It's a five day meditation retreat, and so downstairs, not quite below us, but a little bit that way, there's a group of about 35 people sitting in the Zendo. Actually, right now they've just finished tea, and so I get to play hooky, so to speak, and come up here and talk. For some reason, what it occurred to me to talk about was Shakyamuni Buddha's enlightenment. I think as Westerners, our inclination is more to be Buddha than to be Buddhist, that

[01:05]

somehow that's the nature of our intention, and then many of us, we come to a Zen center and then we're asked to become part of an organized activity. It's wonderfully ironic, because most Zen students are quite independent-minded, just like that one. So we have this wonderful tension between being the Buddha that we know we are, and taking on a tradition, and being part of it, you know, do this, do that, and everything by nature, by design, is prescribed.

[02:07]

The whole idea of Sashid is to give yourself to a totally prescribed life, and yet it has something to do with being the Buddha that you are. It's totally unique, that has inherent wisdom, that is completely its own resource, and in Zen we say, relies upon nothing. So in some way, Shakyamuni started off, not quite with this tension, but with another kind of tension. The tension he started off was with, even though fortuitous circumstances gave him tremendous

[03:14]

material and social advantages, he could see that there were certain aspects of life that were there in a foreboding manner. He could see that he was linked to death, to suffering, to sickness, the same way everyone else was. So he took this tension, and set forth with that. And then, as the story goes, and it is a story, I mean, we shouldn't forget that for several hundred years, at least several hundred, maybe as many as five or six, this was an oral tradition. People just sat around and told each other this story. And then after that, it was written. But there wasn't paper, so it was written on palm leaves.

[04:17]

So I think how we should hold that in mind is that we should think of this as a story. It can be a guide, it can be a light, but we should hold it lightly, which is very helpful actually, because it keeps challenging us to find our own resource, to find our own Buddha. So the story is that Shakyamuni Buddha set off, renounced his life, set off into the forest, and visited a number of teachers. And from what we can tell, these teachers seemed to have a different kind of speciality. One seemed to specialize in a certain approach to non-dualistic thinking. Another seemed to specialize in certain concentrated powers, how to concentrate the mind,

[05:34]

and how to develop that kind of concentration. So he visited these teachers, and the story is that he mastered what they had to teach and was invited to join that group as a teacher, but decided that for him, that didn't fulfill his quest. So he would move on to the next teacher. Eventually he ended up with a group, and this group, probably through his initiative and leadership, practiced with great vigor a very ascetic life, fasting, other kinds of hardships. And then at some point in this period of time in his life, he

[06:38]

discovered that he was wearing himself out, that somehow his quest had turned against him and was literally eating him up. One description of this story is that he didn't realize it, that it was just literally he was in the midst of it, and an adolescent girl took pity on him and gave him a thick creamy bowl of gruel, which he ate. And then when he ate it, he realized how much better he felt, and actually how supportive that was for this body to pursue its quest. And that, sort of readdressing his quest, and seeing something about that dedication

[07:52]

and hardship aren't exactly the same thing, it started him in a new mode of thinking. And that mode of thinking started to blossom. And he started to learn something new about meditation. That there was a quality of meditation that had to do with ease. A quality of meditation that had to do with not questing. But receiving. And as this started to work its way through him, he sat down in the evening and he started to receive.

[08:54]

He started to open up and appreciate what life is in a very simple manner. Like when you sit satsang, and sometimes just in an ordinary period of meditation, when we quiet down, we see something as simple as the out-breath follows the in-breath. That the out-breath is born because of the in-breath. And that the in-breath is born because of the out-breath. And this is part of a cycle. We see something about this old bag of bones that just, if we can find a way to have it somewhat balanced, it supports its being.

[09:59]

So he started to appreciate something about the cycle of life in its many forms. Plant life, human life, the life of the breath, the life of insects and animals. And with this sort of simple directness, he could truly appreciate this flow of life that it comes into being, comes into this being and flows through this being. In a simpler way, as breath comes in and flows through. And as he absorbed this,

[11:03]

his mind and his body quieted down, settled even more. And he started to absorb a little more how this is. That in the midst of this simplicity, or maybe because of this simplicity, there is complexity. You know, when we look at a wonderful picture of a national forest or a national park, we see something exquisite. We see the majesty of nature, the beauty of nature.

[12:08]

Something pristine, something that has vitality. And actually when you see a group of people sitting in the zendo during a period of zazen, and you feel the quietness in the room, the same majesty is there, the same beauty. It's like the intention, the Buddha shines through. And yet if we look closely at the national forest, if we look at the trees, we see young trees, we see mature trees, we see trees that have fallen over and that are rotting and turning back into soil.

[13:13]

We see this order between the insects and the small animals and the large animals. We see the order between the grasses and the plants. And when we look closely, it's complex. And when we look very closely, it's mysteriously complex. And it's wonderful that now, as modern physics learns to look closer and closer, it has to come up with descriptions for this complexity. Mathematically we call it the theory of chaos. It isn't chaotic, it's just very, very complex.

[14:14]

Bewilderingly complex to our mind. And in quantum physics, when we go as far as we can, we see the same complexity that extends beyond our ability to understand it. So with Shakyamuni Buddha's side, this became apparent to him. That if something in him stopped being agitated and looked and felt, this relationship became apparent. The beauty and the mysterious complexity. And he realized that

[15:21]

there is a tension in this. To find our path in it is a difficulty. And that as we search for our path, we experience dissatisfaction. As we search for the beauty and the majesty and we find the bewilderment, the confusion, because we can't grasp it all. Because we can't make it work. Because we can't get what we want. Because we can't make it all harmonious. There's pain. You know, sometimes when we watch a nature movie and we see a lion, devour a deer.

[16:30]

The suffering doesn't seem right. And this is our dilemma. That the way things are causes a reaction in us. We search for our relationship to it. And we suffer in our search. So in his ease, with his clear eye, this is what he saw. And you know, each one of us has this dilemma, has this tension. And the tension between you know, when you start a spiritual path, the tension between doing retreats, doing sushins, meditating,

[17:38]

and going to your job, cleaning your room or your apartment, and buying your groceries. The tension between trying to talk over a fire siren. There's always something. So in our hearts comes an idea about being Buddha. So for its usefulness, it's useful for us to think exactly what being Buddha is going to do for it. You know, is it going to fix it? Will there never be any more fire trucks passing by during a Saturday morning lecture?

[18:44]

Or strange chanting guttural sounds? No, that's not it. So this is part of what we need to do. Reflect on this. And reflect on this in relationship to what we want. What I want out of this. What I want Buddha to be. And there again, we see a tension between what we want to be, what we want Buddha to be, and what is. We see a tension between the majesty and the beauty. And the disturbing qualities

[19:48]

of ourself. And as we practice, these disturbing qualities are disturbing. We try to follow our breathing and we get distracted. All sorts of notions come up. And one of the amazing things when you do an extended sitting, sometimes you're awed by the nature of things you can think about. By the rage. By the irrelevancy. By the relentlessness of your desires and preoccupations. And aversion. But our guiding light is Shakyamuni Buddha's

[20:53]

ease in the middle of this. To come back to to the moment. And it's not much different from the rest of our life. The rest of our life creates dilemmas for us. How much time should I put into taking care of the community and the Sangha? And how much time should I put into personal interests? How much time should I put into study? How much time should I put into sitting? Wherever we look we'll see there are many ways,

[21:56]

many demands, there's tension. The tension between the tradition of Zen and the uniqueness of myself. What's right for me? What kind of practice is most appropriate for me? So in a way Shakyamuni Buddha can be a very good guide. There's several aspects here that can help us. One is the sense of not letting our quest devour us. And it can devour us in a number of ways.

[22:59]

It can devour us by us trying to escape from it. We can try to escape from this tension, this dilemma, this uneasiness. It can devour us by how we engage in it. That we're desperate, that we want something to happen, we want to break through, we want to cut through our delusions, our suffering. It can devour us both ways. So something about not being devoured and that's for each one of us to look at. Don't avoid it and don't become desperate about it. Can you apply yourself carefully but with some light touch?

[24:01]

Because the kind of touch, the kind of engagement that we can muster up, that we can carry through all of our life that's what's going to be powerful. If you just have one short burst of dramatic dedication and then flop back into whatever, you know, some recompense, some reward or some absence of those values then your life's just going to become divided. It's going to feel like now you're a good person, so how can you embrace all of your life? How can you find a sense of practice that allows all of your life to blossom? So this is part of the teaching

[25:06]

of Shakyamuni Buddha and then to cultivate that to find some acknowledgement of the way life is and here, you know, we espouse meditation cross-legged sitting and it's very helpful. There is something about meditation that's almost primordial. You know, it's kind of amazing. You take a person, you put them in a dark room and just the workings of their own being, you know, just what their mind and body produces

[26:06]

draws them into a primordial soup and as they move around in it a Buddha comes out. Or in less glamorous terms, you know, each person sees who they are. All you ask them to do is stay with who you are. Just stay there. And of course our whole life is asking us this of us. But we're very slippery. We have a lot invested in getting what we want and getting away from what we don't want and that's part of the pain of Sashi. You know, it is our options are limited

[27:08]

and we have a love-hate relationship with it. Part of us, our own inherent wisdom that knows that we're Buddha loves it. And another part of us hates it. This restriction, this limitation, this being unable to move to what we want and to move away from what we don't want is truly painful. And apart from that our body is painful. And so each time we sit, you know, whether it's for seven days or whether we take a vow never to lie down and sit for the rest of our life or whether it's for 15 minutes,

[28:11]

you know, CM request is there, the CM dynamic is there to let go of wanting this and not wanting that of trying to make Buddha something trying to make this Buddha something that you think it ought to be or trying to cut through something that you'd like not to have there. This is more work. This is more restlessness. What sitting is about is discovering the heart of just being at ease and embracing what is. And each one of us will go through our trials, our quest,

[29:14]

our learning and this arises out of our own conditioning. We will each do our own thing. And so you take a bunch of people and you put them all in the Zen Dojo, all doing the same thing but they're all doing their own thing. They're doing it their way. And by asking them to do the same thing they discover their way. And the same with each one of us in our lives. Life has an order to it. Our life is always asking something of us. It's always asking us to realize and respond appropriately to this moment. It's always asking us to investigate

[30:18]

and respond. So when we sit we simplify the situation. That's one aspect of it. The other aspect of it is we create in some ways a repeatable situation. I don't know if you've seen the movie Grindhog but what it is, it's someone who repeats the same day all the time until they learn the lesson of life. The interesting thing is that they paid attention. They experimented

[31:24]

but they paid attention to what was going on. So this is how our spiritual quest should be. Yes, we should experiment. That's how we will find out the Buddha we are. But we should pay attention to the experiment. And when we repeat something the danger of repetition is that we think we know it. I know this. I did it yesterday. I know how to sit. I've done it many times. I know this body. I know how to follow my breathing. This can put us to sleep because there's nothing to learn. It's dull and uninteresting. So the very fact

[32:29]

that things are always changing is actually a support as well as a dilemma. So it supports us to realize the truth that we don't know that each time we sit each time we engage in every activity it's the first time. It's a brand new experience. We are brand new. We are born in that moment. Ourself and everything else in that moment come together and create it. And out of that creation this existence happens. So when we sit this is a very helpful attitude to have and it's very helpful in the rest of our life.

[33:32]

Because it's so easy when we've allowed ourselves to believe we know this moment to think we know what's going to happen next. And then once we know what's going to happen next we can have a fixed response to it. We can desperately want it or we can desperately fear it. The moment we know is this moment. Our life isn't anywhere else. This moment has never happened before and will never happen again. So meditation can teach us something about this. But so can the rest of our lives. Except most of us are slow learners and we need we need the message repeated

[34:36]

in a similar fashion several times. This is what the movie Grindhog was about. He got the message repeated several times. I don't know it was a little hazy in the movie but it seemed like over a hundred. So some ways we get the message repeated. We get the basic laws of the way the world is and the way we are as a human being and in some ways it's unrepeatable. So that's the combination. And So how do we resolve the tensions and dilemmas of life? In one way of thinking about it, we don't. We meet them right in the moment and we discover

[35:41]

how to be in the moment as completely as clearly as unprejudiced as we can. And in another way we do in a very practical way we do because that is going to enrich our life the same way it enriched Shakyamuni Buddha's awareness of what is. When he brought that presence into his life the clarity that arose out of it inspired generations of people 2600 years later we're still thinking about it we're still looking to it as a resource and in a practical way the more we open to our life

[36:41]

without prejudice the more we see how the world is the more we see how we are and the better informed we are to take the next step. So even in a simple practical way and finding our own Buddha can enrich our life and to turn it in reverse coming into our life will show us that we are Buddha the wisdom is there the wisdom is there Thank you very much

[37:44]

May our intention equally penetrate every being and place

[38:00]

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