Every Thing in the Tao

"Less and less do you need to force things, until finally you arrive at non-action. When nothing is done, nothing is left undone." --Tao Te Ching

As a dancer knows, absorption into the dance becomes the dancer. Without separate consciousness they become the dance and the dance becomes them. It transpires effortlessly, without active thought. This may be thought of as a model, a clear example of non-action.

The dancer does not think and yet they move about with the music in a pure expression. It is so because "the doer wholeheartedly vanishes into the deed." The fuel completely transforms into flame; the wood is the fire. This 'nothingness' is in fact, everything. Can the dancer force the music, can they make the notes unfold in any other way other than as presented? What other response could they offer as a dancer?

Is singularity in the dance, really isolation; is the cooperation with the musicians less obvious? How does the dancer 'hear' the music? The fluid softness, the supple strength of the dancer occurs as a response to the music, to the musicians, when they trust in the great intelligence of the world, the dharmakaya and the simple intelligence of the body to respond physically, to respond appropriately in harmony, in symphony. The dancer then trusts, not only the present functioning of their own body but also of the musicians and the physics of the music itself

The wisdom book, the ancient Tao Te Ching so popular in the west, especially, tells of the intuitive wisdom of the dancer:

People see some things as beautiful
other things ugly
People see some things as good
other things become bad

Being and non-being create each other
Difficult and easy support each other
Long and short define each other
High and low depend on each other
Before and after follow each other
Therefore the Master
acts without doing anything,
teaches without saying anything,
Things arise. Let them come.
Things disappear. Let them go
Have but not possess
act but not expect
When work is done, forget it.
That is why it lasts forever

In surrender, in giving up notions, judgements and demands, the mind grows naturally into compassion. In dance, self-expression is the evidence. In one's own, deep experience, the central truths of living are revealed; paradoxical as they may first seem, this is only the surface. Deep looking and careful thinking reveal that the more solitary we are, the more compassionate we may be; the more we let go of what we love, the more present our love becomes; the clearer our vision, the more the way presents itself.

A Zen Koan, "What is this?"

There are many seemingly simple spiritual practices that when engaged often bring to a person some surprising and purely deep results. While many may interpret "simple" to mean naive or stupid, these are actually that word's lesser implications.
A check with your dictionary will likely reveal that its first definition is actually "free from guile; innocent; free from vanity, modest; singular, unified without clauses."

So from this one, simple practice, ask the question, "what is this?" Ask yourself often and sit quietly, listening for the answer, which will come if you do.
You may find this difficult to do because many times in fact, we want to run away from ourselves and our reasons. Why? For lots of reasons or no clear reason at all, like a habit. And like Nasrudin looking for his key the dark, the familiar seems so much better than anything else. That is until we discover what else there is.

What is it that you think; what are your habits? What is it that you feel? Can you label your thoughts, your feelings? Will you sit quietly long enough for them to present themselves? For many, labeling a thought or feeling is surprisingly a challenge. Will you sit for the days, weeks, months or the years that it may take?
Asking what is this is a first step in the "willingness to just be," as Zen teacher Eric Bayada describes in his book, Being Zen.

Seeking Someone to Cover the Holes

"We find the courage to go on, even if it's only for one more breath."  --At Home in the Muddy Water --by Ezra Bayada

When practicing with relationship issues such as loneliness, Zen author, Ezra Bayada writes in his book, At Home In the Muddy Water, that we find the courage to go on, even if it's only for one more breath. As we stay with the loneliness, that hole of loneliness gradually heals. We learn [by experience] that inviting it in is far less painful than pushing it away.
He notes that for most of us, most of the time, we spend a lot of time thinking about what is happening to us. We just think; intellectual activity may obscure physical experiences such so that then, of course, we believe our thoughts are reality.

To the extent that there is suffering in our relationships, or to the extent that even the good in our relationships could become better, we need to work honestly with our blind spots and stuck places. Many experiences in day-to-day living challenge us, pushing us to our edges; it may be difficult to even remember the practice.
A voice in us activates thoughts such as: 'Hey, what about me, not fair, so much drama, tired of this', and so on.
With a spinning mind, separating our experiences from these notions is a tough sell. Learning to practice in the most difficult, the most trapped moment is also the moment we may realize the most, becoming the most joyful, make the most immediate decisions to reap the most benefit. There is joy and tranquility in every moment. Make it yours.

Soren Kierkegaard notes that 'perfect love' loves one intently, despite being very possibly the one, with whom we are mostly unhappy. In other words, working with our own reactions is the most perfect response to a loved one. 
Interactions with others vex us; what we fully want from others, is what they may not be able to give at a particular moment, and what we want most to give may just not be available to others.

It is often so difficult to give. If we [can] see that we're stuck in not wanting to give someone what they want, and if we're willing to work with the layers of emotion like anger and fear around our stuck condition, then in growing awareness it becomes a path to freedom.
Pushing beyond known edges may require intentional giving to increase our known self, and to face our fears. Less and less fear or anxiety comes to dictate our behavior, says Bayada, when we practice like this.

The Bubble of Fear

"I realized that none of what I feared was happening now, nor had it ever happened!"  --Being Zen by Ezra Bayada


In his book, Being Zen, Zen teacher and author, Ezra Bayada reminds his readers about practice with fear. While fear is a quite natural impulse, or emotional energy, often alerting and protecting us, it can be limiting and even crippling.
He writes, "…awaken curiosity, asking this practice question', What is this?' … Awakening a desire to know the truth of the moment through experiencing."

Noting that one cannot come into full awareness of the true so long as one engages in blaming, assuming, pouting or other non-experiencing behaviors, really avoidance behaviors in his view, he offers an alternative.
In staying with the moment, just this moment, asking, "What is this?' works with some practice 'like a laser in focusing on the experience of fear itself." He became increasingly aware that the pain generated through fear was simply due to his thoughts and his assumptions. He had 'burst his bubble' of fear, gaining clarity in the exchange.

"Unlike positive affirmation, this exercise is not a cosmetic overlay. It requires that we still see our thought clearly… It lightens the myopic and self-centered perspective that often accompanies the process of learning to know ourselves."

The Beauty of Spring

"When you do, you will see that your "first love" may not really be the first..."  Thich Nhat Hanh, Cultivating the Mind of Love
Last night I returned home and heard something really wonderful. There were frogs singing in the night. Frogs, it seems, are one of the great harbingers of spring. They slumber over the winter, buried deep into the mud, protected by a sort of anti-freeze in their blood. When the very first warming of the spring temperatures commence to rain, they emerge from hibernation, as if magically, and serenade the night. Everywhere in the countryside one is treated to their song.
The frogs are singing! Their songs recollect the fine spring and summer evenings spent outdoors in the fresh breeze, the smell of grass, the wet of the dew and the arrival of song birds, creatures of all types. The Robin, a North American species of Thrush, arrived here a more than a month ago; the Cardinal which overwinters here, began its song in earnest weeks ago and now the Woodpeckers join in the busy merriment of spring song. The long winter is done over into the beauty of spring.

The Beauty of Spring is the title of a chapter in a book by Buddhist teacher and monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, Cultivating the Mind of Love. In a very personal and beautiful recollection he writes of first love, his own love, one which the French call the "coup de foudre" or the stroke of love, love at first sight.
This wise monk writes quite simply, "please think about your own first love. Do it slowly, picturing how it first came about, where it took place, and what brought you to that moment. Recall that experience and look at it calmly, deeply, with compassion and understanding. You will discover many things you did not notice at the time. There is a Kung An in the Zen tradition, 'What was your face before your parents were born?' This is an invitation to go on a journey and discover your true self, your true face.
Look deeply into your "first love" and try to see its true face. When you do, you will see that your "first love" may not really be the first, that your face when you were born may not have been your original face. If you [continue] look[ing] deeply, you will be able to see your true, original face, and your true first love. Your first love is still present, always here, continuing to shape your life. This is a subject for meditation."

Living Awake and in the Truth, Part 2

Simple Mind is away from the computer. The following appeared here earlier this year, January 2, 2009.

Assumptions--are just that, assumptions.
To the Simple Mind, we are aware that things change, and in fact it is desirable because if they did not there would not be the opening for learning, for the new, a relief from what pains us, or hope. We would remain angry, fearful, resentful, confused. Pray for impermanence.
Working with this precept, we no longer try to escape the experience; rather like a scientist, we wait and observe our self, our reaction, our perceptions and what exists in this moment around us.
Reactions, like emotions, are automatic, they just happen. But what we choose to do isn't a happenstance. The will chooses and then we act. This is a freedom that we take so as to make best use and advantage of our circumstances.

What do we do when we find ourselves in the midst of gossip? What about that?
Sometimes we want to feel part of a group or an event by talking ill of another person, or deliberately excluding others, to feel more special or bonded -- us against them. Gossip is when we say things about others that are potentially harmful or slanderous to that other person -- with full knowledge of this in our mind.
This is distinguished from speaking about others with the intention of sorting out our thoughts or feelings, or problem solving.

Then there are the instant reactions that lead us into hurtful speech or action. What about when we feel insulted? How about when an emotion demands our attention?
Before beginning earnest practice, maybe we just walked away or changed the subject to avoid what we judged distasteful. Maybe we excused ourselves with the thought that "they deserve it, anyway."

Sometimes we counted to 10 or went for a walk before answering that insulting remark, that hurtful phrase. These tactics likely stopped or controlled our reactions, but to really move beyond, to move to a Simple Mind requires a different response. A response that perhaps to this point in our lives we are unfamiliar with.
We must through practice, in awareness, dismantle our habitual thoughts and patterns of behavior. These are habits which cause us to suffer; those perceived thoughts, the imagined self which keeps us in the dream.
When we gain in awareness, then our deepest beliefs and fears may be faced honestly and squarely. We respond to what is so, to reality as it is by experience, not driven by fear, anger or other passion. Our response is what is required, according to our will, our desire to be as we are.

With this precept, our practice becomes meeting life in all its possibilities, in its newness, and its sometimes strangeness.

And while certainty, feeling "sure" is seductive, and it can make us feel safe, prayers for change, for impermanence are part of the Way. As a Mahayana practitioner notes, 'when a flower dies, we don't cry, because we know flowers are impermanent.' Understanding this, we will suffer less and be joyful more. Impermanence is not negative!
Does it then, in the Way, mean that we have to lose all that we care for? Of course not; the community remains and is important. What is also important is that we not cling so tightly to persons or things, that we fail to recognize the nature of change.
So, to gain in skillfulness and practice of the precepts, we must turn to experience, the present moment as our guide, and not simply notions or intellectual ideas.

As Joko Beck has said, "when we experience for ourselves the transitory nature of beliefs, then it no longer has us in a strong hold. We can be freer from our requirements--freer to speak truthfully." Isn't it odd how those we care for most deeply, those who have meaning to us in our daily lives, are those for whom we most often hold deeply, and those whom we entrench in our faultfinding?

This is one of the ways in which we may avoid ourselves.
We are dishonest with ourselves first before the other. By focusing not on our own experience, but on what we think must be the experience of another, we criticize, nit-pick, fault. Sometimes, most often, those negative attributes are really our own.
Our own views may thus be frozen; we may not be acting from awareness of our selves-- what are we feeling, what is my perception/experience? If we do not take the critical self view, like that of a scientist, examining our own functioning, our own organism, faultfinding gains a hold. We react to something that may not even be real at all-- at least not real beyond our own mind, and then we suffer the consequences when the world rebuffs us, as it must.


Other ways of avoiding or not being truthful are several:

*Do I add to the story my own facts, interpretations or opinions as though they are true?

Try seeing yourself as the other person whom you spoke about. How do your words fit now? What is your experience?

*Do I keep silent? Do I comment when in a group about something I know, or do I allow it to pass by?

What is your intention in keeping silent? What is your experience? Do I take some advantage from not speaking?

As you practice, keep in mind that in the Simple Mind, speaking truthfully is neither better nor worse.

Living Awake and in the Truth part 2

Assumptions--are just that, assumptions.
To the Simple Mind, we are aware that things change, and in fact it is desirable because if they did not there would not be the opening for learning, for the new, a relief from what pains us, or hope. We would remain angry, fearful, resentful, confused. Pray for impermanence.
Working with this precept, we no longer try to escape the experience; rather like a scientist, we wait and observe our self, our reaction, our perceptions and what exists in this moment around us.
Reactions, like emotions, are automatic, they just happen. But what we choose to do isn't a happenstance. The will chooses and then we act. This is a freedom that we take so as to make best use and advantage of our circumstances.

What do we do when we find ourselves in the midst of gossip? What about that?
Sometimes we want to feel part of a group or an event by talking ill of another person, or deliberately excluding others, to feel more special or bonded -- us against them. Gossip is when we say things about others that are potentially harmful or slanderous to that other person -- with full knowledge of this in our mind.
This is distinguished from speaking about others with the intention of sorting out our thoughts or feelings, or problem solving.

Then there are the instant reactions that lead us into hurtful speech or action. What about when we feel insulted? How about when an emotion demands our attention?
Before beginning earnest practice, maybe we just walked away or changed the subject to avoid what we judged distasteful. Maybe we excused ourselves with the thought that "they deserve it, anyway."

Sometimes we counted to 10 or went for a walk before answering that insulting remark, that hurtful phrase. These tactics likely stopped or controlled our reactions, but to really move beyond, to move to a Simple Mind requires a different response. A response that perhaps to this point in our lives we are unfamiliar with.
We must through practice, in awareness, dismantle our habitual thoughts and patterns of behavior. These are habits which cause us to suffer; those perceived thoughts, the imagined self which keeps us in the dream.
When we gain in awareness, then our deepest beliefs and fears may be faced honestly and squarely. We respond to what is so, to reality as it is by experience, not driven by fear, anger or other passion. Our response is what is required, according to our will, our desire to be as we are.

With this precept, our practice becomes meeting life in all its possibilities, in its newness, and its sometimes strangeness.

And while certainty, feeling "sure" is seductive, and it can make us feel safe, prayers for change, for impermanence are part of the Way. As a Mahayana practitioner notes, 'when a flower dies, we don't cry, because we know flowers are impermanent.' Understanding this, we will suffer less and be joyful more. Impermanence is not negative!
Does it then, in the Way, mean that we have to lose all that we care for? Of course not; the community remains and is important. What is also important is that we not cling so tightly to persons or things, that we fail to recognize the nature of change.
So, to gain in skillfulness and practice of the precepts, we must turn to experience, the present moment as our guide, and not simply notions or intellectual ideas.

As Joko Beck has said, "when we experience for ourselves the transitory nature of beliefs, then it no longer has us in a strong hold. We can be freer from our requirements--freer to speak truthfully." Isn't it odd how those we care for most deeply, those who have meaning to us in our daily lives, are those for whom we most often hold deeply, and those whom we entrench in our faultfinding?

This is one of the ways in which we may avoid ourselves.
We are dishonest with ourselves first before the other. By focusing not on our own experience, but on what we think must be the experience of another, we criticize, nit-pick, fault. Sometimes, most often, those negative attributes are really our own.
Our own views may thus be frozen; we may not be acting from awareness of our selves-- what are we feeling, what is my perception/experience? If we do not take the critical self view, like that of a scientist, examining our own functioning, our own organism, faultfinding gains a hold. We react to something that may not even be real at all-- at least not real beyond our own mind, and then we suffer the consequences when the world rebuffs us, as it must.


Other ways of avoiding or not being truthful are several:

*Do I add to the story my own facts, interpretations or opinions as though they are true?

Try seeing yourself as the other person whom you spoke about. How do your words fit now? What is your experience?

*Do I keep silent? Do I comment when in a group about something I know, or do I allow it to pass by?

What is your intention in keeping silent? What is your experience? Do I take some advantage from not speaking?

As you practice, keep in mind that in the Simple Mind, speaking truthfully is neither better nor worse.