A week of Zen? After visiting the Chattanooga sangha on Sunday, opening the Atlanta zendo on Monday night, and spending most of Tuesday on Zen-related activities, tonight I led the Wednesday-night newcomers orientation at the zendo.

Over the past year, my practice and observance of the precepts has largely been guided by Bodaisatta-Shishobo ("The Four Elements of a Bodhisattva's Social Relations"), a fairly short and concise fascicle in Dogen's Kana Shobogenzo. I gave three dharma talks on these four elements earlier this year, one each on dana (generosity, or giving) and on kind speech, and the third on the remaining two elements, helpfulness and cooperation. My understanding of these elements has even colored our Monday-night discussions on the short chapters of Dogen's Shobogenzo Zuimonki.

Neither dana nor kind speech have traditionally been among my greatest strengths, but I have been working on them. Helpfulness and cooperation have played a major role in my many volunteer activities this year. If someone sincerely asked me to do something, and that activity was within my capability and could reasonably be expected to result in good, I would try my best to do it. These activities have ranged from community advocacy on the Beltline project and other issues, to assistance with day-to-day activities at the Zen Center, to monthly visits to the Chattanooga sangha, and even to taking a new job at a firm that sincerely requested and needed my assistance (I start January 4).

Coming at this from the other direction, I've tried to minimize those actions that do not promote harmony, both personally, socially and spiritually.

On top of this, I've also been endeavoring to avoid "gaining mind;" that is, not looking for any reward or benefit from any of these activities (or inactivities). Do good and promote harmony, without consideration of merit or recognition. This seems like the practical means by which to realize the bodhisattva vow to free all sentient beings.

I mention all this not to congratulate or praise myself but, as I sometimes find myself entangled in the commitments and responsibilities to which I've agreed, to remind myself how I got here. If you get the impression from that last sentence that I now find myself in the middle of a complicated and sensitive matter that I can't talk about here, your intuition is correct.