The Heart of the Matter

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An Impromptu on One of the Buddhas Five Rememberances

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Haiku For You?

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In the fog of my mind that is this winter cold, it has been occurring to me over and over to revisit this old blog and to see about putting some life into it, and so here goes my latest attempt at doing a bit of writing. Each Ango, we take up ways to deepen our practice of the BuddhaDharma. This deepening can take many forms.  In fact, it can take on as many forms as our lives take, but to access that freedom it helps to draw a magick circle and proclaim to ourselves and the world "This is Practice!" This helps, because if we try to simply go right away to 'everything I do is Zen' inevitably we miss it.   So one of the magick circles that we make is Art practice, and I love it. In fact, Art practice was one of my main entry ways into the BuddhaDharma.  As a Jazz musician I could see the resonance between what I did with the music and what my teacher was pointing to, but beyond that I learned from his pointers how to realize this for myself.  Now most ze
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A Short Meditation on Pets and Reincarnation

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A Pug Encounter the Five Remembrances for the First Time! In all Buddhist traditions, we honor a teaching called the five remembrances in which we recall that we are all of the nature to grow old, to have ill health and to die.  The realization that all which is dear to us is of the nature of change and therefore that there is no way to escape being separated from them is the beginning of wisdom as we see it.  It is actually because of the impermanence of things like our beloved pets that they are precious, and calling this fact to mind daily helps us to not take them or ourselves for granted. And. The true nature of our pets is the same as the true nature of ourselves, and the true nature of the cosmos itself.  All forms are forms of this same true nature, and from the realization of that nature we can say that we are nether born nor do we ever die.   And so our beloved pets, and family, and loved ones who have passed away are at once gone and we grieve their loss, an
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