Self-Mastery

How strangely secure
this world of illusion seems
now - open your eyes!

Retrieved 3/2013 Zen Cattle

Self-mastery includes an ability to see the illusions. The basis of an illusion is to mistake the unreal as real. When you make this mistake you often attach yourself to the unstable things you think you can count on.

The teachings are often seen as permanent and stable only to find out they too must be seen through again and again. They are not rules or beliefs to huddle under, to graze beneath.

Once you acquire some calm stability in the mind you are able to see through the very teachings you were once in need of...you leave them and offer them for others. You acquire new sight, new disciplines to help you see the illusions.

CINDERELLA

Cinderella, the soul, sits among the ashes. She is depressed, as usual. Look at her: dressed in rags, face smeared with grime, oily hair, barefoot. How will anyone ever see her for who she is? A sad state of affairs.

Winter afternoons, in a corner of the kitchen, she has long conversations with her fairy godmother, over a cup of tea. The fairy godmother has, accidentally on purpose, misplaced her magic wand. In any case, these transformations are only temporary. The beautiful spangled gown, the crystal slippers, the coach and footmen — all would have disappeared at the stroke of midnight. And then what?

It is like the man in the mirror, says the fairy godmother. No one can pull him out but himself.

Stephen Mitchell Parables

What's Happening?

The Self & The Ox

Know thy self. Study thy self. Contemplate thy self.

The Self, Confused

The Self Sees Traces

The Self Runs for The Back End of the Ox

The Self Lunges the Dark Ox

If you are reading the book, please read Chapter five.

Be Alive

Glass Cup

ARE YOU LOOKING FOR ME

Are you looking for me? I am in the next seat.
My shoulder is against yours.
You will not find me in stupas, not in Indian shrine rooms, nor in synagogues, nor in cathedrals;
not in masses, nor kirtans, not in legs winding around your own neck, nor in eating nothing but vegetables.
When you really look for me, you will see me instantly—
you will find me in the tiniest house of time.
Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God?
He is the breath inside the breath.

—Kabir, translated by American author and poet Robert Bly in The Winged Energy of Delight: Selected Translations


We need help. We wander around looking and finding bits and pieces trying to put things together, to make sense of it all, seeking for something. Somehow we know we are like the cup. We sense things falling apart, coming apart. We know things don't hold up. We want something to hold up, to last, to be whole.

You need to explore on your own in your own skin what is going on here. Kabir's last line is what Kabir knew or was told. Forget it. Don't repeat it. It's not yours to repeat. If you have not done the concentrated work of seeing for yourself you are merely a parrot, a thief or a fake.

Live in your skin, not the dust of ancients. You can not claim what belongs to another as yours. It is unsatisfactory. It is dead Zen. Dead! You must manifest who you look for as the one who looks for you in your own bag of skin. Proclaim it yourself.

Who are you?
Concentrate.

What is God?
Concentrate.

Ask for help. Beg for it. It's not as simple as "believing" something. It requires more than beliefs.

Embrace

Embrace

It is never apart from you right where you are.  You may be confused. You may think the world is a pot of gold. It glitters with promise. It is intoxicating. It dangles baubles. It offers hope. You sense something in yourself. You forget that the world is bitter and painful. You feel confused. You see a trace in front of you and begin to wonder about it, to find out something. Uncertain you use your energy to track the traces. Sometimes you give up. You get drawn back into the promises of the world, you drift back into confusion. And then you sense something again, you see another trace and again follow the tracks. Time and time again you stumble back and forth until the sense is clearer you see something else. You begin to sense some clarity, some realization of what you need to do. You keep going. You ask for directions. You try it out. You follow the pointers, the tips, the suggestions. You feel different. You keep looking back, thinking it should be a certain way by now. You are confused. You stumble. You get back up. You keep going. You practice. You use your energy to find out. You're less confused. The sense is stronger. You keep your effort going. You are still uncertain but not as wobbly. You may fall. You may appear to be done. Fed up. You are weary but not done. You take a breath. You get back up, brush yourself off and continue. You are afraid. You want to hide. Things you didn't want to see, you see. Ah! You sit down. You stay still. You know something you didn't know. You glance back. But you continue. You strengthen your efforts. You are still and silent. The world screams at you, screeches and sirens burst all around you. You duck. You limp away. You dodge the bullets. Tattered, you sit still. Silent. Less sure. But steadier. You rest. You need the rest. You sit. You stay. You embrace.

No Last Stand

The Idealist

Idealism is a problem in Zen. It's an attempt to take a last stand. But it's like standing on a high flag pole under a tiny umbrella. It requires might and muscle and an unrelenting focus on what you think is right. One little slip and kaboom you fall off the pole.

Imagine if you will idealizing your lover. Ahem!
What would you imagine?
Or imagine your lover idealizes you? Ahem!
Expectations might be quite high and quite narrow. Judgement of the kind that measures and evaluates everything you do according to whatever the IDEAL is thought to be would be the basis of the love. Sounds treacherous, doesn't it?

You see the idealist doesn't know that idealism is relative. And since it is, it causes friction and disagreement unless you find someone who has the same narrow and high ideal as you.

Zen points to a bigger stand than the stand of idealism. It asks you to learn to stand anywhere, with anyone, at any time without measure. Without measure!

In simple language, it means to stand on your own two feet right where you are.


"My master taught me that nobody at all should become indignant about anything until he is sure that what he thinks is a wrong is in fact a wrong-and not a blessing in disguise!" Nasrudin

Authority. Who is in Charge?

Taming the Ox

I live my life in widening circles

that reach out across the world.

I may not complete this last one

but I give myself to it.

 

I circle around God, around the primordial tower.

I've been circling for thousands of years

and I still don't know: am I a falcon,

a storm, or a great song?

 

 Rilke’s Book of Hours:Love Poems to God, translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy

~ Ranier Maria Rilke ~

 

The Ox Herder finds himself but he finds himself wild and unruly. He still is unsure of who he is? He doesn't know who is in charge? He is caught in his conditions, whether they be good or bad, he is run around in circles by them. In modern terms, he conforms to what others want of him.

This particular picture is a big deal and it takes big effort and commitment. It is not acting but being It takes discipline, study, practice and continuous effort.  It's not an intellectual pretense but a vital actualization in your own bag of skin. Embrace yourself.

In the martial arts it is known as "the way of dying" or "living as though you are already dead." Fearless! It's hard to pretend fearlessness, or even imitate it. It is NOT to gather up your courage and act as if you are fearless, that would be a pretense. Since "hate" is the root of fear it means uprooting hate through study and practice with your self.

It's not to pretend you are awake and repress your feelings or suppress your intentions, it is to reveal them again and again and again without fear of reprisal or rejection. Be transparent.

It requires intimate recognition of the wild, untamed and often unknown aspects of the self. Show up and grow up!

And finally it means to be. And to be requires leaping clear.

Contemplation on Change

Light

After three days of labor, the baby still hadn't been born.
"He's stuck. The little guy's stuck," the man said.
He had come from a remote farm in the country.
The doctor went with him.
Valise in hand, the doctor walked under the noonday sun,
toward the horizon, into that desolate world where everything
seems born of accursed fate. When he got there he understood.
Later, he told Gloria Galvan:
"The woman was at death's door but was still panting and sweating, and her eyes were wide open. I had no experience with situations like that. I was shaking; I hadn't the faintest idea what to do. And then, as I drew back the blanket, I saw a tiny arm sticking out from between the woman's legs."
The doctor realized that the man had been pulling on it.  The little arm was rubbed raw and lifeless: a flap of skin, black and dried blood. And the doctor thought: There is nothing to be done.
And yet, for whatever reason, he caressed the arm. He rubbed the inert limb with his index finger, and when he got to the hand, it suddenly closed, clutching his finger for dear life.
Then the doctor asked for boiling water and rolled up his sleeves. eg

The breath arrives. The breath departs. Continuously.