Lost Coin Notes 1/18/2010 

Welcome to Ananya 

Business: Retreat in August some place in the Bay Area-maybe Burlingame 
& in March Park City UT 

D: We have been working with negative emotions. After years in various groups of practitioners from Gurdjieff to monastic Zen it was shocking to see that many were not very nice- many were angry and fearful. After years of chanting "Forgive me for all evil karma ever committed by me since of old on account of my beginningless greed, anger, and ignorance" it seemed that many were missing something. In the Gurdjieff practice memebers were taught to repress negative emotions, but it would come out in other ways. 

It became apparent that the practice itself doesn't remove negative emotions. Leaders often were very negative, but being in a position of power and authority, it was hard to point that out, and it would propagate among the community. The Zen direction is to go from enlightenment to integration, while Tibetan Buddhists tend to start from the general and move towards the specifics of enlightenment. Lost Coin Zen adapts this approach.  

We began with Fear and Anger and moved last week to greed. The third negative emotion we will look at is 'clarity.' 

The Koan system as a way of teaching became a curriculum around 600-700 c.e.. Koan means public case and Mumonkan is likened to a law library. In China they would post scrolls with edicts like "No spitting on Tuesday," these are the public laws like the Mumonkan. 

So why Clarity? A Joshu Koan helps explain: 

Since to express the Way verbally is not the way (The way that can be spoken of Is not the constant way) a Monk ask's Joshu-- 

M: What is the great Way? 

J: The Great way is not difficult it just avoids picking and choosing 

M: Then if you don't pick and choose than where do you stand in clarity? 

J: This old monk does not abide in clarity 

M: If you don't abide in clarity then where? 

J: Make your bows and go! 

"Shan jo shui" or "Mind like water"may be the name of the next book and a valuable metaphor for Shikantaza...  To not believe or dwell in clarity is freedom. So we will try to see how all beliefs are limits. And we stop the narration and the story 

Isan and the Buffalo: "So one of his favorite koans that he would say to his monks was that in many years from now, in two hundred years, at the front gate of this monastery I will be reborn as a buffalo. And on the side of the buffalo will be written, 'This is monk Isan.' If you call it a buffalo, it's monk Isan. If you call it monk Isan, it's a buffalo. What will you call it." (Taken for accuracy from http://www.dharmaweb.org/index.php/The_Blue_Cliff_Record,_Case_24 By John Daido Loori Rosh)  

Doen: When working with this Koan the teacher will ask depending on where you are with it- "Where does this story really happen?" 

One Mind- How does this manifest if one is angry all the time? Apprehension happens before ego- We are all just both waves and the ocean. 

So this weeks exercise is to look at places of clarity and drop that clarity to get unstuck- as the old zen saying says: "It's like tying yourself to a post without rope." 

Brief discussion of how Thetans stole our soul in Scientology doctrine. How Gurdjieff introduced similar ideas... Conscious evil rarely exists- but our egos always want it to be different- let people be who they are... "External change is internal change." In the 12'th century the Japanese Buddhists were often Samurai. They would sit in the morning with One Mind and then chop off heads all day- equally committed to both. Sitting and doing are the same thing. "When you sit- sit. When you stand- stand" Highly recommended: 
http://www.amazon.com/Art-Just-Sitting-Second-Shikantaza/dp/086171394X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264196781&sr=8-3 

http://tinyurl.com/ylj4v6c  

The Art of Just Sitting, Second Edition: Essential Writings on the Zen Practice of Shikantaza by John Daido Loori 

Cultivate looking at where you are stuck and where you believe... 
