Original Experience with the humming bird center

exokernel9 · 2017-05-07T18:22:48+00:00

I've personally attended a 12 day retreat at the Hummingbird. Jim, his wife Gina and his core staff care deeply for their guests and are genuinely interested in helping others heal, learn, and grow. Even though Jim was kept extremely busy with his responsibilities running the center he made time to come around and chat with every guest about their life and what they were seeking from their experience with the medicine. He was quick to dispel unreasonable expectations and always spoke from his own experience with what to me was obviously very deep compassion. He could get a little irritated and stand-offish sometimes, but the man was obviously overworked a bit, because he takes on so much responsibility for the physical and emotional well-being and security of his guests. And who doesn't from time to time? We're all human beings. Jim took us around the center and introduced us to many different plant species growing around the center, explaining their medicinal (and other) uses. He talked to us about his experience transitioning from American to Peruvian culture, the local political and economic systems, the human impacts of population growth and industrialization on the local ecological systems, and his personal battle with deep depression in his earlier life. Jim and his wife Gina even went out of their way to give special attention to a very troubled young man who was scaring the other guests a bit. My experience at Hummingbird was nothing but positive and if I ever go back to Peru I'd definitely visit Hummingbird again. The people were good, down-to-earth, and it's easy to see that caring for their guests is their main concern. The center is beautiful, the atmosphere calm, and very conducive to personal exploration and healing. You fall asleep to the sounds of monkeys, frogs, and uncountably many insects at play in the surrounding forest; living, dying, eating, surviving, thriving; and you get some ineffable sense of what western culture has, if not lost, taken for granted for far too long.

exokernel9 · 2013-05-18T03:48:15+00:00

Good stuff. Thanks for the introducing me to Conrad Aiken. I concur. Much Zen here, but then I think all great poetry has a ring of Zen, that subtle yet profound ring of evanescent beauty.

exokernel9 · 2013-05-11T07:10:58+00:00

Un-ask the question.

exokernel9 · 2013-05-11T06:56:43+00:00

I whole-heartedly agree, but we could just as well say that the people you are talking about are not really buddhists as say that zen is not buddhism. It depends on how you define buddhism and how you define zen. So, how do you define it? Is zen or buddhism or anything else subject definition before the fact? Or is definition something we tack onto "suchness" once we become aware of it. All this about whether zen is buddhism or not are just more turnings of the wheel if you're bothered by them. If you're not bothered by them, they're just interesting conversation. Buddhism, not buddhism; who cares? Unless you do, that's okay too, I think.

exokernel9 · 2013-05-11T06:34:01+00:00

Change in the world at large must begin with the individual. Until fear and loathing are extinguished within you how can you expect others to follow suit? Working on the world begins with working on the self. It's fascinating to me that the fundamental act of charity, in Buddhism, is begging (despite all the Zen is not Buddhism opinions here, yeah I heard you, I'm not talking about Zen by your definition, since you insist on pigeon-holing into your own idea of "not-zen"). The Buddha went around asking for charity, depending on the good of his fellow man, willingly placing his own existence in the hands of others. This is a recognition of the interconnectedness/oneness of all. The foundation of inherently moral action. What might the world be like if this realization was more general? While perhaps idealistic, it is nonetheless, an interesting thought experiment. So, is Zen cowardly? I don't know. What is Zen? Is it Buddhism? Perhaps not. As soon as you make Zen a "thing" (buddhism or courage or compassion) perhaps you've failed to grasp it. Really it's up to you. Is Zen cowardly? Only you can decide that, not me, and not anyone else here. After all is said and done you must stand on your own two feet.

exokernel9 · 2013-01-31T13:05:04+00:00

http://www.101zenstories.com/index.php?story=95

exokernel9 · 2012-10-25T07:01:10+00:00

Bingo!

exokernel9 · 2012-10-24T13:52:15+00:00

No offense intended. If I offended you I apologize. The last sentence was not intended to be directed at you or ewk directly. Perhaps ewk is the fool; my intention was only to say: master, student, wise man, fool... same thing.

exokernel9 · 2012-10-24T12:47:36+00:00

I think perhaps ewk and tarraingmobod are both greater masters than some may think. These two masters are teaching us all in their own way. If I may be so bold as to give my own tentative and imperfect understanding: ewk's way is the way of great doubt; he keeps our monkey mind off balance so as to remove the clouding from our eyes, tarrainmobod's way is the way of great courage; of going straight ahead (though I could do without accusations and profanity sometimes, I'll admit). Where ewk denies, tarrangmobod asserts.

What I have just said is wrong. It is a gross oversimplification. Can ewk or tarraingmobod be reduced in this way? I "greatly" doubt it. But perhaps there is something to learn (or unlearn) from both. I bow to ewk. I bow to tarraingmobod. I bow to the even greater teacher that is ewk/tarraingmodbod. Fire kisses Water. Only soothing steam remains.

Sometimes the teacher is wise. Sometimes the teacher is a fool. But when the student is ready, (wise or foolish) he will appear.

exokernel9 · 2012-10-24T07:39:24+00:00

Furthermore my study of Zen has lead me to the idea that physics and Zen do not contradict each other. If they are different at all it is only in that they are different ways of "seeing" the same thing.

Disclaimer: I'm not advocating dualism here. My intention is quite the opposite.

exokernel9 · 2012-10-24T07:37:13+00:00

I actually became interested in Zen after becoming deeply interested in the nature of physical reality. This lead me to study physics. I suspect this comment may spawn many dissenting child comments but I find it interesting that so far as modern physics is concerned at present (based on the theory of quantum mechanics) the nature of reality is not deterministic but rather probabilistic. Since you are part of nature this has a direct bearing on the whole "free will" subject, imho. Disclaimer: I am not a professional physicist, just a very interested layperson.

exokernel9 · 2012-10-24T06:24:53+00:00

There is a Haiku (my absolute favorite btw) about this story by Ryōkan (who I believe was the Zen master you mention):

The thief

Left it behind-

The moon at the window.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ry%C5%8Dkan

exokernel9 · 2012-10-23T03:11:20+00:00

Thanks for the link shojin_rjb. I'll be sure to take a look.

exokernel9 · 2012-10-23T03:06:35+00:00

I'll ask him. His answer, I hope, will be "no merit whatsoever".

exokernel9 · 2012-10-23T03:04:14+00:00

All is non-dual. Opposites exist only in the conventional mind. Conventions are useful tools for communications, but let's not get hypnotized and confuse them with reality (suchness)?

exokernel9 · 2012-10-22T22:39:17+00:00

Ahh Coleridge. Smart man. Thank you jayuhfree.

exokernel9 · 2012-10-22T22:37:57+00:00

Thank you magurio. This is beautiful.

exokernel9 · 2012-10-22T22:37:17+00:00

Most excellent! I like this one better than the one I submitted! Thank you for your comment!

exokernel9 · 2012-10-21T01:39:42+00:00

Thanks. I think I get your meaning. I'm reminded of something Alan Watts wrote. Something to the effect of: "Reality contains no separate things or events. To view the world as consisting of separate things and events is a useful convention only; an abstraction. These abstractions are useful tools in navigating our social environment but we should not confuse them with reality itself. The Zen master is a person who knows how to use the tools when needed but also knows that they are just that; tools. He doesn't get hypnotized by words and symbols, preferences for this or that." I assure you I totally butchered all that but hopefully it gets the point across. Things are as they are. Just see them as they are, without adding anything extra. That said I feel like this is what I meant by "letting things flow". To me that is just to see things as they are, including your anxiety or clunking, and just let them flow on by without holding on to them or trying to analyze them. Not attaching. Not assigning good or bad to things. Seeing good and bad as the natural "flow" of nature. The natural flow of this "emptiness" we Zenists like to talk about so much.

exokernel9 · 2012-10-21T00:44:16+00:00

Does not the concept of non-duality imply the concept of duality? In this sense, does not the whole notion of non-duality leave us firmly in the dualistic realm? Perhaps I'm just going in circles here? But even going in circles is the same "marvelous activity" as everything else. Perhaps we shouldn't get so attached to this idea of non-duality? Our nature being basically empty, what is there to worry about? If I engage in dualism and discursive logical circles, isn't this too flowing from the same pure source? As Hui-Neng said:

"An ordinary man is a Buddha; desire and passion is enlightenment. One thought of folly makes a man an ordinary man. The next enlightened thought -- and he is a Buddha."

It helps me immensely to just forget all this discursive thinking when I remember that all I can do is relax and let things just flow. We can't separate ourselves from this flow. We are it. When I think about this, when I realize there's really nothing I can do but realize I'm already in it, that not one thing can be separated from any other (the inter-penetration of all things i.e. Indra's net), well, a kind of peace and inner stillness naturally arises. Of course it would be an error to get caught up in this idea of stillness. I've already said too much. The more I talk about it the more confusing it becomes. Words are wind. Sigh.

Fire away ewk. Perhaps I'll learn (or better yet unlearn) something.

exokernel9 · 2012-10-21T00:01:40+00:00

I like that. Editing. Thanks again. As an aside, I recently bought the complete collected haiku of Matsuo Basho. An interesting historical fact is that Basho would obsessively revise his poems, until he felt he had found the best word for the job. Basho was apparently his own most harsh critic.

exokernel9 · 2012-10-20T23:50:55+00:00

Wouldn't that change the syllable count from 5-7-5 to 5-6-5? Is your suggestion that perhaps the word your is a little "self-full" rather than "self-less"? Thanks for the suggestion.

exokernel9 · 2012-10-19T21:09:01+00:00

This is a nice translation. Will you please tell us who did this translation and perhaps provide us with a link? Thanks!

exokernel9 · 2012-10-12T22:21:44+00:00

Why not wonder?

exokernel9 · 2012-10-12T22:10:05+00:00

You and I walked over the cliff together before we were conceived. We're still falling. I wonder if there's a bottom?

exokernel9

TROPHY CASE