My Buddhist name is Superlative Immovable Demon King. What's yours?
Archive for
August, 2009
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August 31, 2009 9:29 pm
I got sent this by a friend, Since the name I was given upon ordination with is vulgar when written in romagi (Roamanized japanese), I found this kind of funny:
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9:03 pm
Here's the recording of the session from Monday night: click (and then to see the video screen, select View from the top menu bar and Video).
Our discussion was really cooking when we ran out of time but you all are welcome to continue that here via comments.
Our discussion was really cooking when we ran out of time but you all are welcome to continue that here via comments.
And you are invited to join the last conversation in this series, Hair on Fire: Practicing with All Your Heart, on Monday, 9/14, at 7pm CST. Register at Facebook (click here) or send me an email (wildfoxzen@gmail.com).
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4:40 pm
Inspired by a cross-post at Progressive Buddhism and The Reformed Buddhist as well as a post by DjBuddha on the terminology of Buddhism movements in the West.
When we see people cling to sutra's or rituals or any one aspect of the religion, and are unwilling or unable to accept different ways of learning and teaching, I think we run the danger of making Buddhism a static practice, one that can't or won't progress to new and more innovative forms. While the ancient teachers have a great deal to teach us that should be carried forward, we mustn't forget those who are new to Buddhism, whose knowledge and understanding of the road signs we are pointing to aren't as robust as what a long time practitioner would have. It is important that Buddhism makes room for new ways of expressing the dharma and for inventive ways of exploring the true nature of self and suffering.
Well we all "cling" to our rituals and sutras as well as to aspects of our practice such as meditation or nembutsu. All is at the same level without one exceeding another. A good analogy is the misunderstanding of when people talk about evolution and expect it to infer a progression to a "better" or "perfect" state from a "bad" or primitive one. Instead, view it as random change determined by the culture-base that the Dharma enters into. When the Dharma is introduced to a secular nation it will express itself in a manner different, but not necessarily better than, when exposed to a culture (such as Japan) with a long-history of ancestor worship. Different, yes! But with no determination of one being better than the other.
Static is another loaded term. While static is inferred to be negative. In reality, no changes were made or at least only subtle changes were made, because of its innate adaptability. Static and traditional are not negative only descriptive. The same is true of the terms "modern" or "progressive". These infer movement only and not whether or not one is Good and the other Bad. Only that one has moved and the other hasn't.
It isn't a straight path with polar opposites on each side in an obvious progression from a "bad" ancestrial stock to a "good" modern stock as the picture above demonstrates. And this is how many Buddhists in the West view each other or at least think that we view each other. A steady march from the static, archaic, ritualistic Buddhism of the past to a new stream-lined Buddhism of the future. This is not what is actually happening.
Instead it is a big bushy mess of movement with different schools and sects moving into new environments with new people (different races, socio-economic groups, backgrounds) forming new traditions and retaining older ones.
I can't emphasize enough that when I say traditional and modern, I do not infer that one is better than the other or that one is superceding the other in any fashion. With the radiation of Buddhism into the West we can expect to find many new and emerging "species" of Buddhism. Some new and flashy ones may shine briefly and then die out (Ohhh. I could name a few but I won't). Other more archaic forms (not a negative term only a descriptive one) will thrive, maybe more than they thrived in the past.
I still feel that I practice "Horsecrab" Buddhism. Old in form and definately Archiac in nature but if you live on the East Coast those son-a-bitches thrive. Compare that to some species that last only a few million years. But not everyone like horseshoe crabs some people like those fancy new fangled blue crabs. Whatever. To each their own.
Hope this wasn't too clunky an analogy. Feel free to comment.
Cheers,
[Before anyone else writes something that I have to remove. Here is my point: Buddhism is NOT linear rather it moves in many directions; Traditional or static is NOT bad, just a description; progressive is NOT good, just a description of change; I DO NOT prefer horseshoe crabs to blue crabs because one is tastier than the other but rather I can respect that fact that sometimes you don't need to change in order to adapt.]
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3:46 pm
Ceasing conceptualization means not becoming fixated on anything at any time no matter where you are. When you are confronted with perceptions, feelings, and thoughts, do not allow yourself to become separated from your own fundamental awareness. When perceptions, feelings, and thoughts arise, simply observe them as they are without becoming caught up. If they require a response from you, respond; if they do not require a response, simply allow them to arise, abide, or dissolve naturally in the unnamable void of your own mind. Ceasing conceptualization is liberation. Conceptualization is delusion. Even if you constantly ponder and contemplate the sacred doctrines of the great spiritual traditions, unless you have awakened, it is nothing but conceptualization. Only when you have ceased conceptualization and awakened to the reality of your own mind, will you be able to truly grasp the sacred doctrines.
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1:28 pm
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The other day, a couple moved in to the house next door. Eric is a carpenter and his wife, whose name I have forgotten, used to teach emotionally difficult children in school. They have two little girls, 6 and 3, and a dog, Scout.
Nice people, it seemed to me in brief conversation.
And now the street is filled with high, young voices delighting in the excitement of riding bikes in virgin territory. It's like a symphonic tableau into which some bright new instruments (piccolos, perhaps)have been introduced.
How nice.
.
The other day, a couple moved in to the house next door. Eric is a carpenter and his wife, whose name I have forgotten, used to teach emotionally difficult children in school. They have two little girls, 6 and 3, and a dog, Scout.
Nice people, it seemed to me in brief conversation.
And now the street is filled with high, young voices delighting in the excitement of riding bikes in virgin territory. It's like a symphonic tableau into which some bright new instruments (piccolos, perhaps)have been introduced.
How nice.
.
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10:04 am
... meeting the unknown ... (remember: recording ends soon after the beginning bells;a sitting time of 20 to 35 minutes is recommended) To subscribe to "Treeleaf Zen" click here....
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9:18 am
Last night, I opened the new issue of Yoga Journal and began reading the editor's little essay. (If you haven't noticed, I'm a bit of a magazine junky - not an out of control, can't see my floor because of the piles magazine junky, but I do like my mags.) Anyway, the editor wrote about an experience she had while driving. She came across a wounded bird, and thought to herself "I don't know what to do with a wounded bird." But she stopped anyway, and as she got out of the car, another car came along and she waved the driver down. The woman in the car got out, and the editor said "Do you know what to do?" And the other woman picked up the bird, said "yes," and got back into the car with the bird tucked in her coat.
What was most interesting about this story was the editor pointed out that we don't need to know what to do in order to be of service. We can step in and offer ourselves as we are, and that in itself might be enough to bring about the wisdom the situation is calling for.
So, what a surprise it was to be on my bicycle this morning, not twelve hours after reading that story, and find myself in a similar situation. Almost exact actually. I started crossing a busy street near my apartment, and passed a little bird that was parked just far enough into the road to be in danger. The bird should have flown off - I was definitely that close to it in passing. But it didn't. And instantly, I thought of the editor's story.
I got off my bicycle and looked down the road. A truck was coming. I didn't know what to do, so I stood there and watched the truck go past, missing the bird. Then I looked again, and saw nothing coming on either side. So, I started toward the bird, still not knowing what the best course of action was. I stuck my hand out fairly close to the bird, and it twitched a bit. I leaned in a little closer, not enough to get bit, but almost. And to my surprise, the bird took off into a tree along the street. Getting out of the street, I saw the traffic coming again.
You don't have to know what to do to be of service to others.
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9:00 am
After the prince Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha-to-be) renounced worldly pleasures and left the comfort of his palace he took to the road to seek an end to suffering. He heard about celebrated yogic masters who were widely regarded as important meditation teachers. Seeking out and becoming a student of these masters he quickly excelled at their meditative techniques to the extent that they wanted the talented Siddhartha to become heir of their teaching lineages. Siddhartha refused as, while these meditative techniques did reveal something of the nature of the human mind, they still did not resolve the burning question of human suffering and how to stop it: when Siddhartha stopped meditating on the progressively subtle states of mind as instructed by his teachers his deeply rooted human problems just came flooding back.
Siddhartha left the communities of these teachers unsatisfied and resolved to try another way. He took to the forests following the path of the ascetic hermits who practiced their various austere methods far from normal human society. In the wilds he engaged diligently in various extreme mental and physical pursuits denying the body in hope of purifying the mind. It's said he held his breath til his head nearly burst, he didn't eat more than a tiny morsel of food for days on end, he deprived his body of its most basic needs. After a time, naturally enough, his health went into serious decline and his skeletal body collapsed. At the brink of death he realised that this way would only bring him to oblivion without having clarified anything, and so he accepted alms from a girl who offered him rice milk and he resolved to restore his health.
Having realised that he would not find his answer through worldly pleasures, nor through austere self denial, he resolved to sit down under a tree and not rise up again until he had applied his whole being to this problem of human suffering. This he did and, remembering a state of simple joy that he experienced while sitting under a tree as a boy, he adopted an upright yogic posture and commenced sitting.
According to traditional accounts an epic battle soon commenced between Siddhartha and aspects of himself (represented by the evil Mara and his legions of followers who were all intent upon distracting or enticing Siddhartha from the task at hand). Unperturbed by the tactics of his own psyche, and resolved to see it through to the end, Siddhartha continued to sit upright. It's said that he sat there for forty-nine days and that, on seeing the morning star at the beginning of the last day, he had realised the following:
1. How dukkha (suffering, dis-ease, anxiety etc) exists.
2. The cause of the arising of dukkha.
3. The possibility of the cessation of dukkha.
4. The path leading to the cessation of dukkha.
More about these Four Noble Truths later.
Regards,
Harry.
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6:11 am
The other day I found my father's VFW cap. It carries the ribbons from his war years. Among them is a Purple Heart with two oak leaf clusters. I know lots about how he got them. Among other things I spent my childhood watching the shrapnel working its way out of various parts of his body...
Now his life wasn't much before the war.
And he threw most of the rest of his life away following the war, and in that throwing away caused much pain for his family.
It took a long time to forgive him. Mostly...
And.
He was a medic during the war. His body was torn apart helping others in battle...
I held that cap and contemplated the three purple hearts...
Perhaps, just possibly, his service to others, to some greater good, well,
it feels
like there was some sort of redemption in it.
When that episode of West Wing played, where Toby helps to bury a homeless Vet who also had a purple heart, I watched, and couldn't help but think of my father...
and many others...
Now his life wasn't much before the war.
And he threw most of the rest of his life away following the war, and in that throwing away caused much pain for his family.
It took a long time to forgive him. Mostly...
And.
He was a medic during the war. His body was torn apart helping others in battle...
I held that cap and contemplated the three purple hearts...
Perhaps, just possibly, his service to others, to some greater good, well,
it feels
like there was some sort of redemption in it.
When that episode of West Wing played, where Toby helps to bury a homeless Vet who also had a purple heart, I watched, and couldn't help but think of my father...
and many others...
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5:24 am
.
From a history point of view, if I've got it right, there are 1,700 formal koans in Zen Buddhism. Somebody or other burned the rest of them.
A koan or public case is an intellectually-insoluble riddle or assertion that a Zen student consents to make his/her own -- a focal point that can inspire actualization of the student's true nature or Buddha nature. Intellectually, a koan is confounding or confusing. Intimately, a koan can rip your heart out and mop the floor with you.
Many people may have heard of "what is the sound of one hand clapping" or "what did I look like before my parents were born," but there are lots of other koans as well. Perhaps koans could be described as looking elsewhere for what is here. They are kind and skillful offerings to those whose lives are uncertain and painful.
I was never any good at formal koans. I didn't trust them enough or perhaps I trusted them too much. Whatever the case, I just wasn't any good at them and as a result, I probably lagged behind others who passed or penetrated their gimlet depths. I did know enough about formal koans to be flabbergasted that anyone would write and someone else would publish a book that I once saw on a bookstore shelf: "1,700 Koans and Their Answers." The arrogance and idiocy were breathtaking. Oh well, there is nothing so good that someone can't fuck it up.
Me, I lagged and lingered in the special education class ... among the slow learners and the spitball-shooters, the mouth-offs and the ones who would never get to the metaphorical Ivy League schools. I might show up for class (do zazen or seated meditation with some constancy), but when it came to the course work that history had laid down ... well, I was constantly wondering when the lunch bell would ring.
I was stuck with my own, limping farm, and what occurred to me over time was this: Without criticism of any other approach, aren't the koans of anyone's actual-factual life enough? True, those koans are sometimes so intimate and daunting that a little diversion -- a little seeing by looking elsewhere -- might be an excellent tool, but still, how useful is adding peanut butter and jelly to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Aren't the gob-stopping recognitions of death or disease or drugs or divorce (to wax alliterative) enough grist for anyone's mill? Aren't the facts that leave opinions and beliefs in the dust enough? Isn't it enough to hold a rock in the palm of your hand and say the word "rock" and still have no clue as to what a rock might be? Isn't it enough to sneeze or laugh or kiss and find the universe erased and yet ... and yet ... recognize that there is 'something' about which there is a perfect certainty and ease? Aren't such things enough of a focal point and exercise and effort. Does anyone need to wonder if a dog has Buddha Nature or not? Maybe so: Some will say I am comparing apples with apples, that everyone is in the same special education classroom, but I think you get my drift.
Oh well ... the impetus for all this writing occurred to me this morning with the phrase "no more koans." I think everyone has to prepare themselves for the time and place when koans find no footing, when a koan is like being hungry and grabbing the keys to the car, when questions and answers are OK, but not really relevant.
Be prepared: There are no questions, but you knew that, right? ... you who can sneeze and laugh and kiss, you who can breathe, you who can be born and die, you who can eat a perfectly good peanut butter and jelly sandwich, you who can weep or wax wise ...
You knew that, right? No point in flogging a dead horse. Can a sneeze or kiss or laugh be somehow improved? Is it possible to study and strain and get somehow closer to here?
No more koans.
Be prepared.
.
From a history point of view, if I've got it right, there are 1,700 formal koans in Zen Buddhism. Somebody or other burned the rest of them.
A koan or public case is an intellectually-insoluble riddle or assertion that a Zen student consents to make his/her own -- a focal point that can inspire actualization of the student's true nature or Buddha nature. Intellectually, a koan is confounding or confusing. Intimately, a koan can rip your heart out and mop the floor with you.
Many people may have heard of "what is the sound of one hand clapping" or "what did I look like before my parents were born," but there are lots of other koans as well. Perhaps koans could be described as looking elsewhere for what is here. They are kind and skillful offerings to those whose lives are uncertain and painful.
I was never any good at formal koans. I didn't trust them enough or perhaps I trusted them too much. Whatever the case, I just wasn't any good at them and as a result, I probably lagged behind others who passed or penetrated their gimlet depths. I did know enough about formal koans to be flabbergasted that anyone would write and someone else would publish a book that I once saw on a bookstore shelf: "1,700 Koans and Their Answers." The arrogance and idiocy were breathtaking. Oh well, there is nothing so good that someone can't fuck it up.
Me, I lagged and lingered in the special education class ... among the slow learners and the spitball-shooters, the mouth-offs and the ones who would never get to the metaphorical Ivy League schools. I might show up for class (do zazen or seated meditation with some constancy), but when it came to the course work that history had laid down ... well, I was constantly wondering when the lunch bell would ring.
I was stuck with my own, limping farm, and what occurred to me over time was this: Without criticism of any other approach, aren't the koans of anyone's actual-factual life enough? True, those koans are sometimes so intimate and daunting that a little diversion -- a little seeing by looking elsewhere -- might be an excellent tool, but still, how useful is adding peanut butter and jelly to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Aren't the gob-stopping recognitions of death or disease or drugs or divorce (to wax alliterative) enough grist for anyone's mill? Aren't the facts that leave opinions and beliefs in the dust enough? Isn't it enough to hold a rock in the palm of your hand and say the word "rock" and still have no clue as to what a rock might be? Isn't it enough to sneeze or laugh or kiss and find the universe erased and yet ... and yet ... recognize that there is 'something' about which there is a perfect certainty and ease? Aren't such things enough of a focal point and exercise and effort. Does anyone need to wonder if a dog has Buddha Nature or not? Maybe so: Some will say I am comparing apples with apples, that everyone is in the same special education classroom, but I think you get my drift.
Oh well ... the impetus for all this writing occurred to me this morning with the phrase "no more koans." I think everyone has to prepare themselves for the time and place when koans find no footing, when a koan is like being hungry and grabbing the keys to the car, when questions and answers are OK, but not really relevant.
Be prepared: There are no questions, but you knew that, right? ... you who can sneeze and laugh and kiss, you who can breathe, you who can be born and die, you who can eat a perfectly good peanut butter and jelly sandwich, you who can weep or wax wise ...
You knew that, right? No point in flogging a dead horse. Can a sneeze or kiss or laugh be somehow improved? Is it possible to study and strain and get somehow closer to here?
No more koans.
Be prepared.
.
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