Today is day six of this seven. Day january 2025, rohatsu seshin, and I'm going to read this morning from Joh go back late Zen teacher, taught at the Zen Center in San Diego. San Diego Zen Center, I guess. And I'm going to begin anyway, reading from a book of her talks, which is entitled nothing special, living Zen.
And this talk is entitled The Fall. She says there was once a man who climbed to the top of a 10 story building and jumped off as he passed the fifth floor on his way down. He was heard to say so far, so good. We laugh at the man because we see what's coming up for him in a moment. How can he say he's doing well so far, what's the difference between the second when he was at the fifth floor and the second just before he hits the pavement? The second before hitting the pavement is what most of us would call a crisis. We think that we have only a few minutes or days before we die. Most of us would say this is a crisis. On the other hand, if our days are proceeding normally, the usual job, usual people, the usual tasks, life may not seem so wonderful, but at least we're used to it. At such times we don't feel we're in a crisis, and we may not feel impelled to practice with diligence. Let's look at this supposed difference between crisis and non crisis. Seshin is an artificial crisis. When we commit ourselves to a retreat, we have to stay and struggle with a difficult situation. By the end of the retreat, most of us have gone through the crisis, at least enough so that we see our life somewhat differently. It's sad that we don't understand that each moment of our lives, drinking a cup of coffee, walking down the street to pick up a paper, is it? Why don't we grasp that truth? We don't get it because our little minds think that this second that we're living has hundreds of 1000s of seconds that come, that preceded it, and hundreds and 1000s of seconds still to come. So we turn away from truly living our life really is such a basic problem our disinclination to value this moment. We value what we think we can manipulate and affect and change this moment is here. That's why we say right now, it's like this can't be any other way. We take our eye off the ball, that habitual reaction have been there done that
we all know intellectually everything, everything is in this moment. We never experience a single thing outside this moment.
So much of practice is learning to be in this moment.
It's the difficulty. Why is it difficult?
Why does it seem so far away, out of reach? It's our delusion.
Sometimes people have been sitting a lot or just in daily. Life. Just in the course of their practice, all of a sudden they're in sync. They're there. Seems at those times like this is so easy, it's right here.
And then we get used to that. It's routine, been there, done that, and it's gone. Practice is about coming back again and again, learning the way back, not learning techniques or tricks that get us there, but just developing the inclination, developing the interest. Think we said earlier in seshin, tell me to what you pay attention, and I'll tell you who you are,
if your interest is in what's going on right now, you become a different person.
Joh says we turn away from truly living our life. Instead, we do what human beings spend all their time doing, which is a complete waste of time. We try mentally to scheme so we will never have to suffer through a crisis. We spend all our energies trying to be liked, successful, nice, agreeable, assertive or non assertive, depending on what we think will do it for us.
Everybody has their own strategy.
Their way of being okay, the way of trolling for atta boys.
We have schemes. Most of our energies go into these schemes as we try to handle our life so we will never hit the bottom. That's why it's so wonderful to get close to that bottom. That's why people who are seriously ill, who have had a devast devastating circumstances in their lives, often wake up. There was a clergyman in the 19th century, British named Sidney Smith. Was a Yeah. He was a clergy man who said, there is not the least use preaching to anyone unless you chance to catch them ill you
Gu has to be right in our face, doesn't it, Which is another reason why seshin is so wonderful. Do
that's why there is actually a traditional Buddhist practice of just contemplating death. It there's such a practice in Christianity as well that I'm sure elsewhere. So I Buddhism starts with the four sites, the Buddha saw
old man, sick man, a corpse, dead man, and finally, Sangha San wandering mendicant, a monk.
It's we're not inclined to wrap our mind around the fact of our mortality. But it's good to contemplate that, and it gets I have the good news to tell you that as you get older, it gets easier to get up to the edge of the cliff, and as so many of your friends are gone.
It's not just death, of course, it's also sickness, which can include losing your memory, coming incontinent. Disabled.
We're all falling down that building. Some of us are closer to the bottom than others, but we're all falling it's just the way it is. But as Joh co says, to recognize that, to understand it, to get it in your bones, can help us to wake up. She says, wake up to what? What do we wake up to? And a student answers to the present, she says, Yes, and what else to impermanence, impermanence, all right, that's true to our body sensations, yes. And more than that, we wake up to what? And a student says, the wonder of it all. Joh co the wonder of this second, when this second is not me or anything else, but just oh, that doesn't mean some giant emotion, but just that all our worries are non existent. But usually we have such a realization only when we are pressed hard enough that our mind is pulled into the present moment, then we can forget all our schemes of fixing ourselves someone else or circumstances. I've read that this is one of the reasons that people become addicted to mountain climbing. Read a book by John Krakauer about the disastrous summit of Everest. One of the climbers who survived miraculously was a guy from Texas. Think his name was Beck, just terminally depressed, but when he was on the mountain, having to totally concentrate on each step that went away. It's the only place of respite for him.
That's why people enjoy sports where you have to pay attention, you have to get into a state of you have to get into the present. People learn to do it in their particular sport, but not very many are able to carry that out into the rest of their lives. We don't see professional athletes necessarily being advanced practitioners, or even, not even always decent human beings.
Johco says most people spend 50 to 90% of their waking hours trying to avoid the bottom, yet we can't avoid it. We're all on our way down. Every one of us, we can't avoid the bottom, but we spend most of our life trying to do that. Waking up means realizing that our situation is hopeless and wonderful. There's nothing for us to do except simply to live this second when we're in Crisis or in seshin. We may not wake up fully, but we wake up enough so that the way we see our life shifts. We realize that our usual maneuvers, worrying about the past, projecting an imaginary future, don't make sense. They waste precious seconds. We have so many of those seconds, and yet we can waste every single one, almost every single one, of
course, from the point of view of planning, of avoiding bumps and bruises that life deals this moment isn't of any value at all. We need to be casting our mind into the future. I
and that's our normal way of looking at life. Joh says, from one point of view, we're always in crisis. We're always falling toward the bottom. From another point of view, there is no crisis. If we're going to die in one second. Is there any crisis? No, there's just that second, one second we're alive, one second we're dead. There's no crisis. There's just what is but the human urge to do the impossible keeps us mucked up. Of course, that human urge is baked into us and. US and every other animal. No animal wants to die. Unlike other animals, however, we can think about the future and know it's coming. I
we spend our lives trying to avoid the unavoidable, our energies, our emotions, our projects go into making money, being successful, having somebody like us, because we secretly believe that such things will protect us. One of the most powerful illusions is that being in love can give us real protection. In reality, there is no protection, no answer, our lives are absolutely hopeless. That's why they're wonderful, and it's not a big deal. It's not a big deal because it's just the way it is. Wasn't suddenly announced by the new administration. Who wants to be successful, who wants to be liked all of us. There's nothing wrong with such wants, unless we believe the illusion even wanting to make a million dollars can be fun, as good a game as any, if we see it simply as fun and we don't hurt other people as we play it, but we don't see it as a game, and so we hurt out others as we pursue our lethal path. I it. Enlightenment is simply knowing the truth, not in the head, but with one's whole being, knowing that this is it. It's wonderful. Got a toothache, that's also it wonderful when we think about the toothache, of course, we don't think it's wonderful, but it is wonderful simply to be what life is this second toothache and all
Sung, sang says the great way is not difficult for those who Do not pick and choose when preferences are cast aside, the way stands clear and undisguised all we need to do, so hard to do. She says, unfortunately, our human minds do us in for the most part, animals are less manipulative with their lives. Sometimes they may try to play tricks. I once had a dog who didn't like to come home when he was called, so he'd stand behind the hedge on the opposite side of the street. That worked well in the summer, he'd stand hidden behind the hedge, just as quiet as could be, but when the leaves fell off in the fall, he'd still run there to hide, standing quietly and completely visible. Still, dogs and other animals do not get as confused as we do about the purpose of their lives. Unlike us, they just live.
There is a something that Jack cornfield, the the Vipassana teacher quoted, if you can sit quietly after difficult news, if in financial downturns, you remain perfectly calm, if you can see your neighbors travel to fantastic places without a twinge of jealousy. If you can happily eat whatever is put on your plate and fall asleep after a day of running around without a drink or a pill, if you could always find contentment just where you are you are probably a dog. I
Joh says some of us are in the middle of disasters. Others are not. Of course, we don't stand forever in the middle of a major disaster, but when we're in the middle of one we practice hard, showing up at the Zen. Do more often, doing whatever we can do to cope. Then when life settles down, we cease practicing with such intensity, one mark of maturing practice is to see that life is always totally in crisis and totally not a crisis. They're the same thing and. Hmm, in a mature practice, we practice just as hard, whether there's a crisis or not, crisis or no crisis, we just do it.
Nothing is really solved until we understand that there is no solution. We're falling and there's no answer to that. We can't control it. We're spending our life trying to stop the falling, yet it never stops. There is no solution, no wonderful person who can make it stop. No success, no dream, no anything can make it stop. Our body is just going down.
Joh go says the Fall is a great blessing. If someone announced a pill that would cure death and allow us to live forever, that would be a true disaster. Picture yourself in 6000 years still thinking the same old thoughts, the cure for death, the whole meaning of being on this planet would change. Where would we put all the new babies? All of us are aware of aging, gray hair, wrinkles, twinges from the time we are conceived. We're dying. When I notice such signs, I don't rejoice. I don't like them any more than you do. Still, there's a big difference between disliking change and trying frantically to stop it.
Ajahn Chah, the Thai Forest master, mentions feeling a new twinge somewhere in his hip and thinking, yeah, that's about right.
Such a culture of youth in the world today, people are desperate to avoid becoming old.
Sooner or later, we realize that the truth of life is the second we are living, no matter whether that second is at the ninth floor or the first. In a sense, our life has no duration whatsoever. We're always living the same second. There's nothing but that second, the timeless present moment, whether we live the second at the fifth floor or right over the pavement, it's all the same second. With that realization, each second is a source of joy. Without that realization, each second is misery. And she adds parenthetically, in fact, we often secretly want to be miserable. We like being at the center of a melodrama
most of the time we don't think there's any crisis so far so good, or we think that the crisis is the fact that we don't feel happy. That's not a crisis. That's an illusion. So we spend most of our life attempting to fix this non existent entity that we think we are. In fact, we are this second. What else could we be? And the second has no time or space. I can't be the second that was five minutes ago. How can I be that I'm here, I'm now. I can't be the second that's going to arrive in 10 minutes either the only thing I can be is wiggling around on my cushion, feeling the pain in my left knee, experiencing whatever is happening. Now, that's who I am. I can't be anything else. I can imagine that in 10 minutes I won't have a pain in my left knee, but that's sheer fantasy.
I can remember a time when I was young and pretty, that's sheer fantasy. Also, most of our difficulties, our hopes and our worries, are simply fantasies. Nothing has ever existed except this moment. That's all there is. That's all we are. Yet, most human beings spend 50 to 90% or more of their time in their imagination. Living in fantasy. Think about what has happened to us, what might have happened, how we feel about it, how we should be different, how others should be different, how it's all a shame, and on and on. It's a fantasy. All imagination. Memory is imagination, every member memory that we stick to devastates our life. It's a it's a gray picture. It's never the real thing. Our memories if you have an event that happened years ago and you've remembered it again and again. Yen. The way that memory is laid down is, each time you remember it, that new version is laid down as your memory. So it's like a something that's been photo copied 10,000 times. All the juice is gone. It's lifeless serves no real good purpose.
And of course, imagining what's coming in the future is just as is more unreal, and it as Joh says, says we're spending 50 to 90% or more of our time in one place or the other. Johco says practical thinking when we're not clinging to some fantasy, but just getting something done is another matter. By knee hurts, perhaps I should investigate treatment for it. The thoughts that destroy us are the ones in which we're trying to stop the fall and not hit bottom. I'm going to fix him, I'm going to fix myself, or I'm going to understand myself. When I finally understand myself, I'll be at peace, and then life will be all right. Joh says, No, it won't be all right. It will be whatever it is just this second, just the wonder, as we sit, can we sense the Wonder? Can we feel the wonder in the fact that we're here, that as human beings, we can appreciate this life in this respect, we're more fortunate than animals. I doubt that a cat or a beetle has this capacity to appreciate, though I may be wrong, and I can lose the appreciation, the wonder, if I wander from this moment someone yells at me, johco, you're a mess, and I get lost in my reactions, my thoughts about protecting myself or retaliating, then I've lost the Wonder. But if I stay with this moment, there's just being yelled at. It's nothing. But we all get stuck in our reactions. Of course, as we practice those slings and arrows aren't so aren't so difficult to deal with. Doesn't matter quite as much when we carry ourselves more lightly or more in tune with the unreality of this so called self. We move to the position of, I'm an ass, you're an ass,
we open up to Life. We're part of one huge flow.
Again, this capacity to see what life is, if we waste it and don't truly practice, everyone with whom we come in contact feels the effects that means our partners, our children, our parents, our friends, practice isn't something that we just do for ourselves. If it were in a way, it wouldn't make any difference as our life shifts into reality, everyone we meet shifts to if Anything can affect this suffering universe. This is it do.
I'm going to turn to another talk. Probably don't have time to get through the whole thing, but we'll just launch in. It's entitled transformation. She says, In Southern California, we Bandy around words describing personal growth such as change and transformation. I doubt that you hear that kind of talk often in Kansas these days, maybe you do much of such talk is silly, reflecting really little understanding personal growth, quote, unquote is often merely cosmetic change, like adding a chair to a living room in true transformation. On the other hand, there is an implication of something generally, genuinely new. Tou coming into being. It's as though what was there before has disappeared and something different has taken its place. When I hear the word transformation, I think one of those line drawings which look like a vase and then suddenly switch into a face. That's transformation. Zen practice is sometimes called the way of transformation. Many who enter Zen practice, however, are merely seeking incremental change. I want to be happier. I want to be less anxious. We hope that Zen practice will bring us these feelings. But if we are transformed, our life shifts into an entirely new basis. It's as if anything can happen a rose bush transformed into a lily or a person with a rough, abrasive nature and bad temper transformed into a gentle person. Cosmetic surgery won't do it true. Transformation implies that even the aim of the eye that wants to be happy is transformed. For example, suppose I see myself as a person who is basically depressed or fearful or whatever. Transformation isn't merely that I deal with what I call my depression. It means that the I, the whole individual, the whole syndrome that I call i is transformed. This is a very different view of practice than is held by most Zen students. We don't like to approach practice in this way because it means that if we want to be genuinely joyful, we have to be willing to be anything. To put it another way, we have to not care what happens. We have to be open to the transformation that life wants us to go through. I have to be prepared for the possibility that I will become a bag lady, for example. Now I don't really want to be a bag lady. We fantasize that when we practice we're going to be comfortable with ourselves and life is going to be very smooth. We think we're going to be wonderful new versions of who we are now, yet true transformation means that maybe the next step is to be a bag lady. Certainly isn't what brings people to Zen practice. We're here to get our present model repainted a little bit. The car of our life is a deep gray. We want to turn it into lavender or pink. But transformation means that the car may disappear altogether. Maybe instead of a car, it'll be a turtle. We don't even want to hear of such possibilities. We hope that the teacher will tell us something that will fix our present model. A lot of therapies merely provide techniques for improving the model. They Tinker here and there. We may even feel a lot better still. That is not transformation. Transformation arises when a willingness that with a willingness that develops very slowly over time to be what Life asks of us.
There's a little passage from Anthony de Mello about that kind of cosmetic change. Basically, just get things fixed so I don't have to suffer.
It's entitled. You don't want to get out of the mess. And he says, So the first thing, admit that your life is a mess. And second, this is a bit tougher. Okay, you ready? Here it is. You don't want to get out of it. You do not want to get out of the mess. Talk to any psychologist who's worth his name, he'll confirm that the last thing a client wants is a cure. That is transformation. He doesn't want a cure. He wants relief. Eric Byrne, one of the great psychiatrists here in the United States, put it very graphically. He suggested you imagine a client who is up to his nose in a cesspool, okay, yeah. He calls it liquid excrement, and he's coming to the doctor, and you know what he's saying to him, he's asking the doctor, could you help me so people won't make waves? Client doesn't want to get out of the cesspool. Oh, no, no, no. Get Out For heaven's sake. No, just help me so they won't make waves.
Zen is not about incremental change. Incremental change does happen, and there certainly is increment. Mental progress as we open, but it's not about patching up the present model. It's not about flying off with the unicorn. Well, unicorns don't fly, but flying off into the rainbow, you
a transformation arises from a willingness that develops very slowly over time to be what life asks of us. Most of us, myself included, at times, are like children. We want something or somebody to give us what a small child wants from its parents. We want to be given peace, attention, comfort, understanding, if our life doesn't give us this, we think a few years of Zen practice will do this for me, yoga says No, they won't. It's not what practice is about. Practice is about opening ourselves so that this little eye that wants and wants and wants and wants and wants the whole world to be its parents really grows up. Growing up doesn't interest us very much. A lot of my students try to turn me into a substitute parent. It's not my role. Students in difficulty often come running to me as much as possible, I accept them to dealing with the problem themselves. When students have some idea of how they might deal with the problem. The best thing to do is to let them struggle. Then there is some possibility of transformation.
It's the nature of koan work. Teacher, can't give you the answer. Can only encourage you. The more you take it to heart, the more the transformation can happen. We don't like it, but it's good. It's good for us. I read something once written by a teaching assistant. A guy named tal eine was a pilot teaching assistant Fellows program at Cal Tech. He says this, every part of teaching is challenging, and that extends beyond the lecture component. For example, my philosophy about Office Hours has always been, ironically enough, to be as useless as possible. I hope I can measure up to that. If a student comes and asks me, how do you do problem number one, I ask them, How do you think we should do problem number one? And it's absolutely infuriating, but by the end of office hours, they're so thankful that they struggled through it. My favorite physics Author David Morin wrote in his recent book, green eyed dragons and other mathematical monsters, that the one piece of advice you can offer about solving problems is to not look at the solutions too early. Once you see the answer, you can't undo that and come up with it yourself. So don't be afraid to just sit and get stuck and ponder, because that's when you're really figuring out what to do. That is the learning process. So many people want to understand what enlightenment is. Have a good mental picture of it. Think it does very little good,
struggling with the problem, going against the flow, working with our resistance and
something that feels right when we're just Working right here, we're not daydreaming, not dreading, anything I
here in the Zen do, surrounded by others doing just what we're doing,
returning again and again to this moment. It, letting go of our ideas about time.
So easy. Towards the end of session, to start thinking about time, don't do it. And if you do it, stop doing it. Eventually, and I can tell you as someone who's gone into that muck again and again and again, eventually you learn you don't have to go there. You can be here. Keep coming back. Don't worry about failure or success.
Don't wallow in self criticism. Don't compare. Don't be in a hurry. Don't be trying to get from this moment to the next. It's
right in front of us somewhere. Ramana Maharshi says, I
some day, the moment will come when you laugh at all your efforts, when you finally see what you see then is here right now, always been here.
Warren. And more learn to just give ourselves to this impossible task, then transformation can happen. Some of it happens gradually, and sometimes it can happen suddenly. It's not our business to worry which way or when. Just have faith, for your own sake, for the sake of everyone around you, everyone here in this Zen do everyone all over the world? You
Well, our time is up. We'll stop now and recite the four vows.
