. read more

Zen isn’t

March 28th, 2011    -    23 Comments


Zen is a special transmission outside the scriptures with no reliance on words or letters.

I’d like to topple the tower of babel about Zen.

Zen isn’t a habit. It is the absence of all habits and conditioning. There are no habits in Zen, because everything, everywhere, everytime is altogether new.

Zen isn’t simplifying your life. Zen is simply life. When we don’t fuss with it, life simplifies itself.

Zen isn’t cleaning up your house so you have a calm and orderly mind. Zen is cleaning up your mind so you have a calm and orderly house.

Zen isn’t waking up so you can get out of bed. Zen is getting out of bed so you can wake up.

Zen isn’t eating less, spending less, talking less or working less. It’s wanting less, fearing less, worrying less and striving less. The latter takes care of the former.

Zen isn’t extra time, extra effort or extra attention. Zen is nothing extra.

Zen isn’t running, golfing, archery, flower arranging, gardening, golfing, lying down, sitting up or motorcycle maintenance, although it doesn’t exclude any of that.

Zen is not a second. Zen is not even ten seconds. It is eternal. It is now. Zen never ends.

Zen isn’t about making a change in your life. It is about living the change you already are.

Zen cannot be found, because Zen is never missing.

Now, how do you come to see and believe this for yourself? Certainly not by reading about it, although one or two good books every now and then won’t hurt. (And I’d even sign them for you.)

This post has been republished because a sharp-eyed reader reminded me about it, and another one pointed out that my next one-day meditation retreat was shortsightedly scheduled for Father’s Day. I stand reminded, and I thank everyone for their close attention.

Beginner’s Mind One-Day Meditation Retreat Sun., June 12 in LA

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the living brush

January 28th, 2011    -    3 Comments

It was in February, a week before Maezumi Roshi’s birthday, only his 64th.  I’d thought that I would leave him a little something behind before I raced back home, a poem or a line inscribed when inspiration arrived.  Nothing arrived, and I hurriedly copied a story from a book I carried with me, a book of stories by William Maxwell called All the Days and Nights. The book was a treasure trove, and I’d read and recommended it frequently in the weeks since I’d beelined for the bookstore, upon hearing the delicate, eighty something voice of the author on the car radio one night.  I was at a stoplight on the way home from work and I heard him say, “I’m astonished that there always is a story, but first it has to come out of the absolutely emptied mind, the mysterious.”

The story I copied was called “The Man Who Lost His Father.”

People ask me how I write. I can’t really say, and I really can’t teach it. I’m not sure that anyone can teach you how to write. But this, I can teach.

Please read about The Living Brush, my first creativity retreat for writers and artists, by scrolling down to the depths of my Retreats page. Then let me hear from you.

Illustration (c) 2010 Andrew Buckle

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the way to the way

January 18th, 2011    -    5 Comments

Ordinary life fits the absolute as a box and its lid.
The absolute works together with the relative
like two arrows meeting in mid-air.
Reading words you should grasp the great reality.
Do not judge by any standards.
If you do not see the Way, you do not see it even as you walk on it.
When you walk the Way, it is not near, it is not far.
If you are deluded you are mountains and rivers away from it.
I respectfully say to those who wish to be enlightened:
Do not waste your time by night or day.

– from The Identity of Relative and Absolute, 8th century Zen poem

A limited number of scholarships are now available to the Plunge at Asilomar, my next retreat on Saturday, Feb. 12. If you or a friend needs assistance, you’ll find the way here. Please leave me a private message via my Contact page.

Photo: The way to Asilomar.

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zen guide to the holidays

December 3rd, 2010    -    8 Comments

No, Virginia, there really isn’t a Zen guide to the holidays, but I’m going to give you one anyway.

First, a story about the magic of giving. When I was in Seattle this year for a Plunge retreat, a woman in the group approached me afterwards and handed me a package. I said thanks, then I packed it away and didn’t open it until I returned home. When I did, I was astonished. She had made, with her own hands, and placed into my own hands, a felted silk and woolen scarf of the most exquisite artistry that it became the most beautiful thing I own. It seems to be sculpted out of thin air.

Now for the magic. On a chilly Friday night in Portland two months ago, I was sitting on the unheated floor of a church parish hall giving a talk and a woman entered the room and sat right in front of me. She smiled at everything I said. Afterwards, she introduced herself to me once more as Anna Katherine Curfman from Seattle, the scarf maker. She had traveled to Portland for a craft show, heard that very day that I was in town, and made her way across town in the dark to give me the gift of a smiling face in the front row.

We are all traveling a vast distance in the dark. We all have gifts for one another. We come together out of thin air, our hearts full, our arms open, and it’s magic. I resolved that night to give her handmade scarves as gifts this season to those most dear. I highly recommend that you take a look at her magic for yourself. They are not cheap or disposable, but I’ve never seen anything more generously made and freely offered. You may know someone special who will be astonished at how far you go this year to see them smile.

Yes, Virginia, there really is a Zen guide to the holidays, and it’s wrapped into this 30-minute conversation recorded by Donna Wolff Freeman of Yoga in My School. Open it and sit back to receive a soothing balm of quiet comfort straight out of thin air. Imagine it’s my arms, around your shoulders, to soften the chill of dark distance. Generously made and freely offered.

***

More zen for the holidays, if you act fast: New World Library, the publisher of Hand Wash Cold, is offering their Facebook fans 40% off and free shipping on all products until Monday 12/6. Simply join their Facebook page and enter code SNDIS at checkout when you shop their online catalog. Happy holidays!

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black friday zen

November 26th, 2010    -    3 Comments

Being and doing
may seem to be different
but they really are the same.
There is no such state as just being.
even for inanimate things.
See, here is a saucer,
but there is activity in it.
You know how matter exists.
Particles are in motion –
protons, electrons, neutrons –
and they hold things together.
They are active.
They are doing something.
It is energy.
We are living in that samadhi to begin with.

–Maezumi Roshi, Teaching of the Great Mountain

I am sometimes asked the difference between being and doing, or at least a question that implies a difference between being and doing, such as “How do you ever get anything done?” Here Maezumi Roshi answers that question so simply and clearly. Most of us imagine that being is to exist in a state of paralysis, disengaged and inert. Oh the trouble we create by trying to understand something to mean something else!

I create a good bit of trouble for myself trying to understand Maezumi, to listen and transcribe and convey his teaching, and he does it himself so well. I was unaware of this little book, Teaching of the Great Mountain. It is a series of talks, some of which I’m delighted to recall I was present for! What is different is that his words are arranged in verse form, and seeing them that way they are suddenly so simple.

I bring it to your bargain-hunting attention today because like most treasures, it is found in the junk bin. You can buy a used copy on Amazon for as little as $1.49. I suggest you buy all your wisdom that way: well-worn and low-priced. Then you have the rest of your money to be foolish with.

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your life is a garden

October 31st, 2010    -    10 Comments

And you are the only gardener. Meditate on this.

babies and bathwater in Portland

October 6th, 2010    -    7 Comments

Washing dishes is like bathing a baby Buddha – Thich Nhat Hanh

People often quote this to me as their understanding of mindfulness. I only hope it is not their understanding of dishwashing or baby bathing.

First off, let me be clear. In an absolute sense, dishes are indeed the baby Buddha. The Buddha is indeed the dishes. As is the water, the dishwashing liquid, the scrubber and the baked-on lasagna. Everything is nothing but Mind, which is nothing but Buddha. So this instruction is absolutely true. It’s in the application that the baked-on lasagna gets sticky.

In a relative sense, our understanding of mindfulness poses difficulty. (Any understanding poses difficulty and the relative sense is where all our difficulty lies.) We might infer that we are to bring a certain something extra to the sink, like an attitude of holiness or reverence. Maybe we should slow down and contemplate the sacredness of the task, its deeper meaning and value. We might even extract a self-satisfied fulfillment from how we see ourselves. I’ve finally got it! I’m really washing dishes like bathing a baby Buddha!

Even though the dish is the baby Buddha, it is still a dish. And a baby? A baby is not a dish. To wash the dishes is to wash them as they are: dishes. To bathe a baby is to bathe the baby as it is: squirming, splashing, crying, laughing, slippery. To be mindful is to bring nothing more to your life than what is there already. Seeing things as they are, you already know exactly what to do and how to do it. Wash the dish. Bathe the baby. As they are.

We just forget, and look for something more to add to it than our own straightforward attention. Attention is more than enough. It is pure love for everything in life as it is.

Attention! Someone dropped the baby in Portland! Whether you’re a mother or father, spiritual or not, into Zen or far out of it, come to this event and help me stack the dishes. Please share with anyone who has an interest in peaceful parenting, and especially those who have no interest at all.

Saturday, Oct. 16, 9-3:30 p.m.
Portals of Love: The Spiritual Practice of Parenting
Hosted by Zen Community of Oregon at St. David of Wales Church
Portland, Oregon

If you ever prayed for an easier way to parent, this one day workshop is for you. We’ll examine how to find a spiritual practice amid the demands of home life. If you’re not a parent, you’ll still benefit fully because there is no prerequisite for finding personal peace. The day includes morning coffee and vegetarian lunch, beginning meditation and other mindfulness practices, ample time for personal questions and book signing.

More information and registration here.

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