Category Archives: Dharma Bum

Everyone Thinks They’re an Artist

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Finding your True Self through ceramics, or any other art form, takes time and focus and diligence and acceptance.

Below are excerpts from another Tricycle article by Christina Moon. Here’s hoping you also are inspired by her words and example.

http://www.cristinamoon.com/about

“Everyone Thinks They’re an Artist”

Ceramics, Zen, and the true purpose of Zen in the arts (and the arts in Zen) By Reverend Cristina Moon APR 25, 2024

The thing about approaching the arts through Zen is that, by looking at any art as more than just an art but as a Way, you start to see how the state of your mind, body, and spirit is reflected in everything you do. The product of your art is a snapshot of the state of your mind in the moments of creation. 

All of the rich and varied feedback that’s a part of Zen training told me the same thing. Because of my habits and attachments, I was far from my True Self. I was already me, of course, and perfectly so, but also just a little off. 

Nakazato Sensei likes to chide other potters, saying, “Everyone thinks they’re an artist.” Instead of trying to make art, he says, we should just make things that are useful. And we should make lots of them.

I can see clearly that my sensitivity and strength in handling the clay has grown.

As time passes, I continue to see myself reflected back in these small plates, which is to say that they are more straight, upright, sturdy, and striking—but still have a lot of room for improvement.

Reverend Cristina Moon lives and trains at Daihonzan Chozen-ji in Honolulu. Her first book, Three Years on the Great Mountain: A Memoir of Zen and Fearlessness, about her first three years living and training at Chozen-ji, is being published by Shambhala Publications on June 18, 2024. Available for pre-order now. Moon’s writings can be found at http://www.cristinamoon.com

http://www.cristinamoon.com/book-event

The Spirit Is for All

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The Center for Action and Contemplation provides another message of diversity and inclusion. Check out the excerpts from their message below and the two contributing authors as well.

The Spirit Is for All

Thursday, May 23, 2024 at cac.org/daily-meditations/the-spirit-is-for-all/

Author Lisa Sharon Harper describes the diversity of the early church: 

At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit rushed in and caused all those present to speak in languages that were not their own. Each person understood the others…. God established the confusion between languages at the Tower of Babel (see Genesis 11). At Pentecost, God brought the languages together, but not in the way we would imagine. God did not unite the world under one imperial language. Rather, the power of God made it possible to have unity in the midst of diversity. God made it possible for people to speak languages that were not their own and to understand one another.    

In other words, all the cultural, economic, and gender barriers between them were broken down. [1]   

Theologian Luke Powery names how the Holy Spirit’s presence is given for all, not just some:  

No human voice or body is denied the presence and fire of God. Humans, regardless of ethnicity or race, speak a multiplicity of languages to reveal the diversity of God from the beginning, which is the vision of the end….  

Pentecost… creates a new world. It is a new creation ignited by the Spirit. The Spirit may be “unsought” or “unwanted” but is “intent on making all things new.” [3] This includes new flesh, a new body for the people of God. [4] 

References:  
[1] Lisa Sharon Harper, The Very Good Gospel: How Everything Wrong Can Be Made Right (New York: Waterbrook, 2016), 183–184.   

[2] Zora Neale Hurston, The Sanctified Church (Berkeley, CA: Turtle Island, 1981), 91. 

[3] Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, The Holy Spirit (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2015), 35.  

[4] Luke A. Powery, Becoming Human: The Holy Spirit and the Rhetoric of Race (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2022), 70–71, 73, 75. 

lisasharonharper.com/about-lisa/

chapel.duke.edu/staff/rev-dr-luke-powery

Emily Bronte’s Faith Poem

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“A deity synonymous with Nature … (Emily Bronte’s) poem of faith … finds its affirmation not through anthropomorphic rendering but in a pantheistic (and multiverse?) vision of Deity’s universal immanence.”

RJ’s analysis of Emily Bronte’s poem is both instructive and inspiring. Check it out at the link below.

Emily Brontë’s Faith Poem: “No Coward Soul is Mine”

Zen Is the Religion of Brushing Our Teeth

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Below are excerpts from a delightful post by Myojin on the purpose of religion and why Zen is different.

Hope you enjoy this as much as I did.

Religion as a bastion of idealism

For some it’s the belief in an all-powerful, all-knowing God, who cares about our lives.

For others it’s about a better way to live, through morality, devotions, spiritual practices; prayer, meditation. Be the aim union with divinity, greater connection to others, to live more fully in the moment

Any practice is based on the premise that there is a better way to live than the way we are living now.

If zen is a religion it’s the religion of getting up in the morning and brushing our teeth. It’s the religion of ordinary things, stripped of fantasy and exposed to stark truth.

Zen is making up our minds that since we are here anyway, living life, we may as well do it well.

Excerpt from How to Free Yourself from the 7 Obsessions

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I hate to wait and that has been a life-long challenge for me. Below is an excerpt from a recent Lion’s Roar article that helps me better understand why.

Valerie Mason-John, M.A. is a public speaker and master trainer in the field of conflict transformation, leadership and mindfulness, the author of ten books and the Co-Founder of Eight Step Recovery, an alternative to the 12-step program for addiction.

http://www.valeriemason-john.com

How to Free Yourself from the 7 Obsessions

To free ourselves from habitual patterns, says Valerie Mason-John, we need to see how they have become part of our identity.

VALERIE MASON-JOHN 8 MAY 2024

Watch your thoughts; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become stories.
Watch your stories; they become excuses.
Watch your excuses; they become relapses.
Watch your relapses; they become dis-eases.
Watch your dis-eases; they become vicious cycles.
Watch your vicious cycles; they become your wheel of life.

Every time we habitually react, the past is present.

We transcend our habits by allowing a part of our superego to die.

For more from Valerie Mason-John check out these two websites:

http://www.lionsroar.com/how-to-free-yourself-from-the-7-obsessions/

http://www.valeriemason-john.com

Finding Home in Ourselves

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“Don’t forget … to call yourself Home.” Kaitlin Curtice

This is a beautiful excerpt from the Center for Action and Contemplation about Kaitlin Curtice’s writing on the sacred legacy of home.

Check out both links identified below. You will be comforted and edified.

http://www.kaitlincurtice.com

Finding Home in Ourselves
 
Author Kaitlin Curtice writes about the sacred legacy of home:  

May we always return to the places where the stories begin, to challenge them, to accept and honor them, and to whisper to ourselves and one another that we are always, always arriving. 

Don’t forget, 
my love, 
to live. 

Don’t forget 
to love yourself, 
all of you, 
from every season 
and every place, 
because you never know 
when they will 
come knocking for 
a cup of coffee 
and an overdue hug. 

call yourself Home. 

Excerpts from The Departure and the Return

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Richard Rohr and the Center for Action and Contemplation offer another provocative post at their Daily Meditation site: cac.org/daily-meditations/the-departure-and-the-return/

Below are a few excerpts that especially interest me, and hopefully you as well.

“We are created with an inner drive and necessity that sends all of us looking for our True Self, our true home, whether we know it or not. This journey is a spiral and never a straight line. …  

We dare not try to fill our souls and minds with numbing addictions, diversionary tactics, or mindless distractions. (We are) found, precisely in the depths of everything, even and maybe especially in the deep fathoming of our fallings and failures. … 

If we go to the depths of anything, we’ll begin to knock upon something substantial, “real,” and with a timeless quality. We’ll move from the starter kit of “belief” to an actual inner knowing. This is most especially true if we have ever (1) loved deeply, (2) accompanied someone through the mystery of dying, or (3) stood in genuine life-changing awe before mystery, time, or beauty. …   

Like Odysseus, we leave from Ithaca and we come back to Ithaca, but now it is fully home because all is included and nothing wasted or hated: even the dark parts are used in our favor. … What else could homecoming be?  

Poet C. P. Cavafy (1863–1933) expressed this understanding most beautifully in his famous poem “Ithaca”:  

Ithaca has now given you the beautiful voyage.  
Without her, you would never have taken the road. 
With the great wisdom you have gained on your voyage,  
with so much of your own experience now,  
you must finally know what Ithaca really means. [1] “

References:  
[1] See C. P. Cavafy, “Ithaca,” in The Complete Poems of Cavafy, trans. Rae Dalven (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1961), 36–37. Paraphrased by Richard Rohr. 

Mindful Sensing

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“Let go of those activities that no longer serve.” And I might add, don’t be a slacker nor a martyr. There is a middle way.

Below is the link to Lynn J Kelly’s latest post that helps us better understand how our compulsions and lack of mindfulness are not serving us very well. It’s far better to choose wisely how we focus our attention.

Mindful Sensing