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#3815 - Monday, February 22, 2010 - Editor: Gloria Lee
The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
Just to let you know that I have
just started an online Non-Dual Community/Sangha for the UK:
NonDualityUK
URL: http://nondualityuk.ning.com
Anyone who lives in the UK is welcome
to join, and is now cordially invited to do so. I hope our
American cousins are not offended by the appearance of this
geographically dualistic initiative. Perhaps someone may care to
start the same in the U.S .... and we can join forces. It will be
an improvement on what we have done together in Afghanistan and
Iraq!!!
The aim is to create a Non-Dual Community/Sangha that is not
fixated on a specific expression of non-duality, so is able to
embrace all traditions and artistic/inspirational variations, and
create open dialogue between people. It's not just a forum - it's a Social
Networking Site, that will enable people in different areas of
the UK to connect with each other locally.
If you don't live in the UK, but have friends that do, please let
them know about this new community ... send them a link and an
explanation perhaps ....
with warm regards
Roy (Whenary)
by Alan Larus on Facebook the new spiritual art of the world's photo.
Trudy Dixon
Excerpted from
Crooked Cucumber
The Life and Zen Teachings of
Shunryu Suzuki
In the spring of 1968, the manuscript for Zen Mind, Beginner's
Mind
was turned over to Trudy Dixon, who had been an editor for Wind
Bell,
the modest periodical which featured Suzuki's lectures.
From the book:
Trudy took to the task even though she had two small children,
had
undergone surgery for breast cancer, and was in poor health. She
threw herself completely into it, listening to the original
tapes,
painstakingly working on the material word by word, thought by
thought, organizing it and conferring often with Richard (Baker)
and
occasionally with Suzuki directly.
Trudy Dixon had been doing graduate studies in philosophy at U.
C.
Berkeley, specializing in Heidegger and Wittgenstein, when her
husband Mike first took her to hear Suzuki lecture in 1962. They
arrived late and stood in the back of the zendo. Suzuki embarked
upon
an unusual line of thought that evening. He compared the practice
of
Zen with the study of philosophy – expressing one's truth
with one's
whole body and mind instead of thinking and being curious about
the
meaning of life. He said he had a good friend in Japan who was a
philosopher. Ultimately his intellectual pursuits didn't satisfy
him,
and he killed himself. At exactly that point in the lecture,
Suzuki
looked intently at Trudy. She backed up a few steps. Trudy could
not
get that experience out of her mind. She and Mike continued
coming to
lectures and soon decided to start practicing with Suzuki. They
became close disciples.
In Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, Trudy put her whole being into
expressing the essence of Suzuki's teaching. After she passed the
manuscript on to Richard, she concentrated on taking care of
herself
at home and dealing with her approaching death. She remained
cheerful
on the outside, but her mind was possessed by fear, which she
revealed to her analyst. After an operation her lungs filled with
liquid, and she couldn't breathe. She struggled for breath with
all
the energy she could find until she went beyond thoughts, words,
and
fear into what she called breath-struggle samadhi. After she had
undergone five difficult days of recovery, Mike brought Suzuki
and
his wife Okusan to visit her. She said the sight of them was like
seeing the sun rise for the first time.
She went to the Tassajara mountain monastery and fasted. There
she
had a powerful, joyous experience that included life and death,
health and illness, fear and courage. She said she finally
stopped
fighting and was "accommodating the enemy", as Suzuki
had described
it. On the verge of death Trudy had been reborn. Her analyst said
that at her next visit she seemed like a new person, a fearless
and
radiant woman. To her husband, caretakers, and friends she became
an
inspiration. "My self, my body," she wrote, "is
dissolved in
phenomena like a sky's rainbow caught in a child's soap
bubble."
One day after zazen, Betty Warren visited Trudy. She arrived
wishing
there was something she could do. Trudy burned away Betty's pity
with
one phrase, referring to her illness as "this blessed
cancer."
On Mondays Suzuki visited Trudy at her home after speaking at the
Marin Zen group. One day after such a visit he returned to the
car
with Bob Halpern. Suzuki's eyes were wet. "Now there's a
real Zen
Master," he said of Trudy, as he sank into his seat.
On July 1 Trudy's brother drove her to Tassajara. They shared a
cup
of clear creekwater with Suzuki, slept outside in the moonlight,
and
returned the next day to the hospital. A couple of days later she
returned to Tassajara and practiced prone zazen lying on her back
in
the zendo with Suzuki and the students. On the eighth she and her
teacher returned to San Francisco.
On July 9, 1969, Mike called Suzuki and told him that Trudy had
just
died in the hospital – too quickly for Suzuki to have gotten
there.
Suzuki fell apart crying on the phone, which disturbed Mike
– he
thought of Suzuki as imperturbable. Suzuki came to the hospital
and
was composed by then.
At Trudy's funeral two days later Suzuki was uncharacteristically
emotional. He cried and said, "I never thought I'd have a
disciple
this great. Maybe I never will again." Then he delivered a
eulogy:
Go, my disciple. You have completed your practice for this life
and
acquired a genuine warm heart, a pure and undefiled Buddha mind,
and
joined our sangha. All that you have done in this life and in
your
past lives became meaningful in the light of the Buddha mind,
which
was found so clearly within yourself, as your own. Because of
your
complete practice, your mind has transcended far beyond your
physical
sickness, and it has taken full care of your sickness like a
nurse.
A person of joyful mind is contented with his lot. Even in
adversity
he will see bright light. He finds the Buddha's place in
different
circumstances, easy and difficult. He feels pleasure even in
painful
conditions, and rejoices. For us, for all who have this joy of
Buddha
mind, the world of birth and death is nirvana.
The compassionate mind is the affectionate mind of parents.
Parents
always think of the growth and welfare of their children, to the
neglect of their own circumstances. Our scriptures say,
"Buddha mind
is the mind of great compassion."
The magnanimous mind is as big as a mountain and as wide as an
ocean.
A person of magnanimous mind is impartial. He walks the middle
way.
He is never attached to any side of the extreme aspect of things.
The
magnanimous mind works justly and impartially.
Now you have acquired the Buddha mind and become a real disciple
of
Buddha. At this point, however, I express my true power . . . . .
Then Suzuki let out a long, mighty roar of grief that echoed
throughout the cavernous auditorium.
.......... Trudy Dixon died
soon after she finished the work at 30 years of age . . .