Wednesday 1 December 2010
First, the Hardcore Zen Podcast was just upgraded. It's all about SEX! So go ahead, stop it out! I am now on another podcast: Dr. Dick's Sex Advice
Second, now there is the Christmas time there, I would like to draw your attention once more on Often Awesome , a group of friends of mine who have joined forces to bring her boyfriend Tim LaFollette in his fight against Lou Gehrig's disease support. It's a damn shame to live in a country where the only way with which someone can he get the help he needs is to be begging strangers. But that is the USA. Leave me alone ... just what Donation!
Back to questions of readers. I have no special e-mail for my first question. It's just something that comes up again and again, right now I'm moving to New York. The question goes something like this: How can I practice in a city environment, with all the noise and anger and pace and distraction?
I did last night in an Shohaku Okumuras Realizing Genjokoan: The Key to Dogen's Shobogenzo [The realization of the Genjokoan: The key to Dogen Shobogenzo] and met with the answer. Okumura says the old Japanese folk tale of the rabbit in the moon. The story I of I this site copied and pasted, goes something like this:
" The old man of the moon one day looked at a large forest down to the earth and saw three friends sitting together around a fire. There were a rabbit, a monkey and a fox. Surprised such a group to see friends, he drove down to earth and turned into a beggar. He said the three friends that he was very hungry. When they heard this, they were all going to get him something to eat. The monkey brought the man a lot of fruit, and he came back with a big fish. However, the rabbit could find no food for the man and asked the monkey to collect firewood and the fox in order to foment a big fire. When the fire was burning very brightly, said the rabbit to the beggar that there was nothing he could give him, so he would jump into the fire and when he was roasted, the beggar could eat it. Just as the rabbit to jump into the fire, was transformed back to the beggar to the man of the moon and the rabbit said that it was very friendly, and that it should do what it could not hurt. Because he found that the rabbit was the friendliest of the three animals, he took it ascribes to the moon. "
Okumura, that he often as a young Buddhist monk like this Rabbit felt. He was ordained at 21 and began to live off the donations of others. He says he never developed because of skills that would enable him to engage in normal work. He often felt guilty for getting contributions from people that "real work" carried on without them return something. All he had to offer was his practice. He says: "I tried to practice zazen, like I would offer my body and mind all the Buddhas." And of course he means by "all the Buddhas" every human being.
In New York City is like the people to honk. It is not so bad as in Cairo or Jerusalem because here you have to actually pay for unnecessary honking, a fine, if you get caught. Although I doubt that anyone will ever be punished for it .. Whatever the case, every time I hear some asshole honking without good reason *, I remember that I am doing my practice for him. I train themselves to be better able to stress and frustration contribute nothing to the guys like him get to vent his anger on others. Every little bit helps.
FIRST E-MAIL QUESTIONS FOR TODAY:
typed A great friend of mine this question for me because I now 'm in prison. In your book "Sit Down and Shut up [sit down, shut up]" You say that Buddhism Dogen said not to study without a teacher. But what if you're in a place where there are no teachers? I have read all your books more than once. I have read books by Gudo Nishijima, drugs, etc. I take time every day for zazen. What more can (or should) do I do? Is there a way to study Buddhism without a teacher?
MY ANSWER:
I get many questions in the way "How can I study Buddhism when I'm so far away from a teacher, poor me". And I'm not terribly sympathetic because I've managed to find a teacher in Kent, Ohio in 1983, a time and a place where no one would have to be there to teach me Zen. I know of excellent teachers in such remote places like Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Helsinki, Finland. There are incredible teachers at every corner when you nachsiehst only once. Many people who ask this question are either too lazy to look around or too fussy to find a teacher who reflects the way they pre-image. If I had been waiting for a teacher's right for my ideals of a teacher, I never would have learned from Tim McCarthy and Gudo Nishijima.
But some people like the guy who wrote to me, are really in a position where is simply no teachers. To which I say, they should simply continue their practice. There are times in practice where you really need the opinion of another. can happen as an example what if you're trying to meditation to teach myself, I often tell the story of Shoko Asahara, the butthead who said he was enlightened, and that meant it was OK to anticipate the apocalypse by Tokyo's subway with poison gas fully inflated.
This is a very extreme case. You'll never do what likely. I hope. Most likely, your zazen is kinda boring and maybe a little confusing. You might sometimes feel have to give up. But you'll be all right. Wait a bit and you'll find in the vicinity of a teacher again just at the moment when you really need that. I really believe in the old cliche "if the student is ready the teacher appears."
types who try to solve the problem of students who think they need a teacher NOW NOW, by being readily available to do, probably no one a favor. The difficulty is linked to this is to find a teacher often part of the process of ensuring that you are ready when you finally find one.
As for things other than what you Zazen and reading can do ... I do not know. That's all I've really done for my practice to speak out with my teachers. Joshu Sasaki says to read many good books. I liked this advice has always been. I made my own website Zenbücher of which, I believe that they are not crap .
SECOND E-MAIL QUESTION:
I have your excellent book Sit Down and Shut Up read and have a question about the chapter "Proper Posture Required [right Attitude required]. " It is out of the way in which the chapter is written not clear how zazen your opinion, is possible in other positions. Although I have learned that the attitude is very important, I have also learned that it is possible to zazen practice by kneeling on a bench, sitting in a chair, in walking or even lying down, as long as the practitioner of body posture enough keen interest. Currently I have not the elasticity to practice in the prestigious Lotus attitude, so I use a Meditationsbänkchen. Do you think my meditation practice complete crap is that? Because - I do not think so! However, I'm just not a real Sangha, to the I could go and ask questions.
MY ANSWER:
As I have said many times before, to the holding in zazen is arbitrary. It is part of the practice. Yoga is not a real teacher would sit a normal, healthy person in a chair and lean forward slightly can to tell them they would have taken the position "down-looking dog" just like everyone else in the course. But if this yoga teacher sees that prevented easily on a chair, the best approximation sit at the attitude of "down-looking dog, he would do his best for that person to help take one day with a little practice, the right attitude to.
I think Zen teacher her students do not have big favor if they tell them that on chairs or benches to sit or even lie on the floor was the same as cross-legged on a cushion to sit. Yes, I know that the full lotus position is hell. YOU DO NOT HAVE THE FULL LOTUS POSITION TAKE! I do not know why every time I say something the right attitude one million commentators immediately assume I mean the full lotus position and get over it a bright red head and angry.
But unless you can really, honestly, no crap, absolutely not on the one or the other way kreuzbeinig then sitting on a cushion you have to really kreuzbeinig sit on a pillow to practice zazen correctly. Gudo Nishijima here describes how to do it .
your meditation practice is NOT complete ass, because you operate on a bench. Do I have to say that again? Perhaps already, because so many people seem to miss it when I make such statements. So here again:
your meditation practice is NOT complete ass, because you operate on a bench.
This Kniebänkchen get a usable zazen posture close to some extent. But it's still not the same. I would continue to work on my flexibility. Try some yoga classes. They'll do well! You might even get to know because some sweet people! Then, after a while, you can do the bench away to the time when you are old and arthritic and no longer the position fix. Then if you really need the bench get it back out and use it.
* And I do mean "assholes the horns, without good cause." I am here once in the 1.7 seconds it been honked at the car needs from neutral to first gear to switch. I have also heard how another was honked because he had refused me to go, as I crossed the street in front of a car in the front of him went (I had way green on the pedestrian traffic lights, as if that would ever make any difference).
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