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Avoiding Foolish Ways - 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.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Morning everybody. Thanks for being here. It's always nice to see people wanting to turn their their hearts and minds to what is most essential to the root of things, which is what spiritual practice is about, how to open the heart and to support others. Let's do a little investigation. One of the chants that we do on Sunday mornings is called the Tanha Sutta, the Sutra of the Highest Blessings.
• 0:42
  So I think it would be nice to examine that a little more closely. And the first place I'd like to Manghala Sutta. The Manghala Sutta. Thank you. The Manghala Sutta is a Sutra of Craving.
• 0:55
  The Manghala Sutta. The beginning of almost all sutras is there's a little couple of lines that says, you know, who the speaker is and where the where it happens and what the circumstance for the occasion of the teaching was. But we're going to go down to the blessing part. And if we were
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: to think about any of
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: these chants, it's really worth stopping, slowing down, and looking at them. So right now, here is the dictionary definition of blessing. The act of invoking divine protection or aid, the words of ceremony used for this, a short prayer of thanksgiving before or after a meal, a short prayer prescribed for a specific occasion such as blessed art thou, approval of good wishes, the bestow of a divine gift or favor, a happy event or state of affairs. So none of those are what this particular sutra is about. And actually, that isn't even part of the Buddha Dharma.
• 2:05
  It isn't the way that we think about the Buddha Dharma. So the the idea of blessing is there is this omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent person, place thing, gaya, whatever, that if we do the right thing, we propitiate it in the right way, if we say the right words, if we do the right vows, if we say mea culpa mea culpa and we we, you know, that we'll then get some big token of appreciation. Some token will come, some blessing will come, and say, oh, now you are blessed, here is a here is a token of my appreciation, here's a token of my, respect for you. That's not Dharma, that's not Buddhism. That's a a different, very different view.
• 2:55
  So we start off with in Zen tradition, we say that first off, the the Buddha, Buddhists on the altar, are simply representations of the deepest truest wisdom that is right here in us. That the separation between Buddhas and and the the the apex of loving kindness and wisdom and us is really fundamentally not not true. That at our root we are not afflicted, inflicted with original sin, but rather at our root we are whole and complete, lacking nothing. But through our our misunderstanding, through our small mindedness, through lots of other karmic conditions, we stop seeing that. So in this particular sutra, we talk about the highest blessing, it's not really talking about blessings, it's talking about in a way the highest capacities.
• 3:58
  What's the highest potential? What's the highest dimension of your life? So it starts off with It's Vangala Sutta.
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: The sad I heard that the blessed one is saying assalamu to you.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: Residing at the grove in Nathwadika's Park, then in the dark of the night a radiant Deva illuminated all Judas Grove and bowed down and said, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I've I've really it's it's yeah. We've we've had it a few times in my life.
• 4:40
  Devas are concerned with happiness and ever long for peace. The same is true for humankind. First off, is that a is that true? Or do humans really crave for happiness and and peace? I think a lot of people want power and war.
• 4:54
  But if you do want happiness and peace, if you want satisfaction, if you want to be fulfilled, then what are the highest capacities that we have? What's the highest capacity? The first capacity, the first potential is can we discern foolish ways? So what's a foolish way? This is not a rhetorical question.
• 5:21
  Floor is open. Shopping online. Alright. One that brings suffering. One that brings suffering.
• 5:34
  There's a lot of them out there.
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: Selfishness.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: Selfishness.
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: Believing money will make me happy.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: Believing money will make me happy.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: Expecting anything be the way I expect it
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: be. Yes. And investigate it. Ignoring the truth. Ignoring the truth.
• 5:56
  So we talk about foolish ways, we look just look around our society, we see people who who gamble, who think, okay, gambling is going to be make me happy, or excitement, I'll go and go on a thrill ride and I'll feel tremendously excitement excited because of the the parasympathetic stimulation sympathetic stimulation. And that excitement is equivalent to happiness, and if I feel enough excitement, I'll feel enough happiness and then I'll be that's foolish. It's foolish. Or expecting I can go to the doctor and they're going to make me ten years younger, five years younger, they're going make me feel like I felt when I was 30 or 20 or whatever your age was. My case I'd be happy to have them feel like I was when I was 75.
• 6:42
  It's foolish. You know? So foolish ways are things that that we are thinking and people think, and if you look if you look online, there's a thousand people telling you, if you just believe this, you'll be happy. If you just buy this, you'll be happy. If you just do chair yoga thirty minutes a day, if you just play the right game, it will relax and concentrate your mind and you'll be happy.
• 7:10
  That's foolishness. So there's lots of things out there that are that are really really foolish in the sense that they don't lead to liberation or freedom, they may lead to temporary excitement. So but people are invested, invested, invested. If you just get your body shaped the right way, that will be the road to happiness and satisfaction. If you just get your picture on the front page of, well, have to tell old I am Time Magazine, Life Magazine.
• 7:51
  You've made it. So first off, it's recognizing what things are purported to lead to liberation, freedom, and happiness? To be able to to recognize what is purported to lead to liberation, freedom, and happiness, and is a false road. Those those are foolish ways from this vantage point. They might be temporarily pleasant, they might be, uplifting, but fundamentally it's a lot of time and effort wasted.
• 8:30
  So first off, be able to recognize what's what's skillful, what's not skillful, what's what is a a waste of time, what's not a waste of time. That to me is a blessing. There are people who don't have that capacity, who literally do not have that capacity, who who who are on the internet and believe when the doctor gets on the thing and says, you buy this and take this medication, will make their people believe that. Sorry. Sorry.
• 9:04
  So the capacity to recognize that something is a foolish way is the first first of the capabilities that this sutra is talking about, the capacity to do that. Well then, we also have the capacity, well how do we avoid a foolish way? What what do we do instead? So recognizing what's what's not in line with our vow, not in line with freedom from suffering, not in line with harmony, not in line with clarity of mind, in line with open heartedness, great, recognize that, then how do we what do we do instead? Avoiding those, and avoiding the people who who are trying to get you to buy that.
• 9:45
  How do we do that? That also is a matter of great discernment, that's a matter of that's a great capacity. It doesn't just happen. We have to be able to recognize, oh, this is a blind alley. Oh, okay, I have alternate ways.
• 10:03
  I have other ways I can work. I have other directions I can go. I have other things that are more exigent, that are more grounding. The very short answer to that in this particular tradition we say, come back to the present moment, come back to the experience of breath, come back to the experience of this life. And surround your palace self with people not who are vying to have the most, look the best, have the most power, wear the best tie.
• 10:38
  Surround yourself with people who have the aspiration to be genuine. Avoiding those foolish ways, associating with the wise. So in this tradition, we talk about wisdom as being those things that lead away from suffering, things that lead to a liberation, those things that lead to freedom, those things that lead to an openness of heart, those things that lead to an inclusive nature of mind, those things actually see the whole world as one whole gestalt, one whole inclusive reality. To associate with people of that with that kind of view, instead of people who are scared and small, is one of the capacities, one of the blessings, so to speak, that the Sutra is talking about. Avoiding those of foolish ways, associating with the wise.
• 11:40
  So, who in our life is wise? You know, we may we may pick particular individuals, have a certain wisdom, but what makes somebody wise in our mind? In each of your mind, in each of your mind you have a whole plethora of friends, have a whole panoply of of people that you connect with, some of which you regard as wise. What makes the quality of wisdom? Another non rhetorical question.
• 12:15
  Jennifer?
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: Someone who speaks from their heart from their from their real experience as close to as it's being happening as possible.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: Someone speaks from their heart from their real experience? Uh-huh.
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: Having a broad view.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: Someone has a very broad view.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: Someone who doesn't think that they have all the answers and are curious.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: Someone who doesn't think they have all the answers and are curious, I'm repeating this for the people online. Someone
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: who's patient.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: Patient.
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: Someone who meets what's coming towards them with wisdom and compassion for themselves and others.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: Someone who meets what's coming towards them with wisdom and compassion for themselves and others. Good definitions. Would you please repeat that?
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: Someone is willing to try new ideas and not stick to what they believe and to consider new philosophies.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: Someone who's willing to try new ideas. Great. And how do we associate with those people? And we have to find them. We have to we have to make we have to invite them over for playing bridge.
• 13:47
  We have to, you know, take them on a hike. We have to come to a Dharma center. I mean, lots of ways of associating with the wise. It doesn't mean that we're this little passive passive thing that is out there, you know, saying, oh, I've got to go find wise people to associate with. It means we invite we invite people of wisdom.
• 14:09
  We join a healthy 12 step group. We we come to a sangha, we join a cohort, we're doing an ongo, a teaching intensive practice period this fall and there'll be little cohorts groups of people getting together to look at the themes of the Ongo, themes of the practice period. If you're on our listserv you should have some connection with that, If not, you can talk to Anshin. So it's not a matter of associating with the minds. It's not a matter of, okay, I'll find the wise ones out there and I'll go and associate with them, but bring them to you.
• 14:49
  Bring them to you. Start a book group. Start a hiking club. Have a group of men I meet with periodically, and I don't like devolving into trivia. So I always throw out some questions and say, okay, let's let's ponder these questions.
• 15:09
  I want to bring out the with their wisdom because then it's more nourishing to me. So associated with the wise is not a passive thing. It's not and sometimes it is, there's a bunch of wise people, you know, I think the Sangha is by and large very wise. We can go to the Sangha, we can begin to discuss and talk about things. Please, so avoiding those in foolish ways, associating with the wise, honoring those worthy of honor.
• 15:40
  What does that mean? What does that mean? Honoring those worthy of honor. Not rhetorical. For those of you who are rhetorical means, you know, you kind of ask a question in the middle of a a talk and you're gonna give the answer to the question.
• 16:01
  It's just sort of you you throw out the question, but it really isn't a question for the audience. It's really just a a little staging thing for you. This is not a rhetorical question. Mister Dharma.
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: What I hear is like honoring those like worthy of merit and like those that you've seen, like you see our embodying wisdom, see our embodying good deeds versus just honoring people that are just like celebrity status or whatever just look powerful. They're just like really honoring those that are that are really living their life in a way that is worthy of honor.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: Honoring those who are really living their life, honoring those who have merit, honoring those who I forgot some of the other things you've mentioned, but versus honoring people who have status as celebrity and money.
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: Conducting oneself with some degree of reverence for the people around them, who they have respect for. Like, yeah, just being respectful and humble towards the people worthy of honor around me.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: Wonderful. Yeah. Because because we so Will just said, my my my version. How we act how we act around people, do we do we act with respect, do we act with appreciation is one of the ways of honoring those worthy of honor. So yeah.
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: But but
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: aren't all people worthy of honor?
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: Well, so Diane's asking, aren't all people worthy of honor? Well, tell me, Diane, what's how would you answer that?
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: I think they are. Okay.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: Do we act the same way toward all people?
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: Well, I think well, it's the same. To be respectful to all people, to show kindness,
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: So so that's a really good point. Let's let's break it down just a little bit. So on one hand, everything is sacred, everyone is sacred. All lands are holy, you know. And so from that vantage point, everything is a miracle.
• 18:23
  Everything comes forth, you know, from the same source. Everything comes forth in its pristine uniqueness, and it doesn't matter whether it's high or low or, you know, decrepit or or agglomaniac or megalomaniac or whatever. On the other hand, we respond differently to different people. So we don't respond the same way, you know, we don't respond with warm, loving, open hearted, I wanna hug you to everybody that comes along. And we have to respond very differently to people, And sometimes that difference is you cut them off, sometimes that difference is you you don't don't let them go, get intrude, you you have to set boundaries very very clearly, you have to be very harsh sometimes.
• 19:12
  So that fundamentally that's that's integrity. Fundamentally that kind of a unique response to everything that comes along is integrity, is honoring those worthy of honor, but it doesn't quite meet the the sutra is asking about. The sutra is saying, well, if I want to bring out the very best in me, if I want to bring out the very best in others, if I want to bring out the things that are are healthy for society, for my family, for me, how do I honor those elements? And sometimes I think by honoring those elements, we we honor with respect, with gratitude, you know, we might fundamentally feel that that our administration we're grateful that we have an administration versus chaos. On the other hand, I think that there are different ways of expressing that that are not so more subtle.
• 20:15
  So in this particular case, honoring those worthy of honor means how do I find in myself respect, appreciation? How do I find in myself something that there's a resonance, a mirroring between the wisdom of somebody else and the wisdom in me? The respect that I would like to be treated with, the respect I would like to treat others. If I if I have that mirroring of the best in me and the best in them, then I think that kind of honoring is kind of what the Sutra is pointing at. Makes sense?
• 20:56
  So that's a different little little different level. Right now we're just talking about avoiding those foolish ways, associating with the wise, honoring those worthy of honor, this is the highest capacity of a human being is to do those things, and that's right up front, that's the very first first piece. Now this particular little chant has many different levels to it, so let's just take that first chunk as just right out of the box, you know? Let's avoid stupid things, let's do our best to be wise, and let's do our best to support people who are help others be wise. That's a great capacity.
• 21:35
  If we just did that, the whole world would be different. There are other more subtle aspects of this suit chant which we we might or might not get to today. Okay? Respectfulness and humble ways, contentment and gratitude, and here in the Dharma frequently taught, these are the highest blessings, highest capacity. The capacity to reflect is actually a miracle.
• 22:07
  So many of us just go on automatic. For example, this particular chant, we have chanted every Sunday for months, some of you have been here for months, but have we actually stopped to reflect? Or we've heard these teachings of impermanence and change, have we actually stopped to reflect? Clay is just learning to stand up. It's pretty impressive.
• 22:34
  Yes. He's impressed too. So the capacity to actually stop and reflecting on what we're doing, as you know, in our development, you know, the the the body the body mind learns shortcuts learns shortcuts, efficient ways of doing this. We don't have to evaluate every single green light. We don't have evaluate every single red light.
• 23:01
  We just have our habitual reaction. Red light stop, green light go, red light stop, green light go. But to actually be able to stop and reflect on our relationships with people, that maybe the the reactive way, the habitual way, the conditioned way that we learned when we were kids to relate to people, maybe maybe that could use some investigation. Maybe we could actually stop and reflect, or reflect on these these teachings and sutras that we have. To stop and reflect.
• 23:35
  Part of that is what we do with Hogen. We say, come into the Zindo, here's a quiet room, let go of all the worries from yesterday, all the worries from tomorrow, stop so that you can actually reflect on who am I, what is really important. Stop and reflect. To to reflect deeply has to be something other than the mind just spinning. Reflection is not just the mind spinning more and more and more and more and more thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, We have to actually stop, say, what's this about?
• 24:09
  What's this about? Humble ways, contentment, and gratitude. Now, if we wanted to just boil the Dharma down to something very simple, you know, humble ways basically is the antithesis of ego. Most of us, you know, go, I, me, my, I, me, my, I'm more important, you know, my my blood count is the most important blood count. It is to me, it's, you know, but in the big picture it's not important at all.
• 24:41
  So to realize, oh, in this in this vast world, in this vast vast concatenation of human beings, that we really have such so little little value, that we really have reason to be humble, we're just like everybody else. That kind of humility which is the antithesis of egoism, and it's not disconnected from confidence, but that sense of, oh yeah, we're all in this boat together, we're all in this boat together. We all have struggles, we all have challenges, we all have things that are really important to do, we all have aspirations, we all have hopes, we all have the capacity to love, we're all in this boat together, and none of us, even though we have our different roles at different times, we have our it looks different from the outside, fundamentally we're all in the same boat, same train, same car, same earth, same place. And I think that kind of humbleness, that thing that is the ground that is common to all of us, the humus that is common to human beings, that kind of humbleness is part of, I think, a mature practitioner, able to lead without arrogance. Humbleness of I'm looking at Anshan.
• 26:22
  Anshan knows everything, so I'm trying to
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: Contentment and gratitude.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: Contentment and gratitude. You hear the Dharma frequently taught. It's obviously. So hearing the Dharma frequently taught. The Dharma just means hearing things that are true.
• 26:38
  The Dharma is not dogma. The Dharma is not dogma. You know, you don't have to believe the Dharma or the Dharma. Dharma is Pali, Dharma is Sanskrit. We usually use the Sanskrit in modern English.
• 26:53
  The Dharma is our things that are true. So for example, you can observe what is true. The first principle is everybody's got challenges. Is that true or not? You look around, you've got challenges.
• 27:09
  Or for example, are impermanent. Look around, see for yourself, are things impermanent? They're impermanent. You can see for you, you can verify it. The the truth of the Dharma are verifiable truths.
• 27:24
  One of the So you can verify the sacredness of your own life. You can verify that right here, right now is the only thing you can actually experience. You can experience memory now, you can experience worry now, but it's all right now. You can verify that. It's not it's not a belief.
• 27:46
  You can verify it. So the things which I think are the Dharma are verifiable things. Hearing about what is verifiable. And the essential thing that's verifiable, we keep saying over and over again, is your life is unique in the sense of it's it's we're we're one with everybody, we're all in the same boat, that's true. But for each of us, each of us, our breath is the most important breath.
• 28:17
  The fact that we feed ourselves is the most important thing. Each life is sacred. Each life is sacred. We're all in the same boat and each life, our life, my life is sacred. We can verify that.
• 28:29
  We look, try holding your breath. I guarantee you will suddenly discover the sacred nature of breath if you hold it long enough. Yeah, it's verifiable. So hearing the Dharma frequently taught is really hearing this the truth that are anchored in the reality and exigencies of this moment. Things that are not are, you know, well, if I if I learn numerology then, you know, these numerators in this combination with this kind of thing will mean this and this and this and this.
• 29:05
  That's not verifiable. But the fact that you are breathing is verifiable. The fact that you are sitting here is verifiable, the fact that there is impermanence is verifiable, the fact that we all have difficulties is verifiable. The Dharma is what is verifiable, and fundamentally the Dharma is liberating and supportive. So to have the mind be calm enough, be present, to hear the Dharma, to know the Dharma, we can only hear what we recognize in ourselves.
• 29:37
  So you might be able to I keep thinking about Richard Feynman, who was the great, you know, Nobel laureate, know, physicist, and you might go to I've listened to lectures of his online. Impossible. Impossible. I just don't have the capacity to hear his lectures. You can only recognize something that you have that you're direct experience with.
• 30:02
  So to hear the Dharma, to hear the things that you could have direct experience with that really support your life is the teaching of the Dharma. Anyhow, I think we can unfold any of these sutras very richly and have a conversation about any aspect of them. What is gratitude? What is you know, every every each line my mind is beginning to get a little fuzzy. So please take take the the chance that we're doing, each one is a profound teaching, and the teaching is not dogma.
• 30:38
  The teaching is about a reflection of my life. How can I live in a way that is meaningful and cooperative and supports others, and how can I flourish and help everybody around me flourish? All the Dharma is about that.
• 31:03
  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.