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What Is True? Inquiry and Impermanence - Hogen, Roshi · Zen Community of Oregon Dharma Talks

• 0:00
  Jomon: 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.
• 0:21
  Hogen: Take refuge in the Buddha. Take refuge in the Dharma. Take refuge in the Sangha. The transcendental truths. We're continuing to talk a little bit about Thich Nhat Hanh's book, The Art of Living.
• 0:41
  At least that's the theme And the chapter that we were discussing was aimlessness. Look at my Impermanence. Impermanence. We've gone beyond aimlessness. Alright.
• 1:10
  I'm glad we've gone beyond the homelessness then. Let me make a little digression tonight. So we just finished a workshop of the monastery. Eduardo's Umbrado came, and Chuan, who left a little early, was there. And it was a workshop that you that looked at, Zen meditation and practice and aligned itself with Byron Katie's work of inquiry.
• 1:36
  And it's I found it wonderfully rich work. A number of years ago, I was traveling to California. A friend of mine said, this is an amazing book. You've got to listen to it. The book was entitled A Mind at Home with Itself.
• 1:52
  So I started listening to A Mind at Home with Itself, and I was so moved by Byron Katie and Stephen Mitchell's commentary on the Diamond Sutra that I sat down in my hotel room that night, and I wrote them a letter and invited them to come up here. And then Katie was up here in this room doing a workshop before COVID. We had planned on them coming up for a longer workshop in the monastery, but COVID intervened. And Katie is still online. You can see her Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.
• 2:26
  She's, I think, 84 right now, so she doesn't travel very much anymore. But it's just stellar, stellar work. And the work is basically, we start off with something we think is true. Something we think is true. I think this is true.
• 2:42
  This is true about me. This is true about you. This is true about the world. I think something is true. Something I have a reaction to.
• 2:49
  And then we just look, is it true? Is what I think is true really, really true? And that's the that's the beginning of this investigation. And it aligns perfectly with with Zen practice. I mean, who who am I?
• 3:03
  Who is it that lives and breathes and talks? I found that, people who do the work, who who bring it, into their lives often find a freedom that, they can't find other ways. And part of what the freedom they find is that we have these fixed beliefs, and some of them are kind of obvious beliefs. You know? I believe that if I work hard, I will live the American dream, as an example.
• 3:39
  Just a belief. Or I believe that, you know, some people are better than others, or I believe that this I believe in whatever. Obvious ones. But then below those obvious ones are the beliefs we have about who we think we are. The beliefs we have about what is this life about and and how do I survive or can I survive?
• 3:59
  And I find that the the work will go at whatever level that we are interested in investigating. And it has basically four questions. You start off with some truth. You know, usually the best way to find a truth like that is that's what we think is true. Just pay attention to our reaction.
• 4:17
  You know? I react. I feel strongly. I feel greed, anger, ignorance. I feel upset.
• 4:23
  I feel disappointment. I feel despair. I feel happiness. I feel joy. I feel lighthearted when, fill in the blank, whatever is happening, when certain people get elected to office, when people get fired, when there's earthquake, when there's a fire, when when I get a promotion, whatever it happens to be.
• 4:46
  And to take that particular line and just say, is that really true? Or is that just a belief I have? Is that really true? My own experience, is that really, really true? Now, I think that investigation is something really true, is worthwhile regardless of whether we do ever heard of bio Arcadia or not, but is to to realize, oh, everything that we think is true is a perspective.
• 5:16
  The big bang is a perspective. You know? My one of my favorite things that struck me deeply, and I mentioned it often, I think, you you can hold up a clear glass of water, and it looks like it is still, but it's false. It's just a belief. If you put a drop of ink in, you see the molecules, the Brownian motion, you see it's swirling, it's dynamic.
• 5:42
  It only appears still because we can't see it clearly. And that's true with all kinds of things that they only appear still because we can't our eyes, our information operating system is not perceptive enough to be able to see the inherent movement that's going on in all things. So to take anything that we think of, oh, here's a a truth. I'm inadequate. I am superior.
• 6:10
  I am inferior. I am, you know, whatever. Is it true? Is it really, really true? Now, personally, you know, Katie says you gotta say yes or no to that.
• 6:22
  You really dig inside until you say yes or no. I think another way of doing that is say, what else is true? Okay. You know, it is true that I'm I did not get I did not get a PhD. That's true.
• 6:39
  But what else is true? Well, I got an ND. Well, what else is true? Well, I got an MS. Well, what else is true?
• 6:46
  And so you begin to say, okay, there's something we're not, but you also say, well, what else is included? What else is included? What else is included? What else is included? And the inclusive mind is ever larger.
• 6:58
  So whenever we're talking to somebody who is really hardhearted or hardheaded or we're talking to ourselves, when we're hard hearted or hard headed, if we slow down and we look carefully, we say, what else is true? That helps us to see things from other perspectives. So in this room, of course, we have this little book here, but it's seen from what? 30 perspectives, 25 perspectives. Some people have read it, some people have never seen it before, some people are bored of it, you know, everybody sees something different.
• 7:33
  So it's a matter of perspective. So to be able to see our own life from these different perspectives is a way of beginning to be freed from the fixed view of who we think we are. So her four questions are, is it true? Can you absolutely know it's true? And then if you believe your thoughts, if you believe your thought about who you are or you believe your thought about what that statement is, you believe your thought, how does that belief affect your affect your life?
• 8:10
  If I believe that I'm a 76 year old man who's gonna die in the next four years, that's a belief. Is it true? I I don't know. Probably, yes. I'd have to say yes.
• 8:26
  But if I believe that's true or if I don't believe that's true, how does that belief affect my life? And that's where we can always, we can all do this. How does our belief, our beliefs about relationship, beliefs about society, about government, about health, about who we think of, how do our beliefs begin to change us? So we have a belief, old man. Well, okay, how does that affect me?
• 8:59
  So I pay more attention to practice. I take little better care of this body. I take vitamins. I make sure that I try to work with transmission to get to transmit the dharma. You know, it affects how I live and operate.
• 9:17
  That's true for all of us. We believe that we're separated, if we believe that we're failing, if we believe that we're success. What effect does that a belief have on us? Now that in itself is just a wonderful, rich investigation, wonderfully rich investigation, because our beliefs shape the world. I'll talk a little bit about that in just a moment.
• 9:44
  And the fourth question, the third question is how do you react when you believe that thought? Fourth question is who would you be without a thought? Now that's a really interesting one. Who would we be if we were sitting right here and had no thoughts of the past or future? Who would we be right here in this skin right now with no judgment about success or failure, without the burden of all of our opinions about the past and future, who would we be?
• 10:22
  And that's part of the exploration of Zazen is can we sit and feel the breath? Can we sit and feel the the body as it is? Can we sit and hear sounds as they are and see the light as it is without without an overlay of it should be different. It should be different. It's not adequate.
• 10:51
  It's not good. Who would we be if we were completely present without thought? Now, the goal, obviously, practice is not to go become an automaton and have no thought. You know, the eye sees, the ears hear, the mind thinks, so of course, thoughts are going to come. But if we don't believe all of these thoughts and opinions about ourselves, there's an amazing amount of freedom.
• 11:21
  There's an amazing amount of flexibility, amazing amount of fluidity. We don't have to respond over and over again with our conditioning, with our habits of mind, with our culture has tried to train us. Instead, if we didn't believe our thoughts, we could begin to feel directly what this life is about and begin to express it in a way that meets the circumstances of our life. And of course, we express it uniquely and individually, each person. So we then the the next part of the work is, okay, well, what if you have this belief?
• 12:00
  And what if just the opposite is true? Let's try it on. You know? I'm a engineer. Well, I'm not an engineer.
• 12:09
  I'm a musician. I'm not a musician. I'm a father. I'm not a father. Just try it on and think, is there some aspect of reality?
• 12:18
  Is there a perspective which that is also true, has a certain level of truth to it? It's not to be totally true, but certain level of truth. And when we do this, we do the turnarounds and we're looking at the identifications that we have, what are we identified with, we begin to have much more fluidity in our life. We're no longer identified so much with I'm a this, I'm a that. Everybody sees me as a this, as a that.
• 12:50
  Instead, we realize, oh, some of the time I'm a 76 year old guy, and some of the time I have no age, and some of the time I'm a 90 year old guy, and you know, some of the time I'm not a guy. So we do this investigation. We look at it, well, who am I if my mind is quiet, if my mind is still, if my mind is open? And then we we start off with what we believe, we go down to no belief, and then we say, well, let's just try the opposite. Let's just try the opposite.
• 13:25
  Let's just look at it from other perspectives and see what we can learn from other perspectives and pretend perspectives we can we can learn from it. So we've we've done the work at the monastery regularly for the last don't know. Katie was here before COVID. So maybe seven, eight, eight years, and Eduardo Zambrano has been up here several times, and we'll probably continue doing it every six months or so. It's great work.
• 13:57
  It's a great way to get unstuck. So that's what we did this weekend. We had a whole weekend of this this kind of investigation, and there's particular formats. If you're actually interested in the work and how it's actually done, Chuan, who has to leave a little bit early tonight, is our local local master, and so I encourage you, and she has meetings a couple of times a month, I think. You can ask Coto or Cosho about that if you're interested.
• 14:32
  I think Eduardo will be back probably once or twice more before he gets going on a sabbatical to Spain for a year or so. He's a teacher at Cal Poly, and he gets a year's sabbatical at half pay. What a job. How many of us get a year's sabbatical at half pay? So it's part of being the wonderful system.
• 14:58
  Yeah. Now, so part of So this particular approach is just a method. It's not ultimate truth, it's a method, and it's a method for getting unstuck. I happen to think it's a particularly potent method. I happen to think you can use it for the fundamental existential questions with some work and investigation, but the fundamental question there is, what is it that's true?
• 15:29
  What is true? I had, in the precepts, people who take the precepts who who end up with a voraxxu, take 16 precepts. One of the precepts is not to lie but to speak the truth, not to lie, but to speak and embody the truth. And I've had a couple of people who had profound insights, profound awakenings from that question, what is it that's true? What is it true?
• 15:56
  What is truth? And we think, okay, if it's like this, it will change, and it will someday be like that. It's true I have this body, but this body is only ephemeral. It will it will definitely change and decompose at some point, and it was definitely not the body I had, you know, two or three years ago. This mind constantly flickering, constantly changing, opinions are changing, thoughts are changing, views are changing.
• 16:33
  What is it that's actually true? And true here means what is it that's fundamental? What is it that anchors us in reality? And that koan, what is it that's true, is a fundamental dharma question, who am I? What is it that hears and sees and smells and takes?
• 16:58
  There's a great Zen master named Dao Wei, who is one of the founder, one of the, he's the lineage of Linji, in the lineage of the Renzai school in China back in the 1200s, I think. And his main contemporary exponent is Guagu. Guagu will be at the monastery next June, I think. And Guagu just keeps emphasizing that the fundamental question for all of us is what is it? Who is it?
• 17:32
  What is it that's alive? What is it that's true? What is it that's at the root? What is it that is incontrovertible? What is it that is not born?
• 17:46
  What is it that doesn't die? They're all the same questions, just different ways of getting at the same thing. So that deep investigation is something that does not have a verbal answer because words, you know, words can't can't get at the wordless. We try to we try to to express try to tell we meet an alien in a bar, and we try to say, you know, here's the color orange. You know, so what's orange?
• 18:13
  Tell me what orange is. And how do you describe orange? You know, it's sort of like what my eye sees when I have little round things with bumps on them. You know, sort of like, kind of like red, but not red with some yellow. What is orange?
• 18:32
  Words can't describe the indescribable. Words can't really describe an experience. How can you communicate the taste in your mouth, the feeling in your gut? You say I've got some rumbling in my in my stomach perhaps, and the only way people know that is they, oh, yeah, I've had that too. You must be feeling the same thing I'm feeling.
• 18:52
  We can't really share our intimate experiences with someone. What is it that's at the root? And it cannot be answered in words because words and language cannot get at this place. And yet it can be a visceral awareness. And that awareness is an inclusive awareness, goes goes beyond things.
• 19:16
  So all that's part of the workshop that we were doing, and part of the inquiry that I feel is important at the heart of practice. So Da We is the the person who promoted just the the single-minded investigation of, you know, what is it? What is it? What is it? All day long, what's walking?
• 19:40
  What's moving my hand? What's talking? What's hearing? What's breathing? What is it?
• 19:47
  What is it? What is it? What is it that's questioning? What is it? What is it?
• 19:51
  It's aware of the questioning. What is it? What is it? And all that is a takeoff kind of an extrapolation or extension of the Byron Katie work. So I encourage, if you're interested, talk to Chuan when she's here, or if you don't know who Chuan is, talk to Kodo and Kosho.
• 20:10
  If you don't know who they are, they're sitting back in the back of the room. Okay. So back to Chikna Khan. We're on a chapter entitled impermanence. And if we look at all phenomena, of course, they're impermanent.
• 20:35
  Everything changes. We we know that. You know, that's kind of a platitude. If we look at our breath changes, our thoughts change, the sensation in our body changes, the tingling of the air changes. I mean, the only thing we actually are aware of is change.
• 20:53
  We're not aware of, We're not aware of non change. And actually, if we look carefully, there is no opposite to impermanence. There is no such thing as permanence because everything is changing. You can't get outside of impermanence. So Thich Nhat Hanh says that, this truth is everything is only for one moment.
• 21:18
  Now, the nice thing about that is that moment can be cultivated. That moment can be nurtured. That moment can be watered. If we have, for example, kindness, love, appreciation, we have vow in our heart, then each moment we have the ability to turn, to cultivate in this moment certain qualities. And he has a very nice example of cultivating love.
• 21:49
  He says, you know, when you are attracted to somebody, there's a really a initial loving kindness, there's initial attraction of love, and that love doesn't die. It just needs watering. So no matter where we're at in our life, we can always water the seeds of our vows, the seeds of our love. And moment to moment, our life will unfold and will change and will bring exactly the things that we're watering to life. If we are watering the seeds of equanimity, regardless of how agitated we are, the more we practice equanimity, the more equanimitous we become.
• 22:28
  And he says that it's the impermanence itself is what gives us this enormous creative potential. We do the the work to get unstuck. I can't do this. I can't do that. I'm like this.
• 22:41
  I'm like that. I'm limited here. I'm limited there. And then we use the mindfulness of of the impermanence of this moment to give expression to our vow. What is it we'd like to achieve in this life?
• 22:54
  What is it we'd like to to bring forth? What qualities do I want to cultivate, bring forth? And because things are impermanent, each thing we do, each step waters the the action, the karma that moves in that direction. So he spends time talking about how important it is that we are both get ourselves unstuck, as part of the earlier talks, unstuck, and then we discover our vow. Those of you who are going to the Jesus Association at the monastery, that's what they're gonna emphasize is what is the vow of the heart?
• 23:34
  What's the aspiration of the heart? And then moment to moment, we express that vow. We do our best to give, to nurture that vow, to find something genuine in that vow, to grow that vow. And gradually we become, you know, we embody the vow. We do the four Bodhisattva vows at the end of the evening.
• 23:55
  And the fourth of the Bodhisattva vows, I vow to become the Buddha, I vow to embody all goodness, I vow to embody my heart's aspiration. And that's all part of impermanence to do that. So, he ends his chapter with, our suffering is impermanent, that's why we can transform it. And because happiness is impermanent, that's why we have to nourish it. Nice.
• 24:27
  We've decided that for this fall period, we're going to pick up the chant, the Sing Sing Men, the the affirming faith in mind, A chant's in our chant book. We've many of you have been to the monastery. We chant it during retreats often. And it's a an early Zen Buddhist chant from the third ancestor in China, and it has a particular approach to the the oneness of things, the nonduality nature of things. And so we're going to use that chant as the theme for the fall period.
• 25:02
  We'll use it for the October session. We'll use it down here, and so we'll be giving some talks on that, perhaps interspersed with the talks of Tig Nagahan. So okay. Past, present, and future.
• 25:26
  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.