Serendipitously, flow or the notion of being lost in ones passion has brought two wonderful tidbits into view. The first is a short 18min video of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Feb 2004 talk at TED. View it if you have any interest in creativity and how to develop it. Csikszentmihalyi is an author and researcher that pioneered the work that lead to our current understand of creativity, fulfillment and coined the term “flow” to discribe the experience of immersion one has when lost in ones passion. Csikszentmihalyi states the it takes about ten years of study, practice or immersion in a field before flow is possible. I see it a little different. Little practice equals little flow, great practice equals great flow. Maybe ten years is magic maybe not. We’ll see. I’m developing a new skill of carving wooden spoons. Some how I got it in my head that I’ll have to make 400 before I’ll get any good. Yet already I’ve created some wonderful spoons and I’m only on 23. (21, 22 & 23 are being worked on at the same time.)

The second tidbit is via “The Writers Bag”, a blog on writing from which I continue to learn from a lot. Cool stuff indeed.

The Hindu sage named Patanjali wrote this in his Yoga Sutras ::

“When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds. Your mind transcends limitations. Your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than what you ever dreamed yourself to be.”

Fall is here.
The rains have started.
The days are much shorter now.
The winter wheat planting has started.
Mr. Moose has been around looking for Mrs. Moose.

 
As Calvin of Calvin & Hobbes said, day by day nothing seems to change, but pretty soon everything’s different.
Including us.

Clearly we are living in troubled times. How we are is a reflection of how we act. The last part in the Buddha’s teaching called The Five Remembrances is “my actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground on which I stand.”  Finding a way to act that is helpful can be a challenge. I don’t have any answers. Silence is my teacher.

“It has been a troubling week. People keep asking me what they should be doing. My advice is still the same: get out of debt … and invest in learning — spend your time and money learning essential capacities that will make you resilient no matter what … Learn how to grow and make and fix and maintain your own stuff, and do so in community with people you love and trust (contrary to the old western movies, loners perish, while people with strong caring networks do well). Buy goods that are more durable, even if they cost more. Buy less. Value your money less and your time and relationships more. And pace yourself … the Long Emergency has clearly, now, begun.”

Dave Pollard How to Save the World

Confluence of the Grande Ronde and the Snake Rivers
Oregon, Washington and Idaho

I’ve become more and more aware that the quality of life is a reflection of the focus of attention. Also, attention and intention seem to be deeply related. When an intention is expressed, attention is naturally directed towards it. Clarifying intentions focuses attention. Focused attention is quality of life. From a Zen perspective, attention doesn’t lead to a good life — attention is life!
 
Dave Pollard is a creative being who, by sharing his intentions, has motivated me to look closer at my intentions. Dave has put aside the notion of “the resolution” and taken up expressing his intentions, ten every 6 months. He has developed a three step process for clarifying and stating these intentions.  
 

So preparing the Intention List becomes a three step exercise:
 
   1. What is your intention, in order to become who you really are, and be and do what you were intended to?
   2. What’s holding you back? What obstacle is blocking you from realizing that intention?
   3. What One Thing will you do remove or work around that obstacle?
 
So, for example:
 
   1. I intend to learn to be present, live in the moment, be aware, attentive, appreciative.
   2. I am blocked from doing this by my inability to quiet my mind and avoid distractions.
   3. The One Thing I will do to remove that obstacle is to study and practice meditation, regularly and diligently.

 
Dave’s experience with this has pointed him to the notion of the “One Thing”. Often our intentions are a bit nebulous in just how we are going to actualize them. Identifying just one thing that is an obstacle to success then putting attention on the obstacle’s antidote creates movement. Don’t get hung up on “The One Thing”. It can be a trap where we feel we have to come up with the best or right one thing.  There can be lots of blocks and each has an antidote. The idea is to pick one block and focus on the antidote. If the first one doesn’t work pick something another.  
 
So enough jabbering about the process and here are my intentions.  
 

• Evolve to become more attentive to the present moment, more attuned with those around me, more expressive of gratitude, more aware of where my attention is focused, and more conversational.
• Move more.
• Live simpler by owning less, consuming less, desiring less, doing less, and having more fun.
• Develop my creativity by playing in the woodshop.
• Reduce ’screen time’ — increase ‘nature time’. With what screen time remains, focus on sharing by + blogging, + posting photography, + help on #ubuntu, + Zen shanga website support, and + raven communication.
• Mentor myself at work to apply professional development techniques including improved delegation, improved training, improved documentation and practice “one kind thing”.

 
Well, there you have it. My attempt to bare myself a little more nakedly. I’ve ordered these intentions by relative importance to me and I have been vague about how I’ll actualize them.  
 
Now I can start the process of looking at each one and see if I can identify ‘one thing’ that blocks these intentions from existence and coming up with an antidote.
 
I’m not worried that I only have six intentions. I feel I’ve thought pretty big here. What a ride this would be if the blocks for my six little intentions where dissolved.  I feel free to modify, add or drop any intention at any time. I’m not stuck on reviewing these in 6 months or a year, in fact, a much more frequent, even weekly, review and reset will keep my intention in the focus of my attention.

Working Ants

Be strong and use the sword of insight.
It’s blade is sharp and bright as the vajra,

it severs confusion
and the pride of shining beings and demons.

Here we are encouraged to develop insight and use it to clear confusion and remove delusions. Insight is the antidote for pride. Pride in ourselves and the pride of others.

Sheng-Yen says “If you have genuine wisdom, please do not expound your ideas in uncontested monologues (including uncontested internal monologues). Unsheath your vajra sword (insight) and accept the challenge. If it is hacked to pieces, it obviously is not a true varja sword (insight). You must put your practice and attainment to the test.”

My knowledge is less than perfect. I look forward to being straightened out by my friends.
Will

Here is where you can get a copy of the Song of Freedom as translated by Yasuda Joshu Roshi and Anzan Hoshin Roshi.
If you want a copy of this poem with Robert Aitken’s translation intermingled, I have a PDF that I will email to requesters. It is always interesting to see how other practitioners translate these texts. It can shine fresh light on the poem. I can also recommend two other translations, both by seasoned practitioners and both with commentary. These are both books that are readily available.
Buddhism and Zen by Nyogen Senzaki and Ruth Strout McCandless
The Sword of Wisdom by Chan Master Sheng-Yen

The Danish Poet is a 7 minute short animation that shows both the interconnectedness of life and power of Youtube to spread love. Put this down as one of the noble uses of the internets.

With beautiful Liv Ullman’s voice telling me a simple tale, all the way
from Denmark. A tale of a Danish poet. Oh, go ahead. You have time for
a sweet story, don’t you?

Mony’s Woods Moth

Ignoring the treasure of Reality and losing the merit to Awaken self and others
is due to the eighth, seventh and sixth consciousnesses.

With direct insight into these, practice Zen
and realise the Unborn with Radiant Intelligence.

Sheng-Yen’s translation in The Sword of Wisdom helps clarify this for me.

Loss of Dharma wealth and the extinction of merits,
Are all caused by the mind consciousness.

Through the Chan door, understand the cutting off of mind,
And suddenly enter the powerful view of the unborn.

When the mind moves and makes distinctions, wisdom and merit are lost. Still the mind and suddenly —

Blackbirds crowd the feeder
On this snowy morning.

“The mind in motion is the destroyer of Dharma wealth and spiritual merit. If you mind does not discriminate or judge, you will immediately enter the Dharma gate of non-arising, but the instant your mind moves or seeks, you have already suffered losses.”

Sheng-Yen
The Sword of Wisdom

Sheng-Yen points out that this was Emperor Wu’s problem. His mind wanted to claim merit for his deeds and Bodhidharma tried to point out to him, with mind “no merit”. He demonstrated the unborn with his “no knowing” when ask how was standing before the emperor. Poor Emperor Wu.

My knowledge is less than perfect. I look forward to being straightened out by my friends.
Will

If you are joining us in progress, you can catch up by reviewing the first part of this break down of the Song of Freedom by looking at the discussion over at Jordan’s blog and my earlier posts.

Here is where you can get a copy of the Song of Freedom as translated by Yasuda Joshu Roshi and Anzan Hoshin Roshi.
If you want a copy of this poem with Robert Aitken’s translation intermingled, I have a PDF that I will email to requesters. It is always interesting to see how other practitioners translate these texts. It can shine fresh light on the poem. I can also recommend two other translations, both by seasoned practitioners and both with commentary. These are both books that are readily available.
Buddhism and Zen by Nyogen Senzaki and Ruth Strout McCandless
The Sword of Wisdom by Chan Master Sheng-Yen

Storm Clouds

To reject delusion and grasp at the truth
suits perfectly the mind of like and dislike.

Students who practice this way,
it’s like mistaking a thief as your son.

The operative words here are “reject” and “grasp”. There is no benefit in measuring delusion against truth. The rejecting and grasping attempts to make delusion and truth into something that they are not, fixed in time.

My knowledge is less than perfect. I look forward to being straightened out by my friends.
Will

I welcome comments, but I may integrate them into this commentary. If you are joining us in progress, you can catch up by reviewing the first part of this break down of the Song of Freedom by looking at the discussion over at Jordan’s blog and my earlier posts.

Jordan’s Blog
Jordan’s Song of Freedom Posts
Will’s Song of Freedom Posts

Here is where you can get a copy of the Song of Freedom as translated by Yasuda Joshu roshi and Anzan Hoshin roshi. I may attempt to post something that helps everyone find each passage.

ARROWLEAF BALSAMROOT
(Balsamorhize sagittata)

Don’t grasp at “voidness” and ignore cause and effect;
such reckless confusion leads only to suffering.

Rejection the truth and grasping at entities is also a mistake,
it’s like jumping into a fire to avoid drowning.

My friend, Jordan, is taking a break and I have offered to continue this experiment. Jordan is a lucky man, he has a wonderful family and a developing talent for playing the Shakuhachi. It is my hope that he will still participate when he can and keep me on my toes.

On first reading this section it sounds like classic Buddhist “middle way” stuff. Not too much voidness (absoluteness) and not too much entities (relativeness), just some nebulous middle way thingy.

Maybe, yet there is more here, so much more.

We can not ignore cause and effect and if we let cause and effect push us around, we are lost. We have conditions in our life that are the effects of past conditions. Clearing confusion and seeing this leads to the freedom to “have” conditions and not “be” them or be controlled by them. The times I’ve been free enough not to be caught up in my conditions I have seen how to use my confused states to look closely at their causes and be a bit more present. Being a bit more present is always a bit more skillful and leads to a bit less suffering. Bit by bit here we are.

Grasping, ignoring, reckless confusion, rejection, and more grasping. Sounds like the discription of a tormented life.

In his poem Song of Freedom, Yongjia points out what is helpful and what is not. This lands firmly in what is not helpful, states to be on the lookout for.

My knowledge is less than perfect. I look forward to being straightened out by my friends.
Will

If you are joining us in progress, you can catch up by reviewing the first part of this break down of the Song of Freedom by looking at the discussion over at Jordan’s blog.

Jordan’s Blog
Song of Freedom Posts

Here is where you can get a copy of the Song of Freedom as translated by Yasuda Joshu roshi and Anzan Hoshin roshi.