What brings me to Zen practice?

The nature of Zen is that we connect all-over again. It's all about interbeing. We weren't disconnected in the first place. Buddha nature is the interconnectedness of all things. The perfection of all things as they really are Is something that always existed. But we live in the self-centered dream - in our mind. It's not just observing each moment it's being in each moment. Don't just observe your breath, be your breath. Dancing is a metaphor for the Zen life. If you only observe and analyze your moves, you'll never dance. Just like dancing bumble along, make mistakes. It's crazy to ask, why am I dancing? Just walk without this continuous self-reflection, am I doing it right? Send brings us to a sense of perfection, we are just what we are. Suchness, not an ideal self. If we do become more loving and kind, it is because those qualities emerge out of just being the moment.

My notes while listening to Geoff Dawson, Dharma Successor of Charlotte Joko Beck and the teacher of the Ordinary Mind Zen School, Sydney - October 13, 2020

Learned two new words today

I love this review's description of the Jesus in passage below that Thomas Jefferson was not interested in: "Jesus the dusty thaumaturge, the wandering soul-zapper and self-styled son of God,"

Reading Thomas Jefferson’s Bible

The president preferred Jesus’s teachings to his supernatural acts—and edited his copy of the New Testament accordingly. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/peter-manseau-jefferson-bible/616476/

The message minus the mumbo jumbo: that’s what Jefferson was after. The teachings—the “precepts,” he called them—without the supernatural baggage. Jesus the ethicist, Jesus the philosopher, author of “the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man.” Of this Jesus Jefferson was indeed a fan. Of Jesus the dusty thaumaturge, the wandering soul-zapper and self-styled son of God, less so. Jefferson esteemed Jesus as he esteemed Socrates and “our master Epicurus”—as a beautiful mind. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John: cringing rustics who had fumbled the story, “forgetting often, or not understanding, what had fallen from him … giving their own misconceptions as his dicta, and expressing unintelligibly for others what they had not understood themselves.” Time to dig the real Jesus out from under “the dross of his biographers.” Cut away the walking on water, kicking-out of demons, laying-on of hands, teleportation, claims of divinity, resurrection, etc. Preserve only, in a thousand or so verses, the bare details and pure utterance of a dead-on moralist. “It is as easy to separate those parts,” wrote Jefferson to John Adams in 1814, “as to pick out diamonds from dunghills.”

I have mentioned in other posts about how I was never satisfied with the Christian explanation of suffering. It turns out there is a word for that: Theodicy, (from Greek theos, “god”; dikē, “justice”), explanation of why a perfectly good, almighty, and all-knowing God permits evil.

How did I get here?

I sometimes think of the things that influenced me to where I've gotten to the point where Zen feels like such a good fit. I found an old box of books from my college and a few years after college. It contained some surprising memories: Manual of Zen Buddhism by DT Suzuki, Mystics and Zen Masters by Thomas Merton, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: an inquiry into values by Robert M Pursig. Interesting enough, in the same bin was my partner's copies of  Henry David Thoreau - Walden along with the famous essay on Civil Disobedience and Tao de Ching by Lao Tzu.

Dukkha definition

In the Buddhist teachings, there are three forms or levels of suffering: the suffering of suffering (dukkha-dukkhata); the suffering of change (viparinama-dukkhata); and the suffering of conditioned existence or all pervasive suffering (samkhara-dukkhata). Suffering of suffering is gross level suffering, which MBSR and most therapeutic mindfulness modalities address—chronic pain, anxiety, stress, depression. I refer to this form of suffering as “first-level” suffering. The Buddha referred to the “two arrows” of suffering—physical and mental pain, and elaborative mentation about actual pain. Physical and mental pain, as the Buddha pointed out, may at times be unavoidable. Mental elaborative pain, however, is a reactive and judgmental response to unpleasant physical sensations or to situations we deem should not be happening.

The suffering of change, or “second-level” suffering, is apparent in that any phenomena that arises will also pass away, is subject to change, and not permanent. This is sometimes referred to as the suffering derived from a reversal of fortune. Second-level of suffering is poignant when we cling tightly to situations or grasp at pleasurable experiences in the hopes that they will never change. We may also seek pleasure to avoid pain, or chase after experiences we believe will bring us lasting happiness, but they eventually disappoint. Such seeking of hedonic pleasure is itself a source of stress and anxiety.

The suffering of conditioned existence, or “third-level” suffering, is actually the basis of the previous two levels of suffering. It is a much more subtle level of suffering, based on the premise that any phenomena that takes form or birth is subject to the laws of karma and dependent origination. This deepest level of all pervasive suffering is rooted in a fundamental delusion, or fixed view, that the existence of a person in a world is a continuous being from the time of birth (until death). Hence, it is the deepest level of existential suffering, or angst, which is haunted by a sense of lack, or a vague and gnawing feeling, that deep down, a primal fear that self may be groundless, empty, and devoid of a permanent and separate identity. This level of suffering is usually repressed, or covered up, through incessant goal-directed activity that are attempts to make the self feel more secure, grounded and real.

Life has no intrinsic meaning, any more than a piece of music has an intrinsic point. Life is, in zen parlance, yugen – a kind of elevated purposelessness.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is keeping one's consciousness alive to the flow of present reality. Thich Nhat Hanh

Stay aware of the moment by moment. The conscious mind is not the boss. Just show up or the neurotic mind shows up instead. Worry, plan, disappointment.

Trust the body, trust the unconscious. Experience the flow to everyday experience. Joy. Engage with your life.