A Thousand Buddhas Don’t Know

From the October 2022 Long Beach Meditation “Mountain Refuge Retreat”

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Thank you for your your efforts and attention this weekend. I uh I hope you glean some some lasting benefit. It's always uh striking to me to to sit in a Zendo here. Uh as we usually, of course, as I mentioned previously, small in population, we usually sit down there in uh in uh Budahol. I say we, it's mostly the residents who do most of the sit-in at this point. Uh and that's important and appropriate. Um I remember being in here, I think I in settling down to give a talk, I was reflecting on giving a talk. Um my first talk was right about where Brandon is sitting, right there, in the same hall. So if it feels a little hot, warm some lingering, that's that's what that is. And um that was about that was just about 20 years ago or something for the Shuso host, and I'm not sure exactly when. And throughout the weekend, of course, we've had uh practice of meditation, of sitting, the walking, the eating, the sleeping, and also the talks. Uh Jampa kindly opened the weekend with uh guidance and encouragement for how to practice and um approach retreat. And if we really listened there and put that into practice, then we've done well with the retreat. But for most of us as human beings, uh hearing it once, twice, a hundred times, a thousand times is uh is still not enough. The central problem of a central issue that we wrestle with is that sense of self, of me, I identity, the one that struggles to listen, the one that struggles to receive. Uh you will not get enlightened, fortunately. If you did, it could be taken from you, or it could be lost. You don't become what you already are. The Zen master Umon, the Tang dynasty great Zen master said everyone has the light. Everything has the light. Everyone has the light. But when you look for it, the darkness, you can't find it. When you look for it, you can't find it. The darkness is dark, dark. Again, this is our can be our central issue as Dharma practitioners if we do seek to that degree. It's not uh a requirement. People come to practice of meditation for many different reasons. People come to Long Beach meditation or Yokoji for many different reasons. A Sangha, a community like this, is like an inn in the old sense, a place to uh take shelter. You're alone out there and it's raining. You're alone out there in the weather and you're tired. So you look for a place of uh shelter to spend some time. And that might just be for one night, a hot meal, some sleep, a couple of sits, and then you're on your way with your life. And sometimes it's that way. Through these 20 or so years, thousands of people have come through this gate, and thousands of people go out of the gate. For Long Beach Meditation, uh, the makeup of a sangha right here is markedly different than it was in the spring. The core, not so much. The core remains, and that's important for a sangha. Those of us who've practiced together for these years now, there is something that is maintained and refined there, which really supports the whole and means that many people can come and go to the to the inn. You know, other people stay a while and stay a long time. You know, if you stay a while at the inn, then you realize there's a lot involved in running an inn. And that you have skills and hands and feet, and you can clean up and gather the dishes and uh take care of other things. Then you start to take care of the place for others. And some even become the innkeeper. Now that's uh that's a terrible job. It's like the the guy in Lord of the Rings, the one at the inn in Brie, I think of him, right? He wasn't very happy, he was frantic and uh worried about things. So being an innkeeper is tough, but for some people that that unfolds as their karma, they practice and trained to become innkeepers, and somebody needs to do that. Now, when Master Umon says everyone has their own light, and that's but when you look for it, you can't find it. We're reminded, and we've been reminded through the weekend, to look at and realize this original nature that each of us is at the root, the awareness that each one of us is before the story, before the name, and before the conditions. And that is really facing a a barrier or a blank wall for most for most people, right? We you don't you don't really see that, or there is some uh confusion, like being stood outside the gate a little bit, trying to look in, but not really, not really finding it. You can't find that light. Now, Master Umon here though, he went further and he said, and he asked a question of the assembly. He said, Um, what is your light? What is this light? What is it? That's a living question now for everyone. However you enter, what is it? What is this light? What is this awareness? What is this life? And everyone was silent, which was a common phenomenon in his uh in his community. Everybody remained silent, nobody wanted to risk anything there. So he replied for them, it said, What is your own light? The kitchen pantry, the main gate. How about that for an answer? What is your own light? The yellow flowers, the stellar jay, the moon riding in the clouds. Where are you looking for your light, the light of things? But we look for something else. We look for something better. You, me, I looks to become enlightened or to escape the uh stalking of impermanence and tries to outrun impermanence. That's the this is our central issue. When you look for your own light, you can't find it. What is your light, though? The kitchen pantry, the main gate. It's all around. Human's beautiful example. You know, what do you find in the kitchen pantry? You may find Tim telling you, get out of a pantry. Right? But as a working metaphor, it's sustenance, there's nourishment, there's everything that you need in the pantry. The main gate, we all entered the main gate for retreat, and here everything is. You're already inside the gate, and already inside the storehouse. But but what is that? Going further, Master Umon said, again, no response from a community. He added something, and he said, It's better to have nothing than something good. Now in Zedna we call that a cold statement. It's a cold statement. It's better to have nothing but something good. But when we practice, we're looking for something good often. Or at least the uh the absence of what is occurring that is bad. How is my meditation going? This isn't working for me. It's not working out how I wanted, I'm not yet where I wish to be. Again, that I that looks for conditions to be favorable will never be satisfied. You have to enter immediately through the front gate. It's better to have nothing. If you have bliss, you will lose it. If you have joy, it will turn to hatred. If you have so-and-so, so and so whatever, and that you fill that in. It's zen is not about finding the right conditions. The right conditions are always impermanent. Zen is to arrive at a place of freedom and alignment that is beyond conditions. So that whether it is good or bad, tired, happy, sad, confused, lethargic, any of these things, it's of no concern. It's of no matter. You sit and you might experience meditation is difficult. But that has nothing to do with it. Meditation is wonderful. That too has nothing to do with it. I give you an example. Master Bodhidharma, who it's credited as being the founder of Zen, talked in one place about uh ways to approach realization, enlightenment, the truth, whatever, however way you want to we want to misframe it. And he said we can approach through practice, approach through principle. Now, what I raised up so far is to approach through principle. That's the immediacy. That has to be, again, not mediated, as was brought up, but that that is the that is immediacy to awaken to the principle. But we can't wait for that to arrive. You don't walk around waiting for the lightning to strike. And you can't bet on causes and conditions to line up for you in this uh in this lifetime in a certain way. So we practice. You practice alongside. You know, as Brad brought up in his talk, with these, we can examine and find hindrances, and using uh the skilled words and guide of the great teachers since uh Shaky Muni Buddha and since you can navigate skillfully this life on a path of practice, and anyone can do that. That's open to all, and I encourage that we all practice. But there is also uh when we have a practice or we're practicing something that in itself presents its own difficulty. There's something called the Dharma, there's somebody called the Buddha, right? There's something called practice. Ultimately, even these terms are temporary expedience. But to realize that again is to attain non-attainment, as Tim quoted with uh Sung Sam. You know, the in the Heart Sutra that we chanted yesterday, Avalokitishvara doing deep prajna paramita, clearly saw emptiness of all the five conditions. I can't even remember what the five conditions are, it's not so important. It could be 18 conditions or two conditions or one condition. The point is, Avalokitishvara goes that so deeply, aligned so closely as to see the emptiness of all things inside and out, thus completely relieving misfortune and pain. Why? Because misfortune is not happening to you. Pain is not happening to you. Good things and bad things. Again, like these I was brought up yesterday, are just clouds passing across the sky. Conditions are always changing. But to see right through to the heart there, that is the principle. But all these conditions, this very one here, is empty inside and out. That's to enter through principle. And a rare few manage to express and realize both, both paths. A good example would be the Buddha. You know, but we've and we've had other teachers since, who really realize very deeply, but also walk it like they talk it. So another Zen Master, Master Sekito, a great Soto early teacher in the Tang dynasty, lived remotely in the Five Mountains region of China in that wonderful Chan hermit tradition, which had as much to do with Taoism as it did with Buddhism. Wonderful alignment with natural conditions and uh very low use of resources, to live simply. There's something very there's it's very important that to have limited, to live on those limited resources, because in our life, the more that we gather in, the more things we have, the more that we rely on, then that's the tougher path to renunciation. Master Sakito was living alone in a hut at the time, but he had some students who were very accomplished who are around him, often sent to him by other other teachers who saw uh real depth in somebody and said, You should go see Sakito. And he comes across his uh disciple or his student, uh Yakison, and Sakito says, and Yakison is sitting, like we have been this weekend, right? Sitting in sitting in meditation. He's sitting. Not for something, not for an audience, and not before the because the bell was struck. Not because of schedule, but he's just sitting, because that's what he does. That's what Buddhas do, like this one. They sit. So Yaku-san is sitting. You can imagine him there alone. Maybe somebody comes by, maybe somebody doesn't. It's of no concern. The conditions aren't important. And Sekito comes to him and says, What are you what are you doing? Wanted to check, you know, that's what a good a good teacher will will do, is to uh is to prod and to check, make sure the the in is really being taken care of. What are you doing sitting? And Yakusin says, I'm not doing anything. I'm not doing anything. Can we bring that to our meditation? That's that through this through this weekend and beyond, the next time that you sit. Not doing anything. When we arrange for body, then we arrange uh a safe scaffold and a structure for the body. Then we can put it in park. So if a car is parked, put the brake on, sit, arrange for body, and then the mind can follow and can relax. And the body-mind can truly sit. If the body-mind truly sits, then what you call a body-mind will disappear. That's what just sitting is. What are you doing? He says, I'm not doing anything. I'm not trying, you know, not trying to become a Buddha, not trying to relieve pain, not trying to become enlightened. No agenda, just sitting. The Sekito says, Well, if you're doing nothing, then you're just sitting idly by or sitting leisurely, right? Which is sometimes a misconception or how it's taken for us to be sitting. You know, people are like, Well, you just sit there? Yeah, you're lazy. You're like, what are you doing? You know. Of course, anyone who practices realizes it's not a vacation. But what what are you doing? What are you doing? Not doing anything. Then you're just sitting leisurely. Again, a prod. You know, try to just like push him a little bit to see what's there. See if there's any metal that needs to get shaved off the end of that needle still. And Jakoson says, if I was sitting idly, I now would be doing something. So it's not even that. Even to do nothing can be something. It's not the true nothing. It's not yet the true non-doing. And Sakito says, huh, if you're then what is it you're not doing? That's a wonderful exchange, yeah. And um Yakerson says, even a thousand Buddhas don't know. Even a thousand Buddhas don't know. How do you and I know what a thousand Buddhas don't know? But that in itself is for liberation. That in itself is for freedom. We bring our uh attention, where we bring our thinking mind, which navigates the world seeking comfort and escaping distress, our dualistic, evolutionally wired system driving forward through the ages, and we bring it to this practice, and it is uh soundly uh defeated. Because this dualistic understanding of subject and object doesn't penetrate it. But that's fine, that's why we sit so much. You wear that down if you are sitting and you've had a very frustrating time all weekend. I'm not getting it, it's not working for me. This is like the good. Good. Because then you'll wear it out, you'll wear it down to the bottom. You'll wear that resistance out, that seeking out, that wanting to know out. Wear it all out until you can really sit. And sit down and seek nothing, need nothing. That's just sitting. We have this uh beautiful environment, you know, a temple like this, so it was built by the labors of uh many, Mizumi Roshi, the founder, who founded this place, was at a conference for world religions, or some kind of conference about world religions, or something like that. And they were taking questions, and somebody asked uh the question if you could be anyone anytime, like anywhere through history, anything. Anyone at all, who would you be? And people gave various answers. And I asked my Zumi Roshi, and he said, no one, nowhere. And he meant that. Be no one, nowhere. Now that is the art of sitting, that is the art of this practice. To be no one, nowhere. Sure, we all have the name, the conditions, the responsibilities, the main gate, the pantry. You know, we have the garden of our life all around us. To take care of, to pay attention to. I'm glad Tim isn't here because I'll because I'll mention him and I'd embarrass him. I went just to check while we were having breakfast and how things were going, I think good. And then he said, What should I make for lunch? And you know, my mind is just like raisin. You know. I don't know, dude. That's your job, you know. It's like, I think it's something good. I said, I don't know. And he's like, huh. And then he, you know, he kind of put his hands on a table and then he was just stood there wondering what to make for lunch. That's a beautiful practice. That's a Tenzo's practice. His role is to cook, is to feed us, and hasn't it been wonderful? You know, if he sits there full of his own concerns, now where's the practice? What am I getting out of this? Where am I going to go with this? What does this all mean? Then the rice boils over. But aligned with life as it is and as it shows up, and to be able to enter in and act appropriately to match the present condition, that is our direct way. That is to enter through the gate of practice and principle, to respond to what is this now. Now, the way to really bring this realization to life is to use every moment, every sit, every second of Zazen like it's the last time you sit. Which sounds extreme, but really time's a wasteing. The sand runs through the hourglass. How many retreats will you do? You know, so we make the most of it that we can. What I strongly suggest or in guidance for meditation is once arranged the body and the mind and sits and the bell is struck, then have pay no mind and have bring no bias and no preference to everything that is experienced, whether it be internal or external. The content of your mind, busy or quiet, thought or no thought, no matter. The sound of silence, the sounds of birds, a plane overhead, wind, direct experience, no preference, allow, allow, allow. Dissolve the line, the felt line of a felt barrier between this one here experiencing a world of things out there. You know, the mind, the construction, and in our in our the way that we carry that construction, we all have that system of organizing the world. It's useful, it's essential for that as a human being, but don't mistake it for uh essential reality. It's just software, it turns out, it's a navigation tool. But let it rest when you sit. Let all things be just as they are, internally and externally. And when you really unify in that way, when it's all things as they are, without exception or without preference, then there are no things. Avalokitishvara doing deep prajna paramita clearly saw the emptiness of all conditions, then there are no things then. And this is not to arrive at a place of nihilism or some kind of void. What is the what what is the expression of emptiness? Again in the Hard Sutra, it tells us form is emptiness, emptiness is form, form is exactly emptiness, emptiness exactly form. There's a further dialogue between these two worthies, Sekito and Yakson. It's a little later. Talking about realization, saying something about it. Sekito said, words do not encroach upon it. I was strongly reminded of that this week this weekend. Words don't touch you, can't encapsulate the meaning. Words do not encroach upon it, Sekito said. Yakerson said, no words does not encroach upon it. Right, so I call and I raise you. No words. Yeah. No words does not encroach upon it. Not to get even hung up on that. Words are no words, emptiness are four more emptiness. Sekito said, here I can't stick a needle into it. This is freedom from concepts or knowing or of measuring or of having a scheme or an understanding. You can't even touch it with a needle. There's nothing to be found here. There's no attainment, there's nothing to realize. Here I can't even touch it with a needle, as precise as that. I can't find anything here. And Yakerson said, here it's like I'm growing flowers on a bare rock. I, you know, for myself that's one of the great expressions of Zen. Here, this place, this now, this life, this Dharma, this realization, this now is growing flowers on a bare rock. How could he say such a thing? This is the possibilities of practice, a possibilities of realization and of actualization. There is no reason for any of this. Where does it come from? Don't know. Where does it go? Don't know. What is this? Don't know. The don't know isn't a place to hang your hat. There's no peg. You have to be alive and revealed in the world. What to do, how to live, how to bring your voice, your expression, your energy. This one. The same as the yellow flowers. The same as the moon. Everyone here, completely unique. You're over there, I'm over here. Everyone is in the right place. This is the right time. It's never different than this. What will we do with it? For Yakasan, it's growing flowers on a bare rock. Which is tough to do, but that's a miracle. You know, whether we were looking, we enter in looking for some basic peace of mind or some relief from sheltering in the inn for a night, for relief of certain difficult circumstances, you are welcome. If you want to stay for a week or a month, welcome. But the important thing is to practice to the depths until you really know it for yourself, because it doesn't come from another. Satisfaction in this practice, so to really realize another can offer some clumsy words. It's like throwing stuff on a wall and hoping something sticks. In all of these teachings, whether from the animate or the inanimate, whether from people or from birds and flowers, anything that's useful, really use it to awaken. Anything that doesn't land, throw it out. You don't need it. But don't doubt that where you are now, this is the place and the only place to wake up. To be awake. And don't worry about changing the world. It's this one here. You know, it says in the uh. I like this line from the Dao De Ching. Do you want to improve a world? Latsu says, I don't think it can be done. The world is sacred. It can't be improved. And if you tamper with it, you'll ruin it. That strikes the heart of the human condition. Don't worry about becoming a good person or making it a good world. It already is so. It's the way that we misconstrue it that causes the suffering. And this is uh again the summing up with uh with the final talk this morning. Uh I'm encouraged by the development of Long Beach Meditation, right? Where a group of people come together, you know, to continue it these years, to practice alongside one another, to bring in these different streams, different characters, different strengths and weaknesses. You know, we just put it off, throw it all in the Vitamix. Blend it all up. That's what we've done this weekend. You blend right? It's a it's like it's a recipe of uh of leftovers. Right, but we make something, we make, and we make something wonderful out of it. I mean leftovers is a wonderful thing. Right? Make something unique. These different strands that have come down to us. It's always a mistake to invest too much in one teacher, you know, because we become confused and we think that they carry the way with them. Yeah, and it's not so. You already are the way. And use all of the teachers around you, whether they're called that or they're not. And don't forget the inanimate teachings and the teachings of sky, of tree, of bird, of flower. When you look for your own light, look around. And thank you for um for listening.