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.

Dreamed about you last night

I dreamed about you last night.We’d found an apartment in the city with a nice view of the other buildings blocked only by the dentist’s office out the window. Everyone came over to see us love each other.They were a pain in the ass but we needed an audience. For the first time I cried after waking up from a dream. I’m still crying and my chest hurts thinking about how much I miss you. I can tell myself it’s only my ego but that doesn’t bring you here for me to smell. I can tell myself that no matter where you are, you are right here.Because that’s what zen says and I had that experience. But I don’t see you and I can’t touch you. It’s a damned good illusion making me cry.

So Zen has to include this too. The pain of memory. When I cried, I was nowhere else but here. For whatever reason that made me cry. Even if the memory made me cry, I was having the memory right now and I wasn’t even awake to get lost in my thoughts. Dreams don’t count in Zen I have read. It’s all a dream supposedly. But it’s all real too. It has to be both at once.

I’m grateful for the chance to love you. I hope that I can feel that love for all beings everywhere. That quality of untainted , pure love that I am not afraid for anyone to see.

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),

The heart of the matter -Does It Work?

The question we are often asking ourselves, but one that is rarely spoken aloud, is addressed simply and directly here by Sensei Janet Jiryu Abel in this excerpt from a talk. In the Soto school of Zen, which is the predominant sect in Japan, the practice consists almost entirely of Shikintaza or “just sitting”. Shikintaza is literally to take the posture of Zazen and just sit there with no goals, no aspirations, no good, no bad, just sit. There are no cookies or trophies. You don’t necessarily get up from sitting feeling great that you did it. You may rise from your noble posture only to ask yourself why the hell would anybody just sit there like a dumbass.

Practice and a dream

I had a dream just now that was quite interesting. Zen doesn’t seem to put a lot of stock in dreams. I’ve heard it’s the result of too much sleep (not the case for this one however). I think the ancients paid more attention to them. I’ve belonged to some dream groups and had Jungian analysis, which often uses dreams. To me dreams are a message from myself to myself. A letter maybe telling me what is happening in my life.

This dream had a lot of repeathing themes. It was set in a huge home that seemed to have endless new wings.

at this moment

I have been posting various excerpts, vids, and stuff found elsewhere that strikes something in me instead of sharing anything of myself. There’s several reasons for this.

The obvious difficulty in making posts in this blog is trying to think of words that point to an experience that is beyond words. I have read admonitions in many books about getting stuck “eating the menu” or, in other words, to attempt to find satisfaction in thinking or talking about a practice that, by definition is not based in words or letters. But then there HAVE been MANY books, as I said. So, talking about the unspeakable is certainly popular. Human nature I guess.