Parent and Child, Teacher and Student

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

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

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

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

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?