Dear all
This week’s reading is pages 218-226 (from OBSTACLES TO EVERYDAY AWARENESS to end of chapter).
Darlene asks why it doesn’t feel natural to practice the art of being in the present and suggests that the answer partly lies in our cultural emphasis on education being about thoughts and concepts rather than connecting with the body and feelings. In relation to this I have seen documentaries on indigenous tribal people and notice that outside of doing necessary work, there is a lot of time just spent sitting around talking or just observing the world. There doesn’t seem to be the same emphasis on having to always be doing or your livelihood and worth being dependent on ‘getting ahead’. This seems to be drummed into our culture from an early age.
She quotes Joko Beck in saying that “All of practice is to return ourselves to pure experiencing” and notes that is the alternative to living life, as we often do, on some kind of automatic pilot working on conceptual ideas and habitual reactions. As a teacher I know says – “don’t miss your life”.
Darlene points to the fact that in Zen practice, the sacred and mundane, the pleasant and unpleasant, are viewed in the same way and remembers Shunryu Suzuki’s words, “For Zen students a weed is a treasure. With this attitude, life becomes art.”
As a botanist I would say that some of my favourite plants are ‘weeds’ which just means a plant growing where we do not want it to grow.
For me, the title of the section beginning on p220, ‘Swallowing the whole world’ sums up the entirety of our practice. Rather than picking and choosing, we receive the whole of existence just as it is, good and bad, pleasure and pain, sickness and health. What we do with it once we have received it may differ, but we do not close ourselves off from any part of reality. Darlene quotes Dogen in saying that “Realization, neither general nor particular, is effort without desire”. Another way of putting this might be that it is our wholehearted engagement with life that is important rather than the outcome. Each task is undertaken for its own sake and this can apply to any job or household task.
Darlene tells the story of a toll collector on a bridge in the San Francisco Bay area who stopped the traffic for her to get her to where she wanted to be, and says that she saw him as a teacher, willing to do what was needed to do his job and responding to what was required in the moment, meeting her frustration with grace and openness.
She notes that raising a child may be one of the clearest examples of doing something for its own sake, often only with occasional rewards, and tending illness may be like that also. Darlene suggests that we need to enter into everything wholeheartedly and that only being wholehearted in some interactions and tasks is only partial practice. That doesn’t, however, mean that we have to invite everyone in for dinner!
Darlene points to the wisdom of immersing ourselves in the direct experience of our senses, which cuts through ideas of right and wrong, gain and loss and other dualistic thinking, there is just the doing in each moment. She ends by advising to do “each thing for its own sake, being exactly here. Giving ur activity or whole heart and being is our greatest challenge and the deepest satisfaction in our lives.”
For this week’s question prompts we will take Darlene’s Sacred and Mundane exercise on p220:
1. Think about the objects in your house that you consider ‘sacred’, very precious that your treat carefully.
2. Then notice how you think about and treat the objects that you consider mundance and take for granted.
3. Practice developing a conscious relationship with one of the objects you take for granted such as your toothbrush, shoes, fork and spoon, chair. Cultivate an attitude toward one of those objects that more resembles your attitude toward one of your sacred objects.
Report back, if you wish!
Wishing you all a healthful week.
Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-
This week’s reading is pages 218-226 (from OBSTACLES TO EVERYDAY AWARENESS to end of chapter).
Darlene asks why it doesn’t feel natural to practice the art of being in the present and suggests that the answer partly lies in our cultural emphasis on education being about thoughts and concepts rather than connecting with the body and feelings. In relation to this I have seen documentaries on indigenous tribal people and notice that outside of doing necessary work, there is a lot of time just spent sitting around talking or just observing the world. There doesn’t seem to be the same emphasis on having to always be doing or your livelihood and worth being dependent on ‘getting ahead’. This seems to be drummed into our culture from an early age.
She quotes Joko Beck in saying that “All of practice is to return ourselves to pure experiencing” and notes that is the alternative to living life, as we often do, on some kind of automatic pilot working on conceptual ideas and habitual reactions. As a teacher I know says – “don’t miss your life”.
Darlene points to the fact that in Zen practice, the sacred and mundane, the pleasant and unpleasant, are viewed in the same way and remembers Shunryu Suzuki’s words, “For Zen students a weed is a treasure. With this attitude, life becomes art.”
As a botanist I would say that some of my favourite plants are ‘weeds’ which just means a plant growing where we do not want it to grow.
For me, the title of the section beginning on p220, ‘Swallowing the whole world’ sums up the entirety of our practice. Rather than picking and choosing, we receive the whole of existence just as it is, good and bad, pleasure and pain, sickness and health. What we do with it once we have received it may differ, but we do not close ourselves off from any part of reality. Darlene quotes Dogen in saying that “Realization, neither general nor particular, is effort without desire”. Another way of putting this might be that it is our wholehearted engagement with life that is important rather than the outcome. Each task is undertaken for its own sake and this can apply to any job or household task.
Darlene tells the story of a toll collector on a bridge in the San Francisco Bay area who stopped the traffic for her to get her to where she wanted to be, and says that she saw him as a teacher, willing to do what was needed to do his job and responding to what was required in the moment, meeting her frustration with grace and openness.
She notes that raising a child may be one of the clearest examples of doing something for its own sake, often only with occasional rewards, and tending illness may be like that also. Darlene suggests that we need to enter into everything wholeheartedly and that only being wholehearted in some interactions and tasks is only partial practice. That doesn’t, however, mean that we have to invite everyone in for dinner!
Darlene points to the wisdom of immersing ourselves in the direct experience of our senses, which cuts through ideas of right and wrong, gain and loss and other dualistic thinking, there is just the doing in each moment. She ends by advising to do “each thing for its own sake, being exactly here. Giving ur activity or whole heart and being is our greatest challenge and the deepest satisfaction in our lives.”
For this week’s question prompts we will take Darlene’s Sacred and Mundane exercise on p220:
1. Think about the objects in your house that you consider ‘sacred’, very precious that your treat carefully.
2. Then notice how you think about and treat the objects that you consider mundance and take for granted.
3. Practice developing a conscious relationship with one of the objects you take for granted such as your toothbrush, shoes, fork and spoon, chair. Cultivate an attitude toward one of those objects that more resembles your attitude toward one of your sacred objects.
Report back, if you wish!
Wishing you all a healthful week.
Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-
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