Compassion
Sometimes it needs a sword
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
In a recent post, Disciple Zento asks our Zen Center to please suffer. By this he means, please be aware that we suffer. Do we have a choice? Yes and No.
Yes, we suffer, but we suffer today in egocentric and ethnocentric ways. We suffer when our own individual lives and lifestyles are threatened. Yet, many of us do not suffer as others' are threatened.
We have many ways of avoiding suffering: candy, sugary foods, fatty foods, beer, whiskey, drugs of all sort both legal and illegal, sex of all sorts, cars, trucks, motorcycles, TV, movies, music, instant access music, and a near total willingness to ignore something, transfer blame for something, deny something, or rationalize something. "It's not my problem" I say as I wake from my beer and pizza evening and turn on CNN or the Home Shopping Network.
Yet all of these are serious forms of suffering. So we suffer and are suffering a sort of candy coated, palatable suffering. It reminds me of all the great ways to die.
To be compassionate means to be with suffering. All suffering. In torture cases, murder cares, cases of war, poverty, abortion, and other cases which we fantasize killing off the perpetrator, we cope with our fear and lust for revenge or "justice", but we also suffer ourselves.
To be compassionate means being with the suffering of the perpetrator, as well. Racism, sexism, ageism, ethnophobia, xenophobia are all created conditions with long karmic histories, bring about long karmic futures. We must enter as the dragon and cut off the heads of such karmic causes.
There is a talk given by my Dharma Grandfather, Matsuoka-roshi, where he addresses the use of martial arts in Zen Buddhism. He talks about the Samurai and tells a few stories of the ways in which sword was used to protect life by killing a threat to life. Odd, yet true.
Our problem today is that we wobble far too much, we are far too uncertain of our moral standard, and are incredibly cowardly herd cattle, to boot.
One who is a Bodhisattva Warrior wields his sword with ease, walks in his own authority and cuts the cat with not the bat of an eye. Such a warrior actualizes the dharma. And must slay himself in every moment.
Such a warrior is a buddha.
Be well.
Good Morning Everyone,
In a recent post, Disciple Zento asks our Zen Center to please suffer. By this he means, please be aware that we suffer. Do we have a choice? Yes and No.
Yes, we suffer, but we suffer today in egocentric and ethnocentric ways. We suffer when our own individual lives and lifestyles are threatened. Yet, many of us do not suffer as others' are threatened.
We have many ways of avoiding suffering: candy, sugary foods, fatty foods, beer, whiskey, drugs of all sort both legal and illegal, sex of all sorts, cars, trucks, motorcycles, TV, movies, music, instant access music, and a near total willingness to ignore something, transfer blame for something, deny something, or rationalize something. "It's not my problem" I say as I wake from my beer and pizza evening and turn on CNN or the Home Shopping Network.
Yet all of these are serious forms of suffering. So we suffer and are suffering a sort of candy coated, palatable suffering. It reminds me of all the great ways to die.
To be compassionate means to be with suffering. All suffering. In torture cases, murder cares, cases of war, poverty, abortion, and other cases which we fantasize killing off the perpetrator, we cope with our fear and lust for revenge or "justice", but we also suffer ourselves.
To be compassionate means being with the suffering of the perpetrator, as well. Racism, sexism, ageism, ethnophobia, xenophobia are all created conditions with long karmic histories, bring about long karmic futures. We must enter as the dragon and cut off the heads of such karmic causes.
There is a talk given by my Dharma Grandfather, Matsuoka-roshi, where he addresses the use of martial arts in Zen Buddhism. He talks about the Samurai and tells a few stories of the ways in which sword was used to protect life by killing a threat to life. Odd, yet true.
Our problem today is that we wobble far too much, we are far too uncertain of our moral standard, and are incredibly cowardly herd cattle, to boot.
One who is a Bodhisattva Warrior wields his sword with ease, walks in his own authority and cuts the cat with not the bat of an eye. Such a warrior actualizes the dharma. And must slay himself in every moment.
Such a warrior is a buddha.
Be well.