This Mysterious Life

From Beginner’s Mind Sesshin, January 2023

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SPEAKER_00 0:01

Good morning. Thank you again for making the the effort clearing your schedule. I'm sure you have to do very many various things in order to carve out even for a weekend to get away from your busy lives. I think most most everyone is is very busy with uh with with with jobs, with school, with family, with many commitments. So in order to take some time to step away and come up to the mountains to uh to do this, uh that's that's no small thing. I know that it takes effort, time, expense, and uh so thank you for for doing so. And I I do hope that you can glean some real uh benefit from from your time here. It really is a place which is uh is conducive toward uh meditation practice. Right? So we we call it the the beginner's mind session. Uh why a beginner's mind. In one sense it's nice, it contains beginner in the title, so so people think, well I haven't done that before, but it's for beginners, so I'll come, right? So if that happened, then uh we we trapped you with uh with the title beginner's mind, because it's uh that may be so, but it's also a beginner's mind for people who have been at it for several years, five years, ten years, twenty years, fifty years. Uh if then one uh comes to realise that beginner's mind is not something that is ever ever absent, but that is this uh immediate immediate experience now. I realize it must feel perhaps if you're here for the first time, you may have a question like, what the hell am I doing? You know, here right? It can seem quite uh even off-putting, or at least quite odd or abstract that we have these um different ways of doing things, there's people telling you to do things a different way and how to where to hold your hands and uh where to where to go and what to do next, you know. But please take any of these uh corrections and these and and these forms in the spirit in which they're meant, which is to help to to contain uh create a container for uh the present awareness of mind, to be able to set things up so that there is space and enough structure, but not more structure than necessary, so that each each person has the opportunity to take a really good look at their own essence of mind. This is why all of the bells, the incense, and uh and most importantly, the the meditation practice. Ultimately, meditation practice is is every activity that we're involved in. In the in in really in the 24-7-365. Everything ultimately is an expression of of meditation. But in order to really realize that and to bring that into appearance, to bring it into realization, then we tend to emphasize and put a lot of time into sitting meditation. Sitting meditation is is the the vehicle where things um where the original nature of mind is most obvious. It's directly in front and it's uh it's directly in every direction. And because there's not movement and doing that's required, there's just sitting and being, then we've really set things up most advantageously to take uh a deep look at this mystery of self. And again, as part of the putting together of the container, when we have uh a group of people doing that together, the the energy tends to be mutually uh supportive. There's uh something that takes place that's more than the sum of its parts. One would hope that when you look around and you see people who might be curiously dressed and uh they might have been here a while, they've got the look, you know, then then then hopefully they can serve then as a as a model for practice. You can just watch how they do things, and that helps too, as a vehicle for the container of practice. But you know, every everyone here came here for for a reason, and I I do want to leave some some space today to just take general questions around meditation and practice and what what you may be here for, what what brings you here, or what question you may have, if I can be of any help in that direction, I I would like to be. Um for whatever reason we came here, I'm sure it was clear for everyone that we would be involved in the practice of meditation. Here it's uh Zen meditation at Yokoj. Yokoj, this temple is uh a Soto lineage temple. So it has a uh lineage is quite is very important in in Zen. You know, the handing on of the traditional practice from from uh one generation to the next, uh being sure to uh maintain the core and the integrity and the depth of the pro of the practice. So this this place here, um founded by Japanese teachers originally, uh my my Zumi Roshi being the main the main factor here, there's an honorary founder as well. There's in that rich time, the 70s, 80s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and the United States where uh teachers came from mostly the uh eastern countries, Japan, China, Vietnam, Tibet, other places where where Buddhism had flourished over the centuries, and found found fertile ground on these shores at those times, right, in order to uh establish practice centers and to bring this way of meditative in inquiry to to uh to people to an audience that were interested to really look. You know, the so with Zen and a Soto temple, that's a particular lineage of Zen, which goes back to the founders of um Dogen Zenji and Kaizen Zenji, uh Japanese teachers who um Master Dogen, I brought along some of his words today, you know, as are useful as talking points. He was a Japanese teacher in the 13th century who, although he'd become accomplished in Japan as a Zen teacher, he felt it necessary to go further, to hadn't really answered his own question. And that's something that comes up over and over and over in Zen. People may receive acknowledgments of recruitments and get the certificate, but it's not about that ultimately, it's about it's it's always it ought to be about answering one's own question. Master Dogen went to China and studied there in a lineage, in a Soto lineage in China, bringing that back to Japan. Fast forward 700 years, here it is in the United States. You know, in China it would originally have been an export from from India. You know, we put the beginning point at the Buddha, who's represented on the altar here, Shakimuni Buddha, right, who's um everybody knows, I think, something around the the Buddha's history. Um he was uh a member of a basically a warrior class ruling family in in northern India, and he had a very deep uh inquiry into the nature of being human, right? And decided to answer that question and and practice very very uh diligently and practice a lot of austerity and difficult in order to look difficulty in order to look deeply into the human condition. The Buddha's for that we take as the founder of the great exemplar of that approach. And he, you know, you you've got to be pretty good at it to start your own religion, I guess, or something that echoes on for a couple of thousand years, you know, and and the the Buddha was, um it seems, particularly uh a genius of the times if you consider he was born in the ancient world, pre-science, really, pre-scientific inquiry, but was able to look very deeply into what it is to be a human being. That's ultimately the question and the practice of meditation. It's deep inquiry in what it is to be living the mystery of life. Well, how what is that? And it's a direct look. It's not a system that relies on a narrative or a belief system or a construction that is that is uh taken on from family society. It can be that way, but that's not the revolution of the the Buddha's inquiry of the revolution of the Zen. He was particularly adept at looking into the human condition, mapping it out, seeing where suffering and difficulty arises from, passing out what we can do something about and what we can't, clearly defining those facts of life, and then offering uh a teaching around how to go forward. With the bedrock of Buddhism being that life is inherently a human being suffers from an inherent uh dissatisfaction. The things are dissatisfactory at their core, which has always been um quite a provocative diagnosis and a provocative statement. But at the core there is uh there is dissatisfaction. But the Buddha saw very clearly that all things all things that appear disappear. Everything, including our bodies, this one here, everything appears from nowhere and exists for a period of time, and then decays and returns to nowhere. That's that's that's the fact of the matter. You may disagree. I think that's fair to say the Buddha's great great insight that everything is impermanent on the level of form, and so nothing can really be held on to, grasped, or relied upon ultimately. And then rather than to take on a worldview about what that means and hope for the best at the finish line, he decided to to I don't wish to demean that, but he decided, well, while we're here, let's do something about this. Let's look into human nature and see where we create our own suffering, our suffering from others, and move away from that in order to promote uh peace and a return to wholeness and and well-being. Now, in this lineage that you're involved in today, you know, as part of the Zen, as part of the Zen lineage, uh the Buddha's insights uh over over decades and centuries of making its way along the Silk Road and going into many different countries, Zen began in China, what we would call Zen, or what was called Chan, which is an import of uh Buddhist, an injection of the revolution of Buddhist inquiry into the already existing uh Taoist and Confucian philosophy of the time. And I was looking this up at the original like kind of ideogram in Chinese for meditation, so there's two of these two ideograms. The first one is um it shows uh three points of of light, right, which was taken at the time, bear with me, as uh the the sun, the moon, and the stars, right, being the source of life and the source of uh qi at that time, right, that was radiating down on us in every direction. So this is the first character for meditation. That's quite interesting if you think that in those early couple of centuries BCE people are contemplating life and feeling like, well, I think the stars have got something to do with it, you know, like light permeating down. Of course, now now with scientific inquiry, we can say quite literally we are all made of stardust, and everything that appears comes from stars. The second ideogram, though, for meditation there, is um mean is uh depiction of altar. An altar. And I can drawn like a person sitting. So you can look at meditation as being and composing your body as you do now and in the Zendo, like that altar that we place things on, you place the body as an altar and receive light. It's the contemplation of being where the body is still and and invites illumination. That's an I think an interesting way to look at what meditation is. Now, of course, there's a lot that goes on in in meditation. You may find, particularly if you knew, that it's uh not how it might be marketed in in like generally known society. Like meditation has that connotation of being kind of blissfully contemplative, it has that kind of rosy glow. If it was that way, there'd be many more people, it would be much more popular, right? It's uh but you realize when you get involved in meditation, that it's difficult. It's difficult. It's difficult to sit still, it's difficult for the body, it can be painful, it's it's uh you know, the knees hurt, the legs, why are my legs falling asleep? That person looks great, I'm I I'm I'm like struggling. We might have these thoughts in our head, like, whoa, what did I do? Felt like such a good idea when I made that New Year's resolution to to do a meditation retreat, and now here I am, and it sucks. You know, I'm freezing, I nearly slipped on my ass three times walking up here, and now I'm sitting here and my knees are killing me. You know, so all of this might might might be occurring while we're we're looking for a profound experience of meditation, right? And that really brings us to uh the necessary, the the kind of the shift that's necessary in in practice. It's like what is it when we what is going on, how are we orienting when the bell is struck to begin 30 minutes of sitting? What's going on in the from the beginning bell to the end bell? What's going on in between? We may find for most of us, beginner or intermediary, or if you want to throw those labels on, but it really comes down to what is the relationship with self-identity, with thinking mind. All of us are like thinking machines, just churning them, churning it out, right? Always thinking about something, usually some kind of narrative about my life and the conditions and the circumstances, the relationships, for the desires. All that is usually there's some kind of churn that's that's going between, or is it just is it just me, or is like can other people somewhat relate relate to that, right? So we have that that going on, including often a commentary that's that's being built in real time about like how's it going so far? How's this meditation period going? What do I think of this place, these people, this time right now, and that that kind that kind of commentary. Right, and that's all very natural as a as a human being that that is going on. Ultimately, that has nothing to do with meditation. That that is putting oneself in the posture and and trying to and that is learning to meditate. And so we all of us have to go through the gate of the frustration with with recontextualizing this relationship to uh to our thinking, thinking mind. Right now, we do this in various ways in um in this school, in the Zen school. Usually we begin with the basics of uh you need a good posture, a reasonable posture. Otherwise, you can't sit still for long. It's it's so distracting, it'll be very painful. So we spend some time in either learning to sit cross-legged or kneeling is more comfortable for some of us, and depending on physical limitations, the way we're uniquely arranged, maybe we we sit in the chair. So we we get those practicalities taken care of, a way to find a good posture. Then begin to develop concentration. Begin to develop concentration, usually that is the development of uh breath awareness, awareness of breathing. It's usually given as a beginning practice. So the the concentration or awareness is aimed into the impersonal rising and falling of breathing as a way to move awareness away from being just addicted to our kind of thought stream and what one wondering about things and commentary. So then we will put it into breathing. There's a wonderful yogic quality to sitting still and breathing and just doing that. If you master that or practice just that, you'll be well served by that practice. The Buddha, who brought up at the beginning, you know, he apparently, long years after his illumination, his enlightenment, many years of teaching, was asked by Ananda, his attendant, said uh, what are you the monks are asking what you do when when you meditate? And he said, I sit with awareness of breathing. All those years later, that's that that practice is is complete. It wasn't exhausted by the Buddha or all of the sages or all of the teachers through history. This breath now is is always beginner's mind, is always new, is always appearing right here, disappearing right here. So spend, you know, we can spend or we perhaps ought to spend real time in that simple, straightforward practice. We might want to rush off and try and get to the what we think is the good stuff, you know, the deeper, the deeper quest existential questions of the things that are really driving us. But if we practice the samadhi of a contentedness of just sitting with awareness and of breathing, you find that that is a wonderful refuge for for mind to sit in that way. Now for those of us who like me was not content to just sit there and like follow my breath for for hours, then we take um we move on to perhaps the what is this relationship we're thinking about? We all have this sense. Of self-identity, do we not? There's a sense of me, my name, my history, and the things that define us as a human being. Which all appear in relationship to other things. But there's that sense of perhaps that this self feels separate in a world of other, in a world of other things. And that is the popularly that's the popular worldview in society. We're a group of separate people, you know, that is experience a world of separate things. What is the self? What is it in its essence? Who are you in one's essence? In the deepness of your being, what is this and who are you? That is the great question that has driven people since the Buddha and before him in times immemorial through generations. People that like don't, you know, the belief structures or the you know the ideas around this, that may be useful or serve or be satisfactory, but for many people it's a profound mystery who I am. So in our meditation, then you look and you find out, you take a good look at who and what this one is. The practical way to do that is to disidentify or set aside the attachment to one's own thinking, which is much easier said than done. That runs very deep for most of us. What I think about this. Now, but you can experiment with that during this during this time, during this time of meditation. What is what all that is required there is to watch look don't move. So we we watch look don't move in a very literal form sense. Like pack the body, sit, look. We're not moving, might move a little bit. But sit, look, don't move. But that that runs deeper than just this physical form. It's that too with the perception of mind. Sit, so to be still, look, be in direct experience with all things, don't move. What does that mean though, you know, to say to to don't to don't move? Sit, look, don't move. We're perceiving all of the time. Internals and what's perceived internally and externally. We call it the world out there, the light and the snow and the cold and the heat, the sound of wind, and of noises outside. So it's our kind of perceived externals. And then we have the perceived internals. What I'm thinking, feeling, and what I'm experiencing that feels internal. So if you take on the practice of Zen sitting or just sitting, then you sit, a look, and that looking is an opening. It's looking with more than just your eye. It's look what's here, as in open the senses up. Look with the ear, meaning listening to sound and silence with the same attention. Looking to whatever is here without bias or picking and choosing. Feeling whatever comes forward in terms of sensation, emotion, without judgment. And allowing everything internal and external to be just as it is without bias. Without bias. Now our bias runs from I think for all of us. Our bias is entangled and tends to run deep. The conditioned way that we have learned to experience life and reality. And our opinion and fixed ideas around that. Most intractably, the fixed ideas around self, who I am. Sesshin or meditation is the vehicle in which you allow that Gaudian knot to unravel by itself. The knot that you are to unravel. That entanglement sometimes causes suffering and difficulty. To sit and, consistent with that ancient ideogram from a couple of thousand years ago in China, receive the light, receive enlightenment, receive the illumination. That's this now. Prepare an altar, prepare the body to receive. The altar doesn't care what's put on it. Right? We put incense and flowers, but you could just put um some you know poorly rinsed out soup cans on there. Or whatever. The altar doesn't care. Right? It's like an altar accepts anything. But with an altar, we take it as being something that is elevated or precious. We say this is an offering. An altar is an offering, and we put our best on it. Our life is that too. This is an o this is an altar, and this is an offering. What do I what am I offering? What do I put on my altar? So this is our this is our movement from meditation. It's hard. We practice in kind of like the engine room of the Zendo, where it's like, okay, this isn't easy. It turns out this is difficult. Who would have thought? Being really still in body and mind is is is exceptionally hard for most people. But you practice that art to be still and allow everything to be as it is and receive everything. Ultimately, everything's received with a bow. Everything is welcome. And we move from a vehicle of sitting, and then you move to walking. Then it's walking meditation. It's still meditation. It is this realization of stillness of mind in stillness. And then we stand up, and it is the realization of the stillness of mind in slow walking. What is fundamentally nothing has moved, nothing has changed. Sure, the content is different, but intrinsically nothing's changed. We move to a faster walking. And then it's allowing a faster walk to take place. Of course, as we do this, the the conditioned one that we are loves to like rush in the gate and be like, why doesn't he walk a bit quicker? Or why don't now I don't want to do this, maybe I'll go out and I'll you know blow my nose. Or you know, and everything is coming in, offering choice and judging what we're doing and our relationship to it. The practice of Zen in terms of form and session is you let go of the pick it and choose it and you pour yourself in to whatever the activity is unreservedly. And this is why we have this like like with the work practice, is often not something we typically be doing. I don't know, I don't know. Perhaps um this is how you spend your days, you like you this is what you do every day, you go out into the woods and in the snow and uh you know hack at undergrowth, but probably probably not, right? Or working with three or four people in the in the kitchen or cleaning cleaning toilets, but it's a big part of the the training in Zen. It's take care of the container, you need a place to practice, work collectively for the benefit of all, but most importantly, throw away the deeply ingrained habit to individuate everything. Like, I don't want to do this, I shouldn't be doing this, I want to do that, I prefer doing this, I prefer doing that. As human beings, we're we're always picking and choosing. The Zen approach to practice is to just fully be immersed in whatever is bus. That's true on the cushion when sitting, and ultimately that's that's realized in every activity that we're involved in. This is deep um use and meaning in our everyday lives, our everyday life off the hill for you all. It is um you know, all kinds of challenges, difficulties are coming forward all the time. You we're all involved in things we don't want to do all the time a lot of the time, right? Life does not cooperate with um how we want it to go. It is outside of our control. You know, again, and as human beings, if we're always in a you know, in a relationship with life where we're trying to manipulate life to our to our benefit or how we want it, that is turns out to be uh a useless struggle at some point. The radical shift is to how about this life as it is, however it shows up, is welcomed in or allowed. That's easy to say in principle, but for most of us that is a lifetime of practice. So that's why we continue with this the schedule. It doesn't matter if people have been at it a few years, ten years, four years, it it always continues. It's all this is always a beginning right now. There's nothing there, there's no place of realization where you you're done and you rest, and that's it now. I don't have to try anymore. Well, I've said quite a lot uh already, so I'll I'll be true to my word and and uh I'd like to open it up for any question around what I'm bringing up or or the session in general, your own practice around meditation. Please uh this looks all very formal, but please take it informally in terms of your voice is is valued and um your questions are encouraged. So I'd like to open it up if anyone has a question or a comment.