Whitebelt Zen

Purpose

2011-09-14T06:18:00.001-07:00

The role of wanting to know the purpose of things could be a means of evolutionary success. To find the purpose of something is to find how I am connected to it, how it can affect me (friend or foe). But seeking purpose is an empty question (full of 'mu'). Things are, simply because they are. I am here because conditions were such that I arose. This is true for both I's. The physical me, and the psychological me. I am driven to feel or do according to my physical (including genetic) and environmental (including sociological) make up. But 'driven to' is not doing. In the infinite open space of now, I can put my foot where I want it to fall.

I have no purpose, but I guide my feet.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Evolutionary Psychology

2011-09-03T09:04:00.001-07:00

I finally found a term that best express my view of what the philosophy of Buddhism (i.e., vs. the religion of Buddhism) has to teach --- Evolutionary Psychology.

As I struggled with in my post on "Subconscious Karmic Oxen", I believe what has been expressed by ancient Buddhists as "karma" is essentially the same as the Evolutionary Psychologists ideas about biologically definable brain module that mostly drive behavior and that the experience we have consciously is largely *not* the ox on which we are tied and which guides our real experience.

"Nirvana" is often expressed as the end of Karma, or breaking free of it. I think this means ancient (and perhaps a few modern) Buddhists describe with the word "enlightenment." They have come to understand that the mind works in a typical way in most people. A typical way that is mostly influenced by their karma, which is manly hard-wired biological circuits, and some new training from sociological influences in their lives. However, with practice (i.e, essentially working to train your neurological circuits to have new connections) in the form of Zazen and other Buddhist practices, one can come to first "see" the mind, and then develop the skill to experience neurological inputs (i.e., live) more directly (here & now). There must be, I think, a neurological tipping point, when the new pathways become consciously accessible, or a habit, and the even of the tipping is what's known as "enlightenment."

Here are the core ideas from EP as expressed in Wikipedia;

1.) The brain is an information processing device, and it produces behavior in response to external and internal inputs.
2. The brain's adaptive mechanisms were shaped by natural and sexual selection.
3.) Different neural mechanisms are specialized for solving adaptive problems in humanity's evolutionary past.
4.) The brain has evolved specialized neural mechanisms that were designed for solving problems that recurred over deep evolutionary time, giving modern humans Stone age minds.
5.) Most contents and processes of the brain are unconscious; and most mental problems that seem easy to solve are actually extremely difficult problems that are solved unconsciously by complicated neural mechanisms.
6.) Human psychology consists of many specialized mechanisms, each sensitive to different classes of information or inputs. These mechanisms combine to produce manifest behavior.

Ox tale soup

2011-08-15T21:55:00.001-07:00

The ox keeps getting pulled back by it's tail every time in crawls through the window. What is the deal?

Chodai Kesa no Ge in detail... Part 2 of 3

2011-06-21T20:43:00.000-07:00

At a post in January I laid out the first part of my detailed examination of Cho Dai Kesa no Ge. Here is part two. I have re-iterated the pronunciation guide and the reference legend.

Note in the following, the pronunciation guide is based on the chanting style of Nishijima Roshi as heard in this YouTube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xYiXETKajU)

大　哉　解　脱　服
dai・sai・geda---fuku
無　相　福　田　衣
musou・fukuden・[y]e
披　奉　如　來　教
hibu・nyorai-kyou
廣　度　諸　衆　生
koudo・shoshu-jou

================
Key to some notations.
N = Nelson’s Japanese English Character Dictionary - On reading (Chinese) is in all caps - Kun reading (Japanese sound assigned to character) is in lowercase italics.
Breen = http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1C
Breen:B = Buddhist Dictionary
Breen:G: = General Dictionary
M = http://www.mandarintools.com/worddict.html
Bc = http://www.buddhism-dict.net/dealt/search-dealt3.html (the CKJV branch)
Bd = http://www.buddhism-dict.net/ddb/ (the DDB branch – Digital Dicitonary of Buddhism).
T = http://tangorin.com/
➸ comments in red, following arrows, are my observations
================

披	N 2116 → HI. Open ❧ Breen:B → Spread open ➸ also from Breen:B "披剃 (ひてい)" - donning the robe and shaving the head ❧ Bd → Basic Meaning- spread open; Senses- ·To unroll, thrown on (as a cloak). 披 is to wear the garment over both shoulders; 袒 is to throw it over one shoulder. ❧ Bc → To open up, disclose, reveal, unroll [開, 解, 發]. ·To spread out, scatter. ·To wrap; to throw on--as a garment. ·To divide up [分]. ·A rope for pulling a coffin. ❧ ➸ From compounds given in T, 披 can understood and a sort of public declaration or coming out. An opening or declaration that is not a secret, but rather displayed perhaps not so much from pride but for accountability and support as is the case of a wedding ceremony. For example: hireki 【披歴・披瀝】express one's opinion; making known; revealing; stating - hirō 【披露】announcement; show; display; introduction - hikō 【披講】introduction of poems at a poetry party.
奉	N 1149 → BU. follow, believe in, serve ❧ Breen:B → receive with both hands ❧ T→ observance; offer; present; dedicate ❧
如	N 1178 → NYO. like, such as ❧ T→ tathata (the ultimate nature of all things) —Buddhist terminology.
來戒	N 173→2565 → RAI. come, arrive, be due to ❧ ➸ The alternate 戒 does not appear in T except as "kai"
教戒行	N 2345 → KYOU. Faith ➸ the kun reading means ‘teach’, ‘lesson’ per Nelson ❧ T→ teach; faith; doctrine ❧ ➸ 教 appears to be used in Japanese traditions (i.e. by Nishijima, Suzuki, Kobun) ALTERNATES ➸ 戒 is alternate character often seen in Chinese renditions. N 2027 → commandment, admonition ➸ 行 is alternate character often seen in Taiwanese renditions. N 5419 → KOU. Journey. Bd → 行 Basic Meaning- to practice. Senses: To undertake; conduct, practice; accomplishing, practicing; a path. Religious acts, deeds, or exercises aimed at taking one closer to the final goal of enlightenment. ❧
如來 - nyo rai ➸ is a common kanji pair that means Tathagata in Chinese. Breen:B→ Thus come ❧ ➸ harkens to the "thus come one". 如來教-nyo rai kyou Breen:B→ teaching of the tathagata. ➸ I wonder if this should be taken as faith in the Tathagata or faith of the Tathagata. I prefer the latter, as the whole line then becomes "opening to the faith of the Tathagata." I think "opening to faith in the Tathagata" would certainly be a poorer understanding, as the Tathagata clearly was not interested in promoting himself, but rather his ideas. The Christian religion makes much of the power of faith in Christ. The tathagata did not promote himself, only his ideas, and I rather suspect that Christian interpreters have warped the original message of Christ from a similar position.

廣	N 1640 > 1604 → KOU. Spread out, reach to, extend ❧ Bc → ·Width, breadth, range. ·Wide width. ·Wide, broad, extensive, vast, magnificent. ·Full, detailed, accurate. ·Explained in full, explained in detail. In the PRC, this is also simplified as 广. ❧
度	N 1616 → DO. extent, measure, limit ❧ Bc → ·Rule, law, pattern, decision.[法] ·A limit.[程] ·Time(s)-to do three times, four times, etc.[回次] ·To cross over a body of water. [渡] ·[Buddhism] To cross over (to the shore of liberation). ·To measure, calculate.[量] ·A unit of measurement; ruler, yardstick. ·To be, stay, live (at). [宅居] ·A burial ground. ❧
諸	N 5648 → SHO. many, several ❧ Bc → ·Many, all, various, the various, the whole group of; myriad. A plural indicator. ·This; with this, using this, concerning this. ·Locative: in, at, on, etc. ·A question marker. ❧
衆眾	N 5417 → SHU / SHUU. great numbers, multitude ❧ Bc → ·Many, a great number, a myriad; numerous, abundant. ·A crowd, many people. All. ❧ ALTERNATE T → masses; people; multitude; crowd ❧ ➸ T indicates that the radical of 衆 (血) means 'blood' while that of 眾 (罒) means 'eye'.
生	N 2991→ SHOU. life existence ❧ Bc → ·To produce, to bring forth, to beget; to give birth to; to bear; to cause to have life. ·To be born; to come to life; to arise. ·To be alive; to live. Life, living. ·Alive, raw, fresh, unfamiliar. ·A living person. ·A student. ❧ ➸ It must be a weird twist of phonetics that renders this as 'jou' when combined with 'sho' and 'shu' I can find no instance where Japanese pronunciation guidance of the stand-alone character is 'jou'. But, I can appreciate what an annoying consonance 'sho shu shou' could be.
廣度- kou do ➸ extend to the limit 諸衆生- sho shu jou Breen:B→ all sentient beings ➸ I see nothing in the characters that suggests 'sentient.' It is part of the verbal tradition of Zen to qualify this with 'sentient' but it seems just as warranted, based on the characters alone, to say this is 'the many great numbers of living things'

....

Thank You For Killing? Thank You For Enduring The Killing You've Had To Do?

2011-06-11T08:10:00.001-07:00

Yes, a hornet's nest of a topic.

** How soldiers deal with the job of killing **
When a soldier kills someone at close quarters, how does it affect them? This most challenging and traumatic part of a soldier's job is often wholly overlooked.
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-13687796 >

I am certain that I enjoy many freedoms because other people have killed someone else in the line of duty. This consideration is not limited to national fact. Any string of history leads back to leathal combat of some sort and I have been enriched by the outcome.

I would like to be mindful of how oppresive and damaging a knee-jerk, absolute, "do not kill" mindset - or at least public messaging - could be, particularly, I would like to contribute to the possibility of open and "shameless" discussion of this real and immediate truth for soldiers and other armed service personnel.

Perhaps to mourn the fact that a killing has happened is appropriate. To strive to prevent situations where it may occur for "petty" reasons is a good focus. But to contribute to a pariah attitude towards service personnel concerning the killing they have done is, I think, nothing short of cruel.

Subconscious Karmic Oxen

2011-05-24T22:01:00.000-07:00

I guess I think this is pretty important as I have muted the American Idol finale to try and capture it.

I have been wondering a lot lately about free will. Driven mainly by observing my own desire to behave differently, and failing to do so with great consistency. In a book I have recently read about the brain and emotions and feelings and fairly recent findings about conscious vs. subconscious (or unconscious) activity, there was a reference to how much we humans love to have a good story. Perhaps I should say this more precisely as we tend to produce stories, since "love" leans too far towards a conscious, selectable behavior or preference. Our drive for story is probably an evolutionary advantage. But let me give the example and then continue the commentary.

Due to various biological or physical events, some people can end up with brains where the right half no longer communications with the left half. If I am remembering this correctly, one of the interesting consequences is that one eye can feed information into the "logical" side of the brain, and cause the body to take action, while the linguistic side does not know what that eye has seen, yet strives to explain what's happening. I'm sure I've mis-remembered the fine points but the gross picture is the important part (I'll try and correct this when I get back to my bookshelf and can site the study that explored this).

So the basic scenario is a group of people that can be queued to take action, but the "explainer" part of their brain is unaware of the command. They can be queued, for example, to wave their hand by means of an request written on a card that only the correct (action-side linked) eye can see. Up goes their hand and they wave. The interesting bit happens when they are asked to explain why they just waved their hand. All kinds of completely sincere rationale come out... they were stretching, or they thought they recognized a certain doctor walking down the hall. Nothing even coming close to the truth that an index card was presented to them asking them to wave their hand.

We have to have a story. We have to explain. And this drive to explain in some plausible manner does not have to be "true" to be true.

Part of this may be a drive to satisfy the group. To give a reason that will not get us kicked out, requiring us to fend entirely for ourselves. And part of this may be the simpler drive to always try and create a theory, a story, of how A is connected to B so that we can predict outcomes. There is significant difference between these two motivations but I suspect they are both at play. Explaining our actions in a way that meets social norms keeps us in the group, and the drive to knit events together with rationale keeps us alive (provided our story is a good approximation of reality).

The next part of my thesis requires one to accept that there are conscious and unconscious brain processes. Unconscious, as I intend it, only means brain activities that are outside our awareness. The examples for purely "mechanical" things are fairly easy to accept. After we learn to ride a bike or catch a ball, we are not aware of the myriad of decisions and observations and muscle commands that must be done to accomplish these now simple tasks. It becomes a little more difficult to accept that we have emotions that are driven by unconscious/subconscious processing, or that we make decisions based on them. However, if we can accept the brain as an evolved organ, it becomes easier to see the relationship between the two.

For me, the evolution of the brain is like a research and development laboratory on a college campus that has been around since the start of the industrial revolution, or perhaps rather like the international space station. It originally had some basic functions that it executed well. Then new functionality was needed (read: provided better survival) and more sophisticated systems were installed, but they had to go on top of the original work, not replace it, so a patchwork developed. The original, old functionality is there, but is over-layed with the new high tech stuff. And perhaps in the human brain there are several such layers of functionality.

In our brains there are very good sub-conscious systems that do the basics, keep us alive, get impressed by traumatic events so we are extra cautious (or angry, or scared) when similar conditions arise. And these are overlaid by higher functions such as intellect and general conscious thought.

So, let me try and link these two. We are driven to a story and there is "decision" making going out outside of our awareness, but still withn "us" (i.e. in our subconscious). This is what makes "free will" a difficult concept. It is possible that we have lots of free will, and just don't have the focus required to execute to the plan, or it may be that free choice is not as common as we think, but we develop explanatory excuses because we must have the story.

In other words, our subconscious drives us to an "inevitable" decision (or at least a highly pre-conditioned one), but we explain it as free will acting.

I may resolve in the morning that I will sit zazen at night. It's what I want to do. It's important to me. I will do it. There is a tremendous feeling of free will in this. I have made the decision to sit zazen tonight and I will. Then, when bedtime rolls around, I find I have not indeed sat zazen. I'm disappointed with myself and I'm struggling to know why I can't just sit. I think to myself "I have free will to do this, why isn't it getting done?"

I think rather than having ubudant free will, we are actually more trapped by decisions in the sub-conscious that we cannot observe directly happening (nor influence immediately), followed by excuses that may make us feel like our decision was free will. Just like the brain-split people that wave and have a good reason why, that totally misses the truth. when I take an action or do not take an action, it may feel like I know exactly why, but that has nothing to do with the true motivating decider, the sub-conscious.

Unfortunately, poor presentations of psychology, and perhaps poor understanding of brain function has lent a sinister tint to the sub-conscious. Like it is some sort of demon that controls us outside of our will. A more relaxed holistic view could be helpful. Our selves have an action/feeling controlling component that we can access (the conscious) and a component that we cannot access (the subconscious), but both together, along with the non-decisional automatic reflexes (like heart beating), make up our "us", our "I". I am driven by what I can experience as thinking, and I am driven by what I can't experience as thinking, but is, nonetheless, me.

So what loads up this subconscious decision maker? I think this is linked to the concept of Karma.

For me, Karma is just a passive law of cause and effect. It is not a guided retribution. It is only the fact that if you do something, it has results. If it is a dis-harmonious sort of something, it can ripple like falling dominos and circle back and bite you. Yelling a your spouse typically gets you yelled at. Kindness tends to beget kindness. But truthfully the way thoughts, and actions and physical things interact is far beyond predictable, except in the grossest, most static though experiments, so karma cannot be used as a tool for specific decisions, but rather a general guiding observation.

Brains are all about decisions, in the neural network sense. Its not always a "decision" like should I have caf or decaf today, but various stimuli from our senses both conscious (sight, hearing, skin-feeling) and unconscious (thinking, but also some nervous system input, like our respiration rate, or the state of our intenstines) (and counting conscious thinking as a sense), these stimuli are weighted in our neural connections and produce an action outcome. We may experience it as free will, but much of it is predetermined by the stimuli and neural weighting.

The subconscious part of the decision process is where karma comes in. All the history of what we have experienced physically as an organism, and absorbed through our feeling-experience in life, along with our genetic makeup which also reflects past actions, ...all of this past cause and effect is at work in our subconscious and has a huge influence on what we actually do (despite what our story telling may say about it).

Thus, I currently see my subconscious life as the current sum of my karma. Its not "retribution" or "just deserts", its just the unaccessible weighting on my decision processes that is informed by past events, and genetics. Karma is also the sum total of the exact physical situation I find myself in. To put it rather crudely, everything up till now has resulted in now, and despite what I think is going on, most of it has been outside my conscious awareness.

So what does this have to do with oxen? Well, I was thinking over this situation of the conscious me that thinks it is in control and knows what's going on, and this unconscious part of me that is plodding along in its own karmic direction, largely uninfluenced by what my thinking goes through, and the ox herding pictures came to mind. A big "aha", at least for now.

The ox can represent our karma, our unseen self that reacts in ways not entirely available to our conscious mind. The ox-herder is our thinking self. The "I" we are most familiar and cozy with. Thus the path of learning becomes clearer.

1. Seeking the ox is wondering "what the heck is going on". What am "I". What is "this."
2. Finding the tracks, is the first glimmer that "this", that "suffering", is related to my perceptions, thought patterns, karma, it is not a static fact of the world as it is.
3. Catching sight of the ox may be the first clear perception during zazen that the "I" mind is much more active than reality requires. The fire just keeps burning.
4. Seizing the ox is struggling with this newly shattered concept of "I". This broken "I". The coming to realize that we are indeed picking and choosing and there is no real need for it. It is identifying the attachments that defy logic.
5. Taming the ox, is learning to accept the plodding subconscious direction of our karmic selves. Coming to terms with the things we cannot change. Realizing the difference between what we feel and what we can chose to do.

I will go no further, as this is the limit of my experience, and what seems like understanding. It is a model that works for me now, but I may abandon it tomorrow. It is a way of describing my experience with my self, and what I have seen as my subconscious activity. It is how I frame the disconnect I experience between what seems like my "will" and what I find myself doing as action.

I should add that seeing part of me, my subconscious, as an ox is very important in developing compassion for myself and others. Susan Edmiston and Leonard Scheff wrote a wonderful book on anger called "The Cow in the Parking Lot." Which in part noted how we would feel much different over losing a parking place to a befuddled stray cow vs. another driver. Likewise we must accept there are large aspects of our decision processes, and the decision processes of others, that are sub-conscious karmic oxen. If we approach herding ourselves or herding them with this compassion and insight, life has less suffering.

I hope this made some sense.

[note - many revisions to improve clarity after original post]

Hot Iron Ball

2011-05-14T11:15:00.001-07:00

with apologies to jiro...

Facing the dharma is like trying to swallow a red hot iron ball.
In my deluded imperfection, I cannot stomache the whole thing.
But appreciating its perfection, I cannot spit it out.
So you see me gagging in my practive of the way.

Moot Aspects of the 1st law.

2011-05-03T11:10:00.000-07:00

Newton's first law is often stated "A body in motion tends to stay in motion and a body at rest tends to stay a rest, unless acted upon by an external force."

In consideration of the small scale cosmological considerations this seems a rather pointless observation in that everything is always in motion (there is no rest, ever, period) and everything is always being acted upon by external forces (there is nowhere to go in the real universe to avoid forces).

Perhaps it could be said as "Force changes the motion of a body" to remove the moot elements. I wonder why it is not said this way?

Breaking the 2nd Law

2011-03-27T17:05:00.000-07:00

The second law of thermodynamics, very roughly stated, is that the order of an isolated system will tend to decrease. Put another way, things fall apart, rot, decay. Gases dissipate. Suns explode and, eventually, disappear. The cinder blocks under the car in my front lawn will eventually crumble and the car itself will rust away in a few hundred years and the polymers it contains in a few thousand.

But I'm not sure I buy that. It seems to ignore the rather startling fact that there is a consciousness in the universe positing all of this. It seems to ignore the fact that out of the chaos of a gas cloud, a solar system coalesced, formed a planet, and on that planet through some chain of events, atoms linked into molecules of the right type, and those molecules of a certain sort tended to amass into "active" complex proteins and enzymes and whatnot, and all that mess finally organized into me typing this idea out on a laptop.

I know nothing about the proper way to measure entropy. I probably can't afford an entropometer. But it seems rather sensible that the amount of order in a single paramecium or simple bacteria is rather large. The complex interaction of dna, proteins, lipids, etc... that provide for material intake, metabolism, and pro-creation of those little buggers is astounding. The "order" in a single bacteria cell must counteract the disorder in an exploded sun, in the entropy balance.

When considering the massively astounding amounts of order and on-going pro-creative activity on this planet, it seems quite possible it outweighs all the disorder in the balance of the universe.

This makes me wonder about time.

I have read that entropy is a demonstration of the "arrow of time". What has happened to that arrow since this big bag that gave rise to all this freaking order and information of elements arranged just so on our modest little marble in space?

How can anyone say with a straight face that "entropy tends to increase" when the very sentence comes from the one of the still most astoundingly organized information filled object know to us... the human brain cum consciousness.

I sure have a lot to learn about proper discussions of entropy, but I think scientists who insist entropy tends to increase need to look in the mirror and explain what they see, or even that they see, or even that there is a mirror.

A Chain to Schrödinger's Cat

2011-01-20T19:52:00.000-08:00

I read Tallis Grayson's latest blog and enjoyed it. It provoked an image in my mind that I continue to enjoy of "nirvana" implying the space/state between a frantic flame of thought being blown out and smoke cloud of opaque thinking rising in its place.

I also started musing on why I liked his style of blogging. Others that I read often have it from time to time (Harry, Jordan, Uku). For lack of a better term it's an immediate declarative (my! how awkward). A declaration of how the author sees a point with out an "apology" for the possibility of being wrong, or having a different opinion at some time in the future, and no particular attempt to balance the various arguments that might be found on the topic. An effective "I asked myself a question, and this is my answer."

I started comparing this to ideas of picking and choosing versus immediate experience and reaction. I think its "better" to respond to the specific instance in front of me given the data I have *now* about this *specific thing* than to create abstract rules to force on real situations as they come along. Respond to here/now not there/then.

This brought to mind how false anticipation is. Absolutely and completely unreal. Thus anticipatory rules are no good for me to conduct my life. This feels so odd to state, but what possible value does a sentence have like "I will never xyz in situation abc" when I know darn well if I have to xyz because it's the skillful response, I darn well will xyz? Or perhaps I should say I've noticed this is how I have really behaved.

This brought to mind Schrodinger's cat, which for me is a summary that the observer influences the outcome, which I believe has been proven true in quantum level experiments. The basic line of analogous reasoning is that there is a cat in box in which a vial of poison is broken by some random trigger. The cat is either dead or alive. The crux is that the cat is neither dead or alive until the lid is lifted and the cat is observed, until that time it occupies both states. The fun bit is this has been shown as true at the quantum level. A system behaves as if Particle X is both here and there until I try to observe exactly where it is.

Applied back to rules of real conduct, it is appropriate both to xyz and to not-xyz until the real situation abc occurs and in that particular and unique instant it will be clear which to do.

Perhaps more important to me is that a dead cat is a dead cat, it is not a could-have-been-alive-cat-if-only.

All the "information" is here now. Be open to it. Find the space between the blowing out of the flame and the rising of the smoke and declare what you know.

Too much?

Chodai Kesa no Ge in detail... Part 1 of X

2011-01-02T10:24:00.000-08:00

I have been intending for several years to have a webpage with some Zen info that has been of importance or interest to me. It has not happened. Feeling more like doing rather than intending to do, I am posting part of the study I have been doing on Chodai Kesa no Ge.

Note in the following, the pronunciation guide is based on the chanting style of Nishijima Roshi as heard in this YouTube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xYiXETKajU)

大　哉　解　脱　服
dai・sai・geda---fuku
無　相　福　田　衣
musou・fukuden・[y]e
披　奉　如　來　教
hibu・nyorai-kyou
廣　度　諸　衆　生
koudo・shoshu-jou

大	N 1133 → DAI. large, huge, grand ❧
哉	N 779 → ➀ SAI. kana. How!, What!, Alas! ➁ ya. question mark ➸ a japanese particle ➸ Though the kun reading ‘kana’ is used often in haiku and seems rather introspective, "sai" is a joyous, outgoing interjection ❧
解	N 5548 → GE. explanation, key, understanding ❧ T → unravel; notes; key; explanation; understanding; untie; undo; solve; answer; cancel ❧
脱	N 4822 → DATSU. removing ❧ T → undress; removing; escape from; get rid of; be left out; take off ❧
服	N 4775 → FUKU. Clothes ❧ T → 私服【しふく】civilian clothes; plain clothes ❧
哉 - sai ➸ The many compounds that include "sai" indicate it is a very energetic and outgoing concept. Here are some examples from T kaisai 【快哉】joy; exultation zenzai 【善哉】Well done!; Bravo! kaisaiwosakebu 【快哉を叫ぶ】to shout with exultation; to shout for joy 解脱 - gedatsu Gedatsu - deliverance from earthly bondage - moksha (http://eow.alc.co.jp/%B2%F2%C3%A6/EUC-JP/) Moksha is seen as a final release from one's worldly conception of self, the loosening of the shackle of experiential duality and a realization of one's own fundamental nature which is true being, pure consciousness and bliss (satcitananda) an experience which is ineffable and beyond sensation. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moksha) T → A common noun (fustuumeishi) or participle which takes the aux. verb する: being liberated from earthly desires and the woes of man; (reaching) nirvana; moksha; mukti ❧ ➸ literally ‘release from concept’ the implication is release from woes or attaining nirvana. When we operate beyond concepts we are woe-free….or at least I think that’s part of Buddha’s thesis.

無	N 3439 → MU / BU. Nothing, nil, negation ❧
相	N 3920 → SOU. aspect, phase, physiognomy ❧ Breen:G → ➀ appearance; look; countenance ➁ a 'seeming' that fortune-tellers relate to one's fortune ➂ -lingustics- aspect ➃ -physics- phase (e.g. solid, liquid and gaseous) ❧ ➸ Watch out for this other character which is almost exactly the same - 柤 (N 2606). Note the longer stroke under the "eye" radical. It has the On reading "so". I chased this confusion for a long time.
福	N 4105 → FUKU. fortune, blessing, luck ❧ T→ common noun: good fortune ❧
田	N 3727 → DEN. t/da. Rice field ❧
衣	N 5420 → E. Garment ❧ ➸ ‘e’ appears to be a specific singular, fuku is the group. Fuku is like clothing or costume. A kimono is one ‘e’ of Japanese ‘fuku’.
無相 – musou Breen:B→ deviod of marks ➸ But Breen:B also shows "有相無相 'usou musou' having form and no form", so 相 can also be translated as "form". But, this is not the kanji used in the heart sutra for "form" (色) ❧ 福田 – fukuden Breen:B→ field of merit ➸ The rakusu and kesa are in a rice field pattern. ❧ ➸ There are many compound terms in Japanese starting with "fuku." All implying good fortune, prosperity, positive happenings. Some examples from T are: fukuin 【福音】good news fukutoku 【福徳】fortune; happiness and prosperity fukubukuro 【福袋】lucky-dip bag; grab bag; mystery package (with a variety of articles possibly worth more than the purchase price) fukumimi 【福耳】plump ears, said to bring good fortune ➸ There are also many Japanese names that are, or begin with, the characters for "fukuden" with a variety of pronounciations resulting from the various ways of pronouncing the kanji which represents a rice field, "田" : fukuta, fukuda, fukude. ➸ A fortunate rice field would be one that always bring forth crops, never has a bad season. There is a clear implication of growing, coming into being. And, rice is the staple crop of Asia, so it is the essence of life. It is what sustains us. But rice does not grow on its own. It requires care, knowledge and discapline. And it is not the work of a single person. It takes a village (a sangha) for the field to be fruitful - all must work together at planting season. But there are also times when the field must be left alone. And where does the rice grow from? The mud. The earth. In fact, because of the severe importance of water for rice, it is very clearly an all-four-elements plant - Fire (sun), Earth, Water and air. ➸ The physical form of the kesa, modeled after the rice field, pulls in the essential and fundamental ideas of and implications of the rice field. The kesa is our practice. Our practice is a rice field. This link cannot be ignored. 無相福田衣– musou fukuden e ➸ Unlike a tangible fertile rice field, our practice is formless. There is no spot to cling to. The dharma is beyond naming, there is no place to grab and hold. It is this formless field that sustains us. This is where our practice can grow. And the kesa is the garment that reminds of this formless fertile truth. ➸ Perhaps "Robe of living formless truth." "Living" is not in the characters, but is certainly implied by the rice field allusions. "Verdant" may be even better. "Truth" is also absent as a character, but it is perhaps the closest Western idea that has the same iconic weight as a rice field. As a combination "Verdant Truth" is very much what a fortunate ricefield represents. The truth, the law, that is actualized in real practice.

Late, as always - But Merry Christmas / Happy Winter Break Y'all

2010-12-26T08:18:00.000-08:00

What ever this season may represent to you, I hope you find some joy, hope, peace or see the great matter, your choice. I spent the day mostly in action in the kitchen from morn till night. Exhausting but rewarding.

Bows and bows.

Real Mud

2010-12-09T11:04:00.000-08:00

"It was all I could do to say as few hurtful things as possible."

Tripping

2010-11-05T05:40:00.000-07:00

I may well stumble through this.

Saw a post that introduced a "new" concept to me, entheogen. Seems to be the use of new chemical constructions to play with the brain, i.e., trip.

I think that is a foolish path. The brain has evolved to present our consiousness the information needed for our body to survive. I won't insist it is the "truth" that we normally experience, but it will say it works, as averaged over the millennia of our evolution.

What I feel certain about is that tripping is never, ever, "closer to the truth."

Our sensory system and our consciousness system is made up of biological circuits. "wet electronics" if you will. If we pour odd substances into the soup of ourselves it will cause bizarre conduction paths and twisted images and feeling and thoughts will result. In the same way tinkering with the settings in a camera will yield fantastical pictures. But this is not closer to the truth of the object out from the lens.

And, I would wager, that all tripping experiences are objectively farther from the truth than sobriety when you are otherwise healthy.

The clearest meaning of entheogenisis is that someone is trying to make money from you.

Predisposition for life.... Consciousness after death

2010-10-06T17:43:00.000-07:00

It seems clear to me that existence (i.e. "the universe") has a complex, awesome and wonderful disposition to yield humans. When one considers the number of things that have to just happen to interact with one another in the way that yields us, it is mind boggling. But the indisputable (I think) fact is, it does. The main evidence: we are here. This planet swarming with people and other "life" is just what happens in a universe made of the stuff this universe is made of (e.g. what we currently understand as matter and energy behaving the the strange ways they do).

When you remove anthropomorphic notions from statements of how things happen, such as white blood cells "seek out" viruses, or natural "selection", the magnitude of the improbability of our existence is astounding... and yet, here we are.

Consciousness is a description we use for this experience we have of "I." But consciousness is seated in the interaction of particularly joined, accumulated, aggregated matter. That is, a brain. When the brain is gone, de-aggregated, non-functional, I think consciousness is gone. There remains in the universe the potential for aggregation into a new consciousness (a baby), and the matter that was aggregated as the old consciousness returns to the universe, but a specific, identifiable link between the old and the new is not suggested.

The stuff of one wave is falling is the same as the stuff of a new wave arising, but they are not the same waves.

Boundless Ignorance

2010-08-25T11:23:00.000-07:00

By being truthful but skill-less I have become, I think, the cause of another train wreck in my family. There is some lesson lurking in this I can barely see. Some aspect of considering how others will react to what I say rather than just focusing on allowing I was honest. Seems so obvious in retrospect, but the real trick is how to address the "honest" reaction before it can cause harm.

With people you are close to, you communicate your honesty in the set of your face or the posture in your body. It's more than just controlling your words. It's what you communicate with your being. I suppose the only way to make your full being-reaction skillful is to practice sitting and doing careful audits on where you are in relation to the eightfold path. All aspects of the path actually do, I guess, inform your being, give rise to the set of your face or the posture of your body when confronted with adversity (or anything).

I can't just focus on words, or deeds. Its the full life, fully integrated, that does harm or not. I've got to look at it all. I've got to strive for the right action with every step but yet remain fluid.

My ignorance is indeed boundless.

Mara Attacks

2010-08-22T11:31:00.000-07:00

I had two days of very focused practice. Yesterday Mara stopped by and attacked. Now I feel shame, self-disgust, paranoia and anger. Picking up. Brushing off. Another step. Am I close to real change, or just creating drama to kid myself?

Reading about the dark night of the soul convinces me I may be near real change.

Thinking I may be near real change convinces me I'm fooling myself.

This is where a teacher/guide would be handy. Gotta find me one of those.

Bows to all you good people.

Suffering Over What is Not. Who Is Responsible.

2010-08-18T21:11:00.000-07:00

WARNING: A bit of a ramble.

A friend of mine has trouble relating to her father. To her he seems quite lonely and shut down, focused only on a news channel all day long, and engaging in very paranoid and depressing conversations about the state of the world when she calls.

She is reluctant to freely respond to this person he is. She is in so much pain about the the father he is not.

It is so much easier to see the outlines of someone else situation than my own. In her I see she must differentiate the pain over what he is not from how she might like to be with what he is. Her fretting over what he is not, gets in the way of enjoying who he is (perhaps not "enjoying" but at least reacting honestly in the moment to who he is).

What he is not is all hers - is all her. No one can actually be *not* something. How can I blame someone for not being kind? How does one actively not be kind - not be xyz? Everyone is always not being everything and so, has no responsibility for not being any particular thing.

Sure, maybe this is just clever semantics, but I think there's a nut of importance in it.

If I think "he was mean." That's fine. Maybe I've got unrealistic perceptions, or maybe he was indeed mean. There is a chance "he" has some responsibility in that. But he has no responsibility for "he was not kind." He was also not green, not flying 20,000 miles an hour, not a woman, not singing a song. There a million things he was not. He can not actively not do something. So all my suffering over what he is not, is all my responsibility. If I was really aware of myself, I would say "I wish he were kinder." Now it is clearly all mine to deal with.

This leads to another idea. You could say "well, kindness is the opposite of meanness, so you are saying the same thing." That, I feel these days, is a huge fallacy I have been operating under all my life. There are no true opposites in these things. Opposite are a semantic and organizational convenience, not a fact. The universe is not in balance because there are equal amounts of love and hate in existence. That ying yang circle thing is not true. The biological processes and brain pathways that get exited by sensory input that bring us to feel hatred or anger are not one side of a processes that also bring us to feel love or peace. Each emotion, each judgment is its own absolute "thing." There is no collection of dipoles balancing.

What does this mean to me practically? Perhaps don't try to balance, strive to respond. When something or someone annoys, differentiate my disappointment/suffering over my unfulfilled wishes of what they are not (that is my shit) from my spontaneously arising response to what they really are. Was my shit is out of the way, I might be surprised at how appropriate that response is.

Compassion & Anger

2010-07-25T19:14:00.000-07:00

Jordan asks in his last blog [here] "Is my intention kindness, love, compassion like that which one might have for a small child?"

I wonder if it useful to be clear that there is a difference from feeling and action. And, given that clarity (if it is there) where does "intention" fall? Is an action "compassionate" because of some intrinsic nature of the action, or is it "compassionate" because of the feeling in the person undertaking the action? This may be some tricky ground. I think one can judge an action, but perhaps not along strict moralistic lines. Something like, did the action help in the moment? Did the action move the situation along so that all benefited as much as was understandable in the moment?

Therefore, I guess I don' believe in compassionate actions. Compassion is far too complicated an idea. It is not immediate. It is thought out and pondered over. What may have been an action taken for a whole variety of emotional impetus, including anger, can be judged as compassionate even if there was no such forethought in the actor.

We can, I think, also speak of true compassion. True compassion, it is said, is like a hand reaching back in the night for a pillow. I still haven't gotten to the bottom of that explanation, but it seems to me it is saying compassion has no thought. It does what is needed for "the good" in the moment, and it is never quite clear.

I think I as a Buddhist cannot, and should not encourage people to have any particular type of feeling. I should not care what emotion a person may be under when they take action. My focus should be on the effect of the action. I should learn to practice seeing how what I do, including what I speak, or write, impacts the world, did things improve or did things go wrong? Did the wheel turn?

If I can learn to see what I am doing, I can help the world along even in a fit of anger.

Two Camps in my Brain

2010-07-20T20:42:00.000-07:00

Harry got my wheels turning with his post on vow and intent

For my own sanity I've been starting to look at the origin of emotion, and its links to the "sub conscious" (or to put it in less Freudian terms, the activities of our minds/brains not available to our awareness). What I have found so far is that these two camps he speaks of are co-resident and struggling(?) in our minds.

Both camps are skills that have given us evolutionary bumps (advantage)and engendered survival. One (grossly simplified) is the cortex by which we do complex "what if" pondering and detailed analysis in attempting to predict the future. The other is a "lower", or more evolutionarily aged brain system that tends to function outside of awareness, but whose decisions, (or, acknowledging a less conscious driver, "outputs") get thrown "up" to the cortex. Those decisions, I think, tend to feel like direct knowledge or intuition.

The cortex activity tends, I think, to get in our way. It takes real input, mixes in a fountain of imagining, and yields unhappiness, or euphoria, or other "false" state.

What interests me (and what I seem to currently understand the lesson of Buddhism, or at least zazen) is that it seems to take a cortex to quiet a cortex. We are hooked by logical arguments to us, or within us, about the value of zazen, and strive to learn how to drop such value decisions, to stop picking and choosing.

The low brain knows to reach back for the pillow at night, and the cortex is troubled to know what rules or values make that the right thing to do.

But the high brain (cortex) also has some value added tricks up its sleeve in addition to the intellectual curiosity that gets most people hooked in zazen to start with. Things like compassion are very high brain constructs, and very beneficial.

We often like to simply think of the brain as one organ with a uniform purpose. It seems that it really is a complexly evolved layering of systems, some which have a long history in other animals and mammals, and some which are rarely seen in other species.

Perhaps enlightenment will be revealed as the suddenly developed ability to see the action of the cortex in our lives and not be pulled along in its tide of anticipation, worry, and picking and choosing. Perhaps it is the ability to have an identity that is a more holistic composite of all the brain systems and events rather that just the hyper analytical cortex. Perhaps it is like the story of Helen Keller who suddenly one day just "got" what all that input was indicating.

Early ideas, but exciting for me.

What Good is this Sit?

2010-06-07T19:13:00.000-07:00

I currently believe that zazen does nothing in itself. It is not the "vehicle of change."

I think the point of zen is to live without picking and choosing. To live without clinging to ideas and ideals. To take what is here now in your face, and at your feet, and all the other metaphors of immediacy, and grasp that this is all "it" is. The wood is wood until it is ash. Then it is ash, it is not "was-wood."

Zazen is a great barometer of how well that's going for you, it ain't necessarily what gets you there.

I find I have tons of trouble these days just sitting for 30 minutes. Seems almost laughable when written. "What, you can't just sit for 30 minutes? What's your problem? You call yourself a Buddhist?" Fair engout, but what does it *mean* that I can't sit for 30? It means that my "self" has not accepted "now" as reality. It's churning so hard on things that are not real and are not here and are not now that it can't abide "just sitting."

The intellect is important to we humans because it is with the intellect that we must tee up this shot. We must conceive of the 100 foot pole. We must frame the idea of climbing through the window. But then we must abandon intellect. We must swing with our entire life. We must jump into the nothing around the pole. We must pull our tail through the window without a concept of tail and window to work with.

At least that's how I suppose it should be. That is all intellectual pondering, of course. I won't know what it's like until I stop the pondering, and step fully onto the path of no-hinderance. I think my ego has been partnering with Mara to keep me from this. Secretly giving me "goals" and "embarrassment" about zazen to trip me up. They are conspiring to bind me up in endless strings of thoughts, excuses and pondering.

Who can give me one true word to cut through to the gate-less gate? Come take this seat.

Nothing to Attain.

2010-06-06T13:47:00.000-07:00

A light on in the house does not change the landscape of the surrounding fields. No matter how bright it shines, or what newly is revealed. The fields are unchanged.There is no shift. Nothing is achieved or attained by the clearer vision. The sun rises the next day, and bugs crawl. All is as it was whether the windows are clear or dirty, or the light is bright or dim.

Shibaraku desu ne.

2010-06-01T07:15:00.000-07:00

I haven't written in so long. It feels quite awkward, like I owe an explanation or report.
Seems I've got two more people following me since I went on this un-intentional hiatus.
Perhaps people get more out of what I don't write than what I do?

The Drummer

2010-03-30T07:56:00.000-07:00

Just saw "The Drummer" on an airplane. I really enjoyed it. There are some hard edges to it, but not so very different from real life.

"The Drummer" is a pretty common search term, so look for the movie directed by Kenneth Bi with a main character of "Sid."

The Eleventh Picture

2010-03-15T18:46:00.000-07:00

Let's not cross alone to the other shore (though we must).
Leave bread crumbs so that the smallest mouse can follow you.
Be not inscrutable, clever and "wise."
Be plain, straight forward and simple.

It takes great effort to realize there is no place to go.
Never forget this when asked a question.
To much talk of moons and fingers could earn you "the finger", and well deserved.
No, you can't get them there in a single sentence.
But you don't need to protect your secret with special language and incantations.

Remember where you started, and what a great mystery the gateless gate can be.
Like the hand of charity reaching for the pillow at night
Swoop in with exactly the right thing to say for the need at hand.
When a pillow is needed, don't offer a book.

There should be an 11 ox herding picture.
It should show old Hotei sitting fat and happy in the market place, drinking from his gourd
Telling stories to all the common people
Stories that get them all a half step closer to wondering where the ox might be.

No Locks

2010-03-11T10:46:00.001-08:00

Inspired by Uku's latest posting.....

There are no locks on the box.
There is no special combination you must know to get in.
It is just here and now. There is no hindrance.
Not the image flying from you to the mirror to your eye.
Just you, the mirror, and your eye.

Peacemaker

2010-02-28T07:25:00.000-08:00

I had some spare time so I went to doddle through my (current) favorite Zen sites. There's a holy war raging over at Brad's (Hardcore Zen). I find that makes me really nervous and sends me back thousands of years to my childhood (how often does *that* happen?). I was either cowering or a peacemaker in a rather messed up family unit.

I would like the Zen community not to be that way. That is, so argumentative. That's naive, I know. People are argumentative. None the less, the feeling I have is that I don't like it. If limited to the five basic feelings, I'd say its anger and fear. Someone has told me anger is always proceeded by fear, so I guess I've got to bottom out on fear. Fear of what? Maybe that the fundamental issue I thought we Zennist are pursuing is really a crock. Not strong enough to overcome, or convince practitioners to "let it go" when it gets going like its going at Brad's.

What a large tangle of poop it is (that's going on at Brad's). So to interceed, 'cause I am the peacemaker, I don the personna of Thing 1 and Thing 2, trying to pour a few lines of humor and introspection into the fight to calm it a bit. Such vanity! And then pain when no one seems to notice. I've been acting out my old role with certainty, and to the same result. What a silly goose.

The value of my attachment to the role of peacemaker, trying to make the "adults" stop fighting, is questionable, but I enjoy the impish response it brought. Here for fun, and posterity, are the musings of my alter egos Thing 1 and Thing 2, with some commentary unless you can't just tell how clever this stuff is.

Dead roadside Buddha.
Fleshy bones lay in the dust.
Watch hungry dogs fight.
====
Allusion to "if you find the Buddha on the road, kill him"

Allusion to the book "Zen Flesh Zen Bones" which itself comes from Bodhidharma's famous transmission to his student's, one of which cut off his arm.

"hungry dogs fight" is the thin tip of a wedge of allusion to a much vaster meaning. In Kruosawa's "Jojimbo" we see the movie start with a dog trotting by through clouds of dust with a hand in his mouth. The whole tone of one clan fighting another is captured in this, along with the role of Mifune's peacemaker (okay, body-count machine, really). And, of course, the link back to "flesh".

Furious minds spin
Webs of detailed argument
A fat horse's fart
======
Not much "hidden" in this one.

A bit of a nod to "O, what a tangled web we weave..."

The last line is a nod to Basho (or is it Basui?) who likes to refer us back to the natural and immediate, its-all-good, Buddha-is-a-shit-stick, aspect of Zen.

"A rap on the nose can be, quite continental,
'cause dharma is a girl's best friend
A zafu is grand but it won't pay the rental
On your humble flat, or help you at the automat
the spark grows cold as we all grow old
And we all lose our lives in the end
But square cut or pear shaped
This bright pearl won't lose it's shape
Dharma is a girl's best friend"
=======
Theft, of course, from the *old* song "Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend." It links into part of the allegations flying around over at Brad's blog regarding someone who was, allegedly, struck on the nose. In light of the history of striking in Zen, it seems trivial to fret so much over it. There are koans ending "Answer 'Yes' and I will hit you 30 times. Answer 'No' and I will hit you 30 times. Do not answer and I will hit you 30 times." But the offense of striking is clearly context driven.

Yes "square cut or pear shaped" doesn't quite fit into the gemology of pearls but it was close enough.

"One Bright Pearl" was one of the first topics I engaged in on a blog (Harry's, I think) and it has been one of my favorite ever since. How can these guys spend soooo much time fighting in the middle of "One Bright Pearl" (also, of course, a chapter in Shobogenzo)?.

To post, or not to post--that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous comments
Or to take arms against a sea of bloggers
And by opposing end them. To lie, and sleep--
No more--and by a sleep to say we stop
The broadband, or the thousand natural shocks
That Dish(tm) is heir to. 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To wake, read, and weep--
To weep--perchance to scream: ay, here's the rub,
For in that screen's refresh what posts may come
When we have shuffled off this ego's spoil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calm threading so short of life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely
The pangs of despised thoughts, the law's inlay,
The insolence of anonomi, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
When he himself might his on inputs make
Like a bare boobkin? Who would their souls lay bare,
To grunt and sweat in a weary online fight,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles us all,
And makes us rather spread those ills we have
Than to sit in silence that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make bloggers of us all,
And thus the native hue of one bright pearl
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And a turning step of great pitch and moment
With this regard its reflections turn awry
And lose the name of real action.
===========
If you don't recognize Hamlet's famous soliloquy in this, please go back to school.

"Dish" might not work for international audiences as it refers to "Dish Network", a wireless internet provider, in the 'States.

"What posts may come" was probably my favorite bit. I often find myself returning the next day to a blog to see if anyone reacted to me, me, me! I am often disappointed that post did, indeed, *not* come.

"Weep, perchance to scream" was also a lot of fun.

"shuffled of this ego's spoil" --- blogging, at least for me, is so much about showing off. Yet I still do it.

Not much change from the original in the list of things we bear (i.e. the oppressor's wrong), Shakespeare really did have a good bead on the human condition. "The insolence of office" was not quite right, and I enjoy my change to anonomi, which I hope is the plural of anonymous posters. The "laws inlay" is probably semantically and grammatically flawed. In the arguing there was a lot on who wouldn't say what because of the threat of law suits, so "law", was "laid into" (thus "inlay") the conversation.

"on inputs" should have been "own inputs"...pooh.

I hope "boobkin" is an existing word. If not, it should be.

"Sit in silence we know not of" is a nod to Seung's "only Don't know" (thanks, again, Barry).

"Thus conscious does make bloggers of us all" -- I often wonder that a *real* good Buddhist would be too busy pursuing real action to be bothered with blogging. It is certainly the pursuit of our empty concepts of thought.

For the third and second to last lines, I was trying to work in the bit from Shobogenzo about a turning and reflecting step, or something like that, but I couldn't find the exact reference quick enough through Google, so I may have gotten the allusion a bit wrong.

"Real action"... it feels like a basketball game and Shakespeare gave me the perfect set up for that one. It is, of course, a common phrase from Gudo Nishijima's writing (and of course, many others, I guess), but I carry it from his use in "To Meet the Real Dragon". As the last line I hoped it would get the attention of all those engaging in the argument, all heirs of Gudo's teachings, but my self-centered wish was not fulfilled.

Wet Dog

2010-02-13T08:21:00.001-08:00

A wet and whiny stray dog.
Some days clean and bright, other days a mess.
Soggy, I may snap.
Or I may defend you.
Pat my head, I am your friend.
I sleep on your porch and sometimes run away when you approach.
I'm glad you are there.
I fear you see me only as ugly-dog, unkempt, crude.
I sniff an old bag of chips outside the temple wall,
And sit, in dog zazen, to listen to the chanting, 'till a flea bites, and I am scratching-scratching.
Watch my shiny eyes as they follow a falling cherry blosom.
Even I have buddha-nature.

Speaking

2010-01-28T10:45:00.001-08:00

It seems I either have too little or too much to say.

I cannot speak one true word.

Do You Suffer?

2009-12-28T07:53:00.000-08:00

I experience 'Dukkha' a lot. Dukkha is roughly translated as "suffering."

The head words from Wikipedia explain that Dukkha (Pāli दुक्ख; Sanskrit दुःख duḥkha; "uneasy", "unsteady, disquieted") is a term roughly corresponding to a number of English words including suffering, pain, unsatisfactoriness, sorrow, affliction, anxiety, dissatisfaction, discomfort, anguish, stress, misery, and frustration.

If I consider something as benign as "dissatisfaction" rather than the full raveges of "suffering", I live nearly entirely in dukkha. It's scores of times during a single day that I find "I can't get no ... sat-tis-fact-tion." (ref: Rolling Stones' discography).

I worry that I should be embarassed about writing this (a dukkha in itself). It feels like I am saying I am a poser Buddhist. I certainly am not someone who has it all together with a knowing, gentle smile, wearing lots of earth colors and black, drinking tea and meditating twice every day.

But if you find you suffer, or are dissatisfied, or occasionally bitch, or even bitch a lot about this or that. If you are anxious during the day; If you find you are pissed of because your significant other left the coffee can on the counter instead of putting it back in the cupboard; If you lose your temper when your kid asks you for the third time to watch a stupid cartoon with them when you need to balance your checkbook.... If you notice all these 'assalts' on your peace of mind as I do in the course of a day, then I think you are ripe, well suited, and could benifit from Buddhist practice.

I'm sure I could find many stories from the patri- and matri-archs of Buddhism that say if you think you've arrived, you are farther away than a rank beginner.

Do not fret about how you live your day. The worst poser is the one that feigns contentment. Embrace your suffering. Notice it. Let it be. Suffering is not the problem, it is the symptom.

I don't have exact words for the problem. Perhaps "problem" is too harsh a word. It may simply be the human condition. The animal with the frontal cortex that has afforded so much survival gets wrapped around the axle of picking and choosing (engaging in dis-satisfaction) quite naturally. It was quite appropriate (and still is) to be dis-satisfied to be in the company of approaching lions, or stampeding rhino's. We have evloved into a species that carries these life preserving concerns far beyond their beneficial ends.

The practice to improve this? Zazen (poorly translated as "meditation" but that's a whole 'nother blog entry). But do it with a little care. Do zazen only for the sake of zazen, not for improvement. Having "goals" messes quite dreadfully with the concept of dis-satisfaction. Do zazen as often as you can with no express need to exceed two doses of 30min each day, and you are a "Buddhist". In fact, while you do zazen you are the Buddha, you are all Buddha's, you are snap dab the whole universe realizing itself.

See you there....

Suffering not Fact

2009-12-10T20:32:00.000-08:00

Buddhism is the investigation/observation of how we experience suffering. It is not the investigation of fact. The reality we hope to live directly within is not that of faultless perception. Faultless perception is, of course, impossible. Our biological instrument is not so well strung. The import of my previous post is really naught. Yes... brains and eyes and ears and touch and even conception are all faulty. Old news. Not important. The really interesting bit is how we engage judgment, picking and choosing, to turn what ever it is we are getting with these channels to the world into a moment of suffering. Actually, there is no hindrance even now. The reality we hope to live in is just that it is. Turn and look. There it is.

Brain Chemistry

2009-12-02T05:42:00.000-08:00

Imagine a large jar. In it, water. In the water a video camera, a cord, and a video monitor. Put red in the water, the camera sees things tainted red. Blue dye gives a blue picture. If the water is salty, it corrodes the cable and the signal gets all sporadic. Run a blender near the cable and it picks up the interference.

Our brains are not much different. Subject to the "dyes" of neurotransmitters in our brains and the chemicals we ingest (caffeine, alcohol, various food impacts). Stress can affect the transmissions. Activity (concepts, thoughts) in one part of the brain can affect the chemistry bathing another.

We use this tenuous system to "perceive reality". We really never have a chance of seeing it as it is. We can come to accept we are limited by this thought/sense system and that the real world is beyond direct perception, but I don't think we can ever perceive it as it is. Heck, because of the finite speed of light, at best we can perceive it as it was a few billionths of a second ago.

Trapped forever in this jail of faulty perception? We are the jail.

The Next Step

2009-11-27T06:45:00.000-08:00

Might as well smile.

Sun shines brightly.

The thousand things that make me "human" get in the way.

Other people seem to define me. Is that really me?

Turn and reflect. That's a shadow of a shadow.

The next step is completely free.

Who sees the unhindered Lauren, walking with the fist of thought relaxed and held open?

Money

2009-11-14T07:55:00.000-08:00

How completely outside the realm of the zafu.
My accountant/wife hits me with the news this morning that we don't have in the bank what we thought we had as we go into the final stages of getting ready for a vacation, and then the IRS sends me a letter notifying us about errors in 2007 taxes, and this on the heels of my employer announcing a 10% reduction in workforce over the next few weeks. And I'm supposed to sit still on a cushion.... there must be something I should be doing.....
I wish I had a temple bell I could beat the hell out of right now...

Beer

2009-11-01T17:35:00.000-08:00

One of the most equivocal of precepts is the one about wine. It comes in a variety of flavors ranging from "Don't drink wine" to "Don't sell wine" to "Do take intoxicants" to "Don't engage in the intoxicant of delusion." I have been, and still am, and still am not a drinker. I have gone years with a daily or thrice weekly glass of wine or beer or whiskey of varying sizes (some glasses are larger than others).

I have been trying these days to open up to the precept of avoiding intoxicants. This doesn't work (for me) if it is approached as a rule. I did not say "I will not drink." I said "I will not drink, and yet I will not not-drink." I opened the tight hand of thought as best I could each time I found "drink" on my mind. This has changed my drinking. And I don't miss it much at all*. But there have been two difficulties.

Difficulty one is experiencing more of me more clearly. It appears that drinking was, in part, a sort of self medication to deaden this or that thought. To drop inhibitions. To inhibit fears and worries. To avoid things. To focus on things. With less drinking there is more 'authentic' me I have to deal with. It ain't always fun. I am often hung up on some pretty petty stuff, or having quite devilish fantasies. Such a ball of greed anger and ignorance I can be at times.

The second difficulty has been social. Being in situations where not drinking is taken as negative commentary on others there who are drinking. That sucks, but I found a way. A really great tasting non-alcholic beer called Buckler. It's imported by Heineken. To be far to the purist, it says it is less than 0.5% alcohol. So it's not perfectly alcohol free. But it tastes good, it helps me mix socially when that is important, and its close enough to water for my precept comfort.

So if you're a Buddhist and would like a cold one.
Grab a Buckler.
The beer that made Mahākāśyapa smile.

*I don't miss it 'cause, sometimes, I drink...(it's so tempting to put down amounts and time spans, but that's not the point. Some arbitrary goal is never the point. Every moment taken as is, is the point).

Illusion

2009-10-29T06:09:00.000-07:00

What is real vs. our concept of reality.

http://web.mit.edu/persci/gaz/gaz-teaching/index.html

Kinhin

2009-10-15T06:12:00.000-07:00

.

A difficult time
Just one more "next step" forward
I kinhin through life

How to Cook Your Life

2009-09-29T19:19:00.000-07:00

So I went down to TLZC (The Local Zen Center (which happens to be Austin Zen Center for me)) for "Buddha Flix", a.k.a. movie night (ref previous post), and as I suspected there were only decent people with no snobbish attitudes. That's not to say I don't think snobbish people can exist, only that my dread of them far exceeds their actual numbers in the world. So the path is set for visiting again for formal zazen and service. Hopefully my own self can stay out of my own way, and I can turn the wheel a bit in my life.

The movie we watched was "How to Cook Your Life." A little documentary style film about some of the thoughts and cooking classes of Ed Brown [Roshi] , who was a cook for a while at Tassajara (a famous, austere Zen retreat in California) and wrote a couple of their cookbooks. It was a very nice glimps at a well practiced Buddhist, temper and all. I particularly liked his characterization of the dings and scratches on the tea kettles and how they relate to we humans.

And for those who are tracking my very self absorbed decoding of my given Dharma name, it turns out I jumped to a hasty conclusion (small surprise!). Though 労連 is a recognized compound for Labor Union (or more casually, work group, as I like to characterize it), less common readings of the Kanji also yield Benevolence Bringing. So I guess I'm stuck with it. It doesn't count enough to do hard work, I've got to show a positive effect on the people around me. A good goal, and somewhat erie challenge. I often see that I don't give much of a damn on how my actions and words affect others even though I take pains to make sure I'm "right."

Benevolence, Pride & Fear

2009-09-26T11:20:00.000-07:00

Benevolence
I learned yesterday that the intention for my Dharma name was Blazing Turtle Bringing Benevolence. I haven't gotten to the bottom of the mystery yet. I don't know if 労連 (which appears in most dictionaries as meaning Labor Union, but the Kanji can be more casually read as Work Group) is a compound that can *also* mean "Bringing Benevolence", or if two different characters meaning "Bringing Benevolence" that can also be pronounced "rou-ren" should have been used. I've sort of become fond of "Blazing Turtle Work Group" even though it lacks a certain Buddhist poesy. Bringing Benevolence seems to set an expectation higher than what I am comfortable with.

Fear & Pride (or do I mean Vanity?)
I've been contemplating visiting TLZC (the local Zen center) to sit. As I do this, I find I am overwhelmed by fear that I will get something wrong. I'll enter the Zendo with the wrong foot. I'll gassho instead of shashu. I'll go to pee at the start of kinhin instead of the end. I'll say Chodia Kesa no Ge outloud and with the "wrong" English translation instead of silently to myself. I will screw up, and the people of TLZC, the ones in the know around me, will sigh heavily and give me that look of "okay, I guess I'll have to take time out of my pefection to tell you what to do," and I will feel miserable.....and what is really ringin my bell is all of that is freaking fiction. Let me say that again...there is nothing in my actual experience with actual real live buddhists at Zen centers I have met that come even close to that sort of attitude.

Where the hell is that stuff coming from?

I'm not talking nervous here. I'm talking down right, can't take a next step fearful. I actually found some petty excuses bail on my plan and did not to go to TLZC this morning because I was dreading it, and anxious, and then I pulled the bow and shot the "second arrow" into myself and started getting on my on case for being anxious and for not doing what I should because I can't keep on not going and meeting real Buddhist people face to face because just being a digital Buddhist is not really "it" I mean all those cool old stories and koan are from real people talking to each other so there's no way I can even think of myself as a Buddhist if I don't get my ass down to temple, and pronto! {big breath after manic tirade}

Well, I know part of that is old old karma that I haven't worked with yet. What I'm trying to say is it's childhood shite but I hate how that sounds like it's someone else's responsibility. It's all mine now, but its tuff work as many of you certainly know.

A big part of it is also my pride and vanity. I really am too young a buddhist (not my *age*, but my time in buddhism) to be wearing a rakusu. I whipped that puppy out and did it the *real authenic* way with rags I sewed together. I didn't mumble special words while I stitched 'cause I was on a schedule. But I did it so quick 'cause I wanted to get a pretty famous Zen preist to do jukai for me. What a score that was, eh? Not your run of the mill, local Zazenkai guy who would probably make me wait and sit for a while before I did it. Not some place where I would have to "sew under" the guidance of someone. I was completely off teacher-grid and I got it anyway ha-ha "system" take that!

That's not the complete picture of my jukai experience, of course. Many of my sincere values are manifest in that ole rakusu. It was important to me that old times (e.g. Dogen) said a kesa should come from "rags" and, to the best of my ability, mine did. I think Buddhism should be poor, and "common." I am very glad I painted a picture of Buddha for my Jukai instead of buying one. I had to think alot about the dude and the meaning of bowing to a picture of him, in the process of painting, and I think that was valuable. And most of all, the support I recieved from my brothers and sisters in the digital dharma was extremely "real" and important to me.

But even though I thought I was keeping a tight watch on myself, I think now, in retrospect, I way over did the pride and fame bit by having my Jukai with Brad. He did his darndest to say no, but I insisted. My bad, of course, not his.

So I have a nice rakusu that I really think has some good vibes in it. But though I've proudly expounded Chodai Kesa no Ge, I really don't understand it, or believe it. I don't really experience "formless field of happiness" yet. I don't see myself as *devoutly* wearing the Tathagata's teachings. To tell the truth, I don't even know exactly what they are. I maybe know some of the basics, but not ALL of them. And I really don't understand my role in saving all living beings.

So maybe I'm projecting all this scorn onto TLZC because I think much of my Buddhist practice is a sham. That seems about right.

There's also this apparently sadistic side of Zen lore that scares the kid in me I think (resonance with childhood woes). I say 'apparently' cause maybe its really okay and its just my prejudice mis-interpreting. We've all heard of the stuff of students being told to put up with discomfort if they want to "get anywhere" with Buddhism. I was in the San Jose Kinokuniya bookstore the other day and picked up a recent book written by a Japanses dude who spent a few months in Eiheiji. The page I landed on was him telling of a new monk in there who had broken a leg as a kid and so was having trouble with full lotus. One of the head guys said he better tie his legs together in full lotus to get it right. Full lotus is the ONLY right way. That crap makes me mad, and scares me. Where's the compassion? Where's the spirit of gentle Ryokan (a hero of mine long before I new anything about Buddhism)? No wonder so many monks run off to hermitages to do their zazen. All that socio-political no pain no gain zen bullshit is absent when you're by yourself (unless you bring it with you in your head, like I often do).

So I've got a ton to work with here. My own crap...and the institutional zen crap.

I'll let myself engage TLZC a bit more slowly. Maybe join them for their Buddha-flix tonight. Less formal, less pressure (I put on myself), and I'll get to experience real people, more than likely being genuinely friendly and compasionate.

Bottom line...this is all mine. I rushed in too quick. I got tangled in pride. I will relax into a "turning step". With thanks to all you...the Sangha that supports me.

Errors and Hindrance

2009-09-20T17:26:00.000-07:00

Even something as simple as Chodai Kesa no Ge (previous post) has so much in it. It can be learned and repeated by rote. But I am uncomfortable with that. Plus, I love to muck around with Japanese. So, in looking more into the verse, I've found a couple errors in my previous post. The most frustrating is in the first line. For sure "da" is not in the same kanji as "ge", but I'm still not clear if the "tsu" in "datsu" is normal or 'sokuon'. That is, whether the proper way is "ge datsu fuku" or "ge daffuku." The later is what Nishijima Roshi recommends here. But other trusted sources say it's not sokuon. Still digging.

A friend noticed I haven't posted in a while. He's certainly right. I've find I've had so much going on, its not clear what is value added to the world to post on. I am returing again and again to the question of whether I "am" a buddhist. Sit often, but not twice a day, and certainly not for 30 min twice a day. I feel I should. I accept that I don't... almost.

I wear my rakusu and do the chant before sitting. I've taken the precepts and strive to uphold them. I've managed to not drink for a week now. Yet I read the books of any buddhist author and am certain I am no buddhist. I dont' sit enough, or well enough. I don't know enough ceremony. I haven't made it down to the local Soto Zazenkai since Brad was here in April. I've never had dokusan with a teacher. Yet I know all this minutea is not what "it" is. Yet I know I'm not doing it.

Quite a Sueng-esque knot. I "don't know" if I "don't know" well enough.

Sigh.... just babble. No clarity. I believe there is no hindrance, but surround myself with hindrance.

I don't post, cause I have nothing I'm proud of. Nothing to brag about. Nothing wise to expound. Just trying to sit better each time I sit. Trying to be goal-less.

What a mess... yet again.

Blazing Turtle Work Group

2009-08-16T14:50:00.000-07:00

Just got my rakusu back from Brad, stamped and all.

My Dharma name is
燃亀労連

I *think* the proper reading (using On reading instead of Kun) is Nen-kin Rou-ren, which roughly means blazing turtle work group.

When he was visiting, Brad had mused that he might assign Japanese monster names to his initiates (people that take jukai with him), and I had favored Gamera at the time, so that is the source for "blazing turtle." Of course there may be some more poetic tones in that. I'm not too sure. My first reaction is the firery anger/distrust I can express, and the hard shell.

I don't know quite what to make of rou-ren (work gang). It is, of course, a phonetic pun on my name, Lauren. The compound is recognized in some dictionaries as "labor union," but I don't like that concept much. I'm very much a right-to-work kind of guy. However, work gang has some meaning in the sense of a group of people striving to get something practical done.

Now I am setting about learning rakusu chant. There appear to be a few variations on the kanji used to express it, and, of course, some slight variations in the English translation. Here is the Nishijima kanji and translation. See further commentary by Nishijima Roshi here

Chodai Kesa no Ge

大　哉　解　脱　服
Dai・sai・geda・tsu・fuku

無　柤　福　田　衣
Mu・so・fuku・den・e

披　奉　如　來　教
Hi・bu・nyo・rai・kyo

廣　度　諸　衆　生
Kou・do・sho・shu・jou

Ought

2009-07-29T05:34:00.000-07:00

I am struggling with "oughts" so much these days.

"You ought to sit", "You ought to open up to the moment", "You ought to accept"

The hand of thought can open in the moment, but I find myself starring at a fist and I strive to pry it open, because it "ought to be open."

This does not work.

I can clearly see myself as a mean, jealous, angry man, cussing at slow drivers, jealous of the attention my wife gets from her friends, dreaming of running away from it all to hide out in Japan somewhere, feeling like a spoiled child even as I write this tantrum when I know I "ought to be weighty and wise and crunchy and loving and reflective and cute and say nice things."

Barry, rename your blog "ought herding!"

I imagine there could be a pebble bounced off bamboo that would awaken me from this trap of knowing I ought not focus on all these oughts. Mirrors reflecting in mirrors - the tangled consideration.

Harry says Dogen thought there is no restriction in this murkiness.

There are hornets and there are kittens.

There are fools and there are sages.

If you have a practice, kill it!

2009-07-26T08:09:00.000-07:00

Lin Chi in the "yu-lu" recommends that if you meet a buddha, kill the buddha
(ref "The Zen Teachings of Master Lin-Chi", Smahbahala, trans. by Burton Watson, pg 52)

I had a practice. I killed the practice the last two days. Now I'm ready to start the practice again.

Was this wise? Was this folly?

It has arisen and fallen. How can it be touched?

Black and white mouse nibble the branch.

This "thus" is just a berry.

How sweet.

How sweet.

A Cup of Tea

2009-07-19T16:07:00.000-07:00

[Referring to Zen Flesh Zen Bones - Story 1. ]

When a guest comes to visit, with a full cup, is it kindness to serve them more?

Should you speculate that your guest's cup is full, or ask them if they would like more?

How long would you poor tea into a filled cup?

Should a guest tell a host that they must stop pouring?

If the cup has no bottom it will never be filled.

If the pot is truly empty it cannot pour tea.

"How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?" - How do you show water to a fish?

Bees

2009-07-06T16:14:00.000-07:00

Had to take refuge from all suffering in the house the other day. I was in my bed staring at the ceiling and got the distinct impression all this "I" was just thoughts churning in a mind. Like "I" was a swarm of angry bees.

I waited a few minutes, and one by one the bees left.

But something was still left behind, observing the lack of bees.

Then I got up, dove back in, and the swarm has started again.

What was that left behind? Sweet honey?

Once Upon a Time....

2009-07-02T06:33:00.000-07:00

UPDATE April 2011 >> my little spybot shows a bunch of people are reading this old post now. What's the interest? I'd love to know. Drop me a email or a comment.

Once upon a time there was [ ]. And now I must destroy [ ] a bit by saying that it was formless and yet lacking all formlessness. I will degrade [ ] a bit more, add bit more delusion to it, by saying it was an existence. So out of the formed, formlessness it all arises.

Though there was actually no heaven and earth in this existence, it was all a void of non-differentiation, we could say there was uppy stuff that was way away, and downy stuff that was near by.

And to more complety sickle o'er the perfection of this void with the pale cast of thought we can say there were vast expanses of water and land. And we can carve out blobs of this nothing, this [ ] and call the bits that don't run away from us plants, and the bits that do animals.

Though there was actually no brilliant sun, or calming moon, or splashing streams, or rumbling thunder, we can only say there was sun, moon, streams and thunder because there is no other way to do this.

And this void, this formlessness, did not, but did, have a thousand million eyes, and paws, and noses, and brains, and beating hearts. They arose and fell, like foam tipped waves on the ocean. Here and gone. Sometimes falling into each other, with bits being shat out, and sometimes just falling and blending back into the ground like melting ice cream.

There were in fact no buffalo or tigers or rhinoceroses or giant sloths or tyrannosaurus rexes, but that is how we name those bits of void these days. The names kill what they really were. Confine them to cages that don't express their full truth.

One pair of eyes with brain with limbs started being more populous, and being more populous, more reliably, because it happened to associate a high grunt with getting the hell out of there (what we now would call "danger") and a low grunt with staying put (i.e., "safety"), a yelp with "these berries are good" and a chatter with "tiger over there." This ugly bag of mostly water we can call hu-man took the void, took the formlessness, took the unlimited all, and started carving it up into concepts and names, and this took hold like wildfire amongst the hu-mans. The ones that could trade in this bastardization of the [ ] lived longer, and better, and had more offspring that could pick up on the "benefits" of this carving and hacking the nothingness into chunks of stuff.

Skipping several hundred thousands of not-really-existant years brings us to today. We have a way of life that is crowed with ideas and concepts and language and thoughts that allow us to manipulate very effectively this great void, this nothingness, this [ ], we are in, but we have much trouble seeing it for what it is.

Seung Sahn Soen-sa says "stop making bad and good", Shakespeare says "There is no bad nor good but thinking makes it so." These thoughts, these words this "intellect" is not it, not the [ ]. They are a limited description of parts of it. They lead to the illusion that [ ] is a composition of a bunch of individual things. I do not think that is what [ ] is.

[ ] is a continuous whole of undescribable reality. Our concepts are never adequate. With practice (zazen) we can learn to open our "old" eyes that were part of [ ], and let [ ] flood into our awareness without naming any bit of it, or put thoughts and concepts to it. We can learn to just flow with it again as [ ] is.

[ ] is like the horns of a snail. If we try to touch it with concepts and judgement and language, it shys away.

Of course the discourse above kills [ ] by striving to conceptualize its existance. My thesis requires that even my thesis must miss the mark. The following quoted sentence is a better description,
"_________________________________________"

but not even the concept of empty quotes on a computer screen is close to [ ]. Perhaps you can find some of [ ] on your zafu?

It's Not the Soup, It's the Croutons...No It's the Soup

2009-06-22T16:14:00.000-07:00

I was pondering DNA the other day. There's been so much talk over the last few years about the wonder of DNA, and what the various codings mean, and how there're sections of DNA that seem to have no use, etc...

I was talking about something similar, some biological molecular activity, a few days later with my daughter, and we were noticing how people anthropomorphisize biological chemical action with phrases like "it seeks out the bactiria" or "the virus looks for an opening in the immune system" and so on, and how people rarely, if ever, describe what is really happening... which is molecules are randomly bumping around in cells and blood streams and stomaches and so on, and they just happen to hit another molecule just right so that there is a reaction of the sort described. Molecules have no "brains" or volition. There is no actual "seeking" or "looking" occuring.

Then following that, I was pondering DNA again and suddenly realized that DNA does nothing. That is to say, if you take a strand of DNA and put it on a table and wait, you will be waiting for many kalpa's and still nothing will happen. It's rather stupid to talk about DNA as if it itself was something.

DNA is pointless without a cell to be in. DNA does nothing unless it is suspended in the soup of the cell.

And by extension, of course, a cell does nothing unless it is in the community of a tissue, in an organism, in an enviroment, on a planet, in the universe.

Of course there is analogy here to this idea of "self." We can often be certain that we are distinct, stand alone entities that "are something" independet of everything else. But of course, we are not. Like DNA, strand us on a cold steel table by ourselves, and we do nothing, we are nothing, we quickly die.

I have to add to this my favorite fun fact that there are more than 10 to 100 trillion bacteria cells in and on the average human body which itself has only 1 trillion cells. This means that there are far more non-you cells (by count, not by mass, bacteria cells are very small) on/in your body than there are you-you cells. Do you really imagine you could survive without all those trillions of not-you?

You are indeed there, like DNA is there, but that is just identifying one particular bump on the blanket, one crouton in the soup. You have no function, purpose, identity, by yourself. It is the whole bowl of soup that is a "something". The only independent thing there is is the whole universe.

If only we crouton's could really live this way! If we could stop being "self" aware, and be more "all of it as it is flowing" aware. Just enjoy the local eddies in the soup bowl, rather than struggling to think you are not linked to them.

So Bizzy [sic]

2009-06-16T10:55:00.000-07:00

Way too busy these days to really write anything.
Running around Texas (well, Austin - Houston, Austin - Rockport) a bunch working with funeral and trying to gather and settle my dad-in-laws estate. Turns out, after 2 months+ of nursing a hurt wrist, my wife's gotta have hand surgery w/ 6 weeks+ recovery time. Still managing zazen most mornings and nights, and reading the dharma a bit here and there. Dropping occasional pithy comments on my freqented blogs. There are a million things I could write about if I had more time... thinking of my usual dharma friends often.

Thanks

2009-05-31T17:21:00.000-07:00

Finally back at the computer after days of running back and forth across Texas.

Peter, Tallis, Uku, Harry, Jordan, Barry, Jeremy, and "Just Zazen", thanks all for the well wishes.

There appears to be no "getting back to normal" after this event, just getting on.

I find in this odd aftermath of settling estates and planning funerals that I am wondering if I was kind enough to the guy while he lived, and seeing that the bell tolls for me too, I don't have a lot to say right now.

It seems so clear that when it's over, it's over, as simple as turning off a light when you leave the room.

Our existence props up so much; property ownership, pensions, credit cards, keys, bank accounts, tools, trailers, trash, friends, family, clothes, shoes, books, frying pans... and when we die, it's like the key post in a house being pulled out. The house heaves, sighs and collapses. The people left behind dig through the rubble, organize the remains, construct a final story, and move on.

Lasting influence? Maybe. But not "directed" influence, of course. We go. How other people remember us, interpret us does remain... but it is not 'us.' It is not the unique consciousness you sense about yourself.

There is no greatness or smallness.

Drops fall from the sky and land in the ocean.

It is all rain.

Death

2009-05-26T06:02:00.000-07:00

My father in law passed away. I saw him struggling with ill health in a recovery hospital bed a week ago, dealing with DNR's and interpreting curative from palliative procedures. I saw 'him' in the hospice hospital on Friday, heaving for breath, essentially unconscious. And then Saturday, a well assembled collection of organic molecules was stone still in the hospice bed, with no spark of life. No one was gone, no one was here. The ice has melted and fallen back into the stream. Now begins a long process of legal and customeray affairs that is definitely certain there was someone unique there. But that was you and that was me. We arise, pop out a vagina, and muck about until we're tossed in the ground to feed the worms. What a comedy! Might as well just sit.

The Pain of Silence

2009-05-17T18:22:00.000-07:00

I was terrible to someone I should not have been terrible to. A relationship I value. I may have busted it pretty bad. Time will tell. Jordan suggested to me that if I learn from it, its not such a big mistake. So this is some of my learnin'. I gave a good hard look at what was going through my mind, and I think it all had to do with silence.

In sync with this discovery is that I find I am quite unnerved by the lack of comments to my last blog entry. I had posted a bunch of "honest" stuff that left me feeling quite exposed...and there were no comments. I took it all down, and felt like I was re-nigging on the "honest scrap" deal I had been given....and there were no comments. So I rewrote it a bit, more optimistically...and there were no comments. For anyone who may be reading this, I do not mean to cast any blame with this. I am actually a bit embarassed by this. It is simply a fact.

This blog is, of course, also a relationship. The comments I get generally fulfill my friendship needs in my life. I'm not sure this is a good thing anymore, but it certainly is true. So when the comments stopped, I started feeling unhinged.

So when there are relationships I need, and they go silent, I get a little crazy. Why? There are probably many explanations I and a therapist could find. We could probably lay out some of the cause-effect that went on early in my life. More importantly, though, I think I will have to fully embrace this "weakness" to fall into the truth completely. I need to unfold some of the erroneous logic that must be knitted in my character that equates how others respond to me as a basis for feeling worth and comfort.

If I think that people don't care for me any more (whether my thoughts reflect the true situation is immaterial) why does this hurt? What is this thing, this self-worth, that is so important for we humans? What does Zen have to say about the value of our existence? Am I really *needed* here?

Looking at some of the Buddhist commentary I have read, I guess the best there is to say is that I just am. There is no value nor lack of value in this fact. How can I address this need I have to be valued, to care so much about whether people communicate with me?

This is, no doubt, a basic human issue, and the cause of much duhka in the world. I hope it is not the work of several kalpas, but that I can drop through the bottom of the bucket on this in the next few years.

Carp Stone

2009-05-12T20:13:00.000-07:00

[there never was anything here]
or
[was it a cat i saw]
----
A boulder blocks the way

I've tried blowing it up
pushing it to the side
digging under it to find its root
climbing over it to exceed its height
analyzing it to know its true nature
denying it is there to negate its impediment

It is still there
I can hear the bull bleating behind it

I'm waiting for a fish to swim by
and with a flick of its tail
it will be gone

"Here fishy fish"

Real Hell or Real Life

2009-05-10T18:09:00.000-07:00

It all keeps getting thicker.

Years ago my wife suffered but survived an odd disease known as Guillain-Barre (gee-on bar-ay) soon after our daughter was born. I was frustrating cause it presents as so many other possibilities (simple fatigue) in its early stages. It nearly killed her. The biggest scar it left was the scare that there can be bizzare diseases that seem like nothing, but doctors diagonose wrong. Once you learn this lesson, it's impossible to forget.

Now she has a torn TFCC (a complete cartilage structure in the hand), some torn knee cartilage and an only rotator cuff tear hurting. The knee and wrist really didn't come from obviously traumatic events. So is this just rotten luck, or some bizzare cartilidge-falling-apart disease? We don't know. We press on. She has been at 20% for the last 4 weeks, and now facing wrist surgery, will probably be at 20% for another 4 or more.

On top of that her father in Houston (150 miles away) has suffered renal failure from too much NSAIDs taken for gout cause by chronic alcoholism which was overcome 20 years ago. He also suffers from BPE (and COPD) which caused a raging urinary tract infection which spread to his blood.

The guy lives recently widowed in a trailer park, set in his ways and would have died, unchallenged, in bed last week if my wife hadn't called EMS remotely (who did not take him in) and forced her cousin (living in the same trailer park) to take him to the doctor who did admit him. Now he faces 20+ days in hospital for dialysis waiting to see if his kidneys kick back on... and if not, then what?

We saw him this weekend, and he is just out of the game. He doesn't complain about the hospital. He doesn't worry about his "stuff." He just sits in bed, with gout paining his knees, not really eating, waiting for the next dialysis.

I'm being stretched in ways I never have, these days. Covering much work at home. Striving to encourage my wife in her pain, and fathom the needs and wants of an aging, hurting man.

It is a whole shitload of dharma. Just-is-ness that I find difficult to face. I am angry and put out that life can't be the protected normalcy I had a month ago when I was sewing my rakusu and dreaming of precepts from Brad.

What would the patriarchs do in all this? Again I find myself angry that the famous ones all left "home and family" and escaped hells like this. How do I take a next step as I struggle with shame over my sarcastic tone to wife who has asked me for help for the nth time today?

This is the real crucible. When things get so tangled they are unrecognizable, and 5 minutes of no immediate trouble is like a vacation of 2 weeks. When you can see your own faults and pettiness and anger parading out of you like a 4th of July parade. No pretense of "holy". Buddha just please let me not be a beast in the next moment.

Jump in the raging stream
Fly past rocks and over waterfalls
Fearful of the trip and splash and swirl?
Unfamiliar scenery flashing by to quick?
Who are you?
Look inside
to the deep stillness
of the whole dharma.

Picking and Choosing

2009-05-07T16:09:00.001-07:00

When I think of all troubles and hardship I have actively sought to spare my daughter from, and succeeded, and avenues and opportunities for expression I have provided her, and praise I have given her, I think I have done a fine job as a parent.

When I think of all the advantages and expanding experiences I haven't provided for my daughter, and all the occasions when I squashed or stifled her free expression, and the times I was overly critical, I think I have done a very poor job as a parent.

What am I, good or bad?

It's All Right There

2009-05-04T18:52:00.000-07:00

[I find I have nothing to say.
Dharma is lurking out there.

Enjoy it.]

E-Sangha's - Coins in the Donation Box

2009-04-27T14:58:00.000-07:00

There has been much discussion on some more trafficked blogs about the value and perils of e-sanghas. I'm not trying to swallow the whole fish here [wink] , just provide a small comment on a complex issue.

While I don't live terribly far from a brick and mortar zendo. To participate fully in a zazen session or service, including some interaction with the fine folks there, would take several hours out of a schedule already packed with responsibilities. While I believe I should try and visit there occasionally, this little corner of the blogesphere has proven very useful to my practice, and I appreciate very much all of the Dharma friends who drop by with a kind or supportive, or even critical word from time to time.

It makes me think of the delightful pa-tunk a coin makes when you throw it in the donation box (saisen bako) at a Japanese temple. A little gift of just 10 yen or so helps keep the temple going. In the same way, a few words in a comment can help someone's practice keep going.

What Was That?

2009-04-25T11:14:00.000-07:00

Wow. What a week this has been. I feel drained physically and emotionally. I found zen this week to be an intensely psychological trial. I guess I shouldn't be surprised by this. Perhaps I thought zen was a only "spritual" practice. But truely it is more a psychological practice as it deals with self-identity and reality so much.

Thursday morning (4/16) I drove out to Bastrop State park. It is a forest of pine trees that was some how cut off from the larger herd in a past ice age event. It is the only place to find pine in the Austin area. I needed a sprig for Jukai. I spent about an hour in park. Did some zazen under a 100ft tall tree, grabbed a couple sapling springs (with apologies) and high-tailed it to the airport. Met Brad there and drove him home.

We (wife, Brad and I) spent some time talking about Buddhist names. Apprently Brad has not done a Jukai in his lineage before, and so was a little unsure about what his naming tradition was going to be. We talked a bit about the punk tradition of a new second name al a "Johny Phlem" or "Brad Nosweat". He also explored giving my same name back, but assigning phonetically correct kanji to it to give it a new meaning. I got favorably stuck on Lauren Roach, which is more consinent using the Japanese pronunciation of "Rōren Rōchi." On the following day I did a bunch of kanji research and actually found a kanji set that had a nice message in it; something like "Bright Training, Trifling with Delusion" (朗練弄癡). There were several other fun combo's for "Rōchi", including "smartweed spider" and "humble mountain monster". Ultimately none of these were it (more later).

Went to dinner at a very old and locally famous veggie restaurant called "Mothers" and then stopped by Cheapo Discs, a used CD place. My wife and I picked up too many good old albums. I also bought a copy of Godzilla v. Mothra on Brad's recommendation. Then, we came home.

Brad took to my schnauzer named Baker and started calling him Baker Roshi. A bit later we did Jukai in the dinning-room-now-zendo (pictures in previous blog). I was dressed very casual at first. Brad asked me to dress up a bit, so I put on some dressy jeans, button down shirt and a tie. The tie was in the way during prostrations. Brad wore his full robe regalia.

The ceremony was light hearted, but sincere. Brad has done just one Jukai before this (Nishijima Roshi wrote the rakusu and picked the name etc... but Brad did the ceremony) and has not memorized the liturgy, and has most of the words to say, so we were both working from print-outs. I had propped his sheets in a binder on a music stand near his chair, so it looked a bit formal. My wife, daughter, Baker roshi and Kiba the cat attended actually, as well as Harry, Peter, Jordan, Gwen, Jennie, Julie and Rosemary in token. A couple of times during the precepts description, my daughter asked questions to be sure what she could hold me too. I must admit, "don't become angery" and "don't discuss failures of buddhist priests and others" were a be nerve racking to commit to.

After Jukai we got in our civies and watched Godzilla. I think all of us had nodded off before it was over.

Next day (Friday) we spent most of the morning browsing CD stores downtown, including our famous Waterloo Records, and Antones. We got at the Austin Zen Center about 5:30. We did zazen, and Brad his talk (see his blog for more on that stuff). I felt quite awkward having a rakusu and not really knowing the formalities around it. Thanks, Jordon, for the advice on the chant etc... Got more from Chris at AZC. We got pizza with about 8 others in the gang there, after all was said and done.

I noticed throughout the trip that zazen in a group is much easier then at home. The time goes much quicker. I also noticed that there was a lot of "fame" stuff going on (both good and bad) and that messed with my head a bit. For the good, it was kinda cool, in effect, riding Brad's coat tails. I caught my ego strutin' a couple of times, and I think several people thought I was "someone" because I was traveling with Brad. The bad was that the spotlight was definitely on Brad for the most part. As the trip went on, I felt less and less significant. To the extent these were real feelings going on in me - it was painful. To the extent I was able to step back and observe this happening in my own head - it was intereting.

Next day we got up early to ride out to San Antonio Zen center. It was a very welcoming, small group. The Zendo is an old house by a creek that was actually raging from night-before rain. A good zazen, a good dharma talk, nice chit chat after. More ego involvement.

I'm running out of steam here so I'll defer the rest for another post.

A while back, someone commented they wanted to see a close up of the Buddha I painted for the ceremony. That's why he's up a the top, there. I thought I might work on him some more after Jukai, as there are a couple impossible aspects to the picture, but I've changed my mind. It's done.

No Time

2009-04-23T10:39:00.000-07:00

No time to write something long. Here's a brief update.

Jukai happened. No Pics (pooh).
Had a great time visiting 3 Texas Zen Centers and 2 Book Signings with Brad.

More later?!

Rakusu is complete! Jukai anticipated tomorrow.

2009-04-15T13:00:00.000-07:00

I finally finished the darned thing. Not much to say. Just pics of the finished rakusu and the impromptu zendo I assembled in my dinning room. Note the cabinet with "tokens" from several well-wishers that are too far flung to attend in person (thanks Harry, Jordan, Peter, Gwen, Julie, Jennie and Rosemary).

The image of Buddha I did myself. I will work on it a bit more after the ceremony.

It has certainly an interesting journey to get to this point. Thanks to all who helped me get here.

Attachements & Rakusu Progress & Dangerous Ideas

2009-04-11T14:00:00.000-07:00

Things are different this morning re: my father-in-law. My wife checked in, and has decided to cajole him into seeing a doctor and *then* going down to pick him up. So as of today, things are still on course for Jukai etc....

Dangerous Ideas
When it looked like it was going to have to be called off, I was really upset about losing Jukai next week and maybe even my chance to visit w/ Brad. All of this upset was just an idea, but it really affected me. Definite duhka. My wife read my face, as wives do, and wanted to know what was up. I told her about my upset and she became miserable for me too. All this misery from something that wasn't here and wasn't now. Misery over the idea of not being able to do something. I could have acted better, I'm sure, but at least I saw this play out. Is it really always good to share ideas, even if they are "real?" If I had turned more to what was really before me, it was nothing. No pain and anguish. Just me standing with my wife in a room.

Attachments
So, yeah, all that desire for things to go as I had been planning them was massive attachment, of the not-helpful sort. I also saw that pretty quick and was able to turn the internal storm a bit. I saw that I was faced with a stream of karma, of cause-effect, that was not matching my idea, so I better just face the new, real, reality and take a next step.

Rakusu Progress
My rakusu is coming along. Sewing the lines in the en is really the hardest part, I think. I'm nearly done, and so finally understanding the best way to finish off a thread and start a new one. So much balancing going on. Focus or distraction, long thread or short, fast motion or slow. Patience with crazy thread knots has been a challenge. And don't tell anyone, but I don't think I've said "I take refuge in the Buddha" with exactly every stitch. Pics follow. In the last one you can see the mid line stitches in the en. Learning the blind stitch took some research, but I finally got it.

Grief and Pain for Promised Joy?

2009-04-10T13:16:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling a bit like Burn's "mousie".
My wife just got a call from her dad saying he's been very sick and hasn't eaten for a week and could she come down (Austin to Houston) and spend a couple days with him. The tone and circumstance and recent history make it feel like this may be his last legs, so we are driving to Houston tomorrow to bring him up for who knows what outcome and for how long.

Though I don't know what's really going to happen, I'm having to start planning contingencies for hosting Brad for his Texas Tour next week, and driving him to San Antonio and Houston and Dallas, and finding other accommodations for him for his Austin stay, and likely having to postpone my Jukai.

That shoe hasn't fallen, but I see it's shadow hanging over me.

But Mousie, thou are no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

Rakusu Progress

2009-04-04T21:59:00.000-07:00

The top picture is from this morning. All tan and chou attahced. Just on seam left to finish on the left.
The bottom picture is an earlier shot (kinda outa focus) of the tan and chou joined in pairs.

I think I will have the main field of my rakusu finished tomorrow.

I'm probably only 1/3 done with the whole thing. So much to sew and so little time.

It sure ain't perfect, but it sure represents my practice...faultering steps along the way, not 100% beautiful, full of sincere mistakes, generally in the right direction. All very symbolic. To think I'll have to wear this around my neck for years to come!

I still haven't selected the cloth for the writing panel. I wonder if I should go for some pristine silk or cotton, or settle for a panel of old yellow pillow case, coffee dyed to beige.

Naked Sitting - Yikes

2009-04-04T08:53:00.000-07:00

"Turn your head to the wall my darlings, while the gentlemen trot by. " [vague memory of "beyond the fringe" with Dudley Moore, Peter Cook, et. al.]

So I was on a biz trip last week. Brought my zafu and got some good sitting done. Not as much as at home, but much more than the last trip I took. There was a handy configuration of mirrors in the sink area, so I decided to give my zazen posture a look-see. And, blush, blush, I did this au-natural. Thankfully the mirror did not break, and I was able to identify a big mistake in my sitting.

What I had thought was a straight spine, was really over-doing it. The above picture sort of demonstrates the same issue in a standing position. The left image is "natural" the right is forced. I have been pushing my chest out, and pooching my butt too far back. My posture looked sway-back. When I relaxed just a bit, to what felt on the inside like the beginning of a slouch, my back looked normal. It also turns out that the sway-back posture I had was exposing my left leg artery/nerve (?) to more constriction. With a more natural posture, my leg stays way more awake (I'm a half-lotus'er)

So I recommend at least one session of nude sitting with mirrors to everyone who has a habitual leg sleeping, or back strain after a while. Try different things like puffing out your chest, tilting your hips forward and back. See what actually straightens your spine and how it may differ from what feels like a straighter spine. Calibrate your sense to a the position of a natural relaxed, but still straight and upright spine. The "middle way" of sitting.

Intuitive Math

2009-03-31T21:19:00.000-07:00

I observe in myself two types of math skills. I'll call them intuitive and cognitive. I can see either operate when doing simple sums or products. Other than that, cognitive seems to only be available to me.

My experience of intuitive math, particularly addition, is that I glance at the number and the answer appears to me as knowledge instantly. Trying to capture this in words is something like;

3,5 sums to 8.

It is an instant conclusion. There is no "thought" or consideration.

My experience of cognitive math is some reference to other information, some process pursued, lots of consideration. It feels more like;

3 plus 5 is 8. or 3 plus 5 equals 8.

Notice the objects appear (3 and 5), there is a process between them (plus) there is consideration of an outcome via a rule ("is" or "equals"). There is much consideration in this.

Why is this important to me? Because, as I said, there are circumstances where I seem to have a choice over which method I use to get my answer. I have literally been faced with addition I needed to do, found the intuitive method at play but getting nervous at the lack of "checking" and so switching to cognitive. And sometimes visa versa.

This speaks to me about the role of intuition in general. There can be, I believe, a way of responding to events that is direct and intuitive, instant and spontaneous and without reference to rules or relationships guidelines. Often I think our intuition always speaks first to us and then we try and "back it up" with a cognitive solution. A solution that has been thought out in reference to rules and guidelines. That is all well and good until there is a disjoint between our intuition and "the rules" method.

I experience a choice of intuitive or cognitive for sums. The rest of the time, I think I spend in consideration, idealism. I believe zazen will help me learn to choose living in intuition more frequently.

"Okay Buckwheat"

2009-03-29T08:38:00.000-07:00

Actually I don't think buckwheat is okay. I've been sitting on a Buckwheat Zafu for a year plus. I felt the non-resilience of buckwheat was responsible for my left leg consistently falling asleep. Not that the sleeping was that bad, but it was a distraction I get drawn to too much. Perhaps if I were a more centered sitter it would not be an issue, but I chose to try and alleviate it.

There will always be distractions in sitting. That is what the practice is about, in many ways. Noticing the distractions, learning how to let the distraction (the 'dissatisfaction') just be. To notice it but do nothing about it. We all must chose which distractions we address. It is possible to do zazen next to a highway, on a battle field, or while a surgeon drills open your skull, but not all of us could do zazen well in those conditions.

The one distraction that I think we must all tolerate for a minimum level of practice is the distraction of boredom. Some of my sitting is in the moment. Most of it is a struggle with how boring the whole thing is.

So, I emptied the buckwheat from my zafu. By the way a 1 gallon zafu appears to hold 12 gallons of buckwheat. I don't know how that works. There must be some sort of cosmic Dr. Who Tardis effect going on.

I took a bunch of kapok (cotton like plant fiber) from my zabuton and stuffed it in my zafu shell, and stuffed, and stuffed. I thought I would refill my zabuton with the buckwheat, but there was enough kapok left to give me a usable but think zabuton.

Based on one sit, the kapok is better. I think it will compress over time and I may have to rob by zabuton to empty, but we will see.

Tan and Cho

2009-03-24T05:27:00.000-07:00

I've finally started putting thread to fabric for my rakusu. Tan and Cho (the large and small bits of the rakusu rice field) are coming together nicely. But, my rag is old jeans and I've only done the first joining seam on each. I dread the "turn over" when I have to do the exposed seam through 3 layers of denim.

I enjoy the practice of trying to get each stitch correct but then having to accept what occurs actually.

I achieved a very un-impressive goal-filled goal today. I actually have three home-sits in a row at 30min. Haven't done 3 30's since Septembers sesshin. Found I really did not like getting up to do it this morning. Resented this silly buddism practice I'm doing for cutting into snooze time and family time. Wondering if I'm really up for this....but sat anyway.

Kind of realised how shukke is relevent even if you don't leave your house.

Cheers,

Fallen off the Bike

2009-03-22T10:02:00.000-07:00

There been a lot of blogging in my circle of Dharma Bro's about zazen, bike riding and falling down. I often feel a pressure to right good news in my blog. Positive outlook stuff and successes. Coincident with this planning is a negative thing or failure I'm trying to hide, I think. A shame at not being "together."

We just bought a piece of land down by the coast. No water view, but 2 acres with oaks about a quarter mile from an unbelievably large Copano bay. Since my work was shutdown this week, I spent the last 4 days down there doing basic work on the small house/shack that's on the land.

Went down with full intention of lots of quite-seclusion meditation, working on my rakusu. Instead I spent most of the time working, only a single sort meditation event. I didn't work on my rakusu at all. I feel quite ashamed about all this. My friend Just Zazen (see blog list in sidebar) wrote recently about falling off his zazen 'bike' for 36 hours. My advice to him was to know it's okay and to take a next step. My internal critic is much harsher on me. A critic I should have "left by the stream" (see Uku's blog) years and years ago, but still carry around.

Strive for a next moment that is more in balance, but forget fairy tale Zen.

Sit for balance.

Shame is only useful on very rare ocassions.

It's okay.

Jukai Koffee Bean

2009-03-08T16:31:00.000-07:00

I'm still headed towards Jukai. Dependent on whether I have a rakusu prepared in time. Some of the pieces are cut. Today I took the yellow pillowcase and tried to dye it browner with cast-off coffee from Starbucks. While that seems to go against the advice of picking fabric without discrimination, to get the coffiee grounds my daughter and I had a little adventure that excuses the transgression, I think. We had to get some stuff for a party my wife and I were going to that night so I invited my daughter to hike with me down to the local grocery store to get it. My daughter hasn't wanted to do anything with me for the last month or so, so I was phyched that she took me up on this invitation to walk.

We were going to stop off at the stand-alone Starbucks that is on the way, but when I got to Randall's I remembered they had a Starbucks kiosk built in (lest it be to troubling for patrons to drive literally across the street to the stand-alone). On the way in, I stopped at the Starbucks kiosk and asked the Starbucks lady if she had any grounds to toss that I could have. She did. I told her we'd pick them up on the way out. We got our "fuzzy water" and baked beans and stopped by the kiosk again. She had prepared an 10lb bag of cast-offs bigger than a large bag of rice.

She nicely put the short bag of grounds into a longer, industrial sized trash bag to make it easier to carry. I tied the end of the long bag through our grocery bag with the 12 pack of canned water. The coffee and water just about balanced each other. I was an odd sight to suburbia, I'm sure. A large bag of brown whatever suspeded down my back with a box of water hanging from the front. My daughter carried the beans.

We reveled in how odd we looked to the world, and how nice it was that we took a 30 minute walk to do what could have been done in 5 by car.

So now the pillow case is dyed to an earthly beige. And even though that fact of not-accepting-what-it-was cuts contrary to Dogen's "instructions," the color it has carries the memory of our odd adventure. Which, of course, I prefer.

And Jukia itself will be an odd adventure if I pull it off.

Brad has said he will officiate, but has nothing to say about where and with whom. He will be here in April to do some booksigning and dharma talking gigs I worked out for him. I've only been to the local Zen center once, and don't have a strong relationship with them. I would feel a bit odd, just dropping in on their space for a Jukai.

I've been thinking that since my zazen is done at home, and since my wife and duaghter are my immediate sangha (or at least they don't object to my pursuit), my home is really the right place to do Jukai. It is, in effect, my temple.

I will ask my wife and daughter to attend. I might even invite a relative or two that I speak with some about my Buddhist inclinations. Maybe even my wife's best friend and her husband. We haven't talked much about Buddhism, but I'm sure my wife has talked about it with her friend (and so her husband), so they are probably mildly supportive.

I'll convert our dinning room into a temporary zendo; find a formalish chair, and I must have a small efigy of Buddha somewhere. Near to Austin is a patch of Loblolly pines, cut off from the main herd by some past ice age, if I remember the park sign correctly from 30+ years ago. I'll go there and get a pine sprig.

I would like some of my e-sangha friends to be there too (that's many of you reading this). I thought about video links and such but that level of technology seems too techy for the spirit of the event. What I'd like to offer instead is that if you'd like to "be present" a my Jukai, send me a little note in the mail with some thing to represent you. It could be a picture, a guitar pick, a scrap of fabric left over from your own rakusu... just something little. Kinda like those cool tokens from Monopoly (I always enjoyed being the shoe).

I will arange your note and "token" on a shelf in the room where the Jukai occurs.

This is all a bit of fantasy. I haven't finished my rakusu yet, so who knows. Brad may think the whole idea of a home jukai is too unorthodox even for him.

If you're interested in taking the plunge into this bit of unknown, my mailing address is

Lauren Crane
1401 Wesson Cove
Cedar Park, Texas 78613

If it reaches me by April 16th, and my rakusu is ready, your token will "witness" my Jukai.
=======

Our friend Uku just got back from Japan where he was able to hang out with Nishijima Sensei and recieve Jukai from Peter. I find I expereince a little envyous of this. Maybe I should wait until I can afford another trip to Japan, and do Jukai as part of a Shizuoka retreat? But no. Trying to copy someone elses cool adventure never turns out right in the long run. This home-jukai idea is a bit of karma I've already set in motion. It fits my reality better. So that's where I'll put my focus. We'll see!

Mu! (aka 'Wuf')

2009-03-03T10:54:00.000-08:00

I asked my dog if he had Buddha Nature.

He licked his nose and sighed heavily.

Is there any question to this meaning?

-- [This Page Left Intentionally Blank] --

2009-03-02T15:11:00.000-08:00

Seen today attributed to Basho

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise.
Seek what they sought.

A very difficult lesson.

I Must Be Annoying

2009-03-01T17:18:00.001-08:00

I sent the following question to Brad the other day,

Brad,

I find it very hard to manage 2x30min meditation daily, though I am still working at it. Some days I succeed, others, I do not.

I definitely have a goal to achieve 2x30, but not specific goal in the meditation itself but to strive towards non-thinking "action actually" while I sit.

Is working towards it enough to be considered a "True Buddhist" or must it be achieved before one can "join the club?"

Regards,
Lauren

Now that I reflect on it, I'm embarrassed ... but only just a little.

As I've studied Buddhism over the last year I've found it unsettling. I don't know what the 'rules' are. I see lots of arguments about rules. There is lots of concern about good teachers and true teachers and the right kind of Buddhism.

I've been around for nearly 50 years now and this experience feels alot like highschool. I really was miserable in much of high school.

I can see those karmic waves still rebounding in my character now. A lot of fear and a lot of curiosity, and way too much seeking approval from external sources.

I want Brad to approve of what I understand about Buddhism. Ditto from Nishijima Sensei, and ditto from you who may happen to read this blog. And in that, is the point Brad strives to make in his books, you've got to take responsibility for your own path. I've never noticed before how much I do not take responsibility for my own path. I think 50% of the discussions I've had on blogs recently has been me trying to get approval for what I already believe rather than the exchange of ideas (the 'guise under which the conversation is structured).

Said the Oracle "You've already made your decision, Neo, now you're just trying to understand it." {or there abouts}.

I wonder how many aspects of Buddhism I've already made up my mind about and I'm waiting for someone else to tell me I'm right before I embrace it.

Rags to Rakusu

2009-02-24T18:51:00.000-08:00

Well, I've decided to do Jukai. I'm not sure with whom, yet. But I am comfortable that it has relevance to me, particularly with regard to joining the sangha catholic. So step one in this direction is sewing a rakusu.

Taking the advice of Dogen seriously, I have decided to sew my rakusu from rags selected without discrimination. At first I thought I would go down to Goodwill and buy some cheap clothes to turn into rags. On second thought I realized there something non-ragish about clothes for sale that someone could actually use. So I choose to use real rags or clothes that could not, reasonably, be worn anymore.

My seed stock is a pair of jeans gone through in the ass. I would only be throwing them away. That exhausted the possibilities in the house. Inspired in part by the 10 types of rags Dogen described, I went on a rag hunt last Saturday for the remainder of my material. This was done by riding my bike slowly along the major avenue near my home, exploring the parking lots and school yards along the way for fabric that has truely been cast off as useless.

There is alot of plastic and paper in this world. If there were a practical way to make a rakusu from used plastic, that would be the way to go. I was surprised how difficult it was to find real fabric out there.

My first find was in a school yard; an old hoodie. Next was a terry-cloth towel near a car washing establishment. This brought some conflict to mind. The goal is to take rags without discrimination (just like we are supposed to accept people and life's events, I suppose), but, damn, terry-cloth will just look stupid on a rakusu. Oh well, I'll give it a try.

Over by the local dog boarding business I found a sock. Again, conflict about the sew-ability of that fabric type. Again, I'll accept it and give it a shot.

Along a long barded wire fence I found a cut tee-shirt sleeve, stained with a wonderful motely of rust. Some sort of iron batik that might be a very nice accent.

Finally I found an old pillow case in the open field behind the local grocery store. I really wondered about the story behind that. Did someone carry all their wordly possessions around in that for a while? Was it a booty bag from a robbery?

I've got enough to sew the rakusu except for the interface material and the white to right on. I may actually buy some new white silk for that. I'm not sure yet. Dogen seemed pretty clear about just using rags.

I've watched some of the TreeLeaf Zendo video's on Rakusu sewing, and gotten the Katagiri directions. I think I'll build the thing according to Katagiri's guide, in inches.

I'm a bit nervous about this rags direction. Every rakusu I've seen so far looks like it was store bought or made from new material. If I go through with the rags, my rakusu will look very odd. It doesn't quite seem consitent with Buddhist sensibility to have something so different from everyone elses. It's like wearing red into the zendo. It's just not done. But if everyone else had just followed Dogen's instructions, a raggy rakusu would look so odd.

Genjitsu no Okonai

2009-02-15T10:39:00.000-08:00

I was fortunate to be able to exchange the following with Nishijima Sensei on his blog.
Some simple, but perhaps not 'easy' ideas. This is how I summarize from the lessons.

Perception (what comes in through the senses - 5 or 6)
is different from consideration (thinking, mulling over, cogitating)
and both are different from real action (or 'action actually').

When we are in real action, we enter into reality itself.
When we are considering real action, we are considering and so are not in real action.

In Zazen, can be an action of sitting (active) or an a session of percieving & consideration (sitting and mulling things over / thinking).
In Zazen we can have moments of real action.
The moments can increase in duration.
As our ANS becomes more balanced while sitting, our sitting becomes a real action.

Zazen is an essential way to practice balance for real action, but it is possible & good to extend this living in real action to our full life.

Here is the exchange.

Dear Nishijima Sensei,

I try to sit zazen 30min twice a day, but I rarely succeed. Often I skip. Often I sit for a shorter time.

Lately I am very angry about this. I believe Buddhism is in the sitting, not the idealistic thinking about the sitting. I am angry that it is so difficult for me to sit. I am angry that Buddhism is so hard.

I think, even though I am angry I must continue to practice sitting. Even if I skip. Even if I don't sit 30min.

I don't know what to ask about this, but do you have any advice?

Okage samma de,
Lauren

4:16 AM, February 13, 2009

Dear Lauren San,

Thank you very much for your important reports.

First of all, please understand that to stop thinking does never mean stopping consciousness. Our consciousness is always very clear, but concentrating our consciousness to keep our posture regularly, we do not have any idea to think, or to perceive.

We are just concentrating our efforts to keep our porsture regularly.

Therefore in that situation we should make our efforts to keep our spine straight virtically, and enter into Action itself.

So we can think that leaving consideration and perception, we will enter into the sate of Action actually.

This is Zazen, and so I would like to ask you to practice Zazen everyday, to distinguish consideration, perception, and Action.

Gudo Wafu Nishijima

9:50 PM, February 13, 2009

Dear Nishijima Sensei,

Thank you very much for your teaching regarding my post. It is a bit difficult for me, but I think I understand.

I would like to double check two things from your response.

First - You said "we will enter into the sate of Action actually." Is this almost the same as saying we will enter "reality itself?" Kono "Action actually" wa nihongo de, nan to imasu ka? I think this is a very important point and I would like to understand it more fully.

Second - Do you think we can be in "Action actually" doing other activities too, or only during zazen? My thought is zazen is the best way to practice experiencing reality itself, but it can extend beyond zazen into other activities in our life.

Thank You Again,
Lauren Crane

11:16 PM, February 14, 2009

Dear Lauren Crane San,

Thank you very much for your important questions, and I would like to answer your two questions one by one.

First - "We will enter into the sate of Action actually," means that we can enter into Real Action, which is different from action as idea, or action as perception.

That does not mean to enter into "reality itself" directly, because first we enter into Real Action, and it means that we enter into "reality itself".

"Action actually" wa nihongo dewa "Genjitsu no Okonai" to iimasu.

Yes, this point is very important. In Greco-Roman Civilization I think that action as idea, and action as perception are very clear, but Real Action is not so clear. But in the ancient India Gautama Buddha insists that the Real Action really exists at the present moment, and action as idea, or action as perception can never be Real Action at all.

Second - I think that our human life is just series of Real Action at the present moment, and so Real Action can never be limited only in Zazen. Therefore I would like to affirm your idea that Real Action should pervade throughout our human life totally.

3:06 PM, February 15, 2009

More detail on "Genjitsu no Okonai"

from Jim Breen's WWWJDIC

Genjitsu --> 現實【げんじつ】 actuality
現【げん】 manifestation
實【じつ】 real

Okonai --> 行ない【おこない】 (n) deed; act; action; conduct; behavior; behaviour; asceticism;

From Nelsons Japanese English Character Dictionary (Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1997)
'N' is index number

現 N3645 - present, existing, actual
實 N1356 now 実 N1324 {apparent adopted simplification of kanji}
実 N1324 - truth, reality etc...

現実 Compound under N3645 - actuality, reality

行 N5419 - Oko(nai) - act, action, deed, conduct, behavior, etc...

の 'no' is a particle. When placed between two nouns it indicates 'the possessive' and can be roughly translated as " 's" or "of". The first noun modifying the second.

Thus: Genjitsu no Okonai can be "Reality of Action" or real, manifested action (as compared to a conceptual action).

Wee Angry Buddhist

2009-02-12T19:09:00.000-08:00

[Apologies to Harry for riffing off his blog name]

Sometimes I get so sick of Buddhism.

I want to be a Buddhist -- oops, that might be desire or clinging. That's bad. Shouldn't do that.
Sigh...

I want to have an ongoing dialog with Teacher A. He's cool. I think I get what he says -- oops, Teacher A says he's not interested in being a teacher. Find someone local to talk to.
Crap, that's not what I want to do...

I should meditate 30 minutes twice a day. -- God that can be soooo f**king boring. I can't make even one day like that. I either blow of one session or stop early.
This sucks.....

Don't worry too much about meditating. Just sit as much as you can. Just be in the moment, in the moments that you can.
-- Well crap, no-one I know is recommending you can "be a buddhist" by just thinking about it. I've got to sit.
Damn.....

I want to do Jukai so I have that "your are a buddhist" merit badge to hand around my neck. --empty ceromonies are pointless.
WTF!

I won't worrry about Jukai, I'll just be uninitiated. -- Careful, what's Buddhism without an identified Sangha. That's one of the jewels, you know.
Piss!

I'll just walk away. Forget the last year. --You know your "will for the truth" will draw you back, and look at a the time you will have wasted throwing your fit.
Damn!

It's all so FREAKING COMPLICATED. Every wish is questioned as desire. Everything to identify with is empty. Everyone you want to question slips a mirror in your face..."ask him." Every father figure want's no children. A thousand page essay is used to explain that the only reality is the here and now. I'm trying to squeeze in the door of a really cool club by just sitting on a cushion and I just can't make it. I want to provoke, plunder and plead. But all the cold sage of Buddhism says is "go sit."

Sorry for the chaos, I'm going to sit.
-L

Austin Zen Center - Wining about Delusion.

2009-02-07T11:32:00.001-08:00

I just went down to Austin Zen Center for the first time. I live on the outskirts of Austin and an obvious question is "why so late?" I've been mucking about with this Buddhism stuff for a year or so now, I'm glad I finally made it down to a local Soto group. The cool thing is that they now own a house that had been owned by Friends Meeting of Austin (Quakers), and I had attended that group when I was finishing up college at UT. I'm still on the books with them as a Quaker, and I guess that's fair enough. If Buddhism and Christianity have a cross over point, it's most probably at the Soto/Quaker border.

I was a little nervous but it all turned out well (who didn't see that coming?). I don't know why I stayed away for so long. I'm glad I went, and I plan to visit again. Maybe once a month or such, just to keep in touch with 3 dimensional sangha beings

{I put great stock in the virtual beings I interact with via this computer - It's the focus for a post of another day, but I really am not sure how to frame all of you out there that stop by from time to time. I know you are living, breathing people just like me, by I only get to experience you as words (ideas) on a screen... very strange}.

But what I saw down there that was really cool, really an eye opener for me, was in a small house across the street from the main building where they host their beginner's class on Saturday mornings. I has their library too, and some sort of resident someone (I'm no good with zen titles). In a little room where the run down the basics of sitting, I saw the precepts on the wall. It was a neat version that had the "negative" language in light blue larger font with a "positive" version in black between the blue lines. I thought, in itself, that was kinda cool. The traditional version preserved but a modern "positive" version presented as well.

But the cool thing was the wine precept. I've seen many translations of it, but all are about alcohol, or intoxicants, or something like that. This one said (for the old school large blue font, "negative" rendering)

"Do not sell the wine of delusion."

Finally, a take on that precept that make sense to me! I mean, it never quite jived as "Do not sell wine" or however its often presented. I mean of all the things you could do that are just a bad a wine, it didn't seem to really rank the top 10 of Buddhist practice. But as a poetic statement about the wine of delusion, it's really getting at something important. Don't go out 'there' and spin sweat tales of floating, or being one with all beings, or never having a worry again, or never needing to argue, or any of the other fluff that some interpreters say Zen offers.

Now, I don't know if there is any basis to this translation. The "will for the truth" detective in me is curious and will try to find some precedent for this interpretation, but even if it turns out this precept really is a warning against publicans*, it's 'accidentally' telling me something I think I was waiting to understand.

Cheers,
-Lauren

*Publicans - just in case you're not sure what I meant, is the title of someone who owns a pub... that is to say a seller of wines. It also happens to be a word from the old testament that means a person who collects taxes. There's probably an nice etymological story in that.

Person A Seeks Jukai for Long Walks on the Beach.

2009-02-04T19:53:00.001-08:00

Person A is thinking of Jukai.

Person A went tried to chat with Teacher X. Teacher X is kinda well known. Doing Jukai with Teacher X feels a bit like a nice feather in the cap. Unfortunately Teacher X is not that into Jukai. It's something that can be done if Person A really wants it. Just let him know. We can read through the cheat-sheet together while we do it.

Person A sends a message to Teacher Y. 'What do you think about Jukai,' he asks. Teacher Y has a bit more to say. It's not a magic key, but it does have some meaning. Particualry, it gives a link to the sangha and a focus to practice. It's a nice thing. But of course, Person A can practice zazen as much as he wants without Jukai.

Person A wonders...

A new name,
A cool robe,
A ceremony/rite of passage
From a famous teacher?
From a kind teacher?
From a local teacher?
Who's my sangha?
Can there be an e-sangha?
Why not just sit?
Why attach to jukai?
Why not commit to sitting by doing jukai?
Am I just playing at Buddhism or am I a Buddhist?

What can you tell Person A about Jukai? Is it worth doing? Do you have instructions for a rakusu?

Regards,
Person A

Time Travel - No Lack of Motion

2009-01-28T05:46:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure exactly what this has to do with Buddhism. In part, the goal of Buddhism is to experience/understand reality as it is.

I have a collection of thoughts I carry around in my back pocket that simply fascinate me about reality as it is. And like a ball of string, when I come across a thread of 'knowledge' or 'insight' I add it to the thought. Eventually some of these aggregates reach critical mass and I just have to talk about it. I think this is one of those, and it hooks with the previous phasor post on how our self-ish-ness informs sci-fi representations.

Time travel is an interesting concept. I will not be addressing the whole possibility of it, just one part. The part of where you are when you travel. Have you ever seen the old movie "Time Machine?" A guy had a cool sled with a big roulette-wheel looking thingy on it that would spin. There was a recent remake of the movie that included, I think, Jeremy Irons.

What I liked about that movie is that the machine had an extent of atmosphere around it that would travel with it. A bubble of sorts. The movie took into account geologic activity. When the hero went back in time sometimes he was surround by rock because a nearby erupting volcano covered there place where he was traveling through with lava. As accelerated time went on, we saw the rock erode away from rain etc... I always thought that was spot on.

Some of the sci-fi and sci-fact presentations of time travel represent time as fourth dimension, and posit the possibility of moving in that dimension while the other three remain fixed. That's fine. Keep your same position, just slip down the time axis to earlier or later. I'm cool with that. ...then I started thinking a bit more.

Nothing is still...ever. Of course relative to another object there can be stillness. But time travel presumes an absolute reference frame and in that respect nothing is ever still. Consideration of this stacks up pretty dramatically. Yes, you are sitting still in front a computer reading this (thank you). But...

The surface of the Earth moves something like 300 miles an hour (depending on your lattitude).
The Earth orbits around the Sun at something like 67,000 miles an hour.
The Sun orbits the center of the galaxy at around 490,000 miles an hour.

And now things get really fuzzy. Everyone seems to accept the universe is constantly expanding. I'm not sure if the concept of the "middle of the universe" is valid, but none the less, pick any reference point and our galaxys is zooming away from it at mind bogglingly large speeds.

The point being if you traveled even a few millseconds back in time keeping your current, absolute, position in space, the Earth, and certainly your postion on it, would be far gone. Most likely you would be in space. You most certainly would not be on the same cozy point of this mad pony ride we call Earth that you started from.

It seems that all sci-fi representations of time travel I have seen ignore this fact. They presume, that somehow, the laws of physics let you travel back in time but keep you tethered to your relative, madly changing, location.

There's a lot of relatavistic aspects of this thought experiment I could probably delve into, such as the effects of inertia, but I think the summary outcome is still the same. You might envision a way to slip up and down the time axis, but everything will have moved on (or not be there yet) when you arrive in a new time.

-L

Phasers, Descarte, and "I"

2009-01-21T18:02:00.000-08:00

"I" represents many concepts. It can be the address of a certain "ugly bag of mostly water" (a quote from episode 18, Star Trek Next Gen), a reality -> 'I have green eyes.' It can be expression of the idea of separateness from the rest of the universe (what some might call the "delusion of self") -> 'I think, therefore I am.' And, it can be some fuzzy mix of these two -> 'I feel tired.'

The power of Descartes' "I" in our (Western) culture is, of course, very strong. I've had a criticism of one aspect of Star Trek science for many years that I realized this morning is a great demonstration of this cultural prejudice. I have always thought it was interesting how the beam from a phaser knows the extent of a person's body and clothing. A the molecular level, the border of the body is essentially indistinguishable from the clothing over the body, which, in turn, is indistinguishable from the air surrounding the clothing or the ground underlying the shoes. So how do Star Trek phasers "know" to stop disintegrating matter at the clothes.

If it is disintegrating all contiguous mater, the whole universe should go with one shot. If it is stopping because, say, of density differences, then at least all of the ground touching the soles of the shoes should also disintegrate. Of course, writer's can't allow the whole universe to go up the first shot of a phaser, but it is interesting that most of us just accept that there is a neat border around that "self" that is being destroyed.

As a side note, its also interesting that often when a phaser is directed at a wall or door it cuts through what it's aimed at rather than disintegrating all of it.

Many Buddhist practioner's teach us otherwise. They teach that we are just a senient part of the continuous univerise which is the 'all' of reality. We use the concept of 'I' to get along...to represent certain facts or ideas, but it is just a concept. Really we are just a collection of matter, just like my filing cabinet, but we happen to be assemble such that we are sentient.

I now believe Descarte got it backwards. Instead of "I think, therefore I am," in reality "I am, therfore I think."

Set your phasers on "stun."

One Bright Pearl in Bronze

2009-01-18T14:30:00.000-08:00

I sculpt.

A year ago when I was first exploring Buddhism I came across Harry's blog that was then (and is) titled "One Bright Pearl." Harry was going through Shobogenzo chapter by chapter and I happened to arrive when he was coincidentally discussing "Ikka No Myoju" (one bright pearl). It was here I made my first attempts at expressing what I thought this might all be about. And Harry, and others, very kindly entertained, riffed on (this is a good thing) and challenged my musings.

That experience, and what I was getting out Brad's books at the time, brought forth a sculpture that was then very important to me and still is. I regret that I am not a better photographer of sculpture. The snapshot does not carry the correct impact.

This is what I have to say about it now... but there is likely more lurking. This is me trying to interpret and express my work. This is not what I had in mind before sculpting. What I had in mind was an image of this and my task was to make the image real. Now that it is real, this is what I feel the image means.

The focus is the sphere. Of course resonating with "pearl" but black. It hovers a bit impossibly in mid air. It has finite dimension but is intended to feel infinitely small and large at the same time. It is a focus. A center of the universe that is clearly not center of the universe. It's the idea of the center. It's the idea of the whole universe.

The pillar is not just a stand. The pillar is a stream, a coalescing of all things. Like a miniature black hole, the sphere is drawing all material into the pearl. The pillar is that stream of mater. The pearl is drawing mater from the surroundings and it is about to become something. It already is something, it is already everything just as it is, now..... Created from the universal material that is the same in all 10 directions. In a blink it will be gone.

The base is part of the sculpture, not just a platform for presentation. If you notice the pillar is an elongated pyramid, a triangle, you will see the three classic Buddhist symbols of square (base) triangle (pillar) and circle (sphere).

I don't know what those symbols have meant or are supposed to mean in the scholarly Buddhist context, but I have always like that triad of symbols and this is what they mean to me in the context of this sculpture.

The square is the concrete materialistic world. It is matter and the laws of physics that govern it. It is the 4 basic elements fire, air, water and earth (yes, I know some cultures put forward 5 basic elements...o well). That is not to say the square is purely materialistic. It represents the concepts of materialism what we use. It is, therefore, also idealistic.

The sphere is reality as it is. It is perfection. It is "God.". And, of course, it can not escape being just the concept of these. It is the entire unified universe. The "all-ness" that we are all part of.

The triangle is the balance, the logic, the understanding that links the physical reality we are in with the cosmic realitiy of the all.

Okay, that's probably enough. I don't want to put of people with too many obscure musings.

Cheers,
Lauren....

Hmmmm.....

2009-01-13T19:25:00.000-08:00

Buddha-nature is not a state of mind...it is not a way of thinking. It is a state of being... it is not dependent on thinking. A sentient being realizing (making real) Buddha-nature is most certainly thinking, but that is not the Buddha-nature.

It is easiest (?!?!) to practice this in zazen but it is possible to live this way always.

The Matrix of Reality

2009-01-05T06:27:00.000-08:00

For me, the Matrix is probably the most significant movie of my life. That sounds rather extreme and perhaps naive, but it is, for all I can tell, true (so far). But it's not because the exact theme and plot of the movie is particularly "spot on" for me. It's because the movie is so rich in various visualized metaphors.

I'm a big fan of Christ. But its really difficult to learn about who he was and what he said and did without the centuries of spin that humans have been laying on his story. The Bible has him saying, (I forget which book) "the kingdom of heaven is at hand." The gospel of Thomas (booted from the Bible by Nicene editors) has "the kingdom of heaven is all around you", or something to that effect. When I saw the Matrix, I suddenly "got" what what might mean. Heaven is right here, right now, if we could just see it. Its much like how Neo "wakes up" to reality in the movie. I was even more thrilled to see model mark of Morpheus's ship in the movie, "Mark XIV Number 14." But, of course, the movie is not a complete Christian metaphor. Guns and Kung Fu are not extremely biblical.

As I've learned more about Zen Buddhism, I see many parallels between what Christ is reported to have taught and what ZB teaches. Particularly the bit about "the kingdom of heaven is all around you" lining up with the idea that we all have Buddha Nature available to us here and now if we can just learn to 'see' it. The matrix may even have more fitting metaphors for ZB like the choice of delusion or seeing reality as it is (red pill or blue). And, of course, Kung Fu is credited to Bodhidarma.

But.... all of the above preamble was to get to the hallway scene near the end of the movie (shown above). This is where Neo finally 'gets it' and can see the matrix as it is. A great soup of data, 1's and 0's, all linked together and performing per programming. Now, as I said earlier, the metaphor is not neccesarily consistent with Buddhism throughout the movie, but this one scene, I think is very nice a expressing the interconnectedness of 'reality as it is.'

I was reading "To Meet the Real Dragon" last night. On page 42 Nishijima sensei writes,

"Human kind and nature are but two faces of one thing. That one thing is reality. That one thing is the real situation of our lives; it is the great universe itself."

As I read this, the above scene from the Matrix sprang to mind. Reality is one thing. One thing. Not a way of looking at a bunch of separate things, but all one. It suddenly is making a bit of sense. Just like with the hallway shown above, where the walls, the people, the floor, the ceiling the wires, the air is all one thing. The bits of the one thing are swirled and aligned so they appear to be separate, but to stomp the floor is to stomp the walls. It's all connected.

This led me to think of the big bang.

In the first micro/nano/femto/octo seconds, the theory goes, all matter was in some superheated primordial uniform state. Everything, all reality, all the is-ness, was pretty much consistent in structure (appearance) in the 10 directions. The mind has to think of borders with this image of the banging universe, like a balloon expanding, but there were no borders. To have borders is to presume inside and outside, and there is no outside for all of the universe. But in those early moments it was all the same, and very hot. As time has moved on, it has gotten lumpier, with apparent borders on atoms and molecules and objects. We tend to see it as differentiated lumps of stuff. A collection of separate things.

But, as Nishijima says, and the Matrix demonstrates, it is really all one thing.

4 Sale

2009-01-01T19:15:00.000-08:00

I feel I'm bogged down with possessions. I want to get rid of "stuff." This is very difficult. Each piece I pick up thinking "I've got no need for this," something jumps and grabs and calculates inside of me, its possible dollar value, and how cool it is, and how its mine, mine, mine. I can't get rid of it. I have an office full of a myriad things I "like" but which bring me little more than abstract, "idealistic" comfort. A link to an idea, a memory, an admiration of design. I have got to cut more, but its more than just cutting and clearing material things that is at play here.

I don't want to get rid of something just so I can say I have an empty room, and imply I am now a better person because of it. There is clearly something at work in me that collected all this stuff. That helped me "survive" because I have all this stuff. My therapist has led me to see that all behaviors, even 'bad' ones, serve a supportive, protective, purpose for me. I've got to suss this out for myself regarding stuff, or the room with be full again in another year or so.

"Thinking Doth Make Cowards of Us All"

2008-12-31T07:57:00.000-08:00

Okay, it a bit of a liberty from the original

"Thus conscience does make cowards of us all
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action."

But it makes the point; "Thinking" can be torture.

Now make no mistake, I haven't nailed this yet, I don't know the cure, but I sure know the disease. My trouble in the relationship I have with my daughter is certainly too much thinking, to a large extent. Thoughts like - what she should be, what she should be doing, do I like how she spends her time, is she "obeying" me, does she "respect" me, what did that look mean, why can't she just [fill in the blank], she's not grateful for what she has...etc....

All this activity and none of it really arising out of pursuit of "right action."

I said "I don't know the cure," but that's not entirely true. I suspect the cure is to sit regularly, per doctor Nishijima's prescription, "take two zazen a day, once at night and once in the morning." Over time this should cure the thinking illness. Like all red blooded America males (on average) I do not do what my doctor suggests will make me better. But I'm getting there.

I think discussing thinking requires a vocabulary like the Esquimaux's reportedly have for snow, at least 57 varieties. The brain must be active, as all reports so far (with due respect to Hamlet's thesis concerning bourns from which no traveler returns) indicate, for life. Knowing not to drink lava or kiss tigers is also thinking, but very helpful. Remembering that food is in the refrigerator, is also thinking, but again, very helpful. Even realizing a new, better type of shelter from idealistic thought, is a good thinking, I believe. But mulling over what she said or he said. Worrying over how your Aunt will react to dust when she visists. Holding the pain from an arguement six years ago. All these are not good thinking.

What to call it? How about ruminant thinking on abstracts? For those without cow experience, they are ruminant cause the swallow then regurgitate their food to chew it again. Events in the abstract, like being angry, are best not ruminated.

So why an eyelash mite picture? I guess to underscore some of the mystery of life our thinking can never touch. All of us have scores of eyelash mites living entire lives over and over right under (and over) our eyes. Not much thinking goes on with them, I suppose, given their "brain" size...if they have one. And us, like them, are impermanent. Gone in a blink.

-L

Name Change

2008-12-28T19:46:00.000-08:00

I've had to change my blog name. The former one was too self-centered. I really have nothing special to bring to the Buddhist game. I am so flawed. I've had a terrible fight with my daughter. I keep thinking I've got hold of something "holy." I don't. I'm just an "ugly bag of mostly water" and I keep making mistakes, and I'm not happy all the time, nor content. So clearly I don't get Buddhism yet. I feel like I've got to start again. Keep it simpler. Study the precepts and take their warnings to heart. Do zazen more. I can't let myself wallow in self pity. I've got to learn to see the world that's right in front of me, here and now, and take right-action. I'm very sad and I'm afraid to write that here. But this is supposed to be a blog about my zen experience. So here's the peak behind the curtain. I'm not composed or sure of myself. I have a vague optimism that keeps me going. A fantasy of peace and acceptance of things as they are. But I fight so hard. I'm often quite mean. And good. And kind. And selfish. And petty. All over. Every characteristic. And I always worry if I'm doing the right thing. I'm so tired of that. I just want to get along with my daughter. That's it. And it hurts so bad when we don't. Why have all the 'patriarchs' written about kensho and reality and such pointless topics. I need advice on parenting. I need to know what the 'right way' is. When to be strict when to be soft. How to accept myself when my child is deeply mad at me. Maybe I've never properly grown up. Maybe I never got enough external validation from my own parents to be sure of myself. There still has to be a right way forward despite all that. I'm still fully responsible for ...how much? At what point does a child become their own person and make their own decisions on their own responsibility? What a mess of a blog. How embarassing to post. But if there's anyone who reads this that is also unsure, confused, struggling ... please keep going. Please keep looking for the right way. I think it's available. I think it's right under our noses if we can just see correctly. Let go. I think....

To Un-Ring the Bell

2008-12-13T15:14:00.000-08:00

I may be going out too far on a Buddhist limb, but I've come to the conclusion that "feelings" are very real and extremely important.

-The Reality-
As far as I've seen the workings of the mind explained, its all activity in a very objective reality. When scientists strive to map areas of the brain, they use PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scans and other means. The colors of the PET indicate chemical events. A patient looks at a picture of a cat, one pattern is seen in the scan. The listens to music, another pattern. People with too much or not enough of one chemical or another banging around in the brain are depressed, or hyper, or hallucinating, or drunk. Every thought we have is the result of some real physical change in our brain. Some electron moving in a molecule. A molecule folding or running into another.

All thoughts are "reality as it is" in that the events giving rise to what we experience as thought are physically occurring.

The weird bit in this is that our minds (and for minds I mean that undefinable, spiritual thingy) can direct this hive of activity. We can, to large extent, direct how the reaction soup of our brain will churn. Many things are well beyond the complete grasp of mind, like being startled, quick motion of menacing shapes catching our attention, alarm when the floor drop away from under our feet, confusion at a loud bang, and some things are totally in minds control, like choosing which words, if any, to focus on, reminiscing about last Christmas, etc...

Emotions, I think, are events in the brain, part hardwired and part habit where a whole bunch of a particular neurotransmitter gets dumped in the brain and has lasting effect until it dissipates. This is more a representation of what happens, not the real science. Sensory input comes in, and combined with some thought-habits, a bunch of "sad-enol" is released, and, voila, I am sad. In another case it might be "mad-enol" and a get angry. In each case its part hardwire, deep brain, evolutionary protection reactions and part thought-habits.

Depending on our thought-habits the "disturbance" of the emotion lasts longer or not. When something happens and "sad-enol" is released, I can, in part, choose to reminisce on bad things that have happened and spiral down into even deeper sadness. Or in some other way think, think, think and keep the waves of disturbance choppy.

This thesis requires a presumption of a neutral state. Where there are no sensory inputs triggering natural reactions and no thought-habits doing the same. I believe this is "content" maybe even "happy"

-The Importance-
In this thesis, the reaction to anything has a hardwire contribution. The hardwire is the part common among us all of this species, and has served to facilitate our survival. The hardwire must, of course, alos be part unique among us all, just like no two hearts, ears or stomachs are formed exactly the same. So the "natural" reaction for person [A] seeing a bat fly at them might be a 7, and person [B], a 3 on the fear scale.

The Point -> Do not suppose you should suppress emotions. Do not suppose emotions are bad or out of place. They are "real" phenomenon, based in real physical activities in your brain. Do not think a "good buddhist" must be stoic all the time. Achieving a constant, outwardly stoic demenor, for example, only means that whatever naturally arises in your brain, your thought-habits rush wildly to compenstate so that the external appearance is non-disturbance.

But you can influence your thought-habits. You can learn to be surprised, or sad, or angry to the "natural" amount, and not escalate things with your mind's activity on it. This, I think, is the "middle way." When you sit zazen, your nervous system balances. You can experience your brain with no extraordinary inputs. You can learn how your thought-habits influence what goes on in your mind.

Though I do not claim to be able to achieve it consistently, I believe non-thinking is just the state when my self contribution, my thought-habits, are stilled to nothing, and only my natural brain activity is doing its thing. And in a zazen location with no bears, or bangs, or a crying child related to me, my natural brain activity would be very neutral.

So, Uku mentioned in a comment a while back of Nishijima's idea in "To Meet the Real Dragon" that sitting zazen is like striking a bell, the vibrations continue on for much of the day. And if you sit twice a day for a long, consistent, practice, the vibrations harmonize, and reinforce each other, and have greater influence.

I would like to turn that idea around with the model I've got of the brain and thought-habits. We can learn, I believe, to stop all the "motion" we add with our thinking to the events around us. And the more we sit, the more we can carry that stillness as a habit.

We can, so to speak, learn to un-ring the bell.

The Right Online Dharma Eye

2008-12-08T19:47:00.000-08:00

At the Dogen Sangha Blog you will find the following post from Michael Cross to MMK 14

"A couple of days ago I received an email from Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai informing that the Nishijima-Cross translation of Shobogenzo is now available online."

What a treat. Check it out.

Simple Satori

2008-12-07T08:30:00.000-08:00

I have begun reading Nishijima-sensei's "To Meet the Real Dragon." I found one passage quite astounding, obvious (now that he has put it into words) and liberating. In the Q&A regarding Master Dogen (page 31), in part...

"...we must admit that people have made very strenuous efforts and endured extreme hardhips in their practice. This brings us to the second problem. Why have people made such extreme efforts? I think the reason is that they were looking for something which is not in this world. They wanted something which is not in this universe. The searched an practiced ever more diligently until, at last, they realized that they need not look for anything. This was, for them, the experience of so-called satori: the experience of life as it is. "

Think of Boddhidarma in this context, rumored to have sat in a cave, staring at a wall for nine years. This thesis of Nishijima says to me that he went through nine years of wrong, then finally experienced a moment of right. But it is important to note that he did not *have* to do the nine years previous. He thought sitting in a cave would get him somewhere. He was wrong. He wasted nine years. One day he just saw the world as it is. All that precursor cave-sitting asceticism was his delusion.

You and I don't have to sit in caves. We don't have to retreat to monestaries. The truth is right under our noses, right now. We have Buddha-nature "ready to go" the moment we free it. Sitting zazen helps us balance so in the middle state the bright light just jumps out. Helps the tumblers self-adjust until the lock is opened. Mixes the acetylene with the oxygen till the flame is bright and blue and cuts through our delusion.

There is nothing to do. No trials to endure. No puzzles to solve. No truth to find.

Now I've got to go see if I can make this happen. Maybe if I sit under a waterfall. (ooops - did I not read what I just wrote?!).

WARNING - Foolish Ego.

2008-12-02T20:37:00.000-08:00

I want to sit twice a day for 30 minutes so I can proudly say "Yes, I'm a Buddhist"

I want to follow the precepts so I can smile to myself and think "Dawg, I'm a Buddhist"

I want a teacher so I can prove to people that "For sure, I'm a Buddhist"

I want all these things to prove I have meaning and significance in the Universe...

I can't accept myself as just part of the Universe...

There's no glory in being a stumbling fool, mucking about playing childish games with Buddhism...

They say that somewhere in this mess lurks true Buddha Nature....

The Further Father

2008-11-29T16:39:00.000-08:00

I am now the parent of a 14 year old daughter. While I am competent enough at work and in the wide wild world, when it comes to my daughter, I feel that I have very few skills to bring for being her father. Buddhism may have a lot to say about the nature of reality as it is... I wish it had more to say about fathering.

No, Ironman was not a father. But sometimes this is how I feel in my current role. Covered with a hard imposing shell that I can't reach out from and my daughter can't see a real, relevant human being behind.

Where are the practical lessons on being gentle, kind and loving in the Buddhist tradition, but with a daughter? All those isolationists seem like cowards from my point of view today. Most people have to interact with other people to get their daily grind done. Why isn't there more advice on how to do this well as a Buddhist?

Issa Nice Thing

2008-11-27T07:40:00.000-08:00

For some reason I really enjoy old haiku's. Particularly with the kana, romanji and English translation all together. Throw in a little cultural insight from time to time and I'm in heaven.

What fun to have stumbled across "The Daily Issa."

Paraphrasing Wikipedia, Issa Kobayashi lived from 1723 to 1828 and in that time wrote 20K haiku.

Here's a sample of what The Daily Issa provides...

New Year's gate greetings--
on each side of the road
tracks of sandals

kado rei ya kata kawa-zutsu wa zo^ri michi

.門礼や片側づつは草履道

by Issa, 1821

Shinji Ogawa notes that zo^ri are expensive sandals--appropriate footwear for this auspicious day. Though Issa doesn't literally mention "snow," Shinji pictures sandal-shaped footprints in the snow on each side of the road. Though at first I imagined the phrase "sandal road" (zo^ri michi) refers to the clomping sound of sandals, Shinji points out that zo^ri, made of soft materials, don't clomp. Since this is a New Year's haiku situated in the mountains of Issa's home province of Shinano (today's Nagano Prefecture), it is more likely that "sandal road" refers to footprints in snow.

To subscribe, see http://cat.xula.edu/issa/

A very simple daily treat.

If You Met Buddha on the Road - Would He Have Coffee With You?

2008-11-25T06:40:00.000-08:00

In most societies there seems to be a "proper" arch to life. We go through childhood and become young adults. It is then that some adventure is undertaken which sets the tones of later life. I think many people live this way. In this model, Buddhist seclusion makes some sense. It is like a stint in the security forces of the region where you live. Isolate with like-minded people and do something extraordinary. Then come back "into" society.

For people that have discovered Buddhism later in life this is no longer feasible. Or it is feasible but with harsh consequences that do more harm, I would think, than good. A father or mother should not 'abandon' their family to isolate in a monastery to delve into non-thinking. A tree is in its forest, an ox is in its herd. It is un-natural to remove either to some new place. What fills the gap left behind?

I have often attended an Unitarian Universalist church, but I have not been in a long time... since before I started 'learning' Zen. Our family went last Sunday and it was a wonderful experience. Being among others with a common purpose of contemplating the benefits of simple kindness and peace had me in tears several times. UU's love live music. There were musicians playing violins and drums and other wonderfully 'woody', 'earthy' instruments. What joy. Joy that seems to be absent from the Buddhism I have seen so far.

I find this so hard to reconcile. At this moment, Bodhidarma seems like a fool more than a hero. These stories of historic/legendary Buddhists never seem to express the anguish of the isoloation they chose...of missing their families, and villages and friends....of missing the ebb and flow of society. As with the Bible we have today, the history of the thoughts of early Buddhist must be highly revisionist. The transmitters have decided what the message must be and passed it on with edits that send that message. Like tugs that nudge the direction of a supertanker. It may be only a little bit here and there, but eventually the course can be drastically altered.

Western culture perhaps is more accepting of private anguish and doubt. Some Christians embrace the idea of Christ having fear and doubt and pressing on anyway. The doubtful hero is as strong in Western writing as the resolute, unshaken hero.

Doubt seems to be scrubbed from the history of Buddhism. As the West has started writing about Buddhism we see some of the doubt appearing, but it seems to be absent from the East. We've got a much polished picture of Buddha after it all got good good for him. Buddha post-enlightenment. Buddha after its all clicked into place. I would like to know more about Buddha while he was working on it. Where is the Sutra of Black Doubt? The Song of Loneliness? The Chant of "What the F*** am I Trying to Accomplish?"

Maybe I have to hunt more?

-L

Idealism Rises From Itself

2008-11-12T06:00:00.000-08:00

Any discussion of idealism is, by its very nature, an idealist endeavor. The human ability to form and discuss concepts has provided us with great opportunity for survival. There is no object or structure that is human made that is not the product of and idea made real, the blend of idealism and materialism.

It seems that animals are not idealistic. Their brain processes that result in their behaviors probably could be described in idealistic terms, but if they have any idealistic talents, it is probably extremely limited, else driven by survival forces, they would probably be doing more materialistic things. Manipulating their environment with the same expressive and planning fingerprints we humans put all over everything.

Language is entirely idealistic except for the very base sounds and tones, I think. Words are certainly idealistic. These squiggles of black patterns only have meaning because of the ideas we share in common. There is nothing in the intrinsic material that conveys meaning.

Koko was (is?) a gorilla that learned some language. In this was Koko transformed from a non-idealistic creature to an idealistic one?

Prajna

2008-10-05T10:02:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on Peter's blog, The Stupid Way.
Prajna and precepts seem to be two different types of tools. Prajna only has relevance in an immediate, real, situation. Put simplistically, should I do A or B or something else *now*, given this real thing currently in front of my nose? And even that fails to describe it, I think. There is no choosing. Prajna presents the answer immediately, without question, when the "problem" arises.

The precepts play a different role. The precepts are generalisms. With out consideration to an specific real issue in front of you, they guide how you should head. They are (sorry, gotta try being absolute here just to see if it feels right) never ever appropriate for figuring out your path through an immediate real thing in front of your nose. In that case stop, meditate (even for a second), and see what the real right answer is that maybe prajna will reveal. (well, maybe that is too absolute, but still has the right flavor, I think).
===========

I don't think I could trust a teacher who never got angry, who did not curse, or was never petty, or sad, or such at some point, in some way....or even if they really 'had it together', if they say people that exhibit such 'real' behavior, are not on the right path or such, I could not trust them.

Buddhism has no rank. These titles of Master, roshi, whatever, are social terms, not real terms. That is to say, a cat is a cat, a dog is a dog, and a person is a person. That's it. To say, "he should not be listened to because of x,y,z" .....

Damn, that ain't quite it...

There is no final. right stage in buddhism, I believe as far as relativistic, observed behavior goes. I'm guessing the final stage of buddhism is to act always out of prajna rather than checking a list of rules before each action you take. A person acting out of prajna, or striving to, may seem, at times, angry, or cussing, or rude, or extremely nice. One could say "what is he, he is angry, anger is bad, he is bad" or one could strive to see if the anger, or cussing or rudeness, bore (to borrow a Christian metaphor) good fruit.

As a new father I find that a "rule" I give my daughter one day for one situation may be entirely appropriate, but she can turn it into a justification for something really inappropriate the next day. Though this does mean I need better skills at rule making, it also has taught me that I must teach my daughter to make relative (prajna-esque) type decisions, not to operate from absolute rules.

Dogs howl to warn of danger. That is buddha-nature. If people 'howl' to warn of danger, that could be buddha-nature, or it could be rudeness and anger. Only our own prajna can guide us.

If I personally judge based only on precepts I believe I am headed down the wrong path.

-Lauren

Short Course

2008-10-04T09:06:00.001-07:00

We must all, ultimately, teach ourselves. No description of 'reality' will ever match 'reality.' It must be seen directly. I suppose the/a gateway to this is zazen. Various teachers/masters may have ways of describing 'it' that are more successful for a particular student/seeker than another.

A teacher that says 'yes, I can definitely get you there' however, is against the thesis that 'there' can't be described. A teacher that says 'this is what it looks like to me, but for you it may be different' seems to be more truthful.

We all that are curious about these matters have the ability to get there, finally, on our own. Someone who has been traveling there before us, or is there, that can speak to us in a way that we each, individually, can hear, is a tremendous time saver. If we get nothing but confusion from a teacher, drop them like a hot rock.

If a teacher appears to be antithetical to where you posit you should be headed, drop them.

'There', in fact, is nowhere. Another key thesis is we have the very aspect (nature) already available (within us) to see reality directly (the 'buddhadharma') without the relativism of right-wrong, strong-weak, rich-poor, smart-stupid, evil-kind, etc... coloring what is in front of us.

Arguments over precepts can not be helpful because arguments are a focus on right-wrong relativism.

It simply cannot matter what someone else says. Words do not change 'it'.

There seem to be a very few key points of theory about this game, and those few key points have had thousands and thousands of pages written about them.

The points as I see them today
There is a reality here that we don't experience directly.
Neither good nor bad, just is...now.
It is clouded by a habit of relativism/idealism.
Description can not capture it, only direct experience.
Sitting zazen is a practice of experiencing directly.
With sitting we can see how busy our intellect is categorizing, dreaming of the past and future.
[the map is now more murky]
With practice, somehow, with time but suddenly, this veil through which we normally filter 'it' drops away, and we can be in reality.
Then we must take a piss....it ain't a fairy tale, it's just reality.

Quoting Frost (probably with error)
"We dance around in a ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows."

Good lasagna is a wonderful thing.
-L

Discourse on the Four Noble Truths

2008-10-03T10:47:00.000-07:00

The 2 Extremes to avoid
1.
devotion to indulgence of pleasure in the objects of sensual desire
pursuit of sensual happiness in sense pleasures
addiction to indulgence of sense-pleasures
That which is devoted to sensual pleasure with reference to sensual objects
2.
devotion to self-torment
pursuit of self-mortification
addiction to self-mortification
that which is devoted to self-affliction

Vibhava-tanha (craving for non-becoming) is wishing & e.g.
Wanting not to become sick, old, ugly, foolish etc;
Hoping not to become dead, poor, despised etc;
Desiring not to become bored, unsatisfed, confused etc.
In general: Craving for future not-(be)coming of all unliked states!
It is commonly present & dominant in mental states such as:
Fear, anxiety, worry, feelings of insecurity & various concerns!
It is basicly the mirrored opposite of craving for becoming of all
liked states such as craving for becoming rich, young, beautiful etc.
They are thus equally effective as the primary Cause of Suffering!
See also:
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/II/The_3_kinds_of_Craving.htm

stuffed zafu

2008-09-30T20:02:00.000-07:00

I had bought a buckwheat hull stuffed zafu. Thought it was great compared to the sofa cushion I was sitting on. Turns out it was not so great. Too short. Too conforming. In half lotus my left thigh bore down on my right foot and cut off circulation. I stuffed the zafu this last weekend with some synthetic doll-stuffing (in addition to the hull already in it). It is much better now.

I think, at a minimum, a zafu should be at least as thick as your thigh when you are sitting on it.

-cheers.

"Words, Words, Words. I'm so sick of words" {My Fair Lady}

2008-09-29T06:00:00.000-07:00

I was reading some translation of an old Chinese Zen {Ch'an} patriach last night and wondered how much they sat and what they had to say about sitting.

What get's captured of the patriarchs, and what most people focus on is the words of buddhism. But buddhism, I think, is not in words. It's in action, and mostly in sitting. Wouldn't it have been great if every patriarch/matriarch left a record of their sitting also!

Ku Shu Metsu Do - Four Noble Truths

2008-09-25T18:23:00.000-07:00

From the heart sutra
苦集滅道
ku shuu metsu dou

The Four Noble Truths. From Buddha's first discourse. It hinges/focuses on suffering {duhhka / duhkha}

Duhhka is known as one of the three marks of existence - These three marks of existence—duhhka (the awareness of pain), anicca (the awareness of the fleeting, momentary nature of experience), and anatta (the awareness that we are identified with a separate self, which is ultimately not real)—are in fact marks of relative, manifest experience, the deep contemplation of which can reveal the absolute, unmanifest Reality of this and every moment.

[http://in.integralinstitute.org/talk.aspx?id=957]

In the above it is interesting that it is translated as the awareness of pain. The implication seems that pain itself is not a mark of existence, but rather awareness of pain.

Note also that they are qualified as the marks of relative experience. They are not absolute reality. Letting go of them (their ceasing to be present in my life) does not mean "I" no longer exist, but that "I" experience the absolute reality of reality. ... I guess.
[LEC]

"This is the term I’ve chosen to translate the Pali dukkha. It’s a difficult concept; its literal meaning is “pain”, and if it’s used in speaking of ordinary events, that’s what it means: “the man was shot by an arrow and experienced dukkha“. But when the Buddha speaks of the truth of dukkha, the cause of dukkha, the cessation of dukkha, he is speaking of something much more complex and wide-ranging than simple physical pain. He’s speaking of the ultimate unsatisfactoriness of our existence in an impermanent world—regret, despair, frustration, the folly of ambition, human frailty, the vanity of pride. We’ll be spending a good deal of time throughout the course exploring the various applications of the term dukkha.

[http://dharmastudy.net/suttas/dhammacakkappavattana/]

Pain: dukkha. The basic everyday meaning of the word dukkha as a noun is "pain" as opposed to "pleasure" (sukha). These, with neither-dukkha-nor-sukha, are the three kinds of feeling (vedanā) (e.g., S iv 232). S v 209-10 explains dukkha vedanā as pain (dukkha) and unhappiness (domanassa), i.e., bodily and mental dukkha. This shows that the primary sense of dukkha, when used as a noun, is physical "pain," but then its meaning is extended to include mental pain, unhappiness. The same spread of meaning is seen in the English word "pain," for example in the phrase, "the pleasures and pains of life."

Painful: dukkha as an adjective refers to things which are not (in most cases) themselves forms of mental or physical pain, but which are experienced in ways which bring mental or physical pain. When it is said "birth is painful" etc, the word dukkha agrees in number and gender with what it is applied to, so is an adjective. The most usual translation "is suffering" does not convey this. Birth is not a form of "suffering," nor is it carrying out the action of "suffering," as in the use of the word in "he is suffering."

[http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn56/sn56.011.harv.html]