two day seshin, and we'll resume from our our book. Everything arises, everything falls away, teachings on impermanence and the end of suffering, by Ajahn Chah.
And this section is called high ideals and daily frustrations. And then the subtitle here is a young monk with Ajahn Chah, a young monk who had fancied himself an able meditator when he first arrived at what pop Pong told of meeting Ajahn Chah,
well, that should be a first alarm bell had financing himself, an able meditator. The ideas we have about our practice, who we are, our self identification, it runs deep. He related his experiences with different meditation masters or teachers, I should say he I'll start again. He related his experiences with different meditation teachers, feeling that he must be making quite an impression on the master. Oh, there's your second alarm bell. Trying to impress someone else, trying to impress your teacher. Ajahn Chah didn't say a word, but instead left his seat, got down on all fours, and started sniffing around like a dog. The young man realized that Ajahn Chah might be trying to tell him something, so he stayed and undertook the training, and before long, began to feel that he was accomplishing nothing and that life itself was devoid of joy or meaning, convinced he would never smile again, he went to see Ajahn Chah. Ajahn Chah told him, you're like a baby squirrel. It sees the adults climbing trees and jumping from branch to branch, and it wants to do that, so it crawls out on a limb and loses its balance, and bam, it hits the ground. The mother picks it up and brings it back to the tree, but it still wants to jump, run and jump off. It goes again and bam, it falls again. Ajahn Chah continued the tale with the poor little squirrel hitting the ground over and over until the monk who thought he would never smile again, was literally rolling on the floor of the kuti in laughter. Kuti is a monk's hut, by the way, going back to he related his experiences with different meditation teachers, kind of reminds me. I've heard so often from Roshi teisho, you know, the old masters in China, you know, bemoaning the pilgrimage time of monks worthy. Just go from one monastery to another, from teacher to teacher, looking outside themselves, looking comparing, analyzing, yeah, just, it's kind of like just skipping around. I'm, I'm sure there, of course, there's value to to going on a pilgrimage, but, yeah, well, that's, that's what, that's what it's what's written in the in the text, about the Master, the Master, just, you know, always bemoaning the Dharma, dying age and and just kind of, yeah, kind of calling on their students and say, look, look, you're looking outside of yourself. Stop. Stops. Stop, looking outside of yourself, period. Okay, so. But back to this, this young monk who fanned himself, an able meditator later, he was again becoming disheartened over his inability to live up to the high ideals he held about monastic life and meditation, despite all his efforts to follow the rules and practice hard, there's your third alarm vows. He went to see Ajahn Chah to express his frustration. Ajahn Chah told him a story. There was once a donkey who used to listen to the cricket sing in. The donkey thought, how wonderful to be able to sing like that. He asked the other animals what the cricket secret was, and they told them what the crickets Oh. And then these animals, they told him, this donkey that the crickets drink dew. So every morning he went around licking the dew on the grass, and finally, one day, he opened his mouth to sing, but he still brayed like a donkey.
Popeye, I am what I am. It. It's so many of us, maybe all of us in one degree or another. We have, we get stuck in perfection, or we have such, yeah, we put ourselves on a, on a higher, higher expectations, just always. They're just ideas in our head. You know, follow the rules, follow the guidelines as best you can, but don't, don't beat yourself up over making a mistake. There is that saying in Zen, you know, Zen training, it's all about. Zen training is all about making one mistake after another. We're human. It's natural, but yeah, we just kind of place ourselves, at least, I know I did for a long, long time, placing ourselves on a higher bar, a higher standard, thinking that we're better than everybody else, thinking that we're, yeah, we're better meditators than others. It's not like that for everyone. Of course, there's the other side of it, thinking that we're not getting anywhere. We're just, we're just we're just like the useless donkey, you know, we're just not we're not making any progress. We don't see the progress. At least we don't see the progress. Instant, soon enough, and we get disheartened and beat ourselves up. But that that again, it just, it's, it's so unnecessary, you know, because either extreme is just, we're just thoughts. It just thoughts about ourselves.
This reminds I haven't listened to his teisho yet, but I think one of recent teisho by John sensei was, what do you care? What other people think you
Oh, that's the end of that story.
Moving on. I
This chapter is titled meditation instructions, and this subtitle is question and answers. Questions and Answers. Student, I'd like to get calmness. Oh, there's your alarm bell, getting something. No, really, really, that is, this is the radical nature of Zen practice. We're not trying to get anything. We're so conditioned for really, from birth, you know, to getting things identifying. I, yeah, I've often heard from parents, you know, it kind of really sinks in. I don't know when a child is two or three years old. I'm not a parent, so I can't I've never experienced that to see but the child mind like establishing that, that self identification of wanting something, maybe it's a little older, older, someone will have to correct me on that, but yeah, in our society, we just have so there's just so much conditioning from our parents and society in general to get things, to get a career And in and of themselves. Of course, there's nothing wrong with that, but it's, it's the striving and the grasping, the wanting, wanting more kind of is like how it's kind of like, that's, you know, the samsaric wheel. It's just it, just, it just keeps turning and turning. This wheel is suffering, striving, climbing our way to the top. It's, it's really, it's, it really is a deep, deep seated Dukkha that that all of us have to one degree or another. When it comes to that, that kind of, oh, maybe not everyone, in terms of work or positions or I just can't help but think of the television series succession. It's such a deeply, darkly comic look at this constant striving and dominating between siblings, between siblings, putting them down, trying to outmaneuver them. It's just, yeah, in all the history of television, I haven't seen that much, but I mean, he's undoubtedly one of the worst fathers you'll ever experience on television. Just terrible, terrible, terrible, how he just pins one sibling against another,
spiritual materialism. That's another one. And this is something that, yeah, just, I don't think it's any it's not particularly in Zen practice, but it, there's a whole book written about that called spiritual material, wanting, getting enlightenment again. That's what's so radical about this practice, is, is as long as you keep wanting to get as long as there's the idea of enlightenment. It's, it's not going to happen, because it's an again, it's another thought. It's, it's a persistent thought, no doubt, but in our practice, we have to drop everything.
Okay, so back to the student. I like to get calmness. I want to meditate and make my mind peaceful. Ajahn, Chah, there you are. You want to get something. If you really want this, you have to consider what it is that causes the mind to not be peaceful. Reminds me of a Zen story of a monk coming to a master dokan and saying, What is it within you that that you have so much equanimity and peace and responsiveness, and a master shot back? What is it within you that, ha, you have so much anxiety and discontent, resentments.
The Buddha taught that everything happens due to causes, but we expect the fruit to just fall into our hands. It's like wanting to eat watermelon without ever planting watermelons. So where will it come from? You only get some once in a while, and then you think, oh, oh, it's so sweet, so tasty, and you want more. Hey, how can I get more watermelon? Where does it come from? How do people have watermelon to eat? But it doesn't come from merely speculating about it. We have to think it through to get the whole picture. All right, just a little alarm here about think, just see the whole picture. How about that? Look at all activities of the mind having been born into this world. Why is it that we have suffering, difficulty and heaviness we suffer again and again over the same old things, because our insight is not thorough. Okay, so this is coming from Ajahn ta Cha. You know, this is this Thai monastery that he he was Abbot for decades. And, I mean, he had, really, oh, just based on the story that that we read from yesterday of his life, this very demanding teacher. So he's talking about deep, deep inside here, because our insight is not thorough. What's the problem? He asks, we are living with and creating troubles for ourselves, but we don't understand where the difficulty really lies. Living at home. We feel we have difficulties with our spouses or children, whatever. We talk about it, but we don't truly understand it. So it really is difficult. Struggling to get the mind to Samadhi is the same. We can't figure out why. We can't realize Samadhi. We need to understand the truth of cause and effect. Okay, so he's talking about karma here. We need to understand the truth of cause and effect. What causes put us in this condition? Everything arises from causes, but we don't get it. It's like having a bottle full of water then drinking it all and hoping for more. There's no more water that can come out of the bottle, but if we get water from a stream, then we can keep drinking, because the stream keeps providing water. The stream is like being the stream is like seeing impermanence, unsatisfactoriness. And not self deeply. Okay, so he now he's talking about what, in Buddhism, we call the three marks of human existence, impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, or dukkha, impermanence, dukkha and no self. So he's talking about awakening. Here he's talking about the stream of awakening, seeing into that, seeing into this impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and not self, deeply knowing it, thoroughly ordinary, superficial knowledge. Think he uses knowledge as in can translate that as in insight. So I'll use that word ordinary. Superficial insight doesn't know thoroughly. But with penetrating insight, we realize the full depth and flavor of these three characteristics. And then whatever arises, we see the truth of it. When it ceases, we see the truth of that. The mind is always perceiving reality. And with this view, we have arrived at a place of peace where there is no suffering or difficulty to bear. The problem of grasping onto things and giving them meaning will keep easing up. We see things arise and see them pass away, arising again and ceasing again look at this Dharma frequently. Develop this awareness a lot. The result will be detachment and dispassion. Dispassion, this passion, you become dispassionate about absolutely everything. Alright? Right, this dispassionate, don't misunderstand. It sounds like some kind of cold, robotic response, or feeling that we're not feeling anything, or, yeah, it's just, it's, it's non attachment we don't get. We're like an anchor. We're like the anchor in an ocean, you know, keeping that ship a mobile that's what it is, really this, this, yeah, it's, no, I can't think of a better word than just being centered, not being, not reacting, not reacting, not act, reacting and acting. In an unskillful way, you know, yeah, just being centered.
It's not an all or nothing thing, by the way. It just doesn't happen instantly. This is something that, well, it's something that when, when through our Zen practice, there will come a time where we don't get thrown off by, say, reading the news because of such and such a person did such and such a thing in life, or something that we read, we just observe it, we see it, and we don't react to it. We don't we don't get frustrated, we don't get angry. And then, you know, there's something else that will throw us off, but that's okay. The longer and deeper you get into the practice, the more things change you
and then sometimes it's, we just don't get thrown off as much. It's not as harsh. It's not as that's what you know, enlightenment. You can see it as lightning. You get you just get lighter, get more centered, just it just takes time.
The thing that contacts the ears, eyes, nose and tongue, the things that are born in the mind. So that sounds familiar, doesn't it? Passion, paramita, no, eyes, ear, nose, tongue, buddy, mind, all our senses, we will comprehend clearly. We will see that they are all the same, seeing that all these dharmas that is phenomena are of the nature of impermanence, suffering and no self and are not to be grasped even in the slightest. Detachment is born when the eye sees forms or the ear hears sounds. We know them for what they are, when the mind is happy or suffering, when it has reactions of satisfaction or aversion. We. Know all these things. If we attach to these things, they stick to us and immediately lead us into becoming if we release them, they go their way. Let go of sights, and they go the way of sights. Let go of sounds, and they go the way of all sounds. But when we need to, we can make use of them.
Let things go according to their nature. If we are aware in this way, we will see the fact of impermanence. All phenomena that appear are illusion, without exception, without exception. Kind of reminds me of I thought about this recently, or I just remember, you know, you know, we Roshi Kapleau used to make the distinction between thinking and thoughting. You know that the intellect is great. It's a powerful tool, the sprain of ours, using it, using our intellect, it's just the problem, of course, is that so much of the time we're just caught up in the past, the future, fantasies, thoughting, not thinking, thoughting. So what about seshin? Well, seshin is actually none of it's any good, no thinking, no thoughting, none of it, without exception, they are all deceptive. But when we recognize that they are deceptions, we can truly be at ease having mindfulness and clear, oh, one thing here, going back to the but when we recognize that they are deceptions, we can truly be at ease. That just reminded me of, you know, that's always instruction about makio. You know, when we get stuck, not so much in two days of Sheng, but it's more. It can occur more frequently, especially in the later part of seshin, of a 70s seshin, not all of us are plagued with those. Some of us, it's just a little bit. Some of us, it's a lot. Does not mean any particular whether we're making progress or not. Well, if we're having makio, that is kind of a sign that we've gotten deeper into our practice. And then, then the mind starts. We just start hallucinating. Like I said, not all of us. I've had very little makio Throughout my Zen career, but some of us are really plagued with that. Always, always, always, Roshi says, you know, the first thing is, you notice it, and you can say, it's makio, noticing it, and then that just, even just putting that label, okay, it's makio. Alright. Get back to the practice. You know, can be helpful,
having mindfulness and clear comprehension, having wisdom. We don't see anything but this fact that phenomena arise and are of this nature, alright? So, you know, this is a mindfulness tradition, so he'll use words like mindfulness and clear comprehension having wisdom. We won't get into defining those don't need to. You know, for us as practitioners in this school, it's mu or what is it? Or following the breath,
even when we are not doing anything in particular, whatever we may be thinking, we will recognize our thoughts as being just like that, and won't get caught up in them. If the mind becomes tranquil, we will think tranquil. No big deal. Tranquility is not permanent, alright, so, yeah, that that is a tricky one, you know, we just this look at this morning, you know, this. Not everyone might feel like this, but I'm going to bring up anyway, some people reported it in private instruction. I could feel it. The the Zen do was really still this morning, you know. But what happens is we get into that deeper constant. We get into that deeper state. The Zen do is still, and then, ah, alright. Things, things are like, really moving along here, you think to yourself, and then you're just, alright, I'm doing great. And then just one thought out, and then the next, you know, wait a minute, what's my practice? You're just, you're just lost in thought, and the stillness will still be there. But you know, it's, it's grasping to that stillness, grasping onto it, that can kind of, we end up veering off. So it's, you know, it's not just, it's not just clinging to the negative, so called negative thoughts of, I can't do this. It's, you know, there's the other side of it too, you know, from from the the hours and days that we've been sitting, we're, we're and we get into deeper concentration. I can feel it. Can feel it even in a two day. And then the next thing you know, we're off and running and saying things are going great and and we're like that young meditator from that previous story. You
we suffer over things that aren't really attainable because of thinking things not worth thinking. We all we have all sorts of desires and want things to be a certain way, wanting to be anything, such as if you want to be in our arhat a fully enlightened being, it's bringing suffering upon yourself. The Buddha taught us to stop wanting to be something, because he realized that all this wanting to get something and to be something is suffering.
Student, I want to ask for a meditation object that suits my temperament. Sometimes I practice repeating Buddha for a long time, but the mind doesn't settle down. I tried meditating on the parts of the body. Then I tried recollection of death, but I didn't become tranquil. So my wits ends and as to what to do. Ajahn Chah, put it down when you're at your wit's end. Let go.
Student, sometimes there is more some tranquility. But then memories start coming. A lot of memories, and I get scattered and disturbed again. That sound familiar? Ajahn, Chah, there you are. Impermanence, impermanence. All of it is impermanent. Just keep instructing your mind. Not certain, not sure. Absolutely. All phenomena are uncertain. Don't forget this point. If the mind is unsettled, that is uncertain, if the mind is peaceful that is likewise uncertain. Don't grasp either state, either state. Don't grasp either state, and don't take any of these conditions as real consciousness is impermanent. Have you heard this before? Have you studied this? What will you do about it? Alright, so it seems like there is a certain kind of practice that he's encouraging we're saying, not certain, not sure. Of course, again for us, it's just it's always returning, returning our attention back to to mu or what is it? The breath, tranquility is not permanent. Agitation is not permanent. So how will you practice, what view will you take of things? If you have the right understanding, then you recognize these conditions of tranquility and agitation as unsure things. Then what kind of feeling will you have? Keep looking here, if your mind becomes peaceful, how many days will that last? If it's disturbed, how many days did that last? Just keep saying not certain, then we're where will things stay? Keep driving them out on this in this way, it does kind of, I've actually started carrying this, yeah, just the whole kind of post sesshin experience, where people get frustrated because after a day or two, they're they, they don't have the concentration that they had their mind. I my own personal experience after, especially after sesshin, is, if you're not on your practice, then really your mind can, I can get really distracted, you know, but if I am on my practice and of course, especially after our seven day seshin, it's so much easier to do that moving zazen to to move in and out of our life, in and out of the house, in and out of the buildings, just driving everything, just kind of just being more with it more more present. And then the flip side is that is, if I'm not, then the mind can get really scattered. That's my experience after Sheng. But a lot of people express, you know, frustration about after seshin, not having a. Yeah. I mean, the only way we're going to always have this stillness, this deep concentration, is if we're we're sitting all the time like that, which, of course,
that's not our way. That's not what we do. But what we do do is a lot of seshin a lot of seshins are available. I
you practice Buddha and you're not peaceful. You practice mindfulness of breathing and you're not peaceful. Why are you so attached the idea of of the idea of tranquility? Practice reciting Buddha, Buddha and recognize uncertainty. Practice, practice, mindfulness of breathing and recognize uncertainty. Don't make such a big deal out of your states of mind, whether peaceful or agitated. They are only going to trick you because of this grasping attachment. We have to be a little more clever than they are. When either condition comes, we know it is as uncertain, then things subside. Try it out. If
someone wants to do a lot of Samadhi practice, I applaud that the teachings speak of liberation through concentration and liberation through wisdom. Liberation means attaining freedom from the taints of craving and ignorance. There are these two types with liberation through concentration. One develops the power of the mind through Samadhi, so that wisdom can come about. Almost feels like he's talking about seshin. Now, some trees will grow well if you give them a lot of water, but some need only a little water, like the pine trees here, don't give them too much water, or they'll die on you. Some trees grow and bloom and so little water. With so little water, it can seem strange how they do that meditation practice is similar in liberation through concentration. You practice meditation strictly, and you need to develop a lot of Samadhi. This is one approach, like the trees that need lots of water in order to grow. I
just a little bit here.
No, I think we'll move on. Let's
go to the next chapter. I
ah, keep at it. Little by little, we can work at meditation. We don't have deep knowledge yet again, we don't have deep insight yet. We don't really know what we're doing, but we we can progress a little at a time. We may not know what we benefit from it. We may not know that we benefit from it, but we do little by little. When you eat your food, are you full? After the first mouthful, you won't feel that way, but you could say you're full, though not very full. Take the second mouth full, and you're more full, but still, it's just a little. If you keep on eating a little at a time, you will get there. Think about it. Look ahead, and you will see where you are going. Finally, you will you will be slowly chewing your last mouth mouthful. Small things accumulate and hunger is reduced, until finally, you will be full. So, yeah, he's just talking about the long, steady patience of practice of just keep just keep doing it. Old folks here will tell you there's fire and dry bamboo. In the past, matches were hard to come by and didn't always work. When people went into the forest, they could just find some dry wood, and they knew there was fire in it. Whenever they wanted to cook, they only had to rub two pieces of dry bamboo together to start a fire. They would just keep rubbing them together. At first, the wood was cold, rubbing for a while it got hot. Then after some time, there was smoke. But it did take. Take a while to get hot, and even more time to make smoke and finally, fire. Now we, their children and descendants in these times, don't have much patience if we try to rub pieces of bamboo to make fire within two minutes, we're getting restless. We get fed up and put the sticks down. Time to take a break. Then we pick them up again. We find their cold. We start rubbing once more, but we're starting from the beginning again, so they don't get hot very quickly. And again, we get impatient like this. We could keep it at it for an hour or a whole day and wouldn't see any fire. We rub and stop, rub and stop, then we start to criticize the old people. These old timers are crazy. I don't know what they're talking about. They must be lying. I've been rubbing the sticks all this time and still there's nothing.
Bodhidharma, there is no instant Zen practice. There is only patient practice. This story of rubbing these, these bamboo wood for fire, it kind of reminds me of that other story of of water that's 100 feet deep. You can, you can dig a hole 99 feet long, but you'll never strike it. You know, 567, holes, 98 feet long. 97 it's, it's, it's the it's just the persistence that the the daily meditation practice is so key.
And the thing about patience too, is patience is like a muscle, like year after year of doing this practice, we become more patient. We become more we persevere with the the perseverance muscle increases. I mean, of course, at a certain point, I can't speak for everyone, but I've heard this so many time, so many times from others, is we reach a point in our practice if we have a daily practice where we just have to do it every day. It's, it's, it's, it's non, uncostable. We just, we just have to do it. You
all right. So back to yeah, let me just quote that again. Then we start to criticize the old people. These old timers are crazy. I don't know what they're talking about. They must be lying. I've been rubbing the sticks all of this time, and still there's nothing. And then back to Ajahn Chah. This is what happens if our understanding and commitment to practice don't go far enough. There's not enough heat, but we expect to have fire. The old folks have done that, but they know it takes some effort. But they know it takes some effort. You have to keep rubbing without taking a break. If you take a break, you only get cold sticks. It's like the students who travel here to study meditation. They listen to some teaching, and they want to get it fast. They want to find the method of meditation that will give them results. Fastest of all, I tell them, if you want fastest, it won't work. There's such a thing as cause and result. The results will be born of the appropriate causes. It doesn't simply appear in an instant as we desire it to fastest even the Buddha would be stumped. You.
We will progress on the path because of continuous effort, just like someone rubbing pieces of bamboo to get fire rubbing without stopping, the heat increases. The more she rubs, the hotter it gets when smoke appears, fire is near, but at the point when she gets smoke, she doesn't take a break. It's not a game, so she knows she has to keep at it, and that way she gets fire. I
Well, it feels like this is a good place to stop. I. Will now recite the four vows I.
