Book II

Foreword

“What vitality, humor, beauty, and elegance in her poetry, photography, and Chinese calligraphy! But…Don’t Read This Book! 

One rarely begins the preface to a book with this sentence. But the book you have in your hand, and indeed all five of the books in this Zen Essence poetry series, cannot simply be read. 

In this extended work, Sylvia Chu has presented a series of poems that are reflections on…life, wisdom, spirituality, self-knowledge, appreciation of beauty, recognition of the difficulties we encounter in life…and much more. 

The poems are presented thematically, and yet each poem can stand on its own. Each one is a unique invitation to the reader. Each one can be a doorway to further reflection. Each one can bring the reader to a place of contemplation. 

The photos represent yet another view into this beautiful world in which we live. They are reflections of another way Sylvia sees deeply and artfully brings that vision and depth to us. Each photo, then, also constitutes an invitation to reflection, contemplation, and a deep appreciation of all that is around us. 

So, don’t read these books. Sit with them. Savor them. Hear and see how they call out to you. RSVP – respond to the invitations if you please. I can assure you that if you sit with what is in these books, you will see something about the world in a way that never before occurred to you. You will delight and be moved. You will find a word, a phrase, an image that will inspire you and to which you will return time and again.

Sylvia reflects upon and writes about Wisdom, Enlightenment, Freedom, Hidden Treasures, and Happiness from Suffering and Acceptance. She considers such topics as Life and Death, Spiritual Growth, Love and Compassion, Living in the Present Moment, and Experiencing Suffering and Healing. She delightfully engages with such teachers  as Needle Fish, Seagulls, Redwood Stumps, Clouds, Oceans, Snowmen, Crickets, and of course her fellow human beings. Her exhortation is captured in these lines from Book III: 

               “With open hands,               
                be open and meet what is now,              
                this present moment.” 

Sylvia Chu is a true teacher. She presents here an invaluable treasure, available to all, beautifully written and illustrated, and generously offered. She gives us an insight into her own learning and deepening, and provides us with some avenues for our own self-reflection and growth. What a gift! 

Paul J. Roy, Ph.D.

 


Introduction

Silence and zazen are my core daily Zen practices;  I write additional poems under these titles depending on what intuitive realizations arrive during my practice.  Zen Essence Books II and III, therefore, contain additional chapters on these two subjects.

What is Zen?  In the following poem, I attempt to capture a realization of its meaning. 

            What is Zen? It is like
          asking a fish. “What is water?”
                The seagull's call,
                the ocean breeze and
                the decaying trees -- Zen
                meets life fearlessly and
                openly with a direct,
                natural, unburdened mind,
                to face joy and
                challenge with intimacy and
                serene gratitude
                now, this moment. 

In Zen, one meets life moment to moment, encountering the seagulls, ocean breeze, and decaying trees.  Nothing is extraordinary or mundane but is.  We meet our daily encounters; face joy and challenge with equanimity and abiding calm.

Zen is the pursuit, clarification, and awakening to living the reality of one’s true self in the present moment.  Essential nature and essence are some of the names given to our experience of the true self. It is by the sitting meditation of zazen that one can taste this discovery – that we are all buddhas of magnificence! The true self is the all, and in unity with all what is and there is -- the wholeness of one existence.  Loving the universe is loving oneself.

The journey within is to experience oneself in stillness.  Silence is not the same as silent which is the dualistic opposite of noisy.  A taste of silence in solitude is without concept and lacks any dualism of opposites.  It is a spacious unity and oneness with acceptance and openness.

Silence is always present, even in the midst of noise and action, but we may not be aware of it.  Silence allows us to be aware of personal perceptions, programmed judgments, and to let go of these mind filters.

It helps us to accept and to love freely without discrimination.  Without separation and in emptiness, silence is experienced as spaciousness, peace, intimacy, and heart speaking heart.  Mind filters and concepts of ‘I,” “Me,” and “Mine” are gradually noticed and released into the stillness of zazen.  

          Deep silence resonates
        as “Aahhh,” open, spacious,
        intimate, and heart speaking heart.

Zazen is an awareness practice to experience your essential essence and to be present to the realization and enlightenment experienced now.

Reading a book may help you understand zazen but nobody can sit zazen for you.  Zazen sits zazen itself here and now to savor what is, the reality of the present moment.  In silence, without thoughts, in pure awareness, reality is not stained by mind filters.  Zazen sits in this moment, now; it is therefore, the end and not a means to an end. 

There is nothing to attain.  What we want, desire, yearn and seek -- the experience of God, Self, Spirit, enlightenment, silence, peace, and freedom -- these ‘goodies’, are already here and present now within every one of us, requiring no attainment.

Our spiritual journey is the quest for these intimate values which are natural and innate, needing no search but nurturing. We only have to nurture what is already there in us.

We are present and alert to what arises each moment without preconditioned, judgmental thoughts, and concepts.  In such open alertness, we are not controlling nor manipulating the truth of “what is.”  We become receptive to insights, necessary for the exploration of the cause and the end of suffering. 

The cake’s truth is in the eating.
Zazen’s truth is here now, sitting, 
tasting enlightenment.

Tasting and truly sitting zazen ends our yearning; here we have a chance to realize, taste, and experience enlightenment – the peace and magnificence already in us. Chapter 1, Silence, empty stillness, has no personal perspectives to stain purity of awareness.  Chapter 2, Zazen, explores the direct experience of just sitting, watching the arising and passing of the breath from moment to moment.  Zazen is a practice of silence and eventually dropping of the mind and body.  Chapter 3, Mindfulness, broadens one’s attention to include internal and external experiences of the present moment instead of one point focus on the breath and just sitting.  Silence calms the mind and opens it to accept insightful wisdom about the myth of our Ego, Chapter 4. Chapters 5, 6, describe Suffering, Letting Go and Non-doing .  When we realize there is no one around to suffer because of emptiness and that this moment changes because of impermanence; there is also liberation from suffering.  Going beyond direct experience one receives insights which are catalysts to end suffering through the practice of the Four Noble Truths, Chapter 7. The Truths teach that there is suffering, craving is its cause; we can distance from suffering by practicing the Eightfold Path in Awakening, Chapter 8.  Chapter 9 relates to Awareness (the pure consciousness without delusion, ill-will and ignorance) and Enlightenment (realization of our spaciousness of emptiness, oneness). The mind in enlightenment is in silence, not “coming or going, nor in stasis” and abides in pure awareness.  What is seen is just seen and what is heard is just heard without the arising of taints, perspective, stance, and mental thoughts.

  There, I say, there is
neither coming, nor going, nor stasis;
neither passing away nor arising;
without stance, without foundation and
without as support.
This, just this, is the end of suffering.”

                                             Udana 8.1

Some of the insights included in the next book of my Zen Essence poetry series, Fountain, Lanterns, and Paths of Freedom, Book III, are poems on Unborn, Now, Presence, Impermanence, Emptiness (Oneness), and Freedom.

Sylvia Young Chu