given by Nomon Tim Burnett
Red Cedar Dharma Hall
October 17, 2009
 |
 |
Click to stream and listen immediately, right-click and pick "Save Target As" or "Save Link As" to save to your hard drive. |
Talk given for Buddhism in Bellingham 2009. As usual I think the audio version is better: I gave an unplanned intro to the talk about my process in writing it and thinking about our practice. However my notes and plan below in case you find it easier to read than download and listen.
Good morning, the phrase I picked as a title for this talk "all things are our teacher" is adapted from our Zen ordination rituals. Like other religions we have priest ordinations but we also have a kind of lay person's ordination which is a precepts ceremony that's pretty great. A powerful ceremony for deepening our commitment to ethical practice. In that ceremony the priest leading the ceremony says to the people taking this step: "From now on enlightenment is your teacher, Buddha is your teacher, all being is your teacher. Do not put another head on top of your own. This is the path of mercy for all existence and things."
All things are our teacher. There are some obvious implications of that phrase that we can work with. When stuff happens to us that we don't like how do we respond? And can we turn that response in some way into an opportunity for learning and growth. Please take a minute and think of something that happened to you recently that you didn't like. This could be something relatively minor which just got under your skin for some reason or something more major like a death or a loss of some kind. There always seems to be something.
Now reflect for a moment on your response. How did you interact with that experience. Because of course everything that happens is simply experience. It's not like there is a bad "thing" that sort of knocks into "you" exactly right? One minute your seeing such and so, hearing this and that, and thinking various thoughts, next minute a different set of inputs emerges and the thinking seems to respond in some way right? You're coming along doing your taxes or reading the comics or making dinner is one experience and then the phone rings and there are sounds coming out of the phone which you interpret in some way and that's another experience, no? It's a kind of short hand we use to say "I was doing the dishes and then she called and was really upset with me about what I said before" - a kind of short hand for a quite rich and varied psycho-physical experience with thousands of different perceptions in it.
Anyway let me give you a second to reflect on that experience of something you don't like happening. Probably you don't have to think back very far. Things we don't like happen all the time don't they?
[pause 2 min.]
"All things are our teacher" suggests that there's something we can learn, something we can be taught by every situation in our lives including the most incomprehensible and difficult situations we face. It brings up for us a really helpful question. We can turn towards a phrase like that, just bring it up as a response to even the most incomprehensible situation: "all things are our teacher" and see what resonates. Sometimes this learning can be a specific thing like conventional learning, sometimes not. Sometimes you might feel like "this is just a disaster there's nothing to learn here." That's okay. Sometime if you stay with it you see some deeper learning though. Something about patience or trust or just endurance. Sometimes there is something concrete and useful that "all things are our teacher" but sometimes not. Sometimes it's more of a feeling, more of a felt sense of possibility. A feeling of going beyond the limitations of the situation. A feeling of space that we didn't realize was there before. And sometimes such a teaching operates in subtle ways that we don't actually notice at the time.
"All things are our teacher" brings up humility and an open mind. It brings up opening to the world instead of shutting down. Moving forward instead of pulling back.
But "All things are our teacher" can only function when there's space. Our human heart isn't mechanical. We can't fix it with the right teaching or the right therapy if conditions are wrong. If we're too scared, too busy, too upset, too caught, too distracted. When there's no space to turn around, no quiet to allow something unexpected and unanticipated to arise then we don’t benefit from something like "all things are our teacher." If conditions aren't right such a teaching can be detrimental and difficult. I know I'm supposed to learn something from this but I failed. I don't see anything new. I did the same old stupid thing. Or, those people over there are just wrong, there's nothing to learn from this other than how messed up people are.
So we need to make wise choices in our lives so that we have a little bit of space for this to function. So we can let all things be our teacher. Meditation really helps this. Probably prayer or regular walks in the woods or doing creative work with a good spirit, lots of things can help. What it is that helps you have more space in your life?
But meditation has a big advantage in being really pretty simple to do. With our big brains and our big problems we figure that whatever the solution is it's probably really complicated. Don't you think we have this tendency? If we wanted to be happier and more open probably we'd have to go to graduate school and work really hard getting a PhD in happiness. Something as simple as sitting down and following our breath just seems too simple.
But it really does work.
It works I think because it allows us to reunite with our own being. To just be. To take an actual break from our great and endless round of doing and fixing and solving and ideas and conclusions and reasons and preferences. To just be a human being. To connect with our natural awakened nature or whatever we want to call it. And it doesn't really matter that much what we call it, it's so much better to experience it, to live it. To be it. To be being itself.
There are also elements of the world of doing mixed in. There have to be because there is no being without doing and no doing without being. When one is obvious the other is always there too. So we have different types of meditation and different techniques and things to emphasize and equipment and posture and all of that, but through it all we embrace this central point of just being and feeling the spaciousness of our lives. That's always the central point.
Let's stretch a minute and try a few minutes of meditation together. Enough talk!
[stretch + 5 min zazen, making a point about feeling in the body]
All things are our teacher is shifting our relationship to life and to desire to something radically open and accepting of what actually is. The Buddha taught that what ails us is this deep, deep habit to wish for things to be other than the way they are. We wish a little bit, don't we, that things were a little different all the time. This is such a constant companion that we hardly notice it. We wish that our bodies were a little different. We wish that our close friend or spouse was a little different. We wish that the world was a little different, or a lot different. We wish that there was no death, no illness, no suffering and trouble. We wish that the things we like would stay around forever. We wish that we could avoid problems. We wish for it all just to be different. Not like this.
Last weekend here were studying Zen Master Dogen from the 12th century, he has a good phrase for the way this goes:
In attachment flowers fall, in aversion weeds spread.
When you cling to things you set yourself up for the pain of watching them fail and fall apart. When you try to push things away they multiply. Isn't that a helpful phrase? In attachment flowers fall, in aversion weeds spread.
Sometimes people hear about these teachings from Buddhism about attachment. They say, "I know I'm not supposed to be attached" and take it mean they shouldn't love. It's the opposite actually.
We do radically wish that everything was different but not for our own personal gratification. We dream the dream of happiness and freedom from suffering for everyone. May every person everywhere be happy. We wish this with our whole hearts.
The antidote to attachment then is not detachment it's loving even more deeply but releasing that love from strings and bindings and conditions. The flowers were a little droopy on the altar last week and someone dashed off to get new ones, I was a little bit tempted to stop her. We can love dropping flowers just and much as new fresh ones, and we have to love them. Otherwise there is nothing but running to the florist, nothing but fussing and fixing and trying so hard to prop up the sky with our desires.
"All things are our teacher" encourages deep engagement and full commitment to what actually is. And it can only be lived out moment by moment and it can only operate in an open space where mistakes are not a problem. "All things are our teacher" is fully accepting that there is nothing but mistakes and there is nothing wrong with mistakes.
Watch when you get tight. Notice when you fight your life. What's arising then? What is that for you?
But we also know full well that we can't talk ourselves out of our powerful habits. The powers of separation and righteousness that exist in us are strong. This idea that we need to protect ourselves and be right all the time is so powerful. To put ourselves first, or to put ourselves last maybe but the self is in the foreground. Sometimes there are particular antidotes that really do work. The antidote for stinginess for instance is to very deliberately be generous. Even artificially to be generous. Give more. Work with that feel what it feels like. The antidote to narrowness is to learn more about the world.
The other day a friend's clutch mysteriously broke in half. It cost her $1100 and of course she needs a car and had already invested so much in it and had to pay it. It was painful a little but it made sense and I think after she paid and drove the car away again it was more or less forgotten.
But it reminded me that a few weeks ago my wife and I sent $500 to an AIDS orphan girl in Kenya we've been sponsoring through Slum Doctor Programme. We sponsored her through her last few years of high school and she'd done really well there and qualified for university which is luckily a bit subsidized for the few kids who qualify and can somehow get themselves there. This girl has nothing really other than her education and her dreams. She and her siblings lost both of their parents and I think have only a sick uncle living as their family. That $500 is enough to get her through an entire year of college. Two years of college for a smart and hard working girl in Africa or one Volkswagen clutch plate. Is that a decision we can make?
And of course if our clutch broke we'd fix it too. Strange about the clutch plate too, the mechanic said he'd never seen anything like it. Stuff breaks and teaches us. Kenyan AIDS orphans work hard and teach us, or they fail and teach us. Or they die and teach us. We don't know what to do but we practice responding as best we can. And we fail and we fall down and we get up again. All things are our teacher.
This whole big mess is not our fault, but this life is our responsibility. We are guardians of a body and mind and our little pile of material possessions for just a short time and then they're gone. Let's use them well and life in the most satisfying way we can. And let's realize that we are also the guardians of the whole world. The clutch breaks and you fix it. The world breaks and you help to fix that too. The challenge there is that the world is so huge, it's overwhelming and easy to put off making our contribution. Do it today. It's like the public radio pledge drive - we appreciate getting to live in this beautiful confusing disturbing world and it won't be here much longer if we don't all help.
You really could do something like meditation practice regularly and it really does have the potential to change your life and the lives of everyone whose lives you touch. You don't have to be a spiritual genius or an incredibly organized or smart or committed person. If you have the good fortune to realize you need something like this you can do it. You really can do it.
And it will change your life. Not quickly, not even surely, but inevitably if you do meditation practice regularly with a warm spirit it will help. You can't judge returning to being with the ordinary criteria from the world of doing though, so please do watch out about your judgments about whether you are doing a good job or a bad job or whether it's working or not. Feel the feelings of it and trust your heart and intuition.
This is sounding like quite a big project though isn't it! A massive self-improvement project. I'm tired already just listening to myself. Take up meditation and get really good at that. Shift our relationships to the world to one of openness and humility. Become way more generous and save the world. Wow.
But here's the thing that makes this so simple and do-able. It's not something that you go off and do by yourself. That would be so impossible. I've been bringing up the phrase "All things are our teacher" not "all things are my teacher" - there's a big difference. And not "I am the teacher of all things" either. We practice "all things are our teacher" within a massive web of mutual interdependence and support. We do this not as me over here trying to do something but as me as an expression of life itself. Me as an agent for something so much bigger than me. Me as an example. And of course as we practice meditation the very existence of this me that we are so concerned about becomes a little suspect anyway. What is this me anyway? Is there really some me in here? Maybe all things are our teacher has something to teach us about our actual nature too.
When we think it's up to me I have to figure this out we can so easily get stuck. Sometimes that's just how it goes, we are convinced that it's up to us and we try to figure it out and we get stuck. So then stuckness is our teacher. I felt a bit that way trying to write this talk actually. I have to figure out how to tell you something helpful. So I had to suffer and strain a bit and try to breathe and release myself from that suffering and strain as part of my practice in writing this talk. Sometimes that's how it goes and that is okay too.
All things are our teacher is fundamentally a massive expression of trust. We have to trust ourselves, trust our hearts and trust each other. We won't get it right and we have to trust that just moving forward into our world with our best intentions to hand is enough. That it's just right. Just enough. And that we can't get it wrong because we are all of students of life itself and all things are our teacher.
I'm not trying to convince anyone that Zen Buddhism framework of support for this although I do want you to know you are welcome to come practice Zen with us here. Zen has a bit of a confusing reputation. It seems like you have to be a certain kind of person or believe particular things or be really tough or something to practice Zen. Actually anybody who wants to can try it and you are welcome to come and try it out for a while and just see how it goes. Sure to have much benefit there's discipline to it, but there's discipline to anything that's worth while isn't there?
There is also within these walls another wonderful and very steady Buddhist sangha, the Bellingham Insight Meditation Society, which practices another form of Buddhism, and across the street Shambhala Center is also great. Plus there are 2 or 3 other Buddhist practice places and about a thousand yoga studios and Tai Chi teachers and churches and synagogues and forests and beaches all around this town. We are so blessed to have a fairly intact and beautiful natural world peopled with many people trying to find their way in life as "all things as our teacher." What a shame it would be to just slog through life and miss all of that support. How wonderful that it's possible to live life as immersion and humility and sharing. To live "all things are our teacher."
My you be happy. May I be happy. May all beings be happy. And may those who are suffering in difficult conditions find some relief. If there was any merit generated from our practice this morning let us dedicate it to those who need it most. Thank you very much.
Resident Priest Nomon Tim Burnett has been a student of Zoketsu Norman Fischer since 1987 when he was a resident at San Francisco Zen Center's Green Gulch Farm. After sitting practice periods at Green Gulch and Tassajara Zen Monastery, Tim helped found the Bellingham Zen Practice Group in 1991. Tim was ordained as a Zen Priest by Norman in June, 2000. Like his teacher, Tim is interested in the possibility of deep and complete practice by lay people.
A person of wide-ranging professional interests, Tim has been a botanist, elementary schoolteacher, writer, and computer programmer. In addition to his work at the Resident Priest of Red Cedar Zen Community, Tim works as a software developer.