February 11th-12th Treeleaf Weekly Zazenkai - Nothing Special Happens

[Kaisui]

Sat with you all this morning, it was very special / nothing special

Gassho,
Kaisui
sat&lah

[Tomás ESP]

Thank you all for your practice. Nothing special, yet incredibly special

Gassho, Tomás
Sat

[Koushi]

Hi all!

In our effort to be as inclusive as possible, I will start posting transcriptions of each week's Zazenkai talk in that week's thread. Please let me know if you have any suggestions or feedback.

——

So I said our theme today was nothing special, no theme. We recently had many Zazenkai trying to focus on some special something. Our heavy metal Zazenkai, next week, we're going to have a memorial service for all the electronics that have passed its eight years that has kept us going here. But we don't always need to have something special. I think if a Zen teacher wants to leave you with one insight, one great wisdom, in your heart, it's that everything is special. Everything. I mean everything. Even the things that don't seem special at all.

We live in a world where everything is marketed, and has to have a slogan, and has to be the shiniest thing on the shelf: So it jumps out at you and makes you feel special for buying it. But Zen is a little different. It says "Everything is a shiny thing." Even the things that are old and rusty. Things that appear so ordinary that we don't even notice. Things too that displease us: all Special. Special moment. Special person. Special grain of sand, Special flower. Special rusty tin can on the side of the road, like that. It's all Special.

And a bit of homework I assign to you is, some time during each day, just look around—look at everything and just look at one thing. Doesn't have to be anything special you look at. And just for a moment remember: this is incredible. This is amazing. It is here and you are here. And it is Special. Even the things you don't want to see: the moments you don't welcome. Take a moment and remember it is Special.

And if you can't for some reason summon in your heart a feeling that "This is Special." Do me a favor and take it on trust. You can say to yourself; "Well, it doesn't feel very Special to me right now. But if Jundo said it is so, it must be." You can do that. But do that just a couple of times during the day, completely random moments. Looking at completely random things: a scratch on the wall, a crumpled piece of paper, a tax form you have to fill out—whatever it is—and remember how amazing, unique, this is.
--
Today I attended, by zoom of course, the memorial service—the 49th day memorial service—for my mentor, Doshin Cantor, who you know left this world. It's typical, traditional, in Buddhism that on the 49th day you have a memorial because in traditional beliefs, that's the day that one leaves the Bardo, the middle world, and finds a new rebirth.

So we all gathered, all his old friends from the dojo in Florida, and his other friends from many places and we remembered Mitch. He was nothing special. And he was everything. He was just another man, it was just another memorial service, for another person. Just like anyone, just like all of us, nothing special and everything special. Beautiful.

So there one of his friends, one of my dear friends, Jiho Abramowitz who's also a Soto Zen priest, read a poem by Doshin's teacher. Doshin's teacher was Peter Matthiessen. I met him a couple of times: just a very ordinary, wonderful, fellow who just happened to be a famous, best selling, novelist. But when he was a Zen fellow, he was just the guy next to you, sitting next to you, like that.

And one of his books is The Snow Leopard, about his time in the Himalayas. He was kind of an adventurer, Peter Matthiessen: looking for the snow leopard. And it's a beautiful book, I recommend it to everyone. And there was a poem read, which, by the way, I cannot find in the book but I'm gonna read it anyway. It says it's from the book and I could not find it, but I can imagine it is; because, you think going to the Himalayas is something fantastic. It's a great adventure! I'm sure it is.

But sometimes, it's just life and death terror if you read that book, literally: they're on the edge of a cliff about to tumble over. And other times it's just so tedious, so boring. So dull. Imagine: you're just walking in the snow, day after day, occasional rock, and more snow, and maybe some animal—more snow—it can be incredibly tedious, nothing special, after a while.

But he has this quote about sitting zazen somewhere on this trip. And I get the feeling it was written when it was just nothing special. Nothing is happening. So he's sitting zazen, nothing is happening, and he writes this, Peter Matthiessen:

"And gradually breathing subsides, becomes natural, until I subsist on sips of air. And all is still. Within this altered state, breathing takes over. The universe takes over. In a rush of imminence comes the knowing that everything is right here now. There is nothing outside this present moment. At the same time this everything is gathering. Something is happening."

And my friend Jiho added to that:

"Something, whatever this moment is, is happening. We don't always have to ask what. As a matter of fact: we can just greet it with silence. Something, something big, is happening. And we don't have to know or say what."

Let us sit.

——

Gassho,
Koushi
STLaH

[Tairin]

Koushi. As someone who is hearing impaired I appreciate the effort you are making to post the transcriptions of Jundo’s dharma talks. Thank you.


Tairin
Sat today and lah

[Meian]

Koushi, I also extend my deep gratitude for your efforts. This is so helpful! With illness and autism, sometimes sound becomes light, and light becomes sound -- and both can be very painful and "too much" at the same time. Text, I can control, however.

Deep Bows, meian stlh

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