Making Mistakes

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SF-04033
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Sunday Lecture

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ah vow to take the truth of the targeters words

good morning
the
hi my name is yvonne rand and
i began studying with sharia suzuki roshi in nineteen sixty six
and have had a long connection with the san francisco zen center
time happy to be here this morning and especially happy to be here with
all of you children
so i'd like to begin
what i want to say to all of you addressed to the kids
as i was walking down the back road here to the meditation hall
they came across a flock of quail
they look a lot like you kids to
mothers and fathers and babies and teenagers everything in between
but i want to talk about this morning has to do with what's called making a mistake
and i imagine that to some of you although maybe not all of you have made a mistake or had somebody tell you that you'd made a mistake
and i want to encourage you to
pay attention to when you make a mistake
as a chance to notice something that you either wish you hadn't done or might learn something from doing differently
for a lot of us adults we've grown up with the idea that making a mistake is a mistake
it's a big problem
and we often by the time were teenagers or young adults try to hide or mistake
and my experience is that that leads to a lot of trouble
i spend a lot of time thinking about the mistake i made instead of paying attention to what i'm doing in the next moment
there is a very famous practitioner
whose name is mill arepa a great yogi a great practitioner
and his whole aim in his life was to live his life without any regrets
so he was somebody who paid attention to when he did something that he regretted or thought was a mistake to let himself be taught by that mistake
to see what he wanted to do and what he didn't want to do
so i'd like to encourage all of you to be interested when you make a mistake
and not be hard on yourselves but the interested in what's being called a mistake as something that you can learn from
this may be a little much for some of you back
you never know when something you've heard will crop up in you'll say oh now i understand
might be in a few days or in a couple of years
but don't worry about it and have a good morning

why

and then

can you wanna to move forward
no

i wonder how many of us
pay attention to our reactions to making mistake
if we do how many of us realize that we've learned our reactions to making mistakes
as i said to the children my experience is that for many of us making a mistake is not seen as an opportunity
quite the opposite
it's seen as some action or inaction that we want to hide
and in the process of hiding of so-called miss sake
there's a kind of festering around whatever that action or inaction is
there's a a kind of poem which i've resided here before but which i'd like to recite again
hard rain rains uncovered thing
no rain rains hard on open things
so open ye the covered thing and no hard rain will rain on that
there's a an echoing
statement attributed to jesus
on this same point
if you bring forth what is within you what is within you will save you
if you do not bring forth what is within you what is within you will destroy you
i wonder
how many of us have made something that we regret made some action or inaction that we regret
that we then carry in the mind for quite a long time
it gets to be a kind of clutter
in the mind
i'm a great admirer of the great yogi milarepa
and his aiming at living his life without regret
no but of course if i am picking up that same aiming
it means that i am committing myself to paying attention to what i regret
letting myself learn from what i feel regret for
as a an opportunity for paying attention to not continuing not repeating that will charm of breath
and i think that for many of us we aren't patient enough with the process
we don't change our habits especially their habits that we developed
what's called conditioning from the time were very young
we don't change those habits those patterns quickly
even when we have some very clear insight about the suffering that arises from some habitual pattern or another
and what i notice is that
a kind of dissolving a kind of restating of intention
happens
when i have done something i regret and i been acknowledged it openly
with a witness doesn't seem to work quite as well if i'm my own witness in the room with the door closed at two in the morning
or when you wake up with something that you wish you hadn't done
there is a kind of aeration if you will
to the acknowledgement with a witness of what i regret
so
something i would invite you to consider is not only paying attention to what you regret
what you might deem a mistake
and notice what your reaction is in that moment
is there some impulse to hide
what you've done
or cover
i think part of our cultural training about mistakes is that time
only the regret side
and not so much understanding that when i have done something that i consider a mistake i have a chance to learn from that experience
i've met over the years very few people who have that attitude about making a mistake
but i have met some people and i'm struck by the kind of liveliness that i experience with those people
because of their eagerness if you will to notice mistakes
to be instructed by them
to see where there is some possible cultivation
to be instructed if you will by what i'm calling in the thick
and i think that
perhaps using the framing of regret rather than the word mistake may be useful in opening up the landscape opening up my willingness to notice what i do and what i don't do and with the count cause
sequences are of my behavior
for many of us who are a practitioners of meditation in the buddhist path
the focus is very much on
studying the mind
and training the mind
informal practice
but of course
what's critical is the extension into our everyday lives
and often what we done that we think of as a mistake or that we regret will come up in meditation
particularly true during a long sittings
when the mind kind of grabs onto anything to think about
regret stream forth
in a nice long retreat
can be actually quite useful
a kind of bubbling up to the surface of what we had in the business and pace of our daily lives pushed aside
managed to not notice by being busy
i just finished a leading a ten day retreat
there were several people in the retreat who
when we would mean i met with everybody every day and after the
and be the fourth day
several people when they came in for our meeting together said
something some variation on the fame of i have a confession to make
two people in particular took the rest of the retreat to fill in the confession process
opening the door a little bit with one
action there
the person speaking regretted
allowed some further inquiry and expression over the course of the retreat
and one person in particular a described
feeling initially a great relief
in speaking about what she had been carrying and hiding
and then when i saw the next day she said well i don't feel so much relief today because now i realize that there are some things i need to do some actions that are appropriate in the face of this relieving confession that i made yesterday
but over the course of the retreat the several people working on this edge of what do i regret that kept coming up in meditation
came to increasingly more and more clarity about their actions and the consequences of those actions
and some more refined understanding about what was appropriate in addressing those actions that had caused harm to themselves and to others
i think they are often we can be impatient with the process of uncovering what we thought we would rather have keep covered
and all kinds of fears arise
fears about losing some position or having others think ill of us
fill in the blank
and often that fear of external consequences
is one of the aspects of this inner process that keeps us from noticing the costs in our relationship with ourselves
i'm i'm working with
two people who i'm going to be marrying in a couple of weeks
and in working on their marriage vows
ah they both separately included the vow to tell the truth
and i suggested to them that they might consider that that was not so easy to do
but what about the promise to not lie
which is i think come
actually more possible
what's the truth anyway
when i think is true this morning may not look so true this afternoon or tomorrow when i have more information or more nights sleep for
look at things from more than the point of view i was looking at just now
but there's a way in which lying
is one of those areas of human activity pointed out in the precepts
that is a kind of mistake
that is something that we do that we try to cover or hide
hope won't be found out
but aren't those the kinds of behavior that bubble up when we sit down on our meditation seat
i think so

are quite some time ago and a retreat i was teaching
i made reference to what people drag around behind them as dragging around one's gunny sack full of old stuff
and then when i asked as anybody know what a gunny sack is oh the most we could figure out was it's a sack made of gunny
which it turns out is a sack made out of hemp
and some of us have been dragging around very big gunnysacks
filled with regret mistakes lies
it's a lot of work to keep dragging one of those big sacks around behind us
and it rarely occurs to us that we could just drop it
and of course because whatever is in the gunnysack is tends to be quite familiar we may keep going back and looking at it
i'm struck by how often we human beings
return to were turned towards what's familiar
even when we actually have some understanding about the unwholesome or harmful consequences of once familiar
for the meditation path and in particular
the whole pathway that articulated by the precepts
is an opportunity to look with a fresh eye to what is familiar
and to begin to pay more and more attention to the consequences
so i'm i'm inviting all of us to
the pick up as a possibility interest and curiosity in what i'm inclined to hide
for cover
or deny
one of the great benefits of the buddhist path is beginning to pay more and more attention to the intelligence that abides in the body
paying attention to what we know what we sense what we experience from the neck down
so i'm not talking about thinking about a mistake or what i regret i'm talking about noticing
in a more body based way
what's happening in my belly
is there tightening in the chest or throat
is there some sense of constricting in the body
all indications of what i call the
indications of all oh
hmm
so please take this chance to spend a little while noticing
making mistakes
euro relationship with what your breath
and if it seems possible consider uncovering rather than covering oh saying
and of course in the process of doing that you'll get to see what you're afraid is a fake what you're afraid you might lose
our inclination to wanna be successful
they have some position in the world
to be right
so when i practice with it my main theme is i'm right and i'm always right and everybody else is wrong i said how's it going
horribly

don't push
but notice
and the best way to notice is to notice what you notice and then bring your attention back to some aspect of the physical body and then the breath
you'll be surprised that you can cultivate your ability to notice to uncover because of course noticing is exactly the antithesis of covering
you may be surprised that it's that possibility or is something that's available to a degree that you hadn't realized
and if nobody told you
it's important that you understand that the buddhist meditation path is not in service of being somebody
it in service of being willing to be anybody
nobody
going nowhere doing nothing
a kind of pointing out to the possibility of what happens when were present
which are my experience is only possible to do if i don't have a lot of hindering
a lot of stuff in the gunny sack
a lot of covering up or covering over
sitting here when i first took my seat and seeing especially these very young children's faces
hard to imagine that they know anything yet about making a mistake
big open faces and eyes and hearts
and we grow up and spend our adulthood
trying to return to that condition

so that's what i have to say for the morning in that i'm happy to see you all
i've lived in this watershed for thirty one years
and am in the process of leaving this watershed
so i'm particularly happy to be able to be here this morning since i don't know when i will be able to be here another time thank you very much
may our intention equally