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Mindful Living
Conscious Breathing
Listening to the Bell
Waking up in the Morning
Walking Meditation
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Eating in Mindfulness
Sangha Body
Taking Refuges
Noble Silence
Dharma Talks
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Living Together
Beginning Anew
Taking Care of Our Anger
Working Meditation
Lazy Day
Practicing Verses
Five Mindfulness Practice
Fourteen Mindfulness Practice
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The Quest for the Holy Grail |
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This article is a compiliation of excerpts from dharma talks given by Brother Phap Hai at Deer Park Monastery during 2005.
Mindfulness practice is about cultivating the ground of our being, recognizing the seeds that we have in our consciousness, and creating the conditions that allow the positive seeds to come forth. It is about becoming fully who we are. Rather than being a practice of hard labour, through cultivating mindfulness we allow our innate wisdom to blossom, in it’s own time and own way. Meditation practice is about becoming a real human being, and becoming a real human being doesn’t mean that we push parts of ourselves away. It means rather that we draw parts of ourselves to us, and want to understand them. We have a little organic garden here in Deer Park, and it’s interesting to watch how it gradually takes shape. We plant different seeds. There’s corn growing at the moment. There are tomatoes, there’s lettuce, and many other kinds of fruits and flowers growing in that organic garden. And each one of these blooms in their own time, in their own way. The corn is ripening now. It won’t ripen in Winter. The tomatoes also are starting to come on now. They don’t usually ripen in December. Everything blooms in it’s own time and it’s own way. PURSUIT OF HAPPINESSOccasionally a copy of Newsweek appears in the monastic library. Recently I was perusing a copy and saw an advertisement on the back cover that read , "The pursuit of happiness. Nice work forefathers." Thay once told me that there is a teaching in Mahayana Buddhism that there is Dharma in everything if we are available for it. The phrase "the pursuit of happiness" comes from the Declaration of Independence. In that wonderful document, the very founding of the United States is based upon the recognition that we have three basic "Inalienable Rights": Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. The word pursuit has two meanings 1) the act of pursuing (to follow after someone or something – "in hot pursuit") 2) Occupation or activity. Usually we tend to be always running after happiness, peace, joy looking for it right over there, someplace else. Here we are being reminded by Mr. Jefferson that we are invited into the occupation of happiness. Happiness is not something to attain in the future, but something to live now. There’s a beautiful poem by a Zen poet called Basho that sums this up perfectly: Sitting quietly Our spiritual ancestors are very smart. They have planted so many gems into our tradition. Recently I was pondering the name of the Buddha’s mother. The Buddha’s mother, as we know, passed away quite soon after his birth. She was called Maha Maya. "Great Illusion". Hmmm. Why on earth was the Buddha’s mother called Great Illusion? I also realized that Prajna, "Insight" is often referred to as the Mother of the Buddhas, "Prajna Paramita". Perhaps one reason that the Buddha’s mother is called Great Illusion is that it really is an illusion that she is only a woman who lived about 2600 years ago. Each one of us through our practice is to give birth to the Buddha, to become a Mother of the Buddha. We can give birth to Awakening in every moment. Real Bodhisattvas don’t ride on clouds but spring from lived experience. King Arthur and the Knights of the Round TableIn our Western tradition there’s a legend that’s coming up in popular culture right now—the legend of the Holy Grail. This myth is very deep in the Western consciousness; it just keeps coming up in different forms. Recently I listened to a lecture by Joseph Campbell, on the Holy Grail called "The Forest Adventurous." This teaching has something to say to us as practitioners. King Arthur and the Knights are all sitting there at the Round Table. King Arthur stands up and says, "Okay! Before we eat our meal, Who’s had an adventure this morning?" (It seems that they had many more adventures in those days than we do now.) None of the Knights of the Round Table had anything to share. They all just sat there and had nothing to say. They’re all thinking now, what kind of adventure could we have? What are we going to do so we can eat? And then the Holy Grail appears, beckoning them on a quest. They decide, all right then, we’re going to set out in search of the Holy Grail. They get onto their valiant steeds and tsch-tsch-tsch-tsch plod on down to a forest ,conveniently nearby, which just happens to be called the Forest of Adventure. Interestingly, in this story of the Holy Grail, although you set out on a quest—you know, these valiant quests, with a big horse, a big sword, and everything—you do not find the Grail, it finds you when it is the right time Here we have the same teaching as Master Lin Chi, to stop our seeking, to stop running around, and come back to what is going on right here, because the path, the Holy Grail, the Forest of Adventure, is right underneath our feet. There’s no need to go anywhere else or get a valiant steed! What is important is our willingness to undertake this journey, the journey of opening the heart. So they arrive at the outskirts of the forest, where they realize that there are two possibilities. Either they all enter the forest together, in search of the Holy Grail, or they enter the forest separately. Bear in mind that up to this point they had traveled together to get to the Forest of Adventure, as a Sangha, as a community. When they got to the Forest of Adventure, they felt, oh, it would be a shame for us all to go down that very clear path through the forest, but rather that each Knight should enter at a place of his own choosing. Only then would it be an adventure. In our journey of practice, of cultivation, initially we are in search of something- peace, enlightenment, joy, a chocolate donut, that we think exists outside of ourself. We are carried by the energy of the Sangha. For the real adventure to begin, we need to discover and nourish our own aspiration. What is your Holy Grail? Why are you a practitioner? An OI member? What brings you back to your Sangha each week? To see this, to touch this very deep and profound longing in your heart is to touch your deepest aspiration. The Sangha is a place where we help each other to realize our deepest aspiration. Have we shared our aspiration with our Sangha? This might be a very powerful exercise, one that can be repeated often, as your aspiration crystallizes over time .It is my experience that it is this aspiration that moves us forward, and this is not something abstract. It is my experience that it is essential to practice with intention, with clarity. I invite you to experiment in setting an intention each day, or with your Sangha and see what happens. The Sutra on Fear and DreadMany of the world’s myths and legends feature this image of the forest. In European fairy tales, to give just one example, we have Hansel and Gretel going into the forest to the witch’s house. In the spiritual traditions as well we have this image of this forest, this place of the unknown. In Buddhism, what happened to Siddhartha when he decided to leave home? Where did he go? He went into the forest. With his charioteer Channa, Siddhartha snuck out in the middle of the night, in the darkness, to the outskirts of the forest. He cut off his topknot, representing his claim to the king’s throne, gave it to Channa, and entered the forest. There is a series of lovely teachings about Siddhartha, the future Buddha, entering the forest. He’s in his late twenties, he has been raised in the lap of luxury—whatever you can imagine, he had it—and he enters this dark forest. When Siddhartha entered the wilderness, he experienced great fear and dread. Any little sound in the forest, like a stick cracking, he would imagine to be a tiger coming to eat him up. In one sutra, called "Fear and Dread," he shares his experience of entering the forest, this place of mystery. I invite you to enjoy that Discourse in it’s entirety as it has much to say to us. The Buddha shares about the intense fear and dread that overcame him when he entered the forest, the place of the unknown. Leaving behind the comfortable and familiar, he shares his practice of understanding fear. He shares that when the fear and dread came upon him he would continue doing whatever it was he was doing until he understood where the fear was coming from. He would not change to do something else. So what is the Buddha telling us here through this repetition of fear and dread? Once we have a solid place of refuge within us, we need to stay with what is happening, not run away, not try to distract ourselves. We in the West have a great tendency to do this—anything to avoid what we’re calling here fear and dread. It might be our sadness, our depression. The Buddha is telling us to dwell with what is being brought up for us. Meditation practice is about understanding who we are, what is going on within us and transforming the experiences that we have into opportunities for insight to blossom. Where is the Holy Grail? Where is the Forest of Adventure, for us as practitioners, for us as cultivators? Where is the place where we feel fear and dread the most? Where is the place of mystery? It’s within our heart. Meditation practice by its very nature brings us back to what’s going on within our body, within our mind. Mindfulness practice is about learning to dwell with that The four practices for dealing with strong emotionSo how do we deal with fear and dread, with anger? When we begin to return to the present moment, we often are faced with strong emotions coming up in ourselves. There is a beautiful teaching on this that I really wish that we could have in our chanting book. It is called "Inscriptions" (Lekha Sutta) - Anguttara Nikaya III.130 "Monks, there are these three types of individuals to be found existing in the world. Which three? An individual like an inscription in rock, an individual like an inscription in soil, and an individual like an inscription in water. "And how is an individual like an inscription in rock? There is the case where a certain individual is often angered, and his anger stays with him a long time. Just as an inscription in rock is not quickly effaced by wind or water and lasts a long time, in the same way a certain individual is often angered, and his anger stays with him a long time. This is called an individual like an inscription in rock. "And how is an individual like an inscription in soil? There is the case where a certain individual is often angered, but his anger doesn't stay with him a long time. Just as an inscription in soil is quickly effaced by wind or water and doesn't last a long time, in the same way a certain individual is often angered, but his anger doesn't stay with him a long time. This is called an individual like an inscription in soil. "And how is an individual like an inscription in water? There is the case where a certain individual — when spoken to roughly, spoken to harshly, spoken to in an unpleasing way — is nevertheless congenial, companionable, & courteous. Just as an inscription in water immediately disappears and doesn't last a long time, in the same way a certain individual — when spoken to roughly, spoken to harshly, spoken to in an unpleasing way — is nevertheless congenial, companionable, & courteous. This is called an individual like an inscription in water. "These are the three types of individuals to be found existing in the world." I would add that I think that we are all three at once- in certain situations we are like water, or like soil or rock. It depends on our own conditioning. The first practice, and perhaps the most difficult-when we’re dealing with a strong emotion—whether it’s happiness, anger, joy, hatred, sadness, jealousy—is to recognize it. we recognize what we have within our being. This is only possible if we’ve really practiced stopping, coming back to what’s going on in the present moment. Coming back to the present moment means being honest about what is really going on, because that is how understanding will develop. The seed of joy will manifest slightly differently in you than in me, the seeds of anger, jealousy, mindfulness are the same. As mindfulness develops, we see more clearly which experiences stimulate which seeds. I want to be clear here, mindfulness is not a practice of avoidance. It is essential to have a solid foundation, a solid place of refuge within us, but this doesn’t mean that we cut ourselves of from life- far from it. We begin to engage more fully in our lives. Coming to Deer Park for a day of mindfulness, you have nothing to do but stop. We practice walking, being with every step. When we eat, we pay attention to every mouthful. Don’t be fooled that we do eating meditation just for the sake of doing eating meditation, or we do walking meditation for the sake of doing walking meditation. The longer I practice, the more I see that each practice is a very deep teaching. Why do we take a split second when we pick up some food, to recognize what we are putting in our mouth? Why do we say to chew it thirty times and not to think about anything else? Each practice is profound and can be applied in every moment. If we’ve been able to practice stopping, if we’ve been able to practice coming back to ourselves, to understand a little bit more of what nourishes us, and also what doesn’t nourish us, then we’re able to be open to what is happening. This is the second step. Recently I have not been well, and I’ve had a number of health challenges. Sometimes it’s a little bit like swimming through blackstrap molasses. I’ve had to be very careful where I put my energy. So I’m very aware of what situations I’m in, and what I say, what I do. I don’t have extra energy and I have to use my energy skillfully and really choose what is important. This has been a profound teaching for me. I have learned to be OK with the situation of my body. The third aspect is embracing. Last week we had a family retreat, and I had the opportunity to see how parents embrace their children. Children are wonderful Zen masters, but they’re not always quiet, calm people sitting on cushions. They’re very active Zen masters, and sometimes very loud. I was watching how the parents were interacting with their children, how they embraced them. It was such a beautiful thing to see. Whatever seed is manifesting, we recognize it, we accept it, and we hold it. If it’s a seed of anger, a seed of resentment, we allow it to be there. We don’t push it away. We want to understand. So we hold it close to ourselves, not with the idea that we need to fix something- but rather to be available for the wisdom that is being offered. Like my health situation- I was given a very stark choice- the doctor would prescribe heavy medication which would mask the symptoms, or I could continue to experience the pain and try to go a natural route and, but slowly come more in contact with the rhythms of my own body and learn what it needed. Well, I chose to go the natural route, and this has meant that I have had to accept my limitations. To be okay with being weak, to ask for support, to be vulnerable. These things were the very hardest things for me- so my body has become a teacher. In his wonderful book, "Man’s Search for Meaning" Viktor Frankl tells us that we cannot always choose the situations that we are in, but we can choose how we respond. We can close down our heart, or we can take the step forward. The fourth aspect is looking deeply. When a seed has arisen, a strong emotion of misperception, and we have practiced recognizing, accepting, and embracing, then we can practice looking deeply in order to understand. Now, these things don’t necessarily happen within a space of thirty seconds. For some seeds to really reveal themselves this process can take place over a course of a day, over a course of a week, a month, a year. I have noticed that my own practice life is like a spiral, an unfolding. We know, for example, what things touch the seed of anger within us. We know what things touch the seed of joy within us. So we cultivate the ground of our being for this transformation to take place. We begin to understand how to nourish the positive and healing elements within, in the search for this Holy Grail, the Holy Grail being understanding, being freedom of heart. Our happiness and our ability to create happiness within and around ourselves depends very much on our ability to be available to those conditions that we have in our heart, in our life. To transform those seeds that in our regular way of thinking, we think are negative. We think, oh, anger is something very negative; it’s not something I want to have in my life, throw it out. In fact, our anger can be something very positive. It’s not that we want to water the seed of anger, but when the seed of anger arises, we begin to practice these things—to recognize it when it arises, to accept it, to embrace it, and then to start looking deeply. What can we learn from our anger? Have you ever noticed that volcanic islands are often very fertile? Look at Hawaii! Bali! What can you learn from your anger? In his book Anger, Thay says ""A good Practitioner is not someone who no longer has anger or suffering. This is not possible. A good practitioner is someone who knows how to take good care of her anger and suffering as soon as they arise." 2 We need to be really honest with ourselves. When we can embrace with attention the seeds that we call negative, then understanding will grow. We can be too quick to release our cows. My mother’s family were dairy farmers, last year my grandmother was sharing with me about her life. I asked her how it was to have so many cows. She told me that it was a lot of work to keep them all. ( I think we can relate to that) But she said something that interested me- she told me that if we know how to take care of our cows then we can enjoy milk, cream, butter and cow manure for the garden. I don’t recommend that you accumulate more cows, but if you do have them, take good care of them, let them speak to you. I always like to say that the seeds that we think are negative are really just the positive seeds in disguise. With mindfulness practice we will see this. 1 Majjima Nikaya 4 Bhaya-bherava Sutta "Fear and Dread" |
