Eight Realizations of Great Beings (VII): Living Simply
Photo by Jonny Caspari
The Seventh Realization of Great Beings teaches us to live simply, follow the precepts, and treat all beings equally and with compassion.
Through the poetry of Hafiz and the stories of the Zen teacher and Sixth Ancestor Huineng, Zuisei cuts to the heart of living simply so that we might apply this sense of simplicity and openness to our lives outside of the monastery, in the reality of our everyday lives. Sangha member Norm Christian also offers a short talk on sincerity of intent.
This talk was given by Zuisei Goddard. See below for transcript.
Transcript
Transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
Hello, everyone. We’re getting to the home stretch of the Eight Realizations of Great Beings. Today we’re talking about the Seventh Realization, and Norm had generously agreed some time ago to give the talk. I said last time that it’s not easy to put yourself out there like this. I very much appreciate it, and I’m very grateful that you were willing to do this. I am not going to say anything more for now, so why don’t you go ahead?
Norm: I’ll say just a couple of things before I start. I worked very hard on this. It’s a very short talk. I hope it’s worthwhile for you to spend time listening to it. I told Zuisei that I read it a few minutes before we started, and I think it’s just terrible. There’s one place that I hope I get a couple of chuckles. I’ll raise my hand, and a couple of you can unmute and chuckle. I’ll give you a little time to set that up.
So, this is about sincerity of intent. I first heard the phrase “sincerity of intent” in our class on the Five Spiritual Powers and I was immediately silenced by it. What is that, sincerity of intent? Could this be why I don’t lose weight? Why I can’t get on a cane? I’ve been in a wheelchair and a walker for six years, and I’ve been wanting to get on a cane for all of those six years.
The idea that an aspiration could be strengthened by sincerity had not occurred to me until now. I spent some time looking at it. Am I sincere in my endeavors? I think I am, but am I really? Maybe sincerity hinges on being clear-headed and present? I’ve never questioned my sincerity. I soon recognized that questioning is missing the point. More likely, it’s about why I want to lose weight and why I want to get on a cane. Maybe it’s the why that is brought to an aspiration that reveals our sincerity of intent. So I started looking there.
This is from The Rhetoric of Confession by Edward Fowler: “Right intention, which is sincerity, is the foundation of everything we do. Every act and good deed will be judged by the intention behind it.” Judged is a word that I’m used to hearing around Christian theology and I’ve not come across it in Buddhism. I think we would say that the right intention, which is sincerity, is the foundation of everything we do. Every act or good deed will impact our karma by the intention behind it.
Maybe we’re talking about karma? I still wasn’t sure. We know the secret, inner motives of everything we do. It’s important for us to look deeply, be honest, and create the right intention, a sincere intention. I want to lose weight because I want my doctor to think that I’m taking care of myself. In this case, my willingness to lie will surely lead to more lies and weaken my character. Or, I want to get on a cane because I want to visit my daughters. Well, I do, but what I really want is to ask a young woman to have dinner with me. I don’t want to go into a restaurant in a wheelchair. (This is where I’m looking for the chuckles.) Please understand, I’m eighty-two years old, and when I say a young woman, I am referring to my 72-year-old neighbor who lives downstairs. [Chuckle from the audience] Oh, good, I got a chuckle. Thank you.
So, let’s get to what sincerity of intent really points to. This is where we must look directly at karma. The Buddha told us of the tremendous impact that our motivations and intentions have on our lives. If I do something motivated by hate, I’ll feel guilt, anger, fear, loneliness, or whatever my favorite sort of suffering is. An easier example is to imagine for a moment you decide to rob a bank. What do you think you’ll feel immediately after? Probably terror. That’s the karmic hammer striking its first blow. That’s obvious. Even if you intend to give the money to your poor, suffering mother, you’ll still suffer the karmic effects of robbing a bank. You can’t mess around like that. Now, if a friend confides in you that she is about to rob a bank, and you promise not to tell anyone, but you go to the police in order to save her from harm… yes, you’ve caused her great suffering, but your intention was to save her from committing a crime that could potentially change or destroy her or destroy her life. Your sincerity of intent has held back the negative karmic hammer.
That’s pretty much all I have. I hope it’s clear. We must look deeply at our true and sincere intentions. In my experience, my true intention can be very elusive. We might say, “Think before you act. I would say sit before I act. Find yourself in the present, then act. Thank you.
Zuisei: Thank you, Norm. I’m wondering how I’m going to link this to the seventh realization, but I'm sure there's a connection, since everything is connected.
The Seventh Realization is the awareness that the five categories of sensual desire: money, sex, fame, over-eating and over-sleeping leads to problems. The commentary says, “Although you are in the world, try not to be caught in worldly matters. A monk, for example, has in their possession only three robes and one bowl. They live simply in order to practice the Way. Their precepts keep them free from attachment to worldly things, and they treat everyone equally and with compassion.”
One phrase that you offered us, Norm, stayed with me. You said that “your favorite flavor of suffering.” I think that’s very well put. Suffering, remember, is created. Right? Pain sometimes happens to us, but suffering is created. We create it. Often it is created according to our preferred mode of suffering.
There’s a bit of repetition in these realizations. But if you come close, as with talks, there'’l be a phrase that will jump up and catch you or stop you, as Norm said. For me, it was, “Practitioners of the way live simply in order to practice the way.” I think this ties into the realization]we spoke of last week on poverty. I was speaking of poverty of mind, of a narrow view. Living simply can be outward, and it can be inward.
Let me begin with a poem, and then I'll follow it with a story. The poem is by Hafiz, When I Want to Kiss God:
When no one is looking
I swallow deserts and clouds
and chew on mountains knowing
they are sweet bones!
When no one is looking
and I want to kiss God,
I just lift my own hand to my mouth.
The story I want to tell you is the story of Huineng and monk Myo. I am mixing the Chinese Pinyin and the Japanese because Myo’s name is not often translated into English. My own translation is now packed.
There are many things that are remarkable about this story, but he was said to be illiterate, yet deeply realized. The story says that when he was eighteen, he was in a market, and he heard a phrase from the “Diamond Sutra”: “On hearing the words of the scripture, my mind opened up and I understood.” He heard this phrase and had a spontaneous realization. He decided that he needed to clarify it and that he was going to travel north to the monastery of the renowned Fifth Ancestor, Hongren.
He sets off, which in those days meant walking. It was probably several months later when he got to the monastery. Probably there was a whole line of people that he had to go through first, and then he met with the Fifth Ancestor. Huineng said to him, “I came for the dharma. I came to learn from you.” Hongren just looked him up and down and said, “You southern monkey.” One of the translations says, “You southern barbarians don’t have Buddha Nature.” And Huineng, without even getting ruffled said, “You can speak of North and South in terms of many things, but not in terms of the buddhadharma.”
That’s when the Fifth Ancestor realized, this kid has something. He sent him to the rice shed and he put him to work, and he didn’t talk to him again. One day, there was an announcement that Hongren had decided he was ready to transmit the dharma. So he challenged all of his monks to write a poem. The one who showed the clearest realization would be the one to succeed him.
This monastery probably had close to 1500 monks, yet they all decided they weren’t even going to try because they were sure that Shenxiu, the head monk, who was the heir apparent, was clearly the next in line.
Quaking in his sandals, Shenxiu went to the wall in the middle of the night and wrote the following—very famous—poem:
The body is a Bodhi tree
The mind like a bright mirror stand.
Time and again brush it clean,
And let no dust alight.
Huineng, who’d heard about the challenge, tapped one of the monks as he was passing along the corridor, and he said, “Would you mind reading me this poem?” The monk stared at him with disdain, “You can’t even read. You can’t even imagine what this is talking about, but fine, I’ll read it to you.” And he read the poem aloud.
Then Huineng said, very simply, “Well, it’s okay, but not quite right.” And the monk looked at him like, Yeah, right! But Huineng said, “Would you mind just writing this down for me?” Thinking that Hui-neng was going to be completely ridiculed, the monk humored him. “Okay, what should I write?” This is the poem that Huineng dictated:
Originally Bodhi has no tree,
The bright mirror has no stand.
Originally there is not a single thing:
Where can dust alight?
I hope this is giving you echoes of something. Think about it for a moment. The first poem says is that there’s a mind, and there’s a bright mirror. And you constantly have to brush it clean so that the dust doesn’t collect on it. The second poem says that there is no mirror. There is no bright stand. He stopped short of saying there’s no mind, but he does say, “Originally, there is not a single thing/where can dust the alight?” Originally. Originally, Bodhi has no tree. Originally, there is not a single thing. Make note of this world “originally” because he’ll use it again.
So, really, in a very unobtrusive way, Huineng is saying, Let’s put things in their proper place. Let’s right a wrong. The next day comes around and Hongren reads both poems. He doesn’t say a single thing. But that evening, in the middle of the night, he goes to the rice shed. It’s said that he covers all the windows of the shed, and, in secret transmits the dharma to Huineng. That practice continues to this day. The transmission ceremony happens in the middle of the night in a room that is completely covered. No one else can enter except for the teacher, the person who’s receiving transmission, and usually an attendant. For 1500 years, probably in a slightly more elaborate way, this ceremony continues.
Hongren gives the robe and the bowl to Huineng saying, “This is yours now.” If you remember, Huineng is eighteen years old. Hongren says, “You should go into the mountains, hide for twenty years, and let your understanding mature. I won’t tell anybody what has happened tonight.” In the morning, Huineng leaves, taking the robe and the bowl, that symbol of the transmission, with him.
That morning, when it’s time for Hongren to give a talk, he says, “There’s no talk today because the dharma is not here.” All of the monks freak out and start to wonder what is happening. After a few hours, they realize that Huineng is missing and that the robe and bowl are missing. Completely beside themselves, no they feel they are the ones who need to right the wrong and correct the injustice. They feel that something has been taken. So, they decide they’re going to catch up to Huineng and bring back what was taken.
This posse leaves with monk Myo, who used to be a general, at the head. Being very determined in spirit and very single-minded, he eventually catches up to Huineng. Huineng puts the robe and bowl on a rock between the two of them and says, “I didn't take anything. If you want the robe, here it is, take it.” Monk Myo steps forward and tries to pick up the robe. He can’t. It’s immovable. Like the King Arthur story with Excalibur and the stone. Nobody but the right person can pick up the sword. Just so, Monk Myo cannot pick up the robe. When he realizes this, he starts sweating profusely. He drops to his knees and says to Huineng, “I did not come for the robe. I came for the dharma, will you please teach me?”
Now, this is me speaking for Monk Myo: “In this moment, I realized my purpose. With this simple incident, I realized what I’ve been looking for all these years—all of these years, since the first moment that I set on the path, not even knowing clearly what it was that I was looking for. Certainly not knowing where the path would lead me. I just had this sense, right at the beginning, a sense that there’s more to life than getting by, marking time, getting lost in senseless pleasure—nothing wrong with pleasure, but getting lost. So maybe I picked up a book, I went to a class, or a workshop, I received beginning instruction, and I turned in to look at my mind to still my body. And little by little, I began to see what happens when you get caught up in greed, when you look for security where it doesn’t exist or when you look for power or an easy fix. When you look for comfort where there is no comfort.”
So, Norm spoke about sincerity of intent. What are we looking for when we begin looking? Do we know? In that moment that he faced the Sixth Ancestor, Monk Myo realized he didn’t actually want power. He didn’t actually want recognition or a position. He wanted to be free. “I want to be free. Will you please teach me?”
Huineng looked at him and said, “Think neither good nor evil”—one of the most famous koans—“at this very moment, what is the original face of Monk Myo?” What is he asking him? What is it like when you swallow deserts and clouds, as Hafiz said? How is that possible? Because it is possible. How is it when you chew on mountains like sweet bones. Whose bones? How do you kiss God? When no one is looking/and I want to kiss God—and it has to be when no one is looking, not even you. Do you understand?
Students live simply in order to practice the way. But what does that mean? What does it mean truly when each of us is living in the world among family, among friends, among work and other responsibilities, among the stresses of every day? What does that actually mean to live simply? Most of us can’t just have three bowls and a robe. So how do you live simply at heart? How do you have a mind that is simple, simple in a sense that it’s free of clutter? How do you not let knowing cloud your seeing? Remember, there was very little that the Sixth Ancestor knew, that Huineng knew in terms of having knowledge.
This is what I ask myself every day. At this moment, am I fulfilled? Am I happy? And most importantly, am I free? Because if I’m not free, then what is all this practice for? What am I looking for? What is in the way of that freedom?
Explore further
01 : “When I Want to Kiss God” and Other Poems by Hafez
02 : The Sixth Patriarch’s Dharma Jewel Platform Sutra translated by the Buddhist Text Translation Society