Eight Realizations of Great Beings (III): the Searching Mind
Photo by Jacob Mejicanos
The third of the Eight Realizations of Great Beings says that the mind constantly searches outside of itself and never feels fulfilled. Yet it is possible for the mind—and for us—to be satisfied. How do we do this?
Student Brian Pontolilo’s talk explores different aspects of satisfaction and dissatisfaction, from the experience of addiction to the the subtle or overt desire to have the dharma give us the comfort we want. Ultimately, it all boils down to the question, what is most important to us?
This talk was given by Zuisei Goddard.
Transcript
This transcript is based on Zuisei's talk notes and may differ slightly from the final talk.
Eight Realizations of Great Beings: the Searching Mind
May the merits of these teachings benefit all beings. May these words help and not harm. May they clarify and not confuse. May they self-liberate, leaving no trace behind.
Hello, everyone. Good evening.
So, as you know, Brian volunteered to give a talk. He did this a few weeks ago. I wonder how your Zazen was, Brian, because, you know, the fear of public speaking is first, before the fear of death. So, you know, if you get past this, you'll be all set for your dying.
And I asked him if he would do this on this realization, and if he could, you know, spend some time really sitting with it, being with it, and speaking from his own experience and his reflections.
And just before I turn it over to him, I just wanted to say something brief, and then I have one point that I want to make about this realization afterwards.
You know, I was thinking, as I often do, about our being here together. And, you know, there is so much nowadays, right? Online, there's so much that you can read. I mean, there are so many resources, so many talks, classes of all kinds. And I guess I just hope that you come here, that you log on on Wednesdays for the sake of the Dharma.
And what I mean is, you know, that hopefully you're here to learn, to practice, and to be able to do something that you've never done before. To be, you know, in the presence of the Dharma, and that is not me. And although I understand, I mean, it makes sense, I mean, I'm the one who's speaking usually, that, you know, maybe there's some resonance with the way that I'm speaking about the Dharma.
That ultimately, really, it's not anything that I will say, no matter how eloquent, if I'm struck by luck or inspiration. You know, no matter how well or memorably, you know, I could say something, I could say, you know, what I could say about the Dharma, that that will not really do anything for you, as the Dharma itself will. That that is actually what will transform your life.
And, you know, when I think about this space that we have been creating, it's actually, I mean, it's almost a year. July will be a year.
What I really think of is, I mean, Sangha. I mean, Thich Nhat Hanh said that the next Buddha is really the Sangha. And I think of that. That perhaps the most important thing, the most valuable thing that we can offer one another, is to see, to regard each other fully, even in this somewhat limited medium. That despite the language that I often use, that we, as we log on, that we forget about being bodhisattvas and about being good Zen students, and that we're really just bringing ourselves with all of our stuff, you know, our doubts and our neuroses and our, you know, all the times when we don't want to practice or where we feel like we failed to practice.
In other words, that we're just being human together, that that is really the most important thing that we can offer one another: seeing each other in that wholeness.
And so, you know, that for these two hours a week, we're giving each other the gift of our words, the gift of our deep listening, the gift of our thoughtful words, and our willingness to look, to investigate, and then investigate some more. Because whether these talks are dark to the mind or not, they are in fact radiant to the heart. And they're radiant to the heart because they come from our desire to wake up.
And so let us, let them do that. Let's let these words awaken us. And if we can do that, then it really doesn't matter who's the one who's speaking. All the work that I do to find nice stories and try to be a little bit funny, because I'm not funny. I had to actually really teach myself, and I still, you know, it's hard work, it's hard work, and I still fail so often.
All of it, really, the only point of that is to keep your attention so that you can actually hear the Dharma. That's it, that's the only reason why I do that. Well, that's not true. I like telling stories also. But whenever I stand, you know, at my altar, what I say is, let this help them, and let me love them, you know, as I, as I do this.
So I hope we can do that today for Brian and for each other. So, all right, Brian, your turn.
Thank you, Zuisei. Good to see everyone. Another, another Wednesday night. You can all hear me okay? Great.
The Mind’s Search Outside Itself
So, Zuisei started speaking about the eight realizations of great beings a number of weeks back now. I think we didn't speak about them for a few weeks. So I thought I'd start by just reminding everyone, or maybe people weren't here, of the first two realizations.
The first was that the world is impermanent. And the second was that more desire brings more suffering. And tonight, I will speak a little bit about the third. This is from Thich Nhat Hanh's teaching. The third realization of great beings is the awareness that the human mind is always searching outside itself and never feels fulfilled. This brings about unwholesome activity. Bodhisattvas, on the other hand, know the value of having few desires. They live simply and peacefully so they can devote themselves to practicing the way. They regard the realization of perfect understanding to be their only career.
So, I don't often refer to myself as an addict. I didn't follow a traditional recovery program, a 12-step program, or I didn't go to rehab when I needed to stop using drugs and alcohol. And I just never adopted that language of referring to myself as an addict, but the truth is that I am. And I did prove that really well for about a decade. I spent 24 hours a day stoned and drunk, pretty much every night, and just had this willingness to use any substance that came my way in whatever, looking for whatever I was looking for.
And so this was clearly the first thing that came to me when I read about the seeking outside of our mind, or the mind seeking outside of itself, because addiction really is the epitome of that process: the mind searching outside itself, finding the substance, feeling or being tricked into feeling fulfilled, maybe numbed for a length of time, and then, when coming down, to the discomfort of being unfulfilled and starting that process over again, in this sort of loop.
And when I think about those years, a couple of things come up. Well, one of them is that I feel somewhat okay with how I lived for that time. And that's because what really lurks in those unfulfilled moments is a lot of pain. I think that's true for many people. I think it's definitely true for addicts. And at the time, when I was living like that, I didn't have any other skills for working with that type of pain. And so, in a way, demanded way got me through.
And in deeper reflection, I can see kind of having that same experience of looking for fulfillment with lots of other things. I made a long list, but just to name a few: exercise, women, playing music, riding motorcycles, working, and even writing this talk. I did take Zuisei's suggestion to sit with the realization for a while, and then I obsessed over the talk for the rest of the time that I had. But the truth is that the years of using drugs and alcohol were where the most unwholesome activity occurred in my life. And I do have lots of regrets from that time period.
I've mentioned the book The Realm of Hungry Ghosts, I think to you all before. It's a book on addiction by Dr. Gabor Maté. And in the book, he writes that we spend way too much time thinking about free will, when what we should really be focused on is free won't. And what he means by that is our ability not to act on every impulse of the mind.
And what I really loved when I heard that term, and I read that book after I had already come to practice, is what I realized: the experience of spaciousness, the moments of sitting with the mind free of its obsessions that we all cultivate as meditators, is really helpful in learning to exercise free won't. Not only does it give us a great tool for creating time between, or giving ourselves time between, the impulse and the potential action, but it's also where we can see that there's the possibility of fulfillment that isn't reliant on something outside ourselves, right? In that spaciousness, I think we can touch that. And that's what I found really most profound about this realization, even though it isn't implicitly stated.
Because at face value, I felt like this could be a little depressing, right? You know, the mind says, I'd like a different career, and the teaching responds, well, that's not going to fulfill you. And the mind says, I'd really like to find a partner, and the teacher says, that's not going to fulfill you. The mind says, I'd like to travel, and the teaching says, nope. You know, so I think working with the teaching on this can be a slippery slope.
Turning Toward Practice: Meditation, Ethics, and Simplicity
And, you know, first, because there's nothing wrong with changing things that aren't working in our lives. And I think, in fact, just the opposite, it's really important to do that, and it's really empowering to do that. And then there's simple pleasures. And I think with the simple pleasures, the question is, you know, can we enjoy them without clinging, without attributing our happiness to them, without engaging in unwholesome activity as we pursue them?
And, you know, I think for lay practitioners, this is probably a big part of what we're experimenting with and working with. And I found at least three things that helped me. You know, and unfortunately, in my effort to be an engaging speaker, they're actually really quite predictable and you've heard them all before. Of course, the first one is meditation.
And, you know, as I said already, in my opinion, two of the great gifts of meditation are that it teaches us to cultivate some space and to give some space to our desires and our emotions and our obsessions. And then the second thing is that it really does show us that we can have this unconditioned fulfillment. And, you know, never mind, it's just a super grounding and calming thing to do.
The second thing that's helped me a lot, especially coming out of those years where I didn't have a strong moral compass, is the practice of moral discipline. And the Buddha was very clear about the importance of moral discipline. You know, becoming a Buddhist essentially means taking the precepts. And at first, when I started to dip my toe into a lot of spiritual traditions that had a path of meditation and liberation, and they seemed so inward focused, I was really kind of surprised by how the moral and ethical teachings seemed to come first. And they seemed to be about living in the world, but they came first.
And that's true in, you know, Patanjali's Yoga Sutras which has eight limbs. The first one is moral restraints. Jainism sees Ahimsa, or doing no harm, as the direct path to enlightenment. Daoists have very similar precepts to the Buddhists. Obviously, you know, Christians and Muslims, they all have their sort of moral guidelines and teachings, and that's, it's often a starting place.
And I think, you know, after a little time, the answer to that question became really obvious for me, especially when I started to sit, because, well, we all know what it's like to sit during a time of moral turmoil. And I found that very quickly that the more I was in alignment with my moral compass at any given time, the more settled I was in my practice. And, of course, the more equipped I felt to be, you know, to be in the world.
So the last tool comes right from this, the text of this realization, and that's living a simple life. A few years ago, my son went to college, and Amy and I made some deliberate changes in our lives. We moved from a rural part of Connecticut to downtown Charleston, South Carolina. We moved from a house that took some work to a small apartment. I traded a long commute for a work-at-home job, and Amy traded many jobs. We had her driving all over the place for one job and a two-mile ride to work.
So we really did simplify things, and that was our goal: to simplify and to enrich our lives a little bit with some diversity and culture. And, of course, as we got started, right as we started to get settled into these new lives, or shortly after the pandemic began, and I don't know that the pandemic made anyone's life simpler, but it did get quieter around here.
And, you know, reflecting on this time period, my first teacher was pretty clear with me when I was asking how I should practice, that I should be consistent. And whatever that meant, I could do in my life at that time. And at the time, with family life and work life, it was very little. You know, I could sneak in a period of zazen in the mornings.
But the last couple of years, the way we had adjusted our lives, I really had a lot of time for practice. And not only have I had a lot of time for practice, but I connected with Zuisei about two years ago, and I've had lots of time with a teacher, too, more than I had ever had before. And, you know, these years have been the most grounded and calm and contented and connected feeling years of my life, I think, right up until about a month or so ago.
You know, really, lately, I really started to notice my mind searching again outside itself and grasping. And the things that have been coming up are like: should I try to make more money? Should I get a boat and learn to sail? Should I try to work less? Should I try to learn to play jazz guitar? Should I find more meaningful work? Should I get a new pair of shorts? Like everything, right?
And those are pretty benign longings and would probably be perfectly okay things to pursue. But the rate that they're coming, right, and the way I see myself clinging to them, I think, is what's a red flag. You know, in other words, I find myself watching YouTube videos about how to sail around the world when I'm supposed to be working. You know, that's sort of telling me something.
And so why is this happening now, right? After the two years that I just subscribed of, you know, wonderful practice and being so grounded, well, change is brewing in my life again. Amy and I are trying to find a place where we can live with and care for my mother who has dementia. My son's struggling with some big decisions related to school, and he's considering not continuing into his final year. We've had two family members in the hospital with serious medical conditions. My sister's having a challenging time in her life. I'm trying to cultivate new relationships with my father and my brother, who I was estranged from for many years.
So it's a lot, and it's happening suddenly. And, you know, so I asked myself, could I have avoided all this? And I can't answer that question, and then I asked myself what I've wanted to, and, you know, I mean, what I've wanted to avoid is some of the circumstances, sure, but I don't want to avoid the way I'm approaching them.
…the most valuable thing that we can offer one another, is to see, to regard each other fully, even in this somewhat limited medium.
So, you know, it's worth—for me, it's been worth—recognizing that all of this has an element of struggle and suffering and, at best, change in it. And so right back to where I was kind of with addiction, you know, I'm wondering, is this just my mind, you know, unable to or resistant to feeling a little bit uncomfortable, a little bit unsettled, and a little bit, you know, uncertain?
You know, so I really do feel pretty strongly that a simple life, you know, it gives us a lot, a lot of benefit; it gives us time to practice, right? And it helps with our sort of peace of mind, you know, but we're also not always going to be able to control how simple our life is.
So I think the takeaway for me is, you know, don't overcomplicate what doesn't need to be complicated and to make sure that I use these times when my life is quiet and when I can't keep it simple, you know, to get prepared because inevitably challenges lie ahead, right? That just seems to be the way life goes.
One of the other questions that I, you know, think a lot of people ask in similar ways about practice and different elements of practice is, you know, why does my mind continue searching outside itself? When I know, you know, I really do know now that I have everything I need to be fulfilled.
This question made me think of, you know, going all the way back to when I first started sitting, and, you know, I realized I'd become distracted, and I would feel discouraged, and, you know, essentially—and I've heard this expressed by many practitioners—but essentially at that time, I tried to really sort of, you know, crush my thoughts and control my mind, and that didn't work. I did it for a long time, and it didn't work.
And slowly I was able to adopt a more understanding approach to that moment of becoming present. And I go so far now as to give my mind the permission to finish with what it's up to, you know, before I try to turn my attention back to the object of meditation. You know, there's that expression, “they have a mind of their own,” right? People use that a lot about others, and I've realized that I do, right? And it searches outside itself, and it doesn't feel fulfilled by that ever.
But I think getting to know that, getting closer and closer and closer to that understanding is what is going to allow me to exercise, you know, free won't better in my life. So even if I can't stop my mind from the searching, you know, I might be able to stop myself from acting on that seeking, acting on the specifics, the content, and particularly stop myself when it's necessary to prevent unwholesome activity.
The Buddha said the spiritual life does not have gain, honor, and renown for its benefit, or the attainment of moral discipline for its benefit, or the attainment of concentration for its benefit, or knowledge and vision for its benefit, but it's the unshakable liberation of mind that is the goal of this spiritual life.
And so perhaps a wise approach is to just be a good friend to my mind, because I know I don't try to crush or control my friends. I kind of let them be, listen to them, maybe steer them a little bit away from trouble if I have the skills to do that and the need to do that. But I really have, maybe I can be a good friend to my mind, allow my mind to be a little bit more, and be more gentle, continually be more gentle and more loving.
And I do think that our Bodhisattva aspirations to do no harm and to do good in this world hinge on a healthy relationship with our minds. I have no doubt about that.
So every time I got to this point in my notes, I thought, okay, it's time to close with some encouraging words. And it seems like the right way to close a talk on a topic like this. And every time I started to think about that, I got confronted with, I got challenged. And I feel like I felt compelled to share this because I kind of couldn't shake it.
I seem to get to this point, and I would get confronted with images of the ongoing pandemic and the tragedy that's unfolding in India right now, or the conflict in the Middle East, or the accelerating gun violence in our country, and poverty and injustice, and all this stuff that we're bombarded with if we look at the news every day. And this shined the light on the relatively secure and safe and comfortable and privileged perspective that I'm speaking from right now.
And I don't think that it's helpful to compare or grade our suffering. So I'm not exactly sure what to do with this, and I wasn't sure what to do with this when it came up. But for sure, in that context, practice feels like a luxury. Talking about new shorts feels like a luxury. And I wondered, maybe for people in these horrific situations, a fantasy or a dream of a better place, something, a little seeking, a little being outside of themselves, maybe it's just what they need to stay sane, to survive, and just to live another day.
So I don't know if that's a digression or not, but I felt like I needed to share it because, like I said, I just couldn't seem to shake it when I would get here, sort of to concluding things.
So, but I will try an encouraging closing with that said. So let's all be good friends to our minds, realize the fulfillment of realizing ourselves, and use that realization to do good in the world. And I do want to thank you all for the practice and vulnerability insights you offer here every week. You're all very inspiring, and I think it's only because of this group that I was able to do this. Thank you.
Becoming Human
Thank you, Brian. I should add that he e-mailed me right away when I just opened it up, the possibility of somebody giving a talk, and he said, I didn't think about it, I just e-mailed. That is exactly the right way to do it before you have time to second-guess yourself. So I hope tomorrow my inbox will be full with other offers.
You know that word “luxury”? I was thinking, how about seeing it as opportunity, right? That we have the opportunity to practice. And anyone sense the responsibility that comes with that because there are so many people in the world that don't have that opportunity, who may want it, and so many other people who are not even going to dream of it.
And so, maybe not luxury in the sense that this isn't an added thing, an extra thing that you do once you get all the basics covered. That really we understand this is one of the basics. It's just that our society is not set up to acknowledge that. And maybe that's part of, well, in fact, that is part of the problem.
And what is the work that we need to do to actually put this at the center? Which actually works very well with what I wanted to speak about, which is the one line you didn't speak of. So it works very well in terms of that last line that says that Bodhisattvas regard the realization of perfect understanding to be their only career. And to me, you know, this line is really encouraging us to focus on what is most important.
What will actually help us to live the life that we want to live? And, you know, of course, many of us have careers that are other than the Dharma, unless we're monastics. But this is not, that's not the conflict. I'm not understanding the line that way. It's really saying that, you know, can I put at the center of my life the thing that is most important, that is going to help me to live all these other aspects?
And I was thinking, as I was thinking of this, I was thinking of that passage in the Vimalakurti Sutra. So Vimalakurti, as I think all of you know, was a lay practitioner, said to be as enlightened as the Buddha. And he, at a certain point, pretends to be sick. And he's in his little hut. And he's pretending to be sick, but when they ask him why he's sick, he's basically saying, I'm sick with delusion.
And the Buddha, when he hears about this, he sends all of these Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and all the various monks and disciples; he sends them to go see Vimalakurti. And they're all quaking in their boots because he is said to be so adept at debate and is just going to decimate everyone.
And at one point, the Buddha asks Manjushri, “Will you please go and see Vimalakurti?” And Manjushri says, you know, “But it's really hard to go see him because he is so adept at this and this and this,” and he lists all the different qualities that Vimalakurti has. But if the World Honored One asks me to do so, I will go.
And I guess all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas get wind of this because 8,000 Bodhisattvas decide to go along, to tag along, to go to Vimalakurti's hut. 500 disciples and hundreds, hundreds of thousands of heavenly beings. So they're all going over to Vimalakurti's hut, Vimalakurti's house.
Now Vimalakurti, with his magical powers, takes all of the furniture out of the house and only leaves the bed. And so he's lying on the bed, sick. And everybody comes, and Shariputra, whom you know is the fall guy of the sutras—he's always asking the question that everybody's thinking of, but everyone is too embarrassed to ask. Shariputra is the guy.
He asks the question. And so the Buddha is always engaging him in these dialogues where he has to break things down in a really helpful way, actually. So Shariputra gets to the house, and he looks around and he thinks, where are all these Bodhisattvas going to sit? And Vimalakurti reads his mind and says, “My dear Shariputra, did you come here for the Dharma or did you come here for a chair?”
And I just want to pause in that moment, because it's not really the chair, right? I mean, it's that moment in which any of us enters a practice space, and we might look around and wonder, do I belong here? Or, you know, we check out whether we fit in the hierarchy, or whether we're saying the right thing, or whether we're appearing, we're presenting ourselves in the right way.
So it's really, again, for me, a very human moment where Shariputra is kind of like, he's in this… what's the word I'm looking for? Scratch lab, I don't know what's the word I'm looking for. So Vimalakurti says, “Did you come here for the Dharma or did you come for a chair?” And Shariputra says, “Of course, of course I came for the Dharma.”
And Vimalakurti then launches into a long list of things just to make sure he's saying, well, you know, a seeker of the Dharma, they don't worry about form, sensation, conception, discrimination, awareness, right, the five skandhas. They don't worry about theories. They don't worry about goals. They don't worry about picking and choosing. They're not worried with the senses. And he just keeps going.
And the Sutra doesn't say this, but it's implied: They're not concerned with looking good or impressing others. They're not concerned with knowing a lot, with fighting, with competing, with having a lot, with fitting in, with standing out, with complying, with rebelling. And the Sutra also doesn't say this, but I'm saying it. The only thing they're concerned with is, will this liberate me and others? Will this help?
And then when we forget, because we will, when we get caught, as we do, as Brian pointed out, we very simply, we just acknowledge that and begin again, because that too is part of the liberation. Remember, you can't leave anything out. You don't leave anything outside the door of the zendo. You bring all of yourself in. That's the most important point to remember.
Now, what the Sutra does say, Vimalakurti says to Shariputra, “Therefore, if one would be a seeker of the Dharma, we must not seek it in anything at all.” And so my question for after is, well, then what? I mean, where do you seek it? If you're not supposed to seek the Dharma in anything, then how are you supposed to even practice?
Martin Buber said, “To become human is what the individual person has been created for. That's what we're here to do: to become human,” a redundant expression. You know, I have a T-shirt that says, “Girl power is a redundant expression.” I was just wearing it earlier, in fact, today. And when I wear it, I get a lot of smiles, you know, on the street. Just so, becoming human is a redundant expression.
But we use it because it's good, it's helpful to remind ourselves, because being human is not a done deal, but it's ongoing practice, an ongoing, hopefully ever-clearer expression of that which we already are. But we have to uncover it, right? Therefore, we practice, like a diamond that needs to be polished. It's still a diamond in the raw, or when it's just a piece of coal, but you can't see it. You can't see it shine.
And that's why the Sutra says that the Dharma has to be our only job, our only focus. It might as well have said it's the only job there is. So if we think about that, our only responsibility as human beings is to become human. And then to acknowledge, to understand that that covers everything. That takes care of the whole thing. And isn't that wonderful?
Eight Realizations of Great Beings: the Searching Mind, a dharma talk by Zen Buddhist teacher Zuisei Goddard. Audio podcast and transcript available.
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