Comments for Heart Circle Sangha Blog

Comment on Unpoem — Impermanence by James Jakudo Shammas

James Jakudo Shammas — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:12:51 +0000

Is practice enlightenment or is enlightenment practice? Is enlightened practice the same as practiced enlightenment? What is healthy versus unhealthy practice? Can I fidget, sweat and swear, or should I be a zen zombie, lifeless as a stone? What do I do when you are in my face? Moving on, one can ask, is their progress in our practice, or not? Where do you stand? Will Sensei give me a turning word, or do I turn her with my own response? I’m in your face right now, entwining vines entwining vines…

Comment on Unpoem — Impermanence by kesho

kesho — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:19:59 +0000

Yes, every bite! My yoga teacher said to chew every bite at least 30 times, 60, if possible. Great practice.

Comment on Unpoem — Impermanence by Carmine

Carmine — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:29:39 +0000

As Warren Zevon said, “Enjoy every sandwich”!

Comment on Try to meditate every day by James Jakudo Shammas

James Jakudo Shammas — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 17:37:14 +0000

It’s 12 o’clock. do you know where your mind is?

Comment on Occupy Wall Street by James Jakudo Shammas

James Jakudo Shammas — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 16:46:51 +0000

Thanks for this commentary, Sensei. I don’t follow politics or the financial news, perhaps out of complacency or apathy, but I agree with your sentiments, especially the frustration on how to even think about changing a system that is so complex, interrelated, and ingrained in our society and psyches. As a relatively wealthy man (with accompanying debt, like everyone), I’ve spent much of my life buying into the “American dream” only to realize that even living in upper middle-class suburbia with all its perks may not ultimately make me and my family financially independent, debt-free, nor guaranteet me to have adequate health care coverage, especially should I or someone in my family should suffer a catastrophic illness. And college tuition seems impossible.

But I think the problem is related to an even more basic one that the Buddha reminds me to go back to: that all of us are born into the notion that we can be happy with things that are impermanent. Although I understand the feelings of the protestors on Wall Street, many of them, I’m sure, want the same finite piece of the pie that the rich polititians and coporate executives have. We are all fighting for a bigger piece of the same delusion in all its material guises. Coming back from retreat as well as a recent vacation with my wife, I put on the TV only to watch a 20/20 segment on mothers dressing up their 6 year-olds in glitzy clothing made for prostitutes and show-girls. I watch commercials showing people gluttoning themselves on fat food, fast cards, and big jewelry. I see “reality” shows depicting people in bizarre situations with ridiculous needs that define anything but reality. I reach the conclusion that although all this stuff turns my stomach, I am partly responsible by virtue of even being born into this very world and living in it. And I need to forgive myself, without shame, for my part in sometimes propagating these great myths. So I practice and maybe just bear witness while I try to respond to exactly the delusions we all sometimes buy into.

I don’t know how to join the protestors aside from bearing witness and understanding that they are human like me, with real fear and longing for what they feel is right. A few days ago, I get off a plane from a fabulously relaxed honeymoon and then walk into an anniveray AA meeting last night with my wife and sister, where I get to share and celebrate my 10 years of sobriety, rememering “what it was like, what happened, and what we are like now.” And after we close, a young man, nervous and shaky and upset, asks me for my number. I willingly hand it to him, bearing witness to his suffering, as well as mine, and start my evening hopefully a bit more equipped to face the massess who are nothing but me. It’s a start!

In gassho,

Jim

Comment on Ripples by James Jakudo Shammas

James Jakudo Shammas — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 16:49:20 +0000

Beautifully said, Ellen!–and practical too. I like the way you relate the teaching to your own life relationships. You bring up a good point too: that every action we engage in is really in relation to some other being (really all beings, I guess) somewhere: No man is an island, as it were. As a doctor, I see many patients, fellow, colleagues and other individuals every day, and I sometimes fall asleep at the wheel, forgetting that every single thing I do has a ripple effect, and sometimes not always so positive. Then–like you teaching– I see a patient back and even our unspoken visit together conveys the effects we had on each other the last time we encountered each other. Yes, a certain rightness (or wrongness) about our interaction is felt, something true and intimate was exchanged, or–if I was asleep–a sense of dukkha is felt, the wheel seems off kilter, the ride is bumpy. At the end of the day one realizes just how relevant these encounters are to one’s practice–that the day’s events are in fact as much the practice as sitting on my cushion at night. Forms, feelings, sensations, mental formations, and–ultimately– consciousness pop up everywhere, and at all times. It never ends, and so I guess it’s true that each little blip is either the gateless gate of opportunity to act freely or a block I choose to avoid and stay stuck in.
I’m tired! Thanks for your insight!

Comment on This is all there is by James Jakudo Shammas

James Jakudo Shammas — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 15:03:27 +0000

Yes, I came to meditation practice, much the way even old man Shakyumuni did, in order to alleviate MY own suffering, and, like him, gave up some other practices I was taught during my lifetime (not ancient Indian ascetic practices, but drinking beer, watching TV , shopping, and the like), only to find that my very budding zen practice was just another desire to escape suffering. Maybe it was a more noble start, but I simply traded in one addiction for another. Yes, I said, but it was a better method than previous ones. Than I discovered Dogen, the Heart Sutra, and the Buddha’s third turning of the dharm wheel (He presumably modified his teaching according to his audience, as “skillful means.”). Well, now I’m living koan after koan, especially the one in the Gateless Gate where this poor guy is dangling from a tree, dangling from his goddam teech while some moron below is asking me about Boddhidharma, which is really–as I understand it–the same as some jerk asking me about the meaning of life, or some other esoteric nonsense. So here I am swinging! I mean, I’m just swinging! This is it! Is it? This is it! I can’t go on! I’ll go on! (Good old Samuel Beckett)
And so I realize the urgency of staying present, and acting from that place (Is there another?) as if my head is on fire. I don’t know. Still some Great Doubt here, but–coupled with Great Effort and Great Faith–maybe I will experience the Great Death and live to tell you about it.

Comment on Hurricane Tail by James Jakudo Shammas

James Jakudo Shammas — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 15:26:30 +0000

Hop! Plop!…Purrrrrrr!

Comment on Hurricane Tail by Ellen Kesho Risbarg

Ellen Kesho Risbarg — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 20:42:39 +0000

Will we at least extend a hand
to one another?
Will we at least listen
to each other’s heartbeat
as my cat Annie does
when she snuggles up next to me?

Comment on Hurricane Tail by Ellen Kesho Risbarg

Ellen Kesho Risbarg — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 20:31:42 +0000

My dear friend
who calls himself
a reincarnation of Han-Shan
in the twenty-first century,
in a Catskill mountain cabin,
stranded, without power,
while below,
in the towns,
the torrents raged
through the streets
like a young girl
running to meet her first lover.
Yet, this was no girl and no lover,
but destruction beyond destruction.
An old woman in a hotel
couldn’t or wouldn’t leave
until the mighty waters
overtook her abode,
carrying her to her final resting place,
a Holocaust survivor,
someone wrote
that what Hitler couldn’t do,
Irene had done.
How do we make sense of it?
Now there are quakes,
and storms, and floods,
and dire warnings of credible threats.
What will be next — locusts? darkness?
The waters subsiding,
will we come forth from
this place of constriction?
As the calendar turns,
will we be renewed
in this harvest season?