The Great Way is not difficult, they say

Jizo in the moment when fall meets winter

To repeat what I said to myself a moment ago, "I'm just so old . . . " The rest of the sentence was "and tired," but I was too tired to bother saying it.

I have another UTI.  So, what's ahead for this?  Drinking a glass of water every hour, taking d-Mannose and cranberry, trying to get my Vata-Pitta constitution in balance with the right foods and balancing tea.  Will take a urine sample to the lab this afternoon.  If this doesn't go away or gets worse, then I'm in for intramuscular shots and lots of uproar arranging them.  Oww!

How does this fit in with the Zen poem, Trust in Mind? you're wondering.  Hahaha as we say on Facebook (at least I do still have a sense of humor).  That poem probably didn't occur to anyone, but I've been thinking about it often since I got a calligraphy by Nonin Chowaney of that famous first line:

The Great Way is without difficulty; just avoid picking and choosing.

Digging down in Google I unearthed a 1993 talk by the poet/Zen master John Tarrant on this subject.  I love Tarrant's writing.  Here is a piece of it.

"The Great way is not difficult. It just avoids picking and
choosing." There is a Taoist flavor to this saying. The sense
of following the water path through life. The water if it runs
into a stone, it just makes its way around. The water is clear
and has no attachments which is why we have a little bowl of
water on the altar. Chao-chou has brought up this saying
which he was very fond of and he often liked to bring it up.
And then he said that as soon as we speak, that is picking and
choosing. If we are clear, we hang onto the clarity. This old
student doesn't even hang onto that. Do you still hang onto
anything, or not? So we could say that the greatest method of
meditation is that whatever comes up,just don't cling to it.
Whatever comes up, let it go. If you can do this, you'll find
the way home very quickly. But it's hard. Things stick to you.

What sticks to me seems to be that I don't want to be sick.  Don't want!

Or maybe what sticks to me is that I don't like my aversion to sickness.  I desire not to be caught in these desires to be able to do things. . . . the kind of roundabout a Zen student easily gets into.  It is better to think this way, however, than to keep hammering in your desires and claiming that it's not fair.

I had a perhaps disconnected thought this morning:  I should take a year off and not be serious about anything.  Maybe that is a good idea.  A lighter touch.  A year off.  Dust things, feed my houseplants, play with my photos, arrange flowers. (That's a gladiolia in the Ikebana arrangement below, from another summer.  I like arranging flowers.  It's so useless.)

Sometimes you need to get a grip and do your work, sometimes you need to relax your grip.  There is this from Tarrant's talk, too ~

 So when you meet an obstacle, it is good to remember the Great Way is not difficult, it just avoids picking and choosing.

Maybe avoid so much talking in my mind.  As the poem says, "as soon as we speak, that is picking and choosing."  I'll close with the closing of his talk.  He's talking at a sesshin, about meditation and what comes to the mind, but it can apply to meeting even this old body, to working on accepting every Mu that comes your way.  It has to be fine with you that you're working on it.

Please continue in this way. Trust your own sincerity. You have
begun to gather some attention in your zazen. Do not be too
concerned about what comes to meet you. Just love your walking
and love the path and become one with it over and over again.
That will be enough.

Every Day is a Good Day

This talk by Rev. Nonin Chowaney is such a good explanation of how in the Buddha Way we work on accepting reality that I wanted to share it. The calligraphy is also by him; a similar one was a gift from Tom to me. More of his talks can be found here.

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A couple of years ago, it snowed in Omaha on April 29th. I had wanted to work in the garden that day and when I looked out the window, my heart sank.

Later, I walked downstairs and mentioned that it was snowing to Albert, one of our group. "Yes," he responded, "there's something quite beautiful about these late Spring snowstorms."

Indeed there is, if you can approach them with an open mind; if you approach them with complaint because there'll be no gardening, they can be a real pain.

Lama Govinda writes that, "All suffering arises from attitude. The world is neither good nor bad. It is solely our relationship to it which makes it either one or the other." Snow on April 29th, or any weather condition on any other day, for that matter, is neither good nor bad. Good and bad is a question of mental attitude.

Moment-by-moment, we create the world in the mind. We can look out and create a gloomy, depressing world on any day by the condition of mind we bring to it. A depressed mind can make a bright, sunshiny day black and dreary, and a contented mind can create heaven out of rain and storm.

I am reminded of the old Zen saying, "Every day is a good day." What determines this? The mind that dwells nowhere; the mind that accepts everything. This is nirvana.

Nirvana may be understood as the absence of greed, anger (or aversion), and delusion. In other words, it's a state of mind. If we can approach whatever life brings us with the mind free from greed, aversion, and delusion, or accept things as they are without grasping for more or turning away from what's there, we cultivate the mental state known as nirvana, quiescence, or, heart-mind at peace with what is.

This does not mean passivity. It does not mean that we lay back and not move. What it means is that we start from zero, from acceptance of our lives as they are, and move from there. In that way we are not kept from or hindered in our living by complaining, grousing, or blaming others for the conditions of our lives. Every moment, then, affords us the opportunity to practice awakening, nirvana, enlightenment. When we sit zazen, we cultivate this practice.

The instruction for zazen is to cultivate the mind that abides nowhere, the mind of non-attachment. We are to allow thoughts to come and go, to arise without denial or suppression and to pass away without clinging. Angry thoughts about the boss? Let them come and let them go. Contentment with a lover? Let it come and let it go. I can't garden because it's snowing? Let it come and let it go. This practice does not aim for any particular state of mind; it is in and of itself the awakened state; sometimes it is called "cultivating the natural condition of mind."

Buddha, the awakened one, taught the Way to end human dissatisfaction, and nothing more. He taught that the end to suffering is non-attachment, non-clinging. This is the practice of zazen. Gradually, we are able to also cultivate this practice when standing, walking, or lying down; our life itself is enlightenment.

A mind that can abide anywhere is always content, even when suffering greatly. This is liberation; suffering is gone through. We accept what comes, live it, and move on. In the words of Zen Master Bodhidharma: "When those who search for the Path encounter adversity, they should think to themselves, `In countless ages gone by, I've turned from the essential to the trivial and wandered through all manner of existence, often angry without cause and guilty of numberless transgressions. Now, though I do no wrong, I'm punished by my past. No one can foresee when an evil deed will bear its fruit. I accept it with an open heart and without complaint of injustice.'" The sutras say, `When you meet with adversity don't be upset, because it makes sense.' With such understanding you're in harmony with reason. And by suffering injustice you enter the Path.

When I was practicing at Tassajara monastery, I got sick with a sinus problem that kept reoccurring. Once during the training period that I was head monk, it came back and lingered for almost two weeks. I had a lot of responsibilities, but all I could do was lay in bed, and I'm afraid I didn't do a very good job of being sick; it was very hard.

One afternoon, I made myself a cup of tea and sat outside in the garden behind my cabin feeling sorry for myself, sneezing and blowing my nose, being miserable. I looked over toward the zendo where the late afternoon sun was glowing on the rocks. The flowers and shrubs were gleaming. In a moment, everything turned. It was incredibly beautiful. The world was a lovely place, no longer grim, dark, and heavy. Everything was all right, even though my nose was still clogged! Instead of a living hell, the world was the Lotus Land of beauty and purity.

This was an important experience for me. One moment, pain and suffering; the next, joy and relief. This all occurs in the mind; we create the world we live in. We sometimes cannot change the circumstances we live in, but we can always change our attitude. If we can learn to let go, it will change by itself.

As Lama Govinda said, "All suffering arises from attitude. The world is neither good nor bad. It is solely our relationship to it which makes it either one or the other." So, even if it's a bad day, "every day is a good day."