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.
Caught in our thoughts we feel that we know what's going on, and respond accordingly. Instead of paying precious attention to what's right in front of us, our attention is caught and trapped by our endless obsessions. What a pity. Our trapped attention hasn't a chance, can't breathe, live or even see the beautiful sun that is just waiting for peek out behind the clouds and warm the entire sky. If we don't see it, how can we receive the light and warmth? When asked what Zen practice truly is, a great teacher said, "Attention." The student answered, "That's all?" The Zen Master replied, "Attention, Attention, Attention." Reclaim your attention, really look and you will see the answer for yourself.
Good morning, good morning. It's Brenda Esh and Shoshana back with another episode of Zen Wisdom for your everyday life. And you know what popped into my mind now? The cloud of unknowing, which is one of the great, great texts. Unknowing. We are clouds of unknowing. What a beautiful way to start a talk and start a day and start at a season. A cloud of unknowing. Oh wow. It puts things in its place. We strive, strive, strive our whole life long to know, no, no, no, no. Give me this answer, give me that answer. What's right, what's wrong? Where am I going? Where am I not going? What's gonna happen? There's a whole industry based on what's gonna happen, including many, many predictions, prophecies, beliefs, images. Everybody wants to know and be smart. Who wants to be a cloud of unknowing? Oh, it makes me feel so good to think of it. Who wants to be a cloud? That'll just drift away in the winds or seemingly drift away. Of course, nothing really drifts away, just transforms. A cloud might transform into rain. Water. Feeding the hungry soil. Or it might who knows, it might become part of the tree outside your window. Just lightly moisturizing it. We we we we try to figure it out. What's my destination? And more profoundly the question, what am what's my job here? What am I supposed to do? What am I doing? But we don't usually question it that much. We just do do do do do do do. We're run. Very much like a machine, actually. We're run. Somebody turns on the switch and we are run. We go running. It's automatic. So much is automatic. Now it's not so, maybe it's not automatic for a cloud. It's just a cloud. It doesn't particularly have pretensions of running the sky or of adorning the sky. There are many, many clouds. Many clouds. And also we feel if we don't know the answer or don't know that we're nothing, just a cloud. No, but who are we? What are we? We're we'll we'll call ourselves maybe stupid or dopey or blah blah blah. And so all the things that we think we know or seek to know actually become our identity. I'm very smart. I went to this school, to that school. I read this book, I read that book, I have a good vocabulary, I have a this, a that, and the other thing. And what does it all add up to? Mmm. Superficial knowledge, you could call it that. I mean, not that it's bad or or or not interesting, or read the history of this or the philosophy of this one, and then if that one contradicts this one and on and on. It's it's mind games, or mind candy is a better word for it. Our mind, or our superficial mind feels very satisfied by this, chewing on all these different pieces of information, playing with it, absorbing it, trying to figure out which one's right, which one's wrong, which prediction will come true, which won't. Oh, this one was made a thousand years ago or five thousand years ago, and looks like it's coming true. So that could bring great joy that we know it, or great terror, because the prediction made 5,000 years ago could be a very scary one. And we're expecting it, we're living in fear of it. Maybe we're depending upon it and hoping it will come true, even though it's awful and hard to bear, because at least that's an anchor. At least there's the feeling we can know what's happening in this world and know where we're going, how to handle what's coming next. That's a big koan in Zen. You know, a koan actually means unknowable. I love that. Unknowable. And is he many koans or the commentaries on the koans in the Zen teachings, they when you read them initially, you can't figure them out. They sound weird. They're not the normal logical, rational, under so-called understandable sequence of thoughts. Someone will answer ask a question, and someone else will answer in a way that doesn't seem to have anything to do with the question. And there's many reasons for that, but one of the deepest and most fundamental reasons is to point, is to make us have a direct experience. We can't understand this. We don't know what the guy's talking about if we're using our logical, rational way of thinking and listening and talking. This the Kohan insists or forces us to know in a different way, if we will ever be able to have some grasp or understanding of what that is all about, just like what is life all about, to have some taste of it, some experience of it. We we have to know it in a different way, and that can also be called unknow it, unknowing, not knowing, in a way that we can speak of it logically or figure it out. And that's actually quite true, especially now. It everything seems so we call it up in the air. Someone said to me, everything is up in the air. And immediately I thought of the cloud of unknowing. Up in the air. We're all floating somewhere, someone said. So a wonderful cohen is where are we floating? Where are we? Who are we? Of course, that's a very ancient traditional question, not only in Zen, but in all of the practices. How do I connect with that which is most meaningful, which that which is forever eternal? Some people use that word, with that which is eternal. Can it be gone? Like the clouds, seems like the cloud comes and goes. That's what one thinks about a cloud. That is unsubstantial, it comes, it goes. Some of them are dark clouds, some are light, fluffy clouds. They seem to adorn the sky. Almost like decoration. They're very beautiful. Clouds are beautiful. Clouds are puffy and light, and they don't they seem not to have a care or a worry in the world, just float along. That's how these seem. We talk about the world of appearances. That's how they seem. But actually the clouds are unified with all of the world, and they're not objecting to it either. We object to being unified with all of the world for sure. We want our own distinct individual personality, identity, traditions, beliefs, way of knowing things. Now there's nothing wrong with that. But we have to see what's happening, who what's going on. We have to know this, we have to perceive it because all of us have different and often opposing and often dangerous and even lethal ways of separating ourselves, distinguishing ourselves, and eliminating others in return. I never saw one cloud that wanted to eliminate another. They seemed to all float along in a beautiful way and even enhance one another. What a way to be. To enhance one another, to make room for the other. In fact, one cloud never obstructs or impedes the other. If you look, sometimes you can't see the difference between one another, sometimes they're very distinct. In a sense, in a sense, it's a wonderful description of a ripened Zen student. Because the more you sit, sit, sit, the more you see that you really cannot obstruct anything anyway. Well why want to? That you are part of the other clouds or the other people or the world at large that floats by. Mmm. What a profound moment to see that fully, fully, fully. And of course it's never fully, fully. There's always other feelings come up, other images come up, and then that returns again and again and again. Especially at a time of grave warfare, which I would call this time we're living in now, apparently, grave warfare. It is just so crucial and important for everyone. Just to sit down and sit still. That's all. Keep your back straight. Watch what's passing. Watch listen to what you hear. When I say watch what's passing, I don't mean look outside, but look within. What's passing, what's coming, what's going. What they're all actually like clouds. When you just sit still and don't react to them and don't move and don't hate them or love them, just become so aware. Aware. What's going on in there? And what's going on out there, so called in and out, so called. We become very hypnotized and fixated out there by all the things we see, the news, the people, the trees, which are very beautiful. I love trees. And then we project all these feelings onto all the events and all the people. And before you turn around, you are enmeshed in a very intense, kind of like a movie of some kind, a drama, a world drama. Some of it's beautiful and some is loaded with terror for many people. Sit down on a chair, on the cushion, on the floor, on wherever you can sit down, hold your back straight. Don't move. Be available, be aware. That is what this ancient magnificent and marvelous practice is. It is for all beings, all religions, all races, everyone. We're all gifted with that awareness. It's part of our existence. Become aware what kind of amazing gifts you've been given. It's called your treasure house. And Zen they say, open your treasure house. Well, how do we open it? No, but we don't have to open it. It's open. We have to sit down and become aware of it. It's all awareness. Attention. They once asked the Zen master, what is that all about anyway? And he said, attention. And they said, that's it? Just attention, that's all. And then the master said, attention, attention. And the student said, Come on, it's got to be more than that. And he simply said, attention, attention, attention. Pay attention. Mm-hmm. So direct, so urgent, and so simple. It's too simple. We don't want that. We want something complicated and advanced, and that's going to save us from this whole world of chaos. Everybody wants to be safe from it because it's painful. It's okay to want that. But the question is, how does that really happen? How? And what this teacher was suggesting is attention. Pay attention. Don't jump around. Don't chase after this. Don't hide from that. Just sit still and be available to whatever arises from within. And with that, whatever's without and whatever's within, it's really that they're going to one it's one loop. So just become available to it, become aware of it. Without reacting. That's what they mean. Don't move. You know, when you sit on the cushion, say you have a you want to scratch an itch, you don't scratch it. You just feel the itchy feeling. And it goes away. Cloud, a cloud, another cloud. We don't combat it. We don't hate ourselves because we have some kind of a sensation or a thought or a feeling, clouds. Coming and going, coming and going. So it's up to us to be with them differently. And when we do. And when it's time to get up from the cushion and enter the so-called external world and and do what we have to do, fine. Your reactions, your perceptions will be different day by day, hour by hour, little by little. And that sense of entanglement will slowly, it doesn't happen overnight, but it is a beautiful process. And even though you may not see it happening, it is happening slowly by itself. I believe Suzuki Roshi was the one who said that Satan practice is like going out in a very misty day. It's misty. You don't see the mist really, but as you keep walking slowly in the mist, or you're becoming more and more wet. You're absorbing the mist. So this is very similar, very lovely description. We sitting in our treasure chest, and our treasures are interpenetrating whatever else is coming up, including feelings of clarity, feelings of love, feelings of wonder, all kinds of beautiful feelings are part of the mist. Beautiful, expansive ways of knowing are part of the mist. And they penetrate us without our even knowing it. So I felt like I wanted to share that today. Actually, it was very cloudy when I started this talk, and strangely enough, I look through the window and I see the sun is shining now right across the street on this tall building. And the clouds in the background have actually lightened up a bit. So so wonderful. I'm smiling just seeing that. So actually beautiful to see that in just a few moments those changes. And of course, I would never even notice it if I hadn't been sitting here paying attention. So I wish you a week of attention. Pay attention. It doesn't take but a moment. Pull your attention out of these difficult stories and horrible images many of us are bombarded with, and just pay attention to what's right here in front of you, the cloud. Now what's happening in the clouds is separating a little, and I see a little blue sky actually peeping through. So what's peeping through in your life? What is it? If you're there, if you're watching, something will always peep through. Have a beautiful, beautiful week. And the URL for this podcast is nwisdomtoday.com. If you want to email me, you're most welcome to. Love receiving your comments and emails. It's topspeaker at yahoo.com. And have a very, very beautiful day. Bye bye.
