The Meaning Finds You

How can it be understood?

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Good morning. Thank you for your for your efforts so far in uh in the session. It's not it's not easy. It's not easy to practice the session. And if you're doing it wrong, it's not easy. Or worse. But either either way, it's uh it is it is difficult struck by that. Um particularly this week a little bit of a an injury that's gonna cause me a a bit of uh pain, like uh kind of a sh uh uh hurt my shoulder now. Um ironically from exercising. Right? Just I I should do some exercise. Um I know Tim also like recently heard himself exercising and so that that's the first thing is avoid exercise as much as possible. Um but you know I I realized what what you know joking aside, what probably occurred for me is um going to do something where it hasn't been practiced for a long period of time. That's the difference. Jumping into something that hasn't been been practiced with gusto and imagining one knows what they're doing, and then uh a mistake is made, and then and you you you live with it and take care of it, you know, best that we best that you can. Uh I I just I notice that when just with sitting and watching a few people kind of getting up, and I'm like, oh that looks like it looks like it hurts, you know. And it is that we we of course we have these uh physical forms which aren't really designed for sitting on the ground for very long periods of time, you know, and some of my more fantastical notions I think about wow, in the infinity of space with all of the planets has yet to be you know discovered around stars, and now we know that there's planets around most solar systems, and most likely to extrapolate is probably life on a lot of those places, and um someplace somewhere someone's doing Zarzen, right? Most likely, because to come into alignment with just being, to come into alignment with things as they are is is a practice of Zarzen. There's all of probably many types of theistic, monotheistic, polytheistic, all kinds of other um uh religions or approaches or understandings of life going on, too, you know, and somewhere maybe out there there are there there are beings that are um uniquely equipped to be able to sit periods of Zazen with no pain for you know a couple of weeks at a stretch. Like mammoth sessions go on forever. Who knows? You know, uh, but we we're here and we're in the bodies that we're we're in, and we're we're engaged in this in this practice of several days of still sitting at the front gate of things, still sitting in quiet, uh in direct contact with this as it is and things as they are, which is often uh not how we would like those things to be. The the ingredients or what shows up is often not what is uh often not what is preferred or what what can be what it would be chosen. I always feel at the beginning of session we're like uh 26 or whatever we are uh dough balls made into cookies, put on a tray and put in the oven for several days at 400, which is particularly apt for a July session. It's it's felt like that being like a uh a cookie on a on a sheet in the oven. You sit there. Yeah, but but the practice is is that way, a practice of Zazen and Seshin is that slow building of heat, is that place of being uncomfortable or being in a position of being uncomfortable, but not moving. That way as the as the heat rises, whatever whatever is extra, whatever got into that mix, whatever whatever is extra, really rises to the top. That that comes to the fore, and there's an opportunity there to let it fall off. Those those aspects of uh me, really, when it comes down to it, so much of this practice is the uh the exploration and penetration of the nature of self. On the surface, often in the everyday way of things, the self is taken as this bundle of description and and me identity that has the past, future, conditions, collection of joys and traumas, etc. etc. That ongoing uh project of me. And that is always uh challenged in session, it's challenged anyway, it's challenged in life, but it's really brought to the fore in session because that is typically for most of us, a lot of the content which is disturbing to the natural process of session to all that stuff that comes up that is that is extra, that's written sometimes in the body, but more often uh between the ears, the description of this one and and life and uh the people and things in it, with myself as the as as the center of that picture. So, as we sit, a lot of those constructions about what practice is, what this is, what who I am, they they naturally uh come up into the mind to be to be looked at or to be experienced. The the best you know the the direct approach there is not to try to work through that content or that construction or to understand it. Well much better to directly feel, be, and experience this one as is, but to have no preference for the description of me any more than we do the turning of the fan overhead. But rather to always, always over and over directly be just so and let let the uh let the oven take care of the cooking uh as as we sit. Deeper questions, things that are you know, we we find in the South that there are there are those aspects which have um twisted roots which uh you know like trying to clear vines off a off a tree or a building, you know, and it's like it's hard to know where they where they go or they snap off. And you're like, oh no. You know, like all splinters that you try and remove from your finger and you can't get the end of it, but it but it's in there and it's really it's really bothering, bothering you. Those are those deeper aspects. That's what we work on in terms of uh close study with a teacher, in terms of Dokasan, and uh the study of uh the ancients and the study of Koan and other method in order to approach these deeper seated ways that we try to grasp onto branches in the river and try and find somewhere to stand where there's really nowhere to there's really nowhere to stand. I wanted to bring up uh a case from the from the Gateless Gate, um Mu Mon Khan. The first and this is the first collection it's worked on in Khan study. I don't look at it as much as the Book of Equanimity because my study of a the later parts of Koan study, Blue Cliff Record, Book of Equanimity, and so on, it seems fresher to me after returning here after some years away. And and this is looking more into some some years ago now, and that the styles of the collections are also different, um, and the character of the compiler and the commentator um really really comes across. I appreciated um Hugen's talk yesterday. Yeah, it was yesterday, right? Yeah, Eugen's talk yesterday, and there was a couple of things in there which I hadn't come across that I'd forgotten before, so it was uh um I appreciated him raising up what what he did, and um very difficult to do so you know when uh Roshi sat right next to you too. No, I mean that as a teacher, it's it's it's it's so I remember it's like I'd be giving um talks or coming out to that point, we're starting to give talks, and um I don't think Roshi came to one of my talks for a long time, you know, which uh for for whatever reason, but then one day I'm sitting here and it's that 35-minute period, it's always a bit of a killer period before the Dharma talk, I always find that. And and then I hear, who's that coming down the and I can see the stairs from here. I'm like, oh no, you know, here he comes. Like, all right, and and there is an effect of of that, and then now, you know, and there's times that that's happened since, and now sometimes he comes and sometimes he he doesn't, but uh to be able to give a talk with one's uh teacher right there really it really uh puts you puts you on the spot. And uh you can of course acquit himself well. Um and then looking back to Roshi's talk as well, you know, which uh to to visit those basics or fundamentals, which are not basics that one covers well, you know, just so you can basic train in so you can get onto the real stuff. But basic and in what is most basic, what is really at the bottom, what is fundamental, and that's why that talk is welcome at the beginning of session, because if one's uh posture um as well as we can with the mound of flesh that we are, which is different for each one of us, and uh and our breathing, and then attention or concentration, if those aspects come into alignment, then this body-mind can really sit all the way down. Painful or not, this this one here sits all the way down, and if that is if that is made so, then we use most efficiently this time that we have of set for Seshin and the Vzazen to really to be able to sit and experience. I'm gonna bring up a coin from the Gateless Gate. It may seem quite a straightforward coin, but let's see. So this is case thirty-seven. The juniper tree in front of the garden. A monk asks Joshu in all earnestness, what is the meaning of the ancestors coming from the west? Joshu said the juniper tree in front of the garden. Mumon's commentary If you see through Joshua's response clearly, there is no Shakimuni in the past and no Maitreya in the future. The verse Words do not express the fact. Speech is not intended to match the student. Attached to words one loses the reality. Stagnating in phrases one is deluded. So Master Mumon's character comes through here in that this is actually a whittled down part of uh a longer coin. This this coin appears in in other places too. Oak tree in the garden, it says oak tree here, and I put I said juniper tree. There's a translation in uh recent translation of the collection of entangling vines, Rinzai tradition, in which um uh Yuho Thomas Kirchner is a wonderful translator, said uh the closer translation is juniper than than oak. And and that has meaning because the juniper um had no real use as a wood. Right? So for an oak may lead one astray right away, as used to say the oak, all right. What's the quality of an oak tree? An oak has certain qualities, right? Like it's strong, you can make furniture out of it, it's great. Burning wood, too, at the end of its life. You know, here in in the winter, oak starts to be very prize because we have a ton of dead pines from the fires. And a lot of them died in the bark beetle of a drought, too. And then when that happens, the tree's trying to like push the sap out as a kind of a last defense to the to the bark beetle, and they're very dry and they're almost unburnable, or they they don't produce, they they burn up in a flash, so you get some quick heat, but then they go out quick. And you burn a lot of it through the winter, it starts to you have to clean your the flu of your chimney over and over. Whereas for oak, you kind of master how to burn it, uh how to put a piece of oak on. You can use one piece and then you put it on at night and it'll last through to the next morning and and keep the place warm. So oak has a certain quality, because trees do too, they have they have use, um, as people have use. And but here, if it's a juniper tree, then maybe there's a point there, but it's not, don't get confused about what kind of tree this is. But if if we can put ourselves in this position of being back in the Tang Dynasty, China and 6th to 7th century or so, with Master Joshu at his at his temple, where he had finally settled down to teach after very long, careful study, there were junipers growing in that area, and one and there is that temple still it's on the bucket list, you know. It's like there there's that temple is still there in China. Perhaps there's junipers still there now, I'm not sure. But he, when asked this question, a monk asked Joshua in all earnestness. Well, even there, before we get to the question, somebody with a genuine and deep wanting to really know the essence of this life, or the essence of this practice. Somebody really wanting to know the uh what was it, the permanent, uh unmoving permanent principle, perhaps, or put another way. Perhaps this person doesn't looking for something to hang on to particularly, but but wants to know what what am I doing here? What is this about? Let's let's cut to the let's cut to the chase. Hence the a monk asked Joshua in all earnestness. A monk didn't casually ask Joshua and then not really listen to the answer, or you know, a monk making some conversation with Joshua said, you know, or etc. etc. Right, but this is somebody in all in all in all earnestness. That in itself shows an application of practice in the way. Because in in practice, we often there's some time and some process of of really burning off the more extraneous, kind of banal aspects of what we might think practice or our life is of a world is, and you start to see really through the flimsiness of the um intangibility of those aspects, so you start to thought, you really start to get down to the heart of the matter. So, what is going on? What is this? What is this like? Can you help me with that? Yeah, so but there's already a life experience and a seeking that that has gone on to bring the person to this point. Right? For some many people in the world except except for good or for bad, not making a judgment, but there there is a worldview that is inherited uh culturally or through society of parents that says this is what life's all about, this is what happens when you die, and and this is it, and that's how it is. And and in many ways, it's just like sort of then you could be envious, you know, because it's like if you can swallow that and and and be content with that, good luck. That's great, you know. Other people, um I was listening to, I read something recently by the British comic uh Ricky Gervais. He's done a lot in the United States too, so you might be very familiar with him. He's got a wicked sense of humor, you know, and um he said he often finishes his Facebook live posts by saying, I hope you die in your sleep. And and and he said, I but he said he really means that. He really means that. Because it's difficult as a human being to have foreknowledge of our own expiration. We seem to be unique in the creatures of the world in this in this aspect, but who knows? We don't we don't really know. It doesn't really matter because we're human beings, we're not whales and dolphins or or whatever else, right? But we we we we we know that we we see this great fact of impermanence, the impermanent human life. What an what a curious mystery. You know, that word came up yesterday in Eugen's talk as well. It's like mystery. If I had to sum up, you know, one word for this life, it would be mystery. Is this not mysterious? You know, as we go through our days, we can we can quickly make the extraordinary very ordinary or even dull. As our descriptions of life and the ideas, the way in which we understand it just becomes rope, just becomes, you know, and there's a dulling down where it's just well, it's just another Monday or another two or here I am again, and there's a dullness there. Again, the another great gift of Seshin and of of of Zazen practice is it dissolves that dullness and brings one back to the immediacy of the mystery where you're brought face to face with the this mystery of being that we all are without exception. And for somebody like Ricky Javaser who said, I hope you die in your sleep, he's a confirmed atheist. And he just says for him, he doesn't worry about it, and he dies, that's it. But that's that that's for him. Other people understand or or have different ideas. No one knows. Not really. But you know, the Zen school, as as one may see from study of it when you read, does not spend a lot of time in the area of you know existential questions or what ha about life and death or what comes after. But rather, you know, none of us have experienced death. Now you could say, well, no, I have, I've seen dead people, but that's not you we are we experience from this standpoint, we've always experienced life. We we experience life. We're experiencing life. And we experience the coming and going of life and death within the one way, within the one life that we all are. Sure, the forms come and go, people and shapes and things change and move. On the nature, and you know, in the way. form in the change of form you see the forms change you come to Sashin or to this study you look at what is formless or you come to the place of looking at that which doesn't move that doesn't change what is that one you know monk asks Joshua in all earnestness what is the meaning then of the ancestor Bodhidharma why did he come here why did he bring this what is the flavor or essence of the Zen school is another way to to say it what is the unique and emphasis or insight of the Zen school different than some of the other schools of uh Buddhism Joshua says the juniper tree in the front garden perhaps it's right there at this meeting what is what is the the meaning now in the broad in the longer Koan this goes on yeah the monk says ask a question juniper tree in the front garden and the monk says please teacher don't teach me using external objects and Joshua says I'm not teaching you using external objects and the monk says so what is the meaning of Odidham's coming from the west and Joshu says the juniper tree in the front garden now that lays it all out on a on a plate on a platter and just puts it right in front for anyone who is willing to eat it it is not about being it is not about externals a lot of our conditioning and our suffering and our frustration and our difficulty comes from continuing the tussle with perceived externals usually they also have two arms and legs meaning most of our perceived externals and the problems that come up for us are involved with other people have not it's really hard to get mad at the mountain or wonderfully futile to argue with with the with with the sky with these things right it's it's but it it's it's trickier with others you know with life in the monkey troop that we live in all of that stirring of form and karma and conditions that's going on and very easy to be uh taken away with that and distracted by that right and even if that and if that external object is taken as an external we're in that tussle well that's you know that that's that and we spend our time there. Now however though if we look if we stop that okay I'm not going to be um distracted by externals I'm gonna let that go perhaps then the focus is inverted and it's looked inward and then this one here with its attendant the me project with its deficiencies and challenges and problems that that one can become the issue. That one can be the one that we tussle with that is another way of perceiving other that's another way of perceiving externals but that one's hidden in the form in that sense I was talking to a dear friend of mine recently who's a Zen monk and he said Zen is giving the self away over and over and over and over and I endorse that message right Zen is giving the self away over or throwing the self away more accurately is what he said. Giving is just like not who'd want it see if you can get someone to take it take it right who would want it no one wants it you gotta throw it away you gotta throw it away but again that over and over and over and over without end. Now that doesn't mean that this one as the you know the one with the name the the identity of a history needs to be crushed dissolved and forgotten and extinguished not so but this one with the name and the history and the condition needs to be understood in its true context with a world and that is a lot of our work you know how this one lives how the self is really understood. With our dualistic way of understanding and our brains that kind of understand the world in a in an objective way in a world of things and forms it's very natural for us to create this separation of self me and other it's very easy to take the seat and say there is no me and other you know and and crow crow about that but you're sitting there and I'm sitting here so that it's also so there is me. If it's not it's a hell of an illusion I've been living for nearly 50 years. But what is the nature of that one and what is the nature that we perceive as other if we take it on that level of separation that it is truly separate which is so easy for us to do as human beings and that is our you know our easy impulse to follow that creates suffering that creates difficulty. The world is rife with that clearly with that duality of we're right you're wrong we're like this they're like that so easy to fall into that trap a thousand times a day in a thousand different ways and again turned inward I'm like this I'm not like that when that is when that is really fixed and believed in and taken at taken as truth a lot of suffering ensues from that so this practice again is really looking into the nature the true what we call the true nature of self what what really unites us what is the same when we look at each other in the eyes and you see me and I see you and yet you see clearly it's the same it's the same life it's the same awareness this is what we deeply look into in Zar Zen. Right not a matter of looking in and trying to again as Roshi said you can't work this out in your head well you're gonna do it anyway till you don't that's so you know the futile work of of like getting in the Zen teacher game right it's like it's over and over trying to lead horses to drink. And I'm saying that as a pantomime horse myself right it's like everybody has to do the the work for themselves and we can really go directly to it in in our we spend so many hours in here in the practice of Zazen. Now what what is that what is that what are we doing between the bells what what is going on you know if we have that if we if we don't resist if we take that the route of okay I'm gonna sit for a while here okay five minutes in ten minutes in whatever's going on and then okay here comes you know the boring story is don't worry about that and then those deeper feelings or stories come up uh oh okay here's an important one then we're no longer doing stars at I'm gonna run with this one for a bit no one knows look at these clowns nobody knows what's going on in my head I can do whatever I want no nobody can see that and and there's a certain I talk about that as a like a repeat offender right but sooner or later though it has to stop sooner or later it has to stop. That's the you know you're in the open you're only 10 minutes in your cookies are soft you're still fooling with ideas about this and that and about me and you it's not cooked so you have to we all we have to come to that point of stop stop don't look for something don't take something away don't add something stop then you know what sarzan is then it's not a matter of how long the periods are or your legs may be killing you know your legs know you have to stop then you see this column what is the meaning the oak tree in the courtyard the the brown mat in the center of the room the the glass the pain in the shoulder or the hips and we mainly forward you know a mind that just says well oh great okay that's it however this shows up that's it but that's that's climbing over a fence and you're inside now is it we spend a lot of practices walking the perimeter kind of looking in maybe like putting a foot over but not quite sure I'm not uh not quite sure you know but once we get inside then it's really own it's really explore the territory explore the territory of awareness of the awareness that each one of us is you know you you see like you can brought up or alluded to Zwigan's famous coa when he asked himself every morning master he's not the master you're not the I'm not the master but if I call master I can reply yes but that's not me right this is here this is so this already is voss it has nothing to do with me it's got nothing to do with you how mysterious one you know you called you respond who is that one you know when you sit and the the story of of life a story of a construction of ourself you know when that falls off even for a moment or you just get bored with it and it falls off who are you there who are you then before the name before the description before the collection of entangling problems the vines and the challenges before all those descriptions we tend to resist that because it's it can be like staring into the void. You know there's another koan of Sozan's Dharmakaya where it says it's like the well it's like the donkey looking at the well long hours of meditation be that way you know you sit stoically you know you sit solidly you don't move and you look at this source at this life at this at this profound mystery and you can say lots of things about it from the standpoint of looking at it and at being a donkey looking at the well or a person looking at an oak tree or a juniper tree. You can stare for long hours at a tree there's a koan there it says as someone stayed I think it's in Precious Mira Samadhi contemplated a tree for 10 Kalpas. You could do it for 10, 20 a hundred Kalpas. You never realize when this one here is looking at something now we have to do that for a period of time to wear that out you have to enter where we are as soon as a practice we come with a self trying to in all earnestness to realize and we set ourselves up for a glorious failure as the donkey never realizes but there the Sozan says yeah donkey looks at the well that's really good that's maybe 80% of it and the person asks well how would you say it and he says the well sees the donkey and that really strikes much more directly to the heart of Zarzen and that's it for us too you sit here when we let go of concerns we don't choose over the map you know over the content. I bring it up over and over again just because for myself that's for shift or that's for shift it's like the in Tarzan are in practice when internally perceived content thoughts feelings emotions pain whatever is going on externally perceived content it's freaking hot in here off it's not helping whatever else you know all of these and the people what's up with that person over there all of these other things coming in how about like when there is no preference there is no perceived preference there's no choice over the content at all when you sit that way you cease manipulating reality and picking and choosing with it and you enter a place where it's not about 30 minutes it's not about time then you see the tree or perhaps the tree sees you the mat sees you the Buddha on the altar sees this one to do so then you know after all we don't go through this for because we're masochists right we do this because at the heart of the matter the human experience is dissatisfactory. That's a great truth of Buddhism that the Buddha expertly pointed out but people could have been testifying to that for a couple of hundred thousand years already the heart of the human experience is this is is is dissatisfactory because it is involved in me living in an impermanent relationship to an impermanent world which isn't how I like it. Right? It's like join the club right we're all in we're all in that place but we go through the difficulty in order to leap beyond or to see beyond that and to see what underlies or really goes through that experience what isn't stained or moved by that if we come to this place of awareness that is on that is not that we really don't move stop and be and just allow and allow it all and and not just allow it all but accept it all swallow it all right even welcome it all maybe then what else is there then to do in in the practice of meditation or in or or in Tar Zen you just arrive but you of course wonderful with wonderful irony you arrive right here but through the process we've discarded all of the limitations the thoughts the ideas the opinions for sticking points for the you know all of all that's what's cooked off in the oven spoiler alert they're all still all of that's still there right but what's moved the relationship to that content you know whereas before it's so and so's fault it's my parents' fault it's my grandpa it's who's fault it's Genghis Khan's fault whoever's fault it is that's what can't ever be bought into anymore you just can't drink the Kool-Aid of it's another per that there's another person in this world. You know many generations later the great Rinzai master Kanzan Egan who wisely you know refused to allow any of his talks or anything to be written down or recorded or perhaps it just didn't didn't survive. In in the one thing that's recollected of him is his saying on this Koan he capped this by saying the juniper tree has the function of a bandit it steals everything from you in a wonderfully positive way that tree this life will swallow it all for you it steals everything. When we come in to sit what whatever you can you know it it's it's a practice of lose everything you can let everything lose everything that you can because anything that you that you can lose you don't need anything that's there that's extra there's nothing that needs to be remembered no insight that needs to be held on to or attainment or realization no description no understanding all of that's bullshit provisional but ultimately that too gets cooked off you know it doesn't it's not needed. Everything you need is already thus a positive it steals everything from you we're left here you know but as you already are perfectly uniquely equipped to live this life as this one for what meaning gosh what vanity to to try to understand in one sense right the trees don't aren't concerned with meaning the leaves on the trees the dogs and the cats don't seem to be concerned with with meaning but they get on with living their lives different for us we have a different challenge again we have this objective experience and understanding of impermanence so as people who've like commonly come to a practice as austere and as difficult as Zen in its authenticity you know I I have real respect for everybody here. Because it's like no I I just can't I can't swallow ideas about this. I have to earnestly practice this until it's made clear to the point of satisfaction. But even that is a mirage on the horizon of an oasis because when you get to that oasis you realize it's desert forever but now you're carrying other people with you well maybe not a desert that's a bit strong you know we kind of desert with some trees and some other things in it too but it's not again it's but it's not about arriving at the hap, you know, then at the happy place where this me is shored up Yeah in another place here just a couple of comments of oh Master Joshua Wonderful Yeah An official asks Joshua Will the Master go into hell or not? Joshu said I entered hell long ago. The official said why do you enter hell? Joshu said if I didn't enter hell who would teach you? So a monk asked, does the s a juniper tree in the garden have Buddha nature or not? Joshu said it has. The monk asked, When will it become a Buddha? Joshu said when the Great Void falls to earth. The monk asked, When will the great void fall to earth? Joshu said when the cypress tree becomes a Buddha. Perhaps more difficult to see. But it's really just irrelevant, isn't it? In one sense. You know, the the place, the seat of realization is always this. And there's no escape from this. And we have this uh extraordinary opportunity to make this very clear. You know, session is often it's just kind of rubbing our faces in reality over and over again, like this is it, really? Yeah, but that's that's a this uh that's a good it's a positive. It's a positive thing. You don't have to rank ourselves anywhere in a scheme of uh beginner, intermediary, god forbid, expert, or or any of those places. We're all just ordinary people. And that is an extraordinary thing. This is an extraordinary thing. So but as we go forward, let's please trust the feet under our ground the ground under our feet. You know, don't put the place of realization, enlightenment, or awakening or any of these things someplace else. You know, as it says in the verse. If you see clearly Joshu's response, there's no Shakimuni in the past. Yeah, you see that. That's a nice story. Yeah, who knows if he even left? Probably. There's no my trayer in the future. I have my doubts he's coming. Right? But you don't need those. You don't need those pictures, you don't need those stories. Words do not express the fact. But we try, we see that. Speech is not intended to match the student. I came across that lean line earlier. I'm like, that's you know, that's a co-al in itself. Attached to words, one loses the reality. Stagnating in phrases, one is deluded. You know, we understand it's not a matter of words and phrases and understanding. But let's uh continue to please, and I I don't mean to bring a kind of sometimes I feel like well, that's a bit fire and brimstone, kind of edge or something, bring it, bring that in. Let's also have a lightness and a surety that yes, this this now, you know, this is precious, this this mystery, this life, as I am, trust this one, trust this one, right place, right time, this now. What is this? How do how do I live? How do I best respond? Don't overthink it, go straight ahead. Let's let's continue to to do our best and support one another as you go forward because the benefits of this realization, the ripples of this are not known. But the benefits of this practice help, encourage. And it's you know, it's an it's a it's an offering, as it says in the session precautions at the beginning. Make certain your offering is of the highest merit to bring the best offering. Thank you for listening.