OGZC is on YouTube! For ALL recorded Dharma talks by our teachers, please see the Ocean Gate YouTube Channel.
An Immovable Rock
David Chadwick tells this story about Suzuki Roshi in To Shine One Corner of the World:
There was a big boulder in the Tassajara creek that Suzuki Roshi said he wanted for his rock garden. Every day four or five of us went down to the creek during the silent work period and struggled to move the boulder by various devices and means. Each one of us was secure in the knowledge that somehow we were going to move that stone to his rock garden, which was quite a distance away. After a week the rock hadn’t budged, but no one was about to break the silence or give up. One day Suzuki Roshi came down to the creek and struggled along with us. Some visitors called down from the bridge to ask what we were doing.
Suzuki Roshi called up, “We don’t know!”
Shinshu s Commentary:
We hear a lot about “don’t know” in Zen. What kind of “don’t know” is this? When we have a problem that just doesn’t seem to have an answer “don’t know” is the place to be. When we are beside ourselves and can’t find any solution, then “don’t know.” Why? “Don’t know” is an open mind, a ready mind, a relaxed mind. “Don’t know” is saying “I don’t know.” When we can admit that, a certain ease may come. We may look to others and consider and see what we had not seen before.
Suzuki Roshi worked with his students with a sense of solidarity and perhaps he thought he could help. His help was probably practical, but his humor and “don’t know” was the teaching. Maybe the rock is a metaphor for our life. We do this, we do that. Is it moving? Is it helping? What kind of mind do we bring to this life? Is it fixed? Is it rigid? Does it matter if the rock is moved? Maybe, maybe not. We always come back to the circumstances. But whatever the circumstances, the mind of “don’t know” will always be helpful.
Did the rock ever make it to the garden, “I don’t know.” But, I suspect it did.
Sitting In the World of Dharma
Zen Master Dogen’s True Dharma Eye, “Dharma Blossoms Turn Dharma Blossoms” (Shobogenzo Hokke Ten Hokke)
Shinshu’s Commentary:
Allow me to quickly paraphrase this paragraph. Your life, right now, is your experience, right now. When we feel alarm, doubt, and fear, it is also our present experience. If we apply the Buddha’s teaching we see that delusion is the difference between being an observer of life or experiencing our life. Immersing ourselves in the teachings, we return to the totality of right now. When we settle into each moment our life is not confined rather it is illuminated and freed.
It’s probably human nature to want to push away unpleasant experiences. I have back pain and I certainly know that I’d like to push it away. But, I also know that pushing it away, will not make it go away. This is my experience, my life, as it is, right now. The second sentence offers us a Dharma gate for exploring our problems. We should not push them away. We have to include alarm, doubt and fear (and pain) in this life….if that is what is happening. We also include laughter, joy, gratitude and all the good things too.
Just this teaching alone is a plate full of wisdom. Can we be patience and be present for our life? Stay! Stay!
The second sentence of the quotation discusses an aspect of delusion. It is about looking at our life as opposed to being present for our life. I don’t think he means looking in the sense of paying attention to our practice. I think he is referring to the times we sit outside our life, effectively pushing our life away. Sitting in the middle of our life, is experiencing it in such a way that we are awakened, challenged, softened, more gracious, empathic and wise than before. Sitting in our life is to experience this life of a human being and to find a deeper connection with all of life. Again this willingness to be present, fully immersed to our best ability takes courage – it is the Lion’s Roar of a Buddha.
While the Dharma is vast, because the world is vast, it is still just a puddle reflecting the moon. This moment, this person is the drop of water, the particular manifestation of the glorious radiance of a buddha (the moon). As Dogen reminds us in Uji (Being/Time) we can be both a buddha and a demon in the glorious radiance of our 24 hours. This glorious radiance is going beyond one or the other and just responding to what is. When this is achieved, it is not vast and overwhelming, rather, it is do-able, workable: it is a tear, a laugh, a sigh. Nothing special, yet glorious.
Finally Dogen reminds us that we can only experience the fullness of our life in this particular moment. The moments of doubt, fear, alarm and pain do not narrow our life, if we can include the totality of our life. For example, when my back hurts, does that mean there is no joy, no laughter or gratitude? Can I remember the glorious radiance of my 24 hours or the 24 hours of this world being the world. Is the world of green plants swayed by the breeze and the sun shining outside the window gone? Do the crows stop affirming this life with a “caw, caw, caw”? Or the seagulls cry?
This insight is achieved by stopping and listening to ourselves, to others and to the life around us. We must create space for wisdom to enter. Running away takes us away and we cannot settle into our life as it is and see its glorious radiance. If we rely upon our life’s emergence, it will ground us in patience and grow our wisdom. I do not promise that you will not suffer, but you will hold it differently. This very moment is the vast sky of the Dharma. Leaving no trace, yet clearly marking the Way.
Where Are You Going?
Suzuki Roshi
Dizang asked Fayan, “Where are you going?” Fayan said, “Around on pilgrimage.” Dizang said, “What is the purpose of pilgrimage?” Fayan said, “I don’t know.” Dizang said, “Not knowing is most intimate.”
From the Book of Serenity, case 20
Shinshu’s Commentary: Like Suzuki Roshi, Fayan is probably wearing a monk’s traveling gear: a broad straw hat and staff. He is on his way somewhere. But where? He said it is a pilgrimage. How can Fayan say he is going on a pilgrimage and yet not know where he is going. And to top it off, Dizang says, “Yes, you’ve got it!”
Dizang is dressed for traveling as we all are. This very skin is a pilgrim’s hat and staff. Our robes are shorten for more easily walking the path. Our lives are a journey to the sacred sites of each moment lived. How can we know the purpose of each moment? How can we know the outcome of each interaction? Yet we crave certainty in this life of uncertainty. We hid in the notion that we can anticipate and make infallible plans.
In the Great Wisdom Beyond Wisdom Sutra one encounters the word “disport.” A bodhisattva disports him or herself in the Dharma. We have permission to play in the field of wisdom. This is the field of our life. Our pilgrimage is the act of disporting ourselves in not knowing. Our problems arise when we try to tie things down, etch them in stone.
Usually when we make a pilgrimage, we have a predetermined route. We plot our progress from one sacred space to another. We make a circle, we complete a journey and we expect transformation of some kind. In this koan the teaching is each moment, each interaction is a pilgrimage. Each encounter is a sacred moment. Where are we going exactly? Just this moment is a complete pilgrimage.
When we don’t know, we get closer to the truth of a thing – a person. Not knowing is being curious, truly meeting our life. It is not making up stories. It is: no story, no wall, no fixed agenda. Suddenly in not knowing we are finding out something most interesting – most intimate. We meet a person. We meet the self. It is both knowing and not know. Can we get any closer?
This is the same intimacy we embody in zazen. In zazen we don’t know what will happen and we let go of what we want to happen. We explore dropping the mind of “I don’t want to feel pain” or “I want to feel transformed.” We engage or disengage into a mind of “I don’t know” and “think-not-thinking”. Let go, meet each situation and meet your life. Walk the sacred path of the pilgrim as you enter the door of your work place. “I don’t know what this interaction will bring, but I will stay and listen.”
How can we understand this? Although I don’t know, I will be curious. I will disport myself in the Dharma. I might intimately see that this life is life making life. How can I be separate from life itself? I am always just this, meeting a person, a situation or thing. Letting go. Not knowing. How intimate!
Hatred is the Greatest Stumbling Block
His Holiness the Dalai Lama observed: “In Buddhism in general, a lot of attention is paid to our attitudes towards or rivals or enemies. This is because hatred can be the greatest stumbling block to the development of compassion and happiness. If you can learn to develop patience and tolerance toward your enemies, then everything else becomes much easier—your compassion towards all others begins to flow naturally.” (page 178) From The Art of Happiness, by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler, M.D. Riverhead Books, 1998.
Shinshu’s commentary: This is also one of the hardest practices. First, rivals or enemies may be someone perceived outside of ourselves or the way we relate to our own self. Hatred is a hardening emotion and tends to reify our ideas about self and others. Letting go is a kind of generosity toward self and other. Think about it; when you let go and relax into a difficult situation you give yourself some ease, both physically and mentally. Don’t you feel better? Aren’t you happier? You also allow space for something different and productive to happen with your “enemy.” The problem is that we feel the need to be right and defend our self or our ideas. Letting go is the practice of no-inherently-existing-self. That means we are connected with each other…we can feel with, find empathy. What are we protecting? Why do we need to be “right”?
If you go to a restaurant and the waiter is rude to you or they don’t respond the way you expect, do they become the enemy? Or are they a person who might have their own problems, separate from you? Why does their response make us upset? Can we let go of our ideas about how others should behave toward us? Isn’t a little friction necessary for developing patience and compassion? Shouldn’t we give a little thanks to these small difficulties? If you find yourself resisting this teaching; take a closer look. What is the enemy here? What keeps us from responding with generosity, patience and compassion? Where is happiness?
Gassho, Shinshu
Black Bees Frolicking
Greetings to Everyone. As I write this I can hear the rain pattering from the drain pipe. It is a repetitive, insistent and yet cheerful sound. Yesterday I began reading a Buddhist sutra called the Nirvana Sutra. Here’s a line that struck me.
Dogen (the 13th century founder of Soto Zen in Japan) wrote many things about the true nature of our condition. One of his most compelling teachings is that every being and thing in this universe is teaching the Dharma. Since Dogen lived hundreds of years after the Nirvana Sutra was written, this teaching was already considered part of Buddhist doctrine and he was taught this truth as a young monk. It is a generous and optimistic teaching. If we look around; we can learn profound truths about our life and life in general without going anywhere. When I was a photography student, we would have the exercise of spending a week taking pictures of a small area, such as one’s backyard. This taught us to see our environment with new eyes, because we had to look deeper than the obvious. In Buddhism, we are taught over and over about impermanence, suffering, and no inherent existing self. But, what does it mean? A bee, frolics among the flowers. It is fragile, strong, mobile, and perceives the world as fragrance. It feels the pull of magnetic forces. This small creature, participates in making the world. Recently this has been forcefully brought home to us by the mysterious deaths of bees. Yet, seemingly unaware, the bee, goes on and makes its contribution. Impermanent, sometimes suffering, embodying the interconnected process of life enacted, this bee, all bees, all beings is brought forth. Furthermore, in the moment of the bee, is all moments enacted. Nothing is left out; all life, all time, and all being is present. Such a tiny moment, just one small thing. Please investigate and look closely at your life’s activity. Frolic among the flowers of your day. Consider the joy of just being in this full and overflowing cornucopia of living. Find the unfound sound of all being; enacted with and through all beings.
Best to you all this rainy spring morning.
Sometimes “We Don’t Know” is OK
There was a big boulder in the Tassajara creek that Suzuki Roshi said he wanted for his rock garden. Every day four or five of us went down to the creek during the silent work period and struggled to move the boulder…After a week the rock had not budged, but no one was about to break the silence or give up. One day Suzuki Roshi came down to the creek and struggled along with us. Some visitors called down from the bridge to ask what we were doing. Suzuki Roshi called up, ‘We don’t know!’
From To Shine One Corner of the World: moments with Shunryu Suzuki
Here’s a story of my own. Recently I went to a friend’s house to install her Roku streaming device. The installation was not easy and I kept at it for quite some time. Essentially I was doing the same activity over and over again (connecting again when it crashed and attempting to download the upgrade), with slight variations. Having worked with computers in the past this seemed to be a method that often worked. Finally, in this case, it did. My friend joked that it was like the person who kept doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.
How do we apply our effort? When do we give up? What is the mind of “don’t know” and the mind of “knowing”? Suzuki Roshi’s effort is akin to zazen. There is something about the process, the team work: the totality of the situation that drove their effort. And love.
A Normal Day
Dear All,
Here’s a poem Sita sent me last week.
Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return.
-Mary Jean Iron in the essay, “Let Me Hold You While I May”, in the book, “Yes, World. A Mosaic of Meditation”, published in 1970 by Richard Baron Publishing.
Shinshu’s comment: This is part of a larger meditation on the end of a “normal day.” This sentiment could be, should be applied to every ephemeral thing: the birds, flowers, a conversation, our health. “A normal day” is all the things we take for granted. How often do we wish for a more exciting life and in this way miss the wonder that is right under our noses? The last line is that reminder or prescience of the inevitable difficulties that we cannot avoid. Deep wonder and appreciation for “just this” give us a foundation for the difficult days that inevitably will arise.
A Leader Leads with Gratitude
From a David Brooks column in the New York Times (reprinted in the Santa Cruz Sentinel). David Brooks describes the qualities of a leader. He writes:
“It begins with a warm gratitude toward that which you have inherited and a fervent wish to steward it well. It is propelled by an ardent moral imagination, a vision of a good society that can’t be realized in one lifetime. It is informed by seasoned affections, a love of the way certain people concretely are and a desire to give all a chance to live at their highest level.”
Shinshu’s comment: These qualities of inquiry can be applied to your workplace or home. They are applicable to our spiritual lives as well. We want to take what is wise and continue in the same vein. Having “warm gratitude” will soften and guide our endeavors. I like the phrase “moral imagination” because that is how we are able to see each situation as the totality of life, not just something that fits a “should.”
In Zen, lineage is very important. We are never far from those who went before us and illuminated our path. In this way, we know that our effort, although it seems only of this lifetime, will resonate throughout space and time. What will be the quality of that resonance?
What does he mean by “seasoned affections”? Affection can refer to the affect of one’s actions, how one is disposed toward something, having tender feelings or a state of being affected. I think he means that skillful actions are the result of our own mature experience and those whose actions precede our own.
I encourage you to sit with David Brooks’ words and think about how they might apply to your situation. This is also my intention. We cannot understand and absorb wise words without also making the effort to suss out how they are relevant to our particular situation.
Finding the Time
Shinshu’s commentary: I hear this wisdom a lot at Ocean Gate Zen Center; I think we all understand the importance of stopping, creating space and gratitude. Unfortunately it is sometimes difficult to ‘find the time.’ Finding time and wasting time are sometimes lumped together as they are in this quotation. We want to find the time. As the time passes, we forget the time of taking time. This is unfortunate. If we just make time and stop our forward progress, we see what is right in front of us. When we are rushing to the car to get to work, we might stop, just for a second, and smell that cup of coffee we are carrying. Or we might feel the softness of our child’s hand. Or we may notice the beauty of a weed growing next to the driveway…or a flower. Just for a second. Just for a moment. In that moment, our heart becomes lighter; we are opened and more flexible. This is the sutra of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha ringing clearly in the morning air. Can we stop and hear it?
Mary Oliver’s “The Summer Day”
Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean —– The one who has flung herself out of the grass, The one who is eating sugar out of my hand, Who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and own… Who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do not know how to pay attention, how to fall down Into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, How to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, Which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do With your one wild and precious life?By Mary Oliver, called “The Summer Day”
Commentary: First we engage in deep inquiry. What is this? Then we look at this particular being and investigate further. We can only answer this question in relationship to our life, as it is. This is not abstract. What is this grasshopper? This grasshopper. Clearly she does know how to pay attention. How often we do not credit ourselves with our own wisdom. What do you plan to do? In this moment and the next. With this life, this grounded presencing of you and everything? Oh, what a wild and precious life! In this moment. In this email. Connection. How wild and precious. How precious. How wild.
Thank-you. Please have a good week, Shinshu
Donate
