ALONE

 

I get up early with the cats while it is still dark outside.   It is quite before the world awakes.   I love this time of morning, and especially today with rain drumming on our metal roof.   After the cats are fed, they go back into the bedroom, onto the bed with my sleeping wife.  I am left alone, with the dark, and the rain, and I like it. 

 

Some of our most precious time is our mind time.   When we are alone with our selves and out thoughts.   

 

the Ol’Buzzard

BACK TO ZEN

TRY AGAIN

LIVE IN MINDFULNESS

How many times I have come back

The crazy world

Distracting

Unsettling

I find myself wandering in a forest of anxiety

Dashing about in frustration

Seeing no way out

Never noticing the path I am standing on

And the beauty of the trees around me. 

This morning I got up, did some stretches, weights, and then meditated for five minutes.

  

I have fallen away from the beauty and contentment of the path less traveled, and become lost among the masses that trod the well-worn road that inevitably leads to anxiety and discontent ((Duhkha.)

I am over the hump of my seventies and seem to be aimless.   I am reacting instead of acting; I am focusing on things I have no ability to change; the stream of the world is flowing by around my ankles and I am stomping at the waves; I have lost my mindfulness – and it is time to return…  to Zen.

It is not a distant journey; it is only one step.

As I move back to mindfulness, I will post the journey. 

  

Zen reminds us that if we don’t see the beauty and mystery of our present life – our present moment; it is unlikely we will live in the beauty of any moment of life.

NOW is holy

the Ol’Buzzard

MINDFULNESS AND MINDLESSNESS

A couple of days ago, when it wasn’t raining and I had no appointments, I took a walk down our road.   When I got to my turnaround spot I realized that I had seen nothing, literally.   Instead of stopping at the two brooks and watching the water and paying attention to the plants and wildlife, I had walked with my monkey mind in charge, having some fanciful conversation with myself and occupying my thoughts with something other than my walk. 

I refocused and enjoyed my walk home.

Mindfulness is easy to deal with once you decide it should become a part of your daily life.

Mind-less-ness, on the other hand, requires a disciplined effort. 

 

This is the scenario of an imaginary person, but some aspects are probably familiar to most of us:

X wakes up in the morning and grabs his/her cell phone and takes it into the bathroom.   While eating breakfast X checks messages and social networks to see what others are doing.   On the way to work X checks and perhaps talks on the cell phone while dealing with traffic.   At work X places the phone within easy reach while dealing with the stresses of work.  On the way home X checks the cell phone while driving through heavy traffic.  At home X watches TV, gets on the computer, checks messages, e-mail and social media until supper time.   

TV, bed, and check the cell phone before going to sleep.  While asleep X’s monkey mind takes over causing restless dreams and restless sleep.

The mind never has time to unplug. 

At some point your mind needs to unplug for a few minutes on a regular basis.   Five minutes of meditation a day can do that.  

Find a quiet, comfortable room away from your cell phone.  Sit upright in a chair with feet planted on the floor; focus on your breathing and finally empty your mind - relax.

In lieu of this: take your rocking chair out on your porch and smoke a joint.

 

Mindlessness takes practice and discipline but the benefits are real

the Ol’Buzzard

BE QUIET AND THINK

I just commented on a blog, that I feel out of touch with the world around me.   

I lived most of my life without a cell phone.   If I needed to make a telephone call I waited until I got home or reached my destination – and I didn’t miss anything by not having a phone appendage on my body.  

It is the same with television.   I was a teenager when we had our first television (black and white 16 inch.)  If there was something I wanted to see I could turn it on at night after supper – and I wasn’t deprived of news or entertainment.  

Today I took my youngest cat to the vet.   There was a TV in the waiting room blaring Good Morning America.   When I go to the VA clinic they have a TV on – usually on Fox.   At the VA hospital waiting room there is a TV – you can’t get away from it.   Our favorite Italian restaurant – upstairs in the lunch room there are three TVs, often on different channels.  The diners we frequent all have televisions – usually on some stupid channel.    Even at McDonald's there is a TV going in the eating area.   

Almost any waiting room you have to sit in will have a TV playing.   What the hell is this, that we must be entertained all the time?

We are not afraid of sickness or disease or destruction - we are afraid of boredom.   We must have a TV; or cell phones that display tweets, face book, internet, instant messaging, texting…   We cannot sit quietly anywhere without something to entertain us.   We must have ambient noise.  

There is no such thing as quiet, whether at work, while we eat, while we exercise, while we meditate, while we play, while we have sex and often while we sleep.  

It is a strange new world and I haven’t adapted.   

Sometimes I just like to sit in the quiet.

the Ol’Buzzard

A BUDDHIST PERSPECTIVE FOR STRESSFUL TIMES

I posted this perhaps a year ago; but due to the stressful times we now face I thought I would share it again.

NO BULLSHIT BUDDHISM

Coming out of sleep I lie in bed

The fan blowing a gentle breeze across my body

I kick off the covers and stretch

I clear my mind from monkey dreams

And listen to the quietness of the house

I have been a Buddhist practitioner since the late 1970’s when I first read The Three Pillars of ZEN by Roshi Philip Kapleau. 

 

Since that that time I have read and studied numerous books by numerous authors on Buddhism, and particularly Zen.     I have also attended a Zen Sanghi and practiced with a Buddhist community; but I find this type of practice unrewarding and particularly contrary to my needs and my feelings of what Buddhism is about. 

 

To me, formal Buddhist training is elitist and probably drives away many westerners who might otherwise benefit and desire to live the Buddhist experience without the commitment to a ritualistic practice of religious nature.

  

My Buddhist practice in No Bullshit Buddhism.    To me, Buddhism, and particularly Zen, should be practiced at its most basic level.   The practice need not be about teachers, or koans; not about robes, bells, icons or timed meditation.

After hours of meditation the Buddha found enlightenment (or realization) when he saw a beautiful young girl, was refreshed by cool water and tasted a bowl of rice.    It is that simple.  The Buddha realized that contentment can come from stopping our search and simply focusing on beautiful and satisfying things around us at the present moment.

I feel that the Buddha achieved enlightenment without teachers and community or adopting someone else’s ideas and values.   The Buddha is important only for sharing his realization that to truly live we must be conscious of the moment.    We each have a Buddha nature and by starting from the Buddha’s enlightenment we each have the ability to seek our own way.   And there is no One Way.

   

 In my No Bullshit Buddhism the role of meditation is not to stress myself in a painful meditation marathon.  I do not believe that the Buddha was awaken because he spent hours in painful meditation; he was awakened because he became suddenly aware of the beauty of the moment.    However, meditation is a necessary practice to discipline our mind to more fully appreciate the NOW.

Many Zen writers and teachers say that you should not seek an outcome in the practice of zazen (meditation.)      This flies in the face of western thinking and calls for that leap of faith that I refuse to make.

 

 In my No Bullshit Zen I find a quiet, comfortable and familiar location.   I seat myself on a zafu; but a pillow, bench or chair would do – comfort being the object.  I place my right hand in my left, touching my thumbs, bringing both the right and left sides of my brain into equilibrium.    Some texts recommend counting your breaths, but I prefer to gradually slow my breathing while visualizing the air entering my nose and filling my lungs then exiting.  The object is to empty my mind of all thoughts.   If my mind wanders I bring it back to empty.  I sit until it becomes uncomfortable; then come back to the present calmly and gradually.   As I have practice over time the length of my meditation has naturally increase.  

Meditation can lower your blood pressure; it can calm you in stressful situations; and eventually it will allow you to conquer your monkey mind and enable you to more completely focus on the NOW without distracting thoughts.   These are the goals of my zazen practice.

 

In the Shambhala Sun article Essential Teachings of Thich Nhat Han - Beyond Words, he states, “Zen doesn’t travel along a path of learning through writing and words; it relies on direct transmission between teacher and student.”

This may be cutting off the head of the Buddha, but I could not object more.  I read and enjoy many Buddhist books and periodicals and therefore have am insight from numerous different perspectives; but I take nothing on faith and follow no one else’s path.  A teaching or account must make sense to me before I adopt it.

 

At the most basic, The Four Noble Truths attempts to explain the cause of our discontent and the Eightfold Path offers a guide to live by.

There are as many paths to living with Buddhist values as there are peopled.   I prefer No Bullshit Buddhism because:

I do not feel the Buddha intended his teachings to come at a price.

I do not feel the Buddha intended the path of the Buddhist way to be difficult.

I do not feel the Buddha intended teachers and Sanghis to set themselves as the only path enlightenment.

I do not feel the Buddha intended enlightenment to be sought; but for contentment to be lived.

I have never felt more alive that the moment I released my grip on the wing strut and stepped off the wheel of a small airplane becoming unattached to the earth; or in the stern of a canoe rocketing down a mile of rapids on the Allagash River in Maine; or during the erotic throws of a sexual encounter with a partner responding with abandonment.   These moments far outweigh the experience of the almost zombie state of walking meditation.

  

In our mundane times we should not fail to stop and smell the roses and contemplate the beauty of the time and place; but life experience and reward goes far beyond that. 

 

It is my belief, with the exception of monastic training, that the Buddha intended his teachings be simple, to help everyday people in everyday life to understand that hardship, reward, elation, monotony and finally death is a natural part of our existence; and that by living consciously in every moment we live this short life more fully. 

I am well into my seventies, and at this point in my life impermanence is real.   All people in their younger days understand that someday they will die, that time will erode the mountains and that at some point in the future the sun will turn into a red dwarf and the oceans will evaporate; and even perhaps in the far distant future the expansion of the universe will slow, stop and finally reverse shrinking into a massive black hole where time and space do not exist; but the realization of impermanence does not actually register until we are faced with the experience in our immediate future.

Introspection helps me accept that death is the final obligation I owe to nature; but in the meantime life is to be lived fully by being unrestrained by concepts and being conscious in the NOW.

For what it is worth this is my No Bullshit Buddhism.

 

The Ol’Buzzard

    

WORDS FROM AN ELDER – TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT

Unlike Natives Americans, I have always said that age doesn’t necessarily confer wisdom. 

I often complain on this blog about global warming, the stupidity of the masses, the destructive nature of the human species and even about technology that has left me behind. 

But, I do not let any of that carry over to negativity in my life.  

As I get older I realize that life is short and finite.   The years I have left I do not intend to squander with a sour attitude and defeated outlook about things I can’t control.

If Donald Trump is elected President, it will be a disaster for this country.  His appointments to the Supreme Court will set back social justice sixty years.   Cognitively, I am as exasperated at the thought that there are enough people in this country who find him an acceptable candidate that we face a chance he might be elected.

But, the reality is, I have no control over the election so I am ready to move on regardless of the outcome.  

If Trump becomes the next President I will continue to enjoy sharing my life with a wonderful woman and two Maine Coon cats, feeding the birds behind my house, marveling at the changing seasons, spending the snowy winter reading in front of my wood stove; and keeping a Buddhist serenity – changing the things that are necessary and accepting those things I cannot change.

I will still bitch; but I will bury it on the internet and not carry it into my life.

the Ol’Buzzard

THE MEANING OF LIFE - I WAS WRONG!

THE MEANING OF LIFE

I WAS WRONG.

IT’S NOT THE HOKEY POKEY

I have always said that the Chaos Theory described life, and that everything is chance.   I have used the analogy of the Hokey Pokey; but in retrospect the Hokey Pokey is choreographed: you put your left foot out, you put your left foot in, you put your left foot out and you shake it all about…

After 4 a.m. consideration it is obvious to me that life is a play without a plot.   All the actors are improvising, and every actor believes he or she is the star.  New actors show up while other actors disappear, but the show goes on.   The script is babble and the movement senseless.  

Does that mean that our life is worthless?   On a personal level, of course not: we come on stage and then we exit, but the journey between is up to us.  We can play out angry and bitterness our we can Zen out and play to the beauty in every minute - try to make the journey as pleasant as possible.  

Because in the end it’s bugger-all.

The Ol’Buzzard  

THE HOKEY POKEY IS NOT WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT!

THE MEANING OF LIFE;

 I WAS WRONG;

 IT’S NOT THE HOKEY POKEY

I have always said that the Chaos Theory described life, and that everything is chance.   I have used the analogy of the Hokey Pokey; but in retrospect the Hokey Pokey is choreographed: you put your left foot out, you put your left foot in, you put your left foot out and you shake it all about…

After 4 a.m. consideration it is obvious to me that life is a play without a plot.   All the actors are improvising, and every actor believes he or she is the star.  New actors show up while other actors disappear, but the show goes on.   The script is babble and the movement senseless.   

Does that mean that our life is worthless?   On a personal level, of course not: we come on stage and then we exit, but the journey between is up to us.  We can play out angry and bitter or we can Zen out and play to the beauty in every minute and try to make the journey as pleasant as possible.  

Because in the end it’s bugger-all.

The Ol’Buzzard  

NO BULLSHIT BUDDHISM

Coming out of sleep I lie in bed

The fan blowing a gentle breeze across my body

I kick off the covers and stretch

I clear my mind from monkey dreams

And listen to the quietness of the house

I have been a Buddhist practitioner since the late 1970’s when I first read The Three Pillars of ZEN by Roshi Philip Kapleau.

  

Since that that time I have read and studied numerous books by numerous authors on Buddhism, and particularly Zen.     I have also attended a Zen Sanghi and practiced with a Buddhist community; but I find this type of practice unrewarding and particularly contrary to my needs and my feelings of what Buddhism is about. 

 

To me, formal Buddhist training is elitist and probably drives away many westerners who might otherwise benefit and desire to live the Buddhist experience without the commitment to a ritualistic practice of religious nature.

  

My Buddhist practice in No Bullshit Buddhism.    To me, Buddhism, and particularly Zen, should be practiced at its most basic level.   The practice need not be about teachers, or koans; not about robes, bells, icons or timed meditation.

After hours of meditation the Buddha found enlightenment (or realization) when he saw a beautiful young girl, was refreshed by cool water and tasted a bowl of rice.    It is that simple.  The Buddha realized that contentment can come from stopping our search and simply focusing on beautiful and satisfying things around us at the present moment.

The Buddha achieved enlightenment without teachers and community or adopting someone else’s ideas and values.   The Buddha is important only for sharing his realization that to truly live we must be conscious of the moment.    We each have a Buddha nature and by starting from the Buddha’s enlightenment we each have the ability to seek our own way.   And there is no One Way.

   

In my No Bullshit Buddhism the role of meditation is not to stress myself in a painful meditation marathon.  I do not believe that the Buddha was awaken because he spent hours in painful meditation; he was awakened because he became suddenly aware of the beauty of the moment.    

However, meditation is a necessary practice to discipline our mind to more fully appreciate the NOW.

Many Zen writers and teachers say that you should not seek an outcome in the practice of zazen (meditation.)      This flies in the face of western thinking and calls for that leap of faith that I refuse to make.

 

 In my No Bullshit Zen I find a quiet, comfortable and familiar location.   I seat myself on a zafu; but a pillow, bench or chair would do – comfort being the object.  I place my right hand in my left, touching my thumbs, bringing both the right and left sides of my brain into equilibrium.    Some texts recommend counting your breaths, but I prefer to gradually slow my breathing while visualizing the air entering my nose and filling my lungs then exiting.  The object is to empty my mind of all thoughts.   If my mind wanders I bring it back to empty.  I sit until it becomes uncomfortable; then come back to the present calmly and gradually.   As I have practice over time the length of my meditation has naturally increase.  

Meditation can lower your blood pressure; it can calm you in stressful situations; and eventually it will allow you to conquer your monkey mind and enable you to more completely focus on the NOW without distracting thoughts.   These are the goals of my zazen practice.

 

In the Shambhala Sun article Essential Teachings of Thich Nhat Han - Beyond Words, he states, “Zen doesn’t travel along a path of learning through writing and words; it relies on direct transmission between teacher and student.”

This may be cutting off the head of the Buddha, but I could not object more. 

I read and enjoy many Buddhist books and periodicals and therefore have am insight from numerous different perspectives; but I take nothing on faith and follow no one else’s path.  A teaching or account must make sense to me before I adopt it.

 

At the most basic, The Four Noble Truths attempts to explain the cause of our discontent and the Eightfold Path offers a guide to live by.

There are as many paths to living with Buddhist values as there are peopled.   I prefer No Bullshit Buddhism because:

• I do not feel the Buddha intended his teachings to come at a price.
• 
  
• I do not feel the Buddha intended the path of the Buddhist way to be difficult
• .
• I do not feel the Buddha intended teachers and Sanghis to set themselves as the only path to enlightenment.
• 
  
• I do not feel the Buddha intended enlightenment to be sought; but for contentment to be lived.

I have never felt more alive that the moment I released my grip on the wing strut and stepped off the wheel of a small airplane becoming unattached to the earth; or in the stern of a canoe rocketing down a mile of rapids on the Allagash River in Maine; or during the erotic throws of a sexual encounter with a partner responding with abandonment.   These moments far outweigh the experience of the almost zombie state of walking meditation.

  

In our mundane times we should not fail to stop and smell the roses and contemplate the beauty of the time and place; but life experience and reward goes far beyond that.

  

It is my belief, with the exception of monastic training, the Buddha intended his teachings be simple, to help everyday people in everyday life to understand that hardship, reward, elation, monotony and finally death is a natural part of our existence; and that by living consciously in every moment we live this short life more fully. 

I am well into my seventies, and at this point in my life impermanence is real.   

All people in their younger days understand that someday they will die, that time will erode the mountains and that at some point in the future the sun will turn into a red dwarf and the oceans will evaporate; and even perhaps in the far distant future the expansion of the universe will slow, stop and finally reverse shrinking into a massive black hole where time and space do not exist; but the realization of impermanence does not actually register until we are faced with the experience in our immediate future.

Introspection helps me accept that death is the final obligation I owe to nature; but in the meantime life is to be lived fully by being unrestrained by concepts and being conscious in the NOW.

For what it is worth this is my No Bullshit Buddhism.

 

The Ol’Buzzard

I retired from the military; graduated from the University of Maine and the University of Alaska; my wife and I taught school for eleven years in the remote Indigenous People’s villages of Alaska.    I am now retired to a small post and beam cabin in rural Maine where I cut fire wood in the summer and feed the wood stove in the winter. 

    

ZEN THOUGHT FOR TODAY

the Ol'Buzzard

ZEN: DRAGGING THE BOAT

Two young men left their village to attend a talk by the Buddha.   It was to be a three day journey so the men left a day early to insure they would arrive in plenty of time to enjoy the preceding. 

 After two days they arrived at a river only to find the bridge had been destroyed.  Knowing they had an extra day they set about constructing a boat from bamboo and reeds.   The next morning they made the crossing and were feeling confident as they still had a day for travel.

 

The oldest man said that it was such a fine boat it would be a shame to leave it, so they each grabbed a gunnel and started down the road.

   

The men arrived in village just as the Buddha finished talking.   They approached the Buddha and told him how disappointed they were to have missed his talk.   The Buddha look at the men and the boat and asked why they dragging a boat.  The men said they had built it to cross the river and that it was such a fine boat they could not leave it.  

The Buddha smiled and walked away.

I sit here in my den/office/man-cave or whatever you want to call this room that all the artifacts of decades of my life are jumbled into and look around at the boat that I have been dragging: books on sky diving (not going to happen,) books on white water canoeing ( I no longer own a canoe,) survival gear, hunting and fishing gear, pictures and artifacts hanging on the walls, three boxes of cassette tapes ( I no longer own a cassette player,) Sherlock Holmes collections and the list could go on.

I have been dragging most of this stuff around with me for decades – some for over fifty years.  

I tend to think of this stuff as defining me; but in truth I was a different person at each time this stuff represents.   However, they bring back pleasant memories.

You can’t stand in the same river twice.

I guess we all drag our boats, and perhaps that is only a bad thing when it prevents us from living in the present or obstructs our future goals.

Hell I don’t know

Just rambling

the Ol’Buzzard

BULLSHIT BUDDHISM

Coming out of sleep I lay in bed

The fan blowing a gentle breeze across my body

I kicked off the covers and stretched

I cleared my mind from monkey dreams

And listened to the quietness of the house

Zen

I have been to a Zen sangha – a Buddhist teaching community – and have read extensively; and one lie that is promulgated throughout, is that it is necessary to have a physical teacher in order to achieve enlightenment – to become a Buddhist.

  

Buddhism, and in particularly Zen, in its most basic teachings is not about teachers or chants (Koan), not about robes, bells, whistles, icons or timed meditation.   Buddhism is simply a path to help a person achieve contentment by appreciating every conscious waking moment; and Zen is a path to achieve that consciousness through meditation.

The Buddha found enlightenment by himself and each of us have a Buddha nature.  When we are seeking a more contented nature me can distill Buddhist writings and lectures to a basic path that fits our own individual needs.

  

Christianity became a religion in 325 AD at the council of Nicea (Nicaea) when men decided that Jesus was a god, and what writings would compose the bible, and what the laws and teachings should be.

Likewise after the death of the Buddha, men who had been explaining the simple concept of achieving contentment through focusing on the beauty of the Now, began adding trappings and rituals and requirements that was not the intent of the Buddha.   Teachers venerate themselves, they set themselves up as somehow superior to us – again not the intent of the Buddha. 

If you are interested in alleviating stress and living a more conscious life I would suggest you read Buddhist materials – but not take them as gospel.

 In my opinion, the best Buddhist (Zen) teachings, the most distilled and easiest practiced and understood can be found in two books by Steve Hagen:  Buddhism Plain and Simple and Buddhism Is Not What You Think.

 

“Buddhism is not about beliefs and practices… it is not a religion.   It is about the teachings of awakening – about examining the world clearly.”

Steve Hagen

The Ol’Buzzard

BACK TO ZEN

BACK TO ZEN

TRY AGAIN

LIVE IN MINDFULNESS

How many times I have come back

The crazy world

Distracting

Unsettling

I find myself wandering in a forest of anxiety

Dashing about in frustration

Seeing no way out

Never noticing the path I am standing on

And the beauty of the trees around me.  

This morning I got up, did some stretches, weights, and then meditated for five minutes.

  

I have fallen away from the beauty and contentment of the path less traveled, and become lost among the masses that trod the well-worn road that inevitably leads to anxiety and discontent ((Duhkha.)

I am over the hump of my seventies and seem to be aimless.   I am reacting instead of acting; I am focusing on things I have no ability to change; the stream of the world is flowing by around my ankles and I am stomping at the waves; I have lost my mindfulness – and it is time to return…  to Zen.

It is not a distant journey; it is only one step.

As I move back to mindfulness, I will post the journey.  

Zen reminds us that if we don’t see the beauty and mystery of our present life – our present moment; it is unlikely we will live in the beauty of any moment of life.

NOW is holy

the Ol’Buzzard

ZEN MASTERS ARE EVERYWHERE

A ZEN STORY

A student asked his Zen master how long it would take him to become enlightened.

The Zen master said ten years.

The student inquired how long it would take if he worked very hard all day every day.

 

The Zen master replied twenty years.

A ZEN BUZZARD STORY

A number of years ago I had a carpenter come over to my house to give me an estimate on installing a metal roof. 

The carpenter said he would do it for twenty dollars an hour. 

 I told him I was willing to help. 

He said it would then be thirty dollars.

the Ol’Buzzard

THE ARE MORE WAYS TO ZEN OUT THEN MEDITATION

TAKE TEN

Shut out the outside world,  put on your headphones, close your eyes, relax and ZEN out.

the Ol'Buzzard

ZEN OF THE COSMOS

It’s the worst case scenario

Three inches of wet snow

The snow blower can’t move it

Temperature in the thirties

Too warm for the wood stove

We’ll end up burning fuel oil

Have to go shopping today

Hope the roads are passable

Need food for the kitties

The world is chaotic

Militarized police departments

Violence across the globe

The Space probe New Horizon

Wakes up after eight years

Three billion miles to Pluto

The curvature of light

Time a variable dimension

The existence of black holes

An expanding universe

A bubble universe

An infinite number

Breakfast is ready

Oatmeal, bananas, nuts and toast

I would prefer bacon and eggs

 the Ol'Buzzard

PLEASE DON’T EAT THE BUDDHA

I am six feet tall and weigh ‘around’ two hundred pounds.   I feel best when I can maintain my weight at one-eighty-five.   Regardless what you weigh your weigh is the product of your food intake and your energy output.  Exercise works great to tone the body, but exercise is not the answer to weight loss.  

There are numerous diets; and diets do work but they require you to maintain the diet plan in order to maintain the weight loss.   My wife and I attended Weight Watchers (she was only one-thirty-five but wanted to come down five or so pounds)   I dropped fifteen pounds in six weeks and felt great, but did not see the need to continue to pay once I knew the process – then back to old habits. 

I am convinced that weight loss and maintenance requires a life style change – and that is hard to do.  It requires conscious eating.

If you read this blog regularly you will know that I am an on-again off-again Buddhist.   Like weight maintenance, I always feel better when I am actively, consciously practicing the concepts of ZEN.   Therefore I have looked for guidance on weight maintenance in the community of Buddhist writings.

The book Mindful Eating, published by Shambhala  publications and written by Jan Chozen Bays (MD) is worth a read.

I am absolutely positive that following the concepts of this book can result in weight loss and maintenance – If you live in a monastery.     However, in every day life it requires the same dedication that is involved in Zen mindful living.   

The book is a good read, and if you are weight conscious it presents ‘a healthy and joyful relationship with food’ that meshes well with Zen practice. 

The concepts are:

·       Be mindful when you eat.   Turn off the TV and put down the book; look at your food, smell the food; taste the food.

·       Slow down.   Chew your food well; the book suggests you put down your fork after each bite.

·       Quit eating when you are sated – go back for second portions if necessary rather than over load your plate.

·       Balance food intake with physical activity.

·       How to deal with cravings

It is important to remember that Buddhism is about peace of mind – living productively in the now; not about self doubt and recrimination.

If weight loss and weight maintenance can improve your health and make you feel better about yourself than it is a worthy cause and should be approached with mindfulness.   (Weight loss should be determined by how you feel about yourself – not about the opinion of others that you allow to negatively affect you self-image.) 

You should remember that it is all-right to be a FAT HAPPY BUDDHA.   

the Ol'Buzzard

ZEN OF APATHY

A passenger aircraft shot down in the Ukraine.

There is nothing I can do about it.

800 dead in the 18 day conflict between Israel and Hamas.

There is nothing I can do about it.

Fighting continues in Iraq and Pakistan.

There is nothing I can do about it.

Fighting in Syria, atrocities in Africa.

There is nothing I can do about it.

Russia, Cuba, China;

I am powerless.

A dysfunctional U.S. Congress

Prisoners inhumanely put to death in Oklahoma, Ohio and Arizona.

Obama Care is being challenged in court.

Bigotry, Racism, Sexism, Homophobia…

I vote but my vote is canceled by the Tea Party.

Beyond  my control.

In my mid-seventies, my days are limited, the grim reaper rides bitch on my bike.

It is what it is.

Today I am going to prepare the west side of my house for painting.    I painted the front (south side) first of the week.   I have one more cord of wood to order and stack for winter fuel; and I plan to replace the front storm door before winter sets in.   I haven’t meditated in a long time.   I need to take a few minutes this morning for Zen time.  It is suppose to be a beautiful day today – sunny with temps in the low seventies. 

Change what you can and accept what you can’t change: live in the moment: appreciate this day.

The Ol’Buzzard