Practice

With palms together


Good Morning Everyone,



Yesterday afternoon after Zen services, Soku Shin, Suki, and I went for a desert hike. We ended up doing 4.2 miles over often very rough terrain. It was very good getting out and doing something physical. I have missed the awareness that comes with it: the air was crisp, the sun was high, and the sky very blue. A wonderful combo for a hike.



At the Temple I addressed that part of the Master Dogen’s Genjokoan that speaks to the study of the Buddha Way, the part that says, “To study the Buddha Way is to study the self” and “to study the self is to let the self fall away.” “To let the self fall away is to be realized by the myriad things.” So, the Buddha way is a selfless way, a way leading to unification with all things. And when we are unified? Does the we of We continue to be? Or is there just the all of All, leaving All empty, as well? I think it is so.



Long distance running, bicycling, entering a koan, becoming one with the mountains: such unifications leave no two. But no two means no one. And so? Dogen says a trace is left, emerging from our falling away. Awakening is a teaser, if you will, like a movie trailer, or the spots on the TV wetting your appetite for the next show. One cannot be without two; non-duality demands duality.



Good grief, when I talk like this I get a headache. Or I want to tape my mouth shut. It’s all so meaningless. What is meaningful? The sitting itself. The living itself. The doing, it’s the doing, that is important and meaningful, not the talking about the doing.



We manifest through our practice. So, for those who don’t sit, who don’t have the discipline to practice get a grip. Do what you do! Regardless of what comes up, be there. It’s our life.



Now that I have said this, I am saying I am also saying I am back in the training saddle.



Obligatory Running Note (ORN): 7/10ths mile at o’dark-thirty in the freezing cold of the New Mexico desert air.



Be well.