Mettai provided a link to a commentary on Master Dogen's Japanese Robin Hood story in her comment on yesterday's post. I asked, and Mettai delivered (gassho). The commentary is by Bonnie Myotai Treace, dharma heir of John Daido Loori and formerly Vice-Abbess of Zen Mountain Monastery and later Abbess of Fire Lotus Temple in Brooklyn. She now teaches independently.
In her commentary on the story, Myotai notes, "This one thing—zazen—is huge. Everything is contained in it. That’s why it can be practiced exclusively. This is Chikaku’s Robin Hood activity—giving away money, sacrificing his career, creating a life in which no other thing is going on. And each of us faces that moment over and over again, when the leap, the astonishing shift from self-involvement into involvement in the whole thing, requires us to do what doesn’t seem possible. Sometimes our leaping is grand; sometimes it’s really mundane."
I've had the good fortune to have met Myotai on a couple occasions. Back in 2003, I spent a weekend a Zen Mountain Monastery while she was still teaching there, and we briefly exchanged some very kind words. She later came and visited our Zen Center here in Atlanta, and I was assigned responsibility to drive her to the Amtrak station for her return home. I don't know if I've ever met someone as direct and focused as Myotai. When you talk to her, you realize that you have her full and total attention - her mind is not wandering - and it has a profound and very intimate effect. When she engages in conversation, her complete and full presence is in that very conversation at that very minute, and she speaks with complete and sincere honesty. The depth of her practice is apparent in the way she so directly and wholeheartedly interacts with the world, and these two brief meetings affected me profoundly.
Later in her commentary, she states, "Many of you know that my dog and best friend Lobo is quite old now and he’s going through a lot of health challenges. He’s a great being, and one of the things I’ve learned from him and love in him is his wholeheartedness. When he was a puppy he seized any opportunity to run, to just go. It was nothing but joy to run as far as he could, as much as he could, as often as he could—to just run. Now he can barely stand up; he falls over about one out of every four times he gets up. But, once he gets his feet underneath himself, he just goes. He limps as far as he can limp. It’s the same heart and it just wakes me up over and over again. I hope I can continue his life and his teaching without his body to remind me. He has beginner’s mind in his old age. I don’t want to see it stop."
We should all, as they say, become the person our dogs think we are. Lobo points towards wholeheartedness to Myotai, and Myotai points towards the wholeheartedness of Chikaku, and Mettai points me towards Myotai's pointing, and I point out Myotai's wholeheartedness, and Mettai's wholeheartedness, and the wholeheartedness of all.
In her commentary on the story, Myotai notes, "This one thing—zazen—is huge. Everything is contained in it. That’s why it can be practiced exclusively. This is Chikaku’s Robin Hood activity—giving away money, sacrificing his career, creating a life in which no other thing is going on. And each of us faces that moment over and over again, when the leap, the astonishing shift from self-involvement into involvement in the whole thing, requires us to do what doesn’t seem possible. Sometimes our leaping is grand; sometimes it’s really mundane."
I've had the good fortune to have met Myotai on a couple occasions. Back in 2003, I spent a weekend a Zen Mountain Monastery while she was still teaching there, and we briefly exchanged some very kind words. She later came and visited our Zen Center here in Atlanta, and I was assigned responsibility to drive her to the Amtrak station for her return home. I don't know if I've ever met someone as direct and focused as Myotai. When you talk to her, you realize that you have her full and total attention - her mind is not wandering - and it has a profound and very intimate effect. When she engages in conversation, her complete and full presence is in that very conversation at that very minute, and she speaks with complete and sincere honesty. The depth of her practice is apparent in the way she so directly and wholeheartedly interacts with the world, and these two brief meetings affected me profoundly.
Later in her commentary, she states, "Many of you know that my dog and best friend Lobo is quite old now and he’s going through a lot of health challenges. He’s a great being, and one of the things I’ve learned from him and love in him is his wholeheartedness. When he was a puppy he seized any opportunity to run, to just go. It was nothing but joy to run as far as he could, as much as he could, as often as he could—to just run. Now he can barely stand up; he falls over about one out of every four times he gets up. But, once he gets his feet underneath himself, he just goes. He limps as far as he can limp. It’s the same heart and it just wakes me up over and over again. I hope I can continue his life and his teaching without his body to remind me. He has beginner’s mind in his old age. I don’t want to see it stop."
We should all, as they say, become the person our dogs think we are. Lobo points towards wholeheartedness to Myotai, and Myotai points towards the wholeheartedness of Chikaku, and Mettai points me towards Myotai's pointing, and I point out Myotai's wholeheartedness, and Mettai's wholeheartedness, and the wholeheartedness of all.
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