No Gate Zen Center

TheTruth of Mind

These new days of Autumn

Too warm for the season.

Meandering the bosque by the river,

Heat driving the scent of indian hemp,

Needle and thread grasses, bullrush,

Ravenna and Apache plume.

The early blush of rose and

Satin gold already upon some of their tips,

Auspice of what’s to come.

Light in these river-woods,

Liquid, thick as butter,

Spilled over the carpeted earth,

Dappled through the cottonwoods and Russian olives,

Privet and salt cedars.

I think of Ryōkan playing with children,

His hut of quiet rain,

No temple bells, no robes of gold— just laughter.

Han Shan climbing the high peaks,

Cold wind in his veins,

A fleeting world beneath his feet,

Temples in the red dust

Invisible in his clear eye.

Stonehouse sitting beneath the trees,

His heart a silent river,

No need for books, or chants, or rules,

Just life within a dream.

These natural bells of wind-song,

Mokugyo of rattling branches,

Chanting of rippling water,

Make the truth of mind obvious.

_{Deep Peace & Great Love, Issan}

Schedule 9/29-10/5

_{Please note: Zenho out of town 9/29 to 11/6 and Issan out of town 10/4 to 7.}

Wednesday: 6:30 am, Zazen, Dokusan and Service at the Teahouse with Issan Sensei

Friday: 6:30 am, Aishi opening at the Teahouse and on Zoom.

Join zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81446161273?pwd=UinaaYJFHHvcjNJYRTipbRfA1v5tzD.1

Noah’s poem

No nO no No NO no

I awake in firm mat of

And in mirror in need of cleaning

And angel numbers slightly off

And in ticking tock pressure to create

And in cemetery heavy with rain

No no no no

Endless no’s and ways to paint

-In all of her rainbow beauty-

Upon the day–

~Noah Seltzer

Depending On No-Thing

I heard it said: “Don’t let circumstances control your happiness. Let your happiness control your circumstances.”

When our perceived needs are not being met we feel unhappy, ill-at-ease. “If only my circumstances (people, place, things) were different…then I could be happy” Clearly, we could say these are expectations. Expectations are premeditated suffering. They are the seeds of discontent that we ourselves plant. Grasping for what “I want” is a pervading cause of discontent and the root of countless problems. Yet, still, we do have actual needs. We cannot ignore our bodies and minds. We need food, clothing, shelter, peace of mind. We must provide for these very real aspects of our existence in order to survive and thrive. How can we “depend on no-thing”?

This koan is not about abandoning our needs. We must care for ourselves, our bodies and minds. What this koan is pointing to is not to make our peace and happiness dependent on things; on what we have now or what we want later, including our thoughts, desires and aversions. These things could be materialistic or tied to specific outcomes in life, work and relationships. This makes our mental state unstable and inconsistent.

If we make our peace and happiness dependent on the external world it will always be fragile like the leaves in the high branches of a tree, blown by any passing wind. What is here today that we cling to in hopes of insuring our peace and happiness will tomorrow, very likely, evaporate like the morning dew. The only thing that doesn’t change is change.

One of my teacher’s favorite metaphors was Empty Sky, a term we hear often in Zen lingo. For a moment, consider the open sky: It holds the sun, the moon, the clouds and the wind, yet it depends on none of these things. It is vast, empty and unchanged by the passing weather. This is the essential nature of shin; heart-mind; our essential nature, which we hopefully realize in Zazen. When we realize the essence of depending on no-thing our mind is free of the grasping that is the cause of our suffering. Our mind indeed can become like the sky, not clinging to the passing weather of thoughts, grasping at the lightning of desires and clinging to the thunder of ideas. When we are free of those things, peace, contentment and happiness naturally arise. Like most things in Zen, it takes vigilance and practice to bring lasting awareness of this state of mind. Zazen is essential.

Letting go is not easy. First, we must bring into our awareness that there is nothing to hold to begin with. The Buddha taught that what we cling to are temporary forms that are transient, impermanent, empty, in Zen terminology. However, awareness, like the sky is always whole, the choice-less emergence of the ground of being. This awareness is always available to us by simply pausing at any time and following our breath. The defensive, ego-centered Self disappears and the reality of being-awareness arises within us. The true self manifests as natural awareness. When we experience the still point in Zazen, that is the true self, the thing that always exists even beyond our wisdom. Free of words, concepts and any-thing we can name with words or frame conceptually.

Depending on no-thing is to experience the world as it is, without attaching our peace and happiness to anything that is transient, empty or you might say, could be lost. It’s an inside job. It is bringing into mind the stability of the true self that we momentarily realize in Zazen and letting that fill us throughout our days and nights. In doing so, we never find ourselves lacking. The peace and happiness we seek is a result of letting go of the things, ideas and beliefs that keep us tethered to our own discontent.

_{One Mountain}

_{Still water}

_{Empty Sky}

_{No Gate.}

_{Deep Peace & Great Love, Issan}

Schedule 9/22-28

Wednesday, 6:30am: Zazen and Dokusan, Issan

Friday 6:30am: Zazen, Dokusan, Dharma Share, Zenho

Zenho’s Dharma Talk, 9/20/2024: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10QeiJkb4Za9eL9RmmKWYVMsQS4X5Nc_r/view?usp=sharing

Noah’s Poem

I awake in bed of thoughts and turns

And yet the morning arrives gently

I go outside

And am greeted

By sunlight and shadows on waving leaves

And squawks and chirps and distant traffic

I sit in nook in tree

I see garbage on the ground

And I don’t pick it up

I wonder about shame and should’s

And if the earth is mad at me (*As in, she is feeling anger arise and has a story that it’s because I didn’t pick up the trash perhaps related to something that happened to her in childhood idk.)

And I think way too much (judgment!) about gender and what is this desire to be feminine to be woman

Sometimes New York feels like a large theater

And back and forth I swing

Hide and seek with myself

Or whoever else is watching–

~Noah Seltzer

Sandōkai

_{How can we bring our enlightenment into everyday living?}

_{The Sandōkai offers us a practice.}

Shitou Xiaqian wrote the Sandōkai in the 8th century. He is considered by many to be the root founder of all schools of Zen.

The Identity of Relative and Absolute, as it is also called, is concerned with the nature of the relationship between unity and duality, or we could say enlightenment and everyday life. This poem was a favorite of Jitsudo Roshi and we recited it together often.

Sandōkai means: San; difference or relative, Dō: sameness or absolute, Kai: harmony or agreement. So it is about the interrelationship between these two aspects of our existence. These are not two dimensions of reality but are rather mutually dependent. The source of reality is clear and undivided, like the empty sky. From this unity arises the world of distinctions. These distinctions do not contradict the oneness of reality but rather are expressions of it. Enlightenment is not escaping the world of form and differences, but realizing oneness as we are fully engaged in the multiplicity of life.

Enlightenment is not found by rejecting our mundane, dualistic, everyday world. If we consider enlightenment (the absolute) and our “dusty world”(the relative) both sides of the same coin we realize they are both expressions of the same fundamental reality. Sitting zazen or sweeping the floor are both recognitions that enlightenment is always present especially in the most common activities.

These so-called differences that we experience in our everyday life are part of the unfolding of the absolute, the diversity of living life as-it-is. Our practice is to accept all aspects of life as it unfolds without clinging to them or rejecting them. Without seeking the desire for constancy, or being overwhelmed by the fluctuations of the world as it unfolds choice-lessly.

Gratefully, zazen offers us the opportunity to practice seeing beyond dualistic perceptions as we realize the inclusive oneness of no separation. However, it does not stop there. If our practice is to relieve the suffering of all beings then we must recognize each moment as an opportunity to carry the reality of oneness into all aspects of life and embody this in each mundane activity throughout the day and with each person we encounter.

In Zen, the illusion of seperateness is considered as one of the the primary sources of suffering. As we gradually experience growth in practice we have kenshō when we realize the reality of emptiness; the recognition that no person or thing, including ourselves, exists independently, and that everything is in a constant state of flux. The result, in that moment, is carried beyond as a profound sense of compassion for all beings and great humility.

This experience of equanimity (the absolute) does not mean detachment from the ten thousand things of daily existence (the relative). Instead it leads to our open-hearted engagement with with life, with increasing freedom from grasping and aversion.

The Sandōkai is wisdom about actively living the fundamental oneness of all things while fully engaging in everyday life. It shows us how to move our practice from our zafu to the life we are actually living so we can benefit all beings. It teaches us to live with awareness and experience the absolute within the relative and the relative within the abslolute.

This enlightenment we are living is available to experience in every moment.

Branching streams flow through the darkness.

Deep Peace and Great Love, Issan

Sandōkai

The mind of the Great Sage of India was intimately

conveyed from west to east.

Among human beings are wise ones and fools,

But in the Way there is no northern or southern Patriarch.

The subtle source is clear and bright; the tributary

streams flow through the darkness.

To be attached to things is illusion;

To encounter the absolute is not yet enlightenment.

Each and all, the subjective and objective spheres are related,

and at the same time, independent.

Related, yet working differently, though each keeps its own place.

Form makes the character and appearance different;

Sounds distinguish comfort and discomfort.

The dark makes all words one; the brightness distinguishes good and bad phrases.

The four elements return to their nature as a child to its mother.

Fire is hot, wind moves, water is wet, earth hard.

Eyes see, ears hear, nose smells, tongue tastes the salt and sour.

Each is independent of the other; cause and effect must return to the great reality

Like leaves that come from the same root.

The words high and low are used relatively.

Within light there is darkness, do not be against the darkness. (nothingness/absolute);

Within darkness there is light, do not be against the light. (material/relative).

Light and darkness are a pair, like the foot before

and the foot behind, in walking. Each thing has its own intrinsic value

and is related to everything else in function and position.

Things exist as real as how the lid and box fits.

Truth corresponds like the sharp arrow piercing (through things).

Reading words you should grasp where it’s coming from. Do not come up with your own rules.

If you can not comprehend the way, on a far journey how would you know the road.

Progress is not about far or near, delusion can block (you) as firmly as the mountains and rivers.

I respectfully say to those who wish to be enlightened:

Do not waste your time by night or day.

By Shitou Xiqian (700-790)

Schedule 9/8-9/14

Wednesday: 6:30 AM, Zazen and Dokusan at the Zen with Issan Sensei

Friday: 6:30 AM, Zazen and Dokusan and Dharma Talk with Zenho Roshi

Issan out of town 9/12-9/15

Zenho’s Dharma share from 9/6/24: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1v0lhO5hz3YxSsonLcuO40NCTYBEXkW2u/view?usp=sharing

Noah’s Poem for the week

I sit in grass in afternoon park

And curl up in

Some vague pain

Sun hits me

And children roll down hill

I’ve been trying to figure out

And reaching ends and limits

And I don’t knows

Things don’t go as planned and

I am relieved

And I wonder what is a sign and what is my mind

And the park is full of picnics today

and couples strolling hand in hand

and brass tunes and saxophones

and pigeons eating bread the woman in the knit sweater is throwing

-Noah Seltzer

one reality

I thought I’d abandoned all-

Even my body-

And yet this snowy night is cold.

“When all dharmas are buddha-dharma, there are enlightenment and delusion, practice, life and death, buddhas and creatures.

When the ten thousand dharmas are without self, there are no delusion, no enlightenment, no buddhas, no creatures, no life and death.

The buddha way transcends being and non-being; therefore there are life and death, delusion and enlightenment, creatures and buddhas.

Nevertheless,

flowers fall with our attachment, and weeds spring up with our aversion.”

-Dogen

Deep peace and great love, Issan

Schedule 8/25-31

Wednesday; Zazen and Dokusan at the Zendo with Issan

_{Zenho is out of town.}

The Way of Everyday Life

_{The effortless nature of being requires effort on our part.}

_{It’s been a while since I’ve written to you. I have spent a couple of months away from group practice. It has been a time of reflection and rediscovery. Delving deeply into the roots of Zen practice there was something I knew before, something I’ve rediscovered, a freshness in zazen; beginner’s mind.}

There is a way. It’s not accidental and it doesn’t just happen to you. Zen is a practice. It requires discipline, determination, a long-view and usually has incremental progress. Zen practice has an ancient methodology that brings a result when followed. Along the way there are moments of great realization, but they rarely occur on their own without the foundation of practice and these realizations must be cultivated and cared for.

Indeed, Zen is a practice, it is a path and it requires our engaged attention and active participation. To clarify “The Great Matter” requires great effort before apparent ease.

In Zen practice we begin to understand that we possess a wisdom; it’s an intuitive, direct experience of our life. Our founding teacher Taizan Maezumi called this “things as it is” and this view requires our cultivation. It lies beyond the usual distortions of discursive thinking. It is not some-thing to be searched for and attained but rather it is uncovered by stripping away, and then realized as always present.

With sincere practice and humility we begin to experience the clarity of seeing beyond the delusion of a separate self and experiencing our lives as interdependent; a dynamic potential in which everything is in a constant state of flux and transformation. It is a direct experience. This is the fundamental reality we point toward in Zen practice. Simply stated, it is the wisdom that the enlightened and the unenlightened, the ordinary and the extraordinary are one.

What I am referring to is recognition of the prajna of thusness; Prajna-‘the wisdom of things as they burgeon forth of themselves‘, and Thus-ness-‘the state of being as it is‘. This reality cannot be grasped through words or writings, only pointed at. It is a deeply personal satori, we see the clarity of the here and now in our daily lives when it is not mired in our notions or delusions, attachments or aversions.

Wu-wei is a living action. Effortlessness aligned with the natural flow. It is living without unnecessary effort in the recognition that everything, all dharmas, brings themselves forth always in balance. It is our personal responsibility to actualize this, to internalize it and to live this enlightenment in our daily lives. It requires dedication to the way and laying a solid foundation through zazen.

Practicing zazen we do not entertain mundane delusions and thoughts. In zazen we realize no separation, we take repose in naturalness of mind and we remain vigilant in our awareness. With dedication and practice we become stable in equanimity and as a result zazen/just sitting occurs. “Mind and body drop away” as Dogen states. The dissolution of self. As such, we cease to approach the dharmas (stop seeking/grasping) and are approached by them (awareness) and we awaken to the true nature of ourselves and the world. This cannot be given. It is solely through one’s own practice/realization that we shed our dualistic delusions and begin to experience the reality of the here and now as living zen. It’s not sticky, we need to continue practicing.

Zazen creates and supports our ability to live with compassion and wisdom. The hallmarks of this become apparent in our daily thoughts, words and actions. To actualize this truth we must practice with great determination. We must inquire deeply into the dharma and engage with the mind of great doubt, this way our habitual thinking and behaviors are revealed and then consciously, actively we can change them. We grow with joyful mind, which blossoms with care, compassion, understanding and the wisdom of the ten thousand things.

What results are moments of effortless being.

Zen is not something we do. Zen is not in addition to our lives.

It is the way of everyday life.

Practice well!

Deep Peace and Great Love, Issan

Schedule 8/18-24

Wednesday: Zazen and Dokusan at the Teahouse with Issan

Noah’s Poem

rain pitter-patters upon waking

today I will see family

ambivalence

—

cousin shrieks fill rental house

talking stick and coin toss

we are all learning discernment

—

mind filled with practices

where do I place attention now

or now or now

The Language of Grasses

In this field of silence

Ten thousand grasses

Rooted in Earth

Each whispering truth

Beneath the empty sky

Whispering,

None greater, none lesser

One voice

Each stalk

A tale of it’s own to tell

On the breath of the Wind

Splintering

Amidst the chaos of time

Ten thousand whispers

Ten thousand chants

Ten thousand things to be

Being only this field

Of ease and silence

Nothing extra.

_{Deep Peace and Great Love~Issan}

Schedule 5/12-5/18

Friday, 6:30AM: Zazen and Dharma Talk, Zenho Roshi, Teahouse or Zoom:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86092253385?pwd=UUxFbDFhUmV1SEpYWUxiRHNYeTZjdz09

Noah’s Poem:

I walk through trees verdant with spring

Birds and flowers sing to me

Luring me from my mind

Fully adorned in Life

Get Comfortable

Grateful Dead, Watkins Glen, NY 7/28/73 Photo by Suki Coughlin

_{“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

Earth Body Propelling at the Edge of the World

_{Notes on circumventing Torres del Paine in Chilean Patagonia, “The O-Trek.”}

_{by Madison Sokukai McClintock}

Late Autumn, end of the season.

Distance: ~75 miles / 119 km.

Total Elevation Gain: ~16,309ft / 4,971 meters

8 days walking, weighted by basic survival supplies, 24+ meals worth of food, the non-negotiables – camera, watercolors, binoculars. Feeling the decision of every chosen ounce with each sopping wet step on muddy Magellanic forest trails and up steep glacial passes. Fifty pounds heavier is the new equilibrium.

Many moments to marvel at the bigness of ancient granite. Noticing its relative separateness in form. Then long days to blend self into the same landscape. Turning steps into miles. To arrive at the goal within the goal within the goal. How is it that we anticipate something so intensely that time solidifies like cold honey, then quickly it arrives and passes?

Mindstreams less orderly than actual streams. But both meeting obstruction as an opportunity for new flow. Heavy-breathing Voice Memos to self – efforting desperately to keep trail realizations in the thinking mind with tech. Though deep down you know it’s working on you unconsciously even if you forget it.

Color changing lenga trees are the silver lining when iconic glaciers hide behind storm clouds after slogging before dawn, rain-drenched and wind-slapped, up to a mountain pass. The poetry still makes your frozen face grin as you whisper to yourself: “MudSeason.”

Mice on parade on top of tents. And in tents. Feverishly claiming high value food items (Snickers bar) you were looking forward to and some you were relying on. Remembering we’ve competed with these animals for what feels like our entire evolution. At least they didn’t run across your face like they did others in camp.

Surrendering to the arising presence of human connection when you were seeking solitude. Feeling sympathetic joy when a familiar face arrives at camp – dropping their pack relieved and exhausted. Having walked the same path but in their own way, with their own obstacles.

Humbled by unpreparedness – hands can’t break down camp on freezing mornings in wet gloves. And so, spending a cozy evening together, roasting socks like s’mores skewered on trekking poles in front of refugio fires – we all took shifts getting our gear dry.

Aptly-known as an iconic wonder of the world, Patagonia is powerful place. And when you move around its wind-blistered peaks, along its miles-long glaciers and lakes, over its rushing rivers and within its valleys, you feel that power moving through you. Even when your legs ache.

SCHEDULE 4/7-4/13

Monday: 6:30AM Zazen, Andy opening

Tuesday: 6:30AM, Zazen, Andy opening

Wednesday: 6:30AM Zazen, Dokusan with Issan Sensei

Thursday: 6:30AM Zazen, Andy opening

Friday: 6:30AM, Zazen, Dokusan with Zenho Roshi, Dokusan with Issan Sensei

Noah’s Poem:

The doorways are disappearing

And I find myself within

A circle

I park my car at Trader Joe’s and

A small bird stands on the railing in front of me She looks around and I look at her

At Jessica’s apartment

We make dinner and bathe and watch Netflix in bed

Beyond better than

Beyond worse than

Beyond gates opened or closed

This week I am in a circle

And friends are becoming vivid and

Beautiful

MudSeason

The Spring Equinox! A glorious time of rebirth of Mother Earth, trees blossoming, tiny buds opening into verdant green, tulips, brilliant blossoms! Bunnies and baby animals! A time of hope, joy, reawakening and…

MUD.

In Northern New England, from whence Zenho and I originate, MudSeason is perhaps the most bitched about season of the year. It falls between the bleak late winter days, when nearly all hope is lost and the last memory of the previous summertime nearly completely forgotten, and the advent of Black Fly Season, a time of year itself worthy of a poem.

And yet, MudSeason brings a quickening in the blood. The sap is running, the sugarbush active and boiling pans belching steam in the woods, the scent of wet instead of ice, the back of winter has been broken, despite a few more winter storms yet to come. There is a desperate optimism in the air. Almost a generational, genetically coded belief that “we survived another winter”.

If you’ve ever spent a decade or two there in the North Woods, you know “hope” is not the right word.

Some of my favorite writers and poets are the Old-Men-of-the-Mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire: David Hinton, of East Callas, Vermont, Galway Kinnell of Sheffield, Vermont, David Budbill of Montpelier, Vermont, Donald Hall of Wilmot, NH. These are some of the great Zen Masters of the rural life and pen. Deeply immersed in the challenges of northern life with bruised-knuckle understanding of the dharma.

It seems to me these poets fundamentally transformed, with deep love and clarity, the raw materials of their particular lives into objects of great insight and beauty. Seeing things as they are through the lens of their rugged and fragile humanity.

Their greatness-in-smallness that was born not from promotion of ideas but from a natural attraction readers felt to works that they forged by their unselfconscious engagement with the primal materials of their existence.

Isn’t this courageous living? Isn’t it facing MudSeason full on?

One of the primary tenants of a creative and productive life is to transform the raw materials of living, whether they be clay, wood, metal, emotion, experiences of all kinds, into something that contributes to humanity, a single being is sufficient in this case. Such living requires courage, determination and in the face of failure, resilience and desire to persevere.

When we practice we allow the mud to nourish us. Each thing, no matter how small or fleeting, awesome or abstract has an effect upon us. Each particle of experience, encounters with the absolute and mundane, on or off the zafu are the primary materials we have to work with.

Written as poetry, fabricated as objects of beauty, enacted as compassion, expressed as desire or frustration, all are of equal value as mud.

Wishing you a sloppy MudSeason!

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

_{This post dedicated to Vic.}

Schedule 3/24-3/30

Tuesday: 6:30AM Zazen at the Teahouse, Dokusan with Issan Sensei, Aspiration Prayer of Samantabhadra

Wednesday: 6:30AM, Zazen at the Teahouse, Andy opening

Thursday: 6:30AM, Zazen at the Teahouse, Andy opening

Friday: 6:30 AM Zazen at the Teahouse, Dokusan with Zenho Roshi & Issan Sensei

Noah’s Poem

Phantoms of past

Unbelonging

Float in

And I feel

Even these new blessings

Could not convince me of

Belonginghood

Yet I am being worked on

Rubbed polished

People of hearts

Smile at me

And so does this land

Even so

I yearn

To stroll down sidewalks

And meadows and hills

And to feel beloved*

To feel beloved upon this

Earth.

*Raymond Carver:

And did you get what

you wanted from this life, even so?

I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself

beloved on the earth.

Ceaseless

Hatō zu (Waves) by Uehara Konen, 1878-1940, Woodblock print

“Nothing is there to guard and nothing to demonstrate or practice. Whatever flies off the spindle is perfectly fashioned and equal to the task in the event. Technique is for the birds. The organism is a genius and when left alone in the natural state of being it is perfection itself.”_{Keith Dowman}

How we struggle to perfect ourselves, not realizing our inherent qualities.

Right now beings engaged in meaningless activity.

Karmas, like delusions in a dream.

The nature of mind, all encompassing, all creative, unborn and undying

The unimaginable manifestation of all illusion, spaceless, timeless

Spinning the wheel, crafting prajna

Appearing as nothing and everything

Unseparated

Chaos.

Meditation and non-meditation fade away.

Depend on no-thing.

Forget aspirations and vows.

What is called Buddha; right here, now

How do we realize this as Buddha-moment?

Self improvement is a delusion

Intimate, being as we are.

Letting go of the aspirations to gain anything at all dissolves the compounding of self-serving delusions.

The open hand.

Judgement falls away.

We innately realize the quality of awareness

Returning to it.

We think we are. not it.

Looking deeply into each arising thought and realizing that although it is you and not you, it is unnecessary to play with it until it’s broken.

Already free, never safe, always engaged with perfect, ever expanding chaos.

Light behaves as both a particle and a wave, depending on how it is measured.

Just so, choose carefully how to measure mind!

Let-be, resting as it is in naturally arising non-action; clarity.

Clarity is the genius of the organism.

Buddha nature

the ceaseless manifestation of enlightenment

Being Ocean and Wave

No-thing required.

“Blanket Weaver, Vietnam”
Greg Davis Photography

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

SCHEDULE 3/10-3/16

MONDAY, 6:30AM, Zazen at the Teahouse, Dokusan with Issan Sensei

THURSDAY, 6:30AM, Zazen at the Teahouse, Dokusan with Issan Sensei

FRIDAY, 6:30AM, Zazen at the Teahouse, Dokusan with Zenho Roshi

Noah’s Poem

I walk through the cemetery of ancestors

And sit amongst the

The trees standing like trophies

Glory glory glory

I see glory all around me

Do you see it too?

The birds are celebrating

Like they always do

A squirrel wants to play with me

This tree holds my back and I breathe

And let this patience

And this prayer

Unveil itself