Question:
Today is a day when we are meant to ‘give thanks’ which seems quite general. In your opinion, what are we giving thanks for and how can we genuinely activate that feeling of gratitude?
Zen Master Genpo Roshi replies:
Our attitude about our life and the feelings we have towards the world can be transformed simply by shifting our perspective. It’s not that difficult. You can see the glass as half empty or as half full. We can change perspectives by asking to speak to different aspects or voices within us. For example, each of us is a human being. We can ask to speak first to the Human side, the human aspect, of our human being-ness.
So, let me speak to the one who is Human.
I am the Human in all aspects of being human. I am not you, you are separate from me. I have my own thoughts, memories, desires and emotions. My feelings can be hurt. I can feel discontented, alienated. I can feel pain, the pain of rejection, of criticism, of loneliness and loss. I have fear, anger and resentment. I wish that other people, the world, and even the self, were different. I frequently want things to be other than they way they are.
Now let me speak to the other side of you as a human being. May I please speak to Being?
I am Being. I just am. I am the I am-ness of life. I am pure awareness, pure stillness, silence. I am unmoving. I have no preferences or judgments; I don’t need things to be other than the way they are. I don’t suffer because there is no me to suffer. I have no center, no boundaries or limits. I am all things. I am the world, I am the universe. Everything is a manifestation of me, complete, whole and perfect just as it is. I am complete contentment.
If we think of these two opposing voices, the Human and Being, as opposite ends of the base of the triangle, I’d like to now speak to the apex, which includes and yet transcends these two aspects. Now may I please speak to the one who consciously chooses to be a Human Being?
I am the one who consciously chooses to be a Human Being. As this voice I am grateful for this life. I am satisfied and happy. I feel great appreciation, and great joy. Very often, when I am stuck only in the Human side and am not including my Being-ness, I want things to be other than the way they are. From the Being side, everything is perfect, complete and whole as it is. As a Human Being I feel great compassion for his and all others’ humanity, for just how difficult life can sometimes be. And so I feel empathy and compassion for all beings. I am grateful and I give thanks for this life, this world.
Zen Master Genpo Roshi is the founder of Kanzeon Sangha, an international Zen community, and abbot of Kanzeon Zen Center in Salt Lake City. His latest book is Big Mind, Big Heart: Finding Your Way. For more information visit his website at: www.genpo.org
About genpo.roshi
Dennis Genpo Merzel Roshi is a revolutionary in the tradition of the old Zen Masters who so embodied Buddhist teaching that they were able to revitalize and transform it for their own day and age. As Buddhism moved from India to China to Japan and other Asian cultures, it found unique expression in each culture that made its fundamental teachings resonate for a new time and place. Genpo Roshi is working to transmit the essence of the Buddha’s teachings in a way that is readily accessible to Westerners and relevant to our everyday life.The core of Genpo Roshi’s teaching is the unshakeable and contagious certainty that every one of us, regardless of our socio-economic, cultural or religious background, can instantly awaken to our true nature, like the great masters of old — like the historical Buddha himself, whose essential teaching was nothing less than this. This experience helps us shed anxiety and fear and learn to live more purposeful, compassionate and joyful lives. Roshi combines Zen tradition with the insights of such visionary western figures as Carl Jung, Fritz Perls, and Hal Stone, enabling virtually anyone to realize their true nature, a realization they can further deepen through meditation.Dennis Genpo Merzel comes from a long line of Rebbes. Born in Brooklyn NY, he grew up in Southern California where he was a high school champion swimmer and All-American water polo player. He earned a Masters degree in education from the University of Southern California and was a teacher and lifeguard before ordaining as a Zen monk under Zen Master Taizan Maezumi in 1973. Completing formal Koan study in 1979 he became Maezumi Roshi’s second Dharma Successor in 1980, the first being Bernie Tetsugen Glassman. He received Inka (final seal of approval as Zen Master) from Roshi Glassman in 1996, thereby becoming one of a small group of Westerners recognized as lineage holders in both the Soto and Rinzai Zen traditions.In 1982 Genpo Sensei began teaching throughout Europe and founded the international group he named the Kanzeon (Love and Compassion) Sangha, centered in Salt Lake City, Utah, with affiliates in France, Holland, Poland, Belgium, Germany, England, and Malta. He has eleven Dharma Successors: Catherine Genno Pages, John Shodo Flatt, Anton Tenkei Coppens, Malgosia Jiho Braunek, Daniel Doen Silberberg, Nico Sojun Tydeman, Nancy Genshin Gabrysch, Diane Musho Hamilton, Michael Mugaku Zimmerman, Richard Taido Christofferson, and Michel Genko Dubois. He has given Inka to seven Zen teachers: John Daido Loori, Catherine Genno Pages and Anton Tenkei Coppens, Jan Chozen Bays, Charles Tenshin Fletcher, Nicolee Jikyo McMahon and Susan Myoyu Andersen. For ten years, until 2007, he was the President of the White Plum Asanga, the worldwide community comprising all the Dharma heirs of Taizan Maezumi Roshi, their successors, and the many groups they lead.Roshi’s publications include The Eye Never Sleeps, Beyond Sanity and Madness, 24/7 Dharma, and The Pah of The Human Being, and several DVDs. His latest book, Big Mind/Big Heart: Finding Your Way, published in the Fall of 2007, is also going to be published in translation in Holland, Spain, Germany, Russia and Poland. He is married to Stephanie Young Merzel, co-administrator of Kanzeon Zen Center International, and has two children, Tai Merzel, an aerospace engineer, and Nicole Merzel, a mathematics major at the University of Puget Sound. Website: www.bigmind.org
I love that apex paragraph. Fantastic stuff!