August 2nd, 2005, Serial No. 03121

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today's the truth about to advertise words
good evening
it said
my my honor and my pleasure
you can just keep coming in or find space

it's my honor and my pleasure to introduce to you brother david stein the rest brother david has been a benedictine monk sometimes known as a zen addicting
so
for over half a century and has written
as with many wonderful books the quality of which which shows their excellent is is that they they resonate with the heart of practice and
they may be called a christian spiritual practice for they may not made the they appeal and apply equally to all spiritual practitioners
he has travelled widely and lectured widely an enduring that half century and now lives back in his original monastery in upstate new york until this week we are leading coal leading a workshop on the spur
of practice and tonight while we'd like to do is mostly engage in dialogue
to hear from you the questions that you find relevant on the topic of this spirit of practice and m
brother david and shared with me a basic threefold a perspective that he considers
mysticism monasticism and liturgy the and i was thinking
of to threesomes in buddhist practice one of sila samadhi and pressure
is there a correlation there are not there been interesting question another one i was thinking of them more than one is in the inner work of cultivating attention and connection silent illumination
and bringing forth the mind of great dog
the remarkable thing is when you relate from the heart of practice
then the iconography the methodology
had fall secondary does this while we might call the heart the spirit of practice and this is what we would wish to engage with and whatever we wish and whether you'd like to
talk about particular aspects of buddhism or christianity how they compare
our contrast and what how to bring the spirit of monastic practice into everyday life whatever kind of question you would like to raise
twenty say some of
i just want to thank you covered for inviting me here and thank all of you for coming and for especially the students you're making me feel welcome were ready for the face that we have been here
when i go to other places or it's different from coming to the sahara to give a darker her who engage in a retreat it's like a homecoming really feel very much with home here
from i'm really grateful for that and i've always looking forward to those evening things and particularly there's a good questions that the students often so we will post looking forward to that one thing i didn't make muslim brother david
was a student here and was known as an excellent dishwasher
a

her third time we were still washing the dishes with the hot water is coming from the spring-summer down here who knows a very interesting experience
so any questions please mimi
me too high
this washing
huh
well i think it is necessary to
define mysticism so that we are at least for the evening will talk about the same thing i mean the same thing will be used to word and ah just as a simple definition one could say it is the experience that always very important side with experience it's not
something your abstract or this experience of communion with the ultimate whatever never the ultimate is for you put the six experience shuttle is an experience of communion ah and may be one this oh
with the ultimate with
ha
not just the ultimate a new frame of mind but allowing that there's more to it than you can feel as always more to the protect and and in that sense her every human being is a mystic so mistakes or not to be put on a pedestal
and or rather has nothing to do with me i've often said mystic is not a special kind of human being but every human being is a special kind of mystic and the responsibility for us is to become that mystic that we are meant to be because we we all have these
quick flashes of communion result in with being everybody has them if we pay attention to him and but the difference between gallon of milk and the those whom be called a great mystics is that the most of us either forget these moments
or sometimes even
wonder what happened to me there and maybe that was just a moment of insanity or something like that even though it was poverty of most same moment it was a the great mystics took this experience of communion with the ultimate and built the whole life on
made something out of it and with your teacher boss can do that we we have these moments we know when it's like and then everything can be done in this in light of it and so dishwashing for instance can be really are a misty exercise
can be cracked is everything becomes practice that you do in that spirit and
i'm not sure thing that is a joke with the as you really go to a deep reality you venue
ah really pay attention into the water and to the smell of the of the detergent and to the rate of the dishes and if like in the tea ceremony you lift or the heavy things as if they refer the light and all the light things as if they were very heavy
if you're tied at sometimes with your friend your washing the dishes can be a totally different experience a mystic experience
with scanner
it's just me less than year
oh your part of a the border that's very young
in the western
we will went we went when he's finished speaking part i can speak about it okay take out what interests me most about a both new here except all your heart of the monastic orders that's fairly young in the west and so are still kind of getting her grounding and that
brother david your order is much colder than ice
those of us who are concerned about
establishing of
a vital monastic practice and the west with him
this tradition
what should we now and
they should look out for food
please
where you shot him
i think me
well a the benedictine order is a fifteen hundred years old
the but with end and history or it goes in waves and we have been reformed many many times they are other orders around that are really forms of the in addition to our differences the cistercians where reform of the ability to buy
the thousand or so and then the trap is where reform of the cistercians every of monastic order a community has a a time when it flourishes and then a time when it becomes thicker than the just to be a thing
six cokes and as to be renewed again and my own monastery is a reform monastery and so our weather is not my community is not that much older within the older then a fuss eyes within
we are found it interesting to have i was lucky to join the lines the and fifty fee so what has really very pioneering and and very much at the beginning they still didn't even have
buildings we we slept in a barn and we had some drop sheets that the pigeons wouldn't have
shop on and the
it was very pioneering of cause that's great for young people and now for century the lasers via a bunch of old man
and very few young ones and so ready for another reform and and another so
it goes in in in these waves ah
i you know
but we can learn cost is that the the original texts on our cases the rule of st benedict which is a little very small little book
that was and fifteen hundred years ago and a reform tends to come back to that come back to the source let's really take it seriously once invented he wanted and so i suppose it is also in the center addition there's one comes back to this found out that founder and and
to the texts of of those found us ah
that gives a certain strength and stability but one of the
he thinks that fire me most when i think of the benedictine tradition is that there were so many many people thousands and ten thousand and beyond the thousands of people who over the
millennia of mom central isn't it
have a dedicated their lives to this and we're standing in a great tradition than this village is inspiring and i think that might be similar with you even though it isn't new foundation
i think even know
right here physically which were a little over
hidden costs to forty years and
i think the challenge for us is is too bland
the tradition
with innovation reformation to the current set of circumstances
and i think that can be a creative tension between the two sometimes they think that we need to whole of the tradition until it's in our bonds
but that we need to be very careful with renovation and innovation that
it isn't just some kind of convenience or opinion or preference some way which we were trying to
make the tradition fit us rather than that lead lead the tradition reveal it's the wisdom that it's developed over the centuries
and then i also feel like an old tradition that i meditation tradition is so strong that the if we can stay close to that in remember that every time we go to the zendo that we can enact this core of mysticism you know that it's that they're the act
access is and and the that's also the touchstone and the watermark of our practice and and if we're straying from that should be thinking deeply about what we're doing

for body
i did great dad
having a costume
providing without
caring for that and
the dark knight
haha
hannah two hundred a thinking about
the idea that question the question why you better the question was to and
when comment on the phrase great doubt and how that compares to the dark knight of the soul
and
the great doubt within zen practice is don't know mike the mind that isn't
predisposed to prejudice assumptions knowing the answer knowing what should happen them the mind that comes with kind of naivete or innocence
and if we if we go a little deeper into the methodology then
this this is both are an eight state but it it's also because
prejudice and assumptions are so readily ingrained in and habits of thinking are so readily ingrained in our thinking
and way of relating
net there's a certain amount of undoing his and unlearning
and that's through direct experiencing so in the methodology of zen we we would
pay attention to discover what it is to pay attention to what's going on beyond
our own preoccupations and what we think ought to be going on
and then there's dwelling in that sometimes called silent illumination
when will we taking in the world
what were we were being reformed by this direct experiencing
and then is engaging the world
this within what is it to live in this century what is it to be this person what is it to live in this environment know
it's nothing to know everything to learn me this this is the mind of great that this is duggan's angie's tendulkar
does that mean her
not being sure of anything
i think
cognitive the yes not being sure of anything but
that is supported by from direct experience
conference in the practice that in entering this completely how to relate to it will manifest
so there is a trust that is the basis for the green down
this connection between no doubt and trust or faith because faith is not believing something in the first place but faith is basically this existential trust that's what we mean by faith and that connection between faith and doubt that seems very important that both traditions
and i told the are coping the retreat earlier today but i think it's both competing here that and one of the lectures that i hear heard suzuki or should give here he spoke about faith and i was very surprised that her buddhists will talk about facebook have faith
exactly in the sense in which we would speak about faith not believing this or that but trust this existential costs and then he says and don't worry about doubt they said that the greater the doubt the degraded the face as long as the faces and noses lengths ahead of you
and the dog night it seems to me he would be when the the doubt not as far as i he says not intellectual doubt what existential uncertainty is it close just so over
filming that it seems almost impossible to stay a little bit ahead of it what it is the challenge to have so much can a the fence because the greater the dog to go to the faith will be just as a when you're driving on a bike the stronger the
the head when this the front of the faster you're going it just proves that you're going faster so you have more hundred and so the moon in dark knight to uncertainty you have a pat yourself on the shoulder and say it just shows how much faith that
how daring i am
but i don't want make fun of it because from what we read of the great teachers who went through this dark knight it's just a devastating experiments and but we know for my own experience of own diagnosis
it's something very serious but if we put it in this context of a constant and doubt
uncertainty and test then i think the real least we can somehow navigate
him
more specifically a heart
is
yes ah
the most of the time when people speak about face so if in everyday language
we really mean beliefs and when we speak about the face they mean a belief system
but ah then can get us very much on the wrong track and this at least in the cushion context nodded on the original meaning of the word face
in the english translation of the gospels the word belief comes very often but when you look at the greek it is always faith and not beliefs it is
always faith
always in the sense of trust
and when jesus says to his disciples oh you have little face it doesn't mean you don't have the whole treat but only half of the keto the a part of the kids because there wasn't any kids around at that time there were no beliefs around there was only his
way of living and you're interested or you say this little too far from me and it is in this setting that a the spoken about in the gasworks
now
has a say that's a dangerous be of of speaking and so so it's much safer to come back and think of trust and courage every time they'd speak of faith to had another word the digest lot phase and
hotel hotels places
which essential trust yes i see
so it's it's not
know the difference between believing something about a person or believing something that a person says and trust in that person you know the difference
and existential cost is there not just in in a person but in the very being because once endowed in the grave doubt is just everything
why is there anything i am i around her is there any truth that can ever be found this is hot and the whole existence is in doubt and when this whole existence is then becomes an an object of your trust as as and class people would presuppose
causes that you don't know for sure because if you know for sure you don't have to touch you just take it as a fact you don't know if that's why the doubt is necessary and put your trust and to crack this is the expression of that trust and that is exactly the same in her christian tradition and invoice template
we have up back there
yeah please
an offer
the dialogue
back to your life back
alana practice
have to say that the fact is not
expect to talk about
is center religious isn't a religious practice is that the question
he wants more what sandy's than my so good today
a
harley davidson said feng were what vendors nice thinking what did i say
huh
as i said they'd send you know the root of the word sen john john is absorption and a absorption in the experience of being with which
it is possible because of the inherent nature of into being you know that our our life is interconnected and ended that is the realization that arises from practice me realize the interconnected nature of all being
and if he a to extend a little further we we realize well what and then would call original mind is
this open consciousness that experiences directly me and the relationship between mad and what arises as the personal experience to cut given one name
so this realization of into being and
the the relationship between
we might call small self and big sell our individual consciousness or personal and original mind

i think that then and
can have a religious expression
the fundamentally it's this realization of interconnected being now
that at its it's heritage is heaven it has a methodology to help realize that but you you know as as as we see especially in the west that
at many christian monks find it that methodology enhances the their christian spirituality
and that it can also enhance our buddhists spirituality
so but that that would be the their relationship to it and then zen has in fact developed its on mommy and what we might call its own liturgy
now is that and necessary part of realization

taking a nap

a little arbitrary and a little extra
this whole time
not actually were different
to see will get brother david comment that the moment kind
i think that
hmm religious practice is the enactment of truth it's the enactment of realization as well as the vehicle of it so
religion will be the activity of humans if it will be their endeavor to express and call forth
something that's greater than
our human endeavor
the this is the nature of it
and so whenever we look at religions and see how they have a culture rated certain ideas and put forth certain doctrines you know and then from the light of history we can look at them and say well that seems to have a limitation
our misdirection to it we need to realize that it is this human endeavor
but but the simply say that it's extra mrs something
of it's vital expression and something of you know basically it's good heartedness
and it's in its intention
and that he did it is offering us albeit within whatever kind of limitations it has as a religious practice it is offering us a vehicle of realization
isn't this is a very easy way of answering your question as what sen and religion now paul has spoken word sin and if i oversimplified is the practice of a republican
of the awareness and practice of connectedness of connect live with that and then i will not say what i understand by religion and you will immediately say we want to have to say much about compose further his village not because the the very word really
legion a comes from the latin
one isn't absolutely sure but this is the best guess my opinion that it comes from the latin word really guy which means to tie again the his time out
we have it in english words ligament francis
the tire so league arguments to tie and really got it means to tie again so religion is the tying again of those ties that were broken between us and the oscar event a between us and ourselves because we are alienated from
ourselves and between us and all other creatures a qantas religion and that's religion with a capital r and that is a deer
he sees ground that underlies all the different religions that then go out of it has a religion with the cabbie law is a basic human ah
attitude
we are the religious animals who could even say and we need to be the religious animals because all the other animals are by nature religious they have never lost that connectedness you see we have lost it and therefore we have to read tight that's why we're the religious ones and
and then religion and in that sense it's quite obvious that the practice of connectedness his religious with a capitalized the basic is a basic religious factors but you can your question i understand i think we are it comes from because i was on am often asked that are
of people who belong to another in religion on that with a small cocker smaller one of those historic religious that have grown up in in the course of history and they say about real questions so we're jews or via muslims or that's the little images all of them
expressions of the big our religion down with and they say well what we are muslims and is it okay from our children to practice sen and if it's another religion it isn't okay but this isn't another religion in this okay that this is very often the attitude to see and so
a
i would say in that sense it is probably not a religion with a smaller it has religious elements that are from buddhism and that's also i think why you were a little over that's just the trimmings let's come to the real thing
maybe that wasn't behind your question and but
i think it it has some religious trimmings and they could be called religious in the sense in which we normally talk about the religions and but that it
no issues the great religion that great religious hundred and every human being has that it is his grace thinks is it
it's very basic deeply religious in that in that sense and you could affirm it has been religious in that sense and yet deny that this religious in the sense of being a competitor and to any other religion and in some cases
and i know that some of you may exactly need that to deal with your relatives for his
so says that it's very helpful to do it for approach that way

hey
yeah

yes place
have already talked so much about it so you know no
ah
ah

before we talk about god
we ought to pause and remind ourselves that unless we're just tossing words around to have no connection with our experience we have to start with our experience
they experience something and what we experience is
how does more and always more to everything and not just more of the same but new dimensions and this were more is a as a word i think last year he talks about is here that is very helpful
to replace the word god in some circumstances
now if we start with our experience with that experience of being related to
something or someone greater than us but the experience then we can also admit that speaking of this as god with on the imagery that goes with it or in any other image is always image and we must know
not get stuck in the image see and is the experience of are related next to the ultimate and to that ultimate mystery from which become and to which we go and which remains mysterious and the more we know about it the more mysterious it becomes if the
this is to have your girls when the of your boyfriend how much more of the ultimate mr the more you come to know the more mysterious he gets the more dimensions there are there more and promise more and if we keep that in mind see then ah then is also
an experiential way of getting in touch with that ultimate reality and every other
spiritual tradition that is healthy and and valid is a way of getting in touch with said and i see every other tradition that this healthy and valid because
nowadays
we have ah in in many parts of the world and and with connected with many different religions unfortunately i vacation one to the phenomenon of fun fundamentalist and fundamentalism is not a healthy religious attitudes because it is not based on
experience is based on
i did the ology and in a lot it manipulates experience with by means of ideology
yeah and it excludes and it narrows and the sign of to religion who connectedness with all the service thing is that it is all inclusive must be all inclusive and if it this exclusive it has already disqualified is
from being called religious
so that's why i mentioned that
in other words if we insist on the word god we might have at least originals difficulties in a saying that a then i also deals with that but if we take the word lightly but happens may be what happened to me
the when i was talking with my does anti-china was obvious carefully avoiding the word god and so as not to offend but a time
it was clear what what i was talking about and it was also clear what he was talking about and all of a sudden he keeps talking about garth and i get the hydro's it
after i resigned but the grounds of being and ultimate reality and they talked freely about god no bugs
i don't know is this didn't really answer your question don't hesitate to come back
that answered

here
this is a very strong
the creation of this guy
no different
just looking
wow
but address as well it's a creation myth
that moves in in a one one of the members of our group siena cause that the middle around the around of the archetypes which is a very very important around in which we got the realm of poetry
in which we need to learn to live to see we need to be able to express ourselves in in this in this medium of six and in the whole world you find a creation myth and they all basically answered the same question
what happened long ago that is already pint of the story that it restored in terms of long ago you could also replace the temporal metaphor by a special one and say what is is basically all about to see so the no longer set time was long ago but
basically who are we say and what the creation myth ten tell you those thousands of different creation with beautiful different stories and i wonderful that they are so different and yet tell the same give the same answer is that we are practically
the nothing
one with the ultimate that's where it out
in the biblical creation with god is presented obviously beautiful poetic image can't created as like a part of making this little figure out of clay and then breathe in god's own life press into the last tens of this little figure so v i k
mud nothing
alive with the very life press of the ultimate is terrific and family room creation is in so many different forms of will tell that that same story
ha
yeah adam midst of origin just for position saying that are not creation with
there are references heaven ah
and genders life out of earth
meeting of heaven and earth that's a different kind of of origin mr voyage and but you asked about creation myths and indication with all have this thing
and that's very beautiful and is is very compatible with any any religious studies

happy
to bring about this
me
that take care of it
he also have a wealth of sixty
as to happy family
he said that last sentence again
hi
here at the open a headache or well how much better this way for it
where is unavailable

the
the
within the methodology of zen
if you think of what i was saying earlier the be
silent illumination
or maybe what we would call in and school chicken taza didn't just sit with complete openness and receive
this this this is the
to be illuminated
whether we want to say that is other power or way that we will we just want to say is that which is may be closer to the notion that is the original state and we the that we allow what originally is to be what it is
but i think there's there's also it's only maybe a little different from your question but i can consider an insignificant point
said the interesting thing about the human condition is that we have both the power the capacity to separate and to reconnect and that it in the reconnecting there's a realisation there's a revealing
the the they did something becomes apparent
that
what is open to and the the realization that we were never separate
know that the separation was the product of our own endeavors
and then we will release that endeavor the original being is manifest so it's it's the realization that that becomes manifest
not not the original state
so we prepare ourselves and for
a a moment in which this revealing will take place
what do we bring it about well that's i think behind the
so i talked about silent illumination we we avail ourselves of what is we learn from it and then the the activity of great doubt is this process of finding it everywhere
yes that's an earth one in the in the cushion the context you said that the ultimate or has more of a real
and i like to i'd like to see it in the context of the giver the gift and the thanksgiving the
this is a this this is a
a view or
have frame of reference that seems to speak to very many people today
the year two thousand at the end of year two thousand and restarted the a website ungrateful as he just called chitinous dot org and it
they had no idea that this would speak to so many people it has taken off like wildfire we have a every day some between seven and ten thousand individual people come from over two hundred different countries to translate in different languages so it's really taking off
of and it's all about this gratefulness so ah
i like to think of it this
giving this this whatever is given to us comes from that great source that has a will to give so to say but when we
slide into the misconception of that god that the separated from us which is just longed is no god that simply too much we're all immersed in it was when you slide to the gun that separate from us but then sometimes that god makes up his mind deserves his makes up his mind to give us some
yeah and sometimes not and so well
leave that got out and separated from us and this problem
hey disappears we are continuously in a stream of receiving of gifts continuously the giver just pours out her gifts on us continuously and we ourselves and gift we haven't made ourselves and bought ourselves
and who we just happen to be and be given to ourselves said listen and then the only appropriate attitude is that we give ourselves back to the source in thanksgiving and so they have this marvelous about the early and for a greek fathers card the
circle dance of the trinity to serve your dance her enrich to give a cause herself out and into the gift and a gift kiss everything back in thanksgiving to the source to live in that reality is that that's quite a different thing and if it's
solves your question is it and
hey response to the same for both of us assume for wherever your be
unfortunately we need to stop
well have another dialogue tonight not tomorrow night and night after so save up your questions for the
and thank you
we'll have another one
nothing
and and charity
equally expand rapidly being and blaze
the as way the
umbrellas
it's a them
the it as the world
as to when them
as a band was ah
and them
as way can surpass them on
running
it's our joy to give you this gift and we can do it every night if you want to better
so the driver request stuck to the you know
thank you and thanks for the many good gracious