Year: 2019

Much of life is dedicated to minimizing pain and maximizing ecstasy. We have become more and more sophisticated in our technology—we can live in space and map the human genome. Yet we have not been efficacious in our quest to culminate woefulness. Our age-old quandaries of prejudice, cruelty, and division persist, simply taking incipient forms over the centuries. With no exception everything will return to the Dharma Realm.”

Everything is generated by the one and will eventually return to the one. Don’t misinterpret this and cerebrate that since you are not supposed to affix to relishes and disrelishes, you should consequently not cultivate the Way. In addition, when you visually examine Zen monks walk, it’s very fascinating. They have a different kind of walk from everybody else in Japan. Most Japanese shuffle along, or if they wear Western habiliments, they race and hurry as we do.

Zen monks have a peculiar swing when they ambulate, and you have the feeling they ambulate rather the same way as a feline. There’s something about it that isn’t hesitant; they’re going along all right, they’re not remotely senescent around, but they’re ambulating just to ambulate. The reason for this is that it has never been separate from us.

Zen Koan: “The Thief Who Became a Disciple” Parable

One evening as Shichiri Kojun was reciting sutras a thief with a sharp sword entered, demanding wither his money or his life.

Shichiri told him: “Do not disturb me. You can find the money in that drawer.” Then he resumed his recitation.

A little while afterwards he stopped and called: “Don’t take it all. I need some to pay taxes with tomorrow.”

The intruder gathered up most of the money and started to leave. “Thank a person when you receive a gift,” Shichiri added. The man thanked him and made off.

A few days afterwards the fellow was caught and confessed, among others, the offense against Shichiri. When Shichiri was called as a witness he said: “This man is no thief, at least as far as I am concerned. I gave him the money and he thanked me for it.”

After he had finished his prison term, the man went to Shichiri and became his disciple.

Buddhist Insight on Cultivating Mindfulness

In Buddhism, one can find all the necessary advice, which can help one to lead a happy married life. Cultivating mindfulness can help craving verbal expressions to realize their meaning. You can sit up straight for hours when the breath is open and you’re concentrated. See if this practice makes your mind more alert throughout the day. In Zen Buddhism, an image that’s used is of these burdens or difficulties being the same as a poisoned tree. The Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh writes in Creating True Peace: Ending Conflict in Yourself, Your Family, Your Community and the World,

When you are in pain, remember to bring your mind back to your Buddha nature, your goodness and capacity for mindfulness, calm, and seeing deeply into the situation. If you allow yourself to be dominated by negative emotions, you will react in ways that will cause more suffering. You will want to punish the other person and say unkind things. We have all done this many, many times. To break out of this habit of suffering, this trap, we have to remember to practice mindfulness, to touch our Buddha nature. … We all have negative emotions and we also have Buddha nature within us, and it is possible for them to coexist in peace. The practice is to recognize our Buddha nature without running away from them. With mindfulness we can, maintain our peace, our stability, and our compassion in every moment and in every circumstance.

According to Zen Buddhism, the only source of energy that can be subsidiary is commiseration, for the reason that it is safe. When you have commiseration, your energy is born from insight. It is not visually impaired energy. With commiseration, we practice in order to learn ways to bulwark the lives of people, animals, plants, and minerals. You will feel restless and think, “Today has gone by already and I’ve wasted my time.”

Some people have this attitude when, after a day or two, they feel they have not made any progress. Another case was a person who was required to take the English equivalency exam in order to apply for a U.S. You cannot practice this way. Once we see how we are hooked and how we are swept along by the momentum, there’s no way to be arrogant. The trick is to keep seeing. On the contrary, they are unable to practice. The master looked out of his hut and saw a man about to cross the river.

Can a Buddhist monk have a family? A true totality would not even be considered “one”; it can only be called “nothing.” It is only when a distinction is made that the one can subsist at all, and in that cases it will lead to two. They often make the mistake of exerting physical energy to fight against wandering thoughts.

Zen Koan: “Zen in a Beggar’s Life” Parable

Tosui was a well-known Zen teacher of his time. He had lived in several temples and taught in various provinces.

The last temple he visited accumulated so many adherents that Tosui told them he was going to quit the lecture business entirely. He advised them to disperse and to go wherever they desired. After that no one could find any trace of him.

Three years later one of his disciples discovered him living with some beggars under a bridge in Kyoto. He at one implored Tosui to teach him.

“If you can do as I do for even a couple of days, I might,” Tosui replied.

So the former disciple dressed as a beggar and spent a day with Tosui. The following day one of the beggars died. Tosui and his pupil carried the body off at midnight and buried it on a mountainside. After that they returned to their shelter under the bridge.

Tosui slept soundly the remainder of the night, but the disciple could not sleep. When morning came Tosui said: “We do not have to beg food today. Our dead friend has left some over there.” But the disciple was unable to eat a single bite of it.

“I have said you could not do as I,” concluded Tosui. “Get out of here and do not bother me again.”

Buddhist Insight on Buddha Nature

Transgressions are classified either depending on the essence or on time. In addition, it happened that the Buddha came along the road as he was waiting thus. He thought it was just a conventional ascetic, and he meant to kill Him and get the hundredth finger he wanted. That is Buddha Nature. What probably happens is that his mind flickers with incredible rapidity between the two ideas; the agony is still there but may be reduced to endurable dimensions. The American Zen and spirituality teacher Dennis Genpo Merzel wrote in The Path of the Human Being: Zen Teachings on the Bodhisattva Way,

True nature is Buddha nature, unfixed and able to adapt to any container, so we will all express Buddha nature differently. Every person is a unique container and what is appropriate in one bowl may not be appropriate in another bowl. Our lives, too, are made up of different containers. Your body-mind is one container, and your family is another. Your work and living situations are containers, and our Earth is a container. For each situation a different manifestation is appropriate. Practice is all about learning how to recognize and manifest our true nature in everything we do. To become confident, free and joyful in manifesting our true nature takes a lot of attention and practice. Zazen is the way we accomplish this. Through zazen, we learn how to be who we really are.

Despair and anxiety can never be worked through until one confronts them in their stark and full reality. One can never apply some center from the outside. Difficult as the task is, we must accept ourselves and our society where we are, and find our ethical center through a deeper understanding of ourselves as well as through a courageous confronting of our historical situation. In this edification from the outset sitting in cogitation does not concern the mind nor does it concern purity. If you omit delusions, then the pristine nature reveals its purity. If you activate your mind to view purity without realizing that your own nature is pristinely pristine, delusions of purity will be engendered.

The ease of understanding was related to whether a koan was difficult or easy for a particular participant and also for the reason that some koans are designed to produce different effects on the student. It is not a five-star Hotel or the kind. If you have faith in the mind of equanimity and non-distinction, you have faith in no mind. When you grasp onto something, find a blissful medium. However, if there is no such duality, then there is no oneness to speak of either. Do not discombobulate this with enlightenment.

Zen Koan: “The Dead Man’s Answer” Parable

When Mamiya, who later became a well-known preacher, went to a teacher for personal guidance, he was asked to explain the sound of one hand.

Mamiya concentrated upon what the sound of one hand might be. “You are not working hard enough,” his teacher told him. “You are too attached to food, wealth, things, and that sound. It would be better if you died. That would solve the problem.”

The next time Mamiya appeared before his teacher he was again asked what he had to show regarding the sound of one hand. Mamiya at once fell over as if he were dead.

“You are dead all right,” observed the teacher, “But how about that sound?”

“I haven’t solved that yet,” replied Mamiya, looking up.

“Dead men do not speak,” said the teacher. “Get out!”

Buddhist Insight on Mindful Breathing

Mindful breathing is the state of mind is very peaceful and you stop grasping it. In addition, if you haven’t found it, it’s really a crucial part of spiritual practice to look for it. As just explained, after being taught how to enter consistent with the vehicles of cause and characteristics, as the fruition, there is the instruction to enter the vehicles of secret mantra. The Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh writes in Creating True Peace: Ending Conflict in Yourself, Your Family, Your Community and the World,

To breathe in mindfully is to be aware that air is entering our body, and to breathe out mindfully is to know that air is leaving our body. The moment our mind is attentive to the contact between our body and the air, we are also in contact with our mind, just as it is. It takes only one conscious breath to be in touch with ourselves and the world around us. Then, with each mindful breath, ease is restored to our body and mind.

Our struggle is obligatory, but it is eventually just our inclination to be present that counts and that this is the true effort of the way. Glad to know that you have time to meditate. In a country like America, where people can do so many things, and where there are so many distractions, to meditate is not easy. One gets older doing this and that, finding no real satisfaction in anything. Coming to accept that there is nothing wrong with me has been a very important part of growing up.

How can one be certain that there was a Teacher known as the Buddha? We present everything to the object of our surrendering. The basic act of surrender does not involve the worship of an external power. Rather it means working together with inspiration, so that one becomes an open vessel into which knowledge can be poured. You may feel liberated. If you do this, you are grasping the false. For instance, suppose you endeavor to clear a blocked pipe by pushing another object into it.

You can see the tip of each blade of grass and the outline of every leaf. The person who is seeking to attain is separate from the attainment, the object of his search. All of your actions will boomerang back to you and you will have to take the consequences.

Zen Koan: “Joshu’s Zen” Parable

Joshu began the study of Zen when he was sixty years old and continued until he was eighty, when he realized Zen.

He taught from the age of eighty until he was one hundred and twenty.

A student once asked him: “If I haven’t anything in my mind, what shall I do?”

Joshu replied: “Throw it out.”

“But if I haven’t anything, how can I throw it out?” continued the questioner.

“Well,” said Joshu, “then carry it out.”

Buddhist Insight on Being With Disappointment

Wisdom is also this development of patience, love, or constancy that you go through so many cycles. Unfortunately, the truth dealt with by science is only a partial one. By looking for complexities of developing and perfecting within the primordial unstructured presence of the nature and disenchantment, the essence without accepting and rejecting will not be seen. The American Zen teacher Charlotte Joko Beck writes in Nothing Special: Living Zen,

When we refuse to work with our disappointment, we break the Precepts: rather than experience the disappointment, we resort to anger, greed, gossip, criticism. Yet it’s the moment of being that disappointment which is fruitful; and, if we are not willing to do that, at least we should notice that we are not willing. The moment of disappointment in life is an incomparable gift that we receive many times a day if we’re alert. This gift is always present in anyone’s life, the moment when “It’s not the way I want it.”