Namaste to You ... I have been enjoying all of my reading these past months.  If you don't know this author, I would like to introduce him ... David Chadwick, a Buddhist who was ordained a Zen priest by Suzuki Roshi in 1971.  

I recently finished Chadwick's book Thank You and OK! ... An American Zen Failure in Japan.  This was such an entertaining book about his very own everyday life in and about a Buddhist temple in Japan ... the meditating, the chores, the meals, and the drinking of tea, the quarrels, the humor and the harmony.

David Chadwick

Chadwick managed to weave Zen teachings throughout the book.  Here is one paragraph that reveals being in a beautiful rainy moment:

              "To me the rain was a type of music, calling in 

               different tones and textures with the sounds of 

               all the drips, drops, sheets and sprinkles on the 

               ground and rocks, in trees and on leaves, into 

               other water and onto the roofs.  With wind for 

              backup, there came a chorus of these wet sounds, 

              full, round and ringing, deliciously coming from 

              all sides, through the windows and doors and from 

             the roof.  It was a rhythmic message of the immediate, 

             beyond human emotions and symbols, washing through 

             our ears and bidding us stay in, relax and enjoy the show."

           Thank you to David Chadwick for his teachings and                    thank YOU for being here in this moment.

Namaste to Everyone ... As I lifted my sight to the sky last night to view the lunar eclipse, I was overtaken by awe with the coppery beauty of this magnificent natural event ... the Sun, the Earth, and the Moon in alignment once again.  The colors, the shadow, the movement of the clouds, the moon in all her glorious blushing energy was looking down upon us.  I am that.  I am that, I am that, I thought. 

Many of our great teachers have guided us in our search of finding out who we really are.  My friends, Chon and Jasmine, came back from India with their guru Mooji's words ringing in their ears:  Find out who the "I" is.

           I have turned again to one of the Buddhist teachers.

Suzuki Roshi (1904-1971)

 Who am I?  Who am I?  we ask the eternal question.  I 
meditate, I contemplate, I study on this question.  I was randomly reading Suzuki's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind and these words popped from a page.     

What we call 'I' is just a swinging door

 which moves when we inhale 

and when we exhale.

He explains that when we practice sitting meditation, the movement of the breath is all that exists:  "When your mind is pure and calm enough to follow this movement, there is nothing:  no 'I,' no world, no mind nor body, just a swinging door."

The practice brings us to a place where we see we are purely independent of and, at the same time, dependent upon everything.  Like the Sun, the Earth, and the Moon, dependent and independent upon one another.  

So I keep breathing in and out, in and out working on bringing the inner world and the outer world together, eliminating all duality, revealing my universal nature, my Buddha nature. 

  Thank you for joining me on the pathway to awareness.