Trust Your Heart

Return to What is Most Vital

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Oh good morning. It is technically still morning, although I've been up for some time at this point. I hope your your sitting practice is going well, not too um not too painful or too uncomfortable. And of course, as the for many of you who are who are new, perhaps it's your first time here, then it's uh a little bit of a adjustment necessary with the uh uh with the forms, the way that we do things. I caught myself there where I said, you know, we can move around, it could be quite informal. Well, considering the way I'm the way I'm dressed, probably not quite so informal, right? So um, but we have these forms for for for good good reason. Um this uh beginner's mind session at Yokoj Zen Center. So we're you're you're practicing within the sphere of a uh uh Soto Zen tradition with um with elements, so a lot of uh Rinzai Zen tradition mixed in there, mixed in there too. Yokoj itself is a Soto lineage, Zen Buddhist temple. But the uh the the founder Mizumi Roshi Um who who came to United States from from uh Japan uh carried uh a couple of different Soto lineages and a lineage of uh of a lay Rinzai lineage with him too. Why do I bring that up? It's because this this is something of a uh hybrid practice of Zen Buddhist styles here, which was inherited from Japan, which previously had come from China, which previously had come from India, and so but uh a long tradition that uh tracks its origin story back to um the the personage represented on on the the altar, uh Shakimuni Buddha. So Zen is a is a school of of Mahayana Buddhism. When we read back and look back to what's known about the historical Buddha, I was just I refresh myself now and again and see because there's modern scholarship and people are always uh maybe unearthing uh new things about histories which we may have uh taken more for granted in the past, and that that changes over time. Um although I read I read earlier that the uh scholarship is pretty much given up on the historical personage of the Buddha, of clearly defining when exactly he lived, who exactly he was, what exactly was going on at that time. There's a lot of overlap, but we're not quite sure of which year, which which happened then, but uh we do know that um that that that person existed and taught in in India at that time. So the Buddha was of course a um an extraordinary teacher. This is of course pre-science, ancient world, um, and yet he was able to look into the fact of the human experience, what it is to be a human being, and then to unpack that and see how that um corresponds and aligns with this uh curious, curious reality that we're all involved in, that we've been involved in for all of these uh decades that we've been alive. It is, you know, sometimes we take it for granted of that mystery gets covered up with um you know uh mundanity and like everyday life, or it seems pretty okay, like another normal day. And yet when we really look at it, to appear in the world, in this reality as a human being here now is uh an unfathomable mystery. So we're all we're we're all very much involved in in exploring that. You know, from the the Buddha's teaching and his example, that teaching, of course, has spread far and wide throughout uh throughout the world. And and here, this is the living representation of that transmission of Buddhism moving through again India, China, uh, Japan quite recently, and then into the United States. So now we're involved in a in a slow organic um change as it becomes a little more uh Americanized for good and for bad, right? It's like we'll see how things adjust from one culture to to another. Typically in Buddhism, that's a a process that takes a couple of hundred years or something, but it does seem that everything's speeding up, and things that took a couple of hundred years tend to happen faster. So in even in my experience of being here, this will be like 20 years, I think. Um, then there's been changes in the way that we do things. Uh and perhaps a simplifying of some of the forms which I'm talking about, some of the the amount of chants, the bows, how to do each and everything that we we do do. But we don't we're very slow to make make changes. Um as I I like to bring up, and those people that live here have to forgive me bringing it up again, but I it's uh it was a good lesson for me. It's when I first moved here to practice Zen, after about two weeks of living here, I knew the changes that needed to be made around the place. This is silly, this isn't working, this is um, you know, etc. etc. As human beings, we were very wired with that judgment sense that's always uh navigating, you know, reality, seeing what works, what doesn't, and our and our opinion that, right? And then often expressing our opinion about that. You know, so um I was quickly disavowed of that living at a Zen center, fortunately, after a couple of weeks. But and then after about 10 years, um much more I had the sense of wanting to protect what we were doing and not change anything at all. Because I'd come to understand through experience that all of the forms, everything that we do, has a very practical reason for doing so. And that practical reason is rooted in a beneficial action to help us focus attention and return to what is most vital and what it what is present, to disrupt the um individuated self-preference, which we're all um I think we're all running that in the background, are we not? Sometimes in the foreground. Right? So these these forms um are slow to change for that reason. When we come to a retreat like this, you plug into a container of concentrated practice. Right? It's uh it's uh it's a collective endeavor that we create a container, like in the in the meditation hall. It's wonderful to see the meditation hall very very full. It's pretty much every seat's taken, and just before the retreat, we were thinking, well, we might have a few extra people under our seats, and it was like, oh, we'll work it out, let's see how it is. Usually it's a couple of people come down with a cold or something else just before I can't make it for one reason or another. And this one, you know, I think we kind of hit the sweet spot. So much so that as we come in here for the talk, it's like the last couple of people are like, okay, where am I gonna sit? Okay, we just we just fill it nicely. And with that, we create a a container in order to in order to practice. But to practice, to practice what? You know, I look around and I know many people here over some some years, so I can I I I know something of your your your attention, intention and your your practice and um and and the why of why you show up. But then for for others who who were seeing you for the first time, then that's that's still uh that's still a blank page, wondering you know what brings you what brings you here. I can I can I can make a guess. I think there's some interest in of course in meditation, perhaps in zen distinctly, uh, perhaps in um wishing to um uh disconnect from the chaos and busyness of everyday life, work, responsibilities, everything that goes into this modern life, and dang it, just get up to the mountains for a couple of days. That might be enough to just to step out of the world and come to a place where uh the lifestyle does foster um a peaceful a peaceful mind and helps to develop uh concentration. So maybe perhaps you fall into those kind of broad categories so you have something uh unique. But what is it that we're doing here through through our weekend? I mentioned in the guidelines yesterday evening, you know, you get that orient the orientation is a hundred things to remember, and you know, it's okay, and then kind of dive in with a sort of not knowing what you what you're doing approach. So I commend you for uh for for doing that. And then we have the hours of of meditation, the sitting time, and that's that's really the heart of our of our practice this weekend, and the heart of our practice on a day-to-day basis here, whatever, is the the schedule. Zarzen, our sitting meditation and the Zen tradition is our firm foundation for for life and and and for the way of Dharma. And with that, then no matter the cultural differences or what's changed over the many centuries, then we share that common heritage and connection with um with the historical Buddha, you know, who all those centuries ago sat under the Bodhi tree, the shade, after long years of practice and austerities, of learning method and inquiring into life. Finally, it just brought him to sitting down on the ground, not moving, looking directly at this experience of being a human being. We all have that in common in this practice of sitting. Now you may have have already learned and put to put to good use uh a concentration, uh practice method. There are several within the tradition of of Zen meditation. Typically, um we spend some time, we all spend some time having developing a serviceable posture, just a way to sit. You know, a body sometimes a little uncooperative with that, and it changes over over the years, you know. Over my the years that I've practiced, I've had brief times where sitting was just, you know, it's just right. Very brief windows were like very brief times, you know. And then other times where it's just like it's like, you know, very difficult with just uh uh uh uh discomfort and and sometimes and sometimes pain. But we find a posture and we find a way to sit down and then we bring in some method. Typically in the in our Zen school we have our our breath awareness practices, either uh counting for breath, a following for breath. A very uh very ancient way that people you know practiced for many generations uh long before long before the Buddha. Right? There's a there's a there's a very positive shift that happens in sitting down, being still, and moving attention toward the physical movement of breath. Just to be, if you practice in that way, if you just sit down and give some time each day towards being still, quiet, and focusing on your breath, then you'll be you'll be well served by that practice. But as we know in our 30-minute sitting periods, not so easy to just um sit and become immersed in breath awareness as a as a living Buddha and express your enlightenment throughout the ten directions. Usually it doesn't fall in your lap Friday evening, that that that experience. But you know, if it did, hands up, let's, you know, identify yourself. Yeah. But for most of us, that's that's just the the the beginning practice, being able to just sit down and be still and to try try try and realize present mind. What what gets in the way, typically thinking mind and the identity of me self? Ah, right? So as we're all as we're all familiar with. After all, it was me, you, I that decided to come on retreat. Me, you, I that ran the card in the office or sent in a check, right? This we live with this cure, this enigma of uh me, I self. Right? We have a name, a history, relationships, and family and connections, right? So that's that's that's beyond a doubt. But the Buddha and many since and before the Buddha have uncovered the the the truth that that when we look into this uh I mean it's very difficult to say what that actually is, who that actually is, the I me. The basic teachings of Buddha and other teachers, and many other different modalities have looked into this. Like Zen is a direct approach of uh, and Buddhism is a direct approach of find out for yourself. Look, you you do the work, right? We get some nice buildings, we set you know, we've got the mountains, everything's set up, we've got some cushions, but you you come in and you sit down and you look for yourself. You look for yourself at what is this life that I am, what is the nature of this reality that I am, that what is the nature of this reality experience? Now, I wanted to bring in a few words from a few uh some generations after the Buddha, you know, just saying that that tradition came from India into China, many different countries, but this temple, this lineage goes through Japan, China, India. If we go back to the beginnings of Zen in um in early China, we look back to something that's uh commonly called a golden age of of Zen. That sounds that sounds good. The golden the golden age of Zen, which is kind of like early uh like Tang Dynasty, China, uh 6th, 7th, 7th, 8, 8, 8th century, a kind of era. This is when you know the teachings of of Buddhism from India had become infused and um integrated into the the Chinese um systems or understandings of of Taoism and Confucianism, and and it started taking on a unique what would become known as Chan. Chan Zen. Zen is is just a ja uh you know Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese characters for Chan, which in turn means jnana or meditation in in India. So we we come to this time in in China where something uniquely zen begins to emerge. You know, Buddhism has many, of course, perhaps hundreds of different line, I'm sure hundreds of different lineages, approaches, you know, so they're very much culturally integrated with the countries from which they've emerged and their practice. It's often hard to see where the culture begins and the you know, the strictly the spiritual practice begins and how those are entangled.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

Right?

SPEAKER_00 17:43

And and and Zen, emerging out of China during this time, produced a wealth of of teachings, of writings, of um which which we use here today. So when we came in for service this morning, you came in, you're like, oh my gosh, what's going on now? Alright, I got a book, and I've been chanting some stuff, and and this is me projecting what you know. But sometimes that's what I think, you know, it's like what what are we doing here? And um, and and so we're chanting these these these words from it from from many centuries ago, which are describing reality of our inquiry and understanding of the reality, and reality hasn't changed in those couple of thousand years. People have changed in terms of content, and you know, we've got iPhones now, but in terms of arms, legs, eyes, and ears, and needing to eat and go to sleep, nothing nothing as much has changed over these millennia. But back in this rich time in China, uh people began to write down and and comment and look at like how do we articulate this understanding that the Buddha realized. Since Zen, we go right when we talk about the Buddha typically, a point to the Buddha, we're actually talking or pointing to the Buddha's realization under the Bodhi tree. The enlightenment realization of the of the Buddha. That's typically what we look to, right? In an effort to realize that for ourselves. Which may sound like a tall order, but the Buddha was a human being. These teachers for our time are just human beings, and we're also in the same place. And we can also share in this in this realization of reality, of the way, of the human condition. So um, somewhere probably 7th, 8th century, it's credited as being much earlier, but there was uh it was probably created a little later. You look into you know that that era, and things can be a little uh shaky for for dating things, but there was a um a writing called which we called um faith in mind. I think it's how do you say it in Japanese? Shinjinming in Japanese, yeah, and in Chinese uh Shin Jin Ming. Oh, there you go. That's convenience, isn't it? Alright, and that's been variously trans translated. The popular one is uh faith in mind, sometimes translated as truthful mind. You know, if you really break down the ideograms, then it could be translated as inscription on relying on mind. Inscription on relying on mind. And uh student attention Roshis, um, whose abbe here is in this morning, be in later, who works on translation, he he trans uh uh Jim Doe Butler, he translated this as trust your heart, which is another nice way to put it. So we we can put it in in several different ways. It's a long writing. I'm just gonna bring in about four lines, right? So in the opening here, and there's a various different translations, I'm just gonna bring out a couple. Here's here's the first one. The best way, the great way, the Tao, is not difficult. It only excludes picking and choosing. Once you stop loving and hating, it will enlighten itself. Another translation of the same lines now. The perfect way knows no difficulties, except it refuses to make preferences. Only when freed from dislike and like it reveals itself fully and without disguise. Once more, this is uh Jindar's translation. Concerning the way, there will be no difficulty if only you dislike being picky. Just don't be dead set against or set on anything. When you are thoroughly like this, the way is obvious. So this is our our uh our prescription for for Zazen and our practice through through the weekend. And maybe our practice in in our life. Concerning the way. This is the way. The only game in town we're living it. This is our life. We're all sharing in this, in this mystery. This is this is this is the way. So this is where to look. Now just saying that this is the way might not mean much. Oh great, that thanks a lot. This is the way. You know, it's not doing much for me right now, but you know, right? But I'm being assured that this is actually the way. It is the way, but there's a lot of difference in terms of realization of the way. Making this statement of this, this bringing this truth and making it real, knowing that this now is the awakened or the enlightened way. And it took the Buddha many years. He had to practice in the you know, in the forests of northern India and all these austerities and study with different teachers, eventually throw it all away, sit under a tree, become realized. For most people in the Zen tradition, for you know, the then it's typically in the practice a something of a um a teacher, a teacher-student relationship, or a or dare I say it, a master-disciple relationship, using you know, a kind of a different language set to describe it. But usually a person studies with a person over a long period of years, and that person who's teaching will have spent a long period of years studying it with their teacher. Like Ten Shin Roshi was teaching this morning, be teaching tonight. I studied, you know, close I'd say close study with him. Well, I've been here 20 years, you know. Uh but um but I've been um about 12 years of close study and teaching for about 10 years. He similar track for him with with his teacher, Mizumi Roshio mentioned who came from Japan. So we have this kind of long apprenticeship model and and and study. So again, realization or making awakening real doesn't tend to just fall in our lap directly, but it might and it can and it sometimes does. You can you can take the uh you can take the you can take the shortcut. You can feel feel empowered to take the shortcut of of realization and just um get this done right from the start in your practice of uh of Zazen. Just listen to our words here. Concern in the way, there will be no difficulty. If only you dislike being picky. Ah, now that tends to be a little bit of a hurdle in in this practice of realization, not being picky. We can see it very much in just in a certain practice when meditation comes along. You know, the bell, the uh Reuben kindly strikes the bells for us to begin the set, and we we sit there, okay. Here we go. I'm in. Alright, let's go. And we might like follow our breath, account some breaths, you know, maybe just to relax the shoulders a bit more, you know, and then what happens? Okay, for many of us, a little voice pops up. Me. Did you forget about me? Here's me coming along, and me is not so interested in sitting on a wooden platform in an empty room with a bunch of people they don't know, with no, you know, with nothing to do. That's usually me isn't such so captivated by that. Me would rather watch a movie, me would rather scroll the phone, me would rather be getting on with some, you know, whatever those those those tasks may be, right? So what happens with that me I sense? Key shift in in in Zen in meditation sitting. The that sense of me I, that that thinking about things that that comes up, what needs to be learned and practiced in meditation is to be able to separate or detach or transcend or whatever word that we want to put there from adding to the thought stream of pursuing afterthinking. And that's difficult for most people who are beginning. Hey, it's it's difficult for most people, period, right? It's it's like that that thinking mind that comes in, which is involved in being picky. It's like I'm not feeling it right now, I'm tired, or I'm cranky, or I or you know, this is but whatever starts to come up in the mind, that pickiness can come in so so so very easily. Because naturally, a human being is picky. We have preferences, humans have preferences, buddhas don't. And we're on the realization curve. Human being to Buddha and back again.

unknown 28:12

Right?

SPEAKER_00 28:13

But human beings are immersed often in in preferences, so we have a hard time sitting. You know, we're thinking about uh thinking about this and that. To become developed to really to practice Zazen and sitting meditation, though, we have we have a helpful um helpful method. If we disrupt thinking mind and become immersed in sitting, breathing, and aware of the physical, the environment. And now we have the beautiful the sound of the rain. You sit and become immersed as the sound of the rain. After all, that's what's real. That's realization. There's a realization of rain. Is that enough? Can you sit and listen to the rain for 30 minutes? Can we sit and listen to the rain, well, of the rain or to the to silence or sound with the same inquiring attention for 30 minutes or for however long. But for most of us, we need to practice that. There's a the the the me, I sense of self of thinking about this and that can be interrupted with concentration practice, with with collant, with she can with different approaches, but somehow or other the shift has to be made where where we sit, thoughts arise, thoughts occur, but thoughts are treated as no more consequential than the sound of the raindrops. Now, me, I like to compete and say, no, no, believe me, I am consequential, you left the oven on. Right? Or me, you I this is important, listen to me. You've got to think about this relationship you're in and what you're gonna do when you get home. No, me and you know, so some of the surface kind of banal thinking about nothing in particular might be easy to let go of, but often there are deeper, deeper uh comments on reality which are harder to let go and this and disentangle. But the great way is knows no difficulty if only you dislike picking and choosing, if only you dislike being if you can let go of preference and pickiness. So in in sitting practice, that letting go of preference extends to the full spectrum of reality which is being experienced. That means allowing sound, silence, sight, thought, feeling, perception, and all of this content to be exactly as it is without the attendant value system we bring to it. And that can be realized, that is realized over time and practiced over time, but there's no but it's actually timeless. The way is timeless, so it can also be accessed spontaneously and immediately. Why not? It goes on. Just don't be dead set against or set on anything. Well, can we bring that to the act other act so the other activity of our day? You know, so we we come down and and we have our sit-in and then we go down to breakfast. We might not like what's for breakfast. I mean, we're very fortunate with Termu's Artenzo, because you usually like what's for breakfast, you know. Actually, I could be like, that's not a good example. Everyone likes breakfast. Okay, work practice. Okay, that's that's something, right? It's like what they want me to go out into the woods with these loppers? Like, what's going on? Like and just trail down there and follow this guy, and okay, what am I right? So as we get it, and then washing up, you know, it's like doing dishes or whatever the activity, the activity it is. There's a lot going on there in terms of activating the kind of preferential picking mind and our narrative around it. And this is also going on, even in when there's no activity, how do we regard other people and the things in our life and the narrative and the preference and the picking and choosing around that? You see that, wow, as a human being, I this I'm this is like a I'm lost in picking and choosing and categorizing and weighing and judging. Right? Now, but don't misconstrue that this is a practice which is abandon all preference. Right? It's like I don't care if it's oatmeal every day, breakfast is awesome. I don't this put me out in the woods, I'll be there for, you know, I'll I'll sleep out here with my LAPAs. It's not about reaching a place where there is no preference functioning anymore. But usually when we come into practice, we're skewed hard into the human condition experience of reality. That was the Buddha's motivation to practice because when you're hard skewed into the human condition, there's a lot of that tends to be suffering and frustration. The fact of dukkha, as the Buddha identified it, right? It's like dissatisfactoriness. You begin a practice of meditation and spiritual inquiry, you start to let go, to realize and to let go, or at least have the choice to let go some of that suffering and dukkha and that preference. Begin to wake up and aware and see that as human beings, we create our own prison and our own suffering a lot of the time. It turns out that a lot of frustration, difficulty, and suffering is man-made and um not particularly necessary. And and through practice and realization, we learn to pass out the difference. What what right what is unavoidable? Well, old age, sickness and death, as again that the the Buddha flagged, right? So there is suffering and there is pain in life that seems to come along with the experience of appearing as a form. That's the cost of experience. But within that, there is a way where we can better align with reality as it is and let go of a lot of extra difficulty which we've conditioned and created in our mind. All of us are hopelessly conditioned as human beings by our experiences, by our parents, by society, by our by our culture, by conditioning is just always happening. In Zen and in meditation, you come to know, not intellectually apprehend, not know in that way, to know in your heart and bones what is unconditioned.

unknown 35:55

Right?

SPEAKER_00 35:55

So we can be conditioned, but we're also unconditioned. We're human beings subject to the human condition, but we're also Buddhas and realized. What is that unconditioned way? Concerning the way, there is no difficulty if only you dislike being picky. Don't be dead set against against or for anything. And then when you are like this, the way is obvious. Once you stop liking and disliking, it will enlighten itself. The way will enlighten itself. So this shift here is in learning in our practice of, you know, you need you need kind of courage and and and trust in in Dharma practice and Zen practice to just say, you know what, I'm gonna dive in the middle of it and and see what happens. If you if you're on the you know, kind of exploring the perimeter and looking in, that's fine. Walk around the fence, there are a perimeter, you know, have a look in and see whether you want to go for it or not. That's fine. That's fine when you come for the like a beginner's weekend, right? You're kind of checking it out. But at some point in Zen practice and in Dharma practice, you have to leap the fence, scramble over, and then explore. Explore. There are guides, there are people in the living and dead, old teachers and teachers who are who are alive now, who have gone ahead on that exploration and can help explain something of the likely territory you will encounter, but it'll be uniquely different for everybody. But through this, if you are wearing this way that we catch ourselves with constant picking and choosing, preference, and you practice non-preference and allowing. A good safe introduction to that is the meditation hall. Right? You can let go of picking and choosing in the meditation hall. It's not gonna be, right? A problem. You don't lose anything in sitting. Anything you can lose in meditation, anything that you can lose when you're sitting or forget, that's a positive. Let it let it let it go. Let the preferences go, feel, experience, allow, sit. Even to do that for a short period of time is a powerful solve and medicine for an agitated body-mind that is living in a world of constant adjustment and chaos. Right? Well, that's what I'm imagining it's like out there, unless I'm right. It's like about in here too, actually. Wherever there's people, that will occur. So we're not escaping the conditioning, but rather aware it and see where you have space, freedom, and choice. Where you can let your preferences go and just be still, sit, allow, go into the next activity, accepting, seeing it as it is. Then, as it says here, um, it will enlighten itself. That sounds wonderful, but it could sound a little out, you know, a little abstract. But you find that when you become present and aware, what to do in any activity becomes very obvious. As you match the activity and the environment that you're inhabiting and moving forward, what to do and how to do it becomes much more straightforward when present and engaged. You just begin that much more to align and to flow with life as it is. Life moves through you, and you are the expression of life that's moving through you. That is much more to enter the way. But if we're stood one step behind looking at every activity or what's coming next, mistrusting it, judging it, analysis, paralysis, not sure which choice to make, then we fall out of alignment with life, which is constantly moving and unfolding. The way is not difficult, it excludes picking and choosing. Once you give up, like and dislike, it will enlighten itself. There's just four lines, there's about four pages of this stuff, but I'll pause at this point. Um, I'm happy to open it up for questions and comments, anything you'd like to ask about what I think.