Today is Sunday, April 7 2024. We're going to begin this teisho by going back to an article I read a little bit from during an encouragement talk, either this Tuesday or last Tuesday sometime recently. And it was it was published in the New York Times The author is Melissa Kirsch. And the title is why we can't stop rushing. Here's what she says. We rush because we're late. We also rush because we want to move quickly away from discomfort. We rush to come up with solutions to problems that would benefit from more sustained consideration. We rush into obligations or decisions or relationships because we want things settled
want things resolved?
come face to face for that inside Zen. Working on a koan, any practice really
want to be doing it right? Want to be done with it? That's not going to happen. She goes on. Worrying is a kind of rushing. It's uncomfortable to sit in a state of uncertainty. So we fast forward the tape, accelerating our lives past the present moment into fearsome imagined scenarios. This obsession with being done with things living life like an endless to do list is ridiculous. I find myself sometimes having a lovely time out to dinner with friends say and I'll notice an insistent hankering for the dinner to be over. Why? So I can get to the next thing. Who cares what the next thing is just keep going. Keep rushing, even through the good parts. In Murray house poem hurry. She describes running errands with a child in tow. Hurry up, honey, I say hurry. She urges as a little one scampers to keep up. Then she wonders, where do I want her to hurry to? To her grave to mine. Or one day, she might stand all grown
when the lesson is pretty clear, because of our compulsive movement from this moment to the next thing. We miss our lives. Kids grow up before we know it. Our puppies become dogs. We become old. Why are we in such a hurry? Everything we need is right here. That's what I'm going to be talking about today.
Hakuin says like one in water crying I thirst. What we want, what we are what we're agitating for what we're rushing towards really is what we have already rushing towards this very moment. It's ironic think this has always been a problem for people but it's especially a modern problem, and especially an American problem. There is a this has been the case with America for quite a quite a while back even back when de Tocqueville was in this country just after the Revolutionary War, I believe. He commented on the American character and are are all the qualities we had back then we have now we've just amped them up a little more. So this is a little little selection from Henry Miller. From a novel The colossus of Maroussi says the moment I stepped on the American boat, which was to take me to New York, I felt I was in another world. I was among the go getters, again, among the restless souls, who not knowing how to live their own life, wish to change the world for everybody.
So many people are struck by that. And of course, New York City is kind of the epitome of that. It's exhilarating in a way to be in New York, people are moving, it's alive. But they're missing something. We don't have to miss it. You can be moving quickly. You can be responding in an instant, and still be present. But it's a skill, a skill that doesn't come naturally. And for most of us, our culture inculcate something totally different.
Joko Beck said, there is a foundation for our lives, a place on which in which our life rests. That place is nothing but the present moment, as we see here, experience what is if we do not return to that place, we live our lives out of our heads. We blame others we complain, we feel sorry for ourselves. All of these symptoms show that we're stuck in our thoughts. We're out of touch with the open space that is always right there.
Just one more quote. Again, from Henry Miller, this is his prescription to be silent the whole day long. See no newspaper, here, no radio, listen to no gossip, be thoroughly and completely lazy, thoroughly and completely indifferent to the fate of the world is the finest medicine a man can give himself
you would think that we would get that medicine. When we do Zen. And we can often we do. But we bring into our practice, all the compulsion, all the grasping all the rushing to the resolution that screws up the whole rest of our lives. Takes a lot of dedication to let that stuff go. Takes it takes noticing what we're doing. People don't realize how tied up they are in their thoughts. You can't stop thoughts from coming into the mind. for the umpteenth time, I'll call Roshi and say the brain is an organ that secretes thoughts. But we do have the wherewithal to decide not to chase them. Let them come and let them go. It's the skill that we learn in Zen. And hopefully, those of us who've been practicing for some time, have learned to slow down a bit. But just speaking for myself, this is unfinished business this there is more to do. This so easy to get hooked. So easy to fall into the old patterns. Really worth taking a little time and thinking about it. Looking at it. When I was when I was researching this, looking for material, I came across a book by Eric North Ishwara he I believe he did a translation of the Dhammapada that I've used in the past he came to America and he wrote a book called Take your time the wisdom of slowing down
of course I found this book at the last minute so I downloaded it as a Kindle
hopefully I won't do anything to make the the iPad talk to Less
Yeah, his wife writes an introduction to the book. And just to go over a little of this again, she says in this book, he describes the shock he felt on arriving in New York, and seeing firsthand the pace in which Americans were moving even then. Today 1959 feels leisurely. The first day he says he decided never to get caught up in this kind of rat race. And not only that, but to help everyone around him slow down to at that point, he was still putting the finishing touches on his eight point program. This was a program to help people slow down. Two of the points suddenly jumped in importance, slowing down, and one pointed attention is term for doing one thing at a time with an undivided mind. At first, I don't think anyone listening to him understood why a spiritual teacher should place so much emphasis on anything so commonplace. Today, it's clear that he was seeing what lay in store for our society, if the pressures to hurry, were not reduced. And we all know, of course, that they've amped up dramatically.
She says, and this was interesting to me, the 70s brought the first signs of an adverse effect on health. And then she quotes the title of the book type a behavior and your heart called attention to a doctor's re H Rosen man, and Meyer Friedman called, quote, hurry sickness, a syndrome of time driven behavior that they felt was closely associated with heart disease. Each Warren was especially pleased with their description with that their description included what they called poly phasic, thinking, not just trying to do too many things in too little time, but trying to think about several things at once. At last, he felt clinicians were looking at the role played by the mind. Type aid of behavior syndrome is still debated by researchers. But Dr. Friedman's description fits so perfectly that it captured popular attention. Type a behavior, he explained is above all, a continuous struggle to accomplish more and more things in less and less time, frequently in the face of opposition, real or imagined from other persons. Type A's are driven by an aggressive deed to compete, and they keep score with anything that can be counted. How many facts can they know? How much work can they do in an hour? How many things can they do at once?
Little further on she says I saw close friends who had undergone heart surgery, transform their lives through Dr. Friedman's clinical program, which taught Taipei's how to become type B's. I'm glad I'm a beta. Or an each Warren's language, how to slow down, learn to be more patient and find meaning love and rich relationships in lives impoverished by years of hard driving in the fast lane. Remember, hearing about type a behavior, it was quite a thing for a while you don't hear so much anymore. And one of the recommendations was to force yourself to drive. When you're on the freeway, the Thruway to drive in the right lane. Don't get out of the right lane just go in whatever pace people do. And that's a really interesting experiment, which I didn't care for. But But I think I recommend it. What I thought was, well, I'll stay relaxed, and I'll drive a little faster. Which you can do, you can do, but it's amazing how just making yourself go a little more slowly. Even if it feels awkward or you resist can change the tone. It's worth it's worth considering there's so many things that have an effect on the mind. Number one, of course, how we use the mind how much we're wrapped up in our thinking. How much of that thinking is goal oriented? When it doesn't need to be? How much of it is comparing ourselves with others, worrying about the opinions of others? interjecting all the demands of society. It's no wonder we're messed up. Can't do too much with this book. But I want to read just a little story that he tells
she makes the case of slowing down just for other people's sake. This little section has a headline it says just one person slowing down, helps everyone around to relax too. And he says during my first Christmas in California, I went to the post office to send a package to my mother in India. Each woman was born in India, and actually his models for learning to slow down or his grandmother and Mahatma Gandhi. In that order went to the post office to send a package. As I neared this a date old building erected in a time when the pace of life was slower. I noticed cars double parked and people darting up and down the broad granite steps. Inside was a scene of frustration and exasperation, and sometimes outright anger. Crowd or no crowd I needed to mail my package. I joined a long queue and stood patiently watching the scene around me. Everyone was giving unintended lessons and how to put yourself under pressure. One fellow in front of me was bouncing up and down as if you were on a pogo stick. He was in such a hurry that he just had to release his nervous energy somehow. And with people pressing you in front and behind. The only direction possible is up. You ever noticed a traffic light as you sit waiting for the light to turn green? How often you see little cars sort of move forward a little bit then put the brakes back on. Just so hard for people just to wait the light will turn green. And then there's a long pedal you can step on and your car will go goes on the gentleman and back of me was also in a hurry. And he was expending his nervous energy by blowing hot air down my neck. Well, I thought Christmas is the time for expressions of goodwill. So I turned around. Take my place. I told him I'm not in a hurry. He was so distracted that he didn't hear me. He just said brusquely. What? Take my place. I repeated I have time. I'm in no hurry at all. He stared and then he began to relax. I felt the atmosphere around us begin to change. He apologized for being in such a hurry and mumbled something about being double parked. I wanted to ask why do you double park, but I thought better of it. Slowly the queue moved forward. The young woman at the counter was probably a college student filling in for the holidays. And she was making mistake after mistake, giving the wrong stamps giving the wrong change. While people complained and corrected her. I could see that she was getting more and more upset. And the more upset she got, the more mistakes she made and the longer each transaction took all because everybody was in a hurry. If the scene had ever had any Christmas cheer, it was evaporating rapidly. I'm fond of students. I was a professor for many years. So when it came my turn at the window I said I'm from India. Take your time. She looked as if she couldn't believe it. But she smiled and relaxed and she gave me the right change and the right stamps to I thanked her and wished her a merry Christmas. As I walked out, I noticed that the man behind me returned her smile, the whole room and relaxed a little. I even heard a ripple of laughter from the end of the queue. Pressure is contagious. But so as goodwill, just one person slowing down one person not putting others under pressure helps everybody else to relax to To paraphrase the Buddha. We learned to do this by doing it. We learn to slow down by trying to slow down.
So we're driven by our thoughts. We're driven by our identification with our thoughts. Everything is mediated by thoughts and therefore we're not seeing directly. thing in the thought are two different, two totally different categories. This is the slogan of Zen from the very, very beginning, a teaching beyond words and concepts pointing directly at the mind. We can say pointing directly at reality, pointing directly at this moment. It's not just thoughts, but emotions, fear, anxiety, anger. Everything is driven by our automatic acceptance of whatever in the small mind. Calculating mind the grasping mind throws up Why believe what you think
if you reflect for even a moment you realize you don't think anything because you decided to think it. Thought comes into the mind and then you buy into it
can't really wake up to this until we see what's going on. And that's what practice is good for. Just did a workshop online workshop yesterday, and I always tell people, first time you ever sit, you're going to be astounded by the force of your thought stream. It's daunting. A lot of people dip their toe in and they never come back. So overwhelming. seems so impossible
then we tried out the snow globe, we've all seen the snow globe, right? Shake it up and all those flakes represent everything swirling in your mind. All you have to do is put it on the table and leave it alone
we try to do everything by means have our thoughts. It's, it's been compared it's been compared to somebody who loses their keys, they drop them in the shadow somewhere. And man comes along, sees the poor guy looking for them. He says well did you did you drop them around here? And he said, No, but the lights better here. See paws around underneath the street lamp. Everything is murky for us. Outside of our thoughts. That's the world we're living in. And it's such a small sliver of reality. Yasutani Roshi used to hold up a ballpoint pen. And he'd say, if this pen represents reality, then the thinking mind is the tip of the ball at the end of the pen.
So step one, is getting some distance from that grasping, thinking, calculating mind. Realizing that that's not who we are. And Anthony de Mello, our constant companion, good friend has something to say about that. says watch everything inside of you and outside. And when there is something happening to you see it as if it were happening to someone else. With no comment, no judgment, no attitude, no interference, no attempts to change, only to understand. This is the approach to practice, only to understand only to see says as you do this, you'll begin to realize that increasingly, you are dis identifying from me from our idea of ourselves. St. Teresa of Avila says that toward the end of her life, God gave her an extraordinary grace. She doesn't use this modern expression of course, but what it really boils boils down to is dis identifying from herself. If some When else has cancer, and I don't know the person, I'm not that all that affected. If I had love and sensitivity, I'd help. But I'm not emotionally affected. If you have to take an examination, I'm not all that affected, I can be quite philosophical about it and say, Well, why don't you? The more you worry about it, the worse it will get. Why don't you just take a good break instead of studying? But when it's my turn to have an examination? Well, that's something else, isn't it? The reason is that I've identified with me, with my family, my country, my possessions, my body, me, how would it be, if God gave me grace, not to call these things mine, I'd be detached, I'd be dis dis identified. That's what it means to lose the self, to deny the self to die to the self.
It's always so confirming and heartening, when we begin to react differently in situations that used to trigger us. When we find we're no longer is quickly, no longer as quick to see insults or disrespect. It really doesn't matter. Doesn't matter what other people think.
The more we decide to identify, the more we live out of no self. The Freer we are, the more joy we can find the more equanimity, the less we find ourselves compulsively rushing.
The more clearly we see other people. So another section from Demello. Says the important thing is not to know who it is I in quotation marks, or what AI is, you'll never succeed. There are no words for it. The important thing is to drop the labels, as the Japanese Zen masters say, Don't seek the truth. Just drop your opinions. Drop your theories don't seek the truth. Truth isn't something you search for. If you stop being opinionated, you would know something similar happens here. If you drop your labels, you would know what do I mean by labels, every label you can conceive of except perhaps that a human being I am a human being fair enough. Doesn't say very much. But when you say I am successful, that's crazy. Success is not part of the AI. Success is something that comes and goes. It could be here today and gone tomorrow. That's not Hi. When you said I was a success, you are an error, you are plunged into darkness. You identified yourself with success. The same thing when you said I'm a failure, a lawyer, a businessman, you know what's going to happen to you, if you identify yourself with those things, you're going to cling to them, you're going to be worried that they may fall apart. And that's where your suffering comes in. That's what I meant earlier, when I said to you, if you're suffering, you're asleep. It's a hard thing for people to accept. Sometimes it's easier to accept it if you understand it as there's simple suffering. And then there's a suffering that we pile on top. It's the second one that causes all the problems. says do you want a sign that you're asleep? Here it is, you're suffering. Suffering is a sign that you're out of touch with the truth. Suffering is given to you that you might open your eyes to the truth, that you might understand that there is falsehood somewhere just as physical pain is given to you. So you will understand there's a disease or illness somewhere suffering points out that there is falsehood somewhere so little like something that Byron Katie says, interesting woman can't really go into everything about her but she said that that feeling of deceit, this dis ease, anxiety, whatever it is, is like a compassionate alarm clock telling you you're lost in the dream
the dream of what's not important of what's not real it's a dream that doesn't stop altogether just because We have some insight. It's our karma. Sorry, it's it's the world we live in. Always going to find ourselves getting tripped up. But with practice over time, we recover so much more quickly. And we know what's going on. When we start to feel anxiety, say we're been asked to give a talk, we can't get out of it.
It's not a problem. We feel anxiety. That's just how we feel. You don't have to make it go away than wanting to make it go away. Compounds it.
Acceptance can do so much, to help ourselves and to help other people.
When you don't pay for everything over with your ideas, you can see people more clearly it's so easy to think you're a person of goodwill. And nevertheless, say and do things that are hurtful to others. See it in all kinds of situations. So one of the one of the most intractable problems with our inherent bias, racial and racist bias against people who are different in one way or another. When you're only half looking. You just put people into a category. And even when you're friendly, that sweetness is tinged with a little disregard. You haven't really taken them in, you're not truly intimate. Just to swallow everything. It's the way forward valuing this moment, whoever you're talking with whoever you're with, it's the most important person in the world. How many of us can do that? So hard?
Gonna finish up by reading from Eckhart Tolle. I've never read from him before no Roshi gave a teisho on him once he wrote the book you may have heard of the power of now. According to the cover, over 2 million copies sold. pretty popular guy all over YouTube. Very strange man. He's like a he's like a gnome. It actually reminds me of when I first met Philip Kaplow I came in. I came in expecting this you know, Zen samurai. And here's a guy in a cardigan sweater. Little guy. Just so still. What the heck is this? So yeah, car toy house has that in spades. So his his his thing is now that's how it came to him. That's how his awakening happened, suddenly realized. It's here. It's now sometimes people say here and now for him. It's just the now the problem with that, of course is then everybody starts glibly talking about the now and it becomes another thing. But underneath there is there's some no thing there. That's extremely significant. He says, Since ancient times, spiritual masters of all traditions have pointed to the Now is the key to the spiritual dimension. Despite this, it seems to remain the secret is certainly not taught in churches and temples. If you go to a church, you may hear readings from the Gospels, such as Take no thought for the morrow for the morrow will take thought of the things of itself. Or nobody who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. Or you might hear the passage about the beautiful flowers that are not anxious about tomorrow, but live with ease in the timeless now and are provided for abundantly by God. The depth and radical nature of these teachings are not recognized. No one seems to realize that they are meant to be lived and to bring about a profound inner transformation Problem with every religion. It becomes rote. It's the reason why each of us have to make it new for ourselves. Can't do Zen practice to please someone else.
He says here, the great Zen master Rinzai, in order to take his students attention away from time, would often raise his fingers slowly and ask what at this moment is lacking? A powerful question that does not require an answer on the level of the mind. That is the thinking mind is designed to take your attention deeply into the now think of what Zen Master Dogan said, if you're unable to find the truth, right where you are? Where else do you expect to find it?
Caught up in time, in our idea of time. And Tola makes a good distinction between cycles what he calls psychological time, and clock time. Everybody needs to pay attention to clock time because you have to be at the center at a third by 830 on a Sunday. So there's got to be a little time in your life, right. But that others what's called psychological time, that feeling of pressure racing to get to the next thing that's that's the big problem. I read in Ishwara, on that Gandhi, who move slowly and deliberately and took his time, also carried a watch which he pinned to his simple garment. And if anybody came to a meeting late, he would hold it up and show it to them. So we have the responsibility to be on time, but not to be wrapped up in it.
He says Artola says, Learn to use time and the practical aspects of your life. We may call this clock time, but immediately returned to present moment awareness when those practical matters have been dealt with. In this way, there will be no buildup of psychological time, which is identification with the past, and continuous compulsive projection into the future. clock time is not just making an appointment or planning a trip. It includes learning from the past. So we don't repeat the same mistakes over and over setting goals and working toward them. predicting the future by means of patterns and laws, physical, mathematical, and so on, learn from the past, and taking appropriate action on the basis of our predictions. But even here, within the sphere of practical living, where we can do without reference to past and future, the present moment remains the essential factor. And the lesson from the past becomes relevant and is applied. Now. Any planning is well, working toward achieving a particular goal is done now. The Enlightened persons main focus of attention is always the now but they're still peripherally aware of time. In other words, they continue to use clock time, but are free of psychological time.
As an example, if you made a mistake in the past and learn from it, now, you're using clock time. On the other hand, if you dwell on it mentally, and self criticism, remorse or guilt come up, then you're making the mistake into me and mine. You make it part of your sense of self, it has become psychological time, which is always linked to a false sense of identity. Non forgiveness necessarily implies a heavy burden of psychological time. So liberating to realize that we can forgive ourselves can make mistakes, and then they just they just pass even if you don't forgive yourself, it's going to pass unless it's really a big one that you're going to beat yourself up about for the rest of your life. They pass more quickly when you don't get stuck when you're willing to give yourself a break, just as you would give anyone else a break.
In the book somewhere he points out that everything that happens to us, this is patently obviously true. Everything that happens to us happens now. Everything that happened to you in the past happened now. And everything that's going to happen to you in the future happens now will happen now. We're always there. It's like, it reminds me of something. Right or Dr. O talked about driving across the country at night. You can only see by your headlights, you can go 3000 miles from one coast to the other. Just looking at what's in front of you. If you live your life that way, it's different. You're present for all of it. You're there for the whole trip. One place where it really really helps is in sesshin if you can stay present, not catastrophize not regret not look ahead and not look back. Just do what's in front of you. Everything simplifies, find yourself slowing down and you find space and ultimately, you find joy.
gonna read a poem that finished with a poem I've read before. So by Mary Oliver and entitled The summer day, who made the world who made the swan and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper this grasshopper I mean, the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who was eating sugar out of my hand, was moving her jaws back and forth, instead of up and down, was gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lives her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open and floats away. I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention. How to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed. How to stroll through the fields, which is what I've been doing all day. Tell me what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last and too soon? Tell me what it is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life. Okay, stop here and recite the Four Vows
