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Skillful Effort, Skillful Concentration | Otter.ai

Skillful Effort, Skillful Concentration

John Pulleyn1h 3min

Trueman Taylor

00:00

Hi, this is March 19 2023. And today we'll be talking about right effort and right concentration. I'm not, I'm not quite sure, I wanted to do a talk about right effort. But then as I was kind of finishing my outline last night, I realized it was kind of leaking into right concentration and actually really doesn't matter. Because both of them are really important aspects of our practice. And I think most of this talk will be about right concentration and then if I have time, then go into right effort. But like I said, doesn't really matter. The Noble Eightfold Path so I'll just go through them right understanding actually I was reading a book that had instead of right understanding had skillful understanding which I quite like so I think I'll I'll say it that way. Skillful understanding, skillful thought, skillful speech, skillful action, skillful livelihood, skillful effort, skillful mindfulness, and skillful concentration. effort and concentration are also part of the six paramitas, the Six Perfections. So we have giving, Donna morality sila, patience or forbearance was because Shanthi effort which is varia, concentration, deonna. And finally, wisdom project. So yeah, it was just to emphasize again, the, the they're both good, important aspects of our practice, and skillful really think the reason I like skillful so much is a Yeah, I want to just explore this a little more in this talk. Because there's a skillful way of doing it. And so at these workshops that we give once a month, you know, I'm often one of the monitors. And during the Parshat administration, you know, we'll give the participants that are practice which is counting the inhalations and exhalations. And then I just find myself saying just put all your attention, your concentration on the counting of the breath, you know, but not much more than that. So I just thought it'd be kind of interesting that to kind of explore this a little more to see if this this can help at all. Yeah, the other thing I often say in the workshop, you know, in terms of the practice, in terms of counting the, the, the inhalations and exhalations is you're trying to avoid the two extremes when you're breathing when you're doing Zen. You want to avoid suppressing your thoughts. And then on the other side of you want to not cling to your thoughts. Really Zen practice is a method, you know, it's not a technique, both Roshi Kapleau and Roshi Bowden were always fond of saying, techniques are for technicians. And I know speaking personally, and I've heard this from others as well can kind of be frustrating, you know, with, like, you're given this practice, and you do it right. And, and but you want like, you know, just tell me what to do. Like, do I you know, how well in terms of the breathing of course, if you breathing shallow, you're breathing shallow, if you're breathing deeper, slower, then we're not trying to manipulate anything. It's a big part of Zen practices, letting go of stop trying to control everything, and just let the practice work for itself. Just you put in the effort, the skill for effort, this this concentration, and it's kind of it really is is just it's just by doing it year after year after year, that we become more skillful, and it's like a really a trial and error process

Trueman Taylor

04:57

but it's just by the doing of it. Add that we get better at it every day. And you know, of course, there are teachers that give different analogies to describe the practice to give, give us some kind of footing on it. The one I've really liked them we've heard we've heard recently is from opening the hand of thought. And this is by this is a book by Kosho. Uchiyama Roshi. So this is how he describes his hand of thought. He says, I use his expression, opening the hand of thought, to explain as graphically as possible, the connection between human beings and the process of thinking, footnote, this process of thinking, this should be understood to include the emotions, feelings, and all sense perceptions, as well as thoughts. So this thinking means to be grasping, or holding onto something with our brains conceptual hand. So it's kind of a great image is this fifth one, I was reflecting on this, you know, well, let me just finish what he says. But if we open it, that is, if we open this hand, this conceptual hand, if we open it, if we don't conceive, what is in our hand falls away. So yeah, the suppressing you can see this in the fists, you know, this is our practice right here. And we're either like suppressing our thoughts, trying to squeeze them out, god dammit, get them out of there, or we're clinging to it. And all we need to do when we're doing za Zen is just open up the hand, just just open it up, just let the thoughts be, just let the feelings or anxiety or whatever we're experiencing, just put your attention on to the practice. And you're opening up that hand of thought. Don't do anything with them.

Trueman Taylor

07:12

So this fist of suppressing or grasping.

Trueman Taylor

07:23

Cut, cut. I mean, I remember hearing this quite often in machine, and it was kind of I just kind of didn't quite get it, you know, I just I saw this cut, cut, cut, of course, cutting is comes from this delusion cutting sort of Manjushri we used to have the bodhisattva wisdom on all on the altar in front of the Buddha, during our machines, and I just kind of I, it took me a long time to realize that cut, cut cut was not like suppress, suppress, suppress, which is what I was doing. So you know, and this was after years of doing machine and practice. And I remember this one time I was in jokes on and I cannot remember what I said. But Roshi just said, you know, it's not about suppressing your thoughts. And it finally got through my thick Canadian skull that I was, you know, I was trying to stop my thoughts, which is, of course impossible to do. So it finally sunk in. And, you know, this is something that, you know, even senior practitioners will find themselves doing, I'm just going to read from this book called Silent illumination. It's why Whoa, goo. And he's a Dharma Heir of the teacher Shenyang, and it's an instruction called Ghost caves. And he starts even if even serious meditators often perceive thoughts, no matter how subtle they may be, as the enemy. Because we tend to be repulsed by wandering thoughts in meditation. We focus on the stillness that arises in a hold on to it reminds me of this quote, by push on. Once those who have lived amidst the noise and restlessness of worldly affairs, experienced the joy of quietness, they become captivated by its honey sweet taste, craving it like an exhausted traveler who seeks a peaceful den in which dissembler slumber, how can people with such an attitude retain their awareness? So again, because we tend to be repulsed by wandering thoughts and meditation, we focus on the stillness that arises and hold on to it. We may then try to lock our minds in the state in which thoughts are absent. Deep down, we think that this is the point of meditation, to have a mind free of thoughts. This is a misunderstanding of the prince pools of practice, and it is criticized by Hornung. In the platform scripture. This is what he says, good friends, the way must flow freely. How could it stagnate when the mind does not abide in things? Notice he doesn't say when the mind does not abide without things. When the mind does not abide in things, the way flows freely when the mind abides in things, this is tethering yourself tethering ourselves to our thoughts, or our anxiety or feelings or emotions, anything that's coming up, tethering to that. The way or the Tao is awakening, the true nature of our mind is already free. It is only diluted when it is caught up with things. Attaching to states is to be caught up with things including stillness. Why not also states and this teaching of seated meditation, one fundamentally does not fixate on mine. Nor does one fixate on purity or stillness. If one is the fixate on the mind, this is kept small m. One should know that that mind is fundamentally a delusion. If you realize that the mind is like a phantom Phantasm you also realize that there's nothing to fixate on. If one is to fixate on purity. Then once you know that because our nature is fundamentally pure. It is through deluded thoughts that suchness is concealed. Just be without deluded thoughts. And then nature is pure of itself reminds me of that great analogy of clouds in the sun. The sun's always there. Our true nature is always there. But we often clouded over with their thoughts. It's like a weather pattern. The clouds come and go.

Trueman Taylor

12:12

So how do we practice with effort whether it's counting the breath or following the breath or working on a con. And I'm going to read from everyday Zen. It's by Charlotte Joko back. And there's a section here called fire of attention.

Trueman Taylor

12:46

She begins back in the 1920s when I was maybe eight or 10 years old. In living in New Jersey, where the winters are cold. We had a furnace in our house that burned coal. There was a big event on the block when the coal truck rolled up. And all this stuff poured down the coal chute into the coal bin. I learned that there were two kinds of coal that showed up in the coal bin one was called anthracite or hard coal, and the other was lignite soft coal. My father told me about the difference in the way those two kinds of coal burned. anthracite burns cleanly leaving little ash, lignite. That's a soft coal. lignite leaves lots of ash. When we burn lignite, the seller became covered with soot, and some of it got upstairs into the living room. Mother had something to say about that. I remember. At night, my father would bank the fire, and I learned to do this to banking the fire means covering it with a thin layer of coal, and then shutting down the oxygen Gen vent to the furnace so that the fire stays in a slow burning state. Overnight the house becomes cold and so in the morning, the fire must be stirred up and the oxygen oxygen vents open, then the furnace can heat up the house.

Trueman Taylor

14:28

What does all this have to do with our practice? Practice is about breaking our exclusive identification with ourselves. This process has sometimes been called purifying the mind. To purify the mind doesn't mean that you become holy or other than you are. Again, to purify the mind doesn't mean that you become holy other than you are. It reminded me of another quote, this is something I got, it was on a little index card that Sangha member gave me when they found out that I was going to start as head cook. And so I always had it in, in up on the bulletin board in the kitchen there. And over the years, I found it again over you know, and this was like, I can't remember I can't even count the number of years I think it was like 12 or 13 years ago. And anyways, that card the the acid kind of chewed up that index card and so I created a new one and gave it to the head cook the new head cook. Alright, so this is what Dogons words on Duggins words to an incoming penzo. Becoming an ox, you need to pull the plow and the till becoming a horse you need to bite the reins and wear a saddle, putting on for crowned with horns, swinging the tail and shaking the head, kick over the barrier and enter straight through the Dragon Gate without seeking to become a sage. Be a person who is capable in your duties. Without valuing personal spiritual development, be the host within the guest

Trueman Taylor

16:18

so to purify the mind, doesn't mean that you become holy or other than you are. It means to strip away that which keeps a person or a furnace from functioning best. The furnace functions best with hard coal, but unfortunately, what we're full of is soft coal. I so this is the skillful part I'm talking about the skillful effort and concentration. In our daily practice in in in sesshin we're often burning the soft coal, you know, we're just kind of or yeah, we're basically identifying with our thoughts and, and the hard coal. Well, I'll go on and talk more about this.

Trueman Taylor

17:11

To sit through sesshin is to be in the middle of a refining fire. Aidoo Adel Roshi said once this Zen knows not a peaceful haven, but a furnace room for the combustion of our egoistic delusions, as I know is not and then she goes on Zendo is not a place for bliss and relaxation, but a furnace room for the combustion of our egoistic delusions. What tools do we need to use? Only one, we've all heard of it, yet we use it very seldom. It's called attention. The Kent attention is the cutting burning sword in our practice is to use that sword as much as we can. None of us is very willing to use it. But when we do, even for a few minutes, some cutting and burning takes place. All practice aims to increase our ability to be attentive, not just in Zen, but in every moment of our life. As we sit we grasp that our conceptual thoughts thought process is a fantasy. And the more we grasp this, the more our ability to pay attention to reality increases. One of the great Chinese masters swung Post said, quote, If you can only rid yourself of conceptual thoughts, you will have accomplished everything. But if you students of the way do not rid yourselves of conceptual thought, in a flash, even though you strive for eon, after eon, you will never accomplish it. We quote rid ourselves of conceptual thought when by persistent observation, we recognize the unreality of our self centered thoughts. Because the word Phantasm or ghost, or thoughts are just like ghosts, then we remain dispassionate and fundamentally unaffected by them. Then we can remain dispassionate and fundamentally unaffected by them. Yeah, so as time goes on, and if we have a daily practice, this inevitably will happen. Through our efforts. We kind of become this impartial witness, you know, slowly but surely, our thoughts are there. And we can kind of and we do through through our attention onto the practice. We kind of become this impartial observer of our thoughts, you know, we don't take him so personally anymore. I always felt like a good title of a section of a book about Zen practice would be something like Zen practice and you're thoughts. koan, don't take it personally. But that's not what we do. Especially in the early stages of our practices, we just can't believe what's going on in our minds, and, or the things that we're thinking. But as time goes on there, they're just thoughts. And it's, it's up to us to, to be that impartial observer and just put our attention back onto the method. Oh, that's what I was going to mention earlier to just talking about how I like that word method. You know, since then, practice is not a technique, those are for technicians. But the method is kind of a good description of what we're doing.

Trueman Taylor

20:55

Then we can remain dispassionate and fundamentally unaffected by them. That does not mean to be a cold person. Rather, it means not to be caught and dragged around by circumstances. Can't remember if I told the story before, but it was really my early days of practice. And I was in in Montreal, and I was pretty much practicing on my own. But then I was coming down this escalator. And there's this guy at the bottom of the escalator. And he just kind of was like, really aggressive. And he was trying to get me to get a credit card. And I already had one, you know, now I was already in a lot of debt. And I can't remember what I said, but then he just said, you have to have this credit card. And I just looked at him. And I said, No, I don't, and just walked away. Now, a year before that I reflected on that I realized a year before that I wouldn't maybe panicked, or, like filled out his form just to get him out of my you know, but no, I don't need that credit card, you know, I didn't get caught up in his own drama. And I'm like, Okay, there's something to this and practice. And it probably allowed me to be in less debt at the time.

Trueman Taylor

22:27

She goes on, most of us are not much like this. As soon as we get into our workday, we discover we're not at all calm. You have many emotional opinions and judgments about everything. Our feelings are easily hurt. we're by no means quote, dispassionate and fundamentally unaffected by what is going on. So it's extremely important to remember that the main purpose of doing so Sheen is this burning out of thoughts by the fire of attention, so that so that our lives can be dispassionate, and fundamentally unaffected by outward circumstances, I forgot to mention that this is a teisho that she gave in sesshin. I don't think there's anyone here of whom that is wholly true. But our practice is to do that. I think I'll just repeat what she said here. So it's extremely important to remember that the main purpose of Doomsday machine is this burning out of thoughts by the fire of attention, so that our lives can be dispassionate and fundamentally unaffected by outward circumstances. I don't think there's anyone here of whom that is wholly true. Yet our practice is to do that. If we truly accomplish this burning out of attachments, there will be no need to sit. But I don't think anyone can say that. We need an adequate daily period of zozen in which we attend to what's going on in our minds and bodies. If we don't sit regularly, then we can't comprehend that that. If we don't sit regularly, then we can't comprehend that how we wash our car or how we deal with our supervisor is absolutely our practice. As Master Wong posted, quote, on no account make a distinction between the absolute and the ascension world, quote, it's nothing more than parking a car, putting on your clothes, taking a walk. But if soft coal is what we're burning, we're not going to realize that. soft coal simply means that the burning in our life is not clean. We are unable to burn up each circumstance as we encounter it. Kind of reminds me of This unable to burn up. Just always remember, you know, we're always instructed to just listen. In fact, I remember Roshi would say, you know, when he's given teisho Just kind of act like you're the only one in the room just hearing the teisho. You know, just put your complete attention on the practice. And you're the only one there. And I just remember one time, I think it was sitting right over there at the case who, I can't remember what Johnson say was saying. But as soon as that ended, I just the thought that popped up was, yeah, but yeah, but you know, it just kind of like, we just get stuck in the machinations of our mind, just, at least for me, just kind of resisting, not just listening and focusing on the practice, but then just getting caught up in the own the own drama of my head, you know, just listening to what that thought pops up. Yes, but that's not me. Yes, but that's not me.

Trueman Taylor

26:05

We are unable to burn up each circumstance as we encounter it. And the culprit is always our emotional test attachment to the circumstance. For example, perhaps your boss asks you to do something unreasonable. At that moment, what is the difference between burning soft coal and hard coal? Or suppose we're looking for employment, but the only work we can find is something we dislike, or our child gets into trouble at school. In dealing with those what is the difference between soft coal and hard coal? If there isn't some comprehension of the difference, we have wasted our hours in sesshin. Most of us are chasing after Buddhahood there's that grasping again. In fact, I'm convinced, you know, part of the grasping, I talked about earlier about my own kind of suppressing, suppressing, suppressing. But I'm also convinced that all that training and striving, which I might talk a little bit more later on now, all that striving and grasping effort, is because we're just we're just grasping, we're just grasping at what we're already fundamentally are, you know, holding complete. But we just keep grasping on, on wanting to realize that. And it kind of, I think, for me, it really kind of, well, I think for a lot of us just kind of translates in tension in the body and not really doing the practice, you know, just constantly grant that there's that fists again, constantly just grasping on wanting to get that realisation on run.

Trueman Taylor

27:51

Most of us are here chasing after the Buddha hood after Buddhahood. Yet Buddha hood is how you deal with your boss or your child, your lover or your partner, whoever our life is always absolute. That's all there is. The truth is not somewhere else. But we have minds that are trying to burn the past or the future, the living present Buddhahood is rarely encountered.

Trueman Taylor

28:34

She goes on when the fire in the furnace is banked, and you want a brightly burning fire, what do we do? You increase the air intake. Alright, that's that skill for concentration, you increase the air intake or effort, it can be effort, just putting, just concentrating the mind more. We are we are fires too. And when the mind quiets down, we can breathe more deeply, and the oxygen intake goes up. We burn with a cleaner flame in our action comes out of that flame. Instead of trying to figure out in our minds what action to take what action to take, we only need to purify the base of ourselves. The action will flow out of that the mind quiets down, the mind quiets down because we observe it instead of getting lost in it then the breathing deepens and when the fire really burns there's nothing I can consume. It's kind of reminds me later on in sushi in day five day six we just become so we're so much more concentrated than and that this this we're no longer so much caught up in the in the drama or thoughts. When the fire gets hot enough, there is no self because now the fire is consuming everything. There is no separation between self and other

Trueman Taylor

30:06

We don't like to think of ourselves as just physical beings. It the whole transformation of sitting is physical. It's not some miraculous thing that happens in our head. When we burn off coal, we are misusing our minds so that they are constantly clogged with fantasies, opinions, desires, speculations analysis, and we try to find right action out of that bog. With some when something goes wrong in our life. What do we try to do? We sit down, we try to figure it out. Mullet oval, mull it over, speculate about it. That doesn't work. It doesn't work in practice. It's just reminds me of, you know, no one, no one in all the tissues ever figured out Mu?

Trueman Taylor

31:03

What does work is noticing our mental aberrations, which are not true thinking. We observe our emotional thoughts, quote, yeah, I really can't stand her. She's a terrible person. We just notice, notice, notice.

Trueman Taylor

31:33

You just notice, notice, notice we're going to read from an article. This was in the New York Times may 27 2008, called Lotus therapy. And it Oh, and it's by a Benedick carry this out it starts. The patient's sat with his eyes closed, submerged in the rhythm of his own breathing in after a while notice that he was thinking about his troubled relationship with his father. And he says I was able to be there present for the pain. When the meditations he said, Excuse me, I was able to be there present for the pain. He said when the min meditation session ended, to just let it be what it was, without thinking it through. The therapist nodded. Acceptance is what that accepting acceptance is what it was, he continued, just letting it be not trying to change anything. That's it, the therapist said, That's it, and that's big. So that's your hard cold right there. Just letting it be not trying to change anything. And the article goes on. This exercise in focus, awareness and mental catch and release of emotions has become perhaps the most popular new psychotherapy technique of the past decade. Mindfulness Meditation is catching the attention of talk therapists of all stripes, including academic researchers, Freudian analysis in private practice and skeptics who see all the hallmarks of another fad.

Trueman Taylor

33:40

For years psychotherapists have okay like that, that didn't sound quite right here. So this mindfulness method, it is catching the attention of talk therapists of all stripes, including academic researchers, Freudian analysis and private practice, and skeptics who see all the hallmarks of another fad. Okay, for years, psychotherapists have worked to relieve suffering by reframing the content of patients thoughts, directly altering behavior or helping people gain insight into the subconscious sources of despair and anxiety. The promise of mindfulness meditation is that it can help patients and joueur flash floods of emotion during the therapeutic process, and ultimately, alter reactions to daily experience at a level that words cannot reach. Quote, the interest in this has just taken off sets in Dale Seagal, a psychologist at the center of addiction and mental health in Toronto, where the above group therapy session was taped. And I think a big part of it is that more and more therapists are practicing some forms of contemplation themselves and want to bring that into therapy.

Trueman Taylor

35:03

In Transcendental Meditation and other types of meditation practitioners seek to transcend or, quote, lose themselves. The goal of mindfulness meditation or we can say the goal of Zen was different to foster an awareness of every sensation as it unfolds in the moment. Oh, excuse me. So that's that. I shouldn't say that. And that's meant for mindfulness meditation. Dr. Kabat Zinn taught the practice to people suffering from chronic pain at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. In the 1980s, he published a series of studies demonstrating that to our courses, given once a week for eight weeks reduce chronic pain more effectively than treatment as usual. No, it doesn't go into detail here I very much respect you know, this, this. This practice that he's showing, obviously, it's not trying to do anything with the pain but changing our relationship with the pain through the meditation, through the mindfulness meditation. Word spread discreetly at first quote, I think that back then others researchers had to be very careful when they talked about this because they didn't want to be seen in as New Age weirdos, Dr. Kabat Zinn said in an interview, so they didn't call it mindfulness or meditation. After a while, we put enough studies out there that people became more comfortable with that. One person who noticed early on was Marsha Linehan, a psychologist at the University of Washington who was trying to treat deeply troubled patients with histories of suicidal behavior. She says, trying to treat these patients with some change based behavior therapy, just made them worse, not better. Dr. Linehan said in an interview with the real hard stuff, you need something else, something that allows people to tolerate these very strong emotions. So actually, John Sensei gave a teisho this in January 29, this year about Marshall Plan, and I mean, it's just such a remarkable story about just just really briefly, you know, she became severely suicidal, and was actually in psychiatric wards for quite a while, at the end, you know, at the end of high school, and then, and then she got out of it and, and started trying, trying to, for lack of a better word, trying to figure things out, you know, how to help people, she made that great vow of helping others, and eventually came on to Zen practice and came up with a whole new kind of therapy system. And that's the teisho is called Marsha Linehan and radical acceptance. So, yeah, in the 1990s, Dr. Linehan published a series of studies finding that a therapy that incorporated Zen Buddhist mindfulness, quote, radical acceptance, practice by therapists and patients significantly significantly cut the risk of hospitalization, and to suicide attempts in the high risk patients.

Trueman Taylor

38:22

After mastering control of attention, some therapists say, a person can turn mentally to face a threatening or troubling thought about say, a strained relationship with a parent and learn simply to endure the anger or sadness and let it pass without lapsing into rumination or trying to change the feeling. A move that often backfires. One woman a doctor who had been in therapy for years to madness bouts of this disabling anxiety recently began seeing low a therapist called Logan in Austin, Texas, who incorporates mindfulness meditation into her practice. This patient had plenty to worry about including a mentally ill child, divorce and what she described as quote, harsh internal voice, Miss Logan said. After practicing mindfulness meditation, she continued to feel anxious at times, but told Miss Logan, I can stop and observe my feelings and thoughts and have compassion for myself. Steven Hayes, a psychologist at the University of Nevada, Reno has developed a talk therapy called acceptance commitment therapy or act based on a similar Buddha like effort to move beyond language to change fundamental psychological processes. This is what he says it's a shift from having our mental health defined by the content of our thoughts.

Trueman Taylor

40:02

It's a shift from having our mental health defined by the content of our thoughts to having a defined by our relationship to that content. And changing that relationship by sitting with noticing and becoming disentangled from our definitions of ourselves

Trueman Taylor

40:24

John Nash, the economist who suffered with schizophrenia, most of his life, says, Don't rebuke the negative voices just leave them alone

Trueman Taylor

40:52

and this leaving them alone

Trueman Taylor

40:59

I guess the only thing I can say about that, I mean, I guess it just depends on our karma, you know, our circumstances. But it can be a hard thing to do. It's, it's, it's, it's good to hear that over and over again. Don't listen to your negative thoughts. And that will get easier and easier. To get that word disentangled from our thoughts. Long, the longer we practice, it's just it really is just a process, just a process of refining and refining, and disentangling ourselves from whatever is coming up, you know, to just be there and experience it and not get tangled up and snared in it. It's that those clouds again, just a weather pattern coming through. And the more we can add, the more we can put ourselves on the on the method. As a Schengen says, the more the more will pass, the quicker it will pass.

Trueman Taylor

42:07

We want to think we want to speculate Oh, sorry. Going back to Joe go back here. We want to think we want to speculate, we want to fantasize, we want to figure it all out. We want to know the secrets of the universe. When we do all that the fire stays blank. It's not getting any oxygen. This we want to know the secrets of the universe, because it kind of reminds me oh, well, again, I'll just use my own personal experience. You know, it's kind of younger, I was just so obsessed with the meaning of life trying to figure things out. But then once I started practicing, after a while I just reflected doesn't. The meaning of life just kind of just dropped to the wayside. Like it's just yeah. obsessing about that. Then we'll wonder why we're sick mentally and physically, the burning is so clogged, there's nothing but debris coming off. And that debris doesn't just dirty us, it dirties everything. So it's important to sit every day. Otherwise the understanding of the burning process gets so dim and cloudy that the Fire State Bank bank, we have to sit every day, even 10 minutes is better than not sitting at all. So Sheen's are also essential for serious students. Daily sitting may keep a low grade fire burning, but usually it doesn't burn bursts into a full Blaze. So let's just continue with the sheen. There's nothing you won't face before you're done with it. Rage, jealousy, bliss, boredom. Watch yourself as you claim to feeling sorry for yourself. As you cling to your problems as you cling to the awful state, quote, awful state of your life. Again, that's that being becoming that employer impartial witness, just observing. That's your drama. The truth is we like our drama very much. People tell me they want to be free of their troubles. But when we stew in our own voices, we can maintain ourselves as the artificial center of the universe. We love our drama. We like to complain and agonize and moan isn't a terrible I'm so lonely. Nobody loves me. We enjoy our soft call. But the messiness of that incomplete burning can be tragic for me and for you. Let's practice well.

Trueman Taylor

44:49

All right, well, I think I've just realized probably running out of time, and I don't want to I do want to leave some time for questions and answers, but I'm going to finish I'm going to finish with a story. If I can find it, get back to my outline, okay. And I guess, skillful effort we'll have to wait. Maybe I'll talk about that. Whenever I give another time or talk. Okay, here we go. final story. A modern master described how the Buddha had encouraged his monks by stating that those who practice diligently would surely be enlightened in seven days, or, if not in seven days than in seven months or seven years. A young American monk heard this and asked if it was still true. The master a John Shaw, from the Thai Forest Tradition promised that if the young monk was continuously mindful, without a break, for only some days, he would be enlightened. kind of remind reminds me of the young Philip Kaplow when he was in Japan in his first seven day sesshin and Harada, Roshi promised to pay for his plane ticket home. If he gets enlightened during this first machine. Back to a young monk, excitedly, the young monk started his seven days, only to be lost and forgetfulness. 10 minutes later, coming back to himself, he again stated his seven days, only to become coming back to himself, he again went back to get into the seven days, only to become lost once more in mindless thought, perhaps about what he would do after his enlightenment. Again, and again, he began his seven days, and again and again, he lost his continuity of mindfulness. A week later, he was not enlightened, but had become very much aware of as a betrayal, fantasies and wandering of mind, a most instructive way to begin his practice on the path to real awakening.

Trueman Taylor

47:08

That's it. So yeah, we do have time for some if anyone has any questions, and we actually kind of worked out this new system or Joe's working on a right now. It will allow people who are on Zoom, just give us a minute here, but people on Zoom can actually ask questions as well if they want to GCI is the Zoom monitor. And she'll be moderating that. She'll keep an eye open for anyone online who has a hat, you know, their hand raised, and they can ask a question, and everyone here in the Zendo can hear that question. We said, Okay, let's see if this works.

Speaker 1

47:59

Yeah, maybe say a few words about the, about situations where sort of intellectual analysis isn't gonna get you anywhere, obviously, like, trying to figure out Mu versus where it went, it is a helpful thing. And the reason I bring this up is something I remember when I first joined the Senator, I was still practicing law. And that really kind of put me off was again and again, I have senior people tell me Oh, it's not good to have an occupation like law or being an accountant, that the phrase I kept using was that's too heavy, that's too heavy, you don't want to be involved. And obviously, that's practicing was very different than than 10 trying to figure out Mu but, but it was something I remember that just sort of really put me off. And over the years, I've had new people come to me with it sort of as similar things. So I thought maybe

Trueman Taylor

48:58

you could address Yeah, it actually kind of reminds me, I remember reading the three pillars of Zen and getting the impression that Zen was like really an anti intellectual. And it's not I mean, it's just we use the thinking mind is just such an incredible tool and we can figure things out. Things that need to be figured out that we can use our you know, our discursive intellect our data for legal writing, or, you know, academics. Yeah, and, and sometimes, yeah, so there's that, but then just so much. So much of our attention that we focuses on is on our thoughts trying to figure things out, it's Yeah, going back to Mu Mu will never be figured out. You know, there's a resolution. There's an experience, but it's not you know, it's that's what's so that's just the genius of cones is you Can't figure them out. They're just there's not there's just no way, you know, it bypasses the intellect. So yeah, when you're just doing the legal writing, trying to figure things out, figure it out. But other than that, go sit. And then and it's kind of like the really, you know, sometimes we describe just personal problems or a crisis in, say, a relationship, that, for me that relationships can be the trickiest thing, because we're just, we're attached and to try and figure things out, can be really hard. And Zen can't promise you necessarily the answer right away. But at least what's Zen you know, it's kind of like giving this talk just before, you know, sitting. Yeah, I had a little bit of anxiety coming up. But you're just you're disentangling yourself from that anxiety, and you're just doing the practice? No, that's all you need to do. You don't need a solution. You don't need to figure it out. You don't need to figure out your anxiety. It's just there, you know, and you disentangle is that impartial observer, you just experienced it and then just passes. And then next, you know, I'm done with the talk. So that sounds then, you know, it's not figuring things out. Chris,

Speaker 2

51:28

could you comment on how a person can make an effort? Without grasping?

Trueman Taylor

51:34

Yeah, you know, there's, it's just it just just going back to the practice, I know, it's just, it's just, it gets easier as we go on, especially, you know, and I'm sure I mentioned sesshin a lot, but you know, doing an all day or just extending or sitting it just, just by osmosis, you know, just we're naturally just kind of it just what was your question? I'm trying to figure it out, and I forgot your question.

Trueman Taylor

52:20

It's just doing the practice, and just kind of in hearing it over and over again, you know, it's like that suppressing of the thoughts. You know, I would just hear finally, it finally sunk in after hurting hearing it the fifth or sixth time, or 600th time, you know, it just finally sunk in and practice change. So yeah, going to Doakes on here in case shows. Those are great, you know, that that can help. But there is something it's kind of like, does your question Chris reminds me of how we talk about our attention, you know, we get out of this by doing our practice, putting our effort into the practice, we get out of our heads, and we naturally our attention ends up in the belly. Now, we don't talk about that very much. Because we don't want to make a technique out of it, like, we start trying to do that. It just eventually, if we just stick with the practice long enough, you'll just find that your attention just gets down into the horror area in the belly. And then that's when you know, the drama up here, it's not so it's not so important. It just doesn't really matter. And we just kind of the little trick in here in terms of technique, here's a little trick that I always found helpful, is you get your hands accustomed your hands right up against the belly, that just a little physical connection can can help with that process. Sensei you're gonna say something

Unknown Speaker

53:49

you guys, that lady to ask that question?

Speaker 3

53:54

Can I ask that question in a different way? Well, what might it look like to be accepting of the impulse to grasp?

Trueman Taylor

54:08

Well, you're just aware of that impulse to grass and not grass.

Speaker 4

54:14

You know, there's, there's two things that we do. One is the, their effort of our practice, whatever it is, breath for recall. And the other is the effort to do it. Right. And that's the, that's the problem. That's the, that's the you can you can be focused on Mu or you can be focused on the breath, or you can be focused on how well you're doing it, and what result you're gonna get. And so, you know, the problem with effort is that we think of it is, am I is my effort successful or is it not? So, it's just, it's opening the hand of thought opening the death, noticing that attachment and just letting it Go being okay when struggling, you know for

Trueman Taylor

55:09

Yeah, the, the expectation thing, the expecting mind is just such a maddening thing. And you know, I still have that those expectations, but the only difference now is like, it's just, it's just there but alright, just get back to it, you know, you notice that the expectations are the worse I'm convinced that's what's that is the thing that hindered me for years is expecting results from the practice when all you need to do is just

Trueman Taylor

55:55

Jonathan

Speaker 5

55:57

something when you were reading, Joe go back with the the term dispassionate kept coming up in what you were talking about. And I guess I wanted to challenge that or question that a little bit because my, my personal experience and my observation of, you know, advanced practitioners around this community is is, is that people are anything but anything but dispassionate. And I know, my own personal transformation, you know, there was this, this sort of intellectual dispassionate, where, you know, you could, oh, you're having feelings, and you could intellectualize them away, and you could, you know, even maybe stand back and be an observer, but it would be this, you know, intellectual exercise. And, and I find that my personal experience, and I suspect, the others here that, that it's, as you as I have gotten less tangled in thoughts, and when I'm doing things, when I'm doing things more free of thought that it's incredibly passionate. On both ends, you know, the, the miracle that surrounds us on databases more visible. And, and then what I've seen and and the intellectualization has been worn down. You know, I'll cry, like, I cry nowhere else. The most passionate cry, you know, therapeutic, passionate cry. So anyway, I just, I don't know what your thoughts are about that. I just find this a challenging word is passionate, because I see both. Both sides of it.

Trueman Taylor

57:47

Yes, you're right. That's it. I mean, that's, that's the heart. That's the hard coal burning, you know, it's, we're, Zaza is not about thinking about, like, Mom, we're about living. It's not about thinking, it's, we're about living our lives, you know, and just, the more you get, yeah, the way the more I mean, you set it all down, and then that's it. It's just burning the hard coal, you know, so that when you do grief, you're just grieving, you're not trying to suppress it, you're just experiencing it, and let the tears flow. You know, I remember hearing about the sesshin were Roshi got a sense from a lot of people going to Doakes on that they were suppressing things, and he just came in here and he just said, it's okay to cry if there's stuff coming up. And next thing, you know, I don't know, third of the Zendo started crying, you know, it's just, that's, that's, that's living your life. You know, it's not thinking about your life, you're not thinking about your feelings, or you're just yeah, you're just burning that hard coal, and just allowing things to the, you know, we're, it's Zen practice, really, as time goes on. You just become a more authentic human feeling person.

Speaker 4

59:05

And just just put in a word for dispassion, a lot of that is just not believing your thoughts because, you know, besides a genuine feeling, there's just a ton of bullshit. So yeah, that's the soft call. I guess. Trump was talking about

Speaker 6

59:23

trauma. Yes. On the grasping theme Amanda has checked checking Moneyball In addition, I'm gonna sutra Why do we keep reincarnating and he said, said they just are only two reasons why we keep on reincarnating. One is, we are addicted to things that are impermanent we confuse our luminous mind where our discriminating mind. So that will be the the sort of fun day and the hardcore is ensuring government in the prashna paramita that is that sentence that says the Roshi and the bodhisattva, homie to nothing, whatever. Right? So we have that harmonious, these are the absolute and the relative, right? So when we're in December, right, we cleaned to nothing but when we're walking outside, right, we have to use our discriminating mind. Right? But we have to like you were saying we have to pay attention to whether we are identified. You can say cleaning. Yes, it is a matter of what discovering our language language that works for us. Right. And everybody has a different language. Grasping, you could use another word. So it's, sometimes we're trying to use everybody somebody else's word and take it to heart. But in our heart, it means something else. I need the trick is to find out. How do I use that word? And grasping everybody uses the word grasping. But to use just mean what for me? Just could mean? Well, I am identify.

Trueman Taylor

01:01:10

Yeah, I mean, yeah. Truman, grasping. I mean, I identify myself as Truman and yet you know, I'm not you know, we're not it's what you just said, I'll reminds me of, you know, the Buddha never said that there is no hermit permanent, no self, you know, there is a self you know, grasping or grasping, petty, blah, blah, blah, self, but, but that that can change and it becomes softer identifying with ourselves gets softer. And, you know, we struggle with anger, we get maybe if we've, you know, I've seen you know, I've seen that that's what's so that's what's so great about Sangha is being with Sangha and see it's so hard to see the change in ourselves. But to see the change in others, you know, that Yeah, sure. They they still get angry, they still snap, but it's not as it's, it's, it's cleaner. They don't they don't hold on to it as long or they're just become more I've seen like the most kind of bogged down, I'm including myself in this bogged down, confused, slow drag your feet kind of person. And then I see them come out of ducks on and they're just totally in it. They're totally they're not identifying with whatever's going on in the mind. They're just, they're just right there and they're just a charge out of the ducts on Rome. And it's clean. Um, how are we doing on time? Yeah, there's actually a group coming in at 1040 1045. So that will have the great All right. And I think the doorbell just rang so. I guess with that will recite the four vows

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