This is the this is the fourth day of this. January, 2025, seven day. Rohatsu seshin,
gonna read once more today from the book Silent illumination by Guo Gu and pick up where we left off you.
This is a section entitled non abiding
so the third of the three principles put forth by the Sixth Patriarch Wei nung in the platform Sutra, or platform scripture, as he calls it here, yesterday we went through no thought and no form. And finally, we come to non abiding. And
Guo, Gu says non abiding is relating to ourselves and others in an open and receptive way, where we allow everything to flow and recognize that each moment is alive, vibrant, filled with infinite possibilities. This is actually the nature of experiencing the workings of Buddha nature and the direct expression of natural awakening. For this reason, non abiding is your fundamental nature, as Wein said, It is who we are, freed from the internal shackles of thoughts and feelings and the external conditioning of form we
we see some of this quality in young children. It's a wonderful stage where, if you need to take something away from a baby, you just give him something else, and he switches. No problem at all. Then they get smart.
We had all sorts of problems when our kids were growing up. There were two cups, a red cup and a blue cup. The Blue cup was the one I want the blue cup, nothing else would do.
He says, We want things to stay the same because it gives us a sense of security and control. But nothing stays the same. When we embrace change, we become vulnerable, and this vulnerability is true courage. There is strength in being okay with a loss of control, with unpredictability and potential loss in truth, nothing can break us. We humans. We as humans are so resilient. It's only when we try to control and hold on to things that we feel broken. Helen Keller, woman who went blind and deaf at very early age, like two or three. I'm not sure how old,
learned to read by having letters traced into her palm while say, oh, giving being given a glass of water, and then the characters for water traced in her hands. Somehow she was able to latch on and understand the connection. And she's just a really, really interesting person. Lived until the 1950s anyway, she said, security is mostly a superstition. Does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
It's good to look at the ways that we circumscribe our lives by staying safe, making sure we always get enough sleep, enough food. Don't go somewhere where we might be upset.
Don't do anything that might trigger our anxiety. Of course, we have to take care of ourselves. Then there are things that are well avoided, but it's nice to take a risk now and then see what we're capable of. I
So again, he says it's only when we try to control and hold on to things that we feel broken. The reverse is also true when we experience loss we desperately try to control. This is because deep inside we feel broken. So we try to fix ourselves, we resist how things really are, but if we embrace our vulnerability, tap into who we really are and align with non abiding, whatever difficulties we face will eventually be integrated within us and will be resolved. I
it's it's remarkable how giving up control can free us the first step in the program, the 12 step program of AA and other groups is we admitted we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable,
admitted that we couldn't control it. So many people stay trapped in addictions, bad relationships, bad ways of living because they think somehow they can control it.
Then control pervades our entire life. Know, so many people who are stiff and rigid can't really relax. Lose the ability to enjoy things. You lose what children have. Children living in a Samadhi of innocent delight,
lose what our dogs have. I
how do we cultivate non abiding by having the courage to be vulnerable, by engaging with ourselves and the world without fighting everything, there's always going to be opposition when we fixate on ideas about me, I and mine, but we can respond to the world without injecting a sense of self into our decisions, views and endeavors. This means our own ideas about gain and loss, benefit and harm, do not block our decisions and experiences. Instead, we consider what is needed depending on the circumstances. The difficulties we face in life are indicators of where we are stuck. We must allow ourselves to be open to our underlying feelings and allow them to come through without judging ourselves, then we can be content and relax our grasping tendencies. We're then able to face causes and conditions and work with them in non opposition and openness. Everything eventually works out within us. We
I need to be open in order to know what's going on with us, in order to see what Guo Gu calls the underlying feeling tones, our feeling of resentment or our feeling. Of dread, reluctance. We have to look at those things, try to get them in the background, try to find a place where everything's okay, and then have it not change, and
then that doesn't work.
Not abiding, really, is not grasping. I
Ajahn Chah said, do everything with a mind that lets go. Don't accept praise or blame or anything else. If you let go a little, you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace. If you let go completely, you will have complete peace. Complete non abiding. You
it's returning to our life, to this moment, to whatever extent we've taken our eye off the ball, to whatever extent we're not really present, we've lost our life, and we do again and again. See it in seshin when
we notice, can let go come back to right now, right now where it's like this,
then Gu goes on to look at other supporting attitudes to cultivate. This is the name of the next chapter.
So besides contentment, which is the main attitude he's talking about, no form, no thought, not abiding. There's the attitude of interest. He says, interest has the quality of engagement, but it is not controlling. Its fascination without interference. A good analogy for non interference is that of a mother sitting in a room with her toddler, letting the toddler play while she knits. In this way, she's present with the child, but doesn't have to fixate her gaze on them or control their every move. Similar, similarly in our meditation, we're engaged with a method, but we're not tensely focused on it. Our attitude is contentment, yet with interest. If we're tense or controlling, then even if we have the best method in the world, we're not going to be able to use it, because our minds will be agitated, this fine balance between diligence and tension. He says, Think of the analogy of a relaxed cat watching a mouse hole. Cat is not terribly intense when watching the mouse hole, but it is focused. It's relaxed, but ready at any moment to pounce on a mouse if it comes out of the hole. It's not tense, but ready and awake. Its mere presence sitting awake in front of the mouse hole is enough to scare the mice. They dare not come out, because they know that the cat is there. If you adopt this kind of wakeful interest, your wandering thoughts will be subdued, because the mind is at once relaxed yet focused and watchful.
Phenomenon to see a cat leap into action out of what seems to be just dozing off.
When I was a kid, we had a Christmas at home, opened up our presents. And we used to take all the wrappers and put them in the fireplace and light them up, and the some of the colored wrappers would would give off interesting sparks and glows. So my dad got it set up and lit a match, and chimney hadn't been used since the previous winter, and out of the flames came a bird flying out of the chimney, and the bird was met about four feet from the chimney in mid air by the cat that had been sleeping on the floor. Boom, it was amazing. Just immediately present, we did save the bird.
Says non interference does not mean disinterest. However, when I was in college, I lived in New York City above a Buddhist temple that had a lazy temple cat. The temple also had mice, lots of them, but the cat never did anything to them. You might say that the cat was too compassionate, because he didn't kill any of the mice, but I think it was simply disinterested. The mice would walk across the room scavenging for food and crumbs as we ate our dinner, and the cat would just lie there sleeping. In practice, you have to be interested. You can't be like the disinterested, lazy temple cat. You have to develop a clear, watchful mind with which you experience the method, whatever that may be, the mice, your scattered thoughts wander. If you don't do anything about them, they will continue ceaselessly.
If you're meditating on the sensations of the breath while cultivating an attitude of interest that every breath is fascinating and includes new sensations. This interest keeps you on the method. There's no need to get rid of wandering thoughts, just be more interested in your method. This attitude of interest has a freshness to it. If your mind is interested, vibrant and wakeful, you won't take your method for granted, believing that you already know how to do it. Every moment is fresh and you can engage with it fully. This is the right attitude of interest. We notice the difference when interest arises, so much easier to hold on to the practice. If we wonder why that goes simply loss of interest, we revert back into the been, there, done, that mode. How many breaths have we taken? So many think we know everything about it. Never taken this one.
The attitude of interest works together with contentment. Thus I am not saying we just accept what is rather, let whatever arises in meditation be what it is, but don't get involved in judging or discriminating thoughts. Interest should not take you off the trail of the method so that you become interested in everything that arises during meditation, that is just being scattered. Developing interest refers to being one with whatever you may be doing, whether it's the method of your practice or being present for a person. It's amazing how people come to life. When you really pay attention to them, I used to have a habit of looking away from people. Still have it to some extent, just not wanting to embarrass them, or afraid of seeing something that they didn't want to show me. And it becoming awkward. I began to accept people and accept myself, I found it so much easier to tune in and then people are just fascinating. Everybody. Everybody is a Buddha. They're all different. So much easier to harmonize with others. Of
course, there's always a few rotten apples in there, but what are you going to do? I.
He says, we might view our method as something with which we have a relationship. If disinterested, our attitude when we're with someone, how will our attitude affect the relationship? Will certainly not be good for us or the other person. Try examining yourself when you are in that drowsy or hazy state, and see what your attitude is. Be honest with yourself, see yourself and your method as relationship partners. Are you being a good partner, or are you being a pain, grasping, rejecting, seeking, abandoning. Is your interest in your partner half hearted or even lacking? A good partner is attentive at accepting, aware of the shortcomings of the other, but willing to work with them.
We could add, not focused on getting, trying to get something out of it, open to what arises. I He says, If we bring an attitude of disinterest to our meditation practice, then we're going to get nowhere. The more we practice with a negative or disinterested attitude, the more we will strengthen the psychosomatic pattern in our meditation. For example, every time we sit, 15 or 20 minutes into the sitting, we become drowsy. The body acquires muscle memory for a particular task, playing the piano. For example, over time, the pianist, the pianist, just looks at the music score and their hands know where to place themselves on the keyboard. Similarly, whatever kind of neurobiological habit patterns we've established over successive sittings will repeat themselves automatically every time we practice. If we can create negative patterns, we will find it very difficult to undo them. Or we could rephrase that and say, when we create negative patterns, we find it hard to undo them. Life really is habit formation. Such a huge part of our lives, what we do affects who we are, what we pay attention to determines who We are. The
Spanish philosopher or gay or TA said, said, Tell me to what you pay attention, and I will tell you who you are.
He says, the process of meditation practice is not simply a mental one in the body, our patterns of brain activity and our neurological and hormonal levels change according to levels of concentration. In general, the mind needs engagement with an object or some kind of sensory stimulation in order to sustain attention. So practicing meditation is a balancing act. We don't want to attach ourselves to an object, but we do want to stay awake. That is where our attitude of interest is of great importance. If we sincerely care about our practice, if we are sensitive and interested in our method, then we will be creating good habits and we will avoid falling into bad ones. We have to know when to advance, when to retreat, when to sharpen the mind, when to relax, when we work with our method. It's a relationship. There's no one fixed way, a one trick pony approach won't cut it. This is how to be skillful in practice. Approaches to meditation practice are not mechanical.
We have to approach our practice with finesse, adapting to the changing conditions. We may be applying our method diligently, and may have developed clarity, but if there is the slightest shift in our undercurrent feeling toward disinterest, then slowly we will lose concentration, there is a taint of annoyance or resistance towards wandering thoughts as an underlying feeling tone, then we will have more wandering thoughts. Gradually our mind becomes agitated without us even knowing it.
Constantly shifting and changing and.
Uh, there isn't a technique. So many people are looking for a technique. How should I do it? You can give some advice that may be helpful, but really, we find our way if you have the good basis, sense of contentment, relaxed in interest. It works out you find your way. Zazen teaches us. Zazen, he
says, if we take care of our meditation practice and develop great interest in it, we will take care of our lives the same way, if we recognize the attitudes that we begin, that we bring to practice, and by extension, our lives, then we will have an opportunity to transform them. Our relationships improve. Life becomes easier in the process. We serve others more skillfully. If our attitude is one of disinterest, however subtle, we can recognize and replace it with acceptance, even love or gratitude, we notice, see we've tuned out so continuum of oneness and then separation. But when we're practicing, when we notice that separation can come back. We find the way back. We wear the way back. No need to panic. Every moment is new. You and
we don't need to be slaves to the habit tendencies that lie beneath the surface of our mental lives. If we practice with an attitude of interest, then with every difficulty that we experience, every obstruction, we will find it easier to change for the better. With interest, we will be able to rise to great confidence and steadfast determination. And then he goes on to the next aspect, next attitude to cultivate, and that's confidence. Says confidence is an important prerequisite for chan practice. The word confidence in Buddhism also includes other shades of meaning, such as belief, faith, conviction and trust. All of these qualities are based on experience. They're not based on blind belief. If they're not grounded in personal experience, they will not hold up against the challenges of life and practice. Only experience fosters genuine confidence. On the basis of personal experience, self confidence develops. And on the basis of self confidence, confidence in the Dharma develops.
Unlike worldly accomplishments, genuine, transformative practice and experience rarely come from reason or knowledge. For example, if a meditator is able to ease or even forget about leg pain because they received proper instructions for meditating on pain, they will naturally develop confidence in themselves and in their meditation practice. If a person person just reads about meditating on pain, this experience is not going to actually alleviate that pain. However reasonable the method may sound, we have to practice it before we can form any opinion about its efficacy. Chan practitioners must have confidence in Buddha nature, our intrinsic freedom, but this confidence is not something we can rationalize. I've met Zen practitioners who, in meditation, bring forth this faith in just sitting, shikanta, shikantaza, just sitting as an expression of awakening or Buddha nature. It is an expression of Buddha nature. But when I inquire further about it, I find that what they're doing is thinking about faith and conviction in Buddha nature. While they sit, they're engaging in a monolog to remind themselves about their faith and conviction. This is not having confidence in Buddha nature. Confidence is not thinking. It's a conviction that arises. From experience to develop confidence, we need to cultivate correct attitudes and use the methods of practice. When we practice with contentment and interest and move away from self reference, conviction in our freedom naturally grows. The less self centered we are, the more our conviction grows.
Pep talks don't always work, do they? But
experience does need to find our way through difficulties, then we gain confidence, one of the great values of sesshin, we're tested so thoroughly and
it says confidence builds incrementally within the range of our abilities. If you just started learning about meditation, you can't say, I'm going to sit in meditation on moving until I reach full awakening like the Buddha. If you try to do this, you're going to be disappointed. Please Don't set yourself up for defeat. Well, the motivation is worthy of praise. You have to be realistic. If, on the other hand, you say, I vow not to stray off the method for five or 10 minutes of sitting, then maybe that is more reasonable. Or just for one breath, going to breathe in and breathe out, and know that I'm breathing in and out.
That you may not be able to do it right away or all the time, but when you do, you will develop confidence, not only in yourself, but in your method, the practice. When people experience some benefit from practice, they begin to have faith in it.
Confidence is an attitude built on experience. It must be cultivated so we can take action to cultivate it and let our personal experience deepen it. Confidence is a virtue we all have, but we have to engage in practice to develop it. For beginners in meditation, it's helpful to set a time every day for 10 to 15 minutes of sitting. Don't try to sit too long at first, but gradually, over a period of a few months, increase the time to half an hour. As you experience the benefits of your practice, you will be likely to want to meditate.
We're all sitting a little more than that. You you. In order to cultivate self confidence, we need to first learn to follow through on our intentions with small tasks. Don't set grand projects that are impossible to accomplish. If we do things incrementally and accomplish them, we can move ourselves from I can, I can't do I can I have a student who hoards a lot of stuff. She knows she should clean up her home, but it's overwhelming. Everything means so much to her. I told her, start with one area at a time, the stairs to the second floor, for example, her stairs are usually covered with stuff, and that makes it hard for her to get to her bedroom. I told her that after that, she should move on to one of the rooms, then section by section, her house could get cleaned. And she did this. She finished cleaning her stairs. She started with another area and then moved on to another. In the process, she got rid of a lot of things she finally realized she did not need while her house is not completely cleaned up, she is now happy tidying it up. Many other things in our lives are like that. We can work our way out of difficulties if we do it incrementally. The most important ingredient of transformation is to concretely establish self confidence see what we can do and do it. Be realistic, gradually, do more. This is the course January. So many people in our culture, I think, around the world, even make resolutions, and of course, they've done surveys, most people have dropped their resolution within a week or two after the first of the year. So by about now, often it's because. It's not realistic. It's not something they were actually ever going to do, but we can find areas where we can do more to increase our daily sitting, maybe not by the huge amount that we want, but every, every little bit makes a difference.
So common to hear from people who, for one reason, another or another, have stepped up their sitting that they notice the difference. It's positive the experience people have when they do the term intensive. There's a six week term intensive that will begin on the Thursday after this session.
Lot of the art of a successful term intensive is to be realistic about what you do, how we grow and how we gain confidence. There are many people who don't feel confident, trying to shove that underneath and
it really begins with accepting where we are, being realistic,
realizing that we can make it better, that we can improve
being okay with where we are. That's contentment. Then with interest, find ourselves more immersed in the practice and confidence grows and
Guo. Gu says chan teachings are practical. They don't focus on lofty, abstract theories. Look at what's under your feet. Is a famous chan saying someone once asked chan Master Yun men, what's Buddhahood? He replied, who's asking another person asked him how to be free. And Yuan min said, Who is binding you right here, right now? We are the ones who can answer this question. Just take care of this moment, one step at a time. If you start thinking of the future, when will I ever become awakened? Then you will miss what is right under your feet. If you're always looking ahead, worrying about how to climb to the top of the mountain, then you'll never get there. You'll give up even attempting to climb, thinking it's too arduous or long, and you'll end up feeling discouraged. Focus instead on the present, on what's under your feet as you take each step, and before you know it, you'll find yourself on top of the Mountain.
Used to be when you drove at night. Could drive across the country. Many roads. There were no lights. It was dark. Drive through the darkness. Somebody pointed out that even though you can see no farther than your headlights, you can go From the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. I
ruminating about the past and projecting onto the future obstructs our present worse. It leads to mistakes. Those who do mountain climbing know this. It's the same with practice, not saying we should never plan for the future. Of course, we should, but once we've set a task for ourselves, we should follow through step by step. This will strengthen our self confidence, which will lead us to our destination. Yet we should also have flexibility. When causes and conditions change, we may have to adapt to them, but our general direction doesn't have to change. So much of. Confidence in in practice is just knowing, seeing that we're going in the right direction. When we've been doing it for a while, we notice changes things, certain things become easier. May not be dramatic, but it's steady and it's going in the right direction.
He says, confidence is also connected to wisdom. The Maha prajna, paramita shastra states faith allows us to enter the ocean of Buddha Dharma, but it is wisdom that delivers the significance of this passage points to the interconnection between faith and wisdom. To have confidence, or faith in something is to have an attitude of openness, precisely this openness that allows us to transcend our self referential attachments, our personal experience mediates between our faith and wisdom. When we encounter a teaching, we don't just believe in it, we have to personally experience it in this way faith becomes Wisdom. That is why faith enters and wisdom delivers you.
I have to be flexible.
Have to accommodate to conditions, we have to know what conditions are. That means we have to be awake in the present. Have to be here.
Our thoughts are not our friends.
When we stop leaving, when we stop stepping out of the moment, everything changes and interest develops.
We have space. We have time. We
it's relaxed, steady,
accepting and
now that we're into the fourth day of seshin, many people's minds have settled finding themselves in a place they hadn't been in yet, and
conditions are promising.
Make your mind up, stay here.
Everything we need time is up. Stop here and recite the four vows do.
