Composure: The Third Paramita

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Saturday Lecture

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no number
lawyer let me just come when i was talking dog
many restaurants
and this is this poem is that is that it's a friend of hers
john and ten freshmen
leaving comments on come up
that's good
how a red phone
i get up and go to the bathroom then i eat cornflakes and go to work
i am going there in my car and when i get there i try to get more money
i need more money
when i get in my car and go home for dinner then i get in my car and go home for dinner but i have to get back and get more money i need more money

pretty interesting poem
kind of describes our
the life of her most people
ha
this is i buddha when described this as
the perfect description of being caught
in the world samsara
it
caught in the world and some site
hum
without composure
no place to rest no ah no place to settle
in this poem
there are place to settle but ah
the pilot doesn't
i'm point that out

the palm gathers momentum
actually starts out quite simply
i get up
but ends with i need more money
i am keeps gathering momentum
ha and ends ah in this
more and more frantically quickly turning wheel
and then stopped
where does it go
where can it where can i would be taken from there
ha
but the poem starts out very well i get up this is on
in time buddhism you know i get up
is the first act in every day
and we need to find complete composure in that first act of i get up
i guess this morning seriously and
i got up
like a rag and i got up and since i got up i heard this pop
and then it's like a waterfall in my bathroom
ah and i opened the bathroom door and there was a waterfall
mj yosemite falls between a jacket is so thick that i couldn't even see really couldn't even see through the bathroom
and as it was there no pipes in the in the attic no water pipes the attic where can it be coming from
so i looked out the window even i knew it wasn't raining
the water was already missed deep and get in the back and forth and then it was coming into the bedroom
so on
we started rushing around trying to find out what to do and then i ran downstairs and apparent bathroom and ran downstairs and trying to find the the water turned off
and i that and my hands and knees looking for it all the bushes that overgrown of
shut off them with so many guns as time i waited to be so wrong came out me somebody my hands and knees
university she said
generally that
he came out in and found the damsel we ran back upstairs and it was still coming out
so i just walk into the bathroom into the waterfall and ah
they're connecting to internet walked a lot of your toilet him just popped up the pressure pump it up
so i turned them off
but that was the way i woke up this much emissions
when it was smeared on laughing
bill said that he could hear him laughing and zinda she wasn't as and only here to laugh and you can pick on
can you interested of the
that ordinarily you have
should
patrick has been recently down below was awakened by the water commissioner if they hinder
some chinese to his fish catch
he looked at the
are you this is an egg and go to the bathroom
you never know what you're going to champion
sorry
ah gundy said that when he went to the bathroom and breast when he went to the to brush his teeth in the morning he spent maybe twenty minutes brushing his teeth ah and he'd learned pity he made a great effort to just be
ashes teeth
when he
in in india although i haven't been there
they sell these little sticks and understand
twigs and every morning out and and by a little twig and you should brush your teeth of the pressure tutor
i knew a am i met a indian singer
from not as his name and i was touring the united states and done he had a whole bag or suitcase full of these twigs
is that when
ha
so our gandhi you know is to spend twenty minutes procedures to with this
twin
and he was he remained a great point of the fact that he was just brushing his teeth his whole life was involved in brushing his teeth and that time
and then when he was through brushing his teeth he returned to the next activity
instead of first part of his com because pretty well i get up wonderful and go to the bathroom and brush my teeth for twenty minutes
if you're gandhi and then i eat cornflakes
rate just eat it
and go to work
but that's where the division takes place
getting up going to the bathroom and eating cornflakes are really concentrated activities
you know wonderfully concentrated activities but then i go to work it's all lumped together in one line and go to work is all them together in one line it's like a kind of
a bag of stuff
when it doesn't it's not very well defined ah
and i think as our day begins
can we get into our activities are kinds of
elements come into our life and we have a lot of
difficult and sorting these elements out and try taking up these elements and in for and using these elements rather we start being used by these elements because it's such an overwhelming
force
i go to work and go to one
thousands of small activities involved in his one act
i gotta work
ah but
it all becomes a
i cannot
mishmash
then i am going there in my car
that's good
and when i get there and try to get my money
so little bit of clarity little bit of mindfulness i'm in my car
but then i try to get more money is ah
thrown in as
a reason
the main reason
and it keeps going on and on like that i go home for dinner with and i come back to make more money
i'm going home for dinners and interlude
put some are feeling nourished from acronym for money
we can kind of car you kim
the pursuit of our money
and money is very valuable we should pay great respect to money
i'm serious
ah without money we really wouldn't be able to manage our lives we wouldn't be able to interact with each other ah him and such a complex scale than we do we can barter because even though we want to everyone i was i in my twenties
we always thought about or many it would better it would be better if we just bartered you know we traded things that are
instead of using money then it doesn't work
can't do it you can do it on a small scale but we need to have this medium of exchange and when it works well
ha
we are
work well in it
but since his eyes somewhat out of balance
we find ourselves compensated
so
learning how to manage money learning how to take care of him and learning
what it means to us
what it means to our life
is very very important
suzuki roshi she used to criticize people
who shouted they had to give up their jobs or try to practice without any money
he said even if you go to the mountains
ah to
you'd still have to live on with money it takes money to go to the mountains
it takes money to ah
buy food in the mountains takes money to have a sleeping bag someone
so
he said we should pay great respect to money but we should know the place of money and ah
my life
the pursuit of money is kind of like the pursuit of happiness
happiness is not an object
your happiness is a result
but money is little more tangible
we
happy
so that's something and you know we can fix up happiness is always what we call have it is always a dream
can fantasy
a
what kind of ideal
so now you can't really grab it
we can daydream and we grab our dream but money is something it's green and it's paper in it
there was back and forty nine and as you watch it go back and forth and when it gets up
you have to pay the rent after by the former captain get gas and kind of divine council for all these things
but ah the great challenge in for us is
how to manage money so that it doesn't become the pursuit of our life
so that we're not constantly catching onto the tale of money tiger
paper tiger
how many times that
and the anti viruses
and it's pretty hard not to pretty hard to stay free of that
as
when we get a job
we're always looking for
some advancement
whit
settle into some work but then
you know i'm pretty said we want more
in
ha i remember when i used to work as
he then com building chance
he was really hard work i used to work as a house painter when i was my early twenties
and ah you weren't all day long eight hours a day when a half an hour for lunch and ah you work as fast and it's hard as you can
and all the love working just as fast and times you camp
and at some point i decided
that i went
find some kind of painting job that took when it was more skillful
but less pay
now to take a job that's more skillful and less pay is the opposite of the way you're supposed to go
in in society
what is post to do is to let go of something that pleases you are
creates some kind of
real word in order to make more money
so
get the when there's a decision or a tradeoff
you're supposed to let go of the skill in order to to
make more money
if you look at how the way things go i think you'll find that that's where the way to go
but i always went the other way
and i took jobs that were much more interesting but less money i rarely
ha an account of the rolls royce factory lives in the chronicle alma mater soda and it was an interview with the workers in the rolls-royce country now as we know that rolls-royce as the world's
most expensive car and the workmanship and the rolls royces ah
the best in the world and no rolls royce is exactly the same is another and each workman each
mechanic creates
certain part for the car and
each one is a little bit different
and it did everything is handmade pretty much handmade so the man that makes them
grills and the radiators there maybe ten and fifteen men that make girls radiators and each time each one is time to make one it's always different than a bit different and this there is pride themselves on their workmanship
but no one in a factory makes anywhere near as much money as someone saying the ford factory now
usual
production factory
ah and the interviewer was asking
matt one of the met men that makes radiators a why
he would you work for less money
he said well if you don't have satisfaction in your job then you have to be compensated for by money
huh so i think that holds pretty true
if we don't have satisfaction we have to have make up for it when money
this is all very general
you can always pick out instances where this is not doesn't hold true
that ah generally speaking i think it's seven
we make a tradeoff
sometimes your great satisfaction of matrimony
that's an all what great satisfaction in our work in optimum
sometimes were in a position where we have to support a lot of people like something
ill health symptoms
time but still
problem
is not to lose our composure in that situation
maybe you know you have to
i work two jobs day and night
because you you need money for something
but
it doesn't mean that you have to waste your life
yeah in
we're always looking for the ideal situation for our life
and because we don't get the ideal situation or life is full of dissatisfaction
have some composure
our patients
ha
how have you wanna call it
buddhist practice
here's how to enter that situation
hi i am fully become that situation
without
getting
chasing after him
when i wasn't getting caught
mantic getting com is actually very accurate
many are
for a buddhist monk know
practice of a buddhist monk says the path to cut all that desire
for a lay person
it's
because of circumstances
it's to take care of
family or
france on the situation that you're in charge in the most economical way
have economic or leading economy of means economic weakness by the economical applies to money but it also applies to how we ah
take care of our an activity
how to make things work
if you're a runner
you have to find the most economical
means
would wish to run which means
the economy of energy
using just the right amount of breath
the right kind of rhythm
i'm being mindful of being loose
napkins
and in zazen the same things apply
and we should be able to apply that kind of economy that we have enzymes him to our daily life
when we find ourselves caught in a situation and and that really binds us
we should
try to find out how to
you get out of that situation
to cut off the desire that's continuing
that situation
we say you know that i ah hell is created by ourself
ha but in buddhism it's also a place to chain
cafe
that's where i'm training takes place
that's interesting you know we don't see it in the same way as maybe somebody else
how people see em
make some big distinction between heaven and hell and as to different places
very buddhism and there's only one place and it's either heaven or hell
ah
actually it's not really even maybe
talk about it that way
ah
but what we call hell is
the if the place where we train
that's our opportunity for training
so when we're in a situation where do we do
and
composure
is
how we trained his training and composure our training in patients not waiting but how we settle into hell
without being destroyed by it
how we settled into heaven without being destroyed by it
ha
in the buddhist cosmology in the wheel there are many rounds in any world
henry ghosts fighting demons hell human beings animals free
ten
we find ourselves in one of these worlds or another at any given time
so
when we're in this world whichever were with him
we must find our composure in that place
how do we find composure in that place
come on
ha
how can we be free of that
how can we find our freedom within that place that's point
the old buddhists in them
indiana said don't ever get into that place
that's all well i'm going don't touch it
but unfortunately we find yourself in that place
we find ourselves in hell before we realize it and we find ourselves
and so fighting demon before we realize it
when you know we want to have some state of mind which is the state of mind
when the state of mind that we want to have
some some state of mind that takes care of everything we got enlightenment
sarah
enlightened state and nine which takes care of all situations
if it's called actually ah composure but it doesn't mean some facade
doesn't mean if a sudden how do you have how do we have composure in any situation
huh
hi this is actually the corn
that were faced with ah
over and over this is art
good example of dog in xinjiang skin joke on that's the com that we are
are constantly practicing with
how to find a complete freedom and composure
within every situation
state of mind
no is changing constantly
if we tried to grab some state of mind hold on some state of mind ah
we end up in hell that's called suffering
said boudicca the realm of suffering
trying to hold onto something wonderful
so within all of the changing constantly changing states of mind
and constantly changing states of been
how do we find our complete composure
have each moment within each situation
hi i think they've found
sometimes we don't realize ah
where our field of practice actually is

how the changing forms of our life
the each one of those changing forms for a moment to moment
is our field practice
and the cohen exists right there
so without trying to stop what you're doing well
sometimes it it will maybe i shouldn't be
working here and there i should be just practicing
but that's a mistake you know what everyone has to earn money
we'll have to learn how to take him with the i had to learn how to take care of our lives and take care of each other
when did the thinks about this poem that
i see isn't it
reflection of our society is the fact that we're all working for herself
what we're working for ourself in somebody but we're not all working for each other
friend of mine came back from china isn't make
and was so struck by the way in china people don't have money they don't have cars
and they all live in little
houses
six people to the room sometimes
i'm very crowded billion people
but
everyone is welfare
and most people have a pretty good
composure
ha and
everyone is working for everyone else
they don't think their problems and i'm not saying is the idealized state but ah
this kind of problem doesn't arise
how did not how we ever will get our society
often fit self centered
horse

but it's built into us
to assert our individuality as selfishness
can have built into our society
so
we isolate herself more and more
kim
devour more and more and feet each other stuff to the bar
and we'd give it one hand and take a dna
our society like this giving the one hand and taken with the other
huh so
hmm
i think it at some point you know we need our great revelation in our lives
he's when we realize that we don't need to have so much
we don't need to devours a much
and we can
actually turn our attention
tomorrow living
unless
and can get off that wheel
can find some satisfaction
when i find some our composure
i think also patients
is
in a deep sense is knowing what the right thing is to do and being able to do it and feeling good about it even in the face of
criticism
do you have any questions many
you said that one thing that we have to do is to see what our desires are team
when he said cut off desire to stop this desires
and my experiences that is it's usually pretty easy if you stop and look good of problems to see what your designer is that
when he desires a recurrent seemed to come up again and again
i wonder if you any helpful insights
well i didn't really stop and visit a good and good question because
even though we can see what's causing problem you know ah if we weren't it seemed we like a wine every every like checking it and then pretty soon
we create a habit of drinking and they're pretty silly before long we can't stop drinking
ah
so desire becomes an accelerated and expanded out of proportion and were drinking beer drinking and we don't want a drink
but so the compulsion is taken over and will to become carter enslaved by drinking the same goes for money or anything
ha and at some point we want to stop we see what's wrong we see the problem somebody will say well if you see the problem that has gone or if you see the problem just american relevant for that's not really some
because the problem has a life of its own so to speak
ha and
we set up an uncertain pattern and the pattern keeps perpetuating itself
i am
we're part with instead of controlling it will become part of it
we become part of the pen
so it's very hard to stop something
we have things like alcoholics anonymous smokers anonymous or whatever it is
mom
there's even a sex scenes anonymous
he can be controlled
am
there's not a a money thing times

the gambler gamblers there
but we don't see it we don't see a problem yet
so we don't have that kind of kill
i think it'll come eventually when we see at when we share problem
over
money an object
anonymous
when collecting
ah i people myself included have experienced a breaking up addiction
any company exhilaration and then a crash your navigator
and i'm wondering if it isn't because there's there's another side to the fiction which is why it feels up
mira you can't live with that everything's going wrong
accurate one something else
that from here's the problem was very good
craig you know that's like there's this big emptiness
and that's
we have to be able to live in that emptiness
otherwise something takes its place and then that's something you know
is better than nothing
but it's not as good as nothing
because it's another thing
and
want to be able to live in nothing for live with nothing
and find your composure and you set and satisfaction this is really

necessary step
and then from that nothing
ha
you can't start to move out
it's

that that's where the break comes actually it's like dying
you have to completely die
it's like smoking
if you stopped smoking
looking for something but you have to just die completely can never smoke again
and there's nothing that really substitutes for it
if you if you have another woman i remember when i used to start talking

in a year later
i don't have to smoke i'll smoke a cigarette and you know i know that it can i don't have to the them just my my idea but after i smoke that cigarette then i started smoking again
so i after the last time we stop is that i can never have another cigarette is no substitute
i just don't do it
and don't take the place i do
don't do it takes place of do do it's really simple
instead of i i'll do it i don't do it and don't do it is very satisfying don't do it has to be satisfying as didn't do it
so the satisfaction from instead of doing don't but if you know it doesn't always it's hard to break a habit hard to specially sentiments from a lifetime
our karma very strong karmic
fruit is karma is the action and the fruit is that a result result a camera which keeps perpetuating some very strong
and
and i think there's a myth about and to me about
it seem one of the desire is and then i it's like my mind says well there's a way than to make a clean place and i don't think that's true and and quotes true is
then it has a lot to do with non-attachment can i can get began to get it that there's always gonna be my mind is always going to be running out desires and compulsions and obsessions and the more i attach a obsession is attachment the more i attached to the problem until the things that i'm hearing my mind say
the more there is a problem and a desire and the less the more i let it just kind of run by me which is why sitting as some marvelous isn't that the less the problem becomes the such as iron becomes but even in the midst of the rest the reddest passion to punish be on fire with that and also the na
be attached to him and hundred bags composure yeah that's not the clean slate no man cometh of the koontz i know that
yes

has one just get us
just
a from from
a briefing about from the name of up with an attack and no no doubt no i shouldn't up completely up
no nothing no opposite
would for found family along know that there's there's actually i prefer to the tenth time
the as as as you get
older
how many areas you know after practicing for fifteen years than you can wait yeah and the early you can turn off your own way
and then get up
and i'm gonna kill you just get out you know just without a second thought
he got i answer that have
the ashdown networks is just before you go to sleep at night you say yourself to my mind when the alarm rings are not like lie in bed get up and somehow that
often carries it
as if you do that you can even don't even have the clock
you can set your own
climate
it's a firecracker for everyone around you know and you can train yourself to do that
can you change the possibly have a clear line will them be rational you're going to happen you can you can say no matter what i'm thinking about it
i'm gonna
no matter how confused by minders i get up
that's composure
when we think you know that we have to know our direction we have to know what we're doing some i don't
just happened
no enough to do what we were
with say we do
that really takes care of a lot of stuff
march i i heard in africa that only children used alarm clocks and adults can get on your own out a up to defend themselves when to get up of like max and about suggests and you know i suggest to my stuff this week
i gotta make auch alle effect
i have people when you grow up
the them
i think getting up kit you know there's no magic to it doesn't get a thing
because it just get treatment and ten thousand reasons not to get up every morning and just sometimes they went out that it's not there's no magic if no and mean everyone has a little tricks that perfectly snotty is it ticking i'm not find anything
now remember mill thing the same thing it was a big revelation after all these years who still like to sleep late
be some people are like them
you said about not working in germany working mothers happens
a society's fostering that society last
different attitude
would you say more on personal
the like how we go here
ah well
a zen center
insane
well that's the flickr as an ominous a monastic life is everybody working together
to support their life together so you don't get in a monastic situation
you actually have almost no what would we call personal life
which is doing something for yourself you just do something
the
since you're not making any money and
you're not collecting food for yourself you're really not doing anything for yourself
there's a collective mind
which
takes kit it's a small society itself the
everyone has their position within this one mind and ah
does whatever it is somebody cooks somebody
works on
the garage and kinds of does require a day breaks digging in the garden
sometimes so and so this is a kind of ideal community where every all activity is done for the benefit of the community and the benefit comes back to each individual
so and the satisfaction is in the doing the activity itself and also in knowing that the activities is
part of a larger network which is supporting everyone else
so it's kind of harmonious activity and and harmonious activity
his concept his faction but in a narrative you find lots of difficulties especially because you don't always do an interesting an interesting things but we would normally turn interesting things
ha
and that's part of the training instant what you do is not interesting in an ordinary sense that
you have to find the interest within yourself
but in your own
ability to act you know so it's not that you joy interest in to yourself that you're creating interest within yourself
where it's coming you know
so that whatever you do but when you actually learn how to do that you don't discriminate between interesting activities and uninteresting activities
everything becomes an equally important
and this is where we have our difficulty biggest difficulties we pick out things and was a these are the important thing in these events unimportant things and our life is geared toward these important to you are stumbling over the unimportant things and the way to the important than not realizing that the unimportant things are right there at our feet which are just as important
just as fulfilling
and so in our life together we
in this lake community
you know we all live in different places in are
have our lives in the world reaching into the world
but through our practice together
we hopefully
stimulate some kind of activity like that
when i read this poem the first lines i get up i go to the bathroom and conflict those are all wonderful activities
but they look like preliminary activities
then a preliminary their actual life itself
but they were our preliminary activities too
i need more money and many of our might have another and like if lost
just stumbling over the subtleties of our life
the subtle
a moment to moment
richmond for my life in all of our minute activities
huh send packages the opposite than focusing completely and the most mundane activity
when activity after the next not to walk in the dream not like that you're in a slow motion or something but to really take care of everything ma activity
we respect
and then
ah satisfaction
becomes
constant even though this difficulty even though there's confusion you can appreciate the confusion
can you can appreciate the difficulty and if you can appreciate the difficulty there's no difficulty
huh so instead of taking out the good part and throwing away the backyard
the include a whole lot of everything is included
somebody says i can't practice at home and there's no other place to practice
i can't practice at word there's no other place to practice
he was speaking part society
i got an application that be responsible to try to change say no because what i see the mind as i see that in our guides control it's going to happen to you tomorrow
but i wanted to i'm so cautious with my aunt will you know like i said i would see people to why are you doing that
you can't just say
no we were best thing is to fix yourself
the physician fixed myself
and from your example you'll change society
i've seen that happen know
i see gravitation to my commons
and i see a desire for ipad it just happened to me know you know i'm scared off my mouth and say something you know
but i see
yeah so for we need to work
have to do that with ourselves
you say
there's no other post practices
present situation
what then is the usefulness and ceremony insistence of master that when you there and that's your present situation
doesn't mean why
create that
i know that's what he meant
a militia if if practices was really more challenging isn't it getting in this up on android
what difficult
practice is challenging wherever you are
and we make various
situations we create various situations for various reasons
monastery is one situation
your family is one situation your work is one situation
ha
you know we can discriminate this is the monastery this your family and since you weren't
and we need to discriminate but we also need to not