Remembering How to Come Home - Kisei Sensei

0:00Hello and welcome. This is the Zen community of Oregon, making the teachings of the Buddha Dharma accessible to support your practice. New episodes air every week. I take refuge in the Buddha. I take refuge in the Dharma and I take refuge in Sangha. Remember home. Remember home, your body on the earth, how you could watch the clouds parade in their various costumes as minutes slipped into hours. How without even trying your mind mingles with sky,

1:11as the grasses transform themselves into your bed and tangle in your hair. Did you see the slug emerging from the still wet leaves, its whole body and organ of perception, moving with a curious confidence as if it were aware of the whole forest, the sprawling meadow, the stars still masked by sunlight. The grasses, trees and great earth still hold out their welcome, inviting you into the ordinary magic that is our shared home. So I want to share a folk story that was turned into a Zen kawan, and the story is called,

2:22at least in the Zen tradition, Secho and her soul are separated. It's told as a love story, but it's more than that. So in the tale, Secho falls in love with her childhood friend, her childhood companion. They grew up together, they did everything together, they spent a lot of time outside, playing in the creek, collecting frogs and fireflies. But as she got older, her father betrothed her to someone else, and both her and her childhood companion were so distraught by this, that her friend decided he had to leave, they had to leave the village. And so they kind of conjured up a plan, and the night before she was supposed to get married to this other person,

3:30she snuck away with her childhood friend, and they sailed down the river, left their village. Years passed, they started a life together, they had children, they had to figure out work. And as they're living this whole life together with their family, say suddenly longs to go back home, to see her parents and the village that they had left behind. So they decide to do this as a family. They sail back up the river, and her husband gets out of the boat first and say stays back with the children, and he knocks on her father's door and he tells them the whole story. Like we left many, many years ago, we're okay, we have a family, you have grandchildren,

4:32and the whole time he's talking, says father is quite confused. And he's like I don't know who you're talking about, what daughter of mine are you talking about? It's like the night you left, my daughter say, say Cho, she got ill, and she is sleeping in this bed over here. She hasn't awoken since you left. After he says that, say comes into the room, the say who has gotten married and has a family, and the say that is in the bed gets up, and they become one, they merge back together. And as I'm co-on of this, a teacher says, say Cho and her soul are separated. Which one is the true say? Which one is the true one?

5:33I share this story because it's a story about coming home. This is a story about many things. It's a story about remembering who we are, coming back to ourselves. Though oftentimes in a sushine, I find especially in this particular sushine, the grass is in tree sushine, but in practice in general, it can feel like a homecoming. And sometimes we articulate it like, oh wait, I remember how I could, for hours, just watch the flowers blow in the wind. That was just something I knew how to do. Or I remember dreaming of what it was like to be a butterfly, and then walking around as if I could fly.

6:41Or I remember looking up at the canopy of the forest in amazement, like it was a temple. Or I remember going for walks and stopping to greet each flower, fern, leaf, and twig learning their names, introducing myself. I remember witnessing the night sky, or the clouds parting. So many people have reported this kind of remembering, maybe not those exact things, but just a remembering of, oh, I know how to be in the natural world. I know how to listen with my eyes, I know how to listen with my heart, I know how to talk to trees. This is something I used to do all the time. So there is that aspect for a lot of people of coming back home to the natural world, to this innocence and curiosity that we had as children.

7:51So maybe you didn't grow up with a deep, familiar, familiarity to the natural world, but still practice can feel like a homecoming. Like we come back and touch with that more child's innocent part of us that was curious, that was creative, imaginative. That could feel joy for no reason, just the joy of being alive. So this is often something that we touch at some point in practice, this kind of homecoming, and there are many homecomings, there are many homecomings in practice. Another way it might be expressed is just like, oh, this is so natural, this way of being, this contentment, it is something I know.

8:53This is, it is something I remember. So in the folktale that I shared in the story, S.H.O. goes off following her love, adulting, taking up the responsibility, the commitment of marriage and raising children, probably finding some kind of work, or husband found some kind of work. And in that flow of adulting, of taking on responsibility, of following a passion, a vow, a dream, there's much learning, there's growth, there can be great joy. And it also can awaken the, like, striving parts of ourselves, oh, I need to, I need to do this, this and this, I need to get this, this is what I'm supposed to do.

9:53And at some point in S.H.O. story, she, maybe we would say she realizes that something's missing, or she has this deep longing to return home. To return to that self that got left behind. So hers is a literal returning, because this is a fairy tale, we get, we get a literal returning. And ours here maybe is both. Like there's a literal returning for some of you to the practice of Zazen, or to Sashin after many years or decades. But also a returning to our home, the great earth, the sleeping outside, maybe you never did that before. This is a great place to start sleeping outside. So both returning to practice, returning to the practice of Sashin, even, you know, for folks who are residents, like the returning to Sashin month after month can feel like a homecoming.

11:02Oh yeah, I'm coming back to this aspect of my life, this aspect of practice, that is so hard to talk about. So few people understand so much of it, we can't really share in words with others, but it's important to us. We come back, we come back. You know, those who don't live here, but come to Sashin, very, very, very regularly, same, right? It's like, oh, I'm compelled to come back to this practice, to the inquiry, to Zazen, to the heart-mind. Which is really a coming back to our natural state, which were never, ever, ever since we were born separate from.

12:02But we forget, like, Sacho forgot, perhaps, in the story. The mind of receptive awareness. The mind that is interconnected with all beings. Not, you know, that's foundational, like, that's what practice is all about, is that kind of coming home, coming back to what is always here. And we get on these little detours even in Sashin all the time during Sashin, forgetting, forgetting that we're here, forgetting that we're practicing, forgetting the vowel temporarily. And then we come back. We remember, we find the breath, the relaxation of the exhale.

13:08We see a flower bobbing in the wind and remember, oh, yeah, I'm right here, this is my life. So, actually, the Buddha in the Buddha's story, the Buddha also has a remembering. In the Buddha's story of awakening, this is one of my favorite stories about the Buddha's life, he has this recollection from childhood. And he has it while he's in the midst of pretty ardent striving practice. He's practicing as an ascetic, and he's doing a lot of different techniques, and they involve a lot of willpower, a lot of forcing, a lot of striving, which we maybe all can relate to on some level at some aspect or time during our practice. And this childhood memory bubbles up, seemingly out of nowhere as memories do.

14:12And he remembers, like, oh, there's another way. I used to know something, I've forgotten. I'll tell the Buddha's story soon, but I just want to emphasize that that, like sometimes we do have specific memories from childhood that we remember as we're practicing. So, if some people have shared, they have specific memories of being outside, and just remembering, like I said in the beginning, how natural it was to pay attention to play, to be curious about the natural world. And sometimes we have specific memories that rise up about, like, natural inclinations that we had to the spiritual life, which isn't that different than, like, remembering watching flowers blowing in the winds.

15:16I think as children, and we're all different kinds of children, and it's been interesting just to hear different people share memories over the years that I've been practicing, of practice inclinations as children, because some people have memories of more meditative states, of just being absorbed in something. And a lot of times in the natural world, but it can be other places. Other people have memories of inquiry that was alive in them, from very young, a kind of questioning. What children ask questions, but some people remember, like, I was asking people what happens when we die? Where do we go? Nobody can answer, and it was so frustrating, and I just kept asking, because it was really important to me. And then at some point, maybe you stopped, or you felt like I'm not allowed to ask that, and it just makes the grownups feel uncomfortable.

16:16Or sometimes we have, or people remember, like, curiosity games that they used to play, that was really playing with perception or awareness, or their understanding of time. I remember, I grew up in a place where you could see the night sky, I was very fortunate to have a house that was set in the woods with a pretty dark sky. And I would lie on my bath a lot of the times in the summer, in the fireflies where I lived, but I would watch the stars, and then I got interested in the space between the stars. It was really compelling to my child wonder mind, to just imagine, like, how deep is space? And something really cool would happen, so I think this is part of why I kept doing it. I was like, look at this space, and then the stars seem to move, and I would just keep looking at this space.

17:22Another person told me he received his first meditation instructions from his older brother, and his brother was about 10 years older than him, and he was about seven when his brother started taking him hunting. But this, he didn't, the seven year old didn't hunt, but he would go with his brother, and his brother was very kind and mature, and would tell him, okay, you can come with me, but this is what we're going to do. You're going to practice being really, really, really still and quiet, and if you do, the animals will come out, and you'll be able to see them. And then when we're done, you can tell me which animals you saw, and he said he would do that, and then they would come right up to him, these squirrels and chipmunks, and he would just practice being so still. And then later, when he learned meditation, like, two decades later, he was like, oh, I've always done this. I learned this when my brother took me hunting.

18:30That's also a teaching that chosen would sometimes give during grasses and trees, so she and she would say, when you're in the forest, or when you're sitting in the meadow, sit so still and withdraw your human consciousness, as if you were a tree or a rock, so that the wild animals aren't afraid of you. Maybe they'll come over to you. I know some people have already had experiences like this. Yeah. That's amazing. So here's what the Buddha remembers. So again, he's practicing these very intense practices where he's like withholding the breath, and he's using the might of mind to try to suppress thought, and it's not working, he's wearing himself out, and his condition is just getting worse. His mind is getting more agitated, more agitated.

19:39And then he says, it occurred to me. I recall sitting in the cool shade of a black plum tree, while my father was off working in the fields, and the grain in the fields was blowing in the wind. And I sat secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unskilledful qualities, and I entered and remained in the first jhana, which has rapture and bliss, born from seclusion, while placing the mind and keeping it connected. So sometimes the language in the polycanon is a little clunky, but what he remembers is he remembers the words secluded is just like being withdrawn from chasing after sensual pleasures.

20:39So he's not sitting there watching the grain blowing in the wind, and thinking about the bath he's going to take later, or the entertainment that is happening at the palace where he lives. And he's just absorbed in the movement of the grain, and enters the first absorption, the first jhana, so he enters concentration, it's very basic concentration where his mind is connected, and just stays. And he says it's blissful, there was a rapture, there was joy, there was pleasure, and he asks, could that be the path to awakening, that just simple absorption of watching the grain blowing in the wind, sitting under the cool shade of a black plum tree?

21:43And stemming from that memory in the present moment, as he's recalling, came the understanding that is the path to awakening, that is the path to awakening. So those memories that you have as a child of just simply being absorbed are those moments that we've had during this sushine of just simply being absorbed in the sound of the wind, in the texture of the tree bark, in the flowers, the pink, or the yellow, that could be the path, that is the path to awakening, as he says, that is the path to awakening. And then he asks himself, am I, why am I afraid of that pleasure?

22:49Why am I afraid of that pleasure, for it has nothing to do with sensual pleasures or unskilled qualities? So he's recognizing that that ease, that pleasure, or happiness, sometimes it's translated as happiness. I think in English all of these words are loaded, like pleasure is so loaded, we think about big pleasure, like what brings me pleasure, or happiness we think of like, oh, like joy, happy! But he's talking about, like, oh, I touched this just simple happiness, this simple pleasure of just being, being absorbed in exactly what's happening. Am I afraid of that? He's asking himself, why have I been turning away from that? Why have I been engaging in so much striving?

23:52And then he recognizes, I'm not afraid of that, I'm not afraid of that pleasure, this is the way to awakening. He, like, checks it out, okay, this is a pleasure that isn't induced by just a kind of craving for more, craving for more of something else outside myself, this is the pleasure that comes from meditation. And he'll go on throughout his life to talk about the importance of recognizing and cultivating the pleasure that comes from meditation, that is a support for our practice, that it is part of the path of awakening, the pleasure or the joy or the happiness we've been using the word contentment, maybe a little less loaded as more of a spiritual quality. But that's part of why we're, like, saying those words over and over again, because I think, just like the Buddha, 2500 years ago, we may too be afraid on some level of just letting ourselves feel pleasure, feel the ease of meditation, feel the joy of just being here.

25:11And there may be a lot of reasons for that, can feel unsafe. But I think of, like, that home coming back to ourselves is often back to a more innocent us. And a lot of times in our adult life, it just doesn't feel safe to be that innocent, to be that open, to let ourselves really linger in the pleasure of being having a body. So again, that's part of why we've been encouraging you to notice contentment, to notice ease, to notice pleasure or enjoyment, or how the body just naturally relaxes on the exhalation. And we say that in the beginning of Sashin, and you could check in your experience now, like, is that something you have access to?

26:21Can you find the pleasure of being, of sitting in your seat? And can you trust that pleasure, or that ease, or that contentment? Can you trust that this is the path of awakening? I personally find it encouraging that even the Buddha went off on his spiritual quest full of striving, and effort, and determination, and forgot about this natural resource that we have. We've got about our fundamental well-being, and had to remember.

27:24It's something that is familiar, although it may feel foreign. It's like something that we deeply know, and yet it might be something that is so far out of how we normally think of ourselves and our experience, and even what practice is, right? I think just like the Buddha, a lot of us can approach spiritual practice with a lot of effort, a kind of wholeheartedness that doesn't let us quite relax. The same way maybe we approach other aspects of our lives. With this, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it hard, and I'm going to get the thing. And so it can be really challenging to a lot of habit energy, a lot of ways that we're used to approaching life, to hear a teaching like, oh, just recognize the contentment that's already here.

28:29Feel the ease in your body. So we may spend a lot of time with that question that the Buddha asked himself like, oh, am I afraid to do that? Can I trust this? Can I trust it for this breath? And just start to familiarize yourself with it. In the Tibetan tradition, the word for meditation translates as familiarizing. I really love that. One Tibetan teacher says, well, just get used to it. You just get used to this ease. Get used to this bliss that is your nature. That's what we're doing here. We're just getting used to our true nature. Getting used to the innocence that we have, that we are the openness.

29:37If we look, we find teachings about contentment within this tradition as well. It's not just about striving and determination. Dogen Zenji says, Zen is not meditation practice. It is simply the dharma gate of joyful ease. Another early John Zen teacher says, Zen is becoming seasoned in the way of ease. I like both meanings of seasoned. So this is something we can be curious about. It's not like, oh, now we have a new goal. Let's make pleasure happen. The Buddha is pointing to the ease, the pleasure, the joy that comes from meditation, that comes from the stability of attention, from a heart connected.

30:51Ease that is outside of the purview of liking and disliking. So even if the mind is like, I like this, I dislike this. Is there an ease that's outside of that? That's inside you. That's right here. Even if the mind is spinning on something else. Even if there's discomfort in the body. So as Sashin deepens and we immerse more fully in meditation, we have the opportunity to really notice for ourselves. This quality that we may just habitually overlook is their contentment. Where do you experience it? How do you experience it? Is there ease? Is there joy or happiness?

31:52That's not because you're indulging in some sensual fantasy, but it's just right here in the direct experience of breathing, hearing. It's not about being a polyanna, being happy all the time. It's knowing this fundamental well-being as your deep inner resource, that we all have, that we can wake up to. That's more fundamental than the fickleness of thought. We can truly come to have confidence in this fundamental well-being. I read from Da Hong Sunim and she talked about the pillar. Sometimes it feels like a pillar of well-being. It's un-immovable, it's unshakable.

33:00That's the arc of practice. We start to familiarize ourselves with the ease, the fundamental well-being of our nature. Then it becomes something that we have access to, anytime, anywhere, no matter what. It doesn't mean that difficult states won't arise. We're human beings. We are of the nature to have ill health. We are of the nature to get old. We are of the nature to get injured. But that fundamental well-being is unshakable. It isn't dependent on the conditions of the body. It isn't dependent on the thoughts that are happening in the mind. It's more fundamental than that. It's more true. Like thoughts, they can never be quite true, because we can always think the opposite.

34:06So this is beyond the level of thought or before the level of thought. It's more fundamental. We knew it before we could think. I want to talk about another aspect of pleasure or joy that we can touch and embody and cultivate during practice, during Sashin. And that's the joy of the bodhisattva vow. The delight of bodhicitta, which is the aspiration of the heart to awaken. The aspiration of the heart that all beings awaken.

35:08Sometimes maybe we don't have access to the pleasure of meditation or the contentment, but we can connect to our aspiration for awakening. And it can be so joyful, so pleasurable to remember this aspiration. To remember why we're here. Even if you would articulate it differently than the bodhisattva vows, something brought you to Sashin. Something brought you here, something brings you back to practice. And I often find when I ask people what was your intention for Sashin or why are you here, that it is connected in some way to compassion for self or other.

36:08And so you can check that out. Remember your aspiration. What brought you here? And sometimes that evolves even as we sit after our day, after day. Find it often simplifies. bodhicitta reminds us that we are connected to all beings. It also reminds us that our practice is an offering. And it's not so much about getting what we want. It's actually not about that at all. But it's that orientation of the heart, that orientation of compassion, me and you, us together, all beings.

37:13It's that love that drives us. And we might not always be feeling like big love, big compassion, but just to stay in touch with or to recollect or come back to your aspiration. And what's one thing that is so beautiful about practicing in community is when we forget our feel uncertain or start, of course the mind goes into like, why am I here, why am I doing this? It's not working, it's hard. And then we see somebody else embodying the aspiration and it inspires us. We're uplifted for a moment perhaps. That's a beautiful thing about practicing in community and that's a beautiful thing about practicing in the natural world. That sometimes who's embodying the aspiration is the noble fur or the butterfly or the cosmos, the field of cosmos.

38:21A bodhi chitna reminds us that we're connected to all beings in mysterious ways and that the effects of our practice are mysterious. Like we can't know them. So there's a kind of faith there. Doge and Zenji has this line that comes back to me all the time during Sashin. He says, this is from his fascicle on continuous practice, Gyoji. Because of this practice, there are the sun, the moon, and the stars. Because of this practice, there are the great earth and the open sky. And he says, this practice isn't necessarily something that we can understand or is understood by most people. Because of this practice, there are the sun, the moon, and the stars.

39:21It's a real voicing of the mystery of interconnection, the mystery of bodhi chitna. Yeah, perhaps your practice right now is allowing the sun to rise or keep rising. Well lastly, another theme that we've been exploring during this Sashin is the teachings of the insensiate. So I want to come back to Dungshan's simple poem, how magnificent he says, how magnificent, how wondrous, inconceivable, insensiant beings speak the Dharma. The ears never hear it, only the eyes do.

40:24So we have had the invitation to sit with beings from the natural world and receive their Dharma transmission, to hear with our eyes, to see with our ears, to listen from the heart or the whole body, and to open to their teachings. And many of you have had very precious encounters with a being from the natural world or beings from the natural world. I want to unpack a little in an experiential way for perspectives on listening, listening to the teachings of the insensiant. So we can work with the floor again, or you could put your eyes somewhere else, but we're going to sit with a being here, and then we can bring it outside.

41:47So let's start with the practice that I introduced a couple days ago. So letting yourself see the floor, and just opening the senses, listening with your eyes. Listening with your heart. Listening with your whole body.

42:47Another next kind of listening is to let yourself be seen by the floor. So it's like a figure ground reversal of awareness. Instead of you using your whole body to look at the floor or to listen, let the floor look back at you. Notice what happens as you do that.

43:59And then let it go of that practice. If you don't have to, it's something you could explore outside to sit with a being and then to just let yourself be seen by them or seeing each other together. And just notice what changes. The sphere comes up. And whatever comes up, be part of the field of the relationship. We can kind of shake that one out. And then the next invitation is to sit like you're a mirror and you're reflecting the floor.

45:05Or another way of saying that, that's a little more intimate, is letting yourself become the floor. Your body floor board. It does have that quality of just giving your body over to the floor, giving your mind over to the floor, seeing with the floor's eyes. And seeing out any ideas you have about yourself or I can't do this.

46:12And just being floor. One inquiry in this space that can be interesting is how does the floor relate to your thoughts? Or as the floor, how do you relate to your thoughts?

47:14And then you can let go of that one. And then the fourth one is to just let go of any notion of self and other. You're sitting, your eyes are resting on the floor. But you're letting go of the notion of, I am looking at the floor. The floor is looking at me. We are the same. Just let go of it all.

48:17And then you can let go of that one. And that's the last one. So you can shake that out. So the four perspectives of listening. Listening with the ears or listening with the eyes. Listening with the whole body as we've been doing. So that's the first one. The second is the figure ground reversal, letting yourself be seen by the other being.

49:19The third is sitting as them or mirroring them. And then the fourth is just emptying out any notion of self and other. And just seeing what it's like to engage in listening in those four different ways. It's in a way just different aspects of the facet of jewel of awareness, different ways that our awareness and perception interface. And we sometimes just have habitual ways that we see things even in practice. So this is a way of kind of shaking it up and seeing exploring different facets of intimacy, different notions of self and other of interdependence, of co-arising.

50:27So last thing I'll say before I close, we're going to be offering Sansa and again in the same way that we did yesterday. And Sansa is, just it emphasizes or it underscores the truth that this practice happens in relationship. And so we're sitting with Sangha in the circle, our human Sangha, we're sitting with the great earth. Sometimes we're sitting very intimately with a particular being in the forest or a leaf or a rock. And then Sansa and his opportunities sit with another human. And one of the great things about humans, maybe annoying things about humans, is they talk. So we can like get feedback about practice or ask a question.

51:27But also we can just meet in the intimacy of this deepening sashin. We can meet in this exploration in our hearts' aspiration and just see what happens. So you don't have to prepare anything if you don't have a question, that's fine. We can just sit together and see what co-arises in that space. 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 zendest.org. Your support supports the Zen Community of Oregon Podcast. Thank you for watching.