Stones Thrown in Water

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.

Children and the Dharma of Change

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.