This is September 12, 2021. We didn't have a teisho on the calendar until a couple of days ago when this fool rushed in where angels fear to tread. And, given how many of the last stage of clearing our house out, was not the best timing for me. But I couldn't resist doing it as I felt obligated because of the times we're living through.
I've heard from so many, many people in dokusan and elsewhere of how how lost, how lost so many of us are. Primarily and most obviously with the pandemic, the status of the pandemic, the variants Delta and Mu. And how we're just not managing to pull out of it.
And it occurred to me that we might have to be wearing masks for a fair amount of years. That is a possibility until such time that we reach herd immunity. Until those people who refuse to get vaccinated, refuse to wear a mask, and put medical professionals at risk, change. Until there's a change and more people are on board for this, we're going to be just limping along. And limping on our way to demise. This teisho will be something of a meditation on death. You know, there's a practice in Buddhism that's not Zen as such, where you meditate on the the very physical, granular process of dying. That reognizes how even now, when we're healthy, it's only a matter of time. It has always been understood by true Buddhists that there is one terminal illness that we all have, which is birth. And that we don't resolve this gray matter of birth and death by avoiding it or denying it.
First, before going further along those lines. I have to comment on yesterday being twenty years since 9/11. To say it was a terrible, terrible life changing event is putting it mildly. And I respect all the memorials. We need them. Memorials to our country as we knew it. I'm going to start by reading from an article dated a few days ago by Michelle Goldberg in the New York Times, and it's titled "How 9/11 Turned America Into a Half-Crazed, Fading Power". I'm just going to read little snippets of it. She comments on thewhole idea of of invading Iraq, and before that Afghanistan, as a kind of a triumph of the willsand she says: "We didn’t win. The danger jihadist terrorism posed to our country, while serious, was never truly existential; Al Qaeda fell apart shortly after its greatest triumph. Yet the damage Sept. 11 did to the United States was more profound than even many pessimists anticipated.
The attacks, and our response to them, catalyzed a period of decline that helped turn the United States into the debased, half-crazed fading power we are today."I don't know how many people would dispute what she's saying as far as this mess we've gotten ourselves into nationally. "America launched a bad-faith global crusade to instill democracy in the Muslim world and ended up with our own democracy in tatters."She goes on: "The 911 attack turned out to be a Pyrrhic victory for Al Qaeda. Instead, we remained in Afghanistan and invaded Iraq, where our war sowed chaos that would enable the rise of ISIS. In time, ISIS, originally a spinoff of Al Qaeda, came to eclipse the group founded by Bin Laden. ISIS’ indiscriminate brutality, especially against other Muslims, appalled an earlier generation of jihadists; some of Al Qaeda’s original leadership ended up like many other aging, disillusioned radicals, disgusted by the excesses of their progeny.But this doesn’t mean Bin Laden failed. Today Al Qaeda has reconstituted itself — it is now far larger than it was two decades ago. And the United States in September 2021 is in truly terrible shape. Twenty years ago we were credulous and blundering. Now we’re sour, suspicious and lacking in discernible ideals.
"I don't think she's overstating it.
Bush's own political party as radicalized against democracy, faith and human freedom has curdled into the petulant solipsism of the anti vaxxers. Since 9/11, more Americans have been killed by far right terrorists than by jihadists. White supremacists have both recruited disillusioned veterans of the war on terror and encourage their supporters to join the military to gain tactical experience. You can't draw a straight line between the Twin Towers falling and America entering a protracted nervous breakdown. The end of any Empire has multiple causes. But in his recent book,: "Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump," Spencer Ackerman convincingly links the madness that overcame this country after September 11. With the rise of a president who, among other things, campaigned on a promise to end Muslim immigration and bring back torture.
"The painful condition of neither peace nor victory against an enemy seen as practically subhuman itself required vengeance," Ackerman wrote. "Trump offered himself as its instrument, declaring his presidential candidate candidacy in his golden tower he asked when was the last time the US one at anything?" That's just sort of setting the table for where we are now. She uses the phrase "nervous breakdown" and makes reference to empires falling.
In Rolling Stone magazine, from a year before the vaccine had been developed, there's an article called: "The unraveling of America". The subtitle is: "Anthropologist Wade Davis, On How COVID-19 Signals the End of the American Era.
Just as a reminder, the nature of empires is our nature. Everything has a beginning, a middle and an end, as it says sometimes in Buddhist texts.
Davis goes on to talk about what has torn us apart. This illness, a real sickness we could call it, a terminal sickness of this country. In deeper terms, in terms of loss of our fiber; meaning our institutional fiber and our trust of one another.
About Empire, he says, "No Empire long endures. Even if you anticipate their demise, every kingdom is born to die." That's straight up Buddhism, impermanence. "The 15th century belonged to the Portuguese, the 16th to Spain, the 17th to the Dutch, France dominated the 18th and Britain the 19th." Now we have the so called American Century,.
He compares the enormous pulling together, marshaling ofcommunity spirit, of national spirit that happened during World War II in terms of industry and all, and compares thetwo and says we are miserable in our effectiveness in combating the pandemic
He says "that more than any other country, the United States in the post war era, lionize the individual at the expense of community and family. It was the sociological equivalent of splitting the atom. What was gained in terms of mobility and personal freedom came at the expense of common purpose. In wide swathes of America, the family as an institution lost its grounding."
He goes on with a diagnosis of our current sickness. I don't think many people need to be convinced that we're a desperate, desperately sick country. What has really compounded it all and why we might very well argue that there's no turning back is, of course climate change, global warming, and this affects not just our own country but the whole world. The West Coast is burning. The East Coast as we saw recently is underwater.
Maureen Dowd of the New York Times said "America's reeling backwards strangled by the past, nasty and uncaring. What with everyone at one another's throats. Wefeel the return of dread, we're rattled by the catastrophic exit from Afghanistan.,the coming abortion wars sparked byTexas, the Trumpian Supreme Court dragging us into thepast. The confounding nature of this plague, the way Mother Nature is throttling us, leaving New Yorkers to drown in their basements. It feels as if nothing can be overcome," she says, "everything is being relitigated." Then finally, "with a memory like a goldfish, America circles its bowl returning to where we have been unable to move forward, condemned to repeat a past we should escape."
So just just as a proposal, as an idea to consider, just as we consider our inevitable death as individuals, the world ending. There, I said it, the world ending.
I spoke of this last year in a teisho and there were a couple of people who said that I left them depressed and all, but come on, boo hoo, we're not always going to be around. There was a short piece in Zen Bow last year that I think is so much to the point. It was written in 1948 by CS Lewis. He called this piece "On living in an atomic age." Okay, so this was long after the previous pandemic in 1918-1919. And herein 1948 everyone was waking up to the threat of annihilation through atomic war. And he points out "In one way, we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb." And then he poses a question that many people were posing, "How are we to live in an atomic age?" And then he himself answers "I am tempted to reply. Why, as you would have lived in the 16th century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking Age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night. or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents." And then he says, "In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, Dear Sir, or Madam, you and all whom you love, were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented. And quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. It's perfectly ridiculous," he says, "to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and which in death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty."
"This is the first point to be made" it goes on "and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we're all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes, find us doing sensible and human things. Praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts, not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies," and he says, in parentheses, "a microbe can do that. But they need not dominate our minds." And this expresses where I stand with all this. Yes, even if the world is going to pass because of climate change, perhaps decades from now. But as scientists have said, we've passedthe point of no return. But it doesn't mean we go about acting out by wasting our resources and giving up on matters of personal responsibility. Why? Because that is theway, that is the Tao, to live in a way that doesn't causeunnecessary harm to others. We just need to live in accordance with the Dharma, Whatever may happen.
There is a very, very important famous koan in the Mumonkan, near the end, number 47, Tostatsu's Three Barriers.And I'd like to just pick this up and consider it in terms of the United States of America on its deathbed. Mumon says,"Tostatsu set up three barriers to test his monks. The first barrier: "To inquire after the truth, groping your way through the underbrush is for the purpose of seeing into your self nature. At this moment, where is your nature?"
One way to understand this is to inquire about how we can save ourselves, how we can find our way through these. Thisconvergence of global threats and national threats. It is a groping, and we're all groping. That's what prompted me todo the teisho. Hearing from so many people who are groping. We don't know where this is going. - except in the very broad sense of following the nature of everything as terminating eventually. But even terminating is not terminating.
People who don't believe in rebirth have an extra big burden when facing death because they see it as an end. If we see nothing beyond the perishing of the body, or the country, or the earth, our biosphere, then Whoa, I don't know what you do with that.
To inquire after the truth, we're all doing that now, puzzling over this searching. And again, it's not just the pandemic. It's the political chaos, that horrid hatred and tribalism, and suspicion and fake news and social media misuse. At this moment, where is our nature?
Second, of the three barriers, "When you realize your nature, you are free from life, free from death. When the light of your eyes is falling, how can you be free from life and death?"
Okay, again, let's just suppose that the light of our eyes, nationally and globally, is falling. How can we be free from life and death?
Well, for starters, by seeing what is beyond life and death. I don't mean rebirth now. What we call life and death is just one side of the coin. It's the world of phenomena. What about that which is beyond phenomena? That's what awakening presents.That perspective is what awakening offers.
How right now, as the light of our eyes on this planet Earth is falling? How can we be free from life and death? Well, it's not by trying to escape life and death. It's not by trying to escape the world of social progress. It's not by trying to escape the world of change. That's on the same side of the coin as phenomenon. It's not by giving up.
There is in Buddhism, a practice of meditating on death, as I mentioned already. But the point of it being as a way to more fully embrace life, embrace the present. That's what I intend through this teisho, to face the demise of our country and our world as a way to get going and really fully engage with the world in any way we may feel moved to do so.
There's a Japanese movie in the 1960s, I think, called Ikiru . But regardless of the name, it was about a man in Japan who receives a diagnosis of terminal illness. And how what it did for him was to prompt him to to mobilize his efforts towork for the good of the local community. I can't rememberwhat it was, building a playground for children orsomething. It awakened in him this compassionate heart that had lain dormant while he was in good health.
We can only benefit in terms of our finding some peace of mind, some settleness in these chaotic conditions, we can only benefit by stepping back and getting a bigger perspective on time.
It's again what CS Lewis was saying that there's nothing, nothing so special about this time. Worlds, star systems and planets have been born and dyingsince beginningless time. The length of human existence as far as we know, is 6000 years I think, is nothing compared to cosmic time.
The ultimate perspective, balancing perspective, broad perspective, is to see time as no time. And that appears in the verse of this koan. "This one instant as it is, is the whole of eternity. The whole of eternity is at the same time this one instant."
I found a little entry in a book, I still remember from when I first began Zen practice. It just really stuck. This is a collection of Zen and pre-Zen writings and the book is called "Zen Flesh Zen Bones". On page 106, we find this attributed to the Buddha. Who knows if it was the Buddha, but let's say it was the Buddha. And this is what he reportedly said: "I consider the positions of kings and rulers, as that of dust motes. I observe treasures of gold and gems as so many bricks and pebbles. I look upon the finest silken robes as tattered rags. I see myriad worlds of the universe as small seeds of fruit, and the greatest lake in India as a drop of oil and my foot. I perceive the teachings of the world to be the illusion of magicians. I discern the highest conception of emancipation, as a golden brocade and a dream and view the holy path of the illuminated ones, as flowers appearing in one's eyes. I see meditation as a pillar of a mountain, Nirvana as a nightmare of daytime. I look upon the judgment of right and wrong as the serpentine dance of a dragon and the rise and fall of beliefs as but traces left by the four seasons."
It is through zazen as one method that offers a way for us to grow into this perspective. This immense, this timeless perspective, which is really seeing things in their proper proportion. Even if the days we live, the life of this planet and of our country are numbered, and of course they are, as everything is numbered. Why need that leave us in a state of depression or distress.
The Third barrier of Tostatsu's Barriers: "When you are free from life and death, you know where you will go. When the four elements separate, where are you off to?
You can see why this 47th koan is considered a so extremely important in the koan curriculum. In the Rinzai tradition once you've resolved this koan, the 47th in the Mumokan, that's when you can receive a raksu. It's based on passing koans as a measure of attainment. We tried that in the early days of the center, having raksus given outbased on koan experience. And it just created so many problems of envy, resentment and self criticism that weswitched to what we have now, where we take the precepts formally in a ceremony, and in doing that, embracing this Dharma in a very decisive way. By receivinga raksu we are really wearing our commitment to the Dharma. But back to the Third Barrier. "When you're free from life and death, you know, where you will go." This follows from the previous one, "How can you be free from life and death?" And then when you are, "you know, where you will go. When the four elements separate? Where are you off to?" So when you die? Where are you off to?
When we're free from life and death, free from notions, ideas about these and other dualities. What does it matter where we're going? Here we are, here we are.
And ultimately, this is the truth. That we don't know that the world will end in the next 500 years. We can be sure that the American Empire will end in a shorter time than that, as all empires have. the koan resolved, The classroom answer to this (but not the resolution to the koan) is: I don't know. "When the four elements separate, Where are you off to?" Who knows? There is a famous exchange where a monk asks the Zen master, "When you die, where will you go?" He said, "I don't know". And the monk said, "Well you're a Zen master, aren't you?" And he said, "Yeah, but not a dead one."
But this third barrier is pointing us in a different direction, and some future that we don't know anyway. As our sitting is pointing us, bringing us back, if we can use the word. Back to just this. It's perhaps of some use to be aware that our country, our world, is in decline and facing extinction.Just as it's of some use that we recognize the certainty of our own death and the uncertainty of the time of our death. Really, what are nations? What's the world? It's just a collective of individual creatures, all of us, subject to impermanence. And if we can just acknowledge that and then renew our efforts to live in accordance with the Dharma, the Way, the Truth. What does that mean? We need to respond out of the moment, that's what it means. It's the truth of the moment, the Dharma of the moment,what's called for, who needs help? What crises can we help with?
I think I'm going to wrap it up now. And we'll take the next step, which is to recite the four vows
