Nikko's Zafu

Sleeping Cat Zazen

2012-01-04T10:26:00.000-05:00

Curled up in a ball on the cushion

No doubt, no striving

Sleeping cat zazen

No going back

2011-05-08T21:40:00.000-04:00

Visiting my parents, the house where I grew up. They have aged, the neighborhood has aged, and I have aged. Walking by the pond, red-wing blackbirds trilling in the evening, memories floating washing over me... 8 years old, listening to the red-wing blackbirds at the pond.... Mu.....

Not Dead Yet

2010-07-05T10:45:00.000-04:00

A good friend is dying of cancer. Seeing her struggle with the problem of birth and death is, in some way, her gift to all of us around her. What a price for this gift!

When she says "I am afraid", she is the fear. When she suffers from physical pain, she is the pain. When she cries saying "I will miss my children", she is impermanence.

When I say "Then what am I?", I do not even see the finger pointing at the sunset.

Fear of Zazen, Zazen of Fear

2010-05-22T22:25:00.000-04:00

Again with fear...now fear of zazen. Work, family, life, and a brief illness swallowed me whole, and my zazen practice went by the wayside for a month. It has been hard this time to start back up, and part of this is an odd fear. Fear of zazen, fear of disappearing into zazen. Like walking out to the end of the jetty, and just going on, into unknown waters. Clearly, this is where I must go, but it has become hard. My great determination has fizzled.

The First Gate of Fear

2010-04-20T22:49:00.002-04:00

I met fear today, utter, total, fear. Going up to the top of the CN tower in Toronto with my daughter. It has an observation deck with a glass floor, looking straight down about 446 meters (1,450 feet). The glass is very thick, and you can stand on it and look down....all the way down. The sign says that the glass can support 14 hippopotami can standing on it. Maybe....but this one terrified Zen householder could not support no-mind looking down and standing on the glass. I knew that the glass was strong, saw others standing on it, and knew I could not fall. I still could not do it, and gripped by terror, could not penetrate this gate. And Mu will take no less than this, no less than everything....

Hammer and Nail

2010-04-14T23:43:00.000-04:00

When all you have is one approach to the Great Way, you become a hammer looking for a nail. The Way contains all things, and we must be lithe in our walking to take every step mindfully. With all of the unanticipated turns and uneven ground, we must adapt our stride continuously. If we are rigid, we become the hammer in search of the nail. If they nail does not appear, we may be tempted to whack something anyway, just to feel the heft of the hammer and hear the ring of the blow on the nail, any nail, even no-nail....

Daily Grind

2010-04-04T23:52:00.000-04:00

Making an effort once again to make room for daily zazen in the mix of work, attention to family, and all the rest. Of course, all is part of the same fabric and web, but it sometimes feels at the end of the day that all I did was grind it all up, mix together well, and exhaust myself. More sleep might help to stay awake in the zendo, more zazen might help me to be fully present when blowing bubbles with my younger daughter.

Make your own travel zafu

2010-04-01T23:41:00.003-04:00

For zazen when traveling, a travel zafu is essential. The ideal travel zafu is light, collapsable, and does not take up much space in your luggage. It is not too difficult to make your own travel zafu, which is basically a zafu cover willed with an a partially inflated beach ball. Sewing instructions for a zafu cover can be found here. It takes about 3-4 hours, depending on how good you are with a sewing machine, and longer if you sew by hand. You may want to consider a sturdy fabric, as outdoor zazen while traveling can be very inspiring, and the covers can get dirty. A supply of beachballs can be ordered from various sources, and I find that the 20" size works pretty well. Remember, the beachball will only be partially inflated. I have tried a few things for a travel zabutan, but they are all bulky, such as yoga mats or air matresses. If you have any suggestions, please contribute!

Beach Zazen

2010-03-28T21:28:00.001-04:00

Traveling with family, it is hard to find the time and place for zazen. The room at the inn was crowded with the shrapnel of clothing and stuff from 4 people. So, I took my inflatable zafu down to the dunes by the ocean, and sat on a bluff overlooking rocks and sand. It seemed fitting, as the travel zafu is basically a beach ball with a fabric cover. The sound of the waves made concentrating on Mu very difficult. A dull roar, pulsating, changing, the sound never the same, and punctuated by the gulls. Thoughts of my family, and guilt at taking this time away from them. Sunset, and returning to them, always, like the breath, like the koan....

Ring The Bell

2010-03-22T22:28:00.004-04:00

I am fortunate to live 8 minutes away from the zendo, by car, if the 5:30 AM traffic light karma is favorable. Flying through the zen center door, putting on my robe and gathering cushions. The warning bell is struck, and fading harmonics echo through the building. Ten thousand things, and "only Mu!" merge as I settle on my zafu, feeling the energy of a seasoned zendo. Breath, no breath, fading resonance of the "I" that is not...here and now.

Just Sit, Every Day...

2010-03-20T23:43:00.002-04:00

It's been very hard to keep a consistent practice this last eight months. A move, family events, and much work have all converged to make daily zazen very difficult. Most days, I can snatch 10-20 minutes to sit, usually at the end of the day, exhausted, sleepy. I was not able to go to sesshin this year either, and making it to the zendo three or four mornings a week has not happened. Often I wonder if I will ever be able to sit for two hours a day consistently, one in the morning, one at night. The old masters might say that I do not have the burning desire for enlightenment. Perhaps that type of enlightenment can best be sought via monastic practice. But with a family, that is not really possible.

Cutting Karma

2010-03-17T23:29:00.001-04:00

It is not easy to finish an action that will cause another person to suffer, even if you believe that you have exhausted all other options. Delusion and karmic patterns often lock us into cyclical and codependent patterns of suffering. To break that pattern can be very painful: leaving a lover, evicting or firing a person, tough love with your children, self-discipline. My teacher tells me that this is the heart of Zen. Sometimes true compassion is kindness, soft, and comforting; other times it is hard, jarring, and painful. Don't flinch!

Practice

2009-10-26T09:16:00.004-04:00

Both of my daughters are learning string instruments. The older is very disciplined, practices almost every day, pushes herself with new challenges. You can see the steady pace of her progress, and hear the beauty of her music. The younger is more temperamental, and gets caught up in the suffering that comes with the difficulty of learning new things. Two sides, and in both I see myself. On the way to the Zendo early this morning, I was tired and grumbling about my small suffering with this commitment to sit every day. So early, it seemed particularly burdensome. Suddenly, I was thinking about my younger daughter who seems to struggle and suffer with with musical practice, but does practice almost every day, growing steadily. Her struggle and perseverance spurred me on. Practice....and practice. Gumble...sit on the zafu....MU!

Walking Without Seeing The Way

2009-09-08T21:38:00.000-04:00

"If you do not see the way,
you do not see it even as you walk on it.
When you walk the way, it is not near, it is not far."

The Harmony of the Relative and Absolute (Sandokai)

It is fortunate that even when we do not see it, we walk the Way. What can this mean? We are not separate from the Great Way, even when we stop sitting for a time, and cannot see it. Why then must we sit zazen? It is not only to walk the Way, but to know that we walk on it. Watching my children live their lives, I often see them express great mastery of some skill, or great insight, and not see it themselves. On one hand, this is what zazen is about, returning to that state of simple, unaffected expression of a child. Yet we are loaded down with concepts, grasping, aversion, and thoughts that obscure this sight and taint our actions. As said by the Ancient Masters, going beyond this by zazen means that we eat when hungry and drink when thirsty, and now know our intent and actions, simply and for what they are. The vision of years and unencumbered action of a child.

Birth and Death

2009-03-09T07:57:00.003-04:00

In my work, many times I see birth and death bracketing the day. In the mornings, walking by the newborn nursery, there is birth. In the afternoon, walking in the intensive care unit, there is death. What is this birth, this death? Standing by the bedside of the dying, I do not know. Standing by the window of the nursrey, I do not know. Sitting zazen, only this!

An Executioner Suffers

2009-02-17T10:25:00.006-05:00

During the reign of the Khmer Rouge in Vietnam, millions were tortured and killed. In a profoundly moving editorial in the New York Times today, "My Savior, Their Killer", Francios Bizot, describes meeting his Khmer Rouge torturer decades later while he is tried for war crimes. While Bizot was freed, over ten thousand others were tortured and killed under the supervision of Kaing Guek Eav. In this essay, he describes how Kaing Guek Eav broke down when he revisited a site where over 30 years ago he inflected death and torture on thousands. I leave you with this haunting description to meditate on the nature of suffering, the poison karma of inflicting suffering on others, and what it means to forgive. Here, the former executioner speaks, as told by Bizot:

“I ask for your forgiveness — I know that you cannot forgive me, but I ask you to leave me the hope that you might,” he said before collapsing in tears on the shoulder of one of his guards.
I was not there — it was a closed hearing — but those who were reported that the cry of the former executioner betrayed such suffering that one of the few survivors of Tuol Sleng screamed out, “Here are the words that I’ve longed to hear for 30 years!”
It could be that forgiveness is possible after a simple, natural process, when the victim feels that he has been repaid. And the executioner has to pay dearly, for it is the proof of his suffering that eases ours.

...We shall all be at the trial — not just as judges, but also as victims, and the accused...

The genocide of the Khmer Rouge will be judged as a “crime against humanity,” a crime against ourselves. As such, Duch’s guilt exceeds his immediate victims; it becomes the guilt of humanity, in the name of all victims. Duch killed mankind. The trial of the Khmer Rouge should be an opportunity for each of us to gaze at the torturer with some distance — from beyond the intolerable cry of the suffering, which may veil the truth of the abomination. The only way to look at the torturer is to humanize him.

Excerpted from "My Savior, Their Killer", Francios Bizot, New York Times, February 17, 2009

Where is Monkey Mind? or Zazen Changes Your Brain

2009-02-14T08:26:00.007-05:00

I stumbled across this interesting article the other day examining the effect of regular zazen on the brain using high-tech MRI imaging in the journal PLoS One. Functional MRI is a type of imaging of the brain that can show both an picture of the brain structure (like the one above), and the areas of the brain that are being used more than others at a particular moment. It turns out that such studies show the physical locations of monkey mind! Monkey mind, that stream of thoughts that rattles through the mind unbidden, is described by neuroscientists as:

"...brain regions that are metabolically active during wakeful rest and consistently deactivate in a variety the performance of demanding tasks. This “default network” has been functionally linked to the stream of thoughts occurring automatically in the absence of goal-directed activity..."

When the scientists compared activity in the brains of long-term zazen practitioners (3 years or more of daily meditation), the findings were quite interesting. Both zazen practitioners and a control group (non-meditators) were shown visual pictures of words, as well as non-sense combinations of letters. When zazen practitioners saw words, they still had signs of the brain activity of monkey mind, it was shut off very quickly; non-meditators had the long, ongoing brain reverberations that we are all familiar with. So, neuroscience tells us again what our teachers have for centuries: you can never completely rid yourself of monkey mind, but you can settle the mind into stillness with training.

Go sit, change your brain!

The Big Sit

2009-02-06T16:50:00.004-05:00

OK....just when I judge the digital world bad for zazen, my judging good and bad comes back to bite me. Tricycle magazine is sponsoring a version of ango, the traditional 3 month monastic retreat. This digital version is particularly suited to householders and others who practice outside of a structured monastic environment: The Big Sit. During a 3 month period starting on February 23, you can commit to:

• Sit in formal meditation for 20 minutes each day.
• Listen to one dharma talk each week on tricycle.com.
• Study Dogen’s Genjokoan, the text selected for the period.
• Commit to the sixteen bodhisattva precepts.
• Practice with others at tricycle.com or at a local meditation center.

I think that attempting this kind of consistent commitment, for a limited time, can bolster one's practice. To feel connected to the larger sangha, even electronically, might help even more. It seems worth doing.

Digital Dharma

2009-02-04T17:48:00.003-05:00

Often I wonder if the digital, distracting, e-life is at all compatible with zazen and realization. Not that I am a Luddite; I have many electronic e-gadgets (computers, cell phone, ipod, camera, pager) at home and at work. But the fragmented existence they seem to draw me into (or I am drawing them into....?) feels terribly unfocused and counterproductive. On the one hand, zazen awakens us to the interconnectedness of all things. And yet, living the digital dharma so that any sentient being can reach you any time of day or night, and they often do, feels utterly antithetical to opening one's spiritual eye. Wide awake, attentive, and staring at an LCD monitor... Is there a Middle Way in the binary world?

Find Time, Sit Zazen

2009-02-02T01:14:00.005-05:00

Morning
When the house is still
Evening
When children are in bed
Sit zazen

Before coffee
After a kiss
Before work
After dishes
Sit zazen

As koi
In still water
Like water
Gliding past koi
Sit zazen

Householder Leave-Taking for Sesshin

2009-01-31T21:48:00.007-05:00

As I have written before, it is not easy to take leave of one's family and attend sesshin. I offer some suggestions for the householder, and the household, that I have found helpful, and I hope will be helpful to others. Please know that I do not claim that these are useful for everybody. I offer them humbly and with the hope that they will support others and spark discussion for those of us who are householders and are struggling to balance sesshin and family.

For the Householder:

Prepare your family - Talk about how long you will be gone for, why you are going, and what the routine may be like at sesshin. I believe it is helpful to start these conversations many weeks to months before you will be leaving. It is a chance to share your commitment to practice with your family, and show them at some level how fundamental it is.
Be present for your partner and family before you leave - I have had the urge to begin preparing for sesshin by intensifying my zazen in the weeks before, and being less present for my family. This last time, I spent the prior 6 weeks both doing more zazen and being fully present for my family. I spent time with my partner and children, and tried to be more compassionate and aware. Of course, I should have done this all along!
Leave some notes to be opened when you are gone - I try to leave a card for each of my children and my partner under their pillows when I leave. I have also hidden treats (chocolate, books, small gifts) elsewhere with hints for them to look on a particular day. This last gesture can some times be the cause of resentment from your partner, as they may feel your gifts make the children like your absence, when your partner is shouldering the whole load of caring for the household and doesn't feel particularly enthusiastic about this.
Be prepared for anxiety, guilt, panic and tears about your leave-taking to come up during zazen in shesshin. This is from my own experience. Others may not find this an issue. For me, these were extremely powerful feelings during the first several days of sesshin. At one point I seriously thought I needed to bail out and go home. Persevere, talk with your teacher at dokusan, sit zazen. We are most vulnerable during sesshin, and such feelings are greatly amplified. Know that you are not the only one to have had these powerful thoughts, and that the sangha of householders is supporting you. Take refuge in them!
Spend several days after sesshin to with your family before returning to your normal routine - I think this is particularly important. The goal is to integrate the energy of sesshin back into your householder life. It also allows your family to see that you are still "right here" for them. It is also a chance to be compassionate about their suffering while you were gone. You may have been taking leave of them, but they took leave of you as well.
Be thoughtful when you speak about your experience in sesshin - Remember, it's about the Dharma, not your ego! Let the light of the Dharma shine through you. Do not boast about sesshin or enlarge the significance of what you did. Sesshin is nothing special. To paraphrase an old Zen saying: "Before sesshin, do laundry, read to your children. After sesshin, do laundry, read to your children!"

For the Household:

Be kind about asking your partner or parent justify why they want to go to sesshin - Often, it is difficult to put into words. This does not mean they are hiding something or being coerced by their teacher. Sitting meditation is an experience which is at a level often beyond words. Daily meditation as a practice prepares one to be fully present, with you and the family. A longer retreat can solidify this attentiveness in a way that can be very difficult to describe.
Know that a sesshin is physically and mentally very demanding - A sesshin involves difficult physical and mental challenges. It can be like running a marathon, climbing a mountain, carrying a child and giving birth. It is definitely not a week of bliss, mental relaxation, and "getting away from it all". The physical pain of sitting still in meditation for 6-10 hours a day can be extremely challenging for even the most experienced meditators. The mental challenge of confronting the endless thoughts that whiz through your mind is equally difficult. Some have described this as "housebreaking your inner hyena" or "diving into your personal cesspool of habits".
Talk to others whose partners or parnents have gone to sesshin - This can be very, very helpful. Your partner or parent will have a support network of people who are attending the sesshin. Even though they are sitting silently for two to seven days, there is a powerful feeling of support and connectedness that usually emerges. You need support too! Gather your friends, use this time to open yourself to the support of others, talk about your feelings regarding sesshin. You will be surprised at how much a difference this makes
Do not hold back your feelings when your partner or parent returns - You may feel that you don't want to "ruin" the afterglow of sesshin for them. This often causes resentment and simmering anger. Simply let it out. They will be able to handle it, and should listen with compassion and presence.

As always, I am very interested in how others have managed sesshin and family.

Gassho,
Nikko

Java Enso

2009-01-21T17:43:00.006-05:00

At breakfast on Day 5 of sesshin, not sencha or oolong tea, but coffee! Having weaned myself from java to avoid caffeine withdrawal (a pounding headache for 3 days is a serious impediment to zazen), this small change in the breakfast routine aroused my senses in a microsecond. All beans without number, I vow to liberate! Ah....the aroma, the taste, each sip savored, the java makyo that roared into my zazen. It was a much appreciated, tiny thing to a tired body and no-mind. Grasping the cup....and trying not to grasp. What a lession in imperminance (once I drank it all). And the irony of it was, it was pretty bad coffee!

Sesshin

2009-01-15T23:01:00.006-05:00

"Even as night darkens the green earth, the wheel turns.
Death follows birth.
Strive as you sleep with every breath,
that you may wake past day, past death !"

Sesshin was bone-chilling cold. Makes you want to crawl into yourself and hibernate in zazen. I wonder if Bodhidharma's cave was in a place that had decent weather. A week is a long time to be away from family. I suspect that few of us householders with families have the luxury of attending a long sesshin more than occasionally, if at all. Zen, with its roots in monastic practice, is not an easy path for householders. Yet, this is where I am, in this very house, with this family, and this practice. Tonight, I am happy to be home, and to be more fully present for my family. Re-charged, I am resolute in finding a way to make my householder practice work better.

Sesshin and Family

2009-01-08T17:43:00.008-05:00

I am going to sesshin next week, a rare opportunity to deepen my practice in an intense and uninterrupted manner. As those of you who are householders know, especially if you have a family with children, attending sesshin entails a large sacrifice by your partner. I have not seen this addressed by contemporary Zen writing very often, and then usually with a short suggestion to talk with your partner. Negotiating the time away can be an emotional process, especially if one has a job that requires travel or long weekend hours away from the family. I have found little about the potential for resentment at being left with the kids, the difficulty explaining why you need to leave for a week and not speak to the family, how to explain your absence to children, and the strain it may place on the marriage/partnership.

One particular concern that has come up in my family is worry about how will I change . Will I be the same husband/father when I return? Zen writing and fiction is not necessarily comforting for the partner left behind, often speaking of how one should say good-bye before sesshin as if you will not return (as the same person or at all?). How to explain all this, especially if your spouse/partner does not practice zazen? My hope is that after sesshin, I will be a better husband and father, more aware of this moment with my family. But they do not know that this will be the outcome.

I think that outward compassion for their suffering and uncertainty in the weeks prior to your own leave-taking is a beginning.

I would be interested in how others have handled this challenge.

Post Script: A few helpful links -

Preparing for sesshin - Sensei Sunyana Graef,
Toronto Zen Center
Family Practice - Sensei Nicolee Jikyo McMahon,
Three Treasures Zen Community, San Diego
Pre- and Post Sesshin Guidelines - Windhorse Zen Community,
North Carolina

Zazen and Rehabilitation from Violence

2009-01-05T23:47:00.004-05:00

"Meditating day in and out in seclusion-- was something like standing before God telling him everything that I'd done, and genuinely being sorry for it. All my past surfaced-- the guilt -- the shame, the moments of anger...I gained the strength to face myself and learn more of myself. Never before had I experienced anything like this."

Willie Carroll in The Dhamma Brothers

I recently read a remarkable book, The Dhamma Brothers, which describes the evolution of a Vipassana meditation program in a maximum security prison in Alabama. Eighteen inmates participated in a 10 day retreat in the prison gymnasium, with 2 Vapissana teachers. The book is a collection of letters from the inmates over the course of 4 years which describe the profound effects of daily meditation practice on these men, most of whom were in prison for life. If you are pessimistic about the effects of meditation on the lives, moral insight, and habits of anyone, this book will completely turn your ideas on their head. Read it, see the documentary.

Great Determination....Hopefully

2008-12-29T17:51:00.007-05:00

Teacher: "Every time....same medicine!"
Student: "Every time....same illness!"

I have been absent for some time, mirroring how my sitting has fallen away for a while. Once again, I return to the mountains and clouds of zazen, while sitting amidst the toys and clutter of my kids. There was no one thing pulling me away from daily practice, but a series of little things that are part and parcel of the householder's life. So, another chance to return to the breath, to Mu! Each time I return, I wonder what possessed me to take leave of zazen again. It is a still mountain of certainty.

Patchwork Mind

2008-07-24T23:06:00.007-04:00

Often it seems like my day is a householder's patchwork quilt. It may begin in the zendo listening three strikes on the keisu and sitting zazen for an hour, but it then becomes a quilt of ten thousand things. Trying to hold all the patches together (or avoid collecting any more!) is exhausting. But not to try seems like abdication of my responsibilities as a householder, parent, supervisor, child, and all the other roles. That I spend much of my time at work on a computer does not help, with e-mail and ten thousand more distractions. I suspect my teacher would say: Sitting on the zafu, only Mu! Being in the world, only Mu! Going to sesshin, only Mu!

Only Mu.....

Samsara: Light and Dark

2008-07-20T00:03:00.012-04:00

Watching longing and grasping arise and fall, seeing the light and dark, the ten thousand things all intertwined. It is a wonder I can find the breath at all in this darkness, or see in the light. All I want to do is grasp it! And yet, each grasping pulls threads of life, distorting the web, catching me in my own desires. Where is Mu in all of this? Yes indeed, where is Mu?

Equanimity

2008-07-07T18:14:00.009-04:00

Suddenly, this morning during zazen, equanimity arrived. There I sat, longing in one corner, equanimity in the other. Connected to ten thousand threads of life, a gentle pool of still water. And in this, longing was gently present. But now I could sit and watch without succumbing blindly. Threads, light, water....

Longing

2008-07-03T15:56:00.009-04:00

"I don't know you, but I want you, all the more for that."

Falling Slowly
Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová

Unfocused, raw longing has crept into my zazen lately. None of us are strangers to longing; longing for the past, for the future, for things, for a lover, for some thing that is not now. And that is the crux of it, as longing takes you out of now into time past and time future. Not this breath, but that last-lost-perfect one, or no... the beautiful one-that-is-coming! Now I sit with this longing, unsure of what it is for, but painfully aware of it's intensity in my hara. Watching it during zazen, not acting, not feeding the animal. This ache is hard, exquisite, painful, hungry, and here!

Righting the boat

2008-06-18T21:20:00.006-04:00

I capsized my practice recently, just tipped right over and fell out. I got to a point where I came up against a wall, and then just flipped the boat. Ten thousand things crashed in, and I went below water. All of the old coping strategies were sampled, once again clinging desperately to old habits, although I knew they would fail. They did not disappoint. This morning in the zendo, I came up for air, righted the boat, and got back to zazen. Boat, water, air....mu!

Summer Maple

2008-06-08T19:46:00.006-04:00

Summer is here, and the Japanese maple in the neighbor's garden is beautiful. The deep maroon will change into fiery red when fall arrives. Nestled in a sea of green surrounding trees, it reminds me of the contrast of the seasons. I have been absent for a while, as life and zazen have been quite fragmented. Too much travel, and the pounding surf of ten thousand things crashing through the gates of awareness. But a new spark now gives inspiration, and so the rise and fall of the breath brings me focus again.

Old tree, new leaves
Who is the wind blowing?

Parent and Child, Teacher and Student

2008-04-10T17:59:00.004-04:00

Raising children brings to the fore the always-changing nature of teacher-student. Often we thing of being a parent as being the teacher, protector, and provider for our children. And yet, there is no separation between parent and child on the path. At times, the child is the teacher and the parent the student, a student of what we once knew as children and forgotten, a student of what we never knew but our children have taught us. Isn't this the nature of zazen practice? We try to realize, to truly live without concepts, what we already have...our essential nature. What do our children seek, yet they already have? We are all parent and child, student and teacher, trying to see the true nature of impermanence and attachment, death and birth, and delusion all around.

Second Zazen

2008-03-24T18:01:00.005-04:00

I recently explored the on-line phenomenon of Second Life, a virtual world where you can interact with others via an avatar (designed pictorial persona). You may style your avatar to reflect how you would want yourself to look, and change that representation at will. No more taking what is given (how old-fashioned) ! Avatars can fly, teleport, walk, talk, and otherwise interact with other avatars. There is no food required, except for the wandering hungry ghost avatars who search for objects to purchase, virtual money to purchase them with and, it seems, virtual sexual experiences. That is not to say that all is hunger and tawdry things. Some interesting avatars do populate the virtual world, and there is kindness, compassion, and mindfulness.

Ironically, there are multiple Zen sites "in-world", including a Zen Center with a zendo and several others. Your avatar can even sit zazen in some of them, achieving the painless full lotus and posture so hard to earn in your First Life. So far, I have not seen virtual dokusan, sesshin, or kensho, (Ha!). Some sites have teshios.

For now, zazen in my First Life is enough.

Taking what is given

2008-03-17T18:03:00.003-04:00

What is given is sometimes a thing, a path, a desire. With children, taking what is given can be trying. As a householder and parent, you want to help them understand that cruelty, disdain, and slander are not appropriate offerings. At one level, this is certainly not taking what is given. But what does this precept truly mean? Surely not taking destructive acts? Perhaps it means taking what is offered, as it is offered, in the exact spirit, and working with that rather than what you hoped would be given. Then, when your children see the anger taken as anger, absorbed, and returned as something transformed, you become a living lesson by example. When they see love taken, filtered through the anger at one's bad day, and returned hewn by that anger, oblivious to their true offering, that too is a lesson. Take what is given, return it transformed, and let compassion and choiceless flow along the path determine the transformation.

Attachment to Anger

2008-03-05T18:14:00.006-05:00

A number of years ago, I had many difficult interactions with a co-worker. He did some terrible things, was dishonest, and caused much suffering among those around him. Then he moved on to another place. The other day I learned that he had been fired at his current job. My first reaction was to be cheered by the misfortune he had brought on himself. Of course, this was attachment to my own anger and suffering, even though it was many years ago.

My teacher has a bumper sticker on his car "Mean People are Suffering". I am not yet there...

Imperminence

2008-03-02T11:55:00.005-05:00

It has been a difficult several weeks, with the unexpected death of a good friend and close colleague, another unexpected death of the young daughter of a co-worker, and a destructive flood in my office at work. It is one thing to ruminate about imperminence, another to directly experience the suffering from attachment to that which is gone. Attachment to people, all of whom will die one day; attachment to things that water permeates and destroys; and attachment to oneself.

I can understand leaving behind attachment to things, but to people? Yes, love, friendship and family ties can all bring suffering, but to renounce these seems to make us less human, less alive, less engaged. After all, the Ox herding series ends with a return to the marketplace; did we ever truly leave it? What does the Buddha's child say of the suffering he experienced when the Buddha abandoned him and his mother?

Only Mu?

Seeing My Death in Zazen

2008-02-09T13:20:00.000-05:00

Sitting the other day, I suddenly felt the clear reality of my own death. Breathe in, breath out, and one day this too will cease. As a child, I distinctly remember when I first became aware of the inevitability of own death. I must have been about 5 years old. I was eating lunch and my parents, as was their habit, had the radio on with the news. I listened to a short piece about how "scientists" estimated that Earth would cease to exist in several billion years. I suddenly felt my vision was bright and crisp, accompanied by that awful feeling of being punched in the stomach. Since then, I have this experience every so often, but this is the first time while sitting zazen.

Boil water, Put the kids to bed, Sit zazen

2008-01-31T17:56:00.000-05:00

I just finished reading Jeff Wilson's essay in Tricycle "Meditation: a rare practice" discussing how rare zazen practice is for householders in most Buddhist cultures, including Japan. It puts a new perspective on the Western householder practice. Emphasizing zazen as a foundation of householder practice seems to be a new and particularly Western practice. The struggle to balance householder life and zazen is being lived out as a great experiment in our time and place, and we do not yet know the outcome. I am not sure how I feel about this new information. On the one hand, it is daunting to think that zazen practice has perhaps been tried by other householders in far more supportive cultures and not taken root. On the other hand, it is exciting that we live in a time and place where we have the luxury of building sanghas around this Zen experiment. Boil water, put the kids to bed, sit zazen.

Hiding in Zazen

2008-01-23T13:06:00.000-05:00

When the ten-thousand things seem to press in, I find myself hiding in zazen. This is usually related much more to aversion than taking refuge, it seems. Zazen then becomes a place-time-state to hide from fear of the ten-thousand things (or the one or two that seem really frightening or oppressive at the moment!). What does it truly mean to take refuge?

The Language of Being

2008-01-19T18:52:00.000-05:00

Words and speach are the language of knowing. The languague of knowing divides, categorizes, judges, describes, makes images of the unimaginable, and seeks communication. It has a speaker, that which is spoken, and an audience. Action and non-action, movement and stillness, the void and the ten-thousand things are the language of being. Zazen, koan practice, shikuntaza, kinhin, and compassion are expressions of the language of being. There is nothing to speak, nothing which is spoken, and no audience. Be zazen, be the koan, be compassion. Children have this ability, and one merit of family practice is the opportunity to become the language of being with your children, to re-learn it.

Lessons from our Children

2008-01-14T17:28:00.000-05:00

Householders with children have the advantage of seeing the world anew through their children's eyes. A few years ago, one of my kids did something that she knew she was not supposed to. Discussing the "event" at bedtime, she succinctly described that sinking feeling. "You know when you aren't supposed to do something, and then you just did it?" Yes, that jolt of eyes-wide-open clarity after action and before consequences. Children seeing karma clearly. In zazen, I am re-learning to immerse my "self" in that flash of bright stillness.

Cup of Mu

2008-01-12T16:51:00.001-05:00

After sitting at the zendo early in the morning, I usually indulge in coffee at the local cafe. It is an attachment that I enjoy, and thus has become linked to one part of my practice. I have tried to wean myself from this attachment, but it is strong. Cup of java, cup of Mu! Wondering if I should unchain myself from this pleasure, or take it as it is...

Stones Thrown in Water

2008-01-02T16:41:00.001-05:00

A New Year comes, and here we are. Well, here we always are, resolving to practice as we are able, to stop throwing our own stones in the water. What will be different about this New Year? New and now, on the cushion and off. We resolve for this New Year to go beyond duality and distinction, and in resolving we invoke discriminating mind. To resolve is to think that we are not that, and in that same instant to desire to become that. No resolve, just practice.

Dharma Friend

2007-12-21T16:21:00.001-05:00

In the mad rush to dokusan
I see your brown robed blur
A fast, spinning, dharma wheel
Spurring me on through the battle
With small-self and big-ego

Katsu!

Gassho, my friend, gassho.

In The Bunker

2007-12-20T18:17:00.000-05:00

My daughter said it best the other day. "Winter makes me want to hibernate like a bear!" It is grey here most of the winter, in addition to the snow. Some mornings it is hard to get to the zendo at 5:45 AM, and I madly dash to get my robe on before the strike of the han.

Thanks to comments on previous posts, I am again looking at all those ten-thousand householder things as integral to practice and the Way. As Dogen said, the point of doing zazen is not just to do zazen. Life is zazen is mu is practice. Be mu in every one of those ten thousand things. Hard to realize that sometimes. Gassho!

Snow

2007-12-16T22:27:00.001-05:00

The family is house-bound today with the heavy snow, making it hard to find any space/time for zazen. The house is small, and we use every room. Besides, I always feel a bit guilty sitting when the kids are awake and want time.

I slept in this morning, and by the time I was awake, so were the kids. Waffles and toast replaced zafu and mu. I know that mu is not separate from waffles and toast, but I have not seen this with my mind's eye. Nevertheless, householder practice is punctuated by such interruptions. Siddhartha Guatama took leave of his family to search for enlightenment, leaving such disturbances behind. He never returned. Sometimes I wonder if a practice founded on such a base can possibly succeed for a householder. Must leave-taking precede insight?

Contrast the monastic approach with that of the householder Dipa Ma, a householder, mother, and Buddhist teacher/master.

Zazen Panic

2007-12-13T17:19:00.000-05:00

Panic during zazen can be most challenging. Sitting in the midst of stillness, and then the ego pulls the fire alarm. Suddenly, your body is still but your mind is screaming: Fire! Your zazen body-mind tells you to observe and let it go. Not easy. Even worse, you are "trapped" in the zendo, and the round has just begun. In the urge to flee, every pain, sound, and sensation are amplified a thousand-fold. Soon, the panic has passed, and mu is back. Both will come and go again, ebb and flow, fire and still water.

Ice Storm

2007-12-11T22:23:00.000-05:00

Ice covers the trees, like a clear barrier to seeing one's essential nature. Groaning under the weight of this burden, branches break, great old trees fall, and ice-covered branches clank against each other noisily. The temperature changes, and ice turns again to water. No longer bent under the weight of their load, touching the sky again. Tree, water, ice, sky and change.

Children and the Dharma of Change

2007-12-08T19:28:00.001-05:00

Children embody the dharma of change, and transmit that dharma mind-to-mind to their householder parents. I experience this most acutely when some new hungry ghost appears in my house. Who switched my kid? Or more directly, who is this child now? Who? The Dharma of Change stands before you, persistent and noisy, demanding that you be mindful of it. Wake up, look, show me mu! This often appears as some new attachment, desire, or aversion. But when I watch closely, the thing that I assumed was a poison changes, and my child is again transformed. Even the meta-patterns of these transformations change. We were all once these children, and still are. Thus manifests one unique benefit of parent-householder practice, reality bonking me over the head with a stuffed animal, even though I would like to hide from that reality by doing zazen in the zendo right now. Like our children, we all walk on the Path, even if we do not know it.

Travel Practice

2007-12-05T22:19:00.002-05:00

About once a month I travel. When it is for work, I often have some time for solitude, and am able to sit more often then I can at home. But I miss my family (still working on attachment...). I have found that planes are ideal for zazen: the drone of the engine, no pagers, cell phones, or e-mail. A flying monastic retreat. For sitting in the hotel, I have a great inflatable cushion, which is really a beachball in a zafu cover (no kidding!). But when I travel with family, finding a time and place to do zazen is almost impossible, even with a beachball zafu. After coming home, it takes several days to get back into my schedule. The balance is not easy.

NOTE: See my more recent post for how to make your own travel zafu.

Koi

2007-12-03T19:18:00.001-05:00

Watching my children watch koi in a pond. So simple, and I again realize what tremendous concentration they have. How is it that we unlearn what we knew as children, splinter simple moments into ten thousand fragments?

Golden fish
The world reflected
Who is under water?

Pager Practice

2007-11-26T18:23:00.000-05:00

In my work I carry a pager. When I began to sit zazen, I viewed my pager as a formidable impediment to practice. How could you sit in stillness, focusing the mind, when at any moment a shrill beeping could interrupt? But then, I realized that although pages are like boulders dropped in the taught still pond, those beeps must point to the existence of that stillness! It seemed to me that the mind states invoked by the pager’s summons could have merit in the daily practice of a householder. Thus, I began pager practice.

As my pager practice settled, I began to notice mind states familiar to me from zazen. First there was aversion. Why was I being paged all? There was anger at the existence of pagers in general, and the one attached to my belt in particular. Pleasant mind states arose after being paged with good news. There was also attachment to consider, the pathological inability of going anywhere without the pager, even if I need not carry it at the moment. Next, there was picking and choosing. Should I set the pager on vibrate or audible mode, and which ring tone? Should I save some messages? I deleted them all, and then lost my focus, with monkey pager-mind ruminating about pages lost and those yet to come.

As time continued, it slowly dawned on me that pager practice is simply a manifestation of modern householder practice: the reality of children, work, and cleaning up the dishes. These commitments, gladly shouldered as obligations of being in the world, bring intrusions fused with practice opportunities to a householder. The pager beeps, focus returns!

Two Views of Self

2007-11-12T17:17:00.000-05:00

"Of course there is no us and them
But them they do not think the same"

Illumination
Gogol Bordello

How to observe the first vow in the face of violence? "All beings without number, I vow to liberate" What should be our response to suicide bombers, torturers, and those who deliberately inflict violence on others? Clearly, if you sit on the zafu, you cannot do violence. But what of those who do not sit? How to engage them is not clear, aside from simply being in the moment. What is a Zen response to the janjaweed in Darfur?

Empty

2007-11-09T15:42:00.001-05:00

Empty mind

Empty day

Empty zazen

Strike the student bell

Ten thousand things are here!

Change of Season

2007-11-08T15:04:00.001-05:00

Autumn tastes like change and transformation. Leaves fall, the plants and squirrels sleep. We plant bulbs and hope for blossoms in spring. Zazen takes on a serious tenor, sitting like a mountain awaiting a blanket of snow. I take out my warm under-robe for sitting in the zendo. No hibernation for Mu!

Snowflakes fall within the smell of incense
Can you smell spring?

Falling Away

2007-11-06T17:33:00.000-05:00

Autumn is here, and the Japanese maple outside is bright red. The leaves fall away one by one, and litter the grass. Zazen takes on a crisp new hue in the cold morning air. The family asleep upstairs, a sunrise outside, and a cat on the windowsill. Breathe in... breathe out.... fall away.

Householder Zazen

2007-11-04T12:54:00.000-05:00

As a householder, finding space for zazen is hard. The distractions and demands of family and work make it difficult. Most teachers recommend setting aside a special space for zazen, uncluttered, light, and free of distractions. I suspect they have no children, nor live in a smaller house. Perhaps fitting, my cushion and mat are in nestled in a family area, facing a curtained window, with my back to the scattered toys. My children's schedule changes, and so! The time set aside for zazen is taken by a different obligation. Ho! Time to beg for new space.

Energy in the Zendo

2007-10-31T13:47:00.000-04:00

There is nothing like sitting in the zendo the morning after sesshin has ended. At the zendo I attend, many participants gather the after sesshin ends for informal sitting and a brunch. The first time I joined a sitting during this period, although I had not attended sesshin, I was stunned. Electric air, a clear stillwater lake at sunrise. What dharma transmission is this?

Zazen And The Suffering Of Others

2007-10-28T15:46:00.000-04:00

Can the zazen of one person help others who are suffering?

We don't really know until we see for ourselves

The first vow is liberating all beings. It's practice begins by sitting on the cushion, with our own suffering, attachments, aversions, and hungers. We teach by our actions in the world, including the time we dedicate to zazen. Seeing this, or simply finding the stillpoint when with one who is suffering, demonstrates what is possible. It is transmission, in a very small way, that all are endowed with enlightenment, here and now.

What is the brush of a cupped hand on a cheek, a fully attentive gaze, a softly spoken "I'm so sorry"?

Zafu Brain

2006-05-08T18:24:00.000-04:00

I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body.
Then I remembered who was telling me this.

—Emo Philips