Sleeping Cat Zazen

 

Curled up in a ball on the cushion

No doubt, no striving

Sleeping cat zazen 

No going back

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

 

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

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

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....