So good morning.
Welcome to another year.
I'd like to start out by reading,
It's an Ojibwe saying,
The Ojibwe tribe,
Called My Life,
My Soul.
Ten years ago I turned my face for a moment and it became my life.
Sometimes I go about pitting myself and all along my soul is being blown by great winds across the sky.
So I wanted to start out this year by offering this first talk of this new year as an invitation to begin again.
This path is all about beginning again.
It's not a linear path.
It's more like a loop.
My friend Matthew Brensilver,
He said that if you can't begin again on this path of practice,
It can become humiliating.
I identify with that.
So much so that maybe you even stop practicing because the mind has habituated a linear path,
Kind of like practice,
Progress,
Practice,
Progress,
Progress,
And then you end up at this enlightened arrival.
There are times in this practice when we experience the deep concentration and steadiness and it's motivating.
And then we can see this steadiness manifest off the cushion.
Our life is easeful.
We're in the flow of it.
And then there are times when we have zero motivation.
Maybe you question it,
Even justify that,
Oh,
Today I'm going to do a walk and so that will be my practice.
You know,
Blowing off sitting can be a way that we deal with our lack of motivation.
So we learn.
We're learning to begin again.
Sati.
Sati is the word that's translated as mindfulness.
And it means to remember.
So it has these connotations of memory.
And on the micro level,
We begin again when we remember the breath,
Returning to the quiet.
And on the macro level,
In our daily life,
We begin again when we remember this dharma,
The truth of the way things are.
Everything arises and passes.
Nothing stays the same.
Nothing stays the same.
My particular flavor of suffering has a dreamlike quality to it.
And if you can recall a dream,
You know,
We know that it's not easy to pull ourselves out of dreams when we're asleep and in a dream.
And the dharma,
The practice in those moments of despairing or suffering of the dream,
The dharma is totally forgotten.
Totally.
And then we remember and we begin again.
And of course,
We make messes along the way in our dreamy state,
You know.
And sometimes we're embarrassed by the messes that we make.
It can be really humbling.
But we can,
Again,
Just begin again and learn the lesson from the messes that are really from this place of greed and of hate and delusion.
And we learn the lessons as deeply as we can.
And here's the kicker,
The most important part.
We learn the lesson as deeply as we can and then we completely forgive ourselves and begin again.
We completely forgive ourselves.
Sometimes in relationships,
There's conflict and the tendency is to sort of like tie up the loose ends and come to some resolution.
And it may be necessary to do that.
And sometimes the loose ends are just kind of hanging out there,
Unresolved.
And we have to just let them lie and begin again.
This is from the Zen teacher Norman Fisher.
He writes,
It's hard being a human being.
There's a lot to it.
There really is.
So I want to say in conclusion,
Let's all agree to accept the reality that we're not going to do a very good job of this.
There's too much to do.
Isn't it a relief to know that it's not going to work out?
And you can just forget about this to start with.
You're not going to get it right.
Don't worry.
Just remember,
There's no hope.
But the important thing,
Despite this,
Is to start.
To start and continue.
That will be enough.
So our intention,
The intention that brought us to this path of practice,
May have changed from where we began.
So we can begin again by asking,
You know,
What is practice now?
What is practice now?
Mindfulness,
Sati,
Remembering this prevents us from missing our life,
You know,
Remembering.
Like the Ojibwe saying I read at the end of our meditation,
I turn my face for a moment and it becomes my life.
So in closing,
I'd like to do just another little meditation.
Just close your eyes and collect your attention and take some breaths.
Fill the lungs,
Fill the chest,
And let it out slowly.
Letting go,
Letting go.
Feel the sensations of the exhale,
The letting go.
Let your body relax.
You might even want to say to yourself,
Here,
Here,
This is beginning again.
I'll close with a story that I read from the writer and teacher Mark Napo.
It was a snowy night,
And Robert was recalling the time two springs ago when he was determined to paint the family room.
Up early,
He was out the door to the hardware store,
Gathering the gallons of red,
The wooden mixing stick and the drop cloths,
And the one-time brushes that always harden no matter how you soak them.
He mixed the paint outside and waddled to the door with a gallon in each hand,
The drop cloth under his arm,
And a wide brush in his mouth.
He began to chuckle in telling what happened.
I teetered there for minutes trying to open the door,
Not wanting to put anything down.
I was so stubborn.
I had the door almost open when I lost my grip,
Stumbled backwards,
And wound up on the ground,
Red gallons all over me.
At this point,
He laughed to himself,
As he had done many times,
And we watched the snow fall in silence.
I thought of his little story the whole way home.
Amazingly,
We all do this,
Whether with groceries or paint or with the stories we feel determined to share.
We do this with our love,
With our sense of truth,
Even with our pain.
It's such a simple thing,
But in a moment of ego,
We refuse to put down what we're carrying in order to open the door.
Time and time again,
We are offered the chance to truly learn this.
We cannot hold on to things and enter.
We must put down what we're carrying,
Open the door,
And then take up only what we need to bring inside.
It is a basic human sequence.
Gather,
Prepare,
Put down,
Enter.
But failing as we do,
We always have the second chance to learn how to fall,
Get up,
And laugh.
