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New podcasts every Tues, Thurs and Sat. Here you can find talks from various teachers involved with the Zen Community of Oregon. We share talks from our retreats, as well as our different weekly offerings between Great Vow Zen Monastery and Heart of Wisdom Zen Temple.
Zen Community of Oregon's purpose is to express and make accessible the wisdom and compassion of the Buddha’s teachings, as transmitted through an authentic, historical lineage. To support and maintain Zen Buddhist practice in order to realize and actualize our Buddha nature in everyday life.
For more information, please visit zendust.org.
Hello and welcome. This is the Zen Community of Oregon, making the teachings of the Buddhadharma accessible to support your practice. New episodes air every week.
Hogen:Thank you all for being here. Everybody comes to a practice center because they like to get something. They like to find something. Like to discover something. They like to know something.
Hogen:And in this tradition it is based upon there are things that we can do with our mind that our awareness is the key, the the way to find what we're seeking is by learning the nature of awareness. In a way we can say nothing happens without awareness. That is the essential nature of saying nothing happens without awareness. No awareness? You have no idea if something exists or not.
Hogen:So here we're coming and we're saying let's practice awareness of mindfulness, presence, investigation, inquiry. Let's look directly. And it is when we have the capacity to look directly at our own mind, to look directly at the forces in us that cause us suffering, to look directly at loving kindness, to look directly at what is alive right here. That direct looking, that direct looking is both reveals something that is inherently a part of us. It also begins to change us.
Hogen:When we see something for what it is, it changes. If we're not seeing it, we go back into old habits, and we go back into old, you know, whatever our our conditioning has been. So we come to a place like this. We have the particular form. Know, there are lots of forms of meditation.
Hogen:The particular form we have here is we sit in silence so that we can turn the mind to look at the mind. That we could turn the mind. Now, so I always feel like the first thing we have to do is be present in our body. So many people are are present with the media or present in Washington or present in someplace else, but they're not really present with their own life not present with their own life so the first anchor first anchor of practice is can I be in my body breathing right now In a way that's a touchstone for reality? None of us knows if there is a president of The United States right now.
Hogen:We have lots of ideas, we've been fed all kinds of stuff, but we don't have any direct experience of that. We have a direct experience of I'm breathing, I'm alive. So we start off by looking at the direct experience. What I know to be true. I know what I can verify for myself and not somebody told me and therefore it must be, you know, they told me I believed it therefore it must be true.
Hogen:We have to verify. The way we verify is we look at direct experience right here and to look at our direct experience right here takes awareness. So we come into a place like this, we sit down, we stabilize the body, we each have a practice, usually involving the body in some way or sound or something very intimate, And we turn our awareness to what is. Now, if we're actually paying attention to what is, then what isn't becomes less important. If we're actually paying attention to what is, what our direct experience is, where life is, where our feeling of aliveness is, the place that is vibrant and intimate, then what is not alive becomes much less interesting.
Hogen:And a lot of it just drops away. And so without even doing anything other than being present, a lot of things that are burdening us, lot of things that are setting on our shoulders just become unimportant. And then we have the freedom to begin to deal with what really is important, which is based upon what we can directly know, what we can directly face. So, I co hope everybody comes here realizing that this is not a magical practice. It's not you come here and if I had a nice stick or a wand or a coat who has a cushion, she bops you on the head with her cushion and suddenly, bop.
Hogen:You know, voila. It never works like that. Of course, life has days that are good and days that are bad and weeks that are good and weeks that are bad and easy years and hard years. That's just sort of the nature of things, of course. But for the kind of liberation that we talk about in Dharma, it is this piece of alive awareness.
Hogen:This piece of alive looking into what do we know for sure is true. The ground of being. And that's always, you know, right here, always intimate. Now just think, if you were actually spending most of your day feeling alive and responding to the things in your life that require that life and trying to give life to your life by meeting, you know, the dishes and the floors and driving and all the things that really require your direct presence and you let go of all the other stuff, wouldn't your life be a lot lighter? Would you be a lot more available for relationship?
Hogen:Would you be a lot more willing to to feel the the breath of your own humanity? So that's part of what the practice is. It's not a magical thing. If you just believe this, then you'll be saved. It does not work like that.
Hogen:Certainly not my experience. But, if you have the confidence to actually say, I wanna sit down, I wanna really look. Where do these thoughts come from? What is it that's aware of this body? Can I really and truly feel the energy, the life energy that's moving through me?
Hogen:There's something very awakening. There's something very alert and bright right there. And it's free. Not only is it free, cheaply free, but it also is always inherently free. Our life is inherently free.
Hogen:From the outside, of course, we think anything but, you know, I mean, we we we we get all the propaganda from all the media and, you know, you're only free if you can now get, you know, a new what's it from Amazon delivered tomorrow. You know, then you'll be a step for freedom. And, of course, we know we have our houses piled up with stuff. That's all gonna make us better, happier, wiser, easier. And some people have a habit of throwing things out very readily so they can buy more things.
Hogen:Their house looks empty, but it's only empty because they've got the conveyor belt of acquiring it. And some people don't acquire so much. Nothing, nothing is going to give us liberation. Everything, lots of things, will give us a temporary feeling of acceleration. If you ride a roller coaster, I guarantee you will be excited.
Hogen:That's what they are made for. But excitement is not happiness. If you get a new house, or a new car, or a new horse, you know, I guarantee when you first get your house, a car, or horse, maybe for six months or a year afterwards, you'll feel, wow. Oh, I'm so glad. And then you become a homeowner.
Hogen:You know, all all the things start falling apart and the bills that come due and, you know, all the the stuff starting to protect your territory. So, the nature of life is it will go up and down, good days and bad days. So what we're looking for in practice is the possibility that there is liberation whether it's a good day or a bad day. The possibility that there is something alive and precious whether it's easy or hard times. Possibility that there is something that we can respect and feel loving kindness with even if things are falling apart.
Hogen:And so Now what I've been discussing, last few few times is transforming problems into wisdom. And in a way that's what I was just talking about. We have a problem, and we different times we've talked about this, what's a problem? You know, a problem is something I don't want to be happening, something I need to to meet and and kind of turn it in a way that will be beneficial for me. Problem is is an obstacle.
Hogen:Problem is a a challenge. And we all have lots of problems. We all have lots of challenges. So in a life that is full of challenges and full of problems, how do we turn that life? How do we turn that life into wisdom?
Hogen:How do we turn that life into beneficent? Beneficence. And that's part of what we've been discussing. First, the first thing we talked about is stabilized mind, getting in the present moment, this thing I was talking about, wrong reality. Second thing we talked about is, not second, but one the things we talked about is seeing things from a barely bigger and bigger perspective.
Hogen:What happens with a small mind is we begin to go crunch, and we only see the immediate struggle with a particular situation, our mind narrows down, and we're just sort of me and the problem. And so one of the aspects is to actually see, oh, there's bigger truths here, there's bigger truths here, there's bigger truths here. And that by seeing the larger truths, then somehow the the small identification begins to loosen. So for example, at the Monastery, where I where I live, Great Velvet, Klatzkanai. There's a potential of a plant called an extra renewable energy plant that's going in a mile down right in our visual field.
Hogen:A billion no, 2,000,000,000 no, $3,000,000,000. It was 2,000,000,000 originally, now it's gone to $3,000,000,000. $3,000,000,000 plant. Now, not a particularly great idea. We could get very small and say wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad you know, start listing everything, get really upset and be distressed and be be uncomfortable about it.
Hogen:That may be true. That may actually be true. And, it may be true that the tax money it will generate will help the schools. And it may be true the tax money it will generate will help all the roads. And it may be true that there will be a whole lot of local local jobs.
Hogen:Right now, Columbia County, the commissioner told me that we only have money in that county for, I think, five miles of road paving or maintenance. It's a really poor county. So it may be that one of the ways of turning problems into wisdom is to expand the view. Expand the view and not only see the particular issue that you're dealing with, but also to say, oh, oh, I can recognize this from a whole bunch of other vantage points.
Hogen:We can talk about it tonight.
Hogen:So, have, if our aspiration is wisdom. And the way we can define wisdom is it's inclusive. It is alive and vital. It relieves suffering. It has imbued with loving kindness.
Hogen:It has in a way the biggest solution for the most people. It helps us to actually recognize what is true in living and dying. That's the guru. So if our if our obstacle So I want to become wise. I want to really have a genuine direct knowing of freedom of liberation.
Hogen:I want to touch the roots of loving kindness. I want to touch the roots of loving kindness and I want to be able share those roots and inspire other people to discover their own own vital aliveness and own vital awakeness. If that's my aspiration, then and that's that's my goal for wisdom. And everything that comes along, I begin to think, okay, here's a challenge, here's a challenge, here's a problem. How can I meet that so that my wisdom grows?
Hogen:I've got a relationship problem. Okay? Small minded, I'm being hurt. Small minded, this is happening to me. Small minded, I don't like that.
Hogen:And then we start opening it, opening it up, you say, Okay, my job, I want to be a person of love and kindness. Is it possible that I can be loving and kind regardless of what happens? Is it possible that I can practice loving and kindness with appropriate boundaries, appropriate Yeah. Is it possible that even difficulties can grow my capacity to love? Is that possible?
Hogen:And so we we we're in a conundrum, we're in a challenge with a relationship. For aspirations, I want to grow in love. We may need to divorce the person, we may need to separate, we may need to do all kinds of things. But if our aspiration is I want to have the heart of loving kindness. And this very difficult situation is giving me an opportunity to grow my heart of loving kindness.
Hogen:My aspiration is to become have equanimity and clarity. And here's a really difficult situation that people are people are hungry, people are having challenges, and I want to grow in wisdom. Can I use that situation to grow in clarity, wisdom, openness, so that I can meet it? Not from a small, I'm afraid, I'm afraid I don't like this, but from a really big, inclusive mind. Oh, okay.
Hogen:There's an issue that we're dealing with. It's a personal issue, it's a social issue, it's a state of mind issue. Ah, okay. I'll meet the whole thing. I'll break open my small self centeredness, and I'll meet the problem with wisdom.
Hogen:When our aspiration is to have that kind of wisdom, everything that comes to us is a challenge of, can I hold this in a bigger way? Can I hold this in a bigger way? We have someone in our sangha who had a bad stroke, hemiplegia, lost their left side of their body. And I'm just so impressed by what they have learned. We are going to die, our bodies are going to fall apart, that's just a given.
Hogen:But this particular person has grown so much in wisdom and just appreciating life after her stroke. Appreciating life, appreciating that the fire alarm went out of the place that she was staying, went off at the place she was staying, and all the sprinklers let go last night and drenched everybody. And she was sort of laughing and thinking, isn't it amazing, you know, rain from heaven? To be able to see all the sprinklers, you know, being rain from heaven is is is wisdom. And you could you could take it many different ways.
Hogen:So, I talked about reframing problems, choose the ones you engage with. So one of the the things that we can all observe is there are many, many realms of life. There are realms where there are animals in those realms. There are realms where people are living out in the streets. There are realms where people are caught by addiction.
Hogen:There are realms where people are mad with power hunger. There are realms where people are living in harmony with the soil. There are realms where people are just in kind of blissful state. They have music and art and love, and things seem, at least on the outside, so beneficent. Part of, I think, part of our practice is, is can we be human and recognize in ourselves all these different dimensions?
Hogen:And can we hold in ourselves these different dimensions with warmth and loving kindness. Romi has a poem called the guest house and he basically just says, you know, I throw my doors wide open and allow all the guests to come in. Easy ones and hard ones and difficult ones and ugly ones and bright ones. And we're filled with all those same guests. It's all part of who we are.
Hogen:So, we come, we sit down, quiet the mind, we begin to learn to pay attention to all parts of ourselves. And of course, the parts of us are the parts of the world. So we begin to have deep appreciation, deep respect, deep alertness So the dimensions of my life, being truly human requires all of that. And then with wisdom with wisdom, I can be fully human and meet every circumstance as best as best I can without being small minded, reactive, fearful, and going back to our old whatever old habit was. So to become a person who truly knows the dark and the light and the up and the down and the broken, and the invisible parts of ourselves and to be able to hold that with attention, able to hold that with respect, be able to hold that with loving kindness, not to be at the mercy of it.
Hogen:We can then, oh, I can hold the world. I can hold the world in that same way. In some pieces I'll try to interact with and do what I can do to help, in some pieces I'll let let be. But as we know ourselves, as we know ourselves through awareness, through looking at the nature of our mind, through seeing our darker light, easier hardness, we begin to know the world. As we accept and appreciate ourselves, we can accept and appreciate the world.
Hogen:Just as if you've got you know, if you have a sore on your leg, because you know and appreciate yourself, get it worked on. Get to go to the doctor, you get taken care of, you take care of things. The same way when we have that state of mind for the world, we see, okay, this my Am I called to do that? Is that what I need to do? Should I pick up that piece of trash?
Hogen:Should I take care of this recycling? I give money to this place? Should I offer food to this person? We we begin to respond without fear to our life. So So to become light hearted about the heaviness of the world, have confidence.
Hogen:One of the foundations of confidence, I think, for spiritual practitioners, if we know that we can be centered, that we can respond with appreciation, even with gratitude to the necessitudes of the world. That gives you great confidence. You know, I can stand up in front of a whole audience of people, not really sure what you're gonna say, not sure what they're gonna like, but you have confidence. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Hogen:My intention is clear. My intention is grounded. My intention is reliable. It gives you great confidence. And some days you're more skillful than others.
Hogen:Alright. So to be a light hearted person in a heavy hearted world, Based upon practice, practice, practice. Based upon awareness, awareness, awareness. Based upon sitting down, being still, knowing who we are. Knowing who we are requires awareness, patience, openness.
Hogen:We can't just know who we are, we have to function with that, so that's the other piece. Alright. That's kind of what's on my mind for for this evening. Any comments? Objection, advice?
Hogen:Anything else you wanna add to the mix? Sometimes I was listening to something as I was coming down here. I was listening to a guy named Anthony DeMello, one of my favorite authors. I realized, oh, he he he would say one line, and he could actually turn the radio off. I could contemplate one line.
Hogen:It didn't need an hour of talk, you know, but one line. So we could just contemplate one line. Shantideva says, if you can do something about something, do it. If you can't, forget it. Don't worry about it.
Hogen:One line. You take that as a motto for the rest of our life. We need to do something. It's basically the serenity prayer. And I would actually rephrase it if you're really if things call to you to do something, do it.
Hogen:If they don't, it's not your business. Oh. Wow. So many problems we just solved.
Hogen:The Lama says the same thing. The Dalai Lama says the same thing.
Hogen:Thing. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's a lot of wise people say things like that. But we can take any line.
Hogen:We don't have to have an hour talking. We can take any single line if we really contemplate. The Buddha says there are three aspects of practice. One is you hear something, you read something, you talk about something, you have to digest it. And then you have to put it into action.
Hogen:So you hear, you digest, and you function. So you hear something like this. If you can do something about something, don't worry about it. Just do it. If you can't do something about it, don't worry about it.
Hogen:Just don't do it. Great. That's all I got to say. Anybody else? So in the future, you know, I'm we'll end now, but in the future, part of both Sansan interviews with teachers, whether it be me, with Koto, is to get help with looking directly and manifesting this thing.
Hogen:It's so easy to talk. So he said, oh yeah, got that. I understand that. But to actually embody it takes a little bit more effort. It's a little bit more.
Hogen:So part of what I'm doing here is trying to inspire people. Practice, practice, practice, practice, practice. Trust yourself. Have confidence. But also, if there are ways that we can kinda help tweak the teaching so that it would be more skillful and more useful for you, then, of course, always interested in doing that.
Hogen:You all for being here this evening.
Jomon:Thank you for listening to the Zen Community of Oregon podcast and thank you for your practice. New episodes air every week. Please consider making a donation at zendust.org. Your support supports us.