Summer Break, Brad Warner Visit, 'Dropping Views/Opinions', Zombies etc etc...

Firstly, the evenings at The Dock have finished for the summer to resume in early September. This is to follow the format of other classes/workshops there: It's a pain for The Dock to open the place up just for us. I hope you can continue to do some zazen at home during this time. Remember that it's generally advised that establishing a practice of a few minutes each day, or twice a day, is more important than doing a longer sitting just once or twice a week. You can build up the sitting time as you get used to it. Good luck, and thank you for all your efforts.

Secondly, someone last night said (quite sensibly) that they were uncomfortable with the idea of 'dropping our views and opinions' in Buddhism. It's important to stress that this statement about dropping views and opinions only refers to zazen where we allow everything to come and go for a time, where we stop our usual judging and evaluating when we notice that we're doing it. In this way we can get a broader perspective on our views and opinions for a time. The point is not to makes us zoned out, blank-minded zombies all the time: that would actually be a dangerous way to live, as we're required to evaluate and make judgements as part of our everyday lives. The problem is that we sometimes mistake our own views and opinions as some sort of real, exterior reality. Zazen addresses this and allows us to see our thinking and evaluating from a more realistic perspective. Doing it regularly also develops an intuitive understanding of the way things really are... but that's another story.

Thirdly, if anyone is interested in hearing about one-day events or other Buddhisty things that may be going on during the summer in this area then please drop me a line with your contact details and I'll include you on our info list.

One event that springs to mind is that the US Buddhist teacher and author Brad Warner is visiting Belfast next month. Details can be found HERE (scroll down the page a bit).

...And check out the July/August retreat in lovely Co Clare in the links menu up on the right hand side there.

...AND (phew!) a few of us are talking about meeting up weekly at my house in Boyle for zazen during the summer. Contact me for details.

Hope you have a great summer!

Not One Other Thing to Hide From.

Zazen can sometimes be misused as a place to hide, as a place to protect ourselves from the world, or to feel superior, 'transcended', 'more enlightened' etc etc. Sometimes we might get absorbed in aspects of our self in doing it and abuse it to protect, and even enhance, such thoughts and feelings about our self. This, of course, is inherently selfish and is not the very real, tangible conduct of 'dropping body and mind' as proposed in Buddhism.

Zazen allows us to receive everything and everybody without exception as our own life. We can drop our involvement with our usual comfort zones and narratives for a time and revel in the great diversity of our life unlimited. In sitting firmly upright, and allowing ALL our usual 'stuff' to just come and go, we can learn and clarify what Buddhism is really about.

I came across this quote from a great Chinese Master in a book by Robert Aitken Roshi last night:

You who sit on the top of a hundred foot pole,
Although you have entered the Way, it is not yet genuine.
Take a step from the top of the pole
And the universe in the ten directions will be your entire body.

(Ch'ang-sha)

Summer Retreat in West of Ireland.

Peter Rocca Sensei (on left, with Nishijima Roshi) will be conducting a weekend retreat this summer July 31st- August 2nd in Ireland.

It'll be held at the very nice Sunyata Retreat Centre which is situated in the rolling countryside of lovely East Clare. The timetable will not be too intensive and so it will suit beginners.

You can read about it and make a booking here.

(...Although the website doesn't work for me every time I try for some reason. If it doesn't work, try later!)

Sitting Upright: An Amazing, Mysterious Feat Beyond Our Comprehension!!!

Someone last night asked the very sensible question: 'Why do you do it [zazen]?'

In response to this question Kodo Sawaki, the celebrated 20th century Japanese Zen Master, might boldly roar 'Zazen is useless!' or 'There is no reason!', one of his students, Kosho Uchiyama might say 'Do zazen for the sake of doing zazen'. Gudo Nishijima Sensei might say 'Do zazen to balance the autonomic nervous system', and that such balanced action brings clarity and poise to our life...

All these answers are valid and true. The most important thing is to actually do it if we want to understand it... And remember that doing it involves dropping off all our expectations of it, and all the demands of it that we will find ourselves thinking up (which is what Kodo Sawaki was getting at maybe):

'Be like an open gate'.

The issue came up of spiritual teachers who can (allegedly) perform miraculous feats (such as levitating, manifesting solid objects out of nowhere etc etc)... We can believe or disbelieve whatever we want about this stuff, but doing zazen is not directly a matter of belief, nor cynicism: What is of central importance is that we actually do it and just let go of our values, beliefs and disbeliefs for a while... and then maybe we can learn something about our values and beliefs, and ourselves.

Our bodies constantly manifest anew from moment to moment so that we may move and grow. We can know a person's mind by the smile on her face or the tear in his eye. We can fly in a plane, or hang-glide, or bungee jump or dance around like big kids... now that is miraculous!

Buddhism: A Philosophy Based in Our Own Action.

Nishijima Sensei, my teacher's teacher and the founder of Dogen Sangha, makes a nice distinction about what Buddhism essentially is.

He says that it is a 'Philosophy of Action'. This means that, rather than its adherents being concerned with just believing in things (idealism) or explaining things in tangible empirical and quantifiable terms (materialism), they are required to actually 'do' it (Action). The 'doing it' bit is clarified in zazen, and it's the central aspect of Zen Buddhism.

A nice, positive aspect of Buddhism is that we can still believe in things (such as God) and practice it, so you get people whom may be adherents to a religion such as Christianity but who also practice zazen sincerely. Buddhism is generally not a religion which excludes on the basis of belief or lack of it, but it requires us to look at the nature of our beliefs and our selves via the Action of zazen when we are not restricted by, or limited by, our own values and beliefs.

In zazen, and particularly in extended 'sesshin' ( zazen retreats), we have the opportunity to explore the nature of Buddhist 'Action': All sorts of stuff might come up when we sit zazen... we will get bored and frustrated, we might feel all spacey and spiritual, and we'll likely have to deal with physical discomfort and all sorts of daydreams and fantasies; but we can just firmly sit through it all and learn very directly that we needn't be pushed around by what we think and feel.

We're actually already free to act despite what we think and feel with our body and mind and despite all our habitual reactions to our 'stuff', but we need to really practice this principle often and regularly to substantially realise it in our lives.

No Meeting Next Week.

Hi Folks,

Two things:

Please bear in mind that there is no zazen in the Dock next Tuesday (6th of April). We'll be back there again the following Tuesday (the 13th) as usual.

Some time in the next month I'll be holding a one-day zazen retreat at my home zendo situated just outside of Boyle, Co Roscommon. It'll probably run from @ 10 am til 3pm or so on a Saturday or Sunday.

If you're interested in attending let me know by email: longriverzen(at)gmail.com

More details about that event will follow. All that is certain about it at the moment is that it'll be free of charge.

The Great Perfection.

Buddhist philosophy posits that everything is already perfect, everything is Buddha-nature and is totally complete in itself...

"Yeah, right!" you might say, and, fair enough, the world is an unapologetic shit hole at times.

When we adopt this notion of 'everything being perfect' idealistically, just as some silly limited idea in our head or whatever, then we can quickly see that it really isn't that useful, truthful or accurate: our lives are more than a bit sucky at times, and this often hurts. But that's not what this Buddhist idea of perfection is about at all: As with all Buddhist philosophy, we should examine this more fully from the perspective of our own practice of zazen.

In zazen we can see that we ourselves make 'good' and 'bad', 'holy' and 'ordinary', 'friend' and 'foe', that we tend towards 'this' and away from 'that' based on our experiences and values... we chop up the Perfection with our thoughts and wants and aversions and all that stuff from our lives. But we can see too that we can lessen this activity with practice and the right sort of effort.

In sitting upright and firmly we can let all that usual drama just come and go; we don't have to get involved, we can see it all as just the Perfection itself unfolding playfully if we don't get involved in the narrative of our lives as we usually do. In doing this the Perfection that already exists before we make things 'perfect' and 'imperfect' will start to become clearer.

Of course, we have to get up off the cushion and step back into the world of discriminating what's good and bad for ourselves and others and striving to do the right thing and make ends meet, but, if we have really expressed and experienced the Perfection, then maybe we can arise with the direct recognition that our often squalid, tiny little lives of frustration and confusion are an expression of something that we cannot limit in the ways that we generally tend to limit ourselves.