Give Up Hope

00:00
00:00
Audio loading...

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

Auto-Generated Transcript

a
introduce our speaker
sister

joy
he told me that i won the sweepstakes when i did jika the name sweet is so on various the address of clear waters and go
no
fans here
centers
twenty
make you feel alone with the fifth anyway
thank you

so i have a title for this i don't usually think in terms of titles for talks till afterwards if somebody comes and asks me what's the name should be
ah but it's give up hope

you know you can say let go
letgo is a good phrase to let go because it implies that you were holding onto something
and that's what give up hope is about
stopping holding onto something
stopping hoping for something better or grasping after safety
in a way
hope is worse than useless
i think it often harm us it's and you could say
it's included in the definition of the first noble truth
life is suffering is one translation i'm not a big fan of that one life is dis ease
and we want ease we search for ease we grasp after ease ali want to be permanent
i joke and i say i'm not gonna die well probably that's not true
you know but i hope
and i kept myself hoping
i want a
safe permanent stand alone
self i want my teacher to be perfect
this is pretty much ancient history
i forgot i forgot it is perfect
so i don't have to hope

but he didn't use to be now yes
and then you mean i think this is a common thing and i got called on it and i had to work it through
so now when it comes up i can let it go much more easily but i there are two common thing that we want our teachers to be totally one hundred percent one hundred and ten per cent safe
before we can open up to them
well that's the realistic
you know but we want we want our teachers to be the good mother or the good dad
we hope for safety
elaboration of course is in hopelessness in giving up
that grasping after safety
and it's not always i started say it's not always easy i avoid saying always anything but maybe i can say it's never easy sometimes it's not as hard as others
and giving up for exempt giving up that one
took a lot of work luckily i had a good analyst
and then when it would come up again later it was easier to give it up because i had done it before and i could recognize the signs of projecting onto sojourn roshi that he be my perfect good daddy
i said once that i wanted sometimes when it that was strong as like i wanted him to just sort of put me in his pocket and carry me around
and i seem to recall or by sad that saying me too sometimes
it was so long ago that i don't know if you remember that
but i felt so good because of oh i'm not the only one of course i'm not the only one
yeah
so hopelessness give up hope
because i think that you know when we're hoping for something
grasping after it
you know it's not that you can't wish yourself well i wish somebody well
but this kind of hope
is a problem
joko beck used to say give up hope give up hope
and the good thing about that phrases that it gets your attention
one are the good things about it
because if i say let go you say right okay
give up hope you're taken aback
i'm taken aback and i want us to be taken aback
because that impulse after
safety and after certainty is very strong and i don't know that we give it up unless there's some
something that kind of shakes us up and turns us i i was thinking about this because i was looking again at this a payment children's book when things fall apart which i commend to you if you're not familiar with it to get this is an old book it's actually available i think it's available
in a little pocket edition you could carry it around and remind yourself how to practice when it's called hard advice for difficult times
and
she says there
a hopelessness arises out of
i don't know she is quite this phrase but giving up out of
turning towards the dharma and looking deeply add
yourself looking deeply at your experience looking deeply at you're grasping after serpent certainty and causing yourself to suffer
and finally finally getting tired of it
and just giving up hope
just saying
you don't have is not a a brain event unfortunately but in some sent your body saying i give i give i don't know
and that is our practice
i say unfortunately because not always so pleasant she says when you feel like a piece of shit
let oh i am i know that
but to look at it must they lived and smell it and saw it and it reminded me is ago
when is
i was at tassajara
and i really had this sense
that i was carrying around a sack of shit and it was right here in front of my belly
and i realized i didn't want to let it go i didn't want to set it down
because it was warm and it was protecting my belly
he know that part of that place where we feel
vulnerable or open
it was protecting my belly and it was mine
and i realize i really did not want to set it down even if this a sack of shit
that was one of those
realizations that was a body event and in the process of realizing that owning it completely i did set it down
not forever
but it was an experience of that a real visceral experience of just how much i was holding on to my self
and i let it go
there was another
the experience that was
more of a struggle i guess the other may have been a struggle and i wasn't aware of struggling until ice i really saw it and let it go but i don't think those things have been out of nowhere but at a rate of years ago i sat for three days with gioco back down in san diego
ago
and
she advises people during session you don't if don't blow your nose if you're crying just let it go
so i was and you're sitting on the floor at a sort of a signed contract house with wall-to-wall carpeting and so you're sitting on the floor almost need a knee with somebody else and i was sitting beside a woman who was i guess she was crying and they didn't turn and look but all day long she was sort of sniffling and snuffling
and i sat there and i thought i can't stand this is really disgusting
why doesn't she blow her nose you know i didn't know that they had that instruction but i would have thought that anyway
why is she do what is this and also beating up on myself saying i should be kinder i should have more compassion i shouldn't let this bother me i shouldn't this that the other thing and that went on all day
and then it was dinnertime and they have that go for dinner they did like a buffet you get some food and then you go back to your place and sit down and eat and it's all in silence and i sat down and i was starting to eat and the thought arose
i don't have compassionate mind i have irritated mind and with that i let it go
and let it go
and i think that that's an example and experience of just giving up
i just gave up
and i think that is our practice and it's not always easy and i tried i was up here for associate not why after that and something happened and i was irritated and i thought okay i don't have compassionate mind i have irritated mind and i just continue
good having irritated mind because you can't legislate that you can't just say i don't have this i know that are you know i can maybe acres and i want compassionate mine and some little voice would have said well whoop de do with
cause you have to look at the sack of shit you have to be with it until you get sick of it i'm so sorry
i'm so sorry but that's i think that's that's my experience every so often there's moment of grace maybe it comes out of nowhere i don't think so
but at any rate that's experience of it
but mostly you have to really be with it as she says that premises turn towards the dharma
and it's the dreaded patients practice i think it's driven i'm not a patient person many of you know this
so sitting still with the hopefulness and the grasping
and the trying
one of my models is trying doesn't work but sitting still for that and watching it and watching it over and over and over again
it's patients practice
you know we talk about patients often in terms of you know sitting still for
oh slings and arrows
a fortune or there's touched to worries about buddha various
wise men was yeah you know i think it's was when and you can have it
you having their arms cut off on their legs cut off and whatever and then and just saying and i don't hate you
okay
a patient's practice is also just sitting still with what is
like it or not
turning towards the dharma over and over and over again saying i would i want to be with what is and with what is is not pleasant i wanna be with that too
and you'll find that eventually i think it
my experiences that eventually it becomes kind of an adventure and it's not so bad because it's really it's interesting
what is this what is this what's underneath it
what am i afraid of

i am i just got sort of cracked open last night and i was debating if i wanted to talk about it or not night
i will talk about it cause i need to not because i want to
many of you know that my sister died in january after
ah as far as a winner was seventeen day illness
never figured out what it was
anna
she had had alzheimer's and i was her primary caregiver and
it was really hard
and losing a sibling i have no idea no idea some of you have lost siblings so you probably know it's like losing a piece of your flesh because nobody is closer than that in terms of dna
which doesn't mean that it it isn't about a comparison but i just i didn't know that i knew that i would be devastated when she died i also knew i'd be relieved but ah i didn't know what a big deal it would be
and i've been grieving and i've had a lot of support and so on
and it was a and it will continue i'm sure i was it was a lightening your arrival it wasn't crying a lot or anything like that and i would think about it sometimes that i wasn't so torn by it
and then ah
i went to a grief support group
and just i think just that process it wasn't the greatest experience of my life but but just that process last night oliver all of a sudden i found my itself first feeling the how angry i am at her about various ancient tangled karma and then also that but then
just cracked open sobbing him about how much i miss her and how much i loved her and what a good time we often head towards the end she was a painter and she would we look at the trees and she would look at the sky and the color on the bay and so on
and and helped me see it more i mean i've always liked those things but she helped me really see it and now and i see the clouds piling up i think of her
and
i was trying to trying i was trying to think about this dharma talk and having a hard time
getting it to kind of come together they usually do i do i do this in vallejo just about every edges a lot
and often i'm thinking about it and then on friday afternoon i will write down some notes and then sleep on it and then saturday morning it'll
magically all come together well it didn't
it just wasn't coming together and
and i woke up this morning and i thought you know it just gonna have to take your own advice and just let it be whatever it is
and and be open about it so that's what i'm doing i'm telling you that
it's sir
it's not easy for me to be with this and
iowa
i don't have this makes sense i'm happy to be with it it's nice to remember that i loved her
i love her
it hurts right my heart hurts
but that's okay
that's i think that this is an example of what went to pama set about turning towards the dharma this is my dharma right now
no i don't expect i'm going back to what it was like a month after she died
but right now my heart hurts
and i think that's a fruit of our practice
we get better
that's that's the word i can use we get better at being willing to just be there
we get better at being willing to be hopeless
we get better at not trying to get somewhere else or to legislate the kind of you know i'm going to be compassionate well good for you you know i think you get compassionate by noticing what happens when you're not
and getting to what she says in getting to the point of giving up
she says that hope and fear two sides of the same coin
because the hope comes out of fear
the big one of courses fear of dying but i'd sit fear of no self fear of impermanence
and so we we engage in grasping after something or another distraction or whatever and then she says hopelessness and confidence are two sides of a different coin because when we give up hope when we stop
trying to get something or to get away from something
well we stopped believing that there's something better or easier or safer
then our confidence can grow
when we experience that we can survive it
just being present with the sack of shit
our confidence growth
and we develop the patience to be able to bear whatever it is

so that's how it is here how is it out there
what's your experience of these things
no no
my family i
i said
long ago finally gave out

whoa
it took a but i said either
in fact more
my point my question is did you know recognize that this was gone

me when i when i realized that i was carrying around a sack of shit iz out to him well i put it down i put a damper lots of topics you know it's not like those things for me i mean it's in my bones i have the experience but i didn't i
i don't believe in those in the people say they have their enlightened and they have this huge experience of lighten lightening and bells and whistles and i don't know what all
i don't know but i don't think that it changes their are then people say it changed everything forever but i know a lot of zen masters that man beside from sojourn roshi who is perfect i don't know any that are perfect
it it doesn't make them not zen masters i think that these the people i haven't mind our but or and they're also human beings and so we we set it down and it it it there's some process of of opening the is that in opening the hand of thought there's some process
yes that happens and so we allow it to happen and you can have you can have an enlightenment experience i'm not saying that we don't
but you if you grasp after it you just torture yourself that way i had an opening experience and i had to sit with that for another i don't know how long it take out to say two months i don't read of long time ago but i sat here here and i tortured myself i kept trying to get
back to it and i knew that that was stupid
but it isn't always easy to let ago i wanted it back at one time at tassajara for i don't know how like glanced at it i don't know say a month i don't know anyway zazen was a joy and it was just every period was just like flipping a pages
and i wanted to go in the zendo
it was wonderful
but event exchanged
and there wasn't the case anymore
and now i have periods like that sometimes but it's never been like that again and i have a certain nostalgia for it but i think i've finally i did let go of grasping after it
so i don't exactly know how to answer your question i don't know if that answers it and it wasn't such a
simple thing in home say but that giving up hope in relation to family is a really useful thing to do and then and then you're open to other possibilities
one two three
linda although i'm sorry
terry yes

absolutely scary

hmm
i think it is scary i think it takes it takes courage because i mean that's the base rate that's the first novel that's the noble truths and that we're we're grasping after you know it's ignorance a grasping after permanence and the dis ease is that we know
no it's no good on our bones but words just terrified of
ah settling into the deceased settling into the impermanence and it is very frightening
and that's one of the reasons i think we sit together least for me
yes

it is hard it's very hard and
lf
there's a twelve-step slogan make your best effort and let go of the result
i think that's i think that's it rebecca asked me years ago i know we were walking towards the community room and she said and we were at we were talking about social justice work kind of that kind of work and she said do you think
do you think we'll ever get there do you think we'll ever really succeed and i said no but we have to try anyway
and i think that's true
i think and maybe things will change in this country soon maybe maybe not
but when we're when we're attached to an outcome that that's fun we cause ourselves and others suffering i think you just have to do it
at least you have to and i have dude an array of other people have to but middle a lot lot of people have to
and it isn't as everything at one point here you can wish well you can have uk know uchiyama says you should have a direction but not a goal
and a however you want to think of that but you know that it's not that you don't
do bodhisattva activity but bodhisattvas do it without attachment and i'm not i can't do that
but i can look at my attachment you know and and a look at the suffering i caused myself and others cassava i can look at my anger
and my hatred of donald trump and and
notice how much suffering i cause myself and others and have with the how corrosive the bitterness is someone is on
but it is hard
and that's why we do a ticket
so i've been
practice hopelessness
for talk that
about
does on a piano
oh
think about it
doors
and one of them is wishlist
i want to know what is
i feel like
sort of keep my mind around
but i still have faith
well i think faith is maybe a com as surgeon says sometimes it is yet another word for confidence or confidence is another word for faith that we find the courage
to look deeply
without grasping after and it's it's hard to whether you know the story from the lotus sutra about the prodigal son and he know he loses track of who he isn't wearing his and self any winds a wandering home and is dead season and send some
retainers to bring him home and he breaks out and and the debts has just leave fallen into the village and find out where lives and then invites him to come back and work in the grounds of the palace and and he's given work shoveling shit and he works and he does pretty
well and and and his dad works beside him sometimes never tells them who is and then it gets better work and better clothing and paid a little more and eventually he winds up the mayor domo of the whole event right and his dad takes them into the treasure room and says and now you can believe
this because you couldn't have believed it before but now you can believe this you are my son and this is all yours and i think of that of course he's talking about buddha nature or whatever is not talking about lapis lazuli but ah but i think of that as the sun was
exercising his faith muscle
and then he could eventually believe that he was a bodhisattva
and that's so that's the relationship that the faith
is what supports us to do the work
does that make sense
also
he was exercising his awesome
he was also
that's right that's right
that's right that's right
let's see one two and then we probably need to stop it because it's of she's not out
the strikers oh okay yes

they're different the their the the kind of hopelessness i'm talking about as the kind where we
turn towards the dharma we give up trying to make it into something else and just say okay okay i will
be here
i will
feel what i feel
express what i express and open
sojourn said to me years ago i said something about feeling vulnerable and he said you know that's interesting it ah when you say vulnerable it has the implication of an attack and i'm i'm vulnerable to attack whereas open
it's just open and it's scary
and it's not about being depressed as a matter of fact i think just the opposite when you when you have experiences of opening and letting go of the grasping

absolutely
which
taking here
i'd be surprised if anybody thought i meant that but if they did i'm glad you asked and it's it's not a bad point to make ah
it's not what i'm talking about and i use i like the word i like those kinds of words because they as i said before it gets your attention if i say you should let go you just say yeah it's like translating that beginning of the hsin hsin ming the great way is not difficult
called ah as long as you're not attached to your choices
okay but when you said the great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences
people here that the first time go and they laughed as they know that they have nothing but preferences you know so that i believe in saying save all beings because it gets it just gives you a little chalk and superset
anyway to yeah

him

well sometimes
we make too much of a thing of it we we rely it if you'll pardon that word be concretize it
whether you know that we say another twelve step thing as i went from i am a mistake to i made a mistake
and then you make amends
and you go on if you can make him and he can't always what does it except one it would harm myself or others or something like that ah
and you bear the pain first you let it hurt
but then you move on it's not useful
if not useful to you or anybody to stay there
cause we all make mistakes
except for surgeon
he had ever going to be allowed to forget that you know
okay okay i mean you know it's just he was telling somebody just recently that i were talking about learning how to be a dull on or a cookie or something and you build your learning you make mistakes and it drives me nuts train people and they get they make such a big deal of it
and i say you mr bell and the i'm so sorry for god's sake you know and years ago at green gulch my first practice period they made me new go on and they were doing the makkah hanya well we were chanting the hearts after an english year that in my experience i had not set up sushi near
yet anyway
ah that they put me on in and i i am missed a bell and then we're going to lunch and i was walking behind blanche hartman and and the ino and i i caught up with a minister it's a i'm so sorry i missed this that bill i'm so sorry and they kind of looking said okay
and i realized that i was you know and that's not but the kind of pain you're talking about it is bigger but but the and i realized that i was making a huge big thing of it
and it it was about me
anyway i hope that's useful yes

oh

you could say that yes

yeah he's giving up hope verifies hope
i think that's i mean i think that that's another way of saying well have been saying that it makes it into a call on which is useful
all right