First Gold Finch After Spring Storm

Nothing to say but Something to show

Early Spring "Knock Out" roses from the back yard...beautiful!!

Bows,

Alan

Think "non-thinking"

Here of late I have had nothing to say and nothing to think about.

Who knows what that is about.

Gassho,

Alan

The Gym and the Eightfold Path or Right Action vs Being Good

So I finished my sixty minutes on the elliptical, grabbed my kindle, grabbed my keys and started to head out the door. About that time I thought about “right action” and got the paper towel, sprayed the machine down and wiped it off – “right action”.

As I was wiping the machine down I thought about the “why” of doing this. From my Christian heritage I would be saying that this makes me a good person, this “doing the right thing”.

Then I thought about it from a Buddhist perspective – It was being done because it just simply was “the right thing to do”, there was no good or bad person involved, only the “right action”.

The action was the same from both perspectives but the experience of the action seems totally different to me.

What a wonderful path this is!

Bows,
Alan

Right Speech

Sometimes there is just nothing to say!

Bows,

Alan

Making Rounds Haibun #5

One of my favorite Zen stories is about the young monk who comes to see his master and tells him that he is going on pilgrimage. The master asks him, “Where are you going?” and the young monk answers, “I don’t know.” The master replies, “not-knowing is most intimate.”

Making Rounds

So I’m on the oncology floor, checking my list of patients to see for the morning, trying to remember the stories from yesterday’s visits, anticipating what the conversations might be about this morning. You might say I am setting up what I think the agendas will be for the morning conversations, you might say I am connecting to “knowing mind”, not “not-knowing” mind and so I begin my visits.

First visit dealing with nursing home placement, second visit dealing with news that cancer has returned, third visit feeling miserable with NG tube down her throat and not really up to a visit, fourth visit found sitting before his breakfast tray in tears. I remember he was to get a report back on his bone marrow today, maybe. I sit on the couch and say good morning and wait, anticipating he has gotten some bad news about his bone marrow report. He continues to cry and I continue to wait. Finally he says, “This is not about my sickness. This is the anniversary date of the day my adult daughter came up missing. It has been nine years ago today. She has never been found and we have no idea what happened to her."

Haiku

This dis-ease I have,

No medicine can cure it.

What I did not know!

Hands Together,

Alan