How to stay relavent in your old age...

Below is my book...it still needs editing. Suggestions work for me.

Comfort the Soul

by

Teena Vaughn D'Annibale

c 2009 teenadannibale -

express permission of the author

Christina Vaughn D'Annibale

First North American

Comfort the Soul

How Zen can help you survive as an educated Christian in today’s society

Do you remember your grandmother going to mass every morning? Do you remember when people had alters right in their homes? It was the centerpiece of the house. Now, the centerpiece of the house is a 42 inch flat screen telling you Christianity, or whatever religion you are, has tricked you all these years. So, you grab a spiritual potato chip and a spiritual glass of wine and let your soul get fat and lazy or you start reading self help books like this one.

This self help book requires a lot of work and time and effort on your part. It is all about you and how committed you can be to spiritual exercise on a daily basis. It is about Christianity and

it is about Zen, yes Zen. I am not trying to change your faith. I am not trying to “turn you Buddhist” or “turn you Christian” I am not trying to turn you anything. I am just trying to help you find the peace that I have found for my life. Even if you believe that when you die you just get buried and the bugs eat you, there is still a need for a “spiritual side” in your life. Spirituality for this book means a place of peace in your life, a sanctuary to replace or enhance the traditional sanctuary of religion.

Exercise Your Spirit

A good portion of our society is emerging from a religiously-based society into a spiritually-based society. People are saying, “Ya, know I was raised a Christian but I just can’t get into it. There are too many inconsistencies in the bible. It just doesn’t work for me anymore.” This leaves us in a quandary. We love the peace we get during Mass or Services when it’s just us and God and the rituals we are used to. We love the feeling of community and safety that a “Father” who loves us and forgives us no matter what we do, brings to our life. But when we walk out those big oak doors of our sanctuary we are hit in the face with History Channel and Discovery Channel and books and shows about how the birth of Jesus during the census could not have taken place in Bethlehem or how the whole idea of a virgin giving birth is impossible and our educated minds warp into overdrive and that great feeling we had in the church turns into feelings of being duped and betrayed.

Eventually we stop going to church, we stop reading the bible. Eventually, we let our soul get fat and out of shape because we are not practicing our religion/spirituality in our daily life. And we feel bad about it. We wish we could go back in time to that innocence. But we can’t. The truth set us free and now we are out there in the world alone and wondering how to fill that void.

I am here to tell you there is a happy medium. There is a way to reconcile what you know to be historical fact and your faith. Most importantly you can live your spirituality and mean it.

Exercise 20 minutes a day…

Practice for you to start working on while you are reading the rest of the book.

How would your life be if you tried to live from moment to moment without the weight of what you’ve experienced throughout life hanging onto your every word, influencing your every decision? How would your life be if you tried not to think of the future, if you let the world come to you, if you lived for this moment, savoring every “this moment” moment after moment until you died.

The people in Christ’s world didn’t need to LEARN to live this way. Even today, if you are working two jobs to make ends meet and juggling a family you don’t have time to put all kinds of “meaning” on every little thing that happens in your life. When life smacks you upside the head every day you just take life as it comes because that is all you CAN do. You are in survival mode. When you pray or go to church you turn to someone who tells you it will be all right and you believe that it will be all right because that is what gets you through that day, that moment I church on Sunday is food for your soul for the whole week. Christ spoke this language from the beginning and in my opinion, as man got more and more educated over the years, we distorted his word from a simple day to day message into something that has become so complicated you cannot use it anymore. Man got too smart for his own britches and stopped thinking about one of the basics of Christianity – think like a child. In Zen, “think like a child” is called beginner’s mind.

All of the stories in the Bible that were written when very few people could read were meant as inspiration. Instead they have turned into a reason for educated people to not believe in Christianity. In my opinion, the “church” has made them into a history lesson so then people can prove or disprove the story, making people feel tricked by the church and it’s leaders and Jesus himself But the Bible is a tool, a tool full of parables to help us through this life. It is a history book in some ways, yes, but not everything in it is meant to be a history lesson. Maybe that is why the authors of the bible included, “And you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” John 8:32.

What a powerful statement.

Buddha, on the other hand, had it all. He had time to think about life. He was educated and learned to question and think for himself. And so he needed to learn to be simple. Just like many people today need to learn to be simple. Buddha needed to learn to accept life as it comes. He needed to learn not to think so much.

He already spoke the language of the “rich and famous” he had to learn to speak to the common people. While I do not know enough about Buddhism as a religion to comment as extensively as I did about Christianity I can surmise that Zen was formed as an offshoot to get back to basics, back to beginner’s mind. That is what I am hoping to do for Chritians in this book. I am hoping to give you a reason and a means to reclaim your religion/philosophy. I am hoping to give you a way to make peace with yourself and what you know as fact and Christianity. A thing common to both religions as well as to our society, we all need to get back to basics.

No matter where your journey has led you this practice will help you to better understand Zen. That is for sure .

How would your life be if you just took moment after moment and let the world wash over you until moment after moment added together to be a lifetime of peace? Practice this everyday and you that you will find peace, a sanctuary within.

Please print this out and keep it with you…

Spiritual Workout for your soul

…to help you find peace in this world full of pressure and success and insanity.

1. For 20 minutes a day I want you to let your thoughts and the world just wash over you without thinking at all. Do it while waiting for your kids to get out of sports or ballet or while you are waiting for an appointment. Think of a wave of water cleansing your soul.

2. Shop for a community of faith you feel comfortable with and attend their worship weekly. Or join a community of people who help others.

3. While in worship/meeting, journal your feelings about what you like and do not like about the religion/community. Be honest. Brutally honest.

4. The day after, read what you wrote in your journal the day before. Think about whether those feelings are man inspired or spiritually inspired. Focus on words. Can you find a new way to think about those words so you feel comfortable with them? Could “God”, for instance, mean “the goodness in this world” for you? Begin to think of “worship” as “fellowship” with other people or a time to meditate and commune with your deepest feelings.

5. Never let a religion’s threats scare you from your search for your spirituality. If you do think that you will “go to hell”, say, for re-thinking your faith, this program is probably not for you.

6. Think with beginners mind as often as possible. Take the world as it comes; don’t add any baggage to anything that happens, the people you meet, or the actions you take.

7. Stop and think when you accept praise or lay blame for things in your life.

8. Read your spiritual book with a new eye. If it’s the Bible, re-read passages taking out the “man-made” parts and find a comfortable place where it is just you and your spiritual self and commune with that thought.

9. Take things a little at a time. If you don’t it will drown your spirit. As you progress through finding a new way to look at your religion you may get angry. I felt lied to and didn’t go to church for 4 years. Try not to let this happen to you. Church is important. We can’t let that red paint stick to us. So, breath through it. Keep practicing so you can find the answers within you.

10. Really listen to your spirit, not man, and practice, practice, practice, meditate, read a talk every day. Exercise your soul moment after moment, day after day!

A little about myself

I have been a devout Christian my whole life. And like a good Christian I studied the bible and read history books about Jesus, everything I could get my hands on about my religion. “The truth shall set you free.” Right? Well, the truth set me too free. I learned a lot of truths and they were NOT what I was reading in my bible. So, I started researching other religions and in the end I came to an agreement with myself about God and Jesus. I promised to not let man’s bastardization of a beautiful faith ruin mine.

However, I also learned about a great way to live my life. All of this research freed me from all of the guilt of traditional Christianity, man-made guilt in my opinion, and added a routine to my life that Christianity forgot to include or got lost over the years because of our busy lifestyle. Let’s face it there just isn’t time to go to mass every morning anymore.

We all need a home gym for our soul.

That is when Zen came into my life.

I began research about Buddha because I heard that a lot of people think that Jesus and Buddha were the same man. When I started to learn about Buddhism I found that the teachings of these two great men were so similar it is shocking. As I read about Buddha and what a gentle man he was, I thought of Christ, the man. I thought about how injustice angered him so much this gentle man could not contain his rage in the temple and resorted to violence. Christ grew up with the real world in his face. It was his life. The Romans killing his kin, women being raped by soldiers; these things were a part of his daily life.

The core difference between the two men is that Christ grew up in poverty, slapped in the face with “real life” every minute of his life. Buddha grew up a prince. Jesus gave his followers hope for rescue from the life they led and Buddha gave his follows hope for rescue from the life they led. The two men just came from very different backgrounds, so they speak to very different audiences.

Christ’s followers had enough on their plates trying to survive. All they needed was hope and a king, a prince of peace, and a vision of a place so different from their own lives that they could find the strength to endure, to go on every day; they needed a heaven of hope.

Buddha, on the other hand, was a prince and lived his life within the castle walls, a heaven of sorts. He knew nothing of poverty and thought the whole world lived like he did. Yet, inside, deep inside himself, he wondered what was outside of those walls, what was outside of this heaven. So, he ventured out into the world and found the world Christ was born into. He was sickened by the excesses he had grown up with and yearned for a way to help the people who had nothing as well as the people who had everything, just like Christ.

Both men had two audiences to reach, the rich and the poor. Both men found ways to speak to both groups, a common ground.

Buddha sat and thought about life under a tree. And while thinking (or meditating) he realized that we have the best life when we think and act like children. He called this beginner’s mind. Jesus went in the desert to talk to his father. He came back with a similar message. Think like children. “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them. For the kingdom of heaven belongs to those who are like these children.” Mathew 19:14

. Why do both men ask us to think like a child? It’s all about baggage.

Beginners Mind

For this program to work we must think like children. Children carry no baggage. Children love people for who they are right then and there. They love the person standing before them, not who that person was before or who they will be in the future. They enjoy the moment. They swing on swings and dance when they hear music. They sing when they are happy and cry when they are sad.

They go to church and clap and say, “Hi, Jesus!” to a statue.

They dress up like sheep, proud to be part of the story in the bible.

I can only speak from a Christian perspective because that is how I was raised. But we are good friends with Muslims and agnostics and their children are the same. Accepting, loving little people that we should all strive to emulate.

This is where my studying led me. It led me to beginners mind and Zen.

I knew I had to look at Christianity with new eyes, with the eyes of a child. I would like to take this time to say that I will be speaking from a Christian perspective because that is my first faith, my first faith language, I speak like a Christian most easily, just like English is my first language. But, please don’t think you are excluded. Whatever your faith, or lack thereof, this program will work to build your spiritual side and help you to find that sanctuary of peace we are all looking for. So, please read this with the eyes of a child, with beginner’s mind, and forgive me my Christian language it is my first language and the one I am the most affluent in and comfortable with and I hope you can understand it no matter what your first religion language is for I am only trying to help us all heal.

Zen and me

After years and years of searching and reading and more reading, with no dialogue or any other influence from people who really knew about Zen, I read books, and researched and thought and sorted out my beliefs. And after all of that because I have no access to anything Zen here in Southeastern PA, but am inundated with Christian churches of every denomination, I have come to a compromise of sorts. I needed to have Christianity AND Zen in my life. So it was imperative that I found a place that I felt comfortable.

While both searches were difficult and heart wrenching at times, I found a place within myself that allowed me to rethink Jesus Christ’s life with beginners mind and I found a building with people, a place outside of myself, that allowed me to rethink my beliefs with beginner’s mind.

While I have always been very self spiritual (I don’t really need a preacher) I knew I needed a real sanctuary to worship in. I like people. I like fellowship. I like pot luck suppers and bringing baskets to sick people who are alone so they feel loved. I LOVE watching the kids do the nativity on Christmas Eve. I love communion and I love singing hymns loud and mostly out of tune so God can hear me. This meant I had to find a place, a worship center, where I felt comfortable in my journey to peace so I could fellowship with people. That is an important part of spirituality, giving to others. And where I live, you have to do that through a church. It is just a fact of life. I searched and after much searching I happened to find an Episcopal church that was open and loving and not judgmental, a place I felt comfortable fellowshipping in. And once I joined, I found out there were a lot of people like me flocking to this church; a lot of people feeling just like I felt were joining this church. And the more people I spoke to the more I felt we needed a new teaching tool; a bible of sorts, to help us through our search for some kind of faith, some kind of spirituality. This started me writing this book.

So, this is where my journey has taken me so far. Maybe this book will help you through your journey too. At the very least you will know you are not alone. At the very least you will have a tool to try to journey through this life, a reference book. And maybe it will help you come to a place of peace with the faith you grew up with and the truth you now know. It’s all I can do. I can only share where I have been; the rest is up to you.

Commitment

How to Comfort your Soul

You workout your body daily, don't you? You find time to go to the gym or spend an hour on your treadmill so you stay fit and healthy. In fact, you have it on your schedule. You make it a priority. But what do you do for your soul on a daily basis.

Some of us are emerging into spiritual beings. We are trying to find our own “meaning to life” but we are not very good at taking care of our own souls. Do you want to know why? We are lazy and we don’t have a routine to follow. We have to let go of our problems with churches and practice our “faith” by giving to others through the resources we have at our fingertips. In addition, we have to keep our spiritual self healthy by working out daily to stay centered and peaceful. When we do this we come to life with a pure soul and we make decisions with a pure mind and we learn to accept life as it comes and we are at peace.

What do you do for your soul on a daily basis? Maybe you say prayers before bed? Maybe you read a self help book, like this one, while “doing your business on the pica doo” (that’s potty for you non-Italians)? Whatever you are doing to find some peace, I am here to tell you, it is not enough. If it were, you wouldn’t be reading this book, my friend. So if you are ready for a spiritual workout that will leave you feeling better about life than you have ever felt before, let’s go.

The Basics

Ok, here we go. I know some of you think you know all about Buddhism. Maybe you do; others, maybe not so much. First of all Buddhism and Zen are kind of different even though they come from a common source. One way to think of it is Buddhism is the religious side of the Buddha’s teaching, some might say the religion and Zen is the down to earth anyone can do it part of Buddha’s teaching, the workout.

Zen

Zen, as I understand it, is a practice it is not religion. It is a way of life based on truths about life. It could be seen as a philosophy but it is not a philosophy as far as I see it. It is just a way to live your life without stress and conflict. It is a practice, a workout for your soul.

“The most important things in our practice are our physical posture and our way of breathing. We‘re not so concerned about a deep understanding of Buddhism. As a philosophy, Buddhism is a very deep, wide, and firm system of thought, but Zen is not concerned about philosophical understanding. We emphasize practice. We should understand why our physical posture and breathing exercise are so important. Instead of having a deep understanding of the teaching, we need a strong confidence in the teaching which says we have Buddha nature. Our practice is based on this faith.” [1]^{(Suzuki, 1999)}

So the only thing you need is the belief that you have Buddha nature. But what is that? The way I think of Buddha nature is your pure soul. Your “self” the real you with nothing attached to it. Buddha nature is you. It is your goodness and your badness. It is just you looking at who you are with a naked eye and accepting “the real you”. So, you need to be able to look at yourself and see who you really are and you need to be able to commit to practicing every day. You can do that? Right?

Think of Zen like the army. It is all about your behavior, your performance, and your actions not your motives. The army doesn’t ask WHY you do things. They don’t analyze your motives. They just look at behavior, assess it for what it is, and act accordingly. If you don’t’ do 10 pushups when you are told to do 10 pushups, the Drill Sergeant doesn’t care that you have sprained wrist. He wants you to do the pushups; pain or no pain, get it done. That is Zen. Push through your pain and in the end you will gain. Don’t add all this crap onto stuff. Most importantly, if you live each moment the best you can then you don’t need to have rules and incentives (like heaven) to have a good life SOMEDAY. Instead, you will have a little heaven every moment of your life, right NOW.

However, understanding Buddhism and some of its principles will help you get more out of the exercise so I am going to try to help you understand it from an American-Christian point of view, my point of view. I will outline the basic definitions in the next few sections. Then, I am going to go chapter by chapter through a book by a wonderful Zen Master named Shunryu Suzuki. He pretty much brought Zen to America. I love him and feel as if he speaks to me daily, but I do not claim to be a Zen Teacher, nor do I know that much about Buddhism, I am not a scholar, merely a student. I speak with beginner’s mind. I guess with no outside influence other than books and your own thoughts that is about all you have. The book is called Zen Mind Beginner’s Mind and it is a rough translation of his teachings by Trudy Dixon. She admits that sometimes things get lost in translation because there is no word in the English language for what he is trying to teach. So, keep that in mind if you choose to read it.

I began reading this book 10 years ago just after my mother died. I promised myself to read one “teaching” a day, only one, and to keep going whether I understood it all or not. I figured it was like going to church and hearing a sermon. You don’t always understand the sermon but you don’t stop going to church and you only get one sermon a week to ponder. So, it’s not too much all at once. Since, I didn’t have a place to go to hear him or any other teacher for that matter I just did it this way, as if he were here, right with me, helping me learn. For ten years I kept re-reading this book, over and over again. And as time went on I began to get it. I meditated and cleared my mind and PRACTICED every day for ten years, faithfully reading his words and finally it all started to make sense to me. I can only hope the same for you. Some will have beginner’s mind earlier than others but I can tell you from personal experience when you finally get it, you will feel so damn good! Beginner’s mind set me free. I can take life as it comes now. I do not feel alone, I have myself. I do not feel guilty because I only have this moment and I choose to practice every moment, moment after moment, until I am done here. I do not look to the future or wish for the past. I am content with what I have and who I am. I take care of myself and my actions and do not let the actions of others affect me. I am neither happy nor am I sad. I just am. And if I have those feelings I take them moment by moment and try to practice letting the world wash over me and when I do, when I accomplish my practice, then I am at peace.

Practice what you preach

You are not only your best teacher, in the end, you are your only teacher.

In the preface to the book, Zen Mind Beginner’s Mind, Richard Baker includes “a tribute from Trudy (Dixon) to her teacher (Shunryu Suzuki) describing very well the relationship between Zen teacher and Zen student.”

“A roshi is a person who has actualized that perfect freedom which is the potentiality for all human beings. He exists freely in the fullness of his whole being. The flow of his consciousness is not the fixed repetitive patterns of our usual self-centered consciousness, but rather arises spontaneously and naturally form the actual circumstances of the present. The results of this in terms of the quality of his life are extraordinary – buoyancy, vigor, straightforwardness, simplicity, humility, serenity, joyousness, uncanny perspicacity, and unfathomable compassion. His whole being testifies to what it means to live in the reality of the present. Without anything said or done, just the impact of meeting a personality so developed can be enough to change another’s whole way of life. But in the end it is not the extraordinariness of the teacher which perplexes, intrigues and deepens the student, it the teacher’s utter ordinariness. Because he is just himself, he is a mirror for his students. When we are with him we feel our own strengths and shortcomings without any sense of praise or criticism from him. In his presence we see our original face, and the extraordinariness we see is only our own true nature. When we learn to let our own nature free, the boundaries between master and student disappear and in a deep flow of being and joy in the unfolding of Buddha mind.” (Suzuki, 1999)[2]

A lot of what you will learn here comes from Zen Master Suzuki and I hope you find it as freeing as I have. But in the end you are your own best teacher. Listen to yourself.

I have read many other books to help me but Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind is the one that spoke to me the loudest. I would also recommend Everyday Zen by Charlotte Joko Beck. This is written from a first language Christian voice and is easy to understand. However, as I said before, I forced myself to read one talk (chapter) by Master Suzuki every day, as if I was in a zendo (house of worship/meditation). I did not understand half of it at first. The whole nothingness idea was like WHAT?? But I just kept reading it over and over and I forced myself to meditate for 20 minutes every day and eventually it was like a window opened and I understood it all… it really is nothing. And that is what I want you to do. I want you to read one chapter of this book or whatever book speaks to you every day and meditate every day until you get it, until you get that it’s nothing.

As for “sitting” I still cannot get the posture right and I find my mind wandering, but every day it becomes easier and easier. At first, I just sat in a chair and tried to let the world wash over me. If I thought about a bill, I would acknowledge, “Ok, I just thought about the electric bill.”

But then I would try to refocus on my breathing. I would hear a bird sing or the dog bark. I heard and was bothered by EVERYTHING and sometimes still am. It doesn’t help that I am a little ADD and my nature is to skip from one thing to the next and back. But every day I find it easier and easier.

Terms

Before I get into the “talks” I need to go over some terms with you, partly so you can just read about Zen and understand it and partly to help you release some of your prejudices about Zen. Yup, we all have them. So, let’s just air out the laundry. Zen is different and foreign and the language is not what you are used to hearing. Well, when we get into the “talks” section I am not going to use that language so you will feel all comfortable and not hung up on the language. But in case you want to investigate Zen on your own, here are some terms you need to know. I am going to talk about Karma and Enlightenment and the least understood thing of all “nothingness.” People talk about Buddhism and think of attaining enlightenment and having good Karma. First of all Karma is balance. Karma is accepting the good and the bad with the same feeling. It is the idea that you learn from the good, you learn from the bad in life and it’s all the same lesson. They are of equal weight. If you had all good things happen to you then you wouldn’t appreciate them because that is all you knew, the same goes for the bad. So, if you think of good and bad with equal weight and welcome both things into your life then you will not have sorrow, nor will you be ecstatic, you will just be content. Which is our new goal, to be content.

“According to traditional Buddhist understanding, our human nature is without ego. When we have no idea of ego, we have Buddha’s view of life. Our egoistic ideas are delusion, covering our Buddha nature. (We shouldn’t think the world revolves around us – John didn’t eat your lunch at work on purpose just to get you. He just is a guy who doesn’t pay attention to which lunch is his because his wife packs his lunch in the same brown bags you use for your lunch. Get over yourself. When you think like this you drain your soul and you cannot be content. Who cares if he has your lunch? His wife packs a better lunch than your bologna sandwich anyway. Let it go!) We are always creating and following them, and in repeating this process over and over again, our life becomes completely occupied by ego centered ideas. This is called the karmic life, or karma. The Buddhist life should not be karmic life. The purpose of our practice is to cut off the karmic spinning mind. If you are trying to attain enlightenment, that is a part of karma, you are creating and being driven by karma and you are wasting your time on your black cushion (meditating). According to Bodhidharma’s understanding, practice based on any gaining idea is just a repetition of your karma. Forgetting this point, many later Zen masters have emphasized some stage to be attained by practice. More important than any stage which you will attain is your sincerity, your right effort.” (Suzuki, 1999)[3]

So, see, men (Zen Masters) forgot about what the basic principle is and starting adding the gaining idea to Buddhism, just like the Christians did.

But back to Karma…Karma is more of a description of the good and the bad that happens to all of us in this lifetime. Suzuki says we should learn from Karma by letting it wash over us and not taking it into our souls. We should learn from our mistakes and from the good things that happen in life. If you take each moment as it comes and do not beat yourself up over the why’s of what happens in life then you will find that you have a great peace.

This is enlightenment.

Enlightenment is when you can pour the red paint of this world’s troubles AND happiness over your body and just be standing in a puddle of red paint with not one drop attaching itself to you. Now you can imagine the moment by moment practice this takes to achieve. No beating yourself up for things you did wrong, just learning from it. No taking credit for things you did well, just accepting it. This, my friends, is enlightenment attained from “nothingness” (or no paint on you) which is attained through leading a non-karmic (non-drama) life. So, you get to enlightenment through lack of Karma. So Karma is pretty important. Let me try to explain again.

Karma compared to Praise and Blame

Maybe I can help you understand it by comparing it to what you know. Christians don’t do karma they do praise and blame. This is a part of Christianity that baffles me to this day and has my whole life; the need for blame and praise. If something good happens to you in Christianity it is because of God’s goodness. If something bad happens to you; the devil is to blame. The word to focus on here is “happens” to you. It is as if the world is out to get you or help you and you need to find a way to survive and someone to thank or blame for your fate. You don’t seem to be an active participant in this kind of thinking. You are not responsible for your actions. Heaven and hell are the main incentives to change in the Christian religion. Without praise and blame it is quite hard to be happy or sad, and even harder to get into heaven or hell. But Zen isn’t aiming for happy or sad or heaven or hell that is too karmic. It is aiming for content.

Zen just wants you to be content, content with what you have and with what happens to you in life. Try to replace the need for happiness with being content. Believe me; your life will be that much easier. No reward, no punishment, just the ability to accept life and all of its changes for what they are and be content.

This is a subject that you can work into your 20 minute workout and a way to reconcile your religious beliefs with what we know to be fact. Does your faith ask you to blame and praise? If so, how can you reconcile this practice with something you find more comforting?

Here is the answer that worked for me. The good and the bad in the world are Karma. God and the Devil put together are Karma. So, try to look at it like this. What if the story about the devil being thrown down into hell was one of those things in the Bible that man put there? What if the goodness or God in the world and the evil or the Devil in the world were the same thing and were called Karma. What if Karma (or God/Devil) was here to teach you all the lessons you need to know in this life to help you find peace, to help you feel at peace? What if finding peace moment after moment on this earth just by taking responsibility for yourself and yourself alone, blaming no one (even yourself), praising no one (even yourself), was heaven, heaven here on earth? Doesn’t God want us to be happy? Doesn’t God want us to take responsibility for ourselves? Don’t let man’s rendition of what you know in your heart are God’s wishes (or what you know to be good and right, if you are not Christian) dictate your happiness, moment by moment.

Here are some places in the Bible where Jesus tells us not to blame others and that all praise goes to Him, not you: John 8:7, Leviticus 21. You should try to find places in your religious book of faith that helps you find common ground for this practice. If you cannot blame others and all praise goes to God then these verses allow you to accept no praise for yourself and place no blame on others and just be content.

Enlightenment

So, Karma is the good and the bad in life. What is enlightenment? Isn’t that the equivalent to heaven? Well, sort of, except the place called heaven is within you. As a Christian, when I think of heaven it makes me smile. But people have very different views of heaven and most people think of the place they go when they die as a reward for being or trying to be a good person. When they get there it will be a lovely existence, filled with joy and reunions with loved ones and God.

Enlightenment is something that is within you always. You just have to find it, allow yourself to experience it. I have brief moments of enlightenment, even Buddha went back and forth with brief moments of clarity and peace, enlightenment, whirling in and out of his life. But you cannot really do or not do anything to attain enlightenment. It just is. It is a part of your soul and whether you choose to live in a state of enlightenment is totally up to you. It is a part of your nature. You just need to tap into it. And you can tap into it through “nothingness” or not letting anything rattle you.

“Nothingness”

Please keep an open mind and I will try my hardest to explain this. But what will really help you understand Zen is practice. Right now we are going to talk about “nothing.” The use of the word “nothing” kind of gets lost in translation from Japanese. I don’t speak Japanese but I can tell you from my understanding of Zen, “nothing” is NOT a good enough word for what we are trying to attain. People, including myself, have mocked that idea. “Why should I pay money to read about how to do nothing.” Or “Why should I waste my precious time learning, or ‘practicing’, excuse me, to do nothing. I can do nothing all by myself.”

But can you?

Can you even think of a day when thoughts were not bustling through your mind; when other people’s statements to you did not carry any baggage? Can you think of a conversation where whatever was said was just said, nothing more; whatever was done was just done, nothing more?

Can you even think of a day when the statements, the day, the troubles just washed over you like a wave? Or do you live your life taking gulps and gulps of sea water? Do you feel like you are swimming in a beautiful ocean but the only thing you feel or see is the sea weed stuck in your hair and the jelly fish swimming around you and the fear of the sharks circling you and every moment feels as if you are drowning?

When was the last time you laid in bed, rested your head on the pillow, and fell asleep?

When?

Nothingness is a way of living. In our society we always want to feel everything, we want to know why; we want a label so we can fix it, whatever “it” is at the moment. But some things just are. There is no reason for a baby being born with Down’s syndrome, it just is. There is no reason for some people finding their soul mates and others settling for a companion or being alone. It just is.

If you live your life without emotions becoming a part of you, without baggage, with nothingness, then you will have no sorrow, no joy, you will just be content.

Now, I tried to tell this to my daughter and her reaction was, “What a horrible life that would be! No joy, no sorrow, no thanks!”

That is one way of looking at it. But to say you HAVE no joy, no sorrow, does not mean you do not experience joy or sorrow. It is just not a part of you. You let joy and sorrow wash over you. It isn’t yours to begin with. It belongs to the universe. Just like people say that babies are just on loan to us as parents. That is how joy and sorrow are. Like the paint that doesn’t stick to your body, it ends up in a puddle at your feet. You experience it but you do not internalize it. It is not a part of who you are. It is not a part of your soul. That is nothingness, a life without Karmic activity, a life filled with experiences that help shape you but are not you…enlightened bliss.

The Talks

My understanding of the talks by Shunryu Suzuki,

Interpreted by Trudy Dixon

In the book

Zen Mind Beginner’s Mind

It is time to exercise your soul. Read one talk every day and meditate for 20 minutes sitting in the lotus position if you can. The lotus position is sitting crossed legged with your left foot on your right thigh and your right foot on your left thigh. “This symbolizes the oneness of duality, not two and not one. Our body and mind are not two and not one.”[4] You know this idea from every wedding you have been to since 1978. The bride and groom each light a candle symbolizing them as individuals and then light the Unity candle symbolizing their life together. They are not two and not one.

So, to sit or practice or meditate, all different ways of saying the same thing, you should try the Lotus position. That is the preferred way but if you physically cannot do the Lotus position, then sit with a straight back in any chair. The lotus position is very difficult for me physically because I have a bad knee. So, I symbolize the duality of my body and mind by sitting with my ankles crossed and my feet flat on the ground. By doing this I am honoring the spirit of the meditation posture and I can still walk when I am done sitting.

Sit with your hands held palms up to accept the energy of the world or with your hands in the “cosmic mudra” position: left hand on top of right, where you middle fingers bent cradling one in the other and touching your thumbs lightly together. “You should keep this universal mudra with great care as if you were holding something very precious in your hand.”[5] The open palm meditation is my personal addition to Zen. Zen says to use the universal mudra position. But sometimes I feel as if I need more help from the universe or I am overflowing and have a lot to give to the universe and so I sit with open palms. Meditation is a way to clear your mind and your soul. As you sit you will experience all kinds of outside influences but try not to pay attention to them. If you find yourself distracted say to yourself, “Yup, that was a dog barking.” And continue with your practice. Focus on a wave washing over you, washing the day away. Let your mind go blank, completely blank. Think about every breath you take, be aware of your breathing so that your mind is just floating, not doing anything. Nothingness. As you get better at it you will find that your body naturally relaxes and you no longer even hear the phone or the dog within your soul. You physically hear the noises but they will have no affect on you. But it takes time and practice. In the end you will find peace and a sanctuary for your soul. You will experience brief encounters with enlightenment that will just make you smile. You will be content.

Outside of this inner sanctuary you should be searching for your outer sanctuary in a church or any other place that fills you and allows you to interact with others and make this world a better place. Once you find that place you should commit to one small act to make the world a better place every week. It is important that you marry these two principles to achieve balance in your life. Buddha went out into the world. Jesus went out into the world. We must go out into the world because we are all one and a part of the bigger soul that is humanity.

Talk Change

In Buddhism, change is the most basic teaching. There will always be change. Accepting change means there is no need for karma. Another word in my mind for karma is drama. If you try to think of it like that it may help put karma in today’s context. Take life as it comes, especially all of the changes and there will be no karma or drama.

“Transiency. We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence. The basic teaching of Buddhism is the teaching of transiency, or change. That everything changes is the basic truth for each existence… This teaching is also understood as the teaching of selflessness. Because each existence is in constant change, there is no abiding self. In fact, the self-nature of each existence is nothing but change itself, the self-nature of all existence.” [6]^{(Suzuki, 1999)}

Master Suzuki is telling us that it is impossible to focus on your own problems if you accept change because you know that in one more moment your situation WILL change and then you wasted all that time focusing on “praise and blame” and wondering why me or lucky me. He does not mean “selfless” like a Christian would think of selfless. In Christianity you are selfless if you put your needs aside for the needs of others and he does not mean that. He means that you will be without self. You will be nothing (not of importance in the grand scheme of things) thus helping you to achieve enlightenment or contentment in every moment. The ironic part of this is that if we all just accept change and allow ourselves to “go with the flow”, then we become better people, which is infectious, making those around us better people, in turn making this attitude about life VERY important in the grand scheme of things, because as a group we will all be content; which in my opinion makes the world a better place and me a better person.

Talk * Emptiness[7]

Many of us feel empty these days. But emptiness can be a constructive thing. It means you are completely available for new experiences. Let’s think about what upsets us in life. Expectations that are not actualized are what upset us. We feel disappointed in people or activities or in ourselves, our actions and the outcomes of those actions. But if we go through life with no expectations of what SHOULD happen or how people SHOULD behave, then we will never be let down. Picture this, you are planning on going to Disney World. It takes a LOT of planning to go to Disney World, let’s face it! Not just the travel but how you are going to best plan your day to see the park because it is so big. So, you make all of these plans and have all of these expectations of how fun it is going to be. But when you get there it’s raining and half of the rides are closed and the map was wrong and the place you wanted to eat Mexican Food at is now a Chinese Food place. So what do you say to your family, “Everything is RUINED!!”

Why? Why is it ruined? It was ruined because of your lack of emptiness. You were not willing to just let the world come to you and unfold in your arms and make the best of CHANGE!

What if the rides were closed and you were forced to run into a building because of the rain. Your whole family is laughing because they are wet and you are not disappointed because you are empty and open to all possibilities for fun. And when you get into that building you realize it’s this really cool exhibit about Walt Disney that is only there for that month. Because it is raining you get almost a personal tour and get to have dinner with Mickey Mouse and another family who braved the storm. Then as you are leaving the park gives you a free pass for next year for being such good sports. All because you were empty, waiting for the world to fill you up, taking life moment by moment, your family had “the best vacation EVER, Mom!”

“As long as we have some definite idea about the future or some hope for the future, we cannot really be serious with the moment that exists right now. You may say, ‘I can do it tomorrow or next year,’ believing that something that exists today will exist tomorrow. Even though you are not trying so hard, you expect that some promising thing will come, as long as you follow a certain way. But there is no certain way that exists permanently. There is no way set up for us. Moment after moment we have to find our own way. Some idea of perfection, or some perfect way which is set up by someone else, is not the true way for us. Each one of us must make his own true way, and when we do, that way will express the universal way…The best way is to understand yourself, and then you will understand everything…You must take everything out of your room and clean it thoroughly.”[8]

Ok, “Clean House” the show on TV where Niecey Nash comes with her crew and makes people get rid of their junk, has a yard sale and uses the money to fix their house all nice, well that is what you should do with your mind. Getting rid of all of your preconceived notions and ideas about things will give you such freedom you won’t believe it. Picture your mind as a cluttered garage. Remember when you first moved into your house and your garage was so cleaned up you could fit both cars in it! Then you put in a beer frig and hung tools on the wall and your wife threw all this junk out there just before the annual Christmas party. Next thing you know you cannot fit any cars in there and every time you open the door to go out and putter you see all the junk and you start thinking I HATE this garage. Then it becomes I HATE this house. It’s too small for all of our stuff. We need to move to a house with a three car garage. But your wife likes THIS house and you fight about moving and the finances to afford the move and all because your garage is a mess you end up mad and hate your house and your wife for making you stay in that house and are just a miserable old beast. Well, that is what happens in our minds. So, move it all out. Clean it out! You can bring the ladder back in and hang it properly on the wall. You can put your cars in there at night. But make it easy to move the cars out, the ladder out, in case you need the space for your daughter’s graduation party. Get it?

All of the junk became a part of you. You let the red paint stick to your hair and your clothes and you hugged your wife and the red paint got all over her and you patted your kid’s head and her hair had red paint on it, the dog had red paint on his head where you scratched him. Instead you could have had an empty mind and soul and all of that red paint would be lying on the floor at your feet and not sticking to you at all. That is where the red paint belongs. And you would be content because you “cleaned house.”

Talk *The Quality of Being[9]

Do you remember in the movie Star Wars how there was the goodness in the universe and evil in the universe? They called it the “force.” They would say, “The force is strong with this one, Obi wan.” And things like that. Well, they were right. We all contribute to the evanescence, the force, of the universe. You are never alone because we are all one. We are all a part of one another, intertwined, intermingled, our energy feeding and feasting on one another.

This is the Quality of Being. Because we are all connected whenever we do something we should give it our all because our energy is being put into that activity which is, then, being shared with the universe.

People say all the time, “She puts such love in her cooking.”

Or, “Whenever I look at that quilt Grandma made, I feel her with me.”

They don’t mean that Grandma is actually there with them. They mean that she put a part of herself into the making of the quilt and that love wraps around them every time they wrap up in the quilt on a cold night. If you focus with your whole soul on every activity your energy will be in that thing. Your energy becomes that thing.

A pie starts out just flour and butter and an unpeeled apple and some sugar. But when you put that pie together and bake it and serve it to your family you have put your soul, your love, into that pie. The pieces that made the pie are not a pie before your energy made them a pie. And to go back further, the butter was not butter until some other soul in the universe made it butter, and the apple was lovingly picked from a tree by someone and grown by someone else and the flour was milled and ground and the wheat was grown by a farmer and harvested by another man, the farmer’s son, and their mother made them an apple pie for dinner that night after their hard day of farm work, to nourish their bodies, just like you made your pie to nourish your family. All of those people put energy into your pie and your family.

This is so important. This is what our society has lost. We have lost the ability to put all we have into all we do. We have lost the ability to take pride in our actions, in our work, in the things we make. I think because we don’t think we make anything anymore because our products are not something we can hold in our hands.

We don’t make a bench; we sell a stock to make money. But that shouldn’t change the energy with which you sell the stock. You should take pride in selling that stock and think about the family you are helping to retire, or the nest egg that allows a widow to stay in the home she loves after her husband of forty years passes away. You should give all of yourself to every activity so that you have “Quality of Being.”

“A wonderful painting is the result of the feeling in your fingers. If you have the feeling of the thickness of the ink in your brush, the painting is already there before you paint. When you dip your brush into the ink you already know the result of your drawing, or else you cannot paint. So, before you do something, ‘being’ is there, the result is there.”[10]

It is already there, so to speak, you just make it come true. Once the painting is done it is no longer a part of you. You have birthed a new thing that can stand on its own. And so you leave that thing for the world to admire and that thing becomes a part of them for a moment. The painting becomes a part of the world, a piece of art; the stock you sell becomes a part of the world, a peace of mind; all because you put your soul into your work, your action, and then let it fly into the universe, like a feather on the wind, trusting that the energy you put into it will be received with the proper intention. And you are no longer a part of it. Ashes are not firewood. Firewood is no longer a tree.[11]

Every thing coexists to feed and be fed within the universe. So, you should put your soul into everything you do and then set it free until your next project, job, painting, stock sale or apple pie. Take comfort in knowing and thinking of whom it is you are helping and then clear your mind - for the action is no longer yours, it belongs to the universe. You can let it go and sit in peace at night knowing you did your best and can begin again new, with nothing, for another moment. Moment by moment, burning all of your energy in everything you do so you have nothing left, moment after moment, giving it your all, so you can be content.

Talk Traditional Zen Spirit[12]

I have touched on this briefly in the beginning chapters. I want to make sure you understand that you have enlightenment or peace or heaven in you right now. It is what Master Suzuki calls Traditional Zen Spirit. The idea that meditating every day for no reason will bring you a contented life, “Just cuz I said so”, goes against everything we are taught, as Americans, as free thinkers, from the day we are born. This may help you understand.

Have you ever coached a little league softball team, or any team for that matter? For the most part the kids aren’t that talented at sports. For the most part their parents are offering them a chance to try something new, to see if they are good at it, to keep them healthy and busy and it is fun for them. Most of the kids come to all of the practices and do the best they can and have a lot of fun. Those kids get some playing time and are happy with that. They are just as happy with the banter in the dugout as they are with playing the game.

Other kids come to the first practice and you can see that baseball or softball or sports in general are their life. They run out onto the field and shag balls before you even get there. You see them at the batting cages on Saturday and they always have a mitt in their hand, even in the grocery store with their mom, even in church. Practice is never a chore for them. Practice for this kid is something he must do. They were born with something, call it talent, call it drive, but more, they were born with an innate need for that sport. If they don’t make the team they will still practice. If they never do very well, they will still practice. They will play beer leagues when they are 30 and over the hill leagues when they are 50. It is who they are. It is a part of their soul, this sport. And the practice brings them close to this part of them every time they pick up a glove or a bat.

It is the same for musicians or dancers or writers or artists, it is like it is in their blood. If I never ever had gotten anything published in my whole life I would still write all the time. I would write even if no one was ever going to read it. I am a writer. The practice brings me to a place that makes me content, yes, but that is not why I practice, why I write. I just have to. If I could write all day and all night every moment, I would be in heaven.

Zen spirit is like this. It is there inside you always, you are born with it, and it is a part of you. So, you cannot work to get it because you already have it, we all do. Like the athlete or the writer or the musician, the teacher or the cop, the firefighter or the mother, it is just in them, in you and with practice you make your life full of small moments of perfection because you are aware of this you, this thing that is in you that you cannot escape being a part of. Zen spirit is in there too, right next to that innate ability to calm a crying baby or cook a perfect meal. Practice will make you aware of that spirit.

There is a saying “Practice makes perfect.”

But my sons, both successful athletes, will beg to differ with you on that.

They say, “Perfect practice makes perfect.”

That is what Master Suzuki wants us to understand. Sit correctly; meditate with your best intentions, try, try, try, practice perfectly to work out your soul, with no intention of gaining anything. Just do it because it is a part of you. Reach down deep and feel that which is already within you, moment after moment, day after day, with every action, every conversation, bring yourself back to those 20 minutes when you were there in your perfect position, clearing your mind for the day, clearing your body for the day, reach down to practice perfectly moment after moment throughout your day, throughout your life and in the end after doing that perfect practice moment after moment you will find that you are content, you are enlightened already, you don’t have to work to have it, but you do need practice to remember to use it in your daily life.

Talk Believing in Nothing[13]

“No matter what god or doctrine you believe in, if you become attached to it, your belief will be based more or less on a self-centered idea. You strive for a perfect faith in order to save yourself. But it will take time to attain such a perfect faith. You will be involved in an idealistic practice. In constantly seeking to actualize your ideal, you will have no time for composure. But if you are always prepared for accepting everything we see as something appearing from nothing, knowing that there is some reason why a phenomenal existence of such and such form and color appears, then at that moment you will have perfect composure.”[14]

If you are always self involved then you are going to be in pain your whole life. I don’t mean selfish, I mean self involved. What’s in it for me? Why should I do this or that? And worse, why did he or she do that to ME? What did I ever do to deserve this? Zen wants you to take “thinking” and put that at the last of your list. First you should have enlightenment then practice then thinking.[15] Well, you have already learned that enlightenment is within you. You are born with it. And practice is meditating every day so you can start every moment throughout your day with a blank mind, a clean house, giving you the ability to accept everything that comes your way that day without getting rattled. You will have composure. And you won’t be thinking all the time, “Why me?” or “Lucky Me!” You won’t think like this because the world does not revolve around you. Master Suzuki brings up a great truth in this talk. He says that when we start to read about something we are not interested in or that we find difficult to learn we start to get sleepy. But if we are talking about ourselves or reading about ourselves we are always very interested. That observation makes me smile. It is so true.

Believing in nothing is the foundation for Zen. That is why you will continually be hearing about it, explained in various ways, so that maybe one way will speak to you over the others. It is that important that you understand it.

Master Suzuki says, “So it is absolutely necessary for everyone to believe in nothing. But I do not mean voidness. There is something, but that something is something which is always prepared for taking some particular form, and it has some rules, or theory, or truth in its activity. This is called Buddha nature. When this existence is personified we call it Buddha; when we understand it as the ultimate truth we call it Dharma; and when we accept the truth and act as part of the Buddha, or according to the theory, we call ourselves Sangha. But even though there are three Buddha forms, it is one existence which has no form or color, and it is always ready to take form and color. This is not just theory. This is not just the teaching of Buddhism. This is the absolutely necessary understanding of our life. Without this understanding religion will not help us. We will be bound by our religion and we will have more trouble because of it. If you become the victim of Buddhism, I may be very happy, but you will not be so happy. So, this kind of understanding is very, very important.”[16]

WHAT?

Yeah, I know some of this stuff is kind of lofty but I think it is more of a translation and cultural barrier than anything else. Let me see if I can “splain” Lucy. Let’s look at the triune God part. That is something we can all understand, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Buddha is the “son” part of this or the equivalent to Jesus walking on Earth as a man. The difference is that each one of us is Buddha. We all have Buddha nature or the ability to be, not only just like Buddha, but actually to be Buddha. This ability is within us when we are born. In Christianity we are to strive to be Christ-LIKE. It is similar to this except Zen doesn’t separate the son, Jesus, from me and you. When we are acting just like Buddha or “putting our faith to work” as a Christian would say we call ourselves Sangha. So Sangha is kind of like the Holy Spirit, the part of God that is around us all the time helping to guide us to be like Him. Dharma is the all knowingness of Buddha or Godly part of Buddha. But in Zen we can actually be God because we have the ability to tap into the all knowingness that is born into us. This is heresy in the Christian church and this is something that we Christians are going to need to let go of. It is just a different way to think about the abilities we humans have to act God-like. Get past the whole blasphemy thing and reword it in your mind however you need to and you’ll be ok.

The truths are all right here within us in Zen. So maybe as a Christian you can think of these truths as “God given”. But that is why it is so important in Zen to believe in change and to create a clean slate in our mind and body every day through practicing meditation because the answer will come up from within us with time. Everything we need in order to be content is already at our fingertips. But if we pile self centered things into our mind, clutter up our garage, we won’t be able to see past all of that junk to see the truth.

Everything we do should start with a blank slate. If we have conversations every day with no baggage attached to them, if we burn all of our energy with each project we have to do all day then we will have nothing left hanging around for self involved thoughts to get caught up in at the end of the day, if we strive to not judge others and to accept everyone and everything with no preconceived ideas then each action, each person starts with a fresh start with us, before they do or say anything. This can create an aura of acceptance and rubs off on people.

Some might say this lets people “take advantage of you.” But since you will not feel as if you are being taken advantage of because you will be thinking about the words and the actions as having no meaning other than exactly what they mean then you will not be letting that person’s actions or words stick to you. You are in charge of how you are made to feel. Those red paint words and actions will just drop to the floor around you while the other person will be standing in front of you with red paint words and actions stuck all over him. While he drowns in his self involved actions, wondering why you are so calm and content, you might suggest he try a little Zen.

Moment by moment evolves from nothing for you so that each moment is innocent and clean and since those moments just drop to the floor after you’ve experienced them during the day you end each day, fresh and pure standing in the red paint of the day, with not a drop stuck to you. You are content because of “nothing”.

Talk Experience, Not Philosophy[17]

“There is something blasphemous in talking about how Buddhism is perfect as a philosophy or teaching without know what it actually is….Without knowing the origin of things we cannot appreciate the result of our life’s effort…Zazen practice is the practice in which we resume our pure way of life, beyond any gaining idea, and beyond fame and profit. By practice we just keep our original nature as it is. There is no need to intellectualize about what our pure, original nature is, because it is beyond our intellectual understanding. And there is no need to appreciate it, because it is beyond our appreciation. So, just to sit, without any idea of gain and with the purest intention, to remain as quiet as our original nature – that is our practice.”[18]

In this talk, Master Suzuki sounds frustrated to me. It sounds as if he has tried and tried to get it into our American minds that it just is and if you just do it then you’ll see, trust me, but we won’t listen and he is worn out. He calls Zen a religion before religion. I find that very interesting. Religion by definition requires worship. Zen requires absence of worship. It is a workout for your soul. It is an activity, a repetitive activity that has a surprising by-product: a life of contentedness. So, to call Zen a religion or a philosophy is blasphemous in a way, I guess. You are hurting yourself. Because the God in Zen, if you have to have a God, would be yourself, your soul, your innermost ability to create a good life out of nothing. But there really is not religion, no philosophy, there is just a routine to help you become enlightened about your own inner self, your inner beauty and pain, your Buddha nature. Zen is just all about you and sitting with yourself and being brave enough to strip away the layers of crap until you have a clean slate with yourself and then practicing moment after moment at keeping your slate clean, and in the end if you are good enough at that practice you will be content with yourself and your life.

“But it (Buddhism) is wonderful and even though we do not study what it is intellectually, even though we do not have any cathedral or fancy ornaments, it is possible to appreciate our original nature (who we are). This is, I think, quite unusual.”[19] Master Suzuki

Talk Original Buddhism[20]

In this talk, Master Suzuki, continues with his frustration, in my opinion, about the inability for, not only Americans, but Buddhists in general to understand Buddhism as a way of life and not a religion. He says, “Religion is everywhere. WE have to understand our teaching in ths way. We should forget all about some particular teaching; we should not ask which is good ro bad. There should not be any particular teaching. Teaching is in each moment, in every existence. That is true teaching.”[21]

Master Suzuki says that each one of has his own name but those names are the many names of Buddha.[22] As he said before we are our own best teacher. Buddha is within us, the ability to tap into all the information we need to live a wonderful life is within us. But we are always looking outside of ourselves for answers. It is with great frustration that Master Suzuki writes this talk. He wants us to practice and pay attention to that which is around us moment after moment learning all we can from people, animals, life, death, everything, so that we may know that which is within us.

That is why it is so difficult for Christians to understand Zen teachers. Christians are evangelical, they want to share the word of the Lord with everyone. It is something they learned from someone else; their parents, a Sunday School teacher, a nun, a priest. And they now get to be the teacher to enlighten someone else. It is kind of a power trip. I didn’t know before, now I know, so I get to teach you. Where Zen is not about that because a Zen teacher knows that all that you need to know is already in you. It is your Buddha nature, your pure soul, your beginner’s mind. So, it is very difficult for Zen teachers because when “students” sit and wait for them to teach, there is nothing to teach. The students already have the answers within them. So, Zen teachers come off to Christians and Americans as vague. Zen wants you to search for yourself. Zen says that you already have all of the answers. Most importantly, Zen understands that not everyone is ready for all of the answers at the same time. So, a good Zen teacher will only answer questions that have been asked. The Zen teacher is more than willing to guide someone who needs help. But they usually will not give an answer because it is up to you to find the answer that is within you, not for the teacher to tell you his or her answer. There is no quick fix in Zen, yet there is a very quick fix. The only answers you need are all right there within your soul. Practice or meditating just frees up your mind and your soul to be able to see the answers.

If you are in your cluttered garage looking for a hammer you may just go out and buy a new hammer because it is less work than searching through the clutter to find the hammer you already have. But if your garage is clean and there is just a well hung ladder and a car sitting there you can see the hammer plainly or you can move the car or move the ladder easily to find the hammer.

That is why it is important to practice every day. So that you have a clean mind and it will be easy to find your answers in that mind. Even if there are a few worries cluttering your mind that day if you practice every day you will not have a ton of clutter in your mind and you will still be able to see the answers by moving one or two worries to the side. But if your mind is full of worry and baggage then you will look outside of your own mind to find the answer (you will go buy a new hammer because it is easier to do that than to sort through the clutter to find the hammer you already have). You will turn to someone else or to a doctor or a teacher for your answer. But they only have their own answers. You are the only one with YOUR answers.

We are our best teacher. It doesn’t’ matter how you learn, just that you learn. Zen, Buddhism, Soto School, Christianity, Catholicism, Baptist, what difference does it make? We are all the same, different names for the same Buddha or Christ or whatever human label you put on it. It is our energy that feeds and feasts on this universe. Your self - that is all you need to learn.

We are our own best teachers.

[1] (Suzuki, 1999), p. 99

[2] (Suzuki, 1999), p.18

[3] (Suzuki, 1999),p. 100

[4] (Suzuki, 1999), p.25

[5] (Suzuki, 1999), p. 26

[6] (Suzuki, 1999), p. 102

[7] (Suzuki, 1999), pp 110 - 113

[8] (Suzuki, 1999), p. 111

[9] (Suzuki, 1999) p.,104 - 107

[10] (Suzuki, 1999), p. 106

[11] (Suzuki, 1999), p.106

[12] (Suzuki, 1999). p. 99 -102

[13] (Suzuki, 1999),p.116 -118

[14] (Suzuki, 1999)p. 116

[15] (Suzuki, 1999), p.118

[16] (Suzuki, 1999), p.117

[17] (Suzuki, 1999), p. 123-4

[18] (Suzuki, 1999), p.123-4

[19] (Suzuki, 1999)p. 124

[20] (Suzuki, 1999), p. 125-7

[21] (Suzuki, 1999),p.127

[22] (Suzuki, 1999), p.126

Feb 13, 2010 10:48:22 AM

How to stay relavent in your old age...

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Cards, I want cards!

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

My Book

Below is my book...it still needs editing. Suggestions work for me.

Comfort the Soul

by

Teena Vaughn D'Annibale