Inherently Enlightened

     “Dogen Zengi says: ‘Consider that nirvana is itself no other than our life.’
     How do we experience this for ourselves? Such experience gives us indestructible strength; it gives us confidence, conviction, and peace. Our life is nothing but this blossom of nondwelling, nonattached nirvana. How can you confirm this for yourself?” 
       Taizan Maezumi. “Appreciate Your Life. The Essence of Zen Practice.” Shambhala, 2001.


     "Both day and night everything we encounter is our life. Because of that, we put our life into everything we encounter. Our life and what is being encountered become one. We exhaust our life force so that our life and encounter might function as they should.
     ... when we throw ourselves into our work, there ceases to be a ‘gap’ or duality between our life force and the ‘thing’ or ‘work’ which is being encountered, so that the opposing meanings of all the ordinary dualistic words – ‘our,’ ‘life,’ or ‘force’ on the one side, and ‘thing’ or ‘work’ on the other – fall away.” 
       Thomas Wright transl. Zen Master Dogen and Kosho Uchiyama Roshi: “How to Cook Your Life: From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment.” Shambhala, 2005. 


     “Long ago a monk asked an old master, ‘When hundreds, thousands, or myriads of objects come all at once, what should be done?’
      The master replied, ‘Don’t try to control them.’
      What he means is that in whatever way objects come, do not try to change them. Whatever comes is the buddha-dharma, not objects at all. Do not understand the master’s reply as merely a brilliant admonition, but realize that it is the truth. Even if you try to control what comes, it cannot be controlled.” 
        Eihei Dogen, “Moon in a Dewdrop: Writings of Zen Master Dogen.” North Point Press, 1995.
 

     “At the time of his great awakening Dogen was practicing shikantaza, a mode of zazen which involved neither koan nor counting or following the breaths. The very foundation of shikantaza is an unshakable faith that sitting as the Buddha sat, with the mind void of all conceptions, of all beliefs and points of view, is the actualization or unfoldment of the inherently enlightened Bodhi-mind with which all are endowed.” 
       Philip Kapleau “The Three Pillars of Zen.” Anchor Books, 2000.

awakeningartsacademy.com

Transcending Extreme Views

     We live in a time of partisanship: bias, prejudice, one-sidedness, discrimination, favoritism, partiality, sectarianism, factionalism. Vicious reflex aversion or frenzied blind support for topics ranging from politics, economics, religion, sex, gender, even sports, is based NOT on careful analysis of evidence, BUT solely on identification with certain groups. If "one of us" is criticized, no matter how justly, we immediately react as if it were a life-threatening personal attack. Yet it's just our ego being criticized.
     There is a much more nuanced, wiser & healthier approach:

     “Sympathizing with (extreme ends of a) perspective is easy; walking the knife-edge between them is more difficult. Can we employ each viewpoint to interrogate the other, without accepting either perspective as absolute? Such an approach can be discomforting because it is so destabilizing: what remains of one’s own standpoint? This process invokes the understanding of Buddhist practice … which emphasizes the realization of ‘nondwelling mind”: a mind that does not identify with any particular forms, including thought-forms such as ideologies, whether religious or secular.”
        David R. Loy. “A New Buddhist Path. Enlightenment Evolution and Ethics in the Modern World.” Wisdom Publications, 2015.

Soccer Hooligans - Getty Images

WHO is Suffering?

"Titles" by Leonard Cohen

 

I had the title Poet
and maybe I was one
for a while
Also the title Singer
was kindly accorded me
even though
I could barely carry a tune
For many years
I was known as a Monk
I shaved my head and wore robes
and got up very early
I hated everyone
but I acted generously
and no one found me out
My reputation
as a Ladies' Man was a joke
It caused me to laugh bitterly
through the ten thousand nights
I spent alone
From a third-storey window
above the Parc du Portugal
I've watched the snow
come down all day
As usual
there's no one here
There never is
Mercifully
the inner conversation
is cancelled
by the white noise of winter
"I am neither the mind,
The intellect,
nor the silent voice within..."
is also cancelled
and now Gentle Reader
in what name
in whose name
do you come
to idle with me
in these luxurious
and dwindling realms of Aimless Privacy?

Truth

     “Truth is a very high standard. Truth is not a plaything. To tell what is true within ourselves is not to tell what we think; it is not to tell our opinion. It is not to dump the garbage can of our mind onto somebody else. All of that is illusion, distortion, projection. Truth is not unloading our opinions onto someone. That is not truth. Truth is not telling our beliefs about things. That is not truth. Those are ways that we actually hide from truth.
     Truth is much more intimate than that. When we tell the truth, it has the sense of a confession. I don’t mean in a confession of something bad or wrong, but I mean the sense that we come completely out of hiding. Truth is a simple thing. To speak the truth is to speak from a sense of total and absolute unprotectedness.”

       Adyashanti. "The End of Your World. Uncensored Straight Talk on the Nature of Enlightenment." Sounds True, Boulder, Colorado, 2010. 

     See also: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2012/12/self-knowledge-depth-and-healing.html

http://robertpopefoundation.com/about-robert-pope/his-perspectives/

Artist: Robert Pope

The Way is perfect

If you wish to know the truth,
then hold to no opinions for or against anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike
is the disease of the mind.

When the fundamental nature of things is not recognized
the mind’s essential peace is disturbed to no avail.
The Way is perfect as vast space is perfect,
where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess.

                                                                                                                    Seng Ts'an

Public Gardens, Halifax, NS

"Only Have No Preferences"

perceptions of the other
come with a charge
attraction or repulsion
clinging or aversion
need or rejection

but is there 'other'?
are not 'things as they is'?
one deep still pool of mystery?

Preferences, Opinions, & Curiosity

     One Zen master advised his students "Only have no preferences." What does that mean? Can it be that we focus our attention on what we want or don't want, excluding most or all other components of reality?
     Does the recommendation to be curious about what's going on mean the very same thing - to not have preferences, but to be aware of all components of reality? 
     We have so many disappointments in the run of a day - actually, even hourly. If we focused on the disappointment, we'd summarize all our experience as - well - disappointing. No wonder some folks are sour most of the time.
     However, if we simply DON'T summarize, but remain curious, then our entire experience can't reduce to disappointment, BUT will instead reflect REALITY ie a complex fluctuating mixture of wonderful, mediocre, & lousy fleeting events. If we observe life dispassionately, objectively, with curiosity - all our experiences will be REAL.
     Life is complex, why reduce it to inaccurate, roller coaster terms of fabulous, boring, or horrible - it cannot be reduced to any one of these, because it's a complex mix of ALL of these, ALL the time.

Wasting Time during Sitting Meditation

     "Vipassana meditation has to do with looking deeply into the mind and body to discern the various processes unfolding each moment that fabricate the virtual world of our experience. The riot of conceptual proliferation is often the first thing seen because it is the shallowest and busiest part of the mind. For most of us the monkey mind chatters incessantly as it swings from one branch to another, seizing first this thought, then that idea, then a host of miscellaneous associations, memories, and fantasies. The basic themes around which all this activity swirls, according to the insights of the Buddha, are craving, conceit, and views. We could watch this show all day and learn very little."

       Olendzki A. "Unlimiting Mind. The Radically Experiential Psychology of Buddhism." Wisdom Publications, Boston, 2010.

     Watch Olendzki's interview: http://www.tricycle.com/p/1762