Blogma
exploring the Dharma one blog post at a time...
Dharma Blog Posts – Posts by Buddhist teachers or senior practitioners on specific Buddhist teachings. They are educational, instructive, or insightful posts to help others understand the teachings of Buddha.
Sangha Member Blog Posts – Posts by Sangha members (members practicing with Corvallis Zen Circle) about their experiences and their Zen practice on the path to awakening.
The Middle Way
The Buddha taught the Middle Way and explicated its meaning. The middle way reminds us to notice when we are caught in some fixed dogma and misunderstand the import of actual conditions. The Middle Way teaching reminds us to get caught neither in the search for happiness through the pleasure of the senses, nor to turn away entirely to a path of self-denial or mortification. Both extremes lead to countless difficulties and deny the complexities of living as a precious, conscious being in a complex world.
Yes, the pleasure of the senses is part of the sweetness at the bottom of the pie of our life. But it’s momentary and changes according to the other ingredients. Truthfully, we are continually faced with a great variety of provisions, the various tastes of daily life. Our experience calls us to free ourselves from unwholesome habits and explore freshly more nuanced responses. What are the “tastes” that are being served up today? How do they nourish awakening? Even the bitter? Even the salty? Even the bland? It’s up to us and whether we are willing to receive the nourishment of our ordinary life and to trust it as the best dish to nourish awakening.
Exhale
We hear so much about practicing with breath, counting the breath, following the breath. It’s not uncommon especially when we first take up Zen practice to hear these words with half a heart, partial attention. We can easily be breathing half-heartedly while the other half is thinking about breathing…. or thinking about a million other things. But there’s a discovery to be made here, which is why it’s so emphasized and worth exploring. That’s the wonder of whole, entire, all-in breathing.
What happens to our practice when we actually pay whole-hearted attention to the breath. Attention. Attention. Attention. This very practice we’re talking about here is not a consolation prize. It’s the grand prize. Ready for the taking. Start with the exhale. Not forced, not exaggerated, not straining in any fiber of your being. But just your natural exhale, where it all falls out.
Similar to the exhale we naturally experience when we’re so relieved, whew, all the way out, no more holding or holding back. Breathing out and then, just when you need it, the inhale flows effortlessly in. The breath is a birthright. Breath is the key to wholehearted presence. Even when you’re not aware of it, it functions. Rather like a vow. The breath is the great vow we share with all living beings.
Vow to Awaken
During this month we’re concentrating on the teachings on Vow. What habits do you want to cultivate that support a wish to be happy, and to bring the light of Dharma clarity into the world of interbeing, in your ordinary relationships. We live into our practice not only with the Zen sangha, but with family members, friends, co-workers, neighbors and even in brief encounters with other people and animals during the daily round.Ringing in the New Year
Happy New Year! Always a new day to awaken to Bodhi mind. What flows here and now is one life in service to all beings. Our inheritance from a long line of ancestors, ancient and current, inspires us and points out the Way. They have offered us many methods to clear our minds and hearts of the miseries of dissatisfaction, restlessness and affliction. We inherit their message to realize our larger self that extends to every corner of the universe and includes all that is. The Buddha said, “Be a lamp unto yourself. Work for your liberation with diligence.”
On Tuesday night we are celebrating the New Year together. How? At SJZC zazen comes first and then we ring the big bell 108 times. Each of us takes a turn ringing the bell, we all contribute our practice to the sangha jewel. You might wonder what the number 108 signifies? Well…
3 poisons (greed, hostility, ignorance of our true nature) X
6 senses (sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste, and mind) X
3 times (past, present, future) X
2 internally generated or externally occurring.
3 x 6 x 3 x 2 = 108
Tolling the Bell of Mindfulness expresses our Bodhisattva vow as our first act of the new year. Each time the bell resounds we atone for our past harmful actions and a vow for the liberation of all suffering beings is released. It reverberates, resonating throughout the troubled world of samsara. Please join us for this ceremony which begins at 9:30pm this coming Tuesday night.
Light and Darkness
Discerning light in the dark and dark in the light. This is the season where we can especially appreciate this way of living beyond opposites of light and dark, good and bad. We might think of them as an either/or proposition, but when we are free to the true balance of light and dark, it’s actually proportionate, a subtle slide, an infusion, one into the other. The coming of dawn in this winter moment of many-layered cloudiness is slow and barely discernible for a while. But there is a moment that comes when we can readily proclaim, “It’s dawn!” The frog in the rill beside the path mutters gently in the dim light of early morning. The progression is subtle, but sure.
This season of light in the darkness celebrates the whole subtle progression into birth…into the precious holiness of life. The sacred moment, the silent, the miraculous. Tonight, please light a candle, if you haven’t already, to express and affirm the commitment to the light of your life. What unseen forces bring you here to steady practice and bright awareness? Even if the mind does not seem bright all the time, that’s okay. Light and darkness are a pair, like the foot before and the foot behind in walking. The vow to awaken carries us……faith in the Way carries us. Participating in the cacophonies of life, the lights of connection and wholeheartedness surely leads us to awakening into Buddha mind. Buddha mind is innate, outside of and beyond words, we need only to glimpse and meet our moment face to face. Blessed solstice.
The River
The precepts.
Beyond precept study, reflection, and discussion, we emphasize the practice of zazen to clarify the precepts. Why?
The precepts are about living in integrity, harmoniously, in tune. But what are we tuning with? We are tuning with respect to our deeper nature.
What is our deeper nature? It is like a river. On the surface, there may be white water, eddies, obstacles, snags, times of fluidity and others of stagnation – yet below, the river has a clear, steady direction.
Our deeper nature goes with the flow. Going with the flow does not always look like the path of least resistance along the surface. Sometimes there are snags and white water on the horizon. But fighting the current is always burdensome and unproductive. As we sensitize and open, we awaken to the true situation in the river, and all it contains.
The precepts are about not opposing reality. Our personal reality, and reality around us – each in equal measure. Zazen is about being real, and reality has a direction.
May every obstacle further clarify this direction.