Detroit Big Time Wrestling

When I grew up in Detroit every Saturday pro wrestling was on television. Very hyped, and the wrestlers were very colorful.

Guys like Bobo Brazil, Haystacks Calhoun, Dick the Bruiser, Killer Kowalski, Leaping Larry Chene, The Sheik. And, of course, the announcer, former wrestler, the very proper gentlemanly Lord Athol Layton.

Memory highlight ... When a competing wrestler boasted about his strong gut muscle — Pepper Gomez claimed to have a cast-iron stomach — Dick the Bruiser posed a challenge. He had the fellow lie down at a corner of the ring. Dick then climbed up onto the top rope and jumped down. 

The camera went to black, then came on again ... to show Dick's knee pulling away from Pepper's groin. Ouch!

Lord Layton went full apoplectic, decrying it the most unsportsmanly thing he had ever seen. Some theater though.

Once, by happenstance, I met Leaping Larry Shane. We were at the beach and there he was, with his two children. My friend was his nephew. Larry was built like a tank. It stuck with me how he handled his kids. Rough, brusk; but not abusive. Must've grown up to be tough kids.

Happy Endings

All roads lead to Rome. All paths end in silence.

Meantime, what to do? 

Practice.

So, why do we practice? Follow the Dharma? Do Sadhana? Meditate?

Simply to not find yourself at the end of the road in a pile of junk, holding on to old stuff, baggage; but by living free of what you haven’t got in the first place so that at the [apparent] end you move on to as you were before when you started.

From a Worthy Wise ...

At the moment, we have all sorts of fixations on what we see, hear, taste, smell—everything we experience. Our experience of ourselves and of the outer world is the result of these fixations, which are the source of all our delusions. Understanding the nature of mind frees us from them and the suffering they cause. But fixations exist in various areas of the Dharma as well. Lama, buddha, yidam really do exist, and it is because of them that we can receive their blessings, realize the attainments, and realize mind’s nature.

Nevertheless, their true existence is not material like that of crystal, gold, iron, or stone. Their essence is emptiness, their nature lucidity, and their appearance the expression of unobstructed wisdom. It is vital for us to think of them this way, and not think that they exist as something physical. Understanding them like this, we can have real faith in them, join our mind with theirs, and remain absorbed. Some people go astray in their practice; they have faith in the lama, the Buddha, and think that they actually exist and have form, hearing, sense of taste, and so on. This point is extremely important to understand, but these days such understanding is rare.

There is a famous saying: If we become attached to them, There is no greater fetter than the divine states. If we fixate on them, There is no greater obstacle than the attainments. If we become attached to divinity, it will hold us captive, and we will remain bound by it. Likewise, if we are attached to attainments in practice, they become huge obstacles. Attachments to the things of this world are like straw chains; attachment to things of the Dharma are like chains of gold; their value is not the same, but the straw ones are easier to break. 

– Kalu Rinpoche

Good News! There is no hope!

 

Paraprosdokians!

Winston Churchill loved paraprosdokians, figures of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected.

1. Where there's a will, I want to be in it.

2. The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it's still on my list.

3. Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

4. If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong.

5. War does not determine who is right - only who is left.

6. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting
it in a fruit salad.

7. They begin the evening news with 'Good Evening,' then proceed to tell you why it isn't.

8. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.

9. I thought I wanted a career. Turns out, I just wanted pay checks.

10. In filling out an application, where it says, 'In case of emergency, notify:' I put "DOCTOR."

11. I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.

12. Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street...with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.

13. Behind every successful man is his woman. Behind the fall of a successful man is usually another woman.

14. A clear conscience is the sign of a fuzzy memory.

15. You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.

16. Money can't buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live with.

17. There's a fine line between cuddling and...holding someone down so they can't get away.

18. I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not so sure.

19. You're never too old to learn something stupid.

20. To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.

21. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

22. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.

23. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.

24. I'm supposed to respect my elders, but now it’s getting harder and harder for me to find one.

25. I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn't work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness.

26. Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

27. I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather. Not
screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.

28. We never really grow up; we only learn how to act in public.

29. A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a
train stops. On my desk, I have a work station.

30. How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes
a whole box to start a campfire?

31. Some people are like Slinkies ... not really good for anything,
but you can't help smiling when you see one tumble down the stairs.

32. Dolphins are so smart that within a few weeks of captivity, they
can train people to stand on the very edge of the pool and throw them
fish.

33. Why does someone believe you when you say there are four billion stars but check when you say the paint is wet?

34. Why do Americans choose from just two people to run for president and 50 for Miss America ?

35. A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

36.  The voices in my head may not be real, but they have some good ideas!

37. Always borrow money from a pessimist. He won't expect it back.

38. A diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you will look forward to the trip.

39. Hospitality: making your guests feel like they're at home, even
if you wish they were.

40. Money can't buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live with.

41. Some cause happiness wherever they go. Others whenever they go.

42.I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not sure.

43. When tempted to fight fire with fire, remember that the Fire
Department usually uses water.

44. You're never too old to learn something stupid.

45. Some people hear voices. Some see invisible people. Others have no imagination whatsoever.

46. A bus is a vehicle that runs twice as fast when you are after it
as when you are in it.

47. If you are supposed to learn from your mistakes, why do some
people have more than one child?

Romantic Love

 Romantic Love

Recently we've been watching the early episodes of a TV show entitled Manifest. Passengers on a plane land arriving back after a few hour flight to find themselves in a time five years into the future. Hijinks ensue. It's complicated.

Almost as preposterous as that series The Dome where an entire township suddenly finds itself covered and isolated under a huge glass-like dome. [Cocaine creativity? Well, somebody's using all that dope. And, judging by the so many ridiculous storylines out there, yeah, something "extra" is for sure fueling all that bogus creativity.]

On with the show ...

One young woman who finally decides to accept a marriage proposal while on that return flight discovers her beloved boyfriend is now two years married ... to her best friend! A father travelling separately from the rest of the family [due to overbooking] with his young son comes back to his wife and now teenage twin daughter. Problem is that his wife has found a new love, and it's serious. The daughter also had bonded with the new guy. The new love was just about to move in when the husband comes back from the dead.

Perfectly understandable dilemma. The tale is in how it will unfold. Raises so many questions.

So, let's talk about love.

What is love? We use the word ubiquitously. I love Ice Cream. I love my Mother. I l love Pizza. I love you. Get it? Love stories. Songs of love; about love. Love found, love lost. Love in the back seat. And, we use the word in a way that assumes we all know exactly what it is we're referring to when we utter that beloved four-letter word.

In the final analysis, Love cannot be defined. I don't think so. It just is. God is Love. Really? Then, how do you explain the Democrats? Just kidding. Sorry. Not.

Romantic love, however, as I said, there's no shortage of descriptions and definitions. We've all been "In Love". So taken by another that it seems there is no other choice than to win them over and hold them close ... forever, and ever. Something like that. Right? It's a great feeling. You don't want it to stop. It can be so consuming that you can't think of anything else. So, you latch on to the object of your love. Happily ever after. Or, so you would want.

So here's the deal: Is that feeling you feel as love coming to you from the beloved? Or, is the beloved merely a projection of the love that is innate, already there is full measure? Good question, huh?

If you're woke to "Samsara" you know that what's called romantic love is an economic driver. A central item in the human myth. What makes the world go round. So if you're into Samsara you go about looking for all kinds of things. Love, for sure. You marry for love. The divorce, when [as it will] the bloom is off the rose and there are other fresh flowers out there for the picking.

Romantic love. Perhaps the greatest delusion in the history of the species. Not that great feeling of love in our hearts. No, the notion that the feeling of love is something from the outside, something to obtain, something to hold on to.

I can't prove any of that. Just posing the question. Decide for yourself. It's a toughy. When Cupid strikes, we're all suckers for love. Yet, there's also the choice to unpack the love that is already there, complete and unalloyed, right there in the center of every heart. Maybe, just to go there.

There's lots of guidance on that path. If you care to live in Love. Not just with it.

Who's You're Daddy?

Who's You're Daddy?

Today is Father's Day 2021. A little while back I set out to write something for this occasion. So much to unpack. "Proustian Rush."

In my mind, I could write a book. But, that would be just another story. One that I would tell. Which doesn't have anything to do with how my children would tell their version of it. Bottom line: Whatever others may think of me, is none of my business. When I first heard that it fell onto my lap like a ton of bricks. Important life lesson. [See, there I go telling you what's what. You may balk. But, what's the matter with you that just because I may assert something as true that you can't give it some thought?]

Which brings me to ...

When my young ones were in their early school years there was a watershed moment between us. I was full of opinions ["was", that's rich]. I had just told them something or other, and got this sassy come-back, "Whatever you say goes back to you!" A variant: "When you point a finger, there are three others pointing back at you".

I was stumped. The truth of it hit me loud and clear. As in, before you can teach, you must first have learned. Where I was remiss as a Father was to point out, while that is certainly true, it may also apply to you kids too. What's good for the Goose ...

That one time marks the moment when I probably lost any ability to influence my children's lives in any direct sense. As in, do it just because I said so. I don't think there's anything they would now do just because I told them, or even asked them. Unless, of course, it happened to coincide with what they already were inclined to do. Once when they were in a social setting with me and lots of people, they were getting too rambunctious. I told them to settle down. "Why!" The hostess overheard this and snapped, "Because he said so!" I lost my prerogative of command rather soon in our relationship. Too bad. I might be full of it, but they may have missed out on an important lesson: Only those who obey can command.

My children are grown with children of their own. I am certainly over as a Father figure, or even as a presence in their lives. On appearances, anyway.

When I think about this situation — and I do ... often — I'm reminded of that little bit of wisdom pig-headedly turned back on me. Whatever I may think of the why's and wherefore's of our estranged relationship, I come back to how it is, in reality, a mirror in which I see myself reflected. Also, as a parent I hold myself duty-bound not to reify my loved ones into some self-held mental image; like a fly in Amber. That may be the trouble spot in many relationships. When the other ceases to be Thou and becomes them. You relate to the loved one filtered, colored by the story you built up about them in your head. Are we really separate? I'll leave that to the Wisdom of the Ages to explicate. Short answer, no. Absolutely not.

Nevertheless, it's a test of trust in the knowing workings of the Universe to accept how what you hold most dear and important in your life seems to fall on deaf ears. Gifts unopened. Even the offering of them taken as an offense. Not even open to listen at all.

Their refusal I am also duty-bound as a parent to look at what that brings up for me. A mirror. A blessing really. I'm full of gratitude to my children. In the way they are, and the way they aren't in my life. Or, as that may seem to be.

It is my concern for my children that the part of their hearts they have closed off to me isn't available to them to share with the ones they love. That they may not [yet] have done the necessary and inevitable soul-searching to see how the grievances they hold against this Old Man have not been transmuted into blessings. Bugger is that putting that out to them has come back to me as me just trying to justify myself to them. The old Apologia Pro Vita Sua. There's some truth to that, I admit. But, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. A solution to what's bugging you is not shunting it away. I don't know if they get that. As I said ... trust.

Yes, the lesson for me as a Father is to trust. Trust that the path I walk, with as clear a light as I can sincerely generate, is not truly separate or alone. That we may be separated in the nominal sense of space and time, but our connection is there, shiny and bright as it ever was. Or, ever shall be.

Some stories, with a point ...

When we lived in Brooklyn on a few occasions I took the kids on outings. Just me and the two of them. Once to collect Horse Chestnuts at an old tree in Greenpoint Cemetary where we were confronted by a pack of feral dogs and brought home a lame duck to nurse back to health. The dogs left us alone and the duck after a few days flew away home.

There was another time when the three of us went to Coney Island off-season. Maybe November. As we walked the beach they would find all kinds of interesting litter and, with a great deal of irony, offer it to me as a gift. Bottle caps and pieces of wood and glass worn smooth by the sand. Four small pieces from what must've been a Coca-Cola bottle.

Years later from a high school trip to Mexico the older kid brings me back a Hog's tooth said to have been found near a cemetery. Or, at least that's how I recall it. Nice when your children remember and bring back some ritual between us from the past. But, a Hog's tooth? Cemetary? Inscrutable. Loaded with possible meaning(s) for someone like me with an overly tuned psychic sense to churn over.

I saved those four pieces of green glass. I wrapped them up in a beautiful lavender-colored piece of hand-made paper and brought that as an offering in Darshan with a world-renowned spiritual teacher. Darshan has a rich significance. First, it's a meeting with a holy person. Deeper, it's a meeting with the divinity within oneself. The custom is to pranam [bow] at the Guru's feet. Many, especially in the west, take this to be demeaning, a loss of dignity. Kowtowing. Really, it's about demonstrating a surrender. Not to the Guru sitting in the chair, but the Guru sitting in your own heart.

So there I was in the line waiting to have my darshan. At that moment it was clear to me that the outward ritual, in reality, reflected an inner going toward the center of my own heart, my soul. I placed the package in the offering basket as a gesture to ask God to protect my family. I had recently divorced and my path took me away from being an everyday presence in their lives. When I have thoughts of concern about my children, I remember that moment in Darshan. And I offer my concerns to the Lord. [That is not to say that I won't or don't take action as I am prompted to, but it's about relinquishing the concern itself. Again, not in some don't-give-a-shit way, but in the certainty that my concerns would only weigh on my loved ones. So I practice letting go. And ... practice.]

So. Who's your Daddy? No Dad should go unremembered and unappreciated. Especially on Father's Day. But, if so, Dad should take it in stride and turn even that into a blessing.

Dad's Blue Chair

Dad's Blue Chair

He lived alone for years after his dearest darling wife had passed away. Then one day, he went too, just short of 100 years.

Everything was sold away. Except for that old blue chair.

The chair was there when a young man brought his new bride home. A wedding gift, made for them by his father.

Often in their early days it was their love nest, and he would hug and kiss her while she nestled softly on his lap and in his arms. 

It supported him as he waited eager and nervous for the news of the birth of his son; and, then again, his baby girl. 

So many times he would sit there helping to prepare the dinner vegetables. His specialty was string beans; laying a sheet or two of an old newspaper on the table to catch the trimmings.

It gave a trusty lift for reaching burned-out light bulbs. He told stories there with the grandchildren sitting at his feet. He even stood on it once and conducted an orchestra as a concert blared on the radio. It served for a fair share of spankings to naughty children. 

And, then, so many times he sat there at the kitchen table mourning the loss of his dear bride.

The blue chair was there for it all, a witness to a rich life of times and people. Now, after all that, it was standing abandoned at the curb waiting for the trash pick-up.

One morning as I walked by, it spoke to me. It promised a wonderful story of times and people.

The chair had lost none of its gracefulness, even for the chips and the worn paint. The color too, had lost none of its beauty. I took it home. It’s an old chair and fragile, so I sit on it reverently.

It was true to its promise. As I sit there a story is unfolding. Not of detail and color and shape, from other times and people. But my own life. Sitting there, simply present with me, silent support as my own memories lose their fascination and concern.

Always in its long life a friend, and now to me.

Dad's blue chair.

Only One Way!

Set Your Buttocks Down and Train 

~ Tsoknyi Rinpoche

Most people suffer from being afraid of themselves, afraid of not being able to liberate the thought or emotion that is about to arise. At the moment the thought arises, they single it out as no good. You often hear that negative emotions are bad, but you don't know how to let them go. All these negative traits have been in you. But you can't not be how you are, so what do you do? For the unrealized person, there is only one solution: be depressed about it. All spiritual systems say negative thoughts are bad. You cannot find any that say negative thoughts are good. Really, are there any? Maybe some of them say that you should express them, let them out, but that is still because they know that negative thoughts are not good, that if you did not let them out you would just keep them festering inside. It is merely a different way of phrasing the same depressing information.

The main point is to be free of negative thought and emotion. The method of getting rid of these differ, of course. There are oceans of books written about how to do so, from both spiritual and psychological points of view. We all understand that attachment, aggression, closed-mindedness, and all the other selfish emotions make problems for people. There is a broad agreement that negative emotional states are difficult, painful, and bad because they cause problems for ourselves and for others. Everybody is in agreement about that. But how to be free, for real? That is not a settled matter. There is a lack of clarity about how to be truly free. No matter how much it is explained or discussed or thought about, the problem remains largely unsolved. Honestly, there is only one solution: set your buttocks down on the meditation cushion and train in how to be free. As far as I am concerned, that is the only way.

– Tsoknyi Rinpoche

Kamala!

Kamala Harris is not the Sarah Palin of the Democratic Party. I'm still pondering why SP got to sit in the number two spot next to John McCain. My sense is that the Republicans knew that the Dems were gonna win it and they gave Dear John his last hurrah. Palin, she may have been a test; like when in the trenches the lieutenant tells Kilroy to stick his head up over the edge to see what happens. Kilroy knows; he was there.

So, Kamala Harris. Not a fan. After that stunt interrogation of Brett Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court nomination hearing, in my book, she ain't nuttin' but a grandstanding, pandering opportunistic careerist with a winning smile and boxes checked for being "of color" and being a girl. Should we assume she was born female? Nowadays, I wouldn't be surprised if gender-at-birth wasn't something that political aspirants revealed as part of their resumes.

By now you've heard that Harris has "not been to the border". Someone said that if she and her predecessor Joe go to the US southern border they would have to own it. Instead, she's gone down to Rio to get at the "root causes". Great. Yes, Do that. But what about the bleeding patient on the doorstep? Crickets. Her message to the Central Americans, "don't come". Not, as in, we will turn you away; just don't come cuz' we can't cope with what's there now. 

That's it, isn't it? The current administration isn't trying to keep people from coming from other countries, they're trying to cope. Looks like not very well. But, KH and JB never had their own eyes on the ground to grok the situation first hand. Why is that important? In the marketing of a packaged good product we regularly went on "store checks" to get a first-hand sense [and report] of what the actual situation was for our product in the marketplace. It's a whole level different than sitting in an air-conditioned office dreaming up things to do to sell your brand.

Here's Kamala after it looks like she thinks she nailed it by repeating "We've been to the border" several times to the NBC softball reporter. He managed to show a little ball with his pointed question, but shrunk them back real fast, like a good lad lacky of the Left.

Don't you love that response? I'm thinking she's so cynical about the gullibility of her voter base that tossing just about anything out there will do the trick. Her end game retort we might expect to be ... "Hey, chill. It's not Trump after all."

If the video clip doesn't do it for you, here's a scenario with a similar structure:

And, by the way, she interrupted him, and he wasn't finished. Well, he is finished. But he also isn't. You know what I mean. You may have to explain that yourself to the kids.

But Kamala is a thoroughly modern woman. She's not shy about telling her partner when "she's not finished". 

That's what she said ...

In case you're needing perspective on the matter ...

Krishnamurti ...

If you don't know yourself you are a most stupid person ...

You may have all the academic degrees in the world, but if you don't know yourself you are a most stupid person. To know oneself is the very purpose of all education. Without self-knowledge, merely to gather facts or take notes so that you can pass examinations is a stupid way of existence.

You may be able to quote the Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads, the Koran and the Bible, but unless you know yourself you are like a parrot repeating words. Whereas, the moment you begin to know yourself, however little, there is already set going an extraordinary process of creativeness.

It is a discovery to suddenly see yourself as you actually are: greedy, quarrelsome, angry, envious, stupid. To see the fact without trying to alter it, just to see exactly what you are is an astonishing revelation. From there you can go deeper and deeper, infinitely, because there is
no end to self-knowledge.

Through self-knowledge you begin to find out what is God, what is truth, what is that state which is timeless. Your teacher may pass on to you the knowledge which he received from his teacher, and you may do well in your examinations, get a degree and all the rest of it; but, without knowing yourself as you know your own face in the mirror, all other knowledge has very little meaning.

Learned people who don't know themselves are really unintelligent; they don't know what thinking is, what life is. That is why it is important for the educator to be educated in the true sense of the word, which means that he must know the workings of his own mind and heart, see himself exactly as he is in the mirror of relationship. Self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom. in self-knowledge is the whole universe; it embraces all the struggles of humanity.

Think on these things.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj ...

The world is but a show,
glittering and empty.
It is, and yet it is not.
It is there as long as I want to see it
and take part in it.
When I cease caring, it dissolves.
It has no cause and serves no purpose.
It just happens when we are absent-minded.
It appears exactly as it looks,
but there is no depth in it, nor meaning.
Only the onlooker is real,
call him Self or Atma.
To the Self, the world is
but a colorful show,
which he enjoys as long as it lasts
and forgets when it is over.
Whatever happens on the stage
makes him shudder in terror
or roll with laughter,
yet all the time he is aware
that it is but a show.
Without desire or fear,
he enjoys it, as it happens.

When the mind is kept away from its preoccupations, it becomes quiet. If you do not disturb this quiet and stay in it, you find that it is permeated with a light and a love you have never known; and yet you recognize it at once as your own nature. Once you have passed through this experience, you will never be the same man again; the unruly mind may break its peace and obliterate its vision; but it is bound to return, provided the effort is sustained; until the day when all bonds are broken, delusions and attachments end and life becomes supremely concentrated in the present.

Zen Master Man Gong ...

"Everybody recognizes that they have lost something, but no one knows they have lost their true self." 

So, now ... what to do? Time for action:

Dudjom Rinpoche ...

Action is being truly observant of your own thoughts, good or bad, looking into the true nature of whatever thoughts may arise, neither tracing the past nor inviting the future, neither allowing any clinging to experiences of joy, nor being overcome by sad situations. In so doing, you try to reach and remain in the state of great equilibrium, where all good and bad, peace and distress, are devoid of true identity.

Sri Bhagavan SriRamana Maharshi - Upadesa Saram 

The Essence of Instruction

To know the Self is but to be the Self,
For It is non-dual.
In such knowledge
One Abides as That.

Patrul Rinpoche ...

Listen up, old bad-karma Patrul,
You dweller-in-distraction.
For ages now you’ve been
Beguiled, entranced, and fooled by appearances.
Are you aware of that? Are you?
Right this very instant, when you’re
Under the spell of mistaken perception
You’ve got to watch out.
Don’t let yourself get carried away by this fake and empty life.
Your mind is spinning around
About carrying out a lot of useless projects:
It’s a waste! Give it up!
Thinking about the hundred plans you want to accomplish,
With never enough time to finish them,
Just weighs down your mind.
You’re completely distracted
By all these projects, which never come to an end,
But keep spreading out more, like ripples in water.
Don’t be a fool: for once, just sit tight.

THE NOBLE BATTLE ... [Philip Kapleau, The Three Pillars of Zen]

Zazen that leads to Self-realization is neither idle reverie nor vacant inaction but an intense inner struggle to gain control over the mind and then to use it, like a silent missile, to penetrate the barrier of the five senses and the discursive intellect (i.e., the sixth sense). It de­mands determination, courage, and energy. Yasutani-roshi calls it "a battle between the opposing forces of delusion and bodhi." This state of mind has been vividly described in these words, said to have been uttered by the Buddha as he sat beneath the Bo tree making his supreme effort, and often quoted in the zendo during sesshin:

 
"Though only my skin, sinews, and bones remain and my blood and flesh dry up and wither away, yet never from this seat will I stir until I have attained full enlightenment."

The drive toward enlightenment is powered on the one hand by a painfully felt inner bondage-a frustration with life, a fear of death, or both-and on the other by the conviction that through satori one can gain liberation. But it is in zazen that the body-mind's force and vigor are enlarged and mobilized for the breakthrough into this new world of freedom. Energies which formerly were squandered in com­pulsive drives and purposeless actions are preserved and channeled into a unity through correct Zen sitting, and to the degree that the mind attains one-pointedness through zazen it no longer disperses its force in the uncontrolled proliferation of idle thoughts. The entire nervous system is relaxed and soothed, inner tensions eliminated, and the tone of all organs strengthened. In short, by realigning the physical, men­tal, and psychic energies through proper breathing, concentration, and sitting, zazen establishes a new body-mind equilibrium with its center of gravity in the vital hara.

With the body and mind consolidated, focused, and energized, the emotions respond with increased sensitivity and purity, and voli­tion exerts itself with greater strength of purpose. No longer are we dominated by intellect at the expense of feeling, nor driven by the emotions unchecked by reason or will. Eventually, zazen leads to a transformation of personality and character. Dryness, rigidity, and self-centeredness give way to flowing warmth, resiliency, and compassion, while self-indulgence and fear are transmuted into self­ mastery and courage.