This is day four of this. September, 20, 24/7 day Sachin. And today we'll pick up another text, a different book. It's by Charlotte Joko Beck, and it's a collection of talks and Tasos that were compiled and published by her daughter a decade after her death, the book came out in 2021 and It's titled ordinary wonder.
We all, we all encounter challenges in our practice, just as we do in our life, and some of the challenges we experience in our practice show up in Our life and vice versa,
struggles and failures, loss, sorrow, doubts,
and underneath all those challenges, is the the big mystery of who we are. What does it mean to be human?
And that, of course, includes the mystery and wondrousness of this of being in a human body,
knowing that one day, sooner or later, we're going to die,
and this is the big question that drives many of us to practice in the first place, and it's what keeps us on the path brings us to sashin.
But practice isn't about solving that mystery, as in figuring it all out or coming up with some explanation, Putting the mystery to rest.
Instead practice is about throwing ourselves into the mystery, seeing what's there, looking I listening.
And if you're working on a koan, it's it's activated by the questioning, what is this?
What is Mo?
Who am I, or some variation, if you're working on a breath practice, it's activated by absorbing yourself in the breath and the awareness of it each. Inhalation, each exhalation, and that that space in between,
that alone can fill you with wonder who's Breathing.
Turning to joko's book. I'm going to start off with reading from a piece titled going into the dark.
She begins. There is a famous Sufi teaching story in which a man loses his keys. He is looking for them under the streetlight, when his friend walks by, his friend asks, What are you doing? The man answers, I'm looking for my keys. The friend stops to help him look. They search and dig around for a long while. Finally, the friend asks, Are you sure you lost them here? And the man replies, No, I lost them back there somewhere in the dark. His friend stops astonished and says, Well, then why are you looking for them here? And the man says it's so much easier to see in the light, and this is what we do with our life. JOCO says we have a problem sitting in the dark, we don't really know what to do about it, so we look where it's light. In other words, we look where we're used to looking whether it's a problem with relationships, work, or whatever, we always tend to look and to act according to what we're used to. And do you think the man found his keys under the streetlight? No way. Often we don't even mind if we can't find the keys, what we want is an easy way to look,
and that that is our tendency to take the easy route to look for a quick fix, to avoid anything that's uncomfortable.
So we reject the dark and chase after the light and
but what we're failing to see When we do that is that within darkness, there is light, and within light, there is darkness.
That's a line in one of our chants, the harmony of relative and absolute. They're not separate.
It's just like a lotus bud in order for it to grow and blossom. To open its petals, it has to go through the muck and the mud, and it's nurtured by it. It needs it. It. It's part of its being.
So what we really need to do is to allow ourselves to be in the darkness, to settle in that place, to take a look see what's there
without pushing anything away, but also at the Same time, not dwelling in it,
not creating melodramas and
Joko says, there, there is a darkness out of which everything comes, an endless creative potential that's pouring Out of our life at every second. Practice is about going into that darkness, but we're not interested in that. We're interested in looking at life in a way that doesn't disturb us. It may not solve the problem, but for human beings, that's not really a big issue. Often we would rather be safe than free.
We would rather be safe than free. We'd rather fall back on our old habits and routines that we've gotten comfortable with, rather than take the risk of trying something different, taking, taking the risk of letting it go,
clinging to safety, is really A powerful force, and many of us find it even in the thoughts and things that cause us to suffer. Strangely enough, it's familiar. We know it well, even if it makes us feel miserable, we've learned how to cope and manage with it, so we stick with it, rather than take the risk of freeing ourselves from it altogether,
and it's only a risk, because our identity is all wrapped Up in this, me and I, my suffering, My pain, self pity,
all beings without number, except for me,
your pain, though, doesn't define you, your suffering doesn't limit you.
What do we have to lose? And letting it go,
Joko says, just think of anything in your life and notice that the only way you handle it is the way you're used to handling it. We tend to look at the surface of things. For instance, Hardly a week goes by without. Somebody saying, Why do you have so much ritual at the Zen Center?
Having ritual or not having ritual? That's not the problem that's looking at the surface of things, some people, since the Zen Center has become relatively big, don't like it as well as when it used to be small. So and likewise, some prefer it to be big and not so small, that is also looking at the surface of things. We look the way we're used to looking,
and this habitual way of of looking. And Joko has a certain term she uses to refer to that. She calls it a core belief. Everyone has one.
Everyone has more than one really, when we're relying on our core beliefs about big and small, right and wrong, success and failure,
when we're relying on that we're not one with things as they are. We're not we're not even seeing what's in front of us. We're not allowing ourselves to experience it, explore it, see what's there, because we're too caught up in how we want it to be.
We can come up with all sorts of explanations and stories about our life, about ourselves, about other people. That's not for me. That's not how I roll. I the way you do it is just plain wrong. I'm this, you're that.
And we can also get so preoccupied with what others may think about us wanting to manage our image, wanting to make a good impression. You
we can get so busy trying to control our lives, really engineer our lives and how things appear to others, how you appear to others, and it's, it's, it's exhausting mentally to Do this, trying to make everything suit our preferences. I
Joko says, because the core belief is a fixed, rigid assemblage of thoughts, it keeps running our lives in a very false way. That's what we do. We don't necessarily like our core beliefs, but we're used to it. To disrupt it, or anything else we're used to is frightening. We don't want things to change very much. We don't want our partner to change. We don't want to have to look at ourselves in a way that would wake us up and. Make us change.
Change is hard,
and yet we are change. It's who we are, fundamentally.
It's not it's not something happening on the outside. There is no outside or inside.
And yet, one moment, we're feeling totally content coasting along, and then the Next we're tossed around in a state of turbulence. And
our habitual ways to react as if the change is coming from the outside, it's coming right at us. And so we see ourselves as a as a victim, really,
if only the weather conditions were in better, if only it wasn't so cold and damp,
If only my family wasn't so dysfunctional, If only my life wasn't so complicated. I
If only I had a different sesshin job. I
there's a lot of if onlys
Joko goes on as as human beings, we like things to be fixed. We're always trying to control the world so we can be safe, but in doing so, we make the world very small, seemingly more manageable, like a pigeonhole. This disposition is is very noticeable in our relationships. When we get into relationships, we tend to do what we've always done. We put them into the same little mold, and we take a look and deliver our opinion, and that's that our relationship may become sterile, quarrelsome, polite or dead, but we stay in our same way of being doesn't work.
Again, keeping it safe, staying with whatever's familiar
that includes coasting along in Sachin.
Also we can avoid uncertainty.
Or failure can.
This is a recipe for getting stuck.
We need to be willing to take risks.
It's the only way we can grow as human beings, and it's also the only way our practice can ripen. Chris, I'm not talking about doing anything that can cause harm to yourself or others or distractions.
An example in seshne would be how much sleep to get or how much food to eat, maybe skipping even a meal.
And, yeah, there's, you know, some some degree, some small degree, I guess, of of of risk. There. I
But the big risk is really letting go of being in charge of your experience. That's the big risk. The little risk is you might end up feeling tired, but maybe not, or you might end up feeling hungry, but maybe not. This is this really a problem? I
even if you're tired or hungry, achy or whatever, you're still a Buddha, and you can still practice effectively. You
just by being one, one with the conditions you're in
the same time, when I talk about taking risks, you don't want to make a project out of that, either you want to be planning and plotting. Or if I do this, maybe that will happen. I
keep it natural, spontaneous.
Do what feels right, what you're called to do in the moment, and trust it. Go with it.
Don't worry about the rest. You
the next section I'm going to read from is titled far from shore. Joko says going to new lands sounds wonderful, but the last thing we want is to lose sight of the shore. The shore is life as we've come to know it, the troubling and painful yet familiar life of our core belief we
the ultimate core belief is duality. To practice is to lose sight of the shore and spend a lot of time at sea or. Initially, we consent to leaving our shore because we want to get to the new lands we've heard about. We no longer quite believe in the shore we've always lived on, but we're not able to see the new shore either. We're just at sea, and we feel disturbed because we're unanchored. So we focus on thinking about how we're on our way to somewhere wonderful.
It's true practice can feel like we're in this liminal space, this kind of Bardo, when thoughts settle, we do feel less burdened, and we feel more at ease. But then our thinking mind can kick in and ask, okay, what's going on here? Where is this headed? I
Joko says, over time, we realize that we don't know where we're going. We're just lost at sea. We feel seasick. We're sick of practice and sick of feeling so much
we can't go back to the old shore again. We know too much to do that, but we don't know where we're going. We're drifting at sea when we're in this in between place, which is really where we spend the majority of our practice we're working with fear. It's hard not to have certainty. We no longer have the life that, whether we liked it or not, was familiar with misery, and we don't yet have the new land. Or more accurately, we think we don't. You
Where is this new land, this other shore?
We think it's far, far away. We and we also think it's the most it's got to be the most wonderful, serene place where there's no stress, no worries, no anxiety. We just have to figure out how to get there, and we can pour so much energy straining to get there. You
as if, as if it can't possibly be right here and
this moment right now can't possibly be it. I.
This is what we tell ourselves.
And consequently, Joko says, we end up feeling discouraged. Bored and disillusioned. At times, we feel totally confused and angry. At times, we have a powerful urge to go back to where it's safe but we also have a tremendous longing for a life lived more truly, which We've glimpsed through the fog. Maybe there's a thin sliver of something on the horizon, but maybe not you're just in the middle of nowhere. What happens if you're willing to be in this sea In this sense of helplessness, you
what happens when you stop trying to make something happen to get somewhere else?
What happens when you stop churning over and over in your head, the past, where you came from, what happened in the past? Oh, or where you may be going. I
we have to find out for ourself. We have to make ourselves vulnerable
and just open, open to what's right here.
And in case you're thinking, I'm a hopeless case, I can't do it, I've got a monkey Mind.
Remember, what matters most is continuous, steady, calm, persistent, patient practice that goes a long way.
Lao Tzu said, What is of all things most yielding can overwhelm that which of all things is most hard? The patient, unhurried yet continuous flow of water can wear down even the most resistant and stubborn rock and.
A practice is a process of wearing away. This Roshi often says it's about loss, about losing, not gaining, but it but there's no timetable.
There's no schedule to it. It's moment by moment, and it's not up to us to make anything happen. The only thing we can do, the only thing we must do, is simply give ourselves to it over and over that that's What's up to us. That's the work.
I'm reminded recently, something happened, I think it was the day before sashin started.
A tree fell in the forest here at Chapin mill in the area behind the barn, but in the week leading up to it falling, you could hear this creaking sound every day, day after Day for more than a week,
over and over you
It sounded like was losing its footing Little by little,
the roots were barely hanging on, and then, After all that creaking,
after the roots became dislodged, crack, thump, all at once.
You couldn't predict when the tree, or even if the tree, would fall
in any amount thinking about it, well, yeah, eventually it is going to fall. But when? How long will it take? What direction will it fall in? What's the use of thinking about all that doesn't change the process you
then Joko says spiritual traditions tend to emphasize seeing the new land, but most of Our practice and time is spent drifting in the struggle, perhaps, just possibly, what we finally get to see is that being on the shore, struggling in the open ocean and being in the new land are all the same. There's nowhere to go, Or put differently, this shore, is it out on the desolate ocean? Is it the other shore? Is it there's simply being at peace with where. Wherever you are.
So why launch off from the shore in the first place? What is the point? If it seems to be untold uncertainty and struggle with no new land to arrive at. What's the point? Our practice is not to arrive somewhere, but to see that these three so called places are the same, they're one, and that we have already arrived
to realize this, we need to just be the struggle. There is nothing except being what you are. And
Oscar Wilde, the famous poet and playwright, said something like, be yourself everyone else is already taken you.
And Joko says, at some point, we just roll over on our back and float, and nothing's different, and everything is different. At some point, we just roll over on our back and float, and nothing's different, and everything is different. She's not talking about complacency, as in lounging and kicking up our feet, rolling over and slacking off, not putting in any effort. What she's talking about is not trying to get from one shore to another, one place to another, not trying to be Anyone other than who we are, surrendering to it and
