Full Transcript

So this morning when I left the San Ynez Valley, it was misty and foggy and very cool. And I came over here and it's like 20 degrees hotter. It's very upside down from my world of experience. And I thought, well, that's just like life. Isn't it? Nothing I can hold on to. It's always changing. And there's this mistiness about awareness and then the sun comes out and everything's really clear, just like when we're sitting or practicing or living or doing anything that we do in our lives, just like that.

As is my want, I want to start with an old Zen story. And we'll come back to it. This is a koan. And a teacher said to a student, how do you fill a sieve with water, a sieve, you know, something with holes in it. How do you fill a sieve with water? Does anyone know this one? That was new to me too. How do you fill a sieve with water? So the teacher hands the student a sieve and she gets a cup and she pours some water through the sieve and you know what happens to the water. Gone. Student says to the teacher, well, how do you do that? The teacher takes a sieve, takes a look at it closely, and throws it in the ocean. Where it floats for a few minutes. And then she takes a look at it and she says, well, how do you fill a sieve with water? So we'll come back to that at the end. But I really appreciate this koan.

Today I have a handout. You get to keep it. San-ki Raimon is the Japanese version, probably very old version of a way in which we express taking refuge. And what I'd like to do if you're willing to play along is I will read one line of Japanese, transliterated Japanese, and you will read one line of English back, all right? Then you won't have to stumble through the Japanese and we'll do it together that way. This is one of the earliest versions we have of these precepts. These are the first three of the 16 Bodhisattva precepts. Dogen is the one who glommed them all together to make 16 Bodhisattva precepts.

And I want you to know that in Buddha's time, the way you became a member of the monastic community was simply by the Buddha saying in Pali or whatever the language was, he spoke, come monk. That was it. You were ordained. You were part of the monastic community. Come monk. Come sit down with us. Beautiful.

[The speaker then leads the group through reciting the San-ki Raimon in Japanese and English]

So we've done a lot of the refuges. There's many versions of this. In fact, we sing a version of this when we do the refuges, when we sing the Pali refuges, when we sing those together at night, sometimes on Wednesday night.

So in preparing for today, I've been kind of obsessed with the refuges for a long time. What is that word, refuge? It sounds like we're hiding from something in a way, like a shelter. But it has a lot of meanings. In the original Indian, it meant refuge. We took refuge with the personhood of the Buddha and the personhood of the sangha and the teachings of the Four Noble Truths. It was a way of taking shelter or asylum, right? And taking refuge is the commitment we make when we formally admit we're Buddhists. Sometimes that's sewing a rakusu, sometimes that's just in your heart. Sometimes that's sewing a rakusu and then an okesa. This is how we formally receive the precepts and are given the precepts and take them on.

In Japanese Buddhism, the idea of refuge took on a different meaning over time. And it's made up with two characters. Refuge is kie. So some of you have seen namubutsu kie, namukie, ho, namu. So you know kie is made up of two characters. And according to Dogen, the first means to unreservedly throw oneself into, like that ocean with the sieve. And the second is to rely upon. Another meaning of these two characters, kie, to take refuge is to rely upon. Together I think they mean having enough faith in ourselves to rely upon this unreserved, spacious interpenetration of this with everything in that ocean where you're floating for a few minutes before you go under.

And in Japan I think this attitude is also used in bowing, right? You unreservedly throw yourself completely into that bow, right? And we do that when we make prostrations. We throw ourselves, hopefully, throw ourselves into this bowing, this kind of unadorned surrender to this moment in this experience right now. It's leaping in and abandoning any reservations you have. And that is what taking refuge feels like as well. Abandoning your reservations.

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche used to say that in our culture we do a lot of shopping around. And we're shopping for the right approach and we're constantly shopping. You know, okay, I'll try this now and then I'll try this and then maybe this will work. And so all of this designed to help us keep those vulnerabilities and pains at bay, right? So we shop around, shop around, shop around. Taking refuge is the other end of that, which is done shopping. I'm done. I know this is it. I can't deny it anymore. I'm admitting it to you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you and me. Admitting it to the world. This is my path. I'm done shopping.

Americans and teachers often use refuge in yet a third way. They use it as returning and in fact remembering is a version of that. This is my preceptor's translation. This is Shoho Michael Newhall's translation and his has taken off categories. So remembering with all beings, remembering is another way of saying returning, okay, returning. And you can think of that as returning to this, right? This present moment returning. This is a very Western idea, but it works as well. Basically anything works. It gets you back here, right?

So I'm interested in taking refuge because I think of all the ways in which we take refuge all the time. So I'm just going to go around the room quickly and ask you, don't try to get a good score here. No gold stars. I just want to hear the first thing off of your mind. The thing that enters your mind. Don't try to be a good Buddhist, okay? Where do you think you'll take refuge when you want comfort, when you want relief?

[The speaker then goes around the room asking participants where they take refuge, with responses including mountains, movies, food, fish, trees, soba noodles, chocolate, and the garden]

Forgive me now, having gotten you to expose yourself. I'm going to tell you that all of the places in which we take refuge, every single refuge we take, I'm sorry to report, if it is news to you, is unreliable. I feel a little ill. I think was it worth it? How much relief did I get? Even going on along I have this walk I do every day up Ballard Canyon and down. Even that kind of laying it all out there. It lasts a while. I get relief. I'm away from the spinning.

All the things we hold on to, whether it's food or love or relationships or security, financial security, whatever it is, even health, these are not, they don't stay put. Nothing stays put. Nothing, damn it, stays put. And therefore the refuges we take, it's okay. There's nothing wrong with the refuges we take. It's like the mist. There's mist. There's clarity. There's mist. There's clarity. There's licorice and chocolate and music and life. And there's also knowing that none of that is graspable. None of that is hold on to a bowl. None of it is sticking around.

And when we perennially go for the grasping versions of refuge, our mind is flapping around quite a bit, like in the wind. Flat, flat, flat, flat, flat. What can I find? What could be better? How do I get away from this? Right? We just are trying to get away from the parts that make us feel vulnerable and closer to the part that we feel safe. And I think that's because most of us believe we're fundamentally lacking something. Fundamentally lacking something. And so we seek merger, you know, with licorice, with love, with, you know, anything that looks like it could be security. Because we don't really want to admit that we're alone. We're alone.

But can our merging with anything outside of this last? How could it possibly last? Does it last? I mean, you try it on, see for yourself if anything lasts. And so we perennially get distracted by our, you know, distractions and our delusions, looking for something that we can hold on to that would just give us a minute of peace. And it's understandable, because our lives and our problems, this pleasure and pain thing that we're always going through, this calculus, is it good for me? Is it bad for me? Is it good for me? Is it bad for me? Is it good for you? Is it bad for me? Is it good for me and bad for you? It's just calculus going on all the damn time. And it's not a place of refuge, that assessing mind, that trying to figure out how to rest in something else.

And I think this is in part a function of the fact that we're always in our culture trying to get to the best decision. Do you think there's a best decision? I think there's a best decision. If I could just get it right, I would make the perfect decision for what everybody needs in this moment, including right now. If I could say this right, you'd be enlightened. And you'd understand what this is right now. And so would I. And it goes on and on and on like this. There must be a best decision I could make in any given situation. There must be a better version of me in every situation. I could be better. I could do better.

We have this idea that there's a better version of us somewhere out there, that if we could just behave a certain way, we could be that person, we could make that decision. That's what Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche was talking about shopping, I think, looking for something that would make us be the person we think we are, make us make the right decisions all the time. The problem, of course, is everything is in context. The decision you're making is contextual and the context is moving. The decision about who you are right now is in context. It's in relationship. Anybody who sat through the winter practice period knows this really well. You're not doing this by yourself. And the problem is, is that if we think there's a context that's stable, we're in trouble, because the target is moving. The target is always in motion.

So, I like to joke to people who know me well, that I'm always trying to be a good girl. You know, I'm always trying to follow the rules, I return my library books on time, I come to a complete stop at stop signs. I wait until the stop card goes all the way to the stop. I'm always trying to do the right thing. And I say this with this kind of awareness that that person, I've also let her go, that there's no way I can be a good girl all the time. It's not possible, even if I was some kind of version of culturally specific good person all the time, I'm still failing in someone else's view.

So, there's an old Zen saying that I like that we're born with our eyes on the wrong side of our bodies. Think about that. There's no way that I can be a good girl all the time. Are you a good boy? It just isn't possible. And we let go of these ideas we have about ourselves and just be what's arising in this moment, right now, whatever it is, whoever she is, whoever you are. Is it okay?

I decided when I took refuge that I would let go of my ideas about who I am, about who I was in the past, about who I might be in the future. I let go of the idea that I'm going to be the hero, heroine of my own story, or anybody else's story. It's not going to happen folks. Don't look at me like that. And don't look at yourselves like that. Just be with who you are right now with whatever's here. Right now, it's Sangha and the Buddha and the Dharma. And they're not out there.

So, we chose this path. We chose this path. We chose kind of choicelessness on this path, right? We chose to stop looking around, to stop shopping, and to just also choose this path. This is the way we think works for us. And some of us really admit it in a very public way and say, yeah, you know, I'm done. I'm done shopping. And the way we take refuge on this path is that we agree not to look backwards, not to look forwards, but to look inward. This is where we take refuge. So even though it sounds like we're taking refuge in the Buddha and the Dharma and the Sangha, all those things are here. They're all here.

Now, it brings you back to the sense of being alone and loneliness, and it can be kind of staggering to look at that. But remember, you also have the example of the Buddha, who by the way was a regular Joe, right? He tried everything. He shopped around seriously, right? Shopped around till he was almost dead. He shopped almost until he dropped, or maybe he did shop until he dropped into Zazen. And when he shopped and dropped, he, what was he doing? He was facing himself finally. No more guru, no more teacher, no more nothing. He just sat down and looked at himself and said, okay, what's here? What's really here? And he faced himself. That's what we're doing, right? We're just facing ourselves. It's nothing fancy, facing ourselves. So he was a regular guy just like us. I think it's important to remember that when you're bowing, especially.

So by taking refuge, we give up attachment to our stories. And it's hard. It's hard to do that. We're really comfortable with our stories. Some of these things leave their imprints on us. Not bad, not good, but they're part of our fabric. They're probably part of our DNA. And we don't really want to let go. They make us a self we can hold on to. But the freedom is in letting go. The refuge is in letting go of all of those selves and just being who you are and letting everybody else be who they are. Just letting it be as the Beatles would say.

When we admit to ourselves, when we take refuge, we kind of admit to ourselves there's nothing else except this. And that the whole world is created from here. It's a lot to admit. It's a lot. And if it feels like we're on shaky ground, like you just when you take refuge, I know I felt like I just pulled the rug out from underneath myself and that there was nothing left. Nothing to return to.

Yeah, life is shaky. That's how it is. It's literally shaky all the time, right? And when you accept that somehow into your body, into the whole catastrophe, as Joel would say, it's somehow liberating. Like, okay, there's nothing to stand on. So I'll meet this and I'll meet this and I'll meet this and I'll meet this all the time because the alternative is pain. That's the truth. Meeting it with some baggage is pain. Meeting it with some projection about the future is pain. The only thing that feels liberated is what's here.

And what are you not looking at? What are you not looking at? I woke up with that from a dream last night. What are you not looking at? That was in my dream. So if you admit to yourself that you're going to work on facing yourself the way the Buddha faced himself, it's really all you have to do. It's not that bad. It's just relentless. But you have to do that. That's how you meet each other. That's how you meet yourself.

So we can take refuge in the Buddha as an example of someone like us who understood that he was on shaky ground, that there was groundlessness, that he understood it and he was willing to come back and live, come back to teach for another 45 years on shaky ground. The Buddha was just like us trying to find something upon which he can rely and what he found out is he can rely upon himself. And that's it.

And we can take refuge in the Dharma and the teachings and the Eightfold Path and even the examples that we set for each other. That's kind of sangha. But we can take refuge in the teachings, meaning the truth that there is nothing special or ordinary. There's nothing sacred or mundane. It's all the truth. The Dharma is the truth of everything altogether. The truth means not grasping, not holding, not clinging, because how can you? If you could, we would. It doesn't work. There is nothing to grasp onto, nothing to hold onto, nothing to cling to that's going to give you much of a ride. The licorice lasts for about 20 minutes. Sadly.

And we take refuge in the sangha. And in the companionship of each other, of these beautiful people, these Buddhas right here, who have agreed that, okay, this is the way I think I can live too. I think this is the way to get through it. This is the way to enjoy this incredible privilege of being a human, being born a human with all these feelings that we're trying to escape from. It's a huge privilege to get to have these feelings. And these people right here have the right to cut through all of your delusions and force feed you their wisdom. That is sangha. And you have the right to cut through their delusions and show them who they are, who they really are. The Buddhas, they are. Sangha is the reality of being in the same boat. And you know you are, even if you don't know you are. I had a little experience of that this morning, that stillness of being together in the boat. I felt it with you.

So taking refuge is a total commitment to oneself. Not in a selfish self-centered grandiose way. Not at all. Just, hey, the world begins and ends through this mind and body, these eyeballs because there's no way out from behind these eyeballs. There's no way out. This is what I'm fabricating. It's not what Joke is fabricating. It's what I'm fabricating. Sometimes we meet each other in that space. All of us do meet each other. But it's my creation. And you have to understand and stop pretending that there's any way out. There's no way out. Sorry.

And for me, taking Jukai and then taking the vows of becoming a priest, and really I take the vows quite frequently. They're all part of this agreement that I have made with myself to take responsibility for everything. There's no more blaming. I mean, I can see the thread, but what happened back then doesn't really matter. It's this. What I'm doing right now is what matters. What I'm fabricating with this moment. What are we going to do with this moment, people? What are we going to do right now?

You'll stand on your own two feet. You'll stand on your own two feet to this path. So you don't have to make sacrifices anymore. You don't have to try to be a good girl or a good boy. You don't have to meet somebody else's expectation, anybody else's expectation, so that you'll be smiled upon by the guy with a big beard or by anybody else or by blessed by a teacher or a sangha friend. Just let it go. You don't have to do any of that. You have to listen to this person, this person, this person over and over again. There's nothing else you can do to be saved from life, except be in it like the sif in the water.

You no longer have to try to reach some idea of perfection. Things are never going to stay put. Never. Not even in your own house. You're free to be exactly who you are and enjoy it, meaning flubbing up is okay. Making a mistake is okay. I made a mistake this morning. I didn't tell you when I was coming to give this talk. That's a mistake. Oh well, I mean, I'm not perfect. I'm not even remotely perfect.

You were never condemned in the first place. There's no sin. You weren't born with anything lacking. You're already perfectly fine. The only way in which you've been condemned is through your own ignorance and delusion about who you are. And you can let go of that. I am in the process of letting go of that. So are you. Everybody who's practicing is trying to let go of that. The idea that you're flawed or that you're incomplete, or that you need anything or anyone.

The Buddha was just what he was and nothing more. The teachings are just what they are and nothing more. The Sangha is just what it is and nothing more. You are just what you are and nothing more. And I am just what I am and nothing more. And it's enough. Right. Thank you.