Yo ha! Just bumped into this very aesthetically pleasing Zen web site. Haven't looked around much but from what I've seen so far, this is a site worth considering!

The Vermont Zen Center

I really like this quote about the question of "Are we really ever all alone?" No, we're never really all alone.

Once, a few weeks after I came to the woods, for an hour I doubted whether the near neighborhood of man was not essential to a serene and healthy life. To be alone was somewhat unpleasant. But in the midst of a gentle rain, while these thoughts prevailed, I was suddenly sensible of such sweet and beneficent society in Nature, in the very pattering of the drops, and in every sight and sound around my house, an infinite and unaccountable friendliness all at once, like an atmosphere, sustaining me, as made the fancied advantages of human neighborhood insignificant, and I have never thought of them since. Every little pine-needle expanded and swelled with sympathy and befriended me. I was so distinctly made aware of the presence of something kindred to me, that I thought no place could ever be strange to me again.

~ Henry David Thoreau, in 'Walden'

Added this entry to my links:

• No Zendo - Zen, Practice, Zazen: No Zendo. Many people, far from Zen Centers, are interested in practicing on their own or in small groups. Many are asking the same questions: Can one practice zazen without a master or a zendo? How do I do it? What do I need to know? Can one start a small group to practice? Is there any advice for someone like me? FIND YOUR ANSWERS HERE!!

I sat zazen again last night. I got a really good seat and physically the 20 minute meditation felt real good. Mentally things were pretty good too. Thoughts of how good this meditation session came up and I just smiled at them and recognized them as ego thoughts then returned to either counting my exhalations or just global awareness of all things happening in the present moment.

I did start to get a bit drowsy towards the end and found myself closing my eyes. When I did, I just opened my eyes again and brought my awareness back again to my breath. Overall, I felt like I dealt with what came up in a very gentle, appropriate way.

This morning I feel much more grounded and mindful. It’s nice.

Today I am home with my 4 year old daughter Amy who has a fever and ear infection. Mom is in class today (Micro-biology) so I get to play hooky from work. It’s so fun being home with Amy. I can clean the kitchen and cut the grass and she either does her own thing or helps me out. I feel so blessed to have such a wonderful daughter!!

Today is a very good day.

I sat zazen last night before going to bed. I feel good that I was able to sit. I was difficult though. My mind wanted to tell me all sorts of stories about myself. I just kept returning to my breath. When the mind chatter got too intense, I counted breaths.

I realized in last night’s sitting how important it is to get a good seat on the cushion. My lower back started to ache mid-way through my sitting and I had to readjust my seat. Not that it was a “bad” thing to do that, it’s just that I need to pay better attention to getting a good seat before the bell rings.

I particularly like this talk by Shohaku Okumura. I especially like the expression "Zazen is good for nothing" and the teaching that goes with it. The idea that we sit Zazen not for some value to be gained in the future, but rather to sit just for the sake of sitting. I really need to let this sink in and saturate my being. Sitting Zazen has not come easy for me and for some reason this phrase "Zazen is good for nothing" has just enough of a rebellious tone in it for me to motivate me towards sitting down on my zafu.

MN Zen Center: Just Sitting (Okumura)

Through a link on a mailing list I found this page. There are some great teachings here as well as the classic Zen texts to support your practice. Very concise and well laid out pages. Gassho to the Minnesota Zen Center for providing these on the internet.

MN Zen Center: Resources on Buddhism - Texts

Posting to this blog has slowed down over the past week or so. Been mostly heads-down at work getting things done (which is a very good thing).

I haven't sat zazen in a couple of days. I kinda miss it. There have been some times during the day when I've sat zazen for a few minutes and I could just feel my body release into my breathing. That feels good. I actually like how I feel (physically) when I sit zazen. Psychologically and emotionally is another story. Sometimes it is SO DIFFICULT just sitting there with the crap flying though my head. But that's to be expected. During my normal day I do a lot of things out of habit to escape from feeling those things (food, coffee, internet surfing, etc.).

My schedule has made it difficult to sit on a daily basis. At least that's what I'm telling myself today (me thinks that in truth, if I really wanted to sit I would find the time). My most opportune time is in the evenings after Amy is in bed, the dog has been walked and the kitchen is all cleaned up. That's the time the wife and I usually just collapse on the sofa and reach for the clicker. We're usually stuck there till 10p or 11p when we drag our selves upstairs for the bedtime routine and then lights out. Did this again last night despite my intention to go upstairs early and sit zazen for 15 - 20 minutes. I just allowed myself to be sucked into the back-to-back episodes of Law and Order. I swear I'm addicted to that show. I was especially disappointed last night after we finished watching the shows only to realize that when we stopped to think about it, the shows weren't very good. Felt like a waist of time.

Oh well... today's a new day. Let's see what I can make of it.

Here is a small teaching that I ran across recently that spoke to me. Particularly the two sentences in the middle "The purpose of the Dharma is to liberate all beings. To live the Dharma is to be immersed in that aspiration." I’ve been looking for guidance in what living the dharma really means, this helps.

Our temple is made up of individual lives that are unique. At each moment in our life, our attention is focused on what is, at that moment, important and relevant. Because our lives are different and our individual lives pass through many phases, what is important and relevant at any one moment will be different from the lives of others and other times in our own life. Within the sangha, our individual understanding and appreciation of the Dharma, at any moment, will vary greatly because of these differences. The Dharma, however, encompasses all of our diversity and more.

Within the Dharma it does not matter whether you’re Nikkei or non-Nikkei, gay or straight, young or old. Shakyamuni spoke to the common experience of living beings. The fears, anxieties, hopes and aspirations we all share. The purpose of the Dharma is to liberate all beings. To live the Dharma is to be immersed in that aspiration.

The Dharma is not a static thing. It transforms us and expresses itself through our lives. Each moment we consciously live the Dharma is a moment of deepening appreciation.

~ Rev. G. Sakamoto Sensei,
www.fogbank.com

My tendency this morning is to get down on myself for the unwholesome thoughts that have appeared in my head so far today. For the most part I haven’t fed these thoughts and have allowed them to disappear on their own. But it is disturbing me that I think I am a good Buddhist but my thoughts betray me a make me out to be a hypocrite.

I need to remember that thoughts will come that are unwholesome, this I can do nothing about. What I can do is to just let them be. Don’t feed them. Don’t add any energy to them. They will pass away. These unwholesome thoughts are not me. They are simply thoughts.

Hey, check out this cool cartoon I just found yesterday. I just love it!!

Dharma The Cat, Philosophy With Fur!

"During zazen, when you become aware of thoughts, return ever so gently to the breath."

The key words for me in the above teaching are “ever so gently”. I have the tendency to rip my attention away from what has distracted me back to my breath. This is rooted in my strict Catholic upbringing, having priest after priest scold me and tell me to immediately dispel any greedy or lustful thoughts about stealing or lookin' at girls by saying a ‘Hail Mary’ or ‘Our Father’.

I learned at a very early age to be very hard on myself. The external scolding by authority figures at home, at parochial school and at Church was immediately internalized as a coping mechanism for all of those sinful thoughts and actions that displeased God and would thwart the ultimate goal of getting into heaven.

Now, in my ‘older age’ (35), I am beginning to learn how important it is to be kinder and gentler towards myself. If I don’t, who will? I am learning that I need to be my best ally. I need to be my best ally because I can be and there is no guarantee that anyone else will be. Not my wife, not my bother, not my sisters, not my mother. They may be at times, but it isn’t always going to be so.

May we all learn
just one simple way
to be gentle with ourselves today.

I ask myself this question over and over: What's the point of sitting still? I like this answer found at the Sweetwater Zen Center web site. What's the point of sitting still? - Sweetwater Zen Center.

I sat zazen again last night. I was in bed reading Everyday Zen and remembered what I had posted here earlier. I kinda cringed at first. I didn’t want to get out of the nice comfy position I had gotten myself into. But then I just got up and did it. I did a short 15 minute sitting and it felt good. There was pain and discomfort in my sitting but it just felt like the right thing to do.

I think what’s most important for me right now is developing the daily habit of sitting. The longer length sittings will come in time. I know I can sit for 40 minutes as I did it at my last visit to Mt. Equity, so I have nothing to prove to myself my forcing myself to sit for 40 minutes. It just doesn’t fit into my practice right now. I need to remember in terms of a lifelong Zen practice, I am still an infant. Crawling is just fine for me right now.

I feel content with my practice today. That’s a pleasant feeling. I like it.

I would like to share something that just jumped out at me as I read it:

Enlightenment is not something you achieve. It is the absence of something. All your life you have been going forward after something, pursuing some goal. Enlightenment is dropping all that. But to talk about it is of little use.

The practice has to be done by each individual. There is no substitute. We can read about it until we are a thousand years old and it won't do a thing for us. We all have to practice, and we have to practice with all of our might for the rest of our lives.

~ Charlotte Joko Beck in Everyday Zen

Practice is active not passive. I can read all I want but I must get out of my reading chair and onto the zafu. Slowly this is starting sink in. The past few days I have sat zazen. Not for the 40 minutes my over-achieving ego would like, but non-the-less I have practiced sitting. For this I feel good.

I like this Daily Zen quote from today:

Spring has its hundred flowers,
Autumn its many moons.
Summer has cool winds,
Winter its snow.
If useless thoughts do not
Cloud your mind,
Each day is the best of your life.

- Wu-Men-Hui-Kai (1183-1260)

Not feeling very centered this morning. I had difficulty falling asleep last night. Why did I have trouble getting to sleep? Cause I stayed up watching NYPD Blue and the 11 o’clock news. I was over stimulated by the time I turned off the TV and tried to fall asleep. When will I learn that watching late night TV just before falling asleep is just not conducive to falling asleep and getting a good nights rest?

A more skillful way of taking care of myself would be to watch one show in the 9 o’clock hour and then allowing time for my mind to settle down by doing a little zazen before going to bed. But that’s hard. I’ve tried to do that and my body just doesn’t want to get up out of the bed and sit. I see now that this is something I can work with. That is an ego-concern that I can let go of just for that moment. Then in the next moment, I am sitting on the zafu. Working with my aversion to getting out of my comfortable position sitting there in bed is also my practice. Often I think of the actual sitting as just my practice. But actually getting to my sitting is also my practice.

Just something that resonated pretty strongly with me when I read it. Maybe it will with you too: Sainteros: Just sitting.

Our actions speak louder than our words

Verses 19 & 20
Chapter I - The Pairs (Yamakavagga)

Khuddaka Nikaya, Suttanta Pitaka, Tipitaka

Source: "The Dhammapada", Translated by
Kaba-Aye Sayadaw Ashin Pannadipa, Rangoon, Burma, 1990

19. Though he recites much of the Scriptures (of the Buddha),* yet, if he, being heedless, does not live up to them he is like a cowherd who counts the cattle of others, he has no share in the advantages of the holy life.

20. Though he recites a little of the Scriptures (of the Buddha), yet if he acts in conformity with the Teaching (Dhamma), dispelling lust, hatred and delusion, truly knowing, with the mind totally freed, not clinging to this world or the next, he shares the advantages of the holy life.

I feel good that I was able to practice a formal period of sitting today. I didn't feel like sitting. I just went into the bedroom, bowed to the wall, turned, bowed to the opposite wall, turned, got situated on my zafu, started the mediation timer and then just sat. Trying to give up everything, I just sat.

When you are just sitting there on your zafu, there is nothing to do but sit. You learn quickly what it means to surrender your ego-concerns. That thought, that itch, that twinge of pain in your back, the dog barking downstairs, you just acknowledge them and let them go. Surrender them to the present moment, then flowing from the present moment straight into the next without brining anything along with you.

I've been reading too many dharma books, magazines and web sites, I think it's time I give myself the experience of just sitting staring at the blank wall. Here's how the founder of our tradition, Zen Master Eihei Dogen, put it in his instructions on how to meditate:

"You should...cease from practice based on intellectual understanding...and learn the backward step that turns your light inwardly to illuminate your self. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will be manifest....The zazen I speak of is not learning meditation. It is simply the...gate of repose and bliss, the practice-realization of totally culminated enlightenment. It is the manifestation of ultimate reality."

I like Meegan's writing and her blog (link to blog at the end of the article). identity theory | alphabet zen - life lessons by meegan.

56k dialup via AOL (AO-HELL) pissed me off this morning. It took me 20 minutes to finally get a stable enough connection to actually get something done. I get so frustrated with going from a super-huge broadband connection at work (T3 I think) to the crappy dialup at home. But you know what went through my head as soon as I let out my frustrations at the computer? “John, use this opportunity as your teacher. Patience, acceptance of what is.” Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, I Know. But geeze, can’t a guy just cuss at his ‘puter once and a while?

Here's an idea that I got while wandering around harmonyblue's blog, posting a list of my current obsessions as a way for you all to get to know a little bit about who I am at the moment. So here it is:

CURRENT OBSESSIONS

> blog reading blog-hopping
> blog writing
> looking for zen
> reading zen
> avril lavigne
> coffee
> j. bro.
> software and content for my palm

Ahhhh... what to post today? Things are well in my world lately. Home life is wonderful! I’m enjoying so much being an integral part of my daughter Amy’s life. She’s going to be four in a month. She’s growing up. My little girl is growing up. And I am so glad to say that I’ve always been there along the way. Dropping off at school, picking up at school then going shopping with her, taking her to the park, taking her to breakfast, or just playing outside with her and her friends. I love to make her laugh. Her smile intoxicates me. Because of this, I’ve really become a real goof-ball and silly-willie ever since she started talking and being more independent. I just plain LOVE having fun and being silly with Amy!!

My practice has really helped me be a better father. I can practice mindfulness and really BE THERE for Amy on a moment to moment basis. Suddenly it’s not so much about what I’m missing out on by not having time to myself, but more about enjoying life as a father and daughter. Exploring this aspect that is so much my reality now has become so much more important than furthering my career by spending hours in the office playing with the latest technologies and gadgets in the world of software engineering and computers. Yeah, I still like that stuff. But it’s not my life like it used to be. My life is being a dharma practitioner, a father and a husband.