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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.
Jomon:So I wanna start by sharing, in this talk I'd like to share a couple of poems by a dharma teacher from the Tibetan tradition, the Vajrayana tradition. He is a teacher from Tibet named Anam Thubten, or Thubten. He grew up in Tibet, and he now lives in The United States. He has practitioners all over the country, perhaps all over the world. He has a few followers here in Oregon.
Jomon:He has taught a couple of retreats at Great Vow within his group. Apparently he writes poems wherever he goes. One of these poems was written at Great Vow. It says where he wrote them. There's two of them I want to share.
Jomon:Neither of them were from Great Vow though. So this one is from the book of poems by Adam Thumpkin called Big Sky. And this poem is called Right Now. Right now, the screen shows that I'm flying over the Pacific Ocean. In a few hours, my friends will greet me in a beautiful country, Korea, a country with many good hearts.
Jomon:I call it land of kimchi with affection. The last ten hours, I sat next to a stranger who didn't say so much. Periodically, some announcements blurted out, Seat belt sign is on. Eggs. Noodles.
Jomon:A profound solitude fell. I reviewed my whole life like being in a flying meditation cave. Right now, the screen shows that I'm flying over the Pacific Ocean. In a few hours, my friends will greet me in a beautiful country, Korea, a country with many good hearts. I call it land of kimchi, with affection.
Jomon:The last ten hours, I sat next to a stranger who didn't say so much. Periodically, some announcements blurted out, Seat belt sign is on. Eggs, noodles. A profound solitude fell. I reviewed my whole life like being in a flying meditation cave.
Jomon:So many things already happened in this life. The future seems unknowable. Pain, joy, sorrow, happiness, good luck, bad luck, maybe I'm not in control over anything. This might sound bad, but it turns out to be the most liberating news. This can be called the true surrender.
Jomon:My heart is in love with life. It knows there is nothing to lose and nothing to gain. It also knows how to embrace it. Whenever I'm in touch with it, a joy strikes at my core, the joy of being alive at this very moment. Right now, I'm marking the date for a party with friends.
Jomon:Let's take some deep breaths. Let's throw our arms in the air. Let's move our hips around. Let's let our feet drum the ground. Let's have some fun.
Jomon:Many memories go away. Some stay forever. Just a year ago, we stood at the mortuary to witness our beloved Pamela's body turned into ashes. A message came from the invisible world: Don't waste this life. And this was written on a plane from San Francisco to Seoul, July 2936.
Jomon:So I was so struck by this poem and struck by how the poem turned there at the end. And how that turning doesn't negate everything that came before that part in the poem about his friend's death. All fits together. It's all part of the same life. Traveling to visit friends, the ordinary things of travel, fastened seat belts, food, neighbors, dancing with friends, pain, joy, sorrow, happiness, good luck, bad luck, the joy of being alive.
Jomon:The joy of true surrender. I want to read that part again. I'm not in control. Maybe, maybe I'm not in control over anything. This might sound bad, but it turns out to be the most liberating news.
Jomon:This can be called the true surrender. And the willingness to look at impermanence is really what this poem is pointing to. The implications of impermanence and the effect that looking has on how we see the world, on how we see our life. So that's what I want to talk about today. Last week I spoke about Vow, and I had every intention of continuing to speak about Vow because it's January and that's, you know, a lot of what our community does.
Jomon:We focus on Vow. January is kind of that time when we're doing, you know, resolutions and stuff. But last week I spoke about Vow and I mentioned the work of Oliver Burkerman and he wrote a book called Time Management for Mortals. And that four thousand weeks is about it amounts to about seventy six years. So that's about the average amount of weeks a human being has.
Jomon:You know, I did the math. If even if I live to be 94, I have two thousand and some weeks left. You know, a little over half of that. Or if I live to be that average, it's only eleven hundred something. So here I am at middle age.
Jomon:I'm either halfway through or heading into my last quarter, but none of that is guaranteed. So here's I'm going to quote Burkerman. This quote kind of stuck with me last week, so I'll just read it again. We have very little control over our time. Even when it comes to the scant amount of it we do get, when you stop and think about it, it's not really clear that we get any time at all.
Jomon:Do you have the next three hours? When you say something like, I've got three hours to complete this project or I've got a week's holiday before I have to do any work, what we mean in that situation is actually that we expect that time. It means we've got good reason to believe that we'll get those three hours or that our week will be uninterrupted. In fact, you only ever get one moment of time. It's not like physical possessions or money.
Jomon:You don't have four thousand weeks of life like you have a $100 in the bank. You only expect that you'll have it. So that's Oliver Burkerman, four thousand Weeks. And this, this we have very little control over our time. This, I really appreciate Oliver Burkerman's work.
Jomon:Most of his work as a journalist, he worked for The Guardian newspaper for years, decades maybe. And his whole job was to be the person that explored all the time management tricks and systems. And so he road tested all of them because he was obsessed with this in his life, how to optimize his time. And he's like, I needed ten years to really explore that to the very end to find out like there is no trick. Like this is really what he's come to after all of that, that we really don't have that much control.
Jomon:My gosh. This is part of that true surrender. What if we don't really have that much control? Can we truly surrender to this moment? The only thing that really is and this also not really a thing even.
Jomon:Try to capture it. We try to capture a particular mind state or a particular feeling or idea. But go ahead and try to catch this moment. It's already gone. As soon as we recognize a moment, this moment is already gone.
Jomon:This moment is already gone. The teachings of Buddhism include the three seals. I've mentioned those before, dukkha, anicca, and anatta, that is suffering impermanence and no self. We can observe these seals, these sort of indicators of Buddha dharma. We can observe these for ourselves.
Jomon:It's not doctrine and that we have to believe in them. You don't have to believe in them, but can you see it for yourself? Can you experience this directly for yourself? And see how they all interrelate, how they are all actually embedded in each other. At the outset, suffering and impermanence are pretty easy, right?
Jomon:We can really very, very directly experience that. But how we relate to this sense of ourself as a solid self, that can be a little tricky or just a bit of a leap for our habitual way of understanding our life. So I'm focusing more on impermanence tonight, in particular, echoing some of the previous talk that I was asking Bosch, gosh, what should I talk about next week? He's like, you were really pretty alive when you were talking about impermanence. But it might just be that I'm such a big fan of Oliver Burkerman, I don't know.
Jomon:So I decided to focus on impermanence, echoing this talk from before about vow because the elements of clarifying our hearts and minds to discern our vows, what our life is about, how we want to be. This all works together with understanding who we are and what our life is that we may not actually have all that much control, that we may not have all that much time. In fact, we don't have time. There's an exercise that Chozen recommends sometimes. I can't remember if this was part of our exercise that we did last week.
Jomon:If you had five years to live, I think we did, right? Add that or no? What was it that we did last week? The written one? Nobody remembers?
Jomon:The bucket list. The bucket list. Yeah, it was. The bucket list. So if you knew you only had five years to live or one year to live or a week to live?
Jomon:How would you be? How would you be in the world? Can there be a vow that would serve you in that circumstance and in the event that you do get a great many more weeks of life, is there such a vow that could serve in either of those circumstances potentially? Now, you might do things differently. You might quit your job or do some bucket list thing, which it's important to reflect on those things because we really don't know how much time we have.
Jomon:That we do have to balance that with our responsibilities, taking care of ourselves and others. But all of that, what's on my bucket list, what would I do, what would I not do, how do I want to spend this time, That's about the question, what would you do? What do you want to do? That's a slightly different question. Bancho and I had dinner with some old friends the other night, and we found out that one of his work friends from years ago, someone who's our age, in their 50s, she has a couple of children who are now young adults.
Jomon:She's been diagnosed with stage four cancer and said that thing we hear sometimes, I always thought I'd have more time. I'm not sure what she may be doing differently now, but that phrase, that just that and that sense, that just knowing of this, the surprise still. There's a preciousness when we realize how valuable this moment really is. Can that inform the question, how would you be? How would you be if you knew that you didn't have a lot of time?
Jomon:If you knew you were soon going to die, how wrapped up in frustration would you be about the little things? How would you handle a difficult person, right, knowing that you were going to die soon or that they would die soon. This is another one of Chosen's mindfulness practices that you can do in daily life. This person could die tonight. That phrase that every person you meet, this person could die tonight.
Jomon:There's a tenderness that just sets in immediately when we really acknowledge that very real possibility. It changes the quality of the interaction. Softer, maybe a little more patient. Maybe clearer about what is important, what really is important. Seeing the poignancy of each interaction.
Jomon:Each interaction that seems so ordinary and they are. Our day is full of these ordinary interactions. But they can be experienced through this loving lens, through this poignant and preciousness, this lens of preciousness. This is what our practice is pointing to when we really take up the teaching of impermanence. Our practice, what is practice?
Jomon:Meditation, sitting meditation, Zazen. We sit, we let our eyes rest on the floor, or we close our eyes, some people do. And so for a time we do our best to just be present in our experience, in our direct experience, whether that's following the breath or listening to sound or feeling the body or even doing loving kindness practice. And then we notice how we get caught in thoughts of the past, the future, and we reel our attention back in. And over and over and over and over and over we remind ourselves it's now, it's only now, it's only here, this is all there is, this is where I am, this is what is happening.
Jomon:Just this, just this. And we can do that anywhere. And sometimes we have to plan things. And sometimes it's helpful to remember things. I find in this poem too there's a sense, perhaps unstated, as things arise moment by moment of what it is that's not impermanent.
Jomon:What is the source of all of this? How is it that these things are arising? Where do they go when they subside, when they transform? This beginningless, endless, larger, something. What is larger than the changing bubbles of thought and experience that are just continuously passing through and transforming us into a different being every moment.
Jomon:In this poem he's kind of in that process, just noticing all the little bubbles of experience of the plane ride and the people and all the different elements of experience as it comes and goes, as it flows through. What is there? We can pay attention to that as well. Where is this, what is not changing? Our attention being trained toward what is.
Jomon:It can reveal our complete interconnectedness as well, the boundlessness of our life. Last week I shared a little bit from Mizumi Roshi, my teacher's teacher. And here is a quote from him. Each of us has to take care of this treasury of the true dharma eye, the true dharma eye that can see in this way. Each of us has to take care of this treasury of the true dharma eye and subtle mind of nirvana.
Jomon:We must do it. One day is long enough. One sitting period is long enough. Even one second is long enough. Vice versa, a week, ten years, fifty years, or a hundred years may not be long enough.
Jomon:In order to experience yourself in this way, you do not need to wait for any moment. In fact, do not wait. Appreciate the world of just this. There is nothing extra. Genuinely, I encourage you, please enjoy this wonderful life together.
Jomon:Appreciate your life as the most precious treasure and take good care of it. You do not need to wait for any moment. In fact, do not wait. Appreciate the world of just this. I think that's what that poem is doing also.
Jomon:Take care of your practice. Take care of your attention. And then my dharma aunt, Joko Beck, she says, She is tough. She is a strong cup of tea, Joko Beck. She's no longer with us.
Jomon:I wish I could have met her. A Zendo is not a place for bliss and relaxation. I'll have you know. A Zendo is not a place for bliss and relaxation. Maybe you already knew that.
Jomon:But a furnace room for the combustion of our egoistic delusions. I'm sorry, can you repeat? Yes. Can you get an answer? I will.
Jomon:A Zendo is not a place for bliss and relaxation, but a furnace room for the combustion of our egoistic delusions. What tools do we need to use? Only one. We've all heard of it, yet we use it very seldom. It's called attention.
Jomon:Attention is the cutting, burning sword, and our practice is to use that sword as much as we can. All practice aims to increase our ability to be attentive, not just in Zazen, but in our everyday life. I would almost update this quote that we maybe have heard of attention certainly and we maybe do use it intentionally from time to time. But we also know that corporations have discovered how powerful and valuable it really is and that it can be captured and that it can be monetized and that people are using the power of generations of science and technology and psychology to capture our attention for profit and for power. So to take care of our practice in the way that Mizumi is talking about.
Jomon:Appreciate your life as the most precious treasure and take good care of it. It's valuable. And the sword metaphor is also important. We have the bodhisattvas. One bodhisattva is Manjushri, the bodhisattva of wisdom, who uses a sword to cut through delusions.
Jomon:That's what Jokobak is evoking, to cut through our habitual beliefs, to cut through our clouded mind. If you come to Sanzen, you can see Manjushri is on the small table in the Sanzen room. When we embrace impermanence, we can see that nothing is solid. Everything is changing all the time, is it not? Everything is unstable.
Jomon:I think that's the it seems bad, isn't it? That's what Anam Thubton's poem was saying. It seems bad. Don't have any control over this. It's all falling apart all the time.
Jomon:But it's our argument with that that is the root of suffering. That is how impermanence and suffering often do work together. Our argument with that. It should be different than it is. And yet, it's that instability that can actually offer us some hope and some faith when we think that we're stuck, when we think that something is impossible, when we think that nothing will ever change.
Jomon:Well, fact, it's guaranteed to. Everything we go around naming has embedded in it its own dissolution, its own inevitable transformation into something else. To close, I'd like to read another Adam Thubton poem. This one is called Magical Impermanence. A pod of whales is swimming.
Jomon:A flock of geese is flying for a thousand miles to the north. This migration happens every year. I have seen it so many times, cannot even count them on my fingers. In the distant past, when this migration happened, it was a sign that I was growing. Many promises awaited.
Jomon:A palm reader told me that a happy life was on the way. The astrologer predicted that adventure is my destiny. These days, when this migration happens, nature whispers to me, tells me it is a sign of my aging. An ancient rockfish in the water makes my life seem so finite. She quietly dispels my illusion of immortality.
Jomon:Don't envy her longevity. Living too long can be a curse. Soon Mother C will hold my ashes with others. This picture of me with a youthful smile will fade. My name will be less mentioned in conversations.
Jomon:My little glories will be long forgotten. Any day can be the crescendo of my existence. Let me rush to pick up the apples. I'll make a nice pie. Loved ones will enjoy it.
Jomon:Two thousand five hundred years ago, a wise monk named Buddha declared all things are impermanent. Magic is only found in what is transient. Magic is only found in what is transient. Dew on the rose flower takes breath away. Waves on the sea make people fall in love.
Jomon:Evening sunsets invite us to the cosmic wonder. The full moon tonight lures us into rocking our body. Rainbow's beauty turns the earth celestial. I have a gift for you, a joke. Give yourself permission to laugh until your belly hurts.
Jomon:It's time for you to try new things. Have you ever jumped in the river with clothes on to be reckless and carefree? Have you ever run naked in the wild forest to feel the uncontrollable primal force? Have you ever traveled to see the northern lights to feed your devotion to the great mystery? Have you slept alone in the desert to receive nature's healing?
Jomon:Are you in the mood to dance in the white sand until you're exhausted, in a bliss that can make your soul giggle. Magical impermanence.
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 dot org. Your support supports us.