This is the sixth day of this November 2023, seven day sesshin. I'm going to pick up from where we left off yesterday, reading from the book Everyday Zen: Love and Work by Charlotte, Joko Beck, edited by Steve Smith.
And if you recall, we finished with Joe koans description of the three months she spent learning to play about half a minute of music from piano teacher at the Oberlin Conservatory.
And what she learned, she says, during those three months, was just to hear, says I learned to pay attention to why he was such a great teacher, he taught his students to pay attention. And working with him, they really heard they really listened. And when you can hear it, you can play it. And finished beautiful pianists would finally come out of his studio. Then she goes on. It's that kind of attention, which is necessary for our Zen practice. We call it Samadhi. This total oneness with the object. But in my story, that attention was relatively easy. It was an object that I liked. This is the oneness of any great art. Any great artist, I'd say any great athlete.
Anybody like that, who has to learn to pay attention.
Learn to be in the flow, letting the game come to them for talking about athletes. When I was not yet a teenager, I don't think I was playing Little League Baseball. Back in the day when you actually played with a hard ball, which is not so big as a softball. And I hit my one homerun of my career. And when the when the pitch came to the plate, it looked like a grapefruit. That's all there was. And then I was running around the bases. At any moment, we can drop into a state of oneness. It's almost uncanny. It's right there. The only reason we don't see it, it's because we're busying ourselves elsewhere. to one degree or another. Like everyone else in the world
she says this kind of this, doing this in Zen practice is much harder. It's also much more important. It has a much greater effect on the quality of our life than the sort of Samadhi that we can get into with athletics or with art. It's wonderful. But how many twisted artists and messed up athletes do we know about?
When they're when their success fades. They're an athlete when they're too old to perform at the level they once could. It's a whole new challenge for them. Some can manage it and some don't.
Again, we have to pay attention to this very moment. The totality of what is happening right now. And the reason we don't want to pay attention is because it's not always pleasant. It doesn't suit us And I go beyond Well, yeah, because it's not always pleasant even when it is pleasant. We're worried that it's going to be unpleasant. We've all to one degree or another, been burned by life. She says, we remember what has been painful. We constantly dream about the future, about the nice things we're going to have are going to happen to us. So we filter anything happening in the present through all that, through all of that, I don't like that. I don't have to listen to that. And I can even forget about it and start dreaming of what's going to happen.
We've, I would say we value the present as a sort of prediction, an early warning system. What unfortunate news are we going to suddenly receive? I have an old habit, I don't think I've broken it completely. When I get a letter, and it looks like maybe this is not good news. Or maybe this is some difficult request, it sits on open for a day or two. Why do I do that?
Joker says, this goes on constantly spinning, spinning, spinning, always trying to create life in a way that will be pleasant. That would make us safe and secure. So we feel good. But when we do that, we never see this right here. Now, this very moment, we can't see it because we're filtering. What's coming in is something quite different. Ask any 10 People who read this book, you'll find they all tell you something different. They'll forget the parts that don't quite catch them. They'll pick up something else. And they'll even block out the parts they don't like. Even when we go to our Zen teacher, we hear only what we want to hear. Being open to a teacher means not just hearing what you want to hear, but hearing the whole thing. And the teacher is not there simply to be nice to you.
Sometimes it's takes a while we have to hear the same thing again and again. It's why there's so much repeating the same thing in teachers, talks, monitors talks. Then one day, you hear it? Why didn't you tell me that? Till we hear it doesn't help.
She says the crux of Zen is this, all we must do is constantly to create a little shift from the spinning world we've got in our heads to right here. Now. That's our practice. The intensity and ability to be right here now is what we have to develop. We have to be able to develop the ability to say no, I won't spin off up here to make that choice. Moment by moment, our practice is like a choice, a fork in the road. We can go this way we can go that way. It's always a choice moment by moment between our nice world that we want to set up in our heads. And what really is. It's not always a nice world or setting up in our heads either. Sometimes it's a word of world of conflict, and despair. But we're used to that world that world of thought can't let it go. What JOCO calls elsewhere emotion, thought, thoughts, the trigger emotions, trigger more thoughts. find ourselves stuck in a cycle.
Between our world nice or not nice, and what we want to set up in our heads and what really is. And what really is it is Enza Sheen is often fatigue, boredom and pain in our legs. What we learn from having to sit quietly with that discomfort is so valuable that if it didn't exist, it should. When you're in pain, you can't spin off. You have to stay with it. There's no place to go So pain is really valuable. Or Zen training is designed to enable us to live comfortable lives. But the only people who live comfortably are those who learn not to dream their lives away. But to be with what's right here. Now, no matter what it is good, bad, nice, not nice headache, being ill being happy. It doesn't make any difference.
Gradually, we learned not to be afraid of being uncomfortable. It's life, we're going to be uncomfortable.
Bodhidharma said, Everyone who has a body is an error to suffering. JOCO says, one mark of a mature Zen student is a sense of groundedness. When you meet one, you sense it. There with life as it as it's really happening, not as a fantasy version of it. And of course, the storms of life eventually hit them more lightly. If we can accept things just the way they are, we're not going to be greatly upset by anything. And if we do become upset, it's over more quickly.
It's always remarkable and moving. When you see somebody who's dying. Who can handle it was there it was okay with it. No, that was the case with my mother's younger brother died of lung cancer said I've had a good life. My my son's biological father, the Greek guy named Ernie contracted one of the forms of leukemia. And it was it was pretty much destined to be fatal. He ended up dying actually from the effects of the chemo that he was given. At some point, the doctors came into his room. There had been some test which should look like everything was clearing up and turned out they'd been reading a test from someone else. Just egregious, of course. And the doctor said, Mr. Waker, you've been dealt a really tough hand. And he said, No, I haven't. I've been dealt a wonderful hand. I've had a wonderful life that really had an effect on an Ernie, his children, my son as well as his half brother Peter.
Joko says, let's look at the sitting process itself. What we need to do is to be with what's happening right now. You don't have to believe me, you can experiment for yourself. When I'm drifting away from the present, what I do is listen to the traffic. Because Zendo was in the city of San Diego. And there was pretty much constant traffic going by. I make sure that there is nothing I miss. Nothing. I just really listen. And that's as good as a koan. Because that's what's happening this very moment. So as Zen students, you have a job to do a very important job, to bring your life out of Dreamland, and into the real and immense reality that it is.
The job is not easy, takes courage. Only people who have tremendous guts can do this practice for more than a short time. We don't just do it for ourselves. Perhaps we do it first. That's fine. But as our life gets grounded, gets real gets basic. Other people immediately sense it, and what we are begins to influence everything around us. We are actually the whole universe. But until you see that clearly. You have to work with what your teacher tells you to work with. Have some faith in the total process. It's not only faith. It's also something like Science. Others before you have done the experiment, and they've had some results from that, about all you can do is say, well, at least I can try the experiment. I can do it. I can work hard. It's as much as any of us can do. The Buddha is nothing but exactly what you are right now. Hearing the cars, feeling the pain in your legs, hearing my voice, that's the Buddha. You can't catch hold of it. The minute you try to catch it, it's changed. Being what you are at each moment means for example, fully being our anger when we are angry. That kind of anger never hurts anybody because it's total complete. We really feel this anger this knot in our stomach, and we're not going to hurt anybody with it. The kind of anger that hurts people is when we smile sweetly. And underneath we're seething.
Most Dangerous anger is when we don't even know we're angry. Completely spun off
just to know you're angry. Such an important step. When you do you can be direct you can speak from your direct experience, you can say I'm really angry now.
Instead, we want to deploy sarcasm or some I'll say something to make the people person feel like the idiot they are
not surprising that they can't see it our way. She says when you sit, don't expect to be noble. Well, we give up when we give up the spinning mind even for a few minutes and just sit with what is then this presents that we are is like a mirror. We see everything. We see what we are our efforts to look good to be first or to be last. We see our anger our anxiety, our pomposity, our so called spirituality. real spirituality is just being with all that. If we can really be with Buddha, who we are, then it transforms. So good to see our faults without the compunction to sweep them under the rug desperately spin away from them.
I'm going to read here, something I've read before. It's kind of a seminal text from Anthony de Mello. Forgive me if you've heard this more than once.
He says, you want to see how mechanical you really are. My that's a lovely shirt you're wearing? You feel good hearing that. For a shirt for heaven's sake. You feel proud of yourself when you hear that? People come over to my center in India. And they say, what a lovely place these lovely trees, this lovely climate. And already I'm feeling good until I catch myself feeling good. And I say Hey, can you imagine anything as stupid as that? I'm not responsible for those trees. I wasn't responsible for choosing the location. I didn't order the weather. It just happened. But me got in there. So I'm feeling good. And feeling good about my culture and my nation. How stupid can you get? I mean that. I'm told my great Indian culture has produced all these mistakes. I didn't produce them. I'm not responsible for them. Or they tell me this country of yours and it's poverty. It's disgusting. I feel ashamed. But I didn't create it. What's going on? Did you ever stop to think people tell you I think you are very charmed. Making so I feel wonderful. I get a positive stroke. That's why they call it. I'm okay. You're okay. That was a title of a book that was written in the 60s and became very popular in the early 70s. On the bestseller list for a couple of years. Written by Thomas Anthony Harris, I'm okay. You're okay. And de Mello says, I'm going to write a book someday and the title will be I'm an ass urine s. That's the most liberating wonderful thing in the world when you openly admit you're an ass. It's wonderful. When people tell me you're wrong, I say what can you expect of an ass disarmed, everybody has to be disarmed. In the final liberation. I'm an ass urine s. Normally the way it goes, I press a button and you're up. I press another button and you're down and you like that? How many people do you know who are unaffected by praise or blame? That isn't human, we say human means you have to have be a little monkey. So everyone can twist your tail, and you do whatever you ought to be doing. But is that human? If you find me charming, it means that right now you're in a good mood, nothing more. It means I fit your shopping list. We all carry a shopping list around and it's as though you've got to measure up to this list. Tall, dark, handsome. According to my tastes, I like the sound of his voice. You say I'm in love. You're not in love you silly ass. Anytime you're in love, I hesitate to say this, you're being particularly asinine. Sit down and watch what's happening to you. You're running away from yourself. You want to escape. Somebody wants said thank God for reality, and for the means to escape from it. So that's what's going on. We are so mechanical, so controlled. We write books about being controlled and how wonderful it is to be controlled, and how necessary it is to tell people that you're okay. Then you have a good feeling about yourself. How wonderful it is to be in prison. Or if somebody said to me yesterday to be in your cage. Do you like being in prison? Do you like being controlled? Let me tell you something. If you ever let yourself feel good, when people tell you that you're okay, you are preparing yourself to feel bad when they tell you you're not good. As long as you live to fulfill other people's expectations. You better watch what you wear, how you comb your hair, whether your shoes are polished. In short, whether you live up to every damn expectation of theirs. Do you call that human? This is what your you'll discover. When you observe yourself. You'll be horrified. The fact of the matter is you're neither okay nor not okay. You may fit the current mood or trend or fashion does that mean you've become okay? Does your okayness depend on that? Does it depend on what people think of you? Jesus Christ must have been pretty not okay, by those standards. You're not okay. And you're not not okay. You're you. I hope that is going to be the big discovery. At least for some of you. If three or four of you make this discovery during these days we spend together what a wonderful thing extraordinary cut out all the okay stuff and the not okay stuff, cut out all the judgments and simply watch observe. You'll make great discoveries. These discoveries will change you. You won't have to make any effort believe me. Well, you'll have to make the effort to pay attention but practice changes us without our intentionality without are trying to go in any particular direction. We don't say I want to be more kind. Let me model kindness. See our connection and kindness arises naturally.
As Joko says, We see our anger our anxiety, our pump paucity, our so called spirituality. If we can really be with Buddha who we are, then it transforms Shibayama a row she once said and says, Jean, this Buddha that you all want to see, this Buddha is very shy, it's hard to get him to come out and show himself. Why is that? Because the Buddha is ourselves, and will never see the Buddha until we're no longer attached to all this extra stuff. We've got to be willing to go into ourselves, honestly, we can be totally honest with what's happening right now, then we'll see it can't just have a piece of the Buddha Buddha's come whole. Our practice has nothing to do with, oh, I should be good, I should be nice, I shouldn't be this or that. I am who I am right now. And that very state of being is the Buddha.
And then she goes on, I once said something in the Zendo that upset a lot of people. I said to do this practice, we have to give up hope. Not many, we're happy about that. But what did I mean? I meant that we have to give up this idea in our heads that somehow, if we could only figure it out, there's some way to have this perfect life that is just right. For us. Life is the way it is. And only when we begin to give up those maneuvers, does life become more satisfactory? When I say to give up hope, I don't mean to give up effort. Zen students, we have to work unbelievably hard. But when I say hard, I don't mean straining and effort. It isn't that what is hard, is this choice that we have to make, repeatedly. And if you practice hard, go into a lot of sessions, work hard with a teacher. If you're willing to make that choice consistently over a period of time, that one day, you'll get your first little glimpse. This first little glimpse of what this moment is, it might take a year, two years or 10 years. But take a lifetime.
She says Now that's the beginning just the beginning, that one little glimpse takes a 10th of a second. But that isn't enough.
The Enlightened life is seeing that all the time. It takes years and years and years of work to transform ourselves to the point where we can do it. I don't mean to sound discouraging, you might feel you probably don't have enough years left to do it. But that's not the point. At every point in our practice, it's perfect. As we practice life steadily becomes more fulfilling, more satisfactory, better for us better for other people. But it's a long, long continuum. People have some silly idea that they're going to be enlightened in two weeks.
When we're focused solely on having some experience, that experience can actually become a hindrance. Whether it's Kensho, approved by a teacher or just a moment of insight, some oceanic feeling some shift. Have to be careful to let it go. Everything we find we find because we've let everything go. And we've sunk into this moment. The choice we need to make. It's always heartening, when that happens when things shift in one way or another in a good way. But we keep going. As she says it's a long, long continuum. Maybe we've taken two or three steps on a journey that goes 1000 miles. There's no end to practice.
Joko says already we are the Buddha. There's just no doubt about that. How could we be anything else? We're all right here now. Where else could we be? But the point is to realize clearly what this means. This total oneness, this harmony and be able to express that in our lives. That's what takes endless work and training takes guts. It's not easy, takes a real devotion to ourselves and to other people. Now, of course, as we practice, all these things grow even the guts, we have to sit with pain and we hate it. I don't like it either. But as we patiently just sit our way through that, something builds within us working with a teacher, seeing what she or he is, we are slowly transformed by this practice. It's not by anything, we think that by something we figure out in our heads, were transformed by what we do. And what is it that we do? We constantly make that choice. We give up our ego centered dreams for this reality that we really are. We may not understand it. At first, it may be confusing. When I first heard talks by teachers, I think, what are they talking about, but have enough faith, just to do your practice, sit every day, go through the confusion. Be very patient, and respect yourself for doing this practice. It's not easy. Anyone, anyone who sits through Zen sesshin is to be congratulated. I'm not trying to be hard on you. I think people who come to this practice are amazing people. But it's your job to take that quality you have and work with it. We're all just babies. The extent to which we can grow is boundless. And eventually, if we're patient enough and work hard enough, we have some possibility of making a real contribution to the world.
What is that contribution can be a smile when it's not expected. Can be seeing what's going on with another person can be sharing our enjoyment with others. Remember hearing once of a ticket taker, a toll taker think on the New York Thruway on some through a toll road. Who was just absolutely the happiest person imaginable. And people would come through the tollgate. And their day would turn around. It's infectious. When somebody is going with life. It helps everyone else. None of us do that all the time. But all of us do that every now and then. When we do we're making a real contribution to the world. find our way out even if only momentarily from the mess we ordinarily live in. Let go of our rigidity let go of our sense that we have to present a certain face to the world
there's a saying in AAA came to realize I'm just a garden variety drunk. All of us just garden variety, acids tripping over ourselves all the time. Everybody else when we see it, what can we do? But be kind, kind to others and their mistakes kind to ourselves?
What can hardness do?
What we're learning in practice, is to be responsive to be flexible. Not to get stuck and to see when we are stuck and then break free. make that choice
Laden's machine, it can become much easier to find our way in. Even if even if you're still struggling, all the Zen that you've done is with you. The mind has settled the deep level, all of us are in an excellent condition, a settled condition all we need to do is not spin off, be patient and open, see what happens. Be willing, be willing for things to work out however they do.
Find a way to make an effort, a real effort that's not constrained and desperate, intense, steady, patient willing.
Ken Joker says, in this oneness that we finally learned to live in, that's where the love is not some kind of soupy version, but a love with real strength. We want it for our lives. We want it for other people's lives. We want it for our children, our parents, our friends. So it's up to us to do the work. That's the process. Whether we choose to do it is up to us. The process may not be clear to many of you, it takes years before it becomes clear so that you really know what you're doing. Just do the best you can. Stay with your sitting. Come to sesshin come to sit and let's all do our best.
Okay, our time is up. We'll stop now and recite the Four Vows
