TREELEAF ZENDO PODCAST
Episodes
Wednesday Feb 27, 2013
Sunday Feb 17, 2013
Sunday Feb 17, 2013
Sitting with the beautiful AND the ugly in this world ... finding that which simultaneously transcends and holds, breathes in and breathes out, "beautiful vs. ugly" ... is our Practice.
We are free of aversion and attraction even as we have our ordinary human aversions and attractions, pulling the weeds we can and watering the flowers ... even as we embrace each as just what they are. One finds Wholeness, Light, Beauty that is unconcerned by small human judgments of beauty and ugliness.
We observe the terrible battle fields for what they are, even as we seek to make peace. We sit serenely in the sick room, even as we try to cure the disease. We transcend yet fully embrace a world of beauty and ugliness, even as we do what we can to mend the ugly and make it beautiful.
Is it not the same when we find a certain ugliness amid the beautiful in Buddhism too? A naive student who demands ONLY beauty and goodness in the world ... even the Buddhist world ... one sidedly rejecting the sometimes distasteful or even criminal, may miss the Real Treasure that shines through all of it. That is so even as, in our Wisdom and Equanimity, we keep pulling the weeds we can and nurture the flowers, praise the good and punish the wrongdoer. All at Once, the Eye of Buddha holding all.
Master Dogen quoted his Master's poem in Baike, On Plum Blossoms ... which flower on gnarled twisted branches in our garden each cold February ...
The thorn-like, spike-branched Old Plum Tree
Suddenly bursts forth, first with one or two blossoms,
Then with three, four, five, and finally blossoms beyond count.
... So Beautiful, So Beautiful
Please visit the forum thread here!
Sunday Feb 03, 2013
Sunday Feb 03, 2013
After Jundo s eloquent post and video, my humble take on the subject.
Much like the beautiful dancing Dorothy on the yellow bricks road, OUR JOB IS TO UNMASK THE WIZARD, in other words to dispell the illusion of the ego and turn the three poisons, the three little companions of Dorothy into compassion, wisdom and action.
Please visit the forum thread here!