No Yellow Brick Road

* Julia Manach

No Yellow Brick Road

March 19 , 2004

Knee Deep in Grace

Posted at 15:00 EST

Dipa Ma is my last "finding" in the Internet. She influenced western teachers such as Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, and many others, but I never heard before about her, probably because she comes from a different Buddhist tradition, Therevada. I ordered a book about her, her life, her teachings, stories people tell. It's worthy and inspiring reading. She is described as a modern Buddhist saint who profoundly influenced the teaching of meditation in the West and a single mother who pursued spiritual practice within the context of family life. That's probably what I find most exalting, for her, meditation wa not different from "living":

"More importantly, in addition to formal sitting on the cushion, Dipa Ma urged students to make every moment of their lives a meditation. Some of us are busy people who find it difficult to set aside any time at all. "If you are busy, then busyness is the meditation," she tells us. "Meditation is to know what you are doing. When you do calculations, know that you are doing calculations. If you are rushing to the office, then you should be mindful of ‘rushing.’ When you are eating, putting on your shoes, your socks, your clothes, you must be mindful. It is all meditation!

For Dipa Ma, mindfulness wasn’t something she did, it was who she was-all the time. Dipa Ma made it clear that there is nothing wrong with lapses of mindfulness, with the mind wandering. "It happens to everyone. It is not a permanent problem."

"There is nothing ultimately to cling to in this world," Dipa Ma taught, "but we can make good use of everything in it. Life is not to be rejected. It is here. And as long as it is here and we are here, we can make the best use of it."

October 27 , 2003

Maha

Posted at 04:17 EST

"Maha is all inclusive, nothing is left out. In this sense maha also describes what's known as the Way (Tao). Since maha is no-ouside-and-no-inside, it is therefore the Way. By contrast, people tend to think that the Way is some kind of path, or that it referes to the way of doing things or some sort of direction that we take. But the Tao is everything. Each of us is the Way; each of us is walking the Way.

You remember Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz? Someone sets her on the yeallow brick road so that she will finally get to the Wizard of Oz. But there is no yellow brick road! We are already on it. Wherever we are, that is the yellow brick road, that's the Tao, that's maha. And maha declares that there is no outside or inside the path. Everything is the path; we are all on the Way. Where? It doesn't go anywhere! It's the pulsating of life everywhere."

Infinite Circle Bernie Glassman

October 16 , 2003

A new life

Posted at 05:37 EST

"How can anyone live a new life while protecting himself with rigid opinions based on his own egotism. My constant practice in daily life is just to observe and not form any conclusions; this is my meditation. Most of us make our accumulated karmic knowledge our private property, and use it as a yardstick for right and wrong, good and evil, and as a guide for choice and judgment. As long as we persist in this, we are like a hardened mass with no possibility of new life."

Sirisena, Sri Lanka countryman and householder (quoted by Zen master Hogen in his book “On the Open Way”)

October 10 , 2003

Enemies

Posted at 05:29 EST

From my bus reading today:

"One of the ancients said that a superior man succeeds his enemy, a man of average hability succeeds his benefactor, and an inferior man succeeds a figure of authority. The 'enemy' is he whose rigorous scoldings and stinging fists rob you of your heart, liver, and all your other vital organs. What is he if not your enenmy?"

October 9 , 2003

Change

Posted at 07:55 EST

We must become the change we wish to see in the world - Gandhi