But live

 As shonin approaches 77, she takes stock of her intellect and finds it ... gummy. The most one can hope for is that this is a peaks-and troughs experience, and she's going through a trough. But she knows, by interior inquiry more than from doctors, who tend to wave her off with talk of sleep apnea, that she's not getting enough brain food by day as well as night. She spends some time with her cannula, whiffing concentrated oxygen, and watches earnest videos by younger and brighter folks as the days wear on.

When there is some energy, she walks, cooks, gardens, gathers herbs and forbs for tea, plays at being doshi (altar officiant) for a tiny sangha. During the last peak, she read aloud some poems to YouTube.

It's a long, slow spring with April frosts, confusing for plants that have seen temps as high as 80F already. But she, and they, persist.

After all, what is there for the living to do, but live? 

-- shonin

No problem

 

 
People who are unwell may find that their options appear to be limited. Waking with a dry mouth and eyes and a hammering heart, they wonder if they are going to be able to get up this morning; then they find (this time) that they can do it. They get up and go do a few chores, then find themselves short of breath and the hammer heart has not gone away, which is a little new. They go back to bed and sleep at midday, then awaken to find there is a cup of tea left for them on the side table by a concerned family member. It's not quite hot; that was an unexpectedly long nap.

Perhaps they struggle up again, re-heat the tea, and, spilling a little (Oh, hot!), wander out back to sit in the sun, going over what chores remain that could be done somehow. "I might move that little ash tree that came up in the lawn, find it a better home. I wonder where the shovel for that is."

Planning a task is not failure to be in the moment. Those who go out shopping must sequence their activities: "bag, check. List, check. Keys, check. Phone, check. Okay, leave a cup of tea for the old-timer and say I'm going out. Oh, she's out cold. Well, she'll figure it out. I'll just tiptoe away."

All these activities are miracles of right now. Planning and listing are the sort of thing those new to zen may feel they must struggle against, but not so. The past vanishes into memory and the future is merely ideation, but these memories and ideas are indubitably part of the present moment.

The trick is to be all of you all the time, because you are all of the universe, with its air and warmth and tea passing through "you," along with the sound of jays out back for the old-timer and the changing colors of the stop light for the shopper. If what you are doing is what you are doing, inhabit all of it, like a star shining into all parts of its stellar system and on into the great beyond.

-- shonin

Katagiri says: 

Taking care of right now is coping with an emergency case. So when a moment comes, whatever happens, just face your life as it really is, giving away any ideas of good or bad, and try your best to carry out what you have to do. You can do this; you can face your life with a calm mind and burn the flame of your life in whatever you do. This is Buddha’s practice. That’s why teachers always tell you to practice, devote yourself to doing something, and forget yourself. When you forget yourself and put your wholehearted effort into facing every moment, you can do something, and simultaneously you can rest in the continuous flow of life energy. Then you really enjoy your life. 

Suzuki adds:

Knowing that your life is short, to enjoy it day after day, moment after moment, is the life of "form is form, and emptiness emptiness." When Buddha comes, you will welcome him; when the devil comes, you will welcome him. The famous Chinese Zen master Ummon, said, "Sun-faced Buddha and moon-faced Buddha." When he was ill, someone asked him, "How are you?" And he answered, "Sun-faced Buddha and moon-faced Buddha." That is the life of "form is form and emptiness is emptiness." There is no problem. One year of life is good.

Nothing need stop us

Slow moving illness
provides time to review
things done, not done:
release them all

Sitting in the new hut, Manzoku-an, or Hermitary of Quite Enough, she is running out of needs.

Buddha's great discovery was re-discovered millennia later. It's called the Second Law of Thermodynamics. As dharmas (things or beings) 

are not, or do not have ... 

... states ... 

... but are bundles of energy arriving and departing ... 

... they are ephemeral. 

All are equal, all equally evanescent. Resting from concern or anguish over that which is as it is, nothing need stop us from enjoying ourselves, as we might an evening of fireflies.

-- shonin


Whether I sit or I lie,
My spirit roams with the origin of things.
Singing alone or rhyming alone,
My joy runs to the edge of the sky.
-- Songs of National Preceptor Wongam (1226–1292) tr. Whitfield, Park

 

Lily

Dear Sangha, meet my new toy.

In my own case, it's not yet what it may seem: I walk a lot. Even hike, admittedly with two sticks. But I absolutely cannot stand in a queue. I have obtained the device to get in line for vaccinations and such.

I like it; amazing what all I can store under the seat. I'm sure it will come in even more handy later. 😄 What with the Second Law and all.

I think I will call it Lily, as it is my lily pad where I can sit and wait for whatever turns up. In the evening Jupiter, bright, resplendent. In the morning Venus, resplendent, bright.

-- shonin

A frog's way of sitting is much better than our zazen. I always admire their practice. They never get sleepy. Their eyes are always open, and they do things intuitively in an appropriate way. When something to eat comes by, they go like this: gulp! They never miss anything, they are always calm and still. -- Shunryu Suzuki

In the inn that is this world
People come and go in a flash.
The moon shines on the hill bamboo,
Alone I sit and hear the kingfishers.

Spring rain, a pondful of frogs:
Going in and out, like the drum beat,
Chanting and turning a thousand sutras.
What is the use of reading texts?

All my life I have lacked cleverness,
My early learning was sleeping beneath the trees.

-- Poems of Cheongheodang (1520–1604) tr. Whitfield and Park


If you want to comprehend this essence, you should know that the voices of frogs and worms, the sound of wind and raindrops, all speak the wonderful language of the dharma and that birds in flight, swimming fish, floating clouds, and flowing streams all turn the dharma wheel. -- Bassui

 

The luminous moon drifts by so lightly,

The sutra hall lies silent without a sound.

Bits of moonlight pierce the cracks between the bamboo,

Its round refulgence perches in the intersecting pine branches.
The dew dampens the nests filled with noisy swallows,

The wind combs the grasses filled with croaking frogs.

I sit with the master after the ceremony is over

As, face to face, we straighten out our robes.

-- Shiyan, in Daughters of Emptiness tr./ed. Beata Grant

 

furu ike ya / kawazu tobikomu / mizu no oto
an ancient pond / a frog jumps in / the splash of water -- Bassho

At my shady house,
My two legs stretched lazily,
I find endless joy
In hearing the summer frogs,
Singing in a hillside field.

-- Ryokan (tr. Nonoyuki Yuasa)

 

In Place 61

Last day in this hut, she takes in

sun, shadow, familiar walls;

collected things seem to her

reluctant as she to leave

The farm has passed beyond her strength and will, and she turns toward town.

Though we do not preach the doctrine,
Unasked the flowers bloom in spring;
They fall and scatter,
They turn to dust. 

--Ikkyu, tr. R. H. Blyth

In Place 59

A plague strikes; she moves to the hut

for ten days. Wheezing Heart Sutra

is hard, so just think the words

and pretend it is not thinking 

 

 

In the first week of March, 2020, the farm's gate is closed on advice of the government. It turns out she has already inhaled something. Things seem a little crazy in the hospitals out there, so she elects to sit it out alone, visiting the family through the laptop's video camera. She treks to the hut with baskets of food and sets up cough-keeping. Not sufficiently aware of her precarity to be frightened, she lives slowly, cooks small meals, drinks homely teas, wonders how the little dog is doing.

Without hindrance, the mind has no fear.
--Heart Sutra

 

In Place 44

Plant vegetables; this provides

exercise and sharpens observation

as well as making food and tea

available to you and others





We cultivate ourselves indoors and we cultivate ourselves outdoors, hoe in hand.

A couple of beds inside the fence, of kale, chard and potatoes mostly, keep the old woman busy in her tiny kitchen. As she waters the garden, small birds dart through the spray to catch a drop.

We empty our minds in the hall for creating buddhas, where some naturally open their flower of awakening in this monastic garden in the hills.
-- Hongzhi, quoted by Dogen in Eihei Koroku, 250 (tr. Leighton and Okamura)