Bodhisattva

Here's a question for everybody: How can you get out of samsara, how do you get out of suffering? We're really lucky because we have a good practice situation. We can help and support each other, come here freely and nothing is stopping us from practicing except our "I, my, me" mind. But many times when you want to go for a retreat or do bows or sitting, there is a tiny little voice in the back of your mind: just a minute... I'll do it later... first I must wash the dishes... phone someone... or to do this or that. So in a way this situation is a good situation because a bad situation is a good situation, a good situation is a bad situation. The important thing here is that you want to practice. What is practice?

Sometimes we think, "Oh, we'll do thousands of bows, ten hours of sitting and then get something." It's not like that. If your direction is not clear, you can do millions of bows and sit all day and night but nothing will happen... maybe your legs will hurt a lot and after a while you'll just give up. "My legs are hurting, my body is aching, and I didn't get anything!" So if you have a clear direction then your practice will be non-stop, 24 hours a day. But for many people the question is, what do I want? Why do I practice? To get what?

Many times we want to get something from practice, but enlightenment means to lose everything - not to get anything. You don't get anything, you lose everything. You have to be prepared for that. You have to be ready to really lose everything, to lose all illusions about yourself. That's not easy. We don't like it. We want to keep at least a little illusion, to have at least something, some little thing to hold onto so we can feel secure.

I know lots of students who have ideal situations. They can practice as much as they want. Not so long ago we held a dharma teacher meeting in Warsaw. A dharma teacher is somebody who's been practicing for several years. This is a good test, because at the beginning you have inspiration and motivation, you want to get something, and after you practice for some years you can become a dharma teacher. So you already have some status; you get a long robe and have heard many dharma talks. You know the teachings very well - "Only Go Straight! Just Do It 100%!" This is a very dangerous time because you think, "Oh, no problem. Zen is very easy. I've already got something." We think that there isn't much more to get. Maybe if I become really desperate, I can become a Ji Do Poep Sa. But that's a lot of work, so most people think, "Maybe later. First I'll take care of my life, have children, build a house, buy a car, and then I'll think about it."

But let's get back to the meeting where I discovered that people tend to be lazy. They have faith in practice, motivation to become Buddha and get enlightenment. Great idea! Everybody wants that, but what you really need is discipline, and discipline is something many older students lose. Discipline means to get up every morning no matter what your situation is, no matter what your condition is - you just get up. This is because your situation, condition and question are coming and going, constantly changing. Sometimes your life is smooth - no problems. You fall into this lazy state of mind, "OK, I'll do it tomorrow, I'll get up and do it... no problem... now I'll take a break." But life is very short - day, night - night, day - finish. Maybe you'll wake up because some suffering comes knocking on your door and then you think, "I have to do my bows!"

Last Sunday everybody came and we had a big Buddha's Enlightenment Day Ceremony. It's wonderful having these ceremonies because I get to see all the dharma teachers and older students. Now I know why we have these ceremonies! One student came to me, who was always very shy and never said anything, but this time he said, "I came here for this retreat but this is my last one. Zen is not for me. I've practiced for six years and nothing's happened."

I asked him, "When was the last time you came for a retreat?"

He thought for a while and said, "Four or five years ago."

"And what is your daily practice?"

"Well, sometimes I get up in the morning and do 108 bows and sit for fifteen minutes, but I can't do that everyday, just sometimes."

"So what do you expect? You only have what you make, which isn't very much as you're not doing very much."

Just try three simple things in your life: precepts, meditation and kong-ans. If you are doing these three practices, it's like being on three tracks simultaneously, then you grow very fast because they're about discipline, which you need if you want to learn anything. Meditation can give you what we call samadhi, which is a clear mind. Meditation is like a wind blowing across the sky: the more you do, the stronger the wind blows, quickly clearing the sky of clouds. No meditation - no wind and it's just gray, like today. Then there's kong*an practice which is about wisdom. Just sitting isn't Zen. It's just about good feeling. After three days you might not feel it, but if you sit a retreat for a week or a few months there's a point at which your mind settles down and is like a calm sea, peaceful and quiet, the most wonderful experience of your life. The sutras call this stillness bliss. But you can't stop there. If you're a Zen student, you have to go for interviews and sometimes make a fool of yourself! This is the path of wisdom, which we don't always want because no one likes to feel stupid or have the feeling they didn¹t pass the exam. For many it brings back memories of school - bad marks, this unpleasant feeling... another bad mark again.

I remember making a fool of myself so many times and feeling terrible! I remember an interview with Zen Master Seung Sahn in which I did this crazy action to answer, and I'll never forget how he looked at me: what??? He couldn't hide anything, and it was like, what is she doing? Zen Master Seung Sahn is a great Zen Master, so the stress I was experiencing was intense. His teaching taught me not to take myself so seriously, "OK. I'm stupid, so what. He wasn't always so wise either."

Kong*an practice has many functions, one being that when you practice for some time you get the feeling you understand something, especially if you rarely have interviews and just practice at home. Then you go for an interview and get a big "don't know." Then we see that more practice is necessary. One time I had a student who knew the answer to her kong-an for over six months but she just couldn't get up and do it. At the last seven-day Yong Maeng Jong Jin she did it and we were both so happy. It was a wonderful experience.

Zen Master Seung Sahn teaches us that we must become good actors. This whole world is like an interview room and if we learn something in this intimate teacher-student relationship then we can use it in our everyday life. I remember once when I couldn't pass any kong-an for a long time and started thinking, who needs those old stories about ancient Zen Masters? They have nothing to do with my life. I didn't tell Zen Master Seung Sahn this, but he told me, "If you have problems with kong-ans, then you have problems in your everyday life."

Each kong-an is like a little gate which you open one by one. There is the emotional gate, the shy gate, the perceiving gate and many others. The situations in our lives are not the same as in kong-ans, you're not hanging onto a tree in your everyday life [laughter], well, maybe, sometimes. The point is that if you open this gate then it works for you in your everyday life.

Question: If kong-ans are like opening gates, is there anything there when they're opened. Does everything suddenly open?

PPSN: It can seem like this opening process is endless. I only have twenty-one years experience, and the more I practice the more gates I see to be opened.

Q: And is it always at the same tempo?

PPSN: Tempo is interesting because for a while you take big steps forward. I remember one particular Yong Maeng Jong Jin where I made real progress but then I felt as if I was walking round in circles. So the rate of progress is strange, but this is just the feeling you have. You're never going backwards, you're developing and growing if you keep practicing. If you have a strong expectation habit, then you'll want something to happen, some lights, some miracles, and then you think, yeah, I'm close to enlightenment!

There is a story about expecting which helped me a lot. In our Zen tradition there's a great duo of master-student, Nam Cheon and Jo-Ju, before he became a great master. Jo-Ju was sixty at the time, having already practiced for forty years. He had practiced very honestly with the question he constantly asked Nam Cheon, "Master, what is the True Way?" It's like asking, what's life about? It was a very serious question for him in his universe.

During this winter's Kyol Che at Warsaw there was a student I've known for a long time, and she asked me the same question: "We've known each other for so long, so what's the secret? You can tell me."

I started laughing and told her that the irony is that she already has this secret but only she can discover it. We often think that there's some hidden meaning when the teachers say, "The sky is blue." Nam Cheon replied to the same question saying, "It's everyday mind, nothing special." Changing the baby's nappies is the True Way, drinking beer with your friend is the True Way. Everyday life is the True Way.

But Jo-Ju couldn't believe this, so he asked, "Shall I keep it or not?" Nam Cheon said, "If you try to keep it, this is already a big mistake."

"But if I don't keep it," Jo-Ju was still trying, "how can I understand?" He still had a strong habit of wanting to understand what it's all about. We all make this mistake so often, trying to understand through thinking.

Bodhisattva

So the last HIT Nam Cheon gave was, "If you want to understand... understanding is illusion, not understanding is blankness. If you truly want to understand the True Way, it is before thinking, clear, bright and infinite. So why do you make right and wrong?" Upon hearing this, Jo-Ju's mind completely opened.

In this story, there is a great teaching. When I first heard it, I thought, Jo-Ju's been practicing for forty years - this doesn't sound good. We all have this idea at the beginning that we'll practice strongly and finish, and then get back to our everyday pleasures or whatever. Jo-Ju's forty years of practice gives me a good perspective on what I'm doing. Nam Cheon said that everyday life is the True Way, and this is also good teaching because most of us want something special, some miracle. There is a miracle, the practice - we transform! That's the real miracle for me, seeing how people change. It doesn't usually happen suddenly, "Wow! I can fly in this dharma room," that's not what it's about.

-Aleksandra Porter


A formal Dharma talk given on December 29, 1979 'Everything is That Simple'

(Holds the Zen stick and very slowly traces a circle in the air with its tip, then strikes the Zen stick vertically on the table.)

Very very slow.

(Quickly traces a circle in the air with the Zen stick and strikes it on the table.)

Very very fast.

The Providence Zen Center has written a song for the end of our skit, and the main theme of the song is time. I think that is appropriate since the only reason we're here tonight is that people think there's time -- coming and going, old and new. I can't say what the song is because it would ruin the surprise, but it does have something to do with time: it is about the idea that some people's practice is faster than other people's practice. That's really a great dilemma for many of us who practice -- comparing ourselves to other Zen students, to our Zen Master, and to other Zen Masters -- and thinking, "In the realm of time, how well am I doing? How much longer will it take me to feel better and be strong, to go out and make this mind light shine to other people?" Sometimes, unfortunately, our mind light gets a little dim, so most of us keep staying here and trying to recharge our batteries enough so we can go out anytime and help anybody.

One thing that might make us all feel a little better is that once, long ago, there was a Zen Master named Jo Ju who took a very long time to understand himself. He became a monk when he was seventeen and didn't start studying the sutras until he was twenty. He studied the sutras for ten years and learned all about mind, all about Buddha, until he was thirty years old, and then he still didn't understand mind, didn't understand Buddha, even though he had read and read and read. Then he became a Zen monk and sat Zen for thirty years. He sat and sat and sat -- "What is Buddha? What is Mind?" -- very hard training, until he was 57 years old. Still he didn't understand. He hadn't gone out anywhere and he hadn't taught anything to anybody.

One day he said to his teacher, Zen Master Nam Cheon, "Please tell me: What is the True Way?" Nam Cheon said, "Everyday mind is the True Way." That wasn't enough. So he said, "Should I try to keep it, or not?" Nam Cheon said, "If you try to keep it, you're already mistaken." Jo Ju still didn't understand. So he said, "If I don't try to keep it, how can I understand the True Way?" Nam Cheon said, "The True Way is not dependent on understanding or not understanding. The True Way of no thinking is like space, clear and void. So why do you make right and wrong?"

As soon as he said "Why do you make right and wrong?" Jo Ju's mind exploded -- KHHH!! When he was 57 years old. For twenty more years Jo Ju walked around and around, having Dharma combat with all the Zen Masters he could find in China. Then finally, at the age of eighty, he settled down and went to stay in one monastery, and if people came, he'd give them teaching. So that's the time it took Jo Ju to start teaching. But he actually had no idea of time. He only went straight ahead, day by day, and did what he knew he had to do to become strong.

At a very young age, another famous man named Hui Neng heard just a very few lines from the Diamond Sutra and completely understood himself with no practice at all. But he had a lot of karma. People were trying to kill him because he got transmission from a very famous Zen Master, the Fifth Patriarch, and became the Sixth Patriarch with no training, no education. He had a lot of karma because all these people were trying to stick a knife in his back. So he had to go away in the forest for sixteen years and live with hunters and kill, living under trees with no roof over his head. Finally, after that length of time, he came out and took the Precepts and became a monk before he began teaching. So, as Soen Sa Nim has said many times, it's very easy to attain Enlightenment, but it's very hard to keep it. Jo Ju understood that and Hui Neng understood that.

Bodhisattva

About a year and a half after the Providence Zen Center first began, it was still a small temple on Doyle Avenue, and we'd been practicing with Soen Sa Nim as hard as we could. We had Yong Maeng Jong Jins every month, and two young men came to practice with us one weekend. Well, one of them sat. One of them was very handsome and strong and sat up very straight with the correct mudra, and he put us all to shame. After a year and a half we already had habits, very bad habits. I used to bake bread, and during sitting, I'd get up to punch it down. Put it in the oven, take it out from the oven -I'd get up and down any time I wanted to. We didn't have much form then, and I just slumped and fell asleep, but this guy didn't move -- very, very strong sitting. The other man never sat down; he always stood up. He had bad knees or something. He'd stand, and about two or three minutes after the chugpi was hit he'd really be moving. And he had all this energy! I used to look at him and wonder, "Where is this energy coming from? What's he doing?" I asked Soen Sa Nim. I thought he was out to lunch, but Soen Sa Nim said, "This man has very special energy; he's really hot!"

During the interviews, I heard Soen Sa Nim laughing, telling this guy how wonderful he was, and that he understood. I'd never heard him say that before, and I became very jealous, thinking, "What did he understand? How come he has never told me I understood anything?" We used to talk then during Yong Maeng Jong Jins, so Soen Sa Nim came out and said, "This man attained First Enlightenment." Now here we had been there for a year and a half and nobody had attained anything. Then, in one weekend, this guy is shining.

The other guy said, "Soen Sa Nim, I want to talk to you. It's got to be private." So they go out and sit in my car in the parking lot. Of all places, my car. And Soen Sa Nim came back beaming and said, "This man also understands!"

So I hated Soen Sa Nim. And I hated these two guys. I did a lot of thinking: "What have I been doing here in a year and a half? And why didn't I get that attention?" The next day, I took them downtown to the bus station. They were both going to take a bus somewhere, so I went down the street with both of them, feeling like I didn't want to talk with them. They were talking with each other, and they started comparing their emptiness experiences which I knew right away was a mistake. I'd learned that much with Soen Sa Nim. And after about two or three minutes they were arguing with each other about who had had the deepest emptiness experience. So, once again, Enlightenment is very easy to attain but very hard to keep. Already I saw that their minds were moving; they were having a problem. Part of me really wanted them to come back, because I knew they both had very good minds. And part of me didn't want them to come back, because I knew that they would make me feel bad, feel jealous. They only came back a couple of times, but after just a few more visits neither one of them ever came back again, and I don't know what they're up to.

Through the years I've had a lot of thought about Jo Ju, about Hui Neng, and about these two young men that came to the Zen Center one day, and thought, "What am I doing? How am I using my time?" This New Year comes and it really makes you wonder what you are going to do, how you are going to improve yourself. Something interesting happened this week at the Zen Center. We were trying to decide whether we should make coffee public or private. Some of us thought it should be private, and some of us thought it should be public. It was a real problem, for me anyway -- I thought about it a lot. so finally one of us asked Soen Sa Nim what he thought, and he said very simply that it should be private, because it doesn't help your practice. That's the only reason, It gives you energy that isn't your own, and you can get dependent on it, and it can become a bad habit. So it shouldn't be public in a Zen Center.

Everything is that simple. I know I was worried about giving this Dharma Speech and I heard Mu Bul Su Nim quote me as saying, "Everything is just like this, so only breathe deeply and relax, and then it's a bargain!" And everything is that simple; everything is a bargain. It's very simple that coffee should be private; it's very simple that we try to do as much as we can to make ourselves strong so that we can go out and help other people. And the truth of the matter is that it took Jo Ju sixty years to completely understand that; it took Hui Neng many, many years to become a teacher. And I hope that all of us realize that we are Jo Ju, we are Hui Neng, we are these two young men that came to the Zen Center, that we all have that same clear mind. Some day we will all have to pick up the stick and do something with it to give people correct teaching.

Before, this stick went up in the air. One time, very slowly, it completed the circle, and one time very quickly completed the circle.

Which one do you want?

KATZ!

Welcome to the New Year's celebration.

-Seong Hyang

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