Musings

With palms together,

Good Morning Everyone,

Someone reminded me yesterday that I promised a flood of email teachings after receiving my MacBook Pro for my birthday.  No flood is coming.  I have, however, been working on my book, “Living Zen: the Diary of an American Zen Priest,” and it should be ready for distribution in a week.  I have a “proof” copy in my hands and will tell you that it looks good.  Its hefty, weighing in at 410 pages, and I’m told it is an interesting read.  

The book is an edited collection of my writing from the year 2007.  It includes my understanding of my life at that time and how my life and Zen became one. There are teachings on a variety of issues, the Diamond sutra, the Paramitas, Zazen, etc., but more importantly for me, anyway, is that they reflect my reflection on how Zen offers us teachings regarding ourselves as we interact with the world.  

Zen is not a thing.  It is life itself.  Life lived awake and direct.  From a Zen point of view, everything is a teacher, a source of awakening.  How we live, where our mind is in any given moment, is all there is: it is this that we practice.  All the rest, the robes, bells, altars, incense, all of it is just an invitation to enter the stream. 

I’ve found many of us reject these invitations.  And with good reason.  The objects and rituals are not the thing so attachment to them is just as serious a mistake as attachment to mu, perhaps an even larger mistake.  Attachment to forms make us impostors. Consider that.  

For those who reject the invitations, may I ask you to reconsider.  For those who accept the invitations, may I ask you to reconsider, as well. I ask you, by way of invitation, to just live.

Gassho

PS, we will meet in the zendo this evening at 6:30 for Study.  Please remember to bring your book.  I think it is time to wrap up this text and choose another.