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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. We are continuing our exploration of the Paramitas this month, and I decided to do kind of two at once for the first, I don't know, three weeks of March, and then we're going to be moving. So I kind of want to make sure that we have a, you know, what's going to be our final talk here?
Jomon:I don't know, but it needs to be something magnificent. So I've made room for that. Maybe it's about all six Paramitas, I don't know. But often the Paramitas are are six qualities or six characteristics or six virtues that we endeavor to cultivate in our practice, that a bodhisattva, someone who's on their way to becoming a Buddha, and that's all of us, someone that, something that a Bodhisattva would automatically be able to express. And so those are generosity and ethical behavior, we're the first we talked about last week.
Jomon:Tonight we'll talk about patience and joyful effort. Those are the two. And then the remaining two are meditation and understanding or wisdom. So be ready for that. Tonight is kind of a lovely I noticed the way that these two patience and joyful effort kind of bookend each other a little bit in a very lovely way.
Jomon:The Sanskrit word for patience is Kisanti. Some other words that are used to express this particular Paramita are forbearance or tolerance. And then joyful effort, the Sanskrit word for that is called virya, virya. Another expression of that or translation of that is universal energy. One of the things that struck me as I was considering how to talk about these two Paramitas, I had just heard some of you know Hogan and Chosin Roshi, the founders of the Zen Community of Oregon, my teachers who live at Great Vow Zen Monastery.
Jomon:And Hogan just turned 77 yesterday and Chosin just turned 80 this year. And I've known them for twenty plus years and they embody these two parameters really kind of perfectly, and Hogan just gave a little way seeking mind talk at the monastery through his spiritual autobiography and Chosen does a series of those. You can find those on the Internet. And he is just a real exemplar of this patient's Kishanti Parmita, and she is the joyful effort, Viriya Parmita. They're remarkable people.
Jomon:If you get a chance to go to the monastery or Hogan comes down on Sunday nights, I recommend you find your way to be in a room with them at some point. Hogan's way seeking mind talk, so I want to kind of shift into a little bit eventually more into Kashanti, but he's such an exemplar of that because so much of his way seeking mind talk was about his just working with his own history of depression. Really deep, really painful depression. Crushing depression, and yet his insistence on just keeping going in spite of it all, just keep taking one more step, just keep doing what must be done. And it really is a powerful example of how this, what we're talking about, this patience isn't about feeling better, it isn't about seeing, well it is about seeing the truth no matter how we feel or what we think.
Jomon:And what Hogan would say is just don't believe your thoughts. Just don't believe your thoughts. But how we feel is not nearly as important as just keep taking a positive step forward. And Chozen, she experiences joy I think in most things. She is and has always been a very deeply curious person, has this childlike wonder about things, and at the breakfast table there will often be like these unruly collections of greenery or floral pieces that she's pulled out of the garden or some part of the monastery that she'll send down the two tables for everybody to examine and she'll do a reading and talk about them at breakfast.
Jomon:And so we are always learning, we're always learning with her in this playful spirit of enjoyment. Or she has a couple of microscopes just, you know, on hand at the monastery. And occasionally she'll like bust out something and say, let's look at this under the microscope. And we all do. It's really cool.
Jomon:So that's virya, this joyful effort. So patience, kashanti, joyful effort, virya. So a little bit about kashanti, patience, forbearance. All those English words kind of suggest a passivity and there's a way that that's sort of semi true and that it is maybe associated with a kind of stillness in the face of discomfort or difficulty or wanting things to be different than they are. But it's not just passive resignation.
Jomon:It is also a posture of willingness, a posture with the the with the clarity that that everything in our experience is transformative. That's what we're talking about when we're talking about this kind of patience. That whatever we're experiencing can be transformed, that we can be transformed. That everything's already changing actually anyway. That's the other thing that is embedded in this particular, in everything, the truth of impermanence.
Jomon:So even kind of simply, patience is also this acknowledgement that everything's changing. Everything's completely unstable already. So of course it will change. It is changing. It's already changing.
Jomon:And even if things are going beautifully and everything's going exactly the way we want it to, that's going to change too. That will end too. And this is not a glitch. This is not a problem. This is not a malfunction.
Jomon:This is just how it is. This is just how everything, everything is. And that when we really align with that, there's no struggle. It reduces the argument with reality. Now it could still be extremely uncomfortable or you don't have to like it, that's for sure.
Jomon:But is it something we can assent to? Is it something we can willingly take up as a practice that we incorporate, that we stir into our practice, that's a decision, that's a choice that we do have. Or to reject it or to say no, this is so terrible it couldn't possibly or it doesn't count. So forbearance, patience, this is the fullness of this acknowledgement, the willingness to fully inhabit the reality of a situation that may be challenging, that may be painful. It's also not to say this is all there is.
Jomon:It's not all there is. Is how it is is not the same as this is how it will always be. Does that make sense? Change is always imminent, imminent. So patience and forbearance are often applied as an antidote to anger, to anger.
Jomon:One of the three poisons, the other two being greed and ignorance. When we find ourselves inflamed with anger, we might apply patience. Now, are some difficult teachings. I want to bring in the teachings of Shantideva. These are not Zen teachings, they, originate from, the Vajrayana tradition, Tibetan, teachings, Shantideva teachings come from there.
Jomon:Although he was a student at Nalanda University in India, and perhaps it was the writings that ended up in Tibet is why how it is that we have them. Anyway, it's a beautiful, deep and rich teaching on the Parmitas. Some of the verses I want to share with you, and this isn't my favorite translation, but it works. So about anger, he says, Whatever wholesome deeds such as venerating the Buddhas and generosity that have been amassed over a thousand eons will all be destroyed in one moment of anger. So that's he's just sort of talking about the danger of unleashing anger.
Jomon:So one of our ethical precepts, the way we work with it is, I vow not to unleash anger, but to seek its source. So that's not to say never be angry. I mean we don't exactly have sometimes a choice about that. We might suddenly realize, oh gosh, their anger is really here, it's really strong, but how we express it, what we do about it, that's really what this is encouraging caution in that. He goes on to say, There's no evil like hatred and no fortitude like patience.
Jomon:Thus, I should strive in various ways to meditate on patience. My mind will not experience peace if it fosters painful thoughts of hatred. I shall find no joy or happiness. Unable to sleep, I shall feel unsettled. So he's basically just pointing out when we kind of keep telling ourselves the same story over and over and justifying or getting ourselves really engaged in our story about whatever it is that we're angry about, really fostering it, that that doesn't feel good for us.
Jomon:It just doesn't. And so, and then there's I think the question about what good is it doing? Is it actually helping anyone to foster that? So this is kind of a classic teaching of Shantideva, this next verse. Why be unhappy about something if it can be remedied?
Jomon:And what's the use of being unhappy about something if it cannot be remedied? It's a very practical question here. If you can do something about it, then wonderful. If not, how is this what do we do with that feeling? And so he says, There's nothing whatsoever that is not made easier through acquaintance.
Jomon:There's nothing whatsoever that is not made easier through acquaintance. So through becoming acquainted with small harms, I should learn to patiently accept greater harms. So he's basically inviting us to just open to our experience even when they're uncomfortable, especially when they're uncomfortable. Even the littlest things. It seems like the littlest things can sometimes really send us over the edge.
Jomon:But that's exactly what we are doing here in our meditation practice. We are getting deeply acquainted with our moment to moment experience. Oftentimes there are these small annoyances. Why is it that the nose starts itching as soon as the bell rings? Like, amazing.
Jomon:What is that? But sure enough, or just the tension, the neck pain, can't quite find the right, you know, the itch, all of it, we come to a willingness perhaps to sit with it, to become acquainted with it, to turn toward it and not fight with it or reject it or think it's wrong, even the swirling thoughts. And then, the more we do that thing, the more we can do that thing. When we're face to face with our partner who has just challenged us with a very unfavorable view of ourselves, we might be able to just take one breath. And then our course of action is very different after that one breath, maybe five breaths.
Jomon:So not to unleash anger but to seek its source. Patience. This is difficult teaching and there are some good questions that might arise around this. There's one part in it, I don't know if it's the patience chapter, I think it's the anger chapter. He has a whole chapter on anger.
Jomon:And he goes verse by verse with all these different situations of just like, if you're being, you know, irritated, if you're being attacked, if you're being disparaged, just you should remain like a log. Just act like a log. Like a log you should remain is one of the translations. Like a log you should remain. Just don't, just make like a log.
Jomon:That's not easy. Really? So I think there's good questions that might arise. I am not upset and not expressing anger about the tragedies of war, injustices in the world, harms in the world. Does that mean I don't care?
Jomon:Am I just opting out of this whole operation? Does that mean I'm numbing out? Does that mean I'm spiritually bypassing? That's a term spiritually bypassing means that I'm using my spiritual practice to avoid unpleasant feelings. These are important questions to really, really look at.
Jomon:Similarly, if I'm harboring anguish And I'm not moved by it to act in such a way that is helpful. Is my own anguish actually helpful to anyone? Apparently on whose behalf I'm experiencing anguish? Like, am I? What am I doing with that?
Jomon:Is it useful to anyone or even to me? So I want to just present that, you know, the depth and the variation of the texture of patience, how we might explore it, how we might apply it. So on a completely different note from anguish is joyful effort or virya or universal energy. Another translation of it is diligence, which I love. And it's like this is the sustainable fuel for diligence, for just keep on going.
Jomon:A popular metaphor for this Paramita is the wind that fills our sails. The wind that moves us with this powerful, natural, uplifting energy. Just imagine a giant ship with the sails billowing, carrying the ship. This powerful energy and vitality, it's not even self generated. It's just this natural resource.
Jomon:Shantideva about diligence says, Thus with patience, I will strive with diligence. For in such diligence enlightenment is found. If no wind blows, then nothing stirs and neither is there merit without diligence. Okay, and now here's another thing to be very careful about. First he says, diligence means joy in virtuous ways.
Jomon:Just taking joy in the virtue of all beings, that there is virtue in all beings. There's no news program about that that I know of. If you do, let me know where we're finding out about the virtue of all beings. It's out there. It's in here.
Jomon:It's happening. And we can take joy in that. So diligence means joy in virtuous ways. This is one part of this verse. And then he goes on to say, its contraries have been defined as laziness and inclination for unwholesomeness, defeatism, and self contempt.
Jomon:Oh, man. Okay. Let's dig into this. Okay. So laziness, I don't know.
Jomon:That's, like, the worst thing you could be in my, like, Protestant work ethic culture. And my mom likes these terrible comedians that she'll continue she's 92. She's not going to change. She shares with me their comedic efforts that I do not find particularly amusing at all. And so we have this dynamic where she's like, You're too sensitive, blah.
Jomon:And I figured out that it's like, No, no, no, mom. It's not that they're mean. It's that they're lazy. That humor is lazy. She's like, it's just too easy.
Jomon:So, but we should be careful about this name calling of ourselves. Don't want to present this and have it land on anybody because it's so easy to criticize our whatever we perceive as lacking in our practice. Like, that's already kind of a problem. Like, if you're here, don't criticize yourself for anything, like, for a while because you're here. You make it here, like on the semi regular.
Jomon:Like that's give yourself some credit for the virtue that you're cultivating. That's not laziness. So let's be careful with this. But it is also that tendency that we all have to just hide under the covers, to just, you know, the exhaustion that happens because we're so busy avoiding what we know we need to do. And it's the exhausting nature of just half heartedness that that I see as, you know, if I wanna call something lazy, it's just that getting caught up in the avoidance of things.
Jomon:It's very easy to get caught up in that. So give yourself a break already. I'm gonna give you all a get out of jail free card just for my bringing up these words in here today. So then the other form is distraction. Here's your other get out of jail free card.
Jomon:Idol activities, and we all have our favorites, Instagram, news, puttering, video games, Candy Crush, whatever people's stuff is. Of course. And what's amazing is that we're currently, as humans, up against some of the most technologically advanced systems of distraction that have ever been known to humankind. So do give yourself a really big break for being susceptible to that. We all are.
Jomon:So what's cool is that Shantideva offers us an antidote to that, in particular, to distraction and to like the stuff that we know doesn't matter, the stuff that we end up spending time in and afterwards you're just like, Ugh, I just spent how many minutes of my one wild and precious life doing that? The antidote is to acknowledge impermanence. The antidote is to recall that time is short. The antidote is to recall that impermanence is real and we don't know how much time we have left. So what do you really want to be doing with what may be a very small amount of time that we have?
Jomon:So those are the two kind of like be careful, don't beat yourself up too much about these or be careful as you self assess about these, what does he call them, the contraries to this diligence or the joyful effort. And the third kind, and this comes from a book all about diligence by Zigar Kung Troll, who is Pema Chodron's teacher. Zigar Kung Troll Rinpoche. His book is called Diligence, the Joyful Endeavor of the Buddhist Path, which already is this uplifting group of words. The joyful endeavor of the Buddhist path.
Jomon:So I'm just going to read directly from that. He says, The third kind of laziness is basically giving up before we even try. This laziness is a form of self denigration or low self esteem. We think, I can't. There's no way.
Jomon:I'm not worthy. I'm not capable. Others are different maybe, but I cannot do this. This is laziness disguised as low self esteem and it can run deep and be quite subtle. This form of laziness keeps us in our comfortable habitual cocoon where we feel safe as we repeatedly tell ourselves that we are unable to do this or that.
Jomon:We can trap ourselves in this place by selecting scenarios or calling up memories that confirm for us how unworthy or incapable we are, so we might as well not bother trying. So I think this is really important that of all the thoughts we can have that are just random and wacky or, you know, they're insubstantial and just not necessarily they're as powerful as we make them. But for some reason, these ones that are like, and you're terrible, you're so different from everybody else has got this and you don't, and everybody else can and you can't. Somehow those are more believable or there's those sort of emotional valence that feels real maybe but isn't true. Doesn't make it any more true.
Jomon:Just because there's some matchup of a feeling with that is not true, is not true. We all have the same capacity. We all have the same capacity for awakening, realizing the truth of this life. So he says the essence of diligence is joy. Finding genuine joy means personally connecting with what we're doing to really full heartedly, whole heartedly put ourselves out there to really be willing probably to be awkward.
Jomon:Sorry. That's probably gonna happen if we really are putting ourselves out there or, you know, earnest. Like, there's a safety in being cynical and just doubting everything and everyone like, well, yeah, that's not really right. It seems kind of it's pretty safe, really. You just, you know, if it turns out you're right, well, then great.
Jomon:I was right. But to allow yourself to be vulnerable in this world, in this practice, where the joy is. That's where the joy is. That's where the life is. That's where it really is.
Jomon:So there's a really cool book that I want to share with you that is about exuberance, which is actually not the same as this diligence, but it's sort of near enemy almost, a near relative of it. But there's some wonderful examples of this joyful diligence, this being willing to be fully and wholeheartedly engaged that is really similar to a life of practice in this way to tapping into that joy of practice. So just to begin, there's kind of like next level is just enthusiasm. Right? And there's a great quote by Louis Pasteur who said, the Greeks understood the mysterious power of the hidden side of things.
Jomon:They bequeathed to us one of the most beautiful words in our language, the word enthusiasm, enthios, a god within. So enthusiasm, that's what we're talking about, this energy, this larger than us power. So I would say enthusiasm plus energy is maybe exuberance that goes a little bit further than this. And so the book Exuberance is written by a psychiatrist named Kay Redfield Jamison, and she just went deep into this study on exuberance and found a lot of actual people whose lives embodied it, including people like Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir and people like that. There's a large number of scientists that are gripped with this energy.
Jomon:So she, by way of definition, says exuberance is derived from the Latin exuberance ex, which means out of, plus uberare, to be fruitful, to be abundant. It's at its core a concept of fertility, exuberance. Exuberance in nature is designed is defined by lush, profuse, riotous growth. It is an overflowing, opulent, and copious abundance. Early uses of exuberance in English were mostly in the context of descriptions of nature, of profuse crops, of kinetic natural phenomena such as shooting stars, sulfur springs, and waterfalls.
Jomon:Exuberance. So I want to share with you a story that she wrote about a scientist named Cecilia Payne Gaposchkin. She was one of the great astronomers of the twentieth century. She lived from 1900 to 1979. And she's credited with very essential contributions to astronomy, including the discovery that most objects in the universe are composed primarily of hydrogen.
Jomon:Nobody knew that before. Her dissertation work on the relative abundance of elements in stars, published later as the book Stellar Atmospheres, is a classic in astronomy, an essential step in the scientific demonstration of a philosophical concept that natural bodies, the stars, the sun, and the earth are made up of the same stuff. Her second book, The Stars of High Luminosity, was also a pioneering study exemplifying, as one colleague put it, the bravery and adventure of a mind exploring the unknown. Now I hope that's what we're doing here too. The bravery and adventure of a mind exploring the unknown.
Jomon:So Cecilia Payne Gaposchkin was an astronomer when women were not really astronomers. She was barely allowed to even be seated in school. So how did this happen? Her fervor for science showed itself early. When she was five years old, she saw a meteor, and she decided on the spot to become an astronomer.
Jomon:And she resolved to begin quickly. She said, in case there should be no research left when she grew up. She wanted to discover things before they all got discovered. She was pretty sure it was going to happen, so she needed to hurry up. She was brought up in England.
Jomon:She was initiated into science as a young girl. She had her family was female dominated somehow. I haven't read her autobiography. This is just a summary. She was initiated into science as a young girl and sent flying with enthusiasm into a life of science.
Jomon:And this is a quote from her, The bee orchis was growing in the long grass of the orchard. An insect turned into a blossom nestled in a purple star. Instantly, I knew it for what it was. My mother had told me of the Riviera, trapdoor spiders and mimosa and orchids, and I was dazzled by a flash of recognition. For the first time, I knew the leaping of the heart, the sudden enlightenment that were to become my passion.
Jomon:I think my life as a scientist began at that moment. I must have been about eight years old. Even as a young schoolgirl, she knew that her first love was science. She said, when I won a coveted prize at the end of the year, I was asked what book I would choose to receive. It was considered proper to select Milton or Shakespeare or some writer of similar prestige.
Jomon:I said I wanted a textbook on fungi. In her boarding school, a place whose primary task she said was to prepare young women for English society, she taught herself mathematics and science and spurned religious services in order to pursue her individual studies of chemistry and nature, So she made a little converted laboratory, made that into a chapel of her own on the Top Floor of the school. So she had all the chemicals up there and was just so into all the elements and the chemicals. She didn't realize that entire space was also made of these same things. She said, Nature was as great and impressive to me as it had seemed when I, as a child, vowed myself to its service.
Jomon:It overshadowed everything. She says in her autobiography, More than seventy years have passed since then, and the long garnering and sifting This is for the research life. The long garnering and sifting has been spurred by the hope of such another revelation. I have not hoped in vain. These moments are rare and they come without warning.
Jomon:On days to be marked with a white stone, they are the ineffable reward of him who scans the face of nature. I have not hoped in vain. These moments are rare and they come without warning. They are the ineffable reward of him who scans the face of nature when we really look. So why would I share her story?
Jomon:Here we are in our Zen practice, which I think like science maybe can be a little serious, can be a little dour even. Maybe you've had a science teacher that just sucked all the fun out of it. I certainly did. I remember doing like word finds in a science class one time, like what are we doing? I've had good science teachers though too.
Jomon:But we are also here to explore the face of nature, the face of this life. What is this? What is this? And we have this is our instrument of research. This.
Jomon:And we may even have insights or glimpses some days marked with a white stone. I had to look up the origin of that phrase. One account says it originates from the Roman times that this is how they would mark on their calendar days like a white stone or white chalk as opposed to black charcoal days, the holy days or the lucky days. And then another account says that, in ancient court proceedings, if a person was innocent, there'd be a white stone. So perhaps we started practice because we were subject to pain and suffering and we were looking for relief.
Jomon:And perhaps we even found that a little bit and that's wonderful. That's legitimate. But maybe then what sometimes happens is that might abate, that the suffering abates, or we find a new partner, or we get a new job, and things are going Okay and maybe we drift. And that's Okay too. But the question is the long term fuel for practice.
Jomon:How do we? Do we keep at it? How do we keep at it with diligence? How do we keep at it with this light heart so that we can keep going? So we're not weighed down too much.
Jomon:What is it that's sustainable? So I want to share one more quote. This is beautiful. This is from a scientist named David Levy, who is the discoverer of more than 20 comets. David Levy had to wait nineteen years before he found his first comet.
Jomon:And so why after a thousand hours of watching the sky to no avail did he keep on looking? And he says, the point of the search for comets is that I love searching for comets. That's it. That's it. The point of searching for comments is that I love searching for comments.
Jomon:Now we don't have to always love meditation. But this is the point right here. This is the point. Whatever this is, this is the point. You have arrived.
Jomon:The path is right here underfoot. Buddha nature pervades the whole universe existing right here now. So we can turn our minds toward patience. We can turn our minds toward this joyful effort. And some of the one of the most powerful ways to do that is with metta practice, that we just shift the valence of our heart mind to this beneficial wish, may I be free from fear and anxiety, may I be safe, May I be at ease.
Jomon:May I be happy. And then extending that to a beloved one. Sometimes it's easier to start with a beloved one. May you be free from fear and anxiety. May you be safe.
Jomon:May you be happy. And then this is also this offering ourselves meta really interrupts that laziness thing we were talking about earlier, where we really do need to include ourselves in this practice, in this world, in this life. So we're just allowing our minds to be turned, allowing our practice to turn our mind and heart to this more open and more willing to experience this life fully. And we're all here to help each other do that. So thank you.
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 zendest.org. Your support supports us.