The Blessings of Failure

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my talk today is couldn't be
broadly on ha
on the subject of failure
ha and we'll see where with it goes said
the line from mar
bob dylan song that comes to mind a love minus zero slash no limit ah
where he says she knows there's no success like failure and failures no success at all
ah and i think that
ah sort of your line with that is
the reality that
everything fails
and also that nothing will save you
no success like failure a failure is no success at all nothing will save you ah which
has its own ambiguity right it's ah
you could say
ah
you could say a thing will not save you
but nothing will save you
ah depends on what you consider nothing to be
and then i suppose a complete
depends on what you consider save to be and then what you consider you to be ah
and
and then we'll right
anyway i thought i would start off with a song and the song about the nature of mind which i think is is directly relevant to the subject at hand so maestro fuel and me the musical instrument
i'm actually left the but i played ready yeah
yeah
so is the song
ha ha that's the song that was written by guy named put hancock was a texas songwriter and he's one of these he's he grew up with this with this other texas singer songwriter friend of mine jimmy
yeah gilmore and their two thirds with joe healy of a
affiliation rather than a band called the flat landers they all come from lubbock texas and ah they were like many of us are in this room of a certain age grew up with the same literature and the same
music and the same drugs ah and the same kind of very eclectic searching ah mind so ah i don't know butch but but jimmy dale is a is a practicing buddhist ah and
i learned this from the senior jimmy dale so you have the course right
the

the
the
the same course by by god by the red zone
it me i walk and when i'd rather stare on it takes me out parties would i'd rather be alone yes my mine's got a bad sign
i've been doing things i thought i'd ever do
then get into trouble without really needing to i do soon settle down but i'm right back up again i feel just like and leave out in the winter
because my by god
dead zone
it takes me out walking when i'd rather than on takes me out at parties when i'd rather be alone by i got my the it sound
i seem to forget half the things i start
i try to build a house then i and plays hard
i freeze myself on fire that burned myself on eyes i can't count the one without counting twice
because by
that they had own
if text we are already working men i'd rather than on takes me at the parties but i'd rather be alone by i've got by the page
the
i tell myself to do the things i should
then i get to thinking those things a any good i tell myself the truth but i'm lying like a snake you can't walk on water at the bottom of the lake
well my god my zone
takes the yeah lock in when i'd rather stay at home takes me out parties when i'd rather be alone yes my plans god
oh my god my the song

so
to consider failure
ha
you know first of all there's my own sense of failure
and then there's also
the question of the failure of our society
and the so-called civilization that we have created
in each case ah i think there's there's an interesting question to ask which is
ah
hideaway how do we to maintain our practice
how do we maintain our commitment
how do we maintain our effort
in the face of continuous loss

the reality is that
everything will fail
our bodies will fail our minds will fail
our presidents will fail and so forth
what is how do we practice with that
so you know in my heart of hearts
ah
often i think of myself as a failure
and i know i'm not alone
in this self-perception whether it's accurate or not
ah and it persists quite
independent of
any so-called accomplishments or
or actual satisfactions that i might have in life their whole lot of these
although in some dark moments
they really don't
count for much
i imagine there's there are others have you in this room who
who know what i'm talking about
so
i can't really say whether
this sense of failure is
book isaiah a perception of a
an existential or cosmic reality
ha it also i think it's it's or to simultaneously a very a deep
psychological imprint or psychological wounds that ah relates to ah family
roots and patterns
ah i really can't say
i think that these two sources are
sort of inseparably intertwined
and it brings me back to some lines of dogan that i that i often returned to from ah so
i'm looking around i think almost everybody here in this room is knows who i'm referring to when i say dogan i'm talking about zen master dogan our thirteenth century ah so it was a teacher who's watching over my left shoulder
i'm
and whose teachings were relief
embodied and brought forward in hours and tradition and through suzuki roshi and through search roshi to to all of us marry in in this key writing of dogan saw game joke on which we
a study somewhat incessantly ah
there's these lines where he says when dormant does not fill your whole body and mind in other words when you don't really see
things as it is
ha when you're not really awake
when darwin doesn't feel your whole body and mind you think it is already sufficient ah you think you've got enough you've got enough understanding you awake enough and then this part is really
powerful to me he says when dorm of fills your body and mind you understand that something is missing
you understand that
there is a
an incomplete this
you understand that whatever you see as intact or hold will not
will not remain that way
that there's always something missing and there's various one could look at that in different ways
there's various things missing in know what i think what's fundamentally missing is a ah
a sense of permanence yeah ah this that this building that were in
that my life is permanent
ah that this thing i'm thinking or feeling is permanent and we recognize to a practice that it's it's impermanent it's in motion all the time
ah
you could also say the largest since that that everything is always every activity every yearning every ideal
is incomplete
one of my teachers have over the last twenty five years or
he have been close to
acm
of social activists such a philosopher
john which means teacher see lots of rocks or and if some years ago he pointed out that ah we can see many of our teachers as failures
ah
one can see that the dalai lama
despite decades of efforts has made very little progress in ah winning independence or sustainability for
the tibet and people that he loves and represents
martin luther king did not end racism in this country as we well know
tick not hon
did not succeed or has not succeeded him kind of freeing ah the vietnamese people from
the yoke of kind of bureaucratic communism
in honor on
our teachers in our heroes
ah
in the short run
they their actions are marked by failure
and they have which is not to rule out success as well but but they have to live with those failures they have to live with falling short
and yet in the long run
their patients in their persistence
ah in the continuity of their practice
irrespective of their of particular successes that continues to inspire us
and
helps us change

there's a
another ah
another expression of dogan sanji ah that suzuki roshi commenter on ha
dogan said hitting the mark
is the result of ninety nine failures
the last arrow hits the mark but only after ninety nine so superior said the last failure hits the mark but only after ninety nine failures so failure is actually okay which is encouraging ah
although it doesn't always work out that way you know and and the thing is we may not know
this fits into this wonderful wilma realm of not knowing we may not know what hit the mark
means or looks like
and you know we may not hit the mark
the mark mean i'll say we are not doing anything the mark may not be hid until after we've ah
after we've left the stage
you know wait we don't know
so i think that
in a way or training for this is ah
it doesn't itself or at least my practice of at which is exemplified by the song that i say yeah ah my mind as a mind of it's own i mean i sit down
i with an intention
and that's all very nice ah
i tend to sit upright and follow my bras inhaling and exhaling everything goes well for a few minutes
ah
yeah i must say that when i sit down every almost every time i sit down now ah sort of the
daily worries and cares
they subside
you know and then i noticed that i find myself thinking about the absence of these worries and cares
if here and i think ah
where did they go and then i think
when are they going to come back
hey i'm in some sense ah
you can say they're they're my friends you know but
ah
maybe i missed them i don't know
ha so
it wasn't gonna realize okay forgotten about my breath and my noble upright posture has fallen into a slump i really just the one was it the have
i think it was the period before breakfast you know it just like i kept
going to sleep you know and then waking up and think on waking up that's good isn't going to sleep insists if it again and again so this is another expression that described to dogan ah life is one continuous mistake
ah but actually the quotation itself as a mistake because it seems he never said that
the
and but he said something like it he said there is the principle of the way that we must make one mistake after another
so that's encouraging
it's encouraging to see that
zazen is bigger is beyond any kind of petty evaluation
that we may make so when dogan says
when dharma fills your body and mind you understand that something is missing
ah it may not be necessary but i like to think about the completion of that expression at least for me is ah say you realize that something is missing ah
and that's just fine
you know ah
this is
not knowing
as well
ha not knowing
but what missing why it's missing
and
this failure to know
is also what superior he spoke of as beginner's mind
it contains many possibilities
and
one can think in that respect one can think of
to failure if you will as
as an open doorway
as the gate to
other possibilities
suzuki roshi talks about
the nature of our practice in our training ah
he says
that everything is included within your mind is the essence of blind
so everything that's included
within your zazen which includes the intention
that we raise when we sit down
it includes the drifting away or failure to keep that intention it includes the returning it includes every seemingly extraneous thought and sensation
it caught on any of them
ah
anything that arises and that we come to be aware of
is actually zazen in
rather then
a distraction from zazen
so one includes that perception includes that moment
and
noticing it then i returned to my breath and posture
ha
so this is zazen also as mindfulness mindful being mindful of the
states that arise and being mindful also have my intention and returning so that this word ah in poly the word is sati can we translate his by for listen in sanskrit it's something like smirky
and that really translates as more literally as remembering
or recollecting
so i've talked about this before remembering putting all my members back together collecting them all ah
so
part of the practice they think is the moment that i fail if you will
or the moment that i fall away from what one might characterize as good meditation practice
i use that moment to help myself remember
to return
and then i slip away and distraction
again and again and i return endlessly returning
returning is the to me as the fundamental act of zazen
and so even ones failures and mistakes ah
one can really cherished them
because they provide the opportunity to return
and because
that very activity of mind and body reminds me that i'm alive
and if i'm alive than a have the opportunity to try again
so if i can include every mind moment
i'll accept things as it is
then there's no way to fail and meditation there's no judgement or evaluation that needs to be brought to bear
and of course this is one this is just one side right ah
the other side reminds me
then if i'm lazy
and if i make no effort to return
if i allow myself to drift and go to sleep
dream
then i'm just a million miles away this has nothing to do with the constancy an effort of practice
so this failure
so-called
and this active return in zazen
provides a teachable moment
that can apply not just a meditation but to
countless aspects of life
so if one sees failure
without judging
what can also see the
the kind of folly of trying to get somewhere
practice itself is our life
when we practice for the sake of practice
then actually we're allowing
the reality of change in impermanence
to take its proper place
which means that
we're aligning ourselves
with the true nature of things
aligning ourselves with big mind
and as we do that
whether we are so called successful or so called failures
is immaterial
when we align ourselves in that way we have we have constantly an opportunity to learn
and also
without any necessarily necessary intention
how we're an example for other people

there's another there other kinds of failure
one description i looked up talks about
catastrophic failure which is a physical rather than a mental event in the catastrophic failures as sudden and tongue total failure from which recovery is impossible
catastrophic failures often lead to cascading systems failure the term is most shows up most commonly used for structural failures failures but it's often been extended to many other disciplines in which total an irrevocable loss occurs and destructive encounters one might have with doubt and failure so
this would be like the failure of a
a building or a bridge or tunnel
it's something that is subject condition to conditions beyond
kind of it's engineered capacities
and it fails
and so in this moment
in the midst of our own practice our own meeting ourselves
we're also reckoning with
ah the potential failure of
our planetary ecosystems

that failure is not a failure of engineering
but of
human arrogance and folly and stupidity greed a delusion
when i was in occupier last month i think is environmentalist author built the police spoke
and i copied down something that he that he said he said we know where we are in the universe
through our understanding of natural history of geological and biological
and in spite of our self knowledge
we continue to destroy the universe of which we are part
although weird
i think although we are in this universe
in our perception we often make a fundamental mistake
we think that the universe
is
direct the organized for
our benefit
ha how we can use it however we want
and when it starts then when it starts to appear this is not the case which
ah which it doesn't we we we try to make it so
you know and what this looks like to me it's like really trying to ram the square peg of self
into the round hole of reality
in this inevitably
we will and are feeling
but
the blessing of failure for me
to take a long view
the long view of course you know
in the long view whether i succeed or fail in any particular aspiration ah and the long view i'll be dead
and i know but the rest of you
yeah ah
but also in the long view
i can't help but care
about the world and the people who come after me
and i don't know what their lives are like going to be like i don't know what the lives and my children or grandchildren or any of ours are going to be like but i feel some responsibility to that
i can't say whether that will fail or succeed
but i think that the
the teaching that we get from our practice is
to do something in the spirit of the unfolding of practice
can i think in trump's to the planet it's like to do something in terms of the unfolding of life

and i don't know what else there is to do
so i appreciate any
accomplishments or successes that we may have has individuals or as a species
ah
and i really tried to learn
learn the lessons of this failure there's there's teachings in it if i don't reject it
and to use those teachings and
return again and again
even if there's ninety nine thousand failures
within that there
it's not so cut and dry something's always hit the mark
to my own mind

this mysterious practice hits the mark
i'm quite
convinced that i since since i value life whether that's appropriate or not i'm also quite convinced that that i wouldn't be alive if it weren't for this practice
and so because his practices conducive of life
ah
i wish to share it
we're sharing it you know and i don't think come along and i'm like this is really preaching to the choir i think ah but
it's encouraging you to
to go out and share it as you can
to do your best to make mistakes
and believe in just
one continuous mistake that's our practice and to rejoice in that to actually enjoy it
it's like not so serious enjoy it so i think that's where we'll stop and leave time for thoughts or questions
cold
rifle that
that
refined this as you are with you
barbara
the
roses
there's nothing wrong with them
a correlated those two statements
the article to distinguish yeah
familiar
a feeling that there's something fundamentally wrong with you
yeah well i think that the feeling that there's something fundamentally wrong with with one is exactly what the buddha was talking about for the beginning
that's the nature of suffering that's exactly what dogan to say when dharma fills your body and mind you realize that something is incomplete it's not like you worried that it might be in a plea you know it's incomplete you know whether that wrong is a value judgement so
wrong is wrong
the wrong perspective to say something wrong but you know to realize that it's incomplete and i think that
the advantage that we have the disadvantage the vintage we have seventy a conscious mind my can reflect upon itself
the disadvantages that's the mind that thinks that there's something missing
huh why is that interprets the something missing has something wrong so that's the thing that the duca is the feeling that there's something wrong and this is this is the fundamental there's there's a there's a distinction
in
suddenly in the early buddhist
view which
the three marks of existence we we talk about right so ah
impermanence non-self and duca
that things are impermanent that there's no poor self that one can point to and that everything is marked by suffering which is contingent upon
impermanence and non-self you follow me
in quite a number of the mahayana teachings ah the third the third mark is rather than duca the third mark is it's impermanence non-self and nirvana
and to me
the shift is what is my attitude about impermanence and non-self
if i don't like it if it scares me if i aversion to it then i'm gonna think something's wrong and i'm going to suffer right if as i was saying that that my frame of the the dogan quote you realize that body that that something is
listen and that's just fine
then you flipped it you know and use it you say well improvement is yes that's that's okay that's the way things are and used if you really think about that how would it be if they weren't in per minute you know ah
that that could be a bigger problem he tell
so so i'm yeah i think that sense that something is wrong everybody i think we all have that existentially but we have that's exactly the tools that were being given by the dharma is to be able to reflect on that and
step away from it each time it each time it arises which is you know it rises a lot
dear john i thought it'd be caught my mind when you said what happens after we've left the stage
because it seems to meet it is the leading of the state that allows us to allows reality to take were not including
using whatever forcing you to be something we leave the stage and we don't have to interact with the i know that's not what you were say anything
that would we leave the stage something is missing and when we were filled with the dharma something is missing and we need the stage we actually have the effect is the say you allow the effects would be were making space for what happens next head who had who comes after us here
ah we just we just we just or would not even a matter of intention it's just like that's the nature of reality yeah
perry
someone told me
when it is playing
quit smoking cigarettes are those people who have quit and was number of times i was wrong
enjoy
a
color that as something that i've often thought clients which is that a plane that is headed from california to or is actually pointing at you or five percent of the right the rest is course well this is this was this was actually ah
description of zazen
you know that we think and circuit uses three right on the bark he said no it's it's kind of like an auto autopilot on on a plane you know it's like you've your office way
you comeback give your flow to the other side and actually hitting the mark as a matter of averages not a matter of precision right
yeah so that that's very encouraging i think
miriam fit put it he said with dharma he wrote your body i realize something is missing then seems the and visited before or anything but i feel your body and mind and inc your complete
well i think he was he was making a port he was given a teaching and i think that probably his teaching was
i suspect that the purpose was to
be a correction to the kind of practice that that said you can get it you get this like you can lock on the target and and accomplish it i think when he says if something was missing i really do think
daddy feels that's that's what we have to we have to understand if we can understand and accept that our life that there are things that are incomplete in our life then
then nothing's missing
ah but i think that that's why like this quotation is because it it messes with my thinking
ah so get down your body and my next year
the time
and you and a men of my life
i think what he's saying is that nobody's i think when you say that nobody stays there
ah i think that that nobody lives exactly in that in that place you realize and that that's but partly what's missing missing you cannot make that state of mind a permanent one that's our aspirates it our aspirations to live in accord with the dharma
and he's there what he's what he's doing in general guan
i think we're in kinda a particular but a lot of his teaching he's he's seen there's multiple angles from which to look at reality hand we should look at as many look at it from as many different angles has we can and that's that inquiry itself
is the life of the dharma
but that's that's my sentiment but you know as you think about it more let's let's talk about it
yeah so
the rapper
it seems like tendulkar effect
practicing
that so
our
built in the dharma you often now they have been practicing as
ah
fulfilling you have to live in the relevant world and trying to complete the moment
i've ever been practicing
my liability to stop and say okay now i can stop now i got it right then you're separating practice in the time
that i think that's right i'm mere amateur
yes i just would accept that maybe one more than we have to and soup and you say something about this talk in our upcoming practice period thank you so much
ah
then just say yeah no ah so we've we we have a practice period beginning on the twenty nights of of this month and
the sign up for the practice period to sign up for the opening session and sign up for sojourn wrote his class or on the bulletin board out there and our shoes so as could read mary doria ah
sean keogh josue jostle
hong qiang joseph joseph we chose you and what does that mean original home stables and
well that's pretty good so
she's gonna she's going to bring stability to our home ah and to her own and so this is an opportunity for people to make a commitment to to the practice here and i study together so surgeons class
he wanted to get something he didn't get a fuller description out but his class is gonna be on kind of the background of the bodies of the precepts
and then i think he wants to use he wants to something that's that's creative which is like for us to create our own precepts each one of us you know what are working from this tradition and seeing with some historical background and how the
precepts involved in the buddhist traditions to actually for us create once that that work for our own lives ah that are not necessary rules but just ways that we wish to live and will have an opportunity to share that with each other i'm i'm very clear
is to see how that ah that unfolds i think it's really interesting so please do sign up the bulletin board is has got to sign ups and i'll be around and variably around after a after this talk and be happy to talk to about it thank you to have a good day