This is the fourth day of this October, November, 20, 24/7, day seshin. We're going to continue again today with the book faith in mind a commentary on sung Sangha classic by chan master Sheng yen. COVID
We just finished with his discussion of when you assert that things are real, you miss their true reality. And he moves to the second line. His version is follow emptiness and you turn your back on it. And in our translation, it's to assert that things are real, or, excuse me, to assert that things are void also misses reality. Says this refers to practitioners who have experienced certain breakthroughs and are approaching the state of emptiness. They may think I have eliminated all vexations. I no longer have any ignorance or attachment where he finds these practitioners, says, But staying at this level would be considered outer path practice, that is, it's not central Buddhism, true Buddhism, the true Buddha way, says that best these practitioners, the best these practitioners can do is reach the emptiness Samadhi, the highest level of the formless realm. And we won't even go into exactly what category or classification that is, what we can say about it is when people become attached to the emptiness aspect of reality, it can become a kind of spiritual bypassing nothing truly matters. Can do whatever you want, you wonder sometimes if some of the egregious behavior of so called Zen masters might stem from this misinterpreted insight you
Sheng yen says, I have known many people who were extremely diligent and took their practice very seriously in the beginning, but gave up too soon. It is just as if when one side senses it is losing the battle, suddenly, all resistance is gone and they're defeated very quickly. As long as everything is going well, they continue normally, but as soon as something goes wrong, everything simply collapses. Say, this results generally from believing our thoughts. Everybody has discouraging thoughts when things aren't going well, and what do you do with them? Do you buy into them? Some people don't buy into them, but they don't put them down. It's can be that tendency to play with negativity.
The other thing we do is try to push it away, to bury it. But that doesn't necessarily work, does it? Because it comes bubbling back up, and as he says, one side senses it is losing the battle. All resistance may be gone and they're defeated very quickly, we can have the wherewithal, the understanding, to know it's just a thought. It has no reality, it has no substance.
You have a chance to turn back to the practice, to put our faith in the practice, in the method he goes on. So it is with certain practitioners who have been working hard and then suddenly stop completely. They may feel that practice is basically useless. They think it's a great deception, because they've put a lot of energy in. Overcoming their problems and have not eliminated them at all. In fact, their efforts have only increased their mental vexations and created physical ones too. In
I have to wonder about the foundation. Where does the motivation for practice come from? What are the expectations we doing it to please others, to be a good boy or a good girl? Are we doing it to get something to shine, be able to pat ourselves on the back. A lot of there are a lot of motivations. It's pretty confused mix. All of us have some of those. I
But do we have faith in the Buddha Dharma, in the the nature of mind, in the fact that the nature of our lives is determined by our minds and
it can help if we have good friends who are also practicing with us. There's a story in the about the Buddha and Ananda, his attendant, where Ananda declared to the Buddha that he believed that friendship, spiritual friendship, was half of the way. And the Buddha responded, oh, no, don't say that it's the entire way.
It's one of the reasons in Mahayana Buddhism that the vow to liberate others is so emphasized. It's not that those same motivations and feelings don't exist in other forms of Buddhism, but it's just put to the forefront and you
see what our life is like, what works and what doesn't work. See what's inevitable, which is our own demise, and it sensitizes us to others that saying I've quoted before, everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. If you're battling against death, it's a battle that you will lose.
So describing these people who give up easily, in fact, their efforts have only increased their mental vexations and created physical ones too. Says, Because of this, many people consider serious or energetic practice demonic. They think it's not normal to devote oneself so completely to practice. Such criticism is usually unjustified. However, it is true that a practitioner who does not know what he is doing may get into deep trouble, especially without proper guidance. He may get he may not be in a demonic state, but very likely his practice cannot last long. That's why the foundation of practice is so important. Need a balance between deep, striving, hard work and relaxation. The reason we talk about contentment as being a starting point for practice, I is, why are we content? What's the contentment? It's just to be able to do this practice.
Realize that in order to get anywhere, we have to be okay with the way things are. This is where we start from. This is the hand we're dealt. We have to play it. We can't play some other hand if.
Says it's good to have a diligent and objective attitude towards practice, but to be attached to the idea of overcoming your problems will only lead to further trouble.
It sullies our motivation when we're looking for a result, when our focus is on a result. It's wonderful to get results, but if that's our focus, their long time in coming, I want to read something from our friend, Anthony de Mello.
He says, The reason you suffer from your depression and your anxieties is that you identify with them. You say I'm depressed, but that is false. You are not depressed, if you want to be accurate, you might say I am experiencing the depression right now, but you can hardly say I am depressed. You are not your depression. That is but a strange kind of trick of the mind, strange kind of illusion. You've deluded yourself into thinking, though you're not aware of it, that you are your depression, that you are your anxiety, that you are your joy, or the thrills that you have. I am delighted. You are certainly not delighted. Delight may be in you right now, but wait around. It will change. It won't last. It never lasts. It keeps changing. It's always changing. Clouds come and go. Some of them are black and some white. Some of them are large, others small. You want to follow the analogy you would be the sky, observing the clouds. You are a passive, detached observer. That's shocking, particularly to someone in the western culture. You're not interfering. Don't interfere. Don't fix anything. Watch, observe. The trouble with people is that they're busy fixing things. They don't even understand we're always fixing things, aren't we? It never strikes us that things don't need to be fixed. They really don't. This is a great illumination. They need to be understood. If you understood them, they'd change.
It's how practice works. You he says, Do you want to change the world? How about beginning with yourself? How about being transformed yourself first? But how do you achieve that? Through observation, through understanding, with no interference or judgment on your part. Because what you judge you cannot understand. When you say of someone he's a communist. This is, of course, back when communists and capitalists were a big deal. When you say of someone he's a communist, understanding has stopped at that moment you slapped a label on him, she's a capitalist. Understanding is stopped at that moment he slapped a label on her, and if the label carries undertones of approval or disapproval, so much the worse. How are you going to understand what you disapprove of and what you approve of? For that matter, all of this sounds like a new world, doesn't it? No judgment, no commentary, no attitude. One simply observes. One studies, one watches without the desire to change what is. Because if you desire to change what is into what you think should be, you no longer understand. Say you're no longer intimate. It's
like someone who it's like the phrase, I love you now change. He goes on. A dog trainer attempts to understand the dog so he can train the dog to perform certain tricks. A scientist observes the behavior of ants with no further end in view than to study ants, to learn as much as possible about them. He has no other aim. He's not attempting to train them or get anything out of them. He's interested in ants. He wants to learn as much as possible about them. That's his attitude. The day you attain a posture like that, you will experience a miracle. You will change effortlessly and correctly. Change will happen. You will not have to bring it about as the life of awareness settles on your darkness, whatever is evil will disappear. Whatever is good will be fostered. You have to experience that for yourself. This calls for a disciplined mind, and when I say disciplined, I'm not talking about effort, talking about something else. Have you ever studied an athlete his or her whole life is sports, but what a different disciplined life he or she leads. And look as a river as it moves toward the sea, it creates its own banks that contain it. When there's something within you that moves in the right direction, it creates its own discipline moment you get bitten by the bug of awareness. So delightful. It's the most delightful thing in the world, the most important, the most delightful. There's nothing so important in the world as awakening nothing. And of course, it is also A discipline in its own way. You
so when we left off with Sheng yen, he said, but to be attached to the idea of overcoming your problems will only lead to further trouble. He goes on in the poem, the more you talk and think of this further from the truth, you'll be cut off all useless thoughts and words and there's nowhere you cannot go. And he says, people like to talk, especially if they feel lonely. Those who tend to talk non stop generally have difficulty with practice and also make it difficult for others to practice in our chan retreat, talking is forbidden, but there are still some people who cannot resist, covertly saying a few words. Others honor the rule and refrain refrain from speaking. But that does not mean that they are not talking to themselves all day long, while they are sitting. They come up with a theme and then carry on a conversation with themselves. They ponder over all sorts of issues. Many of us, early in our Zen career, had sessions like this, where we wandered over, thinking of acts for Sangha entertainment running through music catalogs.
Most people don't do that, but in the beginning, there is that temptation. Says once, a certain writer attended a retreat during the first day he came up with the with the idea for a novel. While sitting he sketched out the plot and the various characters in the private interview the next day, I asked him how he had been doing, and he said, I've been making plans for my new novel. Teacher's heart just sinks.
Okay?
I said to him, perhaps, perhaps you should go home and start writing your novel now. Otherwise, by the end of the retreat, you will have forgotten all the great ideas you've come up with. If you talk too much, either with your mouth or in your head, it will be difficult to make progress when you find it hard to concentrate. It's very easy to start talking to yourself. You may not be even be able to control it.
Think when we get over that first phrase phase, when thinking just runs what Riot and we find ourselves going down all sorts of ridiculous paths, then what happens is, now our thinking is more about our practice, my doing, that tends to get a pass because it seems to be related to why we're here. Well, it is related, but it's not helpful. Sheng yen says there's a deeper interpretation of these lines. You should not try to use logic or theory to answer certain questions in your practice. Some examples are, why have I come here for a retreat? What is the purpose of practice? What Is Enlightenment? If you get involved in this kind of questioning to justify your practice, then you simply cannot practice. You.
Often we don't know why we practice. It's very hard to say one person may take it up. They become their lifetime practice, and another they like it, I guess. But it doesn't stick. I everybody is different, different tendencies.
It's a question of affinity. You have affinity for the way you tend to stick with practice in one form or another. Doesn't necessarily have to be Zen practice, does it that? Again, also depends on Affinity. There are many ways which work. Of course, we need to settle on one go as deeply as we can go. Sheng yen says, after a few days of practice, many people completely stopped thinking about themselves and their outside affairs. However, they keep dwelling on my words. Whatever I say is meant to guide your practice, but when you are actually practicing, you should just use the method and not think about what I may have said, unless you talk to yourself, the closer you will be to the highest way. I once told a student, you really have to practice very hard to overcome ignorance. For two sitting periods, she was constantly thinking, how am I ignorant? Unable to contain it any longer, she got up and said to me, I can eat, I can sleep, so I really am not ignorant. I said, Look at a dog, a cat, a mosquito, they can eat and rest. Are you saying they don't have any ignorance? Then she said, Tell me what to do so that I won't be ignorant again. I don't know where he gets these students. I said, try to meditate and recite the Buddha's name. She went back to her cushion and meditated on the Buddha's name. This is another form of practice. I guess it's used in some in Chinese, in chan but again, she thought to herself, since I am here meditating and reciting the Buddha's name, I am not ignorant. After another two periods, she came to me again and said, in fact, I don't have any problems. I have been sitting here feeling very comfortable. It is you who have vexations. Her problem was that although she took my words seriously, she would turn them over and over in her mind instead of actually applying the method during practice. It is only when you no longer have any words or thoughts that the perfect way will manifest before you, and there is nowhere you cannot penetrate. The meaning is not that you can go anywhere, but there that there is no need to go anywhere, because in the state of no words and no thoughts, you are in the midst of anywhere and every place. How do you get to the state of no words and no thoughts by picking up the method and putting down your attachment to things you
then in Sheng yen version, the next lines are returning to the root, return to the root and attain the principle. Pursue illumination and you lose it. One moment of reversing, the light is greater than the previous emptiness. We have awakening is to go beyond emptiness as well as form. But that Sheng yen says, in practice, you may try to penetrate, penetrate to the emptiness of phenomena, but as long as illumination is directed towards outward appearances, you miss the primal source. It is only by turning the illumination inward that you return to the source and get to the meaning of all things. If you can do this, even for a split second, you will transcend the state of emptiness. This is the backwards step that dog talks about. Who is it? A
going back to the point where thoughts arise. Sheng yen says the source or root is Buddha nature. How do you return to the root by letting go of all words and thoughts and eliminating all grasping and reject. Direction. You must begin with a method, but at some point you must let it go.
I'm not recommending that anybody think about when or where they're going to let it go. Just say when you're completely absorbed. At some point, even the method may disappear, it's not something that you have to do. Says, likewise, you should not hold on to any experiences that may come up. When the method and experiences are no longer necessary to you, you will have returned to the source. The source, or Buddha nature, is the lively manifestation of great liberation and great wisdom. In great liberation, there is nothing left. But this is not the same as stubborn emptiness. Liberation goes beyond both emptiness and form. We chant in the morning, the morning or the afternoon, in the afternoon, form is only emptiness, emptiness only form. Form is no other than emptiness. Emptiness is no other than form. You
practitioners often go from attachment to existence to attachment to emptiness. If one thinks that emptiness is true wisdom or liberation, under this delusion, one cannot attain the ultimate It is natural for people to become attached to their experiences. One student, who sat very well last night, tried to repeat the experience today by recalling exactly what he did that resulted in that great sitting. But today, the city went very poorly. This was due to his greed for the experience. I think most of us have experienced this sort of thing. Suddenly, you're there. Everything is going well. It seems like something you can just turn on and off. Conditions have to be right, and the minute you're trying to recreate that experience, conditions are different, aren't they? It's a lesson we have to learn over and over again. Have to work with things as they are and accept the normal ups and downs of practice. Any mind state is changing, impermanent you
the next lines are, do not go searching for the truth. Just let those fond opinions go. And Sheng yen says, We should not seek Buddha nature or enlightenment. Rather, we should let it come about naturally. Such questions as, when will I get enlightened? Or is there a Buddha nature will take you further away from Buddha Nature, which is a totality and not something you can grasp, not a thing Buddha nature is in the totality of your own self. Why should it be necessary to try to attain it? And how can you get hold of it? Don't practice with the thought of reaching Buddhahood. Just put forth your best efforts. I
we're looking for is what we are and
Ramana, Maharshi, great Indian sage said, There is no greater mystery than this, that we keep seeking reality, though, in fact, we are reality. We think that there is something hiding reality, that this must be destroyed before reality is gained. How ridiculous a day will dawn when you will laugh at all your past efforts. That which will be on the day you laugh is also here now you
What is it?
What am I? I
no other way than to look.
That becomes our habit. Things begin to move, as Demello says, It's a discipline of its own. You.
Skipping ahead a bit. Sheng yen says practice is like cooking rice. If you use a gentle flame, the rice will be perfect and easy to digest, whereas a high flame, with a high flame, it will burn before it is done. One should practice with a very relaxed attitude, without worry.
The Buddhist scholar and practitioner ALAN WALLACE said, again and again, counteract the agitation and turbulence of the mind by relaxing more deeply, not by contracting, not by contracting the body or mind.
When we learn to relax into the questioning becomes more sustainable. Can go down this road a long way without veering off. I
we're not pushing against ourselves, not driving with the brakes on, like a river making its way to the sea and
a Sheng yen says, If you do not abide in duality, neither having too much nor too little confidence, then what should you do? You've not come here to get enlightened, but to practice is not important. Whether you have a good grasp of the matter and can enter the practice deeply or not. Just do not have any doubts about the method or whether you have the quote right stuff to practice. Do not underestimate yourself. If others can practice, then at least you can try do
when your mind strays from the method, problems will appear. In fact, the method is inherently meaningless. It's irrelevant to discuss whether it brings marriage or not. The purpose of a method is to train your mind. You can raise the same objection to prostrating to the Buddha or morning and evening chanting. Why should practice take these forms? People often wonder if Chan is a method of sudden enlightenment which does not depend on meditation, then why do we practice meditation and go on seven day retreats? If someone objects that these things are unrelated to chan, I say that if you want to study Chan, I will instruct you in exactly these methods you are in a practice you must believe in your teacher and his methods if you search for methods of your own, you may not find anything and eventually give up, or you may find something weird and end up in a demonic state with mental and physical problems. You.
Meditation should just be a part of life. If you have other motivations, it will lead to problems when you approach the practice with any expectations, you will not be able to sit well you it. Not only should you not have any expectations of getting enlightened or becoming a chan Master, you should not even expect to be free from your pain. Do not hope that your legs or back will stop hurting. Don't try to overcome the pain as if you had to burst through a barrier. Simply accept the pain. You may not feel very happy about it, but at least do not resent it. If you cannot accept it, then ignore it. Turn your mind to the method when the pain becomes too great to ignore, place your attention on the pain itself. It can actually work you
disassociate yourself from the part of your body that is painful another way, let it ache away. Shuniro Suzuki said, your legs are practicing their own zazen independently and are completely involved in their own pain. They are doing zazen through pain. You should allow them to practice their own Zazen. Taking this attitude can be helpful when you're locked into a position and you're waiting for the bell, it's also legitimate to move to an easier posture. If that will help. Some people can use pain, and it's helpful for the practice, but others and sometimes the pain is too great, and then there's always the possibility of going to a chair, if that's what that's what's necessary. A lot of people stubbornly fight their pain, sitting down in the same posture again and again, thinking that if they do anything to make it a little easier or more comfortable that they're backsliding. But we're not here to be to eat pain. It's it's great when people can do that, and some people can, but that's not practice. It's part of practice, I guess, but that's not the goal. Take a take the middle way. Do what you need to do, and keep your mind on the practice.
Remember reading about Floyd Landis was a biker. Later, some disgrace fell over him after he had won the Tour de France, and it turned out that he'd used testosterone, but he he did the entire tour with a bad hip that was actually bone on bone. He was just grinding one bone against the other the whole time he was riding. He said, I just ate the pain. Doctors had told him that it was so bad that it really he couldn't do any more damage. And so that was an option, and that's what he did. I but I don't recommend that. I am amazed by it. I
A Sheng yen says, if you can take this attitude just letting it ache away, eventually it will go away. When you really get into the practice, all bodily sensation will disappear. And many people have had this experience of what seems like impossible pain suddenly vanishing. It's amazing the power of the mind, but if you try to make it happen, it's miserable and. Really requires acceptance. He says, The important thing is not to have any resentment against your suffering or any expectations of happiness. As soon as ideas such as suffering versus happiness arise, your mind will already be straying from the method caught up in duality you
there's a burden lifted when we drop our expectations. Really, really does free us up. Those expectations can be motive power for many of us in our practice. That was the case, but it's a double edged sword, and it so wonderful to finally realize I just need to keep it simple. All that attainment stuff is above my pay grade. Practicing, for the sake of practice, it's easy to say it's wonderful to do, but when we can do it,
it's nothing we need to worry ourselves about it. Out,
begin to taste a little bit the joy of practice, just to give it up, to let go of our pride greediness and
let the mind sink into awareness and it
reminds me of that phrase from Sheng yen, earlier Chinese phrase one thought for 10,000 years, the
center of everything is that awareness.
Okay, our time is up. Stop here and recite the four vows. I.
