The Right Thing To Do

Yesterday, I had a co-worker go off the deep end on me, in the middle of the office. As she was attempting to berate me, what I was honestly thinking (or more hopefully being) was my practice that my teacher gave me. After she ended her tirade with, "You're a bleeding heart, liberal!" I responded, "Don't ask me to do something and then want me to do it wrong. That's not how I work, it was the right thing to do and I'm sorry you choose not to see that."

The reason why I bring up this instance is to make the point that sometimes people see Zen practice (or other spiritual avenues) as "fluff" or "philosophizing" or "impractical" or an overwhelming sign of "dementia." It's not. Zen if anything is the opposite. It removes the fluff, the philosophy, the impracticalities and the foolishness. If we apply ourselves to our practice, what ever it is, we can and will cut through all delusion. We just have to be present with our practice.

Before I left the monastery at DBZ, Eido Roshi said something to me that I've always held on to. He said, "If you cannot enter the village with helping hands, then Zen practice is no good, useless and you should abandon it forever." So if I cannot carry Zen (Unification) into each moment with me, something is terribly wrong. Zen is not to leave a place or moment, It's to enter it. That is what my practice is teaching me.

Gassho,

Jaye Morris, Curator
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