You are currently browsing the monthly archive for March 2010.
Poking around in the old stuff. Found a scribbled bit of doggerel from more than a decade ago. Slightly tweaked it goes like this . . .
Mt. Adams comes forth
Bold.Mt. Hood in cloud skirts
Flashes.Mt. Sumaru
Stands up and dances!Tilly Jane Camp at the foot of Elliot Glacier
Summer ’96
Refined sensibility associated with objects, expensive but not showy, full of verve and spontaneity, elegant, spiritual, practical, marketable, and chic. Something incomprehensible, but probably profound.
Corp Marketing
Donkey shit is like horse shit.
Wu Tsu
Yun Men’s Cake
Blue Cliff Record Case 77
The Case commentary explains that Wu Tsu’s words are “Going direct to the root source, as the Buddhas have sealed — picking through leaves and searching through twigs I cannot do.”
Wu Tsu is far beyond delusive thinking (to borrow a phrase from the Heart Sutra).
I’ve also heard it said like this:
Sitting is Zen
Standing is Zen
Rolling out the garbage Wednesday night is Zen
The head monk was often the fall-guy in those old koan cases. Time after time the most senior of practitioners has the rug pulled out from under “well grounded feet”.
While I’m more of slacker than a heavy hitting head of the class achiever, me-self been on the floor many a time. Mostly it’s grubby with a cloudy waxy build up, but sometimes it has a way of showing the light if you look at it right.
Running in the desert heat it becomes most clear. Lizards by the side of the trail doing their push-up style bows as the path moves and I’m still. Forms, sensations, perceptions, thoughts and consciousness rise and fade.
Who’s breath do I hear? Mine, but not mine.
Haruki Murakami puts these words to the thoughts and feelings we share as we trot down the path along the ancient way.
I just run. I run in a void. Or maybe I should put it the other way. I run in order to acquire a void. But as you might expect, an occasional thought will slip into this void. People’s mind can’t be a complete blank. Human beings’ emotions are not strong or consistent enough to sustain a vacuum. What I mean is, the kinds of thoughts and ideas that invade my emotions as I run remain subordinate to that void. Lacking content, they are just random thoughts that gather around that central void.
The thoughts that occur to me while I’m running are like clouds in the sky. Clouds of all different sizes. They come and they go, while the sky remains the same sky as always. The clouds are mere guests in the sky that pass away and vanish, leaving behind the sky. The sky both exists and doesn’t exist. It has substance and at the same time doesn’t. And we merely accept that vast expanse and drink it in.
Who’s breath do I hear? Mine, but not mine. Understood like that we merely accept that vast expanse and drink it in.
Gate gate para gate parasomgate Bodhi svaha!
translation by Robert Aitken Roshi from Diamond Sangha Sutra Book
Transience, emptiness and enlightenment —
These are the ultimate truths of Buddhism;
Keeping and teaching them is true Sangha devotion.
If you don`t agree, please ask me about it.
Cut out directly the root of it all, —
This is the very point of the Buddha-seal.
I can’t respond to any concern about leaves and branches.People do not recognize the Mani-jewel.
Living intimately within the Tathagata-garbha,
It operates our sight, hearing, smell, taste, sensation, awareness;
And all of these are empty, yet not empty.
Nyogen’s Commentfrom Buddhism and Zen
The mani-jewel is a legendary gem of old India that fulfills all desires of its possessor. Buddhists work for desirelessness, treasuring calmness and contentment and looking forward to the highest wisdom and moral perfection. Yokadaishi uses “mani-jewel” metaphorically, saying that it can be found in “the secret place of Tathagata.” But Tathagata has nothing to do with time or place.
Everything appears through contact of subjective and objective elements, and you recognize and name them in terms of relativity. This is the performance of the mani-jewel, which subjectively you call your true-self, and objectively, Buddha-nature.
translation by Robert Aitken Roshi
from Diamond Sangha Sutra Book
Release your hold on earth, water, fire, wind; Drink and eat as you wish in eternal serenity. All things are transient and completely empty; This is the great enlightenment of the Tathagata.
Nyogen’s Comment
from Buddhism and Zen
Buddhism does not see mind and body as two different things. When it refers to the four elements, earth, water, fire, and air, it does not mean only the elements of the material world, but also the conditions of the mind as psychological phenomena. In Pali these four elements are called pathavi (solidity), apo (cohesion), tejo (radiability), and vayn (movability). Zen does not cling to these elements but instead lives in Mind-Essence leaving behind both mind and body. A Zen student “drinks or eats,” that is, he lives his everyday life according to his own true nature.
Chao Chou recalls an ancient saying: Sitting is Zen. Standing is Zen. Taking out the garbage is Zen. Finding your own true nature is like taking a pee – you must do it for yourself.
Zen Stains: drinkin' & headed home 