Going to Sandpoint today for the meditation group meeting. A chance to say goodbye to a wonderful group of sincere trainees. They were great supports when Linda was ill and dying and after she died. The Sangha Treasure is a real entity, not just and activity. They are a core group of about seven dedicated people pursuing Zen training and the reality of living the Buddhist life, I think all seven of them have taken the Precepts. That is no small thing! I think of them and my heart is glad; two words sum them up: Good folks. Period. He exclaimed!

On another note, early morning in bed and sensing the change that is going on right now. A new freedom. Release from a delusion. Relief from a preoccupation. Complete willingness to just leave alone and allow the world to do what it does best; to just go on. Sad, grown-up joy. True love.

Early morning, or the

Middle of the night, A

Thought arises from the

Hara, true to the heart and

suffused with Love, I can

See. I can accept. This is.

Went to the Ear Nose Throat doctor today, apparently won’t need Throatectomy as I had feared. Nothing like information to settle or give perspective to my fears.

Despite the fact that very, very few of my fears, during the whole of my life, have come to pass; I forget that and when a new one arises it takes on a life of its own.

That has a lot to do with our personal koans( A Zen term for a seemingly unanswerable question about our life, in our life); they always seem to partake of similar aspects that we need to look at dispassionately and compassionately, when the time comes that we can.

And, I have to remember the old AA acronym;

F.E.A.R.

False. Evidence. Appearing. Real.

I was sitting in my living room at some point recently and sort of musing at all the dissatisfaction I was experiencing and then I remembered, one of the little notes that I have a habit of writing to myself and then leave laying around as a reminder. This one says (just took the picture).

       So, I looked around and saw not only the shelter and food and clothing and “stuff” I have, but my good fortune in having so many friends and people with whom I can share my sorrows and my joys and my confusion; my life. I am one fortunate human being…and still I find my self discontented…and, all I have to do is look around.

I’m glad I’m so scattered that I have to leave myself notes, and I do and I read them and they work. Even more fortunate than I thought just a minute ago. Oh! Thank You!

I’ve had a nicely mixed day. In touch with people I respect and have great cognate with as well as new found friends who I’m getting to know and some prickly acquaintances I’ve known for a bit and never quite know what to make of; yet, I try to grow the connection and hope for the best in terms of me deepening my acceptance of people just as they are, not how I would think they would be better. Yes, that does come up a dismaying number times. Yet, that is really the point of all this Buddhism. First to learn to accept oneself. First to be compassionate to oneself. First to not judge oneself, And so forth; simply because the basic Buddhist teachings tell us when we know our selves we also know all others, because we are all the same. No exceptions! We may act and look and think differently, but we are, at our core, all the same. Motivated by exactly the same things and moved by exactly the same things. The minutia and details of our individual Greed, Hate and Delusion may vary, but those are the things that rule us all until we begin the process of allowing those Three Fires to be converted to Love, Compassion and Wisdom. Yes we allow. We don’t do it.

We participate in it as being the natural process of all existence. We are not God and there is no particle of us or any other thing or being that is not of God. I know the use of a “theistic” term gets some “Buddhists” all het up, but that is only being caught up in words.

Anyhoo. I had a reasonable day, and some lovely conversations and got a fair amount of things done or set in motion that were good to do. So, I plan to get off my high horse and have a light dinner,  a few more phone calls, a few pages of “The Honourable Schoolboy” by Le Carre and then, with any luck, some sleep, or at least rest. Part of my koan and result of my history is that I have a sort of hyper-alertness usually has me sleeping about four hours a night, which has been fine for many years but I’ve found a way to sleep 5-6  hours a night, not straight through but aggregate, and it has made a bit of a difference in my general outlook. Whooda Thunk?

I sit. I type, I write. I make

No sense, although some

Times I do, anyway, but

When I do I’m the only one

Who knows, sometimes; and

Then I try to explain while

The whole world has moved

On, and gone about the Busy-

Ness of life. Yep. Of Life. So

I go and sit with myself and

See I’m not by Myself. Rest.

A nice quiet Sunday. A good friend and Zen monk who live in nearby St. Maries ID came for a visit and we had lunch and chatted. We’ve been very close friends for almost ten years, he moved to the area about six months after we did. I had known him by reputation for many years since he was head of Berkeley temple just before I began attending there. He is a quiet and serious person with a deep and incisive sense of humor that just sparkles, he also contains that depth and surety in the training that allows for ready and true refuge for those of us who seek it. A true Master of Zen.

When I first was attracted to Buddhism and started reading about it I was always taken by those books by people who hobnobbed with Zen Masters; picked them up at airports and such and had all sorts of marvelous encounters with them, That’s what I wanted to do, hang out with Zen Masters. Well sadly, in the days when I was reading those books, I was way too distracted by a variety of lifestyle choices that kept me truly removed from serious spiritual seeking or training and probably not the sort of person a Zen Master, or too many other people wanted to hang out with, but I did enjoy reading about that sort of thing, it was almost like doing it, or so I thought.

At some point I dropped a lot of those choices I had made and got clean and sober and was able to take up more serious pursuits like Zen training as a layperson. After training for some time we had a yard sale at the temple I was attending at the time and I realized I could sell all those Zen books because I was doing it.I no longer needed to read about other people doing it.

I had made it real for myself and it was nothing like I had read about or imagined. It was, and has been, very difficult and as it gets more subtle it also gets more gritty and grainy and sometimes, very unsettling. After I got sober and started staying that way and meditating and training with a real practice I began to feel better and that was the good news. The bad news was that I began to feel everything better, including the pain and discomfort of daily life that I had become adept at covering up through drugs and alcohol and, in this later stage, covering up with unawareness and distraction.

A great revelation did indeed occur for me, seeing life clearly can be painful, and very joyful, and exhilarating. Sometimes in rapid succession and in no particular order. Heady stuff indeed.

Today that process continues and I am appreciative of two Zen “motto’s” that I find helpful.

1.)  Fall down seven, get up eight.

2.)  Hope for the best.  Expect nothing.  Do the Possible.

and here’s one of my own:

Mid-stream is a silly place to change horses.