Sunday Lecture

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SF-03970
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buy a watch
i can't get fifteen minutes pass it
the morning
i think is a way of locating myself since i've been there
gyrating around the world for the last five or six weeks i'd like to make a kind of confession
we are working on our house and so in my absence other people packed the house
so when it came time to gather together my robes i couldn't find anything so i am an abundance of borrowed words
including the watch thank you very much
and new orleans okay kaisa and bowing cloth and pieces and bits of my friends my brothers and sisters helping mejia be covered up appropriately here in front of you
a few weeks ago we had an ordination ceremony here and a friend of mine
in talking about the ceremony afterwards was puzzling over the form of relaxation which is one way of talking about are thinking about a monk or nun taking ordination vows
and then our conversation the question which arose for my friend was but what about the world what about the world of suffering what about the world and our lives in it that we need to take care of and how do i understand or participate with or join
and with this ceremony of renunciation when my heart is filled with concern for the suffering of the world
and i have on the week since then been chewing on my dear friends question
as some of you know i've been on a treat for the last month and one of the themes that i've been considering during this time has been the war against afflicted emotions
so what has arisen for me is a kind of puzzling about romancing renunciation and asking myself exactly what is it we mean when we talk about a life of renunciation
and i would like to propose for our consideration this morning that we might think of renunciation in the sense that we have an opportunity to renounce the effective emotions and that to do that there may be a number of ways of doing
it taking the path of ordination as a monk or nun or priest is one of several pads
but for many of us in this room who have lives in the world
what does it mean and how do we do it
and is there a way for us to bring into our so called ordinary everyday life i deep intention to live in a way that is based on the cultivation of love and understanding and wisdom
i'm
when answering sing those emotions which take us away from that deeper intention
greed and desire jealousy anger
just to name a few
i think when i use this phrase effective emotions i imagine that we all know what they are
or at least we know what someone from our
i think that this task of relaxation of undoing or transforming or dissolving
these emotions which arise and color or activity and life so powerfully and with such difficulty
is a demanding and difficult path
he among other things involves being willing to give up a kind of tendency to sentimentalize our view of the world and in particular our view of our relationships with other beings in particular with other human beings
and of ourselves
so what i want to consider together a bit this morning is what i want to call the yoga of everyday life
is there a way that i can make every action in my life associated with the activity of enlightenment
and as a way of preparing the ground which will produce enlightened activity
what i see most powerfully is the undoing or the dissolving of the afflict of emotions
is that way that everything that i pick up or see or engage with can be a kind of reminder of my intention for cultivating enlightened activity
in july when a per pressure was still visiting here at green gulch we went to tassajara
can we went for a walk and as we passed some of the manzanita bushes i picked one of the berries which had become rather dry for those of you who know manzanita you know that after the tip of the berries or begin to dry and harden they make a a kind of see
seed which has six lines on it i hadn't noticed until this particular day when we were having a walk i picked the berry and showed it to term and per se because i wanted him to know that this was what we used for making prayer beads
at tassajara and they're quite beautiful and very nice to use he took the bead and put it in his hand and examined it for a moment and he said all there are six lines unburied for the six para muitos
there wasn't a moment's hesitation he saw the bead and immediately what a rose for him was remembering the six para muitos
to cultivate
these qualities that are associated with a bodhisattva someone who is devoted to cultivating enlightenment for the sake of all beings
and i was quite struck by how quickly that association came up for him
and what came up for me was wondering how can i have that kind of lens in my eyeglasses so that when i see the world everything i see remember reminds me of these qualities which i hope
op i can cultivate in myself and with others
i guess it was last weekend it seems like such a long time ago i went through and was here and did a seminar on the vimalakirti sutra we spent the weekend reading it together and he told a couple of stories one of the stories he told
i think is very much to the point i am trying to make this morning it's the story of a monk
in india who was very forgetful
i thought it was marvelous when my husband said why don't you tell the story about the monk who couldn't remember anything and i said what story
and he told me the story and as oh yes yes yes i remember
i remember the punch line when i didn't remember the rest of it
anyway this mark was so forgetful that when he would be reading a sacred text
he would read one line and then when he would get to the second line he already had forgotten the first line
he get to the third line and he'd forgotten the first two
here we get to the end of the fourth line and he would have forgotten the beginning of the fourth line
and he was very discouraged so he went to his teacher and his teacher gave him a practice he said i want you to be the sweeping monk
and when you sweep
you can say to yourself
dust girl
defilement go
and with every movement of the broom dust go defilement go
so he took this teaching and went out sweeping
and he did this for many years
after some years as i recall the story i think it was twelve years some nuns in the village
we're unhappy with the monks they were getting a little out of hand a little arrogant not behaving in the way the nuns thought they should
and they thought well we're going to embarrass the monks show them what's really going on so one day when this forgetful monk was a away from his keeper
then went up to him as he was sweeping dust go to file my girl
and they said hey how about giving a talk to the townspeople
and he said all right
and they thought now we're going to really embarrassed the monks
this this stupid sweeping monk won't be able to say anything
and of course he stood up in the middle of the town with all the local people gathered to hear him and began to do a great and profound teaching
and he had in fact attained such transcendent wisdom that he floated some feet above the ground and the nuns were amazed come
in the morning when i brush my teeth i could as i brush my teeth clean brushing away the bacteria the dirt the correction
from the food i've eaten
as this dirt goes away defilement go away
when i go to the toilet or take a bath again an opportunity as i wash away the dirt as i eliminate the wastes from my body so may i eliminate the wastes the tax
since the dirt from my life and from the world
we have to start somewhere with some simple activity
some activity that we do every day several times a day so we began to cultivate this habit
this way of using our imagination to race through our daily activity
remembering this deep intention for awake compassionate wise mind

another story that bob them and told was about the rice husker
he had this job of pounding the rice to take the husks off of it
and he was bemoaning the fact
when a revered teacher was wandering through his region he said all i feel so sad that i can't lead a sacred life i can't be on the path of realization i'm too poor i don't even have enough money to pay for
teaching
my life is a waste all i can do is work hard to make some effort to feed my family
and the teacher said give me a bowl of rice and i'll give you a teach him
so the rice husker gave him a bowl of rice crew and the teacher said
think of the husks as ignorance
and the pounder as it hits the husks is breaking up the shell of ignorance and as the colonel rice is released what you're actually releasing his compassion and understanding
and so the rice husker took on this way of working
and after a while he had many other people working for him also doing this work of pounding the husks off the rice
crushed
as he pursued his intention for a realization
pounding rice day in and day out
and after some years he is described as having attained enlightenment clear understanding and compassion
we think of a monastery a monastic environment as a place where people do this so called real work of spiritual transcendent life and the cultivation of wisdom
an environment which is created so that embedded in the environment itself is wisdom and the opportunity for cultivating habits of mindfulness have a weakness of concentration and attentiveness
but in fact i think it is possible for all of us to participate in such an environment
it's what we do when we have a daily practice it's what we do when we have a practice of meditation which will do every day but it's also what we are doing when we lace through the activity of our day this kind of imagination where the world we live
in becomes a network a net of symbols that remind us of how to cultivate these capacities that lead to wisdom and compassion
i know someone who has begun setting aside one day a week a kind of day of mindfulness
a day when there is no cooking even
she and her family make sure there is some food prepared so that they can eat without any work
no television
no visiting know going out and no visitors a quiet day at home
during simple quiet tasks
perhaps doing some studying some quiet simple cleaning or working in the garden
some way of being alone and together as a family
a day that has a slower pace than the rest of the week which then can inform the other days of the week
a day of mindfulness
when we come together for a day of sitting and walking meditation or when we have a seven day sashaying seven day meditation here as we do
several times a year
we're all becoming monks for a day or a week we all have that inclination in us i believe
and what inspires me is to consider the possibility of living our lives with our families with the people that we work with
the people that we drive with on the freeway
the people that we are bumping up against in the grocery store
in ways that are not fundamentally different from the way we remember we can live when we sit together in this wonderful hall

one of the elements in living a life this way i think has to do with our motivation we have to be sure that our aim is clear
that we have some clear intention and if we aren't sure what our intention is to then pick up the task of finding what are clear intention is
and to remember every morning before we move from are bad
what is my clear intention for my life
and for today for this week
do i know what it is and if i don't perhaps i can consider what it might be

i try as much as i can to remember every morning i want to live my life
based on line possessiveness and nonviolence
and to cultivate to the best of my ability understanding and compassion and wisdom
for myself and for all beings
how will i be able to do that this morning and today
don't have a plan
do i know what i'm working with
i'd like to
look for a moment at anger as one of the afflicted emotions which is particularly troublesome for many of us perhaps all of us
and is certainly an emotion which informs much of life in the world today
there's a book which some of you might find a fruitful to look at it's called anger the misunderstood emotion
i believe the author's name is carol tervis
and what she does in this book is a kind of rigorous investigation into the nature of anger
what are we talking about
i found reading this book very useful in parsing out the particular elements or what i usually think of as anger making it more particular and descriptive
extremely useful in looking at what i think of as the runway to anger you know you think of anger is a kind of airplane once it takes off once the emotion arises with the kind of intensity it takes over and i am helpless to do eh
anything except hold on and stay present until episode it subsides
in the midst of intense anger i probably can't do anything to interrupted
so how do i work with such an intense emotion
one of the things i might do is after it has subsided to arouse within myself regret or remorse for my anger in the consequences of it to do whatever i can to not reaffirm the habit
of anger
and what i've noticed is that the place where i can do something about anger is in that area of the runway
to begin to notice how much in the
prelude has to do with expectations and the disappointment when they are not met
to begin to notice when there is in me arising some irritability
and to have some willingness to investigate that irritability when did at first arise
can i acknowledge out loud
then i'm feeling irritable or grouchy
in the very acknowledgement of that feeling there is some dissolving or softening
and certainly my friends and family can then say all
be careful she's grouchy this morning
and to have their help in that they may not take me quite so seriously
when i notice is that if i pay attention in that region of my emotional life that has to do with expectations and the minor beginnings that eventually lead to anger it's then that i have some opportunity to
interrupt and divert the build up
i'm somewhat less likely to kick the cat
or yell at my son or husband or friend
i'm a little less i likely to slam down the telephone in anger with the uncooperative
long distance operator or whatever
it is in that region that i'm calling the runway that the practice of the half smile may arise
the me there to remember that i can lift the corners of my mouth slightly and let my attention go to my breath for three breaths
good old mouth yoga which i can do no matter how i feel
and which through practicing i've learned leads me to that place of attention with respect to what is actually going on
not what i project into the future not what i remember from the past what's going on in this moment
it is in this rigorous and sometimes almost ruthless way of investigating that i begin to notice that anger is not something that exists in some ongoing way but is an emotion which rises and falls changes
his as does the breath as does the ocean as it comes in and goes out
if i noticed that i can allow the subsiding and not hang on to not harbor fail will

there is a way that i'm suggesting that involves are using our imagination
as bob and suggested to us last weekend for as to be poets
to take on as a yoga our everyday life in this way
we're all poets
every one of us
poets who have the capacity for enlightened activity
who have the capacity to dissolve or transform or allow to slip away all of the effective emotions
we all see the diamonds in a dewdrop

when i see or feel or hear water
it can be the symbol of compassion
when i see fire
the leaping
remembrance of joy
and when i feel or hear the wind
to know equanimity
we can lace this imaginative poetic mind intent on
our spiritual life into every detail of our daily life so that the whole world becomes our monastery
and in so doing we can inspire ourselves and each other
cultivating friendliness
that of course includes cultivating friendliness with our resistance friendliness with our capacity for judgment
for small mindedness for losing our temper
and patiently returning to our deep intention to dissolve the afflict emotions
to go to our deepest capacity
so i think back on the conversation that my friend and i had a few weeks ago and i see the ordination ceremony when my sister took her vows as a priest and as anon
and i see her following a path which enriches all of us
and which is one of a number of paths which we can take
when i want to ask of all of us is that we not see these various paths as in conflict with each other but to recognize how we are about the same thing
and to keep our site clear about this steep intention
to pick up the possibility of slowly and carefully
but with rigor dissolving the inflict of emotions and awakening our capacity for an enlightened mind and life
if we look at this image which is sitting on the altar here to let it remind us of that capacity for wisdom
deep understanding that exists in each one of us
until to the detail of our daily lives carry those reminders
to let ourselves be poets together

thank you very much