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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.
Bansho:Good morning, everyone. Those of you here at Great Vow, and those of you online joining us from wherever you are, thank you for coming together to practice What is rare to practice? Here at the monastery, we sometimes have practice themes for the people who live here. And a theme, this theme means that, for example, at our morning breakfast table, we have a short reading and then some discussion. Also, some of the teachings in the Zen Do, in the here in the meditation hall, in the morning or in the evening, there may be reminders or pointers to a particular element of the Buddha's Buddhist teachings.
Bansho:So for the month of September, we've been exploring the theme of patience. So here we... As we come to the end of September, it's hard to believe but here it is. I'd like to talk about some different aspects of patients we've discovered from the source book that we've been using as we've studied patients here at Great Vow. And we've had a couple talks about different aspects of patients during September here on Sunday mornings.
Bansho:So we've continued this thread and, maybe we're coming to the end of this particular thread. So within our Zen Zen tradition, we often work with, we can work with a framework of spiritual maturation, known as the six paramitas, the six perfections and patience is one of these aspects. And these represent qualities of the heart and mind that can be developed, unfolded, trained, become an l, an aspect of, concentrated development. A training of the of a bodhisattva, one who wants to practice the Buddha way, spiritual practice, in order to awaken ourselves and others, in order to step forward in our life with wisdom and compassion. It takes some training.
Bansho:So the Parmitas are one way to do that. So these six are generosity, precepts, so living ethically, patience is often listed as the third one, Energetic effort, sometimes we... Joyful effort we could call it. Energy, the energy of practice, meditation and wisdom. Wisdom.
Bansho:We can, as we've talked about in the past, we can develop the... We can practice these step by step, sort of in order, in a sequential way looking at, looking sequentially, we begin with generosity. Generosity by being generous, by being giving of our time, effort, our attention, we become less self centered. And we notice as we become sort of less self centered that there's actually a burden is lifted. So generosity is a is a good good way to begin.
Bansho:As we turn towards others, we recognize that interacting with others people, it's beneficial to behave ethically, to not lie to them, to not steal their things, to not gossip, etcetera. And as we we interact with other people, it's... Recognize that patience is an important aspect of this. Meditation is important and from all of these things comes understanding or wisdom. Now, this is a sequential model.
Bansho:There's a... This is just a concept though. So in a way these are all in in dynamic relationship with each other. They function together as a fluid living balance not as a final destination, but as a continuous practice of of refining and training, becoming ever more subtle and joyful. These practices of the Paramitas, Paramitas Sanskrit for perfection, the perfection of...
Bansho:And this might be like, we might think of this as... Sometimes we think of perfection in the English language, we think of it as like, this is kind of like the goal. But I think, you know, our life is might be more like a garden, you know. There's the garden is never perfect. It's being perfected all the time but it's constantly changing.
Bansho:You might or perfecting a recipe. You just keep doing different things to tweak it. So so these perfections, these trainings, we might think of them as the six trainings of a Bodhisattva is a way to remember that our practice extends beyond the cushion. It's not just about, our practice isn't just I'm practicing when I'm here or practicing when I'm at home on the cushion and then everything else is in the way of my practice. It's not like that.
Bansho:And so practicing the Parmitas is a way to take our practice off the cushion, our spiritual development, our spiritual training off the cushion. It's an integrated perspective of the path. So this leads us again to our theme of this that we've been talking about this month here at the monastery and also some of the talks here on Sunday about patience. So as soon as we engage in the practice, as soon as we sit down and look at our mind, as soon as we pay attention to the way that we are with other people, a simple observation becomes clear that it's challenging. It is challenging to be with ourselves.
Bansho:Sitting with ourselves is hard. Living living alongside others is hard. And, the circumstances of our life rarely align with our expectations or our preferences. Does that sound true? Yeah?
Bansho:Okay. So thus, this practice of patience becomes a really essential. That every moment, whatever it brings is an opportunity to, practice patience, practice presence with what's happening without resistance, without trying to push away. One of my favorite pith teachings from Chozon Roshi is that there's no waiting in Zen. There's no waiting in Zen.
Bansho:And this is a way a way to look at, kind of different aspects of, things are happening and I have two options is one is to practice waiting which is how much longer is this going to go on until it gets to be the way that I want it to be. By no waiting in Zen, we cultivate patience, we just say, here's how it is. As the Theravadan Buddhist teacher said, Ajahn Chah says, there's, right now it's like this. Right now it's like this. So there's always an opportunity in the line and Safeway, the line at the DMV, circumstances are as they are and we can either tap our foot and wait for them to be different, want them to be different, or we can practice right now it's like this.
Bansho:So we've been reading from Zen teacher Norman Fisher's book on the six Paramitas called The World Could Be Otherwise. So I'll share with you some of the aspects that he points out that we read at our breakfast table and have been discussing together. And he observes that patience, is the most important of all the Bodhisattva practices because without it all others will eventually fail. Patience is the most important of all the spiritual practices because without it all the others will eventually fail and this is because it's easy to practice patient, it's easy to practice, generosity when we're giving to somebody that we like. When we're giving our attention to somebody we somebody we like.
Bansho:It's easy to do active listening to someone who is close to us or we find interesting. It's less easy to practice that when we're on a five hour flight with somebody sitting next to us who just want, who's chatting all the time or has their iPad volume on and not headphones. So it's a preview for, one of our priests who's gonna be getting on a long flight. What it's like to travel sometimes as she knows. So patience is this important because generosity, being ethical, meditation, when things are going well, things are going smoothly, it's easy to practice them, not so easy when things aren't going the way that we think they ought to.
Bansho:So one of the... So he has different, aspects of patients that Norman Fisher talks about and so couple of these, one is patients with... So different arenas or different fields that we practice patients. One is with our own personal difficulties, patience with personal hardship. He calls it patience with personal hardship.
Bansho:Here, personal hardship is another way we can express the first noble observation of Buddhism that life being human has difficulties. Just a little check here. Is that true? Is that true? Yes.
Bansho:Human life has difficulties. So, if you have difficulties, congratulations, you're being human. We have this idea that something is wrong when we're having difficulties. Nothing is wrong when we have difficulties. It's being human.
Bansho:And then, yes, we all have challenges. Stress, we feel dissatisfied. Sometimes it feels hard to be a human being. We have a human body. It gets uncomfortable.
Bansho:It hurts sometimes our... This human body. It hurts sometimes if we're lucky. Some people that hurts most or all of the time, their body. So if we're occasionally uncomfortable, we can count ourselves as, a fortunate person.
Bansho:This body gets sick sometimes. All of us will get sick. If we're sick occasionally, we're actually a lucky person, fortunate person, some people are sick all or most of
Jomon:the
Bansho:time. This body ages, again, if we're lucky, but it's uncomfortable, it's uncomfortable to be sick, it's uncomfortable when we feel hurt and we really aren't in control of this body that we are in, are we in this body? We experience this body and we really aren't in control of it. So patience is a way that we can investigate how do we relate to our body. Is it something that we judge or criticize?
Bansho:Does it need to be more or less of this or that? Is there something that some message that we've internalized about our body so we suddenly judge it, wish it were were else, some other way. So, but the body is totally innocent. The body is totally innocent. It does a bet...
Bansho:It's best to take care of us night and day. You don't have to think about your breathing. You don't have to, you know, the caveat is unless you're dealing with illness, if if we're relatively healthy, we don't worry about, we don't have to think about, is our pancreas working, We don't have to remember to wake up at night to breathe, it just happens. We don't have to remind our heart to breathe, to beat, it just does it. So it does its best to take care of us day and night.
Bansho:So, however our body is, can we bring patience to our body? Sometimes it's comfortable, sometimes it's not, sometimes it's ill, sometimes it's well. How can we bring this attitude of patience to our body? Rather than thinking about how it needs to be different, what is it asking for? If the knees hurt, do they just need, now that now that, their 50 year old knees, maybe they need stretching.
Bansho:So we have this body, we have a mind, we have a mind that has thoughts. Those of you who meditated, we all meditated today. I think, let's see, did you experience thoughts? Yes. Yes.
Bansho:Opinions? Opinions? Anybody have opinions here? Okay. Views?
Bansho:Views? Judgments? Any judgments in the house? Yes? Ideas?
Bansho:Concepts? So our mind shapes our world. Our mind how we shapes how we relate to our world creates our universe. How we relate to our world through a... We...
Bansho:As we sit down and meditate, we can look at how we relate to our experience. So this is where where the where I think the title of this book comes from, The World Could Be Otherwise is his book. So the world could be otherwise if we view it otherwise. I I once knew a person who was, you know, one of their their mantras was like, why does this always happen to me? Why does this always happen to me?
Bansho:This is somebody very close to me, who's not in the room. This is no one in this room that I know of, although the laughing says that maybe I do know this person. Why does this always happen to me? And so the the way that they related to the world is through this, they looked for verification of of that view of why does it always happen to me. And it's always...
Bansho:It was a negative kind of thing. It's not why does this always happen to me that I have warm clothes and the heat works and I can pay my electric bill? And why does it always happen to me that the that the flowers are blooming and there's a nice breeze happening and I'm surrounded by wonderful people? Wasn't that kind of why does this always happen to me? That might be a really interesting way to practice.
Bansho:So we have this mind that, relates to the world in different ways. Reality is constantly changing and flowing. We often say impermanent. But we can just observe this, things change all the time. And the Buddhist teachings over and over again emphasize that when that the way that we relate to our change, the changing, the flowing that's happening, we become dissatisfied.
Bansho:It's our... It's the way that we relate to it through our thoughts, ideas, views, concepts, opinions. And that that's one of the sources of our dissatisfaction. And that this is a source of anxiety, source of anxiety, a source. If I get things to change into this way that I like, then I can relax and be happy.
Bansho:If I get things to change into the way that I like, then I can relax and be happy. Sometimes that's about me, usually it's about you. If you change in the way that I like, then I can relax and be happy. Then, if I get it that way or close to that way, then we worry that things are gonna change into something that we don't like. So we kind of plan and strategize.
Bansho:Our mind begins to kind of chew on how do I keep it this way. It might end up this other way. How can I keep it, keep this whatever this is from turning into something that I don't like? So this this this kind of the way that we're relating to change becomes this, a source of restlessness, of worry, of anxiety. So, being patient, so bringing in patience with the flowing nature of things that things are changing and we have this mind that doesn't that's doesn't like it.
Bansho:We have this body that's we're not in control of. So, bringing up the practice of patience, meditation allows us to start small in the practice of patience. Meditation itself is the practice of patience. So here's just a taste of Norman Fisher's teaching on this that that we have been studying. He says, in the simple format of meditation, just sitting there by yourself with no one to negotiate with and no task to perform, you have the perfect conditions for practicing patience.
Bansho:Take the issue of physical pain, an experience we naturally view as problematic. Working with pain in meditation can be a way to develop patience. Here's a way to go about it. When physical discomfort arises in meditation, stay with the breath and with the with the sensations of that discomfort. Don't move, don't adjust even though you want to.
Bansho:Doing this will quickly show you how the mind runs away when it doesn't like what's going on. Gradually, we train our mind to stay close to the unpleasant sensations and the thoughts that inevitably go with them. When you do this, you will be surprised to discover within yourself a larger person, someone more forbearing, more dignified, and more courageous than you thought you were. It may seem masochistic to practice like this, but developing patients with unpleasant physical sensations is perhaps the most valuable thing you can learn from meditation practice. To be able to endure physical discomfort and even pain with grace and composure is a valuable skill you will come to appreciate as time goes on.
Bansho:So, with meditation, we take up the practice of being with what is, of actually welcoming what's here with interest and curiosity and patience. And that's the spirit of with which we can practice patience is it's, it doesn't, it's not a withdrawal at all. It's not withdrawing or checking out and putting up with. It's the curiosity, what is happening here? What is going on?
Bansho:What is this? What is this experience? What is it? That's the spirit. So another another aspect is, relating, so so the practice of patience also includes being patient with patients with others.
Bansho:So we talked about patients with ourselves, our bodily experience, and our mind that is relating to our experience in in different ways. So patients with the difficulty in relating to other people inevitably brings up one of the aspects that we call anger. Anger. So, of course, emotions are part of our experience. We have feelings, emotions that come.
Bansho:Sometimes we have big emotions, sometimes subtle, sometimes large. With patience, sometimes short, long, long. With patience and meditation we can observe what that's made of. Body sensation, feeling tone, thoughts, the story. One of the things about one of the things about, emotions, powerful emotions is that we can see, when we experience a big emotion with these different aspects, there's the experience of the body, body sensations.
Bansho:Think about a powerful emotion like grief or anger, So we feel body sensations, feeling tone. Usually, there's three that we do in meditation, positive, negative, and neutral. Say that a powerful emotion oftentimes has a negative feeling tone. And then there's thoughts of the story that's associated with it, with these emotions. And oftentimes you can see the dynamic with powerful emotions is that it's so uncomfortable in the body that we go up into the head.
Bansho:We go up from body sensation into the thoughts associated with it, blame, story, they shouldn't, here's how do I get out of this, and watch this happening. And so in our meditation, really becoming curious and interested in what's happening with powerful emotions and feeling them come into the body, be there what is with interest and curiosity and watching it as it changes. And that's the practice of patience with powerful emotions. It's not trying to get rid of it, it's not even really trying in the moment necessarily to understand it and like, here's where it's coming from and here's how I could fix it and if they hadn't have done that or here's how, now here's what I'll do. It's like actually really feeling it and learning it's wiz...
Bansho:The wisdom of that and the understanding that then can be brought to bear when the time comes, not out of a place of reactivity of what's happening, but from a place of understanding what's happening. So one of the most powerful emotions that we as a human being experience is anger. Another, another facet of anger is ill will. So sometimes you'll hear anger but also ill will sort of like directed, you know, sort of the opposite of friendliness towards someone. It's outwardly wanting others misfortune or wanting them to maybe suffer how we're suffering.
Bansho:In our precept, so the second, I'll read from Norman Fisher. He says, the second arena for the practice of patience is in relation to others. Despite the fact that relationships are potentially the source of our greatest joy and love the fullest and most positive human experience, relations ships are complicated. Our meditation shines a light on our own complications. It shows us how stubborn, deceptive, and hard to deal with we are.
Bansho:So it comes as no surprise to find that others are the same. Stubborn, deceptive, hard to deal with. Inevitably, inevitably human interaction give rise to sticky painful and sometimes tragic problems. Practicing patience with the painful feelings that arise in relationship to others is a key practice for spiritual people whose primary commitment is to love and be of service to others. Bodhisattvas, we call them in this tradition.
Bansho:Imagine what life would be like if we loved everyone, treated everyone with unwavering positive regard and were never in conflict with anyone. We would be happy people. Most of the unhappy making factors in our lives would be removed even if we got sick and had to undergo hardship. The loving support of others would make that difficult experience better. Boy, this sounds great.
Bansho:Even if we were poor in a bad social situation, the love support and respect of others would make it endurable. Our friends would help us out and make sure we always had the necessities of life. Of course, this isn't how it is. We have plenty of trouble with people in our lives. People behave in ways that we don't like and we get upset.
Bansho:The practice of patience calls forth in us understanding, tolerance, forgiveness, compassion, and loving kindness towards others. It also takes into account that anger and resentment will arise and we will have to learn to live skillfully with such emotions. So, in our precepts, the bodhisattva ethical trainings that we do here in our tradition, one of them is we vow to not to unleash anger, but to seek its source. I vow not to unleash anger but to seek its source. It's not, I don't vow to never be angry.
Bansho:It's I vow not to unleash it but to seek its source. What is going on? What is the source of anger, of this anger, this experience? What is it? What is its source?
Bansho:Anger, in this definition, can range anywhere from subtle irritation to blind fury and everything in between. So some situations where we might observe that anger arises, we might do this pondering ourselves, but some situations where anger arises, you don't understand me. You don't see me. You aren't giving me what I want or what I... You aren't giving me what I need.
Bansho:I want you to be different. I want to be different. You crossed my boundary. You are mistreating me. There's anger towards turned inward, the inner critic is anger towards turned inward.
Bansho:So these aren't necessarily, these are looking at what what is, where might this be coming from. So it doesn't necessarily mean that not to feel it. We're not trying to figure out, well, why do I have this in order to and that I that I have this belief and that it's wrong. We're looking at where what is the source of this and and seeing some of these things, we need to bring wisdom and decide whether or not there's something to be done or not to be done. So how do we practice patience in the realm of anger?
Bansho:Some ways to do this is allow others to have their own path. So, that's when I want you to be different and allow others to have their own path. For a turn inward, it might be allowing ourselves to have our own path. I'm learning, I'm not perfect right now, I'm learning. Allow others to be in process, Know that they're on their own spirit, they're on their own journey, they're our own unfolding.
Bansho:We could turn that around. I allow ourselves to be in process. Be patient with ourselves and persistent in our practice, but allow ourselves to be in process. Allow others to deal with their own karma, their own, their own, they have their own mind, they have their own history. We let go of our own agenda, be patient.
Bansho:Patients with complexity. I don't understand, I may not understand this entire, this situation completely. This is a, the Dalai Lama emphasizes patients with complexity. We just look at our own complexity, our body, our history, our emotions, our thoughts, our concepts, our views, our feeling tones. There's just this whole conglomeration constantly flowing.
Bansho:And then there's another being that's this whole other complexity that comes together. I mean, here in this room, there's like 50 complexities happening. So patients with complexity, we don't know. In many cases we just have a projection of this person in front of us that we think that we understand. We're making some prediction about how they ought to be.
Bansho:So there's many karmic streams that come together and we we have to we patience is having some humility about, I don't really necessarily know what this person ought to be doing. I don't know. I don't know how to be a parent. Sometimes anger gives us a clue that we need to take care of ourselves in some way, so we can look for the wisdom in there and act. So working with skill working skillfully with anger is a is a central teaching of the Buddha Dharma.
Bansho:In the Dhammapada, one of the most ancient of the Buddhist teachings, there's a verse where... Called the three virtues. The Buddha says, speak the truth, do not yield to anger, and give even a little when asked. These three actions lead to higher spiritual realms. Speak the truth, don't yield to anger, and give even a little when asked.
Bansho:These three actions lead to higher spiritual realms. So finally, so we've done these sort of three aspects, patience with ourselves, patience in relationship with others, and now, what is pay... Does patience even exist? So patience is empty of patience. Patience is empty of patience.
Bansho:Oh my gosh, this is, all these, this Zen teaching is crazy. What could that even mean? So, Norman Fisher says, like all the perfections, the Parmitas, the perfection of patience doesn't really exist. In fact, there's no such quality of patience, as patience. It's just a word that evokes in us a feeling of how we could live.
Bansho:Like all perfections and everything else in the world including ourselves, patience is empty of any graspable inherent reality. Appreciating emptiness is the fruit of our practice of the six Parmita's, sixth Parmita wisdom or understanding. Why is it important to remember that patience is empty of patience? Because it reminds us not to get too worked up about our practice of patience. If patience is empty of patience, then practicing it ought to be relaxing.
Bansho:Why get upset because we think we are not patient enough when the end, in the end there's no such thing? We practice patience the best we can because to do so is delightful and benefits are great. We practice patience the best we can because to do so is delightful and the benefits are great. It would be silly to be impatient with our impatience, when patience, and therefore impatience is an empty concept. Isn't this the trouble with religious life as we usually think of it?
Bansho:We take it so seriously. We get so intense about it and we end up in a mess. Appreciating the emptiness teachings help helps us with this problem. So what is this talking about? So, patience, basically patience is not a thing.
Bansho:You can't draw a box around it. Patience is not a box that we're trying to fit ourselves into. Sometimes patience is in stillness, it looks like our zazen. Sometimes it looks like active listening. Sometimes patience looks like raking the leaves, yet again.
Bansho:Sometimes it looks like watching a child dress themselves. Sometimes we need the other parameters including wisdom to act. There's a time to be patience and be patient and be with and just be within this way and there's a way to be with patience and activity. Sometimes it's sometimes it's just, being still, sometimes it's getting up and saying, time to hurry up, we're gonna be late. So, we're not trying to fit ourselves into a box or make this into a a self improvement project.
Bansho:So, as one of my favorite early sayings from in my practice from Hogan was, Zen is not a self improvement project. Zen is not a self improvement project. We bring curiosity and interest into our experience to see what's happening and the best, one of the best ways to do that is with, is being patient because then we're actually being present with what's happening and we can learn, we can learn. And it's helpful to have the paramita, the perfection, the training of wisdom and understanding to know when is the time to be be still and when is the time to step forward and act with these hands. So I'd like to close with a short teaching by the Dalai Lama on patience.
Bansho:The Dalai Lama says, since patience or tolerance, endurance, being with welcoming, Since patience comes from an ability to remain firm and steadfast and not be overwhelmed by the adverse situations or conditions that one faces, one should not see patience as a sign of weakness or giving in but rather as a sign of strength coming from a deep ability to remain firm. Responding to a trying situation with patience and tolerance rather than reacting with anger and hatred involves active restraint which comes from a strong self disciplined mind. And for that we need training, we need our meditation, and we need our Sangha practicing together. We can't do this by ourselves. So luckily, we look around the room, we see that we're not by ourselves.
Bansho:We're all together doing our best to be patient within complexity with ourselves and our world. Thank you for your patience.
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.