Which is the Real Shin?

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SF-03135
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Sunday Lecture - Seeing and understanding desire

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i would like this start my talk this morning by tell you a little story
this is an older chinese story chinese legend
and the story has a title
in the title of the story is
which is the real chin which is the real chin
once upon a time when i'm in ancient china
there was a little girl named chin
and she was an inseparable playmate
with a little boy named zhao they were together all the time playing by the river
and one day a chance father remarked jokingly
you two are together all the time some day you'll marry
so
jan and child thought that they really were betrothed to each other and they played and grew up this way always imagining that they would marry
but when chen became old enough to be promised a marriage a wealthy official approached her father and said that he would like to have her hand in marriage and the father agreed
and she was promised to someone else
zhao was very very upset by this he didn't think that he could bear it
so he decided that he would leave and go to a distant province
so he loaded all his stuff on his boat
and he left in the middle of the night
appalling and rowing down the river
and as he was going by in the moonlight he heard a soft cry on the riverbank
and it was persistent
and breathless
and finally in the moonlight he looked and saw that it was chin running alongside the boat
she had followed him
so he stopped the boat and she got on and they went away together
to a distant province
and they married
and they had two children

but there was a restlessness in chance heart
because she felt badly to have a left her parents in that way
and she couldn't really
let go of her restlessness and so after six years
they came back up the river
to return to her village
and
try to make amends with her parents
when they got to the village they were very nervous and joe asked you to stay in the boat and he will go up
and greet her father
and when he saw her father the father
came rushing up to him very happy to see him and clasped his arms around him and said how wonderful that you're here we we wondered where you were in it's so great that you're back
and zhao didn't really know how to react to this
he thought maybe it was some sort of a trick or some plot or something
thank you
and he said you are very kind to greet me this way but
i'd come back to seek your forgiveness
in the father was really surprised at this statement why are you seeking my forgiveness
and zhao said well
for taking your daughter were that way
and a look of confusion and surprise came over the father's face
and he said nothing he just said
come with me
and as they walked toward the house
he said to job
on the day that you left in the boat
chin fell ill
she's been in her bed ever since she can't speak
she can't stand up
she's remains in a weakened state
and they walked into the room and there she was
lying in her bed
pale
looking barely alive
and when she saw zhao she smiled weakly
of course zhao was completely astonished and he said you must come with me
and then they went to the boat
and when they got to the boat there was chin
sitting in the boat
perfectly healthy
wondering you know why her father and her husband were so freaked out
happy
so they've all said come with us
in the three of them walked up toward the house
and as they approach the house
the chin that had been in bed
for six years
arose and walked toward the gin that had been living in a distant province for six years and they met and they emerged into one chin
which one is the real chin
all chinese story

i am

when we
practice zazen with some intensity
for a period of time
various things begin to happen in our lives and although
everybody's different and everybody's process is different there are some things that quite frequently do happen
one of them is that we begin to be quite impressed with the power
a desire in our lives
and we begin to notice many things about desire and how it works how strong it is a persistent it is
ah settle it is sometimes
how contradictory is sometimes
and we begin to notice that on almost every moment of consciousness
there is some desire
and that it's easy to get caught by this desire
and then if we get caught by it becomes very very strong
and perhaps we can see nothing else in his whole world
but our strong desire
but if we sit down
with our desire
and just let it arise and pass away without getting caught by it
we may begin to notice desires behind our desire
and more desires behind that
sometimes contradictory desires checking each other
so we begin to see that our life isn't strong and clear because of these dueling desires
bottled up desires bottling up our lives

for instance if we're in a period of intensive practice as we are now green gulch in practice period
we might be impressed by how strong is our desire to practice and realized the way
and simultaneously impressed by how strong our desire is to escape and do something else
go to the movies
not to go to doesn't
not to continue with the practice
and even if we're not in a period of intensive practice
it might not be that unusual to be caught by a strong desire
by an obsessive desire
or by desires that are contradictory
and we get to see that desire produces suffering
we can think logically well if we didn't have desire we wouldn't have this kind of suffering
if we get something or we don't get something whether it's a person in our lives of a job or some material object
it wouldn't make any difference to us if desire did not arise in our hearts so without desire we wouldn't have to suffer
on the other hand if we'd limit eliminated desire altogether or life might be kind of boring
anyway is it possible
to eliminate desire
isn't desire a necessary part of being a human being
so the desire itself brings up conflicting desires we want desire in our lives and we also would like not to have desire in our lives so how do we work with desire in our practice
once a long time ago i had a big insight into the nature of my own desires and i will tell you about that
one day
i realized
having a big strong desire i realized that every desire is already satisfied
that's it
when a desire arises
even if you don't do anything about it or act on it or anything at all it already is satisfied it's already satisfied
and this astonish me to realize this
it was very liberating to realize this
it's necessary to be present and still in order to see this
but it's true if you don't react reflexively and habitually to a desire arising reaching out somehow to satisfy it
you can actually see the desire coming up in all its fullness
very bright very vivid very lively very wonderful and then see it unfold and pass away but not anything having to be done about it and it's already satisfied
the very process of the dura of the arising of a desire
and it's fullness
and it's passing away is itself
the satisfaction of the desire
before i had this experience i always imagined that every desire poses a problem me that you have to satisfy it or somehow eliminated
but on this particular day in this particular moment movie
twenty or twenty five years ago i saw suddenly into my great surprise
that the desire that arose so powerfully in me was already satisfied just the way it was
without my having to do anything about it and that all my habit to try to
satisfy or do something about it was just that just a habit
unnecessary
that the desire itself was already beautiful
incomplete
without my adding anything to it
sexual desire
desire for food or fame
our justification which is a great big desire that we're
all these desires in our lives are very natural human desires and they are very very beautiful
as beautiful as a tree budding in the spring
in fact that desires are very much like that very much like a tree budding in the spring
they just don't fall
why don't know if you can appreciate this or this makes any sense to you but this is what i experienced that time and i won't forget it
the story i told you in the beginning which one is the real chin
reminds me
of this trouble that we have with desire
chin was a good girl she was not a wild person
and yet she had two strong contradictory desires she wanted to marry chow and she also wanted very much to be loyal to her father and her family and so she had to choose one
but actually she didn't really choose one
her desires remained in conflict
and so her spirit was divided
not really being able to give herself wholeheartedly to either or family or her husband
she remained sick and weak
and this happens a lot in our lives i think
very often forced to
by circumstances or habit we do make choices in our lives
and we proceed along a life path
but in fact we haven't really been able to appreciate or integrate or admit
our real desires
and we ignore or dead parts of ourselves
and so our lives become pale versions
what they actually ought to be
and it is very very hard i think to allow everything to come up in our lives in its fullness
to really honor and give space for everything in our lives
and not have this be confusing
and i have this be prevented not have this prevent us from carrying forward with our lives
and yet i think this is what we really have to do if we're going to be fully the person that we are
and this is what the process of our practice can show us
because our zazen practice can make a space large enough in our lives bigger than our personality bigger than our logic
a space in which
there's enough room
to accommodate everything in our lives
this story of chin is brought up by master moment in his collection of con the moment khan and as case thirty five in their collection
in the case itself is really very simply
like this
jen and her spirit separated
which one is the real chin and that's the corn
and we might translate it for ourselves something like
our desires are very conflicting which is the real desire
which is the heart's desire

master mama gives a comment to this con that i think is very interesting and takes us a bit deeper with this issue
here's his comment
if you see the real one
then you'll know
that merging
from one husk emerging from one husk and entering another
is like a traveler moving from in to in
emerging from one husk if you see the real one you will understand that emerging from one husk and going into another is like a traveler going from in in
if this still isn't clear to you don't run about recklessly
when you suddenly separate into earth water fire and air you will be like a crab dropped in boiling water struggling with your seven hands and eight legs
don't say i didn't tell you
this is master moments come commit to that case
to that story

our desires fly by one after the other
even the desire to realize the way it is just another desire that flies by
the wheel of life turns round and round desire turns round and round time falls down like raindrops
collects
and flows into the great ocean
evaporates
rises up and comes down again in an endless endless cycle
and desire itself is an endless journey
arriving at each moment
is like arriving at an inn
we stay the night and pass on never to return again
when we understand the nature of our desires like this
there is no need to grab on
we can enjoy each desire as it is
willing to move on just as we can enjoy our stay at an inn
have a nice brunch
and leave the next moment without making arrangements to purchase the in

master mama says if this is not clear to you don't rush about recklessly
this is unclear to you don't rush about recklessly and i think this is wonderful advice
if the nature of desire is not yet clear to you
be careful
running around here and there's trying to satisfy your desires
we'll probably get you into trouble and it certainly won't work
so give up right now
and just sit down and breathe
and determined that you will stay with each and every desire
just where it is appreciating it studying it clarifying the great matter of desire
and this is exactly how we practice
in are practicing now in our practice period with our schedule every day
it's exactly how we practice during says shane intensive retreat in each and every period as as in on each and every moment
and on each and every moment of our lives
what is it
what is our life now
what is the actual practice of this moment
remembering over and over again to bring everything in our lives back to this zero point
back to this letting go back to this journeying
back to beginner's mind
and he says when you suddenly separate into earth water fire and air you'll be like a crab dropped in boiling water struggling your seven hands and eight legs
when at the end of our life
this physical body separates
into the four elements earth water fire and air
and this appearance
that we have been and that we have called our life
comes to a final end
we should be ready
and if we haven't understood and appreciated
our desires for what they really are at that time
we will be in a state of shock and panic
this like a live crab that's dropped into boiling water flailing with arms and legs everywhere hopeless
a victim
mom on brings up this last moment of life in a dramatic way
because that moment is our last chance
but in reality
each moment of our lives did the last chance
and the time to practice is always right now
there are times when
it seems almost impossible
to clarify our desire
especially when our mind is obsessed
by a desire
and i'm sure everyone in this room has known
in dramatic or not so dramatic ways this difficulty
when something is that her mind or in our heart
and we simply cannot let go of it
even though we know it gives us pain and we wish we didn't have to grab onto it like a bulldog still we cannot let go
we insist on holding on
usually this sort of thing happens to us because of some past event
things that we have said or done or that have been set or down to us in the past produce a seed of unrest and latent in our mind and when a present circumstances arises it awakens sprouts
the seed
and the energy simply can't be contained
in this case it would be good if possible now we can let go of
activity
or if we can't let go of all activity simplify activity and take care of the activity that we must do as quietly as possible
so we can concentrate on just being present with what is arising that trying to change anything or fix anything
and even if it's uncomfortable we have to do that
to try to be aware and inclusive with what's arising without
doing too much

and then the next thing we have to do is also difficult
we have to accept responsibility
for our state of mind
even if what we're suffering is actually someone else's fault
still we have to make our heart big enough to accept responsibility for it
because only in that way well we have the possibility of practicing with a and learning from it
this is very very difficult
because it breaks our hard sometimes to admit
that we're always responsible for our own mind
to accept that responsibility for all of our middle states
is to accept that what is happening in our life
whatever it is really is happening
as long as we are blaming something or someone else
they were really not accepting what's happening
and as long as we're not accepting what's happening
then the fire of our obsession will continue to rage
and burn everything in it's path
and it's fan that fires fan by are non acceptance

as i say if we really accept responsibility our heart may be broken
we can feel like
a loss of innocence or loss of ourself
a loss of a dream
loss of a cherished idea
but that's all right
because only in that way
broken hearted perhaps
can we accept this responsibility
can we let in everything completely
and can we forgive
i've been talking about forgiveness a lot these days
and the other day i was in a chinese restaurant i snuck away from the practice tree
and i went to a chinese restaurant it was research for the story about chin
the river
and i actually no kidding i got this fortune a little fortune in the fortune cookie that said to understand completely as to forgive completely

in buddhism there's a great a traditional metaphor to describe he's obsessive and difficult dates of mind that seem unfortunately fairly common the new think so
unfortunately there are not that rare
and there's a great metaphor to describe them
it has said that the in a distant realm of far from here called the realm of hungry ghosts
there are beings who wander about
starving all the time and constantly on the lookout for food
swollen bellies that they want to fill
but the their throats are as thin as needles
so this is a terrible situation that are trying to fill these great big bellies
and their compulsively trying to put as much food as they can down these little narrow throats
ah but no matter what they do they remain terribly unsatisfied
which makes them agitated of course
so they rage around their minds full of clouds of passionate desire
so they're terribly hungry always and they're also very very thirsty
and in the course of their raging in there wandering they will see sometimes a beautiful clear river
and they rush toward the river for a drink but suddenly magically appears standing between them in the river these gigantic fierce guardian deities who beat them up
so that they can't get to the river
once in awhile they managed to slip through the legs of the guardian deity and come to the clear cool river but when they scoop up some water to take a drink it turns into puss
this is a terrible situation
and it's a very colorful image i think
of our own raging desire maybe you can relate to these beings quite well
sometimes we're running around just like them looking for some elusive satisfaction and nothing ever feels the need
and were restless enraging
and once in awhile and by luck we get close to the river close to some calmness close to some real satisfaction
close to what truest and strongest in our lives then up comes the demon like resistances within ourselves and beat us up
and keep us from
getting that drink and sometimes we managed to slip through and we do get that drink and then right in front of her eyes
it turns into puss as we objectify it and try to grab it and hold onto it and name it
and we keep on encountering are human limitations
ghosting around struggling with our spiritual practice
in this does happen
and although you may think that
it's so peaceful and nice
to come to a wonderful place like green gulch by the ocean
in the firemen garden
the kind and sweet and students
actually this sort of thing happens all too often
the in our spiritual practice
quite common and it may go on for some time
one week
one year ten years
i've seen this
so what are we gonna do
how are we gonna escape the clutches of all these demons and
trick rivers
well you may not believe this but i think we have to just get lucky
that

i think we have to keep on making an effort in our practice
keep on going ahead straight ahead the best we can
with the confidence that eventually something or someone will just come along
and help us out
and this does happen
and we keep going on trusting that this will happen
and then we can find some peacefulness even if we're still in the hungry ghost incarnation we can find some peacefulness and after we've been through this a number of times we can get used to it
at the doesn't have quite so much intensity
once there was a disciple of buddha named magana
then he was very close to buddha
and at one time in his life he was troubled by bad dreams
every night he would dream of his mother he was very close to his mother
and she had recently passed away
and in the dream his mother was wandering around in a horrible place hungary and raving for food unable to satisfy her hunger and she seemed to be looking towards magana for some help but maulana in the dream couldn't do anything about it and he drained the stream night after night and would wake up in a sweat
and finally he went to the buddha and asked him what can i do
buddha said that in his dream he was saying his mother in the realm of hungry ghosts
and that maybe it would be a good idea for the song to get together and have a ceremony for these hungry ghosts in particular for mogul on his mother
so that she could be fed and offered teachings and be satisfied
now the interesting thing about this is that this discussion between mogul on it and buddha happened
at the time of the full moon
which was the usual time for the monks and nuns to gather together
for their confession ceremony which happens in traditional buddhist song as twice a month on the new moon and the full moon they gather and they chant the precepts and then they discussed together how well they have kept the precepts that month
they pause in the midst of their lives to take a good look at their own conduct
to take responsibility for their conduct fully to forgive each other
and then bow a try better
so they had a ceremony like that and it in the very next day would and maulana had this conversation into the ceremony from although on his mother
we had that we have a version of that ceremony and my on version of that old ceremony that we did last night actually
cause the full moon was last night and we also chaired the bodhisattva precepts
and consider how will we have kept them
take responsibility forgive ourselves and each other and try to do better
but because it happened at this time
in the ceremony for mogul on his mother happened in conjunction in this way with the traditional confession ceremony
all the monks and nuns understood
that there was a strong connection between the suffering of logo on his mother and their own actions and they understood that to take care of mogul on his mother in this way and the ceremony was also to take care of their own desires and obsessions and to take care of their own desires and obsessions was also a way of taking care of mogul on
mother
and ever since this time buddhists day the ceremony like this has been performed in a song as the world over with this double meaning and purpose to set to rest our own while the desires
to accept responsibility for what happens to us
to forgive ourselves to try to do better at the same time to memorialize those people who have passed on
and give the energy of our practice to beings outside of us were full of unrest
japanese the word for hungry ghost is gucky and today actually we're going to have the ceremony at five o'clock and say gawky ceremony
it's an interesting ceremony is very powerful
and even maybe a little bit dangerous
you invite all the hungry ghosts to come
and they show up a little tentatively their kind of frightened
and they're weak just like chin and the story they're divided desires make them a little weekend
and they're shy to come around people
and even more shy to come anywhere around buddhism or buddhist teaching which is really scary to them so that's why we don't do the ceremony at the main altar we do it somewhere else so that they won't be frightened
since jesus bodhisattva to my left here
sought the who
i'm trans migrates and all the realms including the hungry ghost realm
ah since they're not so frightened of him we have the ceremony nearby him said he kind of encourages them quietly
so the first thing we have to do is make
a terrible sound because it draws the creatures the hungry ghosts they don't like sweet music they like cacophony
you know so we have to we've been rehearsing
with our monastic instruments to make as horrendous as sound as we possibly can
so that they say that so that the gawky will appear and after we are they sort of tentatively come around we speak to them are gently and let them reassure them that nothing bad will happen and then we
actually offer them food which has cut up into very small pieces because of their small throats
and then we give them incidents in offer them some very gentle teaching
and then we dedicate the ceremony to all suffering beings and all departed friends who may or may not have the energy one hundred ghosts
and throughout the ceremony we bring with us our own hungry ghosts in our minds
and we allow them to come to the ceremony to to be fed and nourished and subdued
so you're all invited
to bring your hungry ghosts
to memorialize sir
departed ones and your family or among your friends
this is a ceremony we do every year at this time that you've heard about it before
and moved by it that he took an even stronger bow i have to save his mother so he actually went down into the realm of hungry ghosts and took a big hammer and he busted the lock on the gate and entered
the realm of hungry ghosts to save his mother
unfortunately because the lock was broken some of the hungry ghosts escaped from that realm and started ghosting around in the world at large
that's the chinese legend and there's a legend like this and almost every culture
this time of year
that the spirits of the departed ones at at a state of unrest escape from the nether realms into this room
during the fall usually when the earth is turning toward quiet and darkness i had these ghosts escape and come around
halloween has a similar story behind and that's why we do say gucky ceremony and around the time of halloween
and to meet one of the curious things about this
universal cultural norm
is that it's associated with great festivity enjoy and singing and dancing
that on
and i think the idea is that
you want to get the ghosts in a good mood
so that they will feel okay about returning home
because it's very good to bring the ghosts and to pacify them and so on but you would rather not have them hanging around all the time see there's a time in a place for everything and these ghosts ought to go home when the time comes in so you put it in a good mood by having a big festival celebration
and in china they have operas and circuses and all kinds of things this time of year to celebrate this festival
in this i think is a particularly human function and when you think about it i don't think any other creature has a festival or a party
except for human beings with singing and dancing and feasting
so this may be a human function to perform for the rest of the creatures in the other realms that we would have a festival and singing and dancing so that the other creatures the animals and the hungry ghosts and the hell beings and the demons would be a little bit mollified in their suffering while we're having our festival so
i would encourage all of you to attend or create your own festival this time of year not only so you can have a good time but for the benefit of these other creatures who are depending on us
for these festivals
so to me this is such an interesting human
patchwork
all coming together in one piece
desire and obsession
in the ghosts like suffering caused by desire
and kindness to others and taking care of others in the deepest possible way
in grief
and remembering
and taking responsibility for our own mind and forgiving ourselves and others
enjoy and feasting and singing dancing all of this come together
all mixed up together in are connected together
kind of like life
just like life
so if any of you can come join us for the ceremony afternoon at five o'clock please do

and whether you can come or not
i hope you will find some way to allow
all your desire to arise
to see into its nature
to put it a rest
and to go on with the next moment of your lives
you're very patient to sit on the to language

the miss lisa a time for discussion with a you would like to bring up
when we had about an hour
what's on your minds what was like talk about that

sayings asking about desire which was the topic of
talk today and saying that i'm repeating where the tape but also make sure you where you can hear because i got the big voice with machining
that seems like desire is necessary who wouldn't be able to do a lot of great things in life without desire and if we just allow desire to rise and go away without acting on desire than what kind of a world where we have that the the yeah
so yes are exactly right and i try to indicate this to some extent in my talk
so desires a double edged sword it's tricky
anthony the
luxury is not to eliminate desires i tried to say you can't really eliminate desire and even if you could would you want to kind of life would it be without any desire without any forward movement without doing anything so for me the issue is how can we understand desire for what it really is
and clarify our own desires and ally and oct from a calm and accurate basis because we all know that there are designs that we act on that that are appropriate and desires that we act on that are inappropriate and it's very subtle in a minute question moment after moment so how do we
it sort that out and that's what i was trying to talk about in trying to say that see a meditation retreat or a practice period like the one where in know is a kind of a laboratory
and you don't live your life as you ordinarily would if you're in a seven days a shame
you don't carry out your desires you just do with a schedule when it's time to eat you eat you walk you stand you follow the schedule you'll make no decisions we carry out and desires and that's a very special situation that's created in order for us to understand something about our lives i was really speaking to that situation and saying that
when we in that laboratory and understand our desire in a new way then the chances of are having clarity around what desire isn't how it works and acting appropriately is much greater so yes i agree we need desired in our life and it's normal and natural and cannot be
the native even if we decided we didn't want and desire it we could not be eliminated there's always some desire but we need to get could clear and little closer to what our desire is and how it works and i think usually we're not we don't really know you know we are impulsive about our desires even if with
awful when a fossil enough you may be thoughtful but we don't see with a dharma i know into the real nature of our desires just so that's what i was really talking about that that that insight and some territory of really understanding our desires in a fresh away but
yes of course many things depend on a wholesome desire
but even then with a wholesome desire we have to
be ready i i feel on any moment to let go of that desire because suppose i have a wholesome desire to do something and it doesn't work
well i have that determination to continue with it but about it still doesn't work and suppose i get angry and well as i get upset and about i start hurting other people because my desire is not being fulfilled when the i know how do i know when they give it up and how do i know when to persist and how do i know whether my desire
has wholesome motivation and wholesome roots and how do i know when it's selfish so even in the case of affirming desire and going forward whether we need this understanding so i was just trying to raise the complexity of at all not say desires good at desires bad and we should and this is we have to spend some
time to understand it more fully and act more skillfully with our desires because they're not going we're not going to live desire listening i think
especially not
practice were all
in a sense worldly people who was we live in the regular world and we do regular things
and so we have that we have to contend with them and deal with that and that's what our practices all that yeah
so thank you that's a good question who that clarifies a little bit nicer here
yes she's talking about a situation in the past that she would like to be different in the feelings of
we grabbed and lack of forgiveness that come up in the president she's looking at that situation
yeah so
and the past is very real because it comes up in the present and this is not the pass this is now a feeling that arises in the mind and heart now
so yeah it's just what i was saying that one has to be with that feeling and stay with it and not spin around were thinking about it and all the circumstances but just be with a gut feeling of whatever it may be anger
i regret
a lack of forgiveness desire to forgive or whatever it is just to be with that and to be with that
now we haven't there's an ancient ritual in buddhism that we practice every day in our temple
which is it's called it the enchanting the verse of confession and the first line and the vs
ah my ancient and twisted karma excuse me
and then it goes all my ancient twisted karma from beginning this greed hate and delusion
born through body speech and mind i now fully of our
so are the because there's that incident that you're bringing up because endless endless instances from the past lifetime after lifetime
that come out of our natural confusion and greed hate and delusion three poisons
encouraged by our actions body speech in mind there are always with us
in every day after meditation we say all this i now fully turn over i begin over again i let go and i forgive
so and that's a practice that's considered to be a practice to chant that verse and to try as much as possible to mean it seriously
is a practice so i you can do that you can actually i knew the adverse or write your own verse of forgiveness and recited to yourself in meditation practice trying your best to
make that your intention and then observing if you're if what comes up actually his anger frustration so i'm just to be aware that and an that so yes this is my intention to forgive this is my intention to let go but i see regret coming up yes that's regret i understand i get breathing with reader
yet i see hatred coming up yes i understand hatred that's hatred reading with hatred and then you go back to that all the time and eventually
it it it be as you don't seize up around it so much and eventually you can let it go
and it's a never ending process because something else what happened here and here and then you'll have that so to return to the present moment with awareness of what's actually going on and trying to let go over and over again every single moment of our lives that's so practice and when we have something like that that's their sticks in our cry
we are quite aware how difficult that practices and then we have to really work
so it's a challenge and and as we all know sometimes we have something like that stuck in us for a long time
many sometimes something like that sticks in us for generations literally you know many generations
it happens just happens
was nicely describes so the question of addiction here
why did the right
ah
yes she's saying that she's referring to the fact that the ceremony that we cut the food and teeny little morsels and she saying that this sounds like she makes a connection between that and working with addiction which sounds a lot like hungry ghosts you know an addict sounds one hundred ghost signs like
an addict of some sort and she saying that in working with addiction use sometimes
what happens if you look beyond the addiction to what you really want and you see why the addiction is not satisfying your real desire your real need yeah so i think so
is that unfair yeah
thank you see any questions for you so
okay
yes
who
well i guess i can't think of anything i could say beyond what i said in a cock i current and that's about it
the fact that and i'll repeat a little bit maybe or as i repeated some new york america
oh
usually we're running around right and our mind is
we're not our mind is not subtle enough to see what's actually going on with us
and you learn this from meditation practice meditation practice the texts of meditation are always talking about course mine and subtle mind and when you slow the mind down and your stay with your breath and you don't
run around in circles the mine actually becomes more subtle and things come into view that weren't possible to see before because i mean we all know the state of mind meditation is different from the state of mind and everyday life quite often
especially when you really concentrated
so in such a more subtle state of mind desire appears in with more detail than it does the rest of the time because our relation of desire is so reflexive we immediately you don't want to satisfy desire so i just as something as simple as you're sitting on the cushion and you have
an itch
and you don't scratch because you're not moving your commitment to move so you're sitting there and then you get to study the desire to scratch and understanding the different when we're usually during the rest of the day we i'm thinking about should i scratch or not we don't even think of let's see now should i scratch what would be the advantages of scratching and the disadvantages as
scratching we don't think like that we scratch you know and it's like that with every one of our desires more or less and less it's a complicated desire like and buy a house in that takes some strategy but basically you know that's what happens so
in meditation you for example quite often happens that you don't scratch and it's just it goes away what do you know it's went away i didn't scratch
it went away it went away because i stay present i stayed with my breath and the in it desire to scratch came up with and went away and look at that i never saw that before that's amazing
well that's exactly what i'm saying that in that special situation you can study desire and you can see that
wow desires like that it comes and it goes it takes care of itself i didn't scratch and and not itchy anymore
and then it didn't nature and that scratching or know it is i didn't scratch and i'm not into anymore
look at that that's amazing
and the truth is that there might be all lot like that in our lives
well i didn't
i was mad at her and i didn't you know to are out and in the nose like i felt like doing
and i worked with it known man anymore
well that
it's amazing so that's what i was when i was meaning that and desire just like a traveler moving from into in desire comes and goes states for a while and falls away and
sometimes as you brought up we may say
understanding the nature of desire
i feel that it would be good to act on this desire now because
i understand what is motivating me here it's a wholesome motivation and a positive motivation and i'm going to act on this desire but i know that desire is impermanent so if i'm thwarted in my acting on that desire i won't freak out or go crazy or started with a major war but i will because i understand why i'm doing this i will go forward
with this desire the best i can and adjust as i walked down that path
so that's a little different from this is reflexive know where we were so used to and so trained to be feel like the most important thing is that i'm okay and i get what i need
and so if i think i want this i should go for it and if anything gets in the when upset depressed fighting somebody and so on and that's a gross version of what we go through but something like that does happen it so let's can we find another way can we be more subtle and were include
ziv about what we desire we don't desire i mean the addiction is a great example i mean somebody thinks that they really want to heroin or something well there is a heroine if they want maybe they've heroin is a temporary relief relief for what they really want what they really want is some kind of deep deep deep human satisfaction since
belonging sense of love and so and that's what they really want and they haven't been able to find anywhere even to touch that desire or even experienced the desire for that and they think that they want heroin or something
so if they could study that desire and not go for the heroine every time maybe they would come into touch with these deeper desires as i understand that programs that are so successful recovery that's what they teach i understand that they tell you first of all stop grabbing your desire every minute and realize that you are in the grip of this the
desire and seek help so that you don't have to constantly go back to it and then step by step by step look behind until you see the real
nature of that desire and the eleventh step in the twelve step program is to come to a religious understanding of why you got that way in the first place and why we all are seeking quite often to satisfy our desires in appropriately because they are deep huge
been longing for wholeness we've never turned to we thought that we can fix it up with substances or
you know
neurotic notions of relationship or possessions or whatever we thought we could fill that hole inside of this but it didn't work
yeah
that desire purified and understood is
homeless itself
in other words you pure that's the desire that you walk down that path and that if no longer desire it's just life
so lot of times we take up spiritual practice with that same energy of desire see so we can desire you know heroin we can desire lots of money we can desire lots of sex or we can desire enlightenment in this with the same spirit the and people often will do that will come the spiritual practice with that sort of is
ayer but if you if you actually keep with the practice the fire of the practice purifies that desire and then all of a sudden there's no desire that's just life itself and total acceptance and forgiveness moment after moment so doesn't feel like desire anymore
it's true
yes
my other people's desire what about that you can be neurotic you say yeah i think that the the real
wish to benefit others if it's really true is not neurotic because you want to benefit others for what they really need
but you're right if if you have an erotic need to satisfy someone else
usually what that actually is is a fear that they'll be unhappy so it's it's fear it's my prime i'm afraid that if i don't make you happy you might be anatomy and then i'll be in the zoo or i'm afraid that if i don't do something to make you happy you lead me or i'm afraid if i don't do something to make you happy i won't feel like a good person
so to me if you when there's an erotic need to satisfy someone else's desire it actually isn't a truly altruistic feet feeling it's actually a masked feeling of self-centeredness it seems to me if we really want to benefit others were willing for other people
not to like us to leave us to be unhappy with us and so on because we really want to benefit them we're not trying to make ourselves feel good we actually a concerned about their benefit in which case if being concerned about their benefit means that they're going to get mad at us or whatever and were willing to undergo that for their benefit so it's a different story
because certainly one of the cardinal points of of my on of buddhism and of our school is the the wholesome spirit of benefiting others and it is possible i believed to have that spirit without it being neurotic although one as to discriminate it's easy to fool oneself to and i think i always feel like that's an idea we're working toward
and we have to see the difference between that and neurotic needs to to satisfy others but i think it is possible i believe that it is possible to have haven't a truly altruistic desire in fact a spirit and and julie altruist experience in fact the that spirit is
alma is pretty much indistinguishable from
the spirit of benefiting oneself because when you really want to benefit others and you see others as yourself then it doesn't know much difference that is the spirit that is one's motivation and one spirit in living is yeah we want to be beneficial here and this is one to be beneficial to and that's what have you been up
she'll do and that's what it's all the same you can only be beneficial in whatever way that we can whatever we see in front of us whatever's appropriate so if oneself is wounded then you should have a kind spirit let me benefit myself as another benefit another as myself so
at them
yes beleive what i'm saying sounds a lot like psychoanalysis and is this because i'm a psycho analyst or there's a lot of or one per cycle
as a psychotherapist
how was it because there are similar and so on
i am not now nor have i ever been
a psychotherapist however it is impossible to live in the bay area without being at least an amateur
the
so i'm probably an amateur and psychotherapists and of course every other person that i know is a psychotherapist
ah but that guy i say that you know bruno was the first and the greatest psychologist it seems to me because buddha was concerned with how the mind works and what kinds of patterns in our activity and in are working with our wines will lead to suffering and confusion and
messes and what kinds of behavior understanding will lead to peacefulness and so this was his whole approach and so in that sense i'm a student of buddhist psychology and you would have only imagine that if the great sage like the buddha were studying the human life
mind and if other great thinkers like freud and young and million of other people when a when all of these people who follow them were also thinking carefully about the human mind it would not be that surprising that there would be many similarities and so i think that there are a lot of similarities and then sometimes you see
different workshops and conferences and so on discussing the similarities and differences in there have been many books written quite good books and popular books none of which i wrote i'm sorry to say i mean i don't know why but i just had arena
comparing them and they're certainly been a lot of mutual influence certainly in the west where many like buddhist teachers try to transmit a's interested traditions in western settings have had spectacular failures and it's that well know why did this happen and and they look at psychologists all that and i see now you know i didn't understand the psych
biology of my own culture and so this is so that that reforms buddhism and the other way around there are a lot of psychologists who are buddhist practitioners and who
doing their psychotherapy practice with some insight gained from their buddhist practice so they become so they sort of neat somewhere in the middle and i think certainly in the bay area this is more the case and a lot of other places where can might be a bigger difference between the two but here it sometimes you don't know the difference actually it
except the main difference being in the practice itself
the practice of buddhism at least as we do it here involves silent seated meditation chanting and ritual the practice in psychotherapy mostly involves interaction and discussion so that's quite a difference but
we found here and i think some therapists have reported to me the benefit of combining those practices that somebody who is in a discussion practice benefits from silence sitting helps the process of discussion and someone who's in a practice of silence sitting who gets blocked in one way or another by their conflicting desires and can't seem to
go through that by virtue of their sitting practice can engage in this other practice of discussion
and maybe free up there sitting practice so there's a lot of that can cross pollination going on
yeah this is so hard you know
and agonize i brought this up in my talk
i feel that ultimately we have to take responsibility for what's in our mind
if i have hatred in my mind this is a poison in my mind and i am the one who's most hurt by their hatred i mean if i hate you and i'm spending twenty four hours a day with my hatred of you you're going about your business it doesn't affect you in the least maybe you see me and it's unpleasant but then you go away and you go along and you know
you find meantime i'm being eaten alive by my hatred
so that's my mind and it's my responsibility that i have that mind and even though you did something to me that was very very wrong and cause that hatred to horizon me cause the seat of past karma to be awakened by that hatred and i'm blaming you and so as long as i'm blaming you as long as i'm saying that you're responsible for my mind i can't begin to
to work on that and this is so hard because we feel to to to accept that kind of responsibility without getting caught by this is my hatred i am responsible for it and then we say and i'm a bad person and then not worthwhile and i've always been the failure have always been terrible i can't do anything
in a blob other to not to do all that but just to say you know as a human being right now regardless of my condition i have the possibility of clarifying my life and the first step in doing that is to take responsibility for my mind and what arises in my line and to work with it that's the first step you have to do that
even if i say even if it's somebody else's fault apparently and that's what breaks our heart because we cherish the idea that were good and right
and then it's somebody else's fault that we have hatred in somebody else's fault that the confusion somebody else's thoughts our parents fall and only they hadn't done this them through us and raised us and this where we wouldn't be in a mess we're in today it's our society's problem if only that blah blah the songs that were elected president and we would all that's true you know our parents do ssf they really do and the government
sex with contracts and it's terrible it's all true and we should you don't take steps to change all that you know in our spirits that
if we done if we don't accept responsibility for this mind right now nothing will happen in our lives and that's the hard part because that we have to give up all these all these illusions you know about ourself and really look and see and not only about ourself but about human life because that big illusion is if only things where it's just
so life would be great if only i could get the arrangements you know arranged in the right way everything would be fine because life is basically wonderful and it's just that i messed up because my parents did this and the government so that's a big illusion you know and it's terrible to realize life is not a bowl of cherries it's a ummm
mess life is fundamentally a wreck and a ness and impossible this is the big in big thing we have to admit
right here right now it's a mess grey haired delusion are running rampant in me and everywhere around me and it's totally overwhelming it is so overwhelming i can't even see it
that's where we have to i mean that who wants to admit that and that's a hope heartbreaking it's heartbreaking
because we were all brought up to think that everything's wonderful
yes yes you know even a house in the suburbs newman is that it's going to be great america's the best country and the trees are beautiful and everything's great you know and it's a shock to realise that that's not how it is
and this is the biggest illusion of all and we have to admit it's not like that he really isn't it's life is difficult and full of suffering
totally
totally
then admitting that and taking responsibility for that as the buddha taught
you can end suffering
and there can be happiness but it starts with taking responsibility and admitting the real situation as long as we are disappointed because our illusions haven't worked out we will continue to suffer
so that's why i say it's heartbreaking it's really heartbreaking it's this we have to go through the death of our illusions in order to actually turn a lie for him maybe we'll follow up question that brokenhearted state your tender and open and that's where the reality of the support of the dharma and teachings and guy
i'm of friends in all that comes in because none of us do this alone
you know we have the support of thousands of years of people you know two thousand and five hundred years unbroken tradition of people trying to work with this stuff and we have in the present time the many people who are themselves struggling with it and are supportive of us and so that that time know we we seek that can help and gives us
a lot of solace and we start from there yeah
further of chin which one is a real chin and saying that navy the to chins that appear in the story and neither one of them is the real chin or maybe both of them are but anyway one is a projection of the husband and the other one is a projection of the father which is an interesting sort of modern day interpretation of that and
i think that in the in the discussion as i said it's it's brought up as a con
in the and i know the story through the car i don't know it as it it's an independent chinese folk story that was brought into his in by being included in his car on and the point that's made about the story in the con is the point that i was discussing however i think you can certainly interpret it that way and think about
it it in other ways and i hadn't thought about that but that that would be
an interesting story an interesting interpretation and certainly it's true for sure that everyone has a projection about who we are you know that's true and we have to live with them people think of you and then i encountered this all the time people think that i'm somebody you know everybody different has a different
person who they are carrying around thinking it's me and it's the same is true of all of you and we have to understand that that this is true and that this is how the human mind works and we have to
not be caught by those projections right we have to be aware of them but be able to look at our own true heart and find out which one is thrill ten because if we feel that we have to live up to others projections of us and then there's such a thing as social roles and all that well that's fair enough
but if we allow that to be a substitute for our your heart and we don't find a real hard and this is terrible night so you have to work and and so that's a wonderful view and story and like to thank you and somebody in the back bending she she doesn't like that projection
the people have images of you and yeah
i know this is we could easily get caught here because of course where we would like actually i think most of us would like that people have images of us but that they were that we can really control what those images were like and everybody thought of as as being handsome and beautiful and totally intelligent and very very nice and all these things you know this would be really
good
and but of chris it isn't like that an app that the truth is that if if that were the case i don't know who would feel any better actually because there are people like famous people or somebody you know that chris famous people get a lot of positive and negative projection but there are probably some people like the dalai lama or something you know maybe and with everybody
maybe he thinks the dalai lama's wonderful maybe he'd find it a drag and everybody thinks that anything's whereas their room for me and this you know
so i think that that that we have to
you know allow people to have their projections it's pretty normal and and that's the way the mind works but we ourselves can route can realize that when we're seeing another person we're seeing ourselves and we're seeing our own idea of that person you know where it would i often say we have no idea
anybody is we have no idea and i find i'm i've been married for twenty years and i know that i have no idea who my wife is really you know i mean i know a lot of ways but when it really comes down to who she actually is you know i stand in awe of the unknown because i really don't know what deeply affects her and motivates her and i have to respect
and so i think we ourselves can at least understand that of and yet i projections about my wife who she is right so but i have to remind myself that the projections are only projections and that's true of everybody that i know in my whole life so we can do that with our own projections and we can have patients with other people's projections
on to us because they have those projections based on their car amiright based on what's in their life they're going to decide that we are session so and like i sometimes get the projection somebody that i hardly met will think that i'm somebody that they knew before you know like their father named that they hate
sad to be i had to be patient with that you know i mean if i get angry with them that's terrible know i have to really be patient with that prediction and we think that's what we have to do with everybody we have to understand that people will have projections and the projections will be very naturally flowing from their own lives and
so what we have to live with
so that's why it's a great relief you know to come back to the cushion
and to be with the present moment in the reality of just this person know
we don't know who
they come back to that over and over again to recognize that that's the bottom line
very comforting very important for us within
guess
i feel

yes
you can i
and time

i hope
so he's talking about the negative and positive projections
and how do you work with that and how do you handle that
so and are they different we like the positive ones and we don't like the negative ones but are they really any different
maybe i can answer that by telling a story that rib always tells one of his favorite zen stories in fact he tells us as a story that
brought him studies in and first place maybe you've heard it from humor from someone else before it's a story of how coins nj who live in the eighteenth century in japan and was a village priest and
a young girl got pregnant in the village you know the story and you know young girl got pregnant the village and parents said who's responsible for this and she said it was that nasty old filthy old priest on the hill haku and did this and when the baby was born parents who by now or you're really upset took the baby up
to the temple knocked down the door and said here here's what you've done to our family were in disgrace gave her the baby and he said all is that snow
it's that so took the baby
and raise the big got a wet nurse and to carry the baby baby a couple of years to three years around the temple
and meantime the daughter confessed it wasn't him
it was my boyfriend so and so on i just didn't want to
ah say it was him and i knew how upset he would be in his family would be if i told so i blamed it on auckland and the parents of course would just horrified my god they have done this to this kindly wonderful priests they had done this to him and he didn't even complain so they were rushing up to him and knocked out
there were so right about how can we have done this how can we have mistrusted you you're such a wonderful praised look what you've done you've taken a child you to so great so a horse that so
a
so this is a great model i think that that it is just as to to believe the positive to believe the positive projections is just as bad as to believe the negative ones and we are apt to believe both you know even though we liked the positive ones that don't like to negative ones that doesn't mean that we're not
easily convinced by both of them
but neither one of them touch you know our true self and so when when when you know that
family came to haku in and handed in the baby and shook their finger at him i think what haku and saw was not he wasn't he wasn't feeling their fury or wrath against him he was seeing their suffering he saw that they were suffering
that was important and he was sympathetic to their suffering when somebody is furious with you there suffering right there in deep pain he saw that pain and he was large enough to allow it to be and absorb it
and when they came back and they thought how wonderful wonderfully was then he saw their joy and he saw their embarrassment and he was sympathetic to their enjoy in their embarrassment and but not caught by it either so he was all he was focusing on them and their experience and that was who he was in other words his heart
is big enough to incorporate and really know how many was really experienced other people's mental states or joy or sorrow or happiness we're too busy and i think about ourselves but other people have experiences and if we're just there for those experiences whether whether they whatever however they are projecting on us than than
we are open to them and we are always sympathetic and always
trying to be helpful and if
we have to admit realistically that when somebody is furious with me i'm upset
i may be upset along with sympathy for them so there's a mixture it's not all or nothing right where you either totally bamboozled by people's projections that were were beyond them it's usually some mixture as we traveled a path or some combination of those things the important thing is not to realize the