Archive | November, 2017

The world of suffering and discrimination is filled with the light of the rising sun

–The Refuge Chant

In Zen, gratitude is an important devotional practice. We can find a context for gratitude–which can make our practice come alive–by contemplating one of our Zen ancestors, Dogen Zenji’s sayings from The Shobogenzo: “When one attains the Way, the Way is always left to the Way.”  When the Way is left to the Way, there is no need to add anything, seek anything or move away from anything that is happening. We are totally immersed in the Way, with the vitality of awareness. The Way is also called the great emptiness or the great fullness. The great fullness is so full that we cannot find anything separate from it. We cannot find any thing at all.

Brother David Steindl-Rast describes gratefulness as great fullness. We are grateful that the Great Spirit shares its great fullness of life with us.  When we learn to receive the depth of this fullness, we simultaneously realize we can’t find our separate ego.  The ego can be thought of as a cipher, huge as an ocean within us that sucks up almost all of  our energy.  What a relief to release some of that pent-up energy and offer it to the universal heart we all share.  As profound as our offering, so inexhaustible is the gratitude of our true self for our willingness offer our lives to it. With enormous fullness,  spirit receives our offerings.

When we realize this, in the depth of our being we feel that all of our experience is welcomed as expressions of the wholeness of life. Realizing we are always unconditionally welcomed, we learn to welcome life unconditionally.

Of course there are some events we cannot summon up gratitude for; but these are truly opportunities to open up as much as we can to the great fullness. Regardless of our limitations, the spirit is just as thankful for our best efforts. From the viewpoint of the Buddhas or spirit itself, their fullness includes our limitations. We only need to cultivate the ability to see our catastrophes as opportunities.

So we leave the Way to the Way. And we can be grateful that the Way leaves us to us.  The sun is an equal opportunity provider, rising each morning, shining on everything with its peaceful warmth, revealing everything just as it is. Likewise the light of the Way shines equally on all its creations, leaving us to us. As we learn to expose ourselves more and more to the gifts of this life, we gradually realize our oneness. We realize that in leaving us to us, the Way offers us everything. Everything is filled with the light of the rising sun.

As we offer our own deluded fears and desires to the Buddhas, to the Great Spirit, we express our willingness to let them go.  By letting go, we are saying we no longer reside in them. How easy it is to assume we have accomplished this as a result of many long hours and years of contemplative meditation and prayer.  While our devotions do aid us greatly in deepening the ability to let go– absorbing ourselves in the mystery–we often delude ourselves into thinking we have arrived. Or that we have come further than we have.

When I look at the way I grab onto my ideas of how things should be, how I indulge my complaining mind, I frequently remind myself of an old Confucian saying: “When you see admirable behavior, emulate it. When you see despicable behavior, look at yourself.”  When a person repels us, that person only symbolizes a part of ourselves we do not like. Then we can be grateful for the opportunity to discover this, even though we are learning something we do not necessarily want to learn.

To the Buddhas, our indulgence in selfish behavior is an expression of the universal activity, nothing more, nothing less. They love it no more nor less than our feverish early morning devotional observances.

To the extent we are able to leave the Way to the Way, our patterns of denial are pushed out into the open air, awaiting our discovery.  Then we can more deeply look at our patterns of stinginess– how we do not want to see that we withhold ourselves from what is. Yet here is an opportunity to look at how we still build protective walls around ourselves, engaging and maintaining them, separating ourselves from others.

Let our gratitude extend to the opportunities presented by others. Let us see how upset and frustrated we still become when someone offends us in a way that pushes our buttons of pain and fear. Let us see how taking offense is the same as giving offense. So we can cultivate a spirit of thank-you-very-much for providing this opportunity, painful as it may be.  And thank you very much, Spirit, for providing others with a chance to give us these opportunities.  Thank you very much, Spirit, for giving us a way to overcome our fears of exposure to the great unknown. Thank you, Spirit, for giving others the opportunity to receive the gift of our response.  May they learn also to heed Confucius’ advice, and in their anger or denial, look to themselves.

The world of suffering and discrimination is filled with the light of the rising sun

–The Refuge Chant

In Zen, gratitude is an important devotional practice. We can find a context for gratitude–which can make our practice come alive–by contemplating one of our Zen ancestors, Dogen Zenji’s sayings from The Shobogenzo: “When one attains the Way, the Way is always left to the Way.”  When the Way is left to the Way, there is no need to add anything, seek anything or move away from anything that is happening. We are totally immersed in the Way, with the vitality of awareness. The Way is also called the great emptiness or the great fullness. The great fullness is so full that we cannot find anything separate from it. We cannot find any thing at all.

Brother David Steindl-Rast describes gratefulness as great fullness. We are grateful that the Great Spirit shares its great fullness of life with us.  When we learn to receive the depth of this fullness, we simultaneously realize we can’t find our separate ego.  The ego can be thought of as a cipher, huge as an ocean within us that sucks up almost all of  our energy.  What a relief to release some of that pent-up energy and offer it to the universal heart we all share.  As profound as our offering, so inexhaustible is the gratitude of our true self for our willingness offer our lives to it. With enormous fullness,  spirit receives our offerings.

When we realize this, in the depth of our being we feel that all of our experience is welcomed as expressions of the wholeness of life. Realizing we are always unconditionally welcomed, we learn to welcome life unconditionally.

Of course there are some events we cannot summon up gratitude for; but these are truly opportunities to open up as much as we can to the great fullness. Regardless of our limitations, the spirit is just as thankful for our best efforts. From the viewpoint of the Buddhas or spirit itself, their fullness includes our limitations. We only need to cultivate the ability to see our catastrophes as opportunities.

So we leave the Way to the Way. And we can be grateful that the Way leaves us to us.  The sun is an equal opportunity provider, rising each morning, shining on everything with its peaceful warmth, revealing everything just as it is. Likewise the light of the Way shines equally on all its creations, leaving us to us. As we learn to expose ourselves more and more to the gifts of this life, we gradually realize our oneness. We realize that in leaving us to us, the Way offers us everything. Everything is filled with the light of the rising sun.

As we offer our own deluded fears and desires to the Buddhas, to the Great Spirit, we express our willingness to let them go.  By letting go, we are saying we no longer reside in them. How easy it is to assume we have accomplished this as a result of many long hours and years of contemplative meditation and prayer.  While our devotions do aid us greatly in deepening the ability to let go– absorbing ourselves in the mystery–we often delude ourselves into thinking we have arrived. Or that we have come further than we have.

When I look at the way I grab onto my ideas of how things should be, how I indulge my complaining mind, I frequently remind myself of an old Confucian saying: “When you see admirable behavior, emulate it. When you see despicable behavior, look at yourself.”  When a person repels us, that person only symbolizes a part of ourselves we do not like. Then we can be grateful for the opportunity to discover this, even though we are learning something we do not necessarily want to learn.

To the Buddhas, our indulgence in selfish behavior is an expression of the universal activity, nothing more, nothing less. They love it no more nor less than our feverish early morning devotional observances.

To the extent we are able to leave the Way to the Way, our patterns of denial are pushed out into the open air, awaiting our discovery.  Then we can more deeply look at our patterns of stinginess– how we do not want to see that we withhold ourselves from what is. Yet here is an opportunity to look at how we still build protective walls around ourselves, engaging and maintaining them, separating ourselves from others.

Let our gratitude extend to the opportunities presented by others. Let us see how upset and frustrated we still become when someone offends us in a way that pushes our buttons of pain and fear. Let us see how taking offense is the same as giving offense. So we can cultivate a spirit of thank-you-very-much for providing this opportunity, painful as it may be.  And thank you very much, Spirit, for providing others with a chance to give us these opportunities.  Thank you very much, Spirit, for giving us a way to overcome our fears of exposure to the great unknown. Thank you, Spirit, for giving others the opportunity to receive the gift of our response.  May they learn also to heed Confucius’ advice, and in their anger or denial, look to themselves.

If one engages in meditation with a serious purpose of earnestness and devotion to the task of self realization, one will gradually begin to feel the pull of a tremendous force greater than our idea of being a separate body/mind.  There are many different variations of meditative practices to help us cultivate the necessary spirit of inquiry, but it is the intensity of earnestness and longing that really does all the work. What is important for us is the moment at which we will enter this tremendous force or current that is the movement of our true being, the going forth, in other words, the great pilgrimage.

When we’ve found certain practices that support our continued meditation, it’s important to spend regular hours every day if possible building the momentum of the practice.  In this way, try to bind yourself to the quest for God, for the source of all of our experience.  Wherever you may be, take refuge in your very being , let the Being we all share be your goal.  When by virtue of this endeavor you become deeply immersed in that current and devote ever more time to it, you will be transformed and your appetite for sense enjoyment will grow feeble; this is how to reap the fruit of accumulated efforts. In this context, current refers to the flow of the life force, the flow of our sensory experience throughout our body/mind.

The flow of the current includes thought, thought energy is just one manifestation of the current. It can be likened to bubbles floating on top of and popping on the surface of the current of a river.  But the current of the flow of our river of experience isn’t dependent on, or controlled by the thought bubbles, anymore than the bubbles on the surface direct or control  a river.

It is usually only after many long years of dedicated, earnest meditation, that there may also come a time  when you feel that the body is liable to depart at any time, that death may arrive at any moment. Many  students have fleeting experiences of this through extreme traumas, near death experiences, or psychedelic drugs. These are an intensification of the current, and they can be helpful for inspiration. For earnest aspirants on the path, there comes a time when they are no longer sought after.

Seeking extraordinary experiences is then realized to be an ego based obstacle to continual abidance in the current which is free from the self centered desire for transcendent experience. We gradually learn to leave the intensification and relaxation of the current to the flow itself, and more and more the impulse to control and possess the current of the life force within and without, falls away.

At this stage, one begins to feel an ever increasing pull from the current of the life force away from the confines of our personal body/mind, while still maintaining our connection with it, and maintaining the freedom to function as a human being. We then continue to surrender our self conscious efforts steadily without flagging, and yield to the infinite power drawing us more intimately into the actual feel of our true nature.  Gradually we are more and more deeply absorbed in feel of the flow – infinite consciousness alone will preoccupy our thoughts and feelings.  For the mind ever seeks that which gives it proper sustenance, and this cannot be provided by anything save the Supreme Being.  Then we will be carried away by the current that leads to our Self.