the leaf: Celebrate Peace & Joy

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SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Home for the Holidays

At this time of year, meeting family and old friends ... how do you explain to them about "being a Buddhist "?

You may even start to feel a little guilty for not being part of the religion you were raised in.

How should we celebrate the holidays with friends and family?

My answer: Celebrate Peace & Joy!

SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO (Classic): The McBuddha

A discussion of McDonalds on the Treeleaf Forum ... coupled with the fact that it is a 'Father & Son' weekend (mom is at an Ai-ki-do meet) ... has led Leon and I to the playground at the local Golden Arches in Tsukuba.

It is not the first time I have sat Zazen at McD's (one reason being that the stores in Japan have internet). However, there is another reason too ...

I believe that our sitting should, most times, be done in a quiet room, facing a blank wall. The calm and outer stillness is important to our learning to settle the mind. But our Zen Practice is also all about being out in the world, amid the chaos ... learning to touch, while in the rat race, the very same stillness of mind that we find on the Zafu. So, I encourage all Zazen sitters to do some of their 'sittings' in obnoxious places ... noisy, foul smelling, unpleasant or emotionally difficult places. That is why I do a portion of our sittiings on this blog next to the side of highways, in train stations, in downtown Tokyo and the like. Everyone should do 'mini-sittings' during their day too: in the postal line, when cut off by a crazy driver in traffic, when work and family become overwhelming ...

Furthermore, our usual Zazen is non-focused on open ...

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http://treeleafzen.blogspot.com/

http://treeleafzen.blogspot.com/