Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Truer Grit
The two-eyed detractors of the Coen Brothers True Grit miss the point when the Jeff Bridges character kicks those Indian children. The one-eyed Rooster wanted to stop them torturing the donkey. Look again!
Monday, October 11, 2010
Hiring People To Do What We Won't
Have you ever thought about capital punishment? We pay people to do the killing for us. You wouldn't inject the poison, initiate the gas, pull the trigger or tie the rope. Have you ever thought about eating dead animals? You wouldn't kill the defenseless animal with your hands now would you?
Friday, March 19, 2010
The Teaching of the Inanimate
Animate means lively, to give life to. What is the so-called inanimate and can the inanimate teach us about life? This was Tozan Ryokai's koan--the teaching of the non-sentient.
I was in close proximity to a couple of restaurant patrons one of whom became enlightened upon seeing dead shrimp on her plate. Her question, "What is that?!" while pointing to its eyes revealed her ignorance regarding what the now insentient menu item once was. In a former lifetime it possessed eye-consciousness--like she, and her subsequent cutting off and burying the heads in her napkin to me demonstrated that she couldn't see eating herself--her self. Sojun Roshi taught us that the food industry objectifies the animals it cages and slaughters in order to prevent the workers from truly seeing the animals' sentience and thereby their own. If they did they wouldn't be able to perform their job. It is a more efficient way of "processing" the animals from a business point of view but the desensitization of the slaughters, fishermen etc maintains a separation of self and other. When we separate from what's in front of us we too kill life. Objectifying the enemy combatants away from their birthright as human beings creates more efficient soldiers on our side. When we objectify people they lose their sentience (and significance) to us. However, if we meet them as we meet ourselves in zazen then even the so-called insentient will preach the dharma for us. To study the self is to forget the self [centered thinking] and to forget the self is to be enlightened by the 10,000 dharmas both sentient and not for in that moment there is no distinction between sentience and non-sentience.
In zazen I had the experience of not quite being sentient in that I was drowsy and inattentive to my posture and breath. When the thought arose to intend directing energy into both of these forms of our practice, I felt a surge of wakefulness, of uprightness which supported me throughout the rest of the period of zazen. When we sit upright we take in the whole universe. When we slouch either physically or consciously we don't. It felt as if I had breathed life or sentience into my mudra which had died in a manner of speaking. There was awareness and Buddha breathed. Buddha breathes for all of us when we vow to enter the dharma gates which are right here in this mudra and on this plate.
When we see with our eyes and hear with our ears we are in the world of duality which has a place for keeping us safe as in not touching a hot stove and maintaining relative awareness to attend to the task at hand--the world of form. When we hear with our eyes and see with our nose we are living in the non-dual world--the world of emptiness. Conventional understanding of consciousness is turned on its head as Dogen Zenji writes, "Seeing forms with the whole body and mind, hearing sounds with the whole body and mind, one understands them intimately". We are receiving the 10,000 dharmas and thus are brought back to life through the unobstructed sense faculties. When we let go of self-centered thinking we become inanimate, "dead", and at the same time we become animate and animated as a result of achieving greater intimacy within our environment.
While riding up Milvia Street I was awakened by the clear, crisp sound of raking. A sentient being was raking insentient leaves with an insentient rake or was it? The teaching, "Where am I? Who am I?" filled the universe. Having just come from zazen I was somewhat free of extraneous mental distractions and thus more receptive to this teaching of the insentient.
At Peet's where I work I have a practice of gathering up stray coffee beans on the counter which have been misplaced. They normally reside in the bin or the bag but sometimes they get "lost". Every two beans represents the shared inside of one ripe coffee cherry picked by hand far away from Berkeley. This practice I undertake of collecting insentient coffee beans connects me to the sentient farmworker and I believe shows respect for their handwork. It also connects me to all the people involved in the cultivation, process, transport and brewing of the beverage--the soil, the machinery, the marketing et cetera. The interconnectedness of the sentient by way of paying attention to the insentient is experienced in the practice of zazen--of bringing zazen off the cushion and into the world.
This little notebook I've used to "put my thoughts to paper" has felt inanimate for most of the time I've possessed it. While I didn't intend to acquire it, it came my way nevertheless and now I'm its custodian. When I truly accepted my responsibility for having it it my life I've discovered that it actually helps me organize my thoughts which helped in the preparation of this talk. It has a life now and is a part of me. It breathes life back into me when I read what has been written. It is a mirror, it is my life. When we pluck a shrimp from the ocean or a notebook from a display shelf we enter into a relationship with "it". How do we honor that relationship?
We don't step on the mealboard in the zendo because it's Buddha's tongue. This upaya or skillful use of metaphor brings our attention to what's in front of us. If we see things as Buddha versus non sentient, we'll tend to have more reverence for them and with that a more mindful relationship. We will relate to them not as objects but as subjects--the subject of our life. To wake up. Homeless people are often objectified and thus become insentient to us so we don't have to relate to them. As we pass them we feel dead as well as they do by our lack of attention and respect for them. By making eye contact, by paying attention they become sentient and we enter into a relationship with them.
Hozan: Do insentient beings preach the Dharma to sentient beings? Do insentient beings preach the Dharma to insentient beings?
Tetsudo: What do you consider insentient?
Hozan: Things that don't breathe.
Tetsudo: Many of us have heard you play lovely music on your guitar which is made of now insentient wood. You've spoken of the best music being played seamlessly when musicians come forward to play their part and then return to the whole--that the music really comes alive. That the wood is alive. So you tell me?
Hozan: I'm pretty clear on the first question. We're communicating back and forth, the so-called insentient and the so-called sentient.
Tetsudo: The Buddha taught sentient beings how to deal with their suffering. The insentient can take care of themselves.
I was in close proximity to a couple of restaurant patrons one of whom became enlightened upon seeing dead shrimp on her plate. Her question, "What is that?!" while pointing to its eyes revealed her ignorance regarding what the now insentient menu item once was. In a former lifetime it possessed eye-consciousness--like she, and her subsequent cutting off and burying the heads in her napkin to me demonstrated that she couldn't see eating herself--her self. Sojun Roshi taught us that the food industry objectifies the animals it cages and slaughters in order to prevent the workers from truly seeing the animals' sentience and thereby their own. If they did they wouldn't be able to perform their job. It is a more efficient way of "processing" the animals from a business point of view but the desensitization of the slaughters, fishermen etc maintains a separation of self and other. When we separate from what's in front of us we too kill life. Objectifying the enemy combatants away from their birthright as human beings creates more efficient soldiers on our side. When we objectify people they lose their sentience (and significance) to us. However, if we meet them as we meet ourselves in zazen then even the so-called insentient will preach the dharma for us. To study the self is to forget the self [centered thinking] and to forget the self is to be enlightened by the 10,000 dharmas both sentient and not for in that moment there is no distinction between sentience and non-sentience.
In zazen I had the experience of not quite being sentient in that I was drowsy and inattentive to my posture and breath. When the thought arose to intend directing energy into both of these forms of our practice, I felt a surge of wakefulness, of uprightness which supported me throughout the rest of the period of zazen. When we sit upright we take in the whole universe. When we slouch either physically or consciously we don't. It felt as if I had breathed life or sentience into my mudra which had died in a manner of speaking. There was awareness and Buddha breathed. Buddha breathes for all of us when we vow to enter the dharma gates which are right here in this mudra and on this plate.
When we see with our eyes and hear with our ears we are in the world of duality which has a place for keeping us safe as in not touching a hot stove and maintaining relative awareness to attend to the task at hand--the world of form. When we hear with our eyes and see with our nose we are living in the non-dual world--the world of emptiness. Conventional understanding of consciousness is turned on its head as Dogen Zenji writes, "Seeing forms with the whole body and mind, hearing sounds with the whole body and mind, one understands them intimately". We are receiving the 10,000 dharmas and thus are brought back to life through the unobstructed sense faculties. When we let go of self-centered thinking we become inanimate, "dead", and at the same time we become animate and animated as a result of achieving greater intimacy within our environment.
While riding up Milvia Street I was awakened by the clear, crisp sound of raking. A sentient being was raking insentient leaves with an insentient rake or was it? The teaching, "Where am I? Who am I?" filled the universe. Having just come from zazen I was somewhat free of extraneous mental distractions and thus more receptive to this teaching of the insentient.
At Peet's where I work I have a practice of gathering up stray coffee beans on the counter which have been misplaced. They normally reside in the bin or the bag but sometimes they get "lost". Every two beans represents the shared inside of one ripe coffee cherry picked by hand far away from Berkeley. This practice I undertake of collecting insentient coffee beans connects me to the sentient farmworker and I believe shows respect for their handwork. It also connects me to all the people involved in the cultivation, process, transport and brewing of the beverage--the soil, the machinery, the marketing et cetera. The interconnectedness of the sentient by way of paying attention to the insentient is experienced in the practice of zazen--of bringing zazen off the cushion and into the world.
This little notebook I've used to "put my thoughts to paper" has felt inanimate for most of the time I've possessed it. While I didn't intend to acquire it, it came my way nevertheless and now I'm its custodian. When I truly accepted my responsibility for having it it my life I've discovered that it actually helps me organize my thoughts which helped in the preparation of this talk. It has a life now and is a part of me. It breathes life back into me when I read what has been written. It is a mirror, it is my life. When we pluck a shrimp from the ocean or a notebook from a display shelf we enter into a relationship with "it". How do we honor that relationship?
We don't step on the mealboard in the zendo because it's Buddha's tongue. This upaya or skillful use of metaphor brings our attention to what's in front of us. If we see things as Buddha versus non sentient, we'll tend to have more reverence for them and with that a more mindful relationship. We will relate to them not as objects but as subjects--the subject of our life. To wake up. Homeless people are often objectified and thus become insentient to us so we don't have to relate to them. As we pass them we feel dead as well as they do by our lack of attention and respect for them. By making eye contact, by paying attention they become sentient and we enter into a relationship with them.
Hozan: Do insentient beings preach the Dharma to sentient beings? Do insentient beings preach the Dharma to insentient beings?
Tetsudo: What do you consider insentient?
Hozan: Things that don't breathe.
Tetsudo: Many of us have heard you play lovely music on your guitar which is made of now insentient wood. You've spoken of the best music being played seamlessly when musicians come forward to play their part and then return to the whole--that the music really comes alive. That the wood is alive. So you tell me?
Hozan: I'm pretty clear on the first question. We're communicating back and forth, the so-called insentient and the so-called sentient.
Tetsudo: The Buddha taught sentient beings how to deal with their suffering. The insentient can take care of themselves.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Thursday, January 31, 2008
peet's customer of the week
today we'd like to posthumously acknowledge robert kinzie ewing as our customer of the week. we made many "an espresso for here" for robert and often had to place the saucer atop the cup to keep it warm while he continued to engage his friends outside on the corner. his larger than life persona and deep, penetrating southern-flavored voice can still be heard if you listen closely. his passing last month has affected all of us. thank you robert for your commitment to justice, sincere interest in what others were moved by and overall down-home style. you are loved, you are missed. our condolences to his family and friends.
Friday, December 28, 2007
letter to the editors of the sf chronicle
I was deeply saddened to learn of the tragic death of Mr. Sousa at the zoo. My heart goes out to his family and friends and i wish for a timely healing process.
While it is typical to try and ascribe blame in a situation such as this, your readership would benefit from less sensationalistic editorials (published thursday) which fuel our surprise at such an event. It wasn't a rampage as you posit. The dictionary defines rampage as "(especially a group of people) rushing around in a violent uncontrollable manner." The result of what happened was a natural expression of a tiger--calculated and controlled to achieve an end regardless of what we humans think. Placing wild animals in cages or humans in prisons for that manner will in effect undermine their respective normal expressions in the world.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
eulogy for mr. peet @ the berkeley city club
good afternoon,
i've been asked to say a few words about our founder, mr. peet. this opportunity has been given to me as a result of what i wrote on our website which you may have read--not the part about my simply needing a job but his curiosity and involvement with eastern religions.
i've been practicing zen buddhism for the past 23 years. having begun this path in new york, when i decided to travel to berkeley in '87 to continue my spiritual journey i carried with me my buddhist robe and among other things an olympia manual-pull espresso machine which some of you may remember we used to carry. liz paurel, who was the assistant manager of vine back then must've thought i was worth trying out since i referenced the seriousness of my coffee brewing preferences. this past july i celebrated my 20th anniversary all of which, except for a few months at domingo during our remodel, have been spent at walnut and vine--mr. peet's first store.
although mr. peet had sold the business some years before, he would come in occasionally and engage me in conversation. undoubtedly we would enter into impromptu tastings there at the counter and his focused intensity hadn't abated one iota since letting go of ownership. i felt extremely honored to have these moments with him--to be in the presence of someone who was passionately committed to quality, an attention to detail and the rest you all know so well.
a zen priest friend of mine told me she and her husband had led a couple silent retreats at the unitarian church in the 70's where mr. peet was a congregant. she said he was an enthusiastic participant in the retreats which, being a unitarian, is somewhat surprising given what is commonly thought to be a basic premise in that tradition: when arriving at a crossroads where one road leads to god and another to talk about god, a unitarian will choose the latter! i once presented him with some literature from the zen center where i reside and asked him about these matters of the spirit. however, he chose not to engage me in this way and i dropped the subject. although outspoken in the store, i found out later that he was a very private person. many of you have read his words when asked to recount his life's story. for me, his response speaks to that silence cultivated through reflection in various spiritual traditions. he simply said, "the coffee tells my story." i learned recently that he considered himself a taoist later in life and read from that literature daily with friends and caretakers.
i think about mr. peet establishing his business and the rest of us establishing ours both at work and in our so-called personal life. actually when you look closely there's no difference. it's more about our attitude which divides them. there's a famous zen story of a japanese zen monk who traveled to china looking for an authentic teacher. upon his return to his homeland he was asked, "what did you learn?" his response was, "eyes horizontal; nose vertical." the vertical represents the distinction, the hierarchy of things. certainly mr. peet was at the top and we've inherited his vision at whatever level of responsibility we now hold. the horizontal represents the oneness of all phenomena. in this way we all are of the same piece, interrelated and working together. the matrix of these two vertices is called "our life". my sense now of mr. peet in these later years was one of reflection. having left an indelible mark on the world of coffee and tea he still had to come to terms with his own mortality as we all do. in mr. peet's copy of the book zen mind, beginner's mind, which i was kindly presented, the author suzuki roshi states on a coffee or tea stained page, i'm not sure which, "when you are you, you see things as they are, and you become one with your surroundings." i think mr. peet embodied that. anybody in his presence could feel it as well.
thank you
i've been asked to say a few words about our founder, mr. peet. this opportunity has been given to me as a result of what i wrote on our website which you may have read--not the part about my simply needing a job but his curiosity and involvement with eastern religions.
i've been practicing zen buddhism for the past 23 years. having begun this path in new york, when i decided to travel to berkeley in '87 to continue my spiritual journey i carried with me my buddhist robe and among other things an olympia manual-pull espresso machine which some of you may remember we used to carry. liz paurel, who was the assistant manager of vine back then must've thought i was worth trying out since i referenced the seriousness of my coffee brewing preferences. this past july i celebrated my 20th anniversary all of which, except for a few months at domingo during our remodel, have been spent at walnut and vine--mr. peet's first store.
although mr. peet had sold the business some years before, he would come in occasionally and engage me in conversation. undoubtedly we would enter into impromptu tastings there at the counter and his focused intensity hadn't abated one iota since letting go of ownership. i felt extremely honored to have these moments with him--to be in the presence of someone who was passionately committed to quality, an attention to detail and the rest you all know so well.
a zen priest friend of mine told me she and her husband had led a couple silent retreats at the unitarian church in the 70's where mr. peet was a congregant. she said he was an enthusiastic participant in the retreats which, being a unitarian, is somewhat surprising given what is commonly thought to be a basic premise in that tradition: when arriving at a crossroads where one road leads to god and another to talk about god, a unitarian will choose the latter! i once presented him with some literature from the zen center where i reside and asked him about these matters of the spirit. however, he chose not to engage me in this way and i dropped the subject. although outspoken in the store, i found out later that he was a very private person. many of you have read his words when asked to recount his life's story. for me, his response speaks to that silence cultivated through reflection in various spiritual traditions. he simply said, "the coffee tells my story." i learned recently that he considered himself a taoist later in life and read from that literature daily with friends and caretakers.
i think about mr. peet establishing his business and the rest of us establishing ours both at work and in our so-called personal life. actually when you look closely there's no difference. it's more about our attitude which divides them. there's a famous zen story of a japanese zen monk who traveled to china looking for an authentic teacher. upon his return to his homeland he was asked, "what did you learn?" his response was, "eyes horizontal; nose vertical." the vertical represents the distinction, the hierarchy of things. certainly mr. peet was at the top and we've inherited his vision at whatever level of responsibility we now hold. the horizontal represents the oneness of all phenomena. in this way we all are of the same piece, interrelated and working together. the matrix of these two vertices is called "our life". my sense now of mr. peet in these later years was one of reflection. having left an indelible mark on the world of coffee and tea he still had to come to terms with his own mortality as we all do. in mr. peet's copy of the book zen mind, beginner's mind, which i was kindly presented, the author suzuki roshi states on a coffee or tea stained page, i'm not sure which, "when you are you, you see things as they are, and you become one with your surroundings." i think mr. peet embodied that. anybody in his presence could feel it as well.
thank you
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)