The Dude and the Zen Master by Jeff Bridges and Bernie Glassman (NY: Blue Rider Press, 2012 ISBN 978-0-399-16164-3)
(page 8) [BG] I was an aeronautical engineer and mathematician in my early years, but mostly I've taught Zen Buddhism, and that's where we both met. Not just in meditation which is what most people think of when they hear Zen, but the Zen of action, of living freely in the world without causing harm, of relieving our own suffering and the suffering of others.
(16) [JB] Mark Twain said, "I am a very old man and have suffered a great many misfortunes, most of which never happened."
(22) [BG] An English philosopher said that whatever is cosmic is also comic. Do the best you can and don't take it seriously.
(23) [JB] So I have this word for much of what I do in life: plorking. I'm not playing and I'm not working, I'm plorking.
(31) [BG] In Zen we say that the other shore is right here under our feet. What we're looking for - the meaning of life, happiness, peace - is right here. So the question is no longer, how do I get from here to there? The question is: How do I [get] from here to here? How do I experience that fact that, instead of having to get _there_ for something, it's right here and now? This is it; this is the other shore. In Buddhism we sometimes call it the Pure Land.
(39) [BG] Finally I realized that practice and enlightenment were endless so enlightenment experiences would keep happening. And since an enlightenment experience is an awakening to the interconnectedness of life, the awakening will keep deepening. It begins with the sense of my self being my body, and it stretches until my self is realized as the universe.
(60) [BG] You might call him a Lamed-Vavnik. In Jewish mysticism, there are thirty-six righteous people, the Lamed-Vav Tzaddikim. They're simple and unassuming, and they are so good that on account of them God lets the world continue instead of destroying it. But no one knows who they are because their lives are so humble. They can be the pizza delivery boy, the cashier in a Chinese takeout, the window-washer, or the woman selling you stamps in the post office.
(68) [JB] At the same time I'm reading about the Tibetan Lojong practices, which are basically slogans all about leaning into these uncomfortable situations and opening up to them as if they're gifts. One in particular strikes me: _Always maintain a joyful mind._ Appreciate the struggles as opportunities to wake up.
(69) [JB] So I suggested we do something that my wife and I do sometimes. We sit opposite each other. One person expresses what's on his or her mind and the other person just listens and receives, till the first person has no more to say, and then we switch. We keep on doing that till both of us feel like we're done. Sometimes the shift happens, sometimes it doesn't; it's a jam.
(72) [BG] One day he [Huineng, the Sixth Patriarch] goes to the market to sell his wood and hears a monk chanting a line from the _Diamond Sutra_: "Abiding nowhere, raise the Mind." If you can abide nowhere, you are raising the mind of compassion. So here's this guy who knows nothing about Buddhism, a woodcutter, but when he hears that verse he has a profound enlightenment experience.
(75) [JB] Shunryu Suzuki, who founded the San Francisco Zen Center, said that if something is not paradoxical, it's not true. If you say that abiding nowhere is the same as abiding everywhere, then abiding and not abiding are kind of the same thing, too. It can get very confusing, and true at the same time.
(129) [BG] For me, being at peace means I'm interconnected.
NB: Integrity as peace
(130) [BG] I'm Buddhist, but as you know, I'm also Jewish. The Hebrew word for peace is shalom. Many people know that word, but what they may not know is that the root of shalom is shalem, which means whole. To make something shalem, to make peace, is to make whole. There's a Jewish mystical tradition that at the time of the Creation, God's light filled a cup, but the light was so strong that the cup shattered into fragments scattered throughout the universe. And the role of the righteous person, the mensch, is to bring the fragments back and connect them to restore the cup. That's what I mean by peace. For me, peace means whole.
(137) [BG] Even when people see the value of something, the desire to keep their identity as a conservative, a liberal, or anything else can be stronger than their sense of interconnectedness - even if it means that kids go hungry. _How can I work with a liberal, even if we have the same goals?_ It makes no sense, but the differences can take over. That's what we fight wars about.
(141) [JB] Another practice I find interesting is tonglen. That's a Tibetan practice that helps us connect with others' suffering and our own. I'm kind of a beginning student of it, but one idea I really like is that your feelings are not just _your_ feelings, we all have them. So in some ways, you're a representative of what it is to be alive. As an actor, I feel that I represent a community, the family of man and woman, and my job is to show how different people will act in different situations, like the father in _American Heart_. So when it comes to feelings of struggle and suffering, you're not alone; your suffering is on behalf of the whole group, on behalf of all of us.
(143) [JB] Johnny's [Goodwin] point of view was that A440 is a relatively modern standard of tuning and basically it's an arbitrary thing. [Chris] Pelonis, who is an acoustical engineer, said that A440 is not just the frequency of the note A but is also the earth's vibration. Earth has a basic resonance, and that's why A became the standard. He summarized it this way: "the region of 440 is by Supreme design and not arbitrary or coincidental."
(146) [BG] That sutra [the Heart Sutra] talks about the state of not knowing, so if you're at one with the sutra you're in resonance with the entire universe. Of course, we are always in resonance with the entire universe because we _are_ that universe. But how do we become aware of it? How do we experience? By getting into that space where that's _all_ we experience, where there's nothing but A [the whole sutra can be understood in one letter].
(178) [BG] I have lots of hope. Expectation is the bummer; that's where I get into trouble. As long as hope is without expectation or attachment, there's no problem.
(194) [BG] I've played with changing that vow [of the Bodhisattva] to: Beings are numberless, I vow to serve them. It sounds less arrogant and more possible. But whether you serve them or free them, you're helping people see that there is no one truth, that everything they believe or that others believe is just an opinion.
(199) [JB] And he quoted Tolstoy: "As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields."
(200) Marian Kolodziej, Catholic Pole who was one of the first prisoners in Auschwitz and later painted murals of the barracks in Oswiecim, "The Labyrinth."
(206) [JB] Many people think about children as their immortality. She [Bridges' mother] said that they're really closer to your mortality. When you have a child, you have another pair of eyes, another heart that you love more than your own, but you have no control over them.
(233) [BG] Being a Zen teacher, I know that frustrations come out of expectations, but in this case [Israeli/Palestinian peace] I was really attached to seeing big changes.
(257-258) [JB] Buddhist Five Remembrances
I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.
I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health.
I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.
All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.
My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand.
from _Plum Village Chanting Book_ by Thich Nhat Hanh
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