This is the fifth day of this. January, 2025, seven day. Rohatsu seshin, going to read one more day from Guo Gu book, silent illumination. Subtitle, a chan Buddhist path to natural awakening.
Picking up where we left off yesterday he was talking about supporting attitudes to cultivate. We talked about interest,
talked about confidence, and there's a final attitude, quality, and that's determination.
He says, confidence and continuous effort together give rise to the prerequisite of determination. Usually, when we think of determination, we think of a diligent practice like a tidal wave. We give it our all, and in the process, we become tense. But this kind of determination is usually contaminated by greed and anger, which are unwholesome mental factors. I want to realize awakening. I want to attain Buddhahood. I want this. I want that. Once, a student asked Master Lin Ji, that's Rinzai, how to escape samsara, the sea of birth and death. Lin ji said, That's samsara. I'm sure the questioner was earnest and determined, but that very desire to escape is grasping. If you are already practicing this Dharma, there is no need for you to always ruminate about liberation, just practice and when the seeking mind ceases, awakening is realized.
People do come to awakening out of a grasping mind, but it has to be laid aside. Has to be finally exhausted. I remember in Roshi Kapleau account of his Ken show, talked about feeling like a dog outside a boiling vat of of oil, desperate to drink it, unable to approach it.
We're unable to approach it because we're still divided something we have to get.
Guo Gu says most of the time we are driven by our need to grasp or reject. This is not determination. Determination may be directed as when we make vows, but it is not directed by greed. Don't think about your own gain, and never give up helping others. Engage in practice with contentment, interest, confidence and determination. Don't let your practice be fueled by grasping, rejecting disinterest or self disparagement. Determination is about being steadfast, trickling on like a fine stream and a continuous flow that does not end even when a big boulder is in the way, the stream simply meanders around it and continues so a chan analogy for determination is a continuous stream of water without gaps, Without seams. This attitude helps us to keep the body and mind relaxed without grasping and at the same time, diligent. This takes discipline and resourcefulness. One of the biggest problems with putting effort into practice is that it becomes. Is discontinuous. We try hard and then we basically falter because we're so tense, because we're grasping. Once we learn how to practice out of a solid basis, comfortable, not reaching out for anything, opening up to what's there. Then we can be more continuous. Can go round after round, looking into the mind. Secret of Zen is sustained effort. It's not a sprint. You
it. Normally when people are tired, they're unable to practice. When they are clear, they practice very well, but we have to be able to practice in all situations, even when we're tired. Have to be able to practice it, to practice in all situations, even when we're tired. Being resourceful is learning to adapt to the conditions of our bodies and minds. That's how we become skillful practitioners. So how do we practice when we're fatigued? We try to fight through the fatigue. We will become more exhausted and our minds will become more scattered. We need to know when to take a rest when the mind is agitated or excited. How do we practice? We may need to relax more and bring the energy of the body downward to get grounded. We learn to approach our practice from different angles, adjusting our attitude accordingly. This is not about mapping out a plan of action. It's about responding to conditions, seeing where we're blocked, noticing how the mind is without becoming obsessed with our state of mind, without continually looking of whether we're doing well or not, not bringing our self judgmental attitudes into our practice. But when we're drowsy, we know that we're drowsy, we're bright alert. We know that as well. They're just conditions. They come and they go. Neither one is a problem. Neither one is the answer. Steady, continuous stream.
Says all of this is part of building a relationship with ourselves when we're skillful, then our practice comes alive. Slowly it becomes less influenced by the limits of our bodies and minds. This comes with patience and as a result of cultivating all the right attitudes, sometimes we have to take a step backward in order to go forward. In practice, going backward is not necessarily regression. Advancing forward is not necessarily progression. We have to assess our practice honestly. You
for example, on retreat. Sometimes, if we push ourselves too much, allowing our grasping mind to step in, to seep in, we then become scattered and thoughts just come flooding in. In those occasions, we have to let the body and mind rest and give ourselves a break. In whatever situation you find yourself, never say, I can't. Instead, ask yourself, How will I practice if you say, I can't, the gate of Chan is closed. If you ask how that a pathway opens don't be limited by our narratives about what we can or can't do. In reality, there's nothing that can't be accomplished, if we put our minds to it. A.
A member sent me a link to a video somebody talking about how to learn to play the harmonica. Really interesting. He made the same point when you're trying to learn something new that you haven't done. Don't see I can or I can't. I haven't got there yet. We don't know how much time it'll take. It doesn't matter. It's not, not our business. Worry about that. I it right now, this is our business. All the rest is just daydreams, looking for things to suffer you.
Henry Ford, the guy who began Automotion with the Model T, said, whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right. I uh, these attitudes, contentment, interest, confidence and determination. Complement one another. We cultivate them together. Sometimes we need more of one than the others. Others. Times we need to develop them together. Or we may explore them one at a time, but the others are always in the background. Practice is an organic process, and each of us is different, so we have to be in tune with the undercurrents of our own interior states and know how to respond when when in doubt, ask a teacher for guidance you
he says the attitudes detailed above are forms of meditation in and of themselves, because they involve Self cultivation with the right cultivation. Our meditation includes all aspects of life, the way we relate to ourselves and others, the way we carry ourselves in daily life, the way we engage with various tasks, the way we live and die. However, we have to start simply before we can really cultivate practice in the complexity of daily life. We do this by practicing seated meditation and simple physical actions like walking and cleaning, where we're not too distracted by too many engagements, where we can face our habits and learn to adjust our attitude accordingly. And of course, seshin is a concentrated dose of sitting and simple activities. The purpose of practice is to take it out into the world, to live our lives, to be present, to be aware, but without charging our battery In this way, it is very hard to do. I
whenever we meditate, we actually bring to our practice our baggage of emotional afflictions and habits. It is precisely because of this that we need to expose, embrace, work through and let go of these afflictions. This is how we align ourselves with our true nature. We are so used to being caught up in our thoughts and feelings that we lose sight of our true nature. The key to meditation is to recognize that the host is not the guest. The comings and goings of thoughts and feelings are like guests coming into our homes. Would you let guests run your home? Of course not. You're the host. You may consult them, but you must be the one to make the final decisions. Most of the time, trouble comes when we listen to the guests our fleeting thoughts and feelings and ignore our responsibility as hosts. For example, some people are extremely affected by self disparaging thoughts. But why should our happiness depend on passing thoughts? Our true Buddha nature? For. Our true nature is already free and liberated.
I wanted to get a bumper sticker said, Why believe what you think? Then
there was another one, honk, if you like honking. You you.
Guo. Gu goes on, who is the host, though, that's the million dollar question. How do we recognize our true nature? We have to use a method of practice with the right attitudes of contentment and great interest,
spaciousness,
to be attracted to the practice, to the moment, to get the taste of zazen, then Let it guide us. It's not about thoughts, it's not about thinking. It's not about churning ideas. Everything we need is right there, bubbling up in front of us and
the right attitudes of contentment and great interest. These two primary attitudes reveal the chan principles of no thought, no form and non abiding we talked about yesterday, as well as the prerequisites of confidence and determination. With these right attitudes, we will be able to directly perceive the host that is realize who we really are. Our practice will flourish when we have the right attitudes, depending on whether we're scattered or drowsy, energetic or fatigued, clear or hazy, a method of practice can be used in a relaxed or intensive way. Method is not fixed. We make it come alive with the attitude we bring to it. Most of us have to start with a relaxed approach. Why? Because most of us are very tense, whether we realize it or not, with a tense body and mind, it is impossible to see what kind of attitude we're bringing to our practice. And while more intense practice can be an antidote for lazy or hazy practice, it can't last long the ability to practice with intensity takes skillfulness, because the body should be completely relaxed with only the mind focused wakefully on the method. Thus the intense approach is established on the foundation of relaxation and I
want to read something from a contemporary Rinzai teacher, Shoto Harada Roshi, the master of soginhi, a temple in in Japan where a number of center members have trained, including Bodhi Roshi and
Harada Roshi says this, the way to avoid this that is haziness in zazen, is to open yourself up as much as possible. This opening is the point of zazen. In fact, the mind becomes clearer in zazen, not through forced concentration, but through ever expanding openness. As we liberate our awareness, it becomes larger and more vast to achieve this openness, you need to relax completely when you feel sleepiness or mental distraction coming on, or when you find yourself getting fuzzy in your focus. Don't try to focus harder. Just rest your eyes on the point in front of you in a way that you're clearly aware of it or. Without forcing your concentration upon it true, one pointed attention does not involve concentrating on one thing and shutting everything else out, but rather opening up your awareness so that everything is seen clearly. You
the nature of awareness is effortless. It's not a willful act. We're naturally aware.
All the gates are open, eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind, you.
I'm skipping ahead a bit. It's a section called control tension, if left unchecked in meditation, influences the way we try to control the method, but we should not contrive when using a method or using a practice, we allow the method simply to be present. The various attitudes and approaches I've discussed above lead to effortlessness and open awareness. By practicing in this way, you are staying with the reality of this present moment, freed from the prison of old habits and erroneous views. There's a special word in chan for our controlling tendencies. It's called Guan die in Chinese, the character Guan means control, but it has the nuance of contrived effort in modern use. Usage, Guan also means management. The character die means to bind or to tie around, as in being tethered to something. The significance of this is that as soon as we try to control something, fixate on it, or make a contrived effort we're tethered by it. Why? Because we're going against the way things are, which is fluid and dynamic. If, for example, we have an emotion and we try to manage it by telling ourselves, don't think or feel that way, substitute this thought with that, then we'll probably end up feeling worse, because we are setting up an opposition and placing ourselves in a situation of conflict when we approach by grounding the body we're simply experiencing being here. What do I mean? We're aware of the act of sitting. How can we be aware that we are sitting here right now? There's a sensation of sitting, the presence of the body, the posture, the bodily weight. Being here. We just relax into being here, that all these sensations are just present. If we reduce the present awareness to the simplest thing, the basic reality that there is a hunk of flesh and bones here, then this body and mind become inseparable from experiencing don't imagine that there is a mind observing the body like a corpse. That is not how to do it. The mind and body are here together, inseparable. Presence is effortless, non controlling. That's why we use the phrase Body, Mind. It's no place where one begins and the other leaves off. Nothing happens to one without affecting the other, just our conventional way dividing ourselves up and
it goes on. The same is true of life. Someone may behave in a disrespectful or dismissive way toward us. We just experience the feeling of pain, the hurt or unpleasantness, even though it is our habit, tendency to instantly solidify the feeling and make it into a thing. We should simply allow it to be present without reacting to it, or, even worse, allowing it to define us. We make it into a thing, we separate ourselves from it and naturally oppose it, self and other become solidified. This is the basis of suffering. It. Embracing the pain, we don't condemn either ourselves or the other person. We experience it as a natural human feeling that tells us something about ourselves, then we can work with it. Be in a better situation to respond and change the situation. If we're grounded, we notice things more. We see what underlies our feeling of hurt, what we are grasping.
This is really good practice, to be able to refrain from making me against you, from understanding everything arises from causes and conditions. People are the way they are because of what they came into this life with and what's happened to them since how their parents raised them. I
The Buddha had the analogy of the empty boat. Imagine you're out on the water in your newly painted row boat, and it's dark Twilight, but you see, in the darkness, you see a boat sort of looming towards you. As it gets closer, it's quite clear, if it doesn't swerve, it's going to hit you. So you yell, hey, hey, I'm over here. Just comes right there crash, looking at a new paint job, so angry at the person in that boat, but the boat is empty. It's just out on the water drifting. Now, what do you do with your anger? Everybody? Everyone is empty. Some people you probably would do well to avoid based on past performance, but everybody just is the way they are. We ourselves are the way we are because of causes and conditions. Forgiveness is a two way street. We can forgive others. We can forgive ourselves. Good thing to feel regret, to repent. We can't beat ourselves up. That's not productive, and beating others up is even less productive life. There are laws about that.
We experiences of natural human feeling that tells us something about ourselves. It's such a change in attitude when you have some sort of setback or bad feeling arrives, arises, and instead of instinctually shrinking away from it, wishing it would go away, and finding some way to wall it off, you have some interest in it. You see what it's telling you about yourself, about your life. You to let it open you up. One of the great things about seshin is how much we suffer. It really is. It really is a way to learn. Can't just always run away from it. Can't just always tough it out. We have to be flexible. Continuous stream. I
if we make it into a thing, we separate ourselves from it and naturally oppose it, self and other become self solidified. This is the basis of suffering. You
it again. If we're grounded, we notice things more. See what underlies our feeling of hurt, what we're grasping our need to control things can be seen in our relationships. For. Example, a parent child relationship, parents often feel the need to control their kids. They provide what is needed, and the children either take advantage of the opportunities they're being offered or they don't. If parents blame themselves for not teaching their children to take these opportunities, then they are creating unnecessary frustrations. We need to be able to discern the difference between our choices and our children's we need to see the workings of causes and conditions. Each of us is merely one factor in the midst of all the complex workings of causes and conditions, we each have our own lives and karma, which we need to experience for ourselves. From our perspective, the choices our children make may not seem to be so good, but that's only our perspective. Maybe they need to experience something challenging in order to be able to rise above it. When our kids become teenagers, it's best for us to relate to them as friends instead of as parents. That is a really difficult time. Feel so sorry for people with children. The best, the greatest revenge, is when your children have children, grandparents, Job is a much better gig.
Relate to them as friends instead of as parents. We let them experience things themselves, but we're always there to support them when they need us. We try our best not to inject our own opinions into their lives. You know, one of the interesting things about Guo Gu he's also known as Jimmy Yu, Jimmy Wu, I think no Jimmy Yu, which I think, is his regular Chinese name. For quite a while, he was a he was a punk rocker. I've seen pictures of him decked out. Somehow he ended up as a monk with Sheng Yen. So I'm sure that he had experiences and found ways to rise above them. I'm sure his parents were probably horrified.
Control never works in relationships. It's the same with practice, because practice is a form of relationship. How we live our lives is replicated in how we practice. Some people, including teachers, practice with the aim of controlling their minds to be clear all the time, moment to moment, they pay attention to every action, noting every detail, walking around like zombies, thinking that this is mindfulness, they suppress their feelings and end up being lifeless and rigid. If we practice in this way, we perpetuate our tendency to control this is just grasping and rejecting, the root of which is greed and aversion. Paradoxically, the more we strive in our practice, the more frustrated we get. The real hallmark of Zen attainment is freedom, responsiveness, being able to relate easily with others, to move with the flow.
It's not lack of effort, but it's a lack of rigidity.
It's an effortless effort. Guo Gu says, in practice, our awareness should not be intense, but effortless, uncontrived. Our sense faculties are open, so they can do what they normally do while still being anchored in the body. Hearing sounds and seeing forms were grounded in the body without dwelling on any particular part of it. Various things may be per sweet perceived, but we're not swayed by them. Our experiencing is effortless because we're not trying to control the mind. Awareness itself is effortless. Sense gates are wide open,
which includes the mind says, If you are the anxious or greedy type, you might think this is not enough. Your mind will jump around from here to there asking for a better method. Being restless. You will come up with all kinds of ideas. I'll check if my posture is correct. Maybe it's better if I use. Another method, then I'll be able to get back to that good experience I had on the last retreat. Or maybe I'm not relaxed enough, maybe I'm not using my method correctly. Sometimes, on account of controlling habits, we develop a very subtle kind of grasping, wherein we start to start holding our focus on a particular aspect of our sitting, perhaps a particular location in the body. Our focus is so constant that there comes a point when the rest of the body disappears. But unlike the natural disappearance of the body, he's referring to a Samadhi state, body just disappears, unlike the natural disappearance of the body, which leaves us with an open, wakeful experiencing this controlled concentration on a body part is something fabricated by the mind that is the object of meditation, becomes static and unchanging, as opposed to vivid and dynamic. The mind has actually left its experience of the present moment and has slipped into sustaining a mental image of sitting or whatever we are fixating on. The original method is gone. We are fixing our mind on a concept that we need to expose what's happening and return to the method. It's simple to do this, but we must do it. We must do it, and be careful, especially if we are the controlling type. Think many of us are the controlling type, for sure, otherwise, we just perpetuate our grasping, not controlling means were relaxed, nonchalant about the method. We're content and at the same time, interested in the method. Imagining. Imagine holding a gemstone in the palm of your hand. You don't lose sight of it. It's there, but you don't have to grip it tightly, fixating your gaze on it. You just let it rest effortlessly in your palm. Your awareness is resting on the gemstone, but not to the exclusion of everything else that is going on around you. You don't try to suppress other sounds in the room or other things that you see. It's just that your interest is resting on the gemstone in your palm. You can use the method like this. The method brings us to the freshness of the present moment. Being with the present moment means not being caught up with what we think it is, with what we want it to be, or make it out to be. We're just experiencing the method, the practice, right now, right here, then mind, body and the present moment become one, unified.
This is what practice is way to unify mind and body
to merge i
All we need to do is to be still.
The author, Franz Kafka said, do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen, do not even listen. Simply Wait, be quiet, stilled, solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked and it will roll in ecstasy at your feet. So much can happen. We learned to do Zazen.
Learn to be here now.
Get the self out of the way, something we can do in seshin. This is our this is our opportunity to lay down these tracks. Learn to return to what's going on right now. Learn to catch ourselves when we get caught up thoughts or discouragement and.
Find something that we can take out into our life for the benefit of ourselves and for others, family, friends and
our time is up. Stop now and recite the four vows i.
