Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] 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.
[00:00:18] Welcome to everyone.
[00:00:25] First things first.
[00:00:28] So believe it or not, in the midst of freezing cold yesterday, people made it to help prepare our zendo for this sashin.
[00:00:39] And I just really want to appreciate everyone who came yesterday morning because sometimes it's sort of like, you know, you pop in on Zoom or you come up, come to session, but there's, there's a lot of care that goes into the physical space and taking care of it and getting it ready. And Jake, our work leader, showed up in his uniform to lead us to help take care of the temple. And Tonto Douglas, who I said, oh, you don't need to come. People really aren't looking for oraoke instruction yet. Douglas was here, which is really wonderful.
[00:01:21] Jerry showed up, our Eno and Nina.
[00:01:24] There's Nina. Nina was here.
[00:01:29] Always excited to beautify a space. It seems that's Nina's great superpower.
[00:01:37] And someone named Kevin, who can't come on Sundays but just decided to come and help anyway.
[00:01:44] And then Yana surreptitiously delivered some food for Sacheen.
[00:01:52] And I know that Mike Evans, former Tenso, cannot seem to get out of the kitchen. And I heard he was preparing food for us at home.
[00:02:04] And behind the scenes, Paula, our temple director, has been caring for our financial health, but is down with the flu today.
[00:02:13] But not out, because I see her window here. So may she have a speedy recovery.
[00:02:21] So this is this cooperative Dragon activity, and it supported our Tenza Wade, who was visiting his new baby niece, newborn in Washington, who was born on Friday.
[00:02:43] Saturday.
[00:02:44] Saturday. You left on Friday or Thursday.
[00:02:49] She was born on Friday.
[00:02:51] So then you had to scurry back here on Saturday so you could come and cook for this Sacheen. So I want to congratulate Mike and Wade, who are now uncles.
[00:03:03] First time uncles. Yeah.
[00:03:07] And Marlo, this beautiful baby was 9 pounds, 8 ounces and 21 inches. Yeah.
[00:03:16] So there's been lots of babies around the dragon lately. Douglas is a grandfather. Chris is a grandfather. In the past year or so, I'm probably forgetting others.
[00:03:30] And in the middle of this joyous, harmonious cooperation in our sangha, I think it's important to mention and remember our friends in Minneapolis.
[00:03:49] You know, many of us have friends and family in Minneapolis, and many of us have Dharma friends in Minneapolis.
[00:03:59] And they are grieving as they practice Non cooperation with killing and cruelty and brutality by agents of the United States of America's Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Customs and Border Patrol.
[00:04:30] The names of Renee Goode and Alex Pretty, whose lives were recently taken by senseless violence in Minneapolis, are on our altar. Just for those of you who aren't in the room and before I just, like, roll into a Dharma talk, I think it might be good if we all just closed our eyes, took a breath, stayed in our bodies, and just sit quietly for just a minute and hold everyone impacted by this heartbreaking situation in our hearts, in our bodies.
[00:05:18] With each breath, connect with your breath and body, Safety and sanity.
[00:05:39] Ease this dangerous situation in our country.
[00:05:51] May the truth of our wholeness, of our interconnectedness shine, dissolve the fear and division that underlies this violence and loss of life.
[00:06:16] May our practice together bring forth nourishing understanding and wisdom so that our actions, our activity, may benefit all life.
[00:06:44] May we find a way through this darkness.
[00:07:09] So we're here in this cloud, in this room, in our homes, And many people don't have a sense of safety and protection.
[00:07:46] And still we unfold the Dharma in some hope that this turning of the wheel can help us and all beings be present. We don't know this mystery, and we can't escape it.
[00:08:04] There's not going to be ever in the Bodhisattva path, the Kumbaya moment.
[00:08:17] And still, I think if we have a chance of meeting this moment, it will come from our settledness and clarity.
[00:08:25] Somebody said to me, I think this morning, something like, what do I do when, like, I know I'm being lied to basically by our government?
[00:08:33] And I said, know that you are being lied to.
[00:08:38] Like, in our practice, we actually know some things, and we get a confidence in that knowing while still realizing the ambiguity of our lives.
[00:08:56] We do our best.
[00:09:02] So after our Rohasu sashin, which wasn't that long ago, but it seems like years ago, I made a note to myself that I found.
[00:09:14] Fortunately, it inspired this talk because I was at a loss about what to say.
[00:09:21] And it said, 2026 colon after awakening, patience, constancy, consistency, and caring.
[00:09:36] I have no idea where that came from, but I think it is something that can inform our practice.
[00:09:46] You know, this turning of the Dharma wheel that our Zen practice is constantly rolling, expanding, doesn't stop with sashin or an experience of awakening.
[00:10:03] All those things are good. But what is our bodhisattva activity? What is our bodhisattva work during and after and in the midst of sashin?
[00:10:15] This question that we hold. How does our Zen practice impact how we show up to this moment?
[00:10:29] Today, those in session have been dedicating their vitality to spending hours practicing meditation, immersed in silent illumination.
[00:10:41] And I think everyone in the cloud, on the ground who's here is drawn. We're drawn together by knowing that it's possible to live from this place of wholeness and connectedness and caring that is our true nature, the true nature of everyone, even those who appear to be monsters.
[00:11:08] So our practice, in some ways, is some kind of path, a road home to a deep place.
[00:11:26] So I'm not a total news hound or.
[00:11:38] Too involved with podcasts, but I was recently listening to a podcast with Ezra Klein, and I mentioned this on Thursday morning.
[00:11:49] Ezra Klein is a political commentator for the New York Times.
[00:11:53] And I was surprised when he, his guest, he was in conversation with a Buddhist teacher named Stephen Batchelor, who some of you may know or may not, but I've noticed, like in listening to Ezra Klein, that he has alluded to having a meditation practice and that I have a real sense that he's deeply troubled, like many of us, by this moment, political, sociopolitical moment. And he's really trying to understand how to meet it without making things worse.
[00:12:42] So I was like, I better listen to this. Stephen Batchelor is on here, you know, and I don't know if anybody's heard this podcast. Anybody hear it? Douglas, did you hear it? Yeah, maybe online, a few people might have heard it.
[00:12:56] I think it's worth a listen.
[00:12:58] You know, Stephen Batchelor is known as a secular Buddhist, very bare bones in a way, similar to Joe Kobek, who we studied last year.
[00:13:09] He kind of presents Buddhist teaching without a lot of jargon, kind of a religious almost with a kind of ethical, philosophical approach.
[00:13:21] What was book that I got from our library, it's like after Buddhism, Rethinking the Dharma for a Secular Age. So he's kind of this forward thinker and also a, you know, a trained practitioner in Tibetan and Korean, among other things, but very thoughtful person.
[00:13:44] And, You know, I don't. I don't know his work terribly intimately. I've read a few books and I found his work interesting.
[00:13:57] But what struck me in this conversation with Ezra Klein is that it reminded me that he. He's describes four tasks in meditation practice and uses the acronym elsa E L S A.
[00:14:16] And I think I like it because it's easy to remember, but I also like it because it casts the four noble Truths in some very accessible language and. And it, it kind of helps us orient a little bit to what we're doing when we're meditating and sort of the project of Zen practice or Buddhist practice in general.
[00:14:44] So E in Elsa is embrace everything.
[00:14:51] And over the years, he's kind of mellowed this out because it used to be embrace suffering or embrace conditioned existence. But then he's sort of like, well, embrace everything and then kind of in parentheses suffering or the extra suffering that's known as dukkha.
[00:15:07] But part of what we're learning in meditation is to be open to everything, to allow space for everything that is in our experience.
[00:15:16] This is sort of how he parses maybe that first noble truth. Suffering exists, conditioned existence, the myriad things. These are other ways we talk about whatever we're experiencing.
[00:15:30] Ah, and then L is now, he says it's let reactivity be.
[00:15:43] So now we're making space. But the minute you make space for everything, we're having reactions to it. I want more of this. I want less that. I'm freaked out by this. I'm blissed out by that. I, I, I, you know, and all these habit patterns come up.
[00:15:59] This is reactivity. But his reactivity is how he translates a term that's often translated as craving or thirst.
[00:16:09] And I think that's really interesting. It feels very accessible to me, you know, like craving and thirst.
[00:16:18] You're like, well, I don't know if I feel it. But reactivity. Wait till somebody gets in your face or does something you don't like or does something you really like and you want more of it. You know, like maybe Nina didn't break enough of our tea treat or something. I want more.
[00:16:43] And his, his, his counsel on this is, let it be so. This is like the origin of suffering is kind of not letting it be that this reactivity drives unhappiness, stress and discontent, or intoxication for that matter.
[00:17:09] Then the S in Elsa is see reactivity stop.
[00:17:15] This is a cessation of suffering.
[00:17:18] Like there's an arising and a ceasing. But see how that stops.
[00:17:22] And in our. When we're still upright in our wonderful Samadhi of Zazen, we can really witness and learn the cessation of suffering, the cessation of reactivity, and learn how it ceases.
[00:17:46] First we have to see how it arises, but we study how it ceases and what it feels like to not keep separating or dividing ourselves and others. But the minute there's this gap, you know, hair's breadth, deviation. The minute there's a gap, there's Suffering.
[00:18:04] So we learn the cessation of suffering almost naturally in our zaza. And I'm talking about this in kind of these terms that is that are offered by this teacher, Stephen Batchelor, because I think it's the instruction of my first saw instruction was something like, oh, sit down cross legged, or however you're gonna sit, face the wall and see what happens.
[00:18:34] I mean that's such an open, spacious instruction.
[00:18:43] But you know, when you start to see what happens, sometimes you do something else and pay attention to it or you're like, I don't want to see that and you run out of the room. So I think that it's good sometimes to have a little framework, at least in the beginning, the first 10 or 20 years of kind of thinking about what, what's happening here, how this works, how zazen works or meditation in general, let's say in the Buddhist path and the last a of Elsa is act on a path or actualize a path.
[00:19:17] Live life based on the insights you get. When you notice the arising and ceasing of suffering or of reactivity.
[00:19:33] You know, sometimes you get really elaborate sauce and instruction where it'll be like, don't get too involved in thinking, don't move until the bell rings. But that's about it.
[00:19:44] And I like this kind of framework that gives us some hints, you know, of course the minute we get anything like a framework, you want to grab onto it.
[00:19:53] But that's true with zazen instruction that just says just face the wall and see what happens. Then you're like, I'm really going to see something.
[00:20:01] It takes maybe 20 years to figure out, oh, you're not going to get anything really.
[00:20:08] Then you feel relieved by that.
[00:20:11] And he likens this framework to kind of this path that orients our life towards awakening and flourishing.
[00:20:21] Isn't that nice? That word. Rarely do I see flourish in Buddhist writing.
[00:20:28] So this embrace everything, let reactivity just be.
[00:20:34] See the stopping or cessation of reactivity.
[00:20:37] And then I would say act accordingly to your deepest wisdom and compassion. Live from this responsive, not reactive but responsive heart mind that is that there is a place where it's not based on self absorbed fear and just general self preoccupation.
[00:21:05] So I just put that forward as something to ponder and it's maybe like a little bit of a, an addendum to the Sashin Ruhatsu Sashin which studied the teaching, Buddha's first teaching of the four Noble Truths and, and the turning of the wheel of Dharma.
[00:21:32] But if you don't like that I'll give you something also kind of tasty from our great ancestral heritage that speaks to the very same thing in words that might have sounded really great to 12th century Chinese poetic Buddhists.
[00:21:55] And these words were of our great ancestor Hongzhi from the book beautifully translated by our guiding former guiding teacher, our guiding teacher emeritus Taika and Dan Leighton in Cultivating the Empty Field. So here's another echo of these instructions for meditation or Zazen.
[00:22:21] The field of boundless emptiness is what exists from the very beginning.
[00:22:27] You must purify, cure, grind down or brush away all the tendencies you've fabricated into apparent habits.
[00:22:38] Then you can reside in the clear circle of brightness.
[00:22:43] Doesn't that sound nice? But this field of boundless emptiness is this cessation of reactivity.
[00:22:49] You might say that's always there, our true nature.
[00:22:55] But sometimes it's easy to skirt around this other part of like you must purify, cure, grind down or brush away. Like maybe brush away is kind of nice. Yeah, I'll just brush that away.
[00:23:09] Grind it down. This is some of what we do in Zazen.
[00:23:13] All the tendencies, all the reactivity.
[00:23:19] Then, then you know, when you've, when you know the cessation of this reactivity, when these habits of self reification and control calm down, then you reside in this circle of brightness. Clear circle of brightness.
[00:23:47] He goes on.
[00:23:49] The deep source, transparent down to the bottom, can radiate, radiantly shine, and can respond unencumbered to each speck of dust without becoming its partner.
[00:24:07] What an instruction. How do we respond to this moment without this kind of reactive involvement? That's what it means by not becoming its partner.
[00:24:27] So bodhisattvas, embracing everything, letting reactivity be, seeing reactivity, cease acting from this wisdom that goes beyond.
[00:24:44] And this Maha Karuna, this great compassion, sounds so lovely and great and simple when you read it in a few lines or in a little acronym like elsa.
[00:25:02] But then how does that happen? That we brush away or grind down all the tendencies that we fabricated into apparent habits? And then how do we reside in the clear circle of brightness?
[00:25:16] It's very difficult to do actually, moment by moment.
[00:25:23] So this brings me back to these lines that were jotted down after the last session of after awakening, patience, constancy, consistency and caring.
[00:25:38] And I wondered about this word patience, because it's a common practice in Buddhism, Paramita, bodhisattva practice.
[00:25:52] But patience can have an edge to it.
[00:25:55] I'm bearing under, you know, I'm patient.
[00:25:58] The bell will finally ring if I'm just patient. Enough, you know, it has. There's some kind of struggle that patience implies.
[00:26:07] Like I'll finally get over this, I'll get out of this situation.
[00:26:13] It's a bit of a struggle, there's a bit of a gur. And especially early in practice and it's more refined later in practice it's a little more like a again, but the, the resistance, you know, like I can bear under this.
[00:26:33] And then it reminded me of this chapter in Zen mind, beginner's mind, labeled Constancy, where Suzuki Roshi says, I have always said that you must be very patient if you want to understand Buddhism.
[00:26:50] And I've been seeking a better word for patience.
[00:26:57] The usual translation of the Japanese word, the kanji nin is patience.
[00:27:03] But perhaps constancy is a better word.
[00:27:07] He goes on to say, I was really heartened when I read this.
[00:27:13] They said you must force yourself to be patient. But in constancy there is no particular effort involved.
[00:27:23] There's only the unchanging ability to accept things as they are right now, just right view.
[00:27:33] And I'm like, oh wow, what is that?
[00:27:37] This is when reactivity stops, when there's no forcing, no particular effort, really accepting and embracing things as they are.
[00:27:50] You know, this, no, this no particular effort is also maybe on the Eightfold path known as right effort, which is really interesting because it's actually the giving up or abandoning of unwholesome activity and the embracing of wholesome life affirming, life supporting activity.
[00:28:12] So it's, it's a. It's an interesting that this, you know, effort.
[00:28:19] Suzuki Roshi goes on, for people who have no idea of emptiness, Of the cessation of suffering, let's say of this wholeness of guna nature, this ability may appear as patience, but patience can actually be non acceptance.
[00:28:42] People who know, even if only intuitively, the state of emptiness always has open the possibility of accepting things as they are, then we can appreciate everything and in everything we do, even though it may be very difficult, they will be able to dissolve their problems by constancy.
[00:29:07] Like almost like acid or something dissolving, you know, that there's dissolving the reactivity, which is the real problem and seeing how it ceases is constancy. You know, without this ulterior motive of getting something, even though we vow to free all beings, if we hold on to it and try to impose it on beings, we all know what happens.
[00:29:38] But somehow, if we offer it with an open heart, liberate it from reactivity, there might be a chance.
[00:29:48] And Suzuki goes on and says, nin is the way we cultivate our own spirit. We take that as our true nature.
[00:29:59] Then is patience. But this constancy is what he's talking about is our way of continuous practice.
[00:30:05] Continuous like it doesn't stop after sashin or after we see the cessation of reactivity again and again.
[00:30:22] Even if the flashing of enlightenment comes, our practice forgets all about it.
[00:30:29] Then we're ready for another enlightenment.
[00:30:34] And it's necessary for us to have awakenings after awakenings, one after another, if possible, moment after moment.
[00:30:44] That is what's called enlightenment before you attain it and after you attain it.
[00:30:49] So this is really.
[00:30:53] Suzuki Roshi really brings us to this edge of the effort we put into practice.
[00:31:05] How we meet the world and how it softens and opens as our practice.
[00:31:17] Well, you know, if you read Cultivating the empty field, which is so beautiful and so great and such a wonderful gift to our English language world. From Teigen, it says sings. When the stains of old habits are exhausted, the original light appears blazing through your skull, not admitting other matters, not admitting reactivity.
[00:31:50] Vast and spacious like sky and water merging during autumn, like snow and the moon having the same color.
[00:31:59] This field is without boundary, beyond direction, magnificently one entity without edge or seamless.
[00:32:12] That's the place I think we are advised to come from when we meet what appears to be an edge or a seam or a difficulty or a monster when we act from that place.
[00:32:35] So this morning, here's some words that came to me in this regard.
[00:32:40] I said that was Hongzhi. I said, I say.
[00:32:44] In the midst of the freezing cold, dragons patiently clean the temple for the thousandth time.
[00:32:55] Dragons sit consistently, period after period, struggling until reactivity dissolves into constancy, separation. Forgotten dragons wash their eating bowls with care and find their way home, embracing everything as the circle of wonder.
[00:33:22] So if Elsa isn't your thing, perhaps a circle of wonder is.
[00:33:31] Perhaps grinding down habits are, or patience or constancy or consistency and even caring might be the place to start.
[00:33:42] But only you know.
[00:33:43] So that's maybe enough utterances from me.
[00:33:50] This sachine's pretty silent, but we have time to talk and share our experience and I want to thank you all very much.
