Eight Realizations of Great Beings (II): Desires
Photo by Janko Fererlic
Drawing from Dogen’s teachings, the Lojong slogans and more, Zuisei dives into the very human experience of desire. How do the teachings on desire relate to satisfaction and sensuousness? How can we hold that desire is the root of suffering and still realize its affirming and joyful side?
This talk was given by Zuisei Goddard. See below for transcript.
Transcript
Transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
Hello everyone, welcome, especially to those of you who are joining us for the first time. It's so good to practice with you and to be in community. Thank you for being here. Most of you know, if you get the newsletter, that we've been making our way through the Eight Realizations of Great Beings. Today I'm speaking about the Second Realization which is the awareness that more desire brings more suffering. The commentary for that says: “All hardships in daily life arise from greed and desire. Those with little desire and ambition are able to relax their body and mind free from entanglement.”
Just a moment ago, I was feeling that moment of desire, that moment in which I really want something, and what that experience is in my body and mind. It just came up quite spontaneously, actually. Then, I felt what happens when I’m able to release that wanting and how that feels in my body and mind. So, when we hear this phrase, “those with little desire and ambition are able to relax their body and mind, free from entanglement.” That's what it feels like to me: relaxation. Though perhaps, relaxation is not the best term. I guess I experience it as a release, as letting go, as a kind of surrender which is really based on trust.
Master Dogen, in his last teaching, recorded a slightly different version of these Eight Realizations. In his fascicle, Hachi Dainingaku (“Eight Awarenesses of Enlightened Beings) he's really just quoting the Buddha. He doesn't actually add his own commentary. But I can't find the source for the Buddha's words other than this sutra that we're using. So, I don't know if it was Dogen himself who wrote this commentary, because the way that these are framed in his version is affirming instead of renouncing. It’s saying what you want to cultivate, what you want to practice instead of what you want to refrain from. Maybe it was him [Dogen]. Because if you think about the precepts, the way that we have learned them in the Mountains and Rivers Order, they have that affirmative side as well. So, the original precepts are stating what you should renounce: do not kill, do not steal, do not lie, do not misuse sexuality, etc. Whereas the Kyojukaimon, which includes Dogen's commentary, has also the affirming side: affirm life, do not kill; be giving, do not steal, etc. So, I don't know if this was Dogen himself, or if he really is quoting a sutra from the Buddha which I just can't find. Regardless, I think it’s good to have both sides: this is what I should refrain from doing, and this is what I should actively cultivate.
In the case of this Realization, the original wording is pointing to the danger of desire. Dogen's version is really highlighting the skillfulness, I would say the realism, of having few desires. So, quoting the Buddha, he [Dogen] says:
Friends, know that people who have many desires intensely seek fame and gain… Here, think of fame and gain as the whole range of desire—those moments when we want recognition of some sort. It’s not just that you want to be famous or rich necessarily, but those moments where there is a sense of needing to be recognized.
Therefore they suffer a great deal. Those who have few desires do not seek fame and gain and are free from them, so they are without such troubles. Having few desires is itself worthwhile; it is even more so as it creates various merits. Those who have few desires need not flatter to gain others’ favor. Those who have few desires are not compelled by their sense organs. They have a serene mind and do not worry because they are satisfied with what they have and do not have a sense of lack. Those who have few desires experience Nirvana. This is called: Few Desires.
I want to say here that sometimes the way these realizations are phrased makes them sound so absolute—that there's a person who is so complete, that they don't have desires, and so their mind is always serene. They don't feel a sense of lack; therefore, they experience nirvana. I'm sure somewhere in the world there are people like this. But I’d like to think of this in a much more personal, more immediate way. All of these moments in which I am able to release a desire, are the moments in which I'm able to approach my life from a sense of trust and abundance instead of a sense of lack. At least for me, this is a constant practice. I haven't yet arrived at a place where my mind is always serene, by any means. The Third Realization, which we'll cover next week, actually speaks about having few desires. I suspect that as the sutra traveled through China to Vietnam, Korea, and Japan, that its contents shifted a bit. Some points were highlighted; others were left out, but the message is clear: have few desires and you'll be happier.
When I was working on the Dogen version [of this sutra] I gave a series of talks, and I had seen a cartoon in the New Yorker where a thief is standing in a room with all the bounty strewn around him. There's just bags and bags of things. And he's holding a boom box to his chest. He’s cradling it like a baby, and he's asking himself, “Do I need this? Does it spark joy?” [Laughter] That’s a good question. Do I need this? Does it spark joy? We’re practitioners, so we already know desire causes suffering. We already know desire is the root of suffering. Hopefully, we also know that we can't not have desires, that as long as we live, we will want.
So, I do want to focus on desire, but on its skillful side. The side that is affirming and joyful. The side that promises to give us the fulfillment that ultimately we are all seeking, that sense of satisfaction, and perhaps even a serene mind.
Let me tell you a story. There's a man living in the Balinese jungle. He wakes up every morning as the sun is rising, and he sits on the ground right in front of his hut. He sits with his back resting against the wall to watch the dawn. Every morning a young woman, who's the wife of the local magician of whom this man is a guest, comes to deliver a bowl of fresh fruit. On the first day, the man notices that when she comes to bring him a bowl of fruit, she also brings a tray she holds on her shoulder with tiny boat-shaped platters that have been woven out of palm fronds, and they have a mound of rice in each. The first day or two the man doesn't say anything. He just watches as the woman delivers a bowl of fruit to him, and then she walks around the compound where they're living, and she sets down one of these little boats on each corner of the compound.
After a while, curiosity gets the best of the man, and he asks her what these are for. She says, “They're for the household spirits.” Then she disappears around the corner, just as she did before. After another day or two, he follows her. He sees how she very carefully lays down each of the boats on each of the corners of the various buildings of the compound. When he gets back to his hut, he looks at the boats and realizes they're empty. The rice is gone. So another day, he gets a little bit closer, and he notices something strange. The rice is actually moving. He gets a little closer still. Then he sees that there's a line of ants patiently climbing up the side of the boat. They're wrangling with each grain of rice. One of them picks up a grain of rice and tries to push it, another one pulls it. Often, one stumbles and falls on its back with the rice on top of its tiny body. It just lays there until another ant comes and helps it along. So this is no easy feat. They spend hours doing this, but ants are very collaborative; together they manage, grain by grain, to cart off the rice in each one of these little boats, off to their ant hills.
And the man realizes, these were the offerings for the household spirits. He realizes, that in a practical sense, this keeps the ant colonies occupied so they won't get into the compound's pantry or kitchen. Then, he thinks a little further, and he realizes these offerings do keep them satisfied. At first he's thinking: are these the household spirits? Is the woman just saying that? Or are the ants actually the household spirits? But he sees it doesn't matter because they are being satisfied.
Remember in the practice of oryoki, there's always the offering given to the various spirits to satisfy them. This reminded me, somewhat incongruously, of a family I once read about who six days out of the week they have three proper, balanced meals at the right time. They all get together; they eat together; they have healthy snacks; they have fresh food. They take care of themselves. Then, one day a week (I don't remember what it was called, but they had a name for it), everyone in the family can eat whatever they want, kids and parents. They can get up and have ice cream for breakfast, pizza for dessert, and a bowl of cereal for dinner if they want.
I sometimes eat a bowl of cereal as dessert or for dinner; it’s the teenage boy in me. [laughs] This one day (I’ll call it no-holds-barred) not surprisingly, keeps everyone happy and satisfied. And you would think that they would just go crazy—that the kids would eat ice cream until they're sick, but they don't. There's something about that container. They know that it’s their day to eat whatever they want until they're satisfied, offering to their inner spirits, their inner gods.
This story of the ants is in a book called The Spell of the Sensuous by David Abrams. It's not a new book. It came out in the ‘90s, but as I was writing this talk I thought about it. Interestingly, in one of those coincidences that is not a coincidence at all, I got a newsletter yesterday morning from another Buddhist teacher. The headline said, “Are you over-stimulated but under-sensualized?” Her argument is that most of us live from here up [points to neck and head] most of the time, most of our lives. Even within the dharma, we are grappling and working with concepts. She was saying how so much of her own practice and her own teaching is really about connecting, connecting to the body, connecting to the senses.
The fact is, we live in a sensuous world, it’s the only way we can experience it—through the senses. That is why denial only goes so far; because in a sense, it is a denial of reality. It’s a denial of the world and of ourselves who are part of that world. So, I think that the key to being satisfied, the key to fulfillment, is really finding the optimal way to relate to the world through our senses. By optimal, I don't mean running after pleasure, but engaging with each moment of experience, so fully, that whether it's pleasurable or not becomes secondary. Because the actual fulfillment comes from the engagement. Nothing is left out, no-holds-barred.
So, much of this is re-membering: that definition of sati (mindfulness), re-membering, of bringing together the disparate parts of ourselves to fully be present, in this case with each sensation. Which can be difficult, especially if we've experienced trauma. In that case the sensuous becomes dangerous. So then, you need to work with it differently. You need to ease yourself into it.
Let me offer another teaching that might be relevant. I’ve been revisiting the Lojong slogans of Atisha. Atisha was most likely a Bengali monk, teacher, and scholar who developed these fifty-nine slogans to train the mind. And let me add to train the body and to train the heart. At a certain point, he was asked to teach in Tibet. He was told that Tibetans were very easy going. Instead of being pleased, he became worried that he wouldn't have enough stuff to work with— [laughter] to train his mind with. It would be a nice problem to have, right? [more laughter] Being concerned - Oh, I don't have enough negativity or enough challenges to train my mind with. Then he got there and he realized he didn't have to worry—there was plenty to work with.
But these slogans are very practical. They're very doable and also demanding. They do make you stretch. The thirty-ninth slogan says: all activities should be done with one intention. Then, as you get into it, as you read some of the commentary, you realize that the intention is benevolence. So, if you take that [benevolent intention] into this practice of having few desires you realize, you can offer your desires up with the intent that they be of benefit to yourself and to others.
When I sip my tea, when I eat a meal, when I enjoy a book or go for a walk, part of that fulfillment comes from the knowledge (if I can be aware of it) that I am doing these things with others. We chant that as part of the oryoki chant: I eat this food with everyone. How is that so?
Even if I'm struggling with my want, if I’m struggling with feelings of lack, I can offer that struggle. I think this is really important, this mind of offering. We know gratitude; we know the effect that it has. I think that it goes with it, this mind of offering, both our abundance and our sense of lack, to offer the difficulty and to offer the joy. The important thing is this intent for benevolence is suffused with awareness and gentleness. It's not demanding. It’s not anxious. It's not fearful. It doesn't push through. It stands on our goodness, on our abundance, and on our unquenchable desire to thrive. Because behind every desire is the desire to be okay, not just to be okay, but to thrive.
So here's a poem called “Flirtation” by Rita Dove.
After all, there’s no need
to say anything
at first. An orange, peeled
and quartered, flares
like a tulip on a wedgewood plate.
Anything can happen.
Outside the sun
has rolled up her rugs
and night strewn salt
across the sky. My heart
is humming a tune
I haven’t heard in years!
Quiet’s cool flesh—
let’s sniff and eat it.
There are ways
to make of the moment
a topiary
so the pleasure’s in
walking through.
Explore further
01 : On The Eight Realizations of Great Beings (Hachi Dainingaku) by Eihei Dogen
02 : The 59 Lojong Slogans by Atisha with commentary by Judy Lief
03 : Flirtation by Rita Dove