Heart to Heart...
In this life we are surrounded by choices. Every now and then we come face to face with our deepest fears. When we close our eyes and look beyond the visible known world where darkness and light are one, we begin to experience true reality. In quiet solitude, the awareness of being alive and knowing that life is so much more than living, becomes crystal clear. To realize that spark, the magic of the moment when heart meets heart in the dance of love...
We all have felt it once or twice in our lifetimes. The experience has left some of us jaded, cold and broken hearted. Afraid to pick up the pieces of our shattered lives, we sink into a state of empty loss and endless regret. Never knowing quite how to find our way back to the place we used to be - when life was full of wonder and joy. Happiness, the phantom illusion of momentary bliss, somehow escapes our grasp as we recoil from the pain and sorrow which comes from such deep loss and heartache. I know the way is often not what we would choose - if we could. Life, with its ups and downs, whirls around in our heads as we look out into a world of our own creation.
Time sometimes has a way of deadening the pain, but for most of us, burying our heads in the sands of some altered mindset suits us just fine... We awake to another day - lost. In silence, where we find time standing still, as it were, where shattered dreams lie next to hopes yet to be realized, it is here that we begin anew... Where hearts beat in unison and the world is reborn. It is here that we begin to shape our futures past and present. It is the place where dreams come true. In silence, the beating heart is heard, whispering quietly, "I love you!" Go on... Laugh. Smile... You are free!
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
In The Eye Of The Beholder...
...In The Eye Of The Beholder
Life is a mystery. Without mystery the world looks very dark and cold... Like a candle without a flame. The uncertainty of life with its long shadows hiding in the long forgotten corners of our mind, shrouding the next bend in the road of fate... The light from a distant star rises on the horizon, as a lone eagle soars above the clouds, calling us to greet the day. The Great Spirit whispers in the morning wind as if to say, "Aloha! Welcome to another world - another magnificent day of life."We see what we want to see... An ocean teaming with color and life - seems like an endless ocean of grey. A piece of driftwood covered by sand waits to be found by the Master surfer... Clear blue skys are met by tall green palm trees waiting to be cut down and fashioned into some sea worthy vessel. When all the world is astir in light... Some see only darkness.
Since the beginning of time, our imaginations have been fueled by the sparks and embers shooting from the campsite fire. Ablaze in wonder - yet baffled by the quiet and simple things in life... We try to touch the horizon where earth meets sky, and we are moved by the beauty of it all. For those of us who refuse to believe - to believe in the Goodness of life, when all around us stands the evidence of nothing less than Love personified... I say, "Look around and see the beauty in the world of light - and be drawn to the flame we call life..." Beauty - in the eye of the beholder.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
This Is The Time...
..This is the TimeTue Jul 29, 2008
Maybe I am writing more these days for myself than anyone in particular, I dunno... But in each passing day the world is getting smaller, the differences between us seem to be getting wider. Like an ocean of requieted fears, our lives are flowing in an ebb and flow which swirls around moments of crazy days piled on top of each other - like driftwood caught in a whirlpool. The music pounds out a rhythm lost in the moment drumming - drowning out the screaming next door neighbours - caught in a fight of wills. Funny, how nothing seems to be able to wake the dead - or really make sense...What matters the most to me now, is YOU! You - the one who walked away. You - who blew my mind in a split second... You who made me fall down all over your eyes - so blue, now. You, rocked my world in ways that no words can describe. Like a train going so fast - then the tracks just ended...
Some call it love. I just call it fate. In a world that makes no sense, you brought meaning to my life, in a crazy way beyond anything anyone ever has. Swirling in the memories of you, brings a smile to my face... I go to sleep calling your name. I wake up with your face plastered in my dreams... Reality fades into a mirage of endless waves of the brightest colors - red and gold, purple and grey - tripping over myself, lost in the knowledge that I have been touched by an angel - for sure! So, before I lose all sense of any dignity I ever had, I walk away... ever so slowly. In the hopes that you will know and see what the real truth can do - my heart belongs to you. It's ok... I know you must go. In the early morning myst, in the fog that haunts my mind. I only see what the bright starlight can show... Love is so intoxicating... poured into the life of one lost soul like a sweet wine overflowing... How we got here it's hard to tell... Nevertheless all my thanx to you for every second you shared...We never know how close we have come to real love till it passes us by... to be continued...
This Is The Time... cont.
This is the Time... cont.Sat Sep 13, 2008
Some people seem to move in and out of our lives in ways that only can be described as angelic. Ana was one of those people. Funny, always smiling - even when there was so little to be happy about... she just knew how to make you laugh. I still don't know why, but the gods of war must have been working over time... starcrossed lovers. From heart-stopping sweet sixteen to thirty-something in a blink of an eye! I still gasp at the thought... so perfect in every way. She had what everyone would call "The Look". She was one for the ages... even Playboy mag. came a calling... she wasn't selling. So much talent and grace... gone in the blink of an eye.Sometimes I think that all the drama of the last twenty years could have been avoided if I had just stayed the course and lived my dream... but the logical side of my brain won out and I let it all just slip away... gone.
Now, as I look back on what could have been, what should have been the memories all come flooding back... a view so spectacular, so stunning that there are no words to describe this rare beauty, this angelic face... a perfect 10.Dance the dance... the music is calling. Feel the beat, get in the groove... dance your blues away...
Some people seem to move in and out of our lives in ways that only can be described as angelic. Ana was one of those people. Funny, always smiling - even when there was so little to be happy about... she just knew how to make you laugh. I still don't know why, but the gods of war must have been working over time... starcrossed lovers. From heart-stopping sweet sixteen to thirty-something in a blink of an eye! I still gasp at the thought... so perfect in every way. She had what everyone would call "The Look". She was one for the ages... even Playboy mag. came a calling... she wasn't selling. So much talent and grace... gone in the blink of an eye.Sometimes I think that all the drama of the last twenty years could have been avoided if I had just stayed the course and lived my dream... but the logical side of my brain won out and I let it all just slip away... gone.
Now, as I look back on what could have been, what should have been the memories all come flooding back... a view so spectacular, so stunning that there are no words to describe this rare beauty, this angelic face... a perfect 10.Dance the dance... the music is calling. Feel the beat, get in the groove... dance your blues away...
Listen...
LISTEN...
So here I am... thinking about you. Dunno why life is this way... Moments form into minutes - and hours fly by in a moment. A moment in time, like a snowflake, quietly falling down in the night air - a shooting star illuminates the night sky - like a roman candle shot from a cannon into the dark blackness of an illusion...
A small fire crackles in the dark. Sparks flying into the night time air...
Who knows when a moment like this will come around again. Moments, so fleeting - never knowing what or when the realization of such beauty will be seen again...
Maybe all is lost. Maybe, somehow we missed the magical, almost mystical moment within moments so ordinary, even the wind doesn't seem to notice. All the snow on the ground. glistening in the light of a full moon...
Fresh footprints hide the quiet feelings two hearts share... Maybe in time - the moments will bring us around to the realization that eludes us now. Crazy as it seems, life is a wonderful, exciting chain of little moments all linking together to bring us back to the one thing that we cannot ignore...
Everything beautiful holds the promise of a life full of love and happiness. Never doubt... The truth is calling.
Monday, February 22, 2010
...Missing You!
Missing You...
The myst will rise. The snow-capped mountains with all their azure hued post card views - sparkling in the early morning sun, speak of another day, another place in time - forgotten by the gods of war. It doesn't matter where you've been - the long and winding road somehow finds its way to your door... Like a tiger in the jungle heat, looking for a cool river stream and a place to hide from the noon-day sun.If the truth be told, I am surrounded by your mysterious gaze - your sensual ways... Lost in a world of sheer beauty. Never knowing which way to go... I travel on, one step at a time, listening for the rhythm of one heart - one beat that echos long and sure into the night. From this one place I arise to venture out alone... Taking with me the knowledge of some ancient wisdom spun from the dream catcher's web. The light in my eye, like a rainbow of colors - looking far over the bright horizon, I can see so clearly now, your face... In the hope that you will feel the touch of my gaze, I look past all the tears, all the hurt and pain. If a smile finds its way to your lips, it's because I'm smiling too... running fast - back to you!
The myst will rise. The snow-capped mountains with all their azure hued post card views - sparkling in the early morning sun, speak of another day, another place in time - forgotten by the gods of war. It doesn't matter where you've been - the long and winding road somehow finds its way to your door... Like a tiger in the jungle heat, looking for a cool river stream and a place to hide from the noon-day sun.If the truth be told, I am surrounded by your mysterious gaze - your sensual ways... Lost in a world of sheer beauty. Never knowing which way to go... I travel on, one step at a time, listening for the rhythm of one heart - one beat that echos long and sure into the night. From this one place I arise to venture out alone... Taking with me the knowledge of some ancient wisdom spun from the dream catcher's web. The light in my eye, like a rainbow of colors - looking far over the bright horizon, I can see so clearly now, your face... In the hope that you will feel the touch of my gaze, I look past all the tears, all the hurt and pain. If a smile finds its way to your lips, it's because I'm smiling too... running fast - back to you!
To Save A Life...
...To Save a Life
The other day, I was out at the park next to the marina having a nice kick-backed time with some dear friends of mine. We had been at the park, cooking up some spicy tidbits on the barbie - just hanging...We took a walk to the north side of the lake to feed some ducklings and their mom - who were swimming near the marsh next to the wooden bridge. There were people fishing off the bridge. People were everywhere. It was a bright sunny day - after all. I noticed a couple of kids running around - back and forth across the bridge and just having fun... And then it happened.The two kids stopped running and went over to the edge of the lake to look at the water. I heard someone say, "That kid is going to fall into the water!" I glanced over and saw the two kids leaning over the cement retaining wall; looking at the water. And then, as if on cue - the kid with the bushy blonde hair - just face planted into the lake and sank like a rock! He was maybe six or seven years old. Dunno... His little friend just stared at the water. My mind raced. No one moved. Where were this kid's parents? Who was watching this disaster in the making?
My mind went back to another day - when I was four years old...My family had been on a camping trip with a private club in the jungles of Peru... There was an old Olympic sized pool full of green mirky water - and someone got the bright idea to throw me in the deep end of the pool. I didn't know how to swim. My mom, who was one of the camp leaders, just screamed as I flew through the air and sank into the deep, dark waters. Down, down, down I went. To this day I can remember thinking, "I am going to die... don't open your mouth!" "Hold on tight!" I was talking to myself, as the weeds and algae floated past... I just kept going down to the bottom of the pool. No one came to rescue me. After what seemed like a lifetime, I began to float back to the surface. I could hear people screaming, "Swim!" I just wanted to breathe...
It's funny how in a moment, in the life and death balancing act - the mind seems to slow down and stop - all the while flashing millions of bits of information in front of your eyes, like a movie re-winding in slow-motion. To save a life... we never know when we will be asked to make a split decision - To save a life. Life is a profound mystery. Precious... Unexplainable......
My mind raced. Yet I was calm. Without thinking I ran. I ran to the edge of the water, looking for a body in the frigid waters. I didn't think about the cell phone in my pocket or the wallet with all my identification; melted in a second. I just reacted on all the memories which were flashing through my mind... I jumped into the icy water. People were standing on the shore when I emerged from the lake with a little boy looking so scared. I yelled at him, "Breathe!" It was de ja vu all over again. My life had come full circle. In that scared little face I came face to face with my life. All the sadness. All the heartache, in an instant, was gone. Seeing that little boy run off with his friend into the crowd brought tears to my eyes... My world will forever be changed. Eventhough no parent stepped forward to say thanks - eventhough I'm sure I will never see that little boy again - I feel as if my world has taken on some new kind of meaning. I'm sure it will... I know what it means - to save a life.
The other day, I was out at the park next to the marina having a nice kick-backed time with some dear friends of mine. We had been at the park, cooking up some spicy tidbits on the barbie - just hanging...We took a walk to the north side of the lake to feed some ducklings and their mom - who were swimming near the marsh next to the wooden bridge. There were people fishing off the bridge. People were everywhere. It was a bright sunny day - after all. I noticed a couple of kids running around - back and forth across the bridge and just having fun... And then it happened.The two kids stopped running and went over to the edge of the lake to look at the water. I heard someone say, "That kid is going to fall into the water!" I glanced over and saw the two kids leaning over the cement retaining wall; looking at the water. And then, as if on cue - the kid with the bushy blonde hair - just face planted into the lake and sank like a rock! He was maybe six or seven years old. Dunno... His little friend just stared at the water. My mind raced. No one moved. Where were this kid's parents? Who was watching this disaster in the making?
My mind went back to another day - when I was four years old...My family had been on a camping trip with a private club in the jungles of Peru... There was an old Olympic sized pool full of green mirky water - and someone got the bright idea to throw me in the deep end of the pool. I didn't know how to swim. My mom, who was one of the camp leaders, just screamed as I flew through the air and sank into the deep, dark waters. Down, down, down I went. To this day I can remember thinking, "I am going to die... don't open your mouth!" "Hold on tight!" I was talking to myself, as the weeds and algae floated past... I just kept going down to the bottom of the pool. No one came to rescue me. After what seemed like a lifetime, I began to float back to the surface. I could hear people screaming, "Swim!" I just wanted to breathe...
It's funny how in a moment, in the life and death balancing act - the mind seems to slow down and stop - all the while flashing millions of bits of information in front of your eyes, like a movie re-winding in slow-motion. To save a life... we never know when we will be asked to make a split decision - To save a life. Life is a profound mystery. Precious... Unexplainable......
My mind raced. Yet I was calm. Without thinking I ran. I ran to the edge of the water, looking for a body in the frigid waters. I didn't think about the cell phone in my pocket or the wallet with all my identification; melted in a second. I just reacted on all the memories which were flashing through my mind... I jumped into the icy water. People were standing on the shore when I emerged from the lake with a little boy looking so scared. I yelled at him, "Breathe!" It was de ja vu all over again. My life had come full circle. In that scared little face I came face to face with my life. All the sadness. All the heartache, in an instant, was gone. Seeing that little boy run off with his friend into the crowd brought tears to my eyes... My world will forever be changed. Eventhough no parent stepped forward to say thanks - eventhough I'm sure I will never see that little boy again - I feel as if my world has taken on some new kind of meaning. I'm sure it will... I know what it means - to save a life.
Just Beyond...
Just Beyond the Shadows...
Like a light, shining in the midst of the storm - the foaming waves lashing out in fury upon the merciless rocks below. As if knocking on death's door, pounding out in rhythm, one last desperate tune. The certainty of impending doom, cast aside, in a futile struggle to survive the coming crisis. The demise of so many hopes and dreams... And then out of nowhere, shines a light, the light of inspiration. Like a beacon of hope, dispelling the gloom and giving rise to an inner calmness, a voluptuous knowing, surrounded in wisdom's mantle of ageless symmetry and golden lore...To see and to appreciate the beautyy of form, a vision in luminus colour awaits the eye of the beholder. It's not enough just to gaze into the light and know of the ageless beauty within, one must immerse their soul into deep waters, dive down into the crystal clear pools of unrequited love and there, as if for the first time, drink at the geyser - the fountain of immortal youth.So, moving and so emotional can be the experience, that the mind, as it were, will go mad.
To grasp the unspeakable richness and textures, the hues of the subtle female form, aglow in radiant perfection, can transform the darkest night and dispel the shadows which loom, larger than life. Faith, hope and love triangulate and merge into one at the mere glimpse of personifed perfection. Walking towards me now, I see it all so crystal clear... I am left speechless! Living beauty, in radiant light... Her smile,... her lips, ... her kiss!
Next Time...
Next Time...Fri Mar 8, 2008, 6:22 AM
It's six o'clock in the morning, and my mind is somewhere else in the mystikal world where dreams melt into reality and nothing is ever quite the same again. On the brink of some long forgotten past, I stand... The cloudy skys - all aglow, tinged with the fading moonlight, covered by the azure sparkles of the sun rising above the horizon. The world seems so peaceful - when it's fast asleep. Before the rush of traffic looms its ugly head. I watch the sunlight as it dances on the water in front of me - the ocean's waves with its foam dripping like frosting - cascading down onto the wind whipped sand. Thinking back, over my life, I have to smile when I see how the years have flown by - in a flash... gone! The memories... Bittersweet memories. The moments I treasure...Maybe next time I will get it right! Maybe next time I'll have all my ducks in a row... Everyone will cheer to see me up so high; I'll be someone who everyone looks up to. Maybe next time...But who am I kidding? This time is all I've got. This time around, the flowers are blooming and spring is in the air! This time, I have the knowledge, no - the wisdom to carry on with the knowing that as long as I've made a difference in one person's life - showed my true feelings - and loved the moment, that is enough! This time I look for the meaning in all the meaningless hustle and bustle we call life.I know it's all a little bit personal. A bit tacky... you're probably wondering where I am going with all of this dribble... Well, it's my birthday - and I feel like letting go...So, I will... For once in my life I won't shed a tear. I won't cry. I won't say, 'Next time... No! Living for the moment! Ah, yes! It's my birthday!... And I feel good!
It's six o'clock in the morning, and my mind is somewhere else in the mystikal world where dreams melt into reality and nothing is ever quite the same again. On the brink of some long forgotten past, I stand... The cloudy skys - all aglow, tinged with the fading moonlight, covered by the azure sparkles of the sun rising above the horizon. The world seems so peaceful - when it's fast asleep. Before the rush of traffic looms its ugly head. I watch the sunlight as it dances on the water in front of me - the ocean's waves with its foam dripping like frosting - cascading down onto the wind whipped sand. Thinking back, over my life, I have to smile when I see how the years have flown by - in a flash... gone! The memories... Bittersweet memories. The moments I treasure...Maybe next time I will get it right! Maybe next time I'll have all my ducks in a row... Everyone will cheer to see me up so high; I'll be someone who everyone looks up to. Maybe next time...But who am I kidding? This time is all I've got. This time around, the flowers are blooming and spring is in the air! This time, I have the knowledge, no - the wisdom to carry on with the knowing that as long as I've made a difference in one person's life - showed my true feelings - and loved the moment, that is enough! This time I look for the meaning in all the meaningless hustle and bustle we call life.I know it's all a little bit personal. A bit tacky... you're probably wondering where I am going with all of this dribble... Well, it's my birthday - and I feel like letting go...So, I will... For once in my life I won't shed a tear. I won't cry. I won't say, 'Next time... No! Living for the moment! Ah, yes! It's my birthday!... And I feel good!
Wherever...
WHEREVER YOU GO...
Its been said before, I'm sure - that nothing ever stays the same. Always changing, rearranging - sometimes up sometimes down, the wheel of life goes round and round. It seems to me that in our hurry to make something of our lives - we stop living. I don't mean that our heart stops beating or that we cease to exist, no - but instead of reaching out to the world around us, we hold back...Somehow our true feelings, and our fear of failure collide, and we shrink back from our real purpose and mission in life. We run away. And as we run we keep telling ourselves that we are running to catch up with life... Never realizing that life is slipping away from us... The sun is setting, but we call it sunrise! On and on we run...
So just now I want to stop! Turn around and see just how far I have come. What does it mean to "get a life"? I feel my heart beating... I know the tune I'm humming... And yet I keep looking for, searching and longing for, something more. Something so elusive that words cannot describe it. Beyond space and time - somewhere out there - I know I must find it; in order to be happy. In order to say I am alive! Just now... I should let my hair down... close my eyes, and open my heart... Feelings like these are so deep, we go through life hardly able to admit that we have them. We argue and fight in a futile attempt to separate ourselves from the fear which haunts our interactions with others so near and dear to us. We shiver in the cold as we see our lives, slipping away...So it is in life. We are what we think. In a moment, in an instant, it can all be gone. Changed forever... I know this all too well... My life can attest to the truth of it. Now is the time to stop! Turn around and begin to live life to its fullest. Never allowing the fear of the unknown to wrestle the sacred spirit of who you are from the confines of your mind. Take it all back!...
In an instant I know who I am. Who I can become. I know my destiny awaits!...Just now, as the sun begins to shine on a new day - as the waterfalls' mist mixes with the dewdrop on the petal of a rose - just know that wherever you go... My love goes with you!
Its been said before, I'm sure - that nothing ever stays the same. Always changing, rearranging - sometimes up sometimes down, the wheel of life goes round and round. It seems to me that in our hurry to make something of our lives - we stop living. I don't mean that our heart stops beating or that we cease to exist, no - but instead of reaching out to the world around us, we hold back...Somehow our true feelings, and our fear of failure collide, and we shrink back from our real purpose and mission in life. We run away. And as we run we keep telling ourselves that we are running to catch up with life... Never realizing that life is slipping away from us... The sun is setting, but we call it sunrise! On and on we run...
So just now I want to stop! Turn around and see just how far I have come. What does it mean to "get a life"? I feel my heart beating... I know the tune I'm humming... And yet I keep looking for, searching and longing for, something more. Something so elusive that words cannot describe it. Beyond space and time - somewhere out there - I know I must find it; in order to be happy. In order to say I am alive! Just now... I should let my hair down... close my eyes, and open my heart... Feelings like these are so deep, we go through life hardly able to admit that we have them. We argue and fight in a futile attempt to separate ourselves from the fear which haunts our interactions with others so near and dear to us. We shiver in the cold as we see our lives, slipping away...So it is in life. We are what we think. In a moment, in an instant, it can all be gone. Changed forever... I know this all too well... My life can attest to the truth of it. Now is the time to stop! Turn around and begin to live life to its fullest. Never allowing the fear of the unknown to wrestle the sacred spirit of who you are from the confines of your mind. Take it all back!...
In an instant I know who I am. Who I can become. I know my destiny awaits!...Just now, as the sun begins to shine on a new day - as the waterfalls' mist mixes with the dewdrop on the petal of a rose - just know that wherever you go... My love goes with you!
Which Way Is Up?
WHICH WAY IS UP?
Once in a while, when the rush of the day is slowing, when the sun begins to set, and all I can see for miles are the red tail lights of all those commuters going nowhere fast - I begin to wonder - "Which way is up?" Do all "good things" really come from above? Is the golden light of love shining down on us? Angels wings do flutter and hum - singing a tune in harmony sweet... I'm sure I've heard it once before, in another time - another place. Just to know the sound, like a dream woven from the eternal fabric of infinite mercy, our inner being cries to be free... to fly away... fly home! Up, up and away... The echoes of some place far, far away, keeps tugging at our heart strings, making us think of another time, another place...Walking through the woods, with the leaves crunching beneath our feet, and the sound of the rushing river below, brings us one step closer to the truth - to the realization that this world is not all it is cracked up to be. That there is another world - up there somewhere, that is our destiny - our real home. A world with no pain and no tears - a place where the sun is always shining and the moon is full and all aglow in a star studded night sky...Some say it's just a fantasy - a beautiful dream! I know it's a memory that we all share. We have just forgotten which way is up! We have lost our vision of a world made new... a place that is more than meets the eye... All wonderful and bright, shining down in love's moon light. Light of love forever be, more of you and less of me!Come on now,,, Take my hand. Walk with me down memory lane. a world forgotten, a vision of love - through the mist I see - the land that time forgot - the place just made for you and me. Wrapped up in some kind of perfect love - a token, a present - from up above.
Friday, February 19, 2010
ZEN MIND - BEGINNER'S MIND
EXCELLENT READ!
ZEN MIND, BEGINNER'S MIND
Written by Shunryu Suzuki-roshi
Read by Peter Coyote
Available on CD: 180 minutes (Abridged)
Published by Phoenix Audio (April 2006)
Originally released on audio cassette by Audio Literataure in March 1992
Shunryu Suzuki (1905-1971) was a direct spiritual descendant of the great thirteenth-century Zen Master, Dogen. This inspiring work ranks with the great Zen classics, in a voice and language completely adapted to contemporary sensibilities. Suzuki's words breathe with the joy and simplicity that make a liberated life possible. As he reveals the actual practice of Zen as a discipline for daily life, one begins to understand what Zen is really about.
The practice of Zen mind is beginner's mind. The innocence of the first inquiry - what am I? - is needed throughout Zen practice. The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities. It is the kind of mind that can see things as they are, which step by step and in a flash can realize the original nature of everything . This practice of Zen mind is found throughout the book. Directly or sometimes by inference, every section of the book concerns the question of how to maintain this attitude through your meditation and in your life. This is an ancient way of teaching, using the simplest language and the situations of everyday life.
Reviews
Peter Coyote "brings to this reading the skills of a gifted actor and a deep personal commitment to the practice of Zen Buddhism." ... Audio Literature
"Coyote is clear and energetic." ...Listener's Guide to Audio Books
"It's is almost as if the words were originating from within... beautiful in its utter simplicity." ... Vajradhatu Sun
"Actor and fellow Zen practitioner Peter Coyote delivers it with appropriate simplicity and inner calm...Zen Master Suzuki proves a most direct and humble guide in his compassionate emphasis on simplicity, ordinary life, and self-understanding - qualities that Coyote captures in his gentle, assuring voice. For almost 20 years Suzuki's book has been as essential introduction to Zen; now this excellent audio tape makes the practice of Zen more understandable and available to us all. Highly recommended to all libraries." ... Choice
"Suzuki makes spiritual goals seem attainable, and you never feel that beliefs are being forced on you. The writing is simple, powerful and inspiring... Peter Coyote's reading is well-paced and mellifluous; he establishes an appealing rhythm and makes listening to the tape a contemplative experience itself. Suzuki's ideas are subtle but powerful, easy to understand but containing several levels of meaning, so this tape can be listened to many times." ... Publishers Weekly
"Will leave the reader with a new confidence that the world is its own magic and that Buddha is within you." ... Denver Post
"If Kerouac had this book, he could have saved himself a lot of wandering. This book has been a classic from the moment it was first published. ... Big Radio Audio Books
About the author:
Already a deeply respected Zen master in Japan, Suzuki-roshi came to America in 1958, intending only a short visit. But he was so impressed by the quality of "beginner's mind" and the seriousness he found among Americans interested in Zen that he finally became a permanent resident, making his home in San Francisco. Through people wanting to join him in his practice, the meditation group called Zen Center came into being and, under his abbotship, grew to three major locations including Zen Mountain Center, the first Zen training monastery outside Asia. He was undoubtedly one of the most influential Zen teachers of his time. He died at Zen Center in December 1971, a year after this first book was published.
Original 1992 release:
ZEN EXPLAINED IN WESTERN TERMS
***Following is a paper that I wrote and rewrote over a several-months-long period a few years ago. Finally I touched it up and turned it in as my final paper in a class at NYU taught by James Carse, an amazing man who was not only an excellent teacher but an excellent human being as well. I learned a great deal that semester, my first as a religious studies student at NYU. I've included his comments at the end more to ensure I have a copy of them in several places, but also to show that he really understood. I had at one point turned in this paper as a submission to a Philosophy Club journal that shall remain nameless, and the person in charge of the club and the journal sent it back with comments -- the person just didn't get it at all.
I highly recommend Carse's book Breakfast at the Victory: The Mysticism of Ordinary Experience about, well, life. Other books he's written are The Silence of God and an old one called Finite and Infinite Games which is about game playing and how important it is. Read Breakfast. Trust me on this. The publisher is HarperCollins (HarperSanFrancisco) and the ISBN is 0-06-251171-8.
Zen Mind
by Adam Levin
Brain, Mind and Soul
James Carse
New York University
Department of Religious Studies
Graduate School of Arts and Science
December 17, 1995
Zen Mind1
At the risk of engaging in meaningless chatter, this is
an attempt by a beginner to explain a little bit of Zen for the
Western mind. No-words do have an effect, but in the West we
sometimes need something else. Yün-men, I am sure, would
spare me sixty blows2 for this paper, but still
I persist. One day we all may truly understand, but until then,
here is my meaningless chatter. Do you understand? Yakity yakity
yakity.
Before a person studies Zen, mountains are mountains and waters
are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth of Zen, mountains
are no longer mountains and waters are not waters; after enlightenment,
mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters.
(Schiller 2)
The issue of Zen Buddhism with respect to the human mind
is a difficult one with which to deal. Ultimately, the Buddha
didn't answer speculative questions, preferring to deal with real
world, practical problems and solutions. At first Zen may seem
to be completely opposite rational, real world experience with
its paradoxical language and all the talk about emptiness and
no-thing-ness. In fact, Zen points directly down the path of true,
real understanding, and a true, undiluted, undeluded experience
of the universe.
Many laugh or shrug when approached with the idea of Zen.
In our time it has become a colloquialism for all that is paradoxical,
nonsequiturial or just plain strange: "I went to the phone
to call you, and the phone rang, and it was you! That's so Zen!"
Scientific circles ignore it, new age mystical circles embrace
it, and skeptical circles berate it. The philosophy and world-view
of "Zen" can apply to any religion, any philosophy,
and any science. But, what is Zen?
The question, "What is Zen?" is a difficult if
not impossible question to answer, just like the now infamous
Zen koan3, "What is Buddha?"4 And, as the answer, "Three
pounds of flax," shows, we have the answer right in front
of us. Perhaps the most frustrating and difficult answer is,
"What is not Buddha/Zen?" Like the beginning student,
we can get carried away with anatman -- not-self or emptiness
-- and immediately come to the conclusion that everything is Buddha,
all is One, and mountains are no longer mountains but everything.
Conversely, we can think that the emptiness of Zen Buddhism is
a nihilistic world-view in which nothing exists outside our own
perceptions, which are themselves sources of delusion. Where
can we really go from there? Perhaps only those who have reached
enlightenment know, because after enlightenment, mountains are
once again mountains. How so, if all is Buddha, or if everything
is nothing?
Buddhist teaching is full of the idea of emptiness. "All
is emptiness" is a statement that can be found in some of
the most important Buddhist writings. If all is emptiness, how
can all be Buddha? Is Buddha emptiness? Can emptiness be
anything? We feel, we see, and we "know" things exist,
so how can all be emptiness, unless we are not understanding what
Buddhists mean by emptiness.
Zen teachings point us toward emptiness and tell us that
there are several aspects to it, two of which are abstraction
and separation, or distinction. All is emptiness, nothing is
not-Buddha, because when we talk or think about anything, we are
only using references to the things of which we speak or
think. The abstractions, the references, which we use in our
words and thoughts are empty because they are not the objects
themselves. One might then ask, "Why is all emptiness if
we are only discussing abstractions?" We say all because
whenever we conceptualize, whenever we think about something --
anything -- we are abstracting. Everything in our minds is an
abstraction, not the thing. Paul Reps relates in story number
76, "The Stone Mind",
Hogen, a Chinese Zen teacher, lived alone in a small temple
in the country. One day four traveling monks appeared and asked
if they might make a fire in his yard to warm themselves.
While they were building the fire, Hogen heard them arguing
about subjectivity and objectivity. He joined them and said:
"There is a big stone. Do you consider it to be inside or
outside your mind?"
One of the monks replied: "From the Buddhist viewpoint
everything is an objectification of mind, so I would say that
the stone is inside my mind."
"Your head must feel very heavy," observed Hogen,
"if you are carrying around a stone like that in your mind."
(65)
Although the monk realizes that abstraction is part of the
cause of misunderstanding and delusion, he doesn't yet grasp the
other part of the equation. The monk's head hurts because he
misunderstands what Thich Nhat Hanh calls interbeing:
"Interbeing" is a word that is not in the dictionary
yet, but if we combine the prefix "inter-" with the
verb "to be," we have a new verb, inter-be. Without
a cloud [to bring rain], we cannot have paper, so...the cloud...and
the paper inter-are...
Looking even more deeply, we can see we are in [the paper]
too....when we look at a sheet of paper, [it] is part of our perception.
Your mind is in here and mine is also....You cannot point out
one thing that is not here--time, space, the earth, the rain,
the minerals in the soil, the sunshine, the cloud, the river,
the heat. Everything co-exists with this sheet of paper....You
cannot just be by yourself alone. You have to inter-be with every
other thing. (3-4)
The monk thinks that because abstractions are empty, and Zen
Buddhism points past them, that he and the rock must be one and
the same -- the rock is only in his head. The monk is not really
wrong, but he doesn't understand why the rock is in his
head, nor does he see that the rock is also in front of him on
the ground. The rock inter-is with the monk, and the reference
to the rock, the abstraction, is inside his head. He doesn't
realize that he and the rock inter-are. The rock cannot exist
by itself; it must inter-be. This leads somewhat directly5 to
the idea of emptiness. It is empty, but the question, again from
Thich Nhat Hanh, now is, "Empty of what?"
"To be empty is to be empty of something" (Hanh
8). So, of what is the rock empty? The answer, according to
Hanh, is that it is empty of a separate self, a separate identity
or existence. The rock is in our head because it must be -- it
must inter-be. It cannot be a rock all by itself. It
is distinct, yet it inter-is with us and everything else.
There is a Zen proverb, "Everything the same, everything
distinct" (Schiller 55). All entities have the property
of interbeing, and they all have the property of being distinct
entities. Therefore, they are all the same in the sense that
they inter-are and are categorized, and they are also each a distinct
individual unit. The Zen saying, "Lovely snowflakes, they
fall nowhere else!" (Schiller 54) shows this idea. Is the
observer of the snowflakes really observing the only flakes in
the world? Obviously not. The observer is saying that these
particular flakes, those that he sees now, are distinct. They
cannot fall anywhere else because each is an individual entity,
but we label them all snowflakes. However, we must remember that
although they are distinct snowflakes, they also inter-are with
everything else. Zen is full of these seeming6 paradoxes to help
point out the relationship between entities themselves and the
references to them, and to show that all distinct, individual
things inter-are with everything else. With these seemingly paradoxical
problems, Zen Masters attempt to enable us to remove the duality
of separateness versus inter-existence -- there is no distinction
between the two: everything the same, everything distinct.
Other Zen koans, such as, "Why can't the person of great
strength lift up a leg?" (Aitken 133) and, "Why is it
that a person of great strength does not use the tongue in speaking?"
(Aitken 135) help us further to understand and to remove distinctions.
The strength is not physical, but rather is the strength of realization.
As Robert Aitken Roshi7 discusses in his book, The Gateless
Barrier,
"The person of great strength" is strong in realization
and in integrating realization into daily life. Athletes provide
an interesting analogy, and their writings can be very interesting
for the Zen student. When an athlete is "up," it is
as though he or she were floating, as well as driving hard. Hands
rise spontaneously to catch the ball, legs work naturally to run.
It is as though the player is in a dream....
What is great strength? I'm not sure I can put it in words.
It rings like a fine bell, however, and there is no mistaking
it. What is great weakness? It is a return to categorical thinking,
to summarizing, to generalizing, to abstracting. (133-134)
Although Zen itself is an abstraction -- it is empty of a
separate self -- we may use it to help us understand that everything
inter-is, but that everything is not the same.
Those who have attained enlightenment know it is not they alone,
as separate and distinct individuals, who speak or lift their
legs. Who, then, is it? It is everyone, everything.
Thus, not only is a name empty, but the entire notion of
"self" is actually empty of a separate self! The leg
is lifted, but no one lone, distinct being is lifting it. How
is this possible? Because "the person" doing the lifting
inter-is with everything else. My concept of being, my "self"
(that is, my ego, "I") is merely a reference to me,
and it is empty of a separate, individual identity -- it must
be, or rather inter-be -- or it wouldn't exist at all. This is
why a key teaching in Buddhism is losing your ego; that ego is
an abstraction that refers to you, and is empty. You must lose
your ego to understand yourself and the universe. Your ego creates
a distinction between you and that which is other, and so it separates
you from those things with which you inter-are.
You don't, however, want to "lose yourself" in
the sense of losing your identity. The idea is not to become
"self-less" nor even to become "not-self".
The Buddha said,
He who thinks that upon enlightenment there is self is wrong.
If he thinks there is not-self, he is likewise wrong. If he
thinks there is neither self nor not-self, he is wrong. And if
he thinks there are both self and not-self, he is still wrong.
Aren't these the only four possible answers? No. If you
are caught up in self and not-self, you have not attained enlightenment,
you have abstracted, categorized, and separated the self. When
"self" and "not-self" are meaningless as separate
things, when they no longer are distinct, when they inter-are,
then you have it.
If abstraction is so wrong, and all language and thought
are merely abstraction, you might be inclined to say that we should
shut ourselves up and stop communicating -- stop thinking -- if
there are so many problems with it. To understand Zen, you say,
it seems that one must give up rational thinking. Zen Masters
tell us to "stop thinking", don't they? One must throw
out logical precepts and formal constructs and ignore the tools
which we use extensively in our study of the universe. Thus,
Zen, along with the rest of the universe and with our tools to
describe and understand it, is rendered completely useless to
us because of the absence of any way to interpret and process
it, for we can only understand things using logic. To that I
must reply, "Ah, so des'ka?"8
Perhaps there is something that we are missing. In fact,
it seems obvious that either Zen is a load of rubbish or those
of us who have not had satori9 "just don't get it."
How can we understand Zen? How can we understand anything?
Why do we face so many problems in finding the meaning of Zen?
This last question, in fact, gets to the heart of the matter.
It is exactly meanings that are the point of Zen. How is it
that humans understand things? The brain, working in complex
ways, receives information through the senses and processes it.
Much of the time, we are receiving information that is removed
from the actual referent (as mathematical symbols or words in
a book). We receive information which is already abstract (words,
numbers, etc.), and we must process it to understand the thing
to which the word or symbol refers. When we do experience something
(that is, we receive not abstract information but concrete sense
perceptions), the brain processes it, abstracts it, categorizes
it, and files it away. One person can talk about a certain "tree"
and describe it in detail, but another may not fully understand
the experience of it until he comes in contact with that particular
tree. A person who knows the abstract idea "tree" would
understand in part, categorizing this tree with other trees, but
that does not bring the second person to a complete understanding
of the specific tree in question.10
Some experiments in neuro-psychology are very relevant to
a discussion of Zen, mind, and abstraction. It seems that when
the corpus callosum -- the jumble of fibers connecting the left
and right hemispheres of the brain -- is severed (a last-resort
surgery for epileptics), several interesting phenomena develop.11
If a patient is blindfolded and told to feel something with her
left hand (controlled by the right brain), she knows exactly what
it does but cannot name it. She can describe the object in detail,
including what color it ought to be. With her right hand, she
can label it but isn't sure about anything else, like what its
use may be. The left brain contains the abstraction, the label,
whereas the right brain contains the actual experiential information
-- what an object feels like, what it looks like, what it's used
for, etc. The experiential information filed away in a person's
right brain cannot be communicated. So, from the tree example
above, the second person could not possibly understand the first
person's experience of "tree" without experiencing the
exact same tree as the first person (except, of course, that the
second may not agree with the first person's subjective understanding,
but would at least be able to understand how the first person
arrived at that understanding).
Does Zen then suggest that abstraction is bad? No. Zen
is not a set of criteria for judgment. It is another way of looking
at the universe that, when added to what we already have, gives
us the most complete look at the world around us. Added to and
not in place of? Absolutely. When our understanding is only
by way of abstractions, we are at the very beginning. A mountain
is a mountain because I call it a mountain, even if I have never
climbed one. As I progress, I replace my concept of mountain
with Zen, and the mountain is no longer "mountain" and
the waters are no longer "waters". There is no way
to describe them, but I experience them and they become a part
of me. I climb the mountain, I experience it, and I feel it become
part of myself, filed away in my right brain. Once I truly understand,
then "mountain" is in fact a mountain, although I know
that the mountain by itself simply is, and I call it "mountain"
-- that link between the left and right hemispheres has been completely
controlled and understood.
A parallel can be drawn to learning languages. As a student
whose primary language is English learns Latin, she must translate
the Latin words one by one into English to understand them. Then,
her brain links the English word with the object to which it refers.
However, as she continues learning the language, new associations
in her brain are built slowly. Eventually, the Latin words have
direct links to their respective objects, and using the language
becomes much easier. Zen requires us to re-evaluate those links
and make as direct a connection as possible to the objects themselves.
In fact, mysticism's "becoming one with the object"
is doing exactly that: removing abstractions and understanding
interbeing.
Children begin their life journey in a world without abstractions.
Scientists believe that children don't gain the ability to abstract
until several years after their birth. Thus, in the beginning
they are in an ideal position, simply experiencing everything.
They can't communicate it, however -- they have no tools for
doing so. Once they grow older, they are taught abstractions
and how to abstract, and this allows them to communicate with
the rest of the world. However, this can cause them to lose touch
with that experiential form of understanding. Zen is the attempt
to get back to that realm in which we can communicate nothing
and don't need to. That is why Zen is ultimately nothing: the
thing that is no thing, the formless form.
This is primarily what makes Zen so difficult to talk about.
It goes beyond abstractions to the thing, and in talking about
the thing, one abstracts. By definition, then, one cannot "talk"
about Zen12 -- one must experience it, and so we engage in zazen,
meditation which the Zen Roshis describe as "just sitting".
The enlightenment, the realization, is that everything is real,
everything is distinct, and everything inter-is. When we talk
about anything, we must realize that we are separating ourselves
from it. 'A' is 'A' and can only be 'A', regardless of how it
is referenced. However, once we reference 'A', we have removed
ourselves from it, and that reference is empty unless others have
as complete an understanding as we do, and we understand the non-duality
of interbeing and distinction.
Zen is a "middle way", and we must recognize it
as such. Abstractions are necessary, and that is why even the
Masters know mountains are mountains. Zen is one indistinct part
of a whole paradigm of understanding -- the most complete experience
of reality. With only one of either abstraction or experience,
one's understanding is only partial. The goal of Zen is to understand
reality completely by experiencing it as well as categorizing
and abstracting it. It could be said that Zen's motto is, "Live
in reality, not in a model." The abstractions that exist
in our brains are models for the reality around us. Through Zen
we can become part of that reality and therefore understand it
fully. Through the abstractions that we can then use after
we understand reality, we can communicate more fully than we ever
could.
The connection between the right brain, which is responsible
for filing away the pure experiential information from our senses,
and the left brain, which is responsible for immediately processing,
abstracting and categorizing that data, is a delicate balance.
The lack of communication between the two hemispheres of the
brain in a subject with a severed corpus callosum clearly demonstrates
the important connection between experience and abstraction.
It is both of these together that utilize our entire brain, and
therefore there should exist a balance between the two forms of
knowledge, abstract and experiential.
In Zen, one is not asked, nor required, to stop half of one's
brain from working. What we ideally want to do is to take control
of our automatic abstraction process. By doing so, we can more
fully understand the objects to which abstractions refer -- the
universe.
To abandon Zen is to lose all to which our symbols refer,
and that leaves us with emptiness -- only abstractions. To abandon
the abstract completely for direct experience gives us everything
-- but we can do nothing with it. We must form the balance to
understand fully.
It is all well and good for me to say this, and some people
upon reading this may say, "Aha! Of course! Now I understand."13
I promise you this: if it were that easy, Zen Masters would not
have spent so many centuries beating students with sticks and
yelling "Mu!" at them, and students would not have spent
so many long years of zazen trying to understand it. In order
to understand Zen, one must transcend the abstract notions of
what Zen is (though only after understanding those abstract ideas)
and just do it. Only then can one fully understand that things
are -- and inter-are -- and that's all. Through zazen, one meditates
on this idea of experiencing without abstracting. To take meditation
even further, if one can be in that meditative state constantly,
then one is fully experiencing and understanding one's surroundings.
Thinking about not-thinking can only be accomplished without
thinking (Aitken). This does not mean one should stop all brain
activity (if we did, we'd be dead!) -- only that one should take
control of that automatic abstraction and categorization process.
Meditation is that attempt to slow and control the abstraction
process. It is not meant to replace thinking, but rather to balance
out the constant flitting of the mind and enhance the experience
of life.
Zen attempts to put us in perfect contact with the rest of
the universe -- with reality. It doesn't put us in contact with
our idea of the universe or our concept of reality.
It puts us in contact with that which is the universe,
that which is reality, so that we can more fully understand
our ideas, concepts and references to the universe and to the
one ultimate reality -- that everything inter-is.
ENDNOTES
1 Although the books in the bibliography were
the particular sources used for this paper, the koans and stories
within actually appear in many, many collections of Zen teachings.
I particularly recommend Robert Aitken's The Gateless
Barrier and Paul Reps' Zen Flesh, Zen Bones. The first
is a collection of Zen koans first published by the Master Wu-men.
Aitken Roshi has translated the koans and Wu-men's comments,
and has added his own wonderful and enlightening commentary, giving
just enough information to make us wonder, but not giving away
the essence of Zen. The second book is a compilation of three
smaller books, 101 Zen Stories, another version of The
Gateless Gate, and a collection called 10 Bulls. The
Schiller book, The Little Zen Companion, is a small compilation
of stories, koans and sayings from Zen Masters of the past and
present, from East and West, without any commentary except for
a few explanations of terms and past Masters.
Back
2 Aitken Roshi in The Gateless Barrier,
page 100, has:
Tung-shan came to see Yün-men. Yün-men asked him,
"Where were you most recently?"
Tung-shan said, "At Ch'a-tu."
Yün-men said, "Where were you during the summer?"
Tung-shan said, "At Pao-tzu Monastery in Hu-nan."
Yün-men said, "When did you leave there?"
Tung-shan said, "August 25th."
Yün-men said, "I spare you sixty blows."
[Tung-shan does not understand where he was at fault.]
Why, if he was not punished, was he at fault? The answer
is that he was, in fact, punished. By not receiving blows, which
are experiential by nature, he was unable to reach satori,
or enlightenment. As will be seen later, that experience is at
the heart of Zen, which is why in many stories and koans one reaches
enlightenment after a traumatic experience such as a blow. Had
he been given the blows, he may (and probably would) have had
some sort of satori. He was not far enough along and wasn't
ready yet.
While I have your attention in these endnotes, I'd like to
relate another story from the forward by Paul Reps to his book,
Zen Flesh, Zen Bones:
The first Zen Patriarch, Bodhidharma, brought Zen to China
from India in the sixth century. According to his biography recorded
in the year 1004 by the Chinese teacher Dogen, after nine years
in China Bodhidharma wished to go home and gathered his disciples
about him to test their apperception.
Dofuku said: "In my opinion, truth is beyond affirmation
or negation, for this is the way it moves."
Bodhidharma replied: "You have my skin."
The nun Soji said: "In my view, it is like Ananda's
sight of the Buddha-land--seen once and forever."
Bodhidharma answered: "You have my flesh."
Doiku said: "The four elements of light, airiness, fluidity,
and solidity are empty [i.e. inclusive] and the five skandhas
are no-things. In my opinion, no-thing [i.e. spirit] is reality."
Bodhidharma commented: "You have my bones."
Finally, Eka bowed before the master--and remained silent.
Bodhidharma said: "You have my marrow."
Old Zen was so fresh it became treasured and remembered.
Here are fragments of its skin, flesh, bones, but not its marrow--never
found in words.
Indeed, Zen's marrow cannot be found in words.
Back
3 The Little Zen Companion has,
The Koan:
Perhaps no aspect of Zen is as puzzling and yet intriguing
to Westerners as the koan. Or as misunderstood. A koan is not
a riddle, nor is it a paradox designed to shock the mind. Instead
it is an integral part of a system honed over centuries to help
bring the student to a direct realization of ultimate reality.
Taken from the Japanese ko ("public") and
an ("proposition"), the koan can be a question,
an excerpt from the sutras, an episode in the life of an ancient
Master, a word exchanged in a mondo, or any other fragment of
teaching. There are some 1,700 traditional koans in existence.
A mondo is a dialogue about Buddhism or an existential
problem among Masters or between a Master and student.
Back
4 The question and the answers that follow appear
in most books on Buddhism, including those listed in the bibliography.
Back
5 Does anything really lead directly to anything
else in Zen? Well, yes, everything, in fact!
Back
6 "Seeming" because, upon closer inspection,
the paradox melts away and we are left with something which makes
perfect sense. As mentioned in note 3, they really aren't paradoxes
at all. The challenge of Zen is in seeing this.
Back
7 The Little Zen Companion has, "Roshi
-- a venerable teacher, whether a monk or layperson, woman or
man."
Back
8 Japanese for, "is that so?" In
The Gateless Barrier,
A young woman whose parents owned a food store lived near
Munan. Suddenly, without any warning, her parents discovered
she was with child. She would not confess who the man was, but
after much harassment at last named Munan.
In great anger the parents went to the master with the accusation.
"Is that so?" was all he would say.
After the child was born it was brought to Munan. By this
time he had lost his reputation, which did not trouble him, but
he took very good care of the child. He obtained milk from his
neighbors and everything else the little one needed.
A year later the young woman could stand it no longer. She
told her parents the truth -- that the real father of the child
was a young man who worked in the fish market.
The mother and father of the young woman at once went to
bring the child home. They apologized profusely to Munan and
asked his forgiveness.
Munan only said, "Is that so?"
Aitken Roshi tells us,
In Japanese, "Is that so?" is Ah, so des'ka?
It is not actually a question at all but the mildest kind of
temporizing [that is, complying with the occasion and yielding
to prevailing opinion]. It carries no defensiveness, or projection,
and is repeated on every possible occasion. Munan was temporizing.
"Let's see how this comes out," he might have been
thinking. "Meantime, here is a little mouth to feed."
He absorbed the responsibility, and if that involved blame from
others, well, that was their problem.
In the West we tend to use temporizing phrases as a stall
tactic, making others uncomfortable or suspicious. In the East,
the flavor of temporizing is much different. It is considered
respectful and polite to avoid aggression, confrontation and accusation.
One is not trying to contradict the other -- rather, one tries
to give the other a chance to explain, and accepts that explanation
instead of arguing.
It is an admirable quality to be able to accept what life
gives you without fighting it -- to be so at peace with the world
that whatever happens can be taken in stride. One shouldn't take
this too far, of course (justice must be served in the case of
wrongdoing), but we can certainly learn something from Munan's
example.
Back
9 That is, enlightenment.
Back
10 This, of course, ignores the idea of subjective
experience. Obviously both observers of the tree won't have exactly
the same experience of the tree. However, the second person
must have a more full understanding of the tree after experiencing
it, and can at least understand the first person's point of view,
even if the second person doesn't agree with it.
Back
11 The following information is taken from "The
Infinite Voyage" which aired on the Discovery Channel on
Wednesday, February 22, 1995.
Back
12 Which made it awfully difficult to write
this discourse!
Back
13 In fact, if you think you understand it now,
go back and read this paper again.
Back
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Aitken, Robert. The Gateless Barrier: the Wu-men Kuan.
San Francisco: The North Point Press, 1991.
Hanh, Thich Nhat. The Heart of Understanding. Berkeley:
Parallax Press, 1988.
Reps, Paul. Zen Flesh, Zen Bones. New York: Anchor
Books, 1989.
Schiller, David. The Little Zen Companion. New York:
Workman Publishing, 1994.
***Following is a paper that I wrote and rewrote over a several-months-long period a few years ago. Finally I touched it up and turned it in as my final paper in a class at NYU taught by James Carse, an amazing man who was not only an excellent teacher but an excellent human being as well. I learned a great deal that semester, my first as a religious studies student at NYU. I've included his comments at the end more to ensure I have a copy of them in several places, but also to show that he really understood. I had at one point turned in this paper as a submission to a Philosophy Club journal that shall remain nameless, and the person in charge of the club and the journal sent it back with comments -- the person just didn't get it at all.
I highly recommend Carse's book Breakfast at the Victory: The Mysticism of Ordinary Experience about, well, life. Other books he's written are The Silence of God and an old one called Finite and Infinite Games which is about game playing and how important it is. Read Breakfast. Trust me on this. The publisher is HarperCollins (HarperSanFrancisco) and the ISBN is 0-06-251171-8.
Zen Mind
by Adam Levin
Brain, Mind and Soul
James Carse
New York University
Department of Religious Studies
Graduate School of Arts and Science
December 17, 1995
Zen Mind1
At the risk of engaging in meaningless chatter, this is
an attempt by a beginner to explain a little bit of Zen for the
Western mind. No-words do have an effect, but in the West we
sometimes need something else. Yün-men, I am sure, would
spare me sixty blows2 for this paper, but still
I persist. One day we all may truly understand, but until then,
here is my meaningless chatter. Do you understand? Yakity yakity
yakity.
Before a person studies Zen, mountains are mountains and waters
are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth of Zen, mountains
are no longer mountains and waters are not waters; after enlightenment,
mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters.
(Schiller 2)
The issue of Zen Buddhism with respect to the human mind
is a difficult one with which to deal. Ultimately, the Buddha
didn't answer speculative questions, preferring to deal with real
world, practical problems and solutions. At first Zen may seem
to be completely opposite rational, real world experience with
its paradoxical language and all the talk about emptiness and
no-thing-ness. In fact, Zen points directly down the path of true,
real understanding, and a true, undiluted, undeluded experience
of the universe.
Many laugh or shrug when approached with the idea of Zen.
In our time it has become a colloquialism for all that is paradoxical,
nonsequiturial or just plain strange: "I went to the phone
to call you, and the phone rang, and it was you! That's so Zen!"
Scientific circles ignore it, new age mystical circles embrace
it, and skeptical circles berate it. The philosophy and world-view
of "Zen" can apply to any religion, any philosophy,
and any science. But, what is Zen?
The question, "What is Zen?" is a difficult if
not impossible question to answer, just like the now infamous
Zen koan3, "What is Buddha?"4 And, as the answer, "Three
pounds of flax," shows, we have the answer right in front
of us. Perhaps the most frustrating and difficult answer is,
"What is not Buddha/Zen?" Like the beginning student,
we can get carried away with anatman -- not-self or emptiness
-- and immediately come to the conclusion that everything is Buddha,
all is One, and mountains are no longer mountains but everything.
Conversely, we can think that the emptiness of Zen Buddhism is
a nihilistic world-view in which nothing exists outside our own
perceptions, which are themselves sources of delusion. Where
can we really go from there? Perhaps only those who have reached
enlightenment know, because after enlightenment, mountains are
once again mountains. How so, if all is Buddha, or if everything
is nothing?
Buddhist teaching is full of the idea of emptiness. "All
is emptiness" is a statement that can be found in some of
the most important Buddhist writings. If all is emptiness, how
can all be Buddha? Is Buddha emptiness? Can emptiness be
anything? We feel, we see, and we "know" things exist,
so how can all be emptiness, unless we are not understanding what
Buddhists mean by emptiness.
Zen teachings point us toward emptiness and tell us that
there are several aspects to it, two of which are abstraction
and separation, or distinction. All is emptiness, nothing is
not-Buddha, because when we talk or think about anything, we are
only using references to the things of which we speak or
think. The abstractions, the references, which we use in our
words and thoughts are empty because they are not the objects
themselves. One might then ask, "Why is all emptiness if
we are only discussing abstractions?" We say all because
whenever we conceptualize, whenever we think about something --
anything -- we are abstracting. Everything in our minds is an
abstraction, not the thing. Paul Reps relates in story number
76, "The Stone Mind",
Hogen, a Chinese Zen teacher, lived alone in a small temple
in the country. One day four traveling monks appeared and asked
if they might make a fire in his yard to warm themselves.
While they were building the fire, Hogen heard them arguing
about subjectivity and objectivity. He joined them and said:
"There is a big stone. Do you consider it to be inside or
outside your mind?"
One of the monks replied: "From the Buddhist viewpoint
everything is an objectification of mind, so I would say that
the stone is inside my mind."
"Your head must feel very heavy," observed Hogen,
"if you are carrying around a stone like that in your mind."
(65)
Although the monk realizes that abstraction is part of the
cause of misunderstanding and delusion, he doesn't yet grasp the
other part of the equation. The monk's head hurts because he
misunderstands what Thich Nhat Hanh calls interbeing:
"Interbeing" is a word that is not in the dictionary
yet, but if we combine the prefix "inter-" with the
verb "to be," we have a new verb, inter-be. Without
a cloud [to bring rain], we cannot have paper, so...the cloud...and
the paper inter-are...
Looking even more deeply, we can see we are in [the paper]
too....when we look at a sheet of paper, [it] is part of our perception.
Your mind is in here and mine is also....You cannot point out
one thing that is not here--time, space, the earth, the rain,
the minerals in the soil, the sunshine, the cloud, the river,
the heat. Everything co-exists with this sheet of paper....You
cannot just be by yourself alone. You have to inter-be with every
other thing. (3-4)
The monk thinks that because abstractions are empty, and Zen
Buddhism points past them, that he and the rock must be one and
the same -- the rock is only in his head. The monk is not really
wrong, but he doesn't understand why the rock is in his
head, nor does he see that the rock is also in front of him on
the ground. The rock inter-is with the monk, and the reference
to the rock, the abstraction, is inside his head. He doesn't
realize that he and the rock inter-are. The rock cannot exist
by itself; it must inter-be. This leads somewhat directly5 to
the idea of emptiness. It is empty, but the question, again from
Thich Nhat Hanh, now is, "Empty of what?"
"To be empty is to be empty of something" (Hanh
8). So, of what is the rock empty? The answer, according to
Hanh, is that it is empty of a separate self, a separate identity
or existence. The rock is in our head because it must be -- it
must inter-be. It cannot be a rock all by itself. It
is distinct, yet it inter-is with us and everything else.
There is a Zen proverb, "Everything the same, everything
distinct" (Schiller 55). All entities have the property
of interbeing, and they all have the property of being distinct
entities. Therefore, they are all the same in the sense that
they inter-are and are categorized, and they are also each a distinct
individual unit. The Zen saying, "Lovely snowflakes, they
fall nowhere else!" (Schiller 54) shows this idea. Is the
observer of the snowflakes really observing the only flakes in
the world? Obviously not. The observer is saying that these
particular flakes, those that he sees now, are distinct. They
cannot fall anywhere else because each is an individual entity,
but we label them all snowflakes. However, we must remember that
although they are distinct snowflakes, they also inter-are with
everything else. Zen is full of these seeming6 paradoxes to help
point out the relationship between entities themselves and the
references to them, and to show that all distinct, individual
things inter-are with everything else. With these seemingly paradoxical
problems, Zen Masters attempt to enable us to remove the duality
of separateness versus inter-existence -- there is no distinction
between the two: everything the same, everything distinct.
Other Zen koans, such as, "Why can't the person of great
strength lift up a leg?" (Aitken 133) and, "Why is it
that a person of great strength does not use the tongue in speaking?"
(Aitken 135) help us further to understand and to remove distinctions.
The strength is not physical, but rather is the strength of realization.
As Robert Aitken Roshi7 discusses in his book, The Gateless
Barrier,
"The person of great strength" is strong in realization
and in integrating realization into daily life. Athletes provide
an interesting analogy, and their writings can be very interesting
for the Zen student. When an athlete is "up," it is
as though he or she were floating, as well as driving hard. Hands
rise spontaneously to catch the ball, legs work naturally to run.
It is as though the player is in a dream....
What is great strength? I'm not sure I can put it in words.
It rings like a fine bell, however, and there is no mistaking
it. What is great weakness? It is a return to categorical thinking,
to summarizing, to generalizing, to abstracting. (133-134)
Although Zen itself is an abstraction -- it is empty of a
separate self -- we may use it to help us understand that everything
inter-is, but that everything is not the same.
Those who have attained enlightenment know it is not they alone,
as separate and distinct individuals, who speak or lift their
legs. Who, then, is it? It is everyone, everything.
Thus, not only is a name empty, but the entire notion of
"self" is actually empty of a separate self! The leg
is lifted, but no one lone, distinct being is lifting it. How
is this possible? Because "the person" doing the lifting
inter-is with everything else. My concept of being, my "self"
(that is, my ego, "I") is merely a reference to me,
and it is empty of a separate, individual identity -- it must
be, or rather inter-be -- or it wouldn't exist at all. This is
why a key teaching in Buddhism is losing your ego; that ego is
an abstraction that refers to you, and is empty. You must lose
your ego to understand yourself and the universe. Your ego creates
a distinction between you and that which is other, and so it separates
you from those things with which you inter-are.
You don't, however, want to "lose yourself" in
the sense of losing your identity. The idea is not to become
"self-less" nor even to become "not-self".
The Buddha said,
He who thinks that upon enlightenment there is self is wrong.
If he thinks there is not-self, he is likewise wrong. If he
thinks there is neither self nor not-self, he is wrong. And if
he thinks there are both self and not-self, he is still wrong.
Aren't these the only four possible answers? No. If you
are caught up in self and not-self, you have not attained enlightenment,
you have abstracted, categorized, and separated the self. When
"self" and "not-self" are meaningless as separate
things, when they no longer are distinct, when they inter-are,
then you have it.
If abstraction is so wrong, and all language and thought
are merely abstraction, you might be inclined to say that we should
shut ourselves up and stop communicating -- stop thinking -- if
there are so many problems with it. To understand Zen, you say,
it seems that one must give up rational thinking. Zen Masters
tell us to "stop thinking", don't they? One must throw
out logical precepts and formal constructs and ignore the tools
which we use extensively in our study of the universe. Thus,
Zen, along with the rest of the universe and with our tools to
describe and understand it, is rendered completely useless to
us because of the absence of any way to interpret and process
it, for we can only understand things using logic. To that I
must reply, "Ah, so des'ka?"8
Perhaps there is something that we are missing. In fact,
it seems obvious that either Zen is a load of rubbish or those
of us who have not had satori9 "just don't get it."
How can we understand Zen? How can we understand anything?
Why do we face so many problems in finding the meaning of Zen?
This last question, in fact, gets to the heart of the matter.
It is exactly meanings that are the point of Zen. How is it
that humans understand things? The brain, working in complex
ways, receives information through the senses and processes it.
Much of the time, we are receiving information that is removed
from the actual referent (as mathematical symbols or words in
a book). We receive information which is already abstract (words,
numbers, etc.), and we must process it to understand the thing
to which the word or symbol refers. When we do experience something
(that is, we receive not abstract information but concrete sense
perceptions), the brain processes it, abstracts it, categorizes
it, and files it away. One person can talk about a certain "tree"
and describe it in detail, but another may not fully understand
the experience of it until he comes in contact with that particular
tree. A person who knows the abstract idea "tree" would
understand in part, categorizing this tree with other trees, but
that does not bring the second person to a complete understanding
of the specific tree in question.10
Some experiments in neuro-psychology are very relevant to
a discussion of Zen, mind, and abstraction. It seems that when
the corpus callosum -- the jumble of fibers connecting the left
and right hemispheres of the brain -- is severed (a last-resort
surgery for epileptics), several interesting phenomena develop.11
If a patient is blindfolded and told to feel something with her
left hand (controlled by the right brain), she knows exactly what
it does but cannot name it. She can describe the object in detail,
including what color it ought to be. With her right hand, she
can label it but isn't sure about anything else, like what its
use may be. The left brain contains the abstraction, the label,
whereas the right brain contains the actual experiential information
-- what an object feels like, what it looks like, what it's used
for, etc. The experiential information filed away in a person's
right brain cannot be communicated. So, from the tree example
above, the second person could not possibly understand the first
person's experience of "tree" without experiencing the
exact same tree as the first person (except, of course, that the
second may not agree with the first person's subjective understanding,
but would at least be able to understand how the first person
arrived at that understanding).
Does Zen then suggest that abstraction is bad? No. Zen
is not a set of criteria for judgment. It is another way of looking
at the universe that, when added to what we already have, gives
us the most complete look at the world around us. Added to and
not in place of? Absolutely. When our understanding is only
by way of abstractions, we are at the very beginning. A mountain
is a mountain because I call it a mountain, even if I have never
climbed one. As I progress, I replace my concept of mountain
with Zen, and the mountain is no longer "mountain" and
the waters are no longer "waters". There is no way
to describe them, but I experience them and they become a part
of me. I climb the mountain, I experience it, and I feel it become
part of myself, filed away in my right brain. Once I truly understand,
then "mountain" is in fact a mountain, although I know
that the mountain by itself simply is, and I call it "mountain"
-- that link between the left and right hemispheres has been completely
controlled and understood.
A parallel can be drawn to learning languages. As a student
whose primary language is English learns Latin, she must translate
the Latin words one by one into English to understand them. Then,
her brain links the English word with the object to which it refers.
However, as she continues learning the language, new associations
in her brain are built slowly. Eventually, the Latin words have
direct links to their respective objects, and using the language
becomes much easier. Zen requires us to re-evaluate those links
and make as direct a connection as possible to the objects themselves.
In fact, mysticism's "becoming one with the object"
is doing exactly that: removing abstractions and understanding
interbeing.
Children begin their life journey in a world without abstractions.
Scientists believe that children don't gain the ability to abstract
until several years after their birth. Thus, in the beginning
they are in an ideal position, simply experiencing everything.
They can't communicate it, however -- they have no tools for
doing so. Once they grow older, they are taught abstractions
and how to abstract, and this allows them to communicate with
the rest of the world. However, this can cause them to lose touch
with that experiential form of understanding. Zen is the attempt
to get back to that realm in which we can communicate nothing
and don't need to. That is why Zen is ultimately nothing: the
thing that is no thing, the formless form.
This is primarily what makes Zen so difficult to talk about.
It goes beyond abstractions to the thing, and in talking about
the thing, one abstracts. By definition, then, one cannot "talk"
about Zen12 -- one must experience it, and so we engage in zazen,
meditation which the Zen Roshis describe as "just sitting".
The enlightenment, the realization, is that everything is real,
everything is distinct, and everything inter-is. When we talk
about anything, we must realize that we are separating ourselves
from it. 'A' is 'A' and can only be 'A', regardless of how it
is referenced. However, once we reference 'A', we have removed
ourselves from it, and that reference is empty unless others have
as complete an understanding as we do, and we understand the non-duality
of interbeing and distinction.
Zen is a "middle way", and we must recognize it
as such. Abstractions are necessary, and that is why even the
Masters know mountains are mountains. Zen is one indistinct part
of a whole paradigm of understanding -- the most complete experience
of reality. With only one of either abstraction or experience,
one's understanding is only partial. The goal of Zen is to understand
reality completely by experiencing it as well as categorizing
and abstracting it. It could be said that Zen's motto is, "Live
in reality, not in a model." The abstractions that exist
in our brains are models for the reality around us. Through Zen
we can become part of that reality and therefore understand it
fully. Through the abstractions that we can then use after
we understand reality, we can communicate more fully than we ever
could.
The connection between the right brain, which is responsible
for filing away the pure experiential information from our senses,
and the left brain, which is responsible for immediately processing,
abstracting and categorizing that data, is a delicate balance.
The lack of communication between the two hemispheres of the
brain in a subject with a severed corpus callosum clearly demonstrates
the important connection between experience and abstraction.
It is both of these together that utilize our entire brain, and
therefore there should exist a balance between the two forms of
knowledge, abstract and experiential.
In Zen, one is not asked, nor required, to stop half of one's
brain from working. What we ideally want to do is to take control
of our automatic abstraction process. By doing so, we can more
fully understand the objects to which abstractions refer -- the
universe.
To abandon Zen is to lose all to which our symbols refer,
and that leaves us with emptiness -- only abstractions. To abandon
the abstract completely for direct experience gives us everything
-- but we can do nothing with it. We must form the balance to
understand fully.
It is all well and good for me to say this, and some people
upon reading this may say, "Aha! Of course! Now I understand."13
I promise you this: if it were that easy, Zen Masters would not
have spent so many centuries beating students with sticks and
yelling "Mu!" at them, and students would not have spent
so many long years of zazen trying to understand it. In order
to understand Zen, one must transcend the abstract notions of
what Zen is (though only after understanding those abstract ideas)
and just do it. Only then can one fully understand that things
are -- and inter-are -- and that's all. Through zazen, one meditates
on this idea of experiencing without abstracting. To take meditation
even further, if one can be in that meditative state constantly,
then one is fully experiencing and understanding one's surroundings.
Thinking about not-thinking can only be accomplished without
thinking (Aitken). This does not mean one should stop all brain
activity (if we did, we'd be dead!) -- only that one should take
control of that automatic abstraction and categorization process.
Meditation is that attempt to slow and control the abstraction
process. It is not meant to replace thinking, but rather to balance
out the constant flitting of the mind and enhance the experience
of life.
Zen attempts to put us in perfect contact with the rest of
the universe -- with reality. It doesn't put us in contact with
our idea of the universe or our concept of reality.
It puts us in contact with that which is the universe,
that which is reality, so that we can more fully understand
our ideas, concepts and references to the universe and to the
one ultimate reality -- that everything inter-is.
ENDNOTES
1 Although the books in the bibliography were
the particular sources used for this paper, the koans and stories
within actually appear in many, many collections of Zen teachings.
I particularly recommend Robert Aitken's The Gateless
Barrier and Paul Reps' Zen Flesh, Zen Bones. The first
is a collection of Zen koans first published by the Master Wu-men.
Aitken Roshi has translated the koans and Wu-men's comments,
and has added his own wonderful and enlightening commentary, giving
just enough information to make us wonder, but not giving away
the essence of Zen. The second book is a compilation of three
smaller books, 101 Zen Stories, another version of The
Gateless Gate, and a collection called 10 Bulls. The
Schiller book, The Little Zen Companion, is a small compilation
of stories, koans and sayings from Zen Masters of the past and
present, from East and West, without any commentary except for
a few explanations of terms and past Masters.
Back
2 Aitken Roshi in The Gateless Barrier,
page 100, has:
Tung-shan came to see Yün-men. Yün-men asked him,
"Where were you most recently?"
Tung-shan said, "At Ch'a-tu."
Yün-men said, "Where were you during the summer?"
Tung-shan said, "At Pao-tzu Monastery in Hu-nan."
Yün-men said, "When did you leave there?"
Tung-shan said, "August 25th."
Yün-men said, "I spare you sixty blows."
[Tung-shan does not understand where he was at fault.]
Why, if he was not punished, was he at fault? The answer
is that he was, in fact, punished. By not receiving blows, which
are experiential by nature, he was unable to reach satori,
or enlightenment. As will be seen later, that experience is at
the heart of Zen, which is why in many stories and koans one reaches
enlightenment after a traumatic experience such as a blow. Had
he been given the blows, he may (and probably would) have had
some sort of satori. He was not far enough along and wasn't
ready yet.
While I have your attention in these endnotes, I'd like to
relate another story from the forward by Paul Reps to his book,
Zen Flesh, Zen Bones:
The first Zen Patriarch, Bodhidharma, brought Zen to China
from India in the sixth century. According to his biography recorded
in the year 1004 by the Chinese teacher Dogen, after nine years
in China Bodhidharma wished to go home and gathered his disciples
about him to test their apperception.
Dofuku said: "In my opinion, truth is beyond affirmation
or negation, for this is the way it moves."
Bodhidharma replied: "You have my skin."
The nun Soji said: "In my view, it is like Ananda's
sight of the Buddha-land--seen once and forever."
Bodhidharma answered: "You have my flesh."
Doiku said: "The four elements of light, airiness, fluidity,
and solidity are empty [i.e. inclusive] and the five skandhas
are no-things. In my opinion, no-thing [i.e. spirit] is reality."
Bodhidharma commented: "You have my bones."
Finally, Eka bowed before the master--and remained silent.
Bodhidharma said: "You have my marrow."
Old Zen was so fresh it became treasured and remembered.
Here are fragments of its skin, flesh, bones, but not its marrow--never
found in words.
Indeed, Zen's marrow cannot be found in words.
Back
3 The Little Zen Companion has,
The Koan:
Perhaps no aspect of Zen is as puzzling and yet intriguing
to Westerners as the koan. Or as misunderstood. A koan is not
a riddle, nor is it a paradox designed to shock the mind. Instead
it is an integral part of a system honed over centuries to help
bring the student to a direct realization of ultimate reality.
Taken from the Japanese ko ("public") and
an ("proposition"), the koan can be a question,
an excerpt from the sutras, an episode in the life of an ancient
Master, a word exchanged in a mondo, or any other fragment of
teaching. There are some 1,700 traditional koans in existence.
A mondo is a dialogue about Buddhism or an existential
problem among Masters or between a Master and student.
Back
4 The question and the answers that follow appear
in most books on Buddhism, including those listed in the bibliography.
Back
5 Does anything really lead directly to anything
else in Zen? Well, yes, everything, in fact!
Back
6 "Seeming" because, upon closer inspection,
the paradox melts away and we are left with something which makes
perfect sense. As mentioned in note 3, they really aren't paradoxes
at all. The challenge of Zen is in seeing this.
Back
7 The Little Zen Companion has, "Roshi
-- a venerable teacher, whether a monk or layperson, woman or
man."
Back
8 Japanese for, "is that so?" In
The Gateless Barrier,
A young woman whose parents owned a food store lived near
Munan. Suddenly, without any warning, her parents discovered
she was with child. She would not confess who the man was, but
after much harassment at last named Munan.
In great anger the parents went to the master with the accusation.
"Is that so?" was all he would say.
After the child was born it was brought to Munan. By this
time he had lost his reputation, which did not trouble him, but
he took very good care of the child. He obtained milk from his
neighbors and everything else the little one needed.
A year later the young woman could stand it no longer. She
told her parents the truth -- that the real father of the child
was a young man who worked in the fish market.
The mother and father of the young woman at once went to
bring the child home. They apologized profusely to Munan and
asked his forgiveness.
Munan only said, "Is that so?"
Aitken Roshi tells us,
In Japanese, "Is that so?" is Ah, so des'ka?
It is not actually a question at all but the mildest kind of
temporizing [that is, complying with the occasion and yielding
to prevailing opinion]. It carries no defensiveness, or projection,
and is repeated on every possible occasion. Munan was temporizing.
"Let's see how this comes out," he might have been
thinking. "Meantime, here is a little mouth to feed."
He absorbed the responsibility, and if that involved blame from
others, well, that was their problem.
In the West we tend to use temporizing phrases as a stall
tactic, making others uncomfortable or suspicious. In the East,
the flavor of temporizing is much different. It is considered
respectful and polite to avoid aggression, confrontation and accusation.
One is not trying to contradict the other -- rather, one tries
to give the other a chance to explain, and accepts that explanation
instead of arguing.
It is an admirable quality to be able to accept what life
gives you without fighting it -- to be so at peace with the world
that whatever happens can be taken in stride. One shouldn't take
this too far, of course (justice must be served in the case of
wrongdoing), but we can certainly learn something from Munan's
example.
Back
9 That is, enlightenment.
Back
10 This, of course, ignores the idea of subjective
experience. Obviously both observers of the tree won't have exactly
the same experience of the tree. However, the second person
must have a more full understanding of the tree after experiencing
it, and can at least understand the first person's point of view,
even if the second person doesn't agree with it.
Back
11 The following information is taken from "The
Infinite Voyage" which aired on the Discovery Channel on
Wednesday, February 22, 1995.
Back
12 Which made it awfully difficult to write
this discourse!
Back
13 In fact, if you think you understand it now,
go back and read this paper again.
Back
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Aitken, Robert. The Gateless Barrier: the Wu-men Kuan.
San Francisco: The North Point Press, 1991.
Hanh, Thich Nhat. The Heart of Understanding. Berkeley:
Parallax Press, 1988.
Reps, Paul. Zen Flesh, Zen Bones. New York: Anchor
Books, 1989.
Schiller, David. The Little Zen Companion. New York:
Workman Publishing, 1994.
STEPPIN OUT...
http://http://www.religioustolerance.org/var_rel.htm
http://www.hapdosool.org/
http://www.aikidofaq.com/bilder/osensei/osensei81.jpg.html
http://mystykal4u.blogspot.com/2010/02/quest-for-truth.html
In a world where instant gratification is the norm - slow, methodical training is sometimes viewed as a waste of time. An inconvenience which can be bypassed with some quick-fix. But no substitutes can replace life experiences for teaching us how to live. Life happens while we are going about our daily chores, just passing the time. Before we know it, the gray hairs are showing and the wrinkles we can no longer hide.
So, in pursuing life - we must encounter wisdom. The WisdomKeepers of all the ages past - point us in the same direction. Knowing the way to all that is true is the key which unlocks the golden treasure. Life is always challenging us to step out. Stepping out of our comfort zone and realizing that we must choose those things which will make our life meaningful - even brilliant!
Life is about choices... So choose carefully.
http://www.hapdosool.org/
http://www.aikidofaq.com/bilder/osensei/osensei81.jpg.html
http://mystykal4u.blogspot.com/2010/02/quest-for-truth.html
In a world where instant gratification is the norm - slow, methodical training is sometimes viewed as a waste of time. An inconvenience which can be bypassed with some quick-fix. But no substitutes can replace life experiences for teaching us how to live. Life happens while we are going about our daily chores, just passing the time. Before we know it, the gray hairs are showing and the wrinkles we can no longer hide.
So, in pursuing life - we must encounter wisdom. The WisdomKeepers of all the ages past - point us in the same direction. Knowing the way to all that is true is the key which unlocks the golden treasure. Life is always challenging us to step out. Stepping out of our comfort zone and realizing that we must choose those things which will make our life meaningful - even brilliant!
Life is about choices... So choose carefully.
IF...
If you ask me…
“The wind blows where it wants and you hear the sound of it, but you know not where it comes from or where it goes…”
Somewhere in the deep recesses of the mind, the substance which makes faith a reality quietly waits. In a world where speculation and “anything goes” free thinking has been held up as intellectual science, and media pundits question the very fabric of what used to be considered sacred ground –
if you ask me, the fate of nations and the fate of all living things hang in the balance… The idea that all things are questionable and ultimately unknown, makes for some very interesting conclusions about life itself. Opinions about everything circulate through the air like the leaves of autumn falling to the ground; after a storm. Wisdom’s lore is lost on an age of personal enlightenment which in most instances has trumped all past belief systems. The ability to pontificate about the smallest insignificant data has become a high art form. What we once thought was untouchable has become fodder for the fires of cynics and theologians alike.
If you ask me – the light of truth no longer is reflected in the minds and hearts of societies leaders and socially acceptable belief systems. “Whatsoever things are true”… What once was thought of as true and right, no longer holds the same importance within the halls of higher education – be it private or public. Instead what we see is a modern day “textural criticism” which resembles the noodles in alphabet soup! Long gone is the notion that the truth is actually knowable. Long gone is the idea that rational people can have a faith which is built on solid, factual information. The world is awash in reality hysteria, while the floodwaters akin to the Great Deluge is drowning all attempts to bring the truth to the forefront of intellectual understanding. “Be still and know…” The simplest things in life can shed great light on our spiritual journey and life itself.
If you ask me – it all comes down to one irrefutable notion called love. When we stop to think about love – and we let go of all thoughts and all obstacles which we have placed in front of love – it is then and only then that life takes on a true sense of what it means to be alive. It is the path walked by all the past sages and masters in time. It is the one notion which brings all other ideas to the forefront. It is the wisdom which passes all understanding… “…And so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
“The wind blows where it wants and you hear the sound of it, but you know not where it comes from or where it goes…”
Somewhere in the deep recesses of the mind, the substance which makes faith a reality quietly waits. In a world where speculation and “anything goes” free thinking has been held up as intellectual science, and media pundits question the very fabric of what used to be considered sacred ground –
if you ask me, the fate of nations and the fate of all living things hang in the balance… The idea that all things are questionable and ultimately unknown, makes for some very interesting conclusions about life itself. Opinions about everything circulate through the air like the leaves of autumn falling to the ground; after a storm. Wisdom’s lore is lost on an age of personal enlightenment which in most instances has trumped all past belief systems. The ability to pontificate about the smallest insignificant data has become a high art form. What we once thought was untouchable has become fodder for the fires of cynics and theologians alike.
If you ask me – the light of truth no longer is reflected in the minds and hearts of societies leaders and socially acceptable belief systems. “Whatsoever things are true”… What once was thought of as true and right, no longer holds the same importance within the halls of higher education – be it private or public. Instead what we see is a modern day “textural criticism” which resembles the noodles in alphabet soup! Long gone is the notion that the truth is actually knowable. Long gone is the idea that rational people can have a faith which is built on solid, factual information. The world is awash in reality hysteria, while the floodwaters akin to the Great Deluge is drowning all attempts to bring the truth to the forefront of intellectual understanding. “Be still and know…” The simplest things in life can shed great light on our spiritual journey and life itself.
If you ask me – it all comes down to one irrefutable notion called love. When we stop to think about love – and we let go of all thoughts and all obstacles which we have placed in front of love – it is then and only then that life takes on a true sense of what it means to be alive. It is the path walked by all the past sages and masters in time. It is the one notion which brings all other ideas to the forefront. It is the wisdom which passes all understanding… “…And so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
BU SHI DO
Bushido - The art of self defense goes by many names. In western countries martial arts were introduced primarily through military interests after WW II. Much has been written and discussed about the Way of the martial arts. The misconceptions about Wu shu , Kungfu, Karate, Judo and other art forms such as Aikido and Tangsoodo have been exponentially expanded through the many movies which have been created from the Hollywood action movies depicting martial artists as folk heroes and villains alike. Now that many martial art styles, such as Tae Kwon Do have been made into official Olympic sports, we are left with even more political confusion about what constitutes Bushido. The fact that the true Masters of the Tao or Dao which was later shortened to just Do – the Way – are so illusive, allowing all kinds of misinformation to be commercialized about the different arts – lends itself to the fact that most of the true Masters of the Way of Peace – Bushido – no longer teach or train in public. Those that do, veil their wisdom in such a way as to be discredited by the commercialized enterprises being pawned of as “schools of self defense.” The True Way is far from the path of greed and self adulation. Less than a dozen of the once feared and respected “Master clan” teachers of The Way – Dao, are left. And sadly, their wisdom is leaving with them as they pass off the stage of life they once ruled. However, there are still a few teachers left from the “old school” which are willing to share their wisdom in their twilight years. My Master - Dojunim – is one of these national treasures. Here at the Dojo we are taking the lessons learned and making a new path which will follow in the footsteps of the Master. Mind, Body & Spirit. Welcome!
Monday, February 15, 2010
THE QUEST FOR TRUTH
And the winner is...
As we look beyond the world which we have experienced, and we begin to create a world from our hopes and dreams – an interesting thing begins to happen. Our perception of reality begins to change. Up until this moment, our focus has been all about day to day living and all those things which seem to fade so quickly and leave us feeling empty at our core. Now, as in times past, the answers to peace of mind are wrapped up in the quiet solitude found in silence. So simple a process and yet so overlooked by most. In the still water we can see the true reflection of the present reality. The meditative process also brings with it the quiet serenity which each life recognizes as the way to ultimate peace. Having compassion and knowing peace of mind have long been the quest of those in search of wisdom’s jewel. Here at the Dojo we use a style of guided meditation in a class setting to give you space and time to experience the richness of high quality living through the Sounds Of Silence. Sabunim has taught these guided meditation classes for more than twenty years to individuals of all ages. There is a CD which is FREE to anyone who attends the sessions. In this way you may practice the art of guided meditation while alone or with friends. …And the winner is YOU!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
