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New podcasts every Tues, Thurs and Sat. Here you can find talks from various teachers involved with the Zen Community of Oregon. We share talks from our retreats, as well as our different weekly offerings between Great Vow Zen Monastery and Heart of Wisdom Zen Temple.
Zen Community of Oregon's purpose is to express and make accessible the wisdom and compassion of the Buddha’s teachings, as transmitted through an authentic, historical lineage. To support and maintain Zen Buddhist practice in order to realize and actualize our Buddha nature in everyday life.
For more information, please visit zendust.org.
Hello and welcome. This is the Zen Community of Oregon, making the teachings of the Buddhadharma accessible to support your practice. New episodes air every week.
Hogen:In the history of So to Zen and history of administration of the Renzai So to school in both Japan and China, there was this great debate about whether practices like Seshin and Zazen were really appropriate for everyone or whether they should just be restricted to ordained monks. And I'm very pleased to say that you have all clearly shown that this is a practice that is accessible to everyone and everyone has done such a wonderful job of staying with it and continuing to practice. This is not an easy practice in case you didn't know. There are practices that are intentionally made to be very easy so that more people will join them, but they don't go to the essence like this practice does. As you know, it takes a rare person with a strong vow to come to a retreat like this and to actually diligently work for so many days and seeing what is most true.
Hogen:What we turn our attention to becomes real for us. What we turn our attention to becomes real for us. That's true right now. If we turn our attention to complaining, then our world is filled with things not going right, with disappointment, with dissatisfaction, unhappiness. We all know people like this and sometimes we're like this.
Hogen:What we turn our attention to becomes our world. So it's very important at this particular phase of a retreat to not let the mind turn its attention to complaining, inadequacy, failure, mediocrity. Somebody who's depressed can turn those feelings into hell. The whole world looks dark and hopeless. So right here, right now, our practice is to not believe those thoughts and to turn our attention to what is really intimate, what is true, what is present, what is our life, our breath, the tingling aliveness of this being.
Hogen:I was talking to the forces Shen and saying, you know, breath trumps thought in the old sense of Trump. For younger people a card game where the leading suit will beat all the other suits to Trump. So our practice here is to discover, not to create, but to discover the spacious still place in our hearts. And then once we have a glimmer of that, a glimmer of the direct experience that, then we turn repeatedly our awareness toward it. And then once we can begin to do that a little bit, then we do that during difficult circumstances, like our backs are hurting, our pain, our knees, old karma comes up, old.
Hogen:To begin to recognize the core of our being, the stillness, spaciousness, an ease, a clarity, a brightness, a tingling, you know, a love, To turn our attention towards that, at least at the level we're talking now, and then to have it tested in difficult situations when things aren't going well, can we still do that? Can we still do that? When we learn to do that it becomes a solace, it becomes a refuge, it becomes a, well, a refuge, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha refuge. The refuge in our own heart. So when times are difficult and our life is difficult, we have a refuge.
Hogen:We have a place, a foundational place from which to act, from which to see it. And we are discovering that and practicing that here, so that it will be accessible to us, so that we can carry it forth into our lives. So why does the Sutra say it's so easy, the great way is not difficult, but frankly it is really really hard, in case you didn't know that. It's really hard. And it's hard because we have these habits of mind, these beliefs.
Hogen:They're familiar. We've done it over and over again. We grew up with it. Our parents helped train us with that. You know, it's a known groove, a known way of being, it feels familiar.
Hogen:We don't know what to do, we go back to our old habits. Seems easier that way. Things are unclear, confusing, we're afraid, we just go back to our old habit, we go to act what's easiest. But when we come to Seshan, like we're all doing here, when things are difficult, we actually have the encouragement to don't go back to the old habit, don't go back to the habitual way. Keep staying with the experience and investigating and seeing what is truer than our old habits of mind.
Hogen:And everybody here has had some degree of experience with that, Some people very deep and some people have begun to recognize what is possible. And that's one of the functions of us coming together in Seshan. We come together to jointly support one another, to jointly add our vow to everyone else's vow, to jointly add our intention and our presence and our state of mind and our clarity and our our life, to everyone else's life, so that together in harmony we can face the great matter. And of course, when we have friends along the way facing difficulty, it's much, much more, much more possible. It's not easier, but when we have friends who are hiking with us, friends who are traveling the same path, we are more likely to keep going, to get support when we need support, to offer support when someone else needs support.
Hogen:Now this sutra that we're working with this session, the Sefsan Ming, the affirming faith in mind, faith, the trust in the heart mind, the trust in our deepest being, as I mentioned right from the beginning, a profound sutra that really points directly to the kind of core of the matter. It is not the whole of the spiritual path. It is not there's many things it does not include, but it is the root. And when we see that root for ourselves, when we verify it for ourselves, it gives stability and life and clarity to all kinds of other aspects of our life. So we could say, as I mentioned the very first time, that the whole sutra is about don't believe your mind, don't believe your thoughts.
Hogen:The whole sutra. Don't believe your thoughts. Not about don't think, don't believe your thoughts. And we have shorn many of that those beliefs and many of those fixed habits, not all of them, there's still some deeply rooted ones in there and they will reemerge, of course, but we have begun this investigation, we've begun to take off some of the debris, some of the detritus, some of the flotsam and jetsam that we have been submerged in to reveal what is intimate and clear. When we are in the process of believing our thoughts, again not getting rid of thought but believing them, It's like it's like Dense deciding to get his whole tool belt on loaded with tools, a backpack with some spare tools and pulling a wagon behind with all the power tools and going dancing.
Hogen:And then he says, Well, I can't dance. You know? It's really hard. I'm too awkward. I'm too But when we are shorn, when we begin to unload the tools so we can just pick them up as we need them, there's a lightness, a freedom.
Hogen:And that lightness and freedom is part of what we're doing here with Seshan. And the process again is, and for this particular aspect, not believing our thoughts. When we have patterns of thoughts, patterns that we have repeated over and over again, patterns that we grew up with, patterns that are fixed, habits of mind, beliefs, and we identify with those beliefs. We think that that's who we are. I think that my thoughts are telling something true about my essential nature.
Hogen:My likes, my dislikes, those are about my true essential nature. If we think that, if we begin to believe that, believe that what I'm thinking is really fundamental, my choices, my insights, my experience is really fundamental, then these ideas, they become frozen, they coalesce, they condense into beliefs, into fixed beliefs. And if we are identified with a fixed belief, which is just a collection of habitual thought, if we are identified with a fixed belief, then we will fight to the death to keep it. Fight to the death. Of course, there's a natural instinct in each one of us to survive, of course.
Hogen:That will and we will do whatever ever it takes to help support and defend those elements we think are really essential to our life. It's the way that human beings are made. If we think that money is what's really essential to our life, then we will fight and collect money or power or whatever. When we begin to see, oh, that's a tool, that's not my essence, that my essence is that which was present when I was small, a teenager, a young adult, an older adult, an decrepit old person, you know, what's the common denominator? When I begin to realize that the common denominator is more profound and more sustainable and more reliable than any of the temporary conditions, Think of these old people, how many cars you've had or how many cars you've driven in your life.
Hogen:We pick them up, we drive them, we let them go. I to drop something off at a person's house in Klatzkenai. They have a dozen beautiful cars. Their cars are or tractors or whatever, you know, their cars are their life, and so they have collected lots and lots of tokens of their life. Beautiful cars, restored cars, magnificent cars.
Hogen:So happy to show somebody their cars. Because this is my life. This is my life or my collection. The person in town has a collection of signs. They've been collecting signs for decades.
Hogen:They have all kinds of signs. And they're happy to show you their signs. Know? This is my life. My life.
Hogen:I'm identified with this. This is my life. These are worth something. These are valuable. I spent my life collecting signs or whatever.
Hogen:When we have a belief and we are identified with that belief, we will defend it to the death. As spiritual people, as people who practice, as people who are appreciating the dharma, I mean the first teaching of the dharma is things just fall through our hands, like water. We try to grasp it and it falls through our hands. And even if you have a big collection of tractors, you know, they will fall through your hands. You can't take them with you.
Hogen:When you see people my age and you visit them and some people have these enormous collections of stuff, they had great pleasure in finding it, but sooner or later it becomes a burden. What do I do with it all? It's not reliable. So we are here to try to not to try, we are here to recognize something that is more sustainable than the collections of our ideas, the collections of our mental habits, the collections of whatever stuff we think will keep us safe. That we are here to discover something more fundamental, more alive, more available in every circumstance.
Hogen:I find that people often have who have the hardest time seeing beyond views and fixed ideas, are people who are very comfortable, who have a lot of status or people who identify with their power. There's no spiritual impulse to see beyond because things are going well. Things are going really well. Money, security, status. We all like to be comfortable, we all like to try to find a nest.
Hogen:We all like to find some place that we can feel secure and taken care of. Sort of part of our being. But every nest that we make is friable, is crumbles, is fragile, is temporary thing. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't put a good roof on our buildings, but it does mean we shouldn't rely upon that over time in all circumstances, that we need to recognize something that is more reliable and more interesting and more compelling, that we can touch. So we come to Sushin.
Hogen:We come here, right here, right now. And of course everybody is afflicted with states of mind. Know, states of mind, this stage of a session, mind starts wandering off into the future, wandering off into the past, making conclusions, that's sort of what happens. But if we believe that, then we waste the precious opportunity to see what is reliable, what is the source of our being. Was decision one time and someone left because they were worried how they were going to feel the morning three days from now when they got up to go to work three days from that moment.
Hogen:Their mind was so far into the future that they killed the present. They crushed their opportunity because their mind wasn't really digging the hole they were in or mining the gold where they were. They were fantasizing what they would do after they found the gold three years from now, you know, and then they eviscerated all their efforts. Apply directly right now, right now, right now. You're breathing, what is it that breathes?
Hogen:What's the source of that breath? Now, the great way is not difficult if our mind is turning toward the great way. If our mind is turning to the what ifs and yes buts and, you know, all that, it is very difficult. It is the most difficult thing in the world. It's most the difficult thing in the world to see beyond our own our own obsessions.
Hogen:But when we are turning our mind to the tingling aliveness of the breath, of the light in us, of the darkness, of the foundation of our being, we're turning our mind right there. Well, right there it is. As I was saying the other day, you say hands and suddenly they're hands, ears, they're suddenly ears. Whatever you turn your mind to, there's something. You're already free, already liberated, because the mind can just turn it to, there it is.
Hogen:There it is. So this chant has many different layers to it. You know, it just starts off, don't believe your thoughts. You will be confused, unclear. But there also are other dimensions and so the sutra is the chant is great about saying, okay, if you don't believe your thoughts and you are looking carefully like everybody here is, in your particular way, you are investing yourself in your particular method, then there are some things that you might recognize, that you might know, might notice.
Hogen:In a way it's giving away the show. Because if we discover something by ourselves, then we it's really ours, we really understand it. If somebody points it out to us, we say, Oh yes, isn't that true? It's important, but it's less intimate. So all the questions that we ask, for example, Who are you?
Hogen:You look inside, you can't find anyone. Well, there. The question is not meant to the question is meant for you to discover you can't find anyone. And when we recognize it, Oh, oh, oh, I'm space, I'm potential, I'm mystery, oh. And we begin to recognize that for ourselves, rather than someone saying, You are essential space.
Hogen:You are the mystery of the universe. You are everywhere you It's a very different thing. So please discover for yourself, verify for yourself by investigation, by looking directly, and then, it's always the challenge, to actually recognize what you see and experience instead of the beliefs about it. We have a belief that I'm a lump, you know, I'm a four armed, four appendage lump, you know, who talks. It's a belief.
Hogen:And if I look directly, that's not the experience. But if I have that belief, then I negate the experience, I dismiss the experience because my belief is so strong. Oh, my belief is right. So again, our beliefs are not what makes us free. Our beliefs are the cocoon which keeps us hidden, keeps reality hidden from us.
Hogen:Now in this sutra there's a whole section that uses words like emptiness and void. And of course it's referring to your life right here, referring to our thoughts, referring to everything that we see, hear, smell, taste, touch, all the senses, empty and void. And the practical way I always think about that, the practical way is just think of flow. Emptiness is just flow, constant change. If we think emptiness is a solid thing that has nothing in it, we think that emptiness is this big void space that is a thing, doesn't quite get the point.
Hogen:Emptiness is just flow, everything flows, everything is constantly flowing. Atoms flow as far as we know. Water flows, hands flow, mouths flow, our minds flow, everything flows. So whenever it says emptiness and void, at least the way we're talking right now, just translate it into flow. In this true world of emptiness, both self and other are no more.
Hogen:In this true world of flow flow the attention goes out, the attention comes in, the attention goes here, the attention goes there. We see somebody else, we see ourselves. It's flowing, it's one continual flow. Now, earlier I was talking about the way the mind puts flow together to make a person. Ages ago in some of the talk that we've become aware of what we call a hand and become aware of what we call another hand and become aware of head, and we become aware of knees, we become aware of a back, and we're aware of each of those this moment, and this moment, and this moment.
Hogen:And then through memory the mind strings it all together and says, Oh, all those bits and pieces together make a me. But the actuality is, it's flow. We're this moment, we're this moment, we're that this moment, we're something else this moment, that there's this popping in and out of our experience. Look at yourself right now, as we did before. Right now you have a navel and suddenly there it is, if you know what it means.
Hogen:Suddenly you have heels or thumbs or lips. As soon as the mind turns, there it is. And we're stringing it all together, that's a belief. So, we're always seen with equal mind. What's equal mind?
Hogen:What's equal mind? Now it's not equal thoughts because thoughts are inherently different. That's the nature of thought, as it discriminates this from that, up from down, in from out. That's the nature of thought is discriminating. So when it says all is experienced with equal mind, what is it in you right now that is tingling and that is present and that is always present?
Hogen:What is it in you if the mind says, Now or Yesterday or Tomorrow? What is it in you? The equal mind is, can we feel that which is equal, out of which all thought comes, out of which all phenomena emerges, it's always the same. Purple thoughts don't come from a purple part of us, and blue thoughts don't come from a blue part of us, and pink thoughts don't come from a pink part of us. They all come from the same root.
Hogen:When all is seen, when we see that root, that everything has an equality to it. Everything is just made up in the way I like to say it, the tingling awareness, the tingling awareness of the is ness of your being. And perhaps some of you are working with light. Everything is made up of light. Some of you are working with dark.
Hogen:Everything is made up of dark. Some of you are working with flow. Everything is made up of flow. That root is the equal mind that it's talking about here. And it has nothing to do with thought.
Hogen:It has to do with with an equal experience. This equal mind, this equal experience goes right beyond all reasons and comparisons. It goes right beyond all reasons and comparisons. So at this stage of a session, right now, people sometimes start the comparing mind. Oh, everybody else is so serene looking, else is so concentrated, else is so equanimitous, and they all are so wise, and they've all had such profound insights, and look at me, you know, I'm a shred of my former self.
Hogen:I'm inadequate. I haven't done, oh poor me. Oh, if only I had done better in this shit, if only I had a that's crazy, crazy. It's crazy. Everyone here is a pristine light.
Hogen:Everyone here just as they are. The whole universe demands, demanded that you be right here in this spot just as you are. It took the whole universe, if you look at all the causes and conditions, to bring you right here like this. It's a miracle. And this is true.
Hogen:But the comparing mind dismisses all that, says, Oh well, okay, so what? I'm a miracle. Okay, I've heard that before. We've got to feel it. Gotta feel it.
Hogen:There is no better you, no better you than there is right this moment. There is no second better you someplace else. There is no future better you someplace else. There is no past better you. This right here is the apex of your life, of the universe actually.
Hogen:It will change, of course, but it always is the apex of the universe. It's always the apex of our life. It's never not. There is no better you someplace else. You're not trying to become somebody else.
Hogen:You're not trying to reach out and say, Oh, well, if I just grew it after a foot, then great, I'd be better then. I just had a light bulb in my shoulder, then I'd have it made. It's not about that. So here in Seshan right now, don't draw conclusions. A conclusion is to end, to conclude something.
Hogen:There are no conclusions actually. Everything is just flow. You know, we come to a temporary place that we can call a stopping point, but it flows on. The next thing keeps coming, it keeps coming. There are no conclusions.
Hogen:There are only temporary endings, our life flows on. So we might have a flicker of sadness and misery, we might have an instant insight and brilliance, and life just keeps flowing on. There are no conclusions. And we can change in an instant. And so it's so interesting to watch everybody, no matter what their state of mind is, no matter how glum or grumpy or bright they are, as soon as they talk to Sabina or Samaya, they just brighten up without fail, in an instant, they change.
Hogen:Now you can't say that she is going around infusing you with something, you know. She has a lovely charisma, but it's our response, it's what's in us that lights up. We can change, at least for a few moments, a state of mind. We're not fixed. Some people have heavier kind of karma, deal with certain kind of burdens, some people don't.
Hogen:But nonetheless, whether we are fixated on that or not. So don't have any conclusions about your Sashin. Don't say it's a waste of time, I'm done, I'm exhausted, can't keep going, done all I can. It's crazy. It's untrue.
Hogen:It's crazy. Because in an instant those thoughts, those conclusions can be dropped and shift. And Sabina is a wonderful example. In an instant those things drop. So don't hang on to them.
Hogen:When our thinking goes against reality, when we have a conclusion, when we have a habitual pattern, when we have an idea that goes against reality, we always lose. Byron Katie says, You lose a 100% of the time. Reality always wins. We go against reality, we're just wrong. We had a person here years ago and they were worried there was a gas leak.
Hogen:And I kept saying, No, there's no gas leak, don't worry about it. Well, they were so anxious and so paranoid that they called the fire department. And so in a minute, you know, like this stage of the session, suddenly we had six fire people wandering through the grounds and the buildings trying to find if there was a gas leak. Everybody's state of mind just changed instantly. Was no gas leak.
Hogen:You know? We had to do some apologizing. In Rochester I remember again when I was practicing there fifty years ago, in the middle of a long session, probably knowing me in those days totally miserable, probably just absolutely hating it, probably just really stuck in my own gunk, and I would just say, Get me out of here, get me out of here, get me out of here. And suddenly there was a fire next door. The building next to us caught on fire.
Hogen:And so we all got out of the zindo. It was wonderful. For a couple hours, till the fire was put out, then we all trooped back in and started singing again. But your state of mind can change. Just boom.
Hogen:Just like that. Just like that. Doubts and confusion disappear and so truth faith pervades our lives. Doubts and confusion, doubts and confusion come from believing our thoughts. How do we not believe thought?
Hogen:It's so easy to say, we say it all the time. How do we not believe thought? There's several different ways. First is you can actually look for yourself and see that it's not true. It's one of the things that the Byron Katie Method is so good at.
Hogen:I've got this fixed idea that I'm an idiot and you can look for yourself and see. Is that really true? Maybe it is. I don't know. It's one thing, you investigate and see is this fixed belief of myself that I'm incompetent, that I'm stuck, that I'm going to die in the gutter, that I'm going to, you know, do whatever, is it true?
Hogen:Another way you can do it is you recognize some fundamental reality, the one we've been talking about here, the tingling alert brightness that is always fresh and always present, and you see, Oh, none of my thoughts are true. They're all just flickering. And so that direct insight also is a way of dismissing and melting thoughts. In a way that's a very pretty profound way. Another way that you can also not believe your thoughts is you keep saying, What else is true?
Hogen:Okay, this is true. Well, without arguing with that, what else is true? What else is true? Okay, my mind is scattered and I'm confused, don't know what I'm going to do. Well, what else is true?
Hogen:Well, there's also some clarity. Well, there's also I can take care of things. Well, there's also So what else is true? And so your awareness becomes broader and broader. So you can question it, you can see through it, you can see beyond it, or you can just say, I'm certainly bored with my thinking.
Hogen:God, I'm so bored with it. I keep thinking the same thing over and over again. You know? Who cares? You're bored enough with your own mind, you stop paying attention to it.
Hogen:Know, boredom is a wonderful, a wonderful solution. Just get totally completely bored with your mind. Normally we're entranced. You know, a thought comes up and we grab a hold of it and we say, Oh, that's wonderful, I'll play with it for a while, I'll grow it, I'll shift it, I'll look at it this way, I'll look at it, and we become delighted with them. We don't investigate them, we don't see beyond them, we're not bored of them.
Hogen:Doubts and confusion disappear and so true faith pervades our lives. The true faith, the true confidence in our own fundamental nature, That's the true faith, the true confidence in our own fundamental nature. Now it is true, there's no shortcut to spiritual maturity and someone who is in their twenties does not have the same spiritual maturity as someone in their forties, fifties, sixties, but the root is the same. And that root that we can grow in confidence and learning how to effectively engage our lives from, that root is exactly the same. Exactly the same at every age.
Hogen:It is timeless, it is ageless. And right now, right here, you can look inside and say how old do you feel inside? And most people, you know, if you're younger you often feel like you're 20 or 30, if you're older, well 30 is a reasonable age, most people feel like you're 30 until you get to be my age you think, Oh, if I was only 60 again. I was so vital at 60 compared to now. All self revealing, void and clear, all self revealing, flowing and clear, without exerting power of mind.
Hogen:Thoughts cannot reach this state of truth. Here emotion is of no avail. Thoughts cannot reach this state of truth. We can't think our way into liberation. Nor is just feeling good or feeling excitement.
Hogen:Know, around here I've been saying lately, excitement is not happiness. You can go to Disney World or Disneyland or Adventureland or whatever and feel enormous excitement and feel great great thrilling as you ride roller coasters or whatever. But it's very short lived. You go up, you feel something tingling and alive and very exciting and then you go down. Know, take something, you go up, you go down.
Hogen:The foundation that we're looking for here is not something that comes and goes and disappears. It's a faith that pervades our lives. We don't have to do something to ignite it. We begin to have, once we have recognized it, then we begin to practice everything just as it is, is whole and complete, lacking nothing. Right here, right now, starting with this breath.
Hogen:Whole and complete, lacking nothing, not in the future, not in the past, right here, right now. And that is the foundation of faith. And then from that foundation of faith we deal with our karma. Katie says, You can't be who you think you are, because the self is just a concept, a collection of unquestioned thoughts. When those thoughts are seen through, what's left is freedom.
Hogen:Some place else she says, When those thoughts are seen through, what's left is love. So may everyone discover those roots of freedom and love and keep the eye firmly on the root of your life.
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.