Mission Impossible?: How Can I Ever Become A Buddha?

In this talk we explore the idea of the bodhisattva -- the ideal of a being so compassionate that they forego reaching nirvana to stay in this world and help all beings achieve enlightenment. An impossible ideal? What are the possibilities in our own lives for living in this way?

Transcript

You may have already noticed a theme tonight in that when we began I brought a reading from Roshi Joan Halifax about bodhisattvas and then our additional reading during our sutra service was Tori Enge's beautiful bodhisattvas vow.

I've been thinking a lot about bodhisattvas and how I have discounted them in the past in my zen life.

How I've kind of put that idea on the back burner and yet I realize how important it has been in my own zen training.

So just to refresh all of our memories,

Bodhisattvas are these beings,

These aspirational beings who are on the path to complete awakening but they refuse to leave everyone else behind.

They refuse to enter nirvana until everyone else has gone ahead of them.

The ultimate in generosity,

In self-sacrifice,

In compassion and over the centuries two basic ideas about buddhahood,

About bodhisattvas have grown up.

One is these are mythical beings and people worship them,

Literally make sacrifices,

Light incense,

Bring offerings to these god-like beings.

But in Mahayana Buddhism which is our lineage,

The teaching is different.

The teaching is that we are all buddhas from the beginning.

We all have buddha nature.

We just grow in our recognition of it as we practice,

As we mature and that anyone who has ever had a wish to benefit other beings,

Anyone can become a bodhisattva.

That means no matter who you are,

Lay person,

Monk,

No matter how exalted or lowly,

How new to buddhism or an old hand,

All of us buddhas,

All of us capable of living as bodhisattvas.

I've been reading about one young monk who threw himself into the bodhisattva way.

In fact,

His name is Tangen Harada.

He was a roshi in Japan and taught for almost 60 years at Ukokuji Monastery and he wrote a book that I recommend called Throw Yourself Into the House of Buddha.

And I just want to read to you how he described himself as a 19-year-old monk.

He said,

I resolve to become like a chair.

A chair doesn't refuse its services to anybody.

It just takes care of the sitter and lets them rest their legs.

After it has served its purpose,

No one gets up and gives thanks or offers words of kindness to the chair.

It will more likely get kicked out of the way.

The chair doesn't grumble or complain or bear a grudge,

But just takes whatever is given.

When there is a job to be done,

It puts forth all its energy without picking and choosing according to its desires.

I thought,

Wouldn't it be great to have such a heart?

So as we throw ourselves into this life day after day,

What are the possibilities for us?

Can we hold on to an aspiration to be of benefit to people?

Not just as we sit on our cushions,

But in our daily life and to be of benefit,

Even when people behave badly.

As Torrey NG wrote,

When people behave bitterly toward us,

It's best to bow down.

This all sounds great,

But how could it happen?

How could it actually happen to you and to me?

And really what happens arises naturally through practice.

That this practice of hearing the cries of the world and having both the desire and the courage to respond to those cries,

It begins slowly and subtly when we first sit down to meditate.

We see,

First of all,

That we're not the center of the universe.

And oh,

What a relief that can be.

We begin to glimpse that there is no separate fixed me to begin with that abides through time.

And then we begin to experiment with not putting our own self-concern at the center of everything.

As we sit,

As we walk,

As we meet someone on the street,

Practice softens us,

It tenderizes us.

We begin to be touched by really looking at other people.

We begin to be touched by the suffering we see when we look in another's eyes.

And if we stay with that feeling rather than simply pushing it away,

As we're tempted to do,

The heart gets wider.

There's more room.

And then when we begin to respond to other people,

To their suffering,

To what they need,

We forget about the self.

It's the easiest way to meet non-self.

Because when we're focusing beyond ourselves,

We're not thinking about me and mine.

And,

Of course,

The insight that comes with more practice is that it is not a zero-sum game.

It's not a matter of taking my care of myself or taking care of someone else.

That,

In fact,

We serve ourselves when we serve other people.

I love the Dalai Lama's saying,

The wise,

Selfish person takes care of other people.

This meditative path brings us more confidence,

More energy,

More willingness to look toward what's out there in this world of beings.

One of the traps we can fall into is believing that we need to get rid of the self.

We need to get rid of any concern for me,

I and me and mine.

But,

Of course,

The self is so necessary to know when we have to show up for zazen,

To know when we have to make a meal or talk to a friend.

Practice allows us simply to glimpse that this self is not separate,

Is not fixed,

And lets us live in such a way that we are not the central character 24-7.

The bodhisattva vows that we make at the end of this evening start with,

Beings are numberless,

I vow to free them.

Delusions are inexhaustible,

I vow to end them.

To end them,

Deliberately phrased as impossibilities.

And it can seem insane to aspire to be a bodhisattva,

To take these vows.

In fact,

It can even be quite ego-inflating,

Oh I'm taking these vows,

I am so selfless.

But practice can actually move us toward greater awareness and concern for others.

Not to some ideal,

But toward really doing it more naturally.

The longest session I have sat was three weeks long,

And I was the tanto,

I was the practice leader.

And that meant I was in charge of everything,

Of who made the meals,

Of who kept the time,

Of how doksan went,

Of who gave the talks,

Everything.

And I was told that my job was to hold the entire sangha,

All 30 of us,

Hold them in mind throughout these three weeks.

And I started with that aspiration,

And I thought my head would explode.

And at one point I actually went in and said to my teacher,

I can't do this,

I can't,

I can't,

It's too much,

There's too much to hold in one brain.

And then over the three weeks,

It shifted.

I don't know how,

But it simply became more natural to notice,

Oh,

That person is struggling with pain as she sits.

I can help give her some suggestions for her posture.

That person needs help with meal practice.

That person needs to rest and take time away from the seshin.

Much more natural.

My mind simply went there most of the time.

And what I came to understand was that it is a practice,

Holding others in my heart,

Holding others in my awareness,

A practice that we can all undertake.

So perhaps you can imagine being at a meeting at work,

And rather than simply thinking about the next thing you want to say,

You're really looking at everybody else in the meeting,

Really getting a sense of who's with you,

Who is showing up,

And how everyone else is doing.

Perhaps it's really looking at the people you live with,

Who you take for granted,

And really seeing how they are in this moment.

It is a practice we can do every day,

Moment to moment.

And we can challenge ourselves to do it in the most unlikely places.

And of course we get discouraged and we think,

I can't do this.

Certainly that was my encounter with being the practice leader at seshin.

I can't do this,

I must be crazy to try.

How is it even possible?

But all we need to do is come back to that question.

Am I able to hold the people I'm with in this moment?

Am I able to expand my awareness beyond myself in this moment?

That's all that's needed.

And we return to that vow to hold other people in our hearts when we can.

I just watched a film that I recommend to you all.

It's a new film called Perfect Days.

And it's about a man in Tokyo who cleans toilets.

That's his job.

And the film has almost no dialogue,

But simply follows this man through his day,

Through the cleaning,

Through the people he encounters.

And what is so striking is the meticulous attention he pays to each thing he does,

To each thing he does,

To each person he encounters,

Even when people see right through him.

Because after all,

He's just the toilet cleaner.

So he rescues a lost little girl.

And the mother comes and is so relieved and doesn't even notice him because he's just the toilet cleaner.

He looks up at the sky and sees the sun through the leaves.

And what we see is not only the meticulous attention that he pays to his job,

But the meticulous attention that he pays to the world,

Including the people he encounters,

Even when they pay him no mind.

How do we do this?

Now,

As long as we have egos,

Which is as long as we are alive,

There will always be tension around this.

How can I be concerned with other people when I keep going back inside my head?

And the best response is always just to look and look again and to notice the gap between what we wish for,

To be present and compassionate,

And how we're showing up in this moment.

And to take this vow of compassion and concern for others does not mean self-abnegation or letting people run all over us.

Our job is to take care of ourselves as we take care of everything we encounter,

Keeping our hearts open and noticing when our fears make our hearts close up.

The Buddha is probably the best example to close with.

Here was a man,

As far as we know,

Who spent 40 years of his life,

The last 40 years of his life,

When he could have held on to his realization and kept it to himself,

He walked barefoot all over India telling people about what he had discovered,

About being a Buddha,

About all of us being Buddhas.

He took no possessions for himself except a bowl with which he begged and a robe,

And he spent his life telling the world about something that he knew would relieve suffering.

He shared the Dharma using his particular talents.

He happened to be a good teacher,

A good communicator who could touch people's hearts as well as their minds,

And he used those skills.

That's the Bodhisattva path.

We all have different skills,

And whatever our talents are,

All we need to do is use those talents when we can to hold and care for others as well as ourselves.

We can do it in each moment with the ingredients we already possess,

And that is the path to recognizing what's already true,

That we are Buddhas,

We are Bodhisattvas.

So thank you,

Bodhisattvas,

And I look forward to our discussion.

So please sit comfortably,

First of all,

And then see what occurs to you,

And if any of this resonated or brought up concerns or complaints,

Share them.

Reviews

Such a wonderful tak. I recently finished the Upaya Chaplaincy training and begin a two year residency at a hospital so this tak spoke deeply to me . Gassho

Thank you for sharing.