Article by Norm Fischer Roshi in NYT (and Ango)

[Jundo]

Hey,

As I get ready to make a big announcement within the coming day about our upcoming ANGO (100 Day Special Practice Period ... look for a detailed posting on that soon) ...

... a nice article by Norm Fischer Roshi on the value of sometime periods of concentrated practice. It was nice to see Dogen on the Op-Ed pages of the New York Times (as opposed to what usually passes for "Reality" and "How to See the World" in the news these days) ...

http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009 ... ime-being/

[dharmabump]

Re: Article by Norm Fischer Roshi in NYT (and Ango)

Jundo,
I logged on specifically to post a link to this article and was delighted to see you beat me to it!

Even more interesting than the piece itself were the 9+ pages of comments posted by readers. I enjoyed all of the perspectives and found each one instructive in some way. I found reading each comment and observing my reaction as great practice in itself whether it was my aversion to some of the critical comments or my feelings of solidarity with the more positive comments. All were just reactions, here then gone.

Also found that some of the more critical comments reminded me of the importance of samu. I've been slacking on that lately.

[Shonin]

Re: Article by Norm Fischer Roshi in NYT (and Ango)

I thought it was a pretty cool article. One of the comments made me think " Perhaps you would be best served by jumping out your perfectly adequate , perfectly beautiful window"? I think the two negative criticisms were carried on from the " Duh! You're an idiot mr. zen master. I know better " mentality.

_/_ Dave

[Rich]

Re: Article by Norm Fischer Roshi in NYT (and Ango)

Tree cheers for the moment

[Tb]

Re: Article by Norm Fischer Roshi in NYT (and Ango)

Hi.

Dogen’s view is uncannily close to Heidegger’s: being is always and only being in time; time is nothing other than being. This turns out to be less a philosophical than an experiential fact: to really live is to accept that you live “for the time being,” and to fully enter that moment of time.

Dogen writes, “For the time being the highest peak, for the time being the deepest ocean; for the time being a crazy mind, for the time being a Buddha body; for the time being a Zen Master, for the time being an ordinary person; for the time being earth and sky… Since there is nothing but this moment, ‘for the time being’ is all the time there is.”

When this happens, do this.
When that happens do that.
Nothing else.

I find it impressive how thoroughly normal it is be so tentative about the time of our lives, or so asleep within it, that we miss it entirely. Most of us don’t know what it actually feels like to be alive. We know about our problems, our desires, our goals and accomplishments, but we don’t know much about our lives.

Very important point.

Mtfbwy
Fugen