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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. I take refuge in the Buddha. I take refuge in the Dharma.
Jomon:I take refuge in the Sangha. Thank you all for your dedicated practice. Thank you for your imperfect practice. There is no other kind. We practice to relieve suffering.
Jomon:We practice to see and embody the truth. We practice for awakening. And we practice for the sake of all beings. This is the Bodhisattva Vow, that your practice is not separate from my practice, that my life is not separate from your life or the life of anyone or anything. We can only do this together.
Jomon:This is the emptiness of giver, receiver and gift that Myo Yehuda talked about yesterday. So today I would like to continue looking at gratitude and hinge a bit to focus also on generosity. And in the process, perhaps blur or even erase any distinctions between the two. I find Dogen's teachings are helpful in clarifying that, so I want to reiterate some of his teachings on giving kind speech and action and this thing called identity action. And I want to share some about the importance of spiritual practice and gratitude in the face of any condition through the story and words of a powerful exemplar.
Jomon:So here are two quotes from that powerful exemplar and then I will talk about who these words came from. A person whose life is a stunning example of gratitude and generosity born of crisis and spiritual practice. I know that life will always consist of getting up and going to sleep and meals and daily chores, and only in between can we try to come to grips with the great things, the ones we think really matter. And if I don't come to grips with them now, if I'm unable to assign them a place in my life right now, who then can guarantee that I shall ever be able to do it? And then, ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it toward others.
Jomon:And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world. How will we come to grips with these so called great things that seem to only be available after we have done all of our chores? After that, maybe we can eke out a little time to focus on what really matters. But what if what really matters is embedded in the getting up and going to sleep and daily chores? What if we can come to grips with the continuous availability of a spiritual life?
Jomon:What if we could say thank you in every moment? Maybe you have taken up the thank you practice, Periodically saying thank you as you handle objects in our work practice, meals, getting ready for bed. Thank you toothbrush. Thank you clippers. The way our minds work is that the more you do a thing, the more you can do that thing.
Jomon:So we can practice a critical mind. We can practice distraction. We can practice dependency on our phones, dependency on apps, dependency on coffee. We can practice a complaining mind. What kind of mind do you want?
Jomon:Enriu spoke of our capacity for choosing in her talk. We can choose what we think about. We can choose the content of our mind. It may not be easy, but we do have this capacity. And the more we do a thing, the more we can do that thing.
Jomon:We can choose thoughts of gratitude. There may or may not be feelings of gratitude, but even thoughts of gratitude can be a benefit at any moment. I'd like to share a little story from another Zen teacher, Gendo Field in Vermont. This just came through a listserv. It's a story about being with his mother at her death.
Jomon:He says, My mother, who was a hospice nurse, refused all medication at the end of her life, remained bright minded, but started seeing people in the room that no one else could see. A nurse brought her water. She said, Aren't you going to offer water to the other passengers? She thought she was on a train. I asked her who the other people were.
Jomon:She named people in her life who had died. The next morning she said strongly, I want to go to the other room. I want to go to the other room. I knew enough not to wheel her bed into the other room. Instead, I said, Go!
Jomon:Be free as a bird! She said, Thank you. Thank you. Those were her last words. We can train this mind.
Jomon:We can train this heart mind. We can incline this heart mind toward gratitude, toward generosity, such that our last words might actually be, Thank you. Maybe you came here in response to a wild, unruly mind. Maybe you came to the realization that the mind is a runaway truck with no brakes. And Sashin can indeed be the process of hitting the wall.
Jomon:Or maybe by whatever day we're on, it's more like one of those special truck exits with the gravel incline. And as Myoji pointed out, when we come to Sashin, we can have that experience of my cushion, my spot. When does that happen? When we get possessive and claim territory. We differentiate ourselves.
Jomon:And in this benign example we see the true fluidity that is how things are. The way we have added this whole idea of mine and yours and how arbitrary and temporary that is. And how all the cushions come from and will go back to the bin. And the same is true for the calcium in my bones, the water in my body. It's all just flowing.
Jomon:The same is true for my sasheen experience. How's your sasheen experience going? How can anyone have a separate individual sasheen experience? How would you even do that? So in Dogen's Bodhisattva Shi Shobo, the four embracing actions of a Bodhisattva.
Jomon:It starts with giving, or dhana, which happens to be number one in the list of the six Paramitas, because everyone can do it. Giving is embedded in the next three in the Bodhisattashishobo. Those are kind speech, kind action and identity action. So what is this identity action? Dogen says, Identity action means not to be different, neither different from self nor from others.
Jomon:Not to be different, neither different from self nor from others. It is sometimes translated as one thing, identity of purpose, one shared concern, cooperation, acting together as one. Or as our friend Domio Burke says, Being in the same boat. Dogan says, The ocean does not refuse water, therefore it is able to achieve vastness. Mountains do not refuse earth, therefore they are able to become tall.
Jomon:That the ocean does not refuse water is identity action. We should also know that the virtue of water does not refuse the ocean. This is why water is able to form an ocean and earth is able to form mountains. We should know in ourselves that because the ocean does not refuse to be the ocean, it can be the ocean and achieve greatness. Because mountains do not refuse to be mountains, they can be mountains and reach great heights.
Jomon:We are doing this here. We are practicing as one body. We are one great big curving dragon walking in the zendo with a 102 feet and legs. Haven't you been enjoying this sound as everybody gets back into line in the fast kinhin. Identity action.
Jomon:We recently traveled to a So to Zen conference in Hawaii. You know, somebody had to do it. Took one for the team there. There were many Zen practitioners from all over the world and we were all given these woven leis to wear at one of the events. Someone realized they were color coded.
Jomon:There were different colors for people who were from the Mainland United States, people from Europe, people from Hawaii, people from Japan. But to pan back and just see us all as So to Zen practitioners, or as just human beings, or just living creatures, that is the view of identity action. Identity action is as simple also as how my karma has necessitated that I am a St. Louis Cardinals fan. That's baseball.
Jomon:But in a World Series that they aren't playing in, I can sincerely hope for the Blue Jays success when I am talking to my Canadian friend, Enryu. And I can ride the emotional roller coaster of an 18 inning game watching in a Hawaiian sports bar full of Japanese and Japanese American Dodger fans and cheer in sympathetic joy. So that is identity action, just another way to be generous, dissolving the I, Me, mine into we. Can we practice dissolving ourselves into ever larger realization? We have never been separate from anything, ever.
Jomon:Identity action is being able to blur the line, to see the emptiness between giver, receiver and gift. And as far as giving is concerned, the gift's value, you know, whatever that is, this subjective measure, that's irrelevant. What matters is the mind state, the heart mind state, the intention, the heart that is without any agenda, without any plan to get something in return, or to benefit in any way, without even thought or belief in lack to begin with. Dogen starts this by differentiating giving from basically non greed or non coveting when we think we want something we don't have. So Dogan says of giving, even if we offer just one word or a verse of dharma, it will become a seed of goodness in this lifetime and other lives to come.
Jomon:Even if we give something humble, a single penny or a stalk of grass, it will plant a root of goodness in this and other ages. Dharma can be a material treasure and a material treasure can be dharma. This depends entirely upon the giver's vow and wish. Offering his beard, a Chinese emperor harmonized his minister's mind. Offering sand, a child gained the throne.
Jomon:These people did not covet rewards from others, they simply shared what they had according to their ability. To launch a boat or build a bridge is the practice of dhanaparamita. When we understand the meaning of dhana, receiving a body and giving up a body are both offerings. Earning a livelihood and managing a business are nothing other than giving. Trusting flowers to the wind and trusting birds to the season may also be the meritorious action of Donna.
Jomon:When we give and when we receive, we should study this principle. Dougan is very poetic and uses ancient stories from China, so I will explain these examples. Offering his beard, a Chinese emperor harmonized his minister's mind. Offering sand, a child gained the throne. These people did not covet rewards from others, they simply shared what they had according to their ability.
Jomon:In ancient China, beard hair was seen not just as a status symbol, but was seen as a gift from one's parents, and an expression of dignity and respect. Back then, beard shaving was sometimes used as a punishment. Beard hair, prepared in a certain way, was also seen as a medicine for certain ailments. Apparently this minister was in need of some, and the emperor offered his beard. Offering sand, a child gained the throne.
Jomon:Now this is a story that is recounted from the time of the Buddha. Every morning the Buddha and his monks would go on alms rounds carrying their bowls and begging for people to donate food for their daily meal. Whatever was put in their bowls was what they had to eat for the day. And we have been in something of that practice this week. When the Buddha and his monks would go out into the villages, the giving and receiving is very intimate and direct.
Jomon:Many of the people in the villages are very excited about it, offering joyfully, seeing their part in turning these three wheels. As the story goes, a child playing in the sand nearby saw the procession and the practice and was so delighted and of course wanted to participate. So he took a little fistful of sand and put it in the Buddha's bowl. One of the monk's rules is that they have to eat whatever's in the bowl. That's so pure, isn't it?
Jomon:That's the spirit of generosity. It is immediate, it is without a second thought, it has no agenda. It is said that one resultant benefit was that that child was King Ashoka in another birth, in a subsequent birth. King Ashoka was known as a very kind and compassionate ruler. The child gained the throne.
Jomon:Even if we offer just one word or a verse of dharma, it will become a seed of goodness in this lifetime and other lives to come. Even if we give something humble, a single penny or a stalk of grass, it will plant a root of goodness in this and other ages. We've been using the phrase, This is what is being given to me now, to explore gratitude. We can explore a generosity phrase, Using it the same way perhaps connecting with the breath and repeating it a bit like a mantra. How can I be generous right now?
Jomon:Even as we sit silently, moving. How can I be generous right now? Or, What can I offer right now? Or what is being offered right now? In fact, that's a phrase that could potentially encompass both.
Jomon:What is being offered right now? So I'd like to circle back to those initial quotes that I started with. I know that life will always consist of getting up and going to sleep and a few meals and daily chores. And only in between can we try to come to grips with the great things, the ones we think really matter. And if I don't come to grips with them now, if I'm unable to assign them a place in my life right now, who then can guarantee that I shall ever be able to do it?
Jomon:Ultimately, we have just one moral duty to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it toward others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world. These words were written by Etty Hillesam, a Jewish Dutch woman in her late twenties between 1941 and 1943. I'd like to share her story. She is a powerful exemplar.
Jomon:Esther Etty Hillesum was born in 1914 in The Netherlands, the oldest of three children. She had two brothers, Jacob and Michael of Levi Hillisum and Reva Bernstein. After completing school in 1932, she studied law and Slavic languages in Amsterdam. She grew up in what sounds like a family that had some garden variety dysfunction, and she was reportedly prone to habits of self focus, despair and spirals of panic. The Nazis began the occupation of The Netherlands in 1940, enacting a series of anti Semitic laws, including closing Jewish newspapers, firing Jewish civil servants, and confiscating Jewish businesses.
Jomon:The Nazis started deporting Jews to concentration camps in 1942. But as the walls of Nazi oppression closed in, and during that time, Eddie pursued a spiritual path. And those who have studied her diaries and her life describe that she moved from a narrow individualistic moral worldview to an intensely other directed ethic. From a narrow individualistic moral worldview to an intensely other directed ethic. She started seriously writing her diaries in 1941 at age 27.
Jomon:She was walking a spiritual path, a mystical path, and explored the Bible, writings of Saint Augustine, the teachings of Buddhism, as well as the poetry of Rilke. And she wrote about her process in detail. Her diaries also record the increasing anti Jewish measures imposed by the occupying German army and the growing uncertainty about the fate of fellow Jews who had been deported by them. Her diaries form a record of oppression and describe her spiritual development and deepening faith in God. She used her own suffering as a motivation to lay down her life for her community as chaos crept up all around.
Jomon:She wrote, Whatever I may have to give to others, I can give it no matter where I am, here in the circle of my friends or over there in a concentration camp. Whatever I may have to give to others, I can give it no matter where I am. In 1942, she volunteered to work in Westerbork Camp, a refugee camp that had been for Austrian and German refugees fleeing the Nazis, but with the invasion of the Netherlands, this camp became a concentration camp and transit center to the death camps. She worked at Westerbork with the intention of supporting the Jews being sent to the death camps. Then suddenly, her own status as a worker was revoked, and she and most of her family were sent to Auschwitz in July 1943.
Jomon:She was murdered in Auschwitz in November 1943. She wrote in her diaries throughout her time at Westerbork, and that is how her words survived. She wrote of unusual experiences of spiritual awakenings and insight. She writes: Those two months behind barbed wire have been the two richest and most intense months of my life, in which my highest values were so deeply confirmed. I have learned to love Westerbork.
Jomon:She addressed God repeatedly and personally in her diaries, regarding God not as a savior, but as a power one must nurture inside oneself. Here she addresses God directly: Alas, there doesn't seem to be much You, Yourself, can do about our circumstances, about our lives. Neither do I hold you responsible. You cannot help us, but we must help you and defend your dwelling place inside us to the last. She writes, The sky is full of birds.
Jomon:The purple Lupins stand up so regally and peacefully. Two little old women have sat down for a chat. The sun is shining on my face. And right before our eyes, mass murder. The whole thing is simply beyond comprehension.
Jomon:The whole thing is simply beyond comprehension. In September 1943, less than three months before her murder, she threw a postcard with her final written words out of a train. The postcard read, Opening the Bible at random, I find this. The Lord is my high tower. I'm sitting on my rucksack in the middle of a full freight car.
Jomon:Father, Mother and Misha are a few cars away. In the end, the departure came without warning. We left the camp singing, Thank you for all your kindness and care. This postcard was found by farmers after her death. We may never know when our last moment will be.
Jomon:How would we want it to be? Would you want your last words to be, Thank you? This ability to be grateful in the face of death, in the face of anything, what a gift. A gift that echoes through space and time. A gift that we can receive.
Jomon:Where does it come from? Perhaps we all wonder if we would be able to meet our deaths with this kind of courage, this kind of love. I certainly wonder that for myself. But we can practice. We can practice with whatever our challenges happen to be at this moment.
Jomon:In her talk, Enri stressed this point, the content of our thoughts is not as important as how we relate to them. And perhaps the same is true for the content of our lives. Can we receive the blessing of our own life? Whatever is happening. And can we offer it as a gift?
Jomon:We practice the Bodhisattva Vow to awaken for the sake of all beings. To reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves and to reflect it toward others. And this is the place to practice that very thing. At this moment, we have taken the option to put ourselves in the circumstances that support intensive practice. That is what's available here.
Jomon:Your heart has already put you in the practice of sashin. Even if your body or mind may have forgotten what that was all about, your body is here. And you can choose to be here in heart and in mind, undivided. There is room for it all. In closing, I'd like to share one more quote from Eddie Hillisum.
Jomon:She says, Through me course wide rivers, and in me rise tall mountains. And beyond the thickets of my agitation and confusion, there stretch the wide plains of my peace and surrender. All landscapes are within me, and there is room for everything. Through me course wide rivers, and in me rise tall mountains. And beyond the thickets of My agitation and confusion, there stretch the wide plains of My peace and surrender.
Jomon:All landscapes are within Me, and there is room for everything. So please continue to take up these practices throughout your day, on and off the cushion. Please be present with the undifferentiated generosity that you are, the gift that you are. And do not doubt that your practice here has an effect, has a result, even if you may never see it or know it. Thank you.
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.