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zucchini teisho

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I’m deeply grateful to have a job.  Certainly deeply grateful that it is rewarding on many levels despite the long and frequent commutes, the bureaucratic bs and the oft-times idiotic decisions that lead to wide-eyed surprise at the obvious SNAFU outcomes.  All that notwithstanding, I’m truly grateful for time spent at home after grueling days on the road.  And this weekend was not different.

Fall has settled comfortably into the valley that contains our house, the forest, and the various fauna.  The colours of the maple, birch, and oak are vibrant; even the unceasing misty days can’t subdue them.  We are inundated with tomatoes and squash.  I’ve never been successful with squash but this year there is a bounty of Spaghetti, Buttercup, Acorn, and even a late yet determined Crooked-neck.  We’re usually the masked rangers sneaking around the office building leaving zucchini in waiting rooms.  But not this year.  There were only four; two the size of baseball bats, and two smaller ones.  I’ve left one in the garden, squeezing out every microlumen of light I can for it.  The other yielded about a cup of shredded delight and wisdom.

Travelling is bad for the eating habit energy.  Past stories intrude into the present, derailing intentions to respect my limited lifetime and aging cardiac system.  So when I get home, I try to make up for the bad karma.  This time with the help of some of my somewhat unruly Facebook friends, I hit on an idea for Nutella zucchini muffins.  It called for shredded zucchini.   And time.

It’s an interesting concept that we have all the time in the world but never truly experience it that way.  In sangha yesterday, we read from Dogen’s Uji – Time-being.  It might have helped the shredding-being to “see each thing in this entire world as a moment of time.”  Thankfully, the zucchini saw that as it slid cooperatively up and down the perforations in the steel plate.  And then, in a moment of time, it was a small nub, forcing me to slow down.  To stop.  To feel the watery pulp that was still form, and yet no-form.

Practice is like that.  We start full of fire and consuming everything in our path; shredding, pulping, reducing everything to what our little digestive systems can handle.  And then, suddenly one day, we know enough to slow down, to stop.

And to see that there is “nothing but just this moment.”

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center’s punky

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The oak tree in the north field came down in a windstorm.  It stands inverted in the ripening soya beans, the shredded base blaring a trumpet solo into the sky as the branches hold it up.  Systems break down.  It’s inevitable.  And yet we find ourselves surprised when our favourite selected systems shatter. We’re offended because that system, that process, that particular set of interconnections which was meant to service us, let us down.  Even in a farming community, which by definition embodies the never-ending process of births and deaths, neighbours expressed shock and dismay that the oak toppled.  Perhaps, it’s only oaks in other communities that are supposed to fall.  But NIMBY!

I’ve been starting to feel that way about many things around me.  Things that seem to keep toppling over.  Saving all beings, transforming inexhaustible delusions, penetrating innumerable dharma doors, embodying the Great Way.  Don’t even get me started on the Great Matter and dharma teachers of varied ilk.  

Yet, I say, “Oh, this is good – for things to topple over.”  A knee jerk response.  A good Zen Response.  A good Buddhist Response.  It parades my familiarity with buzz-word-dharma: impermanence, equanimity, emptiness, not knowing.  It even impresses some teachers – who immediately topple over from the weight of my willful ignorance, my refusal to see what’s really in front of me.

The man who cuts down trees looked at the oak and said, “Center’s punky.”

It was an impressive executive summary of the Four Noble Toppling Truths.

It works like this: though we experience Reality directly, we ignore it. Instead, we try to explain it or take hold of it through ideas, models, beliefs, and stories. But precisely because these things aren’t Reality, our explanations naturally never match actual experience. In the disjoint between Reality and our explanations of it, paradox and confusion naturally arise.
If it’s Truth we’re after, we’ll find that we cannot start with any assumptions or concepts whatsoever. Instead, we must approach the world with bare, naked attention, seeing it without any mental bias—without concepts, beliefs, preconceptions, presumptions, or expectations. 

Hagen, Steve (2009). Buddhism Is Not What You Think (pp. 4-5).
Harper Collins e-books. Kindle Edition.