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A Sagely Word
Read the Bible
Doesn’t matter New Testament, Old Testament
Or even the Torah.
Maybe more fascinating
Boundless wisdom is there.
You having Jewish background,
How much you know about your own tradition?
Or being Christian, the same.
You have abundant wisdom there.
How to take it as your life
As your genjokoan
(lit. “The Way of Everyday Life”)?
*Taizan Maezumi, Teaching the Great Mountain: Zen Talks by Taizan Maezumi.
Soto and Rinzai Zen Master, 20th Century.
Commentary
The dualistic mind often shows up in meditation instruction. An example is the differentiation between “concentrative meditation” and “awareness meditation.”
Meditation needs to be a combination of the concentrative and the being aware. This is the Middle Way of meditation.
How do we practice this Middle Way of meditation? We integrate concentration with awareness. We take an object. This object can be our breath, a mantra, a prayer word or phrase, a physical object (i.e. a lighted candle, an icon, a sacred picture), beads, or a rosary. We put our concentration on the object. If the mind wanders, we refocus, returning to the object. We have awareness, likewise. If we concentrate too hard we can enter some dead-like state, a frozen kind of unawareness. We can be a stone Buddha or a rock Jesus. We have much concentration, and no awareness.
We must apply awareness and concentration. This balance keeps awareness from being so pervasive that our mind wanders all over the place. This awareness is a sense of openness toward the object. We do not strain the attention, for that would be too much concentration. A slight concentration with a gentle awareness of the object is what we seek.
Early in meditation practice, we have to place more attention on concentration. We are just learning to discipline the mind. Earlier in practice, we experience this like a waterfall. We find out that we thought we were well disciplined, but that closest to us, the mind, is jumping around like an elusive flea.
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As we develop more concentrative discipline, meditation leans more toward awareness. The goal is to have concentration within the openness of awareness. Then, we find, this awareness becomes, progressively, a loving openness. This openness learns the joy of the beauty of the moment, as one grows in the sacred intercourse with the all.
We find being a Buddhist, a Christian, or whatever path we are have chosen, is as much about this life as any metaphysical notion of another. We know that if we do not know God now, there is nowhere else to know God. We find that we can touch and be touched by this God, whatever we call the Wonderful Presence, if we can be here and aware we are here. We do not have to construct some grand Buddha construct or be a Christian theologian, for God is as close to us as our breath, our heartbeat, or the person looking with us eye-to-eye. God becomes larger than our system, then we learn to see how God is already in this moment with everyone else.
So, the result of meditation is not to become great at meditation. The intent is to grow into a growing loving awareness, a gracious embrace of life, coupled with insightful compassion for all beings, in all realms. We cannot just be compassionate. We can be very hurtful to others out of compassion that is not insightful. And, insight is not enough. We need insightful compassion. That is what we need to really help heal this world and bring in nirvana, the Kingdom of Heaven.
With spiritual awareness, life becomes our friend, even with the challenges it brings. This is beautiful. Very wonderful!
Spiritual Exercises
1. Do your daily prayer, meditation, and spiritual reading, …
2. How does Maezumi express graciousness to those of the Jewish and Christian faiths? How does this compare or contrast with how many theists of the Christian faith treat persons of other religious or spiritual-philosophical paths?
3. How might loving awareness be contributory to your daily life, as well as the health of your relationships, daily?
4. Find the lyrics or, preferrably, the words and music of "Have I Told You Lately," by Rod Stewart. Listen. What does the song say about Love? Longing for such passionate, faithful Love? How can your spiritual walk express passionate love toward God, Christ, a saint, or a holy sage?
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