Latest / Zen Community of Oregon Dharma Talks / Frictionless Mind - Jogen Salzberg, Sensei

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Frictionless Mind - 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: Thank you, chant leading team, and thank you all for following along. So that is a very profound chant. It's not intended as philosophy, although I guess philosophy and concepts are a good place to start. It is when we hear Zen teachings, we're hearing somebody try to give expression to what their direct subjective experience is. It's not talking about the world out there.
• 0:58
  This is a description of the world. It's what is this what is this heart mind like when we really deeply wake it up? What is that experience like? The chant is both trying as inadequately as it is because it's words, is trying to describe that and then point point to it, invite us into it. The, the whole chant in a way is profound because of if we apply it, it relieves suffering, which is what everybody wants.
• 1:41
  And also, there are some elements that are so profound, there's not much to say about them. So I'm not gonna say much about those lines. We could always talk privately. But I extracted basically two themes that I've been addressing about the chant and I think are relevant to us at all levels of practice. Those are acceptance, frictionlessness, and that there is something deeper than discrimination that lives through you, something deeper than ordinary mind.
• 2:16
  Now, acceptance is interesting because if we reduced this chant to acceptance, that would mean that we're ignoring the whole part where it says to assert that things are real, missus Reality. Right? When we talk about acceptance, we're talking about the acceptance of things being momentary. We're talking about the acceptance of things being momentary and our minds being the medium for their arising. No you, no world.
• 2:53
  No world, no you. Things are things because of mind as mind is mind because of things. So acceptance is, in a way, accepting that everything we experience is an interface of us and that experience. Now it is recommending this chant to, don't suffer when you don't have to. It's recommending that.
• 3:30
  In a way, in my words, I would say this chant is saying we have to pick our battles. The mind can endlessly generate opinions about everything. There's nothing that exists in this human world that people haven't found a time and a place to argue about. People argue about grout. People argue about Thai food.
• 3:56
  People argue about important things like Israel and Gaza, Russia and Ukraine. People argue about what color toenails should be painted. We can argue about anything. And this chant is saying, and I think your own experience would confirm, that we have to pick our battles because it's fighting about everything is exhausting. Having an opinion about everything is exhausting.
• 4:28
  Usually, it's exhausting because I have my opinion and you have yours and, uh-oh, now we have some friction. I would say it like this. Let what we are attached to be worth it. Think of, the attachments you have. Do you relate to that term?
• 4:53
  It's not a bad word. Think about the people you care about, that you're invested in. That's probably worth it to you, the suffering, the struggle, the strife that comes through being entangled. That's positive entanglement. But there's probably some things that you're attached to that it's not a battle necessarily worth fighting.
• 5:20
  I don't know. You could check that out. But the chant is saying, let opinions go that actually don't serve you, your loved ones, your community, or the world. Let those go. They get in the way actually of something deeper.
• 5:42
  So when we are instructed in a chant like this to let go of opinions, it's easy to, hear that within a kind of imagined power dynamic, Like somebody with power over us is saying, I'm smarter than you. I'm better than you. I'm I'm a pure religion. Let go of your opinions and believe what I think. And that's not the invitation in this tradition or in a chant like this.
• 6:08
  What's being said is, actually, when we let go of opinions, we see more clearly. Or said differently, when we have clear mind that meets the moment with less preconception, our opinions arise from that ground. Right? Probably everybody would roll their eyes if someone shared an opinion they had about one of your friends and they hadn't even met them yet. You're like, bro, you haven't even met her yet.
• 6:42
  Why do you have all these opinions? Or whatever your version of that is. But actually, we do that all the time. We haven't met moments yet, situations yet, experiences, and we already have an opinion. It doesn't arise out of the ground of direct experience.
• 7:04
  That's what's being invited for our opinions to arise from actually meeting the immediacy of things. And then we might have an opinion, we might not. We might have a choice. The chant goes on about, opinions. I don't know if maybe, like, really opinionated people were hanging around monasteries in China at that time.
• 7:33
  It was like an opinion magnet. If you read the history of the tradition, if you read the koans or times, people had tons of opinions about who was a good teacher or a bad teacher or this lineage or that lineage or what was an authentic text or opinions aren't new. They just didn't have them broadcast through technology all the time. That's what's new. All of this talk about releasing fixed stances and biases is all in the service of being at peace or having peacefulness be a flavor of our being, something on our palate.
• 8:25
  We can wear ourselves down fruitlessly with, I know better, I know better, I know better, I know better, they don't know, they don't know, they don't know. You can definitely mess up a relationship. Now, another reason acceptance is a little bit of a tricky word is people think, oh, spirituality is about acceptance, so you people let the world just burn. And this kind of acceptance is having acceptance be an option. It's not a fixed stance.
• 9:04
  If acceptance becomes a fixed stance, that's not really acceptance because sometimes you have to accept that you need to do something about something. Or maybe then that's big acceptance. You accept that sometimes you need to work to change something and you accept that you don't want to or you can't or you don't think it should. Again, the fruit of stripping the mind naked as a daily ritual is so that from the ground of the bare fact of the moment, we act from there. Have you ever walked in on an argument and your initial mind picks sides?
• 9:56
  And then later when you get more space and you take it in, you realize your initial person who you wanted to take their side, actually, they were kind of being a dick. Right? I think we know we know the danger of this, but, instinctually, we tend to just go with our habitual flow. So this aspect of Zen training is saying, let the bare ground, let the nakedness of the moment be more of your springboard in life, more and more of your springboard. And then, you might be able to say like Dobin Zenji said, he said, My life was one continual mistake.
• 10:48
  That's the humility of someone who really companions their mind. Okay. So is that unpleasant to hear, all of that stuff I was just saying? I can't get a read on this crowd. No.
• 11:05
  I see one no, a couple no's. Okay. Alright. Anyway, the next theme I like to call frictionlessness. And the reason I like to use the word frictionless is because, apparently, the etymology of the word dukkha or suffering that the Buddha taught is inviting us to let go of is a hub on a cart that is not well greased, and so it turns, and it grinds as it turns.
• 11:41
  And the Buddha said, this is what human beings who don't train their minds live like. They live with grindy minds. They live with minds that are making friction where there doesn't need to be friction. Now, I think that naturally we are frictionless. That the state of our being when we don't interfere is quite frictionless.
• 12:12
  It's like we have a fundamental suppleness to our being. It's kind of like a cat or a baby. They can be happy, and then something happens, suddenly they're crying with their whole being. No gap between the two moments. There's no there's no off ramp.
• 12:33
  Crying with their whole being, then again happy. That capability you can see in animals and children is actually, in a way, a deep demonstration of dharma. Naturally, we are frictionless. Things are just flowing through continually. We are that.
• 13:02
  And to meditate is to, celebrate, appreciate, and maybe even amplify that nature. And when I think about this, I think whole universes have flowed through me. Whole universes have flowed through you. The whole universe of your junior high school and your high school. The whole universe of your college years.
• 13:35
  The whole universe of times in your family, relational phases. Whole universes of how you were thinking at a particular time and how that was a whole way of seeing and being. Experientially, people appear and disappear within our life. We tend to think there's this world stage out there that just objectively exists, but, you know, you're the medium for experience, you. So how many people have how many beings, not just people, have appeared and disappeared in your life?
• 14:24
  Even even tonight, some of you left a place, those people disappeared experientially, and you go home and hopefully they'll reappear. How many thoughts have emerged and dissolved even today? There's no friction in your mind. There's no, there's no force countering the continual flow of mental events, feelings. A lot of them renew.
• 14:56
  We have them again, but again, that's because of this frictionlessness. How many bad moods and good moods? Now, this frictionlessness, most of the time, a good amount of the time we could say to amplify this only brings benefit and happiness to a being. Everybody knows somebody or is somebody who has clung to some grudge or thought or wrong idea about themselves for too long and knows the pain that comes with that. But sometimes something sticks in our heart and mind because we really need to look at it carefully.
• 15:55
  Some things stick because of the habit of clinging. That's a very, intimate discernment for each person. Right? Some things shouldn't be let go of. Some things should be really kept company with.
• 16:10
  Right? Ethical dilemmas or relational pains or I don't know. It could be many things, spiritual questions. And some things, they stick to us not because they have some message to deliver that we need to hear, but because we're clinging. Because we're clinging.
• 16:36
  Somehow we've become dependent on this idea or belief. I've been thinking a lot about something. One of my teachers said, know, an interesting context. He's a guru, and people are very devoted to him. But he says, anything that you become really dependent on, you begin to resent.
• 17:04
  But we become dependent on the ideas and the notions that we cling to. So some things stick in our heart mind because we really need to look at them carefully. And it's not really that they stick, it's more that they recur. Right? Sometimes meditation functions as an ethical feedback chamber.
• 17:34
  And every time we sit down, we think of, oh, that time I did that thing. That might be very important to not let that thought go too much or to to elaborate that thought further. Or it might be that you've done your work and it's time to let that thought go because it just serves to remind you of someone who you no longer are. I think we could say that, sitting in Zazen is an excellent Zazen is sitting meditation, is an excellent direct training in frictionlessness. A resuming of that gift of being, your gifted frictionlessness.
• 18:29
  There's a quality of relaxation that comes with that. There's a quality of not interfering. We could say you're not adding push or drag to the myriad things that appear in you, that move through you. You let everything, you let everything be, but you're fully experiencing it. And my experience is that each thing has what I call an organic lifespan.
• 19:09
  If I don't cling or renew, I feel the feeling, and it's there in just the right amount of quantity. The thought is there just enough to inform me of what it has to say. The sensory impressions, they are what they are. They're momentary. So we welcome the organic lifespan of each element of experience.
• 19:39
  This leads to less struggle. I talked a number of times about working with sadness and kind of feelings on the moisty side or ongo. Right? An example of that is my, instinctive reflex when I get sad. I'm like, where's the cookies?
• 20:04
  Right? You might have your version of that. Where's the chocolate? But if you have faith based on your experience of frictionlessness, it's just a flower of feeling. It just blooms.
• 20:15
  It exists. And if you, generally, if you don't elaborate upon it, it will it will fade. It communicated itself. It might bloom again, that might be just right. So frictionlessness, you can see how Zen is rather informed by Taoism.
• 20:41
  Right? That was part of the the womb of our tradition is Indian Buddhism meeting this, real appreciation that life is a natural flow of energy, and that non interference is a devotion to that. So the third point about this chant I want to say a few things about is something deeper than discriminating mind lives in you. I don't know how true it is, broadly speaking, but I think many people get a message from the culture that is rather materialist scientist, scientistic, that basically says, calm down, little mystic. You're just a brain and some chemicals.
• 21:39
  Don't get too woo woo there. Research shows you're just a biological being. Right? And, if one reduces Buddhism to that, they're really not talking about Zen. There is a there is a light that animates, that moves through, that is, that is not generated by a brain.
• 22:08
  Something deeper than discrimination and ordinary consciousness lives in us. And practically speaking, there's consequences from believing that we are only a thinking mind or believing that we are only a thinking mind and biological instincts. So a lineage master said, distress colors your days simply because you don't trust yourself. Distress colors your days simply because you don't trust yourself sufficiently. It is not easy to have anything but a brittle confidence in our discriminating minds Because they're partial.
• 23:14
  Because a discriminating mind operates in a binary way. This versus that, me versus them. Its reflex is right and wrong, good and bad. I just sort thing into sort things into categories really quickly or maybe more fundamental than right, wrong, good, bad, feels good to me, doesn't feel good. Very quickly, things are dropped into those those baskets.
• 23:41
  And if that mind is our, only basis, which it's not for anybody, but if it were our only basis, we would have a good reason to be shaky because that's not totally trustworthy. Can you recall a time when you entered a complex situation and somehow you just responded appropriately? You didn't have time to think it all through, to premeditate, to run all the various pathways and outcomes through your mind, and you just were there and you did the right thing or you did the best thing you could in the moment. So we're replete with what's called prajna. Prajna means an ability to respond with body, with speech, with mind, with heart in a way in a way is before the brain.
• 24:57
  I don't know what neuroscientists would say. Faster than thought, that's for sure. Faster than thought. In a way, all the time before thought, we have progeny instincts, and we override them because doubt. The doubting mind says, nah, what if?
• 25:19
  Or the fearful mind says, nah, that nope. Now sometimes, somebody will confess to me that they can't so much as, like, go to the refrigerator without planning what they're gonna do. Alright? When I get to the refrigerator, I'm getting out the pickles, the toast. There's so much mistrust of just letting a moment emerge that every single action is premeditated.
• 25:55
  And so we work out an agreement like, okay, I want you to go out to dinner with your friend that you trust, that is loyal, that is not gonna harm you, and don't plan in advance a single thing you're gonna say. And as you sit with them and they're sharing, don't plan your retort while you're still supposed to be listening. Wait and see if you can just let a response flow from from that place of receptivity. It's in a way that simple to begin practicing this, to see that so much of the activity of the mind is based on, I don't trust myself to say the right thing, do the right thing, be the right person. I have a feeling of mistrust of myself, and that employs the mind to be very busy with contrivance, very busy with premeditation.
• 27:02
  And so one proves to oneself through practicing, in a way, just showing up, Just showing up. Now if you're someone who is, has the karma of often saying offensive things or, making off colored jokes or you get the feedback that, oh, when you're spontaneous, it's kind of cringey. Well, you're this is not the teaching for you. Operate your discriminating mind. Right?
• 27:36
  But everybody has times when they could and would benefit from practicing this. In the Zen tradition, we don't really have a concept of authenticity aside from this. There's no authentic state of being because nothing's inauthentic. Everything is, in some at the deep level an expression of truth. But if we have a principle of authenticity, it's if we show up without mind fur, if we show up without too much premeditation, then we all beautifully just express ourselves.
• 28:20
  So we uncover this through knowing what clear mind, what that means, and walking and working and talking and trying to live that clear mind, not just on a meditation cushion. Right? If you're going home for the holidays, try try this out. Try it out. Okay.
• 28:47
  I just wanna say a few things about Ongo because we're closing Ongo, and then I'd like to have some discussion. So Ongo was this peaceful dwelling, is what it translates as. It was this time when many people in the community were intensifying their commitment to practice. Those who could and wanted to were doing more retreat. Many people were working on different personality challenges, showing up more for service.
• 29:18
  And I just after you do a batch of focused practice, it is good to reflect on the effects of it. It's not like breaking the rules to think, is this effective? Because if you don't feel that this practice is effective in some way, you won't continue to do it. At some point, you'd be like, nah, I'm going to Tamale Boy on Wednesday night. So having done intensified practice, what's been the effect on your mind?
• 30:02
  Do you like that effect? Has it been beneficial? Are you mind aside, because everybody has a mind that makes thoughts, and those thoughts can always doubt, are you do you have a felt sense of alignment from having intensified practice? Do you feel like somehow who you need to be or how you need to show up, you're a little closer to that? I do.
• 30:42
  Is something in you fed by doing focused practice? And how do you read that? And if these, whatever it's been, two months, ten weeks, have been reflecting something important to you, what is it? Because our times of clarity are fragile. I often tell people when they're leaving meditation retreats that some people would say, Now you're intoxicated because you're high on meditation, or however they think of it.
• 31:39
  But I often think people are at their most sober and the most aligned with what is real for them after having done steady practice. What's clear to you that is good to imprint or really turn over because that clarity can be lost. So I hope that you have affirmed faith in this aspect of mind over this ongo, or as one of the other translations says, inscribing trust in the heart, trust in your true heart. May it be so.
• 32:45
  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.