Roshi Bernie Glassman on the costs and benefits of conceptual thinking

"Our ideas and concepts are very useful, but we have to see that they're models, in the way that the globe is a model of the Earth. It is not the Earth. If we know the globe is the Earth, if we're full of ideas and knowledge we think constitute reality, we'll be shocked time after time when things won't go as we know they should.

When we're bound by ideas and concepts, it's easy to anticipate how we'll act. That's our karma, our propensity to do things in a certain way. But if we can step back and look at that bondage, examine how we act. When we free ourselves of those fixed ideas, when we no longer know how we're going to act, therein lies our true freedom. Each moment the circumstances change, freeing us to not know what we are doing. Indeed, we are free because we don't know. Doing what's appropriate is the expression of our freedom from notions of what's appropriate. Letting go is the manifestation of the One Body; appropriate action is the manifestation of not-knowing."....from Infinite Circle..Teachings in Zen, Bernie Glassman, pg 68-69

Also check out these Chan sites of interest:

1. chancommunity.ca

2. How to chan meditate:

http://chancenter.org/cmc/chan-practice/how-to-meditate/

3. Master Sheng Yen in Facebook

4. The Western Chan Fellowship at http://www.westernchanfellowship.org/

5. Upcoming events at Dharma Drum in Vancouver http://www.ddmba.ca/ddmba/apps_ddm/htmls_e/activities_intro.php#compassion_repentance.php

5. Other Buddhist centres in the Comox Valley:

http://www.dharmafellowship.org/hermitage/ 

http://www.sherabchammaling.com/biography.html

6. And California at http://dharmatalks.riversidechan.org/2013_07_01_archive.html

Please note the change of phone number, ...call Adrian at 250 650 9055,

email adrian2@shaw.ca 

Following the Breath with Albert Low

Albert Low at the Montreal Zen Center comments on a student's evaluation of his own three year involvement in following the breath,

"Yes, this is very good, except if you have really been following the breath you have done so not for three years but for one breath." in WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT, Zen Questions Zen Answers by Albert Low, pg. 89

Also check out these Chan sites of interest:

1. chancommunity.ca

2. How to chan meditate:

http://chancenter.org/cmc/chan-practice/how-to-meditate/

3. Master Sheng Yen in Facebook

4. The Western Chan Fellowship at http://www.westernchanfellowship.org/

5. Upcoming events at Dharma Drum in Vancouver http://www.ddmba.ca/ddmba/apps_ddm/htmls_e/activities_intro.php#compassion_repentance.php

5. Other Buddhist centres in the Comox Valley:

http://www.dharmafellowship.org/hermitage/ 

http://www.sherabchammaling.com/biography.html

Call Adrian at 250 898 8201,

email adrian2@shaw.ca 

The Three Pure Precepts

Pics by Suzie Chatwin

Cease from Evil, Do Good, and Do Good for Others

Dogen Zenji says of the first pure precept, “Ceasing from evil is the abiding place of laws and rules of all buddhas.” This abiding place is the state of non-duality, of not-knowing and non-separation. The Sixth Ancestor of Zen defines zazen as the state of mind in which there is no separation between subject and object—no space between you and me, up and down, right or wrong. So we can also call this precept “Returning to the One.”

It’s a very difficult place to be in, this place where we don’t know what’s right and what’s wrong. It is the place of just being, of life itself. How many of us can say that we are open to all the ways of all lives? How many of us can say that we don’t have the answer? How many us can say that every way that’s being presented is the right way?

Zen is a practice that pushes us to realize what is. To me, zazen is a form of bearing witness to life, of bearing witness to the elimination of the denial of the oneness of our life. As human beings, each one of us is denying something. There are certain aspects of life we do not want to deal with, usually because we are afraid of them. Sometimes it is society itself that is in denial. Zazen allows us to bear witness to all of life. To me, that is the essence of the second pure precept, doing good. Dogen says, “Doing good, this is the dharma, supreme enlightenment. This is the way of all beings.” Bearing witness to things we are denying or that society is denying, bearing witness to the things we don’t want to deal with—this is the second precept. When we bear witness, we open to what is, and we learn. The things that we are in denial about teach us. We don’t go to them to teach them. When we can listen, when we can bear witness, they teach us.

For me, the flowering of zazen is the third pure precept, doing good for others. Dogen says, “This is to transcend the profane and to be beyond the holy. This is to liberate oneself and others.”

What good is it if we just make ourselves more holy? What’s the point? The point is to serve, to offer, to be the offering. Of itself the fruit is born. So we don’t have to worry about what to do. If we cease from evil, if we become that state of unknowing, if we become zazen, the offering will arise. The fruit will be born.

The question always come up: how do we bring our Zen into our life? But Zen is life. What is there to bring? And into what? The point is to see life as the practice field. Every aspect of our life has to become practice. I was trained in a traditional monastic model whose forms are conducive to the state of not-knowing. The question for me is, what forms can we create in modern society that will be conducive to seeing the oneness of life? What are the forms that will make it easier for us to experience that state of nonduality? Almost anything we do will cause more dualistic thinking. How do we lead ourselves, our brothers, and our sisters into a state of nonduality?

That’s the question. That’s the koan."....from http://zenpeacemakers.org/

View a short video by Master Guo Jun...http://www.tricycle.com/web-exclusive/returning-home

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Also check out these Chan sites of interest:

1. chancommunity.ca

2. How to chan meditate:

http://chancenter.org/cmc/chan-practice/how-to-meditate/

3. Master Sheng Yen in Facebook

4. The Western Chan Fellowship at http://www.westernchanfellowship.org/

5. Other Buddhist centres in the Comox Valley:

http://www.dharmafellowship.org/hermitage/ 

http://www.sherabchammaling.com/biography.html

Call Adrian at 250 898 8201,

email adrian2@shaw.ca 

Summer retreat with Master Guo Jun

Master Guo Jun on adapting teachings to the modern world:  "We have a traditional saying, If the disciple, no matter how you scold, will not run away, then you go to the next stage.  You chase him away. No matter how you try to chase him, if he doesn't run away, then you go to the third stage. You beat him. If he still doesn't run away, only then do you begin to teach him. 

If I used this method on my students and disciples, or just stared at them fiercely, or beat them, or made them do endless remedial tasks, they would say I had no compassion and head for the hills. How would I be able to spread the dharma and deliver sentient beings? Those are my vows. So I have adapted."....Master Guo Jun, from Tricycle, Spring 2013, A special Transmission, Teachings from the heart of the Chan Buddhist Tradition, pg. 107. 

Master Guo Jun also has a new book out.

And he will be leading a workshop this summer. Register early. He was the Abbot at Dharma Drum in New York State for three years. Underlying his fluent English, his contemporary knowledge of the western mind and his humour is the finger that is always pointing to the moon.

Courtenay Elementary is open again after the spring break. We will be meeting this Thursday the 11th.

Also check out these Chan sites of interest:

1. chancommunity.ca

2. How to chan meditate:

http://chancenter.org/cmc/chan-practice/how-to-meditate/

3. Master Sheng Yen in Facebook

4. The Western Chan Fellowship at http://www.westernchanfellowship.org/

5. Other Buddhist centres in the Comox Valley:

http://www.dharmafellowship.org/hermitage/ 

http://www.sherabchammaling.com/biography.html

Call Adrian at 250 898 8201,

email adrian2@shaw.ca 

Vexation and Wisdom in Chan/Zen

"Shakyamuni Buddha transmitted the teaching of thusness. He said the following:

Please train yourselves thus: In the seen, there will be just the seen. In the heard, there will be just the heard. In the sensed, there will be just the sensed. In the cognized, there will be just the cognized. When for you, in the seen there is just the seen, in the heard just the heard, in the sensed just the sensed, in the cognized just the cognized, then you will not identify with the seen, and so on. And if you do not identify with them, you will not be located in them; if you are not located in them, there will be no here, no there, or in-between. And this will be the end of suffering.

This is seamless meditation. It is seamless meditation. There is no seam between you and the heard; there is just the heard. No seam: only the heard and the seen and the imagined. This is having no object of thought.

Shayamuni Buddha also said, "If you approach the five skandas*, if you approach colours or sounds, or if they approach you, this is misery."

Approaching colours is not just the colours being the colours, but you approaching them. This is misery. Approaching feelings, approaching perceptions, approaching emotions, approaching consciousness, making these approaches, or being approached by these phenomena: this is misery. But if we do not approach these phenomena, if there is no seam between them and us, then these very same skandhas, these very same colours and sounds, are bliss. We can see the roots of the Zen tradition of objectless meditation in this teaching of Buddha."...from Just Sitting by Reb Anderson, Pg. 156 in The Art of Just Sitting by John Daido Loori.


skandas* (Pali, khanda), lit. "group,aggregate, heap"; term for the five aggregates, which constitue the entirety of what is generally known as "personality".
They are 1. corporality or form
               2. sensation
               3. perception
               4. mental formation
               5. consciousness

Also check out these Chan sites of interest: 1. chancommunity.ca
2. How to chan meditate:http://chancenter.org/cmc/chan-practice/how-to-meditate/3. Master Sheng Yen in Facebook
4. The Western Chan Fellowship at http://www.westernchanfellowship.org/
5. Other Buddhist centres in the Comox Valley:http://www.dharmafellowship.org/hermitage/ http://www.sherabchammaling.com/biography.html

Call Adrian at 250 898 8201 or email adrian2@shaw.ca 

George Marsh: Working with Wu

"I realised that the idea I had constructed of the lovely Great Silence – the emptiness out of which all is created, the love flowing through the universe and so on, was all a reification of ‘Nothingness’ into a beautiful ‘Somethingness’. What I was now doing was ascribing qualities to it, and that it was becoming a new and improved Buddha Nature and Joshu was still there muttering, “Not have Buddha Nature,” at me. “No.” I had reified Emptiness into something full. Not have. No, said Joshu. Nothing holy, said Bodhidharma.

This koan is uncompromising, and leaves you no room for your favourite ideas at all. Joshu has you
trapped. He dismantles all conceptualisations. I was exceedingly reluctant to give up my sense of Buddha Nature, the Essence, the special sense of Life in the universe, the Absolute, its quiet subtle energy and gentle numinous power, its peace and love – I felt I knew it from experience. But the attempt to find its identity and define it had to be abandoned. I was in love with my conception of Emptiness but Huang Po and Nagarjuna and Mäll and Joshu and Bodhidharma were chorusing, “No!” Joshu was wagging his finger at me. I came to Buddhism looking for a beautiful inspiration to give meaning and focus to my life and they were all saying, “No!”...from MEANINGLESSNESS THAT MAKES SENSE : WORKING WITH MU by George Marsh in http://www.westernchanfellowship.org/uploads/media/ncf46.pdf

Also check out these Chan sites of interest:

1. chancommunity.ca

2. How to chan meditate:

http://chancenter.org/cmc/chan-practice/how-to-meditate/

3. Master Sheng Yen in Facebook

4. The Western Chan Fellowship at http://www.westernchanfellowship.org/

5. Other Buddhist centres in the Comox Valley:

http://www.dharmafellowship.org/hermitage/ 

http://www.sherabchammaling.com/biography.html

Call Adrian at 250 898 8201,

email adrian2@shaw.ca 

Vexations are wisdom

The exclamations "Let's eat grandpa." and "Let's eat, grandpa." illustrate how the precise use of punctuation can make a profound difference in the perception of events. Just a simple comma changes  facial gestures from  concern to delight. Well, maybe the tone of voice adds some discriminatory verisimilitude as well.

In Chan, the question of how to 'wake up' can arise as a nuisance afterthought. What's the solution?

1. Repeat with sincere mind your vows every day...and especially when you encounter people who are suffering . (See 4/4/11.)
2. Train in Chan daily and diligently, either the Silent Illumination or the Huatou method.
3. Use each and every vexation in daily life as an opportunity to grind away the self-centered (self-reflexive), discriminatory attachments.
4. Attachments can be so subtle...even the very practice we use to wake up must be let go. Chan is the Method of No Method.

Here's the late Master Sheng Yen in his autobiography writing about vexations and  self-centeredness:

"Through Dongchu's [Sheng Yen's master] training, I learned much about myself. I had a tendency to resist what I perceived to be unfair and become vexed over things that I considered unreasonable. I was able to eliminate such habits. After training with Dongchu, I viewed life from a less self-centered perspective. I tried to understand why things happened in a certain way, but I wasn't bothered by it so much. I also didn't feel ashamed as much. At first it was a really shameful and embarrassing thing to be chased off a bus. But after the training, I considered such situations an opportunity to practice. (Dongshu used to send Master Sheng Yen to town without any bus money. He would have to beg for his fare from other passengers. Unlike in the Indian tradition, the Chinese people believed monks should support themselves out of their own work habits. Begging for busfare on the bus would be a terrible discomfit for Chan Master Sheng Yen .)"...pg. 112 in Chan Master Sheng Yen's Footprints in the Snow.

painting by Susan Chatwin

Also check out these Chan sites of interest:

1. chancommunity.ca

2. How to chan meditate:

http://chancenter.org/cmc/chan-practice/how-to-meditate/

3. Master Sheng Yen in Facebook

4. The Western Chan Fellowship at http://www.westernchanfellowship.org/

5. Other Buddhist centres in the Comox Valley:

http://www.dharmafellowship.org/hermitage/ 

http://www.sherabchammaling.com/biography.html

Call Adrian at 250 898 8201,

email adrian2@shaw.ca