Month: September 2012

I heard Baker speak at San Francisco Zen Center, he wrapped up by saying “respond with your concentration.” I’m told he could arrive at the Zendo after a late night of drinking and sitting after sitting, become more centered; an adept, was how he was described to me by the person who observed this.

Because he was adept at sitting cross-legged and adept at raising money, Shunryu Suzuki had no choice but to approve of his understanding, for the sake of the business of bringing Zen to America. That’s how I feel. What did Suzuki say, something about how sorry he was to do that to Baker, I think?

Intention produces karma, good karma, bad karma, consequence. There are good things about SF Zen Center, and Tassajara. There are good things about the Sotoshu, and as Brad has pointed out a lot of complaints about corruption among the younger set in Japan, which point to the weakness of any ongoing institution (especially in a tough economic climate).

Will we find a way to describe the nature of just sitting in terms that everyone can understand (if not experience), or will we stone-wall communication in favor of the business of bringing Zen to America? ‘Course, it’s not as black and white as that, but I see it that way a lot.

Brad’s good, and he would throw Zen over in a heart-beat for real, all-consuming love. I think that’s what we need, because Zen is about being human to the max, and whatever ability to feel we have out of where we are now is necessary to love what we are.

Ok, so Brad said he would give up teaching Zen if it were a choice between that and the woman he loved; truth is, the part that he couldn’t give up, that’s the real Zen to me.

I aspire to realize the Gautamid’s practice, but for me this is a matter of relaxing and waking up to stuff that’s already going on for me (or falling asleep to it).

I don’t think his description was sufficient for me to practice. I think most folks who call themselves Buddhist would take it for granted that the Gautamid’s description was sufficient, but I would say if that were true, then why isn’t everybody practicing the way he described and experiencing “deliverance from thought, beyond grasping”?

I can only speak from my own experience, and that is that the place of occurrence of consciousness affects balance and posture, and the ability to feel is dynamic in response to the place of occurrence of consciousness and informs the spontaneous occurrence of consciousness. So there is a feedback, and as necessary the pitch, yaw and roll at the place of occurrence of consciousness can precipitate stretch and activity to open the ability to feel throughout the body. This is how I experience “setting mindfulness in front”, which in the Gautamid’s descriptions precedes his own practice of “the intent concentration on in-breaths and out-breaths”.

I see the practice he speaks of from time to time in my practice, and I realize cessations of habitual activity as he described them occasionally, but not through any effort to realize them. I see “this is suffering” in my life, and I see my shortcomings as a practitioner in his teaching, and yet I believe that the beautiful aspect of human nature he described can be taught in the language of science and is something quite apart from the moral and ethical judgments he assumed were inherent in it. And I believe it’s a miracle that I can think this way and strive to experience and improve upon the communication of a beautiful aspect of human nature, and for that I am extremely grateful.

And I don’t think I’m alone. I think that’s the essence of Mahayana.