{ Monthly Archives }
i have a friend who is an artist. when he visits he stands and looks at a gold framed picture of buddha which hangs on my wall. he said to me,’i hate gold picture frames but a buddha just seems to call for a gold frame.’
buddha calls to buddha.
in a dharma talk we were asked,’how do you make a perfect bell ring without striking it?’ the answer was that you place it next to another perfect bell which is already ringing. the first bell vibrates in sympathy.
each week i meet with sangha friends. one,who had drifted away during the summer,was so pleased to be back with us. an outsider might see a bunch of people simply hanging out together. we laugh,joke and drink tea. but there is an empathy that is almost tangible.
all we have to do is be near each other and the dharma rings out.
some old friends have contacted me. it’s been a while since we last spoke or saw each other. but i always know they are there. i only have to call and they respond.
so in training. if i feel i am becoming separated,losing the way,there is that which is always there,steadfast,waiting in stillness. all i need do is call. there is always a response.
suffering doesn’t happen to me. it is always something i do. thoughts,feelings,sensations happen. they come and they go. but i won’t always let them do that. i have to follow them,examine them,get interested in them. surprise,surprise! here is suffering.
if suffering is what i do,then why do i keep doing?
sitting,facing the wall,a child’s scream pierces the silence and me. in these old houses only a single skin wall separates us. moments pass and we both return to the stillness.
within this stillness he sleeps and i just sit.
this morning i awoke in the dark. wind driving the rain against the window. somewhere the sun is shining even if i can’t see it right now. i don’t need to go looking for it. it will reveal itself.
yesterday was hectic activity, lots of people around. today i am working quietly on my own. i am enjoying the solitary peacefulness. but it is in engaging with others that i experience the arising of self and other in a very direct way.
zazen is everyday life.
i am helping my son and his partner to move house. i once, unsuccessfully, tried to count all of my moves. i was always on the run, a fugitive from life. a fugitive from the law knows what it is they are running from. i never asked myself that. i just kept running.
until one day i stopped running. i sat still. the running and what i was running from both disappeared.
‘any simple everyday action can be used as a way of connecting with the internal meditation hall; the place within us that holds our true wish and is ever ready to help us to live from it.’
from an article by rev master myoho harris in the journal of the order of buddhist contemplatives, autumn 2007.
a chance word from someone got me to look at what i was doing. what i saw as acceptance was really not bothering to look carefully. it wasn’t acceptance but a lack of effort.
acceptance is not the same as ignoring what is going on.