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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.
Speaker 2:Taking refuge in Buddha, taking refuge in Dharma, taking refuge in Sangha. July 2026. Sashin, good afternoon. Thank you all for your sincere practice this machine. A reading from Hongjers, Practice Instructions from Cultivating the Empty Field.
Speaker 2:This one's called Sit Empty of Worldly Anxiety. Yesterday, Jogan unpacked numerous worldly anxieties and their nature, insubstantial, contingent, partial, transparent, empty. Sit empty of worldly anxiety. If you truly appreciate a single thread your eye can suitably meet the world and its changes. Seeing clearly do not be fooled and the 10,000 situations cannot shroud you.
Speaker 2:Moonlight falls on the water. Wind blows over the pines. Light and shadow do not confuse us. Sounds or voices do not block us. The whistling wind can resonate pervading without impediment through the various structures flowing along with things harmonizing without deviation thoroughly abandoning webs of dust.
Speaker 2:Still one does not yet arrive in the original home. Put to rest the remnants of your conditioning. Sit empty of worldly anxiety, silent and bright, clear and illuminating, blank and accepting, far reaching and responsive. Without encountering external dusts fulfilled in your own spirit, Arrive at this field and immediately recognize your ancestors. We are practicing the Buddha way together.
Speaker 2:And it's beautiful to see, beautiful to experience the Dharma. Practicing the Dharma, it's not an idea. We're living it. We're living the teachings together. Bit by bit, the Dharma, the teachings of the Buddha is said to have three characteristics.
Speaker 2:Dukha, Anicca, and Anata. Stress. Dukha stress, impermanence, and not self. So testing whether or not something is a Dharma teaching it's has the these three marks, these three characteristics as they're teaching about reality. Everything is impermanent, in flux, in flow.
Speaker 2:And we can see that for ourselves. We can just observe that directly. It was really hot earlier in the week, it's not so hot now. Its day now, it was night earlier. It was breakfast, then it was lunch.
Speaker 2:And our experience is impermanent too. Sleepy, not sleepy. Bright, then sleepy. Hot then cold. Things just are flowing.
Speaker 2:And then, dukkha, the other characteristic, dukkha, stress, problems. Because things change and cannot last this can lead us, leads humans, to a deep underlying sense of stress, unease or dissatisfaction. We believe, we have certain beliefs or thoughts about the world. It should be like this. I should not be like this.
Speaker 2:They should be like this. They shouldn't be like this. I like this. I don't want to feel this. I want to feel this other way.
Speaker 2:I wish they would come here. I wish they would go away. I don't like this. I want this. I don't want this.
Speaker 2:I'm failing. I'm special. I'm not special. In fact, I am the most not special. And as we heard earlier, Hongzhi calls this the invisible pounding and weaving of our ingrained ideas.
Speaker 2:And it stresses us out. Causes the sense of anxiety or unease even when we get what we want because of impermanence we're afraid it's going to be taken away or change into something some way that we don't like. And the third characteristic is Anata, not self. And this is one that we can explore today. So a not a not self or non self.
Speaker 2:This one is one of our deepest ingrained ideas. You could say that all the other ones are in support of or emerge from the way that the self relates to reality. In Buddhism we see this we see this as a mistake, a mistaken notion sometimes called ignorance. But I prefer the Dalai Lama's translation of this ignorance, this mistake as miss knowing. This particular teaching is not about does the self exist or not?
Speaker 2:Do I exist or not? And as Yoga was pointing out, like both are partial. Right? You can't say that the self exists and you can't say that it doesn't exist. Both both don't make sense.
Speaker 2:So what is this teaching of not self or non self? Well in the practice, in the stability of our Sashin practice we can realize this and see through this misknowing and see things as they are. Be in right relationship with the way things are. So the Buddha gave a teaching on this called the characteristic of not self in the linked discourses and this is a translation by a Biku Sujato where he explained what this not self is. At one time the Buddha was staying near Varanasi in the deer park at Isipatthana.
Speaker 2:There the Buddha addressed the group of five mendicants. Mendicants, venerable sir they replied. The Buddha said this, Mendicants, form is not self. For if form were self, it wouldn't lead to affliction. And you could compel form if form were self.
Speaker 2:May my form be like this. May it not be like that. But because form is not self, it leads to affliction and you can't compel form. May my form be like this. May it not be like that.
Speaker 2:This is, we can't make our body feel what we want it to feel. Our knee hurts, we can't tell it to stop. No matter how warm and comfortable we are in our bed if we have to pee we can't stop that sensation. Well there's only one way to stop that sensation. We can't just decide I don't want to feel this have to pee.
Speaker 2:We have to respond. And the Buddha is saying if the self was solid and and and is the body then we could compel it to do what we wanted to do. But we can't. And then he goes through and talks about the feeling tone of our experience, positive, negative, neutral, the way that sort of wordless sense of things, positive, negative, or neutral. We smell barf, we can't be like, Right?
Speaker 2:That's pretend. We have the response that we have. Right? It's genuine, it's a genuine response. So the feeling tone it's not solidly in my command.
Speaker 2:But we take it personally. Perception. So perception is the process of recognizing something or labeling it. So you recognize a sound as music. Or we say, we hear something, we go, birdsong.
Speaker 2:We can't tell ourselves not to recognize something that we recognize. And we can't unrecognize something that we already recognize. We're not in command of that. It's not personal. Thoughts are not self.
Speaker 2:This is often called mental formations, thoughts, and our conditioned responses, thoughts, emotions, habits. So we can't say, so the Buddha says, Mendicants, thought is not self. For if it were self it wouldn't lead to affliction. And you could compel thought, May my thought be like this. May it not be like that.
Speaker 2:Because thought is not self, it leads to affliction, stress, burden. And you can't compel thought. May my thought be like this, may it not be like this. Can you make yourself think a thought? Can you put in your journal, at this time I want to think this particular kind of thought?
Speaker 2:Or can you not think a thought? If arising in awareness, where did it come from? There's all kinds, I think we've all had the experience since the scene was like, why am I thinking about this again? I have thought the same thought over and over and over and over and over over again. Why am I thinking about this?
Speaker 2:I already decided to do that. Why am I thinking about all the reasons I decided to do the thing I've already decided? Right? Why am I thinking about this still? It's not even am I trying to decide, I've decided.
Speaker 2:Now I go through all the reasons about why. I am not in command. Thoughts are not personal. I'm not choosing them. And is thought even, do we even possess a thought?
Speaker 2:We can't hold onto a thought. I mean they're constantly changing. But if you think about a thought, think about a thought, so you have a memory of a TV show episode, right? Pops into your head randomly, right? Some little snippet.
Speaker 2:Well, that is actually someone else's thought. Someone who wrote the script and the actors who acted it out and all the people It's like all other people's thoughts that shows up as thought here. But remembering a TV show is like remembering a bunch of other people's thoughts, At least partially. But you can't say it's not my thought like it's here and I'm experiencing. But it's not quite mine, right?
Speaker 2:And we can look at this with some of our most pervasive thoughts. The ones that afflict us the most. Like thoughts of, like the inner critic. One of the, just personally, one of the ways that my own experience of the inner critic was a particular, you know, having done the inner critic work, we're doing a workshop at the end of the month on the inner critic. But one of the things that we do in that workshop is where can we You can do a reflection on when when do we remember the inner critic arose?
Speaker 2:Or is there something that that the inner critical voice says and that you might be able to track it to a particular time. Now that's not true for everyone but it does happen. For me I could remember a specific situation where there's a belief, the inner critic has a belief that I believe, has a thought that I believe. And it was something said to me at a certain time, right? And then I somehow out of all that took that in And then it just like moved in.
Speaker 2:Doesn't pay the rent or anything. Just moved in. And it's been something that's been this thing to work with. It's been, it caused lots of trouble and suffering. But those words that were said all that time ago were somebody else's thought.
Speaker 2:And I think that thought. Right? So is that thought mine or not? It's somebody else's thought that I'm choosing to believe. Why?
Speaker 2:It doesn't help me, that's for sure. So not personal, and it's also right here for me to meet. Right? So this thought, it's not me or mine. They're not me.
Speaker 2:And yet, here it is to meet. It's the thoughts are not personal. Who knows? There I can't compel a thought. I can't compel thoughts to go away.
Speaker 2:Now we can work with thoughts in ways in which, I mean you all know this, I mean we all have been working with thoughts. But it's not personal and yet we take it personally. And this is what the Buddha is pointing to is this the way that we take our experience and make it personal in such a way that it shapes us in certain ways that afflict us in different ways. So we can't compel our experience. Over and over again the Buddha asks, says, If this was really me why can't I command these things?
Speaker 2:Why can't I tell this knee to stop hurting? Why can't I stop today's anxious thought? Why can't I choose tomorrow's mood? We can't. Can't choose tomorrow's mood.
Speaker 2:It's not because we're failing, but because these processes are never me in the first place. And then the Buddha goes and says, on top of all of this, it's impermanent, constantly changing Moods, thoughts, feelings, body, all impermanent. So the Buddha says, Mendicants, So you should truly see any kind of form, feeling, emotions, habits, thoughts, beliefs at all, past, present, future, internal or external, solid or subtle, inferior or superior, far or kneel, near, all form with right understanding. This is not mine. I am not this.
Speaker 2:This is not myself. This is not mine. I am not this. This is not myself. That is what the Buddha said, satisfied.
Speaker 2:The group of five mendicants approved what they had heard and while this discourse was being spoken the minds of the five group of mendicants were freed from defilements by not grasping. This is what Hongjo called the misunderstanding of many lifetimes. What the mendicants recognized is we all have the clear wondrous bright field from the beginning. It's only as Hongzhi says, many lifetimes of misunderstanding come only from distrust, hindrance, and screens of confusion that we create in a scenario of isolation. So what the Buddha is talking about in this Sutta is the misunderstanding in how it happens.
Speaker 2:And we're invited into inquiring for ourselves and really looking and seeing. This is not mine. I am not this. This is not myself. All these scenarios of isolation, but it's important that in Buddhism, there's not blame here.
Speaker 2:There's not criticism here. The response is compassion towards other beings who are afflicted and ourselves. And the more we get to know our own experience of how we are afflicted in these ways, then we know from the inside and can see others in their struggle. Look at the suffering that comes from believing that thought, That afflictive thought that was somebody else's thought and yet here it is. How sad.
Speaker 2:How sad. And rather than blame is compassion, great compassion. So here we are in Sashin. How do we proceed? As Jogan pointed out earlier, practice has its own momentum but we don't go on autopilot, check out.
Speaker 2:On the other hand, we don't want to force. It's interesting that sometimes during Sashin after we've gone through all the turbulence and just kind of grinding it out and there's settling in some kind of peace, then all of a sudden here comes drama. The mind just dreams up some drama. It's like, no, this is this is too, I need to get to work. So it can be internal drama, kind of bringing in some old habits, dredging some things up and bringing them to the fore, all of a sudden we're caught in old drama.
Speaker 2:Or it stirs up drama about our practice. Oh, here's something you can do, here's something to throw in. If we've done many sashin, there can be a temptation to ghost. Yeah. And we have to bring honesty.
Speaker 2:On the one hand there's there is a way that practice starts to practice us. Right? Where we don't have to put forward so much effort. And and there's an appropriate response to that. Right?
Speaker 2:Where we just experience practice practicing itself. And that's, we just experience that. There's also, then we just are honest, or am I am I just sitting in calmness? It's like, okay, this is great. I got my money's worth.
Speaker 2:You know, we feel calm, or have moments of calm, or not in struggle. If we do feel if we do feel calm, that's how things are. But we don't want to mistake that for liberation. Calmness doesn't take us far beyond all inverted views as the Heart Sutra says. Those inverted views are mistaking thoughts for mine, mine, this is myself, dukkha in opposition to impermanence.
Speaker 2:So there is an invitation to go deeper, always more to see. I would always get confused when I would go be in Sashin and go see my teacher. Hogan always used to say, go deeper, go deeper. I'm deep. I'm deep.
Speaker 2:I don't know how to go deeper. How do I go deeper? I was, do I go deeper? I don't really even know how I got here. It's an invitation to always more to see.
Speaker 2:There's a calling to intimacy, greater intimacy, more and more intimacy, nearness, become more intimate, closer and more intimate to our experience, to our experiencing. As we practice in Sashin our perception moves from nouns to verbs instead of practice practicing instead of breath the breath breathing. That whole Sutta from earlier from the Buddha takes apart our me ing, our my ing, our mine ing. Intimacy. One of the great Chinese masters said, Not knowing is most intimate.
Speaker 2:Not knowing most intimate. Not knowing is nearness. This deeper, deeper, intimate, intimate is nearness. And this nearness is not knowing. Not knowing is this nearness.
Speaker 2:Not knowing is most intimate. Knowing in the mind, the knowing of the mind, the discriminatory mind, I know. This reminds me also, I had this memory of, I remember one time I was, when I was young, very young, I just There was just some day where everything my dad said, I would say, I know. Must have been like seven, six or seven, I know. He would say something, I know.
Speaker 2:He would say something else, I know. I know. I know. I know. And then finally he just said, you don't know.
Speaker 2:You don't know. Yeah. Like a Zen master sort of like Yes, turning words. No you don't know. Knowing shuts things down, it close things off, puts things in a box, makes things small and manageable and safe.
Speaker 2:I know. Meta, loving kindness. Oh, I got it. Yep. I know how that works.
Speaker 2:Yep, Meta, I know that. I did that. Yep, got it. Tried it. We can have this even in the midst of our practice.
Speaker 2:The breath, I know it, I know it. When that happens, then we start to kind of dual track where like we're with the breath but we're also somewhere else. So we're like, Oh yeah, I got that. The breath, breathing, I know it. I mean, that's like saying, we saw some waves and so we understand the ocean, know all its depths, fathomless, And that's what the mind does, so there's no blame here.
Speaker 2:Right? So what the mind does, the mind says, I got this, I know it. So one of the ways that it keeps the me ing, the small self ing, is like, I got this, I know it, I'm in control. Feeling a little out of control there trying to follow my breath, but nope, got it. Right?
Speaker 2:I was feeling a little wobbly before and now I don't. Got this. Right? So, and that's just the mind, that's what it does. That is a wandering thought.
Speaker 2:Right? So, there's no blame here. Don't let the inner critic come in, borrow somebody else's thought to tell you that you're not doing it right. So, that's what it does. So, we just that's why we keep going.
Speaker 2:So saying, acting from I know, it's a delusion. It's partial. It's partial. We can at least say it's partial if not a complete delusion. But you don't know this breath.
Speaker 2:It's never happened before. You've never felt this breath with this body that's this in this time and this space with this sound. These forms, these movements, it's right here. Not knowing is most intimate. Not knowing.
Speaker 2:That's that that's this intimacy, nearness. We become more and more, this nearness, this intimacy, we become more and more unified with our experiencing. Instead of watching the breath from the outside, We hold hands with the breath. We go from I'm up here practicing, following the breath, yep, there it goes, watching it, here's what I think about it, that's a good breath, that's not a good breath, didn't pay attention to it. And that's not wrong, it's part of the settling.
Speaker 2:But the invitation to intimacy is to go from being I am following the breath which is a stage, let's call it for the sake of this talk, a stage, right? It's where we begin, we all come in, we sit down, that's where we start, like oh, I am here, following the breath. We move from that to being more continuously with it. We hold hands with the breath the whole way. Instead of watching it from the outside we at least are accompanying it.
Speaker 2:We companion the breath. Follow it continuously. And then even more intimate, we get to know its parts. I mean that's a way to get to know the breath because there's also a way in the way that the breath doesn't have parts. But with our mind, bringing ourselves into intimacy, we can get to know the different parts of it.
Speaker 2:Just like with a friend, You know a friend is in one respect they're just a constantly flowing emergence. On the other hand they have a history and stories and you know they might have a recipe for chili that you want. So instead of saying, oh, I know the breath, you get to know it. I've known Jomon for since the nineteen hundreds. Way back in the nineteen hundred's, I still learn about her.
Speaker 2:Right? Still learn about parts of her, still learn about parts about me. So getting to know the breath, the bottom of the breath. You can spend an entire sashin plumbing the depths of the bottom of the breath, and it's not exhausted. The turns of the breath, in breath, out breath, what is that turning like?
Speaker 2:What is that experience like? Here, here, here, here, here, here. The turning of the breath is experienced all over. It can be, the intimacy can be minute, expansive, both intimate, nearer and nearer and nearer and without, but without tension. Just looking closely, we don't need to bring tension in.
Speaker 2:So look for that as you practice becoming more and more intimate when tension and pushing comes in. It's natural. Step back. We don't need to bring that in. More and more don't know, more and more near and near, silent and serene.
Speaker 2:More and more don't know. Practicing not knowing intimate nearness with your experiencing. Seamlessly Zen do, walking, eating, peeing, sleeping, intimate, intimate, intimate. Less and less distance from our experiencing, seamlessly present, feeling the tingling aliveness of this body as it's breathing more and more unified we enter into absorption, sitting as moment by moment inquiry presence. Not outside, not inside, not outside our experience, not inside our experience.
Speaker 2:Moment by moment inquiry presence become a question without asking, question without seeking. What is this? What is? What? Intimate, intimate, intimate.
Speaker 2:Again, Hongzhi, sit empty of worldly anxiety. If you truly appreciate a single thread, your eye can suitably meet the world and its changes. This isn't about trying to achieve some lofty perch or have something special or separate. It's about truly meeting our life. He says, Seeing clearly, do not be fooled, and the 10,000 situations cannot shroud you.
Speaker 2:So, here we are no longer fooled by the emanations of the mind. We see through the beliefs. As Jogin was saying, they're translucence, transparent. Seeing through no longer fooled by the emanations of the mind and the 10,000 situations cannot shroud you. He says, Moonlight falls on the water, wind blows over the pines.
Speaker 2:Moonlight falls on the water, wind blows over the pines. Hongjo is saying that this is complete and utterly natural. Complete and utterly natural to us. Light and shadow do not confuse us. Sounds or voices do not block us.
Speaker 2:The whistling wind can resonate pervading without impediment through the various structures. Flowing along with things harmonizing without deviation. Catching feather on a fan, catching yourself on a fan. He says, Thoroughly abandoning webs of dust, still one does not yet arrive in the original home. There is still more to see.
Speaker 2:More intimate, more near, more near, intimate, intimate. Put to rest the remnants of your conditioning. Sit empty of worldly anxiety, silent and bright, clear and illuminating, blank and accepting, far reaching and responsive Without encountering external dusts fulfilled in your own spirit, arrive at this field and immediately recognize your ancestors. This is not forced, it's not made, not thought, or conceived. You don't have to think to recognize.
Speaker 2:Recognize your ancestors. You don't have to think to recognize. Like the chant this morning says, coming face to face with your grandfather in the village. This is a recognition. You look in the mirror and see Buddha ancestor.
Speaker 2:Every flower, every stone, bird, bee radiantly confirms it. And even people, even the one that sits in your own seat. So, as we continue Sashim, please go forward and walk with open hands of not knowing and become intimate with your life.
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.