Transcript
[0:01] [music]
[0:07] [music]
[0:15] and [singing]
[0:17] perfect
[0:23] [singing]
[0:26] even,000
[0:28] million countless us [clears throat]
[0:31] having to see and listen to
[0:37] and accept.
[0:39] I [singing]
[0:42] taste the truth.
[0:58] Good morning everyone.
[1:00] >> Good morning.
[1:03] >> What a thrill it is to be here at Green
[1:05] Dragon Temple.
[1:08] Um,
[1:10] my name is Tim Wixs
[1:13] and uh I currently serve as tanto, which
[1:16] means head of practice at our San
[1:19] Francisco temple uh beginner's mind uh
[1:23] temple in in San Francisco on Page
[1:25] Street. [snorts]
[1:27] And um
[1:29] it's really truly a great honor to be
[1:32] here with all of you. some who I know
[1:34] from a long time ago
[1:37] [snorts] and new faces.
[1:41] So, uh what I would like is if we can
[1:44] co-create this talk so it's not just me
[1:48] giving it to you but uh it's you
[1:51] receiving as well. [snorts] Um and uh
[1:55] thank you all for making time in your
[1:58] busy lives to come here. Uh welcome to
[2:02] the people who are online and the people
[2:04] who in the future maybe will listen to a
[2:08] recording of it.
[2:12] [snorts]
[2:16] So I'd like to speak today about uh one
[2:19] of the foundational texts of Buddhism
[2:24] and it's called the Sati Patana Sutra
[2:28] and I'm going to talk about the
[2:30] Satipatana Sutra and I'm going to talk
[2:32] about all [snorts] thank you
[2:37] a we
[2:40] like all shocks except
[2:44] deeper.
[2:47] So the Satipatana Sutra was the first
[2:50] sutra that I read when I first came to
[2:52] Buddhism. [snorts] Um
[2:56] it opened up a whole new world for me.
[2:59] Um the world that I inhabited, the world
[3:01] of my internal experience
[3:04] where I I didn't really know what it was
[3:08] that was going on
[3:11] uh inside. I was really just existing in
[3:14] the world like many of us are surviving
[3:17] [snorts] tossed around by the need for
[3:21] food and shelter and pleasure and
[3:25] getting them in the fastest and easiest
[3:28] way I could.
[3:30] [snorts] In Buddhist terms, I was
[3:32] subject to the conditioning of
[3:35] existence. My existence
[3:38] conditioned how it is that I acted, how
[3:40] it is that I was in the world.
[3:43] [snorts] But I didn't know how to
[3:45] identify what it meant to be me.
[3:51] And the first form of Buddhism I was
[3:54] introduced to was by a terraodin
[3:56] teacher. Terraodan Buddhism is different
[4:01] uh from Zen.
[4:03] uh Zen came later uh than Terravadin uh
[4:07] Bu terraoden Buddhism considers itself
[4:10] to be the original Buddhism. Some people
[4:13] debate this of course as we are want to
[4:15] do. [snorts] Um
[4:18] and in fact the word terraadin
[4:21] means the way of the elders
[4:25] and the satipana sutra is [snorts] one
[4:29] of the most important sutras to
[4:31] terrains.
[4:35] Sati means mindfulness.
[4:38] It means memory.
[4:40] It means recollection.
[4:43] There's a sense of knowledge, a sense of
[4:47] returning to something familiar.
[4:51] And the second part of the title is
[4:53] utana which means to establish
[4:58] or to verify,
[5:01] to look at closely, to investigate.
[5:04] It also means presence.
[5:08] So in its compound form
[5:11] [snorts]
[5:12] satipana means mindfulness present
[5:15] mindfulness
[5:17] and it gave birth to the practice and
[5:19] theory of vapasana which many of us are
[5:22] familiar with [snorts] which means deep
[5:25] insight. Vipasana means deep insight or
[5:28] to see things as they are.
[5:31] This is mindfulness.
[5:37] And this concept and experience of
[5:40] mindfulness, this training of
[5:43] mindfulness was delivered by the Buddha
[5:46] to his disciples in the Satipatana
[5:48] Sutra. And when I first came to
[5:50] Buddhism, I was I was, as I mentioned,
[5:52] completely disconnected from my internal
[5:55] experience. I knew very little of what
[5:58] it was that was happening inside of me.
[6:02] I needed some kind of a framework for
[6:05] identifying what my internal experience
[6:07] was.
[6:09] What were these crazy things that were
[6:11] happening inside of me?
[6:16] The Satipatana suture created an opening
[6:19] up for me by helping me to understand
[6:22] what it meant to be a human being.
[6:26] by identifying my experience [snorts]
[6:31] and how this great jumble, this interior
[6:35] jumb jumble of activities inside of me
[6:38] could begin to be understood.
[6:41] What was pleasure?
[6:44] What was suffering?
[6:47] Now, I'm not a scholar, but I am
[6:50] thirsty.
[6:56] I'm not a scholar but so I'm not going
[6:57] to go through the Satipatana Sutra in a
[7:01] scholarly manner but I am going to just
[7:05] kind of quickly uh mention what's in the
[7:08] sutra before talking about how it was
[7:10] [snorts] that um it was helpful to me.
[7:21] This is how it begins. [snorts]
[7:27] This is the Buddha [snorts] monks.
[7:31] This is the direct path for the
[7:33] purification of beings,
[7:35] for the surmounting of sorrow and
[7:37] lamentation,
[7:39] for the disappearance of duka. Duka, as
[7:42] many of you know, we usually translate
[7:44] as suffering. But actually what it means
[7:47] is when uh an axle is placed off center
[7:51] on a wheel and how it is that that wheel
[7:55] turns in an uncomfortable way.
[7:59] for the disappearance of duca and
[8:01] discontent for acquiring the true method
[8:06] for the realization of nirvana namely
[8:09] the four satipatanas.
[8:16] So uh then the Buddha goes on to mention
[8:18] what the four satipanas are and they
[8:20] were four mindfulnesses. So the
[8:22] mindfulness of the body, mindfulness of
[8:25] feelings,
[8:27] mindfulness of mind, what's going on
[8:29] inside of my mind, how am I naming
[8:31] things, how am I uh identifying things
[8:36] to act on?
[8:38] And uh finally the mindfulness of
[8:41] dharmas which basically covers all
[8:44] conditional phenomena
[8:47] all conditioned reality
[8:50] and these four satanas are studied in an
[8:53] objective way [snorts]
[8:57] um focusing on the body
[9:00] uh focusing on the feelings that we have
[9:02] what's happening in the mind and what
[9:03] exactly we call reality what is this
[9:06] cushion that I'm sitting on what is this
[9:08] room right here. What does it mean to
[9:11] hear sound?
[9:13] [snorts]
[9:14] And uh when I first was introduced to
[9:18] this sutra, I uh still had
[9:24] a uh scatological
[9:27] 14-year-old in me [snorts] that loved
[9:31] the detail.
[9:34] So this is the uh mindfulness of the
[9:37] body right here from the Buddha. In this
[9:39] body, in this body there are head hairs,
[9:42] body hairs, nails, teeth, skin, flesh,
[9:46] senus, bones, bone marrow, kidneys,
[9:49] heart, liver, diaphragm, spleen, lungs,
[9:55] bowels, meantry,
[9:58] contents of the stomach, feces, bile,
[10:01] fleg, pus, blood, sweat, fat, tears,
[10:06] grease, spittle, snot, which I wonder
[10:09] Snot is in Pali, the ancient language,
[10:12] [snorts] oil of the joints and urine.
[10:14] And I just loved all that detail right
[10:16] there. But I had actually never really
[10:18] considered my body in that way, nor had
[10:20] I considered my feelings in that way.
[10:25] So he does the same with feelings and
[10:27] with mind. He he uh identifies uh the
[10:31] con the uh uh the different parts of our
[10:35] feelings and gives us uh the opportunity
[10:39] to look in a very objective
[10:43] um uh analytical way at uh all phenomena
[10:47] in in the dharmas. This the satipana of
[10:50] dharmas. [snorts] He lists the lists in
[10:53] the sutra the five hindrances to
[10:56] awakening.
[10:57] Sensual desire, aversion, [snorts]
[11:01] sloth or tiredness,
[11:04] anxiety, and finally doubt.
[11:08] He identifies what it is that we're made
[11:10] up of. He calls them aggregates or we
[11:12] translate them as aggregates which are
[11:14] sometimes called heaps. uh what it is
[11:17] that we cling to which is form, [snorts]
[11:20] sensations, perception, valitional
[11:22] activities and finally consciousness.
[11:24] These are uh what it is that we cling
[11:27] to. He breaks all of these down to their
[11:30] individual parts
[11:32] to show how it is that we do not have a
[11:37] permanent self.
[11:40] We are empty
[11:43] of [snorts] permanence.
[11:47] And by breaking down reality into these
[11:49] parts, I was able to begin to understand
[11:53] what it meant to be this human being
[11:55] named Tim Wixs.
[11:59] I was able to begin to identify fear,
[12:02] [snorts] anger, joy, depression,
[12:06] anxiety, and inspiration in their
[12:09] subtlest forms as they began to arise in
[12:12] me.
[12:13] By identifying them, I was able to begin
[12:16] the process of understanding them.
[12:19] [snorts]
[12:20] And by understanding them, I started to
[12:22] see the root of where it is that many of
[12:25] them came from.
[12:28] And by identifying suffering, by by
[12:31] simply acknowledging it, it begins to
[12:33] diminish. To to simply acknowledge
[12:37] suffering uh means to take some of the
[12:40] heat away, some of the energy away from
[12:42] it.
[12:44] And this to me was a profound experience
[12:46] and insight.
[12:50] For the first time in my life, I began
[12:52] to understand the workings of the self
[12:55] suffering and what it was made of and
[12:58] how not to try and push it away or feed
[13:01] to it in any way.
[13:03] [snorts] The Buddha ends the Satipatana
[13:06] Sutra. It's it's not that long. You can
[13:08] read it pretty quickly uh and then read
[13:11] it again several times. [snorts]
[13:17] Monks, if anyone should develop these
[13:20] four satipatanas in such a way for seven
[13:24] years, one of two fruits could be
[13:28] expected for them. either final
[13:31] knowledge here and now. So sudden
[13:34] enlightenment
[13:35] or if there's a trace of clinging left
[13:39] non- returnturning and non-
[13:41] returnturning is basically nearly
[13:43] enlightenment.
[13:46] Let alone seven years. He says six
[13:48] years, five years, four years, three
[13:50] years, two years, one year, 7 months, 6
[13:55] months, 5 months, 4 months,
[13:58] 3 months, 2 months, 1 month, half a
[14:01] month.
[14:03] If anyone could develop these four
[14:06] satanas in such a way for seven days,
[14:10] one or two fruits could be expected for
[14:12] them. either final knowledge here and
[14:15] now or if there's a trace of clinging
[14:18] non- returnturning.
[14:21] So it was with reference to this that it
[14:24] was said, "Munks,
[14:26] this is the direct path for the
[14:29] purification of beings, for the
[14:31] surmounting of sorrow and lamentation,
[14:34] for the disappearance of duca and
[14:36] discontent, for acquiring the true
[14:39] method for the realization of nirvana,
[14:42] namely these four satanas."
[14:47] That is what the blessed one said. And
[14:49] the monks were satisfied and delighted
[14:52] in the blessed one's words. [snorts]
[14:57] So this is uh objective meditation.
[15:01] It's meditation that focuses on
[15:05] something specific. The breath,
[15:09] the body,
[15:11] feelings, sensations.
[15:26] In Zen uh we talk about way seeking
[15:29] mind.
[15:30] Uh it's our stories of how it is that we
[15:34] came to the dharma. And way the word way
[15:37] in the beginning of way seeeking minds
[15:39] is usually capitalized
[15:42] and uh this sort of comes from our not
[15:45] sort of actually does come from our
[15:47] Chinese ancestors. As most of you know,
[15:49] Buddhism started in northern India and
[15:52] then it traversed through really diverse
[15:55] cultures uh through the rest of India
[15:58] and then came to uh China and um the
[16:04] capitalizing of W on way is from Daoism
[16:08] which is the spiritual precursor
[16:11] uh to what in China was called chun and
[16:15] later in Japan was called Zen. So
[16:18] Dowoism sort of began to merge a little
[16:20] bit and influence the way it is that uh
[16:23] Buddhism entered into Chinese spiritual
[16:26] culture.
[16:28] The way in in Dowoism with that capital
[16:31] W literally means path or road but it
[16:35] also means the source of found of the
[16:38] foundational
[16:40] principle of the universe.
[16:44] uh we refer to it perhaps a little bit
[16:46] lazily as emptiness.
[16:50] So we use our stories to tell the way
[16:51] that we came to this path. And the
[16:54] Buddha used the story of his early life
[16:56] to explain his understanding of the way.
[17:00] [snorts] He said, "I teach one thing and
[17:03] one thing only, suffering
[17:06] and the end of suffering." which always
[17:08] kind of sounded like two things to me.
[17:10] But welcome to Buddhism and uh uh
[17:13] non-separation
[17:15] um non-dualism. Everything is connected,
[17:19] especially suffering and non-suffering.
[17:24] The Buddha, as many of you know, was
[17:26] protected as a prince by his father, the
[17:29] king, who [snorts] was a black belt
[17:31] codependent in my opinion. His father
[17:35] gave him everything he thought his son
[17:37] needed in order to be happy.
[17:40] He protected him from harm, sheltered
[17:43] him from suffering, [snorts] but the
[17:45] future Buddha still saw suffering in the
[17:48] form of old age, sickness, and death.
[17:52] [snorts] So even if you have everything
[17:54] that you think you need in order to be
[17:56] happy, just the fact that we're alive
[18:00] means that we'll suffer from the aging
[18:02] process.
[18:04] and fear of dying.
[18:09] So in this way I I use my own story to
[18:12] help me to understand the dharma, the
[18:14] teachings of the Buddha.
[18:17] I try to stick mostly to what it is that
[18:20] I can verify as my own experience.
[18:24] And the [snorts] Satipatana Sutra helped
[18:26] me to identify the suffering in my life
[18:29] and how to begin the process of ending
[18:31] that suffering.
[18:35] Uh we talk about karma
[18:38] as many of you know which uh means
[18:42] intentional action.
[18:45] It had our actions have consequences. We
[18:48] speak of karmic consequences things that
[18:50] we did and how it is that they affected
[18:53] what happened after. [snorts] There are
[18:56] consequences to what you do and there's
[18:57] consequences to what you don't do
[19:00] because of life. This is the way that I
[19:04] am,
[19:06] the way that life had affected me by the
[19:08] time I came to Buddhism. And in fact,
[19:11] the reason that I came to Zen Center uh
[19:15] 25 years ago was because the way that
[19:18] life had affected me was that I had
[19:20] become an addict.
[19:22] I was a drug addict and an alcoholic.
[19:27] And after getting into recovery and
[19:29] immersing myself in several years of
[19:32] vapina practice, I started coming to Zen
[19:34] Center in the city which is where I live
[19:37] now. [snorts] And I was coming there
[19:40] because there was a meeting on Monday
[19:42] nights for people in recovery who are
[19:44] interested in meditation and it still
[19:46] happens 7:30 on Mondays. And I didn't
[19:49] like Zen Center very much at all. I
[19:52] didn't like the statues, the bowing, the
[19:54] bells, the robes, the downward glancing.
[19:58] I didn't the incense. I didn't like
[20:00] anything
[20:02] about it.
[20:04] But you have to be careful. So, watch
[20:05] out cuz slowly it started to creep up on
[20:08] me cuz I kept coming to that one meeting
[20:10] a week. And after about six months, I
[20:12] thought I'd check out a dharma talk. And
[20:16] look at me now.
[20:19] >> [laughter]
[20:31] [snorts]
[20:31] >> So
[20:34] in Zen we sit [snorts]
[20:37] we just sit
[20:39] and other schools of of Buddhism feel in
[20:42] some ways that we you kind of throw
[20:44] people in at the deep end. We just sit.
[20:47] Chicken taza it's called uh just sitting
[20:49] facing the wall.
[20:52] [snorts] Zen uh claims to be
[20:54] non-objective sitting. There's no
[20:56] object. We're simply we sit and face the
[21:00] wall. We try to let go of everything.
[21:03] Noticing everything that arises but not
[21:06] activating it or feeding it in any way.
[21:10] Noticing but not pushing away.
[21:13] We're witnessing life as it arises and
[21:16] as it fades away
[21:19] in our Zen practice. We're observing
[21:21] impermanence. That's what it is that
[21:23] we're studying.
[21:25] Study this. Study this, said Dogen
[21:27] Zenji, our 13th century founder in
[21:29] Japan. Investigate. Investigate. He was
[21:33] always admonishing us.
[21:36] [snorts] So, I had this objective basis
[21:38] for my meditation experience. I'd
[21:40] already been trained in mindfulness
[21:42] awareness [snorts] and now I was being
[21:45] told to sit with non-objective sitting.
[21:50] Don't add to or push away what arises in
[21:53] your meditative experience.
[21:56] I did this for a couple of years. I
[21:58] found a teacher which you're encouraged
[22:01] to do in Zen. Uh [snorts] find a teacher
[22:04] to uh ask questions to learn about the
[22:07] path. [snorts]
[22:08] Um and uh I had after I've been working
[22:12] with him for a while, I started to have
[22:13] some anxiety coming up again uh which
[22:16] was familiar to me and uh I asked my
[22:19] teacher if I could my Zen teacher if I
[22:22] could go back and do a little bit of
[22:23] vapa around the anxiety [snorts] uh do
[22:27] some objective sitting and um he uh
[22:32] focusing you know I wanted to focus on
[22:34] the anxiety objectively as the
[22:36] Satipatana sutra had taught me And he
[22:38] said something very interesting.
[22:41] He said all of Buddhism before Zen which
[22:46] Zen happened or got developed really in
[22:50] China several hundred years after the
[22:52] Buddha. All the teachings of Buddhism
[22:55] before Zen are included in Buddhism. And
[22:58] this includes Terraadin Buddhism.
[23:01] Terraodan Buddhism and Fapasa and
[23:04] mindfulness are included in Zen. he
[23:06] said. And on a closer look, I began to
[23:09] see how it is that we start out in Zen
[23:11] with objective sitting. We the first
[23:14] thing that you're taught in Zen is how
[23:17] to hold your body, your posture.
[23:21] And then uh we talk about focusing on
[23:24] the breath. Breath, counting the breath.
[23:28] [snorts] And this is just like in the
[23:31] Satana Sutra.
[23:33] In Zen, we're opening up our awareness
[23:36] from the particular, from the body and
[23:39] the breath to the general out to the
[23:42] rest of the universe. We're opening
[23:45] opening.
[23:50] At UC Berkeley, uh there is a professor
[23:53] named Dair Kelner
[23:57] and he's written a book about his
[23:59] research as a psychologist.
[24:02] >> [snorts]
[24:02] >> He's been studying awe awe
[24:06] and he has a fabulous book which is
[24:09] called awe. [snorts] He defines awe as
[24:13] in quotes the feeling of being in the
[24:15] presence of something vast and transcend
[24:18] that transcends your current
[24:21] understanding of the world.
[24:26] This is Zen training.
[24:30] Contemplation of vastness uh as we are
[24:33] asked to do in our Zen mind can be
[24:35] challenging and even destabilizing
[24:38] in its vastness even threatening
[24:40] sometimes.
[24:43] A is the verb of action in the face of
[24:46] mystery.
[24:49] It's the motivation to enter into an
[24:52] understanding
[24:54] and inspiration to open up.
[24:58] Awe is the invitation to intimacy.
[25:04] And intimacy is sometimes described as
[25:06] the truth being delivered or shared with
[25:09] someone else without any judgment.
[25:13] If I tell you I was a alcoholic and
[25:16] [snorts] you don't judge me, I'm being
[25:18] intimate with you. We're being intimate
[25:20] together.
[25:22] I'm opening up.
[25:25] If you judge me, there is a separation
[25:28] you're cultivating and we are together
[25:31] closing down.
[25:35] In his book, uh, Kelner analyzes awe
[25:38] scientifically. He's a scientist.
[25:41] [snorts] uh he talks about hair
[25:44] follicles and how they're affected by
[25:47] certain chemicals that are created in
[25:49] the body during experiences of awe. How
[25:52] it is that hair follicles become erect
[25:55] and you have your hair standing on end.
[25:59] He talks about uh self-trcendent
[26:02] states the beginning of the breaking
[26:05] down of the individual self.
[26:10] mind states that grow out of the
[26:12] experience of awe
[26:14] there where there's a healthy loss of
[26:18] self-boundary between the individual and
[26:21] the world in which they live in
[26:24] in all with all there's a deep
[26:26] connection a feeling of oneness
[26:29] and belonging to a greater whole
[26:33] there's this diminishing of the
[26:36] self-centeredness of the separate
[26:37] individual
[26:39] In all, there's a state of there can be
[26:41] a state of flow being so fully immersed
[26:44] in an activity that the sense of time
[26:46] and self-consciousness begins to
[26:49] disappear.
[26:51] Peak experiences of intense joy,
[26:55] discovery, and transcendence are often
[26:57] times called the highest points of human
[27:00] experience.
[27:03] Witnessing profound human kindness can
[27:06] shift awareness away from one's own
[27:08] needs
[27:10] while [snorts] experiencing awe.
[27:19] [snorts]
[27:21] For the Buddha, there were three
[27:23] poisons, three obstacles to our
[27:24] awakening. Greed, hatred, and delusion
[27:29] or ignorance.
[27:31] And in my experience, uh, we're not
[27:34] supposed to rank things, but I do. Uh,
[27:38] in my experience, delusion is the worst
[27:40] of these poisons
[27:43] because delusion is not seeing the
[27:45] truth.
[27:47] And I was trained in order to survive in
[27:50] my childhood, like so many of us, with a
[27:54] a a life that was unbearable. I was
[27:58] trained to not see the truth.
[28:01] >> [snorts]
[28:02] >> That's why I ended up drinking and using
[28:05] drugs. My consciousness was unbearable.
[28:09] The Satipatana Sutra, which was at the
[28:12] very beginning of the Buddha's teaching
[28:14] and is included in Zen, taught me to see
[28:18] the truth in a way that was gentle and
[28:20] safe a little bit at a time.
[28:25] It opened me up to beginner's mind which
[28:27] is really
[28:29] the mind of awe.
[28:33] It taught me that I can not only survive
[28:36] the truth [snorts] but I can enter into
[28:39] it with fascination. The fascination of
[28:41] awe.
[28:43] I can see what it's made of and how it
[28:45] is that I share it with the rest of the
[28:49] universe.
[28:52] And I'd like to have a sip of water
[28:57] and finish with a poem that I found
[29:00] called Oh, [snorts] and it's by James
[29:05] Cruz.
[29:08] It's a shiver that climbs the trellis of
[29:10] the spine.
[29:12] Each tingle a bright white morning glory
[29:16] breaking into blossom beneath the skin.
[29:21] It can happen anywhere, anytime.
[29:25] Even finding this sleeve of ice worn by
[29:30] a branch all morning, now fallen on a
[29:33] bed of snow.
[29:36] You can choose to pause, pick it up,
[29:40] hold the cold thing in your hand, or
[29:44] not.
[29:45] Few
[29:47] tell us that wonder and awe are
[29:49] decisions we make daily, hourly, minute
[29:53] by minute in the tiny offices of the
[29:55] heart,
[29:57] tilting the head to look up at every
[30:00] tree turned into a chandelier by light
[30:04] striking ice in just the right way.
[30:08] Thank you very much for your attention.
[30:10] And uh now uh we have
[30:15] Q&A or arguments against what it is that
[30:18] I have said which are completely
[30:21] welcome.
[30:24] >> And I'd I'd love it if you could say
[30:26] your name as well please.
[30:27] >> Okay. Jennifer.
[30:28] >> Hi Jennifer.
[30:29] >> Hi. Um I um used to keep a diary of gat
[30:33] gratitude but now I've been keeping a
[30:37] diary of awe. I do a lot of hiking by
[30:40] myself on the mountain and I find doing
[30:43] it alone and if I sit someplace that
[30:47] there's something going on like
[30:49] redheaded
[30:51] woodpeckers pulling the bark off a
[30:55] diseased tree doing what not science
[30:58] nature does. It helps break it down.
[31:00] Everything has it something to do. And I
[31:03] just I was in so much awe of that. So I
[31:06] went and visited the area like once a
[31:09] month to see how was they were
[31:10] progressing. It was really quite
[31:12] beautiful.
[31:14] So and I also I'm out in the ocean a lot
[31:17] sailing and [clears throat] I I run into
[31:20] so much awe
[31:22] um thousands of jellyfish hatching and
[31:27] witnessing that and they have sails on
[31:29] their back and they they they hatch and
[31:32] they float to the top and then they sail
[31:34] on top of the water. So that was just
[31:39] beautiful. [laughter]
[31:41] So I like the word ah. It's really I
[31:44] look forward to it.
[31:47] >> What what you have just described uh he
[31:51] the the psychologist uh uh asks us to
[31:55] basically do all practice and that's
[31:58] what you're doing. Yep.
[32:00] >> And he's got studies that he talks about
[32:02] where uh he shows how it is that um
[32:06] everything that comes with awe in the
[32:09] human organism begins to actually alter
[32:12] the neuroplasticity.
[32:13] >> It does.
[32:14] >> Yeah. Thank you so much.
[32:16] >> You're welcome. Thank you.
[32:19] [snorts]
[32:31] >> [snorts]
[32:38] >> Good morning. I'm Charlene.
[32:40] >> Hi Charlene.
[32:42] >> So awe in the way that was just
[32:44] described is something very joyous and
[32:46] I'm quite familiar with. However, you
[32:48] ended your talk speaking about uh
[32:50] delusion and how we um many of us don't
[32:54] confront the truth because perhaps it's
[32:56] quite painful. And so um there's some
[32:59] connection there. And then you shared to
[33:02] enter it with awe with a sense of wonder
[33:04] and curiosity and and maybe I'm adding
[33:07] my own, but it seemed like what you were
[33:09] saying is to enter into difficult things
[33:11] and painful things and things that are
[33:13] hard to actually be with with awe.
[33:16] That's that's maybe I'm adding but I'm
[33:18] curious if that's what you were saying.
[33:19] I'd like to understand and hear more
[33:21] about that because I think of a yeah
[33:23] being watching the I love that imagery
[33:26] in the poem of the the sunlight
[33:28] streaming through the trees with the
[33:30] icicles and just so magical. Um but what
[33:34] about a bringing it to the things that
[33:36] are not so apparently magical?
[33:40] Well, uh there was a famous uh recently
[33:45] uh memorialized event on September 11th
[33:49] in 2001 which created uh a mass
[33:54] worldwide almost uh experience of awe
[33:59] and something that was terrible.
[34:03] So um awe is uh and that that's an
[34:08] extremely dramatic example but uh awe uh
[34:13] is is not just about good things. It it
[34:16] incorporates uh fantastic things that
[34:20] are are seem unbelievable seem
[34:23] unbelievable. [clears throat] Uh when I
[34:25] was trying to stop drinking uh for years
[34:30] I tried everything that I was told about
[34:33] to stop drinking and it wasn't until I
[34:36] started hanging out with other people
[34:38] who'd successfully given up drinking
[34:40] that slowly over the space of about a
[34:42] year I was able to actually give up
[34:46] drinking. And to me that was a
[34:48] completely unfathomable
[34:51] uh miracle
[34:53] uh and still kind of is 26 years later.
[34:57] [snorts] Um so uh awe like our awakening
[35:01] our Zen awakening covers everything and
[35:05] it's well as I said in my talk it's it's
[35:08] an invitation. uh the experience of awe
[35:12] is pulling me towards understanding
[35:16] something and uh the most beneficial uh
[35:21] understandings that I've had uh have
[35:24] have been around things that are are
[35:26] difficult and painful and uh I feel that
[35:31] Zen and lots of psychotherapy if you
[35:35] have good insurance
[35:37] uh have helped me to uh meet
[35:42] what seemed like an unbearable childhood
[35:46] and meet many of the uh internal
[35:51] sensations that led me to drugs and to
[35:54] alcohol
[35:55] uh and and those are very fruitful
[35:58] insights uh and have their own beauty.
[36:03] In fact, I'm going to tell you a story.
[36:05] On September 11th, 2001, I was sitting
[36:08] in Howard Cohen's meditation group uh in
[36:13] San Francisco. And because uh of what
[36:16] happened that day, he'd asked uh Eugene
[36:18] Cash to come and and teach with him.
[36:21] [snorts] And these are two teachers from
[36:24] uh Spirit Rock and the Passa teachers.
[36:28] And and that's when it is that I met
[36:30] Eugene Kash who became my first teacher.
[36:33] And they asked the question that night
[36:37] during our discussion, is it possible to
[36:40] understand why the hijackers
[36:44] did this? And being an old lefty, it was
[36:48] possible for me to understand even at
[36:50] that dramatic time. What was the big
[36:54] question for me was is it possible to
[36:56] understand and have compassion for the
[36:59] American military-industrial comp
[37:02] complex which I knew was going to embark
[37:04] on on killing you know thousands and
[37:07] thousands of innocent people. And so
[37:09] that that started a process of that that
[37:13] came out of awe looking very deeply at a
[37:17] special kind of suffering in our world.
[37:21] And uh
[37:24] it's a really weird thing to have
[37:26] compassion
[37:28] for the American indust
[37:30] military-industrial complex,
[37:34] but it's amazing.
[37:36] It's amazing.
[37:42] Did you say 11:15 for the hard stop?
[37:46] Well, we got a lot of time. I thought my
[37:49] talk was longer. Yes, please. What's
[37:51] your name?
[37:52] >> Uh, good morning. My name is Kate.
[37:54] >> Hi, Kate.
[37:55] >> Hi. Um, I would like to understand more
[37:58] the connection between awe and karma.
[38:01] since you touched on karma and I'm
[38:03] wondering if
[38:06] you believe experiences of awe
[38:09] can shift your karma if you
[38:13] take steps to make decisions that have
[38:17] better or more beneficial consequences.
[38:24] Uh yes, I think that awe is the
[38:27] invitation to
[38:29] uh actually change our relationship with
[38:33] what it is that's happened in the past.
[38:37] And uh
[38:39] once [snorts]
[38:40] Reb Anderson in this very seat said uh
[38:44] that it's possible to change
[38:48] his relationship with his father and uh
[38:52] you know uh that was amazing to me uh
[38:55] that what was that really possible? My
[38:58] father was an alcoholic and uh he didn't
[39:02] abuse me any way in any way but he
[39:05] neglected me and my three sisters
[39:08] because he was insane with addiction
[39:13] and uh I had a lot of work to do around
[39:16] that and uh I was a certain way because
[39:21] of childhood neglect which we know well
[39:25] now because it happens to so many of
[39:27] has uh very specific effects on how it
[39:30] is that we live our lives and what kind
[39:32] of relationships we pursue. [snorts] And
[39:35] looking at that uh looking at at uh
[39:41] these karmic conditionings that I had
[39:46] made it uh so that I began and doing it
[39:49] just in little bits at a time and
[39:52] talking about it with my teacher,
[39:53] talking about it with therapists,
[39:54] talking about it with other people, my
[39:56] spiritual friends who many of whom are
[39:58] going through the same things or have
[40:00] gone through the same things. Um I I
[40:03] begin to uh have a a sense of uh the
[40:08] magnitude of karma and uh that for me uh
[40:15] creates a a feeling of awe in my heart
[40:18] which draws me closer to these karmic
[40:22] consequences
[40:24] and hopefully uh I am a a a ordained
[40:29] priest so hopefully
[40:32] uh looking at uh karmic conditioning
[40:36] will inspire me to uh practice the
[40:39] precepts,
[40:41] the moral uh guidelines for living.
[40:46] [snorts] Uh which then changes how it is
[40:48] that I live my life right now. So I not
[40:51] only can change the past but change uh
[40:55] the present and the future.
[40:58] doesn't always change in the way I want
[41:00] it to, but uh it sure changes.
[41:07] Great questions.
[41:12] Oh. Oh, we've got one. Oh, yes. Okay.
[41:15] >> I saw you, Sho.
[41:18] >> My name is Chang. Um, do you have any
[41:21] advice on uh smartphone addiction these
[41:24] days?
[41:26] >> [snorts]
[41:27] >> You know, I was talking with someone
[41:29] yesterday, the person who did the Dharma
[41:30] talk at at City Center. Erin Murk is a
[41:33] teacher of uh I went to school in
[41:37] England, so I don't I don't know what
[41:39] your American I think it was. I think
[41:41] it's middle school.
[41:43] And she talked about how smart how old
[41:47] are people in middle school?
[41:50] >> 12.
[41:51] >> 12. 12 14. So she talked about how these
[41:54] 12 and 14 year olds uh they've almost
[41:58] completely grown up for tw 12 and 14
[42:01] years with some kind of a a a hostility
[42:06] towards technology.
[42:09] So maybe some of their parents are
[42:11] saying, you know, put the phone down
[42:13] when we're when we're eating or but that
[42:16] she she said that she's really surprised
[42:18] how this year and last year there have
[42:21] been many young children who want to go
[42:24] uh what did she call it? They want to go
[42:28] >> I'm sorry analog. Yes, thank you.
[42:31] [laughter]
[42:32] They want to go analog. They don't want
[42:35] technology. They put it away. They don't
[42:37] they're not on Facebook. They're not in
[42:39] on Instagram. Uh they uh only use their
[42:43] computer for certain things and then
[42:46] they put it down. They play with balls.
[42:48] They they really love uh vinyl records
[42:52] and they're really into vinyl records.
[42:55] And this was amazing to me. This was
[42:57] really amazing to me because uh
[43:01] the cell phone uh smartphone addiction
[43:04] is uh is uh rampant throughout the world
[43:11] [snorts] and it causes so many problems
[43:14] for people that it's going to outlive
[43:18] its addictionness
[43:21] [snorts] and I think that that's
[43:22] happening. uh AI is only going to make
[43:26] it worse, but we can't go on the way it
[43:29] is that that we are. It's just there's
[43:31] too many people who are asking questions
[43:33] about it and the uh delletterious
[43:37] effects of cell phone addiction or
[43:40] smartphone addiction are are becoming so
[43:43] clear to people.
[43:45] Um that doesn't mean the the addiction
[43:48] stops right away. It doesn't. It takes
[43:50] lots of different things for addictions
[43:53] to end, but uh I'm confident that it
[43:56] will end. Uh I don't know what will
[43:58] happen before then, but
[44:00] we're we're going to see. We're going to
[44:02] see. And with awe.
[44:04] Uh because I'm not afraid of addiction
[44:06] anymore now that I understand my own
[44:08] drug addiction and alcoholism.
[44:11] I'm not afraid of it. I was afraid of it
[44:13] before because it was killing me and it
[44:15] killed many people who I knew. And
[44:17] addiction is a really serious thing. But
[44:19] I'm not scared of it anymore because I
[44:22] have awe in it. It's amazing to me this
[44:27] uh it's called an infinite scroll
[44:30] where you can scroll on your phone and
[44:33] never come to the end of the page. Just
[44:36] keep scrolling.
[44:39] It's sickening.
[44:42] Do it. Do it. And and be present while
[44:45] you're doing it. It will end, but it
[44:48] takes time. I'm not I'm I'm not
[44:50] completely uh uh immune to it.
[44:57] We have rules at Zen Center about phones
[44:59] when you take your phone out, but people
[45:01] now carry the schedule for a one day
[45:04] sitting on their phone. And so, you
[45:08] know, you see the abbott looking at his
[45:10] phone to see when the next period of
[45:12] Zazen's going to end. [laughter]
[45:16] We're going to have a a a technologyfree
[45:19] sasheen at um at San Francisco Zen
[45:23] Center at City Center where you're going
[45:25] to have to you're going to have to check
[45:26] your phone uh at the door and [snorts]
[45:30] any computer that you have.
[45:36] That scares me.
[45:40] >> Sasheen is a a retreat. Sorry. Thank you
[45:44] for asking. I try not to use jargon but
[45:47] I do. Sasheen is a a means a
[45:51] concentrated gathering of the mind. So
[45:54] it's where we sit all day uh for periods
[45:57] of half an hour, 40 minutes, sometimes
[45:59] an hour and then we walk for 10 minutes
[46:01] and then sit for another hour, walk for
[46:04] 10 minutes. You eat in the zeno. So we
[46:07] eat in here in this room. We eat a
[46:09] ceremonial uh or it's beautiful. It's a
[46:12] way of mindful eating and um it's a
[46:16] wonderful thing to do. It's suggested
[46:18] however that that you first do a half
[46:20] day beginner sit before you do that
[46:23] because it's pretty intense way to live
[46:24] a day and it's wonderful wonderful.
[46:29] Yes, please. Sho has a question too.
[46:34] >> Good morning.
[46:35] >> Good morning.
[46:36] >> Yeah, my name is uh Olysa. Oie for
[46:39] short.
[46:40] >> Oie. Hi Ollie.
[46:41] >> It's my first time in a temple.
[46:43] >> Welcome.
[46:44] >> My sister brought me out this morning
[46:47] and um and I'm in awe.
[46:50] And so I have several questions. Forgive
[46:52] me. Um does being in awe make you
[46:56] awesome?
[46:58] [laughter]
[47:00] And
[47:01] and the second question is is anybody
[47:04] else here feeling awesome? [laughter]
[47:07] Bunch of hands went up. shy hands.
[47:10] >> Um, so I I'm I'm originally from uh I'm
[47:14] from Toronto. I I'm originally Nigerian
[47:17] and I moved to uh Toronto about 8 years
[47:21] ago. [snorts] And in my backyard is is
[47:25] no houses. It's farmland. So when it
[47:28] snows,
[47:30] boy, it's beautiful. And I'm always in
[47:33] awe. Like I'm always looking at this and
[47:35] I'm wondering do my neighbors who have
[47:38] been living there for the past few years
[47:41] longer than I have that same feeling of
[47:44] awe?
[47:46] And if they do um my last question will
[47:50] be how can I you know create this awe
[47:55] like consistently for not just for me
[47:58] but maybe for my family back home in
[48:00] Nigeria. Thank you. [snorts]
[48:03] Well, uh, do do the people, uh,
[48:06] experience awe like you do, the people
[48:08] who've lived there even longer than you
[48:09] have? And they might if they're not
[48:13] looking at their phones.
[48:15] So, how do we create this kind of awe
[48:19] for people around the world? We talk
[48:22] about our own experiences of awe, which
[48:25] is what you just did.
[48:28] So we gather together with others and
[48:31] that's how it is that we train each
[48:34] other in awe.
[48:37] [snorts] That's what we do in our Zen
[48:39] Buddhist practice where SA which means a
[48:42] community of practitioners is very
[48:44] important.
[48:46] And so we come together and someone who
[48:49] hopefully has a small amount of wisdom
[48:52] speaks like this and then we have this
[48:54] discussion and very importantly we have
[48:58] a much more casual discussion afterwards
[49:01] outside with some baked goods. I hope
[49:02] there's baked goods today because there
[49:05] isn't always but they're fantastic here.
[49:08] So uh awe is spread through interaction.
[49:14] always spread through interaction and
[49:16] and he actually uh uh the professor at
[49:19] Berkeley, he goes into great detail
[49:22] about how social awe is,
[49:26] how uh it is is is reliant on human
[49:31] interaction and the breaking down of
[49:34] this separate individual self that send
[49:37] us sends us to the survival that we're
[49:39] seeking in our in our smartphones.
[49:43] all breaks that down and that's the
[49:46] central teaching of Zen Buddhism is that
[49:51] uh there's no such thing as a separate
[49:54] individual self.
[49:58] Shako had a question right here.
[50:05] [snorts] I think two more questions and
[50:07] then we're going to be done.
[50:09] >> Hi, my name is Shokco.
[50:10] >> Hi Shoko. It's good to see you here,
[50:13] Tim. Thank you so much.
[50:14] >> Oh my gosh, it's great to see you.
[50:16] Um I want to go back to your um uh
[50:20] [snorts] talking about the story of
[50:22] asking your teacher about sate patana
[50:26] practice and and and uh um so you know
[50:31] in Zen and
[50:33] just generally I think we're advised a
[50:36] lot to avoid overintellectualizing
[50:40] um
[50:41] >> and and then we're presented with a
[50:43] numberless
[50:45] amount of numbered lists uh to memorize
[50:49] and and think about. And so um I
[50:53] [snorts] guess my question is does it
[50:56] does it help to know these four satias
[51:01] and concentrate on them [snorts]
[51:02] or is it something that
[51:05] by objectless meditation we will just
[51:09] inevitably
[51:12] you know get to these uh points. But do
[51:16] you think it helps to have the names in
[51:18] the numbered lists?
[51:20] Well, uh, thank you for a wonderful
[51:23] question as usual, Shoko. Uh,
[51:26] uh,
[51:28] Buddhism, Buddhism is wonder. I used to
[51:30] be a Marxist and you could read all of
[51:33] Marx's writings and go and argue about
[51:36] them because, you know, he died and
[51:38] there wasn't anything else. Uh, with
[51:40] Buddhism, you can't do that. It's
[51:43] there's so much uh to uh understand. I I
[51:48] I don't know what all the lists are. I'm
[51:50] an ordained priest and I don't know what
[51:53] all the lists are. I can't reme I don't
[51:54] remember all of them. Um [snorts] I'm I
[51:57] wasn't trained in a memorizing culture.
[51:59] We I go to my phone if I want to look
[52:01] something up.
[52:04] [snorts] Um but uh it it because
[52:08] Buddhism is so vast uh I I think you
[52:12] take what you need and you leave the
[52:13] rest.
[52:14] >> [snorts]
[52:15] >> Um don't cherrypick whatever it is is
[52:18] going to continue unhealthy or unh
[52:21] wholesome living. Go towards what is
[52:24] warm. And [snorts] to me the Satipatana
[52:27] Sutra was warm at a time in my life when
[52:31] I was asking what is going on inside of
[52:34] me
[52:36] where I actually had some uh interest in
[52:40] what it was that was going on inside of
[52:42] me that that wasn't destroyed by fear.
[52:47] And so it acted as a guide. The
[52:49] Satipatana Sutra acted as a a very basic
[52:53] guide to the interior of my existence
[52:59] and uh that was
[53:03] useful to me. So we take the lists that
[53:06] are useful and make sure rep doesn't
[53:09] hear me say this because [snorts] uh I'm
[53:13] I'm not a purist when it comes to
[53:15] everything. I love the fact that you uh
[53:18] you you you you can't read everything
[53:21] that there is to read about Buddhism.
[53:23] I'm constantly finding new things.
[53:26] [snorts]
[53:28] That's it.
[53:29] >> Oh, we have one from
[53:30] >> Oh, we have a question online. Yes,
[53:31] thank you. Gosh, I forgot about that.
[53:33] This will be our final question.
[53:35] >> Thank you, Tim. Uh this is Mark from our
[53:37] online SA. He asks, "Can you talk
[53:40] slightly more about awefulness,
[53:43] difficult awe, and healthy diminishing
[53:45] of the boundary between self and
[53:47] others?"
[53:50] >> I hate to keep using 911, but it's such
[53:54] an amazing uh example
[53:59] because here was something absolutely
[54:03] awful that happened. We watched it on
[54:06] television.
[54:09] I know New York. I knew the streets. I
[54:12] knew the Twin Towers.
[54:14] This was beyond belief terrible thing
[54:17] that happened.
[54:20] And what immediately
[54:23] resulted from that was people breaking
[54:27] down their separate individual self
[54:31] and moving towards each other.
[54:35] And that was a beautiful thing.
[54:40] It was a horrifying thing because many
[54:43] of the people who moved towards other
[54:46] people in that time of need were were
[54:49] were killed, died.
[54:51] Many people died afterwards. But there
[54:53] was this sense of togetherness that was
[54:57] breaking down much of the uh
[55:02] separateness that led to
[55:06] uh the kind of uh horrors that that
[55:10] inspired people to hijack those those
[55:13] planes.
[55:15] So this is once again in Zen
[55:19] things are not separate. Suffering and
[55:22] the solution to suffering are not
[55:24] separate. When we we sew our robes, I
[55:26] tell people this all the time. Sorry,
[55:28] Eric, you've heard this before. Um when
[55:30] we sew our robes, I'm a sewing teacher
[55:32] at at City Center. We make our robes and
[55:37] uh uh we make the little bib like rockas
[55:41] and uh we have to do it in a very
[55:43] special way. You have to go to class and
[55:45] get taught and Steph Blanc is the
[55:47] teacher here. And uh you're taught to
[55:50] make the robe and and you take refuge
[55:53] with each stitch. You take refuge with
[55:55] the Buddha, the Dharma, and the SA. And
[55:59] when we sew them, they're they're
[56:01] they're made of rows. Uh my big one
[56:04] right here has seven rows. The small
[56:06] ones have five rows. And each row is
[56:08] made up of a a short piece and a long
[56:10] piece. And the long pieces are the
[56:14] wisdom pieces
[56:16] which no offense to any terraodons in
[56:20] the room. It felt when I was practicing
[56:22] with my terraoden teacher like he was
[56:25] going after the the wisdom. He was
[56:28] trying to shut out the ignorance and the
[56:31] delusion. But in Zen when we make our
[56:33] ropes we we sew the big panels to little
[56:38] panels and the little panels are the
[56:40] ignorance panels. [snorts]
[56:42] So wisdom and ignorance come together in
[56:46] our whole view of what it is to be uh
[56:49] awakened. We're not discarding that.
[56:54] We know that it's a part of our
[56:58] salvation
[56:59] in the awfulness
[57:03] uh of human existence. The wars, the
[57:06] suffering, the the destruction, the
[57:08] terrible things that we do to each
[57:10] other. All of that is included in the
[57:14] process of awakening. And we must look
[57:16] at all of it. We must look at all of it.
[57:18] And Zen asks us to do that. So, I hope
[57:21] that answered the question. And if it
[57:23] didn't, get in touch with me at San
[57:26] Francisco's Zen Center.
[57:30] Okay,
[57:32] let's chant.
[57:54] way.
[58:01] I
[58:04] save them.
[58:06] Delusions
[58:08] are impossible.
[58:11] I love
[58:14] them.
[58:17] [music and singing]
[58:21] I [singing] love
[58:24] them.
[58:32] I
