This is day six of this April 2024 seven day sesshin. And today, I'm going to turn to book by Joko Beck, entitled Everyday Zen: Love and Work. And most people know Joko read from her before and others have as well. She taught in San Diego she was a Dharma successor, Dharma Heir of Maezumi-roshi, teacher in Los Angeles, the Zen Center of LA
taught for many years in San Diego, and died a while back, as we all will.
And I'm going to start here with a little talk that she gave, entitled, true suffering and false suffering. And she, she leads it off this way. Yesterday, I was talking to a friend who recently had a major operation and has been recovering, I asked her what would be a good subject for a Dharma talk. And she laughed, and said, patience and pain. She found it very interesting that in the days immediately following her operation, the pain was clear, clean and sharp, and it was no problem. Then as she became a little stronger, the mind began to work. And the suffering began, all her thoughts about what was happening to her began to appear.
In a way we sit for no purpose. That's one side of practice. But the other side is that we want to be free from suffering. Not only that, but we want others to be free from suffering. So a key point in our practice, is to understand what suffering is.
Of course, suffering is, is key to Buddhist teaching. It's where the Buddha started, said, I teach about two things suffering and the end of suffering.
We really want to understand if we really want if we really understand suffering, we see how to practice not just while sitting, but in the rest of our life. We understand our daily life and see that it's not really a problem.
And she explains, there are two kinds of suffering. One is when we feel we're being pressed down, as though suffering is coming at us from a from without, as though we're receiving something that is making us suffer. The other kind of suffering is being under just burying it, just being it this is this is the recognition that right now, it's like this
suffering with acceptance, understanding with equanimity.
This distinction and understanding suffering is one of the keys to understanding our practice. I've sometimes distinguished between suffering in quotes and pain in quotes, but now I'd like to just use the word suffering and distinguish between what I call false suffering and true suffering is very similar to clean pain and dirty pain. concept in dealing with pain. It's also sometimes put as clean pain and complicated pain.
So she calls it false suffering, the true suffering. The difference and understanding is very important, the foundation of our practice. And the first of the Four Noble Truths is the statement of the Buddha that life is suffering. He didn't say it's suffering sometimes. He said, life is suffering. And I want to distinguish between those two kinds of suffering. Often people will say, I certainly can see that life is suffering when everything is going wrong, and everything's unpleasant. But I really don't get it. When life is going along. Well, when I'm feeling good, she says, but there are different categories of suffering. For instance, when we don't get something we want, we suffer. And when we do get it, when we do get it, we also suffer. Because we know that if we get it, we can lose it. It doesn't matter whether we get it or don't get it. If it happens to us or doesn't happen to us, we suffer because life is constantly changing. Life is uncertain. Don't know what's coming next.
We know we can't hold on to the pleasant things. And we know that even if unpleasant, this unpleasantness disappears, it can come again. Notice this with people, people includes me that sometimes when something good finally happens, it just reminds us of the bad things that happen before. Somebody is kind to us and it reminds us of previous cruelty.
Find the right person reminds us of the wrong person
finally succeed. And then we dwell in all the times that we failed. It's just the mind is like that. When we're dealing always with gain and loss, like getting what I want. By getting what I don't want
we bemoan waste time. Finally get something right. Finally figure something out. And oh, all the time I wasted. didn't waste that time. Time is gone.
I had a friend who hated Rochester whether it was just a constant theme with him. How miserable the climate is here in Rochester, New York. Cloud cover rain, winter. One day, it was just beautiful. You know, 70 degrees. Sun is shining. The grass is green. And I said come on, Fred. You got to admit today's a great day. And he said, Yeah, but all the other days. Well, you had me there.
JOCO says the word suffer doesn't necessarily imply a dramatic major experience. Even the nicest day is not free of suffering. For instance, you might have the best breakfast you can imagine. You might see just the friend you want to see. You might go to work and have everything go smoothly. There aren't many days as nice as that. But even so we know that on the next day, it could be just the opposite. Life presents us with no guarantees. And because we know that we're uneasy and anxious. We truly examine ourselves from the usual point of view. Life is suffering like an affliction. Hmm, but in another way, life is a constant struggle. Everyone you meet, fighting a hard battle
feel like we can't relax
now my friend notice that when there was just the physical pain, there was no problem. The minute she began to have thoughts about the pain, she began to suffer and be miserable. Reminds me makes me think of a few lines of master one pole. This mind is no mind of conceptual thought, and it is completely detached from form and he's talking about our true mind. So Buddha's and sentient beings do not differ at all our mind, Buddha's mind are not different. If you can only rid yourself of conceptual thought you will have accomplished everything but if you students of the way did not rid yourself of conceptual thought in a flash even though you strive for eon and eon you will never accomplish it sooner or later we have to get by the little self to drop it drop our self referential self protected detective way of being
certainly see it play out in sesshin so concerned with how things are going concern with physical pain wondering how long it will last that goes away how soon it will come back. We're worried about our losing our our practice. Getting lost in delusive thoughts can be agony, trying to find our way back. find our way back, we worry that we're going to lose our way again. Which we probably will say sesshin has ups and downs. We want it not to be ups and downs. We want it to be different. But it isn't Slyke this we know that if you've been to enough so sheens you know there are ups and downs. Some of them are wonderful. Some of them are difficult to bear
can't We can't find our balance, if we're not willing to have things go up and down
when we when we assume the attitude, the position that whatever comes, I'm going to deal with it. Going to be here I'm not going to run it's nothing I can't work with we begin to feel what a privilege it is to be able to do this work. And we can we can take on so much so different. It's no longer that sense of panic. That automatic tensing up can be more expansive and we can be more present if you're worried you're not present
you it takes trust, doesn't it? You have to be willing to take your eye off of the process and just trust trust the process
too willing be willing to give up your job as the constant monitor of how things are going.
Joko says is the play of our minds of conceptualization about anything that happens to us. That is the problem. There is no Nothing wrong with conceptualization per se. But when we take our opinions about any event, to be some kind of absolute truth, and fail to see that they are opinions, then we suffer
when we believe what we think, Why believe what you think. For that matter why believe when other people think.
fail to see that they're just opinions, then we suffer. That's false suffering, a 10th of an inch of difference she's quoting here, and Heaven and Earth are set apart
just that little space, that little bit of separation from those grasping and aversive thoughts. We find our balance.
And she goes on. Now, a point to add here is that it doesn't make any difference what's happening. It may be very unfair, it may be very cruel. All of us have things happen to us that are unfair, mean and cruel. And our usual way to think is, this is terrible. We fight back we oppose the event, we try to do as Shakespeare said, to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them. It would be nice if it did end things, but did enter the slings and arrows of most outrageous fortune. Day by day, we all meet events that seem to be most unfair. And we feel that the only way to handle an attack is to fight back. And the way we fight is with our minds
Yes, release the hounds. Helens are all our stress hormones are tearing our body apart from inside. We arm ourselves with our anger and our opinions, our self righteousness, as though we were putting on a bulletproof vest. And we think this is the way to live our life. All that we accomplish is to increase the separation to escalate the anger and to make ourselves and everyone else miserable. So if this doesn't work, how do we handle the suffering of life then she tells the Sufi story that I read from another version of a few days ago so I'll skip that now. The basic message is bow all the way down don't accept it conditionally. It is how it is it's absolute. This is what happened
the whole baggage of blame and guilt very limited use certainly, we want to know if somebody harmed us intentionally going to avoid that person going to do what we need to do to protect ourselves. But to run off and nurse our anger
nurse had like a baby at the breast going over and over again. Completely despicable their mind state is as if we knew it. We only hurt ourselves, don't we?
Right now it's like this. People are the way they are
why are they the way they are because of their life. There's the image that the Buddha used and Joko uses it somewhere here in this book of of going out on a lake in a rowboat, and it's calm and peaceful rolling out there in the middle, Stark little moonlight kind of beautiful. In the distance we see a shape seems to be moving towards us. And yeah, it's getting a little closer and closer. And now we can see it's another boat keeps coming, this coming right for us. And the next thing you know, bam, it crashes right into our boat. What idiot doesn't look where they're going. Then we see there's nobody in the boat, it's empty. What happens then? What happens to our anger?
She says, until we bow down and bear the suffering of life, not opposing it, but absorbing it and being it we cannot see what our life is. This by no means implies passivity or non action, but action from a state of complete acceptance. Even acceptance is not quite accurate. It is simply being the suffering. It isn't a matter of protecting ourselves or accepting something else. complete openness, complete vulnerability to life is surprisingly enough, the only satisfactory way of living our life.
So much more restful, we're not scanning the horizon. Not stewing about what happened, worrying about what's going to happen. You have to be willing to make yourself vulnerable, don't you, you have to be willing to say whatever comes. I accept it. It's not in my hands. To retire from our job as stage director
Joko says of course, if you're anything like me, you'll avoid it as long as possible. Because it's one thing to talk about, but extremely difficult to do. And yet when we do it, we know in our very guts, who we are and who everyone else is, and the barrier between ourselves and others is gone. Our practice throughout our lifetime is just this. At any given time. We have a rigid viewpoint or stance about life. You include some things and it excludes others. We may stick with it for a long time. But if we're sincerely practicing our practice itself, we could say our life itself will shake up that viewpoint, we can't maintain it. As we begin to question our viewpoint, we may feel struggle upset. As we try to come to terms with this new insight into our life. And for a long time, we may deny it and struggle against it. That's part of practice. Finally, we become willing to experience our suffering instead of fighting it. When we do our standpoint, our vision of life abruptly shifts. Then once again, with our new viewpoint, we go along for a while until the cycle begins and new. Once again, the unease comes up and we have to struggle to go through it again. Each time we do this, each time we go into the suffering and let it be our vision of life enlarges. It's like climbing a mountain. At each point we ascend we see more and that vision doesn't deny anything that's below. It includes that, but it becomes broader with each cycle of climbing of struggle. And the more we see, the more expansive our vision, the more we know what to do, what action to take.
We come to see the value of the pain in our life, the value of suffering people who have suffered and who bought Learn it are deeper. They're more, they're more in touch with their life and with everyone else. Have more empathy. If you could manage to keep everything together the way you want and breeze through life, you'd be you'd be kind of a lightweight, wouldn't you
once you get in touch, without really is become more willing to use, which is the key to practice the key to sesshin to be willing, wake up in the morning and you think, Oh, God, I don't want to get up. But you know, you're gonna get up, and you do just just another little insult blowing by. It's not like we always have the perfect attitude. Not trying to be saints, not trying to be perfect. Just trying to understand. She says in talking to many, many people, the main thing I noticed is that they don't understand suffering. Of course, I don't always either. I try to avoid it as hard as anyone. But to have some theoretical understanding of what suffering is, and how to practice with it is immensely useful, especially in sesshin. We can better understand what sesshin is, and how best to use it and really practice. The mind that creates false suffering is operating constantly in session. There is not one of us who isn't subject to it. I noticed it myself last night, I could hear my mind complaining what another session, you just did a session last weekend. Our minds work that way. Then seeing that nonsense. We remind ourselves what do I really want for myself or anyone else, and then our mind quiets down again.
So as we do Zen, we patiently refuse the domination of these thoughts and opinions about ourselves about events about people. And we constantly turn back to the only certain reality, this present moment. Doing that our focus and Samadhi constantly deepen. So inside Zen, the bodhisattva is renunciation. Renunciation is that practice that turning away from our fantasy and our personal dream, into the reality of the present
the real reality of the present is our refuge
want to read something from John semedo?
He said, awareness is your refuge, awareness of the changing nest of feelings of attitudes of moods, of material change and emotional change. Stay with that. Because it's a refuge that's indestructible. It's not something that changes. It's a refuge you can trust in this refuge is not something that you create. It's not a creation. It's not an ideal. It's very practical and very simple, but easily overlooked or not noticed. When you're aware, you begin to notice it's like this
We learn this lesson over and over again the power of acceptance, to change everything
moving from false pain, to true pain. Bearing with it instead of railing against it, working with it, looking into it, seeing what's here taking an interest. So much is shown to us about how the mind works. But if we're constantly trying to make things better, we don't bother, we don't see. Just keep doing the same old, same old, walking into that wall again and again and again.
So again, she says in Zen, the bodhisattva is renunciation is that practice, that turning away from our fantasy and our personal dream, into the reality of the present, we can say into this practice moment. And in sesshin, each moment that we practice like that gives us what we can't get in any other way, a direct knowledge of ourselves, then we are facing this moment directly when we are facing this moment directly. We're facing the suffering. And when we're really finally willing to settle into it, just let it be than we know. And no one needs to tell us what we are and what everything else is. Now, sometimes people say it's too hard. But in fact, not practicing at all is much, much harder. We really fool ourselves when we don't practice. So please be very clear with yourself about what must be done to end suffering. And also that by practicing with such courage, we can enable others to have no fear, no suffering. We do it by the most intelligent patient, persistent practice. We never do it by our complaints, our bitterness and anger. And I don't mean to suppress them that come up notice them, you don't have to suppress them, then immediately underlying immediately go back into your breath, your body, your practice, into just sitting whatever it is. And then when we do that, there is not one of us who by the end of sesshin will not find the rewards that real sitting gives
let's sit like that.
Further on in another section she lists some of the obstacles to practice to seeing. A major obstacle to seeing is unawareness that all practice has a strong element of resistance. It's bound to have this unwillingness until our personal self is completely dead. Only a Buddha has no resistance. I doubt that in the human population there are any Buddha's or you could say there's nothing but Buddha's is hard to find a perfect, you're not going to find a perfect person. Until we die, we always have some personal resistance that has to be acknowledged. A second major obstacle is a lack of honesty about who we are at each moment, it's very hard to admit I'm being vengeful, or I'm being punishing, or I'm being self righteous. That kind of honesty is hard. We don't always have to share with others what we observe about ourselves. But there should be nothing going on that we're not aware of. We have to see that we are chasing ideals of perfection, rather than acknowledging our imperfection.
A third obstacle is being impressed and sidetracked by our little openings as they occur. They're just the fruit, they have no importance, unless we use them in our lives. You make too much of them, you're buying into that acquisitive turn of mind trying to get get a good feeling.
It's not so much that we don't enjoy it. So getting sidetracked. The fourth fourth obstacle is having little understanding of the magnitude of the task that we have embarked on the task is not impossible. It is not too difficult, but it is unending. path goes on and on and on. goal is just to walk the path.
A fifth obstacle which is common among people who spend a lot of time at Zen centers, is substituting talk and discussion and reading. For persistent practice itself. The less we say about practice, the better outside of a direct student teacher setting. The last thing that I will talk about is Zen practice. I don't talk about the Dharma. Why talk about it? My job is to notice how I violate it. You know the old saying, He who knows does not say he who says does not know. When we talk about practice all the time. Our talk is another form of resistance, a barrier a cover. It's like academics who save the world every night at the dinner table. They talk and talk and talk, but what difference does it make?
This good practice is about fear. Fear takes the form of constantly thinking speculating, analyzing, fantasizing. With all that activity, we create a cloudy cover to keep ourselves safe and to make belief practice. True practice is not safe. It's anything but safe. We don't like that. So we obsessed with our feverish efforts to achieve our vision of the personal dream. Such obsessive practice is itself just another cloud between ourselves and reality. The only thing that matters is seeing with an impersonal search light seeing things as they are when the personal barrier drops away. Why do we have to call it anything we just live our lives when we die we just die. No problem anywhere
no self no problem.
Then the self gets back in and there's a problem again.
Called again to practice
it's a day of sesshin left. spend this day in the moment in this present moment. When worries come up, just let them go. Give up your have to control what happens retire from that job moment by moment, just this, just this just Mu
just the rain
time is up, we'll stop here and recite the Four Vows
