Yearly Archives: 2012

Teachings

I Can See Clearly Now!

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Sometimes we see the bigger picture
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and sometimes it’s just the glasses on the end of our nose!

This morning as I reached for my reading glasses I caught sight of the smears on the lenses. Usually I smooch the glass clean with a bit of my robe fabric, not taking the time to do a proper job. But today I went and washed my glasses with shower jell, which was to hand, and hey presto I can see clearly now!

But seeing clearly is a matter of perspective. Sometimes taking in the bigger picture and sometimes zoomed in close. What’s in focus? Objects, over there and people over there are an obvious focus point. But what if, instead of gazing exclusively at objects, one takes in the space around. Negative space as it is termed. Not only around objects but between the object and ones own body? And between oneself and other selves. Somebody said the other day that it is the spaces between that unite not create division or distance.

Overcome Difficulties

Questioning Positive Thinking

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Behind all of the most popular modern approaches to happiness and success is the simple philosophy of focusing on things going right. But ever since the first philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome, a dissenting perspective has proposed the opposite: that it’s our relentless effort to feel happy, or to achieve certain goals, that is precisely what makes us miserable and sabotages our plans. And that it is our constant quest to eliminate or to ignore the negative – insecurity, uncertainty, failure, sadness – that causes us to feel so insecure, anxious, uncertain or unhappy in the first place.
Extracted from The Antidote: Happiness For People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking, by Oliver Burkeman. See The Guardian article Happiness is a glass half empty.

The above article was linked in a comment recently. I’ve found the message so compelling and true I’ve thus elevated it to the front page.

And if that wasn’t enough about questioning happiness I came across this video animation titled Smile or Die which takes a critical look at positive thinking! The method of conveying the argument using words and images on a white board suits me down to the ground.

As I see it the underlying issue in both the article and the video is a common mistaken view about the use of the mind. But this is a tricky subject when you get right down to it. Magical thinking and the like is one thing however there is the power of the good which benefits beings. We would call that spiritual merit.

I’m deeply sorry if questioning positive thinking has left you disturbed. My way of seeing through this positive/negative is to re-affirm the wisdom of looking up which is too often confused with thinking positively. Looking up is a direction which has no goal.

photograph, Teachings

Right Before One’s Eyes

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That which is manifesting
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right before one’s eyes (genjo)
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is the absolute reality. (koan)

Genjo Koan is the first chapter of Great Master Dogen’s Shobogenzo. Scholars regard the Genjo Koan as foundational to Dogen’s religious understanding, with the rest of the Shobogenzo being a development of the teaching embedded in Genjo Koan.

Here are the opening four lines of Genjo Koan. But first a reminder from me.
Read.
Be still.
Be very still.
And watch your mind as you read.
And then let it go!
I’ll say no more.

When all things are just what they are [apart from discrimination], illusion and enlightenment exist, religious practice exists, birth exists, death exists, Buddhas exist, and ordinary beings exist. When the myriad things are without self, there is no delusion, no enlightenment, no Buddhas, no ordinary beings, no birth, no extinction. Since the Buddha Way from the beginning transcends fullness and deficiency, there is birth and extinction, delusion and enlightenment, beings and Buddhas. However, though this is the way it is, it is only this: flowers scatter in our longings, and weeds spring up in our loathing.

Francis H. Cook, Sounds of Valley Steams

I am no Dogen scholar. A book fell into my hands this morning and opened at Genjo Koan. I read it, I read it again. And then came back to it again this evening. All I can say is, This is profound. And simple.

Better get to bed now. Please don’t lose sleep over this!

Teachings

Hands Of The Buddha

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An article in The Buddha Diaries titled Blessing caught my eye this morning. The author is asking about a Buddhist baby blessing/naming ceremony for his grandchild. He then goes on to contemplate, it would seem to me, the matter of spiritual authority. How does it go, By the authority vested in me I declare you….etc. etc. This whole matter of ceremonial, it’s significance to us, who is empowered to celebrate them and…who isn’t! And why. So much surrounds this business doesn’t it. Here is the last paragraph of the article:-

It occurs to me sometimes, without arrogance I hope, that I might now myself be empowered to pass on that blessing from my father, with the intention described yesterday by Than Geoff. It need not be with the ritual “laying on of hands,” but can be practiced silently, without the ritual. It’s more of a thought, an energy, and in fact I experience it every day in the practice of metta, as a prelude to meditation. But here’s the odd thing: the ritual does speak to me, alluringly, at some deep level of my being. When I find myself thinking about it, I actually feel a tingle in my hands that seems to want release… But then I accuse myself of presumption, and quickly back away. I still await the opportunity to overcome my reserve.

My teacher would use the term sanctifying the mundane. I took this to mean we can engage with existence in such a way that we encounter a depth or sanctity to all that we touch, see, hear, smell, taste and know. And this comes about as a consequence of finding that depth or sanctity within ourselves and at the same time (ah hem) not getting over large in our own heads! Humility and self reflection keep us safe.

The only way forward, it seems to me, is to walk on and regard all one encounters with reverence and respect. Which includes that which we call myself. As for the question of spiritual authority. You could call that the light of the Buddha which shines through us without questioning where or what it illuminates. Hands are blessed gifts, hands being our main instrument for making contact with that which we call not myself. No wonder they tingle!