Good evening, everyone. Welcome. I think there may be a couple of you I haven't met. I'm Tighan Layton, the teacher here. I want to talk this evening about non-attachment. So I want to talk about non-attachment as basic Buddhist teaching, but I want to talk about non-attachment as a passionate practice. So I think it happens that people think of, I've seen non-attachment sometimes translated as detachment. And I think that's kind of a problem. Sometimes we think of non-attachment as detachment or indifference. And really non-attachment is about finding a way to sustain caring.

[01:01]

And I think this is kind of a, particularly a problem maybe in American Buddhism or in American Zen. We come to practice out of some desire to find some calm, some settling, some peace of mind. amidst all of the difficulty and troubles of the world and of our own personal anguish. And so nonattachment is an important teaching. Nonattachment means not being caught, but it means not, but it's a kind of balanced practice. It's not being caught by self-concern. And it's finding a balanced way to respond to all of the different ways in which we do get attached.

[02:06]

Non-attachment has to do also with non-separation, to see that we are connected. So it's different from indifference. It's different from not caring. So sometimes we want to find a way to be, you know, sometimes we find, we get into practice as a way of kind of being dull and numb. And, you know, it looks like sitting here still and upright, it looks like we're just kind of, you know, it can look like this is a practice of just being numb and kind of still and it looks very somber. But actually, to do this practice and to sustain this practice requires a lot of caring.

[03:11]

And it's really a passionate practice. How do we pay attention to our lives? How do we sustain a way of caring about ourselves and the world and about responding to the world? So this is not indifference, but caring. But how do we do this in a balanced way? So I've, you know, on the level of how do we take care of the world, I've been repeating what Rebecca Solnit spoke about, the story she spoke about when she was here about Bill McKibben at the Paris climate conference, when a young woman came up to him at the end of the conference, and he was very weary, and she said, what can I do as an individual? And he said, stop being an individual. We have to respond to the difficulties of the world, particularly in terms of the seriousness of climate damage, together. It's not about, it's not just about us.

[04:15]

We see that the world has lots of problems and one kind of detachment or indifference is just being self-concerned. So non-attachment is not that. Non-attachment is not being attached to self, not being attached to other, not, again, this balance You know, and it happens that in sustaining our practice, so, you know, what's important about practice is how do we sustain it. It happens that we have experiences of some deep experience. Sometimes people come to Zazen, this happened to me and it was just wonderful. I just felt like this, you know, I connected to it right away. Oh, wow. It's okay. It's okay to be sitting here and to be upright."

[05:17]

And it was wonderful. And sometimes people come and they practice asana for a while, but then it gets kind of dull. Gee, nothing's happening. We want something to be happening. We want some excitement. And our society and our culture encourages this. We want some entertainment. So it happens that people, you know, are enjoying their practice and then it kind of gets dull. It gets kind of, you know, we feel numb and we don't see that what's really happening and what happens in sustained practice, we don't necessarily see how it's working, how our connection to being present and upright and attentive and paying attention whether it feels like it's exciting or dull or sleepy or our mind's going very quickly or whatever, the practice is to pay attention to that.

[06:22]

How do we practice active patience? So sometimes when things seem like our practice is dull is when the most is going on and we don't really realize it. So one of my favorite sentences from Dogen, 13th century founder of this branch of Zen is, Buddhas don't wait for awakening. Awakening is not something that'll happen in the past or that happened in the future or happened in the past. Just experience this vital process on the path of going beyond Buddha. Buddha is this ongoing activity of awakening, and we don't necessarily recognize it. So this regular practice of paying attention, just taking some time in our day to stop, look at the wall, let the wall look at us, breathe, feel what it feels like to be this person here now, beyond our stories.

[07:39]

And, you know, maybe it's boring and dull. Or we might think that. But what's really going on, we don't necessarily see or know. And yet, you know, we're developing a capacity to be present in a radical way. And then something happens. We come across an accident. And we're actually able to be present and respond and be with the people and help be helpful. And so we're developing this capacity to be aware and present and to be helpful in the world and to be helpful to ourselves. We see the patterns of grasping and we can respond. So this non-attachment is actually a very active, dynamic practice. indifference. It's not detachment.

[08:42]

It's paying attention. It's being engaged. This is engaged practice. And this dullness, well, you know, when I first, I was in the generation of Zen students who came to Zen after a period of being involved in looking for reality through psychoactive pharmacological agents. And, you know, After a while, they didn't work. If you trip for three days in a row, the fourth day, nothing happened. And after a while, you came down, and there was just this dullness. And the first, I don't know how many years when I was practicing, I really liked Sashin. I thought that was the point, to have some dramatic, you know, cathartic experiences, and I want to, you know, and the melodrama of the highs and lows and all of that.

[09:50]

But actually, real practice, this non-attachment is just the steadiness of sustaining attention, maintaining attention, not trying to get some fancy experience, but actually how do we develop this capacity and craft of maintaining patient attention. Again, it's not indifference. It's this active readiness and willingness to respond. And that means, you know, this practice of just sitting upright, being ready, waiting for the bell to ring and the next thing to happen. So there's this teaching about some obstacles, four ills of religious practice. This is from the Sutra on Perfect Enlightenment, which was a very important sutra in Chinese Buddhism.

[11:01]

And these four ills were basing our practice on performance of good works. doing lots of good stuff. Now that's not, that's good, you know, that's a good thing to do, but thinking that that was, you know, what would get us to, you know, enlightenment or whatever, to Buddhahood. The second is, of these four obstacles or diseases is through cessation of mental operations. Now that might seem silly, but a lot of people have the idea that enlightenment is no thinking. That if only I get rid of all these thoughts that are rattling around, that would be nirvana. And again, that's a kind of non-attachment that's detachment, getting rid of all that crazy thinking, getting rid of all that, no.

[12:02]

Non-attachment is to be willing to be present right in the middle of that. Suzuki Roshi says, give your cow a wide pasture. So cessation of mental operations is not the way. And the third one is really interesting, to try to base your practice on acceptance of things just as they are. Well, that sounds pretty good. But there's a way in which that is a kind of you know, indifference, not caring, just, okay, everything as it is. Well, you know, everything as it is includes that we can see that there is harm in the world and that we have a response to it. That uncaring, just, okay, hey man, whatever, you know, that's not it. So non-attachment means that we are willing to see, we're willing to follow the precepts, we're willing to respond and help when we can.

[13:04]

And we don't always know. So I want to apply these to skillful means and the things we've been looking at in the Lotus Sutra too. non-attachment is that we can try different things. The fourth one is the one I've been talking about tonight. The fourth ill of religious practice or of spiritual practice is to base our practice on eliminating all the passions. Thinking if we got rid of all of our desires and of all of our passions, that would be it. Well, you know, we have desires, we have aversions, And sometimes they're things that it's good to be passionate about. How do we find our balance and non-attachment in the middle of that? How do we not act on things in a way that's harmful? And yet, how do we maintain our caring about things, about what's going on in the world, about what's going on in our life, about how, you know, when we see

[14:08]

friend or family member causing harm to themselves or others, that we actually try and respond. So just eliminating all the passions, all of our desires, that's not the way to nirvana or enlightenment or whatever. So these four are really interesting. Non-attachment is not about any of those four. Non-attachment, true non-attachment is not, again, not indifference or detachment. It's finding a way to sustain a balanced approach to actually engaging with reality, with the world, with ourselves, in our own inner life, as well as the world around us, friends, family, sangha, all of the difficulties of the world. So again, this has to do with, we've been studying in the practice period that we're coming towards the close of the four stories in the Lotus Sutra.

[15:13]

The first one in chapter two is about skillful means. And the Buddha says there's one great single cause for Buddhas and Bodhisattvas appearing in the world, which is to help relieve suffering and help lead beings to awaken. But this involves actually paying attention to differences, actually paying attention to the situations we're in, and responding skillfully. And this isn't a matter of some technique that one size fits all. This is a matter of paying attention to the different situations in the world and in our life and being patient and, again, being willing and ready to respond. So this is what non-attachment is about, that we're not fixing on some particular idea about how to respond, but they were willing to look and adapt and be flexible.

[16:16]

And that means kind of staying balanced, staying upright, being ready. This is a non-attachment that's not indifferent, that cares and is ready to try and respond and make mistakes. So it's not going out and trying to fix everything. It's a kind of balance that's calm and caring. So it's not attached and kind of racing around trying to fix things. But it's also not just numbness and detachment. In some of the other stories we've been looking at, there's a story about these underground bodhisattvas who spring forth in response to the Buddha's question about who will come in the distant future evil age, which, you know, Lotus Sutra devotees always think is right now, and of course we think it's right now, but these underground bodhisattvas are there, and they're very quiet and calm and devout,

[17:28]

been around for a long time, and yet they're always ready to spring forth from the open space under the ground. There's huge numbers of them. So this is also an example of non-attachment. They're ready and willing to respond when there's a need. And then that story leads to the story about the inconceivable lifespan of the Buddha. that this Lotus Sutra is supposedly one of the last sutras that the Buddha spoke before he passed away, after 45 years of teaching, after his great awakening and becoming the Buddha when he was 29. But he says that actually, He's been around for a very, very, very, very long time, and he will continue to be around for twice that long in the future. But he appears to pass away because some people, if they knew that Buddha was always here,

[18:36]

might become indifferent and not really practice themselves and, you know, become numb, not care. Think they could, you know, they didn't have to work at things themselves. So again, this detachment or indifference that was the danger. For those who don't have that problem, the Buddha shows himself on Vulture Peak and says that he's really always present. And what does that mean that he's always present? Well, that means that all of us can be can see this non-attachment and can be ready to respond and can practice awareness. So, again, I think this is a subtle thing, that when we hear about non-attachment, it's easy to think, oh yeah, I don't need to be attached, I don't need to pay attention to that. Non-attachment, like practice of patience, is subtle and dynamic.

[19:41]

It doesn't mean detachment. I've often seen that mistranslation, I would say. It doesn't mean indifference. But yet, when people come to Buddhist practice and hear non-attachment, I think there's some tendency to hear it that way. There's some tendency to want to find a place where we can kind of check out. and taking refuge, you know, we take refuge in Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, that gets misunderstood as an escape. And sometimes we want an escape, you know? Our lives are difficult. The world is difficult. There's a lot of suffering. So, you know, it's understandable that we want some safe place to run to. And it's okay to take a rest sometimes, you know. It's okay to, you know, take a break.

[20:46]

But basically, non-attachment means finding a balanced way to find some rest and also stay engaged and stay involved and be ready to come back and respond to the challenges of our lives and the world. So this sustained practice is what this is about. How do we sustain a practice? And so I encourage people to sit regularly, several times a week, or even every day if you can. And if you can't sit 30 or 40 minutes or an hour each day, 20 minutes, 15 minutes, just to have a way to keep this rhythm of attention in your life. So maybe that's enough for me to say. Does anybody have any response or comments or questions? Please feel free. Or are you all indifferent?

[21:56]

Akasha. Yeah. Yeah. Just that, and I think, you know, that sounds very tempting. Oh, let's, we should accept things as they are. Well, Yeah, so acceptance is another one of these things that sounds good, but what does it mean really? What is the dynamics of acceptance? Acceptance might be accepting oppression and suffering, accepting abuse, accepting something that actually, so this relates to the precept about anger. Our precept about anger is to not harbor ill will. It doesn't mean don't get angry. Or if it's don't get angry, that means don't harbor ill will really quickly.

[23:07]

So how do we use? So when we see some problem, in the way things are, when we see some harm. So this not accepting, this accepting things just as they are, has to do with bodhisattva ethics, that we try and be helpful rather than harmful, or rather than supporting harm. So when you see some situation, whether it's somebody harming you, or whether some situation of you harming some part of yourself, or whether it's something going on amongst friends, or whether it's something going on in the world, how to be helpful rather than harmful. So it doesn't mean accepting that, accepting racism, accepting persecution, accepting social inequality and so forth. It means True acceptance means that also you're accepting your response to that.

[24:09]

You're accepting your engagement with, how can I be helpful in that situation? And then there's skillful means, and we don't always know, and usually we don't know what to do, but we try things. We're willing to try things. There's always some, I forget what I said, but there's always some situation where there might be some difficulty and we don't necessarily know what to do, but we can try things. We are willing to respond. So accepting things just as they are has to include that what is isn't exactly what is. What is includes what can be. And we can see that, too. And what is includes our response to it.

[25:13]

So bodhisattva ethics and the precepts are part of what is, too. So just to accept things, just to accept some situations of harm just because that's what's happening, that's not real acceptance. Yes? Oh, good. But if I may, there's two different ways to interpret that line.

[26:30]

And that's actually from the Lotus Sutra. That's a story about a Buddha in the Lotus Sutra who, just on the point of becoming a Buddha, stopped and waited. And one way of interpreting that traditionally is that He didn't quite get it and he wasn't quite, you know, he wasn't quite willing to become a Buddha. Another way traditionally of interpreting that line, contemplated a tree for ten kalpas, is he wanted to stay and hang out and try and be helpful amid the suffering. He wasn't willing to check out into Buddhahood. So there's two kind of conflicting ways of interpreting that line. But both of them can be helpful. Sorry. Kate, did you have your hand up? Oh, okay. Other comments?

[27:31]

Yes, Brian. Because I want it to go a certain way. And it seems to me that part of the carry is being attached to the outcome. So I guess my question is, where does non-attachment go?

[28:34]

You really are a carrier. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So of course, we would like positive outcomes. Sure. And yet, we act regardless of what the outcome might be. We're willing to act even if. you know, even if there's no guarantee of what the outcome would be. That's that other side of that. So, you know, I'm using the word passion and passionate because part of being willing to sustain, you know, this applies to, you know, activists and artists and social workers and people who are, you know, working in ways that involve sustaining some kind of caring activity, and you don't always know, you know, what the outcome is. Of course, you care about the outcome, but you don't necessarily see the outcome. You don't know what the outcome is, you know, later on.

[29:37]

But you care about it. So there's this passion. It's not about, it's not kind of, oh, I don't care. It's not that kind of indifference. So of course, you want things to work out well for your sons, but you do it regardless of what's gonna happen. That's the side that I think T.S. Eliot's pointing at. And it seems to kind of prepare you in case your desired outcome doesn't occur, you know, that you can kind of persist through it if you kind of maintain this non-attachment to the outcome. Then you can kind of go through it a little bit, it seems like. Yeah, and you know, Suzuki Roshi talks a lot about non-gaining attitude or not having some particular goal. And part of it is that whatever outcome we wish for is never going to be exactly that.

[30:49]

When we work towards something, something good can happen, but it's not going to be exactly the way we imagined it. it might be much better. Or it might be something different that has other positive sides, and it may have negative, you know, there's always these unexpected consequences, and that brings in something else. But that doesn't mean that we just shut down and don't care. This is the non-attachment that's willing to keep sustaining a practice of caring. a practice of attention, a practice of being present, a practice of engaging in whatever way, whether it's parenting, caring for animals, some artistic activity, sustaining a meditation practice.

[31:52]

Or even my societal, some notion of my societal happiness, but that rather the action itself is all that matters. Like I feel like that's kind of where I'm ending up, you know, maybe in my own practice over the last decade or something, is like moving towards this notion of just, the action itself is dead. Yeah, in some ways that's our zazen. Just the zazen for its own sake. Just enjoying this practice. And we could apply that to all kinds of other practices too. Sure. So zazen is involved with all kinds of other creative activities. Not just explicitly artistic activities, but gardening and parenting and cooking. So just, yeah, just sitting.

[33:22]

Yeah. I have a follow-up. Something just occurred to me. It seems to me that maybe the non-attachment to outcome really is about, this is what I really want. It should happen the way I want it to happen. And, not but, and I'm willing to try to accept the outcomes as they are, because I think Two words you both mentioned, control and happiness. I don't know that there's anything we can control. And non-attachment maybe is just hey, I can't control anything. That doesn't mean we can't give our best effort to trying to make things.

[34:26]

I don't know. It's just a thought. What did you mean by happiness, Kay? I feel like that's where that notion of happiness comes from, because there's always a sense of like, it's not now, it's got to come with this action. Whether it's some political action, or a parenting action, or gardening, or with our dog, whatever. But there's this notion of like, if I do it, if I can give Caution against happiness?

[35:31]

Against an investment in an idea of happiness. Oh, okay. What about right now? Is anybody here happy? Cassidy's happy. You're happy? Yeah, I'm pretty happy. This is nice, sitting around, talking about this stuff. Is everybody happy? Yes, Haksha. liberating myself and my loved people in my mind.

[36:34]

And yes, it's a scary period for me. Cool. Cashly? One of my first general thoughts here, like two years ago or something, was having an appropriate response. Oh. And so that has been like echoing in my mind. having an appropriate response to the thing that you think will create the outcome that you want, but if it doesn't happen, having that non-attachment, then something I've been working on since 2016 with you, for me, is what I call graceful transitions, where something I picked up from the talks with Paula was she said that everything in life takes so much longer than you would imagine that it could, so work the way Great, appropriate responses and graceful transitions.

[37:53]

So let's have a graceful transition to the four bodhisattva vows which we chant three times.

[37:58]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ