Welcome to this talk.
I'll be going over a story about the four horses and why this story can inspire you if you're currently struggling with your meditation practice or find the whole journey frustrating.
I'll first start by reading an explanation from the highly influential late Zen monk Shunryu Suzuki,
Often lovingly referred to as Suzuki Roshi.
He was a Zen monk that popularized Soto Zen in America and founded the San Francisco Zen Center.
And at the end I'll provide you with my experiences as a fellow meditation practitioner and how I found a lot of meaning behind the story.
Suzuki Roshi's explanation goes as follows.
It is said that there are four kinds of horses.
Excellent ones,
Good ones,
Poor ones,
And bad ones.
The best horse will run slow and fast,
Right and left,
At the driver's will before it sees the shadow of the whip.
The second best will run as well as the first one does,
Just before the whip reaches its skin.
The third one will run when it feels pain on his body.
The fourth will run after the pain penetrates to the marrow of its bones.
You can imagine how difficult it is for the fourth one to learn how to run.
When we hear the story,
Almost all of us wants to be the best horse.
If it is impossible to be the best one,
We want to be the second best.
That is,
I think,
The usual understanding of the story and of Zen.
You may think that when you sit in Zazen,
Which is sitting meditation,
You will find out whether you are the one of the best horses or one of the worst ones.
Here,
However,
There is a misunderstanding of Zen.
If you think the aim of Zen practice is to train you to become one of the best horses,
You will have a big problem.
This is not the right understanding.
If you practice Zen in the right way,
It doesn't matter whether you are the best horse or the worst one.
When you consider the mercy of the Buddha,
How do you think the Buddha will feel about the four kinds of horses?
He will have more sympathy for the worst one than for the best one.
When you are determined to practice Zazen with the great mind of Buddha,
You will find that the worst horse is the most valuable one.
In your very imperfections,
You will find the basis for your firm,
Way-seeking mind.
Those who can sit perfectly physically usually take more time to obtain the true way of Zen,
The actual feeling of Zen,
The marrow of Zen.
But those who find great difficulties in practicing Zen will find more meaning in it.
So I think that sometimes the best horse may be the worst horse,
And the worst horse can be the best one.
If you study calligraphy,
You will find that those who are not so clever usually become the best calligraphers.
Those who are very clever with their hands often encounter great difficulty after they reached a certain stage.
This is true in art and in Zen.
It is true in life.
So when we talk about Zen,
We cannot say he is good or he is bad in the ordinary sense of words.
The posture taken in Zazen is not the same for each of us.
For some,
It may be impossible to take the cross-legged posture.
But even though you cannot take the right posture,
When you arouse your real way-seeking mind,
You can practice Zen in its true sense.
Actually,
It is easier for those who have difficulties in sitting to arouse the true way-seeking mind than for those who can sit easily.
So that's a wonderful passage by Suzuki Roshi.
And one thing I've noticed is that if you tend to come from a background of inner turmoil,
So perhaps it may come from the form of childhood wounding,
Or certain tragic events,
Or just a lot of stress in your life that affects the way you function in the world,
You may have found it harder to sit for meditation than others.
Now,
Comparison is not a good thing,
But I've noticed that I would always,
In the beginning of my practice,
I would compare myself to other people and entertain thoughts like,
Why do I have to put hours and hours a day in meditation and try harder than other people who could just do five minutes a day or ten minutes a day and they generally feel at ease,
Calm,
While I am doing a lot of practice,
But I react a lot.
And you may have experienced too where you've had periods where meditation has been a struggle.
You're constantly fighting with your mind,
Resisting with your mind,
You lose any kind of calm that you have experienced in your meditation practice,
And you're reacting to things,
And everything just seems very difficult.
And you may be identifying with the bad horse or worst horse in this example.
I know I did.
But looking back,
I think one of the great gifts of working with a very difficult mind is that it allows you to go deeper than people that just take this practice on at a superficial level or just study it,
But not in depth.
And this allows you to go far greater in your journey,
Because you will find that this practice will,
In a way force you to analyze everything from the influences that you take on,
Your diet,
How much formal practice you need to do per day,
What types of influences and friends do you want to keep around,
Because you've experienced that there's a bit less slack involved.
So if you do slip up in the initial stages of your journey,
You'll find that you just go back into a lot of suffering.
So there's an extra drive to maintain your practice.
And this actually open you up to studying with different teachers,
Reading more,
And practicing a lot more.
And in continuing with this analogy of the horses,
If you were to take a good horse,
And let's just say for this definition,
And someone who is pretty well adjusted doesn't really need that much meditation to find peace,
You'll find that compared to them in year one,
They seem to be doing a lot better than you on the surface.
And five years from now,
They still might be a bit more peaceful,
Less reactive than you,
Even though you're doing all this work.
But there's something magical happens after in the long run.
So after year 10,
Or year 20,
You'll find that you'll not only surpass them in the depth of your practice,
But you'll even go in stages far beyond what is what you thought was even possible.
And you become a much better handler of your mind as well,
Because you've developed a very special relationship with your practice.
You know exactly when your mind may be dropping into negativity,
Reactivity,
And shifted back compared to someone who hasn't trained at all in meditative disciplines.
You will also have a very strong and healthy outlet of this practice that you can always come back to,
To find your centering,
To bring you confidence and also inner joy that can be accessed at any time.
And in the end,
Like I mentioned,
You will take this practice to far greater depths than someone who just dabbles or does it for more superficial benefits like to relieve stress or to sleep or to relax.
But someone who had a very suffering mind will be not satisfied with these things.
They want to go even further and figure out how to end the suffering.
So their journey will go take them a lot further.
And they will really sink into the meaning behind this practice through a lot and a lot of sitting and a lot of practice.
And in the end,
They'll experience a far greater happiness.
So I hope this inspires you to keep going.
Even if it seems to be a difficult time,
And meditation doesn't seem to be going your way,
Just know that over time it will add up to something far greater than you can even imagine.
May you find happiness.
