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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. So just a little bit of orientation for those of you who are new or maybe have missed the last couple of weeks. We are in a long practice period, which is pretty much the entire autumn called Ongo or peaceful dwelling, which is a time where we deepen our practice in some way.
Jomon:And many of us have made commitments to deepen our practice in some way. Those are in this little box over here. There's a couple of extra people who still have some commitments that they wanna add and Shinku is one of the heads of OnGo and I'll let you talk about this at the end of the talk as well to some degree but there's a sheet that's gonna have everybody's name on it and so if you have participated in it and your name is on there or you want your name to be on there, please make sure you have the spelling correct. And so the theme of this period of time of practice, we've taken up this chant that we did at the outset of our evening together, Affirming Faith in Mind. And there's a lot to that chant.
Jomon:It goes on and on, doesn't it? Many pages and you kind of turn a page and you're like, there's more. This is saying something really important. And I have been writing talks about affirming faith in mind and taking sections of it and seeing how it might open up. And I was sitting here, you know, not supposed to be thinking, right?
Jomon:I'm thinking like, oh, I'm saying too many words about it or no, I'm not saying enough words about it. But that's actually one of the parts I want to talk about in this particular chant. I also like to share different translations of it. There are dozens of translations of this particular chant which says a lot about its role in the practice of the dharma. That so many people have looked at this chant and really wanted to open it up and and hear what it has to say, put it into different words.
Jomon:Shinku, what year is it from? June. The third ancestor is attributed author, may have happened a few generations later, but around June in the Common Era. So there's something really poignant and potent about this particular chant and it's pointing just over and over and over and over and over again to something, some aspect of practice, some aspect of our life that it really wants us to absorb. So here's the part of it that I want to talk about tonight and I'll read it and I'll read two additional translations of it so that we can hear them back to back to back.
Jomon:So three translations to begin with. The one we use in the chant is sort of four parts of it. Both striving for the outer world as well as for the inner void, condemn us to entangled lives, just calmly see that all is one and by themselves false views will go. Attempts to stop activity will fill you with activity. Remaining in duality you'll never know of unity and not to know this unity lets conflict lead you far astray.
Jomon:When you assert that things are real you miss their true reality but to assert that things are void also misses reality. The more you talk and think on this the further from the truth you'll be. Cut off all useless thought and words and there's nowhere you cannot go. Returning to the root itself, you'll find the meaning of all things. So this is a translation by Richard Clark of that particular section.
Jomon:Live neither in the entanglements of outer things nor in inner feelings of emptiness. Be serene in the oneness of things and such erroneous views will disappear by themselves. When you try to stop activity to achieve passivity your very effort fills you with activity. As long as you remain in one extreme or the other you will never know oneness. Those who do not live in the single way fail in both activity and passivity, assertion and denial.
Jomon:To deny the reality of things is to miss their reality. To assert the emptiness of things is to miss their reality. The more you talk and think about it the further astray you wander from the truth. Stop talking and thinking and there's nothing you will not be able to know. And finally, Kaz Tanahashi and Joan Halifax Roshi.
Jomon:Had mentioned last week, I like to use Kaz Tanahashi's translation. He is a renaissance person. He's a peace activist and an aikido master and a master calligrapher. We have quite a few of his calligraphies in the monastery. And he goes around occasionally.
Jomon:I think he still does this. Turned 90 in this year and does calligraphy workshops. And one of the aspects of those workshops is that you can go up to his table and take a turn with a piece of paper and he'll guide your hand with a brush to paint something. And it's quite remarkable to feel that level of expertise. When I did his workshop, we just painted the word water over and over again just in the kanji water water.
Jomon:And so getting used to the brush and the weight of it and how much pressure and how much ink and everything and one after another. And so it was really lovely to be so concentrated. Meanwhile, many of the residents were hanging up Khaaz's works of calligraphy all over the walls where we were working. So here I am just deep in this calligraphy thing, and then I look up and see actual master calligraphy works. And after, like, looking at my own mess here, I really got how masterful it is.
Jomon:All you have to do is just try it for a few hours and it's very clear. Anyway, is one of his translations. Do not pursue external conditions nor abide in futile asceticism. Maintain a peaceful heart letting the way be invisible. I love that.
Jomon:Maintain a peaceful heart letting the way be invisible. Stillness and motion return to stillness. Stillness turns into motion. If you are caught in either, how can you know they are inseparable? If oneness does not prevail the opposites cannot flow freely.
Jomon:Let existence hide existence, pursuing boundlessness betrays boundlessness. Too many words and thoughts do not accord with the way. Free from words and thoughts returning to the source, you go beyond teachings to awakening. So those are all just beautiful, aren't they? So let's just take some of these apart, shall we?
Jomon:And I think that just like any poetry or song that your own whatever has touched you in this, whatever this is arising in you as a result of hearing, that is valid. That is a 100% relevant. So we'll have a chance to talk about this maybe at the end. Both striving for the outer world as well as for the inner void condemn us to entangled lives. Just calmly see that all is one and by themselves false views will go.
Jomon:So this striving we are sure familiar with, aren't we? It seems like our main verb. And this striving for accomplishments, striving for money, striving for survival maybe, striving to make the rent, striving to pay for health insurance, striving to manage our appointments, striving to stay in touch with our friends, to not get too wrapped up in the internet world maybe or politics or figure out what is our responsibility to our world, what is reasonable to expect as far as our impact? I think we all probably get that in this fast moving life maybe. But what is this striving for the inner void talking about?
Jomon:What is that? Maybe that's why you're here. There certainly can be striving in Zen, can there not? Those of you who've practiced for a minute. Yeah.
Jomon:Yeah, it looks really good, right, in the pictures, on the brochures. And there's so much, so much happening. Striving for enlightenment, whatever we think that might be. For awakening, for some kind of mind state or for some kind of experience, a special experience of course. Perhaps you've even had some taste of that.
Jomon:A taste of a deep peace and wanting to recreate that somehow of course. But then sitting and waiting for that experience or some kind of experience is not being in your experience. That striving. It's like the donkey that has the pole with the carrot dangling in front of it. Right?
Jomon:Here's this special experience. Let me try to just get it. And we're not in our life. Can we be present and accepting and just living what then reveals itself in each and every moment, the magic of this moment, every moment being new And so much more than we could ever think it is. Like the line where it says, do not pursue external conditions nor abide in futile asceticism.
Jomon:Don't engage in futile asceticism. Though this is tempting I think maybe for some of us. Hard to believe that if it's not more difficult, the more difficult the better somehow. And and there is a there's something important about stretching ourselves. There's something important about doing more than we think we can do.
Jomon:And that's really what Sanga often allows us to do. We come together, we sit together, we agree that we're gonna sit for the duration of a particular sitting period and that's probably a lot longer than we would have done if we were just at home and had our phone within reach. But it doesn't have this direct relationship of the more knee pain I have, the more enlightened I will be. Like I wish that were true. I really do.
Jomon:That would be easy. The Buddha tried asceticism and took it all the way to the end. Someone pointed out that basically he was kind of beset with anorexia for a while there. That he became so malnourished that the saying goes that you could see his spine through his belly. And he couldn't function.
Jomon:So it's important that we be able to function. So we have this comfort and discomfort. They're always those things. What is what is deeper than both of those things? Comfort and discomfort.
Jomon:Just calmly see that all is one and by themselves false views will go. Just calmly see that all is one and by themselves false views will go. This is about right view. Of the eightfold path, the right view, seeing things as they are. And does it take effort to see?
Jomon:Just look around right now and how much effort does it take to just see with your eyes? How much effort does it take to just hear? Not to interpret, not to make sense of, but just to hear, just to see. It doesn't actually take much effort. It just happens without really us trying.
Jomon:Seeing how things are, right view can sometimes be revealed. And then seeing it is obvious. My dharma grandfather, Maizumi Roshi, chosen my teacher will say that he would he would often say, it's obvious. It's so obvious. And that one of our chants talks about how you can recognize it as if you'd recognized your own grandfather in the village.
Jomon:And you can't unsee it, you can't unknow it. But it often does take a settled mind, like a muddy pond needs real time, real stillness to just settle down and calmly see that all is one and by themselves false views will go to some degree. And if it's not obvious, it's so much like a fish in water that the fish, does the fish really know it's in water, right? This is not just where we are but it is what we are. It's hard to see or even know what water is when it's exactly everything around us, within us.
Jomon:Maintain a peaceful heart, letting the way be invisible. I mean, that's just a line you could carry around and kind of question and kind of wonder. What what is that pointing to? Maintain a peaceful heart, letting the way be invisible. Invisible maybe like water.
Jomon:Attempts to stop activity will fill you with activity. Everybody kind of chuckled when they heard that one. I mean, we all know that one, don't we? Remaining in duality, you'll never know of unity and not to know this unity, let's conflict lead you far astray. So right now, do not think of a purple elephant.
Jomon:Stop it. Just stop thinking of the purple elephant with the trunk and the feet and the tail and the ball that it's spinning or whatever. Our minds just don't work that way. They are unruly. They do not behave in a linear way.
Jomon:I once heard a story about the Dalai Lama who was sitting very quietly with his mind very still and he described that he all of a sudden he could feel this thought that was about to bubble up. Like, you can be that still that you're like, there's a thought that's almost arising. I don't know what it is yet, but I can feel that it's arising. And then it arose, and this thought was, I want a boat. I want a boat.
Jomon:Now, what's he want with a boat in Bodhgaya, India? Right? But of course, and he doesn't even want a boat. It's just this absurd, ridiculous, nonsense thought. That's just what our minds are just off gassing all the time.
Jomon:Or try to stop, you know, to stop having a crush on somebody or try to stop, yeah, some deep ingrained habit. It is, you know, it is possible to shift our habits absolutely, but but our minds don't just stop on a dime don't they? Our habits tend not to just stop on a dime. Occasionally we might hit the wall with something and it's totally different but it's important to be able to work with our mind, align with how they are. You know the technology, we just got out of a ten day sasheen and I was in and out of it and it is always remarkable to me how the technology of retreat practice is able to really help us do this.
Jomon:That the technology, the habits of long retreats really do enable us to look at our minds in a different way. So like the schedule is the same, relentlessly the same every single day and it's like Groundhog Day. It's like that movie Groundhog Day. It just every day is this blank slate that we pour ourselves into and and we might be kind of unskillful at the beginning because we're so tired and just kinda confused and don't know what we're doing and maybe let the door slam on somebody's face and kind of like push somebody aside for something. Over time we realize, oh, oh, that person, this is their first sasheen.
Jomon:They don't know. How could I be so callous with this person? And and I'll endeavor to do better, you know, or be more helpful or conscious and aware of somebody else in the And everyone kind of just refines themselves over the course of days of living together and sitting quietly together. It's remarkable. We refine, we settle down, we include work practice, walking, mindful movement, the mind settles, the group settles, the room settles.
Jomon:Stillness and motion return to stillness, Stillness turns into motion. That is the practice. So if you're coming to practice here, this is important and it's also important to engage in retreat practice if you can. And everybody's life is different and so however you get to that, whenever you get to that, I encourage you to consider it. I always think of the care and feeding of a meditation, of a Zen practice is kind of like these recycling arrows that all strengthen each other so you have your daily home practice, your weekly come sit with us practice and then your retreat practice.
Jomon:And each one of those functions to strengthen and support the other. It's really remarkable how it works. Remaining in duality, you'll never know of unity. If you are caught in either, how can you know they are inseparable? So we could think about duality as really any defining characteristic really.
Jomon:But that each defining characteristic is defined by essentially its opposite or by something else, something that it's not. It has to have something that it's not in order to be. So male is defined by female, female defined by male or even non binary is defined defined by what is binary. Remaining in a defined characteristic who I am necessitates who you are. We we relate to each other that way in the relative world.
Jomon:What is an American except for what is not, whatever that is. It's a charged definition anymore isn't it? But I have found that in my experience of leaving this country has been the most important education about what this country actually is or what it it is like here. I had no basis of comparison before at all until we step out and see just how big the world is. To see how this is, it's just arbitrary.
Jomon:It's just arbitrary how we do things. Midwesterner, Southerner, Oregonian, Washingtonian, our identity can get kind of stagnant especially if we don't realize or think about or recognize the fact that we're constantly changing. Reality is constantly changing. I could you know expatriate to some other country and become some other nationality. It's entirely possible.
Jomon:There's nothing inherently anything here. And have you ever had a really big shift or a big change in what you thought or believed? Maybe it happened all of a sudden, maybe it happened gradually, some kind of paradigm shift, some kind of awakening experience perhaps, an opening. What I thought was one way, I now see it another way. One of the larger paradigm shifts I experienced was in my 20s.
Jomon:Went into social work and had world view of, and it gets more complicated obviously but that people are basically good, the world is basically a good place. And then I started doing my internship at a domestic violence shelter and encountered child abuse and what I could see this worldview did not have enough room in it for what I was actually seeing. It didn't actually explain the encounters I was having. I couldn't make sense of what I was seeing and I needed to understand where violence fits in this way of understanding the world. I needed something larger to include how this is used or focused on vulnerable groups or people with less power.
Jomon:There are multitude of reasons for the use and abuse of power. Not because the world was such a good place. But that, my initial world view was really shattered and it was a painful and kind of demoralizing or just mysterious process, that kind of shift. I now have a larger view that includes, you know even violence though that's still worth grieving, that's still worth endeavoring to work with relieving that kind of suffering. Our Kishitagarbha ceremony says that all demons arise from ignorance.
Jomon:All demons arise from ignorance. A misunderstanding of what and who we are and that's that's what we keep looking at. That's what this chant is pointing to. What is really happening here? Not to know this unity lets conflict lead you far astray.
Jomon:Not to know this unity lets conflict lead you far astray. If oneness does not prevail the opposites cannot flow freely. So we talk a lot about reality in this poem. I'm kind of now skipping through like I definitely have too many words. There's way too much talking and thinking on this and I'll probably pick this up in the next talk some of this stuff.
Jomon:I think we've had enough talking and thinking on this. But I will say this that it does kind of suggest when we talk about reality with a capital r, suggests that our phenomenal world is not real. But it is real in a sense. It is usually not in the way that we think it is. It is important for us to treat each other well.
Jomon:It is important for us to abide by the precepts of ethical behavior. But the reality that we tend to assume, know, we think this is how it is, how it's always been, how it always will be and there will always be some solid ground to depend on. But we might get a glimpse in the fundamental instability of our experience. The fundamental instability of our existence, the continuous flow of change, the fragility of our human lives and the things we take for granted. That there are three dharma seals that really indicate these are the teachings of the Buddha, the Buddha Dharma.
Jomon:One being that there's suffering, another that there's impermanence, and another is that there's no self, no solid self that we can point to of ourselves or anything else. And a easier way to say it is that life is not perfect, it's not permanent, and it's not personal. Life is not perfect, it's not permanent and it's not personal. That's really what we're talking about when we talk about the dream like nature of existence. It's just that there's something less personal than our own insistence on comfort or discomfort or liking or disliking or praise and blame or fame and ill fame, all those things.
Jomon:We could be tempted to think well if nothing is real and no one can truly be harmed then why you know, who cares? We can just do whatever we want, right? But that's not true either. That's nihilism and that's also missing reality. That's that's what this chant is pointing to as well.
Jomon:Alright, let's cut off all useless thoughts and words right now. 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.