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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.
Good afternoon, everyone. Empty field, Sashin, Wednesday, July 2026. Taking refuge. I take refuge in Buddha. I take refuge in Dharma.
Speaker 1:Taking refuge in Sangha. Empty Field Sashin, July 2026. From Hongzhi's Cultivating the Empty Field Practice Instructions. This one's called The Misunderstanding of Many Lifetimes. Emptiness is without characteristics.
Speaker 1:Illumination has no emotional afflictions With piercing quietly profound radiance, it mysteriously eliminates all disgrace. Thus one can know oneself. Thus the self is completed. We all have the clear wondrously bright field from the beginning. Many lifetimes of misunderstanding come only from distrust, hindrance, and screens of confusion that we create in a scenario of isolation.
Speaker 1:With boundless wisdom, journey beyond this, forgetting accomplishments, straightforwardly abandon stratagems and take on responsibility. Having turned yourself around accepting your situation, if you set foot on the path, spiritual energy will marvelously transport you. Contact phenomenon with total sinner sincerity, not a single atom of dust outside of yourself. Well, we're done. What can compete with that?
Speaker 1:So Sashin is to settle the mind, settle the heart, settle the heart and mind that are not to. Here we are, we sit still, we do simple work, we refrain from talking, scrolling, We establish a predictable rhythm of the schedule all to help mitigate some of the natural agitation that happens in the ordinary day to day. And you all know this, that's why you're here, it's a sheen. And we do this all together. And this is all to lay the groundwork to engage in our method of meditation in order for the mind and heart to settle so we can see clearly.
Speaker 1:But it's not so easy as you all know. We sit down to meditate and we see what Hong Zhiro in another passage calls the invisible pounding and weaving of our ingrained ideas. It should be like this. It should not be like this. I should be like this.
Speaker 1:I should not be like this. They should be like this. They shouldn't be like that. I like this. I don't want to feel this.
Speaker 1:I want to feel the other way. I want to be someplace else. I want to be here if it was like this but not if it's like that. I wish they would come here. I wish they would go away.
Speaker 1:I want this. I don't want this. I'm failing. I'm succeeding. I'm special.
Speaker 1:I'm not special. In fact, I'm the most not special. We perceive all kinds of hindrances and obstacles, this ingrained pounding and weaving of our ingrained ideas of the way that we relate to ourselves and others. And through our practice we can begin to see through these ideas, take a step back and see the array. All kinds of hindrances and obstacles arise as we sit and try to be present.
Speaker 1:We set our intention and step forward and they come in various forms and flavors. Not surprisingly, some meditators experience sleepiness. I don't know if anyone here has. I am kidding. In fact, meditators will.
Speaker 1:Maybe this talk will contribute to sleepiness. But, these hindrances, the way that we relate to our practice and what arises, we think that it's personal but it's not personal. Although, we experience it in right here and what feels personal. But these are energies that all meditators, most all meditators, any meditator I've met have experienced anxiety or worry. Anger, irritation, sleepiness.
Speaker 1:And the Buddha, all the way back to the Buddha, talked about some of these things. And there's a whole discourse where the Buddha taught multiple ways to work with sleepiness. It's kind of great because it stars the Buddha and one of his premier disciples who is feeling sleepy. Mogdalena, also known was one of the Buddha's close seen as one of the Buddha's closest disciples and is described as one of his, some consider him the second of the Buddha's two foremost male disciples along with Shariputra who we know from the Heart Sutra. So this is called the Kappala Sutta on nodding translated by Thanasaro Biku.
Speaker 1:Once the blessed one was living among the Baghas in the Deer Park in Bacca, the Grove near Crocodile Haunt. I wonder why he was dwelling near Crocodile Haunt. It doesn't sound like a good place to do meditation. Maha Mogulana sat. Let's feel that in the body.
Speaker 1:I'm regretting not writing a more fire and brimstone kind of Dharma talk. Mogalana sat nodding near the village. The blessed one with a purified divine eye surpassing the human saw Venerable Mogalana as he sat nodding near the village. As soon as he saw this, just as a strong man might extend the flexed arm or flex his extended arm, he disappeared among the bhagas in the Deer Park near Crocodile Haunt and reappeared near the village. Right in front of Mogalana.
Speaker 1:There he sat down on a prepared seat. As he was sitting there the blessed one said to venerable Mogalana, Are you nodding off Mogalana? Are you nodding? Yes, Lord. Mogalana said, Well then Mogalana, whatever perception you have in mind when drowsiness descends upon you, don't attend to that perception.
Speaker 1:Don't pursue it. It's possible that by doing this you will shake off your drowsiness. And then the Buddha goes on and gives like eight different ways for Mogalana to work with sleepiness. He says, recall your awareness as the Dharma as the Dharma you have heard and memorize it. If you don't, if that doesn't work then repeat aloud in detail the Dharma as you've heard and memorized it.
Speaker 1:He says, don't shake off pull both your earlobes and rub your limbs as a way. Rub your limbs with your hands. By doing this if you don't shake off your drowsiness then get up from your seat and wash your eyes out with water. Look around in all directions, upwards towards the major stars and constellations. It's possible that by doing this, you will shake off your drowsiness.
Speaker 1:But if by doing this you don't shake off your drowsiness, attend to the perception of light, resolve on the perception of daytime, by night as by day, and by day as by night, by means of an awareness thus open and unhampered, develop a brightened mind. It's possible that by doing this you will shake off drowsiness. But if by doing this you don't shake off drowsiness then, percipient of what lies in front and behind, set a distance to meditate and walk back and forth. Your senses inwardly immersed, your mind not straying outwards. If by doing this you still don't shake off drowsiness, recline on your right side and take the lion's posture.
Speaker 1:So I read this not for you to memorize ways to work with drowsiness, but one is to right here the Buddha is talking about being creative in our practice, meeting the circumstances. He talks about, you know, he asks, are you eating too much? Is that why you're drowsy? It's like, don't don't have that fourth piece of bread, Bansho, even though it's really good. You'll pay for it in the evening.
Speaker 1:Change your body posture. Think of light. Stay in the open air. Have noble friends. Practice sympathetic joy.
Speaker 1:Contemplate your vows. All of these are ways of being skillful and creative. And fundamentally it's meeting, meeting ourself with ourself and seeing what is an appropriate response. It might be as simple as opening our eyes, Talking with people, people have been working very skillfully with whatever comes forward with drowsiness, making that part of your practice. But it's meeting our circumstances without aversion.
Speaker 1:Another of our hindrances and obstacles that cover that create our sense of isolation, our the sense of self and cloud the mind is comfort seeking. The body feels fatigue. Do your best to take care of it. Stretch before sitting. Change your cushion.
Speaker 1:But don't get in a struggle with the body. Your body is innocent. Don't blame your body. Don't blame yourself. Don't blame yourself.
Speaker 1:Don't blame your sashin. If you have a body, it will be uncomfortable. It will get sick. It will die. We sit with in serenity.
Speaker 1:The silent of silent illumination is not a blank mind. It's about not being in argument with the way things are. It's just allowing things to be. We feel hot, just feel hot. Feel sweaty, just feel sweaty.
Speaker 1:Feel sleepy? Just feel sleepy. Just experience it fully. It'll change. But we don't wait for it to change, we watch it.
Speaker 1:We watch it come, are with it completely, and then see it change. But right now, how is it? The Theravada monk, Ajahn Samedho has this meditation phrase, Right now, it's like this. Right now, it's like this. So can you bring that to your practice?
Speaker 1:Sweaty, hot, tired, bright. Right now, it's like this. So, it's important to have a skillful spirit in the way that we practice. It's tricky. If you practice, we say relax.
Speaker 1:If you practice with too relax relaxation too much, we practice and practice sleepiness or numb out. Too much effort and we practice with tension in opposition to our experience. The effort of like, I'm gonna go get something. I'm trying to make something happen. And yet we do have to be engaged because it's that we're not about numbing out and going blank.
Speaker 1:On the other hand, we don't want to practice with so much effort that we think that we're gonna, you know, vibrate ourselves or clench ourselves into awakening. So it takes faith. It takes faith and trust or trust in the practice. Trust in your method. If we don't fully give ourselves over or if we don't fully give ourselves then can we partly can we give ourselves the majority over to our practice.
Speaker 1:Trust in the practice. You know when we move around and go from one practice to the other we're not being faithful to ourselves, not being faithful to our practice. We have to have some trust, bring some trust. And trust in the Buddha ancestors that these teachings have traveled through great distance, through hundreds and hundreds of years, through thousands upon thousands of hands to hear. And, the Buddha ancestors say this is the way.
Speaker 1:Do this practice with your whole heart. We have to have trust in ourselves, find trust in ourselves, faith in ourselves. And you already have this or you wouldn't be sitting here after a deus sashin, that's for sure. So it's already here. And, we can nurture this faith.
Speaker 1:So, we don't reinforce doubt and confusion, but we we we have faith, trust, trust in ourselves and our own intuition to be creative as well. It takes determination, persistence, continuity. This is what Jogan was talking about on the very first talk, about bringing continuous awareness Not just this breath, this step. As our chant this morning said, this step, this step. We fill in the gaps.
Speaker 1:When we first start, when we sit down, we begin a sasheen. It's patchy as Jogan was saying. So we sew the patches together, we fill it in, we find bits and pieces to fill in the gaps so then it becomes just seamless. So this but this determination, this persistence, this perseverance is gentle. It's gentle.
Speaker 1:It's it's just stay. Stay. Stay. It's a grandmother watching her grandchild asleep. Just stay.
Speaker 1:We have to both be engaged and awake, wakefulness and without without extra attention. So how do we do this? It's like the Chan Chan master sent Shen Yin likens it to catching a feather on a paper fan. It's responsive. Here he says, Sometimes the wandering of the mind is due to fatigue or lack of energy.
Speaker 1:There may be a physiological cause for it. Maybe you do not actually feel drowsy. Nevertheless, the energy for concentration is lacking. The art of it is to recognize again and again the state of mind. If it is wandering, simply bring it back.
Speaker 1:By doing this again and again eventually the body energy will be renewed. You will have fewer periods of wandering thoughts. There is a daily cycle of energy. Within some periods you will have less than at other times. This is natural.
Speaker 1:There's no need to fight. Simply be attentively aware at all times. We can make an analogy here. Meditation is like using a fan. The old fashioned handheld type.
Speaker 1:Be nice to have one right now. Chisha. You have the task of catching a feather on the fan. Every time you move the fan the feather is likely to be blown away. It's a delicate business.
Speaker 1:You have to hold the fan quite still just under the space through which the feather is sinking of its own motion. The feather then comes to rest on the top of the fan. You can imagine how difficult or how easy this may be. Any use of force and the feather is lost. Yet once you grasp the principle it is something very easy to do.
Speaker 1:Stilling the mind is like catching a feather with a fan. It needs patience and persistence. So I like this analogy because it has the balance of wakefulness, of paying attention to the feather as it's moving through the air. A sense of responsiveness, where is it going? If there's wind moving, moving the feather, more active.
Speaker 1:If there's not, more at rest and simply gently moving. So in this way with our own practice, sometimes we need to bring extra energy. Jisha, will you please drop the feather? I got it. Just like that.
Speaker 1:So think about that for your own practice. Maybe ways then when you've skillfully responded to something that's arising, maybe you felt pain and you met it in a certain kind of way. That was a skillful response that you were able to stay with it with kindness and you learned something from that. Or maybe you were practicing with falling asleep and you responded in certain ways and you went from just falling asleep to making it part of your practice. Or maybe you were experiencing strong emotion, grief or regret, and you were able to just hold it and have it be there and it didn't it didn't end you.
Speaker 1:This is the this is the engagement. This is the the both the creativity and the stepping forward and meeting it as best we can. And it's about staying the whole way down, the whole way down. Catching a feather on a paper fan. The right balance engaged and gentle.
Speaker 1:Hongzhi, the misunderstanding of many lifetimes. Emptiness is without characteristics. Illumination has no emotional afflictions. With piercing, quietly profound radiance, it mysteriously eliminates all disgrace. Thus, one can know oneself, thus the self is completed.
Speaker 1:We all have the clear wondrously bright field from the beginning. Many lifetimes of misunderstanding come only from distrust, hindrance, and screens of confusion that we create in a scenario of isolation. With boundless wisdom, journey beyond this, forgetting accomplishments, straightforwardly abandon stratagems and take on responsibility. Having turned yourself around, accepting your situation, if you set foot on the path, spiritual energy will marvelously transport you. Contact phenomena with total sincerity, not a single atom of dust outside yourself.
Speaker 1:Not a single atom of dust outside yourself. Emptiness is without so some comments. Emptiness is without characteristics. Illumination has no emotional afflictions. This does not mean that there are no emotions or voidness.
Speaker 1:Doesn't mean that there's no emotions or that there's no human or or that we need to stuff our emotions or numb out in order to be empty. No, it's that the emotions are experienced within this great spaciousness of our being. Emptiness has no characteristics because it can it it is all characteristics. All characteristics are marked by emptiness. It's only the person that names them, divides them, tries to say good or bad, or even name them, I'm having an emotion.
Speaker 1:And it's good to be able to name our emotions and relate to them. Of course it is. Can we in Sashin experience these familiar emotions and hold them differently? Hold them in another way? Experience this fully arising energy.
Speaker 1:Arising right now it's like this. Welcomed, totally held in deep acceptance, deep kindness, and then allowed to go with no residue, no trace. Like a great storm arising in the sky. All the thoughts, attendant thoughts, the feeling sensations, heaviness, the vibration, all of it. All just a storm in the sky.
Speaker 1:Hongzhi with piercing quietly profound radiance and mysteriously eliminates all disgrace. Thus one can know oneself. Thus the self is completed. So this is true self. For Hongzhi, the pounding, the invisible pounding and weaving of lifetimes of beliefs is what makes this small afflicted self that feels afflicted by emotions, feels afflicted by circumstances, feels afflicted by heat and sweat.
Speaker 1:And then there's the true self which is natural. It hasn't created a scenario of isolation, a story. It's just wondrously open, present. He says, we all have the clear, wondrously bright field from the beginning. We all have the clear, wondrously bright field from the beginning.
Speaker 1:This mind, this being, wherever we Wherever we turn and really look, it's illuminated. The mind is not stuck. Thoughts come and go. So, what is the evidence of this clear, wondrously bright field from the beginning? My mind feels clear, it feels does not feel clear.
Speaker 1:It does not feel wondrously bright. What do we do about that? When we don't feel it. This is the part where we have trust and really look. We trust in the practice, we trust in the ancestors, trust in the what's underneath all the afflicted thoughts and emotions and and all the chaos in the mind.
Speaker 1:Many lifetimes of misunderstanding come only from distrust, hindrance, and screens of confusion that we create in a scenario of isolation. This clear, wondrously bright field is obstructed, appears obstructed. Over and over again, thoughts of separation, a story about who I am and you are, and I need to get you to do what I want so I can have what I want and not get what I don't want. This misunderstanding of our separation, the small ego self that obscures the brightness. In a way, we kind of we feel this when we're fully engaged, working with others.
Speaker 1:Fully engaged in helping, in helping someone. That the separation, that parent separation can fall away. So distrust in the world, distrust. So we work on practicing trust. What can I trust?
Speaker 1:This is why we keep our practice as simple as it can be because we can trust in the direct experience of the body in contact with your seat. You feel trust in the direct experience of the hara, breath in the hara, low in the body. We disengage from the pounding and weaving of belief and thoughts. We don't feed it. And in this way, the clear, wondrously bright field is revealed.
Speaker 1:We don't have to make it happen. We just practice wholehearted engagement. With boundless wisdom, journey beyond this, forgetting accomplishments, straightforwardly abandon stratagems and take on responsibility. With boundless wisdom, this is wisdom without boundaries between concepts of this and that, between knowing and not knowing, coming and going, here and not here. Straightforwardly abandon stratagems and take on responsibility.
Speaker 1:This is the honesty that Jogan was talking about. Taking on responsibility is being totally honest. Totally honest with ourselves. That doesn't mean hard on ourselves either. Doesn't mean because that's dishonest too.
Speaker 1:This sort of endless self criticism and self judgment, that's not honest either. We're not the best and we're not the worst. So drop all of that. Just wholeheartedly engage. As we embark on the voyage of Sashin, it's important that we're engaging in the practice with the right this right alignment, the skillful alignment and this being honest with ourselves when we're holding back and responding skillfully.
Speaker 1:Being honest with ourselves when we're striving and are creating tension in our experience. And then we need it, then we respond skillfully. Straightforwardly abandoned stratagems. So just we can see what are, as we're practicing, this is just the ego stratagems. And so what are your stratagems?
Speaker 1:What will you discover? Having turned yourself around, accepting your situation, if you set foot on the path, spiritual energy will marvelously transport you. We need to keep trusting that practice will take care of itself. You set foot on the path, spiritual energy will marvelously transport you. Just let the practice be.
Speaker 1:Contact phenomenon with total sincerity, not a single atom of dust outside yourself. Whatever we experience, we feel it fully, the dust and the brightness. The dust and the brightness that illuminates the atoms of dust that dance in sunlight. Whatever appears Hongjo says in another of his practice instructions he says, Whatever appears is instantly understood and you know how to gather it up or how to let it go. Whatever appears is instantly understood and you know how to gather it up or how to let it go.
Speaker 1:Be a white ox in the open field, whatever happens, nothing can drive him away. Whatever appears instantly understood, instantly knowing, just following the feather with a fan. We don't even, we don't have to think, just respond. So, we continue sashin, we don't need to make anything happen. We don't have to manufacture awakening.
Speaker 1:We don't have to get rid of our experience, our sleepiness, our pain, our joy or sadness, our wandering thoughts. We simply meet them. We simply meet them right now. It's like this. When the mind wanders, gently return.
Speaker 1:When there is dullness, brighten the posture in the heart with gentleness. When there's striving, soften. When there's complacency, awaken. Just persistently stay, stay, we simply return. Hongzhi says that many lifetimes of misunderstanding come from distrust, hindrance, and screens of confusion.
Speaker 1:He doesn't say that we're missing anything or there's anything lacking, that we have to get anything. He says we've misunderstood what's been here from the beginning and with practice we begin to understand. We understand beyond understanding. We know beyond knowing. The clear, wondrously bright field is not somewhere else.
Speaker 1:It's this breath, this body, this sound, this heat, this sweat, this person who sits on your cushion, nothing extra is required. So practice with trust and sincerity without trying to become someone else other than you are. Be like this white ox in the open field. Whatever happens, nothing can drive him away. Practice with this gentle determination.
Speaker 1:Whatever happens, don't let anything drive you away. Thank you. Chant cards.