June 7, 2016 Sangha Gathering

After settling in, and before meditation, we heard part of an essay by Zen teacher and author Karen Maezen Miller titled “The First Noble Misunderstanding”

We might be drawn to meditation because we want more out of life and ourselves. We might want to be more centered, for example. More peaceful. More focused. More balanced. More patient. More mellow. More wise. More like my ex-boyfriend who liked to meditate.

These may be all the reasons we are drawn to meditation, but they are not the reasons we meditate. We meditate because there is a six-foot flame dancing on top of our heads. It has made us mighty uncomfortable for quite some time up there. We try to pretend otherwise, but have you noticed? We have a fire on our heads! It keeps crossing the containment lines! The temperature shoots up and we prance about, panicked, frantic, holding our breath lest we stoke the inferno, but it rages anyway. About the time our eyebrows singe, we might heed the call of rescue. ...

… (In meditation) what you begin to see is that the place where you thought your life occurred — the cave of rumination and memory, the cauldron of anxiety and fear — isn’t where your life takes place at all. Those mental recesses are where pain occurs, but life occurs elsewhere, in a place we are usually too preoccupied to notice, too distracted to see: right in front of our eyes. The point of meditation is to stop making things up and see things as they are.

At the conclusion of our meditation period, we heard this quote from Thich Nhat Hanh:

The mind can go in a thousand directions,

But on this beautiful path, I walk in peace.

With each step, a gentle wind blows.

With each step, a flower blooms.

For the Dharma talk/reading, we read from Thich Nhat Hanh’s seminal book “Peace is Every Step” (p. 77 in The Thich Nhat Hanh Collection)

During announcements, we shared that our next meeting is 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 21, in ICPL Room A.

In closing, we read two quotes, the first from Kozan Ichikyo:

Empty-handed I entered

the world,

Barefoot I leave it.

My coming, my going--

Two simple happenings

That got entangled.

The second was a poem from Rumi:

Lord, the air smells good today,
straight from the mysteries
within the inner courts of God.
A grace like new clothes thrown
across the garden, free medicine for everybody.
The trees in their prayer, the birds in praise,
the first blue violets kneeling.
Whatever came from Being is caught up in being, drunkenly
forgetting the way back.

Bowing,

Stephen

June 7, 2016 Sangha Gathering

After settling in, and before meditation, we heard part of an essay by Zen teacher and author Karen Maezen Miller titled “The First Noble Misunderstanding”

We might be drawn to meditation because we want more out of life and ourselves. We might want to be more centered, for example. More peaceful. More focused. More balanced. More patient. More mellow. More wise. More like my ex-boyfriend who liked to meditate.

These may be all the reasons we are drawn to meditation, but they are not the reasons we meditate. We meditate because there is a six-foot flame dancing on top of our heads. It has made us mighty uncomfortable for quite some time up there. We try to pretend otherwise, but have you noticed? We have a fire on our heads! It keeps crossing the containment lines! The temperature shoots up and we prance about, panicked, frantic, holding our breath lest we stoke the inferno, but it rages anyway. About the time our eyebrows singe, we might heed the call of rescue. ...

… (In meditation) what you begin to see is that the place where you thought your life occurred — the cave of rumination and memory, the cauldron of anxiety and fear — isn’t where your life takes place at all. Those mental recesses are where pain occurs, but life occurs elsewhere, in a place we are usually too preoccupied to notice, too distracted to see: right in front of our eyes. The point of meditation is to stop making things up and see things as they are.

At the conclusion of our meditation period, we heard this quote from Thich Nhat Hanh:

The mind can go in a thousand directions,

But on this beautiful path, I walk in peace.

With each step, a gentle wind blows.

With each step, a flower blooms.

For the Dharma talk/reading, we read from Thich Nhat Hanh’s seminal book “Peace is Every Step” (p. 77 in The Thich Nhat Hanh Collection)

During announcements, we shared that our next meeting is 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 21, in ICPL Room A.

In closing, we read two quotes, the first from Kozan Ichikyo:

Empty-handed I entered

the world,

Barefoot I leave it.

My coming, my going--

Two simple happenings

That got entangled.

The second was a poem from Rumi:

Lord, the air smells good today,
straight from the mysteries
within the inner courts of God.
A grace like new clothes thrown
across the garden, free medicine for everybody.
The trees in their prayer, the birds in praise,
the first blue violets kneeling.
Whatever came from Being is caught up in being, drunkenly
forgetting the way back.

Bowing,

Stephen

May 31, 2016 Sangha Gathering

After our welcome, introductions and check-in, we prepared for meditation with a quote from Jean Klein: “It is a very high art to live with silence and not touch it, not manipulate it with the already known, with memory.”

At the conclusion of our meditation, we heard from Rilke:

You see, I want a lot.

Perhaps I want everything:

the darkness that comes with every infinite fall

and the shivering blaze of every step up.

So many live on and want nothing

and are raised to the rank of prince

by the slippery ease of their light judgments.

But what you love to see are faces

that do work and feel thirst…

You have not grown old, and it is not too late

to dive into your increasing depths

where life calmly gives out its own secret.

(tr. Robert Bly)

For the Dharma talk/reading, Sangha members took turns reading aloud several traditional Zen stories. Before we began, I noted that one of the things I find so appealing and satisfying about the Buddhism tradition is the many Zen masters and practitioners who demonstrate deep wisdom, keen insight, and a kind of playful, even mischievous imperturbability.

I noted that this wry humor comes across in the koans, mind puzzles (“what is the sound of one hand clapping?” and “what was your face before your mother was born?”) intended to confound the discursive mind and make space for real breakthroughs of insight and even enlightenment; in haikus, the short Japanese poems that often contrast two distinctive images observed by the writer in some seasonal setting, like mist and cranes in a pond in spring; and of course Zen stories or tales.

The three stories follow:

Maybe

There is a Taoist story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years.

One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit.

"Such bad luck," they said sympathetically.

"Maybe," the farmer replied.

The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses.

"How wonderful," the neighbors exclaimed.

"Maybe," replied the old man.

The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune.

"Maybe," answered the farmer.

The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son's leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.

"Maybe," said the farmer.

Crossing the River

Two traveling monks reached a river where they met a beautiful young woman.

Wary of the current, the woman asked if they would carry her across.

One of the monks hesitated, but the other quickly picked her up onto his shoulders, transported her across the water, and put her down on the other bank. She thanked him, bowed, and departed.

As the monks continued along their way, the second monk became sullen and preoccupied. He kicked at the dirt on the path and frowned, completely lost in his thoughts. Finally, unable to hold his silence, he spoke out.

"Brother, our spiritual training teaches us to avoid any contact with women. But you picked that one up on your shoulders and carried her!"

"Brother," the first monk replied, "I set her down on the other side, while you are still carrying her."

Who Cares What You Think?

A young man went to a zen master. After practicing for a time the student went off on his own with instructions to faithfully send a letter to the master every month, giving an account of his spiritual progress.

In the first month the student wrote, “I now feel an expansion of consciousness and experience of oneness with the universe.”

The master glanced at the note and threw it away.

Next month this is what the letter said: “I finally discovered the holiness that is present in all things.”

The master seemed vaguely disappointed.

A month later, the disciple enthusiastically explained, “The mystery of the one and the many has been revealed to my wondering gaze.”

The master yawned.

Two months later another letter arrived: “No one is born, no one lives, no one dies, for the self is an illusion.”

The master threw up his hands in despair, because each letter was asking for a response, “Is this it? Is this it? Is this it?”

After that, a month passed, then two, three, five, and then a whole year. The master thought it was time to remind the disciple of his duty to keep him informed of his spiritual progress. So he sent the student a letter. The disciple wrote back, “Who cares what you think?”

When the master read those words, a great look of satisfaction spread over his face. “Finally, he got it!”

During announcements, I shared that our next sangha meeting is in ICPL Room A from 1:30-3 p.m. Sunday, June 19. I also noted that Sharon Salzberg, a Dharma teacher and founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts (along with people like Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield), will be in Madison for a few events in August, including a retreat.

At closing, I shared that the previous Saturday morning I walked from my apartment to the Farmer’s Market downtown, and just as I was leaving, I looked up and saw three herons soaring high above in the direction of Hickory Hill Park. I’d never seen three together like that.

The sky was a little overcast and these great birds were skimming the underbellies of the clouds, fading into the mist and then reappearing, dreamlike, graceful, and large as pterodactyls.

It was one of those moments that strikes you, reminds you how incredibly precious and lovely life is, and what a great fortune it is to be alive here and now.

We forget, of course. The mind is like a puppy on the end of a leash, going everywhere but straight, running back to the past, galloping off to the future.

So we meditate. We breathe. We gather here every couple of weeks when there are a hundred other things we could or perhaps should be doing. We remember to slow down when we walk, when we eat, when others are talking so we can listen deeply -- to bring them joy, to ease their suffering.

We strive to be mindful -- completely present in the best possible way to this precious and fleeting moment.

We ended with a poem by Ellen Bass called “If You Knew”:

What if you knew you’d be the last

to touch someone?

If you were taking tickets, for example,

at the theater, tearing them,

giving back the ragged stubs,

you might take care to touch that palm,

brush your fingertips

along the life line’s crease.

When a man pulls his wheeled suitcase

too slowly through the airport, when

the car in front of me doesn’t signal,

when the clerk at the pharmacy

won’t say Thank you, I don’t remember

they’re going to die.

A friend told me she’d been with her aunt.

They’d just had lunch and the waiter,

a young gay man with plum black eyes,

joked as he served the coffee, kissed

her aunt’s powdered cheek when they left.

Then they walked half a block and her aunt

dropped dead on the sidewalk.

How close does the dragon’s spume

have to come? How wide does the crack

in heaven have to split?

What would people look like

if we could see them as they are,

soaked in honey, stung and swollen,

reckless, pinned against time?

Bowing,

Stephen