Re: [Zen] Re: Explaining Alex

[fudo]

AC wrote:   It is much harder to get up off the bottom of the floor and to try again than it is to see others and the rest of the world as being wrong. A person fails because he did not measure up to the standard or he can believe that others conspired against him. Is there anyone here who has never failed at something? Dear Al, Of course life will knock us all to the floor, We came in with nothing and we will go out with nothing. If you have ever watched someone die you learn that process is one of losing everything one gains through life. Even children and spouse must be left behind eventually. This process may be sudden or gradual, or concious or unconconcious, but it will happen. One can say that it matters not that you are knocked to the floor, but rather whether or not you get up, but it is my opinion that whether or not you get up life will continue to its end. You might hasten the process by refusing to get up, but that is like holding your breath. As soon as you pass out you breath or someone moves you off the floor. We go on. We have no real choice in the matter of the journey. We can do what we can to fight off the end, or do what we can to hasten the end, but the process is basically the same for all..we aquire, we lose. Even Alex's vaunted knowledge will have to be given back in the end. As a Monk I am admonished to only only a bowl and three robes. Even this will be left behind. What is it that distinguishes then if the journey must be completed by all? The ones honored in Japan are the ones who were just knocked down, and just got up and kept going. Some were given death sentances by the universe. Some had family and even the robes and bowl taken away, but they just kept going, like water that will always find its own level no matter the obstacles placed in front of it. This is described in many ways..like being a cork that can be submerged but will always pop to the surface whenever whatever is forcing it under releases the cork. Being like water...frozen when it is below freezing, steam when it is hot, but always H2O. We are life. Potential life when we are egg and sperm, living for a time, and then life that is ending and life that forms new life. We are still life on the floor. Then, like now, the question is what kind of life will we be right here, right now? Will we be the kind of life that nourishes those around us? Will we be the kind of life that drains the assets of those around us? Soto Zen at least teaches us to take care of our life in each moment, and to take care of those things and people that interact with us, because we only exist in relation to and because of these things. To be as much of an asset and a resource as we can be rather than a drain and a burden. No matter what our situation, no matter how far down we are  we  still  have this choice. How will I be in the world right here right now? I will always honor those who make the choice to be assets over liabilities, resouces over a drain, no matter what the universe has handed them. Life will keep going to its end, we have no choice in this. It is not our choice as to whether to take the journey or not. How we take the journey is always our choice. Even hanging over a cliff with tigers above and below, can we take the moment to share the lesson of the taste of a strawberry? Will the stiking of emptiness even here echo down through the ages? or will we just depart without a comment for those who follow? Can we take care of even this moment, suspended between tiger and tiger? Or will we miss the opportunity to strike emptiness and leave an echo that will reverbertate long after there is anyone left alive to hear? There will always be tigers. Tigers are no excuse. Circumstance is not an excuse. There is no excuse..there never was,and there never will be. We always have this choice in each moment of our lives. Rare is the moment that any one of us can strike emptiness and share the lesson with the world. Great masters practice a lifetime to do it just once in a way that will reverberate throughout all time. It is sort of wierd that we might think that we must or should be able to do it every moment without fail. We can strive in each moment to do it only once in our lifetime, and should we be blessed enough to strike it even once, there will still be the effort to, like Ummon and Joshu, manage a couple of such moments in a hundered year lifetime. Be Well Fudo Noble Eightfold Path: Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right  Action, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration, Right Livelihood Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ADVERTISEMENT Yahoo! Groups Links To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZenForum/   To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]   Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.