Everything is Broken

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the morning
it's the first saturday of the summer a hand it feels like summer has fully descended really quickly was hot out there just now ah that's quite wonderful ah
so this morning
part of my mind is still back on what we were discussing during session last week ah and in the
i gave a talk last saturday some of you were me here and it was a in the question and answer
ah someone spoke to
ha
his perception of life as a jigsaw puzzle if i'm remembering correctly life as the jigsaw puzzle and feeling himself to be a piece said he couldn't find a place of he couldn't place
that piece in the just jigsaw puzzle is it is a fairly accurate yeah
so i'm thinking about that a lot ah
hand
you know that's really is a very immediate expression of the first novel truths
truth is the the the truth of suffering
ah we caught suffering dukkha is the word in in poly
ah and it has a kind of envelope of meeting we tend to translated is suffering but suffering is not have
doesn't on the one hand cover at all and doesn't have
doesn't account for maybe the subtler states of mind or different states of mind so sometimes it can be translated as
discomfort sometimes as a kind of on ease or dis ease
and i think that the the sense of oneself as a
a piece of the puzzle that doesn't fit is a really good expression of it's personalized it's fresh enough ah duca
ah and of course
that's the first noble truth the second noble truth is the truth of the cause of suffering
and often that is it is subs is ascribed to ah
cleaning
who desire
ha it's
you could also express it in a relatively simple vernacular way as ha
a lot of are suffering is
wanting things to be different from how they are at this very moment
hum
and the third noble truths is ah that there is an end to suffering
ah that that is part of the buddhist vision that one can end one suffering
ah and the fourth noble truth is the path to the end of suffering and it's a path it's a whole life path embedded in the dharma and embedded in ah
ah
in ethics
in meditation and in wisdom various aspects of that which include how we speak to each other in includes the work that we do it includes the
our commitment to ah two thousand
ah and the awakening that we experience ah
that's a moment by moment awakening
all of us have moments of this
and as you practice longer than
there's the the ground of your practice widens and strengthens hair and ah you can look at things
you know in an awake way as you go through your life you can find those things you can you are awakenings can happen more quickly and usually their awakenings to have to one's own
ah afflictions you know that something makes me angry you know in times past perhaps i will kind of let it sit there and i kind of to on it and let it bubble and boil and ah
by that point
you know it was fully cooked and then i had to serve it up
you know but if you
if you apply
your mind and your practice to it then
you can see it arising much more quickly and you have some element of choice about how you want to respond
so
nonetheless speaking to this condition of being ah a misshapen puzzle piece perhaps
the verse that i go back to from ah
i go back to verse from our ancestor dogan sandri and is in a text that we study a lot general call on the corner the realization realization with in everyday life waking up within
our everyday life hand is this this is a one of my
yeah
one of the core things that i remind myself about ah
and he says when dharma fills your body and mind
you realize that something is missing
you know when when you have when you really understand the nature of reality
you realize that you are a misshapen puzzle piece and you can't find the police to fit exactly and so dogan entered their when dharma fills your your whole body and mind you realize that something is missing ah and if i had to put a sort of
comentario
capping
phrase or clause on that i would say dharma fills your whole body and mind you realize that something is missing in that's just fine
ah
you know because
if there was nothing missing
there be no way to change
and you'd be locked down in who you are which has nothing to do with the buddha dharma and the buddha's teachings
and still
we understand when somebody says they feel like a misfit
we understand that we understand the pain that they're experiencing ah and we understand that
ah
our human
yearning for completion
and yet the buddha even in his last words
ha his the last words that he spoke before he passed away ah
are essentially
ah
he was telling his students said ha
all
all compounded things or condition things are subject to decay
all condition things fall apart
and then he says i i urge you
ah to practice with care
i think it's sometimes it's seek your salvation which i don't think those words are not they're not in the
to seek your salvation with diligence but care
it is interesting ah had even in this trend even in this translation ah there's an ambiguity about in english about the preposition with
ah you know so it's practice
with care
meeting on one hand using care which is also you could translate that is mindfulness paying careful attention to what arises within us
ha
and also somehow the with it's like
practice
accompanying
care going side by side with care did you see the distinction i'm making it's like it's like care is their care is is already moving through the world and we can align ourselves with it
and that's i think that's where the the buddha was encouraging is
his disciples to practice but he reminded them
that all compounded things fall apart
say you can't stop that it is incomplete
when we talk about you realize something is missing as dobbins says what's missing
permanence
what's also missing is some some essence or soul or core that the i can point to his a that is alan
i i haven't found it yet
ah and so
we see all these things fall apart
and this is the condition of our life and our world this is what actually
none of the subject matter of all the talk drinks sushi that that sojourn wrote she gave and that in africa hurt you so helen gave and myself also that ah
we see friends and loved ones becoming old we see ourselves becoming old and losing a capacities and abilities that we previously relied upon
we see
once that we'd love once that we respect pass away
and we see so much loss and chaos
in the world and large
ah
there's so much
brokenness
that is just it sometimes it feels that it wants to just
roll over us like a great wave
we see sometimes that our plans don't work out
and we worry for ourselves for those we love and for the world
william butler yeats wrote about this sooner
the aftermath of world war one which was
just do were so much
really stupid unnecessary slaughter and deaths you know armies slogging it out face to face for like two or three years
passing
yards of gain territory
back and forth for no purpose at all
and leaving those nations
be raft after that war and we have seen other wars we've had experienced this ourselves
so in his ninety nineteen palm a second coming
yates ah
some lines he writes turning and turning in the widening gyre
the falcon cannot hear the falconer
things fall apart the center cannot hold
mere anarchy
is loosed upon the world
the guy or a gyre
chair yeah i'm that means kind of spiral ah so turning and turning in a widening spiral ah the falcon
which is ourselves we can't hear
the falconer whether that's
god or buddha or
our just losing the grip on our sense of what is right and hole in the world we we lose that
the things fall apart the center cannot hold
and we've seen we are seeing
ah mere anarchy
loosed upon the world and i would have to agree with
with something that
zojirushi she said last week it's always been that way
it's always been that way and
yet the fact that it has always been the way that way does not somehow
alleviate the stain
of our present circumstance
but you have to say that the center cannot hold
because there isn't a center
so long as we're looking for the center
we're in a
a kind of vain effort to pin things down
and there's only causes and conditions
an elements that are
coming together and falling apart
coming together can fall in our part so our lives
and the nature of of things that we mean we rely on their solidity even though really ultimately they're not solid but it's it's like ah
can see ourselves like a stock of bamboo
that bamboo is really strong
and flexible
and if you peel away layer after layer
in the middle it's empty
there's nothing there
ah and yet in it's coming together of causes and conditions it ah
it has a great streets
and
i think this is the condition
of zazen for us this is how we train ourselves ah
in a sense you could say it is
ah
being hopeless
ah it's also
you could describe it as just as being
open
that is actually the condition and fundamental instruction for how we work with our mind in zazen is to be open and receptive to everything and let it flow through
and it also means
recognizing
tokens a proposition
that's something is missing
recognizing not knowing recognizing that we don't know
we don't have a sense of certainty about things
except we do see this endless pattern of falling apart and coming together and falling apart and so the whole of existence
ah
i was thinking about today as that
it's like a
holographic three dimensional
ah jigsaw puzzle
yeah so it's really really complicated
and sometimes the pieces fit
hence sometimes they don't
ha and it's a puzzle that is always what dog and called
total dynamic activity
always moving
so you can see it as is great infinite ball
a buddha nature that is constantly
vibrant and full of light
and generating
new configurations new shapes every moment and that shape contains everything including
us and the pieces we think don't fit
so when i was thinking about this yesterday another image came to mind or another phrase came to mind
that i confess i don't
i haven't studied you know my my background my breath tradition was judaism
and i had a very dysfunctional jewish education and i left really quickly as soon as i actually completed my bar mitzvah harm
so i feel like i i missed
wonderful and important teachings
and i know people in recent years have been ah studying the kabbalah i think so continue study you are studying that before you came to send a cigarette

yeah
so there's a phrase that
those kind of circulated by the the sixteenth century rabbi isaac luria ah and you probably heard it there's a lot of controversy about this raise a on tikkun olam have you to know this
so
ah
there's no as with all theology there's incredible arguments back and forth about doesn't mean this doesn't mean that it doesn't mean social justice it doesn't mean social justice it's it's translated sometimes is translated as repairing the world
so i'm gonna read you little this is from mar
a piece by yeah
contemporary jewish writer howard schwartz
from his book tree of souls
at the beginning of time god's presence filled the universe
when god decided to bring this world into being to make room for creation he first drew in his breath
contracting himself
and from that contraction darkness was created
and when god said let there be light the light that came forth into being filled the darkness and ten holy vessels
came into existence each filled with this primordial light
in this way godsend for those ten vessels like a fleet of ships each carrying its cargo of light had they all arrived intact
the world would have been perfect
but the vessels were too fragile to contain such a powerful like
and so they broke open
and
split into
an infinite number of shards ah and all the holy sparks were scattered like sand like seeds like stars
and those sparks fell everywhere
it says that is why we were created to gather the sparks no matter where the are hidden
and when enough holy sparks have been gathered the broken vessels will be restored and tikkun olam the repair of the world a waited so long will finally be complete
therefore it should be the aim of everyone to raise these sparks from wherever they are imprisoned
and to elevate them
by the power of their soul
now this isn't exactly ballistic
but there's so much resonance in this to me and i think that this arm
when when it is therefore to be the aim of everyone to raise these sparks from wherever they improve or imprisoned this is
essentially the body bodhisattva vow
which has vowed that we will chant the end of this
talk
and i also see this
ah the universe
filled with
these shards of broken vessels and the and the the existing
infinitely generative light
has another way of looking at
the universe that that we contemplated contemplate from a buddhist perspective
so
we have this complicated and
not always
well it's we have this complicated uncomfortable an infinite reality to sit with and to live with
the beauty of this jigsaw puzzle is immense
it's also true that the places where the jagged edges do not meet up
those are places where
people beings the environment
experienced pain
and not the one hand you could say
in any given moment at any given from any given dharma position if you will
things are just as they are
in in some uncomfortable way
perfect
and on the other hand
we have
we have a responsibility to repair the world to hear the work to heal the world
ah
my teacher showed a hurghada
ha
you know he's so one side of said he's his rinzai ah
mungkin so he's always pushing in the direction of cut him through cut cut
cut through to enlightenment we don't talk about it so much here but it's not really so different but he pushes
so that's one vector of our practice is like
ah
aligning ourselves as what is infinite
the other vector how their perspective of our practice is from the point of view
have recognizing that we are buddha
then serving all other beaks
those two to me are inseparable
perspectives
so you could say looking from earth to heaven and looking from heaven to earth
one without the other is not complete
so we recognize ourselves as this
puzzle which all the pieces don't fit
momentarily
they might
but they won't stay that way
and we won't stay that way because the things that we
that we are that we love
go away and that's just the way it is and that's fine
mean i feel fine
but
i think by definition idiots
so i think that's all i wanted to say i you know i think in terms of song a lot ah and i don't want to make it a shtick but for a cover song for you if that's okay and then we can we have some time for discussion

so this is a bob dylan song

setting i think this from his album or mercy which was his christian period
it's called everything is broken
so you can see why my mind led to the song right

broken lines broken strains broken threads broken springs broken idols broken heads people sleep in broken beds a no use javon a no use joke in
everything is broken
broken bottles broken plates broken switches and broken gates broken dishes both in parts the streets of fill with broken hearts broken word never meant to be spoke
can
everything is broken seems like every time you stop and turn around something nails just hits the ground broken cutters broken saws broken buckles and broken laws broken bodies was broken bones
it's broken voices unbroken phones take a deep breath and you feel like a joke in
everything is broken

oh

every time you leave and go off some place where things fall to pieces in my face broken hands on broken clouds broken treaties broken their house broken pipes broke and tools people bending
in broken rules hound dog howling bullfrog croaked game
here we think is broke in
everything is broken
well it's all cracked up
everything is broken

so we have a few minutes left we can talk about what's broken and what isn't what fits and what doesn't
the for open give thoughts yeah so

yeah

right
yeah

everything is not finished but i really think that to say you have everything you need right now
means you and everybody have everything they need right now that's a really difficult thought it's not like everything you need to do something
it's it's everything you need right now
but then there's now
and there's now
and fortunately
you could say nothing is missing
ah
because there's never nothing there's always something
you know so nothing is missing

yes

right that's true and you know i'm just putting a to being devil's advocate here the thing is that you can't fix all the broken things
ha it just that's why that's the the conundrum of the bodhisattva vows are like that beings are numberless okay their numbers i've had to save them while wait a second there's a built-in contradiction ah
delusions are inexhaustible i vowed to end them you know it's like we are willing we willingly engage with the infinite
we you know psycho okay and we also need to be prepared we prepare were prepared to fall short we're prepared to fail
ha and we keep trying because that's ah
you know we have to that's why the buddha is his exhortation is ah
to practice diligently or to practice with care yeah he was that exhortation was been given i think mostly to the our hearts who theoretically had already
finish their business so why did they need to do something you know and he was a don't stop
for the sake of all life
yeah

i saw
what does it
oh yeah i heard of it them here yeah
says spare

well again i think that from the standpoint of this talk i was talking about it kind of radical hopelessness
which is not
not colored by despair we usually think hopelessness leads to despair ah and
ah i think that what i'm saying hopelessness is just ah reflecting
the open receptive awareness of zazen
ah but then
when we step into the world
we necessarily have intentions and hopes and disappointment but we're conditioned we begin to be shaped by the fact that we realize there's another way
that we can touch to encounter the world
as me
valuable

i think that the point of the practices include everything where the method of the practices include everything so it's not too you could say
in other modes of practice
ah
kind of the in-state is to yeah to purify your mind means to kind of read your mind of a thoughts or desires and a method of
most of my on a buddhism and certainly our approach to then is to include everything you know it's not not to hold your mind in some position but actually to open your mind to whatever comes and that includes hope
and also the fundamental motivation ah
our fundamental drive i think as
and perhaps as buddhas
buddha always turn if somebody was addressing him
he always turned to that person
he put his attention to that person so that's a manifestation of love of connection ah
and so ah that is
that's a value if you will
yeah thank you
yeah

yeah that's
racism really falls apart
this practice
graham homelessness arrests
is
not want
nothing to it
and the
was desire
desire if it
after better
let it be
contend that rises
an attack was something
yeah yeah throughout my life never ever
a further is always loved you should have some discontent about it can be elusive yes me or did the yeah yeah that's right and sort a fine
fine
i mean if we've been our culture is all about happiness you know even dinner
our founding documents pursuit of happiness irritated that but many don't have a method
no time it is everything that falls into my ball is why
what is it sounds you know what you're starting a practice that sounds awful renunciation all this sounds awful but when but practice makes it arrives
the naturally arises it isn't anything to try with he was magic practice
the turn around go on well the sunrise so hopelessness is a beautiful beautiful state it really gets me right now i have a because there's things that i to accomplish this will save my life a
bracket that compartmentalizing they i had to work on this stuff right now that it's being worked on with a foundation of content
it's yeah yeah that thank you that's really helpful it reminds me for some reason i'm thinking of a a talk that was given here by ah
disha warner her teacher in sonoma county
and she was speaking of her teacher huh
towson akiyama roshi who is a japanese teacher who taught in i think an anchorage alaska for while it's all right ah and he described his he called himself hopeless on
ha and is
his expression what one thing that did he was articulating was basically this other than perspective we have of one continuous mistake it's like i'm hopeless i just make one stupid mistake after another and i accept that in myself
yeah my mean
sounds the same question
the is broken

yeah
and also it is funny he said he sat the line
yes yes i mean i think if i had to think and i'm really wary of sort of cross cultural and cross religious ah you know theories but i think that
our responsibility
what we're gathering the light
we gather the light can our own mind and life so that we can imported and share it to others that's the motivation for you know it it's only
for the benefit of another others
search and you have any comment a thought well i'd love to come into play
how did you run
the are things don't worry
yeah
do
stay with the fundamental
a place in shape
the
you
the central take an issue will always know said
no doesn't mean you know yesterday
you can
yeah the know
nothing
that's pretty good
maybe one more a jose
when you to say
it sounds like there's a point in time
is there a point it's always it's always because ah has what sojourn was pointing at we're
from our perspective were coming from we are we are there is one this of which we are an expression ah hand so there's a sense in which we are there's nothing broken
and how can we be
like water or air
and and actually what i would say is that
the practice that we're doing cannot be broken
that cannot be broken that's why was it was given to us and passed on ah has not something external to ourselves but
it's whole
an unbroken and that's where so fortunate
to be able to
have a glimpse of that in our lives because a lot of people don't see the a lot of people
get are caught in their sense of brokenness
have i i think there's
there really is something else is another way to live
so was stop there