A student asked Zen Master YunMen, “What are the teachings of a whole lifetime?”

YunMen said, “An appropriate response.”

— Blue Cliff Record, Case #14

We have been waiting for “it” to be over, but it continues and grows. When neither fight nor flight seems like an option, we freeze to face the unimaginable.

“The two most difficult things humans do is being born and dying” is one of my favorite statements from Norman Fischer, a poet, author, and Zen Buddhist teacher and priest, (I had the privilege to listen to him and meditate with his group) “and everybody accomplishes them. So most other tasks should be easy.” They’re not. Either it’s the choice that makes it difficult: “green or blue plastic spoons?”, “Vanilla or chocolate?”, “stay or leave?” or it’s the missing choice: “will they let me buy them a drink? (maybe smiling helps)”, “being born or rather not”, “death or eternal life”(smiling does not help). In these excurses, the IRS (US tax authority) is often mentioned in combination with death, but there is a way to avoid paying taxes: just get very rich or create a hypercomplex net of off-shore companies or both.

A young monk was on his way to the city, carrying an important letter that he had to deliver personally to the intended recipient. He arrived at the city's outskirts, where he had to cross a bridge if he wished to enter. The bridge was guarded by a Samurai, an expert in the art of sword-fighting, who, to prove his strength and invincibility, had vowed to challenge in a duel the fust one hundred men who tried to cross the bridge. He had already killed ninety-nine…

In times of COVID-19, we tend to let go of attending to aspects of our personal well-being, especially when our social contacts are limited. Adding a meditation practice is very beneficial. An active way of meditation is the preparation of food with full attention to all aspects and all details:

“When washing rice, preparing vegetables, and so on, do so with your own hands, with close attention, vigorous exertion, and a sincere mind. Do not indulge in a single moment of carelessness or laziness. Do not allow attentiveness to one thing to result in overlooking another.” (Dogen: Instructions for the cook)

In uncertain times, having an answer for every question seems uniquely gratifying and providing a sense of safety and security. While it sounds like a great idea, it has two small problems: (1) it’s not possible (let’s disregard this point for a moment) and (2) it does not come from the heart.

Do you have a guru? good. You don't have a guru? good. More than one? also good. None? Fine

A good work-life balance seems to be the epitome of healthy living. A concept introduced in the UK in the 1970s and in the mid-80s in the US as a concept including proper prioritizing between "work" (career and ambition) and "lifestyle" (health, pleasure, leisure, family and spiritual development/meditation)

“What are you doing? – Sitting for 40 minutes, staring at a white wall?” she asked, “I could never do that.” She was evidently puzzled. She had realized during our first conversation that I was different, not your average guy — whoever that may be (and in no way do I want to offend all the other more or less ordinary guys) — but this strange behavior? “I couldn’t do that either” — “So why do you do it if you can’t do it?” (Sounds like a Koan – more about that later).

Now that social media with @social and #media hashtags is becoming the core of everyday communication around the olympics as well as the presidential elections it has evolved from being "2.0" yet it is still poorly understood. Highly praised and as soon as it evolves in its own rights condemned as subversive.

We are surrounded by messages that never reach us. Not because we don’t listen. They never come to us as a message. All these unrecognized messages become walls, invisible and we don’t even realize that we bump against them, that they limit us. When we’re fully present and receive the messages, even when we cannot decode them.

As an Austrian without formal US education I sometimes wonder how the poems of Rainer Maria Rilke appear at most unexpected moments – at event, in seminars, at readings. With so many amazing English and American poets, there must be a secret longing that draws to Rilkes work that is so hard to translate and mostly causes suffering when read - at least to me. I need to talk to the natives - preferable natives who understand German about their experience. Despite best intentions (and you know how dangerous these are), the language of Rilke does not lend itself to translation. And reading Rilkealoud is again a special craft - one that I will only undertake alone.

If today I were to choose from the whole world a single spiritual guide, a “guru,” as the Hindus say, a geronta as such a guide is called by the monks on Mount Athos, without a doubt I would choose Zorbás. For he possessed all the qualities needed to save a pen-pusher: the primitive glance that catches its prey from on high like an arrow; the creative ingenuousness, each morning renewed, that enables him ceaselessly to look upon everything as if for the first time and to impart virginity to the ageless daily elements—wind, sea, fire, woman, bread

Let me ask you a personal question: “Are you going to die?” (Its a rhetorical question - I know you will – hopefully not soon and when the time comes in peace with yourself).

Even when you think meditation is for wimps, there is a path for you: just sit. You can of course sit on the floor in full lotus position or somehow cross your legs in a way that your knees touch the ground (that's important to get the stability (think stool with three legs) and you will need a cushion or something to elevate your body to accomplish this – or sit on a chair, as long as your spine is straight.