A body and a social identity

Zen explains that we all have a body and a social identity. But we don't have a core, in other words, the ego, when attachment, aversion, and apathy rules our life. Notice the very moment we grasp at something (or aversion, apathethic) and get off the wheel. The traditions are cultural variations all recognize that way of untying the knot. Enjoy the experience of momenteness. Status is the tough ones to see through. 

The Ordinary Mind Zen School Sydney podcast Dharma talks given by Geoff Dawson

I copied this from another journal as it reminds me of this recent entry.

Disciplines

Over the years, I have tried to practice spiritual disciplines and have been attracted to authors that teach how practice is central to Christianity as a spiritual path. Many Christian authors have nourished me even as I have moved away from mainstream Christianity. Lately I have seen to be influenced by the disciplines of living everyday life as encouraged by Zen Buddhism. I've never seen much value in making my bed but now it seems like a good act to straighten up a place where I spend so much time to be ready for the day. This also comes from teachers explaining how we don't wash the dishes in order to clean the dishes. What's more we are not alive during the time we are washing the dishes.  I also want all my activities to be zazen as described in this entry; "What is true zazen? When you become you! When you are you then no matter what you do, that is zazen." 

I love the simplicity in Buddhism of just beginning again. When your mind wanders, just begin again. Christianity seems laborious with repentance and confession. It just seemed so simple, just begin again.

Repentance

Even though in our zazen our activity is carried on together with the whole earth and all beings, there is no way we can carry out perfect action like a buddha. To think that we have achieved perfect action is simply to be arrogant. For thinking in such a way is, after all, nothing more than our own human judgment. In our zazen, precisely because we have taken such a vow, we cannot help but repent of our inability to fulfill it.

To truly repent does not mean offering an apology; rather, repenting requires facing life straight on, and letting the light of absolute reality illuminate us. What does it mean to be illuminated by absolute reality? The Samantabhadra Bodhisattva Dhyana Sutra says, "If you wish to repent, sit zazen and contemplate the true nature of all things." In other words it is in doing zazen that true repentance is actualized.

Chapter 8 - The Wayseeker: Section - Seven Points of Practice, page 115-116, Opening the Hand of Thought by Zosho Uchiyama

The original self that is manifest when we let go of thought

But the more we practice opening the hand of thought, the clear it becomes to us that "self" is not the same as "thought." We come to see decisively that the true self is not something made up in our heads. True self is the self of everything, the self of the whole dharma world, the original self that is manifest when we let go of thought. In other words, if we practice for a long time, there will be some result. Even if we said only for a short time, that is all right, there is no question that we become aware of reality in our city. Beginners' zazen and zazen after ten years of practice are not two different things.

Chapter 8 - The Wayseeker: Section - Seven Points of Practice, page , Opening the Hand of Thought by Zosho Uchiyama

The relationship between personal self and universal self

So we can conclude that the human condition involves existing in the midst of this relationship between personal self and universal self. 

In our life as personal self, universal self is not something to yearn for, it is the direction towards which we should aim. This is the meaning of "vow." The first of the four bodhisattva vows is "Sentient beings are innumerable, I vow to save them all." This means to settle as universal life wherever that life naturally settles. The second vow is "Cravings are exhaustible, I vow to extinguish them all." This means refraining from being dragged around by one's thoughts. But as long as we are human beings, we're going to have a mind that fabricates illusions, and so we have to continuously study the boddhadharma to clarify the reality of our self. This is the meaning of the third vow, "Dharma teachings are limitless, I vow to learn them all." The fourth vow is "The Buddha Way is endless, I vow to complete it." With this, we vow to settle as the universal self.

Chapter 8 - The Wayseeker: Section - Seven Points of Practice, page 156, Opening the Hand of Thought by Zosho Uchiyama

Buddhism is essentially a teaching about liberation - from suffering, ignorance, selfishness and continued rebirth. ... Buddhism, Knowledge and Liberation assesses the common Buddhist idea that knowledge of the three characteristics of existence (impermanence, not-self and suffering) is the key to liberation.

Buddhism, Knowledge and Liberation: A Philosophical Study By David Burton

Death, Life's Ephemeral Nature, and Motivation for Practice

Where do we go after death? Nowhere. Life is universal. When we're born, we come from this universal life. We are all, without exception, universal. Only our brains get caught up in the notion that we are individual. We're universal whether we think so are not and reality doesn't care what we think. 

As long as we are living, we eat cabbage and rice, bread and wine. Our bodies are collections of such stuff. Superficially, it seems that our bodies are separate from the rest of the world. But as a matter of fact, our bodies continuously radiate heat and moisture and absorb nutrients and light. Everything is coming and going with remarkable freedom. We are really universal. Where are we going after death? Back to universal life. That's why the Japanese refer to the recently deceased as "one who has returned to the origin." This universal life is the original self.

Chapter 8 - The Wayseeker: Section - Seven Points of Practice, page 156, Opening the Hand of Thought by Zosho Uchiyama

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We are rather like whirlpools in the river of life. In flowing forward, a river or stream may hit rocks, branches, or irregularities in the ground, causing whirlpools to spring up spontaneously here and there. Water entering one whirlpool quickly passes through and rejoins the river, eventually joining another whirlpool and moving on. Though for short periods it seems to be distinguishable as a separate event, the water in the whirlpools is just the river itself. The stability of a whirlpool is only temporary. The energy of the river of life forms living things - a human being, a cat or dog, trees and plants - then what held the whirlpool in place is itself altered, and the whirlpool is swept away, reentering the larger flow. The energy that was a particular whirlpool fades out and the water passes on, perhaps to be caught again and turned for a moment into another whirlpool.

We'd rather not think of ourselves in this way, however. We don't want to see ourselves as simply a temporary formation, a whirlpool in the river of life. The fact is, we take form for a while, then when conditions are appropriate, we fade out. There's nothing wrong with fading out; it's a natural part of the process. However we want to think that this little whirlpool that that we are isn't part of the stream. We want to see ourselves as permanent and stable. Our whole energy goes into trying to protect our supposed separateness. To protect the separateness, we set up artificial, fixed boundaries; as a consequence, we accumulate excess baggage, stuff that slips into our whirlpool and can't flow out again. So things clog up our whirlpool and the process gets messy. The stream needs to flow naturally and freely. If our particular whirlpool is all bogged down, we also impair the energy of the stream itself. It can't go anywhere. Neighboring whirlpools may get less water because of our frantic holding on. What we can best do for ourselves and for life is to keep the water in our whirlpool rushing and clear so that is just flowing in and flowing out. When it gets all clogged up, we create create troubles - mental physical, spiritual.

Whirlpools and Stagnant Waters pages 3 - 4 Nothing Special by Charlotte Joko Beck

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But when you face into it and you clearly recognize the ephemeral nature of life, that's where your real source of motivation comes from. Look into it everyday of your life. What [Dogen] says are false kinds of motivations for practicing is to do with some kind of self gain. I'm going to achieve some special experience, I'm going to be blissed out. That's a gaining of something that's missing which he thinks is a false motivation. But if you want to find the source of that motivation, it's there every moment of our life, look into that ephemeral nature.

Because the horizon (death) is so close, every moment is precious.

The Heart Sutra tells us over and over again, there's nothing to gain. But when we live like that, when we think life is having to tick the box for all these exciting, wonderful experiences we're going to have. You're kind of living in the future and you've ticked it off and you're ready for the next one, life is not really savored when we live it that way. It is life that has no bucket list... Because you're living moment to moment in the preciousness of life. You're not waiting to achieve something in the future that's going to make you happy. You're here with time. A lot of our happiness and a lot of our well-being in life is to do with our relationship to time. It's always in the background humming away there but it's never in the forefront of our mind. And as Dogen reminds us in some of his other writings, We are time. What most of us think of is we're passing through time, we have a relationship with time. Dogen reminds us, I think quite clearly, we are time. We are passing away. Things are passing away. Rapidly. Everyone knows that but the essence of practice is to have a radical acceptance of that fact.

Because you're not trying to gain something, you're open to what each moment unfolds for you in life. 

Arousing the Desire for Practice, Geoff Dawson, Ordinary Mind Zen School (My transcription)

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As human beings we see life by means of a certain sensory apparatus and because people and objects seem external to us, we experience much misery. Our misery stems from the misconception that we are separate. Certainly it looks as though I am separate from other people and from all else in the phenomenal world. This misconception that we're separate creates all the difficulties of human life. 

As long as we think we're separate, we're going to suffer. If we feel separate we're going to feel that we have to defend ourselves, that we have to try to be happy, that we have to find something in the world around us that's going to make us happy. 

Now the truth of the matter is that we're not separate. We are all expressions or emanations of a central point - call it multi-dimensional energy. We can't picture this; the central point energy has no size, no space, no time. I'm speaking metaphorically about what can't really be spoken of in ordinary terms.

Can anything hurt us? page 75 Nothing Special by Charlotte Joko Beck

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Soothing Our Hungry Ghost by Mitchell Ratner, of the StillWater Mindfulness Practice Center, discusses Thich Nhat Hanh's The Five Touchings of the Earth and Kosho Uchiyama: This Life is One With Everything

from Opening the Hand of Thought : Approach to Zen

Buddhadharma

Shitou Xiquian was asked by one of his disciples, "What is the essential meaning of buddhadharma?"

Shitou replied, "No gaining, no knowing."

Daowu asked again, "Can you say anything further?"

Shitou answered, "The expansive sky does not obstruct the floating white clouds." 

The wide expanse of the sky does not obstruct the passing clouds. It lets them float freely. I think these words from the koan fully express the meaning of buddhadharma.

In other words, it means to be free from the ideas we make up in our head. I call this opening the hand of thought. When we think of something, we grasp it with our minds. If we open the hand of thought, it drops away.

The koan describes what zazen is quite well. What on earth is Buddhadharma,? Fundamentally, it is just opening the hand of thought. And to practice opening the hand of thought concretely with the body and mind is zazen. So buddhadharma means "what awareness is," are perhaps "way of awareness."

When we let go of our thoughts and become vividly aware, all the illusions that create desire, anger, and group stupidity vanish immediately.

Chapter 8 - The Wayseeker: Section - Seven Points of Practice, page 140-143, Opening the Hand of Thought by Zosho Uchiyama.

Let go of our thoughts that distinguish better from worse

Imagine there's no Heaven

It's easy if you try

No Hell below us

Above us only sky

Imagine all the people

Livin' for today

Imagine

Song by John Lennon

What a vast, boundless life unfolds before us! Ordinarily, we spend all our time comparing and discriminating between this and that, always looking around for something good to happen to us. Because of that, we become restless and anxious about everything. As long as we are able to imagine something better than what we have or who we are, it follows naturally that there could be also something worse.

When we let go of our thoughts that distinguish better from worse and instead see everything in terms of the universal self, we are able to settle upon a different attitude towards life - the attitude of magnanimous mind that whatever happens, we are living our self alone. Here a truly peaceful life unfolds.

Whatever happens in our lives can be accepted, since we are universal self in all circumstances. You may imagine that this will leave you completely directionless, but this is not the case, since such a self is not devoid of scenery. Self as the reality of life unfolds the rich quality of life: the scenery of the self, the circumstances of the present. Both past and present exist as the richly textured scenery of the present.

These quotes are from Chapter 7 - Living Wide Awake: Section - The Direction of the Universal, page 131-133, Opening the Hand of Thought by Zosho Uchiyama. I found this chapter very inspiring and could have continued quoting till the end of the chapter. A good one to reread.

Culture wars

“What is certainly true,” Dominic Sandbrook says, “is there are moments in history when disputes about history, identity, symbols, images and so on loom very large. Think about so much of 17th-century politics, for example, when people would die over the wording of a prayer book.” The same applies, he believes, to any number of periods, including the arrival of the permissive society in the 1960s, in which there is an attempt to establish new mores. (Along with his fellow historian Tom Holland, Sandbrook co-presents a podcast, The Rest Is History, which recently looked at the history of culture wars.)

Certainly if we look at America, where the modern incarnation of the culture wars was first identified, the conflicts over abortion and gay marriage have been fought, at least by one side, from an explicitly religious perspective. The US sociologist James Davison Hunter gave popular currency to the term in his seminal 1991 book Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America.

Everything you wanted to know about the culture wars – but were afraid to ask by Andrew Anthony, The Guardian

The Bodhisattva Vow

A person who discovers the direction of his life in zazen, who vows and at the same time lives by repentance through zazen, is called a bodhisattva. This means that a bodhisattva is an ordinary person who has found her direction in buddha, and practicing the way of the life of a buddha.

Our actions are dictated by our karma: we are born into this world with our desires and may live our whole lives just reacting or responding to them.

Ordinary people live thinking only about their own personal, narrow circumstances connected with their desires. In contrast to that a bodhisattva, though undeniably still an ordinary human being like everyone else, lives aiming at the well-being of everyone, as the direction of his or her own life. For us as bodhisattva all aspects of life, including the fate of humanity itself, live within us. It is with this in mind that we work to discover and manifest the most vital and alive posture we can find for living out our life.

To practice Buddhism means to confront and live out the reality of your life, so if some unwarranted criticism comes along, your practice is to live it out by not getting all in a lather over it.

Chapter 7 - Living Wide Awake: Section - The Bodhisattva Vow, page 125, Opening the Hand of Thought by Zosho Uchiyama

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The Bodhisattva’s Path Jack Kornfield

To take such a vow is to set a direction, a sacred purpose, a statement of wisdom, an offering, a blessing. “We are not separate, we are interdependent,” declared the Buddha. Without understanding this, we are split between caring for ourselves or caring for the troubles of the world. When the world is seen with the eyes of a bodhisattva, there is no I and other—there is just us.

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See also: The relationship between personal self and universal self

How an intense spiritual retreat might change your brain

How an intense spiritual retreat might change your brain. by Andrew Newberg, director of research at the Marcus Institute of Integrative Health and a physician at Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia.

We have found that five elements seem to be common across many enlightenment experiences, whether they occur during spiritual retreats, daily meditation or prayer practices, psychedelic experiences, or even spontaneously. Enlightenment experiences are commonly considered to be the most intense experiences that a person has ever had. During the experience, the person feels a profound sense of connectedness with the rest of humanity, God or the Universe. The sense of clarity helps them to feel as if they have gained new insights into themselves and how they are to act within the world. Most people describe enlightenment experiences as happening to them rather than as something that they made happen. Various aspects of one’s life can feel changed by the experience, including mental health, physical health, sense of meaning and purpose in life, sense of spirituality and sense of religiousness. The data from our studies suggest that many spiritual practices and retreats can be beneficial for people by changing the brain and improving various psychological and spiritual measures.

The One Thing Christians Should Stop Saying

The One Thing Christians Should Stop Saying by theaccidentalmissionary

"Definitely feeling blessed"

First, when I say that my material fortune is the result of God’s blessing, it reduces The Almighty to some sort of sky-bound, wish-granting fairy who spends his days randomly bestowing cars and cash upon his followers.

Second, and more importantly, calling myself blessed because of material good fortune is just plain wrong. For starters, it can be offensive to the hundreds of millions of Christians in the world who live on less than $10 per day.

Nowhere in scripture are we promised worldly ease in return for our pledge of faith.

The truth is, I have no idea why I was born where I was or why I have the opportunity I have. It’s beyond comprehension.

My blessing is this. I know a God who gives hope to the hopeless. I know a God who loves the unlovable. I know a God who comforts the sorrowful. And I know a God who has planted this same power within me. Within all of us.

And for this blessing, may our response always be,

“Use me.”

Writers note: Since I had this conversation, my new response is simply, “I’m grateful.” 

Well said. Very similar to "There but for the grace of God go I" See this.