This morning, Nancy led our reflections on the four Divine Abodes. We first listened to excerpts from a talk by Sylvia Boorstein alerting us to the distinctions between loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity and their near enemies.
http://rogernolan.blogspot.com/2010/06/near-enemies.html
After a discussion, and tea, we ended with a guided meditation on loving kindness by Aya Khema
Chris and Shery prepared the elements which guided our reflections for the day. Excerpts from Tara Brach’s talk on Practical Dharma for Stressful Times set our discussion going, and we closed with her guided meditation on setting intention. Both are available at
Nancy led our practice for this meeting of the sangha, focusing on Anatta, or Non-Self, and drawing from several teachers. Beginning with an understanding of Anatta as framed by Ayya Khema, in her book Who Is My Self?. Wisdom Publications, 1997. p 153- 154, we then moved to an extended guided meditation by Ayya Khema, drawn from her book When the Iron Eagle Flies. p. 82-95. Excerpts from John Peacock’s talk “Being a Not Self,” also helped develop perspective. That talk can be found at
http://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/91/talk/16783/
And Thanisarro Bhikkhu, brought the whole question of ego-development as we understand it in the west into relation with the non-self as understood in Buddhism. See his Head and Heart Together: Bringing Wisdom to the Brahma Viharas. p. 60-61. This entire book can be downloaded for free as a pdf file at http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/headandheartbook.pdf
And finally, these words from Zen Master Dogen:
To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of realization remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly.
(( BACKGROUND: Dōgen Zenji Dōgen Kigen (1200-1253) was the founder of the Soto School of Japanese Zen. Often considered the greatest philosopher of Japanese Buddhism, he was also a man of immense literary gifts. Dōgen’s masterwork Shōbōgenzō (“Treasury of the True Dharma Eye”), from which the present case is taken, is sometimes regarded as a treatise on deep ecology. COMMENTARY: Dōgen isn’t deceived when people speak of the Buddha way. He knows it’s the self they’re really talking about. To study the way is another thing entirely. Go for a walk in the woods, pick up a seashell on the shore—the earth rises to meet your feet, the shell carries itself from the beach in your palm. We don’t do anything alone, because alone we aren’t anything. Everything together adds up to nothing, and that nothing continues endlessly—eternal, joyous, and free. VERSE: Items on Dōgen’s To-do list: Study the self To forget the self, Forget the self, and bring Myriad beings back to life.))
Sam led our reflections for this session, focusing on the non-dualistic tradition in Advaita Vedanta and its relation to that strain of Buddhism. Anchoring the talk was a talk by Rob Burbea, titled “The Wisdom of Non-Duality.”
http://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/210/talk/10028/
The following zen story (from the book “No Water No Moon” by Osho) was also brought into play:
The nun Chiyono studied for years, but was unable to find enlightenment. One night, she was carrying an old pail filled with water. As she was walking along, she was watching the full moon reflected in the pail of water. Suddenly, the bamboo strips that held the pail together broke, and the pail fell apart. The water rushed out; the moon’s reflection disappeared – and Chiyono became enlightened. She wrote this verse:
This way and that way I tried to keep the pail together,
hoping the weak bamboo would never break.
Suddenly the bottom fell out. No more water; no more moon in the water –
emptiness in my hand.
Anne B led our reflections on the links between the two branches of meditation most frequently linked in Theravadin Buddhism, Tranquility and Insight.
This Sunday, Michael guided our reflections, centering them around a talk by Toni Packer, the revolutionary teacher who centered her work on the natural practice of open awareness. Can something so simple cultivate insights of depth equal to traditional Buddhist practice? The talk by Toni that was played is not available on the internet, but another one deeply characteristic of her work can be found at http://www.springwatercenter.org/meditation/
Toni Packer described open awareness this way: “Sitting quietly, doing nothing, not knowing what is next and not concerned with what was or what may be next, a new mind is operating that is not connected with the conditioned past and yet perceives and understands the whole mechanism of conditioning. It is the unmasking of the self that is nothing but masks–images, memories of past experiences, fears, hopes, and the ceaseless demand to be something or become somebody. This new mind that is no-mind is free of duality–there is no doer in it and nothing to be done.”
A good description of what it was like to work with Toni can be found in the introduction to “The Wonder of Presence,” and perhaps her freshest insights into practice can be found in “The Work of This Moment,” her first book.
Keenan led our reflections this Sunday, anchoring them with a recorded dharma talk by Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Sensei, the head of the Mountains and Rivers Order. Using a traditional Zen approach to studying the subtleties and implications of a koan, Shugen probed the ways in which our daily lives can be awakened by “Knowing How to Beat the Drum.” His talk can be heard by clicking
Payton engaged the sangha with Tea Ceremony today,and offers these comments by way of perspective.
Making tea, like anything, can be used as a target of meditation.
There is a certain ritual nature in making and drinking tea
(especially loose tea) that we can use to focus our minds on the
present. Honor this moment – which is unique and will never happen
again. As written by Shunryu Suzuki, the old Zen master, “Treat every
moment as your last; it is not preparation for something else.” Or, in
Japanese, Ichi-go, Ichi-e, literally, “one time, one meeting”.
A tea ceremony can be short, just enough time to make some tea, and
can be conducted in silence. The essence of the tea ceremony is
simplicity. No clutter, just simple tools. Each gesture, like all the
materials involved, is reduced to the essential. In the ladling of the
water and the whisking of the tea we can experience the
moment-by-moment nature of life. Sen Rikyu, who formalized this style
of tea ceremony 600 hundred years ago, wrote, “When you hear the
splash of water drops that fall into the stone bowl, you will feel
that all the dust of your mind is washed away.” Please take this time
to pay attention; to your breathing, to your neighbors, to the grass
and the trees, and to the sounds around you.
In his book, The Miracle of Mindfulness, Thich Nhat Hanh speaks about
the importance of “washing the dishes to wash the dishes”. He writes,
“If while washing dishes we think only of the cup of tea that awaits
us… then we are not ‘washing the dishes to wash the dishes’. What’s
more, we are not alive during the time we are washing the dishes… If
we can’t wash the dishes, the chances are we won’t be able to drink
our tea either. While drinking the cup of tea, we will only be
thinking of other things, barely aware of the cup in our hands.”
Near 1906, Kakuzo Okakura wrote The Book of Tea, which explores the
history and philosophy of “teaism” as he saw it relating to East and
West. According to Okakura, “Teaism is essentially a worship of the
imperfect, as it is a tender attempt to accomplish something possible
in this impossible thing we know as life.”
Hopefully when we next make a cup of tea during our busy day, we can
really be there for it, inhaling its aroma, tasting its flavor
(pleasant or not!), and experiencing for perhaps just a short moment
the reality that surrounds us.
Joey guided us today, with questions posed in advance and a recorded dharma talk by Norman Fischer, as we explored the way that Not Knowing functions in our experience.
the questions to contemplate are
A talk related to the one we heard can be found at
Michael led the sangha in exploring Sensory Awareness — a variety of mindfulness of body, which consists of simple, gentle experiments to open up clear, fresh contact with our own selves and the world around us. As we engage ever more deeply with ordinary activities – standing up or sitting down, coming into contact with any object, reaching out to receive – our natural intelligence and vitality can emerge freshly. Zen master Suzuki Roshi once described this study (which he strongly recommended to his students) as “the inner experience of entire being, the pure flow of sensory awareness when the mind through calmness ceases to distract.” Alan Watts called it “living Zen”. Further information on this practice can be found at <www.sensoryawareness.org>
