2023-09-07 Life and Teachings of Tangen Harada Roshi 6

6:19PM Sep 12, 2023

Speakers:

Sensei Amala Wrightson

Richard von Sturmer

Keywords:

practice

samadhi

suffering

mind

people

body

truth

day

notion

ego

graves

breath

zen

buddhism

blows

put

mu

lost

roshi

impermanence

The talk you're about to hear is by Roshi Amala Wrightson, teacher at the Auckkland Zen Centre.

Today is the sixth day of our spring seven day sesshin, seventh of September 2023. And we're going to continue reading from and commenting on, "Throw Yourself into the House of Buddha: The Life and Zen Teachings of Tangen Harada Roshi translated by Belinda Attaway Yamakawa and edited by Kogan Czarnik.

The first chapter we're going to look at is called "Impermanence." And it starts off with a, a poem.

The heart believes in tomorrow's cherry blossoms. The storm comes at night and blows them away. This is a poem composed by Shinran Shonin and Shinran dates are 1173 to 1263. So he was he was born well before Master Dogen and died after him - lived to the age of 90. But Dogen's whole life is contained within his 1200 to 1253. So, Dogen had a very short life, relatively dying at the age of 53. So they were contemporaries. Shinran Shonin was the founder of Jodo Shinshu. There's a footnote about this tradition - this branch of Buddhism.

Jodo Shinshu, also known as Shin Buddhism, or true pure land, Buddhism, is one of the six of Japanese Pure Land Buddhism, and is the most widely practiced branch of Buddhism in contemporary Japan - focusing on putting one's trust in Amitabha Buddha and his vow to save sentient beings. Chanting Namu Amida Butsu.

But this is all happening well before Shinran found a Jodo Shinshu this this verse was one he he recited at the age of 13 or so ain't sorry nine. And tagging relates when he was young boy, both his parents died and the connection there with with mustard Oregon, feeling urgency to understand the great matter of life and death. At nine Shinrin went to shore in in Kyoto. He arrived at the temples somewhat late perhaps in the evening, and asked the head priest GN to ordain him as a monk when Ji and told him that he would ordain him the next day, Shenron replied, The Heart believes in tomorrow's cherry blossoms. The storm comes at night and blows them away. We have our own ornamental cherry out in front of the dining hall, which is coming to an end it's blossoms blown away. Hearing his urgency GN followed his request. The same night. He responded to that sense of urgency and this young boy who came to him it is necessary to have for a particular approach for a practitioner to have a persistent sense of impermanence. Not just intellectually, but a felt sense of it. We cannot be carefree. There's no time to waste. Very often we spend our time in a leisurely way as if we were going to live forever, thinking that there won't be anything to worry about tomorrow. Even if we don't consciously think that way. In some place deeper than conscious thought we carry this conviction. Really do people live with the mindset we have. There is no time borrow in the sense of being able to rely on it, of course we we burning up the planet with a different kind of sense of no tomorrow. And it's a lack of awareness of consequences. But that's not what Tony was talking about here when he says there is no tomorrow. We can't rely on things turning out as we want. This is the main point here. Most people experience a lot of suffering in their lives. But the people in this world that again most people experience a lot of suffering in their lives. But there are people in this world able to live, somewhat calm, trouble free happy lives, even for such people will, will there always be serenity? Will there always be this calm happiness, certainly not worry, anxiety and trouble take so many forms. And with so many faces, suffering can leap out at you in so many ways. The rich, for example, worry about losing their wealth.

Or oil, so many examples we could give. The ways in which we, we believe in tomorrow's cherry blossoms, you could say. For instance, we we imagine our happy retirement with a spouse, and that spouse dies. Or one of the two of the partnership, the marriage get sick. We make certain financial calculations based on on our income and savings. And we made redundant or we lose all the money in a financial crisis. We put all our energies into building a beautiful house. And one day it slides down a cliff where you can put in your own examples here.

He says, One woman I know had a life that had been smooth and joyful, a perfect example of the heavenly realm. She was the mother of three sons, each of whom had always been kind, considerate, and bright. She was close to them. Each was accomplished in his field. They were all don't doctors or university professors. And while she had no daughters, she was blessed with three daughters in law, she got along with well, all warm, kind and considerate people. These various families seemed to be so content with their lives. This woman was very healthy, and living a life that others might envy. she herself could see that she had been so blessed. She was a person many others would approach when they had problems. But one day she told me in tears that suddenly without any explanation, or any farewell note, her oldest son had left his house and gone missing have just disappeared. She experienced anguish so intense, that it didn't allow her to sleep. And her time awake was pure suffering. No matter how she thought about it or how she looked at it, she couldn't figure out what was going on. I couldn't help but feel deep, deep sympathy from heaven, she fell straight to the bottom of suffering of hell. So even though people are blessed and joyous, it doesn't mean that they necessarily have true peace of mind. Not deeply, not unconditionally. And, and when when there is a fall like this from from virtual heavenly realm, into suffering, it's so, so acute. That contrast makes it even more painful. The longing to return to that state can be so powerful and so painful. The park believes in tomorrow's cherry blossoms. The storm comes at night and blows them away. By the front gate at this temple there are many gravestones piled high in the shape of a mountain. People usually call them the graves of people who have no relations. Of course, the expression is erroneous because there's not a single person and no single thing without relations. We are so incredibly related in every way. But the stupa was erected from the many graves of people whose families had all died out a long time ago. In other words, the families weren't still coming to look after the grave. So they they collected all these ones with no living relatives and put them all into this this stupor, which they call the stupid walls, or spirits.

On the path to the graveyard, there is a rather large stone, just my height. on its side is a written request asking everyone who comes to see their ancestors graves, to bow first, to the stupor of all spirits. On the front of the stone, these words are carved, we were once just as you are now. Those upon whose graves you now look at, we're in the past just exactly like you healthy, full of happiness, enjoying their lives. A young joyful looking Cape a couple arriving to pay tribute to the and students does, can read these words. Then there is a second line that reads, you will become just as we are now. Impermanence is swift, this is the reality, no matter how blessed you are now, how easygoing how worryfree and heavy you cannot keep the situation, it will be taken away from you. Impermanence is swift, you have to resolve the problem of life and death for yourself. And no one can do it for you

might think this, this teaching is is a gloomy one. But it's realistic. We don't know when our circumstances can change. And we only we can only really be sure of the fact that they will one way or another.

He continues everything is impermanent, impermanent, change is constant. It waits for no one. You don't even have the time to sit around and lamented permanence to think of it as a concert saved to dwell on it. There is no time to dwell on anything. There is a constant sermon of change. Truth is being revealed completely a constant sermon of change when we sit in the in the Zendo and hear the sound of the rain. What an Stupendous teisho on change there is water falling and flowing gurgling in the drains and pattering on the pads

truth is being revealed completely, it is always laid out or laid out for us undisguised right here and now, always and ultimately, life is fresh and new. Always and ultimately, this true life has revealed. Life is not a solid fixed thing. It there is no self in it. The fact this reality has to be pounded in until we know it and our guts until it is a persistent, persistent since no matter how carefully you try to hold on to something, no matter how carefully you try to make this live last, you are going to lose it. One way of of speaking about the totality of of a human being is as the five skandhas which we don't need to go into here but they really way of look Hang it. My Mind and Matter makes up being the the Skanda means heap. And so these these it's five collections of things which make up the human being, for for mind and when one metta form. But one of the ways that these five skandhas are referred to in advisory anabolism is as the perishing collection. That's what we are a perishing collection. That's what our loved ones are to

the heart believes in tomorrow's cherry blossoms, the storm comes at night and blows them away.

The only thing then for you to do is to seek that which cannot be taken away, that which cannot be lost. The only thing for you to do is see clearly, that which you can utterly and absolutely rely on, no matter how the winds blow. What I am telling you right now is meet with it. In fact, you are now living it, this most precious thing is right here under your feet. When you meet with it, you know that there is no dying, that there is no that that which cannot be lost or destroyed is your original life. You cannot rely on somebody else to live it for you. You have to work walk it with your own steps, morning turns into known known into evening evening and tonight there is continual birth and death, this truth cannot be taken away, it goes nowhere. Everything is just all right. Everything is just Buddha nature, Buddha life. Everything is just all right. To know that. To know it in our bones, to know it through and through. Not just some things some Buddhist guy said. Buddha's simply means Awakened One. The One awakened to truth. When you awaken to truth, even should Shakyamuni appear to take this away from you, it cannot be taken away because you are one in the same as Shakyamuni Buddha it's your reality, the reality of every single one of you. If you don't awaken to this, then you will continue through a never ending cycle of lifetimes. But you are not really living you must abandon the heart that believes in the cherry blossoms of tomorrow the heart that takes it for granted that you will have tomorrow to practice and attain liberation.

Next section is headed Samadhi.

In the beginning, it seems that there is self well there is a me doing this practice I am practicing this is my aim. This is my own effort my own practice you you append this AI to everything you're doing the notion that I am carries with it a delusion division and separation

it carries these these negative qualities and yet we we don't let go of it

because we we invest so much in in the sense of permanence solidity

but mysteriously along the way, what seems to be yourself will practicing comes to be practice practicing itself. When you are really practicing you become one with what you're doing. There is no room for I me or mine. to show its face, this is forgetting body and mind becoming one with your practice until your practice is all there is. This happens naturally, growing out of your steady continuous effort, the personal world becomes the will of the Dharma. What you first regard as your own effort, your effort as this human being becomes unconditional dharma at work. This is a lot in this, which we need to understand if we're doing this practice. One is that you, you can't manufacture somebody, it's it happens and it happens when there's this forgetting of the self happens. When when we get so involved in the practice, that the self just there's no place for it anymore. So trust this and when we take up the practice, this is the faith we need to practice is trust in the process, this process of becoming one with in this, the self drops out of the picture. Self partiality is not active anymore.

Before I even knew anything about Zen or practice, I had a glimpse of this. During World War Two, we were required to strengthen our bodies and our willpower. We were told that if the youth of our country weren't strong, then we shouldn't be able to, we wouldn't be able to protect our country. So at school, rather than learn theoretical subjects, the emphasis was on strengthening body and mind. The teachers were very strict at this time, driving us to run faster and farther each day. I was quite affected by something I had read in a Chinese classic, and chanted this in my belly wholeheartedly before and as I ran. It doesn't say what it was he was chanting. But it's obviously something that was very meaningful to him. One time, it brought about a great power this this is the chanting, he's doing it in his in his Tandy in greater than the self. Well, I felt I had. All of us boys who were running were at about the same level of fitness. But this day, my running was different from that from what it had ever been before. First, it was painful. But soon the pain was forgotten, and through some strange power, I was sped along. After about four kilometers or so the body was lost forgotten. He was like riding a wind not running on legs. I zoomed in well ahead of everyone else, without any bit of pain or fatigue. There was not any feeling of having forced myself to do anything. When the others came in, they were drenched in sweat and puffing. It was not my usual way of making that run. It was a running Samadhi as Samadhi power. So I remember that experience well as a Japanese teacher, the middle of last century Sigurdur Roshi, and he would talk about relative Samadhi and absolute Samadhi. Relative Samadhi is what tangan is describing here when we become so united with an activity that we forget ourselves. Whereas absolute Samadhi is, is when we completely are united with with nothing shunyata.

In the beginning, practice seems to be a matter of personal will. But along the way, it clearly becomes the will of the Dharma. There are limits to your own personal will. From the outside you decide how much you're going to do, how far you can go, how much strength you have, and you restrict yourself and in restricting yourself you start out in your practice already defeated, even while you are practicing something that is unrestricted and limitless. The real way to start and practice is by dropping off body and mind. This is the expression that master Dogons teacher ruching. Chinese master, he those are the his words, drop, drop off body and mind that that prompted and mastered organs awakening, great awakening. The real way to start in practice is by dropping off body and mind, let go from the beginning. Of course, your mind will still try to haggle and struggle, and it will still be painful physically running enzymes in the same in that way, cast off body and mind forget about them, throw yourself into the house of Buddha, and everything is done by Buddha. The NS as in simply does as in there was no controlling. Zen simply does as in Mu questions Mu. The breath breeze itself

on the cushion ins as in, we settle into this practice, become one with it permeated with it. Off the cushion we continue to practice while acting in accordance with the time place and circumstances doing what there is to be done. Think about our work periods that we have. Just that's that's our job is to continue with the practice. As we act in accordance with time, place and circumstances as we do the jobs that need to be done. Not judging or we're evaluating why you have one job and another job how they'd people are doing them, but just doing what needs to be done. This is practice. It always comes down to just becoming one with it. Now here. Now here, naturally we continue our practice, this is what we call Samadhi. This samadhi or this life functioning is always working in everyone. Everyone is endowed with body of wisdom Buddha virtue. Essential mind is essential oneness. In a central mind, there is no separation of subject and object. This is Samadhi. throwing yourself wholly into wondering, you become this one doing this truth comes to you in a flesh. You can realize that suddenly for yourself. Isn't everything a flowering of Samadhi? Isn't everything, a flowering of Samadhi The floors are horizontal, the pillars are upright. The Willow is green, the flower is red, the sun becomes the Sun, the Earth for Earth, the pillar, the pillar. When the rain falls is falling, when the wind blows, it's blowing north south east west absolutely free. As a little booklet The story of the enlightenment of flora Courtois. She's a young student and in Michigan in the 30s and had this powerful experience. But what triggered it was seeing the the upright leg of a small desk in her bedroom. The leg of the desk in perfect Samadhi.

Whatever is revealed that revelation is a revelation of itself, one with itself clearly. The essence is simple, single, it everything is just one with itself. Be simple, simply do your practice. There is nothing in exists nothing lacking. Can you see this for yourself? The splendid brilliance of one truth is penetrating all of Heaven on Earth.

The splendid brilliance of the True One Truth is penetrating All of heaven and earth

next chapters is hidden investigation. Human beings are thinking creatures, always thinking, we are free to think. But it creates in us this notion that this being who thinks is a solid and fixed me separate from everything else. We get lost in discriminating thought, falsely perceiving something that does not exist. This perspective from which most people look is what we call delusion. It's easy to make the mistake of thinking, this is my body, I am here, I have a certain amount of knowledge, I have the habit of doing this and that I have certain skills I can use to get things done. So that's the normal way we we think I'm over here you're over there. I'm capable we're in a, b and c I'm not good at the G

we believe it we hold on to it, and when we feel incomplete, and then we feel incomplete estranged from something fundamental. To fill this void, we look outside for things we want worldly things, we spend our whole life in pursuit of things that will not satisfy us that will not solve this big problem. All suffering originates in the notion of a separate self. But when you do suffer, that is when you start to seek liberation from suffering. So all as well, it all leads to the truth. And here of something that Yasutani Roshi said

intrinsically, there is no ego, it is something we ourselves create. Still, it is this self centered ego that leads us to the Zen. So it is not to be despised. We can sometimes we can get into Buddhism in the here this teaching about, about ego, and we flip flop into despising our ego demonizing it. Sometimes, thinking of it, as a as Mara was it kind of the Buddhist jewel can be useful from a sort of skillful means point of view. But if we pour self hate on ourselves, because we have this ego that's mistaken egos what got us here, cause once we get here, then we kind of need to leave it outside out on the on the threshold. But we can we can be really can be grateful for our suffering in the in that it takes us towards the Dharma. And it shows us the way in terms of where we hurt the most.

In the beginning, we are absorbed and our ego self and we fail to see our true nature. We feel happy and sad, we cry and we get angry. We think that there is a stable steady fixed master who is experiencing all of us. But it is not. So it is all a drama. We come out on stage and play our role. And when the drama is over, we change our clothes, take off our makeup, drop all of that and return to the form of the actor outside the role. Sounds like he's agreeing here with Shakespeare

one way of looking at it is that we have been acting all our life since we were born. So who was act In true nature, the ancient teacher had this to say, the moment there appeared that which I thought not to exist, that which I always thought to exist no longer was.

And he tells us a little immediate story there about what happened right before he was due to go teisho He says, I thought that I would get something to drink. My throat was a little irritated, and I didn't want mice to subject my students to their voice. The kettle was full and there beside it was a big cup. I started to pour from the kettle, and I found the cup was full of milk. Wow, somebody has left me a big cup of milk. I thought. I haven't had a cup of milk for several months. Wow, this is great. I thought to myself, I reached for it, I need to find it wasn't a cup of milk at all. It was a pure white saucer laid over the top of the cup to cover it. When I poured the tea in and it was immediately full. I came under the misapprehension that it was a big cup of milk to be under the wrong impression. That's how most people live. They are under the wrong impression. Morning tonight night to morning. And before coming under the wrong impression. Before miss understanding there is wrong seeing not recognizing what is taking one thing to be another. I'm a good example of that mistaking a source of for milk. That's why we have to investigate closely what is to see through this wrong impression. Think mentioning earlier and in sesshin that the first aspect of the Eightfold Path is right view starting to see that things are not exactly as they appear to be. Still starting to investigate to look into the nature of reality. We have to unpick our wrong impressions to get to the source of our suffering and others suffering. Mindfully we are taking a breath. What is the self that breathes this breath? Who is breathing this breath? Some of you will be attempted to answer I'm breathing and leave it at that. I that I just take things for granted. The swaggering i that is easily irritated when things don't go its way. When you go to bed at night as you sleep, where is it as I do you will yourself to breathe. Inhale now okay, exhale now, no, of course not. Who is breathing? I am breathing. But who are you? Who is breathing this breath? This notion of i What is it? What is behind this notion? If you can find it, please show me. You might say well, there's this body here. Really? Isn't this in part, the rice grow from this morning, you cannot put that rice school aside and come here and say, Well, this is me. If you look into it very closely, you find that you can put nothing aside and say this is this is me. Nothing can be put aside. We exist thanks to everything independent with all things.

Take not Han famously explained this by saying that a piece of paper is entirely made up of non paper elements. Human being is entirely made up of non human elements. We exist absolutely dependently dependent on everything else in the universe for our existence. But so often we don't act out of that understanding.

How do you answer when you are faced with this question about this AI? Is this AI BIG or LITTLE? Is it long or short? Where is this AI when no thought arises? If you see clearly through the small notion of eye and look from the perspective of true mind without the clouds of little clouds of delusion, then your ability To think will be just one more shining facet of life. That's why all that is needed is for you to cut through discriminating thought. That is why you must investigate very carefully this notion of me, your investigation is a form of one doing. This is this particular fertile word that, that Tongan has has coined and appears again and again, wondering, we're only doing that says as in posture is the most settled quiet posture for this investigation, but you can do it anywhere, anytime, boil down your investigation to the most basic question in order to discover whether or not there is a self what is truth? What is life? What am I? What is this? Mu? What is it

so important to find the question that resonates the most for us. reach the point where you ask this question, where you are no longer able to look away, to look out there to some other place for the answer is to stop doing that. That's, that's so full of promise when we no longer seeking happiness outside. seeking satisfaction. Each person has some pain, some suffering that fuels their aim to solve this problem, which forces them to seek the answer. It's a fire burning inside. You have to solve this problem. Who is breathing this breath? Who or what or where is your sanctuary, your guardian, your truth? Truth is limitless. Beyond duality beyond inside and outside, you won't meet with truth or answer your question by searching restlessly Do you realistically you must become the spread the feather most the fathomless universe is this one breath and you can meet with the one who nurtures you, you can meet with the one who breathes this breath. Be like a fool, an idiot a child. But even more of a child and a child. Roshi used to say to me, be a Mu fall Be one with the simplicity of it.

investigate this one metta. If you continue this way, without rest, your mind will suddenly become light, like a flash of light in the dark. Take a room that was dark for 100 years. Or a black cave dark for 1000s of years and light a candle there in an instant the cave is enlightened, wonderful indeed. Then you are free. The notion of a separate me drops away in the letting go of body and mind free you move about in a Samadhi of play as Samadhi of innocent delight. The Samadhi of play of innocent delight is is a term that appears in Mu one's commentary on on the koan Mu to frolic and play in a Samadhi of innocent delight. You are blended totally with whatever you encounter. When you reach this point for yourself, there is no more separation, just the genuine one using the discriminating function when needed. Anytime, anywhere you stride along your arm swinging. You are leisure completely leisurely composed, you are moving in reverence in worship of everything. The Samadhi of play doesn't mean that you play in order to escape something. It doesn't mean that you are trying to satisfy your own notions of what you think would make you happy. It is pure play, blending as one with whatever You encounter, the genuine one is at play, you're taking full responsibility for the world, doing what needs to be done in the day during the toss of doing nothing and leaving nothing undone

you can, we can take these instructions to heart as we move into the into the last full day of the session to just drop everything and become intimately involved in the breath, or in the car or in the plate paying attention to this present moment. It's simple, what we have to do. And we can become simple we can move away from our complicated discriminating function and just be present with whatever arises. We can't control what is what arises we can't control immediately the quality of our setting, but when we can undertake to keep turning our attention to the practice consistently continuously coming back again and again and again. Trusting in this process this natural process of of thinking dropping away and Samadhi blossoming. We'll stop here and recite the Four Vows.

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