Latest / Zen Community of Oregon Dharma Talks / The Pillars of Zen Practice - Jogen Salzberg, Sensei

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The Pillars of Zen Practice - Jogen Salzberg, Sensei · 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.
• 0:24
  Jogen: One of our Chinese Zen benefactors a long time ago said there were these three vital things for a practicer of this way: great faith, great doubt or great curiosity, and great determination. Great faith. What you have tasted is the genuine article. What you have tasted. This mind, this mind clarified.
• 1:02
  This body moment whose edges cannot be experienced. This clarified mind, this edgeless body is the same exact clarified mind, an edgeless body, recognized and valued and made thoroughly familiar by our Buddhist ancestors. You have tasted the genuine article. And these tastes of wisdom, isness, spaciousness, selflessness is the same thing tasted by great teachers down through history. It's the same thing that will be tasted by generations to come.
• 1:48
  Each person has verified to one degree or another the genuine article. You have tasted what we call the Dharma. And in one sense, it's like we've been wandering thirsty, wandering tired and hot, and we've come across a trickle of fresh water. And it's water for sure. And you know that by its effect.
• 2:21
  It quenches for sure. And, if we keep following this stream, this trickle wall being sustained and nourished by this stream, we will arrive at a wider body of water. To have faith that we're tasting the genuine article and that it's just a taste at the same time. We can be soaked all the way through. We can have what we've tasted permeate and moisten each aspect of our life.
• 3:07
  Arzal Zen has verified a bit of the what, how, and why of the Buddha. One bit, one bit is suffering's evaporation. One bit of directly seeing through mind. One bit of no opposition. And then, our habit momentum calls us away.
• 3:41
  And it's as if we get up from that refreshing stream, and begin wandering again thirsty. So a verified taste of true practice imprints us with confidence, And yet to have faith that there is a great lake, a great ocean. Dogen's n g expresses it beautifully As Dogen is want to do, Dogen says, the moon is reflected even in a dew drop. Even this quivering ordinary dew drop clinging to blades of grass. Clinging to all the common temporary things.
• 4:35
  Even this quivering ordinary dew drop, fragile and temporary. So moody. So fluctuating. Even this can host the moon. The moon reflects even in this.
• 4:56
  The depth of this drop and the height of the moon. And this relationship is what we practice and investigate. How deep is this drop? As deep as this drop is, is as deep or as high as the moon is. You've reported times where the critic vanished.
• 5:27
  And everything was just the bare facts, clean and simple. Like right now, it's just the bare facts, clean and simple. Believe this can be your continual reality. You know that in a way is your continual reality if not for the habit of the mind. Pulling us back, dividing things into self and other.
• 6:02
  On this side is what I think should be happening, this side what I think should not. You've reported being suffused with gratitude as the burden of thought lightened. Believe this can be an abiding quality of being. We read about some of the great ancestors and they were so thoroughly grateful for life that they bowed to everything they encountered. That they wouldn't waste a morsel of food.
• 6:45
  That they didn't have a separation in their life between those who were of value and those who were not. And they met each person with an equal and full heart. You've reported all separation dropping away. You've reported no barrier between you and life. You've reported vast sky awareness.
• 7:20
  You've reported being one with flow. Believe that these can become features and not only peaks. Believe that the stream can become a river. Believe that the river is of the same nature as the ocean. Believe that we can be free of even the desire for peaks.
• 7:51
  If we had no desire for peaks, and yet we still are wholeheartedly present, then what? So, the basis of faith is not really about someone else's words or believing what a book says about what's possible. The basis of great faith is exactly what you have tasted. Exactly what, at least before discriminating mind came in, nobody could tell you wasn't true, deep, real, and liberating. Believe it all flows forth from your heart.
• 8:54
  None of this relief from suffering, these moon meetings has had a source outside of ourselves. Even the abundant support we receive from our practice mates, whether they draw out our remaining judgment and pride or whether they inspire us by their sincerity. Even the abundant support we receive from our teachers, from the environment is not a coming from outside of ourselves. You've seen that your stance, your attitude, and the life you experience, can you? How could you disentangle those?
• 9:52
  Where does this mind, this heart, this life, this attitude and the world stop? Where does one end and one begin? So great faith, great faith deepens great faith. And you are that, you practice that, you uncover, discover, and rediscover that. And then, you become without any special strategy of your own, you become a source of great faith for other people.
• 10:43
  You become a person that other people can see, believes and knows something of real value in this drifty, flimsy world. Great faith, I'm preaching to the choir. Great doubt, great inquiry. Dogen Salzberg said, the depth of the drop is the height of the moon. Again, this is very personal.
• 11:24
  The depth of the drop is the height of the moon. As for the duration of its reflection, you should examine the water's vastness or smallness. You should discern the brightness or dimness of the heavenly moon. Are they hidden from us the habits that shrink us? Does it just happen to us, the refusal of life?
• 11:56
  Or do we consent to that at some level? Are we interested in seeing the scaffolding of our unhappiness? Do we see? Do we want to see? Do we want the responsibility for seeing the scaffolding of our unhappiness?
• 12:26
  What's in the way of beginning to take that apart? What's the cost of letting go? Sometimes, Buddha would liken this life to like a leaky, moldy dwelling. That to live with a suffering mind is to be in a house that is got some rotten floorboards. Some mold that's causing allergies.
• 13:15
  What's the cost? What's the fear about tearing down a leaky and cramped dwelling? What do I believe I will happen if I gaze directly and honestly at the way that I be and the consequences of that way of being? And is there really something to be afraid of? Or is thought just telling me a lie?
• 14:00
  Thoughts can never step beyond thought. Thoughts can never accurately estimate the world in their absence. Beliefs cannot estimate the world in their absence. Will I choose the familiar over the unbound? Will I be faithful to a mental construct?
• 14:40
  And what if everything we believe about ourselves is a mental construct? Will I be faithful to a mental construct or am I ready to divorce from suffering? Sometimes we are, sometimes we're not. How to live this unbound reality as a karmic being pulled on by instincts, preferences and obligations. You know, sometimes the path forward is very clear and sometimes it means I walk in the dark.
• 15:33
  How to offer this unbound reality with the inadequacy of words and the dissonance that a personality creates. What's the consequence of your insight? And what's the obligation to the world? Having seen what you've seen. Delusions are inexhaustible as long as there are brains, bodies, and apparent other beings.
• 16:23
  One of the earlier translation was something like, desires are inextinguishable. I vow to extinguish them. And Americans didn't like hearing that they should extinguish their desire. So we quickly changed the wording. Delusions are inexhaustible.
• 16:50
  How to not let beliefs and notions that aren't based in experiential certainty take up residence in me. How to expose them, who can help me. We all want each other ideally to be confident in their own experience, to have deep self respect. How to not let confidence become arrogance? And how to not let arrogance become dogmatic thinking?
• 17:34
  Who can help me with that? How will that be exposed? So it's interesting to me. Great inquiry is multidimensional. We look into how this this personality, this character needs some examination and some tweaking to let the light shine through.
• 18:14
  And it's also about looking into the light. This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine. But it is shining. But it is shining. It's not even a matter of recognition or experience.
• 18:42
  It is shining. But is it mine? What does the word mine mean? What does it all belong to? There's this field of experience.
• 19:07
  Some things seem very near and some things seem very far. But what is what is mine? Great inquiry also means there is nothing in this path of practice that we can't look straight on at. There's no questions we can't ask. There's no belief we can't query.
• 19:44
  This is not a path for true believers. This is a path of really experiencing one's own life. Closer, closer, closer. So that as Ko and Ejo said, we won't always have to ask someone else what is right or wrong. Great determination.
• 20:27
  We hear, great determination, we can get this very sort of yang image of, I'm gonna just try so damn hard. I'm gonna try damn harder than everybody else. Or that someone is like that. Could be called great devotion. To be deeply devoted to the heart's release.
• 20:54
  That's a phrase I love of Buddhas for this path of awakening. The heart's release. The heart's release from the vice grip of I, me and mine. Deep devotion to the heart's release for yourself and others. Or even better resolute devotion to the heart's release for yourself and others.
• 21:28
  We can bear the burden of our fierce determination. We can bear it because otherwise the lineage will devolve into mik mindfulness. If we don't bear it, who will? We can bear the burden of our fierce determination because we're watching our teachers fade out and we have to step up. We're watching our culture become shallower, more distracted, angrier, less embodied.
• 22:05
  At least that's how it looks from one vantage point. And we can bear the burden of our great determination because if there is at least one person as a living example of human freedom, then that possibility and hope exists for others. And like it or not, you in your corner of the world might be that one person who's an example of human freedom, the possibility and hope for others. We can bear the burden of our fierce determination because it's not just for us. You've seen this practice bear some fruit and you know that it takes sustained single-minded energy.
• 23:05
  Did you, do you also feel a satisfaction in bringing your vitality forth? Did you feel a reciprocity between what you gave and what you received? Our great determination brings us alive. A koan comes to life when infused with great determination. If not infused with great determination, it's just some arcane weird saying of people long gone.
• 23:45
  A breath comes to life when it's infused with our great determination. A meal comes to life when infused with great determination. Even a board meeting could come to life with great determination for a great practitioner. We might feel that there's some weight to living into our great determination, but at the same time there's a zest. There's a redemption, there's a brightness.
• 24:25
  Wholeheartedness rewards itself. Great determination is to me not just burning with energy, it's also resolution. It's also being in touch with that and that's with which doesn't wobble, which doesn't say, yes I will, nah, no I won't. Yes I will, yeah, no I won't. Great resolve.
• 25:10
  Practically speaking, anybody who wants some accomplishment of the path confronts their priorities. And it looks to me that nobody's life can stay exactly the same if they allow for their great determination to really blossom. We shed skins that are too tight for who we need to be. We molt old ideas of what we're doing, not necessarily changing our circumstances. Or we go left instead of right for the benefit of all beings.
• 25:53
  There might be something we have to take up and there might be something we have to put down. Nobody's life can stay exactly the same. And we're not the boss manager of the universe. To think of great determination as you having to make something happen that you don't have is not quite right. Is navigating the path entirely on our shoulders?
• 26:45
  Is that what freed people of the past have been? People who gritted their teeth and push their way through reality? Could also be like we ask and we listen. And we ask and we listen. Great determination is not just burning hot, though sometimes people are burning hot.
• 27:26
  And if you are burning with zeal, really let that zeal burn while you're burning with zeal. And there's a challenge of stepping into the fullness of how much we actually freaking care about this. There's a contemporary cultural delusion that sincerity is cringe. That being 100% wholehearted about something is somehow naive. If you are burning with zeal, really let that zeal burn while you're burning with zeal.
• 28:07
  It seems that practice has its seasons. And some seasons have a different kind of harvest than others. Great resolution, great determination. There's something about the long game as well. This whole life as long as I have some sense of agency remaining turning to the true, the good, the beautiful.
• 28:45
  The long game. If I have a flame of awakening in me, I will tend that flame, protect that flame, breathe into that flame for months, years, decades, lifetimes, eons, universe cycles. Whether I'm a horse, a beetle, a cedar grove, a princess, a warlord, a quirk, a protozoa, And will tend the flame of awakening, shield it from delusion, breathe into it. You know, maybe on some level there's a contract in our heart we can sign where we say, I'm in. I'm in 100%.
• 29:37
  And if I'm in 100%, if I have great resolution, not because somebody else told me this is the best highest most special thing in the world to do but because my own heart is resonant with it. If I have that great resolution, I don't need to worry about my fluctuating being, the many shape shifting, the ebbs and flows of inspiration and exhalation. The of great determination is not worried about fluctuations. The great of great determination has a vastness of patience and view, it's not personal. Great determination is the light and wear the lamps.
• 30:29
  Great determination is the river and where are the banks? Each of us channels a stream and combined it's a potent potent force of flow. Great determination is the ocean already reached. Already reached, we're just living out The connection between so called point A and point B. Great faith, great determination, great inquiry.
• 31:21
  It's alive in you. Please maintain it well. Thank
• 31:35
  Jomon: 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.