18 February 2023

It's Been a While

I just remembered I used to post here a while back, so I decided to take a look at what I had littered about the cybersphere. I have to say, it's a bit eerie. What over a decade ago were random thoughts have now coalesced into book form: Alone in a World of Wounds: A Dharmic Response to the Ills of Sentient Beings was published this past June by Cascade Books; Obstacles to Stillness: Thoughts, Hindrances, and Self-Surrender in Evagrius and the Buddha will be out by the end of 2023 from Fortress Press. 

Some of the things I found myself chewing on then I find myself still chewing on now. There are new tacks, however, and who knows what they might lead to. I'm doing more reading in Jōdo Shinshū generally and Shinran in particular. I've signed up for a correspondence course with the Jōdo Shinshū folks in Berkeley, and I'll be joining some of them on a trip to Japan this spring to take part in the 850th anniversary of Shinran's birth and visit sites connected with him and the school (I'll also be popping into some of the Zen temples in Kyoto and environs on my own while I'm there). 

I began this shortly after my ordination as a way of clearing my head. Now I find myself having become sanctioned to teach in our lineage. I never expected that, and I'm still not entirely happy about it, but there it is all the same. Now I have slightly different things to mull over, things related to students and teachers, to what teaching even means, to my own shortcomings and blind spots, to the Dharma whose spokesperson I've been tapped to be. 

Above all, I have become even more convinced of the liberation the Dharma offers, and I have now seen with my own eyes what a student's first dropping of self entails. I said before, and I will say it again: the Dharma is a vast, live-giving ocean.

19 April 2016

Writing

So I've been plugging along on this book project for a number of months now. Depending on the day or even the hour, I am either pleased or disappointed with what has been written so far. I suppose that comes with the turf.

What I hadn't expected was how writing on the Dharma, far from becoming a distraction to practice, has actually helped spur my practice on. The more I dig and the more I write, the more marrow-deep convinced I am that the Dharma is whole, complete, efficacious, and right.

I can't write that in the book, so I write it here.

06 January 2014

Sic Transit Festis

I put up the tree on or about December 8, in conjunction with Rohatsu. I take it down on our about January 6, in conjunction with Epiphany. Today it came down, and so another holiday season comes to an end.

By nature I'm one of those folks that just eats this time up – the imagery, the wonder, the stillness, the acts of kindness large and small that surface all over the place. From the realization of someone like you and I who saw with utmost clarity the true nature of this world and our lives, to the manifestation of the seamless union of the absolute and the relative in flesh-and-blood no different at all from our own, I have no shortage of occasions to ponder and marvel at this life of ours. I'm almost embarrassed to count the number of times I've been moved to tears over the last month or so.

And why?

Celebrated is Shakyamuni's enlightenment, of course, but celebrated is ours as well. Celebrated is theophany in the baby of Bethlehem, but celebrated is the same in us as well.

I don't know, but I find that spending a little time with all of that makes me just that much more inclined to smile at our finitude, our all-too-humanness, our quirks and our missteps. Somehow, through the decorating and the baking and the gifting and the eating and the drinking and the family-ing and all the rest I'm reminded yet again of how wondrous each and every one of us is, warts and all.

It's bitter cold here tonight, and there's hurt of all kinds all over the place. May all be as warm as they can be. May all be at ease.

30 December 2013

2013 Closeout

If there's one thing that's really settled into my bones of late, it is the realization that there really is nothing at all to say about this life and this practice.

When they ask, I just keep saying to people, "Just keep living your life, every last bit of it, full-on, without fear or anxiety or remainder. And above all, don't ever think you know what any of that even means."

That's all.

29 November 2013

Why Black Friday is So Important

Ever since Gmail decided to sort the Inbox into "Primary," "Social," and "Promotions" categories it's become easy to see just how much of what comes my way is advertising.  This morning, "Promotions" was chock full of ads and offers, a windfall of Black Friday specials of one kind or another.

Here's the thing: I look at them.   Yep, 50% off this, 40% off that with free shipping, buy one at 25% off get the next at 50% off – the list goes on. And I look at them.

I have to own that I'm as tempted as anyone to pick up another of my favorite things when some retailer is taking a good chunk of the price off and throwing in free shipping, too.  In this, I am no different from the door busting, wee hours of the morning purchasing, major artery jamming hordes that were out and underway as early as yesterday evening.  No different at all.  Even if I should like to think otherwise.

Just as Thanksgiving gives me occasion to exercise gratitude, Black Friday reminds me just how much work I still have to do.

16 November 2013

The Pressure to Say or Do Something

Two nights ago I was involved in a residence hall activity where I, the Buddhist, along with two of my colleagues, both Christian, but one from India so he spoke on Hinduism, had an hour with the students. We were each invited to talk for about 15 mins about the respective traditions, and then a Q&A followed.

It was fine enough, but I always leave such events with a bad taste in my mouth.  "If you say, 'Buddha, wash you mouth out three times" makes such increasing sense to me.  "Buddha" indeed…!

Would that I never had to talk about this practice again.  Would that henceforth and forever I could just say, "Look!" and let that be enough and more than enough.  Even better: to just smile Mahākāshyapa's smile and leave it at that!

15 November 2013

What if No One's in Charge?

Some people look at the relative order of the universe and are drawn to the conclusion that it must be the work of one single agent.

If I look at something like the city of Chicago, for instance, with its complexity and relative orderliness, I can be astounded that the whole thing functions just as well as it does (food comes in, waste is processed, there's water sent to every floor in the downtown skyscrapers, and on and on), but I don't jump to the conclusion that there must have been, and continue to be, some one mind, one agent behind it.

Why?

Because I know better.  I get that when you put a bunch of trifling decisions, personal goals, some group think and some time together you get a functioning metropolis.  I also get that when you put a bunch of trifling decisions, personal goals, some group think and some time together you get all the social ills associated with this kind of metropolis.

This works from the other direction as well, and I find that there is no captain to this ship I call me, either.  Sure, I can order coffee instead of tea or choose Star Trek over Dancing with the Stars, but I know that those choices do not come out of nowhere.  They are themselves conditioned by conditioned conditions, stretching beyond the grasp of comprehension. Some of my actions go on to become the context for other actions; some of my actions go nowhere, just gestures that appear and disappear without much trace at all.

Best part is, it really doesn't matter.  Whether all of this is the flowering of one single directing mind or not, my morning coffee is just as satisfying. My gratitude for making it alive and well to another day is not diminished in the least because I have no particular someone to thank.  And whether or not there is or is not a central command to this business I call me, I'll muddle along just as I've always done, sometimes skillfully, sometimes not.