2023-09-05 Life and Teachings of Tangen Harada Roshi 4

6:16PM Sep 12, 2023

Speakers:

Sensei Amala Wrightson

Richard von Sturmer

Keywords:

buddha nature

buddha

true

life

grasping

roshi

desire

awaken

self improvement

reality

sense

great

ego

practice

seeking

dharma

awakening

limited

experience

lineage

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

Today is the fourth day of our spring seven day sesshin and it's the fifth of September 2023. We're going to continue reading from "Throw Yourself into the House of Buddha: The Life and Zen Teachings of Tangen Harada Roshi."

The first section we're going to be reading from is called "The Illusion of Separate Self." And it follows on from the one that we were looking at last time, where Tangen-roshi recounted the exclamation of the Buddha Shakyamuni at his greatest, great enlightenment, as it is set forth in the Avatamsaka Sutra. "Wonder of wonders. Wonderful. All beings are without exception endowed with the wisdom and virtue of the Tathagata."

But then, at the very end of that section, we got the the other part of what the Buddha said, "But because people's minds have been turned upside down by delusive thinking, they fail to perceive their own Buddha nature, their own inherent Buddha nature.

Tongan says how wonderful it is that he, that the Buddha said this as well because this is this is where we start where we come from, that we can we can perceive our own inherent Buddha nature. And we're given the teachings which allow us to find our way back to that Buddha nature. He uses the word I substituted upside down, but he uses the word and they're inverted. Their minds have become inverted through delusive thinking. What does this word inverted mean? Well, one way to think of it is upside down. It's it's a mistaken idea of the nature of the self. And inverted is good word because it's kind of back to front or inside out or around the wrong way. It's we have a true, but but inverted way of seeing things. We think we're at the center of the universe. And of course that's true. But what we don't see is that so is everybody else. Nicholas of Cuza said something about God and I think is, he said the god is a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. And that applies to each of us. Our Buddha nature is a circle whose center is everywhere, and his circumference is nowhere.

So now taking this up. This this theme of how does this illusion of the separate self come into being?

How does it happen? How do we fail to see our essential nature? When we were babies, we had no sense of opposition. For a baby everything is me. There is no division no duality. When it is hungry it eats. When it is sleepy it sleeps is the baby awakened. Of course the baby is not lost in a dream of separation, but its state is not complete. A baby is totally self absorbed, it must steadily grow. Yet with growth the child learns to live by the discriminating mind and develops a sense survive. With growth comes the growth of the intellect and ego grasping the sense of self and separation increases as we learn language. Everything that is not me is other. And this is the crux of this inverted thinking. Everything that is not me is other opposition duality. We come to perceive everything to be outside ourselves. I want what is over there, I want this, I want that. So we're grasping at things that appear to us to be on the outside the child becomes smarter and smarter. A sharp mind and exacting intellect mean a lot in this world. Being smart, you're smart, you can get ahead materially, you can make a name for yourself, you can rise to a high position is that bad. It's not a question of good and bad. Some use the intellectual growth for good and some don't. That depends on the aspiration and intention of the individual. But everyone falls into the trap of dividing reality into pieces. There is an old saying, as a child learns to live by its mind, it moves further and further away from Buddha. We simply learn to treat this little idea as the host, as the center of the universe, we can't help but to favor and indulge the self that we imagined to exist. This is this notion of of host in and guest is an old one in Zen. So this the host is the one who who doesn't come and go the one who's intrinsic

continues almost everyone as they reach adulthood carries inside them a sense of lack. Something is missing, something is not quite right. We can we can feel this about reality. Or we can we can project it onto ourselves and, and have this delusion that we basically flawed that we have what one psychologist calls a core deficit. And our belief in this core dis of deficit shapes, how we we react to things that in our lives. It's like an inner narrative that that colors our experience. At first, we try to satisfy our myriad desires to get rid of the sense of lack. If only I could have things my way, I would have no further complaints. I know exactly what I need. That's one kind of statement. We could also the people who might feel just confused and not know what they need. But the suffering is the same. But if you get one you desire two, if you get two you desire three, four, it's never enough. We cannot ultimately be satisfied by getting what we want. And yet some people spend all their lives thinking that gratifying desires is what being a human is about. When we chant the Four Vows, we say, endless blind passions, I vow to uproot our prey oppressions are endless. We can pour what what we think we want into that into that pit and it will eat it up it's bottomless.

Then once we have been able to polish our special talents

and strengths, being able to study and to yearn had jobs that we were given her that we have given our all to, we may make our way in the world. We have looked at things from all angles, seeking to understand what it is all about. We have seen how painful it can be to make our way in life, we have experienced the difficulty of human relationships, it should be easier, but somehow it just isn't. Those people who humor us, those whom we perceive to be a benefit for us and benefit for us, we like and favor and become attached to them. On the other hand, there are those people who do not particularly recognize us, who overlook us or ignore us, who do not treat us as we would like to be treated. And they and or that are just not the way we want them to be. These people we regard to some degree or another as enemies. Or we might say, or we judge them as being difficult people. We regard them as those who are against us, we don't like them, they irritate us and get on our nerves.

And then there's the the not uncommon phenomenon of, of having acquaintances, friends, co workers who fall in the first category. Those we we are attached to in favor, and then something happens they do something that we dislike, and they then relegated to the second category. And our dislike of them is often more vehement when they when there has been a change as we see in so many acrimonious divorces.

They don't have to be acrimonious if we can see, see, to some degree or other our preferences, how what role our own likes and dislikes pay in the process.

It continues, then we try ways various ways of self improvement, self help, help yourself to grow, take good care of yourself, and you will be a happier person, this is the message. There are all sorts of examples of this way of thinking. And there is nothing really wrong with it. But of course, the object of self improvement is the imagined limited self, and we are still grasping it for all it's worth. And as we find out, to our chagrin, this happens even after we've taken up a Dharma practice we bring all our longings for self improvement to the practice. And you can be helpful I hear that I just understand how, how the ego factors into this the ego is the great appropriator it will take anything and and turn it to its own devices. Little experience of, of quiet mind and suddenly we're when ego is all excited, and wants to get back to that that experience was

crowing with a sense of achievement and having had this experience and then of course, disappointment is is built in because these things don't last.

Seen is not about self improvement. It's about seeing through the self forgetting the self.

People who come thinking that that's what they're going to get our sooner or later they're going to either change, transform the motivation or they're going to give the process up. There's so much more as demanded of us then, then getting better and better every day in every way.

We have tried to be kind and caring. Our intention is to be of service to others. Even so, we are still working from the standpoint of ego. As long as we are attached to a separate self, we cannot live in clarity and dissatisfaction remains

is talking to somebody the other day I can't remember where it was, but got onto the subject of, of not for profit working and not for profits, and how they may be have noble aims, humanitarian purposes and yet egos can be so rife and so damaging and within such organizations was not always the case. But, as long as, as long as we come to our work with attached to a separate self, then troubles will come. As long as we are attached to a separate self, we cannot live in clarity. And Desis says dissatisfaction remains. This is this is what distinguishes genuine spiritual practice is is a dream addressing the self and, and cultivating clarity. Seeing clearly

if we didn't have this human body in mind, we wouldn't be able to reflect on ourselves in this way. In a sense, it is more comfortable to be a cat or some other animal without self awareness that can live more or less happily idle. My father in law used to sometimes say I think only half jokingly jokingly that he was going to be reborn as a cat in his next life. I wonder how reliable that is as a path to happiness. When you think of how many feral cats there are around the world. I don't know how many what percentage it would be, but their lives hard lives. Sickness, scrambling for food. Maybe that get though in those moments when it sits in a patch of sunlight, it has no cares in the world.

The SIRT the source of all this anguish is the sense of separation. We have this illusion of a separate self and we make this take this shadow for the real thing. Thus we cannot possibly help but imagine separation. We cannot cannot help but create barriers are seeing is limited. And limits are what we see is a beautiful summit summing up of our extended existential conundrum are seeing is limited. And limits are what we see. This could be a good one to remember for next time. We're stuck in bemoaning our limits stuckness in practice where it is that maybe those limits that we see come from. They come from our seeing limit in a limited way.

But we don't have to stay in that place of ignorance we we have the Dharma which provides us with all kinds of methods to help us to break down that sallow image solid image we have of a self while every human being is in fact reality itself. Almost all of us live in such a way that we cast aside this precious life. Most people don't understand that they are turning their backs on life. And so they are blown this way and that by the wounds of circumstance. Last and discrimination Joe judgment and confusion one becomes resigned to this fate how said that almost everyone meets their death in this way

in the years when when I was doing some hospice volunteering through Amitabha but wasn't a very extensive experience but of the people who I can accompanied with the last on their way to death I think more often more often than not death was was a struggle

we what will we look back? What will our regrets be? On our deathbed, what will we rejoice in

seeing is limited and limits are what we see the eightfold path, the first of the eight aspects of that path is right view. And right at the beginning of the right, the right view is realizing that our seeing is limited, that it's partial that we don't see the whole picture. And just recognizing that already a little chink of light is coming in. Things are not necessarily how I see them they're not as they appear to me. And especially they're they're partial

not the whole picture.

Next section is headed up the Buddha way. Even while living lost in ignorance, the remains hidden in the belly of life itself in your belly, the one who cannot help but seek to know true nature. Don't forget this one who never lets you forget. This true one is always close by urging you on calling upon you to open your eyes. This one prompts you towards a way of being that is genuine urging you to walk the world away. The genuine seeks to awaken to the genuine the genuine seeks to awaken to the genuine in other way of putting it Mu questions Mu.

There are people who say that it is greedy or wrong to desire the realization of our inherent nature. They say that Shakyamuni Buddha was awakened for us and that is enough or that our state of mind is not important as long as we physically sits as in so there is no need for realisation. Those beliefs make the Buddha's teaching small and insignificant. The passionate desire to know true nature is inherent in all human beings. It is life's very working. This this seeking this wanting to know ourselves wanting to plumb reality. There is evidence of the functioning of our Buddha nature. Right there there it is in the seeking. So if you desire to awaken please never think that it is wrong. I will without I'd fail awakened to true nature with this mindset, we walk the Buddha path. The belief that you cannot attain awakening is a refusal to fulfill the reason for being alive, to repay your gratitude. If you do not practice, you will not awaken to reality, to your very own reality, no one can do it for you. No one can see into truth for you. It is your world solely your world.

Do you want to continue to live in delusion. If we spend this lifetime only seeking pleasure singing and dancing, drinking and making very when the end comes, we will know that we didn't resolve this one important matter. It is necessary to clearly resolve and determined to wake up to original life, your true nature. This, this desire to wake up is different from grasping at something to approach every setting we do with this aspiration and not knowing how it's going to turn out. And just picking up that aspiration of the next setting and the next one. The grasping is usually characterized more by acute disappointment if desires are not met, when and where and how we want them to be. Resolved to awaken is something different something that transcends time and space, and expectations.

It is necessary to clearly resolve and determined to wake up to original life, your true nature. In our temple each morning, we chant the lineage of Buddha's and great teachers who guide us in our practice, thanks to their great Val to the great noble intention of each and every one of them. And thanks to their diligent practice, each one was able to hit the mark to attain the way each of them received the teaching and directly experienced the same truth, just as water is poured directly from one cup and to another.

There's a lot to reminding ourselves of this, this great lineage which we are the beneficiaries, the ancestral line, and we have two chants that do this, we have traditional ancestral line which, which goes back to master Dogon and then through the Chinese masters, to shocky. One of what is is the one that we received from mother temple. And then we also have the pool of radiance chart which which celebrates the many teachers we have who are not in our lineage, as well as ones from allergy, the key ones from our lineage, where we we have the names of many of the women, masters and teachers from different places, as in a ways of connecting to those and other important teachers to us that aren't strictly speaking in our lineage. But both of these chants bring forth in different ways. US spiritual fucka Papa. And if we attend to them, when we chant them, they they deepen our sense of life. Life is not just our little individual 85 to 95 year old years in this on this place, but all those people who have come before us and from whom we have received this teaching, and all those who come after us as a living reality this is this is what we are part of and what we There's a context of our practicing together

everyone is able to do the same, no one is left out. Freedom is our essence. If the Dharma weren't universal, what would be the value in it? If the Dharma were only for the chosen few, where would be the value in pursuing it? If the Dharma could be contained and lost, I would not be here urging you to deepen your faith beyond all doubt, and let go of body and mind. I would not be here begging you to give it your all. The Dharma is absolute. Perfect, all pervading, all inclusive, all embracing. liberation is yours from the beginning. We are all together in essence free, all being abides in the radiance of Buddha nature. All being this is a term coined here by the translators, will being that's a true being is all being that being that leaves nothing out. Or being is the radiant light of the Buddha, together with all beings, sentient, or insentient. With grasses and trees, together with the great Earth, I attain the Buddha way. This is a cry that was added by Shakyamuni Buddha, with his great awakening. Coming from a different source from the Avatamsaka sutra, one. Together with all beings, sentient or insentient, with grasses and trees, together with the great Earth, I attain the Buddha away. With his great awake, cunning, Shakyamuni the world on it one attained perfect liberation. He came to life to true life to liberation, which is our birthright, our essence. It's our it's our family inheritance is the same as in the family inheritance does not come in through the main gate doesn't come from somewhere. It's, it's here. Right now here in the sendo. It's wherever we go.

Yet how easily we doubt how quickly we forget. I don't know what if I have what it takes to awakening? Maybe I'm not ready. Maybe I can't do it. These doubts are utterly unfounded. This one truth is just as true for you as it is for all the Buddha's in the motorway. In reality, there are no exceptions. Each of you now receiving these words is blessed with the sacred reality. It might sound even too good to be true to you. How can it be that I'm so blessed? When I don't even feel good about myself? I could repeat it for you a million more times, and would still not even begin to express the absolute perfection with which we are placed.

We can't take somebody's word for it. Not the sutras, not the Buddhas and bodhisattvas, not tongue and Roshi. Until we until we experience it directly. It's not real for us

because of upside down false perceptions, we fail to see this inherent Buddha nature. We are just look looking off at the play of our discriminating mind and that has taken to be the host for once realize the true host become one with who you really are. And all as well. What a shame for you not to awaken to this wonder not to prostrate yourself before before everything in the universe. Not to come to appreciate to celebrate real life

we sell ourselves short we settle for less And yet to be a human being is to seek.

We start with what we've got to do right here right now, the aim is to come to awakening, to know yourself, to see what life is really about. And this one way path is the universal way, which includes all beings, it is not only for our own small liberation, it is for the liberation of all beings, we start out with this is our aim. We, we aspire to free ourselves, so as to be able to help free others. Of course, like us, those others have to do it for themselves. But we can contribute to the conditions for that doing. We can we can pass on what we know to be true and good and effective. We are hands and eyes and ears in a great chain of, of teaching going on going back to the winter and beyond. And hopefully we pass it on in good shape to others who come after us and to our family members and friends. Not some doctrinal thing. That's not what we're talking about here. Not proselytizing, but the living the truth.

Living the truth of Buddha nature and acting with kindness. Being helpful and true helpfulness comes out of clear clear seeing

we'll stop here and recite the Four Vows.

The teaching you have received is offered freely. If you would like to make a donation to support the continuation of this podcast service. Or learn more about practice opportunities at the Auckland Zen Center. Please visit dub dub dub dot opens in.org.in Zed