I have been reflecting on my Zen journey quite a lot over the past few weeks. It’s hard to believe that I picked up my first batch of second-hand Zen books from a bookstore about a quarter of a century ago. At the time I didn’t even know why I was buying them. They just seemed interesting and, honestly, kind of exotic. I certainly didn’t expect them to send me off on a lifelong journey – but here we are.

I suppose I was somewhat fortunate that the original owners of those books bought well. Those first few finds were modern classics and translations of the masters. And despite not understanding 75% of what I was reading something stuck. The pursuit was intellectually stimulating but the subconscious attraction that propelled me forward was driven by the recognition of something running much deeper. Zen had the same unexplainable magnetic pull on me that the ocean has had on humanity throughout our history. I didn’t understand the mystery but I also couldn’t turn away from it. This is all much clearer now, with hindsight, than it was at the time.

That period of frantic exploration passed some time ago. There was a period of intense doubt and questioning along the way too. That passed as well. Now I mostly seem to have quiet conversations with myself. I read less and when I do it’s usually a return to Master Dogen. Life and death, almost 1,000 years, and language do not separate us. Ultimately, nothing can. Reading Dogen is a conversation with a dear friend.

I have been thinking a lot about ritual, form, realization, and actualization. The inter-relatedness of these concepts; the different but complimentary purposes that they serve and the ways that they play off of each other are so interesting. My relationship with each of them continues to evolve in complex ways. And despite all of the intellectual observation that is necessary to consciously navigate the world, it is clear that all of this stuff floats on an ocean of great simplicity and great perfection. There is really nothing left for me to do except get out of my own way.

By John

The merit of the following article, first published in 2014, is for all those beings caught up in, involved with and suffering from the massive fires in Australia. Bows

There was a lot of smoke in the air yesterday wafting from the Happy Camp Complex fire which is not so far away from Mt. Shasta, as the smoke blows! Mt. Shasta was hidden from view, the treetops were holding a bit of smoke and you could smell it in the air. As the day progressed I noticed various physical symptoms such as dry eyes and nose, sneezing, headache, skin feeling creepy and my breathing becoming laboured. But what I didn’t connect with being a consequence of the smoke was a growing sense of anxiety and worry. Anxiety can attach itself to anything handy and yesterday anxiety connected to an area of the Abbey garden and the non-functioning of the automatic watering system. The worry grew and grew and by the end of the day, projecting forward into the future I could see dried up Azaleas on their last legs getting ready to die. All because the automatic watering system wasn’t working correctly, today.

By late afternoon I realized I was well out of balance. My level of anxiety was out of proportion to circumstance. I eventually said to one of the monks, I think I need to be locked up! I’d been trying to mobilise help from various monks connected with the watering system and noticed they were looking at me in a kind of ‘patient’ way! Anyway, the kind and very wise monk said, Well there IS something wrong! The ancient part of your brain is registering danger. Danger, fight the fire. So with the realization that the smoke was the trigger for the over the top anxiety about the watering system and that the fires were not a threat and was being dealt with, I relaxed. I let go of being overly concerned with the near-to-death bushes and got on with the rest of the day.

Interestingly as we all sat in the meditation hall this morning I noticed a level of internal buzz in myself. Reflecting, I realized that the fire, the burning up of vast acres of forest and the efforts of the firefighters relatively close was in some subtle way resonating in me.

Where ever one is and whatever the conditions internally and externally we will resonate with those conditions. More often than not it’s not possible to find causes to the way things are within oneself, as I did with the smoke and fire. The basic training instruction is to ‘sit still within the midst of conditions’. This does not mean one FEELS still, far from it. Sitting still is an intention, not a standard to live up to and something to feel badly about when it seems we are falling short.

You might want to listen to the Dharma talk given last Sunday at Shasta Abbey called Searching For Safety given by Rev. Master Serena Seidner. And there is a Dharma talk I did titled Fire, Fire.