Get Serious

"Get Serious" number 29 of 200 from Robert Aitken's book Miniatures of a Zen Master.

Time to get serious. Morning has arrived and a big day is ahead.

This morning me and my homies meet to listen to a dharma talk and discuss what ever comes up. This reading slash discussion group is made up of practitioners with different levels of seriousness and even some who are not practitioners. An eclectic group. Nice that there is a couple of husband and wife pairs who come. Wish I could confidence my Mary to go. Suggest and encourage is all we can do.

"Am I being serious enough?" is a constant question for me. This is the sister question to "Am I doing it right?". Oh well, move through the day and be what happens.

Current reading list
Keep Me In Your Heart A While - Dasho Port
Mind of Clover - Robert Aitken
Essential Zen - Tanahashi & Schneider
Zen Computer - Philip Toshio Sudo
Everyday Zen - Charlotte Joko Beck

The Lesser Vehicle

"The Lesser Vehicle" number 28 of 200 from Robert Aitken's book Miniatures of a Zen Master.

Aitken Roshi looks at the heart of the greater vs. lesser vehicle dichotomy in Buddhism. He states it in a interesting way.
"Why do you seek to arouse the aspiration of your students by encouraging self-improvement when fundamentally there isn't any enduring self to begin with?"


Aitken is questioning why some teachers encourage self-improvement and by extension, why some students develop self-improvement.
This seems a bit odd for a teacher with so many psychoanalysts as
students.

This all seems a bit rhetorical though maybe not. Our practice is a bit of a balancing act. Sure, just as Old Man Linchi would say, there is nothing to do, nowhere to go. In this very body, with this very mind, in this very moment, you are Buddha.

Yet, just to say that is evidence of delusion.

We have our practice, our sangha, all the teachings, the precepts... all for encouragement, companionship and just a bit of good old fashioned self-improvement. This is all skillfully designed to help examine our life, reality as it is. In essence to wake up from a dream. To be ignorant of our personal foibles is to wallow in our delusion. To notice this short comings is to wake up a little bit. If self-improvement fosters this, upaya!

Riding the knife edge between 'always am Buddha' and practice and precepts. Not holding to one or the other. This weblog full of talk, talk, talk. My personal foible plain and clear.

How'm I Doing?

"How'm I Doing?" number 27 of 200 from Robert Aitken's book Miniatures of a Zen Master.

This has been my question too, or more accurately 'Am I doing it right?'. Looking closely, the question is not a sign of insecurity or a desire to see our rank in the sangha. Instead it is a genuine wish not to be wasting our time. The whole point in having a teacher is for a relationship to develop where the teacher can guide the student.

Let me try a Western analogy. Here in the West of the West, cows roam vast fields foraging to fill their bellies. Their minders, the cowboys, relax and let the cows peacefully wander here and there all summer long. Then when the time comes, they round them up into corrals, load them into trucks, sent them off to ... here the analogy get a bit weird.

In this analogy the cowboy knows what will happen and has done this many times before and the cow is oblivious. During the summer the cow faces many choices and some of them could lead to danger. The cows still has to walk through the corral on her own.


As you can see I'm not good at these analogies. In modern life we look for the quick remedies, the expedient means, we look for shortcuts. This is the way the West has tried to assimilate Zen.

Is it working?

Here I sit, chewing my cud of Mu.

The Heart Sutra

"The Heart Sutra" number 26 of 200 from Robert Aitken's book Miniatures of a Zen Master.


Is there a litmus test for Zen teachers? Aitken Roshi spells one out for us. He says to ask your teacher the meaning of "form is emptiness, emptiness is form" and if she starts explaining, RUN! I'll have to give this one a try.

I wonder what Dogen would do? "WWDD" Funny!


Life balance. What do that mean? I have been neglecting my wood working life in favor of my Zen life. This is going to change.

Make It Clear

"Make It Clear" number 25 of 200 from Robert Aitken's book Miniatures of a Zen Master.

Koans are not metaphors. They to be made clear through zazen.




Venus headed towards eclipse

Rare treat this morning. I watched Venus slip behind the crescent moon. I got this photo then while processing it for you, Venus got closer and closer till they touched and then both slipped behind the cloud. The cloud you see here in front of the moon got progressively thicker till it completely obscured the pair of celestial bodies. Rare indeed.

This life is a precious opportunity.

Essential Emptiness

"Essential Emptiness" number 24 of 200 from Robert Aitken's book Miniatures of a Zen Master.

Contemplate the essential nature of emptiness. I am noticing that there are several new-fangled ways to study Zen. Here I'm thinking of the approaches taken by Adyashanti, Cheri Huber and Gempo Merzel's Big Mind. I have participated in each of these to one degree or another and found lots of movement and connection in my own life. Each claim to be a derivative of Zen and each has a unique approach. Helpful in a modern age in a Western culture.

And yet.

Aitken Roshi points out that the old texts are a vast resources for tuning life. Specifically he lists a collection of sutras worth study. The collection is called Prajñā Pāramitā "Prefection of Wisdom". In this collection is the Heart Sutra and the Vimalakirti Sutra. This collection points to the essential emptiness of everything or Shunyatā. Aitken Roshi admonishes us that if you don't yet embody shunyatā, "you are not yet squared away." Nice!

Don't mind me, I have some squaring up to do!

Be Yourself

"Be Yourself" number 23 of 200 from Robert Aitken's book Miniatures of a Zen Master.





I got inspired by a post by Garr Reynolds of Presentation Zen fame, to create the above presentation slide. I did this yesterday without knowing what today's miniature was about.

In today's miniature, Aitken Roshi reminds us that the Buddha gave up aesthetic practices which were very hard on his body and mind, then took up sitted meditation or as we Zennists say Zazen. We too can give up being hard on ourselves and apply our energies to Zazen. This is what Aitken Roshi means by following the example of the Buddha. Advice express also by Shunryu Suzuki.

Garr's slide below. Very fun stuff. I'll have to do more of this as it is great practice for the presentations I make at work. Now that I see the slides side by side, I can see now that I could improve my slide by increasing the font size a far bit. Also by decreasing the size of 'Shunryu Suzuki', Garr has emphasized what was said (the important stuff) and yet still gave attribution.