Zen Wisdom for Your Everyday Life

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We live our lives with the feeling that something important is missing. We may have had it for a little while, but right now, it's gone. So much of our time is then spent searching for what it is we're longing for. And even if we find it again, briefly, the sense of fullness doesn't last long.  As we engage in Zen practice, though, a moment comes when we realize that Nothing can possibly be missing. Everything in the world is here. It's in front of our eyes, right here. It's only us, we do not see it, we're clouded by thought and strange hopes. When the veil lifts and we see the truth though, what joy at whatever appears.

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We  feel we are trapped in routines, doing the same thing again and again. So many things are repeated in our lives, including in our relationships. A sense of drudgery and boredom can take over our lives. Where is the joy, where is the fun? Am I doomed to repeat the same thing again and again? we ask. But Zen practice turns this all around. As we realize that each moment, each step is unique and different, it is clear to see that this step, this moment, this encounter, will not ever come again. It is completely unique and precious. Once the moment passes, it's gone. When we see this, we then pay full attention to what is happening, enter the moment or relationship completely, cherish it for what is is. Boredom an drudgery vanish and as a life of freshness takes place.

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Where do we turn when in the midst of confusion, upset, noise or danger?  When the Mad Mind starts to sing, it can seem as if the whole world turns around, leaving us upset, dislodged and unable to step forward.  Many feel lost and lonely. At those times it appears as if we have nothing to hold onto. There's no clear direction or place to go. But Zen practice tell us otherwise.  Zen shows us the place, always waiting for us .Filled with wisdom, guidance, strength and humor, it is our original home. And it always there, waiting for us, doors wide open, no questions asked. No one is kept out, everyone welcomed.  Zen is the practice of constantly returning to this original home, day in and day out. 

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We look for sanity and balance all over the place, thinking there's something wrong with who we are right now.  We think our everyday life, needs, and desires must be transcended, rejected, in order to become "enlightened".  Beneath this is the fundamental idea that there is something wrong with us, just as we are. That life itself as we know it, is deficient,  destructive, doesn't provide all we need. That idea itself causes so much of the pain we feel, the refusal to rejoice in the great gift we have been given. 

But the great teacher Rinzai, returned to the truth. He returned to each moment of his life as it was, embodied it, honored it and took appropriate action. He recognized his hunger, didn't run from it. He didn't cmopensate in a thousand ways.  When he was hungry he ate, and that was enlightened action. Rinzai entered the great harmony directly, which is always right here wherever you go. 

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We have all kinds of ideas about what love is and wat it is not. Usually there's a very strong standard we live with, about whether or not we are loving. But as Rumi said, "A feeling here one minute and gone the next, cannot be called love." As we look into the simple, unadorned practice of Zen and actually practice it not only on the cushion, but in our lives,  the true essence of love pervades all our relationships and all around us love blooms. Let's find out more about the practice of love, how simple and enjoyable it can be. 

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All of us are searching for a place of rest, warmth and unconditional love and acceptance. We are searching for that which cannot be lost or shaken no matter what happens. In Zen Practice this experience is described as a child returning to its mother. What a surprise to realize that this mother we are searching for, is always waiting for us, right here. And it waits within ourselves.  A great teacher in India who embodied this condition, The Jallalemudi Mother described herself as The Mother Who Cannot Be Wounded.  The all encompassing state of love and acceptance that is not vulnerable to the endless changes of circumstance, but absorbs all of life and remains, always, true to her real nature.

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All of the pivotal practices in Zen are incredibly simple, and only take a moment. In one moment  everything turns around. Fear turns to compassion, anger to sorrow, hate to love.  And, these pivotal moments are simple, too simple perhaps for us to take to heart. We yearn for that which is complicated, challenging, impossible to do. But Zen is the Art of The Possible, planted right here on earth. It is the way to naturally  transform  your pain, loneliness and lack of purpose. In one simple action, done fully, no questions about it,  through and through, the light of wisdom bursts through.

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Alongside the endless ocean Coney Island is filled with thrills, chills, rides, and houses of horrors. In one particular section there used to be a mirror which, when we looked into it, distorted our bodies first one way and then the next.  Looking for ourselves in the mirror, we didn't know who we were anymore. One minute we were long and thin, the next moment wide and short. One minute we were beautiful, the next moment, grotesque. Like this distorting mirror, our minds and often our relationships reflect reality in confusing ways. They don't give a clear image of the truth, or who we really are. And, when we look into the mirror, we don't realize that delusions are gazing back at us. But there is a way to leave this house of horrors and return to the truth of who we are. Take a few steps to the ocean nearby, which is the same under all conditions, and vast, and constant and always there to nourish us.

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This podcast explores liberation from constriction. Leaving the straits and entering the open spaces of our hearts and lives,

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Life presents endless questions and contradictions that seem to have no answer. We go round and round trying to figure things out, creating strategies, going over the benefits and costs. And still a true solution can't be found. In a sense life is presenting us koans again and again. In Zen practice is an unanswerable question we are given to grapple with. When we run out of our ordinary means of approaching it, after we fail again and again, an entirely new way arises to practice with the koan so that the heart of the matter is revealed. And we are changed forever. Not only in the way we work with the koan, but the way in which we live our lives. 
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