“Zuisei, you just have to love them,” Hogen said, looking at me pointedly from under those Bodhidharma eyebrows of his. Caught off guard, I didn’t immediately reply. Love them? What was that supposed to mean? Hogen smiled at me and walked away before I could say anything. After a moment, I returned to my office grumbling under my breath. What did love have to do with anything?

It was the middle of the afternoon and I’d been heading to the kitchen for a snack when I overheard the tail end of a conversation between Hogen (now Hogen Sensei) and another monastery resident. As a senior monastic at Zen Mountain Monastery and the director of Dharma Communications (the monastery’s outreach arm), Hogen often gave advice to the mostly young and earnest residents, and his approach was like a football coach’s—gruff, practical, and caring: This is how you get into trouble. This is how you avoid it. I don’t remember what exactly he was telling that resident, but I knew I’d heard it before—many times before. So with more than a tinge of impatience, I’d asked him if he wasn’t tired of repeating himself. Love them, he’d said in response.

“Are you all right?” my officemate asked. I’d been staring out the window, trying to determine why I was so annoyed at Hogen’s comment. Love was too soft, too vague a teaching, it seemed to me—not to mention too impractical to actually address the suffering in the world.

“Yes, I’m fine,” I answered, though my annoyance hadn’t diminished one bit. I wasn’t about to lose sleep over it, though. I did a quick mental shrug and with it dismissed Hogen’s teaching. But his words must have remained tucked away in some deep recess of my mind, because about a decade later, they resurfaced exactly when I needed them.

Sun streamed through the window of the Buddha Hall, making my right eye water where it caught the glare off the oak floor. I thought of getting up to close the curtains but decided against it. My friend and I had offered incense at the altar before settling down on our cushions, and we now sat a few feet apart, facing each other, both of us solemn. She was about to tell me all the ways I’d hurt her over the last few months. My job was to sit quietly and listen.

A year earlier I’d taken on Hogen’s old job as director of operations, but because the monastery was short-staffed at the time, for a while I doubled as the creative director—a role I’d had for a few years. At first I was excited by the challenge. I didn’t have any business experience but was eager to learn, and I’ve always thought there’s no better way to learn than by doing. But I hadn’t counted on the challenge of having to run a business on roughly 20 hours of work a week with an all-volunteer staff who also had little or no business experience. And while in the past a mistake on my part had meant little more than a missed deadline, now each of my gaffes showed clearly in the quarterly reports. In the days before and after each board meeting I walked around with a knot in my stomach.

It wasn’t long before I felt completely overworked and undertrained, and although I could have responded to the stress in any number of ways, despite my years of practice I resorted to the oldest cover-up for insecurity: domination.

“You’re imperious,” the web director said to me one day after a particularly tense exchange between us. But I was too unsure about my ability to do the work to actually take in what she was saying, too afraid to stop and reflect on whether there might be a better way of working and leading.

My friend and I sat facing each other, both of us solemn. She was about to tell me all the ways I’d hurt her over the last few months.

I’ll be damned if I let this ship go down under my watch, I thought, as I put my head down and pushed even harder. Running on stubborn, manic energy, I worked through meals, breaks, and weekends. I even worked during zazen, plotting marketing campaigns and running cost and benefit scenarios in my head. After a few weeks of this, I got sick, and then I got sick again. But I just ignored the signs and kept going, truly believing that the only solution was to work harder. Yet the more overworked I felt, the more I unconsciously took out my distress on anyone who dared to cross me. So it wasn’t surprising that I’d finally been called out on my harshness and impatience.

The graphic designer, whom I considered a good friend, had complained to the abbot about our interactions, which had culminated in a disagreement about the store catalog. My friend, who was meticulous to a fault and very hardworking, simply didn’t share my need to work herself to the ground to meet an arbitrary deadline. In other words, she had her priorities straight. She knew she’d gone to the monastery to do Zen training, and she understood that work was only one aspect of it.

“I’ll have the catalog ready in a day, two at most,” she said to me. “It’s not a problem.”

She was right, of course. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t a problem at all. But I was too caught up in my own agenda to see the larger picture. All I could think of was the lost revenue those extra days would translate into. So I yelled at her, and now the two of us were sitting in the Buddha Hall.

Abashed, I waited quietly as she pulled out two legal-sized sheets of paper covered with tiny lettering. “I took some notes,” she said, and started reading from a list of grievances. At one point, as she flipped a page to look for a particular point, I noticed that she’d run out of room but had kept on writing in a loop in even smaller letters along the margin.

It was that cramped visual catalog of my wrongdoings that finally jolted me out of my daze. You have to do better, I thought. Then I remembered Hogen’s advice to me.

It’s said that one day, when the Buddha was staying at Savatthi, five hundred monks came to see him and asked for instruction. With great skill, the Buddha offered each of them meditation techniques suited to their particular temperament and capacity, and afterward the monks set off toward the Himalayan foothills in search of a place where they could do an intensive retreat. After wandering for some time, they found a beautiful hill bordered by a forest grove with a clear spring running through it and nearby, a town with a large marketplace. Delighted at having found such a perfect spot, the monks decided to spend the night in the forest.

The next morning they headed into town to beg for their food, and the villagers, happy to have such devoted practitioners among them, fed the monks generously and asked them to stay in the grove. Over the following weeks, the villagers built a small hut for each monk and furnished it with a cot, a stool, and a couple of pots. The monks settled in, and everyone was very pleased with the arrangement. But neither group knew that in that forest lived a band of tree-dwelling devas who, out of respect for the five hundred mendicants, didn’t want to remain in the trees while the group practiced meditation below them. So the divine beings left their homes and retired to the edge of the forest, where they waited patiently for the monks to finish their retreat. But as the weeks went by and it became clear that the wanderers were not leaving, the devas got together and decided that the only thing to do was to scare them away. Using their supernatural powers, they transformed themselves into wrathful demons and went around the grove shrieking and moaning, while all around them wafted a stench so awful that even the trees began to wither.

Scared out of their wits and utterly disgusted by the smell, the monks rushed from the grove and traveled en masse to Jetta’s Grove to plead with the Buddha to find a new place for them to practice. But the Buddha said, “Monks, go back to the same spot! Only by striving there will you attain the liberation you’re seeking. Don’t be afraid,” he added. “Take this sutra with you. Use it as the object of your meditation and also as a tool for protection.” Then he taught them the Karaniya Metta Sutta, “The Discourse on Loving-kindness” (quoted here from the Amavati Sangha translation). It begins:

This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness,
And who knows the path of peace.

Only 42 lines long, the sutra paints a portrait of someone for whom loving-kindness is a beacon. It describes a person who has chosen to be free rather than to be right—one of the most difficult and most profound shifts any of us will ever make. It was precisely the shift I needed, I finally realized, if I was going to fulfill the vows I’d made as a monastic. I hadn’t gone to the monastery to run a business, after all. I’d gone there to train because I wanted to wake up, and I’d made a vow to help others wake up too. But reading the sutra, I could very clearly see the gap between reality and my aspiration.

Let them be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech,
Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied,
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways. Peaceful and calm and wise and skillful,
Not proud or demanding in nature.

Since taking on my new job, I’d most definitely been proud, demanding, and easily dissatisfied. I hadn’t felt peaceful or calm, and I certainly hadn’t been wise or skillful. I could be frugal, yes, but I couldn’t in all honesty call myself contented—especially since most of the time I did feel burdened. As for humility, well, let’s just say I had a long way to go. So even though I now had a way to understand and put into practice Hogen’s teaching, I wasn’t sure I was actually up to the task.

One evening I was walking up to my cabin and turning all this over in my mind when I passed an old sprawling oak at the top of the hill that led to the monastery’s cemetery. I remember stopping to stare at the oak’s thick, gnarled branches and saying under my breath, like an invocation, Let me love them. And immediately I felt in my body the response: fear. That’s when I realized I wasn’t actually skeptical of Hogen’s advice; I was afraid of it. I was afraid to get that close. Yet I also knew that choosing my boundaries was not an option. The same fear that kept me separate from others kept me separate from myself. So if I was going to love anyone, I had to begin with me. I had to be kind to the many beings in my mind: the perfectionist, the bully, the critic, and the cynic. The dictator, the judge, and the executioner. The fearful one, the vulnerable one, the insecure, and the ill at ease. I had to love all the many beings I knew well and the many others that I kept hidden. The ones I shunned or felt embarrassed by, those I tried to control, and those I pushed away.

Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none, The great or the mighty, medium,
short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and far away,
Those born and to-be-born—
May all beings be at ease!

I had to gently look at the mighty criticisms I slung my way when things weren’t working the way I wanted, the middling arguments I constantly had with myself, the tiny but frequent putdowns that filled my ongoing monologue. These were the unacknowledged thoughts and feelings that spilled over as anger, judgment, and impatience toward others. I had practiced long enough to know that the way I was treating others was the way I was treating myself—that one couldn’t change without the other.

Standing under the oak silhouetted against the darkening sky, I heard in my mind the Buddha’s response to the frightened monks: “Go back to your place of practice! It is only there that you’ll find liberation.” There, in the places that scare you. There, in the midst of your suffering, your aversion, your discomfort. There, in your fear, your anxiety, your confusion. There, in your frailty and your humanity.

“Zuisei, you just have to love yourself,” Hogen could have said to me. “That, too, is how you love them.”

The Buddha once said that those who truly love themselves will never hurt others. He said that if we were to wander through the whole world, we wouldn’t find anyone dearer to us than ourselves. But since others feel the same way, we should love the most loveable “other.” Then again, we could love them knowing that ultimately there’s no self and no other—there’s simply interbeing.

If ignorance keeps the wheel of samsara turning, wisdom shows us that love is the true fuel of creation, the universe’s prime mover.

It was the fourth day of sesshin, and I’d gone through my usual gamut of emotions. As the days went by, I swung from excitement to annoyance to calm to exhaustion in a pattern I’d come to recognize over years spent doing monthly silent retreats.

Now, just past the halfway point, I felt crushingly tired. The bell had just rung to start the second nightly period of zazen, the lowest of low points for me. My body usually went on strike around eight o’clock, protesting the fact that it had been up since three in the morning. And my mind, helpless to engage in anything even remotely resembling concentration, floated in a gray haze which no amount of yoga, green tea, or fasting had helped to dissipate over the years. So at a certain point I’d given in and decided that in the evenings I’d just sit as still and silent as I could, letting the waves of fatigue wash over me. At least I could rely on the fact that soon I’d be able to go to bed and get a blessed five or six hours of sleep.

Almost dizzy with exhaustion, I sat unmoving on my cushion, willing myself to stay upright. But then, about halfway through the period, something shifted. One moment I was so deep in the fog I barely knew where I was; the next thing I knew, my mind was bright, clear, and as far as I could tell, completely empty of thought. Instead, what filled me to the brim was a slow-spreading feeling of love. Like a drop of ink released into a bowl of water, the feeling started in my chest and gradually extended outward until it completely suffused my body and mind. Then it kept growing. It filled the zendo, enveloping the hundred or so sitters around me doing zazen in neat rows, quiet as trees. It encompassed the building, the snow-covered field that surrounded it, and the mountain rising in the distance. It grew and grew until I felt myself to be a dot in an ocean of love so vast, and at once so gentle and so fierce, that it was overwhelming. It did overwhelm me. It overwhelmed me until I couldn’t find myself anymore.

The bell rang to mark the end of the period, and I felt everyone stir around me. A woman cleared her throat and a few others echoed her. My neighbor sat with his knees drawn up to his chin and carefully massaged his legs while rotating one foot in circles. I stood up slowly, and as the instrumentalist began to ring the bell for the bows, I realized with a start that we were done for the day. I’d sat through walking meditation and the last zazen period without noticing. I didn’t even feel tired anymore.

That was the first time I thought of love as the ground of being, the first time I clearly felt that emptiness is not empty at all, but is filled with love. You just have to love them was the simplest, most direct instruction Hogen could have given me. It was also the truest. If ignorance keeps the wheel of samsara turning, wisdom shows us that love is the true fuel of creation, the universe’s prime mover.

Radiating kindness over the entire world:
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths;
Outwards and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will.

When the monks had learned the Karaniya Metta Sutta from the Buddha, they returned to their grove and did as their teacher had instructed. Day and night they chanted its words and reflected on their meaning, and when the tree-dwelling devas heard the sutra, their hearts were suffused with love. They asked the monks to sit at the base of the trees and assured them that from that moment on, the devas themselves would protect them.

“No harm can ever befall a person who follows the path of metta,” says Acharya Buddharakkhita in his commentary to the sutra. This is love as protection.

Don’t worry, the Buddha said. Love the weak or strong. Love the great or the small, the seen and the unseen, those living near and far away. Love them as you love yourself. Love them unconditionally, whether you think you’re capable of it or not. This kind of love has nothing to do with ability. It has nothing to do with anything other than itself.

To me, this teaching said: Forget about things done or left to do. Forget about deadlines and milestones, profits and quotas. Those will be taken care of—they always are. So don’t worry. Whenever a being appears in front of you, just love them. That is your focus. That’s where the real work lies.

The post Just Love Them appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Why, exactly, do runners run? “Most runners run not because they want to live longer, but because they want to live life to the fullest,” the acclaimed novelist Haruki Murakami, who is also an elite marathon runner, wrote in his 2009 memoir, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.  “Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that’s the essence of running, and a metaphor for life.” 

This year, going out for a jog has taken on new meaning. Requiring little equipment or overhead, running has provided immense support for many coping with the physical and mental toll of the COVID-19 pandemic. (Still, it’s important to be safe while doing so.) But as Murakami pointed out, for some, running can be much more than a way to stay healthy.

In her new book, Still Running: The Art of Meditation in Motion (Shambhala; August 11, 2020), Vanessa Zuisei Goddard offers an approach to running based on her background in Zen Buddhism. A lay teacher and former resident at Zen Mountain Monastery in Mount Tremper, New York, for nearly twenty years (14 of which were spent as an ordained monastic), Goddard shares her motivation for “still running” by opening the book with a passage from the Pali canon’s Udana Sutta. “For one who clings, motion exists; but for one who clings not, there is no motion . . . . Where neither arising nor passing away is, there is neither this world nor a world beyond, nor a state between. This, verily, is the end of suffering.” In a tradition best known for the literal stillness of its seated zazen meditation, Goddard, a runner for more than 35 years, elucidates the importance of spiritual stillness—the internal experience where craving ends—and explains how it can be cultivated through movement.

Tricycle spoke with Goddard about how running became an extension of her Buddhist practice and how her technique differs from other approaches to exercise and movement. (A glimpse of Goddard’s instructions excerpted from her book immediately follows the interview.)

What is “still running?” “Still running,” at its most basic, is a moving form of zazen meditation. I have always felt that, as incredibly powerful as seated zazen is, it’s not enough. The transition between stillness and movement—meditation and activity—doesn’t happen automatically; you need to cultivate it. Running is an excellent way of doing that because you’re using your whole being, both your body and your mind. And if you can bring the same kind of focus, presence, and awareness [that you bring to seated meditation] to running, there’s no reason you can’t do the same with other activities—working, cleaning, washing dishes, being with your child, and so forth.

The book emerged out of body-centered retreats you led at Zen Mountain Monastery (ZMM), where participants studied running as a form of spiritual practice. Can you tell me more about those? Those retreats naturally grew out of my training at the monastery. One form of Zen training is body practice, which John Daido Loori [ZMM’s founder and first abbot] always referred to as the study of self through the body.

T’ai chi, yoga, and qi gong are some traditional forms of body practice in a spiritual context, but because what I love to do is running, at a certain point I started to wonder, How can I practice running as a form of moving zazen? So I developed a personal practice. 

Then I thought, Can I teach this to other people? I started teaching body practice during ango, our ninety-day training intensives, to experiment. The basic idea was: How to think about running as a spiritual practice and as a form of self-study.

As the retreats developed, were the participants experienced runners or were they beginners? I had a whole range: I’ve had people who have never done anything like this but were curious and people who have done quite a bit of running but wanted to delve into the spiritual or meditation component. The oldest participant was over 80 years old. She just walked. 

We don’t do very long runs. There are many very good running and training programs out there, so I don’t pretend to be that at all. I’m trying to get people to make that connection between body and mind. All I call for is for people to get in their bodies—to actually be there as you are running, to be aware of what you are doing—because even a lot of athletes are not very embodied, if at all. I think one of the main reasons we get injured is because we don’t pay attention and we over-train. 

What’s the key to making this practice sustainable? The way I put it is “running from the inside.” Still running puts emphasis on really feeling from the inside where you are. I can feel, OK, do I push today to feel energized? Or is it a slow day, and I should take it easy?

Because I have been able to do that, it has been a long time since I was injured. There are days that I think I am going to go run, but when I wake up every ounce of my being is saying “no,” and so I just don’t go. I don’t feel guilty about it anymore.

It can be difficult to balance that approach with motivation. I was supposed to run the New York City Marathon this year, before it was canceled, and I caught myself a number of times imagining the moment of crossing the finish line. While motivational, I think that fixation sometimes got in the way of my being present and listening to my experience. That’s true in zazen, too. We imagine what it will be like when we’re enlightened or when we have some degree of insight or quiet. Every once in a while we do experience something significant, and we try to hold on to it. I remember how much time I spent thinking I’m going to sit through the night or do something else extreme. Half the time I wouldn’t do it.

And then how would you feel when you didn’t do it? Bad. I should have pushed harder, or whatever. And if you are type A (a lot of runners are) and you have energy, you can spend a long time pushing. I have. I pushed my entire life, and I would just crash and burn. When I was practicing at the monastery, I would get sick a lot. I reached a point where I couldn’t [keep pushing] anymore, not in the same way. I saw how it was hurting me. I’m just beginning to learn to trust that I know what I need, and that my body knows. I’m much more willing and able than before to follow my own rhythm. I actually find that I am able to do a lot more because I don’t have to worry about crashing and burning.

What is the difference between still running and “flow” or being “in the zone?” [The psychologist] Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who wrote about “flow” in the ’90s, described it as a state of peak performance that is dependent on an optimal level of challenge. If the challenge is too high and you don’t have the ability to meet it, you can’t reach that experience. Likewise, you can’t reach it if your skill is too high and the challenge is too easy. There has to be optimal balance between the two.

People describe flow states as an experience of losing their sense of self, time slowing down or speeding up, and whatever activity they’re doing feeling effortless. I think all of us, when doing something that we feel very comfortable with and love to do, have touched that moment when we disappear.

Samadhi [Skt. concentration, or one-pointedness of mind] is similar to flow, but you’re not just cultivating concentration for its own sake. The point is to develop insight into the nature of the self, which is wisdom. You can certainly lose yourself on a run and it will feel good, but [still running asks] what does that say about the self that is disappearing to begin with? Where does it go? And what is it if it can come and go like that?

I don’t in any way pretend that going for a run is going to get you enlightened. I always have recommended and practiced running as a complement to seated zazen, and I would never replace my morning zazen with a run. What I am saying is that if you already have a running or movement routine, or if you want to begin one, you can use it to further your practice.

How can still running be applied to competitive running? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with competition. The question is: What do you do with it?

I haven’t been competing myself, but if I wanted to start I would have to keep working within myself to see my desire to win or improve as another aspect of my mind arising. Like with anything else within us, [the problem] is not the desire, it’s the attachment, the clinging. 

I was very competitive throughout my time at the monastery. We used to play Frisbee, and everybody made fun of me for being so competitive. It’s kind of in me, so I didn’t try to pretend that it was otherwise. I would just see it and try to understand, What is that? Why do I need this? That is what actually helps and eventually gives us the ease to pick up [that competitive energy] when we need it and put it down when we don’t need it anymore. That’s freedom.

Is there anything else you would like to say about running? The world doesn’t need faster runners. We have plenty of them. We need people who are clear, people who are awake.

Practice: Stop-Start Running

Practice focusing wholeheartedly on your breath.

A distracted, undisciplined mind is a mind lacking clarity and leaking energy. It is like a bucket with a hole or, to use a Buddhist simile, like a wild elephant. A concentrated mind, on the other hand, is stable and clear. It is a “firm post well sunk in the ground,” as Theravada Buddhist monk Soma Thera said. Having begun to develop our concentration in seated zazen, we will now take this discipline into running.

Before you begin, find a short route, something like a trail or a track. Choose familiar territory so you won’t have to expend energy figuring out where you’re going.

Run for ten or fifteen minutes at an easy pace to warm up. Then set a timer for ten minutes, thinking of this time as a period of running zazen. Just as with seated zazen, the focus of your moving meditation will be your breath. So as you run pay attention to the sensation of the breath as it moves in and out of your body. Listen carefully to its sound, matching your stride to the inhalation and exhalation. Let all your awareness be filled with breath.

Continue running until you notice a thought that distracts you from the breath. Following the instruction for zazen, see the thought, let it go, and in this case, stop running. By this I don’t mean you should slow down to a jog, but actually stop altogether. Take a moment to collect yourself, then start running again, placing all your attention back on the breath.

If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll most likely have to stop running every few steps, at least in the beginning. I realize this is annoying. But that is why this practice works. If you want to keep running, you really have to focus. So just remind yourself that you’re not trying to get anywhere. The point of this practice is to train your mind to concentrate.

Continue running with your attention on your breath. See a thought. Let it go. Stop. Resume running. Do this over and over until the ten minutes are up, then let go of your breath and keep running at an easy pace. Allow your awareness to be open, stable, clear, and relaxed. If you want to repeat the practice, alternate between ten minutes of stop-start running and ten minutes of more open, relaxed movement. Finish with easy running. Afterward, note your observations in your journal.

Stop-start running is the first step in the development of concentration while running. Return to this practice often, for one of the central aspects of learning—and discipline—is repetition. So learn how to use your breath to anchor your attention while running. Let it be the firm post that keeps you grounded in your being.

♦

From Still Running: The Art of Meditation in Motion, by Vanessa Zuisei Goddard © 2020. Republished with permission of Shambhala Publications.

The post Zen in Motion appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

In this series, Vanessa Zuisei Goddard speaks of the four immeasurables as a “science of compassion,” showing the incredible power loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity have to transform our relationships with others. 

Vanessa Zuisei Goddard is a writer and lay Zen teacher based in New York City. Her first book, Still Running: The Art of Meditation in Motion, will be published by Shambhala Publications in August 2020.

The post The Four Immeasurables: A Science of Compassion appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

The reason that we suffer is simple: to paraphrase the Rolling Stones song, “we can’t always get what we want.” And in not getting what we want, we create conflict for ourselves and others. It may seem simplistic to reduce all our suffering to our unmet wants, but if we take the time to look closely at our situation, it becomes evident that the Buddha’s teaching on the source of our distress is exactly right. We suffer because we have something we don’t want, we want something we don’t have, or we have something we can’t keep. If we think of the concept of craving (Pali, tanha) as a triune, then its three faces are avoidance, desire, and clinging.

The first face of craving is avoidance. It turns away from the pain that comes by craving for what we have that we don’t want to go away. No one wants to grow old, yet most of us do—or we hope to, once we realize that aging is a privilege, given the alternative. None of us want to get sick, and especially not for long periods of time. We certainly don’t want to die, although we most decidedly will. These three “signs” of existence, as the Buddha calls them, may be different in context from one life to another, but not in fact. And although we understand that resistance is pointless, to accept the conditions of life feels so much like defeat, that we’d rather fight than surrender to the inevitable. It feels like a betrayal, the way things are set up—like there’s a bug in the system or a few lines of fine print no one bothered to point out when we signed the contract to live our lives.

“I was a good husband, a good father,” a patient once said to a therapist friend who worked in a nursing home. “I did my job, I paid my taxes, I even climbed a few mountains. Why the hell is this happening to me?” By “this,” he meant getting old; he meant losing control; he meant letting go of everything he’d worked so hard to get. It’s not easy to disabuse ourselves of the fantasy that if we check the right boxes, we’ll somehow be spared the indignity of our decline. But the fact is that from the moment we’re born, we’re already dying. No matter how rich, how famous, or how powerful any of us become, none of us are exempt from these three signs. Yet few of us are willing to carry the truth of our fragility or the certainty of our deaths. We’d rather look for security wherever we can find it.

There’s a story of a fisherman who’d been struggling to feed his family. Every morning, he’d go out on the ocean, cast his net, and, invariably, he’d haul it in almost empty. This pattern continued until one day, when he left early with his brother and, after only an hour, pulled in a catch so big that it threatened to capsize his skiff. Carefully, the fisherman tied up the bulging net and stowed the catch in his boat. He then grabbed a piece of coal from a bucket and drew a big X on the side of the boat under the gunwale, or the upper edge of the side of his boat.

“What are you doing?” asked his brother.

“This is a great fishing spot!” the fisherman said. “I’m marking it so that we can come back tomorrow.”

If we can’t fight old age, maybe we can fix youth in place. If we can’t avoid death and the anxiety that comes with it, maybe we can keep them at bay with the pleasure that comes from having money, or good looks, or a nice house, or a prestigious award. If the first kind of craving is avoidant, the second is grasping. It’s the face that looks toward its goal, which is very simple: to get what we want because it makes us feel good, not bad. This approach to living seems so obvious, so reasonable, that it’s almost absurd to question it. Who wants to feel pain? Who doesn’t want to feel pleasure? Isn’t pleasure natural and desirable? Indeed, pleasure by itself isn’t a problem, nor is our wanting it. We’ve all felt the rush of joy that accompanies all kinds of pleasant moments: digging our toes into sand, smelling the fragrant steam coming from a pot of stew, receiving an unexpected windfall of money, finding an elegant solution to a persistent problem.

The difficulty comes from grasping itself, which is relentless and impervious to the truth of impermanence. Yet we all know that vacations end, scents fade, money is spent, another problem replaces the first.

There’s nothing in Buddhism that says we can’t or shouldn’t enjoy life’s modest or magnificent wonders. The problem isn’t enjoyment either. The difficulty comes from grasping itself, which is relentless and impervious to the truth of impermanence. Yet we all know that vacations end, scents fade, money is spent, another problem replaces the first. Things shift, they break, they get lost, they decay. People leave or die. Everything that is, wanes, and no amount of effort can stop this passing. But as with old age, sickness, and death, our general response to this constant change is distaste. We don’t like change, and we don’t like it when it happens to us. When it does, our first response is to go looking for more things. More wine, more sex, more clothes, more likes, more titles, more trips—which makes desire a perfect, self-sustaining system. Without interference, it’ll spin endlessly from seeking to grabbing to losing to seeking again. And although we could accept impermanence and focus on figuring out where else we might find lasting satisfaction, it seems much easier to just hold on to what we have. This is the third face of craving.

The orientation of the first face is avoidant, the second is grasping, and the third is fixated. Its sole preoccupation is to keep things as they are. Of the three types of thirst, this is perhaps the most painful and unnatural—like sticking your tongue to a frozen mailbox. Holding on always comes at a cost: primarily, disappointment, and, peripherally, exhaustion, because things are neither lasting nor dependable. Getting what we want is hard enough, but to keep what we have is impossible. It’s simply not the way things work.

In one of those strange confluences that happen every so often, the day I started writing this article my bicycle was stolen. It was a distinctive bike—a purple beach cruiser with a basket and a rear-mounted, custom-made crate that fit my dog, a good load of groceries, or a five-gallon water jug, as needed. It was graceful in a midlife sort of way, and I loved it. So I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hurt when I walked out of my doctor’s office and saw only absence. It felt like a boundary had been breached, as if someone had entered my personal space without my consent. But then I thought, who created those boundaries? What is stealing when the something that was taken was never really yours? What is the meaning of “mine” and “yours” when the boundary that separates us fades, like everything else that’s conditioned? I’m not condoning stealing or any other invasion of privacy. Boundaries exist for a reason. But in working with craving, it’s useful to take a close look at those limits and see what happens when we enlarge them. Or when we question the nature of want, of having or owning, and of the owner.

The late Bhikkhu Nanananda once said that “conceit” (belief in an independent self that is somehow superior to other selves) is misappropriation of public property—that is, of the four elements of earth, water, fire, and air. The Buddha said that conceit is the last defilement to fall away before full awakening.

A bhikkhu thinks thus: ‘This is peaceful, this is sublime, that is, the stilling of all activities, the relinquishing of all acquisitions, the destruction of craving, dispassion, cessation, nibbana.’ In this way, Ananda, a bhikkhu could obtain such a state of concentration that he would have no I-making, mine-making, and underlying tendency to conceit in regard to this conscious body; he would have no I-making, mine-making, and underlying tendency to conceit in regard to all external objects; and he would enter and dwell in that liberation of mind, liberation by wisdom, through which there is no more I-making, mine-making, and underlying tendency to conceit for one who enters and dwells in it. (Ananda Sutta AN 3.32, trans. by Bhikkhu Bodhi)

Releasing ourselves from I-making and mine-making doesn’t prevent us from enjoying life’s pleasures. On the contrary, it helps us delight in them even more, since we’re able to acknowledge their transiency and value. Whether what we hold is a bicycle, a cherished memory, or our own precious body, letting go of craving allows us to carry these things more lightly.

My teacher always says, “Practice when it’s easy,” so here it is, a tiny loss to prepare me for the true relinquishment of my conscious body. Like my bike, my body—which has also done an excellent job of taking me from one place to another—is on loan temporarily. Like my bike, one day, it too will disappear. It’s my sincerest wish that I am able to let go in that moment with some modicum of grace and acceptance. In the meantime, I hope that the one who has my bicycle enjoys it as much as I did. I hope they find happiness and fulfillment.

It’s definitely true that we can’t always get what we want—and it’s precisely because of this that we can thoroughly enjoy what we have, for the time being.

The post We Can’t Always Get What We Want (And That’s All Right) appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Hay una oración budista que habla de la vida humana como “el océano de la existencia con sus olas de nacimiento, envejecimiento, enfermedad y muerte”. Las tres últimas son también las “señales” que Siddhartha Gautama vio antes de abandonar su cómoda vida de palacio y, espoleado por una cuarta señal—la visión de un mendicante errante—partió en busca de la liberación. Para la Venerable Jissai Prince-Cherry, sacerdote budista zen, fueron tres de estas “olas”—el nacimiento de su hijo, una dolorosa enfermedad y una muerte desgarradora—las que la pusieron firmemente en el camino a la libertad.

“Cuando nació mi hijo, me di cuenta de que ya no veía mi carrera en la Fuerza Aérea como antes. Llegaría el día en que tendría que dejarlo al ser desplegada, y pensé: no puedo hacerlo. No lo haré”.

En 1994, un año después de terminar el servicio militar, Jissai requirió una pequeña operación. Mientras se recuperaba en casa, se dio cuenta de lo infeliz que era. A pesar de tener un buen trabajo, una familia maravillosa y todo el dinero que necesitaban, había en ella algo que no podía identificar. Así que cuando tres programas de entrevistas que estaba viendo en la televisión presentaban segmentos sobre meditación, lo tomó como una señal—una versión moderna de la cuarta señal con la que se encontró Buda. Fue a la biblioteca pública, escogió un libro y, convencida de que era lo que buscaba, empezó a practicar meditación.

“Me identificaba como cristiana, pero no era practicante”, dijo. “No tenía motivos para rechazar los libros budistas de la biblioteca. Más bien, buscaba una razón para descartarlos, así que decidí leer el libro de aspecto más budista que encontré”.

Ese libro era Lo que enseñó Buda, de Walpola Rahula. Y, para su asombro, Jissai encontró reflejadas en esas páginas sus propias verdades. Consultó otro libro, y este también confirmó lo que sentía, así que empezó a practicar con un grupo zen local. Al año siguiente, al marido de Jissai le ofrecieron un ascenso en Rochester, Nueva York, y ella aprovechó la oportunidad para practicar con el Centro Zen de Rochester (CZR). Un taller introductorio la llevó a un retiro, luego a otro, y en poco tiempo se encontró practicando en el centro lo más que podía. Incluso cuando su familia se trasladó a Kentucky dos años más tarde, continuó con el CZR y, con el apoyo de su maestro, Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede, estableció un grupo de meditación en Louisville.

Una vez más, las olas surgieron, esta vez la repentina muerte de su marido en 2011 mientras Jissai estaba de retiro en Nueva York. Atrapada entre el dolor y el impulso de la práctica que había establecido, Jissai intensificó su entrenamiento zen. Sus hijos habían crecido y ella contaba con apoyo financiero, lo que le permitió viajar regularmente entre Rochester y Louisville.

Las historias hablan de una manera que las explicaciones de la teoría y la doctrina budistas no lo pueden hacer.

En 2018, Jissai se convirtió en sacerdote novicio en la Orden de las Tres Joyas de la Sangha Nube-Agua (la asociación de centros y grupos zen dirigidos por estudiantes de Roshi Kjolhede). La mitad de su formación para la ordenación monástica tuvo lugar durante el aislamiento de COVID, pero el CZR, al igual que otras comunidades espirituales que restringieron sus actividades en persona, realizó sus actividades en línea. “Fue una verdadera bendición”, afirma Jissai. “Había sesiones de meditación dos veces al día, charlas zen y sesshins mensuales. Mi formación continuó sin saltos”. En 2022, Jissai fue ordenada como sacerdote budista zen de la Orden de las Tres Joyas.

Al describir su estilo de enseñanza, Ven. Jissai Prince-Cherry dice: “Soy más bien una narradora. Al igual que Buda utilizaba los cuentos Jataka, yo cuento historias para ilustrar un punto. No importa si los ‘hechos’ de la historia son ciertos o no. Lo esencial es el punto de la historia. Las historias hablan de una manera que las explicaciones de la teoría y la doctrina budistas no lo pueden hacer. Las historias dan vida a las enseñanzas”.

Para escuchar las charlas de Ven. Jissai Prince-Cherry, visite el podcast del Centro Zen de Rochester en rzc.org/library/archives-podcast.

P: ¿Qué es la “mente de principiante” y por qué es importante cultivarla?

R: La “mente de principiante” es un término popularizado por Roshi Shunryu Suzuki, del Centro Zen de San Francisco, en su libro Mente zen, mente de principiante. Su famoso dicho es: “En la mente del principiante hay muchas posibilidades, pero en la del experto, hay pocas”. La mente del principiante es muy abierta. Es una mente infantil; no nos aferramos a lo que sabemos o creemos saber, por ende, libera posibilidades. Es espaciosa y vacía.

En la tradición Zen que yo practico, utilizamos el término “no saber” indistintamente del término “mente de principiante”. Para conocer algo, necesitamos un sujeto y un objeto. Hay un conocedor que conoce algo, alguna “cosa”, alrededor de esta cosa, hay barreras, hay una caja y una etiqueta (para nombrarla). Pero este tipo de conocimiento crea distancia. Crea una brecha entre el conocedor y lo conocido. Sin embargo, la vida no es así. Las líneas entre conocedor y conocido, entre sujeto y objeto, son mucho más ténues de lo que imaginamos. La mente del principiante funciona antes de que el sujeto y el objeto se hayan dividido en dos. El no saber es un conocimiento íntimo.

A pesar de lo que pueda parecer, la mente del principiante no es ni anti-intelectual ni ignorante. Deja a un lado el conocimiento para permanecer con las manos vacías, con la cabeza vacía. No es malo tener la cabeza vacía. Durante sesshin, por ejemplo, nuestros retiros en silencio, hacemos unas diez horas de meditación cada día por dos a siete días. Para sesshin, es muy útil tener la cabeza vacía.

Hace poco dirigí un sesshin en el Centro de Retiros Chapin Mill del Centro Zen de Rochester. Asistieron personas que habían hecho muchos, muchos retiros, y había gente que era nueva.

Algunos de los veteranos tenían la cabeza llena de sus experiencias en sesshines anteriores, mientras que los principiantes no tenían ni idea de lo que les esperaba. Aportaron frescura al retiro porque carecían de conocimiento. Ciertamente habían oído hablar de lo que ocurre durante sesshin, habían leído sobre ello, tenían el programa, así que no eran ignorantes, pero como nunca lo habían hecho antes, no llevaban el peso de experiencias pasadas. Eran libres.

La mente llena de conocimientos de un experto no es libre. Es como un punto al final de una frase. Ya está. Fin. En cambio, una mente que no sabe es un signo de interrogación. Está abierta y dispuesta a todo.

Lo bueno es que no tenemos que emprender un proyecto especial para cultivar la mente de principiante; accedemos a ella simplemente practicando. Mediante la absorción en la respiración, un koan o shikantaza (“solo sentarse”), recuperamos la mente despejada de conocimiento. Al volver una y otra vez al no-saber, experimentamos de primera mano las palabras de Sócrates: “La sabiduría comienza en el asombro”. Nos damos cuenta directamente de que la intimidad, la ilimitación y la libertad son nuestra verdadera naturaleza. La mente del principiante es nuestra herencia.

—JP-C

♦

This article previously appeared on Tricycle as Meet a Teacher: Venerable Jissai Prince Cherry.

The post Conoce a una maestra: Venerable Jissai Prince-Cherry appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

En el Canon Pali, Buda describe cinco impedimentos u obstáculos mentales que surgen durante la meditación e impiden el cultivo de la percepción, así como los antídotos que los acompañan. El primer obstáculo es el deseo sensual, que, como señala un sutra, desvía nuestra atención. Impulsados por la codicia o el placer, olvidamos lo que deberíamos recordar y nos centramos en lo que haríamos bien en olvidar, al menos mientras dure nuestra meditación. Por lo tanto, el antídoto es cambiar nuestro enfoque. Un ejemplo clásico es reflexionar sobre lo poco atractivo del cuerpo (verlo como un saco lleno de sangre y pus, o como un futuro cadáver, por ejemplo) como antídoto contra la lujuria. Otro remedio consiste en vigilar los sentidos centrándose firmemente en el objeto de meditación: nuestra respiración, un mantra o la visualización de una deidad, en lugar del objeto que deseamos y pensamos debemos tener. Como nos recuerda el Sutta Maha-Assapura, estar bajo el hechizo del placer sensual es como estar perpetuamente en deuda, lo que nos roba nuestra paz mental. Pero pagamos esa deuda al reconocer que en cada momento tenemos justo lo que necesitamos—ni más, ni menos.

• “No existe el pensamiento puro sin deseo. Después de todo, el Buda dijo: ‘Todas las cosas—todos los dhammas—tienen sus raíces en el deseo’… Tenemos esta aglomeración de deseos y pensamientos e intenciones que tenemos que trabajar, así que utilizamos toda la citta—toda la mente, todo el corazón—para entrenar el corazón y la mente.” —Thanissaro Bhikkhu

• Consejo: Primero, presta mucha atención y date cuenta de cuándo surge el deseo sensual en tu mente. Luego pregúntate: “¿Qué está causando este deseo?” Cuando se desvanezca, pregúntate: “¿Adónde se ha ido?” ¿Qué te dice esta observación sobre la naturaleza del deseo sensual? ¿Cuál es el resultado de dicha observación?

  

• “Porque quieren vender sus productos, los publicistas riegan la semilla del deseo en ti; quieren que consumas para que tengas placer sensual. Pero los placeres sensuales pueden destruirte. Lo que necesitamos es comprensión: comprensión mutua, confianza, amor e intimidad emocional y espiritual.” —Thich Nhat Hanh

• Consejo: No hay nada intrínsecamente malo en el deseo sensual. Es nuestra adicción a ese golpe de placer lo que nos mantiene enganchados… y prisioneros. Reflexiona sobre si lo que crees que quieres es realmente lo que necesitas. Pregúntate si te dará la felicidad que buscas y si será duradera.

• “Si tienes un deseo sexual muy fuerte, o un antojo, mira el cuadro completo… reflexiona, asimílalo todo y pregúntate: ‘Okay, ¿realmente quiero seguir esto? ¿Qué estoy buscando realmente? Normalmente lo que buscamos es una sensación de felicidad, de plenitud y de paz.” —Ayya Anandabodhi

This article previously appeared on Tricycle as Working with the Five Hindrances: Sensual Desire.

The post Los cinco obstáculos: deseos sensuales appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

The second of the five hindrances is ill will (vyapada), which arises when we carelessly turn our attention to that which provokes our dislike. Although we most readily recognize ill will as hostility, it can also manifest as aversion, causing us to push against or turn away from that which we want to avoid. The result is an agitated, troubled mind.

The sutras say it’s like gazing into a pot of boiling water. As the water churns and seethes, it prevents us from seeing our reflection clearly. Not seeing, we misperceive ourselves and others. Our viewpoint becomes narrow, which leads us to constrict and defend. Therefore, the primary remedy for ill will is to allow the water to become calm by cultivating lovingkindness (metta). We can also meditate on the four immeasurables of lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity, since any of these will cause the feeling of ill will to dissipate. Although we’re all capable of holding conflicting emotions, it’s actually impossible to be simultaneously hostile and loving in our thoughts. Metta is the primary antidote for ill will and the confusion that accompanies it, because it truly is like the rays of the sun, as the Buddha said. It radiates, illuminating everything in its path. 

• Tip: The first step in working with ill will is to look at it closely. The most challenging aspect of ill will—or any of the other hindrances—is that it’s intoxicating. A part of us wants to be hostile—which means we must make room for the part of us that would rather be free. Stop, look, and wait. Then watch as ill will, unheeded, fades.
• “An aspect of investigating ill will is to discover the beliefs that support it. Why do we believe it is important or pertinent to remain with these thoughts and motivations? How might we believe that aversion will benefit us? Why might we believe that ill will is justified?” –Gil Fronsdal
• “Keep in mind that the layers of conditioning on a person have made them difficult to handle, just like the layers of dirt on a cloth. Perhaps they have faced hardship unknown to us. . . . What matters is that we see that someone is suffering. We can offer them our loving-friendliness.” –Bhante Gunaratana
• Tip: If you feel yourself caught in a loop of aversion or hostility, try turning to a friend for help. Good friendship can be a powerful balm for our negativity. A noble friend can help us gain perspective or simply listen attentively as we acknowledge our struggle. They can remind us that whatever we’re going through will pass.
• “We must find a way to abandon the hindrance of ill will directly, without waiting until circumstances change and we get the justice, retribution, or redemption we’ve been craving. We have to work on ourselves.” –Domyo Burk 

♦

This is the second installment of our series on the five hindrances—sensual desire, ill will, sloth/torpor, anxiousness, and doubt—and their respective antidotes. A printable version is available here.

The post Working with the Five Hindrances: Ill Will appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

That feeling of being in the right place at the right time; of doing exactly the thing that you’re meant to do—isn’t this what so many of us crave but few of us are fortunate enough to claim? It’s that rare sense of feeling blessed by and in the life we’re living, and this is precisely how Monla Khedrup Rinpoche (also known as Khedrupchen Rinpoche) describes his own life and calling. Recognized at an early age as the fifth reincarnation of Kyabgon Khedrupchen Jigme Kundrol, a renowned Bhutanese scholar, practitioner, and one of the main students of Jigme Lingpa (a highly revered and realized 18th-century Buddhist teacher), he is tasked not only with teaching the dharma but also with ensuring the continuation of the Longchen Nyingthig tradition from the Nyingma lineage.

“I’ve always considered it an honor to serve sentient beings and the dharma,” Khedrupchen Rinpoche says. “And it’s not just about being a reincarnate teacher. What’s more important is that I can study, experience, and practice the teachings alongside all the other monks in order to help the dharma flourish.”

Born in 1990 in Bhutan, Khedrupchen Rinpoche is said to have begun recounting memories of his previous life when he was only 3. A few years later, he was formally recognized as a tulku (reincarnated lama), and at 13 began rigorous monastic training. At 16, he entered Ngagyur Nyingma College, a branch of the renowned Mindrolling Monastery in India, and completed a nine-year course on advanced Buddhist studies, graduating with an acharya degree, the equivalent of an M.A. He taught at the college for three years before returning to Bhutan, where he founded the Khedrup Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to the dissemination of the buddhadharma and the continuation of the Longchen Nyingthig lineage. Each year, at his students’ request, Khedrupchen Rinpoche travels the world to teach at various centers, monasteries, and universities.

“When I was young, I thought being a rinpoche would be easy,” Khedrupchen Rinpoche tells me with a laugh. “But it’s actually very difficult. People have absolute trust in you as a teacher, and that’s a big responsibility. You have to be very careful with that trust so your students don’t lose it, because it’s actually not just trust in you but also trust in the dharma. And through trusting the dharma, they trust themselves.”

“Just as your students trust you, you have to trust your students.”

This responsibility is one that Khedrupchen Rinpoche carries out wholeheartedly through his multifaceted teaching. In addition to guiding the many monks and students under his care, he’s also involved in a number of social-action projects. The Khedrup Foundation manages and finances two monasteries, a yogi retreat center, and a handful of charitable projects like the Monmo Tashi Khyidren Initiative, a program that provides basic amenities like warm clothes and health care to the monks ofSangchen Ogyen Tsuklag Monastery. In addition to being the founder and president of the Khedrup Foundation, Khedrupchen Rinpoche is the founder of Siddhartha’s Wisdom Club—a youth program centered on Buddhist values and teachings, with an emphasis on mindfulness—and of the Ami-Deva Association, a meditation program for the elderly. 

When I ask Khedrupchen Rinpoche how he can ensure the continuation of the lineage and, more practically, how he’ll know who will come after him, he speaks first about the present. “The dharma is flourishing everywhere,” he says. “There are so many amazing teachers and amazing technology—so many things are possible that weren’t possible before. Scientists are paying attention to the teachings, and people are becoming more interested in studying and practicing. So I’m confident that the dharma will continue in the future. The combined good merit of all sentient beings is important for this to happen.” 

Then he circles back to the key ingredient of the teacher-student relationship: trust. “Just as your students trust you, you have to trust your students,” he says, smiling broadly. “For example, if you wholeheartedly offer one hundred people all of your teachings, I’m confident that at least a handful will practice diligently and carry the lineage forward.”  

Visit khedrupfoundation.org for more information.

The post Meet a Teacher: Khedrupchen Rinpoche appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

When someone asked the Buddha what the essence of his teachings were, he responded that he only ever taught about suffering and the end of suffering. Summarized as the four noble truths, his teachings say that we create our own distress because of our endless wants. But we can just as well choose not to create that suffering by following the noble eightfold path, which includes eight areas of study and practice that cover all aspects of our lives. They are: right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Here, “right” doesn’t oppose wrong in a moral sense but refers to what is right or correct or proper (Pali: samma) to ensure the end of our suffering.

Both the four noble truths and the noble eightfold path are familiar to anyone who’s spent even a short period of time studying Buddhism. But there’s another thread that runs through all four truths and, particularly, the eight factors of the path. It’s what we could call the ninth implicit factor: right relationship.

All of us are in constant relationship with others: our parents, children, lovers, friends, coworkers. Even when we’re alone, we’re in relationship with ourselves, with beings more than human, with objects of all kinds, and with the Earth, and depending on our level of awareness, we’ll relate with more or less skill, either birthing or ending suffering. Practicing right relationship can help us increase both our skill and awareness so that we can establish loving, fulfilling relationships based on kindness, clarity, and care. 

We can define right relationship as the recognition of our interdependence or, as Thich Nhat Hanh called it, our “interbeing.” If we look closely at our lives, we’ll recognize that none of us can be ourselves by ourselves. None of us are—we, by necessity, inter-are. Every aspect of who I am—my hair color, the shape of my eyes, my love of chocolate chip cookies, my dislike of coconut, my interest in Buddhism, my passion for words, my dislike of crowds—every little detail that makes up who I am has been shaped by something or someone in my life, and it’s still being shaped, constantly. I am a continuous process of becoming, and so are you as well as everything around us. No one thing or being exists in isolation, just as no action stands on its own. The question isn’t whether we affect one another—we do. The question is how.

If we start with the premise that all eight factors of the path occur within relationship, then we can investigate how right relationship operates within each one. Applying the lens of right relationship can inform and enrich our practice of the other eight factors, beginning with right view, which the Buddha called “the precursor of the path.”

The traditional definition of right view is knowledge of the four noble truths, which helps us to first identify the problem of suffering, and second, to apply a solution. More broadly, we can think of right view as correct seeing—that is, seeing things as they are, not as we are. 

Some time ago, a good friend was fired from her job at a special events company after she made a mistake in one of her projects. She’d been scheduled to run the operations for a big conference in another country months after the time she was fired. Her partner had also signed up for this event. When she was let go, my friend was told someone else would be running the event, and for reasons relating to the company’s policies, that she wouldn’t be able to attend that event even as a participant. She’d worked for this company for more than ten years and had become close with both her coworkers and her clients, so she was very upset by the sudden loss of work she loved, as well as the potential severing of professional relationships. The decision seemed extreme and unfair to her, and she was so unsettled that she didn’t know how to move forward. 

Her friends rallied around her, assuring her that they too found the company’s response overly harsh. This helped to soften the blow a little, as did her spontaneous decision to book a vacation with her partner. Instead of staying home moping about the conference she’d miss, she and her partner could spend some time together, and she could use those few days to process and consider her next steps. Except her partner didn’t respond the way she expected. He was a bit aloof when she voiced her distress about losing her work and community, and after a few days’ reflection, let her know that he would still attend the conference. When my friend asked why, all he said was, “I planned on it.” Not understanding why he’d put his plans before hers, my friend was doubly upset. She felt unseen and unsupported—as if they were no longer in a relationship, she said—which made her feel yet another loss.

When she told me the story, it occurred to me that they were both having a hard time understanding one another, and more importantly, feeling what the other felt. Instead of seeing the situation in its entirety and with all its complexity, they were each seeing it through the filter of their own view. But if they could apply right relationship to right view, would they see the situation differently?

Let’s say that instead of proceeding from what he knew or thought he knew, my friend’s partner approached the situation with a question—something along the lines of: “it seems that it’s important to you that I cancel the conference; can you tell me more about why that is so I can better understand you?” A question like this would create an opening. It would immediately foreground their connection to one another and allow my friend to state her view. It would also make her feel that her partner was interested in her experience, that he was seeing her. He could then apply the same attitude of curiosity to his own view to tell her why it was important for him to honor his original commitment. Perhaps, to show his support in some other way, he could suggest that she go on vacation with a close friend—and maybe even offer to pay for it. Or maybe, after listening to her, he’d decide that it was more important to help her get through this challenging time and attend a similar conference in the future. 

For her part, my friend could create space between her partner’s response and her hurt by asking why he thought it was important to attend the conference instead of accompanying her at a time when she felt alone and discouraged. Doing so after stating her needs would help her better understand his motivation (beyond his first superficial and perhaps defensive response). She could then decide perhaps that his answer had nothing to do with her but with his prior commitment, and instead plan their vacation to start after his return. 

So much of our conflict comes from our misunderstandings or assumptions. Like the blind men in the famous parable of the blind men and the elephant, we assume we know based on a limited amount of information. A king brings an elephant before six blind men and asks them to describe the animal after touching only one part of its body. One of the men feels its head and concludes that an elephant is like a jar. Another touches its ear and says it’s unequivocally like a winnowing basket. A third runs his hand over its tusk and says it’s like a plowshare, and so on. Having a limited view, the blind men come to the wrong conclusion, confusing a slice of reality for the whole.

Right relationship applied to right view would remind my friend and her partner that there are two people involved in the situation, each with slightly or very different views, and that they affect one another. By taking right relationship as the basis for their dialogue, they might feel more connected, more in tune with their own and the other’s wishes, and more respectful of them. Through this process, they can then make their choices from within their relationship—even if in the end they agree to disagree.

The Buddha said that right view is like sugarcane, a grape seed, or a grain of rice that, when planted in moist soil, grows sweet and delightful, agreeable and pleasing. Right relationship is that moist soil from which right view draws its sustenance. It’s the rich ground that nurtures our view of things as they are so we can enjoy the fruits of our actions and our connections to one another, both in this moment and for many years to come.

♦

Excerpted from a book in progress called LOVE: The Practice of Right Relationship.

The post Right Relationship: The Ninth Factor of the Path appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Hace muchos años, estaba hablando de los Cuatro Votos del Bodhisattva con una compañera practicante del dharma y, sintiéndome un tanto agobiada por cualquiera que fuera el conflicto por el que estábamos pasando en el monasterio en donde vivía en ese momento, dije algo así como: “No sé muy bien cómo acabé siendo monja. A menudo no quiero tratar con la gente”.

“Pero, tomas esos votos todas las noches…” dijo mi amiga, frunciendo. “¿Cómo creías que ibas a salvar a todos los seres sin tratar con ellos?”

“Bueno”, respondí, “como que eso no lo tomé en consideración”.

Nos reímos, pero de cierta manera, era verdad lo que decía. Había cantado los Cuatro Votos del Bodhisattva todas las noches durante años, pero cuando los oí por primera vez—]y durante mucho tiempo después—no los consideré con la atención que merecían. Si lo hubiera hecho, quizá habría salido corriendo—tal y como hizo una recién llegada al monasterio cuando los oyó por primera vez. Un domingo se unió a nuestro programa matutino y, tras escuchar el discurso del dharma, se quedó boquiabierta mientras cantábamos:

Los seres sintientes son innumerables; prometo salvarlos.
VeLos deseos son inagotables; prometo agotarlos.
Los dharmas son ilimitados; prometo dominarlos.
El camino del Buda es inalcanzable; prometo alcanzarlo.

¿Escuchan lo que están diciendo?, pensó, y en cuanto terminamos, corrió a su coche y se marchó, para no volver al monasterio dentro de los próximos veinte años.

¿Qué impulsa a alguien a hacer votos imposibles? ¿Somos los budistas bienintencionados pero quijotescos, benévolos aunque ilusos? Daido Roshi, mi primer maestro, pensaba que era la propia imposibilidad de estos votos lo que los hacía tan poderosos. 

“Los seres sintientes son innumerables: ¡es imposible salvarlos a todos!”, gritaba desde su asiento de maestro, y la manga larga de su túnica verde pálido ondeaba mientras gesticulaba con su bastón. 

Hay ocho mil millones de personas en el planeta y billones más de seres sintientes que exigen nuestro cuidado y respeto. ¿Cómo podemos salvarlos a todos? ¿Qué significa salvarlos? No podemos protegernos a nosotros mismos ni a los demás de la enfermedad, la vejez o la muerte. No podemos quitarles a otros el sufrimiento. ¿Qué prometemos hacer, por tanto, cuando hacemos este voto?

“Los deseos son inagotables, no podemos acabar con ellos”, decía Daido Roshi, su voz cada vez más fuerte e insistente. 

El deseo alimenta al deseo. No hay manera de darle fin al deseo no examinado, no controlado, no refrenado. Pero incluso si somos capaces de moderar nuestro anhelo, ¿qué hacemos con los deseos sanos, como el deseo de alimento, de amor, de despertar? ¿Son iguales todos los deseos? ¿Y qué significa acabar con ellos? ¿Es ésto un deseable objetivo?

“No podemos poner el dharma dentro de un cuadro”, continuaba mi maestro, inclinándose en nuestra dirección y mirándonos atentamente por encima de sus gafas. “No podemos hacerlo”.

Las múltiples enseñanzas que describen las múltiples formas en que los fenómenos (también llamados dharmas) se comportan e interactúan apenas rozan la superficie de la realidad. Lo que no sabemos supera con creces lo que sabemos. ¿Cómo podemos soñar con enmarcar, comprender, lo que es por naturaleza inefable?

“El Camino de Buda es, por definición, inalcanzable”, decía Daido Roshi, su voz un poco más calmada en anticipación del crescendo de su discurso. Muchos de nosotros ya habíamos escuchado exactamente la misma enseñanza, pero no dejaba de ser emocionante. Daido Roshi sabía cómo montar un espectáculo para plantear un tema.

Un buda no se hace, dice este voto. Un buda se realiza, lo que significa que no practicamos para convertirnos en budas; practicamos como expresión de nuestra budeidad. El Camino de Buda es realmente inalcanzable porque no es algo que carecemos. Es imposible, inconcebible, inimaginable pensar que alguna vez obtendremos algo de esta vía. 

“¡No es posible alcanzar el camino!” gritaba Daido Roshi al llegar a este punto, “y sin embargo, ¡prometo hacerlo, no importa lo imposible que sea! ¡Es un sueño imposible!” Próxima escena: la primera estrofa de “El sueño imposible” de El hombre de La Mancha, en el barítono de Daido Roshi que llenaba el zendo.

Soñar, lo imposible soñar
Vencer al invicto rival
Sufrir el dolor insufrible
Morir por un noble ideal…

“¡Esto es imposible!”, decía en conclusión. “Así que si están aferrando a la esperanza, ¡olvídenlo! No hay esperanza. Pero un bodhisattva no necesita esperanza, ¡un bodhisattva tiene un voto!”.

Lo mensurable, lo alcanzable o lo contenible no es donde encontraremos la liberación. Necesitamos que los votos sean así de vastos, así de ilimitados, para poder aspirar y practicar sin limitaciones. Yo llamo a esto la versión macro de los Cuatro Votos del Bodhisattva, que amplía nuestra visión y luego nos pide que la vivamos en nuestra vida. 

En lugar de volvernos hacia el exterior en busca de validación o logro, nos volvemos hacia el interior reconociendo que nunca encontraremos lo que buscamos. ¿Por qué? Porque es la búsqueda misma la que nos impide ver que ya somos y tenemos lo que necesitamos.

Si todos los seres, todas las cosas, todos los deseos, todas las verdades, todos los caminos y todos los medios están en nosotros (y lo están), entonces no hay nada a que aspirar, nada que alcanzar. En lugar de volvernos hacia el exterior en busca de validación o logro, nos volvemos hacia el interior reconociendo que nunca encontraremos lo que buscamos. ¿Por qué? Porque es la búsqueda misma la que nos impide ver que ya somos y tenemos lo que necesitamos.

Por otro lado, es útil tener una visión más concentrada del camino del bodhisattva para guiar nuestras acciones cotidianas. Esta es la versión micro de los votos, que nos presenta instrucciones claras para la práctica en tiempo real:

Por innumerables que sean los seres, prometo atenderlos con bondad Vencer al invicto rival e interés.
 e interés.
Por inagotables que sean los estados de sufrimiento, prometo tocarlos
con paciencia y amor.
Por inconmensurables que sean los dharmas, prometo explorarlos
con profundidad.
Por incomparable que sea el misterio del interser, prometo entregarme 
a él libremente.

Esta traducción es de Thich Nhat Hanh, y es a la vez centrada y factible—casi un alivio después de la extravagante versión anterior. Pero lo que la primera versión carece de sentido práctico, lo compensa con aspiración. Lo que a la segunda le falta de misterio, lo compensa con funcionalismo. La versión macro nos empuja a hacernos grandes, tan grandes que nos damos cuenta de que no tenemos límites. Es una aspiracional. La versión micro nos ofrece una dirección para el camino. Es accionable. A lo mejor no sabemos que significa salvar a alguien, pero sin duda podemos atenderlos con amabilidad. Podemos practicar la paciencia y el amor ante nuestras carencias. Podemos estar dispuestos a aprender lo que aún no sabemos, y a no dar por hecho lo que fácilmente asumimos. Podemos abrirnos al misterio de esta vida y confiar en su sabiduría, que no es distinta de la nuestra. Macro y micro: dos puntos de vista diferentes para una misma realización de una vida bien y sabiamente vivida.

Como lentes progresivos, estas dos versiones de los votos nos proporcionan la potencia óptica que necesitamos para ver y actuar con mayor claridad y destreza. Juntos, nos presentan un mundo que es a la vez vasto y diminuto, misterioso y ordinario, inconcebible y accesible. 

Despertar del sueño del samsara es, sin duda, una enorme tarea y, aun así, cada día millones de personas prometen hacerlo. Así que quizá haya algo quijotesco en nosotros los budistas, algo extravagante y poco práctico. Pero dado que la razón no nos ha ayudado a resolver la persistente cuestión de cómo vivir bien juntos, yo digo que apostemos por el idealismo.

***

M

any years ago, I was discussing the Four Bodhisattva Vows with a fellow dharma practitioner and—feeling a little put upon by whatever conflict we were having at the monastery where I lived—I said something along the lines of. “I’m not quite sure how I ended up as a monk. I so often don’t want to deal with people.”

“But, you make those vows every night…” she said, frowning. “How did you think you were going to save all beings without dealing with them?”

“Well,” I answered, “I didn’t think that part through.”

We laughed, but in a sense it was true. I’d chanted the Four Bodhisattva Vows every night for years, but when I first heard them—and for a good long while after that—I didn’t consider them with the careful attention that they deserved. If I had, I might have run for my life—just as one newcomer to the monastery had done when she’d first heard them. She’d joined us for our morning program one Sunday, and after listening to the dharma discourse, sat open-mouthed as we chanted:

Sentient beings are numberless; I vow to save them.
Desires are inexhaustible; I vow to put an end to them.
The dharmas are boundless; I vow to master them.
The buddha way is unattainable; I vow to attain it.

“Do these people hear what they’re saying?” she must have thought, and as soon as we were done, she ran to her car and drove away, not to return to the monastery for another twenty years.

What prompts anyone to make vows that are essentially impossible? Are we Buddhists well-meaning but quixotic, benevolent though wishful? Daido Roshi, my first teacher, felt it was the very impossibility of the vows that made them so powerful. 

“Sentient beings are numberless—it’s impossible to save them all,” he’d yell from the teacher’s high seat, the long sleeve of his pale green robe billowing as he gestured with his teaching stick. 

There are eight billion people on the planet and trillions more sentient beings demanding our care and respect. How can we hope to save them all? What does it even mean to save them? We can’t protect ourselves or others from sickness, old age, or death. We cannot take away the suffering of others. What are we vowing to do, therefore, when we make this vow?

“Desires are inexhaustible—we can’t possibly put an end to them,” Daido Roshi would say, his voice getting louder and more insistent as he revved up. 

Desire feeds desire. There’s no end to unexamined, unchecked, uncurbed want. But even if we’re able to temper our craving, what do we do with wholesome desires like the wish for nourishment, for love, for awakening? Are all desires created equal? And what does it mean to put an end to them? Is that even a desirable goal?

“You can’t put a frame around the dharma,” my teacher would continue, leaning forward in his seat and glaring at us over the top of his glasses. “Can’t do it.”

All the many teachings that describe all the many ways in which phenomena (also called dharmas) behave and interact are only scratching the surface of reality. What we don’t know vastly exceeds what we do. How can we possibly dream of framing, understanding, what is by nature ineffable?

“The Buddha Way is unattainable—by definition,” Daido Roshi said. Here, his voice would drop a notch, anticipating his talk’s crescendo. Many of us had heard the exact same speech before, but it was still thrilling. Daido Roshi knew how to put on a show to make a point.

A buddha isn’t made, this vow says. A buddha is realized, which means we don’t practice to become buddhas; we practice as the expression of our buddhahood. The Buddha Way is indeed unattainable because it isn’t something we lack. It’s impossible, inconceivable, unimaginable to think that we’d ever get anything out of the path. 

“I can’t possibly attain the way,” Daido Roshi would then bellow, “and yet, I vow to do it—impossible as it is! An impossible dream!” Cut to: the first stanza of “The Impossible Dream” from Man of La Mancha, Daido Roshi’s baritone filling the zendo.

To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go…

“This is impossible,” he’d say in conclusion. “So if you’re hanging on to any sense of hope, forget about it! There is no hope! But a bodhisattva doesn’t need hope—a bodhisattva has vow!”

The measurable, the attainable, or the containable is not where we’ll find liberation. We need the vows to be this vast, this limitless, so we can aspire and practice limitlessly. I call this the macro version of the Four Bodhisattva Vows, which expands our view and then asks us to catch up to it in our living. 

Instead of turning outward for validation or accomplishment, we turn inward, recognizing that we’ll never find what we seek. Why? Because it’s our seeking that prevents us from seeing that we already are and have what we need.

If every being, every thing, every want, every truth, every path, and every means is contained in us (and it is), then there’s nothing to reach for, nothing to attain. Instead of turning outward for validation or accomplishment, we turn inward, recognizing that we’ll never find what we seek. Why? Because it’s our seeking that prevents us from seeing that we already are and have what we need.

On the other hand, it’s helpful to have a more focused view of the bodhisattva path to guide our day-to-day actions. This is the micro version of the vows, which presents us with clear instructions for practice in real time:

However innumerable beings are, I vow to meet them with kindness
    and interest.
However inexhaustible the states of suffering are, I vow to touch them
    with patience and love.
However immeasurable the dharmas are, I vow to explore them deeply.
However incomparable the mystery of interbeing, I vow to surrender
    to it freely.

This translation is Thich Nhat Hanh’s, and it’s both grounded and feasible—a relief, almost, after the extravagant first rendering. But what the first version lacks in practicality, it makes up for in aspiration. What the second lacks in mystery, it balances with functionalism. The macro version pushes us to get large—so large that we realize that we are boundless. It’s aspirational. The micro version offers us direction for the path. It’s actionable. We may not know what it means to save someone, but we can certainly meet them with kindness. We can practice patience and love in the face of our wants. We can be willing to learn what we don’t yet know, and not assume even what we think is given. We can open to the mystery of this life and trust in its wisdom, which isn’t different from our own. Macro and micro: two different views for one realization of a life well and wisely lived.

Like progressive lenses, these two versions of the vows provide us with the optical power that we need to see and act most clearly and skillfully. Together, they bring into focus a world that is both vast and minute, mysterious and ordinary, inconceivable and accessible. 

To wake up from the dream of samsara is indeed a daunting task and still, every day, millions of people vow to do it. So maybe there is a little of the quixotic in us Buddhists, a little of the extravagant and impractical. But given that reason hasn’t helped us solve the persistent question of how to live well together, I say let’s put our money on idealism.

The post Un sueño imposible appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

In the Pali Canon, the Buddha describes five hindrances, or mental obstacles, that arise during meditation and impede the cultivation of insight, as well as their accompanying antidotes. The first hindrance is sensual desire, which, as one sutra points out, misdirects our attention. Driven by greed or craving for pleasure, we forget what we should remember and focus on what we’d do well to forget—at least for the duration of our meditation—and the result is often unskillful action. Therefore, the antidote is to change our focus. A classic example is to reflect on the unattractiveness of the body (seeing it as a sack filled with blood and pus, or as a future corpse) as an antidote to lust. Another remedy is to guard the senses by focusing strongly on the meditation object: our breath, a mantra, or visualization on a deity, instead of the object we’re craving and think we must have. As the Maha-Assapura Sutta reminds us, being under the spell of sensual pleasure is like being perpetually in debt, which robs us of our peace of mind. But we pay that mental debt by recognizing that in each moment we have just the right amount of all that we need—neither too much nor too little of what nourishes our body and mind.

•  “There’s no such thing as a pure thought without desire. After all, the Buddha said, ‘All things—all dhammas—are rooted in desire.’… We have this mass of desires and thoughts and intentions that we’ve got to train, so we use the whole citta—the whole mind, the whole heart—to train the heart and the mind.” —Thanissaro Bhikkhu

•   Tip: First, pay close attention and notice when sensual desire comes up in your mind. Then ask yourself: “What is causing this desire?” When it fades, ask: “Where did it go?” What does this observation tell you about the nature of sensual desire? What is the result?

  

•   “Because they want to sell their products, advertisers water the seed of craving in you; they want you to consume so that you will have sensual pleasure. But sensual pleasures can destroy you. What we need is understanding: mutual understanding, trust, love, and emotional and spiritual intimacy.” —Thich Nhat Hanh

•   Tip: There’s nothing inherently wrong with sensual desire. It’s our addiction to that hit of pleasure that keeps us hooked—and imprisoned. Reflect on whether what you think you want is actually what you need. Ask yourself whether it will give you the happiness that you seek and whether it will last.

•   “If you have very strong sexual desire, or a craving, then look at the whole picture … reflect, take it all in, and ask, ‘Okay, do I really want to follow this? What am I actually looking for?’ Usually what we’re looking for is a sense of happiness, a sense of fullness, and a sense of peace.” —Ayya Anandabodhi

The post Working with the Five Hindrances: Sensual Desires appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

There is a Buddhist prayer that speaks of a human life as “the ocean of existence with its surging waves of birth, aging, illness, and death.” The last three are also the “signs” Siddhartha Gautama saw before he left his comfortable palace life and, spurred by a fourth sign—the sight of a wandering mendicant—went searching for liberation. For Venerable Jissai Prince-Cherry, a Zen Buddhist priest, it was three of these “waves”—the birth of her son, a painful illness, and a heartbreaking death—that firmly set her on the path to freedom.

“Once my son was born,” she said, “I realized I didn’t feel about my career in the Air Force the way I had before. The day would come when I would have to leave him for a military assignment, and I thought, I can’t do it. I won’t do it.”

In 1994, a year after finishing military service, Jissai needed minor surgery. As she lay at home recovering, she realized how miserable she was. Despite having a good job, a wonderful family, and all the money they needed, something was “off” that she couldn’t pinpoint. So she took it as a sign—a modern-day version of the fourth sign the Buddha encountered—when three talk shows she happened to be watching on TV featured segments on meditation. She went to her local public library, picked up a book and, convinced this was what she was seeking, started practicing secular meditation.

“I identified as Christian, but wasn’t practicing,” she said. “I had no reason to reject the Buddhist books in the library. I was looking for a reason to dismiss them, so I decided to read the most Buddhist-looking book I could find.”

That book was What the Buddha Taught, by Walpola Rahula. And, to her amazement, she found reflected in those pages her innermost truths. She checked out another book, and it, too, confirmed what she felt, so she started practicing with a local Zen group. The next year, Jissai’s husband was offered a promotion in Rochester, New York, and she jumped at the chance to practice with the Rochester Zen Center (RZC). An introductory workshop led to a retreat, then another, and before long she was practicing at the center as much as she could. Even when her family moved to Kentucky two years later, she continued with the RZC, and with the support of her teacher, Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede, she established a sitting group in Louisville.

Once again, the surging waves—this time the sudden death of her husband in 2011 while she was on retreat in New York. Caught between grief and the practice momentum she’d established, Jissai stepped up her Zen training. Her children were grown, and she had financial support, which allowed her to travel regularly between Rochester
and Louisville.

“Stories speak in ways that explanations of Buddhist theory and doctrine cannot.”

In 2018, Jissai became a novice priest in the Three Jewels Order of the Cloud-Water Sangha (the association of Zen centers and sitting groups led by students of Roshi Kjolhede). Half of her training toward priest ordination occurred during COVID isolation. When in-person activities were restricted, the RZC, like other spiritual communities, conducted their activities online. “It was a real blessing in disguise,” she said. “There were twice-daily meditation sessions, Zen talks, and monthly sesshins. My training continued without skipping a beat.” In 2022, Jissai was ordained as a Zen Buddhist priest of the Three Jewels Order.

In describing her teaching style, Ven. Jissai Prince-Cherry says, “I’m more of a storyteller. Like the Buddha’s use of Jataka tales, I tell stories to illustrate a point. It doesn’t matter if the ‘facts’ of the story are true or not. What’s most essential is what the story is pointing to. Stories speak in ways that explanations of Buddhist theory and doctrine cannot. Stories bring the teachings to life.”

To hear Ven. Jissai Prince-Cherry’s talks, visit the Rochester Zen Center podcast at rzc.org/library/archives-podcast

Q: What is “beginner’s mind” and why is it important to cultivate?

“Beginner’s mind” is a term popularized by Roshi Shunryu Suzuki of the San Francisco Zen Center in his book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. His famous quote says, “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s, there are few.” Beginner’s mind is very open. It’s a childlike mind; we don’t cling to what we know or think we know. That’s how it frees up possibilities. It’s spacious and empty.

In the Zen tradition in which I practice, we use the term “not-knowing” interchangeably with beginner’s mind. In order to know, we need a subject and an object. There’s a knower knowing something—some “thing.” There are distinct lines around the thing, a box, and a label. But this kind of knowing creates distance. There’s a gap between the knower and the known. And yet, life isn’t that way. The lines between knower and known, between subject and object, are way more blurry than we imagine them to be. Beginner’s mind operates before subject and object have split in two. Not-knowing is intimate.

Despite how it sounds, beginner’s mind is neither anti-intellectual nor ignorant. It is setting aside knowledge to remain empty-handed, empty-headed. That’s not a bad thing—being empty-headed. During sesshin, for example, our silent retreats, we do around ten hours of meditation each day for two to seven days. For sesshin, it really helps to be empty-headed.

I recently led a sesshin at my spiritual home, at Rochester Zen Center’s Chapin Mill Retreat Center. People attended who had done many, many retreats, and there were folks that were brand new.

A few of the veterans were burdened by a head full of thoughts about their experiences in previous sesshins, whereas the beginners—they had no idea what they were getting into. They brought freshness to the retreat because they were empty of knowing. They’d certainly heard about what happens during sesshin, they’d read about it, they had the schedule—so they weren’t ignorant—but because they’d never done it before, they weren’t carrying the baggage of past experience. They were free.

The bloated, knowledge-filled expert’s mind isn’t free. It’s like a period at the end of a sentence. Done. The end. A not-knowing mind, on the other hand, embodies a question mark. It’s wide open and ready for anything.

What’s great is we don’t have to make a special project out of cultivating beginner’s mind; we access it by simply doing our practice. Through absorption in our breath, a koan, or shikantaza (“just sitting”), we recover the mind unclouded by knowing. As we return over and over again to not-knowing, we experience firsthand Socrates’ words: “Wisdom begins in wonder.” We directly realize that intimacy, boundlessness, and freedom are our true nature. Beginner’s mind is our birthright.

–JP-C

The post Meet a Teacher: Venerable Jissai Prince Cherry appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

The late Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, one of the great Tibetan teachers of our time, said that as we travel on the spiritual path, we go through four stages of faith. Developed gradually and somewhat sequentially (“somewhat,” because nothing is really sequential on the spiritual journey), these four characteristics round out the qualities upon which all religious traditions rely. In Buddhism, these stages are: clear, longing, confident, and irreversible faith.

The first, clear faith, arises when we see the wonderful qualities of the Buddha in a teacher or in any person we admire. More broadly, it blooms when we recognize in another the possibility of living a free, happy, peaceful life, and this recognition compels us to look for a way to get there ourselves.

In a 1st-century text called The Questions of King Milinda, or Milindapañha, a senior monk called Nagasena is questioned by King Milinda on a range of philosophical subjects. Speaking of faith, the king says to Nagasena, “How is aspiration a mark of faith?” In response, Nagasena says, “Your Majesty, imagine a group of people gathered at the edge of an overflowing stream. They want to go to the other side, but they’re afraid, so they just stare at each other and at the rushing water and are afraid to move. After a while, one of them approaches the edge of the river, assesses the situation, takes a running leap, and jumps to the other shore.” 

This shore is the world of delusion, the place where we struggle and long for rest without finding it. The other shore is the shore of liberation. It’s the place where we find ease and contentment with ourselves and the world. “Seeing the first person jump,” Nagasena continues, “the others say, ‘Oh, it can be done,’ and they, too, jump.” He then finishes his teaching with a verse:

By faith they cross over the stream,
By earnestness the sea of life;
By steadfastness all grief they still,
By wisdom they are purified.

“Oh, it can be done,” we realize when we see others’ examples, and we set about doing it ourselves. This is faith by proxy. 

The second type of faith is longing faith, and it is a direct result of clear faith. Seeing in another the virtues of wisdom and compassion, seeing their clarity and kindness, we long for those qualities in ourselves. 

Shortly after meeting my first teacher, Daido Roshi, I was walking behind him one morning as we were returning to the monastery’s main building from his studio, where we’d been answering correspondence. Daidoshi was a tall man, gangly and slightly stooped, as many tall men are, and as we walked, he just ambled along, loose jeans sliding down his butt, cigarette dangling from his hand, utterly at ease with himself. I remember looking at him and thinking, “I want that.” At a time in my life when I felt deeply ill at ease in my own skin, I yearned to have the same self-assurance, that utter lack of self-consciousness. That’s when I decided Daidoshi would be my teacher. Even though it was far from the mystical encounter so many people describe when first seeing their teacher, it worked for me. This is faith by aspiration.

Then there’s confident faith. Gradually, as we become more familiar with the workings of our mind—more attuned to our particular, quirky thoughts—we develop the confidence to live from the good qualities we’ve begun to cultivate. We begin to accept that despite—or because of—our quirkiness, we can wake up, because awakening is already present in us. We see that we can be clear and kind, because from the beginning—or, to use a Buddhist phrase, from the beginningless beginning—we’ve always been clear and kind. 

Thirteenth-century Zen master Dogen said that if we weren’t already a person of suchness (if we weren’t already fully ourselves, fully perfect and complete), we wouldn’t be able to realize suchness. No matter how much we try, how hard we work, we cannot become what we’re not. I’m not going to turn into a panther or a stream or an astrophysicist or a concert pianist—not in this lifetime. But I can be Zuisei, Vanessa, fully. I can completely inhabit my own being. How? By slowly seeing and working through that which gets in the way of my completeness. By slowly seeing and working through that which affirms Zuisei—what gives Zuisei life.

Confident faith assures us that wisdom is within our reach. It lets us know that we can practice, realize, and live the dharma. And the more we practice, the more we know this, the truer it is. This is renewable faith.

Finally, there’s irreversible faith. No matter how long the path, no matter how difficult it may seem, we know we’re going to travel it because we can’t imagine living any other way. Daido Roshi also taught me about this kind of faith. He used to say that if a group of anthropologists proved irrefutably that the historical Buddha—Siddhartha Gautama—never existed, this wouldn’t shake his faith in the dharma even one bit. “I have my own practice and experience to go by,” he’d say. “That’s all I need.”

Having this type of faith, however, doesn’t preclude any doubts we might have about ourselves or our capacity to practice the teachings. At some point, we will be unsure. That’s natural. But by then, we’ve also seen that we don’t have to let worry or insecurity or fear of failure stop us. Having come this far, we’re no longer daunted by the challenge of what lies ahead, because we know what we have to do, and we know how to do it. We know it’s just a matter of time, and we have all the patience and determination necessary. This is unstoppable faith.

In the end, however, there’s really only one kind of faith we need, and that’s good enough faith. This is faith enough to get us going on the path. It’s enough trust in our capacity to see more and more deeply, to live more fully, knowing that if we just start and then take the next step and the one after that, the rest takes care of itself.

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