Dutch Treat

This morning a squirrel ventured out along the pole that supports the flag in my garden. I watched as the furry creature skillfully arrived at a point where the leaves and berries pictured on it were in seeming reach. Alas, no tugging, pulling, or grasping at the flag-fabric images brought him any closer to actual nourishment.

A part of us is much like this squirrel, ever discontented; it seeks, and seeks, and seeks, as befits its job. However, this constant discontent, this constant seeking alone is not sufficient to realize that which truly nourishes.

The squirrel was acting on a partial or incomplete view or illusion; it led to his seeking but not finding. Operating this way is an expression of a fundamental flaw -a category error stands in the way of the sought.

My guess is that my little furry neighbor at the garden flag had only two options: to continue to seek or not. Happily, we humans have a third option. There is seeking, not-seeking, and non-seeking. At first blush, this seems to be a silly notion, or maybe a trick of semantics. Nevertheless, practices exist that point-out this third option -to the willing.

No such pointing-out practice known to me is more fun, and more accessible to more folks than that developed by Dennis Merzel (aka Genpo Roshi). He calls it the BIG MIND-BIG HEART process. Employing the best that over 30 years of Zen training has to offer combined with voice dialogue techniques pioneered by western psychology, a trained practitioner of this process can bring a willing person to a direct taste of non-seeking with ease.

Here is a URL to a TV video produced in Holland a couple of years ago. It intersperses slices of an interview with Genpo with scenes from a Big Mind group session held in that country. It is in English with Dutch sub-titles. (RealPlayer is required to view it, a downloadable free version of this player is available.)

http://cgi.omroep.nl/cgi-bin/streams?/tv/bos/archief/bb.20040425.rm

The key to the working of this process is very simple; a trained facilitator relies on permission. It is like when my kids were little and wanting something; often at such times i would respond to their entreaties with a question of my own, “What is the magic word?” Knowing the drill, they would respond, “Please!”

It works like this: the facilitator asks permission of that part of us that the ‘self’ employs to run things in our lives, giving it a name and voice. Employing this simple device, allows willing participants in this fun filled and illuminating process to move into and occupy many different perspectives by giving them voice, and importantly not just those of our duality-bound conventionality; but of non-dual perspectives typically available only to those whose training in some sort of inner work has brought them to an advanced state. Have fun!


Big Mind/Big Heart Revealed

Genpo Roshi is
Authentic, real and rare. Let
Your true nature speak!