RoshiTeachings 2

Page Two Of Roshi’s Teachings

Andrew Shugyo Daijo Bonnici, Ph.D.

What It Means To Celebrate Buddha’s Birthday

"According to legend, baby buddha was born in India while his mother, Queen Maya, was resting in the blooming flower garden of Lumbini. The story says that when he was born, he stood up with a smiling heart to face his mother. Then, pointing to the ground and to the sky, he confidently said, ‘Upon the earth and below the sky, I alone am the most honored One.’

To be alone means to be authentically whole, loving, and interdependent with all beings and things in each passing moment of vast impermanence. Alone means ‘what-is-infinitely-wisdoming as the brilliant Oneness of total reality.” Being alone is just sitting with breath and heartbeat inside of zazen-only. It is inside of zazen-only, within our treasured aloneness, that we viscerally embody the brilliant wholeness and basic goodness of baby buddha as our true Self. It is inside of zazen-only that all baby buddhas proclaim that there is no wisdom and no gain, and nothing to attain. When we are completely alone as core-Self inside of zazen-only, we are alone with everything and everyone. This is because alone also means "All-One" with sun, moon, stars, galaxies, living creatures, and all human beings.

The most Honored One means someone very special, deserving of our respect and gratitude. When mind, body, heart, and spirit are all One inside zazen-only, that One, that is you alone, includes all sentient and insentient beings. That One that is you Alone is the most Honored One. Alone you are “what-is-infinitely-wisdoming as the original wholeness of total reality.” Alone you are someone very special with value beyond measure. Alone in zazen-only, you are the precious baby buddha standing on your own two feet. This is you! You are so special that you cannot be compared. No one and no thing is better than you and no one and no thing is less than you.

Each of us is like a flower blooming alone in a vast and arid desert; and as such, how truly special and unique each of us are. When we are each a flower blooming alone in the desert, we are very, very special. However, when we try to be more than just a flower, we are not so special. Just to be alone in the vast stillness of core-Self, not wanting to be or to have anything else, is exactly the total fulfillment and completion of our radical humanness. Zazen-only is the peace of our heart-not-wanting and the wonder of our mind-not-knowing. In our Way, to simply embody core-Self with the humility of beginner’s heartmind inside of zazen-only is to effortlessly be the ever fresh blooming of boundless intimacy and ungraspable enlightenment itself. This is how we all can honor and cherish our own blooming as baby buddha just as we are, just as IT is. When baby buddhas joyfully bloom together with gratitude inside of zazen-only, they become a sangha bouquet of fragrant flowers that brilliantly exemplifies the Japanese celebration of Hana-matsuri, the 'Flower Festival.'

This is why on April 8, during the celebration of Hana-matsuri, we bow with palms together to all flowers who are our treasured teachers. We bow to ourselves as endless beginners who are always blooming as baby buddhas inside of zazen-only. This is why we bow to baby buddha who stood alone with a smiling heart while simply pointing to our basic goodness and the pristine wholeness of total reality."

April 8, 2015

To Embody the Life Of Zen is Just like This

"In the Way of Zen, we gratefully bow to the great functioning of vast Oneness that upholds the surface and depth of total reality. We bow to honor our daily visceral experience of timelessness, boundless intimacy, limitless interdependency, and non-duality. We deeply treasure the fruits of bowing that are exactly the peace, clarity, love, and wholeness that we naturally bring to our everyday life and relationships. We unhesitatingly bow to joyfully express the wonder, humility, and magnanimous openness of our beginner's heartmind. We confidently bow far beneath our ego-self and thinking mind to simply live a pristine, sensual, creative, productive, and compassionate life. Our Way is to just be the profound wisdom of the bow even as we passionately entangle with the business of everyday life, lucidly and attentively interact with the law of causality, mindfully live within the passage of linear time, and all the while honor the great functioning of duality within our devoted practice of empathy, tenderness, gratitude, and deep caring for all beings and things."

April 12, 2015

True Practitioners Of Everyday Zen

"True practitioners of Zen take wholehearted care of the most mundane, menial, and repetitive tasks of daily life just like they are tenderly taking care of the whole universe. Not grasping at what seems to be exciting nor pushing away what seems to be boring, they passionately embody this only moment from the still brilliance of their core-Self while simply enjoying their sensational life with the joyful exuberance of their beginner's heartmind. These true practitioners of Zen, who romance everyday life far beyond grasping and pushing away, are daily cultivating a peaceful and wondrous garden of boundless intimacy, vast Oneness, and limitless interdependency that people can't explain. This is why we call them 'precious teachers' who remain gracefully and confidently hidden in the Way of ungraspable enlightenment Itself."

April 16, 2015

Treasured Aloneness

"Inside the profound simplicity and treasured aloneness of zazen-only, we sensually embody the still non-thinking intelligence of our core-Self that nourishes the vital wholeness and playful exuberance of our beginner's heartmind. When we arise from zazen-only to live from the still integrity of our core-Self with the ever fresh brilliance of an endless beginner, we viscerally listen and behaviorally yield to the vast Oneness of total reality that graces all human beings with 'Boundless Intimacy' even as they exhibit an urgent neediness to have It, a misdirected drivenness to attain It, and a deep fear and resistance to wholly being It. "

April 23, 2015

Not One Thing Lacking

“As our visceral Way of embodying vast Oneness and boundless intimacy is far beneath the functioning of our ego-self and thinking mind, we are wholly free to live each moment with the freshness, wonder, humility, and exuberance of our beginner's heartmind. To be an endless beginner in this Way is to openly receive love and spontaneously express love with passionate and joyful abandonment. Then we can truly say that in this ordinary everyday life liberation abounds and not one thing is lacking."

Kinhin: Walking Meditation Kata

“Below is a short video I created to give you a visual example of the correct form for kinhin or walking meditation. Remember that kinhin allows us to practice visceral intimacy with the center-point of our lower abdomen while gently moving and stopping. Just like our practice of zazen-only, we sink with each half step into the still brilliance of our core-Self while tenderly allowing all smells, sensations, thoughts, feelings, and sounds to come and go without labeling, comparing, or judging them. Be bodily aware of your feet touching the ground during kinhin. Remember that your whole body is happening as this only moment right here and now and this only moment is the profound simplicity of just walking and breathing. When you experience your Ki energy arising into heady thinking or attachment to thoughts during kinhin, just sink into the sensual Ki of your lower abdomen and you will naturally begin to passionately rest in the vital wakefulness of your true home.”