Zen Story - The Empty Boat | Dharma Talk

In this excerpt from our Weekly Sangha on Insight Timer Live, we use the wisdom of The Empty Boat to remember everything arises through causes and conditions, and in this recognition, realize there is no one to be angry at, including ourselves.

Transcript

It's one of my favorite Zen stories of this monk that goes,

He's looking for a quiet place to meditate.

He's thinking the monastery is getting a little too noisy,

He's getting interrupted too much.

So he goes down to the lake and he gets this rowboat and he decides,

I'm going to row out to the center of the lake and I'll just meditate out there.

No one will be able to bother me out there,

I'll be undisturbed,

I'll have a peaceful meditation.

So he rows out to the center of the lake and he's meditating for a couple hours,

He's very peaceful,

He's not being disturbed.

And then all of a sudden,

He feels this other boat just kind of gently tapping against his boat.

And he's a little kind of perturbed,

Like,

You know,

There's this big lake,

Why is someone,

Why is someone's boat hitting me?

But he decides,

I'm not going to open my eyes,

I'm not going to come out of my meditation,

They'll just move on.

And then a few moments later,

A little tapping of the boat again,

And starting to get a little bit irritated at this point.

But again,

He thinks,

I'm not going to open my eyes,

I'm not going to look at them,

Because surely they'll just carry on,

They'll just keep going about their time in the lake.

So a third time it happens,

The boat pushes up against him.

Now he's triggered,

And he opens his eyes,

Ready to yell at the person in the other boat.

But he sees there is no one in the boat,

The boat is empty.

And with that,

He wakes up to the nature of reality.

Because all of a sudden,

Through seeing the boat was empty,

Through seeing his anger at someone in the boat,

Thinking there was someone to be angry at,

And then seeing there was no one in the boat,

He recognized how everything is arising through causes and conditions.

That it would make as much sense to be angry at someone at the boat for knocking into him,

As it would to be angry at all of the conditions that caused this empty boat to come and knock into his boat.

The rope that somehow became untied,

Or maybe fell apart by being in the sun and the water,

That it degraded,

And so the boat came apart from the pier.

The rope fell apart and the boat came apart.

Or the wind,

The little wind or the little current that pulled the boat into his boat,

That it made no sense to get angry at any of those conditions.

So why would he get angry at a person if they were in the boat?

Because they simply would have been arising based on all of their causes and conditions,

Just as the boat was arising based on all of its causes and conditions.

And we can see this when we go about our day.

Our boats,

You know,

Us as the boat just arising causes and conditions,

Just interacting with other boats all day long.

Maybe we're on the way to a store to return something,

We need to go into customer service.

And when we get there,

Right,

Maybe the customer service person's having a bad day.

All of their causes and conditions,

All of the wind,

And the current,

And the rope that's untethered them,

Right,

All of these conditions that have put them in a bad mood.

And we come in our boat,

Right,

Interacting with them.

And maybe we're in a really good mood.

And maybe we're feeling really,

We've had a good night's rest.

Just before we walked into the store,

We get a text of some really good news.

And we're feeling really good.

And so we're really mindful in the interaction.

And we're not blaming them.

And we're not angry at them for being maybe unhelpful or for not being particularly kind or polite,

Right?

It doesn't bother us so much.

But then maybe our conditions are a little bit different.

And we're running late.

And we overslept.

We on our way to the store,

We got pulled over and we got a ticket.

And then just as we enter the store,

We get a text and it's bad news.

And then we go into the store and we're really unhappy.

And our boat because of all of the conditions that meets this other boat.

And instead of being mindful,

We're not very mindful.

And we're really irritated because they're not being helpful.

And we feel triggered.

And we feel that they're the reason for this happening,

That it's fair for me to blame them.

They're not doing their job properly.

They're a bad person.

And we look at these situations.

And we think,

Well,

What really determined the outcome?

Right?

We don't look at all of the causes and conditions.

We kind of look maybe at one condition.

Was I mindful or not?

Right?

As though we have control over whether we're mindful or not.

If we had control over our mindfulness,

We would wake up every morning and say,

Today,

I'm going to be mindful,

Regardless of what happens to me.

I'm going to be mindful.

But we know that's not how it works out.

Sometimes we're mindful,

Sometimes we're not.

Because mindfulness is a condition as well.

Just the fact that you know about mindfulness,

That maybe you're familiar,

In fact,

Not just mindfulness,

You really do know what the practice of mindfulness is.

That's a condition as well.

Or if we know the teaching of,

Which is a mindfulness practice,

Pausing and breathing,

Right?

Instead of reacting like,

Oh,

I've heard in the past to pause and breathe.

Right?

Yeah.

That's a condition that is now conditioned this experience.

But so often people will say,

Well,

The thing,

The difference in the interaction was whether I was mindful or not,

As though we had a choice in being mindful.

And of course,

We can reflect.

It doesn't mean that we can't reflect on our,

On the situation and think about,

Well,

What were the conditions that led to this?

Right?

When I woke up late,

And I could have paused for a few moments,

Right?

And instead of skipping my meditation practice,

Thinking,

No,

I'm already off to a late start,

I need more than anything to take a few minutes and take a few breaths here.

Or when I,

When I got pulled over,

To pause and take the breath then.

Center yourself,

Right?

Or as you're entering the store and recognizing as soon as you get a text,

You're like,

I'm already late.

I just got a ticket.

I'm not in a good mood.

I don't have the mental energy to deal with whatever this text could be.

I need to pause and take a breath.

And then maybe,

Yes,

Of course,

All of that reflecting,

Creating new conditions that possibly a similar situation arises.

You're going into customer service,

You're a little bit harried for different reasons,

But that kind of feeling is there.

And you remember because of that reflection,

Because you went over it,

Because that does make a difference.

That's a condition.

That's a condition.

That's how we break these patterns,

By reflecting on it,

By listening to teachings,

Hearing about mindfulness,

Reminding ourselves about taking the breaths,

About pausing in between.

Like all of these things are,

Of course,

Conditions.

And sometimes,

A lot of the time probably,

We're very mindful.

And we see,

We feel that little tightening up,

That wanting to push back and we go,

Oh,

This is it.

This is what they were talking about in the class,

In the Dharma talk,

Right?

That being a condition that we were able to remember in that moment.

And take a breath.

Ah,

Oh,

This is mindfulness.

Great.

And it worked.

And I didn't react.

And I didn't make the situation worse.

But then other times,

There's just no mindfulness to be found.

And we just have to go into the suffering.

We leave the store,

We're angry at the person.

There's no personal reflection.

They're a jerk.

They were out to get me.

They should be fired.

And we spend all afternoon suffering.

Because we're angry at ourselves,

Because we weren't mindful.

Because we're angry at the other person.

We're angry because we're suffering.

And we shouldn't be suffering anymore,

Because we're experienced meditators.

And we're on a spiritual path.

And how can this happen?

We think that the deep insights,

That the wisdom comes in the peaceful conditions.

And of course,

We do need a certain amount of peaceful conditions to practice.

And we should also remember to not take those conditions for granted when we have them,

Because we do often take them for granted.

But it's when our boats knock up against each other.

That's where the wisdom comes from.

That's where the insights come from,

The clear seeing.

Not when everyone's being nice to us,

Not when the customer service goes above and beyond.

I mean,

It's nice when we have those conditions,

But we're not learning anything there.

Really,

If anything,

Those are nice conditions.

Enjoy them,

Have gratitude,

Be grateful.

But we learn in the difficult conditions.

I mean,

Thich Nhat Hanh says,

No mud,

No lotus,

Right?

This is where we learn the teachings.

And it's not that we're saying,

Like,

Taking on additional suffering.

I'm not saying that this is a path of suffering,

Because you're going to have the suffering regardless.

It's just,

Do you recognize in the suffering that this too has a place in the practice?

It's just,

Do you recognize in the suffering that this too has a place in the practice?

This is where I see,

Like,

As,

You know,

Right up in front of me,

My suffering,

It's here.

I can't deny it.

I can't avoid it.

And this is where I need to remember my path.

What am I not getting here?

What am I not understanding?

This is where we have the deep insights.

If the monk had gone out into the center of the lake,

And no one had interrupted him,

He wouldn't have woken up.

He would have had a nice,

Peaceful meditation,

Until the next time he was irritated by something.

We do need a certain amount of peaceful conditions.

I absolutely think there's a balance here between having the challenges that can wake us up,

Enough to see reality that slap us across the face,

That sometimes is a boat just plowing into us.

Sometimes that's what we need to wake up.

But we should remember that in the suffering,

The wisdom is in there.

It's not always the peaceful conditions.

That's almost the,

In fact,

It's through the suffering,

And then the seeing of reality in the suffering that frees us for the peaceful conditions to arise.

The peaceful conditions arising internally.

Of course,

We experience external,

Peaceful,

External conditions,

But that's not wisdom.

We want that unshakable peace that we find inside.

That is based in wisdom,

In clearly seeing,

And our boats just have to knock up against each other sometimes.

To remember that,

To remember that when we're in our suffering,

That being another condition,

Oh yes,

This is part of the path to not fight the suffering,

To not think that there is something wrong,

That you're doing something wrong on the spiritual path because you're suffering.

But to look within there and say,

Here's the teaching,

What am I not getting?

The lesson is here,

What am I not getting?

And just in that,

We've taken our attention off the external that we're angry with someone else,

Or we're angry with ourselves,

Because I was so unmindful,

Because I'm not being very spiritual,

Right?

We think we're not being very spiritual in that moment.

Again,

Distracting us from looking,

What is it here?

What am I not getting?

Because as soon as we can acknowledge that now,

We're back on the right path,

We're looking for it,

We're looking in the right place.

And inevitably,

Inevitably,

What we find is what we were angry at,

What we were irritated at,

Was simply a million,

Billion,

Trillion causes and conditions.

I thought it was one person being angry at me and I could blame them.

It makes as much sense being angry at them as it does being angry at the wind,

Being angry at the rain,

At the sun,

Being angry at the wind,

Angry at the rain,

At the sun,

All of it makes as much sense.

But we've got to be able to see it.

And we see,

We often see in that moment of,

It's almost in that desperation in the suffering,

When all of a sudden,

It just all gets pulled back and you go,

I see it.

I see it.

And maybe it's a deep insight,

Maybe it's a,

It's not so deep.

It's an insight that needs to be nurtured more and reflected on and contemplated and meditated on,

Right?

But when you have those insights,

Treat them like gold,

Treat them like a precious,

Precious jewel and keep reflecting on it and keep nurturing it.

Because that is where the wisdom comes from.

The wisdom that then shapes the views and the reality and the way that we see the world and ourselves,

That is where the freedom comes from inside.

And when the boats are knocking up against us,

There's something to learn here.

These are the opportunities where you can wake up,

Where the insights are.

Don't push them away.

Don't think there's something wrong with you.

Don't beat yourself up because you had an unmindful moment.

And that's just more unmindfulness,

By the way,

Right?

It's just that recognizing,

I'm not controlling this either.

I'm not controlling this either.

And yet every meditation that you do,

Every Dharma talk that you attend,

Every moment,

Every conscious breath,

Every moment of mindfulness are all creating these conditions that are leading to more awareness,

More mindfulness,

More seeing reality,

Right?

It's not that it doesn't matter that we take this extreme side and say,

Well,

If I'm not controlling everything,

Then none of this matters.

No,

That's not what it's saying.

Every condition plays a role.

Every condition,

Everything you've heard plays a role.

Whether it arises in that moment when you need it or not,

You can't control that.

And when you're in the suffering,

When your boat is getting knocked up against by another boat,

This is part of the path.

Remember that you're not doing anything wrong.

It's just to look,

To pay attention,

To see what am I not getting here?

Not to blame myself,

But I'm not getting something.

And this is the wake up call to let me know I'm not getting this.

I wouldn't have this opportunity to wake up if this boat wasn't knocking against me right now.

So now I can pay attention and see what is really going on.

Reviews

Just what I needed to hear this morning. Causes and conditions. Thank you 🙏🏾🌞

Love this. These reminders and deep insights help keep me grounded. ♥️🙏🏼

Great story and very inspiring & powerful message. Thank you.

This was excellent!! I love your stories at the beginning and and how you just flow into your talk. Thank you for sharing your wisdom, Meredith! Namaste 🙏🏼💕