Right View and the Three Marks of Existence

John Pulleyn41min

John Pulleyn00:00

Today is December 8, 2024 this is, traditionally in Japan, known as rohatsu, the eighth of December, the date on which the Buddha's great enlightenment experiences is celebrated. And on Tuesday, this coming Tuesday, we'll be having a ceremony here in the Zen do that honors that that event, and it's a nice ceremony. If you, if you can come, I encourage you to do that.

John Pulleyn00:39

The title of my talk is straight from the Buddha's teaching to right view and the three marks of existence. There's a one of the reasons why the Zen do is not as full as it usually is, is that there are a couple handfuls of people out at Chapin Mill. There's a Dharma camp going on. Sanya James Wilson leading it. The group, seeing through racism, has been doing this for the past few years, and I was out there yesterday, Sangha invited me to come out and give a talk and provided me with a Sutra that she wanted me to comment on, very short Sutra, and that's where this talk comes from. I don't have the bandwidth to do two talks at once, and when it occurred to me that everybody out there is going to still be out there on Sunday morning, I realized, yep, this is the golden opportunity to double dip, so hopefully the second helping will be a little bigger. So right view, right view, most many people know, is the first of the eight steps on the eight fold path. You know, when the Buddha gave his first sermon on the Four Noble Truths, truth of suffering, the end of suffering, that there is a way to transcend, to go beyond suffering, to see into suffering that final truth is the eightfold path, which summarized briefly as right view, right intention, right speech, right actions, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration. Normally, I know whenever I heard Roshi run through those eight, he would run through pretty quickly and say that in Zen, our understanding is that we can through concentration, which is basically the our translation of the word Diana, which is the same as zazen, can through zazen, see into the nature of reality and go beyond suffering. But I think even in even in Zen practice, there's an understanding of how important it is, how what our attitude is towards practice and towards others, towards our life, towards our death. And that starts with right view, the very first step in the path. And so today, that's what I'm going to talk about, the views we hold and often, you know, people do Zazen for decades, and they're still hanging on to what we can call wrong views. They still have the idea that there's something wrong with them. Still have the idea that there's something they have to get. They still have the idea that they can just coast so many ways that we take the pressure off of ourselves, or try to try to make things a little easier and end up making them harder. In other TA shows, I've talked about some of the factors that the chan teacher Guo Gu has brought up that are conducive to deep zazen, things like contentment, determination, interest,

John Pulleyn04:56

but right view maybe is even more fun. Foundational than that right view is we could one way to put it is that right view is understanding the nature of our lives, the nature of reality and the buds most the Buddha's Buddha's most succinct way of putting that was the three marks of existence, three characteristics of existence, and those are variously translated, but it's impermanence. Nothing ever stays the same. Everything is changing in constant flux. Impermanence, suffering. Inevitably, if we have a body, we're going to suffer physically. And if we have a mind, we're going to suffer mentally. And of course, in the formulation of the Four Noble Truths, suffering is the very first, we have impermanence, suffering. And then the final is no self or not self.

John Pulleyn06:08

We think we're living in a world of things. Outside the door to that inner office in the teacher's corners, there's a there's a hanging calligraphy there, and it says from the very beginning, there has never been a single thing. Everything, if we look deeply into it, is a process. Everything is in flux. Everything is changing. What Buddhism is taught for several couple millennia is the same conclusion that science has reached. The closer you look, the more mysterious it becomes, till finally, you're down at the quantum level, and God knows what's down there you

John Pulleyn07:04

so understanding, understanding impermanence, is really a foundation to practice. No Roshi often would say that the teacher could be replaced with a sign in the dokan room that says this will pass so many of the problems that we get hung up on, that people bring in, are just passing clouds, Passing moods. We'll talk a lot more about that. You

John Pulleyn07:44

there is there's a real resistance to seeing that everything is impermanent. There's a resistance to seeing that inevitably we will die. This is a big point in Buddhism, just contemplating the inevitability of death, the uncertainty of the time of death. And this isn't exclusive to Buddhism, either, certainly a practice in the Christian and the Catholic Church.

John Pulleyn08:20

But we resist. We don't want to understand that everything we've gained so so much care and struggle, everything we've been able to accumulate and get set up is temporary, that the nature of all things is to vanish. Want to find a way to avoid void suffering, to chase good feelings, block out bad feelings. We go chasing after praise and recognition. Want to feel good about our ephemeral selves, the more deeply you practice, the more you see those tendencies. You see how we are. Everybody is like this,

John Pulleyn09:15

to have this die down to some extent, this attempt to arrange things so we don't have to suffer, attempt to get enough atta boys to wipe out all those shits.

John Pulleyn09:34

It's a it's a hopeless it's a hopeless job. And we, we make ourselves miserable trying to do something that really can't be done. It's a case of, I fought the law and the law won, talking about the law of our existence. It's true, there is suffering and it's inevitable. It's inescapable. All, everything does vanish and die, including us, including everyone we love. But it's not good or bad, it's the way things are. I I've got, I'm hoping to be able to read from three different people talking about impermanence. I'm going to start with a Zen teacher. This is a guy named Norman Fisher. People may have heard of him, one of the teachers, many teachers, at San Francisco Zen Center. I'm not sure if he's there now. I think he has his own organization, but he wrote an article that was published in lion's roar entitled, impermanence is Buddha nature.

John Pulleyn11:07

He says, as far as classical Buddhism is concerned, impermanence is the number one inescapable and essentially painful fact of life. It is a singular existential problem. The whole edifice of Buddhist practice is built. Is meant to address to understand impermanence at the deepest possible level, and we all understand it at a superficial level, and to merge with it fully. Is the whole of the Buddhist path. The Buddha's final words express this, impermanence is inescapable. Everything vanishes, and therefore there is nothing more important than continuing the path with diligence all other options either deny or short shrift the problem,

John Pulleyn12:01

unless you're in touch with impermanence, you can't be truly present, because this moment is constantly disappearing. It can never be pinned down. We talk a lot about living in the now, how wonderful it is to be here now. It's because now is disappearing. Nothing ever stays the same. It's

John Pulleyn12:41

a pretty long article, and I'm going to be skipping about a bit.

John Pulleyn12:53

One point he makes that I really want to, want to emphasize it's right here. All conditioned things have the nature of vanishing. The Buddha said, What is impermanence? After all, when we're young, we know that death is coming, but it will probably probably come later. Even when you're 78 you're thinking later, although there was somebody mentioned in something I read Korean Zen teacher who used to like to say dead soon, but it will probably come later. So we don't have to be so concerned with it now, and even if we are concerned with it in youth, as I was, this is Norman Fisher speaking. The concern is philosophical. When we're older, we know death is coming sooner rather than later, so we take it more personally, but we do we really know what we are talking about. Death may be the ultimate loss, the ultimate impermanence, but even on a lesser everyday scale, impermanence and the loss it entails, still happens more or less later Something's here now in a particular way, later it will not be I am or have something now, later I will not but that later is the safest Of all time frames

John Pulleyn14:21

can be safely ignored, because it's not now, it's later, and later never comes. And even if it does, we don't have to worry about it now. We can worry about it later. For most of us, most of the time, impermanence seems irrelevant. But in truth, impermanence isn't later, it's now. The Buddha said, all conditioned things have the nature of vanishing right now, as they appear before us, they have that nature. It's not that something vanishes later, right now, everything is in some way that we don't understand. In what way vanishing before. Our very eyes.

John Pulleyn15:12

There's something that Ajahn Chah said he had a beautiful glass, apparently. And he said, you see this goblet? For me, this glass is already broken. I enjoy it. I drink out of it holds my water admirably, sometimes even reflecting the sun in beautiful patterns, if I should tap, it has a lovely ring to it. But when I put this glass on a shelf and the wind knocks it over, or my elbow brushes it off the table and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say, of course, when I understand that this glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious. Every moment is just as it is, and nothing needs to be otherwise. Everyone we see is of the nature to die. We are of the nature to die. Everyone we see is precious. Our life is precious. We miss that because we think everything is going to hang around. We think we have all the time in the World. We think we can worry about it later. You

John Pulleyn16:47

then he delves into Dogan, the great Japanese Zen teacher. If you want to understand Buddha nature, Dogan writes, you should intimately observe cause and effect over time, when the time is right, Buddha Nature manifests in explaining this teaching. Dogan, in his usual inside out, upside down way, writes that practice isn't so much a matter of changing or improving the conditions of your inner or outer life as a way of fully embracing and appreciating those conditions, especially the condition of impermanence and loss when you practice and here, he quotes Dogan, the time becomes ripe, while this phrase naturally implies a later something unripe ripens in time. Dogan understands it is the opposite way time is always ripe bud nature always manifests in time, because time is always impermanence.

John Pulleyn17:52

Of course, time is impermanence, and impermanence is time. Time has changed development and loss. Present time is ungraspable. As soon as it occurs, it immediately falls into the past. As soon as I am here, I'm gone. If this were not so, how could the me of this moment ever give way to the me of the following moment? Unless the first me disappear is clearing the way the second me cannot appear. So my being here is thanks to my not being here. If I were not not here, I couldn't be here. Well, the minute you get into Dogan, you're in Hall of Mirrors. But the point is really good. Everything, everything, as we said before, everything is precious, because it's just here now appearing now only everything is our life. Sometimes that becomes more clear when we have a loss, a deep loss. When my son died this little over 12 years ago,

John Pulleyn19:18

I was I was grief stricken. It was just a different world. But it was. It was a world of kindness and sweetness, tears, sure, at one point we had gone to clean out his apartment in Mountain View in California. And we went up to visit an old friend. He's actually the brother of a member here, older brother, and he lived in in Oakland, up in the hills. And we went up there and found his place. And. My wife, Chris and I were walking up, and he came out, Mike. Mike came out, and the first words out of his mouth were, my John, my, Chris. It's such a beautiful understanding. Everybody we meet is us. They're ours. I find myself drawing the line by Donald Trump,

John Pulleyn20:49

but it's because it's so brief. You

John Pulleyn21:06

a real a real love for life and for others, takes in the whole thing, The whole setup. I

John Pulleyn21:37

further on, Norman Fisher says, As Dogan writes, all are is Buddha nature. This means that the self is not as we imagine, an improvable, permanent, isolated entity we, and we alone, are responsible for. Instead, it is impermanence itself which is never alone, never isolated, constantly flowing and immense, It is Buddha nature itself,

John Pulleyn22:14

permanence itself. Is Buddha nature.

John Pulleyn22:35

I have to be judicious, and I do want to at least get on here to Ajahn Chah, if there's anybody who likes to talk about impermanence, it's Ajahn Chah. Sometimes he uses the word certainty. There nothing is certain to convey how he understands impermanence.

John Pulleyn23:00

I know that one of the practices he recommends to monks is just to reflect when you see, when we get into the fall season and leaves are falling out of the trees, it's a it's a reminder when we when we run into friends and notice I haven't seen them for two, three years. They're older when we look in the mirror see ourselves, those wrinkles appear so poignant when you know attractive women see wrinkles in their face and feel despondent.

John Pulleyn23:42

Ajahn Chah, Cha would say that's about right. I know there's some passage where he mentions noticing some ache or pain as he gets older, and thinking, yeah, that's about right. It's about time for me To be feeling that I so

John Pulleyn24:24

this is I'm reading, going to read from a Dharma talk that he gave. It's entitled right view the place of coolness. Coolness in the sense of not hot and bothered. This was given to an assembly of monks and novices at watpa Nana chat, which is a temple, or not really a temple practice place in in Thailand during the rains retreat in 1978 i.

John Pulleyn25:02

He says, going down into the talk a bit, it's the same for all of us, including myself. I've practiced before. You. I've seen many lies before. For instance, this practice is really difficult, really hard. Why is the practice difficult? Just because we think wrongly, we have wrong view. Previously, I lived together with other monks, but I didn't feel right. I ran away to the forests and mountains, fleeing the crowd the monks and novices, I thought that they weren't like me. They didn't practice as hard as I did. They were sloppy. That person was like this. This person was like that. This was something that really put me in turmoil. Was the cause for my continually running away. But whether I lived alone or with others, I still had no peace on my own. I wasn't content in a large group. I wasn't content. I thought this discontent was due to my companions, due to my moods, due to my living place, the food, the weather, due to this and that, I was constantly searching for something to suit my mind. So I contemplated, what can I do to make things right? What can I do

John Pulleyn26:20

living with a lot of people. I was dissatisfied with few people. I was dissatisfied for what reason? I just couldn't see it. Why was I dissatisfied? Because I had wrong view, just that, because I still clung to the wrong dharma. Wherever I went, I was discontent, thinking, here's no good. There is no good. And on and on like that. I blamed others. I blamed the weather and cold. Blamed everything. Just like a mad dog, it bites whatever it meets because it's mad. When the mind is like this, our practice is never settled. Today, we feel good. Tomorrow, no good. It's like that all the time we don't attain contentment or peace. Then he tells the story of a Buddha, of the Buddha with his monks seeing a wild dog. And the Buddha says, monks, did you see that jackal this afternoon? Standing? It suffered running, it suffered sitting, it suffered lying down. It suffered in the underbrush, a tree, hollow or a cave. It suffered. It blamed standing for its discomfort. It blamed sitting, it blamed running and lying down. It blamed the tree, the underbrush and the cave. In fact, the problem was with none of those things that jackal had mange. The problem was with the mange. We monks are just the same as that jackal. Our discontent is due to wrong view, because we don't exercise sense restraint. We blame our suffering on externals, whether we live in Wat pop Pong that was Ajahn Chah place in America or in London, we aren't satisfied going to live, or any of the other branch monasteries. We're still not satisfied. Why not? Because we still have wrong view within us. Wherever we go, we aren't content human condition. But just as that dog, if the mange is cured, is content wherever it goes, so it is for us. I reflect on this often, and I teach you this often, because it's very important, if we know the truth of our various moods, we arrive at contentment, whether it's hot or cold. We're satisfied with many people or with few people, we are satisfied. Contentment doesn't depend on how many people we are with. Comes only from right view. If we have right view, then wherever we stay, we are content. You

John Pulleyn29:10

further on, he says, so even though you may be unhappy, it doesn't matter that unhappiness is uncertain, by which he means, impermanent won't last. Is that unhappiness yourself, is there any substance to it? Is it real? I don't see it as being real at all. Unhappiness is merely a flash of feeling which appears and then it's gone. Happiness is the same. Is there a consistency to happiness? Is it truly an entity? Is it a thing? It's simply a feeling that flashes suddenly and it's gone. It's born and it dies. Love just flares up for a moment and then disappears. Where is the consistency in love or hate or resentment? In truth, there is no substantial entity there. They are merely impressions which flare up in the mind and then die. They deceive us. Constantly, we find no certainty anywhere. Just as the Buddha said, when unhappiness arises, it stays for a while and then it disappears. When unhappiness disappears, happiness rises and lingers for a while and then dies on and on, like this. You

John Pulleyn30:24

we never see the truth of it, that there's simply this continual change. If we understand this, then we don't need to think very much, but we have much wisdom. If we don't know it, then we will have more thinking than wisdom, and maybe no wisdom at all. I read somewhere that Buddhists fear causes but normal people fear consequences. As long as we're we have right view, as long as we're open and aware, good will follow from that. We don't know how. We don't know when not our business. But if we spend all our time trying to dodge the acts, trying to avoid the catastrophe, we compromise everything. We lose it. We lose what's here.

John Pulleyn31:22

Ta doesn't require a whole lot of thought. Think the most thought at all you need is right now it's like this, or perhaps Roshi. It will change. I

John Pulleyn31:49

It's not until we truly he says, It's not until we truly see the harmful results of our actions that we can give them up. Likewise, it's not until we see the real benefits of practice that we can follow it and begin working to make the mind quote Good. Then he gives the metaphor of throwing a log into the river, and as long as it doesn't get hung up on the sides say that one bank is happiness, the other is unhappiness. The log is the mind, as long as it doesn't get hung up on either side, it will reach the sea.

John Pulleyn32:39

Final words, this is the teaching of the Buddha, happiness, unhappiness, love and hate are simply established in nature according to the constant law of nature. The wise person doesn't follow or encourage them. He doesn't cling to them. This is the mind which lets go of indulgence in pleasure and indulgence in pain. It is the right practice, just as that log of wood will eventually flow to the sea, so the mind, which doesn't attach to these two extremes will inevitably attain Peace and

John Pulleyn33:20

I'm going to drive this home with something that Pema Chodron wrote. It's in her book, when things fall apart. She says the first noble truth of the Buddha is that when we feel suffering, it doesn't mean that something is wrong. What a relief. Finally, somebody told the truth, suffering is part of life. We don't have to feel is happening because we personally made the wrong move in reality. However, when we feel suffering, we think that something is wrong. As long as we're addicted to hope, we feel that we can tone our experience down or liven it up or change it somehow. And we continue to suffer a lot. I i

John Pulleyn34:30

Then she explains the Tibetan word rad. Don't know if I'm pronouncing it right, which is a combination of fear and hope. Says radar is the root of our pain in the world of hope and fear, we always have to change the channel, change the temperature, change the music, because something is getting uneasy, something is getting restless, something is beginning to hurt, and we keep looking for alternatives. Such an opportunity when we feel discomfort, when we feel that twinge, whether it. Mental or physical, little ache or pain. Where do we go? So often we fly off to block it out or find relief or cover it over. When you when you notice something like that, just say it's a little fluttering in your chest. And instead of going, Oh no, it's like, oh, what's that? Just feel it. See it. When you're when your reactions are like that, everything changes. All of a sudden, your life becomes way more interesting. And it's not this hopeless battle to feel good all the time, not constantly running away, not restless. Pema says in a non theistic state of mind that says, if we're not going to talk about God abandoning hope is an affirmation the beginning of the beginning, you can even put abandoned hope on your refrigerator door instead of more conventional aspirations, like every day in every way, I'm getting better and better. Hope and fear come from the feeling that we lack something. They come from a sense of poverty. Can't simply relax within ourselves.

John Pulleyn36:32

The ability to relax so helpful for practice, so hard to do, if that's your intention, if you relax, and you have your eye on how relaxed am I? Things changed yet that's not relaxing. Yeah, you have to be okay with things as they are. She says, we hold on to hope, and hope robs us of the present moment. There it is. We feel that someone else knows what's going on, but that there's something missing in us, and therefore something lacking in our world. Rather than letting our negativity get the better of us, we could acknowledge that right now we feel like a piece of shit and not be squeamish about taking a good look. That's the compassionate thing to do. That's the brave thing to do. What's the texture, the color and shape, we can drop the fundamental hope that there's a better me who one day will emerge. Can't just jump over ourselves as if we were not there. It's better to take a straight look at all our hopes and fears and then some kind of confidence in our basic sanity arises. And this is where renunciation enters the picture, renunciation of the hope that our experience could be different, renunciation of the hope that we could be better. The Buddhist monastic rules that advise renouncing liquor, renouncing sex and so on. Are not pointing out that those things are inherently bad or immoral, but that we use them as babysitters. We use them as a way to escape. Use them to try to get comfort and to distract ourselves. The real thing that we renounce is a tenacious hope that we could be saved from being who we are. Renunciation is a teaching to inspire us to investigate what's happening every time we grab something because we can't stand to face what's coming.

John Pulleyn38:41

Something to notice when you find yourself picking up your phone without even thinking, what is it I'm uncomfortable with. I

John Pulleyn39:03

so right view really means entering fully into this moment beyond all our planning and our squirming.

John Pulleyn39:16

That means we have to be okay with not feeling good. I I think you've heard by now, don't worry, it'll change. One of the hallmarks of serious depression is this belief that it will never change. It's an overwhelming belief. Don't think that those of us who haven't been deeply depressed can even really understand it. But there's nothing, nothing that's permanent. The Buddha said in the dharmapada better it is to live one day seeing the rise and fall. Of things than to live 100 years without ever seeing the rise and fall of things. And Dogan said, this, one day out of 100 years, commenting on this, this one day out of 100 years cannot be retrieved when lost. What skillful means can retrieve a day that has passed.

John Pulleyn40:28

Every day we're given this treasure, and then that day is over. You.

John Pulleyn40:40

I Every moment is an opportunity. Suppose you could beat yourself up about all the moments that you've left past the one that can't be retrieved. But open your eyes right now. All of us have this chance, especially being in a group like this, sitting with others. So much support, so many people with good hearts, so much freedom to find our way.

John Pulleyn41:36

And we will. We will find our way. Gonna stop now and recite the four vows chair.

00:0000:00