The Dana Paramita: The Act of Giving

We breathe in.
We breathe out.
We take from the universe.
We give to the universe.

The act of giving is Dana, the first Paramita, the first Perfection. Dana we discover is really a two-way street, receiving and giving, breathing in and breathing out.

I write this note to ask you all during this time of giving to remember our Zen Community, Both Sides / No Sides here straddled on the U.S./Mexico Border. We’ve been fortunate to have the use of the sanctuary at the El Paso Unitarian Community for our Tuesday evening services. For this opportunity we pay $100 a month. So far we’ve been able to pay each month, but for a few months we’ve had to wait a couple of weeks to gather enough funds for our payment. And to be honest our payments have fallen on the shoulders of several of our members who are with us every week. We have no reserves, and we will have expenses beyond the use of the UU sanctuary. I ask each of you to give as you are able. If you cannot attend our services and wish to give, please send a check to John Byrd @ 701 Texas Avenue, El Paso, TX 79901. On the memorandum line note that the check is to the Both Sides / No Sides Zen Community. John is our treasurer and keeps exact records of receipts and payments.

And oh yes, we will be sitting this Tuesday, the 14th, at 7pm @ 4425 Byron. And by the way, there are Six Paramitas, or Perfections—

Dana Paramita: Generosity, giving of oneself.
Sila Paramita: virtue, morality, discipline, proper conduct
Kshanti Paramita—patience, tolerance, acceptance
Virya Paramita—diligence, effort
Dhyana Paramita—concentration, contemplation
Prajna Paramita—wisdom, insight

The Human Brain: So Who Are We?

"Jill Bolte Taylor got a research opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: She had a massive stroke, and watched as her brain functions -- motion, speech, self-awareness -- shut down one by one. An astonishing story."


Note: I thought this post was already up on the Both Sides /  No Sides blog but when I went and looked for it, I couldn't find. That's because it was on my personal blog. I was looking for this interview for a practitioner who is studying with me--indeed, a person who has had an experience similar to Ms. Taylor's--and so I thought I'd add it here for future reference. Mike LaTorra, aka Gozen, a Zen priest and abbott at the Las Cruces Zen Center  sent the link out on his list way back in April 2008. The video went viral for a while and I've thought about it much since. I have some differences with with some of the conclusion, but that's cool. Her talk is most important. At the link, you can read and copy the text of her talk, but I highly recommend that you watch the 18 minute video. It's a most remarkable lecture--scientific very interesting, witty and wise.  

  / Bobby Kankin

Ms. Taylor, a neuroanatomist at Harvard, experienced a stroke on the left side of her brain, and because of her expertise she was able to witness the separation of her right and left brain lobes and to understand precisely how they each see the world. The talk is eight-plus years after the stroke, the time it took for her to fully recover. She became, in her words, in those few hours before help arrived like a new born baby in a woman's body. She had no language, no skills, no baggage of her 37 years on the planet. Yet, it was euphoria, a leap into what she called nirvana. And she realized during the experience that was soon to be dead. Luckily for us, this last transition didn't happen. She awoke finally in a hospital, startled to be alive. Her talk brings up incredible questions for me as a citizen of all the different communities where I hang my hat, for my work as a poet and writer and for my practice as a Zen Buddhist, those nagging spiritual or religious (I hate both those words, so much baggage) interests I carry around in my heart.



She says toward the end of her talk--

So who are we? We are the life force power of the universe, with manual dexterity and two cognitive minds. And we have the power to choose, moment by moment, who and how we want to be in the world. Right here right now, I can step into the consciousness of my right hemisphere where we are -- I am -- the life force power of the universe, and the life force power of the 50 trillion beautiful molecular geniuses that make up my form. At one with all that is. Or I can choose to step into the consciousness of my left hemisphere. where I become a single individual, a solid, separate from the flow, separate from you. I am Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, intellectual, neuroanatomist. These are the “we” inside of me.

Coincidentally, about the time I first watched this video Lee and I were on a roadtrip back and forth to Dallas and were listening to an audible telling of War and Peace (those 1300 miles weren't nearly enough for that huge book). Tolstoi describes Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who when almost fatally wounded on the battlefield having an almost identical experience as the one Ms. Taylor describes.

Thank you, Jill Bolte Taylor.
And Peace.

SERVICES CANCELLED FOR NOVEMBER 23, 2010

This long holiday weekend my youngest son Andy Byrd is coming home with his daughter, and Johnny Byrd’s birthday is Tuesday night, November 23rd, so I’ve decided to cancel our services for tomorrow night. Come next week, Tuesday November 30th, we’ll be ringing the bell again, bowing to our cushions—to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha—and sitting together in the big sanctuary of the Unitarian Center.

Light the candle on your altar and a stick of incense for peace in the city of Juárez.

Light the candle on your altar and a stick of incense for peace in our own hearts and minds.

I hope you are all well and that your practice is strong.

I bow to each of you.

Bobby Kankin

Practicing the Dharma: Buddhist Chaplaincy Program

Thanks to Mike Dretsch for sending this link via his Facebook page. Mike is a member of our Sangha although he lives in Georgia. His practice is leading him into new places. He is busy sewing his black rakusu. I thank him for his practice.

Watch the full episode. See more Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.

New Altar for our Sangha

With many thanks to Hogaku Shozen McGuire Roshi (aka Roshi Ken), our sangha--Both Sides / No Sides Zen Community of El Paso / Juarez--now has a new altar for our practice. A few months ago when we first moved into our new digs at the Unitarian Community, Roshi Ken asked me if there a particular piece of furniture that we needed.

An altar, I said.
How do you like your altars? he said.

Ken is an accomplished wood-worker, as you can see from the photo of his workshop in Las Cruces. We talked back and forth. Since we must move stuff and set up every practice session, we needed an altar that is portable, but it also needs to be big enough to store all of our paraphernalia--the bells, the mukugyo (the fish), the incense bowls, all the odds and ends. Also I wanted the top to be hinged with handles on the sides for carrying the altar from one place to the next.

Yes, yes, I can do that, said Roshi Ken.

And besides, he added the extra ingredient--the stand and the altar are separate, which makes moving it from one place to another simple for a pair of zensters. Please join us on Tuesday nights, 7pm, at 4475 Byron in El Paso, and you can enjoy our altar with us.

Postscript: Some notes. Roshi Ken is in the business of wood-working (please visit his Zen Furnishings website) but he gave us this altar to us as Dana. "Dana" is the First Paramita, the first perfection, and it means generosity, the act of generosity. I have received it in that spirit. He didn't ask for anything in return, but I wrote him a personal check for $40 to cover his materials. We bowed to each other--giving and receiving, the act of reciprocity. He also gave us a beautiful hand-crafted incense bowl made of wood. It has two square containers, one for burning of incense and the other to hold the granules of incense that we offer during our incense ceremony. This was not a gift, but I took it along on $40 of credit which I hope the Sangha can pay in the near future. I write all this because we must remember as a Sangha our responsibilities in the everyday world, the marketplace. We pay $100 a month for the use of the wonderful sanctuary at the Unitarian Community. We did have a bit of a surplus, but that is no longer true. Please consider adding to our Dana Bowl, either when you sit with us or by mail. Johnny Byrd is our Sangha's treasurer. He can be reached @ (915) 861-9214. Or you can send a check to him at 701 Texas Avenue, El Paso, TX 79901.

Many thanks and a deep bow to all of you for your continuing practice.
Bobby Kankin

How to Eat Your Lunch

Going out to lunch in Galveston this last Saturday I took along John Daido Loori’s little book Bringing the Sacred to Life. Its subject is how to consciously practice our liturgy in the Zendo, how to perform our daily practice in our homes and, simply, how to practice out in the world. How to make our daily practice sacred? One of the subjects is eating. It's something we do everyday, but usually we're not paying attention, we're not conscious of the activity of eating. We read a book, the newspaper, we talk to others (real or imaginary), we daydream, we make plans. According to Zen, if we are eating, then we should eat. The point is to be conscious during the process of eating. So here:

We take our food in a bowl. We call the bowl the Buddha’s bowl. Master Dogen said:

"The Buddha bowl is not an artifact, it neither arises nor perishes, neither comes nor goes, neither gains nor loses. It is not concerned with past, present or future. This bowl is called the miraculous bowl."

Miraculous because it’s used in a miraculous event, at a miraculous time, by a miraculous person. On this account, when a miraculous event is realized, there is a miraculous bowl. There is no need to search for the miraculous. We’re surrounded by it, interpenetrated by it. Our very life is a manifestation of that miraculousness. When we acknowledge that the food we eat comes from the efforts of all sentient beings, past and present, we immediately identify with that Great Net of Indra.

Of course, after reading this passage, I had to set down my book, give a prayer of thanksgiving and pay attention to my meal. Spicy caldo de pescado. It was delicious.

I hope to see you tomorrow night.

Tea cups, Tuesday nights

Tuesday nights @ 7pm services and zazen seems to be working fine. Last week Susana, representing our Sangha during the incense ceremony and offering the tea, had to pour seven cups of tea. We only have nine sets of zafus and zabutons. And the interesting thing is that Susana and I were the only regulars. The usual suspects were working late, sick, traveling or caring for babies. The new folks (they sat strong, like champs) had come via a friend, word of mouth and the blog. One had come for a third time. My gosh, soon we’ll have to be buying new zafus and zabutons. I look forward to sitting with our Sangha this Tuesday.

But right now I’m in Galveston with my son Johnny. It’s a beautiful sunny day, the surf pounding against the Seawall. Last night, when we got here, I walked along the Seawall, the surf was at high tide, the roaring incessant sound of the waves, the moist wind coming off the Gulf. The seashore always attracts a wild and very diverse menagerie of people, and I’m so happy to be one of them. Our family has a lot of personal history in Galveston, which I won’t go into now, but the city feels like home in so many ways. So I’m glad to be here, although tomorrow we turn around and come back home. Our 3rd floor room has a tiny little balcony and that’s where I sat Zazen this morning. When it’s possible I like to drag my zafu and zabuton outside from time to time and sit. It makes me realize how important it is that the senses be engaged—actively passive—during zazen. It’s important to keep the eyes open during practice, to let in a little bit of light, not to focus on any object, but to simply have the sense of sight present in zazen. I have trouble with this. My eyelids begin to feel heavy and want to shut, and sometimes they do, but when I notice them shut, then I open them. The light is there. So is the sound of traffic on the Seawall, a gull screeching about its morning hunger, some children playing, a worker taking out the garbage and banging the dumpster door shut.

Sit strong and straight. Breathe easy.

Bobby, aka KanKin