A Master

A Master...

And this is it. Trust. Total trust.  And you can choose!

Life can be a master;  a stone on the ground can be a master - a butterfly...

Trust that there is something to learn. Sorrow of some loss, can be a master. Fear of that sorrow, even though there is nothing discernible to fear right now, can also be a master.

You get "what ifs"?  Any one can be your master. Or if you constantly have them... "Ah but, what if this, what if that?"  This could be useful - many masters!
trust to fly
Trust... In order to fly, his life circumstances
demanded that he had to take the leap of faith

The prerequisite though is that you accept totally and just witness it, and it will be the master.. And if you cannot, you are aware that you cannot accept it, and you are still in desire. So just desire (some object or goal) and know that desire totally to its core until it is no more.

Irrelevant Zen!

That is where I am. That is what I am. Imaginary It has to be I am in my mind, as my mind.... .All is imaginary.

Whether that is true or not is irrelevant. So I seek truth, but need to drop the seeking.

 So one thinks he has discovered something that is true. So what? If God is there, or God is not there -- so what? He is there to the degree he is not!

It's always been the way it is, and always will be the way it is... but will be?  What am I saying?

Knowing it intellectually is irrelevant! Believing it is irrelevant. Knowing it experientially is profound and then... irrelevant if one begins to believe!

The aphids strip the plant of its life-force.... It is natural.

Zen Waiting

Waiting is an art of acceptance of being in the now, just waiting for the moment of...

Any time..

Always waiting, and paradoxically, creating that art of waiting will bring us to the here and now. We have arrived where we always were, are now..

Always....

Words, as one would say when visiting a Zen garden, are useless, and so we approach Zen with silence, and live Zen silently, yet here I am writing of it...

How else can I possibly convey my Zen? It is so paradoxical.  It is so wonderful....

Leaving one speechless, and if fortune smiles for a moment...

Zen leaves one thoughtless, without thought, without mind.

So how can we speak of it?

Waiting... Wait and see...

Thunderbolt..

Mind loves to have so many labels.  If you can understand something, you can feel a little more comfortable. Get it into a nutshell and say, "Ah, this is it. That's why…!"  All reasonable and the mind seeks out reasonableness constantly. It is reasonable to "fix things!" and the mind wants everything fixed… right now! The uncertainty of... What if this? What if that? This is beyond the comfort zone.  Being is uncertain without our labels, and living life as if it is certain is the mind's trick.  But having lived life, one can look back and say " it is certain", simply because it has happened already - we know it well, as it is in our memory, even if it is embellished for our comfort.

But right now, something may go very wrong, it can be as if a thunderbolt has hit us.  We feel helpless. We may search and search for a resolution, but there is nothing we can do - or so it feels… This thunderbolt, the shock, is always the worst ever!

Just the very essence of the shock itself may not provide a fix, may not provide an answer.  No cure! And we may be desperate!  But a "dark night" has come and there is no other option other than to go through it. If here we focus on its essence, we may realize that there is no getting better, but there will come a point when it really doesn't matter. This could be the point of transcending mind and realizing spirit, our essence of being but again no certainty other than the way it is.  We can go where we come from and we've been there before - it's our awareness. Awareness is always certain.

The one thing that we can "do" in such an impasse is to drop our doing and just be. Even though rationally there is no choice, there is!  We can choose it to be the way it is. To walk through it.. Let the shock of this thunderbolt into awareness more and more.  It may be a valuable wake-up call!  Or not! For there is no certainty - if we look closer we may get to see that it actually lights the way!

At one time, there was "I am not" it cannot be grasped by the mind though. Then there was a time when there was "I am". Both "I am" and "I am not" depend on each other. Not aware of I and aware of I.  We create one and we create the other just as white is created by black. To see this, often involves the realization of a thunderbolt.

Letting go, from where we were has led to where we are. Letting go from where we are now, takes us further. Letting go of now.. That's now..  Understand? It is so whether or not...

Dropping Lessons..

Dropping the "lessons" from all great masters we look in the here and now where "I-am" exists and teaches experientially, not through words whether they be one's own or others..  Be aware and drop judgement. Is that possible? Inquire and see.

For instance anger...  Examine it closely. Anger at self? Forgive! Accept it as so and work with it, not reacting or trying to obliterate it, but witnessing it. Then work with the essence of forgiveness. Forgiveness is is totally abstract because it is not a "doing" thing. They say it is a verb, to forgive? But it is not done! It is felt, experienced. It is realized, sometimes suddenly one can say, "Ah yes... It is OK now", whatever it is.

Anything... Anything at all that is "wrong", will release with forgiveness, no matter what mistake it is.  So can we quit judging as either trivial or important!

If  we can just see that everything has it's value and it is of value to examine anger - self anger, guilt that releases on forgiveness.  For all is self even another. If I am wrong, or you are wrong - judge it to be so and "wrongness" manifests and feeds on judgement.

Sounds And Silence

In zazen, the sounds come to me from without. A bird call, a creak from the building, the sound of my breathing.  Who is it that is receiving these sounds?

There has to be a space into which the sounds can flow. That space is the silence. The stillness. The context of all contexts. The emptiness into which the sounds will flows.

Expanding consciousness can see the soundless emptiness that contains all sounds that come and go. Accepted in this way, all sound is transformational, so open up to the sound, whatever it may be. Zazen is not about shutting out anything, but accepting it, embracing it fully. It is not about bliss or angst, but the silent emptiness in the centre of all - no-thing, mu, shunyata,  breathing. The space that contains all the sounds.. I am.

See the sound enter the space of I-am. Silence now. Just a moment.. Silence

Part of the Herd


How it is safe to be "part of the herd".  Because I 'understand' Zen, doesn't mean that I am not subject to conditioning. Because I have glimpsed no-mind, doesn't mean that I am not subject to conditioning.  It serves no purpose trying to "get better". Experiencing is not subject to conditioning. The experience itself maybe a piece of conditioning, but the experiencing is the context of all experiences.  Just look at all responses and ascertain what is spontaneous and what is a reaction (conditioned response). 

Trust
Trust to take the leap of commitment, because once a commitment is taken, it is kept - else it would not be a commitment.  Trust the process of experiencing. Respond accordingly and ascertain if such the response is a true authentic response or conditioned response. Just be aware. Do nothing, but watch and witness. Practice zazen.  Look at life and see what self is reflected back.  Don't believe! Know what you are watching, breathing into it.

Expanding Awareness


The future isn't formed yet. The past can be remembered, which is the same as saying that it can be imagined. Therefore it is the imagination. In this way the entire story around the experience is an illusion created in the mind and imagination. Whether the events happened or not at this level are irrelevant, but don't seem to be so because the mind is a great convincer!

If there is some negativity, best not suppress or deny. There is always a choice to be aware and look into any sensitivity that is being guarded and protected, any sensitivity that is being clung to as if it was something of great value, as if it was now.  But time is relative, not relevant. Now is timeless, for it is now gone… now gone.

Just be aware if the past seems real. Can it be that it is a matter of "I am hanging on to it"?  Expanding awareness more and more to this will come to a point of just witnessing, and this will end the clinging to the story, bring an end the conflicting thoughts and ideas entangled in different narratives and beliefs.  Next what is left is the raw feelings. And then, without effort... Let it go. Now is now and for the moment, free from karma.

Just an exercise in expanding awareness.

Response - Reaction. Make a Distinction.


Observe any reaction and notice that it is machine-like.
Observe awareness. Notice it is a responding.
Look at response. Look at reaction.
Note the distinction and be aware - no matter what the subject is..
It doesn't matter!
It is only awareness that enables us to transcend the reaction.

Sometimes I am a machine, so I had better be aware!
But surely the word "better" is no different than the word "should"!
I need to drop it all by being aware of it, not squashing it or resisting it
as that is just another reaction...  Programmed as a computer?

When I Am Dreaming


Whenever I am judging, I am dreaming.  The mind is the dream.  I am not owning my dream whenever I am judging. I am a player in the dream, totally identified with it.  To be aware of the dream is to wake from the dream, but one needs to be fully aware, not just have an idea that it MAY be a dream, not just a belief, but an actual experience.

When I am dreaming I am so convinced that I am in reality that I cannot see that this is a dream.  What else can it be if right now is immediately gone and I am not seeing  the phenomenon?  If I am merely thinking that the moment I began this sentence I am writing is gone and I am not getting it?

So...  Shakespeare wrote that "all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death." And that life is a "walking shadow" - shadows are not reality! And that life "is a tale told by an idiot…." And "signifying nothing".  Did he use the term "idiot" to shock? Are the unenlightened, idiots?

Yes, the judgements that  it is the fault of this and that, him and her.... I do not own these feelings, they own me! I am electing what I believe is outside of me as cause of the way I am!  Unless I first of all fully accept them as projections that I am creating and then realize that it is all awareness and awareness is me.

Realizing the dream. In the heart or in the head, it is just more dream-work, but in the reality of existence. In experience that is neither the heart nor the head but within the context of who I really am.  This too, whatever it is, is a dream. For it is already gone. So now what?

Zen: No Easy Living Here!


Zen is a difficult practice that defies belief! Beliefs won't work in Zen anyway..  A lifestyle that is yet so rewarding and liberating at times. But (as Zen practitioners) we have to look at what we want to be liberated from and looking at karma, is well….  looking at karma.

Karma is karma and we do not need to look at the pleasurable karma in our lives as because it wasn't resisted, it's disappeared already.  The stuff that sticks is the stuff that we have not resolved and we didn't resolve it because it more than likely, contained pain.  What we resist we get attached to. Stuck. Unable to move. Operating mechanically and reactively from conditioned minds.

What we  are attached to, we will, sooner or later, Zen practice or no Zen practice, be revisiting to resolve it. Zen offers a tremendous challenge that is certainly not for those who seek bliss or easy living, although bliss and easy living can exist, enhanced in a Zen life. Zen doesn't judge or favour anything.

In Zen, Living here and now with mindfulness, we will bring up much karma to be resolved, in the here and now. But we will not be creating more karma in such mindfulness. But we may have many lifetimes of karma to resolve. But if we could just really get it, that all the past, a few moments ago and past lives, are gone. They  are an illusion. Then, if we can really see this, beyond reason, we can transcend karma.  Unreasonable, I know.

The Body as a Device.


The vehicle of experience, yet I can get that I am more than this. But what am I without the body? Simply, I-am. I can experience this providing I do not strive to do so, for to strive to do so takes me out of reality. What reality? The only reality there is. Here and now - is that not all there can ever be? And now the paradox...

Striving takes me into the mind that draws me into the future... out of the here and now, the only reality.

Just let the experiences of the body be right now. Just observe them and see if you can detect where your Self is?  In your head, in your arm, your foot.. anywhere?  Can you see that you are no-thing -  the awareness that is observing? Is it too uncomfortable and does the mind want to get back to something that is more reasonable?