Fully Resolved

"Don't cling to your own understanding. Even if you do understand something, you should ask yourself if there might be something you have not fully resolved, or if there may be some higher meaning yet."

Dogen, Zenji Dai Osho

Is It Realistic?

"Buddhism is neither pessimistic nor optimistic. If anything at all, it is realistic, for it takes a realistic view of life and of the world. It looks at things objectively. It does not falsely lull you into a fool's paradise, nor does it frighten and agonize you with all kinds of imaginary fears and sins. It tells you exactly and objectively what you are and what the world around you is and shows you the way to perfect freedom, peace, tranquility and happiness."

Walpola Rahula
Excerpt | What the Buddha Taught

What Is Zen?

Yesterday, one of my friends asked me "what do you think Zen is?" My response perhaps was not as glamorous as he would have liked. I told him, "Zen is no more special than waking up, opening our eyes and seeing that which is directly in front of us. Most people engage in this process of awakening by sitting and concentrating full attention on the breath. The practice of Zen is remarkably simple and uncomplicated."

Jaye Morris, Curator
digitalZENDO.com

Changing The View

"When you change the way you look at things, the things that you are looking at change."

Wayne Dyer PhD.

Memorial Day

"How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!"
Maya Angelou

Though we may be terribly sad about the war and upset over how we got there in the first place, that decision was not made be any soldier. It was made by an uninformed president. Because of this I think that it is right and important that we remember our fallen. They are us and we are them.

MSNBC Tribute
CBSNEWS Tribute

Jaye Morris, Curator
digitalZENDO.com

Power of Mind

"You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength."

Marcus Aurelius

Its Own True Nature

"The uniqueness of Zazen lies in this: that the mind is freed from bondage to all thought forms, visions, objects, and imaginings, however sacred or elevating, and brought to a state of absolute emptiness, from which alone it may one day perceive its own true nature, or the nature of the universe."

Philip Kapleau, Zenji Dai Osho

Connectedness

"When you take refuge in Buddha, when you go back to being fully yourself, you begin to see how you are connected to and depend on everybody, and how everybody depends on you... In fact, the practice of taking refuge in Buddha opens your eyes to all the other precepts. Not killing, not stealing, right conduct, and working to help other beings: all these come from the condition of you being you. the condition of you being you is the source of peace and the source of love."

Tenshin Reb Anderson, Roshi
Excerpt | Being Upright (Zen Meditation and the Bodhisattva Precepts)

Straighten It Out

"If you make a mistake, then make it correct."

Zen Master Seung Sahn

Change or Die

"Change or Die" by Alan Deutschman is a book that I recently read, not just once but twice in the last month. I enjoyed it that much.

The premise of the book revolves around the idea that "impossible change is possible." To make lasting change happen, we need to move away from the old model of the three F's. This is better know as "facts, fear and force." The newer model or paradigm to live in and embrace is what Mr. Deutschman refers to as the "three R's." They are "Relate, Repeat and Reframing."

The book travels through compelling case studies and anecdotal experiences which are easy to understand and clearly see how people grow physically, emotionally and spiritually. It is also made plain how we can deconstruct instances and times that we don't make needed changes so that we can give ourselves the opportunity to move beyond what we might think is a failure pattern.

I strongly encourage you to read "Change or Die." My guess is that you will find it not only interesting but inspiring.

Namaste'

Jaye Morris, Curator
digitalZENDO.com

Attention Means Attention

"Paying attention may seem like a very simple thing, but when we look at how our minds actually work, it becomes apparent that, in fact, we pay attention much less than we might think. 'For the ordinary man, whose mind is a checkerboard of crisscrossing reflections, opinions, and prejudices,' says Kapleau Roshi, bare attention is virtually impossible; his life is thus centered not on reality itself but in his ideas about it."

Rick Fields
Excerpt | Chop Wood Carry Water

It's All Temporary

I recently listened to a teisho (place where the truth is) entitled "Daizui's It will be gone with the other," given by Genjo Marinello Osho. It's available for free on iTunes.

During his talk, Genjo Osho presented the temporal nature of things. Eido Shimano Roshi used to say "things come and go, all by their self." Recently... more than usual, that truth has been repeated. Today my neighbor who lives across the street came home in a wheel-chair from an accident. Earlier in the week I talked to my brother-in-law who found out that he has cancer. As I was talking to Ben about what he has been going through, he mentioned that my (deceased) fathers sister is in a hospital also suffering from cancer too and that she was only three hours from me. As we talked I realized that time has passed very quickly, since I was a child. Time really does move swiftly and many opportunities are genuinely lost, just like it says in the ancient gatha.

That this is all temporary, lets me know that it's important to make everything, and I do mean every thing count, moment after temporary moment. Time with my wife. Time with my daughters. Time with my mother. Time with my brothers. Time with my friends at work. Time with you. Time with the words of Genjo Osho. These are opportunities to be valued deeply, simply because they are like ripples on he water and can never happen exactly in the same way again.

I hope you take the time to check out the Choboji Podcast with Genjo Osho. Just look under the "Podcast" directory on iTunes. Check under Buddhism. You will find his and many other podcasts. If you cannot mentally and emotionally connect with his, perhaps you will be able to do it with another. Remember they are free.

With Love and Respect,

Jaye Morris, Curator
digitalZENDO.com

Aspects of Doubt

"It is good and natural to doubt ourselves. Those who do not doubt can easily mislead themselves. When properly used, doubt keeps me humble, balanced and open to learning from others. Thinking I am wise is an absolute block to wisdom."

Hugh Prather
Excerpt | Love and Courage

Breath Compassion

"He who feels no compassion will become insane."

Hasidic Saying

Action - Louder Than Words

"Beings are owners of their actions... heirs of their action; they originate from their actions, are bound to their actions, have their actions as their refuge. It is action that distinguishes beings as inferior and superior."

Trans. by Bhikkhu Bodhi
Excerpt | The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha

Way of Practice

"Zazen is a physical practice. We don't usually think of spiritual practice as physical, and yet, life, soul, spirit, mind don't exist in the sky, they exist in association with a body. In Dogen's way of practice, body and spirit (or spirit, soul) are one thing, and so to sit - to actually and literally sit down - paying close attention to the body process until you can enter it wholeheartedly - is to return naturally to what you most truly are. You have been this all along, whether you sit or not. But when you sit in Zazen, you return and embrace it completely."

Kazuaki Tanahashi
Excerpt | Beyond Thinking - A Guide to Zen Meditation

What We Think, We Become

"Character is built in the same way as a tree or a house is built-namely, by ceaseless addition of new material, and that material is thought. By the aid of millions of bricks a city is built; by the aid of millions of thoughts a mind, a character is built. 'Rome was not built in a day,' and a Buddha, a Plato, or a Shakespeare is not built in a lifetime.

Every person is a mind-builder, whether they recognize it or not. Every person must by necessity think, and every thought is another brick laid down in the edifice of mind. Such 'brick-laying' is done loosely and carelessly by a vast number of people, the result being unstable and tottering characters that are ready to go down under the first little gust of trouble or temptation."

James Allen
Excerpt | The Mastery of Destiny

Mothers Day

For all those mothers who have carried, supported, nurtured, parented and help to sustain life, thank you. I say this because to be a mother can be an amazing act of compassion that we can sometimes easily overlook.

Namaste'

Jaye Morris, Curator
digitalZENDO.com

What is Our Focus?

"The non-spiritual being is focused on external power. The spiritual being is focused on personal empowerment.

External power is located in the dominance of and control over the physical world. This is the power of war and military might, the power of laws and organization, the power of business and stock market games. This is the power of controlling all that is external to the self. The non-spiritual being is focused on this external power.

By contrast, the spiritual being is focused on empowering himself and others to higher and higher levels of consciousness and achievement. The use of force over another is not a possibility for the spiritual being. He or she is not interested in collecting power, but rather in helping others to live in harmony and to experience real magic. This is a power of love that does not judge others. There is no hostility or anger in this kind of power. It is true empowerment to know that one can live in the world with others who have differing points of view and have no need to control or vanquish them as victims."

Dr. Wayne Dyer, PhD.
Excerpt | Real Magic

On the Hook?

"Anger or hatred is like a fisherman's hook. It is very important for us to ensure that we are not caught by it."

H.H. The Dalai Lama

Already Here!

"Regardless of how long you sit, the Buddha Dharma never appears because it is already here! Reveal it! Do not cover it up!"

Taizan Maezumi Zenji Dai Osho

Know This Very Moment

"And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."

T.S. Eliot

You are Worthwhile

"You are always a valuable, worthwhile human being -- not because anybody says so, not because you're successful, not because you make a lot of money -- but because you decide to believe it and for no other reason."

Wayne Dyer, PhD.

The Premonition

How would you feel, if someone reasonably close to you informed you that they had been having repeated dreams about your dying? That's exactly what happened to me yesterday. My mother-in-law told me that she's been having these dreams recently on a regular basis and what is troubling to her is that now this premonition has been coming to her when she is awake. She was able to say that it pretty much happens the same way, each time and that it happens at my workplace.

The interesting thing about all of this is that recently I too have been having a vague feeling of something could happen to me. I didn't bother to discuss it with anyone, assuming that it was the normal stress of my job and reality that I deal with a section of the population that are in some instances gang members and prone to violence, not just suffering from alcoholism or drug addiction. At the same time I don't consider myself a superstitious person and so bypassed my own intuition/feelings, but one of my close friends began talking to me about premonitions, describing how he listened to "a voice" that cautioned him to be "careful" and avoid a situation wherein one of his friends had in-fact died where he might have met the same end, given the nature of the accident. Buddistically I am very aware sometimes in practice clairvoyance or premonition is a "by-product" of training. Often as one progresses in their practice and their mind changes frequency you can sort-of hear... see... things that the normally unfocused, distracted mind cannot.

I asked my mother-in-law why she was telling me about the dream and what she thought. She stated "by knowing, I believe negative things like this can be prevented." I suppose premonition is like a fork in the road and gives one an opportunity to give things more consideration that usual.

While I was sitting this morning what came to mind was, "Whether tomorrow or the next life, which comes first? We really don't know." Another expression that bubbled to the surface was, "The causes of death are many, yet the causes of life are very few." So what am I to do?

In all honesty I'm not sure what my actual response to all this will be. Debra and I have talked a little bit about it, mainly because the interaction with her mother was so direct and the thought so unnerving. I expect that I'm going to have to go at some point, I just don't think of it as being around the corner.

Namaste'

Jaye Morris, Curator
digitalZENDO.com

Are You Really Surprised?

Thursday or Friday a report was released from the military looking at "Battlefield Ethics" and the relationship to the stress that American soldiers have been under in Iraq. Given that their deployments have been extended multiple times and they are constantly exposed to violence and serious danger, what did they think would happen to our soldiers.

Another disturbing trend is the "Sexual Assault and PTSD Experienced by Military Women". This is yet another example of how our soldiers are being damaged by the war. If you want to read The New York Times article "The Woman's War" by Sara Corbett. You won't see this information talked about on MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS or other news shows. It gives an amazing aspect to the war which I had not considered.

It's easy for Bush and people in the Pentagon to say that deployments are going to be extended. The results are terribly sad. It is an unthinkable toll and a source of great suffering for many. This just lends one more reason to bring our soldiers home. We need to help them after this sad process and take part in their healing.

If you would like to read all the Mental Health Reports from the military, you can view them at the Army Medicine website.

// Jaye Morris, Curator
// digitalZENDO.com

Accomplish This Task

"To accomplish Buddhahood, one has to discover one's own Mind, which is already within one's own body."

Zen Master Kyong Ho

The Nature of Mind

"Mind is the arbiter of life. It is the creator and shaper of conditions, and the recipient of its own results. It contains within itself both the power to create illusion and to perceive reality. Mind is the infallible weaver of destiny. Thought is the thread, good and evil deeds are the "warp and woof" or foundation, and the web, woven upon the loom of life, is character. Mind clothes itself in garments of its own making."

James Allen

The Choice is Yours

"Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it's always your choice."

Wayne Dyer

What Are You Holding?

"Letting go [mentally] doesn't mean that you deliberately set about to change or manipulate your state of mind: it means that you don't hold on to it."

Tenshin Reb Anderson, Roshi
Excerpt | Being Upright (Zen Meditation and the Bodhisattva Precepts)"