Latest / Zen Community of Oregon Dharma Talks / Longing for the Ancient Way - Hogen, Roshi

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Longing for the Ancient Way - 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.
• 0:24
  Hogen: Longing for the ancient way. First talk. And we're using for this series this week the Sensing Ming, the Affirming Faith in Mind chant. That's the theme for the Ongo for the more intensive practice period both here and in Portland. And we'll be talking about that during this session.
• 0:52
  Unfortunately, it's a very boring chant. It's boring because it says the same thing over and over and over and over again. And it can all be summarized like this. Our life is not difficult. We're not judging, criticizing, worrying about the past, the future, being full of opinions and evaluations.
• 1:21
  Our life is not difficult. And we look at the essence of all those things, the judging, criticizing, the worrying about the past, the future, being full of opinions, evaluations. If we look at the essence of it, it all boils down to believing our thoughts. It doesn't boil down to not think, it boils down to simply not believing our thoughts. And we say that over and over again and people say well it's so easy to say of course, but how do you not believe your thoughts?
• 1:58
  What's the experience of not believing your thoughts? First off you have to have the rational understanding of a thought that they're transient, impermanent, come out of nowhere based on our conditioning. Secondly, you have to know that they're just fleeting, they're floating through. Third, you can watch them arise from nowhere. And fourth, you can confirm for yourself that they're mostly wrong.
• 2:27
  But it's easy to say. So despite having said that, I am sure, 95% certain that there are people in this room who are driving themselves crazy with their thinking. It's too hard, it's too long, it's too much, my pain this, my pain that, that. I mean it all drives us crazy. We all drive ourselves crazy.
• 3:05
  And that's what this channel is all about is don't drive yourself crazy. Find some place of stability and equanimity. Believing our thoughts is like believing all the advertisements on the Internet. They just endlessly pop up and suggest this is true and that is true and the other thing is true And our thoughts are just like that. They all pop up and say I'm true, I'm true, I'm true.
• 3:33
  And of course because of our acculturation, because of our histories we have learned to buy them. It's a mistaken view. It's the way things are, but that's okay. So the essence of the dharma talks this week are don't believe the random thoughts that pop up. In a way we could just end this session right here.
• 4:16
  But there's certain important very vital things that we have to go through in this process. The Affirming Faith in Mind chant is partly written by the third Chinese ancestor, third ancestor of Zen in China. Many scholars feel that what we're actually reciting is a whole series of couplets, a whole series of little admonitions, epigrams that were strung together. And some of them may have been written by this person and some of them may have been added and adapted, tweaked in the Tang dynasty. But regardless, content of this came from the merging of Indian Buddhism and Chinese Taoism in the sixth, eighth century CE.
• 5:16
  And the point of this particular sutra, the other point, is pointing to non dual awareness. It's easy to say non dual awareness, easy to say things are one, but the sutra says, okay, you've got all these things like and dislike up and down, this and that. Well, if you don't do those, what are they pointing to? Where do they come from? What's the common denominator between up and down?
• 5:47
  What's the common denominator between like and dislike? And by turning the mind away from the duality of things, we look, we recognize the inclusive nature of things, the non dual truth. And non dual is such a a cliche word these days, but it's very simple. It's like those pictures from the astronauts looking at our globe and everything on that globe is part of this earth, part of this world. And all of the countries and all the problems everything else is just part of the world.
• 6:30
  It's all part of the world. It's all part of the one thing. And of course we get down on earth and we immediately forget that we're all one atmosphere, we're all one earth, we're all one one family inside this very very thin bubble of oxygen and nitrogen. And because we forget that we begin dividing and conquering and figuring out how to eat one another. So this particular chant just keeps saying, take the big view, take the inclusive view, see the whole and then function from there.
• 7:15
  And of course that's true during Sesham. And we'll talk about some ways of doing that that might be interesting. If we see the whole, if we see the underlying truth that unites all of us, that nobody is excluded from, that is the very nature of, you know, old people and babies cooing, it's very nature of all things, then it's much easier to function with cooperation, mutual support, responsibility and respect. If we had that view of cooperation and harmony in this one great earth, our politics would probably be different. On the other hand, one of the things that we see as we will see during session, as we will investigate, everything has its place.
• 8:23
  Everything has its place. So that means all of our emotions, of our insights, all of our thrashing around, all of our thoughts, all of our sensations, they're an appropriate part of the whole of our lives. So this is what I'm saying here is not about practice particularly, it's about just trying to address the rational mind to say, yeah, this is worth doing, this is worth investigating, this is worth actually pursuing because there are some benefits that you will like. And what we're pursuing is we're pursuing a direct recognition of the fundamental truth that is before duality. And hopefully by understanding that with the rational mind we can have more trust and faith in the path.
• 9:26
  We can know, we can begin to recognize when our thoughts are driving us crazy and everybody goes through it, I'm too tired, too much pain, I can't do this, all those kind of thoughts, we recognize they're just thoughts. Suddenly the challenges that we have are much less. And we're not run by our fixed beliefs. So this chant is a very popular chant as you know, there's at least 20 or so more translations of it written in say July and it has three parts in the title. There's often an inscription, often says the inscription or the song or verses.
• 10:19
  And then it has trust or faith. Second part is trust, faith and affirming. Affirming, trust, faith. In what? In the heart mind.
• 10:31
  In the essence, the core of our lives. Affirming the core of our lives, affirming and encouraging us to have faith and trust in the source of all things. Now obviously the source is not like a factory but it's the ground of being. So faith in the heart mind. And the great way is not difficult when we trust the whole.
• 11:10
  So it starts off, the great way is not difficult for those who do not pick and choose, when preferences are cast aside, the way stands clear and undisguised. But even slight distinctions may set earth and heaven far apart. So if we don't do those things, if we're not busy picking and choosing and affirming and not affirming, what's left? What are they pointing to? It has negation that says, know, we're not doing these things, then what?
• 11:36
  And that then what is turning back to our experience before our mind has started dividing up reality. What is our experience before we have decided something is easy or hard? What is our experience before? And that's why we have the particular practices, the practices of whatever practice you're using, whatever methods you're using. The methods of practice help us to come and recognize what is before thought.
• 12:15
  And they don't involve thought. Really even, you know, if you don't deal with advanced koans that they do involve thought. But all the practices that this particular sutra is talking about do not need thought. So if you have a method of body scan or how following the breath, whole body awareness, working on Mu or fundamental Koan, if you're doing Shikantaza or calm abiding, it does not involve thought. None of it needs thinking.
• 13:05
  And actually the more we talk and think about that, the more we talk and think about these practices the further from the truth we get. We become confused. It all involves the direct visceral experience of your body being your body. And of course everybody's a 100% qualified. You can't not use it's impossible to think of being disqualified to feel your own body.
• 13:35
  Whatever bits and pieces of body you have left. So again, this is not about if I just get rid of thought, all will be well. Not about when I finally get a quiet mind, all will be well. It's just one more thought. And if we look carefully at it, which is often a revelation, the thought I am, I am here, I am now, I am like this, is just the thought.
• 14:23
  I am that we are so enamored of is just the thought. I'm a man, I'm a woman, I'm tall, I'm short, I'm this, I'm that. They're just thoughts. I am is just a thought. And like any thought, sometimes it pops up and there it is and sometimes it's gone and we forget about it completely and then it pops up and says I am here and we forget about it completely and like all thoughts it just arises and disappears.
• 15:08
  But what often happens is I am and then oh yes I'm like this. Oh yes well I know you're like that but you also have this attribute. Oh yes and thought starts talking to thought. The whole construct of who we are is just thoughts talking to thoughts. Imagine this whole world that we live in, you personally live in, I personally live in, is thought talking to thought.
• 15:47
  Of course thought has its utility like everything does, has its own place, but to understand that we are something more fundamental to see directly we are something more fundamental than our beliefs, something more fundamental than our thoughts. The great way is very difficult when we believe our thoughts. And then we have a thought, oh, my back hurts. We have a thought, I should wiggle it. We have a thought, still hurts, maybe I should put some heat on it.
• 16:39
  Then we have a thought, oh that's hurting, maybe I'll take some ibuprofen. Oh we have more thought, oh it's still hurting, maybe I'll go and start doing some yoga. Still hurting, thought after thought after thought. And some people, and I certainly have done it, have spent their entire session just following wandering thoughts. How to get comfortable, how to get something I want to eat, how to get this amount of sleep or that amount of sleep.
• 17:08
  It's just thought. Now, so the great way is not difficult in this moment. The great way is not difficult when we're present in this moment. What does this moment include? This moment is dynamic.
• 17:29
  It's not static. It's never a stuck place, never a thing. It's always flowing. And what's that flow include? It means there's up and there's down, there's easy, there's hard, there's warm and there's cold.
• 17:41
  There's times of comfort and times of discomfort, and they're all just flowing through. And it doesn't matter whether we're thinking about them or not thinking about them, they still are all just flowing through. We could have the perfect situation and our thoughts can drive us crazy. We'd have a horrible situation and our thoughts were just thoughts. So the practice we're doing now is can we rest, recognize not rest, can we recognize this moment that everything is flowing through and not keep grabbing a hold of the things as they flow through.
• 18:28
  The Buddha says that the first beginning of suffering is we start grabbing at things. Thought comes up, we grab at it. Idea comes up, we grab at it. Impulse comes up, we grab at it. And that grabbing, the Greg way is not difficult for those who aren't grabbing at things.
• 18:48
  So if we're not grabbing at things and we're sitting here and we have the flow of experience, always a texture, always a flow. There is no perfect state except the state of being in flow. Thought comes, thought goes, emotions come, emotions go, body sensations come, body sensations go, your body gets old, your body dies and all. And that which is aware, even that which is aware, awareness comes and goes to, but that which is we can't even speak of, so fundamental is what this sutra is pointing to. So let's try a couple of practices that might be helpful.
• 19:41
  So all that is just talk about stuff. But a practice that everybody can try right now is we can all feel our heads. I hope. If you can't then go talk to Jogren. But I hope you can feel your head, and I hope you can feel your legs.
• 20:06
  Okay? Top and bottom. Now feel them both at the same time. Feel your head and legs at the same time. Simple as that.
• 20:22
  Don't feel heads and legs, hands and heads and legs, feel them both at the same time. It's usually pretty easy. Feel your left and right shoulders at the same time. There's no left shoulder without a right shoulder. So you feel them both at the same time.
• 20:57
  Is it pretty easy? Now in your body there probably are places that are uncomfortable and there are actually many more places that are quite comfortable. Feel them both at the same time. Feel the comfortable and the uncomfortable. Let your mind expand to feel the part that's warm and relaxed and at ease and the part that may have some sharp pain or stretching pain or whatever your experience is.
• 21:32
  Feel them both at the same time. It's usually a little harder because our mind tends to fixate. But as we encounter the challenges of Cision, which of course you're going to experience, of course we're going to be tired, things are going to hurt. Expand your awareness to feel them both simultaneously. Now, it can be a little more challenging.
• 22:29
  You can feel the inside, you can feel the sensation of your stomach, lungs breathing, perhaps your digestion. You can feel the tension or the pressure in your body, the tone that allows you to sit erect. Well at the same time feel the outside, feel the space, feel the inside of the skin and the outside of the skin. Expand your mind so it's not contracted into one view but hold it feeling inside and outside at the same time. Perhaps you can hear that bird.
• 23:45
  And perhaps you can hear the silence around that bird. Hear the sound of the bird if you can hear it, and the silence around the bird at the same time, right now. Now this can't be done sequentially or conceptually, but feel everything at the same time. Relax, allow yourself to experience without the labels everything that you experience allow yourself to experience it inside, outside, up, down, before, after, sound and silence. It's all experienced right here.
• 25:37
  I find that's a helpful exercise especially if I'm in pain or discomfort. It's a helpful exercise if I find I'm battling something. Now that is that practice is rests upon the truth that everything you experience is your life. You can't experience something other than your life. If you touch something you're experiencing the nerves in your hand, The sound of the news what you're experiencing is your tympanic membrane, your otic nerve, the brain processing, those electromagnetic forces into whatever we think they are.
• 26:42
  We can't experience something that's not our life. We feel the hard earth, we feel the hard earth with the gravity of our body, the sensations in our limbs. So when we're talking about feeling both sides we're talking about expanding your experience of who you are. You're inclusive. Things are okay and not okay at the same time.
• 27:40
  When we have this capacity, our tolerance, our stamina, our ability to keep engaging is so much larger. If we're just in the fight to be comfortable, we feel comfort and discomfort at the same time. It takes mindfulness to do that, takes clear intention. You can do that with heat and cold. You can feel the warmth of the body and the chilliness of the body at the same time.
• 28:26
  Now it's a little more of a stretch but you can be aware of the darkness inside the body and the light outside of the body at the same time. You can be aware of the vast space, the bottomless space in and around all things and all things at the same time. But I would suggest you start with up and down, left or right, in and out until you're clear. I personally find it very helpful when I'm really feeling bad to be able to without negating that to also feel what's working well. Here's the other practice.
• 29:22
  The other practice is a practice of satisfaction. Now when we say satisfaction, it doesn't mean like a satisfied customer, I finally got what I wanted. It means okay with things as they are. It means contentment, I am fulfilled right now. So we can practice satisfaction.
• 29:46
  Right now, it's the way things are, it's okay. My body feels the way it feels. It's okay. My mind feels the way it feels. It's okay.
• 30:02
  Okay. Birth is okay. Death is okay. Challenges of life are okay. Catastrophe, even that is okay.
• 30:32
  I encourage you to stick with your fundamental practice. That's really important to not get too sidetracked. But these are interesting ways when you encounter obstacles. The practice of satisfaction, the practice of okayness the practice of inclusivity. Not to.
• 30:55
  So your legs hurt, it's okay. You'll either move them or you won't. It's okay. Your back hurts. Well, part of it's comfortable, part of it's uncomfortable.
• 31:07
  It's okay. You respond to it as you will. This okayness is not a static state. It's not saying I'm okay and suddenly I'm frozen. Of course we're always responding.
• 31:23
  But it's a state of mind where the mind is inclusive and things are okay. And sometimes, you know, depending on what challenge you have, if your mind is racing and racing, it's not so good to say I'm practice satisfaction with that, but you can practice silence and sound. Because thoughts are in a field of silence. You can practice stillness, the movement of the mind and the stillness of the body, feel them at the same time. So sometimes these practices are more apropos.
• 32:36
  You gotta get a lot of work done. You can practice the satisfaction of I gotta get a lot of work done and put your energy into it. In Japan in the seventeen hundreds there was a famous poem poet and Zen master named Ryo Kan. I thought we'd have a couple of his poems here. The ancient Buddha has taught the dharma not for its own sake but to assist us.
• 33:18
  If we really knew ourselves, we would not have to rely upon old teachers. The wise go right to the core and leap beyond appearances. The foolish cleave to details and get enamored by words and letters, ensnared by words and letters. Such people envy the accomplishments of others and work feverishly to attain the same things. Cling to truth, it becomes falsehood.
• 33:46
  Understand falsehood, it becomes truth. Truth and falsehood are two sides of a coin. Either accept or reject either one. Don't waste your precious time fruitlessly trying to gauge the depths of life's ups and downs. Don't waste your precious time fruitlessly trying to gauge the depths of life's ups and downs.
• 34:17
  Cling to truth and it becomes a falsehood. Life is always flowing. We start clinging to something and try to put it in a box and say this is always true and it's not. That becomes untrue. On the other hand if we really investigate an untruth, we can see the truth in it.
• 34:41
  Another one in the same vein. What was right yesterday is wrong today. And what is right today, how do you know it will not was not wrong yesterday? And what is right today, how do you know it was not wrong yesterday? There is no right and wrong, no predicting gain or loss.
• 35:07
  Unable to change their tune, those who are foolish glue down the strings of a guitar. Those who are wise get to the source. Only when you are neither wise nor foolish can you be called one who has attained the way. When you hear things like this, don't let the mind start thinking about, well, what about politics? What about social injustice?
• 35:38
  Don't don't let the mind go there because that is not relevant right here in this place. Right here in this place good and bad are not important. What's important is to experience the root of them. So don't let the mind go leaping off into speculative what ifs, what ifs, what ifs. Truly, when you are neither wise nor foolish, can you be called one who has attained the way?
• 36:23
  Is my favorite. This is an inscription on a painting of a skull. All things born of karma disappear when that karma is exhausted. Karma means action. All things born of action disappear when that action is exhausted.
• 36:39
  But where is this action born? From whence does the first cause arise? Here, words and thoughts are of no avail. I asked an old woman in the East about the matter, but she wasn't pleased. And the old fellow in the West just frowned and left.
• 37:00
  I wrote the problem on a rice cake and gave it to a puppy, but even it wouldn't bite. Realizing that such words are bad luck, I blended life and death into a pill and gave it to a weather beaten skull. I blended life and death into a pill and gave it to a weather beaten skull. The skull suddenly leaped up singing and dancing for me. A spellbinding ballad that spanned past, present and future, a marvelous dance that sported through the realm of samsara.
• 37:31
  The skull covered everything most thoroughly. I saw the moon set in the West and heard its midnight bells. We have a chant Singing and Dancing of the Voice of the Dharma. A wooden man starts to sing, stone woman gets up dancing, pointing at the same thing that we are the ones that give life to things. We are the ones that see things either dead or we are the ones that see things as vibrantly alive even if it's a stone or a statue.
• 38:12
  And lastly, through the still night in my tumble down hut, I practiced meditation draped in my robe. Navel and nostrils in a line, ears directly over the shoulders. Classic teachings about posture. My window brightens, the moon appears, the rain has stopped, yet the water keeps dripping everywhere. This precious moment, permeated by silence, something known to me alone, something known to me alone.
• 38:54
  All your experiences are known only to you. Nobody else. We might have ideas, we might be able to use some words, but nobody knows the taste in your mouth. Nobody knows the breath in your nostrils. Nobody knows the nature of the awakened mind but you.
• 39:29
  So as we go forward, don't compare yourself with anybody. Please heed these admonitions about the nature of thought. Practice if you want the equality of things, the satisfaction with things, the togetherness of things. And recognize this moment only comes once. We have only one time that we're in this particular retreat with this particular kind of support, this particular community.
• 40:07
  One time to realize what is really fundamental. And that time of course is now. Please have great confidence, have great faith, great faith in your own capacity which is far greater than your thoughts about your capacity. May we all realize the Buddha way together.
• 40:38
  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.