Where have I been?

I’ve been lost in thought
Working things out
Making big plans
Considering my future
Weighing my choices
Using my head
Trying my best to solve my problems with my mind
When my mind itself is the problem.

Copper or Gold, Which do you prefer?

From Tricycle’s Daily Dhama mailing

I’m trying to avoid little snippets and quotes like this, preferring spontaneious personal insights or experiences. This one struck me however because, for a very long time, I chose to hold onto my bit of copper rather than seek the gold. Perhaps you will see something of yourself in it.

Return to the Origiin

In a dream you may stray and lose your way home. You ask someone to show you how to return or you pray to God or Buddhas to help you, but still you can’t get home. Once you rouse yourself from your dream-state, however, you find that you are in your own bed and realize that the only way you could have gotten home was to awaken yourself. This [kind of spiritual awakening] is called “return to the origin” or “rebirth in paradise.” It is the kind of inner realization that can be achieved with some training. . . . You would be making a serious error, however, were you to assume that this was true enlightenment in which there is no doubt about the nature of reality. You would be like a man who having found copper gives up the desire for gold.

- Bassui Tokusho Zenji, “Dharma Talk on One Mind,” in Daily Sutras
from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book

Can blogs be Buddhist?

I found this post on One foot in front of the other, a “Buddhist” blog authored by Michael, a New Jersey newspaper man (10 times fast ). You can find the quoted post here.

While reading this, a few thoughts started circling, trying to land. Is my blog a product of my own unbridled ego? Do I just need to be heard above the din? Is this really a “Buddhist blog” or is it more about me craving to be recognized as a Zen Buddhist? Ouch.

Well…probably that and more. But here’s Michael’s post for you to read and I encourage you to read more of his writing. In case you read this, Michael, I am NOT a newspaperman – I’m just a bubba down in Texas trying to put some words together.

But please read on, I’ll address those buzzing thoughts in another post.

Warning: Buddhist blog

I’ve come to hate the designations “Buddhist blog” and “Zen blog.”
What makes a blog Buddhist, Zen or non-denominational, anyway?
I subscribe to several blogs linked to Zen or Buddhism either through self-description or by inclusion in “roundup blogs” that post weekly or monthly synopses of blogs deemed Zen or Buddhist in nature.
On some of these blogs, all that’s done is a lot of bickering over what’s perceived as good or bad in terms of personal practice, teachings, what he said or she said and so on.
Fine. People bicker.
If I don’t like it, I tune out.
If I like it, I keep reading.
I can be awfully argumentative and judgmental myself.
Some of the bickering on these blogs seems to come from the heart of whomever is trying to make the point.
But a lot of it seems to come, in my opinion, from unbridled ego, a need to be heard above the din (sometimes just for the sake of being heard),