Jundo's latest vid

[Stephanie]

Re: Jundo's latest vid

For all this talk of whether sharp words or a challenge can be useful--Erik, I've learned more about you as a person reading this thread than reading your other posts to a hundred other threads. Sometimes you strike me as aloof about Treeleaf, even (sorry!) smug and a bit condescending. One of the people who likes to joke around and have a few Zen debates but not open up too much or take any of this too personally or seriously. So I am glad, to finally have a different sense of you... someone with a sick mother, who taught GED classes and finds sewing difficult. Someone who doesn't seem smug, distant, or condescending to me now.

Dosho, IMO, there's a difference between cruel and demeaning language, and language that is sharp, yet compassionate. I'm no fan of verbal cruelty. But I am a fan of the kind of striking honesty that shakes a person out of complacency and forces them to really look at something for a second.

I admire the practice of Tangaryo and don't find it cruel or "medieval," but I'm not sure it's necessary either. I don't think that anything can artificially make someone deeply value this practice. I think it takes real hardship in life, real spiritual hardship, for this to ever become much more than an afternoon's pastime. But even then, even after suffering greatly in delusion and spiritual emptiness, and finding one's way back, one still can become complacent. That certainly has happened with me. I feel no urgency, or drive to sit, and as a result, my sitting practice is inconsistent--some days on, some days off, some days on, etc. I would sit Tangaryo if I had to in order to be able to continue to practice here, but then I would complete it and come back inside and go pretty quickly back to complacency.

So how do we wake up from complacency, how do we feel a sense of urgency when our back isn't against the wall? That has been my koan for months. Let me know if you find an answer :wink:

And as for the rakusu--isn't that aligned with the Jukai process? When does the next Jukai start? I want to do the next one, don't want to miss it.

[chicanobudista]

Re: Jundo's latest vid

For all this talk of whether sharp words or a challenge can be useful--Erik, I've learned more about you as a person reading this thread than reading your other posts to a hundred other threads. Sometimes you strike me as aloof about Treeleaf, even (sorry!) smug and a bit condescending. One of the people who likes to joke around and have a few Zen debates but not open up too much or take any of this too personally or seriously. So I am glad, to finally have a different sense of you... someone with a sick mother, who taught GED classes and finds sewing difficult. Someone who doesn't seem smug, distant, or condescending to me now.

:shock: :mrgreen:

Well. In my defense......I'll let my defense lawyer speak in my behalf



:mrgreen:

I usually can't spend too much time debating/discoursing/dialoguing due to my work (working in a migrant farmworker GED program), my family (married and taking care of both my elderly godfather and mother), and community (my sangha involvement, peace & social justice group, etc). So. I usually just poke here, quip, and move on. :wink: 8)

[ghop]

Re: Jundo's latest vid

If I was to walk down the street to the gas station for a snack wearing the rakusu - besides that in itself being very irreverant - someone might actually say, 'Hey, cool bib!' If I corrected them, that'd be mildly inappropriate in itself.

In Alabama, if you wore it to the gas station, you'd probably be
run over by a monster truck! Then they'd use it to wipe you off
the pavement.

I'm still relatively new here. I often feel like a kindergartener among
High Schoolers. But sometimes I read things that give me a little
poke in my gutts that make me wonder if I am on the right path here.
I mean, we just find out the alarming news about Chicanobudista's
mother, and immediately, the conversation turns to..."sewing..."???

I recall my mother's last months, a series of strokes. This is what happens to your mother, my mother, everyone's mother or father or wife or husband, to me and you. It is life, it is not easy ... yet not to be resisted.

And that is a reason why sewing the Rakusu is not to be made 'so easy',

I mean, maybe I am reading this wrong. But the jump between concern
for someone's dying mother and sewing a rakusu seems like a universe
apart. Is this the kind of compassion that years of zazen produces? I
am sure I am misguided in this judgement. But a little human kindness
and a little less ritualistic jargon would have done better in this situation.
At least, that's how this "bored homemaker" sees it.

ghop

[Jundo]

Re: Jundo's latest vid

I mean, maybe I am reading this wrong. But the jump between concern
for someone's dying mother and sewing a rakusu seems like a universe
apart. Is this the kind of compassion that years of zazen produces? I
am sure I am misguided in this judgement. But a little human kindness
and a little less ritualistic jargon would have done better in this situation.
At least, that's how this "bored homemaker" sees it.

ghop

No, never a universe apart. And the teachings are the greatest gift that can be offered to someone whose mother is ill.

A shoulder and a kind, loving word are always there too. But the teachings on life and suffering are the greatest gift that can be offered.

Gassho, Jundo

[Dosho]

Re: Jundo's latest vid

Erik: Very sorry to hear about your mother. As Jundo said, if there is anything we can do please let us know.

I do understand this, Taigu. My understanding is that your schedule is very busy. In a more traditional Sangha, there would be classes - because like so many Zen things, the way you do it is pretty particular - and to Americans, sewing itself is pretty foreign.

Sewing is foreign to Americans? IMHO, I'd suggest that you stop speaking for entire groups and only for yourself Chet.

Dosho, IMO, there's a difference between cruel and demeaning language, and language that is sharp, yet compassionate. I'm no fan of verbal cruelty. But I am a fan of the kind of striking honesty that shakes a person out of complacency and forces them to really look at something for a second.

There is most certainly a difference Stephanie, but like Chet you also seem to generalize what works for you as THE way for others. Some people don't need striking honesty...they need compassion. Striking honesty perhaps later, but the abrasive style you and Chet display is often too much so...IMHO.

Gassho,
Dosho

[Stephanie]

Re: Jundo's latest vid

Greg,

Have you heard the story of the Buddha and Kisa Gotami?

Kisa Gotami was a woman who had lived a hard life with little kindness. Her husband was cruel to her, and her only joy was her son. When her son died just a few years into his life, Kisa Gotami went mad with grief. A wise person saw her condition and told her to find the Buddha, who had the medicine she needed. Kisa Gotami went to the Buddha, and asked him to give her the medicine that would restore her dead child to life. The Buddha told her to go out and find a mustard seed from a house where nobody had died. Kisa Gotami was heartened, and began her search, going door to door. Everyone was willing to give her a mustard seed, but every household she encountered had seen at least one death. She understood why the Buddha had sent her on this quest. She returned to the Buddha, who confirmed what she had realized: "There is no house where death does not come." Kisa Gotami asked to be ordained, became a bhikkhuni, and eventually was enlightened.

The Buddha did not fawn all over her, or reassure her, or frantically run around trying to make the sadness of her loss disappear. Pressing her to face and realize that death and loss come to all was more healing for her than any gentle, reassuring words, healing chants, or miracles.

The simple act of sewing, of doing something difficult to do, where there is resistance and where we cannot find the help we need, might be a much greater healing force than any hand-wringing any of us could do.

I know one day my loved ones will die. I think often about my parents, who are getting older. How long will I be able to talk and laugh with them the way I am used to doing? How long will I be able to talk to them at all? I will be devastated when they die. But when they do, I would rather keep the company of those who wouldn't act as if some remarkable tragedy had just occurred, but the ones who would acknowledge, "Yes, this is always how it is." I would think that sewing... or any other simple activity... would have greater power to connect us with the intimacy of what is. I would be grateful to the person who handed me the broom and said, "Sweep."

Stephanie

[ghop]

Re: Jundo's latest vid

I would be grateful to the person who handed me the broom and said, "Sweep."

Yeah, I understand all that. It's all a matter of personal differences.
Me, I'd get more comfort by sharing my suffering with a human being
than with a broom. It sometimes does alot to follow Thich Nhat Hanh's
advice, to embrace the person compassionately, and say, "My friend,
I am here for you." Of course, you have to be really present to do so,
and you have to mean it. This means that you will have had to be
practicing compassion with yourself in your own daily life, you will have
had to be working to transform your own suffering. Kisa Gotami was
not a buddhist. She was just a person who was grieveing. This is not
the case with Chicanobudista. He is a buddhist among buddhist. He
knows all this stuff. He says he's suffering. Ok. Hand him a needle
and some thread, cause in the end his mother, a living, breathing,
human being, is no different than a ritualistic bib that says, "I belong
to buddhism." I can't buy it. This forum seems to be becoming rather
stoic lately. I agree with Dosho. He has such a kind and quiet voice. It
seems like everytime he speaks he is not heard because someone else
is shouting about how "tough" we have to be. To the outsider we would
seem rather cold. Lately, we seem to be trying to compete with other
zendo's as if we had to prove our validity just because we are an online
sangha. If the Buddha taught there is no self, then would it hurt to drop
the shield every once in a while, leave the buddha-jargon alone, and just
show someone else our human heart? Is that ok? Just to be human? Just
to care about someone else? Not always be trying to preach?

gassho
Greg

[disastermouse]

Re: Jundo's latest vid

Erik: Very sorry to hear about your mother. As Jundo said, if there is anything we can do please let us know.

I do understand this, Taigu. My understanding is that your schedule is very busy. In a more traditional Sangha, there would be classes - because like so many Zen things, the way you do it is pretty particular - and to Americans, sewing itself is pretty foreign.

Can be. Is your sense of righteous service to the technically correct now thoroughly sated? LOL!

Chet

[disastermouse]

Re: Jundo's latest vid

I would be grateful to the person who handed me the broom and said, "Sweep."

Yeah, I understand all that. It's all a matter of personal differences.
Me, I'd get more comfort by sharing my suffering with a human being
than with a broom. It sometimes does alot to follow Thich Nhat Hanh's
advice, to embrace the person compassionately, and say, "My friend,
I am here for you." Of course, you have to be really present to do so,
and you have to mean it. This means that you will have had to be
practicing compassion with yourself in your own daily life, you will have
had to be working to transform your own suffering. Kisa Gotami was
not a buddhist. She was just a person who was grieveing. This is not
the case with Chicanobudista. He is a buddhist among buddhist. He
knows all this stuff. He says he's suffering. Ok. Hand him a needle
and some thread, cause in the end his mother, a living, breathing,
human being, is no different than a ritualistic bib that says, "I belong
to buddhism." I can't buy it. This forum seems to be becoming rather
stoic lately. I agree with Dosho. He has such a kind and quiet voice. It
seems like everytime he speaks he is not heard because someone else
is shouting about how "tough" we have to be. To the outsider we would
seem rather cold. Lately, we seem to be trying to compete with other
zendo's as if we had to prove our validity just because we are an online
sangha. If the Buddha taught there is no self, then would it hurt to drop
the shield every once in a while, leave the buddha-jargon alone, and just
show someone else our human heart? Is that ok? Just to be human? Just
to care about someone else? Not always be trying to preach?

gassho
Greg

Don't worry Greg, both the rough and the soft are here in this Sangha. I won't speak for Erik, but I doubt he's much offended by the admonition because it's juxtaposed next to the news of his mother's health. That's how life is, really...the smooth and the rough, the hard and the soft, the sunny days and rainy days - all jumbled up in a big old mess of life that oddly isn't really all that messy except in our thinking about it.

If you stay, stay. If you go, we wish you well.

Chet

[Stephanie]

Re: Jundo's latest vid

IMO: if you want a hug, go to a friend. If you want to wake up, go to the zendo.

If you want a gallon of milk, go to the grocery store. If you want a pair of sneakers, go in the shoe store.

I don't believe it's uncompassionate to be direct, to hand over a broom instead of offer a hug. It's just a different kind of compassion.

One would be ridiculous to march into the shoe store and rail about how uncompassionate the proprietors are that they don't sell milk. "But there are so many hungry children in the world! What are you doing to help? Think of the children1!!!" Uh, go to the corner store next door.

This isn't to say we can't be kind, or that conventional kindness isn't part of the Way. But when a teacher offers you something that doesn't look or sound or feel like conventional kindness, I think that's a moment when a humble and faithful person might ask, "What is he trying to teach me here?" And listen.

Kisa Gotami could have gone back to the Buddha and said, "You are a very uncompassionate man. You sent me on a fruitless goose chase, and my son is still dead." She could have marched off and went looking for the local medicine man. She could have went looking for Jesus, who wasn't so hesitant to raise a few dead folks here and there to stay the tears of crying mothers.

Thich Nhat Hanh says, "The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the earth." Jesus showed the miracle of walking on the water. The Buddha showed Kisa Gotami the miracle of walking on the earth. I think this was ultimately more compassionate.

What I understand Jundo to be saying, about "homemakers": do we want to wake up, or not? And if we do, are we not prepared to be challenged? To be uncomfortable? What are we coming here for? Are we students, are we Zen practitioners, or are we a social club that gives group hugs and Kleenex when someone shares a sad story?

I am not insensitive to the difficulty of what Erik is facing. I just don't feel like it's my place to offer kind sympathies and a hug. I feel it would be insincere, because I hardly know him personally. That doesn't seem to me to be what we're here for. I am his sangha-mate, and my understanding of sangha is that it is a community of people who press one another to wake up. The reason for Tangaryo in my mind, is that once you walk through the doors, you're going to go through much more difficulty as you have to let go of everything you believe and want to hold on to. This is the shared work we are engaged in. We could kiss one another's boo-boos but is that helping us wake up? We don't have to be "stoic," but we have to be willing to face the hard stuff.

[ghop]

Re: Jundo's latest vid

Thanks Stephanie and Chett. Again, I mean no disrespect.
I'm just trying to get my head around all this stuff. I have
alot to learn. I come from a different background and tend
to see things differently. As to Jesus, maybe alot of those
stories have a deeper meaning then what is often read into
them. I know He's brought me back to life a few times, and
likewise, the Buddha has often made me feel like I could walk
on water. I'll practice the "Art Of Shutting Up" for a while. I
seem to be wrong at every turn. I just think if the Buddha were
here (and he is, hello :shock: ) he would be a little more concerned
about people and a little less concerned about buddhism. But, then
again, after years of practice, maybe I'll see things differently.

IMO: if you want a hug, go to a friend. If you want to wake up, go to the zendo.

Thanks for the head's up. But nobody here seems to be very awake.

gassho
Greg

[Dosho]

Re: Jundo's latest vid

Erik: Very sorry to hear about your mother. As Jundo said, if there is anything we can do please let us know.

I do understand this, Taigu. My understanding is that your schedule is very busy. In a more traditional Sangha, there would be classes - because like so many Zen things, the way you do it is pretty particular - and to Americans, sewing itself is pretty foreign.

Can be. Is your sense of righteous service to the technically correct now thoroughly sated? LOL!

Chet

If there ever was a greater case of the pot calling the kettle black, I haven't heard of it. And you missed my point entirely, but that's not altogether suprising.

[chicanobudista]

Re: Jundo's latest vid

Intermission.

Just to clarify. I didn't mention my mother for brownie pts or hugs. I get those from my momma.

One of my pts is this forum is great, but putting things in perspective. This whole discussion on rakusu and importance of sewing is great, but I have learned a lot more in the time I am with my mother in this juncture of her life.

When the rakusu is not on you physically, where is it? Where do you carry it? Where did you leave it? The old tattered rakusu that has no ink it it. The lineage that goes back to Buddha with a lineage of unknown teachers. Here it is in my heart. I sew it each moment. No videos...just life.

[Stephanie]

Re: Jundo's latest vid

When the rakusu is not on you physically, where is it? Where do you carry it? Where did you leave it? The old tattered rakusu that has no ink it it. The lineage that goes back to Buddha with a lineage of unknown teachers. Here it is in my heart. I sew it each moment. No videos...just life.

Gassho... thanks for this.

Reminds me of some lines by Ikkyu:

Every day priests minutely examine the Dharma
And endlessly chant complicated sutras.
Before doing that, though, they should learn
How to read the love letters sent by the wind and rain, the snow and moon.

[chicanobudista]

Re: Jundo's latest vid

Reminds me of some lines by Ikkyu:

Every day priests minutely examine the Dharma
And endlessly chant complicated sutras.
Before doing that, though, they should learn
How to read the love letters sent by the wind and rain, the snow and moon.

Beautiful.........

deep bow....