So this week,
It's been really interesting for me to observe what's been coming up for practitioners in conversation.
The essence that I've been experiencing from practitioners is what's the point of this?
This practice is so against the stream of our culture.
Our cultural norms are very much about wanting and fulfilling the things that we want.
We live in a culture that is built on identity and creating a strong sense of self in this world.
It's like the mentality is kind of like,
Get out there and get your 30 seconds of fame somehow.
I was sharing yesterday with our in-person sangha that we are all really conditioned to go in the direction of what we want.
It's how everybody does it.
You could almost say that the definition of being a person is wanting something all the time.
Wanting stuff,
Wanting to be loved,
Wanting to get it right.
Wanting something however subtle.
We are always directing our activity towards what we want.
And what's so interesting about wanting,
This is really desire arising.
Desire arising within us,
You know,
It's just the earth in a way expressing her natural energy if you think of it in those terms.
Desire isn't a problem.
The energy of desire is the energy of life.
The problem is that we don't understand our desire.
We turn it into something insatiable and painful because of our attachment and our fear.
And maybe as a culture,
We have lost our way,
But that way is still within us at the heart of ourselves.
And our practice is to take time and to look for it.
We have to ask ourselves when we're doubting our practice,
When what is the point of this comes into our mind.
We have to ask ourselves,
What is the way?
What is the way?
Because that question is our deepest desire,
It's what has us tuning into these morning sessions.
What is the way?
I would like to share a poem with you by the 12th century Zen master,
Wu Men.
Ten thousand flowers in spring,
The moon in autumn,
A cool breeze in summer,
Snow in winter.
If your mind isn't clouded by unnecessary things,
This is the best season of your life.
Every season has its unique gift.
And in the human world,
Our seasons sometimes include war,
Fear,
Grief,
Anguish,
Pain,
Loss,
But even that season,
Difficult as it may be,
Is a good season if we're not raging in our mind and we can appreciate the life we've been given.
We can accept the season with some joy and gratitude because we're alive and very soon it will be otherwise.
There is always something to be done with this life and we are doing it.
This is not about this culture of wanting and not wanting.
You know,
We might want to get a lot out of practice,
But in the end,
We're not going to get those things.
Instead,
What we're going to get is little by little,
We will shed our wanting.
And instead of wanting,
We'll have just living,
Just willing to live fully with appreciation for whatever is here.
And that's freedom.
That's the best kind of awakening.
To be able in any moment to say,
This is how it is right now.
This is how it is right now without a mind that is raging against it.
That feels way more poignant than what my limited mind may want.
And that kind of enlightenment is very ordinary and very everyday.
I want to quote the late Soto Zen Roshi,
Mel Weitzman.
He wrote in his book,
One of his books,
There is a way of karma and there is a way of Dharma.
The way of karma is our ordinary dualistic life.
The way of Dharma is pursuing the way of liberation,
Which is sometimes called enlightenment.
For me,
The word enlightenment means light.
So a person on the path to liberation is expressing light.
There is a question that you sometimes ask your teacher,
What is the way?
Everyday mind is the way.
So what is everyday mind?
It's also known as ordinary mind in the Soto Zen teachings.
Everyday mind is getting up and brushing our teeth.
We get up and we sit in meditation.
We shower and we walk the dog.
This is ordinary and this is everyday mind.
We don't consider this sacred,
But is it?
We often think that the transcendent mind,
The mind that has arrived,
Has some supernatural power free from suffering and that sacred is kind of over there somewhere.
But what I've learned as a Zen student is that the sacred and the ordinary are one.
Holy and ordinary are one.
And what we do is we tend to split them up.
What enlightenment truly means is there's no split.
Taking out the garbage,
Raking the leaves,
Cleaning the floors.
These are sacred acts,
Sacred activities.
The split happens because of this ego,
This separate sense of self that we've been talking about this week.
Everything is so serious in the orbit of the ego.
There is no space.
Everything's funny and there's no play.
It's all about propping up and keeping this fragile sense of self together.
So the invitation is for you to continually explore and look at what concepts you have,
We have about self image.
What ideas about ourselves do we create?
Are we smart?
Are we stupid?
Are we brave?
Are we resourceful?
Are we sick?
Are we well?
I am statements that you use with others and with yourself begin to see these ideas.
They are all ideas,
But because we don't see them as ideas and concepts and perceptions,
We get caught in them.
And so the sacred remains somewhere out there to get.
And all along,
It's right here in our daily life,
In our daily activity,
In the daily presentations.
Right here,
10,
000 flowers in spring,
The moon in autumn,
A cool breeze in summer,
Snow in winter.
If your mind isn't clouded by unnecessary things,
This is the best season of your life.
