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 Sangha 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 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 an 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 Sangha 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, 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 into my
eighties, 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.
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 and live in a mobile home in
a mobile home park in north-western Maine.
I still experience the winter snows and the summer heat; and listen to
the wind, natures voice, as she reminds me how unimportant I am.
the Ol'Buzzard
