So many are saying Where is God when I need him? Especially today. Many feel deserted and alone. But it is only that we have been looking in the wrong direction, searching everywhere but at home. The surprising answer to the question tells us instead, that all we need is right here with us in our everyday life. In fact it is right at the kitchen table. It is only that we have been looking elsewhere, searching all around. These episodes offer specific ways in which we can encounter God, fulfillment, enlightenment right here in our daily lives, wherever we go.
As we return to the root of our lives we embrace all aspects, the present, the past, our time alone and precious relationships with others. This episode includes teachings from both Zen and Jewish practice to explore the ways in which they uplift and enhance one another and help us to be whole.
Hello, hello. It's good to be back with everyone. Very, very good. This is Brenda Shoshana, Brenda Eshin Shoshana. And I'm going to be able to offer some podcasts as I can now. Thank you for listening to these and wisdom for so long. And here I am, I'm saying hello, just a big hello to everyone. This podcast will take on the next step from where we left off. This is Zen Wisdom for Everyday Life, and it also includes the wisdom of others too. I'm going to include the wisdom of Jewish practice and Zen practice together, together. I'm the author of a book called Jewish Dharma, A Guide to the Practice of Judaism and Zen, which they're so similar and they help one another and illuminate one another so deeply. And I just feel there's such a big lack of understanding among everyone about what true, true Jewish practice is and what true Zen practice is. I mean, in these days everything is up for grabs and twisting and turning, and and I wanted to go back to the root, return to the root, to the root, to the simplicity and to this, and to the original practices of both. And to show how they uplift and how they illuminate and how they strengthen actually one another. Because whatever we learn is beautiful to learn. But learning it, speaking it, thinking about it, that's important. And it's one part only. Then we have to make it alive, bring it to life in our own lives, come back to life with this. Take it away from just being an idea or a concept or a prayer or a hope and make it real. Let's make our whole life into a prayer, our whole life into a zen sitting, which it is. Anyway, it is. Make each moment that comes to us practice in the best sense of the word. Make each moment really alive and really full. Fulfill it. You know, something about Jewish practice, I wanted to talk about other mitzvahs. And by mitzvah, that word mitzvah, when people hear it, and also many Jewish people hear it, they just recoil, they're offended. Don't tell me what to do. Don't tell me when to do it. And I'm not going to be besieged with so-called good deeds. The first thing they don't know is that a mitzvah is not a good deed. It's not a good deed. You can do a lot of good deeds, and they're not mitzvahs, but they're good deeds, and they're great. Nobody says don't do good deeds. But what is a mitzvah? It's really, really a structure through which we can access divine energy, help, support, healing, strength. It's a practice. It's a mindfulness practice of the most interesting kind. It's a cohen practice. It's a practice, and it's not necessarily a good deed. Now, people will say there are too many, who can do all of them? No one can do all of them, and you're not even required to do all of them. And they're all not for everyone. They're all for different people, different circumstances, different times, everything like that. And so it's very, very important for me at this point, anyway, to include that and to share it because my greatest wish is for all of us to come together, to know each other and to know each other's practices, the true practices, not the not the what we project onto others and onto practice. And by practice, all I really mean is doing it, not just thinking it, but making it into your, as we say in Zen, make it into your flesh and bones. You know, for instance, let's start with the mitzvah of forgiving others, which is one of the most important, and particularly now at this time of year, and for me every time of year, every moment. And what does that really mean? It says over and over, in so many different ways, that to look for the best in one another, to judge one another favorably. Now, when we look for the worst or when we justify what went wrong between us by blaming them, or look uh dwelling on how awful they are and what bad things they did to us, which is what the human mind does. We just all do it, it's just that's the way the unconscious and the human mind turns, then we're the ones who suffer. We suffer from that perspective and that way of approaching one another. In the Zen teachings, in the Zen precepts, and in, of course, in the in the in the Torah, which deals a lot with relationships and people and your relationship with others and with yourself. So those that's why I like to combine both of them. I I would also say, and I often have said, that the two of them are like two wings of a bird. Both are needed to fly, to know ourselves and to really work on a relationship with ourselves, what comes up in our mind, not to move, not to search outside of ourselves, not to cling to something outside, but to be able to come home to our own root, to our original self. That is one of the many beautiful focuses of Zen practice. And just to be where we are and to embody it and encompass it fully. That's in and of itself deeply, deeply healing and connects us to life, to our own being, to the world. And the mitzvahs, what do we need them for then, Will, was taking a little another step then into the direction of relationships with others off the cushion. And and that can be very, it's a very layered and intricate experience to be in a relationship with someone else, so-called someone else. Of course, if we keep practicing, we see that we're all so united, so one, much one. But we don't see that, just thinking that it's not going to do it. It's the actual practice that helps us to do it. And the wonderful mitzvahs are portals to that kind of love and connection. And when there's trouble in a relationship, as there is so often, and we actually bring forth a mitzvah and we actualize it, we live it, and we're there in our full presence as we sit, and then we take that mitzvah as guidance, as direction. It's amazing the healing and the beauty and the wonder that's available. It almost feels like a miracle sometimes how easily it is to improve and to elevate and to look at our life through new eyes. So when we would be we began by talking about forgiveness, and I'll talk more about it in these next weeks coming up. But one very big part of the process of forgiveness, you know, it's one thing to tell somebody, well, you've got to forgive them. Well, okay, I'd like to forgive them, but how do I do that? I'm full of hurt, I'm full of sorrow, I'm full of pain. How do I do that? Well, the myths answer that question beautifully. How do I do that? And let's work with one today. Judge everyone favorably. This promotes peace. What does that mean? Well, when they say judge, they're not talking about it like I'm a judge of you, but it means look for the best in everyone, see the beauty in them, see the strength in them. What you focus on is what you receive, basically. If you're going to focus on the negative, it's going to come right back to you, and it'll be painful. And you think, oh, it's this relationship that's causing me pain. Well, in a way, but it's the relationship with yourself by not seeing them favorably, that is what's causing you pain, not the person. Because the person has unfavorable aspects, of course, and favorable aspects. And once you choose to forgive, you choose to be positive, you choose to love, that choice will dictate everything else. Some of us are very attached to our anger, to feeling like I've been done wrong. Gives you an identity. It gives many an identity. I'm wronged. And it's also an excuse to be vengeful and angry and hateful. But it doesn't really work. It doesn't work. Because the one who is hurt by it is you. It's a very, very interesting. It's a koan. And a ko on, as we mentioned, is a uh a Zen question, that's a paradox, and it cannot be answered with your rational mind. It's not something we understand rationally or conceptually, but it is something that we can live through. We can practice with, we can say, I don't understand this, and I never will intellectually, but there is an answer. And then you stop trying to figure it out, and you become a koan. You practice with it, you take it in to your being, and you sit with it, you walk with it, you accompany it, you let it accompany you, and you allow it to tell you the answer. The answer does become revealed inevitably as you live with the koan. They say a good way to live with it is like a mother bird hen sitting on her nest, keeping her little her little hens, her little chicks warm. Then they come to life, they burst up out of their nest, and the koan is revealed. So we take two things that seem very opposite, but they're not. They're not. And in a sense, all of life feels like that sometimes, very opposite, contradictory, confusing. This side, that side, this happens, that happens. But when we stay centered and not pulled around by all the so-called conflicting or confusing events and messages, to stay centered within ourselves, within our koan, within the relationship. And when we additionally can or are willing to practice the mitzvahs with it. They're very beautiful, beautiful returns. Such a simple instruction. Look for the good in everyone. And actually it's there. And it's in you. You're the one who has to find it. You're the one who who projects it, you're the one who sees it, you're the one who benefits. And we say, well, if I don't see the negative, then I'm gonna get caught by it, I'm gonna get hurt by it. No, just the opposite is true. Just the opposite is true. And that's part of the co-on. It's confusing, it's different from what we think. So we say, do and you will see. Just do it. Try for yourself. Nobody else can have your answer only by your own experience will you see and feel and know what's going on. So it's great to share this with you today. I'm delighted to be here. I hope to be back very soon. And thank you very much for listening. You the the pot the um we have the same address still for the podcast, www.zenwisdomtoday.com. And and I'll keep you informed of all our updates and changes. Thank you again and take good care. Bye.
