Attention Means Attention

Simple Attention

The secret of beginning a life of deep awareness and sensitivity lies in our willingness to pay attention. Our growth as conscious, awake human beings is marked not so much by grand gestures and visible renunciations as by extending loving attention to the minutest particulars of our lives. Every relationship, every thought, every gesture is blessed with meaning through the wholehearted attention we bring to it.

In the complexities of our minds and lives we easily forget the power of attention, yet without attention we live only on the surface of existence. It is just simple attention that allows us truly to listen to the song of a bird, to see deeply the glory of an autumn leaf, to touch the heart of another and be touched. We need to be fully present in order to love a single thing wholeheartedly. We need to be fully awake in this moment if we are to receive and respond to the learning inherent in it.

–Christina Feldman and Jack Kornfield, in Stories of the Spirit, Stories of the Heart
from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book

When I read this I thought that Christina and Jack must have never worked in a deli, fast food joint, or any fast paced, pressurized, environment with customers waiting to get pissed off if their sammich isn’t ready in 3 and a half minutes.

Doing Zazen

There are instructions for Zazen under theZazen under the meditation tab. Try doing it for 5 minutes using your cell or whatever as a timer. Increase slowly. Soon you will be doing 30 or 40 minutes in a stretch, but don’t try to marathon til you bild up your Zazen muscles. You will become, at the very least, a much calmer person capable of great concentration. Your communication with friends and partners will improve and much more. There are no promises with Zen and you should sit with no expectations (no gaining idea). But to deny the fruits of Zazen is not very motivating, huh? Let me know what it is like for you.

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

vine teacher

The mandevilla vine that is growing for me is about 10 or 11 feet long now, I’ve been watcing it for almost 2 years now. I forgive it being pink flowered because it makes so many of them and it grows as fast as grass.

As I add supports for it I watch what the long searching tendrils do in reaction. They seem suspicious of new things, as if they wonder if they will hold them safely or provide a tall enough height for them. They will touch the support, whatever it is and then will shrink back as if to consider if it’s a good place to start wrapping around. Often it rejects the branch or pole unless it has absolutely no other choice.

A month ago or so, it reached the top of the first pole but kept on growing. It did the smartest thing then. There were 5 or 6 tendrils and the wrapped and spiraled up forming a rope so they could grow straight up almost like a new tree. I thought they might be searching for a new branch or rail or whatever. Eventually it became so heavy it slowly curved down and did another smart thing. It un-twined itself and the different delicate vines spread out in all directions looking for something else to hook onto.

I have tried to train it just a little, really I just want to show it that I’ve put new suports up for it. I will hook the vine around the new stick or pole and wrap it gently. It stays there for a while and then rejects it and goes looking for its own place. Most of the time it comes back and acts as if it has found the new place all on its own, just like a cat.

Of coursre all of this is my imagination about how the vine behaves. How could I know. I don’t like to tink in terms of evolution or instinct, though I am not rejecting them at all. It is just that I can not get the teaching thinking that way.

The teaching is this. The vine thrives and grows all on its own. It doesn’t think “hmmm, maybe if I go left today I’ll find a new branch to grow on”. I don’t think it is even considered a sentient being in Buddhist terms. It is BIG MIND in action. “Spring comes and the grass grows all by itself”. You don’t have to push or pull it. It knows just what to do without thinking and so do I.

Practice at MKZC

I went to the second part of orientation at the Maria Kannon Zen Center today. I sat 2 rounds of both zazen and kinhin the first a 15 minute siting and the second for 25 minutes sitting – kinhin is 5 minutes.

Before I give the details of my experience today, I feel that I need to say that I am realizing that I have not given nearly enough of my spiritual “history” for everything I will be talking about to make sense. I will be working on correcting that by adding to the about page. Until then I’ll have to explain as I go along.

I am taking orientation at MKZC because (1) it is a formality for all students and (2)even though I practiced at MKZC for over 2 years, that was a long time ago. I feel that the orientation acts as a refresher and also, this is a new stage in my life. It’s another time of death and rebirth. I want this to be new- as in Shoshin or beginner’s mind.

That said, the orientation today was good to experience. It was enjoyable to see all kinds of people, including those new at zen and old hands as well as a young girl. I am thinking she might be 10 or so. That’s very unusual and delighful to see a child choosing to practice along with her parents. If it were not a choice, I wouldn’t be so happy about it, but again that has a lot to do with MY history.

During the talk, Helen Cortes, assistant Zen teacher, mentioned that she was available for dokusan. So I asked fora talk. What happens in Dokusan, stays in Dokusan supposedly, and it should IMO. But I did talk to her about my goal of making MKZC my “monastery” by moving close by and attending as regularly as possible. She was very receptive, so ’nuff said. I plan on moving within a mile or so of the center and making it my “work” as well as my practice. I can’t think of anything better for a 58 year old me to do.

I’m cutting it short there as I am tired. I just wanted to dash this down because I am happy about it.

Namaste and all that,
jpaul

Finally, I sit

I got all the goodies that I think I need to sit. Yes, yes, I know you don’t need nothing but yer body, but, hell, the right tool for the right job ya know? Plus there’s reasons for these things.

Actually it don’t amount to much and I still don’t have a bell (not to mention a mokyugo (sp), but I”ll live.

I actually am really happy I found this “saddle stool” at Target and for a reasonable price. It’s narrow and dished out in the middle for comfort. I can either straddle it like I’m riding a horse, or sit like it’s a regular stool and put my feet flat on the floor. It’s just the right height and with a towel for padding quite comfy. It’ll be useful later on, perhaps as a drawing stool as well.

I have my timer, my comfy clothes ( I do miss my robe, nothing more comfortable than that) and my incense. I had to pick some up at pier one until I can get to a place that sells the good stuff. My favorite is Shoyeido.

So today, at sunup (it’s just now 6 am here) I will actually sit for a timed 10 minutes and this afternoon before dinner, another 10. I decided to start out at 10 minutes twice a day and work up to 25 twice a day in a couple weeks. I have seen that people sometimes try to push right into a lengthy sitting routine only to give up sitting at all in a week or so. My spiritual life (for lack of a better term) has its own timetable and I won’t push it.

I am just glad I have worked up to this point. Is it getting light outside? No not yet.

sketching and practice

As I re-enter the practice of Zen I notice myself following a course similar to when I first started serious practice years ago. At first doing Zazen seems like a dreaded chore to be put off or ignored, so to break it into tolerable chunks I would do what I now think of as “one breath” meditations. That is. letting my breath settle for a moment and then taking a deep breath and letting it go slowly.