The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    cmaukonen's picture

    Achtung !

    By cmaukonen on Sun, 03/27/2011 - 4:34pm |
    Zen students are with their masters at least ten years before they presume to teach others. Nan-in was visited by Tenno, who, having passed his apprenticeship, had become a teacher. The day happened to be rainy, so Tenno wore wooden clogs and carried an umbrella. After greeting him Nan-in remarked: "I suppose you left your wooden clogs in the vestibule. I want to know if your umbrella is on the right or left side of the clogs." Tenno, confused, had no instant answer. He realized that he was unable to carry his Zen every minute. He became Nan-in's pupil, and he studied six more years to accomplish his every-minute Zen.

    I was driving down to the local mall to do some shopping and grab some lunch at the same time. This is on a 6 lane highway. Not limited access, mind you. As it has stop lights and places to make both right and left turns onto and off of it that have no lights. It's a Sunday so fairly busy.

    At about the halfway point I see up ahead a car about to make a left hand turn on to this highway. It's going kind of slow,  so I slow way down. I am in the left lane as I will be turning at the next light. I see a car in the center lane come whizzing past me and the car making the left has stopped blocking both the center lane and my left lane. I am sufficiently behind and slow enough that stopping and even pulling off would not be a problem.

    The car in the center lane finally sees his lane is blocked, slams on the brakes and swerves to miss the other car. The driver of the car blocking the lanes pulls out and makes his turn - totally oblivious to what has occurred.  Neither driver was paying attention. Both lost in their own little worlds.  Ask any cop these days and they will tell you that 90 some percent of the accidents are caused because people are not paying attention.

    Not paying attention seems to be the byword these days for most in this country. Living life in their own little worlds, not knowing or caring about anything outside their own little worlds. That is unless something disrupts this state of oblivious joy, where in they get all excited and upset and lash out. Completely unaware that it is their worlds that are unreal.  Instead of accepting the world as it is and attempting to make life a little better for themselves  and others in it, they insist on attempting to change the world to fit their fantasies. However unrealistic they maybe. This is not a left/right issue for I have seen this behavior in people from all them political spectrum, both sides convinced that their fantasy is the right one.

    There is a saying in AA and other 12 Step groups that people generally do not come in and are willing to change until their lives have hit rock bottom. I fear that will be the case for this country and it's culture as well. Until those in the upper crust are scrounging for food like the dirt poor, nothing much will change here.



    Comments

    Well, there is paying attention to your cell phone, paying attention to your immediate aims and time limits, paying attention to your dreams............

    And paying attention to Fox News I guess!


    by Richard Day on Sun, 03/27/2011 - 6:48pm

    I like this essay by Charlotte Joko Beck. She was head of the San Diego ZEN Center for may years.

    THERE'S AN OLD ZEN STORY: a student said to Master Ichu, "Please write for me something of great wisdom." Master Ichu picked up his brush and wrote one word: "Attention." The student said, "Is that all?" The master wrote, "Attention. Attention." The student became irritable. "That doesn't seem profound or subtle to me." In response, Master Ichu wrote simply, "Attention. Attention. Attention." In frustration, the student demanded, "What does this word 'attention' mean?" Master Ichu replied, "Attention means attention."

    For "attention" we could substitute the word "awareness." Attention or awareness is the secret of life and the heart of practice. Like the student in the story, we find such a teaching disappointing; it seems dry and uninteresting. We want something exciting in our practice! Simple attention is boring: we ask, is that all there is to practice?

    When students come in to see me, I hear complaint after complaint: about the schedule of the retreat, about the food, about the service, about me, on and on. But the issues that people bring to me are no more relevant or important than a "trivial" event such as stubbing a toe. How do we place our cushions? How do we brush our teeth? How do we sweep the floor, or slice a carrot? We think we're here to deal with "more important" issues, such as our problems with our partner, our jobs, our health, and the like. We don't want to bother with the "little" things, like how we hold our chopsticks, or where we place our spoon. Yet these acts are the stuff of our life, moment to moment. It's not a question of importance, it's a question of paying attention, being aware. Why? Because every moment in life is absolute in itself. That's all there is. There is nothing other than this present moment; there is no past, there is no future; there is nothing but this. So when we don't pay attention to each little this, we miss the whole thing. And the contents of this can be anything. This can be straightening our sitting mats, chopping an onion, visiting someone we don't want to visit. It doesn't matter what the contents of the moment are; each moment is absolute. That's all there is, and all there ever will be. If we could totally pay attention, we would never be upset. If we're upset, it's axiomatic that we're not paying attention. If we miss not just one moment, but one moment after another, we're in trouble.

    Suppose I'm condemned to have my head chopped off in a guillotine. Now I'm being marched up the steps onto the platform. Can I maintain attention to the moment? Can I be aware of each step, step by step? Can I place my head in the guillotine carefully so that I serve the executioner well? If I am able to live and die in this way, no problem arises.

    Our problems arise when we subordinate this moment to something else, our self-centered thoughts: not just this moment, but what I want. We bring to the moment our personal priorities, all day long. And so our troubles arise.

    When attention to the present moment falters and we drift into some version of "I have to have it my way," a gap is created in our awareness of reality as it is, right now. Into that gap pours all the mischief of our life. We create gap after gap after gap, all day long. The point of practice is to close those gaps, to reduce the amount of time that we spend being absent, caught in our self-centered dream.


    by cmaukonen on Sun, 03/27/2011 - 10:24pm

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrLbeuibDh0


    by Resistance on Tue, 03/29/2011 - 2:14am