Full Transcript

Okay. Hi, everyone. Hi. Rebecca over here, I don't seem to be able to see all the people in Zoom land. I think she's the only one right now. Later when we have discussion, Rebecca, can you just let me know when people want to ask a question? Okay, great. Hi, everyone. Hi. Okay, awesome.

So the talk I'm going to give, let's see, I guess, Catherine and Nansen have heard it before, and I'll try to make it quite different. And that's pretty easy, because I never got to two of the stories I was going to tell. So I'm going to watch this and make sure I get to them.

The last month or so has been a really very intense time in my practice. First, we had the funeral of my utterly beloved teacher, Mel Weitzman, Sojin Roshi. And that was delayed for a year and a half because of COVID. So we had a nice intimate thing in Berkeley, where he's been abbot for 60 years or something. And then a beautiful service at Green Gulch. And so that was tremendous for me. And then I came back to a world where, from my point of view, all sorts of horrible disasters were unfolding. And so they kind of combined. And what of it's from the teachings I've gotten from my various teachers that I can begin to make sense of this.

I start with a wonderful talk that Benson gave a while back about the five remembrances. And the five remembrances are, we were talking, we all were, I think I can honestly say quite upset. And the five remembrances are:

1. I am of the nature to grow old, nothing can stop that.

2. I am of the nature to get sick, and nothing can stop that.

3. I am of the nature to die, and nothing can stop that.

4. I am of the nature such that I will be separated from everything I love at some point, and nothing can stop that.

5. My actions are my possessions. They are the ground upon which I stand.

Actually, reading, if I can find it: "My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand."

And so the fifth leads to action. What actions can I take in regard to these facts, to the first four remembrances? And I'm kind of sorry that this could seem really pretty depressing. The problem people say Buddhism is a very pessimistic religion. And the counter to that is that Buddhism is just realistic. And I think it's a good counter. I mean, we all know that it's true. I think at least it's never been contradicted by anyone's story. And so the question becomes what to do with it. And that's basically what Pamela asked us all. I mean, now what?

And what came up for me is return to just this. And that's become very powerful for me. Very powerful. And so when I return to just this, what is just this? It's actually very similar like just this now as I'm in front of this thing that and I have certain phobias about technology and I have friends in front of me, some of whom I have known for a really long time and Malcolm is the first time I've met you. And it's a beautiful day, beautiful place. And nevertheless, I also noticed that I'm very upset about the state of the world. All of this at the same time is just this.

So just this is a - the word "just" is very important maybe particularly in our own practice. What we do here, what we're doing is called shikantaza, which in Japanese means just sitting. All we're doing is sitting right here. And we're advised to try to have a nice posture and to follow our breath. And that's what we're doing. Just this. And of course, then actually, shikantaza can feel fairly difficult. Well, the thing there is we are told return to that return to the posture and the breath, because we're going to stray away from it. I mean, that's what happens all the time to me.

And so the hope is, or our gentle aspiration is to when that happens to be aware of it, and to return to posture and breath, very gently. The thought, oh, I'm aware that I've drifted away is itself just this. The bringing yourself back is just this. The sitting is just this. Drifting off again is just this.

And so we have just walking. Just we're walking and our minds flit off to whatever. And we noticed that and we turn to just walking. We're just doing the dishes. So we are doing the dishes and that's just this. And we feel the warm water and the soap on our hands and the plates. And we drift off to God only knows what. And that's just this. And we bring ourselves back. And that's just this. And then we're there with the hot water and the plate. Or we're taking down, we're just taking out the garbage. You know, and so maybe perhaps we don't really enjoy taking out the garbage as much as we do enjoy just walking on a spring day. But it's just this.

And so what I said was return to just this. And so when we face something, when something arises, which is some kind of just this, we have really three choices, which are discussed in Buddhism:

1. One is to go towards it to grab on to it. We like it.

2. Another is to push it away. We don't like it.

3. And the third is to remain pretty neutral.

And they're all just this, they're all fine. But actually pushing away and grabbing, you know, and grabbing towards us, both have the quality of being attached. Grabbing on to this, whether we push it away, or whether we grab it, is still involved with the just this that has arisen. And that's something extra. Just this is just this. And we've added, I like it, I grab it, or I don't like it, I push it away. So the neutral is really classy from a Buddhist point of view. And all of it is just this.

And one thing, so when we approach the remembrances, I am of the nature to grow old, that's just this, we might have a thought, that's true. We might have a thought, I don't like that. And that's sort of basically okay. Once we go on beyond that, we're actually moving away from just this. We're doing just this of being pre-out being spinning in our mind. But the initial just this that arouse the energies that it would be good to, that the fifth remembrance enjoins us in a sense to find an action that's appropriate. We're moving away from that.

So my teacher Mel, during his last teachings would emphasize constantly that it's always been like this. And he was always reacting to all of his students being very upset by what's been going on in the world for the last five years or so. And more particular, you know, and so many of his students were very upset. And he says, it's always been like this. And he also said, on some level, it has to be okay. Not that we like it, but it's okay. Based on it's okay, then we might be able to take appropriate action.

If on some - like Mel's term for just this is okay. Other people have Suzuki Roshi's term was, you know, I'm spacing it. Things as they are, or rather things as - things as they is - of he mixes up singular and plural, somehow. You remember? Yeah, right. Right. And his students corrected him. He said, No, that's it. That's what I mean. So all of these are terms for just - other ways of saying it.

So Mel's story started at 10 after - Yeah, okay. I got to rush to get to the other stories. Okay. So just this might look like - there's a story: a guy is running from a bunch of tigers. And he is terrified. They look pretty hungry. And he runs and there's a cliffside and the tigers. And so he falls over. So he says, Okay, I'm going to jump over the cliff. And as he starts falling, he realizes there are hungry tigers on the bottom of the cliff. And those are all this just this. And then he sees a bunch of strawberries on the way down. And he says, That's just this. And he picks one and eats it. And he says, How delicious. And then delicious is just this. And then he falls. And, you know, we know what probably happened.

And that's the state of being okay with just this. And he still probably got eaten by the tigers. But he was in a state of mind, where on some level, it was okay. Not that he preferred being eaten by the tigers. But he was in a state of mind where he was open to seeing a cherry bush, strawberry bush, and okay with eating it, the strawberry and okay with saying, Oh, it's delicious. And so from that, we might be able to find a hopefully helpful action.

There's an example of this. The story is one I didn't get to of this Indian king, King Ashoka. And he was a very powerful king, and he conquered vast part of India and formed an empire. And he fought many battles. And the story goes that after one of these victorious battles, he saw a Buddhist monk walking across the battlefield, filled with dead bodies, horrors. And the Buddhist monk was very peaceful, very okay. And I would imagine probably very sad. But he was just so composed. And the king was very moved by this, and very impressed. And kind of, wow, how can he do that? And then he became a Buddhist. And then he ruled with great - he stopped fighting battles, and he ruled with great compassion. And he was very instrumental in the spread of Buddhism in India.

And so that just this was the monk crossing the battlefield with composure. And I don't know if he sort of set out to do that, as a response to all this violence of all these battles. But it's not the most likely thing each - Oh, I'm going to walk across the battlefield - does not what probably would occur to most of us like, hey, you know, that's what I'll do. And he did. And that changed history. Maybe he did decide, Oh, I'm going to walk across the battlefield. But he had no idea the king would be watching. That was the appropriate response that came up. It's just this, there's this horrible battlefield. Oh, okay. So just this thought, I'm going to cross the battlefield. That's what I'm going to do. And he was in a place of always returning moment by moment to just those, which is crossing the battlefield, I'm here, I'm breathing. And so that's quite a trick. And in that case, it really was very helpful.

The next story, it's okay, we say the statement of big shot Indian teacher, philosopher Shantideva, he said, there's never ever any reason to worry. I mean, that's way beyond me. To put it mildly, there's never any reason to worry. You know, so sometimes things happen, and you can do something about it. So obviously, there's no need to worry. Other times things happen, and you can't do anything about it. And so there's no need to worry. And it was just wild.

And once I heard the Dalai Lama say that it was at a talk and I was in the audience. And someone asked him, how do you deal with all the horrors of fleeing Tibet and all the unbelievable thing that, you know, the remembrances, the destruction of Tibet, as a nation, as a way of life that was so unique and beautiful. How do you deal with it? And so he said, Oh, well, you know, there's no reason to be upset. You know, maybe I can do something in which case there's no reason to be upset. And maybe I can't, in which case, there's no reason to be upset. And at the time, I didn't know anything about Shantideva, I thought he just made that up at the spot as his immediate response to this question. And I was saying, Oh, my God, I mean, after what he's been through and all to have that degree of composure, that degree, even a sense of humor about what he could do and what he couldn't do.

And there were some things he could do. I mean, he could preserve the tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. And he has an incredible degree. Those Tibetans who managed to flee and become refugees in India or elsewhere, he could help them so that he could do. And, and he tried, but so far hasn't been able to reestablish this way of life in Tibet, and renew Tibet as an independent nation. And if you see him, I mean, his birthday was just the other day. Did you get - you know, there was a big thing honoring him. If you see him, he's very cheerful in many ways. And it's amazing.

So I'm going to try to stop basically here. I want to talk a little just briefly about being stuck. I've been very stuck during last month, a whole lot of the time. I'm stuck and being horrified by what's happening in the world. And that happens in meditation too. When we, you know, we go around and around and obsessive thought, like, for example, all the world's falling apart. And then we say, sometimes, oh, at some point, oh, I'm stuck. I'm twirling around. And that's great. That is waking up. I'm waking up to the fact that I'm stuck. And then you have the possibility of being unstuck and waking up. And the more that happens in meditation, I think, in my experience, the better.

Like, what happens is we're stuck. We realize we're stuck. We wake up, we get stuck again, probably within a split second. And then we, oh, at some point, we say, oh, I'm stuck. And that itself is a kind of mini waking up to the fact that I'm stuck to just this. Just this is at that moment, I'm stuck. And then just this is, oh, I realize I'm stuck. And then just this is, okay, etc. So we're always in the middle of just this. And that's okay.

When I was writing this perhaps depressing thing on my porch, I looked up and I realized, well, it was a beautiful day in Santa Barbara. And that was just this. And the birds were singing and that was just this. And everything that's going around in the world is just this. And from that place, a kind of settledness, okayness about just this, whatever it is, from that place, it might be possible to find actions that do something to improve the situation, hopefully. But I think that that's very helpful in finding what can help. And so anyway, thank you. Okay, you know, thank you very much.