Time: March 3, 1:30-4:30
Location: Pure land of Iowa, Clive
Time: Sunday, February 26, 1:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Location: Pure land of Iowa, Clive
Time: Saturdays, May 21st-July 9th; 9-11am
223 South Walnut Avenue, Ames
Just quietly sit down and notice what’s right in front of your eyes. It’s simple. No need to go somewhere. Dogen Zenji says, “The Way is basically perfect and all pervading. What good does it do to travel around to practice?” Wake up with the circumstances present in your life right now. Don’t wait for some future time when things will be “better.” That future time may never arrive.
We are constantly judging and comparing ourselves with our previous self, the self we want to become, or the selves of other people, wanting to become something other than what we are today. However, Enlightenment in the Soto school is impossible to attain by self-improvement. While practice never precludes continual refinement of our actions and following the 16 Bodhisattva Precepts, it’s about accepting where and who we are in this moment, because in the next moment the strong winds of life change us, just as the cloud transforms into a different shape, second after second. Like the cloud, it is not us (=ego self) that changes ourselves, but life that transforms us.
“Even people in the secular world must concentrate on one thing and learn it thoroughly enough to be able to do it in front of others rather than learn many things at the same time, without truly accomplishing any of them.”
What if we were to accept that our view of the world is almost always concealed, limited, and incomplete? What if we were to accept that what we are seeing is never the full picture?
© 2021 All rights reserved
