Category Archives: Teachings

Information, Teachings

The Precious Jewel – Nothing More Intimate

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Rev. Berwyn was the celebrant (for the Healing Buddha Festival Ceremony). He gave the following dedication at the start of the ceremony:

Bhaisajyagaguru Tathagata, the master of healing, vows to be like a radiant jewel of lapis lazuli, illuminating the lives of all those in the darkness of suffering. What is this bright Jewel? Although it is most precious, we need never fear losing it. Although we cannot own it, there is nothing more intimate.

From the THBA website, new News section.

Yes, we now have a News section on the Throssel site. We are not sure how often it will be updated, however if you subscribe to the RSS feed you will know promptly when new material is posted.

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Teachings

Journey To The Sitting Place

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…Until recently I have been practicing in the Sakya Tibetan lineage. But for some reason, and for many years (ever since reading Zen and motorcycle maintenance in the early 80’s) I have felt a strong pull toward
Soto Zen. Unfortunately, there are no teachers of that school close by. About a month ago, I woke up one morning with an urge to try to follow this path anyway.
And so off I set.

The journey…and dot.

Hi,
Thanks for pointing me to your reflections on sitting. All best wishes for your efforts Ian.

There may be some East Asian Soto teachers coming into Australia however they tend to come at the practice in a particular way (with East Asian cultural background) which for some can be confusing.

As time goes on I realise just how fortunate I was to stumble upon Soto Zen being passed on by a Westerner. We’ve dropped the chopsticks etc. level of the cultural background yet retained the all important bowing, and all that comes with that. (Yep, this is a religion.) We’ve also left the external discipline to one side and gone more towards relying on people to discipline themselves. That’s internally, and with compassion. Works for the most part.

Anyway, I just wanted to send you a note of encouragement here Ian. Perhaps you will find some like minded people to sit with, which can be encouraging. Or not. If there is any way I could help, practically or advice wise don’t hesitate to ask. BTW you might find your dog becoming interested in what you are doing and join you. They tend to fall asleep eventually yet the snoring can keep one awake, which is a plus!

With Bows,
Mugo

Hum, just a thought. Is it OK to publish part of your email to me and my reply and link to your post? I think what you have written, the process of getting to the cushion and what happens next, is helpful for people just getting started. You have experience of sitting, obviously, the process of getting to sit is common to us all. And I’ll have to think about the ‘dot’ you mention. I’d say what I know is an ever expanding ‘dot’, along with the usual undertow of mental flux.

There is more to say about the dot. I’ve not the intention to talk against what Ian writes, more to expand my thinking, in writing, on the dot!

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Overcome Difficulties, Teachings

The Precious Gem The Deeper Mind

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It always strikes me, after retreat guests have gone, how fortunate I am to meet such interesting and inspiring people. What is there to say except thank you? Thank you. I hope you all got home safely.

Now is the time for reflection, for us all. I’ve been thinking on our ceremony hall, the way it strikes me as I enter there. It’s the whole, the whole space, and then sometimes the details strike me. But mostly it’s the whole.

If I think about it the brilliant blue above the altar catches my attention. I love that colour, my eyes drink it in. It’s the colour of lapis. We used Winsor and Newtons’ Ultra Marine by the bucket-full to paint that. Back in around 1986 I think it was. Winsor and Newton once used ground up lapis in this paint. Not any more though.

There is a verse in an invocation we sang the other week at the Festival of Bhaisajaguru Tathagata, the Buddha of Healing. Here it is:

To reach the sacred mountain peak
Where lapis lazuli is found,
The ancient sages gave their lives
To kneel upon that holy ground;
The precious stone is hard to see,
And harder still to hold and keep,
A radiance pure, of deepest blue,
With flames of gold which dance and leap;
And if the journey seems too long,
The path too steep to climb,
Celestial beings will help us find
This precious gem, the Deeper Mind.

I wish I could sing this into the computer right now, I can hear it in my mind.

It is so easy to look at the parts of a verse like this. What? Sacred mountain peak! What? Holy ground! What? WHAT? Celestial beings! For goodness sake, this isn’t Zen is it? Seems to me we lose sight of the precious gem, the Deeper Mind in the rush to pick at the words, and in the process sweep away the utter beauty that words carry and convey. Left alone they can show us something of the richness of this life of faith. This life is not dry and dusty or in need of being sanatised, it is liquid, with flames of gold which dance and leap…there is joy.

It is so hard to help people past the details, past the statues and the words we use both in ceremonial and in teaching. They are easy to trip over. And then even stumble before the path is even entered. So sad. I might have been one of those people. Could easily have been, given my feelings about religion when I came here first.

Lot of details for new people to absorb when they come here for the first time. Humm, reflecting now I could have said something about that before the guests went…remember the whole before the parts. But I was lost for words by the end of the retreat.

So I’d say now for anybody spooked by the details – look to the whole; to the gem. To the precious gem, the Deeper Mind. Don’t turn it over in your hand like a coin, wondering it’s worth, simple accept it. It’s yours.

To be honest I just don’t go there when celestial beings and similar terms come up on the page. I just sing my heart out. Why not?

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Teachings

Easier Said Than Done

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We are four. A team. We’re working together to introduce 20 people on a weekend retreat to the practice of Serene Reflection Meditation. We have a leaflet outlining the basics…it’s not instruction on sitting.

Many have had experience both within this tradition and within others. The term meditation has come up over and over again. I’ve pointed out in many different ways and at length to: just sit, sit still within bodymind, it is enough to sit. To simply deliberately decide not to follow deliberate thoughts.

All easier said than done!

And then one chap observed when his mind became agitated he noticed a part of his body was disturbed. Eureka! He had discovered the connection. Body-mind, not two.

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Daily Life, Teachings

Intention And Direction In Daily Living

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The following is an attempt to point out the significance of allowing goals, large or small, to give way to flight. Light, strong, vibrant, unfettered and informed by clear intention. This photograph, and the one published yesterday, speaks louder than anything I might say, however I’ve given it a go.

Peregrine.jpg
Peregrine, by Tony

To pop this image of the Peregrine, wings so perfectly gathered, so light yet so strong, eyes and whole body directed with clear intention might seem a fluke of timing. Would, however, the next moment capture something fundamentally different? Here the bird is caught bright eyed and…oh I don’t have the words for it right now. Beautiful though. One sees that something in infants and athletes, and others where body-mind is clearly communicating and moving with fluidity and grace.

Thinking further, could it not be that we humans are not so different from the birds with respect to intention – clear intention? Or at least the potential for clear intention; the expression being light yet strong. Here’s the thought, and sorry to be banging on about this. The photographer sets out with the intention of taking photographs. As the eyes take in what comes to them in the present, the goal (a photograph) slips into the background of awareness. Another example: you have an intention to drive over to the priory and that’s the direction one is going in, the goal of the trip. Then as one goes, letting the goal slip into the background, more subtle moment to moment information is able to impinge on the mind. And because the goal is less to the fore, and thus less of a distraction, the information coming in can be responded to appropriately, more readily and finely. One is especially able to act on the more subtle stuff. For example one inexplicably find oneself slowing down and then moments later finding that if one hadn’t, in the split second way of things, a lorry going too fast would have wiped you out on a blind corner in a narrow lane. Not to mention those blessed promptings such as remembering as one starts the car that the front door’s not locked! Less driven by goals, more likely to…fill in the blank. Goals are not bad, they just need to slip into the back seat, so to speak.

This is all really obvious and mostly taken for granted and out of immediate awareness. Perhaps this level of sensitivity to information only comes to light when, highly distracted, the front door IS left unlocked and one is prompted, once again, not to get ahead of oneself. This is the stuff of training in daily life a phrase we use presuming we share a common understand of what that involves. Do we though? Just what IS that training. Of course the details are unique unto each of us. However, like the bird, we need to give way to flight. Light, strong, vibrant and with clear intention.

The underlying intention of training in the way of the Buddhas is remaining true to that which the Precepts point towards. Thats a direction worth following I’d say.

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