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Corona Tests Our Zen

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Constant lockdown — whether soft or hard — means few residents in the Zen Center, no retreats or workshops, and a sharp decline in the usual donations. Tough times for everyone, and especially for a non-profit which offers its programs basically for free, where anyone can join a delicious meal without paying, and have silence in a supportive space.

For those who wish to give us a financial vaccine, this handy little QR code was designed to make it direct and easy. Just point your phone at this code, and — VOILÁ! — you help us to serve all beings in their suffering.

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“We’re at the End of the Beginning of the Pandemic”

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You may have thought you heard enough news about the pandemic. And we all have.

But you haven’t heard anything truly substantial if you haven’t listened to a talk on the subject by the Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Sciences at Yale, the truly great Nicholas Christakis. He is one of America’s greatest public intellectuals, and a unique ploymath who puts our day-to-day struggle with this pathogen in the broader context of history.

This very, very short discussion on “Amanpour and Company” a few hours ago gives you all the information you need to really understand this. And if you have heard Christakis‘s recent three-hour conversation with Sam Harris, well, then, you’ll really have the best tools possible for navigating your way through this social, economic, mental, and epidemiological mess.

Please listen.

Yale Sociologist Nick Christakis: COVID-19 Will Reshape Humanity | Amanpour and Company

The Classifications of Meditation

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When I first started practicing Zen, hearing even just this short “classification” of the different kinds of meditation really convinced me I had found the right teacher. And why is this important? Nowadays, there is a massive proliferation of so-called “meditation apps”, most of which are just relaxation sessions. While “being relaxed” is certainly not a bad thing, at all, it might not really lead to true liberation. It might not produce prajna, or wisdom. And it definitely won’t carry one through with wide-eyed clarity the transition from life to death, and beyond.

This excerpt of a chapter of The Compass of Zen (Boston: Shambhala, 1997) explains it all quite clearly for you.

(I do not receive any compensation, financial or otherwise, from this book.)

The Compass of Zen (Shambhala Dragon Editions) : Sahn, Seung: Amazon.de:  Bücher

Parents Matter, But They Don’t Seem to Make a Difference

In fact, parents have far less control over their child’s outcome than they think. This is the consensus of some of the latest research into genetics and its influence on our behavior.

Here is tiny excerpt from a very, very eye-opening discussion between Sam Harris and Robert Plomin, an American psychologist and geneticist who is renowned for his studies of the behavioural differences in twins who have been separated and were raised apart. It’s truly fascinating stuff about the brain-based “who” of us. I heard this discussion when it first dropped, in July 2020, and listened to it again three days later. It was amazing to see further insights bubble up to the surface — about us as humans, of course, but also reflections and insights bearing on my own development in a family of nine kids.

Plomin’s latest book, Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are, makes the case that DNA inherited from our parents at the moment of conception can predict our psychological strengths and weaknesses. Of course, it’s not as simple as that, he says, since there are some other caveats. But that is the determination of his lifetime of work as an esteemed pioneer in this field. It is an utterly engrossing conversation.

If you are interested, most of the rest of the discussion happens on Sam’s podcast. Here is a direct link to the YouTube version (truncated):

The Nature of Human Nature: A Conversation with Robert Plomin (Episode #211)

(Some descriptive info for this post should be credited to Sam’s YouTube channel.)

Bad Man with a Candle

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Matt Semke, www.catswilleatyou.com
Zen Master Seung Sahn used to tell us, "A Zen master is like a bad man leading you with a candle in the dark. Sometimes this man does 'good' actions and speech, sometimes 'bad' actions or speech. If you only attach to this man's actions -- his speech, what kind of expressions, what he or she eats or has or does -- then you cannot see this light clearly, and maybe you fall into a ditch! Only this light -- this Dharma-light. This is what might help your life, more than 'This man is good' or 'This man's actions very bad!' Don't attach too much to this man's actions -- you must use this light, then get to a good place. This is also for our own minds. If we always check 'good' and 'bad' in our minds, we never see our original light. Then we cannot do anything. Cannot help anybody."

The Wheel of Life

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This classic symbol, from ancient Buddhist teaching, depicts the endless (until you practice!) cycle of suffering — birth, ageing, sickness, and death, repeat — sometimes called “samsara”. It is a teaching about the hard-fact of impermanence of all conditioned states, both those of the physical world (obvious) and of the mental (not so obvious to most).

First, a more traditional wheel, from Tibet:

I post this because these modern adaptations give a very interesting updating of the teaching, addressing the modalities of impermanence in our hectic daily lives in the modern world, awash in a sea of consumerist opportunities:

Dae Jin Sunim’s Final Farewell

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Today is the sixth anniversary of the death of one of my most immediate seniors in the monastic community practicing under Zen Master Seung Sahn at Hwa Gye Sah in Korea, the Philadelphia-born Dae Jin (Great Truth) Mu Shim (“No-mind”) Sunim. He was already the longest-serving Western monk in Korea when I first arrived in 1990, and he was a constant presence in our daily lives. Sunim was the first foreigner in our family to fully master the Korean language, making his assistance invaluable for everything in our lives in the temple. I accompanied him a few times as he tirelessly served our Teacher on teaching-trips to Hong Kong, to China, to Indonesia, Malaysia, and different places in the US.

Dae Jin Sunim and I never sat the full 90-day retreats together: Dae Jin Sunim was more the classic profile of an “office monk”, a job at which he truly excelled. Though Sunim did begin to run retreats at some point, his administrative responsibilities prevented him from really ever doing a full day of sitting together with everyone. He wasn’t really oriented as much to sitting meditation and some of the “hard training” that some of the others were doing. And that’s probably a good thing: devoted so singularly to providing the constant secretarial and administrative service required to support the global work of a very charismatic, very exacting and compassionately demanding Zen master, there really wouldn’t be much time or energy left over for doing retreats. Living in the temple, of course he attended the daily morning practice and evening practice, every single day of the week, unless he was traveling somewhere or escorting the Zen master to some event. So, he definitely did much more meditation than the average “office monk“ that one meets in Korea, most of whom never do much meditation at all, sad to say. He once told me, “You know, sometimes I’m a little jealous of you guys, doing extra bows or retreats in different temples. I guess that my work for Dae Soen Sa Nim is my meditation.”

It is fashionable for people to claim that their work is their meditation. But having lived together with Dae Jin Sunim for over two decades, I can attest this last part of his statement to be completely true.

Dae Jin Sunim teaching in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

This next set of photos conveys the cosmic situation of his passing, which is also ours:

In this first photo, taken in November 2004, Dae Jin Sunim (center, wearing glasses) and other monk-brothers carry our Teacher’s coffin out of the temple where he died, heading down to Su Dok Sah on December 1, 2004:

Just a few years later, a group of his monk-brothers escorts Dae Jin Sunim out of the temple one last time, as well:

During the procession to the cremation site, there is chanting happening.
The monk in the lead is Sol Jeong Sunim, at that time the Patriarch of Su Dok Sah Temple, our family’s ancestral temple in Korea.

The next two photos bring a wistful feeling, more than any others of that somber day: Zen Master Dae Bong Sunim takes one look as the cremation flames engulf his brother’s body. Dae Jin Sunim and Dae Bong Sunim — both Jewish-American monks, both born in Philadelphia, both children of schoolteachers, who served their Teacher unreservedly for over 40 years in his worldwide efforts — had a closer karmic bond than most in the community, on multiple levels. They are two who have striven among the most to make our Teacher’s insights communicated to as many as possible, through talks and retreats and just giving their entire lives to Dharma.

In the first photo below, the imagination suggests the deep reflection that Dae Bong Sunim is having on this karmic bond, their hometown connection, the decades of life shared together serving this amazing work; in the second photo, taken seconds later, Sunim labors under the heaving effusion of smoke, the molecules of his brother entering his body. The slight lowering of his head as he brings his hands into prayer position in respect, a subtle wincing in the smoke, the bittersweet smile of the final letting go: Having lived together with these two great monks, and having seen the enormity of the work they helped us to do, the full pregnancy of this image brings tears to the eyes, even six years later.

The funeral pyre as we lower the flaming sticks to ignite the gathered mass of branches and logs.
“Form is emptiness; emptiness is form.”