The phrase “forget the self” is a wonderful pointer.
Forget your age, gender, history – forget your story.
As soon as you forget the self you will find the mind that is not in time and space.
It is right there.
It is as simple as that. No need to complicate it with thought.
It is right there.
Now you have found Buddha.
Now you have found yourself.
All living things are in complete realization of the Way
It is not possible to depart from the Way even for a moment
This is true throughout time and space
An iris cannot become more or less of an iris
A hawk cannot fly beyond its home
Even a rock participates in enlightenment completely
The fact that the rock does not know its own being diminishes nothing
The fact that some beings do realize our true nature increases nothing
This is the wondrous practice of non doubt
Written on Christmas Day 2013
Withered in winter
in a single color world
the sound of wind
Basho
Clearly, this is the answer.
Now, what was the question?
Whatever it is lets get rid of it OK?
Ideas, fears, politics, boredom, religion, philosophy, science, buddhas, gods, logic, attraction, aversion, dharma, practice, your age, height, weight, gender. Your history, your present, your future.
I guess you might say at that point you are in a place of nonduality. Just here. Enlightened! Yuch!!!
Lets get rid of that one out of here fast.
Get rid of the Sutras, teachers, temples, students. All those ancestors. Those guys from cold mountain can leave as well.
Goodbye India, China, Japan and all the rest. You can take the poets, warriors and monks with you too.
Good bye, goodbye, adios and choos – and good riddance!
Free at last.
The adepts of old spoke of staying up all night listening to the preaching of the insentient. What did they mean? How and what can rocks and rain teach?
They can. In fact the insentient is both direct and eloquent.
But to hear the insentient requires that you listen very closely.
Then:
All night long the rocks and rain speak in a language that has no sound.
To a person who has no ears.
They say, “I am you”.
When the Buddhas and ancestors of the past achieved realization they saw that their own mind was Buddha. All that was necessary was to drop the concepts of what mind was and to look at mind itself.
They saw:
That there was nothing outside it.
That there was no separation in or from it.
That words and ideas obscured it.
That they were perfect and complete as they were.
That there was nothing further to seek.
Of course this is true of all of us as well.
So we do not practice to become Buddha.
We practice because we are Buddha.
[audio:https://www.lostcoinzen.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Nowhere-Else-But-Here.mp3|titles= Daniel Doen Silberberg – Nowhere Else But Here]
This composition refers to the Blue Cliff Record Koan “Wonderful Snowflakes They Fall Nowhere Else But Here.” Please treat this piece like a koan. Listen carefully and I believe it will to draw you into a state of intimacy with the snowflakes and where they are.
When you live just live
When you die just die
This is a piece I composed and played.
[audio:https://www.lostcoinzen.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Travelers_001.mp3|titles= Daniel Doen Silberberg – Travelers]It is Zen composition: a painting of us, the travelers, the transient, the moment.
Zen arts have traditionally been rooted in Eastern vehicles: tea ceremony, brush painting, haiku, archery. We can now make the Zen arts our own. We can express them in our own culture and time.
I am grateful for my training at the Zen Arts Center which became Zen Mountain Monastery. I was able to study with John Daido Loori, Roshi and the lineage of visual arts teachers from which he descends. I put this learning together with my own training in music and my experiences playing with many musicians in the avant garde and modal Jazz tradition. I was luck enough to play with some seminal players like Carl Berger, and musicians in the Ornette Coleman band like Don Cherry and David Eisenson. I learned a great deal from playing with all of them.
Knowledge is what you know
Being is what you are
The adept learns to be whatever the situation calls for
Manifesting the flexibility of a willow or the tenacity of a tiger
This ability is gained by cultivating a profound lack of knowledge about who she is
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