No One Should Love Me

I just realized i wasted almost an entire day. There are three books that i have set aside where i read one entry each and every morning. It's usually the first thing i do after breakfast. Today i read two of them but set one aside so i could take care of some other 'stuff.' It's now dinner time and i decided to read it before cooking something to eat. How could i have know that i could have had an entire day to mull this over had i read it this morning like i was supposed to?

Today's entry in Venkatesananda's commentary of the Bhagavad Gita, The Song of God, is one of those that gives you an entire 24 hours worth of food for thought. If you can read past the "God" word, and understand what he is really pointing out, enjoy this:

"No activity will lead you to God, yet you cannot remain without action even for a second. Life itself is action. Actions arise in God's nature and that nature carries on the world-play. Therefore, work—but 'work for me'—realizing that God is the source of action. 'I' am not the doer at all. God is your supreme goal, but let not this idea tempt you to neglect your duties.

"Knowing that God, is in all, that God is the all, be devoted to the welfare of all beings. Beware, however, lest you should get attached to them. You love them—no, not 'them', but the God in them.

"This non-attachment, in its turn, has one peril. It may lead you to a life of isolation, a dread of people and of living with them and serving them. It may even make you feel that the world and its peoples are your enemies who will lead you astray, so that you should avoid them like poison! If you entertain this idea, you will be throwing the child away with the bathwater. You will be shutting the omnipresent God out of your heart.

"The perception of truth or the reality transforms the world into the love of God without touching it or wanting to change it. In the delicate art of loving all and yet not becoming attached to them (loving them); of loving God in them, and yet not regarding 'them' as different from God—lies the secret of self-realisation."

Look around, wherever you happen to be sitting or standing right now. See everyone around you, hear all the sounds floating around, smell all the smells in the air. Do it without thinking, without judging, without preferences, without hopes, desires, without wanting anything to be in any particular way. Just Be there. Just Be there Now.

Can you see that which is in all, which enlivens all, yet is bigger than all? Can you see that which is more than everything and yet less than nothing?

You Who Know

Say I Am You

I am dust particles in sunlight.
I am the round sun.

To the bits of dust I say, Stay.
To the sun, Keep moving.

I am morning mist,
and the breathing of evening.
I am wind in the top of a grove,
and surf on the cliff.

Mast, rudder, helmsman, and keel,
I am also the coral reef they founder on.

I am a tree with a trained parrot in its branches.
Silence, thought, and voice.

The musical air coming through a flute,
a spark of stone, a flickering in metal.
Both candle and the moth crazy around it.
Rose, and the nightingale lost in the fragrance.

I am all orders of being, the circling galaxy,
the evolutionary intelligence, the lift, and the falling away.

What is, and what isn't.

You who know, Jelaluddin,
You the one in all, say who I am.
Say I am you.

Rumi


How I love those words.....

Here's the video version:




"Say who I am. Say I am you." And while Rumi could have said it, he wanted more than just words; He wanted to see. Like all good pilgrims, he went Looking For Your Face and when he found it, told us of this wonderful experience:




Beyond ecstasy
Each breath each heartbeat is all
Face to face with mu

Hanging On

Lao, you got a minute?

Sure, what's up Dave. Haven't talked to you in a while.

Yeah, i was out of town a lot this spring; on Shikoku for two and a half months and then a couple of weeks this summer on my bike. It was nice.

Great, glad you enjoyed the trips. How was Shikoku this time? Learn anything?

It was different, i can't deny that. Guiding someone and being completely focused on their needs certainly changed the nature of the walk, but, yes, i still learned a lot.

Such as?

That i'm still an egotistical fool and have a lot of baggage to throw out.

Good lesson. But, that's not why you're here i would guess.

No. I've been reading your blog and just don't understand what you're trying to say. On the one hand, there is an objective reality "out there." On the other hand, everything is a creation of our mind. I just can't see past that contradiction.

Look around the room, Dave. Point out one thing that you are absolutely certain exists.

You.

Who is that?

You? Lao Bendan. The stupid old man from Lockport.

That's it?

Older than young, male, retired, or semi-retired as you like to say, balding, what's left is greying, clean shaven about half the time, athletic, likes to ride his bike and run, loves to travel, loves even more to read.

If i changed my name, would that change who i am?

No, of course not.

No, my name is just a mental tag we all use to individuate who i am so we all know who we are talking about. So that is a creation of my, and your, mind. Stupid old man?

:-) No, that's not true in the first place, so yes, that too is a creation of our minds.

It is true, and if you don't see that, you've missed the point of a great many of my blog posts. But, let's save that for another discussion. Maybe over a few beers some evening. What about old? Male? Retired? Actual facts? Or creations of our minds?

Well, you're certainly not a spring chicken. You definitely quit your job. And, i'd bet that if i snuck in the bathroom while you were in the shower i could verify that you are, most definitely, a male.

Would the 100+ people living on Okinawa say that i am old?

Of course not, they'd say you're still young.

So that isn't an objective fact. That label is one you created in your mind. The same with retired and male — you can point to an objective fact out there, but the label you stick on it, the meaning you give it, the way you interpret it, is created in your mind. Not everyone in the world, looking at the same fact you do, will apply the same label or interpret it the same way.

But what about the absolutely objective facts, like the sun rise this morning at 5:30?

Did the sun really rise?

No.

At the time you saw the sun clear the horizon, would everyone in the world agree that it was morning? Or that it was 5:30?

No.

So all of that is a creation of your mind only. Listen, i'm not saying that there isn't an objective universe, that the sun didn't get higher and higher above the horizon throughout the day, or that it wasn't 5:30 when it happened. I'm simply saying that absolutely everything about the way you see, hear, smell, taste, and feel that objective universe, the way you interact with it, with no exceptions, is filtered through your mind. And since everybody's mind is different, everyone has a different interpretation of that objective universe.

So what? That is all trivial? What does it matter that the people in Australia call my summer, winter? Or that people in Okinawa consider you young when i think you're old? All you're saying is that everything is relative.

No i'm not. Far from it. Yes, these examples are trivial, i don't deny that. But what i want you to do is realize, at the very core of your being, that you can't find anything that isn't filtered through your mind. Everything is a creation of your mind. That table is only a table because you say it is. That person is only a saint because you say she is. A planet is a planet only because you say it is. I am only good because you have decided that i am.

So?

So everything you think you know as FACT, indisputable, certainly true, is also a creation of your mind. There is nothing that you know, that you own, that you think, that you use, that you believe, that you worship... that is what you think it is. That exists in any certainly verifiable way that is unaffected by your mental processes.

So?

So stop judging people because you, or your group, has labeled them good, bad, or indifferent. Stop fighting because somebody wants something that you call yours. Stop putting people to death because you have decided that they are criminals and don't deserve to live. Stop being nice to one neighbor because she's beautiful and snubbing another because she's not. Stop loving one person because that person fulfills some of your needs and hating others that don't. Stop believing your dogma and vilifying others because they don't agree with your version.

No one can do all of that.

Wrong. Most people don't want to do all of that. It's not that they can't. Why don't they? Because that would mean giving up the belief that everything they think they are is necessarily true, is certain fact. Most people don't have the guts to do that. They want to see themselves as right. As good. As fair. As friendly. As beautiful. As successful. As smart. As inventive. As sexy. As macho. As any number of things. They have invested countless years trying to convince the world and their friends that they are the story that they have invented, when in fact it is only a story. Most people don't have the courage to throw the story away and see the being that exists underneath all of that. They can; they just don't want to.

And how would i be better off if i did? I don't see how i could function in the world if i did that.

The world would still be here. Your job would still be here. Your friends would still be here, if they keep you as a friend after you change. Your house, your car, your body, your brain, your ability to think, see, hear, etc. It would all still be here. Functioning as if nothing happened. BUT, and this is the huge but, your relationship to all of that would have changed in unimaginable ways. You would still be the same person, but "you" would no longer be there.

If i wanted to see this, how would i go about it?

Sit on your butt. To start. Sit until your mind settles down for extended periods of time. It could take hours to get there or it could take years. Maybe decades. Depends on the person and the sincerity they bring to their practice. Then when all is calm, crawl into that eternity existing between two thoughts. Crawl into that space where you, 'out there,' and any relationship between them all cease to exist.

You're describing a vegetable.

Don't stay there permanently. Stay for some fixed amount of time. Then when the meditation timer goes off, get up, and go about your normal life. The life defined by "Dave." Wash, rinse, and repeat every day. Day after day. Year after year.

And?

That is for you to find out. You will change. You will evolve. You will mature spiritually. You will begin to see with more than just your eyes. If you are patient and persistent, you will see. And you will be thankful you persisted. Promise. OK, i need to take a shower. We'll talk again later.

Crossing Uncrossable Chasms

I love quotes; have collected them for years decades. If pressed, it would be hard to choose a favorite even though i have probably quoted T.S.Eliot hundreds of times more than any one else.

Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.

I live by that quote in every aspect of my life: personal, professional, mental, spiritual, physical. And even though it has caused me countless amounts of grief as i hit walls that stop my progress even though i want to push further, i still find myself living by its rule.

And yet...

And yet, when i sit down and consider it, i have to admit that the quote i would want on my gravestone (if i wasn't going to be cremated) isn't that, but this one by Marcel Proust:

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

If this one sentence was widely understood, truly understood, and adopted by the world's population, the world would be a different place.

For most people, the world is, and always will be, divided into me & you, me & the world, inside my head & outside my head, my life & everybody else's life. The world is divided up into three separate camps, with uncrossable chasms separating them: subject (me), object (the rest of the world), and the relationships between them.

Everything we do, everything we think, everything we say originates from the "me" camp. No matter how subtle, everything starts from our desire to make "me" feel better. Even our spiritual journey starts from the desire to alleviate "my" suffering, or the desire for "my" ability to help "others."

If you are a serious practitioner, however, there is a better path; one where you actively and persistently work at noticing how often, and how subtly, what you do/think/say originates with the concept that "I" am separate from "everything else."

The path i'm talking about doesn't exist above the normal categories of subject, object, and relationship, it doesn't try and unify them — it dissolves them. Completely. The signposts along this path all ask you to stop, take a breath, and realize that everything you see, hear, taste, touch, and smell is filtered through your mind. That all perceptions, hence everything about that "out there" that we think we know, is filtered through our beliefs, ideologies, fantasies, education, etc. In other words, through all that conditioning we have taken on board since the moment of our birth.

As you do this often enough, persistently enough, and for long enough periods of time you come to understand that everything is a creation of your own mind. Every thing that you think you know, every thing that you think you are has been made up by your mind. Yes, the physical world is real and "out there," but so are you. Not you, that bag of skin and bones, but you, the being that you really are. You come to understand that everything, with no exceptions, is a constituent part of who and what you are; that you are a constituent part of every one and every thing out there.

A sense perception hits your eyes. A sight consciousness arises. So far, completely neutral in meaning and value. Then the mind gets involved and all of the sudden there is a 'you,' an 'it,' and some relationship between them. If you can learn to get around this step, the object, the subject, and any relationship disappears and there is simply 'everyday mind.'

As the frequency and duration of this openness, this emptiness, increases, it begins to bleed over to the way your every day discriminating, thinking mind works and interacts with the world and the word 'experience' begins to take on new meanings.

Just For Fun...

Sipping something sweet
Savoring seraphic sights
Shikoku's shadow

Only When Empty

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."

Ralph Waldo Emerson



"The wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass and he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving."

Kahlil Gibran


"Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater." But I say unto you, they are inseparable. Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed. Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy. Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced."

Kahlil Gibran

Into The Water

Tonight I was going to write about what perceiving everyday mind throughout the entire world means to me. But, i'm reading on my iPad and not my laptop, so will write something tomorrow when I have my laptop (with it's bigger keyboard) out.

However, i'll throw out there that the thought on the tip of my tongue is a poem I posted a while ago:

The Swan
This clumsy living that moves lumbering
as if in ropes through what is not done,
reminds us of the awkward way the swan walks.

And to die, which is the letting go
of the ground we stand on and cling to every day,
is like the swan, when he nervously lets himself down
into the water, which receives him gaily
and which flows joyfully under
and after him, wave after wave,
while the swan, unmoving and marvelously calm,
is pleased to be carried, each moment more fully grown,
more like a king, further and further on.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Translated by Robert Bly

Dōgen said that unifying 'learning through the mind' with 'practice through our body' IS the perception of everyday mind throughout the phenomenal world. He didn't say that when we harmonize the practice of enlightenment with our body the entire world CAN be seen in its true form, he said it WILL be. Do we believe him?

Unity be damned
Doing that is laughable
Show me that i'll bow



Bowing low to that
It can not be unified
It is just bowing

Who Has Time?

There was a time once
I could walk the henro trail
But who has time now

Everyday Mind

One of the descriptions of "everyday mind" that i particularly like comes from that famous spiritual classic "Canon PowerShot A720IS Camera User Guide." In it, near the beginning, you find this description:

Shooting Still Images
1. Press the power button
2. Select a shooting mode
3. Aim the camera at the subject
4. Press the shutter button lightly to set the focus
5. Without changing anything else, press the shutter button all the way to shoot

Make the decision to begin, to participate.
Select the appropriate behavior for your location.
Choose an appropriate subject and focus your attention on it.
Focus. Lightly. Don't force this, simply allow your focus to be where it belongs.

Yada, yada, yada,... i.e, based on your aspirations, based on your intention to participate in the process, complete all of the requisite preparations. Then,

Without changing anything else, press the button to carry out the intended action.

That's the key — without changing anything. Your preparations are complete, you've done all that needs doing; stop analyzing, stop thinking about it, stop wondering if everything is right, if anything can be better... Without changing anything, simply press the button and begin.

This should sound like:
1. Walk over to your zafu
2. Select shamatha, vipashana, shikantaza, chanting, or whatever you intend to do
3. Focus your mind
4. Adjust your legs and rock back and forth a few times to settle in
5. Without changing anything else, begin to sit.

I'm telling you, those people at Canon are marvelous Buddhist practitioners.


Just by looking at the words, "everyday mind" seems to mean that mind we use every day, day in, day out, all day long as we go about living our lives. It's that mind we use to set up the shot. It's the mind we use as we mentally swear at the alarm clock when it goes off in the morning, the mind we use as we choose what color socks to wear today, the mind we use as we plan our day, the mind we use as we perform our jobs, as we think about where to go for lunch, what to cook for dinner, when we decide to stop for gas on the way home because the gas station will be busy tomorrow morning, as we read our kids a bed time story... and on and on.

While that planning, discriminating, thinking, evaluating mind is the one we use throughout our days, every day, it is not "everyday mind" as Dōgen uses the word. In fact, it is just the opposite. Dōgen's version is the "without changing anything else..." mind.

In Shinjin Gakudō, Dōgen tells us what he means.

This mind is not concerned with the past or future worlds — it is continually working now, in the present, and concerns itself only with each new moment. "Everyday mind" is its own accomplishment, self-contained and self-fulfilling. Ancient times are cut off and past, present, and future exist together in each moment. Keep your mind in the present. If we always think about the past, our entire vision will revert to the past and it will be distorted.

He goes on to say:

"Everyday mind" opens its gates for each moment of existence — life and death, coming and going enter freely. Do not think of heaven and earth as this world or the next; know that they co-exist eternally in each passing moment. ... The entire content and meaning of heaven and earth and its relationship to the mind reduces itself to one eternal moment.

All our activity is rooted in the eternal nature of "everyday mind." Most of the time we forget this but Buddhas are always aware of this fact. If we have hosshin—the resolve to attain supreme enlightenment—surely we will enter the Way of Buddha. This desire for enlightenment must be self-governing; it cannot come from others. Enlightenment is the natural activity of "everyday mind."

Everyday mind is that mind you were born with, before you covered it over with beliefs, ideologies, values, biases, education, facts, knowledge, preferences, doubts, hopes, fears, religions, fantasies, heros, gods, life, death, sickness, health, favorites, comfort, discomfort, nirvana, samsara, enlightenment, delusion. Everyday mind is that mind that exists only in THIS moment, right here, right now, moment after moment new and different, forever the same yet always different, lasting one moment, yet eternal, with no beginning and no end.

We need our discriminating, thinking, evaluating minds to function in society. They are important tools that we need to always keep on hand and always keep sharp. Yet we need to remember that old adage "Give a man a hammer and everything will look like a nail." Use that mind when it is important, when it is appropriate and needed. When it isn't, especially when on your zafu, put that tool away and live life with your everyday mind. Then, as you come to realize that meditation is NOT just that time spent on your cushion, that it should should include your entire day with all that entails, then learn how to live the majority of your day in everyday mind.

Besides the Canon User Manual, of course, possibly one of the best descriptions of everyday mind is the "Touching The Present Moment" chapter of Dainin Katagiri's spectacular book Each Moment Is The Universe. Just as a teaser, i'll offer that in it he says:

Right now, right here is a great opportunity. That is the moment you are you, as you really are, prior to the germination of thinking. For this you must be in time; you must be at the moment where you cannot think about a previous moment or a following moment. How can you do this? Just pat your ideas on the head and pass by. To pat their head means to just practice continually, just become empty and flexible. Then this emptiness makes your life alive in the universe and you are ready to act.

So the next time an unnecessary thought pops up in your head, the next time you see yourself making an unrequired judgement, the next time you feel anger start to raise it's head, ... pat that thought on the head as you would the pestering kid tugging on your pat leg as you're talking to a friend, look at it lovingly, smile widely, and let it pass by without another thought.

This is to Live.

Tying Knots, Connecting Threads

It's long been undeniable that one of my favorite books is Dōgen Zenji's Shōbōgenzō. I would never put Pabongka Rinpoche's Liberation In The Palm of Your Hand in that category though. It's a great book, mind you, but one of my favorites? Given all the other books i love? Then why do i pull it off the shelf all the time when i'm just looking for something to think about? I have the paper copy on my bookshelves, within arm's reach of the chair i read in most often, and i have a digital copy on both my Sony Reader and my iPad. Does my heart like this book more than my head realizes?

Anyway, this morning i spent a little time with Dōgen and his chapter Shinjin Gakudō (Learning Through The Body & Mind) and ended up spending the rest of the morning while trimming hedges and doing yardwork with these thoughts:

"Buddhist practice through the body is more difficult than practice through the mind. Intellectual comprehension in learning through the mind must be united to practice through our body. This unity is called shinjitsunintai — 'the real body of man.' Shinjitsunintai is the perception of 'everyday mind' throughout the phenomenal world. If we harmonize the practice of enlightenment with our body the entire world will be seen in its true form.

...

"What we are concerned with is the physical and spiritual action of shinjitsunintai. When we use the expression 'the entire world is contained in each particle' we do not mean the physical world itself [we are not talking about space but experience]."

After lunch i was poking around in Liberation and in a quote attributed to the 7th Dalai Lama, Kaelzang Gyatso, saw this"

"What we call 'living' is but a journey on the highway to death."

Now, there is nothing new in the understanding that from the very instant of our birth we begin the long process of dying; that with each breath, with each moment that passes we are closer to that instant when we take our last breath. Life is the journey towards our death. That's true and there is no getting around it, but that's not the lesson.

What matters is how we live that journey, how we make use of the time allotted to us. What's important is that, like all journeys, we have the choice of where we spend our days, what we do, how we spend our time, what we focus on, etc. Some people lead completely intellectual lives. Others lead completely physical lives. Many try and balance the two with varying results.

Dōgen tells us how important it is to get that balance right. It is only when we get the balance between our intellectual practice and our physical practice right that we are able to see the world in its real form, when we are able to see 'everyday mind' throughout the entire world.

Dōgen points out that 'the entire world' is not, repeat not, a separate physical 'something' out there; outside of who and what you are. The 'entire world' is not physical, it is experience. Your world is comprised of you, the physical world, every experience you have every had, and every experience you will ever have. My world is comprised of me, the physical world, every experience i have every had, and every experience i will ever have. My 'entire world' is not the same world as your 'entire world.' And on and on, ad infinitum, for every being in existence.

And yet they are the same.

So what's the point? I guess it would be, what answers do you come up with when you ask yourself:

- What is everyday mind? More than the usual trash that rattles around our heads all the time?

- What does it mean to see everyday mind throughout the entire world?

- What does it mean that the entire world is experience?

- If the entire world is experience, what does it mean to see everyday mind throughout experience?

- What is a physical practice? More than liturgy and bowing?

And for extra credit, if your world is different than mine, which is different from everyone else's, why are they the same?

Enormous Differences

"The question my life presses upon me, whether I face it directly or not, is 'How shall I live?' 'As what kind of person?' All of us face the task of constructing a life for ourselves, of shaping ourselves into certain kinds of people who will live lives of one kind or another, for better or worse. Some people undertake their task deliberately; they make choices in life in view of an image of the kind of person they would hope to become. From the early beginnings of their tradition, Buddhists have maintained that nothing is more important than developing the freedom implied in their activity of self-cultivation—of deliberately shaping the kind of life you will live. For Buddhists, this is the primary responsibility and opportunity that human beings have. It is, they claim, our singular freedom, a freedom available to no other beings in the universe. And although circumstances beyond anyone's control will make very different possibilities available for different people, Buddhists have always recognized that the difference between those who assume the task of self-sculpting with imagination, integrity, and courage, and those who do not is enormous, constituting in Buddhism the difference between enlightened ways of being in the world and unenlightened ways."

The Six Perfections: Buddhism And The Cultivation of Character
Dale Wright



And so begins a new book pulled off the shelves. The six perfections. The six paramitas. Six bright lights illuminating the fact that Life itself is the henro trail.

Some Things Are Meant To Be

It seems that sometimes in my life things work out in such a way that i can do nothing but shake my head and wonder if the outcome was just meant to be, just what was supposed to happen. Two examples.

During my recent bike ride each day was a struggle trying to balance riding in the heat, stopping before it got too hot, and finding a campground or hotel anywhere in the area where i wanted to stop.

But, once i made the decision to throw in the towel, everything seemed to fall into place. The sidewall of my rear tire is blowing out so i worried about the last 30 mile ride to the airport where i would pick up the rental car i would use to get home. While trying to figure out what to do i walked down to a restaurant near the hotel i was staying at. Out of the blue, the man at the table next to me offered to drive me all the way to the airport. Didn't know him (obviously), had never met him before, and hadn't told him that i was looking for a ride.

Earlier in the day, when i had called Avis to reserve a car, the woman told me that the price for the rental car would be about $200, with tax and unlimited miles. Compared to flying with a bike that is a great deal, especially since i had no box to pack the bike in and no desire to dismantle the bike. When my new friend dropped me off at the airport, i was told the price was $107. I reminded her that she had told me $200, to which she simply smiled and said "i found you a better price."

Once i quit fighting the trip and accepted the outcome i was apparently supposed to have, everything simply fell into place with no effort required on my part.

Today, on the way home from the bookstore with one of my sisters, i asked if we could stop at a garden nursery that i haven't been to in 10 years. They are one of the most expensive nurseries in town so i never go there, but i'm trying to find a small squirrel for my garden to replace the one that jumped in front of my lawn mower earlier this year to avoid another boring summer of just sitting around all day in the heat.

As we were walking around we saw this magnificently beautiful Japanese pagoda for sale for $150. I obviously don't have $100 so i told the owner that i hoped he couldn't sell it so that i might have the chance to come back in the fall by which time i could save enough money.

The owner decided i needed it and told me that if i gave him $110 i could take it home. That is still too high, but given that it was worth every penny of the $150, then $110 was a very good bargain. I tried one more time to prevent the purchase by telling him that i still couldn't do it, but if he would come down to $100 i'd take it. I wasn't bargaining, just admitting that i didn't have that much money. To my utter surprise, he said OK, on the condition i give him cash and buy it right then.

Well, everyone that knows me knows i seldom even have $20 in my pocket — usually less than $10 — and that's when my sister piped in that she probably had $100 on her. She wasn't sure why, but when she went to the bank this morning she decided to take out more than she usually does in case she needed it and arbitrarily chose $100 as the amount she might need.

I borrowed the cash and we walked out with a four foot tall Japanese pagoda that now sits in my front yard near the torii.





And for what it's worth, here is my house last fall:



And here it is again after painting it this spring. Decided to get rid of the beige colors and go with tans and greens.

The Truth Is

It's really not hard
The truth is and that is it
Or certainly not


And that's just a thought
Also not hard but not soft
Unless it is both