Boy Scouts vote

May 23rd, 2013 · genkaku

The Boy Scouts of America voted Thursday to accept homosexual youths into its ranks, but made no similar provision for gay scout leaders.

Total youth membership stands at about 2.6 million. BSA's adult leaders and volunteers number about one million.

The many organizations that support BSA -- most notably churches -- were sometimes painfully divided on the issue.

Layman P’ang

May 23rd, 2013 · genkaku

The words were once attributed to Layman P'ang:

I am not a Buddha. I am just an ordinary fellow who understands things.

It probably doesn't bang everyone's chimes, but as a gentle and direct summing up of intention, effort and attainment (or no attainment, if you insist), it certainly bangs mine.

talking the talk

May 23rd, 2013 · Karen Maezen Miller

This was such a nice conversation I wanted to include you in on it. Listen when you have the time.

Listen to internet radio with Real Sisters Talk on BlogTalkRadio

enough, already!

May 23rd, 2013 · genkaku

This morning, my older son wrapped up several days of painting the the upstairs hall. There were three colors (white ceiling, off-white walls, and a kind of mauve-y trim) and everything had to be painted at least twice. This morning, he was sick to death of it all. His voice positively dripped with get-me-the-fuck-out-of-here. He was fried ... frazzled ... bored ... and pissed off. Enough already!

The hall, be it said, looks pretty good.

But feeling his tenor and hearing his voice and watching his movements made me think ...

How often is it that anyone sets out to do a good job? Intention and enthusiasm are glowing. Yessiree, I'm gonna knock this one out of the park... do a really good job; something I can be proud of; something others might notice ... but mostly, I am going to do a really good job. Writing, meditating, banking, marriage, running, singing, bringing up baby, garbage collection ... a really good job.

And then there comes a point at which, like my son, the humdrum and the expectation kick in: I could be doing something more exciting, more important. I could be finished and forget about the "good job" that once lit my fires. Enough already!

I think this experience is a good one, however annoying. It is a wonderful warning that now is the time to redouble the effort, to slow down and really dig in, to keep going although keeping going is the last damned thing in the world anyone might want ... if IN FACT anyone wants to do a really good job.

Does such a redoubled effort guarantee that something will actually turn out to be a good job? Nope. But it is good training (like lifting weights): This moment is the fact, and the facts are worth paying attention to, if for no other reason than that escape is not possible and if there is no peace with the inescapable, then there is no peace.

Zendo News

May 23rd, 2013 · Harvey Daiho Hilbert - Roshi

With respect to all,

Good Morning Everyone,

We have excellent news regarding our Zendo. Jane Grider has agreed to rent the entryway room. This will reduce our portion of the rent to $370.00 per month. I believe this is quite managable and will allow us toi keep our Zendo open. The landlord has agreed to a month to month lease. I am very happy that this has happened, as I am sure you are as well. I look forward to practicing with you in the future.

We will need a little help moving the tan and butsudan out of the room. We also need to clean out/sort out the closet. Perhaps this coming Sunday?

I am sorry I have not been writing to you very much of late. Worse, I have missed several dokusan appointments through my lack of attention. So many things are happening that have taken so much of my time, energy, and attention. A very long and incredibly painful year of spinal issues topped the list for awhile and going through a rather long and costly divorce has been a terror. Kathryn and I were married, and we are now cleaning and painting our home in Sonoma Ranch so that we can move there toward the end of the month, beginning of June, and of course, worry over the Zendo. This has been both a stressful and joyous experience.

The one thing I can say about my practice over this past year is that it has proven itself. There was a time in my life where the stressors mentioned above would have sent me into combat mode and I would have been quite literally destructive. As it stands now, the worst of it has been cigars, a bad thing which I am working very hard to no longer indulge. Anger and hurt come and go, replaced easily by love, joy, and a sense of contentment: feelings are like that, aren't they? Mindfulness of my body in motion, my mind in motion, and my environment in motion with the "me" that is "not me" bearing witness to it all has been quite a change from the horrid feelings that used to attach to my heart turning it black, or at least shades of steel gray.

As we conclude this transition from one home to another, maintaing the Zendo and our street practice, I hope to offer more teaching on my blog and through this list, as well as in person at the Zendo.

This afternoon we practice at the City of Hope at 1:30 in the library. This evening we practice at 7:00 PM in the Zendo and tomorrow morning at 9:00 AM at Veteran's Park on Roadrunner Blvd. Please consider joining us. And if not, consider coming to the Zendo for Sunday morning Zazen at 10:00 AM

Be well.

“the Absolute” … kiss my grits!

May 23rd, 2013 · genkaku

An early-American primer on comportment (sorry, I can't remember which) suggested:

AND IF YOU MUST SPIT, SPIT IN THE CORNER.

Now and then, I encourage myself to be patient and caring and more or less decent. And then ... and then ... and then the spitting fires of hell spring up and I really do get impatient.

One of those fiery jets exploded this morning when I read the words "the Absolute."

Suddenly, I was infuriated.

In the spiritual environs, "the Absolute" is one of those bright lights, a treasure trove that cannot be adequately expressed ... and yet is expressed over and over and over again. It is an understanding which brings all things into perfect and peaceful alignment ... unless, of course, it is expressed as the vast emptiness that cannot be called empty. "The Absolute" is the yardstick without compare. And like as not, within the hearts of the courageously devoted, it is what you haven't got a handle on. It is to be attained or realized or actualized ... even where the diffident and patient and caring suggest mysteriously that it cannot be attained. "The Absolute," whatever it is, is the big-banger good stuff and if we talk about it enough, maybe people will be encouraged ... blah, blah, blah.

OK, wallow to your heart's content. Sweat and strain and weep and laugh joyfully ... but do it in the corner, will you? Stop drooling on others' floors. If you want to imagine "the Absolute" has some meaning worthy of discussion, at least have the decency and comportment to find out if it's true without selling fucking Tupperware! Spit in your own corner.

And in the course of mewling and drooling and being ever so caring and wise, maybe there is something worth considering in ....

If the Absolute were one iota's different from the Relative, how the hell could it be the Absolute?

And maybe it's time as well to knock off the capital letters.

AND IF YOU MUST SPIT, SPIT IN THE CORNER.

My blog, my corner.

When did playing the scaredy-cat ever improve anything

I have a good deal of sympathy for the suffering that afflicts anyone. But that does not mean I am in sympathy with the solutions prescribed.

not as a threat

May 23rd, 2013 · genkaku

Not as a threat...

If, for just a second or two,
You were to switch off or somehow magically lose
The belief in your favored god,
Religious or secular,
Would that god
Be in any way diminished ... or improved?

If, for just a second or two,
You were to switch on or somehow magically attain
A belief in some new-found god,
Religious or secular,
Would that god
Be in any way diminished ... or improved?

I think gods, like beliefs, are rather odd and deserve some consideration beyond a warming consolation.

But suit yourself.

The line that sticks in my mind like bubblegum on the sole of a summertime shoe is:

Just because you are indispensable to the universe does not mean the universe needs your help.

Or, alternatively, smile just one smile.

I Accept the Universe! Marking Margaret Fuller’s Birthday

May 23rd, 2013 · James Ford

Margaret Fuller was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts on this day in 1810. She was an author, editor, journalist and literary critic, an educator, a first-wave feminist, and, critically for us one of the leading lights of the Transcendentalist movement. Her accomplishments included a litany of firsts, Fuller was the first woman, who while not allowed [...]

De-’woo’-ifying ‘The Absolute’…

May 23rd, 2013 · Harry

Someone over on Brad's blog comments section (where discussions on enlightenment/realisation are ongoing) asked me what I considered to be a 'genuine insight into the absolute' from the perspective of my own (limited) experience. I think it's good to give honest and direct answers to this sort of question, so I said this:

Speaking for myself, and as mentioned some time earlier, a ‘genuine insight into the absolute’ can be gleaned quite quickly when I, or anyone, sits zazen and lets thoughts and feelings just come and go as they do. After a while this stabilizes into a clear and unhindered state where can be starkly seen the coming-and-going nature of the various functions and sensations which usually give rise to a mistaken sense of separate identity, including the thinking facility which likes to, for example, carve the flow of things up into designations like ‘the mundane’ as opposed ‘the absolute’, or ‘inside’ as opposed ‘outside’, or ‘me’ and ‘the world’, or ‘this’ and ‘that’, ‘good’ and ‘bad’, ‘here and there’ etc etc etc...

When I stop that thinking activity then it is quite clear to see that those habitual designations don’t hold up and that the nature of our existence is rather more inclusive, and also quite inscrutable in terms of a ‘source’. Some times the person observing this will just sort of seemingly stop happening, and things like the usual perception of time might be effected. There are various experiences that can arise from the practice of it, but I think the whole gist of it can be appreciated pretty much from the start when that bit of stability has been established. So the practice of it is actually very accesible, and, while I think it’s a great thing for anyone to do, it’s also no big remote accomplishment or obscure metaphysical realm.

BTW, here’s one of the old koan that I was thinking of that contextualises the teaching on ‘shunyata’ in a particularly zennish way (i.e. with dubious, or old school, morality!):

Sekkyo said to one of his monks, “Can you get hold of emptiness?”

“I’ll try,” said the monk, and he cupped his hands in the air.

“That’s not very good,” said Sekkyo. “You have nothing there!”

“Well, master,” said the monk, “please show me a better way.”

Thereupon, Sekkyo seized the monk’s nose and gave it a hard yank.

“Ouch!” yelled the monk. “You hurt me!”

“That’s the way to get hold of emptiness!” said Sekkyo.

Regards,
Harry.