Sesshin Lecture

00:00
00:00
Audio loading...

Welcome! You can log in or create an account to save favorites, edit keywords, transcripts, and more.

This talk will not appear in the main Search results:
Unlisted
Serial: 
SF-01042
Description: 

Zendo Lecture Day 1

Photos: 
Auto-Generated Transcript

however the story
the where farmers standing in his field and friend of his is going by and road riding a horse going very very fast and the farmer standing in the fields says where you going
leave
primer on the horses i don't know asked the horse
so this is i know what we call the first day of machine
and i wonder i wonder if the horses
gotten out of control yet we haven't had much time
i noticed this morning that my horse had gotten out of control actually very early
the story is often used to illustrate the nature of our minds when when our mind when are discriminating mind goes on a rampage
or i mean from its point of view it's it's having fun
or just doing what it does
but it's not just the can get just whittle down lower think
it's not just than just a story that are a joke but somebody
i thought up
i tell you a real story one in which there is no way that i can look good so i hesitate
to tell it but it does it does seem to speak especially if you don't think about me if you think about actually a horse because the horses the star of the story
after after my first practice period here in nineteen ninety i went and lived in the city for a while and during that summer
i took a parachute i filled in for a priest a christian priest who had gone away for the summer and sabbatical so i took his parish in the east bay
and the
the organist was a probably still there is a great guy and we got on really fabulously and his wife was a
shoot you loved horses and she had horses
and they talked to me about this a bit you know why you should command you come out riding with us and little horn
no i've never been really close to something that big and sheltering distant distance behind a fence
and
so oh you can not brandy you can write randy randy is really gentle
like that made a difference something that big gentle
well era so i ended up i ended up out there
now we drove to this stable and it was in the east bay over those mountains there and
whatever those were one of those are and it's very hilly very hilly and there's nothing on those hills the that maybe a tree here and there but pretty bare hills and so and actually it was fine randy was gentle and considerate
what he had to carry but so we went out writing twice
and the third time
the third time was after work so i went out with
withstand and marty and we in the sun was going down which means a very nice
very nice time of day and so we we went riding and we got and they don't know where they were they were behind me somewhere and and so here i was on this golden palomino big golden palomino and at the top and
hill and then we started down the hill to go back to the barn was quite a ways it's quite a ways and i would find out later that
you'll be really careful at that time of day because the horse has only one thing in mind and if not you it's getting home to be fed and then to go to sleep
and apparently that's that's very very strong
very strong
one could almost say might be like one of our some scars one of our addictions one of our habits and so
and so so we started down the hill but then all of us that then it became key was going downhill and i
when rather innocently that what's happening why are we going so fast and
he continued that impact he went faster because
being new at this i wasn't quite quite skilled at dumb making it stop
so what i was doing i was pulling back on the reins i knew that but because of my terror i was leaning forward into into his know it's big neck which meant so the pulling back in the arrangement stop but remaining into the neck meant let's go

and he did he did off he went
and i was getting
scared her is at a word scared her scarier and scarier
fact i was terrified and we got
ha
i hope you can't picture that this actually
i was picturing what that was like
so we we went on a big hill very big hill and then it started to level off and by this time i am
or whatever whatever was left of this was saying this this has to stop now
and what i
oh here's here's the embarrassing part so i'll just maybe i'll just say quick so i decided i'm getting off now
and i remember thinking that i've seen this on tv
where where the guy gets off the horse that's running of course she's supposed to be dead but i know he was a stunt man right so somehow you can do it
and so i started to a holding onto things and lifted my leg off the saddle and
and this is okay this is okay i can do this this is going to work and thankfully
randy
sensed that something was wrong apparently
so because randy stopped
so ah and i'm so i'm really i'm really glad
that he did
god that would hurt and i probably would have been dead but but he stopped so what that meant to me when i was thinking about you know what are we going what are you going to do for your session this week
in employing all the instructions we have on on meditation and rusty who is a horse was able to put himself aside from what he wanted the most of the whole world oats and home and was mindful enough
apparently that when this very strange idiot
on the back started shifting is wage that something was wrong and it just stopped
how can we do less
can we do less than he did
so in
so know whenever i think i've been meditation practice i think of the perkins is game well among other things but the fucking says angry especially with the the idea of not a from non thinking i thought that was remembering i remember hearing that the first time you'll think of
think of not thinking how do you think of not thinking know i'm thinking i thought this is perfect and totally ridiculous right i mean how it how does it make any chance but it's it sounds so certain so so easy
and
and i wonder you know even if we if we ask again you know what is not thinking what is it again i think dogging would say it won't you know i just told you i just told you look back a few paragraphs and where he says cast aside all involvements and cease all affairs do
not think good or bad and to not administer pros and cons cease all moments of the conscious mind the gauging of all thoughts and views and if that's not bad enough have no designs on becoming a buddha so
and
usually what i think when when whenever we hear you do not do this
cast aside stop this cease this we think well it's that is that repressing am i going to just repress and make things worse well dogan doesn't seem to care only says is a stop doing things that get in the way of your actual life
the your actual life and they are just a little teeny tiny wispy bit but they but if we really focus on them they they grow and bloom and actually stand as a curtain between us in our lives
so the simple things like cast aside all involvements and cease all affairs
don't think good or bad what else is there to think most the time but he says that when you see it stop it that's all
do not administer pros and cons knows this better as is better if i move this was i going to help you know he says don't do that just just be there just be there
and so
sometimes we need even more help than instructions like that i think those are pretty handy
if you are at a certain point and were in that way we can be still when we're still think then we can begin to notice that that dumb we don't want to cease affairs we want affairs we want contact we want relationship
with anything
with anything
especially while were seated
so
i think the key is
ah
exercising mindfulness and compassion and member last time i spoke i think i were two times ago that those were apparently the things that the buddha used to at the end
just just relied on mindfulness and compassion mindfulness in a sense of staying with what's actually happening being opening and opening aware
and compassion in terms of just accepting completely what's what's actually happening accepting not squeezing out anything not trying to hold onto anything but just allowing with an open heart and an open mind allowing what comes up and what disappeared
and one of one of the so we've been looking at the four foundations of mindfulness and that pretty much covers our experience so that all at all at ass is that some we see the body as the body the feelings as feelings mental states as mental states and mind obs
decks as mind objects and i don't know but you uber took me many years to be able to get that kind of fun perspective because when i had a fight it wasn't a thought it was me
completely me or if i had a feeling even if i had a work name for it it's not like i was having a feeling like like it was a visitor from some foreign country it was me completely
or if i was having a bodily sensation
like that could still can happen to in are sitting over there one morning for breakfast and i was hungry well i mean hungry because i was having a sensation in my my stomach my tummy and then i noticed that
all of a sudden thoughts came up i hope it's good
i hope it's filling and then i noticed that the death that thought
it's almost like it bad
what
moved moved and filled my body till it met the hunger pang and said just better be good
it really fed itself and it occurred to me a few seconds later wait and wait a minute
oh this started off as just a little hunger pang of my stomach and then all of a sudden it's a whole drama dramatic event
and so what is taking me maybe twenty years to learn to see that
hum
so i think
i think one way that we can also have as i was saying last time the breath and the the attention i think of other foremost in being able to help us
whenever links the way i see it is that the attention is the mind and the breathing the breath is the body and those are two things we can actually deal with we can they can help us if we enlist them and as long as we have whenever we
have we put our attention on to our breathing than the mind and body are one they become one that become united
and that and that is where think we can begin to see the body as the body sensations as only sensations feelings as only feelings and whether you want to call that emotions or pleasant unpleasant or neutral
in a lot of ways it doesn't matter so much
and that mental states or mental formations are only mental formations
and where the the mind objects of them each of the thoughts each of the idea of each of the habits ah each of the stories as his own is only that is only that there's a great freedom in that i think it's very difficult to do

i want to just and with a couple of things
ah i was reading something by m muscle ave who is i guess he's a dog and scholar
and
so hip so wrote about he wrote about dogan and one of the things that we often objector is well you know if i if i become free from my body sensations and feelings and the mental formations and mind objects
mind well have some thoughts and well you know you know then what will that make me well that will that mean that i'm i will be flash a flat person or will be like seem like dead you i mean that kind of if i'm free from my emotional entanglements for exam
is that going to make me a dull person
when i've heard people ask that
and
and so and i ran across this thing where muscle abby talks about dogan himself
having been liberated he said that dumb for dogan when dogan it because of his practice when dogan was full of joy he might have laughed out loud when sorrowful he may have wept sorrowing
is where his his feeling is completely disclosed because it is now rooted in emptiness bottomless depth
so his joy appears from the bottomless and disappears in empty sky no disturbance no hindrance his sorrow appears from bottomless bottom and disappears and empty sky so joy is really joy sorrow is really sorrow and there is no trace of joy or
or sorrow after that moment
so in other words some this moment this feeling this thought is complete in itself in its fullness
so that dumb
when we are able to stop the story or stop the
trying to get away from what's going on or trying to seize what's going on and pull aside the veil
which that dumb creates its those things create then we actually respond i can completely to what's going on and it's real it's full and it is full of life
any of you john says joe me in our hot show me in our hut
ah
i've ever seen them there are there are statues you can there's a catalogue of japanese temple stuff and they're sixteen our hearts and i've seen some in them
at ag they took us up into the the big gate the front gate and that's filled it's filled with statues and buddhas and and our hearts and
and i wouldn't bring this up if they weren't all the same as if all the our hearts were put look pretty much alike and what they look like is crazy people
huh
you'd think you know we think of buddha or or somebody who is
finally landed on the other shore as somebody is very placid and peaceful and doesn't get upset if i got on what they do anything just sort of glow a golden glow the our hearts
no they looked like madman
i'm totally crazy some was no teeth have a these crazy licks in their eyes and different in different poses
and and
in the the buddha actually talks about what it's like being with the our hearts and mostly mostly what he said is that whenever they got together most of his time was trying to quiet them down because they chattered and shattered and chattered
i think that's pretty good
a
so maybe we'll be we can become crazy our hearts
ah across the guidelines will permit most of what what on our hardwood
right well so what i want to end with on something that tema appimage children who i'm i'm just sort of i've just discovered her recently i am embarrassed to say because i've certainly heard of or few years
and one of the things at them this is what she says
she calls meditation staying learning how to stay stay
to
lunch out and grab not to try to get away but learning the technique of staying to stay put staying and
now so she says
oh and this is an invitation an invitation to us since this is the first day of machine and you probably don't have it anywhere else to go for the next week she says stay
stay in the present moment as if you had invited it
work with it instead of against it
make it your ally rather than your enemy
is that nice stay in the present moment as if you had invited it instead of it being imposed upon you
work with it instead of against it making it your ally rather than your enemy
one of the thing i want to say to
is that dumb i was thinking this morning i it's day one military know zaza and then service then breakfast
and what occurred to me was i wonder if any of you actually see
day one that we have to get your day one so that they too can happen and then they too so that we can get a day seven than the day off and then go home for christmas eventually you know that's not really that's not really what actually happens because it that another there are no distinctions like the
that really so so so seen as a time i think to play with that and really look at it
because that's just a conventional way of looking at things that i have to do this and wanted to do this in order to get when i really want that's the way most people live you know they have a job so they get money to buy themselves stuff
this is everything is everything is for something else and it keeps going on endlessly well worth today is just for the dead today know what of king is just for kingham what if sitting there is just for sitting there
will we be bored or will we become our hearts who are never bored
right so she ends chance with this
ah we can stay and we can't accept the present moment because what we need which is the wisdom strength confidence in our awakened heart and confidence in our buddha nature is here now and always
thank you very much