So I want to speak today about non-attachment, the teaching of non-attachment, a very basic teaching in Buddhism, and actually somewhat subtle. So basic Buddhist teachings, the Four Noble Truths, the first is that the world is characterized by dukkha, which is usually often translated as suffering. It means also just dissatisfactoriness. Things are not as we wish they would be. And the etymology of it is that things is an axle of a cart or a carriage that's out of line. So things are a little out of line. Or if we look around in the world today, maybe very out of line. And there is lots of suffering. So this is the starting point of Buddhism, that there is this problem in our lives and in the world.

[01:02]

The second noble truth, which is what I want to talk about today, is the cause of that suffering. First of all, that there is a cause, that it's not just random, that we have violence and wars and environmental damage and so forth. There's a cause for it. The cause in Buddhism is described often as desire, but I would say more fully it's attachment to objects of desire and grasping based on that. So that's what I want to talk about today, how this attachment works and what the practice of non-attachment is. I hope we'll have some time for discussion. And just to say the third noble truth is that there's an end to this suffering. There's an end to attachment and grasping and causing of suffering. The fourth noble truth is the eightfold path, things like right speech, right meditation, right view, right livelihood.

[02:06]

So there is a path, there is a way to put this into practice. But non-attachment is this very fundamental Buddhist idea and practice. We have attachments based on our attractions and aversions. Based on things we like, we want to get grasped, we feel attached to those. Based on things we feel some aversion to, also can be attached to trying to get rid of that. So what is this practice of non-attachment that in some ways is really basic to our practice, Buddhist and Zen practice? So one way of practicing, and this is more the practice in earlier Buddhism, but also

[03:08]

we can see it as part of our practice too, is just not to get rid of desires, to get rid of aversions, to not want to get things. And there are practices one can do to at least lessen one's desires. So this is about contentment, not seeking, not trying to grasp, not trying to grab things, outside or inside. not acting on our desires. So one way is to try and be content with what we have and not want more things. But also, I would say that attraction and aversion is part of an electromagnetic reality. We live in a world where there are things we like or things we dislike. Some people like vanilla, some people like chocolate, some people like both. Some people like neither, anyway. Whatever it is that you have attachments to or aversions to, that's part of reality.

[04:18]

So non-attachment would be not to be caught up in those things. And this is a practice we can actually do. So this is not a practice, as I say often, and can't say often enough, this is not a practice for super-beings for super-enlightened masters or Buddhas. This is about how we live as human beings. So this non-attachment is basically that part of non-attachment is to see what we are attached to. Dogen talks of the founder of Soto Zen in the 13th century, who I often refer to and will quote later also. He talks about studying Buddhist practice and meditation as studying the self. So part of non-attachment is to see what it is that you actually are attached to.

[05:19]

What's important to you? What are the things you want? What are the things you want to get rid of, outside or inside? So just to study your non-attachment, desires and aversions is part of non-attachment. This practice is not about avoiding our lives. This practice is not an escape. So some people hear about meditation and think about stress reduction and finding peace of mind as a way of escape from their lives, an escape from the world. But please don't run away from yourself. Be with yourself as you are, which means including desires, aversions. The question is how do you respond to those? So non-attachment is not the same as indifference or not caring.

[06:23]

This is very tricky and it's actually a a big problem traditionally in Zen teaching, spoken of by many Zen masters through history. Non-attachment doesn't mean not caring. It doesn't mean indifference. It doesn't mean being kind of a blank slate. Non-attachment is an active practice. How do we not act on our attachments in a way that creates harm? in a way that creates grasping, in a way that harms oneself or others. In some ways this is very simple, and yet actually carrying this out is a lifelong practice. This practice is not something that, oh, we figure it out and understand it and then we're finished, or we have some dramatic experience of non-attachment and then we're all done, we're all Buddhas.

[07:29]

Well, we're all Buddhas from the beginning and in some ways in this practice, and we all have this capacity, this availability of what we call sometimes Buddha nature, this quality of openness and caring and kindness. So it's not about getting something, and yet it's about, maybe it's a little bit about letting go of something. Nonattachment does have to do with letting go. Not needing to act on our desires or aversions. So in some ways, this is a very passionate practice. Compassion means passion together with. So you are all here, even if you're here for the first time, because in some way you care about the quality of your awareness, the quality of your life, the situation of this world and of the people around you.

[08:33]

So the great teacher of emptiness in the third century, lived in northern India and is considered, he's in our lineage too when we chant the Zen lineage, we say in Japanese, Nagya Harajuna Daisho. Nagarjuna is his name in Sanskrit, and he's the master of emptiness teaching. And he is very careful to, and he talks about, I think, 18 different kinds of emptiness at one point, but also he talks about the emptiness of emptiness. Emptiness or non-attachment is not something that we can get. So we hear these words and we think, oh, gee, if I could just find non-attachment, or if I could just find emptiness, or enlightenment, or, you know, all these, you know, it's very natural, you may have come here initially, you know, because you heard these words, and you thought, oh, gee, Zen, okay, I'll do that, and I'll become enlightened, I'll become, you know, I'll understand emptiness, I'll gain non-attachment.

[09:36]

So part of talking about non-attachment is that Nagarjuna said the most dangerous attachment, really dangerous, is the attachment to non-attachment. So before I say anything more about the danger of attachment to non-attachment, I want to say a little more about non-attachment. This sense of not being caught up in some idea, some program, some drive in our bodies and minds based on the things that we want. It's okay that you have things that you want, and they may be very good things. You might look at, well, what is it that I want? Do I want to have control over some person or persons? Or maybe you want good things. You want to be a good person. You want to help people in your life or in the world.

[10:45]

All of these are kinds of desires, and they can become attachments. So non-attachment is to see these clearly again. Non-attachment involves, again, contentment. It involves gratitude for the things that we do have. And maybe appreciation for when we think of the things that we don't like, maybe appreciation that it could be worse. Sometimes it doesn't seem like it, but how do we actually appreciate our life? This is part of non-attachment. How do we not need lots of new stuff? This is difficult in our consumerist society, because we're being bombarded with advertisements. You know, TV commercials, but even more subtly, oh, you should get this, you should get that. I heard this term actually a while ago.

[11:51]

Technogree? What is it, Kevin? When people need to have the newest and, you know, there's all these wonderful devices and fancy cell phones and iPads and iPhones. I don't know. Anyway, you know. And we can get caught up in, oh, gee, that's so cool. I want that toy, you know. So that's okay to have those toys. So non-attachment doesn't mean to get rid of all your worldly possessions. But how do we appreciate what we have and not act based on some feeling of needing more and more and more? So this non-attachment is very important, but also, If we make that into a thing, it can be very dangerous. So, you know, it's harder to do that living in the city and, you know, the kind of sangha and practice we have here. It's easier to get caught up in attachment to non-attachment if you're up in, you know, some beautiful mountain monastery or some place like that where you're doing lots of meditation.

[13:02]

And that can be, it's possible to get blissed out and, you know, realize how wonderful it is to just be present and upright and alive and being able to breathe. And you may not need anything and feel really great about that and get really attached to that non-attachment. It's possible. So what is this non-attachment to non-attachment? Again, partly it's just realizing that which you do want, or that which you don't like. And seeing that, but not acting out of impulse or reactivity. Actually becoming intimate, familiar with what it is you do want. What it is you don't like.

[14:02]

Know your attachments, see your attachments. see the attachments you have, and non-attachment is, oh yeah, I do like vanilla, but I don't need to get all the vanilla ice cream in Chicago from me. Or there's other versions of that. How do we be willing to be the person you are? with attractions and aversions, knowing what you don't like, knowing what you do like, seeing how that arises in all of our experience, and then not act on it. That's really not attachment. It's not like you have to get rid of... So I might see that I'm really obsessed with vanilla ice cream, and then I might decide to get rid of all the vanilla ice cream in Chicago so I wouldn't be tempted.

[15:03]

You know, that would be another example of attachment to non-attachment. We do things like that. We actually, you know, think we have to, you know, carry out this war of non-attachment. So, how can we be willing to be present as the person we are, but actually not cause suffering based on that, not react to our attachments. So I'm going to read just this. It's a short one of Dogen's dharma hall discourses from his extensive record. And this is a pretty short one, but it's about this. He says, to sit, cutting off right and wrong, and to transcend non-attachment to worldly details, is the molding of Buddha ancestors and the sphere of practice realization.

[16:05]

And maybe all I need to read is that one sentence. I'll read the rest, but I want to say a little bit. To sit cutting off right and wrong. It's possible to do that. It's possible to not just sit and be present and see that we have these impulses for right and wrong, good and bad, and not be caught by those. And then he says, and to transcend non-attachment to worldly details. So part of the instructions for Zazen is to put aside worldly affairs. When you come and sit, just face the wall. Face yourself. Put that aside. But also, here Dogen is talking about transcending non-attachment to worldly details. We do live in the world of details. And part of our practice is not just to turn, you know, sit and do this meditation and turn within and see the possibility of spaciousness and openness and interconnectedness with all things and wholeness, all of which is available in each inhale and each exhale.

[17:22]

It's wonderful. But we also emphasize in Soto Zen, it's called in Japanese, memitsu no kafu, attention. You can translate it roughly as attention to detail. So after this Dharma talk, we will do together, those who can stay, temple cleaning, and we will silently, carefully take care of this space. So non-attachment doesn't mean not taking care of the details of your life. In fact, the opposite. It means, oh, OK, what is this? How do I take care of this problem or this relationship or these troubles in the world? How do I clean the cushions, take care of the space of your life? So to transcend non-attachment to worldly details is the molding of Buddha ancestors and the sphere of practice realization. And many of you have heard me talk about this idea of practice realization before, but it's so important that I'll just say a little bit.

[18:26]

This practice is not, this Zazen meditation practice we do, is not practice to get some realization in the future. This is not a method to get enlightened sometime later on. Practice realization, Dogen talks about the oneness of practice realizations, it's fundamental to this practice in our teaching, is that There is no realization or enlightenment that is not practiced. That would be just some abstraction, some theoretical idea. And Zen is about not getting caught in that stuff. when it's realization, we put into practice. And we do that, first of all, we study that, we learn that in zazen, in sitting upright, being present, not running away from this body and mind, including our attentions and non-attention. And also, there's no practice that is not an expression of realization. So whatever it moves, so we have a few people who sat their first period of zazen this morning, which is wonderful for all of us, and whatever brought you here this morning,

[19:33]

There's some realization there, there's some enlightenment there. In some ways, the first time you sit, all of enlightenment is there. This is the idea of Soto Zen, of this tradition, that something is already. It's not that you have to get something later. Dogen says elsewhere, Buddhas do not wait to become Buddha. you are already doing Buddhist practice in your own posture, in your own way of being present and upright. So this practice and realization is one. Anyway, he refers to this here, that cutting off right and wrong and transcending non-attachment to worldly details is the molding of Buddha ancestors, the formation of Buddha ancestors, and is the sphere of practice realization. of this wholeness of our practice and awakening. Dogen goes on to say here in this brief talk, this is the vital eye within the brow of a skull and the mysterious working of phrases about the empty kalpa.

[20:42]

That's the age, that's maybe before the Big Bang. And there's an old Zen saying, what is your original face before the Big Bang? What is ultimate truth before all of your ideas about yourself, before your family history, before all of the ways in which we've been conditioned by the world? What is this ultimate self? And he says that it's this, the mysterious working of this is this cutting off right and wrong and transcending non-attachment to worldly details. And then there's a couple of historical allusions, which I'll read it and just mention it briefly. The reddish-brown kiren, or it's kind of a magical animal, lion, unicorn, of Qingyuan walks calmly. And that's a reference to his student, whose name is Shito in Chinese, Sekito in Japanese. who wrote the Song of the Grass Hut and the Harmony of Difference and Sameness that we chant sometimes.

[21:48]

He walks calmly. Then the golden-haired lion of Yaoshan is completely dignified. That's a reference to Yunyan Li. So this is a kind of poetic expression, but the reference to Yunyan, who was the teacher of Dongchang, the founder of Suochisan in China. Anyway, these two great historical figures, he mentions them, And he says, when meeting each other, they unfailingly hold hands and together return as one to the great way. So how do we meet each other and return to the great way? What is this great way? How do we transcend non-attachment? What is this non-attachment to non-attachment? How do we acknowledge our attachments in the world and in our sitting, meet this, become familiar with it. And then when we get up to clean the temple or clean our house or wash the dishes or all the different everyday activities that we do, meet with the people we meet with.

[23:00]

look at the situation of the world, all of that. How do we transcend non-attachment? And what I want to close with is just talking about the bodhisattva precepts. These are meant as guidance for this, and we have 16 in our tradition, but I won't mention all of them. I'll mention a few of them. They start with just taking refuge in Buddha, returning home to Buddha. What's Buddha? Yes, what is Buddha? This is the fundamental question of Zen. How do we see awakening? Buddha is the awakened one. How do we see awakening? On our own cushion or chair. How do we respond to that? How do we express that in our lives? In our meditation practice and posture, but also in our everyday activity. What is Buddha?

[24:03]

So just returning home to Buddha is the beginning of all the 16 precepts. There's also one to benefit all beings. I find this very important. How do we not just take care of certain kinds of beings? Just Buddhists, or just people in Chicago, or whatever. How do we appreciate the diversity of all beings? How do we act not just to take care of our own quarterly profit margin, but to actually appreciate the difference between all beings. How do we respect others and see the ways in which we can be guided by others? This is very important in our world. Another one of the precepts is not to slander others, not to praise self at the expense of others. So right speech, kind speech, is important.

[25:04]

How do we benefit beings without resorting to hate speech or name-calling or disrespecting certain beings who are whatever category of beings we think we should not benefit. Let's get rid of all the Muslims. I kind of feel like Americans may have to go to the Mideast to learn about democracy. How do we appreciate the virtue of others? Another one of ours is not to be intoxicated by mind or body of self or others. So how do we avoid intoxicants? What does that mean? Well, for some people it means not having any alcohol. Maybe some of us have a glass of wine, it's okay. But it means supporting, all of these have positive sides, supporting awareness rather than intoxication.

[26:08]

And part of this attachment to non-attachment, we can get intoxicated by, you know, Zen meditative blissfulness. So don't be intoxicated even by this practice. Question it. Does this make sense for you to be doing Zen practice? I don't want you to take any of this on faith. Does it make sense? How does it work in your life? How do we support awareness? How do we be aware of our attachments and our aversions? without being caught up in non-attachment. So again, this practice is not some escape from the world or from your own life. Real calm and peace of mind doesn't come by running away from who you are. And so we have a number of these precepts, but the last one I'll just mention is we say a disciple of Buddha does not kill.

[27:10]

So we can understand that in lots of ways. Some Buddhists are vegetarians. It means that we ourselves should not harm life. So non-harming is a basic principle. But also there's a positive side. How do we support life? How do we support vitality and energy? How do we help others not to kill? Even living in a very militaristic society, how do we encourage peace and kind speech and diplomacy rather than war. Amongst our friends and families, how do we encourage life and energy and vitality rather than lifelessness? So all of these precepts are guidances. They're not rules, but they're guidelines to trying to express this non-attachment in our lives. there are challenges to, oh, what is non-attachment here?

[28:13]

And am I getting caught up in non-attachment? Am I becoming, you know, the answer isn't to become kind of cold and distant. How do we take on the actualities of our life? This is real non-attachment. So this is very subtle. Again, we have to see what our attachments are. And are we acting them out? Are we acting on them in a way that harms ourselves or others? So maybe that's as much as I want to say. I'll just read that first sentence again. And then I'll look forward to your comments So he says, to sit cutting off right and wrong and to transcend non-attachment to worldly details is the molding of Buddha ancestors and the sphere of practice realization.

[29:19]

So anyone, questions, comments, responses, please feel free. Right. I took a class that one of the things the professor brought up was that everybody has somewhere between 15% and 20% of their life that they really don't like. 85% to 80% that they do and that we all tend to spend about 80% focusing on the 15% to 20% What really struck me though is that we've all got that 15-20%.

[30:25]

It's the first level truth. And I think that we all think, and sometimes I can speak for myself, I think if I just meditate enough, if I'm just non-attached enough, then that 15-20% will go away. Which is just another way of trying to do what everybody else is doing, just trying to get rid of that 15-20%. And to me, non-attachment to non-attachment is really about having the courage to just look at that 15 to 20% and say, it's OK. Yeah. You know, I don't have to be on a map. Whether I'm on a map and talk, meditating, or here, or flipping burgers, or on the street, it's all OK. It doesn't matter. It's just that 15 to 20%. And so I just have to have the courage to accept that. OK. This word accept is tricky too, because accepting the 15-20%, and I think if it's only 15-20% you're lucky, but accepting that whatever percentage it is that you don't like, part of attachment and non-attachment becomes passivity.

[31:48]

So the practice of acceptance and the practice of patience in Buddhism is a very dynamic, active practice. Accepting means looking at stuff in that 15 to 20 or whatever percent, and okay, it's there, and knowing that you're not necessarily going to fix it. But it doesn't mean that you don't respond when there is something to do that would help. So that's the side of benefiting beings, including yourself. So when you say benefiting all beings, it doesn't mean just other beings, the beings within you. So to actually accept and be patient with that 15 to 20% means studying it, looking at it calmly, with the space of inhale and exhale. But then sometimes there's something you can actually do to respond and help out. So we have to be willing and ready to be responsive at the same time that may look like just sitting facing a wall and being very somber and silent.

[32:58]

But the active side of this practice is that we're paying attention. even though I encourage kind of relaxed meditation and settling in meditation, meditation that you can sustain, that you can do it several times a week at least and that you can keep doing it and that you start to be familiar with yourself and the world and not just your idea about that. then we see that 15 or 20% maybe more clearly. So for some people, they stop doing Zazen or leave spiritual practice Zazen or otherwise, because they see that stuff and they want to escape from it. So again, this is not a practice of escaping from who you are, but finding a calm, settled space in which to look at it, accept it, and then be ready and willing to do something when you can make it better. So that's the active side of it, and it's subtle. Thank you for bringing that up.

[34:02]

A follow-up, Raul? No, other than it just strikes me how much courage that takes. Yeah. And for me personally, in order to get anywhere where I can feel any sort of courage, I really have to be kind to myself. Good, yes. And caring. Yeah, this is about really being kind to yourself. This doesn't mean indulging attractions and aversion, but actually being willing to. So just to sit upright is a courageous act. Just to be present and do one period of zazen, you're willing to sit, to be there with all of it, including that 15 or 20 or whatever percent. So, congratulations. I'm proud of all of you for being here. And I'm not attached to anybody else saying anything, but also, you know, if you have something to say, please do. Yes, Alex, first.

[35:09]

One thing I've given a lot of thought to is the idea that judgments about things throughout your life, even on a basic kind of survival level, then there seems to be some relationship between making judgments and also aversion and being overly connected to something. And that's something I think that more than I have questions about. judgments about situations in my life, and how do I go about navigating that? It seems kind of tricky. Good. Wonderful, important question. So one of the things we see when we start to sit is that some of us more than others have this judgmental mind, and there's all kinds of judgments that come up, you know, always deciding good and bad and right and wrong. And that can be in a kind of excessive quality to that.

[36:14]

And some people are busy judging particular other people. Some people are busy judging themselves, whichever. These judgments rush up sometimes when we're sitting. And so I say to just let go of them. But if you can't, if you make judgments about the judgments, don't make judgments about that. And if you do, then okay, well just don't make judgments about that, or just see it. But the other side of that, which you're bringing up quite rightly, is that in our life we do have to make decisions. So that's very much to the point of this non-attachment, and non-attachment to non-attachment. We do have to make decisions. Vanilla, chocolate, vanilla, chocolate. Anyway, or maybe more serious decisions with more serious consequences, but that's what the Bodhisattva precepts are for.

[37:18]

And there are many other systems of guidance in Buddhist practice that the six or ten perfections, generosity, ethical conduct, patience, effort, But these precepts are to help with, okay, they actually offer us a criteria. So this is not moral relativism, even though we see that right and wrong in our ideas about that change. Maybe I said this last week, that 100 years ago, women weren't allowed to vote, and that was accepted as, well, of course. And 150 years ago in our country, there was slavery. And of course, people with certain skin color should be slaves. That was just accepted. Things change. And yet, these Bodhisattva precepts give us a criteria that we can look at more deeply than that. How do we benefit all beings? How do we turn towards awareness? instead of intoxication? How do we turn towards life instead of killing?

[38:22]

So I invite you to use these as a practical way of looking, of considering, okay, I have to decide between A and B, or what, you know, you have to, you know, various decisions. Often, by the way, though, we think that we have to decide A or B, and we forget that there could be C, D, and X and Y. So one of the problems, I think, in our culture more than in some others is we think that we have to make the right decision. And actually, both or all 20 possibilities or options might be right. And each of them might have problems, 15% or 20% of those problems. So when you're making judgments in the world and making decisions, don't think that there's one right one and then everything will be wonderful. Each decision we make, each option we have,

[39:23]

has good points and bad points, and so, you know, it may be okay to do, you know, so don't get caught there. The corollary to that is, in our society, is that people think they have to decide between A and B, and there's one right decision which will make everything wonderful, and the other one will be terrible, and there's some old man with a long white beard and robe up in the sky who knows, and And if only he would tell you. And then sometimes people come to Zen teachers with that idea, oh, if I would tell them what to do, then I would know the right answer. There's not necessarily one right answer. So that's a way of loosening the hold of judgments. And yet, at the same time, we do have to say something and do something in our lives. So thank you. Very good question, Alex. Do you have a follow-up? Oh, Matt. I'm wondering, I can understand how the vanilla chocolate or neither kind of thing, working with objects or things you like, how does this work in relation to other people?

[40:30]

How can you be practicing on attachment with other people? I'm a teacher, so I have a lot of children who are, I'm a facilitator, I'm a coach, I'm a bad guy. There's a lot of different roles I play How do you interact with them so that you're in a flexible way, in a skillful way, and in a way that you can express this sort of human nature without being, the other way is like being totally attached to them, like I worry about some of these kids so much, how do I, how do I deal with all of that? Yes, thank you, that's right. There's no better answer than just asking all those questions, paying attention, seeing that you might like one kid more than another for whatever reason, that day, whatever. How do you respond in a helpful way?

[41:35]

is asking that question. Well, what's most helpful now? And being flexible and not knowing the answer and being willing to try things and not getting attached to one instruction manual for how to do that. It's very challenging. I don't have any answers that are better than the questions you ask, the way you ask them. But I just want to express how grateful I am that you know that you're willing to be a teacher in the society is probably the most important job there is in the society and we have a few teachers in our sangha and you know nowadays uh... i don't know if this is affecting you yet personally but you know there's kind of an attack on teachers because teachers make too much money and so there's not enough money for the big bankers you know uh... so uh... It's one of the most noble professions there is in our society now, so I really appreciate that you do that, and it's really challenging. How do you take care of these kids who are learning to be human beings, especially in a society that's trying to attack teachers?

[42:50]

So I appreciate what's happening. We have time for one more, one or two more comments or questions or responses. Well, I congratulate you since one of the classic best responses of all is just silence. And everything we say is really just a commentary on Buddhist silence.

[43:38]

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