Get Comfortable

_{“Sometimes we live, no particular way but our own 
Sometimes we visit your country and live in your home 
Sometimes we ride on your horses, sometimes we walk alone 
Sometimes the songs that we hear are just songs of our own”}

_{Eyes of the World, Grateful Dead}

In Zen practice we find ourselves striving to seek a better way to live, a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world around us. This isn’t a bad intention, but it is counterproductive.

We end up losing our true selves in search of a “better self”.

I have a friend whom I have the opportunity to observe doing his job for an hour each week. He teaches music. I watch a lesson. He’s focused, unpretentious, and masterful. He is a Masetro in the fullest. Sitting knees to knees with his student, as we do in dokusan, fully focused on the students presence, he very carefully and thoughtfully chooses just the right words that he knows will reach the student where he is in the moment. He closes his eyes a lot. He listens very deeply. Remarkable, and stunning to witness. I consider him a Great Zen Master and one of my teachers. He has no ideas of zen or master. I find him without pretense. He embodies a deep naturalness, ease and comfort within himself and he’s comfortable to be around.

I really have a deep affinity for this man. When in his presence time rewinds for me. There is the feeling of an uncontrived naturalness in living. Around the place, relaxed clutter, casual chaos, lots of treasured stuff collected everywhere. Fascinating, interesting stuff. Spontaneous art, mementos of times, places, friends, adventures, phases of living, children and personal endeavors. True treasure, personal. It’s a most comforting clutter to be amongst. When I’m there I notice his two young boys exploring the world of the backyard, the basement, curious. His wife tinkering around the place. I feel relaxed, at home.

This is what I’ve learned so far:

This is a teaching about living unselfconsciously. Intelligently focused on what’s actually happening. Engaged. Without doubt. Flow, with attentive ease and light humor. Direct contact with reality. Attentiveness. Presence with each interaction. Engagements that are filled with love, gentle attention, kindness. Give no fear.

This is unintentional, yet natural. The result is serenity and peace in people around him. There is a feeling of sacredness abiding in each moment, each interaction, each person. This unselfconscious engagement with life is what we in Zen call “dropping away” of self. It is the moment when satori happens, when no-separation is realized.

So let’s not try so very hard to be impressive or so clever that we miss what’s right here. No one is actually fooled when we do that, anyway. When we allow the interactive participation and expansion that results from unselfconscious, non-distracted, natural living, everything flows. We are able to let go of the need for being someone other than who we are.

Awakened engagement is relaxing into our own naturalness, dwelling in selflessness, abiding in awareness. In doing so our life becomes comfortable and easier. We experience the benefit of being really present, the joy of living no particular way but our own and the fulfilling intimacy that makes life so gorgeous.

_{I’ll be out back in the yurt…}

_{Deep Peace & Great Love, Issan (author) and Zenho}

This Week 4/21-4/27

Monday , Zazen & Service. Dokusan with Issan Sensei

Tuesday, Wed, Thursday: Zazen, Andy opening

Friday, Zazen & Service. Dokusan with Zenho Roshi

(Issan out of town 4/25-4/29)

Poem from Roshi:

TRANSMISSION

Awakening at dawn, asmile with dreams

Remembered and unremembered

The air cold, the tile beneath my feet

Colder, calling for warm slippers and

Boiling water carefully added to

Black tea leaves grown in Yunan province

Now carried to the back porch bamboo couch 

After a sip, greetings from four mule deer,

Three clearly pregnant, munching through this high 

Desert scrub grasses in the field out back

Through a mist and the smoke gratefully

Swirling from a corn cob Mapacho pipe

In and out and in and out 

Embracing and embraced

Within just this clear light

     – Zenho

Noah’s Poem

This weekend I find friendship in the breeze 

It is warm and quiet 

And I am reminded of Christmas Vacation with my grandparents 

At the pool I meet a young boy with the same name as my brother 

At the church I watch an old high school friend get married 

And as the day winds down 

I walk through a door and am struck by a dream image from months ago 

I cannot make sense of all the converging lives 

Versions of self 

Dreams Realities

I sit in the airport terminal 

With nothing to say 

And feel my heart soften some more