Unstoppable
Photo by Getty Images
In this talk Zuisei invites us to join a “zazen streak,” committing to sit in silent meditation at least ten minutes a day, every day, “no matter what,” pointing to the power of that kind of constancy and stability.
Drawing on the heart of restorative justice, koan study, and specifically the koan “Dongshan’s No Cold or Heat” (Blue Cliff Record Case 43), Zuisei explores what it means to be fully present and open to all the circumstances of our lives, no matter how challenging, and certainly appreciating all their wonder.
This talk was given by Zuisei Goddard. See below for transcript.
Transcript
Transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
Well, hello from New York. Last week, I wrote in the newsletter about an article I had read on streakers, runners who commit to running every day without fail, no matter the circumstances. The most visible of them, meaning he has a whole following, has been doing it for just over three years, every single day. The man who has been doing it the longest has been doing it for 50 years. I was trying to imagine if that was even possible. Apparently, it is. He's been running [daily] without fail for 50 years. I mentioned how, after reading this article, I decided to commit to a zazen streak, sitting a minimum of 10 minutes every single day. My sitting minimum tends to be an hour, but I figure if things were really packed that I could do it for at least 10 minutes every day, regardless of what else was going on in my life.
I decided to do this not because my own sitting is sporadic or because I need something to help me to commit to it. I am fortunate. Over the years I have learned how fortunate I am that I really love zazen. It's not something that I've struggled with. I've struggled with many other things in my practice, but sitting itself, turning to the cushion and keeping that practice over time has not been the heart of my struggle. I've been doing it for long enough that it's now really an integral part of my life. But I did want to see what would happen if I committed to this degree of consistency, to do something without fail, to feel every day what happens when I allow an activity, an action, to become rooted, to become the thing that holds everything else. In doing so, it becomes refuge.
Then I invited those of you, who wanted to, to join me, and some of you have. Some of you have been sitting every morning and some are sitting on your own. You've told me how you've been finding time to do that—sitting in your car, sitting in your bed as your partner is sleeping, somebody was finding 10 minutes during their lunch break. It's wonderful. Today is the eighth day in which we have placed our brick on that zazen road leading into the ocean, leading into the unknowable. If you are listening at home to a recording of this later on and you don't recognize this reference to the brick road, just look up the talk I gave on 7/21/2021, "Transitions," where I referenced Ursula Guin’s magnificent story. In my mind it's the perfect analogy for the spiritual path.
Some of you have been using the daily zazen link that I sent, and some of you have been using that same link at other times in the day. I mentioned how I get an email when you join the Zoom Room. At least one of you mentioned how helpful it is to know that I know that you're sitting, to have that touch, that accountability. So, if we can't sit in a zendo together yet, in this small way, we share our zazen. I have to say that I'll be working away sitting at my desk, and then I'll get the email that Norm, Julia, or Jitsuko joined the Zoom Room, and it's actually really nice for me too. Then, I know that you are sitting. It is kind of like when we would do the vigil at the monastery. It's this open time of sitting. You would be walking by the zendo hallway and see someone sitting. The whole point of the vigil was that somebody would always be sitting in the zendo, this is a continuous thread of zazen. We started doing the vigil for 12 hours, and then it became 24. I think now it's a weekend. That is part of how I envision this [streak] as well, that there is this continuous thread day after day. That somebody somewhere, at least for 10 minutes, is sitting. If I could just ask if you do use the link at other times, not in the morning, please just use it for zazen. I know that should be obvious, but apparently it isn't. So please do use it for that. That's what it's intended for, and remember that if you get bumped off, it's because I need to get on the account. Don't let that discourage you.
I also said when I started that the point was not to see how many days with zazen we could, or I could do. Just, as you know, the purpose when you're counting your breath when you begin practice is not how many times can you get to 10 without getting distracted. The point is to be present, to be fully present with your breath, with your body and mind, to be present to the relationship between these and the environment that you're in. This is important because although it seems like this is a beginner’s aspect of sitting, I can't tell you how many times people actually are focusing on the counting of the breath, as opposed to the breath. How many times they ask, “Am I doing this right? Did I let go of a thought quickly enough? Did I return? Am I being honest enough in my zazen?” That's not the point, not really. The point is to be fully with yourself, uninterruptedly, to be with what is coming up, and to notice—this is a thought, this is my breath, this is a thought I need to take up and look at, this is a thought I can let go of and release, opening the hand of thought.
The commitment is to create that space for ourselves for those 10 minutes for that half hour, for that hour. However long you sit, you are saying, This is what I'm turning toward, this is important enough that I will forgo doing other things in my day so that I can turn to this stillness and silence. I will give this to myself, even when I think I'm too busy, there's too much going on, or I don't have time for practice. You can think, 10 minutes, in 24 hours, I can do that, I can commit to 10 minutes of pretty much anything, so I will do this, I will offer this to myself no matter what. That no matter what is what I wanted to talk about because I have found it transformative in my own life. I have found it to be the most trustworthy ground amid groundlessness, which as we know is the way of things.
At first, I really stumbled upon this ground. I kind of fell into it. I've told the story of how I found a book, across the ocean. I was backpacking through Europe, and in a hostel, in my bedside table, in the drawer was this book on Zen. I don't remember the title or the author. I don't remember what book it was, but I remember picking it up and reading the instructions of zazen and deciding at that moment that that was what I was going to turn toward. Then [I remember] sitting down and thinking to myself, Where have I been my whole life that I haven't found this sooner? I was 20, and I was on this trip to define myself, to figure out who I was. I didn't yet know that always, always what you find is the one who is looking. I didn't need to go across the ocean. I could have just stayed home and gotten quiet and turned inward.
I think some of you have read the story of Isaac Ben Yakil. He was a poor Jew, poor as in poverty stricken. He was very humble and lived for years, from hand to mouth. He was also very devout, so he really trusted that God would take care of him. One night, he dreamt that there was buried treasure under the Vltava river in Prague. Then he dreamt it a second night, and then he dreamt it a third night. He thought, Okay, this is a sign. On the fourth morning, he packed up a few things, some food, and he set off from Krakow to Prague. Many days later, he arrived. He was dusty and tired. There's this glittering city and he sees in the distance, the palace, the river, and a bridge. He realizes that the dream showed that the treasure was buried under the bridge. First he offers a prayer of gratitude and makes his way down to the river to the bridge, but as he gets closer, he sees that it is being guarded. So he takes a post behind a tree and spends day after day just watching, waiting for an opportunity to get closer.
One of the officers notices this slightly disheveled man hanging out there day, after day, after day. So, after a while, he's like, okay, I'm gonna see what this man is up to. He goes up to [Isaac] and says, "What are you doing here? You can't be here." Isacc at first thinks of just making up a story, but then he thinks, I came all this way, and I have faith in God, I'm just going to tell the truth. He tells the man of his dream. And the officer just laughs, he says, "You know, you Poles, you are so gullible. Everybody dreams about buried treasure. I mean, just the other day, I dreamt that there was treasure buried under the stove in the house of a man named Isaac Ben Yakil. Do you see me running over to look for this treasure?" So, Isaac thanks him for his kindness, hightails it back to his house, digs under his stove, and he finds a coffer filled with jewels and gold coins.
That is exactly how the spiritual path works. You don't know that you don't have to do all the traveling, that everything you need is right under your feet. If we knew that we wouldn't go searching. If we knew that, in one sense, we would not need practice, right? We would just know what to do. But we don't know where to look or how to look, and so we try something.
Nowadays we go on Google and enter something. I was just talking to one of you the other day about how the way in which a person enters something into the search bar assures that they will get the results that they are looking for. It's a self confirming search. What do they call that, the observer's bias, when you're setting out to confirm your hypothesis but not to really test it. We're biased to zero in on those things that confirm what we already believe. We do that with zazen, too. That's one of the reasons that I so often speak of really letting your zazen be completely open. To not just zero in on, I'm focusing on my breath, I'm concentrating on my breath; therefore, everything else is unimportant, because that's not true. Everything that is arising, everything that appears in your mind, is important. Really, what you're doing is you're learning to see each thing clearly. Learning to see what it is that you do need to do with each thing. Which again, all of this may seem very basic, but it isn't. If it was basic, then we would be able to translate it very easily into the rest of our lives. In the midst of conflict, we would be able to stop and say this is what's happening right now, this is what I need to do, this is what is skillful, and this is what is not skillful.
So not even knowing what I was looking for, I set out. I started looking, and I found what I needed. I was fortunate to find what I needed. There was nothing telling me that it was the right path because nothing special seemed to be happening. I wasn't seeing visions. I wasn't having particularly poignant insights. I was just being with my breath every day, and I couldn't not do it. Back then I wouldn’t even have been able to say why, but I couldn't notdo it. Fortunately, I found [zazen] when I still had plenty of time to make the most of it. Even though I didn't know what it was that I was looking for, I had enough of a sense that in the midst of all the uncertainty that our life throws at us, that there was something that I could rely on. There was something that was irrevocable. It was that knowledge that guided my practice, then, and it is still what guides my practice now. When I don't know how to proceed, when I don't really know where to take the next step, I trust that the ground that I'm already standing on is the ground I need to be standing on, the ground of reality. When I say that I believe we can put an end to suffering, what I mean is not that we can be free of suffering as in avoiding suffering, but that we can be free within it. We can be free from one moment to the next.
There's a koan, some of you know, where a monk comes to master Dongshan.
The monk says to him, “When cold and heat come, how can we avoid them?”
And Dongshan says, “Why don't you go to the place where there is no cold or heat?”
You have to be careful here because the monk is asking, How do you avoid it? How do you avoid cold and heat? How do you avoid pain and sadness and fear and despair? The monk thinks that such a thing can be done. They think that if they practice hard enough, they'll be spared from feeling cold or heat. They'll be spared from feeling or from causing pain. They're essentially asking when loneliness comes, when disappointment appears, when confusion reigns, when anger rages, how can we avoid them? I mean, they're really asking, How can we not feel what we feel?
If you're working on koans, you have to step inside. It is not just an abstract, universal question and answer—although it is a universal question and answer. But what is the person asking when they're asking this? What are they thinking? What's in the mind of the one who is answering as they're answering? A koan isn't just words on a page or an interesting story in an ancient text. Koans are not weird or irrational, despite what they may look like from the outside. They're not asking you to be weird or irrational. In fact, if something feels weird, it most likely is, so don't do it. [Zuisei laughs] During sesshin at the monastery, somebody would always go in, and you could almost feel them take a huge breath and yell at the top of their lungs. Before they were even done, the teacher was already ringing their bell—ding, ding, ding, ding—and they were out. They would come back into the zendo, their tail between their legs. They were like, yeah, I'm that person. It's not that there's anything wrong with shouting, there's plenty of koans where monks are shouting and there's a reason for that. Most of the time when one of us does it, we're just imitating, and the teacher can tell. Somehow we've learned that that is the Zen thing to do. That's not how seeing a koan or expressing a koan works. You have to distill your life as it is, right now, and express it. That's the whole point of koans, to get out of your way so life can express itself through you. Just so you know, some of you are answering the very koans you're working on right now, and you don't even know it. It's not complicated and it's definitely not weird. So, the only thing you have to be is yourself fully—fully, fully, fully, fully, wholeheartedly, boundlessly.
The pointer to this koan from the Blue Cliff Record says:
10,000 ages abide by the phrase that determines heaven and earth. Even the 1000 sages cannot judge the ability to capture tigers, and rhinos. Without any further traces of obstruction, the whole being appears everywhere equally.
Why can't the sages judge? Because there is no obstruction. Because the whole being appears everywhere equally. Do you understand? This is how to be free of suffering or pain or discomfort or anything. The whole being appears everywhere equally.
So when the monk asks, “How do you avoid cold or heat?” and Dongshan says “Why don’t you go to the place where there is no cold or heat?”—
What is that place? Have you ever been there? How do you go there? Can you go there? Because if you can answer this, then you can answer the next part.
The monk predictively asks, “What is the place where there is no cold or heat?” Dongshan says “When it's cold, the cold kills you. When it's hot, the heat kills you." Another translation says, “Let the cold kill you, let the heat kill you.”
What is this killing? This monk really wants to know. Ultimately that is really the thing that is needed. You just really have to want to know. You have to really want to be free in this moment, in this moment, in this moment, in this moment of your life.
Some years back. I told the story of a young man who was in a gang. There was a fight, drugs were involved, and he killed the leader of the other gang. They're both 16 or 17, very young. At his trial, the mother of the victim was there, and as they sentenced him to life in prison, the mother of the victim looked him straight in the eye and said, "I'm going to kill you,” and he's taken away.
About ten years pass, and one day, he's told that he has a visitor. He chooses to go and see who she is and realizes it's the mother of a man he killed. So, she begins visiting him in prison. A few years pass, and she brings him books and clothes. They begin to have a relationship. After a few years, she tells him she thinks she can forgive him. At this point, it's been something like 15 years since her own son died. The two of them begin to do a [restorative justice] program specifically designed to bring together victims and perpetrators in order to encourage a reconciliation and healing process. The two of them become very involved in doing this. Their relationship deepens.
After a while the man is granted parole. By now, he's been in prison 20-25 years. So he's released, and the mother of the victim helps him to find a place to live very close to where she lives. They continue their relationship. At a certain point, she says to him, "You are like my son now." He often comes over to eat with her. I think she helps to put him through college. One day, they're sitting in her kitchen and looking back at the life they've spent together. She says to him, "Do you remember that day at your trial, when I said, I was going to kill you?" He gets very quiet and just nods and he says, "Yeah, I remember?" And she says, "The person that you were is dead. The person who killed my son is dead, you are no longer that." Is that the same kind of killing that Dongshan is speaking about, or is it different?
This isn't a hypothetical question. You don't have to answer it right this moment, but I suggest that you take it up because it has everything to do with you. It's all about you. Just as Dongshan’s cold and heat are all about you. When it's cold, let the cold kill you. When you're angry, let anger kill you.
We're just talking about this last Saturday in the Women's Group. Many of us we're asking, when that anger comes up and it is so real and so powerful. What do you do with it? First you have to let it kill you, and if you can do that, you will know what to do with it. You will know how to act, just as this woman did. We don't have to be heroic to do this. We just have to be whole-hearted, whole-bodied, whole-minded. If there is a secret to Buddhism, a secret to Zen, that's it. Just be wholehearted.
You know that a blue whale's heart is the size of a piano? A small piano but a piano. You'd need a truck to move it. An octopus has three hearts. A zebrafish can regenerate its own heart. But, the animal that has the biggest heart to body ratio is a dog. Maybe that's why they love so unconditionally. They love you no matter what.
So, sit when you most want to and when you don't feel like it, when it's in single digits and when it's so hot you feel like you're frying from inside. Sit and let the cold kill you. Sit and let the heat kill you. Let sitting kill you until there is no one left.
That only happens when we let our zazen be this relentless, this constant, this fearless and unconditional. When it doesn't depend on time or place or mood or weather. It doesn't rely on a quiet mind or a willing mind or knowing mind. It doesn't rely on intelligence or on how many concepts you know, Buddhist or not. It doesn't rely on how well you can remember what you've seen when you're sitting, or whether you can tell me after this talk what it was all about. I hope you can't. That is part of my wish at the beginning, leave no trace behind. Anything that relies on these things, your mood, your intelligence, your ability, your willingness is too small. It's too limited, and your zazen is neither small nor limited. You are neither small nor limited. Quite the contrary, you my friends are unstoppable.
So let me end with this poem. It's called “In Passing” by Lisel Mueller.
How swiftly the strained honey
of afternoon light
flows into darkness
and the closed bud shrugs off
its special mystery
in order to break into blossom
as if what exists, exists
so that it can be lost
and become precious
Explore further
01 : The Wind’s Twelve Quarters by Ursula K. Le Guin
02 : The Blue Cliff Record (pdf) trans. by Thomas Cleary, J. C. Cleary, edited by Taizan Maezumi Roshi
03 : In Passing by Lisel Mueller
04 : Transitions by Vanessa Zuisei Goddard