"Enemies," Confessions & Chances to Practice!

[Kyonin]

Also, even for smaller matters, it takes two to tango ... the annoying and the annoyed, and ultimately all is empty. I sometimes tell this personal story, and a famous parable of the boat from Joko Beck ...

Right! It takes two people to have a fight. This has been a big truth trough all my life. I am often labelled as a nihilist or people get really uncomfortable when I don't engage in conflict.

That's not because I don't care, it's because I truly believe that things can get solved in a civil and calm way.

Still, it takes a lot of attention to emotions to realize when you are about to drop a verbal bomb that will spark a fight.

Gassho,

Kyonin

[Omoi Otoshi]

One further important point is that we do not see people as "bad", even if some of their actions are so. Even the criminal who commits the most heinous crime is also, in his or her way, a victim of greed, anger and ignorance ... the true culprit. That does not mean we don't put such people in prison, but we also see them as sentient beings driven by delusion.

For me, this is very important! If and when you can truly see the three poisons at work in your antagonist, you will automatically see him as the victim he really is. Just putting him in the "three poisons box" isn't enough though. You have to look deeper. Really try to understand who the other person is and why he does what he does. If you do, sometimes compassion will arise instead of anger.

It is equally important to know how the poisons work in yourself. Why are you clinging so hard to this particular idea of yours? What is it in you that makes you feel so much anger/aversion towards the other person or what he's saying? Could it even be possible that you are wrong, but you hate to admit it? Are you missing an opportunity to learn (or teach) because of your own pride?

It's important to accept people as they are and not wish they were different. Learn who they are, and you may find they are not so different from yourself after all... Accept all the faults and short comings in yourself, others and the world we live in.

Last, but not least, forgive both yourself and others. Don't carry things around. Don't nurture the wrong seeds. When you drop it all and forgive, you can start to understand and be compassionate.

Gassho,
Pontus

PS. Marriage is a great opportunity for practice! DS.

[Jinyo]

Love it! Clean and simple, thank you Jundo.

Gassho
Michael

yes - absolutely!




Willow

[Seizan]

Still, it is hard. My son or wife (usually the people closest to us) can push our buttons sometimes. In our house, it is the usual stuff. Yesterday, I almost broke a foot stepping on some toy my son had left on the floor. Then, my wife got the chocolate ice cream when I SPECIFICALLY said cookies-&-cream!

Also, even for smaller matters, it takes two to tango ... the annoying and the annoyed, and ultimately all is empty.

Love the first part Jundo- it made me giggle out loud. And the second part I really take to heart!

Gassho

[RichardH]

For me the "enemies" are the real scorched earth ones... a spouse's cancer diagnosis, collapse of income, the
kid's Tourette's syndrome seeming to cast a shadow on his future. These are challenges to my equanimity. I'll be
calm and just do what needs to be done during such times, but then suddenly some little comment or additional
nuisance will bring out a burst of temper.. or a need to walk away and get some air. I just need to be messed
up.. or be the messedupedness, including the acting-out when knowing better. Though apologies may be needed.

The little enemies, like getting speeding ticket, or having a proposal flop, tend to disappear after the next
zazen reset. A couple of days ago there was a chaotic morning in this multi-generational house, with all kinds
of chatter and raised voices at the front door. Our neighbor, who was just heading to work, appeared to look at
us and ... roll his eyes. "Did he roll his eyes at us?". Suddenly, he was the bad neighbor.. and if in that
moment I were to engage that bad neighbor, there would have been a sick little feedback loop. As it happens
the next morning I saw him after sitting zazen, and because of that reset, he was a fresh face, and that is how
I engaged him. He responded with equal freshness, because all it takes is one of us to make it fresh.

My wife and I use to have a joke that our favourite game for long road trips was "The little things about you
that bug me". That was long ago, and we have just learned not to juice that kind of thing, because we are
imperfect and weird, but our family is a big basket that can easily hold everything. So, not picking on those
things is good skill IMHO..


Gassho, kojip

[Jundo]

For me the "enemies" are the real scorched earth ones... a spouse's cancer diagnosis, collapse of income, the
kid's Tourette's syndrome seeming to cast a shadow on his future. These are challenges to my equanimity. I'll be
calm and just do what needs to be done during such times, but then suddenly some little comment or additional
nuisance will bring out a burst of temper.. or a need to walk away and get some air. I just need to be messed
up.. or be the messedupedness, including the acting-out when knowing better. Though apologies may be needed.

The little enemies, like getting speeding ticket, or having a proposal flop, tend to disappear after the next
zazen reset. A couple of days ago there was a chaotic morning in this multi-generational house, with all kinds
of chatter and raised voices at the front door. Our neighbor, who was just heading to work, appeared to look at
us and ... roll his eyes. "Did he roll his eyes at us?". Suddenly, he was the bad neighbor.. and if in that
moment I were to engage that bad neighbor, there would have been a sick little feedback loop. As it happens
the next morning I saw him after sitting zazen, and because of that reset, he was a fresh face, and that is how
I engaged him. He responded with equal freshness, because all it takes is one of us to make it fresh.

My wife and I use to have a joke that our favourite game for long road trips was "The little things about you
that bug me". That was long ago, and we have just learned not to juice that kind of thing, because we are
imperfect and weird, but our family is a big basket that can easily hold everything. So, not picking on those
things is good skill IMHO..


Gassho, kojip

Oh, wonderful wonderful.

I told a friend yesterday that I have been Still and Thoroughly At Peace even amid serious car accidents, fires, emergency room visits where one of our kids was very seriously ill and near death, my own illness, a cancer scare, the death of loved ones, the cat being hit by a car, hurricanes shaking the roof, earthquakes, an emergency landing on a jet with one engine, my mother's cancer and death, and last year's nuclear meltdown just 100 miles from here and our evacuation ... Thoroughly Totally Okay with it all. I don't mean that I was just okay at the time, but Totally Timelessly A-Ok before, during and after.

(Oh, don't get me wrong. When I say "Still and at Peace" and "Thoroughly Totally Okay with it all" ... I mean that certain Buddha Stillness and One Piece-Peace that is at the center and sweeps through the simultaneous and totally natural experiences of fear, adrenalin release, heart pounding, sometime worry, sadness and grief that is hard wired into us humans and is part of being alive in such situations. Our Zen Practice is not always an "either/or" experience, and one can know Peace and panic, a Buddha's Smile and tears at once sometimes! I am the kind of guy who feels that, when there is a tiger at the door, we were built to run with our hair on end ... even if part of us has thoroughly transcended "life and death". I talk about that from time to time).

Here is when our daughter was in the ICU ...

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?9365-SIT-A-LONG-with-JUNDO-Xin-Xin-Ming-%28XIII%29-Child-in-Hospital&p=69978&viewfull=1#post69978

Here is after the Tsunami and meltdown ...

http://www.treeleaf.org/sit-a-long/with-jundo-and-taigu/archives/2011/09/sit-a-long-with-jundo-xin-xin-ming---iv---eye-of-storm.html

Now, that being said ... if my wife says something in the car about "let's ask for directions" when we are lost, or my kid doesn't do his homework after my telling him for the 5th time, or the bank clerk is rude and I snap back on a bad day ... I sometimes forget everything I ever learned about Buddhism and make a complete ass of myself. It is sometimes the "small things" that are hard to practice with.

I am not yet a Perfect Buddha who manifests equanimity in each and every situation (Even though, of course, you me and the other guy are always, ever, Perfect Buddha from the start). Fortunately, I know how I was 30 years ago before all this Zen Practice, and how I am now. In the ongoing wrestling match between Buddha and Mara (Ignorance), Buddha wins every time and is undefeated, even if Mara sometimes temporarily gets him in a headlock. That is one reason we say this Zen Way is always good "Practice".

I sometimes post the following on what I think ultimately makes a good Zen Teacher, and it is the reason Taigu (if I may speak for him) and I still have the chutzpah (nerve) to stand here as the "teachers" in this Practice Place despite being sometimes more "Zen Ass" than "Zen Master".

------------------------------------------

In our Zen practice we taste a realm beyond all desire ... beyond "we" ... a view by which there is nothing lacking, so no base or object for greed ... where all hate, longing and despair evaporate, all swept away in peace and wholeness. There is such Liberation, and it can be known by anyone who follows this Way of Zen.

But so long as we are human beings ... whether an 80 year old man or a child of age 3 ... we must also live in this ordinary realm of flesh and blood, among its choices and desires ... a world where "you" and "me" are separate too, where we may feel lack and greed ... be subject to anger, longing and times of despair. So long as we are in this world ... so-called "Zen Master" or not ... we cannot escape fully the realm of Samsara (even if, ultimately, there is no other to stumble into, no place we can fall).

Oh, I am not trying to excuse any truly heinous abuses or scandals which have been seen among clergy of all traditions, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist no less. NOT AT ALL! I have little tolerance for members of the clergy who abuse their positions of trust and hurt others, sometimes children. But also we must be cautious of anyone who wants to be our teacher by telling us that they are beyond all failings, never ever break a Precept (not even the small ones), are "Perfectly Enlightened Beings" who never trip and fall down. I'll believe it when I see it! I believe that the only "perfect" masters are those that may exist in the the pages of old Zen stories, written when the real folks were long dead, scrubbing them clean of every blemish and failing. In fact, if we might travel back in time to meet these fellows "in the flesh," we would find that each and every one was probably just "people" like you and me, with good points and (likely) a few rough edges and minor bad habits... like all people. Okay, maybe extra-ordinarily Wise and Compassionate and Enlightened, sure ... but people.

Of course, "Enlightenment" is a realization that there is no place to fall, no self to stumble, no "mistake" that can ever be made from the start. That is true. But it is just as true that there is no place to fall, no stumbling or possible mistake... even as we may fall and stumble and make mistakes!

All human beings have the tendency to fall down from time to time. I guess it is just a matter of what the person does then ... picking themselves up, recovering balance, getting back on the trail, apologizing and learning from any damage caused. Like any great athlete, the point is not that we never get knocked around, never trip or stumble ... but how we handle the fall (as in the martial arts ... there is no training offered on how to never fall, but endless training on how to fall well). Show me the man or woman who falls down sometimes ... but who demonstrates how to fall well and recover one's footing ... and I will show you a great Zen teacher.

---------------------------------------

Gassho, Jundo

[Jundo]

For those into Brother Brad Warner, I was pleased to see that he wrote something in a similar vein to the above today (phrased in a Brad sort of way, of course) ...

http://hardcorezen.info/why-i-am-still-a-buddhist/1373

Gassho, J

[Mp]

All human beings have the tendency to fall down from time to time. I guess it is just a matter of what the person does then ... picking themselves up, recovering balance, getting back on the trail, apologizing and learning from any damage caused. Like any great athlete, the point is not that we never get knocked around, never trip or stumble ... but how we handle the fall ...

Deep gassho
Michael

[Seizan]

I have no words to reply, Jundo, but I felt a reply was warranted!



Gassho

[Jinyo]

Thank you Kojip

I also agree with Jundo that it's often the little things that throw us. Sometimes we may have a sense of satisfaction that we have coped well with a major crisis - but I get very niggled with myself whan I over-react in trivial situations. That's when I'm reminded that practice needs to be worked upon moment to moment because we are all too human.

Gassho

Willow

[Kyonin]

Thank you, Jundo.

Deep Gassho,

Kyonin

[Jiken]

But so long as we are human beings ... whether an 80 year old man or a child of age 3 ... we must also live in this ordinary realm of flesh and blood, its choices and desires ... a world where "you" and "me" are separate too, where we may feel lack and greed ... subject to anger, longing and times of despair. So long as we are in this world ... so-called "Zen Master" or not ... we cannot escape fully the realm of Samsara (even if, ultimately, there is no other to stumble into, no place we can fall).

Great post and a great reminder for me. In a line of work where when I clock in i become infused with the three poisons it so easy to get lost and poisoned myself. A continuous practice of the three treasures. Letting it go and fighting all at the same time.

Gassho,

Daido

[RichardH]

Thank you for this wonderful, grounded, encouragement and teaching, Jundo.

Gassho,kojip.

[Myozan Kodo]

Hi,
This is very good. Thanks everyone.
Gassho,
Myozan