This Blog has moved to WordPress

I'm moving so follow me on over to...

www.zendirtzendust.wordpress.com

New and improved with new Thesis Updates! (Happy now, Sean?)

Same load of crap but with a prettier layout.

I'm coming out!

Well, its been a few months coming. I never really expected anyone to read this blog and what started as a training requirement for a new job has become a consistent part of my practice as well as a positive (and sometimes, not so positive) way of interacting with my iSangha. So for those reasons I am making a few changes:

1. I am shooting over to Wordpress since I like the layout better and I am in the mood for a wee bit of a change.
2. I am dropping the whole "Jack Daw" thing. Again, this blog started as a training requirement for my employment. It was either keep a nice blog with my name on it for everyone to see and say "Oh, what a nice blog" or keep it anonymous and say what I feel about things that matter to me. If I could do it over again, I would have gone by my actual name. So as much as I like crows...I am dropping the screen name.
3. It's my freaking birthday today so it would be nice if you went over to www.zendirtzendust.wordpress.com and leave stone (o) and a few twigs (_) so that I know that you were there.
4. Hopefully I have some other cool announcements to make in the near future but we will wait and see....

Cheers,

John

UR Buddha Nature has a flavourz

Filthy, evil lolcats! I knew they would find the BuddhaDharma irresistible.

Thanks to SlowZen for the Picture...I steals it

Musical Stairs

This is lovely! Thanks to Phil Plait from Bad Astronomy for posting it.



I needed this today. I'm stuck at work (again on the day where the sangha is doing an extended zazen session), its snowing outside and, from what I understand, my heater at home is not working.

To top it all off - I have no lunch nor dinner to speak of today.

That being said. I would gladly take it again on the snout if I would get a chance to play musical stairs.

Cheers,

Comments on Buddhism, Atheists and Amitabha.

From "The Message of the Buddha" by K.N Jayatilleke (via The Zennist)

What is the Buddhist answer to this question? What the Buddha a Theist, an Atheist, an Agnostic or a Positivist? The answer is fairly clear. Given the above definition of God [in The Book of Common Prayer] in its usual interpretation, the Buddha is an atheist and Buddhism in both its Theravada and Mahayana forms is atheism.

Atheism here is defined as the denial of the existence of God with a big "G". Usually when defined by the captital "G", the God we are talking about is a creator god. One that made everything we see around us including us and anything else we may stumble across. Most consider this to be the Judeo-Christian "God" when referenced as such but it can also include Islam, Hinduism, or any religion with a set and organized creation myth that involves supernatural creation of the world.

I agree with The Zennist when he asserts that Buddhism, in general (there may be sects or practices that I am not familiar with) does not fall in line with a standard Deist outlook. Being an atheist can also vary from no belief in a creator God to no belief in anything of a supernatural/transcendental origin or belief. Even with the most extreme of Atheist views, Buddhism still barely falls outside of its realm.

Some assert that the Amitabha Buddha takes the place of a creator God and is thus the Pure Land Sects are a Deistic religion. Again, I think this in part due to a fallacy of viewing an Eastern Religion through Western, Christian eyes. "We (Western Christians) have a creator God so they (Asian Buddhists) must have one as well". Then you see people praying and making offerings to the Amitabha Buddha and you assume that Buddha is a deified.

From my very basic understanding of Pure Land Buddhism, the Amitabha was once a human monk that transcended into a Buddha Realm and promised to grant liberation to any that recited his name. While supernatural and transcendental in nature, the Amitabha Buddha is far from a creator God and more or less provides another path to enlightenment. A method that requires an "other" power to help achieve it rather than focusing on just personal practice.

So, personally, I consider myself an agnostic. And, personally, I think Buddhism does not specifically deny a creator "God" but rather considers it unimportant in the grand scheme of things. The primary focus of Buddhism is not on higher powers but rather personal practice. That personal practice, however, can be a mixture of reliance upon the compassion of past Buddhas as well as personal striving to achieve enlightenment or liberation.

What is of prime importance to me is that the practice of Buddhism does not require the acceptance of higher powers or supernatural entities. You can practice perfectly well from a completely secular stance. The Buddha was a human and figured out a way to cease suffering and be happy. I wish to cease my own suffering and be happy.

Simple as that. From there you make your choice to follow the path and begin your practice. Your practice may always be strictly secular and atheistic or it may move in to more transcendental areas. Either way, it is fine. It is your practice and you need to use what works for you. Just don't mistake choice with ease. Just because you have choice does not mean that your practice must be easy. There should always be a sense of striving in your practice.

Cheers,

Science, Art and Zen

You may not realize this about me but I have been working on a Masters in Paleontology/Geology for the past few years at SDSMT and have always been amazed at how beautiful many scientific illustrations and photographs can be. Unfortunately these pieces are largely unrecognized as the pieces of art that they are. I was pleased to find this listed under one of the past exhibitions at the American Museum of Natural History.

"John Daido Loori, scientist, photographer, and Zen master, explores the link between Buddhism and artistic inspiration with more than 25 striking abstract photographs of Point Lobos State Reserve in California. His photographs of kelp strands on the shore, algae, starfish, and sea-tossed stones echo the contours of larger landscapes and the curves of the human body. Contemplative and sensuous, the images bridge a gap between viewers and the world around them."

The only photographs from John Daido Loori Roshi that I have seen previously were his black and white ones but the color ones are beyond beautiful. The combination of art, Zen, scientific photography and natural beauty are overwhelming. If Daido Loori Roshi included a scale bar with these pieces, I would call them perfect.

This exhibit ran in 2005 and I hope they consider running it again to honor the memory and art of John Daido Loori Roshi.




All photographs are from the AMNH Website and copyrighted © by John Daido Roshi

Saturday Morning Dharma Mouth-Punch

The Best Laid Plans of Boobs and Buddhists:

This week's Dharma Mouth-Punch came from Genkaku with his very inspired post on...what of all things? Boobs!

Once upon a time during a sesshin or intensive Zen retreat, I accidentally brushed lightly up against the breast of an attractive woman during kinhin, or walking meditation. That one small touch worked as surely as a shiny spark plug and I returned to the meditation cushion sporting an explosive sex fantasy and a first-class hard-on. Thank goodness for the billowing cloth of meditation robes.

Wait...attractive women at a sesshin? Why did no one tell me? I've been practicing in my bedroom all this time and out in the sangha-world there are crazy amounts of breast-brushing and boob-touching. Damn, I've been doing it all wrong...

The woman I brushed up against had excited my mild-fantasy attention in the past, but that small touch in those circumstances broke the dam and flood waters consumed me. No pun intended, but ... Jesus Fucking Christ! For the better part of a forty-minute period of zazen, I just did sex ... mind sex, phone sex, Kama Sutra sex, giddy sex, lustful and lusty sex, sneaky sex, honest sex, sex beneath the moon, sex beneath the sun, sex with jiggly implements, loving sex ... sex, sex, sex, sex, sex ... it went on and on and on and on until...

Jiggly Implements...hehe.

Towards the end of the sitting, I realized I was repeating myself. I just couldn't think of another permutation or speed or satisfaction or delight. I had run out of imaginative gas. I had run out of options. I had run out of what I imagined was endless. At first, this recognition shocked and dismayed me. Sex, after all, was an emotional, life-force biggie. It was important. It was a gimme of the first magnitude. My dismay made me try even harder to resurrect and reconstitute my fantasy life, but the harder I tried, the more it underscored my inability to come up with fresh fodder.

I could have thought of plenty more fodder to come up with. Something along the lines of wearing nothing but a rakusu and knee high boots. But I am going off topic here.

The simple honesty of this post was refreshing. Many in the Zen and Buddhist community almost want to ignore feelings or pretend that they don't feel. Whether the emotions are angry, sexual or jealous in nature, we do feel them and what is more - We accept them. It seems so simple to allow thoughts to pass from the mind while we are sitting but the simple truth is that it is difficult. Thoughts are tenacious and clingy and thrive on conflict. Sometimes they may just need to play themselves out.

When a wave comes in towards us we can do a few things - We can let it take us to the shore and crash down on us, we swim away and avoid it or we can bob. Buddhists strive to bob. We can't control the wave of thoughts that hit us but we can keep them from breaking us on the rocks. Learning to bob and stay bouant in an ocean of thoughts is, perhaps, one of the most important lessons we can learn in our practice.

The zafu isn't a place where we fall away from the world, sinking into our own sphere of oblivion. We aren't "marshmallows on pillows". It is a place that we ride those emotions and thoughts that come to us on a daily basis in a contained environment and on our terms. I've found, in my experience, that many of those emotions that I want to avoid come out in waves while sitting - almost as if to rouse me into action - FIGHT, FUCK, FLEE - All very primal and all never basic. I ackowledge those emotions, wave "hi" and let them pass. Or, rather, I let myself pass through them.

So thank you for that thought provoking and blunt post, Genkaku. It was much appreciated and well-recieved.

Cheers,