TREELEAF ZENDO PODCAST

SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Xin Xin Ming - (II)

Last year I spoke about the little girl that my wife and I have been trying to adopt from China for five years to no avail, caught in red tape and creeping bureaucracy. She is just a name to us, a shadow, an empty child's room that has gathered dust. Our little son always asks for his absent sister, year after year. Now, after much pushing through obstacles, wrangling with regulations, negotiating, simple waiting (there are so many families in like position, and we did not want to push ahead of others, so waited our turn like everyone else), procedures and endless forms, this year's earthquake and adventures, adoption and immigration lawyers and legal fees to fix the tangled legal snafu, there is a good chance (too soon to be sure yet) that she will come to us by the end of this year!!   :)
If all goes forward (we'll see), 51 year old me is gonna be daddy to a 1 year old!
Some things in life are WORTH PROTESTING FOR, SHOUTING FOR, FIGHTING FOR ... WITHOUT VIOLENCE OR ANGER, OF COURSE! Be it a wrong to right, a war to stop, an injustice to prevent, a disease to cure ... it is okay to take to the streets (like those monks in Burma did), fight the good fight ... if peacefully.
Yet today's passage from the Xin Xin Ming tells us:
If you wish to see the truth
then hold no opinions for or against anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind.
When the deep meaning of things is not understood
the mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail.
Having no opinions, no for or against ... yet standing up for what's right? Sounds like a great contradiction! These need not be in the least! Opinions with equanimity, pushing forward with no place to get, protest hand-in-hand with total acceptance!
Seen with a Buddha's eye ... there is no contradiction at all.
Today’s Sit-A-Long video follows at this link. Remember: recording ends soon after the beginning bells; a sitting time of 15 to 35 minutes is recommended.
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Santoka's genjokoan

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Genjo Koan 12 - Fanning Space

Dogen writes: Do not suppose that what you realize becomes your knowledge and is grasped by your consciousness. Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be apparent. Its appearance is beyond your knowledge. Zen master Baoche of Mt. Mayu was fanning himself. A monk approached and said, "Master, the nature of wind is permanent and there is no place it does not reach. When, then, do you fan yourself?" "Although you understand that the nature of the wind is permanent," Baoche replied, "you do not understand the meaning of its reaching everywhere." "What is the meaning of its reaching everywhere?" asked the monk again. The master just kept fanning himself. The monk bowed deeply. Taigu comments ...
In this video, we look at Dogen's take on practice (fanning) as the only way to manifest awakening (air). Even this little corner of the big Universe is reached and touched by reality itself. No need to take this too far, to travel far, the simple actions of our life, the daily moves we make, the ten thousand activities we display are unfolding this awakening. The simple and bare practice is the Dharma gate. It also shows that tradition matters, we are not asked to get rid of the fan but to pick it up.
Today’s Sit-A-Long video follows at this link. Remember: recording ends soon after the beginning bells; a sitting time of 20 to 35 minutes is recommended.
Please visit the forum thread here!

Genjo Koan 11

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Genjo Koan 10 - Doing one practice...

Doing one practice...
Now if a bird or a fish tries to reach the end of its element before moving in it, this bird or this fish will not find its way or its place. When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point. When you find you way at this moment, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point; for the place, the way, is neither large nor small, neither yours nor others'. The place, the way, has not carried over from the past and it is not merely arising now.
Accordingly, in the practice-enlightenment of the buddha way, meeting one thing is mastering it--doing one practice is practicing completely. Here is the place; here the way unfolds. The boundary of realization is not distinct, for the realization comes forth simultaneously with the mastery of buddha-dharma.
There is no need to hurry and nowhere to go. As soon as one practices fully, this place is the whole full blown moon. The self changes, everything changes, so movement occurs. But although movement occurs, we never leave this place. The time of practice is not even taking place now. So mindfullness is extra. The time and space that Dogen is talking about are different from the ideas we have about time and space, now is not distant from past and future but totally embrace them. Here is not opposed to there, here includes all places. In other words, past and future are just taking place within the sphere of now ; room, streets, forests, seas are displayed within the one big space without edges or bounds, with no within and without. Meanwhile, we operate and need the dualistic consciousness that rises boundaries and thresholds everywhere and everytime. As we sit the body-mind and drop the body-mind, time and space realize themselves. No special awareness of this One taste is needed. It just takes place naturally. So we can let go of the chase and the search. So to practice one thing is to practice everything, to know one thing is enough. Each step contains the whole journey.
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Genjo Koan 9

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Genjo Koan 8

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Genjo Koan 7

That brightness beyond all brightness cannot be own. As you display the moonlight, you cannot see it. Its activity cannot be soiled or limited by your games: dividing, separating, breaking, the dual is left behind. Dogen uses a metaphor and at the same time, it is not a metaphor. Quite clearly, the dewdrop is a dewdrop~you~moon~light~reflection~time~universe. All these words not forming a neckless of pearls but a single pearl~like word~world.
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