Dharma talk; June 4, 2023, Issan Sensei
Confirmation
"...you call it rain, but the human name doesn't mean shit to a tree."
-Jefferson Airplane, Eskimo Blue Day
Walking up the canyon today on the La Luz trail I was thinking about how a hike, bike ride, kayak trip, can create an alternate chemistry in my mind. The experience of nature is transformative. ("Nature will kill you!" -Werner Hertzog) It's always a humbling experience if one looks closely. It seems to stop the erroneous thought processes and it brings me back to a perspective that I sometimes can lose track of.
Dogen wrote, "That the self advances and confirms the ten thousand things is called delusion; that the ten thousand things advance and confirm the self is called enlightenment."
So often we become so self-analytical, so self-absorbed, such navel-gazing fools, so full of of Zen sickness; completely and mindlessly unaware of being engaged in our conceptual thinking that we fail to see how desperately we are "seeking" (something) while convincing ourselves that we are not seeking anything. The stories our minds tell about ourselves, about what we name and what we feel and see and desire and find repulsive melt away with the approach of a claret cactus flower and the heat driven scent of Spring sage and the trill of a canyon wren in the pristine sky. At that moment mind ceases advancing and "the ten thousand things" advance as tzu-jan, burgeoning forth of themselves, and confirm our being as "enlightened".
We all crave affirmation in one way or another. From within or from outside ourselves it seems to be common to most humans. We all ask the same questions about meaning in our lives. We all strive in so many self-deceiving guises to find IT. But there is something else, a mercurial thread that reaches us from deep space, from the smallest fractal geometric fleck, from our deep experiences with nature as-it-is, something that is primal, that needs no explanation or reasoning or validation. When we realize that, even for a moment, that is the experience of "the ten thousand things advancing", confirming.
We all need to be killed by nature. We need our discursive minds silenced, if only for a moment, so that all that seemed so important, so critical, all that ego-bolstering garbage can disappear for a moment and we can be approachable by what is.
This is why we practice zazen. Zazen alone is the practice. Nothing else needed. No need to stack tiles on our heads that will eventually fall off.
Zazen allows the ten thousand things the space to advance;
and that is...
~Deep peace, Issan
Noah's Poem
Heart beating
In this silent room
Wondering if it matters what I do
Tomorrow morning
Before the sunrise
What I do upon waking
Or if I just
Wait
For awakening to wake me
When the ferocity of the melting sun
Shakes me
SCHEDULE June 4-10
MONDAY, 6:30AM, ZAZEN AT TEA HOUSE, SCOTT OPENING
MONDAY, 7PM, DREAM KOAN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM Drag your body to the Zendo, or Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81182899201?pwd=UVU4MnJhMG1ZUGJaOHhaSndwQ2dYQT09
TUESDAY, 6:30AM, ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM, WITH ZENHO. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86265616603?pwd=WHZEQWNDQnZPS1VicDl6VVlEdmxFZz09
WEDNESDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM WITH ZENHO
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89605039197?pwd=VTVubW5pUnBCNFBqQjBieERvNDd5QT09
THURSDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE, DOKUSAN WITH ISSAN SENSEI
FRIDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN & SERVICE WITH ZENHO AT THE TEAHOUSE DOKUSAN WITH ZENHO SENSEI
Zenkai and Service Training is June 23-24. Please prioritize this event. It's a rare occasion for the sangha to be together. It is important for folks receiving Tokudo to attend this event. Friday 6-8 PM and Saturday 6:30AM-5PM. Dana encouraged.
Deep Peace & Great Love,
Issan & Zenho
THE DHARMA GATE OF GENUINE PRACTICE
"Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside awakens." ~CG Jung
C.G. Jung the father of (modern) dreamwork, categorized individual psychic propensities of one's experience of the world into four primary functions: Feeling, Intuition, Thinking and Sensate. The rational functions being thinking and feeling and the non-rational functions being intuition and sensate (one who perceives through the senses). According to Jung, everyone has a primary function supported by a secondary (and also by the lesser third and fourth) functions. The interpretation of what we call "feeling" is quite different from the perspective of each individual's primary function. Jung thought each one of these functions to be inherited as well as part of the collective unconscious.
My own personal Jungian typology is Feeling-Intuitive. My less pervasive functions are rational, logical, linear calculation. I am supported by the sensate function; My understanding of materials comes quite naturally without much effort, (metals, clay, wood, earth etc.), wet, dry, cool, hot - what stuff is made of. Interestingly enough, different geographic regions also correspond with one's typology. Here's a Jungian typology test if you're interested: https://www.123test.com/report/LRMU6HPLY8OXW0VRFU/
In our sangha we focus on exploring feelings. I believe that when we explore our feeling-space we are able engage the deep wisdom of our unconscious mind and experience the sensibilities of our own psyche as well as the collective unconscious. Much great art is made from this very place. It seems to me that from the feeling-space we experience the universe manifesting, and our participation in that.
We are asked in dokusan, in dream work, in koan practice; "How does that feel for you?, "What feelings came up for you around that...?". Initially, we might some feel tension and search our thinking mind for what we think the questioner may consider the "right response" in order to protect what we perceive as "ourselves", but in this case there is no right response. This question isn't approaching our thinking mind. Because we do not find ourselves being asked these questions frequently they may seem very complex and initially confusing to answer. This is why we practice engaging in the vocabulary of feeling, this is the place where the experience of being arises. The direct experience of the dharma.
Dogen reminds us to "Forget the self". But, if all we experience is the habitual thought formations that come up in our conscious mind as "self" then we do not clearly recognize or understand what needs to be "forgotten". The modal mental blocks (thoughts that relate to structure as opposed to substance), that arise first and speak to us loudest, seek to maintain a self-preservation narrative in its many forms; some necessary and many more destructive, banal and perverse that cause separation in our own psyche and move us away from any real intimacy with others. Some of these modal blocks we are familiar with, sometimes consciously and sometimes not. Unconscious energy is expended is very frequently expended in defense of the "I". This makes it difficult, sometimes impossible, to access the self-reflection of feeling. In order to "forget" this "self" and experience the clarity of the ten thousand things that continually approach us we have to somehow access a deeper wisdom. The dharma gate to this deeper wisdom is the unconscious material produced in dreams. The ombudsman of this dharma gate is our feelings. This is the practice of engaged dharma.
Certainly, we are not solely defined by typology, Jungian or otherwise. We are the myriad manifestations of the magical illusion of being, the synergistically arisng collective unconscious, the universe experiencing itself, and we are fortunate to have the curiosity to seek and become engaged with the depth and root of this experience we call living, and notwithstanding, meaning.
This is the entry point to what we seek: the primordial unchanging light, the central origin of all mandalas that embodies the vast ocean of wisdom and compassion that this practice makes available to us. Every place and all time is a dharma gate. When the buddha at the gate asks about your feelings search your whole heart, respond courageously and with great love and you will pass through the dharma gate of genuine practice.
Deep Peace and Great Love
~Issan & Zenho
SCHEDULE July 30-Aug 5
Issan will be out of town August 2 - August 16
MONDAY, 6:30AM, ZAZEN AT TEA HOUSE, KEKANSAN OPENING
MONDAY, 7PM, DREAM KOAN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM Drag your body to the Zendo, or Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81182899201?pwd=UVU4MnJhMG1ZUGJaOHhaSndwQ2dYQT09
TUESDAY, 6:30AM, ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM, WITH ZENHO. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86265616603?pwd=WHZEQWNDQnZPS1VicDl6VVlEdmxFZz09
WEDNESDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM WITH ZENHO
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89605039197?pwd=VTVubW5pUnBCNFBqQjBieERvNDd5QT09
FRIDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN & SERVICE WITH ZENHO AT THE TEAHOUSE DOKUSAN WITH ZENHO SENSEI
Poem from Zenho Sensei
Birds this morning
This morning
My heart filled with
An ache that feels like sadness
My eyes welling with tears
___
That blur my vision of the
Bird bath centered upon the sanded porch
Sparrows arrive,
3 then 4, quickly looking left-right-left
A solitary Grosbeak perches
Sparrows shifting away from its bulky aura
Left-right-left
Before dipping a head for a sip,
Water glass Mirror
Shatters in response
And heads twitch right-left-right
Anticipating another sip
Until until until
One is overcome
Jumping through the mirror
Into an cstatic wingdunksplash
And a second and a third
And then leftrightleft
The fourth an explosion
All bursting in unison through western air
At a change in shadow, or breeze
Unnoticed by me
___
Oh how I long
To soak my wings in that bath
Undisturbed by rightleftright
Unruffled by shadow and breeze
___
My heart aches
And my tears flow
AH HA
Transmission of the Light: Living Buddha Zen
Case 42
Kuan-Chih to Yuan-Kuan: The destined successor, background unknown, is functioning as attendant to the Living Buddha, carrying his ceremonial robe. As they stand together in the Dharma hall, the attendant opens for the master this venerable patchwork robe. The old sage turns and whispers,
“What is really going on beneath this robe?”
The successor deeply prepared for the transmission of light, remains poised in silence. Intensely the master continues to whisper,
“To study and practice the Buddha way without reaching what is beneath the robe, creates the greatest pain. Please, ask me the question.”
The successor repeats the sage’s words, “What is really going on beneath this robe?’
With almost no sound, the Zen master responds,
“Deep Intimacy!”
Immediately, successor awakens as living Buddha, places the ceremonial robe over the shoulders of the master, and performs three prostrations of gratitude, abundant tears soaking his own upper robe.
The master, “You have now greatly awakened. But can you express it?”
The successor, ”Yes!”
The master, “What is going on beneath this robe of transmission?”
The successor, “Deep intimacy!”
The master, “And even deeper intimacy!”
__________________________________________________________________________
The Great Opening of HeartMind. The Great Matter. The Great Death.
This is one of my favorite koan. This is the rendition by Lex Hixon. I’d like to make a couple of comments. “destined successor, background unknown,” Now, we all have a background, even if someone else doesn’t know what it is. We all have joys and traumas in our living. So too did Yuan-Kuan. Let me not take that away from him.
“What is really going on beneath this robe?” The successor deeply prepared for the transmission of light, remains poised in silence.” The translation presents a person who is prepared and poised, perhaps serene. I don’t feel this at all. When I embody this koan as Yuan-Kuan, I feel immense panic and vulnerability. I feel gobsmacked. All my preparation and I have no appreciation of what the master is asking me?! To what deep dark unexplored place am I being taken?
The successor, “Deep intimacy!” The master, “And even deeper intimacy!” Deeper and deeper and deeper. Endless cycles. Endless path. And deeper.
I had a dream last week: I am a sick neonate. The top of my skull has been removed. A man has placed a tube into one of the great veins overlaying my brain. Light is shing from above, and the man is feeding me through the tube. Feeding what will heal me. Feeding me what feels like love. What is beneath this skull? What level of intimacy lies beneath this bony armor? What level of intimacy lies within this pain? The light from above reminding me of the Yang symbol of the Dao.
And a second dream I’m walking with two dogs, one on a leash and Dobby (Dobby is my male dog, nearly all white, looks like Dobby the Free Elf) off leash. We are on the edge of a very steep volcano where it meets the shoreline of a huge lake/ocean. Someone is shouting at me “Be careful. You shouldn’t have Dobby off-leash!” Dobby stumbles and falls into the water. It takes him longer to resurface than I anticipated, and I’m getting a little worried. When he resurfaces, it is no longer Dobby but Girlie (a sweet female Pit bull dog of mine who is all black and died 8 years ago). I lean down to help pull her back up, and she wriggles away from me, disappears below the water. I’m fully clothed and wonder if I will be able to swim, and then go into the water when she doesn’t quickly surface. More and more fear is rising. I see her far below, disappearing into a cave like opening. Fear continuing to arise. I hope she will come back out. She comes back out, swims a couple of doggy paddle strokes while looking at me, and then turns back into the cave, and I can see her going into deeper and deeper caves. I swim down, my lungs exploding. I get to the cave opening, and am putting my hands in hoping that I will feel her and be able to pull her out. The pain in my lungs is excruciating and the panic overwhelming. I look towards the surface and then dive into the caves. All consuming pain and fear, and I take a breath, my lungs filling with water. I feel the water rushing into my lungs. And…. everything is ok. I surrender, realx. A blackness is rising from below, like the Yin side of the Dao symbol, although it is not a symbol, it is a palpable physical presence that rises and envelopes me and fills me and feels like….Love that I have never known. What intimacy lies in these depths? This Yin that feels feminine, and mysterious, and unknowable, and loving and supportive, and uncompromising, and wrathful… And as I sit with it, wave after wave arises, bringing new depths, each wave reflecting another moment of my fear on its surface, before washing that away and…the next wave.
It remains my opinion that openings, sometimes called Kensho, are a rather ordinary experience. An awareness that occurs frequently, often going unnoticed, and certainly, under-appreciated. Looking into the cream swirling in a cup of coffee. Watching the grasses blow like waves across an ocean. Watching a spider remake its damaged web. Kicking up from the cold depths of a pond and seeing the light shining through the surface. Looking into a baby’s (feline, canine, ursine, human…) face. Watching a storm roll over a mountaintop. Just now, hearing Tedeschi-Trucks ache “Midnight in Harlem.”
Or while sitting herenow, simply “going to sleep” for just a moment, dropping away the body and mind of self and other. What is there for you in that moment of “going to sleep?”
These moments of intimacy, appearing over and over. Sometimes for only a nanosecond.
And then…too quickly
Replaced by our thoughts and opinions: “I like this.” “I don’t like this.” “I like that but not that.” "I'm freaking scarfed to death." "I'm numbed out and I don't feel anything." And the immediacy of HeartMind experience is covered over by these habitual patterns, our habitual armor. All Zen teachings encourage us to give up thoughts and opinions.
Which is really tricky, because our brainminds are wired for thinking. How do we give up something that is natural for our brainmind. So maybe it is just the opinions that we should be wary of. I see opinions as thoughts become attachments. Concrete. Anchors. Anchoring us to what we’ve always done, the way we’ve always perceived, the way we’ve always reacted, the way we think we will be safe.
Our Zen stream encourages giving up our anchors.
Talk about painful! Open and vulnerable in this very moment? And the next? And the next? Whoa! Give me a break!
We had a wonderful Tokudo meeting yesterday morning. Thank you to all who were able to participate.
Some recent events had stirred up a great deal of energy within the Sangha. In the meeting, there was the opportunity for members to share. To share in the presence of this wave of energy. To share how or if this wave of energy is informing their perspective on Tokudo.
I then asked that we all sit for 5 minutes, holding and breathing and absorbing our most recent koan and/or dream-koan practice. If you, dear reader, have a similar practice, perhaps you will sit within your sacred practice for 5 minutes, before continuing this post.
I then asked members to share from this place of koan/dream-koan reality. Does it feel different to share from this place? Does the content of what we wish to share differ from our original round of sharing?
In most situations, our initial sharing is from those anchored armored places. We can’t help it. We have all experienced trauma(s) in our living. And…Our prevailing culture tells us that we are alone and need to deal with it on our own. The only way that we know is to create a persona, a fancy name for the anchor armor, that we hope so desperately will ensure our survival. It is too dangerous, scary, life-threatening to share from the vulnerability of…..a sick neonate with its brainmind exposed.
And thus comes the opportunity for practice. Practice within the supportive environment of a Sangha, to begin to share from these deeper places that are revealed to us through koan/dream-koan practice.
Koan practice is, in part, designed to be frustrating to our brainmind, our persona, our anchors. We can’t think our way through. We can’t opinion our way through. We are constantly faced with the vulnerability of “not-knowing.” Like Yuan-Kuan when gobsmacked by the sage.
Dreams always reveal the places hidden beneath our armor. The hidden places of feeling intimacy, nearly crushed out of existence by our anchors.
So I implore us, as individuals and as a Sangha, to fully embrace our plight. Our plight that becomes our greatest opportunity. At every moment. The opportunity to take the step back. To shine the light inward. Allowing the feeling intimacy of our koan/dream-koan practice to be our first sharing. Inviting the intimacy that comes from sharing what is hidden beneath the robes. In so doing, we encourage our Sangha friends to also share from these hidden places. Bodhisattva activity.
Deep intimacy. And even deeper intimacy. Never-ending cycles of opening HeartMind.
The Great Living
8 Deep Bows, Zenho
___________________________________________________________________________
Front windshield replacement
Cash is not cheaper
Cleaning products in air
When cars were still cars she
Says in the second hand store on St. Marks
Grandpa open heart surgery
Heart still closed
Hurt hurt with new love
No clarifying conversation this time
Mirror mirror
Woman sitting in corner of AC office
.
Hills in sunset
Dining room table filled with crumbs
Each note is a different color
He says
Noah Seltzer
_._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
I walk through galaxy
Dirt path embroidered with stars
All this beauty just for me
Noah Seltzer
________________________________________________
Standing on the razor thin ledge
The Holy Grail of the Lady of the Lake’s intimacy here
The skull splitting terror of Dante’s ninth circle here
Can I fall through Manjushri’s Life giving sword
Can I fall through Manjushri’s Death giving sword
I make no Charlatan Hero promises
AAAAAHHHH HHHHAAAAA
Zenho
BREAK ON THROUGH
“You know the day destroys the night
Night divides the day
Tried to run
Tried to hide
Break on through to the other side.” - Doors
Anger Ignorance Greed
The three poisons.
Aversion Indifference Attraction
Sujata Buddha Daiosho appears to have transmuted these human tendencies. She saw Shakymuni in great need, and responded directly, with action and her undefended heart. She asked for nothing in return. She did not interfere in the further inquiry that Shakymuni explored, leading to his profound enlightening experience.
We are told that Shakymuni’s further inquiry included the physical sustenance offered through Sujata’s feminine presence, Shikantaza meditation, and a series of dreams. Shikantaza as a practice is well-suited to accessing the absolute. Shikantaza is also a practice in which the feelings of the three poisons arise. And, it is very easy in the practice of meditation to slip into habitual thought patterns to allay our discomfiting feelings – sexual fantasies, soothing vacation memories, memories that justify our anger at past mistreatment, fantasies about righting wrongs, fantasies about material wealth, fantasies about being an enlightened person. And we must follow Dogen’s encouragement and study these. How? Dreams, in my opinion, are the best practice for meeting these defenses that array our body-mind-heart – the angers ignorances greeds that afflict us all.
“To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by the 10000 things. When actualized by the 10000 things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this no trace continues endlessly.” – Dogen Zenji
Last weeks Zazenkai, and subsequent Blog, brought towards the surface, shadow feelings – anger ignorance greed fear shame. Exploring these shadow feelings, is studying the Self. The Self referred to by Master Dogen is the persona that armors our hearts. And Dogen encourages us to forget the Self (I am not a Japanese language scholar; and I suspect that “forget” is an inadequate translation of Dogen’s intent).
I am feeling enlivened, my vulnerable body-mind-heart reveling in being actualized by your vulnerable body-mind-heart, in our mutual exploration. This is intense – gratifying – painful – joyful -actualizing -wthin me.
The angers ignorances greeds which afflict are consequence of accumulated traumas, our own trauma and our family generational trauma. Some traumas small, some HUGE. Re-experiencing these traumas is fear-filled. No! TERROR FILLED. Of course we don’t want to volunteer to re-experience these terror-filled inner realms. And yet that is exactly what we must be in order to live with an undefended heart.
I’d be surprised if you were not asking “Why? What is so important about this inquiry?” And “Why are dreams so important in this inquiry?”
This inquiry is not “so important.” It is essential, the embodiment of Buddha-being. Our Zen path is no-nonsense engagement with studying the self.
It is very clear that whatever the 10,000 things “are” is not what we “think” they are. Something that we call sensory signals enter into our bodies. We look up and suddenly see the morning star. An interaction occurs within chemicals within our retina. This engenders a wave of electrical signals that course through our brain. The electrical signals coalesce into something that we experience as, “the morning star.” Neuroscience quite clearly demonstrates that our past experiences embed within unconscious feeling states. Unconscious feeling states change the actual chemical composition of our retina. Unconscious feeling states alter the neuronal circuits that carry and organize the electrical signals in our brain-body, reenforcing some pathways and weakening other pathways. If we were visited repeatedly, or just once, at any age by a sexual predator, coming at us with a flashlight in the night, we will see “the morning star” through the lens of our prior trauma. We will literally not “see” what Shakymuni sees. What Shakymuni finally experienced was “seeing” through an undefended heart. We, understandably, experience and express defended body-mind-heart.
So why not sit in meditation and enter a “blissed out” state and ignore these feelings, these traumas.
Our body-mind-heart does not seem to be formed this way. Bessel Vander Kolk, an expert on PTSD, has written a book “The Body Keeps the Score.” We would say the body-mind-heart keeps the score. These feeling states remain embedded, embodied, influencing everything that we experience, until they are brought up and re-experienced and allowed to release.
Dream-koan practice offers us an opportunity to bring up and re-experience these stuck feeling states that armor our hearts. Dreaming by its very nature brings up the feeling states that are most important to us in this very moment of living. Koans, unapproachable by the thinking mind, invite us into an experience of our feelings within our relationship to the koan-teacher and the sensei-teacher. With Sangha Dream-Koan, we endeavor to create a community environment that is safe and supportive of our inquiry. No matter how safe and supportive the environment, this is perhaps the most challenging practice of our life.
And when we leave the safe and supporting structure of the Sangha, for most of us--------POOF. We lose our connection and probably aren’t even aware this has happened.
We held Zazenkai last week, which stimulated a great deal of feeling. The blog that I wrote stimulated a great deal of feeling. Reactions and projections occurred. GREAT! ! And I ask how you met yourself? Did you meet the feelings directly? Did you try to comfort yourself by seeking out the comforting words of other members of the Sangha. I can tell you that very few came directly to me. Even fewer came asking to go deeper. It is understandable. Yet we are told that Bodhidharma sat for nine years facing this wall, facing his resistance, For many years, I nodded numbly, incapable of fully absorbing the significance of this teaching.
I have recently been asked about engaging our recent Sangha Zazenkai experience through a format like Zen Peacemakers’ Council. I am not opposed to Council….AND…. Speaking and listening in Council is encouraged to be “from the heart.” My experience within most circles, is that most people share from the thinking mind what they want to be, or think they should be, as good Zen students, rather than sharing what is really going on. Speaking and listening from the thinking armor serves to reenforce the armor.
You may notice, that within Dream-Koan, we encourage the Zen Peacemaker practice of council. We ask members b to first embody a dream, inhabiting their feeling. We then ask for sharing from the feeling body-mind-heart space.
Dream-koan is one space where the deeper feelings are encouraged to emerge and embody. We also encourage Sangha members to use this Blog space to share from their deep places. It can be terrifying. It often is terrifying, until it is done and something new actualizes us, embodies us. A new dawning Morning star.
8 Deep Bows,
Zenho Sensei and Issan Sensei
________________________________________________________________________________________
I
Read Keats
And Yeats
And Blake
And Morrison T
And Lao-tzu
And Dogen
And Hughes
And Dickinson
Trying to force
Some virgin essence
Through dead eyes
Into growling belly
______________________
Left
To die
In searing sun
Wobbling now
In rushing
Mountain stream
Empty handed
Feet scraped
Red and numb
Screaming
Goddam
Fuck this
With and against
Howling wind
_______________________
Angrily pissing
Blood upstream
As fever dreams
Of third and
Fourth watch
Murmur
And crash
And slapsplash
Unendurable
Endess moment
And again
Terror
Lights flash
Beneath eucharist
Scented cassock
And again
And again
Until I am
Once again
Fiery cold
Purged water
Dawning drunk
-Zenho
August 20, 2023, Dharma Talk: Issan Sensei
The All-Pervasive Constant
Adrienne Lenker
Author, professor and dearest friend Matthew Cheney recently introduced me to what is now one of my favorite songs; "Change" by Big Thief. It talks about the dichotomies of desire we face, about the ceaseless movement of time and our choices.
"Change like the wind, like water, like skin... Would you live forever and never die? While everything around you passes? Would you smile forever and never cry? While everything you know passes?" It goes on: "Would you stare forever at the sun? Never watch the moon rising? Would you walk forever in the light? To never learn the secrets of a quiet night?"
And in between as a reminder, it holds this up: "Death like a door to a place we've never been before. Death like space, the deep sea, a suitcase."
Check it out. It's a haunting melody.
I've been away for a while, back "home" lately. To the Shire. Sparkling lakes, emerald-jeweled-green forests. Clean, so clean, white picked fences, perfectly manicured lawns, planters of blooming flowers on the porch of every white Cape. Each year that I go back it seems as though it becomes more difficult to experience that place as it actually is; it slips, misty with nostalgia, more into the postcard-memory of past experience and emotional-tonality of it than the of its reality. Maybe it's the nostalgia that aging creates that's creeping in? Reminded by Adrienne Lenker's poetry, I force myself to ask; would I stay forever in that memory and never change, to never see the subtle and vast movements of life around and within me? Would I paint those memories with only the secure, known, rose colors of imagined memory and not bring up the sharpness and darkness as well? If I do I miss the secrets, the hidden gifts of the-rest-of- it, the thing we call the-other-side-of-the-coin. Doing so would diminish the gifts of understanding, insight, feelings and my experience of having lived in it. Isn't this the way with everything; relationships, jobs, places we live, dreams we have, practices we engage in? In a way, this question begs for our clarity.
Some Tibetan Buddhists teach their children from their earliest years to recite this daily; "It is my nature to grow old. It is my nature to become sick. It is my nature to be separated from those I love. It is my nature to die." In our diseased Western culture of plastic-fantastic-forever that won't fly. But these as these children grow with this knowledge, as time passes, they accept these changes without self-centered anger, grief or surprise. Change is the reality of All. Everything else is just our filtered memory, nothing more.
Can we embrace change as the constant? As the only real energy that there is? What, if anything, is not brought by change? Can we feel its flowing through us as blood, as water, as breath, as wind and as moonlight, as darkness, as a suitcase, as decay without wishing for otherwise? This isn't a question of the metaphysical existence or non-existence of time. This is here, now, as it actually is happening to you.
Perhaps the crucial question we ought to ask ourselves is;
"What will you give up in order to hold on to what you know already?"
This is only the first question.
What's the next one?
Deep peace & great love,
Issan
& Zenho
Dharma talk, Aug. 13, 2023, Zenho Sensei
DESIRE
Case 88 Blue Cliff Record
A monk asked Joshu, “Does a newborn baby possess the six senses or not?” Joshu said “It is like throwing a ball into the rapids.” The monk later asked Tosu, “What is the meaning of ‘throwing a ball into the rapids?’ “ Tosu said, “Nen after nen, without ceasing.” (one translation)
Amonk asked Joshu, “Does a newborn infant have the six functions or not?” Joshu said “Throwing a ball on the swift current.” The monk asked also Tosu, “What does ‘throwing a ball on the swift current mean?’ “ Tosu said, “Every consciousness flows without ceasing.” (another translation)
What does this have to do with desire?
__
The second of the 4 Bodhisattva vows goes
Desires are inexhaustible, I vow…
What do you continue the vow with?
There have been a number of renditions of this vow.
What resonates within you?
__
What is going on within and beneath this koan?
What is throwing the ball upon the stream?
Where did the stream arise?
What is special about a newborn baby? Why not ask “Does an elephant or a dog or a tree or a dying elder have the six senses and functions?”
How does the baby ball feel when it is thrown in the air?
How does the baby ball feel when it lands in the stream?
How does the stream feel when the baby ball lands upon its surface?
There are apparently three characters in the koan: that which is throwing, the ball, and the stream. Looking more deeply, is there a fourth?: Is the monk/me/you bringing our senses, functions, judgments into the play?
How do I feel asking these questions?
How do I/you feel right now?
What do I/you need right now?
What do I/you desire right now?
Perhaps if I/you feel safe enough right now, we will be able to explore these questions, play with them.
Are you feeling a desire to “answer” these questions. That is an interesting point of view. We all have interesting points of view.
As the stream is constantly flowing, changing, the ball, which is now part of the stream, is constantly changing. This too is an interesting point of view. I have this point of view. How will I “answer” now?
I had a vision this past week. In the vision, I was laughing joyously and a voice said “Emerging from the oneness, pretending that we are two is joyous play.”
Joshu, Tosu, monk, ball, stream, me, you pretending that we are two. Joyous play. In a stream beyond right and wrong…
I prefer: Desires are inexhaustible, I vow to explore them
Interesting point of view?
Joyous play
Dharma Talk, Aug. 6, 2023, Zenho Sensei
Three Treasures of a Zen Peacemaker
Recognizing my place in the Circle of Life, I take refuge in:
Buddha, the oneness of life
Dharma, the diversity of life
Sangha, the interdependence of Buddha and Dharma
Three Tenets of a Zen Peacemaker
Taking refuge in The Three Treasures, I vow to live a life of:
Not-Knowing, by giving up fixed ideas about ourselves and the universe
Bearing Witness to the joy and suffering of the world
Taking Action that arises from Not-Knowing and Bearing Witness
I have internalized the Three Tenets as:
Not-Knowing/Not “No”ing
Bearing Witness/Baring (my delusions) Witnessing (the fullness of life that I swim within)
Taking Action/Receiving Action…
When life comes to grab us, it has already grabbed us. Saying yes when already grabbed can become a practice in itself. It is certainly better practice than “No”ing. Totally letting go of these fixed ideas, both “Yes”ing and “No”ing let go totally. Letting go totally is the umbilical cord of “yes”ing and “no”ing. Allowing the being of time more space to rush in and grab us.
Within realization, there is practice. Within practice, there is realization. The expansive light shines with ever-present darkness. The bottomless darkness emerges only with the light. How can this be?
Within clarity, there is delusion. Within delusion there is clarity. Holding onto clarity while giving up delusion is a fools errand. Giving up clarity and delusion, this fool drinks from an ever flowing stream. The stream flows without beginning or end. This fool drinks without beginning or end, each sip and gulp brand new, even if it tastes the same. If it tastes like montains and clouds, it is not yet mountains and clouds. Mountains and clouds tasting us becomes the fool flowing against the stream. The stream flowing with and against this fool is practice and realization. Do not think that stream is talking about water. Nor is it a sandy arroyo, exhibiting the tracks of deer and monks and coyotes and wind. Even though all of this appears without ending, this appearing neither captures nor ignores clarity and delusion.
What is arising for you now? Pay careful attention please. Honor and cherish and investigate your arising please. Attention and honoring and cherishing and investigating nourishes us all.
While clarity and delusion are equally the stream, all Buddhas (Sangha) practice to allow the blossoming of clarity. Is there a path between clarity and delusion? Between delusion and clarity? A bridge between ordinary waking consciousness and the dharma gate of dream consciousness?
In the process of integrating Zen consciousness with dream consciousness, I explored hundreds of techniques within meditatation to integrate dream consciousness “homework” with Shikantaza. Most were disappointments. The practice that helped me the most involved sitting, becoming aware of thinking, saying the mantra “Om Ah Hung Vajra Guru Padma Siddhi Hung,” then touching upon the dream homework while landing within Shikantaza. This does not work for everyone.
And I am aware that it is more or less difficult for each of us to move from ordinary waking consciousness into the very different embrace of dream consciousness. So I am constantly open to other techniques/tools that may be more beneficial to facilitate this shifting in consciousness. Other practices that may allow me to sense in the moment of thusness when I am “yes”ing and “no”ing. I feel that I have been introduced to, gifted with, a new (to me) practice that feels very important. A practice that I am just beginning to explore. It enlivens me. In the spirit of no ”No”ing, I am diving in. I am not ready to share or integrate this within dream koan practice. Others are much more skillful with this practice than I. And better guides in this practice. I will keep you posted.
What speaks to you as practice that helps in your wholeness that is Zen? That helps you in shifting as life grabs once again. After all, every Tenzo cooks rice in a different pot.
8 Deep Bows, Zenho (author) and Issan
__________________________________________________________________________________
Noah's offering
_
Today I went in search of
The Beautiful World
I asked some birds on a tree
They flew North and I followed
Until they went to a creaking house over a locked fence
So I continued on
Angry
Still angry
For where is
The Beautiful World?
I thought to myself
And spoke to the still-hot day
I went home and wandered into one room and
Asked a drawing on a wall and
Asked a statue of a woman facing the sky
Where is
The Beautiful World? I asked and asked
I looked in the kitchen
Out the window at the clouds
Squinted at the sunlit mountain
Ate a plum
Looked at the pit
I searched and sought but did not find
The Beautiful World
Hidden within this space and time
Dharma Talk 8/27/2023 by Issan Sensei
Nothing To Learn
Enso tile, ceramic, 2023, David Ernster
"All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the One Mind, beside which nothing exists. This Mind, which is without beginning, is unborn and indestructible. The One Mind alone is the Buddha, and there is no distinction between the Buddha and sentient beings, but that sentient beings are attached to forms and so seek Buddhahood. They do not know that if they put a stop to conceptual thought and forget their anxiety, the Buddha will appear before them, for this Mind is the Buddha and Buddha is all living beings."
Much of Zen practice is thought to be reliant on a teacher, however the teacher has no-thing to teach and the student no-thing to learn. Having no-thing to learn doesn't require any special training in Zen, but only those who have awakened to their original nature can learn nothing.
When my teacher asked me, "Who is sitting on the zafu?" I was confused and I tried to think up a clever answer and came up empty. I babbled some pseudo-spiritual Zen crap in an effort to come up with an answer that I thought might demonstrate my position on the path to enlightenment. He smiled kindly at me and gently shook his head and instructed me; "Go sit on your zafu and find out."
Through many hours on the zafu I contemplated his question. I thought maybe its "No-one", "the Buddha", "the universe manifesting as me", "just me", and loads of other thoughts, just mental constructs. The harder I tried, the more I felt it slip away in confusion. "Dogen!", I thought, "he'll surely have the answer to this one!" I read The Treasury of the True Dharma Eye. Took a long time! The more I tried to learn the less I understood. I searched in the sutras, Tibetan tantras, koans and biographies of the Great-Enlightened-Ones. Came up with lots of very intelligent, clever and perhaps "true" answers. Unfortunately, they were not the answers that belonged to the questioner called Issan. So remarkable it seems to me now, how clearly Roshi Jitsudo pierced my mind and revealed to me the erroneous thought process I was going through to find the answer to his question.
In attempting to answer the question there was hope of trying to "improve". Progress farther up the path. Make a better realization, a more clear, Buddha-like understanding of "it all". A goal-oriented mindset. The problem with this approach, is of course, that there is "no-thing" to improve and there is "no-thing" that needs to be improved upon. It's never been a matter of "becoming". It's only a matter of realizing that our original nature is nothing other than our own breath, not separate from Huangbo's "One Mind". It's simply a matter of being.
After years of sitting zazen, through many doubts and many kensho, it's become clear to me not to seek the path to enlightenment in books, sutras, tantras, and not even in a teacher, because it is not found there, though these things can be helpful pointers. In fact, it's not found in seeking. It's not found as an answer at all. It's much more natural than that, more at ease, so much more readily present. Available to you , right now.
Dropping away seeking,
dropping away enlightenment,
dropping away hope and doubt,
dropping away dropping away,
that's where I found the question in Roshi's question.
"I do not say that there is no Zen, but there is no Zen teacher" ~Huangbo
Deep Peace & Great Love, ~Issan (a) & Zenho
Noah's poem
Sun still melting
The drip drip tick tick of
Late Summer
What is left when there is nothing left?
What is contained within the synchronistic song of these
Nats above my face.
What is a bee that lives its entire life without
A single sting?
And what is a summer without the nectar of the salted sea
Or the one perfectly ripe nectarine?
What if the flavor of this moment was richer than the
Thick batter of nostalgia?
The present always slipping itself into oblivion before my eyes
The drip drip tick tick of
Late Summer
The cheer of the childrens’ delight
Changes
Like the pitch of a passing siren--
Heart to Feel, Heart Songs
Dharma Talk: Madison Sokukai McClintock, Sept. 18, 2023
Expedition Field Report - September 14, 2023:
We are in our thirty hour transit to Bikini Atoll after a remarkable time at the most remote atoll in the Marshall Islands - Bokak Atoll. Bokak is uninhabited. And hundreds of miles from the closest inhabited island. It is not on route anywhere humans go. Bokak had a team of marine scientists, who've dedicated their lives to ocean conservation and exploration, in complete awe at its vitality. A place seething with life and abundance. Thousands of reef sharks - blacktips, silver tips, greys. Harems of the critically endangered Napoleon Wrasse - an eight foot long fish that lives six decades. Aggregation of spawning humphead parrotfish. Underwater fields of psychedelically-colored giant clams dazzling the lagoon. Islands full of nesting seabirds - I couldn't walk a foot without nearly stepping on a sooty tern ground nest with a speckled egg. Full spectrum soundscape of calls and guano spackled coral. A landscape built for and by birds...
What does it mean to witness and feel this wildness? Hope doesn't quite cut it. Chögyam Trungpa writes in Crazy Wisdom about what he calls total sanity or the dharmakaya mind: "the complete and total openness that makes us able to transcend hope and fear." Snorkeling the reefs at Bokak - the quiet space of face in the water exploring - is dharmakaya space. All encompassing - curious fish and sharks, otherworldly coral, the surface water flowing over shallow reefs, schools of rabbit fish circling me as I become a fleeting point of reference for them. It is a totality of experience being a part of a pristine underwater landscape. Witnessing nature be nature.
Next up is Bikini Atoll. Between 1946 and 1958, the United States detonated 23 nuclear devices at Bikini, including 20 hydrogen bombs. Residual radioactivity remains today and renders the atoll uninhabitable. The Pristine Seas scientists are recreating ecological surveys, previously declassified papers, that were done before the nuclear tests 70 years ago. By walking, snorkeling and diving the same transects, they will be able to directly compare the environment before and after the tests and assess its recovery. The nuclear legacy at Bikini weighs heavy in the hearts of land and sea and also in those of Bikinians that remain displaced from their land to this day. Present in the underwater craters created by the bomb tests and the fine talcum powder sediment at the bottom of it that life cannot take form in, in the lack of human inhabitants, in the radioactive coconuts and crabs. Is it possible to be in that dharmakaya-mind expanse in one of the most human-impacted environments on earth? Yet, rendered a ghost town from the unseeable danger of radioactivity, nature has been left to its own devices here at Bikini for several decades. An opportunity to rebound uninhibited. Let's see what allowing nature to be nature produces...
Photos:
Sharks at Bokak Atoll
Giant Clams at Bokak Atoll
Channel at Bokak Atoll
Castle Bravo Crater Bikini
Dharma Talk: Issan Sensei Sept. 10, 2023
YOUR OWN MIND
One of the aspects of Zen that attracts me is that it does not require a disposition to believe too readily in something. It's quite the opposite, in fact. There is no requirement to believe in a God or deity that needs to be supplicated or worshiped, no dogma that needs to be adhered to and no predetermined outcomes in an afterlife that requires faith. Just sit, eventually, face to face with your heart-mind and with reality, realization happens without any of it.
This practice that we refer to as Zen can easily be mistaken for awakening, but it's just a path, not the actual thing. Being predisposed to seek a peak experience we can deify methods, sutras, icons, teachers, gurus, accessories and mistakenly see those things as the way. Actually there is no Way, just the ceaseless burgeoning forth of things as they are. If we are constantly looking for something that "resonates with me" we are seeking an answer that we hope may ease our dukkha . When we find this "answer" we become disenchanted with it because what we've found is something that we believed in, rather than what is. We should not pretend that believing is knowing. Believing may temporarily fill an existential hollowness in us, but knowing is not the result of finding, it is the result of seeking, questioning everything.
There is no protection or hiding place in a practice or a path. We are prone to wishful thinking, especially those of us who feel that there is something more in this life. This hope is natural but creates lack of clarity. Instead of living with a resolve to directly experience our own be-ing despite our fears of what we might find, we seek an answer, a refuge from the chaos of living and a place of repose. Often times we perceive this answer to be manifest by engaging in something that we hope will provide the answer, albeit our own unconscious desires. The fact is; it is necessary for each person to experience deep questioning and draw whatever they may from that. Grasping for an answer, in itself is natural, but it takes great doubt, great courage to recognize this propensity and resolve and overcome it.
Hui Neng overheard these words: "Depending on no thing, you must find your own mind."
Hui Neng's clarity came from not in the finding his own mind but in the looking for it, without dependence on any thing. This "without dependence on any thing" seems to indicate he did not look to doctrine, gurus, teachers, Gods, paths, no ideas of enlightenment or expectations of divine intervention by something or someone outside his own mind. He remained vigilant within. I think of the sword of Manjusri. I imagine it took immense courage to let go of reliance on the wisdom of others, or on something thought of as the Way.
In Case 23 of the Gateless Gate, an elder monk who was the heir-apparent of the monastery wrote: "The body is the Bodhi tree. Holding heart-bond like a mirror bright. Never cease to polish it. And never let the dust alight."
Hui Neng, who thought of as a barbarian working in the kitchen, when responding to this wrote: "The mind of Bodhi has no tree. There's no stand for a bright mirror. Buddha-nature is ever self-clearing. So where could dust alight?"
Pretty clean slate I'd say. Just Hui Neng's native intuition. No path, no wisdom, no gain...
Native intuition, cognitive awareness. This type of understanding actually gives us a clean shot at just be-ing. That is really all there is. Ups and downs, joy and anger, ecstasy and terror. Just be-ing. Actually experiencing life as it is, without the protection of a belief. This, it seems to me, is the essential point. Every practice, teacher, master, method, sutras that I have encountered all make this same point ultimately.
There is no acquisition, just recognition.
So how are we to view Hui Neng's words? I'd say like the finger pointing to the moon. Not the moon.
It's up to you alone. Will you release your ideas about the path, the teaching, the posturing, the comfort-seeking-thinking, the striving and just be? It's a process of realization, not discovery. And you know it, it's already there. Just be-ing, depending on no-thing.
Layman Pang approached a teacher and asked to be shown his true nature. The teacher remained silent a long time. Tired of waiting, Pang got up and walked toward the door. Just as he got to the door the teacher called out; "Oh, Layman Pang." "Yes?", replied Pang. "That's it", said the teacher.
Deep Peace & Great Love, Issan (a) & Zenho
Dharma Talk: Zenho Sensei, Sept. 3, 2023
EYES TO HEAR
EARS TO SEE
HEART TO FEEL
Yeshe Tsogyel
I am going to Nepal in October. How many of us are familiar with the story of Padmasambhava. He is considered by Tibetans to have brought Buddhism to Tibet in about the 8th century CE. This is interesting as it is also accepted that he was a disciple of Ananda, the 3rd male ancestor in our patriarchal Zen lineage. So we are also in Padmasambhava’s lineage. For more on Padmasambhava, I encourage you to read Crazy Wisdom, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s exhortation. Padmasambhava is said to have appeared as an about 8 year old, born from a lotus flower. If you doubt this, you may wish to re-read our Buddhist Sutra’s?
Now how many of us are familiar with Yeshe Tsogyal, the Lady of Karchn. She was born into a royal family. The plan was to marry her in an arranged marriage, which she resisted. She wandered in the mountains for some time, practicing from her heart. She was eventually captured, and married to Trisong Detsen, the Emperor of Tibet. When Padmasambhava came to Tibet, his first foremost “student” was Yeshe Tsogyal. Through Yeshe Tsogyal, Tritong Detsen became a Buddhist practioner and promoted the conversion of Tibet from Bon to Bon-Buddhist.
Yeshe Tsogyal deserves our full consideration. While little is recorded of Sujata Buddha Daiosho after her transmission to Shakymuni, much more is recorded about Yeshes Tsogyal. It is reported that Yeshe Tsogyal was one of Pamasambhava’s five female consorts. I ask you what associations arise for you with the word “consort?’ Take a moment. Or 5…..The etymology of consort (n.) is partner in the full sense, and consort (v.) to unite. Yeshe Twsogyal and Padmasambhava were partners, united in creationship. Their creationship celebrates that we are equally in partnership with them….If we choose to be….
Now comes a difficult part. It is clear that the Tibetan lineages, while having a hagiography dedicated to Yeshes Tosgyal, in practice became a patriarchy, alongside the patriarchies of Chan/Zen. What was going on within the hearts of those practitioners? What is going on within our hearts just now? I ask you to take a moment and feel into what is coming up for you? Joy, anger, doubt, resistance,…what?
As you know, we have included the icon of Sujata upon our altar. We have included Sujata within our written service. We are working to create an interpenetrating matriarchal-patriarchal-nowinclusive lineage chart.
These outward practices are relatively easy. Easy to begin. Easy to give formal service to.
And there are deeper practices. Much deeper. That involve our hearts, shin-shin.
Is it lost upon any of us that even our own Sangha is predominantly male.
What stories, what interesting points of view are coming up for you now…
Sentient beings have the mistaken notion that Buddhas “know” everything that ever has happened or ever will happen. A Buddha that “knows” that is a concrete statue in your garden. Living Buddhas embody the Zen Peacemaker precepts: Not knowing/Not “noing”; Bearing witness/Baring and Witnessing; Taking appropriate Action/Giving and Receiving. Ahhhh Receiving. The awakened mind, the awakened heart never “knows” what is next. The awakened mind and heart receive what is next. Karma is propensity, not destiny. Making choice beyond choosing is the Buddha way.
Yeshe Tsogyal and Padmasambhava began coming to me in dream consciousness some years ago. I speak of them now from my own experience.
When Yeshe Tsogyal and Padmasambhava meet, they embody possibility within creationship. Do you wish to re-create the myth of Padmasambhava teacher instructing Yeshe Tsogyal student. This is not my experience. Their meeting is kindred spirit meeting and greeting kindred spirit, birthing something new and alive. They do this, even now, in creationship. They do this, aware that they are unable to control the projections upon their creationship, the stories people will tell. And thus, Tibetan nuns sit in the back of the room.
To meet Yeshe Tsogyal and Padmasambhava in the nakedness of their creationship, asks for vulnerability that is most intense. Dipping a toe into this vulnerability is courageous, and invites reaction. Our usual patterns are disturbed, and ego reactions are common. And this reaction, when held gently in “interesting point of view,” can lead to greater vulnerability – dipping a leg in. And on. And on. And… How are you feeling now?
I have recently met a woman, a female wisdom being. We have been invited into, and have accepted, the path of creationship. Meetings between wisdom beings cannot be controlled. Buddha mind and Bodhichitta will emerge as it must. As part of creationship, I have asked her to join me in the Zendo, as equals as partners, embodying and “guiding” Dream-Koan.
I am aware that there is a great deal of fear, confusion, anger, and greed arising within the Sangha in parallel with this new embodiment. I see this reflected in Dreams that are emerging, and in Dokusan conversations. This “chaos” is welcome by me. How are you feeling about this now?
The fear, confusion, anger, and greed is both personal and collective.
As personal energy, it is to be cherished and explored. “Ah, this is actually how I behave.” This is how buddha is really appearing, not how I think I should be. Now seen, I can begin to explore the underlying feelings that have unconsciously driven myreactions. This is to be celebrated. It is grist for the mill, composted into the reality of a fully integrated life.
And there is the collective level. For reasons related to the traumas/Traumas of everyones everyday life, we are immersed in a collective mindset that fears vulnerability, that is confused by vulnerability, that is angered by vulnerability, that is greedy to expunge vulnerability. We, both men and women, choose “power over” rather than vulnerability.
My exploration revealed, in dream consciousness and then brought into waking consciousness, that there is a movement from the blissful non-duality of Dharmakaya into the apparent separation of Nirmanakaya. In my newborn vulnerability, I was quickly exposed to traumas. And it became quickly unconsciously embedded that my mother, as the one closest to me, was responsible for those traumas. Not wanting to irritate my personal mother, for fear that this would encourage more trauma, It could then become easy to transfer that blame onto feminine energy in general. This is my interesting point of view. And may not be your interesting point of view.
And, I ask how this has manifested in me in my spiritual practices? When we get together as a Sangha. Since we have all experienced some degree of trauma separation following birth, are we carrying a collective anger against the feminine? How do you feel with this right now?
This is then reflected in our patriarchal spiritual institutions. Better never to be vulnerable than experience those traumas again. Vulnerability is essential within creationship, whether creationship in a one-with-one partnership, or creationship on the level of a Sangha. The root source of Patriarchy will never be exposed and alchemized without stepping onto this path of vulnerability. And so, I am exploring my own reactions. Day by day.
Without judgement or expectation, the journey is entirely up to each one of us.
8 Deep Bows,
Zenho