The SFZC Audio Archive | San Francisco Zen Center

Take One Seat

Given by Jack Kornfield at Spirit Rock

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Serial:

SF-03025

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Letting Go, Demons, Freedom, Emptiness, Peace, Birth-and-Death, Posture, Delusion, Happiness, confusion

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Commercially produced cassette: Insight Meditation West - Spirit Rock Center, PO Box 909, Woodacre, CA 94973

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Transcript:

I'd like to talk in a kind of basic way about this practice that we've undertaken together. As we join together in our sitting, especially, as well as walking and eating meditation, we enter a practice that my teacher called taking the one seat, taking the seat in the center of the room. He said, just go into the room and put one chair in the center and sit down there and see who comes in the doors and windows and you'll see all kinds of scenes and actors and temptations and everything imaginable. Your job is just to stay in your chair and see it all and the understanding will come. To sit, as we do, is to connect ourselves with the present moment on this earth, in this body.

[01:08]

We sit in this physical body halfway between heaven and earth and we sit up erect or straight. To sit, to assume this posture, is to sense our right to be here and to sense our capacity to awaken. That as you sit here, you can touch, simply by sitting and being present, this universal human capacity to open, to awaken. To sit is to be like the Buddha or the Bodhisattva of compassion, the goddess of compassion, to sit and do exactly that, to awaken. Now the Buddha's teaching was often referred to as the lion's roar.

[02:08]

And those occasions when the Buddha was challenged in different circumstances, there are sutras or discourses called the lion's roar. On the night of his enlightenment, he was challenged by Mara, by all the forces of aggression and delusion and temptation. Or at other times, as he was teaching, people would come up to him, some great yogis and ascetics, and say, you eat beautiful food each morning that they put in your bowl and you wear a robe and cover yourself from the cold of the elements. We sit out here on beds of nails with no robes and do all these austerities and what kind of a teacher and a yogi are you? And he would sit up and say, whatever ascetic practice that there is that human beings have done, I've done it. I sat on nails, I stood with my eyes open to the sun without blinking day and night in the sands of the Ganges.

[03:15]

I've eaten so little food that you couldn't feel one fingernail of my hand with the amount I ate each day. I've done it all. I've tried it all. And now I have stopped. And then he would say, in all of the tens of thousands of millions of universes, in all of the heavens and all of the hells, this is extreme, I hope you understand, not just, you know, your day-to-day emotional swings, in all of the heavens and the hells and everything in between, I have seen them all and I take this one seat in the center of all of those and open my eyes to see clearly and open my heart with compassion to find freedom. Now we have also, I mean many of us could do our lion's roar, we have tried everything.

[04:21]

Whatever there is to try, some of us anyway have tried it. There was a headline in this last month's Independence Journal, the Marin County newspaper, front page, entitled, Lick Toads at Your Own Risk. Did some of you see that? Apparently if you, there is a new fad and if you pick up certain toads, this is particularly so in Colorado now, if you pick up certain toads, they will secrete a substance, according to this herpetologist. It's a defense mechanism against predators. Drug users find the toads and then shake them to agitate them. The toads then secrete this chemical and they lick the backs of the toads to ingest it to get high. It's actually, it's a very strong hallucinogen, but unfortunately some of these toads also secrete quite toxic substances.

[05:26]

So this article was a warning of making sure that you are kissing the right frog, basically. Now, I don't know how many of you have engaged in that practice, but we've tried a lot of things to find freedom or to find happiness or to awaken in ourselves. I'll read you a story. There was once a man who wandered from place to place, trying everything in order to discover happiness. One day, exhausted from his search, he sat down under a tree. As luck would have it, he had unwittingly chosen as his refuge a tree that is known as Kalpatru, the wish-fulfilling tree. For whatever wish arises in the mind of one who sits beneath it is immediately granted. The man began to enjoy the cool shade of this tree and soon felt restored from his tiresome travels.

[06:30]

He thought, this is a lovely spot. If only I had a small house here. No sooner had the thought taken form in his mind than an attractive little cottage appeared before him. The man thought, how wonderful. Now, if only I had a wife with whom to share my joy. Instantly, a lovely woman appeared before him and smiled beguilingly. Wow, said the man, and then he thought, if I just had some delicious food to eat, my joy would be complete. Without a moment's delay, a large serving cart manifested, laden with carefully prepared dishes, delicate sauces, exquisite pastries. The man began to eat, but midway through the meal he began to wish he had someone to serve him. The butler appeared. The man ate his fill and then leaned back against the tree contentedly. Only then did he begin to wonder, what is going on here? Everything I have thought of appears in front of me.

[07:31]

First the house, then the woman, the food, even the butler. There must be some kind of a demon living in this tree. And sure enough, from out of nowhere emerged a demon who stood in front of him. Oh my heavens, he's going to eat me, the man cried out. And that is just what the demon did. That's a good description of our meditation, I think. Yes? The mind, the play of consciousness, creates endless stories, dramas, possibilities, and we follow them. The Buddha began the Dhammapada, the verses of the teachings of the Dhamma, by saying, Mind is the forerunner of all things. As we think and envision, so becomes created the ten thousand joys and sorrows. Now unfortunately, the mind is also rather unreliable.

[08:35]

As Henry Miller put it, The situation reached the height of the ludicrous when I suddenly realized one day that of everything I had written about the man, I could just as well have written the opposite. We think of one thing, and then we think of another, and the mind goes back and forth between the two. What is the remedy in these circles of creating and imagining and hoping and looking? The Buddha's remedy is to take the one seat in the center of the room. Over the years that I've been practicing and teaching, both teaching meditation and working as a psychologist, when I initially started to work with people in this role, I would work with the difficult forces that people were struggling with. With greed, or compulsion, or aggression, with laziness, with confusion.

[09:40]

You know those forces I speak of, yes? But as I've worked more with others, and as I've listened more in myself, I find that those aren't really the primary struggle. They're not really the primary difficulty. That underneath all of those, the aggression, or the laziness, or the confusion, or the compulsion, or the greed, and all the elaborate states that grow out of those, what I find almost inevitably is just one thing in people, that we are afraid. Our hearts are frightened in some way. Frightened to let go. Frightened to touch all the things that are here, the life in front of us. Frightened to be here. Frightened to experience the river of change. The changing emptiness of life directly.

[10:44]

That emptiness into which everything disappears, out of which everything comes. Our breath appears and disappears. Our thoughts come and go out of nowhere. Days appear, nights appear. They flow out of nothing. There's this river that we are. I remember being with a wonderful old woman, about 15 years ago, that I looked up when I was teaching at Naropa Institute the first year. Her name was Jocelyn King. I don't even know if she's still alive. But she had gone to Burma with her husband, who was a scholar of oriental religions, and to Thailand in the 1950s, I believe. And while he was busy writing his books about scholarly practice, she went off and found a monastery and did it. Which is a common story, I'm told. And so they came back to this country, and he was a professor at a variety of universities

[11:52]

and would write his books on the things he discovered, and she would meditate. And I heard through the grapevine from some masters or teachers in Burma and Thailand that she was a very deeply realized woman. So we went to visit her, and she was just in the guise of a 70-year-old housewife who was taking care of the house and her husband while he was busy writing his books. And she served us a lunch, and we talked a little about travels in Asia, and then we were cleaning up, and she was in the middle of washing the dishes, and she turned around and she said, I don't understand it why most people prefer the quicksand of somethingness instead of the firm ground of emptiness. And she turned around and washed another dish. And there was this sense about her as this ordinary person, although rumor had it, very deeply realized, that her life was afloat in that river. There was a sense of peace and contentment and well-being and ease about her.

[12:57]

And tremendous joy. This story I tell particularly for someone in this retreat who has complained that most of the stories are about men, and if they're about women, they're all about Mother Teresa. To take the one seat calls for a balance of the energies of the masculine and the feminine. It calls for a strength and a fearlessness, which is that quality of the masculine in each of us. It also calls for a surrender, a receptivity, the feminine in each of us. It really knows what it's doing in there.

[14:00]

It does. The petals of the flower know what order to open. And generally what comes is what's there on the surface that's being held, and then as that's let go, consciousness is freed. We open a bit more, and then the next level, where we're a little enfolded and feel ourselves separate, that shows itself. And we open to that with surrender and attention and awareness, and it opens sometimes in fire, and sometimes in peace, and sometimes in great sweetness or insight. Whatever it is. But it knows what it's doing. And if we take the seat in the middle and bring our attention and our hearts to it, it will open. We will open. Life will open. I remember, and I've told this story at other times, being with the teacher in Bombay, Nisargadatta Maharaj,

[15:06]

that I studied with. And one morning we met with him three times a day for dialogue and meditation and teachings. And one morning a man came into his little, Nisargadatta's little apartment, joined our group and asked a couple of questions about the nature of meditation or consciousness. Got a few questions back, answered them a bit, and then he just left, seemed to be not so interested, and left partway through the session. And someone raised their hand and said, Maharaj, what will happen to someone like that who doesn't really practice, who came in and asked a little bit and didn't seem to listen so much, and then went out? Are they a lost soul? Are they a lost cause? Interesting question. And he gave a very moving answer. He said, I'm sorry to say that it is too late for him as well.

[16:07]

The person asking said, what do you mean it's too late? And he said, well, just the fact that that being walked into this room and asked a question or two about who am I, which is what underlay the question that what he was asking, means that somewhere in him that part of consciousness which knows who he really is has begun to awaken. And it's too late for him no matter what he goes back to do, what delusions or however long he takes, because time has no factor in it. Time is just the story spinning out. That place in him that knows has begun to awaken and it's inevitable that he will be one with us. Something in us has brought us here. And something in each of us

[17:10]

in our own way senses a capacity for tremendous compassion in this earth, in our hearts. Senses a capacity for limitless freedom. This is what we long for to be whole, complete, free. To take the one seat is to allow the Buddha to manifest in us to become the Buddha. As we sit or walk or eat whatever it is because to take the one seat you can do it in eating meditation and fully allow the world of birth and death and pain and beauty all of those things in allowing that we can discover that we are the Buddha. I promise you that if you do it as surely as the sun shall rise

[18:11]

as surely as the sun rises every day you will come to profound well-being and joy and freedom and peace and that all of the sorrows and all of the beautiful things will come together in a whole. I end with a part of a poem. It's a passage by a saint a mystic let's see if I can find this a mystic and it's written about Jesus but it could as easily be written about the Buddha I'm going to put the Buddha's name in instead for the moment maybe I'll switch them. When we awaken we awaken in the Buddha's body and the Buddha awakens

[19:13]

in our body our own hand is Buddha he enters our foot and is infinitely us. If we genuinely awaken in love we wake up inside the Buddha and where all our body all over every most hidden part of it is realized in joy as Buddha and everything that is hurt everything that seemed to us dark harsh shameful irreparably damaged is transformed and recognized as whole as lovely as radiant we awaken as the Buddha in every last part of our body. The first days of the retreat and perhaps all of the retreat is as much a process

[20:14]

of surrender as any other word or language that I can think of to speak of it's a surrender a softening of our heart an opening of our eyes an allowing of that which is and on this first day I think of this to remind you maybe to help us not so much that there's something to get to but that we're really here in just the right place and just the right thing is arising that asks for our surrender. How many of you have not done more than one or two previous ten day retreats? Please raise your hand just to know so there's about ten well it's great to be here with you

[21:16]

really feels wonderful so enjoy the rest of the day of walking now tea sitting, walking, sitting, walking thank you this element in any of the trainings in a monastery or an ashram for anyone undertaking a spiritual practice in the east is simply to learn to quiet oneself to take some time in our life to reflect as Ajahn Sumedha has been saying and to listen a little bit if we want to come to terms with the world of the sense input or if we want to pay attention to our own bodies to what needs healing what needs accepting what places we fear what needs nourishment or if we want to learn

[22:18]

about the heart and the places where we get attached or where we put up barriers where we've been wounded and closed ourselves we want to connect with the life around us with the sunlight or the sounds the sense impingements that make up this earth that we're born into the first thing necessary is just to live a little bit more in the present it's that sign I talked about to those who know me from the casino in Las Vegas that someone took down and put in their therapy room says on it you must be present to win and it's true in Las Vegas and it's true in therapy and it's true in our spiritual life and so the very first obvious piece of practice and really

[23:19]

it's what can bring us together what can connect our hearts and our minds as well is just to stop waving our arms so much and just let ourselves sit quiet so if you would sit in a posture that's comfortable for yourself and find a way to sit comfortably and yet relatively stable where the body is straight so the breath can be open and free with a minimum of movement just so that the physical body itself is allowed to get still and then when you're ready if you would let your eyes close and let's let the meditation allow the meditation to be very simple today first of all before

[24:19]

even engaging in any reflection just to sense what's present to feel the fact of having this body sitting on the floor or the earth to feel the movement of breath in and out of the body to be aware of places of tightness or holding the shoulders the eyes and face the hands and to begin to practice letting go to relax and soften which is to allow ourselves to be present then to bring your attention

[25:29]

to stay for a bit with the breath there may be other things there'll be sounds in the background or thoughts and memories various sensations that arise but as the first part of the meditation just to feel our life's breath like fish in water we live in this sea of air to feel the coolness the tingling the movement of the belly and chest without interfering just to listen to that movement and let go of the past and future a way of settling and stabilizing the mind and the heart of bringing ourselves into the present let the breath do what it likes

[26:34]

it can be fast or slow even or shallow simply to notice and use that awareness to come to rest in the present moment of course the mind will wander off to various places and sounds and images when you notice that be aware of it and for now gently come back again bringing the mind and the heart and the body together again for a few moments with the breath use the breath as a place

[28:13]

to concentrate and stabilize the mind to bring the mind and body together and each time you get pulled off or away by pleasant things or unpleasant just let them go for now and let go a place to practice letting go and come back simply to the experience of the breath and the body sounds come and go in the background or thoughts arise and pass and various sensations let yourself come back again and again

[29:16]

to the simple knowing in this moment the breath the sensations in the body and as we sit and get more silent we become able to listen more carefully become able to reflect and observe in the stillness let yourself be aware of your whole body seated here what are the places of tension or tightness

[30:24]

that you find and what is there to learn from them what are the places of pain or discomfort or holding and what do they have to teach what is it in the body that has not been accepted that needs that calls for our loving acceptance and as you settle down or get a bit quieter

[31:50]

let yourself be aware of the subtlety of the sensations if there's warmth or tingling buzzing, tightness areas of pressure or pain pleasant sensations and in the midst of this see if you can find your breath without changing it become aware of the fact of those sensations the coolness at the nose or the pressure in the belly or the movement in the chest wherever it is to notice the sensations of the breath that move through the center of this field of the body the process of life in the body

[33:05]

the sensations the somatic process tingles and warmth and coolness staying grounded in this living body energy field the somatic process allow yourself also to become aware of the process of the heart and mind and its drop let each one touch your heart and when you're ready in your own time gradually let go of that awareness of the inner dramas staying still grounded in the sensations of the body

[34:05]

allow your eyes to open and your attention to move to the space around you in this room there's a poem that was written by a Zen master Sansanima, a Korean Zen master he wrote while sitting underneath the Bodhi tree in India where the Buddha was enlightened he said once a great man sat under this Bodhi tree saw the morning star and was enlightened he absolutely believed his eyes the sky is blue, the ground is brown he believed his ears, his nose, his tongue his body, his mind

[35:06]

and thus everything was complete no hindrance he became independent of hopes and fears of time and space and attained the true freedom www.mooji.org

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Take One Seat

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