Posts Tagged ‘True Nature’

rise up

August 18th, 2020    -    4 Comments

On the eve of the first Women’s March on January 21, 2017, my sister, niece and I walked through the Muir Woods National Monument, an old-growth redwood forest north of San Francisco. The majority of the trees there are between 500 to 800 years old. The oldest tree in the protected forest is more than 1200 years old. It gave me hope.

Now, it has taken less than four years for one malevolent man to bring our country to its knees. But look! It’s taken less than four years for us to rise up again. When you tire, falter, and lose faith in the democratic ideal, look to the trees. There, you’ll see that the earth, the sky, and all of time are on our side.

Redwoods can grow as tall as 380 feet from a seed the size of a tomato seed—a nearly invisible seed. Do not doubt the power of what that one seed knows. You know it too, and you will stand tall.

lone tree

August 10th, 2020    -    4 Comments

At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet. — Plato

Like the well to the water

the drip to the dry

as the wind draws the dust

so the sun pulls the sky

Like the tree makes the shade

by standing still

on a hill

look around now

and meet everyone, everything

with great love.

From a weekend traveling the golden hills of Interstate 5

Photo by Sean Brown on Unsplash

wildness comes

June 29th, 2020    -    7 Comments

Helicopters were buzzing the hills around our town again this morning. That usually means a bear sighting. Or maybe a mountain lion. Last month our neighbors called to tell us they’d seen a baby bear tottering along the fence leading into our backyard. We just missed seeing it but they’d taken a photo as proof. At dawn one morning I walked into the kitchen and saw a coyote just outside the picture window. It was so well-fed that I couldn’t identify it at first. I’d never seen such a powerful thing at home and unafraid. Then it turned my way and I saw the furry prey in its jaws, a cat, maybe even the gray stray that had been lounging in the yard not long ago, the one we loved.

The goats have taken back Wales, the deer are stalking Pennsylvania, the ducks are parading in Paris, but the coyote snatching breakfast on my patio was what did me in. What made us think we were in charge of this Eden, huddling in our collapsible boxes, barricaded by rose bushes, fortified by wobbly fences and broken gates?

The wildness stalks at night and takes its revenge. No, not anymore. The wildness comes by day and shows us our place in a living world: not apart, not above, and not immune. A kingdom untaxed by forethought of grief, in balance and at peace: this is our forgotten domain.

It is a kind of justice, a restoration, that comforts me in the falling days.

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Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash

scales fell

November 7th, 2018    -    5 Comments

At once something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. — Acts 9:18

A few mornings ago I looked out the window to the garden and saw something really weird scattered over the patio. At first, it looked a little like confetti. Up close, it seemed more like press-on fingernails. I picked up a piece and it was as hard as plastic. It took me a few minutes before I knew, with resignation and sadness, what I was looking at.

In my last blog post I told you that the practice of Buddhism started when Shakyamuni realized that he would get old, get sick and die. It went sort of like this: “Here’s the baseline. You’re not going to like this. It’s going to be hard. Life’s a bitch.” That’s what we call the First Noble Truth: life is suffering.

The practice of Buddhism is to look into that suffering and see what’s there. Are we just a collection of bones, or as my teacher likes to say, a bag of shit, pus and blood?  Because if that’s all that’s sitting here, go on home and spend the rest of your life streaming Netflix. But Shakyamuni has his doubts. He wants to see for himself.

When he looks into his own nature, he arrives at the Second Noble Truth, which is that the source of suffering can be known. You can see that you suffer because things don’t go the way you want them to. Out of nowhere we get sick, and try as we might, we can’t undo the causal factors. No one can even tell you for sure what the causal factors are. We have an accident, and we can’t unwind it. Trouble comes, and we can’t get around it. Happiness shows up, then disappears. As long as we go through life saying, “This doesn’t work for me, I can’t handle this, I don’t want it, I don’t like it, and I’m not ready,” we’re in continuous discomfort, or dukkha.

And where is all of that happening? In the mind that picks and chooses, trying to plan, prevent, organize and prepare, as if you could avoid all the bad stuff and hold onto the good.

So by now you know that you suffer, and you can also see why. The next step is to stop doing that. The Third Noble Truth tells you that you don’t have to be a prisoner to your thoughts. You don’t have to live inside your head, spun about by “me, my, I” and all your likes and dislikes, desires, fears, how-comes, why-fors and the really big question: the what-comes-after.

Buddha laid out a path for liberating yourself from delusion. It’s called the Eightfold Path and the fact that it exists is called the Fourth Noble Truth. The path looks a lot like this: be where you are, as you are, take care of what appears in front of you, and don’t judge it. After all, you can’t avoid or escape it, and it will change.

As for what comes after, we have to say we don’t know. Explore that space of not knowing. Live in that house, the house where there are no walls. No before and after; no beginning and no end. Where everything happens whether you’re ready or not, and face it with the courage of your ancestors who ascended the throne of enlightenment. That’s the truth of Buddhadharma, which is the truth of your life.

***

(It was what the owner of a particular koi pond, which is visited nightly by raccoons, might see as the end.)

Excerpted from a Dharma Talk, “The Truth of Your Life” which you can listen to via this link.

 

 

no beginning no end

January 17th, 2018    -    3 Comments

Midstream
by Vicki Patschke

“So God, we . . . “
Every Sunday
our pastor begins the prayer
this way
as if already deep
in the middle
of a conversation
with God —
and we just joined in

I recall the words
of my Japanese calligraphy
teacher
the thick wet tip
of his bamboo brush
poised high above
a blank sheet of
rice paper —
The brush stroke begins
before
the ink touches the paper.

From invisible to visible
From silence to hearing
A message flows
through us
and we receive it
midstream.

“Blind Men Crossing the Bridge” by Zen Master Hakuin Ekaku (1685-1768), ink on paper.
The poet is my cousin.

flowing

April 26th, 2017    -    6 Comments

There is a place out back, the place where a higher pond meets a lower one, and when the water is leveling to equilibrium, it flows. It flows in a short fall down slickened rock and spreads into ripples across the surface below, making sound and light. This isn’t something activated, like a fountain, but something that water does by its very nature. It flows, it fills, it levels, it spreads. I saw it just now, and it reminded me of what I’ve wanted to tell you.

Everything is moving. Not moving away, but moving together, as one body. Passing and yet not passing away; going and yet not going anywhere. I think you can see this too. It shows up as every little thing: good news, bad news, happy events, sad events, Monday, Friday, trash day, the ordinary and the unforeseen: an evanescent eddy swirling in a stream.

One morning this week I printed out a class schedule on the computer and showed it to my daughter. It filled me with excitement, her first college class schedule—even though it’s not quite college but a summer program for high school students at a college back east—still it is an unfathomable thing to hold in my hands the evidence that my baby will be away on her own for the summer, and soon ever after. What a milestone. I showed it to her over the breakfast table and she barely looked, didn’t even shrug. The meaning was all mine. She’s never been to college and so cannot conjure any sentimental significance out of it. She doesn’t feel any pride in a piece of paper. And in that instant I realized how much I’ve overplayed this, overplayed it all, as if I was the one who made things happen, made things go right or wrong, better or worse, when all along it’s been going by itself like water flowing.

It is perfectly clear and some might even say predictable, especially to those who don’t presume to have a hand in it. This thing that my daughter is doing is what she wanted, asked about, and tried for. She took one step and then another toward who she is and has always been. It is beyond the distinctions of early or late, near or far. It is not a calculation, this nature we have to be ourselves and no one else no matter what.

I offer this to everyone who is so careful and concerned: preoccupied with preventing one thing and engineering another. Perhaps all we do with all our might is simply deliver our children to the place they already belong. Water flowing into water, making sound and light. It’s beautiful.

 

what to do next

February 1st, 2017    -    12 Comments

Never underestimate the power of a single monk on a mountaintop. He alone is transforming the universe.

***

A terrible forest fire broke out one day, and all the animals fled their homes. But one hummingbird zipped over to a stream, got some water in its beak, and rushed back to the raging fire. The little hummingbird tried to douse the flames with a few drops of water, then back to the stream it flew to retrieve more water. The other animals watched in disbelief. They asked the hummingbird what it was doing—one tiny bird would not make a bit of difference. The hummingbird replied, “I’m doing the best I can.”

***

On a winter day 56 years ago, Edward Lorenz, a mild-mannered meteorology professor at MIT, entered some numbers into a computer program simulating weather patterns and then left his office to get a cup of coffee while the machine ran. When he returned, he noticed a result that would change the course of science.

The computer model was based on 12 variables, representing things like temperature and wind speed, whose values could be depicted on graphs as lines rising and falling over time. On this day, Lorenz was repeating a simulation he’d run earlier—but he had rounded off one variable from .506127 to .506. To his surprise, that tiny alteration drastically transformed the whole pattern his program produced, over two months of simulated weather.

The unexpected result led Lorenz to a powerful insight about the way nature works: small changes can have large consequences. The idea came to be known as the “butterfly effect” after Lorenz suggested that the flap of a butterfly’s wings might ultimately cause a tornado. And the butterfly effect, also known as “sensitive dependence on initial conditions,” has a profound corollary: forecasting the future can be nearly impossible.

***

It seemed to be going one way, and it turned out to go the opposite. The disaster is overwhelming, and you are powerless to change the tide. What do you do now? Be a hummingbird, be a butterfly. Do your best against impossible odds.

The hummingbird and the fire is a Japanese folktale, but you might like to hear it told by a masterful storyteller, political activist and Nobel laureate.

The story of Edward Lorenz is quoted from this article by Peter Dizikes in the MIT Technology Forum, Feb. 22, 2011.

And impossible things? They are happening every day.

 

simply the place

October 26th, 2016    -    3 Comments

The poet has come to set these things first of all: to lift up his eyes and see the mountains; to lower them and listen to the stream; to look about him at bamboos, willows, clouds, and rocks, from morn till nightfall. One night’s lodging brings rest to the body; two nights give peace to the heart; after three nights the drooping and depressed no longer know either trouble. If one asked the reason, the answer is simply—the place.

—Po Chu-i (772-846)

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Kansas City – Nov. 11-13
Ordinary Mind is the Way: Zen Retreat
Rime Buddhist Center
Registration open

a poem about feelings

January 13th, 2016    -    1 Comment

Stonehenge-Clouds

don’t be curious about clouds

where they come, where they go

water in the sky

be curious about water

be curious about sky

cave painters who chiseled rocks

painted in blood,

burnt bones,

piss and spit

never stayed in caves

be curious about rocks

be curious about blood

come out come out

be curious about sky

be curious about water

flowing

Stonehenge, still standing after thousands of years, was, apparently, quarried and originally constructed at a Neolithic site in Wales; many centuries later, it was taken apart and pulled on sledges about a hundred and forty miles east, to be rebuilt at its present location.*

 

The list of forgetting

August 25th, 2015    -    43 Comments

To study the Buddha way is to study the self.
To study the self is to forget the self.
To forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things.
To be enlightened by the ten thousand things is to free one’s body and mind and those of others.  –Dogen

Mindfulness means to remember that you are here, and to forget the story of where you are not.

So forget the story you tell yourself about your parents, the story you tell yourself about your childhood, the story you tell of your first love, the story of your first marriage, the story of pain and partings. Forget the birth story, the death story, the whole story, the story you keep repeating, the story you’ll never forget. Forget that story, and do not replace it with another.

Forget what might have been and what could still be. The past is gone and the future will arrive on schedule.

Forget the time you ran away, the time you cheated, the time you got caught, the time you found out, the time you broke down, the time you picked yourself up, the time you were left high and dry, the time the milk spilled and the glass broke, the time you’ll never forget. Forget time.

Forget what happened this morning. There is no this morning. There is no last night, today or tomorrow.

Forget your second thoughts, your second guesses, your second glances and second chances. Forget the count. No one knows the count and there is no way to count it.

Forget your worst fears and highest hopes. Forget all fears and hopes. Forget all worst and highest. Forget altogether the habit of make believe when reality is magic already.

Forget your leaps of logic and foregone conclusions. Nothing is ever foregone or concluded. Cover the ground where you stand. It’s enough.

Forget what you thought.

Forget what you felt. Do not resurrect a ghost.

Forget what she said, what he said, and especially what she said. Do not mistake the word for the thing.

Now, open your eyes and do what needs to be done. Having forgotten all obstacles and limitations, all distractions and negations, there is nothing you do not know how to do. Surprise yourself.

You are a buddha.

Any questions? Remember to ask me in person.

 

zen bucket list*

October 7th, 2014    -    2 Comments

I scooped up the moon

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in my water bucket . . . and

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spilled it on the grass — Ryuho

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Photos from my visit to Las Cruces and Mesilla, NM last weekend

Haiku by Ryuho (1599-1669)

*I have no use for bucket lists, but a bucket comes in handy.

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weekend in paradise

May 15th, 2014    -    No Comments

Find a short interview with me at Shambhala SunSpace.

Enter the Goodreads Giveaway for a free copy. You have until Sunday to find faith in yourself.

Step through the gate by watching this video.

Spend thirty minutes in the garden by listening to this podcast.

Take a picture of your Personal Paradise and post it to my author page on Facebook.

Post by Karen Maezen Miller.

a bite or a banquet

January 14th, 2014    -    5 Comments

Pindapata – ALMS Companion from Edward A. Burger on Vimeo.

In a certain sense, you could say that Buddha was homeless. He made a home wherever he went. He and his disciples were itinerants, each possessing nothing but a robe and a bowl to beg for meals along the way. In some Buddhist countries today, this practice has been ritualized into a monastic tradition. Monks pass through the monastery gates each morning and into the “real” world where strangers fill their bowls with offerings. The lesson is not one of poverty or humility. The purpose is not to instill charity or even gratitude. Buddhist rituals have no secret or special meaning, except to point directly to the true nature of our minds.

Each of us walks along a path with no sign of where we’ve been, and no knowledge of where we’ll end up. The earth rises to meet the soles of our feet, and out of nowhere comes a gift to support and sustain our awareness, which is our life. Some days the gift is a bite, and some days it’s a banquet. Either way, it’s enough.

Meet me for a weekend of practice in Loveland, Ohio March 27-30.

Excerpted from the upcoming book Paradise in Plain Sight ©2014 by Karen Maezen Miller. Printed with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA. www.newworldlibrary.com

Pages:  1 2 3 4

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