Category Archives: Teachings

Daily Life, Teachings

Spiritual Fire

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Yesterday I was talking to a monk who I’d trained with as a novice at Shasta Abbey in the early 1980’s. We remembered the intensity of those days, the intensity of the everyday life training. You could say there was a spiritual fire lit under us which was fanned constantly by our engagement with what was before us. That’s hard to explain and easy to misunderstand as some kind of striving, although there was probably some of that too.

Years ago I advised somebody to Train as if his hair were on fire! Not that I remember the event, it’s just I have been reminded of having said that relatively recently. Is there ever a time when the fire goes out? Or more correctly the intensity wanes? I’d say yes and no! That is to say the conscious awareness of spiritual fire/practicing intensely comes and goes and sometimes one has to, with all urgency, fan the flames. As a senior monk there is nobody other than oneself to pick up the fan and that’s the same for everybody actually, at any time. However long one has been meditating and however enlightened. One could say that the right use of the will is the koan (problem) of daily living?

Anyway, now returning to Dogen Extensive Record (Eihei Koroku) translated by Taigen Dan Leighton & Shohaku Okumura. Just looking at the closed book on my desk causes some anxiety to arises! Even after years and years translating Dogen Shohaku Okumura confesses he doesn’t understand Dogen at all! This gives me some hope. This morning the book opened to Dharma Hall Discourse #60, page 117, This Genjokoan. Rev. Jiyu-Kennet translates the word Genjo-koan as The Problem of Everyday Life.

In just about every discourse Zen Master Dogen is encouraging the listener, and now the reader, to keep up with practice. Not to drift through ones day, not to merely get by pleasing oneself and falling asleep to ones purpose. To be where one is and not to be where one is not. In this discourse Dogen says:

It is just our present rolling up the curtain and letting down the curtain [at the entrance to the meditation hall], and getting up and getting down from the sitting platform.

I remember everything about that curtain. The sound of it coming down at the end of the day, the feel of the fabric while rolling it up. The importance of getting the line of the rolled up curtain straight and not left at a rakish angle. The discolouration of the fabric where hands had repeatedly grasped it. This is not an expression of sentimentality. More that no time has passed. Early in the talk Dogen says:

What is this genjokoan? It is just all buddhas in the ten directions and all ancestors, ancient and present, and it is fully manifesting right now. Do you all see it?

At the end of the discourse he says:

Today this mountain monk [Dogen], for the sake of all of you expounds this again and repeatedly.
Then Dogen pounded the floor with his staff and immediately got down from his seat.

Well that says it!

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Daily Life, Teachings

Let a Long Breath Be Long….

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There is an instruction for meditation regarding the breath which goes, Let a long breath be long and a short breath be short. But can I find where that is mentioned in the edition of the Eihei Koroku I have! Anyway the gist is that Zen Master Dogen recommends that breathing during formal meditation be allowed to be natural and to not interfere in any way with breath, including counting. He is actually rather strong on the subject of counting the breath during meditation. He simply does not hold with applying methods and practices to help calm the mind. And rather scathing of those schools that do! We very occasionally give instruction on counting the breath with the warning that like any tool it will need to be put down eventually. Sooner rather than later.

Allowing the breath to be natural one sometimes feels that breathing has stopped all together! But it is important to breathe and not hold it which is a habit some people have developed. At other times the breathing seems rough, noticing is all that is needed. Noticing is letting it go, if that is your basic intention.

In daily life situations though, say when emotions such as anger or frustration are in the ascendency, it is helpful to deliberately slow down the breathing which inevitably becomes elevated with such emotions.

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Teachings

Seeds Don’t Grow In The Packet

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This is word for word from the translation of the Eihei Koroku mentioned yesterday. All credit goes to the publisher and translator.

There is nowhere that the great Way of the enlightened ones is not present, no thing that does not contain it.
However, only people who have previously planted seeds of wisdom can sustain it.
That is why it is said, It cannot be seen in form or sought in sound.

The wind is still throughout the world;
birds cry, the mountains are quiet.
The crossroads are bright as daybreak,
the doors of the senses cool as autumn.
Half sitting where there is no doubt,
one sees illusions in a floating reflection.

Many people catch a glimpse of the true nature of existence. That’s to know training and enlightenment are not separate. To sustain (to live) that glimpse comes about through open handed giving.

Wisdom grows, when taken out of the packet. The koan (problem) of daily life is sowing skillfully.

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Teachings

One Calls One Answers

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A 'Queen Conch' - Lobatus gigas
A ‘Queen Conch’ – Lobatus gigas

This shell was given me by a Canadian monk and I treasure it greatly. Such shells are used during a number of Buddhist ceremonies in this tradition of Buddhism. It is blown like a trumpet and has a piercing sound. This shell, being quite small, is high pitched other larger shells are low and deep in sound. Hearing a long and sustained note and especially when out of doors has the effect of bringing one up short. The sound cuts through to ones center and its all pervading, all embracing nature in turn calls back from all directions. It is said to be the sound of the Unborn.

Last year at this time I was on retreat in the mountains of Northern California. Every morning after meditation and singing scriptures the conch would be blown and the sound would echo around the mountain tops. Now I am back from two weeks of quiet time and gradually getting on with my monastic responsibilities. I’m making a note to myself to build into my day, when possible, not only formal meditation but also quiet time. Time to simply sit still, do nothing and reflect/read/listen.

These past couple of weeks have been really good in many ways. The aspect of our practice, perhaps the whole of our practice, that has come to the fore is listening/following. That’s at the very heart of meditation both formal meditation and everyday going along meditation. You might asking, Listening to who? or Following what? We have a saying; One calls One answers.

I’m looking at Rational Zen, The Mind of Dogen Zenji translated and edited by Thomas Cleary and published Shambhala. My intention is to draw on, for the purpose of contemplation, sections of Dogen’s Eihei Koroku – Universal Book of Eternal Peace.

Note added 27th June: There is a translation of Dogen’s Eihei Koroku by Taigen Dan Leighton and Shohaku Okumura which I will be working from. You can download a free extensive and detailed index not appearing in the hardcover edition. The link is at the bottom of this page.

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Daily Life, photograph, Teachings

Look Up!

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23rd November, 2006. Ah! How I love to return to the matter of looking up.
There must be millions of songs about loneliness, depression and despair. Just thinking about loneliness brings up a couple of phrases, when you’re feelin’ sad and lonely, da de da de da, I’ll be there I’ll BE there… And then there is that line, my friends don’t get rowdy any more. That’s from country singer Willie Nelson, I think. Yes, All the lonely people, where do they all come from?. The Beatles right? And more importantly, where do they all go too?

I’ve been writing to somebody who is desperately alone, fearing for her long-term survival. It’s been a steady downward slope to drugs and alcohol to relieve the wrap-around pain. Social isolation and physical neglect are all part of the ongoing picture. What is to be done? How can somebody help themselves, let alone their fast dissolving friends and family. What can they do? What can anybody do?

Somebody told me the other day of a psychiatrist who, instead of prescribing drugs to a selected group of patients, sent them off with a task. And it seemed a weird task too, on the face of it.

For two weeks the patients were ask to keep on returning there gaze to roof tops, tops of trees, the horizon, the sky. In fact anywhere that was up, as against down. Obviously we hope they didn’t do this while crossing the road or on a busy pavement, or while driving. The results were impressive, very many of the people looking up, for just two weeks, did not need the professional services of the psychiatrist any more. It is important to note though, that these people were already working with a psychiatrist and certain levels of mental distress do need informed help and guidance.

Moods fluctuate and daily life incidents can bring about an inner world which is dark and devoid of the necessary energy to find a way out. So next time you notice your eyeballs dragging along the ground, raise them up. Works for me.

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