Ancestors and loved ones

When we hold our ancestors and loved ones who have died in a heart filled with gratefulness, we experience them as before us, not behind us, outside of linear time. Thus we continue to receive their love and guidance; perhaps in ways we were never open to when they lived. Even if we did not know them.

Simply call on their names, say, "Thank you", and open your heart.

No Self and the Enneagram

There are nine basic types of us folks in the Enneagram's approach to humanity. At the training I attended with Jan Kious last Sunday she had a chart: a circle of nine colors radiating from the center with corresponding nine numbers on the perimeter. In the center the colors came to white.

One way of thinking on this chart is that as we each work on our wholeness, first accepting how we naturally occur, then integrating healthy aspects of the other eight types - we reach the white center on the color chart.

It occurred to me yesterday that from a Buddhist point of view, the way that we realize the white wholeness is to accept and experience the interconnectedness of reality as it presents itself in all people. Realizing that the boundaries of "our self" are self-imposed, the more we open to all the folk around us that exhibit all nine types, we experience wholeness. Not only don't we exist separately, in fact, we cannot be whole in our separate selves no matter how much work we do on our "self".

Skillfully I will work to open to my full Small Self and also open to the Big Self in all others, realizing the white joy of wholeness.

The Enneagram

Yesterday I attended a workshop on the Enneagram. I was joined by my wife and son, Bobbi and Peter. What a great honor it is to be with my family while doing personal learning and sharing. May all husbands and parents have this blessing.

Jan Kious from our Southcoast Zen Meditation Group lead the workshop. For those interested in the Enneagram Jan leads a six hour workshop once a month on a Sunday.

I learned a number of darn useful things about myself. For example, the good news: I AM ALWAYS RIGHT, which I already knew; the sobering news: THAT'S ONLY IN MY HEAD.

More to come on this topic.

Come outside yourself

The orange cresent moon
is setting - Spring she calls us:
"Come outside yourself."

Thank you Steve Jobs

Thank you Steve Jobs;
No, thanks to ideas and workers.
Van on my I-Pod!

What are you grateful for today?

This morning I had a test at Lutheran Hospital then walked to Talkies and had coffee and a bagel. I observed with gratefulness the following:
1. The love of my wife who got in the car in her pjs and drove me to the hospital.
2. The crescent moon in the southern sky.
3. A security guard who greeted me and talked about the "old days" in the Detroit Shoreway neighborhood.
4. A radiology technician who explained everything possible to me and answered my questions with friendliness.
5. An adult woman with Downs Syndrome who flashed me a 1.5 second smile in passing.
6. The rising sun reflected on downtown buildings.
7. The beginning of a BEAUTIFUL March day in Cleveland!
8. The ever present smile of Kate at Talkies.
9. The joy that listening to U2 brings me.
10. My deep fondness for my two children, both of whom are out of town for spring break right now.
11. My freedom to write anything I desire on this blog and the freedom of all bloggers, writers and journalists in this country. (A 22 year old Egyptian was just sentenced to 4 years in prison for "insulting Islam and Egypt's president.")
12. Did I mention the joy that listening to U2 brings me?

All this was just in the first hour out the door. How much more will the day present me if I am willing to be aware and awake to it?

What are you grateful for this minute?

Zen and Guaranteed Happiness

Reb Anderson Roshi writes beautifully in "Being Upright" on the precept of Not Praising Self at the Expense of Others. This is such a great example of how Buddhist teaching leads to practice which will lead to happiness - guaranteed!

First some essential Buddhist-speak:
"This is not to say that there is no self, it's just that there is no independent self. The self exists only in dependence upon mind and its objects. When you clearly observe the dependent co-arising of self, mind and objects, the belief in a self independent of mind and objects drops away."

Now the beauty that Reb leads us to:
"Being relieved of such narrow vision we joyfully and gratefully observe how any praiseworthy qualities that manifest through our beings are entirely due to the kind support of others. With such vision it is not possible to praise self without mention of the virtue of others. Freed from the belief in an independent self, we first notice and then praise the virtue of others. IS THERE ANY GREATER HAPPINESS THAN THIS?"

Thank you to Lynne Brakeman for hosting the precepts study group that reads and reflects upon Reb's book once a month.

Most important reminder

Breathe. Breathe again.

Zen in relationships

I remembered the other day that part of Zen practice is "taking the step back." Being very human I have negative, unskilful reactions to things that other people do and say. The unskillful way to have such a reaction is to go with it and be caught up in it like a net that drags me along to further negative consequences - anger, jealousy, irritation - you know.

The skillful way is to take a step back and see the reaction for just what it is - my emotions living their life with no regard for my wholeness. Part of the stepping back is to make no judgement of the reaction, not judging it as negative or positive; and not judging me for having it in the first place.

On Monday I was able to do this by seeing my reaction and saying to myself, "Isn't that interesting"; and then seeing what was next. A simple but powerful skill for bringing awareness. Last night I got caught in the net and totally forgot, that is, WAS NOT AWAKE, to the ability and skill for stepping back and simply seeing it as interesting. That's being human. My Zen practice is to take steps to heal the incident and begin the practice again. That's also being human.

Creating a New Christianity

I'm reading retired Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong's book "A New Christianity for a New World."

In it he writes, "The time has come to create a new thing. Not a new religious coping device that will enable us to bank the fires of hysteria for another generation, but a new way to affirm self-consciousness as an asset and to seek within it that which is timeless, eternal, real and true."

And, "No more existential concern has ever faced those who have walked our evolutionary path." "The time has surely come when human beings must begin a new exploration into the divine, must sketch out a vision of the holy that is beyond theism but not beyond the reality for which the word God was created to point."

Wow. I'm not a Christian but I could not agree more. Affirming self-consciousness as an asset is certainly a basis of my Zen practice. More to come from the bishop.

Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh's letter to Pres. Bush

Please take a listen to the Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh as he talks about a dream of his and the subsequent letter he sent to President Bush about the wars in the Middle East. He calls it a "love letter". He writes: "Mr. President, I think that if you could allow yourself to cry as I did this morning, you will fee much better." And, "with some awakening, we can see things in a different way, and this will allow us to respond differently to the situation."
http://www.bpfradio.org/audiopages/0906-thichNhatHahn/0906-thichNhatHahn.html

On the Buddhist Peace Fellowship website, you can also listen to Ven. Nhat Hanh talk about the writing of this letter and his belief that even Mr. Bush has the seat of Buddha nature in him, God in him. Amen.

Authentic Zen

Our experiment at Southcoast Zen Meditation Group:
"The process of Zen finding roots in Western soil is an ongoing one. Cultural, economic and psychological conditions are different in the West. One cannot become a practitioner of Zen just by imitating the way of eating, sitting, or dressing of Chinese or Japanese practitioners. Zen is life, Zen does not imitate. If Zen is to fully take root in the West, it must acquire a Western form, different from Oriental Zen"
- Thich Nhat Hanh in Zen Keys -

Zen is and are

Zen is not magic -
but Magic is Zen.

Zen and Gratitude are sister and brother.