Eight Ways of Looking at Dharma
Photo by Bibake Uppal
At times spiritual practice can feel dull, remote, or just not helpful anymore. When it is difficult for you to recall the living, breathing power of practice, rest a moment in these eight ways of engaging in the Dharma. From reconnecting to the dharma of aspiration, to practice as a vehicle for the much needed energy of love, each of these ways of looking at the Dharma is a way back to realizing your own powerful path of practice. Find the one that speaks to you now.
This talk begins with the Student Entering Ceremony of Eric Geist. Eric is now a formal student at Ocean Mind Sangha, having entered a formal student-teacher relationship with OMS’s Guiding Teacher, Zuisei.
This talk was given by Zuisei Goddard. See below for transcript.
Transcript
This transcript is based on Zuisei's talk notes and may differ slightly from the final talk.
Practice, like anything we do over time, requires attention and maintenance. At some point we won’t want to do it, or it won’t feel like it’s working, and maybe it isn’t working. We must be able to discern. Maybe we’ve gotten bored or discouraged or complacent. Maybe we need to reinvigorate our aspiration. It’s definitely true that our practice goes through periods where it feels more or less urgent, more or less relevant, more or less engaging. The reasons we do it change and develop as well. I wanted to explore eight ways that we can look at dharma, that we can look at our practice, in the hope that this investigation will tell us something about how we need to approach what may have gotten a little stale, or rote. Eight ways which are not in chronological order because such a thing is irrelevant when it comes to waking up.
The first way to look at the dharma is as a tool of stress reduction. By this I don’t mean as a tranquilizer, but as the reduction of dukkha, of the suffering that comes with being human. Three types of suffering:
The suffering of suffering (dukkha-dukkha): our physical and emotional discomfort (ordinary suffering)
The suffering of change (viparinama-dukkha): when we resist the truth of impermanence—“I want what I want, now and forever.” (clingy suffering)
The suffering of existence (sankhara-dukkha): the profound unsatisfactoriness of existence—“We are, therefore we suffer.” (background suffering)
We come to practice to reduce these three types of suffering. We practice because we hurt, because we don’t want to lose the things we have, the people we love, or simply because we exist and existing is hard. But then we find out about Buddhism and we learn about the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. We realize, “Oh, there’s a way to work with this. How amazing!” And we begin to practice. The wonderful thing is, it works! Our suffering diminishes. The downside is that our suffering diminishes, and then we think, “Why should I practice anymore? Things are good enough.” At this point, many people stop practicing, and if that’s something we’ve chosen, more power to us. We can move on, without guilt or shame or remorse, and do the things we really want to do, or we can choose to keep going and see what else the dharma might have to offer us and the world. But in order for this to happen, we have to make sure that our relationship to the dharma is not transactional (“I’ll practice if…”). When we make any relationship transactional, we’re bound to be disappointed sooner or later. So, instead of being transactional, that relationship needs to be aspirational. Maybe we think, “How far can I take this? How much can I see? How free can I be?”
A second way to look at dharma is dharma as refuge. Dharma as a tool of profound rest. The gross suffering of our lives has abated, we’re doing okay generally but we know that a deeper level of peace is possible, of joy, of satisfaction. We think, Why stop here when I know there’s more There’s more to see, more to let go of, more to understand and live. There’s ways in which I can rest in my own body and mind, find a deeper relaxation. Maybe I don’t need to walk around clenching my jaw. Maybe I don’t need to live with a constant, low-grade anxiety. Maybe I don’t need to work around my fear. Maybe there’s a way to find rest from all these.
Dogen described zazen as the “gate of ease and joy.” How was he practicing that he could say that? Well, he didn’t have to deal with crying babies or mounting bills or aging parents. No, but he had to deal with difficult monks, difficult rulers, land issues, political issues, weather… If you read his writings you see he didn’t have it all figured out. Yet he could still say that zazen is the gate of ease and joy. In peace and turmoil, in sickness and in health, we can let the dharma be our refuge.
Third, we can also see the dharma as mind training. Bruce Lee famously said,“Under duress, we do not rise to our expectations, but fall to our level of training.” First we clear the field of junk, our mental field and our emotional field. We make room for all aspects of ourselves. We make room for others, and when the field has been clear, we can better see which seeds we need to water and which we need to leave alone.
Like the Little Prince and his baobabs:
There were on the planet where the little prince lived—as on all planets—good plants and bad plants. In consequence, there were good seeds from good plants, and bad seeds from bad plants. But seeds are invisible. They sleep deep in the heart of the earth’s darkness, until some one among them is seized with the desire to awaken. Then this little seed will stretch itself and begin—timidly at first—to push a charming little sprig inoffensively upward toward the sun. If it is only a sprout of radish or the sprig of a rose-bush, one would let it grow, wherever it might wish. But when it is a bad plant, one must destroy it as soon as possible, the very first instant that one recognizes it.
“It is a question of discipline,” the little prince said…
Fourth, there is dharma as investigation. This is a direct result of acknowledging what we don’t know, which is most of it if we’re honest. It’s to stoke that sense of curiosity and excitement and wonder. Not knowing is one side, wanting to know is the other. This is to not be passive about our dharma practice, to not wait for inspiration or insight to strike, but to actively ask about what we don’t yet understand, which means we have to be actively studying, practicing, relating. It’s not enough to say, “Oh, I’ll understand at some point.” Yes, it takes time for a flower to bloom, but we still have to water it.
5. Dharma as a tool to build resilience: Instead of turning away from suffering we turn toward it so we can be free like Atisha who kept his crabby attendant close. Like thinking, in the face of a challenging situation, not "Why me?" but, "How do I practice?" Very different perspective, right? There’s no question that sometimes it’s harder to have the energy and motivation, but remember that we don’t have to be heroic, we just need to be consistent. I was reading about an entrepreneur, Omar de Jesús Vazquez Sánchez, who took the sargasso that’s choking our beaches and used it to create bricks. He has a company funded by the UN and has been building small houses all over Quintana Roo, Mexico. He said the idea came to him because when he was younger, he became addicted to drugs. “No one wants to be near you,” he said. “No one looks at you. You become a problem for society just like the seaweed, which everyone complains about.” Well, he decided to take the challenge and use it to give life. He didn’t turn away, he turned toward, which segues nicely into—
6. Dharma as realignment: We practice to align ourselves with awakening, with the way things are. We sit, not to change the world, but to not be changed by the world. To sit and stand and live from our truth. “Don’t do what anybody tells you. Do what you think is right.” Yes. What I want, more than anything, is that each of us be able to stand on our own two feet. That we be able to own our lives, fully, whatever they bring. The thing is, we can, we absolutely can.
Coming up to the home stretch—
7. Dharma as sacred activity: Our practice becomes the embodiment of the sacredness we see all around us. It becomes a vehicle for our devotion. Bodhisattva Never Disparaging (from the Lotus Sutra): “I have profound reverence for you, I would never dare disparage you. Why? Because you are all practicing the bodhisattva way and are certain to attain Buddhahood.” Merton: “If we saw who we are, we’d have to fall on the ground and worship one another. Not just people but animals, things, every last corner of the world. We can live in darkness, or we can live in sacredness.”
Finally—
8. Dharma as a vehicle for love: Need I explain? I’ll let Leonard Cohen say it:
What is a saint? A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has something to do with the energy of love ... It is a kind of balance that is their glory. They ride the drifts like an escaped ski. Their course is the caress of the hill. Their track is a drawing of the snow in a moment of its particular arrangement with wind and rock. Something in them so loves the world that they give themselves over to the laws of gravity and chance… Their house is dangerous and finite, but they are at home in the world. They can love the shape of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. It is good to have among us such people, such balancing monsters of love.
That’s one way to think of us bodhisattvas: as fierce monsters, beasts of love. I like that!
There’s a ninth way to look at dharma, to approach dharma, to practice dharma:
Dharma just because … just … because.
Explore further
01 : Dukkhata Sutta: Suffering translated by Maurice O'Connell Walshe
02 : Pulling Up The Baobabs by Vanessa Zuisei Goddard
03 : The Lotus Sutra (pdf) translated by Burton Watson