BOOK OF EQUANIMITY. Case 13

[Tb]

I sometimes overlook the value of small acts. I want to be the one to "solve" the problem. The smile at a stranger, the pat on the back are what is needed. Just being there. All I can do is try and do/be a little better day by day. Forget the finish line.


Shugen

Hi.

_/\_
Yes, so true.

Mtfbwy
Fugen

[Tb]

Hi.

Reading all your responses reminds me of when i read about one of the last talks Aitken roshi did, and was asked to present an koan as well as an answer to it.
It's in the book, "After the ecstacy, the laundry" by jack kornfield.

At one of his last teachings before retiring at the age of eighty, Robert Aitken Roshi talked to a gatehering of a hundred Buddhist teachers about his half century of Zen practice, starting in prison in Japan during World war II. At the end he was asked if he would offer an koan and be willing to give us an answer. He told us this tale: In 1951 when he was practicing in New York under Master Nyogen Sensaki, Master Sensaki held up an elegant bowl painted with a spiral from the rim to the center. He asked, "Does this spiral go from the rim to the center or from the inside out?This was the koan, and we quietly contemplated its solution. Then came the moment to offer an answer. Aiken Roshi stood up from his cushion, trembling slightly, and extended his arms outward like a great frail bird, making the shape of a bowl with his whole outstretched body, First he turned one way, as if spiraling in. Then he turned the other way, as if spiraling out. He became the bowl with his whole body, his whole being, inside and out.

Thank you for your practice.

Mtfbwy
Fugen

[galen]

Hi.

Reading all your responses reminds me of when i read about one of the last talks Aitken roshi did, and was asked to present an koan as well
as an answer to it.
It's in the book, "After the ecstacy, the laundry" by jack kornfield.



Thank you for your practice.

Mtfbwy
Fugen

Hi Fugen,

In your responses to others, it would be nice if you posted the poster, otherwise we have to search (poor me, i just became a victim ). Thanks for your responses here, and for taking the high seat on this koan, well done.

ps... woops, i just noticed on the others you have........ proceed

[Amelia]

The whole Universe
Spiral in a boundless bowl
And the bowl itself

[Kaishin]

If Sansho had replied, "OK, I won't," all would have been lost.

An example of someone who has given herself entirely to others: my Mother comes as close as anyone I know. I don't think she has a selfish bone in her body. Everything in her personal and professional life is directed to serving others. I don't know how she does it. I sadly did not get those genes and struggle with selfishness. She is my Bodhisattva of Selflessness.

Gassho, Mom
_/\_

Gassho, Kaishin / Matt

[Myozan Kodo]

Hi Fugen,
Being a parent is teaching me a bit about forgetting myself in service. Many days that is hard.

I think the entire universe gives itself selflessly at every moment. I also think that most people are selfless at many instances during the day ... Some more so ... Those that devote their lives to service.

And isn't everything extinguished and made new at each instance that the Dharmakaya pulses with its unknowable life?

Gassho
Myozan

[Jiken]

To give yourself freely and expect nothing in return. A gift given with no expectations. No extra. I think Myozan's example of a parent and the universe are a beautiful ones. A listener during zazen. A parent to yourself. A complete listener.

Gassho,

Daido

[Omoi Otoshi]

Hi Fugen,
Being a parent is teaching me a bit about forgetting myself in service. Many days that is hard.

I think the entire universe gives itself selflessly at every moment. I also think that most people are selfless at many instances during the day ... Some more so ... Those that devote their lives to service.

And isn't everything extinguished and made new at each instance that the Dharmakaya pulses with its unknowable life?

Gassho
Myozan

Beautifully put,

_/\_

Pontus

[Mp]

... the entire universe gives itself selflessly at every moment ...

Beautiful ... thank you.

Gassho
Michael

[Tb]

Hi Fugen,
Being a parent is teaching me a bit about forgetting myself in service. Many days that is hard.

I think the entire universe gives itself selflessly at every moment. I also think that most people are selfless at many instances during the day ... Some more so ... Those that devote their lives to service.

And isn't everything extinguished and made new at each instance that the Dharmakaya pulses with its unknowable life?

Gassho
Myozan

Hi.

Yes, that is one very good example.
There was an sit-along on the topic of parenthood some time ago:

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?9066-SIT-A-LONG-with-FUGEN-Single-Parent&highlight=parent

Mtfbwy
Fugen

[RichardH]

Parenting is a big life change that way. That I would sacrifice my own life for another being without hesitation... it's like a billion years of evolution, without hesitation. Our guy was born at 27 weeks and spent months in the hospital... at one point weighing just under 2 lbs. That vulnerability... awakens something.


Gassho, kojip.

[Kyonin]

Treeleaf Angoperiod is coming up, in what ways can you devote yourself entirely to others, making yourself unknown?

Like Alan said, there are times when I just disappear. When I talk about the dharma and when I'm teaching something. When I help people I simple poof out of this planet.

Do you have any examples of people devoting themselves entirely to others, and if so what are they and what have you learned from them?

I have many heroes in my life. Some of them are known, some of then aren't, like Friar Storm, a Mexican Catholic friar that needed money to raise his town's orphans. He didn't know how to do anything other than to preach, so he decided to put on a luchador mask and stepped into an arena.

He has risen about 200 kids into adulthood and they have become medics, engineers and so on.

He's an inspiration because he has gone against everything to help kids.

[Thane]

On first reading i thought Rinzai was not pleased with Sansho's response to his questions. However i see now that he was pointing to something deeper.

Gassho

Thane

[Tb]

Hi Thane and others reading this.

Yes, one thing about koans is that they sometimes include a lot of refences to other cases and sayings.
I'm not saying that you need to know them, but it can give you an opportunity to get an wider understanding of it if you do.
In this case it might look like he's not pleased with what he responded, but in further investigation you discover that it doesn't have to be so.

Thank you for pointing this out.

Mtfbwy
Fugen

On first reading i thought Rinzai was not pleased with Sansho's response to his questions. However i see now that he was pointing to something deeper.

Gassho

Thane

[Thane]

Hi Fugen. Thanks for your reply. I like this koan but it took me a while to see what it was pointing at. This is one of the reasons why i am so grateful for this book club

Another interesting line and perhaps one i struggle with is in the preface to the assembly. It reads"mean treatment, like breaking a wooden pillow, should be used. What about when its time to depart?"

Interesting phrase. I stuggle with the idea of being mean. I presume this is trying to stop us trainees from setting up ideals about how things should be, hence why some of the treatment dished out at monastery's in the east seem cruel to a western softy like me! But maybe this is being cruel to be kind so that we are not holding on to ideals and false views when the time does come to depart.

Gassho

Thane