Being Natural

By Master Sheng-Yen

Let it go and be spontaneous,
Experience no going or staying.
Accord with your nature, unite with the Way,
Wander at ease, without vexation.

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING in practice is to be natural and spontaneous. Being natural does not mean neglecting everything. It requires careful attention. In meditation, you should sit in a natural posture and use your mind in a natural way. Sitting in a natural posture means sitting just right. If you are comfortable when you first assume the sitting posture, even if pains develop in your legs later on, that is still natural. It is unnatural, however, to sit bent over or leaning to one side, or tipping your head back. A natural posture should follow the demands of your physiology. It is not natural to tighten your stomach muscles or to straighten your back by protruding your chest.

To use your mind in a natural way means to avoid trying to control it. The more you try to control your mind, the more stray thoughts will come up to botheryou. In fact, the very fear of stray thoughts is another stray thought. Therefore, if you have many stray thoughts, consider it a natural phenomenon and do not despise them. But on the other hand, if you completely give in to a train of wandering thoughts, that is not correct either. What is the best approach? Pay close attention to the method. If you do that, stray thoughts will be kept to a minimum. It is not that they will not arise, but you will not worry about them. If you are really paying attention to the method, you will be aware of a stray thought as soon as it arises. When it comes up, just let it go. Do not be afraid that another thought may follow it. That fear is an extra stray thought. It is just like a person who is carrying a stack of bowls. If someone says to him, "Be careful! You're going to drop them!" he will drop them. But if nobody said anything, he would just keep going.

Do not fear failure. Whatever happened in the past is past; do not worry about it happening again. Before you meet with success, failure is natural and necessary. As a baby learns to walk, it keeps falling down. Is this failure? Throughout our life we go through similar processes: going to school, pursuing a career, practicing Ch'an. After my first book, someone said to me, "Now you're a success." I said, "No. That book was a failure. I would write it much better if I had to do it again." It is the same with practice; there is never a successful conclusion. When you are working hard, failure is natural. If you have never failed, you have never tried.

ON THE OTHER HAND, you should not have a defeatist attitude, thinking: "As long as I'm going to fail, let me fail." According to Buddhism, nothing can be a success. If you were elected president of the United States, would that be a success? Later on, you would most likely be criticized as a failure. Even President Lincoln would probably consider himself a failure. This is natural. It is when you do not feel successful that you put in the effort. When you no longer need to make an effort, that is success, or liberation. At that point, there are no more vexations. Nevertheless, you have neither thrown away vexations nor grasped liberation. If you want to hold on to enlightenment and keep away vexations, that is not the true natural state.

But to follow your own nature, in this sense, is not the same as following your personal habits or whims, as in the expression "be natural." Nature here refers to your self-nature, or Buddha-nature. Some people think that one can become a buddha through meditation. This is wrong. The potential for Buddhahood is within your own nature. If it were true that Buddhahood depended on meditation, then if you stopped meditating after becoming a buddha, you would become a common person again. The objective of practice is to be in accord with the natural way, so that your true nature can manifest itself. Just practice according to the methods taught by the Buddha and do not worry about being a success. The Heart Sutra says, "There is no wisdom and no attainment." Although practice may be trying, even physically painful, if your heart is carefree, nothing will bother you. A carefree approach does not mean not caring about how you practice; it means considering anything that happens as natural. There may be some pain, but there will be no suffering. There is nothing in your mind that you cannot put down.

Master Sheng-Yen is the Resident Teacher at the Ch'an Meditation Center in Elmhurst, New York. Excerpted from Faith in Mind: A Guide to Ch'an Practice by Master Sheng-Yen, reprinted with permission from Dharma Drum Publications.

Article Source: www.tricycle.com
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Bankei's Song of Original Mind

Bankei Yōtaku
(1622-1693)

Unborn and imperishable
Is the original mind
Earth, water, fire and wind
A temporary lodging for the night

Attached to this
Ephemeral burning house
You yourselves light the fire, kindle the flames
In which you're consumed

Keep your mind as it was
When you came into the world
And instantly this very self
Is a living "thus-come" one

Ideas of
What's good, what's bad
All due to
This self of yours

In winter, a bonfire
Spells delight
But when summertime arrives
What a nuisance it becomes!

And the breezes
You loved in summer
Even before the autumn's gone
Already have become a bother

Throwing your whole life away
Sacrificed to the thirst for gold
But when you saw your life was through
All your money was no use

Clinging, craving and the like
I don't have them on my mind
That's why nowadays I can say
The whole world is truly mine!

Since, after all this floating world
Is unreal
Instead of holding onto things in
Your mind, go and sing!

Only original mind exists
In the past and in the future too
Instead of holding onto things in
Your mind, let them go!

Having created
the demon mind yourself
When it torments you mercilessly
You're to blame and no one else

When you do wrong
our mind's the demon
There's no hell
To be found outside

Abominating hell
Longing for heaven
You make yourself suffer
In a joyful world

You think that good
Means hating what is bad
What's bad is
The hating mind itself

Fame, wealth, eating and
drinking, sleep and sensual delight —
Once you've leaned the Five Desires
They become
Your guide in life

Notions of what one should do
Never existed from the start
Fighting about what's right, what's wrong
That's the doing of the "I"

When your study
Of Buddhism is through
You find
You haven't anything new

If you think the mind
That attains enlightenment
Is "mine"
Your thoughts will wrestle, one with the other

These days I'm not bothering about
Getting enlightenment all the time
And the result is
I wake up in the morning feeling fine!

Praying for salvation in the world to come
Praying for your own selfish ends
Is only piling on more and more
Self-centeredness and arrogance

Die — then live
Day and night within the world
Once you've done this, then you can
Hold the world right in your hand!

If you search for the Pure Land
Bent upon your own reward
You'll only find yourself
despised
By the Buddha after all!

People have no enemies
None at all right from the start
You create them all yourself
Fighting over right and wrong

Clear are the workings of cause
and effect
You become deluded, but
don't know
It's something that you've done yourself
That's what's called self-centeredness

Though the years may creep ahead
Mind itself can never age
This mind that's
Always just the same

Wonderful! Marvelous!
When you've searched
and found at last
The one who never will grow old
— "I alone!"

The Pure Land
Where one communes at peace
Is here and now, it's not remote
Millions and millions of leagues away

When someone tosses you a tea bowl
— Catch it!
Catch it nimbly with soft cotton
With the cotton of your skillful mind!

(Zenshu, pp 519-522 — translated by Peter Haskel, Bankei Zen, pp 125-132 )

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Drinking Tea

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Break Through Delusion

Extracted entirely from DailyZen

This is the way people are in the world. When they encounter pleasing situations, they feel happy and content. When they encounter situations that go against them, they feel worried and endangered.

Nevertheless, pleasing things should not be considered lucky, and adversity should not be considered unlucky. If you are sunk in things that your conceptual mind considers convenient, the intention of transcending the world will never arise. If you are sad and do not get what you aim for, then you will grow weary of the fetters of the world of physical existence, and therefore seek to transcend the world.

Thus, when myriad sufferings extend before you, just contemplate them with correct wisdom.

Picture by: Nick Owen

Ask yourself: Where does the suffering come from? It is born from physical existence. Where does physical existence come from? From karma. Where does karma come from? It is born from delusion. On the basis of delusion, you create karma. On the basis of karma, physical existence forms. On the basis of physical existence, you incur suffering. Just manage to break through delusion, and all of this is empty and still.

You may venture to ask, “What is the method for breaking through delusion?”

Just go to the fundamental meditation point and understand: Who is reciting the buddha-name? Who is mindful of the buddha?

Take hold of your doubts over this, take hold and defeat them: then all delusion will be smashed. Think this over! Don’t neglect it!

Pure Land and Zen Methods

There are many ways to enter the Path, but for directness and simplicity, none matches reciting the buddha-name.

The method of buddha-remembrance through reciting the buddha-name brings salvation to those of the most excellent capacities, and reaches down to the most stupid and dull. In sum, it is the Path that reaches from high to low. Do not be shaken or confused by vulgar views that Pure Land is only for those of lesser abilities.

Since ancient times, the venerable adepts of the Zen school have taught people to contemplate meditation topics (koans), to arouse the feeling of doubt, and thus to proceed to great awakening. Some contemplate the word “No.” Some contemplate “The myriad things return to the one: what does the one return to?” The meditation topics are quite diverse, and there are quite enough of them.

Source: flickr.com

Now I will try to compare Zen and Pure Land methods.

Take for example the koan “The myriad things return to one: what does the one return to?” This is very similar to the koan “ Who is the one reciting the buddha-name?” If you can break through at this “Who?” then you will not have to ask anyone else what the one returns to: you will spontaneously comprehend.

This was precisely what the ancients meant when they said that those who recite the buddha-name and wish to study Zen should not concentrate on any other meditation topic but this.

Recite the buddha-name several times, turn the light around and observe yourself: who is the one reciting the buddha-name? If you employ your mind like this without forgetting, without any other help, after a long time you are sure to have insight.

If you cannot do this, it is also alright simply to recite the buddha-name. Keep your mindfulness from leaving buddha, and buddha from leaving your mindfulness. When your mindfulness of buddha peaks, your mind empties: you will get a response and link up with the Path, and buddha will appear before you. According to the inner pattern, it must be so.

Master Chu-hung (1535-1615)

Taken from Pure Land Pure Mind

translated by J.C. Cleary
*
Source: flickr.com

Many masters from the time of 10th century China practiced a synthesis of Zen and Pure Land teachings. For many Western Buddhist practitioners, Pure Land practice is much less known. In the above selection one can see the similarity of koan practice and the question asked with buddha-name recitation, “Who is the one reciting the buddha-name?” The one mindful of buddha is buddha within us.

Buddha has given us many teachings in response to the varied temperaments of people to allow a way into realization.

“Pure Land people focus on buddha in the form of Amitabha, the buddha of infinite life and infinite light. Reciting the buddha-name functions as a powerful antidote to those great enemies of clear awareness that Buddhists have traditionally labeled “oblivion” and “scattering.”

The simplicity of Pure Land practice is not as simple as first appears and deserves closer attention. One very attractive aspect of Pure Land practice is its democratic approach. There is no dependence on teachers, gurus, roshis or other mediating authority figures. Its teachings are based on compassion, and the actual method of practice is easy to begin.

Yours along the Way,

Elana



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How to Cook Your Life" with Raw & Refined Mindfulness

Cook or Chef?
Originally uploaded by Piulet

by Shen Shi'an, The Buddhist Channel, May 15, 2007

Dharma-Inspired Movie Review: www.german-ilms.de

Singapore -- "How to Cook Your Life" is inspired by Zen Master Dogen's celebrated "Instructions to the Cook" (Tenzokyojun), which uses the preparation of food as a metaphor for the cultivation of our spirituality. Yes, there can be more to this "mundane" task often taken for granted.

As the filmmaker Doris Dorrie remarked, "How a person goes about dealing with the ingredients for his meals says a lot about him." If we learn to connect to the task at hand, no matter how routine or seemingly insignificant it might be, we learn to connect with the reality of here and now. Master Dogen (1238 AD) had founded the Japanese Soto-Zen school.

According to the film's website, he "wrote a cookbook in which he taught that it is possible to discover Buddha in even the simplest of kitchen duties, such as washing rice or kneading dough, and so reflect on one’s own actions and behaviour in the world."

Indeed. If we cannot discover Buddha-nature where we are, where can we?

The upbeat film revolves around Zen Master Edward Espe Brown, who explains how cooking and living revolve around each other. Enough about "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" and such for now - this is "Zen and the Art of Kitchen and Dietary Maintenance". This documentary is definitely no preachy material. Master Brown presents himself in a disarmingly human way, with faults and all. He admits to impatience for instance - we even see him struggling to open a food package. And he also sheds tears when he recalls how the sight of battered teapots reminded him that he too can serve despite his imperfections. Beyond his role as a teacher, we also see a fellow Dharma practitioner in him.

In his words, "My teacher Suzuki Roshi said, 'When you are cooking, you are not just cooking. You are not just working on food. You are also working on yourself. You are working on other people.'" Indeed, when you are working in a Zen kitchen, cooking for the community while interacting with kitchen folks, cooking can be a spiritual challenge.

As an interviewee says, "The hardest part about cooking is working with other people." Indeed. As Venerable Seung Sahn once taught, the easiest way to wash potatoes is in tub of water, letting them rub the dirt off each other. Washing potatoes, we might be cleansing our minds instead. Similarly, we might be cooking food, but the food might be "cooking us" too. Harmony is best learnt and appreciated by practising "together action" of living, cooking and meditating together. This is the value of living as a spiritual community - even if only during an occasional retreat.

Anything wholesome we are doing can be a subject for training mindfulness. Ingredients are carefully protected, as if they were one's own eyes. Even kneading dough is part of the process of developing awareness and attention. Food is used as a vehicle to cultivate the three minds - "big mind, joyful mind, and kind mind". "When you wash the rice, wash the rice, cut the carrots, stir the soup... a lot of the time, we are going through the motions, not seeing with the eyes, feeling with our hands, we're thinking all sorts of things... See with your eyes, smell with your nose, taste with your tongue.

Nothing in the universe is hidden." In this vein of thought, studying cooking is also studying yourself mindfully. As Master Dogen taught, "Watching closely with sincere diligence, you should not attend to some things and neglect or be slack with others for even one moment. Do not give away a single drop from within the ocean of virtues; you must not fail to add a single speck on top of the mountain of good deeds."

Much is explored on other aspects of food too - for instance, the culture of mechanised food that tastes artificial, that loses the vitality of life. Our whole sense of taste is skewed when we keep comparing "real" food with commercial food. Everything must have some virtue by itself… There's nothing to compare with yourself. Sincerity is with blemishes. As Suzuki Roshi taught, "So you have your own value. And that value is not comparative value or exchange value. It is that value – something more than that." This value is Buddha-nature - our ability to become invaluable Buddhas!

As a practice to treasure food, the Zen centre even sorts leftovers for the homeless who sleep in a church and on the streets. Now that is great unconditional compassion and equanimity. Don't waste even a grain of rice – it is as if your eye! "Backdoor catering service" or freeganism is also touched upon as a "radical" means to minimise waste - the salvaging of abandoned or neglected food to sustain oneself. The film also subtly hints that we can all switch to a kinder diet - that involves the minimal sacrifice of sentient beings. The food cooked in the film is vegetarian, though there was a scene where eggs were used. However, there is also a scene which asks if we know eggs come from happy chickens. If we are unsure, why risk the happiness of chickens by demanding their eggs? Most egg-bearing chickens live tortured lives and are eventually killed for their meat and other body parts. This is why many choose to be vegans.

In the film are occasional black and while footage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. In one charming teaching, he says - "If you think, when you are reading something, if you think, 'Bird is there, blue jay is over my roof. Blue jay is singing, but their voice is not so good.

When you think in that way – 'That is noise!' When you are not disturbed by the blue jay, the blue jay will come right into your heart, and you will be a blue jay, and blue jay will be reading something. Bird is here, in my mind already, and I am singing with the bird.

Pee pee pee!" Master Brown elaborates that we should let things come to our hearts as there is pain when there is separation, from wanting to protect ourselves. When we distant ourselves, we ache with longing. We might even be abusive when we want things our way - thinking it is control. What we cannot control, we might think of destroying.

But "if you have a little piece of shit on your nose, everything stinks." Instead, you should wash your face and transform the negative energy to something useful. Some other Dharma lessons from the kitchen, which reflect on life beyond it... It is impossible to please all with a dish. What matters is not perfection, but making sincere efforts when preparing food. Things in the kitchen don’t always go as expected. When we are joyful, kind and big-hearted, the food we prepare will be likewise. "Nourishing" yourself spiritually doesn’t come out of a package – it comes from your heart – connecting with food and others. Is food precious? Are you precious? When you honour food that you give others and yourself, you are honouring all. Food is more than for sustenance - it is for finding peace too. You are what you eat – eat too much hamburger and you might "become" hamburger. In gardening, "ask" the plants – how can I help fulfill your purpose? Think of giving before receiving. Worthy of mention in the film is a neat little poem called "The Little Duck" by Donald C. Babcock... Enjoy!

Now we are ready to look at something pretty special.

It is a duck riding the ocean a hundred feet beyond the surf, and he cuddles in the
swells.
There is a big heaving in the Atlantic.
And he is part of it.
He can rest while the Atlantic heaves, because he rests in the Atlantic.
Probably he doesn’t know how large the ocean is.
And neither do you.
But he realises it.
And what does he do, I ask you.
He sits down in it.
He reposes in the immediate as if it were infinity – which it is.
That is religion, and the duck has it.

I like the little duck.
He doesn’t know much.
But he has religion.



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