Author Archives: Helmut

Splishing Sun awaits…

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I was sitting in the back yard of our little temple in Berkeley reading a book on Zen titled “Novice to Master” by Soko Morinaga one of the great modern Japanese Zen Masters in the Rinzai tradition. The book is about  his lifelong training as a Zen monk and how he moved from novice to Master. The Subtitle on the front page of the book is;

An Ongoing Lesson in the Extent of My Own Stupidity:

In one part he is writing about the aspect of enlightenment which most Westerners think is the point of all this Buddhism & Zen, however, many have written and stated that enlightenment, as such, is only the beginning, because you realize that what you have been seeking (so strenuously), has always been an integral part of you. Through the process of all this training and practice we get glimpses, or as I like to think of them “glances”, that point towards It.

Anyway, as  I was reading and enjoying the unusually warm California Winter, in the back yard of the temple I’ve been attending for almost 25 years, I glanced at the little Buddha statue off the walkway next to the garage and was struck by  how that is exactly how training has manifested in my life. I see myself surrounded by the practical aspects of the world and I do try and appreciate them and their usefulness, but so many times I don’t see the small quiet presence of the Buddha, (or Christ, Allah, or God, or The Eternal), that is in all aspects of the world and life we are in. “It” just waits and attends quietly because it is in all things. I get easily distracted by my version of the world, but that afternoon, for a few moments a great calm and peace came over me and I shed a few tears. My not so secret response to quite a few moments in life; and I thought:

This is the 

Way that It Is.

Fountains gurgle and splish

Yes; Splish and splatter!

Birds twitter,  Suns Shine,

Ladders hang,

Chairs folded, lean, and

Little watering cans and

The Buddha, stand and

Wait to receive. Openly,

And to give. Freely. 

berkbuddha

wisp of fog and compassion…

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Just spent a few days very busy with our Sangha, a retreat day of meditation and dharma talk/discussions. The next day a well attended Festival of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion; one of Mahayana Buddhism’s primary figures in regards to the teachings on compassion and what that word means, how to access it and make it real in our lives for ourselves and for others.

The name Avalokiteshvara, translated from the Sanskrit means Regarder of the Cries of the World. The aspect of listening deeply is as important as the wish to help beings, including oneself, in skillful ways that are conducive to any one’s spiritual needs being met.

Yesterday was a day of helping a Sangha member do some garden irrigation and move some items to a new abode. 105 steps up a hillside, steep too.

Old coot mountain goat,

Breathless. The view of

San Francisco. Distant

Between the Mountains

Glistening  between the

Sun,

The water bright as the 

First wisp of fog

Eases

Over the nearby hillside.

Old coot mountain goat,

At rest, breathing in

Distant fog, shimmering

City, Bay of Light.

early morning exchange…

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“Sometimes I get these feelings of being completely out of place. Distant from understanding anything. Then they pass. I don’t get them often. I kind of like them because they help to re-order my thinking. Regain some perspective. Yet, they have an undefinable wistfulness them that seems important. So I try to honor the feeling because it seems like a type of teaching I am being given.
Actually the above paragraph (?) is truer than I thought it would be. I think I’ll use it as a taking off point for my blog and personal writings. I always feel truer around you . Weird, huh?….”

Isn’t that how the mind works? Thinking, feeling, assessing, worrying, and then revisiting some more and, sometimes, sharing. In the sharing the process changes from being inwardly convoluted (bound), to outwardly expository and revealing (loosening). A shedding of light by exposing intimate process to another. Similar to the experience one can have when involved and concentrating on a task at hand that has a private aspect to it; (Drawing, creating, sanding some wood to good finish, sewing, assembling something intricate and useful, any activity that draws us into it.) and, while we are in the activity we sense another person watching us intently. If we are connected in some way to the watcher it is slightly different than if the watcher is someone we either don’t know very well, or not at all. In either instance we get a heightened sense of awareness of ourselves, the activity, and the presence of the watcher. A fuller view of something.
This is the process of sharing.
When truly done, it has transformative potential for the doer, the observer, the exchange between the two, and the activity (the doing and the observing thereof), itself.

Yep, the above is how the mind works. One of them anyway.

The quote is from a text I sent to a longtime friend at 6:00 a.m. after I had texted earlier that I was feeling out of sorts and, in response, was asked, “Why out of sorts???”

That’s what friends do.

They ask?

We ask.

They respond.

We respond.

The small exchanges.

Higher Power Binding…

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To sit up straight in the presence of the Buddha’s and Ancestors.

That is a teaching which applies to the fact that we all make mistakes. Sometimes we make the same mistake over and over. We make those mistakes out of ignorance (not knowing), through habit patterns, yearning, insistence, wilfulness, greed, hate and delusion. Sometimes we make mistakes out of the notion that we are doing good, or a slightly misplaced sense of right vs. wrong. Whatever the motive for our mistake, it is just that a mistake. As spiritual adults we have the opportunity to recognize that we made a mistake and then can become willing to alter the climate/circumstance within which the mistake was made. We don’t have to go into self-condemnation or judgement. We don’t find it useful to go into the “drama” of the mistake. We just recognize that a mistake was made and that we need to look and see where we can improve and try not to repeat. We state our willingness to change, to ourselves and to those aspects of ourselves that we feel can help us. Yes, in a sense we talk to our selves.

Our higher Selves.

Our deeper Selves.

Those aspects of us that we strive to connect with when we want to establish, or re-establish, our connection to That From Which We Feel Disconnected.

You know, the Buddha Nature thing, the God thing.

That Thing.

That thing

The Higher Power.

It.  That Which Is!

Then, we work at changing.

The Latin root for the word Religion is, Re “Ligare”. To bind.

The same root for the words ligaments or ligature.

Re-Connect;

Re-Attach. Perhaps,

Grow back Together.

Lots of Capitals there.

For A Good Reason.

Smiley Face. (Yep, you read right. Smiley faces have Buddha Nature too.)

So, when we sit up straight in the presence of the Buddhas and Ancestors. We display our willingness to participate in the inevitable process of change towards the good. We are   showing our willingness to participate in this change towards the good (the Fewer Mistakes Way), this is in accord with the Five Laws of the Universe.

They are:

1.) The physical world is not answerable to my personal will.

2.) The Law of Change

3.) The Law of Karma is inevitable and inexorable

4.) Without fail evil (i.e.all manner of mistakes), is vanquished and

     good prevails; this too is inexorable.

5.) The intuitive knowledge of Buddha Nature.

All quite simple, and

Here’s the real beauty of it

All. It works on the biggest

Mistakes as well as the littlest.

How Sweet is That?

Cobblestones….

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A quiet day yesterday. One year since my wife of 28 years (partner for 30) died in Tekoa, WA at the age of 66. Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis and for the last two years acute onset of end stage renal failure. She stopped dialysis and was told she would die in 4-6 days. 15 months later, she died, I think peacefully, right in front of me. Actually, that’s not totally accurate.

The day she died I had gone home from the care facility she was in for the last month of her life, for some dinner and to feed the dog and cat. On my way out the door to go back to care center, I thought, I’ll take the Big Book (AA tome), and read her something.

When I got to her room she was laying flat on her back, which was not correct, but they had just bathed her so I elevated the head of bed; I stood at the end of the bed and intoned one of the prayers from the Big Book to her. She had been quite tense and sort of grimacing from the bathing and being left flat on her back and was physically uncomfortable. Several days before she had been left her on a bed pan all night, which created a huge circular wound on her buttocks, so she was tense/apprehensive from all that activity too. She was being medicated so probably wasn’t in pain, the stress of dying after many years of enduring great pain was the issue at this point.  She hadn’t eaten in about five days and took only small amounts of water to wet her throat.

When I finished reciting the prayer to her, she relaxed visibly. She sort of settled into the mattress. It was a relief, all around.

I then set a chair next to her bed and just sat there watching her. There was a knock and and a call from the door; one of the nurses aides, a nice young guy with whom I’d only had one little conversation, came in and said he wanted to change the catheter bag. As he was doing that he started telling me a story of his experience with the death of two of his relatives. I forget the details but he was speaking form the heart as he worked, so I listened and watched him. At some point I turned to look at Linda and I realized, Oh, she’s dying, right now. and I turned to tell the young aide that we had a situation, but I saw that he was in the middle of opening his heart. I listened for about another minute and he finished his task and story and quietly left. When I turned back; Linda was dead.

I intoned some Buddhist scriptures, two Exhortations to the Mortally Ill and Dying, and the Scripture of Great Wisdom (Heart Sutra), and told the duty nurse that Linda had died and called our friend Reverend Master Zensho, a priest and monk of our Sangha/Order who lived over in Idaho. He had made all the preparation over a year before. He arrived through a snow storm about 2-3 hours later and we did the Buddhist funeral for a lay person. In that ceremony the deceased is ordained as a Buddhist monk and then prepared for the Funeral. The care center had given us permission to use incense and such and when we were done (it took about an hour and a half), we called the funeral home in town just a block from our house and the Funeral director came and we transported Linda to his place.

I want to say that the help Linda received at that care home was terrific and compassionate. A couple of mistakes were made, but those were all in the human realm. Everyone there did their absolute best. The Funeral director couldn’t have been more compassionate. He understood we were sort of “special needs” as Buddhists (they are not exactly thick upon the ground In far Eastern Washington State), and was caring, professional, attentive and flexible. We knew him and his wife because of the small town (pop. 886) in fact I can’t imagine a better place for Linda to have spent her last nine years of life.

God bless you, good folks of Tekoa!

Anyway, at some point I’ll write more about the process and funeral and cremation and ash distribution and the general aftermath of this death within the human condition. For this post, I just want to say that “they” are right. It takes about a year for things to settle down sufficiently in order to begin to grasp what the reality of the loss is.

I will say this. I went off the rails for a while and made some mistakes; but life and the help of good spiritual friends and the compassion of many good people in my life helped me to regain perspective and tread more carefully the path laid so compassionately under my feet.

Linda, I miss you.

We cobbled together a darn good 30 years. For a couple of drunks who met at an AA meeting and had nothing; we did magnificently. We both stayed sober. We helped each other to grow …

Thank you. I love you.

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