The Big Sit

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.

Taking what is given

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.