an unwarranted opinion

As a Zen Teacher I try very hard to be 'a-political' with what I say in public. In private, I feel that I can say to someone who knows me, what I feel; however, it isn't appropriate to hijack a belief system and use it for inappropriate statements.

This stated, Śākyamuni did say, "be a light unto yourself." I would like to say that the world population continues to rise, since 1947 the population has almost tripled! Wars between peoples continue to annihilate millions, and peace is just a bad idea that the hippies had.

We are ourselves!

Just let this sink in!

Whatever you see, is you. This is the truth of our lives, please treat your neighbor with the same respect that you treat yourself.

May life move forward with compassion and love.

a home leaver awakens

courtesy of http://www.dilbert.com/

Second Ancestor: 阿難陀 Ānanda

A cousin of Śākyamuni, who became one of his ten primary disciples 十大弟子. He is said to have had a perfect memory and thus was capable of recalling all of the Buddha’s sermons. At the time of Buddha’s death he had not yet attained enlightenment, and only achieved this following the exhortations of Kāśyapa 迦葉, Śākyamuni’s successor. After his enlightenment, the rest of the sangha allowed his recitation of the sutras. Thus all the scriptures are said to have been recorded from the mouth of Ānanda, who begins each recitation with “Thus I have heard...(如是我聞)”
Ānanda, 阿難; intp. by 歡喜 Joy; son of Droņodana–rāja, and younger brother of Devadatta; he was noted as the most learned disciple of Buddha and famed for hearing and remembering his teaching, hence is styled 多聞; after the Buddha’s death he is said to have compiled the sutras in the Vaibhāra cave, v. 畢, where the disciples were assembled in Magadha. He is known as the second ancestor. Ānandabhadra and Ānandasāgara are generally given as two other Ānandas, but this is uncertain.

Meister Eckhart

Meister Eckhart, who is probably the best-known Christian mystic of the Middle Ages, was totally committed to God and the Catholic Church. Because of his intellectual brilliance, he rose in the church hierarchy until he earned the position of Regent Master of the Studium Generale in Köln, Germany. In this position he had great influence over the religious life of central Europe. However, Eckhart had a series of profound mystical experiences of Christ-Consciousness, and as he gradually integrated those experiences into his teachings, his words became more and more mystical.

Today, his most famous statement, “The eye through which I see God is the very eye through which God sees me,” is quoted in hundreds of contemporary spiritual books. This is the kind of statement that, at the height of his teaching career, caused the Papacy to ban his writings as heretical. Although Eckhart is now recognized by the Catholic Church as one of its deepest and most enlightened priests, it is easy to see why he was so misunderstood during the Middle Ages. In 1985 the Pope, John Paul II, said,

Did not Eckhart teach his disciples: “All that God asks you most pressingly is to go out of yourself—and let God be God in you?’’ One could think that, in separating himself from creatures, the mystic leaves his brothers, humanity, behind. The same Eckhart affirms that, on the contrary, the mystic is marvelously present to them on the only level where he can truly reach them, that is in God.

What a wonderful case of rehabilitation! The church that initially condemned Eckhart now praises him. Imagine how shocked his contemporaries must have been when Eckhart said,

“What is truth? Truth is something so noble that if God could turn aside from it, I could keep to the truth and let God go.” Along this same line he also said, “All those who want to make statements about God are wrong, for they fail to say anything about Him. Those who want to say nothing about Him are right, for no word can express God.”

This statement is remarkably similar to a statement by Laozu in the Daodeqing that says, “The Dao that can be named is not the eternal Dao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The unnamable is eternally real.” Although they came from different cultures and different times, both Eckhart and Laozu had discovered the same core reality. Eckhart uses the word “God” and Laozu uses the word “Dao,” but both men advise that the word or concept is far from the living truth.

Like so many other mystics, saints, sages, and religious masters, Eckhart discovered that, at a certain level, our mind encounters the Infinite. To reach that level we must limit the mental habit of cognition, which splits the world into self and not self. Judging from world history very few of us have had the patience, persistence, or necessary desire to reach that level and meet God face-to-face. Most of us are content to think about God, talk about God, and periodically petition God for assistance. What did Eckhart say we should do to discover the truth? He said,

safe from images of outside things which remain external to him and, alien as they are, cannot traffic or forgather with him or find any form in him at all. Secondly, inventions of the mind itself, ideas, spontaneous notions or images of things outside or whatever comes into his head, he must give no quarter to on pain of scattering himself and being sold into multiplicity. His powers must all be trained to turn and face his inner self. (David Stendl Rast, The Man From Whom God Nothing Hid)

In this statement Eckhart is advising us to spend time cultivating the non-conceptual mind and informing us that the process isn’t easy.

Most of us conceive God to be some sort of powerful entity who created the universe and now watches over its operation. In the conventional form of this concept, God is a sort of super father figure who selectively intervenes in our lives. In some cultures people have conceived God to be a group of entities and in other cultures God is conceived as a force that manifests in different ways. The main problem with any of these concepts is that we become blinded by the images that these concepts evoke and never attempt to acquire direct experience.

The best concept, if we must have one, is one in which God is identified as the total process of reality a process which can be experienced on many levels. At least this concept does not evoke blinding images, and it also extends from inside ourselves to the farthest galaxy, which is what Eckhart, Laozu, and all other great religious figures have tried to communicate. It also suggests that we must do something radically different if we are to experience that process at a deep level. In other words, we, the universe, mind, reality, and God are One a unified Whole which is alive, intelligent, loving and vast beyond comprehension. When conceived, this One must be psychologically divided into at least two states, observer and observed, but when directly perceived, the observer, the observed, and the act of observing become one. This is what God means when in the Bible he tells Jacob, “I am he; I am the first, I am also the last.” (Isaiah 48:12) This is also Christ’s meaning when he says, “If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.” (John 8:42) Eckhart puts it this way,

No difference exists either in the nature of God or in the Persons so far as they are one in nature. The divine nature is one and each of the Persons also is one, the same one as their nature. Distinction in being and existence is taken as same and is one. Where it is not in [God] it takes on and has and shows difference. In one, God is found, so to find God a man must be one.

Laozu agrees, saying, “Ordinary men hate solitude. But the Master makes use of it, embracing his aloneness, realizing he is one with the whole universe.” These men discovered the reality, which the concept and word “God” represents.

To reach the level of mind wherein we directly perceive God rather than thoughts about God, we must use our mind in a completely different way than usual. Instead of reflecting we must practice seeing; instead of judging we must practice hearing; instead of imagining we must practice smelling; instead of naming we must practice feeling; and instead of talking we must practice tasting. In short, we must stop habitually using our intellect and spend more time interacting with the world directly through our senses. We must practice becoming one-with reality by refusing to psychologically divide it. We are like small droplets of water flung up by the ocean when it crashes against a rocky shoreline. Momentarily, each tiny water drop can become attached to an individual existence and identity, but after falling back into the ocean, each droplet’s true identity becomes obvious. By practicing direct perception, it is possible for us to psychologically fall back into the ocean of God and penetrate the illusions created by cognition to discover what Christ called our True Self.

Most of us never experience God face-to-face because we never make an effort to change our mental habits. We remain blinded by the idea that we are things with names like John, Mary, or Bill. Although we don’t know how our bodies circulate blood, digest food, contract muscles, grow bones, or think, we have the audacity to imagine that we understand reality. When we imagine this sort of thing, our degree of blindness is staggering!

this is an expansion on a post I made a while back which was inspired by my good friend Zen Master James Ford.

Báiyún’s Black and White

Báiyún, a Zen Master of the Sung Dynasty, wrote a poem:

Where others dwell,
I do not dwell.
where others go,
I do not go.
this does not mean to refuse
association with others;
I only want to make
black and white distinct.

The real question here is, can we keep our mind's clear of extraneous thought. Báiyún's poem is very clear about his own direction, but can we just see it. Just this and just now there is only the expression of this moment.

Báiyún Shŏuduān 白雲守端, [wg]: Pai-yün Shou-tuan
Source: Iron Flute (Tetteki Tosui) Case # 14
photo: Báiyúnshan in Guangzhou, PRC

Zen Master Wally discusses Sitting

courtesy of www.dilbert.com

Bede Griffiths

Alan Richard "Bede" Griffiths (17 December 1906 – 13 May 1993), also known as Swami Dayananda (Bliss of Compassion), was a British-born Benedictine monk and missionary who lived in ashrams in South India. He was born at Walton-on-Thames, England and studied literature at Oxford University under professor and Christian apologist C. S. Lewis, who became a lifelong friend. Griffiths recounts the story of his conversion in 1931 to Catholicism while a student at Oxford in his autobiography The Golden String.

In December, 1932, Griffiths joined the Benedictine monastery of Prinknash Abbey near Gloucester, where he was ordained to the priesthood in 1940. Griffiths spent some time in the sister abbey in Scotland but, after two decades of community life, he moved to Kengeri, Bangalore, India in 1955 with the goal of building a monastery there. That project was unsuccessful, but in 1958 he helped Francis Acharya to establish Kristiya Sanyasa Samaj,Kurisumala Ashram (Mountain of the Cross), a Syriac rite monastery of Syro-Malankara Catholic Church in Kerala. In college Bede had originally studied the Classics, "Latin," "Greek," and "Hebrew." When he found himself in India awaiting orders from the hierachy, he decided that he could spend his time and learn Sanskrit. The local teachers only had texts from the Upanishads in Sanskrit, so this was Fr. Bede's first exposure to the ancient texts.

Once he read these texts in the original language, he started delivering the High Mass translated in Sanskrit instead of Latin as it was delivered at the time.

In 1968 he moved to the Shantivanam (Forest of Peace) Ashram in Tamil Nadu, the ashram had been founded by the French Benedictine monk Abhishiktananda in 1950.

Although he remained a Catholic monk he adopted the trappings of Hindu monastic life and entered into dialogue with Hinduism. Griffiths wrote twelve books on Hindu-Christian dialogue. Griffiths' form of Vedanta-inspired Christianity is called Wisdom Christianity.

Fr. Bede Griffiths was a proponent of integral thought, which attempts to harmonize scientific and spiritual world views. In a 1983 interview he stated,

"We're now being challenged to create a theology which would use the findings of modern science and eastern mysticism which, as you know, coincide so much, and to evolve from that a new theology which would be much more adequate."

Griffiths died at Shantivanam in 1993. The archives of the Bede Griffiths Trust are located at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California.

Bhagawan Ramana Maharshi

Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi was probably the most famous Indian sage of the twentieth century. He was renowned for his saintly life, for the fullness of his self–realization, and for the feelings of deep peace that visitors experienced in his presence. So many people came to see him at the holy hill of Arunachula where he spent his adult life that an ashram had to be built around him. He answered questions for many hours every day, but never considered himself anyone’s guru.

At the age of sixteen, Ramana Maharshi left his home, his family, and all he knew. He felt drawn to Arunachula—a small mountain in Southern India. His only possessions were a piece of cloth to cover himself, and a walking stick. Little by little, word of a sage living alone on Arunachula Mountain became known. Many felt drawn to sit in his presence. Ramana Maharshi was on his deathbed when his followers began crying and tearfully asked, “Master, are you leaving us?” Ramana laughed and asked, “Where could I possibly go?” He was not saying that nothingness awaited him, nor was he denying the physical death of the body. He was saying that whom he is, in truth, could not possibly die. Ramana Maharshi, like Al Halláj Mansur, Jesus Christ, Saint Kabir, Sakyamuni Buddha, and Bankei Roshi, had realized his unity with the One who never dies. He had discovered what Jesus Christ called “my Father.”

Each of us has the fundamental choice of whether to attend to the present moment or whether to get lost in our cognitive processes. Through directly perceiving this moment, we can discover the Infinite. From our viewpoint, the choice is quite clear.

Ramana Maharshi practiced the huatou of "Who am I?" that was also expressed by Dahui Chan Master, who is the modern progenitor of Linji Zen practice. A simple seeker in India discovers the same truth as a fourteenth century Zen Master. It is a testament of the universal mind which flows through all of us.

Zen and the Zen of Zen

I stumbled upon this magnificent piece several years ago. It is a bit raw, so if you are easily offended or are a youngster, I would strongly suggest that you not click on this link. Stuart Davis' expose of me, myself and I going through the infighting of self discover comes through loud and clear in this exploration of Zen and the Zen of Zen.

enough said.

this is episode six of "The Stuart Davis Show"

Paramahamsa Nithyananda

Raj and I celebrate his 50th Birthday

I have a very close friend who is an excellent Italian, Asian and Indian Chef and has had several very successful restaurants in Mumbai, India as well as in Southern California. His name is Raj and he grew up in Mumbai and then traveled to Germany to recieve his cullinary eduction and his apprentiship under a few great masters of cusine in Europe. He eventually made his way to Southern California and set up shop, opening two great restaurants here.

Raj and I are the same age, give a month or so and both are very spiritual 'old men' who love to discuss our various philosophies. Raj studies yoga and I zen, and we often banter back and forth with one another till wee hours of the morning. About a year ago, I came across a youtube piece on Zen Koans by one of the Guru's that Raj respects. The piece is a bit long; however, it is worth watching a Master from the Vedic Tradition take on Zen Koans in a talk.

By the way, Paramahamsa Nithyananda has really good hair and really good teeth. Probably growing up in the Kerala region of india without too much sweets and some of the most healthy natural foods on earth have helped him and his disposition.

customs gate

I was quite blessed to be able to spend three weeks with the Venerabale Maha Ghosananda and Zen Master Sungsan while we traveled through China in 1996. Maha Ghosananda was always pulling some treat or surprise out of his saffron robes, and always had this luminous smile on his face. Just being in his presence was a moving experience for me and I must say that I have very fond memories of the times as well as the silence we shared on this trip.

leaving china with mixed emotions
passing through customs at shenzhen
my bags are much heavier
now than before
from all of the gifts I have bought
the sign says;
Hong Kong Residents Only.
my group proceeds and I ask,
“shouldn’t we go that way?”
“oh no, this is the correct way.”
looking up and down at the
customs gates
all of them have signs which read,
Hong Kong Residents Only.
a chinese official tells us,
we must turn around and go back
because we’ve come the wrong way.
when we finally arrive at
Hong Kong Customs
turning around the corner
there is Maha Ghosananda
his paperwork is done
and his processing complete
Maha Ghosananda has taught us all today
only go straight
and pay attention to the signs.

October 7, 1996
Hong Kong Customs

photo: Maha Ghosananda, Dakchun fashi, and Dochong, JDPSN at Yunmensi PRC

photo2: Maha Ghosanada and Dochong, JDPSN in Hong Kong

Zen Master Wally strikes again

courtesy of www.dilbert.com

Meister Eckhart

Meister Eckhart, who is probably the best-known Christian mystic of the Middle Ages, was totally committed to God and the Catholic Church. Because of his intellectual brilliance, he rose in the church hierarchy until he earned the position of Regent Master of the Studium Generale in Köln, Germany. In this position he had great influence over the religious life of central Europe. However, Eckhart had a series of profound mystical experiences of Christ-Consciousness, and as he gradually integrated those experiences into his teachings, his words became more and more mystical.

Today, his most famous statement, “The eye through which I see God is the very eye through which God sees me,” is quoted in hundreds of contemporary spiritual books. This is the kind of statement that, at the height of his teaching career, caused the Papacy to ban his writings as heretical. Although Eckhart is now recognized by the Catholic Church as one of its deepest and most enlightened priests, it is easy to see why he was so misunderstood during the Middle Ages. In 1985 the Pope, John Paul II, said,

Did not Eckhart teach his disciples: “All that God asks you most pressingly is to go out of yourself—and let God be God in you?’’ One could think that, in separating himself from creatures, the mystic leaves his brothers, humanity, behind. The same Eckhart affirms that, on the contrary, the mystic is marvelously present to them on the only level where he can truly reach them, that is in God.

What a wonderful case of rehabilitation! The church that initially condemned Eckhart now praises him. Imagine how shocked his contemporaries must have been when Eckhart said,
“What is truth? Truth is something so noble that if God could turn aside from it, I could keep to the truth and let God go.” Along this same line he also said, “All those who want to make statements about God are wrong, for they fail to say anything about Him. Those who want to say nothing about Him are right, for no word can express God.”

This statement is remarkably similar to a statement by Lao Tzu in the Daodeqing that says, “The Dao that can be named is not the eternal Dao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The unnamable is eternally real.” Although they came from different cultures and different times, both Eckhart and Lao Tzu had discovered the same core reality. Eckhart uses the word “God” and Lao Tzu uses the word “Dao,” but both men advise that the word or concept is far from the living truth. Like so many other mystics, saints, sages, and religious masters, Eckhart discovered that, at a certain level, our mind encounters the Infinite. To reach that level we must limit the mental habit of cognition, which splits the world into self and not self. Judging from world history very few of us have had the patience, persistence, or necessary desire to reach that level and meet God face-to-face. Most of us are content to think about God, talk about God, and periodically petition God for assistance.

Our Aspirations put so well

courtesy http://www.dilbert.com/

Loving Kindness Meditation

As the election gets nearer I have been doing Loving Kindness practice and I thought that if others could join me for the purpose of aspiring that the candidates and the country might become more loving and compassionate, so if you are not familiar with the practice here it is.

May I be well happy and peaceful. May no harm come to me, may no difficulties come to me, may I have a calm and peaceful mind. May I have patience, insight, courage and compassion in meeting the challenges of life.

May my parents be well happy and peaceful. May no harm come to them, may no difficulties come to them, may they have calm, peaceful minds. May they have patience, insight, courage and compassion in meeting the challenges of life.

May my teachers be well happy and peaceful. May no harm come to them, may no difficulties come to them, may they have calm, peaceful minds. May they have patience, insight, courage and compassion in meeting the challenges of life.

May family members and relatives be well happy and peaceful. May no harm come to them, may no difficulties come to them, may they have calm, peaceful minds. May they have patience, insight, courage and compassion in meeting the challenges of life.

May friends and acquaintances be well happy and peaceful. May no harm come to them, may no difficulties come to them, may they have calm, peaceful minds. May they have patience, insight, courage and compassion in meeting the challenges of life.

May unfriendly people and my enemies be well happy and peaceful. May no harm come to them, may no difficulties come to them, may they have calm, peaceful minds. May they have patience, insight, courage and compassion in meeting the challenges of life.

May unknown persons be well happy and peaceful. May no harm come to them, may no difficulties come to them, may they have calm, peaceful minds. May they have patience, insight, courage and compassion in meeting the challenges of life.

May all beings, with form and without form, visible, invisible, born or coming to birth, large and small, from the highest realm of existence to the lowest, be well happy and peaceful. May no harm come to them, may no difficulties come to them, may they have calm, peaceful minds. May they have patience, insight, courage and compassion in meeting the challenges of life.

Chinese Caligraphy for Compassion

useless or helpless?

Source: www.dilbert.com

Interfering or teaching

One of my favorite passages is from Zen Master Hakuin who lived in the 14th Century in Japan. Hakuin was a deeply enlightened fellow and is revered by most living Zen Buddhists today. Anyway Hakuin wrote in a letter to one of his lay students named Kokan the following:

One day in Mino province I observed a cicada casting its skin in the shade. It managed to get its head free, and then its hands and its feet emerged one after the other. Only it’s left wing remained inside, still caught to the old skin. It didn’t look as though it would ever get that wing unstuck. Watching it struggling to free itself, I was moved by feelings of pity to assist it with my fingernail. Excellent, I thought, now you are free to go on your way. But the wing that I had touched remained shut and would not open. That cicada never was able to fly as it should have. Looking at it, I felt ashamed of myself and regretted deeply what I had done. When you think about it, present day Zen teachers act in much the same way when they guide their students. I’ve seen and heard how they take young people of exceptional talent—those destined to become the very pillars and ridgepoles of our school—and with their ill-advised and inopportune methods end up making them into something half-baked and unachieved. This is a direct cause 0f the decline of our Zen school, the reason the Zen gardens are withering away.

Hakuin was deeply troubled by his peers, but why? Why would he be upset with someone trying to help someone else? Well his experience with the Cicada was a deeply connected experience. How many of us would look at a cicada with the same compassion as Hakuin? Śākyamuni Buddha; the historical Buddha, said something quite profound on his deathbed when questioned by his attendant, Ananda and his Dharma Heir Mahàkàsyapa, who asked him what they should do once their teacher had died and they were left on their own. Śākyamuni Buddha said, “Of the myriad tens of thousands of words attributed to me, of the myriad tens of thousands of words attributed to me, don’t believe a one of them. Be a light unto yourself.”

Most of us don’t understand that this means to struggle with our own false sense of self until we attain the true way. But this attainment can’t come from reading a book, or having someone tell us what we should believe. This comes from years of introspective struggle with the meaning of our own existence. That is why Hakuin was upset with his peers. They were too willing to help, and in the process hurt the ultimate potential of their students and their student’s students for generations to come.

Zen teaches that we all must reach enlightenment and save this world from suffering. But what does this mean? First off what the heck is enlightenment? In Sanskrit there is a phrase, which Buddha used which is Anuttarā Samyak Sambodhi. Loosely translated this means complete unexcelled awakening. So assuming that we attain this enlightenment or Anuttarā Samyak Sambodhi, what are we to do with it, how are we to help save this world from suffering? So there is a paradox. How can we help, if the helping itself can be a hindrance?

Quote Source: Essential Teachings of Zen Master Hakuin (Paperback)by Norman Waddell

the double edged sword

courtesy of www.dilbert.com

the story of hakuin

Many of us have an extraordinarily superficial understanding of what Jesus Christ described as the kingdom of God. In essence, Jesus Christ said that there is an absolute and infinite world that is unified with God but that most of us never find it. He said that this world is always present but remains unseen. He said that love is the dominant force manifested in that world and that the spirit of love always supersedes logic or rational thought as a basis for action. He said that anyone who finds this world will also find eternal life and that nothing in the ordinary world is worth anything compared to finding this ultimate treasure.

Because indoctrinated thinking habits lead to a kind of existential blindness, it can often be helpful to read about unfamiliar religious figures. The story of Hakuin and Xuěfēng Yìcún, for example, deals with finding the kingdom of God from a radically different cultural perspective.
In 884 ACE, Xuěfēng Yìcún, a Chinese Buddhist spiritual master who had over a thousand disciples, one day told his monks that when he died in the future, he would give a great shout. Three years later, during a period of civil unrest, some bandits who had come to loot his monastery temple murdered Xuěfēng. As he died, he yelled so loudly that villagers reported they heard the yell over two miles away.

Almost a thousand years later, in 1705 ACE, Hakuin, a young Japanese monk, was greatly troubled when he heard this story. “If even a great master like Xuěfēng could not die peacefully,” he thought, “what hope is there for me?” Nevertheless, Hakuin meditated each day in an effort to free himself from reflective thought and to reach a deep enough level of mind to understand why Xuěfēng yelled when he was murdered. Five years later, he had a major enlightenment experience whereupon in great joy he exclaimed, “Wonder of wonders. I, myself, am Xuěfēng unharmed!” Hakuin then visited Shoju, a living master, to receive confirmation of his understanding. However, Shoju indicated that his understanding was still very limited and laughingly called him “a poor hole-dwelling creature.”

Later, after much more hard practice, Hakuin was crossing a stream when he had an enlightenment experience so great that he dropped all of his belongings and fell down into the water laughing. Some passing people thought that he had gone mad and assisted him from the river, but Hakuin could only sit helplessly on the riverbank and continue laughing with joy and happiness at what he had discovered.

After this experience, Hakuin was a changed person and he began attracting many followers. Ultimately, he became the teacher of hundreds of monastics and thousands of lay-people and became one of the most beloved spiritual teachers in seventeenth-century Japan. Today, he is remembered in the West as the man who developed the well known but little-understood existential test question, “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” (Hakuin used this question and several variations of it to discern to what extent people had transcended reflective thought).

After about thirteen years of effort, Hakuin discovered a world which most of us never find. After he found it, he no longer desired anything for himself. After he found it, he became filled with love and compassion and his only concern was helping others. He spent the next fifty years of his life telling everyone he met that the most important thing in life is to discover one’s identity.

Many of us waste our time arguing about scriptures and how we ought to follow particular codes of conduct or adhere to particular systems of belief, but this is a great mistake. Scriptures, beliefs, and codes of conduct will not lead to freedom from life and death. They will not eradicate ego, they will not produce love and compassion, and they will certainly not lead to the kingdom of God. If we want to find the treasure, which Jesus Christ insisted, is worth more than anything else, then we must spend as much time as possible learning to transcend the habit of conception. We must practice looking, listening, and experiencing without distinction. We must practice suspending our internal speech and ideation so that our mind will stop hiding from us the fantastic kingdom in which we already live. If we want to experience the truth, then we must strive to perceive what lies behind the images and ideas that we project and to which we become so attached. We must learn to see the world just as it is.

layman pang and bodhidaharma

In 6th century China there was a layman of incredible insight and understanding. He chose to live the life of a common householder, yet he challenged and was respected by all the great Zen Masters of Golden Age of Zen. Layman P’ang was asked about this mind or enlightenment to which he replied;

the past is already past—
don’t try to regain it.
the present does not remain—
don’t try to hold on from moment to moment.
the future has not arrived—
don’t think about it beforehand.
with these three realms non-existent,
your mind is the same as Buddha-mind.
to silently function relying on emptiness—
this is profound action.
not the least truth exists—
whatever appears, don’t touch it.
there are no commandments to be kept,
there is no delusion to eradicated.
with an empty mind
truth’s have no separate life.
when you attain this state
you have finally arrived.

This poem actually mirrors the teaching in the Diamond Sutra about how to keep your mind moment to moment to moment. So this poem is pointing to something, which is quite uncommon for us in the west. Something that maybe cannot be defined. But still, what is this something? And should I really be talking about this based upon Hakuin’s original assertion? Bodhidharma who is known as the founder of Zen or Ch’an Buddhism said of this practice;

if you pass through this gate
do not give rise to thinking.
not dependant on words and speech.
a special transmission outside the sacred teaching.
find your own heart
and become Buddha.

So, how do we find our own heart without picking up the colorings or accents of others in our lives? This is what the aspiration of Zen leads us to.


道清, 禅师
Dochong, JDPSN

Zen Master Wally

Courtesy of www.dilbert.com

My idea is correct!

My idea is correct! These words are still reverberating, with the operatic bravado of Zen Master Sŭngsan’s deep baritone voice, and rattling around somewhere within my eighth level of consciousness. This simple statement, as with many of the euphemisms that somehow found their way into the minds of students lucky enough to have studied with this great Bodhisattva from Korea, is an extremely powerful insight into the rampant global malady of the twenty–first century. Zen Master Sŭngsan would often return to this point over and over again; sometimes it was during public talks, and other times it was during one of the many koan interviews that I was lucky enough to have with him. But, there was one particular morning that a group of us were lounging around in the living room after breakfast at Dharma Zen Center in Los Angeles.
Someone in the group asked, “If dharma is the truth, why can’t we just make people understand this truth, it has always seemed to me that we should not have wars and should not be killing people, yet it seems that the problems keep getting worse. Why can't you just tell the Pope and the other world religious leaders to follow the truth or the dharma?” Zen Master Sŭngsan answered the question in this way,

“It is quite common to hear people say that their own beliefs are correct, and that any other belief structures can not be correct because there is only one true belief structure and that is the one that I adhere to! Some may even go so far as to say that if you do not believe the same thing as I believe, I will kill you! Today this is humanity’s number one problem. However, earlier you asked me what we can do about this problem. This morning I woke up at four thirty and bowed, and chanted and sat meditation. However, many of you believe that this is not enough?

Frequently I lecture on the Buddhadharma, yet the true Buddhadharma is not Buddhadharma, also, neither the sun, nor the moon, nor the star ever said, ‘I am the sun, I am the moon, I am the star.’ Likewise, Śākyamuni Buddha never said, ‘I am the Buddha;’ nor did God ever say, ‘I am God.’ The true God, just like the true Buddha has no name. Additionally, the true sun, the true moon, and the true star also have no name. All names are created by mind alone; these are names like Buddhadharma, truth, and Christ Consciousness. The only true Buddhadharma is no Buddhadharma and the ultimate truth is no truth. The true Christ Consciousness is also no Christ Consciousness, but you must watch out! If you create Buddhadharma then you will have Buddhadharma; and if you make Christ Consciousness you will have Christ Consciousness. But if you cut off all thinking, and then everything in this cosmos and you will become one.
Also, if you attach to some idea, then you only have some idea, and you lose everything in the cosmos. If you relinquish every idea of your own, then you already have everything in the universe. This means that you must, throw away Dharma, Buddha, and God, and you must also throw away your understanding. If you can do this you will then realize the true Dharma, the true Buddha, true nature, and true substance.

Once you realize this, then everything you see, everything you hear, and everything you smell, is Dharma, Buddha, and truth. If your mind perceives the correct Buddhadharma, then everything is the correct Buddhadharma. If your mind perceives the truth, then everything is the truth. If your path is correct, then everything is the correct path. This is Buddha’s teaching, that everything is made by the mind alone. But how do you just now, moment to moment, keep your correct situation? This is the point. So if you make your idea completely disappear, then everything you see, everything you hear, and everything you do, all is Buddhadharma.”

I have practiced under the tutelage of Zen Master Sŭngsan and Zen Master Robert Moore for more than twenty years five years, and with their patient guidance I have slowly digested many of the extraordinarily simple euphemisms that Zen Master Sŭngsan would use. In light of the recent situations occurring throughout the world the actual subtleness of a simple statement like “my idea is correct,” has caused me to reflect upon the situation which faces humanity in this twenty–first century. Additionally, as I have reflected upon the teachings of Śākyamuni Buddha, Jesus Christ, Mohammed and many of the other great Spiritual Master’s who have continued in this unbroken chain of enlightening this world of its darkness, it seems that we haven’t made much spiritual growth as a human race. These teachings were first revealed almost five thousand years ago and contained in the stories and metaphors of these ancient teachings are representations of the same problems that most people continue to complain about today.

Part of the problem is that we all have opinions; even Spiritual Master’s and enlightened teachers have opinions that are held close to the heart. This is a very important point, because there is a new–age belief that we can completely rid ourselves of all of our opinions. Fundamentally, it is easy to let go of the opinions that aren’t good for us, or cause us immense suffering, and after even a few months of practicing all meditators begin to shed some of their unnecessary and unwanted ideas. The danger is that these ideas quickly are replaced with new ideas about our own spiritual path. We begin to think that everyone should be doing what we are doing because this has helped us so much. Then we start to think that we are doing this right and begin to correct those around us. This is what Zen Master Yúnmén called, “the stink of Zen.”

Over the years, I have come to understand that the best we may aspire to achieve with some of our opinions is to not attach to them so powerfully and desperately and to see the ultimate transparency of all of our thoughts. One of the fundamental requirements that my grand-teacher Zen Master Sŭngsan had of his students is that they aspire to relinquish attachment to their opinions, their condition and their situation in an effort to allow the truth of each and every moment to shine though with its own undefiled luminosity. However, this is a very tall order for those of us who practice meditation everyday and still live in this modern twenty–first century world.

Photo: Zen Master Sŭngsan and Zen Master Subong

what is God?

one day when I was four,
lying on my back with my sister,
gazing up at the clouds,
lords prayer on the phonograph
playing repeatedly in the Sierra Mountains,
the cumulous clouds would take on amazing forms
my initiation into mystical experience,
an early communion with God.

one day when I was fourteen,
science seemed to hold the key.
now, only wanting answers,
the questions lost their meaning
a birthday gift from my sister;
John Lennon’s album “Imagine.”
understanding only his words,
I then lost faith in God.

one day when I was eighteen,
discovered hallucinatory drugs,
had a communion with a fly
in the high California Desert,
and lost the way completely.
so absorbed in a world of sensory stimulation,
looking for the truth,
trying to understand this mind with the mind,
turned always down a dead end street.

one day when I was twenty-three,
a personal trauma sent me
reeling out of control.
when a month had passed
I had returned to this world,
tried to go to AA meetings,
but the Higher Power thing
always got in the way.
believing humans to be the ultimate,
Einstein said: “man is destined to prevail,”
returning to scientific roots,
seeking the truth in Universities,
psychology would surely help me
unlock the secrets of the mind.

one day when I was twenty-eight,
I encountered a psychotic man.
he taught me that all my understanding was meaningless
and I was powerless to help.
beginning the decline again, into a world
of drunken nights and sexual pleasure,
every night enjoying the trip,
every morning knowing better.
this split mind was inside one body,
trying to go both directions at one time.

one day when I was thirty,
I met a chubby Korean man.
he became an impasse in my life
and stopped my thinking cold.
he told me; “Put it all down, don’t make anything.
only go straight, then find your correct direction
and keep a don’t know mind.”
eventually I became a Buddhist teacher myself,
it seemed the safest route to me.
I thought there was no God in Buddhism.

one day when I was thirty-nine
I came to realize
that God was just my idea and it was
this idea of God that didn’t exist;
not God.
the Upanishads call it ‘Atman’
the Hindu’s name it ‘Brahman’
Śākyamuni Buddha lectured on ‘Sunyata’
Laozu wrote about ‘Dao’
Moses said it was ‘Yahweh’
Jesus talked about ‘My Father’
Mohammed preferred the term ‘Allah’
now I don’t know what to call God,
I guess a name does not fit.

Dochong, JDPSN
December 25, 1997
Costa Mesa, CA
Photo: Newport Beach Sunset by Paul Lynch, JDPSN

Chinul

Chinul Puril Pojo Daesa (1158-1210) was a Korean Buddhist writer and philosopher-reformer of the twelfth century. Chinul was an ordained monk in the Sŏn or Chán tradition and held the rank of National Teacher (kuksa) during the period of the Ch'oe Military Rule (1170-1258). This same military had promoted and supported Sŏn Buddhism over the teachings sects which had been supported by the monarchy it had displaced and the aristocracy and civil bureaucracy that it had oppressed. Chinul is most noted for his incorporation of Huayen Buddhism as explicated by Li T'ung-hsufan (635-730) into Sŏn Buddhism and his attempt to unite all the sects of Korea (teaching and meditation) into a single sect (the Chogye Sect). Half a century before the royal monk Uich'on, with the backing of the throne of his father and three brothers, had decimated the ranks of the meditation sects by establishing a meditative T'ient'ai sect with the primary emphasis on T'ient'ai scholasticism and ritual. Chinul's response was to reverse that synthesis, by placing primary emphasis on instantaneous enlightenment achieved through meditation as the basis for understanding Buddhist doctrines.

Chinul’s approach to Buddhist practice ended up becoming an interesting blend of gongan (J. kōan) meditation, coupled with scriptural study, incorporating the Hwom (Ch. Huayan) approach that tended to see the mutual containment of ostensive opposites. From the Chinese Chan master Dahui, Chinul incorporated the huàguān (話觀’observing the key phrase of the kōan’ ) method into his practice. This form of meditation remains the main method taught in Korean Sŏn down to modern times. Yet on the other hand, Chinul believed that scriptural study was a vitally important component of Buddhist cultivation. This approach is enunciated in the oft-repeated adage that Chinul did not undergo his enlightenment experiences as the result of the classical so-called personal ‘mind-to-mind transmission’ between teacher and student as characterized in the Sŏn school. Rather, each of his three enlightenment experiences came in connection with the contemplation of a passage in a Buddhist text. In his final articulation of the issue of the relationship between sŏn (meditative practice) and gyo (scriptural study), Chinul was highly influenced by the explanation of the relationship between practice and study provided by the Tang Huayan master Li Tongxuan (李通玄; 635-730). Chinul’s philosophical resolution of this issue brought a deep and lasting impact on Korean Buddhism, and can be seen as repeated theme in the works of numerous subsequent Sŏn masters, including such famous figures as Gihwa (己和 1376-1433) and Hyujeong (休靜 1520-1604), who followed Chinul’s way of thinking in addressing the issue of practice and study in their own writings.

Photo:Chinul Puril Pojo Daesa

Householder Zen

Chán Master Dàhuì Zōnggăo (1089 – 1163), who was the primary disciple of Chan Master Yuánwù Kèqín (1063-1135), (the Author of the Pi-yenlu "Blue Cliff Record,") noticed that his practitioners were beginning to attach to the words of his late Master with a blind and superficial understanding. Consequently, and without hesitation, he destroyed the “Blue Cliff Record” printing blocks, such that the book subsequently went out of print. It was certainly an unusual event for a disciple to do such a thing to his master. In the eyes of contemporary people what the disciple did was outrageous. At that time, Master Dàhuì Zōnggăo destroyed all the printing blocks, nevertheless, years later, later disciples cut new ones and the book went back into circulation once again.

Master Dàhuì is known as the functional founder of our modern method of practice, mainly the huàguān and koan method of insight and transcendence. Dàhuì attained enlightenment at an early age and was assigned as the principle teacher to the Lay Students who were practicing under the tutelage of Chán Master Yuánwù Kèqín. Because of this, Dàhuì wrote many of his treatises with the Lay Student in mind. It is because this great teacher stepped out of the normal function of a monk and spent his time almost exclusively with Lay Students in his early years of practice, that we today have a methodology that can work within the life of a householder.

"To attain enlightenment, it is not necessary to abandon family life, quit your job, become a vegetarian, practice asceticism, flee to a quiet mountain top, or enter a ghost cave of dead Zen to entertain your subjective imaginings. If you have been practicing quiet meditation but your mind is still not calm and free when in the midst of activity, this means your haven't been empowered by your quiet meditation. Furthermore, if you have been practicing quietude just to get rid of agitation, then when your are practicing quietude just to get rid of agitation, then when your are in the midst of agitation, the agitation will disturb your mind just as if you had never done any quiet meditation.

When you are studying Zen, as you meet with people and deal with situations, never allow bad thoughts to continue. If a bad thought arises, immediately focus your attention and root the thought out. If, however, you just follow the thought unhindered, this will not only make it impossible to have any insight into your own true nature it will also make you a fool.

Good and bad come from you own mind. But what do you call your own mind, apart from your actions and thoughts? Where does your mind come from? If you rally know where your own mind comes from, boundless obstacles caused by your own actions will be cleared all at once. After seeing that, all sorts of extraordinary possiblities will come to you without your seeking them."

Source: Chán Master Dàhuì Zōnggăo
Image: The Cover of a 13th Century Copy of "The Blue Cliff Record"

Establishing our Direction

If we aspire to set out upon the course of Zen practice we must first make our commitment clear. This is why taking vows are very important; however, don’t delude yourself in thinking that you are making these vows with a Zen Teacher, with a Zen Sangha or even with the Buddha himself. These vows are actually a compact with ourselves. It might clarify this point by saying that religious practices usually have as their focus external issues about proper behavior and rules of worship; consequently, it is easy to confuse why we are behaving a particular way or following certain rules by thinking we are doing it for Buddha or Jesus or even God. This is why spiritual teachers are always very clear about this point; the focus of everything that we do is to clarify our own mistaken views. Zen practice, as with all religious practices, has rules, precepts, rituals and liturgy; it is just that in Zen we are taught not to attach to these rules, precepts, ritual and liturgy. It is our job, if we want to be Zen students, to clarify the reasons why we follow these rules, precepts, rituals and liturgy and once we completely attain them we can instantly become free of them. So, if we want to truly become Zen students we must first make our direction clear by taking great vows.

The Four Great Vows

Sentient beings are numberless;
We vow to save them all.

Delusions are endless;
We vow to cut through them all.

The teachings are infinite;
We vow to learn them all.

The Buddha way is inconceivable;
We vow to attain it.

If you read these vows carefully, you will realize that they are actually impossible or at least unattainable aspirations. So, if all of this is really impossible, what are we to do? My Grand-teacher put it this way, “try, try, try, for ten thousand years non-stop, get enlightenment and save all beings from suffering.”

Photo: Seagul at San Simeon taken by Paul Lynch, JDPSN

we exist only for a moment

we exist only for a moment
in the vast unfolding
of the cosmic realm,
yet we cling so tightly
to our ideas about life
and love and happiness.
it is these
that causes us to suffer
for incalculable kalpas
living out a cycle
over and over again.
why is it so hard to just see
we are only this
that we have now,
there is no other…..
time
place
or
me.
know that
you are perfect
just now
and need
no fixing
or improvement,
we just
grab so strongly
to the idea of
a separate ‘I’
that we lose
our true self
in the process
of the loss.







Source: "Ramblings From the Center" an upcoming collection of new poetry from Dochong, JDPSN

haiku

one hand clapping bodhisattva
dancing on the head
of this paradox




seek the holy fish
and you will
attain nirvana

don’t attach too much to zen
just live a simple life
and love those around you.

right strength of aspiration,
noble effect in this moment–
world honored Tathagata



Source: "Cold Heart Thawing" the Zen Poetry of Do Chong, iUniverse Press, 1998
All Pictures by Paul Lynch, JDPSN taken in the Peoples Republic of China 2003

Samyuta Agama Sutra

In the Samyuta Agama Sutra, Śākyamuni Buddha discusses the four kinds of horses. This metaphor of the four types of horses speaks about how we are in our lives or when we practice or perhaps it could be called the four temperaments of meditation students in general. The first class is the superior class and is like a horse that immediately obeys its rider’s direction by merely seeing the shadow of the whip. The second horse acts accordingly with the rider when the whip brushes up against its hair, perhaps just the hair of its flowing mane. The third type of horse, or temperament, is where the whip has actually touched the flesh and it feels the stinging superficial pain; but the fourth, the lowest and worst kind of horse, is the one who will act only when the whip’s pain reaches to the marrow of its bones.

Although most of us often would like to be like the best kind of horse and penetrate to the heart of practice immediately, often our attempts to be the first and best kind of horse is what transforms us ultimately into the fourth type of horse. Once we arrive in this space it seems that we need to be whipped or metaphorically beaten repeatedly, however, this is only caused from our stubbornness and our constant effort to either avoid or ignore the whip itself. We develop an image or ideal that relates to our practice and we bring this idea to our practice by trying to be like this first horse, or the second horse, or the third horse, or even the fourth horse. We lose our practice by comparing ourselves to some fixed idea or concept; we loose touch with the essential realm of our breath, as well as this very moment that arises without any comparisons or categories.

Yet, it has always been just this breath, just this thought, it is just this moment existing in every corner of this vast unending cosmos arising just here, and just now. Practicing within an image of practice never allows us to actually touch our true self in any real way. To connect to our practice and ultimately to wake up, we must practice completely in each and every moment of our lives. We must allow ourselves to get a glimpse of the shadow, and we must allow our practice to touch our hair, to contact our flesh with stinging reality, and to ultimately penetrate to the marrow of our bones, without separating this complete reality into disparate events.

Source: Peering Through the Clouds; glimpses of the present, between the shadows of discursive thought, the prose and poetry of Dochŏng, JDPSN, First Edition, Beforethought Publications

The Frog and the Tadpole

Once upon a time there was small pond in which a baby fish and a baby tadpole lived. Because they were the same age they became very good friends, and they played and swam together every day. After a while the tadpole began to look different from his fish friend. Small legs sprouted where there were once fins, his tail shrank, and his body grew fatter and fatter.

One day the tadpole didn’t show up at their usual meeting place, and the fish began to worry that something terrible had happened to his friend. During the next week, he searched and searched every inch of the pond but could not find his friend anywhere. On the eighth day, his friend finally showed up, but now he looked completely different. The tadpole was now a frog. The frog told his childhood friend that he had discovered a new world, called dry land, which existed beyond the watery world of the pond. In that world, he said, there lived strange creatures that breathed a substance called air. He went on to explain that on dry land there were things called trees and mountains and above the dry land were things called birds, which could fly in the air as a fish swims in water. He explained that things called clouds drifted overhead in a thing called sky and that clouds dropped small particles of water on the land that ran downhill and formed ponds. This pond, said the frog, came from the clouds.

Upon hearing these incredible claims, the fish exclaimed that his friend was crazy. “You can’t expect me to believe such ridiculous stories. In fact, I think you made the whole thing up hoping that I would forgive you for ignoring me during the last seven days. I don’t consider you my friend anymore, so just go away!” No matter how hard the frog tried, he could never convince his friend that such a world as dry land actually existed.

This story, of course, is a metaphor for the profound gaps that exist between peoples’ life experiences. As human beings who live on dry land, we have experienced the world about which the frog tries to tell his friend. We know that the frog is talking about something that the fish cannot even imagine. As a metaphor for the human condition, it suggests that teachers like Buddha may be speaking frog talk to fish people. The question that this story indirectly asks is whether we, ourselves, are able to perceive the world that people like Buddha perceived, and if not, why not?

Source: 'A Path to Christ-Consciousness' by Robert Hawood and Paul Lynch, JDPSN
Photo: Maui Lava Rock Stupas by Paul Lynch, JDPSN

Atma Upanishad Three

The Upanishads are among a number of sacred works cherished by Hindus. According to Juan Mascaró in his translation of the Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads that were written in prose may date from about 700 BCE, while those written in verse were probably composed much later. No one knows how far back the oral tradition goes but it is estimated to be perhaps 1500 BCE. Nothing at all is known about the authors of these brilliant texts.

"The supreme Self is neither born nor dies. It cannot be burned, moved, pierced, cut, nor dried. Beyond all attributes, the supreme Self is the eternal witness, ever pure, indivisible, and uncompounded, far beyond the senses and the ego... It is omnipresent, beyond all thought, without action in the external world, without action in the internal world. Detached from the outer and the inner, this supreme Self purifies the impure."

It is no wonder that Sakyamuni Buddha, who was immersed in such a rich heritage came to some of the insights that he shared with his followers for the forty seven years of this teaching career. These insights were not all just spontaneously arrived at, they are rather, the synthesis and the culmination of all the wisdom that preceded him. In fact, the Dhamapada says that Sakyamuni visited all the great Spiritual Teachers of his time. He, even for a time, studied with the Great Mahavira who was the 24th and the last Tirthankara (a human who attains 'Perfect Knowledge'.) Mahavira is known as the founder of Modern Jainism in India and was born about 40 years before Sakyamuni.

The traditions of Awakening are ancient, and go back farther than any of us can imagine. Today, we have the ability to take pictures of planets in the nether reaches of our solar system with unmanned probes of unimaginable complexity. We can take pictures of the background radiation and glimpse what perhaps started this cosmos a very long time ago. Yet, with all of these advances, we continue to kill one another. We continue to steal, and to lie, and to create havoc out of a pure and clear universe. It seems that the wise ones have been around for a very long time, it is my aspiration that perhaps we can all come together with a greater understanding of humanity, and perhaps a more loving view of what it means to be human.

Source: The Upanishads. Trans. Eknath Easwaran. Tomales, CA.: Nilgiri Press, 1987. ISBN 0915132397: Atma Upanishad 3, p. 242
Photo: Angkor Wat in Sepia by Paul Lynch, JDPSN