Category Archives: Teachings

Overcome Difficulties, Teachings

Pre Retreat Fears

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I was touched by the candor expressed in this email, and felt others might be touched too.

Hi Rev Mugo

I was due to attend the introductory retreat this weekend but canceled Friday at 11-15am. It filled me with sadness to do that but realised that I was really dreading it. Even though I could see it was just thoughts and that it is only two nights I just could not give my self up to it. Shared sleeping (accommodation), the fixed regimen, no space to escape and all unknown and new in long days after a week at work. I’ve always struggled with ‘joining-in’, and 3 of the 4 I would have been ok with but not all 4. It’s not the sitting I feared (I sit at home for 30mins each day).

Sadness because I would like to deepen practice but also at having realised, and had to let go of, attachment to ideas of how I feel towards letting go of my ego’s demands. So I am sitting with not knowing…

Being at home this weekend will give me time to be with friends and family and help out there; they have had a tough time of late and I am thankful to have been able to help. I should remember to be who I am and not chase after who I feel I should be. How many times have I forgotten that.

I’ll sit with my difficulty with formal religion and might be able to draw on the no doubt rich experience that the community has to offer one day…

In gassho

My reply follows here:

Dear Friend,
You know your story is probably a very common one. However your willingness to share it so frankly is unusual. It’s rather easy to write about the bright and light side of life less so for times when one’s inner life is less than one might wish of oneself. You plainly recognized that the retreat was just going to be too much at that particular point in time. Things change and no doubt you have changed perspective too since writing.

What you have expressed, as I said already, is probably what a lot of people go through around attending a retreat. I know many people sign up and then cancel in the end. I’m wondering if you would be willing for me to publish your letter on ‘jade’ along with an edited version of this reply? It might help others in a similar predicament to know they are not the only one in the world to cancel out on a meditation retreat, or visit to a priory or monastery. Often there is more at stake (when taking those initial steps) than anybody could realize at the time, and that can be deeply scary without really knowing why.
In gassho,
Mugo

May the merit of this posting be offered to the friends and family of my correspondent.

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Daily Life, Information, Overcome Difficulties, Teachings

In Case of Emergency

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Dave, who died recently, was taken to the Emergency Department having collapsed in a supermarket. He had a cell phone on his person and, as good fortune would have it, his lunch date phoned to see why he was late… The ER nurse answered the phone and the lunch date came running, and with her came the information needed to treat him appropriately.

Now. What about if you or I were to be taken off to the ER department in a state of major disrepair. Maybe we are unconscious. Who is our next of kin? Who can make decisions on our behalf? Does this person have any medical allergies? And…just who is this person? There are just a few major pieces of information ER nurses need to know and need to know fast. We can help them, and ourselves, by carrying the information on our person. There is the on-line ICE (In Case of Emergency) service however Ed of Impacted Nurse suggests, urges, people to make themselves a low-tech ‘ICE’ ID card.

It only takes a short time to make up these things and believe me, this low-tech ICEcard is much more likely to be of use to us. Such a small thing, it can make a big difference to the quality and appropriateness of the care you will get.

Today I’ve been preparing to be the temporary priest in charge here at the Berkeley Buddhist Priory. This is earthquake country. One needs to be prepared. So it was with some relief that I read about the 19 Commonly Held Myths about Disasters. Maybe an earthquake does not mean instant death after all. And yes, the house has been retro fitted to withstand earthquakes.
Thanks to Ed, once again, for the information.

There is a Buddhist saying: Hope for the best, Prepare for the worst and do the possible.

Anticipatory fear can cause one to become paralyzed into inaction however being prepared can dissolve that fear.

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Daily Life, Teachings

Reflections on Age

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Here is Iain in Japan, a lay minister within our Order, reflecting on age and what that might mean in practice.

…time really does fly like an arrow. there’s many things I’ve done already and don’t need to do again and also if I’m making a long term plan to do something now perhaps there should be a very good reason to commit that time because even taking an optimistic view it isn’t an infinite commodity is it? There’s the difference. I’m still ‘me’ and yet out of the corner of my eye I can see that in addition to that long list of those one-time ‘to do’ items I can now already cross off the list as impracticable – the Mt. Everest thing, becoming Prime Minister etc. – I ought to be bearing in mind more that the tank is no longer full of petrol. It is somewhere between half full and ‘E’ for empty and who knows just exactly what that gauge is actually reading?
From Little House in the Paddy.

The section of the Shushogi referenced here goes thus:

Time flies quicker than an arrow
And life passes with greater transience than dew.
However skillful you may be,
How can you ever recall a single day of the past?
‘Putting the Teachings into Practice and Showing Gratitude’, Zen Master Dogen

Thanks Iain for your reflections on the event of your turning sixty one.

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Teachings

Token Kesa Up Everest

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Around 170 people came to a Remembrance Ceremony this afternoon at Oak Hill Cemetery, San Jose. There was a lot of talk about ‘birth and death’, about impermanence. And there was a lot about the life lived by Dave the chap who died recently. Lots of remembering. Lots of memories. Lots of grief and emotions of every shade. Lots to say and probably a lot not able to be said, right now.

There were photographs of people grouped in smiling rows and animal friends too. (We have one, Dave’s cat, lodging upstairs at the Priory.) There were pictures of an attempt to climb Everest, of Dave and others encircled by snow. But what’s that? Looks very much like a Token Kesa around Dave’s neck. It IS a token kesa! These are a small everyday-ware version of the kesa given at the time of receiving the Precepts and officially becoming a Buddhist. Generally they are worn for meditation and ceremonies and at times when it’s good to have an physical reminder of ones practice. So, not a bad plan to wear the symbol of ones commitment to follow the Buddha’s Teaching when facing the real possibility of imminent death, on Everest. Just one slip is all it takes.

Driving back from San Jose to Oakland on Highway 880 this evening the traffic, for me, was terrifying. Just one slip is all it takes…and always one wears the kesa of training. Mostly that’s worn out of sight in the form of ones silent inner vigil to keep true to the Precepts. That’s to be still in the midst of conditions. Up Everest or driving in four lanes of fast moving traffic, makes no difference. There is no let up on the inner work, where ever one happens to be traveling. Brightly alive, dying or dead.

When Dave’s article about the Precepts, written back in 1981, comes back on line I’ll link to it. Oh, for the sake of remembrance and for love, here is the link anyway.

In the mean time, be careful out there.

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Information, Teachings

Buddhist Funeral

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dave_in_his_coffin_before_cremation.jpg
A Buddhist altar set before the open coffin of David Powers, a long time congregation member within our Order.

Here is an excerpt from the Introduction to a booklet, now out of print, titled The Funeral Ceremony of a Lay Buddhist, copyright 1977, Shasta Abbey.

Buddhist ceremonies are an expression of the “Truth” or the “Buddha Nature” which is within us. The basis of Buddhist practice, which includes the performance of religious ceremonies, is faith in this Buddha Nature. It is we who fill the ceremonies with meaning through our meditation-faith. There is no meaning apart from wholehearted participation. The ceremony is the vehicle of our sincerity, and the form is tailored to meet the needs of the occasion. Teach individual celebrates the ceremony for himself/herself and everyone else. It is not the priest alone who does so; their faith is only the catalyst for others. In celebrating the Buddhist Funeral we know through our meditation, even in the midst of personal grief, that death is an expression of Buddhahood and that there is no beginning and no end to life; zen is eternal life. We cannot understand this with the intellect or emotions – only through our meditation.

The Funeral for David will be at 2.00 pm Pacific Time at Berkeley Buddhist Priory. See also previous posting, Thus Shall Ye Think.
Now I’d better get out from behind this computer and help set up for the funeral.

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