Latest / Zen Community of Oregon Dharma Talks / The Timeless in Direct Experience- Hogen Roshi

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The Timeless in Direct Experience- Hogen Roshi · Zen Community of Oregon Dharma Talks

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Take refuge in the Buddha, take refuge in the Dharma, take refuge in the Sangha. This is the last night we're gonna be talking about the Mangala Sutta. And some people here haven't even heard the beginning of it, but I've gone through every stanza of the sutra for the last three, four weeks, months, something like that. So to make sure that we're all up to speed, let's go ahead and read the Mongala Sutta together. We don't need to chant it with a mokugyo, but let's read it.
• 0:54
  And Ankatsu, where's my chant book I gave you? Oh, yeah. So again, this is a sutra from the Pali Canon. I think it comes from the Vedanta. I'm not sure which which maybe it comes from the Kunda Nikaya.
• 1:15
  But it's part of the Pali Canon. It's not part of the Digitakaya, Samuditakaya, Angkucha Nakaya, it's part of the Kundurakaya, I think. Okay. Let's just read this together. Thus have I heard that the blessed one was staying at Savati residing at the Jetta's Grove in Anathapindika's Park.
• 1:43
  Then in the dark of the night, a radiant Deva illuminated all Jetta's Grove. She bowed down low before the blessed one. Then standing to one side she said, lives are concerned for happiness and ever long for peace. The same is true for humankind. What then are the highest blessings?
• 2:09
  Avoiding those of foolish ways, associating with the wise, and honoring those worthy of honor, These are the highest blessings. Living in places of suitable kinds with the fruits of past good deeds and guided by the rightful way. These are the highest blessings. Publishing learning and craftsman skills with discipline highly trained and speech that is true and pleasant to hear, these are the highest blessings. I, for your mother and father's support and cherishing family, ways of work that harm no well-being.
• 2:54
  These are the highest blessings. In the heart, offering up relatives and friends acting in ways that leave no blame, these are the highest blessings. For vast inner strength and shunning evil ways, avoiding intoxicants that dull the mind, needfulness in all that arises. These are the highest blessings. Carefulness and humble ways, contentment and gratitude, and hearing the Dharma frequently taught, these are the highest blessings.
• 3:35
  Patience and willingness to accept our faults, being venerated seekers of the truth, and sharing the words of Vogtle, these are the highest blessings. A holy life lived without endeavor, seeing for himself the noble truth, the realization of Nirvana. These are the highest blessings. Although involved in worldly ways, unshaken the mind remains. Beyond all sorrows, spotless, secure, these are the highest blessings.
• 4:13
  You live by calling the start, no victory wherever they go, and every place where they're safe. These are the highest blessings. Great. So we've gone through the whole list and talked about it, and anybody with a rock sue is happy to discuss it with you. Whatever the mind discusses, whatever we talk about, whatever we think about over and over, that's the way the mind inclines, and that's that's what becomes true.
• 4:49
  So I talk to people at the monastery, I say, look, if you're spending your time talking about hiking on the Appalachian Trail, sooner or later you're going be hiking on the Appalachian Trail. If you spend your time talking about awakening and suffering and liberation, then that becomes the nature of your experience. So whatever the mind inclines to becomes real. So we just have to watch what's our mind inclined to, what's what's the how are we occupying ourself? If we're occupying ourself with is food and drink, well, become a chef.
• 5:20
  But, you know, but make sure that what you're talking about is in line with your heart. Because if they're if they're two different things, then you're just in conflict all the time. So if you have a if if this is important, if liberation is important, talk about it, you know, talk about these things. So Mangala Sutra gives us all these different talking points that are, I think, very helpful. But then it gets down to this very end, and that's what we're gonna talk about tonight.
• 5:51
  I think I talked about the second to last paragraph last week, we're gonna talk about the last paragraph as well tonight. And that last paragraph is actually a pretty exciting and challenging one. So second to the last, although involved in worldly ways, unshaken the mind remains. Beyond all sorrow, spotless, secure, these are the highest blessings. This is the highest blessing.
• 6:17
  So this is about everything in here is about practice. It's about state of mind. It's about something that we can taste and know. So when we're practicing, we come in here, we sit down, we stabilize our body, we can okay, let me kind of get this wiggly thing in one place. We feel the body with the body, you know, feel the breath with the breath.
• 6:41
  There's no other way to feel it actually. You can't feel the breath with the mind, can only feel the breath with the breath. You can't feel your hands with your head, can only feel it with your hands. Check it out. You can only feel your hands with your hands.
• 6:51
  It's obvious. You only feel your feet with your feet. You can't feel anything with your mind. You can think with your mind, but if you actually look at your direct experience, we come in and we learn, oh, okay. I learned to feel my body with my body while I'm in my body.
• 7:10
  And that's absolutely excellent foundation of practice. And hopefully we come, we teach people about breath, teach about the nature of mind and thought, and people begin to we all begin to to rest in what is so obviously true. We can only feel the breath with the breath. Right? You can only feel your legs with your legs.
• 7:36
  You can't feel them in your head, you can only feel them in your legs with your legs. Hands in the hand with the hands. Right? Right? No?
• 7:47
  Go for it.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: I you feel the breath with your nose.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: Okay. Great. Great. You feel you feel the nose with your nose, and you feel the breath moving through your nose with your nose. Great.
• 8:00
  Great. You know, you've got to be careful with Olivia around. You've to make sure she'll she'll she'll catch you. Great. Keep it up.
• 8:09
  Okay. So we come in, and at some point, we begin to turn the mind in and realize wherever we go, whether it's morning or night, whether we're here or whether at the East Coast or in Europe, wherever we go, there we are. Wherever we go, there is something. He said, right here I am. Right?
• 8:30
  And it doesn't matter whether you're in California or Texas or South America. If you look, you say, oh, yeah, here I am. Now, your environment will change. You may have different thoughts, you may be hotter, you may be cold, you may be sweaty, may be old, you may be all kinds of different things, but that sense of yep, here I am. So another phase of practice is we have to recognize that there is a an experience, a visceral experience, a direct knowing of, oh, I'm always here, I'm always present.
• 9:04
  I'm always present. Now if we look again, this is not an idea, this is a direct knowing, and the thing I've been actually asking some people today is if you close your eyes and you look inside and you say, how old do I feel? How old do I feel inside? Not how old is my fingernails. How old do I feel inside?
• 9:28
  What what do you see? What do you feel? What is what's your answer? That that piece is not rhetorical. Ageless.
• 9:36
  Ageless? Mhmm. Ageless. Eight? Eight?
• 9:46
  Am I missing the vote here? People not have Well, this moment. How old do you feel in this moment? Well, isn't the ageless, timeless? Some people say, I feel, you know, I'm a 76 year old guy and I look inside and feel, gee, I feel fairly vital.
• 10:02
  I feel like I'm, you know, a very vital 50 year old, which seems young to me and old to some other people. If I was just a vital 50 year old again, would have so much juice. I remember when I was 30, thought 50 was almost dead. But, you know, now that I'm 80, it looks now I'm 80, it looks different. So we have to discover this this direct experience.
• 10:29
  There's an ageless, timeless, you know, part of ourselves. We can We all know that. We can look inside and say how old I really feel. Am I really present? Is there something present here?
• 10:39
  Is there upstairs, downstairs, in an airplane? Wherever you are, if you look inside and you say, yes. I'm present. Now, you can't put your finger on it. You can't say, oh, it's a it's it's located my big toe.
• 10:52
  You can't you can't put it in a box. You can't sell it. But it's a it's a direct experiential awareness. Okay? Now this is this is For most people I think, oh yeah, I've heard this a thousand times.
• 11:09
  Yes. We have to keep reifying it. So that's where that's the place we come in and once we begin to actually recognize that, it's not a matter of making something happen, it's a matter of recognizing. Once we recognize that, then, you know, the mind then shake remains unshaken. We're in Russia.
• 11:32
  We're in Africa. We're in Alaska. That which is always present is always present. That which sees change is unchanging. That which which identifies agitation is not agitated.
• 11:49
  That's just an experience of turning the mind from the outward stuff into direct experience. Right? And this is not mysterious. This is not it's just experience. Everybody can taste that.
• 12:06
  So tasting that. That's And what this this sutra is talking about. When we taste that, first it's often just to taste, and a taste means I know it's true based on my own experience instead of I know it's true because I read it in a book and it makes a lot of sense to me and I'm really a smart person so I get the idea of this very quickly. When we know it's true based upon our own visceral experience, then the next part of practice is we begin to anchor there, begin to anchor there. People are giving me a hard time, I can anchor there.
• 12:39
  You know, I'm driving in the highway, I can anchor there. If you're actually driving in the highway with this practice, you see you're sitting still just kind of bouncing around, everything else is moving. When you're driving, you're sitting still. The whole world is unshaken, mind remains. When we actually begin to recognize that, that's that's all it's talking about.
• 13:01
  Beyond all sorrow, spotless, secure. They just did a, and some of you some of you were there at the Grasses and Trees Retreat, it's all it's the retreat in August where everything is outside. So all the talks are outside, people are meditating outside, the people sleep outside, it's just outside, and so people become, you know, they in the earth, they in the sky, they in the trees. There's there's no separation be between those. And if you're out there sitting in the grass or you look here at this floor, does the floor have a problem?
• 13:37
  You know, the the wood came from the eighteen hundreds. This place was built in 1871. When we moved in here a few years ago, fifteen fifteen so years ago, we took the whole thing up, we had it all cleaned up, we had it all sanded off, we replay we we replaced the original flooring here. We had to get a little supplement because something got broken up. But this floor came from the eighteen hundreds.
• 14:04
  It's old, but does it have a problem? Does the ground have a problem? Does the earth have a problem? Does the sky have a problem? Does space have a problem?
• 14:13
  When we begin to recognize, oh, the nature of experience without the problem making mind, without the mind that comes in and says wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. It should be should be should be should be different. Without the mind that is arguing with reality, we find there's a place right there in our own direct experience. It's actually kind of easy and it's uninterruptible. I mean, that's one of the things I look for when people are really are maturing in practices.
• 14:48
  Are they able to to to find the uninterruptible place that's still responsive, still alive, but fundamentally there's a a stability, an equanimity there because they know this level of experience. And then we've brought our attention back to it over and over again so that it's familiar to us. So it's not some something we saw once in retreat or walking in the woods, you know, months or years ago. It's something we can actually touch right now. Right now.
• 15:21
  And that's all it's that's all it's pointing to. It's nothing nothing particularly esoteric, although involved in worldly ways. So practice There are many ways of practice. The classic way of practice is you go in, you renounce, you let go, you you hone things down so that you can see what's left. It's really important that we all have a phase of life.
• 15:50
  And sometimes when you're old, life does it all by itself. You know, it's everything just takes away from you, take it away from you. Or you get into a car accident, or you have an injury, or you have a bankruptcy and suddenly it's all gone. It's important that we have a phase like that. We really recognize even if it's all gone, there's still I'm still here, I'm still alive, I'm the timeless awareness.
• 16:17
  As we practice though, we can't have that be separate from our lives. So the next stage of practice would begin taking on duties, taking on responsibilities, taking on, you know, all the the challenges, the whole catastrophe as Kazanzaka says, whole catastrophe of a human life. Once we have this foundation, the whole catastrophe of a human life, it's just fruitful practice. It's just a way of engaging, a way of practicing. But then if we keep practicing more, it becomes a way of expressing.
• 16:52
  It becomes the very the very things that were challenged us that gave us the fuel to practice with. Now those very things become a way of I can meet them, I can turn them, I can do Aikido with them, I can use those very difficult conditions to offer the Dharma to help others. So the Dharma does not require, certainly the way we teach it here, does not require you have to go and live as a hermit in a cave, and then you'll be enlightened, and then you will be free of suffering. But rather, it is important to have periods where you renounce, you go to session, you go to retreat, you let go, you let go, you let go, you let go, you let go. Take a deep breath, and then you say the whole catastrophe bring it on.
• 17:39
  Bring it on. And the sign of that is you take responsibilities. So people who take service positions here, they become Dharma teachers, they take on classes, they do plant trees or whatever whatever they do in their life. That the function of wisdom is a function, the activity of compassion. So if we don't have If we haven't cultivated this core, then the activity of compassion just becomes doing doing, be good be good, get people like me.
• 18:10
  But when we actually see, oh, there's a place in me that's stable, that's calm, that's present, then the activity becomes the activity of the Dharma, the activity of our life. Spotless. Beyond all sorrow doesn't mean you don't have to feel such sorrow. So that's all that's that paragraph is pointing to. Again, it's about an experience.
• 18:35
  Experiences that come with practice, and practice has two parts to it. It has calm abiding, it has insight. Stabilizing, calming, being with the breath, and being curious, really being in in inquiring. Don't take anybody else's answer. Sometimes other people's answers can give you guidance and help you along the path, but fundamentally, it is your own inquiry into the nature of your own mind.
• 19:03
  That's what that's what captivates the heart. So now we come to the last paragraph here, which is the culmination of this whole teaching we just did. They who live by following this path know victory wherever they go, and every place for them is safe. These are the highest blessings. This is the highest blessing.
• 19:25
  They who live by following this path, what does that mean?
• 19:35
  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.