Attending and attuning in the midst of fire

[00:00:00] Speaker A: For more information on Ancient Dragon Zen Gate, please visit our website at www.ancientdragon.org. our teachings are offered to the community through the generosity of our supporters. To make a donation online, please visit our website. Welcome to everyone who's joined us for 9:30 Zazen. I've heard there's Rite Fest going on. We're having our own, or maybe it's canceled. We're having our own Silence and Stillness Fest. So there's been a day long sitting happening since this morning, which some of us have been participating in. And after the Dharma talk, those of you who joined us, there won't be our usual tea because we're just going to continue sitting till 5:30pm so this feels like an auspicious time to deepen Zen practice. The season is turning. I think we can feel it in the air in Chicago. We're kind of entering the time of Chicago Henge. Like Stonehenge, the sun aligns with the east west grid of the city. And if the sun comes out in the next couple days, check it out. Dusk and dawn. And this fall equinox peaks officially on Tuesday. But tomorrow evening after Zazen, we'll honor this turning with an equinox ceremony here in the Zendo after Zazen. And everyone's invited to bring your reflections or words, poems, spontaneous performance about autumn and transition. For me, sometimes this time of year has kind of a feeling of little sadness and beauty and excitement. You know, the garden flowers are almost gone brown. Some of them are on the altar, what's available. And weeds have spread, garden is overgrown. So this turning is a great time to deepen our connection to the reality of impermanence to change. You know, Buddha observed that foolishness or misunderstandings, hatred and greed fuel destructive suffering. He saw this with his own mind and body, his own reaction, his own kind of personal freakout to change and impermanence. And this destructive force that is generated by misunderstanding how things work from wanting things to always be convenient, to hating things that aren't convenient or nice and needing more and more of something at any price. This destructive force is generated by resistance to the way things are ever changing. Not always so convenient. It's generated by resistance that comes from compulsive self focus. You know, my way, my expectations, things should be the way I think they should be. All that stuff from that viewpoint, limited viewpoint, it's almost like a negative energy generator, you know, and our zazen is actually a positive energy generator. It's also generated by resistance to the reality or the truth that life entails or appears to entail loss. You know, flowers bloom, then they fade, leaves spread. You know, this flowers fall and leaves spread. It's a kind of Zen meme for this teaching of the three characteristics of everyday life. Dis ease as in sickness, but also as in, you know, lack of ease. The other characteristic, of course, is that despite the fact that our biology and our culture is trying to sell us on the idea that there's some fixed self that's separate from everything else and that that is privileged over everything, that's another this no fix self characteristic. And then of course, there's our favorite impermanence and change. We like impermanence when something unpleasant is happening, you know, but the minute we're betrayed and things that we like fall apart, then we don't like impermanence anymore. But not according. Not going along with not adapting to the truth of change is actually killing life. Trying to fix it into some maybe like plastic, but it's not even plastic because plastic falls apart too. Even though microplastics are said to exist forever, there's still this changing thing. Like I had this know, horrific idea of plastic, right? Like, ah, we don't like plastic. But you know, on this great floating island of plastic and garbage, a whole ecosystem is developing. I don't know what to make of all this, but from my perspective, which could shift, our practice of Zazen is life affirming and teaches us how to attend to how to go along with the current situation. And respecting the situation's impermanence. And the attention of Zazen allows us. The attending function of Zazen, let's say, allows us to attune to and to accord with this constant flow of life and death, to live from the wisdom of impermanence and no fixed self and apparent dis ease. And this attending and attuning that we learn in Zazen liberates us from this, from our misunderstandings, our kind of fundamental implicit bias that our personal view is always accurate, that we need more of what we seem to like and less of what we don't like. And this attention and attunement or attending and attuning allows us to live from our vows. So this is something you can explore in Zazen. Am I attending to all of experience? Am I attuning, tuning into really connecting to and not getting in the way of whatever is appearing in all of our sense fields. This kind of practice supports vow to care for all beings without exception, even when there's huge parts of us that are raging and saying, I want to care for that being, but not that one. That one's not Buddha. This one is this middle way. Buddhist practice is active and it's present and it's responsive. It's not disconnected. You know, we learn in zazen with our bodies how not to turn away and not to grasp and not to control. But this is a difficult practice. Okay, some of you have been sitting this morning, may have glimpses of it, or you might be like, oh my zazen's really easy this morning. But sustaining the practice, staying present, opening to everything, can be stressful because we're also venturing into the unknown and the uncertain, which tends to make many beings. I don't know if amoebas feel this way, but a lot of mammals, they don't like, you know, like, not knowing. Especially like, if you, like, were used to getting good grades in school. I have a friend, a Zen friend who never got good grades in school. Like, he had some, you know, his brain was functioning in a certain way that didn't comp. Didn't really go along with school, you know, and that was really, really painful for him. But in some ways I think it kind of made him a really good practitioner because he was really open to, like, I might not be getting things or things, you know, I know what difficulty is, and I can be with that. Sometimes when things seem kind of easy and we've got all the right answers, we don't even see another person or, or another being, or we get in fights with ourselves, you know, create this self centeredness, like, I'm not doing everything perfectly, I'm so terrible. Or somebody who, like, is used to not doing things perfectly according by the standard, they might be like, really happy if something kind of even works out, you know, so this can be difficult. And the stress of living in the kind of ambiguity of flow can dissipate. And we can create space in our hearts for everything. And over time, we can relax with the ambiguity and vulnerability of flow. This is, this temple and in the sendo is set up to support, to help us enter into this ambiguity and flow with it and have space for the difficulty of it. And I don't know, I think it's no secret to most of us that this world culture is struggling with a big change process that appears to be happening and that the culture's kind of freaking out, even world culture on some level, as if, like, oh my gosh, change is happening and I don't understand it. It's going faster than I can take in. It's scaring me. And then of course insane things happen. Let's start a war. That'll distract us from difficulty, you know, maybe even pump up the stock market. We can pretend like everything's fine, unless you don't have any money invested there. And then who cares about you anyway? You know, like, it's a strange world, but. And I'm sure everyone's maybe heard that there now are AI agents that keep escaping and plotting a takeover, possibly ending human life, like, every day. No matter. Like the tiny. I mean, I'm not even on, like, normal news feeds, you know, the tiny bit of information, information that comes my way is like, you better be scared. Bad things are happening. Just when we thought the worst was happening. Here's some bad news for human superiority. AI bots are coming for us. I wonder if that's. How many species feel the humans are coming for us. Who knows? But actually, this is a great situation to practice in these kind of situations, where the ground is unstable is where we practice our zazen. You know, I feel rooted in the earth, but the earth is moving around and shifting. You know, being in this house for 40 years, I can feel how the foundation is shifted, you know, in this old place. So not even that old, 100 years old or so. So this practice of zazen, of attending to, of caring for, of concentrating on the present moment, of using our attention to tune into reality, teaches us to open and illuminates, actually, some unpleasant things. Sometimes, like any tendency you have or I have to turn away from or avoid something is clarified and highlighted in Zen. It's like Zen takes a magic mark or a highlighter and says, see you resisting what's going on? But then it identifies these nooks and crannies of resistance and then allows us and shows us how to soften, how to open and relax. So with a sinking ship, which is life. So although this AI situation might be the end of the line for us, you know, our practice is to go down with the ship, not get on a rocket and go away to some other planet and escape. And at the very least, not to abandon the ship. Like, maybe you jump off the ship to help rescue it or something, if you're really skillful. But you're not abandoning it and saying, this is too tough. So I'm getting out of here and help if we can, to actually help. So in order to help, we have these vows. And these vows are to develop and mature our capacities to attend and to attune in our practice during the session, during Sausen, right now, when you're walking down the street in the midst of the fire around us, you know, Buddha is like, everything's on fire. The fire fueled by this confusion and fear and aversion and grasping inside ourselves, outside, we find some place where we can bloom in the midst of it. In the midst of this fire, we actually become these, like, blooming fire lotuses. So I'd like to offer some fire teachings. Few, ah, and I hope it just encourages you to bloom in the midst of fire. It's a great image to have, you know, because, you know, usually lotuses live in water, right? They don't like fire. But actually we accord with fire, and that's how we bloom in our practice. You could call it mud, but today it's called fire. So I'll begin with a little teaching story from the Book of serenity from 13th century China. You know, stories upon stories upon stories. This is our Zen way of conveying these teachings and connecting to this lineage, this ancient lineage. And here's one I've been hanging out with since case 30 from the Book of Serenity called Dasui's Ionic Ionic Fire. So this great teacher lived in China in the 9th century, called Da Sui. So this is somebody hundreds of years later who's. This story was written down, compiled, and passed on to us. So we share this concern about the world's end with our Zen ancestors. So a monk comes up to dasui and says, when the fire at the end of an eon rages through and the whole universe is destroyed, is this, you could say, the fundamental truth of Buddhism or the absolute or reality that destroyed or not? And dasui, a man of somewhat few words, just says, destroyed, poof. And the monk says, then does this, this absolute reality, you could say, go along with that? Does it accord with that? Does it go down with that? And dasui just says, yeah, it goes along with that, or I go along with it. I go along with this fire. Now, I'll just say a couple things because I don't want to, you know, we could spend, I know, a few weeks or so hanging out with this wonderful story. But I just want to make a couple points, but I'll just say a little about dasui. Ajen of Yi Province was a spiritual grandson, so it says, of the great teacher baizhong. The Book of Serenity says that Daw Sui met more than 60 venerable adepts. One of them was Guishan, kind of famous. And in that community, his job was to be keeper of the fire. You know, temples had fire keepers and Sidebar. The native Americans who inhabited our land not that long ago, a few hundred years ago, were called the council of the three fires. And the Potawatomi Indians were called the keepers of the fire. So we have this heritage in our ground, this fire keeping karma, you could say. So Dasui, you know, ran around to different temples with teachers and eventually ended up making tea in a booth at the side of the road to serve passersby. Did that for three years. What? Three years? You know, some useless things. Some great Zen master sitting in a little booth at the side of the road. And then he went to this mountain and opened up a temple. And his name, Dasui fajin means. Dasui means great accord or great following or great adaptation. You could say follow as in like a baby ducks follow mama duck. Go along with, stay close to companion, great companion. And the other part of his name means truth and true reality. So this is a companion to the reality. So this great going along with reality is also reflected this name, this teacher's name, in a kind of a layered meaning or wordplay in this story. Remember when the fire at the end of the world rages through and everything is destroyed, the whole universe is destroyed. Is this destroyed or not? Da sui destroyed, Then this goes. Then this goes along with that, or do you go along with it? Do you companion it? Do you companion just a great truth of reality Companion, the relative phenomenal reality that we think is all there is. And Dasvi says, yes, this thus thusness goes along with the phenomenal world. Or I go along with it. And this is this great accord. And it's kind of bluntly saying to this monk, when the apocalypse occurs, when the fire comes adaptation or go along with it, don't abandon it or stay on the sinking ship with all beings. By the way, the monk didn't like this answer and went off to another teacher. But I don't. That other teacher basically said the same thing in a different way. But the bottom line was, don't get stuck in dualism. Don't jump out of the fire. Learn to be with all of it. Now, you know, Zen students are known for asking a lot of questions. And Dasui, you know, if this guy would have hung out with Dasui for a while, or this monk or monk s or monk it, whatever was, could have inquired further of dasui. Maybe something like, wait a minute, I don't want to go down with the ship. I don't want to go into and companion ablaze. But if you say that that's the story. How can I adapt to such A scary situation. How do I learn to accord or go along with or companion a holocaust? You know? And for this moment, my answer would be, learn to attend, learn to attune, pay close, caring attention, and then tune into the situation, harmonize through entering the world's vulnerability, develop situational awareness. You know, accord with the local conditions of our body and what our senses are telling us with a warm heart and a clear mind, not one riled up with a lot of nonsense. And then we know how to respond to the request of the situation. These are these teachings. This is how we become these kind of lotuses. You know, the great teacher Hawkin said, the lotus that blooms in the midst of fire becomes all the more beautiful and fragrant the nearer the fire rages, because the fire is the lotus and the lotus is the fire. So our practice is fire keeping and intimacy with fire. And there are ways that we learn this in our situation, in this world, in our temple, with each other, in our Zen practice, on our cushions, along this line of following and companioning or attending to situations. You know, some of you might be familiar with this term in Zen Buddhism called zuishin. That's a way of talking about someone in Zen training, and it means to follow the body and also attend to a person. And this has a very deep meaning in Zen training when you follow the teacher with their body as an attendant, like Yana's, my attendant today, and she didn't follow me around. I've kind of been following her around too, you know, so it works both ways. There's this reciprocity, but this learning and embodying the teachings of Buddha through our following, adapting and according to each other, through a close companionship is our way. And we have this reciprocity of attending and attuning here at Ancient Dragon. I see it everywhere. Yesterday we worked together to clean the temple to prepare for this event so we all could sit in a peaceful, harmonious way despite whatever's raging around us, despite whatever fire is around us. And we. I could. I was enjoying. I woke up a little grumpy, but then when I came down, I was really enjoying how we all were working together and embodying and conveying and bringing forth the Bodhisattva way through our activity with each other and with other forms of life. You could say this may look like dead wood, but when we attend to it and tune into it, it's alive. By the way, this was made and given to me by someone in this room. Hi, Michael. Hey, Michael. Thank you very much for bringing Life to this piece of what we call wood. But it feels very alive. I feel Michael's hands every time I touch it. So in cleaning the kitchen, in vacuuming the sendoff, we learn to be keepers of the fire. We're adapting to a new kitchen floor in case anyone's noticed. Our work leader, our new work leader, Nina, who's work leading with Josh after a year long tenure of our beloved work leader, Jake, who is now taking care of his body and sitting in his own fire. But this work leader steps up and was just going along with according with the many new tasks and according with those tasks not getting finished some of them. And while Douglas Artanto. So these are all examples of this practice of attending and attuning. Douglas Artonto was training new doans in the zendo and I was arranging the altar, fussing with it, my little fuss the altar. And one of the trainees moved the doan table in a way that most people would move something like picking it up. However, this is a unique little stand and it fell apart. You can see it over there. And I could see that out of the corner of my eye. And it was might have been a little stressful for that to happen for the person who moved it. But this person was becoming intimate with attending to and tuning into this little flimsy table. And together we restored its stability for the time being. So when you pick up that table, you have to kind of hold it together to support it so that we have conversations with these objects. They don't appear dead anymore, right? Totally. That table didn't appear too dead when you picked it up. And then it got to rest a little when it got put back together. It was kind of playing dead then. Until we get intimate with things that they can appear dead, what could have turned into kind of a hot mess didn't because there was this. We knew how to adapt. So this created, this attending and attuning created a lotus moment, you know, and the point is here, that here, here is awakening. Realizing Buddha's teachings occurs right in your life at moment by moment, not confined to events in China or to some zenned out altered state. But in this world that does not work according to our convenience or expectations. You know, our teachings say in attachment blossoms fall and in aversion weeds spread. No matter how much we cling, something falls away and withers. No matter how much we might dislike something, it shows right up in the middle of our life. But we can stay close to companion, accord with the flowers and weeds and know their ways and Then this, following this according with our bodies and our hearts and our minds to the ways of flowers and weeds, allows us to have a chance at helpful response. We can give it our best guess, and then we adapt. So I'll just offer a couple, and maybe I'll even invite from the assembly a testimonial. But one of my favorite Accord, Great Accord teachings was when I was staying at some temple, living there for a little while. And when we had study hall, everybody's quiet, and I came a little late, and I'm like, this room is, like, really quiet. Something's going on. And then I see a sign. Skunk sleeping in cabinet. Be quiet and careful. Okay? So study hall wasn't moved. We accorded with the sleeping skunk, and we were very quiet. And then when the skunk left in the evening, somebody sealed up the hole it had made. And this. But this is that learning process. Most of the time we're like, oh, my God, let's get out of here and avoid this. But this was this kind of learning process that was supported in that particular environment. But it's the way we can live our life. No, I have a lot of different ones, but maybe Chris Cadman could tell his sunflower story. This is a story of great Accord. So if we could get a mic over to Bodhisattva Cadman. [00:32:07] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:32:08] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:32:10] Speaker B: So this is kind of a funny one. And so I was sharing with the Keralis group in Kralis, New Mexico, that Brian and Taylor. Brian Taylor and I share the work with and wonderful group. And so I was kind of introducing a little bit of Gendrick Hohen. And I absolutely love the story about the flowers wilt fall, and we're sad about that. And weeds thrive, and we're sad about that. So on this particular day when I was going, Brian and his wife were not there, and Susannah, his wife, usually brings a flower to put on our altar. And so I knew I had to bring something, so I grabbed a mason jar out of the cabinet, and there was a weed coming out of the. Our asphalt in our. In our driveway in the back. And so I just yanked that thing out and I put it into the mason jar. I did put some water in. And so I basically talked about how we, you know, we like flowers and we don't like weeds, but, you know, this is, you know, what's a flower? What's a weed? Why do we like one and not like the other? And so after we were done, one of the folks in the group came with her phone and did the Google search thing and said, this is a sunflower. And so I took it home and I kept it in water and a few days later it blossomed. And yeah, it was a. It was a. It was a sunflower. So it was wonderful experience. [00:33:42] Speaker A: So thank you for that. Great accord. Testimony. Great according. But this is what practice makes a possibility. So that something that we might disregard or even be repulsed by can become beautiful. On the other hand, something that we think is incredibly beautiful and cherish may end up not being quite so palatable, but we still care for it the same way. We notice it, we attend to it, we tune into it and we give it our best effort. So I will solicit more testimonials in a minute, but I did want to read something I came across by the late great writer Barry Lopez, who some of you may know. The kitchen is going to leave. So Barry Lopez writes, in this trembling moment with light armor under several flags rolling across northern Syria. So this is written probably quite a while ago when. Ah, Michael, see you in a bit. Everybody's leaving. But you can find this on page 122 of Gary Lopez's essays. In this trembling moment with light armor under several flags rolling across northern Syria, with civilians beaten to death on the streets of occupied Palestine. And this was even before the horrific war that started a couple years ago with fires roaring across the vineyards of California and forests being felled to ensure more space for development, with student loans from profiteers breaking the backs of the young, with the Niagaras of water falling into the ocean from every sector of Greenland. Sounds so prescient in some ways. In this moment, is it still possible to face the gathering darkness and say to the physical earth and to all of its creatures, including ourselves, fiercely and without embarrassment, I love you. And to embrace fearlessly the burning world. Yes. Our practice says yes to all of it. That we can attend to and attune to the weeds and flowers, the darkness and light with love and care. Are you up to live this way? Do you like to live this way? You know, because our zazen is devoting our life energy to going along with and companioning all of it, the whole works. So that's my spiel for today, my encouragement to you and does anyone have anything to offer? And Bo, you'll need to help me with our cloudlings because I can only see a portion of them for some reason. I can see everybody. Yeah. Great. [00:36:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:36:54] Speaker A: So thank you all very much. [00:36:59] Speaker C: I'll go. [00:37:00] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:37:00] Speaker C: Just to offer a quick testimonial related to what you're saying because we just started a new school year like a month ago. And so I'm thinking of kids who I work with who are on fire at times. You know, not literally, but, you know, I'm thinking of one kid in particular who's kind of explosive, right? Like that, that, you know, when he gets disturbed or upset, it can really explode into these like pretty wild bouts of anger and yelling and saying things, you know, not nice stuff to us and, but just, you know, I, I think from this practice, definitely. And also just, you know, kind of experience and reading etc, like knowing how to, first of all, knowing how to see him, right? It's like. Which you can't see if you don't like have that space. I think you're talking about, right? If you're like. It's pretty easy in a way to like get caught up in some kind of power struggle with that person because you want them and kind of urgently need them to be another way in order to attend to the 29 other people in the room. But to see them not as just this moment, right? Like to frame them in your own head of like, this is a moment, this is, this is a lack of some kind of, you know, maybe not a lack, but like there's, there's this person is experiencing, not being able to kind of be integrated in this community at the, at the moment. And so how can I remain calm and you know, but attend to both him and this community of the classroom, right? Which is getting kind of put on fire at the same moment by this energy. So it's, it's. There's no like, formula or like solute. You know, it's not like easy enough to be like stop and that per. But just. I think what, what I'm taking from what you're saying is just attending, seeing, giving space and for yourself and for other people just to kind of still do your best to kind of maintain some equanimity so that you can better attend to it outside of your like and not allowing your own emotion to kind of get put on fire, essentially. Right? So that's something that's coming up for me. [00:39:35] Speaker A: Great, thank you. I'm sure your classroom benefits from your lotus like presence. Paul looks like a lotus, right? [00:39:47] Speaker C: And Nicholas online. [00:39:48] Speaker A: Ah, Nicholas, great. [00:39:50] Speaker D: Good morning. [00:39:51] Speaker A: Good morning. [00:39:52] Speaker D: Yeah, that was a great talk. Really enjoyed that and got a lot out of it. And I was struck by how many times you used the word accord. And I think that's such an interesting word. And you know, I think I've heard you use it before, but it's just not a word that I hear a lot, you know. So. Yeah, that was one thing. It made me think of this question that someone asked Krishna Murty, and they asked him what his secret was and he said, well, I don't mind what happens. And I thought that was such a kind of lovely synopsis of the Dharma, meaning that I will meet reality as it unfolds without demanding that it conform to what I want to, what I think is reality. Basically ride the horse in the direction that it is going. [00:40:50] Speaker A: Right. [00:40:51] Speaker D: Sometimes it's simple, but not easy. Right. And the other thing I just would comment on is that, you know, when we talk about the world and all the terrible things that are happening, I feel like often there's this context, like it's just started happening that way. It's just never been good, you know, so it's like it's not. It's actually gotten better in many respects. But. Yeah, so that's just something I always feel obliged to say, like it's. It's. We'll get through it. And we've dealt with many bad things in the past. [00:41:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Many things that we didn't expect. Thank you. Thank you, Nicholas. And Nicholas is joining us for Sacheen from Home. So it's good to see you as is Adam and I wanted to also, you know, you reminded me with the cord. Do you remember the car called. Maybe it still exists, a Honda Accord. Yeah, I think that was the first car I ever. Maybe the only. No, I have a second car. [00:41:55] Speaker B: It was a great car. [00:41:57] Speaker A: Yeah, but. But wasn't that a weird name? Like why is it called a cord? And I was thinking maybe this is this Japanese thing, like you're following the road with the car body, you know. But now I'm curious about it, but, you know, are. We can be vehicles of great accord. So thank you. But I mean, you know, when I got the car, I remember thinking, why is this called an Accord? You know, I didn't get it. But years Later, I know, 30, 40 years later, maybe I'm finally getting tuned into it, attuned to it. Anybody else want to say anything before we wrap up? Just thank you. Echoing yes, What Nicholas said, it's a great talk. Thank you. You're welcome. Ah. And I know everybody, especially the Sacheen folk, have been sitting for a long time, so I really appreciate that. And I just saw Tigen pop up on my screen. Hello, Tigan. Yeah. So as is our way, I don't have a gsha, so someone else will help me. But we'll first chant the bodhisattva vows. And I'm gonna maybe if you put that there eventually. Just so that you can do that now. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks. Beautiful. Yeah. May our intention equally extend to every being and place with the true accord of the Does Way. Beings are numberless, we vow to free them. Delusions awe inexhaustible, we vow to cut through them. Dharma gates are boundless, we vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsourcable, we vow to realize it. Beings are numberless. [00:44:26] Speaker C: Freedom Delusions are inexhaustible, we vow to cut through them. Our gates are boundless, we how to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. Le vows to realize that things are numberless, we vow to free them. Delusions are inexhaustible, we vow to cut through them. Dharma gates are boundless, we vow to enter them. Buddha's ways unsurpassed O we vow to realize.