In honor of Rose Taishin Robins

With my hair almost on end and the eyes of the soul wide

open I am present,

without knowing it at all, in this unspeakable Paradise,

and I behold this secret,

this wide open secret which is there for everyone free,

and no one pays any attention.

O paradise of simplicity, self awareness

And self forgetfulness liberty, peace.

Thomas Merton

A book of Hours

A good balance between external things and inner development

"Peace, in the sense of the absence of war, is of little value to someone who is dying of hunger or cold. It will not remove the pain of torture inflicted on a prisoner of conscience. It does not comfort those who have lost their loved ones in floods caused by senseless deforestation in a neighboring country. Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where the people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free.

True peace with oneself and with the world around us can only be achieved through the development of mental peace.

.........

Material progress is of course important for human advancement. In Tibet, we paid much to little attention to technological and economic development, and today we realize that this was a mistake. At the same time, material development without spiritual development can also cause serious problems. In some countries too much attention is paid to external things and very little importance is given to inner development.

I believe both are important and must be developed side by side so as to achieve a good balance between them."

Excerpt from The Noble Lecture by the Dalai Lama 12/11/1989

To read the whole quotation in the excellent website Wisdom Quotes, click here

At some point in our life, usually when the sea is rough, we realize that we are not in control, that we are not the one steering the tiller, changing the sails, and certainly not blowing the wind -but we might have realized this before if we were lucky.


It is pretty frightening of course to come to grips with that revelation and all its implications.


What is there left to do?

I don’t see any other option than to accept, gracefully accept as Roshi Reb Anderson would put it, and trust.


‘Trust’ ?


Does that mean that we should trust that it will all get better because 'our ego is not in charge'?


No! Don’t let’s trust in anything ‘better’, we could easily be thrown overboard or the ship could very simply sink.

Let’s just be trust, and go beyond.

It might be the beginning of the realization that all is One, that we actually are the dreamer, the dream and the dreaming sailing together in the infinite Silence of nothingness...

Silence is Alone all the while the fury of the storm howls in the night.

- “Hold the tiller tight. Stay vigilant. … but remember: you are not in charge”

Koka


PS. "If you can’t become the ocean you’ll be seasick every day"

Leonard Cohen

Just a reminder that there is an extensive audio library of Dharma talks from various Zen teachers on the Houston Zen Center website http://www.houstonzen.org/.

You will also find there some recent digital talks of Reb Anderson Roshi on the precepts as well as some newer digital talks by him on the koan Baizhang and the Fox at http://rebtalks.proper.com/ .

Some older talks on precepts and jukai, and also on koans, are available on tape, at $10/tape, from the Green Gulch ino.

Please take advantage and enjoy these talks and their wisdom, while not forgetting that practice is at the core of our commitment:

"The Enlightened Way is unsurpassable, I vow to embody it".

Koka