The Same Old Zen

Many years ago, I attended a Dharma talk on nonattachment.  The monk explained the teaching by discussing the importance of having bare walls.   He explained that if we decide that we want to hang a picture on the wall, that requires us to buy a frame for the picture.  Then we have to get a nail and put a hole in the wall. What if we put the nail in the wrong place, and we miss the stud? Even if we hit the stud and hang our picture successfully, now we have wonder if the picture is centered properly.  Naturally, once we hang the picture, we'll want another one to go with it... The gist of the talk was that if we don't hang anything on our walls, we can save ourselves a lot of headaches and avoid unnecessary suffering. That teaching appealed to me for a number of reasons.  First, I was living in an apartment, so putting holes in the wall to hang pictures would've violated my lease.  Second, I was traveling a lot, and I prided myself on being able fit my whol...

  As I write this essay, there is an AC/DC album playing in the background.  I like AC/DC for a couple of reasons.   First, they are objectively the greatest rock band of all time; putting out bangers like You Shook Me All Night Long, Thunderstruck, and the infamous T.N.T. Second, the incongruity in their early videos is hilarious.  You have Colin Burgess drumming in the background, doing his job like it's just a 9-5.  Then you have Angus Young running all over the stage, playing guitar in a schoolboy uniform.   The icing on the cake is the raspy, growling voice of Brian Johnson.  I have a strong suspicion his vocal style influenced 90's grunge bands like Nirvana and Creed. Finally, there's that ever-present groove that the band finds in every song.  It makes their albums perfect "blowing off steam" music after a long day.  There are few things I enjoy more than sitting in my lounge chair with a cup of tea as the music washes over m...

Three years ago, I planted asparagus in our garden.  Asparagus is a centerpiece of many homesteads because it's nutritious, easy to grow, and it comes back every year.  But gardeners must abide by several rules if they want their asparagus patch to feed them year after year. First, the asparagus can't be harvested for the first three years after planting.  This allows it to establish a strong root system underneath the soil; one that will keep producing new growth in the fourth year and beyond. Second, weeding the garden bed is of the utmost importance.  Asparagus roots grow underground in a tangled mat.  If weeds become entangled with the asparagus roots, it becomes difficult to separate the two. Third, every fall it's important to put 3-4 inches of mulch down on the bed prior to the first frost.  Asparagus roots are sensitive to cold, and without that added layer of protection they may freeze over winter, impeding future harvests. It was this last rule th...

Acceptance is a big deal in Buddhist circles.  We're told that we must accept suffering, accept mistreatment, accept the opinions of others. We're told to be like the ocean, which accepts all things and rejects nothing.  Much of this thinking is rooted in a slavish dependence on the absolute.   This is especially true in Zen circles where the conventional world is painted as less than, and we're told all things are resolved in the unborn mind. This puts practitioners in a tough spot because right and wrong clearly exist.  2+2 = 4, not 5.  But if we care too deeply for the truth, if we "have preferences" then that's seen as proof of an unenlightened mind. I struggled with this contradiction for many years, wondering how I was supposed to practice Buddhism without practicing Buddhism. Then I studied the life and teachings of the historical Buddha, putting aside the words of Western "masters", and I noticed something interesting. The Buddha never taught...

As I write this one of our cats, Finn, is sprawled across my lap.   He is an all-white, American short hair with blue eyes and below average intelligence.  I've watched him carefully plan his leap onto the bookshelf only to jump headfirst into the wall.  And he regularly gets lost wandering through our house; meowing sadly until I or my partner go to find him. What Finn lacks in intelligence, however, he makes up for with love. He is one of the most affectionate cats I have ever known. He rubs his head against my legs when I walk through the house, he watches from the window when I work in the garden. And if I sit on the couch to write, read, or watch a movie, he magically appears in my lap. I like to think that I'm the strong, independent type. But the truth is that I'm not so different from Finn. When I kneel in front of my altar, I justify my actions with philosophical jargon. I can talk for hours about sacral realism and how my Butsudan is a physical representati...

A student went to his Zen teacher and found him working in the garden.  The teacher greeted his student and asked, "How is Buddhism in the south?"   The student replied, "There is much discussion."   The Zen teacher paused a moment, and then he said, "Come help me plant radishes in the garden."   The student asked, "How will that help the world?"   The Zen teacher replied, "What do you call the world?" When I was a young man, I didn't make time for what most people would call "domestic duties".  Cooking, cleaning, making the bed; these tasks seemed like a waste of time at best, and they were beneath me at worst. I looked at all the suffering in the world, and my unmade bed seemed insignificant in comparison.   I wanted to feed hungry children.  I wanted pull plastic out of the ocean.  I wanted to rescue the animals being tortured in factory farms. I imagine the student in the koan shared my concerns. "There is much di...