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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.
Speaker 2:Online people, I'm sorry. My my computer is saying something is blocked. We don't have time to debug it. So I apologize for not having the computer on. And we used to make this camera have more of a close-up.
Speaker 2:Is that still possible? Great. Good evening. Thank you all for being here. Thanks for practicing.
Speaker 2:At the beginning of each retreat, each meeting, I like to take refuge. Taking refuge means to place our trust in something that is larger than than we are, something that is more solid than our personality. And the way we express that in this tradition is I take refuge in the Buddha. I take refuge in the Dharma, I take refuge in the Sangha. Thank you.
Speaker 2:We began last week working on the Tanha Sutra, the teaching on craving. Do people have copies of it? Is that And I think the the first part is so so cool. It just says, assembly, I'll listen, teach you about craving, the weaver, the ensnare, the creeper that chokes and engulfs this world, tangles this world like a ball of thread, stamps it down like matted rutches and weeds, locking the way to wisdom and liberation. And how many of us have felt like that?
Speaker 2:That we have been blocked and tamped down and and shut off and that we have we have no longer have access to our wisdom? I think it's a pretty universal experience, unless I'm mistaken and there are Buddhas in the room that I I haven't appreciated. Everybody's got this, has this experience. And of course, this is is presented in in polycanon language. But it means when I'm confused, when I don't know which end is up, when I'm lost and when I don't know how to go forward.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's that's what it's about. That we're just thick. We have a cocoon around us. We're unable to to really see our lives. I was listening to David White, the the poet, and he was talking at one point about Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy.
Speaker 2:And he says, it begins, you know, that I was lost in a dark wood, kind of woke up. I found myself in a dark wood. I didn't know which way to go. We've all felt like that. We all have been there.
Speaker 2:And and not only once, but we have been there repeatedly in our lives. I don't know which way to go. I don't know what's what's going forward. And the Buddha in his particular way says, okay, well, on one hand, that's just the way things are. It's not a problem.
Speaker 2:On the other hand, when we become we become captivated by it, We were choked by it. We don't know what to do. Then it's worth investigating. Frankly, we don't we grow especially when we're having challenges. When we don't know how to solve a math problem, then we learn.
Speaker 2:We grow in our wisdom. We don't know how to solve a personal interpersonal problem or a personal problem, and we put our mind to it, that's when we grow. So this this place is a normal place, you know. Tangles this world like a ball of thread, stamps it down like matted rushes and weeds, blocking the way to wisdom and liberation. That's exactly the growth point.
Speaker 2:It's exactly the place that we have an opportunity. Now, one of the things that happens in one of the ways that we sometimes teach in this tradition are koans. And koans are basically statements or little scenarios or questions that the rational mind, the habitual mind can't answer. And so they put us in a box and they say, you've got to have a creative mind. You've got to see this from a different vantage point.
Speaker 2:You can't just see it from the ordinary mind, you have to expand. So with a colon, we're kind of put up against something, the rational mind says, don't know how to do that, it doesn't make any sense to me. And then we're helped to constantly become larger. And larger means that that we have this particular fighting that we have inside ourselves, this particular fighting, two sides, the left or the right, the up or the down, the the two sides. Well, they're both contained in a larger view.
Speaker 2:And so when we are actually bringing wisdom to our own conflicts, we demand that we take a step back, demands that we see, okay, there's truth here, there's truth here, what's the more inclusive truth? How can I go forward with an inclusive truth? I still have to make decisions. Still have to decide. But but then it takes away that flavor of the inner critic.
Speaker 2:This particular sutra says, you know, you're you're caught in a big muddy mess. You know? And what what has kept you stuck there? Now, the muddy mess is the way that's the that happens, you know. We we don't know what's to what to do, we don't know where we're gonna go.
Speaker 2:That's normal. That's just usual. That's business as usual. When we get caught there, we find ourselves writhing around in the mud. We find ourselves coating ourselves ever more densely with with glitter to to hide something.
Speaker 2:That's the that's the the place where the the snare comes in. And in this particular sutra, that's called craving, craving. And we have lots of examples of that. Now, if we look at craving, I want, I want, I want, I am, all those different things that the examples are given, we have to think, what is at the root of that? What's underneath that?
Speaker 2:What's the fuel for craving? What's the fuel for I want? And somehow, it starts off with I'm inadequate. Somehow, there's something missing in me. Something I don't I don't recognize.
Speaker 2:I want. I want something to fill the hole. I want something to give me direction. I want something out there. I want.
Speaker 2:I want. I want. I want. And that very wanting, that very, in this case, craving is exactly what obscures our own ability to see what is present, our own ability to find the truth of our life that is present. So craving, saying, I'm inadequate, I need more.
Speaker 2:I'm not complete, I need more. I need more. I need more. It's exactly the way the mind goes out there and says, okay, I'll get this, I'll get that, playing chess with the world. And it turns us away from the place of liberation.
Speaker 2:The place of liberation is we come in, we sit down, we quiet the mind, we calm the mind down, we look directly at what is always present. What is always present. So, for example, you feel your hands. Everyone can feel their hands right now. Right?
Speaker 2:Feel your hands right now. You could not feel your hands better than you're feeling your hands right now. You cannot feel your hands better than you're feeling your hands right now. There is no better feeling of hands in the future. Oh, yes.
Speaker 2:Next year, I'll feel my hands really well. Next year, next month. When she loves me, when he loves me, I'll feel my hands really good. It doesn't work like that. You feel your hands with your hands in your hands right now and that is as good as it gets.
Speaker 2:That is perfect. So one of the elements of practice is that we learn to feel the body with the body right now, right here, and we begin to touch the completeness According to the the the rational mind, the mind of greed, the mind that wants, the one that wants, this is not any good. This is not adequate. You know, I'll only be adequate if I buy everything in Amazon. And then I'll be able to fill myself up and I'll be adequate.
Speaker 2:But that's that's just delusion. And that's basically what this sutra is saying. It's saying that if we keep thinking, oh yes, I'll be better when I, you know, purchase this, I'll be better when I get that, and we neglect the magnificent truth that's right here, we get tangled up. We get tangled up. So the underlying fuel for craving is this sense of inadequacy.
Speaker 2:I'm not enough. That I could feel my hands better. I should feel my hands better. I should know them better. I should know them more intimately.
Speaker 2:I should feel them blue or green or red. I should feel them differently than I feel them. It's impossible. And yet, we do that with our mind all the time. I should be a different person.
Speaker 2:It is the case, of course, that we have aspirations, that we are continuing to investigate, to continue to look at the nature of mind. That is that's part of a healthy human mind. That's part of what Vow is about. But that but that misguided thought which our culture is imbued with, our culture fills us to the brim with, if you only had this, you only had that, you only had them, then your suffering would be released. Good luck.
Speaker 2:Good luck. So this sutra is trying to, especially the way we've rewritten it, we've tried to kind of make it really concrete. Now, the first of the the first of the fixed things that the Sutra talks about is I am. I am. What does that mean?
Speaker 2:Does that mean the thought I'm having right now? Does that mean the itching in my nose? Does that mean my back hurts? Does that mean my digestion? What's what's the I am?
Speaker 2:The reality is, of course, we're a bundle of fluid changes of experiences. We're a bundle of of, you know, things coming and going. We have light, we have dark, we have easy, we have hard, we have up, we have down, we have things that are smooth and things that are ragged, we have we have the whole panoply of a human life, we have the rich rich collection of flow and change always. But then the craving comes in and says, I'm scared. I want to be a thing.
Speaker 2:I wanna be a thing. I'm a thing. I'm a thing. We think if we pin down our thingness, I'm a thing. I finally understand who I am.
Speaker 2:A thing. You know? A lump. I finally am. I'm a lump.
Speaker 2:What a relief. I now know I'm a lump. The first the first of the cravings this talks about is this diminution, this this this marginalizing of our own direct experience of the the the vast fluid open expansive creative nature that is who we are. Instead, we opt for a thing. I'm a thing.
Speaker 2:And we somehow think that if we are if we concretize our identity with a thing, whatever happens to be the thing, we somehow feel like, oh, I have some confidence. I know where I stand. I know the way the world works. Values clarification is true. It's very good to be clear about your values, but we're not things.
Speaker 2:And so the first place this sutra talks about is the craving of making yourself into a thing. A thing. I am. I am. I am.
Speaker 2:There comes to be I am here. I am good. I am bad. I am hopeless. I am the best.
Speaker 2:I'm ordinary. I am the worst. I will be. Because as soon as we become a thing, the thing tries to do its best to eliminate the diversity, tries to to eliminate the the multiplicity, tries to eliminate the the plethora of perspectives that's really who we are. We become a thing, so then I am blue.
Speaker 2:I'm not red. I am up. I'm not down. I am this. I'm not a that.
Speaker 2:And some people spend their whole lives trying to solidify the thing that they are. And we all know we all have lots of people who are working with identity. I'm trying to identify who I am, working with my identity. Well, the reality is we are so vast, we are so big, we are so inclusive that we can't pin ourselves down, and we try to pin ourselves down in that way. Really not only does it go against reality, but it makes us small and scared.
Speaker 2:We first try to make ourselves into a lump, and then we say, this lump has these characteristics. You know? The characteristics of I'm right or I'm left. The characteristics of I'm young or I'm older. I'm green or I'm blue or I'm red or the characteristics of I'm skillful or I'm unskillful.
Speaker 2:The characteristics of I know or I don't know. It's all crazy. You can't feel your hands better than you feel your hands right now. They're not things. When you feel your hands and you're feeling it intimately right now and you look into what is the hand made of?
Speaker 2:What's the hand feeling? It's tingling, it's changing, it's alive. And sometimes you're feeling the hands and you feel the palms of the hands, and sometimes you feel the fingers, and sometimes you feel the back of the hand, and sometimes you feel the cuticles and the fingernails, and sometimes you feel them moving, and sometimes you feel them still, and sometimes you feel them intertwined, and sometimes you feel them separated. And we lump all that together, warm and cold and up and down, we lump all that together into a name, and we think, the name. I'm this.
Speaker 2:I'm that. So in the Heart Sutra, for that chant that we we don't always do it up here, but at at the monastery, every every service has the Heart Sutra in it. You know, it says, the Bodhisattva of compassion, the wisdom being of great compassion, was meditating on the way things are, resting in it, and saw that everything is fluid. Saw the fluidity, the inclusive fluidity of who we are, and sunded the bonds that caused them suffering. So this particular sutra says, okay, here are the ways that we are creating the bonds that cause us suffering.
Speaker 2:And by practicing, by looking directly at reality, by not going down the path of suffering in this way, we have an opportunity to see something that's real and genuine. Thinking I am, there comes to be I am here. There comes to be I am good. I am good or I am bad follows I am. Now, we can't say I'm not nothing.
Speaker 2:I mean, if somebody comes in and says, oh, you're nothing. That's stupid. I mean, you're you're you're right you're right here. You feel you feel what you feel. You've got this body, and yet, it's dynamic.
Speaker 2:It's changing. It's flexible. It's got ups and downs. It's lost and it's found. It's in the dark woods and it's out of the dark woods.
Speaker 2:It's in the helicopter looking up down at the dark woods and it's in the ground underneath. It's all those things. And different times the challenges come up and say, Okay, you got this challenge, how do you deal with it? You got this challenge, how do you deal with it? That's that's the nature of life.
Speaker 2:So we tried to make this sutra really, really concrete. If you read the the Apali version, which is on the bottom, it's talk it says, which of the 18 craving verbalizations depending upon is internal? There being I am, there comes to be I am here, there comes to be and I felt like, okay, that's great, that's nice, you put, but let's put it in let's put it in modern American ordinary. You know? I am the worst.
Speaker 2:I'm ordinary. I shouldn't be like them. I should be like them. Mine. This is mine.
Speaker 2:That's mine. Those things are mine. Now, when we're saying that things are mine or not mine, it's really important that we know we have boundaries. You know? It's really important we know whose clothes are ours and whose are not ours.
Speaker 2:You know, if that's irrelevant. It's very important, but that does not mean that because this is my responsibility, I'm a temporary caretaker of this facility, this particular thing, this particular outfit, that doesn't mean that my identity is tied up in it. It doesn't mean that who I am is tied up with the particular car I drive or the clothes I wear or the job I have. It means I have particular responsibility at this moment to deal with it fully and completely, but it's not who I am. Who I am is fluid, changeable, inclusive.
Speaker 2:So that's what this little little chat is trying to point out. Now, the one, I think the one really tool that we actually have, the only real tool in our whole armamentarium is awareness, is paying attention. If you actually say, okay, I'm going to control what I'm going to think of next, you know, I'm going to I'm going to tell my mind to think of strawberries next. Well, I already thought of strawberries. What what what that just popped into my mind.
Speaker 2:What am I going think of next? It's impossible. We can't control what's going to happen next. We can have some investigation about that process. We can investigate what is true.
Speaker 2:Is it possible to feel my hands better than I feel my hands right now? Is it possible to feel this breath better than I feel this breath right now? Is it possible to to be somebody different than I am in this moment, the only moment there is? The future you will be different, of course. Past you was different, of course.
Speaker 2:But in this moment, the only place that reality is found, things are as they are. We are as they are. And we say, right there is a place of perfection. And if we can rest and recognize that there's something that is just fine, it's okay, it's doing well right here, right now, We can breathe. We can relax.
Speaker 2:We can we can meet the exigencies and the necessititudes of the world with with a solid foundation. So that's how I look at this part, this little
Speaker 1: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 zendesk.org. Your support supports us.