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From Shinei…

How do you meet your life? This life right now? Are you meeting it as a task to be accomplished? A problem to fix? As an opponent to brace yourself against? Right now, you have a choice. Take a deep breath, relax the body and drop all notions of past and future. What do you notice now? Can you feel the touch of your clothing on your skin? Can you smell the air? What sounds do you hear? Where does your body feel the earth? Where does the earth feel your body?

This life is not a problem to be solved. It is not a goal to be accomplished. You are not a problem to be fixed. You are not a goal to be accomplished. You, this life, are a miraculous appearance to be deeply experienced and appreciated. Please appreciate your life. THIS life, now and here.

Zen practice is a way of life. Does this life have some destination? If we answer this question using the mind of opposites, then the destination is death. Life and death. But surely this life is way more complex than this, as is death. So let’s set that approach aside and consider that life has no opposite. No destination. And from this viewpoint, what we are left with is a moment-by-moment, breath by-breath, step-by-step flow, reality of now. Zen practice helps us notice this now . Over time it strengthens an appreciation of  being as is, just as we are, embedded in these once-only moments that make up the parade of our human life. Is there an opposite of just this?

On Sunday we are marking the New Year with zazen and by ringing the bell 108 times. Each of us takes a turn ringing the bell and being reminded of how we contribute our practice to the sangha jewel. The number 108 indicates the “defilements” which we can all get caught up in when we are infected and motivated by the three poisons – greed, anger and ignorance. The number 108 is derived by multiplying the 6 senses X 3 feelings – pleasant, unpleasant or neutral X 2, whether internally generated or externally occurring X the 3 times – past, present and future. Ringing the bell 108 times reminds us.

This Bell of Mindfulness expresses our Bodhisattva vows as our first act of the new year.  Each time we hear the voice of the bell, we indicate atonement for past harms and are sending out a vow for liberation from suffering, for ourselves and for all beings. It reverberates well beyond our immediate intention, resonating throughout the world of samsara and arousing the spirit of enlightenment.  Please join us for this wonderful ceremony which begins at 9:30pm this Sunday night.

Poem from Rohatsu Sesshin

A seed is planted, a wheat stalk grows.
A farmer takes her scythe to harvest.
A grain is milled into a fine flour.
A baker turns the flour to bread.
A man buys the bread and slices it.
This is the one universe of time.
And with each slice,

A moment of now.

~ Cassady Zen’etsu Coakley

Image: Taigen during samu

Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken. Have you heard this before? In Zen we are always saying that no one else can awaken to our  life for us. We don’t need to be anyone else. We cannot be anyone else. There is no need to be anyone else. The Buddha extended the compassion of this teaching, what he discovered from his own ripening practice, by pointing us back to our own experience. Our challenge is to look deeply into it and embrace our life as our spiritual endowment. What we do with our endowment is up to us. We have a responsibility not to squander it, not to be careless with any of its moments. No one is unfolding your life but you. Your own gifts and propensities, unique challenges to practice with, and unique ways of expressing, of shining your own light. This is of supreme value. Each of us, as we are.

While some of us are sitting sesshin this coming week, whenever you think of us, please stop for a moment and take a mindful breath, or several. Look around and appreciate the blessings that you are receiving this very moment. And reflect on what you are offering this very moment – in support of us in sesshin, and in support of all beings where you are. If you’d like to join in this season of Rohatsu sesshin, and celebrate Buddha awakening, add another period of zazen to your daily practice and dedicate it to the well-being of all the great variety of beings who are sharing this moment on Earth with you. This is the opportunity that receiving a human life offers to us all.