by Daniel Doen Silberberg | Aug 8, 2011 | Uncategorized, Zen
Daily practice has many aspects. Being one with what we are doing and dropping thoughts and concepts is central. There is nothing wrong with winning. It’s not what you win, its that you cultivate the excellence, focus and intelligence necessary to win. That you trust the power you cultivate through practice. That is the way of the adept.
In time, as we practice, we become ourselves. It is the simple but difficult act of not being our thoughts but instead identifying with the vast field that contains them. That field gradually frees us from the captivity of our own thoughts and conditioning.
So please win – win your life, your freedom.
Ed Seykota is a brilliant trader and a fine observer of people and performance.
In interview he was asked, “What can a losing trader do to transform himself into a winning trader.”
His wonderful response was: A losing trader can do little to transform himself into a winning trader. A losing trader is not going to want to transform himself.
That’s the kind of thing winning traders do.
photo credit: charles chan *
by Daniel Doen Silberberg | Jul 31, 2011 | Uncategorized, Zen
Early Summer Rain –
houses facing the river
two of them.
Buson
Are you there?
Can you see the houses, the rain?
Who are you now?
Ordinary mind is the way.
photo credit: Cia de Foto
by Daniel Doen Silberberg | Jul 24, 2011 | Uncategorized, Zen
INTRODUCTION TO ZEN PRACTICE
Join Lost Coin Zen at The Buddhist Society Saturday September 10, 2011
Address: 58 Eccleston Square, London SW1V 1PH Time: 10am – 1pm Price: £15
We will explore the fundamentals of Zen practice based on the famous talks given by renowned Zen teacher Yasutani Roshi (1885-1973). He gave these talks to introduce Zen training to Westerners.
Yasutani Roshi is the Dharma grandfather of Doen Sensei, founder of Lost Coin Zen, an international Zen group that synthesizes the Soto and Rinzai sects of Zen as taught through Yasutani Roshi, Maezumi Roshi and the White Plum Asangha.
This introduction to Zen practice will be led by Patrizia Kojin Nestby, a student of Daniel Doen Silberberg and Lost Coin Zen.
There will be time for practicing Zazen and for questions and answers. You will leave with a good understanding of the basics of Zen practice.
To register for this workshop, email to london@lostcoinzen.com
photo credit: francesco sgroi
by Daniel Doen Silberberg | Jul 11, 2011 | Uncategorized, Zen
“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful: but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look…”
This essay entitled “Where I lived and What I Lived For” is from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden points to a wonderful koan that I believe we can appreciate as much today as brother Henry did in his time. Tomorrow is Henry David Thoreau’s birthday and though we are not related by blood I feel he is part of our clan. The title “Where I live and What I lived For” is itself the koan and what he says about it is the commentary.
I found this in a copy of Walden – it was one of the last books I gave my father before he died. It was my father’s koan “Where I lived and What I Lived For” – it is mine as well and I hope you will accept it as a gift to you on Thoreau’s birthday.
It is a marvelous practice to carve and create our own atmosphere, our own life.
To really appreciate our life and death is to carve and create our atmosphere and life. It is Genjokoan – the koan of everyday life.
photo credit: Fred Hsu
by Daniel Doen Silberberg | Jul 3, 2011 | Uncategorized, Zen
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An adept – a warrior is always the subject of her own careful scrutiny. Always asking herself the same questions. Am I really practicing? Am I really doing my best? Am I really giving 110%. Am I really letting go of my prejudices, my rightness, my stuckness, my fear? This is the joy of the way the adept lives – with commitment and really demanding the very best from herself as often as she can.
The important word in all this, the one that comes up over and over again is really.
Why wouldn’t anyone choose to live with this freedom and power? The power to make every day of life a joyful challenge. The answer is no one chooses not to live like this – the enemy makes this choice.
The enemy, whose name is fear or inertia, small mindedness – whatever hat it is wearing that day, is very clever. It tells you that it is wisdom, practicality, reasonable caution, maturity. It is whispering in your ear right now as the moments of your life disappear – telling you not to change anything. It is depriving you of your spirit, your freedom, your courage. It is depriving you of your life
photo credit: Neal.
by Daniel Doen Silberberg | Jun 20, 2011 | Uncategorized, Zen
Something I often said when I was Vice Abbot at Kanzeon:
“We get a lot of people who become members here but very rarely do we get a student.” Instead we get teachers – people who think they know a great deal about everything including the Dharma.
When we finally get a student it is clear that person has what it takes to be a teacher.
It is even clearer to me today. The real student, the empty cup, is the real dragon – the right stuff.
photo credit: filtran
by Daniel Doen Silberberg | Jun 16, 2011 | Uncategorized, Zen
I thought I’d abandoned it all
Even my body
And yet this snowy night is cold
(From the Way of Everyday Life) Hakuyu Taizan Maezumi – Commentaries on The Shobogenzo
In talking about enlightenment and delusion Maezumi Roshi would often say “I prefer delusion.” To grasp enlightenment, to prefer it, to “stink of Zen” is its own kind of delusion. Grasping enlightenment is sometimes referred to in the Blue Cliff Record as being a “board carrying fellow” -a carpenter with a board on his shoulder that blocks his view of everything else.
To be stuck in delusion, to think that that everything is enlightenment, that any thing I do is fine, misses the wonder of the “Great Way” – the beauty of True Self – our inheritance. One side can make us arrogant, right, the other, self indulgent and coarse.
As The Jefferson Airplane said “One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small.”
To prefer delusion is to become one with your life and death and enter the hall of endless mystery.
This evening the moon shines, pure and white
A magpie shrieks and shrieks in alarm
The lonely sound makes me think of home
But where oh where can I return?
Ryokan
For Joko Beck
photo credit: gregor_y
by Daniel Doen Silberberg | Jun 7, 2011 | Uncategorized, Zen
“And, again, it has been discovered that all the world is made of the same atoms, that the stars are of the same stuff as ourselves. It then becomes a question of where did our stuff come from. Not just where did life come from, or where did the earth come from, but where did the stuff of life and of the earth come from? It looks as if it was belched from some exploding star, much as some of the stars are exploding now.
So this piece of dirt waits four and one half billion years and evolves and changes, and now a strange creature stands here with instruments and talks to the strange creatures in the audience. What a wonderful world!”
From Zen Teacher Daniel Doen Silberberg to Science and Dharma teacher Richard Feynman – gratitude for your life – deep bows.
.photo credit: kevindooley
by Daniel Doen Silberberg | Jun 5, 2011 | Uncategorized, Zen
John Daido Loori Roshi
Our fear has us on the run. Sometimes it’s some old story, something that happened to us that we won’t let go of. It becomes our life story – an excuse for being struck.
We become afraid of changing or people but we don’t admit we are afraid – not even to ourselves. Instead we are timid or angry or stubborn.
It might be a good time to turn around and face fear, but first we have to stop blaming everything and everyone else, we have to stop hiding in our heads. Instead we can really admit we are afraid and become a warrior and practitioner of the Way.
Then we can turn around and face our fear before it sinks its teeth completely into our scurrying butt.
photo credit: tinctoris
by Daniel Doen Silberberg | May 30, 2011 | Uncategorized, Zen
It’s amazing that even at this point in our evolution we can still believe in the completely unprovable. We have learned a couple of things. Sacrificing your first born does not stop thunderstorms or insure a good corn crop. The earth is neither flat nor does the sun revolve around it. Perhaps we can now add the “Yellow Brick Road” theory to our list of extinct ideas.
The theory goes something like this:
Upon arriving at a certain place in the yellow brick road: the right job, the right relationship, the right amount of money, we will achieved a state of happiness which will persist. The reason we are not fulfilled is that we just haven’t gotten there yet. OK now, how can we prove this: who do we know that has gotten there and affirmed this theory. The short answer as far as I know is: nobody. This fairy tale has diminished countless lives.
When we have the courage to let go of this yellow brick road theory, where are we? We are right here. We are “Wayfarer” (travelers) of the Way. The way of life and death. We are free of the “Yellow Brick Road” prison. In Zen we say, the nose ring that we have been led by has been removed from our nose.
Being free we can choose to pursue anything. We are no longer at the mercy of an unproven, illusory theory.We can play in the field of life.
In fact we are just fooling around in a very serious way.
photo credit: countrygirl0
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