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Thursday, January 27, 2011

Not All Days are Good Ones

Somewhere along the line we have been told that every day must be a good day, or at least we should live so as to never have a bad day.  Really?!  Is that true for anyone?  The days are as they are.  Where we get ourselves all tangled up is when we make judgements about the day. The day is neither good nor bad.  It is just the day, as it is, how it is.  There is no good or bad about it.  But just think abut how many things we label as good or bad.  Start with little things such as a "bad hair day".  Not it's not. Your hair is just the way it is today.  Good weather or bad weather.  No, just the weather. When we practice no good, no bad, just as it is we can begin to experience things just as they, how they are, where they are, when they are.  The next time you want to identify something as good or bad, step back and say instead, it is as it is.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Long Life

Which is closer, your name or your body?
Which is more, your body or your possessions?
Which is more destructive, gain or loss?
Extreme fondness means great expense,
and abundant possessions mean much loss.
if you know when you have enough,
you will not be disgraced.
If you know when to stop,
you will not be endangered.
It is possible thereby to live long.


the Tao Te Ching

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Away for a few days

I have been away for a few days.  I find that the months of January and February can be challenging.  For many of us the winter has really set in with the cold, gray, moody skies.  I imagine that many of us start to long for the Spring and the season of renewal.  But we should be mindful that if it were not for the winter there would be no Spring.  They are connected, they depend on each other.  The earth, or at least our part of it, needs to rest and recuperate.  It needs some time to recharge and so it slows down and settles for awhile.  The winter is a beautiful time of the year, pregnant with the knowledge that Spring is coming with its own kind of beauty. There is a lesson here for us.  We should take the time to renew ourselves this time of year.  Where have we lost touch with the oneness of our experiences?  What do we need to do to touch that sense of how we are all connected?  Is there one thing that we can do today that helps us reconnect?  Don't worry about yesterday, it's gone and no longer exists.  Tomorrow isn't here yet and we have no idea what it will be.  We are left with just today, with just this and nothing else.  And, if this is all we have for now, then what can we do, just today, to connect to that which is?

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Reaching

I came across this yesterday. It is a simple way of saying we are all the same.

What we reach for may be different
But what makes us reach is the same


What makes us reach is the want of peace, happiness, and joy.  How they look may be different for each of us and the challenge is for each of us to recognize what we have in common and appreciate each others' reach.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Freedom

Huge freedom comes
When we hear the voices and do not believe them
They live in their own conditioned reality
They are projecting
They are saying what is true for them
and getting you to believe
it has something to do with you
It doesn't
Cheri Huber, "Making a Change"


How much credit we give those voices!  A good exercise is to step back and observe all the thoughts that ramble through our head in just a few minutes. Now, imagine how many of them in a day!  And what are those thoughts but voices vying for our attention. To what purpose?  Yet, we spend a lot of time engaging in conversation with them.  But they are not the reality of this moment. They are the voices of the ego trying to lull and fool us.  How often it works! Just be aware of them.  What to do?  There is nothing to do. It is when we 'do' something that they know we are paying attention to them. There is just this moment and nothing to do.  Easy to say, hard to . . . ---there's the lesson!

Monday, January 17, 2011

Monday, Monday

Ah, Monday!  What a great day!  Best day of the week!  No?  Why not?  It's the only day you have today. There is no Sunday or Tuesday---just Monday. Best day of the week!  Still not sure?  Well, then, what day can it be other than Monday, best day of the week. At least, so far . . .

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Before Dawn

Head on the pillow
Not yet awake
Where am I
Slippered feet in the hall

anonymous

Friday, January 14, 2011

What We Become

The Buddha said, "Our life is shaped by our mind, we become what we think." The Dhammapada
It's not just our lives, but those of those around us. They too become what we think of them. We see them as our mind sees them rather than as they are. How would we experience them if we could let go of the image of them that we cling to? Who are they? Do we answer by describing them as our mind perceives them?  This is the hardest thing for us to do---to let go of what we hold on to as the truth about them when it is more the truth about us. Let's turn the Buddha's words a bit and see what we experience: "The people around me are shaped by my mind, they become who I think they are". As you read this what is your mind telling you?

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Just as it is

There is a saying that has been with me my whole life: "it is what it is". Easy to say hard to live. This poem may help keep that perspective in view.

The past is already past.
Don't try to regain it.
The present does not stay.
Don't try to touch it.
From moment to moment.
The future has not come;
Don't think about it
Beforehand.
Whatever comes to the eye,
Leave it be.
There are no commandments
To be kept;
There's no filth to be cleansed.
With empty mind really
Penetrated, the dharmas
Have no life.
When you can be like this,
You've completed
The ultimate attainment.
P'ang Yün ( Hõ Un)

Monday, January 10, 2011

Compassion

I heard religious historian Karen Armstrong today talking about her call for compassion statement. I also was thinking about the young man who shot and killed those people yesterday in Arizona. Like everyone else, I was outraged by the notion that someone could do such a thing. But then I steeped back and thought about what it must have felt like to be him. What are his parents going through? It was that moment that I realized that I was losing touch with the essence of our practice - - - compassion. I, for one, find compassiom easy to talk about, but hard to practice from moment to moment. Where is compassion in my attempts at mindfulness? What else is there if there is no compassion? It seems to fade quickly when we are confronted by the painful and inexplicable. Yet, those are precisely the moments when our compassion is tested most. Think of the shooter in Arizona; how long did it take for your thinking to shift to some compassion for him. I'd be willing to bet that few of us started with that feeling. Perhaps that is one of the lessons we take from this sad event. Our compassion should hold no limits. We should extend the same empathy and compassion we feel for the victims and their families to the shooter and his. After all, isn't relieving pain and suffering wherever we find our practice?

Friday, January 7, 2011

Lake Snows

West Michigan experiences lake effect snows from time to time. For those not familiar with this phenomenon, when cold winds blow across the warmer waters of Lake Michigan the combination creates kind of a snow machine. The sun can be shining and we can get a foot of snow. Drive inland a couple of miles and it is a sunny, though frigid day. It can be confusing the first time one experiences lake effect snow. It doesn't seem to make any sense; heavy snow, barely visible sun, no clouds. Yet, there it is---a snowy day. The sound of the wind, the blowing flakes, but there are no clouds. Life is like this sometimes. We can sort of see it out there in the haze, we know what we want it to look like, but the picture we see doesn't fit what we tell ourselves we should be seeing. In life we try to "do something" to make the picture clearer. In lake effect snow there is nothing we can do to make it stop or the sun to shine. The snow falls regardless of what we do.  Maybe we should see life as if it were lake effect snow. It's there, it's blowing, it doesn't seem to make sense sometimes, and it comes whether we are there or not. Perhaps, we should treat life the same way we do lake effect snow---there isn't anything we can do about it.  Except, of course, to shovel a path through the drifts.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Can we really speak truthfully?

Zen master Bankei once said, "because I cannot see a person's face I listen to what they say." He goes on to ask what is it that one really hears beneath the words. It is a teaching on how we form and express ourselves and how the truth somehow gets buried beneath the words. He teaches that once we form an idea and name it we are far away from the real truth.
Is it difficult to speak the truth? How often do we temper the truth and end up in a place that is both far from the truth and turns unsatisfactory, painful, and regretful? Too often we try to soft pedal the truth because we are afraid that it will do harm. But, are we doing more harm by covering over the truth?  There is an old saying that, "the truth hurts".  Maybe the better thing to say is that hiding the truth hurts. This is a good day to take a look at how we hide or filter the truth, how hard it is for us to be in the place of truth and speak from it. It doesn't mean you have to do anything with what you learn right away. What is important is to take stock of how this works for you. What to do with it?  There is nothing to do---just be with it. That is the lesson: there is nothing to do, just understand and the rest will follow.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

One Mind

We hear much about the notion of One Mind, or The One, or Interdependence, or Oneness etc.. But, what is it that we take away from terms such as these?  What if we could really penetrate the meaning of One Mind---Buddha Mind---Buddha Nature? What would our lives look like if we could experience what is sometimes called, "interbeing"?  Think about that word: INTERBEING. Do we? And with what or who? Is there a limit or threshold to our capacity to interbe? Is it possible to even interbe? Who do you truly love; can you interbe with them? How about all those less fortunate than you are? Or, those more fortunate than you are?  Does it really matter if you want to interbe? Is this the source or true love and compassion? Is this the One Mind, the Buddha Mind. Buddha Nature?  Is it in you? A lot of questions today, but sometimes we need a kind of menu of choices (here just pick a question or two) to help us draw a bead on what lies around us. We are just coming into a new year. Maybe we can make this a year of interbeing.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Solitary Bliss?

I reached back into my practice journal for this. We buddhists often talk of the cessation of suffering, but how often do we use words like joy, happiness, or bliss? Just speaking them aloud gives them presence and power. Try incorporating them into your conversation and just see what shows up. Take these words from Shantideva to heart when you do:
"Since and other beings both, in wanting happiness, are equal and alike, what difference is there to distinguish us, that I should strive to have my bliss alone?"

Sunday, January 2, 2011

New Year

This was sent to me by a Buddhist monk I know. Good thought to start the new year.


Let me respectfully remind you,
Life and death are of supreme importance.
Time swiftly passes by
And opportunity is lost.
Each of us should strive to awaken.
Awaken.
Take heed.

Do not squander your life.

-          The Evening Gatha, chanted at the end of the day in many Zen centers in some form or another around the world