Christmas Blog

Hi there! Christmas, in case you haven't noticed, is just around the corner. Roxy, the carer, put up a little artificial tree on the window ledge and Jean spruced up a wreath on the front door. After all, it's a rare event when someone grows up to say "I and my father are one". All that time spent in the desert must have meant a lot of meditation although I don't know how much the Essenes did. So, lets celebrate his birthday. I hope you have a very happy Christmas and enjoy the things you like the best.

Thimble

"Are you glad about being like this as a result of the surgery?" Some one asked me the other day...

I said I was glad of the insights but not of the limitations - thinking of how restricted my life was in terms of serving and spreading the Dharma. I remembered a talk of Genpo Roshis' about how a thimble cannot carry as much as a large container. The sudden removal of so much like walking and talking, I and we all take for granted, gives me a precious chance to be a thimbleful of purer Dharma rather than spreading bucketfuls of tainted Dharma all over the place. It is really the life I always wanted and that for which I was cut out for from the very beginning - a modern day thimble-sized anchorite. So I get on with feeding the cat and washing the dishes, have gratitude for carers who care, and to those who don't, for children (ditto) and the clear button pushing teishos of supermarket checkouts. There's less to protect such as self esteem and people thinking well of you. It's a step nearer being able to learn from a seven year old if they know more than I do (Joshu) which isn't difficult, especially these days. It is equally easy to know more than I do - and teaching an old man if he knows less than I do, which also isn't difficult. Only round here the old men are doing extremely well as farmers and church goers!

Above all I always feel gratitude to my teacher Genpo Roshi who always knew I was a thimble.

Lost in Translation?

One passing thought right now is that in the free view (to use a currently very used word in the UK) beyond the broadbands (ditto) there is the common ground of Eastern and Western beliefs. Is Master Joshu's "Ordinary Mind is the Way" much different from the post daikensho Master Jesus popping up here and there, eating grilled fish on the beach with a friend or visiting friends and sharing meals or taking walks with them?

Thank God for meditation - it's about all I can do these days. I'm really grateful to Tammy (Myoho Sensei) for the tedious job of a) getting clear what I am trying to say and b) transcribing it and reading it back to me before it turns into a blog.

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Another passing thought was how things get lost in translation, without a translator!

Student: Sensei, I'm really stuck on that koan you gave me about being compression
Me: Oh No! It was about compassion!

Or on my quoting the Buddhas' tip for relaxing to imagine precious ointment melting on your head and running down your shoulders and arms, the said meditator said "The ornament on my head doesn't seem to melt!"

So there is a funny side to all this, although it has it's dangers. Anyway, it's not so much what you say that matters - unless you are Master Joshu - it's who you really are.

Whats Bugging Me?

What's bugging me? I really gave some thought to this question for I had been living with the distinct sense of un-ease lately.

Then, like Nessie, rising from the depths of Loch Ness, I realised what it was. Gee, it takes so long, without a teacher. Hiding away had been my attachment to the Vow (the bodhisattva vow which shapes our life as monks.) And which I thought I had let go of long ago, but that was only an idea. Letting go of it, Big Mind became compassion, infinate, boundless, all-inclusive.

Either way, my mother as a young woman in 1918 saw the Loch Ness monster while on the family outing from the Manse!

Meditation, Boring, Boring.

Maezumi Roshi said to me a long time ago; "Meditation is so boring, boring." I was a very new student at the time and I found meditation riveting and very exciting. All those dramas and who was star of the show? well me of course. Like Dogen Zenji said many centuries ago:

"To study Buddhism is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things. To be enlightened by all things is to be free from attachment to the body and mind of one's self and of others."

One thing we can bring as westerners to the practice of zen is the removal of obstacles deep in the self. When we are no longer attached to enlightenment or the peace of zazen we are just our ordinary selves.

Butts off the cushion!

Did anyone see the BBC Newsnight of 14/10/09? Scientists say we have only got 6 years left. We have all seen houses lit up like lanterns and some of us have seen cities from the air at night (Vegas stretched out like a diamond spiders web in the darkness of the desert.) Six years? SIX YEARS! Switching off lights and plugs is the easy bit - and we will soon get used to lots of changes in our lives. So we have to awaken in record time. Genpo Roshi gives live talks on Big Mind TV and Bernie Glassman Roshi is also a really useful helper in the work of awakened activism. Genpo Roshis' Big Heart, Big Mind offers a speed track to enlightenment. Bernie Glassman Roshi shows us how to put it in action in the world. After all, he's the guy who holds retreats at Auschwitz. It's no good talking about embracing the universe if we don't knuckle down and do what we can to care for it. By the way, the hand position in Zen meditation is called the cosmic mudra. For those whose deepest desire is to save the world, here's a great opportunity. So butts off the cushions - we have got work to do!

Don't Waste Your Time

Daido Roshi will soon be passing from this world, please pray for him. He is one of Maezumi Roshis' successors and is abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery in upstate New York. I remember him as a big man with a huge heart who used all his talents to the full for the dharma.

Life and death really are of extreme importance, as we hear at the end of the day's meditation:

"Let me respectfully remind you, life and death are of extreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. Let us awaken, awaken, take heed. Do not squander your life."

Daido did not squander his life, in fact he used it in the best way possible.

Squandering is the grit in the shoe. (See yesterdays blog) So here's an ill-remembered poem from long ago. I have given it a new name:

"What's it all about Alfie?"

As when a child I laughed and wept,

Time crept.

Later as I grew,

Time flew.

Soon, as I go wondering on

Time will be gone.

Will God have saved

My soul by then?

Amen

Well, it's no good leaving it all up to God. It's up to us to go sit. Today in Lancashire, UK it's bucketing down and the sky is grey and heavy. Perfect sitting weather...