2018-05-10

May 10 - 16

Spring, week 8
"We demolish the false structures of our lives by labeling our thoughts, by saying for the five hundredth time, 'Having a thought that such-and-such will happen.' When we've said it five hundred time, we see it for what it is. It's just empty energy spinning out of our conditioning, with no reality whatsoever." --Joko Beck
Saturday Zen: Sat May 12, 10:00 - 11:45am, room 24
Community UU, 468 Rosedale Ave, White Plains, NY.
Practice to be led Meredith Garmon

Morning Zen. Mon-Fri, 6:00 - 7:15am -- Basement Zendo. See HERE.

Chants
For Thu May 10 - Wed May 16:
  • Facing Everything, p. 36
  • Misunderstanding of Many Lifetimes, p. 37
  • Fukanzazengi, p. 45
  • Menju, p. 50
Opening and Closing for May:
  • Opening: Do Your Best, p. 20
  • Closing: Liberation from All Obstruction, p. 75 + Four Bodhisattva Vows, p. 11
See Boundless Way Zen Sutra Book, 4th ed. and
BoWZ Westchester Chant Schedule

Reading this week: Charlotte Joko Beck, Nothing Special, Chap 18: "Experiences and Experiencing," pp. 118-121.

Raven Tale: The Mind
Dogen didn't, couldn't, say
His cranial pitcher held
100 billion neurons, more or less,
Sending neurotransmitter signals
to each other across
100 trillion synapses, more or less.
Still he said mind is not just this.
You are more than that.

Dogen spoke of the senses,
Could say a few things
about light and eyes
and sound and ears,
Yet nothing of the optic nerve's
or inner ear's workings,
Little of nerve endings,
and less of ceptions proprio-,
mechanore-, equilibrio-, thermo-, noci-, and intero-.
Add the flow through the senses
to the skullbound glop --
Still he said mind is not just this either.
You are more than that.

Dogen didn't, couldn't, say
Light bounced off the mountain
at 186,000 miles per second,
Still he told us
mind includes seeing,
includes light,
includes the mountain seen,
includes everything that made the mountain.
This signals-triggering-signals
Has nowhere to stop
Is to nowhere confined.

When all reality pours, as it does, into
Every rock, tree, skullbone
And pours unceasing back out again
Mind is nowhere to be found
Unless it is the whole shebang
Like beans.
Like tears on a train.

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