Tag Archives: interbeing

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last things

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Last Things (from dictionary.com)

the subjects of eschatology: the final destiny of the individual and humankind as a whole.

Story adapted from Uchiyama’s Opening the Hand of Thought:

In a field behind a little farmhouse, there was a squash patch.  One day the squash began to fight among themselves and the arguing grew so vicious that they split into two factions.  The Squash On the Trough yelled and called the Squash in the Box names.  The whole thing got so out of hand that the farmhouse priestess came out and spoke sharply to them (in a compassionate sharp voice, of course).

“Settle down, all of you!  Do you want time out in the back room?”  Knowing there was a sesshin coming up and having heard stories of what she did to squash in her back room, they settled quickly.  She took advantage of their obedience and decided to teach them how to sit zazen.  After a little while when they became calm and solid, she said, “All right!  All of you, reach up and touch the top of your head.”

When the squash touched the top of their head they found something attached there that stretched out into the garden.  As they explored it, they discovered it was the vine that connected them all together!

How silly, they said to each other.

We’re all tied together and living just one life.

Something for the curriculum in cultivating little Bodhisattvas…

Thank you for practicing,

Genju

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sic transit gloria, she wrote back

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More Ryokan.

The moon appears in every season, it is true,
But surely it’s best in fall.
In autumn, the mountains loom and water runs clear.
A brilliant disk floats across the infinite sky,
And there is no sense of light and darkness,
For everything is permeated with its presence.
The boundless sky above, the autumn chill on my face.
I take my precious staff and wander about the hills.
Not a speck of the world’s dust anywhere,
Just the brilliant beams of moonlight.
I hope others, too, are gazing on this moon tonight,
And that it’s illuminating all kinds of people.

zmm main hall

zmm main hall

After reading of Roshi Daido Loori’s retirement, I sent a note to my teacher.  “Don’t get any ideas!” I typed.

“Sic transit gloria,” she wrote back.

Separation anxiety.

Zen Mountain Monastery was my first encounter with hard-nosed Zen.  I fell in love with the rituals – and Daido Loori is all about finding the sacred in the rituals.  When I heard him define liturgy as the language of a community, I knew I had found a precious jewel in his teachings.  My friends call it obsessive-compulsive features of my nature.  So be it.

Denkoroku

Denkoroku

mro-the-path

Everyday rituals connect me to others.  The cup of tea, the favourite songs, the email signoff, the restaurant where we celebrate birthdays, the sweater I always wear when I’m in writing mode – all intricate containers of our commitment to each other.

How is there practice without commitment?

How does that commitment manifest without an embodiment of what is felt internally?

This is the gift of our teachers:  to always be present to us with through the ritual of practice .

mro-Butterfly1

<images from Zen Mountain Monastery>

Thank you for practicing,

Genju