Notes from May 16th

Before class there was much discussion on the “best” Chinese restaurant in San Fran.  The two that were mentioned are:

 Spices II 291 6th Ave (at Clement) ph. 752-8885
 Carousel 1559 Franklin (between Austin and Pine) 771-2044

I’m partial to the Great Eastern, which is on Jackson - just east of Grant.

Monday’s class was divided into two parts; the first part was about Bodhi Dharma and how he brought Buddhism to China.  Part two was a recap of our 30 day goals that we had set in April.

Part One

Buddhism was brought to China by Bodhi Dharma, who travelled 3 years to get there.  Initially, he was not welcomed, so he sat for 9 years in a cave, facing a wall.  Haiku (not sure of the name) was someone who eventually became one of Bodhi Dharma’s students.  He went to Bodhi Dharma and asked to be his student, when he was refused by Bodhi Dharma, he chopped of his arm.  The result of this act changed Bodhi Dharma’s mind, and he took him on as a student.

Mind itself is the awakened one.  You can’t get out of awakening.  

No mind, no Buddha.  When we are here with no ideas, then everything is clear.  We can’t grasp it, because we can’t get outside it.

Practice is all about empowerment. We need to learn to surrender our ideas in favor of lineage that is given by our teacher.  When we do that, then our teacher can empower us.  By putting our faith in Dharma or the teacher, it’s the same as surrendering to our true mind.  It’s carrying our mind to us.

We think about things too much, instead of experiencing them.

Part Two:  Summary of our 30 day goals

Everyone gave an update on their progress with the task that they were going to commit to for 30 days.  For some of us, we committed to doing too much.  For others, we picked things that were too close to our every- day routine (or something that we would do anyway), so the challenge becomes learning how to pick something that you wouldn’t “normally” do.  For some it was learning how to allow ourselves to fail “The truth is not in thoughts”, and for others the intention was there, however circumstances prevented us from being able to continue on for the full 30 days.