Are you Joyful? 'My religion is happiness', says the Dalai Lama. Dogen Zenji calls Zazen 'the Dharma gate of joyful ease'.
Do we try to get the 'thing(s)' we believe will create or bring joy, or at least end discomfort? As a short-term strategy that might be appropriate; unfortunately, doing so may lead us to further misunderstand and even miss basic aspects of our life.
Joy is exactly this life. 'True Nature is joyous' states the Ten-Clause Kannon Sutra.
We believe specific conditions and circumstances are needed to be joyful. And believing this, believing right now is not enough, makes and insures that it is so. Then we are sure life is lacking, especially in the midst of ongoing difficult circumstances. Unfortunately, seeking joy in conditions can lead to being caught up in and attached to body-mind habits, especially those of greed, anger and confusion/ignorance. Dharma reveals joy in the midst of this dependent arising life, even in the midst of the physically and emotionally painful conditions.
Practice is living this moment as is, rather than limiting life by trying to force it into the various forms that we believe to be real-feelings, habits, words, ideas and ways of functioning. Practice is living as who we are-rather than being trapped by all sorts of dreams. Joy is in the very midst of the conditions of body-mind-world. Inhabiting this body-mind moment, we learn how to do this, how to notice where we are caught up and to open to what we are rather than look elsewhere. We give our self away. In Zazen we give our self away to sitting. Giving body away to the ground, giving eyes away to the wall we face, giving hearing away to the sound, giving breath away to the universe. Giving self away; this is nonthinking. When we sit we give self to this bodily moment, to this cushion. We give our self to the earth, to the air. In giving away self, we find that we are giving our self to our self. The Zendo is a lost and found: You lose your self; and if you lose self then you find your self. Finding self, practice is this moment losing your self. Over and over, lose and find.
Look at everyday activity. What is 'walking'? Even on a mechanical level, from a simple scientific perspective, it is an interconnected process of gravity and the forces of push and reaction going on among the parts of the body, the ground, the air and the whole universe.
Ordinary walking is our opportunity to walk the universe-we walk the ground, the ground walks us. From the scientific perspective Albert Einstein states 'A human being is part of the whole, called by us "Universe", a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical illusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affections for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty'.
So be a scientist, be an explorer, discover the life you are. Our sitting allows us to be, to see, this life that we are. Live your life. Each and every one of us receives and lives this universe-full life. We are one with the whole universe, yet we do not manifest it as the universe in the real sense. Practicing, we see how the believed thoughts, 'my' thoughts, batter us and keep us from manifesting who we are. When there is holding believed thoughts, the practice effort is seeing this and opening right here, being this ocean that we are from the beginning. Being so, we manifest this joyful functioning in this particular wave, this body-mind world moment. Joy is not an added ingredient, dependent on anything extra. Seeing and living this, we manifest the universe we are.
Please, en-joy, be joy living this moment.
By/Elihu Genmyo Smith
Salam,
Cherine
There once was a king who offered a prize to the artist
ردحذفwho would paint the best picture of peace. Many artists tried. The king looked at all the pictures. But there were only two he really liked, and he had to choose between them.
One picture was of a calm lake. The lake was a perfect mirror for peaceful towering mountains all around it. Overhead was a blue sky with fluffy white clouds. All who saw this picture thought that it was a perfect picture of peace.
The other picture had mountains, too. But these were rugged and bare. Above was an angry sky, from which rain fell and in which lightning played. Down the side of the mountain tumbled a foaming waterfall. This did not look peaceful at all.
But when the king looked closely, he saw behind the waterfall a tiny bush growing in a crack in the rock. In the bush a mother bird had built her nest. There, in the midst of the rush of angry water, sat the mother bird on her nest - in perfect peace.
Which picture do you think won the prize? The king chose the second picture. Do you know why?
"Because," explained the king, "peace does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble, or hard work. Peace means to be in the midst of all those things and still be calm in your heart. That is the real meaning of peace."