A student sat down in front of their teacher and asked, "How do caterpillars become butterflies?" The teacher replied, "They don't, only butterflies can become butterflies." This koan comes from my new book, "A Year of Zen Mindfulness" . I like it because it describes my approach to teaching the Dharma along with the primary focus of my book, which is to help people transform their daily life experiences into spiritual practice. The koan is based on Hongaku or original enlightenment, which is at the heart of Mahayana Buddhism. Simply put, the teaching states that we all have Buddha nature, which is the source of enlightenment. Thus, enlightenment is not the goal of spiritual practice. It's the starting point. We don't study sutras, sit on the cushion, and chant in front of our altars because we need to attain something. No, we do these things because they remind us of what we already have. They point our attention inwards; to the enlight
In a couple of weeks, I'll have my one-year anniversary of living on a homestead. And I can say with full honesty that I love this life. Growing food and caring for animals is rewarding. Watching the land grow and shrink throughout the year is educational. And being surrounded by nature is nourishing. That said, there have been challenges and hard lessons. I think I may have killed my tractor. Apparently, I wasn't supposed to leave gas in it over the winter. And several trees have fallen down in our back pasture. So, those will need to be limbed and quartered at some point. The most important challenge (and lesson) came early last year when I was working in the garden. I was dealing with an infestation of striped cucumber beetles that were threatening to destroy our squash plants. this was after dealing with slugs that threatened to destroy our bean crops and gypsy moths that threatened to eat our collard greens. As I stood there baking under the summer sun, carefull