tsuku.jpg
Some folks assume that a Zen master should feel no impatience, makes no demands on life, is free of all expectations, encounters no disappointment, allows events to happen as they happen without concern for yesterday or tomorrow, totally embracing of life.
And those folks would be correct. It is true.
.... Except not. Thoroughly true, yet not.
In fact, the Zen person can profoundly know, in their Zazen and in all of life, the taste where there is no place in need of going, nothing lacking, thus no need to rush, nothing to repair. Each being, thing and moment is wholly just what it is, all to be thoroughly accepted, each and all a drop of flowing wholeness, that there are ultimately no separate beings, things and moments of time at all. Zen folks can experience, deep in the bones, all separation dropped away, beyond all measures and all passing minutes.
Even so, we cannot truly live such way, humans beings could not survive that way, without notions of time, personal hopes and expectations, planning and counting on things to happen, reflecting on events of yesterday, considering the needs of the future, even as we act today. And, I believe, it is simply human to feel some disappointment sometimes when hopes and expectations are thwarted, plans go awry, events turn in unwelcome directions, needed things don't happen when depended on to happen. If we passively accept too much, we will let the world sweep us along, make no effort, impose no judgements when the hungry tigers of life pursue us. If nothing to do, why even bother to get out of bed?
It is here that the Zen adept masters something wise and vital which I might call: impatience non-impatience, demanding non-demanding, accepting sans accepting, striving non-striving, concern without-concern, planning non-planning and the like. This is knowing the world, and our tasks within it, from all the foregoing perspectives at once. There is ultimately no place to go, nothing lacking, so no need to get there, no measures of time ... yet there is, and so we must get up and go, waiting for the bus, checking our watch and a bit flustered that we will run late. There is nothing to fix, all is just what it is, there is no ruler by which to measure for each situation is its own shining jewel, no need for cure or improvement ... and yet, we must fix the problems that we can in this life, our sick bodies, overcoming our serious challenges, mending as best we can the broken things we need which do not work. There is no division of time ... but we learn from the past, move now, must envision the effects which come next. There are no individual "beings and things" ... no separation, only the whole soup of the universe composed of all blended ingredients ... even as I bump my knee on the table, must deal with the other people and creatures on this planet, some friendly and some not. Inside vs. outside is meaningless when all mental borders are dropped away ... while the air flows from outside into my chest within, and I open the door of my house to step outside.
All true at once.
The rock is not impatient with the passing days and beating hot sun. The mountain is not impatient to be climbed, even as human mountain climbers impatiently strive to reach its summits. The earth is not impatient to circle the sun. Only sentient beings are impatient to get what they want, or get away from what they don't want. We may be impatient when stuck in traffic, in a long grocery line, when the bus is late, when the medicine fails to work, our child gets in trouble, the war starts again on the other side of earth, and by 1001 other little and larger challenges and frustrations during our daily doings. Sometimes in Zazen, I am impatient for the bell to ring. I think this natural, human, even if some of us are more patient, more flexible and accepting than others. I think that even Dogen, the old Soto Zen master, was sometimes impatient, as were all the other ancient masters, even the Buddha himself at times ... because they were human beings.
Still, what we do with that frustration and impatience makes all the difference in the world.
First, our practice is learning how not to be a prisoner of impatience and disappointment so much, to let the bus come when it comes, the traffic to flow when it flows, even if part of us is not happy with the situation. It is a wiser, gentler way to live than constant anger, sadness, fear and frustration that things are not as we wish. Have dreams, hopes and expectations, but hold them lightly, and with great equanimity when they do not turn out. It is okay to be humanly annoyed when the bus is late, the roads jammed, as we rush for a plane ... it is not wrong to feel some hurt and sadness when people do not act in good ways, when the computer breaks down, when our health breaks down, when ugly things happen in the world. Even so, do not fall into extremes of rage and wrath, depression and hopelessness at situations either. A little concern and restiveness, watch checking and back-up route planning is one thing, while panic, exploding, punching and red-faced cursing is something else. Try a different route, a new medicine, to talk once more to your child, to fix things a different way if you can.
At the same time, do not forget to taste the timelessness, the "nothing in need of doing, nothing in need of happening, not a flaw to fix" aspect of this world too. It is always present, like the light, openness and white page upon which story is written, even if a story of win and lose, ups and down, characters and dramatic conflicts. We taste such realm of wholeness in Zazen ... a way so whole that, in truth, there is no separate "we" to do the tasting, nothing apart to be tasted, only a certain sweetness which remains. Then, when the bell rings and we must get back to the world of time, places to be, ups and downs, going and traffic jams, buses that run on time and those that run late ... that same sweetness remains even as we experience the sometimes bitter of this world.
Master Dogen spoke of "thinking-non-thinking," a knowing of the world all these ways, all at once "not one, not two." So, let us allow ourselves a certain "impatience non-impatience" ... accepting that the bus is not here EVEN AS we check our watch and look down the road every few minutes, wishing it would come.
. tsuku1.jpg
Gassho, J
stlah
Some folks assume that a Zen master should feel no impatience, makes no demands on life, is free of all expectations, encounters no disappointment, allows events to happen as they happen without concern for yesterday or tomorrow, totally embracing of life.
And those folks would be correct. It is true.
.... Except not. Thoroughly true, yet not.
In fact, the Zen person can profoundly know, in their Zazen and in all of life, the taste where there is no place in need of going, nothing lacking, thus no need to rush, nothing to repair. Each being, thing and moment is wholly just what it is, all to be thoroughly accepted, each and all a drop of flowing wholeness, that there are ultimately no separate beings, things and moments of time at all. Zen folks can experience, deep in the bones, all separation dropped away, beyond all measures and all passing minutes.
Even so, we cannot truly live such way, humans beings could not survive that way, without notions of time, personal hopes and expectations, planning and counting on things to happen, reflecting on events of yesterday, considering the needs of the future, even as we act today. And, I believe, it is simply human to feel some disappointment sometimes when hopes and expectations are thwarted, plans go awry, events turn in unwelcome directions, needed things don't happen when depended on to happen. If we passively accept too much, we will let the world sweep us along, make no effort, impose no judgements when the hungry tigers of life pursue us. If nothing to do, why even bother to get out of bed?
It is here that the Zen adept masters something wise and vital which I might call: impatience non-impatience, demanding non-demanding, accepting sans accepting, striving non-striving, concern without-concern, planning non-planning and the like. This is knowing the world, and our tasks within it, from all the foregoing perspectives at once. There is ultimately no place to go, nothing lacking, so no need to get there, no measures of time ... yet there is, and so we must get up and go, waiting for the bus, checking our watch and a bit flustered that we will run late. There is nothing to fix, all is just what it is, there is no ruler by which to measure for each situation is its own shining jewel, no need for cure or improvement ... and yet, we must fix the problems that we can in this life, our sick bodies, overcoming our serious challenges, mending as best we can the broken things we need which do not work. There is no division of time ... but we learn from the past, move now, must envision the effects which come next. There are no individual "beings and things" ... no separation, only the whole soup of the universe composed of all blended ingredients ... even as I bump my knee on the table, must deal with the other people and creatures on this planet, some friendly and some not. Inside vs. outside is meaningless when all mental borders are dropped away ... while the air flows from outside into my chest within, and I open the door of my house to step outside.
All true at once.
The rock is not impatient with the passing days and beating hot sun. The mountain is not impatient to be climbed, even as human mountain climbers impatiently strive to reach its summits. The earth is not impatient to circle the sun. Only sentient beings are impatient to get what they want, or get away from what they don't want. We may be impatient when stuck in traffic, in a long grocery line, when the bus is late, when the medicine fails to work, our child gets in trouble, the war starts again on the other side of earth, and by 1001 other little and larger challenges and frustrations during our daily doings. Sometimes in Zazen, I am impatient for the bell to ring. I think this natural, human, even if some of us are more patient, more flexible and accepting than others. I think that even Dogen, the old Soto Zen master, was sometimes impatient, as were all the other ancient masters, even the Buddha himself at times ... because they were human beings.
Still, what we do with that frustration and impatience makes all the difference in the world.
First, our practice is learning how not to be a prisoner of impatience and disappointment so much, to let the bus come when it comes, the traffic to flow when it flows, even if part of us is not happy with the situation. It is a wiser, gentler way to live than constant anger, sadness, fear and frustration that things are not as we wish. Have dreams, hopes and expectations, but hold them lightly, and with great equanimity when they do not turn out. It is okay to be humanly annoyed when the bus is late, the roads jammed, as we rush for a plane ... it is not wrong to feel some hurt and sadness when people do not act in good ways, when the computer breaks down, when our health breaks down, when ugly things happen in the world. Even so, do not fall into extremes of rage and wrath, depression and hopelessness at situations either. A little concern and restiveness, watch checking and back-up route planning is one thing, while panic, exploding, punching and red-faced cursing is something else. Try a different route, a new medicine, to talk once more to your child, to fix things a different way if you can.
At the same time, do not forget to taste the timelessness, the "nothing in need of doing, nothing in need of happening, not a flaw to fix" aspect of this world too. It is always present, like the light, openness and white page upon which story is written, even if a story of win and lose, ups and down, characters and dramatic conflicts. We taste such realm of wholeness in Zazen ... a way so whole that, in truth, there is no separate "we" to do the tasting, nothing apart to be tasted, only a certain sweetness which remains. Then, when the bell rings and we must get back to the world of time, places to be, ups and downs, going and traffic jams, buses that run on time and those that run late ... that same sweetness remains even as we experience the sometimes bitter of this world.
Master Dogen spoke of "thinking-non-thinking," a knowing of the world all these ways, all at once "not one, not two." So, let us allow ourselves a certain "impatience non-impatience" ... accepting that the bus is not here EVEN AS we check our watch and look down the road every few minutes, wishing it would come.
. tsuku1.jpg
Gassho, J
stlah
)
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