Who is peeking out the window?

Submit yourself to a daily practice
Doing that is like a ring on a door
Keep knocking and eventually
Joy will peek out the window
to see who's there - Rumi

My mother was a very depressed, rather cold person and growing up in my household was not very much fun. Mostly my siblings and I either fought or drowned ourselves in books. I was one of the few children in our small town who actually completed the library reading program in the summers. Everyone else was playing baseball, going on picnics, swimming or playing with friends. My concept of play was somewhat skewed to say the least. I don't remember ever playing and having fun. So when I read this quote from Rumi the first time I was somewhat taken aback. Joy? I didn't get it. I thought spiritual practice had to be a serious practice, full of angst. Then I started zen meditation. The first time I walked into the dharma room there were all these people, eyes downcast, faces drooping, silent statues and boy did it look serious! And I thought, "OK, this is really for me!!" Serious practice - no laughing, no talking, no joy, just facing the floors and whatever came up in your mind. My mother probably would have loved it! Our temple rules say that zen meditation is the great work of life and death. How much more serious can it get than that?

And yet there are so many zen stories of masters, who after their enlightenment, are infused with - (dare I say it?) - deep, abiding joy - an aliveness that comes with understanding our true nature and the nature of each and every thing. Where does this joy come from? It comes from our submission to a daily meditation practice. It is an outgrowth of the work we do on our cushion - everyday facing ourselves and our delusions over and over and over until we are so tired and confused and frustrated and boiling over until one day we look into the sky and all our questions are answered without reservation. One ancient zen master put it like this:

"Arouse your entire body with its three hundred and sixty bones and joints and its eighty four thousand pores of the skin; summon up a spirit of great doubt and concentrate on this word "Mu". Carry it continuously day and night. Do not form a conception of vacancy or a conception of "has" or "has not". It will be just as if you swallow a red-hot ball, which you cannot spit out even if you try. All the illusory ideas and delusive thoughts accumulated up to the present will be exterminated, and when the time comes, internal and external will be spontaneously united. You will know this, but yourself only, like a dumb man who has had a dream. Then all of a sudden an explosive conversion will occur, and you will astonish the heavens and shake the earth. It will be as if you snatch away the great sword of the valiant General Kwan and hold it in your hand. When you meet the Buddha, you kill him; when you meet the patriarchs, you kill them. On the brink of life and death, you command perfect freedom; among the sixfold worlds and four modes of existence, you enjoy a samadhi of FROLIC AND PLAY."

'General Kwan's sword was said to be seven feet long - a very powerful sword indeed. And with this sword on your cushion you cut off all thinking, all concepts - even the concept of self, of right or wrong, of Buddha, of God, spiritual practice,...everything gets cut down. And what is left when this work is done? After all the anguish? After all the self-pity? After all the tears and self-doubts? After all the fatigue? Joy peeks it head out the window to see who's there.

I hope you are all doing well and that you are finding joy and happiness in your everyday practice.

Just Do It

"In spiritual practice there are just two things; you sit and you sweep the garden - and it doesn't matter how big the garden is." Anonymous

Zen Master Seung Sahn who founded the Kwan Um School of Zen used to say "Just do it!" Said it long before Nike Corporation got ahold of that saying. I sometimes think that the Kwan Um School of Zen should have the "whoosh" logo as it's own :)! "Just do it" has helped me immeasurably throughout the years. As a midwife, I often get called out in the middle of the night. One can get mighty grouchy doing that. There were many times pulling into the parking lot at 3 am that I just didn't want to get out of the car. I'd daydream about calling the nurses and saying - "Call someone else - I'm going home and back to bed!" As I'd walk the basement hallway to labor and delivery, the phrase "just do it" would come to my consciousness - and the angst would fall away. Oh - ok - no griping, no complaining, just one foot in front of the other and then a new life enters the world.

Practice in the dharma room has also produced some of the same feelings. Why do I have to bow so many times? I don't want to chant this morning. It's too early to get up and practice - I'm tired. I want to get up off my cushion. I don't like that chant. I don't like this. I don't like that. Or - just as compelling - I like this. I like that. Isn't the chant beautiful this morning? Weren't those bows invigorating? Oh - how the universe opened up for me this morning!

We are so taken with our likes and our dislikes. That is how we define ourselves. However, by holding on to ourselves and what we want and don't want doesn't allow us to function fully in this world. It's doesn't allow us to help the suffering in this world. I have often wondered how Mother Teresa dealt with the smells of the sick and suffering she encountered. I'm sure that would have bothered me a great deal. And yet by ignoring the smell and the grossness of all she encountered, she made the world a better place.

It doesn't matter what our likes and dislikes are - we are told to become like clear mirrors -clearly reflecting this world. When someone is thirsty, give them something to drink. When someone is hungry, feed them. When someone is having a baby, go help them. The garden of this world is so big and yet it doesn't matter how big the garden is, you sit and then you sweep it. Just doing it, day after day after day - putting down your condition, your situation, your likes, your dislikes - only sweeping the garden.