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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 Buddha Dharma accessible to support your practice. New episodes air every week.
Speaker 2:Taking refuge. I take Buddha. I take refuge in Buddha. I take refuge in Dharma. I take refuge in Sangha.
Speaker 2:Good afternoon everyone. Not knowing Samadhi. Not knowing Samadhi. Dogenzinji addressed the assembly in Dharma Hall Discourse February. He said to the assembled, an ancient person said, Mahakashapa did not know the world honored ones Samadhi.
Speaker 2:Ananda did not know Mahakashapa Samadhi. Svanavasa did not know Ananda's Samadhi. Up to now, although I have Samadhi, you do not know it. At that time, a monk asked the teacher, I wonder who can know the teacher's Samadhi. Another ancient person said, True gold does not need to be examined in a smelting furnace.
Speaker 2:The trophy for first place in the examination for officials is the most beautiful of flowers, completely splendid. The teacher Dogan said, Although the ancients said it that way, I would I wouldn't speak like that. The World Honored One did not know the World Honored One's Samadhi. Mahakashapa did not know Mahakashapa's Samadhi. Ananda did not know Ananda's Samadhi.
Speaker 2:Shanavasa did not know Shanavasa's Samadhi. I have Samadhi but I don't know it. You have Samadhi but you don't know it. Not knowing Samadhi. We are deep in sashin and people's practice is bearing fruit.
Speaker 2:There is a certain momentum that comes, but wow, what a lot of effort. Right? I mean, come on. It reminds me of a recreational activity sport that I used to that Joe Mon and I used to engage in which is called dragon boating. And, it's big in the Pacific Northwest among some circles.
Speaker 2:That wasn't the punchline, but I'll take it. It was so fun. Any folks know what dragon boating is? No? Okay.
Speaker 2:Good. I will explain it. So what dragon boating dragon boating is, it's a it's a canoe. And it it comes from China, and you race in a canoe, but there's 20 people in the canoe. Actually 22 people.
Speaker 2:There's somebody up there's 10 rows of people with a paddle. So it's not oars, it's a paddle. Right? So you sit on a bench next to someone and you have your paddle in here and they have their paddle. They're sitting next to you right here and you have 10 benches and then there's somebody in the back who steers a giant paddle to steer you, and then there's somebody in the front who's yelling at you.
Speaker 2:They keep the time. Sometimes there's a big taiko drummer up in front. And it was fun, these are sprint races. So each the dragon boat race might last two to four minutes, at the most. So you have this giant heavy canoe, really long, it's probably as long as one of the inner rows here.
Speaker 2:So seven Zabutan. And, you started You are at a complete You're just in the water. So one of the things that you have to do in order to get get going is you actually have to break the tension the water is holding the boat. You have to break the surface tension. And so, the way that you do that is that you have, one, you have to paddle together, and it takes an enormous amount of effort because you're moving hundreds of pounds worth of people and boat.
Speaker 2:And so, you have to start up front, and then you just drop your paddle in and it's like, ugh. Just drop it in. Drop it in. And you start going faster and faster and faster and faster. Trying to It's like a skateboard.
Speaker 2:People know what a skateboard is? Yeah. It's like a skateboard. You have to, like, get going, and you go faster and faster and faster. So you have to dig deep in the water, and you go fast and fast and fast and fast and fast, and the boat accelerates, accelerates, accelerates.
Speaker 2:And the person is yelling at you, Go, go, go, go. And there's all these boats next to you and they're yelling the same thing and it's just the water's foamy, it's total pandemonium. It's so fun. So fast, fast, fast. And then at a certain point you switch.
Speaker 2:Because if you keep paddling really fast the boat actually slows down. One, because you tie yourself out. It's probably the main reason. But eventually, you momentum, and then you stay with it, and you're paddling together at a more measured rate, and that allows you to able to dig deeper into the water and apply more strength and power. And you do that together, as best you can.
Speaker 2:Jomon was the lead paddler. Her and someone else were the lead paddlers, and their job is to basically set the rate for everyone else. It was a very important job. I was in the engine room, which means I was in the back, towards the back. And one the things is that if the engine room gets too excited, then you start to rush the front of the boat, and then your paddles, instead of looking really beautiful like this, 10 paddles going like this, it looks like a caterpillar.
Speaker 2:And then the harder, and then what happens is you start to slow down, and then the people in the back start to paddle even faster, and it's more of a caterpillar, and the boat slows more and more down. All this is to say is that there is a certain time, you know, we we we put in a lot of effort at the beginning. It takes a lot of, energy to engage in the practice. To keep coming back. Our brain is totally, you know, our mind is totally scattered.
Speaker 2:There's all these thoughts. But, and as as Kisei said, that eventually we let up a little bit. We let up a little bit. Because there's the there's all there's the momentum of this machine. It's carrying us forward.
Speaker 2:The momentum of our just keep coming back. And so, can we can step back a little bit and move forward, keep going, keep going. So Kise yesterday talked about Master Shen Yen's observations about some of the things that we might experience or get glimpses. You wouldn't necessarily call this a stage because a stage makes it sound like, you know, you do this and then you kind of move on. I mean these are just kind of signposts.
Speaker 2:You know, going from scattered mind, that's the beginning of the, where we're just, you know, come come in and we have scattered mind, lots of thoughts, lots of rumination, we see our habits. Then, to simple mind, you know, the mind begins to simplify persistent practice. It's simple, our method is simple, steady, embodied. We experience a mind that has more space. The inner critic gets quieter.
Speaker 2:There's more, there's space. Might have some times of peace and quiet. Bit by bit, we become more and more unified with our with our method. Just through our persistent, keep coming back. Now it's not a straight line, not at all.
Speaker 2:It's a road with 99 curves. But we just keep going. Simple practice, steady, embodied. At this point in Sachin, it is very important not to draw any conclusions. It's tempting.
Speaker 2:Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't draw conclusions about your sashin. Don't draw conclusions about your practice. It's so tempting.
Speaker 2:We kinda wanna know, you know, the mind wants to come in and it doesn't hit, you know, now all we're doing is about practice. So this is the play thing the mind has. Because we've kind of given up a lot of the other extraneous stuff. So it wants to deploy itself on the practice and don't draw any conclusions. And that can be storytelling.
Speaker 2:Maybe we had something something occurred to us like, oh, we have a new perspective on something. And then the mind wants to come in and say, oh, this is what this means and this is how I'm gonna do it and I wonder how I can take this home and what my life will be like if I do this. That's the mind, you know, coming in and taking us away from simple, steady, embodied. The mind can take anything and turn it into separation. It's what it does.
Speaker 2:The discriminating mind, small mind, that aspect of mind, which is so powerful because it's been so well trained. And, of course, it's useful. And, our over involvement with the activity of the discriminating mind of the picking and choosing, liking and disliking, then makes us, stresses us out. I think one of the reasons why storytelling happens is because, you know, as things kind of clear up, there's like creativity starts to bubble up, and that creativity can then be deployed on our practice, coming up with stories about what it all means. So another pitfall is coasting.
Speaker 2:This is different than the steady, simple, steady, not phonetically practicing anymore, steady coasting. This is especially a pitfall for experienced sasheen sitters. Well, here I am. I've done what I can. It's been great.
Speaker 2:Learned a lot. I know where I am in Sechin and I just need to drag my body around through the schedule and it'll be over soon enough. Or, we especially if you've been if you've done a lot of retreats, you get to a place of of calm abiding, and it's comfortable, feels good, inner critic's quiet, rain is beautiful, and, we just rest there. Now, that's fine, but it's not it's not liberation. It's not freedom.
Speaker 2:And sometimes we don't realize that we're coasting into something like the rear view mirror, but it's just something to look out for, especially, as I said, those who have a long practice and are able to, you know, stabilize the mind quite, you know, quite easily, it's easy to say, oh, I've seen enough. You know, a sign of this can be mild restlessness, more thinking, planning. And you just have to be honest with yourself about that. It can come in, It can just kind of sneak in. And, it's just a pitfall, it's okay.
Speaker 2:Just something to look out for. Drawing conclusions is basically, I know. I know. I know how this is. I know this isn't working.
Speaker 2:I know this method is dumb. I know a better one. I know this is like that. I know that. I know the breath.
Speaker 2:I know it isn't good enough. I know it's good enough. I know it won't work. I got this. I know how this works.
Speaker 2:Drawing conclusions is basically saying, the mind saying, I know. And this is the small mind ego effort of I know, of separation. I know collapses our sashin. It can collapse our energy. It narrows our mind.
Speaker 2:It tightens up our hearts. I know. This temptation to draw conclusions or fall back into I know can be an indication that we are actually on the edge of new territory or insight. And fear arises. And when that happens, there's a retreat into the safety of I know.
Speaker 2:Because not knowing is scary. We wanna know. Many of us take refuge in the intellect into knowing what's gonna happen. It's very interesting reading the news. So much of it is, so here's the little, here's one paragraph of something that happened, and all these people talking about what they think is gonna happen.
Speaker 2:Next. So what's gonna happen next? If you watch the news, look for predictions. It's all like, what's gonna happen next? It's all I know.
Speaker 2:Fear arises and we wanna know what's gonna happen. So it's a subtle anxiety that we're on the edge of something, or might be, and so, we put up the walls in mind. Walls of the mind, without hindrance there is no fear. The other translation of that, in the Heart Sutra, is without walls in the mind there is no fear. I know.
Speaker 2:The walls in the mind are I know. It's been said that Zen is the cultivation of don't know mind, or beginner's mind. So, I'd like to read a little classic explication of beginner's mind from Shinryu Suzuki, founder of the San Francisco Zen Center. When he talks about don't know mind, beginner's mind. People say that practicing Zen is difficult, but there is a misunderstanding as to why.
Speaker 2:It is not difficult because it is hard to sit in the cross legged position. Well, that's what he says. It is not difficult because it is hard to sit in the cross legged position or to attain enlightenment. It is difficult because it is hard to keep our mind pure and our practice pure in its fundamental sense. The Zen School developed in many ways after it was established in China, but at the same time it became more and more impure.
Speaker 2:I do not want to talk about Chinese Zen or the history of Zen, I'm interested in helping you keep your practice from becoming impure or cloudy. In Japan, have the phrase, Shoshin, which means beginner's mind. I don't know if our Shoshin is the same or just a homonym. I'm sorry, it's Shoshin. In Japan, have the phrase Shoshin, which means beginner's mind.
Speaker 2:The goal of practice is always to keep our beginner's mind. Goal of practice is always to keep our beginner's mind. Suppose you recite the Heart Sutra only once. It might be a very good recitation but what would happen to you if you recited it twice, three times, four times, or more? You might easily lose your original attitude towards it.
Speaker 2:The same thing will happen in your other Zen practices. For a while you will keep your beginner's mind, but if you continue to practice one, two, three years, or more, although you may improve some, you are liable to lose the limitless meaning of original mind. For Zen students, the most important thing is not to be dualistic. Our original mind includes everything within itself, It is always rich and sufficient within itself. You should not lose your self sufficient state of mind.
Speaker 2:This does not mean a closed mind, but actually an empty mind and a ready mind. If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything. It is open to everything. In the beginner's mind, there are many possibilities. In the expert's mind, there are few.
Speaker 2:So this I know, drawing conclusions is it closes down the possibilities. So imagine, it'd be like visiting, flying into PDX and saying, you've been to Portland. Right? You know Portland or you know Oregon. Spend the day, do you know Portland?
Speaker 2:Do you know Oregon? Spend a week. Do you know Portland? Do you know Oregon? The other thing about, and this gets to going down familiar pathways, if you're in Portland, even if you're there for one year, two years, three years, but you just drive down the same roads, do you know Portland?
Speaker 2:Do you know Oregon? For those of you who have done many sashin, if you play it safe and just drive down all the same roads, you just know the way to Powells and Back. And there's different ways to travel these roads. So driving around Portland, driving around Oregon, you drive around Oregon or you walk Oregon. You drive down the coast, or you walk on the coast.
Speaker 2:Right? So you see different things. One's not better than the other. But you don't want to say, oh I know the coast because you drove down 101. Pull over and go visit the Peter Iredale.
Speaker 2:So, at this point in Sashin, there is a call to deeper intimacy. So Sashin is a kind of pilgrimage. So don't put your pilgrim staff down just yet. Going deeper. A guide to that is Book of Serenity case 20.
Speaker 2:At the foot of a lonely mountain there was a small temple. There, a pilgrim looked to get out of the rain. It was getting dark and more difficult to find their way. The pilgrim knocked on the door and was greeted by an old abbot. He made the visitor tea and they sat down.
Speaker 2:Dizong, the abbot, asked Fayon, 'Where are you going?' Phayon said, Around on pilgrimage. Di Zong said, What is the purpose of pilgrimage? Phayon said, I don't know. Ji Zong said, not knowing is most intimate. Where are you going?
Speaker 2:Where are you going? Around on pilgrimage. What is the purpose of pilgrimage? I don't know. Not knowing is most intimate.
Speaker 2:So, in a con like this, there's One way to look at this is the where are you going is, has he already left the temple? Has he already finished his tea in his mind already on the next thing? Is he already in the is he in the future? It's another way to say, why do you practice? Where are you going?
Speaker 2:Around on pilgrimage, pilgrimage. I'm sitting sasheen. So what is the purpose? What are you trying to get? Do you have an I know mind or an open mind?
Speaker 2:He's testing him. I don't know. I don't know is embodied, simple, steady, I don't know, I don't know this breath, I don't know this sound, I don't know this sensation. Not knowing is most intimate. Another way that this is sometimes translated is the answer that he that the Abbot says, not knowing is nearness.
Speaker 2:Nearness. Close. Close. Close. Close.
Speaker 2:So this is a way to go deeper. Practice nearness. Can you get as near as a mirror and its images? So don't draw any conclusions, that knowing. This is the kind of knowing that shatters intimacy.
Speaker 2:Intimacy, nearness, invites, I mean that's where the juice is. Becoming more and more intimate with the totality of our experiencing. Breath, body, this breath is intimate. It feeds you life over and over again. We're just fed life.
Speaker 2:This body is intimate. Sounds are intimate. They're not experienced out there. This moment is intimate, the whole experiencing is intimate. And so, with our stability, bit by bit, coming back, coming back, deepening, deepening, bit by bit, bit by bit, we can get closer and closer, nearer, nearer.
Speaker 2:Kommyo Zozamai we chanted this morning talks about this intimacy breathing in, breathing out, hearing touching without thoughts of separation is just the silent illumination of luminosity in which body and mind are single. Thus, when someone calls you immediately answer. And this is natural, not contrived. From Cultivating the Empty Field. So, Hongzhi was a Chinese master who predated Dogen's time.
Speaker 2:So, eleventh century, all beings are your ancestors. Fully appreciate the emptiness of all dharmas, all phenomenon, all phenomena. Fully appreciate the emptiness of all dharmas, then all minds are free and all dusts evaporate in the original brilliance shining everywhere. Transforming according to circumstances, meet all beings as your ancestors, subtly illuminate all conditions, magnanimous beyond all duality. Clear and desireless, the wind in the pines and the moon in the water are content in their elements.
Speaker 2:Without minds interacting, wind and pines or moon and water do not impede one another. Essentially, you exist inside emptiness and have the capacity to respond outwardly without being annoyed like spring blossoming, like a mirror reflecting forms amid all the noise spontaneously emerge transcendent. Natural, like wind in the pines, moon in water, none of them impede one another. Sitting under the open sky, weightless as a flame, open sky mind. So what can draw us into intimacy with our experience?
Speaker 2:It's talked about in Zen that three essentials are faith, determination, or persistence, and great doubt or question. So so trust is a willingness to go forward. This is not faith of belief, it's trust in yourself. Trust that the teachings are pointing to something. Trust that when you have a when you read one of the chants and something sparks in you, that's recognition.
Speaker 2:Means you know it but maybe don't. Know that you know it. Trusting in the process. Trust that even though I don't know exactly where this is headed I will go forward anyway. When you recognize and are inspired by someone else, you see something that you already recognize.
Speaker 2:It's already in you. Or you wouldn't recognize it. It'd totally go like this. You already understand it at some level. This recognition, I the first time I saw, came to Great Vow and learned to meditate, I was one of those people who was a newcomer, who took, got taken to the guest area, learned to meditate.
Speaker 2:And one of the things that I didn't know I would end up doing Zen, but one of the things that grabbed me was I saw Chosen give a Dharma talk, Sunday morning Dharma talk. And my experience of her was, I know that she knows something that I don't know, but she knows that I know it. Yeah, trust. So, trust. Trust yourself.
Speaker 2:Trust yourself. Trust in the process and you're not doing it alone, we all do it together. Determination, persistence, persistence. The quality of persistence. We've talked about that.
Speaker 2:Just keep coming back. I remember someone asked Hogan Roshi for his advice for Sachin. We're going into Sachin, Hogan, what's your advice for me? This is my first one. And his advice was, don't give up.
Speaker 2:That's it, just don't give up. Trust, persistence, and then question. Great question. Sometimes this is called great doubt, but it really is not the doubt of like, what Shen Yan calls anxious doubt, or sometimes called skeptical doubt. Like, that's the kind of I know.
Speaker 2:This is a doubt of like the great question. Who am I? What is this? Where do you go when you die? What is life?
Speaker 2:What does it mean? And it's helpful if this is your question. And some people have a question like that. It brought them to practice. In Zen, we honor questions.
Speaker 2:The Buddha's question was, why do human beings suffer? Dogen Zenji's question was, if we're awakened from the beginning, why do I have to practice? The fundamental question is like, what is this? What is this? But if maybe you don't have a question that you can say.
Speaker 2:So sit as a question. Master Shen Yin calls this the doubt sensation. And when we're quiet we can experience that, just that what is happening? What is this? What holds it all together?
Speaker 2:The five aggregates, what holds it all together? What holds the teachings say non self? I feel like a self. Where is it? Where is the self?
Speaker 2:And if the teachings say that's not a self then what is the feeling of self made of? Just looking, what grabs you? But this is feeling, this is in the stability of simple mind, unified mind. Sit as not knowing, sit as beginner's mind. Mind open and spacious like the sky aware of wind, birds, clouds, rain.
Speaker 2:Intimate nearness nearness, intimate, unified. And then, and this is, this is not the hard work of like getting started and gritting our teeth and going. This is like the this is being in the the flow sitting in in creative question. And there's there can be a great satisfaction, pleasure, joy, play in this absorption of our question. This exploration of our universe.
Speaker 2:So, Hongzhi again. With total trust, roam and play in Samadhi. Roam and play in Samadhi. Empty and desireless, cold and thin, simple and genuine. This is how to strike down and fold up the remaining habits of many lives.
Speaker 2:When the stains from old habits are exhausted, the original light appears, blazing through your skull, not admitting any other matters, vast and spacious like sky and water merging during autumn, like snow and moon having the same color. This field is without boundary, beyond direction, magnificently one entity without edge or seam. Further, when you turn within and drop off everything completely, realization occurs. Right at the time of entirely dropping off, deliberation and discussion are 1,000 or 10,000 miles away. Still no principle is discernible.
Speaker 2:So, what could there be to point to or explain? People with the bottom of the bucket falling out immediately find total trust. So, we are told simply to realize mutual response and explore mutual response and turn around and enter the world. Roam and play in Samadhi. Every detail clearly appears before you.
Speaker 2:Sound and form, echo and shadow happen instantly without leaving traces. The outside and myself do not dominate each other only because no perceiving of objects comes between us. Only this non perceiving encloses the empty space of the dharma realm's majestic 10,000 forms. People with the original face should enact and fully investigate the field without neglecting a single fragment. Roam and play in Samadhi, natural, like a child watching bees gathering nectar.
Speaker 2:As the discriminating mind, as I know mind is exhausted, the treasury opens of itself. Rome and play in Samadhi. What kind of Samadhi? Consider the Samadhi of not knowing. An ancient person, Langhe Huiye said, Mahakashapa did not know the World Honored One's Samadhi.
Speaker 2:Ananda did not know Mahakashapa's Samadhi. Svanavasa did not know Ananda's Samadhi. Up to now, although I have Samadhi, you do not know it. At that time the monk asked Langye, the master, I wonder who can know the teacher's Samadhi. Then Dogen says commenting on this his story, relating the story, says, Although the ancients said it that way, I won't speak like that.
Speaker 2:The World Honored One did not know the World Honored One's Samadhi. Mahakashapa did not know Mahakashapa's Samadhi. Ananda did not know Ananda's Samadhi. Sanavasa did not know Sanavasa Samadhi. I have Samadhi but I don't know it.
Speaker 2:You have Samadhi but you don't know it. You know, there is a metaphor in Zen of passing on the light of Zen. Kisei mentioned this in terms of transmission of the light. And the image is often a flame of a candle, and that flame is the teachings, the dharma, awakening itself, luminosity. The flame lights another candle so the light is transmitted.
Speaker 2:They are the same light and they are different light. Question mark. It is said that when awakening we see with the Buddha's eyes, hear with Buddha's ears. We sit as Buddha. We enact Buddha.
Speaker 2:Dogen says, Accord with the enlightenment of all the Buddhas, succeed to the Samadhi of all ancestors. The teacher and disciple are of one mind. The Buddha holds up a flower and Mahakashapa smiles. Here Dogen is quoting Long Yue Huijie who comes from the who comments on the uniqueness of each person and their karma. Each flame is different.
Speaker 2:That's why he says, Mahakashapa didn't understand the World Honored One Samadhi. Each flame is different, unique in its own place and time. And then Dogen says, None of them knew their own Samadhi. The Buddha didn't know the Buddha's Samadhi. Ananda didn't know his own Samadhi.
Speaker 2:Zenke Hartman didn't know her Samadhi. Pattacharya didn't know her Samadhi because it's not knowing. It's the not knowing Samadhi, not knowing most intimate. Dogen says, I have Samadhi, but I don't know it. You have Samadhi, you have Samadhi and you don't know it.
Speaker 2:So, for the rest of Sashin, let's practice this not knowing Samadhi, intimate beginner's mind Samadhi. And go roam and play while we do it. Thank you.
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 zendust.org. Your support supports us.