Latest / Zen Community of Oregon Dharma Talks / Looking for Something Dependable - Hogen Roshi

Transcript

Looking for Something Dependable - 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.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: And perhaps even actually on. Anyhow, I'm happy to see people being interested in willing to look at something that is bigger than themselves. We have a session beginning tomorrow, five day session, a fairly short one. And so I'll talk a little bit about that because there are a number of people who are going to be coming to session. What's been on my mind though is my main source of news which is Chosen, she always feeds me things, and she was talking to me about Brian Johnson.
• 0:51
  Brian Johnson, there's a documentary called Don't Die, the man who would live forever or something like that. And Brian Johnson is a entrepreneur in Silicon Valley who's involved with Vimeo or PayPal or one of one of those big things, very very rich guy who decided he wanted to do everything right. He wanted to live forever, he wanted to become, you know, a 50 year old, he wanted to to become a 30 year old or 18 year old, forgot what it was. He wanted to to do everything he could do to to make himself healthy and strong and wise. And because he was quite wealthy, he spent $2,000,000 a year for at least the last fifteen, twenty years on this aspiration to make himself young and vital.
• 1:45
  And he went on it wholeheartedly. He would he would take a hundred and fifteen supplements a day. He would eat a plant based diet, he he never ate to see see anxiety, he always was hungry he said the whole time. He was exercising, he did stretching exercise, he did aerobic exercise, he did core value exercises, he did blood or plasma exchanges between his father and he and his son and he he did everything he could do to maximize his life. So he got plenty of sleep and plenty of exercise and plenty of fresh air and plenty of Probably he was practiced generosity because generosity and giving and kindness and helping others has been clearly shown to be related to happiness and longevity.
• 2:41
  So he probably was involved with those things too. So $2,000,000 a year, a year this whole place we paid for a million dollars for Great Vow and you know 25 acres, $1,000,000. So just put put that into perspective. The aspiration, I will do everything right And this year he was just diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, an autoimmune gastritis where his body is eating his stomach and it's an incurable fatal disease. So I keep thinking about about this.
• 3:23
  Here's somebody who did everything right. So we're coming into We'll talk about his vow in just a moment. But we're gonna come into a a session, a practice period. And people think, oh, if I just got more rest, if I just didn't have to sit cross legged, if I just could have a little bit easier schedule, if we just had more protein, if we just had less protein, if we just didn't have alliums, if we just had more molybdenum in our diet, then, oh, I'd finally be in the groove. And I look at this guy Brian Johnson who did all that all that as a way of trying to find happiness, satisfaction, to live forever.
• 4:08
  It failed. He'll die you know long before I will and I'm 76. So then we think, okay, in our lives we put out these pictures, we put out these images and think if I just got it my way, I would be happy, healthy, and holy. If I just got the things finally adjusted, Excuse me. I got my job finally adjusted, finally, and maybe finally, adjusted so that it was smooth and I was happy and people were nice to me and I was feeling successful.
• 5:01
  Finally got it all adjusted and then what happens? Changes. We all think this about our life, we think, okay, I've I've got I'm in a bind right now with this this particular job, I'm in a bind with this relationship, I'm in a bind with this health condition, I'm in a bind and I will I just get it right. I just get it right. And so then people in the world of course and us go around trying to manipulate things so that we can get it right.
• 5:34
  So that we'll be happy, so we'll be healthy, so we'll be whole holy, whole and complete. And it's futile. It's futile. It will never get right. We might be right for a few minutes.
• 5:50
  We might have a day we said, oh, I had a wonderful rest last night and everybody's treating me so kindly and I feel good and my heart is open and I'm feeling full of love and it's a beautiful summer day and it's not too hot and not too cold and they're they're and Ringo is making magnificent meal today and oh, and it changes. It changes. It changes. It changes. The number one truth of Dharma is regardless of how right we get it, regardless of how we feel, it will change.
• 6:21
  The Buddha says somewhere, I'm I'm looking for something that is really dependable, something that I can rely upon. Well, why do I keep looking to things that are unreliable for that kind of stability, for that kind of happiness? Things change. So my suggestion for all those of you who are going to do Sashin, start tomorrow, is first off every state that you encounter whether it be good, bad, different is just a temporary state, Not important. It will change.
• 6:56
  I have this wonderful, great, deep, profound insight. Wonderful, great, deep, profound. Hallelujah. It will change. I'm feeling so miserable and so my back hurts, my mind hurts, you know, it will change.
• 7:13
  Now, on one level, Brian Johnson from my vantage point just went through this entire exercise in a in a way it was kind of futile. $2,000,000 a year to become 18 again and he's gonna die in fifties. On the other hand he had a real vow. He had a real intense vow. He was an entrepreneur, he had several very successful companies, he had he took that same state of mind to his body and his health and he had a vow to succeed, he had a vow to to maximize his health, he had a vow to hopefully about a be happy, hopefully, the part of his vow was to help others, hopefully, part of his vow was was bigger than just I, me, and mine, but I don't know.
• 8:05
  So he had a vow which directed his life, which shaped his life, which had benefits in his life, But we can't say that the way it turned out negated his vow. We have a vow in our life. We'll talk about vow in just a moment. We have a vow in our life, a vow, a heart vow, I like to say heart's aspiration. What is the deepest aspiration that we have?
• 8:39
  Deepest aspiration we have, the deepest hope we have, the the we really get down to it. It's deeper than I'm gonna get enough rest. It's deeper than everyone will think I look good. It's deeper than I got enough money to not live under the bridge. It's deeper than, you know, all the different things that we we try to get sold.
• 8:59
  We have a vow that is at our root. What's our heart's aspiration? Then we can go at it wholeheartedly and we don't have to be concerned about the outcome. That there's something inherently rich and rewarding and meaningful in the vow itself, in the activity of the vow. I was talking with the mountaineers from Bells about about thou.
• 9:32
  And when people come to the monastery here or any place else and they come with all kinds of ideas. We should do this, should do that, we should grow more trees, we should grow less trees, we should dig holes, we shouldn't dig holes, we should build this building, we should not build that building. They come with that. The important thing from a teacher's perspective is can I see into that person to see whether this is part of a vow, part of a deep vow that is compelling, that is part of the movement of their life? Or is it a good idea?
• 10:10
  Okay. Lots of good ideas, lots of good ideas. You should do this, you should do that, the government should do this, the taxes people should do that, you should do, you should, you should. You know, whenever people start saying you should, it's not part of their vow. Whenever people start saying, well I think the county government should work like this or the county commissioner should work like that or the Port of Columbia County should work like this or Great Vow should do this or should do that.
• 10:37
  It's not part of their vow. When the vow comes forward and says, I I will make this step. I will put my life forward. I think this is so important. This is part of my heart's aspiration.
• 10:56
  Then you can begin to appreciate that. Then you begin to say, okay, how does that vow fitting with a larger vow? How does that vow contribute to my vow? How do our vows together work? If it's just at the level of should and ought, that's okay.
• 11:13
  Nice to have good ideas. But then you end up with a thousand unfinished projects floating around. So I would encourage everyone whether you're here for a week or a day or a month or a lifetime and places like this only thrive when there are people who put their lives on the line. It doesn't thrive from visitors, I'm sorry to say, because the infrastructure has to be there in order to hold visitors. It only thrives when people are really saying, okay, my my vow, my life is here and I will step forward in this way.
• 11:49
  How do we know what our vow is? First off, it's really important that we learn how to meditate. And meditate by meditating in this sense, I mean that we're able to walk into a place, sit down, be comfortable and know our body, that means with aches and the pains and the stretches and this and that's, the twisting and the knots and the weight, we know it all. We know our body. We know our body and by knowing our body we accept this is the way it is.
• 12:23
  This is the way my body is right now. I accept that fully. We talk a lot about loving kindness in this tradition and love without acceptance is just an opinion. That if we really truly love someone we we accept this is the way they are. Maybe difficult to deal with, maybe difficult to work with, maybe I can't live with them, whatever, but we accept.
• 12:48
  This is the way they are. My love is not dependent upon them being a certain kind of way. My my my love is my love. My my acceptance, my appreciation, my satisfaction is my love, my acceptance, my appreciation, my satisfaction. And people may or may not, they'll do all the crazy things that people do.
• 13:07
  You know, people are upstreppers, it's just the nature of people, others including ourselves. But our vow is about can I hold on to that heart's aspiration? Now, first to do that we have to as I said do zazen. We have to come into the zendo and learn how to to be present to quiet our minds. Our minds is what's the we call conditioning.
• 13:34
  It's conditioned from how we were as children, conditioned from all the propaganda we've been fed, it's conditioned from our fears, it's conditioned, it's conditioned, it's conditioned, this then that, if this then that, if this then that. And we're often so so busy living in if this, then that, and then the pusher gets in there, I'm gonna make this happen, that we we we have to at some point settle down, let it all go, learn to be in our own body, learn to feel breath breathing us, learn to feel life living us. And then when our mind has a stability and that stability doesn't necessarily mean that the the thoughts are gone, it means a stability of accepting this is the way this karmic bundle is. Then we look and say, what's this karmic bundle? What's this collection of causes and conditions?
• 14:28
  What's this concatenation of this is and that's all the pieces? What's it here for? What I want to give life to? How do wanna go forward? What's really important?
• 14:41
  What's really important at the heart aspiration level? What's really important at the mind level is I wanna be safe and secure and I wanna get a box together so that I'll be, you know, warm and comfortable and untouched, But that is not possible because you know things fall apart. So the life the the vows of our life are we have to be able to settle down, to be in our body, to see who we are. Now, who we are has two levels. There's a level of the fundamental truth.
• 15:16
  Fundamental truth which is the same in all of us that are fundamentally we are not separate. Fundamentally, and you can directly experience that. It's not an idea. It's directly experienced that you and the world and the trees and the rocks and the buildings and the steam and industrial military complex are all made of the same stuff. It's all one thing.
• 15:37
  We can directly know that. But that is not about my vow. So then we have to look at, understand ourselves, what do I wanna give life to? What do I wanna give this world? We give we give life to a child.
• 15:58
  We pour our energy into doing our inadequate best. We give life to a dharma center. We give life to a garden. We give life to a shop. There's a shop in town where a young guy decided he wanted to repair cars and he thought this is what I'm made for.
• 16:16
  And he's it's great. It's a wonderful place. He knows what he's doing. His vow then affects everybody else. When we are clear to one degree or another, the future is always unknown.
• 16:31
  We can't be clear about the future. We can't be clear about the outcome. Just like Brian Johnson couldn't be clear about how it's gonna end. But he could be clear about what his vow was and doing his best and learning from that and finding a rich and interesting life from that and we can do the same. So when we are have some stability of mind, we're not at the mercy of our thoughts, when we have a a respect for the way this particular being is put together, then with Vow we can take that anywhere in any circumstance.
• 17:16
  It's difficult, my Vow is present, it's hard, my Vow is present, it's easy, my vow is present. It's blissful, my vow is present. I say I'm around lots of people, my vow is present. Things are coming at me like like a waterfall, my vow is present. I'm in a desert and nothing is there and my vow is present.
• 17:33
  And so our vow then becomes the the anchor the anchor for our life. Instead of the propaganda, you know, propaganda is all the the advertising and stuff that says, if you just had this, if you just went there, if you just got this and that and this and the other thing and you had you know a fantastic whatever, then your life would be happy. Instead, in Dharma we reverse the whole thing and say, let me find a place of satisfaction with what is. Let me find a place that's right here right now and then from that place of settled satisfaction, I will look forward and see what I'm gonna give my life to. And we say give my life to fundamentally if we look at it, there is nothing outside.
• 18:18
  Everything we see, hear, smell, taste, touch is processed right here. We know that scientifically, you know, all the visual stuff we see is all is just photons until it hits the macula and then it's the it's in the macula and the brain somehow images are formed and colors form and shapes and and and sound is just just waves. Just waves hitting the tympanic membrane and the aortic nerve and then going to the brain and somehow it makes music, somehow it makes sound. Nothing exists until we have processed it. Nothing, there is nothing out there.
• 18:56
  So then our vow is about what is it that is so important and compelling in me that I want to give life to and I have the opportunity to give life to it in an airplane. I have the opportunity to give life to it as a in the garden. I have the opportunity to give life to it in the dish pit. I have the opportunity to give life to it wherever we wherever we find ourselves, wherever circumstances. It does not depend upon the circumstance, it depends upon that inner quality.
• 19:29
  Now, it's not something that we could figure out by our mind, we have to we have to find some stability and acceptance and one of the virtues of is you come to Sashin and you always meet yourself. And every time we meet ourself if we find, I don't like that, oh, that's bad, oh, I hate this, hey, let me get away from it. We know we've we've we've encountered a barrier, we've encountered a boundary which we can see beyond, which we can have an enlarged view, which we can include. And one of the virtues of Sechene which almost more than anything else there are other things you can do this in, but in Sechene is we're sitting there with a mind alert and present and we end up facing ourselves and we face whatever challenges there are and we have the ability to see beyond them. When people are doing work on on koans, you know, kind of the classic Zen training, is they'll throw out an idea.
• 20:33
  An idea, you know, the someone goes to the great master Joshua and says, you know, what is the highest truth of Buddhism? And he says, the oak tree in the garden. And the rational mind says, you know, what's what's what why is the oak tree in the garden? Why not the the bamboo in the floor? Why not why not the the the concrete walls?
• 20:55
  What's this oak tree in the garden? How could that be? It's just stuff. And so the rational mind ends up with a a little dead end. It ends up in a conundrum, ends up in an impassable place.
• 21:06
  And the creative mind has to enlarge, has to see this from a bigger perspective. To see the truth is somehow larger than our view of it. Same thing happens when we are encountering our difficulties in Seshan. We encounter a challenge right up against something and it's an opportunity for us to expand our awareness and to be more inclusive because everything has a place in the universe, everything has a place. And it's our mind that is constantly trying to kill things.
• 21:42
  Everything has a place and the foundation of loving kindness in this tradition is the direct experience, everything has a place. Everything is part of my life. The vow not to kill is the vow not to kill my life or other people's lives because everything has a place and the universe of course will take care of the rise and fall and the birth and death of all things. So I think Brian Johnson in a way, though I don't know him, never met him, having a vow that he intensively went forward to with his particular resources, his particular thing, he guaranteed learned something, he learned fundamental things, he learned something about himself and about the nature of the world. The outcome is irrelevant.
• 22:34
  If you live to be 120, so what? Is there some virtue in that? I don't know. The outcome is irrelevant but the vow, the confidence of living our life with wholeheartedness. The the vow of I may be making the wrong wrong choice, but I'm making a choice that is based upon acceptance and love, and I'm making a choice that is based upon inclusive nature of mind instead of fear.
• 23:04
  So my encouragement to all of us is that we as we do Seishin, as we do Azen, you be present, you learn about this particular concatenation of experiences, you hold deep acceptance of this life and this life, same life. And then out of that deep acceptance, you commit yourself to something wholeheartedly, a relationship, a parenthood, a community and of course that may last in my case, you know, I've committed myself to this particular path for fifty some years and of course it will change. Of course. But the commitment, the step by step, you know, if we're if we're I've never been a runner but I can imagine if you were running it is not all the steps are interfering with the goal, which is the way a lot of people feel work is like, you know, work work is interfering with me getting the reward of the money at the end, and then therefore the money is what I want and the work is just here is in the way. But if you're actually running, I suspect every step every step is important.
• 24:22
  Every step is important. And then, you you may or may not finish the race. That's that's nice if you do and nice if you're nice if you're not, but if you don't appreciate the steps and the breath and the terrain and the texture and they then what's the point? So the goal whether he lives or dies, he lives to a 120 is not so important. I was doing a little research on what happens to Olympic Olympic Olympiads.
• 24:57
  People who start in their teens training in sport and then then you know, become more more and more proficient, don't become professionals, become the world's best. And if their goal is to be the world's best and have that trophy and have that medal, then often at the end of it there's great depression and despair. What's the meaning of my life? I got this thing. But if the training and the years of dedication and the discipline and the state of mind that went into that is appreciated and then carried forward often they have very successful, very rich lives.
• 25:46
  If it's the goal, I got the medal and that's the whole point, then as soon as they got the medal, despondency and despair, what's the point? So again, for all of us stabilizing the mind, being present, appreciation, being clear about our intention for this life,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: And then
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: doing our best to be present and bring that forward in all the different circumstances. I was talking to Chos and I were talking to David Zimmerman. David is the head of the San Francisco Zen Center which is an enormous operation. Our community has like a $500,000 budget and they have their community has like a $10,000,000 budget. Enormous community.
• 26:36
  And I was asking Dave, well, how have you continued these years? How have you how did you practice? How did you end up in this place as the chief habit of the whole thing? He said, I was only concerned with how I how I showed up. I wanted to show up everywhere I was with with the very best of my vow, the very best of my intention.
• 27:01
  I wanted to show up with the best I could bring forward. The best and the best and the best leads to the best. So please, hope everyone is is has deep respect, deep appreciation for this particular karmic bundle that you call yourself. And I hope that you find some stability in that and I hope that you can then say, what am I gonna pour my life into? So go for it.
• 27:37
  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.