Sakyamuni Buddha

Manjusri, bodhisttva of wisdom

Avalokitesvara, bodhisattva of compassion

Rosetta Stone

Hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek texts provided the key towards
translating hieroglyphics in 1822.

Calcite, 2500 B.C.E., Iraq

17th Century Iran

I take refuge in the sangha

The third precept, and the last of the treasure or jewel precepts, is taking refuge in the sangha. While taking refuge in the dharma precept is honorable for its purity, the sangha precept is honorable for its harmony. "Honorable" means to me "known for" or even "graced by."

Sangha initially meant a group of monks who practiced together. Now it is all those who attend a temple. But I like the idea of "ALL those."

In 1986 we held hands across the world, defining a larger sangha than those of a temple in Austin Texas. But it is really the still even larger sangha in which I wish to take refuge. How large? Imagine ALL. It is the sangha of harmony that includes ALL of that and a little breathing room (actually lots!).

Refuge is a troublesome word for some. One does take refuge from a storm. What is the storm that one takes refuge from (or to) in the precepts? Is it the relative world filled with greed, hate, and delusion? Is it suffering?

I read (I believe it was in a book by the controversial Alan Watts) that when practitioners assemble for a long practice period, they are like oarsman on a ship. They all support each other,  and if any of them fail, the journey will be in trouble.

Stay tuned for tomorrow... emptiness and cubism... got to sleep on it first.

Josh's Sushi

On floor @ Phili Museum of Art

Bruce Nauman, 1967

How has Buddhism affected your art work?

J. asked this a few days ago. I didn't think, at first, that it had affected my art. Then a list came:

1) I have less need and desire to be perfect. Suzuki's statement that "you are perfect just as you are" suggested that maybe my lines don't have to be manhandled forever. So I'm drawing quickly like the Chinese calligraphy that I've been admiring.

2) I used to give my figures penises, vaginas, breasts, etc. Now I don't feel the need to do that. The characters of the figures is more subdued. I have a friend who'll never forgive me for eliminating the appendages.

3) My drawings are less apt to be reflecting sizzling electrodes. I feel calmer my art seems more passive and less chaotic (at least in its construction).

4) The drawings are more apt to show mind states rather than action states. i.e. being rather than doing.

I'm not sure if any of this is obvious to anyone else, but it is to me.

On another subject, I brought two books to read on the plane: Radical Honesty and Zen Training. So first I read an old New Yorker, then the Southwest Air flight magazine, and then Radical Honesty, thinking I've had enough of Zen recently. Lo and behold, it is (so far) really about Zen. Even mentions meditation, enlightenment, conceiving of the unity of the universe, etc. So much for that plan.

I decided that I was going to reject the idea of Radical Honesty before reading it because it is impossible to tell the truth because we don't know it. So I asked my three and one-half year old grandson to tell me a lie and he said, "I'm friends with Beta." Since Beta doesn't exist, we all agreed it was a lie. Then I asked him to tell me the truth and he said, "I'm friends with Annie." So back to the drawing board on my rejection of the book on these grounds.

Is there more to zen than sitting?

The word zen means sitting. But what is sitting? Paying attention. As one pays attention they see suffering, among themselves and others... and they feel compassion for those suffering, so they have to deal with that. If one sat once a day and thought that was all there was to it, then they'd be missing the big part... the part of sitting while they are doing the rest of their life. Being present when one is with others. Being present when one is with oneself.

Zen people like to answer questions yes and no. Since "the past no longer is" and "the future has not yet come" all we have is the present. And when we sit we are there, in the present. And we learn from that laboratory to be present in more stimulated environments (though actually nothing is more stimulating than quiet because we can hear a pin drop and feel a fleeting thought touch our heart.

I'm sure I could write the rest of my life about this, without lifting my fingers from the keyboard... and I don't think I really know anything about it. I guess my best answer for now, since I have to still make a drawing and pack bags for a trip tomorrow is this: yes, there is more... and the more is everything else... and no, sitting is really, in the broadest sense, everything that we do and are. When we are awake, we are sitting... in the sense that sitting means awake, noticing, feeling, touching, accepting.

My Meditation

My cousin writes, "Although I've thought at times about studying meditation, I'm not sure it's the right path for me. I tried transcendental meditation in my twenties, but didn't find it fit me at that time. But I have wondered how and why it's become such an integral and important aspect of your life -- what it means to you, how you feel it's changed you."

Though the expression "Zen meditation" is used, meditation in zen is often referred to as "sitting" or even "just sitting." It is what we do when we aren't doing something else, but in a sense, we try to be present no matter what... so sitting is really all one can do.

I did try for awhile "dynamic meditation" which was done at a Thai Buddhist temple near our house. In it, your arms are moving in a complex pattern during the entire time, so unless you are Einstein, all you can focus on is having your arms do the right thing. I felt like I was building pathways in my brain that would live on to haunt me like when I spent a few very long days in college saying the same phrase over and over again trying to sell newspapers to cover my tuition ($350, not the current $52,000).

Sitting is not something one studies. What is studied when sitting is oneself. It is looking in the mirror, but rather than doing it with one sense, you are doing it with six senses (the mind is included as a sense). Though you focus on your breath, often other thoughts come and go. I feel when I sit down that I'm a stream and someone threw in a pebble. As I sit, I calm down. It seems to take less and less time to settle down as I sit more and more. I'm fortunate to have another "meter" to see how my sitting is going. My ears ring. When I am sitting (really sitting), they quiet down... sometimes so I can't hear any ringing even if I try.

Initially I was anxious for the time to be over...esp. since my legs would hurt, or my face would itch, or my back would hurt. Now I realize that when the hurts appear they will go away. And I thank them (the pains and itchings) for visiting and then say goodbye to them.  Tonight my nose itched. My first thought was that I should scratch it because it could be an alien trying to take over my consciousness. But I waited. And either it went away, or the alien did his thing and I am him/her. I used to get tired and fall asleep. Now I'm not so tired. Maybe I'm breathing more deeply.

I'm not sure that sitting is a path, but rather a tool like clothes that one wears when taking a journey. Rather than keeping you warm, sitting keeps you quiet so you can feel the ground.

A Dream

I was sitting with a group of people. Someone asked me what have I learned. I said, "I've learned that you don't exist." They looked at me puzzled and asked how I knew that. "Because it is true," I said. I was very surprised in the dream that my argument was not more convincing.

Later. I went to a Zen picnic, billed as being "purposeless." It seemed pretty much like any other picnic. I learned to play bocce. I didn't do much better than when I go bowling. I understand how guys can play this until they keel over.

I asked at the picnic why should we waste time like this when Buddhists take the bodhisattva vow to put others before oneself and to work wholeheartedly for their benefit. The answers were ok for the moment but I forget what they were. But the interesting thing was that it seemed pretty much like any other picnic as I said in the last paragraph. So what can we do?

Do not pursue the past.
Do not lose yourself in the future.
The past no longer is.
The future has not yet come.
Looking deeply at life as it is in the very here and now,
the practitioner dwells in stability and freedom.
We must be diligent today.
To wait until tomorrow is too late.
(Buddha)

Playing House

So maybe I'm playing house, I thought, after reading about Cintitta, a former priest here who has taken his practice many steps further than most others I know. It was the feeling I had, in Rome, looking up at the Sistine Chapel and wondering how I can compete with that energy (I wasn't so excited about it as a work of art). The article on Cintitta talked about one who was "walking the talk." I look forward towards spending some time with him in a couple of weeks.

And then, on the other hand, we hear that one can "practice" anywhere, anytime. John Cage wrote music in Grand Central Station.

In the meantime, I'm trying to move away from anger and judgment. I'm tired of both. Very tired. The priest today made a neat statement today, "As simple and impossible as it sounds, meet everything that arises with an open and curious mind, and a loving and forgiving heart." Following this, anger is impossible. As I sat this morning, thinking of this quote, the holocaust came up. I thought, how can one feel anything but rage and anger about what the Nazis did? And then I remembered that, upon their release at the end of the war, some of the concentration camp survivors gave shoes to their captors. They opened their hearts to those soldiers who were, in many ways, victims themselves.

Anger

After reading something one of my teachers wrote about anger, I've been thinking about it today. He said that the opposite of anger is patience. That feels right, though if someone robs or shoots me, I probably would be angry... (but impatient?) What I have noticed is that I often (esp. today) don't act very appropriately. Seems like I'm facing some situations that aren't what I want them to be... and I'm mirroring the situations. I'm not feeling too well (tired and achey), so I acted that way. And it was a gloomy day, so I acted that way. Did I help change anything? NO!

Tomorrow will be another day (as the expression goes).

I take refuge in the teachings.

My St. Louis teacher (who lives in Chicago) wrote to me this am: "What a joy to have the support of the precepts with us. Being our intention sets our attention and our attention tells us what to do, how wonderful to have the precepts handy to keep our intentions in line."

When I first read his comment, I was surprised by the shift that occurs when I think of the precepts supporting me (instead of me following them). It is almost to say that they are a being, and I am being held by them. But there is more. Us could be read to refer to our buddha nature, so that what the precepts do is allow one to be who they really are.

Though the precepts are by no means all the teachings of the Buddha, any one of them encapsulates most of what he said. It would be enough, I think, to follow just one of the precepts, broadly interpreted. Some make the point that though the teachings came from the Buddha, he did not invent them, but rather discovered them. They are laden with wisdom because he saw how supportive they are.

Refuge suggests "back to the source." As an artist takes refuge in design, a Buddhist takes refuge in basic truths that come when one slows down and listens. Buddha could have said, "just listen—not to me, but to your experience."

Back to Square One: I take refuge in the Buddha

I finished writing about the precepts, but am and will be a beginner forever. Since I did the first six precepts in groups of three (what was I thinking?) I'm going back and doing them one at a time. Even then, I will not be doing them justice.

Finished my taxes today. They will be sent to my uncle (Sam) in Washington  tomorrow. With a nice little electronic check (if those things have size). And the attic is ready for the insulators. Yea! That was a nasty job. I lost 1.5 lbs this am raising some decking and moving some stuff around.

Then went to a class tonight about time... a totally confusing subject. Maybe not any more confusing than anything else, but still enough to bewilder anyone. Anyone, that is, except those lucky creatures who have no time to consider time.

So what does it mean to take refuge in the Buddha? Who is/was the Buddha? If we believe the story, he was driven to figure things out. And his discovery was that his authority was his experience that he both trusted and disavowed as only an illusion. The Buddha is the part of us that is real. If one were not to take refuge in the Buddha, we'd have to take refuge in delusions. Taking refuge, for me, is attempting to brush aside the dust and see what is really there.

Experience the intimacy of things; Do not defile the three treasures

What I like about Robert Frost is that I learn about his life when I read his poems. I know what he did when he wrote "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening."

I have two deadlines: finish taxes by tomorrow at 4:45 pm to go to my new accountant, and finish preparing the attic for insulation by 10 am on Friday. In the meantime, the work on our yard continues, day after day, week after week, month after month. Maybe tomorrow it will be done if no more irrigation values explode. Sometimes I'd make art about all these grand life struggles, but no, I'm still at it trying to live with these Buddhist Precepts.

"Experience the intimacy of things" confused me. Did he really mean "intimacy?" I asked one of my teachers and she said that Buddhists associate intimacy with enlightenment. This actually confused me further, because it didn't seem to fit the second part of precept "do not defile..." Then I found this wonderful article about Buddhist intimacy. I loved this line, "This is true intimacy, handling all beings as if they were ourselves." And, of course, in Buddhism, all beings includes everything.

So while eating dinner (a great dinner expect I wondered if the chickens were well treated who generously gave me their eggs) I read the article (a Buddhist no-no) and then decided I would do the dishes while my wife was watching TV. And I would treat the dishes as if they were my eyeballs (which Dogen said is the way you should treat every grain of rice). Anyway, other than a few gently moves, like quietly setting the frying pan in the sink to wash it, I don't think I passed the test.

I take it that "do not defile the three treasures (buddha, teachings, sangha)" is kind of like "do not use the lord's name in vain." And we do that when we treat things with less than the respect that we'd treat our eyeballs, or, as the Zen teacher Reb Anderson would say, "...as if it is your mother's face."

One more thing. Even though I've now gone through the sixteen precepts, I don't pretend to understand them. The first six I did three at a time. My plan for the next six days is to do one of the first six at a time.  After that, maybe I'll give it all up for lent.

Actualize Harmony; Do not be angry

What is interesting is the apparent duality of harmony. Harmony is between two or more things, isn't it? So this precept make us responsible for harmony. Does it mean we have to fix us to harmonize with the other? And yet, we are one. Does that make harmony impossible?

Saturday the priest talked about how zazen (sitting) was both good for nothing and everything. It sure helps me to keep from being angry. I probably should be angry because we have a situation with a contractor at our house that has been going on too long and beyond budget. But I'm not angry. Maybe a little at myself for various mistakes I made. But we are getting close to this chapter in our life being over... I think. Maybe tomorrow. And then I can work on actualizing harmony.